Jenseits der Zeit? Konzepte zur Ritualisierung von Ewigkeit im monastischen Leben des 12. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

This article analyses monastic concepts of ritualising eternity within the Benedictine tradition of the twelfth century. It explores monastic time arrangements and discusses paradigmatically chosen rituals to investigate why and how religious communities strove for a detemporalization within time. It argues that monks not only created and ritually performed a complex 'circle time' where past, present and future were perceptible, but also charged themselves with sacred aura by means of a ritual internalisation of the holiness of different holy role models from the past and the future at the same time. The decisive key to success lay in the phenomenon of hybrid imitation on a horizontal as well as on a vertical level. In this way, time could even be suspended, at least for a moment in time.