This title was first published in 2000: This is a full-scale integrated synthesis of the origins, spread and effects of monasticism in Scandinavia, and along the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea. Beginning with a review of the geography and communications by land and, especially, by sea, of the region, the author goes on to describe early monasticism among the Frisians ,Saxons and the Danes, then in Norway and Sweden, Saxony, Slesvig and Ribe, and finally Pomerania and the southern and eastern Baltic littoral. Throughout the book he stresses the place of abbeys and convents within their local surroundings, as centres of conversion, recruitment and redistribution of wealth. He traces the intellectual, literary and liturgical connections between monastic centres and neighbouring cathedral towns and royal strongholds, and the means by which orders or congregations maintained discipline from the centre. He also describes the leaders who emerged from convent, abbey or congregation to command local and regional political and cultural life, and the ways in which monastic centres influenced popular devotion.

This work is a full-scale integrated synthesis of the origins, spread and effects of monasticism in Scandinavia, and along the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea. Beginning with a review of the geography and communications by land and, especially, by sea, of the region, Nyberg goes on to describe early monasticism among the Frisians, Saxons and the Danes, then in Norway and Sweden, Saxony, Slesvig and Ribe, and finally Pomerania and the southern and eastern Baltic littoral. Throughout the book he stresses the place of abbeys and convents within their local surroundings, as centres of conversion, recruitment and redistribution of wealth. He traces the intellectual, literary and liturgical connections between monastic centres and neighbouring cathedral towns and royal strongholds, and the means by which orders or congregations maintained discipline from the centre. He also describes the leaders who emerged from convent, abbey or congregation to command local and regional political and cultural life, and the ways in which monastic centres influenced popular devotion.

While both regular canons and monasticism with its development into different orders have reached a roughly even level of coverage in research, the history of secular canons is a field which has hitherto been far less in focus of historian scholarship. This might be due to the fact that they did not form orders or congregations offering a systematic approach to their institutions. Hence the pieces of research carried out so far mostly deal with a single cathedral or collegiate chapter and do not expand on the phenomenon in general. Likewise, the present publication may not give a comprehensive survey but yet takes a comparative approach by regarding the establishment of secular canons in a European longitudinal section from the Polar Circle to Southern Italy. In this course, both cathedral and collegiate chapters in Scandinavian, German, Polish and Italian territories and the respective career paths canons took into them will be considered. In this course, the essays take only some brief recourses to the early middle ages, when canons maintained a cloistered vita communis, but rather turn their view to those centuries in the high and later middle ages up to reformation times, when the chapters reached their full implementation. The essays collected in this volume base on a session series held at the International Medieval Congress 2018 in Leeds. The contributors are renowned historians in this field: Antonio Antonetti (Caserta), Anna Minara Ciardi (Stockholm), Emanuele Curzel (Trento), Sigrun Høgetveit Berg (Tromsø), Jochen Johrendt (Wuppertal), Anna Kowalska-Pietrzak (Łódź), Arnold Otto (Nürnberg), Kirsi Salonen (Turku), Jörg Wunschhofer (Beckum).

A major new history of medieval monasticism, from the fourth to the sixteenth century From the late Roman Empire onwards, monasteries and convents were a common sight throughout Europe. But who were monasteries for? What kind of people founded and maintained them? And how did monasticism change over the thousand years or so of the Middle Ages? Andrew Jotischky traces the history of monastic life from its origins in the fourth century to the sixteenth. He shows how religious houses sheltered the poor and elderly, cared for the sick, and educated the young. They were centres of intellectual life that owned property and exercised power but also gave rise to new developments in theology, music, and art. This book brings together the Orthodox and western stories, as well as the experiences of women, to show the full picture of medieval monasticism for the first time. It is a fascinating, wide-ranging account that broadens our understanding of life in holy orders as never before.

This book provides an overview of medieval monasticism in Iceland, from its dawn to its downfall during the Reformation. Blending the evidence from material remains and written documents, Monastic Iceland highlights the realities of everyday life in the male and female monasteries operated in Iceland. The book describes the incorporation of monasticism into the Icelandic society, the alleged land of the Vikings, and thus how the monasteries coexisted with the natural and social environments on the island while keeping their general aims and objectives. The book shows that large social systems, such as monasticism, can cross social and natural borders without necessitating fundamental changes apart from those triggered by the constant coexistence of nature and culture inside the environment they exist within. The evidence provided debunks the myth that Icelandic monasteries, male or female, were isolated, silent places or simple cells functioning principally as retirement homes for aristocrats. To be a member of an ecclesiastical institution did not mean a quiet, secluded life without any outside interaction, but rather active participation in the surrounding community. The book is for researchers in archaeology, osteology, and medieval history, in addition to all those interested in monasticism and the medieval history of northern Europe.

This volume which also appeared as a special issue of Medieval Encounters deals with transformations of the major Eurasian civilizations in the early second millennium CE, and with the question of contrasts, parallels and connections between the different trajectories that took shape during this period. An introductory section discusses the theoretical problems of comparative analysis, with particular reference to formative phases of cultural crystallization. The first main thematic section focuses on European developments. The emergence of Western Christendom as a distinctive civilization is analyzed in a broader Eurasian context. Other contributions examine the Europeanization of northern and eastern peripheries, as well as the different course of events in the Byzantine world. The last section covers socio-cultural changes in non-European regions - the Islamic world, India, China and Japan - and concludes with a discussion of the Eurasian empire created by the Mongols. With contributions by Thomas Lindkvist; Sverre Bagge; Paul Jakov Smith; Paul Stephenson; Mikael Adolphson; Dr. Michal Biran; Said A. Arjomand; Gábor Klaniczay; R. I. Moore; Sheldon Pollock.

Unlike monks and nuns, clergy have hitherto been sidelined in accounts of the Middle Ages, but they played an important role in medieval society. This first broad-ranging study in English of the secular clergy examines how ordination provided a framework for clerical life cycles and outlines the influence exerted on secular clergy by monastic ideals before tracing typical career paths for clerics. Concentrating on northern France, England and Germany in the period c.800–c.1200, Julia Barrow explores how entry into the clergy usually occurred in childhood, with parents making decisions for their sons, although other relatives, chiefly clerical uncles, were also influential. By comparing two main types of family structure, Barrow supplies an explanation of why Gregorian reformers faced little serious opposition in demanding an end to clerical marriage in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Changes in educational provision c.1100 also help to explain growing social and geographical mobility among clerics.