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IMC 2005: Sessions

Session 613: Life-Cycle, Career, and Location in the Medieval Christian West

Tuesday 12 July 2005, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Bernard Gowers, Department of History, King's College London
Moderator/Chair:Ian Forrest, All Souls College, University of Oxford
Paper 613-aRites of (Mediterranean) Passage: The Importance of the Jerusalem Pilgrimage in Late Medieval Life Stages
(Language: English)
Kathryne Beebe, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Paper 613-bThe Burial of Noble Women in 13th-Century Shropshire
(Language: English)
Emma Cavell, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Paper 613-cTravel and Place in Narratives of 11th-Century Educational Careers
(Language: English)
Bernard Gowers, Department of History, King's College London
Abstract

This panel will explore the complex interrelationships between place and stages in various medieval western Christian life-cycles. Ranging from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, these interactions will be considered in three specific ecclesiastical contexts; pilgrimage, clerical educational careers, and noblewomen’s burials.
• Pilgrimage traditionally has been seen as a ‘liminal’ right of passage for the young, but that assumption will be challenged by investigating the transformative significance that the fifteenth-century Jerusalem pilgrimage also held for those at other life-stages.
• As eleventh-century continental Latin churchmen articulated their educational experience, they created personal topographies of spiritual and intellectual development, which provide insights into clerical careers and the role of various scholarly centres.
• The choice of burial place by Shropshire noblewomen in the 12th and 13th centuries involved considerations of prestige, family alliance, politics, and religion, and reveals both individual choice and conformity to family and social expectations.