medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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Received: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:48:13 AM EDT
From: The Medieval Review <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: TMR 10.06.30 Colker, Constitutiones quae vocantur Ordinis
Praemonstratensis (Venarde)
Colker, Marvin L., ed. <i>Constitutiones quae vocantur Ordinis
Praemonstratensis</i>. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medieualis 216.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. Pp. lxiv, 183. ISBN: 9782503051611.
Reviewed by Bruce L. Venarde
University of Pittsburgh
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It must have happened all the time. In the standard prayer cycle of medieval
monks, nuns, and canons, one service, called Vigils or Matins, took place in
the middle of the night. What if, during the wee hours in a dim church,
somebody dozes off? The text reviewed here, written for the use of a
community of canons following the Rule of St. Augustine, gives a detailed
answer to the question. The one
who notices the trouble picks up a lamp and passes it in front of the sleeping
brother's face: three times with the light showing and three times with it
covered. If that doesn't work, the lantern is to be set on a lectern in front
of the sleeper's face. All this is to be done in complete silence--that is,
the liturgy is interrupted. Once the
lantern-bearer has returned to his place, someone next to the sleeper wakes
him, softly, so the rest are not disturbed. Upon awaking, the canon at once
genuflects <i>pro culpa indebite dormitionis</i>. He then picks up the
lantern and silently goes around the choir to make sure everyone else is
awake. If not, he repeats the process, which continues until nobody else is
found asleep.
These instructions come at the end of the first chapter of the text
entitled "Constitutions of the Premonstratensian Order," concerning
the service it calls Matins. Like the awakening instructions above,
this chapter, and indeed the entire document, is a mélange of
liturgical and organizational or disciplinary prescriptions, neither
an <i>ordo</i> nor a customary but both, sometimes in the same
sentence. There are many such texts, dating back to the ninth
century. The Rule of St. Augustine used by many medieval canons is
only about 2,200 words long, a sixth of the size of the Rule of St.
Benedict, which is brief enough. Since the ninth century, these were
the two Rules most widely followed in the Christian West, and glosses
on them began to appear in the Carolingian era. These were useful
because, as the <i>Constitutiones</i> notes, there are many matters
only touched on or omitted altogether in the Rule of St. Augustine
(106). Benedictine monks thought the same of their Rule. Dozens of
glosses on these two rules have been edited in the last half-century:
there are fourteen volumes of a series called <i>Corpus consuetudinum
monasticarum</i>. Scholars like Susan Boynton in her study of Farfa--
to name just one outstanding recent study--have used them to great
effect to illuminate the nature of medieval religious life and
thought.[1] Previously unknown, however, is the text Marvin L. Colker
discovered in a manuscript auctioned by Sotheby's in 1994, now Dublin
Trinity College Library MS 10810. It constitutes the final forty-
seven folios of a 155-folio codex in a highly legible hand (two pages
are nicely duplicated between pp. viii and ix) Colker dates to about
1200.
The edition is splendid, which is no surprise for a volume in this
series, but there are several reasons why it must have been a labor of
love to create it. First, the manuscript provides, in effect, two
texts: an original by a scribe Colker calls A and then a series of
"frequent and sometimes extensive alterations" (x) that both adds and
deletes material (B). Colker reproduces A as the main text and then
notes changes by the B hand at the bottom of each page. The text is a
challenge, too: there are eighty-seven chapters in a table of
headings, but ninety divisions in the text, most of which are only
numbered, that often incorrectly or even bizarrely, as when XXXI is
followed by XXVIIII and then XXXV. Colker has chosen to divide the
text into 591 numbered sections, which helps the reader but does not
explain a chapter (XLIII in the edition, XLV in the manuscript) that
first prohibits anyone from hogging the good pieces of meat on days it
is served and then, with only an <i>item</i> for transition, proceeds
to prescribe the deportment for a brother receiving judgment or
punishment in chapter and further punishment for ignoring the
instruction (94-95). Such peculiarities reflect the nature of the
document itself, the very loose organization of which makes it almost
certain to have been created in stages. Activities and behavior in
chapter, for example, were discussed almost 30 folios earlier than
chapter XLIII/XLV. More than once, the text notes that something has
been left incomplete and needs more discussion, or that it is time to
return to a subject, or that a subject will be covered further on.
The effect is a kind of mental whiplash. The level of detail is
positively Leviticus-like in some of the directions concerning
liturgy: it takes ten printed pages--about eight percent of the entire
text--to lay out instructions for Mass on major feasts. The
instructions for how boys are to be supervised and organized at every
moment, distributed throughout the text, are nearly as detailed and
exacting. They leave no doubt, if there is still any, that medieval
people recognized childhood as a distinct stage of life--and perhaps
not just childhood. Concerning youths who are leaving the boys'
school, at age 14 or so, the text notes that it is fitting that they
be carefully restrained since "this age is quite ready and prone to
[perhaps sexual] frivolity" (<i>quia hec etas promtior et pronior est
ad lasciuiendum</i>[124]).
Then there is the language, of which the preceding quotation gives
some idea. Sometimes this is merely a matter of non-classical
orthography, e.g. <i>dicad</i> and <i>accipiad</i> for <i>dicat</i>
and <i>accipiat</i>, or <i>heremitte</i>. <i>He</i> for <i>hae</i> is
a bit unnerving, especially when it comes in the middle of a sentence.
There are unusual contractions, so to speak, like <i>siquis</i> and
<i>annon</i>. The manuscript features hyperurbanisms like
<i>?cclesia</i>, which Colker transcribes as <i>aecclesia </i>; he
draws the line at <i>h??</i>, correcting it to <i>hae</i>. Many words
are spelled inconsistently, e.g. <i>octavus/octabus</i> and
<i>sollemniter/sollenniter</i>. Word order is sometimes odd, as
concerning a brother doing penance: <i>Nemo ei nisi unus tantum cui
iniunctum fuerit loquatur</i> (26). Or perhaps that is pseudo-
Ciceronian balance; this is after all a text that can get the supine
right (as in <i>Tum dormitum eant</i> [130]).
Faced with these various challenges, Colker triumphs. If there is a
manifest misspelling of a Latin word, I didn't find it. There are
three levels of notes at the bottom of each page: one identifying
quotations or citations to other texts, the second noting oddities,
mistakes, or omissions in the A hand, and the third transcribing the
alterations of the B revision. The notes also refer to standard
handbooks of liturgical prayers, usually identified in the text only
by their first few words. There are indices of scriptural citations,
of other authors and works, of liturgical prayers, and of proper
names. Certain editorial matters are a matter of taste: I would have
punctuated to reduce the number of sentence fragments (although there
is no way to eliminate them) and capitalized <i>sancta trinitate</i>.
Although Colker notes the close relationship of the discussion of the
cellarer (118) to that in chapter 31 of the Rule of St. Benedict,
there is no similar reference on the previous page, which is made up
almost entirely of close paraphrases from chapters 2 and 3 of
Benedict's Rule. The delightfully worded prohibition on canons'
acting <i>ponpatice aut inhoneste vel incomposite</i> (108) is a
quotation from the late Carolingian revisions to Chrodegang of Metz.
These are tiny omissions in a painstakingly accurate, erudite, useful,
and useable edition.
There remain some real mysteries about this text, now the only
surviving witness of a document of which there was apparently once
another copy in Spain that was destroyed in 1936-1939 (xviii-xi). The
first hint is that Colker has titled his book an edition of "so-
called" Premonstratensian Constitutions. While introducing St.
Norbert of Xanten and the beginnings of his order of Prémontré, whose
canons pledged themselves to the Rule of St. Augustine 1121, the
editor asks: is the work's title accurate? Colker dates the text to
Southern France in the twelfth century, implying without ever quite
stating that before 1150 is likelier than after. This is partly on
linguistic grounds, including Latin versions of vernacular French
words and some of the orthographic eccentricities noted above.
Further, the text does not mention any popular northern French saints;
finally, its indiscriminate mingling of liturgical with disciplinary
and organizational concerns suggests composition well before 1200.
After many pages of careful analysis of the language and contents of
the <i>Constitutiones</i>, with comparisons to other early
Premonstratensian materials, Colker concludes that this text, which
assumes a large, affluent, and highly articulated community and
furthermore fails to mention such features as nuns' roles and annual
chapters, which Premonstratensians began as early as 1128, is very
unlikely to be an early Premonstratensian production. Fifteen pages
is a lot for an entirely negative conclusion, especially when it is
followed by another seven to demonstrate that the
<i>Constitutiones</i> was not intended for the Order of Saint-Ruf,
either. There is significant compensation for the teasing in
excellent bibliography through 2005 on Norbert, the
Premonstratensians, and Saint-Ruf. In the end, the editor declares
that "The identity of the particular congregation to which the
<i>Constitutiones</i> was directed is unknown" (xlv), but that it does
appear to be intended for the use of multiple houses, an order of
Augustinian canons (liv). He furthermore notes that the manuscript
with its A and B texts is "a religious code in a state of revision"
(liv), although he does not specify what general direction(s) those
revisions indicate.
One of the oddities of the A text is that the word "abbot" appears
nowhere in it. Instead, it has an archbishop officiating at numerous
ceremonies. The B text eliminates all but one instance of
"archbishop" (which Colker suspects is an oversight) and usually
replaces it with "abbot." The substitutions are listed on pp. xi-xii.
If this is an early Premonstratensian text, the medieval equivalent of
a find-and-replace command would appear to be in perfect harmony with
the contention of Bernard Ardura (quoted on p. xxiv) that for a few
years after he was elected archbishop of Magdeburg in 1126, Norbert
returned to Prémontré as its superior before the burden became too
great and another official had to be appointed. But there is no
medieval evidence for such a period of transition for Norbert and
Prémontré and Colker's multi-layered argument that this cannot be an
early Premonstratensian document is completely convincing.
My only real criticism is that a number of the findings in the
introduction are negative. I offer the following observations in the
interests of further research.[2] If the text originated in southern
France during the first half of the twelfth century, there is a good
candidate for an archbishop with strong connections to houses
following the Rule of St. Augustine and a possible place of origin.
The archdiocese of Bordeaux was a center of Augustinian canons in the
early twelfth century. In about 1110, an already established
community at St-Emilion was reformed at the behest of Archbishop
Arnaud-Geraud and thereafter followed the Rule of St. Augustine; the
house of St-Vincent de Bourg followed the same rule from about 1124.
Into this ecclesiastical province came Geoffrey of Louroux (or Lauroux
or Loriol), who is probably the same person as Geoffrey Babion,
director of the cathedral school in Angers in the 1110s. Geoffrey of
Louroux was a hermit and then leader of three communities that
followed the Rule of St. Augustine, including Fontaine-le-Comte, about
five miles southwest of Poitiers. It was founded by Duke William X of
Aquitaine sometime between his accession in 1127 and the election of
Geoffrey as archbishop of Bordeaux in 1136.
Geoffrey may be best remembered as the man who married Eleanor of
Aquitaine, daughter of William X, and King Louis VII of France, in
1137. However, he was an energetic and accomplished archbishop
outside the glamorous spheres of legendary aristocrats. He was an
important writer of sermons, dozens of which survive, and the member
of a circle of ecclesiastical figures that included Bernard of
Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, and Suger. It is far likelier
Geoffrey would have been able to keep close relations with a house of
canons in his archdiocese than that Norbert could regularly travel the
400 miles (as the crow flies) from Magdeburg to Prémontré. The
chronology works for the A and B recensions of the
<i>Constitutiones</i>, with a first version from ca. 1150 envisioning
the frequent presence of an archbishop and a revision after his death,
perhaps by 1170 or so, as Colker suggests (xxv). As Colker points
out, the house for which the <i>Constitutiones</i> was designed was
unlikely to be recently founded. But what about the monasteries of
canons in Bordeaux founded or reformed in the second, third, and
fourth decades of the twelfth century, many in connection with
Geoffrey of Louroux?
Fontaine-le-Comte appears to be the likeliest of those at which the
<i>Constitutiones</i> might have originated. It was founded with the
patronage of no less than the duke of Aquitaine. After Geoffrey of
Louroux, its second leader was his archiepiscopal vicar, Prior
Johannes. The first person called abbot, Ademarus, appears in a
document of 1148. By 1150 or so, perhaps already in existence for two
decades, it was a well-endowed house--it had certainly weathered
challenges to control of its properties by neighboring monasteries,
the ancient abbey of St-Cyprien in Poitiers and the newer Cistercian
community of Bonnevaux. This could have been the populous,
organizationally complex community the <i>Constitutiones</i> reflects.
And in terms of provenance, the manuscript now in Dublin came from the
same library, "probably from Poitou," as another manuscript in an
adjacent lot of the Sotheby's auction that contained a Poitevan
Benedictine gospel lectionary of the early thirteenth century (vii,
note 5).
I see no obstacles to identifying the archbishop of the
<i>Constitutiones</i> as Geoffrey de Louroux, even if direct evidence
is so far lacking. To designate Fontaine-le-Comte as the point of the
text's origin is trickier. The most important problem is that the
<i>Constitutiones</i> assumes an urban setting, especially in its
discussion of Palm Sunday processions specifying that boys should be
atop the city gate singing <i>Gloria laus</i> as the canons go back in
(74). The possibility of washing the feet of 120 <i>pauperes</i> on
Maundy Thursday (76) would seem to demand a population more dense than
that of twelfth-century Fontaine-le-Comte. However, the <i>Vita
Norberti</i> notes that when Norbert departed Prémontré for Magdeburg,
he provided for 120 paupers in a locale more isolated than Fontaine-
le-Comte. Perhaps in both cases <i>pauperes</i> are not the destitute
but simply those who are not, in the language of the day,
<i>potentes</i>. Still, Fontaine-le-Comte is 130 miles from Bordeaux,
not as far as Magdeburg to Prémontré but a long way to go on a regular
basis.
Although a ten-mile round trip to Poitiers is not an easy walk, it
would have been possible for the canons of Fontaine-le-Comte to make
one such procession annually (which, admittedly, does not solve the
problem of the canons <i>entering</i> the city and having the gates
close behind them). At one point the <i>Constitutiones</i> refers to
the environs of the monastery as a <i>villa</i>, a much better
description of twelfth-century Fontaine-le-Comte than the urban milieu
suggested elsewhere. Another consideration: Geoffrey had hostile
relations with the canons of his cathedral and withdrew from Bordeaux
for several years until returning in 1145. Perhaps he was a resident
archbishop in a house of Augustinian canons for a time? That, too,
could explain the origin of the <i>Constitutiones</i> toward the end
of the first half of the twelfth century and its subsequent revision.
Was this both a practical and a visionary text, inspired by the
presence of a learned, energetic, and seemingly charismatic
archbishop, that set out detailed rules for daily life in an abbey
that envisioned itself the motherhouse of a federation of canons
following the Rule of St. Augustine? Documentary, linguistic, and
architectural/archeological evidence could be brought to bear.
In any case, Colker is quite right that the <i>Constitutiones</i>
offers a "vivid picture of life in an institution of canons" (liv),
its practices, and its values, from the elaborate and emotional
ceremonies for a dying brother to where the community's lost-and-found
should be (on a stone in the chapter room). And this meticulous book
is only one of the achievements of a remarkably productive retirement!
________
Notes:
1. Susan Boynton, <i>Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History
at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125</i>. Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 2006.
2. My remarks are based on the following: J. Brutails, "Geoffroi de
Loroux, archevêque de Bordeaux de 1136 à 1158 et ses constructions,"
<i>Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des chartes</i> 83 (1922), 54-64; J.
Gardelles, "L'église haute de Saint-Emilion et les abbayes
augustiniennes d'Aquitaine aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles," <i>Annales du
Midi</i> 70 (1958), 391-401; Bernard Guillemain, <i>Le diocèse de
Bordeaux</i> (Histoire des diocèses de France, 2), Paris, 1974, 40-49;
G. Pon, "Fontaine-le-Comte (Notre-Dame)" in <i>Dictionnaire d'histoire
et de géographie ecclésiastiques</i> 17: 841-844; and M. Redet,
"Notice historique sur l'abbaye de Fontaine-le-Comte, près Poitiers,"
<i>Memoires de la Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest</i> 3 (1837),
226-261.
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