Shenoute & the women of the White Monastery : Egyptian monasticism in late antiquity

Author(s)

    • Krawiec, Rebecca

Bibliographic Information

Shenoute & the women of the White Monastery : Egyptian monasticism in late antiquity

Rebecca Krawiec

Oxford University Press, 2002

Other Title

Shenoute and the women of the White Monastery

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-244) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book depicts the lives of female monks within a monastery located in upper Egypt in the period 385-464 CE. During this period the monastery was headed by a monk named Shenoute; twelve of his letters to the women under his care survive. Despite various technical textual difficulties, Krawiec is able to use the letters to reconstruct a series of quarrels and events in the life of the White Monastery and to discern some of the key patterns in the participants' relationships to one another within the world as they perceived it. She begins by describing the monks' daily routine and discovers that the monastery's culture was based on uniformity, in both material goods and emotional support, for all the monks, regardless of background. The female monks' relationship with Shenoute constructed and exerted his authority in these conditions, and investigates the degree to which the women accepted it.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations Introduction 1: Daily Life in the White Monastery under Shenoute 2: Women's Life in the White Monastery under Shenoute 3: Shenoute's Discourse of Monastic Power 4: Acceptance and Resistance: The Women's Power 5: "They too are Our Brethren": Gender in the White Monastery 6: Gender and Monasticism in Late Antiquity 7: Women's Role in the Monastic Family: The Intersection of Power and Gender 8: "According to the Flesh": Biological Kin in the White Monastery Notes Bibliography Index

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