"Holy Monk-Bishops. Discourses on the Compatibility of Monasticism and Episcopacy in Hagiographic Vitae (11th-13th Centuries)"
Supervisor: Dr. Daniela Bianca Hoffmann
Student assistant: Alina Schaarschmidt
Although monks became bishops from the 4th century onwards, the monk-bishop remained a paradoxical, controversial figure in the Latin Middle Ages. This was mainly due to the fact that the monastic life required a renunciation of the world and its values, while the powerful office of bishop required an activity in the world. The High Middle Ages provided a new starting point for the question of compatibility, which had been discussed time and again since late antiquity. During this period, religiosity diversified and a more unified, pope-centered church emerged. The problem became as multifaceted as religiosity: each monastic branch had to solve it in its own way and develop its own episcopal ideals - because according to canon law, a monastic bishop had to continue to live monastically.
The project explores the paradox of monastic bishops in its literary mediation during this period; it uses vitae of holy monastic bishops from contemplative communities to examine how the lifestyles of monk and bishop could be combined in an exemplary way and merged into the ideal of a monastic bishop. The saints' vitae of Benedictine, Cistercian and Carthusian bishops written between ca. 1050 and ca. 1250 in England, France and Imperial Burgundy will be analyzed. The aim is to determine a) how the ideal of a monastic bishop was described and legitimized in the vitae, and b) to what extent the bishop ideals of the Benedictines, Cistercians and Carthusians and the associated attitudes towards the official church differed.
The project aims to fill a research gap by systematically and comparatively examining the bishop ideals of various monastic branches in the High Middle Ages for the first time. At the same time, it aims to make a contribution to the controversial question of whether monastic traits in the bishop's ideal gained or lost importance as a result of church reform and the investiture dispute.