History for the Community: Medieval Abbots and the Writing of History’
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Our next Exploring the Past free lecture, in partnership with the Historical Association, takes place on Wednesday 30thth March 2022. Please sign up to book a place, and we will send a Zoom link a few days before the talk.
For March’s talk, we’re excited to welcome Dr Benjamin Pohl (University of Bristol), to speak on the theme: ‘History for the Community: Medieval Abbots and the Writing of History’:
In this lecture, Dr Benjamin Pohl (University of Bristol) explores how and why medieval Benedictine abbots engaged first-hand with the writing of history by recording the traditions and collective memories of their monastic communities. Which resources were available to these abbot-historians that ordinary monks did not have at their disposal? What difference did it make when the monastic historian was himself/herself an abbot/abbess? Was it common for medieval monastic superiors to pick up the pen, or was it an exception? Studying the work of medieval abbot-historians provides us with important insights into the relationship between monastic leadership and the codification of communal identities both past and present.