IMC 2017: Sessions

The Iberian texts for the Early Middle Ages, as is well known, are much more numerous quantitatively speaking that for the Late Antiquity, although the qualitative information on monasticism and its forms are no more enlightening. It is evident that the monasticism of this period, and particularly in the 9th-10th centuries, due to present remarkable differences in their organisation, function, and materiality with respect to the 6th and 7th centuries. And, although it is not yet possible to articulate a coherent discourse on Early Medieval Iberian monasticism, beyond certain stereotypes and clichés induced through the texts. We lack, equally reliable archaeological evidence allowing to have an image of how would be a monastery of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries in Hispania. In this 2nd session, we will make a balance of our knowledge about Iberian monasticism in the Early Middle Ages through three interventions focusing on the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia, and Septimania, and in Al-Andalus. At the same time, the possibilities and limits of the archaeological research to study the monastic phenomenon will be discussed.