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The feast of Macaire of Ghent (1012) prompts me to raise a general question
about approaches to the role of the cult of the saints, and the forms of
spirituality emanating from it, in politics. I'm working on a project that
involves looking at the activities of count Baldwin IV of Flanders in 1012-13,
and am still puzzled over just how best to treat the impact that Macaire, as
well as Richard of St. Vanne, had upon his policies in those years, which were
critical ones in terms of Flemish comital politics. I am starting to suspect
that the problem may be methodological, and involve a difficulty in
accomodating notions of sanctity with the world of realpolitik.
By way of background, Macaire was, of course, something of a cipher...a
wandering holy man from the East, supposed by some to be a bishop of Syria. He
didn't spend too long in Ghent--no more than two years--before he died in
the plague of 1012. His cult, if not also his life, was quickly caught up in
the competition between the two chief monasteries of Ghent...St. Peter's and
St. Bavo's, and the saint was in fact buried at St. Bavo. Now, to follow a
later 11th c. life, Baldwin had first met Macaire at Tournai in 1010: in the
midst of a fierce riot by the townsmen, which Baldwin and his knights were
unable to quell, this holy man walked into the streets and restored peace with
no weapons other than his pilgrim's emblems. Later, not quite six months after
the death of Macaire, Baldwin himself personally witnessed a miracle--the
healing of a blind girl--at the tomb of Macaire. This particular story is
preserved in a collection of miracles written just two years after the
fact...which seems rather prompt by the standards of the time.
Now my problem is this: while the cult of Macaire, like so many cults, is
profitably open to a skeptical approach, it would seem that Baldwin himself was
deeply moved by Macaire. I am naturally inclined to contextualize this in
terms of local and comital politics at Ghent (a tangled can of worms if ever
there was one...), just as I have tried to contextualize Baldwin's relations
with Richard of St. Vanne and the reform of St. Vaast from 1008 in the context
of comital politics in the Artois and the effort to dominate Valenciennes.
But, from late 1012, Baldwin's course turned decisively toward actively
supporting Richard and monastic reform in Flanders. Based on the story of the
healing at the tomb of Macaire, and based as well on Richard's particularly
pointed approaches to the count in 1012, I have more or less concluded that
Baldwin underwent some sort of a conversion late in that year, and certainly
prior to the reform of St. Amand in 1013. While I can isolate and identify
some of the variables driving the conversion, both spiritual (Macaire, certain
apocalyptic anxieties, Richard's suasions via the otherworld visions of a monk
of St. Vaast) and political (the affair over the election of Gerard of Cambrai
as bishop), I am at a loss as to how to treat the impact, duration and
expression of a conversion on a powerful and ambitious political figure, who in
this case continued to reign and politic--often ruthlessly--for another 24
years, even as he supported certain highly spiritualized initiatives (e.g.,
Richard's reforms, the peace movement...both of which, of course, eventually
proved to benefit the count's political position). Are there any suggestions?
Thanks (and sorry for an overly long message),
Dave Van Meter
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