Copyright by Cheryl Lynn Kaufman 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Cheryl Lynn Kaufman Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Augustinian Canons of St. Ursus: Reform, Identity, and the Practice of Place in Medieval Aosta Committee: Martha G. Newman, Co-Supervisor Alison K. Frazier, Co-Supervisor Neil D. Kamil Joan A. Holladay Glenn A. Peers The Augustinian Canons of St. Ursus: Reform, Identity, and the Practice of Place in Medieval Aosta by Cheryl Lynn Kaufman, B.A.; M. A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2011 Dedicated to Eric A. Kaufman with love Acknowledgements I have accumulated several debts of gratitude over my graduate school career. I am thankful to the Soprinendenza ai Beni Culturali e Ambientali della Regione Autonoma Valle d‘Aosta for permission to photograph the sculpture in the cloister of St. Ursus. For access to manuscripts in Aosta, I thank Don Franco Lovignana and the librarians at the Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore and Archivio Storico Regionale. I am especially grateful to Dr. Paolo Papone for his gracious hospitality, the interesting conversations (in person and in email) regarding the cloister sculpture, and his kindness in sharing his dissertation with me before its publication. My visits to Italy and Switzerland have been enhanced by the hospitality of Greg and Lisby Laughery who provided a warm bed, lovely meals, and challenging conversations on my journeys to Switzerland. In Aosta, the apartments of the Marzi family—the yellow, light-filled rooms that overlook the cloister of St. Ursus—were a wonderful place to live in Aosta, surrounded by the constant sounds of the bells of the campanile of St. Ursus. I want to give special recognition to my friend André Vercellone, whose generous hospitality and amazing chocolate pastries are a highpoint of our trips to Aosta, while his emails keep us connected to the Aosta Valley even when we are far away. I have been fortunate to receive financial support for my research, including grants from the History department, Graduate School, and Medieval Studies Program at v the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, Dr. Sheldon-Ekland Olson generously provided the funding for me to present my first professional paper at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, England. I greatly appreciate his constant encouragement and support. Many friends and family members supported me as I completed this dissertation. I am thankful for all the meals, hugs, and various forms of encouragement provided by the Christ Church community in the final miles of this marathon. I also appreciate Onnalee Kaufman‘s constant encouragement and ever-present prayers. But my greatest thanks goes to Eric Kaufman, my research assistant, editor, alpine sherpa, and loving husband. Without his patience and expertise in the care and feeding of this graduate student, I would never have completed this task. I dedicate this dissertation to my best friend and love of my life—Eric Kaufman. vi Preface + Several years ago I made an unexpected visit to the alpine city of Aosta, Italy, while traveling from Rome to Switzerland. In the midst of the Roman ruins of this ancient city, I discovered a twelfth-century cloister filled with remarkable historiated capitals. Walking through the cold galleries of the cloister on a crisp November day, I was captivated by the curious collection of stories sculpted in stone. The sculpted capitals depicted a charming contingent of herd animals belonging to the patriarch Jacob; demons attacking a bishop in bed; Mary and Martha in inexplicable contortions; St. Augustine clothed in elaborate vestments; and an obscure saint named Ursus sitting among the poor. Many capitals included Latin inscriptions to aid my interpretation. The raw beauty and unusual style of the sculpture was intriguing. The stylized figures interrupt the action of their stories to face the viewer, as if inviting engagement in the narrative. I was fascinated. When I discovered the surprising lack of scholarship on the sculpture, on medieval Aosta, and on Savoy, this dissertation was born. My desire to understand the sculpture, and the regular canons who lived in the midst of these sculpted stories, inspired numerous scholarly adventures. These adventures began with the study of Latin and medieval manuscripts, but soon my search for traces of the past led me from the archives into the Alps. Accompanied by my husband, a capable sherpa, I traveled over the alpine passes to and from the Aosta valley and along tiny roads in the Valais (Switzerland), the mountainous region of Haute-Savoie vii (France), and the Aosta valley itself. My research even led to an island in the middle of Lake Orta in northern Italy. For clues to the origin and interpretation of the sculpture, I followed the pilgrimage route from Grandson, Switzerland, around Lake Geneva, through Aosta, to Parma, Italy, and then from Aosta to Arles, France. I visited numerous archeological and art museums wherever we went. Both in art and artifact, I searched for shoes, crown-miters, furniture, sarcophagi, vestments, and weights, traces of the past that may have influenced the cloister sculpture or been familiar to the medieval canons. Although these journeys did not always produce the results that I had expected, I gained a sense of Aosta‘s place in the topography of what was once medieval Savoy. My research also introduced me to a little known saint named Ursus, who lived outside the Roman walls of Aosta in the early Middle Ages. This holy man performed pedestrian miracles well-suited to the local culture. He found lost horses and tamed wild birds. He made wine with rejuvenative powers, prayed for flood waters to recede, and prophesied the demonic demise of an evil bishop. The sanctity of St. Ursus was evident not only in his miracles, but also in his distinctive acts of service and contemplation. He visited the sick, fed the hungry (both men and birds), served the poor, sought justice for sinners, and supported the oppressed—all without neglecting divine worship, constant prayer, recitation of psalms, and fasting. The life of this moral, just, and charitable priest served as an ideal exemplar for the medieval regular canons who called themselves by his name. The material culture, places, and stories of medieval Aosta, both in manuscripts and in marble, led me to the world of religious reform and Augustinian canons. The viii twelfth century was an exciting time of religious change in the west. These ecclesiastical changes form the backdrop for the story that took place in Aosta. Thus, what started as a chance encounter has resulted in the chapters that follow, chapters that explore one manifestation of reform: the regularization of the canons of St. Ursus in Aosta. ix Abstract The Augustinian Canons of St. Ursus: Reform, Identity, and the Practice of Place in Medieval Aosta Cheryl Lynn Kaufman, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisors: Martha G. Newman and Alison K. Frazier This dissertation studies a local manifestation of ecclesiastical reform in the medieval county of Savoy: the twelfth-century transformation of secular canons into Augustinian regular canons at the church of Sts. Peter and Ursus in the alpine town of Aosta (now Italy). I argue that textual sources, material culture, and the practice of place together express how the newly reformed canons established their identity, shaped their material environment, and managed their relationship with the unreformed secular canons at the cathedral. The pattern of regularization in Aosta—instigated by a new bishop influenced by ideas of canonical reform—is only one among several models for implementing reform in medieval Savoy. This study asserts the importance of this medieval county as a center for reforming efforts among a regional network of churchmen, laymen, and noblemen, including the count of Savoy, Amadeus III (d. 1148). x After a prologue and introduction, chapter 1 draws on traditional textual evidence to recount the history of reform in medieval Savoy. Chapters 2 through 4 focus on the twelfth-century sculpted capitals in the cloister built to accommodate the common life of the new regular canons. Several of the historiated capitals portray the biblical siblings, Martha and Mary, and Leah and Rachel, as material metaphors that reflect and reinforce the active and contemplative lives of the Augustinian canons. Other capitals represent the regular canons‘ assertion of their precedence over the cathedral canons and suggest tensions between the two communities. The final chapter examines thirteenth-century conflicts over bell-ringing and ecclesiastical processions in the urban topography of Aosta to illustrate how the regular and secular canons continued to negotiate their relationship. Appendices include an English translation of a vita of St. Ursus (BHL 8453). The dissertation as a whole reconstructs the places and material culture of medieval Aosta to convey the complexities of religious and institutional life during a time of reform and beyond. xi Table of Contents Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………… xiv List of Tables.…………………………………………………………………… xv List of Figures ………………………………………………………………… xvi Introduction.……………………………………………………………………… 1 Ecclesiastical Reform………………………………………………………. 3 Augustinian Regular Canons……………………………………………… 10 Historiography of Reform………………………………………………… 15 Methodology……………………………………………………………… 20 Textual Foundation……………………………………………………….. 24 Things in Place……………………………………………………………. 28 Roman to Medieval Aosta – The Story of Two Churches………………... 34 The Cloister at the Church of St. Ursus…………………………………… 42 Chapter Synopsis………………………………………………………….. 53 Chapter I - Matters of Reform: Texts and Contexts for Regularization in Aosta.. 56 The Counts of Savoy, the Church, and Reform………………………… 57 The Abbey of St. Maurice of Agaune (Switzerland)……………….. 59 The Abbey of St. Mary at Abondance (France)…………………….. 68 The Implementation of Reform: From Abondance to Aosta…………… 73 Gradual Transition to Regular Life………………………………….