'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.'

“这个项目考察了公元 650-1150 年英国家庭宗教的实践和地位。它试图通过探索家庭综合体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以及对其控制的紧张关系。它还询问神职人员对家庭宗教的态度是什么，以及做法如何以及为何发生变化。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，包括世俗虔诚、教会的制度和意识形态扩张以及女性能动性的程度。然而，尽管有很多证据证明中世纪早期的国内宗教，中世纪早期的英格兰并没有获得这样的奖学金。只有考古学家哈默罗（Hamerow，2006）和索菲尔德（Sofield，2012）进行了持续的研究，检查大厅内带有象征意义的放置沉积物，但他们的研究集中在六世纪至八世纪末，并没有探讨这些做法如何与“正统”相吻合虔诚，例如祈祷、圣物崇拜或阅读。这种研究的缺乏令人惊讶，因为许多学者强调了外行个人对宗教实践的巨大影响，常常将特殊的实践与虔诚的信仰相结合。充满象征意义的家庭建筑可以提供对世俗奉献的独特而亲密的洞察。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，最近的发掘发现，圣地的世俗所有权普遍受到侵犯（Blair 2018）。家庭综合体中的宗教活动可能会引起教会焦虑，对法兰克材料的比较研究发现，教士作家越来越多地谴责家庭宗教，以维护教会空间的精神首要地位。在这些著作的基础上，对盎格鲁-撒克逊家庭宗教及其态度的研究不仅会阐明世俗宗教的创造力，而且还会凸显世俗和教会精英之间关于谁可以（并且确实）控制宗教空间的紧张关系，以及该权威是如何创建和维持的。我将通过跨学科的方法来回答——虽然许多学科研究很有洞察力，但通过专注于单一实践，他们很难探索不同共存仪式之间的关系。跨学科方法还有助于恢复在书面资料中被掩盖的个体，并探索分期和学科界限在多大程度上掩盖了连续性和变化。我将首先创建一个多学科证据库，从中可以分析趋势。我将从有关盎格鲁撒克逊人定居点的挖掘报告中收集数据，并记录放置的沉积物、家庭建筑群中的教堂和基督教物质文化。其次，我打算汇编在叙述性资料中发现的任何有关私人家庭奉献的参考资料，例如古英语殉道者志中提到的门槛存款。最后，我将研究规定性文本，即法典和忏悔书，为中世纪早期社会最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控制的，包括书面参考文献的简洁性、它们通常公式化的性质以及相对稀有性。通过这一点，我的目的是梳理出家庭中宗教仪式的参考内容并区分任何趋势。然后，我试图询问这些数据并回答为什么会发生变化，在这样做的过程中，这项研究不仅会填补史学的空白，而且有助于更广泛的关于宗教正统的创建以及日常信仰和制度化信仰之间相互作用的历史。