Klöster im Hochmittelalter

The Mind as Cell and the Body as Cloister | 109
ceive a form of advanced education. ¹¹ All of these individuals were trained to be
as proficient in their understanding and practice of the norm of religion (norma
religionis) as in those of worldly ethics (mundana honestas). ¹² They shared the conviction
that, whatever position they held in the Church or in the world, they were
supposed to simultaneously broadcast an aura of spiritual detachment and an attitude
of involvement with the world. According to one contemporary commentator,
Adalbero distinguished himself from his contemporary peers by his belief
in the need to broadcast through his own behavior the fundamental attitudes he
wished to propagate to his ecclesiastical subjects. The key source of inspiration for
this, so his biographer implies, was the Rule of the Pastor by Gregory the Great. ¹³
Gregory’s handbook thematizes the dialectic between action and contemplation in
ecclesiastical office, outlining the four stages of learning required of a good pastor:
understanding of Christ through knowledge of the Scriptures and contemplation;
experience in life; experience through suffering; and experience in discerning the
needs of the Church and its subjects. ¹⁴ Adalbero himself during his tenure as archbishop
in equal measure represented himself as a figure of moral authority and as
a church leader and a statesman, with each aspect of his public persona providing
the legitimizing foundation for the other. Relying for authority upon his reputation
of moral rectitude, Adalbero considered himself qualified – and obliged, in order
to fufill the purpose of his office – to intervene in secular and ecclesiastical affairs.
He aggressively pursued the creation of a new, unified Western Empire; within the
ecclesiastical structures, he not only aimed to set a moral example based upon his
personal devotion and penchant for prayer, but also projected an image of himself as
11 Glenn, Politics (note 10 above), pp. 65 f.
12 Jaeger, The Envy (note 10 above), p. 59, with reference to Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above),
p. 368, where it is claimed that the Reims school transmitted to its students a “model of the virtuous life
and of proper behavior” (forma honeste videndi recteque conversandi).
13 The anonymous chronicler of Mouzon deals extensively with Adalbero’s ecclesiology, devoting much of
book 2 to this subject. Chapter 6 is of particular importance, and includes a quote from Gregory’s Rule
of the Pastor, book 2, chapter 7: Sit rector internorum curam [in] exteriorum occupatione non minuens,
exteriorum providentiam in internorum sollicitudine non relinquens; ne aut exterioribus deditus ab
intimis corruat, aut solis interioribus occupatus quae foris debet proximis non impendat; Chronique ou
livre de fondation du monastère de Mouzon. Chronicon Mosomense seu Liber fundationis monasterii
sanctae Mariae O.S.B. apud Mosomum in dioecesi Remensi, ed. Michel Bur, Paris 1989, pp. 166 f.; see
also Bur’s introductory comments at pp. 43 – 45.
14 I refer to Hanspeter Heinz, Der Bischofsspiegel des Mittelalters. Zur Regula Pastoralis Gregors des
Großen, in: Sendung und Dienst im bischöflichen Amt. Festschrift der Katholisch-Theologischen
Fakultät der Universität Augsburg für Bischof Josef Stimpfle zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Anton Ziegenaus,
Sankt-Ottilien 1991, pp. 113 –135, here pp. 116 f.; Silke Floryszczak, Die „Regula Pastoralis“ Gregors
des Großen. Studien zu Text, kirchenpolitischer Bedeutung und Rezeption in der Karolingerzeit (Studien
und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 26), Tübingen 2005; also Phyllis Jestice, Wayward Monks and the
Religious Revolution of the Eleventh Century (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 76), Leiden/Boston
1997, pp. 191–193.