Expressions of Personal Autonomy, Authority, and Agency in Early Anglo-Saxon Monasticism

229 Pages·2017·1.91 MB·English

Marshall University
Marshall Digital Scholar
Theses, Dissertations and Capstones
2017
In the Company of Angels: Expressions of Personal
Autonomy, Authority, and Agency in Early Anglo-
Saxon Monasticism
William Tanner Smoot
[email protected]
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Recommended Citation
Smoot, William Tanner, "In the Company of Angels: Expressions of Personal Autonomy, Authority, and Agency in Early Anglo-Saxon
Monasticism" (2017).Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 1094.
http://mds.marshall.edu/etd/1094
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IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS: EXPRESSIONS OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY,
AUTHORITY, AND AGENCY IN EARLY ANGLO-SAXON MONASTICISM

A thesis submitted to
The Graduate College of
Marshall University
In partial fulfillment of
The requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
In
History
by
William Tanner Smoot
Approved by
Dr. Laura Michele Diener, Committee Chairperson
Dr. William Palmer
Dr. Michael Woods

Marshall University
May 2017
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all of those who helped and supported me in the process of writing and
completing this thesis. I want to thank specifically my family and friends for their inexhaustible
support, as well as the faculty of the history department of Marshall University for their constant
guidance and advice. I finally would like to particularly thank Dr. Laura Michele Diener for the
significant time she spent in reviewing and advising my work.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract vi
Chapter I: Introduction 1
Chapter II: Practical Communal Autonomy 29
Autonomy in Foundation 30
Monastic Rules 43
Abbot Election 54
Chapter III: Individual Temporal Autonomy and Authority 67
Choice of Residence 68
Monastic Networks 85
Secular Relationships and Political Power 113
Chapter IV: Autonomy in Contemplative Desire and Retirement 123
Desire for Freedom in God 123
St. Aidan of Lindisfarne 126
St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne 131
St. Guthlac of Crowland 145
Chapter V: Social Understanding of Contemplative Eremitism and Spiritual Liberation 151
Contemplative Desire 152
Hermitic Surroundings 161
Spiritual Autonomy 179
Chapter VI: Conclusion 205
References 214
Appendix A: Office of Research Integrity Approval Letter 220
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Appendix B: VITA 221

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ABSTRACT
In this thesis I examine the opportunities for individual agency and social and spiritual autonomy
in the seventh-and-eighth-century Anglo-Saxon kingdoms occasioned by the introduction and
development of Christian monasticism. The term “autonomy” concerns the degree to which
individuals managed to determine the social order and nature, as well as spiritual character, of
their ensuing lives through an adherence to monastic practice. Early Anglo-Saxon Christianity
assumed a monastic character, and from the outset coenobitic communities acquired and
maintained certain rights regarding their internal governance and social development from their
ecclesiastic and secular superiors, which conceptually separated religious households from those
of the secular nobility. I argue that monastic foundation and participation functioned as an
alternative means for social engagement, and spiritually justified and legitimized otherwise
culturally unorthodox behaviors such as anchoritic retreat. I consider monasticism’s social and
spiritual consequences on individual self-determination. I argue that monastic participation
constituted a considerable degree of both collective communal and personal autonomy in regards
to an institution’s physical foundation, inner governance through the establishment of a monastic
rule, and ability to select subsequent abbots and rulers independent of external influence. I
consider the active lives of monastics such as Wilfrid of Ripon, Hild of Whitby, and Ceolfrith of
Wearmouth and Jarrow to further suggest the considerable degree of autonomy monastic leaders
exercised in their administration of vast monastic properties. I additionally argue that despite the
temporal wealth and authority that often accompanied monastic administration, monasticism’s
introduction of contemplative eremitism constituted a legitimate alternative to the social
obligations inherent in coenobitic practice, and represented an extreme expression of individual
autonomy. I finally consider the hagiographic narratives and contemporary social image of
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anchoritic saints such as St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and St. Guthlac of Crowland. I argue that
regardless of any power and authority achievable within the physical and temporal world,
contemporary religious writers understood complete contemplative withdrawal from society as
the ultimate expression of spiritual autonomy, whereby an anchorite positioned their mind
towards God alone, and therefore freed themselves from the trivialities and distractions of the
world.

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The introduction and growth of Christianity in England during the seventh and eighth
centuries precipitated an extraordinary period of social redefinition and restructuring within the
existing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as the new religion conveyed the concepts and practical
mechanisms of a parallel continental Christian culture. In addition to theological considerations,
the Anglo-Saxons’ assimilation within a broad and shared Christian tradition influenced the
future development of numerous aspects of domestic society, from economic transactions and
land ownership rights, to political and judicial codification, to literary and poetic expression. The
subsequent introduction of pre-established traditions and institutions of continental Christendom,
in particular those of coenobitic and anchoritic monasticism, provided a means through which
individual monastic adherents expressed a degree of self-determination otherwise unknown
within contemporary secular society. The most prominent Anglo-Saxon religious communities of
the seventh and eighth-centuries drew organizational and spiritual influence from well-developed
continental monastic conventions, inaugurating a social alternative within an Anglo-Saxon
society complete with its own expected norms and obligations, as they established themselves
alongside secular households. From the outset, Anglo-Saxon monastic communities seemingly
enjoyed certain institutional rights, which at once solidified their expected role within secular
society, while simultaneously exempting monastics from participating in specific secular social
duties and obligations. While monastic foundation and governance assumed various forms in the
seventh and eighth centuries, the novel career opportunities monastic communities provided for
both young and old raises important questions as to the character of contemporary Anglo-Saxon
society, and an individual’s role within it as it acclimatized to the development of a parallel
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religious social order. What did monastic adherence mean for those individuals who both
established and entered coenobitic communities of the seventh and eighth centuries? What was
an individual monk’s practical relationship to both their new coenobitic community and the
broader secular society they previously inhabited? What opportunities existed within a monastic
context for self-determination and individual autonomy in regards to one’s career choice, manner
and order of living, material security and aggrandizement, and expression of spiritual desire?
How did seventh-and-eighth-century Anglo-Saxons understand individual self-determination and
autonomy?
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the opportunities for individual monastic
expressions of self-determination and autonomy in regards to an individual’s social and spiritual
life occasioned by the development of monasticism in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the seventh
and eighth centuries. I examine the relationship individual monks maintained between both their
monastic and secular societies, and what their participation within each of these two social
systems meant in regards to their ability to condition various aspects of their lives, from the order
of their daily existence within a particular religious house, to the character of their spiritual and
contemplative behaviors in eremitic solitude. I also consider the differences in practical monastic
self-determination, often achieved through coenobitic foundation and administration, and
contemporary religious society’s conception as to what constituted true and absolute liberation
from all manners of worldly influence, frequently expounded within hagiographic literature
through an association with anchoritic behaviors.
What does the term personal “autonomy” here reference? The word itself has its
foundations in the Greek autos (self) and nomos (law); therefore, proving appropriately
applicable to those behaviors expressed by early English monastics, whereby their personal
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