DOI article:
Vanderputten, Steven: The Mind as Cell and the Body as Cloister: Abbatial Leadership and the Issue of Stability in the Early Eleventh Century
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31468#0115
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114 | Steven Vanderputten
ing monastic interests and making sure that ordinary monks could pursue their
spiritual goals in splendid isolation whilst providing a valid service to society. The
abbot also attracted new converts, and transferred them personally from a secular
state to that of a novice, and then monk; he did likewise for gifts, which he helped
transform from worldly goods (temporalia) into spiritual ones (spiritualia). Abbots’
absence from the cloister also served a broader purpose: it helped promote monastic
virtues to secular audiences, for instance by enabling the abbot to show charity
towards the poor – a virtue often represented as a redistribution of aristocratic
wealth. ³³ Individuals like Odo of Cluny and William of Dijon thus functioned as
‘active extraworldly ascetics’, leaving the cloister to simultaneously assume a position
of moral dominance in the world and present themselves as mediators with the
divine. However, Odo’s and William’s ideology, even though it contributed to the
sanctification of the world, was focussed primarily on the traditional concerns of
a regular abbot, the nature of power networks in this period (based upon personal
exchanges between individuals) and on the appropriation of Carolingian models of
aristocratic lordship. ³⁴
Richard hardly found himself in a similar position as regards secular lordship
over any of the institutions he subsequently helped reform. By all accounts he saw
the office of abbot as legally subordinate to that of the bishop, and recognized
monasteries’ function as representative institutions of episcopal authority and/or
dynastic identity. ³⁵ But as regards his own person, I contend that he did not, at any
point from 1004 onwards, conceive of himself as in the first place as a monk or an
on Gregory’s ecclesiology to justify his involvement in the promotion of monastic virtues to non-monastic
audiences (Ibid., p. 89); see also, more generally, Jestice, Wayward Monks (note 14 above), pp. 68 –75
and 190 –195. The library of Gorze also contained two copies of the Liber Pastoralis, as well as several
other manuals for use by bishops; see Anne Wagner, Gorze au XI ᵉ siècle. Contribution à l’histoire du
monachisme bénédictin dans l’Empire (Atelier de Recherches sur les textes médiévaux 1), Turnhout 1996,
pp. 124 –126 and 145.
33 Isabelle Rosé, Circulation abbatiale et pouvoir monastique de l’époque carolingienne au premier âge
féodal (IX ᵉ –XI ᵉ siècle), in: Des sociétés en mouvement: migrations et mobilité au Moyen Âge. XL ᵉ congrès
de la SHMESP (Nice, 1– 6 juin 2009), ed. Société des historiens médiévistes de l’Enseignement
supérieur public (Publications de la Sorbonne. Série histoire ancienne et médiévale 104), Paris 2010, pp.
251–266, here pp. 260 f.
34 Rosé, Construire une société seigneuriale (note 32 above), p. 561 and Rosé, Circulation abbatiale (above
note 33), p. 265, with reference to Iogna-Prat, Panorama (note 2 above), pp. 113 –117.
35 Contrary to his contemporaries Odilo and William, Richard did not refuse to promise obedience to the
ordinarius (on William, see Neithard Bulst, Untersuchungen zu den Klosterreformen Wilhelms von Dijon
(962–1031) (Pariser historische Studien 11), Bonn 1973 and Id., La filiation de St-Bénigne de Dijon au
temps de l’Abbé Guillaume, in: Naissance et fonctionnement des réseaux monastiques et canoniaux. Actes
du 1er Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.M., Saint-Etienne, 16 –18 septembre 1985 (C.E.R.C.O.R.
Travaux et recherches 1), Saint-Etienne 1991, pp. 33 – 41). He is recorded as having done so upon his
election at Saint-Vanne (Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 372), and at no point during his
subsequent career did he challenge this episcopal prerogative.
ing monastic interests and making sure that ordinary monks could pursue their
spiritual goals in splendid isolation whilst providing a valid service to society. The
abbot also attracted new converts, and transferred them personally from a secular
state to that of a novice, and then monk; he did likewise for gifts, which he helped
transform from worldly goods (temporalia) into spiritual ones (spiritualia). Abbots’
absence from the cloister also served a broader purpose: it helped promote monastic
virtues to secular audiences, for instance by enabling the abbot to show charity
towards the poor – a virtue often represented as a redistribution of aristocratic
wealth. ³³ Individuals like Odo of Cluny and William of Dijon thus functioned as
‘active extraworldly ascetics’, leaving the cloister to simultaneously assume a position
of moral dominance in the world and present themselves as mediators with the
divine. However, Odo’s and William’s ideology, even though it contributed to the
sanctification of the world, was focussed primarily on the traditional concerns of
a regular abbot, the nature of power networks in this period (based upon personal
exchanges between individuals) and on the appropriation of Carolingian models of
aristocratic lordship. ³⁴
Richard hardly found himself in a similar position as regards secular lordship
over any of the institutions he subsequently helped reform. By all accounts he saw
the office of abbot as legally subordinate to that of the bishop, and recognized
monasteries’ function as representative institutions of episcopal authority and/or
dynastic identity. ³⁵ But as regards his own person, I contend that he did not, at any
point from 1004 onwards, conceive of himself as in the first place as a monk or an
on Gregory’s ecclesiology to justify his involvement in the promotion of monastic virtues to non-monastic
audiences (Ibid., p. 89); see also, more generally, Jestice, Wayward Monks (note 14 above), pp. 68 –75
and 190 –195. The library of Gorze also contained two copies of the Liber Pastoralis, as well as several
other manuals for use by bishops; see Anne Wagner, Gorze au XI ᵉ siècle. Contribution à l’histoire du
monachisme bénédictin dans l’Empire (Atelier de Recherches sur les textes médiévaux 1), Turnhout 1996,
pp. 124 –126 and 145.
33 Isabelle Rosé, Circulation abbatiale et pouvoir monastique de l’époque carolingienne au premier âge
féodal (IX ᵉ –XI ᵉ siècle), in: Des sociétés en mouvement: migrations et mobilité au Moyen Âge. XL ᵉ congrès
de la SHMESP (Nice, 1– 6 juin 2009), ed. Société des historiens médiévistes de l’Enseignement
supérieur public (Publications de la Sorbonne. Série histoire ancienne et médiévale 104), Paris 2010, pp.
251–266, here pp. 260 f.
34 Rosé, Construire une société seigneuriale (note 32 above), p. 561 and Rosé, Circulation abbatiale (above
note 33), p. 265, with reference to Iogna-Prat, Panorama (note 2 above), pp. 113 –117.
35 Contrary to his contemporaries Odilo and William, Richard did not refuse to promise obedience to the
ordinarius (on William, see Neithard Bulst, Untersuchungen zu den Klosterreformen Wilhelms von Dijon
(962–1031) (Pariser historische Studien 11), Bonn 1973 and Id., La filiation de St-Bénigne de Dijon au
temps de l’Abbé Guillaume, in: Naissance et fonctionnement des réseaux monastiques et canoniaux. Actes
du 1er Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.M., Saint-Etienne, 16 –18 septembre 1985 (C.E.R.C.O.R.
Travaux et recherches 1), Saint-Etienne 1991, pp. 33 – 41). He is recorded as having done so upon his
election at Saint-Vanne (Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 372), and at no point during his
subsequent career did he challenge this episcopal prerogative.