L’Aquitaine du haut Moyen Âge est un espace qui a longtemps pâti d’une mauvaise réputation historiographique. Pourtant, de nombreux travaux récents continuent à supposer l’existence d’une forte identité dans les territoires du sud de la Loire, sans chercher à explorer le paradoxe résultant de ces deux conclusions. Analyser ce paradoxe, et tenter de le résoudre, constitue un des objectifs de cette étude. Prenant comme référence géographique initiale l’ancien royaume carolingien d’Aquitaine, ce travail restreindra éventuellement cette zone d’étude sur la base de critères ayant essentiellement trait à l’histoire des mentalités. Nous postulons que l’Aquitaine se trouve là où l’on se sent aquitain au haut Moyen Âge. La période considérée (VIIIe-XIIe siècles) s’étend du début des temps carolingiens à la fin de la relative autonomie de l’Aquitaine à l’égard des souverains capétiens puis plantagenêts. À cette époque, les moines sont les principaux écrivains de l’histoire, et nos investigations porteront sur leurs œuvres historiographiques. Ce travail consiste donc essentiellement en l’étude des Chroniques, Annales et Histoires monastiques écrites dans le royaume carolingien d’Aquitaine et le duché qui lui a succédé. L’objectif de la recherche est de déterminer comment l’information circule entre les établissements monastiques, quelles sont les méthodes et les sources des moines férus d’histoire, aussi bien pour relater des faits anciens que des événements plus récents. « Composer avec le passé » est toutefois le propre de l’historien, c’est pourquoi une plus grande attention sera prêtée aux œuvres dépassant le cadre de « l’histoire immédiate » pour s’attacher à relater une « geste des origines ». L’étude est structurée en trois grandes sections chronologiques : le temps du royaume carolingien d’Aquitaine, où l’activité historiographique est très polarisée autour du monastère d’Aniane, centre de la réforme ; le temps de l’apparition puis de l’essor d’une nouvelle Aquitaine « indépendante », jusqu’à la mort du duc Guillaume V, dit « le Grand » († 1030), où les centres historiographiques renaissants se situent plus au nord (Angoulême, Limoges) ; et enfin l’époque d’apogée de la principauté, jusqu’au premier mariage d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine (1137), dont la plus belle réalisation historiographique, la Chronique de Saint-Maixent, prend naissance dans un monastère situé à seulement une cinquantaine de kilomètres de la capitale ducale de Poitiers. / The Aquitaine of the Early Middle Ages has long suffered from a bad historiographical reputation. However, numerous recent works have pointed out the existence of a strong sense of identity in the territories situated south of the Loire, without trying to explore the paradox implied by those conflicting viewpoints. Analyzing this paradox and trying to solve it is one of the main goals of this research. Taking as our initial geographical reference the ancient Carolingian kingdom of Aquitaine, this work will occasionally narrow this area of study according to criteria related to the history of mentalities. We assume that Aquitaine is where one felt one was an Aquitanian during the Early Middle Ages. The period studied (eighth – twelfth centuries) spans the field from the beginning of Carolingian times to the end of the relative autonomy of Aquitaine from the Capetian then the Plantagenet rulers. In those times, monks were the main writers of history, and our investigation will be restricted to their historical works. Our dissertation mainly deals with monastic Chronicles, Annals and Histories written within the Carolingian kingdom of Aquitaine and the duchy that succeeded it. The purpose of this research is to determine how the information travelled between the monasteries, and to find out the sources and methods used by monastic historians in order to report ancient facts as well as more recent ones. “Dealing with the past” is nonetheless proper to the historian ; this is why a more accurate attention will be paid to works that fall outside the scope of “immediate history” and are mainly concerned with the “quest for origins”. This study is divided into three chronological parts : the times of the Carolingian kingdom of Aquitaine, during which historiographical activity was very much focused around the monastery of Aniane, centre of the reform ; the times of the rise and then of the development of a new “independent” Aquitaine, until the death of Duke William V, called “the Great” († 1030), when the reviving historiographical centres were located further north (Angoulême, Limoges) ; and finally the zenith of the principality (up to Eleanor of Aquitaine’s first wedding in 1137) whose greatest historiographical achievement, the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent, was born in a monastery situated only thirty miles away from the ducal capital of Poitiers.

Cette recherche a pour objet la notion d'ascèse et son application chez Césaire d'Arles, moine-évêque du VIe siècle. Cette prescription de la rigueur dans le quotidien du peuple semble représenter pour l'évêque la condition sine qua non d'un retour à la foi des fidèles auxquels il s'adresse. C'est par la rigueur que Césaire souhaite détourner les plus simples de tout danger véhiculé par les moeurs païennes mais il n'oublie cependant pas la charité. Sa notion de gouvernance est démocratique; il lutte contre les abus et se montre protecteur et bienveillant envers les pauvres. La thèse étudie ces questions à partir des Sermons au peuple mais également des Sermons aux moines et des Oeuvres monastiques afin de déceler si le vocabulaire employé est identique et si pour Césaire, la référence au bon chrétien est bien le moine. On mettra ainsi en évidence le caractère novateur de l'évêque d'Arles pour la vie de l'Eglise car seul, selon lui, un mode de vie sobre permettra à chacun de sauver son âme mais également de se conformer au message du christ. / The aim of this research is the notion of asceticism and its application with Caesarius of Arles, monk-bishop of the VIth century. For him, this requirement for hardship in the daily life of the people appears to represent a prerequisite for the return to faith among the congregation he addresses. It is through hardship that Caesarius wishes to divert the most ordinary people from any danger conveyed by pagan behaviour, but he does, however, not forget charity. His notion of governance is democratic; he fights abuse and is protective and kind towards the poor. The thesis examines these questions using Sermons to people but also Sermons to monks and Monastic works in order to discover whether the vocabulary used is identical and if for Caesarius, the reference to the good Christian is the monk indeed. This will highlight the bishop of Arles’ innovating character for Church life as, according to him, only a modest lifestyle will enable everyone to save one’s soul but also comply with the message of Christ.

abstract: In order to illuminate the role written documents played within medieval monastic life, this project takes as a case study the monastery of Cluny and some associated houses during the central Middle Ages. I approach these documents as signs, drawing on anthropological and philosophical work on semiosis, and as media technologies, using history and cultural studies centered on orality and literacy, and conclude that the monastic use of texts was essentially ritual, and as such exerted an important influence on the development of literacy as a tool and a set of practices. Nor did this influence flow in just one direction: as monastic ritual transformed the use of documents, the use of documents also transformed monastic ritual. To study the relationship between document and ritual, I examine what medieval documents reveal about their production and use. I also read the sources for what they directly report about the nature of monastic life and monastic ritual, and the specific roles various documents played within these contexts. Finally, these accounts of changing monastic scribal and ritual practice are laid alongside a third—that of what the monks themselves actually enunciated, both directly and indirectly, about their own understanding of semiosis and its operation in their lives. Ultimately, my dissertation connects valuable theoretical and philosophical work on ritual, semiosis, and orality and literacy with manuscript studies and with a wide range of recent historiography on the complex transformations remaking society inside and outside the cloister during the Middle Ages. It thus serves to bring these disparate yet mutually indispensable lines of inquiry into better contact with one another. And in this way, it approaches an understanding of human sign-use, carefully rooted in both material and institutional culture, during a key period in the history of human civilization. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2015

The presented diploma thesis "Holy and unholy homeless" deals with finding the inspiration for social work with individuals - the homeless people, in the emerging phenomenon of Christian monasticism. The hypothesis of the diploma thesis, the existence of the possibility of drawing lessons for today's social work, confirms in the end in three areas and inspiring circuits. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Scholarship to date on the Nag Hammadi Codices has been predominantly concerned with establishing the compositional history and doctrinal affiliations of each tractate within the collection. Much less attention has been paid to the library as a fourth-century collection of texts, which must have been understood by the compiler/s of the codices as having ideological coherence, and overarching messages. The present thesis is first and foremost an attempt to address this deficiency. Due to the site of the codices’ discovery in the Egyptian desert being in close proximity to the Pachomian monastery at Phbow, the suggestion was made that perhaps these monks were once the owners of the collection, forced to purge their monastery of these texts due to the increasing concern of the Alexandrian Church over the circulation of what it viewed to be ‘heretical’ religious documents. This ‘Pachomian connection’ was substantiated mainly by the apparent promotion of ascetic practice and a value placed on knowledge both in the Pachomian movement and many of the tractates from Nag Hammadi, as well as the presence of some monastic documents in the waste paper used to strengthen the covers of the codices. None are sufficient to conclude a relationship between the two. Moreover, scholarly conception of the Nag Hammadi Library as a representative of ‘Gnosticism,’ which since the critiques of this category by the likes of Williams (1996) and King (2004) has been something of a taboo term, meant that inquiry into connections with Pachomian monastic literature was too invested in searching for so-called ‘Gnostic’ overlap. On the contrary, this work argues that in order to gain a better understanding of why the Nag Hammadi texts were collected and collated in the way that they were, and how and why they might have been utilised by Christian inhabitants of the Egyptian desert, they must be viewed primarily as a fourth-century Christian collection. The thesis attempts to offer a fresh perspective on the question of monastic usage by viewing the Nag Hammadi texts simply as part of the Egyptian Christian landscape, rather than as a ‘heretical’ invasion of it. In order to conduct a controlled and sufficiently detailed analysis, this thesis examines one sub-collection of the Nag Hammadi Library – Codex II, alongside contemporaneous Pachomian monastic literature, and suggests agreement on various centralised issues. Building on the suggestions of Michael Williams (1996) and James Robinson (2004), that meaningful order can be detected in the arrangement of the Nag Hammadi Codices, the thesis contends that Nag Hammadi Codex II develops certain key themes through the particular sequencing of its tractates. Each of these, it is argued, would have been attractive to a fourth-century Pachomian monastic readership. Firstly, asceticism must be moderated so as not to lose sight of its spiritual value amidst competitive arrogance. Secondly, one’s duty to share and encourage the promulgation of spiritual truths among one’s brethren is of vital importance. Thirdly, identification as an ‘elite’ spiritually superior individual is in no way predetermined, as older definitions of ‘Gnosticism’ have suggested, but based entirely on one’s conscious choice to leave behind worldly pursuits.

BE WHERE YOU ARE: THE IDEA OF MONASTIC STABILITY IN JOHN CASSIAN The thesis examines the role of stability in the texts of patristic author John Cassian, who is concerned with the spirituality of the early Egyptian monasticism. The theme is briefly presented in relation to author's life and writings. A detailed lexicological analysis shows which words and with which meaning Cassian uses to express the idea of stability. The third chapter forms the core of the study - it describes five main aspects of the studied idea: i. e. the stability of vocation (stabilitas professionis), the stability of place (stabilitas loci), the stability of heart (stabilitas cordis), the stability in the good (stabilitas boni) and God's stability (stabilitas Dei). These aspects are delineated as successive degrees of a spiritual journey that leads from external to internal forms of stability and further to the stability of love of God and neighbour. The whole Cassian's conception is then situated within the wider context of systematic theology. The introduction and the conclusion of the thesis put the examined topic in the frame of the contemporary "crisis of rootedness" and outline the possible therapeutic dimension of author's thought for those who are afflicted with instability. Keywords John Cassian; Egyptian...

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The dissertation is a study of the origins, development and contemporary manifestations of Christian retreats. It traces origins from the Biblical record until current retreats. Christian retreat is a period of withdrawal from usual activities to experience encounter with God through Christian prayer. Jesus' pattern of engagement in ministry and withdrawal is a vital basis for retreat. Other Biblical descriptions of retreat are studied. There is an examination of retreat experiences in Church history with a particular focus on monasticism, as a major expression of retreat life, and Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the modern retreat movement. Varieties of subsequent retreat types in the spiritualities of different traditions from the Protestant Reformation onwards are considered. The spectrum of study includes Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Pentecostal spiritualities. The study culminates in focusing on current Ignatian and other retreats in their many forms. This includes private devotions to lengthy periods of retreat. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M.Th. (Christian Spirituality)