medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Brenda, Marjorie, Christopher, and all who enjoy this discussion,
thanks for your ideas and comments to Abelard and esp. thanks to
Christopher, for his lovely and imaginative pictures of Chartres. I confess
that I wished A. would have lived there... (perhaps he did?)
> [Christopher] There was never a real "reform " of the *chapter* of ND in
the 11century... sic : 12th century ? the heavy opposition of the chapter
and the king (Louis VII.)... sic : VI ?
Surely *12th* c. and *Louis the Fat.* This is late night negligence. I'm
sorry.
> [Christopher] i should say that my own interest in Abelard is really quite
tangential...
What a pity. He is an inspiring entry point in medieval history, and in the
meantime, my personal research on A. reaches from 5th to 21th century and
from Danmark to Sicilia (and last week, to Austria) Perhaps, one day, the
track leads to Chartres, too... At least, I believe, Heloise's mother is
mentioned in some obituaries there...
>[Christopher] I 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.
Ignorance??? Quite honorable modesty. As regards Bautier's article from
1979: this is very informative *classical* work, but very dangerous. Several
landmines there. e.g. the sentence that Stephan of Garlande entered
Saint-Victor and died in 1140.
>[Christopher] btw, i'm too lazy to look, but is there an obituary entry for
A. in the necrology of the cathedral?
No. We find A. in the necrologies of Saint-Victor (rather curious) and
Saint-Denis, as "mon. B.D."
> [Christopher] 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.
Another argument against A's status as "Domherr".
>[Christopher] the chapter represented, by its membership (as i see it), the
interests of a great many/most of the "aristocratic" families --and extended
families/kin groupings/"feudal" alliances-- of the diocese.
I have no sufficient overview in Paris, in a statistical sense, but by cross
reading in ND cartulary and obituary, I missed some very important families
in the charters (e. g. the Montmorencies for several decades). So I don't
know if the chapter was really representative for the whole diocese. Over
and above there were some foreigners coming from other parts of Gallia! I
think, sometimes personal relationship could be more important than feudal
claims. In the last instance, the bishop was the only responsible for
installing a new canon...
>[Christopher] The diocese of Paris was, of course, quite small, in
relationship to that of Chartres, which was one of the largest in France (if
not *the* largest)...
What's about Bourges or Bordeaux???
> [Christopher] http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/maps/1697map.html
Thanks for this wonderful map.
>[Christopher] 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...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.
Indeed. This might be misunderstood as political inconsistency, but at last,
this method was quite successful in guaranteeing some stability and
economical boom in the royal domain.
> [Brenda] The only comment I would add is that I never thought Peter
Abelard was EVER a proper (= prebendial) canon of Paris because if he had
been surely he would have had a house with servants and emoluments as his
prebend. In that case he would not have been living in lodgings and would
not have wangled an invitation from Canon Fulbert to live with him to save
them both money and to pay for his accommodation by tutoring Heloise in his
spare time...
This is a very important argument against A's membership in the chapter...
>[Christopher] of course (if my experience with the Chartres charters is in
any way typical), only a small fraction of the canons of a cathedral will
appear by name in the (surviving) charters...
In Paris, commonly three of them appear in the charters: 3 subdeacons, 3
acolytes etc. Was ther a "signers' rule" in Chartres?
> [Brenda] money troubles were one of the things that caused friction at St
Gildas...
Why that? A. said that he "earned good money" at Saint-Gildas:...Quod nunc
quoque ipse de paupere monacho in abbatem promotus incessanter experior,
tanto scilicet miserior quanto ditior effectus. (HC)
> [Brenda] Would I be right in thinking in terms of a three-storey house
with garden, "the usual offices" and possibly even a washing place and
landing stage backing onto the Seine? [Christopher] i suspect that not much
in the *contemporary* documents will enlighten us on these questions....
At least, we find in the Parisian charters (Lasteyrie) some hints that many
canon houses had towers, courtyards, kitchen gardens and wine cellars
(turres, plateae, viridaria, cellaria). At first sight, the houses of
archdeacon Stephen of Garlande might have been real *palaces*: Hildebert of
Lavardin wrote to him: "turres excelsa et pulchra palatia exstruxisti..."
But this must have been a little bit panegyric: When Stephan created two
half-prebends in ND for the priests of Saint-Aignan, he described his two
houses: The smaller contained the wine cellar and was connected with the
viridarium, that's all. (BTW: 'hortus' was unknown. Sometimes, one can find
jardinium = orchand?). The greater house was enlarged by a tower (turris). A
scenery like San Gimigniano in Paris? I don't believe it. The furniture of
this *major house* or *palace* was rather unspectacular: domus cum duobus
tonnis (2 tuns of wine) et duobus scannis (2 benches or seats) et duobus
lectis (2 beds), culcitram (1 mattress) et capicerium (means capisterium=bed
curtain?) Quite modest, isn't it? Not enough for a multi-storey house.
>[Christopher] about the oldest house surviving in the Chartres cloister is
this one... these windows (and, presumably, the upper parts of the house
itself) can be reasonably dated to the second quarter of the 13th century.
This house is very pretty, but it doesn't reflect the situation in early
11th century: Until 1105 the "episcopal palace" in Chartres was wooden. Ivo
built a "domus... ex ligneam lapideam" then. (Christopher can surely say
more about it!). Until 1111 the two bridges of Paris were wooden. So we may
assume that many chapter houses of Paris or Chartres were wooden, too. On a
single day in 1115 king Louis let his *famuli* "throw down" an illegal
chapter house "extra muros" (...praecipitarent). I think: If it was so easy
to destroy it, it must have been a rather poor wooden barrack. Probably, the
"turres" were the only real stone buildings then. But: the situation changed
radically in the second half of 12th c., when Maurice de Sully constructed
the gothic cathedral, Rue Neuve, many houses and proper pavements around
ND...
>[Christopher] once upon a time i came across a rather nice article (in the
Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes???) on house prices in Paris in the 13th
century. quite a few transactions survive -- the most expensive house was on
one of the bridges (expensive commercial property, apparently) and went for
400 livres or so.
The so-called "fenestrae" = kiosks in the bridges guaranteed a pretty
lucrative income then... And the "Nouveau Grand Pont" near the royal palace:
early stock exchange...
>[Christopher] As i recall, there is a 13th c.(?) document which speaks of
such [garden] behind a house in the cloister -- and also of some kind of
"bridge" over a street --but my memory fails, at this point.
I would be interested in this source. Can you give me the reference?
> [Christopher] Until 1097, Saint-Christophe, as church of the "hospitale
pauperum", did this later develop into the "hotel dieu" ?
Yes, but the term Hôtel-Dieu first appeared as Domus Dei in about 1220, I
believe.
> [Christopher] and, therefore, Fulbert would have been firmly in the camp
of those opposed to the (somewhat later) "reform" movement...
Fulbert seems to have been an ecclesiastic chameleon. Probably he wasn't a
priest. Soon after 1102, he succeeded in changing his mind, and presumably,
he got an accredited member of the reform party under Galon without any
*documented* problem.
> [Christopher] anniversary gift (statio quatuor ferculorum) i don't know
this term. "the quarterly food allotment given to a canon," or something
like that ?
Not exactly. "quatuor fercula" = four biers (correct English?). It seems to
have been a quite common unit of measurement for providing a certain
quantity of food (meat, vegetable, eggs, bread, wine, cakes etc.) to the
canons and staff, on the occasion of an anniversary day of a dead
prebendary. Seldomly, a high member of the chapter gave five "fercula" for
his "statio". There were 19 "stationes" at the chapter of ND. Anything
equivalent in Chartres???
> [Christopher] a gift to the "hospitale pauperum" vis-à-vis Notre-Dame,
which was linked with Saint-Christophe. The "statio quatuor ferculorum" was
usually placed in front of the house of a dead canon.... ? now i'm
confused.
Why that? The statio was *placed* at the entrance of Fulbert's former house
(it was one of the eight stationes outside the cloister, given on 24 july),
on order to commemorate the dead Fulbert. In this case, the food wasn't
granted for the inhabitants of the cloister (canons and staff), but for the
people of the "hospitale Pauperum" (nice social standard: in the hospital
were some fratres and sick and *poor* people together). Fulbert was a
businessman, even as a dead: he gave inferior food, substandard meat
(=sagimen cum visceribus, quite different from ham and eggs). BTW: Stephan
of Garland organized his "statio" for both people - canons and inhabitants
of the city: "qua statione tam canonici quam vicarii reficerentur". This is
quite extraordinary and supports the fact that there was a public entrance
at his house or his chapel, built in the wall of the cloister, where the
statio was located. such a public entrance at Saint-Aignan can be seen on
several medieval maps, next to the cloisters door!!!)
>[Christopher] I was not able to check all the references about
Saint-Aignan. The date of foundation is uncertain....early on, there is just
that single mention in the cathedral cartulary, isn't there ?
In the charters, Saint-Aignan is first mentioned shortly before 1124, but
Stephen's "saepe pulsando" in the General chapter of ND supports the
hypothesis that it was founded some years before. According to his own
words, Stephan probably built this chapel as burial or memorial place for
his parents (Gilbert I of Garlande, who died in 1101, I believe). So I think
that Saint-Aignan was founded in about 1105 or 1110.
> [Christopher] so it [Saint-Aignan] *may* have been the wedding chapel of A
and H. ????
A little bit difficult for understanding. The doors of the cloister were
locked at night and guarded during daytime (charter evidence). According to
the canonical law, a wedding must have taken place in the public and in
daylight. Secret or nightly weddings were forbidden (Ivo, Panormia) HC says
that H. and A. entered their wedding chapel in the dark and they stayed
there for prayers at night, in order to keep their secret. The wedding
ceremony itself took place in the dawn. Only some friends were there. So H.
and A. tried to fulfill the canonical law in this point, and one may assume
that they did the same with regard to the public access. So the church must
also have had an unlocked public entrance, but at the same time, it must
have been quite unlikely that any harasser or spy came in. Over and above
the priest must have been a silent and reliable man. Stephan of Garlande was
a supporter of A.; he could cause his house priest to keep silence. So
Saint-Aignan seems to be the only wedding place for A. and H. in Paris,
where all the necessary conditions or restrictions were given.
>[Christopher] well, it just so happens i have a copy of this rather scarce
work: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=106516914
Nice exemplar, but surely hard to sell it, as there is an online exemplar in
BNF Paris (gallica), which is *absolutely free.*
>But it was Saint-Victor, which collected most of the Parisian prebends or
canonries, e. g. from ND itself, from Sainte-Geneviève or Saint-Marcel...
and, at least, the annates of the "royal monasteries."
Just the same like patent for Aspirine nowadays...
Forgive the modest English and the many faults. I was never able to stay in
the US or un UK for a longer time.
Kind regards
Werner
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