{"id":192598,"date":"2024-09-12T18:21:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T16:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/?page_id=192598"},"modified":"2024-09-12T20:52:06","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:52:06","slug":"monasteries","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/us.edu.pl\/en\/nauka-i-badania\/centra-badawcze\/cbns\/monasteries\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell: Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Centrum Bada\u0144 Nordystycznych i Staroangielskich<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Project Website Information: <\/strong>Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell \/ Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland<\/em><\/p>\n

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Title<\/strong>: Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland<\/p>\n

Acronym<\/strong>: Monasteries<\/p>\n

Principle Investigator<\/strong>: Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell<\/p>\n

Contact<\/strong>: ryder.patzuk@us.edu.pl<\/p>\n

Funding<\/strong>: This research is part of the project No. 2022\/45\/P\/HS3\/02670 co-funded by the National Science Centre and the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 945339.<\/p>\n

Host<\/strong>: The project is being carried out at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Department of Humanities, Institute of History, in the Centre for Nordic and Old English Studies (http:\/\/www.cbns.us.edu.pl\/). The researchers working at the Centre for Nordic and Old English Studies of the University of Silesia (CBNS) study medieval societies of these regions by focusing on their history, culture, and literature. The research at the CBNS focuses mainly on political and social changes, the ideology of power, and on Old Norse and Old English literature. Studying the history and culture of medieval England, Scandinavia, and the territories of the Northern Atlantic contributes to a better understanding of the European Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

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Project Description<\/strong>: Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland is a historical project investigating the monasteries and convents of the far northwestern corner of the medieval European world. In the scattered population of this isolated and rural society, the communities of monks and nuns were small and relatively poor, yet they had a powerful impact on the people around them. They were important schools and centers of learning, their graveyards were prestigious sites for wealthy patrons to seek burial in the shelter of continuous monastic prayer, and over the course of the Middle Ages, they became increasingly wealthy and powerful landowners.<\/p>\n

While the image of the sequestered and industrious monk is an enduring symbol of the Middle Ages, very little is known about the Icelandic iteration of this compelling figure. What scholarship has been written about them is largely in Icelandic, inaccessible to the general audience, and very difficult for scholars of the medieval church and religious life to engage with. This has meant that the ascetics of Iceland have not been able to take their due place in the historical tapestry of the Middle Ages: a very small place, but a significant one nonetheless. Monasteries on the Edge of the World is part of a growing movement of recent scholarship to finding space in the larger historical narrative for the monks, nuns, canons, hermits and anchorites of this tiny North Atlantic island.<\/p>\n

This project has two core aims: to improve our understanding of the nature of monastic culture in Iceland, and to make the sources for this fascinating field of study more accessible. It will take as its focus the later Middle Ages, c. 1262 to c. 1500, a period which has drawn the interest and attention of fewer historians of Iceland than earlier periods, but which also preserves a rich variety of sources. The most important of these sources is The Saga of Bishop L\u00e1rent\u00edus<\/em>, a narrative about L\u00e1rent\u00edus K\u00e1lfsson (1267-1331), who during the course of his career was a cathedral schoolmaster, a Benedictine monk, a canon law expert, a wandering teacher, and finally a bishop. Alongside the story of this learned and headstrong monk, the project will illuminate a very different type of source: administrative documents. These include contracts for formal schooling, wills and donations to ecclesiastical institutions, and financial arrangements for work, housing, retirement, and burial at monasteries and churches; most of these texts have never been read by a non-Icelandic audience. With all of these tools in hand, important questions can be explored: What did it mean for a wealthy Icelander to \u2018retire\u2019 into a monastery, and why did lay people chose to live at or near religious houses? How did monastic education work? What kind of distinctions, divisions, tensions, and conflicts existed between different monastic orders in Iceland?<\/p>\n

This project shows how monasteries impacted Icelandic society in a far greater variety of ways than has been understood. They operated within local and international ecclesiastical networks, tying this tiny island to the culture and movements of the mainland; they cultivated learning and trained students, attracted pious patrons, and exercised power in both secular and religious spheres. Understanding how these monks, nuns, and other ascetics were distinct, and how they were similar to their southern peers, helps us better understand the Middle Ages as a whole.<\/p>\n

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Project Publication Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n