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IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 258: Myths of the Early Medieval Church, I: Sex, Power, and Salvation

Monday 6 July 2020, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Moderator/Chair:Irene van Renswoude, Huygens ING, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam / Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen, Universiteit Utrecht
Paper 258-aSexing the Clergy: The State of the Question
(Language: English)
Conrad Leyser, Worcester College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Mentalities
Paper 258-bBeyond 'Eigenkirchen': Priests, Local Churches, and the Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Carolingian Empire
(Language: English)
Steffen Patzold, Seminar für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Social History
Paper 258-cNot Reform but Salvation: Rethinking the Carolingian Reforms
(Language: English)
Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

This session highlights three lines of recent research that are changing our understanding of the early medieval church. What if we consider the early medieval priesthood as a group of men who were, on the one hand, ordained ministers, but also fathers and sexual partners? What if these same secular clerics were not the passive, powerless puppets at the mercy of lords who owned the churches where these priests ministered? And what if we move beyond top-down models of reform when we try to understand how and why the church (in its widest meaning) underwent important changes in this period?