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Copyright by Anna Lisa Taylor 2006 This Dissertation Committee for Anna Lisa Taylor certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Poetry, Patronage, and Politics: Epic Saints’ Lives in Western Francia, 800-1000 Committee: ____________________________ Martha Newman, Supervisor ____________________________ Alison Frazier, Supervisor ___________________________ Jennifer Ebbeler ____________________________ Brian Levack ____________________________ Marjorie Woods Poetry, Patronage, and Politics: Epic Saints’ Lives in Western Francia, 800-1000 by Anna Lisa Taylor, 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 August 2006 For my parents, Elizabeth and Bruce. Acknowledgements This dissertation was completed with all kinds of support from a large number of people. Thank you to my parents for years (and then more years) of unfailing encouragement, my long time friend and mentor Lisa Kallet for dragging me kicking and screaming to Texas, and to Al C., Mary Vance, and Samara Turner for keeping me happy and healthy. The research for this dissertation was completed with support from the Mellon Foundation, the Bibliography Society, the Medieval Academy, the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, and a Dora Bonham award from the University of Texas. The writing was funded by a Harrington Fellowship from the University of Texas. I wish to express my utmost gratitiude to all these organizations that saw the value in manuscript research and the investigation of neglected sources. This project could not have been completed without the kindness and assistance of the librarians at the Bibliothèque nationale de France at Richilieu, the Bibliothèques municipales in Valenciennes, Douai, Rouen, Saint-Omer, and Boulogne-sur-mer, the KBR, the BAV, and the Bodleian. In many ways this is a project about ninth- and tenth-century students and their teachers, and the long erudite works that the former sent to the latter at the end of their formal education. Therefore, thanks especially to what has rightly been called the “perfect committee,” Jennifer Ebbeler, Jorie Woods, and Brian Levack, for making this process so interesting and enjoyable, and above all, thank you to my wonderful advisors Martha Newman and Alison Frazier. v Poetry, Patronage, and Politics: Epic Saints’ Lives in Western Francia, 800-1000 Publication No. ______________ Anna Lisa Taylor, Ph. D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisors: Martha Newman and Alison Frazier Monastic authors in western Francia during the central Middle Ages composed and exchanged Latin verse saints’ lives (vitae metricae) to create communities of saints, emperors, bishops, teachers, and students. These epic poems were sent to patons, excerpted in liturgy, and read in the classroom. By writing vitae metricae, the monks enhanced their own prestige, promoted their saints, flattered their patrons, and aggrandized their abbeys. vi Table of Contents List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations viii Abbreviations x Chapter One: Poets, Patrons, Teachers, and Books 1 Chapter Two: Books, Bodies, and Bones: The Prose and Verse Passions of Dionysius 38 Chapter Three: Black Seeds through White Fields: Saints, Poets, and Princes in Milo of Saint-Amand’s Vita Amandi 123 Chapter Four: Just Like a Mother Bee: Reading and Writing Vitae Metricae Around the Year 1000 180 Chapter Five: Mothers and Daughters: Affiliation and Conflict in the Verse and Prose Vitae of Rictrude and Eusebia 230 Conclusion: The Afterlife of Metric Hagiography 299 Epilogue: Bees, Saints, and Poets: Imitation and Creativity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 335 Bibliography 345 Vita 388 vii List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations Figure 1.1: Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, folio 77r. Milo presents his metric Vita Amandi to his teacher Haimin 30 Figure 1.2: Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, folio 77v. Milo receives his Vita Amandi back from Haimin 31 Figure 1.3 Valenciennes, BM, 502, folio 73r. Hucbald presents the metric Vita Amandi to Charles the Bald 32 Figure 1.4: Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, folio 117v. Vulfaius composes his Versiculi in response to Milo’s Vita Amandi 33 Figure 1.5. Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, folio 12v. Saint Amand rescues a boy from a demon 34 Figure 1.6. Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, folio 1v. Baudemund, author of the prose Vita Amandi 35 Figure 1.7. Douai, BM, MS 849, folio 43r. Author or scribe in historiated initial O 36 Figure 1.8. Centers of Metric Hagiography in Western Francia 37 Figure 2.1: Paris, BNF, MS grec. 437, folio195r from the codex of Dionysius the Areopagite 117 Figure 2.2 Manuscripts of Hilduin’s Prose Passio Dionysii and Letters 118 Figure 3.1: Monasteries on the River Scarpe c. 1000 177 Figure 3.2: Valenciennes, BM, MS 414, folio 23r. Milo’s letter to Haimin 178 Figure 3.3: Paris, BNF, MS lat. 13757 179 Figure 5.1: MS Douai, BM, MS 849, folio 33r. Saint Eusebia 293 Figure 5.2: MS Douai, BM, MS 849, folio 71v. Rictrude flanked by her son Maurontus, and by Ionatus, first abbot of Marchiennes 294 viii Figure 5.3: MS Douai, BM, MS 849, folio 72r. Rictrude’s daughters Adalsend, Eusebia, and Closend 295 Figure 5.4: MS Douai, BM, MS 849, folio 126r. Rictrude and onlookers 296 Figure 5.5: The Relationship of the Texts Pertaining to Rictrude and Eusebia 297 Figure 6.1: Versions of the Passion of Catherine of Alexandria 331 Figure 6.2: Baptista Mantuanus, Parthenice secunda 332 Figure 6.3: Baptista Mantuanus, Parthenice prima, folio 1v 333 Figure 6.4: Baptista Mantuanus, Parthenice tertia, folio 3r 334 ix Abbreviations AASS Acta Sanctorum, edito novissima (Paris: V. Palme, 1863-) AB Analecta Bollandiana BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina ), 2 vols and supplement (Brussels: Société de Bollandistes, 1898-1901, 1986) BM Bibliothèque municipale BNF Bibliothèque nationale de France CCCM Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (1866-) DHGE Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques. Paris: Editions du Dauphin, 1912- KBR Bibliothèque royale de Belgique/ Koninlijke Bibliotheek van Belgie MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores Antiquissimi MGH Ep. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Epistolarum MGH Poetae Monumenta Germaniae Historica Poetarum Latinorum Medii Aevii MGH SRM Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores PL Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1841-91) RB Revue bénédictine x Chapter One: Introduction: Poets, Patrons, Teachers, and Books In a full-page illumination from an eleventh-century manuscript created at the northern French monastery of Saint-Amand, a monk labeled “Milo” shuffles sideways into the frame to present his work to a much larger seated figure whom the illustrator identifies as “Haimin” (figure 1.1).1 Haimin reaches out one hand to take the work. The front of the book or pamphlet reads, in abbreviated form, “festa propinquabant nostri,” the incipit of Milo’s verse Vita Amandi (BHL 333), written c. 845-55.2 The miniature on the verso of this folio again features Milo, the monk of Saint-Amand, and Haimin, from the nearby monastery of Saint-Vaast.3 In this second picture, Milo and Haimin again exchange a pamphlet or small unbound book (figure 1.2). Haimin, still disproportionately 1 Auguste Molinier, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 25, Poitiers-Valenciennes (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1894), pp. 403-05. See also, Narrative Sources: The Narrative Sources from the Medieval Low Countries, www.narrative-sources.be. Viewed 20 May, 2006. I have generally used the simplest available English version of the Latin names of poets and saints (for example, Haimin for Haiminus, Amand for Amandus). In instances where there is not a commonly used Anglicization of the name (Fortunatus, Germanus, Lupus), I have maintained the Latin. I refer to abbeys using their French names (thus Saint-Bertin, Saint-Amand, and Saint-Germain). Certain abbeys are commonly referred to by their place names, rather than the names of the saints to whom their first churches were dedicated, and in these instances I follow the convention (so, I refer to Hamage rather than Saint- Pierre in Hamage). In transcribing manuscripts, I have endeavoured to stay close to the original orthography, rather than imposing more classical spelling on the texts. In the verse saints’ lives I have transcribed e with a cedilla as “ae” since the lives themselves alternate between the two usages. 2 Milo, Vita Amandi in MGH Poetae 3, ed. Ludwig Traube (Berlin: Weidmann, 1896), pp. 561-612. The BHL number refers to the reference given to each hagiographical text catalogued by the Bollandists in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels: Société de Bollandistes, 1898-1901), 2 vols and supplement (Brussels: Societe de Bollandistes, 1986), and their website http://bhlms.fltr.ucl.ac.be. 3 Although Haimin and Milo are not labeled in this illustration, the resemblance is unmistakable. A brief survey of the figures drawn by the artist of Valenciennes, BM, MS 502 shows that he depicts his human subjects with highly individualized features, and so the resemblance between the figures on fol. 77r and those on fol. 77v is not likely to be coincidental. 1 tall, sits at a desk, while in contrast to his obsequious demeanor on the previous page, Milo breezes in from the left hand side of the page. Both monks have a hand on the pamphlet, which is open towards the viewer. These illuminations are on folios 77r – 77v of the late-eleventh-century 143-folio codex Valenciennes, BM, MS 502, a copiously illustrated book that contains a number of texts about Saint-Amand’s patron saint.4 These texts include Baudemund’s seventh- century prose Vita Amandi (BHL 332), Milo’s prose supplement to Amand’s life (BHL 339), Milo’s verse life, and the saint’s miracula (BHL 345).