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IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 123: Monastic Living: Concept, Building, and Imagery

Monday 11 July 2011, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Julian Gardner, Department of the History of Art, University of Warwick
Paper 123-aMyths and Realities in the Archives of Bégard Abbey in Brittany, 1130-1476
(Language: English)
Claude Lucette Evans, Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto, Mississauga
Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Ecclesiastical History
Paper 123-bLiving Like Monks: Monastic Images among the Laity in the Later Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Colleen Thomas, Department of the History of Art & Architecture, Trinity College Dublin
Index terms: Art History - General, Monasticism, Printing History, Religious Life
Abstract

Paper -a:
A thorough study of the Bégard documents kept in Breton archives (1130-1476) has made it clear that they present an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate view of the history of the abbey. The reasons for the disappearance of some charters transcribed in the 1707 Histoire de Bretagne and 1756 Histoire ecclésiastique et civile de la Bretagne and in manuscripts of the Blancs-Manteaux collection (BnF mss français) will be discussed as well as the undeserved credit given by historians to the 17th-century Chronique de Bégard which might not be reliable as it is not corroborated by medieval documents or by the Statuta Ordinis Cisterciensis.

Paper -b:
When the signature composition of the Egyptian monks Paul and Antony, credited as the first Christian hermits, first developed in western art it served as an emblem of monastic practice and was confined to use by Christian institutions. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the image reappeared in two types of codices: book of hours manuscripts and printed editions of the Legenda Aurea. The former allowed those who could afford to commission the books to affect the discipline of monks, without the bother of actual poverty. As Paul and Antony were not in the usual canon of saints comprising the suffrages section, their very appearance in a book of hours was a luxury. The Legenda Aurea was a popular work that detailed the lives of the saints and was a favourite project for early printers. When illustrations were used, the Paul and Antony composition was almost always included. An investigation of the use of this composition reveals not only the connections made by art across time but also the slippage between social contexts that images allowed in the Middle Ages.