Conference Report: “Loss of Consensus. Forms of Dissent in Medieval Monasteries and Orders”
From 6–9 July 2023, historians of different nationalities discussed contention, squabbles and discord within medieval monasteries and orders. The conference, entitled “Loss of Consensus. Forms of Dissent in Medieval Monasteries and Orders” was organized as part of the project “Monasteries in the High Middle Ages. Laboratories of Innovation for European Designs of Life and Models of Order” of the
Heidelberg and the
Saxon Academies of Sciences and Humanities. It resumed the discussion of a 2021 conference in Zagreb on “Authority and Consent”, which asked about mechanisms of communal agreement.
Despite the often-cited guiding principle of brotherly love within the vita religiosa, dissent was all too often encountered in everyday life. Disobedient conversi, quarreling monks and nuns, physical conflicts, disputes between abbots, with the pope, within the ritual, or even internal disputes only with oneself testify to a wide spectrum of recurring controversy. With analytical approaches, but above all on the basis of individual case studies, the speakers illustrated situations of disagreement in order to be able to examine causes, evaluations, forms of appearance and execution, as well as solutions. The results and open questions could be bundled with a concluding round table on different perspectives on the phenomenon. The numerous and heterogeneous points of view, which were brought together by this conference, could thus be saved from unbridgeable dissent.