Table Of ContentOUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/28/2020, SPi
The Oxford Handbook of
C H R I S T I A N
M O NA S T IC I S M
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 08/28/2020, SPi
The Oxford Handbook of
CHRISTIAN
MONASTICISM
Edited by
BERNICE M. KACZYNSKI
Advisory Editor
THOMAS SULLIVAN, OSB
1
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1
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Preface
To leave the world in order to seek salvation, to consecrate oneself to God, and to find a
way of life that sustains such aims—these are impulses that have been shared by count
less men and women over the centuries. Monasticism has a very long history, and it has
existed in many forms. It is to be found in Christianity, and in Buddhist, Hindu, Jain,
and other religious traditions as well. The subject of this Handbook is Christian monas
ticism, which is itself a complex and variegated case. The Christian experience of
monasticism is fluid, for it has evolved differently in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox,
Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, and its evolution continues in
the contemporary ecumenical movement known as ‘new monasticism’.
It is the intention of this book to bring together, for the first time in one volume, the
multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. It is a further hope that, by presenting a
broad range of approaches to the subject, the book will embolden readers to move
beyond their accustomed disciplinary boundaries and to consider new possibilities and
new ways of thinking about monasticism. Titles in the Oxford Handbooks Series are not
meant to be encyclopedias; nor are they meant to be seen primarily as useful collections
of information. A Handbook, as the publisher remarks, is intended to serve ‘as a dis cip
line map’. It surveys a field, it indicates debates and controversies, and it points to areas
that are likely to repay further research.
The fortyfour essays in the volume span a period of nearly two thousand years—
from late ancient times, through the medieval and early modern eras, on to the
present—and, in fact, to the future, for some contributors have reflected on what might
lie ahead. The book’s organization is for the most part chronological, and it is expansive.
Its purpose is not, however, to construct a narrative history, but rather to attempt to bal
ance some essential historical coverage with examples of what is significant and mean
ingful in current discussions of monasticism. The tendency of medievalists, for instance,
to approach their work from a multidisciplinary perspective is instructive. Contributors
have come from a variety of backgrounds, and they have addressed their topics in dis
tinctive ways; readers of this book will note differences in outlook as well as method. We
must remember, too, that monasticism is a site both of lived experience and of academic
enquiry, a circumstance that gives this project a deeper resonance than might otherwise
be the case. A number of contributors belong to monastic and religious orders, and their
descriptions of religious life are at times especially eloquent.
Most readers will probably see the Handbook, at least initially, as a place to investi
gate one or two topics that are of particular interest to them. Few will open it with the
intention of reading from beginning to end. Yet for me, in the course of planning the
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vi preface
book and seeing it through to publication, it was the full array of topics that, increas
ingly, held my attention. I have found the contemplation of these broad vistas—of his
torical time, of geographical space—to be enormously appealing. There are recurring
themes: for instance, the tension between an ideal of contemplative withdrawal from
the world and the necessity of living in it; the formation of life in a community; subse
quent demands for reform and their aftermath; an inclination to recover the monastic
practices of an earlier age. Then there is the perennial question: what does it mean to be
a monk, to be a nun?
The chapters in the book are perhaps best understood as a series of loosely linked epi
sodes, forming a long chain of enquiry, and allowing for multiple points of view. Their
very diversity challenges the notion that it might be possible to construct, for the history
of monasticism, a narrative of continuous and orderly development. The teleological
paradigms once so prevalent in monastic historiography are now falling out of fashion.
These chapters suggest a more complex and far more interesting state of affairs. In the
particularity of their detail, they remind us that historical realities were often more con
tingent than we might at first suppose. That is why, if we take the essays one at a time,
they seem to complicate our understanding of Christian monasticism. On the other
hand, if we put them all together, we may find that what they describe is a deeprooted
human experience, familiar in some ways and remote in others, but animated always by
men and women pursuing—and seeking to define—a common vocation.
Many people have shared in the making of this Handbook, and it is a pleasure to
acknowledge them. The colleagues who contributed their essays represent a range of
constituencies. Some are wellknown senior scholars, while others are promising begin
ners, still at relatively early stages in their careers. They include members of Roman
Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, and ‘new monastic’ religious communities. They
come from a number of countries: Canada, the United States, Australia, England,
Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Israel. I thank them all
for their excellent work, and for the good grace with which they met the ups and downs
that attend any such collaborative undertaking. Thomas Sullivan, OSB, served as
Advisory Editor, and I am immensely grateful to him. He brought to the project both
scholarly acumen and a profound appreciation of contemporary monastic life, and
without him the book could not have achieved its present form. At Oxford University
Press, I thank Tom Perridge, Senior Commissioning Editor, who encouraged and
guided the work from its outset. I am much indebted to three anonymous reviewers,
whose constructive interventions early on helped to improve the book’s overall shape
and design. I have been fortunate, too, in working with Karen Raith, Rebecca Stubbs,
Marilyn Inglis, Venkatesan Thulasiraman, and others at the press, who have seen the
project through to completion. It is, finally, with the greatest affection that I thank my
family, and most especially my late husband, Richard Everett Morton, who was at my
side for nearly all of this long endeavour.
Bernice M. Kaczynski
Hamilton, Ontario
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Contents
Preface v
List of Illustrations xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
List of Contributors xvii
1. Introduction: Towards a New Monastic History 1
Bernice M. Kaczynski
PART I ASCETICISM AND MONASTICISM
IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY
2. Asceticism before Monasticism: What the First Monks Owed
to the Early Christian Churches 19
Richard Finn, OP
3. Holy Men and Women of the Desert 35
David Brakke
4. The Architecture of the Ascetic Body 51
Lynda L. Coon
5. The Literature of Early Eastern Monasticism 66
Brouria BittonAshkelony
6. The Literature of Early Western Monasticism 85
Columba Stewart, OSB
7. Archaeological Evidence for the Study of Early Monasticism 101
Stephen J. Davis
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viii contents
PART II EASTERN MEDIEVAL MONASTICISM
AND THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES
8. Spirituality and Prayer in the Eastern Traditions 123
Andrew Louth
9. Monasticism in the Byzantine Empire 138
Peter Hatlie
10. Monasteries, Society, Economy, and the State in
the Byzantine Empire 155
Kostis Smyrlis
11. Monasticism in the Oriental Orthodox Churches 168
Samuel Rubenson
12. The Archaeology of Monastic Households 185
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom
PART III A. WESTERN MEDIEVAL
MONASTICISM: FORMS OF MONASTIC AND
RELIGIOUS LIFE
13. Monasticism in Early Ireland 207
Westley Follett
14. The Benedictines 218
Scott G. Bruce
15. The Cistercians 232
Anne E. Lester
16. The Military Orders: Templars and Hospitallers 248
Jochen Burgtorf
17. The Early Mendicants 264
Frances Andrews
18. Religious Women: Secular Canonesses and Beguines 285
Sigrid Hirbodian
19. Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages 300
Kathryne Beebe
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contents ix
PART III B. WESTERN MEDIEVAL
MONASTICISM: APPROACHES TO MONASTIC
LIFE AND CULTURE
20. Prayer 317
Rachel Fulton Brown
21. Musical and Liturgical Practice 333
James Grier
22. Monastic Art, Sacred Space, and the Mediation
of Religious Experience 349
Thomas E. A. Dale
23. Monastic Narrative Practices 372
Katherine Allen Smith
24. Friendship, Family, and Community 388
Julian P. Haseldine
25. Sickness and Healing 403
Peregrine Horden
26. Landscape, Land Use, and the Environment 418
Richard Oram
PART IV EUROPE AND THE WIDER WORLD:
FROM THE EARLY MODERN ERA TO THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
27. The Dissolution of the Monasteries: England, Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales 437
James G. Clark
28. Monasticism in Early Modern France 452
DanielOdon Hurel
29. Monasticism in Early Modern Germany 462
Edeltraud Klueting T.OCarm
30. Monasticism in Early Modern Italy and Spain 471
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt
