Breaching Religious Order: Towards New and Productive Uses of "Order" as a Category of Analysis in Monastic and Mendicant Scholarship
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Institute for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Leeds
Organizer Name
Kirsty Day
Organizer Affiliation
Institute for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Leeds
Presider Name
Sara Danielle Mederos
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of Lincoln
Paper Title 1
The Impact of "Incorporation": The Obstacles Posed by Grundmann’s Incorporation Paradigm to Constructions of Gender-Inclusive Histories of the Franciscan Order
Presenter 1 Name
Kirsty Day
Paper Title 2
Leyser, Vitolo, Licence, Vanderputten: Four Modern Scholars' Understandings of the Hermit Communities of the New Monasticism
Presenter 2 Name
Isabella Bolognese
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Leeds
Start Date
15-5-2015 10:00 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1320
Description
2015 marks the eighth centenary of Lateran IV, the eightieth anniversary of the publication of Herbert Grundmann’s Religious Movements, and the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of Vatican II. All three events have shaped profoundly the way in which scholars of professed religious have understood and articulated the concept of ‘order’. However, despite the fact that some scholars have called for others to use ‘order’ with greater care, the term is usually employed with casual certainty and it is rare that scholars pause to consider what might be influencing the way in which they use the term. As ‘order’ is often matched up with a certain set of behaviours or rules which are more often than not determined by modern scholarship rather than medieval source material, those groups of religious who do not adhere to these behaviours or rules are often wrongfully excluded from analyses of certain ‘orders’.
The three papers in this session examine the scholarly models that have shaped the concept of order within their fields, and to evaluate whether these models are still useful as analytical tools. All three papers will consider how ‘order’ as a concept can be used in ways that encourage productive dialogues across forms of penitential expression, and will examine the wider application and impact of ‘order’ as a category of analysis. The first paper charts the legacy that Grundmann’s paradigm of the incorporation of women into the religious orders — which forms much of the backbone of his Religious Movements — has left in scholarship on the Franciscan Order. The second paper assesses the contribution that actor-network theories can make a solution for the historical problem of articulating the Franciscan Order simultaneously as a collective of individual agents who might deviate from the Order’s ideals, and as a historical actor in its own right. The final paper examines how scholars of eremitism have interpreted the transition made by some successful hermitages into their own orders, or into pre-existing ones, and how this impacts the conceptualisation and classification of their identities in scholarship more broadly.
Breaching Religious Order: Towards New and Productive Uses of "Order" as a Category of Analysis in Monastic and Mendicant Scholarship
Schneider 1320
2015 marks the eighth centenary of Lateran IV, the eightieth anniversary of the publication of Herbert Grundmann’s Religious Movements, and the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of Vatican II. All three events have shaped profoundly the way in which scholars of professed religious have understood and articulated the concept of ‘order’. However, despite the fact that some scholars have called for others to use ‘order’ with greater care, the term is usually employed with casual certainty and it is rare that scholars pause to consider what might be influencing the way in which they use the term. As ‘order’ is often matched up with a certain set of behaviours or rules which are more often than not determined by modern scholarship rather than medieval source material, those groups of religious who do not adhere to these behaviours or rules are often wrongfully excluded from analyses of certain ‘orders’.
The three papers in this session examine the scholarly models that have shaped the concept of order within their fields, and to evaluate whether these models are still useful as analytical tools. All three papers will consider how ‘order’ as a concept can be used in ways that encourage productive dialogues across forms of penitential expression, and will examine the wider application and impact of ‘order’ as a category of analysis. The first paper charts the legacy that Grundmann’s paradigm of the incorporation of women into the religious orders — which forms much of the backbone of his Religious Movements — has left in scholarship on the Franciscan Order. The second paper assesses the contribution that actor-network theories can make a solution for the historical problem of articulating the Franciscan Order simultaneously as a collective of individual agents who might deviate from the Order’s ideals, and as a historical actor in its own right. The final paper examines how scholars of eremitism have interpreted the transition made by some successful hermitages into their own orders, or into pre-existing ones, and how this impacts the conceptualisation and classification of their identities in scholarship more broadly.