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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 226: A Fish Out of Water?: From Contemplative Solitude to a Carthusian Conception of Pastoral, Administrative, and Episcopal Activity

Monday 12 July 2010, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Cartusiana vzw
Organiser:Stephen J. Molvarec, Department of History, University of Notre Dame
Moderator/Chair:Emilia Jamroziak, Forschungsstelle für Vergleichende Ordensgeschichte (FOVOG), Technische Universität Dresden / Institute for Medieval Studies / School of History, University of Leeds
Paper 226-aThe Horse and the Bishop: Guigo I within the Ordo Creationis
(Language: English)
Simon Gatsby, Yale University
Index terms: Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 226-bBetween Two Worlds: Some Reconsiderations on 12th- and 13th-Century Carthusian Bishops in and out of the Cloister
(Language: English)
Stephen J. Molvarec, Department of History, University of Notre Dame
Index terms: Administration, Monasticism, Politics and Diplomacy, Religious Life
Paper 226-cIn the Shadow of Niccolò Albergati: The Carthusian Monk-Bishop Goswin Comhaer as Reformer, Counsellor, and Diplomat
(Language: English)
Tom Gaens, Cartusiana vzw, Zelem
Index terms: Administration, Monasticism, Religious Life
Abstract

The austerely contemplative life of Carthusian hermit-monks would seem at odds with a life of pastoral activity and administration. Nevertheless, from their early days, Carthusians became bishops. Others assumed administrative roles within their own communities, including cura animarum for conversi. The practical or communal necessity to assume such roles (which often included founding, reforming, and visiting non-Carthusian houses and institutions as well as being sent on political and diplomatic mission) may have been compelling to some degree. Yet, the conflict and tensions between those roles and an eremitical life should not be underestimated. Thus, articulating a Carthusian sensibility regarding office-holding is essential if we are to understand the distances (physically, but especially in terms of a persistent corporate culture) that needed to be traversed if such near-solitaries were to function as pastors and administrators both inside and outside of their 'deserts'.