Please join us on Friday, February 10, at 7 p.m. in the Pearl Kibre Medieval Study (Room 5105) of the CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave.) for the following paper and our customary pot-luck refreshments:

David A. Heayn
Department of History
Graduate Center, City University of New York

“A Case Study of Byzantine Monasticism in Two Anatolian Provinces, ca. 500-700”

Monasticism has long been recognized by scholars as one of the most important socio-religious institutions of the Byzantine world. The lives of monastic holy men and women captivate audiences with their narratives of miraculous events, religious commitment and ascetic acts. In Anatolia it was during the 6th and 7th centuries that the monastic tradition and its institutions developed and matured. The vitae of St. Nicholas of Sion and St Theodore of Sykeon provide substantial information regarding the social, economic, religious and cultural character of Anatolia and can therefore inform our understanding of monasticism and eastern Christianity more broadly as an important religious and social phenomenon that allows us to explore the nature of monasticism and its place in society. An analysis of Anatolian vitae provides a context for the development of monasticism during this period and allows us to understand the role of monasteries in Byzantine culture and society. Coupled with archaeological evidence of monastic life in Anatolia, a richness of data emerges capable of providing a greater understanding of Byzantine monasticism. Therefore this paper investigates the institutional development and character of early Byzantine monasticism through case studies in two Anatolian provinces, Lycia and Galatia, integrating hagiographic and archaeological evidence in order to illuminate the variation that existed within the monastic tradition of these regions in the 6th and 7th centuries. The political, religious and geographic environment of the two provinces provided room for innovation and consequently led to the creation of a regional monastic tradition, distinct from the capital and other eastern provinces. It was the combination of an existing widespread pre-6th century Christian rigorist religious culture and the largely rural social structures of the two provinces that resulted in the development of a unique tradition. Beyond describing the details of the monastic tradition in these regions a central contention of this paper regards the manner in which communities of holy men and women created and controlled a sacred landscape increasingly impinged upon by the urban imperial Church. This reorientation of scholarship towards two of the least studied provinces of the Byzantine monastic world confronts and modifies Peter Brown’s holy man, adding greater nuance to the model by providing greater context for the function of the holy man, the society, and the hagiography that produced the phenomenon.