Bounded Wilderness: Land and Reform at the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, ca. 1035-1072

In Bounded Wilderness, Kathryn Jasper focuses on the innovations undertaken at the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in central Italy during the eleventh century by its prior, Peter Damian (d. 1072). The congregation of Fonte Avellana experimented with reforming practices that led to new ways of managing property and relations among clergy, nobles, and the laity.

Jasper charts how Damian's notion of monastic reform took advantage of the surrounding topography and geography to amplify the sensory a...