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Learning Literature & Poetics, and the Formation of Monastic Culture in the Carolingian World By Eileen Margaret Jacxsens BA University of Richmond, 2000 MA Catholic University of America, 2002 AM Brown University, 2004 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History at Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island May, 2011 Copyright by Eileen M. Jacxsens 2010 2 This dissertation by Eileen M. Jacxsens is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_____________ _________________________________ Prof. Amy G. Remensnyder, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Prof. John Bodel, Reader Date_____________ _________________________________ Prof. Joseph Pucci, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae Eileen Margaret Jacxsens Born: June 17, 1978 Native of Washington, DC Education: Brown University, Providence, RI PhD in History, May 2011 Dissertation: “Learning, Literature, & Poetics, and the Formation of Monastic Culture in the Carolingian World” Advisor: Dr. Amy Remensnyder AM in History, May 2004 Catholic University of America, Washington, DC MA, with honors, in Medieval Studies, May 2002 University of Richmond, Richmond, VA BA, cum laude, Major in History, May 2000 Grants and Awards: Vartan Gregorian Dissertation Fellowship, Brown University, 2007-2008 Summer Fellow, Program in Applied Paleography, American Academy in Rome, 2005 Maude Howlett Woodfin & Susan Lough Grant for Graduate Study in History, University of Richmond, 2003-2006 Roy J. Deferrari Doctoral Scholarship, Catholic University of America, 2000-2003 Graduate Fields: Medieval Europe (Major Field), Professor Amy Remensnyder Roman Empire, Professor John Bodel Christianity in the Eastern Empire, Professor Susan Harvey iv for Ellie v Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without generous financial support for study, research, and writing from the Brown University Graduate School the University of Richmond, and the American Academy in Rome. I owe my deepest debt of gratitude to my dissertation committee. I thank Professor Amy Remensnyder for her encouragement as I discovered my interest in Carolingian literature and monastic education and, above all, for her example of scholarship, dedication to teaching, and her critical and exacting comments on my work. I thank my readers, Professor John Bodel, for his encouragement, which thankfully crossed over into nagging from time to time, and also for his friendship over the course of my graduate study, and Professor Joseph Pucci, whose sensitivity to the beauty and depth of medieval Latin poetry gave me the confidence to pursue this neglected body of work as a dissertation topic and, I hope, as a career. For the technical expertise needed to complete this project, I must thank Professor Uta-Renate Blumenthal, Professor Frank A.C. Mantello, Professor John F. Petruccione, all of Catholic University of America, and Professor Christopher Celenza of Johns Hopkins University. I also thank Professor Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent, Saint Michael’s College; Professor Walt Stevenson, University of Richmond; Professor Sheila Bonde, Brown University; Professor Jenny Knust, Boston University; Professor Sonia Sabnis, Reed College; Christine Kralik, University of Toronto for encouragement, comments on my drafts, friendship and support. This project required many hours and much energy, and the sacrifice and understanding of those I love the most. I thank my parents and siblings for believing this would culminate in a degree even when I doubted it was possible. I thank Justin for his love, patience, and understanding over the past two years. I dedicate this dissertation to Ellie: Study, study in earnest; in order to be salt and light, you need knowledge, capability. vi Table of Contents List of Illustrations ...............................................................................viii List of Abbreviations ............................................................................ix Introduction .........................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Imprinting a Monastic Legacy.............................................35 Chapter 2: Lyric & the Creation of Carolingian Benedictinsim.............62 Chapter 3: The Architecture of Scripture..............................................97 Chapter 4: The Monastery & the Textual Community ..........................137 Conclusion............................................................................................170 Appendices ...........................................................................................178 Bibliography .........................................................................................189 vii List of Illustrations Hrabanus Maurus, Inclyta crux domini, Vat. Reg. Lat. 124, fol 12v ........................... 104 Hrabanus Maurus, Louis the Pious as Miles Christi, Vat. Reg. Lat. 124, fol. 8v......... 127 viii List of Abbreviations AASS Acta Sanctorum AHR American Historical Review AJP American Journal of Philology BHL Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum EHR Emglish Historical Review HE Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JMH Journal of Medieval History JRS Journal of Roman Studies MGH Monumenta Germaniae Histoirica (Hannover/Leipzig/Berlin, etc. (1826 - ) Cap. Capitularia Conc. Concilia Epp. Epistolae Leges Leges Poet. Poetae aevi Carolini SS Scriptores PL J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina. 221 vols. (Paris, 1844-64) TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association ix Introduction The body of literary works penned by monastic authors of the Carolingian age is an abundant and largely neglected resource for historians interested in the education, learning, and culture of the period. The poetry alone fills four large volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and numerous other volumes contain riches of Scriptural commentary, letters, and hagiographies, but the scholarship on these literary treasures to date has been sparse in comparison to work done on diplomata from the same period, or annals written by court historians, royal and ecclesiastical scholars, and noblemen.1 Until the recent work of scholars such as Peter Godman, Michael Herren, Francesco Stella, and Joseph Pucci, the contents of Ernst Dümmler’s editions of Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini merited little more than references in occasional footnotes in the studies of Carolingian history.2 The literary studies by the above-mentioned scholars 1 MGH, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, 4 voll., ed. E Dümmler (Berlin, 1881) is the most complete collection of Carolingian poetry. Other collections include C.H. Beeson, ed., A Primer of Medieval Latin; an anthology of prose and poetry, (Chicago, 1925); K.P. Harrington, ed., Mediaeval Latin (Boston, 1925), reprinted several times and recently revised by J. Pucci (Chicago, 2nd ed. 1997). A handful of studies on Medieval Latin literature examined the poetry in particular: J. de Ghellinck, Littérature latine au moyen âge (Paris, 1939); M. Manitius and P. Lehmann, Geschichte der lateinische Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911); M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1891); F. J. E. Raby, A history of Christian-Latin poetry from the beginnings to the close of the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Oxford,, 1953); F. J. E. Raby, A history of secular Latin poetry in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1957); and K. Strecker, Einführung in das Mittellatein, 2nd rev. ed. (Berlin, 1929). 2 Recent works on Carolingian poetry include P. Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985); P. Godman, Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics and Carolingian Poetry 1 2 have opened up new avenues for consideration and interpretation of Carolingian literature and its importance in monastic education and communal life. Commentaries on Scripture, saints’ lives, and other literary texts were the basic texts of the monastic school. Monastic scholars of the eighth and ninth century embraced poetry on a scale unseen for centuries in the Latin west. This dissertation will examine the role that literature played in the development of Carolingian monasticism and in the evolving relationship between monasteries, the Carolingian court, and the aristocracy. It will seek to demonstrate that literary works were the means whereby the leading Carolingian monastic scholars defined their identity and sought to assert their role in society.3 Close connections between the Carolingian family, the aristocracy, and professed religious, as well as the Carolingian rulers’ practice of drawing on monastic resources – land, offices, and learning, in particular – to consolidate their power, had led, by the time of Carolingian monastic reforms, to there being no clear delineation between secular and religious power in the governance of life and discipline within the monasteries. Leading monastic thinkers wanted to separate the practice and governance of life within the (Oxford, 1987); M. W. Herren, "The De Imagine