The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life

Authors

Richard D.G. Irvine
University of St Andrews
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0468-4510

Keywords:

religious life, Catholic monasticism, Benedictine monks, mysticism, liturgy

Synopsis

Watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/DtjjP2k1DoUThough monastic life is often imagined to be a flight from the world, Benedictine monks take on the intense social commitment of life in close community. Drawing on long-term anthropological fieldwork in a Catholic English Benedictine monastery, The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life traces the monks’ daily lives as they confront the eternal in the fabric of the everyday.  

Bringing into focus the vow of stability – a lifelong commitment to the monastery and its community – this ethnography explores the rhythms and architecture that sustain shared life in a world of movement and fleeting interaction. At the same time, it analyses those social processes that damage and undermine the monastic institution and those in contact with it – in particular the harm caused by sexual abuse.  

Engaging with the everyday dynamics of life in close community while paying close attention to the time-depth of monastic history, this is a study of how religious institutions endure and change through generations.  

Reviews

'Irvine's particular contribution includes work that results from having done fieldwork inside the cloister of a male monastic community in the Western Christian tradition, which is, to my knowledge, novel in the literature. Irvine also addresses some of the social and ideological incongruities of monasticism in society - here, namely child sexual abuse - which is a sobering reality in need of greater ethnographic investigation.'

Paula Pryce, Cultural Anthropologist at the University of British Columbia

Book Launch

Watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/DtjjP2k1DoU 

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Author Biography

Richard D.G. Irvine, University of St Andrews

Richard D.G. Irvine is Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews.  

His work spans the anthropology of religion and environmental anthropology, and he has carried out fieldwork in the UK and Mongolia.  

The front cover of The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life by Dr Richard D.G. Irvine. The cover has a photograph of the interior of Downside Abbey - a long stone corridor with a high vaulted ceiling

Published

May 20, 2025

Details about the available publication format: PDF

PDF

ISBN-13 (15)

9781917341110

Date of first publication (11)

2025-05-20

Details about the available publication format: EPUB

EPUB

ISBN-13 (15)

9781917341103

Details about the available publication format: Hardback £50

Hardback £50

ISBN-13 (15)

9781917341097

Date of first publication (11)

2025-05-20

Physical Dimensions

156mm x 234mm x 19mm

Details about the available publication format: Paperback £30

Paperback £30

ISBN-13 (15)

9781917341080

Date of first publication (11)

2025-05-20

Physical Dimensions

156mm x 234mm x 16mm