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#0127
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126 | Steven Vanderputten
apotheosis of his identification with Christ; but it also underscored the notion that
his virtuosity was essentially beyond reach for others.
The inherent ‘ostentatiousness’ of these final acts and decisions in Richard’s life
starkly contrasts with the behavior of others, most notably his contemporary William
of Dijon, who chose to die an eremitical death, away from the gazes of all
but their closest associates. ⁷⁸ But rather than seeing them as the self-aggrandizing
gestures of an overinflated ego, we should think of them as logical expressions of a
form of religious leadership that relied heavily on teaching through word and deed
the attitudes that underlay one’s own behavior. Richard had turned his entire life
into a representative account of ecclesiastical leadership and virtuosity, and relied
upon his dying moments to provide a final, demonstrative act of how his agency as
virtuoso was geared not just at personal spiritual fulfillment, but like that of Christ
himself, carried a universal redemptive meaning.
Conclusions
In this paper I have argued that Richard thought of himself in first place as a member
of a universal reform movement, the members of which could assume different
institutional identities in pursuit of Pope Gregory’s ideal of ecclesiastical office.
The legitimizing essence of his religious leadership lay in his ability to transcend
collective morality, and attain spiritual unity with Christ through his own means.
Admittedly Richard’s ideas about the specific ways in which abbots could pursue
these goals were subject to evolution; but fundamental to this reflection is that he
regarded his office as abbot as belonging to a broad spectrum of functions within
the Church to which the Gregorian dialectic applied. In a sense this was both a
revo lutionary and a conservative approach, for his virtuoso agency, while rejecting
the apostolic monopoly of the clergy, nevertheless did respect the institutional
boundaries set by tradition. Monks were to remain inside the cloister; only those
able to attain a state of absolute moral self-sufficiency could transcend its limits.
78 Regarding the secluded deaths of eleventh-century hermits, see Patrick Henriet, La parole et la prière
au Moyen Âge. Le verbe efficace dans l’hagiographie monastique des XI ᵉ et XII ᵉ siècles (Bibliothèque du
Moyen Age 16), Bruxelles 2000, pp. 353 –378.
apotheosis of his identification with Christ; but it also underscored the notion that
his virtuosity was essentially beyond reach for others.
The inherent ‘ostentatiousness’ of these final acts and decisions in Richard’s life
starkly contrasts with the behavior of others, most notably his contemporary William
of Dijon, who chose to die an eremitical death, away from the gazes of all
but their closest associates. ⁷⁸ But rather than seeing them as the self-aggrandizing
gestures of an overinflated ego, we should think of them as logical expressions of a
form of religious leadership that relied heavily on teaching through word and deed
the attitudes that underlay one’s own behavior. Richard had turned his entire life
into a representative account of ecclesiastical leadership and virtuosity, and relied
upon his dying moments to provide a final, demonstrative act of how his agency as
virtuoso was geared not just at personal spiritual fulfillment, but like that of Christ
himself, carried a universal redemptive meaning.
Conclusions
In this paper I have argued that Richard thought of himself in first place as a member
of a universal reform movement, the members of which could assume different
institutional identities in pursuit of Pope Gregory’s ideal of ecclesiastical office.
The legitimizing essence of his religious leadership lay in his ability to transcend
collective morality, and attain spiritual unity with Christ through his own means.
Admittedly Richard’s ideas about the specific ways in which abbots could pursue
these goals were subject to evolution; but fundamental to this reflection is that he
regarded his office as abbot as belonging to a broad spectrum of functions within
the Church to which the Gregorian dialectic applied. In a sense this was both a
revo lutionary and a conservative approach, for his virtuoso agency, while rejecting
the apostolic monopoly of the clergy, nevertheless did respect the institutional
boundaries set by tradition. Monks were to remain inside the cloister; only those
able to attain a state of absolute moral self-sufficiency could transcend its limits.
78 Regarding the secluded deaths of eleventh-century hermits, see Patrick Henriet, La parole et la prière
au Moyen Âge. Le verbe efficace dans l’hagiographie monastique des XI ᵉ et XII ᵉ siècles (Bibliothèque du
Moyen Age 16), Bruxelles 2000, pp. 353 –378.