Bouchard, Constance Brittain/ the Cartulary of St.-Marcel-Lès-Chalon
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The Cartulary of St.-Marcel-les-Chalon Copyright © 1998 By the Medieval Academy of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-76498 ISBN: 0-915651-07-6 Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper Contents Preface vii Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chronological List of the Documents 15 The Cartulary 17 Provosts and Priors of St.-Marcel 155 Bibliography of Works Cited 159 Index of Persons and Places 163 Map The Region around Chalon x Preface The twelfth-century Cartulary of St.-Marcel-Ies-Chalon is one of the most important sources for the history of Burgundy in the early Middle Ages. In- cluding documents that range from a privilege of Charlemagne in the late eighth century to small gifts from the local petty aristocracy in the early twelfth century, the cartulary gives insights both into the attempts of a Bene- dictine house to establish and maintain a reformed monastic life and into the secular society that surrounded and interacted with the monks. Although the cartulary was printed once before, a century ago, the inadequacies of that edi- tion and the value of the material found in the cartulary have made a new edi- tion necessary. I would like to express my appreciation to the staff of the Bibliotheque na- tionale de France for their assistance and to the anonymous reader for the Me- dieval Academy for his meticulous reading of the edition in manuscript. Luke Wenger and Jacqueline Brown at the Academy were very supportive through- out the project. Work on this edition in 1992 and 1993 was assisted by generous grants from the University of Akron Faculty Research Committee. VII Abbreviations Arch. Saone-et-Loire Macon, Archives departementales de Saone-et-Loire BnF Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France Canat de Chizy Marcel and Paul Canat de Chizy, eds., Cartulaire du prieure de Saint-Marcel-les-Chalon (Chalon-sur-Saone, 1894) Cartulary BnF, MS nouv. acq. lat. 496; the twelfth-century car- tulary of St.-Marcel-les-Chalon GC Denis de Ste.-Marthe et al., eds., Gallia Christiana, 16 vols. (Paris, 1717-1865) MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica PL J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina, 222 vols. numbered as 221 (Paris, 1844-64) RHGF Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 24 vols. (Paris, 1738-1804) ix The Region around Chalon Nantoux * Beaune * v>«Trugny Palleau « ^4Chazelle Chilley Charnay^ Navilly ^«=^v Longepierre Ponloux * \fa=^ • Chagny Varennes- sur-le-Doubs Bouzeron / Rully Gergy.V Aubigny i • •St.-Maurice Aluze a Mercurey • Mellecey / Bey Russilly CHALON J -/T^Chatenoy • • ^ I • Oslon Givry C ST.-MARCEL ^V •Epervans • Rosey • St -Chnstophe \L^ "Servigny Varennes. V- # •Chlre>' Marnay. 1 #v6lar^ ^ (\ »S1 -Germain • U Chasaux U \ • Sennecey 1 Savigny N J f n 0 5 Miles / 1— 0 SKms \ *^,—• V FRANCE *\ l£ff!^ ) ) EMcC 98 Introduction The Cartulary of St.-Marcel-les-Chalon was composed in the first half of the twelfth century and includes documents from between the eighth and the twelfth centuries. The basilica of St.-Marcel was originally founded to honor a second-century missionary, Marcellus, who came up the Saone valley from Lyon and reached the villa of Hubiliacus, across the river from Chalon, before being martyred.1 The basilica at Hubiliacus acquired a community of monks at the end of the sixth century, and it was served variously by monks and can- ons during the early Middle Ages. The house of St.-Marcel is an almost clas- sic example of the vicissitudes of medieval religious communities: a monas- tery in the Merovingian period, a house controlled in the Carolingian period by powerful laymen who regulated the house's affairs and received much of its revenues, it was newly reformed under Cluny's direction in the late tenth and eleventh centuries. The cartulary of this house is one of the principal sources of information on the history of Burgundy in the early Middle Ages. The exact date of the establishment of monks at the basilica is not known from contemporary records, but is certainly close to the date of 584 given by the Merovingian chronicler Fredegar. In 579 the council of Chalon had stripped two bishops of their offices and had them imprisoned in the basilica, which was apparently not yet served by monks. King Guntram of Burgundy (d. 592) was responsible for making St.-Marcel a monastery, even though his foundation charter (document 7) is a forgery from five centuries later. He made several generous gifts to St.-Marcel, including a golden canopy he had originally intended for the church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as well as establishing a body of monks there, stipulating that they follow the obser- vance of St.-Maurice of Agaune. This rule was relatively popular in Mero- vingian Gaul; under it the monks lived in separate cells in which they engaged in perpetual hymns and prayer. The 583-85 Council of Valence confirmed whatever King Guntram or his wife or daughter might give to the basilica of St.-Marcel. Thus, St.-Marcel was one of the last monastic foundations in Burgundy before the arrival there around 590 of Irish-influenced monasticism under Saint Columbanus.2 •Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum 52, p. 75. 2Fredegar, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar 1, p. 4; Paul the Deacon, Histona Langobardorum 3, p. 113; de Clercq, ed.. Concilia Galliae, pp. 219, 235; Prinz, Friihes Monchtum im Frankenreich, pp. 104, 160; Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, p. 58. For the Gallic church on the eve of the arrival of Columbanus, see Wood, "Prelude to Colum- banus." 2 Introduction After the monastery's propitious beginning, however, it disappears from the records. The next time it appears, two centuries later, to receive a priv- ilege from Charlemagne (document 3), it was ruled by a magnificus vir named Hucbert, who acted as rector of the house. From the eighth century until the end of the tenth century, Burgundian lords normally held the abbey of St.- Marcel, with (sometimes) provosts governing under them. During this time the house seems to have been served by canons, not monks. Count Warin held the church, served by canons, when Louis the Pious made St.-Marcel a gift in 835 (document 4). Charles the Bald himself took the governance of St.-Marcel in 870.3 The decay of a regular life at St.-Marcel is reflected in the small number of authentic charters preserved in the cartulary for the century and a half after Louis the Pious's gift of 835. There are only eight, including two versions of an 878 privilege of Pope John VIII (documents 5 and 8). Two Benedictine monasteries in the diocese of Chalon attracted much more attention (and more gifts) during the late ninth and tenth centuries than did St.-Marcel: St.-Phili- bert of Tournus, which was established in 875 by Charles the Bald for monks fleeing the Vikings, and St.-Pierre of Chalon, which, along with a few other Burgundian houses maintaining a regular life, formed an association of prayers in the 890s.4 In the 980s, however, Count Geoffrey Greymantle of Anjou (d. 987), who was acting as count of Chalon because of his marriage to the widowed Countess Adelaide, gave St.-Marcel to Cluny to be reformed. The gift was confirmed in 999 by Count Hugh of Chalon, who had inherited the monastery as well as the county of Chalon from his father, Adelaide's first husband.5 St.-Marcel became a priory, dependent on Cluny's abbot, and remained so, unlike many other Burgundian houses that regained their own abbots after a period under Cluny's direction. Indeed, the name of the abbot of Cluny was sometimes given more emphasis in the house's charters than the name of the prior.6 St.-Marcel's priors kept a low profile in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; they are scarcely mentioned in the charters of nearby houses. One of the few significant events to take place at the house in this period was the 1142 death of Peter Abelard. All three of the old Benedictine monasteries in 3Werminghoff, ed.. Concilia aevi Karolini, p. 195. 4Giry, Prou, and Tessier, eds., Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, 2:342, no. 378; Bulliot, ed., Essai historique sur I'abbaye de Saint-Martin d'Autun, 2:22-24, no. 9. See also Bouchard, "Merovingian, Carolingian, and Cluniac Monasticisra," pp. 369-70. 5For the family of the counts of Chalon, see Bouchard, Sword, Miter, and Cloister, pp. 307- 12. 6For example, in document 29, from 1043, a gift is made to St.-Marcel and to Abbot Odilo, but Prior Henry is mentioned only at the end, as having directed the chancellor who drew up the charter. Introduction 3 the diocese of Chalon (St.-Marcel, St.-Pierre, and Tournus) were over- shadowed in the twelfth century by the new Cistercian foundations there: Citeaux itself, founded in 1098, and then La Ferte, Citeaux's first daughter, founded in 1113, and Maizieres, founded in 1132.7 Thus, most of our information about the house of St.-Marcel comes from the cartulary itself. The twelfth-century cartulary is in Paris at the Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS nouv. acq. lat. 496. It is made up of approximately 122 charters, depending on how one counts.8 The cartulary includes authentic charters from between 779, a privilege of Charlemagne, and the 1120s, when presumably the cartulary was compiled. Other than the one document of Charlemagne, all the original charters on which the cartulary was based are long lost.9 Several copies were made of the cartulary in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.