H2020Индивидуална стипендия2016–2018

MONASPOWER · Monasteries as Institutional Powers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt: Evidence from Neglected Coptic Sources

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2016-04-01 → 2018-03-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 200 195 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-RI

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Коптските манастири в Египет между V и VIII век се анализират чрез непопулярни източници, за да се разбере тяхната роля като собственици на земя и работодатели. Това помага за по-доброто разбиране на икономическата власт и връзката между църквата и държавата в ранното средновековие.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Monasteries as Institutional Powers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt: Evidence from Neglected Coptic Sources

The main purpose of this project was to reassess and establish the economic position of Coptic monasteries in late Roman and early Islamic Egypt (5th-8th centuries CE) on the basis of neglected sources. The significance of monasteries has been underestimated in the past and overlooked or neglected by ancient historians, largely because of the difficulty in accessing the sources, which requires specialist knowledge of Coptic. This project aimed to: -focus on unpublished material and make it accessible to non-specialists; -contextualise the textual material within its broader archaeological context; -draw upon this evidence to provide new and more balanced perspectives on the economic landscape of Egypt; -reassess and establish the economic position of Coptic monasteries in the 5th-8th centuries, a period that spans the transition from late Roman to early Islamic Egypt. The results demonstrate that the case study monastery played a significant social and economic role in central Egypt, with extensive local and national networks.The landholdings and redistributive economy of the monastery demonstrate that while its was not as large or wealthy as the contemporary private estates, in its immediate area it was one of the major landowners, employers, and goods producers. To the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, monasteries would have been a prominent and important feature of many aspects of day-to-day lives of Egyptians. The study has wider implications for understanding the distribution of economic power in early medieval countries, the role of religious organisations at a micro and macro level, and the interrelationship between secular and religious institutions and organisations. The results are important to the study of monasticism, economic history in the Late Roman and post-Roman Mediterranean worlds, and early medieval history.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Egypt during the Late Antique and Early Islamic periods (broadly the 5th to 8th centuries CE) was a multicultural and multilingual country. Greeks, Egyptians, and, later, Arabs populated the land, speaking Greek, Coptic (the last form of the indigenous Egyptian language), and Arabic. Before the Arabic conquest of 640-642 CE, Christianity was the predominant religion of Egypt, and continued to be so for a while after the conquest, until the 8th and 9th centuries when conversion became more widespread. Centuries of co-existence brought Greeks into contact with Egyptians and vice versa, yet the picture of Late Antique Egypt is a largely Greek one: Greek was the official language of the administration and the majorityof Greek non-literary textual finds from this period are also in Greek. As a result, studies on life and especially the economy have focussed on the evidence written in Greek. This study does not seek to study the complex social, cultural, linguistic, and religious interactions at play in the country during this time. Instead, it will provide a new perspective on the economic landscape of Egypt.Monasteries had been a significant part of the Egyptian landscape since the beginnings of Christianity in the country. Life inside these institutions was recorded primarily in Coptic. Despite the importance of monasticism and the body of available Coptic texts, their position within the Egyptian administrative and economic framework has largely been ignored, with attention placed instead on the contemporary large Greek estates. The aim of this project is to study the economic position of Coptic monasteries during this timeframe on the basis of the neglected evidence from two sources: the monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga and the corpus of non-literary Coptic texts in the collection of the University of Copenhagen.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNКоординаторДания