Klöster im Hochmittelalter

The Mind as Cell and the Body as Cloister | 117
his own, strenuous observance of monastic discipline. His special capacities justify
his seeking new spiritual challenges and new institutional environments, conduct
that receives endorsement from the bishop of Verdun. Thus, Roding can pursue a
spiritual path that is distinct from that of his monks, yet can continue to exercise
his role as abbot – significantly, Richard in the 1030s would do exactly the same,
retreating from Saint-Vanne to a hermitage near Remiremont but retaining all his
rights over the four institutions he headed as abbot. ⁴³ Finally, despite the fact that
Richard’s dying hours and burial would be organized differently from those described
in Roding’s Life, the designated locus of the latter’s grave – in front of the
altar of St John the Evangelist – also echoes Richard’s personal preferences. When
Richard was buried in the crypt of Saint-Vanne’s abbatial church, it was in front of
an altar devoted to Saint Mary and John the Evangelist. ⁴⁴
Thus, in the Vita Rodingi, Richard – or another author closely affiliated to him –
presented his audience with a thinly disguised commentary on his own monastic
leadership, and on the behavior that entitled him to this position. But his abbacy of
Saint-Vanne and several other monasteries covered but part of his identity; revealing
in this sense are the texts he used to compile the Life, and the specific vision they
project as regards religious leadership. In the introduction, Richard briefly quotes
the Life of Bishop Paul († 648); and for the traditional ‘catalogue of virtues’ he
reworked the one found in the Life of St Madalveus († 774). ⁴⁵ His reliance on these
episcopal hagiographies, in particular Madalveus’ Life, is interesting not just for the
fact that he borrowed specific sentences or, in the latter case, a previous author’s
version of a literary topos. First, it is not hard to imagine that he wanted to acknowledge
Bishop Haimo’s role in initiating the reform of Beaulieu, and to underscore
the fact that his own agency as reformer was always subject to episcopal approval.
Second, given his antecedents at Reims, Richard is also likely to have taken a
personal interest in episcopal role models; as we have seen, in the Life he argued that
Roding himself came from a secular ecclesiastical background before entering the
monastery. And third, Madalveus’ biography strikingly brings forward elements of
the saint’s devotional practices and religious leadership that closely match what we
know about the ‘non-typically monastic’ aspects of Richard’s life.
43 Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 402; Vita Richardi (note 3 above), pp. 526 f. Dauphin, Le
Bienheureux Richard (note 8 above), p. 302, speculates that Richard’s absence from the active life lasted
from c. 1033 to c. 1039.
44 Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 405.
45 On this and quotations from the Lives of Madalveus and Magneric, see Haubrichs, Die Tholeyer Abtslisten
(note 41 above), p. 98 (with references to previous publications).