Ascetisme i Monacat Tardoantic a La Tarraconense (SS. IV-VII). Una Aproximació Sociocultural i Arqueològica

Identifier:  TDX:2819

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2819

Authors:  Moya Oller, Anna

Abstract:
As in the rest of the territories of the Roman Empire of the West, in Tarraconense the first signs of monasticism are few and concentrated from the second half of the fourth century. At this point we can not speak of an institutionalized movement, but of ascetic manifestations that the Church will regulate as time goes on and above all influences on its evolution of the consequences of the priscillianist movement, that generate feelings of distrust towards any Christian practice outside ecclesiastical control. We have been able to observe a strong presence of eremitism on an ongoing basis and attempts at hierarchy to impose cenobitic models. The sources note that female ascesis was very relevant and respected from the beginning. Many of these women, whose names have survived (and this is already an unusual fact), acted as agents of social transformation in the new Christian landscape. In the middle of the Visigothic period, it is possible to observe how the monasteries became proto-feudal cells of jurisdictional and patrimonial control. Just as relations between bishops, abbots, and monks were based on dependency ties, a situation partly inherited from the late Antiquity. In short, with this work we wanted to show the first monastic presence in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, which was its evolution and in which it was characterized.