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Monastic Recruitment in an Age of Reform : New Evidence for the Flemish Abbey of Saint-Bertin (10th-12th centuries)
Bernard of Clairvaux's letter to his young cousin Robert, written in the early 1120s CE, ignited a public controversy between the powerful Cluniacs and the upstart Cistercians over proper monastic practice and recruitment that smoldered throughout the twelfth century. This article examines how Cistercian polemics arose out of this new monastic competition to form Cistercian identity. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians under his influence employed a rhetoric that drew on notions of space, age, and gender to present their rivals as worldly, feminine, and immature and themselves as mature and masculine warriors on the front lines of ascetic battle against the vices. In doing so, the Cistercians deployed a gendered concept of “childhood” and “youth” that shaped their understanding of monastic conversion and progression as maturation from a worldly, feminized child to a mature and masculine monk. By centering “childhood” as a category of analysis, this article demonstrates the importance of age to Cistercian constructions of monastic masculinity. The gender-crossing martial, nuptial, and maternal imagery for which the Cistercians are famous relied on constructions of the “child.” This article shows that “childhood” and “adulthood” are mutually constitutive, gendered categories and reveals that “childhood” is as important to constructing Christian masculinities as notions of “woman.”
By looking at the archives of the Benedictine priory of Saint-Georges in the Northern French town of Hesdin, this paper aims to illustrate the versatility of a monastic community at the turn of the twelfth century in documenting the spiritual, legal and memorial implications of the monastic profession, as well as their understanding of the ritual itself as a significant social event, in which lasting ties were established with secular society. The analysis of an exceptional notice relating to the conversion of a man named Walter will show how, in addition to these purposes, the written word could also be used to capture in a permanent form the profession ritual as a 'total' transition of a layman's properties and self from the secular world to its spiritual counterpart.
This article argues that the chronology and geography of the Cluniac reform movement in the county of Flanders in the early twelfth century were to a large extent determined by the attempts of the counts to regain control over the feudal network and by the reformers' specific strategies to reassess relations between monastic communities and their lay officers. Through the example of the turbulent abbacy and eventual deposition of Fulcard, abbot of Marchiennes and member of one of the most powerful local clans in the southeastern parts of Flanders, it is shown how the dividing line between supporters and adversaries of the reform movement ran across the division between the higher levels of the Flemish aristocracy and families who had recently introduced themselves into the aristocratic network. If one accepts the existence of opportunities for consensus based on what Patrick Geary has described as "structural conflicts," it can be understood how Cluniac reforms at the same time constituted a point of dissent and an opportunity for all parties involved to reassess their relations in a satisfying and largely peaceful manner.
This paper examines why Simon (d. 1148), the chronicler of the abbey of Saint-Bertin in Flanders, designated all of the remaining evidence for sixty years of the communal past as ‘unmemorable’. An analysis of the chronicler's sources and context of writing reveals that his rejection of these memories was determined both by personal experience and the desire to advocate the legitimacy of the then current reforms. To these factors he subordinated the need to provide his fellow monks with a sense of historical continuity and the opportunity to present a troubled but significant part of the abbey's history.
This paper argues that the now-abandoned notion of a ‘crisis of cenobiticism’ in the late eleventh and early twelfth century should be replaced by one in which endemic institutional processes and increased competition among Benedictine institutions led to a profound shift in the societal position and government of ‘old-style’ monasticism. As an analysis of evidence relevant to the abbey of Saint-Bertin shows, a series of events and setbacks had a significant effect on the abbey’s prominent position in Flanders in the middle decades of the eleventh century. Unable to compete effectively with the recently founded Bergues-Saint-Winnoc, Saint-Bertin was hindered by its own historical legacies when trying to adapt to changing economic, political and other circumstances. Yet towards the end of the eleventh century these same historical legacies, which effectively made the abbey’s leadership less dynamic than that of younger institutions, allowed the abbots of Saint-Bertin to reclaim a prominent position in Flanders, and to actively intervene in the institutional development of its immediate competitors. The renewed association with the count of Flanders was essential in this process. If nothing else, this shows the remarkable dynamics of institutional development in this period which has long been represented as a sterile time for Benedictine monasticism.