30 - Interactions between Monks and the Lay Nobility (from the Carolingian Era through the Eleventh Century)

Summary

The concept of interaction between monks and nuns and the lay nobility may at first seem paradoxical. After all, the monastic project had initially been conceived as a flight from society. Once monasticism was established in the West, however, its representatives quickly entered into close relations with the ruling aristocracy. The analysis that follows thus takes the perspective of social status, focusing on membership in an ordo—a group determined by its function in society—whether that of monks (whose role it was to pray) or that of the laity (devoted to making war) from the Carolingian era through the eleventh century. Attention will also be given to strategies of kinship and the logic of aristocratic dominance. Because I approach the problem from the perspective of social status, I have used the expressions “warrior” and “lay nobility”/“aristocracy” interchangeably.