I hope you enjoyed the first lecture and tutorial. Having moved *very* briskly through the Late Roman Empire, this week we're going to be thinking about the ways that Christianity structured life - at least for some people - in the Early Medieval World.
This image shows a plan of a monastery drawn up in a place called Reichenau sometime in the early 9th century (about 819-826 A.D.). It's known as the St Gall Monastery Plan, because it's been stored in the library of St Gall monastery, almost since it was made. The actual artefact is massive; it's made of five pieces of parchment sewn together, and measures 112 cm x 77.5 cm. I've chosen this image to stimulate your thoughts this week because scholars think that this plan isn't a plan at all... In other words, it's not like an architect's drawing to help builders to construct a monastery, or even a drawing of what the floorplan of an actual set of buildings looked like. Instead, they think it might be a kind of map of the ideal organisation of a monastery, and maybe therefore a visual metaphor for the ideal organisation of Christian life.
So when you're reading and preparing for this week, it might be useful to think about what kinds of ideal Christian organisation the readings are discussing. What are they saying about how monks should live? Or about other Christians? What did this organisation represent; what was it for? Or perhaps you have other responses...!
If you have 'time', you might also want to think about how differently from us medieval people thought about time itself. How does the Benedictine Rule structure the hours of the day?
Post your thoughts, comments, ideas, questions or uncertainties below, and we'll discuss further when we meet on Monday.
Have a great week!
Kathleen
P.S. You can read more about the St Gall Plan and zoom in to see the amazing detail here: http://www.stgallplan.org/en/
P.P.S. You can find out more about medieval concepts of dates and times here: http://www.gardenhistoryinfo.com/medieval/medtime.html
2 comments:
The "Rule of St. Benedict" seems to be a Medieval FAQ sheet. In many ways the "St Gall Monastery Plan" seem to very similar in principle; they both dictate the exact design to which such houses of worship should operate. They indicate in many ways that while many Medieval people sought to dedicate their lives to the love of God, it was also highly important to do so in what was percieved to be the 'right way'. Both sources seem to represent the constriction of independent thought in favour of absolute trust in authority as well as the overwhelming notion that the worship of God should be pure, regimented and most notably, universal. The Church was obviously far-reaching and intended to continue expand, therefore plans to instruct the world in Catholicism needed to be made- the earliest of which I think we see here.
I think you're right to note the importance of universalism and uniformity in religious practice Stephanie, and to notice that the 'right way' to lead a religious life imagined here essentially involves regimented self-denial. One question to lead off from this might be to what extent do you think this was the practice envisaged for all Christians? Or was it the 'task' of a minority?
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