'Don't Try This at Home': The Nature of, and Attitudes Towards, Early Medieval English Domestic Religion (c.650-1150 CE)

“不要在家里尝试这个”：中世纪早期英国家庭宗教的本质和态度（c.650-1150 CE）

• 批准号: 2876663
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2876663
• 关键词: Don; Try; Home; Nature; Attitudes

'This project examines the practice and place of English household religion c.650-1150 CE. It seeks to illuminate the nature of lay piety and the tension over its control by exploring what religious rituals occurred in domestic complexes, and the co-existence, convergence, and competition of different practices. It also asks what were clerical attitudes towards household religion, and how, and why, did practices change. Late antique and late medieval scholars have demonstrated domestic devotion can uncover various aspects of everyday life, including secular piety, the institutional and ideological expansion of the Church, and the extent of female agency. However, despite much evidence attesting to early medieval domestic religion, early medieval England has not garnered such scholarship. Only archaeologists Hamerow (2006) and Sofield (2012) have undertaken sustained study, examining symbolically-charged placed deposits within the hall, yet their study focuses on the sixth to late eighth century, and does not explore how these practices coincided with 'orthodox' devotion, such as prayer, relic-worship, or reading. This dearth of research is surprising, since many scholars have highlighted the considerable influence lay individuals had over religious practice, often syncretising idiosyncratic practices with devout faith. Domestic complexes, replete with symbolic connotations, can offer a uniquely intimate insight into lay devotion. Furthermore, Anglo-Saxon England experienced numerous competitions over controlling sacred places, with recent excavations finding a prevalent encroachment of secular ownership of sacred space (Blair 2018). Religious activity in domestic complexes could cause ecclesiastical anxiety, and comparative studies on Frankish material have found that clerical writers increasingly decried domestic religion in order to assert the spiritual primacy of ecclesiastical space. Building on these works, a study of Anglo-Saxon household religion and the attitudes towards it would not only illuminate the creativity of lay religion, but also highlight the tension between secular and ecclesiastical elites over who could (and did) control religious space, and how this authority was created and maintained. I will answer through an interdisciplinary approach - while many disciplinary studies have been insightful, by focusing on a single practice they struggle to explore the relationship between different co-existent rituals. An interdisciplinary approach also helps recover individuals obscured in written sources, and explore how far periodisation and disciplinary boundaries have concealed continuity and change. I will first create a multidisciplinary corpus of evidence, from which trends can be analysed. I will gather data from excavation reports on Anglo-Saxon settlements, and record placed deposits, chapels in domestic complexes, and Christian material culture. Secondly, I intend to compile any references to private household devotion found within narrative sources, such as the Old English Martyrologium's mention of a threshold deposit. Lastly, I will examine prescriptive text, namely law-codes and penitentials, to provide the fullest image for the widest possible section of early medieval society. This seemingly ambitious scope is made manageable by several factors, including the brevity of written references, their often-formulaic nature, and relative rarity. Through this, I aim to tease out references to religious rituals within the household and distinguish any trends. I then seek to interrogate this data and answer why changes occurred, and in doing so, this study would not only fill a historiographical lacuna, but contribute to wider histories on the creation of religious orthodoxy and the interaction between the everyday and institutionalised faith.'

这个项目研究了公元650 -1150年英国家庭宗教的实践和地位。它试图通过探索家庭复杂中发生的宗教仪式，以及不同实践的共存，融合和竞争，来阐明世俗虔诚的本质及其控制的紧张局势。它还询问了神职人员对家庭宗教的态度，以及如何以及为什么改变了做法。古代晚期和中世纪晚期的学者已经证明，家庭奉献可以揭示日常生活的各个方面，包括世俗的虔诚，教会的制度和意识形态扩张，以及女性代理的程度。然而，尽管有很多证据证明中世纪早期的家庭宗教，中世纪早期的英格兰并没有获得这样的奖学金。只有考古学家Hamerow（2006）和Sofield（2012）进行了持续的研究，检查了大厅内象征性的沉积物，但他们的研究集中在6世纪至8世纪后期，并没有探讨这些做法如何与“正统”的奉献精神相吻合，如祈祷，遗物崇拜或阅读。这种研究的缺乏是令人惊讶的，因为许多学者强调了平信徒对宗教实践的巨大影响，往往将特殊的实践与虔诚的信仰融合在一起。充满象征意义的家庭情结，可以提供一个独特的亲密洞察外行奉献。此外，盎格鲁-撒克逊英格兰在控制圣地方面经历了多次竞争，最近的挖掘发现了对圣地世俗所有权的普遍侵犯（Blair 2018）。家庭建筑群中的宗教活动可能会引起教会的焦虑，对法兰克材料的比较研究发现，神职人员作家越来越多地谴责家庭宗教，以维护教会空间的精神至上地位。在这些作品的基础上，对盎格鲁-撒克逊家庭宗教及其态度的研究不仅可以阐明世俗宗教的创造性，而且还可以突出世俗和教会精英之间的紧张关系，即谁可以（并且确实）控制宗教空间，以及这种权威是如何建立和维持的。我将通过跨学科的方法来回答-虽然许多学科研究都很有见地，但通过专注于单一的实践，他们努力探索不同共存仪式之间的关系。一个跨学科的方法也有助于恢复个人在书面资料中被掩盖，并探讨在多大程度上分期和学科界限掩盖了连续性和变化。我将首先创建一个多学科的证据库，从中可以分析趋势。我将从盎格鲁-撒克逊人定居点的挖掘报告中收集数据，并记录存放的存款，国内复杂的教堂和基督教物质文化。其次，我打算收集任何在叙述性来源中发现的关于私人家庭奉献的参考资料，例如古英语Martyrologium提到的门槛存款。最后，我将研究规范性文本，即法典和忏悔，为中世纪早期社会尽可能广泛的部分提供最完整的形象。这个看似雄心勃勃的范围是由几个因素管理，包括书面参考的简短，他们经常公式化的性质，以及相对罕见。通过这一点，我的目标是梳理出家庭内部的宗教仪式，并区分任何趋势。然后，我试图询问这些数据，并回答为什么会发生变化，这样做，这项研究将不仅填补了史学空白，但有助于更广泛的历史上创造的宗教正统和日常和制度化的信仰之间的互动。'