medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Christopher Crockett wrote:
> From: John Briggs [log in to unmask]
>> Christopher Crockett wrote:
>
>>> i'll take a close look at the (pitifully few) charters which survive
>>> from Etampes (the particular collegial abbey i'm interested in) and see
>>> how the institution is styled in those.
>
>> There wasn't an abbey at Étampes
>
> well, don't tell Henry, third son of Louis VI and kid brother of
> Louis VII that.
>
> i may not have mentioned this before but, in 1145, in a charter for
> the royal collegial abbey of Corbeil, he styled himself
>
> Henricus frater illustris Ludovici, Dei gratia Francorum regis et
> ducis Aquitanorum, et Dei permissione abbas regalium abbatiarum...
>
> not only that (i now see) but Louis VII also styles him "abbas
> regaliam abbatiarum"
>
> http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/cartulaires/sspire/page40/ -
> http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/cartulaires/sspire/page41/
>
> [and, get This, John, in the same charter he refers to St. Victor's as
> "ecclesiam Beati Victoris regularium canonicorum abbatiam fecit (by
> Louis VI)..."]
I don't see the problem there - St Victor *was* an Abbey. [The Victorine
order had abbeys, the Augustinians had priories.]
> in any event, St. Mary of Etampes was one of those royal abbeys Henry
> was abbot of, in addition to St. Spire of Corbeil, St. Mary of
> Poissy, St. Mary of Mantes, St. Denis-la-Châtre (near Paris), St.
> Melon of Pontoise, St. Martin of Champeaux, etc. (the guy was,
> clearly, On a Roll.)
Those all seem to have been collegiate churches - with the possible
exception of Saint-Spire at Corbeil.
> again:
>
> i fail to see how we can't get around calling them "abbeys," since
> both he and Louis VII did.
>
> how would *you* [or anyone else, *please*] translate "abbatiarum" in
> these texts??
>
>
> unless i hear from someone with a reasonable alternative, i'll assume
> that "abbeys" is the correct translation, no matter how inconvenient
> that word might be when applied to what are usually called
> "collegial/collegiate churches."
The problem is not that they are usually called collegiate churches - it is
that they were.
> i note that Du Cange's first definition of ABBATIA is "Monasterium
> cui praeest Abbas vel Abbatissa."
>
> so it seems to me that the *real* question is not whether Henry (and
> Louis) just got "confused" about what, in a formal charter, to call
> the institutions he was Abbot of, but rather to accept their
> nomenclature as it stands and try and figure out what the hell reason
> they might have had for using it.
>
> (presumably Louis' text is a composition of the recipient, Abbot
> Henry of Corbeil.)
>
> my 3 o'clock in the morning thought is that Henry *may* have been
> trying to Upgrade his Act a bit, writing in 1145, the year before he
> entered Clairvaux.
>
> nothing really is known about his "conversion" to a regular monastic
> life by St. Bernie, but he appears to have entered Clairvaux in 1146
> --and there is every reason to believe that his motives were entirely
> sincere, and no reason whatever to believe the contrary.
>
> he gave up *every*thing he had (which was a *lot*) --an eyewitness
> account of his entry into the abbey by Nicholas of
> Clairvaux/Montieramey (Bernie's secretary) has him riding up to the
> abbey accompanied by a splendid retinue, men and horses alike
> bedecked out in silks, scarlets and jewels, dismounting, sheding his
> clothes, donning the habit and walking through the gate so attired.
> (well, i've sexed that description up a bit, for the Silver Screen,
> but that's certainly the gist of it --Latin text and citation
> available on request.)
>
>
> So, Questio:
>
> is it *possible* that his use of _abbatiarum_ to refer to the
> institutions he headed was some kind of attempt to "regularize" them
> in his own mind, to think of them as less "secular" than they
> actually were, to legitimize his career in his own mind?
>
> any opinings on that issue welcome.
>
>> - do you mean Morigny?
>
> no.
>
> i mean the Royal Abbey that Henry was Abbot of in Etampes, viz., St.
> Mary of Etampes, founded by King Robert I in (if i remember rightly)
> the 1020s.
If you mean Notre-Dame, as far as I can tell, it was a Collegiate Church,
founded by Robert (II) the Pious.
> the Benedictine house of Morigny, founded by monks brought from St.
> Germer-de-Fly shortly after 1100, was a league or so outside the
> walls of the town and cannot be considered to be "in Etampes" by any
> accurate use of the English preposition "in" that i am aware of.
The preposition was "at".
John Briggs
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