Skip to main content

IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 111: Rich and Poor, Male and Female: The Economics of the Double Monastery

Monday 11 July 2011, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Katharine Sykes, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Kimm Curran, History Lab+, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
Paper 111-aDouble Monasteries and the Spiritual Economy of Anglo-Saxon England
(Language: English)
Katharine Sykes, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford
Index terms: Economics - General, Gender Studies, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 111-b'In True Religion and in the Greatest Poverty': Asceticism, Rule, and Constitution in an Italian Double Monastery
(Language: English)
Sherri Johnson, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Gender Studies, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 111-cThe Estate of a Double Monastery in Lincolnshire: What Did it Mean to Be Poor?
(Language: English)
Jill Redford, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Economics - General, Gender Studies, Monasticism
Abstract

A major theme of medieval monastic history revolves around the classification of houses into two categories: male/rich and female/poor. This session uses evidence from double monasteries - religious communities that housed both male and female religious within the same economic, legal, and liturgical unit - to test the boundaries between these categories. The three papers explore both microeconomic themes (the finances and financial-planning of individual houses and congregations of houses), as well as macroeconomic themes (the place of double monasteries within the wider spiritual and temporal economies).