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MONASTIC REFORM AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF CHRISTENDOM: EXPERIENCE, OBSERVATION AND INFLUENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2012

Andrew Jotischky
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Abstract

Monastic reform is generally understood as a textually driven process governed by a renewed interest in early monastic ideals and practices in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and focusing on the discourses of reformers about the Egyptian ‘desert fathers’ as the originators of monasticism. Historians have suggested that tropes about the desert, solitude, etc., drawn from early texts found their way into mainstream accounts of monastic change in the period c. 1080–1150. This paper challenges this model by proposing that considerations of ‘reform’ must take into account parallel movements in Greek Orthodox monasticism and interactions of practice between the two monastic environments. Three case-studies of non-textually derived parallel practices are discussed, and the importance of the Holy Land as a source of inspiration for such practices is advanced in place of Egypt.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 22 , December 2012 , pp. 57 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2012

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References

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