ChroMoLEME · The Character of Monastic Landscapes in Early Medieval Europe

The Character of Monastic Landscapes in Early Medieval Europe

The 'desertum' or desert is a common element in the accounts describing the foundation of Early Medieval monasteries. The word conveys the idea that the saint founder broke all ties with society, entering into an uninhabited wilderness to live a life of peace and solitude. Until the last two decades scholars accepted this description from Early Medieval saint's lives unquestionably. As a result of this, monasteries were considered as playing a key role in the Christianisation of the rural landscape. The narrative of monastic founders, leaving their urban lives behind them and going into the wilderness, provided a useful model for how the spread of Christianity happened - they were seen as pioneers, taking the light of Christianity into the darkness. In recent year attention has focused on dispelling this 'desertum' description. However, most of these critiques have focused on textual soruces alone and lack specific, detailed evidence relating to the landscapes in question, necessary to build up a concrete challenge to this traditional narrative. The ChroMoLEME project was designed to take an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to the early medieval landscape, combining the results of archaeological excavation with remote sensing (aerial photography, geophysics, LiDAR, Terrestrial Laser Scanning) and an analysis of historical cartographic material to provide a clearer image of the actual landscapes in which these sites were founded, demonstrating that even the most iconic monasteries were intimately linked to secular society. The methodology used included Historical Landscape Characterisation (HLC) which allows the researcher to build up an image of how land use changed over time. There are a number of ways in which providing a clearer picture of the process of early medieval monastic foundations is important for modern society. Perhaps the most pressing concern is the fact that this project challenges a simplistic narrative of religious conversion: the Christianisation of Europe has long been held up by nationalist politicians as a key moment in the history of this continent, one that has given it a distinctly Christian character. At a time when populist politicians across Europe are stoking anti-immigrant sentiment by warning of a loss of this character through the 'islamification' of our nation states, it is important to demonstrate just how complicated and drawn out the process of religious conversion actually is, and how deeply linked it is to the workings of society and established politics. The following objectives were set: Objective 1: Training under supervisor and specialist staff in GIS and HLC. Objective 2: Create a GIS-based dataset of the Core Case Study area and interpret it using HLC Objective 3: Conduct a comparative GIS-based analysis monastic sites on the continent. Objective 4: Dissemination

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