Letter writing in seventh-century Europe: the case of Columbanus's Epistulae
Citation:
Cedro, Carlo, Letter writing in seventh-century Europe: the case of Columbanus's Epistulae, Trinity College Dublin.School of Histories & Humanities, 2022Download Item:
Carlo_Cedro_PhD_Thesis.pdf (PDF) 3.160Mb
Abstract:
The goal of this project is to present a comprehensive commentary to the collection of five Latin letters attributed to the Irish abbot and monastic founder Columbanus (c. 550-615). He was the first Irish man of letters and, crucial for our understanding of the interactions between Ireland and the rest of Europe in the early Middle Ages, the first known Irish peregrinus on the continent. This study attempts to reconstruct Columbanus' personality as well as his thought-world by analysing the intellectual tool used by him to engage in early medieval ecclesiastic and theological controversies: epistolary prose. The driving question of this research project is if and how these letters have been affected by the conventions of the epistolary genre and by the process of composition, re-elaboration, circulation, and eventual selection for a corpus of letters. In short, the letters of Columbanus will be treated as case-study for the criticism of Latin epistolary sources of the sixth and seventh century. Two of their characteristics justify this choice over other contemporary collections: firstly, they constitute a relatively small collection of just five items, but their content and typology are diverse. The letters are addressed to ecclesiastical authorities (Roman popes and a local council), but also to Columbanus' own monks. They deal with theological and ecclesiological intellectual debates, but also with questions of monastic obedience and patronage relationship. Their analysis therefore encompasses themes that are very frequently found in letter-writing in general. Secondly, they were composed by someone who was an outsider and did not belong to the ruling clerical class of the Frankish kingdoms. Columbanus' epistolary writings are not only the product of contemporary Latin practice, but they bear the mark of the education he received in his homeland. The sixth century is an obscure but crucial period of Irish history: one of the few possible avenues of research into early Irish monastic environments is a close inspection of the peculiarities and trends to be found in the works of the first Hiberno-Latin author. This means that linguistic, stylistic and formal differences with Continental epistolary material reveals more information about the cultural environment in which Columbanus spent his formative years, early Christian Ireland, whereas the similarities with the same materials highlight the fundamental features of Latin epistolography of the times. Each chapter follows a source-critical template. The aim is to frame the content of each letter of the collection in light of both the complex interplay between the conventions of the epistolary genre as practiced by contemporary Latin authors, and the historical circumstances that have made Columbanus a key figure for the history of the western monastic movement. The introductory chapter first presents an up to date review of scholarly literature addressing the characteristics and problems presented by Late Antique and Early Medieval letter collections. This is followed by an overview of the numerous textual studies of Columbanus' Epistulae and of their role within the wider context and evolving perspectives of research on seventh-century Hiberno-Latin monasticism. Special attention is given to the reconstruction of the process of transmission of the letter collection. The introduction concludes with an explanation of the methodology employed in the analysis of the contents of each letter. The first chapter presents the text of Columbanus' letter to Pope Gregory I, usually referred to as Epsitula I. The commentary highlights two aspects: its points of contact with the teaching of Latin rhetoric and the problems connected with the source texts employed by the author and their significance in the context of the Easter controversy. The next chapter presents the text of Columbanus' Epistula II, directed at a council of the Gallic Church. The commentary focuses on the overlap of the tone and style of the letter with those of Columbanus' homiletic material and on the author's rhetorical strategy of self-defence. Details concerning the actual contents of the Easter disputes are also discussed within the frame of the most up to date research on the subject. The third chapter presents the text of Columbanus' second letter to the Roman Pontiff, Epistula III. It is the shortest letter of the collection, which reveals the writer's changing attitude in respect to the Easter controversy and his attempts at mediation. The fourth chapter presents the text of Columbanus' letter to his monastic community in Luxeuil, after his exile from Francia. The commentary highlights the stereotyped and didactic tone of the writing, questioning how much the surviving text captures the instructions left by the founding abbot to his community, and how much is, instead, a literary re-elaboration from a later period. The next chapter presents the text of Columbanus' letter to Pope Boniface IV, on the matter of the Three Chapters controversy in Northern Italy. Three main points are addressed by the commentary: the author's connections with the Lombard court, his level of familiarity with the theological and ecclesiological problems that the controversy involved, and any changes or similarities in his writing style and attitude towards the addressee compared to the letters on the Easter controversy. The final chapter attempts to organize the results of the previous analysis into various categories, namely: salient characteristics of the Epistulae compared to contemporary collections, in terms of style and contents; the historic context of the composition of the letters, with reference to Jonas' narrative in the Vita Columbani; the intended audience of each letter and the reconstruction of possible networks of epistolary exchanges; the relationship between the author and both his patrons on the one hand, and the monastic community on the other; the sources used by Columbanus and the main influences of his style and rhetoric. The results of the project will demonstrate the author's proficiency and familiarity with the written letter form. It will be argued that reframing the discussion around the tone and contents of the letters in light of contemporary characteristics of epistolary literature will yield a portrayal of the authorial figure that is very different from that so far reconstructed by scholarly literature. Columbanus has been depicted as a solitary figure stirring polemic with all his contacts, but this wok will show how, even though he was ready to make a determined stand for the liturgical practices of his homeland, he was well inserted in, and able to make use of the network of relationship between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities of his time, acting more like a diplomat than a disruptive and self-absorbed agent. Another significant result of the analysis of the textual and meta-textual characteristics of the letters will be to challenge the perception of the epistle as a fixed unchanging, product. It will be shown that it is likely that the texts as they exist in their present form are the result of re-elaboration, and that, after they had been delivered to the addressee, they were adapted in order to reach a wider audience. Finally, discussion of the literary sources available to Columbanus will condense into a general overview several years of philological debate as well as add a few significant items that have so far been neglected.
Sponsor
Grant Number
Trinity College Dublin Postgraduate Research Studentship
TCD
Description:
APPROVED
Author: Cedro, Carlo
Advisor:
Warntjes, ImmoPublisher:
Trinity College Dublin. School of Histories & Humanities. Discipline of HistoryType of material:
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Full text availableKeywords:
Columbanus, Epistolography, Early Medieval EuropeLicences: