Klöster im Hochmittelalter

The Mind as Cell and the Body as Cloister | 123
that shaped his self-conception as abbot in the 1020s and 1030s, are suggestively
reflected in his Life of Roding. Indeed, considered together with the sources on
which it relied, the latter text may be regarded as his spiritual autobiography. But as
I suggested earlier, it was not just through literary means that Richard demonstrated
his involvement in the Gregorian dialectic: He also developed modes of behavior,
including some devotional, that he considered specific to a select group of virtuosi –
regardless of their actual status as clerics or monks – and that sometimes conflicted
with those behaviors he promoted to his subjects and his lay audience. According
to his biographers, from before his appointment as abbot of Saint-Vanne, Richard
had adopted a habit of each day reciting the entire psalter before a crucifix. ⁵⁸ Hugh
claims that
“Richard steadfastily recalled the Passion of Christ, which took up almost all
of this thoughts. What else was the purpose of his entire life, than to want to
suffer for Christ, to be slaughtered for him and to be buried, so that he could
give himself through Christ and gloriously resurrect with him?” ⁵⁹
Richard’s personal devotion undoubtedly lay at the origins of a legend, according
to which the figure of the crucified Christ responded to his incessant weeping by
blessing him. ⁶⁰ Naturally such stories, which were committed to writing many years
after his death, should be treated circumspectly; ⁶¹ but there is a possibility that they
echo oral traditions that referred to actual practices of devotion and, importantly,
preaching.
There was nothing unusual about Richard’s interest in the suffering Christ, and
certainly he was not a pioneer in this respect. Since Late Antiquity, an extensive
literature, both poetic and exegetic, devoted to the cult of the Cross had been been
popular with monastic and clerical audiences, ⁶² and several of Richard’s contemporaries
added to this body of texts. This new literature, as well as the relatively scarce
iconography of the Cross from the later tenth and early eleventh century, ⁶³ suggest
that the focus of thinking about the spiritual significance of the crucified Christ was
shifting from Christ as divine being, triumphant over death, to that of Christ as a
58 Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 369.
59 Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon (note 9 above), p. 396.
60 Vita Richardi (note 3 above), p. 533.
61 Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard (note 8 above), pp. 298 f.
62 Joseph Szövérffy, ‘Crux fidelis …’ Prolegomena to a history of the Holy Cross hymns, in: Traditio 26,
1966, pp. 1– 41.
63 See Jean-Marie Sansterre, Le moine et le “miles” exaltés par l’humilité du Crucifié: à propos de deux
miracles racontés au XI ᵉ siècle, in: Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 77, 1999, pp. 831– 842, with
references to further literature on pp. 831 f.