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The past and monastic debate in the time of Bernard of Clairvaux
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The period from the earlier decades of the eleventh century to the middle of the twelfth is characterized by a number of great debates on subjects which arose out of some of the most significant aspects of the institutions of the time. There was the struggle, that between kingdoms and priesthood, or empire and papacy as it has sometimes misleadingly been called, reflected in the huge folio volumes simply entitled Libelli de Lite. At a rather rarer, theological level, there was a great argument about the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, which had implications both for the status of the clergy (in particular their links with their lay patrons), and for relations between those churches which looked to Rome for their guidance and those which, if they focused anywhere, looked to Constantinople. Somewhat between these two levels, people argued about the right relationship between secular and regular clergy, while within the monastic family there was dispute about the best way in which men, and to a much lesser degree women, could make their route heavenwards. A great deal no doubt was said about all these issues at the time which has now evaporated, but much was written down, the residue which survives making up a series of the most sustained discussions in the West on any kind of subject since the great theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries.
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References
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21 I use the translation by L. J. Lekai in his The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, Ohio, 1977), p. 459.
22 Ex. Parv., XV, 13–14 (pp. 46–8).
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31 Ep. 84 bis: SB Op, 7, p. 219. Bruno Scott James did not know this letter. There is a translation in The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, 1. Treatises I, by Jean Leclercq, Cistercian Fathers, 1 (Shannon, 1970) [hereafter Works], pp. 5–6.
32 See, for example, his references to Noah, Daniel and Job, Martha and Mary, and Joseph: Apology, III.5: SB Op, 3, pp. 84–6; Works, 1, pp. 38–9.
33 Apology, V.11: SB Op, 3, pp. 90–1; Works, 1, pp. 45–6.
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35 Apology, IX.19: SB Op, 3, pp. 96–7: Works, 1, pp. 54–5.
36 Ibid., IX.23 (for both the early monks and abbots of Cluny): SB Op, 3, p. 100: Works, 1, pp. 58–9.
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43 Wilmart, ‘Une riposte’, pp. 306–9.
44 Knowles, David, Brooke, C. N. L., and London, Vera C. M., The Heads of Religious Houses in England and Wales 940–1216 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 63,Google Scholar for a better chronology than Wilmart.
45 Personal communication.
46 Hugh of Rouen, Dialogorum Libri VII, pref., to Matthew: ‘Nos enim et und generis consanguinitas et ejusdem professionis in Christo junxit societas … quos Laudunense solum educavit et docuit; PL, 192, col. 1141.
47 Apology, V.10: SB Op, 3, p. 90: Works, 1, p. 45.
48 Apology, IX.23 (see n. 36 above): Wilmart, ‘Une Riposte’, pp. 311–14.
49 Regula, 64.19, cf. 64.18, 70.6 (Fry edn, pp. 283, 292).
50 Wilmart, ‘Une riposte’, p. 327: ‘Die, obsecro, bone abbas, die, sodes, quomodo, hec iocosa dicendo, ilium regule locum adimples, ubi scur[r]ilitatem et uerba risum mouencia pater Benedictus eterna dampnat clausura?’ Cf. Regula, VI.9, ‘Scurrilitates vero vel verba otiosa et risum moventia aeterna clausura in omni locis damnamus’. I have followed the translation by Justin McCann, The Rule of Saint Benedict (London, 1952), p. 37.
51 Wilmart, ‘Une riposte’, p. 317: ‘Atque, secundum historialem intelligentiam de qua presenter agimus ….’
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56 Constable, ‘Renewal and reform’, p. 44.
57 Van Engen, Rupert, p. 324.
58 Ibid., pp. 314–23. He notes, very helpfully, places where Rupert and Peter the Venerable use similar arguments.
59 Rupert, Super quaedam capitula, II. xiii: PL, 170, col. 509.
60 Ibid., II. xiii: PL. 170, cols 508–9.
61 Regula, 15 (Fry edn, pp. 210–11).
62 McKitterick, Rosamund, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (London and New York, 1983), pp. 113–16 Google Scholar for this and other issues debated in the twelfth century. I am grateful to Dr McKitterick for drawing my attention to these similarities: few historians of the Cistercians refer to them, but see Lackner, Bede, Eleventh-Century Background of Citeaux, Cistercian Studies, 8 (Washington, D.C., 1972), pp. 35–9 Google Scholar. There is room for more study of the question. The only quotation from Carolingian legislation I noticed occurs in Idung of Prüfening (c. 1155), Dialogue, 11.42: Cistercians and Cluniacs. The Case of Citeaux. A Dialogue between Two Monks. An argument on Four Questions by Idung of Prüfening, trans. Jeremiah O’Sullivan, Cistercian Fathers, 33 (Kalamazoo, Mi., 1977), p. 87.
63 Super quaedam, II. xiv: PL, 170, col. 509: ‘quo tempore beatus Benedictus hanc Regulam scripsit, necdum sic ordinata fuerunt tempora in Ecclesia Romana, sive stationes, et sacra totius anni officia.’
64 Ibid., III. xiii: PL, 170 cols 520–1.
65 Ibid., III. xvi: PL, 170, cols 523–4.
66 Ibid., III. xvii; PL, 170, cols 524–6.
67 Ibid., III. iv-vi: PL, 170 cols 513–15.
68 Regula, 41.3 (Fry edn, p. 240).
69 Super quaedam, III. vii: PL, 170, col. 515.
70 Ibid., III. vii: PL, 170, col. 515.
71 Cf.Hugh Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1978), p. 273.Google Scholar
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73 Ibid., PL, 170, col. 520. The term ‘status’ was used over thirty years later by the German Premonstratensian, Anselm of Havelberg, in his extraordinary, and much discussed, brief history of the world; cf. Smalley, ‘Novelty’, pp. 124–5.
74 Van Engen, Rupert, p. 94; cf. pp. 282–91 for events coming into his De victoria Verbi Dei.
75 Constable, Letters, 1, pp. 52–101.
76 Letter 28, p. 57: Constable’s annotation refers to Dialogues, II.3 (C. Halm, ed., Sulpicii Severi, Libri qui supersunt. Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 1 [Vienna, 1866], p. 183).
77 Ep. 28.viii, pp. 70–1.
78 Ep. 28.xviii, pp. 81–7: cf. p. 96 above.
79 Ep. 28.ii, pp. 58–62.
80 See Constable’s notes, p. 61.
81 Ep. 111, pp. 274–99.
82 Cf. the admirable edition by Constable, G. and Smith, B.,Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in æcclesia, OMT (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar.
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84 The whole dossier has recently been re-edited by Ceglar, Stanislaus, ‘William of Saint Thierry and his leading role at the first chapters of the Benedictine Abbots (Reims 1131, Soissons 1132)’ in William of St. Thierry. A Colloquium at the Abbey of St. Thierry, trans. Carfantan, Jerry, Cistercian Studies, 94 (Kalamazoo, Mi., 1987), pp. 34–112 Google Scholar. Matthew’s letter is at pp. 65–86.
85 Ceglar, ‘William’, pp. 79–81: cf. Ex Parv., xvii.6-8 (de Place et al., Citeaux documents, pp. 50–1), capitula, xxv-xxvi (ibid., pp. 134–5), Apology, XH.28-9 (SB Op, 3, pp. 104–6: Works, 1, pp. 63–6).
86 Letters 5–7: the best edition for 5–6 is by J. T. Muckle, ‘The letter of Heloise on religious life and Abelard’s first reply’, Mediaeval Studies, 17 (1955), pp. 240–81, and for 7 by T. P. McLaughlin, ‘Abelard’s rule for religious women’, Mediaeval Studies, 18 (1956), pp. 241–92. There is a very useful translation in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. Betty Radice (Harmondsworth, 1974), pp. 159–269, although she only summarizes Letter 6.
87 Letter 7; Muckle, ‘Letter of Heloise’, p. 206. The same passage is in Idung, Dialogue (see n. 62 above), I, 51 (p. 52). Augustine, De Baptismo, III. vi (PL, 43, col. 143) probably was the source for medieval quotations, but the sentiment is in Tertullian, Liber de Virginibus Velandis, I: ‘Sed Dominus noster Christus veritatem se, non consuetudinem cognominavit.’ (PL, 2, col 937). I owe this suggestion to the Revd Prof. Stuart Hall.
88 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, VIII, 26, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols, OMT (Oxford, 1969–80), 4, pp. 311–27. For the date of Book VIII, p. xix. Orderic’s mention of Domus Dei, i.e. Noirlac, founded 1136, means that Dr Chibnall’s suggestion that this part ‘was written in 1135 or possibly 1136’ needs minor reformulation: cf.Holdsworth, , ‘Orderic, traditional monk and the new monasticism’, in Greenway, Diana, Holdsworth, Christopher, and Sayers, Jane, eds, Tradition and Change. Essays in honour of Marjorie Chibnall (Cambridge, 1985), p. 25.Google Scholar
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92 Vita Prima, I.vii: PL, 185, col. 247. For the date see A. H. Bredero, Etudes sur la ‘Vita Prima’ de Saint Bernard (Rome, 1960), pp. 100–1.
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96 These matters are contentious: for a measured account see Morris, Papal Monarchy, pp. 250–7.
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