Monasteries old and new: the nature of the evidence (original) (raw)

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This paper examines the evidence surrounding the foundations and organization of Byzantine monasteries, particularly focusing on the roles of various documents, including hagiographies and wills, alongside physical remains. While traditional foundations documents like charters and testaments provide essential information, it argues for the inclusion of hagiographies that serve secondary functions in legitimizing monastic establishments. A case study on the monastery of Nikon illustrates the complexity of evidence from multiple sources, ultimately highlighting the necessity of an integrative approach to understanding monastic foundations.

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Monasteries, Society, Economy, and the State in the Byzantine Empire

Monasteries, Society, Economy, and the State in the Byzantine Empire, in The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, ed. B. M. Kaczynski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 155–67

The chapter provides an overview of the social, political and economic functions of Byzantine monasteries from the ninth to the fifteenth century. It discusses the relations that existed between monasteries and the state, the church and lay society. The monks received donations and protection in exchange for various spiritual and material services. The study also focuses on the great landowning monasteries that engaged in large scale agrarian production and trade and played a substantial role in local or regional economies. The chapter finally discusses the fate and significance of monasteries in the long period of crisis that began in the middle of the fourteenth century and ended with the substitution of the Byzantine by the Ottoman Empire.

8. Christian Monasticism.-- The Aggrandisement of Monasteries.

During the period of confusion and turbulence in Europe, which followed the crash of Rome under the onset of the barbarians, and before the disintegrated empire had been reconstructed by the strong grasp of Charles the Great, the monks were everywhere the champions of order against lawless violence, of the weak and the defenceless against the brute force of the oppressor. Again and again they confronted kings and nobles without fear and without favour, as Columbanus for instance, among the Franks, rebuked the profligacy of the Merovingian princes. The proudest monarch, the most reckless of his barons, abased himself before the mysterious attributes of the pale emaciated recluse, coming forth like a phantom from his cell, or at least affected the friendship of so powerful an ally.

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Introduction and Contens to Monastery in medieval cultur

in: M. Derwich, A. Pobóg-Lenartowicz (eds), Klasztor w kulturze średniowiecznej Polski. Materiały z ogólnopolskiej konferencji zorganizowanej w Dąbrowie Niemodlińskiej w dniach 4-6 XI 1993 (Sympozja 9), Opole: Wydawnictwo Świętego Krzyża, 1995, p. 7-11, 548-550