Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell

Financing Piety, Work, and Retirement

Exploring Próventa and Próventumenn

Fimmtudaginn 9. nóvember 2023 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, November 9, 2023, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu / Edda auditorium

The issue of retirement is at the center of the current reappraisal of Icelandic monasteries and monastic culture. In the past often viewed as little more than retirement homes for aristocrats, recent research has helped illuminate the variety of social and cultural functions Icelandic monasteries could perform. And yet, some medieval Icelanders did move to monasteries late in life, and lived at monasteries without living under the Rule. Retirement, in whatever form the concept can be understood in a medieval context, was a part of Icelandic monastic culture, but in a more complex and nuanced way than has yet been explored.

This paper will present preliminary research exploring the term próventa, its uses and significations, and its relationship to the idea of retirement. A próventa was a type of financial agreement, a payment for long term housing and services, made by a próventumaður. Most próventumenn lived at monasteries, but some also lived at cathedrals, or even outside any such major religious institution. Some of them worked, some had children. Examining the various meanings and contexts of the term próventa can thereby give us not only greater insight into monastic culture, but into medieval Icelandic social and religious history more broadly.

Ryder C. Patzuk-Russell is a Polonez Bis research fellow at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He finished his MA in Medieval Iceland Studies at the University of Iceland in 2012, and a PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2017. His first book, The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland, was published by De Gruyter and MIP in 2021. His current project, „Monasteries on the Edge of the World: Church and Society in Late Medieval Iceland,“ explores monastic history in Iceland from numerous perspectives, and he is also producing a new English translation of Lárentíus saga byskups.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.