Monastic Experience in Twelfth-Century Germany: The Chronicle of Petershausen in Translation

Monastic experience in twelfth-century Germany provides a rare window on to monastery life in the tumultuous world of twelfth-century Swabia. From its founding in 992 through the great fire that ravaged it in 1159 and beyond, Petershausen weathered countless external attacks and internal divisions. Supra-regional clashes between emperors and popes played out at the most local level. Monks struggled against overreaching bishops. Reformers introduced new and unfamiliar customs. Tensions erupted into violence within the community. Through it all the anonymous chronicler struggled to find meaning amid conflict and forge connections to a shared past, enlivening his narrative with colorful anecdotes – sometimes amusing, sometimes disturbing. Translated into English for the first time, this fascinating text is an essential source for the lived experience of medieval monasticism.
This first English translation of the twelfth-century Chronicle of Petershausen offers an intimate and colourful view of traditional monastic life against the backdrop of contemporary interactions with bishops and lay patrons, the process of monastic reform, and the local and supra-regional disruption driven by the struggle over investiture.