(Open to Hutton Honors College students only)

Since the foundation of the Christian Church, when men and
women first sought to live apart from popular society and devote
their lives entirely to religion, monks and nuns have influenced
heavily the development of Medieval art and architecture. Early
monks and nuns lived as hermits in the mountains, forests and
deserts. From the second or third centuries C.E., however, they
gathered  together to  live communally in organized monasteries.
Like their predecessors, the hermits, these later monks and nuns
claimed to live in abject  poverty, but although they owned no
personal possessions they often  lived in communal splendor inside
wealthy and well-decorated houses.  Supplied  with  lavish
churches, gleaming metalwork, sumptuous  tapestries and vestments
and colorful manuscripts, monasteries became the treasure houses of
Europe and the targets of condemnation, arson and looting.

This course will explore the phenomenon of Christian monasticism
from its earliest beginnings immediately after the death of Jesus
through the modern era, concentrating especially on the pinnacle of
the monasticism, the Middle Ages. We will read monastic rules in
translation to understand the lifestyle of the monks and nuns, and
examine their artworks, including manuscripts in the Lilly library
and objects in the Indiana University Art Museum. We will also
examine the phenomenon of modern monasticism, and compare it to its
medieval origins.