Book contents
- Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine
- Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future
- I. The Monastic Estate
- II. Production and Consumption of Food and Material Goods
- III. Monastic Encounters: Travel, Pilgrimage, and Donations
- Glossary
- Index
- References
1 - The Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2023
- Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine
- Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Monastic Economies in Late Antique Egypt and Palestine: Past, Present, and Future
- I. The Monastic Estate
- II. Production and Consumption of Food and Material Goods
- III. Monastic Encounters: Travel, Pilgrimage, and Donations
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Summary
In the late 1970s, the American artist, Stanley Roseman, undertook a project entitled The Monastic Life, during which he visited sixty monasteries located throughout Europe. He participated in their daily life and ‘made drawings of monks and nuns at prayer, work, and study. He drew them at the communal worship in church and in meditation in the quietude of their cells.’1 Roseman’s 1979 chalk on paper drawing of Benedictine monks at the Abbaye de Solesmes in France depicts two men with shaven heads who are dressed in long hooded robes. They are bent forward with their faces anchored towards the ground. Their eyes are closed, and their hands are carefully placed on their thighs. The men stand alone: they are the focus of the artist’s composition; they exist in isolation from their background; they are still, serene, frozen in perpetual worship and detached from their contemporary world. This is the essence of monastic life – the ideal – but it is not the full story.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023