IMC 2017: Sessions
Session 533: Religious Authority, I: Reforming the Sacred
Tuesday 4 July 2017, 09.00-10.30
| Organiser: | Maroula Perisanidi, Classics, Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Nottingham |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Jonathan Jarrett, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds |
| Paper 533-a | Accessorising Holiness: Distinguishing Religious Authority through Belts in Late Antiquity (Language: English) Index terms: Monasticism, Religious Life |
| Paper 533-b | Clerical Celibacy and Clerical Reform, 800-1100 (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Sexuality |
| Paper 533-c | How Clerics Became 'Other' in the 11th and 12th Centuries: Tonsure and Ordination, 1000-1200 (Language: English) Index terms: Canon Law, Charters and Diplomatics, Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography |
| Abstract | This panel examines to what extent religious men were clearly separated from the laity by focusing on efforts to reform the former's appearance and morality. The first paper looks at late-antique monks and their use of belts as sartorial indicators of spiritual status. It suggests that monastic communes provided a kind of 'uniform' which separated monks and laity in both clothing and behaviour. The second paper examines moral reforms and in particular the issue of clerical marriage in the pre-Gregorian period. It questions whether clerical sexuality was already a dividing factor for Western clerics and their flocks. The third paper discusses tonsure and ordination as markers of clerical authority in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It asks why their social and religious significance was downplayed despite ordination becoming recognised as a sacrament in this period. |