“Excavating the Excavations” of Early Monastic Education

This paper explores the ways in which narrative caricatures of a-literate rustic monks continue to shape encounters with the material record of early monastic life. It argues that long-standing assertion of widespread monastic resistance to literate pursuits, has not only influenced the identification of monastic school artifacts, but derivatively, the interpretation, fragmentation, classification, and dispersal of such material remains across disparate museum collections, throughout the world. To illustrate, four sets of monastic artifacts, that arguably attest ongoing investment in literate pursuits, are re-examined. Challenging traditional tropes of monastic rusticity, each example demonstrates the value of reading narrative sources in light of broader practice, and in conversation with extant material evidence. Each underscores the usefulness of ‘excavating the excavations’ of early monastic life, with a pedagogical hermeneutic in mind.

Archaeology · Art · Excavation · Geology · History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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