IMC 2007: Sessions

The period between 400 and 900 is determined by deep changes of political structures on a global level as much as on regional and local levels. In the same period the first ascetic communities transformed into monasticism as a powerful institution, or rather into a diversity of powerful institutions adjusting to the respective social and political structures emerging in the post-Roman world. The papers in this double session focus on the mutual influences between changes of political structures and the processes of monastic institutionalization, assuming that not only political and socio-economical structures shaped and changed monasticism, but also that monasteries and monastic ideals had a determining impact on late antique and early medieval ‘politics’ as well.

The first session compares developments in the Byzantine East and in Frankish Gaul but also the impact of monasticism on three eminent political entities of the late antique world: Kai Trampedach focusses on the interaction between monks and the Emperor of Constantinople. Steffen Diefenbach analyses the role of monasteries for late ancient cities and Albrecht Diem examines Gregory of Tours’ views on the role of monasticism within an episcopally controlled Frankish church. The second session compares the Anglo-Saxon and the Frankish world. John Clay analyses the role of monastery and church in the establishment of the West Saxon kingdom of King Ine. Bernhard Zeller takes the charters of St Gallen as a starting point for discussing the role this particular monastery played for regional political structures, and the focus of Christopher Zwanzig’s paper is the interaction between surrounding world and monastic space in the foundation stories of Franconian monasteries.