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Good men gone bad? Resistance to monastic reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries
Author(s) -
Borg Magnus
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/emed.12482
Subject(s) - eleventh , argumentation theory , context (archaeology) , meaning (existential) , order (exchange) , reading (process) , poetry , resistance (ecology) , history , literature , classics , philosophy , political science , law , art , epistemology , archaeology , ecology , physics , finance , biology , acoustics , economics
Conservative opponents of monastic reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries have traditionally been portrayed as principally reluctant to change and unwilling to abandon privileges and preferential treatment. This article performs a close, comparative reading of the poem Carmen ad Rotbertum regem by Adalbero of Laon (c.950 – 1031) and the monastic chronicle Casus Sancti Galli by Ekkehard IV (c.980 – 1057), in order to identify the authors’ attitudes to reform and reformists, and the sources for their counter‐reform argumentation. It argues that the studied texts mediate reasoned, grounded standpoints, based on a thorough knowledge of monastic regulations and their importance to Christian ethics, and on the placing of society into an all‐encompassing philosophical‐religious context. Particular attention is given to the multiple layers of meaning characteristic of medieval writing .