An infamous riot of 1073 in the suburban monastery of Saint-Ouen at Rouen dominates current understanding of ecclesiastical life in the Norman capital in the second half of the eleventh century. The violent clash between the Benedictine monks and their metropolitan archbishop attracted the attention of historians almost from the moment it occurred. It was recorded roughly contemporaneously in a set of annals written at Rouen cathedral in the mid 1070s. From the late 1080s this record was copied into annals in several monasteries around Normandy, from where it subsequently spread to England. Finally, in the early 1090s an anonymous monk of Saint-Ouen wrote the detailed account of the violence which has captivated historians ever since. When the riot is discussed it is generally within the context of the troubled relationship between the monks of Saint-Ouen and the cathedral chapter of Rouen in the eleventh century. Hence it is regarded as a typical product of the jurisdictional tensions seen in episcopal-monastic relations around northern France in this period. This conclusion is supported by the small group of contemporary and near-contemporary sources which describe the riot. However, analysis of historical writing by the canons of the cathedral and the monks of Saint-Ouen suggests that these tensions were fuelled by external influences largely beyond the control of the religious communities in cathedral and abbey. The most prominent of these influences in the early 1070s was the papal and archiepiscopal attempt to enforce clerical celibacy upon a society in which the wives and families of priests had long been accepted. Over the following two decades religious life in Rouen was shaped by the celibacy debate, escalating both the cultic rivalry between abbey and cathedral and the threats that political instability posed to both communities’ economic well-being. This paper examines historical writing at Rouen cathedral and the abbey of Saint-Ouen between c. 1073 and c. 1092 and proposes a new context within which ecclesiastical relations in Rouen should be understood.

The Saint-Ouen riot, 24 August 1073

The first part of this paper reappraises the unrest in Saint-Ouen in 1073. Knowledge of these events comes to us from three principal sources, each of which has evident limitations.