1st Edition

Studies in Byzantine Monasticism

By Alice-Mary Talbot Copyright 2025
318 Pages
by Routledge

318 Pages
by Routledge

318 Pages
by Routledge

This volume includes seventeen essays on Byzantine monasticism, focusing on the 9 th to 15 th centuries. Envisaged as a companion Variorum volume to Talbot's Women and Religious Life in Byzantium (2001), this compendium complements its predecessor by focusing more attention on male monasteries, hermits and holy mountains, while offering some pioneering studies of female patrons, rural nuns,... Read more

Chapter 1 – “Monasticism”

From Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History, ed. Jonathan Harris (Houndmills, 2005), 119-132

 

Chapter 2 - “A Monastic World”

From The Social History of Byzantium, ed. John Haldon (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 257-278

 

Chapter 3 – “Monasticism in Constantinople in the Final Decades of the Byzantine Empire”

From 550th Anniversary of the Istanbul University International Byzantine and Ottoman Symposium (XVth Century), 30-31 May 2003, ed. Sümer Atasoy (Istanbul, 2004), 295-308

 

Chapter 4 – “Founders’ Choices: Monastery Site Selection in Byzantium”

From Founders and Refounders of Byzantine Monasteries, ed. Margaret Mullett (Belfast, 2007), 43-62

 

Chapter 5 – “Byzantine Monasticism and the Liturgical Arts”

From Perceptions of Byzantium and its Neighbors (843-1261), ed. Olenka Pevny (New York, New York, 2000), 22-39

Hermits and Holy Mountains

 

Chapter 6 – “Holy Mountains in Byzantium”

English version of “Les saintes montagnes à Byzance” in Le sacré et son inscription dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident, ed. Michel Kaplan (Paris, 2003), 263-275

 

Chapter 7 – “Holy Men of Mount Athos”

From The Monastic Magnet: Roads to and from Mount Athos (Oxford, 2008), 41-61

 

Chapter 8 – “Searching for Women on Mount Athos: insights from the archives of the Holy Mountain"”

From Speculum 87 (2012), 995-1014

 

Chapter 9 – “Caves, Demons and Holy Men”

From Le saint, le moine, le paysan: mélanges d’histoire byzantine offerts à

Michel Kaplan, edd. Olivier Delouis, Sophie Métivier et Paule Pages (Paris, 2016), 707-718

 

Chapter 10 - “Building Activity in Constantinople under Andronikos II: The Role of Women Patrons in the Construction and Restoration of Monasteries”

From Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. Nevra Necipoğlu (Leiden, 2001), 329-343

 

Chapter 11 – “Nuns in the Byzantine Countryside” (with Sharon Gerstel)

From Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias 27 (2006), 481-490

 

Chapter 12 – “The Conversion of Byzantine Monasteries from Male to Female and Vice-Versa”

From Polypleuros Nous: Miscellanea für Peter Schreiner zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, edd. Cordula Scholz and Georgios Makris (Munich-Leipzig, 2001), 329-343

 

Chapter 13 – “Mealtime in Monasteries: The Culture of the Byzantine Refectory”

From Eat, Drink and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and Wine in Byzantium, edd. Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot, 2007), 109-125

 

Chapter 14 – “The Adolescent Monastic in Middle and Late Byzantium”

From Coming of Age in Byzantium: Adolescence and Society, ed. Despoina Ariantzi (Vienna, 2018), 83-97

 

Chapter 15 - “Personal Poverty in Byzantine Monasticism: Ideals and Reality”

From Mélanges Cécile Morrisson [= Travaux et Mémoires 16] (Paris, 2011), 829-841

 

Chapter 16 – “Byzantine Monastic Horticulture: the Textual Evidence”

From Byzantine Garden Culture, edd. Antony Littlewood, Henry Maguire and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn (Washington, DC, 2002), 37-67

 

Chapter 17 – “Monastic Onomastics” (with Stamatina McGrath)

From Monastères, images, pouvoir et société à Byzance, ed. Michel Kaplan

(Paris, 2006), 89-118

 

Bibliography

Biography

Alice-Mary Talbot has spent most of her scholarly career at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, where she has held several research and administrative posts. In the 1980s she was executive editor of the three-volume Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Subsequently she managed the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database project. From 1997 to 2009 she served as director of Byzantine studies, and finally as editor of the Byzantine Greek series of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (2009-2019). Her research focuses on Byzantine women, monasticism, and hagiography.