Alexander O'Hara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190857967
- eISBN:
- 9780190857998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190857967.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter considers Columbanus’s cultural background and how this influenced his dealings with women, both in early medieval Ireland and on the Continent. In particular, women as inspiration, ...
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This chapter considers Columbanus’s cultural background and how this influenced his dealings with women, both in early medieval Ireland and on the Continent. In particular, women as inspiration, patrons, and antagonists are portrayed as having had a formative influence on Columbanus, primarily in the Vita Columbani, written by Jonas of Bobbio. To what extent are these relationships true of Columbanus’s own experience? In order to tease this out more fully special attention will be given to women such as Columbanus’s unnamed mother as well as to the powerful queens, Brunhild and Theodelinda.Less
This chapter considers Columbanus’s cultural background and how this influenced his dealings with women, both in early medieval Ireland and on the Continent. In particular, women as inspiration, patrons, and antagonists are portrayed as having had a formative influence on Columbanus, primarily in the Vita Columbani, written by Jonas of Bobbio. To what extent are these relationships true of Columbanus’s own experience? In order to tease this out more fully special attention will be given to women such as Columbanus’s unnamed mother as well as to the powerful queens, Brunhild and Theodelinda.
Alexander O'Hara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190858001
- eISBN:
- 9780190858032
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190858001.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Jonas of Bobbio, writing in the mid-seventh century, was not only a major Latin monastic author but also a historic figure in his own right. Born in the ancient Roman town of Susa in the foothills of ...
More
Jonas of Bobbio, writing in the mid-seventh century, was not only a major Latin monastic author but also a historic figure in his own right. Born in the ancient Roman town of Susa in the foothills of the Italian Alps, he became a monk of Bobbio, the monastery founded by the Irish abbot Columbanus, soon after the saint’s death. He became archivist and personal assistant to successive Bobbio abbots, traveled to Rome to obtain the first papal privilege of immunity, and served as a missionary on the northern borderlands of the Frankish kingdom, where he wrote his Vita Columbani, one of the most influential works of early medieval hagiography. As abbot of a community in the far north of the Frankish kingdom, Jonas was part of an extensive monastic network that stretched from the English Channel to the Italian Apennines. By the time of Jonas’s death toward the end of the seventh century, the monastic landscape of this region had been transformed. This was the result of a socioreligious revolution, initiated by Columbanus (d. 615) and continued by his Frankish disciples in the decades after his death. Columbanus established a cluster of monasteries in the Vosges forests of Burgundy in the last decade of the sixth century, chief among them Luxeuil. During the seventh century, Luxeuil, its abbots, and the Merovingian royal court in Paris spearheaded an unprecedented monastic movement in Merovingian Gaul that would transform the interrelationship between religious and secular authorities in the Early Middle Ages.Less
Jonas of Bobbio, writing in the mid-seventh century, was not only a major Latin monastic author but also a historic figure in his own right. Born in the ancient Roman town of Susa in the foothills of the Italian Alps, he became a monk of Bobbio, the monastery founded by the Irish abbot Columbanus, soon after the saint’s death. He became archivist and personal assistant to successive Bobbio abbots, traveled to Rome to obtain the first papal privilege of immunity, and served as a missionary on the northern borderlands of the Frankish kingdom, where he wrote his Vita Columbani, one of the most influential works of early medieval hagiography. As abbot of a community in the far north of the Frankish kingdom, Jonas was part of an extensive monastic network that stretched from the English Channel to the Italian Apennines. By the time of Jonas’s death toward the end of the seventh century, the monastic landscape of this region had been transformed. This was the result of a socioreligious revolution, initiated by Columbanus (d. 615) and continued by his Frankish disciples in the decades after his death. Columbanus established a cluster of monasteries in the Vosges forests of Burgundy in the last decade of the sixth century, chief among them Luxeuil. During the seventh century, Luxeuil, its abbots, and the Merovingian royal court in Paris spearheaded an unprecedented monastic movement in Merovingian Gaul that would transform the interrelationship between religious and secular authorities in the Early Middle Ages.
Alexander O'Hara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190858001
- eISBN:
- 9780190858032
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190858001.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter introduces this book’s main issues and questions. How were hagiographic texts used in the discourse of creating or recreating monastic identities? Was there a change in the social ...
More
This chapter introduces this book’s main issues and questions. How were hagiographic texts used in the discourse of creating or recreating monastic identities? Was there a change in the social function of monasteries, and how did this come about? What was innovative about Jonas’s Vita Columbani, and how did he seek to establish new concepts of sanctity based on the community rather than on the individual holy man? It broaches these questions while framing the principal characters and subjects of the book—the life and works of Jonas of Bobbio, Columbanus, and the Columbanian monastic network—within the wider context of the religious and cultural developments of Late Antiquity. It also provides a historiographical introduction to previous scholarship on Jonas and an overview of Jonas’s three saints’ Lives.Less
This chapter introduces this book’s main issues and questions. How were hagiographic texts used in the discourse of creating or recreating monastic identities? Was there a change in the social function of monasteries, and how did this come about? What was innovative about Jonas’s Vita Columbani, and how did he seek to establish new concepts of sanctity based on the community rather than on the individual holy man? It broaches these questions while framing the principal characters and subjects of the book—the life and works of Jonas of Bobbio, Columbanus, and the Columbanian monastic network—within the wider context of the religious and cultural developments of Late Antiquity. It also provides a historiographical introduction to previous scholarship on Jonas and an overview of Jonas’s three saints’ Lives.
Alexander O'Hara
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190858001
- eISBN:
- 9780190858032
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190858001.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter looks at important aspects of Jonas of Bobbio’s hagiography in relation to the broader political and social changes of the seventh century. The chapter deals with the writing and the use ...
More
This chapter looks at important aspects of Jonas of Bobbio’s hagiography in relation to the broader political and social changes of the seventh century. The chapter deals with the writing and the use of hagiography in the political sphere and with the increasing prominence of the Frankish aristocracy in hagiographic texts from this period. It also traces the growing alliance between the monasteries and the secular authorities during this time and explores changing ideas in relation to sanctity whereby there is an increasing focus on the sacredness of the monastic community and institution rather than on individual, charismatic holy men.Less
This chapter looks at important aspects of Jonas of Bobbio’s hagiography in relation to the broader political and social changes of the seventh century. The chapter deals with the writing and the use of hagiography in the political sphere and with the increasing prominence of the Frankish aristocracy in hagiographic texts from this period. It also traces the growing alliance between the monasteries and the secular authorities during this time and explores changing ideas in relation to sanctity whereby there is an increasing focus on the sacredness of the monastic community and institution rather than on individual, charismatic holy men.
