medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear Marjorie, Werner, & Brenda (who is surely lurking),

an enjoyable and productive discussion --i hope others are finding it so as
well.

i should say that my own interest in Abelard is really quite tangential, and
my knowledge of him correspondingly minimal.

an ancient dissertation topic (the Royal Portal of the church of St. Mary of
Etampes) got me interested in the situation in the royal domain in the period
1120-50, then in Stephen of Garland (Royal chancellor, who was a canon of
Etampes, among several other places), then in the "reform" movement in Paris
and Orleans in the 1120s-'30s...

i must say that i was never able to muster the discipline necessary for
mastering the quite astonishingly complex political and religious situation in
this tiny geographical area during this brief time period.

and that was before there was any real attempt at synthesis such as we have in
the invaluable article by Bautier("Paris a la temps de Abelard"), which,
formidable piece of work though it is, is itself little more than a scratching
of the surface. 

combine my ignorance with the fact that i really haven't seriously looked at
the problem(s) much in the last 30 years (except for a reading of Bautier) and
i hardly feel qualified to do more than ask some elementary questions of those
more knowledgable.

Marjorie Greene <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From Michael Clanchy's book:
"Both St Norbert and [Abelard] were canons of unreformed communities: N.
[initials mine] at the church of St Victor in Xanten (in Lorraine) and A. at
Notre-Dame in Paris. 

i've not looked at Clanchy, but understand that his work is highly regarded.

does he, perchance, offer a reference to an *original* source for this
assertion ?

seems to me that Werner's objections to giving him a prebend *at Paris* are
valid enough to demand some rather unambiguous, original-source-based proof.

btw, i'm too lazy to look, but is there an obituary entry for A. in the
necrology of the cathedral ?

if he *was* a canon there, we may assume that he resigned that prebend when he
became a monk at St. Denis, but, given his fame (or infame) he still might
have rated an entry, perhaps with the qualification "quandam canonicus noster"
or somesuchlike.

i suppose that inscribing his name in the Paris Book of Life would have
depended strongly upon his own status and the "political" situation in the
chapter at the time of his death, however, so perhaps not much can be made of
whatever entry there is there for him --or even the absence of any entry at
all.
 
>By marrying Heloise clandestinely while remaining a canon at N.-D., A.
showed his indifference to the papal decrees, as married clergy were the
greatest institutional obstacle to reform."

a good point, as far as it goes --and it doesn't go very far at all, if A.
wasn't a canon of N-D.

>Christopher, you may not be aware that A. was also an abbot, of St. Gildas. 

i was, vaguely.

but i agree with what i take to be what Werner meant to imply (if i read him
right) : that, as a general principle, we cannot, without great exercising
caution, project *back* onto the period of A.'s first residence in Paris
things which we know of his later life elsewhere.

>As for Sens, A. was tried and condemned as a heretic there in 1140.

well, this is in response to my saying that i wasn't aware of any Sens
connections which he had --being condemned (much less having his writings
condemned, as Werner corrects) in a Provincial synod there hardly counts as a
"connection" of the type i had in mind, viz-a-viz his holding a prebend at
Sens.

Werner Robl <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>This sounds like the chapter of ND was reformed later. There was never a
real "reform " of the *chapter* of ND in the 11century. 

sic : 12th century ?

>After 1123, the "reforming bishop" Stephen von Senlis tried to restrict the
mighty archdeaconry (Stephen of Garland, Theobald Notier) and to replace the
retiring canons of ND exclusively by regular canons of St Victor, peu à peu,
but his plan partially failed by the heavy opposition of the chapter and the
king (Louis VII.). 

sic : VI ?

one of the things which really struck and enlightened me when i first went
over this material decades ago was the amazingly ambiguous position and role
of the king --he is instrumental in the establishment of St. Victor's and in
the endowment of it with annates and prebends here and there among the royal
collegials & chapters ; Stephen of Senlis is from the family of the "butlers"
of his own "household", etc.

and yet, it would seem that Stephen of Garland and the other "traditionalists"
(as i see them) enjoyed his favor right up until things really "came to a
head" in 1127(?).

the only explanation i could think of for these apparent contradictions was to
see how weak the monarch actually was (which was certainly the case in regards
to his general position in the rest of the royal domain, at the time), and how
much the very survival of the dynasty depended upon his being able to play an
endlessly elaborate game of shifting positions and alliances, at once
appeasing and then playing one faction off against another, dispensing royal
"power" (in its various forms) with great care and adroit shrewness.

i am reminded of Suger's account of Louis VI's deathbed(?) admonition to his
son regarding the castrum of Montlhery : "This one cost me dearly, son, don't
let it out of your hands [or words to that effect]."

i would suppose that there were many such father-to-son moments, as young
Louis learned his trade.

>As regards A's first stay in Paris, the sources reflect a
very pluralistic teaching scene in Paris....Teaching was NOT necessarily
combined with a canonry...

yes. 

>During A's second stay in Paris (~1135-1138), the situation was quite
different: The schools of the city and the cloister were under episcopal
surveillance and reformed, as well as the schools at St Victor. 

yes, that was my "intuitive" understanding, as well.

>...So in about 1150, "free" teaching in Paris was at an end.

yes, things were really beginning to "settle down" from the rough-and-ready,
ad hoc situation earlier in the century.

i'll have a few more comments on Werner's interesting posts to the original
string there.

best to all from here,

christopher

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