Touching Divinity: The Monastic Night in Anglo-Saxon England

The night is a fundamental part of human life and experience of the night within the Anglo-Saxon monastic context is underexplored. Scholarship on the night is fragmentary and the early medieval period has often been overlooked. Research focusing upon the early medieval monastic night is limited and does not conduct a detailed analysis of the primary evidence. Scholars have largely presented the medieval understanding of the night as monolithically negative, a time of danger and threat (both natural and supernatural). This thesis has examined references to, and descriptions of, the night in Anglo-Saxon England, with supporting evidence drawn from early medieval Francia. Particular focus was given to the writings of Bede due to the prominence of his teachings throughout the medieval period. Modern studies of sleeping patterns have been examined to contextualise the effects of early medieval nocturnal routine. This thesis has demonstrated that early medieval monastic understanding of the night’s origins in Christian creation, and how it physically functioned, informed their connecton between night and time. Performance of the Night Office was crucial to the lived experience of Anglo-Saxon monks and their monastic vocation, driving the need for accurate and reliable methods of nocturnal time-reckoning. The liminality of the night allowed greater interaction with the invisible spiritual world, and gave the Night Office its significance as it afforded an opportunity for closer connection with the divine. The early medieval monastic perception of the night was more complex and nuanced than has previously been assessed. Anglo-Saxon monks were able to understand the night as both a time of spiritual threat and an opportunity for divine connection.