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The archaeology of late monastic hospitality

This thesis examines the role of a distinctive group of monastic buildings, those constructed for the use of visitors, placing them in the distinctive cultural settings of the monastery and the surrounding secular landscape. It reconsiders the applicability of the inside/outside, secular/monastic dichotomy, which tends to imply restriction of access to the house, and examines human behaviour in and around visitors' structures, in the form of ritualized hospitality. It is thus concerned with the recursive relationships between monastic and secular cultures, and between individuals negotiating power through their manipulation and structuring of space. This thesis employs an explicitly archaeological research agenda and recording methodology which explores the evidence at both extensive and intensive levels. An extensive survey of surviving gatehouse remains was undertaken to examine the apparent `liminal' role of these structures. At the intensive level, detailed building recording was undertaken on two complexes, at Stoneleigh Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral, whose primary function was to provide hospitality to outsiders. These are used as primary case studies, and are supplemented by textual, pictorial, and landscape evidence in order to investigate what monastic hospitality was, in what manner it was expressed, and how it was experienced.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:369341
Date January 2000
CreatorsRowell, Rochelle L.
PublisherUniversity of York
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14051/

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