IMC 2026: Sessions
Session 150: Abbatial Identities within and without the Cloister, I: The View from the Top
Monday 6 July 2026, 11:15-12:45
| Sponsor: | Network for the Study of Late Antique & Early Medieval Monasticism |
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| Organisers: | Rutger Kramer, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht Ingrid Rembold, Department of History, University of Manchester |
| Moderator/Chair: | Jerzy Szafranowski, Wydział Historii, Uniwersytet Warszawski |
| Paper 150-a | The Authority of the Abbot/Abbess in the Early Middle Ages (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Monasticism, Religious Life |
| Paper 150-b | Abbatial Selection and the Construction of Consensus in 'Free Election' (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Monasticism, Religious Life |
| Paper 150-c | With Great Power Comes Less Responsibility: Abbatial Authority over Monastic Morality in the Post-Carolingian West (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Monasticism, Religious Life |
| Abstract | The increasingly diverse and influential roles monks and nuns assumed over the course of the early middle ages prompted major shifts in how monastic and abbatial identities were conceived. This process of adaptation started, as Albrecht Diem will explore, from the moment the first answers were formulated to the (implicit) question what an abbas actually was. Ingrid Rembold will then analyze how abbots were made, by reexamining the process by which monastic communities and their superiors marshalled and constructed consensus to select their abbots and abbesses, and how far this related both to the guidelines of the Regula Benedicti and in so-called ‘free election’ privileges issued by rulers and bishops. Then, drawing on case studies of male monastic communities in the regions of Lotharingia and Burgundy, Catherine Rosbrook will argue that as the conception of a monastic ordo solidified, the bond adhering the abbot to his monks loosened and ideas about what it meant to be abbot became more fluid. As it turns out, as abbots enjoyed an ever greater moral authority, they had less and less responsibility for the moral status of their subordinates. Finally, |