Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T20:53:11.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Ritual Communities and Social Cohesion in Merovingian Gaul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2023

Dolores Castro
Affiliation:
Universidad de General Sarmiento, Argentina
Fernando Ruchesi
Affiliation:
Universitat de Lleida
Get access

Summary

Abstract

This chapter traces the development of elite sponsorship of monastic communities in Merovingian Gaul with a particular focus on the seventh century. This period witnessed a revolution in social, religious, and political praxis whereby monastic culture became entangled with the expression and exercise of secular authority (and which would have long-lasting consequences for the Carolingian world and beyond). While this phenomenon has largely been approached from political and socioeconomic perspectives, this contribution explores the underlying religious foundations and dynamics of this movement and how this complimented broader sociological developments. It applies the work of the cultural anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse on ritual and social cohesion to explain some of the reasons why this transformation in ritual practice by the Frankish elites took place.

Keywords: Merovingian Gaul, Columbanus, monasticism, ritual, seventh century, Harvey Whitehouse

Sometime towards the end of the sixth century a wandering holy man and his small band of companions came to the court of a Frankish king. The holy man was going to continue on his journey, but the king begged him to stay – everything would be provided for if he remained within the bounds of the kingdom. At length, the holy man was persuaded by the king’s arguments – he would satisfy his desire to follow Christ by finding an ascetic retreat in the wilderness, while his presence would contribute to the salvation of the king and his people.

Whatever the truth of this story about the encounter between the Irish peregrinus Columbanus and King Sigibert I (d. 575) that led to the establishment of Annegray, Columbanus’s first monastic foundation on the Continent, its author, Jonas of Bobbio, used it to illustrate the reciprocal relationship that, by the mid-seventh century, had now become commonplace between monastic founders and the Frankish elite. Annegray was the first in a series of monastic foundations that continued well into the seventh century that would transform the inter-relationship between monastic groups and secular authorities in the early Middle Ages.

Within a century of Columbanus’s death in 615, more than a hundred new monasteries had been founded in the Merovingian kingdom.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×