Date/Time
Date(s) - 7 Feb 2013
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM
Location
Barnard Hall
Category(ies) No Categories
The Form of Anglo-Norman Monastic Community in Orderic Vitalis
As part of Medguild’s Speaker Series, there will be an informal talk by Dr. Thomas O’Donnell, Fordham University. The event will take place at 6pm on Thursday, February 7, in Barnard 405. An abstract for the talk is below. Refreshments will be served.
The rhetorical diversity and untidy narrative of Orderic Vitalis’ sprawling Ecclesiastical History are well known. Combined with Orderic’s eagerness to frame parts of his work with details of his own biography, the hodgepodge of the Ecclesiastical History has led scholars to view the work as an expression of Orderic’s own complex personal and national identity. In this paper I will explore Orderic’s developing aesthetics instead as part of late eleventh- and early twelfth-century practices for overcoming discordant discourses of identity within monastic communities. My conclusion will consider how the dynamic, multivocal form of the Ecclesiastical History expresses a creative view of history-writing and impinges on the lived experience of communal life at Saint-Evroul.