IMC 2017: Sessions
Session 633: Religious Authority, II: Reforming the Profane
Tuesday 4 July 2017, 11.15-12.45
| Organiser: | Maroula Perisanidi, Classics, Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Nottingham |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Charles West, Department of History, University of Sheffield |
| Paper 633-a | Spiritual Gifts and Lay Authority in 11th-Century Byzantium (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Lay Piety, Religious Life |
| Paper 633-b | Advising Aristocrats: Alcuin and Living a Religious Life beyond the Cloister (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Religious Life |
| Paper 633-c | The Sermons of Eustathios of Thessalonike: The Authority of Homer in the Service of Reform? (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Sermons and Preaching |
| Abstract | This panel explores the divide between sacred and profane by focusing on monks and clerics as agents of lay reform. The first paper examines the place of the laity in the 11th-century struggle between monks and secular clerics, by looking at the writings of religious figures, such as Symeon the New Theologian and Niketas Stethatos, who put more emphasis on charismatic rather than institutional authority. The second paper analyses the advice Alcuin gave to secular figures, such as count Wido of Brittany, regarding their personal and public religious practices, and contrasts it to the advice offered to those in holy orders. The third paper focuses on the language used in the sermons and letters of Eustathius, a twelfth-century bishop of Thessalonike and commentator of the Homeric epics, and asks to what extent classical knowledge could be put to use in the moral reform of the laity. |