Kinship, property relations, and the survival of double monasteries in the Eastern Church

Sharipova, Liudmyla

Abstract

The article examines the enduring phenomenon of double monasticism, the type of religious organisation, whereby a single monastic unit combined a male and a female communities that followed the same rule, recognised the authority of the same superior, and functioned within the boundaries of the same monastic compound or in close proximity to each other, but not in shared quarters. Going back with their origins to the period of late antiquity, double monasteries effectively ceased to exist in the Latin West by the High Middle Ages, but demonstrated remarkable staying powers in the sphere of historic Byzantine cultural influences, particularly in Orthodox Eastern Europe and Christian Middle East, where this archaic type of monastic institution survived into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on previously unexplored archival material from the Orthodox lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later – the Ukrainian Hetmanate, a semi-autonomous state ruled by elective officers who recognised the tsar of Muscovy as their suzerain, the article analyses the place of kinship structures, economic and political factors, legal frameworks, and the role of the imperial state in the evolution and ultimate decline of the double monastery.

Citation

Sharipova, L. (2020). Kinship, property relations, and the survival of double monasteries in the Eastern Church. Historical Journal, 63(2), 267-289. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X19000219

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jul 8, 2019
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Mar 23, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 25, 2019
• Journal: Historical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0018-246X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-5103
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 267-289
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X19000219
• Keywords: History
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1679108
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/kinship-property-relations-and-the-survival-of-double-monasteries-in-the-eastern-church/53DD356DAAB8CB4AEE047C25EA582E13
• Additional Information: License: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019