Isle of the Saints recreates the harsh yet richly spiritual world of medieval Irish monks on the Christian frontier of barbarian Europe. Lisa Bitel draws on accounts of saints' lives written between 800 and 1200 to explain, from the monks' own perspective, the social networks that bound them to one another and to their secular neighbors.
Bitel's gritty scholarship, combining equal measures of archaeology, sociology, and a historical reading of lives of the saints of the period, results in a vivid description of the nature and role of monasticism in Ireland from 800- 1200. Romantic notions of Irish monasticism must give way here to what is really a more marvelous realism, as Bitel discusses how the early monasteries were built, their relationship with the non-monastic community of kin and rulers, and the ideals and routines of daily monastic life.
Bitel's gritty scholarship, combining equal measures of archaeology, sociology, and a historical reading of lives of the saints of the period, results in a vivid description of the nature and role of monasticism in Ireland from 800- 1200. Romantic notions of Irish monasticism must give way here to what is really a more marvelous realism, as Bitel discusses how the early monasteries were built, their relationship with the non-monastic community of kin and rulers, and the ideals and routines of daily monastic life. As New. Previous owner's name only sign of use. Contents pristine.
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