Rethinking Reform I: The Portrayal of Religious Change in Gesta and Vitae Episcoporum and Abbatum

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Episcopus: Society for the Study of Bishops and Secular Clergy in the Middle Ages

Organizer Name

Maureen C. Miller, William L. North

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of California-Berkeley, Carleton College

Presider Name

Steven Vanderputten

Presider Affiliation

Univ. Gent

Paper Title 1

"Reform" in Monastic Writings in Tenth- and Early Eleventh-Century Lotharingia

Presenter 1 Name

Julia Barrow

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Leeds

Paper Title 2

Peace out of Captivity: Medieval Church Reform from Practice to Ideology

Presenter 2 Name

Jehangir Yezdi Malegam

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Duke Univ.

Paper Title 3

"Aut damnat aut corrigit": A Digital Search for the Origins of Gregorian Church Reform Language

Presenter 3 Name

Kalani Craig

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Indiana Univ.-Bloomington

Start Date

9-5-2014 10:00 AM

Session Location

Bernhard 213

Description

This panel focuses on the language and narratives of religious change found specifically in the genres of episcopal vitae or gestae episcoporum or abbatum. When and how does language denoting correction, emendation, renovation, or reform appear in these genres? What tropes of rebirth, improvement, or return to ancient ideals recur, and what actions and qualities are characterized or associated with such rhetoric? To what ends or purposes is such language deployed: why are discourses of reform invoked?

John S. Ott