The Trauma of Monastic Reform
Community and Conflict in Twelfth-Century Germany

This is study of the lived experience of monastic reform within the troubled and violent landscape of twelfth-century Germany.

Alison I. Beach (Author)

9781108417310, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 November 2017

200 pages, 13 b/w illus. 4 maps 4 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.44 kg

'… The Trauma of Monastic Reform is a valuable and insightful book.' Phyllis G. Jestice, The American Historical Review

This book opens a window on the lived experience of monastic reform in the twelfth century. Drawing on a variety of textual and material sources from the south German monastery of Petershausen, it begins with the local process of reform and moves out into intertwined regional social, political, and ecclesiastical landscapes. Beach reveals how the shock of reform initiated decades of anxiety at Petershausen and raised doubts about the community's communal identity, its shifting internal contours and boundaries, and its place within the broader spiritual and social landscapes of Constance and Swabia. The Trauma of Monastic Reform goes beyond reading monastic narratives of reform as retrospective expressions of support for the deeds and ideals of a past generation of reformers to explore the real human impact that the process could have, both on the individuals who comprised the target community and on those who lived for generations in its aftermath.

Prologue: Felix Mater Constantia
1. Raw cloth unto old garments: monastic reform as cultural trauma
2. Because they destroyed the beauty of my house: trauma in the core community
3. Rootstock of the living vines: the arrival of The Bearded Brothers
4. Women among the Apostles? The complexities of the double monastery
5. Cockle among the wheat: Petershausen as agent of reform
6. A whole kingdom laid waste: Petershausen and its patrons in a violent landscape
Epilogue
Postscript
Appendix 1: a manuscript in a reformed landscape
Appendix 2: timeline of events.

Subject Areas: Religious communities & monasticism [HRLP7], Church history [HRCC2], Christianity [HRC], History of religion [HRAX], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Medieval history [HBLC1]