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Recent years have seen a marked growth of interest in Jewish medieval history. It is no longer considered tenable to study the history of the Latin West without taking some account of the place of the Jews in medieval Europe. This article explores different trends in recent research on medieval Jewish-Christian coexistence by examining a number of books and editions of texts which have been published in this field since 1990.     

The Calderstones,Near Liverpool

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the revisionist literature on the monastic orders in late medieval England and their art and architecture. It discusses the visual and material cultures of the Cistercians in northern England in the period immediately before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, demonstrating the enduring popularity of the Order in the late Middle Ages and that patronage of art and architecture continued until the very moment of the Suppression. Evidence is also discussed showing that monks and nuns salvaged property from their houses in the hope that their monasteries would be restored.     

Monks on the move? An assessment of mobility at the medieval Nubian monastery of Ghazali,Sudan (ca. 680–1,275 CE)

The location of Ghazali monastery away from the Nile valley within the relatively isolated environs of the Bayuda desert presents a landscape suggestive of mobility toward the monastery by those who chose to reside there as monks. To assess this potentiality, a sample of 37 individuals from the monastic cemetery (Cemetery 2) were analysed for ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O to assess residency during dental enamel formation. The data generated bring into question the nature of mobility to Ghazali monastery, particularly in regard to the potential movement of people from the Nile valley, adjacent desertic landscapes, and further afield.     

‘From Nitria to Sitria’: the construction of Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi

This article examines the construction of Peter Damian's (c.1007–72) Vita Beati Romualdi (c.1042) as a piece of eleventh-century hagiography. Peter Damian was an erudite hermit, monk and reformer whose ideas on spiritual perfection helped to shape the ideals of the so-called ‘Gregorian Reform’ movement in the eleventh century. This article aims to contribute to recent historiography on the eleventh century through a re-examination of this important piece of hagiography, which has not been more thoroughly considered by medievalists since 1957 in Tabacco's critical edition. This article suggests that, through the biography of St Romuald, Peter Damian sought to promote the example of the Desert Fathers in formulating a more rigorous monastic rule, not only for his hermits at Fonte Avellana, but also for a wide monastic and lay audience. It also argues that there existed a gradual evolution in monastic ideology from the tenth century onwards, sponsored by ascetics like Damian who strove constantly to lead a more austere existence based on the Desert tradition and more particularly the Life of St Antony. In particular, the article pays attention to how Damian, as a hagiographer, was engaged in the construction of Romuald's sanctity.     

Monks,dinars and date palms: hagiographical production and the expansion of monastic institutions in the early Islamic Persian Gulf

Recent archaeological studies have documented an expansion of monastic institutions in the Persian Gulf after the Islamic conquest, between the middle of the seventh and the end of the eighth centuries. Although the literary sources have often been invoked to support an earlier dating for the diffusion of coenobitic monasticism in the region, our principal source for the phenomenon — the History of Mar Yonan, hitherto misdated to the fourth century — confirms recent archaeologically informed interpretations. The narrative, moreover, provides an insight into the social and economic structures of monasticism in the seventh‐ and eighth‐century Persian Gulf as well as the ideological conflicts that attended the emergence of those structures.     

Excavations on Brightstone and Bowcombe Downs,Isle of Weight,Made in August 1854

Abstract

Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building.     

Monks and children: corporal punishment in Late Antiquity1*

This article examines the place of corporal punishment in early monastic discipline. By comparing the role assigned to corporal punishment in a variety of monastic rules from across the late antique Mediterranean, from the Rules ascribed to Pachomius (d. 348), to the Rule of Benedict from the mid-sixth century, it demonstrates that late antique monastic writers had a sophisticated and ordered approach to this type of penalty. This approach drew both on the concept of the absolute authority of the punishing father in Scripture, and on the limitations of Roman social expectations and ancient educational values to such absolute authority. As a result corporal punishment was seen either as a last resort when all other disciplinary measures had failed to bring about a reasonable response, or the appropriate punishment for an offence that originated from irrational conduct. Contrary to ancient household practices, however, which seem to have reserved corporal punishment for small children and slaves – conventionally perceived to lack ability to reason – late antique monastic rules invoked corporal punishment as a possibility for every member in the community who demonstrated irrational behaviour. In this way they blurred traditional boundaries between children, slaves and adults.     

A consideration on the interest of a pottery typology adapted to the late Sasanian and early Islamic monastery at al-Qusur (Kuwait)

Since 2011, the French–Kuwaiti Archaeological Mission in Failaka has aimed at defining the function and the chronology of al-Qusur, located in the middle of Failaka Island (Kuwait). The central part of the site appeared to be a monastery, mainly occupied in early Islamic times. The creation of a site-specific pottery typology adapted to this settlement was one of the main objectives of the team. This typology is still in progress and the present paper will highlight the variety of questions that it can address. Certain pottery types provide new information about the monastery’s foundation, probably at the end of the Sasanian period, and abandonment, maybe during the ninth century AD. Pottery studies are also crucial for a better understanding of the monastery’s economic life and the eating practices of the monks. The question of the local or regional provenance of the pottery provides an insight into the inclusion of Failaka in exchange networks.     

The End of Asceticism

Abstract

In this article the author explores the process by which asceticism lost its central place in (Protestant) Christian tradition in early modernity by comparing the ascetic teaching of fifteenth-century Carthusian writer Nikolaus Kempf with the views of Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant. The article identifies a number of philosophical and theological changes that took place that made it impossible for modern thinkers to understand asceticism in its traditional sense, and instead led to interpretations of asceticism as “works righteousness” and superstition. These changes included a new emphasis on the freedom of the individual, which corresponded to a mistrust of moral authority, a new understanding of morality that de-emphasized moral education, and a new understanding of knowledge that disconnected knowledge and virtue.