A saint, an abbot, his documents and her property: power, reform and landholding in the monastery of Homblières under Abbot Berner (949–82) (original) (raw)
Sacris Erudiri, 2019
This article shows the impact of clerical ordinations of monks on monastic communities of the late antique Latin West. Its first part demonstrates how the clerical hierarchy introduced by monk-presbyters and monk-deacons challenged the purely monastic power structure – based, above all, on the abbot’s supreme authority. It turns then to three organizers of monastic life active in the sixth century – Eugendus of Jura, Aurelian of Arles, and Benedict of Nursia – who, each in his own way, ensured that the appointment of monks to clerical ranks would leave the monastery’s hierarchy intact – or even reinforce it. In conclusion, it is argued that the problems provoked by monastic clergy were alleviated by the strict separation of monastic and ecclesiastical hierarchies, which is demonstrated particularly in the Benedict’s of Nursia Rule. This, in turn, contributed to the steady process of the clericalization of Western monasticism.
Accounting History, 2006
This article firstly presents the sophisticated bookkeeping system used by the Benedictine monks of the Monastery of Silos (Spain) during the eighteenth century, the procedures for which were set down in the Constitutions of 1701 of the Congregation of Saint Benedict of Valladolid. In the light of these regulations and the bookkeeping records that are still preserved to this day at the monastery, the activities that sustained the economic life of the monastery and led to the accumulation of its patrimony are examined. The study includes an itemized breakdown of the different types of income: capital rents, rents from land and livestock, ecclesiastical dues, and retributions for religious services. Similarly, the use made of the financial flows arising from the income is also analysed and a summary of the results is presented for the period under analysis (1694–1801), which sheds light on the role of the monastery as an administrator of its assets and its rights. Both sections lead t...
The early medieval legend Translatio beati Grisogoni narrates how martyr Chrysogonus from Aquileia revealed himself to the citizens of Zadar as being put to rest in the old cemetery situated in the close vicinity of the city. Although it is historically hard to imagine that the relics, which were possibly translated to Zadar in the 7th century, would have been deposed outside the city walls at the time, the legend enriched the local hagiography with the narrative which played an important role in the subsequent centuries (to be almost forgotten in the Early Modern period). Translatio beati Grisogoni not only contains valuable “historical” material datable to early medieval centuries, but it is a relevant source for the research in the ‘memory making’ conducted by the Benedictine community of St Chrysogonus. Preserved through its liturgical usage in the powerful Iadertine abbey, Translatio beati Grisogoni had an important place in the life of both the monastery and the city during the Middle Ages. The paper addresses the problem of the location of the inventio of St Chrysogonus and its importance for the ‘making’ of the local memory of St Chrysogonus in medieval Zadar. Textual hints about its possible location (place Iadera Vetula understood to be in the vicinity of Zadar at the spot of the antique graveyard), are thus compared with the descriptions of the particular land-plots donated to the monastery during the 11th century. Building on author's previous research of the topic, the paper focuses on the relation between the local hagiography of St Chrysogonus and the set of documents attesting possible continuous interest of the Benedictine community in acquiring particular land-plots around the important sacred lieu de mémoire.
For medieval monasteries, composing a cartulary was a strategy of memory. In this paper I argue that in the case of historical or commemorative cartularies – i.e. cartularies in which copies of charters were prefaced by or interwoven with a narrative about the origins of the institution or the deeds of its abbots – it even amounts to a canonization of the past. To illustrate this, two cartularies belonging to this category are examined in some detail, namely the two libri traditionum of St Peter’s Abbey in Ghent. The first, known as the Liber Traditionum Antiquus (LTA), was composed between 944 and 946, shortly after the so-called restoration of the monastery by Count Arnulf I of Flanders; the second Liber Traditionum (LT) was compiled in 1042 or immediately thereafter, in the wake of the reform of Richard of St Vanne. An analysis of their structure and contents shows how the authors of both copybooks interpreted and adapted their monastery’s past to suit the needs of their own time. The two libri traditionum retain more in particular what the Benedictine monks of that period wanted to be remembered. Composing such a cartulary was therefore both a codification and a canonization of the past: a codification because it fixes the interpretation of the archival memory, and in this way organizes and stabilizes the past in a coherent and usable form; a canonization because it is based on a process of selection and exclusion. Following the conceptual framework developed by Aleida and Jan Assmann, ‘the canonization of the past’ is defined as the elevation of the past – or rather of a particular interpretation of that past – to the status of norm or point of reference. As historical or commemorative cartularies such as the two libri traditionum of the St Peter’s Abbey in Ghent store all the information that is considered vital for the existence and continuation of the monastic community in a coherent and usable form, they enshrine a past that is elevated to a normative and hence canonized status.
“Concealed Donation or a Sale: The Acquisition of Monastic Property (15th – 17th C.)”
Having adapted themselves to the new, Sharia, terms and Ottoman institutions, the Christians resumed the earlier tradition of making donations to monasteries. Although Christian bequests and donations were registered by the kadi, only few such documents have survived. That the practice was not that infrequent is indirectly evidenced by other documents. That fact raises the question of the possible concealment of donations under unmistakable sales contracts. It is obvious why the assets classified as the state-owned land were not donated – it was forbidden to turn the latter into a vakıf. Tapunāme had to be issued, but there is no answer to the question as to why the hüccet covered the sale of the entire mülk part of the property. The “purchase-and-sale” action seems to have been generally accepted as a form of expressing a donation. Such form was considered, with or without reason, as being legally safer, both from the authorities and from subsequent claims by the donor’s heirs. When studying monastic archives, we must always bear in mind that many Shariah contracts for realty transactions actually conceal donations.
Viator, 2013
"The Miracula Sancti Columbani offers a unique monastic perspective on monastic/aristocratic conflict in tenth-century Italy, in an area and period in which other narrative sources are lacking. It recalls a translatio strategy to Hugh of Provence’s royal court in 929 in response to the incursions of Bishop Guido of Piacenza. When these events were redacted decades later, a different sort of diocesan threat presented itself—this time by Bishop Giseprand of Tortona, who used his position as abbot of Bobbio to alienate lands. The Miracula reveal a shift in the nature of episcopal ambition towards private patronage, and a proactive (if ever-changing) relationship between “royal” monastery and sovereign, during a time when the landscape of royal power was shifting. Cultic innovations and accompanying hagiographic material provide an often-neglected perspective onto the agency of institutions and the use of institutional memory and the public sphere to negotiate and contest their rights. "
Lost possessions and rights of the monastic community on the Hohorst near Amersfoort, later (since 1050) the abbey of Saint Paul's in Utrecht, located in and near Vught (North Brabant), 2022
This article is an adapted paragraph from my dissertation, Uniek in de stad. De oudste geschiedenis van de kloostergemeenschap op de Hohorst bij Amersfoort, sinds 1050 de Sint-Paulusabdij in Utrecht: haar plaats binnen de Utrechtse kerk en de ontwikkeling van haar goederenbezit (ca. 1000-ca. 1200) (Utrecht 2000), p. 250-259, on a subject on which I hope something more specific and new will be brought forward from either side, and thus, if possible, there will become more clear about such by no means unimportant old rights. Almost the same extract in Dutch (with references) is also published on our website: www.broerendebruijn.nl/Vught.html.