ABSTRACT
Wandering monks, often called “gyrovagues” in medieval monastic rules, were considered the worst kind of monk. The motion and circulation of religious migrants was geographical, and social and economic. Both geography and the social motion of religious travelers demonstrates that the early medieval world was a dynamic place. The wandering monk as a migrant had itineracy as his social vector, in which physical movement determined and changed his social status and social ties. Individuals could leave that vector, taking up different social positions, oscillating between settlement and itineracy. An important characteristic of early medieval religious migrants was not just their wandering as physical and social motion, but also their settlement and foundation of new monasteries. The Columbanian monastic tradition was embedded in local Frankish political and religious life. The holiness of the wandering Irish saints combined with the political capital of the Pippinid to produce a new center of power at Nivelles built upon both religious motion and monastic settlement.
