CFP: Anchorites in their Communities

The 5th International Anchoritic Society conference, in association with the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
April 22-24, 2014
Greygnog Hall, Newtown, Powys, Wales

Keynote Speakers:

Diane Watt (Surrey)
Tom Licence (UEA)
Eddie Jones (Exeter)

Postgraduate/Postdoctoral Manuscript workshop:

Eddie Jones (Exeter)
Bella Millett (Southampton)

Much of the work undertaken in the field of medieval anchoritism, particularly within an English context, has concentrated on the vocation’s role within the history of Christian spirituality, its function as a locus of (gendered) sacred space and its extensive ideological cultural work. Indeed, in the hundred years since Rotha Mary Clay’s foundational 1914 study of English anchoritism, The Hermits and Anchorites of England (1914), only sporadic attention has been given to the English anchorite as part of a community – whether social, intellectual, spiritual or religious – and as part of a widespread ‘virtual’ community of other anchorites and religious or ‘semi-religious’ figures spread across England and beyond.

In its focus on anchorites within their multifarious communities, this conference seeks papers attempting to unpick the paradox of the ‘communal anchorite’ and the central role often played by her/him within local and (inter)national political contexts, and within the arenas of church ideology, critique and reform. It also seeks contributions for a Roundtable discussion on any aspect of Mary Rotha Clay’s work, its lasting legacies and the debt to her scholarship owed by new generations of scholars in the twenty-first century.

Offers of 20-minute papers are sought on any aspect of medieval anchorites in their communities including (but not restricted to):

Spiritual circles
Communities of discourse
Anchoritic/lay interaction
Anchorites and church reform
Networks of patronage
Networks of anchorites
Anchorite case studies
Anchoritic friendship groups
Book ownership/ borrowing/ lending/ circulation
Communities of texts: ‘anchoritic’ miscellanies/ textual travelling companions
Textual translation, circulation and mouvance
Non-insular influence
Gendered communities

Abstracts of up to 500 words should be sent to Dr Liz Herbert McAvoy by Friday, August 30th 2013