Jim Bugslag wrote:
> The real problem is that many people use these terms without any real
understanding of their distinctions, and so one must decide in each case what
meaning is being attached to them.
Similar thought to that which Paul Chandler had implied earlier:
>...this is all very complicated and, I think, not always entirely logical,
and varies from time to time, place to place, and language to
language.
Seconded (or: Thirded).
It seems like questions frequently come up on this list (and others)
which really require quite temporally and topographically specific answers.
I know this because I am severely challenged in both areas.
Without for a moment questioning the other contributions made by the learned
members of this list, let me just say: here's how things looked
in the region around Chartres in the late 11th through 12th centuries, from my
worm's-eye view of the (mostly cartulary) documents (which, alas, I do not
have in front of me, so nothing here should be taken as more
than a memory's worth).
I look forward to any gentle corrections to my throughly _ad hoc_ understand
of these matters.
As Jim notes, "monastery" (or, rather, its Latin root) seems to have been used
to denote an institution whose members lived under a _regula_, whether
Benedictine or "Augustinian" (no friars, much less friaries, this early).
Thus in documents from both the ancient benedictine house of St. Peter's
("Saint-Père") and the newly-reformed (by St. Ivo) house of
canons-regular of St. John ("St-Jean-en-Vallée") of Chartres, both are styled
"monastery", and, indeed, members of both houses call themselves "monachi".
Ditto the monks of Marmoutier (which had a number of "priories", great
and small, in the diocese), who typically began their charters with a
beautiful phrase which I'm loath to desecrate with a faulty memory, but, in
the over-riding interests pedagogy, will nonetheless reconstruct as something
like: "X gives to St. Martin and we, the monks who serve him in the _Majori
Monasterii_ of Tours…").
Re these latter "priories" of MM, I take Dom Anselm's point that these
>dependent houses, [were] often quite small, ….little more than outlying bases
for farm-carts (granges)…
There is an interesting article from the '50's or early '60's in, I believe
the _Revue Benedictine_ regarding the "priories" of MM and when the term first
occurs in the documents (rather later in the 12th c., if I recall rightly,
though there were "priors" well before).
Surely most of these little outposts were in the charge of two or three (seems
like that number comes up frequently) monks from the mother house, and, I
*believe* none of them is designated "prior" in the 11th c.
At some of them there does seem to have been a single monk who, if not
"in charge", was *very* active in hustling gifts of property from the local
lay "nobles" and seeing to it that the rights of St. Martin were
not abused by suchlike ilk.
I've found that a few of these "active" monks were "knights" (_milites_)
before leaving ("retiring" from) the world and entering MM.
But, as Paul Chandler also suggested, priories could be quite large,
substantial and influential institutions on their own:
First to come to mind are St-Martin-des-Champes (outside of Paris, but with
considerable property in the diocese) and St. Martin-au-Val outside Chartres
(originally perhaps the oldest parish church in the area; later
a "collegial" [or "collegate"] "monastery"; then (from the 1120's, I think) a
priory of MM.
St. M. of Chartres--today "St.-Brice"--sports a *massive* 11th century church;
St. M-des-Champs a large and important "early gothic" one. The documents allow
for the reconstruction of at least the list of most of
the priors of these houses from the 12th c.
One prior at Chartres--a cadet from one of the more important local families
(LePuiset)-- went on to become Abbot of MM later in the century.
Luckily for this patient list, I know nothing about the terminology used in
documents from the "convents" of "nuns" from the diocese, though I
seem to be in the process of learning:
http://homepages.infoseek.com/~centrechartraine/convents.html
Best to all from here,
Christopher
Christopher Crockett
Would-be future curator of the
Centre des Etudes Chartraines
a home on the Web for Chartres-
related scholarship from all disciplines,
comming sometime in the next millenium
to a web site near you.
And Pres. & CEO of
Christopher's Book Room
P.O. Box 1061
Bloomington, IN 47402
(Corporate motto: "Will sell Books for Food")
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