20 alternative discourses on monastic mobility, both positive and negative, showing a plurality of discourses in the fourth and fifth centuries in the Mediterranean.39 For later periods in the Eastern Roman Empire such efforts have mostly been lacking. A most welcome observation is made by Olivier Delouis, Maria Mossakowska-Gaubert and Annick PetersCustot in their introduction to a 2019 edited volume dedicated to monastic mobility. There they note that monastic mobility was perceived both negatively and positively in different contexts (in both Eastern and Western monasticism from late antiquity until the Middle Ages).40 However, none of the contributions to the volume has mentalities on monastic travel in the Eastern Roman Empire as its central topic, so unfortunately the volume does not delve deeper into where we might see these diverse perceptions and what underlying ideals or circumstances these reflect. Moreover, while first pointing out diversity, the editors also propose that by the ninth century at the latest monastic travel was hardly justifiable anymore as a form of religious life in the Eastern Mediterranean, except for a few particular reasons (economic necessity, involuntary mobility or the need to solicit the emperor), and that ‘[e]n dehors de ces cadres, comme en Occident, toute errance monastique est suspectée de vagabondage et tout vagabondage d’erreur doctrinale’.41 In other words, the authors still see a single or at least dominant negative discourse on monastic mobility from the ninth century onwards in the Eastern Roman Empire, except for a few specific justifications for monastic mobility. The study of Caner aside, in the current historiography on monastic travel three main issues are debated: its prevalence,42 how the mobility of monks does or does not align with their religious vocation,43 and the role of travel as a literary theme in hagiography.44 In addition to its contribution to the understanding of perceptions and discourses on monastic mobility, this dissertation will also contribute to our understanding of the last two themes.45 39 Caner (2002). 40 Delouis et al. (2019b), par. 5; par. 8. 41 Ibid., par. 6. 42 E.g., Kaplan for monastic travel and pilgrimage (Kaplan argues that monastic travellers were exceptions) or Nikolaou for the mobility of women, including nuns (Nikolaou’s focus is to demonstrate that there were women who travelled, although perhaps less than men). Kaplan (2002); Nikolaou (2019). 43 E.g., Maribel Dietz, who focussed on western travellers from the period of 300-800, argued that travel and homelessness itself gained a religious meaning as a spiritual practice (this view has been critiqued by Richard Goodrich). Dietz (2005); Goodrich (2006). 44 E.g., Mullett (2002); Papavarnavas (2021a); Mitrea (2023b). 45 While this thesis does not explicitly engage with narratology, it touches upon roles of (im)mobility in the narratives in order to see how travel is or is not used for discursive aims, particularly for the construction of sainthood.
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