Monastic Life and Its Institutions

Abstract

AbstractFrom the time of Justinian’s conquest of Italy to the Norman invasion, monastic life in the “Byzantine” areas of Italy has revealed itself to have had an extremely complex character. The coexistence of Latin and Hellenophone populations brought complexity on the linguistic and cultural side, while parallels between the Latin and Greek churches have been found to have had a complexity of a religious and ritual nature. Therefore, instead of the common expression “monasticism in Byzantine Italy,” we should rather speak of “monasticisms in Byzantine Italy.” In late antiquity, the existence of two imperial cities, Rome and Ravenna led to the development of a form of urban monasticism. This concept in itself is atypical if one considers the fundamental presuppositions of monastic life, which is intended to be intrinsically isolated and solitary. Instead, a Hellenophone monasticism organized itself in the monastic areas of southern Italy during the Middle Byzantine era – similar to the coeval ones of Bithynia and Mount Athos.