MEDIEVAL ANCHORITES IN THEIR COMMUNITIES.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gunn, Cate.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hermits--England--History--Congresses.

Hermits.

Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500--Congresses.

Church history.

Church history--Middle Ages.

History.

England.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

History.

Physical Description:

254 pages

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : D S BREWER, 2017.

Summary:

Much of the research into medieval anchoritism to date has focused primarily on its liminal and elite status within the socio-religious cultures of its day. The anchorite has long been depicted as both solitary and alone, almost entirely removed from community and living a life of permanent withdrawal and isolation: in effect dead to the world. The essays in this volume, stemming from a variety of cross-disciplinary approaches and methodologies, lay down a challenge to this position, breaking new ground in their presentation of the medieval anchorite and other types of enclosed solitary as playing a central role within the devotional life of a whole range of complex and multifaceted communities: ones that were simultaneously synchronic and diachronic, physical and metaphysical, religious, secular, textual - and gendered. It therefore offers its readers a new way of understanding the operations of the solitary life in the Middle Ages and its interdependence with a whole array of communities, ultimately adding to our knowledge of how spiritual "aloneness" could be pursued ardently, even in the midst of communal interaction.

ISBN:

1843844621

9781843844624

OCLC:

962017016