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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 1306: Benedict of Aniane Reconsidered, II: Impact

Wednesday 7 July 2021, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Radboud Instituut voor Cultuur en Geschiedenis / Network for the Study of Late Antique & Early Medieval Monasticism
Organiser:Rutger Kramer, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Moderator/Chair:Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Paper 1306-a'Franciam salutifero imbueret exemplo': Benedict of Aniane and the Place of the Monastic School in His Reform Project
(Language: English)
Matthieu van der Meer, Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics, Syracuse University, New York
Index terms: Hagiography, Mentalities, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 1306-bBecoming Royal: The Politics of Female Monasticism in the Vita Hathumoda
(Language: English)
Sarah Greer, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Gender Studies, Mentalities, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 1306-cA Man for all Seasons?: Benedict of Aniane and / as the Problem with 'Monasticism'
(Language: English)
Rutger Kramer, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Mentalities, Monasticism, Religious Life
Abstract

Benedict of Aniane (d. 821) is widely seen as one of the most influential figures of the Carolingian era. He has been credited with being the 'imperial abbot' and is considered to be a prime mover behind the reforms that shaped the monastic world under Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. While his influence on religious life at the time indeed cannot be denied, his present reputation rests to a large extent on the way the sources from and about his life have been read by modern historians.
This session, in the 1,200th year of his death, serves to reconsider Benedict's impact on religious developments in the decades and centuries after his death: was he truly a visionary whose influence stretched across time and space, or were his reform efforts more regionally focused, dependent on the court, and short-lived? The papers in this paper each reflect on these questions, by casting new light on the way Benedict's reform efforts reverberated throughout educational institutions in the Frankish world, in female communities in 9th- and 10th-century Saxony, or indeed in the hearts and minds of (early) modern historiographers trying to come to terms with the phenomenon of monasticism itself.