CHAPTER SIX

MONKS AND THE ROMAN REFORM

In Italy as well as Germany, radical monks taking an active role focused very quickly on the issues of simony and clerical marriage, forming groups that worked for ecclesiastical reform, and anticipat• ing the papal reform movement that began in mid century. Thus the Über Tramitis, a book of monastic customs written between 1015 and 1033, can begin with a statement of the religious ruin of the world, as people denied Christ's precepts, and the devil seemed to be winning the area over completely, especially because of the wide• spread heresy of simony. Fortunately though, as the author proclaimed, Romuald of Ravenna started a renewal of religious life, a policy that Abbot Hugh of Farfa soon imitated.1 Interaction with the world by involvement with general questions of religion and Church relations with secular rulers quickly made religious reform a political issue as well as a moral one. This of course complicated matters for the major• ity of monks who were wary of secular involvements. The papacy began to take an active role in Church reform in 1046, after its own reform by Emperor Henry III. The emperor deposed all three popes who claimed to be the "real" pope, and a series of four German popes was quickly involved in ecclesiastical reform, especially attack• ing the simony that had plagued Rome itself. Soon groups and indi• viduals of the monastic community associated themselves with papal reforming activity, especially after the ecclesiastical reform began to gain strength with the consecration of Leo IX in 1049. As with more general monastic reform, this interaction between papacy and monas- ticism crossed the borders between kingdoms and did not draw par• ticularly on either the more conservative reforms such as Gorze and Cluny of the tenth century or the new communities that were being formed in the eleventh century. Historians have attempted to pinpoint the influence of given monastic reform circles, especially trying to stick the label on Cluny as creator of the great eleventh-century

1 Liber Tramüis aevi Odibnis abbatis, ed. Petrus Dinter, GCM 10, (1): 3. MONKS AND THE ROMAN REFORM 211

Church reform.2 However, there are very slender grounds for such an assignment. Cluny played a secondary role in ecclesiastical re• form among both imperial and episcopal monasteries in Germany and Italy, both in touching off the work of ecclesiastical reform, and in involvement with the Investiture Contest. The Cluniacs were rather tepid in their support of Gregory VIL Abbot Hugh himself was rela• tively active early in the Investiture Contest; he served several times as papal legate and, in his capacity as Henry IV's godfather, was instrumental in the reconciliation between pope and king at Canossa. But Pope Gregory rebuked Hugh several times for his lack of zeal for the papal party. He was, according to the pope, concerning him• self too much with affairs at home and not enough with those of the Church, i.e., in support of Gregory's goals.3 Cantor points out that from 1080 on Hugh of Cluny and Gregory VII no longer corre• sponded, which suggests a breakdown in their relationship.4 In gen• eral, also, the Cluniacs, located in Burgundy and other areas of France for the most part, were not immediately affected by the warfare between Henry IV and Gregory, and thus did not become overly involved. The lack of evidence regarding the role of Cluny has led to a variety of interpretations, all of them trying to preserve the greatness of Cluny, some of them sounding more like fantasy than history. Cowdrey argues that tension was rare between pope and Cluny, and that eleventh-century reforming popes consistently regarded Cluniac objectives as compatible with and complementary to their own.5 He suggests that Cluny was strong enough to be perceived as dangerous, and that the papacy turned of its own volition to other monasteries for support, especially St. Victor's in Marseilles.

2 See H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford, 1970), and Hermann Jakobs' response to Cowdrey, "Die Cluniazenser und das Papsttum im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert. Bemerkungen zum Cluny-Bild eines neuen Buches" Francia 2 (1974): 643-63 for a recent discussion of the issues. Also of interest is Theodor Schieffer's "Cluny et la querelle des Investitures," especially his assessment that Cluny was perhaps the greatest victim of the Investiture Contest, and certainly not a vic• tor. RH 225 (1961): 47-72, especially p. 71. 3 See, for example Gregory VII, Rostrum, MGH Epist. Selectae, (1.62): 90. 4 Norman F. Cantor, "The Crisis of Western Monasticism, 1050-1130" AHR 66 (1960): 60; Hartmut Hoffinann, "Von Cluny zum Investiturstreit" AJKG 45 (1963): 201. Similarly, Gregory criticized Hugh for taking Duke Hugh I of Burgundy as a monk; the duke was a papal supporter, and was needed in the world to support the papacy. Gregory VII, Registrvm, (VI. 17): 423-4. 5 Cowdrey, especially pp. 146-155.