medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 11:59 am, Brenda Cook wrote (quoting Henk 't Jong):
> > Were monks allowed to ride horses?
>
> Well, Chaucer's Monk certainly did (and he is described as a hunting
> enthusiast) , and so did his Prioress (who may well have been
> side-saddle)
> and her Three Priests and so presumably did the Poor Parson and his
> Ploughman Brother.
>
> I know higher clerics weren't supposed to
> > and therefore often rode mules.
>
> I though going on foot (but with the Abbot only permitted a mule) was
> one of
> St Bernard's reforms of the Cistercians. Peter Abelard certainly rode
> a
> horse as abbot. He recounts falling off the horse and "breaking a bone
> in
> his neck" in the Historia Calamitatum.
Contemporary differences of opinion (or perhaps a change in standards over the course of time) concerning an appropriate mount for an abbot or other head of a monastic house (in this case, a prior of canons regular) _might_ underly a passage in the late twelfth-century Vita (BHL 3272) of Gaucher of Aureil (d. 1140). According to this text by a canon of G.'s priory, the elderly G. was returning mounted from Limoges when he fell asleep while riding, slipped off his mount, and fatally struck his head on a rock. Not only are we not told what sort of animal G. was riding, it seems that G.'s hagiographer has gone out of his way to avoid specificity on this point. Here's the Latin (AA.SS., Apr. tom. I; 9. April, Gaucherius, Prior Canonicorum Regularium Aurelii, in agro Lemovicensi):
"Cum autem placuit summo provisori Deo, ad cælestes nuptias suum vocare Sanctum contigit illum ire apud Lemovicas propter quoddam negotium ecclesiæ suæ; indeque revertens cum esset octoginta annorum ætatis, post susceptam vero in Aurelia silva curam pastoralem annorum ferme sexaginta, nocturnis vigiliis fessus, [delapsus ex equo,] dormitando equitans & fatigatus senio; cum (ut credimus) vellet eum Deus vitam finire per martyrii triumphum, ut duplici corona, Confessoris videlicet & Martyris eum remuneraret; ante pedes animalis, cui insidebat, cecidit; lapidi, in loco ubi hoc contigit usque hodie ostenso, capite colliso: quo in loco, per intercessionem ejus, innumerabilia præstantur febricitantibus beneficia sanitatum."
That _delapsus ex equo_ in square brackets is Henschenius' gloss. The text itself nowhere says that G. was riding a horse. It merely calls G.'s mount an _animal_ and uses a horse-related word only in the participle _equitans_, a form of a verb that though derived from a word for 'horse' can be used of riding on any beast.
Best,
John Dillon
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