IMC 2021: Sessions

According to a widespread narrative, monasteries were the institutions which ensured educational continuity in the Early Middle Ages, and in doing so, upheld the cultural heritage of antiquity. However, Western monasticism only emerged in this time of transition. In addition, there were monastic movements which were sceptical about intellectual education, and preferred practical formation. The function and self-image of monasteries must therefore be viewed in a more differentiated way. This session examines the influential narrative and asks about the content, places, and functions of education and formation in early medieval monastic communities in the West. It analyses the relation between education and formation and investigates the ways in which knowledge was transmitted.

Paper -a: Monastic education and (self-)formation (summed up as Bildung) is a perfectly working concept for understanding John Cassians Conferences. First, Cassian describes his own educational path in the Egyptian desert which acts as a role-model for Cassians audience in Gaul, even if the framework conditions are different. Second, education can be analysed as a topic which is discussed by the abbots whom young Cassian met. Third, the Conferences itself do not only describe a process of education, but they also initiate and accompany such a process. And fourth, the modern term Bildung is suitable to describe the many ways of spiritual progress, shown in the Conferences.

Paper -b: In early medieval monastic congregations, education and formation were largely enabled and affected by social contacts and the spreading of manuscripts. This paper analyses the role of monastic networks in educational and formational processes of the 5th and early 6th century monasteries Balma, Lauconnum and Condatisco which were located in the southern Jura Mountains. On the one hand, it explores the ways in which these congregations learned from role models and investigates how they adapted and applied particular ideals in their everyday life. On the other hand, it analyses the educational and formational influence of the Jura congregations on other monastic movements.

Paper -c: In my paper, I will investigate the role of late antique Gallic monasteries as places where clerics learned how to properly perform their duties. This phenomenon is attested both for adults freshly ordained to priesthood (prince Merovechus sent to the monastery of Aninsola in 576) and children committed by their parents to follow ecclesiastical career (evidenced by Gregory of Tours for the monastery of Agaune). I will enquire into the skills clerics were taught in the monasteries and their role in the community. Finally, I will argue in what way the examples of secular clergy being educated in the monastic communities may alter our assumptions concerning late antique monks and, more generally, the relation between the monastic and clerical vocations in this period.

Paper -d: The paper will present the ideal of monastic formation, as it is described in the two Lives of Radegund written around the year 600. Special focus will be on the ideas of imitation (imitatio) and example (exemplum) as monastic principles. Although her hagiographer Venantius Fortunatus notes that Radegund belongs to the weaker sex, she is portrayed as an example for others to follow. Radegund's female hagiographer Baudonivia mentions that Radegund 'would teach her congregation with words that she had already shown them by example' (Baudonivia, Vita Radegundis 9). At the same time Radegund is presented as following the right Christian examples. Several sources indicate that imitation was both a practice in monasteries and a literary topos in written lives, and the question of who is worthy to be imitated provides us with insight into the ideals of monastic formation and the use of saint's lives in such formative processes.