Shenoute and the Women of the White Monastery

Abstract

Analyzes the evidence for the lives of women living in the White Monastery, located in upper Egypt, under its third abbot, Shenoute, who served from 385–464 c.e. Several of Shenoute's letters, which were written in Coptic and survive in fragmentary form, address periods of conflict either between female monks or between the female community and Shenoute. As a result, they differ in genre from any other evidence of female monasticism in late antiquity and so present a unique corpus of material for investigation. A key issue pertains to Shenoute's efforts to establish his monastic authority over the women's community, which was physically separate from the men's, and the evidence for the women's acceptance and resistance to that expansion. I then argue that gender analysis reveals that Shenoute regarded his efforts as part of the creation of a universal monasticism, which had uniform requirements for male and female monks, including the controversial subject of corporal punishment. It simultaneously reveals, however, points of gender asymmetry, and so inequity, within monastic authority and practices, some promoted by Shenoute and some by the women themselves. Finally, Shenoute's use of the family as a model for the monastery helped him create kinship bonds among all monks, both those who had left their families and those who brought their relatives with them. Like gender, with which the family is intimately connected, this model also allows Shenoute to negotiate tensions and contradictions using egalitarian language while simultaneously constructing patriarchal authority.

‘In Defiance of his Cloth’: Monastic (Im)Piety in Late Antique Egypt

“…44 Shenoute himself faced accusations of impiety, and in one instance a monk died at his hands as the result of a severe flogging. 45 Shenoute defended himself vigorously, calling it an act of God, but he is clearly aware that his actions were not universally viewed in a favourable light. In the fourth-to fifth-century Pachomian literature, monks are also repeatedly depicted as rejecting the required standards of monastic behaviour, or of failing to live up to them.…”

Monks as Model Men: Gender Anomalies or Heroic Ideal?

“…Roughgarden has even gone so far as to claim that "by the beginning of the fifth century, monasticism had become the new Christian masculine ideal" (2004: 362 [23]; see also Kuefler, M. 2009 [24]). Krawiec (2002: 129) [25] discussed this gender variant status by describing monks as metaphorical eunuchs. In pursuing a lifestyle in conformity with the earlier "martyr ideal"-the renunciation of sexuality and procreation and by following a program of strict ascetical discipline culminating in one's total self-donation (in death) to the service of Christ and his Churchmonks came to model a powerful alternative medieval masculine ideal.…”

Commingled crypts: Comparative health among Byzantine monastics in the Levant

“…In contrast, other Early Christian monasteries have a rich heritage documented by their founders, followers or leaders, for example, the White Monastery of Shenoute (ca. A.D. 385–466, Egypt) (Krawiec, ; Layton, ). Health and life experienced by Levantine Byzantine monastics pales when compared to monasteries elsewhere that are historically documented or practice single interments (Cardy, ; DeWitte, Boulware, & Redfern, ; Knüsel, Göggel, & Lucy, ; Mays, ; Polet & Katzenberg, ; Rogers & Waldron, ).…”