A Medieval Food List from the Monastery of Cluny

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
kirk ambrose
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Medieval Food

The sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict places a premium on silence and proscribes speaking at various times, including during meals. In keeping with the spirit of this mandate, the monks of Cluny, an extremely wealthy and powerful monastery in southern Burgundy, placed a premium on silence from a very early date. The earliest descriptions of a sign language used at Cluny are recorded in two of the monastery's customaries, compiled during the last quarter of the eleventh century. A host of signals are described, but, tellingly, these lists begin with those for food. There were practical reasons for this, namely mandated silence in the refectory, but it also might evidence the relish with which monks enjoyed their food. Indeed, the translation offered here suggests that the monks ate very well. Because the signals translated here are almost exclusively substantives, it would be nearly impossible to communicate any but the most rudimentary thoughts. That entire conversations were possible by means of gestures is suggested by contemporary criticisms of monks chattering away with hand signals. For our purposes, this would confirm the likely suspicion that the medieval monk enjoyed an even greater variety of foods than indicated here.

The Letter Collection of Barsanuphius and John

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hevelone-Harper
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Spiritual Direction ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Wide Group ◽  
Civic Officials ◽  
Old Men ◽  
Letter Collection

The voluminous letter collection of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza contains 850 letters written by the two sixth-century anchorites who lived in cells near the monastery of Abbot Seridos in Tawatha a village a few miles southwest of Gaza. Barsanuphius and John, referred to as the Old Men of Gaza, were ascetic colleagues who wrote letters of spiritual direction to a wide group of disciples. The earliest manuscripts containing this correspondence date to the eleventh century; however, the collection was originally compiled by a member of Barsanuphius and John’s own monastic community (perhaps Dorotheos of Gaza) shortly after the death of John and the complete seclusion of Barsanuphius. The monk who compiled the collection followed a traditional practice among ancient editors, grouping the letters according to addressees, rather than chronologically. The collection begins with letters to individually named monks and continues with letters addressed to unidentified monks or the brothers of community collectively. The collection contains a series of letters to Aelianos, a layman newly elected as abbot of the monastery, and a large group of letters to lay Christians who sought spiritual guidance from the anchorites. The collection concludes with letters concerning episcopal elections in Gaza and Jerusalem and correspondence to civic officials and bishops in the region.

Agathias and Cedrenus on Julian

1963 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 91-94
Author(s):  
Averil M. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century

In a recent article, Sir Maurice Bowra accepted the view of E. A. Thompson that the Emperor Julian did receive a Delphic oracle before setting off for the East—the lines quoted by Theodoret (HE III, 21, p. 200, Parmentier, and again in the Graec. Affect. Curatio, PG 83, 1069), and repeated by the eleventh-century Byzantine chronicler Cedrenus (1, p. 538, Bonn). When Cedrenus introduces the oracle he cites Agathias, the sixth-century historian: Ίουλιαòς δὲ μαντείαις καὶ θυσίαις καὶ ἐπῳδαῖς δαιμόνων καὶ ἀπάταις φραξάμενος, ὡς φησὶν Άγαθίας, κατὰ Περσῶν ἐστράτευσεν, ὅτε καὶ χρησμὸν ἔλαβεν ἔχοντα οὕτως…. Bowra therefore assumed that Cedrenus took his oracle from Agathias, ‘who may well have got his information from Theodoret’ (o.c., p. 428). And he also speaks of ‘the occasion mentioned, in different ways’ by Theodoret, Agathias, and Cedrenus, as though the fact of Cedrenus's having the oracle added something to the value of the story.

English Regular Canons and the Continent in the Twelfth Century

1951 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 71-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Common Life ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
The Ideal

The ideal of the regular canons originated in the fumbling, sporadic response of public opinion in the Western Church to that programme of a complete common life for clerical communities to which the Lateran Councils of 1059 and 1063 had given oecumenical recognition. It had at that time taken root only in central Italy and the extreme south of France. Thereafter it spread rapidly in most of southern and north-eastern France, though in Normandy there was no house of regular canons until c. 1119 and none in Brittany till 1130. The order flourished in the Rheims area from an early date, and it is here, in the seventies of the eleventh century, that we find the first traces of the Rule of St. Augustine being adopted by regular canons. Yet it was long before regular canons uniformly served this Rule, and in the second and third decades of the following century writers as far apart as Liége and Ravenna would speak of it very cavalierly.

The Library at Monte Cassino

2020 ◽  
pp. 788-804
Author(s):  
Francis Newton
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Constantine The African ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the library at Monte Cassino from the earliest known manuscripts beginning with the time of St. Benedict in the sixth century, continuing through the better Carolingian period and the monastery’s Golden Age in the eleventh century under Abbots Desiderius and Oderisius, and ending in the thirteenth century. Illustrious teachers and writers, including Paul the Deacon, Alberic, Alfanus, Constantine the African, Amatus, and Peter the Deacon, are discussed, as is the abbey’s production of important classical and patristic texts.

The Nave Roof and other Timberwork at the Church of St Mary, Kempley, Gloucestershire: Dendrochronological Dating

2000 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 294-296
Author(s):  
Beric M Morley ◽  
Daniel W H Miles
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Masonry Structure ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Early Date ◽  
The Church

A description and analysis of the early roof at Kempley was published in the Journal fifteen years ago. At that time the roof was under repair and could be examined closely. Despite alterations in the seventeenth century, it was possible to reconstruct its original form on paper (fig 1). Its construction, in oak, with simple bare-faced lap-dovetail joints, and all members either horizontal or vertical, suggested an early date. The only direct parallels are on the Continent. The trusses could be shown to be integral with the walls, and a review of the evidence for the date of the masonry structure gave four possible models, two in the eleventh century and two at a date loosely referred to as ‘around 1120’. The author expressed a preference for the later date, and the arguments that supported it. Even so, if correct, it suggested that this was the earliest nave roof surviving in Britain.

The Sacrificium

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Rebecca Maloy
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Textual Structure ◽  
Liturgical Year

This chapter introduces the Old Hispanic offertory chant, called the sacrificium, as a prelude to the closer analysis presented in subsequent chapters. The author considers the musical and textual structure of the genre, its performance, and the thematic shape of the repertory as a whole. The genre connects thematically to Isidore of Seville’s description of the genre. Although the genre is likely to have emerged in the sixth century, a handful of sacrificia are probabe additions from the tenth or eleventh century. The use of different biblical versions suggests that these chants were created a different times, rather than being the product of a single effort. The texts develop the theme of sacrifice, themes associated with each part of the liturgical year, and with general characteristics of sainthood. The creators of the repertory used and adapted scripture to enhance these themes, sometimes in ways that were typical of the genre.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
pp. 188-192
Author(s):  
Kriston R. Rennie
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Interpretive Paradigm ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Legal Position ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
The Subject

The practice of monastic exemption changed forever in the late eleventh century. Most modern studies on the subject, in fact, begin their accounts with the pontificate of Urban II (1088–99). Paul Fabre is largely responsible for this enduring chronology and interpretive paradigm. He argued for the papacy’s intervention in a monastery’s spiritual affairs, which in turn marked a reversal of fortunes for the diocesan bishop, where previously he had maintained a foothold through the power of ordination. There is some truth to this claim, even if – as this book has demonstrated – the papacy’s involvement was a constant in monastic life and governance since the late sixth century. This landmark shift in monastic exemption practice nevertheless offers a fitting conclusion to this book. It signals a changing institutional and ideological character that provided a good constitutional model to twelfth-and thirteenth-century popes and canonists. The result was a decidedly more permanent dimension to monastic exemption, which served to define the papacy’s authority over secular and ecclesiastical authorities and the latter’s position within monastic communities. In this respect, exemptions from the late eleventh century came to be used as legislative expressions of the papacy’s proprietary rights – ties of dependency and promises of apostolic protection, whose special relationship provided monasteries with a profitable legal position....

The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes

PMLA ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-520
Author(s):  
John J. Parry
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Early Date

There is a persistent Welsh tradition, going back to very early times, that there were poets in the sixth century, among whom [A]neirin et Taliessin “in poemate brittannico claruerunt.” To these poets Welsh scholarship has given the name of Cynfeirdd or “Primitive Poets.” Recent research has done much to establish the fact that some of the poems credited to them are genuine productions of the early seventh century, and others, including those centering around the name of Llywarch the Old (Hên), belong to the mid ninth century. There are, however, sceptics who refuse to admit the existence of native poetry at such an early date, and hold that all the poems (except two short ones that were actually written down in the ninth and tenth centuries), belong to a period after the Norman Conquest.

Universals, Indian theories of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Taber
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
General Terms

Indian philosophers postulated universals for two principal reasons: to serve as the ‘eternal’ meanings of words, upon which the eternality of language – in particular, the Hindu scriptures, the Veda – is based, and to account for why we conceive of things as being of certain types. However, universals were seen as problematic in various ways. How can something exist simultaneously in numerous individuals without being divided into parts? How can a universal, which is supposed to be eternal, continue to exist if all its substrata are destroyed? In what sense can a universal be said to ‘exist’ at all? Is a universal distinct from or identical with the individuals in which it inheres? In light of such difficulties, it is not surprising that certain other Indian philosophers – specifically Buddhist philosophers, who did not accept the doctrine of the eternality of the Veda – rejected universals and took up a nominalist stance. They held that general terms refer to mentally constructed ‘exclusion classes’, apohas. The use of the term ‘cow’, for example, is grounded not on some positive entity common to all cows but on the idea of the class of things that are different from all things that are not cows. This proposal, which originated with Dignāga in the sixth century ad, was debated vigorously until the eleventh century.

Le monastère de Qol-e-Tut à la lumière des fouilles archéologiques

Afghanistan ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zafar Paiman
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Group A

The monastery is situated on a hillside south of the citadel of Kabul, in an area rich in Buddhist sites. The excavations begun in 2013 by the Afghan Institute of Archaeology has so far uncovered eighteen chapels on ten terraces containing the remains of colossal clay polychromatic bodhisattvas. Their number suggests that the site was dedicated to them. Only one chapel is occupied by a monumental Buddha, his stance, size and style showing him to be unique in the region. At the heart of the group a prayer room with benches and an enigmatic central circular element, surrounded by the bases of four columns, opens on to three chapels. The coins and ceramics discovered at Qol-e-Tut indicate that its existence extends at the earliest from the sixth century to at least the end of the eleventh century. This complex site therefore testifies to the remarkable development of Buddhist art in Kabul, to its originality and sustainability throughout the reign of the Hephtalites and the Hindu-Shahis, as has already been suggested by our excavations of the nearby monastery of Tepe Narenj. Together this contradicts the ancient Arab and Persian accounts dating the Islamisation of Kabul to the second half of the seventh century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document