This thesis is the first close study of Wordsworth and silence. It uncovers the comprehensive investigation into monastic history and hagiography (with special emphasis on St Basil) that Wordsworth engaged in between 1807 and 1810, showing that the type of silence he valued came from the monastic tradition. I trace Wordsworth’s material commitment to the power of silence through his use of hermit figures and his habit of visiting ruined monasteries. I concentrate on the poetry he composed from 1807 onwards and mark his eight-month residence in 1806-7 at the home of Sir George and Lady Beaumont as the locus at which his intensive interest in monasticism germinated. I thus reveal a new dimension to this important patronal relationship, while additionally offering an analysis of a previously unstudied manuscript pamphlet ('An account of an English Hermit' by Thomas Barnard) which Lady Beaumont sent to the Wordsworths in 1809. I show how Wordsworth’s fascination with monastic sites and silence influenced his understanding of linguistic and political representation, inheritance, community, and pastoral retreat. At the same time, this critical attention to silence aids a revaluation of the religious vision of his work. The thesis uses this historical and biographical information as a means of closely reassessing formal, linguistic, and generic features of Wordsworth's poetry. At its root, my work is about the natures of language, poetic representation, and readerly experience. How does Wordsworth communicate via silence? How does he use silence to 'create the taste' for his poetry? Where does silence impact on his renovation of genre and conceptions of form? I conclude that, for Wordsworth, silence is a positive gathering of stillness from within that is nourished by patterns of repeated activity and community. It is one of his most profound heuristic tools.

The general purposes of the thesis are to show the indebtedness of the industrial arts to the monasteries and to suggest certain areas for further study.

This thesis explores the depiction of ecclesiastical restorers in narrative sources in England between c.1070 and 1130. It examines the way in which contemporaries wrote about churchmen who were engaged in restoring the English Church, particularly the actions which were attributed to them. While a great deal has been written about ideas of Church reform from the time, little has been done to set out who might actually be considered a restorer. Narrative sources offer a window through which to assess the themes which most concerned writers of the time. The thesis focuses upon chronicles and saints' Lives to delve into these themes, as it seeks to identify the criteria by which writers assessed churchmen who attempted to restore the Church. Certain common trends will be identified. However, it will also be argued that different contexts and commentators honed the image of the restorer so that the needs of communities and their particular members shaped ideas of the figures under discussion. The examination is split between four chapters, each addressing an important aspect in the depiction of the restorer. Chapter One looks at the importance of material restoration, through the recovery of lost lands and the rebuilding of churches. Chapter Two looks at how writers depicted restorers correcting morals in England and improving monastic customs, particularly saints' cults. Chapter Three explores the notion of ‘right order' and how it was important for churchmen to ensure that the correct hierarchy was restored. The fourth and final chapter examines the personal characteristics expected of a restorer, such as industry, prudence and learning, as well as descriptions of saintly restorers. Finally, the conclusion tests its findings against writing from different times and places, namely other European writing from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries and tenth-century England.

Thesis advisor: Robin Fleming / Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester (d. 984) was a reformer of Anglo-Saxon monasticism, but he was also deeply concerned with the religion of ordinary English laypeople. Whether in his promulgation of the cult of saints, vast elaboration of the liturgy, or extensive rebuilding of Winchester’s churches, Æthelwold demonstrated an interest in the lay religion that has been consistently ignored by modern scholars who fixate on his monastic zeal. This concern for the laity is natural in the context of Æthelwold’s own interpretation of the English past, as his goal of an all-monastic English Church necessitated a pastoral role for his reformed monks rather than their strict seclusion from the world. Such a goal was possible because Æthelwold initiated his reform program in the mid tenth century, when corporate religious life still provided the bulk of pastoral care in Winchester and the rest of southwest England, and the organized parish system was only a dim possibility as small local churches began to appear haphazardly in the north and east of the country. Æthelwold’s reforms were therefore very different from similar ones taking place on the continent or even in the sees of his fellow English reformers, and he attempted to recreate an imagined English past very unlike the Church that would eventually result a century later. The influence of his students, however, especially Wulfstan Cantor and the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham, shows that Æthelwold’s unusual interest in lay religion had far reaching consequences for the medieval English Church. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

La thèse présente l’édition, la traduction et le commentaire de quatre testaments écrits sur papyrus, datés du VIIe siècle ap. J.-C., et émanant des supérieurs d’un monastère de Haute-Égypte, le monastère de Saint-Phoibammôn, situé sur la rive gauche de Thèbes. Utilisant la forme du testament de droit privé, les supérieurs lèguent à leur successeur la direction spirituelle du monastère en même temps que la propriété de ses biens et son administration. Les implications de ce dossier sont à la fois juridiques – dans quelle mesure ces documents sont-ils conformes au modèle offert par le droit byzantin ? –, historiques – les testaments apportent des éclairages nouveaux sur l’histoire du monastère de Saint-Phoibammôn, qui fut un important centre de vie ascétique au VIIe siècle et la résidence de l’évêque Abraham d’Hermonthis, son fondateur –, et linguistiques – il s’agit d’un dossier bilingue, le premier testament étant en grec et les trois suivants en copte, ce qui permet d’étudier les processus de traduction d’une langue à l’autre, et de s’interroger sur le statut du copte comme langue juridique. Cet ensemble est unique car il offre la possibilité d’étudier le même type de documents, provenant du même endroit, rédigés dans deux langues différentes, et condensés sur une période chronologique relativement courte (moins d’un siècle). / The dissertation contains the edition, traduction and commentary of four wills written on papyrus, dated from the 7th century CE, and drawn up by the superiors of a monastery in Upper Egypt, the monastery of Saint Phoibammon, located on the left bank in Thebes. Through the form of a private will, the superiors bequeath to their successor the spiritual direction of the monastery as well as the property of its goods and its administration. This dossier has implications of various sorts: legal – to what extent are these documents in accordance with the model of Byzantine law? –, historical – the wills bring new elements on the story of the Saint Phoibammon monastery which was an important centre of ascetic life in the 7th century and where lived bishop Abraham of Hermonthis, its founder –, linguistic – it is a bilingual dossier, as the first will is written in Greek, the three following in Coptic, allowing to study the translation process and to ponder about the legal status of the Coptic language. This group of documents is unique because it allows to study the same kind of document, coming from the same place, written in two different languages, and dating from a relatively short period of time (less than a century).

This thesis demonstrates the intersection of caste, doctrine, religious authority and monasticism in the Swaminarayan sampradāy, a Hindu devotional tradition founded by Sahajānand Svāmī. Religious traditions affected indirectly or minimally by colonialism or the nationalist struggle have seldom been rigorously studied. This thesis brings attention to the Swaminarayan sampradāy to highlight how pervasive societal discourses like that of caste and internal doctrinal developments, impacted religious developments concerning authority, hierarchy, and power. The reification of a doctrine and the creation of a theological office, coupled with the deification of a monk, Guṇātītānand Svāmī, and his low-caste disciple Prāgjī manifested a fractious environment in which theology, authority and ideas about monasticism came to be contested. Theological ideas drove Prāgjī’s developing community, who adapted their devotion to Prāgjī as a result of stifling institutional politics and a modernizing Gujarat. Prāgjī’s incessant preaching, distinct theological beliefs and own budding community, which adored him, changed the course of Swaminarayan Hinduism in western India.

This thesis aims at an exploration of the ascetical theology and praxis of the sixth to the eighth century Irish monasticism viewed as a radical response to the Christian evangelium. It also aims to analyse the extent to which the distinctive response of the monastic Irish in the period arose from their Celtic cultural context. Culture influences all aspects of life and given that this work is addressing the critical period of the emergence of a people from primitive forms of religious belief and practice to Christianity it would be important to evaluate the influence of culture. The thesis is an exploration in the sense that, though much has been written about monasticism and specifically the Irish monastic movement up to and beyond the tenth century, the discussion of the ascetical theology and praxis has the potential to open up new pathways to better understanding and appreciation of this phenomenon within the wider Irish Church.  The scope of the work ranges briefly over the cultural context of Irish society in the pre and post-Christian era: its social organisation, sagas, Brehon laws and druidism. The primary sources utilised include the penitentials, the monastic rules, the Vitae and writings of ColumCille and Columbanus. These formative works regarding two of the most influential early Irish monastic founders are seen as encapsulating, and broadly illustrating, the ascetical emphasis and praxis of this time. The work draws on the ancient notions and practices of asceticism and the principle of contraries brought to light by Cassian. One facet of the radicality of Irish monasticism, manifested specifically in the penitentials, lies partly in the fact that, whereas asceticism is usually perceived as a personal response to the call to change one's lifestyle, the Irish praxis was, on the whole, undertaken in the context of a community.  Chapter One looks briefly at the Irish Church as part of that phenomenon called the Celtic Church. Other aspects of the topic addressed in this chapter include history (the Irish of the period had a particular way of looking at it), theology, asceticism, radicality and how each of these facilitates the future analysing of the primary sources. Chapter Two analyses the Irish penitentials that traditionally, and often today, have been seen as harsh and inflexible. Chapter Three analyses the monastic rules of some early founders and demonstrates that they are a call to a radical lifestyle for those committed to the religious life, compared with the ordinary demands of the Christian evangel. In Chapters Four and Five, the lives and writing of ColumCille and Columbanus are treated. The Sermons of Columbanus are the primary material used in Chapter Five. The conclusions of this work are that the radicality in the monastic rules, penitentials and the Vitae of its most prominent founders reveals that all the practices were designed to promote personal growth in the spiritual life and were not primarily focussed on punishment. They were about an inner transformation that enhanced one's personal, spiritual and human well being rather than a humiliation and belittling of the person. Present day psychology and the behavioural sciences in general would affirm the wisdom of the fundamental belief inherent in Cassian's contraries, which underpinned the injunctions in both the monastic rules and penitentials. The evidence deduced from many of the injunctions in the extant penitentials is that of a balanced presentation of the ideals of asceticism, which were a guide for the inner transformation of the person. Both the penitentials and the monastic rules also point to the emphasis on individuality that is evident in much Irish secular writing. The injunctions of the extant rules make it clear that their asceticism was, through prayer, sacrifices or mortification and work, to aid in the transforming of the energy of self-denial into a spiritual power. The asceticism thus recommended in these primary sources of the sixth to the eighth century Irish monastic movements was not harsh and inhuman, for the radicality of their lives depended on the fact that it was deliberately and personally chosen by the monks. They were captured by the beauty of their newly found faith in the Christian God, incarnated in Jesus whose life they contemplated in the daily recitation of the Canonical Hours and whose presence surrounded them in the totality of creation.

Based on author's dissertation (Ph. D.), American University, Washington, D.C., 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-116) and index.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries southern Italy passed irrevocably out of Byzantine control and into Norman control, at roughly the same time as the Roman papacy and the Christians of the East were beginning to divide into what we now know as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Historians have typically viewed the history of southern-Italian monasticism in this period around the notion of a cultural conflict between Latins and Greeks, either arguing for or against the idea that the Italo-Normans had a policy of ‘latinisation’ with regards to Eastern-rite monasteries. This thesis will argue, however, that this conceptual framework obscures more important long-term economic and social factors that affected Germany, Italy and Byzantium alike. Having outlined the political and social context of southern-Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 will demonstrate the manner in which southern-Italian monasticism was firmly embedded into a network of cultural and social contacts in the broader Mediterranean world, and especially with Byzantium, even during the Norman domination. Chapter 3 will focus on the fundamental patterns of southern-Italian monastic change in the early Middle Ages, emphasising the gradual movement from informal asceticism to organised monastic hierarchies. Chapter 4 will set forth the essential irrelevance of viewing this structural change in terms of ‘Latin’ and ‘Greek’ identities, underlining the point that the distinction is largely meaningless in the context of monastic change. Chapter 5 will explain by contrast the far greater significance of economic and social expansion to monastic change in both ‘Latin’ and ‘Greek’ areas of the Mediterranean, and especially southern Italy. Finally, Chapter 6 will show that consolidation in southern-Italian monastic structures was not simply part of a centrally-directed papal reform movement, but part of a wider range of innovations undertaken on a local basis throughout the peninsula and the rest of the Mediterranean, with a considerable range of influences. An extensive selection of literary and documentary evidence will be examined in both Latin and Greek, with an especial focus on the monastic and ecclesiastical archives of southern Italy. / Thesis (Master, History) -- Queen's University, 2011-06-12 13:50:46.867

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