In the News: Albrecht Diem

Professor of History Albrecht Diem's book chapter on the evidence of queer life in the Monastery of Reichenau during the early medieval period, based on a ninth-century visionary text and early medieval commentary to the monastic rule of Benedict of Nursia, was extensively discussed in an article published in Der Spiegel.

Love in a monastery? Can this be? Albrecht Diem, professor of history, examines the monastic rules of the time to explore how friendship, love and sexual attraction were discussed between monks in the 9th-century Reichenau monastery.

In this article published in SVMMA. Revista de Cultures Medievals, Professor of History Albrecht Diem examines whether applying different notions of “monastic landscapes” (geographic, political, textual, economic, spiritual) to the monastic movement allegedly initiated by Columbanus may help us to refine or deconstruct the concept of “Columbanian monasticism.”

"Choreography and Confession: The Memoriale qualiter and Carolingian Monasticism," authored by Professor of History Albrecht Diem, was included in the book, "Monastic Communities and Canonical Clergy in the Carolingian World (780–840): Categorizing the Church" (Brepols, 2022).