The Premonstratensian Project

Chapter 7 The Premonstratensian Project

Carol Neel

1 Introduction

The order of Prémontré, in the hundred years after the foundation of its first religious community in 1120, instantiated the vibrant religious enthusiasm of the long twelfth century. Like other religious orders originating in the medieval reformation of Catholic Christianity, the Premonstratensians looked to the early church for their inspiration, but to the rule of Augustine rather than to the rule of Benedict whose reinterpretation defined the still more numerous and influential Cistercians.1 The Premonstratensian framers, in the first in- stance their founder Norbert of Xanten (d. 1134), understood the Augustinian rule to have been composed by the ancient bishop for his own community of priests in Hippo, hence believed it the most ancient and venerable of constitu- tions for intentional religious life in the Latin-speaking West.2 As Regular Can- ons ordained to priesthood and living together in community under the rule of Augustine rather than monks according to a reformed Benedictine model, the Premonstratensians were then both primitivist and innovative. While the order of Prémontré embraced the novelty of its own project in interpreting the Augustinian ideal for a Europe reshaped by Gregorian Reform, burgeoning lay piety, and a Crusader spirit, at the same time it homed to an ancient paradigm of a priesthood informed and inspired by the sharing of poverty and prayer. Among numerous contemporaneous reform movements and religious communities claiming return to apostolic values, the medieval Premonstratensians thus maintained a vivid consciousness of the distinctiveness of their charism as a mixed apostolate bringing together contemplative retreat and active en- gagement in the secular world.

1 For a magisterial overview of the place of the Premonstratensians in the twelfth-century reform, with special reference to the importance of the rule of Augustine for contemporary orders’ self-understanding, see Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cam- bridge: 1996), esp. 40–51. Richard W. Southern’s compelling outline of the growth of reform orders retains historiographical importance: Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London: 1970), 240–272, esp. on the revitalization of the rule of Augustine (242–243). 2 George Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: 1987), esp. 140–142. The biblical foundation of the Augustinian rule in Acts 3:32–35 remains, for all the major medieval Premonstratensian authors, a primary touchstone of their mission.

194 Neel

The articulation and interpretation of Premonstratensian identity were from the order’s initiation throughout its medieval development grounded in this dual mission; dynamic interaction between active apostolate and contemplative community characterized their particular niche in the landscape of European religion, giving rise to lively, often highly productive discourse with- in the order and among its advocates and critics about its charism. For both aspects of Premonstratensian life, a spirituality animated by adoration of the Virgin Mary was central. Canons of the order – and in some instances their female associates – were leaders rather than followers in the rapid twelfth- and thirteenth-century development of the Cult of the Virgin. By 1200 clerical members and lay affiliates of the order had developed their intense veneration of the Virgin into similarly pathbreaking devotion to St. Joseph and the Holy Family. These spiritual directions shaped the Premonstratensians’ care of secular souls and the religious practices of the order’s primary members, its priests living in community. Their spirituality in turn informed the order’s women’s houses, its conversi, and the many lay associates whose belief and practice were informed by the Premonstratensian canons’ preaching and example.3 The order of Prémontré meanwhile posed an important organizational as well as spiritual model for the development of the mendicants of the thirteenth century, among whom the Dominicans in particular imitated their organization into local houses, regional groups of communities, and a pan- European annual chapter. Communities of Premonstratensians, in contrast to later Dominicans, maintained their commitment to stability of place into the thirteenth century and beyond, so forming a counterpoise to the mobility of mendicant ministry to Europe’s laity.4 For the Premonstratensians as for other intentional communities of the Middle Ages, biblical exegesis provided a primary means of orientation through discernment of a particular place on the landscape of movements defined by religious rules. The Gospel story of Mary and Martha’s reception of Jesus at their home in Bethany (Lk 10:38–42, Jn 12:1–8) was, for a succession of scriptural commentators among Regular Canons following Norbert’s model, a central locus of discussion of appropriate community life, social role, and

3 The outstanding work on the spirituality of the medieval Premonstratensians remains Fran- çois Petit, La spiritualité des Prémontrés aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Études de théologie et d’histoire de la spiritualité 10 (Paris: 1947); a recent translation adds a modest further biblio graphy: François Petit, Spirituality of the Premonstratensians, trans. Victor Szcurek, ed. Carol Neel, Cistercian Studies 242. Premonstratensian Texts and Studies 2 (Collegeville: 2011). See also Norbert and Early Norbertine Spirituality, ed. and trans. Theodore J. Antry and Carol Neel (New York and Mahwah: 2007). 4 Wolfgang Grassl, Culture of Place: An Intellectual Profile of the Premonstratensian Order, vol. 1 (Nordhausen: 2012), 545–554.