MEDIAEVISTIK Internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

Herausgegeben von Peter Dinzelbacher

Band 17 · 2 0 0 4

PETER LANG Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien Schalenturm der Friedhofsmauer von Kinding

Im späten Mittelalter wurden Kirchen und Kirchhöfe in vielen Teilen Europas befestigt, bekannt sind v.a. die Wehrkirchen in Siebenbürgen, doch gibt es dieselbe Erscheinung auch z.B. in Friesland, Kärnten, Ungarn, Frankreich... Im Südwesten des Rei­ ches waren es namentlich die Türkeneinfälle, die die dörfliche Be­ völkerung zur Errichtung solcher Wehranlagen bewogen. Unter den eher seltenen Beispielen in Bayern ist Kinding nordöst­ lich von Eichstätt hervorzuheben; der gut erhaltene befestigte Gottesacker der Pfarrkirche mit doppeltem Bering und drei Tür­ men wurde 1357 geweiht. Der im Spätmittelalter auch im Burgen- und Stadtmauerbau häufig verwendete Schalenturm - hier mit Stufengiebel - hatte den Vorzug, durch die offene Innenseite mit weniger Baumaterial auszukommen und im Falle der Einnahme durch einen Feind diesem keine Verteidigungsmöglichkeit zu bieten.

(Bild und Text: Peter Dinzelbacher)

ISSN 2199-806X0934-7453 © Peter Lang GmbH Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2005 Alle Rechte Vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.

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Inhalt

Aufsätze

W. AICHINGER, Sinne und Geschlecht im Spätmittelalter. Francesc Eixime- n is______7 A. CLASSEN, Toleranz im späten 13. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Berück­ sichtigung von Jans von Wien und Ramon Llull______25 P. DINZELBACHER, Über die Seele des Bischofs Johannes Hinderbach von Trient______57 S. VANDERPUTTEN, "Literate memory" and social reassessment in a tenth- century monastic community. Contextualising Folcuin's historiography of Lobbes______65 S. VIEK, Der mittelalterliche Altar als Rechtsstätte______95 F. WEBER, Messere Gaster, premier maistre es ars du m onde______185

Rezensionen

Gesamtes Mittelalter

J. SCHMITT, O. OEXLE edd., Les tendances actuelles de l’histoire du moyen âge en France et en Allemagne (S. VANDERPUTTEN)______217 Medieval Worlds. A Sourcebook, edd. R. ANDERSON, D. BELLENGER (C. SPERBER)______221 C. BACKMAN, The Worlds of Medieval Europe (A. CLASSEN)______223 M. MITTERAUER, Warum Europa? Mittelalterliche Grundlagen eines Son- derwegs (A. CLASSEN)______226 Die Welt des Mittelalters, ed. R. BARTLETT (P. DINZELBACHER)______229 R. BALLOF (Hg.), Geschichte des Mittelalters für unsere Zeit (S. VANDER- PUTTEN) ______230 C. VILLAIN-GANDOSSI ed., L'Europe à la recherche de son identité (H. REIMANN)______233 Mensch und Natur im mittelalterlichen Europa, hg. v. K. SPINDLER (S. HARTMANN)______23 5 Medieval Germany, ed. J. JEEP (P. DINZELBACHER)______236 Studies on Medieval and Early Modem Women, ed. C. MEEK u.a. (A. CLAS- SEN) ______- 239 L. AMTOWER, D. KEHLER ed., The Single Woman in Medieval and Early Modem England (A. CLASSEN)______241 2 Mediaevistik 17 ■ 2004

Progrès, Réaction, Décadence dans l'Occident Médiévale, ed. E. BAUM­ GARTNER u.a. (A. CLASSEN)______243 D. MEIER, Bauer / Bürger / Edelmann (P. DINZELBACHER)______244 S. EPPERLEIN, Bäuerliches Leben im Mittelalter (M. ALBERT)______246 J. VAN LOON, De Ontstaansgeschiedenis van het Begrip "Stad" (J. BUR- KARDT)______248 T. BOIADJIEV, Die Nacht im Mittelalter (A. CLASSEN)______249 Fama. The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe, ed. T. FEN­ STER, D. SMAIL (A. CLASSEN)______252 Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, hg. v. J. MITTELSTRAß (P. DINZELBACHER)______254 H. JANIN, Medieval Justice (A. CLASSEN)______255 Strukturen der Gesellschaft im Mittelalter, hg. v. D. RÖDEL, J. SCHNEIDER (P. DINZELBACHER)______257 Obscenity, Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages, ed. J. ZIOLKOWSKI (P. DINZELBACHER)______259 The Monstrous Middle Ages, ed. B. BILDHAUER, R. MILLIS (P. DINZEL­ BACHER) ______262 J. BRACHTENDORF ed., Prudentia und Contemplatio. Ethik und Metaphysik im Mittelalter (C. NEDERMAN)______264 Vita Religiosa im Mittelalter, hg. v. F. FELTEN u.a. (P. DINZELBACHER)__ 265 J. FRIED, Aufstieg aus dem Untergang. Apokalyptisches Denken und die Ent­ stehung der modernen Naturwissenschaft im Mittelalter (P. DINZELBA­ CHER) ______267 S. SCHMITT ed., Frauen und Kirche (J. LEES)______268 Gendering the Master Narrative. Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. M. ERLER u.a. (A. CLASSEN)______271 A. JOYNES, Medieval Ghost Stories (P. DINZELBACHER)______273 Lexikon Literatur des Mittelalters. Hg. v. C. BRETSCHER-GISIGER (M. RUS)______274 T. STEINBERG, Reading the Middle Ages (A. CLASSEN)______275 Pragmatische Dimensionen mittelalterlicher Schriftkultur, ed. C. MEIER u.a. (G. LANGE)______276 Jankyn's Book of Wikked Wyves, ed. R. HANNA, T. LAWLER (P. DINZEL­ BACHER) ______278 J. CLANCY, Medieval Welsh Poems (A. CLASSEN)______279 Medieval Literature for Children, ed. D. KLINE (C. ZOTTL)______281 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 3

W. HAUG, Die Wahrheit der Fiktion (A. CLASSEN)______283 D. BARAZ, Medieval Cruelty (A. CLASSEN)______286 E. KOOPER (Hg.), The Medieval Chronicle II (H. REIMANN)______288 S. ZUFFI, Gospel Figures in Art / R. GIORGI, Saints in Art (P. DINZELBA­ CHER) ______291

Frühmittelalter

M. GRANT, U. VONES-LIEBENSTEIN, Die Welt des frühen Mittelalters (P. DINZELBACHER)______293 Quellen zur Alltagsgeschichte im Früh- und Hochmittelalter, ed. U. NONN (A. CLASSEN)______293 A. ESMYOL, Geliebte oder Ehefrau? Konkubinen im frühen Mittelalter (P. DINZELBACHER)______295 G. ALTHOFF, Die Macht der Rituale (A. CLASSEN)______296 F. AUSBÜTTEL, Theoderich der Große (P. DINZELBACHER)______298 Kaiser Heinrich II., hg. v. J. KIRMEIER u.a. (S. VANDERPUTTEN)______299 R. BREMMER Jr. u.a. ed., Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gre­ gory the Great in Germanic Europe (M. DROUT)______300 Monsters and the Monstrous in Medieval Northwest Europe, ed. K. OLSEN, L. HOUWEN (C. LARRINGTON)______308 A. ORCHARD, Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf- Manuscript (G. DUNPHY)______310 Apocrypha Hibemiae I, ed. M. McNAMARA u.a. (B. MAIER)______311 H. EILERS, Die Syntax Notkers des Deutschen (J. JEEP)______313 E. TREHARNE ed., Writing Gender in Medieval Literature (G. WIELAND)_ 314 Studien zum St. Galler Klosterplan II, hg. v. P. OCHSENBEIN u.a. (W. STEINWARDER)______318 Aurelius Augustinus, De musica, übers. F. HENTSCHEL (W. HEINZ)______320 A. ANIADO, Recherches sur les notables municipaux dans l'empire protoby- zantin (A. PAPACONSTANTINOU)______322 Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, ed. R. LILIE u.a. (T. KOLIAS) _ 324 J. HALDON, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565-1204 (T. KOLIAS)______329 4 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004

Hochmittelalter

P. DINZELBACHER, Europa im Hochmittelalter 1050-1250 (M. DALLA- PIAZZA)______333 Renovation intelectual del Occidente europeo... (P. DINZELBACHER)_____ 335 C. BOUCHARD, Every Valley Shall be Exalted. The Discourse of Opposites in 12th-century Thought (A. CLASSEN)______337 C. WOLL, Die Königinnen des hochmittelalterlichen Frankreichs (M. ALBE- RI)______338 La cour Plantagenët, ed. M. AURELL (P. DINZELBACHER)______341 C. VIOLANTE, "Chiesa feudale" e riforme in Occidente (P. DINZELBA­ CHER) ______342 R. SOUTHERN, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe II (W. STEINWARDER)______343 I. EBERL, Die Zisterzienser (W. ZÖLLNER)______346 Statutenbuch des Ordens der Tempelherrn, tr. F. MÜNTER (G. HÖDL)______348 Geistesleben im 13. Jahrhundert, hg. v. J. AERTSEN, A. SPEER (P. DIN­ ZELBACHER) ______349 C. HOECKER, Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum (B. PFEIL) 350 P. de SANTIS ed., I sermoni di Abelardo per le monache del Paracleto (M. RUS)______354 Abaelards "Historia calamitatum", hg. v. D. HASSE (R. VOGELER)______355 Hildegard von Bingen, Epistolarium, ed. L. VAN ACKER, M. KLAES- HACHMÖLLER (P. DINZELBACHER)______358 B. PABST, Gregor von Montesacro und die geistige Kultur Süditaliens (B. LANG)______359 Guidance for Women in Twelfth-Century Convents, tr. V. MORTON (A. CLASSEN)______361 R. H. BLOCH, The Anonymous Marie de France (A. CLASSEN)______362 P. DAMIAN-GRINT, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance (P. DINZELBACHER)______366 The Canso d'Antioca, ed. C. SWEETHAM, L. PATERSON (W. PFEFFER) _ 368 II Romanzo di Renart la Volpe, a.c. M. BONAFIN (H. JACOBS)______370 R. TETZNER, Germanische Heldensagen (A. CLASSEN)______371 Uns ist in alten Mären.... / Sankt Galler Nibelungenhandschrift (A. CLASSEN) 373 M. STOCK, Kombinationssinn. Narrative Strukturexperimente im Straßburger Alexander, im Herzog Emst B und im König Rother (D. STOUDT)______376 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 5

Wolfram von Eschenbach, Titurel, hg. v. H. BRACKERT, S. FUCHS-JOLIE (M. DALLAPIAZZA)______379 R. DEIST, Gender and Power. Counsellors and their Masters (A. CLASSEN) _ 381 R. WEICHSELBAUMER, Der konstruierte Mann... in der didaktischen Lite­ ratur. .. (A. CLASSEN)______383 S. PINCIKOWSKI, Bodies of Pain. Suffering in the Works of Hartmann von Aue (A. CLASSEN)______385 Walther von der Vogelweide, Sämtliche Gedichte, übers. F. V. SPECHTLER (W. MCDONALD)______387 S. CHRISTOPH, Lemmatisierter Index zu den Werken des Strickers (W. ROHR)______389 Eine Epoche im Umbruch. Volkssprachliche Literalität 1200-1300, ed. C. BERTELSMEIER-KIERST u.a. (A. CLASSEN) 392 M. MECKLENBURGER, Parodie und Pathos. Heldensagenrezeption in der historischen Dietrichepik (J. HAINES)______393 Nu lön' ich iu der gäbe. Festschrift für F. G. Gentry, ed. E. HINTZ (A. CLAS­ SEN) ______395 Judah Alharizi, The Book of Tahkemoni, tr. D. SIMHA SEGAL (A. CLASSEN) 397

Spätmittelalter

T. FUDGE, The Crusade against the Heretics in Bohemia (A. GERLICH)___ 401 R. WIECHMANN u.a., Klaus Störtebeker (P. DINZELBACHER)______403 E. VELDTRUP, Frauen um Herzog Ladislaus (+ 1401) (S. ROSIK)______404 A. PARAVICINI BAGLIANI u.a. edd., L'itinérance des seigneurs (S. VAN­ DERPUTTEN) ______406 Showing Status. Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages, ed. W. BLOCKMANS u.a. (P. DINZELBACHER)______410 F. GAMBINI, E. PASQUALI, I tori. La gran pesca del medioevo al Lago Tra- simeno (P. DINZELBACHER)______411 V. v. KAENEL, Histoire patrimoniale et mémoire familiale (S. VANDER­ PUTTEN) ______412 Aristotele's Animals in the Middle Ages, ed. C. STEEL u.a. (P. DINZELBA­ CHER) ______413 Glossen zum Sachsenspiegel-Landrecht, ed. F. KAUFMANN (B. PFEIL)____ 414 A. HIATT, The Making of Medieval Forgeries (A. CLASSEN)______418 A. FRIEDLANDER, The Hammer of Inquisitors. Brother Bernard Délicieux (P. DINZELBACHER)______420 6 Mediaevistik 17 ■ 2004

E. ROSS, The Grief of God. Images of the Suffering Jesus (P. DINZELBA­ CHER) ______423 G. SCHIWY, Birgitta von Schweden (A. CLASSEN)______425 B.-U. HERGEMÖLLER, Magnus versus Birgitta (T. NYBERG)______426 M.-A. POLO DE BEAULIEU, Education, predication et cultures au moyen âge. Essai sur Jean Gobi le Jeune (P. DINZELBACHER)______430 Thomas Ebendorfer, Chronica regum Romanorum, ed. H. ZIMMERMANN (P. DINZELBACHER)______431 N. B. BLACK, Medieval Narratives of Accused Queens (A. CLASSEN)_____ 432 Perspektiv paa Dante, red. C. KAATMANN, O. MEYER (G. LANGE)______435 Morgante e opere minori di Luigi Pulci, ed. A. GRECO / M. DAVIE, Half- se­ rious Rimes. The Narrative Poetry of Luigi Pulici (P. DINZELBACHER)____ 436 The Dream of Bemat Metge, tr. R. VERNIER (P. DINZELBACHER)______438 S. ZEYEN, ...daz tet der liebe dom / G. HERCHERT, Acker mir mein bestes Feld (P. DINZELBACHER)______439 Omit und Wolfdietrich D, ed. W. KOFLER (P. DINZELBACHER)______441 Dietrichs Flucht, ed. E. LIENERT, G. BECK (A. CLASSEN)______442 H. WEIFENBACH, Die Haimonskinder (A. CLASSEN)______444 Die Minnelehre des Johann von Konstanz, hg. v. D. HUSCHENBETT (J. JEEP)______445 L. CORSINI, Heinrich von Nördlingen e Margaretha Ebner. Le lettere (E. De FELIP-JAUD)______447 Das jüdische Leben Jesu Toldot Jeschu, hg. v. B. CALLSEN u.a. (P. DIN­ ZELBACHER) ______450 Dutch Romances III. Five Interpolated Romances from the Lancelot Compila­ tion, ed. D. JOHNSON, G. CLAASSENS (A. CLASSEN)______451 T. REED, Shadows of Mary (B. S ANTANO MORENO)______452 Egils Saga. Ed. B. EINARSSON (E. SCHERABON FIRCHOW)______454 S. WEGMANN, Auf dem Weg zum Himmel. Das Fegefeuer in der deutschen Kunst des Mittelalters (F. REISINGER)______456 K. SCHMUCKI, E. TREMP, Von Staub und Moder... St. Gallen... (P. DIN­ ZELBACHER) ______463 M. CAMILLE, Master of Death (P. DINZELBACHER)______463 C._LIMENTANI VIRDIS, M. PIETROGIOVANNA, Flügelaltäre (P. DIN­ ZELBACHER) ______465 Gotikschätze Oberösterreich, hg. v. L. SCHULTES (M. RIST)______466 L. SCHULTES, Die gotischen Flügelaltäre Oberösterreichs I (M. RIST)_____ 468 B. ENGELEN, Le Mythe du Moyen Age / Miroir du Moyen Age (N. PA- DIOU)______469 10.3726/83002_65

Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 65

Steven Vanderputten

"Literate memory" and social reassessment in tenth-century monasticism

The turn of the second millennium AD was an age of continuous reassessments of collective historical identities. To quote Patrick Geary, this period "saw a great amount of 'creative forgetting’ as individuals and communities... readjusted their sense of a relationship to the past, creating a new and more useful memory through a process of transmission, adaptation, and suppression."1 The main causes of this col­ lective behaviour were the disruption that had marked contemporary society since the late ninth century and the ensuing changes that had taken place in the field of social relations.2 The power of the Western Frankish kings had virtually been reduced to one that was in many ways similar to that of their foremost subjects, who ruled autono­ mously over their duchies, counties, and bishoprics. From the second quarter of the tenth century onwards, a number of these lay and ecclesiastical leaders were able to make successful attempts at alleviating the difficult aftermath of the invasions and the civil wars, thus making the prospect of public safety and effective government more, although not wholly, realistic. This policy was supported by the awareness that the new balance of power forced them to act as the highest secular authority in their ter­ ritories, a position that required a high(er) degree of involvement in the political, eco­ nomical and social processes that were taking place in the region. For example, it is clear that the desire on behalf of the elite to use the material and cultural resources of the Church for its own purposes increased, often with far-reaching results.3 These and many other changes engendered strong feelings of disruption and pos­ sibly even alienation among contemporary communities. The result was an increased interest in different media of communication, including oral and written accounts,

1 P.J. Geary, Oblivion Between Orality and Textuality in the Tenth Century', G. Althoff, J. Fried and P.J. Geary (eds.), Medieval Concepts o f the Past. Ritual, Memory, Historiogra­ phy, Washington D.C. and Cambridge, 2002, p. 111. 2 For a coherent assessment of this hotly debated topic, the combined reading of J.P. Poly and B. Boumazel's La mutation féodale, Xe-XIIe siècles, Paris, 19912 and D. Barthélémy's La mutation de Van mil a-t-elle eu lieu? Servage et chevalrie dans la France des Xe et Xle siècles, Paris, 1997 is strongly recommended. A number of essential additions to these titles can be found in the bibliographies to T. Reuter (ed.), The new Cambridge medieval history. Volume III: c. 900 - c. 1024, Cambridge, 1999, which itself consists of articles that offer an excellent status quaestionis of tenth-century studies. 3 See J. Wollasch, 'Monasticism: the first wave of reform', T. Reuter (ed.), The new Cam­ bridge medieval history, pp. 163-185. 66 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 gestures, symbols and spatial arrangements,4 all of which were intended to provide communities, both old and new, with a sense of legitimacy, identity and, most impor­ tantly, historicity.5 What is especially remarkable about the tenth century is the fact that it saw a great number of decisive attempts to assist oral remembrance with diffe­ rent expressions of the written word. Paradoxically, this creativity was stimulated by the fact that social life was dominated by orally transmitted modes of communication that were much more adjustable to immediate "face" goals and social reality than written texts. The first documents to emerge from this orally transmitted pool of in­ formation transformed recently-adapted values and ideas regarding society into seemingly objective information, which could then be used to fulfil newly-defined task goals.6 Among those, the re-positioning of communities with regard to a pro­ foundly changed society was a major objective.7 In this article, I intend to deal with two major issues in the debate on early medie­ val literacy. Firstly, it is widely accepted that the revision of historical remembrance by many communities from the 930s to 950s was preceded by a general "decline" of literacy. With the aid of ethno-linguistic theories, I will briefly examine the validity of such a conjunctural approach and try to re-interpret the phenomenon of "literate be­ haviour" from a social point of view. Secondly, I will demonstrate the advantages of the latter approach by using it to contextualise the production of historical writing, both profane and related to the cult of saints, in monastic communities of this period. In order to show how these processes can also be discerned on a micro-level, I will briefly analyse Folcuin of Lobbes' discursive tactics in the context of late-tenth cen­ tury monastic life.

4 P. Burke, 'History as Social Memory', T. Butler (ed.), Memory. History, Culture and the Mind, Oxford, 1989, pp. 100-101. 5 The past was re-appropriated through (to use Lévi-Strauss' expression) a "cold", functional form of remembrance (J. Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Munich, 1992, pp. 40-42). See also E. Angehm, Geschichte und Identität, Berlin and New York, 1985, pp. 36-46. 6 R. Fondacaro and T. Higgins, 'Cognitive consequences of communication mode: a social psychological perspective', D. Olson, N. Torrance and A. Hildyard (eds.), Literacy, lan­ guage, and learning. The nature and consequences o f reading and writing, Cambridge, 1985, p. 87. 7 "The spoken word is privileged by its flexibility and ease of use, but as a means of commu­ nication it is constrained by place and time... Man has learnt to control time and space by systems of coded material traces, such as writing, which call upon the eye... The develop­ ment of medieval writing has to be studied in relation to changing social institutions. Wri­ ting was (as it still is) organized in social systems of producers and consumers of written texts." (M. Mostert, 'New Approaches to Medieval Communication?', M. Mostert (ed.), New Approaches to Medieval Communication, Turnhout, 1999, p. 22). Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 61

1. The tenth century: a pre- or post-literate age?

1.1 "Strong" and "weak" models o f literate behaviour

Although the question is heavily debated in regard to the ninth century,8 it appears safe to say that, in the early tenth century, government, jurisdiction and social life in general were largely based on oral communication.9 Administrative literacy had suf­ fered to some extent under the decline of centralised government. Court scriptoria slowed down their production rates or even ceased to function altogether.10 Written law, especially the Carolingian Capitularia, probably lost much of its use in court cases, mostly to the benefit of orally transmitted rules of interaction.11 Oral testimo­ nies were also considered much more effective reflections of contemporary rules of social interaction, whereas documents were thought to be valid by virtue of objective but less flexible arguments.12 The subsistence of private charters in different parts of the empire largely depended on the degree to which administrative literacy had pene­ trated local government in the eighth and ninth centuries. This explains why there are such small numbers of private charters available from the early Ottonian empire,13 as regions such as Saxony had been participating to a much lesser extent with Carolin­ gian literate culture than had, for example, the Loire and Rhone valleys. In those re-

8 For a survey of current opinions on this subject, see R. McKitterick, 'The audience for Latin historiography in the early middle ages: text transmission and manuscript dissemination', A. Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (eds.), Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, Vienna and Munich, 1994, pp. 98-104. 9 B. Stock, The Implications o f Literacy. Written Language and Models o f Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Princeton, 1983, pp. 16-17. 10 J.L. Nelson, 'Literacy in Carolingian government', R. McKitterick (ed.), The Uses o f Lite­ racy in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge, 1990, p. 261. 11 The supposed loss of relevancy of Carolingian legislation (see Stock, The Implications, p. 52) should not be taken for granted. Recent surveys of the manuscript tradition of these documents have shown conclusively that interest in Carolingian legal documents only di­ minished during the first half of the eleventh century (see Hubert Mordek's Biblioteca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta. Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse, Munich, 1995). Compilations of Carolingian legislative texts such as that of abbot Ansegisus appear to have been very popular during the tenth century, although it remains unclear to what extent the manuscript tradition is a reflection of their actual use in daily life (Gerhard Schmitz, Die Kapitulariensammlung des Ansegis, Hannover, 1996, pp. 189-190). 12 H. Vollrath has made some paradigmatic observations on the falsification of charters in early medieval monasteries, a practise she attributes to the tension between the flexibility of social relations based on oral communication and the rigidity of the written word ('Das Mittelalter in der Typik oraler Gesellschaften', Historische Zeitschrift, 233 (1981), p. 589). See also L. Morelle, 'Histoire et archives vers l'an mil: une nouvelle "mutation"?', Histoire et archives, 3 (1998), pp. 119-141, 125-131 in particular. 13 H. Keller, 'Reichsorganisation, Herrschaftsformen und Gesellschaftsstrukturen im Regnum Teutonicum', II secolo di ferro: mito e realtä del secolo X 19-25 aprile 1990. Tomo primo, Spoleto, 1991, pp. 167-168. 68 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 gions, the number of private charters would continue to increase until the turn of the millennium.14 On the "cultural" side of literacy, fewer hagiographies, annals, and other narrative documents were conceived during this period. The fact that this coin­ cided with a substantial drop in manuscript production was very likely "due to a lack of public and commissioners".15 These symptoms of the so-called "decline" of literacy hardly imply that tenth- century society can be classified as pre-literate.16 In the past, the concept of "literate societies" was often implemented by an estimate of the percentage of the population that actively mastered the written word at a certain point in time.17 In technical terms, it is true that the nature and the degree of participation in written culture had changed to a large extent following late antiquity. Fewer people could read and write, texts were used on fewer occasions, and active literacy itself became the privilege of even

14 For relevant evidence, see J.L. Nelson, 'Literacy', pp. 258-296, especially pp. 294-295. 15 W. Berschin, Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter. IV. Ottonische Biog­ raphie. Das Hohe Mittelalter 920-1220 n. Chr. Erster Halbband 920-1070 n. Chr., Stutt­ gart, 1999, pp. 5-7. It needs, however, to be stressed that the evidence from this period should not be interpreted as the result of a substantial drop in intellectual potential. Learn­ ing continued at a relatively high level (see, for example, M. Gibson, "The continuity of learning circa 850 - circa 1050”, Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6 (1975), pp. 1-13, D. Illmer, Formen der Erziehung und Wissensvermittlung im frühen Mittelalter: Quellenstudien zur Frage der Kontinuität des abendländischen Erziehungswesen, München, 1971, P. Riché, Ecoles et enseignement dans le haut Moyen Age: Fin du Vie siècle-milieu du Xle siècle, Paris, 19892, W. Bergmann, Innovationen im Quadrivium des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts. Studien zur Einführung von Astrolab und Abakus im lateinischen Mittelalter, Wiesbaden, 1985 and A.A. Grotans, "Sih dir selbo lector': Cues for reading in tenth- and eleventh-century St. Gall', Scriptorium, 51 (1997), pp. 251-302), but its ampli­ tude and radiance seem to have been fairly limited when compared to previous times. 16 Such is Brian Stock's influential opinion (The Implications, passim). 17 Up to the late eleventh century, literate education was largely confined to monastic and ca­ thedral schools. At present, only the number of students at the latter institutions has been estimated. In the circa sixty schools in the kingdom of France and the Rhine valley that ex­ isted between 1000 and 1300, the average number would be between ten and thirty indi­ viduals. The population in that area around the year thousand is estimated to have been circa 1 million (U. Knoop, 'Entwicklung von Literalität und Alphabetisierung in Deutsch­ land', H. Günther and O. Ludwig (eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Writing and its use. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung. An Interdisciplinary Handbook o f International Research, /, Berlin and New York, 1994, p. 861). If one doubles the number of students by hypothetically including pupils in monastic schools, the minimum number around the turn of the millennium would have been somewhere between 1200 and 3600. This means that 0.016 to 0.04 per cent of the population would have been in the course of being instructed to read and/or write. This number would then have to be added to the un­ known percentage of individuals who could read or write but were no longer students. I am inclined to think that an estimate of one per cent would be fairly optimistic. Although it is even more difficult to establish the number of people who were familiar with literated con­ cepts and texts, the latter percentage is very likely to have been extremely elevated, even in this early, "dark" age. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 69 fewer elite groups. However, ethno-linguists and anthropologists18 have argued that it is not the number of individuals who master writing and reading that is relevant for identifying a "literate society”, but rather the degree to which society as a whole takes part in activities, interactions and symbolic gestures that at least partly involve a per­ formance (writing down certain actions, reading certain texts aloud) of the written word.19 They have also claimed that the cognitive consequences of the introduction and use of the written word are irreversible and continue to be operative, even at times when few communities actively practise reading and writing.20 Christianity es­ sentially being a religion of the book, it seems improbable that early medieval people were completely unacquainted with the idea of the written word, even in the most troubled, anarchic times. The written word as a carrier of legal information also con­ tinued to be a familiar aspect of early medieval life, even in rural communities.21 One also needs to remember that reading was essentially a communal act.22 So although it is true that the majority of the population only took part in literate culture by listening to texts being read aloud or to sermons, speeches and other oral expressions whose contents were based on written texts,23 there can be no doubt that early medieval soci­ ety did have "an inherited assumption of textual intelligibility, which continued to be valid"24 and whose implementation was being continued by educational and adminis­ trative infrastructures. What is more, the fact that many aspects of an individual’s life continued to be influenced by concepts, ideas and values that had been sourced from written documents ensured that "literate behaviour" never disappeared completely. As far as former Roman territories are concerned, the seemingly paradoxical term of "post-literacy", coined by Wright, is well-chosen in this context.25 This brings us to a second part of the debate on literacy. Although the written word and its supposedly cognitive implications hardly registered as an unknown

18 Two excellent surveys of arguments pro and contra can be found in M. De Jong, 'Geletterd en ongeletterd. Zin en onzin van een tegenstelling', R.E.V. Stuip and C. Vellekoop (eds.), Oraliteit en schriftcultuur, Hilversum, 1993, pp. 9-31 and M. Mostert, 'New Approaches', pp. 15-37. See also M. Mostert, 'What happened to literacy in the Middle Ages? Scriptural evidence for the history of western literate mentality', Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, 108 (1995), pp. 323-335. 19 R. Wright, 'Logographic script and assumptions of literacy in tenth-century Spain', M.M. Parry, W.V. Davies and R.A.M. Temple (eds.), The Changing Voices o f Europe. Social and political changes and their linguistic repercussions, past, present and future, Cardiff, 1994, pp. 126-127. 20 Ibidem, p. 128; see also H. Keller, 'Vom 'heiligen Buch' zur 'Buchführung'. Lebensfunk­ tionen der Schrift im Mittelalter', Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 26 (1992), pp. 18-20. 21 M. Innes, 'Memory, orality and literacy in an early medieval society', Past and present, 158 (1998), pp. 8-9. 22 N. Howe, 'The Cultural Construction of Reading in Anglo-Saxon England', J. Boyarin (ed.), The Ethnography o f Reading, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1993, p. 59 sqq. 23 J.M.H. Smith, 'Oral and Written: Saints, Miracles, and Relics in Brittany, c. 850-1250', Speculum, 65 (1990), pp. 311. 24 R. Wright, 'Logographic script', p. 128. 25 See the above note. 70 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 quantity in tenth-century Europe, it is tempting to ascribe the general decline of active literacy to a loss of rationality in social life or to dropping educational standards.26 The idea originated in Goody and Watt's "strong" or functional model of literacy, which claims that the written word is an objective, purely technical medium, of which the use serves as a parameter for an increasing or decreasing level of civilisation. In their model, it is implied that literacy allows a society to heterogenise its activities (leading to specialisation and rational task distribution) and, more generally, to con­ struct a concept of social interaction that is based on objective criteria rather than "or­ ganic" principles of kinship or, for example, feudal structures. Although anthropolo­ gists and linguists have largely abandoned the idea that the "invention" and the appli­ cation of the written word caused a heightened sense of rationality in previously "illit­ erate" societies,27 it is quite clear that the written word is by no means an entirely faithful replication of the spoken word. Indeed, the possibility of capturing and classi­ fying information in the framework of textual conventions28 "contributed in particular ways to the development of distinctive modes of thought that are conveyed through systematic education."29 The desire to retrieve, analyse or communicate information systematically with an eye on the controlled transmission of (social, institutional, ideological, and other) values is, of course, common to many groups who wish to steer the direction of society. The written word's benefits for administration and in other domains of public life are obvious: information that is captured in writing can be (to a certain extent) depersonalised and objectified, classified and compared with previous or future data.30 In the early Middle Ages, literacy was often applied when

26 The debate on the cognitive consequences of literacy dates back to the end of the 1960s, when Goody and Watt first presented their "hyper-consequential" ideas. The history of this particular discussion is described with great transparency and in great detail in D.R. Olson's The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications o f Reading and Writing, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 20-37. 27 Despite the fact that the concept of "orality - irrationality" versus "literacy - rationality" has been refuted conclusively in the last few decades, historians are remarkably slow to aban­ don it. See, for example, W. Hartung, 'Die Magie des Geschriebenen', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter, Tübingen, 1993, p. 124. A survey of criticism on the "functional model" of literacy can be found in Brian Street's Literacy in theory and prac­ tise, Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne and Sydney, 1984, passim. 28 G. Eiwert, 'Die Verschriftlichung von Kulturen. Skizze einer Forschung', Sociologus, 36 (1986), pp. 66-69. 29 D.R. Olson, The World on Paper, p. 17. In sixth- and seventh-century monastic schools, the written word was considered to be an effective tool for memorising psalms and other, as­ sorted liturgical and normative texts (G.H. Brown, 'Latin Writing and the Old English Ver­ nacular', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit, pp. 40-43). 30 M. Scardamalia and C. Bereiter, 'Development of dialectical processes in composition', D. Olson, N. Torrance and A. Hildyard (eds.), Literacy, language, and learning. The nature and consequences of reading and writing, Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne and Sydney, 1985, pp. 311-312. For a particularly inspired analysis of early medieval systematical records, see L. Kuchenbuch, 'Teilen, Aufzählen, Summieren. Zum Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 71 ecclesiastical and lay rulers tried to rationalise social interaction and to supersede the traditional values and rules of authority by an interregional, intercultural and func­ tional concept of rulership. Although most documents that resulted from these ambi­ tions were of a pragmatic nature, the fact that literacy was mostly familiar to society because of its use in a religious context was instrumental in its success outside that sphere.31 With written documents came a strong sense of sacredness and inviolability, both of which assets were carefully preserved in many non-religious documents. This policy can be witnessed in its most expressive form during the Carolingian Renaissance, which aimed at installing a regulating Wertungsdiktatur or canon of va­ lues, while at the same time supplanting diverging concepts of social life, authority, and interaction from oral culture.32 The Carolingian rulers benefited from the exis­ tence of the written word as a carrier of sacred, canonised information to invest their own directives with a divine sense of normativity. As a result of this, the higher no­ bility saw itself virtually forced into adopting the specific rules of communication and interaction which the use of written communication had entailed.33 The "textual communities" that resulted from these policies can be defined as consisting of those who shared in their sovereigns' power.34 It is quite obvious that the fact that only small, strictly defined communities mastered the production of written word influ­ enced both their own status in society and the impact of values they were advocat­ ing.35 However appealing the "functional" theory of literacy may seem, its implications for the early tenth century are all too far-reaching. Judging from the meagre textual evidence from this age, it would seem that this was indeed a "dark" or "iron" period, during which an illiterate (and consequently anarchic) model of social interaction temporarily replaced rational (literate) government. There are, however, enough ar­ guments to refute this hasty conclusion. It is understood that rational behaviour is also possible in oral societies, and that social life in the early tenth century was not as cha-

Verfahren in ausgewählten Güter- und Einkünfteverzeichnissen des 9. Jahrhundert', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit, pp. 181-206. 31 See, for a similar situation in ancient Egypt, J. Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 93-94. 32 F.H. Bäuml, 'Verschriftlichte Mündlichkeit und vermündlichte Schriftlichkeit. Begriffsprü­ fungen an den Fällen Heliands Liber Evangeliorum', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit, p. 259. 33 For this, and many other issues regarding the impact of Carolingian reform policies on the already changing face of Western literacy, see R. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the written word, Cambridge, 1989 and D. Ganz, 'Temptabat et scribere: Vom Schreiben in der Karolingerzeit', R. Schieffer (ed.), Schriftkultur und Reichsverwaltung unter den Karolin­ gern: Referate des Kolloquiums der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften am 17./18. Februar 1994 in Bonn, Opladen, 1996, pp. 13-33, especially pp. 14-15. 34 Literacy is an agent of social integration for those who share in it and, conversely, of alienation for those who do not (B. Stock, The Implications, p. 18). 35 J. Goody, La logique de l'écriture. Aux origines des sociétés humaines, Paris, 1986, pp. 171-173. 72 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 otic as has been thought in the past. What one needs to retain from the functionalists' model is the claim that literacy enables communities to differentiate themselves more efficiently from the rest of society.36 This is the point of departure for Brian Street's "weak" or ideological model of literacy, which claims that the written word's meaning and function largely depend on the communities that use it and on the specific con­ texts in which it is applied.37 According to Street and his followers, Verschriftung (or mise par écrit), the purely technical transcription of oral information, is a fiction, while Verschriftlichung (or, better, "Verschriftlichungen") is a preferable means to indicate the outcome of various strategies to use the written word in order to deter­ mine one's relation (Nähe or Distanz) to other communities.38

1.2 Applying the "weak” model to early medieval society

Scholars should be encouraged to use the word literacies instead of literacy, as the use of the written word at a particular time in history is subject to the specific conditions to which each of its "literate" communities are subjected.39 For example, the fact that literacy "slumbered" and was continued in just a few elite communities before and after the Carolingians had used it as an instrument of power does much to advocate its essentially social and even political meaning.40 With the demise of the Carolingian state system in the late ninth century, the incentives for maintaining an obsolete group culture, marked by its literate behaviour, diminished 41 Local aristocrats found that, on a regional level, government based on systematically applied literacy was only of limited use. They retained the advantageous aspects of the written word for their own purposes (production of charters), but they did not replicate their former ruler's strat­

36 Efficiency is the key concept here, not cognitive progress. See D.R. Olson's The World on Paper, pp. 36-39. 37 B.V, Street, Literacy, pp. 7-8 and 102 sqq. 38 I believe it serves the idea better not to translate the German expressions of "Verschriftung" and "Verschriftlichung". See W. Oesterreicher, 'Verschriftung und Verschriftlichung. Im Kontext medialer und konzeptioneller Schriftlichkeit', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit, pp. 271-272. See also M. Innes, 'Memory', p. 34. 39 In this light, M. Richter's claim that "...the written sources which arise in the early Middle Ages from the Christian milieu must be treated very circumspectly. They must not be re­ garded as necessarily representative accounts of the society in which they originate." (The oral tradition in the early middle ages, Tumhout, 1994, p. 25) can be categorised as the re­ sult of a misguided conception of literacy as an objective communicative medium (see, in the same article, p. 22 sqq. for further comments). 40 M.M. Tischler, 'Das Mittelalter in Europa: Lateinische Schriftkultur', H. Günther and O. Ludwig (eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit, pp. 544-545. 41 This would explain why the traces of a highly developed lay literacy in the ninth century, found in testaments and writings by lay authors (P. Riché, 'Les bibliothèques de trois aristo- crates laics carolingiens', Le moyen âge, LXIX (1963), pp. 87-104) had disappeared com­ pletely by the early tenth century. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 73 egy to objectify relations with their subjects by using it as an instrument of power.42 The decline of literate behaviour at the end of the ninth century period was the result of a failing political system, not of a decline of education or civilisation 43 A few decades into the tenth century, a slow reinvention of (historical) remem­ brance took place. Whatever the incentives, it is certain that this period witnessed a strong increase in the number of competing hermeneutic models for interpreting past, present, and future. Although one cannot be certain at what point this change manifested itself in oral culture, written documents from this age clearly show how communities revived and adapted old traditions such as the lives of early medieval saints, orally-transmitted genealogies, Germanic epics, classical and biblical stories to present them as the elements of a history that developed in an uninterrupted unfolding of events rather than developing in a circular sense 44 In contrast with previous periods, the memory of groups was subjected to an economy of efficiency, which aimed at reassessing historical identities with maximal results in a contemporary context. Recalling the past in a written form became a combination of historical ambitions, social values and literary norms that transcended the fleeting impact of oral communication. The following example is a good indicator of how literacy was revived and began to lead its own life as the result of coinciding social impulses. In the recently formed county of Flanders, count Amoul succeeded to impose his authority on the region and restored it to a certain degree of law and order. One of his first actions was to extract a considerable number of ecclesiastical institutions (whose dominions occupied large portions of the county) from the hands of local aristocracy. In order to succeed in his plans, he struck a deal with the Benedictine reformer Gérard of Brogne. Together, they abolished lay abbacy in a considerable number of institutions, actively promoted

42 C.P. Wormald even speaks of "indifference or even hostility to literacy within classes of society which cherished other values... the priorities of an upper-class education were quite different until well on in the Middle Ages." ('The uses of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbours', Transactions o f the Royal Historical Society, 27 (1977), pp. 97-98). 43 "Carolingian government must temporarily have raised the level of pragmatic literacy in its dominions, but written law did not take root in ninth-century Francia, whether we blame Viking birds of the air, or the tares of aristocratic secularity." (Ibidem, p. 101). See also J.L. Nelson, 'Literacy', p. 272. It needs stressing that much of the written output in Carolingian times was strongly imbedded in a specific regional context; see, for example, R. McKit- terick's comments in 'The audience', p. 99 and, by the same author, 'Literacy in Alemannia and the Role of St Gall', J.C. King and W. Vogler (eds.), The Culture o f the Abbey o f St. Gall, Stuttgart and Zurich, 1991, pp. 217-226. 44 B. Stock, 'Medieval literacy, linguistic theory, social organization', Listening for the text. On the uses o f the past, Baltimore and London, 1990, p. 36. See also A.G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past. Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France, Ithaca and London, 1995, passim. 74 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 the cult of relics and turned the monastic communities into controllable, homogene­ ous institutions.45 Aside from freeing enormous material resources, this interventionist policy al­ lowed the count to use the powerful cultural expertise of the Church for his own pur­ poses.46 One of the immediate consequences was that a number of oral texts that sup­ ported his family's claims to power very quickly made the transition to written media. In the years 950-960, the priest Witger, who is usually associated with the Church of Cornelius and Cyprianus in Compiègne, compiled the first genealogy of the Flemish counts 47 The text, more a list than a narrative, was intended to produce a noble an­ cestry for the present count and to link his family to former rulers, preferably of Carolingian stock. Its origins lay in diverse oral traditions, largely stripped from some of their irrelevant mythical aspects and redesigned in the light of contemporary poli­ tics.48 As noted before, this "reinvention" of the past in order to make important changes in the leadership of society appear acceptable was possible because its im­ mediate origins could be traced back to orally transmitted information 49 In other words, the fact that the first written genealogies originated in flexible orally transmit­ ted traditions allowed their authors to create a "legitimising past", to use Johannes Fried's words.50 While lay rulers were fixating their own, contemporary interpretation of their his­ torical identity, monastic communities also took advantage of the opportunities to re­ assess relationships with neighbouring (lay and ecclesiastical) communities.51 While the Viking attacks had undoubtedly had a major influence on the short-term history of

45 On the subject of lay abbacy, see F J. Felten, Äbte und laienäbte im Frankenreich. Studie zum Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche im früheren Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1980, passim and R. McKitterick's The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians 751-987, London and New York, 1983, pp. 278-286. For an appreciation of Gerard's strategies (involving pacts with the bishop of Liège and the duke of Lotharingia), see J. Wollasch, 'Monasticism', pp. 169- 170; also M. Parisse, 'Noblesse et monastères en Lotharingie du IXe au Xle siècle', R. Kot- tje and H. Maurer (eds.), Monastische Reformen im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert, Sigmaringen, 1989, pp. 167-196, especially pp. 184-187. 46 See T.E. Toon, 'The socio-politics of literacy in early England: What we learned at our Hla- ford's knee', Folia Linguistica Historica, VI (1985), pp. 87-106. 47 The genealogy of Witger was published in MGH SS IX, Hannover, 1851, pp. 302-304; E. Freise, 'Die Genealogia Amulfi comitis des Priesters Witger', Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 23 (1989), pp. 203-243. 48 G. Scheibelreiter, 'Vom Mythos zur Geschichte. Überlegungen zu den Formen der Bewah­ rung von Vergangenheit im Frühmittalter', A. Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (eds.), Histo­ riographie im frühen Mittelalter, Vienna and Munich, 1994, pp. 26-40. 49 R. Fondacaro and T. Higgins, 'Cognitive consequences', pp. 84-85. 50 J. Fried, 'Die Kunst der Aktualisierung in der oralen Gesellschaft. Die Königserhebung Heinrichs I. als Exempel', Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 44 (1993), p. 495. The social backgrounds of genealogical literature are further explored in D.N. Dumville, 'Kingship, Genealogies and Regnal Lists', P.H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (eds.), Early Medie­ val Kingship, Leeds, 1977, pp. 72-104. 51 J. Wollasch, 'Monasticism', pp. 163-185. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 75 many abbeys, the main changes in their historical identity were engendered by a de­ sire from within these communities to look for "a new sense of purpose and direc­ tion," both spiritually and socially.52 Over the course of several decades,53 abbots and their aides began to assemble the necessary legal and other tools to secure and to le­ gitimise their "independence” .54 The fact that they did this by creating a considerable amount of written documents has much to do with the fact that their existence and functioning was already "solidly based on a corpus of texts".55 What is more, they benefited from one of the most impressive long-term traditions as far as privileges and charters were concerned. In many instances, cartularies were the first tangible result of these initiatives, documenting the ancient and newly gained rights of an abbey and assessing the monks’ sense of identity.56 Hagiographie narratives reflected the monks’ desire to profile themselves with regards to society as the professionals of divine ven­ eration, who secured permanent intermediation with God and his saints.57 The crite­ rion for the conception of hagiographic collections became institutional, as they ga­ thered documents specifically regarding the saints whose relics were being kept in a particular abbey or church. Meanwhile, many older accounts of saints' lives were up­ dated, rewritten or incorporated in other texts with contemporary goals in mind.58 Fi­ nally, the emergence of Consuetudines and other normative collections in the final

52 R. McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms, p. 280. 53 This mise en forme of monastic memory was a long-term process (see D. Iogna-Prat, 'Les lieux de mémoire du Cluny Médiéval (v. 940 - v. 1200)', P. Henriet and A.M. Legras (eds.), Au cloitre et dans le monde. Femmes, hommes et sociétés (IXe - XVe siècles). Mé- langes en l'honneur de Paulette L'Hermite-Leclercq, Paris, 2000, pp. 103-117). 54 O. Guyotjeannin, "'Penuria scriptorum". Le mythe de l'anarchie documentaire dans la France du Nord (Xe-première moitié du Xle siècle)', Idem, L. Morelle and M. Parisse (eds.), Pratiques de l'écrit documentaire au Xle siècle (Bibliothèque de VEcole des Chartes. 155), Paris and Genève, 1997, pp. 27-32. For a general appreciation of this strategic use of written practises, I refer to the typically perceptive comments by P. Wormald, 'Aethelwold and his continental counterparts', B. Yorke (ed.), Bishop Aethelwold: his career and influ­ ence, Woodbridge, 1988, p. 20. 55 G. De Nie, 'Text, symbol and "oral culture" in the sixth-century Church', Mediaevistik, 9 (1996), p. 118. For an appreciation of pragmatic literacy in ninth-century monastic commu­ nities, see M. Stratmann, 'Schriftlichkeit in der Verwaltung von Bistümern und Klöstern', R. Schieffer (ed.), Schriftkultur, pp. 85-108, especially pp. 95-97 and 102-103. 56 See G. Declercq, 'Originals and Cartularies: The Organization of Archival Memory (Ninth- Eleventh Centuries)', K. Heidecker (ed.), Charters and the use of the written word, Turn- hout, 2000, p. 149. 57 F. Lifshitz, 'Beyond positivism and genre: "Hagiographical" texts as historical narrative', Viator, 25 (1994), pp. 96-97. 58 Among the more interesting articles on this subject, O. Holder-Egger's 'Zu den Heili­ gengeschichten des Genter Sint-Bavoklosters', Historische Aufsätze dem Andenken an G. Waitz gewidmet, Hannover, 1883, pp. 622-665 and A.M. Helvétius' Âbbayes, évëques et laiques. Une politique du pouvoir en Hainaut au Moyen Age (Vlle-Xle siècles), Brussels, 1994, are of particular note. A similar revision of hagiographical memory also took place in many monasteries in the late eighth and the early ninth centuries, under the influence of Carolingian policies. 76 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 decades of the tenth century documented the monks' efforts to sustain the revised ide­ als of monastic life at times when the reforms were long behind them.59 While revising their abbey's legacy, the monks were confronted with the absence of a narrative that told the story of their community's past.60 Historical identities were crucial in early medieval society: they defined the roles and the claims to power of groups in society and laid out the rules for interaction among them.61 Nobility had its oral or written genealogies, ecclesiastical officers claimed their so-called "ancestry" in episcopal gesta,62 and less powerful groups in society cultivated the oral transmission of ancestral customs as a token of their own identity.63 This lacuna in monastic culture led to the creation of the earliest foundation stories and, more generally, gesta abbatum or "deeds" of the abbey's leaders.64 Their authors' main objective was to trace the origins of contemporary monastic life to the events surrounding the foundation of the earliest monastic community and to show how the continuous service of the Lord up to the present time supported legal, spiritual, and social claims.65 The monks' quest for arguments of continuity was rewarded when they

59 J. Wollasch, 'Reformmönchtum und Schriftlichkeit', Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 26 (1992), pp. 274-286. Also, by the same author, 'Zur Verschriftlichung der klösterlichen Le­ bensgewohnheiten unter Abt Hugo von Cluny', Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 27 (1993), pp. 317-349, D. Iogna-Prat, 'Coutumes et statuts clunisiens comme sources historiques (ca. 990- ca. 1200)', Revue Mabillon, 64 (1992), pp. 23-48 and B. Tutsch, 'Texttradition und Praxis von consuetudines und statuta in der 'Cluniacensis ecclesia' (10.-12. Jahrhundert)', in: H. Keller and F. Neiske (eds.), Vom Kloster zur Klosterverband. Das Werkzeug der Schriftlichkeit. Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums des Projekts L 2 im SFB 231 (22. - 23. Februar 1996), München, 1997, pp. 177-179. 60 This marked the definitive creation of a written expression of what Aleida Assmann has called Funktionsgedächtnis, the remembrance of the past that induces legitimation and dis­ tinction {Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnis, Munich, 1999, pp. 138-141). 61 Countless obituaries, necrologies and other lists of individuals and groups were obviously of an essentially social nature, but their serial structure made them less likely to cater to the need for a linear group history than elaborated historical narratives. See, among many others, G. Althoff, 'Geschichtsbewußtsein durch Memorialüberlieferung', W. Goetz (ed.), Hochmittelalterliches Geschichtsbewußtsein im Spiegel nichthistoriographischer Quellen, Berlin, 1998, pp. 83-100. 62 R. Kaiser, 'Die Gesta Episcoporum als Genus der Geschichtsschreibung', A. Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (eds.), Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, Vienna and Munich, 1994, pp. 459-480. 63 Although dealing with a later period, O.G. Oexle's article on memorial practises in profes­ sional guilds presents some relevant observations on the subject ('Liturgische memoria und historische Erinnerung. Zur Frage nach dem Gruppenbewußtsein und dem Wissen der eige­ nen Geschichte in den mittelalterlichen Gilden', N. Kamp and J. Wollasch (eds.), Tradition als historische Kraft. Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zur Geschichte des früheren Mittelal­ ters, Berlin and New York, 1982, pp. 323-340). 64 M. Sot, Gesta episcoporum, gesta abbatum, Tumhout, 1981. 65 H. Patze, 'Klostergründung und Klosterchronik', Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte, 113 (1977), pp. 90-92. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 77 chose to use a discourse that stressed the relation between the founding saint and his (or her) role as a founding father (or mother) of a "dynasty" of abbots.66 Considering the struggle of monasticism to reassess its relations with the outside world during the tenth century, it is logical to see that a crucial aspect of this strategy consisted of their attempts to minimise or even ignore the impact of lay abbacy and to emphasise the idea that, historically, the monastic community was a relatively independent organisation, whose history could be described without taking too much notice of external influences.67 Charter collections, saint's lives, translations, miracle stories and, finally, histori­ cal narratives were still quite rare when compared to later (and, in some cases, previ­ ous) centuries. Nevertheless, the enormous cost and the amount of energy that were invested into their creation are remarkable, especially at a time when monastic lite­ racy was a rather isolated occurrence. It is, of course, particularly interesting to find communities in which these different types of literacy were used simultaneously for the purposes I have mentioned in previous paragraphs. Authors who produced texts for different monastic communities offer another vantage point. In this respect, the works of Folcuin of Lobbes (d. 990) are a highly rewarding object of study. They document an increasing tendency to homogenise the contents of new texts and to he- terogenise the typology of written remembrance 68

66 M. Sot, 'Généalogies et families. Historiographie épiscopale et modele familial en Occident au IXe siècle', Annales. Economies. Sociétés. Civilisations, 33 (1978), p. 438. In Ghent, the tenth century would see the first symptoms of a rivalry between the abbeys of Saint Peter and Saint Bavon, each of which claimed the title of "original foundation of saint Amand in Ghent." In this respect, a letter, known as the Epistola ad Adalwinum abbatem Blandinien- sem and written by abbot Otwinus of Saint-Bavon between 986 and 995 is a powerful ex­ pression of the monks’ understanding of literacy as a medium that allows one to fixate and to normativize current opinions. 67 Since the 820s, monastic communities had sought to capture their hagiographic and histori­ cal remembrance in written documents. Much of the subsequent production was inspired by "official literacy”, such as the court annals, and the Imperial calendar. Although many of these texts were transformed into documents of a strictly local perspective, it is telling that their production stalled when the Carolingian monarchy lost much of its meaning as a po­ litical reference point around the turn of the tenth century (M. De Jong, 'Carolingian mo­ nasticism: the power of praying', R. McKitterick (ed.), The new Cambridge Medieval His­ tory Volume II c. 700 - 900, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 651-653). 68 O. Guyotjeannin, 'Penuria', p. 32. 78 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004

2. Shifting conceptions o f (written) remembrance69

2.1 Folcuin o f Lobbes, monk and author

Unlike that of many of his colleagues, Folcuin's life is relatively well-documented.70 Bom around 935 out of Lotharingian nobility,71 he entered the abbey of Sithiu or Saint-Bertin in 948 as an oblate, to be professed in 961.72 The fact that his parents had offered him to this particular abbey was not a coincidence: its attractiveness as a cen­ tre of cultural excellence, combined with its close alliance to the Flemish count's court, turned the abbey into a focal point for ambitious noblemen.73 The ensuing re­ forms by Gérard of Brogne, the separation of canons and monks and the abolishment of lay abbacy in 954 marked the confirmation of a new departure for Benedictine mo­ nasticism in the abbey.74 The monks' existence around the middle of the tenth century was also marked by the first signs of economical prosperity and cultural revival, spurred by strong-willed abbots who sought to restore the patrimony of the abbey to its supposed original state. Folcuin appears to have benefited from these particularly favourable conditions. Little is known of his education, although it is beyond any doubt that he was quickly singled out as a precocious individual and that he was subjected to all the benefits of the Carolingian monastic education that had survived in the abbey.75 His later work as a hagiographer, historiographer and compiler of the first known library catalogue of Lobbes76 conclusively demonstrate a strong interest in Classic authors such as Virgil,

69 In the next pages, I will regularly refer to codes, used in the online repertory Narrative Sources from the Low Countries or NaSo (www.narrative-sources.be). BHL codes are used to refer to the the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina. 70 E. Brouette's fine survey of Folcuin's life and career can be found in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques XVII, Paris, 1971, pp. 744-749. See also J.L. Kupper, 'Fol­ cuin', Lexikon des Mittelalters IV, Munich and Zürich, 1989, col. 608. 71 Folcuin's ancestry included Charles Martel through one of the latter's bastard children, and saint Folcuin, bishop of Thérouanne (d. 855), whose Life he would go on to write (Vita sancti Folquini Morinorum episcopi (BHL 3079 - NaSo F016). First edited in AA SS OSB, 4/1, Paris, 1677, pp. 624-629). 72 Ibidem, p. 624. On the subject of child oblation, see M. De Jong, In Samuel's image. Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West, Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1996. 73 K. Uge, 'Creating a Usable Past in the Tenth Century: Folcuin's 'Gesta' and the Crises at Saint-Bertin', Studi Medievali, XXXVII (1996), p. 896. 74 K. Hallinger, Gorze-Cluny. Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensätzen im Hochmittelalter. I, Rome, 1950, pp. 290-291. 75 S. Balau, Les sources de l’histoire de Liege au Moyen Age. Etude critique, Brussels, 1903, p. 103. 76 The first library catalogue of Lobbes is dated circa 972-990 by its latest editors (see A. De- rolez, B. Victor and W. Bracke (eds.), Corpus Catalogorum Belgii. The medieval booklists o f the Southern Low Countries. Volume IV Provinces o f Brabant and Hainault, Brussels, 2001, pp. 252-254). A revised version of this booklist, this time with a distinction between the collection of the schola and that of the monastic community, was published in 1049, to Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 19

Cicero and Juvenal,77 whilst his own style is marked by a tendency to over-emphasise his (somewhat faulty) knowledge of classic Latin.78 The young monk’s acquaintance with the written word also extended to legal documents. He wrote at least one charter for the abbey during his years at Saint-Bertin, and possibly acted as the archivist of the community.79 At the time of Folcuin's ordainment, the recent changes in the monastic commu­ nity and its problems with neighbouring aristocrats had engendered strong notions of rupture, not necessarily of a negative nature, but nevertheless strong enough to call for an update of legally and historically relevant arguments. As a result of this, the new abbot Adalolphus (elected 4 April, 961) instructed him to assemble a collection of the most important legal documents from the abbey's archives. The resulting cartulary- chronicle, now known as the Gesta abbatum Sithiensium (NaSo F014), was finished in 962 at the latest. This early date indicates how strongly the abbey's administrators felt the need for such a document. It did, however, more than merely serve their daily needs. A second and perhaps even more important incentive to write this document was the desire to provide the monks with a document that outlined their history as a living community.80 Both ambitions resulted in a chronologically-constructed collection of slightly re-styled transcriptions of Merovingian and Carolingian char­ ters,81 introduced with and commented upon in narrative paragraphs, the combination of which described the abbey's history in detail.82 Although a proper reconstruction of

be updated regularly until the middle decades of the twelfth century (see, in the same vo­ lume, pp. 255-269 and 275-283). 77 This is hardly remarkable, considering the general popularity of these authors during this age (B.M. Olsen, 'Les classiques au Xe siècle', W. Berschin (ed.), Lateinische Kultur im X Jahrhundert. Akten des I. Internationalen Mittellateinerkongresses, Heidelberg, 12-15. IX. 1988, which was published as a volume of the Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 24/25 (1989- 1990), pp. 341-347). 78 "Le style [de Folcuin] se ressent aussi de cette tendance â l'emphase boursoufflée, propre au Xe siècle." (J. Warichez, L'abbaye de Lobbes. Depuis les origines jusqu’en 1200. Etude d'histoire générale et spéciale, Louvain and Paris, 1909, p. 254). Folcuin's style is further criticised by H. Pertz, MGH SS IV, Hannover, 1841, p. 53 and S. Balau, Les sources, p. 110. 79 See MGH SS IV, p. 52. 80 G. Declercq,'Originals', pp. 156-158. 81 Although falsifications from this period abound, the re-usal of ancient documents in a con­ temporary context surely must have played a considerable role in the stylistic interventions of tenth-century compilers (see O. Guyotjeannin, "Penuria", pp. 38-39 for comments that point in this direction). Folcuin himself appears to have "tampered" with the style of a number of his charters, without, however, altering their intrinsic contents. This practise, hardly considered immoral in his own age, is often mistaken for voluntary falsification (an already notorious example is T. Kölzer's Merowingerstudien I, Hannover, 1998, pp. 111- 135. Many thanks to G. Declercq for bringing this study to my attention). 82 Folcuin's original version of the Gesta abbatum Sithiensium, previously described as "less of a cartulary than a chronicle of the abbey of Saint-Bertin," (B. Guérard, Le cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Bertin, Paris, 1841, p. I) consisted of ninety-two narrative chapters, in­ terwoven with a polyptich from the middle of the ninth century and fourty-seven reproduc- 80 Mediaevistik 17 - 2004

Folcuin's original text is still sorely lacking,83 it is clear that its author was determined to cater to very diverse (economical, spiritual, and political) needs simultaneously.84 Exactly how he presented his arguments is a major point of interest, which I will deal with shortly. In 965, bishop Eraclius of Liège appointed Folcuin as the new abbot of the abbey of Lobbes, situated at the eastern border of the diocese of Cambrai (currently Belgian Hainaut) and founded around 660 by Landelinus.85 His election followed the death of Aletrannus (960-965), whose abbacy had effectively ended the cumulation of the ab­ bacy and the epicopal see of Liège.86 Like that of his predecessors, Folcuin's abbacy was punctuated by tensions with the monastic community, who had obviously pre­ ferred to elect their own candidate.87 To make things even worse, his writings clearly indicate that he was much in favour of emulating Brognian/Gorzian reformers and

tions of bullae, praecepta and miscellaneous charters, most of which originated from the papal court and Merovingian and Carolingian sovereigns. Eight date from the seventh cen­ tury, twelve from the eighth, twenty-six from the ninth. Mostly known only through copies of the Gesta, they cover general rather than very specific issues regarding the abbey. For a detailed overview of the text's transmission, see M. Gysseling and A.C.F. Koch (eds.), Diplomata Belgica ante annum millesimum centesimum scripta. I, Brussels, 1950, pp. 2-3. 83 In the last one hundred and sixty years, Guérard's edition has received much criticism for its overall reliance on merely one, not altogether reliable twelfth-century manuscript. Although highly critical of his predecessor, the gesta's second editor, O. Holder-Egger (MGH SS XIII, Hannover, 1881, pp. 607-635), hardly displayed a better understanding of the text's hetero­ geneous character by eliminating all non-narrative segments. Karine Ugé has rightly re­ marked that the scattering of archival and narrative parts of Chartularchroniken over dif­ ferent publications does not do justice to the texts' original concept ('Creating', p. 889). It is interesting to note that Dom Mabillon was far more accurate than many of his emulators in describing the intertwining of narrative and diplomatical discourses as the result of a spe­ cific utilitarian concept (De Re Diplomatica, Lille, 1709, pp. 235-236). 84 For a general appreciation of these issues in early medieval cartularies, see P. Geary, 'Entre gestion et gesta', O. Guyotjeannin, L. Morelle and M. Parisse (eds.), Les Cartulaires. Actes de la Table ronde organisée par l'Ecole nationale des chartes et le G.D.R 121 du C.N.R.S., Paris, 5-7 décembre 1991, Paris, 1993, pp. 13-26 and, in the same volume, G.P. Bourgain and M.C. Hubert, 'Latin et rhétorique dans les préfaces de cartulaire', pp. 120-124. A case- study on Folcuin's attitude regarding the ninth-century reforms in the monastery was re­ cently published by Brigitte Meijns ('Chanoines et moins ä Saint-Omer. Le dédoublement de l'abbaye de Sithiu par Fridogise (820-834) et l'interprétation de Folcuin (vers 962)', Re­ vue du Nord, 83 (2001), pp. 691-705). 85 For a general appreciation of the political situation in tenth-century Lotharingia, see M. Pa­ risse, 'Lotharingia', T. Reuter (ed.), The new Cambridge medieval history, pp. 310-327. 86 Although Aletrannus' election had been something of a triumph for the monks, they had violenty refused to co-operate with previous reforms by abbot Erluin (see A. Dierkens, Ab- bayes et chapitres entre Sambre et Meuse (Vlle-XIe siècle). Contribution ä Vhistoire reli- gieuses des campagnes du Haut Moyen Age, Sigmaringen, 1985, pp. 109-119). For Sige- bert's entirely different appreciation of this first abbot of Gembloux, see M. De Waha, 'Si- gebert de Gembloux faussaire? Le chroniqueur et les "sources anciennes" de son abbaye', Revue Beige de Philologie et d ’Histoire, 55 (1977), pp. 889-1036. 87 A. Dierkens, Abbayes, p. 120. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 81 promoting the largely unimplemented ideals of individual poverty and chastity as the pivotal virtues of monastic life.88 These tensions led to a brief insurrection in 971- 972, led by Ratherius of Verona, a former member of the monastery who was looking to establish himself as a major player in the monastic landscape of Lotharingia.89 Fol­ cuin's return to power marked the beginning of a successful period, highlighted by immunities granted by pope John XIII and emperor Otto II.90 The allegation that he was unconcerned with the abbey's institutional well-being is invalidated by the re­ mainder of his abbacy, which was troubled by attempts to recover portions of the ab­ bey's lost property.91 Although his death on 16 September, 990 was immediately fol­ lowed by a request from the monks to restore their right to elect their own abbot, his memory was largely a positive one.92 Several sources attest Folcuin's and his succes­ sor Heriger's high moral and political status in the diocese.93 Folcuin’s transfer to Lobbes by no means interrupted his career as an author. In­ deed, his greatest achievement had yet to come. Besides its troubled recent history, the abbey had also become famous for its artistic and intellectual splendour, and quite possibly attracted the new abbot for this reason. He rapidly immersed himself in the history of the abbey as well as its literary past and became a promoter of local arts, architecture and literature. Evidence of this policy can be found in his already men­ tioned catalogue of the abbey's library, his Gesta of the abbots of Lobbes (NaSo F013)94 and his hagiographic work, dedicated to his saint uncle Folcuin and Lobbes' own saint Ursmarus. According to Alain Dierkens, the Gesta abbatum Lobiensium can be dated around 968-970, with continuations by its original author between 980 and 990 95 Twenty- nine chapters, the last of which seems to have been added by another author, celebrate the glorious but troubled history of the monastic community up to the middle of the 970s. The contents of the narrative are marked by Folcuin's desire to attribute the con­ secration of the abbey’s original church and the foundation of the abbeys of Aulne and Wallers to saint Ursmarus.96 Folcuin did this to counter the arguments of Ratherius, who in his hagiographic work had claimed that the two latter monasteries were actual foundations of Lobbes' original founder, saint Landelinus. This would have meant that Ratherius could claim the abbatial throne of Lobbes, as he had gained

88 J. Warichez, L'abbaye de Lobbes, p. 51. 89 A. Dierkens, Abbayes, pp. 120-121. 90 J. Warichez, L ’abbaye de Lobbes, p. 69. 91 A. Dierkens, Abbayes, pp. 122-124. 92 See the comments in the twelfth-century continuation of the Gesta (NaSo G053; W. Arndt (ed.), MGH SS, XXI, Hannover, 1869, pp. 308-309). 93 A. Dierkens, Abbayes, p. 124. 94 Edited by H. Pertz, MGH SS IV, Hannover, 1841, pp. 54-74. 95 See note 86; some brief articles in Dutch were published in Aanzet, 10 (1992). 96 Folcuin's clumsy arguments are documented in ch. 2 of the Gesta (MGH SS IV, pp. 56-57). 82 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 control over Landelinus' other foundations.97 As for recent history, Folcuin did not avoid painful situations such as the conflict with his adversaries and the extremely violent behaviour of the monks towards reforming abbot Erluin in 957,98 describing them with a remarkably high degree of detachment. Ursmarus' patronage was further celebrated at the end of the narrative, where Folcuin added twelve chapters of miracle stories connected with the saint's cult. These were joined shortly thereafter by two more chapters, before being turned into a separate narrative, the Miracula Ursmari et Ermini (BHL 8420 - NaSo F015).99 During Folcuin's lifetime, a first addition to this new text (BHL 8421 - NaSo U006) was executed by an anonymous author, providing strong evidence of the text's authority in the transmission of these miracle stories.100

2.2 Breaking with discursive traditions

At first sight, Folcuin's work as a historiographer appears to have been a straightfor­ ward attempt at reviving ancient claims and conceiving a historical identity for his community.101 There are, however, strong indications that the structural set-up of the Gesta abbatum Sithiensium and especially the Gesta abbatum Lobiensium reflects trends in monastic literacy that surpass the political and spiritual objectives that have been described in previous paragraphs. It needs to be stressed here that the transition from the semi-archival, semi-historical discourse of the gesta of Saint-Bertin to the simple but effective "historical” discourse of the gesta of Lobbes was by no means an obvious evolution. A comparison with documents from Saint-Peter's abbey in Ghent elucidates my point. After having been "freed" from lay interventions by the count around 940 and after having been reformed by Gérard of Brogne,102 this young Bene-

97 A. Dierkens, 'La production hagiographique â Lobbes au Xe siècle', Revue Bénédictine, XCIII (1983), p. 255. See also A.M. Helvétius, Abbayes, passim. Later authors from Lobbes were clearly aware of the idiosyncracy of Folcuin's interventions in the historical tradition regarding the foundation of the monastery, and distanced themselves from his judgement ('La production', pp. 255-256, note 50). An early example is the late-tenth- century Fundatio monasterii Lobiensis, Brevis (NaSo Fo31; G. Waitz (ed.), MGH SS XIV, Hannover, 1883, pp. 554-555). 98 On the Gorzian reforms in the region and the monks' revolt, see J. Warichez, L'abbaye de Lobbes, pp. 54-57. 99 First edited by Henschenius in AA SS Aprilis 2, pp. 561-570 (in the 3rd edition from 1865); excerpts that did not originate from manuscripts of Folcuin's gesta were edited by O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS XV/2, Hannover, 1888, pp. 832-837. For comments on the composition of this narrative, see A. Dierkens, 'La production', pp. 252-253. 100 During the second half of the eleventh century, three authors would complete the mira­ cula (BHL 8422-24 - NaSo U007). 101 "...signaculum apostolatus [Ursmari] nos quoque sumus in Domino." (MGH SS IV, pp. 57). 102 See K. Ugé, 'Relics as Tools of Power: The Eleventh-Century Inventio of St Bertin's Relics and the Assertion of Abbot Bovo's Authority', A.J.A. Bijsterveld, H. Teunis and A. Wareham (eds.), Negotiating Secular and Ecclesiastical Power. Western Europe in the Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 83 dictine community expressed all emotions proper to a group making a fresh start. Al­ most immediately, the monks began to revise their archival and hagiographic files. One of their most important achievements was the Liber traditionum (dated circa 940- 944), which consisted of a series of more-or-less systematically arranged transcrip­ tions of administrative documents, some of which were falsified. The sole narrative component of the cartulary is a brief prologue, compiled from the hagiographic legacy regarding patron saint Amand.103 Essentially a hagiographic document, the Ratio fun- dationis seu aedificationis Blandiniensis cenobii (NaSo F033) stressed the personal involvement of the saint in the foundation of Saint-Peter's abbey, even though hagio­ graphic texts communicated very little on the relation between the saint and this par­ ticular institution.104 The central argument of this foundation story is the idea that a saint patron can secure legitimacy for a monastic community, even centuries after his demise, providing there is evidence of a continuous succession of abbots.105 The principle of continuity not only guaranteed an argument which rendered valid the monks' claims on institutional legitimacy but also provided them with the neces­ sary clues for the construction of some kind of group identity, of which the arguments (heroic ancestry, dynastic continuity) closely resemble those used in contemporary genealogies of the nobility. From a typological perspective, the desire to trace back the monastic community's institutional and spiritual claims back to a distant and le­ gitimising past was satisfied by aligning, not by combining, textual evidence from two different but very familiar types of written communication: ritual and pragmatic literacy. It is hardly surprising that this transitional period in monastic literacy did not immediately result in a strictly narrative type of historiography. In the Liber traditio-

Central Middle Ages, Tumhout, 1999, p. 55 and, more generally, J. Leclercq, 'Mérites d'un réformateur et limites d'une réforme', Gérard de Brogne et son oeuvre réformatrice. Etudes publiées â Voccasion du millénaire de sa mort (959-1959), Maredsous, 1960, p. 233 and W. Mohr, Studien zur Klosterreform des Grafen Arnulf 1. von Flandern. Traditi­ on und Wirklichkeit in der Geschichte des Amandus-Klöster, Louvain, 1992, pp. 126-128. 103 The prologue can be found in M. Gysseling and A.C.F. Koch (eds.), Diplomata Belgica, pp. 123-126. A tenth-century summary of this text adds little to what is of interest here (see G. Declercq, Traditievorming en tekstmanipulatie in Viaanderen in de tiende eeuw. Het Liber Traditionum Antiquus van de Gentse Sint-Pietersabdij, Brussels, 1998, pp. 35- 38). 104 Amandus appears to have been a wandering missionary for the most part of his life, thus allowing authors to link his name to many foundations. They failed, however, to provide a well-documented tradition on the relation between the saint and specific communities (H. Platelle, Le temporel de Vabbaye de Saint-Amand des origines a 1340, Paris, 1962, pp. 33-34). 105 M. Sot, Arguments hagiographiques et historiographiques dans les 'Gesta episcoporum", Hagiographie, cultures et sociétés, IVe-XIIe siècles. Actes du Colloque organise ä Nan- terre et a Paris (2-5 mai 1979), Paris, 1981, pp. 95-97. The first few paragraphs of this text were interpolated when the original version was copied. The authors of the revised editions of the cartulary inserted new names of abbots for the first decades of the monas­ tery's existence to arrange for stronger "evidence” (G. Declercq, Traditievorming, pp. 38- 41). 84 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 num, they conveyed a sense of historical continuity by bringing forward textual evi­ dence from two genres that effectively proved the long-term basis on which monastic literacy was founded. The full reproduction of saint's lives (or revisions thereof) and archival documents allowed the monks to use them in a historical context without losing their specific effectiveness. In his gesta of Saint-Bertin, Folcuin still cited charters in their entirety, but he in­ troduced and commented upon them in a large numbers of narrative segments, ex­ cerpted from hagiography and a considerable number of miscellaneous sources. The innovative element in this work is the desire to contextualise the charter treasure, an ancient polyptic and the hagiography of his abbey and to turn these "loose ends" into a continuous story of a community's struggle for survival. Contrary to the monks of Saint-Peter's abbey, he did not merely juxtapose two types of discourse physically (that is, in the same manuscript), but used clearly separated, but nevertheless in­ terwoven fragments from hagiographic and pragmatic literature to construct a new textual entity. This does not necessarily mean that the result was considered a "proper” chronicle. The fact that the monks of Saint-Bertin were asked to subscribe the document as were it a legal piece is indeed very telling as to the marginal status of non-hagiographic historical writing in monastic circles, but at the same time it opened up new opportunities for aspiring historians. With the monastic community at the centre of attention, the gesta surpassed their purely legal status and were used as a manifesto of the monks' self-awareness. That is, of course, what many groups in so­ ciety were looking for: a narrative that would explain (instead of document), once and for all, how and why their community had become a legitimate partner in society's interactive processes. As an abbot of Lobbes, Folcuin would take even greater risks in assessing his community's historical identity. In the Gesta abbatum Lobiensium, he proceeded to write a more or less profane history of the abbey. His method consisted of excerpting hagiography and the archives of his abbey instead of using their discursive argu­ ments.106 As a result, Folcuin's work on the gesta of Saint-Bertin and Lobbes docu­ ments the gradual transition from a historical discourse that is expressed by aligning non-historical texts to one that is explored in its own, fully developed idiom.107 The

106 There can be no question of a lack of interest in administrative documents because of a lack of archival material. One fragment of a descriptio villarum and two lists of the ab­ bey’s possessions have been preserved and might well have been transcribed were it not for the gesta's new conception as a fully narrative text (J.P. Devroey (ed.), Le polyptique et les listes de biens de Vabbaye Saint-Pierre de Lobbes (IXe-XIe siècles), Brussels, 1986). In fact, Folcuin did paraphrase entries from the descriptio villarum, while a now- lost charter of Karloman is partially reproduced in ch. 6 (MGH SS IV, p. 58). 107 In this respect, the gesta of the bishops of Liège by Folcuin's successor Heriger of Lobbes (written between 972 and 1000, most probably around 972-980 and informally commis­ sioned by bishop Notker of Liège) was of an equally ambitious, but less unprecedented nature (NaSo H025; edited by R. Köpke, MGH SS VII, Hannover, 1846, pp. 164-189. See R. Aubert, 'Hériger de Lobbes', Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, XXIII, Paris, 1990, pp. 1450-1451). Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 85

shift from Chartularchronik to fully formed abbatial gesta in the space of just ten years is a remarkable witness of his second thoughts on the necessity of hybrid do­ cuments. The only notable exception to his reluctance to reproduce full documents is the transcription of a charter of Amoul from 889, in which the sovereign donates the abbey of Lobbes to the bishop of Liège.108 This document, which effectively ended lay abbacy, was of such great importance to the community that its inclusion seemed justified. The fact that this transition was documented, rather than the one that ended the combination of the abbacy and the bishop's throne of Liège, was inspired by Fol­ cuin's positive attitude towards the bishops of Liège. It allowed him to represent the end of their abbacy in Lobbes as a minor change. The main question that arises from these observations is, of course, why Folcuin was so eager to present his ideas and his vision of the past in a format that was un­ common to the monastic use of the written word.109 And how did he make this transi­ tion acceptable to his peers?110

3. Heterogenising written remembrance

3.1 Incentives

I believe there can be different explanations for Folcuin's radical decision, none of which necessarily contradicts the others. One reason could be that his experience with classical literature, combined with his thorough bibliographical knowledge of histori­ ography from the preceding few centuries, inspired him to create a text of literary merit. He would have then intended the new narrative to become a new benchmark for grammatical and historical education in the monastery. However, the reasoning behind the narrativisation of Lobbes' history stretches much further. Although he was familiar with one of the first abbatial histories on the Continent, the Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium (circa 830-867),111 it is very likely that Folcuin was especially inter-

108 The charter is part of chapter fifteen, but only a few words are reproduced in Pertz's edi­ tion; see P. Kehr (ed.), Die Urkunden der Deutschen Karolinger. Dritter Band. Die Urkunden Arnolfs, Berlin, 1940, pp. 94-96, nr. 64. 109 Annalistic literature such as the ninth-early tenth-century Annales Laubacenses, describ­ ing the history of the Carolingian empire from 687 to 912, was imbedded in a semi-ritual, semi-computistic setting (G.H. Pertz (ed.), MGH SS I, Hannover, 1826, pp. 7, 9-10, 12- 13, 15, 52-55; see M. Innes and R. McKitterick, 'The writing of history', R. McKitterick (ed.), Carolingian culture: emulation and innovation, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 200-201). 110 The fact that abbatial histories were uncommon expressions of monastic literacy is stressed by K.S. Frank, 'Lesen, Schreiben und Bücher im frühen Mönchtum', U. Schaeffer (ed.), Schriftlichkeit, pp. 7-18. 111 H. Zimmermann, 'Zu Flodoards Historiographie und Regestentechnik', K.U. Jächske and R. Wenskus (eds.), Festschrift für Helmut Beumann zum 65. Geburtstag, Sigmaringen, 1977, pp. 200-214. According to Karine Ugé, a copy of the Gesta abbatum Fontanellen­ sium might have arrived in the library of Saint-Bertin a decade or so before Folcuin began 86 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 ested in the "genealogical" format of an increasing number of episcopal gesta, in par­ ticular those of Metz and, after his relocation to Lobbes, of Reims.1121 am inclined to think that Folcuin wanted to emulate episcopal gesta in order to stress the political and cultural ambitions of his monastic community in the context of the bishopric of Liège. After all, he and his successor Heriger are known to have been among the most prominent in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, while the strong involvement of the bishop and the emperor in the abbey's internal affairs clearly shows its importance in the re­ gion. At the same time, the community's recent history had been, to say the least, troubled, and the monks certainly needed a strong reassessment of their identity, pref­ erably based on a long-term appreciation of their group's past. It would support the "ideological model" of literacy to claim that Folcuin cloned his story specifically on episcopal gesta in order to claim the abbey's prominent position in the bishopric and to create a "definitive" version of its evolution as a living institution113. In other words, he adopted the format of historical remembrance that was used by his immedi­ ate superiors in the ecclesiastical hierarchy to claim his community's place in the ec­ clesiastical elite, just like the Carolingian aristocracy had adopted their sovereign's written idiom.114 Another reason could be that Folcuin was struggling with how the past was re­ membered in his abbey. According to the hagiographic tradition regarding the found­ ing saints of his institution, his opponent Ratherius might have had some good rea­ sons to pursue his aggressive campaign against Folcuin. As Ratherius had only re­ cently compiled an authoritative hagiographic narrative that supported these ideas, the abbot of Lobbes could hardly postulate a reply in the same idiom, as it would imme­ diately have become apparent that his version of the past took considerable liberties with an ancient, hagiographic tradition of remembrance. In order to claim a prominent

working on his own gesta. The monks of Fontenelle (or Saint-Wadrille) also influenced monastic life in Saint-Peter's in Ghent, where some of them had taken residence shortly before the reforms (K. Ugé, 'Relics', pp. 57-58 and G. Declercq, Traditievorming, pp. 63- 64, note 173). 112 K. Ugé, 'Creating', pp. 900-901 and M. Stratmann (ed.), Flodoard von Reims. Die Ge­ schichte der Reimser Kirche (MGH SS XXXVI), Hannover, 1998, p. 42. 113 I explicitly intend this argument to be an answer to Lifshitz' claim that "The historiogra­ phy against which "hagiography" has been defined is scientific in its methodology... but it has also been secular and nationalistic in its content. It is a historiography whose emer­ gence coincided with that of administrative monarchies of western Europe in the twelfth century and after... Yet the Frankish kingdoms in the late Carolingian and early Capetian periods... are famous for the "weakness" of the "state"... I would suggest that, as a result, the west Frankish lands between the ninth and eleventh centuries also necessarily lacked any conception of "historiography" that they even could be distinguished from "hagiogra­ phy"." ('Beyond positivism', p.98). 114 It has been noted recently that late eighth- and ninth-century monastic annals reflect similar "imitative" ambitions. For further thoughts on this problem, see my article 'Typo­ logy of Medieval Historiography Reconsidered: a Social Re-interpretation of Monastic Annals, Chronicles and Gesta', Historical Social Research - Historische Sozialforschung, 26 (2001), pp. 141-178. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 87 role as a founder for saint Ursmarus, Folcuin did two things: first of all, he decon­ structed previous, hagiographic versions of the distant past and represented them in a new idiom, at the same time stressing the methodological difference between hagio­ graphy and historiography. As for the recent past, he seized the opportunity to claim and fixate newly-emerged stories regarding Ursmarus’ personality and miracles and start a new hagiographic tradition, which supported his claims on the abbatial throne. In sum, Folcuin reconstructed the abbey's distant past by recjecting not only the con­ tents, but also the form of older traditions of remembrance, but reverted to hagiogra­ phy when discussing the recent past because of a lack of contradictory voices.

3.2 Methods and arguments

Let us first look at how Folcuin succeeded in creating a new historical reality by highlighting the specific, non-hagiographic nature of his work. Although the Gesta abbatum Lobiensium were intended to provide the entire monastic community with a historical identity, it seems unlikely that the narrative was considered suitable to be performed in a communal context. As was the case with the gesta of Saint-Bertin, Folcuin probably intended his history of Lobbes to be studied by a select group of knowledgeable students and administrators.115 If read aloud to a general monastic audience, the narrative's dry, factual style and the many lines devoted to heuristics would have guaranteed a strenuous and perhaps even puzzling listening experience.116 Although it remains difficult to provide conclusive evidence for this hypothesis, I am inclined to think that the text was conceived within the bosom of Lobbes' flourishing schola, where the methodology of scientific and literary disciplines obviously played a major part in the education of the most talented of the monastery's pupils.117 Why else did Folcuin devote so many sentences to a detailed overview of the literary work of his adversary Ratherius?118 If the text was conceived with the entire community in mind, it would not have been particularly wise to stress the glorious literary career of the man who had recently claimed the abbatial throne. But in the much smaller, learned inner circle of the school, the scholarship either in the abbey or performed by former members of the community was a major point of interest, and its merits were not confused with what happened outside the study room.

115 In chapter 19, the lector who wishes to know more about the early-ninth century history of Lobbes is referred to Ratherius' letter to the pope (MGH SS IV, p. 63). 116 Most narrative sources from monastic circles up to that time were intended to be per­ formed, rather than read in silence (G.H. Brown, 'Latin Writing', p. 40). 117 Although I cannot use this as an argument, it is telling that the additions to the 1049 catalogue of Lobbes' library mention a now-lost copy of Folcuin's Gesta (along with the Miracula Ursmari) in the collection of the monastery's school (see A. Derolez, B. Victor and W. Bracke (eds.), Corpus Catalogorum Belgii, p. 277). 118 MGH SS IV, pp. 63-64. 88 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004

Although the above arguments suggest that the narrative was aimed at a silent- reading audience or a group of students,119 very few of its sources are cited literally or extensively. The attention devoted to the historian's methods reveals other, less obvi­ ous objectives, which have much to do with Folcuin's intention to heterogenise the historical remembrance of his peers. Folcuin clearly thought of his work as an exclu­ sively narrative concept, whose objectives were different from those in the Gesta ab­ batum Sithiensium, in which he had retained the charters' proper style. He also in­ sisted on the history of an institution as the central point of interest, not the lives of its leaders, or its relations with the outside world, which led him to hold on to the strictly linear set-up of his time-frame. In other words, by keeping very close to his central objectives as a historian, he avoided including extraneous discursive arguments in his work. Conclusive evidence comes from the most notable exception to this rule. Chapter 25 of the gesta is entirely devoted to the miraculous withdrawal of the Hun­ garians before the monastery's walls in 955.120 It is not difficult to see how this heroic story, derived from an (at that time) vivid oral tradition,121 documents a sudden dis­ cursive shift. In contrast with previous chapters, the story of this episode is a highly performable narrative. Concise, entertaining, cathartic and, above all, conducive to the veneration of saint Ursmarus, its contents are of an entirely different nature than the remainder of the text (the miracle stories at the end excepted).122 What is more, Fol­ cuin himself acknowledged the fact that this chapter fitted in with the rest like a square peg in a round hole. His own comments at the start of chapter 26 are telling: the entire preceding chapter was no more than a divertissement, a diverticulum, which had interrupted the actual discourse or propositum .123 The full inclusion of the miracle story in the separate edition of Ursmarus' miracles (conceived by Folcuin himself) is a

119 Much has been made of monastic legislators' insistence on silent reading as an act of contemplation (see, for example, P. Riché, Education et culture dans VOccident barb are VIe-VIIle siècles, Paris, 1962, p. 518). 120 MGH SS IV, pp. 65-67. See A. D'Haenens, 'Les incursions Hongroises dans l'espace beige (954/955). Histoire ou historiographie?', Cahiers de civilisations médiévale Xe-XIIe siè- cles, IV (1961), pp. 423-440, especially p. 434. 121 Since he was a monk of Saint-Bertin at the time of the invasions, Folcuin could not pro­ vide any first-hand information. Apart from using the oral tradition, which was strictly limited to the events regarding the abbey of Lobbes itself, he reverted to Ruotger's Vita Brunonis (BHL 1468) to give a general survey of the invasions and the Hungarians' fate (Ibidem, p. 434). 122 The easiness with which hagiographic stories were adapted for oral declamation is made apparent by the rich collections of historiae or historical offices, extracted from hagio­ graphy and performed at days, associated with a particular saint's cult (J.F. Goudenesse, Les Offices historiques ou historiae pour les ß te s de saints dans la Province ecclésias- tique de Reims 775-1030, Tumhout, 2002). Folcuin clearly acknowledged the importance of musical studies, and referred explicitly to bishop Stephanus of Liege's musical adapta­ tion of the Life of Lambertus (MGH SS IV, p. 62). 123 Ch.26 (MGH SS IV, p. 67). See, for a parallel example, M.M. Woesthuis, "Nunc ad histo- riam revertamur.' History and preaching in Helinand of Froidmont', Sacris Erudiri, XXXIV (1994), pp. 313-333. Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 89 further indicator of the fact that its author considered these paragraphs to be alien to his central purpose as a historian.124 It is clear that Folcuin attempted to represent historiography and hagiography as discursively opposite idioms, and that he wished to argue that he could support the validity of the claims in his gesta with other arguments than those used in hagiography. He found these arguments in his critical approach to his sources, having found out that the best way to legitimise his work was to present himself as an objective ob­ server. Let us first start with his attitude towards oral traditions. Folcuin did not think of them as diffuse, or unreliable. To a very large degree, tenth-century authors were immersed in a culture where a text was not immediately thought of as a written document, but simply as an expression of knowledge or ideas that was more or less structured and transmitted as such, regardless of the medium. Hearing about and actu­ ally seeing events were thought of as essential to the acquisition of historical infor­ mation and were considered no less important than reading about them. The purpose of writing down orally-transmitted historical information was, however, not to present a mere version of the past, but to establish one that would become definitive and authoritative. In the case of Lobbes, most of the "profane" historical data regarding the abbey’s institutional history had not yet been fixated in a written form. The most important exception to this was the story of the foundation of the abbey. Ratherius had already tried to canonise his version of the abbey's origin in his hagiographies, and Folcuin quickly (but unsuccessfully) reacted to this by conceiving his own ver­ sion, one that confirmed his present status as an abbot. Crucial to this discussion was the involvement of saint Ursmarus (whose relics were being kept in Lobbes) in the actual foundation. While Folcuin's own version of the foundation was highly contentious to say the least, its arguments were deceitfully presented as the outcome of a careful and objec­ tive study of source material125 In chapter three of the Gesta, the author elaborates on the sources for the biography of Ursmarus, of which he names the latter’s Life126 and

124 Folcuin thought of hagiography as a "speaking" idiom: chapter 5 (MGH SS IV, p. 58) ex­ plicitly refers to Ursmarus' life, "cum descriptio vitae eius dicat de eis satis habunde". The same comments are valid for the Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium, where the author in­ tentionally left out the descriptions of the life and miracles of local saints (F. Lohier and P.J. Laporte (eds.), Gesta sanctorum patrum Fontanellensis coenobii (Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium), Rouen and Paris, 1936, p. 2). 125 See ch.3 (MGH SS IV, p. 57): "Quid horum verius sit, lectorum arbitrium commitemus". 126 In the best of cases, this would mean that Folcuin had access to the original, now lost Vita Ursmari, written by Ursmarus' successor Ermin (717-737). Later versions include Anso's Vita Ursmari secunda (BHL 8416 - NaSoA099; third quarter of the eighth century), Ratherius' revision (BHL 8417-18 - NaSo R021; 939-945) and Heriger of Lobbes' Vita Ursmari Metrica (BHL 8419 - NaSo H026; around 965). For a comprehensive overview of the hagiography at Lobbes, see A. Dierkens, 'La production', pp. 245-259. Folcuin did add some otherwise unknown information regarding Ursmarus' life (see A. Dierkens, Ab­ bayes, p. 95). 90 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004

"the account of our elderly [brethren]".127 The fact that "elderly brethren" are invoked as witnesses is a reflection of Folcuin's wish to reach back as far as possible into the past, although it appears unlikely that many of his witnesses were born before c. 880, nearly a hundred-and-seventy years after Ursmarus' death.128 The remembrance of remote historical events in oral cultures has proven to be so strong that there would be no reason to dismiss his claims on first hand.129 One has, however, to keep into ac­ count the vast impact of hagiographic and other narratives that were being recited in the monastic community during masses and meals. Folcuin's oral witnesses might have obtained their information from a written life that had been conceived at any time between the saint's death and his first work on the gesta, and that was being re­ cited regularly.130 Regardless of these arguments, it is remarkable to see how the

127 "... seniorum nostrorum relatio" (MGH SS IV, p. 57). 128 If Folcuin's assertion of an alternate oral tradition is indeed a reflection of an actual situa­ tion, it is not possible to ascertain whether this oral tradition originated in stories that had been transmitted orally since the saint's death (around 713), in one or more of the saint's lives, or in a combination of both. Although Ursmarus had been dead for over two centu­ ries, it is possible that an oral tradition would have survived until the latter part of the ninth or even into the tenth century. Research in African tribes by the Belgian historian- antropologist Jan Vansina has shown that the historical remembrance of "oral communi­ ties” covers three phases: a period of the most recent eighty to one hundred years, in which memory is vivid but decreasing towards the furthest point, an intermediary period where remembrance is largely diffuse and the origins of the group, which is often ren­ dered in a semi-mythical setting (see J. Assmann, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 48-49). It is not difficult to see how Folcuin's gesta are a strong example of this pattern. Firstly, his own oral sources similarly fail to provide information that cover the entire history of the abbey: only the first decades and the years from 870/880 are remembered among the monks. Secondly, Folcuin's story itself, although written, responds strongly to this "law" of oral remembrance. His account of events from the middle of the ninth century is equally (and notoriously so) confused, much more so than that of the eight century and of the final century or so before his own age (see M. Van Bleyenberghe's comments in 'Rapport sur les travaux du séminaire historique pendant l'année académique 1900-1901', Annuaire de Vuniversité catholique de Louvain, 66 (1902), pp. 294-295). 129 In ch. 16 (MGH SS IV, p. 62), Folcuin tells us how he and many of the brethren had known a man who had been a witness of events preceding the Norman invasions of the 880s. Considering the fact that Folcuin only came to Lobbes in 965, this man must have been very elderly. 130 In the very first phrases of the gesta, the history of the abbey is placed in the context of a teleological history of the world, in which the succession of the great empires is the point of reference. Folcuin does this to point out how human history is entirely in God's hands, and how the fate of the smallest community is intimately connected to that of society. His fellow monks were undoubtedly familiar with this concept, as he referes to "the succes­ sion of empires... which we have heard o f or seen for ourselves." ("de regnorum...per- mutationibus, quos vel audivimus vel vidimus, non multum mirandum." (MGH SS IV, p. 55). Most likely, this type of information would have been communicated to the monks in the schola. Folcuin's own list of additions to the library of Lobbes included Isidore's Ety­ mologies, the Latin version of Eusebe's ecclesiastical History and Gregory of Tour's His­ tory of the Franks (see A. Derolez, B. Victor and W. Bracke (eds.), Corpus Catalogorum Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 91 author invites his readers to decide between the contradictory statements of written and oral traditions. By representing himself as a historian and an objective observer, Folcuin was able to introduce an alternate, orally transmitted tradition regarding the origin of his abbey into the historical remembrance of the monks without contradicting the hagiographers' version. Other examples document a desire to fixate contemporary oral traditions be­ fore any unwanted interpretations could surface. I have already pointed out that Fol­ cuin concluded his history of the abbey with a number of miracle stories pertaining to saint Ursmarus, none of which were completely integrated into the historical narrative and, indeed, its discourse. The fact that he neglected to fully incorporate the saint’s miracles into the Gesta themselves (save for chapter 25), indicates that he thought the stories as a text would be "performed" in a different context than the gesta itself. A brief burst of mild indignation at the end of chapter 10 in the gesta is a good indicator of Folcuin’s intentions:

"From that time [823, date of Ursmarus' translation] on, the fame of this famous man kept increasing, and [he] miraculously restored affluent hordes of sick people back to various forms of good health. Because of their ignorance or lack of experience, our predecessors have left many of these miracles to gather dust, while the study of the written word has been neglected. God giving, I intend to put the most excellent into writing before my time has come, each in its proper place, and with respect of their order."131

Folcuin believed that orally transmitted miracle stories were a vital part of hagio­ graphic remembrance,132 but that their effectiveness could not be fully explored with­ out someone recording them in writing.133 Indeed, he did not think that non-recorded miracle stories were likely to be entirely forgotten, or even that their oral versions

Belgii, p. 253)). Even when confronted with extremely remote historical events, he ex­ presses his belief in the didactic power of oral communication. In some cases, such as the one I have just mentioned, the origin of the oral tradition clearly stems from a written source, a tradition of texts discussing the succession of the empires since the first century B.C. (see my book Sociale perceptie en maatschappelijke positionering in de middel- eeuwse monastieke historiografle (8ste-15de eeuw), Volume 1, Brussels, 2001, pp. 51-54). 131 Ch. 10 (MGH SS IV, p. 60): "Abhinc ergo coepit beati viri [Ursmari] Celebris fama cre- bescere, et confluentibus languentium turmis ad diversa sanitatum genera miraculis cor- uscare. Quae multa praedecessorum nostrorum seu ignavia seu imperitia ad tempus ia- cuerunt, et studia litterarum sunt praetermissa; nos ea quae vidimus aut audivimus, ex- cellentiora tantum notantes, suis in locis ponemus, et hoc faciemus ordine servato, cum Deo donante ad nostri temporis faecem pervenerimus." See K. Heene, 'Litteris ac memo­ riae mandare: writing and oral information in Carolingian miracle stories', Litterae Hagi- ologicae, 3 (1997), p. 9. 132 On the use of oral witnesses in historiography and hagiography, see E.M.C. Van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900-1200, Basingstoke and London, 1999, es­ pecially pp. 19-62. 133 See K. Heene, 'Litteris', pp. 9-10. 92 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 were faulty,134 but his insistence on the written word as an instrument through which information could be systematically recorded and retrieved is a common indicator of a desire to fixate certain contemporary issues and ideas in a living tradition.135 By committing elements from an oral tradition to writing, one could change their trans­ mission to such an extent that the unwanted aspects of heroic and folk stories in oral culture could be discarded in favour of presenting values and images that supported the ideology and the institutional framework of the Church.136 The conception of col­ lections of miracle stories provided their authors with unique opportunities to influ­ ence their transmission definitively in a sense that suited them best. In this case, Fol­ cuin used contemporary oral traditions regarding Ursmarus' cult to assert his own po­ sition as the legitimate head of the abbey. He also intercepted stories that began cir­ culating during his years in Lobbes before they could be influenced by unwanted ele­ ments of folk storytelling, or, even worse, by the viewpoints of his opponents.137 Such a strategy might also have been applied to the story of the above mentioned siege of the Hungarians in 955, as Folcuin was aware that such a miracle story was worth pre­ serving if his concept of Usmarus as the abbey's founder was to meet with any suc­ cess.138

134 "La plus grande difficulté intrinsèque du purement oral est simplement qu'il n'était pas of- ficiel... Ce n'est done pas tellement qu'on considérait que la tradition orale fut intrinsè- quement défectueuse, e'est plutôt qu'il manquait un élément important de durabilité et d'utilité officielle dans la liturgie." (E.B. Vitz, 'Traditions orales et écrites dans les histoi- res des saints', Poétique, 72 (1987), pp. 396-397). 135 This desire to fixate contemporary interpretations of monastic life and spirituality also expressed itself in other domains. This is clearly the case with the conception of the first consuetudines in Cluny (B. Tutsch, 'Texttradition und Praxis von consuetudines und sta­ tuta in der 'Cluniacensis ecclesia' (10.-12. Jahrhundert)', H. Keller and F. Neiske (eds.), Vom Kloster, pp. 173-205, especially pp. 177-179). For a more theoretical perspective on the subject of canonisation of historical information, see J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 91-102. 136 G. De Nie, 'Text', pp. 119 and 129. For a study of the (sometimes perverse) effects of this policy at the end of the eleventh century, see H. Vollrath, 'Oral Modes of Perception in Eleventh-Century Chronicles', A.N. Doane and C.B. Pasternack (eds.), Vox intexta. Ora- lity and Textuality in the Middle Ages, Madison and London, 1991, pp. 102-111. 137 See the miracles in AA SS Aprilis 2, 1865 (3rd edition), p. 564, where the contemporary nature of the events is stressed. 138 Folcuin's early ventures into etymology include a creative attempt at explaining the ori­ gins of the name Ursmarus, linking it to the Latin word for bear, ursus. According to an­ tique theory, bears were born as formless humps of meat, to be licked into shape by their mother. Similarly, the preaching of Ursmarus had succeeded to mould "those, who were only acquainted with the carnal side of life" into "the image of his Lord." (MGH SS IV, p. 57). Mediaevistik 17 · 2004 93

4. Conclusion

In the context of the tenth-century "reinvention" of historical literacy, Folcuin's work in Lobbes marks several decisive turning points. At a time when communities were looking for strong arguments to come to terms with the recent social disruptions, mo­ nastic groups claimed their historical identity by using and re-using their most power­ ful asset: literacy and, in particular, ritual and pragmatic literacy. In an initial phase, the reconstruction of their past would be a matter of aligning the discursive arguments that were present in both types of documents. Although Folcuin's gesta of the abbots of Saint-Bertin still echoes this strategy, the transition to a type of "profane" histori­ ography, which largely deconstructed the arguments from hagiographies and archival documents, can be characterized as a bold move. From a political, social, and me­ thodological perspective, the choice of an almost fully narrative gesta as a vehicle for a monastic historical identity might have been a surprise to his fellow monks in Lob­ bes. Strategically, however, it was a major coup. Now that the bishops' immediate control on the abbey had made way for a somewhat informal relationship, Folcuin did everything in his power to sustain their support of the abbey. The most effective way to ensure such support was to maintain good personal relations, but also to behave as a member of the regional elite, which, at that point, meant to emulate and assimilate the episcopal court's culture. His extremely selective attitude towards reproducing documents and his strong involvement with the study of the history of the region co­ incided with his intrinsically positive attitude towards the involvement of the bishops in his abbey's history and government. Aside from what one could call '"imitative" literate behaviour, the strength of Fol­ cuin's work lies in its linear discourse, in which he presented the abbey's history as a continuous evolution. This long-term perspective had the benefit of providing the monastic community with a sense of historicity, and it also placed his own abbacy and the impact of the bishops of Liège on his institution in a positive light. The canonisa­ tion of both the history of the abbey and the oral traditions regarding the cult of saints in his institution was the result of an attempt to control and direct "historical” com­ munication in manner favourable to Folcuin. By choosing to approach his subject from a narrative and a profane, non-hagiographic angle, he also anticipated incon­ gruities between hagiographic and legal traditions and his own version of the abbey's history. His arguments, which were based on "objective" heuristics instead of on spiritual or legal maxims, enabled him to smokescreen his audience of his urgent de­ sire to replace all previous versions of his subject's history by a new document, em­ bedded in an uncommon discursive tradition. As for the recent past, this problem did not present itself, so Folcuin happily returned to hagiography to describe his favourite saint's miracles. 94 Mediaevistik 17 · 2004

Imitation, heterogenisation, and canonisation: powerful assets of a literate elite in a society that was dominated by oral communication.139 Although the cases of Saint- Bertin and Lobbes are just two in many hundreds that might have been chosen to il­ lustrate the central ideas in this study, they do show the high degree of discursive and typological flexibility on behalf of the creators of written documents, even in this "darkest" of literate ages. Considering the presumably limited impact of Folcuin's strategies outside the monastery's walls, it is all the more remarkable to see how so­ cial issues, even on a micro-level such as in Lobbes, inspired authors to seek for new arguments, new discursive tools and, eventually, uncommon types of written com­ munication, in which their objectives could be implemented most effectively. Espe­ cially in regard to the remembrance of the past, the changing social situation and the willingness of the monks to deviate from discursive traditions make a strong case for the essentially social nature of literate behaviour.

Dr. Steven Vanderputten Medieval History Blandijnberg 2 B-9000 Gent

139 Many thanks to dr. Martine de Reu, dr. Katrien Heene, professor Ludo Milis and Melissa Provijn for their kind comments on the first draft of this text.