Document Type

Article

Date

Winter 2022

Keywords

Jonas of Bobbio, Gregory of Tours, Columbanian monasticism, Merovingian Francia, Hagiography

Language

English

Disciplines

History | History of Christianity | Medieval History

Description/Abstract

T his contribution proposes different notions of "monastic landscapes" (geographic, political, textual, economic, spiritual) and discusses whether applying them to the monastic movement allegedly initiated by Columbanus may help us to refine or deconstruct the concept of "Columbanian monasticism." Comparing evidence on monastic life in Gregory of Tours' hagiographic and historiographic works with the depiction of monastic life in Jonas of Bobbio's Vita Columbani shows that we can indeed identify a shift from a "landscape with monasteries" in sixth-century Merovingian Francia to a politically integrated "monastic landscape" in the seventh century. However, this does not mean that the fundamental shift was necessarily the result of the activities of the Irish monk Columbanus. An investigation of Jonas' depiction of the spiritual and physical landscape around Columbanus' main foundation Luxeuil shows the grade of continuity between monastic foundations in Gaul before Columbanus and the alleged center of a new "Columbanian" monastic movement.

ISSN

2014-7023

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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