Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings

Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings PDF Author: Megan Cassidy-Welch
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Medieval Cistercians distinguished between material and imagined space, while the landscapes in which they lived were perceived as both physical sites and abstract topographies. Ostensibly, Cistercians lived in intensely regulated and confined physical circumstances in accordance with ideals of enclosure articulated in the Regula S. Benedicti. However, Cistercian representations of space also express ideas of transcendence and freedom. This monograph focuses on the abbeys of northern England during the period 1132-1400 (Fountains, Rievaulx, Jervaulx, Meaux, Sawley, Roche, Byland and Kirkstall) to facilitate a microhistory of cultural, textual, personnel and architectural comparisons. Post-twelfth century Cistercian history has been understudied, in comparison with research into the euphoria of the order's foundation, and has tended to focus on 'ideals' versus 'reality', whereas this study considers Cistercian houses in terms of contingency, singularity and specificity. The author engages with the work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Henri Lefebvre, all of whom have explored the cultural production of space and the meanings attributed to certain spaces by abstract reference, performative practice and institutional direction. The study is richly illustrated with 45 images of the landscape and space of these houses and enables the reader to see how one monastic order positioned itself in relation to geography, architecture, institution, community and cosmos, and dealt with the dialectic between regulation and imagination, freedom and enclosure. Patrick Geary (UCLA) commends this study as being 'based on a wide reading of Cistercian texts and blends solid text-critical historical scholarship with more conceptual approaches in a most convincing way'.

Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings

Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings PDF Author: Megan Cassidy-Welch
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
Medieval Cistercians distinguished between material and imagined space, while the landscapes in which they lived were perceived as both physical sites and abstract topographies. Ostensibly, Cistercians lived in intensely regulated and confined physical circumstances in accordance with ideals of enclosure articulated in the Regula S. Benedicti. However, Cistercian representations of space also express ideas of transcendence and freedom. This monograph focuses on the abbeys of northern England during the period 1132-1400 (Fountains, Rievaulx, Jervaulx, Meaux, Sawley, Roche, Byland and Kirkstall) to facilitate a microhistory of cultural, textual, personnel and architectural comparisons. Post-twelfth century Cistercian history has been understudied, in comparison with research into the euphoria of the order's foundation, and has tended to focus on 'ideals' versus 'reality', whereas this study considers Cistercian houses in terms of contingency, singularity and specificity. The author engages with the work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Henri Lefebvre, all of whom have explored the cultural production of space and the meanings attributed to certain spaces by abstract reference, performative practice and institutional direction. The study is richly illustrated with 45 images of the landscape and space of these houses and enables the reader to see how one monastic order positioned itself in relation to geography, architecture, institution, community and cosmos, and dealt with the dialectic between regulation and imagination, freedom and enclosure. Patrick Geary (UCLA) commends this study as being 'based on a wide reading of Cistercian texts and blends solid text-critical historical scholarship with more conceptual approaches in a most convincing way'.

Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings

Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings PDF Author: Megan Cassidy-Welch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503526324
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on the abbeys of northern England during the period 1132-1400 (Fountains, Rievaulx, Jervaulx, Meaux, Sawley, Roche, Byland and Kirkstall) to facilitate a microhistory of cultural, textual, personnel and architectural comparisons.

The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism

The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism PDF Author: Bernice M. Kaczynski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191003956
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 743

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Book Description
The Handbook takes as its subject the complex phenomenon of Christian monasticism. It addresses, for the first time in one volume, the multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. Forty-four essays consider historical and thematic aspects of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, as well as contemporary 'new monasticism'. The essays in the book span a period of nearly two thousand years—from late ancient times, through the medieval and early modern eras, on to the present day. Taken together, they offer, not a narrative survey, but rather a map of the vast terrain. The intention of the Handbook is to provide a balance of some essential historical coverage with a representative sample of current thinking on monasticism. It presents the work of both academic and monastic authors, and the essays are best understood as a series of loosely-linked episodes, forming a long chain of enquiry, and allowing for various points of view. The authors are a diverse and international group, who bring a wide range of critical perspectives to bear on pertinent themes and issues. They indicate developing trends in their areas of specialisation. The individual contributions, and the volume as a whole, set out an agenda for the future direction of monastic studies. In today's world, where there is increasing interest in all world monasticisms, where scholars are adopting more capacious, global approaches to their investigations, and where monks and nuns are casting a fresh eye on their ancient traditions, this publication is especially timely.

Monastic Wales

Monastic Wales PDF Author: Janet Burton
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783160292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Monastic Wales - new approaches is an interdisciplinary collection of essays written by some of the leading scholars working on aspects of medieval Welsh history. The chapters in this volume consider the history, archaeology, architecture and wider cultural, social, political and economic context of the religious houses of Wales between the Norman conquest in the eleventh century, and the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth.

Monastic Life in the Medieval British Isles

Monastic Life in the Medieval British Isles PDF Author: Julie Kerr
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786833190
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book celebrates the work and contribution of Professor Janet Burton to medieval monastic studies in Britain. Burton has fundamentally changed approaches to the study of religious foundations in regional contexts (Yorkshire and Wales), placing importance on social networks for monastic structures and female Cistercian communities in medieval Britain; moreover, she has pioneered research on the canons and their place in medieval English and Welsh societies. This Festschrift comprises contributions by her colleagues, former students and friends – leading scholars in the field – who engage with and develop themes that are integral to Burton’s work. The rich and diverse collection in the present volume represents original work on religious life in the British Isles from the twelfth to the sixteenth century as homage to the transformative contribution that Burton has made to medieval monastic studies in the British Isles.

Monastic Hospitality

Monastic Hospitality PDF Author: Julie Kerr
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843833260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Drawing on a wide range of sources, this text explores the practice and perception of monastic hospitality in England c. 1070-c.1250, an important and illuminating time in a European and an Anglo-Norman context.

Defining the Holy

Defining the Holy PDF Author: Sarah Hamilton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351945610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Holy sites, both public - churches, monasteries, shrines - and more private - domestic chapels, oratories - populated the landscape of medieval and early modern Europe, providing contemporaries with access to the divine. These sacred spaces thus defined religious experience, and were fundamental to both the geography and social history of Europe over the course of 1,000 years. But how were these sacred spaces, both public and private, defined? How were they created, used, recognised and transformed? And to what extent did these definitions change over the course of time, and in particular as a result of the changes wrought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Taking a strongly interdisciplinary approach, this volume tackles these questions from the point of view of archaeology, architectural and art history, liturgy, and history to consider the fundamental interaction between the sacred and the profane. Exploring the establishment of sacred space within both the public and domestic spheres, as well as the role of the secular within the sacred sphere, each chapter provides fascinating insights into how these concepts helped shape, and were shaped by, wider society. By highlighting these issues on a European basis from the medieval period through the age of the reformations, these essays demonstrate the significance of continuity as much as change in definitions of sacred space, and thus identify long term trends which have hitherto been absent in more limited studies. As such this volume provides essential reading for anyone with an interest in the ecclesiastical development of western Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Ecclesiastical Landscapes in Medieval Europe: An Archaeological Perspective

Ecclesiastical Landscapes in Medieval Europe: An Archaeological Perspective PDF Author: José Carlos Sánchez-Pardo
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789695422
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
By presenting case studies from across Eastern and Western Medieval Europe, this volume aims to open up a Europe-wide debate on the variety of relations and contexts between ecclesiastical buildings and their surrounding landscapes between the 5th and 15th centuries AD.

The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order

The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order PDF Author: Mette Birkedal Bruun
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107001315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Presents the Order's figureheads, practical life and spiritual horizon, and its contribution to medieval Europe's religious, cultural and political climate.

Bounded Wilderness

Bounded Wilderness PDF Author: Kathryn Jasper
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501777610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
In Bounded Wilderness, Kathryn Jasper focuses on the innovations undertaken at the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in central Italy during the eleventh century by its prior, Peter Damian (d. 1072). The congregation of Fonte Avellana experimented with reforming practices that led to new ways of managing property and relations among clergy, nobles, and the laity. Jasper charts how Damian's notion of monastic reform took advantage of the surrounding topography and geography to amplify the sensory aspects of ascetic experiences. By focusing on monastic landscapes and land ownership, Jasper demonstrates that reform extended beyond abstract ideas. Rather, reform circulated locally through monastic networks and addressed practical concerns such as property boundaries and rights over water, orchards, pastures, and mills. Putting new sources, both documentary and archaeological, into conversation with monastic charters and Damian's letters, Bounded Wilderness reveals the interrelationship of economic practices, religious traditions, and the natural environment in the idea and implementation of reform.