Monastic Archives Research Articles

The Constitutive Science of Benedictine Literacy: The Archive of Þingeyrar Abbey in Iceland

The monastic archives of Iceland have rarely been made the subject of specific studies. This article is intended to survey the history of one such archive, belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in Northern Iceland, which was founded 1133 and dissolved 1551. Through its extraordinarily rich literary production this monastery left an indelible mark on the Northern-European cultural heritage. After the Reformation Þingeyrar Cloister remained a state-owned and ecclesiastical institution until modern times. Its archive, which is partly preserved to this day, is both the most extensive of its kind to survive in Iceland and uniquely remained in place for almost eight centuries, making it possibly the longest operated archive in the Nordic countries. The Icelanders may be better known for their sagas and mythological poetry, but their industrious literacy certainly extended to creating bureaucratic documents in accordance with the Roman tradition. French Benedictines were among the first in the world to turn the art of archival management into an academic discipline, and the Icelandic Professor Árni Magnússon (d. 1730), who is best known for his great collection of Old Icelandic manuscripts, was the first Nordic scholar to employ their methods effectively, which he used to investigate the Archive of Þingeyrar. Surveying the history of this Icelandic archive gives us insight into a constitutive science fundamental for our access to the past.

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s Encounter with an Unnamed Monk: From History to Legend

ABSTRACT The Ambrosian Library in Milan has preserved thirteen very interesting folios written in an archaic semi-Kūfī Arabic script, describing an encounter between the second caliph of Islam ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and an unnamed monk. We demonstrate how the anonymous author of this manuscript was familiar with the ṣulḥ agreements, the covenants of the Prophet Muḥammad, and historical and anecdotal accounts of encounters between ʿUmar and ecclesiastical authorities. We postulate that our author composed his narrative on the basis of his own historical imagination from sources that probably belonged to monastic archives to which he had access. The author aimed to deliver a subtle political message, highlighting the archetypal relationship between a Muslim ruler and a Christian subject living under Islam. Two adaptations of our text have been found in Islamic sources, the first in al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī’s Al-zuhd wa- al-raqāʾiq, and the second in Ibn ʿAsākir’s Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq, which we argue reflect a later re-working of the original narrative.

Byzantine memorial books the case of the book of the Protaton of Karyes (Mount Athos)

The article re-examines the memorial book of the Protaton of Karyes (Mount Athos) and minutely looks at its content (about 2000 names), articulation and structure. The original part of the book was written at the Athonite Protaton around 1366 and is followed by a series 14th-15th and 16th-century additions. The book, compiled in the third quarter of the 14th century, remained in use for nearly two centuries, with liturgical additions and constant updating of the records of the deceased. The book, a simple (albeit long) list of names, can be fruitfully compared with shorter lists transmitted by the donation deeds preserved in monastic archives and cited in typika.

Modelos conceptuales de descripció nun nuevo desafío para la representación, el acceso y el uso de la información en el ámbito de las humanidades

An adaptation of the archival description rules and metadata standards is proposed for the representation of part of the documentary collection of the Grijó Monastery, within the framework of the project «The reconstruction of monastic archives in the north of Portugal from the Middle Ages to the 19thcentury». It is carried out under a qualitative approach of a descriptive nature, due to the need to carry out an analysis of the fundamental theoretical and contextual elements that serve as a basisfor the identification of the particularities of the archival description process based on conceptual models, as well as the study of the models themselves. The documentary units of the collection are analysed in order to establish the level of description according to criteria of search, recovery and use of these documentary units, a structure of elements is established based on the analysis of a series of models and the incorporation of new elements and sub-elements to finally offer a proposal for a Conceptual Model Description (CMD).

THE MONASTERIES OF METEORA DURING THE OTTOMAN PERIOD AND THE PRACTICE OF MONASTIC CONFINEMENT

Monastic confinement as a disciplinary measure had a long past in the Christian tradition and continued to be implemented by the Constantinopolitan patriarchs during the Ottoman period. Although our knowledge of the earlier centuries is limited, there is more information on the eighteenth- and the nineteenth-century cases of monastic exile, mainly thanks to the kalebend registers, as well as other relevant Ottoman documentation. The surge of evidence is perhaps related to the increasing role of the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the eighteenth century in matters related to the Greek Orthodox subjects vis-à-vis the Ottoman administration. By this time, monastic confinement was implemented within the Ottoman legal framework of banishment. Besides Mount Athos, the monasteries of Varlaam and Great Meteoro were also major locations of monastic confinement. Apart from the documents of the Ottoman central bureaucracy, monastic archives can also contribute to our insights on the implementation of confinement in collaboration with the Ottoman administration during this period. In this sense, the cases of monastic confinement shed light on a relatively obscure aspect of the Orthodox experience under Ottoman rule.

A Few Strokes for the Portrait of the Monk Nestor the Chronicler (Once More on the Question of Church and Monastic Archives in Pre-Mongol Russia)

A Few Strokes for the Portrait of the Monk Nestor the Chronicler (Once More on the Question of Church and Monastic Archives in Pre-Mongol Russia)

Monastic archives and the law: legal strategies at Farfa and Monte Amiata at the turn of the millennium

This article investigates two controversies that reveal the deeply intertwined nature of legal strategies and archival practices at the monasteries of Farfa and Monte Amiata around the turn of the millennium. It argues that the protagonists of these cases, abbots knowledgeable in law and the history of their monasteries, pursued markedly historical legal strategies: legal strategies that looked to, manipulated, and, above all, contextualized, archival documents in order to make legal arguments. This sheds light on early medieval monastic legal culture in north‐central Italy and provides insights into the rationale for monastic forgeries of documentary materials at Monte Amiata.

Tres diplomas del cardenal Luna relativos a León. Estudio diplomático

In this paper are analyzed, using the traditional method of the diplomatic science, three documents of Peter Martinez de Luna, cardinal of Saint Mary in Cosmedin, legate in Spain (1378-1390) of the Pope Clement VII of Avignon -and, in the futuro, Pope (1394-1423)-. The refered documents come from the monastic archives of Saint Mary of Carbajal and Saint Isidore of Leon.

Dos cartórios da Ordem Beneditina ao Real Archivo da Torre do Tombo: o périplo de Frei Francisco de São Luís Saraiva

Este artigo aborda a veia bibliófila de Frei Francisco de São Luís Saraiva evidenciada desde o seu ingresso na Ordem Beneditina, com apenas 14 anos de idade, e o seu percurso pelas bibliotecas e arquivos da Ordem enquanto visitador e cartorário até à sua nomeação para Guarda-Mor do Real Arquivo da Torre do Tombo. Essa vivência, bem como seu o gosto pela investigação histórica, tendo por base os documentos dos arquivos monásticos, permitiu-lhe conhecer o estado em que se encontravam esses arquivos o que o levou a manifestar uma preocupação constante com as instalações, a conservação e o “arranjo” dos documentos.

To the History of Samara Desert-Nicholas Monastery Archive and Book Collections

The works by archimandrites Havriil (V. F. Rozanov) and Feodosiy (O. G. Makarevsky), historians A. O. Skalkovsky, D. I. Yavornitsky and V. O. Bidnov were the first documents on the history of the monastery (Novomoskovsk, Dnipropetrovsk Region). The monastery suffered from raids, fires, epidemics and robberies. The monastic archives were largely lost in the military operations. A lot of original documents didnʼt survive. The epidemic of 1750 did a great damage. The paper archive, infected things and monastery items were burned. The archive consisted of clerical documents, volumes of ancient laws, manuscripts and correspondence. The archive contained some other documents of great importance. They are so-called Universals, 11 statements with seals of Zaporizhian Sich Kosh (Leader) and priorsʼ complaints. The monastery archive contained manuscripts by the last Kosh Otaman (leader) − P. Kalnyshevsky. The archive included documents of state and local authorities and supreme church governing boards – reports, orders, decrees, warrants referring to the monastery property, inventories of monastery household items. A certain percentage of documents was correspondence among priors referring to internal discipline and economic life of the monastery. The names of famous visitors of the monastery are known: archimandrites Havriil and Feodosiy, A. O. Skalkovsky, A. P. Chirkov, P. M. Sochinskiy, V. D. Mashukov, D. I. Yavornitsky and V. O. Bidnov. They worked with documents and left published articles, essays and reviews. Except manuscripts the monastery had printed editions. The monastery library kept 150 liturgical books of Kyiv and Moscow publishing of the 17th − 18th centuries. Six printed books from Samara Desert-Nicholas Monastery are kept in Dnipropetrovsk National Historical Museum. The library collection of the 19th century was quite big. The research of the archive and the library of the monastery give an opportunity to highlight some of the unknown facts on library science and find rare editions of Ukrainian culture heritage.

Documenti pontifici nel tabularium dell’abbazia cistercense di Chiaravalle Milanese (da Giovanni XXII a Bonifacio IX)

From its foundation in 1135 onward, the Cistercian abbey of S. Maria di Chiaravalle Milanese has played a leading role in Milan’s political, social, economical and religious life. Despite the ideal of the desertum prescribed by the Order’s Rule, the monks of Chiaravalle Milanese were closely linked to the urban elites and to the public institutions for the entire Middle Ages. Nonetheless, as a Cistercian monastery, Chiaravalle Milanese had other privileged interlocutors: the most important one was the Papacy, as proven by the large number of letters (up to 120 until the beginning of the 15th century) addressed by popes to Chiaravalle Milanese and still preserved into the monastic archives. This paper aims at pursuing the critical editorial work recently carried out on Chiaravalle Milanese’s papal and Apostolic legates’ charters from 1139 to 1311, by publishing 16 unedited papal letters dating from the pontificate of John XXII to that of Boniface IX. In addition, 3 more charters are edited in an Appendix, which are useful to contextualize and explain the relationship between Chiaravalle Milanese and the Holy See during the 14th century.

A Fish Out of Water? From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity ed. by Stephen J. Molvarec and Tom Gaens (review)

Reviewed by: A Fish Out of Water? From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity ed. by Stephen J. Molvarec and Tom Gaens Dennis D. Martin A Fish Out of Water? From Contemplative Solitude to Carthusian Involvement in Pastoral Care and Reform Activity. Edited by Stephen J. Molvarec and Tom Gaens. [Miscellanea Neerlandica, XLI; Studia Cartusiana, 2.] (Leuven: Peeters. 2013. Pp. 289. €49,00 paperback. ISBN 978-90-429-2980-7.) The papers in this volume were presented at the 2008 conference “Late Medieval Spiritual Renewal in the Low Countries Influenced by the Carthusian Order,” which was held at the former charterhouse of Zelem, near Diest, Belgium. Two long essays in English by the editors, dealing with the broad theme of monastic renewal and Carthusian interaction with the world, anchor the volume. They are complemented by seven shorter contributions, four in English and three in Dutch with very extensive English summaries. These seven essays address Jan Ruusbroec’s stay at the Charterhouse of Herne against the background of the condemnation of Meister Eckhart (Rob Faesen, English), interaction between Denys the Carthusian and Franciscan tertiaries (Hildo van Engen, Dutch), Geert Grote’s correspondence with the reform-minded Cistercian abbot of Kamp about the inner spirituality required for reforming laxity regarding private property (Rudolf Th. M. van Dijk, Dutch), possible Carthusian influence on the celebration of the Feast of the Visitation at Tongeren (Pieter Mannaerts, English), Denys the Carthusian and discretio as inner reform (Krijn Pansters, English), a Carthusian role in the dissemination of the cult of Catherine of Siena in the Low Countries (Geert H. M. Claassens, Dutch), and the role of a Carthusian prior chosen by a Dutch curial cardinal to reform hospitals in the Low Countries and beyond (Frans Gooskens, English). Coeditor Stephen Molvarec’s contribution admirably surveys—on the basis of intensive studies of Carthusian texts, monastic archives, and other archives—Carthusian involvement in the ecclesial world from the twelfth century onward, including Carthusians as reform bishops. Molvarec then studies late-medieval “worldly” involvement by means of the French royal Carthusian foundation at Paris, one of the earliest of the many late-medieval charterhouses founded on the edges of large cities. Coeditor Tom Gaens ranges widely and perhaps a bit disjointedly through the controversies of late-medieval reform, beginning with the monastic aspects of the Modern Devotion before considering Carthusian influence on Benedictine reform at Melk-Tegernsee against the background of the Council of Constance (specifically the controversy over abstinence from eating meat) and issues of private property ownership in both monastic and reformist clerical circles in the Low Countries. [End Page 915] Gooskens’s article on hospitals brings to light a Norbertine and Windesheim network behind hospitals of various sorts (one for lepers, another for twelve indigent retirees modeled on Cusanus’s hospital in Cues on the Moselle), noting that the Carthusians were interested in these sorts of institutions as way to reduce the number of donates clamoring to be admitted to charterhouses. Van Dijk shows how Grote’s spiritual insights developed in part during three years spent with the Carthusians at Monnikhuizen contributed to what eventually became a small regional Cistercian reform congregation that drew heavily from former Devotio Moderna communities. Claassens does detective work to trace the Latin and Middle Dutch transmission of the Vita of St. Catherine, since her canonization dossier itself states that Stephen Maconi sent a copy to Ghent at the same time that he dispatched other copies to kings and notables across Europe. (Maconi, the former “scribe” for Catherine, entered a charterhouse in accord with her dying “command” and became Prior-General of the order, 1401–10). Some typographical and syntax blemishes mar the volume (e.g., Elzas [p. 79] and “Carthusians received to all the good works of the Dominican Order” [p. 99]); they most likely arise from the book’s Dutch-English language frontier. Each essay is workmanlike in execution and rich in intrinsically interesting insights. A Fish Out of Water offers a feast for hungrily curious scholars of late-medieval religious life—no red meat here, but plenty of tasty nourishment nonetheless. Dennis D. Martin Loyola University Chicago Copyright © 2015 The Catholic University of...

Education and training, practical and scholarly knowledge in late medieval female convents

Women’s monastic foundations, since their appearance in the early days of Christianity, constituted a particular type of space for living and learning. Religious women had to have suffi cient command of Latin to carry out their liturgical duties; at the same time, their knowledge of Latin allowed them access to the scholarly traditions of the European Middle Ages. Since these women were excluded from public educational institutions, such as the Latin schools or the universities, as a rule nuns themselves assumed responsibility for educating the next generation of religious women. The various fields of knowledge taught in female foundations encompassed not only the theological, liturgical and literary, but also a sophisticated knowledge of administration and law that (in written form) was tailored towards the particular circumstances of managing, from within their monastic enclosure, the convent familia , its lands and economy. These fields of knowledge are reflected not only in the composition of their libraries but also in the written material pertaining to administration that is still preserved in monastic archives.

The Role of Buddhist Monks in the Development of Archives in the Korean Middle Ages

This study compares the roles of Buddhist monks in medieval Korea and Christian monks in medieval Europe in the development and management of archives. Buddhist and Christian monks and monasteries played similar roles in preserving both religious and secular texts, but the archival role of Christian monks was limited to monastic archives, whereas Buddhist monks were integral to the management of both monastic and secular archives. The establishment early in the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) of a centralized bureaucratic system required a centralized archival system, of which monastic archives were one branch. These monastic archives were managed by one of the major government departments of the secular authority and by Buddhist officials, who consisted largely of Buddhist monks. The findings of this study suggest that different political and social structures in medieval Korea and Europe, as well as the differing religious philosophies and cultures of Buddhism and Christianity, resulted in divergent archival d...

Z dziejów szkoły żeńskiej w Staniątkach w 2. połowie XIX wieku

The convent school for girls had been managed by Benedictines in Staniątki at least since XVI century. After the inclusion into the Austrian annexation in 1784 the transformation of the school from convent into so-called “normal” followed and it was subordinated to secular authorities organizationally and programmatically. The existence of nunnery was depended on the acceptance of school that functioned at it. The situation changed after the introduction of the autonomy in Galicia, then in 1869 the school obtained the status of the private female school, acknowledged equally with schools that had public laws. This was the boarding-school for girls and rules of functioning were qualified by internal regulations some of them remained in monastic archives. The most important aim was the education according to the religious-moral spirit and complete schooling, which gives bases to the further education. Regulations in detail defined to schoolgirls among which there was accustoming of girls to the regularity in working, the order, the sense of duty, the obedience in the face of superiors, the respect in the face of themselves and the others. The limits of behaving were clearly defined and fulfilling of duties was executed meticulously. The breaking of obligatory regulations threatened with the punishment and the expulsion from the school. The schoolgirl’s day was organised so, that all the time it was filled with the education, the prayer and the rest. The unusual attention was paid on the hygiene of the mental work, girls’ health and development and the proper formation of the character, in accordance with the accepted educational ideals.

Monastic Reading at Thorney Abbey, 1323–1347

The only records to survive from the annual Lenten distribution of books in English Benedictine abbeys are four years' notes from Thorney abbey. Although not from consecutive years, all date from the period 1324 to 1330, during the early part of the abbacy of Reynold of Water Newton (1323–47). In the last years of his tenure the monks of Thorney were found to be reading material of a less pious character: two visitations discovered that a scandalous book was circulating among them during the years 1345 to 1347. Like the survival of the Lenten distribution records, this story is unique among English monastic archives. These sources provide two distinct, yet complementary, glimpses of the reading culture at Thorney in the time of Abbot Reynold, which are discussed in turn below.

Combining Martha and Mary: Gender and Work in Seventeenth-Century English Cloisters

In the post-Reformation Church, strict monastic enclosure compounded the traditional religious and social ideologies limiting nuns' opportunities to support themselves. The English cloisters, established in France and the Low Countries, were further frustrated by their isolation from England which provided novices, alms, and much of their regular income. To survive the nuns transformed their everyday tasks into revenue-raising activities. A combination of prayer, needlework, hospitality, education, and housework generated sufficient income for most convents to withstand the economic and political hardships of the seventeenth century. These strategies can best be understood as a reworking of the centuries-old Martha/Mary metaphor, in which Martha stood for the active apostolate and Mary represented the contemplative life. Monastic archives show that the nuns reinterpreted the metaphor in such a way that they could not only gain commercial benefit from religious duties, but they could also inject different meanings into prayer and domestic chores.

Peasant Names in Fourteenth-Century Macedonia

The historian who is engaged in the study of Byzantine social history is faced with a problem common to pre-industrial societies, or societies in which the majority of the population is both exploited and illiterate. The sources, written as they are by an upper class and largely for an upper class, give relatively abundant information about a small segment of the population, leaving us in darkness about the rest of society. In Byzantine history this is particularly true about the peasantry, which has left us only a very few sources of its own, and rather uninspiring ones at that. The Byzantine upper class wrote its own history, but the Byzantine peasants did not, thus making the task of the modern historian more difficult. Despite these problems, work has been done on both the urban and the rural population of the Empire, and more will probably be done as monastic archives become available. The study of the Byzantine peasantry is of primary importance. For if we are to understand Byzantine society, we must study and understand what happened in the countryside. After all, the Byzantine economy rested on agriculture, and the social relations which determined the fate of the state were, primarily, the social relations prevalent in the countryside.

The Letters of Pope Innocent III to Ireland

The purpose of this short communication is to call attention to an attempt to establish a definitive calendar of Pope Innocent III’s letters to Ireland, and also to indicate very briefly the value of those letters. The two chief ways in which papal letters have been transmitted are through originals or through copies. Copies of letters have survived in a variety of ways: in monastic or episcopal cartularies, in the rolls of royal chancery, in collections of canon law, but for this period mainly in the official papal registers.The dispersal of monastic archives during the Reformation period, together with the deliberate destruction of papal letters after 1536, partly explains why comparatively few original papal letters of medieval popes to the British Isles have survived. For Ireland, only five original letters of Innocent III are at present known to exist. Two of these are confirmations of property: one to the monastery of St Andrew of Stokes of its possessions in Ireland; and the other to the convent of Graney. The three remaining letters are connected with the peace settlement between Pope Innocent III and King John.

Some Notes and Comments on "The Irish Franciscan Mission to Scotland" by Rev. Cathaldus Giblin, O.F.M.

The late Senator Concannon, writing many years ago on the Irish Missions to Scotland in Penal Days, commented that the work o f these zealous Irish priests had received scant acknowledgment from Scottish historians. What she said is true, but Scots Catholic historians should not be blamed too much for this state o f affairs. The fact is that in Scotland itself we have scarcely any records of the history of Catholicity in the West Highlands and Hebrides, during the Penal Era, and so far, it has not been practicable for any Scots Catholic historian to tap the rich resources of the Propaganda Fide archives at Rome, or the archives o f the various religious orders, which, from bases in Ireland, did so much to preserve Catholicity among the Scottish Gaels. It is mainly a task for the orders concerned to retrieve, from the oblivion o f their monastic archives, the names and deeds o f the seventeenth century missionaries w h o m they sent to Scotland. Such information would assuredly be welcomed by Scottish historians.