medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 10:12 am, John Briggs wrote:
> John Dillon wrote:
> >
> > On Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 8:36 am, John Briggs
> > wrote:
> >
> > > What's an Archabbey?
> >
> > Within the Benedictine Confederation, an archabbey is the
> > head abbey of one of the Confederation's constituent
> > congregations. It seems now to be an honorific as the
> > Abbots President (a.k.a. Superiors) of a congregation may
> > reside in any of its abbeys. For a list of the
> > twenty-one individual congregations with links to their
> > websites, see: http://www.osb.org/intl/confed/confed.html
>
> This seems to be a German and/or Post-medieval usage.
The usage extends beyond the German linguistic area (and beyond North America, where the archabbeys of St. Vincent in Pennsaylvania and St. Meinrad in Indiana were founded by speakers of German). The abbey of St. Benedict at Montecassino is an _arcibadia_:
http://atlas.osb-international.info/atlas/mon/Montecassino/en.html
and that of St. Martin at Pannonhalma is a Főapátság:
http://www.bences.hu/en
Pannonhalma is said to have become an archabbey in 1541, which date while perhaps not strictly medieval does fall within the parameters of this august list.
The standard Latin term for 'archabbey' is _archicoenobium_. Googling that might be the easiest way to identify houses exemplifying this usage, which some (e.g. Camaldoli) appear not to extend to the vernacular.
Best again,
John Dillon
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