diehl - monastic spirituality and the formation of literate cultures
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From Piety to Parchment
Monastic Spirituality and the Formation of Literate Cultures, 1050-1200
by
John Diehl
A dissertation submitted in partial fullfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of History
New York University
January, 2011
__________________________________
Professor Brigitte Bedos-Rezak
UMI Number: 3445286
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For Emily who was always there
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Acknowledgments
This dissertation would not have been possible without the assistance of a great
many individuals and institutions. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New
York University supported me for five years with a MacCracken Fellowship as well as
a Predoctoral Fellowship to begin research for this project in the summer of 2006. The
History Department at New York University also provided much needed support for
research and travel over the summer of 2008. The Hill Museum and Monastic Library
not only provided support in the form of a Heckman Fellowship in 2006, but also
excellent hospitality and access to microfilms, without which this project may have
never gotten off the ground. The idea for this project came to me during a seminar on
medieval images and texts held at the Erasmus Institute in 2005, and I would like to
thank both Notre Dame University and the members of that seminar for two thought-
provoking weeks. The final year of work on this project was supported by a fellowship
from the Humanities Initiative at New York University and I would like to thank all the
2009-10 fellows for all the wonderful conversations that took place there.
Many libraries have generously allowed me to consult their manuscripts. I
would like to thank the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels, the libraries of Corpus Christi
College, Jesus College, and Trinity College in Cambridge, the Durham Cathedral
Library, the British Library in London, and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In
particular, I would like to thank Ms. Joan Williams at Durham Cathedral (who has
since moved on to other things), Dr. Frances Willmoth of the Old Library at Jesus
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College, Cambridge, and Dr. Michiel Verweij of the Bibliothèque Royale for their
assistance.
The members of my dissertation committee deserve special thanks, each for
different reasons. Dr. Mary Carruthers first introduced me to medieval studies at NYU
in the form of a wonderful research seminar on the arts of memory in the fall of 2003
and, despite considerable logistical difficulties, kindly agreed to join my committee. Dr.
Jane Tylus was not only instrumental in bringing me to the Humanities Initiative in
2009-10, but also provided the impetus for the wonderful work that went on there, as
well as much needed inspiration during a year when it often felt my work had stalled.
Dr. Rachel Fulton first introduced me to the sources of medieval monastic history and
patiently guided me, clueless and in over my head, through a master’s degree at the
University of Chicago. I am delighted that she, at a late hour, agreed to join my
committee. Dr. Susan Boynton has been a source of unparalleled knowledge and advice
over many years of medieval studies in New York and I cannot imagine the last several
years without her energetic support.
Many other colleagues at NYU deserve thanks as well. Dr. Fiona Griffiths has
always provided wonderful insight into monastic history and excellent critiques of my
work. Dr. Chris Otter, in my first years at NYU, provided encouragement and forced
me to think outside of some of the boxes I had grown accustomed to inhabiting. My
medieval cohort - Mike, Maile, Jessica, Youn Jong, Pete, and (honorarily) Dan,
colleagues and friends all - provided insight when needed, but perspective just as often,
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particularly during “medievalists’ drinks night” at Shade, for which no little thanks is
also due to Brad and Jonathan.
My family - Deborah, John, Rebekah, and Sarah - have been unfailingly
supportive over the years, despite what must have surely seemed to be a strange
undertaking. Their understanding and patience over the years has been important. I
must particularly thank my parents for the encouragement and inspiration they have
given me for many years, as well as teaching me the determination and dedication
needed to make it through this project.
Two people have been with this project through all its breakthroughs and
setbacks. I can hardly express my debt to Dr. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, who has always
held me to a higher standard than I believed possible. She has been tireless in her
efforts to improve my work and has offered unfailing support and unsurpassed
guidance for many years now. My greatest fear is that without her guidance, I will
never again be able to achieve what I have been able to with it.
And Emily, tireless editor, constant companion, closest friend, who has taught
me more than I could ever know.
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Abstract
This dissertation investigates the role of spirituality in the formation of monastic
literate cultures during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries in Northern Europe.
During this period, Europe witnessed a significant increase in the production and use of
the written word, which became increasingly central to the cultural life of monasteries.
Communities developed distinctive literate cultures by incorporating ideas from their
spiritual traditions into their understanding of the nature and role of the written word.
These ideas were altered by their migration to a new set of practices, but never fully
detached from their original context, thus creating mutally productive dialogue between
spirituality and written culture that not only shaped the nature of literate practices, but
also had the ability to transform the devotional life of monasteries. I argue that
approaching the impact of literate practice and knowledge from the standpoint of
specific spiritual cultures enables a richer understanding of the ways in which the
written word was organized and the channels through which writing itself reorganized
monastic communities.
This process is examined at three monastic communities that each participated
in a distinct tradition of spirituality: St.-Laurent de Liège, which focused on liturgical
and Scriptural piety, Durham Cathedral Priory, which was organized around
hagiographic spirituality, and Rievaulx Abbey, which developed a form of affective
devotion. Each community’s spiritual tradition guided the formation of its literate
culture along a different route, a process I reconstruct through examination of
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theological treatises, devotional writings, and surviving manuscripts from each
community.
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Table of Contents
Dedication iii
Acknowledgments iv Abstract vii
List of Figures xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction
I. Spirituality and Literacy 1
I.1 Three Monastic Communities, Three Literate Cultures 5
I.2 Medieval Expansion of Writing in Modern Historiography 9
I.3 Literate Identities 17
I.4 Monastic Devotion and the Organization of Knowledge 20
II. Sources and Methodology 26
III. Outline of Chapters 34
Part One: St.-Laurent de Liège
Introduction. St.-Laurent de Liège: History and Sources 38
Chapter 1. Devotion at St.-Laurent: Performing the Word 50
1.1 Liturgy and Piety at St.-Laurent 51
1.2 Liturgy and Scholarship at St.-Laurent 67
1.3 Scriptural Knowledge as Devotional Practice 73
1.4 Liturgy and Scripture: The Connects and Disconnects 100
Chapter 2. Literate Culture at St.-Laurent: Materializing the Word 105
2.1 From Scripture to Script 106
2.2 Trans-Script: The Blurred Boundaries of Scripture and Text 119
2.3 Material Scriptures: Manuscripts from St.-Laurent 127
2.4 Liturgy and Sacraments as Scripture 134
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Part Two: Durham Cathedral Priory
Introduction. Durham Cathedral Priory: History and Sources 154
Chapter 3. Devotion at Durham Priory: The Cult of Saints 168
3.1 The Bodily Presence of Saint Cuthbert and Spiritual Reform 169
3.2 From the Body of the Saint to the Body of the Text 191
3.3 Transcending Mediation: Imitation, Vision, Incorporation 206
Chapter 4. Literate Culture at Durham Priory: The Cult of Authors 216
4.1. Presence, Author, and Auctoritas 217
4.2 A Pedagogy of Presence 229
4.3 Books and Authors: The Manuscript Evidence 236
4.4 Competing for Presence: Saints and Authors 260
Part Three: Rievaulx Abbey Introduction. Rievaulx Abbey: History and Sources 280
Chapter 5. Devotion at Rievaulx Abbey: From Self to God 289
5.1 The Cultivation of Charity 290
5.2 Community: Love of Neighbor and Love of God 299
5.3 The Soul: Unity and Trinity 309
5.4 Language Acts as Devotional Practices 335
Chapter 6. Literate Culture at Rievaulx Abbey: From Word to World 340
6.1 The Arts of Language 341
6.2 Aelred of Rievaulx and Linguistic Theory 355
6.3 Linguistic Hermeneutics and Textual Identity 363
6.4 Written Language 375
Conclusions 399
Bibliography 403
Manuscript Sources 403
Printed Primary Sources 410
Secondary Literature 414
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Durham, Cathedral Library, B.II.13, f.102r 274
Figure 2. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley Ms. 717, f.287v 275
Figure 3. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby Ms. 20, f.194r 276
Figure 4. Durham, University Library, Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, f.22v 277
Figure 5. London, British Library, Yates Thompson Ms. 26, ff.1r and 2v 278
Figure 6. London, Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.60r 397
Figure 7. London, Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.102v 398
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Abbreviations
AND Anglo-Norman Durham, 1093-1193, eds. David Rollason,
Margaret Harvey, and Michael Prestwich. Woodbridge and Rochester, 1994.
BL London, British Library
BNF Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France
BR Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique
CCCM Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis
CCSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina
DCM Mynors, R.A.B. Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century. Oxford, 1939.
Libellus de exordio Symeon of Durham. Libellus de exordio atque procursu istitus,
hoc est Dunhelmensis. Ed. and trans. David Rollason. Oxford, 2000.
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica PL Patrologia cursus completus: series latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne. 221 vols. Paris, 1841-64. St.-Laurent Saint-Laurent de Liège, èglise, abbaye, et hopital militaire. Mille ans d’histoire. Ed. Rita Lejeune. Liège, 1968. SS Surtees Society
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Introduction
For Satan receives as many wounds as the scribe writes words of the Lord. Cassiodorus Institutes of Divine and Secular Learning, Book I, Chap. 30
I. Spirituality and Literacy
This dissertation was inspired by my interest in two aspects of medieval
monastic culture. The first is the diverse forms of spiritual experience expressed in
monastic communities and the ways in which mundane activities were transformed into
spiritual practices. The second is the place of writing in monastic life; suffused in a
religion based on Scripture and yet living in a world where the written word was rare
and the product of intense labor, monastic communities imbued the written word with a
remarkable range of meanings and found it to be an efficacious metaphor for exploring
other aspects of their life and culture. The reflection presented here grew out of my
desire to explore whether there was some particular rapport between spirituality and the
written word.
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the ways in which spiritual life
interacted with written culture and literate practices in northern European monastic
communities during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, with particular emphasis on
the ways in which spiritual traditions shaped the emergence of textual cultures. During
this period, northern Europe witnessed a remarkable growth in the production and use
2
of the written word in its myriad administrative, literary, and textual forms.1 Although
monastic communities had long been centers of book production and literate practice,
they were no less affected by this surge in writing. Manuscript production increased
precipitously in monastic communities in the late eleventh century and throughout the
twelfth.2 During this same period, charter production by monasteries in France,
England, and the Low Countries grew enormously, leading to the creation of cartularies
and other compilations that bore witness to both the increasing volume of writing and
the new conceptions of its social and cultural functions.3 In short, the production,
consumption, and preservation of the written word came to inhabit a more ubiquitous
place in medieval Europe than it had previously, a trend that was as true in monastic
communities as it was in society at large.
In what follows, I examine the conditions under which three monastic
communities began to expand their production of the written word, especially their
1 The foundational account continues to be Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307 (Oxford, 1993), although his conclusions are often specific to England. For the rest of Europe, see citations below, n.19. The growing importance of the written word to social and cultural organization in the twelfth century is charted by Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983). 2 Regarding the two monastic communities studied in this project whose foundation predates the twelfth century, there are about 25 manuscripts that predate the late eleventh century and roughly 170 from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. 3 See Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,” American Historical Review 105 (2000): 1505-07 and citations there, including the essays in Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des chartes 155 (1997), ibid., “Diplomatic Sources and Medieval Documentary Practices: An Essay in Interpretive Methodology,” in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame, 1994): 313-43, and Laurent Morelle, “The metamorphosis of three monastic charter collections in the eleventh century (Saint-Amand, Saint-Riquier, Montier-en-Der),” in Charters and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Society, ed. Karl Heidecker (Turnhout, 2000): 194-203. On the creation of cartularies, see Georges Declercq, “Originals and Cartularies: The Organization of Archival Memory,” in Charters and the Use of the Written Word, 22-32, and several essay in Charters, cartularies and archives: the preservation and transmission of documents in the Medieval West, eds. Anders Winroth and Adam Kosto (Toronto, 2002), including Constance Bouchard, “Monastic Cartularies: Organizing Eternity,” 22-32 and Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Toward and Archaeology of the Medieval Charter: Textual Production and Reproduction in Northern French Chartriers,” 43-60.
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production of manuscripts, and how they adapted writing for their distinctive forms of
cultural practice. I am especially interested in how these communities came to conceive
of the nature of written word during this period, how they defined a text, and how they
arrived at that definition. It continues to be an open question as to whether writing
possesses any intrinsic logic, but there is little doubt now that, as with an image or a
gesture, the full meaning of the written word can only be unlocked by exploring the
variety of cultural values and social uses it accrues. As writing became more pervasive
in monastic communities, and in medieval society more generally, it created the
potential for significant changes in cultural and social practices. At the same time,
however, it is no less true that those cultural and social practices imprinted their
structures on the written word, conditioning the forms and meanings assumed by
writing. In this project, I submit that spirituality was a form of cultural practice that was
crucial to the formation of monastic written culture and the types of literate behavior
associated with it.
In the most general terms, the process I am examining here can be summed up
as follows. As religious communities pursued the production of writing, they defined
and elaborated its role in their cultural lives, developing ideas about textual identity and
the nature of the written word that were distinct and specific to their own community.
Communities were thus able to manufacture the nature of literate knowledge and
regulate the changes that accompanied the growth of writing. They accomplished this
by transposing ideas that were central to their distinctive devotional lives onto their
conception of texts and literate practices. The result was the formation of discrete
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written cultures and literacies that were, in a way, congruent with a monastic
community’s spirituality. The integration of core elements of a community’s spirituality
within textual practices defined the nature of the written word and shaped the roles
assigned to it. Furthermore, these ideas were altered by their migration to a new
context, but never fully detached from their original abode. This connection produced a
dialogue between spirituality and textual culture that not only shaped the nature of
literate practices, but also had the ability to transform the devotional life of monastic
communities.4
To reconstruct this process, I compare the ideas that guided spiritual practice in
three particular monasteries with the ideas related to texts embodied in each
community’s surviving writings and manuscripts. Although this comparison revealed a
high degree of correlation in the language used for both forms of practice at each
community, such correlation is never perfect, a symptom of the ways in which these
ideas were constantly transformed as they were adapted to new contexts and, in turn,
influenced those contexts. Much of the analysis that follows is concerned, not simply
with identifying the ideas around which both spirituality and literate practices were
constructed, but with the processes by which ideas moved from spirituality to wrtiten
word, the new meanings and associations they developed through these processes, and
resulting linkages, tensions, and gaps that came to shape both literate and spiritual
practices. The goal is not simply to observe the formation of a literate culture, but to 4 My understanding of cultural transformation has been much influenced by the essays collection in William Sewell, Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (Chicago, 2005). I have particularly borrowed some vocabulary from the essays “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation” and “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution as the Bastille.”
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examine how it was formed: the changes it was subjected to, the problems posed by
these changes, and the solutions and compromises that were negotiated in addressing
these problems. In short, this study has not been just about reconstructing ideas, but
about retracing the processes though which they assumed their forms and meanings.
I.1 Three Monastic Communities, Three Literate Cultures
The three monastic communities at which I investigate these processes are St.-
Laurent in Liège, the Cathedral Priory of Durham, and Rievaulx Abbey. A fuller
introduction to each monastery will be provided at the start of the section devoted to
them. Here I will provide only a brief sketch of each, explain why these three
communities in particular were selected, and give an overview of the sources that are
available from each.5 On the surface, it seems an odd trio; St.-Laurent is in the Low
Countries, while Durham and Rievaulx are both English, the former located in
Northumbria and the latter in Yorkshire. St.-Laurent was founded in the context of the
monastic reform movements of Gerard of Cambrai and Richard of St.-Vanne, and its
ties to the bishopric of Liège placed it in the midst of both the Gregorian reform
movements and the Investiture Controversy.6 The community at Durham traced its
history to the ancient Anglo-Saxon community at Lindisfarne. It was deeply embedded
in the local socio-political world of Northumbria, but the eleventh-century installation
5 Further citations to all of the communities and individuals are provided in the Introductions to each section. Only the most important introductions to them are given here. 6 See the essays in Rita Lejeune (ed.), Saint-Laurent de Liège: Église, abbaye, et hopital militaire: Mille ans d’histoire (Liège, 1968). On the reform movements of Gerard of Cambrai and Richard of St.-Vanne, see most recently, Diane Reilly, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of Saint-Vanne and the Saint-Vaast Bible (Leiden, 2006).
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of a Norman bishop and his subsequent reforms also linked it to the spread of Anglo-
Norman culture and institutions.7 Rievaulx Abbey was the first Cistercian house in the
north of England. It was founded by a Yorkshire lord named Walter Espec with the
help of Bernard of Clairvaux, who sent twelve members of his own community to
Yorkshire. Rievaulx, then, was involved with both the emerging Cistercian community
and the local social networks of northern England.8
Despite these differences, there are important features common to all three
communities that make them suitable for this study. All three are familiar to scholars of
monasticism and have been the subject of many historical studies. This is partly due to
their interesting institutional and social histories, but also to the fact that each was the
home of important scholars and writers who have left behind devotional and theological
treatises. St.-Laurent was home to Rupert of Deutz (c.1075-1129) for the first part of
his career, justly famous as the most prolific writer of the central Middle Ages, as well
as the home of lesser known writers such as Renier of St.-Laurent (d.1188).9 Durham
housed a vibrant community of scholars in the twelfth century, including the historian
and theologian Symeon of Durham (d. after 1129) and the hagiographer Reginald of
Durham (d. 1175?).10 Rievaulx is best known for its abbot, Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-
7 For the Norman period, see William Aird, St. Cuthbert and the Norman: the Church of Durham, 1071-1153 (Woodbridge, 1998) and the essays in David Rollason, Margaret Harvey, and Michael Prestwich (eds.), Anglo-Norman Durham, 1093-11193 (Woodbridge, 1994). 8 While there is no systematic study of the community of Rievaulx, see Janet Burton, “Rievaulx Abbey: The Early Years,” in Perspective for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercian Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. Terry Kinder (Turnhout, 2004): 47-53 and Emilia Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132-1300 (Turnhout, 2005). 9 On Rupert of Deutz, see the study of John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983). 10 On Symeon of Durham, see David Rollason (ed.), Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North (Stamford, 1998). On Reginald of Durham, see Victoria Tudor, “The Cult of St. Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham,” in St. Cuthbert, his Cult and Community to AD
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1167), the author of numerous devotional treatises, but his student Walter Daniel
(fl.1150-1170) and the abbey’s early thirteenth-century cantor, Mathew of Rievaulx
(fl.1167-?), also authored important surviving works.11 The writings of these authors
are instrumental to the construction of a comprehensive picture of the devotional and
literate cultures of the communities within they labored.12 These communities also,
with the exception of Rievaulx, possess large bodies of surviving manuscripts that have
been well studied by scholars, making an in-depth examination of their literate culture
more feasible. Rievaulx’s manuscript tradition is, unfortunately, very fragmentary, but
shows enough interesting features to provide insight into the community’s textual
culture.13
These commonalities make St.-Laurent, Durham, and Rievaulx good subjects
for this study, but they have been chosen for an important set of differences. Each of
these communities participated in a distinct tradition of spiritual life, placing different
ideas at the center of the interaction between spirituality and textuality. While there
1200 (Woodbridge, 1989): 447-67 and William Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham: The Writing of History and Hagiography in Twelfth-Century Northumbria (Ph.D Thesis, University of Ottawa, 1993). 11 On Aelred, see the two contrasting biographies: Aelred Squire, Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study (London, 1969) and Brian Patrick McGuire, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx (New York, 1994). 12 The sections on St.-Laurent and Rievaulx are particularly indebted to the work of Rupert of Deutz and Aelred of Rievaulx, so much so that they almost qualify as studies of their thought rather than studies of the communities. Whenever possible, I have tried to compensate for this focus by reading Rupert and Aelred’s works against those of other scholars in their monasteries, treating their works as the fullest expression of ideas that were central to the intellectual culture of their communities. At the same time, I have worked under the assumptions that the works of Rupert and Aelred were not produced in intellectual isolation, but rather in dialogue with their communities, and that their works, once completed, became important texts within their communities (a possibility that is generally supported by the library catalogues of St.-Laurent and Rievaulx). As such, the works of Rupert and Aelred were both reflective and productive of important aspects of St.-Laurent and Rievaulx’s intellectual cultures. 13 The manuscript traditions for all three communities have been well-studied, as the citations to the Introductions of each section make clear. In general, I have followed scholarly consensus on the provenance of manuscripts associated with each community. Where there are questions about attribution and provenance, I have erred on the side of caution.
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were certainly elements of spirituality that were common to the cultures of most
monasteries during the central Middle Ages, such as the performance of the liturgy and
the veneration of relics, certain communities prioritized particular forms of spirituality,
according them a more central role in their devotional lives. It is one of the main
assertions of this project that it is possible, in the cas of these three communities, to
identify a distinct form of spirituality at each community that prioritized certain ideas
about devotion and the divine. The nature of these different ideas guided the processes
through which these monastic communities developed distinct literate cultures along
different paths, resulting in three unique configurations of literate practice and
knowledge.
At St.-Laurent, the community’s spiritual life was centered around an intense
liturgical piety. Given the important role of biblical material in the composition of the
liturgy, the idea of Scripture was also meaningful to the community. Their textual
culture developed around the idea of the progressive materialization of Scripture, which
changed the conditions necessary for salvation and prompted a new understanding of
the liturgy. The community at Durham Cathedral Priory participated in a deeply
hagiographic form of spirituality, with the cult of their patron, Saint Cuthbert, and his
relics standing at its center. The concepts of presence and authority were central to this
form of devotion. When transposed to literate culture, these fundamental ideas were
elaborated to create an understanding of texts as conveying the presence of their author.
Finally, at Rievaulx Abbey, a form of affective piety built around concepts such as
community, friendship, the self, and the soul dominated devotional life. This form of
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spirituality confronted the problem of linking the subjective self to the objective world
and relied upon the idea of language as mediator between the two. Language and
linguistics thereby became the defining feature of written culture at Rievaulx.
In outlining these distinct forms of spirituality, I am not suggesting that the
hagiographic piety that defined Durham’s devotional culture was unknown at St.-
Laurent or that the liturgical piety that characterized St.-Laurent had no place at
Rievaulx. Monastic culture was never so perfectly coherent. Rather, I suggest that
certain types of piety dominated spiritual life at these communities and that other forms
of devotion were integrated (often partially and imperfectly) into them. Neither am I
suggesting that the spiritual traditions of these communities were entirely unique.
Liturgical, hagiographical, and affective piety were major features of spirituality in the
central Middle Ages, both in monastic communities and beyond them. While certain
aspects of the spiritual lives of these communities were unusual, the important point
here is not proving that these forms of spirituality were unique, but recognizing their
distinctiveness and uncovering the ways in which their particularity contributed to the
formation of discrete literate cultures.
I.2 Medieval Expansion of Writing in Modern Historiography: A Critical Assessment
Scholars have devoted considerable attention to the surge in writing and literate
practices during the central Middle Ages. It is, in many ways, viewed as one of the key
markers of the end of the fragmented “feudal” world of the ninth and tenth centuries,
although it is itself a successor to an earlier surge in the use of writing under the
10
Carolingians.14 Studies of the expansion of writing and literacy during this period have
focused on the several overarching trends it enabled, such as the rise of bureaucratic
administration, both secular and monastic.15 As writing came to have an increasingly
juridical status, it enabled the projection of personal authority over space, permitted
better coordination of large institutions, and generated new forms of corporate
memory.16 New forms of communal organization were based on the written word, via
both the transmission and manipulation of documents and the creation of cultural
communities based on a collective hermeneutic approach to a body of texts.17
The changes associated with the growth of the written word have often been
conflated into the notion of the “literate mentality,” a shorthand way of describing the
worldview and social relations of a society that has been imprinted with the logic of the
14 On the “feudal” age of the ninth and tenth centuries and its relationship to the written word, see Patrick Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994) and Dominique Barthélemy, “La mutation féodale a-t-elle eu lieu?” Annales 47 (1992): 767-77. Recent work on the Carolingians has emphasized the vital role of the written word in their society and government. See Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), the essays collected in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990) and Mathew Innes, “Memory, Orality, and Literacy in an Early Medieval Society,” Past and Present 158 (1998): 3-36. 15 Among others, Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, 145-84, John Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: The Foundation of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986): 137-75, Karl Heidecker, “Emploi de l’écrit dans les actes judicaires. Trois sondages en profondeur: Bourgogne, Souabe et Franconie (VIIIe - débute XIIe siècle),” in Les actes comme expression du pouvoir au Haut Moyen Age. Actes de la Table Ronde de Nancy, 26-27 novembre 1999, eds. M.J. Grosse-Grandjean and B.M. Tock (Turnhout, 2003): 125-38. 16 On the projection of personal authority and charisma, see John Van Engen, “Letter, Schools, and Written Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Century,” in Dialektik und Rhetoric im früherem und hohen Mittelalter, ed. Johannes Fried (Munich, 1997): 97-132, Constant Mews, “Orality, Literacy, and Authority in the Twelfth-Century Schools,” Exemplaria 2 (1990): 475-500 and Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity,” 1521-33. On corporate memory, see Steven Vanderputten, “‘Literate Memory’ and Social Reassessment in Tenth-Century Monasticism,” Mediaevistik: internationale Zeitschrift fur interdiscziplinare Mittelalterforschung 17 (2004): 65-94, Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 115-133. 17 On the emergence of communities based on collective hermeneutics, see Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 88-240 and ibid., “Medieval Literacy, linguistic theory, and social organization,” New Literary History 16 (1984-85): 13-29, reprinted in Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Philadelphia, 1990): 30-51.
11
written word. The essence of the concept of a “literate mentality” is that writing
produced new mental structures that were based on the acquisition and manipulation of
literacy, along with the symbolic capital that could accrue from it.18 Scholars have
identified several problems with this idea. First and foremost, derived as it was from
anthropological studies that were looking for universal cultural laws, the “literate
mentality” was treated as a determinative, almost psychological structure that uniformly
imposed new modes of thought on societies. Two results followed from this approach.
First, social actors were accorded no individual agency in the acquisition and use of
literate practices. Second, the spread of writing and its concomitant modes of thought
was treated as universal and teleological, with no attention to local context or
contingency. In general, scholars have successfully addressed these issues in studies of
the central Middle Ages, demonstrating, on the one hand, the creative, experimental,
and varied uses to which writing could be put and, on the other hand, regional variation
in the nature of book production, administration, and literate behavior.19
18 This notion was largely developed in the works of Jack Goody, particularly The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge, 1968) and J. Goody and I. Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” Comparative Studies in History and Society 5 (1963): 304-45, as well as those of Walter Ong, Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, 1977) and The Presence of the World: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (New Haven, 1967). Although sensitive to some of its problems and the variable structures of authority and knowledge, this was largely the approach adopted by Stock, Implications of Literacy and, with some variation, Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 253-327. For basic assessments and problematizations of this approach, see Brian Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 1984) and David Olson, The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Reading and Writing (Cambridge, 1994): 1-142. 19 On the use of literacy and/or writing as an experimentative, rather than determinative, exercise, see Steven Vanderputten, “Monastic Literate Practices in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Northern France,” Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006): 101-26, W. Brown, “Charters as Weapons: on the role played by early medieval dispute records in the disputes they record,” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002): 227-48, and further citations below, pp.16-17. On regional variations in literate behavior, see, for instance Arnved Nedkvitne, The Social Consequences of Literacy in Medieval Scandinavia (Turnhout, 2004), Anna Adamska and Marco Mostert (eds.), The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central
12
A second feature of the idea of “literate mentalities” has been somewhat less
thoroughly problematized by scholars at this point. In examining the emergence of the
written word in a particular social group, scholars still tend to emphasize the different
ways in which the written word was employed once medieval people possessed it and
the contexts for those uses. The result is that, while scholars have accepted that writing
does not have any determinate agency, they nonetheless focus on how writing operated
as an agent of change and how medieval society was transformed (or, in some case,
failed to be transformed) by the written word.20 The story of literate behavior in the
Middle Ages is generally still the story of how people made use of writing, rather than
how they arrived at particular ideas about its identity and how it should be used.21 Yet,
given that writing was developed by assigning particular values and ideas to it that were
already present in medieval society, this narrative is only part of the total story of the
written word in the Middle Ages. Although literacy did indeed impact medieval
cultures, it was able to do so because it was constituted and operated through ideas and
values already present in those cultures. The written word did not layer new schemas of
thought onto medieval society; it provided a field where longstanding ideas were
Europe (Turnhout, 2004), S. Franklin, “Literacy and Documentation in Early Medieval Russia,” Speculum 60 (1985): 1-38, Armando Petrucci, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy, trans. Charles Radding (New Haven, 1995), Sarah Rees Jones (ed.), Learning and Literacy in Medieval England and Abroad (Turnhout, 2003), and Inger Larsson, Pragmatic Literacy and the Medieval Use of the Vernacular: The Swedish Example (Turnhout, 2009). 20 See, most explicitly, the recently released results of an ongoing research project at Münster entitled Transforming the Medieval World: Uses of Pragmatic Literacy in the Middle Ages. A CD-ROM and Book, eds. Franz-Josef Arlinghaus et al. (Turnhout, 2006). 21 See citations above, n.18, as well as the essays in Karl Heidecker (ed.), Charters and the use of the Written Word in Medieval Society (Turnhout, 2000), J.C. Brown, “Writing Power and Writing-Power: The Rise of Literacy as a Means of Power in Anglo-Saxon England,” Medieval Perspectives 15 (2000): 42-56, Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France (Cambridge, 2006).
13
reformulated and rearticulated. To understand fully the nature of the growth of writing
in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to address the role played by existing cultural
structures in its formation and deployment.
In the past, when scholars have viewed the development of the written word in
light of pre-existing cultural practices, it was generally with reference to one of two
phenomena. First, it might be viewed in reference to earlier textual traditions, an
approach favored by historians of the book and other material written forms. Monastic
book cultures, for example, have been overwhelmingly subject to this approach. The
process of monastic book formation is generally understood as a process of finding
exemplars of desired texts, copying those texts, and making changes according to the
intended role of the book.22 Placing a book within a textual tradition in this fashion
permits a better understanding of its organization, style, and, if it is decorated, its
iconography. At the same time, however, the growing production and use of the written
word assigned to it a new and expanded role, placing it in dialogue with a greater
variety of cultural practices and intensifying the importance of these dialogues. To view
the development of the written word in the twelfth century only with reference to
earlier forms of the written word denies its changing roles and relative levels of
importance. Indeed, it has been readily accepted that ideas about the nature of texts
were coded into the material presentation of books, guiding readers in accessing and
manipulating textual meaning. The sources of these ideas, however, are rarely 22 Among many outstanding examples, see Teresa Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, c.1075-1125 (Oxford, 1992), Michael Gullick (ed.), Pen in Hand: Medieval Scribal Portraits, Colophons and Tools (Walkern, 2006), J.J.G. Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St. Michel, 966-1100, Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge, 2003), R.M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St. Albans Abbey, 1066-1235, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 1982),
14
interrogated, beyond their presence in earlier textual traditions, a fairly reductive
strategy.
The second pre-existing cultural structure often cited in studies of the
development of writing is the range of phenomena encapsulated by the term “orality,”
an approach that has been favored by historians of literacy and scholars of literature.
Because the written word often functions as a substitute for the spoken word, it seems
intuitive that writing in a given context might emerge out of the functions previously
fulfilled by the spoken word. Indeed, the foundational master narrative of the study of
“literate mentalities” tends to describe the process by which societies based on oral
communication were supplanted by ones based on written communication and
literacy.23 One of the major achievements of the study of medieval literacy has been the
elimination of this narrative and the realization that orality and literacy nearly always
coexisted and informed each other in important ways, as in the case of a written text
being received primarily through oral/aural means. As a result, neither orality nor
literacy can be fully understood in isolation.24
23 See Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: the technologizing of the word (New York, 1982), ibid. “Orality, Literacy and Medieval Textualization,” New Literary History 16 (1984): 1-12, and Jack Goody, The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (New York, 1987). 24 Central to this realization was the work of Dennis Green, Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature, 800-1300 (Cambridge, 1994). See also ibid., “Orality and Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies,” Speculum 65 (1990): 267-280. The extent to which orality and literacy came to be viewed with reference to each other in the study of the written word can hardly be overstated. See Stock, Implications of Literacy, 12-87, Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 260-71, A.N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternak (eds.), Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages (Madison, 1991), Joyce Coleman, Public Reading and the Reading Public, Paul Zumthor and Mary Engelhardt, “The Text and the Voice,” New Literary History 16 (1984): 67-92, and Mark Chinca, Christopher Young, and D.H. Green (eds.), Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: Essays on a Conjunction and its Consequences in honour of D.H. Green (Turnhout, 2005). The introduction to this last citation provides a good overview of the ways in which orality and literacy have been studied with reference to each other.
15
As revelatory and informative as this approach has been, it is still problematic
on one level. If the written word does not simply assume the place of the spoken word
over time, neither can it be described solely by its relationship with orality at any given
time. Writing, in any of its forms, possessed a wide range of cultural meanings that
cannot be wholly explained via its relationship with orality, including, for instance,
meanings accrued through ritual functions, the juxtaposition of text and image, social
polemics, and literary genre. Writing then, either diachronically or synchronically,
cannot be treated as a field delineated by its relationship with orality. Although these
two practices informed each other, they did not define each other. Therefore, one of the
underlying contentions of this project is that the development of the written word and
literate practices cannot be fully understood with reference only to pre-existing
traditions of textuality or orality. Rather, it must be viewed in the context of other
cultural practices and the ways they affected the growth of writing in the medieval west
need to be carefully analyzed.
Recent scholarship has contributed two important developments in the study of
medieval literacy.25 First, the very notion of “literacy” has been subjected to extensive
deconstruction. Originally understood in a fairly straightforward manner as the
possession of the skills necessary to decode written language, it has been progressively
nuanced by scholars in several important ways. Scholars have pointed out the many
different levels of literacy that existed.26 These ranged from the very basic literate skills
25 See also the overview of the question by Charles Briggs, “Literacy, Reading, and Writing in the Medieval West,” Journal of Medieval History 26 (2000): 397-420. 26 One such attempt is Franz Baüml, “Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,” Speculum 55 (1980): 237-65.
16
needed for everyday life, often termed “practical literacy,” to the highly sophisticated
skills of the medieval clerical elite.27 This observation undercut a unified conception of
literacy as something that was either possessed or not by a group. A unitary view of
literacy gave way to the idea that a variety of modes or configurations of literacy co-
existed at any given time; “literacies” took the place of “literacy.” As a result, attention
has shifted away from simply assessing the development of the skills traditionally
associated with literacy toward examining the variety of ways that people interacted
with the written word in the Middle Ages. By studying the ways in which the written
word was used, scholars moved beyond even the idea of “literacies” and to the notion
of literate practices, encompassing the various activities that came to employ
manifestations of the written word.28 Pushed to the furthest extreme, scholars have
begun to look at indirect or passive participation in literate behavior and at what
Katherine Zieman has recently termed “extra-grammatical” literacies.29
27 Although the idea of “practical” or “pragmatic” literacy in the Middle Ages is now an old concept, it continues to be the subject of intense scrutiny and is at the heart of the new approaches to studying medieval literate practices. Classic examinations of the topic include J.W. Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1393), M.B. Parkes, “The Literacy of the Laity,” in The Mediaeval World, eds. D. Daiches and A. Thorlby (London, 1973): 555-77. See also Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 328-334. The Münster research group has produced the most important recent work on the topic. See Christel Meier, Hagen Keller, Volker Honemann and Rudolf Suntrup (eds.), Pragmatische Dimensionen mittelalterlichen Schiftkultur. Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums 26-29 Mai 1999 (Munich, 2002) and Transforming the Medieval World. Also H. Keller, K. Grubmuller, and N. Staubach (eds.), Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter (Munich, 1992). 28 Studies that examine traditional activities related to literacy as part of a larger range of literate practices include Karl Heidecker (ed.), Charters and the Use of the Written Word, Vanderputten, “Monastic Literate Practices,” the essays in Petra Schulte, Marco Mostert and Irene van Renswoude (eds.), Strategies of Writing: Studies on Text and Trust in the Middle Ages: Papers from “Trust in Writing in the Middle Ages” (Utrecht, 28-29 November 2003) (Turnhout, 2008), esp. Anna Adamska, “Waging war and making peace with written documents: the kingdom of Poland against the Teutonic Knights (1411-1422),” 263-275, Rebecca Krug, Reading Families: Women’s Literate Practice in Late Medieval England (Ithaca, 2008). 29 Katherine Zieman, Singing the New Song: Literacy and Liturgy in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2008) examines the interpenetration of liturgical practices and literate activity and
17
A second, related development in the study of medieval literate practices is the
increasing tendency to view them in the context of other modes of communication.
Indeed, some scholars now prefer to speak of medieval “communicative practices”
rather than “literate practices,” implying that no form of practice could be defined
solely by its use of writing. In their earliest stages, these approaches related literacy to
orality. More recently, however, literate activity has been viewed in relation to a
broader spectrum of communicative practices, including images, gestures, and other
forms of performative acts.30 Among the most important work in this regard is a
predominantly German school of historiography dedicated to exploring the links
between writing and ritual as a form of communication.31
I.3 Literate Identities
By demonstrating that monastic written cultures emerged in dialogue with
spiritual traditions, this study provides important new insights to and revisions of
concludes that, although many people could not understand the “true” meaning of certain liturgical texts, they could nonetheless recite them and assigned meaning to them, establishing forms of literacy that were based on the meaning of texts and yet were reliant upon grammar. The argument is comparable to that of Steven Justice, Writing and Rebellion (Berkeley, 1994): 168-192. 30 See the essays in Marco Mostert (ed.), New Approaches to Medieval Communication (Turnhout, 1999), as well as Michael Camille, “Seeing and Reading: Some Visual Implication of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,” Art History 8 (1985): 26-49, Jean Claude-Schmidt, La raison des gestes dans l’occident médiévale (Paris, 1990), Mariëlle Hageman and Marco Mostert (eds.), Reading Images and Texts: Medieval Images and Texts as Forms of Communication: Papers from the Third Utrecht Symposium on Medieval Literacy, Utrecht 7-9 December 2000 (Turnhout, 2005), L. Treitler, “Reading and Sing: On the Genesis of Occidental Music Writing,” Early Music History 4 (1984): 135-208, Clanchy, From Memory to Written Word, 278-293. 31 See, among others, Ingmar Krause, Konflikt und Ritual im Herrschaftsbereich der Frühen Capetinger Untersuchungen zur Darstellung und Praxis der Konflicktführung und symbolischen Kommunikation der westfränkisch-französischen Führungsschichten (10.-12. Jahrhundert) (Münster, 2006), Hagen Keller, “Vom ‘heiligen Buch’ zur ‘Buchführung’. Lebensfunktionen der Schrift im Mittelalter,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 26 (1992): 1-31, Christel Meier, Dagmar Hüpper, and Hagen Keller (eds.), Der Codex im Gebrauch (Munich, 1996), and Zieman, Singing the New Song.
18
current understandings of the nature of medieval writing and the growth of literate
behavior. First, it builds on studies devoted to exploring the regional variations and
local contingencies in the emergence of the written word, demonstrating that monastic
book culture and literate knowledge, still too often treated as uniform across time and
space, was highly dependent upon local context and was the result of creative efforts by
monastic scholars grappling with the implications of writing for cultural and intellectual
life.
Second, this analysis moves beyond questions about who possessed the skills of
literacy toward specifying the nature of interactions with the written word. However, it
further expands such analysis by looking at the ways in which medieval people
constructed notions of “textual identity,” that is, the ideas that defined a text and the
sorts of information that were assigned to it by that definition. It is one of the key
assumptions of this project that it is not possible to fully comprehend the nature of
literate practice without understanding how people understood the written word and its
operations. Because “literacy” is no longer defined simply by the possession of a set of
skills, but rather as a range of interactions with the written word, it is necessary to
reconstruct how people understood the role of the writing in these interactions in order
to define the nature of literate practices.
Similarly, in order to understand the development of literate practices within a
particular group, it is necessary to investigate the processes by which that group came
to assign a certain identity to the written word and the knowledge it contained. The bulk
of this project is concerned with tracing the movement of ideas that became the
19
organizing principles of writing. These ideas constituted a form of knowledge intrinsic
to interactions with the written word. For this reason, this project often uses the term
“literate knowledge” alongside “literate practices” (and in preference to “literate
mentalities”). This term is chosen to evoke the ideas and bodies of knowledge that were
assigned to the written word in the construction of its identity and that subsequently
became associated with literate practice. Literate knowledge, seen this way, was not
knowledge that one accessed by becoming literate, but the set of ideas that one
participated in when interacting with writing because of their association with the
written word. An adequate exploration of literate practices relies upon understanding
textual identity because participation in literate activity also involved participating in
the types of knowledge that had been assigned to the written word at a given place and
time.
Furthermore, a complete understanding of the nature of this literate knowledge
depends on appreciating the context in which it was formed. To accomplish this, I
move beyond textual traditions or orality to examine the role of other influential
cultural ideas in the formation of monastic literate knowledge. This approach
complements studies that view medieval literate behavior in the context of broader
communicative practices, while simultaneously suggesting a new direction for such
studies. Studies of medieval writing as a communicative practice often consider the
situations in which writing was employed and its relationship with the uses of other
modes of communication. I am less concerned with the situations in which writing was
employed, and more interested in how ideas about the written word were formed and
20
how certain types of knowledge came to be assigned to it. I suggest that, in addition to
being a form of communicative practice, medieval literate activity also needs to be
understood as a means of codifying particular types of knowledge. To understand how
certain bodies of literate knowledge were created, they must be viewed in the context of
other forms of knowledge, particularly tacit forms of knowledge such as religious
experience.32 Spirituality, as a means of codifying knowledge about the world, was as
important a context for the creation of monastic literate knowledge, textual identity, and
written culture as were other forms of communicative practices.
I.4 Monastic Devotion and the Organization of Knowledge: Lectio, Symbols, Texts
The fact that spiritual life played an important role in the creation of monastic
textual culture is significant not only for our understanding of medieval literate
practices, but also speaks to the nature of monastic spirituality itself. The relationship
between texts and devotion has played an integral part in scholarly conceptions of
monastic culture and spirituality. The pioneering work of Jean Leclercq identified the
ruminative, meditative, and prayerful study of Scripture and patristic texts as a
quintessential activity of monastic devotion, a practice encapsulated in the term “lectio
divina.”33 The concept of “lectio divina” was so influential that it became a virtually
transhistorical concept, imbuing the study of medieval monasticism in all its forms.
32 In exploring the possibility of cultural transformation via the interplay of tacit structures of knowledge and more discursive forms of knowledge, I found Anthony Giddens’ theories of structuration to be very helpful, particularly as detailed in Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley, 1979). 33 Jean Leclercq, L’amour des lettres et le désir pour Dieu (Paris, 1957), trans. Catherine Mishrahi, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York, 1984), esp. 53-150. Restated in ibid., “The Renewal of Theology,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, eds. Giles Constable, Robert Benson, and Carol Lanham (Cambridge, 1982): 68-87.
21
The concept became so important that scholars who encountered the practice outside
the monastery interpreted it as the spread of monastic culture beyond a monastic
context.34 Although Leclercq’s larger argument for a divide between scholastic and
monastic theology, of which lectio divina was a key component, has now generally
been abandoned, lectio divina itself continues to appear as a key component of
spirituality, monastic or otherwise.35 Its astonishing persistence as a scholarly idea is
partially a testament to its attractiveness as a concept, but is also evidence of its
vagueness. In many contexts, in fact, it is not precise enough to contribute to a
meaningful analysis of medieval devotion. To claim that monks practiced prayerful
reading is no more precise a statement that to claim that they prayed. Just as the nature
of prayer differed considerably over time and space, so too did the meaning of prayerful
reading vary with its context.36 By examining the effects of devotional cultures on the
34 Although generally referenced in all studies of monastic learning, explicit discussions can be found in Placide Lefèvre, “A propos de la ‘lectio divina’ dans la vie monastique et cannoniale,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 67 (1972): 800-809, Robert O’Brien, “Saint Aelred et la ‘lectio divinia’,” Collectanea Cisterciensia 41 (1979): 281-92, Kolumban Spahr, “Die lectio divina bei den alten Cisterciensern. Eine Grundlage des cisterciensischen Geisteslebens,” Analecta Cisterciensia 34 (1979): 27-39, Ineke van’t Spijker, “Learning by Experience: Twelfth-Century Monastic Ideas,” in Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East, ed. Jan Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald (Leiden, 1995): 197-206, Brian Stock, “Lectio divine e lectio spiritualis: la scrittura come practica contemplativa nel Medioevo,” Letter Italiane 52 (2000): 169-183. On “lectio divina” outside the cloister, see Andrew Thornton, “Ava’s Life of Jesus: an example of vernacular ‘lectio divina’,” Studia monastica 29 (1987): 273-89 and Mary Agnes Edsall, Reading Like a Monk: Lectio Divina, Religious Literature, and Lay Devotion (Ph.D Thesis, Columbia University, 2000). 35 The monastic/scholastic divide has been problematized by a number of scholars, most succinctly by Constant Mews, “Monastic Educational Culture Revisited: the Witness of Zwiefalten and the Hirsau Reform,” in Medieval Monastic Education, eds. George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig (London, 2000): 182-97. See also Stephen Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: The Schools of Paris and their Critics (Stanford, 1985): 47-92, John D. Cotts, “Monks and Clerks in the Search of the Beata Schola,” in Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000-1200, eds. Sally Vaughn and Jay Rubenstein (Turnhout, 2006): 255-77. 36 Various approaches to prayer in medieval monasticism are explored by Mayke de Jong, “Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 2, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1995): 22-53, Jean Leclercq, “Culture liturgique and prière intime dans le monachisme au Moyen Age,” La Maison-Dieu 69 (1962): 39-55, Joseph Dyer, “The Psalms in Monastic
22
formation of monastic book culture, I seek to highlight the importance of context in the
shaping of textual identity and encounter in monastic communities. This attention to
context will produce more a precise understanding not only of how reading could be an
act of devotion, but also how specific configurations of spirituality shaped what it
actually meant to read within a given community. As texts assumed different identities,
their value as devotional objects fluctuated and their relationship with spirituality
assumed a variety of shapes that cannot easily be assimilated into the broad notion of
lectio divina.
Although the study of texts and book culture never fully disappeared from
scholarship on monastic spirituality, it did fade into the background in the face of
important new developments in the study of medieval devotion. These new
developments relied on methodologies associated with cultural hermeneutics and the
“new cultural history,” in which historians understood culture as “webs of
signification”, focusing on the signs and symbols that made social and cultural
experience meaningful.37 Medieval devotion, rich with symbols, was one of the topics
in medieval history most affected by these new methods. Scholars interested in
monastic devotion turned their attention away from studying the role of books and
study in spirituality and toward unpacking more esoteric sets of symbols and imagery,
Prayer,” in The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. Nancy Van Deusen (Albany, 1999): 59-89, Rachel Fulton, “Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice,” Speculum 81 (2006): 700-733, Susan Boynton, “Libelli precum in the Central Middle Ages,” in A History of Prayer, ed. Roy Hammerling (Leiden, 2008): 255-318, and ibid., “Prayer as Liturgical Performance in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastic Psalters,” Speculum 82 (2007); 895-931. 37 Most accessibly, see the essays in The New Cultural History, ed. Lynn Hunt (Berkeley, 1989) and Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, ed. Victoria Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (Berkeley, 1999).
23
among them food, relics, the feminine, Mary, the human Christ, the Eucharist,
friendship, the body, space, and a host of others.38 One of the key accomplishments of
this approach was the realization and explication of forms of monastic devotion that,
although suffused with Scriptural and other textual references, were experiential in
nature and did not rely upon texts for their enactment, leading to a partial separation of
monastic textual practices from devotional practices. As a result, the perceived degree
of natural overlap between the two was much reduced.
By unpacking the meanings of the symbolic structures of monastic devotion and
analyzing the sorts of experiences they made possible, scholars illuminated the ways in
which spirituality organized knowledge of and interaction with the world, an
observation of fundamental importance for the approach to the interplay of devotion
and literate practices adopted in this project. However, this approach to studying
monastic devotion came with a tradeoff. Although a great deal of attention was given to
unpacking the meaning of symbols and signs, less was focused on the various contexts
that shaped the construction and deployment of these signs. Even studies that analyzed
38 Included among the many studies of medieval spirituality influenced by this approach are Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1982), Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1988), ibid., “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1984): 110-169, ibid., “‘…And Women His Humanity’: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” and “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality,” in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1992): 27-51 and 151-179, Esther Cohen, “Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility: Pain in the Later Middle Ages,” Science in Context 8 (1995): 47-74, Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester, 1996), Martha Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180 (Stanford, 1996), and Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries (Turnhout, 2001), Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York, 2002).
24
the redeployment and transformation of the symbolic structures of spirituality tended to
focus the reworking of specific symbols, with less attention given to other forms of
practice whose interactions with spirituality enabled that reworking.39 To a certain
extent, then, monastic devotion’s interaction with other cultural practices was ignored
and it was deprived of any context beyond its own performance. By illuminating the
extent of the interaction between monastic devotional life and the formation of literate
knowledge, I hope to draw attention to the porous character of spirituality as a cultural
practice. Because it did operate as a means of organizing knowledge of the world,
monastic spirituality easily entered into dialogue with other forms practice that had the
same purpose, literate practices among them.40 The symbols and ideas that structured
monastic spirituality were not intrinsic to devotion; they moved easily into other
contexts where they took on new associations, transforming the nature of spirituality in
the process. Spirituality, in this project, only assumes its full meaning for monastic
culture when its interactions with other forms of practice have been recognized.
In current scholarship, texts have assumed a renewed importance in the study of
monastic devotion. Building on the insights of cultural hermeneutics, scholars have
begun to treat texts as not merely reflective of the ideas of monastic writers, but as
objects intended to produce experience. To borrow one scholar’s apt description, texts
39 For example, Rubin, Corpus Christi. 40 See Eileen Sweeney, Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Place of Things (New York, 2006) demonstrates how the linguistic theories of three important medieval thinkers informed their approach to poetical and devotional writing, a form of interpenetration reminiscent of that examined here.
25
were “scripts” for enacting spiritual experience.41 Prayers, scriptural exegesis, and other
forms of devotional texts did not simply transmit ideas, but served as tools for
constructing and interacting with the symbols of monastic devotion.42 This project’s
primary concern is not the actual purposes of texts in devotion. Rather, I hope to
demonstrate that spiritual traditions affected, not only what a text contained, but what it
was that people understood the written format of these texts to consist of. To the extent
that nature of texts shaped monastic spiritual practice, it was because the very ideas that
constituted spiritual traditions were transformed by their interplay with literate practice.
Apart from its contents then, the identity of a text enabled certain types of knowledge
for its readers, a fact which needs to be accounted for in any analysis of how texts
crafted experience.43 The emergence of the written word offered more than just the
opportunity to codify and transmit the ideas central to monastic devotion; it offered a
means of reconsidering the nature of those ideas and so of devotion itself.
41 The term comes from Ineke van’t Spijker, Fictions of the Inner Life: Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Turnhout, 2004): 10-17. 42 Although their approaches often differ in the details, see Fulton, “Praying with Anselm,” ibid., From Judgment to Passion, esp. 142-91, Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York, 1998), Sarah McNamer, Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion (Philadelphia, 2009), and Thomas Bestul, Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1996). Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, 1998) emphasizes the dialectic between meditative experience and rhetorical and literary invention. The study of lay devotional reading has also experienced a revival in current scholarship. See, for example, Jessica Brantley, Reading in the Wilderness: Private Devotion and Public Performance in Late Medieval England (Chicago, 2007) and Jennifer Bryan, Looking Inward: Devotional Reading and the Private Self in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2007). 43 Several other scholars have examined how aspects of literate practice other than the contents of a text have shaped the nature of cultural and devotional experience. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 2008) examines the effects of memorial culture on the role of texts in medieval culture. Sarah Spence, Texts and the Self in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996) took the distinction between Latin and vernacularity as a key feature of textual identity and explored the possibilities it provoked.
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II. Sources and Methodology: Medieval Manuscripts as Historical Agents
This project’s basic approach relies on the examination of evidence for the
nature of spirituality, defined as the dialectic of practices and ideas through which the
members of the community were able to draw closer to the divine, define themselves in
relation to it, and participate in spiritual life, at three monasteries. Using theological and
devotional treatises produced at each community, the sources drawn on in the
production of those treatises, and evidence from manuscripts possessed by the
communities, I not only identify the ideas that were central to spiritual life at each
monastery, but unpack their underlying rationales. As suggested above, I treat
spirituality not only as a form of experience, but as a particular way of organizing
knowledge about and interactions with the world. I then compared these ideas with the
conceptions of the written word, textual identity, and literate knowledge at each
community, as reconstructed through two main sources. The first encompassed the
various narrative sources from a community, including chronicles, devotional treatises,
and hagiographies, the contents of which provided insights into the use of and attitude
toward writing and other forms of literate practices. The second comprised the
surviving manuscripts from each community, which were scrutinized for overarching
patterns indicative of particular understandings of the written word. By looking for
points of contact between the two sets of practices, spiritual and literate, I elucidate the
processes by which they informed each other.
My method for reconstructing the written culture and literate forms of
knowledge for each community requires further discussion. Partially, this is due to my
27
interest in reconstructing the emergence of distinct literate cultures, whereas my
sources often represent the finished products of these cultures. Furthermore, this
reconstruction required the development of more extensive methodological principles,
largely because it involved a particular approach to manuscript evidence and posited a
specific relationship between manuscript evidence and the development of literate
forms of knowledge. One of the major assumptions of this project has been that textual
identity is, following Martin Irvine, defined by the dialogue between the language used
to describe texts and the material forms that they assumed.44 My reconstruction of the
textual culture of each community has relied on a process of looking for rapport
between descriptions of texts and literate practices found in narrative sources and
important textual features of a community’s collection of manuscripts. The details of
this rapport reveals each monastery’s understanding of textual identity and the forms of
ideas and knowledge assigned to the written word.
It is now relatively common to study medieval literacy and literate practices
through manuscripts and other forms of written material culture. Scholars like Anna
Grotans have demonstrated that manuscripts reveal how the skills of literacy were
obtained and thus how readers and writers participated in literate activities.45 Likewise,
44 See Martin Irvine, The Making of a Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994). Like Stock, The Implications of Literacy, Irvine is concerned with linking literate behavior to particular bodies of knowledge, but is more concerned, on the one hand, with how those bodies of knowledge were formed and, on the other hand, the dialectic between them and material manifestations of the written word. Irvine focuses on ‘grammatica’ as the major meta-language that constituted textuality in the early Middle Ages. One of the goals of this project is to demonstrate the existence of a greater variety of textual meta-languages in medieval monastic communities during the central Middle Ages. 45 Anna Grotans, Reading in Medieval St. Gall (Cambridge, 2006). Similar approaches are taken by T. Hunt, Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1991), Michael Lapidge, “The Study of Latin Texts in Late Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence of Latin Glosses,” in
28
Suzanne Reynolds has demonstrated that manuscript evidence, specifically glossed
manuscripts, can be used to reconstruct particular historicized modes of reading.46
These approaches are predicated upon using the material forms of texts to reconstruct
the assumptions and skills that were employed by readers of the text. I differ from these
approaches insofar as I attempt to understand how the process of working out the nature
of literate knowledge informed the production of manuscripts. While most studies that
investigate the link between manuscripts and medieval literacy focus on the use of
notations or glosses to reconstruct how readers interacted with texts, I hope to
demonstrate that manuscripts were designed to reflect and disseminate particular ideas
about the written word and certain assumptions about the preconditions for these
textual interactions.47 Literate knowledge, the ideas attached to the written word, was
expressed through various features of manuscript culture, including illustrations,
marginal annotation, mise-en-page, and other presentational strategies that shaped
readers’ interactions with the written word. By identifying features of manuscripts that
Latin and the Vernacular Languages in Early Medieval Britain, ed. Nicholas Brooks (Leicester, 1982), and Gernot Rudolf Wieland, The Latin Glosses on Arator and Prudentius in Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.5.35 (Toronto, 1983). 46 Suzanne Reynolds, Medieval Reading: Grammar, Rhetoric and the Classical Text (Cambridge, 1996) and ibid., “Glossing Horace: Using the Classics in the Medieval Classroom,” in Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use, ed. Claudine Chavannes-Mazel and Margaret Smith (Leiden, 1993): 103-117. Although their approaches are related, Reynolds is less concerned than Grotans with the learning of specific literate skills, and more with the forms of interpretive practice conducted in medieval reading. 47 This follows from my attempt to study literate culture by moving away from the nature of specific interactions with the written word and toward the ideas associated with it, as discussed above, pp.18-19. My approach here is similar to that of Mary and Richard Rouse, particularly as demonstrated in “Statim invenire: Schools, Preachers, and New Attitudes Toward the Page,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, 201-225 and “The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth Century,” in Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, 1991). The Rouses, however, are generally more concerned with how material features of the written word reflected the new uses to which it was put, while I remain more concerned with the forms of knowledge that were assigned to it.
29
seem to have been most common in a community’s collection of books it is possible to
derive a sense of their literate culture.
Handling manuscript evidence in this fashion presents many challenges. Despite
variations in textual traditions, lines of transmission, and local scripts, the format of
eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts tended toward overall stability and
uniformity. Very few textual features are definitively identifiable as the distinctive
product of a particular community or scriptorium. When such a feature does exist, it is
usually a particular script or decorative style, which reveals little about how the written
word was conceived of in a given community.48 More often than not, the format of a
text will have been determined more by its textual tradition than by local ideas about
textual identity. Using the presentational strategies of manuscripts as part of an attempt
to reconstruct a community’s distinctive literate culture is thus a tricky process at best,
one which is also complicated by other factors. For one, manuscripts owned by a
community were not necessarily produced by that community. Religious communities
routinely acquired manuscripts from other centers of book production. Furthermore, as
Michael Gullick has demonstrated, professional scribes moved from community to
community as early as the late eleventh century, a fact which further dilutes the
possibility of a given community’s manuscripts reflecting a particular conception of
48 Such as the distinctive style of decoration developed at Canterbury, on which see Richard Gameson, “English Manuscript Art in the Late Eleventh Century: Canterbury and its Context,” in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars, 1066-1109, eds. Richard Eales and Richard Sharpe (London, 1995): 95-144, or the Beneventan script developed at the monastery of Monte Cassino, on which see Francis Newton, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058-1105 (Cambridge, 1999).
30
textual identity.49 Often the only way to tell where a manuscript was produced is
through the rigorous identification of scribal hands in many manuscripts in order to
reconstruct a sociology of the scribes involved in the production of a book. Such a task
is generally beyond the scope of this project.50
These factors mean that if we assume the existence of a distinct textual culture
within a given community, we have to accept that it was porous and overlapped with
the ideas of other communities. Furthermore, the features that speak most to the ideas
used by a community to fashion textual identity and literate knowledge might be found
only in a minority of its manuscripts. This observation holds true for various forms of
textual amplification, such as illuminated or historiated images, particular strategies of
textual organization, and identifiable and dateable additions to manuscripts or
interventions by scribes and scholars from a community. In short, there are numerous
obstacles, including issues of textual traditions, questions about place and manner of
production, and problems of scribal agency, in attempting to work backward from an
extant manuscript owned by a community to determine the underlying ideas of the
community about what constituted a text.
Nonetheless, I will argue that monastic communities did have distinct and
identifiable textual cultures, even if they were influenced by those of other
communities. I also think that it is possible to use manuscript evidence in a project such
as this; numerous scholars have demonstrated that the forms and features of texts in
49 Michael Gullick, “Professional Scribes in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century England,” English Manuscript Studies: 1100-1700 7 (1998): 1-24. 50 See above, p.7-8, on the provenancing of manuscripts in this project.
31
manuscripts reflect distinct modes of reading and particular conceptions of the
appropriate uses from the written word. Generally such scholars have been concerned
with large-scale, diachronic shifts in manuscript format, such as that from Romanesque
to Gothic, or from long-line manuscripts created for monastic, meditative reading to
more compartmentalized texts intended for scholastic reading and glossing.51 In this
project, I hope to show that similar questions can be directed toward local monastic
communities and their material cultures. It is with this goal that I have used the
following principles in approaching the manuscript evidence from St.-Laurent,
Durham, and Rievaulx.
First, I have not assumed that all features in every manuscript from a given
community will conform with the ideas that were most prevalent in a community’s
literate culture. All of the considerations listed above argue against this possibility.
Furthermore, it would be unreasonable to expect the material culture of a community to
operate in this fashion. Like many forms of material culture, the distinctiveness of a
manuscript is normally determined by a minority of its features. As a result, the
majority of features in a given a manuscript from a given community will not, in fact,
reflect that community’s textual culture. My goal has therefore been to identify the
particular set of “minor” features that seemed most significant to a given community. 51 See, among others, Mary and Richard Rouse, “Statim invenire: Schools, Preachers, and New Attitudes to the Page,” ibid., “The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth Century,” ibid., “Background to Print: Aspects of the Manuscript Book in Northern Europe of the Fifteenth Century,” in Authentic Witnesses, 449-96, Leonard Boyle, “The Emergence of Gothic Handwriting,” in The Year 1200: A Background Survey, ed. Florens Deuchler, 2 vols. (New York, 1970): II: 175-83, M.B. Parkes, “The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book,” in Medieval Learning and Literature, eds. J.J.G. Alexander and M.T. Gibson (Oxford, 1975): 115-141, Christopher de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Book Trade (London, 1984), N.R. Ker, “From ‘Above Top Line’ to ‘Below Top Line’: A Change in Scribal Practice,” Celtica 5 (1960): 13-16.
32
Second, whenever possible I have looked for clear evidence of agency on the
part of the scribes and scholars in a community. This search has included determining
with as much certainty as possible which manuscripts were, in fact, produced in the
houses I am studying; attempts to identify additions or interventions by scribes in that
community; and, in a very few cases, comparison of a manuscript with its probable
exemplar. I have also given special attention to manuscripts containing works originally
composed at a community, on the assumption that they possess a minimal textual
tradition and are therefore more likely to represent a community’s own written culture.
At the same time, I have tried to be sensitive to a broader conception of agency.
There is a tendency on the part of many scholars to assume that scribal agency is only
observable through deviation from an exemplar. This approach is not completely
satisfactory; the decision to reproduce an exemplar’s feature in a new manuscript still
represents a conscious decision and a form of agency. Furthermore, it is erroneous to
assume that reproducing a feature from an exemplar automatically replicates its
meaning independent of its new context. An artist, for example, might reproduce an
image from an exemplar in a new manuscript, but both he and his community might
have a very different interpretation of that image’s significance than the community
that possessed the exemplar. For this reason, it may be more meaningful to view the
features of a community’s books in the context of their other manuscripts and the ideas
expressed about literacy in narrative sources produced by the community’s own
members than to study the exemplars or textual traditions of those books.
33
Finally, I have tried to address questions about texts’ origins and scribal agency
through raw quantitative evidence, that is, by examining as many manuscripts as
possible from all three communities, looking for patterns and features that occur in a
large number of manuscripts from a community. Often these recurrent patterns pertain
to ubiquitous features of medieval manuscripts, such as rubrics and certain marginal
annotations that seem to be used in consistently distinctive ways at a given community.
These unique features represent the deliberate adaptation of a common feature to the
community’s particular understanding of textual identity. By identifying these patterns,
I try to detect the ways in which a community might have manipulated the format and
appearance of their books to adhere to their ideas about textual meaning and literate
knowledge.
For all three communities examined in this project, the application of these
principles to their manuscripts reveals a variety of features and textual patterns that
coalesce into three distinct models of literate culture that are, although never perfectly
monolithic, still relatively coherent. More importantly, these models conform
remarkably well to the ideas expressed in descriptions of textual identity and literate
practice found in narrative sources produced by each community. This conformity
suggests that distinctive monastic written cultures and forms of literate knowledge did
exist and can be studied as such. Their further congruence with the spiritual culture of
each community suggests that the explanation for their existence lies in the emergence
of a dialogue between spirituality and literate practice in eleventh- and twelfth-century
monastic communities.
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III. Outline of Chapters
The study that follows is organized into three parts, each concerning a particular
monastic community. Each section contains a brief introduction to the monastery that
surveys its history and lays out the important individuals, texts, and ideas involved in
the study of its spiritual and literate cultures. There are two chapters devoted to each
community, the first of which reconstructs and analyzes its spiritual traditions, the
second of which studies the emergence of its written culture and the resulting effects of
the dialogue between devotion and literate practices.
Part I is devoted to St.-Laurent. Chapter 1 explores the development of liturgical
and scriptural piety at the abbey. It demonstrates that St.-Laurent’s commitment to
church reform oriented the community toward liturgical spirituality, but that within
those circumstances scholars at St.-Laurent developed an unusually intense and vital
form of liturgical piety. Liturgical spirituality was complemented by scriptural devotion
at St.-Laurent, in which proper knowledge of Scripture was vital to spiritual life and
salvation. The natural, and yet ultimately incomplete overlap between liturgical and
Scriptural piety was the defining feature of spirituality at St.-Laurent and provided the
context for the emergence of its literate culture. Chapter 2 turns to the development of
that literate culture, arguing that it was marked by Scripture’s increasingly written
nature. This trend altered the nature of scriptural devotion and the relationship between
Scripture and liturgy, leading both to a particular form of literate knowledge and a
reconsideration of the nature of liturgical piety.
35
Part II turns to the Cathedral Priory at Durham. Chapter 3 explores the cult of
Saint Cuthbert and the development of spiritual life at Durham. It charts the late-
eleventh-century emergence of a particular understanding of devotion to Cuthbert that
was based on assimilating the saint’s presence into one’s interior self. This new focus
on Cuthbert’s presence was accompanied by the progressive textualization of his cult,
in which the written word was treated as a form of saintly presence that complemented
his relics. As a result, the notion of presence was incorporated into ideas about textual
identity. Chapter 4 examines the formation of Durham’s written culture, demonstrating
that the association established between texts and presence led to a literate culture
based on the intertwined themes of authorship and authority. Ideas about authorship at
Durham were conditioned by their emergence from hagiographic spirituality, and they
gradually assumed particular features that became the source of tension with ideas
about saintly presence.
Part III focuses on the Cistercian Abbey of Rievaulx. Chapter 5 examines the
spiritual culture of Rievaulx, based largely on a careful reading of the works of Aelred
of Rievaulx. It explores the central place occupied by the cultivation of charity in
Rievaulx’s spirituality and its expression in two aspects of spiritual life: friendship and
the soul. In both cases, Aelred employed a particular understanding of language and
linguistic referentiality to demonstrate how it was possible that charity could be both a
subjective experience and yet still tied to the divine. The chapter concludes by
examining how linguistic practice itself also became a form of devotion. Chapter 6
examines the progressive emergence of linguistic practice from spirituality at Rievaulx,
36
such that it become an intellectual problem in its own right. Language was central to
intellectual life at Rievaulx and became the defining feature of the community’s literate
culture.
The spiritual traditions of each monastery were thus distinct and organized
around different ideas. However, spirituality was central to the lives of all three
communities and was an key form of cultural practice within which new ideas and
practices could be articulated. In this study, therefore, I hope to argue that approaching
the impact of literacy, literate practice, and written culture from the context of specific
spiritual cultures produces a better understanding of the ways in which the written word
was organized and the channels through which writing itself reorganized monastic
communities.
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Part I
St.-Laurent de Liège
38
Introduction
St.-Laurent de Liège - History and Sources
In his De divinis officiis, a commentary on the monastic liturgy written around
1109, Rupert of Deutz, a monk at the abbey of St.-Laurent in Liège, reflected on the
various aspects and events of the Passion of Christ, among them the cross, the drink of
vinegar, the crown of thorns, and the fact that water and blood flowed from the wound
in his side. The goal, according to Rupert, was to seek spiritual edification and
improvement by reflecting upon these events: “Let us consider those things which our
Lord endured in his passion and let us find certain things that improve us spiritually
through those things which are signified by them.”1 In so doing, Rupert was
participating in new trends in spirituality that used the human and crucified Christ as a
mechanism for empathetic devotion, placing the Incarnation at the center of a program
of spiritual reform.2 Rupert, however, put his own spin on this program, using an
unusual metaphor to describe how one ought to consider the elements of the Passion
and the things they signified:
For he arranged not only those things which he bore, but also those things which he wished to suffer, in such a way that when you see through to their interior, if you also pay attention to their exterior, you will find a harmonious similitude between both of them, just as you might recognize the same hand of a single writer in diverse places from the characteristics of qualities of the figures or the shape of the letters.3
1 Rupert of Deutz, Liber de divinis officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 7 (Turnhout, 1967): 194. All translations are mine unless a translated edition is cited or otherwise noted. 2 See Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York, 2002), Thomas Bestul, Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literate and Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1996) and Sarah McNamer, Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion (Philadelphia, 2009): 25-85. 3 De divinis officiis, 194: “Nam non solum quae gessit, sed et quae pati voluit, sic disposuit, ut cum interiora perspexeris, si exteriora haec attendas, sic utrobique consonam invenies similitudinem,
39
In this complex and remarkable metaphor, which contains an unmistakable early
reference to paleographic practices, Rupert wove together concerns about the nature of
the Passion and Incarnation with ideas about the written word. His concern in this
passage was not how the Passion had accomplished salvation, but rather how spiritual
edification could be had by observing the visible signs and tangible events of the
Passion. His answer turned on the relationship between these signs and their “mystical”
or tropological meanings, such as the fact that the four physical aspects of the cross
signified the four virtues, faith, perseverance, hope, and charity.4 According to Rupert,
Christ himself, in that he submitted to the Passion willingly, organized both the visible
and literal aspects of the Passion and these mystical meanings. As a result, if one paid
attention to both the “exterior” aspects of the Passion, such as the cross, and its
“interior” aspects, such as the four virtues, one would discover a “harmonious
similitude” between them that resulted from the fact that Christ had orchestrated both.
Appreciating and observing this harmonious similitude made it possible to discern the
full work of Christ in the Passion and so participate in the spiritual lessons that he
provided in it.
To clarify this idea, Rupert compared it to the written word. Just as similitudes
in the shapes or forms of letters across several books made it possible to recognize the
quomodo ex qualitate seu ex proprietate figurarum vel apicum eandem scriptoris manum diversis in locis recognoscis.” It is unclear whether “figura,” in the final line of this passage, is intended to refer to the rhetorical style of the text or material features, such as images or decorations on the page, but is more likely to refer to the latter. 4 op. cit., 195.
40
hand of a single scribe at work in diverse place, so too did the similarity between the
events of the Passion and their mystical meanings make it possible to see the work of
Christ manifested in both. If the Passion were “read” correctly, the full work of Christ
would become visible, just as careful observation of script made it possible to recognize
the full work of a single scribe. Embedded in the metaphor, then, is a statement about
the nature and purpose of the Incarnation. Because discerning the work of the divine
involved finding likenesses between the visible aspects of Christ’s life and their
mystical meanings, the Incarnation was the sine qua non of such devotion, in that it
provided the visible model from which to begin the search for these “harmonious
similitudes.” To extend Rupert’s metaphor one step further, the Incarnation provided
the exemplar of a particular scribe’s handwriting from which to begin the search for
other instances of that same scribe’s labor elsewhere. For Rupert, the Incarnation was
the foundation upon which a program of devotion that sought to derive spiritual
edification from Christ’s life and passion was built.
This idea takes on even more significance given the context in which it was
formulated. The De divinis officiis was a commentary on the whole of the monastic
liturgy. Rupert’s reflections on the Passion took place within the section of the De
divinis officiis that discussed Holy Week, that is, the week of the liturgy devoted to the
celebration of Christ’s Passion. For Rupert, the appropriate context for meditating on
the spiritual lessons of Christ’s Passion was the liturgy, which was instituted as a result
of the Incarnation, allegorically re-enacted the salvation history of Scripture, and
contained the sacraments that were both result and celebration of the Passion. Densely
41
packed into this metaphor was a vision of spirituality based on the Incarnation and its
fulfillment of salvation history and Scripture, the sacraments, and the importance of the
liturgy in providing a context in which they could all be accessed and celebrated. These
ideas provided the framework for spiritual life at St.-Laurent.
At the same time, the metaphor also said something about written culture. In
this case, the written word’s ability to mimic the Incarnation had nothing to do with the
distinction between word and meaning or letter and spirit, but rather the fact that
handwritten words, because of their written quality, could make it possible to observe
the work of one individual manifested in several different places. The metaphor thus
relied on the idea that the written word articulated a range of associations that were
more than just the meaning of the words themselves; its written quality also produced
certain meanings. If Rupert was primarily trying to work out the role of the Incarnation
and the Passion in spiritual reform in this passage, he was also concerned with
exploring the implications of the written word. The nature of writing was a broader
issue at St.-Laurent in the late eleventh and early twelfth century and, as this elaborate
metaphor might suggest, a form of spirituality based on liturgy, Scripture, and the
Incarnation provided the context in which ideas about the written word and literate
practice were worked out.
St.-Laurent: History and Sources
It is not possible to give a precise founding date for the abbey of St.-Laurent in
Liège. Early sources suggest that Bishop Evraclus (959-917) of Liège, as part of a
42
general attempt establish collegiate churches in the city, founded a church dedicated to
St.-Laurent, perhaps in 968, but was never able to see its construction through to the
end.5 The site was not the subject of any further attention until bishop Wolbodo
(d.1121) decided to found a Benedictine monastery on the unfinished site. Wolbodo
had been highly influenced by the monastic reformer Richard of St.-Vanne (d.1046)
and his ally, bishop Gerard of Cambrai (1012-51); the trio had already reformed the
abbey of Lobbes in 1120 and Wolbodo had also brought monks influenced by
Richard’s movement from abbey of Gembloux to reform the Liègeois house of St.-
James.6 The foundation of St.-Laurent should thus be seen in the context of the
eleventh-century monastic reform movement in Lotharingia.7 Wolbodo probably did
not survive to see the abbey fully established; that was left to his successor, Reginard
(1025-37), who brought monks to the community around 1026 (possibly from St.-
Vanne itself) and dedicated the church in 1034.8
5 On the early history of St.-Laurent, see the summary in John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983): 19-26, Fernand Vercauteren, “Note sur les origines de Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 15-24, Hansjörg Wellmer, “L’Éveque Éracle et sa fondation de Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 41-47, D.U. Berlière, “L’abbaye de St.-Laurent de Liège,” Revue bénédictine 17 (1890): 13-26, and Joseph Daris, “Notices historiques sur l’abbaye de St.-Laurent à Liège,” Bulletin de la Société d’Art et d’Histoire 11 (1882): 69-221. A review of sources relating to the history of the abbey is provided in D.U. Berlière, Monasticon Belge (Maredsous, 1928): II: 32. 6 On monasticism in this region generally, see Alain Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres entre Sambre et Meuse: VIIe-XIe siècles: contributions à l’histoire religieuse des campagnes du haut Moyen Age (Sigmarigingen, 1985), Joseph Lemmens, Histoire des monastères de Belgique du VIIe au XVIIIe siècle (Brussels, 1995), and Karine Ugé, Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders (Woodbridge, 2005). 7 See, most recently, Diane Reilly, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of St.-Vanne and the St.-Vaast Bible (Leiden, 2006). 8 These three bishops were remembered as collectively responsible for the creation of St.-Laurent in the episcopal hagiographies of Renier of St.-Laurent, written in the mid-twelfth century. See the Vita Evracli, Vita Wolbdonis, and Vita Reginardi, ed. W. Arndt, MGH Scriptores 20: 561-71.
43
At the time of St.-Laurent’s establishment, Liège was one of the most vibrant
cities in Europe.9 Although part of the Empire, it was effectively situated in a
borderland between the imperial lands and the French lordships, putting in contact with
the intellectual and cultural developments of both regions. The school in Liège,
centered on the cathedral of St.-Lambert, was among the best in the Empire and boasted
several important scholars, many of whom had working relationships with members of
the community of St.-Laurent.10 At the same time, Liège’s location also made it the site
of considerable conflict, particularly during the Investiture Controversy, into which the
community of St.-Laurent was drawn. As the site of an imperial bishopric, the diocese
of Liège generally sided with the emperor during the dispute.
St.-Laurent, however, had been reform-minded since its creation and its abbot at
the time of the controversy, Berengar, was a staunch support of church reform and the
papacy. As a result, the community was entangled in the Investiture Controversy.11
Berengar’s disputes with the imperialist bishop of Liège, Otbert (1091-1119) led first to
9 On Liège in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, see Jean-Louis Kupper, Liège: autour de l’an mil. La naissance d’une principauté (Xe-XIIe siècles) (Alleur, 2000), Rita Lejeune, La principauté de Liège (Alleur, 1997) and, although it deals primarily with a later period, ibid., Liège et son pays: naissance d’une patrie, XIIIe-XIVe siècles (Liège, 1948). 10 On the cathedral school of St.-Lambert, see Emile Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 5: Les écoles de la fin du VIIIe siècle à la fin du XIIe (Lille, 1910-43): 349-68, Christine Renardy, Le monde des maîtres universitaires du diocèse de Liège, 1140-1350: recherches sur la composition et ses activités (Paris, 1979) and ibid., “Les écoles Liègeois du IXe au XIIe siècle: Grande lignes de leur évolution,” Revue Belge de philoglogie et d’histoire 57 (1979): 309-28. Sylvain Balau, Les sources de l’histoire de Liège au moyen-âge. Etude critique (Brussels, 1903), Chaps. 4-7, examines sources relevant to the history of St.-Lambert and the schools in Liège. On the educational and intellectual culture of the school, see C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, esp. 54-56. See also Jacques Stiennon, Les écoles de Liège aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Catalogue d’exposition, Liège, 1967). 11 On the investiture controversy and its effects in Liège, see Jean-Louis Kupper, Liège et l’église impériale and A. Cauchie, La querelle des investitures dans les diocèses de Liège et de Cambrai (Louvain, 1890-91). St.-Laurent was one of only two monasteries in the diocese of Liège to side with the reform party, along with St.-Hubert, where the monks of St.-Laurent took refuge during their exile.
44
his own deposition and exile, and eventually to the exile of most of the community as
well, probably from 1092-1095.12 Although the community returned in 1095, tensions
with the bishop remained high until 1106, when Otbert himself was reconciled with the
papacy.
Liège was thus the site of both cultural and intellectual innovation, as well as
social and political strife in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. It was in these
circumstances that the community’s early spiritual culture was constructed. It was also
the context in which the community’s most famous scholar, Rupert of Deutz, was
raised, educated, and in which he produced many of his most important writings.13
Rupert was probably born in or around the city of Liège and given as an oblate to
monastery in 1082, from where he launched his remarkable career as the most prolific
writer of the central Middle Ages.14 According to his later writings, Rupert underwent a
visionary experience in his youth, possibly around 1108, that filled him with the Holy
Spirit, convinced him to accept ordination as a priest, and gave him the talent and
knowledge required to interpret the Scriptures.15 Following these visions, Rupert began
12 For a summary of these events, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 26-42. 13 On Rupert, see in general Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, but also Maria Lodovica Arduini, particularly Rupert von Deutz (1076-1129) und der ‘status Christianitas’ seiner Zeit: symbolisch-prophetisiche Deutung der Geschichte (Köln, 1987), and Mariano Magrassi, Teologia e storia nel pensiero di Ruperto di Deutz (Rome, 1959). 14 Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 3. Rupert was recognized as such by the mid to late twelfth century, as witnessed by a list of authors for study printed in Nikolaus H Häring, “Two catalogues of medieval authors,” Franciscan Studies 26 (1966): 195-211. 15 On Rupert’s visions, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 48-55, Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the Twelfth Century (New York, 1994): 328-33, Hrabanus Haacke, “Die mystichen Visionem Ruperts von Deutz,” in “Sapientiae Doctrinae”: Mélanges de théologie et de littératures médiévales offerts à Dom Hildebrand Bascour O.S.B. (Leuven, 1980): 68-90, Robert Lerner, “Ecstatic Dissent,” Speculum 67 (1992): 33-57, and Christel Meier, “Von der ‘Privatoffenbarung’ zur Öffentlichen Lehrbefungis: Legitimationsstufen Des Prophentums bei Rupert von Deutz, Hildegard von Bingen und Elisabeth von Schönau,” in Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne, eds. Gert Melville and Peter Von Moos (Cologne, 1998): 97-123.
45
to produce writings at a remarkable rate, beginning with the De divinis officiis,
probably completed by 1112. He followed this work up with an enormous commentary
on the whole of Scripture based on understanding the different operations of the Trinity
throughout salvation history, which he entitled De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, as
well as the treatise In Evangelium Sancti Iohannis.16 As John Van Engen has noted,
Rupert’s writings reveal his tendency to put new spins on very old genres, often those
for which there were authoritative, patristic models.17 Rupert’s early works comprise an
important source for understanding the intellectual and spiritual culture of St.-Laurent,
particularly given that Rupert was likely the master of novices while at the community
and that some of these works may have written with teaching in mind.18
Not everyone appreciated Rupert’s new takes on old issues. Much of his career
at St.-Laurent was marked by disputes with secular scholars associated with the
cathedral school and, later, with the emerging school of exegesis in Laon. His writings
on the Eucharist in De divinis officiis were criticized by Alger of Liège, a canon at St.-
Lambert, which led to a public debate between the two of them.19 Not long after this he
16 De sancta Triniate et operibus eius, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 21-24 (Turnhout, 1971-72) and Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Iohannis, dd. Hrabanus Haacke. CCCM 9 (Turnhout, 1969). On this latter text, see A.A. Young, “The Commentaria in Iohannis Evangelium of Rupert of Deutz: A Methodological Analysis in the Field of Twelfth-Century Exegesis” (Ph.D Thesis, University of Toronto, 1984). 17 Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 95-96 and 371-73. Notable examples include the Liber de divinis officiis, the first systematic interpretation of the whole of the liturgy since Amalarius of Metz, the In Canticum Canticorum de incarnatione Domini, the first fully Marian interpretation of the Song of Songs, and the In Evangelium sancti Iohannis, a Scriptural text rarely interpreted due to the authority of Augustine’s sermons on John. On Rupert’s relationship with received authority, see Christel Meier-Staubach, “Rupert von Deutz Befreiung von de Vätern: Schrifthermeneutik zwischen Autoritäten und intellektueller Kreativität,” Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 73 (2006): 257-289. 18 On Rupert as teacher, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 103 and below, Chapter 2, pp.116-118. 19 See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 135-76 for a discussion of this event. Also G.G. Bischoff, “The Eucharistic Controversy between Rupert of Deutz and his Anonymous Adversary” (Ph.D Thesis, Princeton University, 1965), which established the identity of Alger of Liège. On Alger, see Nicholas M.
46
was involved in a debate about the will of god and predestination, which led to his
being placed on trial and eventually to exile in Siegburg from 1116-1117, home of a
newly found patron, Bishop Cuno of Siegburg. Rupert returned to St.-Laurent in 1117,
resumed the debate on the will of God, and eventually challenged Anselm of Laon and
William of Champeaux, two of the most famous masters of the day, to a debate.20 The
antagonism between Rupert and his intellectual adversaries forced Rupert into exile
again in 1119, this time to Cologne. Although Rupert probably assumed he would
return from this exile as well, he never did, instead becoming the abbot of the
monastery of Deutz.21
The writings of Rupert of Deutz provide an important set of sources for the
study of St.-Laurent’s spiritual and literate culture, but they are complemented by many
other sources from the community. St.-Laurent was home to other writers as well.22
Among the most important of these was Renier of St.-Laurent, who was active at the
abbey in the 1150s and probably died in 1188. Little is known of his career, save for the
texts that can be attributed to him.23 Although nowhere near as prolific as Rupert,
Haring, “A Study in the Sacramentology of Alger of Liège,” Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 41-78, Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 117-118, 137-45, Balau, Les sources de l’histoire, 304-307. 20 On the predestinarian debate and Rupert’s attempts to debate Anselm and William, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 181-214, Hubert Silvestre, “Notes sur la controverse de Rupert de Saint-Laurent avec Anselm de Laon et Guillaume de Champeaux,” in Saint-Laurent, ed. Rita Lejeune, 63-80, ibid., “A propos de la lettre d’Anselm de Laon à Heribrand de Saint-Laurent,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 28 (1961): 5-25 and M.-D. Chenu, “The Masters of the Theological Science,” in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century (Chicago, 1968, repr. Toronto, 1997): 270-77. 21 While Rupert went on to compose many more works after leaving St.-Laurent, many of which are among his best known works, only those which he composed prior to his exile in 1119 will be considered here, particularly the De divinis officiis, De sancta Triniate et operibus eius, and In Evangelium Sancti Iohannis. 22 See D.U. Berlière, “Notes sur quelques écrivains de l’abbaye de St.-Laurent de Liège,” Revue bénédictine 12 (1895): 433-44, 481-88. 23 Renier is an understudied figure, but see Hubert Silvestre, “Renier de St.-Laurent et le déclin des écoles Liègeois au XIIe siècle,” Miscellanea Tornacensia (1951): 112-132, ibid., “Que nous apprend
47
Renier produced three important episcopal vitae of the bishops associated with the
foundation of St.-Laurent, as well as several other hagiographical and historical texts.24
Two works of Renier are particularly important to this study. The first is a liturgical
commentary, In Novem Ante-Natalitatis Antiphonas, that interprets the nine antiphons
used on the days prior to Advent and was probably written near the end of Renier’s
career.25 The second is a treatise alternatively titled De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae or De
claris scriptoribus.26 The first part of this unusual work lists all the members of the
monastic community from its foundation to the mid twelfth century who had composed
any sort of treatise and provides details about these works. It thus offers a remarkable
glimpse into the abbey’s intellectual culture, but also an important view of the
construction of the community’s corporate memory and cultural identity. In the second
part of the work, Renier provided an account of all of his own writings, ranging from
simple school exercises to his most polished works. Wazelin, a monk who later became
the seventh abbot of the community, produced a treatise harmonizing the four
Evangelists.27 As Wazelin was known to have been a student of Rupert, his work
provides a good opportunity to gauge the influence of Rupert’s thought on the
community.
Renier de Saint-Laurent sur Rupert de Deutz?” Sacris Erudiri 25 (1982): 49-97, and David Foote, “Taming Monastic Advocates and Redeeming Bishops: the Triumphale and episcopale vitae of Renier of St. Lawrence,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 91 (1996): 5-40. 24 Printed in MGH Scriptores 20: 561-616. Citations are to these editions, but they are also printed in PL 204. 25 Printed in PL 204: 43-52. This text has a complicated textual tradition, based on the two editions versions that have survived. See analysis in Chapter 1, n.49. 26 Edited under the first title in MGH Scriptores 20: 593-603 and the second in PL 204: 15-39. 27 See Hubert Silvestre, “Le ‘De concordantia et expostione quattuor evangeliorum’ inédit de Wazelin II, abbé de St.-Laurent à Liège (ca. 1150-1157),” Revue bénédictine 63 (1953): 310-25.
48
Alongside the writings of these scholars, there is considerable surviving
manuscript evidence from the community. While questions remain about the
provenance of some manuscripts that are associated with St.-Laurent, the community’s
manuscript tradition has been well-studied and there is generally a consensus about
which manuscripts can safely be attributed to the abbey’s scriptorium.28 The manuscript
tradition from St.-Laurent suggests a period of intensive textual production in the late
eleventh and early twelfth century, probably spurred on by the community’s
commitment to church reform and orchestrated by the learned and energetic abbot
Berengar. The following analysis of St.-Laurent’s literate culture will focus on the
manuscripts from this period, during which the community’s ideas about the written
word were formulated and elaborated. The discussion of St.-Laurent’s spiritual
traditions will also examine the surviving liturgical manuscripts from the community.
Finally, there are three library catalogues associated with St.-Laurent, whose
dates range from the early twelfth century through the thirteenth, preserved in
manuscripts BR 9668, BR 9384-89, and BR 9810-14, all probably from St.-Laurent.
The earliest of these booklists provides extremely important evidence for the formation
28 On the St.-Laurent manuscripts, see Francois Pirot, “La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 125-36, Jacques Stiennon, “, “Les manuscrits à peintures de l’ancinne bibliothèque de l’abbaye Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 138-139, Francois Masai, Les manuscrits à peintures de Sambre et Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Pour une critique d’origine plus méthodique (Poitiers, 1960), Jacques Stiennon, Les écoles de Liège aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Exposition des manuscrits et d’oeuvres d’arts, 5-24 novembre 1967, Université de Liège (Liège, 1967), Suzanne Collon-Gevaert, Jean Lejeune, and Jacques Stiennon, Art roman dans la vallée de la Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siécles. Textes et commentaires (Brussels, 1962), and Marie-Rose Lapiere, La lettre ornée dans les manuscrits mosans d’origine benedictine (XIe-XIIe siècles) (Paris, 1981).
49
of the community’s literate culture and will be the subject of an extended discussion in
Chapter 2.29
29 See Nolte, “Les manuscrits de Saint-Laurent à Liège,” Le Bibliophile Belge 4 (1869): 145-49, J. Gessler, “La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Laurent à Liège au XIIe et XIIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société des Bibliophiles Liègeois 12 (1927): 91-135. More recent analysis is provided by François Pirot, “La Bibliothèque de l’abbaye Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 125-36 and Albert Derolez, Corpus catalogorum Belgii: the Medieval Booklists of the Southern Low Countries, 4 vols. (Brussels, 1997): vol. 2, 107-124, and Anne-Catherine Fraeys de Veubeke, “Un catalogue de bibliothèque scolaire inédit du XIIe siècle dans le ms. Bruxelles B.R. 9384-89,” Scriptorium 35 (1981): 23-38. For full discussion of these catalogues, see below, pp.106-118.
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Chapter 1
Devotion at St.-Laurent: Performing the Word
This chapter will examine spiritual life at the Benedictine community of St.-
Laurent in Liège, arguing that two intertwined structures lay at the heart of the
community’s devotional life, namely the liturgy and Scripture. Although both of these
elements were important characteristics of monastic spirituality as a whole in the
central Middle Ages, I will suggest that their centrality to spiritual life at St.-Laurent
distinguished the community’s spiritual life from other monastic communities. At St.-
Laurent, liturgy and Scripture were the prime determinants of spirituality, and other
aspects of devotional life were assimilated into them. Drawing on a variety of sources,
this chapter will first explore the development of liturgical piety at St.-Laurent and
demonstrate how the community came to place an unusual degree of emphasis on the
liturgy as a spiritual practice. The second part of the chapter will examine the role of
Scripture in devotional life at St.-Laurent, focusing on the writings of Rupert of Deutz
and relating them to the writings of other scholars from St.-Laurent. I will suggest that
there was a natural rapport between liturgy and Scripture, due to the former’s virtually
wholesale construction from the latter. Although neither had primacy over the other,
liturgy and Scripture mutually reinforced each other as devotional technologies, which
partially explains their primacy in St.-Laurent’s spiritual culture. However, I will also
suggest that there were important disconnects between liturgical and Scriptural piety.
This natural yet partial overlap between liturgical and Scriptural piety provides the
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context for the interplay between spirituality, written culture, and literate knowledge
that is the subject of the next chapter.
1.1 Liturgy and Piety at St.-Laurent
Although the liturgy assumed a variety of forms, it was a common element of
all monastic communities and, insofar as there was a form of spirituality that can be
described as “monastic” in the Latin west, the liturgy was its defining feature.1
However, the liturgy was not valued equally in all monastic communities; some were
more heavily influenced by forms of spiritual practice other than the liturgy. It is
important to distinguish between a form of spirituality that treated the liturgy as an
integral, but not defining aspect of devotional life, such as hagiographic or mystical
piety, and a form of spirituality that was fundamentally liturgical in orientation and saw
the daily performance of the liturgy as the highest form of devotional practice.2 At the
end of the eleventh and the start of the twelfth century, the community at St.-Laurent
participated in this latter form of spirituality.3
1 Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catharine Mishrahi (New York, 1961, repr. 1982): 236-51. 2 For introductions to the medieval liturgy, see Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (eds.), The Liturgy of the Medieval Church (Kalamazoo, 2001), Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office (Toronto, 1982), Michel Huglo, Les livres de chant liturgique, Typologies des sources du Moyen Age occidental 52 (Turnhout, 1988), Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans. William Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen (Washington, D.C., 1986), Margot Fassler and Rebecca Baltzer (eds.), The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages (Oxford, 2000), and John Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy. Here we will be more concerned with attitudes toward and understandings of the liturgy than with the actual shape and content of the liturgy at St.-Laurent, which has been virtually unexamined by scholars. 3 This is not deny a strong tradition of hagiographical piety at the community of St.-Laurent, evidenced by the early writings of Rupert of Deutz, the career of Renier of St.-Laurent, and the manuscript tradition at St.-Laurent. In this, St.-Laurent participated in a tradition of local hagiographical writing that was central Lotharingian monasticism and society. However, as I will demonstrate in what follows, it was
52
St.-Laurent’s commitment to church reform provided the initial impetus for the
community’s development of liturgical spirituality. As part of this commitment, St.-
Laurent adopted the customs of the great abbey of Cluny in 1106. In so doing, they
joined a more general wave of monastic reform in Flanders and the Low Countries. The
monastery of St.-Bertin had adopted the customs of Cluny sometime during the abbacy
of Lambert (1095-1125) and subsequently persuaded the Liègeois abbeys of St.-James
and St.-Laurent to join them.4 The abbey of St.-Trond followed suit a year later,
adopting the Cluniac customs in 1107. Adopting the customs of Cluny, a community
well-known for its monastic reforms and connections to the Gregorian reform, aligned
these communities with the reform party and joined St.-Laurent to the sort of broader
network of reform-minded abbeys that may have been lacking in 1092 when they were
forced into exile.5 It is probably significant that the Cluniac customary was adopted by
St.-Laurent in the same year that Bishop Otbert was forced to reconcile with the
papacy.6
Even if the adoption of Cluniac customs was primarily an act of political
networking, it had important implications for spiritual life at St.-Laurent.7 Cluny was
ultimately St.-Laurent’s liturgical and scriptural piety that most influenced the emergence of their written culture and the development of literate knowledge at the abbey. 4 Martijn Schrama, “The Office in Honour of Saint Augustine: an unknown work of Rupert of Deutz,” Augustiniana 51 (2004): 604 631. See Gesta abbatum S. Bertini Sithiensium, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptore 13: 600-663. 5 On Cluny’s links with the Gregorian reform, see H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford, 1970). 6 On St.-Laurent’s exile and bishop Otbert, see above, pp.43-44. 7 On the Cluniac customary, see the recent collection of essays in Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (eds.), From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny (Leiden, 2005). There are four texts that, in one way or another, can be considered “Cluniac” customaries, the Consuetudines Cluniacensium antiquores cum redactionibus derivatis, ed. Kassius Hallinger, CCM 7 (1983), the Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, ed. Peter Dinter, CCM 10 (1980), the customary of Ulrich of Zell, printed
53
well-known for the intensity of its liturgical observances.8 Anselm of Canterbury
famously decided not to join Cluny, fearing that the rigor of their observances would
leave him no time to study. Peter Damian likewise observed that Cluny’s monks spent
so much time preoccupied in the liturgy that they hardly had time for anything else.9 It
is possible that the level of intensity often associated with the Cluniac liturgy is
exaggerated, but there is little doubt of the central role of the liturgy in Cluny’s
particular brand of Benedictine monasticism. The customaries of Cluny, particularly the
one written by Bernard of Cluny, codified the Cluniac attitude toward liturgy, enabling
it to be both learned by novices at Cluny and, more importantly, transmitted to other
communities.10
When St.-Laurent adopted the customs of Cluny, the famous abbey’s focus on
the liturgy was interwoven into monastic life at St.-Laurent, a fact that both
in PL 149: 643-779, and the customary of Bernard of Cluny, of which the only edition is in Vetus disciplina monastica, ed. Marquard Herrgott (Paris, 1726), reprinted by Pius Engelbert (Siegburg, 1999). The last of these would have been the customs adopted by St.-Laurent; it is also, unfortunately, the hardest to consult given the rarity of its edition. A new edition is forthcoming by Boynton and Cochelin. On the relationship between these customaries, see Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumieres monastiques dessinée à partir de l’étude de Bernard,” in From Dead of Night, 29-66, which demonstrates that the customary of Ulrich predated that of Bernard and was probably produced by Ulrich for William of Hirsau, a conclusion supported by other essays in the same volume. Bernard’s, produced around 1085, was intended to correct Ulrich, and was the first Cluniac customary produced for Cluny itself. 8 On the liturgy at Cluny, see the dated but still useful summary in Noreen Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh, 1049-1109 (Notre Dame, 1967): 99-123 and, for more detail, Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Music at Cluny: The Tradition of Gregorian Chant for the Proper of the Mass, Melodic Variants and Microtonal Nuances (Ph.D. Thesis, Princeton University, 1997), Pierre-Marie Gy, “Cluny dans la géographie de l’office divin,” in Saint Mayeul et son temps (Digne-les-Bains, 1997): 233-241, Michel Huglo, “The Cluniac Processional of Solesmes (Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye, Réserve 28),” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, 205-212, Jean Leclercq, “Prayer at Cluny,” Journal of the American Academ of Religion 51 (1982): 651-665, and Barbara Rosenwein, “Feudal War and Monastic Peace: Cluniac Liturgy as Ritual Aggression,” Viator 2 (1971): 129-57. 9 See Eadmer of Canterbury, The Life of St. Anselm, ed. and trans. Richard Southern (London, 1962): 9. On Peter Damian and Cluny’s liturgy, see Ivan Resnick, “Peter Damian on Cluny, Liturgy, and Penance,” Journal of Religious History 15 (1988): 61-75. 10 On the Cluniac customaries and their codification of the liturgy, see Susan Boynton, “The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich as Liturgical Sources,” in From Dead of Night, 109-128.
54
strengthened the community’s commitment to monastic and papal reform and directed
their attention to the liturgy as the central fact of monastic spirituality.11 Adopting the
customs of Cluny did not always imply strict adherence to them; communities often
adapted and modified the customs to fit the traditions of their own community.12
However, there is good evidence that St.-Laurent took the Cluniac focus on liturgy
seriously. Both Hrabanus Haacke and Kristina Krüger have identified elements of
Rupert’s De divinis officiis that are distinctly Cluniac, indicating the influence of the
customary on St.-Laurent’s liturgical practices.13
Spurred by the community’s orientation toward papal reform and their adoption
of the Cluniac customary, St.-Laurent developed its own liturgical practice and piety,
which was unusual in the level of its intensity. Yet one of the odd features of the history
St.-Laurent is the relative lack of evidence for the nature of their liturgical practices.
There are, in fact, relatively few surviving books for the liturgy from St.-Laurent. The
earliest manuscript that could be classified as liturgical is the glossed Psalter given to
the community by Wolbodo, the bishop credited with the founding of St.-Laurent. It 11 No copy of the customary has survived from St.-Laurent. Liège, Bibliothèque Universitaire Ms. 1420 is a copy of the Cluniac customary from nearby St.-Trond, which adopted Cluniac customs in 1107. Inspection of this manuscript, very possibly related to whatever copy was used at St.-Laurent, may provide more insights into the adoption of the Cluniac customs at St.-Laurent. For an introduction to St.-Trond, see G. Boes, L’abbaye de Saint-Trond des origines jusqu’à 1155 (Tongres, 1970). 12 See, for instance, Diane Reilly, “The Cluniac Giant Bible and the Ordo librorum ad legendum: a reassessment of monastic Bible reading and Cluniac customary instructions” and Carolyn Marino Malone, “Interprétation des pratiques liturgiques à Saint-Bénigne de Dijon d’après ses coutumiers d’inspiration clunisienne,” in From Dead of Night, 163-189 and 221-250, both of which demonstrate changes in the level of observance of the customs of Cluny as they moved to other communities. More particular to the liturgy, see Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125 (Ithaca, 2005): 112-115. Understanding the processes and implications of adopting a customary continues to be a vexed and important question in the history medieval monasticism. 13 See Liber de divinis officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 7 (Turnhout, 1967): xvii and Kristina Krüger, “Monastic Customs and Liturgy in the Light of the Architectural Evidence: A Case Study on Processions (Eleventh - Twelfth Centuries),” in From Dead of Night, 195-96, 200.
55
was probably produced in the tenth century in Utrecht, where Wolbodo has been
provost of the chapter of St.-Martin and was eventually donated to St.-Laurent upon his
death in 1021.14 This large and beautifully executed manuscript contains a litany of
saints followed by a fully glossed copy of the Psalter. Although the litany and the many
prayers scattered throughout the book suggest liturgical or quasi-liturgical use, there
does not seem to be much evidence that it was ever systematically used as such at St.-
Laurent. From the eleventh century, there is an illuminated copy of the Martyrology of
Usuard,15 an extremely precious and luxurious gospel lectionary, with liturgical tables
at the end suggesting the use of St.-Laurent,16 and a breviary, probably produced prior
to 1051.17 From the twelfth century, there is a Passionale or Legendary from the early
part of the century,18 a Passionale of Virgins that might have been produced in
conjunction with the Passionale/Legendary,19 and a manuscript primarily containing
Augustine’s commentary on the Psalms that includes four liturgical offices.20 The
number of liturgical books devoted to the celebration of saints and martyrs is striking,
and would merit further investigation, but the absence of “core” books for the Mass and
Office also requires consideration. The Psalter of Wolbodo and the gospel lectionary
14 Now preserved as BR 9188-89. . On this important manuscript, see Henri Barré, Prières anciennes de l’Occident à la Mère du Sauveur. Des origines à saint Anselme (Paris, 1963) and Maurice Coens, Le psautier de S. Wolbodon, écolaitre d’Utrecht, éveque de Liège (Brussels, 1936). 15 BR 10849-54. 16 BR 18383. The liturgical tables are found on 152r-154r. On 153v, “Sancti Laurenti martiris” is written in littera notabilior. On this manuscript, see Arts romans dans la vallée de la Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Brussels, 1962), Gretel Chapman, “Codicological Examination of an Eleventh-Century Manuscript: BR 18383, Gospelbook from St.-Laurent de Liège,” Manucripta 24 (1980): 4, and Walter Howard Frere, Studies in early Roman Liturgy II: The Roman Gospel-Lectionary (Oxford, 1934). 17 Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 23261. 18 BR 9289-90. 19 BR 9810-14. 20 BR 9355-57. The liturgical offices may be found on f.120v, 122r, 125v, and 127v.
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were probably too precious for daily liturgical use, leaving only the breviary from the
mid-eleventh century and nothing from the twelfth century in the manuscript record of
liturgical practice.
This pattern of manuscripts may be only a quirk of survival rates, but it does
initially seem at odds with a liturgically oriented piety at St.-Laurent. The opposite
interpretation of the manuscript evidence, however, is more convincing; the notably
low survival rate of liturgical books from St.-Laurent may result directly from the
importance of the liturgy. As books destined for repetitive and frequent use, liturgical
books may have a poorer survival rate than other manuscripts. At a community that
placed a special premium on the liturgy, that survival rate might be exaggerated even
further. Furthermore, liturgical books, like other normative documents, are useful only
as long as they engage current practices and may have been discarded at St.-Laurent
when they became obsolete.
The manuscript evidence from Cluny provides a good comparison that supports
this hypothesis. There appear to be relatively few surviving liturgical books from
eleventh- and twelfth-century Cluny, the period of the community’s rise to prominence
and the development of its distinctive liturgical spirituality.21 The only complete
liturgical books that were certainly produced at Cluny during this period are an office
lectionary and a gradual; the former is the only liturgical book from Cluny that can be
dated earlier than the late eleventh century, and the latter is from the last quarter of the
21 The following discussion relies on Boynton, “The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich,” 109-110, Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 112-113.Ferreira, Music at Cluny, 47-71 and André Wilmart, “Cluny (Manuscrits liturgiques de),” in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie IV (Paris, 1914): 2074-92.
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eleventh century and represents the only complete liturgical chant book from Cluny that
predates the thirteenth century.22 Other miscellaneous liturgical books from early
twelfth-century Cluny survive, but much of what is termed “Cluniac” liturgy has been
reconstructed from books produced at direct dependencies of the abbey or at
communities that, like St.-Laurent, linked themselves to the Cluniac reform without
becoming a true dependency of the order.23 Nonetheless, the lack of liturgical books
from Cluny has never been interpreted as evidence that the liturgy was unimportant to
the abbey. On the contrary, the general absence of eleventh-century liturgical books
from Cluny suggests a correlation between intense liturgical piety and a lack of
surviving liturgical books. Although the connection must remain speculative since it is
based on negative evidence, it would explain how a low survival rate of liturgical
manuscripts from St.-Laurent may actually be indicative of a form of spirituality that is
based on the liturgy. The similar pattern at Cluny suggests that a lack of liturgical
books could be a natural byproduct of intense liturgical spirituality at St.-Laurent.
Other evidence demonstrates more conclusively that, following the adoption of
Cluniac customs, the community at St.-Laurent cultivated a piety centered on the
liturgy. For instance, starting in the early twelfth century and continuing until the mid
twelfth century, St.-Laurent became a center for the composition of liturgical offices.
Renier of St.-Laurent, in his description of his own writings, noted that, “at the request
22 The lectionary is Paris, BNF nal. 2390, on which see Raymond Étaix, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Cluny,” Recherches augustiniennes 11 (1976) 91-153, esp. 136. The gradual is Paris, BNF lat. 1087, on which see Manuel Pedro Ferreira, “The Cluny Gradual: its Notation and Melodic Character,” in Cantus Planus - Papers Read at the 6th Meeting, ed. Lászlo Dobszay (Budapest, 1995): 205-215. 23 Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 112-115. On the problem of defining what can be considered “Cluniac” during this period, see Dominique Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom face Heresy, Judaism, and Islam, 1000-1150 (Ithaca, 2002): 31-95.
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of a certain canon I composed certain musical works on Saint Servatius and Saint
Begga,” as well as seven hymns on the Holy Spirit at the request of a friend.24 Renier
was not the only or even the most prolific author of liturgical works at St.-Laurent. In
his compendium of writers and their works from the community, he notes that Lambert,
the second abbot of St.-Laurent, composed certain musical pieces in verse.25 Wazelin,
who was a student of Rupert of Deutz and later became abbot of the community,
composed chants on the Transfiguration of the Lord and on Saint Apollinare.26 A monk
named Gislebert composed liturgical material for Saint Gregory the martyr, Saint
Ragenufla the virgin, and Saint Begga. His brother John, who was Renier’s teacher,
composed chants on Saint Christopher the martyr and Saint Mary of Egypt and set
certain parts of the Song of Songs to music.27 Yet another monk named Nizo composed
songs for the martyred saints John and Paul and for saints Nazarius and Celsus.28
Renier notes that Rupert, in the early stages of his writing career, composed a chant on
the martyrs Theodard, Severus, and Goarus, as well as a hymn for the Holy Spirit.29
Martijn Schrama has also convincingly demonstrated that Rupert was the author of an
24 Renier of St.-Laurent, De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, ed. W. Arndt, MGH Scriptores 20: 602: “Quin etiam de sancto Servatio et de sancta Begga musice aliqua rogatus a canonicis quibusdam composui.” 25 op. cit., 593: “Quin etiam musice quaedam de ipso composuit, in versibus quoque faciendis claro fretus ingenio.” 26 op. cit., 598: “Sancto denique Nicolao se praestitit officiosum, scilicet rubiginosa cujusdam de vita vel miraculis illius scripta purgatioris dictatus ad limam revocando De transfiguratione Domini, de sanctis Agaunensibus, de sancto Apollinare martyre solemnes composuit Cantus.” 27 op. cit., 598: “Qui dum caeteris polleret artibus, maxime tamen in musica dulces faciebat modos, quemadmodum liquet in cantibus, quos vel de sancto Georgio martyre, vel de sancta Ragenufla virgine, nec non et de sancta Begga composuit.”; “Binos etiam cantus composuit, id est de sancto Christophoro martyre, et de sancta Maria Aegyptia, Historiam Tobiae, itemque Martyrium S. Stephani protomartyris heroico pede percurrit, et Cantica canticorum aliquanta ex parte antiphonatim modulatus est.” 28 op. cit., 598-99: “Melodias de sanctis Joanne et Paulo martyribus, de sanctis Nazario et Celso, de domno Frederico Leodiensi episcipi, ex cujus etiam gestis, obitu vel miraculis libellum scripsit.” 29 op. cit., 595: “Igitur cum adhuc esset iunior, scripsit libellum metrice in laudem Spiritus sancti…De sanctis Theodardo, Goare ac Severo confessoribus cantus composuit.”
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office for Saint Augustine, which, like some of Renier’s works, was likely
commissioned by a community of canons.30 St.-Laurent was a community that prized
the composition of liturgical works and seems to have been a workshop for them. At
least two of its scholars may have been asked by outside communities to compose
liturgical works, suggesting that it was well-known to other communities as a center of
liturgical composition and devotion.
This fact does not make St.-Laurent entirely unique. Liège was itself a notable
center of musical composition in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.31 Other abbeys in
the diocese were also known as centers for the production of liturgical offices.
Interestingly, the corporate geography of monasticism in Liège suggests that the
adoption of the customs of Cluny may have been instrumental in the emergence of
particular abbeys as centers of liturgical production. Apart from St.-Laurent, the abbey
best known for composing liturgical offices was St.-James, which adopted Cluniac
customs in conjunction with St.-Laurent.32 St.-Bertin, from which both St.-James and
St.-Laurent adopted the customary of Cluny, possessed a breviary that is the oldest
book to contain Rupert’s office for Saint Augustine, as well as three other offices
produced in Liège.33 The common thread that tied these abbeys together was their
interest in new liturgical offices and the adoption of Cluniac customs, suggesting that
there was a connection between Cluniac reform and liturgical piety at St.-Laurent.
Nonetheless, not all communities that underwent Cluniac reform became centers of 30 Martijn Schrama, “The Office in Honour of Saint Augustine,” 589-651. 31 On the muscial school centered in Liège, see J. Smits van Waesberghe, Muzieksgeschiedenis der Middeleeuwen, vol. I: De Luiksche Muziekschool (Tilburg, 1936). 32 Schrama, “The Office in Honour of Saint Augustine,” 619-20. 33 op. cit., 604, 631.
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liturgical production. In this regard, St.-Laurent was relatively rare, which demonstrates
that the community developed their own liturgical spirituality under the framework of
Cluniac customs and monastic reform.
In one respect, however, St.-Laurent appears to have been almost unique during
this period; alongside the production of liturgical offices, members of the community
also produced liturgical commentaries. The most notable of these was Rupert of
Deutz’s first major treatise, written between 1109 and 1112. The Liber de divinis
officiis was a comprehensive interpretation of the entire monastic liturgy.34 The
significance of Rupert’s decision to produce the De divinis officiis can only be fully
appreciated in light of its two contexts. The first of these is the broader history of
liturgical commentary in the Latin West, which suggests that Rupert’s De divinis
officiis should be viewed as a revival of both the genre of liturgical interpretation and of
a particular allegorical approach to liturgical exegesis. Such revivals demonstrate
Rupert’s commitment to liturgical spirituality. The last scholar to attempt a project
similar in scope and purpose to Rupert’s was the Carolingian scholar Amalarius of
Metz (c.775?-850), a prolific liturgist whose most important works were the De ordine
antiphonarii and the monumental Liber officialis.35 Amalarius belonged to a broader
34 Printed in Liber de divinis officiis, ed. Haacke, CCCM 7. On this work and its composition, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 58-67. On the liturgical theology of Rupert, see Wilhelm Kahles, Geschichte als Liturgie: Die Geschichtstheologie des Rupertus von Deutz (Münster, 1960). 35 Amalarius works are printed in Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ed. Jean Michel Hanssens, Studi e testi 138-40 (Vatican City, 1948-1950). The only translation of these known to me is Amalarius of Metz on the Mass: A Translation of Book III, chapters 1-18 of the Liber Officialis, trans. Paul Raftery (Ph.D Thesis, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, 1998). On Amalarius generally, see Allen Cabaniss, Amalarius of Metz (Amsterdam, 1954). Remarkably little systematic work has been done on Amalarius’ liturgical exegeses. See René-Jean Hesbert, “L’antiphonaire d’Amalaire,” Ephemerides liturgicae 94 (1980): 176-194, Roger Evans, Amalarius of Metz and the Singing of Carolingian Offices (Ph.D. Thesis, City University of New York, 1977), Peter Gavin Ferriby, The Development of Liturgical
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Carolingian tradition of liturgical writing that included such notable figures as
Rhabanus Maurus (c.780-856) and Walafrid Strabo (c.808-849), but also such figures
as Florus of Lyons (c.810?-860) and Remigius of Auxerre (c.841-908).36 The
production of liturgical writing during this period was probably connected to the
transmission and codification of Roman liturgy into Frankish lands and the large-scale
attempts to reform the Frankish church by unifying the liturgy throughout the
Carolingian empire.37 During this period of Carolingian liturgical activity, a notable
split occurred between those who favored an allegorical approach to liturgical exegesis
and those who favored a more historical or literal approach. The most visible sign of
these conflicting approaches was the debate and contest between Amalarius of Metz,
who favored an allegorical interpretation, and Florus of Lyons, who argued for a more
literal approach and orchestrated the condemnation of Amalarius’ writings.38
Following the period of liturgical writing under the Carolingians, there is little
evidence of interest in liturgical interpretation, save for some isolated Mass
commentaries, until the late eleventh century, the time of Rupert’s decision to produce
Symbolism in the Early Works of Amalarius of Metz (Ph.D Thesis, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2000), and Paul Jacobson, Ad Memoriam Ducens: The Development of Liturgical Exegesis in Amalar of Metz’s Expositiones Missae (Ph.D Thesis, Graduate Theological Union, 1996). 36 See Reynolds, “Liturgy,” 627-29. Rhabanus Maurus’ main works included the De clericorum instutione, ed. Detlev Zimpel (Turnhout, 2006) and the Liber de sacris ordinibus, PL 112: 1165-1192. Walahfrid Strabo, a student of Rhabanus Maurus, composed the De exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, ed. and trans. Alice L. Hartin-Correa (Leiden, 1995). 37 On this process, a solid entry point is M.A. Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula canonicorum in the Eighth Century (Cambridge, 2004). 38 See Jacobson, Ad Memoriam Ducens, 224-263, Dennis Sheehan, Sacramentum in a ninth-century controversy: a study in the use and development of sacramentum in the controversy between Amalarius of Metz and Florus of Lyons (Rome, 1979), Paul Duc, Etude sur l’Expositio Missae de Florus de Lyon suive d’une édition critique du texte (Belley, 1937), and Douglas Mosey, Allegorical Liturgical Interpretation in the West from 800AD to 1200AD (Ph.D Thesis, University of St. Michael’s College, 1985). On Florus of Lyons more generally, see Allen Cabaniss, “Florus of Lyons,” Classica et Medievalia 19 (1958): 212-32.
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the De divinis officiis. The few notable liturgical commentaries that may have predated
Rupert’s writing included the Micrologus de ecclesiasticis observationis (written
c.1085) of Bernold of Constance (c.1054-1100), the De officiis ecclesiasticis of John of
Avranches (fl.1060-79), and the De differentia quattuor temporum of Sigebert of
Gembloux (c.1030-112).39 However, there is no evidence that Rupert knew or was
influenced by any of these works. Furthermore, most of them are markedly different
from Rupert’s work. Some are commentaries on just the Mass, far more limited than
Rupert’s fuller commentary on the Mass and the Office. Others take the literal approach
favored by Florus of Lyons, rather than following the Amalarian tradition, as Rupert
did. In the prologue to the De divinis officiis, Rupert associated his own work with
Amalarius’, suggesting that he may have been Rupert’s main influence. Yet Rupert also
carefully notes that he was not simply reiterating Amalarius, but composing something
independent of received authorities: “We are not here detracting anything from ancient
authorities, namely Amalarius and others, if they have perhaps written something of
this sort. But it is licit, and it will always be licit, for someone to write what he thinks
for the health of the faith.”40 Rupert considered the De divinis officiis to be something
new and, lacking a precedent for such a comprehensive project since the Carolingian
era, it must be seen as a remarkable revival of a genre of writing that speaks to the
importance of and interest in the liturgy at St.-Laurent.
39 See Reynolds, “Liturgy,” 629-32, Mary Schaefer, “Latin Mass Commentaries from the Ninth through the Twelfth Centuries: Chronology and Theology,” in Fountains of Life, ed. Gerard Austin (Washington, D.C., 1991): 35-49. 40 Rupert of Deutz, Liber de divinis officiis, 6: “Neque enim auctoritati veterum quidquam detrahimus, Amalarii scilicet et aliorum, si qui forte scripserunt de huiusmodi. Sed licuit semperque licebit cuique dicere salva fide, quod senserit.”
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Within the broad history of liturgical writing, Rupert’s De divinis officiis
appears quite distinctive, but seen in a second context, that of of twelfth-century
liturgical writing, Rupert seems to have been very much attuned to the spirit of his day.
Rupert’s De divinis officiis marks the start of a general renewal of interest in liturgical
writing, one that included not only Bernold of Constance, but also Bruno of Segni
(c.1047-1123), Hildebert of Lavardin (c.1056-1134), Honorius Augustodunensis
(d.1151?), found full expression in the work of Johannes Beleth (fl.1135-82), and
eventually peaked with the work of William Durand (c.1230-1296).41 Just as the
flowering of liturgical writing under the Carolingians was linked to the reform of the
Frankish church, so too was the revival of liturgical writing in the twelfth century
linked to the Gregorian reform of the church.42 Rupert’s direct experiences with the
reform and its opponents, in the form of his community’s exile and their ongoing
struggle with the imperialist bishop of Liège, linked him to these currents in religious
and liturgical thought. Indeed, Rupert’s De divinis officiis was, in many ways, the final
outcome of Rupert’s struggle to balance his reform ideals with the political realities of
St.-Laurent’s situation. For many years, Rupert resisted ordination to the priesthood
because it would have meant ordination at the hands of an imperialist bishop. When he
finally accepted ordination, probably in 1108, it represented his emerging commitment
41 See Mary Schaefer, Twelfth Century Latin Commentaries on the Mass: Christological and Ecclesiological Dimensions (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Notre Dame, 1983). On William Durand, see Timothy Thibodeau, “Enigmata Figurarum: Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Exposition in Durand’s Rationale,” Harvard Theological Review 86 (1993): 65-79 and idbid., “William Durand: ‘Compilator Rationalis,’” Ecclesia Orans 9 (1992): 97-113. 42 Many of the twelfth-century liturgists, including Bernold of Constance, Bruno of Segni, and Rupert himself, were staunch supporters of church reform, to say nothing of Pope Innocent III’s own De missaru mysteriis, written around 1195.
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to reform, particularly to reform of the secular clergy.43 Rupert began work on the De
divinis officiis the following year, a development that was not an accident. In the mid
twelfth century, Renier of St.-Laurent wrote that the work was the direct result of
Rupert accepting ordination: “Having been made a priest, he could accede to the heart
of things; unfolding the veils of his talent and genius into a fabric of truth, he produced
twelve books on the divine office, or the sacraments, which are celebrated in the church
during the calendar year.”44 Rupert’s entry into the clergy and his devotion to church
reform drove his liturgical writing.
The fact that Rupert’s De divinis officiis was linked to broader currents in
church reform does not lessen its local significance for St.-Laurent’s spiritual culture.
Like St.-Laurent’s adoption of the customs of Cluny, the community’s involvement
with the Gregorian reform provided the community with a framework that emphasized
the importance of the liturgy, within which they developed an unusually intense
liturgical piety. Indeed, both the community’s adoption of the Cluniac customary and
their links with the Gregorian reform were symptoms of St.-Laurent’s general
commitment to church reform, a commitment that directed their attention to the
structure and performance of the liturgy. To a certain extent then, the fact that St.-
Laurent was entangled in the Investiture Controversy and the general twelfth-century
sweep of church reform oriented the community toward liturgical piety, but the
community actively cultivated that orientation into a pattern of spirituality. Rupert’s De
43 On the issues surrounding Rupert’s ordination, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 37-42, 48-55. 44 Renier of St.-Laurent, De Ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, ed. W. Arndt, MGH Scriptore 20: 595: “Factus presbuter tum vero accessit ad cor altum, quia totius iam intentionis atque ingenii vela in verum explicans austrum De divinis officiis, sive sacramentis, quae celebrantur in Ecclesia per anni circulum, edidit libellos xii.”
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divinis officiis, nearly unique at the time of its production, and the community’s
penchant for composing liturgical offices, rare even among reformed communities,
represent the first fruits of that cultivation.
If Rupert’s De divinis officiis was the product of a growing interest in liturgical
piety at the time of its completion in 1112, its production reinforced and furthered the
importance of such piety at the community. The community at St.-Laurent naturally
possessed a copy of the De divinis officiis, now preserved as BR 9735-36, and certain
features of the manuscript indicate the esteem in which the text was held by the
community. Despite the very good execution of the text, a twelfth-century corrector has
gone over the manuscript carefully to ensure that the text was accurate.45 In the late
twelfth or early thirteenth century, another scribe performed significant work touching
up the manuscript: folios 65-68 appear to be replacement leaves inserted at this time,
and the scribe responsible for executing them also retraced script that had faded in
numerous places throughout the manuscript to guarantee its legibility. The extensive
fading of the script indicates that the manuscript was well-used over the course of the
twelfth century, and the careful restoration of the text suggests that it was still relevant
to the community at the end of the century, signaling its importance at St.-Laurent.46
Furthermore, the De divinis officiis is the only one of Rupert’s works to be mentioned
45 Visible, for instance, at 19r, among many other places. 46 Among the most interesting features of this manuscript is the fact of a large amount of missing text from Rupert’s treatment of the Eucharist at f.19r, corresponding roughly with lines 402-430 on pp.42-44 of the critical edition of the text. Rupert’s treatment of the Eucharist in the De divinis officiis had been roundly criticized for appearing to endorse the doctrine of impanation by both Alger of Liège and William of St.-Thierry. It is possible that when the community sat down to copy this manuscript, they chose to omit this portion of the text. The omission was recognized, however, for at some point a scribe noted the missing text with the marginal annotation, “Hic deest magna pars sententiae.” I believe this scribe to be the thirteenth-century corrector of the manuscript, although the identification is not certain.
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twice in the St.-Laurent library catalogue. The first mention is in the midst of the main
listing of Rupert’s works. It is mentioned again near the end of the catalogue, noted as
“Liber novus Roberti abbatis de divinis officiis,” suggesting that it was prioritized
amongst Rupert’s works for recopying.47 Rupert’s De divinis officiis was, overall, his
most popular and widely-distributed work, but it was clearly also important to the
cultural and spiritual life of St.-Laurent in particular.48
Apart from the afterlife of Rupert’s De divinis officiis at St.-Laurent, the best
evidence for the further development of liturgical piety within the community is the
production of a second liturgical commentary by one of its scholars. Probably toward
the end of his career, likely in the 1180s, Renier of St.-Laurent composed a little-
studied treatise that has been transmitted with the title In Novem Ante-Natalitas
Antiphonas.49 The work investigates the nine antiphons used on the nine days before
the Nativity, the so-called “O antiphons” or the “Greater Advent Antiphons,” and 47 Jean Gessler, “La Bibliothèque de l’abbaye de St.-Laurent à Liège au XIIe et au XIIIe siècles,” Bulletin de la Sociéte des Bibliophiles Liègeois 12 (1927): 37, 41; Albert Derolez, Corpus catalorum Belgii: the Medieval Booklists of the Southern Low Countries, 4 vols. (Brussels, 1997): II: 123-24. The catalogue is found in BR 9810-14 and is discussed further in Chapter 2. 48 Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 66-67. 49 This rather strange treatise seems to have a complicated history. Two versions of the text exist, both with the same rationale of conducting an incarnationalist interpretation of the nine antiphons used in the run-up to the Nativity. The first of these, as printed in both MGH 20: 603 and PL 204: 33-40, serves as Book III of the text titled either De Ineptiis Cuisdam Idiotae (MGH) or De claris scriptoribus (PL). The MGH prints only chapter 1 of the text, since it is “more theological than historical,” whereas the PL version contains 4 chapters, and notes that the rest of the text is wanting. The MGH editor does suggest that the manuscript from which Renier’s works are printed is defective. A second version of the text, identical in rationale but much different in content, is printed in PL 204: 43-52 under the title In Novem Ante-Natalitatis Antiphonas. Migne gives its source as “post editionem Leodii anno 1618 typis Joannis Ouwer procuratam, nunc iterum ob maximam opusculi raritatem hic recusa.” Beyond that, the source cannot be determined. Evidence suggests that this second version is likely to be a revision of the other. In the list of his own writings found in De ineptiis cuisdam idiotae/De claris scriptoribus, of which the first version serves as Book III, no mention is made of the text. Thus the version printed as In Novem Ante-Natalitatis Antiphonas almost postdates the composition of the De ineptiis, was probably a revision of the text found there, and is likely from the later part of Renier’s career. Like most of Renier’s works, there is no other known textual tradition of the work. Unless otherwise noted, I am working from the revised version printed in PL 204: 43-52.
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inquires why there is special observance for these days and why all of the antiphons
start with the letter “O.”50 Renier’s exegesis was primarily incarnationalist, noting that
because Christ took on the fullness of humanity, he had to obey the natural laws of
humanity and so required nine months of gestation before his birth. The nine days and
nine antiphons symbolize the nine months of the Virgin’s pregnancy, as well as the nine
graces brought to humanity through the Incarnation, as described in Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians.51 The In Novem Ante-Natalitas Antiphonas appears to be a highly
idiosyncratic text. There is little, if any liturgical commentary from the period that is
devoted to the Advent antiphons; Rupert himself included no discussion of the “O
antiphons” in the De divinis officiis. It is possible that, like Rupert, Renier drew on
Amalarius, perhaps on the De ordine antiphonarii, but Renier’s specific sources are
unclear at present. There does not seem to be an immediate context or textual tradition
that satisfactorily explains Renier’s treatise, save for the community’s own interest in
the liturgy. Renier’s composition, with its unusual liturgical subject, reflects the
remarkable depth of interest in liturgical spirituality at St-Laurent, which was
perpetuated within the community even after Rupert’s departure from Liège.
1.2 Liturgy and Scholarship at St.-Laurent
50 Renier, In Novem Ante-Natalitatis, PL 204: 41: “Et nunc quidem breve hoc opusculum ad te scribimus, cui hic in fronte praefigitur titulus: Quid significent novem O, et quae sit dieram illorum ratio.” And below, in Capitula I: “Sunt porro dies non amplius novem talis observantiae, et eiusdem numeri antiphonae cum Evangelii cantico singular diebus singulis decantandae. Quarum omnium principia eadem praenotantur O littera. Quaeritur quae observatiae talis causa vel ratio?” 51 op. cit. 204: 43-44, 46.
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Given all the evidence for the centrality of the liturgy to St.-Laurent’s spiritual
culture, it is hardly surprising that it also occupied an important place in the broader
scope of St.-Laurent’s scholarship. References to the liturgy imbue the non-liturgical
writings of both Rupert of Deutz and Renier of St.-Laurent, as suggested here by a few
representative examples. For instance, in the section of Rupert’s De sancta Trinitate
that commented on Genesis 1:22, which relates God’s commands to the birds to
multiply over the earth, Rupert wrote that, “the joyful nightingale, sitting on its young
eggs, sings throughout the whole night with such a sweet song that it might seem to you
that this is its highest purpose, by which it is able to bring life to its young as much with
its sweet melody as by the warmth of its body.”52 The reference to singing alone might
have been enough to evoke the chanting of the liturgy for Rupert’s audience, but he
went on to make the connection more evident, declaring, “from this point on, rearing its
children, the nightingale sings in this way ‘in the evening, morning, and midday’
(vespere et mane, et meridie, Ps. 54), and will announce praise of the creator with a not
ungrateful spirit. They confess to the God of heaven, ‘who gives food to all flesh’ (Ps.
136), with such a harmony that rational man ought to blush if ever he were to receive
the gifts of the creator and be mute in his praises.”53 If the initial description of the
nightingale’s singing would have evoked liturgical chant for a careful reader, the
52 Rupert of Deutz, De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 21-24 (Turnhout, 1971- ): 181: “…lucscinia laetabunda parvulis ovis supersedens tota pervigil nocte cantabit, tanta cantilenae suavitate ut tibi videatur haec esse summa eius intentio, quo possit non minus dulcibus modis fetus animare quam fotu corporis.” 53 op. cit.: “Hinc educta progenies vespere et mane, et meridie quodam modo narrabit et creatoris laudem non ingrata natura annuntiabit et ei qui dat escam omni carni tanto concetu confitentur Deo caeli, ut erubescere debeat homo rationalis, si umquam dona creatoris in escam mutus ab eius laude perceperit.”
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reference to singing in the evening, morning, and midday was a reference to the
chanting of the Office at the canonical hours of the day that even Rupert’s most careless
readers could hardly have failed to miss. The use of citations from the Psalms, which
provided the texts for the Office, would have strengthened the association. In this case,
Rupert’s commentary obliquely suggested that liturgical performance was the proper
response to divine favor, indicating its importance to spiritual life. The passage also
demonstrates that Rupert’s interest in the liturgy informed his thought on other subjects.
Renier of St.-Laurent demonstrated a similar affinity for the liturgy in his
writings even apart from the In Novem Ante-Natalitas Antiphonas, which was
specifically liturgical in nature. His Vita Wolbodonis, which celebrated the life of the
bishop credited with the founding of St.-Laurent, is particularly rich with liturgical
references. Near the end of the vita, Renier recounted the main accomplishments of
Wolbodo, among them the construction and foundation of the community at St.-
Laurent. Renier also noted a particular gift that Wolbodo left the community:
That notable book of Psalms, which he wrote with his own hand, and in which he placed a prayer that he composed or dictated under each Psalm, offering goods from the good treasure-box of his heart, causes us to remember the bronze bowl that was made by Moses so that Aaron and his sons might be able to wash their hands and feet when they were about to enter the tabernacle, or so that they might offer in it incense to God when they were about to approach the altar. To this very day, this book has been diligently preserved by us, and in it, just as with the bronze bowl, we are able to wash our hands and feet, that is, the movement of our actions and intentions, when we enter the holy of holies, through harmonious singing of the Psalms with tearful compunction. Thus we cherish the memory of the pious Wolbodo, among others, for whom it was customary to pray through the whole of
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the psalter each day before he celebrated the divine mysteries, such that the incense might be acceptable to Christ in the sweetness of its odor.54
This dense passage implicitly compared Wolbodo’s foundation of St.-Laurent with his
gift of the Psalter, equating the creation of the community with the constitution of its
liturgy. By noting that the book has been preserved carefully to the present day, Renier
extended the metaphor to suggest implicitly that the importance of liturgy had also been
preserved since the foundation of the community. He celebrated the community’s
performance of the Office by noting its value as a purgative act of spiritual
compunction. Renier concluded by suggesting that, through this performance, the
community honored the memory of Wolbodo, who extended his liturgical practices into
private devotion prior to the Mass, and thereby maintained the spiritual identity of the
community that he established. In addition to his specifically liturgical treatise, the In
Novem Ante-Natalitas Antiphonas, Renier also used his hagiographical works to reflect
and elaborate on the centrality of the liturgy to St.-Laurent’s spiritual identity.
The reference to Wolbodo’s recitation of the Psalter prior to celebrating the
Mass illuminates one final aspect of St.-Laurent’s liturgical piety, namely the
importance of the sacraments. The Mass stood at the heart of the monastic liturgy just
54 Vita Wolbodonis, ed. W. Arndt, MGH SS 20: 569: “Labri denique illius aenei quod fecit Moyses, ut lavarent in eo Aaron et filii eius manus suas ac pedes quando ingressuri erant testimonii tabernaculum, et quando accessuri ad altare, ut offerent in eo thimiama Domino, recordari nos facit liber ille psalmorum conspicus, quem propria manu scripsit, et in quo unicuique psalmo compositam ex eodem et a se dictatam subiecit orationem, de bono thesauro cordis sui proferens bona. Hic a nobis hactenus asservatur, in quo videlicet manus ac pedes nostros, id est actuum sive intentionum motus, compunctione lacrimosa velut aenea ad Deum sonoritate psallendo, lavare possimus introituri ad sancta sanctorum. Inter cetera enim etiam istud piissimi amplectimur Wolbonis memoriale, cui diebus singulis mos erat antequam divina celebraret misteria de integro perorare psalterium, thymimam utique Christo acceptabile in odorem suivitatis.” The Psalter referenced in this passage is BR 9188-89, discussed above as one of the surviving liturgical manuscripts from St.-Laurent. See above, pp.54-55 and relevant bibliography at n.14.
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as the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrament stood at the heart of the Mass. It is not
known how many of the monks of St.-Laurent were themselves priests. Rupert himself
accepted ordination after a protracted debate, but there is no indication how many of his
confrères at St.-Laurent followed suit.55 The fact that Renier of St.-Laurent felt
compelled to point out the special fact of Rupert’s ordination in the De ineptiis
cuiusdam idiotae and did not mention the ordination of any of the other members of the
community suggests that Rupert’s ordination was unusual.56 Indeed, the sacraments
figure more prominently in Rupert’s thought and writings than they do in those of any
other scholar at St.-Laurent. The Eucharist and baptism in particular were the subject of
extended discussion in virtually every major treatise Rupert that composed at St.-
Laurent.57 Rupert’s earliest writings on the subject drew significant criticism from such
figures as Alger of Liège and William of St.-Thierry for appearing to endorse the
doctrine of impanation. But Rupert considered the sacraments so important that he not
only engaged Alger, a canon of cathedral of St.-Lambert, in a public debate, but
continued to write on this controversial subject, composing direct responses to his
55 On Rupert’s struggles concerning ordination, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 48-55 and above, pp.63-64. 56 See De Ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, 595. 57 For Rupert’s discussions of the Eucharist and other sacraments, see Liber de divinis officiis, 40-47; De sancta Trinitate, 654-698, 791, 1905-1937; Commentaria in Iohannis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 29 (Turnhout, 1979): 300-308, 330-349. For a summary of some of Rupert’s sacramental theology that situates his approach within those of other theologians, see Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study in the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to Theologians, c.1080-1220 (Oxford, 1984). Some consideration of Rupert’s sacramentology can be found below, pp. 143-38.
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critics and further reflections on the subject.58 Rupert’s own sacramentality
undoubtedly factored in the level of attention he gave the subject in his writings.
Nonetheless, Rupert’s ordination was linked to issues of church reform that
were of central importance to the entire community of St.-Laurent. This was true of the
sacraments as well, since their correct use and reception was often central to the
rhetoric of reform. The same circumstances that framed St.-Laurent’s liturgical piety
and led Rupert and Renier to focus on the liturgy also highlighted the importance of the
sacraments in spiritual life. Furthermore, given the fact that the sacraments were
accomplished within the framework of the liturgy, sacramental piety and liturgical piety
reinforced each other to such an extent they were essentially inseparable in this context.
Rupert recognized the rapport between the sacraments and the liturgy; not only did his
first major consideration of the Eucharist appear in the De divinis officiis, but he also
referred to the fact that the liturgy encapsulated the sacraments in its opening lines:
“For these things [i.e. the liturgy] are signs of the highest things and contain the great
sacraments of heavenly secrets.”59 The fact that it contained the sacraments was a vital,
perhaps even defining feature of the liturgy, making sacramental piety an integral part
of liturgical spirituality at St.-Laurent.
58 For Rupert’s most succint response to his critics, see Commentaria in Iohannis, 2-4. On the debate between Rupert and Alger, the standard starting point continues to be G.G. Bischoff, The Eucharistic Controversy between Rupert of Deutz and his Anonymous Adversary (Ph.D Thesis, Princeton University, 1965). See also Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 135-76 and, on Alger himself, Nicholas M. Haring, “A Study in the Sacramentology of Alger of Liège,” Mediaeval Studies 20 (1958): 41-78. For William of St.-Thierry’s rebuke of Rupert, see Epistola ad Rupertum, ed. Stanislai Ceglar and Paul Verdeyen, CCCM 88 (Turnhout, 2003): 5-7 and John Van Engen, “Rupert of Deutz and William of St.-Thierry,” Revue bénédictine 93 (1983): 327-336. 59 De divinis officiis, 5: “Ea quae per anni circulum ordine constituto in divinis aguntur officiis, et attentum auditorem et eruditum, ut bene exponantur, expetunt venerabilium Scripturarum didascalum atque symmisten. Altissimarum namque signa sunt rerum et maxima quaeque continent caelestium sacramenta secretorum.”
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The sum of this evidence demonstrates the vitality of liturgical piety at St.-
Laurent. The community’s investment in church reform provided the initial impetus for
this focus on the liturgy, which was reinforced by the community’s stance in the
Investiture Controversy and their adoption of the Cluniac customary, both of which
joined St.-Laurent to broad currents of church reform that placed a premium on the
liturgy. The pattern of surviving manuscripts from St.-Laurent may present further
evidence of the intensity of their observances. Within this framework, Rupert of Deutz
and other scholars at St.-Laurent strengthened the liturgical piety of the community
through the creation of new liturgical offices, the composition of treatises on the
liturgy, and recourse to the liturgy in their other writings on spiritual life and corporate
identity. As a result, the liturgy became the defining feature of spiritual practice at St.-
Laurent. Liturgical piety, however, is only half of the picture of St.-Laurent’s spiritual
life. Correlated with the community’s focus on liturgy was a deep interest in Scripture
as a central aspect of spirituality. The next section of this chapter examines how
enacting a spiritual life at St.-Laurent also involved developing a correct understanding
of Scripture and participating in the salvation narrative that it propagated.
1.3 Scriptural Knowledge as Devotional Practice
For Rupert of Deutz and the community of St.-Laurent, developing the correct
understanding of Scripture was a vital devotional practice. Scriptural knowledge gave
one access to the revealed history of the divine, making it possible to participate in the
narrative of salvation history and creating the possibility for a spiritually efficacious
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life. At the most basic level, this meant recognizing the fulfillment of the promise of the
Old Testament in the New Testament, a textual relationship that formed the bedrock of
medieval exegesis.60 The premise that the New Testament was the revealed truth of the
Old Testament, thus making authentic knowledge of the Scriptures possible, was
ubiquitous in Rupert’s writings. A few representative examples will suffice here. For
instance, when Rupert began his consideration of the Mass in the De divinis officiis, he
wrote that, “this is the sanctuary of atonement…in which the two cherubim, that is, the
two testaments, turn their face and gaze at each other. From what has been promised in
the Old Testament, pre-signified and hailed from afar, has been given in the new,
revealed and made clear; in the present and in our presence it is presented, not in a
shadow, but in truth, not in a figure, but in reality.”61 Rupert opened the De sancta
Trinitate with a thematically similar (if somewhat more obscure) passage, declaring
that:
As Moses’s face had been fully illuminated by his conversation with God and, on this account, it had been appropriate to veil His meaning with figurative words, which were understood by Moses by means of his face, similarly in the creation of a world of such splendor that the children of Israel could not have understood it without the more primitive text of the letter, as if it were wrapped in the cloth of infancy.62
60 Foundational works on medieval exegesis include Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiéval: Les quatres sens de l’écriture, 4 vols. (Paris, 1959), of which the first three volumes have been translated into English by Mark Sebanc and E.M. Macierowski, Medieval Exegesis (Grand Rapids, 1998-2009) and Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1964). See also Ineke van’t Spijker (ed.), The Multiple Meanings of Scripture: the Role of Exegesis in Early-Christian and Medieval Culture (Leiden, 2009). 61 De divinis officiis, 15: “Hoc enim sacrarium propitiationis est, hoc illud propitiaonorium in quod versis vultibus duo cherubim, id est duo testamenta, mutuo se aspiciunt. Nam quo in veteri testamento promissum, praesignatum et a longe salutatum, in novo autem datum, revelatum et palam factum est, hic praesentialiter exhibetur, non in umbra sed in veritate, non in figura sed in re.” 62 De sancta Trinitate, 125: “Facies Moysi cum ubique ex collucutione dei splendid sit et idcirco figurativis cum vocibus sensum suum, qui per faciem intelligitur, velare oportuerit, tum vero in creatione
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Having suggested that the splendor of God was such that it had to be “veiled” under the
literal meaning of the text, Rupert specified that under this veil was knowledge of the
coming Incarnation and that, “if he had written plainly to all without a veil, just as is
now preached everywhere in the world, which has been given glory by Jesus and the
Holy Spirit…he would have cast the splendor of God before intolerant eyes.”63 In both
passages, Rupert contrasted the veiled figurative text of the Old Testament with the
revealed “reality” of the New Testament, which functioned as both the hidden truth of
the Old Testament and its fulfillment. As the second passage makes clear, the
incarnation of God was the pivotal event that brought this fulfillment to pass, lifting the
veil off the Old Testament and revealing the hitherto blinding splendor of the divine
that produced the New Testament. To know the Incarnation was to understand the true
nature of Scripture, and vice versa.
This idea is completely conventional in medieval religious thought.
Nonetheless, Rupert took this understanding of Scriptural exegesis and developed it
into a program of spirituality that was based on acquiring an authentic and accurate
knowledge of Scripture. Rupert tied the development of this knowledge to correct
understanding of the Incarnation, which resulted in knowledge of the work of the divine
in history. Scripture, in short, revealed the divine and was a necessary starting point for
anyone who sought to draw nearer to God. For instance, in a passage in the De sancta
mundi tanti splendoris est, quantum ferre nequaquam potuissent universi filii Israhel, nisi illum grossiore textu litterae, quasi pannis infantiae obvoluisset.” 63 op. cit.: “Haec sine dubio, si absque velamine palam omnibus scripsisset, sicut nunc ubique in toto mundo praedicatum est, ex quo iam glorificato Iesu et Spiritu dato…nimium splendorem impatientibus lipporum oculis obiecisset.” The passage is also clearly polemical, establishing a particular relationship between Christianity and Judasim. See below, pp. 87-89 and relevant citations at n.88.
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Trinitate, Rupert commented on Leviticus 1:16, which contains rules for the sacrificing
of turtle-doves and doves, writing that, “the throat, which is where the turtle-dove or the
dove hides the seeds it has found, signifies the capacity of memory, which the soul uses
well for gathering the meaning of Scriptures.” The plumage of the birds signified the
agility of the mind, which allowed one to understand the sense of the words in
Scripture. However, Rupert notes that, “in a certain way, the learned mind does not
know the ability of its nature until it sees everything in the light of truth, until it tastes
everything that is from God.”64 The passage suggests that the mind, although learned,
did not use its facilities accurately until it was turned toward God, a condition that was
achieved by absorbing the meaning of Scriptures, for which the memory was designed.
If the psychology that Rupert outlined here was fairly typical of the twelfth century, his
suggestion that the primary purpose of the memory was to contain the meanings of
Scripture is more unusual.65 The novelty of this exposition of memory indicates the
importance of Scriptural practices in his approach to spiritual life.
This focus is even more visible in Rupert’s frequent statements tying
understanding and knowledge of Scripture to the possibility of salvation itself. The link
with salvation emerged from the connection between Scriptural knowledge and an
appreciation of the Incarnation. Rupert elucidated the relationship in his interpretation
64 De sancta Trinitate, 809-10: “Vesicula gutturis quo videlicet turtur sive columba grana reperta recondit, capacitatem significat memoriae, qua bene utens animus Scripturarum sententias utiliter congerit; plumae agilitatem mentis, qua sublimia sequi altumque dictorum sensum comprehendere novit. Sed hac naturae facultatem mens erudita quodammodo nescit, dum in veritatis luce totum videt, totum quod de Deo sapit…” 65 Compare Rupert’s understanding of the facilities of the soul, for instance, with that of Aelred of Rievaulx, as explored in Chapter 5, who considered the facilities of the soul, not as means for accessing Scripture, but as mechanisms that allowed one to cope with the ontological gap between God and man.
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of Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob in John 4:7-30 in
his Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Iohannis. According to Rupert, when Jesus
offered the woman “living water” from the Father, “that woman, erring concerning the
word ‘water,’ which she had come to draw from the well, spoke to him in the carnal
sense and said ‘You have nothing in which to draw water, and the well is deep. From
where will you get living water?”66 In so doing, according to Rupert, “this woman erred
in her understanding of the term ‘living water,’ for she did not know that the
perpetually flowing river of invisible water and the unfailing grace of the Holy Spirit
could be expressed with the term ‘living water.’”67 By noting that the woman was
thinking according to the “carnal sense” and was unable to see the true meaning of
Jesus’ words, Rupert used her as a model for those who did not understand the true
spiritual meaning of Scripture as unveiled by the Incarnation. As a result, in Rupert’s
words, “she sinned through ignorance.”68 For Rupert, failure to understand the truth of
Scripture represented a danger to salvation.
Rupert was often preoccupied with the problem of sinning through ignorance or
lack of knowledge. Later in the Commentaria in Evangelium Iohannis, for instance,
Rupert examined John 15:21, in which Jesus told his disciples that they would be
persecuted in his name, “because [their persecutors] do not know him who sent me.”
Possibly influenced by new theological currents that attached intentionality to sin,
66 Rupert of Deutz, Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Iohannis, 198: “At illa mulier adhuc circa nomen aquae, quam haurire venerat, carnalis sensu oberrans dicit ei: neque in quo haurias habes et puteus altus est unde ergo habes aquam vivam ?” 67 op. cit.: “Errabat enim mulier haec in vocabulo aquae vivae nesciens rivum iugiter fluentem aquae invisibilis et indeficientem gratiam Spiritus sancti aquam vivam aequi voca appellatione nuncupari.” 68 op. cit.: “…quod non per malitiam, ut perfida synagoga, sed per ignorantiam peccaverat.”
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Rupert used this passage to reflect on what it meant to “not know.” He declared, “they
do not know, that is, they do not wish to know. For lest you think ignorance to be venial
or excusable, hear what follows: ‘If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not
have sin; now they have no excuse for their sin.’”69 Rupert concluded with the
unequivocal pronouncement, “therefore it is hateful to not know,” echoing Christ’s
statement in John 15: 22, “whoever hates me, hates my Father.”70 According to Rupert,
failure to know Christ’s nature or the fact of the New Testament’s fulfillment of the Old
Following the Incarnation was a willful act that demonstrated an ignorance driven by
refusal to seek divine truth. If the lack of such knowledge was a sin, so too was its
acquisition a virtuous necessity for a devout life.
At its worst, this sinful ignorance could lead to heresy and damnation, another
of Rupert’s persistent concerns. In the De sancta Trinitate’s interpretation of Leviticus
13: 47-55, which gave rules for the inspection of clothing infected with leprosy, Rupert
warned against the dangers of heretical writing by comparing it to this diseased
clothing. According to Leviticus, it was necessary to seclude a dangerous garment for
seven days before judging whether it was leprous or not. Rupert declared, “that is to
say, he will not offer rash judgment, but will confer with all the authority of the
Scripture, and if he discerns it to be leprous, that is, if he discovers it to be heretical, he
will have it burned. Indeed by no other means are heretical writings purged from the
69 op. cit., 665: “Nesciunt, inquam, id est scire nolunt. Nam ne ignorantiam venialem sive excusabilem putes, audi quod sequitor: Si non venissem et locutus fuissem eis, peccatum non haberent; nunc autem excusationem non habent de peccato suo.” 70 op. cit.: “Igitur illud nescire odisse est.”
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memory so quickly and effectively.”71 It is not simply heretical writings that will be
burned in an earthly fire for Rupert; heretical writers themselves face a worse fire:
“while a leprous garment, namely perverse writings, are burned by a visible fire, an
incurable leprous writer, that is an impenitent heretic, will be burned by the
inextinguishable flame, the flame of eternity, the flame of hell.”72 As the opening line
of the passage makes clear, Scripture was to be the gauge for whether writings were
heretical or not. The danger of wrong or false knowledge of Scripture was more serious
than simply being incorrect or unlearned and ultimately resulted in condemnation.
Scripture was so central to Rupert that he often suggested that its correct
interpretation was a prerequisite for participation in other aspects of spiritual life,
including the sacraments. Indeed, reception of the sacraments was not possible without
appreciating the fulfilled nature of Scripture. This idea is probably most clear in
Rupert’s commentary on the episode in the Gospel of John in which the Pharisee
Nicodemus spoke with Christ (John 3: 5). According to the gospel, Jesus told
Nicodemus that unless a man was born again, he could not see the kingdom of God. In
response, Nicodemus asked how a man could be born again and whether he would need
to crawl into his mother’s womb to do so, to which Jesus declared that a man had to be
born again of water and the Holy Spirit. Following conventional exegesis, Rupert took
this passage as a reference to the sacrament of baptism, but he was ultimately more
71 De santa Trinitate, 888: “Qui consideratam recludet septem diebus, id est, non temerarium proferet iudicium, sed conferet cum omni auctoritate Scripturarum, et is lepram crevisse, id est, si vere haeresim esse deprehenderit, comburetur flammis. Nullo enim modo melius aut citius haeretica scriptura de memoria perit.” 72 op. cit.: “Comburetur itaque leprosa vestis, scilicet prava scriptura flammis visibilibus, nam leprosus scriptor insanabilis, scilicet haereticus impaenitens cremabitur flammis inextinguibilibus, flammis aeternis, flammis gehennalibus.”
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interested in Nicodemus’ inability to understand Jesus’ initial comment. Rupert noted
that Jesus did not negate the possibility of rebirth, “because clearly this is not possible
according to the carnal sense, but it is possible and does happen according to the truth
of the spiritual sacrament.”73 Rupert thus suggested that to understand and receive the
sacrament of baptism, it was necessary to be able to distinguish between literal and
spiritual truth. To emphasize this point further, Rupert notes pointedly that, “it must be
known that the truth of the sacrament did not begin to be celebrated immediately at the
time of this statement, but not until our immortal Lord, clothed as a man among men,
removed our mortality from himself.”74 Like Scripture, the sacraments only fulfilled
their true spiritual meaning after the Passion and it was by recognizing this fulfillment
that access to the meaning and value of the sacraments was possible.75
Rupert’s insistence that understanding and reception of the sacraments relied
upon knowledge of Scripture is further demonstrated by his preoccupation with
Scriptural pre-figurations of the sacraments. In the Commentaria in Evangelium
Iohannis, his interest in this topic overshadowed even his concern with the mechanics
73 Commentaria in Iohannis, 139: “Igitur cum dixisset Nicodemus: Numquid potest homo in ventrem matris suae rursus introire et nasci? recte Dominus non negavit hoc posse fieri. Quia videlicet non quidem secundum carnalem illius sensum potest fieri, sed secundum spiritualis sacramenti eritatem fieri potest et fit.” 74 op. cit.: “Sciendum autem non confestim hoc dicto coepisse sacramenti huius celebrari virtutem, sed nec quamdiu idem Dominus noster Deus immortalis homo inter homines deguit nostram indutus mortalitatem.” The term “deguit” here seems unusual; normally found as a corrupt perfect version of the verb “degere,” it seems more likely to be intended as a corrupt perfect for “degerere.” 75 Similar statements concerning the sacrament of baptism can be found at Commentaria in Iohannis, 198, the episode of the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob referenced above, p.76-77, where Jesus’ reference to “aqua viva” was also taken to reference baptism.
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of the Eucharist, an issue that dominated his earlier works.76 His most extended
discussion of this question appeared within his commentary on John 6: 31-32. In
response to a crowd that was asking for a sign similar to the manna from heaven that
was given to the wandering Israelites, Jesus declared, “Moses gave you bread from
heaven, but my Father will give you true bread from heaven.” It was a passage that
appealed to Rupert’s interest in pre-figuration and fulfillment as well as his concern for
sacramentality; the “true bread from heaven” was generally interpreted as the Eucharist.
The central argument of Rupert’s analysis, too long to summarize in detail here,
was to dismiss the possibility that the manna or other pre-figurations of the sacraments
were in any way identical to the sacraments themselves, a misconception arising from a
passage in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that declared that all the Israelites, “ate
the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink” (I Corinthian 10: 2-3).
Rupert framed his discussion as a response to certain “masters of children”
(parvulorum magistri) who sought to destroy the truth of the body and blood of Christ
by saying such things as, “this manna signified this bread; it signified the bread on the
altar of God. Those were sacraments; these are sacraments; as signs, they are diverse,
but in the thing they signify, they are equals.”77 The danger, in Rupert’s mind, was that
76 On Rupert’s understanding of and debates concerning the Eucharist, see Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist, Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 135-76, and G.G. Bishoff, The Eucharistic Controversy between Rupert of Deutz and his Anonymous Adversary (Ph.D. Thesis, Princeton University, 1965). 77 Commentaria in Iohannis, 334: “Sed quid dicemus magnis et magnificis parvulorum magistris, quibus interdum suavius redolet Platonis academia quam haec vivifica Domini mensa? Quid, inquam, dicemus eis, ubi totis viribus intenti ad expugnandam veritatem dominici corporis et sanguinis magnorum sententias doctorum coram attulerint dicentium: Hunc panem significavit manna; hunc panem significat altare Dei, sacramenta illa fuerunt, sacramenta haec sunt; in signis diversa sunt, in re, quae significatur, paria sunt…”
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since both the manna and the Eucharist were signs, in some sense, they could be treated
as equal since they both pointed toward the same reality.
For Rupert, this interpretation of the passage ignored the importance of the
Incarnation, which had transformed the figures and shadows of the Old Testament into
truth. Noting that Paul did not intend his statement to mean that the spiritual food and
drink of the Old Testament were the same as the Eucharist, Rupert declared that, “all
these things were accomplished in figure (in figura), clearly so that we might know by
ancient experience that, although we have all been baptized in the name of same Father,
and Son, and Holy Sprit and all eat the same body and blood of Christ, we must
nevertheless not believe that how we live and how we act after baptism is all equally
pleasing to God.”78 The pre-figurations of the Eucharist were only figura. As such, they
nevertheless provided essential knowledge about the sacrament itself. Indeed, the
sacrament could only be fully understood if it were recognized as the fulfilled reality of
such pre-figurations, as made possible by the Incarnation. For Rupert, it was not
enough to simply note that the true sacraments only came into being following the
Passion. It was also necessary to understand the relationship between figure and reality
in order to understand their nature and role in spiritual life. Knowledge of the salvation
history presented in Scripture was thus a prerequisite for receiving the sacraments; it
both provided the model for the relationship between figure and thing and contained the
78 op. cit., 331: “Nam haec omnia, inquit, in figura facta sunt nostri, videlicet ut antiquis sciamus experimentis, quod, licet omnes baptizati simus in eodem nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti, et omnes manducemus idem corpus et sanguinem Christi, non tamen arbitrandum nobis sit, quod aeque omnibus nobis beneplacitum sit Deo, quomodocunque vivamus, qualiacunque post baptismum operemur.”
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proof of sacramental reality. In short, correct understanding of Scripture led to
knowledge of the significance and meaning of the sacraments.79
The central place of Scripture in Rupert’s thought influenced the broader
intellectual culture of St.-Laurent, where it equaled the liturgy’s importance to the
community’s spiritual and intellectual life. It is almost certain that Rupert succeeded his
own teacher, Heribrand, as the master of novices at St.-Laurent or, at the very least, had
a significant educational role at the abbey.80 One of Rupert’s pupils, Wazelin composed
a treatise on the harmony between the four Evangelists. Although texts dedicated to
harmonizing the four Evangels were something of a conventional genre in the Middle
Ages, the production of the text nevertheless demonstrates the transmission of Rupert’s
interest in and ideas about Scripture to the community of St.-Laurent at large. There is
also evidence of the community’s enthusiasm for the work. In the De Ineptiis
Cuiusdam Idiotae, Renier referred to Wazelin as an “illustrious and learned man” and
noted that, “the book which he wrote, the De concordia Evangeliorum et expositione
eorum, a work both clear and useful, provided an example of his skill.”81 Furthermore,
the community preserved a copy of Wazelin’s work, now BR 10751 (probably an
autography copy), indicating the text’s pedagogical and intellectual value at the
community.82 In fact, other than the works of Rupert and Renier themselves, Wazelin’s
79 For further discussion of the prefigurations of the sacraments, see Rupert’s briefer discussion in De divinis officiis, 33-35. 80 See Renier of St.-Laurent, De ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, 595-97; also Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 103. Further discussion of Rupert as a teacher at the abbey can be found in Chapter 2, pp.116-118. 81 Renier, De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, 597: “Peritiae illius exhibet documentum liber quem scripsit: De concordia Evangeliorum et expositione eorum, opus equidem clarum et utile…” 82 On this work, which has never been edited, see Hubert Silvestre, “Le ‘De concordantia et expostione quattuor evangeliorum’ inédit de Wazelin II, abbé de St.-Laurent à Liège (ca. 1150-1157),” Revue
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De concordia appears to be the only one of the texts mentioned in Renier’s De Ineptiis
Cuiusdam Idiotae to have survived in a manuscript from St.-Laurent, indicating its
particular importance to the community. Wazelin himself was eventually elected the
seventh abbot of St.-Laurent, a demonstration of the community’s respect for his
learning and knowledge.
Scripture was thus central to devotional life at St.-Laurent, where correct
understanding of the nature of salvation history was considered vital to spiritual life,
salvation, and the reception of the sacraments. While the evidence for this form of
spirituality derives primarily from the works of Rupert of Deutz, there is some
indication that his ideas were adopted by the general intellectual community of St.-
Laurent, primarily via his teaching and through the creation of new works of Scriptural
interpretation. A result of Rupert’s influence within the community was that learning
and knowledge, broadly defined, were tied to Scripture at St.-Laurent. Throughout the
community in the early twelfth century, “knowledge” itself was defined according to its
relationship with Scripture and the primary purpose of education and scholarship was
the pursuit of Scriptural knowledge.
Rupert’s analysis of the creation story in De sancta Trinitate, where he was
forced to confront various traditions of scientific thought and natural philosophy,
encapsulated this relationship. For instance, in his discussion of God’s creation of the
two great lights that would rule the day and night (Genesis 1: 16-17), Rupert declared,
bénédictine 63 (1953): 310-25. Wazelin was also the author of a letter on the excellence of monks, found in BR 9349-54, f.207r-208v, which is printed in R. Vanderplaeste, “Notities beteffende Wazelinus, abt van Saint-Laurent (Liège),” Sacris Erudiri 24 (1980): 245-64.
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“he who truly seeks wisdom, and desires to know the creator from the created world, to
glorify him, and to find grace, he is content to know only what the divine creator
established in the witness of holy Scripture concerning these matters, namely that he
placed these aforementioned lights and the stars in the firmament of heaven so that they
might shine over the earth and rule the day and the night.”83 Implicitly refuting
scientific thought that problematized the creation story, Rupert declared that true
knowledge of the nature of creation was only to be found in the witness that is
Scripture. As such, Scripture had priority over all other forms of knowledge, making it
the paradigm of true knowledge. Information, for Rupert, could only be called
knowledge when it accorded with Scripture.
Conversely, the link between Scripture and knowledge in Rupert’s thought is
also important to his discussions of the unlearned. Rupert’s use of the term vulgus
provides a good demonstration. Vulgus was normally used to mean “common,”
“popular,” or “unlearned” in a general sense and sometimes took on the more specific
meaning of “illiterate” or uneducated in the arts. In Rupert’s writings, however, it
almost always occupied a more restricted semantic domain, referring specifically to a
lack of accurate knowledge or understanding of Scripture. For instance, in the
Commentaria in Evangelium Iohannis, Rupert queried why the disciple Philip, when he
told Nathaniel that they had found him whom Moses and the prophets wrote about,
referred to him as, “Jesus, the Son of Joseph from Nazareth of Galilee” (John 1: 45-49).
83 De sancta Trinitate, 175: “Nam qui vere sapientiam quaerit, et a creatura mundi creatorem cognoscere, glorificare atque gratias agere cupit, hoc solum de illa scire contentus est, quod sacra testante Scriptura creatrix divinitas instituit, videliect quod ad hoc posuerit ea quae praedicta sunt, id est luminaria et stellas, in firmamento calei, ut lucerent super terram, ut praeessent diei ac nocti.”
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Rupert declared that this term, “was used as a suitable description because many people
were called by the name Jesus, on which account he attached the name of his father,
who was thought to be Joseph, and his city to his proper name.” In doing so, Rupert
argues that Philip “held to the proper principle of history, to not omit either time or
place, which is the common opinion (opinionem vulgi).”84 At first glance, it seems
strange that Rupert associated the “common opinion” with adhering to the proper
principles of history. In this case, however, Rupert linked the “opinio vulgi” with a
literal understanding of Jesus’ origins as the son of Joseph from Nazareth, as opposed
to a spiritual understanding of Jesus as the Son of God. Rupert’s interpretation equated
learning not with earthly facts like the principles of history, but rather with being able
to relate literal facts to spiritual truths. Just as in Philip’s time this meant recognizing
Jesus as the incarnate Son of God, in Rupert’s time it meant possessing a proper
understanding of Scripture.
This stance is even more evident in Rupert’s commentary on aspects of creation
in De sancta Trinitate. For instance, in his commentary on Genesis 7:11, in which the
“floodgates of heaven were opened” to initiate the flood, Rupert declared that:
What it says here, “the floodgates of heaven were opened,” must be understood as hyperbole and thus to be said on account of the great size of the flood about to occur, which was such that the firmament which God made in the middle of the waters so that it might divide water from water, might seem to be destroyed, according to common opinion (opinionem vulgi).85
84 Commentaria in Iohannis, 91: “Opportuna descriptione usus est, quia videlicet multi vocabulo Iesu nuncupabantur, idcirco cum proprio nomine ipsius civitatis quoque nomen posuit et patris eius, qui erat Iospeh, ut putabatur. In quo et veram tenuit legem historiae, quae est opinionem vulgi, pro tempore et loco no omittere.” 85 De sancta Trinitate, 304: “Quod ait, et cataractae caeli apertae sunt, per hyperbolen accipiendum est et sic esse dictum ob insinuandam inundationis magnitudinem, quae tanta fuit ut firmamentum, quod fecit
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In this passage, Rupert referred to an interpretation of the creation of the firmament that
understood its purpose to be containment of the waters reserved for the flood of Noah,
after which it would be destroyed. Rupert rejects this possibility as a misunderstanding
of the creation story, labeling it a common and unlearned opinion. The fact that
scriptural understanding and “opinio vulgi” were opposites in Rupert’s thought
becomes clear in his next statement: “at least we say that the floodgates are the hidden
paths of heaven, through which the rain descends from heaven into the air. But in truth,
by saying this we speak more according to the custom of the unlearned (more vulgi)
than by the sense of Scripture.”86 Rupert’s explanation of why even this interpretation
was problematic is less important here than his opposition of the sense of the “sense of
Scripture” to common and unlearned opinion; the juxtaposition demonstrates the extent
to which he defined learning specifically as knowledge of Scripture.
This connection also emerged in Rupert’s treatment of Jews and Judaism.87
Reflecting a common authorial strategy of his time, Rupert often used Jews as
examples of those who were attached to the literal sense of Scripture and therefore
unable to perceive the spiritual sense. They mistook the “figures” of the Old Testament
Deus in medio aquarum, ut divideret aquas ab aquis, dissipatum esse videretur secundum vulgi opinionem.” This discussion harkens back to his own discussion of the creation of the firmament at De sancta Trinitate, 158, where he also refers to the misunderstandings of the “vulgus.” 86 op. cit., 304: “Dicimus quidem cataractas caeli occultas esse vias, per quas de caelo utique aereo pluvia descendit. Verum hoc dicendo more vulgi magis quam Scripturarum sensu loquimur.” 87 For broader treatments of the place of Judaism in Rupert’s thought, exegesis, and career, see D.E. Timmer, The Religious Significance of Judaism for Twelfth-Century Monastic Exegesis: A Study in the Thought of Rupert of Deutz, c.1070-1129 (Ph.D Thesis, Notre Dame University, 1983), Anna Abulafia, “The ideology of reform and changing ideas concerning Jews in the works of Rupert of Deutz and Hermannus quondam Judeus,” Jewish History 7 (1993): 43-63, and Jean-Claude Schmitt, The Conversion of Herman the Jew (Philadelphia, 2010).
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for truth and, as a result, did not see the revealed truth of the New Testament.88 While
in his early writings Rupert did occasionally use terms such as “perfidious” and
“malicious” to refer to the Jews, he more often referred to their inability to see the
revelation of the divine as the product of ignorance, error, or lack of knowledge.89 For
instance, in his commentary on the second chapter of Mathew in the De sancta
Trinitate, which related the distress of Herod and Jerusalem at the news of Jesus’ birth,
Rupert wrote that, “the disturbance of Herod and Jerusalem came from the depths of a
boundless error, from a blindness of the mind, and from the inexcusable shadow of
ignorance.”90 This ignorance, which Rupert defined as a sin, could only be alleviated by
putting off carnal knowledge and developing a spiritual understanding of Christ’s
incarnation:
This error, this ignorance, descending from the head, that is, from the elders who seemed to rule the people, enveloped the simple and unlearned people who were not malicious, so that even the apostles, who believed and rejoiced that the king of the Jews, promised in the law and the prophets, had come in the person of their teacher Lord Jesus Christ, nevertheless erred carnally in their thinking about his kingdom, not maliciously, as was said, but simply, until they knew by the glorification
88 On Jews and exegesis in the twelfth century, see Anna Abulafia, “Jewish carnality in twelfth-century renaissance thought,” Studies in Church History 29 (1992): 59-75. On the place of Jews more generally in Latin Christian thought in the Middle Ages, with reference to exegesis, see Anna Abulafia, Christians and Jews in Dispute: Disputational Literature and the Rise of Anti-Judaism in the West, c.1000-1150 (Aldershot, 1998), Sara Lipton, Images of Intolerance: the representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisée (Berkeley, 1999), Gilbert Dahan, The Christian Polemic against the Jews in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1998), Jeremy Cohen, “Synagoga conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs and Christianity’s ‘eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004): 309-340, and Robert Chazan, “Twelfth-century perceptions of the Jews: a case study of Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, ed. Jeremy Cohen (Wiesbaden, 1996): 187-201. 89 See, for instance, Rupert’s reference to “perfida synagoga” in Commentaria in Iohannis, 198. 90 De sancta Trinitate, 1787: “Turbatio Herodis et Hierosolymae de profundo prodiit erroris infiniti, de caecitate mentis et tenebris ignorantiae inexcusabilis…”
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of Jesus and by receiving his spirit that his kingdom was not of his this world.91
Here, Rupert reiterated the same connection between devotion and correct
understanding of the Incarnation and Scripture witnessed earlier, defining Judaism’s
failure to accept Christianity as the product of ignorance and lack of knowledge. By
implication, Rupert defined knowledge itself as the ability to perceive the spiritual
reality of the Incarnation and Scripture. Like his understanding of the vulgus, Rupert’s
conception of Judaism was predicated upon the application of knowledge and learning
to Scripture and the polarization of carnal and spiritual truth.92
This is not to say that Jews were, for Rupert, nothing other than uneducated
Christians. Unlike Christian ignorance, Jewish ignorance was a willful lack of
knowledge that resulted from a refusal to learn. Rupert expressed this fact in a
remarkable passage in the Commentaria in Evangelium Iohannis that demonstrates the
extent to which Rupert’s various concerns with knowledge, sin, and salvation were
intertwined. It concerns John 6: 41-42, in which certain Jews muttered, “Surely this is
Jesus, the son Joseph,” in response to Jesus’ claim to have descended from heaven.
Rupert declared of this moment:
This is the sin of these people, for which they have no excuse. For to not know that he descended or how he descended from heaven, this is hardly to be wondered at, especially when he was thought to be the son of
91 op. cit., 1787-88: “Haec error, haec ignorantia, a capite descendens, id est a senioribus, qui videbantur regere populum, simplices atque idiotas non malitiose involverat, ita ut apostoli quoque qui magistrum suum Dominum Jesum Christum regem Iudaeorum ex lege et propehtis promissum advenisse credebant et gaudebant, nimium carnaliter de regno eius sentiendo errarent, non malitiose, ut iam dictum est, sed simpliciter, donec glorificato eodem Iesu et accepto eius Spiritu scirent, quia regnum eius de hoc mundo non est.” 92 For other passages that demonstrate the same connection between ignorance and Judaism, see Books 8 and 9 of De sancta Trinitate and Commentaria in Iohannis, 176, 250-52, and 532.
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Joseph by common opinion (vulgata opinione). But to murmur against him and not to act better with him or to question him, so that they might merit to know, this was a sin, through which they never merited to discover the way of truth.93
Rupert joined his notion of the “opinio vulgi” to his understanding of Judaism, using
the Jews as a virtual “ideal type” of ignorance, characterized by their inability to see
beyond the carnal truth of Jesus as the human son of Joseph so as to recognize the
spiritual truth of Jesus’ descent from heaven. Rupert developed this idea, relatively
common in his writings, somewhat further than usual here by suggesting that it was not
simply ignorance of the spiritual truth that constituted their sin, but also their
unwillingness to try to learn that truth. If, in many of the examples cited above, Rupert
seemed to think of spiritual understanding of Scripture as an almost static structure that
one either possessed or lacked, he here accepted that such knowledge had to be
developed through practice and questioning. As a result, the problem of learning was
also key to Rupert’s theology.
The fact that spirituality at St.-Laurent was intimately tied to knowledge of
Scripture, coupled with the fact that knowledge was generally equated with Scripture,
created a quasi-academic spirituality at St.-Laurent, in which learning itself was a
central aspect of piety. The best encapsulations of the devotional character of learning
at St.-Laurent are found in two extended passages from Rupert’s discussion of the gifts
of the Holy Spirit in De sancta Trinitate, entitled “De sapientia” and “De scientia”
93 Commentaria in Iohannis, 348: “Hoc est peccatum illorum, de quo excusationem non habent. Nam nescire quod descenderit vel quomodo descenderit de caelo, non adeo mirum erat, praesertim cum vulgata opinione putaretur esse filius Ioseph, sed de illo murmurare et non potius cum illo agere vel ab illo quaerere, ut scire mererentur, de illo (inquam) murmurare peccatum erat, per quod merebantur viam veritatis numquam invenire.”
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respectively. These well-known sections of Rupert’s treatise, particularly “De scientia,”
have long figured in scholars’ descriptions of Rupert as an advocate of “monastic
theology” and an opponent of the new learning.94 Although the concept of “monastic
theology” has largely been abandoned by scholars, there are two points worth briefly
noting with regard to this interpretation of Rupert’s writing.95 First, Rupert’s
descriptions of learning and knowledge have only rarely been viewed in the context of
his broader approach to devotion and salvation. More often, they are placed in the
context of similar descriptions of the nature and organization of knowledge by other
twelfth-century thinkers.96 “De scientia,” in fact, is only rarely discussed with reference
to De sapientia,” although Rupert explicitly thought of these topics as inextricably
linked to each other. While these passages did articulate Rupert’s concerns with the
relationship between spirituality and learning, these concerns did not emerge from
94 See, among others, Leclercq, Love of Learning, 218, M.-D. Chenu, “The Masters of the Theological Science,” in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century (Chicago, 1968, repr. Toronto, 1997): 270-77, Hubert Silvestre, “Notes sur la controverse de Rupert de Saint-Laurent avec Anselm de Laon et Guillaume de Champeaux,” in Saint-Laurent, 63-80, Jean Châtillon, “Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, le monachisime et les écoles: A propos de Rupert de Deutz, d’Abélard et de Guillaume de Conches,” in Saint-Thierry: une abbaye du VIe au XXe siècle. Actes du Colloque international d’Histoires monastique, Reims-Saint-Thierry, 11 au 14 octobre 1976 (Saint-Thierry, 1979): 375-394, and John Scott, “Sacred and Profane Learning in Rupert of Deutz,” Tjunrunga: Australasian Benedictine Review 36 (1989): 26-41. 95 For a succinct and effective criticism of the topic, see Constant Mews, “Monastic Educational Culture Revisited: The Witness of Zwiefalten and the Hirsau Reform,” in Medieval Monastic Education, 182-97. For further considerations of the problem, see ibid., “Scholastic Theolgoy in a Monastic Milieu,” in Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany, ed. Alison Beach (Turnhout, 2007): 217-39, John Cotts, “Monks and Clerks in Search of the Beata Schola,” in Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, eds. Sally Vaughn and Jay Rubenstein (Turnhout, 2006): 255-77, J. Verger, Bernard, Abélard, ou le cloître et l’école (Paris, 1982), Stephen Ferruolo, The Origins of the University: Reform and Renaissance for Women in the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, 2007): 47-92, and Thomas Head, “‘Monastic’ and ‘Scholastic’ Theology: A Change of Paradigm?” in Paradigms in Medieval Thought, ed. Nancy van Deusen and Alvin E. Fords (Lewiston, NY, 1990): 127-41. 96 On schematizations of knowledge during this period, see G.R. Evans, Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline (Oxford, 1980): 15-46 and Karin Fredborg, “The Unity of the Trivium,” in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, ed. Sten Ebbesen (Tübingen, 1995): 325-338. On visual depictions of the seven liberal arts, see Adolf Katzenellenbogen, “The Representation of the Seven Liberal Arts,” in Marshall Clagett, Gaines Post, and Robert Reynolds, eds., Twelfth-Century Europe and the Foundations of Modern Society (Madison, 1966): 39-55.
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opposition to the rise of secular schools and new forms of theology, but from broader
questions about the nature of learning that cut across all centers of learning.97
Second, although Rupert does criticize the erroneous use of dialectic in “De
scientia,” there is no indication that he thought his discussion of knowledge and
learning as limited to a monastic audience. On the contrary, he considered it to be
applicable to any and all scholars who considered themselves Christian, a fact which is
hardly surprising given the connection between salvation and Scriptural knowledge in
Rupert’s thought. Arguments suggesting that “De scientia” applied specifically to
monastic learning usually conflate the approach to knowledge presented there and
Rupert’s later defenses of learning and education in monasteries, as in his treatise
Altercatio Monachi et Clerici, written around 1120.98 This artificial fusion is
misleading; Rupert produced these later works as a specific response to critics who
suggested that his own education, because it had taken place in a monastery, did not
give him sufficient credentials for his extensive writings.99 Rupert’s goal in defending
monastic education in these works was not to endorse the “De scientia” as a
specifically monastic approach to learning, but rather to respond to allegations that
monastic education was inferior to education in the schools.
97 More recently, Rupert has indeed been viewed as a participant in the most current trends of both theology and spirituality in the twelfth century. See Marcia Colish, “Systematic Theology and Theological Renewal in the Twelfth Century,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988): 135-66, Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion (New York, 2002): 295-350, Giles Constable, Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996): 37, 282-83, Robert Lerner, Ecstatic Dissent,” Speculum 67 (1992): 33-57, Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism (New York, 1994): 328-333. 98 Printed in PL 170: 537-542. 99 See Rupert’s description of his critics, for instance, in De gloria et honore Filii hominis super Matheum, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 29 (Turnhout, 1979): 385. See further Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 201, 347-48.
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These observations will help provide clarity to the examination of Rupert’s
descriptions of learning as a devotional activity in “De sapientia” and “De scientia.” In
the opening lines of “De sapientia, Rupert emphasized the devotional character of
learning, stating that, “the wisdom which the Holy Spirit brings about differs very much
from the wisdom of the world, because that sort of wisdom destroys and perverts, but
this wisdom holds or guards the proper state of man’s created condition.”100 Wisdom, in
other words, if properly used and recognized as a gift of the Holy Spirit, could restore
man to his original, prelapsarian state. The connection between the gift of wisdom and
spiritual progress is the major theme of “De sapientia,” as Rupert makes clear:
This wisdom, or this spirit of wisdom, opens the mouth of humankind and makes its language eloquent, so that we might declare confidently whatever we believe about wisdom itself, Christ the son God. Adam, the old father, the father of our flesh, sinned in his foolishness…and we carry his iniquity; but likewise, our Father the Lord Christ, the new Adam, the father of our faith, brought justice through his wisdom.101
The Incarnation, which brought true wisdom into the world, made it possible for man to
use wisdom to formulate doctrine and create knowledge of God. Wisdom and learning
were thus mobilized in the service of spirituality. It comes as no surprise, particularly
given the role of the Incarnation in making such wisdom possible, that the use of
wisdom has to be measured by Scripture: “This is a great thing for speaking with grand
100 De sancta Trinitate, 1862: “Sapientia quam hic Spiritus sanctus efficit, unde et Spiritus sapientiae dicitus, hoc maxime differt a sapientia saeculi, quod illa pervertit ac destruit, haec autem rectum tenet aut custodit in homine ordinem primae conditionis.” 101 op. cit., 1864: “Haec sapientia, vel his spiritus sapientiae, generis humani ora laxavit et linguam disertam fecit, uta ut confidenter dicamus, quotquot [sic] credimus in istum sapientem Christum Filium Dei: Pater vetus Adam, pater carnis nostrae insipiens peccavit…nos autem iniquitatem eius portavimus, sed itidem pater noster Dominus Christus, novus Adam, pater fidei nostrae sapiens iustitiam fecit…”
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speech, but not without the established protection of the Scriptures…”102 Wisdom made
it possible for man to come closer to God and therefore operated as a spiritual practice,
but for Rupert, its use still required the gauge of Scripture.
In “De scientia,” Rupert extended and refined the ideas established in “De
sapientia,” beginning with an explicit definition of the relationship between knowledge
and wisdom: “Here it must be clearly distinguished what is knowledge, what is
wisdom, or in what regards they differ from each other.”103 Rupert began this
discussion by declaring that, “knowledge is acquaintance with all of the good and licit
arts, while wisdom is acquaintance with just one thing, that is, God.”104 However,
having knowledge of things does not necessarily mean having knowledge of God. As a
result, Rupert concluded:
a man, if he is wise, is also knowledgeable; but it cannot be reversed, such that you say, if he is knowledgeable, he is wise, just as if something is rational, then it is an animal, but it cannot be reversed so as to say, if something is animal, it is rational. For in fact, having removed whatever is rational from an animal, whatever is left is brute; thus having removed whatever is wisdom, which is acquaintance with God, from knowledge, whatever is left is foolishness.105
Wisdom, then, was a particular subset of knowledge associated with acquaintance with
the divine. Knowledge without wisdom, however, lost much of its purpose and was
102 op. cit.: “Res magna et grandi sermons dicenda, sed non absque certo praesidio Scripturarum…” 103 op. cit., 2039: “Hic iam clare distinguendum est quid scientia, et quid sit sapientia, quidue ab invicem different…” 104 op. cit.: “Dicimus ergo quia scientia omnium bonarum et licitarum artium est notitia, sapientia vero unius tantum rei, id est Dei…” 105 op. cit., 2040: “Quapropter homo, si est sapiens, est et sciens, sed non convertitur, ut dicas: si est sciens, est et sapiens, quemadmodum si est rationale, est et animal, sed non covertitur ut dicas: si est animal, est et rationale. Nam revera, quemadmodum ab animali remoto rationali, quidquid relinquitur brutum est, sic a scientia, remota sapientia quae est Dei notitia, quidquid relinquitur stultum est.”
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reduced to “foolishness.” The goal, for Rupert, was to pass through knowledge to
wisdom, making the production of knowledge a devotional activity.
Rupert clarified this idea further with the divisions of knowledge that follow,
which were geared toward demonstrating that the meaning of the word “knowledge”
contained the concept of “pure wisdom.”106 Following a fairly conventional division of
knowledge into unlettered and lettered, illiberal and liberal, he declared that, “secular
masters divide knowledge of the arts following these divisions. Ecclesiastics,
however…subdivide philosophy further, either into empty philosophical sayings, those
that do not follow God, or true and correct sayings, those that do follow God.”107 Thus,
knowledge, rightly used, was supposed to lead to God. This conclusion was most
clearly articulated in Rupert’s statements concerning the arts of dialectic (which are far
more measured than most interpretations would suggest). Having praised those who,
searching for knowledge, seek it in Scripture, Rupert criticized those who do not do so,
declaring:
On that account, some who have created heresies and schisms, being exceedingly false and deceitful, believed that words of truth could be bound by dialectic, or more correctly, by the chains of futile sophistry. For truly the art of dialectic does not accomplish truth, nor does it bind chains upon the Word of God, but rather it follows truth and sanctions the true Word of God through faithful argument, if it is used legitimately.108
106 op. cit.: “Hoc ut manifestius fiat, utamur nunc divisionibus, et intra latissimum vocis huius, id est scientiae significatum castam sapientiam contineri demonstremus.” 107 op. cit.: “Hucusque saeculares magistri artium scientiam per subdivisiones deduxerunt. Porro ecclesiastici adhuc…philosophiam subdiviserunt, aliam dicentes philosophiam inanem, id est non secundum Deum, aliam sanam et veram, id est secundum Deum.” 108 op. cit., 2047: “Idcirco haereses et schismata fecerunt, inflatum habentes spiritum, nimium falsi et fallentes, qui verba veritatis dialecticae, immo sophisticae vanitatis vinculis ligare se posse putaverunt. Nam revera dialecticae ars veritatem non persequitur, nec verbo Dei nectit vincula, sed potius veritatem sequitur, et verbum Dei verum fidis argumentationibus comprobat, si quis legitime utatur illa.”
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Rupert argues here that dialectic, while useful, needed to be used in the context of
proving divine truth. It did not itself produce truth, but rather discovered it. The result
of this conclusion is that all learning should be valued according to its usefulness for
understanding and approaching the divine through the interpretation of Scripture.
Learning, creating knowledge, and organizing it, were part of a program of spiritual
growth centered on the revelation of divine truth. On some level, to participate in
spiritual life at St.-Laurent was to be learned and to use that learning appropriately.
The works of Renier of St.-Laurent, in which the praise of learning assumed a
place of central importance, demonstrate that the value accorded to learning at St.-
Laurent was not confined to Rupert’s thought and writings. In his episcopal vitae, for
instance, Renier made his subjects’ learning a topic of special importance. At the start
of the Vita Evracli, Renier declared that Evraclus was, “sent to Cologne for his early
education in letters, and afterwards he achieved such knowledge in topics both human
and divine that he was rightly judged to be the equal of the greatest philosophers.”109
Even more important, for Renier, was Evraclus’ dedication to the learning and
education of others:
Evraclus was known to all who were in the house of God for his religious observance and knowledge of doctrine, to such a degree that he instituted schools for all the monasteries of the city and provided teachers for the education of children, assigning to them sufficient stipends and annual incomes. He was possessed by such a fervor for study of letters that no other occupation could draw him away from it.
109 Vta Evracli, ed. W. Arndt, MGH SS 20: 562: “Ipse apud Coloniam Agripinensem ad litterarum dispositus rudimenta, tantam postmodum in divinis aeque et humanis assecutus est scientiam, ut summis par esse philosophis iure censeretur…”
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Often he would visit the schools and install teaching of the arts in them through his talent and ability.110
In Renier’s mind, Evraclus’ greatest accomplishments were his own learning and the
establishment of learning in Liège. The final sentence of the vita further emphasized
this point, borrowing a passage from the Book of Daniel: “those who are learned will
shine as the splendor of the firmament, and those who have taught justice to many, as
stars for all eternity” (Daniel 12: 3).111 The emphasis on his subjects’ learning and the
importance of such learning also informs Renier’s Vita Wolbodonis and Vita Reginardi,
both of which open by praising their respective bishops’ education and mastery of the
arts.112
Renier’s De ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae was an even greater testament to the
premium placed on learning at St.-Laurent. The first book of this somewhat odd text,
which is largely without precedent, enumerated and described the learning and writings
of all monks at St.-Laurent who had composed even a minor text. In the second book,
Renier provided an account of his own education and listed all of his writings.113 This
latter chapter echoes such works as Augustine’s Retractiones and Bede’s bibliography
of his writings, but Renier is more thorough in his description of his own works than
110 op. cit., 562: “Religione igitur et doctrinis Evraclus lucebat omnibus qui in domo Dei erat, adeo ut scolas etiam per claustra urbis monasterialia institueret, docendisque pueris provideret magistros, sufficientia illis stipendia et annuos reditus assignans. Litterarumque studia tanto fervore prosequebatur, quod nullae illum occupationes retraherent, quin sepius scolas adiret, artiumque disciplinas scolaribus pro cuiusque ingenio et captu insinuaret.” 111 op. cit., 565: “Cuius venerabile corpus digno exequiarum cultu sepultum est in aeclessia sancti Martini ante maius altare, choro utique illorum aggregati, de quibus ad Danielem dictum est: Qui docti fuerint, fulgebant quasi splendor firmamenti, et qui ad iustitiam erudiunt multos, quasi stellae in perpetuas eternitates.” 112 See Vita Wolbodonis and Vita Reginardi, ed. W. Arndt, MGH SS 20: 565 and 571. 113 The third book, as noted above p.47, is the early version of Renier’s liturgical commentary on the Advent antiphons.
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either of these models, providing an account of all his writings from school exercises in
verse and poetry up to his most polished hagiographical and historical works.114 The
best textual analogue might be the catalogues of “illustrious men” produced by
Gennadius, Jerome, and Isidore, which recount the career and writings of famous
classical and patristic scholars. Renier’s organizing principle, however, was not the
fame of his subjects, but rather the community in which they worked. Alongside his
descriptions of St.-Laurent’s intellectual luminaries, such as Rupert and Heribrand,
Renier also includes descriptions of such figures as Stephan, the first abbot of St.-
Laurent, “who, although he left behind no written monument, nevertheless is worthy of
being mentioned here because of his illustrious knowledge,” and Lambert, known only
for writing a moral allegory of Aesop’s fables.115 In producing a text that recounted the
knowledge and writings of all the members of St.-Laurent who could (even loosely) be
characterized as scholars, Renier associated the community itself, rather than individual
authors, with scholarship and used learning to create a genealogy of knowledge within
the community that was founded on a corpus of knowledge specific to the community.
The De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae placed learning at the heart of St.-Laurent’s
corporate and spiritual identity.
The problem of the unlearned represented the inverse of this importance of
learning at St.-Laurent. Within the spiritual culture of St.-Laurent, being unlearned
could have posed a serious problem. Unlearned monks could not develop correct
114 See, e.g. De Ineptiis, 599 and 603. 115 Renier, De Ineptiis, 594: “Stephano ipse successerat, qui, licet alicuius scripti nullum reliquerit monimentum, tamen scribi dignus est, quoniam scientia clarus…” On Lambert and the commentary on Aesop’s fables, see De Ineptiis, 598.
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understanding of Scripture and risked being excluded from spiritual life at St.-Laurent
in general, and, more specifically, from the sacraments and salvation. As noted earlier,
Rupert accepted the possibility of sinning through ignorance of the Scriptures and this
problem preoccupied him.116 In the De sancta Trinitate he provided a lengthy
interpretation of Leviticus 4: 27, which discussed the consequences for a soul that
“sinned through ignorance.” Clearly concerned about this type of sin, Rupert
subdivided the concept of ignorance into several types, declaring that “it ought be
known that it makes a difference whether [the soul] is ignorant through an invading
blindness of the mind or through lack of knowledge of the law, or is ignorant or in error
through thoughtless negligence.”117 His attempt to construct a hierarchy of the various
levels of sinfulness associated with types of ignorance suggests that Rupert thought he
needed to excuse the ignorance of certain types of people. In Rupert’s mind, lack of
learning, false knowledge of Scripture, and ignorance were problems that posed serious
dangers to spiritual life and salvation.
Scriptural piety at St.-Laurent was thus based on developing a correct
understanding of the nature of Scripture as fulfilled by the Incarnation. This correct
understanding was seen as a vital prerequisite for reception of the sacraments and,
ultimately, for salvation. To achieve salvation, knowledge and learning were defined in
terms of their applicability to Scripture, leading to the conflation of learning and
devotion and highlighting the spiritual dangers of ignorance. This form of spirituality
116 See above, pp. 77-78. 117 De sancta Trinitate, 835: “Sed sciendum quia differt utrum per irruentem mentis caecitatem quis ignoret, an per inscientiam legis, aut per improvidam negligentiam ignoret et erret.”
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was hardly unique to the community at St.-Laurent; indeed its elements were among the
foundational concepts of medieval Christian thought. Nonetheless, interaction with
Scripture assumed greater importance at St.-Laurent because of the vitality and
intensity of the community’s liturgical piety. The rapport between liturgical and
scriptural piety, which was always present and yet never complete in monastic piety,
was the defining feature of spirituality at St.-Laurent and is the subject of the
concluding section of this chapter.
1.4 Liturgy and Scripture: The Connects and Disconnects
There was such a natural rapport between liturgy and Scripture that it is often
artificial to speak of “liturgical spirituality” and “scriptural piety” as if they were
separate phenomena. The majority of chants and readings that constituted the liturgy
were drawn from Scripture. By performing the liturgy, monks were hearing and
interacting with Scripture; it served as one of the most frequent forms of encounter with
Scripture for monks and was one of the key ways in which they came to know sacred
texts.118 Bible readings during the Night Office would have been one the major points
of contact with Scripture for monks. Likewise, the Patristic homilies on Scripture that
were read during the lessons would have been among the most common examples of
Scriptural interpretation for a monastic community and placed Biblical exegesis in a
118 On the rapport between Scripture and liturgy, see Susan Boynton, “The Bible and the Liturgy,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages, eds. Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly (New York, forthcoming 2011); ibid., Shaping a Monastic Identity, 65-80, Pierre-Marie Gy, “La Bible dans la liturgie au Moyen Age,” in Le Moyen Age et la Bible, ,eds. Pierre Riché and Guy Lobrichon (Paris, 1984): 537-552.
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liturgical context.119 Training for the liturgy could double as training in scriptural
knowledge and equipped novices with the Latin vocabulary needed for reading
Scripture.120 Non-Scriptural texts of the liturgy, particularly hymns, were used as
pedagogical texts for teaching Latin and imposed a liturgical framework on textual and
Scriptural competency.121 As a result of this overlap, the liturgy provided an important
framework for the absorption of Scripture, which enabled the interpenetration of
liturgical practices with non-liturgical ways of encountering Scripture. Liturgy, for
instance, could operate as an exegesis of Scripture, overlaying its hermeneutics onto
that of the Bible.122 Alternatively, ways of reading Scripture could influence the
formation of the liturgy and hermeneutic systems designed for Scriptural use could be
extended to the liturgy.123 As Peter Jeffreys has demonstrated, the institutional structure
of monastic reading could influence the formation of a corpus of liturgical texts.124
119 On readings for the Night Office, see Diane Reilly, “The Cluniac Giant Bible and the Ordo librorum ad legendum: a reassessment of monastic Bible Reading and Cluniac customary instructions,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day, 163-189, ibid., The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of St.-Vanne, and the Saint-Vaast Bible (Leiden, 2006), Chapter 2, and Boynton, “The Bible and the Liturgy.” On liturgical homilies and readings, see the editions and commentary in Réginald Grégoire, Les Homéliares du Moyen Age (Rome, 1966). 120 Susan Boynton, “Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,” in Medieval Monastic Education, eds. Carolyn Muessig and George Ferzoco (Leicester, 2000): 7-20. 121 ibid., “Eleventh-Century Continental Hymanries Containing Latin Glosses,” Scriptorium 53 (1999): 200-251 and ibid., “Glosses on Offices Hymns in Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries,” Journal of Medieval Latin 11 (2001): 1-26. 122 See William Flynn, Medieval Music as Medieval Exegesis (Lanham, MD, 1999), as well as Emma Hornby, Medieval Liturgical Chant and Patristic: Words and Music in the Second-Mode Tracts (Woodbridge, 2009) and Marie Ann Mayesky, “Reading the Word in a Eucharistic Context: The Shape and Methods of Early Medieval Exegesis,” Essays in Medieval Liturgy, ed. Lizette Larson-Miller (New York, 1996). 123 Jacobson, Ad Memoriam Ducens, 2-89 provides an overview of the gradual extension of biblical exegesis to liturgy from patristic to Carolingian times. See also Mosey, “Allegorical Liturgical Interpretation.” 124 Peter Jeffreys, “Monastic Reading and the Emerging Roman Chant Repertory,” in Western Plainchant in the First Millenium: Studies in Medieval Liturgy and Its Music, ed. Sean Gallagher et al. (Woodbridge, 2003): 45-103.
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This extensive overlap fostered the coalescence of liturgically-oriented piety
with scriptural spirituality at St.-Laurent. Scriptural and liturgical devotion developed
in tandem, mutually informing and reinforcing each other through their natural rapport.
Rupert of Deutz, well aware of this fact, opened his liturgical commentary by drawing
attention to the inextricable link between liturgy and Scripture: “Those practices which,
having been established for the cycle of the year, are done in the divine office require
an attentive and learned listener and the measurement and teaching of the venerable
Scriptures so that they may be well explained.”125 The importance of scriptural
knowledge to the understanding and reception of the sacraments would have further
reinforced the connection between liturgy and Scripture.126 To a large extent then, the
liturgy itself provided members of the monastic community at St.-Laurent with the
means of encountering and understanding Scripture that was necessary to their spiritual
lives and salvation. As Isabelle Cochelin and others have demonstrated, the liturgy and
other oral/aural means of communication probably dominated monks’ encounters with
Scripture, particularly prior to the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.127 Scriptural
piety was enveloped into liturgical spirituality and Scripture became more liturgical
than textual, or, more precisely, more liturgical than written.
125 Rupert of Deutz, De divinis officiis, 5: “Ea quae per anni circulum ordine constituto in divinis aguntur officiis, et attentuam auditorem et eruditum, ut bene exponantur, expetunt venerabilium Scripturarum didascalum atque symmisten.” I will consider the implications of this passage more fully in Chapter 2. 126 See above, pp.79-82. 127 Isabelle Cochelin, “Besides the Book: Using the Body to Mould the Mind - Cluny in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in Medieval Monastic Education, 21-34, Boynton, “The Bible and the Liturgy,” Margot Fassler, “The Office of the Cantor in Early Western Monastic Rules and Customaries: A Preliminary Investigation,” Early Music History 5 (!985): 29-51, and Diane Reilly, “Lectern Bibles and Liturgical Reform,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages (New York, forthcoming): 146-63.
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The overlap between Scripture and liturgy, however, was far from complete.
The liturgy included numerous non-scriptural texts, including hymns, sequences,
tropes, and the patristic readings for Matins. Furthermore, the liturgy was charged with
non-discursive elements that contributed to its performance and meaning. Vestments,
ritual objects, images gestures, processions, and architecture all contributed to the
structure of the liturgy.128 At its heart stood the inexplicable mystery of the Eucharist,
which had Scripture as its precedent and rationale, but which was profoundly non-
discursive in experience. Similarly, members of a monastic community could encounter
Scripture in many contexts other than the performative ritual of the liturgy. Scripture
was read aloud during chapter, as were Scriptural commentaries (probably including
ones that were never part of lessons during Matins). Scripture could also be
encountered in material, written form, either in a classroom setting or through
devotional reading and study. And finally, due to the deeply intertextual nature of
medieval monastic culture, Scripture could be encountered in a variety of other textual
contexts, including hagiography and historical writing. As a result, although liturgy and
Scripture were mutually informative and reinforcing, neither was fully reducible to the
other. Liturgy could not wholly define Scripture, nor could Scripture completely
explain the liturgy. This overlap, absolutely vital and yet ultimately partial, meant that
the rapport between Scripture and liturgy still possessed the possibility of dissonance
between them; they could take on new meanings independent of their relationship with
each other, but the connection between the two meant that any changes in the nature of
128 Many of which were discussed in Rupert’s liturgical commentary. See, for instance, the discussion of priestly vestments in De divinis officiis, 17-24.
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either one could impact the other. This complex interplay between liturgy and Scripture
provided the context for the formation of St.-Laurent’s literate culture in the late
eleventh and early twelfth centuries, as Scripture increasingly became associated
equally with the written word as with the liturgy, a development that shaped both the
nature of literate knowledge and the structure of spirituality at the community.
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Chapter 2
Literate Culture at St.-Laurent: Materializing the Word
During the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, a period that corresponds
roughly with Rupert of Deutz’s education and early writing career, St.-Laurent
experienced a surge in the production of the written word, particularly in the form of
manuscripts. This chapter examines the development of St.-Laurent’s literate culture in
relation to its spiritual traditions, particularly in relation to the interplay between
Scripture and liturgy. While Scripture was always textual and discursive in some sense,
prior to the late eleventh century, the primary site of its reception was liturgical
performance. While the liturgical dimensions of Scripture never faded, the expansion of
writing at St.-Laurent changed the structure and meaning of Scripture at the community
and it came to be increasingly associated with written culture and literate practice. This
transformation had several important effects on both St.-Laurent’s literate culture and its
spiritual practices. On one hand, Scripture became the main organizing principle of the
community’s written culture. Not only did Scripture itself become more strongly
connected to the written word, but all other forms of writing came to be defined in
relation to Scripture. Indeed, at St.-Laurent, there was a concerted effort to define literate
practice as an extension of Scriptural practice and to make textuality and Scripture
synonymous.
At the same time, given the importance of Scripture to devotion and salvation at
St.-Laurent, the emergence of a literate culture that was based on Scripture altered
spiritual life at the abbey. The fact that Scripture was increasingly encountered in
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written form introduced literacy, in the strict sense, into the definition of learning and
the equation of salvation. It was with this problem in mind that Rupert reconsidered the
nature of the interpenetration of Scripture, liturgy, and the sacraments. He attempted to
construct both the performance of the liturgy and the reception of the sacraments as a
suitable substitute for correct knowledge of Scripture in order to make them into forms
of learning that would be accessible to the unlearned. As will be demonstrated, key
features of Rupert’s De divinis officiis can best be explained in the context of the
developing dialogue between St.-Laurent’s written culture, its literate forms of learning,
and the community’s spiritual traditions.
2.1 From Scripture to Script: Biblical Study, Literacy and the St.-Laurent School
Library
The Bible was central to medieval textual culture, deeply influencing both
monastic textual practice and learning at the schools at Laon and Paris, where theology,
the formal study of Scripture, was regarded as the queen of the arts.1 Nonetheless, at
St.-Laurent, Scripture was accorded a special significance and its role in the
community’s thought developed into the organizing principle of literate practice there.
The growth of a literate culture based on Scripture at St.-Laurent can best be observed 1 On monastic culture, see, among many others, Jean Leclercq, Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catherine Mishrahi (New York, 1982), Eileen Kearney, “Scientia et sapientia: Reading sacred Scripture at the Paraclete,” in From Cloister to Classroom: Monastic and Scholastic Approaches to Truth, ed. Rozanne Elder (Kalamazoo, 1986): 111-129, Eileen Sweeney, “Hugh of St.-Victor: The Augustinian Tradition of Sacred and Secular Reading Revised,” in Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages, ed. Edward English (Notre Dame, 1995): 61-83. On the schools, see See Beryl Smalley, The Study of Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1964), ibid. The Gospels in the Schools, c.1100-1280 (London, 1985), Christopher de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Book Trade (Woodbridge, 1984), Marcia Colish, “Another Look at the School of Laon,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire au Moyen Age 53 (1986): 7-22.
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in the library catalogues from the abbey. An analysis of these catalogues must begin
with a few words about the manuscripts that contain them.
There are three different library catalogues that have been associated with St.-
Laurent and scholars have been aware of two of them since the nineteenth century. The
first, found in BR 9810-14, appears to be a complete conventual catalogue from the
early thirteenth century. The second, found in BR 9668, is a short, idiosyncratic
catalogue of the early twelfth century. These two catalogues were first printed by Nolte
in 1869, then studied more systematically be Gessler in 1927, and they have
subsequently been examined by several other scholars.2 A third catalogue from the mid-
twelfth century was discovered by Anne-Catherine Fraeys de Veubeke in 1981 in BR
9384-89, a school catalogue that contains primarily classical works and treatises related
to the trivium.3 Of these three catalogues, only that dating from the early thirteenth
century undoubtedly reflects the library of St.-Laurent, as evidenced by its title, Nomina
librorum sancti Laurentii in suburbio Leodii, and the high percentage of works by
Rupert of Deutz listed among its contents.4 Unfortunately, given its late date, it is also
the catalogue with the least relevance to this project.
Neither of the other two library catalogues have been attributed to St.-Laurent
with absolute certainty. The mid-twelfth-century school catalogue in BR 9384-89
2 Nolte, “Les manuscrits de Saint-Laurent à Liège,” Le Bibliophile Belge 4 (1869): 145-49, J. Gessler, “La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Laurent à Liège au XIIe et XIIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société des Bibliophiles Liègeois 12 (1927): 91-135. More recent analysis is provided by François Pirot, “La Bibliothèque de l’abbaye Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 125-36 and Albert Derolez, Corpus catalogorum Belgii: the Medieval Booklists of the Southern Low Countries, 4 vols. (Brussels, 1997): vol. 2, 107-124. 3 Anne-Catherine Fraeys de Veubeke, “Un catalogue de bibliothèque scolaire inédit du XIIe siècle dans le ms. Bruxelles B.R. 9384-89,” Scriptorium 35 (1981): 23-38. 4 See commentary in Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 118-21.
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studied by Fraeys de Veubeke was written on the first folio of a late eleventh-century or
early twelfth-century copy of Isidore’s Etymologies, which Fraeys de Veubeke believes
to have been produced in Liège. There is no doubt that the library catalogue describes
the contents of a library in Liège, given that it includes two entries describing works of
Liègeois scholars, Franco of Liège and Odulphus of Liège. Both figures were
associated with the cathedral school in Liège. Notably, however, the former worked
with Falchanus, a magister associated with St.-Laurent, on his treatise about squaring
the circle.5 Material was added to the manuscript in the fifteenth century by a scribe
named Siger of Waalwijk at the request of the book’s owner during that period, Peter of
Brussels, a canon of St.-Paul’s in Liège. This information is contained in a colophon at
the end of one of the newly added texts.6 A note on the flyleaf indicates that, upon his
death in 1447, Peter of Brussels willed the book to St.-Laurent. Two ex-libris marks of
the fifteenth century place it in St.-Laurent’s library at that time.7 The question remains
whether it ever belonged to St.-Laurent prior to the fifteenth century, and thus whether
the catalogue described any part of the library at the abbey. A key piece of evidence is
an entry reading, “Prudentius maior psichomachie pictus, in quo phisiologus et alia
multa utilia.” This would seem to be an apt description of the manuscript BR 10066-77,
an illuminated copy of the Psychomachia and the Physiologus de naturis animalium et
5 Derolez, Corpus catalogorun, 2 : 115-16, Fraeys de Veubeke, “Un catalogue de bibliothèque,” 25-26. In Derolez’s edition, the two relevant entries are numbers 8 and 9, reading “Libellus de quadratura circuli Franconis scolastici” and “Libellus de geometria Euclidis, in quo regule Odulfi.” Renier, De ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, ed. W. Arndt, MGH Scriptores 20: 594 mentions Falchanus’ collaboration with Franco. On Falchanus at St.-Laurent, see John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983): 44 and Sylvain Balau, Les sources de l’histoire de Liège au Moyen Age. Étude critique (Brussels, 1903) : 174-75, 208. 6 BR 9384-89, f.231v. Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 114. 7 BR 9384-89, opening flyleaf and f.1r.
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bestiarum, which has been linked to St.-Laurent with a high degree of certainty.8
Although the identification is not beyond dispute, it has proved convincing to several
scholars who now accept the catalogue as belonging to St.-Laurent.9 A final piece of
evidence that has heretofore gone unnoticed by scholars is the presence of the item
“Aesopus” on the catalagoue in BR 9384-89. According to Renier of St.-Laurent’s De
ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, a monk of St.-Laurent named Lambert composed a moral
allegory on Aesop’s fables. This second connection strengthens the ascription of the
catalogue to St.-Laurent considerably.10
The third and earliest catalogue, found in BR 9668, is both the most important
to this project and currently the most problematic. It is found at the end of a
contemporary copy of Ambrose Autpertus’ Apocalypse commentary. The main piece of
evidence linking the catalogue to St.-Laurent is a fifteenth-century ex-libris found on
f.1r. Lacking any evidence that would place the book elsewhere, Gessler and others
assumed that the manuscript and the catalogue both belonged to St.-Laurent.11 Hubert
Silvestre was the first to doubt this provenance, pointing out that none of the books
described in the catalogue could be safely identified with surviving manuscripts from
8 See Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 155, Jacques Stiennon, “Les manuscrits à peintures de l’ancinne bibliothèque de l’abbaye Saint-Laurent de Liège,” in St.-Laurent, 138-139, F. Lyna, Les principaux manuscrits à peintures de la BR de Belgique, vol. I (Paris, 1937): 27-28, Hubert Silvestre, “A propos du Bruxellensis 10066-77 et de son noyau primitif,” in Miscellanea codicologia F. Masai dicata, vol. I (Ghent, 1979): 131-56, and Fraeys de Veubeke, “Un catalogue de bibliothèque,” 28-29. 9 See, e.g. Hubert Silvestre, “Review: John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz,” Scriptorium 40 (1986): 141. Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 115, is measured in his comments but seems to find the claim convincing. 10 De ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, 598. 11 Gessler, “La bibliothèque,” 13-18, Sylvain Balau, Les sources de l’histoire de Liège au moyen-age. Etude critique (Bruxelles, 1903): 352-55, Emile Lesne, Les livres, scriptoria, et bibliothèques du commencement du VIIe à la fin du XIe siècle (Lille, 1938): 679-83, Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 32, 46-47.
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St.-Laurent. The sole exception is BR 9668 itself, but there is no evidence for its
presence at St.-Laurent prior to the fifteenth century.12 Subsequent to Silvestre’s
objections, François Pirot argued in favor of a St.-Laurent origin by pointing out eight
entries in it that could be correlated with items on the thirteenth-century catalogue that
is certainly from St.-Laurent.13 Silvestre found this argument unconvincing, noting that
none of the correspondences were certain and that the works in question were
extremely common in monastic library catalogues in the twelfth century.14 Albert
Derolez, in the most recent edition and commentary on the catalogue, ascribed it to St.-
Laurent but accepted that there were still significant problems with that ascription.15
The problem of the provenance of BR 9668 is not due to any solid evidence
against St.-Laurent as its home, but rather stems from the lack of good evidence for the
ascription. However, there is one approach that scholars have not yet adopted in
assessing St.-Laurent as a possible provenance for the library catalogue in BR 9668.
Being a short catalogue of only forty-one entries, it could not be a list of St.-Laurent’s
entire library in the early twelfth century. Rather, scholars have generally accepted that
it describes a subset of a library collected for a specific purpose.16 Given that the school
library catalogue discovered by Fraeys de Veubeke in BR 9384-89 also reflects a subset
of St.-Laurent’s complete library, a comparison of those two catalogues might be 12 Hubert Silvestre, Le Chronicon Sancti Laurentii Leodiensis dit de Rupert de Deutz. Etude critique (Louvain, 1952): 40. 13 Pirot, “La bibliothèque,” 126. For the best reference to these correspondences, see Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 112. 14 Silvestre, “Review: John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz,” 141. See also Hubert Silvestre, “À propos de la récente édition des Opera omnia d’Ambroise Autpert,” Scriptorium 36 (1982): 306. 15 Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 112. 16 Pirot, “La bibliothèque,” 126, following Lesne, Les livres, 680-82 and Balau, Les sources, 354. The general assumption has been that it represents a “school” library; see further discussion of this possibility below, pp.112-113.
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instructive. Although the two catalogues are of very different character and purpose,
comparing them demonstrates that both catalogues probably represent subsets of the
same larger library, suggesting that the catalogue in BR 9668 should be ascribed to St.-
Laurent.
The catalogue in BR 9668 lists a mixture of biblical texts, theological works,
and treatises on the liberal arts, while the one in BR 9384-89 is a more “traditional”
school library that contains works on the liberal arts and texts by a great many classical
authors. Remarkably, however, virtually every work by a classical author or on the
liberal arts in BR 9668 has a counterpart in 9384-89, as suggested by this
concordance:17
BR 9668 BR 9384-89
17. Rethorica ad Erennium 58. Rethorica Tullii 18. Item Rhethorica ad Erennium 27. Rethorica Tullii 37. Rethorica de Inventione 2. Rethorica de inventione et ad Herennium in uno volumine 38. Item topice differentie 34. Topica Tullii 27. Topice differentie in quo alia 35. Commentum Boetii in topica opuscula Boetii Tullii 39. Corpus dialecticae 3. Quattuor textus dialecticae 4. Liber in quo item quattuor textus dialecticae 23. Libelli duo de questionibus
dialecticae
25. Macrobius 11. Macrobius in somnio Scipionis
17 Numbers refer to the editions in Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 112-18.
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28. Virgilius 15. Virgilius maior cum Servio 19. Servius super Virgilium
The only classical works or treatises on the liberal arts found in BR 9668 that have no
corresponding title in BR 9384-89 are (40) Liber diffinitionum Cassiodori, (41) Liber
minutiarum, (33) Libellus computi, and (24) Geometrica Boetii. The absence of the last
item might be explained by the fact that BR 9384-89 contains (9) Libellus de geometria
Euclidis in quo regule Odulfi, which, like Boethius’ Geometrica, was a commentary on
Euclid, but was produced by a local Liègeois scholar.
The correspondences suggested by this concordance are even stronger than they
might initially appear. Although BR 9384-89 lists duplicates or even triplicates of many
texts, those texts that are common to BR 9668 and BR 9384-89 generally appear with
identical frequency in both catalogues. There are two copies of the Rhethorica ad
Herennium and one of De Inventione on BR 9668 and corresponding numbers on BR
9384-89. There is only one copy of the Topics of Cicero, of Boethius’ commentary on
the Topics, and of Macrobius on BR 9668 and only one of each on BR 9384-89.
Furthermore, the only biblical text listed on BR 9384-89, (20) Glosarius super epistolas
Pauli, has a corresponding entry on BR 9668, (31) Glose in epistolas Pauli. These
correlations, along with the evidence linking each catalogue to St.-Laurent, suggest that
they both reflect a collection of books created from the same library and that they can
probably both be ascribed to the community of St.-Laurent. Why there were two
different such collections at St.-Laurent, one in the early twelfth century and one later,
is another question.
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Having established that the early twelfth century library catalogue in BR 9668 is
indeed from St.-Laurent, it is also necessary to determine its purpose and organizing
principle. In general, this catalogue has baffled scholars. It clearly represents a smaller
group of books collected from a larger conventual library for a specific purpose and
contains a preponderance of works on the liberal arts. As a result, like the catalogue in
BR 9384-89, it seems to reflect a “school” library constructed for teaching purposes.18
Derolez, however, rightly points out that it also contains a great many Scriptural and
theological texts and virtually no classical literature. Both of these characteristics
would have been unusual for a school library.19 A study of its contents, however,
reveals its purpose quite unambiguously; they indicate a library assembled for teaching
a specific subject, that of scriptural exegesis.
This purpose becomes clear through an examination of the Scriptural works
listed on the catalogue. There are seven books listed that contain Scripture: (1)
Epistolae Pauli, (11) Textus quatuor evangeliorum, (12) Psalterium, (13) Parabole
Salomonis (16) Eptaticum (the Heptateuch), (19) Liber duodecim prophetarum, and
(29) Apocalypsis, in quo cantica canticorum.20 These are the biblical texts that were the
most common exegetical subjects in the Middle Ages; the final entry is particularly
notable in that it brings together in a single volume the two books most frequently
commented on in the Middle Ages, the Song of Songs and the Apocalypse.21 A
18 Pirot, “La bibliothèque,” 126, following Lesne, Les livres, 680-82 and Balau, Les sources, 354. 19 Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 2: 112. 20 Numbers again refer to the edition in Derolez, Corpus catalogorum, 113-14. 21 Notably, Rupert of Deutz composed commentaries on both, albeit after he had left St.-Laurent. See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 275-82, 291-98. Medieval commentaries on the Song of Songs have received much attention in recent scholarship. See E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of
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comparison of these texts with the works of biblical commentary in the catalogue,
however, produces even more conclusive results. There is not a single scriptural text in
the list that does not have an accompanying work of commentary and vice versa. Along
with the copy of the Pauline Epistles are (31) Glose in epistolis Pauli and a copy of
Jerome’s commentary on the Letter to the Galatians, which comprises part of a larger
book (4). Paired with the copy of the Evangelists are (10) Beda super Iohannem, (14)
Evangelium Diatesseron, and (15) Commentum Hilarii super Matheum. The copy of
the Heptateuch corresponds with (21) Augustinus de questionibus in eptatico.
Alongside the copy of the Twelve Prophets is (30) Expositio in lamentatione Hieremie,
as well as (2) Beda de tabernaculo and (3) Beda de templo. The copy of the Parables is
accompanied by (4) Beda in parabolis Salomonis. The Psalter is matched by two copies
of Cassiodorus’ commentary on the Psalms (8/9 and 36). Finally, the Apocalypse is
matched with (5) Heimo in apocalypsi and (6/7) Liber Autperti in eadem apocalypsi
(the book which contains the catalogue itself). Every scriptural text is matched with a
treatise interpreting it.
Such perfect correspondence indicates that this collection was organized with
the goal of ensuring that every biblical text represented was complemented by an
example of its interpretation. The “school” library evidenced by this catalogue indicates
the existence of a school devoted to scriptural exegesis at St.-Laurent in the early
twelfth century. Furthermore, many of the treatises on the arts that are listed on the Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990), Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, 1995), Rachel Fulton, “‘Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?’: The Song of Songs as the Historia for the Office of the Assumption,” Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998): 55-122, and ibid. From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York, 2002): 244-404.
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catalogue in BR 9668 were among those commonly used in teaching the verbal,
rhetorical, and mathematical skills needed for the interpretation of Scripture. Among
them are two copies of the Rhetorica ad Herennium (17 and 18), Jerome’s treatise on
Hebrew names and questions (20), Boethius’ Geometrica (24), Cicero’s topics and
Boethius’ commentary on them (27 and 38), and a book on the computus (33). Other
works that were part of the collection address key theological issues that would have
been natural complements to the practice of scriptural interpretation. Works falling into
this second category include Cassiodorus’ De sede anime (35) and an anonymous
treatise on the Eucharist simply listed as “Liber de corpore et sanguine Christi” (22).
The catalogue represents a record of the books that were selected from the conventual
library for the “school.” The catalogue itself was clearly copied into one of the books
earmarked for this purpose.
Several important conclusions can be drawn from the existence of a school for
scriptural exegesis at St.-Laurent in the early twelfth century, particularly concerning
the emergence of the community’s literate culture. First, it indicates the development of
a non-liturgical context for the use Scripture at the community. The structure of the
liturgy, however, may well have continued to influence the ways in which Scriptural
reading and interpretation were taught within this school. Indeed, the criteria for
selecting those books of the Bible employed in the school appear to have favored those
texts that were used for readings during Matins and in the Mass, indicating that this
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school was liturgically inflected.22 However, the presence of works of scriptural
exegesis and on the liberal arts in the catalogue suggests that this school cannot have
been purely liturgical. Rather, it was geared toward teaching the skills necessary for
biblical interpretation. Although still associated with the liturgy in some sense, this
school and its library still demonstrates the formation of a new means of encountering
biblical texts at St.-Laurent, one based not on liturgical performance, but on interactions
with the written word.
Second, the creation of this school indicates that there was a concerted effort to
tie the community’s learning and its encounters with the written word to Scripture.
Generally speaking, monastic schools of this sort were established to teach the basic
skills of reading, writing, and commentary, the tools of grammatica that defined textual
competence.23 Such skills were almost certainly part of this school as well, as suggested
by the various works on the liberal arts listed on the catalogue. Nevertheless, these
skills were clearly developed as part of a more specific and specialized set of skills,
namely the comprehension and interpretation of Scripture. By re-orienting the goal of
its monastic school in this direction, the community at St.-Laurent made the
development of literate knowledge coterminous with the development of Scriptural
knowledge. The book-list in BR 9668 reveals the processes by which the community 22 See Susan Boynton, “The Bible and the Liturgy,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages, eds. Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly (New York, forthcoming 2011). The Pauline epistles and Gospels were used in Mass readings, while the annual cycle of Matins readings usually involved the Heptateuch, Jeremiah, Acts, the canonical Epistles, Revelation, Kings, Proverbs, Wisdom, the minor prophets, Isaiah, and the Pauline Epistles. 23 On these skills and their relation to textual culture, see Martin Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture:’Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350-1100 (Cambridge, 1994), esp. 118-333. On monastic schools, see Pierre Riché, Écoles et enseignement dans le Haut Moyen-Age: fin du Ve siècle - milieu du XIe siècle (Paris, 1989) and the essays in Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000-1200, eds. Sally Vaughn and Jay Rubenstein (Turnhout, 2006).
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tried to assimilate textuality to the idea of Scripture and the ways in which the written
word became a new context for approaching Scripture, thereby partially dissociating it
from the liturgy.
There is a final question related to the library catalogue in BR 9668 that remains
to consider here, namely, the person responsible for its creation and, by implication, for
the formation of the school exegesis. Rupert of Deutz served as a teacher at St.-Laurent
in the early twelfth century and also devoted himself fully to the interpretation of
Scripture during this period of his life.24 In his capacity as scholasticus at St.-Laurent,
he may well have decided to teach exegesis, which he considered to be the pinnacle of
all other forms of knowledge. As noted in the previous chapter, one of Rupert’s
students, Wazelin, produced a work devoted to the interpretation, a treatise De
concordia Evangeliorum et expositione eorum. This treatise addressed a topic that
could have been inspired by a program of study based on the book-list in BR 9668.25 It
is very likely that the library catalogue represents Rupert’s own efforts to constitute a
school of Scriptural exegesis at St.-Laurent. The founding of such a school would have
followed naturally from his belief that knowledge of Scripture was necessary for
salvation, as well as with his own talent for interpreting the Bible.
Rupert’s role in creating this school would explain why a second “school”
library was created at St.-Laurent later in the twelfth century, as evidenced by the
catalogue in BR 9384-89. As a result of his disputes with clerics and scholars in Liège, 24 Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 67-134. 25 Renier, De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, 597: “Peritiae illius exhibet documentum liber quem scripsit: De concordia Evangeliorum et expositione eorum, opus equidem clarum et utile…” On this work, see Hubert Silvestre, “Le ‘De concordantia et expostione quattuor evangeliorum’ inédit de Wazelin II, abbé de St.-Laurent à Liège (ca. 1150-1157),” Revue bénédictine 63 (1953): 310-25.
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Rupert was twice exiled from St.-Laurent: first to Siegburg in 1116, from which he
returned in 1117, and then to Cologne in 1119, from whence he never returned.26 Once
he departed from St.-Laurent, it is possible that the school of exegesis that had been his
personal project eventually collapsed, necessitating the creation of a new school and
library. The school library represented in the catalogue in BR 9384-89 may ultimately
have been the successor to Rupert’s school of exegesis. Comparison of the two
catalogues suggests that the latter retained several of the works on the arts from the first
school library while replacing most of the Scriptural and exegetical works with
classical texts. If this second library did supplant the first, however, it is notable that the
library catalogue in BR 9384-89 postdates Rupert’s final departure from St.-Laurent by
some thirty years, suggesting that the school may have continued to function after his
departure, transmitting his influence to the community even in his absence.27
Rupert thus probably played an instrumental role in the early creation of St.-
Laurent’s literate culture. The school he formed would have diffused his ideas about
Scripture, learning, and written culture into the broader community of St.-Laurent and
the perpetuation of that school would have ensured the reproduction of those ideas after
his departure in 1119. At the heart of the literate culture that this school tried to bring
into being was the idea that Scriptural knowledge enveloped and defined literate
26 See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 158-76, 181-220. 27 The manuscript containing the catalogue probably dates to no earlier than the 1150s or 60s. An interesting possibility that has recently come to light is that, given that Renier of St.-Laurent was probably the master of novices at the community around this time, the catalogue in BR 9384-89 represents the school library he created as a successor to that of Rupert. Although Scripture was important to Renier’s thought, he was more inclined toward the classics and humanist models of education than was Rupert, as argued by Hubert Silvestre, “Renier de St.-Laurent et le déclin des écoles liègeoises au XIIe siècle,” Miscellanea Tornacensia 2 (1951): 112-32.
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knowledge, becoming the governing principle of the meanings associated with the
written word. The next section of this chapter investigates the elaboration of the
resulting confluence of Scripture and the written word in Rupert of Deutz’s thought.
2.2 Trans-Script: The Blurred Boundaries of Scripture and Text
Rupert of Deutz not only regarded Scripture as one of the defining features of
spiritual life, he also understood it to represent the pinnacle of discursive possibility. As
a result, he defined all writing through its relationship with Scripture, or, in more
extreme cases, as a form of Scripture itself. Martin Irvine has observed that early
medieval textual culture was based on a conception of the text that was “open,” in
which distinctions between text and commentary and between exemplar and scribal
copy were blurred and not clearly defined.28 Such blurring meant, for instance, that a
scriptural commentary could be regarded as Scripture itself, in that its primary purpose
was to lay bare meaning that was intrinsically scriptural. Rupert exploited this “open”
quality of medieval textuality, arguing for a unique literary culture at St.-Laurent in
which the whole of the discursive world could be assimilated back to Scripture, thereby
defining St.-Laurent’s literary corpus as a virtual panoply of Scriptural extensions.29
At the most basic level, Rupert demonstrated this idea in his handling of generic
descriptions of books or texts, nearly all of which were treated as allegories or
figurations of Scripture itself. For instance, in his interpretation of Isaiah 8: 1 in De
28 Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture, 17. 29 For a theoretical discussion of the concept of “Scripture” that has influenced my thoughts in this section, see Wesley Kort, ‘Take, Read’: Scripture, Textuality, and Cultural Practice (University Park, PA, 1996).
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sancta Trinitate, in which the prophet was ordered to, “take up a great book and write
in it with a pen of man,” Rupert declared, “what is this great book, unless all the pages
of the holy word of God, which was written first by Moses and afterwards by others.”30
This book, which is mentioned only briefly in the book of Isaiah, became for Rupert a
multivalent symbol for the whole of Scripture. While it was not unusual among
medieval exegetes to interpret references to books in both Isaiah and Revelation as
references to the Scriptures, this example is nonetheless indicative of Rupert’s unusual
proclivity to tie textual references to Scripture and to consider writing of any sort to be
scriptural.
Further on in this passage Rupert transformed a simple reference to the act of
writing into a remarkable allegory for Scriptural knowledge. Latching on to the phrase,
“write in it with a pen of man,” Rupert declared that this meant, “with the pen with
which men are accustomed to write to comprehend the sacraments of God. So indeed,
‘with a pen of man,’ can be taken to mean the amount that the fragility of man is able to
grasp of God.”31 This unusual interpretation suggests that the very purpose of writing is
to help man comprehend something of the divine, a practice necessitated by the
fragility of man’s mortal state and the status of his mind as obfuscated by sin. For
Rupert, even mundane writing was reflective of man’s ability to understand the divine
and ought to be directed to that purpose. As a result, the passage articulates Rupert’s
30 De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 21-24 (Turnhout, 1971): 1500: “Quid enim liber iste est grandis, nisi universa pagina sacri verbi Dei, quam primus Moyses, et post Moysen scripserunt caeteri?” 31 op. cit.: “Stylo hominis scribe, id est stylo quo homines scribere consueverunt, Dei sacramenta comprehendere. Vel certe sylo hominis id est quantum de Deo capere potest fragilitas hominis.”
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desire to think of all writing in terms of Scripture. The generic “pen of man” is the
partial but vital knowledge of God mediated by Scripture and by its human scribe.
Although articulated very differently, a similar concern guided Rupert’s
discussion of Exodus 24: 12-13 in De sancta Trinitate, in which God declared to Moses
that he would give him, “two stone tablets, and the law, and the commandments which
I have written.” Rupert focused on the two stone tablets holding the ten commandments
that were, according to the book of Deuteronomy, “written with the finger of God.”
Rupert declared that these tablets were, “the exemplar of heavenly works.” He clarified
the meaning of this phrase by asking of which heavenly works these tablets were the
exemplar and answering:
Clearly [it is the exemplar] of those works which have been accomplished through the new man, Jesus Christ, who ascended to God, not up onto an earthly mountain [as did Moses], but into heaven itself, so that he might receive for us, not the killing letter, but the living spirit. Whence it is: “You ascended into the heights, you seized captives, and you received gifts from the people” (Psalm 67). What gifts? “He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, others pastors and doctors” (Ephesians 4: 11). These things and other spiritual gifts of this sort he wrote for us, “not on stone tablets, but on the tablets of our hearts.” He wrote not with a pen nor ink, but with the finger of God, that is, with the Holy Spirit. For…when all his disciples were gathered together, the finger of God was sent for the purpose of writing, this multiform Holy Spirit, subtle, eloquent, reliable, and wise. The original experience of the writer was illuminated in these men, who were previously unlearned and without letters, because they immediately began to speak in tongues of the great works of God. These works and those which followed were heavenly works, so that this writing (scriptura) given on stone tablets is rightly called the exemplar of these holy works.32
32 De sancta Trinitate, 741: “Deditque mihi Dominus duas tabulas lapideas scriptas digito Dei. Et hoc caelestium exemplar fuit. Quorum calestium? Eorum videlicet quae facta sunt per novum hominem Iesum Christum, qui ascendit ad Deum, non in montem terrenum, sed in ipsum caleum, ut acciperet nobis non occidentem litteram, sed vivificantem spiritum. Unde est: Ascendisti in altum capisti captivitatem, accepisti dona in hominibus. Quae dona? Et ipse dedit quosdam quidem apostolos, quosdom autem
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This dense passage elaborated the relationship of writing to Scripture. On one level, it
argued that the writing on the stone tablets served as the “exemplar” or “model” of the
gifts given by the Holy Spirit to the disciples in the New Testament. Because they were
written objects that prefigured acts of the Holy Spirit, they operated in a way analogous
to Scripture.
At the same time, however, this prefiguration depended on Rupert’s use of the
metaphor of writing to describe the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. These gifts
involved the finger of God writing upon the hearts of the apostles.33 The effect of the
metaphor is that the fulfilling events of the New Testament were conceived of as a sort
of spiritual writing joined to an imperfect, but still revelatory, literal writing. The
complex metaphor thus hinted at the possibility that any form of writing could partake,
on some level, of the truth of Scripture, which was itself the spiritual form of writing
that all other writing hinted at. Rupert’s use of scribal imagery in the passage, which
would have resonated with monastic readers, emphasizes this idea. The stone tablets
were the “exemplar” of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were written with the finger
of God, not with “a pen or ink.” The generalizable character of this description made it
prophetas, alios vero evangelistas, alios autem pastores et doctores. Haec et huiusmodi dona spiritualia scripsit nobis non in tabulis lapideis, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus. Scripsit autem calamo, neque atramento sed digito Dei, id est, Spiritu sancto. Nam…cum essent omnes discipuli eius pariter congreagati, missus est ad scribendum hic Dei digitus, hic Spiritus sanctus multiplex, subtilis, disertus, certus ac discretus. Prima scriptoris experientia claruit in hominibus, qui prius erant idiotae, et sine litteris, in eo quod statim ceperunt loqui linguis magnalis Dei. Illa et quae deinceps subsecuta sunt, opera caelestia fuerunt, ut recte Scriptura haec data in tabulis lapideis illorum dicatur exemplar caelestium.” 33 On the trope of writing the “book of the heart,” “on the heart,” and other forms of “interior writing,” see Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart (Chicago, 2000) and ibid., “The Book of the Heart: Reading and Writing the Medieval Subject,” Speculum 71 (1996): 1-26. Also Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard Trask (Princeton, 1953, repr. 1973): 302-47.
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possible to think of any writing as an exemplar of Scripture; anything produced with
pen or ink was mimetic with that which was written with the finger of God. All writing,
then, was defined by its relationship with Scripture.
A final example from Rupert’s Commentaria in Evangelium Iohannis appeared
in his comments on John 19: 19, in which Pilate affixed a sign to the top of Jesus’ cross
reading, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” In Rupert’s hands, this became an
example of non-canonical writing that revealed the truth of Scripture. As he declared,
“the Holy Spirit dictated this writing (scripturam) with one intention and Pilate wrote it
with another.” Pilate, according to Rupert, wanted to glorify himself and make it clear
to all that Jesus had died for his faith and for his claims that he was the fulfillment of
the prophets. The Holy Spirit, however, “making good use of the hand of the spiteful
writer, made this title, which, as heaven and earth pass away, will not pass away (Luke
21: 33), because Jesus of Nazareth has been made the holy king of Jews, that is, the
savior, through his cross.”34 Although Pilate, with his writing, intended to make clear
that Jesus’ offense has merited crucifixion, the Holy Spirit was the actual force behind
the sign, leading Pilate to unwittingly write down the truth of the Incarnation. Pilate’s
writing, which represented purely literal language in his mind but possessed figural
dimensions that he did not recognize, wound up functioning as a proto-Scripture of
sorts, inscribing the reality of the Incarnation in textual form. For Rupert, this passage
served as proof that non-Scriptural writing, even of the pagan variety, could be 34 Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Iohannis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 9 (Turnhout, 1969): 739-40: “Scripturam hanc alio Spiritus sanctus dictavit atque alio Pilatus consilio scripsit…At vero Spiritus sanctus bene utens malignis scriptoris manu hunc titulum fecit, qui caelo et terra transeuntibus non transibit, quia Iesus Nazarenus, id est salvator et vere sanctus rex Iudaeorum per crucem suam est effectus.”
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assimilated to Scripture and accomplish the work of the Holy Spirit. Any writing that
communicated the truth of the Incarnation could be, in a certain sense, identified with
Scripture.
These examples, which demonstrate how a broad notion of the written word
could be assimilated to Scripture, are all derived from works of scriptural exegesis and
deal with instances of writing within Scripture. However, Rupert extended this idea to
more than just the metaphorics of the written word. In his discussion of knowledge and
the arts in De sancta Trinitate, particularly in “De scientia,” Rupert went to extensive
lengths to demonstrate that all discourse and verbal artifice relied upon Scripture and
could be absorbed back to it. Indeed, his two goals in this section of the De sancta
Trinitate were to demonstrate the devotional character of knowledge, as discussed in
the previous chapter, and to show that knowledge of all the liberal arts could be found
in Scripture. He believed that “without doubt the liberal arts of knowledge are almost
completely present in the holy Scriptures alongside the wisdom of God.”35 For Rupert,
the only reason that the liberal arts were not easy to learn from Scripture is that they
were outshone by the wisdom of God: “they are not able to shine through to the
unlearned since, in other places, they are accustomed to gleam with the brightest light
and be visible through themselves. When they are there [in the Scriptures] they are
especially not evident because, while the holy Scriptures certainly use them, they
35 De sancta Trinitate, 2049: “Nimirum sic paene liberalis scientiae artes in sacta Scriptura cum sapientia Dei quamvis simula assint…”
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nevertheless do not say how they ought to be used.”36 If read correctly and attentively,
Rupert suggested, the Scriptures would provide all the knowledge that might otherwise
be gleaned from other types of texts. Non-scriptural texts were simply used for the sake
of ease and convenience. As mere substitutes, they were defined by their derivative
relationship with Scripture.
Furthermore, for Rupert, Scripture was both conceptually and historically the
archetype of language and of the arts. In his discussion of the liberal arts, he found
precedents for their origin and use in Scripture. For instance, at the start of the section
on grammar, he declared, “the first of the liberal arts, grammar, which is skill in
speaking, is present in and was first present in holy Scripture or the wisdom of God, as
there is no doubt that the Hebrews received the origins of its craft, that is, common
letters which all books obey, the discipline of which is the birth of the arts of grammar,
with the law of the Lord through Moses.”37 Rupert never suggested, as did Augustine or
Thomas Aquinas following Justin Martyr, that classical philosophers such as Plato had
read Moses and derived their ideas from him. Nonetheless, he clearly concluded that
the origin and natural abode of the verbal arts was in Scripture. The rules and
conventions for discourse were extracted from Scripture and used to generate other
texts. The institution of the arts as a separate practice was simply an alternate means of 36 op. cit., 2049-50: “…nitere vulgo non possunt, cum in aliis rationibus, per se plurimum lucidae parere et splendere consueverint. Maxime autem idcirco non parent, cum ibi sint, quia videlicet sic illis sancta Scriptura utitur, ut tanem non dicat qualiter eisdem utendum sit.” 37 op. cit., 2050: “Prima liberalium artium grammatica, id est loquendi peritia sic adest primumque adfuit in sancta Scriptura sive sapientia Dei, ut primordia eiusdem artis id est litteras communes quas librarii sequerentur, quarum disciplina velut quaedam grammaticaea artis infantia est, Hebraeos cum lege Domini per Moysen accepisse non dubium sit.” A translation of this section of De sancta Trinitate that sets it in the context of grammatical and rhetorical thought in the medieval west can be found in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: language arts and literary theory, AD 300-1475, ed. R. Copeland and I. Sluiter (New York, 2009).
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accessing the verbal knowledge provided by Scripture. Non-biblical texts, as a result,
were ultimately derivative (and sometimes perhaps deviant) forms of scriptural
discourse. All other writing was simply a way to rearticulate what was already in
Scripture.
Although the chapter on “De scientia” in De sancta Trinitate was Rupert’s most
systematic attempt to define language and discourse in terms of Scripture, he did make
reference to this idea in his other writings, often by pointing out instances where
Scripture employed the techniques of the liberal arts. For instance, in the Commentaria
in Evangelium Iohannis, Rupert wrote, “behold, in these words the evangelist
constructs a syllogism, of which it will be worthwhile for us to distinguish the
parts…not so that we may extol the trifles of the syllogistic arts in such a mouth, but so
that we are able to grasp his sense and intentions far as our understanding will allow.”38
Similarly, in the De sancta Trinitate’s account of creation and the division of the
waters, Rupert declared that, “the division of waters which was mentioned above ought
to be understood simply and literally, that is, not as that which the philosophers call the
divisions of words into many meanings; not this, but rather that which they call the
divisions of a whole into parts.”39 Rupert’s determination to point out the uses of
linguistic devices in Scripture was symptomatic of his desire to demonstrate that there
was no type of verbal knowledge that was extrinsic to Scripture. Philosophical and
38 Commentaria in Iohannis, 256: “Ecce in his verbis evangelista syllogismum compegit, cuius nobis distinguere partes operae pretium est, non ut syllogisticae artis nugas in tanto ore magnificemus, sed ut eius intentionem sensumque nostro utcumque intellectu consequi possimus.” 39 De sancta Trinitate, 160: “Ergo divisio aquarum de qua supra dictum est, simpliciter et litteraliter accipi debet, id est, non ea, quam philosophi dicunt divisionem vocis in plures significationes: sed nec hanc sed eam quam dicunt divisionem totius in partes.”
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logical approaches to language, no matter how novel, had their precedents, and perhaps
their origins in Scripture. As a result, Scripture was the model for all discourse.
Rupert’s dedication to this argument signals the extent to which he believed that written
culture was organized around Scripture and that writing in general could be reduced to
the concept of Scripture.
It is worth noting here that Rupert construed the arts and verbal knowledge very
much in terms of the written word and books. At the start of “De scientia” in the De
sancta Trinitate, he declared that, “knowledge is either lettered or unlettered. Lettered
knowledge, which is learned through letters, is comprised of all the arts which are
contained in books.”40 This reference to books as the source of this type of knowledge
highlights another aspect of St.-Laurent’s emergent literate culture, that is, the
community’s manuscripts. The next section of this chapter examines the surviving
manuscripts from St.-Laurent, detailing how the importance of Scripture as the
organizing principle of written culture and the belief that all writing could be defined in
relation to Scripture were expressed in the community’s textual tradition.
2.3 Material Scriptures: Manuscripts from St.-Laurent
Compared to manuscripts from the other monastic communities studied in this
project, the evidence from St.-Laurent reveals less overall coherence. There are fewer
features that cut across a large number of manuscripts from the community and there
seems to have been less concerted effort to manifest particular ideas on the manuscript
40 op. cit., 2040: “Scientia alia litteralis, alia illitterlias. Nam litteralis est, quae litteris addiscitur, ut sunt omnes artes quae libris continentur.”
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page. This is probably due in large part to the constitution of the community’s literate
culture around the idea of Scripture, which was already textual and discursive in nature.
As such, the idea of Scripture did not undergo any significant transformations as it
became the organizing principle of a written culture, nor were specific textual features
required to highlight its presence in manuscripts. Nonetheless, there are elements of St.-
Laurent’s manuscript tradition that suggest the community was aware of the importance
of Scripture in the formation of their literate culture and was interested in articulating
this importance in manuscript form.41
At a very basic level, the community produced a large number of manuscripts
related to Scripture. Of those books produced at St.-Laurent in the late eleventh and
twelfth centuries, nearly sixty percent were copies of either biblical texts or works of
scriptural exegesis.42 This number considers the entire twelfth century; if only books
from the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century, the formative period of St.-
Laurent’s literate culture, were surveyed, the percentage would be considerably higher.
While this number would mean more in the context of ratios from other monastic 41 Like many of the eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic communities from the Low Countries, the manuscript tradition of St.-Laurent has been fairly well studied. Nonetheless, there is no synthetic study of its surviving manuscripts and their features, nor has there been any systematic attempt to identify scribal hands. As a result, although there are many books firmly located at the community, there are many others that can be linked to St.-Laurent, but whose place of production is more uncertain. Gessler, “La bibliothèque,” provided the first thorough attempt to identify manuscripts from the community. Pirot, “La bibliothèque,” 136 provides the most current list of manuscripts with a St.-Laurent provenance and Jacques Stiennon, “Les manuscrits à peintures de l’ancienne bibliothèque de l’abbaye Saint-Laurent de Liège,” examines the most important illuminated manuscripts from the community’s early history. Further studies that provide important insights into St.-Laurent’s manuscripts include Francois Masai, Les manuscrits à peintures de Sambre et Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Pour une critique d’origine plus méthodique (Poitiers, 1960), Jacques Stiennon, Les écoles de Liège aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Exposition des manuscrits et d’oeuvres d’arts, 5-24 novembre 1967, Université de Liège (Liège, 1967), Suzanne Collon-Gevaert, Jean Lejeune, and Jacques Stiennon, Art roman dans la vallée de la Meuse aux XIe et XIIe siécles. Textes et commentaires (Brussels, 1962), and Marie-Rose Lapière, La lettre ornée dans les manuscrits mosans d’origine benedictine (XIe-XIIe siècles) (Paris, 1981). 42 Based on the list of manuscripts in Pirot, “La bibliothèque,” 136.
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communities in Liège, at the very least it indicates that the majority of textual
production at St.-Laurent in the early twelfth century was scriptural and that biblical
texts and interpretations must have comprised a significant part of the monks’
interactions with the written word.
A more interesting feature of St.-Laurent’s manuscripts reveals the embodiment
of the idea that all writing could be defined as Scripture on the manuscript page. It
concerns the use of marginal marks, usually in the form of a letter “s,” to highlight
certain lines of text. These marks are a ubiquitous feature of medieval manuscripts and
were probably often simply transmitted from exemplar to copy. In these cases, they
rarely had any special meaning for the community of readers that produced a
manuscript containing them. However, these marks were deployed in an unusual way at
St.-Laurent. In most manuscripts from the central Middle Ages, these marks were used
to signal the presence of biblical quotes within a text. The precise mechanics of their
use could vary; a single marginal “s” might be used to indicate the start of a scriptural
quote in the corresponding text that went on for several lines, or an “s” might be placed
next to every line that contained scriptural material. Yet the purpose of the mark was to
denote Scripture and to cue to the reader to its presence, perhaps as a reference tool, a
memory device, or an aid to reading.
This pattern w as often followed at St.-Laurent as well. Yet the use of these
marks at the abbey was remarkably inconsistent; non-biblical passages were often
marked alongside biblical ones. For instance, in BR 9355-57, a twelfth-century copy of
part of Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, two marginal s-marks highlight two lines
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reading, “Et abundantia, inquit, his qui diligunt te,” Augustine’s paraphrasing of part of
Psalm 121. Yet immediately above these two lines, the phrase “Interrogate quae ad
pacem sunt Iherusalem,” a nearly direct quote from Psalm 121 is left unmarked.43
Similarly, just below, in Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 122, the passages from
Psalm 122 are left unmarked, but a passage from Psalm 50 that Augustine uses in his
commentary is highlighted with two marginal s-marks.44
BR 9377, a late eleventh-century copy of Ambrose’s commentary on Luke,
provides an even better example of the fluid use of these marks. The original scribe of
the manuscript, or perhaps a later annotator, has left the scriptural passage, “Et tuam
ipsius animam pertransibit gladius” (Luke 2:35) unmarked. However, Ambrose’s
comment on the passage, “Nec littera, nec historia docet ex hac vita Mariam corporalis
necis passione migrasse,” is highlighted by one of these marks, according it a sort of
quasi-scriptural status.45 Following this pattern, later in the same manuscript, a passage
of thirteen lines that weaves together passages from Luke and Ambrose’s own
commentary is completely highlighted by thirteen such marginal marks.46
There can be little doubt that scribes and readers at St.-Laurent were aware of
the primary purpose of these marginal s-marks. The majority of them still indicate
actual scriptural passage and there are manuscripts from the community in which these 43 BR 9355-57, f.27r. 44 op. cit., f.30r. 45 BR 9377, f.84r-84v. 46 op. cit., f.131r. The passage reads: “Adhaeret his lectio, qua exponuntur hi qui sibi legisperiti videntur, qui verba legis tenent, vim legis ignorant: et ex ipso primo legis capitulo docet esse legis ignaros, probans quod in principio statim lex et patrem et filium praedicaverit, incarnationis quoque Dominicae annuntiaverit sacramentum, dicens ‘Diliges Dominum Deum tuum et Diliges proximum tuum sicut te ipsum’ (Luke 10:27). Unde Dominus ait ad legisperitum: Hoc fac, et vives. At ille nesciret proximum suum, quia non credebat in Christum respondit: ‘Quis est meus proximus?’” Other similar examples from this manuscript can be found on 144r and 145r.
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marks only correspond to biblical quotes, such as BR 9358, a twelfth-century copy of
various Augustinian commentaries on the Pauline epistles. The relatively frequent use
of these markers to highlight non-scriptural passages represents a willingness to use a
system of annotation normally reserved for Scripture to mark passages that were non-
biblical in origin. This flexible usage suggests that the community extended this
fluidity to its definition and delineation of Scripture itself. Texts of scriptural exegesis,
as the examples of Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos and Ambrose’s commentary
on Luke suggest, were particularly likely to be marked as Scripture, as such
commentary was considered a sort of natural extension of Scripture.
Other texts were also treated this way at St.-Laurent. In the most remarkable
example, the presence of a quote from a classical, pagan author was signaled by
marginal s-marks. BR 9349-54 is a late eleventh-century copy of several works of
Augustine, including a complete copy of the De Trinitate. Near the start of Book
Fourteen of the De Trinitate, Augustine inserted a long quote from the Hortensius of
Cicero, a text that was instrumental in converting Augustine to Christianity and that is
now largely lost. In BR 9349-54, the entire quote is highlighted with marginal s-
marks.47 Nor is this an isolated incident. A few folios later, when Augustine includes a
second large quote from the Hortensius, it is again completely highlighted with similar
marginal marks.48
47 BR 9349-54, f.96v. Such marginal highlightings are relatively rare in this manuscript, and this passage marks one of only a very uses of them. For the relevant passage, see De Trinitate, B.14, c.9. 48 op. cit., f.100v. This passage can be found at De Trinitate, B.14, c.19.
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It is possible that this pattern of usage was the result of the exemplars used to
copy these manuscripts. Yet the three manuscripts that most frequently use these marks
for non-biblical passages are also those that are the least likely to have an entrenched
textual tradition dictating their format. BR 9578-80, BR 9607 and BR 9935 all contain
works by Rupert of Deutz; their formats, therefore, are likely to resemble the text’s
original state or, at least, to be the result of modifications made at St.-Laurent.
Although marginal s-marks are frequently used to highlight Scripture in them, all three
manuscripts contain numerous instances of their use to mark commentary or other
quotes. BR 9607, a twelfth-century copy of Rupert’s Apocalypse commentary, places a
marginal mark next to Rupert’s comment, “Unde vere beatus et valde honorandus iste
beatus Johannes, qui sic inter duodecim apostolos crevit et auctus, quomodo inter
duodecim patriarchas ille vere secundum nomen suum filius accrescens beatus Joseph,
quomodo enim ille duplicia accepit, dicente patre…” The quote from Genesis that
follows this comment and the passage from Apocalypse that preceded it are both left
unnoted.49 Similarly, in the copy of Rupert’s commentary on Job, which is found in BR
9935, marginal s-marks can be found next to his comment, “…id est diabolus, qui
afflatu suo viventium quemque ascendit ad vitia de quo et Jeremias…,” but not next to
the quote from Job that leads into his comment nor the citation from Jeremiah that it
introduces it.50 The fact that manuscripts containing Rupert’s works display this trend
49 BR 9607, f.15v. Other such moments in this manuscript include ff.30r, 37v, 45v, 48v, 51r, and 118r. 50 BR 9935, f.44r. The full passage reads: “‘Tollet eum,’ scilicet morientem, ‘ventus urens,’ (Job 27: 21) id est diabolus, qui afflatu suo viventem quemque ascendit ad vitia, de quo et Jeremias: ‘Ollam,’ inquit, ‘succensam ego video, et faciem eius a facie Aquilonis,’ (Jeremiah 1: 13)…” Similar examples can be found on ff.45r, 46r, 49r, 66r, and 68r.
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so frequently suggests that it may have been a particular feature of manuscripts at St.-
Laurent.
The use of these marginal marks to highlight texts other than Scripture reveals a
certain attitude toward texts at St.-Laurent, one that is consonant with Rupert’s ideas
concerning the relationship between Scripture, writing, and textuality, and suggests
their implementation in the community’s books. Extending manuscript features usually
reserved for Scripture to other forms of texts had two results. First, it solidified the role
of Scripture as the defining element of written culture at St.-Laurent. The broad use of
textual features associated with Scripture within the community’s manuscripts
articulated writing as a whole according to Scriptural conventions. Like the school
witnessed by the booklist in BR 9668, these marks suggest the idea of Scripture as the
informing exemplar of literate practices. Second, because important passages were
highlighted as if they were Scripture, texts were assimilated into Scripture and defined
according to their participation in it. As a result of these two phenomena, readers at St.-
Laurent who made use of this system of annotation would have been constantly
reminded of the importance of Scripture, encouraged to think of significant texts as
defined by Scripture, and trained to consider Scripture as a category that could
transcend its strict definition to encompass other varieties of texts.
Literate culture at St.-Laurent was thus defined by two complementary trends.
Scripture became its defining structure, such that textual literacy was coterminous with
Scriptural literacy. At the same time, Scripture became a more fluid category to which
all forms of writing could be assimilated, which resulted in an understanding of texts as
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based on Scripture’s preeminence over and extension into all forms of discourse. These
two trends were mutually reinforcing and had the effect of embedding Scripture deeply
in literate practice at St.-Laurent, thereby lending it a novel range of associations and
formats based on its written existence. At the same time, Scripture never ceased to be
central to spiritual life at St.-Laurent and, if its new context meant that Scripture had
developed novel, non-liturgical meanings, it nevertheless maintained its vital
connection to the liturgy. As a result, Scripture’s integration into written practice at St.-
Laurent altered the circumstances under which Scriptural and liturgical piety were
articulated. The final section of this chapter examines how the rapport between
Scripture and liturgy may have been altered by the emergence of St.-Laurent’s literate
culture.
2.4 Liturgy and Sacraments as Scripture
As suggested by the previous chapter, for Rupert of Deutz, correct knowledge
of Scripture was central to spiritual life and the possibility of salvation. Conversely,
being unlearned or ignorant posed a serious danger to both.51 As Scripture became
integrated into written culture, the possession of literacy and literate knowledge became
important in achieving salvation. Yet even at St.-Laurent, not all members of the
community were able to participate in these literate forms of knowledge. Although he
was eager to demonstrate that St.-Laurent had a vibrant intellectual culture, Renier of
St.-Laurent could only list eighteen scholars in his De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, some
51 See above, pp.77-79.
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of whom were quite obscure, for the period from the community’s foundation until the
mid twelfth century. Judging from this text, the majority of the members of the
community must have been somewhat less than scholarly.52 Later in his career, Rupert
discussed the possibility of monks who had not developed literate skills; in his
Altercatio monachi et clerici, written around 1120, he wrote that monks could be either
literate or illiterate.53 The problem that illiteracy presented was how to construct a
spiritual life centered around Scripture when the growing association between Scripture
and literate activity threatened to exclude certain people from the salvation it enabled.
Rupert’s solution exploited the rapport between Scripture and liturgy, which
meant that any new associations or meanings assumed by Scripture could be joined to
conceptions of the liturgy. Similarly, any problems that arose from new developments
in the format of Scripture could be addressed by reconsidering the relationship between
liturgy, the sacraments, and Scripture. In his De divinis officiis, Rupert proposed that
participation in the liturgy and reception of the sacraments could serve as a form of
access to Scriptural knowledge for those with insufficient learning to derive it by other
means. This idea signals the emergence of an important dialogue between St.-
Laurent’s spiritual and literate practices.
Rupert composed the De divinis officiis from 1109-1112.54 It was the first major
treatise he wrote following a series of visionary experiences that, according to his later
52 De ineptiis cuiusdam idiotae, 593-99. 53 Rupert of Deutz, Altercatio monachi et clerici, PL 170: 539C-D. This passage first came to my notice via Giles Constable, The Reformation of The Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996, repr. 2000): 10, which cites the edition in Joseph Anton Endres, Honorius Augustodunensis. Beitrag zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens im 12. Jahrhundert (Kempten and Munich, 1906). 54 Citations are to Liber de divinis officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 7 (Turnhout, 1967).
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accounts of them, commanded him to interpret Scripture and gave him the skills
necessary to do so.55 From the outset, Rupert’s liturgical commentary was tied, not
simply to Scripture, but also to its interpretation. For Rupert, setting out to interpret the
liturgy was, in some ways, tantamount to interpreting Scripture.56 So fundamental was
this idea to the De divinis officiis that Rupert opened the treatise with it: “those
practices which, having been established for the cycle of the year, are done in the divine
office require an attentive and learned listener and the measurement and teaching of the
venerable Scripture so that they may be well explained.”57 He then suggested why and
how this was the case, declaring:
Accordingly, this ordering has been established in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head of the Church, by those men who sublimely understood the sacraments of his incarnation, nativity,
55 De gloria et honore filii hominis super Matheum, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 29 (Turnhout, 1979): 366-85. Onf Rupert’s visions, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 48-55, Hrabanus Haacke, “Die mystichen Visionem Ruperts von Deutz,” in “Sapientiae Doctrinae”: Mélanges de théologie et de littérature médiévales offers à Dom Hildebrand Bascour O.S.B. (Leuven, 1980): 68-90, Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the Twelfth Century (New York, 1994): 328-33, and Christel Meier-Staubach, “Rupert’s von Deutz literarische Sendung: Der Durchbruch eines neuen Autorbewuβtseins im 12. Jahrhundert,” in Aspekte des 12. Jahrhunderts, eds. Wolfgang Haubrichs, Eckart C. Lutz, Gisela Vollman-Profe (Berlin, 2000): 29-52. For studies that situate Rupert’s use of visions in the broader context of visionary culture, see Barbara Newman, “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation,” Church History 54 (1985): 163-75, Robert Lerner, “Ecstatic Dissent,” Speculum 67 (1992): 33-57, and Christel Meier, “Von der ‘Privatoffenbarung’ zur Öffentlichen Lehrbefungis: Legitimationsstufen Des Prophentums bei Rupert von Deutz, Hildegard von Bingen und Elisabeth von Schönau,” in Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne, eds. Gert Melville and Peter Von Moos (Cologne, 1998): 97-123. 56 The De divinis officiis is a remarkably understudied text. See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 56-67 and Wilhelm Kahles, Geschichte ala Liturgie. Die Geschichtstheologie des Rupert von Deutz (Münster, 1960). Many of the works cited in Chapter 1 on liturgical commentary deal with Rupert’s De divinis officiis, including Douglas Mosey, Allegorical Liturgical Interpretation in the West from 800 AD to 1200 AD (Ph.D Thesis, University of St. Michael’s College, 1985), Paul Rorem, The Medieval Development of Liturgical Symbolism (Bramcote, 1986), and Mary M. Schaefer, Twelfth Century Latin Commentaries on the Mass: Christological and Ecclesiological Dimensions (Ph.D Thesis, University of Notre Dame, 1983). 57 De divinis officiis, 5: “Ea quae per anni ciculum ordine constituto in divinis aguntur officiis, et attentum auditorem et eruditum, ut bene exponantur, expetunt venerabilium Scripturarum didascalum atque symmisten.” We note here as well, Rupert’s immediate concern with learning; he is not, however, stating that a participant in the liturgy must be learned, but that an interpreter of it must be so.
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passion, and resurrection and faithfully and wisely took care to proclaim it through voice, writings, and other signs of this sort.58
Like Scripture, the liturgy was instituted to serve as a sign of Christ’s incarnation and
passion; salvation history was coded into the structure of the liturgy. Accordingly, as
with Scripture, correct understanding of and interaction with the liturgy could produce a
proper understanding of the nature the Christian narrative of salvation.
This parallel between Scripture and liturgy was possible, not simply because the
liturgy was composed of biblical texts, but on account of the symbolic significance that
Rupert accorded the liturgy. For Rupert, the liturgy could serve as an allegory for
Scripture and salvation history, and Scripture itself could serve as a prefiguration of the
liturgy.59 Following the passage quoted above, Rupert interpreted the institution of the
liturgy as a fulfillment of Scripture, finding a foreshadowing of its creation in the story
of Noah’s sons:
Clearly by this agreement, [those men who instituted the liturgy] imitated the blessed sons of Noah, Shem and Japhet, who, with diligent reverence, covered the nudity of their father that had been ridiculed by cursed Cham by placing a covering over his back. For what else does Noah, drunk from the vine which he planted and sleeping nude in his tent, pre-figure unless Lord Christ, who became drunk from his vine… and through the vinegar of punishment slept with the sleep of death…But Cham, which means ‘hot,’ (for indeed all heretics are burning with violence, obstinacy, and intolerance) went out, reported Noah’s nudity publicly, and disclosed his infirmity. On the other hand, illustrious Shem and generous Japhet, clearly the Catholic and apostolic
58 op. cit.: “Siquidem ab his viris ordinata haec atque in obsequium Domini nostri Iesu Christi, qui est caput ecclesiae, instituta sunt, qui sacramenta incarnationis, nativitatis, passionis, resurrectionis et ascensionis eius et sublimiter intellecerunt et praedicare voce, litteris atque huiuscemodi signis fideliter et sapienter curaverunt.” 59 There is often some degree of slippage between these two strategies in Rupert’s approach, such that it can be difficult to gauge whether the liturgy is a symbol for the salvation history of Scripture, or vice versa.
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Fathers, venerated and decorated Noah’s infirmity, covering his back with the dinstinguished covering of the sacraments.60
In interpreting the institution of the liturgy and the sacraments as a fulfillment of Shem
and Japhet’s act, Rupert treated the liturgy’s embodiment of Scripture as operating in a
parallel manner to the New Testament’s fulfillment of the Old Testament. As a result,
not only could the liturgy be interpreted as if it were itself Scripture, but participation in
the liturgy was understood as equivalent to participation in the salvation history
sanctioned by Scripture. While, as Rupert acknowledged, interpreting the liturgy
required considerable understanding of Scripture, participation alone could provide
access to the same salvation narrative that reading and understanding Scripture
provided. The liturgy, if treated as an allegory for Scripture, made it possible to enter
into Scripture without possessing the erudite tools necessary for Biblical exegesis.
Constructing and explicating this system of liturgical symbolism was the major
focus of the De divinis officiis. A few examples will demonstrate Rupert’s elaboration
of this technique. One can be found in Rupert’s discussion of the bells used to indicate
the liturgical hours of the day, a passage that does not appear to have a precedent in any
of Rupert’s source material. He declared of these bells, “it is an ancient custom and of
divine authority for there to be sonorous instruments in the church, by which the people
60 De divinis officiis, 5: “Videlicet imitati sunt hoc pacto benedictos filios Noe, Sem et Japhet, qui nuditatem patris ridente maledicto Cham assumpto pallio post dorsum suum reverenti diligentia contexerunt. Nam quid aliud Noe, de vine sua quam plantavit ipse inebriatus dormiensque et in tabernaculo suo nudatus, nisi Dominum Christum praefigurat, qui a vinea sua, quam de Aegypto transtulit et plantavit, inebriatus aceto poenarum sopitus somno mortis…Sed exeat et foris nuntiet eumque infirmitatis arguat Cham, quod interpretatur calidus, scilicet omnis haereticus calens ad rixam, contentiosus et impatiens. Nam inclytus Sem et dilatatus Iaphet, videlicet catholici atque apostolici patres, honesto sacrmentorum pallio propter nos assumptam ornant et venerantur infirmitatem et hoc post dorsum suum…”
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are stirred up to the praise of God,” and noted examples from the Old Testament, such
as the trumpets used in Leviticus and the stringed instruments used in Chronicles,
which had different appearances than bells, but the same purpose.61 Rupert then pushed
the idea a step further, explaining, “these signs of the church [i.e. the bells] and those
lawful trumpets signify one and the same thing, namely the holy preachers of the
church.”62 Not only were the bells identical in purpose to the trumpets in the Old
Testament, but both instruments also signified the same spiritual reality, specifically the
preachers of the church who brought together people in praise of God. Because the Old
Testament trumpets and the liturgical bells signified the same thing, Rupert used them
as a model for the assimilation of the liturgy to Scripture. Furthermore, the ringing of
the bells was not an aspect of the liturgy that “naturally” overlapped with Scripture in
that they were not a reading or chant that replicated Biblical text. Yet by hearing them,
participants in the liturgy were still drawn into the allegorical meaning of Scripture.
Another good example is found in Rupert’s discussion of the Paschal Triduum,
the three days from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday during which Christ was handed
over to his persecutors and crucified. Rupert wrote of these days:
Not only the hours of the night, but also the hours of these days are performed in such a way that they have neither their accustomed beginning nor their accustomed end. And rightly so, for our Lord is the beginning and the end, just as he said, “I am the beginning, who speaks
61 De divinis officiis, 13: “Sonora esse instrumena in ecclesia, quibus ad laudem Dei populus excitetur, divinae auctoritatis et antiquae consuetudinis est. Nam olim tubae, nunc autem campanae diversa quidem specie sed eadem habentur ratione. Legimus in Levitico tubas ex iussu Domini factas, quarum usus esset in iubilaeo, tantae virtutis, ut ad crepitam earum corrueret Iericho, et in Parlipomenon inter cantores nablis arcana cantantes et inter levitas pro octava cantantes concinente et subsiliente David septem tubarum clangorem personare coram arca foederis Domini.” 62 op. cit.: “Haec igitur ecclesiae signa atque illae legales tubae unum atque idem significant scilicet sanctos ecclesiae praedicatores…”
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to you,” and elsewhere, “I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.” He, I say, who is our beginning and our head, Jesus Christ, has been stolen away from us during these days, given into the hands of the impious and thrown among the iniquitous.63
Rupert also addressed the extinguishing of candles during the Triduum: “the fact that
the candles are extinguished signifies the fact that after the Lord was crucified, shadows
came over the earth from the sixth hour until the ninth hour.” As with the example of
the bells, the liturgy goes beyond mimicking or allegorizing the events of Scripture; it
also signifies the same spiritual reality as the literal sense of Scripture did. Rupert
elaborates, “more correctly, the extinction of the candles itself signifies what those
shadows signified, namely, the blindness of the Jewish people.”64 The assimilation of
liturgical symbolism to Scriptural events and meaning suggested that even people who
had not read and understood the Bible were integrated into salvation history and
interacted with the spiritual meaning of Scripture. If literate practice was the best tool
for accessing the meaning of Scripture, liturgical performance nevertheless provided a
potential alternative.
Although this allegorical approach to interpreting the liturgy using the
hermeneutic methods normally reserved for Scripture became increasingly popular over
the course of the twelfth century, Rupert’s detailed discussion of its theological basis
the De divinis officiis was unusual at the time of its composition. No work comparable
63 De divinis officiis, 180: “Non solum autem noctis sed et cunctae diei sic transiguntur horae, ut neque initium neque finem habeant consueto more. Et recte, nam Dominus noster qui initium et finis est, sicut ipse ait: Ego principium, qui et loquo vobis, et alibi: Ego sum alpha et omega, initium et finis. Ipse, inquam, qui est caput nostrum principiumque Iesus Christus per hos dies ablatus est nobis, traditus in manus impiorum et inter iniquos proiectus.” 64 op. cit.: “Quod candelae exstinguuntur, illud significat, quod crucifixo Domino tenebrae factae sunt super terram ab hora Sexta usque in horam nonam. Immo idipsum significat exstinctio candelarum, quod tenebrae illae significaverunt, scilicet excaecationem iudaicae gentis…”
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to Rupert’s had been undertaken since the allegorical commentaries of the Carolingian
commentator Amalarius of Metz. Furthermore, Amalarius had been sharply criticized
on theological grounds for using allegorical methods of liturgical exposition.
Amalarius’ main antagonist, Florus of Lyons, argued that since the Old Testament had
been fulfilled in Christ, it was no longer possible to establish new symbolic structures
of the same sort. Symbols of the sort necessary in the Old Testament had been rendered
unnecessary and impossible by the Incarnation.65 Agobard of Lyons had likewise
condemned Amalarius’ allegorizing, arguing that because the liturgy was the product of
human hands, it could not possess the same sort of enigmatic significance that Scripture
did.66
It is uncertain whether Rupert was aware of these criticisms. In at least one
moment in the De divinis officiis, he seems to address the latter difficulty by suggesting
that, although the liturgy was the product of human hands, it was created through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Writing about Gregory the Great’s ordering of stations,
Rupert declared that, “whatever he, who was the sweetest instrument of the Holy Spirit,
wrote he received via dictation from the finger of God; thus he did not arrange these
same stations without the same Holy Spirit.”67 Regardless of whether this was an
65 Opuscula adversus Amalarium, PL 119: 75-83. 66 Liber contra libros quatuor Amalarii abbatis, PL 104: 344. 67 De divinis officiis, 70: “Qui sicut vere dulcissimum sancti Spiritus organum, quidquid scriptsit, digito Dei dictante concepit; sic easdem stationes non sine eodem Spiritu disposuit, et tam hoc quam cetera eius opera tamquam aurum rutilat in Christi ecclesia.” The phrase “sancti Spiritus organum,” as well as a long quote the precedes this passage, come from Paul the Deacon’s Vita sancti Gregorii. Rupert’s description of Gregory receiving direct inspiration from the Holy Spirit is reminiscent of a passage from the vita in which Gregory’s scribe poked a hole in a curtain dividing the two of them and, upon peering through it, saw Gregory receiving dictation from the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. This episode became the subject of images that often accompanied Gregory’s works and developed a standard
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attempt to address potential theological problems with the De divinis officiis, Rupert’s
revival of the allegorical method of liturgical commentary is significant. As the
previous chapter indicated, St.-Laurent’s commitment to church reform provided some
of the impetus behind the community’s development of liturgical piety and for Rupert’s
De divinis officiis, but it cannot explain Rupert’s adoption of this mode of exegesis.
Rather, Rupert’s use of allegorical exegesis for the liturgy should be viewed with
reference to its value to Rupert in producing a particular vision of the relationship
between spirituality and learning in a literate context.
The basis of the allegorical approach’s value to Rupert becomes clearer through
an examination of certain passages in the De divinis officiis that deal specifically with
learning. The most important of these passages is found in the prologue of the work.
Rupert suggested that right knowledge of Christ’s incarnation and passion was a virtual
prerequisite for performing the liturgy: “To celebrate these sacraments and not to
understand their causes is as if to speak a language and to not know its meaning.” He
then expands the idea in a passage dense with allusions to Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians:
He who speaks a language, says the apostle, speaks that he might be understood. He exhorts us to emulate more this gift from among the spiritual gifts of grace, with which the Holy Spirit adorns his church, so that we might prophecy, that is, so that we might seize with our intelligence those things which we pray or sing to the Holy Spirit.68
iconography. A magnificent example was present at St.-Laurent in the form of BR 9916-17, a twelfth-century copy of Gregory’s Dialogues preceded a full-page illustration of this scene. 68 De divinis officiis, 5: “Haec vero sacramenta celebrare et causas eorum non intelligere quas lingua loqui est et interpretatione nescire. Qui autem lingua loquitur, ait apostolos, oret ut interpretetur. Hoc inter spiritualia charismatum dona, quibus eccleisam suam Spiritus sanctus exornat, magis aemulari nos hortatur, ut prophetemus, id est ut ea quae Spiritu oramus aut psallimus, mentis quoque intelligentia capiamus.”
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Rupert quickly qualified this hard stance, which seemed to make learning a requirement
for participation in the liturgy, by stretching his definition of linguistic competence:
“but this is not entirely so, just as if I might speak a language, my spirit speaks even if
my mind is without fruit, and this ought to be understood about [the liturgy] as well.”69
Rupert concluded this line of thought with an unequivocal assertion of the liturgy’s
value as a tool for the unlearned:
For those who celebrate the mysteries or signs of the church faithfully and piously, although they may not be able to know their causes, are nevertheless not without fruit. This is because these things have been instituted such that, in a wonderful way, the secrets of God, which are able to be understood by only a few, are able to be performed by nearly everyone.70
The almost miraculous nature of the liturgy, which allowed it to accrue and participate
in the spiritual meanings of Scripture, also made it possible for the unlearned to
participate in the “secrets of God.” If the development of St.-Laurent’s literate culture
from its spirituality led to problematic issues regarding the relationship between
Scripture, literacy, and salvation, the dialogue that resulted from this development
provided Rupert with a solution.
This passage was the virtual culmination of the prologue to the De divinis
officiis, followed only by Rupert’s own prayer for aid in writing it and a description of
the text’s organization. It served as a “mission statement” for the whole work and
provided the framework for its goals, underscoring the importance of the idea of the 69 op. cit., 5-6: “Sed non omnino, quemadmodum si orem lingua, spritus quidem meus orat, mens autem sine fructu est, ita de his quoque sentiendum est.” 70 op. cit., 6: “Nam qui mysteria vel signa eccleisae fideliter et pie frequentant, quamvis causas eorum scire non potuerint, non tamen sine fructu sunt. Ideo quippe haec instituta sunt, ut miro modo secreta Dei, quae a paucis possunt intelligi, paene ab omnibus possint agi.”
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liturgy as a substitute for formal learning. The same idea recurs throughout the De
divinis officiis. For instance, at one point Rupert argued that the reading of the book of
generations in Mathew before the Christmas mass was prefigured by Jacob’s dream in
Genesis. In his dream, Jacob saw God standing next to a ladder, awoke, and declared
that the Lord was present in the place where he slept, which he named Bethel and called
the house of God and the gate of heaven.71 Rupert concluded his discussion of this
reading by declaring:
If therefore Jacob, when he had awoken from his dream, said, “truly the Lord is in this place and I did not know it, etc…” if, I say, he was filled with wonder on account of a shadow or a figure of the future which he saw in a dream, how much more ought we, perceiving the fulfilled truth of the thing, be excited in praise and to call this place, the holy church, Bethel, that is, the home of God, which is nothing other than the home of God and the gate of heaven, that is, nothing other than the blessed progeny and the glorious Virgin who bore the king of heaven.72
Jacob, in his dream, perceived a shadow of the future in the form of the ladder of God,
which prefigured the generations of Christ. A participant in the liturgy, on the other
hand, was privileged to interact with the fulfilled truth of this dream, the actual reading
of the “liber generationis.” The structure of the liturgy itself provided the learning
necessary for encountering the truth of Scripture; the participant’s need to possess such
learning individually is mitigated, as the fulfilled reality of the Bible is made available
to him unmediated by text.
71 The “liber generationis” is Mathew 1: 1-17. The dream of Jacobs is recounted in Genesis 28: 11-19. 72 De divinis officiis, 89: “Si enim Iacob, cum evigilasset a somno ait: Vere Dominus est in loco isto et ego nesciebam etc, si inquam, adeo miratus est propter umbram vel figuram futurorum, quae in somnis viderat, quanto magis nos peractam rei veritatem intuentes excitari debemus in laudem et vocare locum hunc, id est sanctam ecclesiam, Bethel, id est domum Dei, ubi vere non est aliud nisi domus Dei et porta caeli, scilicet non aliud quam beata progenies et gloriosa Virgo, quae caeli regem genuit.”
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Rupert’s most remarkable elaboration of this idea appeared in his treatment of
the Eucharist in the De divinis officiis. At the time that Rupert wrote this passage, the
memory of Berengar and Lanfranc’s controversy over the Eucharist was fresh and the
nature of the Eucharistic transformation was still a contentious theological issue.
Rupert’s particular incarnationalist approach to the Eucharist, combined with his
unusual distinction between animal and spiritual life, left him especially open to
criticism. Ultimately, his writings on the subject led to a public debate with Alger of
Liège, and earned him a rebuke from William of St.-Thierry for endorsing the doctrine
of impanation.73 These intellectual controversies foreshadowed Rupert’s later disputes
with figures such as Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, conflicts that have
often been understood as symptomatic of the major changes in the nature of learning
and education at the start of the twelfth century. Intense interest in these changes among
modern scholars has highlighted Rupert’s contentious interactions with the “new
learning.”74 In general, the view of Rupert of Deutz as representative of a traditional
Benedictine form of monastic learning that came into conflict with a newer,
73 See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 135-76 for a discussion of these events and issues surrounding them. The most detailed account of Rupert’s Eucharistic theology and the resulting controversy is still G.G. Bischoof, The Eucharistic Controvery between Rupert of Deutz and his Anonymous Adversary (Ph.D Thesis, Princeton University, 1965). See also Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study in the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to Theologians, c.1080-1220 (Oxford, 1984) and Van Engen, “Rupert of Deutz and William of St.-Thierry,” Revue bénédictine 93 (1983): 327-336. 74 See Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 181-214, Hubert Silvestre, “Notes sur la controverse de Rupert de Saint-Laurent avec Anselm de Laon et Guillaume de Champeaux,” in Saint-Laurent, 63-80, ibid., “A propos de la lettre d’Anselme de Laon à Heribrand de Saint-Laurent,” Recherches de thèologie ancienne et médiévale 28 (1961): 5-25, M.-D. Chenu, “The Masters of the Theological Science,” in Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century (Chicago, 1968, repr. Toronto, 1997): 270-77, and and Jean Châtillon, “Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, le monachisme et les écoles: A propos de Rupert de Deutz, d’Abélard et de Guillaume de Conches,” in Michel Bur, ed., Saint-Thierry: une abbaye du VIe au XXe siècle. Actes du Colloque international d’Histoire monastique, Reims-Saint-Thierry, 11 au 14 octobre 1976 (Saint-Thierry, 1979): 375-394.
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prescholastic mode of learning is no longer current.75 However, an important result of
the way in which Rupert had been situated in this debate is that scholars have focused
on those aspects of his understanding of the Eucharist that were most controversial,
particularly his understanding the sacramental transformation. Other aspects of his
Eucharistic thought have gone unnoticed, although they were clearly central to Rupert’s
overall goals in the De divinis officiis.
Rupert introduced his examination of the Eucharist in an unusual way, stating,
“it is now pleasing to consider the three astonishing parts of the sacrifice according to
that order which we are accustomed to seek in the work of any esteemed authors, that
is, material, intention, and final cause or utility.”76 Rupert here utilized the accessus ad
auctores, a system of pedagogy and literary criticism typically used to teach classical
works to novices, in order to explicate the mysteries of the Eucharist.77 This was a
highly idiosyncratic framework to use for discussion of the Eucharist, and might be
entirely without direct precedent. There are some other twelfth-century instances of the
accessus being employed for liturgical commentary, but they either postdate Rupert’s
De divinis officiis or they were texts with limited distribution of which he shows no
awareness. There were also earlier instances of the accessus being used to explicate
75 See, for instance, Marcia Colish, “Systematic Theology and Theological Renewal in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988): 135-66, 76 De divinis officiis, 41: “libet nunc intueri in ordine tam admirabilis sacrificii tria, quae in opere cuiulibet auctoris egreggi requirere consuevimus, id est, materiam, intentionem causaemque finalem sive utilitatem.” 77 Rupert himself was almost certainly educated using the accessus, as demonstrated by Hubert Silvestre, “Les citations et réminiscences classiques dans l’oeuvre de Rupert de Deutz,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 45 (1950): 140-74. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 103 notes that Rupert’s Commentaria in Evangelium Iohannis offered its readers an effective accessus ac auctorem.
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non-classical texts, including those of the liturgy.78 However, its use in theology,
Scriptural exegesis, and liturgical interpretation was still relatively rare during this
period.79 Furthermore, even when the accessus was employed for these tasks, it was
used to interpret the texts of the liturgy or the authorial positions of Scriptural writers.
Rupert, however, used the accessus to interpret not the texts associated with the
Eucharist, but rather the very nature of the sacrament itself, including the mechanics of
its transformation and its salvific effects. Such aspects of the Eucharist were deeply
semiotic, but also intensely non-textual and non-discursive.80
By choosing this interpretive strategy, Rupert was treating the sacrament as if it
were a text and subjecting it to the hermeneutic principles usually reserved for literary
criticism. Although this analysis echoed the overall strategy of Rupert’s De divinis
officiis, which extended the hermeneutics of Scripture to the liturgy, there was more to
Rupert’s use of the accessus in this context than a simple extension of his general
approach. The accessus was used specifically for the pedagogical purpose of
introducing students to literate culture by teaching them the skills of reading, writing,
78 On earlier uses of the accessus for non-classical texts, see Susan Boynton, “Glossed Hymns in Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries (Ph.D Thesis, Brandeis University, 1997): 219-221. 79 See A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1984): 9-42, where he notes that it was generally during the twelfth century that the accessus came to be adopted to Scriptural commentary. Also Suzanne Reynolds, “Ad auctorem expositionem: Syntactic Theory and Interpretive Practice in the Twelfth Century,” Histoire, Epistémolgie, Langage 12 (1990): 31-51. Probably the best-best known monastic text which used the accessus ad auctores for education is Conrad of Hirsau’s Dialogus super auctores, likely written about 1130. See Leslie G. Whitbread, “Conrad of Hirsau as Literary Critic,” Speculum 47 (1972): 234-45. This text, and others relevant to this topic, is partially translated in A.J. Minnis and A.B. Scott (eds.), Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c.1100-1375: the Commentary Tradition (Oxford, 1988). 80 A fact that Rupert recognizes, when he declares just prior to this section that human language must ultimately fail when attempting to discuss the sacrament. See De divinis officiis, 40.
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and critique that were fundamental to literate practice.81 In using it to describe the
Eucharist, Rupert inscribed the sacrament into the domain of literate behavior, creating
an association between it and the development of learned, literate practice. The
Eucharist was thereby transformed into a means of achieving the learning and
knowledge normally associated with reading and writing.
This strategy is even more apparent in the second part of Rupert’s consideration
of the Eucharist, its “intentio” which followed the examination of its transformation and
substance in “materia.” In this section, Rupert revisited the concern for learning hinted
at in his use of the accessus more explicitly. Rupert connected the “intentio” of the
sacrament to the passing of Christ from the world, citing Christ’s declaration to his
disciples, “where I go, you are not able to come” (John 13:33). Linking this passage to
the Eucharist, Rupert wrote, “because, I say, they were not able to follow him, he gave
to them an appropriate inheritance, writing (scribens) a visible memorial of himself.
For he did not judge the memorial of Scripture alone to be sufficient for this purpose.”82
This “appropriate inheritance” was the Eucharist, the creation of which was intended to
complement Scripture, which was in itself an insufficient reminder of Christ’s presence.
The use of the verb “scribens” to describe Christ’s act of creating the sacraments is a
notable indicator of the extent to which Rupert associated them with written culture.
Finally, Rupert declared that the reason why Scripture alone was insufficient was
unlearned people, who deserved to have access to Christ’s presence: “Indeed, he 81 On the connection between the accessus and these skills, see Irvine, The Making of a Textual Culture, 121-32. 82 De divinis officiis, 44-45: “Quia, inquam, non poterant eum tunc sequi, hereditatem illis copetentem scribens visibilem sui memoriam commendabat. Non enim Scripturarum solam commonitionem ad hoc sufficere iudicabat.”
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supported the oblivious and unlearned invalids from the greater part, that is,
humankind, who were about to be healed.”83 The rest of the passage demonstrated that
the Eucharist could provide salvation for those who lacked the ability to understand the
Scriptures, and culminated with the declaration that God had arranged the sacrament
such that, “toothless people with infantile souls, who are not able to chew and tear the
solid food of the ancient Word and the eternal principle, [are able] to drink up the
divinity of his Word via the sweet liquid that is accomplished in the sacrament of the
bread and the wine.”84 Contrasting the learned people who were able to consume the
solid food of Scripture with the unlearned ones who required the milk of the sacrament,
Rupert argued for the possibility of participating in scriptural knowledge through the
Eucharist. Rupert’s attention to the problem of the unlettered and unlearned in the De
divinis officiis is an indication of the extent to which he developed his ideas about the
liturgy in the context of the emergence of written culture and the questions it raised
about the relationship between learning, spirituality, and salvation.
It is difficult to measure how influential Rupert’s ideas were at St.-Laurent. The
De divinis officiis was his most highly regarded work at the community as well as his
most successful work abroad, suggesting that the treatise exercised considerable
influence over the community.85 Other authors at St.-Laurent show varying degrees of
83 op. cit., 45: “Obliviosum namque et ex magna parte indocilem aegrotum, scilicet genus humanum curandum susceperat.” 84 op. cit.: “Magna igitur caritatis arte pgmenta sua Dei sapientia composuit, quibus lethargicam magni aegroti mentem, renovata quotidie suae salutis commemoratione, percelleret, et infantilium edentulam plebem animarum, quae Verbi antiqui et aeterni principii solidum non poterat terere et ruminare cibum, dulcissimo hoc liquamine confecto Verbi eius divinitatem in panis et vini sacramento sorbilare consuefaceret.” 85 See Chapter 1, pp.65-66. On the distribution of the work, see Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 57, 66.
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interest in similar questions. Renier of St.-Laurent’s own short liturgical commentary,
the In Novem Ante-Natalitatis Antiphonas, shows the same concern as Rupert with
linking theology and Scriptural exegesis to the performance of the liturgy, but does not
exhibit any of Rupert’s concomitant concern with learning and the problem of the
unlearned.86 One piece of evidence, however, suggests that Rupert’s concept of
liturgical performance as a substitute for learning and knowledge was perpetuated at
St.-Laurent. In his De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, Renier described abbot Wazelin I (the
predecessor of Wazelin II, Rupert’s student) as, “simple in nature, but skilled in the
study of religion, rehearsing the ecclesiastical office from his youth until his old age,
now in reading, now in singing, now in prayer, as if a vigorous ox attentively threshing
the field of the Lord.”87 Following Rupert, the passage suggests that Renier thought that
pious performance of the liturgy could serve as a suitable alternative to subtle and
literate learning.
Spiritual life at St.-Laurent was defined by the rapport between liturgy and
Scripture, which provided the context for the emergence of the community’s approach
to literate knowledge and practice. Scripture, which was always textual yet had been
associated predominantly with the liturgy prior to the late eleventh century, became the
central feature of literate culture at St.-Laurent. This development was marked by both
the attempt to equate literate knowledge with Scriptural knowledge and the belief that 86 See, e.g. In Novem Ante-Natalitatis Antiphonas, PL 204: 43-52 at Chapter 2, “De vera Christi humanitate” and Chapter 3, “De observantia dierum novem ante diem Natalis.” 87 De Ineptiis Cuiusdam Idiotae, 598: “Alter hunc in abbatia Wazelinus antecesserat, qui simplex quidem ingenio, sed religionis solers studio a juventute in senectutem ecclesiastica rite exsecutus est officia nunc legendo, nunc psallendo, nunc orando veluti bos nervosus sedule triturans in area Domini.”
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writing and discourse in general could be defined as forms of Scripture. These ideas
were expressed in both the intellectual culture of the community and in material form
on the manuscript page. A key effect of this development was that Scripture was
partially dissociated from the liturgy as it was integrated into literate practice, but was
never detached from the community’s spirituality. As a result, the conditions under
which spiritual life was articulated were transformed and the problem of literate
knowledge was introduced into the question of devotional practice and salvation.
Rupert of Deutz formed many of his ideas about the liturgy in the context of this
issue. For Rupert, the liturgy and the sacraments could offer a non-literate means of
participating in literate knowledge.88 Such an argument was possible, on one hand,
because literate knowledge was identified with Scriptural knowledge, and, on the other
hand, because of the intrinsic connection between liturgy and Scripture. The fact that
Rupert elaborated the idea so extensively in the De divinis officiis signals the
importance of the dialogue that had emerged between spirituality and literate practice at
St.-Laurent. This dialogue not only shaped the community’s written culture, but also
transformed important aspects of its devotional practice. Indeed, it seems likely that, if
St.-Laurent’s devotion to monastic reform provided the initial framework for the
development of liturgical piety, one of the reasons such piety became so vital at the
88 Although there is not space to discuss the issue here, it is worth noting that, in his other writings, Rupert reveals a profound interest in modes of non-literate learning, or what might even be termed “un-learned” learning. The example of the apostles, who were described as “unlearned and without letters” in Acts 4:13, yet whose minds were opened so that they might understand the Scriptures in Luke 24:45 and who were filled with the knowledge of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:4, were of particular interest to Rupert. See, among many examples, De sancta Trinitate, 1938-51, 1662, 1975.
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community during the twelfth century was its ability to adapt to and interact with a
literate culture based on Scripture.
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Part II
Durham Cathedral Priory
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Introduction
Durham Cathedral Priory - History and Sources
In Durham Cathedral Library Ms. B.IV.12, a book from the early twelfth
century containing miscellaneous sermons and treatises, mostly by Augustine, there is
an anonymous sermon written on folios 37v-38v. This text, along with three other
anonymous sermons, was written in the early or mid twelfth century on pages that were
left blank when the rest of the manuscript was written.1 In the sixteenth century, this
sermon was given the title “De scriptoribus bonis et malis.”2 It begins with an
interpretation of a line from Apocalypse, “I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
Write. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Apoc. 14:13). It then takes up the
exhortation to “write,” creating a fairly elaborate allegory based on books and scribal
activity. Heaven, for instance, is compared to Holy Scripture, “because heaven will be
folded up like a book.”3 The command to write is treated as an overarching metaphor
for spiritual life with each individual writing in the “book of his own conscience, in
1 The first person to identify and transcribe any part of this sermon was R.A.B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939) (henceforth DCM), 9. It is also noted and partially translated in Roger Norris, Treasures of Durham Cathedral (Durham, 1976), 13-14. The fullest study, transcription, and translation of the sermon, however, is Mary and Richard Rouse, “From Flax to Parchment: a monastic sermon from twelfth-century Durham,” in New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Honour of A.I. Doyle, eds. Richard Beadle and A.J. Piper (Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1995), 1-13. Unless otherwise noted, I follow the edition and translation printed there. 2 As the Rouses note, a somewhat misleading title, given that the only mention of “good and bad scribes” is the line “Sed sicut sunt scriptores boni, ita inveniuntur et scriptores mali.” DCL B.IV.12, f.37v. The rest of the sermon is not concerned with a distinction between good and bad scribes. 3 “From Flax to Parchment,” 5: “Celum scriptura sacra est quia celum plicabitur ut liber.” The strange metaphor of heaven being folded up like a book results from recourse to Apoc. 6:13, which refers to heaven being rolled up like a scroll. The author of the sermon has substituted an image more familiar than a scroll to twelfth-century monks, a book.
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accordance with which he will be judged in the end.”4 The bulk of the sermon
allegorizes the physical process of making a book. The parchment is likened to pure
conscience, upon which good works are recorded; the knife that scrapes the parchment
is the fear of God; the pen, divided into two parts for writing, is the love of neighbor
and love of God; and finally, the exemplar which is copied is the life of Christ. The
sermon concludes by declaring that by turning away from worldly things, one can raise
one’s eyes to heaven and “more freely gaze on our exemplar which is in heaven,
waiting on our Lord Jesus Christ in all things…burning with desire for him, longing for
his presence, sighing for him, yearning with all our hearts to reign with him in
heaven.”5
This sermon presented certain ideas about both the written word and spiritual
life. The metaphor of a book as one’s conscience drew its significance from the
capability of a text to discursively reference the words, thoughts, and emotional states
of its author over time and space. A text, according to the metaphor, was not an isolated
object. Rather, it was bound to the individual who produced it, carrying their
personality and charisma within its words. In fact, the metaphor of one’s conscience as
a book is only effective if the written word is treated as a space defined by its author.
4 op. cit., 5: “Unusquisque etenim ab eo tempore quo ratione uti potest usque ad finem vite librum proprie consciencie scribit, secundum quem in fine iudicandus erit.” DCL B.IV.12, f.37v. 5 “From Flax to Parchment,” 7: “Locus scribendi contemptus mundi, qui nos ab infirmorum appetitu elevando in celesti desiderio velut in quadam montis celsitudine collocat ut exemplar nostrum quod in celestibus est liberius intueri possimus, Christum Ihesum dominum nostrum in omnibus attendentes, illum pre omnibus et super omnia diligentes, illi flagrantes, eius presentie inhiantes, ad illum suspirantes, cum illo totis desideriis in celis regnare cupientes…” DCL B.IV.12, f.38v. On the use of parchment as a metaphor in the Middle Ages, see Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart (Chicago, 2000) and Dieter Richter, “Die Allegorie der Pergamentherstellung,” in Fachliteratur des Mittelalters, ed. Gerhard Eis (Stuttgart, 1968): 83-92
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The metaphor, in other words, was predicated on the idea of a text as a representation
of its author’s presence.6
This idea, however, was only part of the sermon’s metaphor; while it might
seem like the sermon’s audience became a metaphorical “author” writing in the book of
conscience, he was in fact only a scribe. His task was to copy from an exemplar,
namely the life of Christ himself. In a well-written book of conscience, the real author
of the text was not the human devotee, but the divine Christ. Furthermore, the sermon
noted that by copying the life of Christ into the book of his conscience, the scribe was
trying to actualize the presence of Christ.7 By suggesting that the life of Christ was an
exemplar for the conscience of the reader, the sermon established a particular form of
devotion, one based on modeling one’s own life on the life of Christ, thus tending
toward and entering into the presence of the divine.
The central metaphor of the sermon thus brought together particular conceptions
of two different forms of practice: literate practice, in the form of textual production
and authorship, and devotional practice, in the form of spiritual perfection through the
imitation of Christ. The link between these two ideas was established by the notion of
presence, central to both spiritual discipline and textual identity. The sermon exploited
this overlap to construct its foundational metaphor. Treating the text as constituting the
presence of its author made it possible to think of one’s conscience as a text. It likewise
created the possibility that Christ’s life could be the exemplar for that text, thus 6 An important idea in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe. See John Van Engen, “Letters, Schools, and Written Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Dialektik und Rhetoric im früherem und hohen Mittelalter, ed. Johannes Fried (Munich, 1997). Also Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,” American Historical Review 105 (2000), 1489-90. 7 See above, n.5.
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revealing Christ’s presence. Devotion was performed by modeling one’s conscience on
Christ’s life and thereby entering into his presence. The written word, understood as a
representation of its author, served as an apt metaphor for this process.
It is not known whether this sermon was originally composed at Durham
Cathedral Priory. The use of books, writing, and parchment as metaphors was
widespread in the Middle Ages, although the use of scribal labor as an allegory may
point to a monastic origin and its presence in a book from Durham certainly indicates a
monastic audience.8 Regardless of its place of composition, however, the sermon in
DCL B.IV.12 reflected ideas that were central to the cultural life of the monastic
community at Durham. Both the literate culture and the spiritual life of the monastery
were organized around the idea of presence. In general, however, the “presence” around
which spirituality at the community was organized was not the presence of Christ, but
rather the presence of their local patron saint, Saint Cuthbert, exemplified by the
monks’ possession of his miraculously incorrupt body.9 The presence of Saint Cuthbert
was the central feature of both corporate identity and individual spiritual progress at
Durham. It was within the context of the community’s devotion to Cuthbert, their
respect for his authority, and their focus on his presence that Durham’s literate culture
emerged.
8 The sermon is known to exist in only one other copy, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Ms. 351/568, ff.92v-93r, from the thirteenth century. This copy, as noted by the Rouses, is rife with scribal errors and is probably derivative from the Durham copy. See “From Flax to Parchment,” 1. 9 Still recognized as the central feature of Durham’s spiritual identity at the time of its suppression in 1536. See Rites of Durham, being a description or brief declaration of all the ancient monuments, rites and customs belonging or being within the monastical church of Durham before the suppression, SS 107 (Durham, 1903).
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Durham Cathedral Priory and the Cult of Saint Cuthbert: History and Sources
The history of the monastic community that came to be settled at Durham is tied
to the history of Northumbria from the seventh to the twelfth centuries.10 The
community was originally established on the island of Lindisfarne, probably founded
by Saint Aidan in the early to mid seventh century at the request of King Oswald, later
revered as a saint himself as the result of his martyrdom. Cuthbert, who was, according
to his vita, a local Northumbrian shepherd, entered the monastery in mid-seventh
century, possibly around 651, after having a vision of Aidan’s soul being carried up to
heaven.11 Later in his life, he retired to the more secluded Farne Island to live as a
hermit, a practice that would be imitated by others in the twelfth century. Toward the
end of the seventh century, probably in 684, he was persuaded to abandon his
hermitage to become the bishop of Lindisfarne.12 Upon his death, he was buried in the
monastery at Lindisfarne. Some years later, his body was discovered to be miraculously
incorrupt and was credited with many miracles, which led to the growth of his cult and
10 On which, see David Rollason, Northumbria, 500-1100: creation and destruction of a kingdom, 500-1100 (Cambridge, 2003). Also the essays in Jane Hawkes and Susan Mills (eds.), Northumbria’s Golden Age (Phoenix Mill, 1999). For post-Conquest period, see W.E. Kapelle, The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and its Transformation, 1000-1135 (London, 1979). 11 Bede the Venerable, Two Lives of Cuthbert, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940, repr. 1985): 165. The best introduction to Cuthbert’s life and cult are the essays collected in Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (eds.), St. Cuthbert, his Cult and Community to AD 1200 (Woodbridge, 1989). 12 op. cit., 239. There may have been some irregularity in Cuthbert’s election. Some evidence suggests that he was, in fact, elevated to a different vacant bishopric, and then traded that position with the current bishop of Lindisfarne so that he could remain with the community. England, unlike most of Europe, had a particular arrangement in which cathedrals, although headed by a bishop, were staffed by monks. On the phenomenon generally see Everett Crosby, Bishop and Chapter in Twelfth-Century England: A Study of the Mensa Episcopalis (Cambridge, 1994).
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spurred the Venerable Bede to compose both a prose and verse life of Cuthbert,
probably around 720.13
During the seventh and eighth centuries, Lindisfarne enjoyed relative prosperity.
The production of the sumptuous Lindisfarne Gospels in the early eighth century is
indicative of a flourishing Anglo-Saxon culture.14 However, the end of that century saw
the start of Viking attacks on the island, and in 875 the community fled Lindisfarne,
taking the body of Cuthbert with it and settling at Chester-le-Street.15 The community
dwelt there for just over a century, establishing connections with the local nobility and
English royalty. In 995, the community moved to Durham and established the seat of an
episcopal see.16 By this point, the community serving Cuthbert had become hereditary
secular clerks who married and passed on their office to their children. Following the
Conquest, the first Norman-appointed bishop, Walcher, a clerk from Liège, attempted
to reform the community, but was murdered by local nobility in 1080. In 1083, his
successor William of St.-Calais expelled the clerks and replaced them with a
community of monks drawn from the community at Jarrow, recently re-founded as part
13 Two Lives of St. Cuthbert, 13-16. 14 On which, see Michelle Brown’s study, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe (London, 2003) and the bibliography there. Richard Gameson, “Why did Eadfrith write the Lindisfarne Gospels?” in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies present to Henry Mary-Harting, ed. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford, 2001): 45-58 provides an interesting perspective on the production of the gospel book. 15 See Bonner, “St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” in St. Cuthbert for the community and cult at Chester-le-Street. 16 Although it was later suggested that Cuthbert performed a miracle to reveal his desired resting place, the highly defensible location at Durham certainly had something to do with it selection as the site of the bishopric and community. On Durham during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, see the valuable collection of essays in David Rollason, Margaret Harvey, and Michael Prestwich (eds.), Anglo-Norman Durham, 1093-1193 (Woodbridge, 1994). For an examination of the social and political networks of Durham during this time, see William Aird, St. Cuthbert and the Normans: the Church of Durham, 1071-1153 (Woodbridge and Rochester, 1998).
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of a general revival of Benedictine monasticism that swept northern England in the late
tenth and eleventh centuries.17
William of St.-Calais’ reform of the monastic community was part of a broader
program of intellectual and cultural reform that he initiated at Durham, in which the
monastic community became an active participant.18 Among his other projects was the
construction of a new cathedral, which led to the reinspection and translation of
Cuthbert’s body in 1104, a moment of great celebration and significance that was
described in detail by the community’s historians.19 The intellectual reform of the
community also fostered a flourishing literate community and the composition of many
treatises by members of the community at Durham.
Prior to its reform in 1083, the community charged with the care of Saint
Cuthbert produced only two works that provide insight into its textual and devotional
cultures.20 The first is the so-called Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, a semi-historical,
17 See Mechtild Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundation of the English Benedictine Reform (Cambridge, 1999) and Janet Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215 (Cambridge, 1999). With more particular reference to Durham, Julia Barrow, “English Cathedral Communities and Reform in the Late Tenth and the Eleventh Centuries” in AND, 25-40 and Janet Burton, “The Monastic Revival in Yorkshire: Whitby and St. Mary’s, York,” in AND, 41-52. 18 William of St.-Calais has never been the subject of a full study, though his career is well-known and well-documented. The first examination of it that I know of is Léon Guilloreau, “Guillaume de Saint-Calais, évêque de Durham,” Revue historique et archéologique du Maine 74 (1913): 209-32 and 75 (1914): 64-79. The understanding of William’s career has been much influenced by the work of H.S. Offler, stated most clearly in “William of Saint-Calais, First Norman Bishop of Durham,” Transaction of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland 10 (1950): 258-79. See also, ibid., “The Tractate De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi,” English Historical Review 66 (1951): 321-41. A recent reconsideration of some aspects of William’s career is William Aird, “An Absent Friend: The Career of Bishop William of St.-Calais,” in AND, 283-97. 19 See Capitula de miraculis et translationis Cuthberti in Symeonis Opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold I: 247-61; Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus quae novellis patratae sunt temporibus, SS 1 (1835): 84-90. 20 There is also some manuscript evidence for the cult of Cuthbert before the late eleventh century, most notably Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms. 183, an important early manuscript of material relating to Cuthbert’s life, possibly given to the community at Chester-le-Street by the Anglo-Saxon King
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semi-documentary treatise outlining the history and possessions of the community of
Cuthbert. This text was written either in the mid-tenth century at Chester-le-Street or in
the mid-eleventh century at Durham.21 The second is a short chronicle usually referred
to as the Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis, probably written in the late-eleventh
century, which H.H.E. Craster has reconstructed from later sources and which may
have comprised part of the “Book of the High Altar.”22 After 1083, however, there was
a virtual explosion of works produced by the community at Durham. The earliest of
these are associated with Symeon of Durham (d.1129), a scribe at Durham active
around 1090, who was made cantor sometime before 1126.23 He is the author of what is
undoubtedly the most important text for understanding Durham’s intellectual and
spiritual culture at the time of its reform and in the following decades, a historical work
Athelstan. See Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms. 183” in St. Cuthbert, 414-23. These manuscripts will be discussed in Chapter 3, but for manuscripts probably present at Chester-le-Street, see Gerald Bonner, “St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street” in St. Cuthbert, 390-92. 21 I will use and cite the version printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, 2 vols, Rolls Series 75 (1882-85), Vol. I: 196-214. Although the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is highly dependent on earlier sources, primarily Bede, for its material, it remains a valuable source for understanding the nature of Cuthbert’s cult before the eleventh century. It was originally believed to have been composed in the mid-tenth century, as established by H.H.E. Craster, “The Patrimony of St. Cuthbert,” English Historical Review 69 (1954): 177-99. See also Luisella Simpson, “The King Alfred/St. Cuthbert Episode in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: Its Significance for Mid-Tenth Century English History,” in St. Cuthbert, 397-411 and David Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex” in St. Cuthbert, 413-14. n.b. I have only recently become of aware of Ted Johnson South’s edition and translation of the Historia de sancto Cuthberto (Cambridge, 2002). I have made use of his introduction and analysis of the text, but not his edition or translation. 22 See H.H.E. Craster, “The Red Book of Durham,” English Historical Review 40 (11925): 523-29 for both information about and an edition of this text. It is also a highly derivative text and, in general, not valuable for this study. 23 On Symeon, in general, see the essays collected in David Rollason (ed.), Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North (Stamford, 1998). Also important for its reconstruction of Symeon’s early career is Michael Gullick, “The Scribes of the Durham Cantor’s Book (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B.IV.24) and the Durham Martyrology Scribe,” in AND, 93-110. David Rollason, “Symeon’s Contribution to Historical Writing in Northern England,” in Symeon of Durham, 1-13, summarizes what is known of his career and works currently.
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titled the Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis ecclesiae.24
He was probably also the author of a chronicle of English history known as the Historia
Regum.25
Several other compositions from Durham were contemporary with Symeon’s
writings. Among the most important for this project is the hagiographical composition
referred to as the Capitula de miraculis et translationibus sancti Cuthberti, probably
composed in several sections, some of which either borrowed from or were borrowed
by Symeon’s Libellus.26 Dateable either to the late eleventh century or perhaps the
24 Several edited editions of this exist, including those in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold and Symeonis Dunelmensis opera et collectanea, ed. J. Hodgson Hinde, SS 51 (1868). By far the best edition, however, is the recent critical edition and translation of David Rollason, Libellus de exordio atque procursu istitus, hoc est Dunhelmensis (Oxford, 2000). Citations will be to this edition and, unless otherwise noted, I will follow Rollason’s translation. Significant parts of this text are borrowed from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. There is a great deal of literature on the nature of this work and the motives underlying its composition. It has generally been accepted that its chief purpose was to justify William of St.-Calais’ replacement of the clerical community with a monastic community. See particularly David Rollason, “Symeon of Durham and the Community of Durham in the Eleventh Century,” in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. Carola Hicks (Stamford, 1992): 183-98 and Meryl Foster, “Custodians of St. Cuthbert: The Durham Monks’ Views of their Predecessors, 1083-c.1200,” in AND, 53-66. Alan Piper, however, has suggested that its main purpose may have been to establish a “constitution” of sorts for the monastic community, intended to assert the rights of the community in the face of William of St.-Calais’ successor, Ranulf Flambard. See A.J. Piper, “The First Generations of Durham Monks and the Cult of St. Cuthbert,” in St. Cuthbert, 442-444. W.M. Aird argues further for this position: “The Political Context of the Libellus de exordio,” in Symeon of Durham, 32-45. On manuscripts of the Libellus, see Michael Gullick, “The Two Earliest Manuscripts of the Libellus de exordio,” in Symeon of Durham, 106-119 and David Rollason, “The Making of the Libellus de exordio: The Evidence of Erasures and Alterations in the Two Earliest Manuscripts,” in Symeon of Durham, 140-156. 25 Printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, II: 3-283. Citations are to this edition. It is translated in Church Historians of England, trans. Stevenson, vol. III, part 2: 425-617. Translations are mine unless otherwise noted. The authorship of this work is still under some dispute, although it now seems certain to have been produced at Durham and is probably the work of Symeon. See Rollason, “Symeon’s Contribution to Historical Writing,” in Symeon of Durham, 10 and J.E. Story, “Symeon as Annalist,” in J.E. Story, “Symeon as Annalist,” in Symeon of Durham, 202-213, which draws on some conclusions regarding the manuscript of this work from Bernard Meehan, “Durham Twelfth Manuscripts in Cistercians Houses,” in AND 439-450, elaborated by Christopher Norton, “History, Wisdom and Illumination,” Symeon of Durham, 61-105. 26 Printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, I: 229-61 and II: 333-62. Citations are to this edition. On its dating see Bertram Colgrave, ‘The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert,” in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H.M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), ed. C. Fox and B
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1120s is the work De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi per Willelmum regem,
an account of a lawsuit brought against William of St.-Calais that led to his exile in
1088.27 Two short works of history, the De obsessione Dunelmi et de probitate Uhtredi
comities and the De primo Saxonum adventu, were probably also composed at Durham
during Symeon’s career.28
The productive literary culture of Durham Priory continued throughout the
twelfth century under William of St.-Calais’ successors, including Ranulf Flambard
(1099-1128) and Hugh de Puiset (1153-1195).29 Lawrence of Durham, whose writings
Dickins (Cambridge, 1950): 305-32 and Kurt Ulrich Jäschke, “Remarks on Dating in the Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis ecclesiae,” in Symeon of Durham, 46-60. 27 Printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, I: 170-95 and translated by R.C. van Caenegam, English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I, 90-106, which reproduces the Latin of Arnold’s edition on the facing page. I follow van Caenegam’s translation of this text. The dating of this text is under debate. It purports to be an eyewitness account, written in the late-eleventh century at Durham. H.S. Offler, “The Tractate De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi,” EHR 66 (1951): 321-41, argued that it is a fabrication of the mid-twelfth century, perhaps the 1120s. Its authenticity was reasserted recently by Mark Philpott, “The De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi and Canon Law in Anglo-Norman Durham,” in AND, 125-137. Philpott notes that one of William of St.-Calais’ gifts to the monastic community was a book of canon law known as the Decreta Pontificum, now Cambridge, Peterhouse College Ms. 74. In the margins of this manuscript are a series of sigla which mark the same passages that the De iniusta vexacione Willelmi depicts William of St.-Calais using for his defense. In a forthcoming new edition of the text edited by H.S. Offler, De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi per Willelmum regem filium Willelmi magni regis (Camden Series, forthcoming), he defends his original position. 28 Both printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, vol I: 215-220 and vol. II: 365-84 respectively. 29 The bishops of Durham during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries were: Walcher of Liège (1071-1080); William of St.-Calais (1081-1096); Ranulf Flambard (1099-1128); Geoffrey Rufus (1133-1140); William of St. Barbara (1143-1153); Hugh de Puiset (1153-1195). Apart of from William of St.-Calais, Ranulf Flambard and Hugh de Puiset are the best studied of these bishops. On the former, see R.W. Southern, “Ranulf Flambard,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970): 183-205; H.S. Offler, “Ranulf Flambard as Bishop of Durham (1099-1128),” Durham University Journal 64 (1971): 14-25; J.O. Prestwich, “The Career of Ranulf Flambard,” in AND, 299-310. He is also the bishop who reportedly attempted to seduce Christina of Markyate. See The Life of Christina Markyate, ed. C.H. Talbot (Oxford, 1959): 40-42. Although now somewhat outdated, the best introduction to the life and career of Hugh de Puiset remains G.V. Scammell, Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham (Cambridge, 1956). It is important to note that all three of these figures, William of St.-Calais, Ranulf Flambard, and Hugh de Puiset, were as much a part of the court administration of the English Crown as they were part of the monastic culture of Durham. They were often absent from the Priory. They may have also
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span c.1130-1154, spent some time at court with Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, and his
writing seems to have been influenced by courtly Latin literature. He was, however,
also deeply immersed in Durham’s monastic culture. He returned to the community
after Rufus’ death, becoming its precentor, sub-prior, and eventually prior in 1149.30
Lawrence was the author of a work titled the Hypognosticon, a versified summary of
the bible and salvation history, the Dialogi Prioris et Monachi, a versified dialogue that
used Lawrence’s personal history and the calamities that befell Durham during the
usurpation of William Cumin to explore the work of God in human affairs, and a
prosimetric dialogue titled the Consolatio de morte amici.31 He also wrote several short
compositions, including a verse drama of Christ’s appearance to his disciples and five
prose speeches on various topics.32
introduced certain elements of courtly and humanistic culture into Durham. See Chapter 3 for further reflection on this possibility. 30 On Lawrence’s career see the introduction by A.G. Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem. A Verse Translation,” The Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1997): 42-45 and the introduction in Susanne Daub, Gottes Heilsplan – verdichtet: Edition des Hypognosticon des Laurentius Dunelmensis (Erlangen, 2002). Lawrence died in 1153 on the way home from Rome, having sought and obtained papal confirmation of the appointment of Hugh de Puiset as bishop of Durham. 31 The Hypognosticon has been edited by Susanne Daub, Gottes Heilsplan –verdichtet: Edition des Hypognosticon des Laurentius Dunelmensis (Erlangen, 2002). Citations follow this edition. The printed edition of the Dialogi is James Raine (ed.), Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis monachi ac prioris, SS 70 (1880). It has also been translated by A.G. Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem. A Verse Translation,” Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1997): 42-126. Unless otherwise noted, I follow Rigg’s translation. Citations will be to Rigg’s translation followed by Raine’s printed edition. The only printed edition of the Consolatio is Udo Kindermann (ed.), Laurentius von Durham: Consolatio de morte amici. Untersuchungen und kritischer Text (Ph.D Thesis, Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1969). Citations are to this edition. On William Cumin’s usurpation of the bishopric of Durham, see A. Young, William Cumin: Border Politics and the Bishopric of Durham (York, 1978). 32 The verse drama on Christ, titled Rithmus de Christo et eius discipulis has been printed by Udo Kindermann, “Das Emmausgedicht des Laurentius von Durham,” Mittellalteinisches Jahrbuch 5 (1968): 87-100. It is also translated by A.G. Rigg in “Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem.” I will follow Rigg’s translation. Citations will be to Rigg’s translation and to Kindermann’s edition. The five speeches of Lawrence, not of great importance to this project, are printed by Udo Kindermann, “Die fünf Reden des Laurentius von Durham,” Mittellalteinisches Jahrbuch 8 (1971): 108-41.
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Two writers dominated the second half of the twelfth century at Durham, both
of whom composed mainly hagiography. The first was Reginald of Durham (d.1175?),
who was probably wrote in the 1160s-70s, and may have been an occasional resident of
the priory’s dependent cell at Coldingham.33 He was the author of a work on the
miracles of Saint Cuthbert, the Libellus de virtutis et admirandis miraculi Sancti
Cuthberti, a work on the life and miracles of Durham’s best-known hermit, Godric of
Finchale, the Libellus de vita et miraculis Sancti Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, and a
life of the martyred King Oswald, the Vita sancti Oswaldi Regis et Martyris.34 He is
also likely the author of The Miracles of Saint Aebbe of Coldingham, which he may
have written while at the dependent cell.35 The second writer was Geoffrey of Durham,
who was a monk at Durham in the last years of the twelfth century and the early part of
the thirteenth century, and probably the sacrist of the cell at Coldingham by 1214.36 He
was the author of three works, a life of another hermit associated with Durham, the Vita 33 On what little is known of Reginald’s life and career, see William Arlie Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham: The Writing of History and Hagiography in Twelfth-Century Northumbria (Ph.D Thesis, Ottawa, 1993), 25-29. 34 The text of Reginald’s work on the miracles of Cuthbert is printed in James Raine (ed.), Libellus de admirandis Beati Cuthberti virtutibus quae novellis patratae sunt temporibus, SS 1 (London, 1835). On the place of this text in Durham’s religious life, see Victoria Tudor, “The Cult of St. Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham,” in St. Cuthbert, 447-468. Tudor argues that the text was composed in two parts, the first 111 chapter around 1165-67, the last 30 chapters around 1172-74. The text of the life of Godric of Finchale is printed in Joseph Stevenson (ed.), Libellus de vita et miraculis S. Godrici, heremitae de Finchale, SS 20 (London, 1847). See Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham, 29-43, who notes that it is likely that Reginald knew Godric in person. The text of Reginald’s life of Oswald is printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, vol. I: 326-85. On some of the dominant themes and influences on Reginald, see Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham, Chaps. 2 and 3. 35 Edited and translated by Robert Bartlett, The Miracles of Saint Aebbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland (Oxford and New York, 2003). I follow Bartlett’s translation unless otherwise noted. Reginald’s authorship of the work is not certain. Neither of the surviving manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Fairfax Ms. 6 and BL Lansdowne Ms. 436, ascribe the work to him. However, the author of the text suggests that he is in residence at Coldingham when composing it, and Reginald’s association with the dependent cell makes him the most likely candidate for its composition. What little was known of Aebbe’s life comes from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, IV:25, which the author heavily relied upon. 36 On Geoffrey’s career, see Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham, 142-143.
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Bartholomaei Farnensis, an updated life of Godric of Finchale, the Vita Sancti Godrici,
and a short history of the bishops of Durham, usually referred to as the Historia de statu
ecclesiae Dunhelmensis.37 Finally, two continuations of Symeon’s Libellus de exordio
were composed over the course of the twelfth century. The first, usually referred to as
the Continuatio Prima, was probably written in the 1160s, the second, referred to as the
Continuatio Altera, was composed in the 1170s or 1180s.38
In addition to all of these treatises, there is abundant surviving manuscript
evidence from which Durham’s textual and devotional cultures can be reconstructed.
As Richard Gameson notes, along with Exeter, Rochester, and Salisbury, Durham has
one of the best survival rates for manuscripts from the late eleventh and twelfth
centuries.39 It has also been studied extensively, meaning that, although important
questions remain, the general contours of Durham’s program of manuscript acquisition
and production are fairly well established.40 Although many manuscripts from the
37 The life of Bartholomew is printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, vol I: 295-325. Geoffrey’s life of Godric is printed in the Acta Sanctorum: Vita Sancti Godrici auctore Galfrido, AS May 5: 70-85. His historia is printed in James Raine (ed.), Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres: Gaudridus de Coldingham, Robertus de Graystanes, et Willelmus de Chambre, SS 9 (London, 1839): 3-31. Most manuscripts treat this text as a continuation of Symeon’s Libellus, and it is likely that Geoffrey viewed it as such. On the social and political context of Geoffrey’s work, see Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham, Chaps. 5 and 6. 38 The first is printed and translated in Rollason’s edition of the Libellus de exordio, 266-323. The second is printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, vol. I: 161-169. Geoffery of Durham probably conceived of his history of the bishops as a third continuation of Symeon’s text. 39 Richard Gameson, “English Book Collection in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Century: Symeon’s Durham and its Context,” in Symeon of Durham, 248. 40 On the formation of Durham’s library from the time of the conquest until c.1125, see op. cit., 248-250. The most important entry point for the study of Durham’s manuscripts continues to be R.A.B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939), hereafter cited as DCM. See also the list in A.J. Watson, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Supplement to Second Edition (London, 1987): 16-34, itself an updated version of N.R Ker, Medieval Library of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 1964): 60-76. On the organization of some of these manuscripts in the community, see A.J. Piper, “The Libraries of the Monks of Durham,” in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries, ed. Malcolm Parkes (London, 1978): 213-241. A general
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community’s pre-Conquest period survive, including several dating as far back as the
seventh or eighth century, in reconstructing Durham’s written and spiritual culture, I
will examine primarily those from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was during
this period, which followed William of St.-Calais’ reform, that Durham’s textual
culture flourished, spurred by William’s own patronage of manuscripts and subsequent
bequest of his collection to the monastic community.41
study of manuscripts in Northumbria during our period is Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbriain the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge, 2003), which contains significant analysis of Durham manuscripts. See also eadem., “The Artistic Influence of Durham Manuscripts,” in AND, 451-470. 41 The books given by William of St.-Calais to the monastic community upon his death in 1109 have been the subject of much scrutiny. They are listed on the front flyleaf of one of the gifted books, the Carilef Bible, DCL A.II.4. On this list see C.H. Turner, “The Earliest List of Durham Manuscripts,” Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1918): 121-32; on the manuscripts A.C. Browne, “Bishop William of St. Carilef’s Book Donations to Durham Cathedral Priory,” Scriptorium 42 (1988): 140-55. Also the important article of Michael Gullick, “The Scribe of the Carilef Bible: A New Look at Some Late-Eleventh Century Durham Cathedral Manuscripts,” in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. Linda L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, CA, 1990): 61-83, which attempts to sort which of the Calais books were produced in Normandy during the bishop’s exile and which were produced at Durham.
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Chapter 3
Devotion at Durham Cathedral Priory: The Cult of Saints
This chapter will explore the development of spiritual life at the community of
Durham, which was deeply hagiographical in nature and centered primarily on the cult
of St. Cuthbert. The vitality of Cuthbert’s cult depended on his presence in the
community as exemplified by their possession of his miraculously incorrupt body.
Cuthbert’s presence and spiritual authority within the community were the central ideas
guiding religious life at Durham. In the first part of this chapter, I will demonstrate that,
although the presence of St. Cuthbert was always central to the corporate and spiritual
identity of the community that settled at Durham, the community’s understanding of his
presence underwent a series of changes during the late eleventh and early twelfth
centuries, gradually becoming something to be encountered as part of an individual’s
spiritual reform. This understanding of the saint’s presence as something to be
interiorized crystallized just as Durham’s written culture began to flourish. In the
second part of this chapter, I will examine how Cuthbert’s cult assumed increasingly
textualized dimensions and the effects of this transformation on conceptions of
hagiographic texts in particular and on devotional life more generally. I will
demonstrate how the written word became another means of encountering Cuthbert’s
presence alongside his relics, as well as exploring the relationship between his
corporeal and written forms of presence.
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3.1 The Bodily Presence of Saint Cuthbert and Spiritual Reform
The central feature of spiritual life and devotional practice at Durham Priory
was devotion to Saint Cuthbert and a group of other local saints, accompanied by the
memorialization and promulgation of their cults through the composition of
hagiographical texts.1 Such a focus was hardly unusual in the English religious
landscape, but the scope and popularity of Cuthbert’s cult, along with its endurance
after the Norman Conquest and integration within Norman religious structures, make it
exemplary in many ways.2 The earliest complete sources for Cuthbert’s cult include
three vitae of the saint. One of these was an anonymous Life probably composed by a
monk of Lindisfarne in the opening years of the eighth century. The other two, which
rely upon the anonymous Life but exercised more influence in later centuries, are the
1 The study of devotion to saints and hagiography was one of the fields of medieval history most revolutionized by the importation of the methods of social anthropology, which enabled historians to see saints and their miraculous powers as central structures in the creation of functional communities. See, among others, Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, rev. ed., 1990); Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800-1200 (Cambridge, 1990); Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981). Note, however, that this methodology led to a focus on the early Middle Ages in the study of saints’ cults. For an introduction to problems of the genre of hagiography, see Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford and New York, 1988). The best introduction to Cuthbert’s cult are the essays collected in Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (eds.), St. Cuthbert, his Cult and Community to AD 1200 (Woodbridge, 1989), hereafter St. Cuthbert, though only one of the essays pertains to the twelfth century. See also C.F. Battiscombe (ed.), The Relics of Saint Cuthbert (Oxford, 1956), Dominic Marner, St. Cuthbert: His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham (Toronto, 2000), David Kirby, “The genesis of a cult: Cuthbert of Farne and ecclesiastical politics in Northumbria in the late seventh and early eighth centuries,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46 (1995): 383-97, and Chaps. 1, 3, and 6 of William Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham: The Writing of History and Hagiography in Twelfth-Century Northumbria (Ottawa, Ph.D Thesis, 1993). 2 On English saints’ cults and hagiography, see Ronald C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (New York, 1977, repr. 1995) and Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracles Stories in Twelfth-Century England (Oxford, 2006). Studies of other saints’ cults in England include, among others, Susan E. Wilson, The Life and After-life of St. John of Beverley: the evolution of the cult of an Anglo-Saxon Saint (Aldershot, 2006); Julia Barrow and Nicholas Brooks (eds.), St. Wulfstan and his World (Aldershot, 2005); Nigel Ramsay, Margaret Sparks, and T.W.T Tatton-Brown (eds.), St. Dunstan: His Life, Times, and Cult (Woodbridge, 1992).
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prose and metrical vitae composed by the Venerable Bede, the former of which was
probably written in the 720s.3 The most relevant source to this study is the text now
generally known as the Historia de sancto Cuthberto, a semi-hagiographical, semi-
documentary text produced either in the mid tenth or early eleventh century by the
community of St. Cuthbert while residing at Chester-le-Street. This text is a key source
for the early institutional and political history of Cuthbert’s community, but it also
contains important evidence for the nature of the spirituality of this community.4
There are several overarching themes of the Historia de sancto Cuthberto. The
most fundamental is the community’s possession of the body of Saint Cuthbert and the
continual presence of the saint as represented by his body. The section of the text that
describes the community’s wanderings with the saint’s body after having been expelled
from Lindisfarne emphasizes this theme particularly well. It begins by stating that
“bishop Eardulf and abbot Eadred carried the body of Saint Cuthbert away from the
island of Lindisfarne at that time, and wandered across the land with it, carrying it from
3 The anonymous vita and the prose vita of Bede are edited and translated in Bertram Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge, 1940). On Bede’s Lives see Walter Berschin, “Opus deliberatum ac perfectum: Why Did the Venerable Bede Write a Second Prose Life of St. Cuthbert,” in St. Cuthbert, 95-102 and Michael Lapidge, “Bede’s Metrical Vita S. Cuthberti,” in St. Cuthbert, 77-93. Bede included some additional material about Cuthbert in the Historia ecclesiastica. 4 I will use and cite the version printed in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold, 2 vols, Rolls Series 75 (1882-85), Vol. I: 196-214. For relevant bibliography and other editions of this text, see n.21 in the “Introduction” to Part II. As noted there, I have only recently become aware of Ted Johnson South’s edition and translation of the work, and I have not yet been able to make full use of it. To call the Historia de sancto Cuthberto a “tenth-century composition” is, admittedly, an oversimplification, as the complete text is probably the result of several stages of composition and interpolations, the nature of which are not yet settled. See South, Historia, 29-36 and Luisella Simpson, “The King Alfred/St. Cuthbert Episode in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto: Its significance for mid-tenth century English History” in St. Cuthbert, 397-411. For my purposes, the date and nature of the text is mostly important insofar as it represents a precursor to the developments of the late-eleventh and twelfth centuries.
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place to place for seven years…”5 The passage focused not on the community’s
expulsion from Lindisfarne, but rather emphasizes that, despite being exiled from their
abbey, they maintained their corporate identity by retaining possession of Cuthbert’s
body. The text also contains a story in which the carriers of the body try to bear it
across the sea to Ireland, but are miraculously prevented from doing so, demonstrating
the connection between the saint’s body and his ability to direct the future of the
community. This passage also demonstrates a second, parallel concern of the Historia,
that is, the spiritual geography and spatialization that is established by and around the
body, both in the form of its resting place and those landed properties which belong to
the saint and his community. In the second-oldest manuscript copy of the text, found on
pages 195-202 of Cambridge University Library Ff.1.27, it is given the rubric, “here
begins the history of Saint Cuthbert and a record of the places and regions once in his
possession, from antiquity until the present time.”6 This title is, in fact, an apt
description of much of the Historia, which focuses on the location of Cuthbert’s body
and on the lands which belong to him. In the Historia, for instance, the aftermath of
Cuthbert’s death is described not as a moment of spiritual crisis, as in Bede’s Life of St.
Cuthbert, but rather as a moment to establish the location of the body and to augment
5 Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 20: 207: “Eodem quoque tempore bonus episcopus Eardulfus et abbas Eadred tulerunt corpus sancti Cuthberti de Lindisfarnensi insula, et cum eo erraverunt in terra, portantes illud de loco in locum, per septem annos…” 6 op. cit., 196: “Incipit historia de sancto Cuthberto, et de commemoratione locorum regionumque eius priscae possessionis, a primordio usque nunc temporis.” The manuscript information is derived from Ted Johnson South, Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 17.
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the possessions of the community.7 Somewhat laconic with regards to Cuthbert’s actual
death, the Historia relates:
At this time Saint Cuthbert died, and was succeeded by bishop Ecgred, who transported a certain church, formerly made by Saint Aidan in the time of King Oswald, from the island of Lindisfarne to Norham and there rebuilt it, and translated to that place the body of saint Cuthbert and of king Ceolfwulf and gave the vill to the holy confessor along with two other villes, Jedburgh and [another?] Jedburgh, and whatever pertained to them, from Duna (?) to Jedmouth, and from there to Wilton, and from there beyond the hill to the south.8
Although the death of Cuthbert, often one of the key moments in the narrative of a
saint’s life, is encapsulated in only a few words, the location and movements of his
body, along with the properties donated to the saint after his death, are laid out in
remarkable detail.
These concerns are primarily a result of the socio-political situation in which
community found itself at the time of the Historia’s composition (or perhaps
compilation), circumstances that necessitated the production the work. The community
had been expelled from the church at Lindisfarne by Norse incursions and forced to
wander in exile for seven years before settling at Chester-le-Street. During these years,
the community likely faced the frequent danger of extinction, a fate that may have
befallen several other religious communities during the period.9 After settling at
7 For Bede’s account of Cuthbert’s death, see Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, 283-289. 8 Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 9: 201: “Hoc tempore obiit sanctus Cuthbertus, et successit Ecgred episcopus, qui transportavit quandam ecclesiam olim factam a beato Aidano, tempore Oswaldi regis, de Lindisfarnensi insula ad Northham, ibique eam reaedificavit, et illuc corpus sancti Cuthberti et Ceolwulfi regis transtulit, ipsamque villam sancto confessori dedit cum duabus aliis villis, Gedwearde et altera Gedwearde, et quiquid ad eas pertinet, a Duna usque ad Tefegemuthe, et inde ad Wiltuna, et inde ultra montem versus austrum.” 9 For a general consideration of the cult of Cuthbert during this period, see Gerald Bonner, “St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” in St. Cuthbert, 387-395.
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Chester-le-Street, the community’s continued survival amidst the fractured Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms and the increasing Danish presence depended on establishing a viable
economic status and cultivating powerful lay patrons. In this situation, the body of
Cuthbert and the spiritual currency associated with his favor would have been one of
the community’s greatest assets and the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto clearly reflected
an attempt to pair Cuthbert’s spiritual presence with the economic and political
standing of the community.
However, this context shaped the nature of spirituality and devotion to Cuthbert
at the time as well. The concerns of the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto therefore reflect
not only economic and political goals but also how the devotional life of the
community responded to its challenging context. The concern with lands and estates,
for instance, characterizes Cuthbert as a landowner and the possessors of his body as
caretakers of those lands. Devotion to the saint could be accomplished either through
watchful maintenance of his patrimony, which, arguably, was the very purpose of the
Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, or through the augmentation of those of lands in the form
gifts and donations. The latter idea constitutes a third major theme of the Historia,
complementing the detailed descriptions of lands and estates possessed by the saint.
Generally, these gifts come from powerful lay patrons. The most notable of these were
the Anglo-Saxon rulers of Wessex, beginning with Alfred. The Historia relates that
Alfred, having been aided by the intervention of Cuthbert in his struggles, at the end of
his life:
called his son Edward and through him sent to armbands and a golden thurible to Saint Cuthbert, and advised him diligently that he should love
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God and Saint Cuthbert and place his trust in then, just as he himself had always had and still did trust him greatly. And then, before God called this faithful king from his life, certain estates were added to the church of the holy confessor. For the aforementioned abbot Eadred obtained from the aforesaid King Guthred and from the army of the Danes, who had under him divided the land amongst themselves, the following vills: Monk Hesleden, Horden Hall, Yoden and Castle Eden, Hulam, Hutton Henry, Twilingatum, and these were conveyed to Saint Cuthbert.10
This passage, like many in the Historia, reveals Alfred’s particular devotion to Cuthbert
and shows devotion to the saint being enacted through the conveyance of lands and the
presentation of gifts to the saint.11 More subtle is the passage’s implication that these
gifts demonstrate not only Alfred’s devotion to Cuthbert, but mark the community’s
devotion to their saint as well. Indeed, according to the Historia, obtaining lay
patronage and gifts of land, which stabilized the patrimony of Cuthbert and ensured the
safety of his relics, represent the community’s main form of devotional activity.
Occasionally, the community’s territorial acquisition was more active, as when the
bishop of the community, Cuthheard, “purchased with the money of Saint Cuthbert the
vill which is called Sedgefield along with whatever pertains to it.”12 In this case, the
10 Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 19: 206: “His et aliis quamplurimis virtutibus insignitus, postquam intellecti finem vitae sibi adesse, diu regnans, et bona confectus senectute, vocavit hunc eundem filium suum Eadwardum, et per eum transmisit sancto Cuthberto duas armillas, et aurem thuribulum, movitque eum diligenter, ut amaret Deum et Sanctum Cuthbertum, et speraret in eis, sicut ipse semper speravit, et adhuc maxime sperabat. Igitur, antequam Deus hunc fidelem sibi regem de hac vita vocaret, addita sunt quaedam paedia ecclesiae sancti confessoris. Nam Ethred supradictus abbas emit a praefato rege Guthred, et a Danorum exercitu, qui sibi sub eo terram diviserant, has villas: Seletun, Horetun, duas Geodene, Holum, Hotun, Twilingatun, et eas sancto Cuthberto contulit.” 11 On the link between Cuthbert, the community at Chester-le-Street, and Wessex, see Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex” and Simpson, “The King Alfred/St. Cuthbert Episode” in St. Cuthbert, 413-424 and 397-411 respectively. The sections relating to Alfred and the later Wessex rulers are among the most likely interpolations in the text, and may date from the early eleventh century, although Simpson argues that they are from the mid-tenth century. 12 Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 21: 208: “Eodem tempore Cuthardus, episcopus fidelis, emit de pecunia sancti Cuthberti villam quae vocatur Ceddesfeld, et quicquid ad eam pertinet…”
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community bypassed the need for a lay donor, instead using its own funds to augment
the patrimony of Cuthbert.
It was also important that donors physically visit the saint himself, as
represented by his body, when offering their gifts. Although Alfred of Wessex never
accomplished this act, he instructed his son Edward to do in his stead. The most
notable visit to the Cuthbert’s shrine was made by Athelstan, Edward’s son and
successor. The Historia relates that Athelstan, while leading an army into Scotland,
“diverted to the oratory of Saint Cuthbert, gave many royal gifts to him, and composed
this signed testament and placed it at the head of Saint Cuthbert.”13 The Historia
includes a copy of the charter itself, which lists gifts of altarpieces, several books,
including a missal, two gospel books, and a life of Saint Cuthbert, along with a variety
of estates and vills.14 Athelstan’s brother, Edmund, repeated roughly the same process;
having diverted to the church while en route to Scotland, “he knelt before [Cuthbert’s]
tomb, offered up prayers, commended himself and his party to God and the holy
confessor…and he himself with his own hand placed two gold armbands and two Greek
palls upon the holy body.” Afterwards, he gave “peace and law” to the territory of
Cuthbert and confirmed the gifts of this brother. The link between devotion and
donations expressed in the Historia seems to have been contingent upon genuflection 13 Histoira de sancto Cuthberto, 26: 211: “Igitur Ethelstanus rex magnum exercitum de australi parte eduxit, et versus aquilonarem plagam in Scottiam illum secum trahens ad oratorium sancti Cuthberti divertit, eique regia munera dedict, et inde hoc subscriptum testamentum composuit, et ad caput sancti Cuthberti posuit.” 14 op. cit. One of the Gospel books is usually assumed to be London, BL Cotton Otho B.9, which contains a full page donor portrait showing Athelstan presenting a book to Cuthbert. The “life of Cuthbert” is often identified with Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183, which also has a full page image of a king and Cuthbert, which might be interpreted as a donor portrait. Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex,” in St. Cuthbert, has questioned this longstanding identification. For further discussion of this manuscript, see below pp. 237-38.
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before the body of the saint.15 This trend is not limited to the parts of the Historia that
deal with the links between Cuthbert and the rulers of Wessex. In an earlier section,
Cuthbert helped a boy named Guthred become ruler of Danes in exchange for land
between the Tyne and Wear Rivers. But the agreement is not fully completed until
“bishop Eardulf bore the body of Saint Cuthbert to the army…over which the king and
the army swore peace and fidelity so long as they might live, and they kept this oath
well.”16 The body of Cuthbert then, the focal point of his power, was the key site for
devotion to him and the guarantor of the relationship between saint and devotee
established by such gifts.17
One final feature of the Historia is important with regard to later developments.
Although Cuthbert’s presence and power were located most clearly within his body,
they were not limited to it. Cuthbert often appeared in his devotees’ visions either to
convey his wishes or to lend his aid to them. One example can be found at the start of
the story in which Cuthbert aided Guthred in becoming ruler of the Danes: “At that
time Saint Cuthbert appeared in the night to the holy abbot of Carlisle named Eadred, 15 Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 28: 212: “In eundo tamen ad oratorium sancti Cuthberti divertit, ante sepulchrum eius genua flexit, preces fudit, se et suos Deo et sancto confessori commendavit. Exercitus sexaginta libras obtulit; ipse vero manu propria duas armillas aureas, et duo pallia Graeca, supra santum corpus posuit; pacem vero et lege quam unquam habuit meliorem, omni terrae sancti Cuthberti dedit, datam confirmavit.” 16 Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 13: 203: “Tunc Eardulfus episcopus detulit ad illum exercitum, et ad illum montem, corpus sancti Cuthberti, super quod iuravit ipse rex et totus exercitus pacem et fidelitatem, donec viverent; et hoc iusiurandum bene servaverunt.” 17 The only other source for the nature of the community of Cuthbert’s relationship with the saint and of their devotions towards him before 1083 is the so-called Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis, reconstructed by Craster from the manuscript generally referred to as the “Red Book of Durham” (now London, Lincoln’s Inn, Hale 114) and attributed to him perhaps to the period 1072-1083. See H.H.E Craster, “The Red Book of Durham,” English Historical Review 40 (1925): 523-29. Although somewhat problematic in nature, this text generally confirms the patterns and themes set out in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto. See particularly its account of Edmund’s gifts to Cuthbert. It also makes mention of Cnut coming before the body of Cuthbert (“ad sepulcrum incorruptio corporis beati patris Cuthberti veniret…”) and making a significant donation of land and other gifts. See “Red Book of Durham,” 526-27.
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ordering him firmly in this way: “‘Go,’ he said, ‘over the Tyne to the Danish army and
say to them that if they wish to be obedient to me they ought show you a certain boy
named Guthred, son of Hardacnut, who is the slave of a widow.’”18 A similar incident
marks the start of Alfred of Wessex’s relationship with Cuthbert. While he is hiding in
the marshes around Glastonbury, Alfred shares his food with a pilgrim who passes by
and then disappears mysteriously. The text relates that later that night, “Alfred
remained awake…and behold, a great light shone like the sun, and within that light an
old priest with black hair appeared, wearing the clothes of a bishop and holding a
gospel book decorated with gold and gems.” Asked to identify himself, the figure
declared, “Dear Alfred, be happy, for I am the one to whom you charitably gave food
today, and I am called Cuthbert, the soldier of Christ,” and promised to defend Alfred
and his heirs.19 Neither of these visionary episodes, nor any other comparable
examples, appears in the early Lives of Cuthbert or Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica,
which generally include only miracles that occurred at or near the relics of Cuthbert.
The introduction of visionary intervention by Cuthbert then, although it may have had
precedent in earlier sources that are now lost, represents a development in the
18 Historia de sancto Cuthberto 13: 203: “Eo tempore sanctus Cuthbertus apparuit in nocte sancto abbati de Luercestre nomine Eaddred, talia ei firmiter iniungens: ‘Vade,’ inquit, ‘super Tinam ad exercitum Denorum et dic eis ut, si volunt mihi obedientes esse ostendant tibi emtitium quendam puerum cuiusdam viduae, nomine Guthred, filium Hardacnut…” 19 Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 15: 204-05: “Illa vero somno occupata dum Elfredus de diurno eventu sollicitus vigilaret, ecce lumen magnum sicut sol refulsit, et in ipso lumine senex sacerdos infulatus nigris quidem capillis, habens in dextera manu evangelii textum auro gemmisque ornatum apparuit, et sic eum vigilantem cum his verbis benedixit, et ab eo diligenter inquisitus quis esset et quomodo nominaretur: ‘Care,’ inquit, ‘Elfrede, letus esto, ego sum ille cui hodie cibum praebuisti caritative, vocor autem Cuthbertus Christi miles. Ego robustus, et attende diligenter et laeto animo quod tibi dixero. Nam ego deinceps ero scutum tuum et amicus tuus et defensor filiorum tuorum, et nunc dicam quid tibi post hac sit agendum…”
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spirituality associated with Cuthbert.20 Very probably motivated by a need to have
Cuthbert intervene with potential lay patrons who had not visited the shrine, it was an
idea that had the potential, to a certain extent, to destabilize the link between Cuthbert’s
presence and his body, and it was a trend that was developed extensively in the late
eleventh and twelfth centuries.21
To sum up, devotion to Cuthbert in the tenth and early eleventh centuries gave
pride of place to the body of Saint Cuthbert as the locus of his presence and spiritual
power. As a result, the location of his physical body was of great importance. This idea
was complemented by a broader concern with a sort of spiritual geography defined by
the estates and vills that belonged to Cuthbert and ensured the viability of his
community. Devotion to Cuthbert was mainly the practice of safeguarding and
augmenting this patrimony, an act performed both by Durham’s monastic community
and by powerful lay patrons, who were expected to respect and protect his patrimony.
While Cuthbert’s presence was chiefly located in his relics, it was not strictly bound to
them, as his emerging tendency to appear in visions to potential allies demonstrates.
The presence of Cuthbert here was thus a sort of generalized structuring principle for
the community. It was both an idea that defined their corporate identity and the most
20 For some commentary on the sources of these two episodes, both of which are often regarded as interpolations, see South, Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 5, 90-94, and 116-117. 21 Visionary interventions by Cuthbert play a notable role in the early twelfth century Capitula de miraculis et translationibus, the first four chapters of which are based on material from the Historia, and in Reginald of Durham’s Libellus de admirandis. For some further discussion of this development, see below pp. 209-212.
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important resource for sustaining the community.22 Certainly there were also other
forms of devotion to Cuthbert during this period, most notably the liturgy.23 However
the highest form of devotion seems to have been the maintenance of the community
itself. Cuthbert’s presence both ensured its maintenance and provided the reason for it.
In 995, the community, directed to the location by Cuthbert’s miraculous
intervention, relocated from Chester-le-Street to Durham.24 Following the Norman
invasion and the murder of his first nominee for bishop, William I appointed William of
St.-Calais to the bishopric of Durham in 1080. Having consulted texts by Bede and
others on the history of the community, William of St.-Calais decided to replace
Cuthbert’s clerical community with Benedictine monks from the resettled community
at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, a move he completed in 1083.25 It is impossible to
determine how many of the changes in the culture of the priory over the next century
would have happened regardless of this shift in personnel. There can be no doubt,
22 These conclusions echoes those of the fundamental study of the relationship between saints and social networks, Barbara Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909-1049 (Ithaca, 1989). 23 Aldred, the provost of the community at Chester-le-Street and the glossator of the Lindisfarne Gospels, Bodleian Library, Bodley Ms. 819, and the Durham Rituale (DCL A.IV.19), is known to have copied a section of a mass for Cuthbert into this last manuscript. Cambridge, Corpus Christi 183, the manuscript putatively given by Athelstan to the community, contains both a mass and an office for Saint Cuthbert composed somewhere in the south of England, the latter of which was adapted into monastic use at Durham in the first half of the twelfth century. See, briefly, Bonner, “St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” 393-94 or, more extensively, Christopher Hohler, “The Durham Services in Honour of St. Cuthbert,” in Relics, 155-191. 24 Symeon, Libellus de exordio, 147-153. 25 On the perceived relationship between the two communities, see A.J. Piper, “The First Generations of Durham Monks and the Cult of St. Cuthbert” in St. Cuthbert, 437-445; Meryl Foster, “Custodians of St. Cuthbert: The Durham Monks’ Views of their Predecessors, 1083-c.1200,” in Anglo-Norman Durham, 53-65; Aird, “The Political Context of the Libellus de exordio” in Symeon of Durham, 32-45 and ibid., St. Cuthbert and the Normans, 126-31 and 137-8; David Rollason, “Symeon of Durham and the Community of Durham in the Eleventh Century,” in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. C. Hicks (Stamford, 1992): 183-98. For further bibliography on the context of the community from Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, see the Introduction to Part II, n. 17.
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however, that the advent of both Norman influence and Benedictine monasticism at
Durham corresponded with significant cultural changes, only partially ameliorated by
the community’s attempts at maintaining some degree of continuity (or at least the
appearance of continuity).
Many of the spiritual and institutional traditions of the previous community
were, in one form or another, perpetuated through the late eleventh and the twelfth
centuries, but their tenor often changed and they were complemented by further
developments in Cuthbert’s cult.26 For instance, Symeon’s Libellus de exordio is often
preoccupied with lay patronage and the maintenance of the community’s estates, but
new concerns over the nature of the religious life at Durham generally outweigh this
preoccupation.27 Concern with Cuthbert’s body intensified during this period, but its
role in spiritual life began to change in important ways. Both the continued significance
of and the new roles assumed by Cuthbert’s body can be observed in an account of the
most important event surrounding the body in the early twelfth century, namely its
translation into a new shrine in the recently constructed cathedral of Durham in 1104.
Although completed in the episcopacy of Rannulf Flambard, the new cathedral was a
project initiated by William of St.-Calais. His plan to house Cuthbert’s relics in a new
26 For a survey of the cult of Cuthbert during this period, see Victoria Tudor, “The Cult of St. Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham,” in St. Cuthbert, 447-467. It is worth noting that the very culture of authority at Durham makes tracing changes in their devotional lives difficult, since it inclined the community to replicate earlier sources whenever possible. Large sections of the Capitula de miraculis, Symeon’s Libellus de exordio, and, to a lesser extent, Reginald’s Libellus de admirandis, are extracted from earlier sources. 27 For example, see Symeon’s relation of William the Conqueror’s visit to the tomb and oath to respect the rights of the community in Libellus de exordio, 198-201 and 229. For one of many examples in which Symeon’s relates the rights to certain vills or properties, see Libellus de exordio, 235-237, which notes the transfer of certain properties that belonged to the monks at Jarrow to community at Durham and William of St.-Calais’ respect for the rights of the monastic community to certain properties.
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shrine were part of the same program of religious renewal that led to the introduction of
a community of Benedictine monks as Cuthbert’s caretakers.
The earliest description of this event is in the text generally known as the
Capitula de miraculis et translationis Cuthberti, possibly written by Symeon of
Durham and composed nearly contemporaneously with the event.28 It is a highly
detailed account that reveals the attitudes of the monastic community toward the body
of Cuthbert. The De miraculis begins its account of the translation by noting that
certain people had doubts concerning the status of Cuthbert’s body: “among all the
frequent miracles, the same opinion was not held by everyone concerning either the
presence of the sacred body of blessed Cuthbert nor of its incorruption.”29 The
community arranged to resolve the issue through an inspection of the relics by the prior
and nine monks on the day of Cuthbert’s translation into the new cathedral. After much
prayer and fasting, ten members of the community opened the coffin and found another
little box inside, which contained Cuthbert’s relics. The knowledge that they were close
to seeing the very body of Cuthbert provoked intense, conflicting responses in the
group: “there was in them a mixture of joy and panic, because although they feared
giving offense [to Cuthbert] from their audacity, they nevertheless felt great joy from
28 Printed in Symeonis Opera. ed. Arnold I: 229-61 and II: 333-62. 29 De miraculis et translationis, I: 247: “Inter haec tam frequentium miraculourm opera non eadem apud omnes tam de praesentia sacri corporis beati Cuthberti, quam de incorruptione habebatur opinio.” Although the statement seems almost a rhetorical device to set up the following proof of both the presence of the body and its incorruption, Norman skepticism of Anglo-Saxon saints is a well-documented phenomenon, as in Lanfranc’s unwillingness to recognize the Anglo-Saxon saints of Canterbury. See Jay Rubenstein, “Liturgy against History: The Competing Visions of Lanfranc and Eadmer of Canterbury,” Speculum 74 (1999): 279-309 and Susan Ridyard, “Condigna veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the Anglo-Saxons,” Anglo-Norman Studies 9 (1987): 179-206.
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the certainty of such a gift.”30 The fear at offending the saint at first controlled the
group, who refused to proceed any further until one of their members reassured them,
saying, “what are you doing brothers? What do you fear? Any act that is begun through
inspiration of God’s authority will always merit a good end. He who gave to you the
will for this inquiry gives to you the hope for discovery.”31 Encouraged to proceed, they
opened the box and, greeted by a sweet odor, they began to remove the linen wrapping
found within, until the body itself was uncovered:
And behold! They discovered the venerable body of the blessed father, the very fruit of their desires, lying on its right side, wholly intact and with flexible limbs, appearing asleep rather than dead. At this sight, they were stuck down with tremendous awe and drew back, for they did not dare to look upon the miracle which was uncovered.32
At last mustering up the courage to gaze upon the body, they fall prostrate before it,
weeping and “singing to God the seven penitential Psalms, lest he, in his fury, accuse
them and chastise them in his anger.”33
The importance of Cuthbert’s body to the spirituality of the monastic
community is apparent in the De miraculis’ account and specific elements of its
narrative indicate the new forms of devotion associated with the saint. The first is its
insistence that the relics were, in fact, present in the shrine. This concern reflects a
30 De miraculis, I: 250: “Inerat eis gaudium mixtim cum pavore, quia etsi ex audacia timuissent offensam, ex certitudine tamen tanti muneris ingentem conceperant laetitiam.” 31 op. cit.: “‘Quid agitis,’ inquit, ‘fratres? Quid timetis? Bonum illa semper actio fine merebitur, quae Deo auctore inspirata inchoatur. Dat nobis spem inveniendi, Qui dedit voluntatem inquirendi.” 32 op. cit., I: 252: “Et, ecce! beati patris venerabile corpus, scilicet fructum deriderii sui, reperiunt, quod, in dextro latere iacens, tota sui integreitate artuumque flexibilitate dormientem magis repraesentabat quam mortuum. Quo viso, avore percelluntur ingenti, et paulo longuis recedentes, non ausi sunt quod patebat intueri miraculum.” 33 De miraculis, I: 252: “Prostrati toto tandem corpore, lacrimis ubertim fluentibus, septem poenitentialibus psalmis supplicant Dominum, ne in furore suo eos argueret, neque in ira sua illos corriperet.”
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general increase of interest in relics at Durham during the early twelfth century.
Alongside the description of Cuthbert’s body, the De miraculis provides a description
of the various other relics discovered in the coffin, among them the head of Oswald, the
bones of Aidan, relics from three of Cuthbert’s episcopal successors, his teacher Boisil,
and of Bede himself.34 Symeon’s Libellus de exordio makes certain to note the presence
of both Oswald and Bede’s relics at the priory, and also relates the story of a sacristan
named Elfred who, in the mid- to late-eleventh century, visited the sites of former
Northumbrian monasteries to collect relics and bring them back to be enshrined at
Durham.35 During this period, the community at Durham also began producing detailed
lists of their relics. Most of these appear in manuscripts containing hagiographical
works or normative works relating to the monastery, including Cambridge, Trinity
College O.3.55 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby Ms. 41.36 The increasing concern
with relics indicates the importance of corporeality as the key form of saintly presence.
The De miraculis also put special emphasis on the fact of Cuthbert’s incorrupt
state. Although the Historia de sancto Cuthberto demonstrates that the tenth-century 34 op. cit.: “Quas profecto reliquias, ut in veteribus libris legitur, constat esse caput gloriosi regis et martyris Oswaldi, ossa quoque venerabilium confessorum Christ ac sacerdoturm, Aidani videlicet, et successorum ipsius venerandi patris Cuthberti, scilicet Eadberti, Eadfridi, et Ethelwoldi. Praeterea et ossa venerabilis Bedae, qui vitam beati Cuthberti dilucide conscripserat, una cum illius corpore hospitium quietis habuerant, quae pariter continebat sacculus de lino. A quo autem de Girvum, ubi post illius obitum sepulta fuerant, illuc translata sint, alibi plane habetur scriptum. Qui enim ossa beati Boisili, ipse et doctoris Bedae sibi revelata in Dunelmensem ecclesiam comportavit, sed diversis in locis eiusdem ecclesiae ea collocavit.” 35 See Symeon, Libellus de exordio, pp.17 and 23 on the relics of Oswald, pp.55-57 on the relics of Bede, and pp.161-63 on the travels of Elfred. Elfred the sacristan, who held hereditary rights over the Priory of Hexham, was the great-grandfather of Aelred of Rievaulx, the central figure of Part III. 36 The list in Trinity O.3.55, most of which contains the usual collection of materials relating to life of Cuthbert, is on 2r. The copy in Bodleian, Digby 41 is from the late twelfth century; it occupies the final four leaves, which were originally part of the copy of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert preserved in BL Harley Ms. 1924. A similar list of relics used as the final chapter of continuation of Symeon’s history c.1170-80. See the Continuatio Altera printed in Symeonis Opera, ed. Arnold, I: 168-69. For an edition and fuller examination of this list, see Battiscombe (ed.), The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, 112-114.
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community was aware of this special mark of Cuthbert’s sanctity, it never assumed as
much significance as it did for the eleventh- and twelfth-century monastic community.
The account of Cuthbert’s translation in the De miraculis relates that Bishop Ranulf
Flambard at first doubted the monks’ account of the body’s incorruption, but they were
able to satisfy the bishop with oaths. A neighboring abbot also raised objections to the
way in which the relics were inspected, arguing that no one from outside the
community of Durham had been allowed to see them. This situation was resolved when
it was agreed that Abbot Ralph of Seez, later to become the archbishop of Canterbury,
be allowed to inspect and even touch the relics. Upon doing so, he declared, “behold
brothers! This body lies here lifeless, but as healthy and as whole as that day on which,
seeking heaven, it relinquished its holy soul.”37 The problem was thus laid to rest, with
Cuthbert’s incorruptibility established as a mark of his particular form of sanctity.
Cuthbert’s incorruptibility was important enough that Reginald of Durham
dwelt upon it at length in his Libellus de admirandis composed from 1165-67. He
included a description of the body’s incorrupt state in the chapter dealing with the
translation in 1104, but also made reference to it at various other points in the text.38
For instance, he relates the story of a man who was unsure which saint he should go to
for healing. Praying for guidance, the man lit three candles for three saints and declared
that he would go to whichever saint’s candle burned the fastest. Not surprisingly,
37 De miraculis et translationis, I: 259: “‘Ecce!,’ inquiens, ‘fratres, hoc corpus iacet his quiden exanime, sed ita sanum et integrum, sicut ea die qua, caelestia petens, id sancta reliquerat anima.” 38 Chapter 40-43 of the Libellus de admirandis deal with the 1104 translation. The main description of the body can be found at the start of Chap. 41 (p.86): “Membra ver omnia solida, flexuosa, et integra, qualia virum perfectum decent; nervis sinuosa, venis roriferis plicabilia, carnis mollitie sauvia, qualia potius, viventem in carne, quam defunctum in corpore, exhibent…”
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Cuthbert’s candle burnt out faster than the other two.39 Reginald used the story as an
opportunity to digress upon Cuthbert’s superiority as a saint, citing his incorruptibility
as a marker of his special place among the saints and pointing out that the continued
flexibility of his limbs was unique. Reginald concluded by stating:
No wonder therefore if, among the very powerful saints of the English, he who is not grown stiff from death, but does not emit breath, he who has not burned out the lamp of his life, yet still does not breath, is gifted with a particularly powerful form of sanctity; for neither living is he dead, nor dead is he in the world of the living or breathing. We are able to declare such a thing about none of the saints, because among none of them have we been able to find such a mark of virtue.40
Reginald cites Cuthbert’s incorruptible body as evidence of his special place among the
various English saints. His argument was certainly motivated by a desire to promote the
cult of Cuthbert and, by extension, Durham as a pilgrimage site against other rival
saints’ cults.41 At the same time, this emphasis contributed to a particular understanding
of the nature of Cuthbert’s presence. Reginald’s insistence that the body looked “as if
still living,” produced a sense of humanity that adhered to his relics. This sense made
Cuthbert, as a structure of devotion, easier to approach on an emotive and empathic
level, a final point that exemplified the changing understanding of Cuthbert’s presence.
39 Libellus de admirandis, 37. 40 Libellus de admirandis, 39: “Nec mirum igitur si inter Anglorum Sanctos ex sanctitate praecipuos praepotenti virtute praeditus est, qui nec morte diriguit nec spiraculum exuit, nec vitae lucernam exstincxit, nec flatum roris emisit; unde nec vivens mortuus est, nec mortuus jam in saeculo vitalis sive spirabilis est. De nullo enimvero Sanctorum talia dicere possumus, quia de nemine tantae virtutis stipendia invenire valemus.” The full passage includes a very interesting biologically oriented discussion of the miraculous nature of Cuthbert’s flexible limbs, based on the idea that, lacking breath of any sort, the blood cannot become infused with air and flow through the limbs. 41 See Marner, St. Cuthbert: his life and cult, 31-33 and Victoria Tudor, “The Cult of St. Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century,” in St. Cuthbert, 451-59. The body of St. Edmund, possessed by the community at Bury St.-Edmunds, was also reputed to be incorrupt, which might explain Reginald’s focus on the flexibility of Cuthbert’s limbs, a fact that distinguished him from St. Edmund.
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The level of emotion involved with encountering Cuthbert’s body is the most
important feature of the De miraculis’ account of its translation for understanding the
new spiritual role of Cuthbert’s relics. The text is at pains to demonstrate the levels of
awe and joy experienced by the monks as a result of observing the relics of the saint.
This experience is mingled with the monks’ anxiety about their worthiness to see the
body and fear that they may provoke the ire of either the saint or God (or both) through
their audacity. They are reassured by the explanation that, because their intentions are
pious, no harm can come from their actions.42 This discussion indicates a different
understanding of the nature of Cuthbert’s presence than that evidenced by the Historia
de sancto Cuthberto. Alongside its function as a generalized structuring principle for
the community, Cuthbert’s presence is also now linked to the internal, spiritual state of
the individual members of the community. The emotivity and intentionality
surrounding Cuthbert’s body reflects an understanding of his presence as something to
be encountered and interiorized as part of a process of spiritual reform on the part of the
devotee.
The dramatic encounter with the holy body of Cuthbert itself might account for
this new conception of Cuthbert’s presence. However, the link between Cuthbert’s
presence and the interior, spiritual state of his followers was an idea that flourished in a
number of texts from twelfth-century Durham. In the Libellus de exordio, for instance,
42 Emotivity, intentionality, and interiorization are all features commonly associated with the changes in devotional patterns during the twelfth century, but they are (as we will see in Part III) more often connected with renewed interests in anthropology and community than they are with hagiography. Reginald’s participation in such ideas throws into question the degree of unity usually associated with the emergence of these new patterns of devotion, and suggests that they were in no way opposed to ideas such as authority and ritual.
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Symeon relates the story, taken verbatim from Bede, of how Cuthbert’s original
community convinced him to allow his body to buried in the church of Lindisfarne, so
that it might always be near to them.43 Symeon then skips forward to the present and, in
his own voice, gives thanks that the community is still able to benefit from the presence
of Cuthbert’s body, stating, “for this permission and counsel we too give thanks, not
only upon bended knees but also with our whole bodies and our hearts prostrate before
him in supplication.”44 Symeon’s reference to the supplicant hearts of the community is
indicative of the same sort of spiritual encounter with Cuthbert’s presence as that
described in the De miraculis.
In the latter half of the twelfth century, Reginald of Durham perpetuated the
same idea. In his Life of Saint Aebbe, written at the dependent priory of Coldingham,
which was quite distant from the body of Cuthbert, Reginald declared to a member of
the community at Durham that “the venerable presence of the body of our holy father
Cuthbert supports you…Whenever I consider this, I pine for my own land like a
wanderer and a stranger.”45 More remarkable still is a passage in the Libellus de
admirandis that reflects on the link between the state of the soul and knowledge of
Cuthbert:
It is easily discerned where the power of the heart is located. It always delights the soul either to observe its desires or, from the investigation of those desires, to search for new and more recent desires. Wherefore, even if we rejoice in the glory of Saint Cuthbert with feelings of delight (iocunditatis affectibus), nonetheless we are never sated to the point where we are averse to it, nor do we succumb to admiration, and neither
43 Symeon, Libellus de exordio, 52-53. The passage is taken from chap. 37 of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert. 44 op. cit., 53: “Cuius permissioni et consilio nos quoque gratias agamus non solum flexis genibus, sed et totis corporibus pariter et cordibus ei suppliciter prostratis.” 45 Life of Saint Aebbe of Coldingham, 3.
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do we attain the end of that wonder in our perpetual reading and writing.46
This passage eloquently establishes the link between Cuthbert’s presence and the
internal state of the devotee; encountering Cuthbert had become an act of uncovering
his presence and assimilating his virtues into one’s interiorized, spiritual life, a
departure from the notions of territorial presence and devotion expressed in the Historia
de sancto Cuthberto. While the ideas about sanctity established in that text never
evaporated from the devotional culture of Durham, they were augmented by this new
focus on Cuthbert’s presence.
There was a curious phenomenon contemporaneous with this development in
spirituality at Durham that might have reinforced its novelty: a virtual explosion in the
use of the very word “presence.” The term “presentia” is essentially absent from the
Historia de sancto Cuthberto and the Cronica Monasterii Dunelmensis. It appears only
once in a source concerning Cuthbert’s cult from before the late eleventh century.47
This paucity is in sharp contrast to the pattern exhibited by the sources of the late
eleventh and twelfth centuries, in which uses of the term became increasingly common.
Symeon of Durham, for instance, opens the Libellus de exordio with a list of the
46 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis, 84: “Facile dinoscitur ubi vis cordis infigitur. Delectat quidem semper animum, aut desiderata perspicere, aut, de illorum investigatione, nova vel recentiora perquirere. Quapropter, si de Beati Cuthberti gloria jocunditatis affectibus delectamur, nunquam tamen fastiditi saciamur; nec admirando succumbimus; sed neque, semper recitando vel scribendo, admirabilium illius finem pertingimus.” Reginald’s vocabulary in this passage is highly reminiscent of devotional writings often associated with the Cistercian “school of charity.” I suspect that we are witnessing the influence of Aelred of Rievaulx, to whom the Libellus de admirandis was dedicated, in this passage. See Woodward, Reginald and Geoffrey of Durham, Chap. 3. 47 This occurrence is in chapter thirty-seven of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, where Cuthbert declares to his community that “you will have to suffer much labor on account of the presence of my body.” See Two Lives of Cuthbert, 279: “Qui cum ad corpus meum forte confugerint, quia qualiscumque sum, fama tamen exiuit de me quia famulus Christi sim, necesse habetis sepius pro talibus apud potentes seculi intercedere, atque ideo de presentia corporis mei multum tolerare laborem.”
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members of the monastic community: “there now follows a list of the names of the
monks who presently make profession in this church in the presence of the undecayed
body of St. Cuthbert.”48 The term finds its fullest expression later in the twelfth century
in the works of Reginald of Durham. The passage cited above from the Life of Saint
Aebbe, for example, uses the term in relation to Cuthbert’s body: “the venerable
presence of the body of our holy father Cuthbert supports you…”49 It is used even more
broadly in the Libellus de admirandis. Chapter twenty of the text relates the story of the
miraculous aid Cuthbert lent to a man imprisoned and tortured by Malcolm of Scotland.
The first section of the chapter, in which the man prays for Cuthbert’s aid, does not use
the word “presentia,” but rather the preposition “coram” to convey the sense of
Cuthbert’s presence: “Because he was not able to use his voice in clamoring, he
produced a groan of agony and a wail of lament in the tabernacle of his heart in the
presence of Saint Cuthbert (coram Beato Cuthberto).”50 The term “presentia” appears
later in the passage when Cuthbert reveals himself to the prisoner to offer his aid,
stating, “Behold Cuthbert, whom you have called, exhibits his presence to you.”51
Reginald uses the term in the Libellus de admirandis to refer not only to Cuthbert’s
intercessory power, which transcends the location of his relics, but also to the monastic
48 Libellus de exordio, 4-5: “Hix scripta continentur nomina monachorum in hac ecclesia ad incorrupti corporis sanctissimi Cuthberti presentiam iam professorum…” The term does not appear in the De miraculis et translationis, so far as I have been able to discover; however, it is worth noting that, save for the account of the translation in 1104 used above, this text may have been composed by the clerical members of the community of Cuthbert prior to 1083. 49 Life of Saint Aebbe of Coldingham, 3. 50 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis, 43: “Quod vocum clamoribus exprimere non poterat gemituum suspiriis et ejulationem lamentis in cordis sui tabernaculo coram Beato Cuthberto depromebat.” 51 op. cit., “Quid me totiens importunis verborum clamoribus impetis, et totiens me fatigando requiris. Ecce Cuthbertus, quem invocasti, tibi praesentiam suam exhibet, et aures suas tibi vocibus et tuae fidei postulationibus adhibet.”
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community’s proximity to his body. For instance, in chapter fifty-one he tells the story
of a certain brother who “day and night continuously remained in the church, and at
virtually no time did he desert the presence of that holiest body.”52 Many further
examples could be added to these few, demonstrating the expanding semantic field
occupied by the term “presentia” from the late-eleventh through the twelfth century.
The reasons for this trend are unclear, but it is likely connected to changing
ideas about the meaning of the term. For Cuthbert’s clerical community at Chester-le-
Street and Durham, the presence of the saint operated as a generalized symbol of
communal identity, and the maintenance of the community was the chief form of
devotion to Cuthbert. In the period after 1083, a new interpretation of Cuthbert’s
presence was grafted onto this tradition, one in which the saint’s body was encountered
as part of process of internal spiritual reform. This change may have prompted a more
detailed consideration of when and how Cuthbert’s presence was encountered in
spiritual life than was exhibited in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto. As Cuthbert’s
presence shifted from being a generalized structure of community to a more precise
feature of individualized devotion, the semantic field for the term ‘presence’ itself
began to crystallize as well, leading to an increase in its usage. Encounters with
Cuthbert’s presence became discrete events, rather than a generalized state of being.
The emergence and elaboration of this understanding of Cuthbert’s presence
corresponded with an explosive growth in textual production at the community. While
it is impossible to ascertain whether there was a causal relationship between the two
52 op. cit., 106: “Nempe die et nocte continue in ecclesia exstitit, et corporis illius sacratissimi presentiam nullo tempore pene deseruit.”
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trends, there can be little doubt that a new focus on interiorized devotion to Cuthbert
helped enable the migration of ideas such as presence to this new context. In fact,
meditative reading could easily be understood as the encounter and internalization of
someone’s presence, meaning that the new approach to Cuthbert’s presence was highly
reconcilable with textual practices and literate culture. The next section of this chapter
will explore the processes through which the cult of Cuthbert was adapted to textual
practice and the effects of this shift on the spiritual experience of encountering his
presence.
3.2 From the Body of the Saint to the Body of the Text
The community at Durham treated books as signs of Cuthbert’s presence
throughout the history of his medieval cult, but they did not always operate
symbolically in the same way. Evidence suggests that, prior to the eleventh century,
certain books were treated as a special form of contact relic, revealing Cuthbert’s
presence, not through their discursive “voice,” but rather as objects with particular
historical and physical associations. While evidence for this tradition is somewhat
fragmentary, the history of the book now known as the Stonyhurst Gospels and
descriptions of it provides a good example.53 The Stonyhurst Gospels is a small,
seventh-century copy of the gospel of John of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is often identified
with a book mentioned in Bede’s Life of Cuthbert that Cuthbert read together with his
mentor Boisil while the latter was on his deathbed. The book subsequently passed into
53 On this famous book see R.A.B. Mynors, “The Stonyhurst Gospel” in Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, 357-60 and The Stonyhurst Gospel of St. John, ed. T.J. Brown (Oxford, 1969).
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Cuthbert’s possession and, from this point forward, Saint and gospel are linked to each
other in Cuthbert’s cult.54 When Cuthbert appeared to Alfred in the Historia de sancto
Cuthberto, he was described as “holding a gospel book, ornamented with gold and
gems in his right hand,” a description that evokes the scene from the Life of Cuthbert
and the association between Cuthbert and Boisil’s little gospel book.55 The account of
the inspection and translation of Cuthbert’s relics in 1104 in the De miraculis et
translationis mentions that a gospel book was discovered in the coffin at the head of the
body. A twelfth-century note in the Stonyhurst Gospels identifies it as the book
discovered in the coffin.56 Its preservation in the coffin with the body of Cuthbert, and
alongside the relics of several other saints, indicates that the book itself was understood
to be a relic of sorts. It was made holy because of its historical and physical association
with Cuthbert and, as a holy object, revealed his presence.
Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de exordio contains the most explicit description
of the book in this light. Symeon wrote that, “the blessed Boisil loved [Cuthbert] more
than all the others for the purity which was rooted in his soul…and he grounded him in
knowledge of the Scriptures, as is shown in our day by a book which is preserved in
this church and which was the one from which Cuthbert learned under Boisil’s
instruction.” While this statement alone creates a historical association between the
book and Cuthbert, Symeon goes further, stating, “it is a wonderful thing that after so
54 See Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, 346. 55 Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 204: “…et in ipso lumine senex sacerdos infulatus, nigris quidem capillis, habens in dextera manu evangelii textum auro gemmisque ornatum…” 56 De miraculis et translationis, I: 251: “Sed cum haec agentibus nil certum pateret, tandem amoto, licet paventes, operculo, vident librum Evangeliorum ad caput supra tabulam positum…”
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many years it retains its original newness and elegance.”57 This description is almost
certainly intended to echo descriptions of Cuthbert’s incorrupt body, creating a mimetic
relationship between the gospel book and Cuthbert himself that derives from Cuthbert’s
possession and use of the manuscript.
These ideas are brought together in a chapter of the De miraculis et
translationis, which relates a miracle concerning the Stonyhurst Gospels. The chapter
opens with a brief history of the book’s associations with Boisil and Cuthbert,
concluding with the declaration that, “this church, that of Durham, still holds this book
in a distinguished place among other holy relics worthy of veneration, as it still retains
the grace of its former newness through the merit of both teacher and student.”58 Like
Symeon’s Libellus de exordio, the De miraculis creates a parallel between Cuthbert’s
incorrupt body and the enduring newness of the book, which it uses as evidence for the
book’s status as a holy relic. The chapter goes on to describe the case within which the
book was kept, which had a silken band around it that was raveled due to its old age.
During the ceremonies surrounding the translation of Cuthbert’s body, Bishop
Flambard displayed the book for the populace to see, but one of his retinue seized the
opportunity to steal a thread from this covering and hide it in his boot while its porter
was distracted by the crowd.59 This theft resulted in excruciating leg pain next to the
57 Libellus de exordio, 26-27: “Hunc beatus Boisilus pro insita illi puritate ac pia intentione pre ceteris dilexit, et scriptuarum scientia erudivit, sicut in hac ecclesia servatus codex, in quo eo docente ipse didicerat, per tanta annorum curricula prisca novitate ac decore mirabilis hodieque demonstrat.” 58 De miraculis et translationis., II: 361: “Hunc codicem, cum pro merito utriusque, videlicet docentis et discentis, priscae adhuc novitatis retineat gratiam, inter alias sacrae venerationis reliquias honesto haec, scilicet Dunelmensis, ecclesia reservat loco.” 59 op. cit., “Hunc episcopus, inter sermonem quem in translatione, ut supra dictum est, ad populum faciebat, cum elata manu omnibus ostenderet, poritore interim pualo negligentius peram vacuam inter
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place where he had hidden the thread, which forced him to return it to the prior of
Durham and beg for forgiveness. The prior declared, “once you have placed that which
you have stolen upon [Cuthbert’s] tomb, you may be reconciled with him whom you
have offended.”60 Because the book could stand in for the saint’s body and represent his
power, offenses against it were punished as if they were offenses against the saint
himself.
The Libellus de exordio contains a similar story pertaining to the other famous
book associated with Durham and Cuthbert, namely the Lindisfarne Gospels.61 The
production of the Lindisfarne Gospels by the scribe Eadfrith postdates Cuthbert’s life.
However, they were likely produced in his honor and, as one of the treasures of his
community, they were often associated with their greatest treasure, the body of the
saint.62 Along with the body, it was one of the precious items borne away from
Lindisfarne when the community was forced into exile by Norse incursions. Symeon
described a miraculous event concerning the Lindisfarne Gospels that occurred within
the context of this wandering. Relating the well-known story of the attempt to bear the
body to Ireland, which was thwarted by a storm and waves of blood, Symeon departed
from his likely source, the De miraculis et translationis, to note that, “in the course of
this storm the ship turned on its side, and a gospel book ornamented with gold and
compressas turbas tenente, quidam ex officialibus episcopi filum de suspendiculo furatus inter caligas et calceamenta sibi abscondit.” 60 De miraculis et translationis, II: 362: “Cui Prior, ‘Quem,’ inquit, ‘offendisti, ei reconciliare, reposito super eius sepulcrum quod abstulisti.” 61 On the Lindisfarne Gospels and for further bibliography, see Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe (London, 2003). 62 See Richard Gameson, “Why Did Eadfrith Write the Lindisfarne Gospels?” in Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting, ed. Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford, 2001): 45-58.
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gems fell from it and was carried down to the depths of the sea.”63 The fate of the book
is not resolved until later in the Libellus de exordio, when Cuthbert appears to a
member of the community and tells him where to search for the book. Following the
saint’s instruction, the community, “found the same holy book of the gospels, which
retained its enrichment of gems and gold on the outside, as on the inside its showed the
former beauty of its letters and pages, as if it had not been touched by the water at
all.”64 This story, which does not appear in the De miraculis et translationis, achieves
an effect similar to stories relating to the Stonyhurst Gospels. The book is miraculous
not because of its contents, but because of its physical association with Cuthbert’s
relics, while descriptions of its indestructibility create another symbolic parallel with
Cuthbert’s incorruptible body.
All of these examples involve books that serve as markers of Saint Cuthbert’s
presence, not through their discursive “voice,” but through their historical associations
as material objects.65 Stories relating to these books seem very little concerned with the
63 Libellus de exordio, 115: “Qua tempestate dum navis verteretur in latera, cadens ex ea textus evangeliorum auro gemmisque perornatus, in maris ferebatur profunda.” 64 Libellus de exordio, 118-19: “…ipsum sanctum evangeliorum codicem reperiunt, qui sicut forinsecus gemmis et auro sui decorem, ita intrinsecus litteris et foliis priorem preferebat pulchritudinem, ac si ab aqua minime tactus fuisset.” 65 Another ambiguous, early example of this attitude towards books and presence could be Cambridge Corpus Christi 183, the copy of Cuthbertine materials usually identified as the gift of Athelstan to the community at Chester-le-Street. As noted in the previous chapter, the portrait at the opening of book may be a depiction of Athelstan giving the book to Cuthbert, an image which creates one historical association between donor and book. However, assuming the image is a donor portrait, it is notable that the book also depicts Cuthbert receiving the book. If the book is indeed that given by Athelstan, it would likely have functioned, as Lawrence-Mathers has noted, as a shrine-book, thus kept near the relics of Cuthbert, lending to it the sense of a relic as well. See Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 42, 90. The tendency to associate such books with the relics of Cuthbert could be seen as evidence for an attitude that understood books more as material objects associated with prestigious persons than as discursive constructs associated with their authors, a point that is true equally of donor and saint in this case. However, the significance of this is questionable for two reasons. First, Corpus Christi 183 was a produced in the south of England, not by the community. Second, also as noted in the previous chapter,
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books’discursive qualities as compared to their status as objects made precious by the
people who had used them. As Michael Clanchy has noted, this attitude situates the
written word at Durham amidst a much broader set of signifying objects that manifest
presence through their historical associations, of which books were not necessarily the
premier example.66 This attitude prevailed at Durham throughout the twelfth century. It
is reflected, for instance, in the community’s tendency to assign the writing of certain
manuscripts to Bede himself, among them the copy of the Pauline Epistles preserved in
Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.5 and BL Cotton Vitellius C.8, the copy of
Cassiodorus’ commentary on the Psalms in DCL B.II.30, and the copy of the
Evangelists in DCL A.II.16.67 This trend reveals the Durham community’s
determination to link the histories of their books to the lives of prestigious individuals
and the belief that they could participate in that prestige through their possession of
them.
Treating books as relics allowed the community to use them as devotional
objects and as markers of Cuthbert’s presence at Durham. Operating as contact relics,
these books were essentially extensions of the type of presence represented by
Cuthbert’s bodily relics. However, as charted above, by the late-eleventh or early-
twelfth century, the nature of Cuthbert’s presence had developed into something that
Rollason has questioned whether or not this book can safely be identified as that which Athelstan gifted to the community, suggesting that it might instead be Athelstan’s personal copy of the Life. See Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex,” in St. Cuthbert, 420-24. 66 Michael Clanchy, “Reading the Signs at Durham Cathedral,” in Literacy and Society, eds. K. Schousboe and M.T. Larsend (1989): 171-82. Clanchy’s central example is the use of a small knife in place of a sealed charter at Durham. Though Clanchy primarily considers the written word as a feature of documentary culture, it seems many of his arguments are also accurate for book culture. See also Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Word, 38-40. 67 Catalogi Veteri Librorum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Dunelmensis, SS 7 (London, 1838): 16, 18.
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could be absorbed into interiorized spiritual life. This new understanding of Cuthbert’s
presence could participate in a text’s discursivity as well as the historical associations
of its materialized forms; the absorption of a text could be thought of as the process of
internalizing the presence of its author.68 The new conception of Cuthbert’s presence
assisted in (or perhaps resulted from) the textualization of his cult.
Indeed, there can be little doubt that during this period, devotion to Cuthbert
became a more thoroughly textualized process. At the end of the eleventh century, the
community at Durham had probably inherited three versions of the various texts
relating to Cuthbert and his cult: the Wessex copy preserved in Cambridge, Corpus
Christi 183, another version in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 596 (probably
William of St.-Calais’ personal copy), and a third that has not survived. This third, lost
version probably became the authoritative model used by the community in producing
books relating to Cuthbert.69 At the start of the twelfth century, the community began
copying it frequently, producing no fewer than seven books containing the vitae of
Cuthbert and other material related to his cult. This number includes the two deluxe
fully illustrated books preserved in Oxford, University College 165 and BL Yates
Thompson 26, dating from c.1100 and the 1160s respectively, as well as Bodleian
68 Armando Petrucci, “The Christian Conception of the Book in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries,” in Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy, trans. Charles Radding (New Haven, 1995): 19-42, has used the iconography of books in manuscript images to trace a shift from an attitude that treats books as symbolic objects to one that treats them as containers of discursivity. 69 Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 96-98. The variations in the contents of the earliest of these manuscripts, Bodley 175, Digby 20, and University College 165, can be seen as the process of the community working out what materials would be included in a “standard” collection of materials relating to Cuthbert. No copy of any of these materials produced by the community of Cuthbert has survived from before the late eleventh century, but, as both Mynors, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, 45-7, and Lawrence-Mathers argue, a copy of some version of them must have existed. Bodley 596 is usually associated with William of St.-Calais due to the inclusion of an office for St. Julian in the manuscript. William was abbot of a house dedicated to St. Julian in Le Mans before becoming bishop of Durham.
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Library, Bodley 175; Bodleian Library, Digby 20; Bodleian Library, laud misc. 491;
Cambridge, Trinity College O.3.35; and DCL A.IV.35.70 This surge in manuscript
production at Durham suggests that participation in Cuthbert’s cult through interactions
with texts became increasingly common, enabling more and wider encounters of the
saint’s presence within the written word.
Monastic writers at Durham pursued this idea extensively and inscribed textual
encounters with Cuthbert into programs of devotion. Symeon of Durham, in his
Libellus de exordio, was the first to mention the possibility of encountering Cuthbert in
written form. While describing Cuthbert’s virtues in leading his community, Symeon
declared that:
those who wish to know should read his Life and should consider how this one vessel of the Holy Spirit overflowed with the grace of all virtues. They should learn from the authority of such a man…the excellence of justice and piety, and the moderation of gentleness and severity. Those who now serve him as monks should learn, I say, should learn by his example to show to those placed over them humility, obedience, affection, reverence, and all that subjection which derives from purity of heart.71
The Life of Cuthbert, according to Symeon, was a vehicle for encountering and
internalizing the saint’s character. The text served as a means of experiencing the saint
as part of program of spirituality, a parallel to the form of devotion surrounding the
body of Cuthbert in the early twelfth century. Textual devotion to Cuthbert, as
70 The dating of these manuscripts suggests a waning of Cuthbert’s cult during the middle of the century, around 1140-60, followed by a revival in the 1160s. See Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 143-44. 71 Symeon, Libellus de exordio, 36-37: “Legant qui scire volunt ipsius vitam, et in uno sancti spiritus vasculo omnium virtutum considerent exuberare gratiam. Discant tanti viri auctoritate et subiecti et prelati ordinis observantiam, iustitie ac pietatis excellentiam, mansuetudinis atque severitatis temperantiam. Discant, inquam, eius exemplo, discant qui ei nunc deserviunt monachi, sibi prepositis humilitatem exhibere, obedientiam, dilectionem, reverentiam, et omnem ex cordis puritate subiectionem.”
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described by Symeon, certainly didn’t deny the importance of Cuthbert’s relics, but it
does not seem to require proximity them either. Encountering Cuthbert’s presence
through the written word was a form of devotion that complemented forms associated
with his relics.
The possibility of encountering Cuthbert in textual form was conceptualized in
different ways throughout the corpus of treatises produced at Durham. For instance, the
author of the De miraculis et translationis stated the goals of the text by declaring, “we
have proven the experience of those things which have been written in these pages, and
we will prove those things which are yet to be written.”72 Although the statement is
primarily intended to note the strength of the various proofs used to support the
miracles related in the De miraculis, it also expressed an important assumption about
the nature of the text itself. The use of the term “experimenta” suggests that what is
codified in the De miraculis is not merely a written record of the miracles of Cuthbert,
but the very experience of them itself. The text is meant to convey the firsthand effect
of witnessing one of Cuthbert’s miracles. The reader of the De miraculis is expected to
encounter, not simply the record of a miracle, but a substitute for the experience of a
miracle itself and for the presence of Cuthbert, which brought about the miracle.
As with many of the devotional trends examined in this chapter, this
development is fully expressed in Reginald of Durham’s Libellus de admirandis. In the
introduction to the Libellus, Reginald particularly emphasizes the idea that his text is a
substitute form of Cuthbert’s presence. He notes, for instance, in the opening of his
72 De miraculis et translationis, II: 345: “Horum experimenta et in his que iam scripta sunt comprobavimus, et in illis quae adhuc scripta sunt comprobabimus.”
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treatise, that “no material or model shines brighter and more clearly than that which
comes from the power of the virtue of Saint Cuthbert and the glory of his miracles.”
Having established the value of Cuthbert’s virtue, Reginald makes it the defining
feature of his text, writing that, “we now scratch clean our parchment, sharpen our
pens, and join diligence to our feeble learning so as to describe the miracles of Saint
Cuthbert.”73 Reginald hopes that his writing will encapsulate the power of Cuthbert and
the virtue of his miracles, making the saint the “material” and “model” that readers will
encounter in his work. Like Symeon and the author of the De miraculis et translationis,
Reginald suggested that Cuthbert’s presence was manifest in the written word, as it was
in his relics.
Other features of the written word at Durham, including the illustration of
manuscripts, reinforced this idea. Around 1100, the community at Durham produced
the earliest of the several copies of the Life of Cuthbert produced in the course of the
twelfth century. Oxford, University College 165 was clearly intended to be an
authoritative copy of the Life, for it contains a full cycle of illuminations depicting
events from the life and afterlife of Saint Cuthbert. The features and history of this
book have been well-studied, particularly the narrative details of its program of
illustrations.74 As yet, however, there is no consensus on several important questions
73 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 6: “Nec materia praeclarior vel forma nitidior aliqua effulsit, nisi quae de Beati Cuthberti virtutis potentia et miraculorum gloria ex veritatis origine et beatitudinis semine nativae processit. Ad miracula denique Beati Cuthberti describenda membranula exscidimus, pennas calamistravimus, et teneri studii diligentiam coaptivimus.” 74 There is a significant bibliography on this important manuscript and its place within English Romanesque illuminated manuscripts. See Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, Chap. 4; F. Wormald, “Some Illustrated Manuscripts of the Lives of the Saints,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 35 (1952): 248-66; M. Baker, “Medieval Illustrations of Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert,” Journal of
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about the manuscript, including why it was produced, what its function would have
been, and where the community drew inspiration for the images. Its production may
have been connected to the Benedictine reform of Durham or to the translation of
Cuthbert’s relics, although there are chronological difficulties with both possibilities. It
may have been used as a shrine book in the same ways that Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College 183 probably was. However, the lack of liturgical information in University
College 165 would be unusual for a shrine book, raising the possibility that it was
intended for private devotional reading.
If it was for private use, the extensive use of images in the manuscript is highly
significant. Although images were a common way to promote a saint’s cult and to
communicate the particularities of a given saint’s sanctity, such extensive programs of
illustration were usually used in display books rather than books for private devotion.75
This book was produced just as the community was forming ideas about textual
presence and devotion to Cuthbert, suggesting that that its images may have been
related to the development of these ideas. For devotional readers, these images would
have made the virtues and miracles of Cuthbert visible as they were absorbing the text,
reminding them of his holy presence and proffering the written word as a form of that
the Warburg and Courtald Institutes 41 (1978): 16-49; Otto Pächt, The Rise of Pictorial Narrative in Twelfth-Century England (Oxford, 1962): 14-50; Magdalena Carrasco, “Pictorial Hagiography and Monastic Reform in the First Illustrated Life of St. Cuthbert,” Studies in Iconography 21 (2000): 193-196; Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saint from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley, 2001): 179-94; ibid., “Picturing the Text: Narrative in the Lives of the Saints,” Art History 13 (1990): 1-32; J.J.G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven and London, 1992): 85-89,. 75 On the use of images in relation to sanctity, see generally Barbara Abou-el-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints (Cambridge, 1994), which generally considers how social problems and goals of communities were coded in images of saints, and the essays in R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and T. Szell (eds.), Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1991). More specific to this project, see Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart and F. Wormald, “Some Illustrated Manuscripts of the Lives of the Saints.”
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presence. They enhanced the notion of textual identity endorsed by Symeon and
Reginald, in which the text of the Life operated as a substitute for the presence of the
saint, by making it easier to “see” the saint behind the text. The decision to use
extensive images in an early book of devotion may have been part of a more general
attempt to develop the textual aspects of the cult of Cuthbert and to articulate them as a
form of the saint’s presence.
This hypothesis is not intended to explain all of the rich details of University
College 165, nor all the ways in which its text relates to its images. It suggests only that
the use of images in a devotional book was part of a generalized attempt to emphasize
texts as a means of encountering the saint. The rest of Durham’s manuscript tradition
reinforces this possibility. With one notable exception that will be discussed in the next
chapter, saints are virtually the only subjects of figural and historiated images in
Durham manuscripts. In the later twelfth century, for instance, the community produced
a second fully illuminated copy of the Life of Cuthbert, BL Yates Thompson 26 (Figure
5).76 Although the images in Yates Thompson 26 are framed and lack the narrative
structure of those in University College 165, the close correspondence between these
two programs suggests that University College 165 was the exemplar for Yates
Thompson 26. Perhaps even more important is a Durham manuscript of the early
twelfth century, now DCL B.IV.14, which contained the Lives of several saints,
including Gregory, Martin of Tours, Nicholas of Myra, Dunstan, and Augustine.
Among its few figural images is one of Nicholas of Myra on f.170v and an ambiguous
76 On which see Marner, St. Cuthbert: his life and cult and Baker, “Medieval Illuminations of Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert,” 16-49.
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one at the start of the Life of Gregory on f.2r that can tentatively be identified as
Gregory.77 The production of B.IV.14 should probably be seen as part of the same
general program of manuscript production as University College 165, since, as Elzbieta
Temple has noted, the main scribe of University College 165 also wrote the copy of the
Life of Martin in B.IV.14.78 The fact that the two books were produced in concert
suggests that there was a determined attempt to use manuscript images of saints to map
the transition from the purely corporeal presence of Cuthbert to the simultaneously
textual and corporeal presence of the saint. Evidence from both narrative sources and
manuscripts points toward the emergence of a new form of saintly presence at Durham,
one tied to the written word.
A key feature of Durham’s restructured piety was that Cuthbert’s embodied and
textualized presence were reconciled to become part of the same overall discourse of
saintly presence. Reginald’s Libellus de admirandis provides a telling anecdote,
relating the story of a certain monk who possessed a bit of cloth from the wrappings of
Cuthbert’s body that was impervious to fire. According to Reginald:
This brother, on account of the excessive devotion which he held toward Saint Cuthbert, was accustomed to painstakingly carry a little book of the Life of Saint Cuthbert with him hanging around his neck. Within the interior binding of this he had enclosed a piece of the aforesaid cloth from the venerable relics.79
77 We will return to the ambiguity of this image in Chapter 4. See below, pp. 265. 78 Elzbieta Temple, “A Note on the University College Life of St. Cuthbert,” Bodleian Library Record 9, 6 (1978): 320-22. The ambiguity surrounding the image on 2r is discussed in greater detail below, pp. 265. 79 op. cit., 111: “Hic frater, pro devotione nimia, quam erga Beatum Cuthbertum habuerat, libellum de Vita Beati Cuthberti secum circa collum illius pendulum sedulus circumferre moris habuerat. Intra cuius asserum interiora de panno praedicto quaedam praecluserat portionis alicuius pingnera veneranda.”
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Both of these objects manifested the presence of Cuthbert, although they did so in
different ways. The bit of cloth worked as a contact relic, operating with reference to
Cuthbert’s body and reflecting the continued importance of relics in devotion to the
saint. The book, on the other hand, is not a contact relic in the same way as the
Stonyhurst Gospels. It does not embody Cuthbert’s presence through any physical
association with the saint, but only through its discursive content. The association of the
book containing the Life of Saint Cuthbert with the contact relic does more than just
suggest that texts had become a means of encountering the saint’s presence. It binds the
two modes of presence together, demonstrating that they operated in tandem and not in
competition with each other. Textual presence did not detract from the Cuthbert’s
presence as manifested through his relics, but rather complemented it and, overall, may
have intensified the general spiritual concern with encountering and assimilating the
presence of the saint.
This is not to say that the community of Durham was unaware of the differences
between the two forms of presence. On the contrary, they were very nervous about the
fact that textualized presence, which implied mediation, might serve as an alternative to
the bodily relics of Cuthbert, which provided direct access to his immanent presence. In
the worst case scenario, texts might supplant Cuthbert’s corporeal presence, rendering
the community’s possession of his bodily relics irrelevant. The community pursued the
opportunities offered by devotion to the saint through the written word, but
simultaneously worried that textual presence might lead to alienation from Cuthbert.
The response of writers at Durham to this problem, however, was somewhat
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paradoxical;.they tried to deconstruct the mediatory role of texts by asking readers to
look beyond the linguistic or discursive fact of textuality and observe the deeds and
works of Cuthbert himself. At the start of chapter fifty of the Libellus de admirandis,
for instance, Reginald of Durham declared that, “the memory of the great glory and
virtue of Saint Cuthbert is such that even prolific skill in human language does not
suffice to narrate the greatness of his works.”80 By denying the ability of language to
represent the full virtue of Cuthbert, Reginald tried to make the saint himself, rather
than language, the constitutive structure of his text and alleviate the problem of
mediation introduced by textuality.
Statements concerning the insufficiency of language or lack of skill in the
verbal arts are standard tropes of medieval texts and are particularly common in
hagiographic texts. However, the importance of this idea to the community at Durham
is demonstrated by its ubiquity and by the fact that its is always used for the same
purpose. It is intended to eliminate the mediatory role of language and to suggest that
the text can signify the real presence of the saint, not through language, but in spite of
language, despite the inescapable fact of language’s role in this act of signification. To
give only one other example out of many, at the start of chapter sixty-eight of the
Libellus de admirandis, Reginald writes that, “we have better knowledge of each of
[these virtues] from the splendid deeds [of Cuthbert] than we are able to declare
through the use of words.”81 While texts offered the Durham community a new way to
80 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 104: “Tantae gloriae et virtutis exstat Beati Cuthberti memoria quod ipsius operum magnalia enodare non sufficiat humanae linguae quaevis perita faecundia.” 81 op. cit., 138: “Quorum singula melius ex ipsius operibus praeclaris agnoscimus quam verborum officio declarare possimus.” For some such similar statements, see also 2-3, 16, and 74.
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encounter Cuthbert’s presence, the language that constituted texts, which was the
product of human hands, seemed irreconcilable with the immanence of Cuthbert
represented by his body, posing the danger of estrangement from the saint. The
community’s response was to deemphasize the linguistic elements of texts in an attempt
to assimilate them to the same mode of presence represented by Cuthbert’s relics. The
joining of saintly presence to textuality resulted in a conception of hagiographic texts as
metalinguistic objects that was, if not unique, at least particular to Durham.
3.3 Transcending Mediation: Imitation, Vision, Incorporation
The emergence of devotion to a textualized saint not only created certain
assumptions about the nature hagiographic texts, but also changed the nature of
devotional practices and forms of piety associated with Cuthbert. Although it is difficult
to posit any specific chain of causality, there are two developments in hagiographic
spirituality whose emergence corresponded with Cuthbert’s textualization. Although it
would be overstating the case to say that the textualizing of Cuthbert’s presence caused
these developments, it is likely to have encouraged their growth and affected the ways
they were articulated.
The first of these developments was the growing importance of imitating
Cuthbert as a devotional practice and conforming to the model of the religious life he
provided as a means of entering his presence. Imitation and conformity were important
elements of spiritual practices during the central Middle Ages generally, whether they
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were related to saints or, increasingly, the human Christ and Mary.82 Their emergence
as a feature of devotional life at Durham was not exceptional in and of itself. However,
the articulation of these ideas there was particular to the community and became
intertwined with ideas about texts and presence. Symeon’s Libellus de exordio provides
the earliest expression of this idea in Durham’s surviving texts. Symeon described the
virtues of Cuthbert as bishop using a long quote from Bede, followed by an original
statement: “…as a bishop he also left a model (normam) of the episcopal life to be
imitated by other bishops. Therefore, whoever would succeed him in this highest office
should strive also to imitate his life…He should carefully consider on the one hand his
own life, on the other Cuthbert’s.”83 Although Symeon clearly intended this passage
specifically for the current bishop of Durham, using Cuthbert as a model for the proper
interaction between monastic community and bishop, the terms he used are nonetheless
important.84 He characterized Cuthbert as a model for religious life and practice.
Symeon applied this idea to the monastic community as well. Earlier in the Libellus, for
82 See, among others, Caroline Walker Bynum, “Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?” in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1982): 82-108; Giles Constable, “The Ideal of the Imitation of Christ,” in Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge, 1995): 143-217; Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “From Ego to Imago: Mediation and Agency in Medieval France,” The Haskins Society Journal 14 (2005): 151-173; ibid., “Replica: Images of Identity and the Identity of Images,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, eds. Jeffrey Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (Princeton, 2005): 46-64; P. Nagy, “Individualité et larmes monastiques: une expérience de soi ou de Dieu?” In Das Eigene und das ganze. Zum Individuellen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum, eds. G. Melville and M. Schurer (Dresden, 2002). 83 Libellus de exordio, 48-49: “…sic episcopus etiam episcopis imitandam vite pontificalis normam reliquit. Quapropter qui ei in culmen honoris succedit, vitam quoque imitari studeat, ut dignus successor tanti predecessoris placita Deo conversatione vices digne peragat. Sollicitus hinc illius vitam consideret, illinc suam.” 84 Aird, “The Political Context of the Libellus de exordio” in Symeon of Durham, 32-45, points to this passage as evidence for the fact that the Libellus was composed, not to justify William of St.-Calais’ introduction of the monastic community to Durham in 1083, but rather as a statement about the nature of the relationship between bishop and monks to be presented to William’s successor, Ranulf Flambard, whose ambitions might have been perceived as dangerous by the monastic community.
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instance, he includes imitation of Cuthbert as part of a more general program of
spiritual progress: “By these and other spiritual exercises, the venerable [Cuthbert]
stimulated the desire of every good man to imitate him, and he called back from the
pertinacity of their error all those who were reprobate and rebellious towards the way of
life of the Rule.”85 Like the first passage, this statement clearly intended Cuthbert’s
own community to express values appropriate for wider emulation by monks in general.
By collapsing the chronological distance between the two communities, Symeon made
Cuthbert’s presence the sine qua non of imitation, even as he made imitation of the
saint the center of monastic discipline.
Imitation and the use of Cuthbert as a spiritual model was an idea expressed in
the works of most other writers at Durham as well. In the Libellus de admirandis,
Reginald of Durham wrote that:
Holiness and the imitation of rectitude is to be found in Saint Cuthbert…holiness because, by holding fast to his merits, he carries the unworthy to grace of sanctity; rectitude because he corrects those who stray by calling them back; imitation because, by the miracle of his compassionate solicitude, he holds himself out (intendit) over his devotees day and night.86
Reginald discusses imitation as the mechanism through which his devotees accessed the
saint’s holiness and rectitude. Cuthbert’s presence was activated and interiorized
through imitation of him, by narrowing the gap between saint and devotee and making
85 Libellus de exordio, 36-37: “His et huiusmodi spiritualibus exercitiis vir venerabilis et bonorum quorumque ad se imitandam provocabt affectum, et improbos quosque ac rebelles vite regulari a pertinacia sui revocabat erroris.” 86 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 37: “Sanctificatio et rectitudinis aemulatio in Beato Cuthberto invenitur…sanctificatio, quia, suis obtinentibus meritis, immeritos ad gratiam sanctitatis provehit; rectitudo, quia deviantes revocando corrigit; aemulatio, quia mira compassionis sollicitudine, die noctuque, super sibi devotos intendit.”
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him more present. This idea is also expressed in a highly rhetorical passage from the
prologue to the Life of Saint Aebbe, probably also written by Reginald from the
dependent priory of Coldingham. Lamenting the fact that he has been deprived of the
spiritual support of Cuthbert’s presence, Reginald declares, “my flesh calls and my
spirit calls too. From a distant and desolate land…it calls from Seir. Not from the land
in which and from which Adam was made…but from a land of wickedness, from a
region of unlikeness (de regione dissimilitudinis) in which I have become unlike
you.”87 Borrowing some Augustinian vocabulary, Reginald constructs an interesting
reversal of the idea of imitation and suggests that, if the presence of Cuthbert enables
one to become like him, then his absence carries the danger of becoming unlike him;
the land of Cuthbert’s absence was, literally, a region of unlikeness.88
Imitation of Saint Cuthbert had become a way of activating and interiorizing his
presence. As the passage from the Life of Aebbe suggests, the body was still the
supreme form of presence, but imitation was also tied to his textual presence, with
writing about him providing examples of Cuthbert’s virtues and behavior. In the
Libellus de exordio, for instance, Symeon wrote that, “anyone who desires to know
how strenuously he summoned everyone to heaven by word and by example, how
sublimely he radiated the glory of his miracles…should read the book of his life
87 Life of Saint Aebbe of Coldingham, 3. I have substituted the more literal “region of unlikeness” for Bartlett’s “region of estrangement” here. 88 On the use of the phrase regio dissimilitudinis, see Margaret Ferguson, “Saint Augustine’s Region of Unlikenss: The Crossing of Exile and Language,” The Georgia Review 29 (1975): 843-64 and Chap. 2 of Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (New York, 1940). The phrase is typically used to describe a spiritual state of exile. Reginald’s interesting reification of the term to refer to his geographical distance from Cuthbert is, as far as I have been to ascertain thus far, without precedent.
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mentioned above.”89 Although the passage referred literally to Cuthbert’s effect on his
sixth-century community, as with many of the statements in the Libellus de exordio, it
seems clear that Symeon was also addressing his current monastic community, who
were expected to use the Life as a tool for being summoned to heaven by the words and
deeds of Cuthbert. Reginald made a similar suggestion that employed the idea of
imitation more explicitly: “The life of Saint Cuthbert is worthy of being loved and
ought to be venerated and imitated by all.”90 The ambiguity about whether Reginald
refers here to either the actual, lived life of Cuthbert or the text relating his life actually
contributes to the passage’s meaning. This ambiguity extends imitation of Cuthbert to
encompass the imitation of both the literal saint and the text of his vita.
The link between imitation and text is natural; once imitation is established as a
program of devotion, a text is a necessary model of behavior if the model himself is
absent (a bodily relic being a poor model for imitation). However, there is a significant
difference between imitation of a textualized model merely for the correction of
behavior, and imitation as a means of activating and drawing closer to the presence of a
saint. The latter option depends on understanding the text as a means of encountering
presence, meaning imitation of Cuthbert as a spiritual practice at Durham was
dependant on a specific understanding of textuality.
A second development in devotional life at Durham that was linked to the idea
of texts as a form of saintly presence concerns Cuthbert’s body. As noted earlier, the 89 Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio, 28-29: “Qui quam studiose verbo et exemplo universos ad celestia vocaverit, quam sullimiter miraculorum gloria choruscaverit…qui nosse desiderat, prefatum vite ipsius librum legat.” 90 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis, 53: “Vita Beati Cuthberti veneranda omnibus est amabilis et imitanda.”
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importance of the body never diminished in Durham’s spiritual culture; on the contrary,
its operation as a form of presence actually shaped how the idea of textual presence was
constructed. Once established, textual presence complemented, rather than rivaled, the
saint’s body as a locus for Cuthbert’s presence. This is not to say, however, that
changing ideas about the nature of presence did not affect the community’s
understanding of the body. In fact, during the second half of the twelfth century an
interesting new idea concerning bodily presence appeared in treatises from Durham.
Descriptions of visionary appearances by Cuthbert began to specify that the saint
appeared in bodily form or in the appearance of his body. Reginald, for instance, related
the story of a group of sailors in rough waters. When they implored Cuthbert for his
aid, “without delay, the venerable pontiff Cuthbert, as if in the appearance of his body,
appeared to all of them, visible and palpable, and sat in the prow of the ship, assuming
the role of its pilot.”91 Reginald introduced the passage by noting that it was the bodily
appearance of Cuthbert that made the miracle most remarkable: “And the above miracle
is believed to be astonishing because his spirit was seen by some at that time under the
likeness of corporeal species. To see corporeally what is spiritual is not a gift of nature,
but only of virtue and grace.”92
91 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 52: “Nec mora – venerandus Pontifex Cuthbertus, quasi in specie corporali, omnibus visibilis et palpabilis apparuit, et in prora navis, gubernatoris de more, resedit.” 92 op. cit., 50: “Et supra mirum creditur admirabile, quod etiam spiritus eius quandoque a nonnullis conspicitur sub corporalis speciei similitudine. Corporaliter etenim conspicere quod est spirituale, non est donum naturae, sed virtutis solius et gratiae.” Reginald goes on to give an interesting theological justification for how spirits could appear as bodies: “Et tamen novimus spiritus supercaelestes corpora aeria assumere; ut exuviis corporalibus induti, possint hominibus visibiliter apparere. Beatus Cuthbertus non dissimiliter id potest idem efficere, quia omne quod voluerit, ex Dei est ei virtute possibile.”
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In a similar episode, Reginald related the story of a monk of Durham who held a
long vigil in the choir and saw three bishops celebrating mass in the church; they turn
out to be the three bishops whose relics resided in the church.93 When asked to describe
what he had seen, the monk said that he did not have the courage to linger over it,
because he assumed what he had seen to be spiritual. However, when pressed, he stated
that, “he was neither in ecstasy nor at all in rapture, for he had seen this vigil with his
corporeal eyes and under no sort of enigma.”94 In both cases, Reginald was at pains to
demonstrate the corporeal nature of Cuthbert’s appearances. Geoffrey of Durham did
the same in his writings. In the Life of Bartholomew, he described a moment in which
Cuthbert appeared to Bartholomew on Christmas day and carefully noted at the end of
his story that, “the blessed father Cuthbert thus deigned to exhibit his presence for the
consolation of his follower, non only through a vision, but indeed corporeally.”95
Cuthbert’s miraculous appearances were now treated specifically as corporeal
manifestations of the saint, rather than just spiritual visions. This emphasis does not
appear in any of the early accounts of Cuthbert’s visionary appearances, such as those
in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto. It is a late twelfth-century development in the
spirituality associated with Cuthbert.
93 op. cit., 81-82: “Quos illos sanctos Pontifices fuisse non ambigimus, quorum pingenera sacratissia in Dunelmensi Ecclesia honorifice conservamus: Aidanum, videlicet, Cuthbertum, Eadbertum, et Aedelwoldum.” 94 op. cit., “Plura vero ab eo percunctari non audebat, quia iam secum advertit id esse spirituale quod viderat. At tamen, ut nobis asseruit, in exstasi neque in excessu mentis omnino non exstitit, quia ista pervigil, oculo corporeo et sub null aenigmate vidit.” 95 Geoffrey of Durham, Vita Bartholomaei, in Symeonis Opera, ed. Arnold, I: 316: “Beatus etenim pater Cuthbertus non solummodo per visum, verum etiam corporaliter, ad consolationem famuli sui suam exhibere dignatus est praesentium.”
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There are several different concerns wrapped up in this idea. In the second
example cited from the Libellus de admirandis, Reginald was clearly nervous about
claiming mystical experiences and was determined to distinguish the appearance of
Cuthbert from ecstatic visions, such as those of Hildegard of Bingen or Rupert of
Deutz. Geoffrey, on the other hand, seemed to think that Cuthbert’s willingness to
appear corporeally to Bartholomew, rather than just spiritually, was a special mark of
Bartholomew’s worthiness and sanctity. Underlying both of these motivations,
however, was a new set of assumptions about the nature of Cuthbert’s body: his relics
were no longer the only way in which Cuthbert could be encountered corporeally. This
possibility stands in stark contrast to earlier conceptions of his body and the nature of
his visionary appearances. Previously, even when Cuthbert appeared to someone and
offered his aid, that person was then expected to travel to Cuthbert’s shrine and body to
show his devotion to the saint.96 The vision was, in some sense, a mediated encounter
with Cuthbert himself, carrying the expectation that one would eventually enter into the
unmediated presence of the saint represented by his body. In these later visionary
experiences, the sense of mediation has vanished; Cuthbert appears corporeally to his
devotees and there is no expectation that they must later visit his body. Cuthbert’s
visionary appearances were had become equivalent to encounters with his relics.
There is no specific recourse to texts or the written word in these passages, but a
connection may have existed nonetheless. The transposition of Cuthbert’s presence
onto texts established the possibility that his relics were not the only locus for his
96 See above, pp. 173-74.
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presence. Furthermore, it was in working out the implications of textualized presence
that the Durham community was forced to confront, and ultimately resolve, the
problem of mediation. In so doing, they both addressed concerns about the effects of
mediation and accepted the possibility of unmediated encounters with Cuthbert that
were divorced from presence of his physical body. It is easily imaginable that working
out the implications of textual presence and mediation led the to Durham community to
reconsider the nature of visionary encounters with the saint. Newly concerned about the
problem of mediation, ecstatic or mystical visions may have seemed to suggest to the
community the possibility of separation or alienation from the saint. Such visions relied
upon the piety of the visionary as much as on the power of the envisioned saint,
suggesting that there was a prerequisite spiritual state required for a vision of him. As
spiritual visions, they also placed the saint’s power with his presence in heaven, taking
the focus off his relics and potentially removing his immanent presence from the
community. The response of the community was parallel to their response to the
problem of textual mediation; they assimilated visionary encounters with the saint into
the mode of presence represented by his body, insisting upon their corporeal nature.
The emergence of textualized presence led the community to reconsider other ways in
which Cuthbert’s presence might be manifest, thereby transforming the nature of
hagiographic piety. As a result, by the later twelfth century, Cuthbert’s presence had
become an interlocking set of complementary structures, of which his literal body was
only one facet.
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This chapter has investigated the spiritual life of the monastic community at
Durham Cathedral Priory. From the community’s earliest history, the presence of Saint
Cuthbert was central to its devotional life, but evidence suggests that for much of the
early period that presence was a general structure of social identity and cohesion.
Devotion to the saint was demonstrated by maintaining the community, as well as the
lands and possessions pertaining to the saint. In the late eleventh and early twelfth
centuries, this concept was augmented by new developments in Cuthbert’s cult that
treated his presence as something to be encountered and internalized as part of a
program of spiritual reform. This new understanding of Cuthbert’s presence was highly
reconcilable with textual practices and its emergence corresponded with the growth of
Durham’s textual culture. The resulting transposition of the idea of Cuthbert’s presence
onto hagiographic texts came to be understood as another form of saintly presence that
complemented the form of presence represented by his body. One of the most
conspicuous effects of this development was that the idea of saintly presence became
bound to textuality, creating a particular understanding of textual presence that favored
immanence over mediation and reality over language. The particular rapport between
Cuthbert’s corporeal and textual presence established the context for the formation of
the community’s literate culture, the subject of the next chapter.
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Chapter 4
Literate Culture at Durham Cathedral Priory: The Cult of Authors
As the last chapter suggested, by the early twelfth century, it was an established
idea at Durham that the written word could make the presence of a saint tangible. Yet
hagiographic texts represented only a small percentage of the manuscripts produced by
the community during this period. Patristic theology, scriptural exegesis, and pastoral
literature formed the bulk of the works available for reading and study. However, the
growing association between text and saintly presence was pervasive enough to shape
the community’s understanding of other genres of texts as well. Although such works
were not embodiments of the deeds of a saint, they did communicate on behalf of
someone who was not physically present, often someone whose prestige might rival
Cuthbert’s, such as Augustine or Jerome. A small inductive leap applied the notion of
presence to these texts, concluding that, where a saint was not available, the author was
the presence that constituted a text. This chapter examines the literate culture that
emerged at Durham as a result of this logical extension of this principle, which treated
texts as manifestations of their authors, bearing their presence and charisma to readers.
Although the many medieval conceptions of “the author” have been well-
studied, models of authorship are usually reconstructed from the stances taken by
medieval writers, making acts of authorship themselves the place where authorial status
was articulated during the Middle Ages. The concept of authorship at Durham,
however, was highly idiosyncratic and showed little awareness of either contemporary
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scholastic debates about authorship and Scripture or the novel strategies of authorial
fashioning being developed in the vernacular literatures.1 It did not simply emerge from
self-referential reflections on what it meant to produce a text. Rather, the concept of
authorship at Durham emerged from the community’s distinct spiritual culture. While
other cultural traditions did influence the importance of authorship at Durham, its
particular features and role in intellectual life can best be explained in the context of the
ideas about texts and presence arising from Durham’s unique spiritual culture. The
analysis that follows uses narrative and anecdotal evidence from Durham’s scholars to
reconstruct ideas about authorship at the community, and subsequently turns to the
manuscript evidence to see how these ideas were incorporated into the community’s
book culture. The final section examines the ways in which saintly presence shaped a
particular understanding of authorship and the emergence of a tension regarding the
relationship between saints and authors as the latter came to participate in the discourse
of textualized presence.
4.1 Presence, Author, and Auctoritas
The earliest mention of a text conveying the presence of its author at Durham
comes, not from a member of the monastic community, but in a letter sent from Bishop 1 On the problem of authorship and Scripture, see A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1984, repr. Philadelphia, 2009). The fashioning of vernacular authorship is a vast topic, but see generally Jacqueline Miller, Poetic License: Authority and Authorship in Medieval and Renaissance Contexts (New York, 1986). More recently, see Anita Obermeier, The History and Anatomy of Authorial Self-Criticism in the European Middle Ages (Amsterdam, 1999), Douglas Kelly, The Conspiracy of Allusion: Description, Rewriting and Authorship from Macrobius to Medieval Romance (Leiden and Boston, 1999), Virginia Elisabeth Greene, The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature (New York, 2006), and Andres Fatima Moreno, Questions of Authority: The Emergence of the Medieval Author (Ph.D Thesis, University of Minnesota, 2000).
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William of St.-Calais to the community. The letter, sent in the late eleventh century,
contains various spiritual and moral exhortations for the community to observe in his
absence. William apologizes for his absence, stating, “I am sure you will not doubt how
much it displeases me that I am not able to stay with you as I should.” He then offers
the letters as an alternative to his presence: “Because I am not able to say to you what I
should were I present, read out this letter once a week in the chapter, so you may adhere
more firmly to these precepts, and in listening to me speaking in this letter you may
commend yourselves to God more diligently.”2 The text of the letter is intended to
function as a substitute for William’s presence at Durham, giving the absent bishop an
opportunity to speak to the community and to transmit his exhortations to the monks.3
The letter also had an important afterlife. It is clear that the community obeyed
William’s command to read out the letter weekly in chapter since a copy of it was
inserted into DCL B.IV.24, the “cantor’s book” for Durham that contained liturgical
ordinances, the library catalogue, readings for chapter, a martyrology and other
normative monastic texts.4 It was copied onto a page that was mostly blank at the time
2 Printed in Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio, ed. and trans. Rollason, 239-41: “Non credo vox discredere quantum michi displiceat quod vobiscum ut deceret morari non valeo…Et quia presens vobis que deberem dicere non valeo, litteras istas unaquaque septimana semel in capitulo recitate, ut et hec firmius teneatis, et me in his litteris loquentem audiendo, Deo diligentius commendetis.” 3 The idea of epistolary presence was widespread during the central Middle Ages. See citations below, n.12 and further discussion at pp.220-21. 4 DCL B.IV.24, f.74r. A.J. Piper, “The Durham Cantor’s Book (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, Ms. B.IV.24),” in AND, 79-90, identifies the manuscript as the “cantor’s book” by comparing the role of the cantor as established in Lanfranc’s Constitutions with the texts in the manuscript. On this important manuscript, see further Michael Gullick, “The Scribe of the Durham Cantor’s Book” in AND, 93-109. The manuscript is generally identified with one of the books donated by William of St. Carilef, called “Martyrologium et regula” on the list in DCL A.II.4, f.1r. Among the texts it contains are a library catalogue and a list of books to be read in chapter, probably produced in the 1150s, a Calendar, a Martyrology, a list of Gospel readings for chapter on Holy Days, Lanfranc’s constitutions for the church at Canterbury, probably produced at Canterbury itself, the “Rule of Saint Benedict” in both English and
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the manuscript was assembled. On the verso of this page is the beginning of a copy of
the Rule of Saint Benedict. The copy of the Rule contains marginal notes that indicate it
was used for reading in chapter during the twelfth century, confirming that the letter
itself was read in chapter.5 The weekly reading of the letter aloud in chapter would have
disseminated to the community, not only the spiritual exhortations of the bishop, but
also the idea that a text could stand for its author. Furthermore, Symeon of Durham
chose to reproduce this letter in its entirety in the Libellus de exordio as an example of
Bishop William’s care for his community. His introduction to the letter reinforced the
idea that a text represented the presence of its author:
[Bishop William] loved them greatly, and was greatly loved by them in return. He exhorted each of them above all to revere the habit they wore and to observe the monastic order. When he was present he took pains to do this by word of mouth, when absent by sending frequent letters to them. This diligence and effort of his is attested to by the letters of pious admonition which are preserved in this church in memory of him, and which he sent to them when he was prevented by the king’s affair from coming himself. It seems appropriate to insert one here.6
The passage evokes the contrast between “presence” and “absence.” William’s
presence at the monastery is clearly the preferred state of affairs, but when he is absent,
his letters stand in for him and his presence in the community. Symeon, who was the
Anglo-Saxon, a formula for profession for monks, as well as various other letters and liturgical memoranda. 5 See Mynors, DCM, B.IV.24. The letter was also copied into the manuscript in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, so this copy cannot postdate the original composition of the letter by William by much. 6 Symeon, Libellus de exordio, 239: “Nimium eos diligens, nimium ab eis diligebatur. Ad sui habitus reverentiam, et ad ordinis observatiam precipue illos hortabatur. Hoc presens verbo, hoc absens missis sepius ad eos litteris agere curabat. Hanc illius diligentiam, hoc studium testantur etiam ille que in illius memoriam servantur in hac ecclesia sacre admonitionis littere, quas cum regiis impeditus negotiis venire non posset, ipse ad eos direxerat, quarum hic aliquas inserere congruum videtur.”
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cantor, scribe, and librarian in charge of the community’s literate culture, had certainly
absorbed an understanding of textual identity as authorial presence.7
A similar approach to textual identity can be found in the treatise De iniusta
vexacione Willelmi episcopi, which relates the legal difficulties William of St.-Calais
experienced at the hands of King William II (c.1056-1100). The text as a whole is
notable for its inclusion of several complete letters of William of St.-Calais (or, at least,
letters purporting to be written by the bishop), which suggests that the author of the
treatise were trying to weave the presence of the bishop into the text.8 Furthermore, at
least one of these letters reiterates the idea of textual presence established in William of
St.-Calais’ letter to the monastic community. Having been asked to appear at court,
William instead sent a letter explaining that he could not appear in person due to the ill
will held against him and the lack of a guarantee of safe conduct from his lands to
London. He then responded to the accusation that he was aware of rebellious plans
against the king by stating, “I was never aware of any plans to your detriment, nor did I
hide anything damaging to you when I heard of something harmful, but I informed you
as soon as possible by word of mouth, or by messenger, or by letter until the day I last
went to your court.”9 As with the letter compensating for William’s absence from the
monastic community, the letter was intended as a substitute for his presence at court. 7 Symeon’s role as cantor and scribal activities are noted by Gullick, “The Scribe of the Durham Cantor’s Book,” in AND, 93-109 and ibid., “The Hand of Symeon of Durham: Further Observation on the Durham Martyrology Scribe,” in Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North, ed. David Rollason (Stamford, 1998): 14-31. 8 See, for example, De iniusta vexacione Willelmi, in English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I, ed. and trans. R.C. van Caenegam, Selden Society 106 (London, 1990): 9. 9 De iniusta vexacione Willelmi, 93: “nec consilium vestrum alicui ad dampnum vestrum me sciente detexi; nec dampnum vestrum, ut audivi quod vobis nocuum esset, celavi, sed quam citius potui vobis verbo, vel legato, vel litteris notificavi, usque ad eam diem quam novissime de curia vestra veni.” I have slightly modified van Caenegam’s translation of the text here.
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Furthermore, the language of the letter envisions this substitution as more than a
convenient means of communication in absentia. It develops a language of physical
proximity for its author, suggesting that the letter only assumes its full meaning when
understood as substitute for his presence.
The dating of the De iniusta vexacione is uncertain. It purports to be a late
eleventh-century eyewitness account of the conflict between Bishop William and
William II and the subsequent legal proceedings. If this is in fact the case, then the
letter is likely to be a genuine letter from William of St.-Calais.10 It also raises the good
possibility that the treatise was written by Symeon of Durham, in which case the
treatise’s tendency to equate text and authorial presence would simply be another
example of the same idea that was presented in William’s letter to the community. H.S.
Offler, however, has argued that the treatise is a forgery produced in the 1120s.11 If he
is correct, the letter would instead represent the reiteration of the idea of authorial
presence a full generation after William’s first letter, suggesting the continued influence
of this idea at Durham.
Letters, of course, are a particular type of text that are geared specifically
toward conveying the thoughts of an absent author. It is somewhat natural that they be
understood as conveying the presence of their author. This idea was particularly 10 The position argued by Mark Philpott, “The De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi and Canon Law in Anglo-Norman Durham,” in AND, 125-37. 11 Offler first argued for this stance in “The Tractate De iniusta vexacione Willelmi episcopi primi,” EHR 66 (1951): 321-41. He will restate this argument and respond to Philpott’s contentions in his forthcoming edition of the text, published in the Camden Series. I am more inclined to accept Offler’s dating to the 1120s. Philpott’s argument rests upon the identification of marginal sigla in a Durham manuscript of canon law, Peterhouse 74, which correspond to the argument’s used by William in the treatise. Philpott suggests these were the result of William’s preparation for the trial, in turn suggesting that the treatise is an eyewitness account. It is, however, just as possible that the sigla were placed in the manuscript in the 1120s as part of the preparation of the treatise.
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common among prescholastics and those trained in cathedral schools during the central
Middle Ages.12 At Durham, however, the idea of authorial presence was extended
beyond letters to apply to other genres of the written word. For instance, in the story of
Bede’s death found in the Libellus de exordio, Symeon used the epithet “writer of holy
books” (sacrorum scilicet librorum compositor) to describe the Venerable Bede. He
notes that, “Bede lived hidden away in the extreme corner of the world, but after his
death he lived on in his books…”13 By suggesting that Bede himself continued to live
on through his writings, Symeon ascribed a particular identity to books as the
manifestation of their author. They serve to memorialize, even perpetuate, Bede’s
presence after his death and to carry that presence to the parts of the world not graced
by his presence. Following this assertion, Symeon extracted a long quote verbatim from
Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica in which Bede gave a brief autobiography, followed by a
complete bibliography of the works he composed.14 Symeon accomplished two things
by placing this long citation after his assertion that Bede lived on through his books.
First, he provided his readers with a list of books in which they could discover Bede’s
presence. Second, by quoting directly from Bede, Symeon also provided an example of
Bede living on through his books. Symeon’s readers were thus presented with an
12 See John Van Engen, “Letters, Schools, and Written Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Dialektik und Rhetoric im früherem und hohen Mittelalter, ed. Johannes Fried (Munich, 1997): 97-132 and Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,” American Historical Review 105 (2000): 1489-1533. On letters and letter collections in general, see Giles Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age 17 (Turnhout, 1976). See below, pp.260-61, for further comments on the significance of these instances of authorial presence and their presence in episcopal letters. 13 Symeon, Libellus de exordio, 64-65: “Qui videlicet Beda in extremo quidem mundi angulo vivens latuit, sed post mortem per universas mundi partes omnibus in libris suis vivens innotuit.” Rollason notes that the comment about living in the remote corners of the world is itself from Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, V: 15, although there it refers to Bishop Adamnan, not Bede himself. 14 op. cit., 64-69. The passage comes from the conclusion to Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, V: 24.
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example of this presence right after his the assertion that the written word perpetuated
Bede’s presence after his death.15
The growing importance of authorial presence in conceptions of textual identity
meant that the “author” became a central feature of Durham’s literate culture. Evidence
from the twelfth century reveals the broad importance attached to the idea of authorship
at the community. For example, in his versified drama Rithmus de Christo et eius
discipulis, probably composed in the 1140s, Lawrence of Durham depicted the
resurrected Christ speaking to his disciples once they have recognized him: “Believe I
live and can command the dooms of death / So now receive this new free gift of holy
breath / That you may bring both good and ill as men deserve / And learn the sacred
scriptures from the author’s mouth.”16 This passage treats Christ as an author, and
suggests that Scripture is a substitute for his presence. Even Scripture, although
divinely inspired, could be understood as the presence of its author, although the
“author” here has an almost a metaphorical status.17 The idea of the author’s presence
appears in several other places in Lawrence’s work as well. In the Hypognosticon, for
instance, Lawrence reflected on the greatness of God’s mercy and offered up a prayer
lamenting his own sins and unworthiness entitled “Oratio auctoris.” In the earliest
15 See below, pp. 226-27, for further analysis of this model of intertextuality, which I term intertextuality through “incorporation.” See further below, pp. 244-49, for an examination of the tendency for books at Durham to include autobiographical detail about the authors of their texts. 16Aruthur Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem: A Verse Translation,” Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1997): 113; U. Kindermann, “Das Emmausgedicht des Laurentius von Durham,” Mittelalteinisches Jahrbuch 5 (1968): 97: 92: “Credite, quod vivens mortalibus impero fatis / Ergo sacris flatus nova munera sumite gratis / Ut meritis hominum bona vel mala digna feratis / Scripturasque sacras auctore docente sciatis.” 17 This passage is thematically reconcilable with the sermon in DC B.IV.12, cited in the Introduction to this section. As in that example, although the author here is somewhat metaphorical, still the metaphor only has force if texts are understood as the presence of their author. In fact, use of the “author” as a metaphor shows how deeply important it was at Durham.
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extant manuscript of Lawrence’s works, produced at Durham shortly after his death in
1154 as a commemorative volume, this title occurs as a marginal rubric that is identical
in format to all the other running titles of the work, suggesting that it was original to the
text as composed by Lawrence.18 Such an explicit reminder made the fact of the text’s
authorship highly visible to readers.
In the verse preceding the “Oratio auctoris,” Lawrence addressed himself in the
text while reflecting on the mercy God has shown to him: “Look, Lawrence, O
Lawrence, look how much / you owe to him. Surely I, so wretched, owe him much.”19
The scribe of the early manuscript of Lawrence’s work has included a marginal note
reading “auctor” next to Lawrence’s name, confirming his status as the author for the
reader.20 Although the note is in the same hand as the rest of the rubrics in the
manuscript, it seems unlikely that it is original to Lawrence’s composition of the
Hypognosticon. Rather, it was probably added by a scribe in a manuscript copied from
Lawrence’s original edition, now lost, which was used to produce this manuscript. The
intervening scribe can be identified as a Galienus, who composed a poem in
Lawrence’s honor in which he described himself as “sui scriptor libri.”21 The poem
itself is also titled “Galienus de auctore et divisionibus operis,” and includes a brief
18 Durham University Library, Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, f.57r. 19 Gottes Heilsplan, ed. Suzanne Daub (Erlangen, 2002): 161: “Conspice, Laurenti, Laurenti, conspice quantum / huic debes. – Certe debeo multa miser.” A similar moment also occurs in Book VII in a passage Lawrence notes as “Ad auctorem apostropha,” and he again addresses himself and, interestingly, refers to the Virgin Mary as an “auctrix.” See Gottes Heilsplan, 213. 20 Durham, Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, f.57r. For further analysis of this important manuscript, see below pp. 241-42. 21 Gottes Heilsplan, ed. Daub, 68: “Pro mercede poli regno potiatur ameno / Conregnante sui scriptore libri Galieno.” Found on f.22r of Cosin Ms. V.iii.1.
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biography of Lawrence, identifying his as the writer of many books.22 The marginal
note and the poem both celebrate Lawrence’s authorship and show the transmission of
the idea of authorship from Lawrence to his scribe and into the community at large.
The “author” at Durham was clearly a celebrated figure central to the
development of its literate culture. The status of “author,” however, did not apply to
just anyone whose thoughts were expressed on the page. As M.-D. Chenu has pointed
out, being an author (auctor) in the Middle Ages was simply a matter of textual
production, but was also tied to the possession of “authority” (auctoritas).23 The
discourse of authorship at Durham not only constructed a text as conveying the
presence of a particular author, but also lent the text authority.24 For instance, in the
prefatory letter to his Life of Aebbe, Reginald of Durham wrote, “a book happened to
come into my hand on the subject of the virgin’s life and works, in which a great deal
seemed to be included only on the basis of popular report (vulgo tantum dictante) and
was said by many of our people to be uncertain because it was not supported by the
22 op. cit., 67-68: “Utque palam pateat, quis sit Laurentius iste / Initium breviter tanti reserabo sophiste. / Hoc sacra Dunelmi domus est decorata priore / Huius adornatur studio studiique labore / Hunc operis tanti deus almet compositorem / Retribuatque sibi vite celestis honorem.” Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, f.22r. A curious misorganizing of this manuscript led to the title of the poem, originally written as “Galienus de auctore et divisionibus precedentis opusculi,” having to be corrected as “de auctore et divisionibus sequentibus opusculi,” demonstrating that Galienus was not the copyist of this manuscript. Both Daub in her edition of the Hypognosticon and A.J. Piper in his unpublished notes on Cosin V.iii.1 suggest that the manuscript is probably two removed from the archetype. Galienus was probably the scribe of the intervening manuscript, in which he placed the marginal note “Auctor,” which was then copied onto f.57r of Cosin V.iii.1, explaining why it is in the same hand as the rest of the rubrics. 23 See M.-D. Chenu, “Auctor, actor, autour,” Bulletin du Cange 3 (1927): 81-86 and, more recently, Jan Ziolkowski, “Cultures of Authority in the Long Twelfth Century,” Journal of English and German Philology 108 (2009): 412-448. 24 Comparable to the “author-function” discussed by Michel Foucault, “What is An Author?” in Donald F. Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essay and Interviews (Ithaca, NY, 1977): 113-38.
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authority of our predecessors.”25 Reginald’s worry that the book was merely the
product of “popular report” is an attestation, not only to the importance accorded to the
verification of a saint’s miracles, but also to the perceived danger of unregulated oral
transmission of stories whose truthfulness was not guaranteed by a sufficiently
authoritative force. The alternative to “popular report” for Reginald was the “authority
of our predecessors,” established and well-known writers whose authorship guaranteed
the authenticity of the text.26 Authority, for Reginald, was required for a story to make
the jump from oral report to written text.
A similar example can be found in Reginald’s Libellus de admirandis. The
treatise was dedicated to Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx, who provided Reginald with
several of the miracle stories contained in the work. Reginald referred to Aelred’s
contribution to the text in the preface, stating, “your testimony is the model of the most
sound authority; a correction made with your judgment is the most secure way to move
toward truth.”27 Reginald believed that Aelred’s authority was what guaranteed the
truth of his material and validated the text’s status. As Jan Ziolkowski has noted,
“authority,” taken in its most literal sense, was virtually coterminous with textuality in
Reginald’s mind.28 It was intrinsic to the definition of the written word and set it apart
from the popular, oral reports whose truthfulness could not be guaranteed.
25 Life of Aebbe, ed. and trans. Bartlett, 3. 26 Reginald is referencing the Venerable Bede here, whose Historia Ecclesiastica was one of the few texts to mention Aebbe. See Historia Ecclesiastica IV:19 and IV:25. 27 Libellus de admirandis, 7. 28 See Jan Ziolkowski, “Texts and Textuality, Medieval and Modern,”iDre unfeste Text: Perspeketiven auf einen literatur- und kulturwissenshaftlichen Leitbegriff, eds. Barbara Sabel and André Bucher (Wurzburg, 2001): 109-131. Ziolkowski suggests that “auctoritas” was the closest medieval analogue to the modern notion of “textuality.” As I demonstrate in this project, I do not believe this attitude was as
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The possession of auctoritas, however, did more than just enable one’s presence
to be transmitted through a text; it was also that which emerged from the text, providing
the reader with access to the author’s personality. As a result, the preoccupation with
authority and textualized presence at Durham generated a virtual cult of personality and
charisma that was characterized by a deep respect for authoritative figures.29 At the
start of the prefatory letter to the Libellus de admirandis, for instance, Reginald wrote
of Aelred in flattering terms: “Thus how frequently we have consumed the sweetness of
heavenly and incomprehensible wisdom from the honey of your eloquent honeycomb.
Many times have we sucked the milk of relief and compassion from the breasts of
maternal compassion.”30 While flattery of one’s patrons was a virtual prerequisite of
medieval monastic treatises, the language Reginald used here is important. He praised
Aelred’s ability to express himself to others. It was not merely the possession of
charisma, but also the ability to convey the sweetness of one’s personality to others that
was central to the nature of authority. For Reginald, the goal of a text was to replicate
this act of self-expression, serving as a vehicle for an authoritative figure’s charisma in
absence of the figure himself.
The culture of charisma, authority, and textualized presence that defined literate
knowledge at Durham affected many aspects of its textual and intellectual culture. For
instance, the community’s approach to intertextuality and use of source material
all-encompassing as Ziolkowski suggests, but it was undoubtedly one of the dominant ways of construing the nature of a text in the Middle Ages. 29 On a form of this intellectual culture, see C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950-1200 (Philadelphia, 1994). 30 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 1. For an examination of the significance of the maternal imagery in passages such as this, see Caroline Walker Bynum, “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” in Jesus as Mother, 110-169.
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reflected its belief in authority and authorial presence. Although the textual culture of
the central Middle Ages was highly intertextual in general, there were many different
approaches to and forms of intertextuality.31 At Durham, the identification of texts with
their authors and the deep respect for auctoritas produced a mode of intertextuality
based on wholesale and verbatim incorporation of texts and frequent citation of authors.
The integrity of the text preserved the author’s presence and the authority which gave
the text its identity. A few examples of this broad phenomenon will suffice here. The
Libellus de exordio of Symeon of Durham, for instance, makes extensive use of Bede’s
Historia ecclesiastica. Large sections of Symeon’s history are direct citations of Bede’s
history, nearly all of them attributed to him in the text. Symeon made his use of Bede
explicit at the opening of the Libellus de exordio, declaring, “our present purpose is that
everything concerning the origin and progress of this church of Durham which could be
found in Bede’s history and in other little works should, in order to preserve its memory
for posterity, be assembled and arranged to form the substance of this tract.”32 Symeon
actually thought of his text as defined by its incorporation of Bede’s writing, suggesting
31 On the subject of medieval intertextuality, see, among many others, William Calin, “Medieval Intertextuality: lyrical inserts and narrative in Guillaume de Machaut,” French Review 62 (1998): 1-10, Maria Luisa Meneghetti, “Intertextuality and dialogism in the troubadours,” in The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay (Cambridge, 1999): 181-96. The topic of forgery is also a nucleus of studies on medieval intertextuality, on which see Giles Constable, “Forgery and Plagiarism in the Middle Ages,” Archiv für Diplomatic 29 (1983): 1-41, Alfred Hiatt, The Making of Medieval Forgeries: false documents in fifteenth-century England (London, 2004), and Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, “L’originale et les originalia dans les bibliothèques médiévales,” in Auctor et auctoritas. Les voies de la création au Moyen Age (Paris, 2001). Closer in proximity to this study, see Joyce Hill, “Authority and Intertextuality in the works of Aelfric,” Proceedings of the British Acaademy 131 (2005): 157-81 and Nick Doane, “Oral texts, intertexts, and intratexts: editing Old English,” in Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History, ed. Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein (Madison, WI, 1991): 75-111. 32 Libellus de exordio, 19.
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that its meaning and purpose were inextricable from its author. The auctoritas that
defined the text dictated that it should be preserved, reproduced, and attributed.
This trend was common to many of Durham’s writers, including Reginald of
Durham. The entire third book of Reginald’s Vita sancti Oswaldi is taken verbatim
from Bede’s account of St. Oswald in the Historia ecclesiastica.33 Likewise, while
describing some of the calamities that befell the seventh-century nunnery in the his Life
of Aebbe, Reginald wrote that, “it is right to bring to mind briefly what the Venerable
Bede wrote at greater length about their fall.” He then proceeded to incorporate a
sizeable passage taken verbatim from the fourth book of Bede’s Historia
ecclesiastica.34 Although Bede’s work would have been virtually the only source
available to Reginald containing information on the early history of Aebbe’s
community, it is still notable that he felt compelled to mention Bede explicitly and use
the text exactly as it was presented in the Historia ecclesiastica. Bede’s authority was
such that the only way in which Reginald could make use of his writings was through
the faithful reproduction and direct attribution of them. The community’s emphasis on
authorial presence and authority affected how they made use of source material in their
writings and molded their particular approach to intertextuality.
4.2 A Pedagogy of Presence
33 See Vita S. Oswaldi in Symeonis Opera, vol. I, 385, where Arnold notes that the third book is “not printed, as it is entirely taken from Beda’s account of St. Oswald and his miracles.” This is only one such instance among many that could be noted. Another can be found at p.364 of the same work. The relevant accounts can be found in Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, III: 1-13. 34 Life and Miracles of St. Aebbe the Virgin, ed. and trans. Bartlett, 14-15: “Libet enim paucis ad memoriam reducere que venerabilis Beda de eorum latius disserit subversione.” The passage is taken from Historia ecclesiastica, IV: 25.
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The same emphasis on authorship and authority shaped the ways in which the
community at Durham understood the creation and organization of knowledge.
Descriptions of pedagogy do not focus simply on book learning or mastery of a body of
knowledge, but described education as a process of absorbing habits and learning
through interaction with and imitation of authoritative models. In a letter written to the
archbishop of York concerning the history of the archbishopric, Symeon of Durham
included a brief history of the Venerable Bede’s life and marveled at the fact that Bede
was able to acquire such learning without ever having traveled over the sea. He then
states, however, that Bede himself, “taught that this ought not to be wondered at, that
one who was raised among six hundred monks of blessed lives and wondrous
knowledge should gather whatever individual knowledge each of them had all together
in the single vase of his own heart, illuminated by the holy Spirit.”35 Learning was
defined not by passing through a particular program of education or reading and
understanding certain texts, but as a process of partaking in the habits, lives, and
knowledge of authoritative persons. As Stephen Jaeger has noted for German cathedral
schools, pedagogy here was enabled by the presence of such persons and enacted by
imitating them.36
Manuscript evidence from Durham suggests that this pedagogical ideal was, at
least to some extent, transformed into a practical program of learning at the monastery.
Oxford, Bodleian Ms. Rawl. D.338 is a smallish manuscript (185 x 280mm) from early
or mid-twelfth century Durham whose contents suggest that it was used as a textbook
35 Epistola Simeonis monachi ecclesiae Sancti Cuthberti, in Symeonis Opera, ed. Arnold, I: 227. 36 Jaeger, Envy of Angels, 76-117.
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or schoolbook. It contains several introductory reference works, including Cassiodorus’
Book of Divine and Secular Learning, a decretal letter of Pope Gelasius on canonical
and non-canonical writings, a letter of Jerome on the offices of the church, and
Jerome’s text on the interpretation of Hebrew names.37 Each of these works provided
basic, yet important knowledge for reading and interpreting Scripture, patristic
literature, and other genres of the monastic curriculum. However, preceding all of these
works in the manuscripts are three texts of the same type: the catalogues of “illustrious
men” attributed to Jerome, Gennadius, and Isidore.38 These works contain a list of
famous and learned Christian men and short descriptions of their accomplishments,
often in a form of a list of texts they were known for writing. The manuscript envisions
a program of education that included, at its core, knowledge of the authoritative writers
of Christian history. This program would have not only emphasized the importance of
authoritative figures in learning, but also reinforced the connection between texts and
their authors in Durham’s intellectual culture. Furthermore, these lists of illustrious men
were placed at the start of the manuscript, suggesting that they were considered to be
the prerequisite knowledge for the other texts in the manuscript and, by extension, all
the texts that one would be equipped to read after mastering the knowledge in the book.
Rawl. D.338 reveals the educational ideals of Symeon’s letter being worked out into an
actual program of pedagogy.
37 The texts start, respectively, on 39r, 64v, 66v, and 67r. 38 Found on 1r, 20v, and 33v. Gennadius composed his text as a continuation of Jerome’s, which itself ends with a short-autobiographical passage in which Jerome wrote himself into the tradition of learned, Christian men.
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These lists of Jerome, Gennadius, and Isidore were not uncommon in twelfth-
century monastic communities, but additional evidence suggests that the system of
knowledge they represented was particularly important at Durham. DCL B.II.11, a late
eleventh-century manuscript from Durham that also contained basic educational and
reference works, provides a good context for understanding the significance of Rawl.
D.338. This book, a much larger and more elegant manuscript than Rawl. D.338, was
one of several books given to the community by Bishop William of St.-Calais upon his
death. It has been identified by Michael Gullick as one of the books produced for
William while he was in exile in Normandy.39 Although it eventually came to reside in
Durham’s library, it was not a product of the community’s particular written culture.
The collection of works in DCL B.II.11, while similar in purpose and character to that
in Rawl. D.338, is quite different in the details; it contains Jerome’s “liber
questionum,” the “liber de distantiis locorum,” his interpretation of Hebrew names,
questions on the book of Kings and the Parlipomenon, and various other miscellaneous
reference texts on topics including geography, offices of the church, weights and
measures, and stones and metals that would help in the reading of Scripture and
patristics.40 Absent, however, are the lists of Jerome, Gennadius, and Isidore, or any
comparable work describing the careers of famous men and authors. DCL B.II.11
would have been part of Durham’s monastic library by 1096, when William of St.-
Calais left his books to the community. In the mid-twelfth century, when the
39 Gullick, “The Scribe of the Carilef Bible: A New Look at Some Late-Eleventh Century Durham Cathedral Manuscripts,” in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evident, ed. Linda Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, CA, 1990): 67-74. 40 The full contents of the manuscript were laid out in a twelfth-century list of contents on f.1.
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community of Durham decided to produce another manuscript whose purpose was
similar to the one outlined by B.II.11, they placed the lists of illustrious men at the start
of the book.41 Although there is no definitive evidence that Rawl. D.338 was produced
with DCL B.II.11 in mind, it does propose a program of education that is similar in
function to that in DCL B.II.11, but with a new focus on authoritative individuals. This
shift may reflect the need to produce a book with a program of learning that was more
congruent with Durham’s literate and intellectual culture than the one represented in the
Norman-made manuscript inherited by the monks at Durham.
Other manuscript evidence reinforces this possibility and the importance of the
model of knowledge represented in Rawl. D.338 to the Durham community. DCL
B.II.35, another of the late eleventh-century books given to the community by Bishop
William, is an important manuscript for understanding the community’s fashioning of
their corporate and spiritual identity, not unlike the Durham Cantor’s Book. At the time
of its production, DCL B.II.35 contained primarily a copy of Bede’s Historia
ecclesiastica, but the Durham community added several texts to the book over the
course of the twelfth century. The earliest of these, dating from the early to mid twelfth
century, are more prose histories, including the Historia abbatum and the Historia
brittonum, texts which related the circumstances and conditions of the community’s
past.42 Shortly after 1166, the community introduced a new type of text into the
manuscript in the form of genealogies and lists of kings and bishops. These lists are
41 The thematic link between DCL B.II.11 and Bodleian Rawl. D.338 was recognized by the mid-twelfth century, when the cores of both manuscripts were copied into a single manuscript for use at the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx, now York, Minster XVI.i.8, discussed at more length in Chapter 6. 42 For a further discussion of some of these additions, see below pp. 249-250.
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constructed to transition from the broadly historical, including the ancient kings of
Britain along with the rulers of Israel and Judah on ff.136v-39v, to the more locally
specific, namely the kings of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms on ff.140r-47v. They
conclude with a section specific to the community on ff.148r-49v, which notes the
careers and achievements of the bishops of Lindisfarne and Durham and culminates
with a note on the election of the current bishop, Hugh de Puiset. The genealogies and
lists are clearly intended to write Durham into a broader history of Christianity and the
quasi-national history of England, but they do so by imposing a view of history
consisting of the succession of important individuals upon the earlier prose narratives.43
When the Durham community introduced new texts into B.II.35 that reinforced the
book’s expression of a particular historical and spiritual identity, they did so by
structuring history around the important individuals that contributed to that identity.
Lawrence of Durham’s Hypognosticon, a versified reworking of salvation
history, reveals a similar understanding of history as the succession of charismatic and
authoritative figures. While famous individuals were not the sole organizing principle
of Lawrence’s work, they did serve as one of the main devices around which Lawrence
built his conception of history. For instance, in Book V of the Hypognosticon,
Lawrence discussed the wisdom of Solomon briefly, but then diverged to discuss the
43 On the implications of the medieval genealogy as a form of text, see Gabrielle Spiegel, “Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historiography,” in The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore and London, 1997): 99-110. As Spiegel suggests, the imposition of genealogical metaphors on historical narrative transformed them into symbolic structures governing the nature and significance of the past. Spiegel was concerned with secular genealogies of thirteenth-century French nobility and their ability to code social life into historical narrative, but her observations help clarify how the imposition of genealogies and lists of notable individuals on the narrative histories in B.II.35 imprint a particular representation of the past on the chronicles.
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“seven wise men” of Greek learning, who include Periander, Chilon, Bias, Cleubulus,
Solon, Pictacus, and Thales.44 He continued with longer sections devoted to Pythagoras,
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.45 Book IX, which treated the period of history after the
Crucifixion and Ascension, was even more explicitly organized around a succession of
important individuals. Lawrence devoted a brief section to description of all the
apostles from Stephan to Saint Hippolyte, followed by verses on saints, including
Alban, Oswald, Dionysius, Demetrius, Eadmund, Cuthbert, Nicholas, and Martin.46
These verses were, in turn, followed by a section describing the doctors of the church,
including Jerome, John Cassian, Gregory the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, Bede, and
several others up through Anselm of Canterbury, Ivo of Chartes and Hildebert of
Lavardin. Finally, Lawrence included a list of famous virgins and their
accomplishments, which comprised the last section of the whole work save for an
exposition on the Last Judgment.47 The structure of the Hypognosticon suggests that
Lawrence had internalized the model of knowledge represented in Rawl. D.338. If the
Hypognosticon was also used as a tool of pedagogy at Durham, it would have further
reinforced the community’s emphasis on authoritative figures and their textualization as
authors.
The notions of authority, authorship, and presence were interwoven at Durham,
together creating a notion of textual identity and literate knowledge that was based on
44 Gottes Heilsplan, ed. Daub, 165-66. In the edition of the text, and in the earliest manuscript witness to the text, Durham University Library, Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, the names of these figures are each rubricated in the margin, making them the reference points for the text and their organizational focal points. 45 op. cit., 166-67. 46 op. cit., 241-45. 47 op. cit., 245-46.
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treating texts as able to convey the literal presence of their authors. Participating in the
literate culture of Durham would have depended on knowing the authors of texts,
without whom the full meaning of a text could not be accessed. The pedagogical
programs outlined above were designed to enable this knowledge. However, they could
not have been comprehensive enough to structure every encounter with the written
word, suggesting that texts themselves at Durham might have been made to reinforce
this knowledge. The next section of this chapter examines how ideas of authorship
influenced the form of manuscripts produced at Durham and analyzes textual strategies
for reminding readers of a text’s authorial presence.
4.3 Books and Authors: The Manuscript Evidence
The surviving manuscripts from Durham represent one of the richest and most
complete manuscript traditions produced by any medieval English community.48 It will
hardly be possible to consider all of the surviving manuscripts here; this discussion will
be limited to sources that address the ways in which notions of presence, authorship,
and authority affected the material forms assumed by texts at Durham. Although
manuscripts from as early as the seventh century survive from the community that
eventually settled at Durham, I will primarily consider those manuscripts that are likely
to have been produced at Durham itself beginning in 1083 and continuing until the end
48 The most accessible and complete description of Durham’s manuscripts is still R.A.B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939), cited as DCM. A list of manuscripts provenanced to Durham is printed in A.J. Watson, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Supplement to the Second Edition (London, 1987): 16-34, which updates N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd ed (London, 1964): 60-76. For some of the context of Durham’s manuscript collection, see Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge, 2003).
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of the twelfth century. The major exception to this rule will be the books donated to the
community by William of St.-Calais, some of which were produced in Normandy. The
evidence will suggest that notions of authorship and authorial presence exerted
considerable influence in the formation of Durham’s manuscript culture.
When Bishop William of St.-Calais returned to Durham from exile in
Normandy in 1091 he brought with him many gifts for the monastic community, among
which were several manuscripts. These books, along with others that he commissioned
while at Durham or collected after his return, made up a collection of 39 books that he
donated to the community upon his death in 1096.49 Although the monastic community
certainly possessed other manuscripts at this time, this large and comparatively
luxurious collection of books, containing mostly Scripture, patristics, and canon law,
formed the core of the large library assembled by the community at Durham over the
course of the twelfth century.50 Possibly the most visible feature of these books,
particularly those which were produced in Normandy, was their celebration of the role
of scribes and donors in the creation of manuscripts. DCL B.II.13, for instance, was the
second of a three-part copy of Augustine’s commentary on the Psalter that was
produced in Normandy.51 The book includes a carefully executed donor portrait of
William himself in one of the initials, along with a portrait of the scribe or illuminator 49 Michael Gullick, “The Scribe of the Carilef Bible,” 61-83 provides a thorough analysis of which the 19 surviving books of William of St.-Calais were produced in Normandy. His conclusions have important implications for several of my arguments in this section. See also A.C. Browne, “Bishop William of St. Carilef’s Book Donation to Durham Cathedral Priory,” Scriptorium 42 (1988): 140-55. 50 On the formation of Durham’s Library during part of our period see Richard Gameson, “English Book Collections in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Century: Symeon’s Durham and its Context,” in Symeon of Durham, 230-53. On the organization of the library, see A.J. Piper, “The Libraries of the Monks of Durham,” in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts, and Libraries, ed. Malcolm Parkes (London, 1978): 213-4. 51 Gullick, “The Scribe of the Carilef Bible,” 74.
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of the manuscript, identified as “Robert Benjamin” below him (Figure 1).52 The
surviving companion volume to B.II.13, the third part of Augustine’s Psalter
commentary, does not contain any notable figural images. It does, however, contain a
colophon that celebrates William of St.-Calais’ commissioning of the book and the
work of scribe, also named William.53 These textual features created an association, not
between texts and their authors, but rather between books, as historical objects, and the
personages responsible for their creation.
These Norman-made books emanated from a center of manuscript production
located near Bayeux and Rouen that seems to have been dedicated to the celebration of
manuscripts’ donors and, more particularly, scribal labor. Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Bodley 717, for instance, was probably produced at the community of Jumièges. It
contains a portrait of the artist known as Hugo pictor, who wrote and decorated the
book (Figure 2).54 It is actually possible that Hugo pictor worked on one of the books
commissioned by William of St.-Calais in Normandy and Hugo may have been trained
and/or located in the same scriptorium as Robert Benjamin.55 The influence of this
celebration of scribes and scribal work on English monasteries that came under Norman
52 DCL B.II.13, f.102r. 53 DCL B.II.14, f.200v. The colophon reads: “Hoc exegit opus Guiellelmus episcopus illo / Tempore quo proprio cessit episcopo / Materies operisque labor reputantur eidem / Materies sumptum sed labor imperio / Nominis eius consors Willelmus et idem / Perstitit et fieret arte labore manu / Pontificisque sui tanto servebat amore / Ut labor ipse foret eius amore levis.” On the careers of both the artist Robert Benjamin and the scribe William, see Gullick, “The Scribe of the Carilef Bible.” 54 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley Ms. 717, f.287v. On the career of Hugo pictor see Otto Pächt, “Hugo pictor,” Bodleian Library Record 3 (1950-51): 96-103. Hugo produced another portrait of himself that survives on the single leaf BNF lat. 13765, f.B. 55 Gullick, “The Scribe of Carilef Bible,” 74-75 and n.64-69 makes the case that Hugo pictor worked in DCL B.II.9. Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 47, does not accept the identification. Pächt, “Hugo pictor,” 98 draws attention to the similarity of initials in Bodley 717, the work of Hugo pictor, and those in DCL B.II.13, the work of Robert Benjamin.
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influence can be seen in the famous Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College,
R.17.1), which was produced c.1155-70 at Christ Church, Canterbury and contains a
full-page portrait of its scribe, Eadwine.56
The nucleus of the Durham community’s library was built around books that
participated in this tradition. Indeed, the monastic community might have already
owned a book that used images to celebrate donors. Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, Ms. 183 is a ninth-century copy of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert. The book contains
a full-page frontispiece depicting a king in a short, purple mantle bending over and
holding an open book. To the right stands a nimbed and tonsured saint holding up his
right hand and clutching a book in his left.57 The image has traditionally been
understood as a representation of the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan’s donation of a copy
of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert to the community at Chester-le-Street. Corpus Christi 183 is,
as a result, usually understood to be the very same book given to the community by
Athelstan, containing an image of its own donation and celebrating its donor.58 These
features of Corpus Christi 183, echoed in the Norman books of William of St.-Calais,
56 Cambridge, Trinity College, Ms. R.17.1, f.283v. On this manuscript, see Margaret Gibson, T.A. Heslop, and Richard Pfaff (eds.), The Eadwine Psalter: Text, Image, and Monastic Culture in Twelfth-Century Canterbury (Philadelphia, 1997). 57 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 183, f.1v. 58 The donation is attested in several primary sources, most notably the Historia de sancto Cuthberto, 26: 211. David Rollason, “St. Cuthbert and Wessex,” in St. Cuthbert, his cult and community, 413-24, has challenged the identification of Corpus Christi 183 with the book given the community by Athelstan, suggesting that the image actually depicts Athelstan reading the book and showing devotion to Cuthbert, rather than donating it. He suggests that the manuscript may have been Athelstan’s personal devotion book and that it may not have arrived at Durham until the mid-eleventh century. Gerald Bonner, however, in “St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” 390, also in St. Cuthbert, endorses the traditional interpretation, pointing out the similarity of the image to one now lost in a Gospel book made in France that contains the inscription “I Athelstan king gave this book to St. Cuthbert.” Regardless, both scholars agree that the book was not made by the community at Durham but given to them (southwest Saxony is its most likely place of origin) and was in the community’s possession by the eleventh century at the latest.
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suggest that Durham inherited a textual tradition at the end of the eleventh century that
celebrated scribes and donors, linking books to the people responsible for their
production.
These manuscripts were prestigious and were carefully preserved by the
community. Nineteen of the thirty-nine books donated by William of St.-Calais survive
today in excellent condition. Yet even as the monastic community built their library
around these books, they appear to have rejected the textual tradition embedded in
them. There are no scribal or donor portraits in manuscripts produced at twelfth-century
Durham, nor any colophons celebrating them. They were supplanted by author portraits
and other forms of authorial celebration.59 The earliest example of an author portrait at
Durham is in DCL B.II.22, which was among those books donated by William of St.-
Calais, but was not one of those produced in Normandy. B.II.22 contains a very fine
late eleventh-century copy of Augustine’s De civitate dei and contains an author
portrait at the start of the text. The image contains two roundels with portraits of monks
in them and, in the center, a depiction of a figure at a writing desk, presumably
Augustine.60 Located at the opening lines of the De civitate dei, the image reminded
readers of Augustine’s authorship and the authority it lent to the text. The precise
history of this image is complicated; stylistically, it closely resembles the manuscript
art of Christ Church, Canterbury and it seems likely that it was produced by a
59 The link between “presence” and images is one of the central concepts underwriting the work of Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: a history of the images before the era of art (Chicago, 1994). More specific to the central Middle Ages, Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,” argues that seal images, as articulators of identity in the prescholastic period, were tied to an emerging discourse of presence and immanence. 60 DCL B.II.22, f.27v.
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Canterbury artist, or at least from a Canterbury exemplar. However, several of the
hands in B.II.22 can be found in later manuscripts produced at Durham, suggesting that
the book was produced by Durham scribes.61 It is possible that a Durham scribe was
sent to Canterbury to copy the manuscript, which was decorated there by a Canterbury
artist, in which case its significance for Durham’s textual culture is questionable.
However, images of authors came to dominate the pages of books after B.II.22 arrived
at Durham, placing it at the start of a central trend in manuscript art at Durham.
Manuscripts from early twelfth-century Durham frequently contain images of
authors at the start of texts. Oxford, University College Ms. 165, the fully illustrated
copy of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert produced at Durham in the early twelfth century,
contains two images of Bede as an author. Prior to the start of the text is a narrativized
image of Bede writing the Life and presenting his work to the bishop of Lindisfarne.
The opening initial of the prologue of text on the following page contains another
image of Bede as an author that uses the more conventional iconography.62 Sometime
after the creation of University College 165, but still in the first half of the twelfth
century, Durham artists again depicted Bede at the start of the Life of Cuthbert
preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby Ms. 20 (Figure 3).63 Bede was not the
only writer to merit author portraits in early twelfth century at Durham. Helperic of
Grandaval, a lesser-known author of a treatise on the computus, was the subject of an
61 Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 54, 38. Also see Mynors, DCM, 33, which suggests that the Canterbury manuscript BL Arundel Ms. 16 might be the exemplar for some of the decoration of this image. 62 Oxford, University College, Ms. 165, pp. ii, 1. For some bibliography on this important manuscript see Chap. 4, n.79. 63 Bodleian, Digby Ms. 20, f.194r.
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author portrait in DCL Hunter 100, a manuscript containing scientific and medical
treatises. The artist of this portrait may also have been responsible for the author
portrait of Bede in Bodleian Library, Digby 20.64 Cambridge, Jesus College Ms. Q.B.11
contains an author portrait of Priscian at the start of his treatises on grammar and
accents.65 All of these images use the standard iconography for images of authors,
drawn from depictions of the four evangelists. They signified not only the fact of
authorial presence to readers, but also the authority that inhered in the text.66
This conventional iconography for author portraits was not always used for
author portraits at Durham. Scriptural authors other than the Evangelists occasionally
appear in the decorative initials in Durham books. DCL A.I.10, which contains a
commentary on Mathew, a commentary on the Apocalypse, and Cassiodorus’ De
Anima, has several miniatures in the initials of the Apocalypse commentary, including
an image of the Ancient of Days and two images of a man spearing a dragon.67 At the
start of the sixth vision of the Apocalypse, John himself is depicted, facing straight out
to the reader and holding a pen and a book reading “Et vidi tronum magnum” (Apoc.
20: 11).68 Another example can be found in DCL B.II.8, which contains Jerome’s
64 DCL Hunter 100, f.43r and Cambridge, Jesus College Q.B.11, f.1v. For links between the artists in these manuscripts, see Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 78-88. 65 Cambridge, Jesus College, Q.B.11, f.1v. Another similar portrait is found in DCL B.IV.14, f.2v. This image, although possessing the form of an author portrait, is ambiguous (perhaps intentionally so) and will be discussed below, pp.265-66. 66 On images of authors, see Christel Meier-Staubach, “Ecce auctor. Beiträge zur Ikonographie literarischer Urheberschaft im Mittelalter,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 34 (2000): 338-392. Also the essays collected in Figures de l’écrivain au Moyen Age: actes du colloque du Centre d’études médiévales de l’Université de Picardie, Amiens, 18-20 mars 1988, ed. Danielle Buschinger (Goppingen, 1991). 66 DCL B.II.22, f.27v. 67The texts begin on 1r, 170r, and 234r respectively. The images are found on f. 170r, 179r, and 212r respectively. They occur at the start of the first, second, and fifth visions of John in the Apocalypse. 68 op. cit., f. 223r.
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commentary on Isaiah. The initial to start of Book VIII contains an image of both Isaiah
and Jerome. Isaiah stands above Jerome holding two scrolls that contain passages from
Scripture. Jerome, somewhat smaller, sits below Isaiah and looks up toward him. The
image not only incorporates both of the authors associated with the text, but depicted
them in a relationship that mirrors that of text and commentary. The relationship
between Isaiah’s Scripture and Jerome’s commentary was that of the two authors as
well. Like the author portraits of Augustine and Bede, these images drew attention to
the authors of the books of Scripture, linking the existence of the text and its identity to
their composition of them.
The use of author portraits at Durham continued throughout the twelfth century
as demonstrated by two important images, one dating from around the 1150-60s, the
other from the 1170-80s. The earlier of the two occurs in Durham University Library,
Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, and contains a collection of Lawrence of Durham’s works. The
image, which occupies three-quarters of 22v, again uses the standard iconography for
author portraits, depicting a robed and tonsured Lawrence at a desk, writing with a pen
and knife (Figure 4). His status is confirmed by the rubric occupying the bottom quarter
of the page, “Ipponnosticon Laurentii Dunelmensis monachi. De veteri et novo
testamenti incipit.” As A.J. Piper has pointed out, this portrait is painted on a singleton
that was inserted into the manuscript, and may have been painted at a location other
than Durham.69 However, it must have been specifically commissioned by the
community at Durham, which was seeking to memorialize and commemorate
69 Unpublished description of the manuscript, held in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room of the Palace Green Library at the University of Durham.
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Lawrence’s status as an author, and therefore should be regarded as a product of the
community. It is worth noting that, as discussed above, this manuscript also contains
marginal notes signaling Lawrence’s authorship of the Hypognosticon and his scribe
Galienus’ poem on Lawrence as an author.70 The manuscript is fully structured by the
idea of authorship, with its texts and images coming together to make the author the
most visible structure of the manuscript.
The later of the two author portraits is found in the precious manuscript now
preserved as BL Yates Thompson Ms. 26. This manuscript is the second fully
illuminated copy of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert produced at Durham and currently
possesses forty-six out of the original fifty-five miniatures. As Dominic Marner
suggests, it was very probably produced at Durham under the auspices of Hugh de
Puiset, using University College 165 as an exemplar. It represents a general attempt to
revive Cuthbert’s cult that arose in the late twelfth century, possibly in response to the
growing popularity of Thomas Becket’s cult.71 Nearly all the images in the manuscript
depict events from the life of Saint Cuthbert. However, the manuscript opens with a
two-page frontispiece set across 1v and 2r. The verso contains an image of Saint
Cuthbert, while 2r depicts a seated and tonsured writer, almost certainly an author
70 See above, pp. 222-23. 71 Dominic Marner, St. Cuthbert: His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham (London, 2000) is a short but very thorough study of this important manuscript. See pp. 24-34 for his consideration of the circumstances that led to the production of Yates Thompson 26. Marner’s study includes full-color plates of all the miniatures in Yates Thompson 26. The book has been examined by many scholars. As a rare example of a fully illuminated saint’s life, it figured notably in Otto Pächt, The Rise of Pictorial Narrative in Twelfth-Century England (Oxford, 1962). On this topic, see also Cynthia Hahn, “Picturing the Text: Narrative in the Life of the Saints,” Art History 13 (1990): 1-33.
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portrait of Bede (Figure 5).72 The pairing of these two images will be discussed in
greater detail below, but for the moment it is worth noting that although the manuscript
was largely devoted to reviving the cult of Cuthbert, the community at Durham
nevertheless believed it important to include an image of the author.
All of these author portraits share a similar function: they simultaneously
commemorate the author and signal the author’s composition of the text and therefore
the authority he conferred on it.73 Although author portraits were something of a
convention in medieval manuscripts, they were clearly particularly important to the
community at Durham. In addition to the unusual number of them (no fewer than nine),
their importance is indicated by the fact that, along with images of saints, images of
authors are virtually the only subject represented in figural or historiated illustrations in
Durham manuscripts.74 Furthermore, the history of Durham’s manuscripts suggests that
the community actively abandoned the celebration of scribes and donors that figured so
prominently in the Norman textual traditions they inherited in favor of images that
celebrated authorship. The shift from scribal to authorial culture is evidence of the
community’s growing focus on forms of textualized presence and their resulting
interest in authors and authorship. Portraits of authors were one of the main strategies
72 BL Yates Thompson Ms. 26, f.1v and 2r. Marner, 43, notes the existence of the author portrait, but does not note the number of other author portraits in Durham manuscripts that pre-existed the making of this manuscript, instead comparing it with scribal portraits such as that in Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College, Ms. R.17.1, f.283v) and the small scribal portrait DCL B.II.13, f.102r. 73 In suggesting that these images were part of a discourse of presence, I do not mean to suggest that they were believed to be iconic in any sense. Rather, they seem to me to be more memorial in function. The images are not themselves intended to convey the presence of the author, but rather to remind the reader of the author’s presence in the text. If the image itself were intended to convey the author’s presence, there would be no need for author portraits particularly - any form of personal image would have sufficed. 74 See below, pp.258-69, for further discussion of the relationship between authors and saints at Durham.
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that the community employed to embed their interest in authorial presence in the
material forms of texts.
The Durham community employed other strategies for this purpose as well. One
of the most effective ways that a reader could be reminded of authorial presence was
through the inclusion of information about an author in tandem with copies of his
works, particularly information about his composition of those works. Evidence from
the Durham manuscripts indicates that, whenever possible, the Durham community
tried to employ this strategy. The most common example is the Retractiones of
Augustine, a work in which Augustine himself listed all the works he composed along
with short details about their composition.75 Relevant excerpts from this work are often
inserted at the start of texts authored by Augustine. The earliest example at Durham
appears to be DCL B.II.22, one of the books donated by William of St.-Calais that is
almost certain to have been produced at Durham itself.76 The book contains a complete
copy of Augustine’s City of God, preceded by the relevant passage from the
Retractiones rubricated as “Sententia de libro retractionum beati augustini.”77 The
same is true of a copy of Augustine’s De Trinitate made in the first half of the twelfth
century, which includes both the relevant passage from the Retractiones and a letter by
Augustine to Aurelianus before the text.78 In both cases, the inclusion of a note about
the author’s composition of the text makes his presence visible for the reader.
75 The critical edition of this work is Retractionum libri II, ed. A. Mutzenbecher, CCSL 57 (Turnhout, 1984, repr. 1999). 76 See Mynors, DCM, 33. 77 DCL B.II.22, f.27r. 78 DCL B.II.26, f.5v. Although I do not know if this was part of the standard textual tradition of the De Trinitate, the placement of the passage from the Retractiones in this manuscript is somewhat interesting.
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A slightly more interesting example appears in another Durham manuscript
from the first part of the twelfth century that contains a copy of the Confessions. It is
preceded by the relevant section of the Retractiones, a copy Augustine’s De diversis
heresibus, a full copy of the Retractiones themselves, Augustine’s Dialectica, and a
copy of Alcuin’s Dialectica.79 The copy of the Retractiones was a later addition to the
manuscript, which resulted in two copies of the section of the Retractiones relating to
the Confessions appearing in the same manuscript. The format of the excerpt from the
Retractiones that precedes the Confessions is unusual; typically passages from the
Retractiones conclude with Augustine writing “hoc opus sic incipit” or “hic liber sic
incipit,” followed by the incipit of the work Augustine is describing. In this manuscript,
however, the text following the statement “hoc opus sic incipit” is not an excerpted
incipit, but the start of the full text of the Confessions, the beginning of which is
marked by a rubric set to the right of the page.80 The distinction between the passage
from the Retractiones and the Confessions is elided; the text is literally framed by
Augustine’s story of its composition. Not only does the passage from the Retractiones
in this manuscript cue to the reader to the fact of Augustine’s composition of the text,
but the lack of a distinction between the Retractiones and the text of the Confessions
itself emphasizes its status as a representation of Augustine himself.
The list of capitula for the De Trinitate, which includes no mention of either the passage from the Retractiones or the letter to Aurelianus, actually precedes both the Retractiones excerpt and the letter. The effect is that the reader is confronted with a rubric for the De Trinitate and a list of capitula for that work, but is then diverged into a passage from Augustine about the composition of the work and a letter of Augustine concerning the work. In a way, this format suggests that the author’s account of how he produced the book becomes part of the text itself, rather than simply prefatory material. The author’s act of producing the text thus becomes more closely associated with the identity of the text itself. 79 DCL B.IV.6, with the start of the texts found on 1r, 83v, 99r, 144r, and 158r respectively. 80 op. cit., f.1r.
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The insertion of relevant passages from Augustine’s Retractiones before copies
of his works illuminates another way in which authorial presence was highlighted in
Durham manuscripts. Although such excerpts were a typical feature of the Augustinian
textual tradition, their inclusion was nonetheless congruent with Durham’s literate
culture. Furthermore, several other manuscripts from the community employ similar
strategies and these cases are far more likely to represent clear intervention on the part
of scribes and scholars at Durham. DCL B.II.10, for instance, is a late eleventh-century
copy of the letters of Jerome given to the community by William of St.-Calais. The
manuscript primarily contains a collection of 123 letters written by or to Jerome and
was produced in the scriptorium of Christ Church, Canterbury as demonstrated by the
distinctive style of the script and initials.81 It is likely that Bishop William
commissioned the community at Christ Church to produce the manuscript, which was
then brought to the monastic library at Durham upon its completion.82 Once the
manuscript was part of the library at Durham, however, the monks added another text
to the manuscript, a short Life of St. Jerome found on ff.183v-86v.83 Unlike the excerpts
from Augustine’s Retractiones, the pairing of the Life of St. Jerome with a text he
authored was a clear intervention by scribes at Durham and not the effect of the
81 See Mynors, DCM, B.II.10, Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 38, and Richard Gameson, “English Manuscript Art in the Late Eleventh Century: Canterbury and Its Context,” in R. Eales and R. Sharpe, eds., Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars, 1066-1109 (London, 1995): 117. 82 See Anne Lawrence, “The Influence of Canterbury on the Collection and Production of Manuscripts at Durham in the Anglo-Norman Period,” in A. Borg and A. Martindale, eds., The Vanishing Past: Studies of Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology Presented to Christopher Hohler (Oxford, 1981): 95-104, esp. 97-98. 83 This text was written in an early twelfth century script that is clearly different from that of Christ Church. The opening initial of the Life on 183v includes an instance of the decorative motif that Mynors termed the “clove-curl” and which was distinctive to Durham, leaving little doubt that the text was added by the community at Durham. The anonymous Life of St. Jerome is that printed in PL 22: 201-214.
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manuscript’s exemplar. It suggests that scribes at Durham considered it important to
provide readers with knowledge about an author alongside texts that were attributed to
him.
A comparable, although more complicated example is Cambridge, Jesus
College Q.G.16, a smallish manuscript of the twelfth century primarily containing
Boethius’ treatise on the Trinity and several theological works of Anselm of
Canterbury. The contents, size, and wear on the manuscript suggest that it may have
been a classroom book for the community. Prior to the start of Boethius’ treatise on the
Trinity is a series of short passages concerning the significance of Boethius’ name for
his personal history that begin “nobiles romani auspicato nomina et prenomina suis
filiis imponebant.”84 The hand may be identical to the one in which Boethius’ main text
is copied, but the script is much smaller, more cramped, and generally less tidy than
that of the main text. Whether or not these excerpts were copied from a single exemplar
along with the rest of Boethius’ treatise on the Trinity is unclear. The passages are
excerpts from a version of Life of Boethius, perhaps the one composed by Cassiodorus,
that does not regularly accompany copies of the works of Boethius.85 Similar excerpts
do appear in some English manuscripts of the period, notably in Cambridge, Pembroke
College 84, a late eleventh-century copy of Boethius’ works from Bury St.-Edmunds,
84 Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. 64, f.2r. 85 The precise identification of these excerpts continues to be elusive. Parts of them appear in the Vita Boeti reconstructed from several manuscripts by Rudolfus Peiper, Anicii Manlii Severini Boetii Philosophiae Consolationis libri quinque accedunt eiusdem atque incertorum opuscula sacra (Leipzig, 1871): xxxi, but some of them do not. I have not yet been able to compare them with the Life composed by Cassiodorus, first identified and studied by Hermann Usener, Anecdoton Holderi: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Roms in ostgothischer Zeit (Bonn, 1877) and more recently treated by Alain Galonnier, Anecdoton Holder ou Ordo generis Cassiodorum: éléments pour une étude de l’authenticité Boécienne des Opuscula Sacra (Louvain, 1997).
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and in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 309, a twelfth-century copy of
Boethius’ works of unknown provenance.86 However, both of these manuscripts
contain a collection of Boethius’ works that include the Consolation of Philosophy and
his short theological works. Jesus College Q.G.16 contains only Boethius’ opuscula on
the Trinity alongside theological works by Anselm of Canterbury, and so it is unlikely
to have been copied from either Pembroke 84 or Gonville and Caius 309. Furthermore,
there is a twelfth-century table of contents on the verso of the page that lists the
anomalous extracts about Boethius, possibly indicating that they were not placed at the
start of the manuscript as it was originally copied. The combination of the cramped
script, the lack of a clear textual tradition for the extracts, and the placement of the table
of contents suggests that the passages about Boethius’ life were a later addition to the
manuscript. They probably represent another instance of Durham’s scribes adding
information about an author to a manuscript containing his works.
The clearest demonstration of this trend at Durham appears in another of the
books donated by William of St.-Calais, DCL B.II.35, discussed earlier in the context
of genealogies and lists of illustrious figures.87 The manuscript, as originally produced
in the late eleventh century, contained only a copy of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica.88
Over the course of the twelfth century, however, a number of additions were made to
the book. The first of these, added in the early twelfth century, was a copy of the Life of
86 See M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College Cambridge (Cambrige, 1905): 74 and ibid., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College (Cambridge, 1907): 354. 87 See above, pp.231-32. 88 Now occupying ff.36-119.
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Bede and another short text written by Bede, the Historia abbatum.89 Later, in the mid-
twelfth century, the Historia brittonum, a text with a clear thematic link to Bede’s
Historia ecclesiastica was added to the manuscript. This work is usually attributed to
Nennius, but in this manuscript it was attributed to Gildas with a rubrication reading,
“Incipit gesta britonum a Gilda sapiente composita.”90 As Mynors notes, this text was
carefully corrected in 1166 and a marginal note rectifies the incorrect attribution:
“Incipit gesta britonum a Nennio sapiente composita.”91 However, these corrections
were predated by another set of additions to the manuscript, which include the
genealogies of Old Testament kings, Anglo-Saxon kings, and English bishops noted
above, but notably also included a copy of the Life of Gildas.92 The community at
Durham went to considerable lengths over time to ensure that a copy of vita of every
author represented in B.II.35 was included in the manuscript, and Gildas, the presumed
author of the Historia brittonum, was no exception. The systematic efforts by Durham
scribes in DCL B.II.10, Jesus College Q.G.16, and DCL B.II.35 to highlight the
connection between an author’s life and his texts is evidence of the community’s
89 DCL B.II.35, f.119r-129r. It is worth noting that, although executed later and in a different hand, an attempt was made to keep the format of the additions identical to the original text, the Historia ecclesiastica. The mise-en-page, down to the number of lines, is the same in both cases, and the style of initials is largely identical. 90 DCL B.II.35, f.129v-136r. 91 op. cit. The dating of these corrections is revealed in one of them, as noted by Mynors, DCM, B.II.35. The exemplar for these corrections was probably the copy preserved in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 139, which preserves the attribution to Nennius, contrasting with a separate manuscript tradition which attributes the work to Gildas. 92 DCL B.II.35, f.137v-138v. Although Mynors suggests that this set of additions postdated the 1166 corrections to the Historia brittonum, the fact that they include the Life of Gildas, which would have been rendered irrelevant by the reattribution of the Historia to Nennius in the 1166 corrections, suggests that they may have slightly predated the corrections.
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prevailing interest in authorial presence and its attempts to organize manuscript culture
around the idea.93
Although providing details about an author’s life in a manuscript containing his
works might have been the most complete way of highlighting authorship and authorial
presence, this strategy would not have been feasible for most authors. Unlike
Augustine, whose Retractiones usually traveled with his works, texts relating to the
lives of many authors might be unavailable, unknown, or nonexistent. For a large
library such as Durham’s it would not have been practical to include significant details
about every author represented in the collections. In most cases therefore, a more
limited strategy for signaling the connection between author and text would have had to
suffice. The most obvious strategy would have been simply to ensure that texts were
properly and completely attributed to their author, either through a rubric or by some
other means. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to measure the extent to which patterns
of attribution in the Durham manuscripts represent intervention on the part of scribes or
are merely the effect of textual transmission. Rubrics, attributions, and titles were
generally transmitted from exemplar to copy and their form was often tied to a textual
tradition. If no rubric was present on an exemplar, it could be supplied by a scribe or
93 There are several other less elaborate examples of this trend that also suggest that when the community at Durham considered a text they thought of it in terms of its author. For instance, DCL B.IV.25 contains a copy of the De Anima of Aelred of Rievaulx, a writer held in great esteem at Durham. Aelred died shortly after the completion of this work or, by some accounts, before having completed. At the end of the copy in B.IV.25 is a short two-line eulogy for Aelred that is not, so far as I know, part of the general textual tradition of the work: “Hoc opus hic metam vita rapiente poetam / Sortitur morti superum sociando cohorti.” Although brief, it indicates that the text was closely associated with its author. A final example can be found in DCL B.II.7, an early twelfth-century copy of Jerome’s Breviarum super Psalmos. On 5v is one of many prefaces that precedes Jerome’s commentary; this particular one relates the story of David’s life and composition of the Psalms, beginning “David filius Iesse cum esse in regno suo quattuor elegit qui psalmos facerent…” It thus situates David as the author of the text being commented on, and so treats even the Psalms as defined, at least partially, by their human author.
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rubricator, but for a modern reader there is no way to discern an attribution supplied by
a scribe of Durham from one copied from an exemplar.
There are a few potential solutions to this dilemma, all imperfect, but perhaps in
sum enough to demonstrate that there was, within the community at Durham, a
conscious desire to ensure that the texts were properly attributed to their authors
whenever possible. The most obvious might be simple quantitative analysis to see how
uniformly manuscripts from Durham clearly signal their author. At present, I have
examined the patterns of attribution in 113 manuscripts from late-eleventh or early
twelfth-century Durham.94 Of these, thirty-eight are not relevant to this discussion,
either because they were likely not produced at Durham or because the texts contained
within them were, for a variety of reasons, not susceptible to attribution.95 Sixty-five
manuscripts remain as the basis for some form of quantitative analysis to judge whether
there was a clear pattern of textual attribution at Durham.96 These sixty-five
94 Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. Q.G.4 and Oxford, Bodleain laud. misc. 52 have been treated as a single book, since they were bound to each other in the twelfth century. The number does not include manuscripts from Durham produced earlier than the late eleventh century, a list that includes Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 183, Cambridge, Trinity College, Ms. 216, Cambridge, University Library, Gg.3.28, DCL A.IV.28, DCL B.II.30, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley Ms. 819. 95 This would include most liturgical manuscripts, manuscripts containing chiefly Scripture or glossed Scriptural books, books of canons or canon law, manuscripts containing mostly anonymous texts such as medical or scientific treatises, locally produced chronicles, such as the Durham copies of Symeon’s Libellus de exordio, or other largely normative manuscripts such as the Durham Cantor’s Book (DCL B.IV.24). 96 For the purposes of this sort of analysis, two terms need to be clarified here: “text” and “attribution.” In what follows, I consider a “text” to be a relatively discrete discursive unit within a manuscript that is recognizably distilled from other material within the same manuscript. Thus, for instance, Anselm’s Proslogion would generally be considered a single text, but so would a collection of Augustine’s sermons or letters if they are grouped together and materially uniform. Likewise, two discursive units that we might now recognize as two texts, say, Hugh of St.-Victor’s De sacramentis and his De modo orandi, might be treated as a single text in one of these manuscripts. I consider a text to be “attributed” if there is a clear signal near the start of the text as to who its author was. The most common tactic is, naturally, the presence of the author’s name in a rubric that identifies the text, but in some cases, particularly those texts that have prefatory letters, the first line of the text might identify the author.
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manuscripts contain 218 total works that would have been susceptible to attribution. Of
those 218 texts, 166 (roughly three-quarters) of them have clear and consistent
attributions to their authors, a number that seems somewhat low if we were to assume
that Durham scribes were consciously trying to ascribe as many texts as possible to an
author.
However, further examination of the manuscripts themselves reveals that this
number, taken in and of itself, is only part of the story. Nearly all the texts that lack an
attribution occur in a small group of thirteen manuscripts, all of which share a common
structure.97 They tend to be smallish, well-worn, composite manuscripts that contain
multiple, short texts providing either basic, introductory material on a subject or very
advanced study texts. By way of example, we could point to the early twelfth-century
book now split into two manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library, laud misc. 52 and
Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. Q.G.4. This book contained a short work on the
sacraments,98 a work of Jerome titled “de essentia et invisibilitate et immensitudine
Dei,” a letter of Jerome on the virtues of God, a collection of seven sermons of Ivo of
Chartres, an untitled tract on various church canons gathered from papal letters (in fact
the Panormia of Ivo of Chartres), a sermon of Augustine, and a short work on the four
Indeed, in some cases, the first line of a letter, the salutation, is actually used as a rubric for the text. There is some ambiguity involved in both these terms, but I hope that the numbers involved will help soften some of the problems that might arise from it. 97 These thirteen manuscripts are Cambridge, Jesus College Q.B.8; Cambridge, Jesus College. Q.G.4 and Oxford, Bodleian Laud. misc. 52 (a single book in the twelfth century); Cambridge, Jesus College Q.G.5; Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. Q.G.16; DCL A.III.10; DCL B.III.14; DCL B.IV.8; DCL B.IV.37; London, BL Harley Ms. 491; Oxford, Bodleian Digby Ms. 41; Oxford, Bodleian laud. misc. 277; Oxford, Bodleian laud. misc. 344; Oxford, St. John’s College, Ms. 97. 98 Anonymous in the manuscript, this text is the one usually attributed to Ivo of Chartres printed in PL 162: 505C. Given that the book also contains a letter, sermons, and the Panormia of Ivo of Chartres, it is likely that this text was recognized as the work of Ivo, but was nonetheless left unattributed.
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virtues of prudence, strength, temperance, and justice.99 The texts collected in this
manuscript were intended as basic introductory texts on theology, ecclesiology, and
personal virtue. The same could be said of most of the other thirteen manuscripts that
tend to lack attributions, including Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. Q.G.16, a collection
of theological treatises of Boethius and Anselm of Canterbury; DCL B.III.14,
containing works of Isidore, Peter Damian, John Chrysostom and an Apocalypse
commentary; DCL B.IV.37, a vast collection of Patristic excerpts; Oxford, Bodleian
Library, laud misc. 277 and laud misc. 344, both containing upward of twenty
miscellaneous theological texts.
There is a clear distinction between the material form, execution of script, and
content, between these thirteen manuscripts and the other fifty-two manuscripts
examined. The other fifty-two manuscripts are generally of higher quality and tend to
contain fewer total texts. They are generally lengthy and contain more advanced works
on theology and ecclesiology, including many of the more “canonical” works of
monastic libraries. Interestingly, the distinction in quality, form, and content
corresponds to a division in patterns of attribution. Of the sixty-eight texts that occur in
the lower quality composite manuscripts, only twenty-five of them are attributed
(slightly more than a third). Conversely, of the manuscripts that are of finer quality and
contain more complete texts there is a total of 150 texts, 141 of which have clear
attributions signaling the author.
99 The first of these three texts are in Bodleian laud misc. 52 and begin on 3r, 41r, and 46r. The other four are in Jesus College Q.G.4 and begin on 1r, 31r, 39r, and 41r.
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The divide between the two groups of manuscripts probably reflects the
functions for which they were produced. The less formal manuscripts were likely
classroom books or study books, while the other fifty-two would have been library
books, used for meditative reading and study or for reading in chapter.100 The contents
of the thirteen lower quality manuscripts suggest that they were used for both
establishing a basic knowledge of Catholic orthodoxy and for study of advanced
theological topics. For this purpose, identification of their authors might have been of
secondary importance. Without suggesting that the texts themselves were necessarily
less authoritative, the role of these books was to equip readers with the intellectual tools
necessary to read and absorb the authors contained in the other manuscripts. In a way,
their purpose was less to be part of Durham’s literate culture and more to introduce
readers to it; the study books’ purpose was to equip readers with tools necessary to read
those books that were part of the intellectual canon at Durham and therefore defined by
their authority.101
If this is indeed the case, then the thirteen classroom manuscripts can be
bracketed in a discussion of patterns of attribution. This leaves the other fifty-two
manuscripts and their 150 texts, of which 141, virtually all of them, have clear
attributions. Unfortunately, it is not possible to compare this percentage of attribution 100 Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 158-9. The status of “schoolbooks” or “classroom” books and their relationship to library books in the monastery is still problematic. See Gernot Rudolf Wieland, “The Glossed Manuscripts: Classbook or Library Book?” Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985): 153-73. Also Suzanne Reynolds, “Glossing Horace: Using the Classics in the Medieval Classroom,” in In Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use, ed. Claudine Chavannes-Mazel and Margaret Smith (Leiden, 1993): 103-117, P.M. Clogan, “Literary Genres in a Medieval Textbook,” Medievalia et Humanisticia 11 (1982): 199-209 and, although mostly dealing with the earlier period, David Porter, “The Latin Syllabus in Anglo-Saxon Monastic Schools,” Neophilologus 78 (1994): 463-82. 101 The idea of “authoritative texts” was explored in the essays collected in Ad litteram: authoritative texts and their medieval readers, ed. Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery (Notre Dame, IN, 1992).
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with patterns at other twelfth-century monastic communities. However, it seems a high
enough percentage to suggest that there was a conscious effort on the part of the
community at Durham to ensure that texts were consistently linked to their authors.
There are other ways to address the problem of textual attribution in the Durham
manuscripts in order to provide some context for the level of attribution in these fifty-
two manuscripts. One approach is to compare the level of attribution demonstrated by
these manuscripts with the levels found in other high-quality, authoritative manuscripts
present at Durham, but not produced at Durham. The Norman-made books donated to
the community by William of St.-Calais once again provide a good context for
understanding Durham’s literate culture. Nine of the surviving Calais gifts were made
in Normandy. All were well-produced books and several are of luxurious quality.102
One of these nine books, the Carilef Bible (DCL A.II.4), is not a book that required
attribution and is therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Of the remaining eight, six
contain a single text that is clearly attributed. These books tend to contain some of the
most authoritative texts in monastic culture, among them Augustine’s Ennarationes in
Psalmos and Gregory’s Moralia. One book, DCL B.III.16 contains a single text,
Rhabanus Maurus’ commentary on Mathew, that has no attribution. The final book,
DCL B.II.11, contains twelve miscellaneous texts by Jerome and others, of which only
seven are attributed.103 Although the proportion of attributed texts is relatively high, it
102 Gullick, “The Scribe of Carilef Bible,” 74. The nine Norman-produced manuscripts, which Gullick identifies through scribal hands working in them, are DCL A.II.4, B.II.9, B.II.11, B.II.13, B.II.14, B.II.17, B.III.1, B.III.10, and B.III.16. They are very finely produced manuscripts often containing only a single text, typically of a very authoritative nature, e.g. Augustine’s Ennarationes in Psalmos or the works of Jerome. 103 See above, pp.230-31, for further discussion of B.II.11.
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is lower than that of books made at Durham in general. Furthermore, if the highly
authoritative texts of Augustine and Gregory are disregarded because they are not
representative texts, the level of attribution becomes entirely sporadic, a trend that is the
opposite of the books from Durham. Although this is a fairly small sample size, the
contrast between the Norman books and those of Durham strongly supports the
possibility that Durham scribes were more inclined to install attributions in manuscripts
than were those in other communities and locations.104
Finally, in one case, it is possible to compare a manuscript from Durham with
its exemplar and observe scribes reworking attributions to make them more visible.
DCL A.IV.28 is a ninth- or tenth-century copy of Bede’s commentary on the
Apocalypse. Although it is written in a late insular script, there is no way to be certain
if the book was produced by the community that came settled at Durham, though it was
certainly in their possession by the late eleventh century.105 It is a very small
manuscript with rather poorly executed script; it was probably used as the exemplar for
DCL B.IV.16, an early twelfth-century copy of Bede’s Apocalypse commentary, which
is much finer in presentation and execution.106 Comparison of the two manuscripts
reveals the interventions and actions of at least one Durham scribe in the twelfth
century. The text in DCL A.IV.28 is attributed to Bede on f.1v in the form of a small
104 For further contrasts in the Norman-produced books of William and Durham-produced books, see above, p.235-36. 105 Bonner, “St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street” in St. Cuthbert, his cult and community, does not list it as among the books likely to have been present during the community’s stay at Chester-le-Street, though this is only because there is no positive evidence that it was. Regardless, the book was almost certainly in the possession of the monks at Durham by the late eleventh century. 106 See Mynors, DCM, B.IV.16. The twelfth-century scribe apparently had trouble with some of the insular abbreviations. On no fewer than five occasions on 1v the word abbreviation “etm” with a hash over it (“etenim” typically) has been corrected in the margin to “etia” with a hash (“etiam.”)
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rubric in brown ink crammed into the upper margin: “Incipit prologus bedae in
apocalipsis.” The text on this page was not copied into B.IV.16. Instead, B.IV.16
begins with the rubric “Incipit prefatio Bedae In Apocalipsim” and the incipit
“Apocalipsis sancti Iohannis in qua bella et incendia…”107 This text is not found until
f.2r of A.IV.28, indicating that the twelfth century scribe skipped the first page of his
exemplar. However, there is no rubric or attribution on f.2r of A.IV.28.
Although there are several potential reasons why the material on the first folio
of A.IV.28 did not make it into B.IV16, the most likely explanation is that the scribe
did not have the page available to him. A.IV.28 is known to have been unbound for
much of the twelfth century and beyond, making it possible that the first folio was not
present when the scribe was copying B.IV.16.108 This scenario explains why the scribe
began with the text on f.2r. Given that there was no rubric on the second folio of
A.IV.28, the attribution in B.IV.16 represents a deviation from the exemplar.
Furthermore, the prefatory material in B.IV.16 ends on f.2v, where the main text of
Bede’s work begins with a second attribution: “incipit expositio Bedae super
apocalipsim.” This corresponds to the text on f.5v of A.IV.28, but the shift there is
marked only by a small rubric reading, “explicit prefatio. Incipit liber.”109 In both cases
the twelfth-century scribe deviated from his exemplar in order to produce rubrics
indicating the author of the text.
107 DCL B.IV.16, 1r. 108 The unbound state of the book is noted in Durham’s twelfth-century library catalogue, found in DCL B.IV.24, ff.1-4. See the printed version in Cat. Vet., 18. 109 DCL A.IV.28, 5v.
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The preceding analysis suggests that scribes at Durham were particularly
determined to install rubrics and otherwise signal a text’s authorial attribution. The
evidence is not conclusive, but becomes more persuasive in light of the other strategies
outlined above that were employed at Durham to highlight the idea of authorship in
manuscripts. Durham’s scribes added biographical material to manuscripts, providing
information about authors and their composition of texts. The author portraits from
Durham are also clear evidence of the importance of authorship to the community,
representing a clear break with a received textual tradition celebrating scribes and
donors in favor of representions of authors. These features of Durham manuscripts
show the community working out ways to install ideas of presence, authorship, and
authority in their book culture, ensuring that the experience of reading texts was framed
as an encounter with their authors. The final section of this chapter will address the
relationship between textualized saintly presence and authorial presence in greater
detail, demonstrating that the particular understanding of authorship at Durham
emerged from the community’s spiritual culture and exploring the implications of
competing forms of textual presence.
4.4 Competing for Presence: Saints and Authors
Textualized presence, authorship, and a cult of authority were the most
conspicuous features of Durham’s literate culture. Such ideas were central to several
cultural traditions during the central Middle Ages; was the community’s spirituality the
primary cause of their emergence? Durham was connected to another tradition that
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emphasized authority, presence, and the possibility of their textualization, namely the
quasi-humanistic traditions associated with cathedral schools and court culture. As
Jaeger has demonstrated, these ideas were central to the pedagogical program of tenth-
and eleventh-century cathedral schools and became key components of courtliness and
court society.110 This tradition reached to Durham through the gradual expansion of
Norman administration and culture to the North.111 Its primary conduits were the
bishops appointed to Durham, including William of St.-Calais, Ranulf Flambard, and
Geoffrey Rufus, who, despite their link to Durham, probably spent as much time at
court as they did at the cathedral.112 Nonetheless, the best example of the influence of
this monastic tradition comes from a member of the monastic community, Lawrence of
Durham. However, Lawrence of Durham spent a significant part of his career at court
with Bishop Geoffrey Rufus and his poetic writings, something of an anomaly amidst
all the historical and hagiographical works of the Durham community, suggest the
influence of court culture on his intellectual projects.
Lawrence’s versified Dialogi monachi et prioris contains the same interest in
authoritative figures and expressions of that authority that characterized the works of
Reginald of Durham.113 For instance, one of the interlocutors pokes fun at Lawrence’s
110 C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels, 76-195, 292-324. For further discussion of the forms of pedgagogy Jaeger discusses as they operated at Durham, see above pp.228-29. 111 On this process, see William Kapelle, The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and Its Transformation, 1000-1135 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1979). 112 For these figures and their connection to court culture, see William Aird, “An Absent Friend: The Career of Bishop William of St.-Calais,” in AND, 283-297, J.O Prestwich, “The Career of Ranulf Flambard,” in AND 299-310, and R.W. Southern, “Ranulf Flambard,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970): 183-205. On the difficult concept of court culture during this period, see John D. Cotts, “Peter of Blois and the Problem of the ‘Court’ in the Twelfth Century,” Anglo-Norman Studies 27 (2004): 68-84. 113 See above, pp.225-26.
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origins, declaring, “But as a boy you drank from Waltham’s stream, / I guess, and now
you belch forth what you drank. / Barbaric drinks exudes barbaric words, / Barbaric
places teach barbaric thoughts.”114 The implication of this bit of ironic mockery was
that a barbaric personality would naturally manifest itself in barbaric language and
conversely, a refined personality would yield refined language. This philosophy
assumes a virtual symmetry or congruency between oneself and one’s language. Such
symmetry meant that language was, in many ways, less about communicating ideas or
knowledge and more about the chance to encounter an author’s charisma and authority.
This idea is expressed later in the Dialogi, when a third interlocutor praised Lawrence’s
language, declaring, ““To me also your words are just like food / To starving men, like
flowers are to a bee. / If you repeat old things and well-known news, / I’ll love your
words just like a brand new gift.”115 Refined and artful language was seen as both the
sign of an authoritative personality and as the medium for encountering and drawing
nourishment from that authority.
Lawrence also accepted the possibility that authority and personality could be
textualized, particularly in the form of letters.116 At the end of Book II of Dialogi one of
the interlocutors left for France. He requested that Lawrence write him soon: “I’m sad
to see you grieve, so please write soon / And tell me that you now rejoice again. / As
well you know, I’ve far to go, but though I go, I stay, though one, I’m here at heart. /
114 Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem,” 82; Dialogi monachi et prioris, ed. Raine, III: 329-332: “Sed Gualthamensi puer, ut puto, flumine potus / Iam nunc eructas qualia tunc biberas. / Barbariem biberas, et barbara verba resudas; / Barbarus ille locus, barbara jure docet.” 115 Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham,” 59; Dialogi monachi et prioris, I: 537-40: “Et mihi, Laurenti, tua verba quod esurienti / Esca, quod et flores esse videntur api. / Nota licet, referas, repetasque relata frequenter, / Haec repetita novi muneris instar amo.” 116 See discussion above, pp.220 and citations at n.12.
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Though I’m apart, my mind will stay. I’ll have / no rest until I’m sure of what I
seek.”117 Letters filled the gap created by the absence of someone’s presence and the
void left by the lack of their charismatic personality. The idea was repeated at the start
of Book III, when the interlocutor returned from France and chastised Lawrence for
having failed to write him: “At last I reached my goal, all perils past, / But still no letter
comes from you to me. / I’m sure you wouldn’t lie, but I lie to / myself, repeating,
‘Now my letter comes.’ / Each day pretends tomorrow; every eve / looks to the morn
and gives unfounded hope.”118 The written word, in this quasi-humanistic tradition of
letter writing, was defined by the link between text and the absent person it embodied.
The fact that these ideas concerning presence, text, and authority featured so
prominently in Lawrence’s writings suggest that they would have been influential at
Durham. It is worth recalling that the earliest instances of texts being described as
someone’s presence were both in letters of Bishop William of St.-Calais, who, as a
courtier, would have been steeped in this tradition. There is little doubt that this
tradition contributed to the growing importance of authorship at Durham. It may have
even introduced the concept of textualized presence to the community. Even if this
were the case, however, the unique features of authorship as it was conceptualized at
117 Rigg, “Lawrence of Durham,” 73; Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis, ed. Raine, II: 553-558: “Vosque peto quos flere gemo, cito missa loquatur / Vestrum laetari littera vestra mihi. / Cogor namque procul, nec vos late, ire, sed astans / Ibo: discendens, stabo; meabo manens. / Mens aderit si corpus abit; sed habere quitem / Non poetro, donec quae peto certus ero.” A more literal rendering of the passage than Rigg’s would further convey the sense that the letters are a substitute for Lawrence’s presence: “I lament that you are grieving, and so I seek letters sent from you that declare that you are joyful again.” 118 op. cit., 75; Dialogi Laurentii, ed. Raine, III: 55-60: “Tandem quo volui superando pericula venit, / Sed necdum venit littera vestra mihi. / Et dum mentiri nos nolle reor, mihi crebro / Mentior, et repeto, Nunc venit ecce! venit. / Cras faustum mihi quaeque dies, et mane cupitum / Vespera promittens spem sine lege dabat.”
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Durham demonstrate that it was shaped in great part by ideas about texts and presence
emerging from the community’s spirituality.
Nothing demonstrates this fact more than the relationship between authorship
and language at Durham. In the courtly and humanistic tradition represented by
Lawrence and Durham’s bishops, language and the self were treated as virtually
coterminous, and the expression of one’s charisma and the possibility of its
textualization relied upon use of refined language. This possibility was rejected by
writers at Durham, who went out of their way to deny that language played any part in
authorship or in textual identity. Reginald of Durham, for instance, instructed his
readers to ignore his language at the start of Libellus de admirandis:
Therefore, devotion alone, through pious desire, makes it possible for us to flourish in our task and to venture to accomplish, through the work of a burning spirit, what cannot be explicated through the artful eloquence of learned education. An abundance of love proclaims that my undertaking will be easy, while an understanding of my own ignorance, because of the fact of the task’s impossibility, knows that it will be difficult. And so we begin this work that you have asked for with great desire for the task, even while we hold no technical knowledge in the art of eloquence.119
Although Reginald’s statement of his own unworthiness to compose the text was a
commonplace of medieval monastic treatises, the terms he couched it in are nonetheless
important. Having declared that his skill in language was not equal to the task, he offers
his piety as a substitute to enrich the text. For Reginald, asking his readers to ignore the
language of the text was part of a broader strategy of assigning an identity to the text; 119 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, ed. Raine, 2: “Devotio, igitur, sola pio desiderio nostrum fecit vigere propositum; et id audere, ardentis studii desidio, quod explicari non potuit artificioso disciplinae eruditionis eloquio. Nam ardoris multitudo indixit sui propositi votum fore facillimum, cum propriae inscientiae cognitio hoc ex impossibilitas arbitrio nosset fuisse difficillimum. Opusque istud, talis propositi desiderio inchoavimus, cum nullius eloquentiae artificiosam disciplinae notitiam teneamus.”
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he de-emphasized the importance of language so as to assert his own presence,
manifested by his devotion to Cuthbert and his “burning spirit.”
The idea was important enough to Reginald that he repeated it at the end of the
preface to the Libellus de admirandis, suggesting that the idea was more than just a
humility trope:
We are not from among those skilled men who acquire the skill of eloquence from a multitude of sciences; rather, we are from the unskilled commoners who seize the audacity to speak, not through knowledge of these sciences, but through the rashness of words. Thus our glory cannot come from skilled eloquence, since we have not achieved knowledge of any discipline (cum nullius disciplinae scientia nobis ad noticiam quondam attigerti), but rather from an intention of ardent emotion (affectus) tightening around our soul that ignites desire for the work of piety.120
The same idea was also employed at the start of Geoffrey of Durham’s Life of
Bartholomew, where Geoffrey declared:
Even as my pen runs through the life of this venerable man, I fear myself worthy of that same criticism that is leveled at those who carry little books of the lives of saints around their necks or in their hands, while nothing of them hangs on or is carried in their customs. I ask that you give me pardon for my rough style and second-rate speech. I do not seek the charm of Cicero in it, desiring only to search out simply the simple truth.121
120 Reginald of Durham, Libellus de admirandis, ed. Raine, 8: “Non tamen sumus de numero peritorum qui disciplinalem eloquentiam doctrinarum multitudine comparant; sed potius de vulgo insulsorum qui loquendi audaciam temeritate verborum non perceptibili scientiarum noticia sibi usurpant. Unde et gloria nostra de facundia perita esse non poterit, cum nullius disciplinae scientia nobis ad noticiam quondam attigerti sed intentio ardentioris affectus ita perstringit animum quod caloris aestus nimii exaestuat pii propositi desiderium.” 121 Geoffrey of Durham, Vita Bartholomaei Farnensis, in Symeonis monachi opera omnia, vol. I, 2: 296: “Sed dum hujus venerabilis viri vitam calamus percurrit, vereor me illorum reprehensione dignum, quorum vitae sanctorum in libellulis pendent a collo vel portantur in manibus, et nihil pendet vel praefertur in moribus. Rudi igitur stilo et ordeicio sermoni veniam quaeso detis, in quo non Tullianum requiro leporem, sed simplicem simpliciter indagare cupio veritatem.”
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In both cases, Reginald and Geoffrey suggest that they themselves, the former in his
ardent emotions, the latter in his “habits” (mores), defined the text.. By rejecting the
possibility of language as a vehicle for expressing emotions, piety, and mores, Reginald
and Geoffrey both try to achieve an odd sort of metalinguistic authorship, paradoxically
deconstructing the discursivity of the text so as to construct the genuine presence of the
author.
This is a familiar strategy; it is the same one employed by the writers at Durham
who grappled with the paradox of Cuthbert’s textualized presence, which they tried to
assimilate to the immanent form of presence represented by his physical body. The
applicability of this strategy to constructing a notion of authorship arose from the same
concern over the mediation implied by textuality. The possibility of linguistic
mediation led, in the minds of Durham’s community, to distantiation, separation, and
even the possibility of falsification. This fear was nicely expressed by one of Durham’s
chroniclers in his ambivalent description of Bishop Ranulf Flambard, a participant in
the courtly approach to language: “With the eloquent inventiveness of his words, in
which he mixed the jocular with the serious, he left his listeners in doubt as to what was
true and what was false.”122 The humanistic approach to language emphasized skilled
use of rhetoric as a means of expressing authority and charisma. At Durham, however,
those same skills were treated as an obstacle to accessing the true author, defined by his
piety and personality. Authorship at Durham, formed within the context of a devotion
to Saint Cuthbert that stressed immediacy and access, was conceptualized as a form of
122 “Continuatio prima” in Libellus de exordio, ed. Rollason, 275.
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personal presence and not a function of language. Authors, like saints, were not subject
to mediation, a fact that demonstrates the extent to which Durham’s literate culture
emerged from the process of working out the relationship between texts, presence, and
saints in the community’s spiritual traditions.
The fact that notions of authorial presence were developed with reference to
textualized saintly presence created, in a way, competing forms of textualized presence.
Hagiographic texts, those that related the lives or miracles or saints, were supposed to
convey the presence of saints to readers. However, such texts also had authors. As
authors were assimilated into the discourse of textual presence, a tension emerged
between authors and saints - whose presence structured works of hagiography? This
question had the potential to draw attention to the type of mediation that the community
had sought to avoid. It highlighted the distance that separated a saint from the text
representing him, ironically by inserting the author as mediator. The issue was
particularly problematic when it came to Cuthbert’s vita, which was authored by the
Venerable Bede, himself a saint whose relics rested at Durham.
This tension manifested itself in a number of ways, but was most visible in
manuscripts containing hagiography. DCL B.IV.14, for instance, is an early twelfth-
century manuscript of hagiographic works. Among the texts it contains was a copy of
the Life of Gregory composed by the John the Levite. At the start of the Life, there is a
fairly standard author portrait executed in the ‘G’ of the opening line of the text:
““Gregorius genere romanus arte philosophus gordiani viri clarissimi et beate silvie
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prefuit…”123 The image is ambiguous; it could conceivably represent either John the
Levite, the author of the text, or Gregory the Great, the subject of the text. Evidence in
the manuscript seems to point to the latter possibility. The rubric for the text reads only,
“incipit liber primus de vita sancti Gregorii pape urbis rome.” Along with the author
portrait, the initial also contains two hybrid-dwarf creatures who are gazing at the
writer, one of whom is also gesturing toward the rubric, connecting the writing figure
with the mention of Gregory in the rubric. However, as suggested by the earlier
analysis, all other such images at Durham pertain to authors, meaning readers at the
community would have associated the iconography with authorship rather than with
saintliness.124 The ambiguity of the image is illustrative of the tension between author
and saint that inhered in hagiographic texts at Durham. Furthermore, if the image does
depict Gregory, it is notable that he is depicted as a writer. While Gregory was
renowned in monastic circles for the texts he authored, depicting him as a writer at the
start of his Life conveys the idea that he was, in some sense, the author of his own vita.
The idea of saint as the author of his own Life also appeared in an amusing
scribal error elsewhere in DCL B.IV.14. The start of a copy of Gregory of Tours’
Miracles of Saint of Martin of Tours has the straightforward rubric, ““incipit liber
sancti Gregorii turonensis episcopi de miraculis sancti martini.” However, another
contemporary scribe has expunged “Gregorii” by placing punctus marks below it, and
then written “Martini” above it.125 As a result of the correction, Saint Martin becomes,
123 DCL B.IV.14, f.2v. 124 See above, pp. 238-43. 125 DCL B.IV.14, f.151v.
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according to the title, the author of his own life and Gregory’s role as its author is
expunged. For the most part, this is simply a curious scribal error.126 Nonetheless, it
does reflect a deeper tension in Durham’s intellectual culture. It is worth noting that
whoever made the correction must have known that Gregory was the author of the
work; his name is prominently visible the first lines of text.127 The corrector thus
considered it more important to have the saint’s name than the author’s name in the
rubric. Underlying the correction was a real conflict between two competing sources of
textual authority that introduced complex layers of mediation, which were apparently
resolved with a clear privileging of the saint’s authority over that of the author.
A final example of this tension occurs in University College 165, the fully
illuminated manuscript of the Life of Cuthbert from the start of the twelfth century.
Although nearly every image in the book depicts scenes from Cuthbert’s life, the first
two miniatures show historical scenes of Bede, the author of the text. In the first, he is
shown writing and presenting his book to the bishop of Lindisfarne (Cuthbert’s
episcopal see). In the second, the initial to the prologue of the Life, Bede is again shown
as an author.128 Both images draw attention to the historical circumstances of the
production of the text and the focus on Bede as an author seems to compete with the
text’s representation of Cuthbert’s presence. The fact that less attempt is made to
126 The error may be a result of the fact that the rubric runs into the inside margin of the page. When bound, it is likely that the final words of the title, sancti martini,” were obscured. Since Martin, like Gregory, was also a bishop of Tours, the corrector changed “Liber sancti Gregorii turonensis episcopi de miraculis” to “Liber santi Martini turonensis episcopi de miraculis.” 127 151v: “Dominis sancti et in christi amore dulcissimis fratribus et filiis ecclesiae turonicae mihi a deo commissae gregorius peccator, miracula quae dominus deus noster per beatum Martinum antistitem suum in corpore positum operari dignatus est…” 128 Oxford, University College 165, pp. ii and 1.
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suppress the tension in this text may be due to the esteem in which Bede himself was
held at Durham. Interestingly however, the two miniatures relating to Bede’s
composition of the text are stylistically different than those depicting Cuthbert’s life;
the Bede miniatures are fully painted images, while the Cuthbert miniatures are outline
drawings in color.129 This difference in presentation seems indicative of a recognition
that the two sets of images were different, both in relation to the text and in relation to
the reader.
Writers at Durham were also aware of this tension. Geoffrey of Durham
confronted it most explicitly at the start of his Life of Bartholomew:
After the passing of the venerable father Bartholomew, I did not hesitate to question you as to whether he left some sign behind him for the world, one which ought to be raised up in praise of the creator and is capable of being used for the imitation of his ways. For in the opinion of many he was regarded as a man of great repute…and I have painstakingly undertaken to present certain of his virtues, believing that even if the author is despised, these nevertheless ought not be despised.130
By raising the possibility of the author being “despised,” Geoffrey acknowledges the
fact that authorship is one of the main constitutive principles of textuality. At the same
time, however, he suggests that another principle, the virtues of the saint, can
compensate for the shortcomings of the author. In that both could serve as structures of
textual identity, they competed for the attention of the reader. Geoffrey certainly hoped
129 Noted by Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria, 84. 130 Geoffrey of Durham, Vita Bartholomaei, in Symeonis Opera, ed. Arnold, I: 295: “Post transitum venerandi patris Bartholomaei animos vestros pulsasse non ambigo, utrum aliquid insigne saeculo post se reliquerit, quod in laudem Creatoris debeat attolli et in imitationem morum posit assumi. Apud plerosque etenim magnae opinionis habebatur…Cujus ego quaedam virtutum opera sedulus dare curavi, credens quod si contemptibilis auctor fuerit, ea tamen non debere contempni.”
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that the saint would shine through the text despite his own authorship, but is aware of
the problem that authorship posed to the textualized presence of a saint.
In the later twelfth century, there were gestures toward a resolution of this
tension. In an interesting passage of the Libellus de admirandis, Reginald of Durham
expanded his textual encounter with Cuthbert’s presence to include, not only reading a
text, but also composing one: “We happily desire to describe the glory of the power of
Cuthbert in what follows so as to acquire for ourselves a gift from the virtue of Saint
Cuthbert.”131 According to this passage, authorship of a saint’s Life was itself a form of
devotion and a means of encountering the saint’s presence. The problem of authorial
mediation in hagiographical texts was mitigated, as the author himself became a model
for how to encounter the presence of the saint both within and beyond the text.
Authors, in other words, became a sort of archetypal reader, demonstrating how textual
interactions made saintly presence available; they operate not as mediator, but as guides
for readers in accessing the presence of the saint.
Remarkably, in a manuscript produced contemporary to, and likely in
conjunction with, Reginald’s Libellus de admirandis, the same idea is expressed in
pictorial form. BL Yates Thompson 26, the late twelfth-century fully illustrated copy of
Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, like its exemplar University College 165, opens with a full-
page author portrait of Bede. Unlike University College 165, however, this author
portrait serves as one-half of a two-page opening frontispiece and is paired with another
131 Reginald, Libellus de admirandis, 3: “Et praemium nobis de beati Cuthberti virtute adquirere, qui libenter ipsius potentiae gloriam cupimus prosequendo describere.”
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full-page miniatures depicting Cuthbert as a bishop (Figure 5).132 The framed image of
Cuthbert also includes a black-robed monk, who breaks through the frame of the image
while kneeling and kissing Cuthbert’s right foot. There are two possible interpretations
of the kneeling monk. Given the placement of the image next to the author portrait of
Bede and its proximity to Bede’s preface to the text, the monk might be intended to be
Bede himself. In this case, the image shows Bede’s act of authorship as a devotional act
that allowed him to enter into Cuthbert’s presence, the same idea that Reginald
expressed in the Libellus de admirandis. The monk could also represent the monastic
community of Durham, demonstrating proper devotion and obedience to Cuthbert.133
Another possible reading of the image is that that the monk represents both Bede and
the monastic community, offering up Bede’s act of authorship as a model for devotion
that the community was intended to follow. In this case, the potential separation from
the saint suggested by the introduction of authorship into hagiographic texts is
counterbalanced by the author’s own entry into the presence of the saint, an act which
readers of the text were encouraged to imitate.
The community at the Cathedral Priory of Durham developed a literate culture
based on the notion of authorship. The community thought of texts primarily as
conveying presence in a way that carried the authority and charisma of their authors to
132 The image of Cuthbert, standing and facing forward, is on 1v, while the image of Bede as an author is 2r. 133 Note the fact that Cuthbert is presented as a bishop. Given that the manuscript was likely commissioned by Hugh de Puiset, bishop of Durham, the image might contain a coded message about the proper relationship between monastic community and bishop.
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readers. This development affected not only the community’s understanding of textual
identity, but also its manuscript tradition, which rejected an inherited tradition
celebrating scribes and donors in favor of an emphasis on authors, demonstrated by the
substation of author portraits for scribal and donor portraits. Although other cultural
traditions contributed to the emergence of authorship at Durham, the primary
motivating force was a form of hagiographic spirituality that was increasingly
interested in forms of textualized presence. This context fostered the particular notion
of authorship that emerged at Durham. This authorship was marked by the same
concerns over immanence, mediation, and language that characterized the emergence of
textualized saintly presence, as well as by the growing tension between authors and
saints as constitutive structures of texts. Although authorship at Durham became an
intellectual problem and opportunity in its own right, it was never detached from the
discourse of saintly presence that created it. If its emergence enabled new ways of
thinking about texts, it is no less true that it remained obedient to some of the logic of
its original context. The tension between author and saint at Durham reveals the
interplay between the community’s devotional traditions and its literate culture.
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Figure 1: Durham Cathedral Library B.II.13, f.102r
Reproduced by permission of the Durham Cathedral Library
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Figure 2: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley Ms. 717, f.287v
Source: Artstor.org
Used for Educational Purposes Only
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Figure 3: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby Ms. 20, f.194r
Source: Artstor.org. Used for Educational Purposes Only
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Figure 4: Durham, University Library, Cosin Ms. V.iii.1, f.22v
Reproduced by permission of Durham University Library
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Figure 5: London, BL Yates Thompson 26, ff.1v and 2r
Image Rights Not Obtained. Please contact British Library.
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Part III
Rievaulx Abbey
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Introduction
Rievaulx Abbey: History and Sources
Near the end of his short exegetical work, De Iesu Puero Duodenni, Aelred,
abbot of Rievaulx, writing for a friend at a nearby monastery, portrayed the struggles of
someone trying to approach the divine. He first described the body of such a person,
heavy with tears, outstretching his arms, and beating his chest. Then, shifting focus
significantly, Aelred turned to the language and words of an individual struggling in his
devotion:
Meanwhile, words are spoken without beginning, without end, their sense incoherent, having no resemblance to reason, nor serving the sense or idiom of any language. At one moment your voice responds to your emotions (affectus), and at the next your emotions steal away your voice.1
In this passage the role of language in devotion is somewhat ambiguous; at one moment
it is able to express the emotions of the devotee, and at the next, utterly incapable of
doing so. What is interesting here, however, is the apparent assumption that words and
language are not only involved in devotion, but involved to the degree that they could
express the experience, and yet ultimately be transcended by an experience that cannot
be verbalized. In placing words and language at the start of the devotional act, this
passage, while acknowledging the ultimate incommunicability of experiencing the
divine, also recognizes language as a primary device in structuring that experience. It is
1 Aelred of Rievaulx, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” in Opera Omnia I: Opera ascetica, ed. A. Host and C.H. Talbot, CCCM 1 (Turnhout, 1971), III: 21: Nunc oculi fletu graves, cum imis singultibus eriguntur ad caelum; nunc manus expandiuntur et brachia; nunc pectoris tunsione animae tarditas accusatur. Proferuntur interim verba sine principio, sine fine, quorum nec sententiae cohaerent sibi, nec rationes similes sunt, nec alicuius linguae sensus vel idioma servatur, quando vox aliquando respondet affectui, et iterum vocem affectus intercipit.
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notable, for instance, that the devotee is not depicted as abandoning language, but
rather struggling to encapsulate his feelings with words. He encounters several
obstacles to doing so. The emotions or attachments that steer the devotee toward the
divine overpower his voice. His language, intertwined with his desires, becomes
incoherent and his words aree divested of reason and the structure of language that
gives meaning to them. The cause of his confusion here is the simultaneous
impossibility of describing the divine in words and the human necessity of using words
for description. Trapped between language that is struggling to express the divine and
the actual experience of the divine, the devotee becomes, in a way, like a word
struggling to express an inexpressible reality.
Aelred concluded by declaring, “for it is in the land of the living that such a
voice of the soul on fire is heard, and the sweet scent of such desire charms the whole
city of God.”2 In this evocative phrase, “vox animae aestuantis,” Aelred employed
linguistic imagery to express the soul’s arrival at the City of God. This imagery
demonstrates the importance that Aelred accorded to language as a tool for thinking
about how the soul could overcome the gap between its earthly habitat and its divine
abode. The passage as a whole shifts from the literal halting speech of the devotee to
the metaphorical but perfect speech of the soul that had arrived at the “land of the
living.” As a result, the shift from the earthly to the divine was conceptualized as a
move from words that could only imperfectly reflect their object to words that are
2 op. cit.: In terra enim viventium talis vox animae aestuantis auditur, et tanti desiderii odor suavissimus universam demulcet civitatem Dei. Note that “vox” seems to be ambiguous in this passage, and could be translated either as “voice” or “word.” In the preceding passage cited above, “verbum,” “vox,” and “lingua” are all used for the discursive act of the devotee.
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perfectly meaningful. There is also a parallel implied shift from words to the reality
they describe.
In proposing this model for approaching the divine, Aelred brought together two
important ideas that shaped much of the intellectual culture of the Cistercian abbey of
Rievaulx: linguistics and the soul. The soul was the central structure of spirituality and
devotion at Rievaulx, as it was for many communities, particularly those of the
Cistercians, in the twelfth century.3 In addition to the soul, several other structures of
devotion were significant at Rievaulx, most notably the idea of friendship and
community. As with the soul, These ideas were also important within other
communities during the twelfth century, but the level of importance attached to them at
Rievaulx was unique.4 The soul and the community were linked together by the notion
of caritas (love or charity), the cultivation of which enabled one to approach the
divine.5 Spirituality at Rievaulx was dependant on transforming an interiorized and
emotional experience, like love, into a spiritual discipline. Aelred and other writers at
Rievaulx found language to be an effective tool for thinking about how this
3 For a broad examination of the idea of the “image and likeness” of God in the 12th century, see Robert Javelet, Image et ressemblance au 12e siècle (Paris, 1967). More specifically related to the soul is David N. Bell’s synthetic article, “The Tripartite Soul and the Image of God in the Latin Tradition,” Recherches de théologies ancienne et médiévale 47 (1980): 16-52. For works relating more particularly to Rievaulx, see Chapter 5. 4 On community and friendship, see C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia, 1999) and Jan Ziolkowski. “Twelfth-Century Understandings and Adaptations of Ancient Friendship,” in Medieval Antiquity, ed. Andries Welkenhuysen (Leuven, 1995). Within the Cistercians, see Bynum, “The Cistercian Concept of Community,” in Jesus as Mother and Brian Patrick McGuire, “The Cistercians and the Transformation of Monastic Friendships,” Analecta Cisterciensia 37 (1981): 1-63. 5 On the importance of caritas to the twelfth-century Cistercians, see Martha Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180 (Stanford, 1996). Also Eugene Goodich, “Caritas and Cistercian Uniformity: An Ideological Connection,” Cistercian Studies 20 (1985): 31-43.
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transformation was possible; it provided a model for exploring the relationship between
subjective knowledge and experience and the objective world of things. Rievaulx’s
affective approach to spirituality, which emphasized the connection between the self
and the divine, provided the context for the emergence of its literate culture. Language,
moving beyond its initial role as a model for subjective devotional experiences,
developed into a topic of study in its own right, becoming an important means of
producing, codifying, and transmitting knowledge at Rievaulx.
Rievaulx Abbey: History and Sources
The Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx was founded in 1132 as part of Bernard of
Clairvaux’s efforts to extend Cistercian monasticism to England. Its first members were
a group of monks from Clairvaux itself, led by a monk named William, who was
originally from Yorkshire and may have been Bernard’s secretary at Clairvaux. Having
secured permission from Henry I, these monks settled in Yorkshire on land provided by
a local Northumbrian lord named Walter Espec in the Rye Valley.6 From its foundation,
Rievaulx was deeply tied to two communities, the emerging Cistercian spiritual
community and the local communities of Yorkshire and Northumbria. The intersection
of these two groups gave Rievaulx much of its social and spiritual identity.7 It is
6 The foundation charter for Rievaulx is printed in Cartularium de Abbatie de Rievalle, ed. John C. Atkinson, SS 83 (Durham, 1889): 36. The cartulary itself is London, BL Cotton Julius D.i. For an analysis of both the printed version and the manuscript, see Emilia Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and Its Social Context, 1132-1300: Memory, Locality, Networks (Turnhout, 2005): 7-8, 19-40. 7 For the foundation and early socio-political history of Rievaulx, see Janet Burton, The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215 (Cambridge, 1994), Chapter 4. Also of note is Bennet Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries and their Patrons in the Twelfth Century (Urbana, IL, 1968), which is concerned more with general trends of patronage and foundation that led to Cistercian expansion in England. For an extreme
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unclear how successfully the monks of Rievaulx integrated themselves into their local
social networks during the early years of the monastery’s existence.8 However, there
can be little doubt of the success and prestige that the abbey enjoyed under its most
famous abbot, Aelred, during whose abbacy the monastery became the most influential
Cistercian house in England.
Aelred entered the monastic community of Rievaulx around 1134, but was
probably born in 1110. He was the son of a married priest holding proprietary rights
over the church at Hexham.9 It is very probable he was educated at Durham Cathedral
Priory, which, instilled in him a great respect for the local saints associated with his
family’s land at Hexham as well as England’s northern spiritual landscape.10 From
Durham, Aelred moved to the court of King David of Scotland, where he held an
administrative position and may have been intended to succeed to a bishopric.11 In
take on the implications of localism for the Cistercian order, see Constance Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia, 2000). Whether Berman’s hypothesis concerning Cistercian expansion by incorporation holds true for Rievaulx is still under debate. Certainly some settlement existed at Rievaulx prior to the coming of the Cistercians, but it is unlikely to have been monastic. 8 See Janet Burton, “Rievaulx Abbey: The Early Years,” in Perspective for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercian Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. Terry N. Kinder (Turnhout, 2004): 47-53. On Rievaulx’s social networks, see the thorough analysis of Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and Its Social Context. 9 Two biographies of Aelred exist, of very different spirits, both rooted in sensitive readings of Aelred’s writing and concerned chiefly with evoking his personality and character: Aelred Squire, Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study (London, 1969) and Brian Patrick McGuire, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx (New York, 1994). The most synthetic study of Aelred’s thought is Amédée Hallier, The Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx: An Experiential Theology, trans. C. Heaney (Shannon, 1969), but Philippe Nouzille’s study, Expérience de Dieu et théologies monastique au XIIe siècle: étude sur les sermons d’Aelred de Rievaulx (Paris, 1999), has updated many of Hallier’s ideas. 10 Encapsulated best in his hagiographical writings detailing the lives of those saints. The critical edition of these texts is in preparation. See PL 195: 701-796 and the translations published by the Cistercian Fathers Series: Aelred of Rievaulx, The Lives of the Northern Saints (Kalamazoo, 2006). On Aelred’s education at Durham, see Anselm Hoste, “A Survey of the Unedited World of Laurence of Durham with an Edition of his Letter to Aelred of Rievaulx,” Sacris erudiri 11 (1960): 249-65. 11 Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. and trans. F.M. Powicke (London, 1959): Chap. 2. Citations to this work are by chapter, which are standard across its multiple editions.
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1134, however, while traveling home from York, Aelred had occasion to stop at
Rievaulx, which at that point was probably only a half-complete stone abbey
surrounded by wooden dwellings for the monks.12 If we are to believe his later
biographer, Aelred was so taken with the austerity and sanctity of the monks that he
returned the next day and made profession to the community.13 He ascended relatively
quickly through the hierarchy of the monastery, becoming the master of novices around
1142 after a successful mission to Rome; rising to abbot of Rievaulx’s daughter house
Revesby shortly thereafter; and finally becoming abbot of Rievaulx itself in 1147,
replacing Maurice, a former monk of Durham, who resigned because he found the
office to be too burdensome.14
Aelred was, by most accounts, a highly successful abbot, increasing the
population of the abbey to over 145 monks, dramatically increasing its landholdings,
and forging social ties with other monasteries, bishops, and lords.15 More important to
12 On Rievaulx’s architecture and buildings, as well as its later history up until the Dissolution and its destruction, see Peter Fergusson’s unsurpassed study, Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory (New Haven, 1999). 13 Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred, Chap. 7. Marsha Dutton, “The Conversion and Vocation of Aelred of Rievaulx: a historical hypothesis,” in England in the Twelfth Century, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, 1990): 31-49, rightly points out that this is an unlikely scenario for a steward of the court of King David, as Aelred did not even return to the court. She argues that Aelred’s entry into the monastery had been negotiated even before he left for York, and was part of David’s attempts to integrate his kingdom into the social web of the north of England, which indeed, he may have even still hoped to annex. See William Aird, St. Cuthbert and the Normans: The Church of Durham, 1071-1135 (Woodbridge, 1998): 252-265. Aelred himself later chronicled the Battle of the Standard of 1138, part of the civil war between Matilda and Stephen, in which David supported Matilda, almost certainly hoping to gain territory in the north of England. It is notable that Walter Espec, the founder of Rievaulx, was both Aelred’s host the night before his entry into Rievaulx and a participant in the Battle of the Standard. 14 On Maurice, an interesting figure in his own right, see F.M. Powicke, “Maureice of Rievaulx,” English Historical Review 36 (1921): 17-29 and Burton, “Rievaulx Abbey: The Early Years,” 49-50. 15 Life of Ailred, Chaps. 29 and 30. See Janet Burton’s detailed study of Rievaulx’s economy, “The Estate and Economy of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire,” Citeaux 49 (1998): 29-94. Supplementing this study is Jamroziak, “Rievaulx Abbey as a wool producer in the late 13th century: Cistercians, sheep, debts,” Northern History 40:2 (2003): 197-218. On social networking under Aelred, see Jamroziak, Rievaulx
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this study, he was a prolific writer and any study of Rievaulx’s intellectual or spiritual
culture is highly dependent upon his writings.16 His first work was prompted by a
request from Bernard of Clairvaux, whom Aelred had met and impressed on the way to
Rome. Written while Aelred was still the master of novices at Rievaulx, the Speculum
Caritatis was a synthetic work of basic theology focused on the nature and usefulness
of love and was considered by Aelred’s biographer to be his finest work.17 Treatises on
De Spiritali Amicitia, De Iesu Puero Duodenni, a rule for anchoresses addressed to his
sister, the Oratio pastoralis, and the De anima followed. In addition to these devotional
works, Aelred produced several historical and hagiographic works, including The Battle
of the Standard, Genealogy of the Kings of England, The Life of Saint Ninian, and On
the Saints of Hexham.18 He also left behind a vast body of sermon literature, including a
corpus of liturgical sermons and a set of homilies on the burdens of Isaiah.19
Abbey and Its Social Context, particularly chapters 2 and 5. Her findings concerning Rievaulx’s relationships with other monasteries are distilled in her article “Considerate Brothers or predatory neighbors? Rievaulx Abbey and other monastic houses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 73 (2001): 29-40. 16 The standard critical edition of Aelred’s writing is Aelred of Rievaulx, Opera Omnia I: Opera Ascetica, ed. A. Hoste and C.H. Talbot, CCCM 1 (Turnhout, 1971), Opera Omnia II-IV: Sermones, ed. G. Raciti, CCCM 2A-C (Turnhout, 1989, 2001), Opera Omnia V: Homeliae de oneribus propheticis Isaiae, ed. G. Raciti, CCCM 2D (Turnhout, 2007). Critical editions of Aelred’s historical and hagiographic works are in preparation. All citations are to these editions, by book and paragraph number. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Translations of most of Aelred’s works do exist, generally published by in the Cistercian Fathers Series. 17 Life of Ailred, Chap. 17. 18 These works, although they are important to understanding Aelred’s thought, do not figure in my analysis here. On the historical works, see Elizabeth Freeman, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150-1220 (Turnhout, 2002), Chaps. 1 and 2; ibid., “The many function of Cistercian histories, using Aelred of Rievaulx’s Relatio de Standardo as a case study,” in The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Erik Kooper (Amsterdam, 1999): 124-132; ibid., “Aelred of Rievaulx’s De bello standardii: Cistercian Historiography and the Creation of Community Memories,” in Citeaux 49 (1998): 5-28. On Aelred’s hagiography, much understudied, see Aelred Squire, “Aelred and the Northern Saints,” in Collectanea Cisterciensia 23 (1961): 58-69. 19 The liturgical sermons and the Homiliae de oneribus Isaiae are printed in Opera Omnia II, CCCM. vols. 2A-C. An edition of a new, recently discovered collection of sermons preserved at Cluny is in
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Though Aelred was by far the most prolific writer from Rievaulx, his works are
not the only sources for the intellectual history of Rievaulx. Walter Daniel, Aelred’s
friend and biographer, was also a trained scholar.20 His best known work, the Vita
Ailredi, is a valuable source not only for Aelred’s life, but also for the intellectual life
of Rievaulx. It often serves as a prism through which to view Aelred’s own ideas and
their influence on his community.21 Walter was also the author of a collection of short
homiletic pieces entitled the Centum Sententiae.22 Finally, Aelred’s predecessor as
abbot of the community, Maurice of Rievaulx, authored a treatise on the monastic life
and a text on the translation of St. Cuthbert.23 He was also known to have produced a
letter collection that was preserved at Rievaulx. Maurice Powicke has identified one
preparation. See Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Hidden Years of Aelred of Rievaulx: The Formation of a Spiritual Master,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 41:1 (2006): 51-63 on the sermons, and what their liturgical citations and resonances reveal about Aelred’s thought. In general I have not had recourse to the sermons in my analysis here, partially for reasons of space, and partially because the themes and ideas of the many of Aelred’s sermons are very much an extension of the ideas he presents in his treatises. As such, citations to the sermons would generally serve only to provide additional instances of the ideas presented here. 20 On the 13th-century library catalogue of Rievaulx, Walter Daniel is referred to as “magister,” suggesting school training, although the location of his training is not known. See the printed edition of the catalogue in Anselm Hoste, Bibliotheca Aelrediana: A Survey of the Manuscripts, Old Catalogues, Editions and Studies Concerning St. Aelred of Rievaulx (Steenburgis, 1962): 162, or the rather more thorough printed version in David N. Bell, The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines, and Premonstratensians, CBMLC 3 (London, 1982): 110, entries 137 and 142 in both editions. The original catalogue is found in Cambridge, Jesus College, Ms. Q.B.17, ff. 1r-6v. For further analysis of this manuscript, see below pp. 348-50. 21 The vita, as noted above n. 11, is edited and translated by Powicke, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx. Unlike the works of Aelred, I follow Powicke’s translation of this work unless otherwise noted. An interesting representation of Aelred’s intellectual work in the monastic community can be seen in the dialogic De Spiritali Amicitia. Books II and III are set at Rievaulx and feature Walter Daniel and another monk, Gratian, as Aelred’s interlocutors. Studies of Walter’s vita as a text, rather than as a source for Aelred’s life, are few, but see Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (New York, 1988), Chapter 3: “Sanctity in the Cloister: Walter Daniel’s Vita Sancti Aelredi and Rhetoric.” 22 Printed by C.H. Talbot, “The Centum Sententiae of Walter Daniel,” Sacris Erudiri 11 (1960): 266-374 from the unique copy in Rievaulx mansucript Manchester, John Ryland Library, lat. ms. 196. 23 Powicke, “Maurice of Rievaulx,” 20. See the library catalogue in Bibliotheca Aelrediana. Powicke’s identification of Maurice’s treatise on the translation of Cuthbert with the one published in Hinde, Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera, pp.188-97 and Arnold, i.229 and ii.333 has been severely challenged. The work on the monastic life appears not to have survived.
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important surviving letter that might be attributed to Maurice, although later in his
career he was inclined to attribute it instead to Aelred himself.24
The amount of textual output at Rievaulx suggests a large library.
Unfortunately, there are only twenty extant manuscripts associated with Rievaulx, and
only sixteen that are relevant to this study.25 Though Rievaulx’s library catalogue dates
from the thirteenth century, the extensive number of books listed there, coupled with
Aelred’s own familiarity with a wide range of texts, clearly indicates that this number
does not reflect the size of the library at Rievaulx during Aelred’s tenure as abbot,
suggesting that there has been a massive loss of material.26 It may thus seem ill-advised
to draw conclusions about Rievaulx’s literate culture when such a small sample of its
manuscripts survives. However, the surviving Rievaulx manuscripts agree so strongly
on certain points that some conclusions can safely be extrapolated from them.
24 The letter, written to Thomas Becket, survives in Balliol College Ms. 65, and is printed by Powicke in “Maurice of Rievaulx,” 26-29. His original attribution to Maurice is based on the salutation, which identifies the author as “pauper et modicus frater M. minimus pauperum Christi de Rievalle.” He suggested the alternate attribution, based on dating and theme, in the introduction to his edition of The Life of Ailred. The letter, as the only surviving such from Rievaulx, is important here regardless of whether it came from the hand of Aelred or Maurice. Notable, however, are two passages, one from the letter, one from Aelred’s De Spiritali Amicitia, which condemn the promotion of unqualified friends or relatives to high offices in highly similar terms. See “Maurice of Rievaulx,” 28. 25 See the lists in N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 1964) and the supplement of the same title edited by Andrew Watson in 1987. A fuller discussion of the manuscripts can be found in Chapter 5. 26 Bell, Libraries of the Cistercians, 87-89, suggests that the current library catalogues dates from the later 13th century, but were copies of ones made in the last decade of the twelfth century based on the authors represented. Certainly a large number of books must have been lost during the monastery’s destruction and dissolution in 1538. The fact that two of the surviving manuscripts, BL Cotton ms. Vitellius D.5 and Cotton Ms. Vitellius F.3, have significant burn damage suggests that other Rievaulx manuscripts could have been lost in the Cottonian fire. On a brighter note, between 1964, when Ker published his original list, and 1987, when Watson published a supplement to Ker’s volume, one previously unknown Rievaulx volume, BL Additional Ms. 63077, came to light, suggesting the possibility that others may yet survive.
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Chapter 5
Devotion at Rievaulx Abbey: From Self to God
This chapter will investigate the nature of spirituality at the Cistercian abbey of
Rievaulx, drawing heavily on the devotional and pastoral writings of Aelred of
Rievaulx. Devotion at Rievaulx was based on the reform of the interiorized self through
the cultivation of charity, which aligned the will with that of God and made it possible
to tend toward the divine. The first part of this chapter will examine the broad contours
of devotion at Rievaulx and explore how a notion of the self and the cultivation of
charity were central to the possibility of a spiritual life at Rievaulx. The next two parts
of the chapter will turn to the more specific mechanisms by which charity operated as a
devotional practice. For Aelred, the two most important focal points for the cultivation
of charity were community, or friendship, and the soul. Transforming the affective
experiences associated with each into devotional practices required that the realm of
human knowledge and experience be informed by the divine, a process that often
preoccupied Aelred. He employed ideas about language and linguistic signification as a
tool for organizing devotion and constructing the experience of spiritual practices.
Language offered Aelred a tool with which to consider the relationship between reality
and human knowledge and experience, one which he employed in his development of
both community and the soul as elements of devotion. The final section of this chapter
will examine further uses of language in devotion at Rievaulx, demonstrating that
because language was understood to mediate between subjectivity and objectivity,
linguistic acts themselves could also be treated as devotional practices.
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5.1 The Cultivation of Charity
Discussions of the spiritual disciplines typical of monastic life, such as the
liturgy, prayer, vigils, and fasting, are relatively common in writings from Rievaulx.
Such discussions, however, nearly always absorb these practices into a generalized
program of devotion, giving them little or no individual attention. For instance, at one
point in the Speculum Caritatis Aelred sought to demonstrate that bodily practices were
not opposed to spiritual practices, but widened his discussion to other practices as well:
“To share in the sufferings of Christ is to mortify the flesh through abstinence, vigils,
and labors, to submit your will to the judgment of another, to prefer nothing to
obedience, and, so that many things may be wrapped up in a few words, to persist in
our profession which has been made following the Rule of Saint Benedict.”1 Weaving
together various different strands of the monastic discipline, Aelred advanced a unified
notion that treated them all as contributing to “sharing in the sufferings of Christ,”
rather than possessing separate rationales and purposes.
This particular passage was part of Aelred’s defense of devotional practices
performed upon the body. However, in the Oratio pastoralis, Aelred produced a nearly
identical list of practices and collapsed them all onto an even more generalized
summary of devotion: “Furnish for me fervor in labors, in vigils, and in abstinence,
1 All citations to works of Aelred refer to the editions in Opera Omnia I: Opera Ascetica, ed. A. Hoste and C.H. Talbot, CCCM 1 (Turnhout, 1971), henceforth Opera Omnia I. Citations are generally to page numbers; in some cases, page numbers are preceded by chapter or book numbers. Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” 15: “Communicare passionibus Christi est regularibus disciplinis subdi, carnem per abstinentiam, vigilias, et labores mortificare, alieno iudicio suam subdere voluntatem, nihil obedientiae praeferre, et ut brevi multa complectar, professionem nostram, quae secundum regulam beati Benedicti facta est…”
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discretion for loving you, praising you, praying to you, and meditating on you, devotion
and energy for following you in every thought and act, and perseverance in all of this
until the end of my life.”2 Aelred brought together labors, vigils, abstinence, and
various other activities to create a single program of devotion that treated all these
practices as different aspects of a single form of spiritual life. Walter Daniel had a
similar conception of monastic devotional life. Describing Aelred’s early monastic life,
he stated, “those early days of his warfare he adorned with the three marks of the
monastic life: holy contemplation, sincere prayer, and honest toil.”3 Aelred and Walter
did not conceive of spirituality in terms of isolated practices, such as liturgy, labor, or
devotion to saints and relics.4 Instead, all of these disciplines were assimilated to each
2 Opera Omnia I, “Oratio Pastoralis,” 5: “Praestat mihi in laboribus, in vigiliis, in abstinentia fervorem et discretionem ad te amandum, laudandum, orandum, meditandum, et omnem secundum te actum et cogitatem, devotionem et efficaciam, et in his omnibus usque ad finem vitae mea perseverantiam.” Yet another similar passage can be found in the De Institutione Inclusarum, 32: “The practice of the virtues is a matter of a rule of life, fasts, vigils, work, reading, prayer, poverty and such like, while the affections are nourished by wholesome meditation.” 3 Walter Daniel, Life of Ailred, ed. and trans. Maurice Powicke (London, 1950): Ch. 18: “Qui tribus quod inicia milicie monachatus decorabat insigniis, videlicet sancta meditacione, pura oracione, honesta exercitacione.” 4 This is not to suggest that such things as liturgy or hagiography were unimportant at Rievaulx, only that all such practices are viewed as integral parts of a larger program of devotion, and so ultimately functioned to the same end and in the same way. On the liturgy at Rievaulx see Robert Thomas, “Liturgical Feasts and Aelred of Rievaulx,” Liturgy 30:3 (1996): 77-85; Marie Anne Mayeski, “The Assumption as a Monastic Celebration: Aelred of Rievaulx’s Homilies for the Feast,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 33:1 (1998): 45-60; and, more generally the early work of André Malet, La liturgie cistercienne, ses origines, sa constitutions, sa transformation, sa restauration (Westmalle, 1921) and the articles of Chrysogonus Waddell, including “The Pre-Cistercian Background of Citeaux and the Cistercian Liturgy,” in Rozanne Elder (ed.), Goad and Nail (Kalamazoo, 1985): 109-32 and “The Early Cistercian Experience of Liturgy,” in Basil Pennington (ed.), Rule and Life (Spencer, MA, 1971): 77-116. Twelfth-century Cistercian hagiography and devotion to the saints (exclusive of Mary) is a much understudied subject, but see Chapter 3, “Sanctity in the Cloister: Walter Daniel’s Vita Sancti Aelredi and Rhetoric” in Thomas Heffernan’s Sacred Biography (New York, 1988); Aelred Squire, “Aelred and the Northern Saints,” in Collectanea Cisterciensia 23 (1961): 58-69 and Chrysogonus Waddell, “Simplicity and Ordinariness: The Climate of Early Cistercian Hagiography,” in John Sommerfeldt (ed.), Simplicity and Ordinariness (Kalamazoo, 1980).
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other and defined according to their ability to contribute the perfection of a single
spiritual life.
This tendency to assimilate the various disciplines of monastic life to each other
was symptomic of a particular approach to spiritual practice at Rievaulx, one which
centered on reform of the self and directed all other practices to this end. Aelred
revealed the link between the two trends in the Speculum Caritatis when addressing one
of his younger monks’ concerns that he was less able to stir up love for Christ under the
harshness of monastic discipline than he was in the world. Aelred argued that, although
he might seem to feel less affection for Christ in the monastic life, his actions
demonstrated that he loved Christ the more, concluding the discussion thus:
On this account, it is necessary for you and for everyone anxious about their salvation to take pains to the extent that this mortification of the flesh, this concern with vigils and labor, this cheapness of clothing, this roughness in food, this heavy silence, all these things, I say, might grow strong, like the most pleasing holocaust of all the members of the interior and exterior man, through the fatness of tears and the sweetness of the most devout desires, so that, as I have said, after the fire of charity appears on the altar of your heart, it might release sweet odors.5
This metaphorically rich passage brought together all the various monastic disciplines
practiced daily at Rievaulx, but also ascribed a single purpose to them, namely the
cultivation of charity in the “altar of the heart” so as to perfect the inner and outer man.
For Aelred, spiritual life involved sublimating all the various disciplines of monastic
life to the perfection of the self through the cultivation of charity. According to this
5 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” II: 63: “Quocirca tibi omnique suae salutis sollicito elaborandum est, quatenus haec carnis mortificatio, haec vigiliarum ac laborum sollicitudo, haec vestium vilitas, haec ciborum asperitas, haec silentii gravitas, haec, inquam, omnium membrorum interioris et exterioris hominis quasi acceptissimum holocautum sagimine, ut ita dixerim, lacrymarum, ac devotissimorum affectuum suavitate pinguescat, ut in ara cordis igne caritatis admisso suave redoleat…”
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model of spirituality, devotion was located in the interiorized self and based, not on the
formal execution of external practices, but in the mobilization of those practices as
tools for reforming the self and approaching God.6 In a final passage near the end of the
Speculum Caritatis, Aelred repeated the above idea, but inverted it such that the
development of charity had clear priority over the rest of monastic discipline:
He who aspires to the peak of perfection should first constantly contemplate charity, by which we draw especially close to God, by which we indeed cling to God and are conformed to him, in which the fullness of total perfection consists, as if it were the final goal to which he directs all his efforts. Then, following the path which the rule of his vow and profession prescribe for him, he ought strive for this fullness with tireless alacrity of spirit. Let abstinence battle for this end, let vigils serve it, let reading attend to it, and let daily labor sweat for it.7
Emphasizing charity as the primary task of the devotee and the means by which one
proceeded toward the divine, Aelred treated the various practices of monastic life as, in
essence, different mechanisms for cultivating charity. The practice of charity, a term
which Aelred used interchangeably with others, particularly “love” and “will,” was the
focal point of a set of novel affective and interiorized forms of spirituality at Rievaulx,
which Aelred used to articulate how the self could move toward God.8
6 See Bynum, “Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual,” in Jesus as Mother, itself a revision of Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual. Also Newman, Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180 (Stanford, 1996), Chapter 3. See also Caroline Walker Bynum, Docere verbo et exemplo: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality (Missoula, 1979), which suggests that monks were the great investigators of psychological spirituality during the twelfth century. 7 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 96: “Ergo qui ordine voluntario ad culmen perfectionis aspirat, primo caritatem, qua Deo maxime propinquamus, immo qua Deo inhaeremus, eique conformamur, in qua totius perfectionis plenitudo consistit, quasi destinatum finem quo totum cursum suum dirigat, indesinenter aspiciat; deinde via quam ei voti vel professionis suae norma praescribit, ad eius plenitudinem infatigabili spiritus alacritate contendat. Huic itaque fini militet absitnentia, famulentur vigiliae, invigilet lectio, quotidanus labor insudet.” 8 The affective and self-centered spirituality of Rievaulx, or more broadly of the Cistercians, or even more broadly of the twelfth century, have all been the subject of extensive examination by scholars. On the twelfth century generally, see Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the
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The ontological context for the use of charity as a spiritual practice was the soul,
the central structure of medieval anthropology and a prominent feature of models of
spirituality rooted in the self. As David Bell and Bernard McGinn have demonstrated,
the soul was a vital element of Cistercian spirituality, a tradition in which Rievaulx
participated.9 Aelred devoted his last work to a consideration of the soul and, although
De anima treatises were a familiar genre of the twelfth century, the idea was central
enough to Aelred’s thought throughout his career to suggest that the topic had special
importance to him.
In his first work, the Speculum Caritatis, Aelred characterized progress toward
God as a process of moving through stages of the soul’s progressive perfection: “In the
first stage the soul is roused, in the second it is purged, and in the third it enjoys the
tranquility of the sabbath.”10 Similar passages that located the move from the earthly to
the divine in the soul can be found throughout the corpus of Aelred’s writings.11
Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York, 2002), Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother, and more recently Sarah McNamer, Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion (Philadelphia, 2009): 25-84. On Cistercian spirituality, see Part I of Matha Newman, The Boundaries of Charity, which places “charity” at the center of monastic devotion. Works on the spirituality of Aelred and Rievaulx will be cited as relevant, but in general see A. Hallier, The Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx: An Experiential Theology, trans. C. Heaney (1969), Philippe Nouzille, Expéreience de Dieu et théologie monastique au XIIe siècle: étude sur les sermons d’Aelred de Rievaulx (Paris, 1999), and John R. Sommerfeldt, “The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality: Cosmology and Anthropology,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 38: 1 (2003): 19-26. On the use of charity as a means of moving to God for Aelred, see Elizabeth Connor, “The Doctrine of Charity in Book One of Aelred of Rievaulx’s The Mirror of Charity,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 29: 1 (1994): 62, 66-67. 9 See See David Bell, The Image and Likeness: The Augustinian Spirituality of William of St. Thierry (Kalamazoo, 1984) and Bernard McGinn, The Golden Chain: A Study in the Theological Anthropology of Isaac of Stella (Washington, D.C., 1972). 10 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” II: 26: “In primo igitur statu anima suscitatur, in secundo purgatur, in tertio sabbati tranquillitate perfruitur.” 11 On the soul and anthropology, see below pp. 308-312. On the reform of the soul as a practice of devotion for Aelred, see Daniel La Corte, “Reformation of the Intellect in the Thought of Aelred of Rievaulx,” in Reform and Renewal in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, eds. Thomas M. Izbicki and Christopher Bellitto (Leiden, 2000): 35-49.
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Aelred, as discussed in greater detail below, connected charity to the soul by treating it
as one of the powers of the soul. When he elaborated the Augustinian view of the
trinitarian soul, which generally treated the soul as consisting of memory, reason, and
will, Aelred treated the will and charity as identical things.12
Following the Scriptural precept to “love your neighbor,” charity was also
central to Aelred’s understanding of community and friendship and constituted a
second key aspect of spirituality at Rievaulx. As with the soul, Aelred devoted an entire
dialogic treatise entitled De spiritali amicitia to this subject. In this work, Aelred tied
the capacity to cultivate human relationships to the formation of personal virtue,
declaring, “Therefore, since eternity thrives in friendship, and truth shines forth in it,
and grace likewise becomes pleasant through friendship, you be the judge whether you
should separate the name of wisdom from these three.”13 A community rooted in
friendship was, for Aelred, the best context for spiritual growth and was itself a means
of approaching the divine.14 There was widespread interest in the topic of friendship
and community during the twelfth century, but writers at Rievaulx placed a particularly
strong emphasis on the idea. Jan Ziolkowski’s examination of treatises and writings on
the topic of friendship cites Aelred’s De spiritali amicitia as the most thorough
12 See below, pp.312-14. 13 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” I: 68: “Amicitiam etiam nec subsistere quidem sine caritate, satis superque monstratum est. Cum igitur in amicitia et aeternitas vigeat, et veritas luceat, et caritas dulcescat, utrum nomen sapientiae tribus his debeas abrogare, tu videris.” 14 Bynum, “The Cistercian Conception of Community,” in Jesus as Mother, 59-81. See also Brian Patrick McGuire, “The Cistercians and the Transformation of Monastic Friendships,” Analecta Cisterciensia 37 (1981): 1-63 and Newman, Boundaries of Charity, Chap. 2.
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treatment of the subject to appear during this period and considers it the culmination of
the wider trend.15
Thus, according to Aelred, the process of cultivating charity by participating in
different affective structures of spirituality typified devotional life at Rievaulx, with
friendship and the soul being the most important of these structures.16 Aelred
recognized the connection between the soul and friendship that resulted from this
approach to spirituality. He articulated it most explicitly in the De spiritali amicitia,
where he suggested that friendship was constituted by love and itself was, “a certain
desire of the rational soul (anima) through which it searches for something with desire
and seeks for enjoyment and, having obtained it, enjoys it with interior sweetness,
15 Jan Ziolkowski, “Twelfth-Century Understandings and Adaptations of Ancient Friendship,” in Andries Welkenhuysen (ed.), Medieval Antiquity (Leuven, 1995). See further Jean Leclercq, “L’amitié dans les lettres au moyen age,” Revue du moyen age latine 1 (1945): 391-410 and Julian Haseldine, “Friendship and Rivalry: The Role of Amicitia in Twelfth-Century Monastic Relations,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 390-414. It is worth noting that Aelred’s treatise was later “plagiarized” by Peter of Blois, through which it gained widespread currency in the later twelfth century. Peter’s adaptation was first systematically examined by Philippe Delhaye, “Deux adaptations du De amicitia de Cicéron au XIIe siècle,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 15 (1948): 304-31, who did not look favorably upon Peter’s work. See the revisionary stance of John Cotts, The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century (Washington, D.C., 2009): 241-245. 16 Although I will not discuss it in this chapter, there was a third key structure of devotional life at Rievaulx: Christ himself, or more specifically the incarnate human Christ. Aelred’s work De Iesu Puero Duodenni is, for instance, deeply concerned with the human presence of Christ. Aelred opens the work by describing the meditations of his petitioner, which he envisions as focused on the human Christ: “I know, my son, I know how familiarly, how feelingly (affectuose), with what tears, you are accustomed to ask these things of Jesus himself in your holy prayers, when the image of that sweet boy is placed before the eyes of your heart, when you paint (depingis) that most splendid face with your spiritual imagination, when you feel those most sweet and gentle eyes to shine upon you delightfully.” See Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” I: 1. This passage collapses together the affective devotion rooted in the self with the human Christ as a focal point for that devotion. Although at first glance Christ would seem to be external to the self, meditation specifically upon the humanity of Christ creates a sort of empathic link between the devotee and the divine, representing a point at which the human self can model the divine. This is a phenomenon now well-explored by scholars. See generally Fulton, From Judgement to Passion, Part I; Bynum, “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” in Jesus as Mother, 110-169. For Aelred, see Connor, “Doctrine of Charity,” 68-70, Anna Maiorino, “La christologie affective d’Aelred de Rievaulx,” Collectanea Cisterciensa 29 (1967): 44-60, Marsha Dutton, “The face and feet of God: the humanity of Christ in Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred of Rievaulx,” in John Sommerfeldt (ed.), Bernardus Magister (Spencer, 1992): 203-24.
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embraces it, and preserves it.”17 The soul and community were bound together,
operating as two dimensions of a single program of spirituality at Rievaulx. Charity,
whether referred to by that name, or as love or the will, effected this connection by
tying both the soul and community to the realm of practice and experience.
This form of spirituality prompted new problems for defining how devotional
practices were understood to operate. Internalized experiences such as friendship and
charity were neither sacramental, like the liturgy, nor intrinsically defined by their link
to the divine, like the relics of saints. Rather, access to the divine was granted by the
reform of the self and by correctly modulating one’s emotions and desires. Aelred,
borrowing some Augustinian vocabulary, indicated in a passage from the Speculum
Caritatis that perfection of the self enabled progress toward the divine:
The temporal presence of saints is indeed to be desired, but that presence which will be eternal with Christ in heaven is to be desired even more. Although we are excited in desire of both by similar attachments, we do not reach them both through similar acts. For we tend toward the corporeal presence of saints, if they are absent, by traveling some distance across the earth, but we tend (tendimus) toward the eternal by living a holy, just and pious life.18
In a passage that nicely contrasts the nature of Rievaulx’s spirituality with a type of
devotion more typical at Durham, Aelred characterized progress from the temporal to
the eternal as the result of cultivating personal virtue. Establishing the relationship
17 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” I: 19: “Est autem amor quidam animae rationalis affectus per quem ipsa aliquid cum desiderio quaerit et appetit ad fruendum; per quem et fruitur eo cum quadam interiori suavitate, amplectitur et conservat adeptum. Cuius affectus et motus in Speculo nostro quod satis cognitum habes, quam lucide potuimus ac diligenter expressimus.” 18 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 56: “Est autem praesentia sanctorum temporalis et ipsa quidem desideranda, sed magis illa, quae cum Christo erit aeterna in coelis. Licet autem in utriusque desiderium simil excitemur affectu, non tamen simili actu ad utramque pertingimus. Nam ad coporalem sanctorum praesentiam, si forte absunt, aliqua terrarum spatia peragrando, ad aeternam tendimus, sancte, et iuste, et pie vivendo.” Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, VII: 231.
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between the self and the divine was central to this form of devotion. The theological
principle of the soul as the imago dei, created in the image and likeness of God and
deformed by original sin, created an ontological basis for individual participation in the
divine and, to a certain extent, suggested that spirituality was enacted by the restoration
of that image.19
Aelred, however, was less interested in questions of ontology when he
considered religious practice and more interested in issues of subjectivity, experience,
and human knowledge. Much of his writing on spirituality explored the ways in which
charity could be both a personal and subjective experience and yet remain engaged with
the divine, but he examined the issue from a psychological standpoint rather than an
ontological one.20 Aelred addressed this question, with regards to community and the
soul, by developing and elaborating two binary relationships. The first was a
comparison of love of one’s neighbor with love of God. The second comparison
explored the relationship between the powers of the soul, charity/will, memory, and
reason, and the soul itself. In both cases, Aelred suggested that the relationship was one
of real unity: love of neighbor was love of God, just as charity, memory, and reason
were substantially identical to the soul. It was this unity that realized love of neighbor
and the powers of the soul as spiritual practices. The problem that preoccupied Aelred
was how love of neighbor or charity could be individuated, subjective experiences in
such a way that their actual unity with love of God and the soul was not impugned. To
19 See Robert Javelet, Image et resemblance au douzime siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1967), I: 409-435. 20 Aelred’s concern with psychology is explored in Damien Boquet, L’ordre de l’affect au Moyen Age: Autour de l’anthropologie affective d’Aelred de Rievaulx (Caen, 2005).
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solve this problem, Aelred explored the role of language as a mediator between reality
and human knowledge and experience, developing devotional practice through ideas
about linguistic referentiality. The next two sections of this chapter examine Aelred’s
investigation of friendship and the soul as elements of spiritual life in detail, moving
from Aelred’s general ideas about them as forms of devotion to demonstrating how he
organized around particular relationships that were defined by the posssibility of
linguistic signification.
5.2 Community: Love of Neighbor and Love of God
Community, and the bonds of friendship that constituted it, was a central
structure of devotion for Aelred and one of the key tools for approaching the divine. He
first addressed the idea of friendship as a spiritual practice in the Speculum Caritatis,
particularly in Book III, which dealt with the right and wrong use of love. Aelred’s
ideas on friendship and spirituality were fleshed out in greater detail in the treatise De
spiritali amicitia, a dialogic work on the subject.21 In this work, Aelred explicitly
constructed friendship as a form of devotion by seeking to Christianize the ideas
expressed in Cicero’s De amicitia. Aelred’s interlocutor in the text, Ivo, described this
goal: “I wish…to be taught more fully how this friendship, which properly exists
21 The structure of De Spiritali Amicitia is slightly unusual, due to the circumstances of its production. Book I, probably written between 1147-1157, is a dialogue between Aelred and Ivo, a monk at one of Rievaulx’s daughter houses. Books II and III are likewise dialogic, but involve Aelred, Walter (the author of his biography), and Gratian, monks of Rievaulx. The opening to Book II suggests that a number of years have passed since the composition of Book I, during which Ivo has died. According to the opening, which may be only literary conceit, Walter has discovered the notes from Aelred’s conversation with Ivo, and asks him to continue his thoughts on the topic. Given that Walter served as Aelred’s scribe, the scenario may reflect the actual circumstances under which the work was composed.
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between us, is established in Christ, is preserved according to Christ, and how its
usefulness and goal are linked to Christ. For it is evident that Cicero did not know the
virtue of true friendship, since he was thoroughly ignorant of its beginning and end,
Christ.”22 By insisting that friendship between persons ultimately drew its existence
from Christ, Aelred sought to transform friendship into a spiritual practice, the purpose
of which was to draw one closer to the divine, as Aelred noted: “Friendship is a step
closer to perfection, which consists in love and knowledge of God, such that a man
might become a friend of God from being a friend to man…”23 Friendship with man
enabled friendship with God and it was this mimetic relationship between friendship
with man and with God that created the spiritual potential of community for Aelred.
Having the right relationship with others drew one toward the right relationship with
God.24
The relationship between earthly community and the love of God was best
expressed near the conclusion of De spiritali amicitia. Seeking to summarize his
thoughts on friendship, Aelred asked, “surely this was a portion of blessedness, to love
and be loved, to aid and be aided, and thus to fly from the sweetness of fraternal charity
to that higher and more sublime place of divine love, to ascend now the ladder of
charity into the embrace of Christ himself, and finally to descend to the love of one’s
22 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” I: 8: “velim…et quemadmodum ea ipsa quae inter nos oportet esse amicitia, et in Christo inchoetur, et secundum Christum servetur, et ad Christum finis eius et utlitas referatur plenius edoceri. Constat enim Tullium verae amicitiae ignorasse virtutem; cum eius principium finemque, Christum videlicet, penitus ignoraverit.” 23 op. cit., II: 14: “Et quod his omnibus excellit, quidam gradus est amicitia vicinus perfectioni, quae in Dei dilectione et cognitione consistit; ut homo ex amico hominis Dei efficiatur amicus…” 24 See citations above, n.4.
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neighbor so as to rest sweetly there?”25 The spatial metaphor Aelred employed here
made “fraternal charity” the point of departure from which one ascends to divine love
and union, imputing an almost semiotic identity to human friendship. Its purpose was to
call divine love to mind, and so it drew existence and definition from its relationship
with divine love. For Aelred, then, the function of friendship transcended the simple
cultivation of human relationships and served as a route to and indicator of divine love.
Aelred repeated this idea in the final paragraph of De spiritali amicitia, making it the
essential feature of friendship and the central theme of the text: “Thus ascending from
that holy love by which he embraces his friend to that by which he embraces Christ, he
will reap the spiritual fruit of friendship with a face full of joy, awaiting the fullness of
all things in the future.”26 Friendship made it possible to move from love of one’s
friend to love of Christ, and therefore from earthly community to divine community.
In Aelred’s mind, the problem that this process presented was how to define the
relationship between earthly friendship and divine love in such a way that community
and friendship were both joined to and yet separate from divine love. Aelred did not
address this question in De spiritali amicitia. Rather, his thoughts on the subject were
laid out in Book III of the Speculum Caritatis. This treatise was concerned with
positioning ideas such as friendship within broader questions of devotion and theology.
For Aelred, explaining the proper relationship between human friendship and divine
25 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” III: 127: “Nonne quaedam beatitudinis portio fuit, sic amare et sic amari; sic iuvare et sic iuvari; et sic ex fraternae caritatis dulcedine in illum sublimiorem locum dilectionis divinae splendorem altius evolare, et in scala caritatis nunc ad Christi ipsius amplexum conscendere, nunn ad amorem proximi ibi suaviter repausaturum descendere.” 26 Opera Omnia I, “De Spiritali Amicitia,” III: 134: “Ita a sancto illo amore quo amplectitur amicum, ad illum conscendens, quo amplectitur Christum; spiritalem amicitiae fructum pleno laetus ore carpebit; plenitudinem omnium expectans in futurum.”
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friendship was central to creating the potential for movement from earthly community
to heavenly community.
He first broached this topic in his discussion of the “triple love” (dilectio
triplex), that is, love of self, love of neighbor, and love of God.27 Before defining the
nature of each love, Aelred outlined the relationship between them, stating, “now we
must examine this fact, that although there may be a clear distinction in this triple love,
nevertheless there inheres a certain miraculous connection between them, so that each
one is in all of them and all may be found in each. No single one may be possessed
without all, and if one diminishes, then all weaken.”28 With each of the loves inhering
in all three types of love, Aelred was forced to confront the problem of how to maintain
this unity and yet still allow the three types of love to have separate identities. His first
answer to the problem was rather tentative: “thus somehow love of one’s neighbor
precedes love of God, and love of self precedes love of one’s neighbor: it precedes it, I
say, in order but not in dignity.”29 Casting about for a model with which to understand
this relationship, Aelred found a temporary solution in the other key structure of
devotion at Rievaulx, the soul, stating: “it seems to me that the love of God is like the
soul of the other loves, which lives in itself fully, and through its presence imparts vital
27 Linked, in Aelred’s mind, to three states of the soul, on which see Joseph Molleur, “The notion of the three sabbaths in Aelred’s Speculum Caritatis,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 33:2 (1998): 211-220. 28 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 3: “Nunc vero considerandum est, quia licet in hac trina dilectione manifesta sit distinctio, inest tamen eis mira quaedam complexio, ita ut singulae in omnibus, et omnes inveniantur in singulis, nec una sine omnibus habeatur, et una vacillante ab omnibus recedatur.” 29 op. cit., III: 4: “Praecedit ergo quodammodo dilectionem Dei dilectio proximi; dilectionem ver proximi dilectio sui: praecedit, inquam, ordine, non dignitate.”
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essence to the others, and causes death through its absence.”30 Although Aelred did not
propose a relationship between love of one’s neighbor and love of God with this
statement, it indicates that defining that relationship was one of his chief concerns.31
Following this passage, Aelred left behind the question of self-love and turned
to the relationship between friendship with one’s neighbor and friendship with God, an
essential issue in realizing the possibility of human friendship as a spiritual practice. He
began by defining charity as right use of love, that is, directing love toward the right
objects.32 Aelred defined objects that are worthy of love using the notions of
“enjoyment” and “use.” To love something, in Aelred’s mind, was to choose it for
enjoyment, or “to possess it with delight and joy.”33 Things for use, on the other hand,
which are not to be loved, were those things which help one obtain things for
enjoyment more quickly and easily.34 Charity, then, was the act of choosing the right
objects for enjoyment. This vocabulary is thoroughly Augustinian, drawn from the De
doctrina christiana, a text that Aelred knew well. At the start of the De doctrina
christiana, Augustine divided everything into things for enjoyment, things for use, and
things for both enjoyment and use. For Augustine, to enjoy something was to hold fast
30 op. cit., III: 4: “Videtur enim mihi Dei dilectionem quasi aliarum dilectionum animam esse, quae et in seipsa plenissime vivit, et aliis sui praesentia essentiam vitalem impertit.” 31 It is significant that Aelred at first turned to the idea of the soul in an attempt to define a relationship between the types of love. As the following pages demonstrate, the problem Aelred is presented when considering the relationship between the soul and its powers is not unlike the problem of relating the different types of love to each other, and his strategy in solving both issues was remarkably similar. 32 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 21: “Quid ergo dubitamus caritatem dicere ipsius amoris rectum usum, abusum autem cupiditatem.” 33 op. cit. III: 23: “Frui autem dicimus, cum delectione ac gaudio.” 34 op. cit. III: 25: “Ex his omnibus id solum amare quis dicendus est, ad quod fruendum tota eius festinat intentio, caeteris autem quasi quibusdam adminiculis uti, quo facilius ad desideratae rei perfunctionem valeat pervenire.”
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to it “in love for its own sake,” while to use something was “to apply whatever it may
be to the purpose of obtaining what you love.”35
Despite his borrowing of terminology from Augustine, Aelred did not simply
reproduce Augustinian ideas on love and enjoyment. Aelred modified Augustine’s
ideas and vocabulary to serve his own goals. Augustine allowed only one thing to be
the object of enjoyment, the Trinity: “the things which are to be enjoyed, then, are the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity that consists of them, which is a
kind of single, supreme thing, shared by all who enjoy it.”36 Aelred, on the other hand,
expanded the scope of what could be enjoyed. God certainly fell into the category:
“Therefore, he ought be chosen by us before all else, so that we might enjoy him.”37
Aelred, however, also classified one’s neighbor as something to be enjoyed, stating, “as
a group, we will be capable of enjoying [this beatifying good] to a greater extent than
each of us could individually, so a person’s blessedness will surely be more abundant
if, having less capacity for it in himself, he begins to posses in another what he cannot
have in himself.”38 Aelred considered both God and one’s neighbor to be objects for
enjoyment, a possibility that Augustine had explicitly rejected.39 As Brian Noell has
observed, this alteration is representative of Aelred’s general outlook on friendship and
35 Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, ed. K.D. Daur and J. Martin, CCSL 32 (Turnhout, 1962, repr. 1996), trans. R.P.H. Green, On Christian Teaching, (Oxford, 2008): I:8. Although Aelred uses a great deal of Augustinian material in his work, this is, in fact, the only instance of use of this work that I know of. Interestingly, as I will show later, many of his ideas on linguistic signification in relation to devotional practices are inspired, not by the De doctrina christiana, but by the De Trinitate. 36 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, trans. Green, I:10. 37 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 26: “Ipse igitur nobis prae omnibus eligendus est, ut eo fruamur, quod est amoris inchoatio…” 38 op. cit. III: 27: “Verum quid hoc beatifico bono, cum adepti fuerimus, quisque pro sua capacitate fruetur, capaciores autem erunt omnes simul quam singulus quisque, erit sine dubio ipsa beatitudo cumulatior, si hoc quod quislibet minus capax habere non poterit in seipso, habere incipiat vel in altero.” 39 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, trans. Green, I: 40.
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community, which absorbed much of Augustine’s thought and employed his
vocabulary on the subject, but ultimately viewed it with more optimism; Aelred saw in
friends and community a greater potential for spiritual progress than Augustine did.40
Aelred’s optimism was rooted in his belief that love of one’s neighbor could
draw one to love of God. His insistence on using the term “enjoy” for both neighbor
and God, a departure from Augustine’s model, emerged from his belief that these two
objects of love were bound to each other. However, using the same word, “enjoy,” in
relation to both God and one’s neighbor also gave Aelred the opportunity to construct a
specific relationship between the two types of love, thereby transforming community
into a spiritual activity. Before moving on to explore the development and fruition of
love,41 Aelred concluded his examination of the two types of love by making a final
statement on their objects:
Two things are thus available to us for choosing as things to enjoy, namely God and our neighbor, although in different ways. God we enjoy in and of himself and because of himself; our neighbor we enjoy so that we may enjoy him in God or, more correctly, so that we may enjoy God in him. For although this word “enjoy” is generally understood more strictly, as when it is said that there is no other thing to be enjoyed other than God alone, still Paul when speaking to a fellow man said, ‘Thus brother, may I enjoy you in the Lord.’42
40 Brian Noell, “Aelred of Rievaulx’s appropriation of Augustine: a window on two views of friendship and the monastic life,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37:2 (2002): 127-33. See also Marsha Dutton, “Friendship and the Love of God: Augustine’s Teaching in the Confessions and Aelred of Rievaulx’s Response in Spiritual Friendship,” American Benedictine Review 56 (2005): 3-40. Both Noell and Dutton focus on Aelred’s use of the Confessions, and so miss his reinterpretation of Augustine’s vocabulary from the De doctrina christiana. 41 In which, interestingly, love of neighbor and love of God continue to be the focus, with love of self all but ignored. Aelred in fact begins speaking of a “twin love” (dilectio duplex) in Chapter 18 of Book III. On the development of love for Aelred, rooted in the tricky notion of the affectus, see Damien, L’ordre de l’affect au Moyen Age, esp. 151-172 and 275-324. 42 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” III: 28: “Patet igitur duo nobis eligenda ut his fruamur, Deus scilicet et proximus, quanquam dissimiliter. Nam Deus et eo fruamur in seipso, et propter seipsum; proximus, ut ipso fruamur in Deo, immo et Deo fruamur in illo. Nam licet verbum hoc frui districtius
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In this passage, Aelred finally solidified a particular relationship between enjoying
one’s neighbor and enjoying God. He constructed this relationship using the
signification of language as an organizing principle. By suggesting that both God and
one’s neighbor were objects for enjoyment, Aelred unified the act of loving God and
loving one’s neighbor, although he admits that it happened “in different ways”
(dissimiliter). The difference was that one enjoyed God in and of himself, while
enjoying one’s neighbor was a derivative or mediatory mode of loving God. To enjoy
one’s neighbor was, in reality, another way of enjoying God.
Aelred’s first inclination was thus to unify enjoyment of one’s neighbor and
enjoyment of God. At the same time, however, enjoying one’s neighbor had to be
differentiated from enjoying God somehow, or else it would not exist as an
individuated experience; rather than being a derivative means of enjoying God, it would
be the very same act as enjoying God. Differentiating them completely, however,
would negate the devotional significance of friendship and community of devotional
significance. To preserve the overall unity of the two types of love, while still
maintaining enjoyment of one’s neighbor as a distinct experience, Aelred resorted to
models of verbal and linguistic meaning. He suggested that the word “enjoy” should be
understood in a stricter sense (districtius soleat accipi) when applied to God than when
applied to one’s neighbor. It was a common feature of grammatical and linguistic
approaches to theology in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to argue that words
soleat accipi, ut videlicet nulla re alia, sed solo Deo fruendum, esse dicatur, ad hominem tamen loquens Paulus: Ita frater, inquit, eo te fruar in Domino.” Clearly the “stricter” meaning of the word “enjoy” that Aelred has in mind is that of Augustine. See below, p. 306-08, for some further observations on this fact.
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signified differently when applied to God than when applied to created things. Anselm
of Canterbury, for instance, suggested in his Monologion that because God’s nature
alone fully defined itself, any word that applied to both God and other natures
nonetheless signified differently with respect to God.43 Aelred was clearly aware of this
tradition.
However, there was more to Aelred’s use of this idea. By suggesting that the
word “enjoy” was understood differently when applied to one’s neighbor than when
applied to God, Aelred shifted his discussion from the real relationship between the two
types of love to the ways in which they were perceived by the human mind. In doing so,
he suggested that it was possible to subjectively distinguish enjoyment of God and of
one’s neighbor while leaving their real unity intact. This mental distinction made it
possible to participate in love of one’s neighbor as an individuated experience, but one
that was still assimilated to love of God in reality. In that the two types of love could
only be divided mentally and not actually, the subjective self was not only the site of
spiritualized friendship, but a necessary precondition for it. Language guaranteed the
link between the subjective experience of love of one’s neighbor and its objective
assimilation to love of God because of its ability to signify both objective realities and
mental concepts.
As a result, for Aelred, the word “enjoy” signified a single act with respect to
God and one’s neighbor when operating with respect to the world of things. In the
realm of human understanding, however, it had a stricter meaning with respect to God
43 Anselm of Canterbury, Monologion, in S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, O.S.B. (Stuttgart, 1984): 44.
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and a looser meaning with respect to one’s neighbor. Because it mediated the world of
things and the world of concepts, language was essential to the possibility of affective
or psychological devotion for Aelred. It ensured that an experience, such as love of
one’s neighbor, was accessible, because it could be mentally distinguished from love of
God, and yet still spiritual, because it was in actuality unified with love of God.
There is a final irony to Aelred’s argument. Having consciously deviated from
Augustine’s model of the relationship between use and enjoyment, Aelred ultimately
accepted that model, if not its vocabulary. After asserting that the Trinity was the only
thing that ought be enjoyed in the De doctrina christiana, Augustine asked why certain
other things were not objects for enjoyment, including one’s fellow man: “it is therefore
an important question whether humans should enjoy one another or use one another, or
both. We have been commanded to love one another, but the question is whether one
person should be loved by another on his own account or for some other reason. If on
his own account, we enjoy him, if for some other reason, we use him. In my opinion, he
should be loved for another reason.”44 Augustine’s rationale for why one should not
enjoy one's neighbor was identical to Aelred’s explanation of why enjoying one’s
neighbor was different from enjoying God. Somewhat oddly, Aelred’s final
understanding of use and enjoyment was thus more or less the same as Augustine’s,
save for his insistence on using the single term “enjoy” for both one’s neighbor and
God. Aelred’s thorough knowledge of Augustine’s writings suggests that this must
have been a conscious deviation from his source material, which allowed Aelred to
44 On Christian Teaching, trans. Green, I: 40.
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bind love of neighbor and love of God more closely to each other by suggesting that
they were the same act. It also allowed him to use language as a tool for explaining the
relationship between them, providing a model relationship that allowed subjective
experiences to be both possible and still connected to the divine. Aelred’s deviation
from Augustine was part of his more generalized concern with affective devotion,
subjectivity, and the use of language to construct spiritual practices. In fact, he brought
the same concerns and the same methodology to his treatment of another structure of
devotion at Rievaulx, the soul and its powers. As the next section will demonstrate,
Aelred approached the problem of the soul and affective spirituality in much the same
way that he approached the problem of friendship and community.
5.3 The Soul: Unity and Trinity
If Aelred’s writings provide any measure, the soul was the most pervasive
feature of spiritual life at Rievaulx. Indeed, there is little doubt that the soul was the
central structure in Cistercian spirituality and, even more generally, in much of twelfth-
century devotional culture.45 Aelred considered it of sufficient importance that he
devoted the final work of his life, the Dialogus de anima, to the topic. Ideas pertaining
to the soul, however, can be found throughout all of his works.46 The growing
importance of ideas about devotion based on interiority and affectivity in this period
45 On the Cistercians and the soul, see Newman, The Boundaries of Charity, Chapter 3 and Bernard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism 168-174, 229-234. 46 Treatises on the soul were a common genre in the twelfth century. A working list of them can be found in Bernard McGinn, Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology (Kalamazoo, 1977): 22-23.
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account for the level of importance accorded to the soul.47 Once the self became a
primary site for devotional activity, it rose naturally to the forefront of spirituality given
that it was the key structure of the theological anthropology of the twelfth century. The
anthropology of the soul was based on ideas derived from the creation story in Genesis,
in which man was created in the image and likeness of God. It was generally accepted
that the soul itself was the imago dei, which had been deformed and lost its likeness to
God through original sin.48 The soul thus provided an anthropological and ontological
basis for any program of devotion rooted in the self; reforming the distorted image led
to greater conformity with the divine and drew one closer to God.
Aelred’s writings suggest that the community at Rievaulx followed many of the
broader currents of twelfth-century spirituality and inscribed the soul deeply into their
devotional life. For instance, references to the devotional lives of individuals treat the
soul and an individual’s spiritual identity as interchangeable, making practices related
to the soul and personal spirituality virtually coterminous. In the Oratio pastoralis,
Aelred examined his spiritual state with reference to his soul: “Recalling my former
years in the bitterness of my soul, I worry and tremble at the name of shepherd.”49
Walter Daniel followed this trend in the Vita Ailredi. Recounting one of the many
miracles that marked the last days of Aelred’s life, he recalled that, “in this time a
brother of our society…lay sleeping from weariness, and behold, the father, in his
47 Bynum, “Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?” 85-90. 48 See the survey of texts addressing this problem in the twelfth century in Javelet, Image et ressemblance, esp. pp.257-265. Also McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism (New York, 1994): 284-96 and Bell, Image and Likeness, 89-103. 49 Opera Omnia I, “Oratio Pastoralis,” 757: “Recogitans enim pristinos annos meos in amaritudine animae mea, pavesco et contremisco ad nomen pastoris.”
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infirmity, appeared to him and said, ‘Brother when do you think that I shall depart?’ He
replied, ‘Lord I know not.’ The father said, ‘My soul, the handmaid of the Lord, will
migrate from the earthly home where it has dwelt until now, on the day before the Ides
of January.”50 Both anecdotes conflated Aelred’s spiritual identity with his soul.
Writers at Rievaulx extended the idea beyond their own walls as well. In an anonymous
letter from Rievaulx to Thomas Becket, the bishop of Canterbury is exhorted to
“remember always that ingratitude is a deadly thing, the enemy of virtue, no friend of
salvation, so that your soul may die the death of the just…”51 Treated as the measuring
stick for spiritual health, the soul was perhaps the defining feature of spirituality at
Rievaulx.
As the central structure of the community’s spirituality, the soul was also the
concept around which programmatic ideas about devotion were organized. The entire
third book of Aelred’s De Iesu Puero Duodenni, a treatment of the moral sense of the
Scriptural story of Jesus as the temple, examined the nature of the soul’s progress and
advancement in virtue. Using various places and movements found in Scripture as
metaphors, Aelred broke down the soul’s progress into a series of stages that together
encapsulate the whole of an individual’s devotional life. For instance, having observed
the three locations in which Christ’s early life played out, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and
50 Life of Ailred, 60: “Eodem tempore quidam ex sociis nostris, unus videlicet ex servitoribus patris, resupinas dormitabant pre tedio et ecce pater illi apparens, ut erat infirmus, dixit, ‘Quando, frater, putas transibo?’ Ad quem ille, ‘Domine, nescio’; et pater, ‘Pridie Idus Ianuarii migrabit ancilla Domini anima mea a domo sua terrena quam hucusque inhabitavit.” 51 Powicke, “Maurice of Rievaulx,” English Historical Review 36 (1921): 27: “Quaproprter ut moriatur anima tua morte iustorum et fiant novissima tua illorum, memorare semper quia peremptoria res est ingratitudo, hostis virtutis, inimica salutis.” On this tendency of Cistercians to project their own spirituality on the world in an attempt to reform it, see Newman, The Boundaries of Charity, generally Part II, but with reference to the clergy pp. 141-170.
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Jerusalem, Aelred states, “in Bethlehem the soul is poor, in Nazareth it grows rich, and
in Jerusalem it abounds in delights.”52 He then gave a detailed explanations of each
stage, demonstrating the soul’s progressive movement toward God. Jerusalem, at which
the soul arrived “in its twelfth year,” represented the final union with the divine: “the
twelfth year follows, clearly the light of contemplation, which raises the burning soul to
the heavenly Jerusalem itself, which unlocks heaven, which opens the gates of
paradise…”53 Spiritual progress, the movement from the earthly to the divine, was
conceptualized as the gradual reformation of the soul.
At Rievaulx, as elsewhere, the possibility of progress to the divine through the
reform of the soul was based on the concept of the imago dei, which created an
interiorized route to the divine and the potential to approach the divine through the self.
At the start of the De anima, Aelred noted that the soul was made in the image of God
(anima quae ad Dei imaginem facta est) and suggested to his pupil that the soul was
worthy of investigation, for perhaps “having discovered the image, you may more
easily discover that of which it is an image.”54 Because the soul was an imprint of God
himself, to come to know the soul was to come to know God. On some level then, all
devotion at Rievaulx was bound to the idea of the soul as the image of God. The
cultivation of charity, in whatever form, was supposed to reform the imago dei and
52 Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” III: 19: “In Bethlehem anima pauperascit, in Nazareth ditescit, in Ierusalem deliciis affluit.” 53 op. cit., III: 20: “Sequitur annus duodecimus, lux videlicet contemplationis, quae ad ipsam Ierusalem caelestem animam sublevat aestuantem, quae caelum reserat, quae portas aperit paradisi…” 54 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 4: “Itaque fundamento fidei inhaerentes in his quae de Deo sunt, de anima quae ad Dei imaginem facta est, quaeremaus quomodo sit. Forte enime inventa imagine facilius eum cuius est imago reperies.”
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bring man to God. Aelred summed this idea up in one of the opening passages of the
Speculum Caritatis:
Naturally fashioned to the image of his creator, it is proper for [rational man] to adhere to that of which he is an image, because this is the sole good of the rational creature, as holy David says: “It is good for me to adhere to God.” Clearly this adhesion is not of the flesh, but of the mind (mentis), in which the author of all natures inserted three things, by which rational man is made a sharer of divine eternity, a participant in wisdom, and a taster of sweetness. These three things I call memory, knowledge, and love or will.55
Affective and psychological devotion consisted of finding a way to “adhere” mentally
to God. This adhesion was possible due to the rapport that existed between an image
and its exemplar; because man was fashioned in the image of God he had the capacity
to return to God by conforming to that of which he was an image.56
Aelred’s reference to the three powers of the soul, memory, reason, and will or
love, is also significant. Following Augustine, Aelred saw a correspondence between
these three faculties and the divine Trinity and suggested that they emerged from the
soul’s identity as the image of God.57 For Aelred, however, the three faculties of the
soul served a more important purpose than simply confirming the soul’s identity as the
image of God. Despite the central importance of the principle of the imago dei in
creating the possibility of an interiorized spirituality, Aelred never developed questions
55 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” I: 8: “Ipse quippe ad imaginem sui Creatoris condita, idonea est illi adhaerere, cuius est imago, quod solum rationalis creaturae bonum est, ut ait sanctus David: Mihi autem adhaerere Deo bonum est. Adhaesio plane ista on carnis, sed mentis est, in qua tria quaedam naturarum auctor inservit, quibus divinae aeternitatis compos efficeretur, particeps sapientiae, dulcednis degustator. Tria haec memoria dico, scientiam, amorem sive voluntatem.” 56 See Daniel Marcel La Corte, “Reformation of the Intellect in the Thought of Aelred of Rievaulx,” 36-37, 48-49. 57 The idea is derived most likely from Augustine, De Trinitate, X.4.18 and XIV.2.8-9. For further analysis of the Augustinian context of Aelred’s ideas, see below pp. 328-33.
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of ontology to any length in his works. Rather, he was interested in how subjective
experiences could participate in this ontology and be actualized as spiritual disciplines.
The three powers of the soul offered Aelred a way to explore this question, providing
him with a means of relating daily mental and emotional practices to the state of the
soul.58
In this regard, it is somewhat strange that, although the soul was absolutely
central to the program of devotion Aelred envisioned for Rievaulx, the soul itself does
not really do much in Aelred’s writings other than provide the ontological basis for
affective spirituality. Throughout Aelred’s works, in fact, the soul tended to be
coterminous with one’s spiritual identity, but it is rarely performative or active in any
sense. In the Oratio pastoralis, Aelred always relegated the soul to a position of
passivity. In the opening lines of the prayer, Aelred addressed God by stating, “your
holy mercy is over me as you dig up my pitiful soul from the depths of hell, you who
show pity to whom you wish and furnish mercy for whomever it pleases you, you
forgive sins so that you do not damn me in your vengeance.”59 Continuing in this vein,
Aelred consistently depicts the soul as the recipient of action, imploring God to “behold
the wound on my soul, O Lord,” and asking him to “send away my sins and cure the
feebleness of my soul.”60 The soul was clearly central to Aelred’s spirituality in these
passages, but did not participate in spiritual practice or experience. The same trend can
58 On Aelred’s interest in practical and experiential theology, see Hallier, The Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx, 115-132, Nouzille, Expérience de Dieu et théologie monastique, esp. Chap. 3. 59 Opera Omnia I, “Oratio Pastoralis,” 757: “Sed etsi misericordia tua sancta est super me ut erueres de inferno inferiori miseram anima meam, qui misereris cui volueris et misericordiam praestas in quem tibi placuerit, ita peccata condonans, ut nec damnes ulciscendo…” 60 op. cit., 759: “Ecce vulnera animae meaa Domine…Dimittas mihi peccata mea et sanes languores animae meae.”
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be observed in Aelred’s sermon De dilectione dei, in which Aelred addressed his soul:
“Hearing these things my soul, be as if a ruined vessel, passing away from your very
self and crossing over wholly into God, for you know that you do not live nor die by
yourself, but by him who has died and been resurrected for you.”61 It is true that the
passivity of the soul in these texts resulted partially from the rhetorical and poetical
nature of prayers and sermons. However, the same idea occurs in Aelred’s De anima, a
more theologically oriented text. Discussing the functions of the various parts of the
soul in the De anima, Aelred assigns such roles as analysis and discernment to reason.
The soul itself, however, has only the function of “living.”62
The soul’s relatively passive role in spiritual discipline is balanced by Aelred’s
exploration of the powers of the soul as expressions of its practical and experiential
capabilities, an exploration that appeared in both his theological works and his more
purely devotional writings. In the De anima, for instance, Aelred assigned an active
role to each of the three powers of the soul, stating that, ““whatever is discerned by the
eyes, heard by the ears, smelled by the nose, touched by the hands, or tasted by the
palate is represented in the memory. Reason judges all these things, and the will
consents.”63 Nearly all of the second book of the De anima, which treated the activities
of the soul, was dedicated to detailed discussion of the operations of memory, reason, 61 Opera Omnia I, “Sermo de dilectione dei,” 243: “Audiens igitur haec anima mea, etso quasi vas perditum, quatenus a temetipsa deficiens, et tota in Deum transiens, nescias tibi vivere nec tibi mor, sed ei qui pro te mortuus est et resurrexit.” 62 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 38: “Nam de una eademque substantia, quae anima est et ratio, hoc vocabulum anima exprimit quod vivat, ratio quod discernat.” For further analysis of this key passage, see below pp. 36-39. 63 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 44: “Memoriae repreaesentatur quidquid oculis cernitur, quidquid auditur auribus, quidquid naribus trahitur, quidquid manibus tangitur, quidquid gustui sapit; de quibus omnibus ratio iudicat, consentit voluntas.” It is worth recalling that, for Aelred, the will is interchangeable with love and charity.
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and will.64 The spiritual potential of these operations is made clear by their frequent
appearance in Aelred’s works, where their use is understood as devotional practice.
Memory, for instance, appeared in the De dilectione dei. Aelred declared, “he who
holds the commandments of God in his memory and serves him in his life, he who
holds the commandments in his speech and serves him in ways…that is the one who
loves God.”65 Memory and reason both appeared in a remarkable passage in the De Iesu
puero duodenni that described Mary’s reaction to Jesus’ speech at the temple. Although
Scripture declared that his words were not understood by anyone, “Mary, both knowing
and understanding them, kept all these words in her heart (Luke 2:51). Her memory
conserved them, her meditation pondered them, and she gathered these words together
with others which she had seen and heard from her son.”66 This conflated idea of
will/charity appeared with even more regularity in Aelred’s work. In the De dilectione
dei, Aelred suggested that man, “joins his will to the will of God, so that whatever
divine will prescribes, human will consents to it…Certainly this is to love God, for the
will is nothing other than love.”67 Walter Daniel, in the Vita Ailredi, described Aelred’s
early monastic profession using the idea of the will: “every time he submitted the
preference of his own will to the need of another he won this victory. If I were to tell all
64 op. cit., II: 1. Aelred opens the book by stating his intentions for it: “Utinam quam prompta voluntas est, tam etiam sit praesto facultas. Quaerendum est, quid anima sine sensum adminiculo in seipsa, per seipsam operetur, per memoriam scilicet, rationem et voluntatem.” 65 Opera Omnia I, “Sermo de dilectione dei,” 243: “Qui enim mandata Dei habet in memoria et servat in vita; qui habet in sermonibus et servat in moribus…ille est qui diligit Deum.” 66 Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” I: 9: “Sed ceteris non intellegetnibus quae dixerat, Maria, ut sciens et intellegens, conservabat omnia verba haec, conferens in corde suo. Memoria conservabat, meditatione ruminabat, and haec cum ceteris quae de eo ciderat et audierat, conferebat.” 67 Opera Omnia I, “Sermo de dilectione dei,” 244: “Hominem enim suam voluntatem Dei voluntati coniungere, ut quaelibet voluntas prescribat, hiss voluntas human consentiat…Hoc utique Deum amare est. Nam ipsa voluntas nihil aliud est quam amor.” The same passage can be found, nearly word for word, in “Speculum Caritatis,” II: 53.
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the occasions when he did this, a sort of miracle, indeed a sort of martyrdom…if, I say,
I were to set out all the occasions on which he fulfilled this, lack of time would impose
silence upon me before I had reckoned them.”68 All these passage demonstrate that the
mental and emotional exercise of the powers of the soul was more than simply affective
experiences; it doubled as devotional practice.
The best description of the devotional nature of the exercise of these powers is
found in Aelred’s Speculum Caritatis, the general purpose of which was to illuminate
the spiritual character of charity. In a continuation of one of the passages cited earlier,
Aelred described the three faculties of the soul as those things that God inserted into
man to make him a “sharer in eternity, a participant in wisdom, and a taster of
sweetness.” Expanding on the idea, Aelred declared that, “memory is clearly the
container of eternity, knowledge of wisdom, and love of sweetness. In these three
things then man is created to the image of the Trinity, for memory retained God without
forgetfulness, knowledge perceived him without error, and love embraced without any
desire for other things.”69 Possession of the powers of the soul made man into a
likeness of God, but it was their use that could connect man to God, a fact which wrote
them into the domain spirituality.
68 Vita Ailredi, Ch. 8: “Hec vero tociens egit quociens proprie voluntatis eleccionem aliene postposuit necessitati. Quod si velim dicere quocien hoc fecerit, genus miraculi, immo martirii – preclarum enim maritirium est et maximum proprium pro fratre animum iugulare, sicut scriptum est: Nemo maiorem caritatem hac habet ut animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis; name hoc revera est ponere animam pro proximo; si hoc, inquam, velim verbis exprimere quociens compleverit, cicius michi silencium indicet temporis defeccio quam numeri multiplacio.” 69 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” I: 9: “Aternitatis quippe capax est memoria, sapientiae scientia, dulcedinis amor. In his tribus ad imaginem Trinitatis conditus homo, Deum quidem memoria retinebat sine oblivione, scientia agnoscebat sine errore, amore amplectabatur sine alterius rei cupiditate.”
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The details of this process were a topic of great concern to Aelred and he
devoted significant space in the Speculum Caritatis to discussing how proper exercise
of the powers of the soul returned man to God. He began by noting that original sin was
a product of the improper use of the faculties of the soul, particularly improper use of
the will: “Having wrongly used free will, man diverted his love away from that
immutable good and, blinded by his own greed, directed it to something lesser, thus
withdrawing from the true good.”70 The result was that, “the image of God in man thus
was corrupted, but not destroyed. Hence man has memory, but it is liable to
forgetfulness, and he has knowledge, but it is subject to error, and likewise he has love,
but it is prone to self-centeredness.”71 The wrong use of the faculties of the soul
directed man toward himself rather than toward God; the imago dei was deformed and
its faculties were corrupted, making it harder for man to experience the divine. The
solution, for Aelred, was fairly clear. Right use of those same powers would reform the
image of God and so bring man back to the divine, an idea Aelred summed up
succinctly: “the reformation of the image will be perfected if no forgetfulness falsifies
memory, if no error obscures knowledge, and no greed hinders love.”72 Correct use of
the powers of the soul brought one closer to the divine and provided the means by
which the ontological potential of the soul could be realized in subjective experiences.
70 op. cit., I: 12: “Libero ergo male usus arbitrio, amorem suum ab illo incommutabili bono deflexit, et ad id quod munus erat propria cupiditate caecatus flexit, sicque a vero bono recedens…” 71 op. cit., I: 12: “Corrupta est itaque in homine Dei imago, non abolita penitus. Proinde habet memoriam, sed obnoxiam oblivioni, scientiam quoque sed subditam errori, nihilominus et amorem,, sed pronum cupiditati.” 72 op. cit, I: 14: “Perfecta erit imaginis reformatio, si memoriam oblivio non interpolet, scientiam nullus error obnubilet, nulla amorem cupiditas interpellet.” I have rendered “cupiditas” literally as greed, but self-love or self-centeredness is probably closer to Aelred’s meaning.
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Similar to the case of love of neighbor and love of God, Aelred’s desire to
construct the powers of the soul as both subjective experiences and spiritual disciplines
meant discovering the proper relationship between the soul and its three powers. The
nature of this relationship, however, was a more complex issue than that of enjoyment
of one’s neighbor and of God. As Aelred himself noted, in possessing these three
faculties, “man is created to the image of the Trinity.”73 It was a common idea in the
twelfth century that the soul needed to have both unity and trinity because it was
created in the image of God.74 However, one of the effects of this analogue was that
any argument about how the faculties of the soul related to the soul itself could also be
interpreted as an explanation of the relationship between the persons of the Trinity,
which was a relatively contentious theological issue in the twelfth century.75 As a
result, Aelred had to formulate a relationship that was both effective in constructing the
exercise of charity, memory, and reason as a devotional practice, but frame it in an
uncontroversial manner in terms of its Trinitarian implications.
Aelred’s most thorough examination of the relationship between the soul and its
three faculties is found in the first part of the De anima, which was devoted to the
nature of the soul.76 He clarified the relationship between memory, reason, and will by
73 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” I: 9: “In his tribus ad imaginem Trinitatis conditus homo, Deum quidem memoria retinebat sine oblivione, scientia agnoscebat sine errore, amore amplectabatur sine alterius rei cupiditate.” 74 For a survey of authors who consider images of the Trinity, see Javelet, Image et ressemblance, 198-211. 75 See, among others, Dominique Poirel, Livre de la nature et débat trinitiare au XIIe siècle: Le ‘De Tribus Diebus’ de Hugues de Saint-Victor (Turnhout, 2002) and E.M. Buytaert, “Abelard’s Trinitarian Doctrine,” in Peter Abelard. Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain, May 10-12, 1971 (Leuven, 1974). 76 In addition to the De Anima, Aelred considered the tripartite anthropology of the soul in several sermons. See Nouzille, Expérience de Dieu, 93-105.
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first asking his pupil and interlocutor John whether, “the soul is able to think,
deliberate, count, or divide without memory?” John answered in the negative. Aelred
pressed him further, asking whether the soul could pursue any of those activities
without either the reason or the will as well, possibilities that John again rejected.
Aelred concluded that, “these three then, memory, reason, and will, either are
themselves the soul or are at least in the soul.”77 The final line proffered two
possibilities as to how they were related to the soul; either they were themselves
identical to the soul or they were somehow in it. John declared that he would gladly say
that they were in the soul. Aelred, refraining from judgment for a moment, asked him,
“are they in the soul as if parts of a whole or as if accidents in a substance?” John liked
the possibility that the three powers were accidents, while the soul was their
substance.78 Aelred, however, demonstrated the impossibility of this position by
reasoning that, while it was possible to think about a substance and its accident as
having separate existences, it was impossible to think of a soul that did not possess
reason, memory, or the will: “you are not able to think of a soul as a soul, if you do not
also think it rational. Hence in no way are these three things to be called accidents of
the soul, without which its substance is not able to exist.” The logical conclusion,
77 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 31-32: “AELREDUS. Ac primum utrum anoma possit cogitare, deliberare, numerare, dividere sine memoria, velim respondeas. IOANNES. Nullo modo. AELREDUS. Quid? Potestne id sine ratione? IOANNES. Non est hic dubitandum, cum discerni inter iustum et iniustum sine ratione non possit. AELREDUS. In secreto itque tuo ista agens, et diligenter inspiciens, numquid sine voluntate? IOANNES. Impossibile hoc. AELREDUS. Igitur haec tria, memoria, ratio, voluntas, aut certe in anima. 78 op. cit., I: 32: “AELREDUS. Quid? Aut quasi partes in toto, aut quasi accidentia in subiecto? IOANNES. Istud ultimum magis placet.”
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according to Aelred, was that since the three powers of the soul cannot be its accidents,
they must themselves be its very substance.79
The identity of substance between the soul and its powers was a necessary
argument, both theologically and devotionally. The trinitarian implications of
arguments about the nature of the soul’s powers negated any possibility that the powers
of the soul could be substantially distinct from the soul itself. Likewise, if the powers of
the soul were not completely unified with the soul itself, they were in danger of losing
their value as spiritual disciplines. Aelred’s discussion of the relationship between the
soul and its powers thus began in the same fashion as his examination of the
relationship between enjoyment of God and of one’s neighbor, with an assertion that
they were, in reality, the same thing. As a result, Aelred was confronted with a similar
problem: how to explain the possibility of charity, memory, and reason’s independent
existence if they were substantially identical to each other. As with the case of love of
neighbor and God, Aelred structured his discussion around linguistic signification to
explain how the powers of the soul could be subjectively distinct while remaining
objectively unified, a fact which realized their potential as spiritual practices.
In answer to his pupil’s objections to the apparent identity of substance, Aelred
explained how to distinguish the powers of the soul from one another. The pupil cited
Augustine as saying, “the soul is one thing, the reason another. Nevertheless reason is
in the soul, and the soul is one, but the soul does one thing, the reason another thing. 79 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 35: “AELREDUS. Potest enim anima sapiens amissa sapientia fieri stulta. Ideo separatim possunt cogitari, quoniam licet desierit esse sapiens anima, non tamen desinit esse anima. At animam cogitare non poteris esse animam, si non cogitaveris rationalem. Nullo modo proinde haec tria dicenda sunt animae accidentia, sine quibus existere not potest eius substantia. Cum igitur accidentia non sint, restat substantia ut sint.”
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The soul lives, the reason understands, and life pertains only to the soul, while wisdom
pertains only to reason.”80 Aelred responded by arguing that the passage cited by John
in fact confirmed the identity of substance between the soul and its powers. Aelred
suggested that when Augustine, who was using the soul as a “similitude” for explaining
the Trinity, affirmed that the soul was one thing he meant that the soul was of a single
substance, and thus that the reason and soul were of the same substance. Furthermore,
according to Aelred, when Augustine said that, “the soul is one thing, the reason
another,” he meant that they were separated as words rather than in fact. This
distinction was central to Aelred’s understanding of the faculties of the soul and he
went to considerable length to clarify his meaning:
Augustine did say, ‘Certainly the soul is one thing, the reason another.” This is one thing, that is another. They are two in word, one in substance. This word soul means one thing to me, this word reason means another thing. For concerning the very same substance, which is the soul and reason, this word soul expresses what lives, and reason what discerns. And this is what Augustine meant when he said “reason is in the soul, and the reason is one, but the soul lives (that is, this word that is the soul shows what lives) and reason understands (that is, this word reason show what discerns).”81
80 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 36: “IOANNES. Sed beatus Augustinus his videtur sentire contraria. Ait enim: ‘Aliud est anima aliud ratio. Attamen in anima est ratio, et una est anima, sed aliud anima agit, aliud ratio. Anima vivit, ratio sapit, et ad animam pertinet vita, et ad rationem sapientia. Et cum unum sint, anima sola suscipit vitam, raio sola siscipit sapientiam.” 81 op. cit., I: 38: “AELREDUS… ‘Nempe,’ inquit, ‘aliud est anima, aliud ratio.’ Aliud hoc, aliud illud. Duo in vocabulis, unum in substantia. Aliud enim mihi significat hoc vocabulum anima, aliud hoc vocabulum ratio. Nam de una eademque substantia, quae anima est et ratio, hoc vocabulum anima exprimit quod vivat, ratio quod discernat. Et hoc est quod ait, ‘in anima est ratio, et una est ratio, sed anima vivit’: id est, hoc vocablum quod est anima ostendit quod vivat; ‘ratio sapit,’ : id est, hoc vocabulum ratio ostendit quod discernat.”
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Although Aelred did not accept the original meaning of Augustine’s arguments in this
passage, the idea that emerged from this passage was of vital importance to him.82
Without announcing the fact, Aelred had once again shifted the terms of his discussion
from the objective to the subjective world, declaring that the word “soul” prompts a
particular understanding, while the word “reason” prompts a different one. To argue for
the plurality of the powers of the soul, Aelred abandoned their real unity in favor of
their mental plurality. The ability of the powers of the soul to be understood as distinct
from each other, and distinct from the soul itself, despite their substantial unity, was a
function of language. The words “reason” and “soul” signified the same substance in
reality. Mentally, however, they could express different concepts, creating the
possibility that charity, memory, and reason could be known separately and exist as
distinct experiences while remaining unified with the soul.
The idea was important enough to Aelred that he repeated it several times in the
De anima. Following the previous citation, Aelred again stated, “we are able to think
about both [the soul and the reason] separately following the diverse meanings of
words, not following the identity of substances.”83 Later still, following a discussion as
to whether or not the souls of different people were of the same or different substances,
Aelred declared, “thus nothing is in the soul’s substance, that is not it itself. Therefore
reason, memory, and will, although appearing multiple or particular in words, are no
82 The source for both John’ objection and Aelred’s citation is Augustine’s Sermon 52, “De verbis Evangelii Matthaei, cap. III, 13-17,” in PL 38: 360. However, neither citation is a simple reproduction of Augustine’s ideas. For further analysis of the use of Augustine here, see below pp. 328-33. 83 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 40: “Nam separatim possumus cogitare de utrisque secundum vocabulorum diversam significationem, non secundum substantiae identitatem.”
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other thing in the soul than the substance of the soul itself.”84 Considering that the De
anima was the final work of Aelred’s life, it is remarkable that the same idea appeared
in a seminal form in Aelred’s first treatise, the Speculum Caritatis. Having introduced
the notion of the tripartite soul in this work, Aelred declared:
In this trinity in the rational soul there still exists an impression, although a poor one, of the blessed Trinity itself, attached to the very substance of the soul, which recollects itself, knows itself, and loves itself; which loves, knows, and recollects the memory of itself, recollects, knows and loves the knowledge of itself, and likewise loves, recollects, and knows the very love of itself; and so it bears unity in substance and the trinity in these three words which we have woven together.85
In all of these examples, Aelred used the idea of verbal and linguistic meaning to define
the plurality of the soul’s powers. This linguistic model allowed him to locate that
plurality purely within the world of human understanding while leaving their actual
unity unaffected.
This strategy was strikingly similar to the one that Aelred employed to construct
enjoyment of one’s neighbor as a devotional practice and it served the same purpose
with respect to the soul. Effectively ignoring the trinitarian paradox of how the powers
of the soul could be both actually plural and unified, Aelred instead focused on how
charity, memory, and reason could be understood as separate things while remaining
objectively unified. In so doing, Aelred was able to explain how the faculties of the soul
84 op. cit., I: 43: “Unde nihil est in eius substantia, quod non sit ipsa. Ideo ratio, memoria, et voluntas, licet appareat in vocabulis pluralitas sive proprietas, non sunt tamen aliud in anima quam ipsa animae substantia.” 85 Opera Omnia I, “ Speculum Caritatis,” I: 13: “Perseverat adhuc in anima rationali in hac trinitate, etsi misera, ipsius beatae Trinitatis impressio, quae ad impsa animae relata substantiam, quae et sui reminiscitur, se novit, se diligit; quae ipsam sui memoriam diligit, novit, reminiscitur, ipsam sui scientiam reminiscitur, novit, et diligit; item ipsam sui dilectionem diligit, reminiscitur, novit, et in substantiam unitatem et in tribus his, quae perstrinximus, vocabulis praefert trinitatem.”
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could be experienced individually while remaining unified to each other and to the soul.
Aelred’s shift from real to mental existence was the theologically necessary
precondition for separating charity, reason, and memory from each other. But the
connection between their subjective plurality and objective unity was also what
actualized their use as spiritual practices. This connection, as in the case of community
and friendship, was guaranteed by “the diverse meanings of words,” which mediated
between human knowledge and reality. A word such as “reason” possessed one
meaning when applied to the actual substance of the soul and another when applied to
the concept of the soul, but nonetheless effected an (imperfect) link between the world
of concepts and the world of things. Language, for Aelred, created the possibility of
individualized experiences of memory, reason, and charity that nonetheless participated
in their real unity with the soul. By negotiating the gap between subjectivity and
objectivity, language enabled the construction of these faculties as spiritualized
disciplines.
Aelred’s interest in the soul as a feature of devotional life and his focus on its
trinitarian nature situates him in several broader contexts, in particular a twelfth-century
Cistercian tradition of writings on the soul and an Augustinian tradition of thought on
the three powers of the soul and the nature of their relationship with each other. While
Aelred clearly drew on both of these traditions, his ideas ultimately departed from
them, suggesting that the De anima represents his own ideas about the nature of the
soul as a structure of spirituality. A comparison of Aelred’s thoughts on the soul with
those found in other twelfth-century Cistercian treatises on the soul and with his
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Augustinian source material reveals the uniqueness of Aelred’s thought. His originality
lay in his use of language as a means of constructing subjective experiences that were
nonetheless assimilated to divine realities.
There were numerous Cistercian treatises on the soul produced in the twelfth
century, some of which were associated with particular authors while others were
anonymous. As Bernard McGinn has noted, these treatises tend to fall into one of two
categories: either they are largely moralizing treatises, focusing on the individual
conscientia and extolling the virtues of ascetic practices for the soul, or they are more
speculative, examining the nature of the soul itself.86 Aelred’s De anima straddled these
categories in its attempt to demonstrate how affective, devotional experiences were
intrinsic to the very nature of the soul. In form and content, however, it possessed more
in common with speculative treatises on the soul, such as William of St.-Thierry’s De
natura corporis et animae (c.1140) and Isaac of Stella’s Epistola de anima (c.1162),
which provide a good means of assessing the uniqueness of Aelred’s ideas about the
nature of the soul.87 Both treatises addressed the problem of a tripartite soul, made in
the image of the Trinity.
For William of St.-Thierry, the soul’s trinity was composed of “mind, thought,
and will,” rough equivalents to memory, reason, and will, given that the function of
86 Bernard McGinn, Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology (Kalamazoo, 1977): 81-83. Naturally, there was slippage between the two categories, a fact which McGinn notes. For a list of Cistercian treatises on the soul, see n. 316 and 317 of Three Treatises. See also Boquet’s thoughtful treatment of the Augustinian model of the soul in Cistercian thought, L’ordre de l’affect, 181-194. Boquet’s analysis demonstrates the deeply devotional nature of this model for the Cistercians. 87 Unless otherwise noted, I follow the translations printed in McGinn, Three Treatises on Man. The Latin of William of St.-Thierry’s is taken from Paul Verdeyn’s edition in Opera Omnia III, CCCM 88 (Brepols, 1989). The Latin citations for Isaac of Stella’s treatise are to PL 194: 1875-90. Citations will be first to page numbers in McGinn’s translations, followed by citations to the Latin editions.
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“mind” is “recalling.”88 According to William, the trinitarian nature of these faculties
was proven by their interlinked operations. He stated that, “when the soul thinks of
anything, what it is thinking of is wholly in the mind, and the whole of what it
remembers at any moment it thinks of wholly at the same moment; and it wills to think
and remember, that is, it loves to have a mind and thought.”89 The unity of the three
parts of the soul resided in the fact that their operations were inextricably bound to each
other, functioning as a single unit, even if they were distinct in purpose. In a way,
William took the opposite approach to Aelred; whereas Aelred assumed unity of
substance in the soul and was therefore forced to explain the plurality of its powers,
William assumed the plurality of powers and found a way to explain their unity. While
William’s solution does demonstrate how actions performed by each of the powers of
the soul related to the soul’s overall unity, he was less concerned than Aelred with
explaining how their individuated experience was possible and linguistic referentiality
does not figure in his thoughts on the subject
At first glance, Isaac of Stella’s Epistola de anima promises more similarity
with Aelred’s work.90 His thought moves along the same path as Aelred’s, as he is
concerned first with the unity of the parts of the soul: “therefore, as there are innate
88 For further analysis of William trinitarian take on the soul, see Bell, Image and Likeness, 103-107. 89 McGinn, Three Treatises, 144; William of St.-Thierry, Opera Omnia III, “De natura corporis et animae,” 139: “Et in hoc etiam ex aliqua parte imaginem sui conditoris in se recognoscit, in hoc etiam quod videt illum lumen illuminans, se vero lumen luminabile. Amplius. Ad imaginem summae Trinitatis videt quodammodo suo respondere quae sibi in seipsa praesto sunt, mentem scilicet, cogitationem et voluntatem. Nam cum cogitat aliquid, totum est in mente quod cogitat; et quod totum simul meminit totum simul cogitat, et vult cogitare et meminisse, hoc est amat habere mentem et cogitationem. Cumque cogitare se meminit, totam certe cogitationem tota mente comprehendit, et totum amorem suum vel mentem suam tota cogitatione cogitat, cum amare / vel meminisse se cogitat, et toto amore suo eandem totam mentem atque eandem cogitationem suam tota diligit, cum meminisse et cogitare se ipsumque amare diligit.” 90 See also McGinn’s fuller study of Isaac of Stella’s anthropology, The Golden Chain..
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parts of the soul (forethought, insight, memory, and the like) it is necessary that they be
not quantitative parts since they are identical with it, namely, the same nature (natura),
the same essence (essentia), altogether the same soul.”91 Isaac, in fact, went on to cite
the very same passage from Augustine that Aelred used to introduce the notion the
possibility of unity of substance, but plurality of words: “Certainly, as properties
(secundum proprietatem), as Augustine says, the soul is one thing and insight (ratio) is
another; notwithstanding, insight is in the soul and the soul is one. But the soul does
one thing, insight another. The soul lives, insight has judgment.”92 This passage,
adapted from Augustine’s fifty-second sermon,93 resulted in a distinction between
objective substance and subjective concepts in Aelred’s hands. Isaac drew very
different conclusions from it, declaring, “it is obvious how the image of divinity in the
soul stands out here, in that although there is a plurality of natural properties in it
(pluralitas in ea sit proprietatum naturalium), there is only one nature (natura), and
although none of these properties is the other, none of them is anything else, but is
different from the others.”94 Where Aelred found a distinction between things and
91 McGinn, Three Treatises, 157. PL 194: 1876D-1877A: “Cum igitur animae sint partes, et connaturales quidem, ingenium, ratio, memoria, et hujusmodi, nec sint quantitativae, necesse est, cum eae sint idem quod ipsa, eadem videlicet natura, eadem essentia, eadem omnino anima.” 92 op. cit., 157. PL 194: 1877A: “Nempe secundum proprietatem, sicut ait beatus Augustinus, aliud est anima, et aliud est ratio; et tamen in anima est ratio, et una est anima. Sed aliud agit anima, aliud ratio. Anima vivit; ratio sapit. Et cum unum sint, sola tamen anima suscipit vitam; sola ratio suscipit sapientiam.” 93 See above, n.82 and below, pp. 331-32. 94 McGinn, Three Treatises, 157. PL 194: 1877A-B: “Videre itaque est, quomodo in hac parte fulgeat imago deitatis in anima, ut cum pluralitas in ea sit proprietatum naturalium, una tamen sint natura, et cum nulla earum sit altera, nulla tamen aliud sit quam altera.” The possibility of Isaac having borrowed from Aelred’s De Anima might, ironically, explain where Isaac derived the idea of a “plurality of properties.” In the De Anima, Aelred states as one point, “Ideo ratio, memoria, et voluntas, licet appareat in vocabulis pluralitas sive proprietas, non sunt tamen aliud in anima quam ipsa animae substantia.” Aelred uses the term “proprietas” as an adjective meaning “particular,” placed parallel to “pluralitas.” The corresponding passage in Isaac of Stella’s Epistola de anima also uses “proprietas,” but as a noun:
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concepts, Isaac found a more nebulous distinction between “natural properties” and
“nature.” Although he was confronted with the same problem of unity and trinity as
Aelred and used the same Augustinian source to resolve it, Isaac did not even gesture
toward issues of subjective experience or language. Seen in the light of the writings of
William of St.-Thierry and, even more so, Isaac of Stella, Aelred’s interest in using
language to explain the possibility of individuated experiences of the powers of the soul
appears particular to his notion of the soul.
It is unknown whether Aelred had access to these or other twelfth-century
Cistercian treatises on the soul, but it is clear that he did have considerable access to the
works of Augustine and made extensive use of them in formulating his ideas about the
soul. Aelred’s intellectual debt to Augustine was undeniable. His entire corpus of work
is imbued with instances of Augustinian vocabulary, citations from Augustine’s work,
and allusions to Augustinian ideas.95 Aelred often acknowledged his intellectual debts
to Augustine, so much so that Walter Daniel related that, on his death bed, Aelred
requested that his copy of the Confessions, which “had been his guide when he was
converted from the world, be brought to him.”96 However, Aelred constantly developed
and reworked Augustinian ideas in his writings, using them as the basic for his own
“Videre itaque est, quomodo in hac parte fulgeat imago deitatis in anima, ut cum pluralitas in ea sit proprietatum naturalium, una tamen sint natura…” It is possible that Isaac was using Aelred’s text and, either through misunderstanding or a scribal error, transformed the sense of the word. 95 There is no study dedicated to the examination of Aelred’s Augustinianism, but see Pierre Courcelle, “Ailred de Rievaulx à l’école des Confessions,” Revue des études augustinnienes 3 (1957): 163-74; Brian Noell, “Aelred of Rievaulx’s appropriation of Augustine”; Anselm Hoste, “Aelred of Rievaulx and the Monastic Planctus,” Citeaux 18 (1967): 385-98; Boquet, L’ordre de l’affect, 173-94. Augustine’s influence was broadly felt amongst the twelfth-century Cistercians, on which see, among others, David Bell, The Image and Likeness and Etienne Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard (New York, 1940, repr. Kalamazoo, 1990). 96 Life of Ailred, chps. 42 and 51.
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unique ideas. In Aelred’s discussion of love of one’s neighbor, as demonstrated earlier,
Aelred freely modified the Augustinian vocabulary of “use” and “enjoyment” from De
doctrina christiana to organize his own ideas about community and friendship.
Likewise, when Aelred made use of Augustine’s ideas concerning the soul and its three
parts, he modified and reworked them for his own purposes.
Augustine’s ideas about the soul and its three parts changed over the course of
his career and the twelfth century inherited a variety of traditions that can all be termed
“Augustianian.” Fortunately, we can identify the particular works of Augustine that
Aelred used in forming his ideas about the soul with relative ease. In writing the De
anima, Aelred generally made use of four of Augustine’s works: the De Trinitate, the
De quantitate anima, the unfinished De Genesi ad litteram, and the aforementioned
fifty-second sermon of Augustine. Aelred employed all of these works throughout the
De anima, but he made particular use of De Trinitate and Sermon Fifty-Two when it
came to the problem of the three faculties and their relationship to the soul.97 Both of
these works reference the memory, reason, and will as parts of the soul so as to
demonstrate a human analogue to the divine Trinity. In the case of the De Trinitate,
Augustine’s goal was to investigate how the soul could be created in the image of the
Trinity, whereas in Sermon Fifty-Two he wanted to explain the nature of the Trinity
97 Here, unless otherwise noted, I follow two translations of these works: Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn, 1991) and ibid.,”Sermon 52: The Trinity” in Sermons III (51-94): On the New Testament, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn, 1991): 50-62. Citations to the former are by Book, Chapter, and Paragraph, to the latter only by paragraph. Where necessary, Latin citations are from De Trinitate libri XV, ed. William J. Mountain and F. Glorie, CCSL 50-50A (Turnhout, 1968) and PL 38: 354-364.
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and used the tripartite soul as a “similitude” to clarify the nature of the Trinity.98 De
Trinitate also argued that both the divine Trinity and the soul’s trinity were of a single
substance and is likely the source for Aelred’s assertion that the soul and its powers
were all of a single substance.99 The key question, however, is whether Aelred derived
his notion of a distinction between unified substance and pluralized understandings
mediated by language from either of these works.
Aelred cited Sermon Fifty-Two in the De anima at the start of his discussion of
the relationship between the soul and its faculties, explicitly stating that it was
Augustine’s idea that the powers of the soul were three in word, but one in substance. A
reading of Augustine’s fifty-second sermon demonstrates that, to a certain extent,
Aelred was redeploying Augustine’s ideas in his De anima. Augustine used the idea of
a “word” or “name” to clarify the plurality of the soul’s powers: “When you spoke the
word (nomen) ‘memory,’ you can see clearly that this word is proper only to memory.
The other two things have their own names, one being called understanding, not
memory, the other being called will, not memory.”100 This statement was the basis for
Aelred’s pupil’s objection to the substantial identity of the soul and its powers, as well
as Aelred’s own assertion that the three powers of the soul were plural as “words”
(although, perhaps notably, Aelred transformed Augustine’s term nomen into
vocabula). However, if Augustine’s statement is viewed in the context of the rest of the
sermon, it is clear that his conception of a “word” differs from Aelred’s.
98 The Trinity, IV.5.30, X.4.18-19, and XIV.2.8-9 and “Sermon 52,” 20-22. 99 The Trinity IV.5.30 for the divine Trinity and X.4.18 for the soul’s trinity. 100 Augustine, “Sermon 52,” 20.
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In this sermon, Augustine attempted to demonstrate how the divine Trinity
could be “indicated” separately even though it “operated” inseparably. To demonstrate
how this might be possible, he mobilized the three powers of the soul and the idea of
language. On the surface, this appears to mirror Aelred’s strategy for understanding
how the three powers might be both unified and separate. Augustine, however, was
interested in how one of the powers might be materially manifested through the
operations of all three, reflecting his interest in explaining how one person of the
Trinity might appear individually yet still reflect the work of all three together. It was to
this end that he suggested that all of the powers of the soul had their own names: “But
in order to say this [name “memory”], in order to operate or make these three syllables,
what were you operating with? This word, which belongs to memory alone, was the
work in you both of memory, for you to retain what you were saying, and of
understanding, for you to know what you were retaining, and of will, for you to utter
what you were knowing.”101 Augustine was not interested in how the powers of the soul
might be mentally differentiated, but rather with how it was possible to manifest one
through the work of all three. He used language, not as a mediator between subjectivity
and reality, but as an instance of a material and temporal event, something that had to
be uttered and made manifest. He clarified his point shortly thereafter:
Here it is then: of those three things one was named, the name of only one of them was mentioned; “memory” is the name of just one of those three. And yet all three were in operation to produce the name of one of the three. The single word “memory” couldn’t be pronounced without will, understanding and memory all operating. The single word “understanding” can’t be pronounced without memory, will and
101 op. cit., 20.
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understanding all operating. Nor can the single word “will” be pronounced without memory and understanding and will all operating…What I have separately pronounced, I have inseparably operated.102
When Augustine declared that the powers of the soul were “words” or “names,” he was
thinking of the word as a material and temporal manifestation of one part of the soul
that resulted from the unified operation of all three parts. This conception of a word
allowed Augustine to make his ultimate argument, that the different persons of the
Trinity could be manifested individually in time and space despite the fact that all three
of them operated inseparably.
This idea was even clearer in Augustine’s De Trinitate, where he again
employed the idea of the word in relation to the three powers of the soul in an attempt
to explain the Trinity. His goal was to explain how “visible manifestations” of persons
of the Trinity, such as the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, were possible given the
substantive and operative unity of the Trinity. He declared that he was certain that the
“Father and Son and Holy Spirit, God the creator, of one and the same substance…act
inseparably.” The problem, however, was that, “they cannot be manifested inseparably
by creatures which are so unlike them, especially material ones, just as our words
which consist of material sounds can only name Father and Son and Holy Spirit with
their own proper intervals of time, which the syllables of each word take up, spaced off
from each other by a definite separation.” For Augustine, although the substance of the
three persons of the Trinity was unified and atemporal, “in my words Father and Son
and Holy Spirit are separated and cannot be said together, and if you write them down
102 Augustine, “Sermon 52,” 21.
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each name has its own separate space.”103 Just as in his fifty-second sermon, Augustine
then turned to the powers of the soul clarify his meaning: “when I name my memory,
understanding, and will, each name refers to a single thing, and yet each of these single
names is the product of all three; there is not one of these three names which my
memory and understanding and will have not produced together.”104 In both passages,
Augustine used the idea of individual words or names to relate the individual powers of
the soul to its unity in a very specific way. He used the notion of words or language as
examples of a material, temporal, or “manifested” utterance that was individual in
identity, but nonetheless resulted from the unified operation of all three parts of the
soul. As Eugene Vance has noted, Augustine used language as a model for temporality
in these passages, demonstrating how periodic appearances of the persons of the Trinity
did not impact its unified operations.
Aelred certainly used these passages in forming his idea about the tripartite soul.
They were probably his source for the notion that the powers of the soul could be
unified in substance and plural as words, but he did far more than simply replicate
Augustine’s ideas. Aelred showed no interest in the idea of words as material events or
as models of temporality. Rather, for Aelred, language was chiefly a means of
connecting human understanding to the objective world, operating as a tool of both
subjectivity and epistemology.105 It is possible that Aelred did not fully comprehend
103 Augustine, The Trinity, IV.5.30. 104 op. cit. 105 Interestingly, despite Aelred’s attempt to produce an argument that was not theologically contentious, it is likely Augustine would have rejected Aelred’s proposal that the powers of the soul were unified in reality and plural intramentally, in that it would have raised the possibility that the persons of the Trinity
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Augustine’s argument. Notably, however, Aelred’s use of language in relation the
powers of the soul was remarkably consistent with the way he used language in his
exploration of love of neighbor and God. In both cases, Aelred argued for an mental
plurality that was connected to an actual unity via language, creating the possibility of
affective experiences that were enaged with the divine. This overlap suggests that he
had a consistent and coherent understanding of the operation of language.106
Furthermore, Aelred’s approach to language in this passage was consonant with his
goal of constructing the faculties of the soul as spiritual disciplines, something that did
not concern Augustine. As with the concepts of use and enjoyment in his discussion of
human relationships, Aelred took a basic Augustinian framework, the tripartite powers
of the soul and the use of language to distinguish them, and adapted it to his own goals,
positing language as that which explained how charity, memory, and reason could
function as spiritual practices.
5.4 Language Acts as Devotional Practice
Devotion at Rievaulx, according to Aelred’s model, was a matter of reforming
oneself through certain affective experiences, particularly the cultivation of charity.
Aelred’s biggest concern, in constructing this model for spirituality, was explaining
how these psychological experiences like friendship or will could be accessible and
comprehensible, and yet still be assimilated to the divine. His solution was to propose a
were not distinguished from in each other in any real sense, but only as a symptom of human knowledge of them. 106 Details of Aelred’s theory of language are discussed in Chapter 6, pp.355-62.
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gap between human understanding and objective reality. To bridge this gap and ensure
that affective devotional experiences were not totally divorced from their real existence,
Aelred proposed language as a mediator between subjectivity and objectivity, which
made experiences like charity and love of one’s neighbor conceivable, yet still left them
unified to the soul and love of God in reality.
Aelred’s particular approach to language and spirituality meant that language
could do more than explain how subjective experiences that had divine meanings were
possible; because the purpose of language was to establish a link between the self and
the world, acts of language themselves could operate as devotional practice, becoming
outward manifestations of one’s interior state. Aelred often suggested in his writings
that speech or linguistic acts could function as spiritual disciplines, just as reading a text
might be a devotional practice.107 In his Oratio pastoralis, for instance, Aelred asked
for the strength and tools needed to govern the monks of Rievaulx properly. Amidst his
requests, he asked, “place true and right and good sounding speech in my mouth, which
is built on faith, hope, and love, in chastity and humility, in patience and obedience, in a
fervent spirit and a devoted mind.”108 Aelred’s request that he be able to convey faith,
hope, love, and the monastic virtues to his community through his speech transforms
107 Links between speech acts and devotion is a much understudied topic, but see I. Renaud-Chamska, “Les actes de langage dans le prière,” Maison-Dieu 196 (1993): 87-110, Pierre-Marie Gy, “Les paroles de la consécration et l’unité de la prière eucharistique selon les théologiens de Pierre Lombard à S. Thomas d’Aquin” in Lex orandi-Lex credendi Misc. Vagaggini, eds. J. Béks and G. Fareedi (Rome 1980), and Lester Little, Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (Ithaca, 1993): 113-118, which examines the normative value encoded in the “performative utterances” of liturgical curses. 108 Opera Omnia I, “Oratio Pastoralis,” 7: “Da verum sermonem et rectum et bene sonantem in os meum, quo aedificentur in fide, spe et caritate, in castitate et humilitate, in patientia et obedientia, in spiritus fervore et mentis devotione.”
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language acts from mere communication into a spiritually saturated activity, one that
could draw both himself and his charges closer to God.
The spiritual potential of linguistic acts was not limited to abbots or those
charged with the care of souls. In the De institutione inclusarum that he wrote for his
sister, Aelred stated that the recluse, “ought to sit alone and be silent, hearing Christ
and speaking with Christ. She ought place a guard on her mouth, attending first that she
speak rarely, then to what she speaks, and finally to whom and how she speaks.”109
Although this passage might appear to endorse silence over language, it inserts speech
with Christ (Christum audiens et cum Christo loquens) in the space of that silence,
endorsing a sort of “spiritual speech” over corporeal speech.110 Aelred then directed his
discussion into the realm of human speech, describing it as an extension of speech with
Christ. He made three recommendations concerning human speech. The recluse ought
to speak rarely, “that is, at certain fixed and ordered hours.” She should be attentive to
what she says, “that is, only those things concerning the necessities of the body and
edification of the soul.” She should take pay attention to whom she speaks, “that is,
only to certain people and those who have been designated for her.” Finally, she should
be mindful of how she speaks, “that is, humbly, modestly, not with a high-pitched
109 Opera Omnia I, “De Institutione Inclusarum,” 5: “Sedeat ergo sola, taceat, Christum audiens et cum Christo loquens. Ponat custodiam ori suo, primum ut raro loquatur, deinde quid loquatur, postremo quibus et quomodo loquatur attendat.” 110 For monks, of course, silence could be inhabited by “speech” nonetheless, in the form of sign language. Robert Barakat, The Cistercian Sign Language: A Study in non-Verbal Communication (Kalamazoo, 1975) introduces the structure of Cistercian sign language. See also Scott Bruce, Silence and Sign Language: The Cluniac Tradition, 900-1200 (Cambridge, 2007) analyzes the Cluniac sign language and its influence on later traditions, including the Cistercians.
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voice, nor harshly, nor flatteringly, nor mixed with laughter.”111 By detailing the speech
acts acceptable to the life of the recluse, Aelred’s precepts inscribed language into her
devotional life. This final passage echoed the sixth chapter of the Rule of Saint
Benedict, and it seems likely that Aelred perceived a similar link between speech and
the religious life for the monks of Rievaulx as well.112 In a lament written into the
Speculum Caritatis for his friend Simon, a monk of Rievaulx, Aelred praised him as,
“modest in appearance, mature in his gait, dignified in speech, silent without
bitterness.”113
Aelred’s interest in and study of language as a way to think about devotion,
combined with its performance as a spiritual discipline, meant that language became
more than just a tool for explaining the nature of subjective experience and affective
piety at Rievaulx. While Aelred’s thoughts about language were almost always
interwoven with his interest in affective piety, he did not simply turn to language as an
explanatory or analytical tool whenever it happened to be convenient or useful. Rather,
111 op. cit.: “Raro loquatur, id est certis et consitutis horis de quibus postea dicemus. Quid loquatur, id est de necessitate corporis vel animae aedificatione. Quibus loquatur, id est certis personis et quales ei fuerint designatae. Quomodo loqatur, id est humiliter, modeste, non alta voce, nec dura, nec blanda, nec mixta risu.” 112See RB1980: The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, 1981), Chapter 6: “Restraint of Speech.” The role of speech or language in the devotional life of the recluse is a recurrent them in the De Institutione Inclusarum. See for instance, Opera Omnia I, “De institutione inclusarum,” II: 15, where Aelred declares, “If she has to speak to someone, let her always be afraid of hearing something that might cause even the least cloud over the clear skies of her chastity; let her not doubt that she will be abandoned by grace if she utters a single word against purity.” It is possible, even likely, that the level of verbal discipline Aelred inscribes on the life of the recluse here is related to issues of gender and control, on which see Sandy Bardsley, Venomous Tongues: Speech and Gender in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2006) and further citations in her bibliography. 113 Opera omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” 60: “Aspectus pudicus, maturus incessus, gravitas in sermone, silentium sine amaritudine.”
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he consistently made use of language to address a particular issue, the relationship
between human knowledge and reality.114 Such consistency suggests a cohesive
approach to the topic, one which was the product of considerable study and thought. As
a result, language emerged as a practice in its own right at Rievaulx, a means of
thinking about the relationship between mental understandings and the external world,
the nature of human knowledge, and the codifications and transmission of knowledge.
The next chapter will investigate the ways in which ideas about language, linguistics,
and meaning were extracted from the domain of spirituality and used as the organizing
principles for Rievaulx’s literate culture.
114 See, by way of comparison, Marcia Colish, “St. Anselm’s Philosophy of Language Reconsidered,” Anselm Studies 1 (1983): 113-123, which argues that Anselm found language a useful way of thinking about the divine, but was perfectly willing to vary his theory of language based on the point he was trying to argue at any given point in his writings.
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Chapter 6
Literate Culture at Rievaulx Abbey: From Word to World
As the previous chapter demonstrated, Aelred of Rievaulx’s concern with
affective piety and his interest in linking subjective experience with objective realities
established linguistic thought and practice as an important feature of cultural life at
Rievaulx, where it was gradually, although never completely, detached from devotional
life. In addition to articulating the nature of devotional experience, language came to
provide a model for interacting with and establishing knowledge of the world. Even as
it developed into a discourse in its own right, linguistic thought was also incorporated
into Rievaulx’s literate culture, where it became the defining feature of textual identity
and meaning. By the mid- to late-twelfth century, an intensely verbal and linguistic
understanding of the written word had coalesced at the Cistercian community in
Yorkshire. Although all texts are by nature linguistic, writers at Rievaulx prioritized
this particular aspect of their texts to an extent not witnessed at either St.-Laurent or
Durham. Language was not merely understood to be the condition for textual meaning;
rather, the very identity of a text was equated with its linguistic characteristics,
transforming literate practices into a subspecies of linguistic practice.
Language, linguistics, and the verbal arts were major features of twelfth-century
intellectual life and it is possible that Rievaulx’s concern with language merely
reflected this broader interest. Rievaulx was, as we will see, linked to developments in
linguistic thought outside its walls. Yet this fact alone cannot explain the genesis of the
community’s interest in language. Furthermore, while these emerging ideas at Rievaulx
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never formed into a perfectly coherent theory of language, they had many features that
resonated with the approach to language Aelred took in explaining affective devotion,
suggesting that his spirituality was instrumental in the formation of linguistic thought
and literate practice at Rievaulx. This chapter investigates the elaboration of this
interest in language at Rievaulx and the consolidation of its literate culture around that
interest, examining first narrative and anecdotal evidence from treatises produced at
Rievaulx and then the surviving manuscript evidence.
6.1 The Art of Language and the Written World
Language and words are highly visible ideas throughout the corpus of Aelred’s
works and those of other Rievaulx authors. The natural starting place for a discussion of
the role of language in intellectual and educational life is the trivium, the verbal arts of
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. Although the trivium was the foundation for education
in most monasteries, authors at Rievaulx were particularly concerned with it and often
highlight the importance of the verbal arts.1 Grammar was of such basic importance
1 The literature on the trivium and education in the verbal arts in the Middle Ages is vast. For an introduction to the topic, see the essays in David Wagner (ed.), The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages (Bloomington, 1983) and the first part of P. Glorieux, La faculté des arts et ses maîtres au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1971). The works of R.W. Hunt are vital to understanding the role of grammar in the Middle Ages. See particularly the volume edited by G.L. Bursill-Hall: R.W. Hunt, The History of Grammar in the Middle Ages: Collected Papers (Amsterdam, 1980). On rhetoric, see James Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley, 1974) and also ibid., Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography (Toronto, 1971). On logic and dialectic, see Martin M. Tweedale, “Logic: From the Late Eleventh Century to the Time of Abelard.” In A History of Twelfth Century Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke (New York, 1988): 196-226 and T. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden, 1996). The study of logic and linguistics in the Middle Ages has been much influenced by what is generally termed the “Copenhagen” school. Work by many of the scholars associated with this school can be found in Sten Ebbesen (ed.), Sprachtheorien in Spatantike und Mittelalter (Tubingen, 1995) and Sten Ebbesen and R. Friedman (eds.), Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition (Copenhagen, 1999). See also L.M. de Rijk, Logica
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that it rarely emerged from its foundational position to become the subject of theoretical
discussions and was not often used as a tool for thinking about other problems. The
presence of several grammatical treatises in the Rievaulx library catalogue, however,
indicates that it was nevertheless part of intellectual and educational life at Rievaulx.2
Rhetoric, on the other hand, appears quite prominently in the thought of
scholars from Rievaulx, particularly in the writings of Aelred’s pupil, Walter Daniel, as
shown in a letter that he wrote in response to detractors of his Vita Ailredi. The letter is
attached to the only surviving copy of the text. In it, Walter used ideas about rhetoric
as a means of defending the language of the vita. Accused of inappropriately describing
Aelred as a monk while he was still a courtier at the Scottish royal court, Walter
responded, “what ignorance they show of the rules of rhetoric which, by the brightness
of its colors, lights up the face of art pleasingly by conveying its meaning under cover
of various sorts of figures.”3 He went on to defend his use of the term “monk” as an
example of synecdoche, a trope by which the whole is known from a part and vice
versa.4 In using the term “monk” to describe the secular Aelred, he meant to draw
Modernorum: A Contribution to the history of early terminist logic, 2 vols. (Assen, 1962-67). See further citations below, n. 35. 2 The library catalogue, which survives in Cambridge, Jesus College Q.B.17, ff.1r-6v, is printed in David Bell, The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines, and Premonstratensians (London, 1992): 87-120 and in Anselm Hoste, Bibliotheca Aelrediana: A Survey of the Manuscripts, Old Catalogues, Editions and Studies Concerning Aelred of Rievaulx (Steenburgis, 1962): 149-176. Among the grammatical treatises listed on the catalogue are “Priscianus magnus in uno volumine,” “Priscianus de constructionibus in uno volumine,” “Sinonima ciceronis. quidem de compoto. regule versificandi in uno volumine,” and “rethorica in uno volumine.” 3 Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. and trans. Maurice Powicke (London, 1950): 76: “O ignaros homines rethorice discipline que splendore colorum suorum sub multimodis figuris faciem artis delectabiliter specificando illuminat!” 4 Powicke points out that by particular use of the word term “intellectio” rather than “synecdoche,” Walter reveals his use of Pseudo-Cicero’s Rhetorica ad Herennium for his knowledge of rhetorical figures and tropes. An entry on the Rievaulx library catalogue that reads simply as “Rhethorica” is probably to be identified with this text.
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attention to Aelred’s excessive humility, which made him like a monk even though he
was literally still a courtier. Shortly after this passage, in a similar example, Walter
defended his description of Aelred’s dead body glowing like a carbuncle and smelling
of incense, which his detractors suggested lack proper caution. Walter responded:
On the contrary, I was quite in order, though a peasant or ignorant man might think otherwise with some justification. Even a mole, though it has no eyes, shrinks in fear from the rays of the sun. My blind friends do not blush to offend against the light. Hyperbole, indeed, is a form of speech which exceeds the truth with the object of making something greater or less. By this and other colors mother wisdom employs her skill on the picture of eloquence…You must pardon me, therefore, if I magnified the incomparable, as it deserved, by using a permissible hyperbole. If you do not, the experts in rhetoric will publicly trounce your stupidity.5
Whether Walter was consciously employing the tropes of synecdoche and hyperbole
when he first composed the Vita Ailredi or not, his use of these linguistic concepts to
defend the text reveals the role of rhetoric in intellectual life at Rievaulx and hints at the
connection between the verbal arts and literate practices at the community.
The case of dialectic and logic is even more interesting. Aelred often indicated
his lack of interest in complex theological questions and never employed logic in any
systematic fashion to think about theology.6 Nonetheless, Aelred’s use of language to
think about the relationship between reality and human knowledge and experience, as 5Life of Ailred, 76-77: “Immo regulariter, at rusticis et idiotis aliter non immerito oportuit videri. Talpa nempe licet oculos non habeat solis tamen radios reformidat. Et amici mei ceci offendere in lumine non erubescant. Etenim superlacio et oracio superans veritatem alicuius augendi minuendive causa. Hoc colore mater sapiencia in pictura eloquencie cum ceteris artificiose operatur…Ignoscite ergo michi quod rem incomparabilem licita superlacione merito magnificavi. Alioquin auctores eloquencie stoliditatem vestram publica reargucione dampnabunt.” His source for both these ideas was almost certainly the “Rhetorica ad Herennium” of Psuedo-Cicero, which is present on the library catalogue of Rievaulx. 6 All citations to works of Aelred refer to the editions in Opera Omnia I: Opera Ascetica, ed. A. Hoste and C.H. Talbot, CCCM 1 (Turnhout, 1971), henceforth Opera Omnia I. Citations are generally to page numbers; in some cases, page numbers are preceded by chapter or book numbers. See, among other instance, Opera omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” I: 11.
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explored in the last chapter, was a problem that was generally investigated through
dialectic. The fact that Aelred formulated distinct ideas about the problem of language,
reality, and human knowledge suggests that he had some knowledge of dialectic and
had reflected on the topic.7 Furthermore, there are several other occasions where he
employed basic concepts drawn from the logical problems of language. For instance,
the sixth chapter of Book I of the Speculum Caritatis, entitled, “An argument
(disputatio) against the fool who says in heart, ‘there is no God,’” used elementary
logic to try to prove the necessary existence of God. The argument is built on the idea
that such characteristics as “wisdom” must have an originating source. This source
must be uncreated and eternal, or else something else would have created it, and can
only be God. Much of the reasoning underlying the argument is drawn from dialectic:
If you say that an angel made wisdom, whence did he become wise? If the angel made himself wise, the aforementioned improper argument (abusio) likewise follows. It remains therefore, that the wisdom which makes others wise cannot itself be made. For it is not able to be unwise, because wisdom itself cannot be folly, just as death cannot be life.8
Aelred worked through his argument by creating self-evidently true principles rooted in
semantics and derived necessary arguments from them, a methodology consonant with
dialectic.9 Similar arguments can be found elsewhere in Aelred’s writings. In the De
7 The library catalogue of Rievaulx lists a book of dialectical treatises, described as “Ysagoge porophirii in cathegorias Aristotelis et alii libri dialectici in uno volumine.” See Bell, Libraries of the Cistercians, 105, Bibliotheca Aelrediana, 166. For further discussion of dialectical treatises at Rievaulx, see below, pp. 349-50. 8 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” I: 19: “Si et angelum dixeris posse facere sapientem, et ipse unde sapiens. Si et ipse se fecit sapientem, praedicta nihilominus sequetur abusio. Restat ergo ut non sit facta sapientia, quae caeteros faciet spientes. Ipsa non potest desipere, quia sapientia non potest esse insipientia, sicut nec mors vita…” 9 Aelred’s proof of God’s existence in the Speculum Caritatis bears much in common with Anselm of Canterbury’s Monologion and was very likely influenced by it. The Rievaulx library catalogue lists two books that contained a complete set of Anselm’s theological treatises, including a copy of the De
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anima, for instance, while trying to explain the immortality of the soul, Aelred was
asked why angels are not able to die. He responded, “angels have either an immortal
body, or are spirit without body. Yet the soul is a certain rational life, and life is not
able to die, just as light is not able to be dark or fire to be frozen.” His pupil contended
that surely the lives of trees or birds are able to die. Aelred responded, “more correctly,
a bird or a tree dies via the separation of its life, and life itself is said to be dead from
this because it ceases to be what it was, that is, life.”10 As in the above example,
Aelred’s explanation rested upon establishing the identity of a word and its
corresponding concept, “life” in this case, and seeing what necessarily followed about
reality from that identity. Dialectic then, oriented toward semantics and the definition
of terms, formed a key part of Aelred’s thought and, in all likelihood, a key part of
Rievaulx’s intellectual culture.11
In many ways, it is artificial to separate the discussion of the verbal arts at
Rievaulx according to the three arts of the trivium. As Karin Fredborg has noted, the
trivium was often perceived of as a unified system of language rather than as three
grammatico. Marilyn McCord Adams, “Re-Reading De grammatico or Anselm’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories,” Documenti e Studi sulla Traditione Filosofica Medievale 11 (2000): 83-112, notes that the De grammatico could be read as an introduction to dialectic. The connection raises the possibility that Aelred’s approach to language and logic may have been much influenced by the works of Anselm of Canterbury. 10 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” III: 53-54: “IOHANNES. Cur angeli mori non possunt? AELREDUS. Aut corpora habent immortalia, aut sine corpore spiritus sunt. Cum autem quaedem vita rationalis sit, sic non potest vita mor, sicut non potest lux tenebrescere, aut ignis frigescere. IOANNES. Nonne vita pecoris vel arboris moritur? AELREDUS. Immo separatione vitae suae pecus et arbor moritur, at vita ipsa eo ipso mori dicitur, quod desinit esse quod fuit, id est, vita.” Other examples of a comparable method or argumentation can be found elsewhere in the De Anima. 11 For further discussion on the perpetuation of dialectic and the verbal arts after Aelred’s death, see below pp. 349-53.
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separate disciplines in the twelfth century.12 There is evidence that this was the case at
Rievaulx. In a long and remarkable passage in the Vita Ailredi, Walter Daniel described
Aelred’s mastery of the liberal arts, eschewing definitions of particular verbal arts in
favor of generalized conception of linguistics, while simultaneously revealing the
importance of language to Aelred and the community of Rievaulx. He began by
declaring that, “Aelred felt rather than absorbed what the authorities call the liberal arts,
by the process of oral instruction in which the master’s voice enters the pupil’s breast,
but in all other respects he was his own master, with an understanding far beyond that
of those who have learned the elements of secular knowledge from the injection of
words rather than from the infusion of the Holy Spirit.” Comparing Aelred with those
who acquire a hazy notion of “Aristotelian forms” and the “infinite reckonings of
Pythagorean computation,” Walter declares that his mentor transcended all the figures
of speech and came to know the divine, which “dwells in light inaccessible, where there
is no figure but the very truth…”13 Moving beyond Aelred’s education, Walter
described Aelred’s linguistic practice as well, stating that he “never sought to involve
his speech in deceitful trappings…because they rob truth of its meaning.” Aelred,
according to Walter, recognized that “words acquire their full force only from reason,
which is itself the element in truth, so to speak, and which gives to anything good its
persuasive…or convincing quality.” Walter summed up Aelred’s training and interest
in the verbal arts by stating, “our father refused to put the rules of grammar before
12 Karin Margareta Fredborg, “The Unity of the Trivium,” in, Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, ed. Sten Ebbesen, 325-338. 13 Life of Ailred, Ch. 18.
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truth, but everywhere put truth before them,” yet still Aelred did not have any
“uncouthness in expression,” but rather all the “resources of splendid eloquence and a
noble flow of words.”14
This passage contains several important ideas for understanding the nature of
linguistic thought and practice at Rievaulx. First, Walter Daniel compiled the various
“liberal arts” together into a single discourse pertaining to the use of words and
language. Rather than particularizing the arts of the trivium, Walter had a more
generalized understanding of language and the various uses of linguistic thought.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the role Walter allotted to language
intellectual life in this passage. At first glance, Walter seems to be denigrating the role
of language in spirituality; he declared that Aelred eschewed the verbal arts in favor of
truth and never put much stock in value of cultivated speech. The passage is indeed
often cited as evidence that Aelred disregarded intellectual problems such as language
and logic in favor of purely spiritual concerns. However, the length and polemical tone
of the passage suggest that this is one of many instances in the vita in which Walter was
defending Aelred from certain detractors who questioned the abbot’s saintliness.15 In
this case, these detractors thought that Aelred was overly interested in the liberal arts,
perhaps at the expense of religious truth; Walter’s response was to assert that, despite
his mastery of the arts, Aelred never put them before truth. The fact that Walter felt he
needed to respond to these critics is evidence, not for Aelred’s disregard of the verbal
14 op. cit. 15 See, most notably, Chaps. 26 and 27 of the Life of Ailred, where Walter responds to critics of Aelred’s dietary regime.
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arts, but rather for the vitality of his interest in them and that he had a reputation based
on that interest.
Aelred was hardly alone among the monks of Rievaulx in this regard. Walter,
as noted above, was clearly interested in rhetoric and language.16 Mathew of Rievaulx,
a monk of the early thirteenth century, was known primarily for his poetic
compositions.17 Thorvald of Rievaulx and later abbot of Fountains, who is known only
through second-hand references, was praised in the Memorials of Fountains, not for his
piety or devotion, but for his learning in the liberal arts.18 In fact, virtually every scholar
from Rievaulx about whom anything is known is identified with expertise in the arts of
language, demonstrating the importance of linguistic practice and thought in the
community.
Finally, while Walter presents a partial critique of language, it is important to
note the relationship he established between language and truth. While words are
consistently placed in opposition to truth in the passage, language and linguistics are
not in and of themselves denigrated, only the possibility of their being artificially
substituted for truth. Furthermore, Walter’s schema also defines language as something
that follows from truth or reason: “Our father refused to put the rules of grammar
before truth, but everywhere put truth before them.”19 This relationship suggests that,
while language was not itself truth, the two ideas were related and language was a
16 See above, pp. 341-42. 17 See Andre Wilmart, “Les melanges de Mathieu prechantre de Rievaulx au debut du XIIIe siècle’, Revue bénédictine 52 (1940): 15-84. 18 Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, ed. John Richard Walbran, SS 42 (London, 1863): 105. 19 Life of Ailred, Chap. 18.
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primary tool for approaching truth. In fact, the remarkable feature of the passage is not
its criticism of the study of language, but that it carried the unquestioned assumption
that language was an appropriate medium through which one could work to envision
truth. Walter actually depicted Aelred passing to truth via language, not finding truth
instead of language. In fact, Walter’s defense of Aelred only makes sense in light of
this assumption - for Walter, because language was such a vital tool for accessing the
truth, there was a danger that it might be mistaken for the truth itself. Walter’s intent
was to assure his readers that, despite Aelred’s mastery of linguistic skills, he never
substituted them for truth itself. The implicit assumptions of his description of Aelred’s
learning demonstrates how deeply rooted linguistic culture was at Rievaulx and how
central it was the community’s intellectual life.
The general importance of language to intellectual life at Rievaulx is further
demonstrated by manuscript evidence from the community, which reveals the diffusion
of Aelred and Walter’s interest in linguistics into the community’s general intellectual
and educational culture. The most important manuscripts in this regard are two late
twelfth- or early thirteenth-century books, BL Arundel ms. 346 and Cambridge, Jesus
College Q.B.17, that contain the works of William de Montibus, a Paris-trained
theologian and voluminous writers who was a canon at Lincoln Cathedral by 1188 and
its chancellor by 1194.20 Many of William de Montibus’ works were introductory texts
for learning in the arts, theology, and exegesis, reflecting his concern with providing
basic frameworks for education and with pastoral care. Arundel 346 contains a copy of
20 Joseph Goering, William de Montibus (c.1140-1213): The Schools and the Literature of Pastoral Care (Toronto, 1992): 9-23.
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William de Montibus’ collection of distinctiones.21 The “distinctio,” as described by
Mary and Richard Rouse, was a curious literary genre that debuted in the late twelfth
century, had its heyday in the thirteenth, and vanished altogether by the fourteenth.22 A
“distinctio” was a tool of exegesis in which a single work from Scripture was selected
and linked to phrases from Scripture (or from other sources) to demonstrate its various
meanings.23 This genre placed the individual word and its meaning at the center of
textual analysis and interpretation and represented an exegetical tradition that elided
traditional recourse to patristic authority for exegesis. It was also a genre favored by
preachers and those charged with pastoral care because it provided a convenient tool for
the composition of sermons.24 The Cistercian monks at Rievaulx, however, who had no
responsibility for pastoral care or preaching, had no need of distinctiones for this
purpose. Rather, the distinctiones were almost certainly used as part of the
community’s own educational program to teach members of the monastic community
the basics of exegesis. Its use would have disseminated an approach to textual
interpretation that stressed the meaning of individual words.
Further works of William de Montibus are found in Jesus College Q.B.17. The
start of the manuscript contained a copy of a text William entitled the “Numerale,” an
introduction to basic theological concepts, here given the appropriate titles,
21 BL Arundel ms. 346, f.29r. An edition of this text is in Goering, William de Montibus, 268-303 22 Mary and Richard Rouse, “Biblical Distinctiones in the Thirteenth Century,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 41 (1974): 27-37. See also Goering, William de Montibus, 268-303. 23 As the Rouses note, the various meanings would often be coterminous with the “senses” of Scripture common to Biblical exegesis, but they need not necessarily be so. Rouse and Rouse, “Biblical Distinctiones,” 28. 24 See Mary and Richard Rouse, “Statim invenire: Schools, Preachers, and New Attitudes to the Page,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, eds. Giles Constable, Robert Benson, and Carol Lanham (Cambridge, 1982): 212-216 and ibid., “Biblical Distinctiones,” 28.
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“Introductiones in Theologiam.”25 Also present is a copy of William’s “Proverbia,” a
florilegia of quotes and proverbs from great authors organized alphabetically by the
author’s name.26 More important than either of these, however, is the complete copy of
William de Montibus’ work “Tropi,” an alphabetized summa on the application of
grammatical, rhetorical, and dialectical teachings to the study of theology and Biblical
exegesis, here entitled “Summa de diversa vocabulorum significacione edita a mag.
Will. de monte.”27 This important text on the use of the verbal arts for the interpretation
of Scripture and learning in theology demonstrates the existence of a program of
learning at Rievaulx that was based on treating texts as verbal constructs that achieved
meaning through their language. Accordingly, the community approached them
through their linguistic conventions. Jesus College Q.B.17 also contains two additional
works devoted to linguistic analysis; between the “Numerale” and the “Tropi” of
William de Montibus are a text entitled “Fallatie,” which might also be the work of
William, and an anonymous text entitled “Loci” (“Topics”), both of which pertain to
issues of logic and dialectic in language.28
25 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.7r. An edition of this text is in Goering, William de Montibus, 236-260. Goering notes, however, of the text in this manuscript that “this idiosyncratic fragment bears little resemblance to the other copies of William’s Numerale. Many additional topics are included, and the treatment of shared material is not verbally identical. This text might be a rough draft for the final version of the Numerale, or, more plausibly, a pastiche of selections from William’s work with numerous additions from an unidentified source.” 26 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.48r, although oddly, the rubric for the text “Incipiunt proverbia et alia verba edificatoria” is on 14v. For Goering’s comments on and edition of this text see William de Montibus, 334-348, but note that the Rievaulx copy is incomplete. 27 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.15r. See Goering, William de Montibus, 349-388. 28 The text “Fallatie” starts on 9v with the incipit “Fallacia apud logicos dicitur deceptione argumenta…” I have located (although not yet consulted) another copy of the text in BL Royal Ms. 9.E.XII, where it is in fact attributed to a “magister Willelmus.” Goering, however, does not mention this as among the works of William de Montibus. Luisa Valente maintains a longstanding assumption that the text was penned by William. See “Fallaciae et théologie pendant la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle,” in S. Ebbesen and R. Friedman (ed.), Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition. The text “Loci” begins
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There is considerable evidence that these two manuscripts were held in special
regard at Rievaulx and occupied a place of central importance in the community’s
intellectual culture. Arundel 346 and Jesus College Q.B.17, which seem likely to have
been produced in conjunction with each other, contain works that were central to the
corporate, spiritual, and intellectual identity of the community. Arundel 346 contains
treatises on the interpretation of the liturgy, the canon of the Mass, a series of
expositions on the Gospels, and a copy of the miracles of the Virgin Mary.29 The other
texts in Jesus College Q.B.17 are even more telling. They include a partial copy of the
Cistercian customary, a variety of sermons, a copy of the text usually called the
Antiphonarium and associated with Bernard of Clairvaux, a copy of Bernard
Sylvester’s’ Cosmographia, Aelred’s own Oratio pastoralis, and the Rievaulx library
catalogue.30 Most of the texts in these two books would have served well as basic
educational texts and the condition of the manuscripts, which were small and well-used,
suggests that they were classbooks. Furthermore, the presence of normative texts such
as the library catalogue and the Cistercian customary, which would have been
important to Rievaulx’s corporate and administrative identity, suggests that the
educational texts in these two manuscripts guided the community’s intellectual life.
on 12v with the incipit “Locus argumenti est sedes argumenti id est id unde argumentum firmatur et elicitur…” The definition of the “locus argumenti” or the “sedes argumenti” is one of the major issues in dialectic, but I have not been able to identify this particular text. 29 Beginning on ff.2r, 25r, 43r, and 60r respectively. There are several other short miscellaneous texts in the manuscript as well. 30 Beginning on ff.107r, 88r, 116r, 118r, 97r, and 1r respectively. The text of the Cistercian customary is that of the so-called “Exordium parvum” of the Cistercian order, which has most recently been edited by Chrysogonus Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Citeaux (Citeaux, 1999): 199-282. The dating of this text, as with many of the early Cistercian narratives, has been the subject of much debate, but is of minimal importance to this project. For relevant literature, see below, n.117. The text of the Cosmographia has been edited by Peter Dronke, Cosmographia (Leiden, 1978) and translated by Winthrop Wetherbee, The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris (New York, 1973).
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Among all these works, however, those of William de Montibus had particular
eminence at Rievaulx. In the early thirteenth century, perhaps shortly after the
compilation of Arundel 346 and Jesus College Q.B.17, Mathew of Rievaulx penned a
series of poems, which are now preserved in BNF lat. 15157. Among these poems was
one in praise of William de Montibus.31 The only other figures so honored were the
first three abbots of Rievaulx itself (William, Maurice, and Aelred), Stephen Langton
(the current Archbishop of Canterbury), King John (the current King of England), and
William the Conqueror. Mathew placed William de Montibus in prestigious company,
counting him either among the most notable figures of England in his day or among the
most important figures of Rievaulx’s own history. The inclusion of William de
Montibus’ works in the manuscripts from Rievaulx suggests that Mathew had the latter
possibility in mind and was suggesting that the chancellor of Lincoln had comparable
importance to the community as its first three abbots. Mathew of Rievaulx’s poems
demonstrate the level of influence the works of William de Montibus exercised at
Rievaulx, revealing the extent to which language and linguistic thought stood at the
center of the community’s intellectual culture.
The fact that the works of William de Montibus, canon and chancellor of the
school at Lincoln Cathedral, exerted such influence over education and intellectual life
at Rievaulx suggests that the community’s interest in linguistics was linked to external
developments in learning and scholasticism. Nonetheless, the genesis of the
community’s interest in language could not have been due entirely to external
31 Printed in Wilmart, “Les melanges de Mathieu,” 60.
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influence. There is little evidence that Rievaulx participated in any of the developments
in schooling and scholasticism prior to the late twelfth century when they obtained the
copies of William de Montibus’ works. Aelred was master of novices at Rievaulx
around 1142 and his abbacy lasted from 1147 to 1167.32 Aelred’s writings make it clear
that an interest in language was already flourishing at Rievaulx by the mid-twelfth
century. Aelred’s death in 1167 may have created an intellectual vacuum at the
community that they sought to fill by cultivating a relationship with a local school. The
copies of the works of William de Montibus and the esteem in which the community
held him probably resulted from this relationship. The fact that Mathew of Rievaulx’s
poems present William as Aelred’s successor strengthens the possibility that his works
were intended to fill the hole in Rievaulx’s intellectual life created by Aelred’s death.
It is not clear why the community at Rievaulx would choose to establish ties to
the school at Lincoln instead of the far closer cathedral school at York. William de
Montibus’ own reputation and the harmony between his interests and those of the
Rievaulx community may have been the primary cause. However, it is worth noting
that scholars have long been searching for a connection between Rievaulx and a school.
An entry on the Rievaulx library catalogue describes Walter Daniel as a magister,
indicating that he had been trained at a school somewhere.33 Walter’s school has never
been identified, although it is generally accepted that it was a local school, rather than
Paris.34 It is not implausible that, following Aelred’s death, Walter attempted to
32 See Life of Ailred, Chaps. 14 and 26. 33 See Bell, Libraries of the Cistercians, 104 and Hoste, Bibliotheca Aelrediana, 165. The entry reads “Psalterium magistri Walteri glosatum in uno volumine.” 34 Powicke, “Introduction,” Life of Ailred, xv.
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compensate for the loss of the learned abbot by reviving ties with his old school and
obtaining copies of works by its most prestigious current scholar. Regardless of this
possibility, it is clear that interest in language flourished at Rievaulx under Aelred and
that, after his death, the community sought to perpetuate this interest by drawing on
developments in the verbal arts and linguistic thought external to the community.
6.2 Aelred of Rievaulx and Linguistic Theory
The preceding evidence demonstrates the important place occupied by language
in Rievaulx’s intellectual life and points toward the origins of this interest in language.
It origins can be better appreciated through an exploration, not merely of the fact of the
community’s interest in language, but of their specific ideas about language and how it
operated. Twelfth-century scholars were often preoccupied with problems of linguistic
meaning and signification, an important but open question. As the emerging
nominalist/realist debate, the question over universals, and the rise of speculative and
philosophical grammar demonstrate, there was no uniform conception of how language
operated in the twelfth century.35 Rievaulx was generally removed from these
35 The literature on twelfth-century linguistic theory is expansive. For good introductions to some of the key issues see William J. Courtenay, “Nominales and nominalism in the 12th century,” in J. Jolivet, Z. Kaluza, and A. de Libera (eds.), Lectionum varietates. Hommages à Paul Vignaux (Paris, 1991): 12-48 and the contrasting view in John Marenbon, “Vocalism, nominalism and the commentaries on the Categories from the earlier twelfth century,” Vivarium 30 (1992): 51-61; H. Kneepkens, “Nominalism and grammatical theory in late the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. An explorative study,” Vivarium 30 (1992): 34-50 and the rest of the essays in Vivarium 30 (1992), all of which are devoted to nominalism; K.M. Fredborg, “Universal Grammar according to some 12th-century grammarians,” Historiographia linguistica 7 (1980): 69-84; J. Jolivet, Aspects de la pensée médiévale. Abélard. Doctrines du langage (Paris, 1987); Irène Rosier-Catach, “Res significata and modus significandi: Les implications d’une distinction médiévale,” in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, ed. Sten Ebbesen, 135-68 and the essays pertaining to the twelfth century printed in Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition, ed. Sten Ebbesen and Russell L. Friedman (Copenhagen, 1999). Rosier-
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sophisticated debates.36 However, there does appear to have been a consistent theory of,
or at least approach to language at Rievaulx. In fact, given the apparent centrality of
language to Rievaulx’s intellectual atmosphere, it would be surprising if there were no
attempt by Aelred and others to work out a functional explanation of the semiotics of
language. Although there was no single place in his writings where Aelred laid out a
theory of language, there are enough references scattered throughout his treatises and
other sources that a relatively consistent notion of the operation of language can be
compiled. Its details will demonstrate that Rievaulx’s focus on language was driven
primarily by Aelred’s interest in affective spirituality rather than by connections to
early scholasticism and broader twelfth-century concerns with linguistics.
In one important passage in the dialogic De anima, Aelred was asked how the
soul in the afterlife was able to perceive anything or receive information given that it
lacked sense perception. His answer turned on the ability of the mind to learn things
while asleep and dreaming: “If someone spoke to you in a dream, it might seem to you
sleeping that you had heard material words made with material sounds. But upon
awaking, you realize yourself to have heard imaginary words made through imaginary
sounds. Nevertheless, perhaps through these imaginary words you have learned
Catach’s La parole efficace: signe, rituel, sacré (Paris, 2004) and La parole comme acte: sur la grammaire et la sémantique au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1994) deal chiefly with the thirteenth century, but are superb studies of linguistic theory and its place in medieval thought. 36 The presence of the works of William de Montibus in Rievaulx manuscripts do suggest a link with the school of Lincoln, but these texts were concerned with using language for study of Scripture and theology and not with the operation of language itself.
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something that is not imaginary.”37 Aelred’s response indicates that he viewed language
as operating chiefly at the basic level of words, rather than at the more complex level of
grammatical structure, where words are arranged by specific rules of discourse. He
repeatedly linked words (verba) to their meaning and understood the referentiality of
language in terms of the link between the two.
The nature and purpose of the link between a word and its meaning, however, is
the crucial point for understanding ideas about the operation of language at Rievaulx.
This passage from the De anima provides some clarity as to Aelred’s understanding of
this link. For Aelred, imaginary words encountered in a dream operated in the same
way that “corporeal” words encountered in the world did. This created an equality in
their ability, whether “imaginary” or “corporeal” to convey knowledge; the dreamer
learned something from imaginary words just as much as the waking man learned
something from corporeal words. The function of language, for Aelred, was
epistemological, and it was fundamentally a tool for prompting and organizing
knowledge of things.
In explaining how words were linked to things and were able to convey
knowledge of them, Aelred’s thought became more complex. While Aelred was
confident that a word could denote a thing and create knowledge of that thing, it is not
clear that he arrived at a conclusive idea about how the links between word, thing, and
concept were established. In the De anima, for instance, Aelred found it necessary to
37 Opera Omnia I, “De Anima,” III: 28: “Si vero aliqua tibi in somnis dixerit, dormienti quidem videtur tibi per corporales sonos verba corporalia audire. At experrectus, agnoscis te per imaginarias voces imaginaria verba audisse. Attamen forte per iall imaginaria aliqua non imaginaria didicisti.”
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discuss the theologically contentious issue of the origin of the soul. Among the ideas
that Aelred addressed was that of “traduction,” the possibility of a biological origin for
the soul that resulted from hereditary transmission. The way in which Aelred discussed
this sensitive issue reflected his understanding of linguistic signification: “Those who
say that [the soul] comes from traduction because the power of sensing, without which
the soul is not able to be held in the body, has matter from the body via fire and air,
which also lie hidden in human seed, do not say anything exceedingly absurd, if the
word traduction can be fitted (convenire) to this opinion (my emphasis).”38 This
statement, in which Aelred suggests that the relationship between a word and reality is
based on “fitting” one to the other, seems almost to endorse two contrary stances on the
relationship between words and thing. On the one hand, the idea of a word being
“fitted” to a thing seems to suggest an arbitrary process based on human intervention in
which a word’s attachment to a particular thing resulted from convention and
agreement among people.39
On the other hand, Aelred included a problematic conditional in his phrase:
“…if the word traduction can be fitted to this opinion.” The use of the conditional
seems to suggest that the possibility existed that the word could not be fitted to the idea,
which would not be possible if the link between a word and a thing were purely
arbitrary and dependent on convention. The conditional nature of Aelred’s phrase
38 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” I: 52: “Illi vero qui dicunt ideo eam esse de traduce, quia vis illa sentiendi, sine qua anima teneri non posset in corpore, materiam habet ex corpore propter ignem et aerem, quae etiam latent in illo semine, si verbum traducis huic poterit convenire sententiae, non est nimis absurdam quod dicunt.” I have recently become aware of the fact that use of term “convenire” to express the relationship between a word and a thing may have specific origins in Priscian’s grammatical treatises. 39 An idea that Aelred would have been familiar with via Augustine’s De doctrina christiana.
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suggests that an intrinsic quality of a word itself might bind it to a particular thing,
apparently implying an essential or ontological relationship between language and
reality. Further complicating the issue is the fact that Aelred may have only used the
conditional “if” out of caution, given that he was discussing an issue that was, in his
mind, theologically problematic and susceptible to error. He may simply have been
worried that use of a certain word might lead to false or wrong knowledge about the
soul, indicating the pitfalls of language’s epistemological function.
Aelred confronted a similar issue in De spiritali amicitia. While discussing the
nature of true friendship, he noted that:
Even among the worst people, there are arrangements and bonds of fellowship that ought to be averted. Although these have been cloaked with the sweet name (nomen) of friendship, by law and precept they should be distinguished from true friendship, lest when true friendship is sought, it incautiously falls into these [false forms of friendship] on account of some likeness to it.40
In this passage, Aelred used an elegant metaphor to convey the idea of a word being
fitted to a thing (“amicitiae pulcherrimo nomine palliata”) and repeated the same
ambiguity between an essentialist and a conventionalist approach to language found in
De anima. Aelred seems to endorse the essentialist take on language by asserting that
the name (nomen) “friendship” should only be attached to true friendship and not to any
other social bond, implying a necessary link between the word and the true institution
of friendship. On the other hand, Aelred also acknowledged the possibility that the
40 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” I: 60: “Compacta sunt etiam pessimos quaedam societatis foedera detestanda; quae amicitiae pulcherrimo nomine palliata, lege et praeceptis a vera amicitia fuerant distinguenda; ne cum ista appeteretur, in illa propter quamdam eius similitudinem incaute incideretur.”
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word might be applied to other, less virtuous social relationships, an event that Aelred
condemned.
However, unlike in the De anima, Aelred revealed some of the underlying
causes of this ambiguity in the De spiritali amicitia. Aelred’s main worry in this
passage was that someone, believing that he knew the true definition of friendship,
would fall into a false form of friendship because it was “cloaked” with the name of
friendship. Language, although perhaps not necessary for interacting with the world,
was a vital means of organizing knowledge about it. As Marcia Colish has noted with
respect to several key medieval thinkers, Aelred considered language to be a tool for
knowing reality because of a word’s ability to index or denote the world.41 For Aelred,
proper knowledge of the world was achieved through language; it connected the
objective world of things to subjective knowledge by establishing a link between a real
thing and a mental conception of it. In the example above, the term “friendship” was
attached to both a certain type of real social bond and to an understanding of it. The
danger, for Aelred, was that once a term was associated with a particular concept,
misuse of the word could warp human interaction with the world by distorting the
alignment between thing and concept. Aelred gestured toward an essentialist view of
language because he understood language to be central to the transmission of human
knowledge. Fundamentally, he wanted the link between a word and a thing to be
41 This is the central argument of Colish’s important study The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Language (London, 1968, rev. ed. Lincoln, 1983). Colish pursues the argument through analysis of four medieval thinkers, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Dante.
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guaranteed by more than human convention so as to alleviate the possibility of
corrupted knowledge.
At the same time, however, Aelred could not fully endorse this view because he
knew that words were used inappropriately, as when the term “friendship” was applied
to certain bonds that were not reflective of true friendship. His understanding of
language had created a conundrum: because words were “fitted” to things so as to allow
for the creation of and transmission of concepts, they were both vital to human
knowledge but arbitrary in nature, creating the possibility that human understanding of
the world was arbitrary. The importance of language as an epistemological tool made it
both important and dangerous, a fact that explains Aelred’s ambiguous statements
about its operation. Aelred’s final solution to the problem was a sort of idealized
“hyper-conventionalist” view of language, in which the thing to which a word refers
was so completely agreed upon that it approached an essential relationship. He
expressed this possibility in the De spiritali amicitia by declaring that it was “law and
precept” that ought to prevent base relationships from falsely assuming the name of
“friendship.”42 Unable to argue for an essentialist view of language, but worried about
the implications of a conventionalist view of language, Aelred concluded that people
needed to govern their use of language such that knowledge of the world could be
accurately produced and transmitted.
42 Opera Omnia I, “De spiritali amicitia,” I: 60: “Compacta sunt etiam pessimos quaedam societatis foedera detestanda; quae amicitiae pulcherrimo nomine palliata, lege et praeceptis a vera amicitia fuerant distinguenda…” On problems of “convetionalism” in medieval linguistic theory, see further Irène Rosier-Catach, “Quelques controverses médiévales sur le conventionnalisme, la signification et la force du langage,” in Language philosophies and the language sciences: a historical perspective in honor of Lia Formigari, eds. D. Gambarara, S. Gensini, and A. Pennisi (Münster, 1996): 69-84.
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To summarize, Aelred’s understanding of language was based on “fitting”
words to things for the purpose of creating and transmitting human knowledge.
Language was an epistemological structure that served as the intermediary between the
world of things and the world of mental concepts. Linking a word and a thing may not
have been a precondition for human knowledge, but it was vital to its organization,
codification, and transmission. This link was also arbitrary, creating the possibility of
false knowledge, which had to be mitigated by achieving a broad consensus as to the
meaning of words so as to approximate as essential relationship between language and
reality.
Several important conclusions follow from this approach to language. First,
Aelred’s general understanding of language and his use of language to explore
problems relating to affective spirituality and experience, as explored in the previous
chapter, clearly informed each other. In both instances, Aelred’s focus was on the
operations of individual words and their ability to establish a connection between the
objective world and the intramental world of knowledge and experience. Although
language was clearly an important intellectual tool for Aelred, he never devoted a
treatise to a formal examination of linguistics. On the other hand, affective piety was a
central topic of nearly all of his writings. This fact suggests that Aelred’s interest in and
understanding of language emerged from his focus on subjective experience as a form
of devotion.
Second, the treatises of William de Montibus found in BL Arundel 346 and
Jesus College Q.B.17 harmonize with this theory of language remarkably well. Several
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of them deal specifically with discovering the meaning of individual words, including
the collection of “distinctiones” and William’s “Tropi,” which was actually given the
title, “Collection concerning the diverse meanings of words” (Summa de diversa
vocabulorum significacione) in the copy preserved in Jesus College Q.B.17.43 Most of
the rest of these treatises deal with issues of logic and dialectic, to which Aelred’s own
approach to language owes the greatest debt.44 The correlation between Aelred’s ideas
on language and those preserved in the two Rievaulx manuscripts not only reinforces
the possibility that they were obtained to fill the void at the community created by
Aelred’s death, but also demonstrate that his ideas about language had become part of
the general intellectual culture of the community at Rievaulx. Therefore, it seems
probable that the community’s interest in language and linguistics developed out of the
attempt to construct subjective experience as a spiritual practice. This interest in
language, particularly its relevance to devotion, presented an intellectual problem in its
own right under Aelred, but his thought on the topic was perpetuated after his death
through links with local schools.
6.3 Linguistic Hermeneutics and Textual Identity
Aelred’s theory of language influenced his broader repertoire of intellectual
strategies. Nowhere was this more true than in his penchant for defining terms as a
43 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.15r. 44 Including the “Fallatiae,” probably written by William de Montibus, and the “Loci,” found on 9v and 12v respectively.
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means of resolving intellectual problems.45 Aelred’s particular conception of language
in terms of individual words that were attached to things and as a mediator of human
knowledge that required broad consensus to operate successfully meant that definition
was key tool of investigation and inquiry in his works. In the De anima, for instance,
Aelred condensed his discussion of sin into a simple statement: “Sin itself is able to be
said by means of other words, that is, a spontaneous movement of the will away from
the Creator and toward the creature.”46 Likewise, in De spiritali amicitia, having argued
that friendship endured only among “the good,” his pupil asked what friendship had to
do with themselves, since they were not good. Aelred responded, “I do not divide the
good to the quick, as do certain people who wish no one to be called good save for him
who lacks nothing in perfection. We call a man good who, following the way of our
mortality, lives soberly and justly and piously in the world.”47 In both cases, Aelred
advanced his inquiry by, in essence, searching for the proper fit between a word and a
concept; the discovery of the proper fit created a better understanding and enabled the
word to be used to denote the world accurately.
The use of definition as a means of inquiry lent itself well to an interpretive
strategy based on investigating the meaning of individual words, a strategy that was
also common at Rievaulx. In the Vita Ailredi, for instance, Walter provided an
45 G.R. Evans, Anselm and Talking About God (Oxford, 1978): 7, points out that this was an important feature of Anselm’s method as well, one of many overlaps between Aelred and Anselm’s approach to language and investigation. 46 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” II: 47: “Potest etiam dici peccatum aliis verbis hoc ipsum, id est, spontaneo inclinatio voluntatis a Creatore ad creaturam.” 47 Oper Omnia I, “De spritali amicitia,” II: 43: “Ego bonum non ita ad vivum reseco, ut quidam qui neminem volunt esse bonum, nisi eum cui ad perfectionem nihil desit. Nos hominem bonum dicimus, qui secundum modum nostrae mortalitatis, sobrie et iuste et pie vivens in hoc saeculo…” According to the editor, the unusual phrase “ad vivum reseco,” is taken from Cicero, De Amicitia, 18.
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interpretation of Aelred’s name: “The great counselor had a fitting name, for the
English Alred is in Latin totum consilium or omne consilium. Well is he placed in the
counsels of an earthly king, whose very name gives forth the sound, ‘all counsel…’48
Although this diglossic moment is more etymological than linguistic in the strictest
sense, it still tied interpretation to the meaning of words. A comparable concept appears
in Aelred’s letter to Thomas Becket written by either Aelred or Maurice of Rievaulx, in
which the author declared: “Therefore, provided that it is allowed, this is the place to
interpret the word of your name, the guardian of those entrusted to you and by you for
their health and salvation.”49 The author went on to describe the duties of a bishop,
making it clear that what he intended by “vocabulum nominis tui” was not the name
Thomas Becket but rather the meaning of his title, archbishop.50 This passage, more
linguistic than the first example, is concerned with explicating the meaning associated
with a particular word in order to see what knowledge can be gleaned from it.
It is hardly surprising that at Rievaulx this hermeneutic technique was adopted,
not just to names and titles, but to texts as well. In Aelred’s thought, this technique
operated alongside the traditional method of Scriptural interpretation according to the
senses of Scripture, which was too much a part of the tradition of monastic reading to
48 Life of Ailred, Ch. 3: “Congruit eciam eius nomini interpretacio magni consiliarii, quod versum in Latinum totum consilium vel omne consilium facit. Etenim Alred Anglicanum est, illudque quod diximus exprimit in Latino.” 49 Powicke, “Maurice of Rievaulx,” English Historical Review 36 (1921): 29: “Iccirco, dum licet et locus est, vocabulum nominis tui interpretare, superintendens tue tibique commissorum utilitati et saluti.” 50 See D.K. Howlett (ed.), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, Fasc. VII (Oxford, 2002): 1925, which notes other contemporary usages of the word “nomen” carrying this meaning, including William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum I:74 and Anselm, Letter 159.
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be ignored.51 Nonetheless, there are indications that, even when it came to Scriptural
exegesis, Aelred had developed an interest in interpreting the meanings of individual
words and in using linguistic practices as part of a system of textual hermeneutics. In
De Iesu Puero Duodenni, for instance, Aelred used several passages from the Psalms
and the Song of Songs to describe a spiritual visitation from Jesus. He concluded by
directly addressing the recipient of his text, admonishing him, “when you read the Law
and the Prophets, pay attention diligently, and you will find many such appearances or
contemplations described there in certain figures and riddles.”52 At first glance, it
appears that Aelred was referring to traditional, figural exegesis based on the senses of
Scripture, in which certain events of the Old Testament were understood to prefigure
those of the New Testament.53 In fact, he was referring to a form of interpretation in
which rhetorical tropes, such as metaphor and catachresis, were used to decipher the
meaning of Scripture.
This is stated more clearly in another passage from the De anima, in which
Aelred used rhetorical language to help understand Scripture. Discussing the state of
the soul after death and what shape or body it might be in, Aelred pointed out certain
descriptions in Scripture of Lazarus and the rich man after they had died that include
51 For Aelred’s use of this form of exegesis, see Philippe Nouzille, Expérience de Dieu et théologie monastique au XIIe siècle: étude sur les sermons d’Aelred de Rievaulx, 105-124. 52 Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” III: 24: “Cum legem et prophetas legeris, animadverte diligenter, et ivenies has ipsas apparitiones sive contemplationes multoties in figuris quibusdam et aenigmatibus designatas.” 53 See the work of Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiéval: Les quatres sens de l’écriture (Paris, 1959). The first two volumes have been translated into English by Mark Sebanc and E.M. Macierowski as Medieval Exegesis (Grand Rapids, 1998-2000). Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1964), continues to be the best introduction of Scriptural exegesis in the central Middle Ages, but see the recent collection of essays in Ineke van’t Spijker (ed.), The Multiple Meaning of Scripture: The Role of Exegesis in Early-Christian and Medieval Culture (Leiden, 2009).
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bodily parts, such as eyes and fingers. He then asked whether such description were
made, “inappropriately, or metaphorically, so that some power of the soul is called an
eye, another a finger, or perhaps a tongue.”54 Although Aelred eventually dismissed the
idea, he clearly accepted the possibility that the meaning of Scripture could be
deciphered by investigating the rhetorical meaning of words. The terminology he used
in this passage, “translative,” suggests that Aelred was thinking of operation of
rhetorical tropes operated in Scripture, under which it concealed its meaning, rather
than the prefigural form of exegesis that employed the senses of Scripture. Here, Aelred
joined strict linguistic or verbal analysis to textual hermeneutics.
The use of rhetorical tropes and other figures of speech to sort out apparent
contradictions or puzzles of Scripture was a more narrow tradition of textual analysis
than the one based on prefiguration and the senses of Scripture. The foundational text
for this methodology was Bede’s De schematibus et tropis, but it underwent a general
revival in the twelfth century, which saw an increase in the use of the liberal arts in
service of Scriptural exegesis. Peter the Chanter’s De tropis loquendi and Alan of
Lille’s Distinctiones dictionum theologicalium were the most influential texts in
consolidating this approach to textual analysis.55 Remarkably, William de Montibus’
Tropi was also part of this revival; it was thematically similar to Peter the Chanter’s De
tropis loquendi.56 This association further reinforces the connection between the
54 Opera Omnia I, “De anima,” III: 26: “Aut hic improprie dicitur, vel translative, ut aliqua vis animae oculus, alia digitus, vel lingua dicatur.” Note that when Aelred dismisses the possibility, he makes another reference to a text as composed of its words: “Sed hoc intelligere verba evangelica non sinunt.” 55 See Gillian Evans, “The Place of Peter the Chanter’s De tropis loquendi,” Analecta Cisterciensia 39 (1983): 231-253. 56 Noted by Goering, William de Montibus, 349.
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linguistic texts in Jesus College Q.B.17 and Aelred’s teaching and reveals his use of
linguistic analysis for textual interpretation operating within the community’s general
intellectual life.
The participation of Aelred and the community of Rievaulx in this tradition of
textual interpretation through linguistic analysis reveals how language, once it had been
established as an intellectual problem in its own right, also became the defining feature
of literate culture at Rievaulx. Given that language is an inescapable fact of the written
word, it is not suprising that Rievaulx’s interest in language infused its literate culture
deeply, prompting a conception of textual identity that was linguistic and verbal in
nature. As it came to be identified with linguistic structures, the written word was
stripped of any other meanings it might accrue and assimilated to other manifestations
of language. Literate practices became a subset of general linguistic practices.
For instance, there is considerable evidence that the written word and the
spoken word were conflated with each other at Rievaulx. In the De Institutione
Inclusarum, for instance, Aelred attempted to describe the glory of the kingdom of
God, but was ultimately forced to concede that, “the status of this kingdom is not able
to be conceived by us, less still to be spoken or written about (dici vel scribi).”57 Aelred
juxtaposed speaking and writing in this passage, but subordinated them equally to a
mental conception of a specific thing. Given that the primary purpose of language was
to create knowledge, its spoken and written forms were effectively interchangeable.
Aelred repeated this sentiment in a passage in the De Iesu Puero Duodenni that
57 Opera Omnia I, “De Institutione Inclusarum,” 31: “Cuius regni status nec cogitari quidem potest a nobis, multo minus dici vel scribi.”
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employed very similar vocabulary. Noting that Mary made sure that the saying of Jesus
as a child were preserved, Aelred declared that, “thus, even then, the blessed virgin was
mercifully providing for us, lest such sweet things, such wholesome things, such
necessary things fade away through negligence, and on this account never be written
nor preached, and thus his followers would be cheated of this delightful spiritual
manna.”58 As in the previous example, the primary dichotomy in Aelred’s mind is that
between knowledge and its manifestation, which could be disseminated in either
written or spoken form.
As Anna Grotans has pointed out, the assimilation of written to spoken language
is a tradition of textuality that is heavily indebted to Augustinian thought. She identifies
passages in the pseudo-Augustinian De dialectica and the Augustinian De magistro that
characterize written words as the signs of spoken words, which are the main carriers of
meaning and knowledge.59 Two further passages from Augustine emphasize the same
point. In the first, from the De Trinitate, Augustine justified his writings by declaring
that, “all I am concerned with is to meditate on the law of the Lord, if not day and
night, at least at whatever odd moments I can snatch, and to prevent forgetfulness from
running away with my meditations by tying them down to paper…”60 In this passage,
written words serve as memorial devices for spoken words, indicating that the two
participated in the same process of signification and meaning.
58 Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” I: 9: “Ita beatissima virgo etiam tunc nobis misericorditer providebat, ne tam dulcia, tam salubria, tam necessaria, aliqua neglegentia laberentur et propterea nec scriberentur nec praedicarentur, et sic sequaces huius spiritalis mannae deliciis fraudarentur.” 59 Anna Grotans, Reading in Medieval St. Gall (Cambridge, 2006): 18-20. 60 Augustine, De Trinitate, ed. William J. Mountain and F. Glorie, CCSL 50-50A (Turnhout, 1968). Trans. Edmund Hill, The Trinity (Brooklyn, 1991): 68.
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Even more remarkable is a brief statement in the De quantitate animae, in
which Augustine used the notion of words to deal with the relationship between the
soul and the body: “sound, then, is one thing and the reality that sound signifies is
another thing… Now, since a word is made up of sound and meaning, and the sound
refers to the hearing, but the meaning to the understanding, does it not seem to you that,
just as in some living body, the sound of the word is the body and the meaning is, as it
were, the soul.”61 Augustine assumed (at least in these works) that a word was first and
foremost spoken, creating a dichotomy between the sound produced and the meaning
evoked. As with the previous passage, written words were relegated to the status of
memorial signs that call forth the spoken word, which is what carries meaning. If
Augustine seemed to subordinate the written to the spoken word, his conception of
written words as signs of spoken words nonetheless fused their semiotics together. For
Augustine, the written word had no existence outside of its relationship with the spoken
word.62
The fact that Aelred was influenced by Augustine’s opinion on written and oral
language is demonstrated by a famous passage from the Speculum Caritatis, in which
Aelred criticized those who performed the liturgy with too much ostentation and aural
61 Augustine, De Quantitate Animae, PL 32: 1072. Trans. “The Magnitude of the Soul,” in Writings of Saint Augustine, Fathers of the Church, v.2 (Washinton, D.C., 1966): 132-33. 62 It should be noted that Augustine himself is not entirely consistent in this position. In a curious passage of the De Trinitate, he actually argues that the true essence of a word precedes both spoken and written language, and is some sort of mental construct. Regardless, his position is generally opposed to the Isidorean stance on language in the Middle Ages, which rejects the necessity of sound for conveying meaning, and views written words as having significatory power in their own right, separate from and not dependent upon spoken language. See Grotans, Reading at Medieval St.-Gall, 20-21.
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decadence.63 When Aelred gave his reasons for his distaste for such liturgical
augmentation, he declared:
Thus, what the Holy Fathers have instituted, so that the weak might be excited to the desire for piety, is taken up for the use of illicit pleasure. Therefore sound ought not be preferred to meaning, but sound with meaning ought be allowed for inciting greater desire…Certainly blessed Augustine said, “The soul is moved to the desire of piety by hearing divine chant, but if the passion for listening desires the sound more than meaning, it is to be condemned.” And elsewhere he says, “When the chant delights me more than the words (verba), I confess myself to have sinned, and I do not wish to hear the chanter.”64
In this passage, Aelred divorced the significance of the liturgy from its musical
performance, which served primarily to excite desire, and located it purely in the words
of the liturgy and their meaning. In so doing, Aelred joined the written and chanted
forms of the liturgy together into a single, verbal practice. The same idea was also
expressed in his De Iesu Puero Duodenni. Aelred began the treatise by recalling his
reaction to a friend’s request that he write the work: “suddenly it came into my mind
where I had been at a certain time, what I had felt, what those very words (verba) of the
Gospel had often driven into me, either when they were read or when they were
sung.”65 Singing and reading were, for Aelred, simply two ways of interacting with
words. In support of his position, Aelred cited passages from Augustine that argued that
63 See Opera Omnia I, “Speculum caritatis,” II:67. 64 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum caritatis,” II:68-69: “Sic quod sancti Patres instituerunt, ut infirmi excitarentur ad affectum pietatis, in usum assumitur illcitae voluptatis. Non enim sensui praeferendus est sonus, sed sonus cum sensu ad incitamentum maioris affectus plerumque admittendus…Ait nempe beatissimus Augustinus: Movetur animus ad affectum pietatis divino cantico audito: sed si magis sonum quam sensum libido audiendi dieseret, improbatur. Et alias: Cum me, inquit, magis cantus quam verba delectant, poenaliter me pecceasse confiteor, et mallem non audire cantantem.” The Augustine quotes are from Confessions, X:35. 65 Opera Omnia I, “De Iesu Puero Duodenni,” I:1: “…cum subit mihi venit in mentem ubi aliquando fuerim, quid senserim, quid in me ipsa evangelica verba nonnumquam egerint, vel cum legerentur vel cum cantarentur.”
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the words of the liturgy were its most important component, suggesting that his
understanding of the liturgy as simply linguistic, rather than written or spoken, may
have drawn inspiration from Augustine. However, regardless of the source of its
inspiration, the fusion of the written word and the spoken word at Rievaulx is indicative
of the central role of language in literate practices at the community.
There is considerable additional evidence that literate knowledge was
consolidated around linguistics at Rievaulx. At a very basic level, authors at Rievaulx
tend to identify texts with their linguistic characteristics. Walter Daniel was especially
given to emphasizing the linguistic nature of texts. After the Vita Ailredi was attacked
for certain assertions, Walter wrote a letter to a certain Maurice to defend the vita. In a
self-referential moment at the end of the letter, Walter described the properties of the
missive with several rhetorical flourishes: “well, here you have a letter, laden with
matter, but not finely wrought with eloquence, not of gold nor gilded, but of iron and
covered with silver, bejeweled with miracles and confirmed by the support of
witnesses.”66 The term translated here as “matter” is “litera.” It is a multivalent term,
carrying the general sense of an “account” or “description,” but also connoting a sense
of discursivity.” Walter composed his sentence so as to contrast “litera” with
“eloquencia.” The phrase, “…onustam quidem, sed non venustam eloquencia…” is
intended to oppose “onustam” to “venustam” and “litera” to “eloquencia.” Through this
parallel construction, Walter used “litera” to convey the simplicity and
66 Life of Ailred, “Letter to Maurice,” 76: “Ecce habes epistolam, onustam quidem litera, set non venustam eloquencia, non aurea vel deauratam, set ferream et deargentatam, eciam miraculis gemmatam et testium astipulacione confirmatam.”
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straightforwardness of his discourse, suggesting that it was not veiled in complex or
excessive language. The letter then, according to Walter, was defined by its language,
with “litera” and “eloquencia” referring to contrasting levels of rhetorical
ornamentation.
The same term also appears in the Vita Ailredi to describe the content of books.
In describing Aelred at study, Walter noted that, “his reading was in edifying books
whose words (quorum litera) are wont to bring tears.”67 In this passage it is even
clearer that “litera” refers to the language of the books, making it their defining feature.
Walter also described Aelred’s own writings as a demonstration of his abbot’s
linguistic skill: “He was ready and easy in speech, said what he wished to say and said
it well…His writings, preserved for posterity by the labor of my own hand, show quite
well enough how he was wont to express himself.”68 Not only does this passage treat
writing as defined by its language, it also refers again to Aelred’s own linguistic talent
and to the fusion of written and spoken language, thus situating the written word firmly
within Rievaulx’s general linguistic culture.
A final piece of evidence that ties Rievaulx’s literate culture to language and
linguistics can be found in the previously mentioned manuscript containing the works
of William de Montibus, Cambridge, Jesus College Q.B.17. In addition to the 67 Life of Ailred, Ch. 42: “Legebat autem libros quorum litera lacrimas elicere solet et edificare mores, et maxime confessiones Augustini manibus portabat assuidue, eo quod illos libros quasi quasdam introduciones habebat cum a seculo converteretur.” It has been pointed out to me that “litera” in both these cases is used as a singular noun, a rather odd usage suggesting the whole of the content of a text rather than individual words or sentences adding up to a text. 68 Life of Ailred, Ch. 18. There is only one instance known to me in which a writer at Rievaulx suggests that a text could serve as a form of personal presence. In chapter thirty-two of the Vita Ailredi, Walter Daniel describes Aelred’s practice of letter-writing and notes Aelred left in his letters, “a living image of himself, for what he there commended in writing he himself practiced in life, and lived much better than he could say.”
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pedagogical texts of William and other educational and normative works important to
the community’s corporate identity, the manuscript also contains the earliest surviving
library catalogue from Rievaulx.69 The catalogue was added to the manuscript
sometime in the early thirteenth century, after the rest of the materials were collected.
David Bell has convincingly suggested, based on the authors listed in the catalogue,
that it is a copy of an earlier catalogue produced sometime in the latter half of the
twelfth century.70 It seems likely that this catalogue would have been produced after
Aelred’s death in 1167, very possibly in conjunction with the creation of the Rievaulx
cartulary in the 1180s.71
It is unknown why a replacement catalogue was needed in the early thirteenth
century, but it is certain that at the time of its production, the new catalogue was
attached to a manuscript containing treatises on the verbal arts and their use in theology
and textual analysis. The association that this created between these treatises and the
Rievaulx library catalogue in Jesus College Q.B.17 established a clear link between
community’s literate culture and the various linguistic ideas contained in the
manuscript. The works contained were meant to provide the tools necessary to access
textual meaning. For the monks at Rievaulx, the ability to unlock linguistic meaning
provided the keys to literate practices. The link between the library catalogue and
linguistic practice also raises the possibility that the books contained within the library
69 Cambridge, Jesus College Q.B.17, ff.1r-6v. 70 David Bell, The Libraries of the Cistercians, 87-89. 71 The Rievaulx cartulary is BL Cotton Ms. Julius D.1. On its construction, see Emilia Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and Its Social Context, 1132-1300 (Turnhout, 2005): 19-55. It discussed again briefly below, pp. 387-88. I thank Richard Gameson for noting that library catalogues and cartularies were often produced at the same time.
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were affected by the community’s focus on language as a technology for knowledge.
The next section of this chapter examines the surviving Rievaulx manuscripts in order
to assess this possibility.
6.4 Written Language: Manuscript Culture at Rievaulx
The Rievaulx manuscript tradition is highly fragmentary. Only twenty
manuscripts have been identified from the community’s once sizeable library.72 Of
these, four are not relevant to this project,73 and two others, BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius
C.8 and BL Royal Ms. 6.C.8 were originally a single book split into two parts sometime
before 1635.74 This leaves a total of fifteen manuscripts from the twelfth and early
thirteenth century with which to examine the material aspects of Rievaulx’s literate
culture. The following conclusions are based on a detailed examination of thirteen of
these manuscripts.75 Although conclusions must necessarily be tentative given the
72 See lists in N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 1964) and A.J. Watson, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Supplment to the Second Edition (London, 1987). 73 BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius D.5, once containing the canons of the synod at York, is now only a burned fragment. BL Royal Ms. 8.E.4, Oxford, University College Ms. 113, and Oxford, Lincoln College lat. 15 were probably not produced at Rievaulx. Royal 8.E.4 has only a potential identification by Leland in the Collectanea III, 38 to supports its presence at Rievaulx in the 17th century and, despite being produced around 1200, cannot be correlated with any item in the Rievaulx library catalogue. University College 113 has a roughly contemporary note on 5v declaring “hanc liber huc attulit magister Iohannis de Elyngton.” While the ex-libris on 1r makes it certain that it was at Rievaulx by the 13th century, the note suggests very strongly that it was produced elsewhere. Lincoln College lat. 15 likewise has a note on 1r stating, “liber sancte Marie Rievallis ex dono Iohannis de Hovingham.” John of Hovingham has not been identified, but the contents of the book suggest that it was used at school, perhaps in Paris, and later donated to Rievaulx. 74 See the entry for Royal Ms. 6.C.8 in G.F. Warner and J.P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols. (London, 1921). 75 I have not yet been able to consult Dublin, Archbishop Marsh’s Library Z.4.5.17 and Dublin, Trinity College 279. On the manuscript in Archbishop Marsh’s library, see the helpful description by Marsha Dutton, “The provenance and contents of the Rievaulx manuscript Dublin, Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Z.4.5.17,” Analecta Cisterciensia 51: 1-2 (1995): 419-435.
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fragmentary nature of the manuscript tradition, evidence suggests that Rievaulx’s early
manuscript culture was heavily influenced by Durham’s manuscript tradition, but that
the community rapidly abandoned this tradition in favor of a format more suited to their
own conception of the written word.
The four earliest surviving manuscripts from Rievaulx all date from the mid-
twelfth century. They include Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 86, a copy of
Rhabanus Maurus’ commentary on Mathew; York, Minster Library XVI.i.8, a copy of
Jerome’s educational works, followed by some texts of Gennadius, Isidore, and
Cassiodorus; BL Harley Ms. 5273, a glossed copy of Job; and BL Additional Ms.
63077, a glossed copy of Genesis. Two of these manuscripts, Corpus Christi 86 and
York Minster XVI.i.8, have been identified by R.A.B. Mynors as manuscripts that were
probably copied from exemplars from Durham, a suggestion recently upheld by
Bernard Meehan.76 Corpus Christi 86 was probably copied from DCL B.III.16. The
first half of Rievaulx manuscript York, Minster XVI.i.8 agrees in content with DCL
B.II.11, while the second half agrees with Durham manuscript Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Rawling Ms. D.338.77 The collection of works in York, Minster XVI.i.8
appears in other manuscripts from the period, including Oxford, Merton College 51;
Cambridge, Emmanuel College 57; Cambridge, Trinity College B.2.34 from Christ
Church Canterbury; Cambridge, Trinity College O.4.7 from Rochester; and Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Digby 184 from Reading. However, the fact that Corpus Christi 86
76 See Mynors, DCM, 38, 40; Bernard Meehan, “Durham Twelfth-Century Manuscripts in Cistercian Houses,” in AND, 439-40. 77 DCM, 40. See Chapter 4, pp.228-30, for further discussion on the relation between these two manuscripts.
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was copied from a Durham exemplar makes it likely that the Cathedral Priory also
provided the exemplar for York Minster XVI.i.8. The possibility is strengthened by the
likelihood that Aelred was educated at Durham by Lawrence of Durham.78 These early
Rievaulx manuscripts were probably produced under Aelred’s abbacy, or perhaps while
he was master of novices, and he could easily have used his connections with Durham
to obtain exemplars.
In most respects, both Corpus Christi 86 and York, Minster XVI.i.8 are
stylistically reminiscent of Durham’s manuscripts. They contain large, elegant initials
of the northern English style and include carefully executed rubrics indicating the
author and title of the work. The Rievaulx copy of Rhabanus Maurus’ commentary on
Mathew contains marginal identifications of the patristic authors used by Rhabanus that
are identical in format to those used in the Durham manuscript. They thus represent the
importation of Durham’s manuscript culture into the community at Rievaulx and, by
extension, aspects of its literate culture of authority and authorship. It is not known
whether the glossed copies of Job and Genesis preserved in BL Harley 5273 and BL
Additional 63077 were produced from Durham exemplars. In both cases, the gloss is
that of the glossa ordinaria and the text follows the standard version of the glossa very
closely.79 They were written around the same time as Corpus Christi 86 and York,
Minster XVI.i.8, are stylistically comparable, and contain texts that are thematically
78 See Anselm Hoste, “A Survey of the Unedited Works of Laurence of Durham with an Edition of his Letter to Aelred of Rievaulx,” Sacris erudiri 11 (1960): 249-65. See above, pp.282. 79 In the absence of critical editions of the glossa ordinaria for most of books of the Bible, this conclusion was made via comparison with the facsimile prepared by Karlfried Froelich and Margaret Gibson, Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria: facsimile reprint of the editio Princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassbourgh, 1480/81 (Turnhout, 1992).
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similar, suggesting that they were part of the same program of textual production. The
earliest books from Rievaulx thus suggest the influence of external textual traditions on
the community’s manuscript culture, particularly that of Durham Cathedral.
Even in the case of these manuscripts, however, there is evidence that the
community at Rievaulx was interested in assigning their own ideas about the written
word, literate culture, and language to the manuscripts. There is an interesting
discrepancy between the layout of a particular text in York, Minster XVI.i.8 and its
probable exemplar, DCL B.II.11. The text in question is the De distantiis locorum of
Jerome, a sort of encyclopedic work that gave brief descriptions of places mentioned in
Scripture. It is normally organized first according to the books of Scripture and then
arranged in alphabetical order. The Durham manuscript duly begins with Genesis,
listing all the places mentioned in Genesis in alphabetical order, and then moves onto
Exodus and so forth.80 In the Rievaulx manuscript, however, the organization by books
of Scripture is abandoned in lieu of a purely alphabetical order for all the places
mentioned in Scripture.81 By replacing what Mary and Richard Rouse have termed a
“rational” order with alphabetical order, the Rievaulx version of the De distantiis
locorum shifts the organizing principle of the text away from the authoritative order of
Scripture and toward one based on the words themselves.82 Given that the Durham
manuscript was almost certainly the exemplar for the Rievaulx manuscript, the change
is a clear demonstration of the importance of lexical identity as a means of organizing
80 DCL B.II.11, ff.19r-36r. 81 York, Minster Library, XVI.i.8, f.32v-56v. 82 Mary and Richard Rouse, “The development of research tools in the thirteenth century,” in Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, 1991).
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knowledge and the written word at Rievaulx. Language had taken the place of
authority.83
York, Minster XVI.i.8 provides the first hint that the community at Rievaulx
wanted to organize the written word in accordance with their own culture of linguistic
practice. Shortly after the production of these four early books, there is a notable break
in the format and style of Rievaulx’s manuscripts that suggests the community had
abandoned some of the attitudes and values attached to the Durham textual tradition
that they had inherited. Rievaulx manuscripts from this point one present one dominant
trend to their readers: the removal of nearly all other hermeneutic devices save for the
words of the text itself. With overwhelming regularity, manuscripts from Rievaulx
abandon most of forms of textual “amplification,” including images, attribution, and
often all forms of rubrication or textual identification.84 For instance, the earliest
surviving book from Rievaulx that postdates the four manuscripts described above is
BL Royal Ms. 8.D.22, a finely executed copy of the sermons of Peter Chrysologus that
was almost certainly produced at Rievaulx.85 Nearly every sermon has an elegant,
83 This revised organiziational approach is not maintained throughout the entire manuscript. Jerome’s Interpretationes hebraicorum nominum in York, Minster XVI.i.8 reverts to the original organizational schema of the Durham manuscript, using first the books of Scripture and alphabetizing names within them. 84 I have borrowed the term “amplification” from Michael Camille, “The Book of Signs: Writing and Visual Difference in Gothic Manuscript Illuminations,” Word and Image (1985): 133-148 as a good way to think about the role of hermeneutic features of texts apart from its purely discursive components. 85 The provenance of the manuscript is based on the similarity between its initials and those of BL Royal 6.C.8, a manuscript that is firmly provenanced to Rievaulx. Furthermore, on 30v there is a passage of corrected or rewritten text executed in a very distinctive quasi-documentary textualis script, which I have observed in several other Rievaulx manuscripts. In early manuscripts, such as BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius C.8 and Manchester, John Rylands Library, lat. 196, it is used for correction, but in later manuscripts, including BL Arundel 346 and Jesus College Q.B.17, it is used to execute entire texts. It appears identical to the script used in the Rievaulx cartulary, BL Cotton Ms. Julius D.1. It is conspicuously absent in earlier Rievaulx manuscripts, such as Corpus Christi 86 and BL Harley 5273. I have only recently noted
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multi-colored initial marking its incipit, but the texts themselves are not identified by
any contemporary hand. In fact, save for the sermons which occur on ff.33r-47v, none
of the sermons have any form of rubric or other identifying mark beyond the initials.
The same is true of several other sermons that were subsequently added to the end of
the books.86 In the absence of rubrics, attributions, and images, readers of the
manuscript were left with only the words of the texts themselves, reducing interactions
with the written word to its basic linguistic foundations.
Rievaulx’s manuscripts from the later twelfth century tend to follow, or even
exacerbate, this trend. The miscellanies of pedagogical and normative treatises
discussed earlier and preserved as BL Arundel Ms. 346 and Cambridge, Jesus College
Q.B.17 are at best sporadic and indifferent to textual attribution and identification.
Arundel 346, for instance, contains eight identifiable treatises in a variety of hands,
followed by a collection of sermons. A table of contents was added to the start of the
manuscript at a later date identifying these works:
In hoc volumine haec continentur Liber de officiis ecclesiasticis et quid significet Item compilationes de diversis rebus Item exposicio canonis missae Item compilationes de opusculis magistri Wille[mi] de montibus Item questiones Orosii et responsiones Augustini Item expositiones evangeliorum Item miracula beate Marie virginis Item sermones87
this phenomenon, but expect that, once further explored, it will yield new insights into the production of Rievaulx manuscripts. 86 ff.48r-57v. 87 BL Arundel Ms. 346, f.1v. For discussion of the importance of these texts to Rievaulx’s intellectual culture, see above p.348-53.
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In the manuscript itself, however, neither the text of William de Montibus nor the
Orosius/Augustine text have attributions.88 Furthermore, most of the text have no form
of rubric or identifying title of any sort. Shifts between texts are typically noted only by
a single line-break, with the sole exception being the rubrics, “A hic denotatur
exposicio evangelice lectionis” and “Hic incipiunt miracula sancte marie virginis” on
folios 43r and 60r.
Jesus College Q.B.17 presents a similar case. The book, in its current state,
contains eleven identifiable works, as well as several short sets of notes in later hand
and the Rievaulx library catalogue. One of the texts is a late-twelfth century copy of the
Cistercian customary, and thus would naturally have no attribution. It is rubricated
“Incipiunt consuetudines cisterciensium super exordium cisterciensis cenobii.”89 Of the
remaining ten, only two have attributions: the “Summa de diversa vocabulorum
significatione edita a magistro Willelmo de Monte” and the text rubricated, “Incipit
prologus magistri bernardi silvestris in libro de creatione rerum.”90 Five of them have
rubricated titles, but they tend to be extremely terse and brief, such as “Introductiones
in theologiam” on f.7r, “Fallacie” on 9v, and “Loca” on 12v, written untidily into the
left margin. Most remarkable are the brief identifications of texts generally attributed to
Bernard of Clairvaux, the spiritual touchstone of the Cistercian order, and to Aelred of
Rievaulx himself. A copy of the so-called “Antiphonarium,” often attributed to
Bernard, or at least associated with his efforts, is rubricated only “Incipit tonale.”91
88 op. cit., ff. 29r and 63v. 89 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.100r. 90 On ff. 15r and 118r respectively. The latter text is the Cosmographia of Bernard Sylvester. 91 Jesus College Q.B.17, f.116r. For the text see PL 182:1121.
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Aelred’s pastoral prayer, the authorship of which the scribe must have known, is
likewise rubricated only “Oratio pastoralis.”92 The final three works, a short text on the
edification of the soul, a brief collection of sermons, and a letter from a certain
“Stephanus cisterciensis” to an abbot T. of Scireburne, have no identification of any
sort.93 As with Arundel 346, this manuscript thus demonstrates little interest in
augmenting its texts with attributions and is generally indifferent to textual
amplification of any sort, trends which extend even to authors who would have been
held in great esteem at Rievaulx, such as Bernard and Aelred.
It is true that Arundel 346 and Jesus College Q.B.17 were probably classbooks
and were therefore less likely to have various forms of textual amplification, although
the lack of attributions to Bernard and Aelred is nonetheless striking. Even at Durham
Priory, where textual identity hinged on the link between text and author, there were
many such miscellanies that were indifferent to attribution. At Rievaulx, however, even
the more luxurious books were rarely produced with features that augmented the words
of a text. BL Royal Ms. 8.D.22 demonstrated this trend for the mid twelfth century, and
several other manuscripts do so for the later twelfth century. Rievaulx’s three most
luxurious manuscripts, in terms of script execution, size, and quality include London,
Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2, a late twelfth-century copy of Roger of Hoveden’s
chronicle of the English; a book now split between BL Royal Ms. 6.C.8 and BL Cotton
92 op. cit., f.97r. This copy of the Oratio pastoralis is its unique exemplar, and has been attributed to Aelred by references in the Life of Aelred. See Marsha Dutton, “Aelred of Rievaulx’s Oratio Pastoralis: A New Edition,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 38:3 (2003): 297-303. Following this, on 99r, are two extracts written in the fifteenth century, one an excerpt from a purported letter of Aelred, the other his dying words. 93 Jesus College Q.B.17, ff. 48r, 88r, and 108v respectively.
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Ms. Vitellius C.8, containing Orosius’ Ormesta mundi, Abelard’s verses for his son, the
history of the Trojan War attributed to Daretis Frigiis, and a chronicle of the English
people;94 and BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius F.3, a late twelfth-century manuscript primarily
containing various hagiographical works of Aelred of Rievaulx.95
Although these manuscripts display a higher level of attribution and
identification that the other Rievaulx manuscripts, it is unevenly executed and lighter
than that found in luxury manuscripts at other communities. Petyt 511.2, containing the
chronicle of Richard of Hoveden, is rubricated, “Incipit historia anglorum sive
saxonum post venerabile Bedam edita a magistro Rogero de Hoveden.”96 However,
Petyt 511.2 is exceptional at Rievaulx for other reasons as well, which are discussed
below.97 The works now spread across Royal 6.C.8 and Vitellius C.8 are uneven in
their level of attribution and identification. The Orosius text is carefully attributed and
identified.98 The verses of Abelard, on the other hand, have only a rubricated title
without an attribution. This is particularly notable since, as the library catalogue
94 The organization of these two manuscripts is now somewhat complicated. Royal 6.C.8 contains most the Orosius text, stretching from 1r to 122v. The Abelard verses are in Vitellius C.8, covering 4r-5r. On 5v is the table of contents for the Daretis Frigiis text and the start of the prologue. Most of the rest of this text is back in Royal 6.C.8, occupying 123r-186v. The conclusion, however, is in Vitellius C.8, on 6r-v, with the chronicle then beginning on 7v and stretching to 22v. The rest of Royal 6.C.8 is comprised of miscellaneous texts, dating from the eighth to the fifteenth century, none of which are from Rievaulx. 95 Although partially damaged by fire, most of the manuscript is legible, save for the first few and final few folios. 96 Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.1r. 97 See below, pp.386-88. 98 BL Royal Ms. 6.C.8, f.1r: “Incipit prelocutio beati orosii ad sanctum augustinuam id est prologus totius libri I.” f. 2r, “Incipit liber primus sancti pauli orosii presbiteri de ormest mundi, id est de miseriis huius seculi contra paganos hortatu beati augustini splendidus conscriptus.” f.122v, at the end of the text, “Explicit liber sancti pauli orosii presbiteri de ormesta mundi.”
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demonstrates, the author of the work was known at Rievaulx.99 The history of the
Trojan war is rubricated “Incipit historia daretis frigii bello troiano,” while the rather
terse rubric for the chronicle reads only “Incipiunt quaedam cronica de Anglia.”100
Clearly, in these fine manuscripts, attribution and identification of texts was more
common at Rievaulx, but it was still not executed systematically. It might also be
notable that, although the chronicle contained in Vitellius C.8 related the stories of
famous individuals associated with Rievaulx’s Yorkshire neighborhood, there was no
attempt to highlight or emphasize their names.
The general indifference to textual attribution, identification, and amplification
at Rievaulx is best demonstrated by BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius F.3. The manuscript must
once have been a luxurious book on par with Petyt 511.2 and Royal 6.C.8/Vitellius C.8,
but it is now corrupt due to damage from the fire that destroyed much of the Cotton
Collection. It contains a collection of Aelred of Rievaulx’s chief hagiographical works.
Naturally, Aelred was one of the writers held in the highest regard at his home abbey.
Yet the attribution and identification of his works in this manuscript is sporadic at best.
The rubric for the Life of Edward does not mention Aelred as its author.101 The Life of
David mentions Aelred at the start of its preface in the form of a letter to Henry I,
“Incipit prefacio Aelredi abbatis Rievallis ad Henricum regem Anglies in vita pacifici
et pii regi [text corrupted],” but not at the start of the text itself, which notes only,
99 BL Cottom Ms. Vitellius C.8, f.4r. The catalogue entry for the manuscript reads: “Orosius de ormesta mundia. Historia Daretis de bello Troiano, et versus Petri Abailardi ad filium, et cronica de Anglia in uno volumine.” See Hoste, Bibliotheca Aelrediana, 162 and Bell, Libraries of the Cistercians, 107. 100 BL Royal Ms. 6.C.8, f.123r and Cotton Ms. Vitellius C.8, f.6v. No author is known for the chronicle, so its lack of an attribution may not be entirely significant. It is discussed in Elizabeth Freeman, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150-1220 (Turnhout, 2002). 101 BL Cotton Ms. Vitellius F.3, f.4r.
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“Incipit liber de vita religiosi David regis Scotie.”102 More remarkable still is the fact
that the Life of St. Ninian and the Miracles of the Saints of Hexham, the final two texts
authored by Aelred in the manuscript, have no rubrics at all identifying them.103 Even if
the lack of rubrics on these two texts were an oversight by the original rubricator, it
seems remarkable that no later scribe amended it. The manuscript was certainly
revisited by a scribe and rubricator, since another hagiographical text was added,
probably in the very early thirteenth century.104 Furthermore, because this manuscript
was both produced at Rievaulx and contains works by an author from Rievaulx, the
lack of rubrics cannot be explained by any gap in textual tradition. The most likely
explanation for the lack of rubrics on these texts is that they were simply not considered
important, even for texts composed by the abbot of Rievaulx himself. The words of the
text were sufficient in and of themselves, serving as the primary source of its meaning.
Two final manuscripts from Rievaulx that also contain works by authors
working at Rievaulx demonstrate that Vitellius F.3 was not anomalous in this regard.
Manchester, John Rylands Library, lat. 196 contains a text known as the “Centum
sententiae,” which was composed by Walter Daniel and almost certainly produced at
Rievaulx in the late twelfth century.105 The manuscript is now imperfect and much of
the start of the text has been lost. However, it is certain that there was virtually no 102 op. cit., ff. 44r and 45r. 103 op. cit., ff. 68v and 85v. 104 op. cit., f.96v: “Incipit passio sancte agathe virginis nonas februarii.” The text is short, ending at 99v. I believe it to be written in a different hand from the rest of the manuscript. The fired damage makes it difficult to date the hands. I judge it to be a later addition because it does not appear on the library catalogue entry for the manuscript: “Ailredus de vita sancti Edwardi, de generositate et moribus et morte regis David, de vita sancti Niniani episcopi, de miraculis Haugustald(ensis) ecclesiae in uno volumine.” See Bell, Libraries of the Cistercians, 97, entry 43. 105 This text has been edited by C.H. Talbot, “The Centum Sententiae of Walter Daniel,” Sacris erudiri 11 (1960): 266-374.
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rubrication of any sort in the manuscript, and the attribution of the work to Walter is
only possible because he referred to himself in the text at the end of the second
sententia.106 Furthermore, this copy is the unique, surviving exemplar of the text and so,
like the works in Vitellius F.3, its format cannot be explained by its textual tradition.
Similarly, Paris BNF lat. 15157 contains the only surviving copy of the poems
of Mathew of Rievaulx, produced in the early thirteenth century at Rievaulx.107 Like
many of the other manuscripts at Rievaulx, BNF lat. 15157 is a carefully produced and
well-executed manuscript, yet it is cavalier about identification and attribution. The
author’s name does not appear anywhere in the book. Most of the poems were not
rubricated or identified at the time of their original production. Rather, a later hand
went back through the manuscript to install terse rubrics in the upper margins.108 In
many cases, as on 41r, there is no line break between poems, only a continuous block of
verse; texts shifts are noted by brief marginal rubrics such as “Cuidam amico” and “De
utili discipule fatore.” Like the “Centum sententiae” of Walter, the poems of Mathew
had no prior textual tradition. The indifference toward textual amplification in Paris
BNF lat. 15157, as with that of John Rylands lat. 196 and Cotton Vitellius F.3, was
clearly the product of a consistent scholarly and scribal approach to writing operating at
Rievaulx, one which did not believe the written word required any additional
amplification in its construction.
106 John Rylands Library, lat. 196, f.43r. 107 ff.1-34 of BNF lat.15157 are a later addition to the manuscript, but ff.35-129, based on their contents, are almost undoubtedly a product of Rievaulx. 108 As on 36v, “De sancta maria” and 37r, “De disciplina prelati circa subiectos.”
387
The fact that Rievaulx’s manuscripts were so indifferent to textual attribution
and identification provides good evidence that the written word at Rievaulx was
conceptualized simply as a linguistic or verbal construct. Another piece of evidence is
the almost total lack of images in Rievaulx’s manuscripts. Illustrated initials involving
beautiful scrollwork and foliate imagery are common in the more luxurious
manuscripts, but these were primarily decorative or perhaps memorial in purpose.109
They were not hermeneutic in nature and therefore were not part of the signifying
apparatus of the text beyond their function as letters. Historiated initials with
hermeneutic images that might contest, complement, or otherwise contribute to the
meaning of a text are virtually absent from Rievaulx’s manuscripts. There are, in fact,
only two images to be found in any of the community’s manuscripts that served more
than a decorative function. Both are in the same book, London, Inner Temple, Petyt Ms.
511.2, containing Roger of Hoveden’s history of the English. The first occurs in the
part of the text describing the Battle of the Standard, fought in 1138 between the Scots
and the northern English for control over significant parts of Northumbria. The image
itself is a depiction of a standard on a wheeled cart (Figure 6).110 The Battle of the
Standard was a notable event in the history of Rievaulx; the community’s founder and
many of its patrons were involved and Aelred himself wrote a chronicle of the battle.
Such local importance might explain why this event, in particular, deserved an image.
109 One of the key arguments of Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory (Cambridge, 2008): 221-242. 110 Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.60r.
388
The second image is a basic illustration of a seal, inscribed at the end of a
charter that was reproduced in Roger of Hoveden’s chronicle (Figure 7).111 The charter
concerned the dowry given by William II of Sicily (1155-1189) to Joanna, the daughter
of King Henry of England, upon their marriage. The seal image was a typical feature of
Roger of Hoveden’s chronicle; the seal itself is described in the text of the chronicle
and an image of it is a standard element of the text’s tradition. Although its presence is
unusual in the context of Rievaulx’s manuscripts, its inclusion by the community
represented the reproduction of a normal feature of the text, rather than the attempt to
introduce new meaning to the text through an image.112 Furthermore, at the time of the
manuscript’s production, the community at Rievaulx may have been developing new
ideas about seals and charters that affected how they understood the image. Although
Petyt 511.2 is normally assigned to the early thirteenth century, various administrative
documents at the end of the books indicate that the late twelfth century, probably the
1180s or 90s, is more accurate.113 Such a date suggests that it was produced
contemporaneously with the Rievaulx cartulary (BL Cotton Ms. Julius D.1) and, given
its historicizing contents, probably in conjunction with it. Although Robert Maxwell, in
his study of seal images in cartularies, suggested that seal images, such as that in Petyt
511.2, were intended to reproduce the authority of a charter in its new textualized
111 op. cit., f.102v. 112 See The Annals of Richard de Hoveden comprising the history of England and of Other Countries of Europe from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201, ed. and trans. Henry T. Riley (London, 1853): 416-17. 113 Petyt 511.2, ff.126v-31r. The documents include several decretal letters by Pope Alexander III (r.1159-81), one of which was directed to Bishop Roger of Worcester (r.1163-79), and decrees by Archbishop Richard of Canterbury (r.1174-84). The fact that no further documents are included until several additions pertaining to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, it seems likely that production of the manuscript had concluded not long after 1184.
389
format, it is more probable that the very decision to produce a cartulary presupposes a
new model of authority.114 Brigitte Bedos-Rezak has suggested that the creation of
cartulary reflects a shift in which a document ceased to be authoritative by virtue of its
reference to the act and people that produced the charter and became self-referentially
authoritative through its own identity as a text.115 The text of the charter, rather than the
written object itself, became evidence of the event it recorded and seals ceased to be
objects whose meaning ratified the charter. In this case, the creation of Rievaulx’s
cartulary, reflecting a shift toward a textual basis for the authority of charters, may have
led the community to think of the seal image as simply another decorative element of
the text, rather than something that constructed or added to the meaning of the text. The
existence of the cartulary suggested that seals were no longer necessary for
documentary authority; as a result, the seal image became a decorative, rather than
authoritative, aspect of the text.
It is necessary to consider a final factor in the material form of the Rievaulx
manuscripts, specifically the well-known Cistercian statutes concerning manuscript art,
or indeed, art more generally. As Conrad Rudolph has argued, Bernard of Clairvaux’s
famous Apologia, which condemned excess artistic opulence due to the dangers of
curiosity and interest in materiality, was likely directed toward the Cistercian Order
itself, rather than toward the Cluniacs, as is often suggested. This may have contributed
114 Robert Maxwell, “Sealing Signs and the Art of Transcribing the Vierzon Cartulary,” Art Bulletin 81: 4 (1999): 576-97. 115 Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Toward an Archaeology of the Medieval Charter: Textual Production and Reproduction in Northern French Chartriers,” in Charters, Cartularies, and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West, ed. Anders Winroth and Adam Kosto (Toronto, 2002): 43-60.
390
to the cessation of the magnificent illuminated works that marked the first generation of
Cistercians, and the oft-noted plainness of Cistercian manuscripts.116 Certainly, bans
against art began appearing in the Cistercians’ normative texts, including the collection
of statutes from the General Chapter usually known as the Capitula, and the later
collection known as the Instituta Generalis Capituli apud Cistercium.117 The earliest of
these seem to relate primarily to devotional objects, rather than to books. In the
Capitula, an edict declares that:
altar linens and the vestments of the ministers ought be without silk, save for the stole and maniple. The chasuble should have only one color. All the ornaments, vessels, and utensils of the monastery should be without gold, silver, and gems, except for the chalice and fistula, of
116 Conrad Rudolph, The ‘Things of Greater Importance’: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art (Philadelphia, 1990): 110-124, 161-191. On the early Cistercian illuminated manuscripts, see also ibid., Violence and Daily Life: Reading, Art, and Polemics in the Citeaux Moralia in Iob” (Princeton, 1997) and Yolanta Zaluska, L’Enluminure et le scriptorium de Citeaux au XIIe siècle (Dijon-Citeaux, 1990). Diane Reilly’s forthcoming study on the links between the early Cistercian reform and their illuminated manuscripts will be a valuable contribution to this topic. 117 The production, dating, and transmission of the various Cistercian normative texts is a complex and controversial subject, on which there is no current scholarly consensus. Here I follow the most recent editions of these texts, Chrysogonus Waddell (ed.), Narrative and Legislative Text from Early Citeaux (Citeaux, 1999) and ibid (ed.), Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter (Citeaux, 2002). As Waddell notes, the various normative and historical texts of the Cistercians were generally transmitted as part of the Cistercian customary, the Ecclesiastica Officia. What Waddell terms “Recensio II” of the Cistercian usages contained the so-called “Exordium Cistercii,” the “Summa Cartae Caritatis” and the “Capitula,” all of which he dates to 1133-1150. The “Recensio III” of the Cistercian customary contained the “Exordium Parvum,” the “Carta Caritatis Prior” and the “Instituta Generalis Capituli apud Cistercium.” This recension was edited and distributed around 1147 by Waddell’s dating, but contains much material reworked from texts originally composed in 1112/1113. A somewhat more approachable version of most of the relevant statutes can be found in the chart compiled by Christopher Norton, “Table of Cistercian legislation on art and architecture,” in Christopher Norton and David Park (ed.), Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1986): 315-393. The central literature on the debate over the dating of these materials is Constance Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia, 2000) and Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Myth of Cistercian Origins: C.H. Berman and the Manuscript Sources,” Cîteaux 51 (2000): 299-386. Assessments of the problem include Martha Newman, “Text and Authority in the Formation of the Cistercian Order: The Early Cistercians and Gregory the Great,” in Reforming the Church Before Modernity: Patterns, Problems and Approaches, ed. Louis Hamilton and Christopher Belitto (London, 2005): 173-198 and Elizabeth Freeman, “What makes a monastic order? Constance Berman’s The Cistercian Evolution and Issues of Methodology in the Study of Religious History,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37:4 (2002): 429-42.
391
which we are permitted to have only two made of silver with gilding, but never of only gold.118
A similar statute in the Capitula relates to sculpture, pictures, and wooden crosses: “on
no occasion is it permitted to have sculptures, or even so much as a picture, on a cross,
which itself should only be made of wood.”119 Both of these edicts were repeated in the
Instituta, a later compilation of statutes possibly redacted for the next recension of the
Cistercian customary (of which a partial copy from Rievaulx is extant).120 However,
accompanying them in this collection are two statutes that now refer more specifically
to manuscript books. One of them pertained to the clasps of liturgical books: “We
forbid that gold or silver, or silver or gold gilding, be used on the clasps, which are
generally called firmacula, of our liturgical books, and that any book be covered with
cloth.”121 The other refers more specifically to the presentation of texts themselves:
“Initials should be of a single color and should not contain pictures. Windows should be
white, and without crosses and pictures.”122
The Cistercian interest in plainness and austerity, when extended to their books,
may have led to the rejection of elaborately ornamented books and, perhaps more
118 Waddell, Normative and Legislative Texts from Early Citeaux, 191: “Altarium linteamina, ministrorum indumenta, sine serico sint, preter stolam et manipulum. Casula vero nonnisi unicolor habeatur. Omnia monasterii ornamenta, vasa et utensilia sine auro, argento et gemmis, preter calicem et fistulam. Quae quidam duo sola argentea et deaurata, sed aurea nequaquam habere permittimur.” 119 op. cit., 191: “Sculpturas nusquam, picturas tantum licet habere in crucibus, quae et ipse nonnisi ligneae habeantur.” 120 The repetition of the statutes can be found in Waddell, Normative and Legislative Texts, 329 and 333. The partial copy of the customary is in Jesus College Q.B.17, ff. 100r-108r, but in its current state the Instituta are not present in this copy. 121 Waddell, Normative and Legislative Texts, 330: “Interdicimus ne in ecclesiarum nostrarum libris aurea vel argentea sive deargentata vel deaurata habeantur retinacula, quae usu firmacula vocantur, et ne aliquis codex pallio tegatur.” 122 op. cit., 362: “Litterae unius coloris fiant, et non depictae. Vitree albe fiant, et sine crucibus et picturis.” There is no secure date for this statute. Although it does not appear in the Capitula, that does not mean it had not yet been issued at that point, only that it was not included in that particular collection.
392
importantly, to the elimination of elaborately colored initials and historiated images
from their manuscripts. To a certain extent, the removal of such decorative
augmentation from books might result in the paring down of texts to their simple
linguistic structure, as observed at Rievaulx. Seen in this light, another statute found in
both the Capitula and the Instituta, which insists upon uniformity in all Cistercian
liturgical books in all houses is significant.123 Although it pertains only to liturgical
books, this insistence upon the uniformity of texts and melodies could be viewed as
emerging from a mentality that believed the words ought to be the key component of
meaning in a text.124
Based on these statutes, it is tempting to attribute the ultimately linguistic nature
of Rievaulx’s manuscripts to its participation in, and adherence to, certain Cistercian
ideals of reform. The extent to which the statutes disseminated by the Cistercian
customary were actually followed by individual monasteries is largely unknown.125
Aelred, however, made several comments in his writings that suggest that he was
123 Waddell, Normative and Legislative Texts, 187 (repeated 326): “Missale, textus, epistolare, collectaneum, gradale, antiphonarium, hymnarium, psalterium, lectionarium, regula, kalendarium, ubique uniformiter habeantur.” 124 There were, of course, other reasons rooted in monastic reform for the creation of a uniform liturgy. See Lekai, Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, 1977): 248-260; Waddell, “The Reform of the Liturgy from a Renaissance Perspective,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century; Eugene Goodich, “Caritas and Cistercian Uniformity: An Ideological Connection,” Cistercian Studies 20 (1985): 31-43; and somewhat to the contrary, D.F.L. Chadd, “Liturgy and Liturgical Music: The Limits of Uniformity,” in Christopher Norton and David Park (eds.), Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1986): 299-314. Nonetheless, an insistence upon textual uniformity, regardless of the motivation, leads to a scenario in which a text’s language becomes it key feature. 125 In a collection of statutes preserved in Montpellier, Bibliothèque inter-universitaire, section de Médecine, ms H 322, there is one enacted by the General Chapter in 1159 that states, “Vitree diversorum colorum ante prohibitionem facte infra triennium amoveantur.” This statute thus reiterates the concern with colored glass, but omits any concern about colored initials, two problems linked together in the statute found in the Instituta. This could suggest that, while Cistercian houses continued to have windows of diverse colors, the issue of historiated initials and illuminations in books had ceased to be a problem.
393
invested in the Cistercian approach to art, as expressed by Bernard. In the De
Institutione Inclusarum, Aelred exhorted the anchoress to keep her cell plain:
It is also a certain type of vanity to be delighted in any desire for beauty within the cell, to adorn the walls with various pictures or sculptures, to decorate the oratory with a variety of clothes or images. Beware all these, as they are contrary to your profession…For I do not wish you to follow, under the form of devotion, that glory which is found in pictures or sculptures, or in cloths with multicolored images of birds or beasts or diverse flowers.126
In the Speculum Caritatis, Aelred repeated this sentiment and linked the idea to the
monastic cloister itself:
Therefore, any superfluous beauty pertains to exterior curiosity, beauty which the eyes love in its various forms, in sparkling and pleasant colors, in diverse crafts, in clothes, shoes, vases, pictures, sculptures, and diverse objects transcending necessary and moderate use – these things all the lovers of the world seek for the enjoyment of the eyes, outwardly following what they make, inwardly relinquishing that by which they have been made, and exterminating what they are made for. Thence even in the cloisters of monks are found cranes and hares, does and stags, magpies and ravens – certainly not tools of Antony or Macarius, but instead feminine pleasures, all of which by no means pertain to the poverty of monks, but rather feed the eyes of the curious.127
These comments echo both the Cistercian statutes and Bernard’s concerns about
curiosity brought on by excessive artistic indulgence in the cloister. They suggest that
126 Opera Omnia I, “De Instituione Inclusarum,” 24: “Est etiam quaedam species vanitatis in affectata aliqua pulchritudine etiam intra cellulam delectari, parietes variis picturis vel caelaturis ornare, oratorium pannorum et imaginum varietate decorare. Haec omnia, quasi professioni tuae contraria cave…Sed illam te noliam quasi sub specie devotionis sequi gloriam in picturis vel sculpturis, in pannis avium vel bestiarum, aut diversorum florum imaginibus variatis.” 127 Opera Omnia I, “Speculum Caritatis,” II: 70: “Ergo ad exteriorem pertinet curiositatem omnis superfua pulchritudo, quam amant oculi in variis formis, in nitidis et amoenis coloribus, in diversis opificiis, in vestibus, calceamentis, vasis, picturis, sculpturis, diversisque figmentis usum necessarium et moderatum transgredientibus: quae omnia amatores mundi ad illecebras expetunt oculorum, foras sequentes quod faciunt, intus relinquentes a quo facti sunt, et exterminantes quod facti sunt. Inde etiam in claustris monachorum grues et lepores, damulae et cerui, picae et corui, non quidem Antoniana et Machariana instrumenta, sed muliebra oblectamenta; quae omnia nequaquam monachorum paupertati consulunt, sed curiosorum oculos pascunt.”
394
the Cistercian reform approach to art influenced Aelred, and consequently Rievaulx,
playing a role in the formation of their textual culture.
However, there are problems with the link between the Cistercian attitude
toward manuscript decoration and Rievaulx’s approach to literate knowledge and
textuality. First, it is worth noting that nowhere in his diatribe against artistic excess
does Aelred mention books, despite his inclusion of a long list of potentially
problematic decorative items. As a result, it is unclear whether Aelred’s worry about
artistic excess extended to manuscripts. Second, the key Cistercian statute pertaining to
manuscript decoration declares that “initials should be of a single color and should not
contain pictures.”128 Yet many of the Rievaulx’s manuscripts, although lacking
historiated initials or images, contain very beautiful initials executed in multiple colors,
some of which included gold leaf and employed elaborate foliate decoration.129 The
manuscripts show no aversion to artistic embellishment per se. They eschew only art
with a hermeneutic or narrative function, which might contest or disrupt the language
of the text. Furthermore, there is certainly nothing in the Cistercian statutes that would
explain the indifference of Rievaulx’s manuscripts toward attribution and identification.
In other words, the full extent of Rievaulx’s linguistic, manuscript culture cannot be
fully explained by a general Cistercian approach to manuscripts. Undoubtedly, the
Cistercian attitude toward art played a role in shaping Rievaulx’s approach to the
128 See above, n.122. 129 Probably the most elaborate and beautiful initials are to be found in Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2 and Harley Ms. 5273, followed by Royal ms. 8.D.22 and Royal ms. 6.C.8/Vitellius C.8. However, even more modest manuscript such as Corpus Christi 86 and Lincoln College lat. 15, have elegant initials decorated in multiple colors. The only manuscripts lacking multicolor decorative initials that I have seen thus far are the varia from Rievaulx, Arundel ms. 346, Jesus College Q.B.17, and York Minster XVI.i.8.
395
written word, but it was not the primary motivating factor. Rievaulx articulated its own
literate culture and ideas about textual identity within the space delineated by the
Cistercian approach to manuscript art.
During Aelred of Rievaulx’s lifetime, interest in language at Rievaulx emerged
out of questions about affective devotion and the relationship between subjectivity and
objectivity to become an intellectual problem in its own right. The influence of
interiorized piety and subjective experience on this developing interest is revealed by
the specific approaches to linguistic meaning formulated by Aelred and others,
suggesting that the community’s interest in language originated in its own spiritual
culture rather than through connections to external developments in schooling and
scholasticism. Such developments began to influence Rievaulx more deeply after
Aelred’s death when the community sought to obtain texts that would fill the
intellectual vacuum created by his absence. The linguistic works of William de
Montibus, preserved in two of Rievaulx’s manuscripts, demonstrate the community’s
general interest in language and their attempts to perpetuate the intellectual atmosphere
cultivated by Aelred.
As the intellectual culture of Rievaulx became increasingly oriented toward the
verbal arts, it easily absorbed the community’s written culture, transforming it into a
subspecies of linguistic practice. This led to a notion of textual identity based purely on
language and a form of literate knowledge rooted in linguistic interpretation. As texts
were stripped of other meanings that they might have accrued and reduced to their
396
simple verbal structures, the material manifestations of the written word at Rievaulx
were also transformed. While the community’s early manuscripts reveal the influence
of Durham’s book culture on Rievaulx, those traditions were rapidly abandoned as
forms of textual amplification such as images, attributions, and often rubrics and
identifications of any sort were removed from manuscripts. Lacking any form of
hermeneutic structure that could contribute to or context the meaning of the text,
writing at Rievaulx became a matter of verbal meaning alone. Language, originally
adopted as means of explaining how man could experience the divine, became the
central structure of written knowledge at Rievaulx and, indeed, knowledge of the world
in general.
397
Figure 6: London, Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.60r
Reproduced by permission of the Inner Temple Library
398
Figure 7: London, Inner Temple, Petyt Ms. 511.2, f.102v
Reproduced by permission of the Inner Temple Library
399
Conclusions
This dissertation has examined three models of the means by which monastic
spirituality provided the vocabulary with which literate forms of practice and
knowledge were articulated. From the liturgical spirituality of St.-Laurent came a form
of literate practice based on Scripture and organized around the idea that, on the one
hand, Scripture could define all of literate knowledge and, on the other hand, that all of
writing could be assimilated back to Scripture. Ideas about authorship and textual
authority emerged from the hagiographic piety of Durham, creating a new form of
textual presence that both participated in a discourse of immanence derived from relic
piety and, in so doing, came to compete with forms of saintly presence. Rievaulx’s
interest in affective devotion, which stressed the relationship between subjective
experience and objective world, led to the growth of linguistic thought, which absorbed
the written culture of the abbey, transforming literate practice into a subset of linguistc
practice.
The expansion of writing in monasteries in the late eleventh and twelfth
centuries was the first stage of a steady growth in the production and use of writing in
religious communities in the central Middle Ages and in medieval Europe more
generally, a story that is often told as the progressive march of writing into more
dimensions of social and cultural life and its increasing use by more members of
society. According to this narrative, writing gradually assumed roles formerly filled by
other forms of communication and ways of preserving knowledge. The processes
400
examined here suggest that the development could not have been so straightforward.
Spirituality served as the context for the formation of literate cultures because it was the
most immediate and important form of organizing cultural knowledge in monastic
communities, providing a natural source of ideas through which to construct new forms
of practice. As writing expanded, however, it came into contact with increasingly
diverse forms of knowledge and ways of codifying it, any of which could have entered
into dialogue with the written word and shaped the nature of literate knowledge.
Indeed, there can be little doubt that shortly after the end of the period charted in this
project, the dialogue between spirituality and literate practice was transformed as an
expanding written culture encountered other bodies of cultural knowledge, each of
which might be integrated into ideas about the written word. Spirituality may have
helped literate practice get its footing in monastic communities, but the very success of
writing meant that its originating dialogue quickly became only one of many
conversation in which the written word was participating.
Such a possibility indicates that the expansion of writing in medieval Europe
was never a homogenizing process that eradicated obsolete forms of communication
and other social practices in its wake. On the contrary, writing became more complex
as it spread, embodying increasingly diverse forms of literate knowledge based on the
perpetual reformulation of an expansive assortment of ideas drawn from many bodies
of cultural knowledge. This possibility also suggests that the written word became a
conduit between these different ways of organizing and producing knowledge,
transmitting not just ideas that were written down, but also different models of how to
401
codify and interact with ideas. Were this project itself to expand, the next question to
ask might be whether, as monastic literate culture developed further connections and
associations, the new ideas that were integrated into it eventually made their way back
into spirituality, provoking new transformations and proving that the initial interplay
between monastic spirituality and literate culture was only the start of a wider array of
interactions.
The fact of a dialogue between spirituality and textuality in monastic
communities of the central Middle Ages is hardly surprising. Devotional reading and
other forms of spiritual activities derived from textual practices are generally regarded
as among the foundations of monastic culture. Nonetheless, it may be that the full
extent of their interpenetration has not been recognized. Spiritual and devotional
concerns did more than simply affect the particular ideas that were inscribed into the
contents of texts in monasteries. They also provided the means through which ideas
about textual identity and literate knowledge were formed. Because textual identity was
constructed by assigning certain forms of knowledge to the written word, to participate
in literate practice was to participate in those forms of knowledge. Apart from its
contents then, the very identity of a text enabled certain types of knowledge for its
readers. These literate forms of knowledge were an essential element of the experience
generated by interactions with the written word. The fact that these bodies of
knowledge were formed by adapting ideas from spirituality imbued the written word
with particular meanings that contributed to their role as devotional objects and
provided the framework for approaching and interpreting the ideas transmitted by the
402
text itself. Indeed, when texts were read for devotional purposes the experience they
engendered was the result of the interplay of the contents of the text and the sorts of
knowledge associated with the nature of the written word itself. Devotional reading was
as much a product of the idea of the text as it was the ideas in the text. By looking at the
dialogue between spirituality and literate knowledge, we not only gain a better
understanding of the nature of monastic spirituality and the structure of literate
practices, but also of the ways in which the two came together in the form of devotional
practices that relied upon texts for their performance.
403
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Manuscripts Consulted
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9289-90 9325-26 9349-54 9355-57 9358 9369-70 9377 9384-89 9521-22 9534-36 9578-80 9607 9642-44 9668 9735-36 9810-14 9916-17
404
9920-31 9935 10260-63 10751 10752 10779-80 10791 10792-95
10849-54
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Corpus Christi College 86
183
Jesus College Q.A.14
Q.B.8
Q.B.11
Q.B.17
Q.G.4
Q.G.5
Q.G.16
Q.G.17
Q.G.29
405
Sidney Sussex College 32
51
Trinity College O.3.22 O.3.55 University Library Ff.4.41
Durham Cathedral Library A.I.10 A.II.4 A.III.10
A.III.29
A.IV.28
B.II.1
B.II.2
B.II.6
B.II.7
B.II.8
B.II.9
B.II.10
B.II.11
B.II.13
B.II.14
B.II.17
406
B.II.18
B.II.21
B.II.22
B.II.26
B.II.30
B.II.34
B.II.35 B.III.1 B.III.9 B.III.10 B.III.11 B.III.14 B.III.16 B.IV.1 B.IV.2 B.IV.4 B.IV.5 B.IV.6 B.IV.8 B.IV.10 B.IV.11 B.IV.12
407
B.IV.13 B.IV.14 B.IV.15 B.IV.16 B.IV.24 B.IV.25 B.IV.37 Hunter 100
University Library Cosin V.ii.6
Cosin V.iii.1 London
British Library Add. 63077
Arundel 346
Cotton Julius D.1
Cotton Vitellius C.8
Cotton Vitellius D.5 Cotton Vitellius F.3
Harley 491
Harley 1924 Harley 3864 Harley 4688 Harley 5273
408
Royal 6.C.8 Royal 8.D.22 Royal 8.E.4 Yates Thompson 26 (formerly Add. 39943)
Inner Temple Petyt 511.2 Society of Antiquaries 7 Manchester John Rylands Library lat. 196 Oxford Bodleian Library Digby 41 Laud misc. 52
Laud misc. 277
Laud misc. 344
Laud misc. 392
Laud misc. 413
Laud misc. 491
Laud misc. 546
Rawl. D.338
Wood empt. 24
King’s College 22
Lincoln College lat. 15 St. John’s College 97
409
University College 113
165 Paris Bibliothèque nationale lat. 15157 York Minster Library XVI.i.8
Other Manuscripts Cited
Arras Bibliothèque municipale 269 Cambridge Gonville and Caius College 309
Pembroke College 84 Trinity College B.10.5
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