The Benedictines, the Cistercians and the Acquisition of a Hermitage in Twelfth-Century Durham (original) (raw)
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Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, 2020
Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.
This PhD dissertation examined diverse narrative, legislative, and epistolary texts concerning conversion and leadership patterns in new religious communities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with particular reference to Bernard of Clairvaux and early Cistercian monasticism. Congregations such as the Fonte Avellanesi, the Grandmontines, the Premonstratensians, and the Benedictines of Molesme were analysed to provide comparative perspectives. The thesis described the eleventh-century background of Cistercian asceticism and the secular contexts for Bernard of Clairvaux's early career. It examined the evidence on his extreme and idiosyncratic asceticism and situated his practices within the context of submission to abbatial and episcopal governance..
Medieval Cistercian communities are commonly perceived to be far more restrictive in allowing lay people access to the cloistral parts of their monasteries than the Benedictines, but the examples from different parts of Northern Europe (Scotland, Northern England, and Southern Baltic) show that the white monks were flexible in interpreting the order's regulations and customs. Lay people were admitted, particularly for ceremonies such as donations, but also occasionally for liturgy and meetings. Hospitality was very important in maintaining good relations with a variety of significant lay people. The lay burials in the Cistercian houses, which became increasingly common in the Cistercian churches and chapter houses from the thirteenth century onwards, were particularly valued for their eschatological powers. Emilia Jamroziak open frontiers and disputed borders, such as the foundation of Holm Cultram Abbey by King David I of Scotland and his son Henry, and the foundation of Marienwalde by the Askanian Margraves of Brandenburg.
ResearchSPAce, Bath Spa University, 2016
This paper is part of a large work in progress based on previously unseen material from the Haslemere collection at Downside Abbey. 1 The main sources consist of approximately 28 boxes of loose, mainly unsorted, documents, kept in the archives of the Abbey. This collection contains the profession lists; obituaries; financial and legal documents; histories and other documents which demonstrate the social, cultural and religious activities of the nuns of the English Benedictine Monastery of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady between foundation in 1597 and suppression in 1976.