¹ See, for example, Thomas Füser, Mönche im Konflikt: zum Spannungsfeld von Norm, Devianz und Sanktion bei den Cisterziensern und Cluniazensern (12. bis frühes 14. Jahrhundert), Münster 2000.

² For two assessments of the study of property transfers and property management see Barbara Rosenwein, H., ‘Property transfers and the Church, eighth to eleventh centuries: an overview’, Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome: moyen âge cxi (1999), 563–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, Do ut des: gift giving, memoria, and conflict management in the medieval Low Countries, Hilversum 2007, esp. pp. 17–50.

³ Of particular note is Patrick J. Geary's ‘Living with conflicts in stateless France: a typology of conflict management mechanisms, 1050–1200’, repr. in Living with the dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca 1994, 125–60. Given the mass of publications on this subject the following review articles are useful: Stephen D. White, ‘From peace to power: the study of disputes in medieval France’, in his Feuding and peace-making in eleventh-century France, Aldershot 2005, viii, 1–14; Warren C. Brown and Piotr Górecki, ‘What conflict means: the making of medieval conflict studies in the United States, 1970–2000’, and ‘Where conflict leads: on the present and the future of medieval conflict studies in the United States’, in Warren C. Brown and Piotr Górecki (eds), Conflict in medieval Europe: changing perspectives on society and culture, Aldershot 2003, 1–35, 265–85.

⁴ See, for example, Gerd Althoff, ‘Satisfaction: peculiarities of amicable settlements of conflicts in the Middle Ages’, in Bernhard Jussen and Pamela Selwyn (eds), Ordering medieval society: perspectives on intellectual and practical modes of shaping social relations, Philadelphia 2001, 270–84.

⁵ Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde, Darmstadt 1997, and Die Macht der Rituale: Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter, Darmstadt 2003; Geoffrey Koziol, Begging pardon and favor: ritual and political order in early medieval France, Ithaca 1992. On the impact of the ‘performative turn’ see Jürgen Martschukat and Steffen Patzold (eds), Geschichtswissenschaft und ‘performative turn’: Ritual, Inszenierung und Performanz vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit, Cologne 2003; Burke, Peter, ‘Performing history: the importance of occasions’, Rethinking History ix (2005), 35–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jean-Moeglin, Marie, ‘“Performative turn”, “communication politique” et rituels au moyen âge: à propos de deux ouvrages récents’, Le moyen âge cxiii (2007), 393–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Philippe Buc, The dangers of ritual: between early medieval texts and social scientific theory, Princeton 2001, with comments in Geoffrey Koziol, ‘A father, his son, memory, and hope: the joint diploma of Lothar and Louis v (Pentecost Monday, 979) and the limits of performativity’, in Martschukat and Patzold, Geschichtswissenschaft, 83–103 at p. 84, and ‘The dangers of polemic: is ritual still an interesting topic of historical study?,’ Early Medieval Europe xi (2002), 367–88.

⁷ Buc, Dangers, 256–7, and, from a different perspective, Mazel, Florian, ‘Amitié et rupture de l'amitié: moines et grands laïcs provençaux au temps de la crise Grégorienne (milieu xie–milieu xiie siècle)’, Revue historique xxxvii (2005), 53–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 57.

⁸ White, Stephen, ‘Debate: the feudal revolution’, Past & Present clii (1996), 205–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p. 211.

⁹ Althoff, Spielregeln, passim.

¹⁰ For an in-depth discussion of this topic see Vanderputten, S., ‘Monks, knights, and the enactment of competing social realities in eleventh- and early twelfth-century Flanders’, Speculum lxxxiv (2009), 582–612CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which discusses a mid-eleventh-century dispute over an estate belonging to the monks of Saint-Bertin in light of recent trends in performance and conflict studies.

¹¹ See, for instance, Stephen White, ‘The politics of anger’, in his Feuding, iv, 127–5, and ‘Garsinde vs. Sainte Foy: argument, threat, and vengeance in eleventh-century monastic litigation’, in Emilia Jamroziak and Janet Burton (eds), Religious and laity in western Europe, 1000–1400: interaction, negotiation and power, Turnhout 2006, 169–81.

¹² White, ‘Debate’, 216.

¹³ Regarding the radicalisation of monastic discourse see Mazel, ‘Amitié’; Thomas F. Head, Barbara H. Rosenwein and Susan Farmer, A., ‘Monks and their enemies: a comparative approach’, Speculum lxvi (1991), 764–96Google Scholar; Barbara Rosenwein, H., ‘Feudal war and monastic peace: Cluniac liturgy as ritual agression’, Viator ii (1971), 129–57Google Scholar; Weinberger, Steven, ‘Les Conflits entre clercs et laïcs dans la Provence du xie siècle’, Annales du Midi xcii (1980), 269–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, ‘The enemies of the peace: reflections on a vocabulary, 500–1100’, in Thomas Head and Richard Landes (eds), The Peace of God: social violence and religious response in France around the year 1000, Ithaca–London 1992, 58–79.

¹⁴ White, ‘Debate’, 209.

¹⁵ Simon MacLean, ‘Ritual, misunderstanding, and the contest for meaning: representations of the disrupted royal assembly at Frankfurt (873)’, in Björn Weiler and Simon MacLean (eds), Representations of power in medieval Germany, 800–1500, Turnhout 2006, 97–119.

¹⁶ Two such attempts are in White, ‘Garsinde’, and Vanderputten, ‘Monks’.

¹⁷ Constable, Giles, ‘Monasticism, lordship and society in the xiith-century Hesbaye: five documents on the foundation of the Cluniac priory of Bertrée’, Traditio xxxiii (1977), 159–224CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and several articles in Stephen White's Feuding and Re-thinking kinship and feudalism in early medieval Europe, Aldershot 2005.

¹⁸ The village of Hesdin is now situated in the département du Pas-de-Calais. For a discussion of the foundation of the priory and its early history see Dereine, Charles, ‘Les Limites de l'exemption monastique dans le diocèse de Thérouanne au xie siècle: Messines, Saint-Georges-lez-Hesdin et Saint-Bertin’, Mémoires de la Société d'histoire de Comines-Warneton et de la région xiii (1983), 39–56Google Scholar, esp. pp. 43–7; Jean-Pierre Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye d'Anchin de sa fondation (1079) au XIVe siècle: Essor, vie et rayonnement d'une grande communauté Bénédictine, n.p. 1997, 246; and Jean-François Nieus, Un Pouvoir comtal entre Flandre et France: Saint-Pol, 1000–1300, Brussels 2005, 68.

¹⁹ On the early history of Anchin see Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye.

²⁰ Heinrich Sproemberg, Beiträge zur Französisch-Flandrischen Geschichte, I: Alvisus, Abt von Anchin (1111–1131), Berlin 1931; Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye; Vanderputten, Steven, ‘Fulcard's pigsty: Cluniac reformers, dispute settlement and the lower aristocracy in early-twelfth-century Flanders’, Viator xxxvii (2007), 91–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Dereine, ‘Les Limites’, 43–7. See also Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye, 246, and Nieus, Un Pouvoir, 68. The count's involvement perhaps derived from his strategy of supporting the counts of Hesdin against his rivals in Saint-Pol: Dereine, ‘Les Limites’, 46.

²² Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye, 247.

²³ Dereine remarks that the initial donation was modest compared to other examples in Flanders: ‘Les Limites’, 46. On the rapid growth of the priory's patrimony see Benoît-Michel Tock, ‘La Diplomatique sans pancarte: l'exemple des diocèses de Thérouanne et Arras, 1000–1120’, in Pancartes monastiques des XIe et XIIe siècles: table ronde organisée par l'ARTEM, 6 et 7 juillet 1994, Nancy, Turnhout 1998, 131–57 at p. 154. For a survey of Hesdin's patrimony in the twelfth century see Gerzaguet, L'Abbaye, 248–52.

²⁴ Cartulaire-chronique du prieuré Saint-Georges d'Hesdin, ed. Robert Fossier, Paris 1988. According to Fossier (p. 36), the collection (but perhaps not the manuscript) was compiled diachronically between 1090 and 1187. Tock dates the first phase of work to 1094–1120: ‘La Diplomatique’, 154.

²⁵ Cartulaire, 24.

²⁶ Ibid. 25–7.

²⁷ Tock, ‘La Diplomatique’, 153.

²⁸ Cartulaire, 98–9. For the events reported in the notice, a dating of 1111–19 can be inferred. The terminus post quem is the dedication of the church of St George in 1111 (n. 46). The terminus ante quem is more difficult to establish: perhaps the events took place before the annexation of the county in 1111–12 (n. 50), since count Walter is mentioned among the list of witnesses to the notice. Another notice describing the final phase in the dispute mentions the intervention of Count Baudouin vii of Flanders (1111–19): Cartulaire, 100–1.

²⁹ Wido of Herly (a village now situated in the département du Pas-de-Calais) is mentioned several times in the cartulary of Hesdin. Most notices are difficult to date, although all seem to originate from the first two decades of the twelfth century (one certainly dates from the time of Baudouin vii: Cartulaire, 90). Although his ancestry cannot be retraced and although he was not one of the count's vassals, Wido was certainly one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the local aristocracy. His extensive patrimony was scattered throughout the region, and consisted of rents, mills, lands and other property: ibid. 25, 27.

³⁰ It has to be noted that the only indication that Mathilde was buried in close proximity to the priory is that her grave was honoured immediately after the funeral service. The cartulary records fifteen cases where such a burial is attested, while another twenty-eight individuals joined the community in articulo mortis and may also have been buried around the priory: Cartulaire, 23; cf. Constance B. Bouchard, Sword, mitre, and cloister: nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980–1198, Ithaca–London 1987, 190–2.

³¹ In some cases dying donors were transported to the church: Cartulaire, 83. Regarding Cluniac customs of lay burial see Poeck, Dietrich, ‘Laienbegräbnisse in Cluny’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien xv (1981), 68–179Google Scholar at pp. 76–80.

³² Cf. Stephen White, Custom, kinship, and gifts to saints: the laudatio parentum in western France, 1050–1150, Chapel Hill–London 1988, 34–5.

³³ Mathilde's father is identified in the notice as Walter, son of Baldwin: Cartulaire, 99. Beatrice is misidentified in Fossier's index as daughter of Wido and Mathilde, but in reality she was probably Mathilde's aunt on her father's side. The list of witnesses at the end of the notice includes an unnamed son of Beatrice and Robert of Belebrone, but further information regarding their identity and social status is lacking.

³⁴ Cf. White, Custom, 36.

³⁵ Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘Des Morts très spéciaux aux morts ordinaires: la pastorale funéraire clunisienne (xie-xiie siècles)’, Médiévales: langue textes histoire xxxi (1996), 79–91, esp. p. 82.

³⁶ Bijsterveld, Do ut des, 181–3; Iogna-Prat, ‘Des Morts’, 80–1; Philippe Racinet, ‘Le Prieuré clunisien, une composante essentielle du monde aristocratique (xie-xiiie siècle)’, in Giles Constable, Gert Melville and Jörg Oberste (eds), Die Cluniazenser in ihrem politisch-sozialen Umfeld, Münster 1998, 189–212 at pp. 196–7.

³⁷ Of a total of 350 donations recorded in the Hesdin cartulary, no less than seventy were made in articulo mortis. A significant number of these were made in the early years of the priory's existence: Cartulaire, 22.

³⁸ Iogna-Prat, ‘Des Morts’, 82–3.

³⁹ Poeck, Laienbegräbnisse, 71, 79; Otto Oexle, G., ‘Memoria und Memorialüberlieferung im früheren Mittelalter’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien x (1976), 70–95Google Scholar at p. 87.

⁴⁰ Nieus, Un Pouvoir, 243; Mazel, ‘Amitié’, 89ff.

⁴¹ Barbara H. Rosenwein, To be the neighbor of Saint Peter: the social meaning of Cluny's property, 909–1049, New York 1989, esp. pp. 38ff.; Iogna-Prat, ‘Des Morts’; Bijsterveld, Do ut des.

⁴² Eliana Magnani S.-Christen, ‘Transforming things and persons: the gift pro anima in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner and Bernhard Jussen (eds), Negotiating the gift: pre-modern figurations of exchange, Göttingen 2003, 269–84; Mazel, ‘Amitié’, 70–1.

⁴³ Bijsterveld, Do ut des, 174–5.

⁴⁴ Constable, ‘Monasticism’; Racinet, ‘Le Prieuré’, 194.

⁴⁵ Cartulaire, 98.

⁴⁶ Dereine, ‘Les Limites’, 47.

⁴⁷ Rosenwein, ‘Property’, 571.

⁴⁸ Cartulaire, 89, 112, 158–9. Mathilde's daughter is never explicitly associated with Wido, which may indicate that she was the offspring of an earlier marriage.

⁴⁹ Dereine, ‘Les Limites’, 47.

⁵⁰ Nieus, Un Pouvoir, 82.

⁵¹ Cf. Rosenwein, ‘Property’, 565. In 1097 Urban ii granted the dependencies of Cluny the right to bury laymen: Armin Kohnle, Abt Hugo von Cluny (1049–1109), Sigmaringen 1993, 54, 301–2.

⁵² White, Custom, esp. p. 49; Emily Z. Tabuteau, Transfers of property in eleventh-century Norman law, Chapel Hill 1988, 99–103.

⁵³ Cartulaire, 95.

⁵⁴ Ibid. 98.

⁵⁵ Ibid. 99.

⁵⁶ There is a similar example ibid. 121.

⁵⁷ This is attested in two separate notices ibid. 99, 100, although their relation is otherwise unclear.

⁵⁸ Régine Le Jan, ‘Malo ordine ordine tenent: transferts patrimoniaux et conflits dans le monde Franc (viie-xe siècle)’, Melanges de l'Ecole française de Rome: moyen âge cxi (1999), 972; Stephen White, ‘Inheritances and legal arguments in western France’, in his Feuding, vi. 90–1.

⁵⁹ Wido's gestures are rituals of begging for third parties: Gerd Althoff, ‘Empörung, Tränen, Zerknirschung: Emotionen’ in der öffentlichen Kommunikation des Mittelalters', in Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde, Darmstadt 1997, 268–9; Koziol, Begging, 59ff.

⁶⁰ Bijsterveld, Do ut des, 67.

⁶¹ See Edina Bozóky, ‘Voyage de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux’, in Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge: XXVIe congrès de la S.H.M.E.S. (Limoges-Aubazine, mai 1995), Paris 1996, 267–78.

⁶² Bijsterveld, Do ut des, 58, 67–8; cf. Cartulaire, 64–5.

⁶³ Wido and Robert are mentioned together as witnesses in a charter issued on 13 February 1112 by Count Baudouin vii and his mother Clementia: Fernand Vercauteren, Actes des comtes de Flandre: 1071–1128, Brussels 1938, 137–9. This establishes a terminus post quem for Wido's departure. The charter may also be helpful in dating Robert's attacks on Mathilde's estates to the late summer or early autumn of 1112, although this has to remain mere conjecture.

⁶⁴ Cf. White, Custom, 51; Vanderputten, ‘Monks’.

⁶⁵ White, Custom, 15.

⁶⁶ Cf. Le Jan, ‘Malo’, 951–72.

⁶⁷ See White, Custom, 8; Rosenwein, To be the neighbor, 43–4.

⁶⁸ Racinet, ‘Le Prieuré’, 197, 200.

⁶⁹ Maria Hillebrandt, ‘Stiftungen zum Seelenheil durch Frauen in den Urkunden des Klosters Cluny’, in Frans Neiske, Dietrich Poeck and Mechtild Sandmann (eds), Vinculum societatis: Joachim Wollasch zum 60. Geburtstag, Sigmaringendorf 1991, 58–67 at p. 63. See also Constance Bouchard, B., ‘Family structure and family consciousness among the aristocracy in the ninth to eleventh centuries’, Francia liv (1986), 639–58Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Constable, ‘Monasticism’, 183.

⁷¹ There is mention of a Robert of Herly in a charter issued in 1122 by Bishop John of Thérouanne: Histoire de l'abbaye d'Auchy-les-Moines, ed. Adolphe De Cardevacque, Arras 1875, 189–91. Robert is also attested as a vassal of Count Hugo iii of Saint-Pol in charters issued between 1127–9 and 1146–9: Nieus, Un Pouvoir, 87, 359.

⁷² Cartulaire, 28.

⁷³ For references to Robert's wealth see ibid. n. 84.

⁷⁴ Le Jan, ‘Malo’, 960–1.

⁷⁵ It is significant that Robert had previously had no objections to a gift made by Mathilde to the monks of Auchy: charter of 1122 by Bishop John of Thérouanne: Histoire de l'abbaye d'Auchy-les-Moines, 189–91.

⁷⁶ ‘hanc desparatam insaniam videntes’: Cartulaire, 100.

⁷⁷ White, ‘Garsinde’; Vanderputten, ‘Monks.’

⁷⁸ Bijsterveld, Do ut des, chs viii–ix.

⁷⁹ White, ‘Garsinde’, 172.

⁸⁰ The liturgy is described in Lester K. Little, Benedictine maledictions: liturgical cursing in Romanesque France, Ithaca–London 1993, 20, with examples in his article ‘Anger in monastic courses’, in Barbara H. Rosenheim (ed.), Anger's past: the social uses of an emotion in the Middle Ages, Ithaca 1998, 30.

⁸¹ White, ‘Inheritances.’

⁸² Cf. Iogna-Prat, ‘Des Morts’, 84–5.

⁸³ White, Custom, 76.

⁸⁴ Cartulaire, 100.

⁸⁵ Ibid. 108. In the middle of the twelfth century the monks of Hesdin claimed that Robert had promised to donate the estate to the priory upon his deathbed. As late as 1154–5, his last remaining son would contest the donation: charter of the count of Flanders, in De oorkonden der graven van Vlaanderen (Juli 1128–September 1191). II: Uitgave – Band I. Regering van Diederik van de Elzas (Juli 1128–17 Januari 1168), ed. Thérèse De Hemptinne, Adriaan Verhulst and Lieve De Mey, Brussels 1988, 231–3.

⁸⁶ Nieus, Un Pouvoir, 68–9.

⁸⁷ Vanderputten, ‘Fulcard's pigsty’.

⁸⁸ Henri Platelle, Le Temporel de l'abbaye de Saint-Amand des origines à 1340, Paris 1962, 132–3.

⁸⁹ Geoffrey Koziol, ‘Baldwin vii of Flanders and the toll of Saint-Vaast (1111): judgment as ritual’, in Brown and Górecki, Conflict, 151–61 at pp. 152–3.

⁹⁰ White, ‘Inheritances’, 67.

⁹¹ Sproemberg, Beiträge, 138–9.

⁹² Cartulaire, 91–2. Pope Paschalis confirmed this charter on 19 June 1112 (pp. 93–4).

⁹³ White, ‘Anger’, 146.

⁹⁴ Cf. Mazel, ‘Amitié’, 65.