The Consolation of Community: Innovation and Ideas of History in Ratpert's ‘Casus Sancti Galli’

This paper takes the case study of a well-known but also rather poorly-regarded text, Ratpert of St Gall's Casus Sancti Galli, to examine some of the methodological issues of modern historians reading medieval historians. It is argued that features of Ratpert of St Gall's monastic history...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pössel, Christina (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2014
In: The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 2014, Volume: 65, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-24
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Summary:This paper takes the case study of a well-known but also rather poorly-regarded text, Ratpert of St Gall's Casus Sancti Galli, to examine some of the methodological issues of modern historians reading medieval historians. It is argued that features of Ratpert of St Gall's monastic history which modern readers have found frustrating or even boring were actually the result of the author's specific rhetorical strategies and ideas of history. Ratpert developed an innovative way of writing the history of a Christian community in the mortal world. Unlike other monastic historians who were developing the genre at the time and who followed more hagiographical models, Ratpert chose to put the anonymous, timeless collective of the monks at the centre of his text. His idea of history suggests a lack of effective human agency in the world, in which ups and downs forever follow one another, and contrasts this with the eternity of God.
ISSN:1469-7637
Contains:Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0022046913001607