Separate but Equal: Cistercian Lay Brothers 1120-1350
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
All content available from the Liturgical Press website is protected by copyright and is owned or controlled by Liturgical Press. You may print or download to a local hard disk the e-book content for your personal and non-commercial use only equal to the number of copies purchased. Each reproduction must include the title and full copyright notice as it appears in the content. UNAUTHORIZED COPYING, REPRODUCTION, REPUBLISHING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING, DISTRIBUTION, POSTING, TRANS- MITTING OR DUPLICATING ANY OF THE MATERIAL IS PROHIB- ITED. ISBN: 978-0-87907-747-1 CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER TWO HUNDRED FORTY-SIX Separate but Equal Cistercian Lay Brothers 1120–1350 by James France Cistercian Publications www.cistercianpublications.org LITURGICAL PRESS Collegeville, Minnesota www.litpress.org A Cistercian Publications title published by Liturgical Press Cistercian Publications Editorial Offices Abbey of Gethsemani 3642 Monks Road Trappist, Kentucky 40051 www.cistercianpublications.org © 2012 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, mi- crofiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America. The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data France, James. Separate but equal : Cistercian lay brothers, 1120-1350 / by James France. p cm. — (Cistercian studies series ; no. 246) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-87907-246-9 — ISBN 978-0-87907-747-1 (e-book) 1. Cistercians. 2. Lay brothers. 3. Brothers (Religious) I. Title. BX3451.F73 2012 271'.12—dc23 2012027736 I dedicate this book to three friends without whose help and support it would not have been possible for me to write it: Hilary Costello, OCSO, E. Rozanne Elder, and Brian Patrick McGuire, coupled with grateful thanks to my editor, Mark A. Scott, OCSO. Contents List of Illustrations ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction xiii Chapter 1 Who Were the Lay Brothers? 1 Chapter 2 Manual Labor of Monks before the Lay Brothers 36 Chapter 3 Illiterati 57 Chapter 4 Barbati 76 Chapter 5 Two Monasteries within the Precincts of the Monastery 88 Chapter 6 “Assigned to Plows and Mattocks” 113 Chapter 7 Separate but Equal 151 Chapter 8 Vitae of Lay Brothers and Lay Brothers in Vitae 172 Chapter 9 Virtues and Vices 199 Chapter 10 The Onslaught of Demons 231 Chapter 11 Visions of the Other World 249 Chapter 12 Not Conversi but Perversi 269 Chapter 13 Decline and Near Extinction 300 vii viii Separate but Equal Appendix 1 Lay Brothers in Miracle Stories 323 Appendix 2 Principal Citations of Lay Brothers in Exempla 325 Appendix 3 Cistercian Lay Brother Usages 333 Bibliography 345 Index 359 Illustrations Fig. 1. Engraving of effigy of lay brother Konrad Zeuffel and p. 12 his mother, dated 1348. Fig. 2. Corbel in cloister at Pforta in Thuringia—lay brother p. 29 and hired worker. Photo by Rainer Oefelein; used by permission of Cornelia Oefelein. Fig. 3. Carving of lay brother’s head on a capital in the p. 52 cloister of Flaran in Gascony. Photo by James France. Fig. 4. Carving of four heads—two lay brothers and two p. 54 masons—on chapter house boss at Suléjow in Poland. Photo from Dr. Krystyna Bialoskorska; permission pending. Fig. 5. Pen-and-ink drawing of twenty lay brothers building p. 55 abbey of Schönau. Used by permission of Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Fig. 6. Miniature in Hugh of Fouilloy’s Aviary with monk p. 63 and lay brother surmounted by a dove and a hawk. Used by permission of Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique. Fig. 7. Caricature of Henry, lay brother scribe from Ter p. 67 Doest in Flanders. Fig. 8. Lay brothers on the tomb of Saint Stephen of p. 78 Obazine in Limousin. Photo by James France. Fig. 9. Boss of lay brother master builder in abbey church at p. 80 Salem. Photo courtesy of Regierungspräsidium Tübingen. Fig. 10. Plans of domus conversorum at Byland, Yorkshire, and p. 89 Beaulieu, Hampshire. Used by permission of Paul Clark. Fig. 11. Property Register of Tennenbach with initial p. 91 containing the seated cellarer Johannes Meiger facing a lay brother and a hired hand. Photo courtesy of Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe. Fig. 12. The lay brothers’ “lane” with thirty-five seats at Byland, p. 93 Yorkshire. Photo by Terryl N. Kinder; used by permission. ix x Separate but Equal Fig. 13. Lay brothers’ range at Fountains, Yorkshire, consisting p. 98 of twenty-two bays. Photo by Terryl N. Kinder; used by permission. Fig. 14. Brother J, keeper of the wool-store and wardrobe at p. 110 Beaulieu, Hampshire. © The British Library Board. Add 489 78 f 41v. Fig. 15. Grange barn at Great Coxwell belonging to Beaulieu, p.117 Hampshire. Photo by Tessa France. Used by permission. Fig. 16. Interior of the grange barn at Beaumont belonging p. 131 to Clairvaux. Photo by James France. Fig. 17. Chapel at the St. Leonard’s grange belonging to p. 136 Beaulieu, Hampshire. Photo by Tessa France. Used by permission. Fig. 18. Our Lady of Mercy with four monks on left and p. 152 four lay brothers on right. Image f. 145r from manuscript I F 413; used by permission of The University Library in Wroclaw. Fig. 19. Lay brothers on the reverse of the tomb of Saint p. 191 Stephen of Obazine. Photo by James France. Fig. 20. Stained glass from cloister of Altenberg depicting p. 202 Saint Bernard at the deathbed of a lay brother. Photo by James France. Fig. 21. Choir stall carving at Doberan in Mecklenburg p. 237 showing lay brother with the devil. Photo by Harry Harden- berg; used by permission. Fig. 22. Caesarius of Heisterbach in a miniature from p. 246 Altenberg; a detail in the upper flourish shows a monster with its legs perched on a lay brother’s head. RBA 124 87 (Düsseldorf—Universität—und Landesbibliothek MS C 27, fol. 1r); © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln. Fig. 23. Stained glass from the cloister of Wettingen, Switzer- p. 257 land, of lay brother kneeling before the Virgin and Child. Photo by Peter Hoegger; used by permission. Fig. 24. Pen-and-ink drawing of lay brothers at Schönau p. 286 disobeying their abbot. Used by permission of Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Abbreviations AC/ASOC Analecta Cisterciensia/Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis AS Acta Sanctorum BC “Beaupré” Compilation BMS The Clairvaux Breve et memoriale scriptum, in Waddell Canivez Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis cisterciensis CC Collectaneum exemplorum et visionum clarevallense CF Cistercian Fathers Series Cîteaux Cîteaux Commentarii Cistercienses CS/CSQ Cistercian Studies/Cistercian Studies Quarterly CSS Cistercian Studies Series CWS Classics of Western Spirituality CCCM Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis DM Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum DM Hilka Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Libri VIII miraculorum EC Ebrach Compilation EM Conrad of Eberbach’s Exordium magnum, in Griesser EO Ecclesiastica officia Ep Letter Ep M Letter to Maurice EP Exordium parvum xi xii Separate but Equal FC Fürstenfeld Collection GF Goswin’s Fragmenta Griesser Conrad of Eberbach’s Exordium magnum LM Herbert of Clairvaux’s Liber miraculorum LP Peter of Cornwall’s Liber revelationum LR Richalm von Schöntal’s Liber revelationum PL Patrologia Latina RB Rule of Saint Benedict SBOp Sancti Bernardi Opera SC Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermones semper Cantica Canticorum SM Salem Liber miraculorum Spec Car Speculum Caritatis by Aelred Statuta Statuta capitulorum generalium ordinis cisterciensis, in Canivez UC Usus conversorum, in Waddell VA Life of Arnulf of Villers Vita A Life of Aelred VP Vita prima Bernardi VW Life of Wulfric of Haselbury Waddell Usus conversorum Introduction strict interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict was one of the main planks in the Cistercian reform. All the early A Cistercian texts and many comments by outside observers remark on this. According to the Exordium parvum the monks, while still at Molesme, “often spoke to each other, lamented, and were saddened by the transgression of the Rule of Saint Benedict.”1 William of Malmesbury in his Chronicle also mentions their distress that they were not able to follow “the purity of the Rule,” and he stressed the importance the Cistercians attached to this by saying, “So intent are they on their Rule, that they think not a jot or tittle of it should be disregarded.”2 Writing in about 1135, the Norman monk Orderic Vitalis described the reforming commu- nity as endeavoring “to carry out a literal observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict,”3 and he quotes Robert as saying to his monks: We have made our profession, my dear brothers, according to the Rule of our holy father Benedict, but it seems to me that we have not observed it in every point. We have many customs which are not laid down there, and we carelessly overlook a number of its precepts. I propose therefore that we should observe the Rule of Saint Benedict in everything, taking care not to turn aside either to the left or to the right.4 1 EP 3, in Waddell 1999, 421: inter se, Dei gratia aspirati, de transgressione Regulae beati Benedicti patris monachorum loquebantur, conquerebantur, contristabantur. 2 William of Malmesbury 1968, 349. 3 Orderic Vitalis 1969–80, 3: 338–39. 4 Orderic Vitalis 1969–80, 4: 312–13: Nos fratres karissimi secundum normam sancti Benedicti professionem fecimus sed ut mihi videtur non eam ex integro tenemus. xiii xiv Separate but Equal Writing in the 1140s, the Premonstratensian abbot Philip of Har- vengt claimed that with the foundation of Cîteaux the “monastic order, formerly dead, was revived: there the old ashes were poked .