In early December, I (Benjamin Pohl) spent one week living amongst the Benedictine monks of Downside Abbey.

During this monastic retreat, I had the fantastic opportunity to take part in the community’s daily life and routine – incl. the liturgy of the hours (horarium) -, to experience the monastic way of life first-hand and, not least, to speak and listen to the monks about the role that history plays in their various activities inside and outside the monastery. This experience has provided me with invaluable insights into the close relationship between history, liturgy, identity and time within a religious communal setting that will feed directly into the project’s research outputs (incl. my forthcoming monograph).

What is more, I also arranged and hosted the first in our series of project workshops at Downside on the subject of ‘History & Community’. The workshop was very well attended and, besides the monks and myself, included participants from the University of Bristol (PGT and PGR students as well as staff) and the regional non-academic community. Together we spent a half-day discussing the various ways in which a sense of history (or ‘historical consciousness’) informs communal communication and memory formation both past and present. The next workshop will take place in the spring of 2020 and serve to continue and expand these conversations with a specific aim towards setting up a special exhibition at Downside Abbey in late 2020/2021. Make sure to subscribe to our email alert (link at the bottom of this blog) and follow us on Twitter to keep up-to-date with our event schedule and the latest announcements.

As a special bonus, I was invited to attend the Advent Carol Service inside Downside’s magnificent abbey church, which I watched from the exclusive angle of the monks’ gallery – best seats in the house!

On 24 October, the monks of Downside and I (Benjamin Pohl, PI) spent the morning talking about the importance of history with regard to religious life and communal identity both past and present.

The first part of our conversation centred around the place of history (and historical writing) within the daily monastic routine, and several of the monks kindly shared their thoughts and experiences on the subject. Of particular interest was the relationship between history and liturgy as two closely connected – and indeed in many ways inseparable – phenomena.

Leading on from this subject, the second part of our conversation concerned the role of historical and/or Biblical figures – e.g., the Church Fathers, patron saints, martyrs, abbots, etc. – as important agents of the community’s historical consciousness and collective memory. A key element here was the relationship between different perceptions (or ‘modes’) of time, some linear, others cyclical, which together provide orientation and guidance for the monks’ life and their shared sense of historical belonging.

The closing part of the conversation considered the relationship between Scripture and historical writing – namely the notion of the Bible as history.

This stimulating meeting provided the first of many conversations that will take place over the course of the next months.

Last week, I (Benjamin Pohl, PI) had the great pleasure of attending and speaking at a conference on the fashioning of history in medieval Normandy and beyond (‘Maîtriser le temps et façonner l’histoire: Les historiens normands aux époques médiévale et moderne’), which was held at the castle of Cerisy-la-Salle (dép. Manche, cant. Coutances) – a uniquely suitable location for contemplating the role of historical writing and historical consciousness in medieval and modern communities.

The conference brought together a range of experts from France, England, Italy and Germany, and it also included a private visit to the current manuscript exhibition ‘Façonner l’histoire de la Normandie: Manuscrits et chartes médiévales’ at the Scriptorial in Avranches. This exhibition unites – for the first time – a stunning collection of autographs and working copies from some of the most prominent writers of history in the 11th- and 12th-century Latin West, including Dudo of Saint-Quentin, William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, Robert of Torigni, Ademar of Chabannes, Hugh of Flavigny and Rodulfus Glaber. Several of these writers and their manuscripts are of crucial importance to this project, first of all, of course, the two ‘abbot-historians’ Hugh of Flavigny and Robert of Torigni.

It was Robert of Torigni who formed the subject of my talk, which took place not at Cerisy, but in the beautiful salle du conseil at the Hotel de Ville d’Avranches. Addressing the mayor of Avranches and members of the local public alongside my academic colleagues, I talked about how the memory of Robert and his historical works has been preserved from the twelfth century to the present day, including sources from the two medieval Norman monasteries of Le Bec-Hellouin and Mont-Saint-Michel, but also selected materials from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as well as 20th/21st-century re-imaginations of Robert in the form of stained-glass windows, historical novels, newspaper articles and graphic novels (bandes dessinées). A written and illustrated version of my talk will be published in due course in the conference proceedings co-edited by the two organisers, Stéphane Lecouteux and Fabien Paquet.

On the way to and from the conference, I took the time to stop by some historical sites including the two great abbeys of Saint-Étienne and La Trinité in Caen (founded by William the Conqueror and his wife and duchess/queen Matilda of Flanders, respectively), the Cathedral of Bayeux and, not least, the ever-gorgeous Bayeux Tapestry.