Cartusiana sponsored session at IMC Leeds 2019

'Living in a Material World': Mundane Properties and Spiritual Spaces for Hermitages and Eremitical Orders
Wednesday 3 July 2019: 11.15-12.45

Organisers
Stephen J. Molvarec, History Department, Marquette University, Wisconsin
Tom Gaens, Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Papers
The Pragmatics of Monastic Space: Northern Italian Hermitages, Land, and Donor Networks in the Age of Reform (Kathryn L. Jasper, Department of History, Illinois State University)

Cave Dwelling and Terrestrial Cultivation in Medieval Southern Italy: Rupestral Sanctuaries between Spiritualism and Materiality (Kalina Yamboliev, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara)

Vox clamantis in eremis: Boundaries, Strictures, and Space for 11th and 12th-Century Carthusians (Stephen J. Molvarec, History Department, Marquette University, Wisconsin)

Abstract
R. W. Southern observed: 'The most revealing map of Europe […] would be […] not of political or commercial capitals, but of the constellation of sanctuaries, the points of material contact with the unseen world.' While hermitages and monasteries were often regarded as markers in a spiritual landscape, they also contended with very real spatial and material concerns - their properties embodied (pious) relations with donors, a community's economic livelihood, and territorial expansion. This session's papers will treat three 11th-century eremitical groups: southern Italian cave communities, northern Italian hermitages, and the Carthusians. The papers will discuss the juxtaposition of spiritual and material in monastic patrimonies and donations, addressing social relationships as well as the observance of customaries and their embodiment in the physical arrangement of monastic properties.

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