Freedom and Protection: Monastic Exemption in France, c. 590 - c. 1100 [Hardcover ed.] 1526127725, 9781526127723

Citation preview

FREEDOM AND

PROTECTION Monastic exemption in France, c. 590-c. 1100

KRISTON R. RENNIE

LIBRARY OF PRINCETON

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from The Arcadia Fund

https://archive.org/details/freedomprotectioOOrenn

Freedom and protection

MANCHESTER 1824 Manchester University Press

Freedom and protection Monastic exemption in France, e.

590-c. 1100

Kriston R. Rennie

Manchester University Press

Copyright (0 Kriston R. Rennie 2018 The right of Kriston R. Rennie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester Ml 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN

978 1 5261 2772 3

hardback

First published 2018 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset 10/12 Ehrhardt by Out of House Publishing Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow

For Monsieur Dumont

.

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations

1

page viii x

Prologue

1

Introduction

4

The road to protection

27

2 Rome’s orbit

59

3

Traditio Roman a

88

4 Making concessions

119

5 The Tetters of feudalism’

150

6 ‘Victory of the papacy’?

167

Epilogue

188

Appendix: Monastic exemption privileges in France, c. 590—1100 Bibliography Index

193 199 238

Acknowledgements

T

he idea for this book was born accidentally in Cambridge. In the stacks of the University Library, I stumbled across the archives for French cartularies and began noticing an intriguing pattern. Conceptualising this project was another matter entirely; it took many years and was greatly assisted by a number of fellowships. I started thinking more ser¬ iously about the topic during a faculty fellowship at the Centre for the History of European Discourses (University of Queensland) in the second half of 2013. In early 2014 I was granted a National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship in the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. I also enjoyed a visiting fellowship at the University of Ghent in the autumn of 2015, generously supported by the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy and the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies. And finally, this book was finished in 2016 with the tremendous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Forschungsstelle fur Vergleichende Ordensgeschichte (FOVOG) at the Technische Universitat Dresden. Everyone, at every institution, research centre, conference, and work¬ shop, has played a role in shaping the final product. Gert Melville and Steven Vanderputten were early advisors who helped me set the right targets and ask the right questions. I owe them considerably for their time, their interest, their kindness, and their support. Countless other friends and colleagues were subjected to this book’s arguments over the course of many years, presentations, and conversations. I’d especially like to thank Steven Schoenig, Damien Smith, Atria Larson, Thomas Madden, and Adam Grissom in St Louis; Julia Exarchos in GhentCologne-Heidelberg; Stephan Dusil and his law colleagues in Leuven; Kate Cushing, Tyler Lange, Levi Roach, Jason Taliadoros, and many

Acknowledgements

IX

others in attendance at ‘our’ conference in Paris; Christof Rolker, Bruce Brasington, Danica Sumerlin, Melodie Eichbauer, and Greta Austin at the annual Leeds round-up; Charles West, Stuart Airlie, Ed Roberts, and other co-contributors to the workshop on religious exemption in Sheffield; Julia Burkhardt, Nikolas Jaspert, Bernd Schneidmiiller, and Jorg Peltzer in Heidelberg; and Cristina Andenna, Mirko Breitenstein, Jorg Sonntag, Emilia Jamroziak, Katrin Rosier, Michael Hanchen, and Sebastian Mickisch in Dresden. The University of Queensland, and my colleagues in Brisbane, were also very generous and encouraging over the course of this project. They excused my many absences over the last three years, and their support for my research has helped make this book a reality. And last but not least, the anonymous reviewers for Manchester University Press provided a wealth of disciplinary insight and expertise, which has greatly improved this book’s overall clarity and purpose. I’ve also enjoyed many personal luxuries while writing this book, namely the unconditional support of my family. The arrival of Elsa and Louis presented a serious distraction on the work front, but a correspondingly healthy realignment of priorities on the home front. Without a doubt, this project has taken longer to complete because of the inevitable melee at home. But my life is richer and more chaotic as a result. For the first time, I am not dedicating my work to family. I am finally recognising one of the more silent, distant in time and geography, yet pervasive influences on my life: my high-school history teacher, Alain Dumont. I owe my curiosity and passion for learning and history to him.

Abbreviations

Cartularium Saxonicum

Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History

CCSL CCCM

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina

Codex Theodosianus

Leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes

Concilia Africae

Concilia Africae a.345—a.525

Concilia Galliae

Concilia Galliae a. 511-695

Deere turn

Gratian, Decretum, in Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 1

Epp. Vag.

The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII

Formulary of Marculf Gregory of Tours

Formulae Merowingici et Karolini aevi Libri historiarum X.y MGH SRM 1,1

HA

Historia Abbatum, in Venerabilis Baedae opera

Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis

historic a HE

Historia Ecclesiastic a gent is Anglorum

Hinschius

Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni

JE JK JL LD Mansi

Jaffe-Ewald, Regesta pontificum Romanorum (590-882) Jaffe-Kaltenbrunner, Regesta pontificum Romanorum (1-590) Jaffe-Loewenfeld, Regesta pontificum Romanorum (882-1198) Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio

xi

Abbreviations

MGII AA Capit. Cone. DD Epp. Form. Kar. LII LD LdF Libelli de Lite LL Lo Mer. SRM SS Monumenta Vizeliacensia

Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores Antiquissimi Capitularia regum Francorum Concilia Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae Epistolae Formulae Merowitigici et Karolini aevi Karolinger Ludovici II. Diplomata Ludwig der Deutsche Ludwig der Fromme Libelli de life imperatorum et pontificum Leges (in Folio) Lothari I. et Lothari II. Diplomata Merovinger Scrip tores rerum Merovingic arum Scriptures (in Folio) Monumenta Vizeliacensia: Texts relatif d Vhistoire de Vabbaye de Vezelay

Papstregesten Papsturkunden Pardessus

Papstregesten 911-1024 Papsturkunden in Frankreich. Neue Folge Diplomata, chartae, epistolae, leges, aliaque ad res Gallo-Franck as spectantia

PL

Patrologia Latina

Reg.

Das Register Gregors VII

Regis tram

Registrum epistolarum libri I-XIV

VsA

Aimoinus, Vita sancti Abbonis

X Zimmermann

Liber extravagantium decretalium Papsturkunden, 896-1046

Prologue

L

et me begin this book with a story. There is a twelfth-century collection, known as the Monumenta Vizeliacensia (Ms. 227 Bibliotheque Municipale Auxerre), which contains a particularly memor¬ able and colourful manuscript initial (fol. 22r). Simply described, it shows Count Gerard of Roussilon and his wife, Bertha - proud founders in 858-9 of the Burgundian monasteries of Vezelay and Pothieres (see book cover image). At face value, this image recalls a pious act of lay patronage. On the one hand, it commemorates the count and his wife for their donations and endowments, venerating their political and spiritual role in shaping monastic identity and culture. Representing an idealised model of localised governance anchored in the gesture and memory of foundation, it symbolises a harmonious relationship between secular rulers and the religious life. But on the other hand, this image also leaves a lot unsaid. The foundation of Vezelay and Pothieres is just an opening scene. The remaining acts reveal a rich history of monastic exemption, whose privileges for the former monastery in particular came to define its place in the world.1 Whereas the manuscript image signifies an essential starting point in time, the accompanying charters and their chronological arrangement in this twelfth-century collection frame the rest of the story. And that story, like so many others examined in this book, shows just how deeply the history of monastic exemption is rooted in the political, religious, social, and legal culture of the early Middle Ages. It belongs unequivocally to this era. The papacy’s involvement in early monasticism is the critical question. According to the original foundation charter for Vezelay and Pothieres, both religious houses were donated to Saints Peter and Paul in Rome, so that the apostolic see could ‘rule them, command them, and admin¬ ister them’.2 Desiring a ‘lasting guardian and protector of their order

2

Freedom and protection

and their religion’,3 the count and his wife pursued a more permanent bond of paternal authority and governance from Rome that was rela¬ tively unknown to French monasteries before the ninth century. At their bidding, Pope Nicholas I granted a landmark privilege for Vezelay in May 863 that forbade the entry of kings, bishops, and other public officials, in order to protect the monastery and its inhabitants from undue, external interference. As far as early medieval privileges go, this charter reads like a formulaic expression of monastic rights and liberties, whose specific conditions served to protect against any obstructions in the election and ordination of an abbess; to ‘eliminate the possibility of avarice’ by forbid¬ ding payment for the religious services of consecration and ordination; to prevent the celebration of public masses by the diocesan bishop, unless he was extended an invitation; and, as a formal restriction on the bishop’s entry into the cloister, this privilege also protected against his demand for food and lodging. The familiar charter language, however, does not diminish the exemption’s value or meaning. Set within a local context, this inaugural papal privilege held both immediate and long-term consequences. Its potential for transforming the political landscape prompted King Charles the Bald to issue his own exemption for Vezelay five years later (868), intended - as he put it - to add ‘greater durability’ to the authority of the apostolic see. Repeating many of the rights and liberties granted by Nicholas I, the king promised his own form of protection, expressing a level of secular cooperation that was emulated by many of his successors in the late ninth and early tenth century. Yet by all appearances, the papacy had already established a strong foothold in the business of monastic freedom and protection; invited in the first instance by the count and his wife, the popes in Rome became de facto rulers and proprietors of this distant religious house. What follows is an attempt to explain the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of this special relationship for numerous French monasteries between the sixth and eleventh centuries. Vezelay was undoubtedly unique from its very foundation. Yet this monastery’s path towards autonomous governance and administration is representative of a growing ecclesiastical tradition, which can be traced to episcopal, Frankish, and papal practices. Its privileged position was not an a priori arrangement, but an outcome negotiated by the various parties invested in the monastery’s peace, security, and prosperity. With the initial support of the local count and his wife, and the comple¬ mentary efforts of Frankish kings, it was the popes in Rome who came to monopolise the business of freeing and protecting this monastery.

Prologue

3

Committing more than twenty privileges to this effect over the next three hundred years, they asserted their control with increasing vigour, custom, and authority. What began as a local political and spiritual ini¬ tiative, therefore, materialised into a working relationship with - and dependency on - the popes in Rome. This spiritual, political, and legal orientation was made possible through the instrument of exemption. Its meaning, value, practice, and institutional development form the basis of the following study.

Notes 1 Initially founded as a nunnery, Vezelay was refounded as a male monastery sometime in the 870s or 880s. 2 Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 1, p. 247. 3 Ibid., no. 2, p. 250.

Introduction

his book examines the institution of monastic exemption between X the sixth and eleventh centuries. Broadly conceived, it is about monastic freedom and protection - that is, the attainment and political currency of these objectives. More specifically, it examines the elaboration of monastic exemption privileges from a marginalised to centralised prac¬ tice, an institutional story that ends with direct subjection to the papacy. The following pages are fundamentally about assessing and explaining this transformation. I ask why so many monasteries were seeking exemp¬ tion privileges directly from Rome. What significance did they hold for monks, bishops, secular lords, and popes? How and why did this practice develop throughout the early Middle Ages? I consider as my evidence a growing number of cases whereby privileges were granted to individual religious houses, as a means to understand the papacy’s vigilant efforts to protect, support, and even control them from afar. Given that such practices were frequently interpreted as an affront to episcopal order, jur¬ isdiction, and authority, moreover, this book also considers the religious and political context of individual communities, whose ‘special relation¬ ship’ with Rome transformed their spiritual, economic, disciplinary, and judicial orientation. Monastic exemption privileges give witness to a rich and lively institu¬ tional story of power and freedom - a traditio Romana (or ‘Roman trad¬ ition’), whose origins and development date to the early Middle Ages.1 Viewed as outgoing papal grants of immunity and protection, they are significantly more than just diplomatic objects of study or platitudes of spiritual, fiscal, and judicial obligations, concessions, rights, and liberties.2 On the contrary: as cultural, symbolic, and performative products of their time, exemptions are ‘flexible instruments of political and social life’ that served ‘strategies far beyond their surface meanings’.3 As ‘chameleons,

Introduction

5

shifting according to circumstances’,4 they became ‘key instruments in the politics of negotiation’.5 Their social and political significance thus offers valuable insight into the transformative world in which they were created. Their very existence - usually copied and preserved in a monastic cartulary or papal register - underlines some greater contemporary pur¬ pose and declaration of intent. Appreciating their value and significance poses the greatest meth¬ odological challenge. On the one hand, exemptions were coveted assets and commodities, ‘objects’ actively sought and acquired by monasteries and abbots. They assumed their political, spiritual, and legal currency from what they actually conveyed: specific conditions, concessions, and exclusions that defined a monastery’s place in the world.6 Characterised in the charter evidence by formulaic rights and liberties from unwanted interference, exemptions possess a much deeper historical significance.7 Interpreted throughout this book as privileges of monastic freedom and protection, they embody tensions between increasingly powerful bishops and abbots, both vying for control of the localities in the face of changing royal power and political and ecclesiastical structures. Their appeal and realisation saw the gradual realignment of numerous monasteries towards the growing authority of Rome. Indeed, as acquisitions and commodities, monastic exemption privileges were useful aides-memoires: what they are, what they meant and represented to contemporaries, and ultimately what services they provided were socially and politically constructed qualities that demand further contextualisation. On the other hand, exemptions were also gifts in exchange transactions.8 They regulated relations with others and shaped monastic identity. Their contemporary meaning thus derived not simply from the physical parchment or papyrus on which they were drafted in Rome, but more so from the forged connection between donor and recipient - the pope and the abbot and/or his monastery. Their meaning, power, and efficacy were mutually constructed through the ‘modalities of communication’9 connecting Rome and the ecclesiastical provinces. And their redeeming value was born from the exchange act itself: a monastery’s petition to Rome in the first instance, followed by the legal conditions, stipulations, rights, and liberties articulated more explicitly in the exemption charter. It serves our purposes well to consider the subject along such lines. At the very least, it is worth thinking about their material functionality and existence, delving beyond an abstract meaning of exemption to consider its practical application and value to contemporary medieval society. In so doing, I hope to understand whether a monastery profited from the

6

Freedom and protection

arrangement, beyond the explicit and formulaic conditions detailed in the charter evidence. By association, I hope to understand how a monastery’s relationship with Rome - new or renewed - benefited the papacy, espe¬ cially for burgeoning arguments of centralised political and spiritual power in the early Middle Ages. One thing is certain: as products of reciprocal exchange, exemption privileges provided individual monasteries with a more concrete and beneficial relationship to Rome. This connection was formalised in social, political, and legal terms through the very process of exemption, which brought abbots to the threshold of the apostles in search of something advantageous, valid and legally binding, and often permanent. Both the monastery and the papacy stood to gain from the exchange. Identifying and explaining this relationship, however, is not without its interpretive challenges. The monastery’s demand or plea for specific and explicit concessions is seldom transparent in the extant sources.10 The charter evidence is terse and framed as an outgoing, beneficent papal response to monastic requests; it rarely reveals the conditions or motives that impelled its drafting.11 This diplomatic consideration implies a one¬ way relationship initiated by an abbot on behalf of his monastery. Indeed, the most common expressions in the charter evidence tend to reinforce this very idea, suggesting a regular flow of business towards the centre of Christendom.12 It was Rome’s authority that made monastic freedom and protection possible - rights and liberties granted immediately and often in per¬ petuity. An exemption’s social, political, and legal force was ineffective without obedience to this spiritual and political centre, from whose ‘authoritative power’11 each privilege was formally issued. The situation is representative of what Pierre Bourdieu called ‘symbolic domination’, which ‘presupposes, on the part of those who submit to it, a form of com¬ plicity which is neither passive submission to external constraint nor a free adherence to values’.14 In short - and here the analogy relates to the sub¬ ject of medieval exemptions more clearly -1 am talking about ‘social titles of credit and credence - of credentials - which, like aristocratic titles and academic qualifications, increase in a durable way the value of their bearer by increasing the extent and the intensity of the belief in their value’.15 While political organisation and ideology are important factors in comprehending medieval papal power, their abstract constructions should not distract us from the individual value of exemption privileges. The nature of each relationship can be explained in part by a sociological theory of ‘total services’, which formed the personal bond between the donor and

Introduction

7

recipient. Max Weber called these binding characteristics ‘status contracts’, a term used to distinguish primitive changes in ‘the total legal situation (the universal position) and the social status of the persons involved’.16 The defining characteristic is ‘a voluntary agreement constituting the legal foundation of claims and obligations’,17 which is what early medi¬ eval exemption privileges represent. For in essence, a monastery sought subjective rights (e.g. autonomy) by objective legal means: that is, through ‘an agreement between concrete individuals’.18 The symbolism of these contracts, moreover, meant that the monastery would become ‘something different in quality (or status) from the quality’19 it possessed before. The privilege in this concrete sense was a political instrument: an authoritative and formulaic confirmation of rights and liberties.211 It was something to be owned, possessed, given, exchanged, and perpetuated by future generations of popes, monks, and abbots. Its presentation and cen¬ tral meaning represents a form of mutual interaction and agreement, whose social and political substance contributed to bolstering the position of the monastery and its master in Rome: the papacy. By virtue of increasing demand, the latter became the primary dealer and distributor of an increas¬ ingly valuable political asset. After all, the papacy was the one partner with something substantial to offer. In bestowing specific conditions, it effect¬ ively provided a ‘customers’ service’21 to monks and monasteries, lending authority, propagating norms, and ultimately adding value to their com¬ modity. This asset was dispensed through transactional means, the out¬ come of which officially bound the monastery to Rome and Saint Peter. What began life as a request or granting of favour was transformed through the machinery of government into a placard of freedom and pro¬ tection. To grasp its broader meaning and significance, this book examines monastic exemption over a number of centuries and intersecting histor¬ ical eras, adopting a longue duree approach to its institutional practice and growth. It asks what these privileges entailed, how they came to be, and how they changed over time. Through a comparative analysis of medieval monastic cartularies, royal, episcopal, and papal charters, papal privileges and letters, annals, ecclesiastical histories, capitularies, saints’ lives, con¬ ciliar acta, and contemporaneous canonical collections, it examines their impact on medieval society, law, and the institutional structure of the local and regional church. These different genres of medieval source materials interact with one another on a number of levels. They offer significant regional variety, while also informing our understanding of the wider institutional practice and contemporary meaning of exemption.

8

Freedom and protection The relative merits of narrative and legal sources - as witnesses to the life

and governance of individual religious houses - make it possible to recon¬ struct such a rich and long history. Whereas the privilege itself represents a monastery’s core spiritual and jurisdictional liberties, the remaining evi¬ dence offers the critical historical context in which these specific rights were sought, created, pronounced, and enforced. The church council, for example, provides a valuable glimpse into prevailing socio-political conditions and regulations under which monasteries operated and existed; royal and episcopal charters and capitularies show the willing contribution of kings and bishops in protecting and fostering monastic communities, as well as the transforming nature of their relationship over time; papal letters and canonical collections offer a broader, pan-European perspec¬ tive, which complements the localised version of individual exemptions captured in many saints’ lives, ecclesiastical histories, monastic cartularies, and annals. And forged exemption charters, just like their authentic counterparts, are equally revealing for a monastery’s intentions, individual circumstances, collective history, and memory; they illustrate latent and overt political characteristics in an historical era which generated stronger and more permanent ties to the apostolic see.22 Examining these sources in tandem, this book fundamentally argues for the exemption’s importance in the emerging identity of papal authority and primacy from Rome, especially in the centuries prior to the turn of the first millennium. The essential focus, however, is contingent upon what these privileges actually provided. What material, economic, social, and political profits were expected and gained by the beneficiary and grantor? Exceptions to the rule of law were nothing new to medi¬ eval contemporaries; they were woven into the fabric of secular and ecclesiastical administration, law, and government. It is their individual circumstances that defined a monastery’s political position within and beyond its diocese; its corresponding relationship with the bishop and secular lord; its dependency on ecclesiastical and secular authority for matters of foundation, finance, rule, governance, discipline, order, and protection; and possible antagonisms over ties of dependency, domination, and subjection/subordination - sometimes the very reason for a charter’s existence and preservation. Examined for what they truly are - namely prohibitions, limitations, and restrictions of local power and influence they help explain the growth of the Roman Church in the early Middle Ages, the burgeoning papacy in the same critical era, and the formation of medieval ecclesiastical power politics more generally.

Introduction

9

More than simply a rejection of secular subordination, monastic exemp¬ tion privileges came to free the monastery from episcopal interference in spiritual and administrative matters. Their meaning, therefore, as will be argued throughout this book, was transformed in the early Middle Ages, becoming closely connected to ideals of papal protection and centralised control from Rome. This ideological development in turn helped secure the freedom of individual monasteries in spiritual and temporal matters. Whether these developments implicate the late eleventh century must also be assessed in this respect, representing the book’s logical end point. It is precisely this longer period of institutional development that attracts our attention. Considering early structural developments within the Roman Church, associated meanings and transformations of episcopal jurisdiction and power, and the influence of early church council legislation and canon law, this book seeks to understand the practices and meanings of exemption before the eleventh-century reform movement. As such, it holds a particular interest in comprehending the papacy’s early partici¬ pation in granting exemption privileges, which is traditionally attributed in the first instance to Pope Honorius I and the northern Italian monas¬ tery of Bobbio in 628. Considered in relation to the contemporaneous developments of royal and episcopal privileges under the Merovingians and Carolingians, charters issued to various medieval monasteries from the seventh century onward bear witness to the papacy’s intentions, and the extent of their involvement in monastic governance. The purpose of this book is to evaluate the nature and value of these privileges as polit¬ ical instruments, and to consider the papacy’s monastic ‘policy’ - if this is indeed the accurate or correct terminology - for houses of monks/nuns and regular canons, with a view to assessing its development and influence. In so doing, it ultimately questions the nature of alliances that culminated in monastic exemption, taking an interest in the socio-political and legal reasons impelling such relationships and the consequences for all involved. In order to achieve these objectives, the book focuses primarily on the papacy’s alliance with French - i.e. west Frankish and Capetian - mon¬ asteries and the course of its development between the sixth and elev¬ enth centuries. Such a concentration begs the obvious geopolitical question: why France? The answer is relatively straightforward: this western Christian region - known as Gaul in late antiquity, Francia in the Merovingian and Carolingian eras, and France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries22 - provides the richest diagnostic slice for investigating the insti¬ tutional growth of exemption in a critical period of its early development.

10

Freedom and protection

This material and diplomatic reality owes much to the political maturation of western Europe after the Carolingians, drawing our attention to the collapsing rather than prevailing secular authority. The long-term effects and consequences of monastic exemption are far more visible in this region of western Christendom. Whereas Italy, England, and Germany form part of the same institutional story, the total number of privileges was far greater in France, and remained so for their evolution well into the twelfth cen¬ tury. Comparatively speaking, this regional development reflects how the Ottonians favoured the exemption of only a few monasteries in the ninth and tenth centuries, rarely and occasionally.24 It also reveals an imperial attachment to religious houses that was ‘always temporary’.25 Medieval France offers a contrasting and rich picture of authority.26 It is particularly in this region that ‘the monarchy became weaker; territories splintered even more; ties of vassalage began to weaken’.27 This unique socio-political environment created new administrative opportunities, the outcome of which - it has traditionally been argued - contributed to a renovation of monastic structures and dependencies. As Ferdinand Lot contended, ‘the claims of the papacy came to be recognised in France. Their triumph was rapid and bright.’28 Jean-Frangois Lemarignier employed the same thunderous language, defining the dominant historical discourse on monastic exemption, arguing that it produced a new form of liberty that experienced its ‘premiere application eclatante’26 in the wake of a crumbling Carolingian Empire. The ‘singularites frangaises’30 in the ecclesiastical history of the Middle Ages, it is argued, can be found most readily in the relations between the papacy and the Church in France. The geographic focus of this book is thus deliberate and rewarding. That it is determined by much of the extant evidence from these early medieval centuries is a cogent reflection of papal diplomatic practice and concern, Frankish administration, and evolving ecclesiastical-political structures. A special relationship between Rome and French monas¬ teries was long in the making, well before the advent of Cluny in the early tenth century, which represents a better-known model. An alliance between Roman pontiffs and Capetian France was formed already by the end of the tenth century, which partnership arguably paved the way for the reception of later reforming ideals. Indeed, for the tenth century alone, French monasteries and churches received 83 of 247 papal char¬ ters (33.6 per cent).31 In his work on the years 896-1046, Jochen Johrendt offered 112 examples concerning free abbatial election (Abtwahlfreiheit), thirty-three of which are French in origin (41 per cent).32 Privileges of

Introduction

11

‘exemption’ for France offer another nineteen examples (23 per cent) for the same decades, representing the well-known monasteries of Psalmodi, Vezelay, Charroux, Beaulieu-les-Loches, Lezat, Langogne, Lusignan, Cluny, Sainte-Croix (Bordeaux), Saint-Florent (Saumur), and forgeries for Fleury and Deols.33 Privileges of papal protection (Papstschutz), more¬ over, add sixteen genuine and five forgeries to our growing list concerning the monasteries of Vezelay, Cluny, Deols, Sauxillanges, Homblieres, Charroux, and Langogne. By my own calculations, approximately 221 exemption charters were granted to 93 French monasteries between the late sixth and eleventh centuries (see map and Appendix). This breakdown of charter evidence reveals a uniqueness to this western European region with few contem¬ porary parallels. Furthermore, our extended period of study on France demonstrates noticeable surges in the granting of exemptions in 640-54, 784-98, 855-903, 926-56, 973-1027, and again in 1049-99. This growth, while seemingly episodic, nevertheless reflects a developing practice that gained favour in the western kingdom, contributing to a geograph¬ ical diversity of French monasteries with special privileges. And unlike Germany, which experienced a slackening pace, France emerged as a ver¬ itable breeding ground for monastic exemption practice and autonomous religious communities. The figures themselves, it will be argued, feed into more nuanced arguments for the renovation of monastic and political structures in the years around the turn of the first millennium. The important question, therefore, is not why France has been chosen as an object of study. The more pertinent question is why French mon¬ asteries were seeking and being granted exemptions from the popes in Rome, devoting considerable attention to the processes, pressures, and motivations that may have impelled individual monasteries to seek spe¬ cial papal exemption privileges for their property, lands, and/or per¬ sons. Were they truly doing this at a greater rate than their contemporary counterparts? If so, why? The spiritual and material governance of religious houses cus¬ tomarily belonged to families of lay elite and the control of diocesan bishops.34 Economic and familial interests governed these religious com¬ munities, revealing interests in holding the abbacy and its benefices/ appurtenances such as buildings, land, stock, dues, tithes, and rights in ecclesiastical appointments. But during the Merovingian and Carolingian eras, monastic freedom came to be defined more institutionally (often at the initiative of individual monasteries) as immunity and defence from

12

Freedom and protection

Locations of French monasteries granted exemption charters between c. 590 and c. 1100.

outside interference, freedom from the diocesan bishop (in disciplinary and spiritual terms), and a direct obedience to Saint Peter’s in Rome. As a consequence, and with an increasing number of religious houses seeking and being granted Saint Peter’s protection after the ninth cen¬ tury, papal authority, intervention, and claims to legitimate power in Latin Christendom intensified correspondingly. The privileges obtained by French monastic houses like Saint-Denis, Corbie, Vezelay, Cluny, Fleury, Saint-Gilles, Charroux, Montier-en-Der, Deols, Marmoutier, and SaintVictor at Marseilles - to cite just a few examples - formed an important part in contemporary assertions of papal primacy. Yet the impact of this alliance was expressed and experienced most visibly at the local level, by the individual religious house, its occupants, and those whose lives were in some way directly connected.

Introduction

13

This book’s geo-temporal focus weaves such a history together. It will be argued that exemption privileges provide a window onto the develop¬ ment of the Roman papacy, whose entry into the business of monastic proprietorship/lordship/protection had a profound impact on the wider political development of pre-modern Europe. Indeed, the hundreds of privileges issued between the sixth and eleventh centuries (c. 590-c. 1100) for France, Germany, Italy, and England should rightly be treated and ranked alongside the pallium and the office of papal legation as inherent weapons at the papacy’s disposal for connecting Christendom to the growing power base in Rome.35 A study of this nature returns time and again to one overarching question: was the proliferation of exemption privileges a deliberate papal policy or an ad hoc response to prevailing political, economic, and social conditions? That is: how did the papacy’s relationship with various monastic houses develop? Was this connection initiated by the papacy’s growing dissatisfaction with the French episcopate? Were bishops ever the intended targets of exemption? Given that such privileges became a dem¬ onstration of legitimate papal power, this book fundamentally questions whether monastic exemptions contributed to a fragmentation of the dio¬ cesan structure in France.36 It posits a moderate but considered view, demonstrating how the growth of monastic exemption did not deliber¬ ately undermine episcopal or lay authority.37 Its success, it will be argued, nevertheless transformed ecclesiastical structures, helping to foster the papacy’s growing political and spiritual claims throughout western Christendom. Given this position, we must probe further and ask: how did the removal of spiritual and material jurisdiction from a local to papal level manifest itself in practice? Because papal privileges conferred on religious com¬ munities were mutable and ephemeral, the latter’s relationship with the local bishop was always subject to change and dispute. Even if we accept the privileges granted to a monastery as a fait accompli, we are still left wondering how the monastery’s personal, institutional, and even corporate status may have changed with the issuance of an exemption privilege. Did the successful acquisition of exemption immediately create an equivalency or a relationship of inequality between the papacy and the monastery? Were the more local socio-political conditions altered by the monastery’s willing and voluntary submission to the see of Saint Peter, which in the end was a dependency on Rome ratified by the secular ruler? Taken together, these lines of enquiry challenge the fundamental and practical problem of reform in the localities, mounting an adjacent and complementary argument for

14

Freedom and protection

the papacy’s constant influence in France through an increasingly strict regulation of the monastic life and governance. The ninth century represents a pivotal moment in this broader history. The political impact of a disintegrating Carolingian Empire on Frankish monasteries is critical to this structural narrative. Recognising a shifting emphasis primarily in the second half of the ninth century, especially under popes Benedict III, Nicholas I, and John VIII, various religious houses were effectively and increasingly brought into the orbit of the apostolic see in Rome. While the king/bishop/powerful lay lord was forced to relin¬ quish his protectorate and proprietary claims over the monastery, the pope came to occupy a more central place in the administration and govern¬ ance of the French Church. This book examines the many circumstances precipitating these developments, asking whether they were deliberate or accidental in the longer institutional history of the papacy and the Roman Church. The possible connections between these contemporary political events in France, which arguably overturned the established social order, and their possible association with the beginnings of church reform in early medieval France is also a critical and prevailing question. 38 Owing to a proliferation of practice and diplomatic evidence, we know far more about monastic relationships with Rome as the Middle Ages pro¬ gress. This reality informs a rich historiographical tradition somewhat at odds with earlier medieval evidence, leaving the false impression that the practice of monastic exemption began in the High Middle Ages. This skewed historical perception is understandable but not entirely justified. Under the auspices of church reformers, an unprecedented number of reli¬ gious houses and churches were granted papal privileges and exemptions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is yet to be determined how these proprietary conditions led to the creation of a new relationship of direct spiritual authority with Rome, the consequences of which defined the relationship between the religious life and papal politics in the Middle Ages. Whereas changes to the religious life have long been understood as preceding and even inspiring the broader reforming agenda in the second half of the eleventh century, less attention has been given to the papacy’s vested interest in monastic houses in any one kingdom or region. Much historical work considers the subject in more isolated and individual contexts, with a particular interest on the abbeys and associated reforms of Lerins, Luxeuil, Bobbio, Fulda, Rebais, Gorze, Hirsau, and Cluny, the foundations of monastic reform under the Carolingians and again in the tenth century, and the fiscal interests at stake surrounding the complex issue of monastic tithes and their distribution.39 My interest lies rather with the larger religious, legal, and political context for the granting of

Introduction

15

these papal privileges. By examining the subject from this perspective, this book seeks to understand the development and centralised role of freedom and protection in defining the special relationship forged between Rome and the ecclesiastical provinces in France. The growth of monastic exemption - with all its preliminaries, antecedents, and individual motives - forms the general thrust of this investigation. Its rich history, however, is certainly not without competing scholarly views. One of the most prolific and influential historians on this subject, Jean-Frangois Lemarignier, characterised monastic exemption as an ‘institution of bias’.40 His first study on the subject explored its relationship to ecclesiastical jur¬ isdiction in Normandy (ecclesiastical province of Rouen) from the sixth to the early thirteenth centuries. He also treated the development of monastic exemption as a factor in the ‘Gregorian’ reform that so characterises the late eleventh century.41 Accordingly, exemption privileges served as a device for escaping the authority of bishops, which alienation in turn contributed to the papacy’s growing influence throughout western Christendom. For this French scholar, the last decade of the tenth century was a real turning point in the history of this papal practice, a critical moment in the institutional development of protection.42 Was he right? Relationships between monks and their bishops were understandably individual and often complicated. Yet we must also acknowledge that the relationship within the diocese was complementary and dependent on a number of levels. From a purely his¬ toriographical perspective, we must also ask how, or whether, our scholarly interpretations have changed since the publication of this seminal work in the inter-war period of the twentieth century. To be sure, the rights and privileges of medieval monasteries were not accidentally born. On the contrary, they were carefully constructed and negotiated by invoking the authority and protection of the popes in Rome. Any variation to the monastery’s position was achievable through exemp¬ tion - the increasingly common practice, at first imperial, episcopal, royal, and finally papal, of granting specific legal and spiritual concessions to abbots and their religious houses. It is well worth asking whether this evo¬ lutionary transition from royal to papal protection in the early Middle Ages introduced a principal ‘apple of discord’43 into existing socio¬ political structures, as Dominique Iogna-Prat once suggested. Are we really witness to ‘a process of disorganisation and dislocation’44 in the late Carolingian world, whose outcome forever transformed the socio-political structure of the diocese and its power relations with the monastic order? One central aim of this book is to advance our understanding of these modern historical debates by investigating the papacy’s intersecting

16

Freedom and protection

relationships with individual French monasteries. In so doing, it reveals the individual factors that contributed incrementally towards solidifying Roman authority in the early Middle Ages. That is to say that my inves¬ tigation delves beyond the veneer of Petrine authority and its historic manifestations (e.g. Matthew 16:18) - the point towards which earlier developments eventually led - in order to characterise more accurately the contemporary experience and projection of papal power. Given this objective, it is important to bear in mind Gerd Tellenbach’s wariness on the subject, which ultimately prompted him to question whether medieval popes truly thought in terms of ‘a continuous papal leadership, control, and discipline of the church either as something possible or as something desirable’.45 ‘Were they capable’, he asked, ‘of conceiving of the “papacy” as possessing such jurisdictional power, given its regional horizons and the frequent condition of political and material bankruptcy in which the popes found themselves?’46 Such historical experience, wisdom, and caution is a sober reminder of the discursive nature of medieval papal power. Precisely because mon¬ asteries sought exemptions from Rome, their specific conditions ‘were indispensable to those wielding power’.47 Owing to the nature of this hier¬ archical relationship, exemption practice in the Middle Ages is treated here as a mechanism of papal authority, a form of currency (legal, financial, jur¬ isdictional) on the marketplace of ecclesiastical politics. Papal power is fun¬ damentally a social and theoretical construction, sculpted over centuries by individuals, agency, necessity, and increasing experience. Its connection to medieval monasteries fed into the ever-changing definition and purpose of exemption privileges. Furthermore, because the growth of papal power was demand-driven, privileges of this sort provided the medieval papacy with the grandiose claim to assert its authority, testing both its theoretical and practical limitations throughout western Christendom. In the devel¬ opment of canon law, moreover, the pope’s authority was conceived and exercised through the granting of privileges, helping a growing organisa¬ tion make ‘sweeping claims to universal sovereignty over the government of the church and indirectly over the government of kings’.48 The means by which such developments took shape is the missing interpretive element in our historical narrative. Walter Ullmann argued long ago that the ‘granting of monastic exemption was one concrete way of demonstrating in a practical manner the theme of papal primacy’. After the papacy became the central issuer of these prerogatives, he said, it became ‘a major source of strength to the institution itself’.49 The processes by which it developed and exercised this authority, however, remain historically unclear. One interpretive difficulty is that exemption

Introduction

17

was not articulated in the canon law until the twelfth century. During this later period of legal development, as we will see, the meaning and def¬ inition of papal privileges became more precise. That is to say, the word itself (noun: exemptin', verb: eximere) began to appear with more regularity regarding issues such as episcopal synods and judgement. Though never fully articulated before the twelfth century, medieval contemporaries were themselves often confused by the degrees and meanings of exemption to the apostolic see in Rome.50 Prior to this period, the ‘terminology was vague’ and the ‘juridical meaning of the terminology was equally indef¬ inite’.51 The confusion was eventually cleared up by Pope Alexander III (1159-81), who issued a decretal (Recepimus) distinguishing the rights and liberties of exempt monasteries as those ‘who especially pertain to our jur¬ isdiction and that of Saint Peter and who are under no one else’.52 Such a realisation highlights an obvious methodological problem with interpreting earlier medieval sources. For the study of monastic exemption privileges, this stems first and foremost from extant charters, both real and forged. In certain cases, establishing a monastery’s connection to the apos¬ tolic see is made easier through the annual payment of the census, for which practice the Roman Church kept records in its Liber censuum Romanae ecclesiae (compiled in 1192).53 But not every abbey, church, or monastery was required to pay a tribute to qualify for Rome’s protection. It is therefore very difficult - until the second half of the twelfth century - to distinguish between exempt monasteries/churches, and those ecclesiae sancti Petri censuales (either ad indicium percepte libertatis (‘as proof of received lib¬ erty’) or ad indicium percepte protections (‘as proof of received protection’).54 This problem of custom occupied contemporary canonists as much as modern scholars. To complicate matters further, the character and payment of census - particularly in the tenth and eleventh centuries - sometimes introduces the notion of papal protection, exemplifying a complex back his¬ tory of immunity defence that dates to imperial Rome and the Merovingian era. Some abbeys and monasteries were accorded papal protection upon foundation, while others actively sought and received that protection later on. Such trajectories are by no means universal or consistent; when considered over a longer period, however, they are nevertheless revealing for the developing spirit and practice of exemption. This book is interested in all such cases and posits a new interpretive framework for understanding them. As a basic starting point we might rightly ask what such privileges were meant to achieve.5’’ What impact did this centralised Roman development have on local and regional secularspiritual politics? Who initiated the relationship and why? Through a comparative study of monastic exemption privileges in medieval France,

18

Freedom and protection

I ask why this pattern first emerged, how it developed, and to what con¬ sequence, in order to advance our understanding of how they became embedded in the cultural milieu of French politics. Examining medi¬ eval French monasteries between the sixth and eleventh centuries, the following pages will explain how exemption privileges contributed to an emerging idea of centralised papal authority. There are several grand narratives intersecting this subject. The broad chronology presented in this book (c. 590-c. 1100) traverses many geopol¬ itical boundaries and fields of historical specialisation, which are seldom treated in unison. Yet the growth and influence of monastic exemption, as a developing institution and practice across medieval Europe, can only be appreciated through a wide historical lens. The impact of exemption privileges on the Merovingian kingdom and its Church; the contempor¬ aneous formation and articulation of diocesan structures, episcopal duties and responsibilities; monastic identity, space, and community struggles for spiritual, fiscal, and political autonomy; the fragmentation of power and politics in the late Carolingian Empire; the spirit, meaning, and influ¬ ence of ‘reform’ and its initiatives; and the transforming nature of canon law, in addition to secular and ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction, all form part of the same institutional story. One key to interpreting this subject is papal ‘protection’ (tuitio, defensio, protection mundeburdium). Its promise and meaning to various monasteries in the early Middle Ages significantly enhanced the exemption’s validity and distribution across western Christendom - shaping this book’s organ¬ isational and argumentative structure.’6 With origins and transformations in the Merovingian and Carolingian eras (chapter 1) that demand fur¬ ther examination here, this institutional practice introduced a powerful political dimension to medieval papal-monastic governance (chapter 2). Binding the monastery more firmly to the spiritual centre in Rome, ‘pro¬ tection’ privileges gradually became a central and normative character¬ istic of monastic exemption charters from the ninth century onward (chapter 3). The spirit and force of the canon law (chapter 4), moreover, played a central role in defining their wider socio-political application in western Christendom (chapter 5), arguably contributing by the late elev¬ enth century to a so-called a ‘victory of the papacy’57 (see chapter 6) - the culmination of exemption practice into a mechanism of centralised eccle¬ siastical control and governance. The impetus for this landmark change remains the critical question. For Georg Schreiber, protection privileges formed the basis for what he called ‘papal proprietary monasteries’ (pdpstliches Eigenkloster).58 Hans Hirsch

Introduction

19

disagreed, arguing that ‘transference of ownership to the Holy See was regarded by monasteries as nothing more than the necessary preliminary to acquiring independence, and the papacy was consequently never able to lay claim to full proprietary right which the lord had exercised in his churches, the heritage of the proprietary lord inevitably passed to the advocate and not to the pope’.59 For the latter scholar, ‘the main purpose of papal pro¬ tection, in short, was again confined to the sphere of internal ecclesiastical organisation’.60 ‘The acquisition of protection’, Hirsch contended, ‘was thus one of the most important points in the reform programme, and the steps necessary to obtain protection were nearly always taken in direct con¬ nexion with the secular owner’s renunciation of his proprietary right.’61 This interpretation leaves more than a few lingering questions. Persuasive in its portrayal of eleventh-century reform, it nevertheless fails to account for the many processes which defined a monastery’s relationship with Rome over the preceding centuries. The way lies open here for a more careful exam¬ ination of these incipient steps, whose potential contribution to the papacy’s later achievements remains a topic of considerable interest and confusion. We must ask: how and why did French monks and monasteries come to rely on Rome for matters of spiritual and physical protection? How and why did successive popes seek to grant and confirm exemption privileges? What tangible advantages did papal protection actually provide to/for the monas¬ tery? What did tuitio, protection and defensio even mean to contemporaries? How was it enforced at the local level? Or, when considered in the process of transaction or exchange, what did the papacy expect to receive in return for granting exemption privileges? For there is a relative implicit value of the object (i.e. the privilege) itself, which holds meaning to both interested parties in the exchange. In seeking and granting special exemptions, there were calculated measures that elicited more than a material return: privileges were not simply acquired passively without some understanding (explicit or implicit) of expected conditions and/or possible rewards. As we will see with the early development of exemption privileges under the Merovingians and Carolingians, the nominal spiritual and protective orders mentioned in various charters imply a debt of honour and power that can in some sense be purchased - not with money, but through the principles of obligation, obedience, and tribute to the apostolic see in Rome. The papacy’s role in the growth of monastic exemption represents nothing short of a minor revolution - albeit gradual and indirect. Over the course of many early medieval centuries, existing social, political, and legal structures were transformed by their active and willing concessions of power and privilege. It remains to be seen whether this evolving practice yielded

Freedom and protection

20

a wider or deliberate papal strategy, or whether it contributed in any way to the decentralisation or destabilisation of the French Church. It is unclear, moreover, whether its growth between the sixth and eleventh centuries furnished a political system or ‘exemption-institute’ (Exemptioninstitut).62 The simple truth is that monastic exemption privileges became far more pronounced in contemporary sources with every subsequent century. This book asks why, with a view to understanding how the practice contributed to strengthening the papacy’s power and identity in early medieval France. It identifies and evaluates the nature and extent of Rome’s involvement in French monasteries. This approach demonstrates in practice the level of papal commitment, cooperation, and intervention that preceded the more visible transformations of the late eleventh century. It also poses one final question: how and why did the papacy emerge as the ‘guarantor par excel¬ lence’63 of monastic freedom and protection?

Notes 1 See especially Egon Boshof, “Traditio Romana und Papstschutz im 9. Jahrhundert,” in Rechtsgeschichtlich-diplomatische Studien zu friihmittelalterlichen Papsturkunden

(Cologne;

Vienna:

Bohlau,

1976),

1-100;

Lotte

Kery,

“Klosterexemtion in der Einode? Bonifatius und das Privileg des Papstes Zacharias fiir Fulda (751),” Archiv fiir mittelrheinische kirchengeschichte 60 (2008): 80. 2 For a commentary on their form, see Edmund E. Stengel, Die Immunitdt in Deutschland his zum Ende des 11. fahrhunderts, Diplomatik der deutschen Immunitats-Privilegien von 9. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1910), esp. 391-421; Heinrich Fichtenau, Arenga: Spdtantike und Mittelalter im Spiegel von Urkundenformeln (Graz: H. Bohlaus, 1957); Ludwig Falkenstein, La papaute et les abhayes Jranfaises aux XIe et XIIe siecles: exemption et protection apostohque (Paris: H. Champion, 1997), xxvi-xxviii, 10-18; Arthur Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, vol. 2 (Paris: Alcan, 1925); Jean Mabillon, De re diplomatica (Paris: Caroli Robustel, 1709), 11-19; Theodor von Sickel, Beitrdge zur Diplomatik 1: Die Urkunden Ludwigs des Deutschen his zum jahre 859 (Vienna: Gerold, 1861), 329-42; Theodor von Sickel, Beitrdge zur Diplomatik 2: Die Urkunden Ludwigs des Deutschen in den Ja hren 859-876 (Vienna: Gerold, 1862), 105-61; Theodor von Sickel, Beitrdge zur Diplomatik 3: Die Mundhriefge, Immunitdten und Privilegien der ersten Karohnger his zumfahre 840 (Vienna: Gerold, 1864), 175-277; and Josef Semmler, “Traditio und Konigsschutz. Studien zur Geschichte der koniglichen monasteria,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fiir Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Ahteilung 45 (1959), 1-33.

Introduction

21

3 Barbara H. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1999), 5. See also Geoffrey Koziol, The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom (840987) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), esp. chapter 1. 4 Ibid., 4. 5 Ibid., 96; Alexander Callander Murray, “Merovingian Immunity Revisited,” History Compass 8 (2010), 922. 6 Franz J. Felten, Abte und Laienahte im Frankenreich: Studie zum Verhdltnis von Staat und Kirche im friiheren Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1980), 111-42. 7 For a cogent scholarly distinction between ‘exemption’ and ‘immunity’, see Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 3-4. On the latter’s fiscal and judicial (tech¬ nical) characteristics, see Murray, “Merovingian Immunity,” 915-17. 8 Gadi Algazi, “Introduction: Doing Things with Gifts,” in Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, eds. Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, and Bernhard Jussen (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 10. ArnoudJan A. Bijsterveld, “The Medieval Gift as Agent of Social Bonding and Political Power: A Comparative Approach,” in Medieval Transformations: Texts, Power, and Gifts in Context, eds. Esther Cohen and Mayke de Jong (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 125. Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1922), 85. 9 See Ernst Pitz, Papstresknpt und Kaiserreskript im Mittelalter (Tubingen: N. Niemeyer, 1971), esp. 298ff. 10 See Leo Santifaller, “Die Verwendung des Liber diurnus in den Privilegien der Papste von den Anfangen bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts,” Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 49 (1935): 225-366. The various clauses in the narratio and petitio of these charters read (typically): ‘Igitur quia postulasti a nobis, quatenus’ (nos. 32 and 86), ‘Petis nos igitur ut’ (no. 77), and ‘Igitur quia postulavit a nobis te fidelites, quatenus’ (no. 95). 11 The papacy’s response to such petitions was similarly formulaic: ‘Pro qua re, piis desideriis faventes, hac nostra auctoritate id quod exposcitur effectui mancipamus’ (LD, nos. 32 and 86). A more elaborate version from the Cartularium Saxonicum (no. 38, p. 63) reads: ‘Pro qua re piis desideriis faventes seu et praecessorum nostrorum beatae memoriae pontificum privilegia confirmantes apostolica auctoritate id quod exposcitur effectui mancipamus hoc modo.’ 12 Wilhelm Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), 26. Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 38, pp. 63-4. See also Vita Wilfndis, MGH SRM 6, cc. 45 (p. 239), 47 (p. 242), 51 (p. 245).

Freedom and protection

22

13 Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 8. 14 Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 50-1. 15 Ibid., 119. 16 Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, 3 vols. (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), 672, 731. Max Weber, Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society, ed. Max Rheinstein (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 105-9. 17 Weber, Law in Economy and Society, 105. 18 Ibid., 147. 19 Weber, Law in Economy and Society, 106; Weber, Economy and Society, 696. 20 Felten, Able und Laiendbte, 215-16. 21 Karl Leyser in his review of Harald Zimmermann’s Papsturkuden 896-1046, Volume 1: 896-996, in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988): 247. 22 On the subject of forgery more generally, see Fdlschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongref der Monumenta Germaniae Historica Miinchen, 16.-19. September 1986. MGH Schriften 33. 6 vols. (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1988-90); Giles Constable, “Forgery and Plagiarism in the Middle Ages,” Archw fur Diplomatik 29 (1983): 1-41; Koziol, The Politics of Memory, chapter 7. 23 In speaking of‘France’ in the early Middle Ages, I am referring in broad geo¬ graphical terms to what is today modern France, Belgium, and parts of western Germany. For the purposes of this study, I draw most of my examples from the regions west of the Moselle and Saone-Rhone Rivers, from Flanders in the north to the Mediterranean in the south. This geopolitical region, known also as the ‘kingdom of France’, comprises the duchies of Normandy, Brittany, Aquitaine, Gascony, and Burgundy, and the counties of Flanders, Maine, Blois, Anjou, Touraine, Troyes, Gatinais, Nevers, Poitou, Angouleme, Toulouse, and Languedoc. The ecclesiastical provinces of Reims, Rouen, Tours, Sens, Lyon, Bourges, Bordeaux, Auch, and Narbonne, however, extend beyond these pol¬ itical boundaries, and thus include places like Luxueil, Remiremont, Cambrai, Toul, Ambronay, among others (see Appendix and map). For a good justifica¬ tion of this terminological use before the Capetian era, see especially Constance B. Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500-1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), xiii-xiv. See further descriptions in Jean Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 4-5, 376-7; and Marcus Bull, “Introduction,” in France in the Central Middle Ages, 900-1200, ed. Marcus Bull (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 5-6. For reliable maps of these regions in this formative political period, see Elizabeth M. Hallam and Judith

Introduction

23

Everard, Capetian France, 987-1328, 2nd ed. (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 3, 6; and Bull, France in the Central Middle Ages, 221-6. 24 Jean-Fran9ois Lemarignier, “Structures monastiques et structures politiques dans la France de la fin du Xe et des debuts du Xle siecle,” in // monachesimo netTalto medioevo e lafomazione della civilitd occidental (Spoleto: Presso la sede del centro, 1957), 359. For the impact in the middle of the eleventh century, by contrast, see Hans Hirsch, Die Klosterimmunitdt seit deni Investiturstreit: Untersuchung zur Verfassungsgeschichte des deutschen Reiches und der deutschen Kirche (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buch-Ges., 1967), esp. 26-65. 25 Jean-Fran^ois Lemarignier, “Political and Monastic Structures in France at the End of the Tenth and the Beginning of the Eleventh Century,” in Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe, ed. Fredric L. Cheyette (New York: Hold, Rinehard, and Winston, 1968), 101. For some examples see Hans Goetting, “Die klosterliche Exemtion in Nord- und Mitteldeutschland vom 8. bis zum 15. Jh.,” Archiv fur Urkundenforschung 14 (1936): 105-87 and Lotte Kery, “Klosterfreiheit und papstliche Organisationsgewalt Exemtion als Herrschaftsinstrument des Papsttums?,” in Rom und die Regionen: Studien zur Homogenisierung der lateinischen Kirche im Ilochmittelalter, eds. Jochen Johrendt and Harald Muller (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 115ff. 26 Lemarignier, “Structures monastiques,” 375,359ff.;Jean-Fran9ois Lemarignier, “L’Exemption monastique et les origines de la reforme gregorienne.,” in A Cluny. Congres scientifique en Vhonneur des Saints Ahhes Odon et Odilon, 911 juillet 1949. Travaux des Congres (Dijon: Imprimerie Bernigaud et Privat, 1950), 301. 27 Lemarignier, “Political and Monastic Structures,” 102. /

/

28 Ferdinand Lot, Etudes sur le regne de Ilugues Capet et la fin du Xe siecle (Paris: E Bouillon, 1903), 138. 29 Jean-Fran9ois Lemarignier, Etude sur les privileges d'exemption et de juridiction ecclisiastique des abhayes normandes depuis les origines jusqu'en 1140 (Paris: A. Picard, 1937), 9. *

30 Rolf Grosse, “L’Eglise de France et Pautorite de France,” Revue d'histoire de VEglise de France 96 (2010): 263. 31 Harald Zimmermann, “Die Beziehungen Roms zu Frankreich in Saeculum /

obscurum,” in L'Eglise de France et la papaute (Xe-XIIIe siecle) (Bonn: Bouvier, 1993), 35, n. 7. 32 Jochen Johrendt, Papsttum und Landeskirchen im Spiegel der pdpstlichen Urkunden (896-1046), MGH Studien und Texte 33 (Hanover: Hansche Buchhandlung, 2004), 50-1, 55ff. 33 For an assessment of sources relating to Aquitaine in this period, see Anna Trumbore Jones, “The Power of an Absent Pope: Privileges, Forgery, and Papal

Freedom and protection

24

Authority in Aquitaine, 877-1050,” in Canon Law, Religion, and Politics: Liber Amicorum Robert Somerville, eds. Uta-Renate Blumenthal, Anders Winroth, and Peter Landau (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 123-4. 34 See Yaniv Fox, Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Frankish Elites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Hans J. Hummer, Politics and Power in Early Medieval Europe: Alsace and the Frankish Realm,

600-1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2005); John Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons m the Gorze Reform: Lotharingia c.850-1000 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001); and Felten, Abte und Laiendbte, 86-98. 35 For two recent studies on this subject, see Steven Schoenig, Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016) and Kriston R. Rennie, The Foundations of Medieval Papal Legation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), respectively. 36 For this argument, see especially Lemarignier, “Structures monastiques,” 357-400. 37 Kassius Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny: Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensdtzen im Hochmittelalter, 2 vols. (Rome: Herder, 1950-1), 584; H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Clumacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), xv-xvi. 38 On the subject of ‘reform’, its problematic terminology and associated scholarly debate, see especially Steven Vanderputten, Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900-1100 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2013), 3-8; Julia Barrow, “Ideas and Applications of Reform,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, eds. Thomas F. X. Noble and Julia M. H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 345-63; and Timothy Reuter, “‘Kirchenreform’ und ‘Kirchenpolitik’ im Zeitalter Karl Martells: Begriffe und Wirklichkeit,” in Karl Martell in seiner Zeit, eds. Jorg Jarnut, Ulrich Nonn, and Michael Richter (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1994), 35-59. 39 For some excellent examples, see Sackur, Brackmann, Mager, Diener, Hauck, Hallinger, Cowdrey, Tellenbach, Letonnelier, Ewig, Rosenwein, Constable, Melville, Raaijmakers, among many others (see Bibliography). 40 Lemarignier, “L’Exemption monastique,” 289. 41 On this subject and its entrenched historiographical traditions, see the access¬ ible works of Gerd Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century, trans. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); I. S. Robinson, “Reform and the Church, 1073-1122,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 4: C.1028-C.J 198, Part 1, eds.

Introduction

25

David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 268-334; and Kathleen G. Cushing, Reform and Papacy in the Eleventh Century: Spirituality and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), among many others. 42 On the development of protection, especially as it relates to the laity from the eleventh-thirteenth centuries, see Johannes Fried, Der pdpstliche Schutz fur Laienfursten: Die politische Geschichte des pdpstlichen Schutzprivilegs fur Laien (11-13. fh.) (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1980); Georg Schreiber, Kurie und Kloster im 12. fahrhundert: Studien zur Privilierung, Verfassung und besonders zum Eigenkirchenwesen de vorfranztskanischen Orden vornehmlich auf Grund der Papsturkunden von Paschalis II. bis auf Lucius III. (1099-1181), 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Enke, 1910). 43 Dominique Iogna-Prat, “Entre anges et hommes: les moines ‘doctrinaires’ de Pan mil,” in La France de l'an mil, eds. Robert Delort and Dominique IognaPrat (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1990), 250. 44 Hans Hirsch, “The Constitutional History of the Reformed Monasteries during the Investiture Contest,” in Medieval Germany, 911-1250: Essays by German Historians, trans. Geoffrey Barraclough, 2 vols. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), 2.170. 45 Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe, 117. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Richard H. Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 312. 49 Walter Ullmann, A Short History of the Papacy in the Ahddle Ages (London; New York: Routledge, 2003), 126. See also Victor Saxer, “Le status juridique de Vezelay des origines a la fin du Xlle siecle,” Revue de droit canonique 6 (1956): 227. 50 Peter Wiegand, “Kurie und Kloster im welfisch-staufischen Thronstreit: Zur Exemtionspraxis Papst Innocenz’ III. im mitteldeutschen Raum,” Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 111 (2003): 104-45. 51 Kenneth Pennington, Pope and Bishops: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 155. 52 Pope Alexander III, I Comp. 5.28.10 (X 5.33.8) \Recepimus]; cf. Pennington, Popes and Bishops, 155-6; Falkenstein, La papaute et les abbayes franfaises, 22-6; Kery, “Klosterfreiheit und papstliche Organisationsgewalt,” 87. 53 Paul Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum de VEglise romaine (Paris: E. Thorin, /

1892). See also Camille Daux, “Le cens pontifical dans l’Eglise de France,” Revue des questions historiques 38 (1904): 1-73.

Freedom and protection

26

54 For examples see Papsturkunden in Frankreich, Neue Folge, eds. Hermann Meinert, Johannes Ramackers, Dietrich Lohrmann, Rolf Grosse, 9 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1932-98), vol. 4, no. 135, p. 265 (Pope Alexander III; JL 11903); Acta pontificum Romanorum inedita, I, no. 205, pp. 188-90 (Eugenius III, JL 8945). 55 Chris Wickham and Timothy Reuter, “Introduction,” in Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 15. 56 Hirsch, Die Klosterimmumtat, 31; cf. Stengel, Die Immunitdt in Deutschland, 372ff. On their multiplication over the following centuries, see Falkenstein, La f

papaute et les ahhayes franfaises, 45; cf. Emile Lesne, “Nicolas Ier et les libertes des monasteres des Gaules,” Le Moyen Age 24 (1911): 277-306; Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” 1-100. 57 David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 572. 58 Schreiber, Kurie und Kloster, 1.10. 59 Hirsch, “The Constitutional History,” 2.167. 60 Ibid., 2.169. 61 Ibid., 2.137. 62 Goetting,

“Die

klosterliche

Exemtion,”

184;

Willy

Szaivart,

“Die

Entstehung und Entwicklung der Klosterexemption bis zum Ausgang des 11. Jahrhunderts,” Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 59 (1951): 265-98.Hirsch, Die Klosterimmunitdt, 31; cf. Stengel, Die Immunitdt in Deutschland, 372ff. 63 Cowdrey, The Cluniacs, 15.

1

The road to protection

T

he present chapter examines the historical and conciliar framework of monastic exemption, with a particular interest in tracing its for¬ mation and development between the fifth and eighth centuries. Such a focus outlines its growth during the early Middle Ages, which determined the monastery’s place within the local diocesan context. The construction, and subsequent deconstruction, of this relationship underpins this book’s ongoing investigation, which seeks ultimately to understand how and why papal protection became a coveted asset among French monasteries. To make this understanding possible, the present chapter asks what came before the surge and why. It argues for an emerging pattern and character of exemption under the Franks, which proved central to developing notions of spiritual and physical protection under the popes. As a consequence of this novel mentality, a monastery’s relationship with its surrounding envir¬ onment permitted greater degrees of freedom and protection than ever before. This unique transformation took time to develop, forging alliances that effectively shifted individual monasteries away from their Frankish protectorate towards the burgeoning spiritual centre in Rome. Some necessary groundwork must be laid in this chapter before advan¬ cing this argument further. Defining the nature and extent of exemption requires a brief look at the rich historiography on ‘immunity’, which is at once complex, value-laden, and at times difficult to penetrate for a non¬ specialist of Roman and Merovingian law.1 Originating from the Roman system of taxation and its institutional inheritance by the Visigoths and Franks, the traditional model of immunity has everything to do with fiscal law and its development throughout late antiquity. Its changing content and increasingly judicial character has been the subject of great historical interest since the early twentieth century.2 Such a rich historiographical

28

Freedom and protection

tradition, however, has not made it any easier to comprehend. In the pur¬ suit of clarity, we must be careful not to conflate the Roman/Merovingian definition (immunitas/emunitas) with its medieval counterpart (iurisdictio, tuitio, protection mundeburdium, defensio, tutela, patrocinium), which does not share an immediate or continuous connection across the centuries. There are nevertheless some striking similarities between late antique and early medieval models, whose combined qualities and frequent pairing of vocabulary help determine the normative character of monastic exemp¬ tion for the Middle Ages. Traditionally interpreted in late imperial Rome (fourth-fifth centuries) as freedom from tax burdens and public services, the meaning of immunity changed under the Merovingians to encompass royal privileges of protec¬ tion, inviolability for churches and monasteries within their kingdom, and peace and public order. The true normative character of medieval exemp¬ tion was shaped from these judicial and fiscal beginnings. How and why its central tenet came to involve protection for ecclesiastical persons and properties is a critical question. The answer gives witness to a process of historical development that helps explain when and how exemptions came to be treated as special privileges, or charters of rights and liberties, for individual monasteries. In the late Roman world, immunity possessed a relatively and com¬ paratively straightforward definition in public law. The majority of our evidence for its early usage survives in the Codex Theodosianus, that fifthcentury compilation of legal directives spanning the years 313-438. In this collection, compiled during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (408-50), Roman immunities were commonly granted as favours that fostered the mutual status of the issuers and recipients. Palace officials, their children, and grandchildren, for example - along with their mov¬ able property and slaves - were granted immunity from ‘all compulsory public services of a menial nature and those that are incumbent on per¬ sons’ (6.35.1). Similarly, physicians, grammarians, and professors of lit¬ erature - in addition to the property, which they possessed in their own municipalities - were ‘exempt from public obligations’ (13.3.1). Architects and geometricians likewise enjoyed the privilege of immunity from taxes and public service because of their skill and status (13.4.3). Financial com¬ pensation was granted to shippers of grain to Rome or Constantinople from Alexandria ‘by immunity from payment of tribute and by that which is called the Friendship Fund’ (13.5.32). Whereas emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius Augustus decreed that ‘no person whatever shall obtain special privilege of immunity

The road to protection

29

from extraordinary public services’ (11.16.18), a social hierarchy for imperial privileges clearly existed under the Romans. As this late fourthcentury (390) decree stated: ‘privileges of merits and of high rank’ were notably distinguishable from the ‘common lot’. ‘Most august dignitaries’ were not meant to be ‘called to the necessity of performing such com¬ pulsory public services’ (ibid.). Similar rights were extended to churches, rhetoricians, and grammarians. The full extent of these privileges was outlined, giving full disclosure that ‘if any man is protected by our law from the performance of such services, his patrimony shall not be subject to the duty of preparing meal, shall not assume the service of bread baking, shall render no service to the bread-making establishments, shall not fur¬ nish personal services and artisans; its responsibility for burning lime shall cease. Such patrimonies shall not be obligated to contribute boards or wood [etc.]’ (11.16.18). Significantly, such privileges did not extend to the property of their wives or their own patrimonies, and they were limited to their own lifetime. Special status of this sort was also extended to fiscal land, which owing to the directive of Emperor Constantine allowed per¬ sons (farmers) choosing to take possession of deserted land a three-year exemption from land tax (5.11.8). And thanks to the same imperial ruler, veterans could receive vacant lands with perpetual immunity from land tax (7.20.3), thereby easing the burdens of their retirement after service to the state. Privileges of this sort were not exclusively reserved for elite Roman officials. Religious clerics involved in trade within Italy and/or Illyricum were spared the taxes common to merchants of their day to the extent of 10 solidi each (15 solidi in Gaul) (13.1.11). As decreed elsewhere in the Codex Theodosianus, they were not ‘subject to the tax payments of tradesmen, since it is manifest that the profits which they collect from stalls and workshops will benefit the poor’ (16.2.10). In order that ‘organisations in the service of churches may be filled with a great multitude of people, tax exemption shall be granted to clerics and their acolytes, and they shall be protected from the exaction of compulsory public services of a menial nature’ (ibid.). Emperor Theodosius understood these benefits well when he granted the church of Thessalonica exemption from tax customs, but only insofar as the alleviation of taxes did not become a burden on the state (11.1.33). The Church at Rome was gradually integrated into these matters of state. With ostensible origins in the fiscal sphere of Roman administra¬ tion, judicial and fiscal exemption acquired its dominant character in the Frankish world as a ‘bonding mechanism’^ that served to strengthen

30

Freedom and protection

social ties. The overall effect of this change is a main point of interest here, because in granting exemptions episcopal powers were ultimately reduced to spiritual matters while the local secular ruler was explicitly prevented from exploiting the persons or properties placed under his direct protection (tuitio/mundeburdium/protectio/defensio). Yet signifi¬ cantly, the granting of royal exemptions did not reduce the king’s power or influence. Rather, the self-imposed action reveals just the opposite and intended effect, demonstrating his growing patrimonial claims over eccle¬ siastical property within his realm and a corresponding responsibility for protecting both properties and peoples. As Paul Fabre’s classic study on the Liber censuum has shown, immunities incorporated positively the secular ruler as patron and protector of ecclesiastical property and per¬ sons, thereby giving birth to the notion of the proprietary monastery.4 Merovingian royal immunity for churches and monasteries thus became a prominent and practical dimension of Frankish governance after the sixth century.5 It is worth considering here how and why such a relationship developed. According to the contemporary historian and bishop Gregory of Tours (c. 539-94) the Merovingian king Theudebert I (533-48) granted tax privileges to the churches of Auvergne, thereby freeing them from a financial burden that later required the intervention of Childebert II to reconfirm in 590.6 Appearing in this account as little more than a tax write-off, the king’s concern was not solely driven by eco¬ nomic factors. Commenting on Theudebert’s goodness, Gregory noted how ‘he was established in his kingdom, and showed himself great, and distinguished by every goodness. For he ruled his kingdom with justice, respecting his bishops, making gifts to the churches, relieving the poor, and doing kindnesses to many persons with a pious and generous heart. He kindly remitted all the tribute which was payable to his treasury from the churches situated in Auvergne.’7 When in 590 Childebert sent tax assessors to Tours with the intention of updating their records, Gregory himself defended the city and its people from suffering any further finan¬ cial burden, which he argued, with reference to royal precedent (Clothar I, Charibert, Sigibert), should be spared from the citizens of his episcopal abode.8 This preoccupation with securing financial relief held benefits for all concerned. In the Merovingian era, immunity was a partial or total exemp¬ tion from taxes that affected the land and the inhabitants of the domain. It was a law both real and perpetual. Kings conceded and confirmed it legitimately as fle bienfait’, personal and collective at the same time.9 King Clothar II (58T-628) was responsible for the changing nature of

The road to protection

31

immunity, especially as it related to churches. He furnished them with the fiscal dues of their dependents, introducing also a novel dimension of protection by association of rulership, effectively renouncing future claims to the finances of churches and monasteries.10 This ‘custom’ of Frankish governance was represented in the famous Edict of Paris in 614, where, for the benefit of maintaining peace, discipline, and public order within the Church and wider Frankish society, Clothar issued a decree to churches and lay magnates which asked that ‘the goods of churches, priests, and the poor unable to defend themselves be guarded by public officials until legal trial, saving the immunity that former kings have granted to a church or a magnate or whomever for maintaining peace and discipline’.11 According to another canon from this council (canon 4), the promised ecclesiastical freedom and protection clearly extended beyond tax burdens and other financial responsibilities. Providing an added measure of internal liberty, this canon decreed that ‘if a bishop deposes an abbot un-canonically, which will probably never happen, the latter shall appeal to the synod. In case, however, the bishop dies, his successor shall reinstate the abbot.’12 Increasing efforts to safeguard churches and monasteries from external forces led to grants seeking the exclusion of royal judges from monastic lands. This initial step marks the very beginning of monastic claims to complete autonomy in matters of internal governance. The full thrust of their meaning is nicely expressed in the Formulary of Marculf a collection of legal templates written c. 700, which provides a potential witness to the form of exemption emerging in the seventh century, offering evidence of separation between ecclesiastical lands, properties, and finances and the control or interference of royal officials.13 In a grant of royal immunity for churches, for example, entire ecclesiastical properties (villas, houses, unfree servants, vineyards, forests, meadows, pastures) were given the promise of physical protection. ‘Assistance’ of this sort was offered while care was also taken to note the monastery’s freedom in abbatial elections. According to this legal template, public judges were expressly forbidden from hearing cases, collecting fines, entering villas of the church, or demanding lodgings, supplies, or legal guarantors from churches that held royal immunity. Decreeing in perpetuity for the purpose of the king’s future salvation, moreover, these privileges of exemption were granted so that a bishop and his successors could rule the church and its holdings effectively and without outside interference.14 Complementing the ori¬ ginal immunity is another formula in Marculf’s collection intended to confirm the royal privileges granted to a particular church or bishop,

32

Freedom and protection

thereby strengthening the ties of patronage that bound the initial declar¬ ation while making the bond inviolable against future generations.1'’ Privileges granted from a bishop to a monastery (Bischofsprivilegien) exhibit similar characteristics. In the very first formula of Marculf’s collection, the Gallic monasteries of Lerins (c. 391/400-10), SaintMaurice d’Agaune (est. c. 360/507), and Luxeuil (est. c. 590) are cited as the established precedent for granting monastic freedom under the Franks.16 Indeed, subsequent references to the establishment of these three monasteries and their corresponding privileges provided a model for many other foundations between the seventh and ninth centuries. The extent of such privileges greatly restricted the bishop’s or royal agent’s involvement in the monastery. While the bishop was necessarily involved in matters of ordination, blessing the altar and the chrism, the text explicitly grants the monastery’s freedom from the right of epis¬ copal, archidiaconal, or other clerical authority (read: spiritual, discip¬ linary, and administrative interference). Furthermore, entry into the monastery’s enclosure was strictly forbidden, unless the bishop was asked to celebrate the mass, in which case he was not supposed to be granted any measure of hospitality beyond the nourishment of a simple meal. The rationale for imposing these regulations was so that the monks could ‘enjoy perfect tranquillity for all time, with God’s guidance, and, living under the holy Rule and following the life of the blessed fathers, may pray to the Lord more fully for the state of the Church and the salvation of the king and the land’. Any violator of these decrees, more¬ over, motivated either by cunning or avarice, was to be ‘struck down by divine vengeance and subjected to the punishment of anathema’ and excommunication. There is a cautionary element to exemption practice, which frames early episcopal-monastic relations. The explication of pastoral respon¬ sibilities in hagiographical literature, sermons, and treatises from this period repeatedly emphasised the importance of episcopal charity for the effective governance of churches and institutions, which included mon¬ asteries.17 According to Julian Pomerius’ De vita contemplativa, written in the fifth century, the bishop was responsible for administering justice, supporting community life and its brethren through the promotion of peace and quiet, as well as preventing ‘tyrannical domination’.18 His pol¬ itical, ascetic, legal, and moral duties thus formed the ideological basis for burgeoning claims of spiritual power and jurisdiction - governing qualities of immediate relevance to the monastic life, which could flourish under the right conditions.

The road to protection

33

This model of idealised ecclesiastical leadership, however, fostered a deepening tension between diocesan rule and the contemplative life in the early Middle Ages.10 Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great all recognised the important distinction between clerical and monastic life, and the potential dangers inherent in blurring the boundaries.20 It is thus fair to characterise the increasingly imposing nature of episcopal authority, correction, and discipline as problematic for the independence desired by early medieval monks and their monasteries. As many exemp¬ tion privileges attest, there was an envisioned limit to episcopal authority over the religious life, especially concerning matters of internal govern¬ ance. The contemporary idea of the monastery as a ‘secret space’ {septa secreta) is particularly significant in this regard - an enclosure with phys¬ ical and spiritual boundaries to be respected and never transgressed.21 Whereas this protectionist mentality is expressed in Jonas of Bobbio’s Vita Columhani, written between 639 and 643, the idea appears even earlier in the writings of Cassiodorus, Gregory of Tours, and Venantius Fortunatus.22 While the cooperation of external political actors was an intimate feature of the monastic life, this relationship is nevertheless often presented in terms of historic struggles between monks, kings, and bishops for regulating authority within the religious community. This recognisable pattern of monastic freedom has produced a trusted scholarly categorisation of exemption for the seventh and eighth cen¬ turies.23 According to Eugen Ewig’s classic interpretation of this sub¬ ject, the typology of monastic liberty under the Merovingians can be identified by what he calls ‘big exemption’ (grosse Freiheit) and ‘little exemption’ {kleine Freiheit).24 The liberties of the former category trans¬ late into granting protection for the monastery’s property, freedom for abbatial election, freedom to perform rites and ordination, jurisdictional independence from the diocesan bishop and freedom from tithes, pro¬ hibition of entrance or episcopal visitation, and the right of correction. The ‘little exemption’, by comparison, differs only in the bishop’s right to perform ordinations, consecration, and blessings, thereby permitting slightly greater episcopal control in the monastery’s internal affairs. Early examples of these Bischofsprivilegien are found in the few surviving char¬ ters for Rebais (637), Saint-Maur-des-Fosses (645), Saint-Denis (653), Saint-Pierre-le-Vif and Sainte-Colombe-les-Sens (660), Saint-Omer (663), Corbie (664), Notre-Dame de Soissons (667), Saint-Die (663/75), Groseaux (683), Notre-Dame du Mans (683), Montier-en-Der (693), Notre-Dame-de-Blois (695/6), Saint Martin at Tours (720), Flavigny (719 and 722), Murbach (728), Schwarzach (749), and Gorze (757).25 The

34

Freedom and protection

regularity with which these characteristics appear in the charter evidence strengthens the value of Ewig’s classification, which continues to pro¬ vide a reliable interpretive model for identifying the nature and extent of exemption until the last quarter of the eighth century (see below). Its value is duly appreciated when trying to identify any idiosyncrasies in the established pattern of royal and episcopal privileges for monasteries in the early Middle Ages. The monastery of Rebais, which is emblematic of the grosse Freiheit tradition, offers an early witness to the privileges comprising monastic exemption. Resulting from the freedoms granted to this monastery in 637, the bishop’s role was seemingly self-sacrificed by virtue of his implicit acceptance. Indeed, this series of full exemption privileges was granted to Rebais only after Abbot Audoin petitioned Bishop Burgundofaro and his co-bishops with the objective of securing specific liberties for his monastery.26 Providing freedom from usurpation or diminishment of monastic property, freedom in abbatial elections, freedom in choosing any bishop to bless the altars or consecrate the chrism, freedom in matters of ordination, and freedom for internal correction of misbehaviour, the possibility remained (according to the charter) for episcopal entry into the cloister: ‘And unless we have been invited by the congregation or its abbot, let none of us be allowed to go into or enter the secret enclosure of the monastery. But if the bishop has been asked by them and has entered in order to supplement their prayers or be useful to them, let him be sure to leave immediately after the divine mystery has been celebrated and finished, without demanding a gift.’27 Confirming the royal immunity granted by King Dagobert for the monastery’s foundation in 635/6, moreover, this exemption harked back to the well-known precedents of Lerins, Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, Luxeuil, and Saint-Marcel at Chalon.28 As the exemption states: ‘let epis¬ copal posterity not think that we have decreed this as a result of our own thought, since it has been ordered already under the norm of this con¬ stitution, at the site of Agaune, the monasteries of Lerins, and Luxueil, and the basilica of the Lord Marcellus, both as regards the liberty of the inhabitants and or anything given to them’.29 Other examples to this effect can be found in Dagobert’s charter for Solignac (631), which explicitly and forcefully stated that ‘no bishop or any other person whatsoever shall have power [ms] in the aforesaid monastery, neither in its affairs or its per¬ sons, unless fully granted by the most glorious ruler’.30 The autonomy expressed in these charters forbade the bishop from interfering in a monastery’s acquisitions. The bishop’s implicit acceptance

The road to protection

35

of conditions regulating or limiting his jurisdiction demands some explan¬ ation. That bishops were totalitarian rulers is not supported by the evi¬ dence for late Merovingian Gaul. Neither does it help us to consider these secular clerics as exploitative or meddling agents. Rather, in considering the individual circumstances culminating in monastic exemption, the bishop provided a dominant force in realising its outcome. In reality, this and other royal exemptions of the period functioned primarily by persuading bishops to cooperate in the enterprise of exemption within their dioceses, a pro¬ cess exemplified by the cases of Bishop Burgundafaro of Meaux for Rebais (637);31 Bishop Landeric of Paris for Saint-Denis (6S3/55);32 Bishop Audobert of Paris and Saint-Maur-des-Fosses (645);33 Bishop Emmo of Sens for Sainte-Colombe (660 and 695/96) and Saint-Pierre-le-Vif (660);34 Bishop Audomar of Therouanne for Saint-Bertin and Sithiu (663);35 Bishop Numerian of Trier for Saint Die (663/75);36 Bishop Berthefrid of Amiens for Corbie (664);37 Bishop Drauscius of Soissons for SaintMedard at Soissons (667);38 Bishop Aredius ofVaison for Groseaux (683);3 Bishop Aiglibert of Le Mans for Notre-Dame in Le Mans (683);40 Bishop Bertrand of Chalons for Montier-en-Der (693);41 and Bishop Agirardus of Chartres for Notre-Dame in Blois (696).42 That numerous bishops owed their very office to a Merovingian king undoubtedly influenced their deci¬ sion to concede authority when prompted by his authority. The fact that so many monasteries were established on lands granted by these same rulers, moreover, further complicated the negotiations. The concerted efforts of kings and bishops nevertheless shaped con¬ temporary boundaries of monastic freedom and episcopal care. The very purpose and contemporary currency of exemption hinged on the success of this relationship, a balance nicely illustrated in the seventh century by Queen Bathild’s monastic ‘policy’. Intended to reform the Merovingian Church, her religious agenda ultimately brought a structural change in the kingdom that came at the expense of the episcopacy. To be sure, the authority of bishops was threatened and subsequently limited by the queen’s actions in securing complementary episcopal and royal privileges for monasteries like Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain at Auxerre, SaintMedard at Soissons, Saint-Pierre-le-Vif at Sens, Saint-Aignan at Orleans, and Corbie. In the extraordinary case of Saint-Denis (665), the bishop explicitly conceded his fiscal control over the monastery, having volun¬ tarily given up payment for liturgical functions and any previous access to monastic revenues and treasury (gold, silver bullion, and cash).43 As to why he agreed to these conditions limiting his power, Bishop Landeric of Paris reportedly said: ‘because the request of the king is for us like a

36

Freedom and protection

command which it is extremely difficult to resist’.44 Placing the monastery under King Clothar Ill’s protection, moreover, and thus providing it with immunity from judicial and fiscal obligations of the nature described above, Queen Bathild redeployed the resources to the monastery, the bishop, and the king. The same arrangement is true for many of the other major cult sites in seventh-century Gaul, which held significant consequences for the bishop’s role over monasteries in his diocese for centuries to come. As recorded in the Vita Bathildis: throughout the senior basilicas of the saints, Lord Dionysius [Saint Denis], Lord Germanus [Saint-Germain at Auxerre], and Lord Medardus [SaintMedard at Soissons], and also Saint Peter [Saint-Pierre-le-Vif at Sens] and Lord Anianus [Saint-Aignan at Orleans] and also Saint Martin [at Tours], and everywhere else that her attention affected, she commanded the bishops and abbots, persuading them for the sake of zeal for God, and directed letters to them to this end, that the brethren settled in these places should live under the holy regular discipline. And in order that they might willingly acquiesce, she ordered that a privilege should be granted them, and at the same time she granted them immunities, so that it might please them the better to pray for the mercy of Christ the highest king of all on behalf of the king and for peace.45

This passage evokes a contemporary justification for ensuring monastic autonomy. It demonstrates the privilege’s role and power in transcending existing ecclesiastical structures. When Queen Radegunde founded the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers (c. 565-78), she was reportedly ‘submissive and obedient’ to the local bishop of Poitiers, Maroveus. Yet in going above her local bishop, Radegunde appealed to a higher eccle¬ siastical authority. As Gregory of Tours recorded, she was forced to turn her allegiance towards Arles, the monastic Rule of Saint Caesarius, and to put the nunnery under the protection of King Childebert.46 One of her biographers, Baudovinia, further elaborated that Radegunde’s mon¬ astery was indeed placed under the protection and subordination of kings and bishops, but more often than not she turned towards the bishops of Paris and Tours instead of her diocesan bishop for matters of consecra¬ tion, physical protection, and the permission to acquire relics for her monastery.47 After begging but initially receiving ‘no interest or support in the man who should have been their pastor’,48 the followers of Saint Radegunde eventually obtained the bishop of Poitiers’s protection, but only after repeated complaints, pestering, and disagreement.

The road to protection

37

While the relationship between this religious house and its local bishop does not represent the imagined ideal, Radegunde’s repeated efforts to forge a working partnership suggest an emerging standard of expected episcopal care, responsibility, and jurisdiction. As a monastery under royal protection, they also suggest the growing importance of episcopal protec¬ tion in a local context.49 The reasons for the queen’s persistence are well recorded by Gregory of Tours. Quoting Radegunde’s letter to bishops of neighbouring cities, he explains the nature and extent of protection pre¬ viously sought and received from the Merovingians kings Charibert, Guntram, Chilperic, and Sigibert: If perchance after my death any person whatsoever, either the bishop of this city, or some representative of the king, or any other individual, should attempt, in a spirit of malevolence or by some legal subterfuge, to disturb the community, or to break the Rule, or to appoint any mother superior other than Agnes, my sister in God, whom Saint Germanus, in the presence of his brother churchmen, consecrated with his benediction; ... or if any person, possibly even the bishop of the diocese, shall wish to claim, by some newfangled privilege, jurisdiction of any sort over the nunnery, or over the property of the nunnery, beyond that which earlier bishops, or anyone else, have exercised during my lifetime; or if any prince, or bishop, or person in power, or even individual from among the nuns themselves, shall attempt with sacrilegious intent to diminish or to appro¬ priate to his or her own personal possession any part or parcel of the prop¬ erty which our most noble Lothar and the most glorious kings his sons have bestowed upon me, and which I, with his express permission and injunction, have made over to the nunnery ... may that person incur the wrath of God and that of your holiness and of those who succeed you, and may all such persons be shut off from your grace as robbers and despoilers of the poor. With you to block the way, may no change ever be brought about in our Rule and may no alienation of the nunnery’s property ever be permitted.’0

While this letter was intended and interpreted as a slight against the bishop of Poitiers, it nevertheless reveals complications of jurisdictional claims and powers within the diocese. Perhaps most powerfully, it also makes clear the fact that monasteries - both male and female - desired a peaceful existence within the ecclesiastical structure for the pursuit of the vita religiosa. This desire could only be fulfilled through means of spiritual and physical protection, as ecclesiastical and secular rulers alike conceived it.

38

Freedom and protection

For this very reason, peace and tranquillity are common themes in early medieval exemption charters. They are framed as essential qualities for monks to achieve salvation - their own, as ‘servants of the faith V as well as salvation for those for whom they pray (i.e. their lay patrons). According once again to Marculf’s formulary, and reminiscent here of the exemp¬ tion granted to Rebais in 637, the ‘happiness of the land and the tranquil¬ lity of the king’ depended upon it. The protection intended for monastic property was a concern: in granting a privilege of this sort, the bishop was bound never to infringe on any gifts, villas, unfree servants, ‘or any¬ thing or anybody’. He should never diminish any of the monastery’s prop¬ erty ‘under the pretext of an exchange, or take away anything out of the ornaments of the [divine] service and the offerings presented at the altar, or presume to go into this monastery and its cells in any circumstances other than to celebrate mass, if that is the will of the abbot and his congre¬ gation, without any expense on their part, so that, according to the wishes of the delegation and this solemn document, all [of the property given] there may benefit this monastery more easily, without any interference’. In matters pertaining to the law, no judicial authority could interfere ‘in order to hear legal cases or to collect anything there’."2 In all, the extent of such privileges promised full immunity. According to this formula, monastic exemption deliberately kept the king and bishop at a distance. Yet, as recognised in the privileges granted to Rebais, com¬ plete separation from the diocesan bishop and autonomous governance was a spiritual and administrative impracticality for any monastery. Pursuing the monastic life required a measure of deference to the local bishop, who continued to provide necessary spiritual and disciplinary services. What shaped these contemporary understandings of episcopal care and responsibility? This question introduces two pervasive and inherent influences on the development of monastic exemption: the guidelines for the monastic life according to the Rule of Saint Benedict (compiled c. 540) and the Irish monk Columbanus (d. 615), and the laws of various church councils, royal synods, and from capitularies issued between the fifth and eighth centuries (see below)."2 The latter consideration presents a more rigid framework for episcopal jurisdiction and ecclesiastical hierarchy, outlining with full canonical authority the socio-political parameters and structures within which monastery and bishop operated in early Middle Ages. The day-to-day customs defining the religious life, however, began with direct¬ ives like the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict, which strongly favoured the monastery’s autonomy and self-sufficiency, invariably determining

The road to protection

39

how the monks viewed themselves in relation to their local bishop. Such regulations were meant to be flexible and were thus not initially designed as a deliberate measure to break from episcopal control or interference; rather, they were intended to alleviate the local bishop from any unnecessary burden of administration or internal monastic organisation. In many ways, the regulations for western monastic life exemplified by this Rule determined the formal and theoretical framework for the bishop’s spiritual jurisdiction, idealising through regulation the conceptual level of integration between the secular and regular clergy. On ‘The Appointment of the Abbot’ (De ordinando abbate, chapter 64), for example, there is no mistaking the importance of the bishop’s territorial jurisdiction, to which diocese the monastery belonged. While his role was notably limited in matters of abbatial election, the Rule decreed that his judicial force was recognised in matters of priestly disobedience, the sudden death of an abbot, or electoral mistakes.54 Indeed, despite the confidence proclaimed here for the religious community, the bishop was a necessary component of monastic history, particularly in matters of abbatial ordination, which ceremony effectively legitimised the monastery’s internal governance and therefore permitted its existence. While the monastery strove to become a distinct and independent institution, it still represented the larger Church that enveloped it.55 The scope for monastic freedom was nevertheless widening with the reception of Benedict’s Rule in the seventh and eighth centuries. Its impact, though difficult to measure with certainty given the manuscript evidence, was felt especially in matters of internal governance. Drawing from chapter 64, the councils of Carthage (536), Toledo (633; canon 51), and a later exemption charter for Flavigny (719) similarly emphasise that the abbot should be elected by the judgement of the entire congrega¬ tion (iudicio congregations eligantur).5() The concern with unanimity and judgement among the entire religious community reveals a connection also to the sixth-century laws of Emperor Justinian57 and the Formulary of Marculf58 Together with the exemption privileges granted by local bishops to the monasteries of Rebais (637), Saint-Medard at Soissons (666), Corbie (667), Galilea (667), Sainte-Colombe (670), Montier-en-Der (693), and Novalesa (728), great importance was given to the monastery’s internal governance, stemming primarily from considerations on the candidate’s quality.59 (Emphasis on the voter’s quality (Wdhlerqualitdt), by comparison, appears in the charters for Grosseaux (683), Saint-Martin at Tours (720), Flavigny (719), Murbach (728), and Arnulfsau (748).)ft()That is, according to Benedict’s Rule and its contemporary interpretation, the

40

Freedom and protection

vigour and spirit of the monastery rested entirely within the monastery’s control. Cast in this light, the bishop’s right to intervene in the religious com¬ munity is an open question. When Columbanus arrived on the Continent in the early 590s, he arguably challenged the nature and extent of epis¬ copal jurisdiction more directly.61 J. M. Wallace-Hadrill asserted long ago that this Irish monk, by introducing religious practices and traditions pre¬ viously unknown to the Franks (e.g. tonsure, confessional practice, private penance, the date of Easter), upset the established relationship between monks and diocesan bishops.62 However, modern scholars largely reject the argument that this ‘Hiberno-Frankish’63 style of monasticism resulted in ‘the dissolution of the Merovingian system of diocesan organization’.64 The Vita Columbani is now recognized for its hagiographical role in cre¬ ating this dominant historical narrative, elevating the Irish figure to the forefront of monastic expansion and a vitalized Merovingian Church.65 This newer interpretation does not diminish Columbanus’ authority in the growth of Frankish monasticism. As a stimulus for reform and insti¬ tutional change, and as a charismatic figure with strong personal ties and royal patronage, he undoubtedly contributed to routinising and institutionalising monastic communities in early medieval Europe.66 But his impact is best appreciated in terms of shaping cultural and monastic identity rather than toppling ecclesiastical hierarchies. Notwithstanding his intentions, Columbanus’ foundations and activ¬ ities did foster intense rivalries with some local bishops.67 The extent to which a bishop could interfere in local monastic business was mainly indi¬ vidualistic in character. But there were some emerging standards to which monks, monasteries, and their bishops were expected to adhere. The foundations of Solignac (632), Rebais (637), Sainte-Colombe (659-60), Corbie (662), Notre-Dame-de-Soissons (666), Saint-Die (667), Flavigny (721), Murbach (728), and Arnulfsau (748) were all novel in this respect. They granted autonomous spiritual privileges at the bishop’s expense, which concession lends itself to modern historical interpretations about the monks’ rising influence and autonomy in early medieval society.68 The most authoritative standard for defining the monastery’s relation¬ ship within the diocese, however, remained that growing body of ecclesias¬ tical conciliar acta. The association between monks and their local bishop was guided by a centralised ecclesiastical position, which increasingly emphasised the monastery’s place under direct episcopal care with varying (i.e. individual) degrees of freedom.69 It is these special privileges, set against the normative parameters of episcopal jurisdiction, which defined

The road to protectum

41

the nature of exemption throughout the Middle Ages. While Merovingian formulae and charters present individual examples of monastic privileges (royal and episcopal), the conciliar evidence effectively represented ‘a watershed in official church policy towards monks’.70 The ecumenical council of Chalcedon (451) positioned the diocesan bishop as the main figure responsible for the spiritual welfare of the mon¬ astery and its monks. It was at this meeting of primarily eastern church fathers that the early development of monastic rights was placed firmly under the watchful eye of the episcopate. The bulk of our evidence in this respect derives from the council’s fourth session (17 October), and espe¬ cially from the fourth canon, which is worth citing here in full: Let those who truly and sincerely lead the monastic life be counted worthy of becoming honour; but, for as much as certain persons using the pretext of monasticism bring confusion both upon the churches and into political affairs by going about promiscuously in the cities, and at the same time seeking to establish monasteries for themselves; it is decreed that no one anywhere build or found a monastery or oratory contrary to the will of the bishop of the city; and that the monks in every city and district shall be subject to the bishop, and embrace a quiet course of life, and give themselves only to fasting and prayer, remaining permanently in the places in which they were set apart; and they shall meddle neither in ecclesiastical nor in secular affairs, nor leave their own monasteries to take part in such; unless, indeed, they should at any time through urgent necessity be appointed thereto by the bishop of the city. And no slave shall be received into any monastery to become a monk against the will of his master. And if anyone shall transgress this our judgment, we have decreed that he shall be excommunicated, that the name of God be not blasphemed. But the bishop of the city must make the needful provision for the monasteries.

There is no misinterpreting this canon, which subjected monasteries dir¬ ectly to the authority of the bishops. As our earliest, official position on episcopal-monastic relations, it defines the relationship between bishops and monks in terms of providentia, cura, and sollicitudo. In practice this meant providing the monks with enough freedom to embrace their chosen ascetic life, thereby freeing them from secular concerns or burdens of ecclesiastical administration. In terms of regulating the monastic life, moreover, which was at this point in its history still very much an eastern phenomenon, this canon pronounced the bishop’s governing role in the founding of new religious houses, in addition to the provision that those entering the monastery do so of their own volition. Complementing this

42

Freedom and protection

decree is canon 8 from the same council, which stated that ‘clergy of almshouses, monasteries and martyria are to remain under the authority of the bishops in each city, according to the tradition of the holy fathers; they are not out of self-will to rebel against their own bishop. Those who dare to infringe this rule in any way whatsoever and do not obey their bishop, if they are clerics, are to be subjected to the penalties of the canons, and if they are monks or laymen, are to be excommunicated.’1 The final matter of providing material support strongly implies a builtin, and thus expected, supervisory component among the episcopacy but also a responsibility for supplying and protecting material provisions.72 Canon 24 confirms the bishop’s role in consecrating, or approving con¬ secration for, monasteries and ensuring their ecclesiastical as opposed to secular function: ‘Monasteries that have once been consecrated with the approval of the bishop are to remain monasteries perpetually; the property belonging to them is to be kept for the monastery, and they may not in future become secular audiences. Those who allow this to happen are to be subjected to the penalties laid down in the canons.’ This level of depend¬ ency illustrates a nascent pattern of cooperation and patrimonial support that defines early relationships between bishops and monasteries; by pla¬ cing monasteries under episcopal control, they came under their broader canonical influence. The political context impelling these conciliar canons explains their overall tone and objective. The good ‘cooperation and support’ expected between monks and bishops at the beginning of the monastic movement was not present at Constantinople, where monks tended to achieve greater independence. 2 Issued in response to the ongoing Eutychian controversy wracking the imperial capital of Constantinople, canon 4 in particular weighed in against wandering and begging monks who were accused of elevating urban violence and evading the jurisdiction of their bishops - a contravention of the established ecclesiastical hierarchy and order.74 In the pursuit of their legitimation and incorporation into the wider ecclesias¬ tical structure, the council of Chalcedon ‘imposed official distinctions on monastic legitimacy that would influence secular and canonical law for centuries to come’;7' it enchanced the bishops’ legal authority and juris¬ diction over monks. Significantly, the welfare for monasteries presented first in the Chalcedonian canons was directly linked to episcopal practice, thereby defining important matters for the bishop’s role in ordinatio and jurisdictio. In reality, the bishop’s ‘rights’ and ‘duties’ over a monastery ranged over matters of election, ordination, and consecration. In jurisdic¬ tional terms, his role in ordination and consecration relied fundamentally

The road to protection

43

upon receiving oaths of obedience, which were fulfilled and maintained in a number of ways. Thus, the fathers of this council declared on the bishop’s right of supervision and care in matters of discipline within the monastery. The Chalcedonian decrees represent the official ecclesiastical pos¬ ition.76 But they were eastern principles and had not yet adopted rules of western monastic practice by the sixth century. Against this standard, the limitations to - and prohibitions against - the bishop’s authority over monasteries become much more visible in later Merovingian char¬ ters. Its decrees resonated in subsequent church councils, many of which sought to confirm in familiar language the bishop’s right of order within his diocese. Viewed over time, the influence of this early church council can be measured through an established pattern of like-minded legisla¬ tion on controlling the monastic life and the spiritual and material exist¬ ence within any given diocese. Echoing the fourth Chalcedonian canon, the council of Agde (Languedoc) in September 506 decreed that ‘no new monastery is to be founded without the bishop’s approval’, and that if it should be necessary to ordain the monks, this custom should be carried out by a bishop only with the consent and will of the abbot (canon 27).77 Offering some protection of monastic property, moreover, canon 4 from the same council threatened excommunication on anyone who dared ‘take back presents made to the Church or to a monastery by their ancestors or themselves’. At Orleans in 511, a royal council universally determined that ‘abbots be under the bishop’s authority’ (canon 19).78 It was further stipulated that the bishop could punish transgressing abbots; to min¬ imise this risk, this gathering of ecclesiastics declared that ‘once a year they [the abbots] must assemble at the place fixed by the bishop’. Canon 7 from the same council made it obligatory for any abbots, priests, or other clerics living the religious life to seek the bishop’s commendation before soliciting princes for ecclesiastical benefices.77 The risk of ignoring the bishops’ authority in such cases was excommunication and penance. The Council of Barcelona (540) stated simply that ‘as to monks the prescrip¬ tion of the council of Chalcedon must be obeyed’ (canon 10).80 A priv¬ ilege from Ravenna (819) similarly subjected the monastery to the bishop’s power and jurisdiction.81 The ninth-century Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, borrowing from the statement issued at Orleans in the early sixth century, likewise confirmed the basic principle evoked at many provincial synods, namely that ‘monasteries should be under the authority of their bishops’.82 There is a solid body of conciliar evidence to endorse this view, revealing the prominence given to a bishop’s disciplinary role over monasteries.

44

Freedom and protection

At the royal council of Epaone (September 517), in the kingdom of Burgundy, forty canons were issued dealing primarily with securing the inalienability of ecclesiastical property and improving church discipline. On matters affecting the monastery, canon 8 decreed that ‘if an abbot sells anything without the previous knowledge of the bishop, it may be demanded back by the bishop’.83 Canon 19 stated that ‘if an abbot has committed an offence, and will not admit the successor appointed by the bishop, the matter must come before the metropolitan’.84 Demonstrating a parallel measure of hierarchical obedience, canon 21 from the council of Orleans (533) decreed that ‘abbots who despise the prescriptions of the bishops must not be allowed at communion’.85 In terms of owner¬ ship within a diocese, the council of Orleans (541) decreed that ‘anything presented to abbots or monasteries or parishes does not belong to the abbots or priests themselves. If it is necessary to alienate anything, this can be done only with the signature of the bishop.’86 The council of Arles (554) declared: ‘Let monasteries and monastic discipline pertain to the bishop in whose diocese they are established’ (canon 2).87 Canon 3 from the same council decreed that ‘no abbot must, without permission of the bishop, be absent from his monastery for a length of time’. Canon 5, moreover, decreed that the ‘bishop must have a care of the convents for women in his city, and the abbess must do nothing against the rule’. Suggesting some limitation to episcopal powers, however, is the council of Tours (567), which declared that ‘no bishop may depose an abbot or archpresbyter without consultation with the other abbots’ (canon 7).88 At the council of Chalon-sur-Saone (647/53) summoned by Clovis II (639-57), it was decreed that monks, abbots, or anyone else pursuing the religious life are not to seek the services of secular patrons or present their cases to princes without the permission of their bishop (canon 15).89 At the council of Ver (755), the assembled ecclesiastics decreed that those who had taken the tonsure should be ‘either in a monastery under the order of a rule or under the control of the bishop under the order of canons’.90 Another canon from the same council decreed that the bishop should deal locally with any transgression of the regular order.91 This body of Frankish legislation served a universal purpose: providing peace, security, and protection for the monastery was ostensibly part and parcel of episcopal duty and responsibility of care. This concentrated focus contributed directly to the complementary idea of monastic freedom, which collection of individual privileges owed its granting to the bishop’s role in his diocese. At the council of Valence (583/5), which convened under King Guntram to confirm gifts for the monasteries of Saint-Marcel

The road to protection

45

at Chalon and Saint-Symphorian at Autun, for example, such provisions were put in place to ensure the monasteries’ freedom.92 Confirming entry prohibitions, this council - called by the king and enacting legislation signed by the seventeen attending bishops93 - effectively protected these two monasteries from royal and episcopal interference. Being granted this level of ecclesiastical protection, both monasteries received an unpre¬ cedented degree of autonomy, which was further confirmed by Pope Gregory I in Rome two decades later.94 Capitularies from the Carolingian era serve to confirm these earlier principles, stating that abbots and monks were subject to their bishops with humility and deference ‘as ordered by canonical decree’; that ‘monks should be reproached by their provin¬ cial bishop’;95 and again that monks live the regular life well through the advice of their bishop and the rule of their abbot.96 There were ostensibly two traditions at play here: one for an inde¬ pendent monastery, the other for a religious community governed by the diocesan bishop. The political dynamics involved in each relationship help explain why episcopal control over monasteries was not always will¬ ingly relinquished. As might be expected, concessions to episcopal rights carried local, personal, and potentially perilous political consequences. An early example of tensions between a monastery and its bishop can be found at the council of Arles in 455, which met to settle a quarrel between Bishop Theodore of Frejus and the abbot of Lerins, Faustus.97 The meeting itself was convened by the metropolitan, Archbishop Ravennius of Arles, in order to resolve the animosity in his diocese and to restore peace to the region. The evidence for this council suggests that Abbot Faustus was wrong to inflict injuries upon the bishop of Frejus. The council fathers ultimately concluded that the bishop retain the right of ordination at the altar, the right to consecrate the chrism, the right to confirm newly baptised, and the permission to install clerics into office and communion. Echoing in principle the Chalcedonian decrees of 451, this Gallic council was concerned primarily with preserving the bishop’s sacramental sphere of cura (care of souls), ordinatio (command), and dispositio (administration) within his diocese. The abbot was left to care for the monks, over whom the bishop had no authority in matters of confirmation. This dispute and its outcome strongly favoured the bishop, whose rights over the monastery of Lerins restricted its autonomy. In the longer history of exemption, the decisions from this council ‘offer a permanent criterion harmonising the autonomy of monasteries with the rights of bishops’.98 That libertas was a monastery’s main objective is unclear until the council of Carthage in 525.99 Relating to a long-standing controversy

46

Freedom and protection

between Abbot Peter of Levins, his monastery, and the primate of Byzacena, Liberatus, the assembled bishops of the African council heard the complaints and requested that all the evidence be presented before them in order to render an informed decision. The acta for this meeting contain copies of the original letters contextualising the dispute, which concerned claims of episcopal interference over the monastery and an infringement of their privileges.100 Having once sought the primate’s assistance in matters of ordination, the monks were thereafter - according to Liberatus - considered subject to him.101 The result, however, so the monks claimed through their abbot, was unnecessary disruption to the peace of the Church. In a letter to Archbishop Boniface, furthermore, Abbot Peter appealed for the council’s assistance in settling the dispute while preserving the monastery’s liberty. As authorities for his argument of monastic freedom, the abbot cited: an Augustinian sermon (De moribus clericorum), which dealt with Christian unity and service to God in the monastery;102 and a letter from the earlier primate of Byzacena confirming ‘freedom in all things’ (liberam in omnibus facultatem habentes), claiming that ‘servants of God and handmaidens of monasteries always have freedom of control/judgement from the rank of all clerics’.103 Finally, harking back to the authority of Arles (455), the abbot referenced this Gallic council in order to provide his monastery with freedom from the diocesan bishop in matters of confirmation.104 Summoning ecclesiastical authority and precedent, the council of Carthage inspired later monastic foundations. The memory of these earlier ecclesiastical events was transformed two and half centuries later. Its acta were cited alongside Saint Augustine of Hippo in the exemption privileges granted to Saint-Maur-des-Fosses (645) and Saint-Denis (655) by Bishop Landeric of Paris, Sainte-Colombe and Saint-Pierre-le-Vif (660) by Bishop Ebbo of Sens,105 Rebais (637) by Bishop Burgundafaro of Meaux, Bishop Audomar of Therouanne for Sithiu (663), and Bishop Berthefrid of Amiens for Corbie (664).106 As Constance Bouchard has suggested, however, this expression of liberty was faulty, misinterpreted, and misremembered. That is to say that no such monastic freedoms from episcopal oversight were ever discussed at Carthage in 525. We are rather witness to a ‘delicate suppression of the memory of Chalcedon’,107 which council had clearly subjected monks to episcopal jurisdiction and authority. But the need to legitimise monastic claims through ancient ecclesiastical authority was clearly recognised, resulting in a ‘creative memory’ founded on ‘putative precedent’.108 This canonica institutio introduced a measure of Klosterfreiheit into the privileges, an identifiable

The road to protection

47

formula for articulating the authority behind monastic privileges and their associated freedoms.109 From this point onward, the privileges embodying monastic exemption were fundamentally guided by a developing idea of autonomy, both personal and institutional, that was introduced centuries earlier in North Africa. This contemporary notion of monastic liberty (lihertas monachorum) can be attributed most explicitly to the council of Carthage in 536.1,0 Discussing a monastery founded by his predecessor, Saint Fulgentius, Bishop Felician of Ruspe raised the question at this ecclesiastical assembly of relations between bishops and monasteries. It was, however, Bishop Felix of Zactara (or Zattara), in the ecclesiastical province of Numidia, who declared on the matter (according to the brief minutes). Referring to the monastery of Abbot Peter, the decisions of the synod under Boniface (Carthage 525) were confirmed. ‘But’, the account continued, the other monasteries should enjoy the fullest liberty as far as the councils allow. If they wish that clergy should be ordained or oratories consecrated, this shall be done by the bishop of the place or of the neighbourhood. In other respects, however, the monasteries are independent of the bishop and have no duties to render to him. Moreover, the bishop must not erect a chair for himself in any monastery, nor must he ordain anyone without consent of the abbot. When the abbot dies, the whole society shall elect a new one; and the bishop shall in no way usurp the right of election. If a dispute arises respecting the election, other abbots shall decide; if the dispute continues, the matter shall be brought before the primate of the province. At divine service the bishop should read aloud, among the others whom he has ordained.111

Such enactments are a departure from the council of Arles in 455. They dis¬ tinguish more clearly between the monastery’s freedoms and the bishop’s right of interference. Hubert Mordek suggested the lasting influence of these African councils on the history of monastic exemption. Ewig’s work on Merovingian charters confirms their impact in a diplomatic context, illustrating striking similarities and historical precedent in for¬ mulating exemption privileges. While the struggles at both Carthaginian councils represent individual conceptions and aspirations for liberty as an ‘intrinsic characteristic of the monastic community’,"2 the beginnings of this phenomenon occur rather in the early sixth century. Liberty in the sense exemplified here does not necessarily mean ‘exceptions to a gen¬ erally prevailing law’ but rather, as Gerd Tellenbach has argued, ‘it is the precise formulation of an actual and concrete subjective right’.112 For our

48

Freedom and protection

present purposes, that right was defined in relation to episcopal oversight, care, and responsibility - duties and qualities of office informed by the established authority and precedent of early church councils. The road to monastic protection followed an interesting route between the fifth and eighth centuries, navigating from the exclusively fiscal concerns exhibited in late imperial Rome towards a tuitio/mundeburdium/defensio/ protectio that organised jurisdiction. Marking a shift from Merovingian practice, monastic exemption moved from being the prerogative of local bishops towards the more centralised power base of Carolingian kings. This relationship is evident from the council of Compiegne (757), convened under Bishop Chrodegang of Metz, where privileges for the monastery of Gorze were first issued.114 Presenting an exemption that was deliberately protective, many of the privileges for this monastery left open the possibility for episcopal visitation ‘when it pleased him [the bishop]’ (quando ei placuerit), rights of ordination and remuneration, necessitating the bishop’s consent and will in matters of abbatial election, and ultim¬ ately subjecting (subiecta) the monastery to the bishop.113 This unique privilege for Gorze cited the council of Chalcedon (451), which served to confirm the bishop’s rights over the monastery, while also offering a novel measure of protection into the equation.116 These are precisely the conditions granted to the monastery of Salonnes in December 777. Issued to Abbot (and cappellanus) Fulrad of Saint-Denis, and confirming decisions made at the earlier-held council in Paderborn, Charlemagne decreed that the Frankish monastery should be placed directly ‘under the immunity and privilege of Saint-Denis’. He stated further that this religious house should also be placed ‘under the protection [tuitio] and defence [defensio] of the king and his leading men without impediment from the bishop of Metz’.117 According to the Frankish diploma, these unique freedoms were willingly conceded to the northern monastic community and its abbot by the diocesan bishop, Angilram of Metz, thereby openly limiting his authority and jurisdiction. The historian’s curiosity about the bishop’s action is matched by the emperor himself. When Charlemagne asked the bishop whether he truly consented to these privileges, we are told that ‘he did not deny it’ (ipsa nullatenus denegavit). We might rightly ask the same question of the bishop today. Once confirmed, the monastery’s relationship within the existing ecclesiastical hierarchy was completely transformed. While not entirely isolating Salonnes from episcopal care and responsibility, the exemption issued in the last quarter of the eighth century represented a fundamental

The road to protection

49

shift in the secular governance of medieval monasteries. Uniting royal immunity with freedom from episcopal encroachment, it affirms the pro¬ vision previously accepted by Bishop Angilram of Metz that neither he ‘nor his successors nor any archdeacons or missi from his church at Metz could exercise the bishop’s right to do ordinations or bless the chrism and altars at Salonnes unless asked to do so by the abbot of Saint-Denis’.118 This pattern of monastic exemption becomes more apparent under Louis the Pious (814—40), whose dedication to Benedictine reform effectively con¬ ferred royal protection and grants of immunity to monasteries throughout the Frankish Empire."9 When Charles the Bald granted privileges to Flavigny in 849, moreover, he stated very clearly that the monastery’s dominium no longer belonged to the diocesan bishop. Rather, it was emphat¬ ically placed under the king’s protection (tuitio), immunity (immunitas), and defence (defensio).l2() The capitularies of Louis II of Italy (865) leave little doubt about this Carolingian position and ecclesiastical responsibility, which explicitly stated that ‘churches of God founded throughout our kingdom shall remain under our secure protection of immunity’.121 The medieval species of exemption thus became predominantly pro¬ tective in nature. Contemporaries defined its normative character along these new lines, fundamentally altering the monastery’s relationship with its traditional protectors: the diocesan bishops. As a result, the respon¬ sibility of care for ecclesiastical properties and persons was transferred from a local to central management. This new political orientiation came from trading the monasteries’ dependency on the episcopate for the more powerful Carolingian equivalent. The resulting political arrangement bene¬ fited the kingdom’s strength and stability in purely exploititative terms. In this revised format, the true nature of exemption in the Carolingian world of the ninth century can no longer be interpreted solely according to Ewig’s typology. The surplus of protective vocabulary in the charter evidence shows that exemption was being framed by a new rhetorical and legal dimension. This new idiom, or centralised philosophy of Frankish governance, increasingly emphasised monastic peace, security, tranquillity, and stability through tuitio, defensio, and mundeburdium. The offering, reconfirming, and sustaining of such privileges within the ecclesiastical realm contributed to the kingdom’s strength and stability, which helps explain why the custom continued to grow in practice and regularity with every subsequent century. Before examining the socio¬ political and secular-spiritual consequences of these changes, however, it is worth asking how the new emphasis on protection implicated the papacy as one the central players in the growth of monastic exemption

Freedom and protection

50

privileges. It is to the development of this practice, spirit, and pragma¬ tism between the sixth and tenth centuries that we must now turn our attention.

Notes 1 For an accessible interpretation, see Murray, “Merovingian Immunity,” 913-28; Alexander Callander Murray, “Pax et Disciplina: Roman Public Law and the Frankish State,” in Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Syracuse, NY August 12-18, 1996 (Vatican City: Apostolica Biblioteca Vaticana, 2001), 282; reprinted in From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble (London: Routledge, 2006). /

2 See for example Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 32-96; Maurice Kroell, L’immunite franque (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1910); Edmund E. Stengel, Diplomatik der Deutschen Immunitdtsprivilegien vom 9. bis zum Ende des 11. fahrhunderts (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1910); Hans Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des

papstlichen

Schutzes,”

Mitteilungen

des

Instituts fur

Osterreichische

/

Geschichtsforschung (1942): 363-423; Emile Lesne, Histoire de la propriete ecclesiastique en France (Lille: R. Giard, 1926), 2.1-66 and (Lille: R. Giard, 1928), 3.83-102; Louis Ganshof, “L’immunite dans la monarchic franque,” in Recueils de la Societefean Bodin (Brussels: Editions de la librairie encyclopedique, 1958), 171-216; and Semmler, “Traditio und Konigsschutz,” 1-33. 3 Barbara

H.

Rosenwein,

“Association

through

Exemption:

Saint-Denis,

Salonnes, and Metz,” in Vom Kloster zum Klosterverband: Das Werkzeug der Schriftlichkeit (Munich: W. Fink, 1997), 68. 4 Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 32-3. 5 For an excellent case study, see Eugen Ewig, “Das Privileg des Bischofs Berthefrid von Amiens fur Corbie von 664 und die Klosterpolitik der Konigin Balthild,” Francia 1 (1973): 62-114 (reprinted in Spdtantikes und frdnkisches Gallien: gesammelte Schriften (1952-1973), ed. Hartmut Atsma, 3 vols. (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1979), 2.538-83). Cf. Codex jfustinianus, ed. Paul Kruegger (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877), 1.3.16 (p. 32); Barbara H. Rosenwein, “Francia

and

Polynesia:

Rethinking Anthropological Approaches,”

in

Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, eds. Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, and Bernhard Jussen (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 373. /

6 Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, “Etude sur le privilege d’immunite du IVe au Xle siecle,” Revue Mabillon 60 (1981): 481. 7 Gregory ofTours, III.25. 8 Ibid., IX.30.

The road to protection

51

9 Leon Levillain, “Note sur Pimmunite merovingienne,” Revue de droit frangais et etranger 1 (1927): 67. 10 Walter Goffart, “Old and New in Merovingian Taxation,” Past (5 Present 96 (1982): 18; Walter Goffart, Rome's Fall and After (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), 228; cf. Magnou-Nortier, “Etude sur le privilege d’immunite,” 474. Cf. Clothar II, Praeceptio, MGH Capit. I, c. 11, p. 19. 11 Clothar II, Edictum, MGH Capit. I, c. 14, p. 22. 12 Concilia Galliae, canon 4, p. 276. 13 See Alice Rio, The Formularies of Angers and Marculf: Two Merovingian Legal Handbooks (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), 104-23. 14 Formulary of Marculf, 1.3. 15 Ibid, 1.4. 16 Ibid, 1.1. See also Friedrich Prinz, Fruhes Monchtum im Frankenreich. Kulturund Gesellschaft in Galhen, den Rheinlanden und Bayern am Beispiel der monastischen Entwicklung (4. bis 8. fahrhundert) (Munich and Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1965). 17 See John Chrysostom, Sur le sacerdoce, Sources chretienne 272 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980); Ambrose of Milan, De officiis, ed. and trans. Ivor J. Davidson, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Gregory the Great, Regie pastorale, eds. Bruno Judic and Floribert Rommel, Sources chretienne 381, 382 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1992); cf. Michael Edward Moore, A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300-850 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 85-92; Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in the Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 41-55; Remigius Rudmann, Monchtum und kirchlicher Dienst in den Schriften Gregors des Grofen (St Ottilien: Eos, 1956), esp. chapter 3. 18 Julian Pomerius, De vita contemplativa, PL 59:437. 19 For this relationship within the Church, see Felten, Abte und Laienabte, 61-9. 20 Jerome, Epistulae, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasicorum Latinorum 54 (Vienna: Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996 - revised edition), ep. 14.8; Registrum, 6.1; 8.17; 4.11. See also Markus, Gregory the Great, 17-33 and 70-1. 21 See Michel Lauwers, “De l’incastellamento a Pinecclesiamento: Monachisme et logiques spatiales du feodalisme,” in Cluny: les moines det la societe au pre¬ mier age feodal, eds. Dominique Iogna-Prat, Michel Lauwers, Florian Mazel, and Isabelle Rose (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013), 315-38; Michel Lauwers, uCircuitus et fgura: exegese, images et structuration des complexes monastiques dans POccident medieval (IXe-XIIe siecle),” in Monasteres et espaces social: genese et transformation d'un systeme de lieux dans POccident medieval, ed. Michel Lauwers (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 43-109;

Freedom and protection

52

and Sofia Ugge, “Lieux, espaces et topographie des monasteres de l’antiquite tardive et du haut moyen age: reflexions a propos des regies monastiques,” in Monasteres et espaces social: genese et transformation d'un systeme de lieux dans 1'Occident medieval, ed. Michel Lauwers (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 20-42. 22 Albrecht Diem, “Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of Sanctity: Jonas of Bobbio and the End of the Holy Man,” Speculum 82 (2007): 537, n. 92. 23 See Eugen Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den Klosterprivilegien des 7. und friihen 8. Jahrhunderts,” in Adel und Kirche: Gerd Tellenbach zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von Freunden und Schulern, eds. Josef Fleckenstein and Karl Schmid (Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1968), 57; reprinted in Spdtantikes und Jrdnkisches Galhen, ed. Hartmut Atsma, 3 vols. (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1979), 2.411-26. 24 Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den Klosterprivilegien,” 58ffi; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 35-6; Rio, The Formularies of Angers and Marculf 128-9. 25 Eugen Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den Bischofslisten der merowingischen Konzilien

und

Bischofsprivilegien,”

in

Spdtantikes

und

Jrdnkisches

Gallien: gesammelte Schriften (1952-1973), ed. Hartmut Atsma, 3 vols. (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1979), 2.437ffi; cf. Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den Klosterprivilegien,” 57ff. 26 Pardessus, II, no. 275, p. 40; MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 49, pp. 126-8. For a textual analysis, see Eugen Ewig, “Das Formular von Rebais und die Bischofsprivilegien der Merowingerzeit,” in Spdtantikes und Jrdnkisches Gallien: gesammelte Schriften (1952-1973), ed. Hartmut Atsma, 3 vols. (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1979), 2.458ffi; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 68-9. 27 Ibid., no. 302, p. 75. See also Ewig, “Das Formular von Rebais,” 456-84; Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 69. 28 MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 15, pp. 16-18; V. Leblond and Maurice Lecomte, Les privileges de Vabbaye de Rebais-en-Brie (Melun: Michelin, 1910), 51-3. MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 49, pp. 126-8 (Pardessus, II, no. 270, p. 33). 29 Pardessus, II, no. 275, p. 40; Ian N. Wood, “Jonas, the Merovingians, and Pope Honorius: Diplomata and the Vita Columbani,” in After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter GoJJart, ed. Alexander Callander Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 115. 30 Ibid., no. 254, p. 11. 31 See Odette Pontal, Die Synoden im Merowingerreich (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1986), 204-10. 32 MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 85, p. 218. 33 Ibid., no. 87, pp. 225-7. 34 Pardessus, II, no. 275, p. 39.

The road to protection

53

35 MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 101, pp. 260-1; Pardessus, II, no. 344, p. 123. 36 Pardessus, II, no. 360, pp. 147f. 37 Ibid., no. 345, p. 126. 38 Ewig, “Das Formular von Rebais,” 471; cf. Wilhelm Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio: Eine Untersuchung zu den Privilegia libertatis der Kloster,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, kanomstische Ahtei/ung 45 (1959): 70-1. 39 Pardessus II, no. 401, pp. 191-5. 40 Ibid., no. 451, pp. 253-5. 41 Ibid., no. 423, p. 221; cf. The Cartulary ofMontier-en-Der; 666-1129, ed. Constance B. Bouchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), no. 4, pp. 52-8. 42 Pardessus, II, no. 435, pp. 234-6. 43 Janet L. Nelson, “Queens as Jezebels: Brunhild and Bathild in Merovingian History,” in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), 38. For the primary account see Pardessus II, no. 320, pp. 95-7 and MGH DD I, no. 19, pp. 19-21. 44 Pardessus II, no. 320, p. 96. 45 Vita sanctae Bathildis, MGH SRM 2, c. 9, pp. 493-4. See also Yitzak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (London: Boydell and Brewer, 2001), 37-8. 46 Gregory of Tours, IX.40. 47 Baudovinia, De Vita sanctae Radegundis, MGH SRM 2, 2.16, pp. 388-9; Gregory of Tours, IX.40 and IX.42; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 54. 48 Gregory of Tours, IX.40. 49 Georg Scheibelreiter,

“Konigstochter im

Kloster:

Radegund

und

der

Nonnenaufstand von Poitiers (589),” Mitteilungen des Instituts fiir Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 87 (1979): 12-13, 35. 50 Gregory of Tours, IX.42. 51 Formulary of Marculf, 1.2. 52 Ibid. 53 On the subject of councils, see Wilfried Hartmann, Die Synoden der Karolingerzeit im Frankenreich und in Italien (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1989); Odette Pontal, Die Synoden im Merowingerreich (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, 1986), translated into French as Histoire des conciles merovingiens (Paris:

Editions du

Cerf,

1989);

Hans Barion, Das frdnkisch-deutsche

Synodalrecht des Fruhmittela/ters (Bonn: Ludwig Rohrscheid Verlag, 1931); Gregory I. Halfond, Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768 /

(Leiden: Brill, 2010); cf. Emile Lesne, La hierarchie episcopate provinces, metropolitan, primats en Gaule et Germanie depuis la reforme de saint Boniface jusqu'd la mort d'Hmcmar 742-882 (Lille: Facultes catholiques, 1905), 30-79.

Freedom and protection

54

54 La regie de Saint Benoit, eds. Adalbert de Vogiie and Jean Neufville, 7 vols. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1972), 2.648-53; cf. Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 273. Cf. La regie du maitre [Regula magistri\, ed. and trans. A

Adalbert de Vogiie, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1964), cc. 92-4. 55 La regie de Saint Benoit, 7.106. 56 Kassius Hallinger, “Regula Benedicti 64 und die Wahlgewohnheiten des 6.12. Jahrhunderts,” in Latinitdt und alte Kirche, Festschrift Rudolf Hdndlich, eds. W. Kraus et al. (Vienna: Bohlau, 1977), 115-16. For the texts see Concilia Africae, 282. 57 Novellae, in Corpus tuns civilis, eds. P. Krueger, T. Mommsen, R. Sholl, and W. Kroll, 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1954), 123, 34. 58 Formulary of Marculf, 1.1. 59 Hallinger, “Regula Benedicti 64,” 121, esp. n. 2. 60 Ibid., 122-3. 61 See Jonas of Bobbio: Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Reome’ and Life of Vedast, trans. Alexander O’Hara and Ian Wood (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017), 22-4; Pierre Riche, “Columbanus, His Followers and the Merovingian Church,” in Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, eds. Howard B. Clarke and Mary Brennan (Oxford: B.A.R., 1981), 59-72; Friedrich Prinz, “Columbanus, the Frankish Nobility and the Territories East of the Rhine,” in Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, eds. Howard B. Clarke and Mary Brennan (Oxford: B.A.R., 1981), 73-87. 62 J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 66. 63 Prinz, Friihes Mbnchtum im Frankenreich, 121-4; Fox, Power and Religion, 15-16, 295-8. 64 Helen Robbins Bittermann, “The Influence of Irish Monks on Merovingian Diocesan Organization,” The American Historical Review 40 (1935): 232 and 242. 65 See Wood and O’Hara, Jonas of Bobbio, 41-6 and 78-83; Ian Wood, “Reform and the Merovingian Church,” in Religious Franks: Religion and Power in the Frankish Kingdoms: Studies in Honour of Mayke de Jong, eds. Rob Meens, Dorine van Espelo, Bram van den Hoven van Genderen, Janneke Raaijmakers, Irene van Renswoude, and Carine van Rhijn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 95-111; Alexander O’Hara, “The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul,” Early Medieval Europe 17 (2009): 126-53; Diem, “Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of Sanctity,” 521-59; Prinz, Friihes Monchtum

im Frankenreich, 666-83. 66 Diem, “Monks, Kings, and the Transformation of Sanctity,” 521-59, esp. 526— 7; O’Hara, “The Vita Columbani,” 133-4.

The road to protection

55

67 O’Hara, “The Vita Columhani,” 140-3; Yaniv Fox, “The Bishop and the Monk: Desiderius ofVienne and the Columbanian Movement,” Early Medieval Europe 20 (2012): 179-81; Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 158-60. 68 Pardessus II, nos. 254, 275, 333, 345, 360, 514, 543, 596; Bittermann, “The Influence of Irish Monks,” 234; Ian N. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450-751 (London; New York: Longman, 1994), 186; cf. Ewig, “Das Formular von Rebais,” 456-84. 69 On this subject see especially Szaivart, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 265-98, and Terence P. McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique de rOccident: etude sur le developpement general du monachisme et ses rapports avec I'eglise seculiere et le monde lat'que de Saint Benoit de Nursie a Saint Benoit d’Amane (Abbaye Saint-Martin; Paris, 1935), 128-71. 70 Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism m Late Antiquity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 206; Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 32; cf. Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 42ff.; Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 267-73. 71 Mansi 8:375. 72 Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 210-11. 73 Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 3.95-6, n. 14. 74 See Gilbert Dagron, “Les moines et la ville: le monachisme a Constantinople au concile de Chalcedoine,” Travaux et Memoires 4 (1970): 273-5. 75 Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks, 207. 76 On their influence see especially Leo Ueding, “Die Kanones von Chalkedon in ihrer Bedeutung fur Monchtum und Klerus,” in Das Konzil von Chalcedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 vols. (Wurzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1951— 4), 2.569-676. 77 Concilia Galliae, canon 27, p. 205; cf. Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 268. 78 Concilia Galliae, canon

19, p.

10; cf. Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den

Klosterprivilegien,” 54—5. 79 Concilia Galliae, canon 7, p. 7; cf. canon 8, p. 26. 80 Canones apostolorum et conciliorum saec. IV V VI, VII, eds. Augusti Neandri and Hermann Theodor Bruns (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1959), 2.28; cf. McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 143. 81 Pope Paschal I, PL 102:1090 [Mansi 14:377 (JE 2551)]. 82 Hinschius, p. 338 (XV). 83 Concilia Galliae, canon 8, p. 26. See also the council of Orleans (538), Concilia Galliae, canon 26(23), p. 124.

Freedom and protection

56 84 Ibid., canon 19, p. 29. 85 Ibid., canon 21, p. 102. 86 Ibid., canon 11, pp. 134-5. 87 Ibid., canon 2, p. 171. 88 Ibid., canon 7, p. 178. 89 MGHConc. 1, p. 211. 90 MGH Capit. I, c. 11, p. 35. 91 Ibid., c. 5, p. 34. 92 Concilia Gal hue, p. 235.

93 Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii scholastici libri IV cum continuationibus, MGH SRM 2, IV. 1. 94 Registrum, 13.9-11; cf. Ewig, “Beobachtungen zu den Klosterprivilegien,” 56; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 47ff. 95 MGH Capit. I, c. 15, p. 94. 96 Ibid., c. 1, p. 170; cf. Christopher Cheney, Episcopal Visitation of Monasteries m the Thirteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931),

21-2. 97 Concilia

Galliae,

pp.

133-4;

cf.

Ewig,

“Beobachtungen

zu

den

Klosterprivilegien,” 52-3; McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 130; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 42. 98 Dictionnaire de droit canonique, vol. 5, col. 648. 99 See Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 39-42; McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 140-1. 100 For a summary of complaints, see Concilia Africae, pp. 274—5. 101 Concilia Africae, p. 276. 102 Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 356, PL 39:1569ff. 103 Concilia Africae, p. 281. See also McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 159-60. 104 For these records see Concilia Africae, pp. 280-2; cf. Concilia Galliae, pp. 132-4. 105 Pardessus II, no. 333, p. 109; cf. Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 276-7. 106 Pardessus, II, no. 345, p. 126. See Ewig, “Das Privileg des Bischofs Berthefrid,” 42. 107 Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors, 210. 108 Ibid., 211. 109 This became known as a ‘general’ privilege by the time of Hostiensis, Summa aurea, lib. V, ‘De Privilegio et excessibus privilegiatorum’, tit. V (Quis posit privilegium concedere).

The road to protection

SI

110 See Hubert Mordek, “Libertas monachorum: Eine kleine Sammlung Afrikanischer Konzilstexte des 6. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift der SavignyStiftungfur Rechtsgeschichte, kanomstische Ahteilung 72 (1986): 1-16. See also Werner Marschall, Karthago und Rom: Die Stellung der nordafnkanischen Kirche zum apostolischen Stuhl in Rome (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1971), 206ff.; McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 140ff. 111 Concilia Africae, p. 283; Mansi 8:841; cf. Mordek, “Libertas monachorum,” 14-15. 112 Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 209. 113 Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State, and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest, trans. Ralph Francis Bennett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1940), 21. 114 See MGH Cone. 2, 1, pp. 59-63; Hartmann, Die Synoden, 76-9. 115 For a systematic analysis, see the appendix in Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 221-4. 116 Similar powers, not enumerated, were also referred to at Herstal (779) and Aachen (789), which decreed that bishops hold powers according to the canons (secundum canones): MGH Capit. I, c. 4, pp. 47 and c. 21, p. 55 respect¬ ively. See also Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 271. 117 MGH DD Kar 1, no. 118, p. 165. For the earlier grant by Pope Stephen II, see Papsturkunden, vol. 9, nos. 2a-b, pp. 67-70. See also Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 96. For Fulrad’s experience with privileges, see Felten, Abte und Laiendbte, 217-20; Sumner McKnight Crosby, The Royal Abbey of SaintDenis from Its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475-1151 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 6-12. 118 See Latin text in Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, appendix 3, p. 225. 119 At Aachen in 816, Louis the Pious, acting on behalf of Count Begon, provided the monastery of Saint-Maur-des-Fosses with a privilege which placed the monastery ‘sub nostra defensione et inmunitatis tuitione’ (MGH DD LdF, no. 96, p. 234; cf. no. 265, p. 663). A similar privilege was granted to SaintBavon-de-Gand, which assured the monastery ‘plenissima defensione et inmunitatis tuitione’ (MGH DD LdF, nos. 62 (p. 157) and 156 (p. 389)). One year earlier (815), he confirmed a privilege for Montier-en-Der, placing the monastery ‘sub plenissima defensione et inmunitatis tuitione’ (The Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, no. 7, p. 65). Saint-Martin at Tours was granted similar privileges in July 817 (MGH DD LdF, no. 126, p. 322). There are numerous complementary examples from the reign of Lothar I, such as his charters

58

Freedom and protection to Saint-Victor in Marseilles (834), Pfafer (840), and Nesle-la-Reposte (841) (MGH DD Lo, no. 19, pp. 88-9; no. 44, p. 134; no. 65, p. 176). On this sub¬ ject, see Felten, Abte und Laienabte, 189-216 and 261-79; Hen, The Royal Patronage, 98-107.

120 The Cartulary of Flavigny, nos. 19 (pp. 61-3) and 23 (pp. 69-72). 121 MGH Capit. II, no. 216, c. 2, p. 92.

2

Rome’s orbit

A

monastery’s relationship with Rome raises fundamental questions about its origins and nature. Exemption privileges form an important part of this story - a connecting link between the centre in Rome and the Christian periphery. This chapter questions the monastery’s impetus for seeking special exemption from Rome by examining the practice’s development from the papal perspective. I seek to understand the gravi¬ tational pull of ‘Rome’s orbit’, which reveals the precedent, pragmatism, and vision of early medieval popes in the organisation and governance of religious life. How and why did this custom of commendation develop throughout the early Middle Ages? How was it exercised and experienced? What did it look like and produce in practice? If the monasteries’ grand objective was freedom from outside interference, from the encroachment of secular and/or ecclesiastical lords, then it is well worth examining the papacy’s role in achieving this outcome. If episcopal power (i.e. rights and jurisdiction) encompassed spiritual and judicial control throughout a diocese, what role did the papacy exercise over monks and their mon¬ asteries in the ecclesiastical provinces? If we are to understand the increasingly strict regulations being imposed on the monastic life and the corresponding rise of episcopal control being asserted and exercised over individual monasteries, then we must also question what historical circumstances contributed to such transformations. The present chapter tackles these questions with a view to formulating the popes’ attitude towards, and involvement in, western monasteries. Retaining a focus on France, it seeks in part to explain why the granting of monastic exemptions became so pronounced a feature of papal government in the early Middle Ages. The argument advanced in the previous chapters shows how individual monasteries sought privileges from Rome that funda¬ mentally changed the nature and meaning of exemption as it was known in

60

Freedom and protection

the Frankish world. As a direct result, and potentially superseding existing customs, early medieval popes became increasingly involved in the business of protection. The famous charters issued to Cluny in the first half of the tenth century epitomise the level of papal involvement, yet numerous precedents show that the seeds of this special relationship were planted much earlier in the Middle Ages. It will become immediately evident that the papacy can seldom be labelled the initiator in these relationships. Nevertheless, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, opportunistic popes strengthened the webs of Roman authority by exploiting their newfound connections to the monastic community. In return, the granting of exemption privileges offered distant monasteries legitimate and quali¬ fied entry into Rome’s political and spiritual orbit. And the papacy, as we will come to see, profited greatly from the new arrangement. The papacy’s relationship with western monasteries grew steadily in the early Middle Ages. Its direction was influenced greatly by Pope Gregory I (590-604), whose fourteen-year pontificate provides some of the earliest ecclesiology on the monastic life, its community and tradition.1 Given his own personal experience with monasticism and the communities with which he came into contact, this pope’s imagined ideal combined super¬ vision with pastoralism, the effects of which played out in realms of gov¬ ernance, hierarchy, law, and order for many centuries after his death. His familiarity with the decrees on monasticism from the council of Chalcedon (451), for example, made known to him through the sixth-century Latin translation of the Collectio Dionysiana, established a legal criteria and framework within which monasticism was treated throughout his pon¬ tificate. His privileges were concerned with protecting monasteries from episcopal encroachment, while at the same time encouraging bishops to exercise their responsibilities in monitoring and supervising the religious life within their dioceses.2 This very practice influenced the basis of papal thinking on the subject for the Middle Ages. It is not possible, however, to suggest a defined monastic-papal ‘policy’ in the late sixth century. Notwithstanding over two hundred letters in his Registrum concerning monasteries, Gregory’s interest in their goverance was entirely pragmatic.3 The impact of this activity can nevertheless be observed over subsequent centuries. It has been argued that Gregory’s administrative treatment of monasticism served to define the bishop’s Recht (ius and jurisdictio) in his diocese by implementing the imperial, Frankish, and conciliar precedents examined in the previous chapter. Gregory’s philosophy for governing spiritual and secular worlds remained

Rome's orbit

61

prevalent until the last quarter of the eleventh century. To be sure, exemp¬ tion privileges were beginning to gain their true meaning during this land¬ mark era of early ecclesiastical governance, giving birth to contemporary notions of freedom (libertas) and protection that would impact the future development of medieval monasticism. The pope’s contribution to these developments came not from contesting the authority of bishops or the ecclesiastical order as defined by canon law and conciliar acta, but rather from regulating ad hoc on measures that dealt directly with these fields. As pope, Gregory oversaw some three thousand monastic institutions throughout Christendom.4 As the over eight hundred letters in his Registrum attest, he was active throughout his pontificate in tending to the material well-being and lawful function of numerous monasteries pri¬ marily in Italy, Campania, and Sicily. The first religious house to benefit from the privilege of papal exemption was his own former monastery of Saint Andrew the Apostle, which he founded out of his family home on the Clivus Scauri in about 574. Acknowledging the beginnings of his own ‘Christian way of life’ in that sacred place, Gregory decided to offer a ‘little gift of privilege’ to the monastery that was to be determined without opposition by all his successors. Commenting on the abbot’s right within the community, he noted that it ‘shall not be lawful for either you [Abbot Maximian] or for all who shall hold the office of abbot in that monastery, or for anyone in the community, to remove from this monastery the places and estates that I decided to donate to the above-mentioned monastery of mine three years ago, or those that were donated to it by certain other people before then’. No removal or alienation of these lands or estates was deemed permissible, ‘not even [by] a future bishop, for whom we serve the Church with God’s authority’. The overall message behind this priv¬ ilege was clear: ‘let he who has been found to defend my monastery, while treading the path of justice, discover that he is seated in a place of light at God’s right hand, because it was his devotion that supported me in granting this’.5 Protection was part and parcel of the early monastic fabric. It clothed the religious community and provided a necessary security for ecclesiastics, their properties, and possessions. In most cases, it was embedded at foun¬ dation. Reviving the last testament of a former Roman priest, Gregory took it upon himself to establish a community of monks in an oratory at the baths of Agrippa. Because the will’s implementation was entrusted to his papal predecessor, Pelagius, he ‘considered it necessary that the ora¬ tory itself should be dedicated with the Lord’s protection’.6 Designating the lands and properties concerned, however, Gregory did not elaborate

Freedom and protection

62

on his meaning other than to insist that an entire community should be established there in order to avoid the danger of collapse. A parallel example from 599 shows the pope’s concern with restoring and founding promised monastic properties, offering his support while ensuring long¬ term assistance from other ecclesiastics and protection against undue harm from among the laity.7 Addressing Abbot Conon of Lerins in 600 about the indolence of the previous abbot, the pope expressed how ‘the concern of those in authority is the security of their subjects, because the person who watches over something entrusted to him avoids the snares of the enemy’.8 More explicit still are the privileges granted to Queen Brunhilde’s foundations in the city and suburbs of Autun in 602. Allegedly responding to the queen’s request for the church of Saint Martin, a con¬ vent of nuns, and a hostelry, the pope offered protection ‘for the peace and protection of those living there, as you wanted’.9 Confirming these privileges in a letter to Senator, priest and abbot of the Autun hostelry donated by Brunhilde, Gregory declared that no king, no bishop, nor anyone who is endowed with high office nor anyone else should, under the pretext of any sort of reason or excuse, diminish or remove from what has already been given to that hostelry by our most excellent chil¬ dren and kings mentioned above [i.e. Brunhilde and her grandson, Theoderic], or whatever in future shall be legally conferred by any other persons from their own property, either applying it to his own purposes or granting it to other socalled pious causes as an excuse for his avarice. But we want everything that has been offered there or shall turn out to be offered, to be in its possession for all time, unimpaired and without any disturbance, provided they benefit in every way the needs of those for whose sustenance and maintenance they have been granted.10

In matters of abbatial election, Gregory further decreed that nobody should be ordained without the mutual agreement of the local king and monks. The payment of gold or other bribe was condemned for promotion or ordination to this office. Significantly, Gregory envisioned a working rela¬ tionship between secular and ecclesiastical leaders in which the former’s participation was integral to monastic well-being. Acknowledging the royal family’s involvement in this particular convent, however, Gregory declared limits to their interference, attempting to ensure that bribery for promotion and office would never occur. He likewise sought to con¬ trol the bishop’s role over the religious house by prohibiting him ‘from having licence to remove a monk from that place to be promoted to an

Rome's orbit

63

ecclesiastical order, or for any other reason, to prevent him from usurping this function so far that places needing to be built up with the acquisition of monks may be destroyed by their removal’.11 Importantly, this decree was intended to support the founders’ wishes while ensuring the bishop’s balanced role in canonical matters. The bishop’s oversight, and the extent to which it could be exercised throughout his diocese, were perennial concerns to ensuring peace and security in the monastic community. We have already seen the degree to which these matters were discussed at earlier church councils in Gaul and Africa (see chapter 1). Referring to the property and management of a convent in Marseilles, Gregory explicitly stated that ‘neither the bishop nor any of the ecclesiastics should have any jurisdiction’.12 While the bishop was necessarily involved in celebrating the mass and appointing and installing a replacement abbess, his duty was to ‘carry out his office in such a way that his throne is not placed there’, except on the special occasion of saints’ days. The language of protection is pronounced in this letter, referring to the abbess’s role in managing and protecting her com¬ munity of nuns, ‘so that the malice of the evil enemy may find nothing there which could be defiled’. Christ’s protection is likewise offered in perpetuity ‘so that the benefits of the privileges bestowed may always remain inviolate in their firmness’. The monastic community was recognisably vulnerable to outside inter¬ ference. As such, papal protection was intended to secure peace and quiet for monks and their monastery, thus allowing them to pursue their desired spiritual life. The privileges in this scenario were meant to enable and ensure these safeguarding objectives. In response to a petition received by Abbot Luminosus of Saint Thomas’s monastery in Rimini, Gregory was forced to intervene against the reported abuses of Bishop Castor of Rimini. He removed ‘all power of harming you [the abbot] and your mon¬ astery from him and his successors, so that he neither resides there any longer as a burden on you, nor assigns property of the monastery’.13 That the monastery should remain independent in ‘describing and looking after what it has acquired’14 was central to the pope’s argument. The bishop still maintained his authority in abbatial elections, through the process of ordination, but only with the consensus of the monastic community.15 Addressing the bishop directly, Gregory hoped that he and his successors would be content with this right alone, so that the monastery, ‘doing ser¬ vice to nothing but general and canonical jurisdiction, should carry out its heavenly work with the greatest mental devotion, removing vexations of all physical inconveniences’.16 In other words, the pope cautioned the

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Freedom and protection

bishop of Rimini against interfering in the monastery, with concern being expressed for Saint Thomas’s properties. Rome’s ‘interference’ in religious houses was becoming a constant of early medieval papal governance. In a letter to Bishop Secundinus of Taormina in 598, Gregory brings to light a series of complaints raised by the monks of Castellium. Following judicial procedure, he asked the bishop to examine the truthfulness of the claims, and to provide the monks with the necessary protection to ensure that the monastery would remain free from lay control, as stipulated in its foundation charter.17 A later letter to John of Squillace reveals that the bishop was attempting to ‘introduce into that monastery certain practices, which are contrary to what was promised by your predecessors, and have been preserved by a long-lasting custom’.18 Complaints had also reached the pope’s ears about the removal of ‘cer¬ tain things’ (unnamed) from the monastery, as well as the abbot’s illicit gift to the bishop in return for a church being built inside the fortress of Squillace. As Gregory observed, it is the bishop’s duty to ‘preserve all of its rights unimpaired, and without any opposition’.19 As such, ‘it is certain that it is extremely serious and contrary to a priest’s way of life to wish to abolish the privileges of any monastery, bestowed on it long before and to strive to reduce to nothing that has been set aside for quietness’.20 Notwithstanding the tensions that could arise between monks and their bishops, monasteries were understandably dependent on epis¬ copal support. Freedom to perform their most basic spiritual duties was the monastery’s main objective, the success of which relied on the delivered promise of internal peace and security. Even the correspondence surrounding the monastery of Castellium emphasised the bishop’s role in preserving the monastic life, to be vigilant over their activities, and to correct them with ‘a strict and regular punishment’ if deemed necessary. As a spiritual advisor and advocate, the bishop was meant to ‘be concerned in every way with what pertains to correctness of discipline and the guard¬ ianship of souls’.21 Addressing Bishop Fortunatus of Naples in June 595, Gregory asked him to honour an arrangement for the monastery of Saint Martin. Because the abbot of this monastery (Theodosius) demanded that an oratory be dedicated in the names of Saint Peter and the arch¬ angel Michael, the pope sought to secure the bishop’s role in applying the ‘solemnities of a venerable dedication’ in addition to celebrating the mass when necessary.22 As justification, Gregory simply stated that this ‘should be done so that in that monastery, neither your Fraternity nor the priests cause any trouble contrary to the demands of discipline, and if some suit¬ able occasion arises there for the offering of various things, the monks

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65

should think themselves vindicated. For whatever should happen to be offered by the faithful should benefit the monks who are serving God in the same place.’23 The bishop was likewise responsible for securing and enforcing monastic privileges. Commenting on the foundations of the royal monas¬ tery of the Holy Apostles in Arles by King Childebert I (d. 558), Gregory summoned the action as a model. Lauding the king’s desire to provide the monastery’s inhabitants with a peaceful existence, one with rights conferred explicitly by the apostolic see, Gregory’s letter mentions the privileges bestowed on that monastery, ‘both in the management of its property and in the ordination of its abbot’.24 According to the pope, this secular petition for apostolic privileges knowingly ensured that the mon¬ astery ‘would not be shaken thereafter by the disturbance of any illegal usurpation’.25 Importantly, the bishop’s primary duty was to enforce and perpetuate the initial privileges, which were granted to Bishop Aurelius of Arles by Gregory’s predecessor, Vigilius (537-55). To do so fitfully required sanctioning the pope’s authority in an effort to preserve the quiet and contemplative life, emphasising the very purpose for which the mon¬ astery was initially founded. Time and again, pride of place is given in the papal correspondence to securing monastic freedom through physical (i.e. protective) means. Addressing Bishop Marinianus of Ravenna in August 597, to cite a wellknown example, Gregory complained bitterly about the reports of the local clergy oppressing monasteries. As he made clear, the buildings and associated lands in this district were being treated as pieces of property while the bishop ignored the papal exhortations to correct the rampant abuse.26 According to this account, ‘some places consecrated long ago for monasteries’ were in fact being ‘turned into dwelling places for clerics, or even for members of the laity’.27 The sacred space of the cloister was being polluted without consequence, actions that threatened to destroy the monastic life. Indeed, as Gregory stated in another letter to Marinianus (dated April 598), it was absolutely necessary for the bishop to provide ‘quietness with a salutary arrangement, so that those living the monastic life there in the service of God may persevere with free minds, and with the support of His grace’.28 In this particular case, the pope’s concern lay with the undue and unlawful oppression of monasteries in the district. Since no progress was being made of its own accord in correcting the matter, Gregory exhorted Marinianus to relieve them of this heavy burden ‘in such a way that thereafter the clergy, and those appointed to holy orders, should

66

Freedom and protection

have no freedom of entry in them, for anything other than for the sake alone of having prayers, or if perhaps they have been invited to conduct the sacred mysteries of the mass’.29 While acknowledging the bishop’s rightful duty, Gregory expressed his concern for the monasteries’ peace and management, a burden of responsibility that he threatened to correct personally if the monks continued to be subjected to ‘such great compulsion’. Furthermore, Gregory instructed Marinianus to protect the monastery from any removal of revenues, books, or any kind of inquiry, incursions, or trickeries that might lead to such a fate. In matters of dispute, the bishop was responsible for reaching a solution, if necessary through the use of mediators.30 On the matter of removing monks or abbots to populate another monastery, the pope was emphat¬ ically opposed to this practice unless performed under the informed guidance of the bishop. In all, the bishop was being asked to ‘fulfil his office of love there in such a way that the monastery does not suffer any burden’.31 There are fewer, clearer expressions of contemporary papal attitudes to monasticism. The criteria of peace, security, and protection underpin the successful communal life. The evidence for Gregory’s pontificate repeatedly demonstrates how ensuring a peaceful monastic community was linked closely to limiting episcopal visitation and ordination. This central dimension resembles closely the Frankish immunity whose key function lay with excluding and prohibiting the entry of judges (introitu judicum). The transition from fiscal to judicial privileges is a clear sign of the privilege’s underlying power and purpose, exempting in practice the monastery from the traditional interpretation of rights, custom, and the law. In the case of Ravenna just cited, it was written that the bishop should take great care not to overstay his welcome in the monastery, a privilege of hospitality that was reportedly exploited by Marinianus’ predecessor. Ordination, however, remained one of the bishop’s prime responsibilities throughout his diocese. This integral spiritual role was well understood and appreciated. Writing to Bishop Lucidus of Leontini in August 602, Gregory explained the duty of care necessary to consecrate a priest in the monastery. Before the ceremony could be completed, the bishop was responsible for investigating the candidate thoroughly (‘very carefully in the usual way’). It was determined that ‘if nothing should be discovered in him that might be held against him, let him be consecrated by canon law, as is customary, granting him no other privilege, except that, whenever it is the right time, he should celebrate the holy mysteries of mass, but nothing else’.32

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Gregory’s pontificate established a firm tradition of monastic rights and liberties for the Middle Ages. This administrative experience proved influential in defining the parameters of medieval monasticism. As a direct consequence, his treatment of individual cases also influenced the future development of monastic exemptions, whose privileges served to bring individual cloisters into the bosom of the apostolic see. While it would be misleading to assert the beginnings of a centralised papal strategy in the late sixth century, the evidence nevertheless reveals an underlying spirit of monastic exemption, in which promises of ‘protection’ were inherently reliant on the pope’s goodwill, pragmatism, and contemporary spiritual concerns. Contrary to some suggestions, the number of monastic exemption privileges did not stagnate following Gregory’s pontificate.33 A funda¬ mental shift occurred in the wider history of exemption privileges during the seventh century, one that brought many monasteries directly under Rome’s jurisdiction while permanently altering their established relation¬ ship with temporal (i.e. Frankish) authorities. Not long after Gregory’s pontificate, Pope Honorius I (625-38) issued the first known monastic exemption privilege to the northern Italian monastery of Bobbio in 628, thus freeing it from the control of its diocesan bishop, Probus of Tortana.34 According to the contemporary Vita Columbani, the bishop was ‘trying to make the abbot and the monastery’s livelihood subject to him’.35 Unable to rely on the ecclesiastical agent who was meant to protect the monastery, so the argument goes, the monks were forced to look elsewhere for support. As the charter determines in principle, freedom from the bishop’s interfer¬ ence lay exclusively with the popes in Rome. Susan Wood has argued that this form protection of was ‘not an alternative lordship, but moral support for a church’s possessions and independence (which would require some exemption from episcopal authority as then manifesting itself)’.36 In truth, however, as the remainder of this book contends, this powerful precedent eventually did give way to the idea of Rome’s jurisdictional authority. The nature and description of this support is nevertheless significant. Moral or not, it supplanted existing jurisdictional arrangements, which should have seen the bishop take charge of the monastery within his dio¬ cese. The practical consequences of this papal action served as a catalyst for the historical development of monastic freedom and protection in the Middle Ages. To be sure, it provided a model on which many future claims of autonomous monasteries were based. As to how the newfound relationship worked, Pope Honorius freed Bobbio from episcopal jurisdic¬ tion, a novel arrangement designed to limit local or regional interference

68

Freedom and protection

while simultaneously strengthening the central position of Rome. Having been asked for its assistance in northern Italy, the papacy became the monastery’s de facto advocate by granting Bobbio a privilege whose true meaning was embedded in contemporary understandings of Roman jur¬ isdiction. As the charter declared, this unique papal privilege prevented bishops and priests from exercising their ditio over the monastery or its monks, except with the abbot’s approval in the celebration of the mass.3' In theoretical and practical terms, the action of granting and receiving this papal privilege made a strong and novel political statement about contem¬ porary limits to Roman authority. It is worth acknowledging that not all historians accept this interpret¬ ation. Wilhelm Schwarz argued that the Bobbio charter represented a ‘protection’ privilege and not an ‘exemption’ privilege (‘ein Schutz- und kein Exemtionsprivileg’).38 According to his reading, Pope Honorius’ privilege granted a form of protection that did not extend to prohibiting episcopal visitation or ordination in any capacity. In Schwarz’s view, therefore, the privileges granted to Bobbio served only in protecting its property from diocesan interference. But Ian Wood argued that this interpretation ‘identifies exploitation too closely with property-rights’,™ while Barbara Rosenwein expressed her concern over Schwarz’s exces¬ sive ‘wariness’.40 Our present concern lays with the troublesome tendency to impose distinctions between exemption principles on the earliest case involving the papacy. The underdeveloped expression of jurisdiction in the charter evidence nevertheless leaves room for interpretation. So, too, does the fact that later privileges and their formulas in the Liber ditirnus (extant in three manuscripts from the early ninth-tenth century) provide more specific, albeit formulaic, freedoms that specify limitations on epis¬ copal authority.41 In other words, there is a notable difference between the privileges issued to Bobbio in 628 and those issued to later monasteries in the seventh and subsequent centuries. That this was a deliberate papal tactic remains to be seen. The argument hinges on the manifestation and meaning of ‘protec¬ tion’ in early medieval papal privileges. When did it become the staple of monastic exemptions issued from Rome? Does the offer of protection set papal exemptions apart from their Frankish (secular) counterparts? The historical consensus attributes its appearance in the papal vocabu¬ lary to the second half of the ninth century.42 Alfred Blumenstock, Heinrich Appelt, and Hans Hirsch independently argued that the use of jurisdictio {ditio) in the Liber diurnus must imply ‘exemption’ because protection did not materialise until Nicholas I’s pontificate.43 By far the

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most dominant and persistent theory, however, comes from Hans Hubert Anton’s seminal study on Klosterprivilegien in the early Middle Ages, in which he argued for three types (and developmental phases) of monastic exemption privileges. The first, he suggested with reference to Bobbio, shifted the monastery’s jurisdiction away from the diocesan bishop to the popes in Rome. The second, citing the examples of Saint Augustine’s in Canterbury, Benevento, Farfa, Saint-Denis, and Saint-Giulia at Brescia, went further to set specific limitations on episcopal power. And the third, which included the monasteries of Tours, Farfa, Wearmouth-Jarrow, and Bermondsey/Woking, introduced an entirely new dimension of papal protection.44 The charter evidence offers a somewhat different perspective. It does not refute Anton’s categorisation outright, but it does imply that the distinctions were not so clear-cut to contemporaries. The famous exemp¬ tion for the monastery of Rebais in 637, for example, employed the expression ‘B. Petri tuitio’45 in its foundation charter - a clear reference to the intention and authority behind such privileges. In his privileges for London and Chertsey in the last quarter of the seventh century (678-81), Pope Agatho promised both English monasteries the protection (tuitio) of the apostolic see.46 Pope Sergius I’s privileges for the English monas¬ tery of Malmesbury (c. 701) and Pope John VII’s privileges for Farfa (705) placed these monasteries firmly ‘under the jurisdiction and protection’ (sub jurisdictione atcjue tuitio) of the apostolic see.4/ The Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis expands on the contemporary meaning of privileges, refer¬ ring in greater detail to the jurisdiction to which the monastery was subjected.48 False privileges were also issued under the names of Popes Benedict II for Saint-Gilles (JL f2127), Stephen II for Fulda (JL f2319), Vinzenzo al Volturno (JL f2320), Figeac (JL J2321), and Saint-Vaast d’Arras (JL J2328) that, despite the obvious concerns for authenticity, nevertheless employ similar language in their charters. The English monasteries of Bermondsey and Woking, both dedicated to the apostle Peter, were granted privileges in 713 by Pope Constantine.46 As these few examples attest, the existence and continued use of protective language in seventh- and eight-century charters suggests its place as a core dimension in the history of early monastic exemptions. This contemporary concept of protection found expression in the developing idea of papal (i.e. Roman) jurisdiction. In 640-2, at the request of King Clovis II, Pope John IV confirmed the rights of Luxeuil in what was this monastery’s very first papal privilege.50 Referring on more than one occasion to this ‘privilege of the apostolic see’ {apostolicae sedis

70

Freedom and protection

privilegium), the charter explicitly placed the monastery ‘under our jur¬

isdictional organisation’ (sub ditione nostra constitutis). More explicit still is the pope’s elaboration on the geopolitical dimensions of apostolic jur¬ isdiction, which he stated comprised especially (presertim) the regions of Francia (in regione Francorum) and ‘everyone to the ends of the earth and the limits of the ocean’ (cuncti usque ad fines terrae et oceani terminum). It is customary, he continued, for everyone to obey with all one’s heart (rnedulfitus) the authority of blessed Peter, whose demands were met by the apostolic see.51 Reminiscent in many respects of the exemptions granted under Frankish rulers, this mid seventh-century papal example goes fur¬ ther to expand on the specific freedoms conceded to the Gallic monastery. It decreed that no one should usurp or seize anything from Luxeuil, and with specific reference also to the monastery’s relationship with the local bishop, the charter permits the latter’s role in matters of abbatial conse¬ cration and the celebration of the mass, limiting episcopal visitation/entry to the discretion of the congregation. (A diploma issued by Charlemagne in the last quarter of the eighth century confirms the many privileges, concessions, and properties earlier granted to this monastery by the pope, giving full recognition to apostolic ‘liberty’ (libertatem a sancte Romane sedis pontificibus) and the authority of his ancestors in so doing.)52 The impact of such privileges would have been felt immediately and locally. In theory, their legal ruling altered the bishop’s control over his diocese and challenged the established norm. Owing in principle to its intended influence on the episcopal-monastic relationship, it is easy to understand why Anton treated Rebais and other similar cases in a second and separate category of Klosterprivilegien: charters of this nature begin to outline more specific privileges and their associated limitations on epis¬ copal power. (This dimension separates them from the case of Bobbio described above.) Another example to this effect comes from a letter addressing all the bishops of Gaul in 674, in which Pope Adeodatus (672-5) granted privileges to Saint-Martin of Tours that limited epis¬ copal involvement to the realm of ordination.53 It is well worth noting here the language with which this pope summoned his authority, referring in the charter’s dispositio to the canons of the holy fathers, the patron/ protector (praesul) of the most blessed apostolic see, his predecessors who likewise filled that office, all of whose authority stemmed ultimately from the sacred vicis of the apostle Peter. Branding himself as a custodian of this monastery, Adeodatus sought to repair and conserve the statutes of his apostolic ancestors by ensuring that the monks of Saint-Martin would be free.'4 Significantly, this ‘freedom for dispensing [monastic] duties’

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(liberum dispensandi licentiam) translated into protection from outside

interference, confirming - at the bishop’s request - his role in matters of ordination and dispensing of the chrism. The seventh-century privileges of Farfa and Saint-Denis also fit this emerging description.55 Their semblance to Formula 32 in the Liber diurnus once again lends weight to Anton’s classification, which argues that this type of exemption does more than place the monasteries under Roman jurisdiction: it set specific limits to local episcopal power. It is exactly this brand of ‘limitation’ that defines monastic exemption in the pre-Cluniac age. Its contemporary, political value can be measured also by a series of false charters addressed to the bishops through Gaul (Dilectissimis fratribus universis episcopis per Gallium consistutis). In them we are witness to a purported arrangement between monks and their bishop that was considered essential to securing peace and tranquillity in the monastic community. The very fact of their production and integra¬ tion into monastic cartularies implies their worth; as assertions of rights and order, forgers deliberately copied them in their attempts to establish legitimacy and tradition. The well-known charter allegedly issued by Pope Eugenius I (654-7) to the monks of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune in Wallis shows a great deal of freedom from episcopal and lay interference.56 With the intention of restricting the bishop’s role in abbatial elections and his entry into the monastery, this particular privilege explicitly prohibited ‘by the authority of the apostolic see’ any exercise of the bishop’s power (potestas) or jurisdiction (ditto) over the monastery. Harking back to the established authority of the monastery’s foundations in the kingdom of Burgundy, Eugenius is made to confirm the privileges having earlier been granted to the monks, thus preserving the ruling of the apostolic see. The same ruling force is evinced in Pope Eugenius II’s false privileges for Saint-Medard in Soissons, which claimed authenticity from the (false) precedents of Popes John III (c. 562)57 and Gregory I (c. 593; JE f 1239).58 Another false privilege attributed to John III makes an even stronger case for the connection to Saint Peter’s authority (vieis), resulting in freedom (libera) from the local archbishop of Reims and the bishop of Sens.59 A later (false) bull from Pope Benedict VIII (1012-24) to Abbot Richard of Saint-Medard sought to confirm the monastery’s autonomy and exemp¬ tion from episcopal control, especially in spiritual matters.60 A series of false privileges attributed to Pope John IV (640-2) for SainteColombe-les-Sens (641), Saint-Faron (642), Rebais (642), and Remiremont (642) evoke the same pattern of concessions in the monasteries’ favour.61 Reminding its recipients about the punishment of contravening apostolic

72

Freedom and protection

authority was fundamental to a good exemption privilege. For SaintFaron in 642, John IV allegedly commanded obedience to the monastery’s immunities on pain of anathema. The bishop’s rights in spiritual matters were customarily outlined alongside further entry conditions prohibiting his usurpation of monastic affairs, and interference with the sacred altar, ornaments, vasis, or their sacred books.62 Curiously for this privilege, there is a subscription list which states that the pope gave, confirmed, and signed the charter following a petition received from King Clothar through his legate. Considering their purpose, these forged charters were intended to bolster the authority of individual monasteries by harnessing a direct connection to the popes in Rome. They evoked ancient authority and heritage - direct monastic claims to autonomy made possible through the exemption charter. Historical tradition was summoned in all cases, as a means to estab¬ lish tradition and precedent. For the monastery of Sainte-Colombe-lesSens, even the bishop’s power (potestas) was defined according to monastic rules and patrons, with especial reference to some early founders of the western monastic tradition and its guiding principles such as Saints Anthony, Pachomius, and Benedict.63 For the privileges granted to Rebais, we are given a list of specific provisions protecting the monastery by limiting the bishop’s right within his own diocese. As detailed in the pre¬ vious chapter, these provided the monastery of Rebais with freedom from usurpation or diminishment of monastic property; freedom in abbatial elections; freedom in choosing any bishop to bless the altars or consecrate the chrism; freedom in matters of ordination; and freedom for internal correction of misbehaviour. Most significantly, the bishop’s right of entry into the cloister was restricted unless had was ‘invited by the congregation or its abbot’.64 In false and genuine charters alike, therefore, the papacy was a guar¬ antor of monastic freedom and protection. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Vezelay, Pothieres, Cluny), it achieved this status primarily through its administrative and legal role in confirming privileges, commonly entering into a relationship with the monastery after its foundation - that is, once the monastery was already established in the local community. Indeed, the majority of formulaic charter evidence serves to highlight the pope’s central role in this regard, though rarely does it contextualise the events of an individual monastery that impelled this partnership. The action itself, however, can be interpreted as a demonstration of Roman power in the ecclesiastical provinces: confirming privileges of freedom and protec¬ tion acknowledged and reinforced existing relationships between various

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monasteries and Rome. Such connections did not seek to exclude temporal authority. Rather, they sought to embrace it, giving witness to a functional system of medieval ecclesiastical governance in the early Middle Ages. Strengthening this bond was a monastery’s likely and desirable inten¬ tion. Seeking to confirm the privileges granted to Wearmouth-Jarrow upon its foundation in 680, for example, Abbot Benedict Biscop and his successor, Ceolfrid, made the long sojourn to the eternal city. There they were ‘honourably received by Pope Agatho [687-81] of blessed memory, from whom the abbot also asked and obtained, in order to secure the immunities of the monastery which he had founded, a letter of priv¬ ilege confirmed by apostolic authority, according to what he knew to be the will and grant of King Egfrid, by whose consent and gift of land he had built that monastery’.65 Advantages to this partnership lay open for everyone, though Bede relates predominantly on what the papacy stood to gain through its relationship with the burgeoning English Church. By receiving Benedict and Ceolfrid at his court, Pope Agatho exchanged the privileges of Roman exemption for the monks’ obedience on matters cen¬ tral to the Catholic faith. Bede’s accounts suggest that monasteries were actively seeking papal exemptions. His description of Wearmouth-Jarrow notes the benefits accrued by Rome through this centralising tactic, particularly in terms of universalising church doctrine and religious ritual.66 Because of the outcome, decisions against the one-will of Christ (Monophysitism) from an earlier-held council of Rome convened under Pope Martin were more easily disseminated to the English representatives, while spiritual encour¬ agement and instruction was given to practise the Roman liturgy in all festivals, feast days, Easter, etc.67 The impetus in this case, however, was taken by the distant monastery, whose abbot approached Rome as a matter of custom, out of reverence to her spiritual authority. When Benedict travelled to Rome, he no doubt grasped the political implications of his actions: he sought specific immunities granted by the authority of Saint Peter while also taking care to weigh the privilege’s meaning in local secular-spiritual politics. This was not a unilateral transaction. The monastery also stood to gain much from its relationship with Rome. Bede noted specifically that the ‘letter of privilege’ (epistolam privilegii) received from venerable pope Agatho was ‘not a paltry gift’68 (non vile munus), but a gift all the same. Significantly, it was ‘accepted with the licence, consent, wish and encouragement of King Ecgfrith’.69 Its explicit purpose was to protect the monastery from external interference.70 Patrick Wormald characterised

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Freedom and protection

Biscop’s charter as belonging to ‘a new class of monastic privilege’,'1 one whose features placed it in a novel category protecting the monastery from outside interference. (Pope Agatho also granted privileges to Bishop Wilfrid for the monasteries of Ripon and Hexham, which ‘was evidently a privilege not only of protection but also of exemption, substituting the Apostolic See for the regular jurisdiction of the diocesan’.)72 As Bede fur¬ ther elaborated, the relationship served to guarantee that ‘the monastery that he [Benedict] founded was protected in perpetuity’73 - a confirm¬ ation of its possessions and liberties that was successfully (re)confirmed by Popes Benedict II (684—5) and Sergius I (687/9-701).74 The local reception of these privileges reveals a pressing and practical concern. Once the transaction with Rome was complete, the exemption granted to a monastery required adequate local support and protection to function. This might explain why, when Ceolfrid secured the privileges for Jarrow from Pope Sergius (687-701), he immediately had them ‘brought to the British provinces, openly shown to a synod, confirmed in writing and its authority attested both by that splendid King Aldfrid and by the bishops who were present, in the same way that the king and bishops publicly confirmed that other one of Benedict’s time in a synod, as is perfectly clear’.7' We know from Bede’s Historia Abbatum that Benedict was concerned on his deathbed that these conditions be upheld by his successor.76 But as the Vita Ceolfridi records, such concerns need not have worried him, as both Wearmouth and Jarrow prospered under Ceolfrid’s leadership.77 Yet the point in question relates to the monastery’s socio¬ political status, which was potentially uncertain because of its foundation on royal land. This realistic concern serves to highlight the uncertainty of Jarrow’s papal concessions, which evidently required some qualification in the local political arena before taking full effect. The royal monastery of Fulda offers another good example of this strengthening bond.78 Sought on the monks’ behalf by the missionary and legate to Germany, Saint Boniface, the privileges granted in 751 by Pope Zacharias were intended to limit the bishops of Mainz and Wurzburg from interfering in the community’s internal governance.76 Complying with Boniface’s wish, the pope expressly forbid ‘any priest of any church except the apostolic see to have any rights whatsoever in the aforesaid monastery, so that no one shall presume, except by invitation of the abbot, even to celebrate mass there, and so that the monastery shall firmly and forever be endowed with all rights implied in the apostolic privilege’.80 Despite the issuance of this papal exemption, the monastery of Fulda remained threatened by an overbearing bishop of Mainz (Lull), prompting King

Rome 5 orbit

75

Pippin to place it under his direct protection in the mid-760s. According to the Vita Sturmi, a biography of the monastery’s first abbot, the Frankish ruler not only honoured the ‘privilege that blessed Pope Zacharias, the supreme pontiff of the apostolic see, had formerly granted to the holy Boniface’, but he also ‘ordered that the well-being and defence [defensio\ of the monastery’ be placed ‘in the hands of no one other than the king’.81 In this case, papal privileges allowed Fulda to withdraw ‘from the bishop’s power, coming to enjoy royal protection and becoming subject to royal potestas\82 In practice, the Frankish ruler became the de facto enforcer of Fulda’s exemption privileges; but the papacy both enabled and facilitated this relationship. Its authority also made the connection possible, with political, spiritual, and fiscal profits to be gained on both sides of the arrangement. The exemption for Fulda, which forms the basis of Formula 32 in the Liber diurnus, inspired numerous other confirmations given to this mon¬ astery by popes Stephen II (784), Hadrian I (784), Leo III (811), Gregory IV (828), Leo IV (850), Benedict III (857), Nicholas I (859), John VIII (875), Marinus I (943), Agapitus II (948 and 950), John XII (961), and Clement III.83 In 757, Pope Stephen II granted privileges to Abbot Fulrad of Saint-Denis and his successors, so that they might build a monastery (Franciae loco) under apostolic jurisdiction and protection.84 A false charter attributed to the same pope made many of the same declarations for the monastery of Saint-Denis (742-51).83 Almost two decades later, Pope Hadrian I confirmed the same privileges for Saint-Denis (774—84), with Leo III following suit in 801.86 In 875, Pope John VIII became involved in the monastery of Flavigny, confirming that Charles the Bald had indeed given Bishop Adalgar of Autun rights over properties belonging to the monastery.87 Both Pope Benedict III (855) and Nicholas I (863) confirmed the privileges for Corbie, which granted the monastery rights in abbatial election, freedom (liberam) and power {potestas) in all things necessary to follow the rule.88 For Monte Cassino (784), Nicholas likewise ensured protection from episcopal interference, unless the bishop was invited by the monks to consecrate the church or altar, or celebrate the mass.8'' Pope John XVIII (1008) issued protection for the monastery of Beaulieu and even consecrated the basilica without the bishop’s permission, actions that served to ‘affirm his capacity to intervene locally’.90 (Pope Sergius IV confirmed these privileges in 1012.)91 A similar argument could be advanced for the privileges granted in 1006-9 to Saint-Victor at Marseilles, where the pope confirmed through apostolic authority the independence of this monastery from outside interference.92

76

Freedom and protection

The majority of monastic exemptions take this form. As such, they strengthened the papacy’s foothold on the monastic community through a developing assertion of Roman governance and power. Apostolic pro¬ tection, manifest under the umbrella of Roman jurisdiction, was the commodity on offer. A number of privileges can be cited to this effect which demonstrate a departure from the Frankish exemption privileges being granted in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries.93 While the Carolingians were also in the business of ecclesiastical protection (see chapter 1), the papacy was offering something different - something more substantial, spiritual, and arguably permanent. Rome’s protection was considered more static and stable. Furthermore, the contract made between an individual pope and a monastery was backed by the office of Saint Peter, thereby securing the latter’s rights and privileges for eternity; as a result of the source, the spiritual threats against anyone in violation of monastic privileges presumably carried more weight. There was, in other words, some distinction between the Roman/papal exemption and that granted by a local secular ruler or bishop. As Rosenwein rightly noted, ‘the context of their grants was entirely different. The popes were not issuing exemptions against their own encroachment or that of their officials but rather against the power of others. In this way, papal dido arrogated power to the issuers themselves.’94 That is to say that, through the granting of exemptions, popes were strengthening their polilitical and spiritual claims in a bid to establish greater control and authority. This reality helps explain why monasteries were continually active in seeking (re)confirmation for their privileges. This very common action reveals the importance of written authorisation for patrimonial claims, in addition to the changing priorities over time.95 The construction and arrangements of monastic cartularies themselves, which began in earnest during the twelfth century, demonstrate a changing mentality among monastic communities, who sought to protect and manage their patri¬ monies through an indisputable chain of authority.96 Of course, concern for the monastic community is recognisable well before this archival innovation. Necessity always prevailed and prompted abbots and their monasteries to seek ulterior forms of protection, higher and more authoritative power, and arguably new overlords. Abbots were also active throughout the early Middle Ages in confirming privileges issued to their predecessors. Monte Cassino, Farfa, Fulda, Saint-Denis, San Vincenzo al Volturno, Nonantola, Subiaco, Fleury, and Vezelay are among those monasteries that repeatedly sought to reaffirm papal privileges from the seventh to tenth centuries. The reasons behind this

Rome's orbit

77

burgeoning practice can be explained by another significant shift in the meaning and contemporary value of protection, which was transformed considerably by the early tenth century. This notable distinction between earlier privileges marks the third and final phase in Anton’s proposed categorisation of Klosterprivilegien, a transformation best illustrated by the privileges granted to Cluny. Well known to students and scholars of medieval history, this Burgundian abbey was first granted the privileges and protection of the apostolic see upon its foundation in 910. A privilege granted to the monastery by Pope John XI in 931 represents the first time that the papal chancery even used the word (immunitas) in a charter. Resembling royal immunities of the period, the unique provision for Cluny came from conceding to the monastery and its monks inviolability of its property, which privilege was followed by the significant promise of papal protection (tuitio). Being subject (subiectum) to the apostolic see thus meant enjoying its full protection and favour (ad tuendum atque fovendum).

The physical protection on offer reflects the papacy’s growing temporal authority in medieval society. Popes provided defensio while the apostles Peter and Paul, to whom the monastery of Cluny was dedicated, provided tuitio. Because the monks of Cluny petitioned John XI for these privileges in 931, he conceded freedom ‘from the control of any king, bishop, count, or any relative of William [duke of Aquitaine] himself’. Modifying these privileges somewhat in 938, Leo VII extended the papacy’s protection of this monastery ‘from the possession of any other person’ (ab omni dominatu cuiuslibet personae), thus making it ‘free and absolute’ by the command of the Roman see (liberum et absolutum esse praecipimus ... Romanae tantum sedi).97 As promised in earlier papal privileges, Cluny was to be free from any and all distractions." In March 1027 Pope John XIX iterated the monastery’s freedom and protection from any bishop or priests, unless they were invited by the abbot to participate." Whether or not these Cluniac provisions paved the way for other monas¬ teries is a significant question. The number of privileges for western mon¬ asteries certainly proliferated in this period, giving the distinct impression that both the power of the papacy and the number of monasteries was in the ascendant. Cluny set a powerful precedent that opened the floodgates for more intimate and long-standing relationships with Rome.100 Given this development, it is hard for historians to ignore the emerging pattern in the papal evidence, which points to a more considered or developed understanding of monastic exemption privileges by the late tenth-early eleventh century.101

78

Freedom and protection

Thanks to Pope Sylvester II’s fulsome register, this line of thinking gains more prominence. Writing to the abbot of Fulda in 999 (JL 3907), the pope described his support for this monastery and the specific privileges which it enjoyed. Commenting on the monastery’s right in Germany for judging and holding a council, Sylvester declared it ‘always free and secure’, so that the monks may ‘zealously serve the Roman see alone’.102 Illustrative of the papacy’s judicial power, Sylvester went on to affirm that Abbot Erkanbald of Fulda and his successors were given the right to ‘call upon the apostolic see to defend you and your church, according to the custom of bishops, and to defend yourself by the shield of the Roman majesty against all your rivals’.103 He declared his right to monitor the religious life and harmony of the monastery, while also invoking a decree from Pope Zacharias (JE 2293), which forbid women from entering. In the name of justice, the pope was clearly demonstrating papal solicitude while force¬ fully declaring the monastery’s independence in their internal affairs. As a final measure, Sylvester announced the papacy’s jurisdiction in protecting the monastery of Fulda from violation while threatening to punish anyone who opposed it. Above all else, he concluded this privilege by summoning and confirming the ‘authority of the prince of the apostles’, as a means of legitimising Fulda’s inviolate protection. Apostolic authority and custom were fundamental to monastic exemp¬ tion privileges of this period. The compiler of a false privilege (dated 1000) to Lord Emenon, abbot of the monastery of Deols (in Berry, dio¬ cese of Bourges), demonstrates a convincing formula to this effect, describing the ‘complete security’ that Sylvester allegedly considered both appropriate and reasonable to expect from his office. We are told that the lay abbot ‘requested us to strengthen the aforesaid monastery of Deols by a pronouncement of apostolic authority confirming that all its possessions in that very place ought to remain inviolate by perpetual right, and establishing and corroborating by a page of privilege from us that [it remain] free from every burden or from the control of any person’.104 ‘Accordingly’, as Sylvester related, moved by your prayers and by love for our Chancellor Peter, and influenced especially by the example of our venerable predecessors, John [XI], Leo [VII], Stephan [VIII], John [XIII], Leo [VIII], Zacharias [I], and many others, we declare it established through the privilege of this authority of ours that all places and monasteries, to wit, Vodolion in honour of Donatian and Rogatian Martyrs, Pontigny in honour of Saint Tyrsus Martyrr, and Saint Austregesill in the fortified village of Turre, and a great many other monasteries and churches,

Rome's orbit

79

and urban and country - places, towers, manses, manor houses, castles, cottages, vineyards, lands, woods and various cultivated and uncultivated estates with their male and female farmers and serfs and whatever very faithful Christians have bestowed on this same place or will in the future, and whatever seems to belong to this religious spot through gift, you ought to possess quietly with great security and all your successor abbots after you forever, in such a way that no person, neither archbishops, bishops, counts, nor anyone of any rank or order, may commence any quarrel against this same religious place over its possessions or instigate any intrigue nor exercise any power there.105

Assenting to these freedoms, the pope confirmed the privileges ‘by apostolic authority in order that the aforesaid abbey shall by perpetual right always be subject to the Holy Roman Church, according to ancient usage’.106 Striking a balance of ancient authority, apostolic heritage, and specific rights and freedoms, this particular exemption for Deols - though false - nevertheless reveals the value, precedent, and processes underpin¬ ning monastic exemption. It illuminates the desire and usefulness of papal intervention in the first instance, which by association reflects the papacy’s growing reach and rhetoric of centralised power throughout western Christendom. And as a final consideration, this charter shows how for¬ geries - just like their authentic counterparts - could serve as important precedents in the development and legal practice of monastic exemption. Adopting a wider perspective, Deols’s charters represent some of the most defining examples of early papal protection, showcasing its ideo¬ logical and practical use in the local political setting.107 Seeking to emu¬ late Cluny’s association with the apostolic see in Rome, the monastery’s foundation charter (dated 4 September 917) - signed by, among others, Duke William of Aquitaine and the seigneur, Ebbo I of Deols (d. 937) placed it under the protection (defensio) of the Virgin Mary, Saints Peter and Paul, and the Roman pontiff.108 The apostles were thus in principle protectors of the monks and their properties from the outset, while the pope himself - in exchange for the payment of a cens every five years - was envisioned as the practical enforcer. Significantly, the rights and liberties enumerated in this foundation were intended to free the monks and all their listed appurtenances from any diminution, including by the pope.109 Ten years later (21 September 927), however, the monastery of Deols was recognised as being under the pope’s government (sub regimine domini papae).m This expression was a deliberate move that not only implied Roman/papal protection, but on a more practical level, it served also to place the monastery under its temporal direction. While the expected

80

Freedom and protection

language of protection (tuitio, defensio, etc.) is nowhere present in this second charter, issued for the monastery by Ebbo of Deols, it represents more than just a confirmation of specific rights and liberties. Indeed, the introduction of regimen in the charter advanced the monastery’s rights beyond the original testamentum. In taking papal protection from a nom¬ inal promise of absolute autonomy to a practical regimen of coercive power, the meaning implied a stronger juridical authority over the spiritual and temporal affairs of the monastery.111 Papal protection was the monastery’s ultimate goal. The donation of Deols to the apostolic saints was the means to achieve it. The rights and liberties outlined in the first two charters (917, 927) were soon after confirmed by popes John XI (931),112 Leo VII (938),113 and John XIII (968).114 With time, the once vague meaning of apostolic protection became clearer. The pope’s role in this respect far surpassed anything previously offered by the laity. In 939, even the king, Louis IV d’Outremer, answered Abbot Odo of Cluny’s plea and ratified in his diploma that the monas¬ tery, with all its appurtenances, was ‘subject’ (subjectum sit) to the apostolic see.115 This secular confirmation makes the immunity accorded to Deols in 927 by King Raoul seem like ‘a last souvenir of ancient immunity’.116 In their capacity as protectors, the popes exercised their control over the monastery of Deols. Precisely what this meant in practice is clearer under Pope Leo VII (936-9). In 938 he was obligated to intervene on the monastery’s behalf in a dispute with Archbishop Gerontius of Bourges (c. 910-48) concerning the donation of properties (cella or villa) atVouillon by a ‘noble man’ named Gerard.117 Dissatisfied with the pope’s ruling, which cited the lex Roman a in favour of the their possession, the arch¬ bishop of Bourges proceeded to excommunicate the monks.118 His actions prompted Pope Stephen VIII to issue a severe letter (dated 940-2), in which he iterated his predecessor’s decisions and demanded that the arch¬ bishop restore the monks and their property.119 The monastery’s ability to circumvent the bishop’s authority in this dispute presents one of the most important physical outcomes of papal protection. As the bulls of Leo VII and Stephen VIII illustrate, effective protection against the archbishop of Bourges was an evolving political concept; its success relied on the activity of Abbot Odo and the prudent political awareness of tenth- and eleventhcentury popes - recognition for the monastery’s direct right of appeal to Rome, which transcended pre-existing diocesan structures. The granting and confirmation of exemption privileges brought the papacy closer to the monastic community. Entering Rome’s orbit was sometimes

Rome's orbit

81

a matter of appealing to its constellation, in order to obtain ‘counterinsurance’.120 This chapter has outlined the precedent, principles, and pragmatism which made this relationship possible. It is worth reflecting further on the underlying reasons. Put simply: were individual monas¬ teries desiring new forms of protection? Were monks forced to look beyond their immediate horizons for ulterior judicial and spiritual assistance? That is: were papal privileges being actively sought and granted to individual monasteries? The frequency with which Merovingian and Carolingian rulers were granting monastic exemptions begs the question of the papacy’s interference in what was essentially a local or regional affair. In practice, it had been taking monasteries under its protection since the late sixth century, thus contributing to developing ideas of freedom and pro¬ tection that were contemporaneous with the secular practice exemplified in the previous chapter. As will be now argued, however, the papacy began capitalising on this growing tradition and practice, harnessing the spirit and power of monastic exemptions into its arsenal of political governance.

Notes 1 See

Marios

Costambeys,

“The Transmission

of Tradition:

Gregorian

Influence and Innovation in Eighth-Century Italian Monasticism,” in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Yitzak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 78-101; Conrad Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 150-7; R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 68-72; Rapp, Holy Bishops, 53-5; McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 177ff. 2 Patrick Wormald, “Bede and Benedict Biscop,” in The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian, ed. Stephen Baxter (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 8. Barbara Muller, “Gregory the Great and Monasticism,” in A Companion to Gregory the Great, eds. Bronwen Neil and Matthew J. Dal Santo (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 107. 3 Leyser, Authority and Asceticism, 152. See also D. Norberg, “Style personnel et style administratif dans le Registrum epistularum de saint Gregoire le Grand,” in Gregoire le Grand, eds. J. Fontaine et al. (Paris: CNRS, 1986), 489-97. 4 Registrum, 7.23. 5 Ibid., Appendix 2. 6 Ibid., 6.44. 7 See ibid., 9.165. 8 Ibid., 11.9.

Freedom and protection

82 9 Ibid., 13.5.

10 Ibid., 13.9. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 7.12; cf. Szaivart, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 283. 13 Registrant, 5.47. 14 Ibid., 5.49. 15 See ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 8.30. 18 Ibid., 8.32. 19 Ibid.

20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., 5.50. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 9.217. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 7.40. 27 Ibid., 5.1. 28 Ibid., 8.17. 29 Ibid., 7.40. 30 See Codex Justinianus, 3.1.14 (pp. 237-8). 31 Registrant, 8.17. 32 Ibid., 12.15. 33 Blumenstock, Der pdpstliche Schutz, 30, counted nineteen charters on the sub¬ ject between the years 610 and 855: one for a church in Cologne, three for Fulda, three for Reichenau, six for Italian ‘Anstalten’, and six for England. See also Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 70ff; McLaughlin, Le tres ancien droit monastique, 186. 34 Codice diplomatico del monastero di San Colombano di Bobbio, ed. C. Cipolla (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1918), I, no. 10, pp. 100-3 (JE 2017); Italia Pontijicia 6, 2, no. 6, p. 249; Levison, England and the Continent, 109; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 58. 35 Vita Columbani, MGH SRM 4,11.23, p. 145. 36 Wood, The Proprietary Church, 196. 37 Codice diplomatico, no. 10, p. 102. 38 Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 63. 39 Wood, The Proprietary Church, 196, n. 46. 40 Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 107.

Rome's orbit

83

41 Hans Hubert Anton, Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien der Pdpste im friihen

Mittelalter (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 1975), 79; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 107; Szaivart, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 284. See also Thomas Frenz, Papsturkunden des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1986), 40-1; Wilhelm M. Peitz, Liber

diurnus: Beitrdge zur Kenntnis der dltesten pdpstlichen Kanzlei vor Gregor deni Grofien (Vienna: A. Holder, 1918), lOlflF. 42 See Dietrich Lohrmann, Kirchengut im ndrdlichen Frankreich: Besitz, Verfassung

und Wirtschaft im Spiegel der Papstprivilegien des 11 -12. Jahrhunderts (Bonn: L. Rohrscheid, 1983), 58. 43 See Blumenstock, Derpdpstliche Schutz; Appelt, “Die Anfange des papstlichen Schutzes,” 101-11; Hirsch, “Untersuchungen,” 363-423. 44 Anton, Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien, esp. 49-92. For a concise summary of this work, see Giles Constable’s review in Speculum 52 (1977): 913. 45 MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 49, pp. 126-8; Pardessus II, no. 302, p. 75. 46 Cartularium Saxonicum, nos. 55 (London) and 56 (Chertsey), pp. 88-91. 47 MGH AA 15, no. 4. pp. 513-14. JL 2140 and 2144; Italia Pontificia 2, p. 57; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 84. 48 Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis: The History of the Church of Abingdon, ed. John Hudson, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 2007), c. 9, pp. 14-17; cf. JL 2508, JL 2508; Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 291, n. 159; Blumenstock, Der pdpstliche Schutz, 32, n. 1. 49 Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 133, pp. 196-7; JE 2148-9. 50 Preserved in The Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, no. 167, pp. 341-2. See also

Gallia Pontificia: repertoire des documents cornernant les relations entre la papaute et le eglises et monasteres et France avant 1198, eds. Bernard de Vregille, Rene Locatelli, and Gerard Moyse (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), p. 180; Pardessus II, no. 299, p. 68; no. 303, pp. 76-7. 51 The Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, no. 167, p. 342. See also MGH Formulae, pp. 498-500. 52 MGH DD Kar., no. 300, p. 452. 53 Pardessus II, no. 374, p. 163; JE 2105; PL 87:1142-3; cf. Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 278. 54 Pardessus II, no. 374, p. 164. 55 Anton, Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien, 79; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 107; Szaivart, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 284. 56 Pardessus II, no. 326, p.

104; JE 2084. See Anton, Studien zu den

Klosterprivilegien, esp. 93ff. 57 Papsturkunden, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 225-8.

Freedom and protection

84

58 Ibid., vol. 4, no. 2, p. 61; JK f2562. See also Hans Hubert Anton, “Der Liber diurnus in angeblichen und verfalschten Papstprivilegien des fruheren Mittelalters,” in Fdlschungen im Mittelalter, vol. 3 (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1988), 126. 59 Papsturkunden, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 227 (JK

1039).

60 Ibid., vol. 7, no. 7, p. 238. See also no. 8, p. 239, for the renewal of SaintMedard’s privileges under Pope Clement II (1046/7). 61 Pardessus II, no. 298, pp. 65-7 (Saint-Colombe-les-Sens); no. 299, pp. 67-9 (Luxueil); no. 301, pp. 71-4 (Saint Faron); no. 302, pp. 74-6 (Rebais); no. 303, pp. 76-8 (Remiremont); cf. JE 2044-8; Chartes de Vabb aye de Remiremont des origines a 1231, ed. Jean Bridot (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), nos. 2-3, p. 41. 62 Pardessus, II, no. 301, p. 72; cf. no. 302, p. 75. 63 Ibid., no. 298, p. 66. 64 MGHDDMer. l,no. 49, pp. 126-8; Pardessus II, no. 302, p. 75. See also Ewig, “Das Formular von Rebais,” 2.456-84; Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 69. 65 HE, IV. 18. 66 Wood, “Reform and the Merovingian Church,” 98. See also Yitzak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2001). 67 See also HE, IV. 17 and V.19. 68 HA, c. 6, p. 369. 69 Ibid. See Ian N. Wood, “The Gifts of Wearmouth and Jarrow,” in The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages, eds. Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 105. 70 See Wood, “The Gifts of Wearmouth and Jarrow,” 97. 71 Wormald, “Bede and Benedict Biscop,” 8. 72 Levison, England and the Continent, 24. 73 HA, c. 6, p. 369; Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 108. 74 JL 2104; HA, c. 15, p. 380. See also Vita Ceolfridi, in Venerabilis Baedae opera historic a, c. 20, p. 395. 75 HA, c. 15, p. 380. 76 Ibid., c. 11, p. 375. 77 Vita Ceolfridi, in Venerabilis Baedae opera historica, cc.16 (p. 393), 20 (p. 395). 78 For a thorough study of Fulda, see Mogens Rathsack, Die Fuldaer Fdlschungen: eine rechtshistorische Analyse der pdpstlichen Privilegien des Klosters Fulda von 751 bis ca. 1158, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1989), and Kery, “Klosterexemtion in der Einode?,” 75-110. See also Konrad Liibeck, “Die Exemption des Klosters Fulda bis zur Mitte des 11. Jh.,” Studien und Mitteilung zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens 55 (1937): 132-53, and Konrad Liibeck, “Die Fuldaer Abtswahlprivilegien,” Zeitschrift der SavignyStiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, kanomstische Abteilung 35 (1948): 340-89.

Rome’s orbit

85

79 Codex diplomaticus Fuldensis, ed. E. F. J. Dronke (Cassel: Theodor Fischer, 1850; repr. Aalen: Scientia, 1962), nos. 4a-b, pp. 2-4. 80 S.

Bonifatii et Lulli epistolae, MGH Epp. Sel.

1, ed. Michael Tangl

(Berlin: Weidmann, 1916), no. 89, pp. 203-5. 81

Vita s. Sturmi abbatis Fuldensis, in MGH SS 2, c. 20, p. 375; Janneke Raaijmakers, The Making of the Monastic Community of Fulda, c.744 - c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 51.

82 Mayke de Jong, “Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, c.700-c.900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2.624. 83 Hans Foerster, ed., Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum (Bern: Francke, 1958), no. 32, pp. 93-4; Santifaller, “Die Verwendung des Liber diurnus,” 299. 84 Papsturkunden, vol. 9, nos. 2a-b, p. 69 (JE 2331); cf. Rosenwein, “Association through Exemption,” 70ff.; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 90ff. 85 Papsturkunden, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 63-4. 86 See Hadrian I, MGH 5, no. 1, pp. 3-5; Papturkunden, vol. 9, no.7, pp. 81-2; JE 2105; JE 2330-3. 87 The Cartulary of Flavigny, no. 23, pp. 69-72; cf. nos. 28 (pp. 82-6) and 42 (pp. 106-8). 88 JE 2663 and JE 2717; PL 119:815. 89 Italia Pontificia 8, no. 33, p. 125; Miscellanea Cassinese II, ed. Paul Kehr (Monte Cassino: Tipografia di Monte Cassino, 1899), p. 23, no. 10. 90 Jean-Herve Foulon, “Strategies politiques, fondation monastique et recours a Rome vers Pan mil: le cas de Beaulieu-les-Loches,” Revue histonque 307 (2005): 276. 91 Pope Sergius IV, ep. 14, PL 139:1525 (JL 3986). 92 Cartulaire de Tabbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille, ed. Benjamin Edme Charles Guerard, 2 vols. (Paris: Typographic de C. Lahure, 1857; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), I, nos. 5-6, pp. 5-7. 93 Paul I for S. Salvatore and Saint Giulia in Brescia (762) (JE 2350; Italia Pontificia, 6, 1, no. 1, p. 320). In 971, Pope John XIII issued specific privileges for Glastonbury, which gave the monastery power to ordain its monks while restricting any outside interference in matters of correction (JL 3751; PL 135:984). Pope Stephen VIII did the same for San Vincenzo al Volturno in 930 (JL 3581). In 1022, Pope Benedict VII recognised S. Sophia in Benevento as subject to the apostolic see and thus exempt from the authority of Monte Cassino (PL 139:1625; JL 4037). In 963, Pope Leo VIII granted privileges to Montmajour (JL 3702; PL 134:994 - Si semper sunt (Form 77)). Gregory VI confirmed the privileges of Saint Peter in Perugia in 1045 (JL 4123). S. Salvatoris in Insula (Senensi) had its privileges confirmed in 1050 (JL 4231). Likewise for Amiate (JL 4232) and Saint-Maurice-d’Agaune in 1050

86

Freedom and protection (JL 4246). In 1057, Stephen IX confirmed the possessions and privileges of S Prosper in Reggio (JL 4376); the same was done in 1063 for Fruttuaria (JL 4499). In 1071, under Alexander II, the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul at Cremona had its liberty confirmed, detailing that payment of the annual census should be paid to Milan (JL 4687).

94 Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 108. 95 Robert F. Berkhofer III, Day of Reckoning: Power and Accountability in Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 57. See also Dietrich Lohrmann, “Formen der Enumeratio bonorum in Bischofs-, Papst- und Herrscherurkunden (9.-12. Jahrhundert),” Archiv fur Diplomatik 26 (1980): 281-311. 96 See especially Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors, chapters 1-2; Constance B. Bouchard, “Monastic Cartularies: Organizing Eternity,” in Charters, Cartularies, and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West, eds. Adam J. Kosto and Anders Winroth (Toronto: PIMS, 1999), 22-32. 97 Pope Leo VII, ep. 7, PL 132:1074. 98 Ibid. 99 Zimmermann, no. 570, pp. 1083-5; cf. Recueil des chartes de Rabbaye de Cluny, eds. Alexandre Bruel and Auguste Bernard, 6 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie natio¬ nal, 1876), IV, no. 2797 (ep. 6, PL 141:1135). 100 See, for example, Pope John XIII, ep. 7, PL 135:961 (JL 3724); JL 3819; Pope John XV, PL 137:827; JL 827; Pope Benedict VII, epp. 14-15, PL 137: 333-5 (JL 3798 and JL 3800); Pope Benedict VII, ep. 18, PL 137:338 (JL 3805); Pope Benedict VII, ep. 24, PL 137:346 (JL 3817); Pope John XVIII, ep. 12, PL 139:1491 (JL 3962); Pope Gregory V, ep. 16, PL 137:924 (JL 3885); Pope Benedict IX, ep. 1, PL 141:1343-6 (JL4108); Pope Leo IX, ep. 36, PL 143:644 (JL 4215); Pope Nicholas II, ep. 13, PL 143:1327 (JL 4420); Cartulaire du prieure de Saint-Mont, eds. Jean De Jaurgain and Justin Maumus (Paris: H. Champion, 1904), no. 6, p. 13; cf. no. 8, pp. 21-2. 101 On the subject for the second half of the tenth century, see Stengel, Die Immunitdt in Deutschland, 368-90. 102 Pope Sylvester II, PL 139:272-3 {The Letters of Gerbert, no. 243). 103 Ibid. 104 Zimmermann, no. 389, pp. 747-8; Papsturkunden, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 25-6 {The Letters of Gerbert, no. 247). 105 Zimmermann, no. 389, pp. 747-8. 106 Ibid. 107 For a good comparison, see Zimmermann, nos. 64-5, pp. 107-10. See also Koziol, The Politics of Memory, 279-94.

Rome’s orbit

87

108 Jean Hubert, “L’abbaye exempte de Deols et la papaute (Xe-XIIe siecles),” Bibliotheque de FEcole des chartes 145 (1987): no. 1, p. 38. 109 Hubert, “L’abbaye e\empte de Deols,” no. 1, pp. 38-9. 110 Jean Besly, Histoire des comtes de Poitou et dues de Guyenne (Paris: Gervais Alliot, 1647), 237; Gallia Christiana, II, cols. 43-4. 111 Recueil des actes de Robert Ier et de Raoul, rots de France (922-936), eds. Robert-Henri Bautier and Jean Dufour (Paris: Imprimeri nationale, 1978), no. 13, p. 52-6. Curiously, in a charter issued around the same time by King Raoul of Burgundy (dated 9 September-25 December 927) - again at Ebbo of Deols’s insistence - no mention is made whatsoever of the papacy’s role as protectorate. 112 Zimmermann, no. 65, p. 109. 113 Ibid., no. 82, pp. 138-40. 114 Ibid., no. 188, pp. 370-2. 115 Recueil des actes de Louis IV, no. 20, p. 50. 116 Hubert, “L’abbaye exempte de Deols,” 24. 117 Zimmermann, no. 82, p. 139. 118 See Benedictus Levita, MGH LL 2, p. 124 (PL 97:843); Recueil des actes de Louis IV, no. 20, p. 50. 119 Zimmermann, no. 95, p. 168. 120 Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, 591.

3

Traditio Romana

he second half of the ninth century is a particularly cogent era for X monastic exemption privileges.1 This chapter explains the promise and growth of papal protection during this period, when it became a defining feature of monastic exemption privileges. As a coveted ambition for many medieval monasteries, this valuable commodity introduced a physical, ideological, and rhetorical dimension into the political exchange, shaping what Egon Boshof has rightly characterised as a traditio Romana (or ‘Roman tradition’).2 Positioned within the longer history of monastic exemption, the charter evidence from this period marks a departure from earlier medieval prac¬ tice - a subtle but significant shift in the expressions and formulation of exemption. In the seventh and eighth centuries, it was the Frankish bishops, lay founders and proprietors, and kings who determined the true meaning and value of monastic exemption privileges - central figures who secured and provided monasteries with requisite liberties and protection within their respective jurisdictions, secular and ecclesiastical. From the mid-ninth century, by contrast, it was the popes who took charge in formulating and issuing these grants. Hans Hirsch explained this change in power dynamics by stating that papal protection ‘not only gained in importance and distri¬ bution, but substantially extended its validity even as a deliberate echo of the royal protection ceremonies’.3 Where ‘the founders and proprietors of monasteries sometimes sought the pope’s protection where they might once have looked for the king’s’, as H. E. J. Cowdrey contended, ‘they found that it was readily forthcoming’.4 This does not mean that Carolingian rulers ceased contributing their own form of protection (Kdnigschutz).5 Rather, it points to a burgeoning relationship that was born intra ecclesia, an alliance with the apostolic see that benefited more than just the monks and their monasteries, in which protection became the papacy’s essential function.

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The language, notion, and promise of papal protection constituted a number of early medieval exemptions.6 While there are similarities to be drawn to the seventh and eighth centuries, the privileges that materialised in the ninth century represent a whole new category of protection. As effective weapons of papal power and monastic freedom, they offered a way to ‘monopolise control’7 and express ‘the Church’s growing autonomy’.8 This interpretation builds on the oft-cited and still important work of Alfred Blumenstock, Paul Fabre, Hans Hirsch, Heinrich Appelt, Hans Hubert Anton, Egon Boshof, and Ludwig Falkenstein, among others, whose version of exemption history and papal protection explains the papacy’s broader institutional development in the early Middle Ages - a natural outcome that saw ‘the jurisdictional fulfilment’ of monastic wishes ‘in the direct subordination to the Curia’.9 Once again, the region of France offers an interesting case for inves¬ tigating this evolutionary trend, revealing a papal ideology of protec¬ tion that emerges in the charter evidence. Between 855 and 900, there were forty-nine privileges issued to monasteries in France alone.10 Many of these were confirmations of established privileges, dating back to Merovingian times. Patterns to this effect can be seen for the monasteries of Saint-Denis, Vezelay, Montieramey, Fleury, Charroux, and Montieren-Der, exhibiting a tradition of papal intervention that lends itself well to the following political interpretation. Put simply: the ninth-century evidence strongly favours the emergence of papal protection as the hallmark characteristic of monastic exemption privileges. To illustrate this point more clearly, let us consider the mon¬ astery of Corbie, whose special relationship with Rome gives witness to the legal precedent of early papal privileges that extends well into the High Middle Ages.11 In granting its abbot specific rights and liberties in 664, Bishop Berthefrid of Amiens effectively renounced his administra¬ tive influence over the monks (which meant no financial gain) and any jurisdictional discipline over the abbey.12 These privileges were allegedly confirmed in the same year by Pope Vitalien in September 664 (false charter). Genuine confirmations of the monastery’s rights and liberties were granted in numerous Frankish diplomas from the seventh and eighth centuries,13 at the council of Paris in 846/7 (14-28 February),14 and through the charters of popes Benedict III (855), Nicholas I (863), and Christopher I (903).15 The real turning point, however, came with Benedict’s 855 priv¬ ilege, which introduced ‘des modifications profondes’.16 It was this papal (papyrus) charter that introduced the most notable restrictions to royal and episcopal power in the diocese of Amiens.17 Serving as the strongest

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promotion to date of Corbie’s freedom, the conditions specified in this privilege prepared the way to more ambitious claims of papal propri¬ etorship and protection, which developed under Benedict’s immediate successors. This mid ninth-century exemption privilege is unique for many reasons. On this occasion, Pope Benedict III was petitioned by Abbot Odo of Corbie and emperors Lothar I and Louis II, who together sought confirmation of the monastery’s 664 privilege, as well as the more recent ruling from the council of Paris in 846/7.,s Copies of these privileges were allegedly shown to the pope in Rome, who in turn drafted his own charter for the monastery. In his lengthy privilege (addressed to universis episcopis Galliarum), granted to the monastery of Corbie on 7 October and closely modelled on the 664 charter, Benedict outlined a series of rights for ‘a monastery not only of monks, but also monasteries of canons’ (monasteria non solum monachorum, verum etiam canonicorum monasteriis),19

granting

the

monks

unprecedented

freedoms

and

concessions, defined in the charter evidence as a ‘special prerogative’ (speciali prerogativej).20 These so-called ‘modifications’ to the status quo concerned free abbatial elections, the removal of property, the holding of assemblies, and the exercise of power (potestas, dicio, dominatio) over the religious community. With this privilege, the pope essentially redefined Corbie’s relationship with kings and bishops, which was previously determined by means of royal immunity. The novelty thus came from restricting episcopal authority and protecting the monastery from out¬ side, worldly intervention. The significance of Corbie’s privileges was surely recognised by con¬ temporaries. They also come to prominence two centuries later under Pope Leo IX (1049-54), in a dispute between Abbot Fulk of Corbie and the bishop of Amiens, Gui de Ponthieu.21 At the council of Reims in 1049, the abbot of Corbie used the occasion to secure (orally) privileges for his monastery directly from the pope.22 An official bull to this effect was issued the following year (18 April 1050) (re)confirming the special relationship between Corbie and Rome established centuries earlier.23 According to its specific conditions, the monastery was emancipated from the bishop’s jur¬ isdiction, a novel privilege that claimed its heritage from the authority of Leo’s papal predecessors, namely Benedict III, Nicholas I, and Christopher I. Furthermore, Leo’s privilege forbade the bishop of Amiens from accepting or requesting any payment from the monastery or its brethren; it also prevented him from exercising any power over the monastery or any of its appurtenances. This specific and limiting condition applied to the

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abbot and his brethren, as well as to the cellae of Bus-la-Meziere, Braches, Thennes, Naours, Huise, and Thiennes. Through its official privilege, the papacy further granted the monastery of Corbie freedom from unwanted entry into the cloister by the bishop, his oeconomus, archpriest, or arch¬ deacon. Neither was the bishop allowed to postpone any ordinations or consecrations, or to interfere in abbatial elections. Introducing one final novel measure, moreover, Leo’s privileges for Corbie encouraged the monks to send an envoy (nuntius) to Rome each year, keeping the papacy informed of all internal and local developments, in order that the pope might provide whatever assistance was deemed necessary.24 This latter condition presents an explicit connection between the papal curia and this French monastery, offering a measure of insurance for both parties, while going further to secure the permanency as much as possible of the arrangement. Finally, this Leonine privilege opened the possibility for later Roman appeal, introducing monastic rights with potentially long-lasting, negative consequences for the diocesan bishops of Amiens, whose spiritual and financial rights over Corbie were almost entirely removed. The canonical basis for these exemption formulations was laid in the mid-ninth century. It was under Benedict III that the privileges for Corbie were transformed from simple ecclesiastical immunity to ‘total exemption’.25 The pope was not content with simply confirming the privileges of his predecessors. Rather, he sought to explain, interpret, and develop them according to the needs of his time. And so, in 855, every¬ thing changed: innovations were introduced into Corbie’s privileges that extended immunity over the monastery’s lands in other dioceses, proclaimed free election, and ultimately prevented the bishop’s right of entry within the cloister walls. Without these initial expressions of freedom and protection, the monastery’s later achievements may not have been possible. Indeed, it could be argued that Benedict Ill’s privilege paved the way for even greater freedoms under his immediate successor, Pope Nicholas I, whose 863 confirmation of Corbie’s exemption also included financial freedom for consecration of the altar, ordinations, and the holy chrism, ultimately strengthening the monastery’s relationship with Rome through the right of appeal.26 Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the language of Benedict’s lengthy privilege contains a number of biblical allusions, many which summoned the ancient power base of the Roman see in promoting the rights and liberties of Corbie.27 Very little is left to the reader’s imagination. As Paul Fabre concluded long ago: ‘there is no doubt that[,] if we possessed a complete formula from the Roman curia during this era[,] we would find the model in this pontifical privilege’.28

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Given this wider view, Benedict’s role in the promotion of monastic freedom and protection has earned him a rightful place in history of exemption. Alongside his privilege for the monastery of Corbie, this pope also granted special rights and liberties for Fulda (JE 2668), Saint-Maurice d’Agaune (JE 2669), and Saint-Denis (JE 2666). The latter example in particular reveals similarities with Corbie that suggest an emerging Roman ‘strategy’ or ‘policy’ towards monastic governance, in addition to a shared intellectual and canonical milieu between these two religious houses. Whereas the initial, Merovingian-era privilege for Saint-Denis is not considered an exemption privilege stricto sensu, this monastery’s rights matured in the ninth century to become a monastery of the apos¬ tolic see.29 Both draw from Gregory the Great’s 602 ‘Autun formula’, with the clause salva in omnibus quae huius decreti pagina continentur, auctoritate et honore sanctae Romanae ecclesiae, et sedis apostolicae privilegio (‘saving in all things contained in this decree, by the authority and honour of the Holy Roman Church, and with the privilege of the apostolic see’).30 (This template also appears in Nicholas’s privileges for Beauvais (JE 2716) and Saint-Denis (JE 2718).) In the second half of the eleventh century, more¬ over, both religious houses attempted to overcome long-standing disputes with their respective diocesan bishops by compiling dossiers of exemption privileges, both genuine and forged (see chapter 6). What began under Benedict III only intensified with his successors. As a former chief advisor to his predecessor, Pope Nicholas I (858-67) did more than simply confirm Benedict’s deeds: he defined the legal and protective rights of monastic exemption for the Middle Ages.31 For his nine-year pon¬ tificate, we know of seven genuine privileges for the monasteries of Monte Cassino (c. 858-67), Fulda(863), Corbie (863), Flavigny (863), Saint-Denis (863), Saint-Calais (863), Vezelay and Pothieres (863). Just as important to the history of exemption are five forgeries attributed to Nicholas for the monasteries of Subiaco (x 2, 859), Saint-Pierre-au-Mont-Blandin (863), Monte Cassino (c. 858-67), and a grand privilege of liberties for all French monasteries (863). To be sure, understanding this pope’s association with the wider history of exemption requires some acknowledgement of his broader papal agenda, which may rightly be treated as a continuation of his predecessor’s work. It is especially Nicholas’s relationship to the advancement of jurisdictional primacy that draws comparisons to the reformers in the second half of the eleventh century, showing him to be among the first popes to enforce - pro consideration aetatum vel temporum seu gravium necessitatum (‘for the consideration of [different] ages or the

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the needs of the times’) - the right of dispensation.32 The pope’s role in advancing the Roman see’s temporal dominion, moreover, has earned him a reputation more broadly in defining ‘the position of the papacy from the times of the earliest bishops of Rome down to the definitive statement of Gregory VII and its expression in his successors’.33 The development of Rome’s ‘auctoritas et dilectio’34 is certainly a prominent feature of his pontificate, which was consumed by many controversies and successes in Constantinople, Ravenna, Bulgaria, and the Frankish kingdom.35 For these reasons especially, it is surprising to find so few modern studies on such an influential religious and political figure.36 The impact of Nicholas’s decrees on medieval canonical tradition is impressive. His letters are known to have circulated widely during his nine-year pontificate - as further evidence of his contemporary influ¬ ence - with selections copied into Archbishop Hincmar of Reims’s (845-82) private collection (Laon, Bibl. municipale 407), a PseudoIsidorian manuscript (Paris, B.N. Lat. 3854), and a collection of letters to recipients in the Frankish kingdom (Paris, B.N. Lat. 1557).37 Two hun¬ dred years later, moreover, Anselm of Lucca, Cardinal Deusdedit, Ivo of Chartres, and Gratian all copied Nicholas’s letters into their respective collections.38 Admittedly, this legal reception is seldom attributed to Nicholas’s role in granting monastic exemptions. While the number of his privileges do not greatly surpass his predecessors’, their implicit quality and later appeal nevertheless set them apart from earlier examples. As a direct consequence of their application, Nicholas became a pioneer in the burgeoning business of papal protection, in a period of European history that witnessed a decisive shift of monastic priorities towards the spiritual centre in Rome.36 Indeed, this pope introduced innovations on the subject of spiritual immunity, actions that in turn reveal an important impetus in the papacy’s move towards spiritual and temporal dominion in the late ninth century. In other words, his role in administering monastic exemp¬ tion privileges should be considered as one part of his greater papalhierocratic strategy, with positive implications concerning arguments of centralised ecclesiastical authority that extend well into the eleventh cen¬ tury. While the exemption privileges themselves do not furnish part of the larger canonical tradition mentioned above, with the notable exception of their tangential relation to arguments on the ‘liberty of the church’ (e.g. Deusdedit, Book 4: ‘De libertate ecclesie et rerum eius et cleri’), they nevertheless grew out of a developing culture of centralised Roman authority. These two dimensions went hand in hand.

94

Freedom and protection

This pope’s role in promoting centralised Roman authority is not surprising. Nicholas made significant strides during his pontificate in advancing the privileges of the Roman Church more broadly, pro¬ moting an ideological framework which encompassed monastic freedom and protection. In his own words, privileges were ‘Christ’s remedy for the whole Catholic Church ... arms against every attack of wickedness, and muniments and proof to the Lord’s priests and to everyone who is set up on high’.40 He also weighed in on the distinction among bishops, which understanding of ecclesiastical hierarchy, rights, responsibil¬ ities, and obligations held immediate implications for monasteries whose privileges effectively supplanted episcopal control. Citing Pope Leo I’s letter to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, Nicholas outlined his vision of a church that saw its whole care flowing back to the ‘one see of Peter’.41 That he considered himself to be the head of this universal church, particularly in judging causae maiores, helps explain his overall approach to governance during his pontificate. Drawing regularly on ancient con¬ ciliar acta and the decrees of numerous papal predecessors (e.g. Innocent I, Zosimus I, Boniface I, Sixtus III, Gelasius I, Leo I, Vigilius I, and Gregory I), Nicholas established a firm base from which to legitimise the Roman see.42 He essentially constructed an idea of a papal monarchy shaped not by physical coercion but rather on purely ideological and legis¬ lative grounds. That is to say, in championing the universal and centralised authority of the Roman see and church, Nicholas became a de facto sup¬ porter of monastic freedom and protection. His granting of exemption privileges forms a convincing portrait of his advocacy, demonstrating in purely physical/material terms the expression of papal power and protec¬ tion in a monastery’s favour. Consider, as an excellent example of this support, the privilege granted to Saint-Calais in 863.43 The details surrounding this one charter reveal a decade-long quarrel between the monks of this monastery and their diocesan bishops of Le Mans, Aldric and his successor, Robert.44 Reconstructing these events illustrates an unprecedented level of papal involvement, confusion, and vulnerability, actions wholly informed by a tradition of legal charter evidence - both genuine and forged - and the ongoing claims of both factions.45 The monks of Saint-Calais first complained of the bishop’s oppression at the councils of Bonneuil (855) and Pitres (862).46 As defence, they presented genuine Frankish immunities from Pippin the Short, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald.47 Ignoring the conciliar decisions, how¬ ever, the bishops of Le Mans did not easily cede their jurisdictional rights

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over the monastery.48 In countering the monastery’s claims, in fact, they drew on their own written evidence (legitima instrument a): a forged ninthcentury dossier compiled from the vita of Saint Carilef (seventh/eighth century), the episcopal-biographical Actus, a rewritten vita of Turibius, and various charters from the sixth to eighth centuries - sources created and organised to reinforce the monastery’s historical dependency on the bishopric of Le Mans. Presented with such ‘evidence’, Nicholas I initially declared his desire to make known that the monastery of Saint-Calais, situated in the county of Maine, has been subjected to the ius of the city of Le Mans and its bishops from the very earliest moments of its construction ... But now, as we learn, its monks, despising the authority of the rule, do not zealously follow the tradition of their forefathers and do not wish to preserve established order, since - as is scarcely fitting - they seek to live according to their own desires and profess not to have been bound to the ius of the ordinary in whose diocese they live.49

In a letter to the monks of Saint-Calais (ante October 863), the pope sought to re-establish their relationship to diocesan authority.50 Writing subse¬ quently to Charles the Bald, the Nicholas prepared for a trial between the monks and bishop to be convened at a provincial council, which action itself represents a victory of sorts for the bishop of Le Mans.51 For while the monks of Saint-Calais had sought complete autonomy from diocesan rule in their petition to Rome, the practical reality subjected them still to the discipline and order of their diocesan bishop. It was not until the council of Verberie (25 October 863) that the bishop’s rights were ultimately overturned and the monks of Saint-Calais achieved their initial objective.52 The contemporary Annals of Saint-Berlin tell us of the outcome, noting that Charles the Bald ‘lawfully vindicated the abbey of Saint-Calais against Bishop Robert of Le Mans, who wished to hold the abbey through the commendation of the apostolic see as a lawful possession of his bishopric’.53 The charter evidence attests that the Carolingian ruler was represented in this case by Bishop Odo of Beauvais, who fought for and achieved exemption for the monastery’s possessions and freedom from the diocesan bishop in matters of abbatial election. The council proceedings from Verberie were transmitted to Rome by means of a little monastic book or cartulary. Nicholas was persuaded in his decision by this collection of genuine and forged monastic charters, which demonstrated a sixth-century foundation connection to Childebert I; grants of royal protection attributed to kings Chilperic I, Theoderic I, and

96

Freedom and protection

Pippin the Short; as well as a tradition of royal immunity dating to Clovis III and Childebert IV.54 The papal privilege granted to Saint-Calais in 863 thus represents a confirmation of these earlier royal documents. The priv¬ ilege itself was composed from authentic papal documents (i.e. Gregory I’s letters) concerned primarily with defending monasteries against the encroachment of episcopal power. Significantly, it built on established tradition, which saw the French monastery granted privileges by Frankish kings since its royal foundation in 515.55 The monks of Saint-Calais, pre¬ occupied with limiting secular rights over their monastery, were searching for, and found, a way through exemption privileges to free themselves from their bishop’s jurisdiction. This jurisdictional struggle is apparent also in the contemporaneous privileges granted to Corbie in 863. These were successfully procured in Rome by Abbot Odo and granted to his successor, Transulphus.56 Comparing the Corbie and Saint-Calais charters, the bishop’s involve¬ ment in monastic affairs was occasionally mandated. An official depos¬ ition of a monk, to cite one pertinent example, could only take place in the case of criminal charges, thereby strictly limiting the bishop’s entry into the cloister and, by association, his administrative oversight of the monastery.5' But some noticeable distinctions between these two religious houses are also apparent from the charter evidence. Following the free election of an abbot, the monks of Corbie were not obligated to notify or seek consent for their decision from the Frankish king, as was the expect¬ ation with Saint-Calais. Significantly, in purely jurisdictional terms, the privilege granted to the monastery of Corbie freed the monks from the tribunal of bishops and metropolitans, thereby establishing a connection directly with the Roman bishops. Compared to the privilege for SaintCalais, this degree of liberty for Corbie bypassed the regional ecclesias¬ tical structures to which the monks of Saint-Calais were obliged to adhere in the first instance. Such a distinction in the privilege’s conditions meant that the monks of Corbie had achieved a greater degree of freedom and protection, which - as suggested above - owes much to the ‘modifications’ introduced under Benedict III. The promise of apostolic protection, however, is not strictly about coer¬ cive power. Rather, it introduces the complex question of papal dominium, with every possible meaning of ownership, proprietorship, lordship, subordination and/or subjection. On this relationship, the nunnery/ monastery of Vezelay stands aloft as the earliest example. Predating the foundation of Cluny by some fifty years, this female house of Sainte-Marie (in Avallonais) was founded in 858/9 by Count Gerard of Roussilon and

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his wife, Bertha, contemporaneously with the male monastery of Saints Peter and Paul at Pothieres (in Lassois).58 Whether inspired by Christian faith or local politics, the Roman orientation ofVezelay in particular marks an important step in the history of early monastic exemption privileges, especially as they concern the burgeoning appeal of papal protection in the second half of the ninth century.59 The reasons underpinning their arrangement form a critical question: what exactly were Nicholas Fs intentions? Rosalind Berlow suggested that the papacy ‘realized the implications of direct subjection’ to Rome, which fuelled the pope’s ‘struggle against the decentralizing forces within the Gallican Church’.60 In other words, Nicholas saw the potential for disrupting the status quo, inserting himself into the future direction of numerous monasteries. There were great benefits in strengthening this relationship. According to Susan Wood, the ‘grandest way of freeing a new foundation from secular lordship ... was to give or commend it to St Peter in Rome’.61 The actual process by which this outcome was achieved was ostensibly twofold: ‘conveyance into Rome’s property with consequent papal protection (done only by founders), and simple commendation into papal protection (done sometimes by the abbot of an established mon¬ astery)’.62 The monasteries ofVezelay (863), Pothieres (863), and SaintGilles (878) represent the former distinction, introducing a measure of subjection to the apostolic see, which highlights the papacy’s role in ruling, governing, ordering, and protecting Christian monasteries. The examples of Charroux (878), Montieramey (878), and Montier-en-Der (885) represent the latter distinction. All cases, however, contribute to understanding why and how the papacy became more involved in prom¬ ising, promoting, and defending monastic freedom through the means of protection. In more ways than one, Vezelay and Pothieres defined the early medi¬ eval traditio of papal protection. The very first charter in the Monumenta Vizeliacensia, a twelfth-century collection containing annals, a brief his¬ tory, a chronicle, and a cartulary of the abbey (Ms. 227 Bibliotheque Municipale Auxerre), is the donation of both monasteries (dated 858— 9) to Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. Following the conditions of both foundations, the testamentum stated that: this monastery and the other named above, together with everything granted to them, we submit to the blessed apostles at Rome and, by the witness of this charter we have granted, we commit them in perpetuity to the holy bishops of that eternal city, those who in the place of the apostles have throughout the

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years that followed held that see, to rule them, command them, and administer them - yet not so that they have licence to give them as a benefice or alienate them to anyone - so that through their painstaking zeal and watchful direction the religion of piety and honesty shall always increase there to the glory of God, as our devotion intends, and the fruit nourished there will incline more and more to God.63

The charter further stipulated that the selection of abbots and abbesses should be carried out by the congregations, without external interfer¬ ence, but in consultation ‘with the approval of the bishop who at the time has deserved the apostolic see’.64 Offering a clause of physical protection, moreover, anyone found to be disturbing the vows of poverty adopted in both religious houses was threatened to be condemned by ‘the pious King Charles [the Bald]’.65 Count Gerard chose protection for his monasteries from the very beginning. The original testament, however, was ostensibly not enough to satisfy his desire for defemio et tuitio. It was not long before he addressed Pope Nicholas I, seeking in March 863 to place both French monas¬ teries and all their dependents under Rome’s proprietorship (alodium ac patrimonium beati Petri). Elaborating on his initial foundation five years earlier, Count Gerard explained to the pope that both Vezelay and Pothieres were donated and subjected ‘to the most sacred and reverend place and city where the eternal memory of the most blessed apostles Peter and Paul is celebrated, so that they may have a lasting guardian and protector of their order and their religion and so that the fruit of our devotion may last forever’.66 While the freedom of both monasteries to operate spiritually and administratively is reiterated in this second charter, the count carefully noted that Pothieres and Vezelay must each offer an annual payment of two pounds of silver to Rome, ‘as a way of teaching by this example of a free and voluntary act of charity and work of humility what gifts should be offered daily’.67 Furthermore, both monasteries were committed in perpetuity to the ‘zeal’ of the apostolic see, so that the popes in Rome might ‘deign to govern, protect and defend them in every way with paternal ecclesiastical piety and a merciful hand, lest they be handed over as a benefice contrary to our vow and to anyone except those indicated in the written testament’.68 Count Gerard implored Nicholas’s successors to follow suit, so that both monasteries would forever remain under the papacy’s care. The ‘paternal authority’ and protection that he envisaged from Rome is not left to the imagination. Rather, the count goes on to enumerate the potential

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evils and dangers that might befall a religious house, not least the inter¬ ference caused by a bishop at the time of monastic election or ordination. Significantly, mentioning once again the uniting of ‘these properties for¬ ever to serve the monks usefully and in concord’, Gerard reserved for him¬ self ‘in the world of the flesh only the usufruct’,69 in exchange for which he promised to act as the monasteries’ guardian and defender. In brief, the monks and nuns were to be granted a safe and peaceful existence in order that their venerable houses ‘will be filled with the vows and supplications of the faithful, and so that a heavenly way of life will be sought and longed for with absolute determination and profound ardour by all of them’.70 To achieve this mission, Gerard beseeched Pope Nicholas - acting through Christ, his virgin mother, the apostles Peter and Paul, and ‘all who illu¬ minate the whole church of God with their blood - to bring help in your special capacity as father, with pious and enthusiastic zeal, to the inhabitants of those monasteries handed over to your paternity and rever¬ ence and never to allow what we have committed to your protection with the best hopes to be granted as a benefice or to be alienated by exchange’.71 The king’s role in these foundations complements the objectives of peace and security. Count Gerard’s move to secure his monastic foundations had everything to do with Charles the Bald in the first instance. The need to establish his monasteries’ financial and spiritual position is likely associated with the precarious nature under which the lands were themselves acquired. On this matter, some confusion lingers in the charter evidence, especially for the monastery of Pothieres. Although King Charles is mentioned numerous times in the testamentum (858-9), it is unclear whether the land on which Pothieres was founded was in fact granted by the king’s authority or ‘added to our possessions there through any other legitimate agreement, together with all its appurtenances and whatever pertains to it anywhere [e.g. Sixte and the estate of Le Pechoir (county of Sens)]’.72 The second charter in the Monumenta Vizeliacensia (dated 863) mentions that Charles the Bald deigned to confer on the count these lands, which ‘were transferred to our jurisdiction by a suitable pur¬ chase’.73 Parts of the land were seemingly inherited from his parents, as possessions through legitimate agreement, as well as ‘a grant on the authority and command of our pious king’.74 (The count appears more confident about the lands for Vezelay, which he mentions were acquired through an exchange with the emperor Louis the Pious.)75 These claims help explain Gerard’s eagerness to establish monastic autonomy from lay and ecclesiastical authorities. The count was related by marriage to Charles’s brother, Lothar, with whom he fought in the

100

Freedom and protection

Battle of Fontenay (841). In 855, he became governor of Provence under Lothar’s son, a move which ‘undermined Gerard’s control of his estates in Burgundy, around Vezelay and Pothieres, because they lay in Charles’s territory’.76 Endowing these monasteries, and in turn donating them to the apostolic see, thus benefited the count spiritually while also avoiding royal interference.77 The action was thus a salient political manoeuvre to prevent their confiscation by Charles the Bald, with whom the count was ‘engaged in a bitter struggle’.78 In other words, transferring the monas¬ teries of Vezelay and Pothieres to the papal see in Rome insured it against outside encroachment or confiscation. The question of episcopal interference is another matter entirely. That the monks ofVezelay sought to be freed of diocesan control forces us to con¬ sider the papal privilege issued in May 863. (The monastery of Pothieres disappears from any discussion from this point onward.) The charter’s arenga clearly relates Rome’s unique position as proprietor ‘of that mon¬ astery and of everything that pertains to it by law’.79 Upon receiving the count’s petition, it is explicitly noted, Pope Nicholas I granted his priv¬ ilege ‘so that no king, no bishop, no one endowed with any dignity, indeed no one at all will be permitted, whatever the cause or the occasion, to diminish or remove, to direct to his own use, or to grant in any way for any other apparently pious cause, as an excuse for his own avarice, any¬ thing which has been granted as an endowment to that monastery by you or by anyone else’.80 The only expectation in return for this privilege was a reduced annual tribute of one pound of silver (slightly altered from the previous privilege), in accordance with the charter of Gerard’s gift. ‘In return for this [payment]’, Nicholas noted, the papacy will ‘take care to provide against all attacks, with the vigilance of an anxious pastor, the assistance of their pious paternity to that monastery and its abbess and the nuns who live there under the Rule of our holy father Benedict’.81 The specific conditions of this charter are familiar to us already. They served to protect against any undue interference in the election and ordin¬ ation of an abbess. They sought to ‘eliminate the possibility of avarice’ by forbidding payment for the religious services of consecration and ordin¬ ation. They prevented the celebration of public masses by the diocesan bishop, unless he was extended an invitation. In this way, as a formal restriction on the bishop’s entry into the cloister, they also protected against the bishops’ demand for food and lodging.82 The question on which scholars disagree is whether the 863 privilege ever granted complete spir¬ itual immunity to the monks ofVezelay. According to Ludwig Falkenstein, the measures taken by Nicholas I to secure the monastery’s privileges

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were well versed in the ancient ecclesiastical traditions of Chalcedon (451), Arles (455), Carthage (535), and the letters of Gregory the Great.83 According to Paul Fabre, however, these privileges were purely financial and fiscal. ‘Nothing in these documents’, he said, ‘authorizes us to think that the monastery ofVezelay was, in any way whatsoever, withdrawn from the authority of the diocesan bishop.’84 Jean-Fran^ois Lemarignier agreed, claiming that ‘the diocesan bishop preserved explicitly the power of regu¬ lation, implicitly the spiritual jurisdiction’.85 He thus concluded that the concept of ‘total exemption’ at the hands of the papacy was not obtained until the second half of the eleventh century. Victor Saxer elaborated fur¬ ther on this issue, arguing that between 859 and 863 the papacy did indeed exert greater rights over Vezelay from protection to right of propriety. But these rights, he conceded, were limited. With expressions like Nullum de regibus vel quemcumque fidelium (‘None of the kings or any of the faithful’), we are witness to ‘close supervision and supreme direction of important affairs of Christendom’,86 whose full potential for spiritual immunity - it is argued - was not realised until the monastery’s association with Cluny in the late eleventh century. Whatever the interpretation, the relationship forged between Vezelay and Rome in the second half of the ninth century is unique. The monastery’s intention to be removed from episcopal oversight and control makes it so. Furthermore, the means to achieve and maintain this unpre¬ cedented level of independence were supported by like-minded secular rulers. Charles the Bald confirmed Nicholas’s privilege in 868, issuing a royal diploma seeking reassurance that Count Gerard and his wife would uphold the integrity of their religious foundations, as per the conditions of their original testamentum (858/9).87 As the Frankish king noted, the illustrious count and his wife had strengthened the monastery with ‘the authority of the apostolic see’. But critically, ‘for greater durability’, the count sought to ‘confirm by the command of our authority what has been established by the Holy See’.88 A ‘dual’ privilege of this sort served to enhance the monastery’s autonomous position within the diocese of Autun. The king’s consent to the count’s requests, as he himself stated, would help preserve the monastery for future generations. As a conse¬ quence of his authority, moreover, the possessions/properties granted to Vezelay by the count and his wife were to remain undisturbed. ‘The mon¬ astery itself’, Charles continued, should stand under the protection of our immunity and that of our successors so that no public judge nor anyone with judicial power should ever at any time

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dare to come to or presume to demand entry to any of the churches, places, fields or remaining possessions of the monastery in order to hear any cases or to exact any unjust fines or to demand any lodgings or victuals or to take away any people to serve as pledges or to demand any tolls or to punish unjustly any of its men living on its land, be they free or slave, or to ask for any payments or unlawful taxes.*9

This level of cooperation helps explain the royal diplomas issued to Vezelay over the following decades. Building on ecclesiastical precedent, Charles the Bald (877),90 Carloman II (881),91 Odo (889),92 and Louis IV d’Outremer (936)93 all confirmed the rights of previous generations (i.e. Frankish fathers, grandfathers), while also renewing the king’s relation¬ ship with the monastery and the pope in Rome. Significantly, this diplo¬ matic tradition conveys the sense that monastic exemption privileges were not operating in a political vacuum; the support for Vezelay’s financial and spiritual immunity was a common concern for leading secular and eccle¬ siastical parties alike. This relationship notwithstanding, subsequent grants of royal immunity appear superfluous to earlier papal privileges. Yet they undoubt¬ edly served some greater contemporary political purpose. Placing Vezelay under his protection, Charles the Bald renounced any fiscal claims over the monastery, permitted the count and his wife to continue collecting the usufruct, reinforced the commitment of the annual tithe to Rome, and confirmed the concession made by the pope on the liberty of abbatial elections. That a secular diploma iterating the 863 privilege was deemed necessary raises some important questions on the contemporary impact of papal power in this region. It would be going too far to assert that the king’s immunity carried more de facto authority than the pope’s, simply by virtue of his geopolitical location. It is more convincing to suggest that the diplomatic and administrative customs of Frankish kings, who had long exercised the right to granting such immunities over monasteries in their realm, necessitated some form of customary assent. That is not to suggest that the conditions of freedom and protection granted to Vezelay under Nicholas I were conditional on the king’s approval; rather, they reflect the coexistence of ecclesiastical and secular ideals for peace and security in the Frankish kingdom during this era, an outcome precipitated by exemptions in which both the pope and the king played a protective role. In this sense, the case ofVezelay reveals a harmonious political arrangement, whose spe¬ cial privileges served all concerned parties - the monks/nuns, the pope, the Count of Roussilon, and the Frankish king. While the laity and the

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Church were by no means diametrically opposed, the working relation¬ ship between Frankish kings, count, popes, and this French monastery nevertheless reveals a cooperative character that was essential to pre¬ serving existing ecclesiastical structures. The papacy was comparatively more active in its commitment to this monastery. So much so, in fact, that its exemptions for Vezelay can be read as effective political instruments used to strengthen the centralised authority of Rome. Papal privileges were confirmed to: Abbot Odo by Popes John VIII (878), Stephen VI (897), and Sergius III (908); Abbot Aymon by John XI (933); Abbot Guy by Marinus II (943); Abbot Eldrad by Benedict VI (973), Benedict VII (975 or 976), and John XV (986); Abbot Robert by Sylvester II (1001); Abbot Geoffrey by Leo IX (1050); Abbot Berno by Gregory VII (1076); the clergy, knights, and lay people of France (October 1103), Abbot Renaud (1116), Count William II of Nevers (1117), Archbishop Daimbert of Sens, bishops Hugh of Nevers, Stephen of Autun, Josserand of Langres, and Hugh II of Auxerre (1117) by Paschal II; and many others.94 Together, twenty-six privileges over more than two centuries are representative of an emerging papal ecclesiology in the tenth-twelfth centuries. ‘The result - and to some extent also the cause - of these circumstances’, according to Scott and Ward, ‘was the realization that, preserved in the muniments was, so to speak, a cast iron archival guarantee of the abbey’s right to untrammelled enjoyment of the autonomy envisioned by the Gregorian reformers’.95 Such a dependency on Rome was perhaps always bound to cause con¬ troversy. Similar to the mid-eleventh-century example of Corbie cited above, the true value ofVezelay’s privileges is revealed in times of dis¬ pute with the local bishop. For decades, the monastery’s arrangement with Rome was seemingly peaceful and secure; the bishops of Autun confirmed and upheld Vezelay’s exemption privileges without any hint of dissension or jurisdictional fear. Bishop Gerard (968-76), to cite one example, maintained amicable relations with this monastery, as evidenced by the privilege granted to Vezelay by Benedict VI in November 973.96 Tensions arose, however, with the arrival of Cluniac reform in the early eleventh century. In 1027, according to William of Volpiano, Bishop Helmoin of Autun (1025-55) was ‘roused’ to anger after Count Landric of Nevers (c. 991-1028) assisted in restoring the monks and abbot of Vezelay after they were driven out.97 As a consequence of these actions, the bishop threatened to take away the dependent monastery of Mesvres, to place an interdict on all the altars in his diocese, and even to stir up hostility among bishops, clerics, and laymen. Referring to the apostolic privileges ‘which

104

Freedom and protection

their predecessors provided for the liberty of that place’, however, the monks did not submit to the bishop’s pressure. With the historic weight of papal and Frankish grants of immunity and protection dating to the early 860s, the monks atVezelay possessed little reason to fear external threats.98 Such was the power of secular and papal protection, whose origins and authority date to the mid-ninth-century pontificate of Nicholas I. This ‘emancipation movement’99 - to borrow Leon Levillain’s expres¬ sion - continued to gain momentum under Nicholas’s successors. During his five-year pontificate, Hadrian II (867-72) granted privileges to the monasteries of Corbie, Montierarmey, Santa Maria in Bagno, and Saint-Gilles. The impact of these ‘special relationships’, however - espe¬ cially as they relate to the theme of protection - can be seen more clearly under his successor, Pope John VIII (872-82), who confirmed exemption on the monasteries of Saint-Vaast d’Arras, Saint-Medard at Soissons, Tournus, Autun, Flavigny, Charlieu, Piacenza, Saint-Gilles, Poitiers, Fleury, Montieramey, Pothieres, Charroux, Saint-Gery at Cambrai, Vezelay, Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, Saint-Marcel-les-Chalon-sur-Saone, Placentino, Nonantola, and Monte Cassino. Not going so far as to credit John with creating the Privilegienrecht model, Hirsch neverthe¬ less acknowledged the pope’s role in bringing the practice into the main¬ stream.100 Indeed, the expressions surrounding papal protection form a distinct part of John’s charter vocabulary. Most importantly, their promise to various French monasteries becomes part of the petitio formula under which his privileges are regularly granted. In this way, John’s contribution to the growth of monastic exemption was both important and significant. The constitutive element of protection (tuitio) in his exemption charters served to bolster the papacy’s position in granting and restricting specific right and freedoms within the ecclesiastical structure. For many French monasteries, the prospect of exemption was all the more accessible with John VIII’s physical presence in their lands.101 The instability of the Frankish Empire - and the resulting insecurity of the apostolic see in the wake of Charles the Bald’s death in 877 - prompted the pope’s voyage to Provence in 878-9, as he fled the supporters of King Carloman.l02They4w»«/.f of Saint-Bertin documents parts of this journey, relating that John first trav¬ elled by sea to Arles, arriving on the holy day of Pentecost.103 At Troyes he held a ‘general synod with the bishops of the Gallic and Belgic provinces’, to confirm the excommunication of counts Lambert and Adalbert.1(14 It was at this location, before moving on to Chalon and across the Mont Cenis pass, where Pope John issued some of his more influential exemption privileges

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to French monasteries.10' In September 878, for example, he issued a bull to the monks of Montieramey, in the county of Troyes, granting them freedom from the payment of tithes. ‘At the time we celebrated a synod at Troyes for the affairs of all the churches of God,’John noted, ‘we recognised your rev¬ erence for God and ordained by apostolic authority that no bishop and no public minister or his agent should ever exact tithes from this monastery or from any of its estates.’106 Giles Constable has shown how decisive the period was in the development of tithe grants, ‘which saw not only the beginning of the series of royal grants to monasteries of the right to use their tithes for their portae and guest-houses but also the first undoubted papal priv¬ ilege prohibiting the exaction of tithes from a monastery’.107 Indeed, this is exactly the condition stipulated in the privilege for Montieramey, which forbade the exaction of tithes with the one notable exception that 20 denarii be paid annually to the apostolic see in Rome.108 The charter for Montieramey is revealing for more than financial reasons. It is here that the language of papal protection is first introduced to this monastery. The pope mentions that he had been asked ‘so that the aforesaid monastery would remain under our apostolic protection’.109 In the same year (878), moreover, the monastery of Charlieu (diocese of Macon) - founded c. 860 by the bishops of Valence (Ratbert, c. 859-79 and his brother Eduard) - was similarly placed ‘under the protection of our see’ (sub eiusdem nostre sedis tuitione) (JE 3175).110 At the joint request of Abbot Gausmer of Charlieu and the bishop, Pope John VIII declared that no king, priest, count, or other lesser person should interfere in the monastery’s spiritual or temporal matters.111 But significantly, as an earlier ruling from the synod of Ponthion (876) made clear, the monks of Charlieu were not completely independent from the bishop’s rule: according to this petition, he maintained the power of disposition over the abbot and the monks, delivering protection and solicitude, so that the monastery would achieve its desired effect.112 The offer of papal protection did not implicitly guarantee a monastery’s complete separation from episcopal oversight. This realisation reminds us of Eugen Ewig’s kleine Freiheit/grosse Freiheit tradition (see chapter 1), which strongly suggests that the subject of exemption cannot be considered exclusively in terms of emancipation from episcopal control. Yet the con¬ temporary meaning and value of protection cannot be easily dismissed either. The inclusion of protection clauses in the exemption charters for Montieramey and Charlieu in 878, among other examples from John VIII’s pontificate, reflects an untold story of monastic intention, fuelled by an underlying desire for change and autonomy. Although the formulaic

106

Freedom and protection

charter evidence is never so revealing, the possibility of papal intervention and the monastery’s subsequent benefit is entirely realistic and pragmatic. Given the upward trend in monastic privileges that contain protection clauses during the second half of the ninth century, it is hard to imagine otherwise. Two further examples will suffice to demonstrate John VIII’s role in the rise of papal protection. The cartulary for the monastery of SaintSalvator at Charroux (Liber de constitutions, institutione et consecratione Karrofensis coenobii) contains privileges dating to its private foundation under Charlemagne and Count Roger of Limoges (sometime before 800), in addition to numerous confirmations of these secular privileges issued by his successors in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.113 The papacy’s relationship with this monastery is first recorded in a (false?) privilege attributed to Pope Leo III, which served to confirm the rights and liberties accorded to this monastery by Charlemagne.114 It is, how¬ ever, the authentic papal privileges in the cartulary that explain the pre¬ cise nature of Charroux’s relationship with the apostolic see in Rome. The first among these, the privilege granted by John VIII in 878 (JE 3187), represents a marked shift from the promise of Frankish to papal protec¬ tion.115 Affirming the purity of ordination and consecration, the election of abbots, and the integrity of the Benedictine Rule - without undue inter¬ ference from any king, bishop, count, or other lesser figures - John VIII outlined Charroux’s independence in matters of episcopal visitation, the celebration of public masses only upon invitation, and the importance of preserving the overall peace and security of the abbey, ultimately declaring it ‘under apostolic protection’ {sub apostolica deffensione).116 Subsequent papal privileges for Charroux quickly adopted these expressions of monastic freedom and protection, as confirmations of the apostolic pre¬ cedent established by John VIII for conserving the general well-being of this religious house. Whereas the eleventh-century popes Leo IX and Nicholas II were more explicit in naming the exact properties and churches included in their privileges, Urban II applied more forceful language in his description of papal obligations. He extended the ‘hand of protection’ {manum protectionism, an expression meaning the ‘charge and protection of the apostolic see’ {tutelam et protectionem apostolice sedis), before elabor¬ ating even further on the properties included in this privilege.117 The monastery of Saint-Gilles (near Nimes, on the right bank of the Rhone river) is more informative. Its rich history reveals a matrix of imaginative memory, legend, and conflict. To be sure, exemption privileges played an important role in shaping this monastery’s identity and liberty,

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which was largely defined in opposition to the bishops of Nimes and with the increasing support of the apostolic see in Rome. A twelfth-century manuscript (Paris BN Lat. 11018) - otherwise known as the Bullaire de Vabbaye de Saint-Gilles - attests to the nature, complexity, and develop¬ ment of this relationship. Significantly, while the road to Saint-Gilles’s protection was a rather organic development, it was seemingly initiated by the pope in Rome. Indeed, John VIII had become increasingly concerned that the bishops of Nimes were posing a threat to the liberty of SaintGilles, a condition reached in part through the neglect of Rome but also with the cunning of the episcopate. That the bishops of Nimes possessed the monastery was a right previously confirmed by the Frankish king, Louis the Pious, in 814, in a royal preceptum addressed directly to Bishop Chrisdanus (c. 814-60).1,8 Seeking to confirm his see’s authority over Saint-Gilles almost half a century later, Bishop Girbertus of Nimes (875— 97) had approached Pope Nicholas I, who - we are told in a later charter granted him these rights.m Interestingly, we are presented here with a case where a pope’s privilege was deemed to be ‘worth more than that of the king’.120 Two papal privileges for Saint-Gilles were issued in relatively short order, on 21 July and 18 August 878. As John noted in the first of these two bulls, his visit to France served to eliminate the physical distance with Rome, which surely intensified the urgency of the monastery’s case.121 Acting in person, the pope sought to correct his predecessor’s decisions, which prompted him to invalidate Nicholas’s privilege and tackle the alleged usurpation of the monastery’s rights by the bishops of Nimes. To achieve his desired outcome, both of John’s bulls seek to justify SaintGilles’s freedom from episcopal intervention, drawing heavily on its foun¬ dation story in so doing. The discovery and presentation of the monastery’s foundation charter from the papal archives ostensibly resonated with the pope.122 It is this ‘legendary act’ - this monastic traditio - that Pope John invoked in both privileges for Saint-Gilles. By summoning this undated charter, it was the pope himself ‘who brandished the legendary traditio in the face of the bishops of Nimes ... in order to underline his own rights over the abbey, not the liberties it thus possessed’.123 By accepting the protection of the apostolic see, the monks of SaintGilles managed to free themselves from the bishops of Nimes. But as scholars have been quick to point out, John VIII’s privileges did not lib¬ erate this monastery completely.124 It had indeed become a papal monas¬ tery (monasterium apostolice sedis), but the question of its possession was reorientated towards another ecclesiastical lord.125 The pope had instructed

108

Freedom and protection

Abbot Leo of Saint-Gilles and Archdeacon Amelius of Uzes (later bishop of the same see) ‘to rule and protect and make prosper’.126 To help ensure this outcome, John entrusted the monastery’s care to Duke Deusdedit of Ravenna - his advocatusni - who received Saint-Gilles from the hands of the bishop of Nimes.128 (The count of Toulouse was also forbidden from receiving any financial gain.)129 According to John’s immediate successor, moreover, Pope Marinus I (882-4), Amelius was similarly charged to ‘hold’ (ad tenendum), ‘govern’ (ad gubernandum), and ‘rule’ (ad regendum) the monastery.130 His successor, Hadrian III, likewise confirmed this status on the archdeacon ‘as the local papal agent controlling the abbey, as did Stephen V in both his letters’.131 The practical limitations of John VIII’s 878 privilege for Saint-Gilles become clearer with time. Unfortunately for the monks, the pope’s ruling did not dissuade the bishops of Nimes from continuing to assert their rights over the monastery. In the following year (879), Bishop Girbertus of Nimes invaded the monastery ‘against the sacred rules’ (contra sacras regulas) and ‘against the privilege of the apostolic see’ (contra privilegium apostolicae sedis), and expelled the monks.132 We know of his actions from John VIII’s letter to the archbishops of Arles, Narbonne, and Aix (14 June 879), imploring them to summon a council, but also from Pope Hadrian Ill’s later epistle to the archbishop of Narbonne, Sigebode (dated 884/5), which iterated Amelius’ role ‘for protecting and defending’ (ad protegendum et ad defendendum)}33 Both epistles threatened excommunica¬ tion on Girbertus, reminding those charged with cleaning up the mess that the monastery ‘belonged’134 to Saint Peter’s authority and was ‘beneath our and the apostle Peter’s dominion [ditione] and lordship [potestate]\U5 (It was John’s intervention in the property rights of Saint-Gilles that led to this ‘apostrophising’ of the abbey as monasterium nostrum.)136 A similar warning was issued by Pope Stephen VI (885-91), calling on the arch¬ bishop, count, and viscount of Narbonne for their assistance, which plea points to the protracted nature of this dispute in the diocese of Nimes.137 Ultimately, as this episode demonstrates, the theoretical power of exemption privileges relied fundamentally on obedience to Rome and the practical and local enforcement of monastic rights. Precisely because the archdeacon of Uzes was appointed as papal intermediary to Saint-Gilles, the papacy’s involvement - in a purely logistical and practical sense was removed from everyday matters of internal governance. Indeed, the monks’ obligation to pay an annual census to the apostolic see presents one of the monastery’s more tangible connections with Rome.138 The import¬ ance of this responsibility, given to Amelius under John VIII, helps explain

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the anger later expressed by popes Stephen VI and Sergius III, because the archdeacon was clearly not fulfilling his financial obligations.130 In this sense, the privileges granted to Saint-Gilles in the ninth century are far more practical than previously imagined. They focused fundamen¬ tally on monastic peace and security. They give witness to the creation of a papal monastery in southern France, whose very existence challenged the limits of episcopal interference. But they did not yet operate as a ‘banner of sweeping liberty from domination - lay or ecclesiastical’.140 This develop¬ ment owes more to their later preservation in Paris BN Lat. 11018, which collection of privileges depicts a progressive story of Saint-Gilles’s liberty, evoking also a direct connection to the monks’ legitimate rights of consecra¬ tion and ordination, as well as the disciplinary right of excommunication.141 The true potential of papal protection was realised in the second half of the ninth century. A mould was cast in this transformative era for future papal privileges, whose composition regularly included formulas of papal tuitio. As we have seen, the normative character of this institution was shaped by a combination of papal protection, proprietary rights, and - in some cases - payment of the annual census. Given the subtle and formu¬ laic character of exemption charters, however, it is difficult to label ninthcentury popes as conscientious ‘innovators’. On the contrary, the formulaic charter evidence overwhelmingly suggests that figures like Benedict III, Nicholas I, Hadrian II, and John VIII followed a rigid pattern and pre¬ cedent in conducting their ecclesiastical business. Indeed, much of what they achieved in this portfolio came as confirmation of their predecessors’ decisions. For this reason alone, they can be too easily overlooked in their accomplishments. In the wider scheme of things, the ensuing offer of papal protection only strengthened Rome’s moral and legal authority, which played an important role in shaping the papal-hierocratic theme for the rest of the Middle Ages. Though formulaic, the charter evidence is nevertheless extremely telling. The promise of papal tuitio populated exemption charters from the 850s onwards. From popes Marinus (882-4) to Formosus (891-6), the monasteries of Solignac (JL 3388), Montier-en-Der (JL 3398 and JL 3474), Gigny (JL 3499), and Blesne (JL 5572) all acquired papal privileges of protection.142 By this stage, the traditio Romana was well and truly shaped by a familiar and consistent language and rhetoric, which charac¬ teristically placed monastic houses under the defensio/tuitio/protectio of the apostles Peter and Paul. The tenth century, by comparison, is more difficult to assess, especially because much of the evidence for this period

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Freedom and protection

represents confirmations of earlier papal decisions, with multiple char¬ ters being granted for the monasteries of Corbie, Vezelay, Fleury, Fulda, Monte Cassino, and Subiaco. But once again, earlier developments paved the way for more ambitious claims to monastic autonomy. As we will see for the cases of Fleury and Saint-Martin at Tours in the late tenth cen¬ tury, the ninth-century privileges of Nicholas I and John VIII (878),143 in addition to forgeries attributed to Gregory IV and Benedict VII,144 were summoned as established authority for later rulings against episcopal encroachment. The frequency with which the promise of papal protection appears from the time of Benedict III gives a more nuanced perspective to the grandiose claims of Cluny in September 909, where it was written that ‘[although there are many monasteries beyond the mountains which have been nobly and religiously founded to the honour of Almighty God and of the holy apostles St Peter and St Paul, there is one in those parts of the world that belongs to St Peter and to this church by an especial right as its own peculiar possession - I mean Cluny, which, from the very first, was given over to the honour and protection of the Apostolic See’.145 With the pope involved as a central player in monastic exemption, a monastery’s prime protectorate was fundamentally transformed, guaran¬ teed, and legitimised. The canonical legitimacy and inherent force of this exchange process, as the following chapter examines in further detail, was critical to its overall meaning, power, and contemporary use.

Notes 1 For studies supporting this notion, see Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” 4; Blumenstock, Der pdpstliche Schutz; Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 36ff; Lohrmann, Kirchengut in nordlichen Frankreich, 58; Appelt, “Die Anfange,” 101-11; Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte,” 363-423; Schreiber, Kurie und Kloster; Otto Lerche, “Die Privilegierung der deutschen Kirche durch Papsturkunden bis auf Gregor VII: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des papstlichen Formelwesens,” Archiv fur Urkundenforschung 3 (1911): 125-232; Victor Saxer, “Le status juridique de Vezelay des origines a la fin du Xlle siecle,” Revue de droit canonique 6 (1956): 227. 2 Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” esp. 20. See also Stengel, Die Immunitdt in Deutschland, 368ff.; Hirsch, Die Kloster immunitdt, 390; Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 286; Lohrmann, Kirchengut in nordlichen Frankreich, 59. For its potential influence on mid-eleventh-century practices, see Santifaller, “Die Verwendung des Liber diurnus,” 243; Pitz, Papstreskript, 303, 31 Off. 3 Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte,” 387.

Traditio Romana

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4 Cowdrey, The Cluniacs, 12. 5 Consider the examples of Saint-Hilaire-de-Carcassonne (814/15), Saint-Peter in Ghent (815), Saint-Wandrille (815), Montolieu (815), Saint-Maur-des-Fosses (816), Cornelimiinster (817), Belle Celle (819), Conques (819), Montier-enDer (827), Sainte-Colombe-les-Sens (833), and Saint-Gallen (854). Semmler, “Traditio und Konigsschutz,” 12-13; Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” 5ff. 6 Anton, Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien, 141. The examples of Rebais (637) (MGH DD Mer. 1, no. 49, pp. 126—8; Pardessus II, no. 302, p. 75), London and Chertsey (678-81) (Catularium Saxonicum, I, nos. 55 (London) and 56 (Chertsey), pp. 88-91), Saint-Gilles (685), Malmesbury (701), and Farfa (705) (MGH AA 15, no. 4. pp. 513-14, JL 2140 and 2144; Italia Pontijiaa 2, p. 57; Schwarz, “Jurisdicio und Condicio,” 84), to cite a few monasteries previously examined, present possible antecedents to the language and intention of pro¬ tection employed in later centuries. In 790, moreover, the founder of the mon¬ astery of Saint James and Saint Philip at Lucca ‘laid down that it should enjoy papal protection, in return for furnishing oil to the annual value often shillings for a lamp at St. Peter’s, to burn over the confessio of the apostle’ (Cowdrey, The Cluniacs, 12, n. 1). See also L. A. Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae medii aevi, 6 vols. (Milan: Ex typographia Societatis palatinae in regia curia, 1738), III, /

cols. 561-2. See also Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 38-40. 7 Alain Boureau, “Privilege in Medieval Societies from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Centuries, or: How the Exception Proves the Rule,” in The Medieval World, eds. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (London; New York: Routledge, 2001), 623. 8 Ibid., 625. 9 Szaivert, “Die Entstehung und Entwicklung,” 296. 10 Blumenstock, Der pdpstliche Schutz, 30; August Hiifner, Das Rechtsinstitut der klosterlichen Exemtion in der abendldndischen Kirche: in seiner Entwicklung bet den mdnnlichen Orden bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Mainz: Kircheim, 1907), 18. See also Semmler, “Traditio und Konigsschutz,” 8-16. 11 Levillain, Examen critique, 143-87; Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” 7-11. For literature, see Laurent-Henri Cottineau, Repertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieures, 3 vols. (Macon: Protat, 1935), 1.868-70. 12 Pardessus II, no. 345, p. 127. See also Levillain, Examen critique, no. 4, pp. 220-6; Falkenstein, La papaute et les abbayes Jranfaises, 100; Krusch, “Die Urkunden von Corbie,” 368-9; Ewig, “Das Privileg des Bischofs Berthefrid,” 62-114; Karl Voigt, “Zu den Privilegien Benedikts III. und Nikolaus’ I. fur Corbie,” Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 35 (1914): 142-8. 13 Levillain, Examen critique, nos. 2-3, 9-16, 18, 23-7, 30-1, 34-7.

Freedom and protection

112 14 MGH Cone. 3, pp. 144-9.

15 Levillain, Examen critique, nos. 6 (pp. 229-30), 28 (pp. 257-65), 29 (pp. 266-77), 32 (pp. 282-8), and 38 (pp. 299-301). See also Zimmermann, no. 17, pp. 29-31. 16 Ibid., 183 and 210. 17 Alan G. Zola, “Radbertus’s Monastic Voice: Ideas about Monasticism at Ninth-Century Corbie” (PhD Diss., Loyola University Chicago, 2008), 224; Clovis Brunei, Bulle sur papyrus de Benoit III pour I'abbaye de Corbie 855 (Amiens: Yvert etTellier, 1912). 18 Levillain, Examen critique, no. 29, p. 268; Hartmann, Die Synoden, 217-18. 19 Levillain, Examen critique, no. 29, p. 270. 20 Ibid., p. 267. For a comparison of both charters, see Zola, “Radbertus’s Monastic Voice,” 226-8. 21 JL 4212; cf.JL 4496. 22 Laurent Morelle, “Moines de Corbie sous influence sandionysienne? Les preparatifs corbeins du synode romain de 1065,” in L'Eglise de France et la papaute (Xe-XIIIe siecle), ed. Rolf Grosse (Bonn: Bouvier, 1993), 201. 23 Pope Leo IX, PL 143:641-2. 24 PL 143:642. 25 Levillain, Examen critique, 210. 26 Ibid., 184. 27 He opens his bull with the oft-cited passage from the Gospel of Matthew 16:18-19; 10:40; 1 Corinthians 6; Regula Benedicti, cc. 62, 65, and c. 62. 28 Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum,

50; Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur

Geschichte,” 373. /

29 Leon Levillain, “Etudes sur I’abbaye de Saint-Denis a 1’epoque merovingienne,” Bibliotheque de I'Ecole des chartes 87 (1926): 342; Rolf Grosse, “Friihe Papsturkunden und Exemtion des Klosters Saint-Denis (7.-12. Jh.),” in Hundert Jahre Papsturkundenforschung, ed. Rudolf Hiestand (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht, 2003), 180, n. 64. 30 Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” 29. 31 LP, no. 107.4. 32 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 88, p. 481 (JL 2796); Pitz, Papstreskript, 320. 33 Frederick A. Norwood, “The Political Pretensions of Pope Nicholas I,” Church History 15 (1946): 282. 34 Hans-Werner Goetz, “Auctoritas et Dilectio: zum papstlichen Selbstverstiindnis im spaten 9. Jahrhundert,” in Gedenkreden auf Ludwig Buisson (1918-1992) (Hamburg: Universitat Hamburg, 1993), 27-58. 35 See his bio in the LP. For one of the few comprehensive studies of his pol¬ icies, see Jane Carol Bishop, “Pope Nicholas I and the First Age of Papal Independence” (PhD Diss., Columbia University, 1980).

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36 Some of the more dated studies include Jules Roy, St. Nicolas I (Paris: V. Lecoffre, 1899), Johann Richterich, Papst Nikolaus I (24 April858-13 November 867): Erne Monographic (Bern: Stampfli, 1903), Arthur Lapotre, De Anastasio Bibliotecano Sedis Apostolicae (Paris: Picard, 1885; repr. in Etudes sur la papaute au IXe siecle, eds. Girolamo Arnaldi and Andre Vauchez (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1978, 121-466), Anton Greinacher, Die Anschauungen des Papstes Nikolaus /. iiber das Verhaltnis von Staat und Kirche (Berlin and Leipzig: W. Rothschild, 1909), Ernst Perels, Papst Nikolaus I und Anastasius Bib/iothecarius (Berlin: Weidmann, 1920), Johannes Haller, Nikolaus I. und Pseudoisidor (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1936), Karl-Ulrich Betz, Hinkmar von Reims, Nikolaus /., und Pseudo-Isidor: Frankisches Landeskirchentum und Rdmischer Machtanspruch im 9. fahrhundert {Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat, 1965). 37 Ernst Perels, “Die Briefe Nikolaus’ I,” Neues Archiv 37 (1912): 43-153. 38 Detlev Jasper and Horst Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages, History of Medieval Canon Law (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 116. In purely numerical terms, Jasper noted (p. 132), ‘232 texts from his letters were included in the collections, and of these, 116 appear in Gratian’s Decretum.’ See also Bishop, “Pope Nicholas I,” 449-554. 39 On his significance, see especially Lesne, “Nicolas Ier,” 277-345. 40 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 60, p. 371. 41 Ibid., p. 392; Mansi 5:1285; Hinschius, p. 620. 42 E.g. PL 54:675-7 (JK 411); PL 20:473 (JK 286); PL 50:611 (JK 394); PL 59:28 (JK 624); PL 69:19 QK907); PL 20:676 (JK 342); PL 20:782 (JK 365); Bishop, “Pope Nicholas I,” 238-9. 43 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 159, pp. 680-3; Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Calais, ed. L. Froger (Le Mans: Pellechat, 1888), no. 25, p. 44; JE 2064; Mansi 15:346; PL 19:846. 44 See Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, nos. 109-10, 112-13; cf. Lesne, “Nicolas Ier,” 277-9. 45 Koziol, The Politics of Memory, 365-81; Bouchard, Rewriting Saints and Ancestors, 67-77. 46 For the conciliar and royal charters of Bonneuil, see Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Calais, no. 17, pp. 27-31; cf. Julien Havet, “Questions merovingiennes: IV. /

Les chartes de Saint-Calais,” Bibliotheque de I'Ecole des chartes 48 (1887): 235-9, 242-3. For the council of Pitres see Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Calais, nos. 18-19, pp. 31-3; cf. Havet, “Questions merovingiennes,” 239-41; Hartmann, Die Synoden, 250, 264. 47 Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Calais, nos. 11-16, pp. 18-26. Also in MGH DD Kar. 1, nos. 62 (pp. 90-1) and 128 (pp. 178-9); MGH DD LdF, no. 20, pp. 51-2; Recueil des actes de Charles le Chauve, 1, nos. 127-9, pp. 336-9.

Freedom and protection

114

48 Walter Goffart, The Le Mans Forgeries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), 86. 49 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 110, pp. 625f.; Walter Goffart, “The Privilege of Nicholas I for Saint-Calais: A New Theory,” Revue benedictme 71 (1961): 323. 50 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 112, p. 627; Goffart, “The Privilege of Nicholas I,” 325. 51 Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, no. 109, pp. 624f. 52 Hartmann, Die Synoden, 315-16. 53 Annales Bertiani, year 863, p. 66. 54 Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Calais, nos. 5-6, pp. 8-11. Also in MGH DD 1, nos. 140 (pp. 352-4) and 146 (pp. 367-9). 55 Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint-Calais, nos. 1 (pp. 1-5), 17-21 (pp. 27-40); cf. Pope Nicholas I, MGH Epp. 6, nos. 109-13, pp. 624-9. 56 Levillain, Examen critique, no. 32, pp. 282-8; Lemarignier, “L’exemption monastique,” 295-6. 57 Levillain, Examen critique, 286-7 (‘Decernimus ut abbas ...’). 58 Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 1, pp. 244-8. On their similarities but ultimate differences,

see

Barbara

H.

Rosenwein,

“La

question

de

Fimmunite

Clunisienne,” Bulletin de la Societe des Fouilles archeologiques et des monuments histonques de I'Yonne 12 (1995): esp. 2-4; cf. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 158 and Appendix 6 (231-4). 59 Rene Louis, De I'histoire a la legende: Girart, Comte de Vienne (819-877), et ses fondations monastiques (Auxerre: Imprimerie modern, 1946-7), 61. 60 Rosalind K. Berlow, “Spiritual Immunity at Vezelay (Ninth to Twelfth Centuries),” The Catholic Historical Review 62 (1976): 579. 61 Wood, The Proprietary Church, 837. 62 Ibid. 63 Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 1, p. 247. 64 Ibid., 248. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid., no. 2, p. 250. 67 Ibid., 252. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid, 251. 70 Ibid, 250. 71 Ibid, 254. 72 Ibid, no. 1, p. 246. 73 Ibid, no. 2, pp. 250-1. 74 Ibid, 251.

Traditio Romana

115

75 Ibid. 76 Scott and Ward, in Hugh of Poitiers, The Vezelay Chronicle, 15. 77 Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 1, p. 246; cf. the same mention in charter no. 2, p. 251. 78 Berlow, “Spiritual Immunity,” 577. 79 Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 3, p. 256. 80 Ibid., 256-7. 81 Ibid, 257. 82 Ibid, 257-8. 83 Falkenstein, La papaute et les ahhayes franfaises, 41, n. 47. 84 Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 47. 85 Lemarignier, “Structures monastiques,” 296. 86 Ibid, 235. 87 Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, rot de France, eds. Arthur Giry, Ferdinand Lot, and Georges Tessier (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1952), vol. 2, no. 309, pp. 181-4; cf. Monumenta Vizeliacensia II, no. 9, p. 20. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, vol. 2, no. 446, p. 502; Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 4, pp. 259-61. 91 Recueil des actes de Louis II le Beque, Louis III et Carloman II, rots de France (887-884), eds. Felix Grat, Jacques de Font-Reaulx, Georges Tessier, and Robert-Henri Bautier (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1978), no. 51, pp. 127-9; Monumenta Vizeliacensia II, no. 12, pp. 24-7. 92 Recueil des actes d’Eudes, rot de France (888-898), eds. Georges Tessier and Robert-Henri Bautier (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1967), no. 10, pp. 41-5; Monumenta Vizeliacensia II, no. 13, p. 28. 93 Recueil des actes de Louis IV rot de France (936-954), eds. Maurice Prou and Philippe Lauer (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1914), no. 2, pp. 3-5; Monumenta Vizeliacensia II, no. 18, p. 33. The charter mentions confirming the privileges conceded to Vezelay by Louis the Pious and Pope Leo III, though we have no record that such a privilege exists. 94 For the complete list, see Monumenta Vizeliacensia, nos. 4-28. 95 Scott and Ward, in Hugh of Poitiers, The Vezelay Chronicle, 7. 96 PL 135:1085-6; JW 2891; Saxer, “Le status juridique de Vezelay,” 237. 97 PL 141:869-72. See also Constance B. Bouchard, “Merovingian, Carolingian and Cluniac Monasticism: Reform and Renewal in Burgundy,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 41 (1990): 379. 98 By 878, the monks from Pothieres had replaced the nuns at Vezelay. See Monumenta Vizeliacensia, no. 4, pp. 259-61; Wood, The Proprietary Church, 345, n. 52.

Freedom and protection

116 99 Levillain, Examen critique, 178.

100 Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte,” 374, 388. 101 Namely Fulda (JE 3020), Saint-Vaast d’Arras (JE 3022), Saint-Medard at Soissons (JE 3033), Tournus (JE 3052-3), Flavigny (JE 3104), Fleury (JE 3182), Saint-Gery/Cambrai (JE 3188), Vezelay (JE 3189), Saint-Maurice d’Agaune

(JE

3194),

Saint-Marcel-les-Chalon-sur-Saone

(JE

3200),

Placentino (JE 3230), and Nonantola (JE 3364). 102 M. Berza, “Sur le voyage en France du pape Jean VIII (878),” Revue historique du Sud-Est europeen 18 (1941): 76; Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, “L’abbaye de Saint-Gilles et les comtes de Toulouse: l’impact des voyages pontificaux en France,” in Aspects diplomatiques des voyages pontificaux, eds. Bernard /

Barbiche and Rolf Grosse (Paris: Ecole nationale des chartes: Institut historique allemand, 2009), 98. 103 Anna/es Bertintam, year 878, p. 140; MGH Epp. 7, no. 109, p. 101 (JE 3210). See also Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 4, p. 12 (JE 3179); Dorothee Arnold, Johannes VIII: Pdpstliche Herrschaft in den karolingischen Teilreichen am Etide des 9. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: Lang, 2005), 111. 104 See MGH Epp. 7, no. 87, pp. 82-3. Cf. nos. 88-9, pp. 83-6; Arnold, Johannes VIII, 142-5. 105 Annales Bertiniani, year 878, p. 144. 106 Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Montieramey, ed. Charles Lalore, Collections des principaux cartulaire du diocese de Troyes 8 (Paris-Troyes: Thorin, 1890), no. 7, p. 9; JE 3185; H. d’Arbois de Junbainville, “Bulle inedite due pape Jean VIII en faveur de I’abbaye de Montieramey,” Bibliotheque de /’Ecole des chartes 15 (1854): 280-3; Arnold, Johannes VIII, 136-7. 107 Giles Constable, Monastic Tithes: From Their Origins to the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 218. See also Stengel, Die Immumtdt in Deutschland, 563. 108 Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Montieramey, no. 7, pp. 9-10. 109 Ibid., 9; d’Arbois de Junbainville, “Bulle inedite due pape Jean VIII,” 282. /

110 For the text see Etienne Fournial, “Documents inedits des IXe, Xe, Xle et XHe siecles relatifs a l’histoire de Charlieu,” in Actes des journees d'etudes d'histoire et d'archeologie Charlieu (Charlieu: Societe des amis des arts de Charlieu, 1973), 107-8; Bouchard, “Merovingian, Carolingian,” 372, n. 26; Arnold, Johannes VIIf 137-8. 111 Fournial, “Documents inedits des IXe, Xe, Xle et XHe siecles,” 107. 112 Mansi 17:316. 113 Chartes de documents pour servir a I'histoire de I'abbaye de Charroux, ed. D. P. de Monsabert, Archives historiques du Poitou 39 (Poitiers: Societe fran£aise d’imprimerie et de librairie, 1910), 1-25,45ff.; cf. Hirsch, “Untersuchungen zur

Traditio Romana

117

Geschichte,” 381-9; Francois Eygun, “L’abbaye de Charroux: les grandes lignes de son histoire et de ses constructions,” Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de VOuest et des musees de Poitiers 10 (1969): 11-21; Georges Chapeau, “Fondation de I’abbaye de Charroux: etude sur les textes,” Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de rOuest et des musees de Poitiers 7 (1925): 471— 508; Arnold, Johannes VIII, 137. 114 Chartes de documents pour servir a l'histoire de V abb aye de Charroux, 65-7; Liber Pontijicalis, II, p. 116. 115 Chartes de documents pour servir a l'histoire de I'abbaye de Charroux, 68. 116 Ibid., 68-9. 117 Ibid., esp. 79-81. 118 Histoire generale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pieces justijicatives, eds. Claude Devic and J.-J. Vaissete, 16 vols. (Toulouse: E. Privat, 1872-92), 2.93-4, no. 30; Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 3, p. 6; MGH DD LdF, no. 37, pp. 96-8. See also Ulrich Winzer, S. Gilles: Studien zum Rechtsstatus und Beziehungsnetz einer Abtei im Spiegel ihrer Memonaluberlieferung (Munich: W. Fink, 1988), 34-6. 119 Bullaire de I'abbaye de Saint-Gilles, ed. M. L’Abbe Goiffon (Nimes: P. Jouve, 1882), no. 3, p. 6. 120 Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 222, n. 21. 121 Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 3, p. 6. 122 Ibid., no. 4, p. 12. See Winzer, S'. Gilles, 42-3; Dietrich Lohrmann, Das Register Papst Johannes' VIII. (872-882): Neue Studien zur Abschrift Reg Vat. I, zum verlorenen Originalregister und zum Diktat der Briefe (Tubingen: M. Niemeyer, 1968), 261. 123 Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 223. 124 Ibid., 224; Rosenwein, Negotiating Space, 158; Winzer, S. Gilles, 45. 125 Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 4, p. 15. 126 Ibid., p. 14. 127 Ibid., no. 3, p. 6. 128 Ibid., no. 4, p. 13. 129 Ibid. 130 Ibid., no. 5, p. 17; Paris BN Lat. 11018, f.l2v. 131 Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 224; Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 2 (pp. 4-5), 6-7 (pp. 18-19). 132 MGH Epp. 7, no. 197, p. 158. 133 Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 2, p. 5. 134 MGH Epp. 7, no. 197, p. 158. 135 Bullaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 2, pp. 4-5; Paris BN Lat. 11018, f.l2v-13v. 136 Winzer, S. Gilles, 45. MGH Epp. 7, no. 197, p. 158.

Freedom and protection

118 137 BuUaire de Saint-Gilles, nos. 6-7, pp. 18-19. 138 E.g. ibid., no. 6 (p. 18), no. 8 (pp. 20-1).

139 BuUaire de Saint-Gilles, nos. 6 (p. 18) and 8 (pp. 20-1). 140 Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, 226. 141 E.g. BuUaire de Saint-Gilles, no. 16, pp. 33-4; no. 29, pp. 47-8. 142 Marinus granted Solignac its privileges ‘ut prefatum coenobium sub defensione ac tuitione beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac nostra statueremus ... quatenus quieti act tuti esse per futura tempora valeatis’ (JL 3388); for Montier-en-Der: ‘omnesque facultates abbatie posite sunt sub inviolabili apostolici privilegii tuitione et defensione’ (JL 3398) and ‘et amodo volumus eos securos et quietos permanere, apostolica protectione tutos atque munitos’ (JL 3474); for Blesle (diocese of Clermont, est. 886/6), ‘sub iure et protectione sedis apostolicae suscipimus, quemadmodum a praedecessoribus nostris constat esse susceptum’ (JL 5572); cf. Boshof, “Traditio Romana,” /

50ff. (esp. 59-61); Fabre, Etude sur le Liber censuum, 53. 143 Papstregesten, no. 756; MGH Dipl. II, no. 298; Recueil des chartes de Vabbaye de S at nt-Benoit-sur-Loire, no. 29. 144 Recueil des chartes de Vabbaye de Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, no. 18, pp. 39-43. Mostert, “Die Urkundenfalschungen,” 300ff. 145 BuUarium sacri ordinis Cluniacensis, ed. P. Simon (Lyon: Antonium Jullieron, 1680), 21-2; English translation in Cowdrey, The Cluniacs, xx.

4

Making concessions

he law of monastic exemption is seldom viewed through an early X medieval lens. Its meaning is rather enveloped by a more systematic treatment of papal privileges, immunity, inviolability, power, primacy, and jurisdiction in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This historiograph¬ ical legacy exists in part because the law on early medieval exemptions, ‘which had such an incisive effect on the ecclesiastical structure of medi¬ aeval Europe’, was ‘almost silent’.1 As a consequence, its early history is often studied too closely through a modern lens. Stating a point too seldom conceded by other historians, David Knowles reminded us that the ‘movement towards canonical exemption in the twelfth century had its roots deep in the past’.2 Too many students ‘have treated the whole question of exemption as if it were a sudden attempt to repel authority, whereas it was in fact the last and most articulate stage in that evolution of privileged rights and jurisdictions, civil and ecclesiastical, which had gone on for centuries in north-western Europe’.3 As he concluded: ‘to treat the growth of exemption as a phenomenon of the twelfth century, caused by a desire to escape disciplinary control, is to misunderstand the whole nature of the connections that existed between monasteries and Rome during the early Middle Ages’.4 This book is dedicated to understanding the ‘whole nature’ of monastic exemption privileges. The present chapter anchors its practice more firmly to the early Middle Ages, defining its character and growth in a period com¬ paratively lacking in legal expression and rhetoric. We want to know how it operated, how it was defined, and what it meant to contemporaries. In what ways did its early practice shape later canon law? What were the precedents which framed later legal developments? In answering these questions, we must build on the common understanding, and never forget the simple fact, that exemption privileges ‘were frequent in practice and expansive in

120

Freedom and protection

conception during the years when the canon law was being formulated’.5 To advance our understanding further, therefore, the technical form of exemption must be stripped down to its constitutive elements. This meth¬ odological approach offers a richer understanding of monastic exemption in the early Middle Ages, in turn revealing its inherent value to the papacy in making concessions to the law over many subsequent centuries. For medieval monasteries and their monks, papal privileges were more than just sophisticated legal formulations, principles, or systems; they were tangible, practical rights and exceptions to the canon law that per¬ mitted various and often immediate measures of freedom and protection. Acquiring a privilege from Rome represented the achievement of a pol¬ itical process whose historical context is seldom captured in the law or legal commentaries of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries - the very period in which they were being defined. Situating the law of papal privileges in any meaningful context always requires a closer look at the reasons impelling their issuance. More specifically, it demands some consider¬ ation of the privilege’s meaning, value, use, and effectiveness in the local and supranational political environment. As the first half of this chapter demonstrates, exemption privileges were instrumental political weapons in the formulation of debates on monastic autonomy and protection that characterised the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. They were increasingly utilised and efficient vehicles for delivering exemption to ecclesiastical provinces in France. As a consequence of their heightened frequency, they became embedded in the legal tradition and culture of the High Middle Ages, as useful precedents sought out, consolidated, and compiled by influential canonical figures. There are few greater case studies to exemplify this subject than the monastery of Fleury under its most influential abbot, Abbo (998-1004) the ‘canoniste celebre’6 whom Jean-Fran^ois Lemarignier credited with starting an entire monastic exemption movement.7 His abbacy was characterised by fierce opposition to the episcopate and diocesan cus¬ toms - a persistence to defend the rights and privileges of his monas¬ tery and monks in general, which resulted in defining monastic-episcopal relations for centuries. Representing a vigorous defence of monastic lib¬ erties against episcopal encroachment - a ‘partisan’8 of immunity and exemption according to the French legal historians Gabriel Le Bras and Paul Fournier - the abbot of Fleury assembled a dossier of legal texts (papal decretals, conciliar canons, patristic sources) to define royal and abbatial powers. In this endeavour the pope, too, became a special partner

Making concessions

121

in protecting the monks of Fleury from local diocesan powers, effectively supplanting the relationship established with Frankish rulers since the monastery’s foundation in 651. Through the instrument of exemption, monasteries became part of Rome’s administration. The mutual benefits of this relationship are apparent in Abbo’s Collectio canonum, compiled between 994 and 996 and dedicated to Hugh Capet and his son Robert the Pious. The preface to this work offers some indication of its intended purpose: Tor the defence of the monastic estate’, he wrote, T have collected much, I, who always desired - and still desire - that the senate of the monks, whose defenders and advocates you, most pious, are as well, be safe’.9 From this collection and a number of personal letters we can begin to understand Abbo’s indirect relationship to the history and law of privileges, and his desire to limit the canonical force of diocesan bishops. A series of disputes, which epitomise his desire for monastic autonomy from episcopal oversight, provide the necessary political context. The monastery’s imperative to acquire exemption privileges from Rome comes to light at the council of Saint-Basle atVerzy (June 991), years before Abbo accomplished this task, which gathered under the episcopate of northern France to try, condemn, and convict Archbishop Arnulf of Reims for an alleged act of treachery against the Capetian king.10 Arnulf had likely betrayed Hugh Capet by turning over the city of Reims to Charles of Lorraine in 989, an action according to the king and his northern French bishops - that carried serious consequences. One witness to this council, Gerbert of Aurillac, tells us that it was summoned by royal decree.11 According to the contem¬ porary chronicler Richer of Saint-Remi, moreover, Abbo was ‘the most prominent of his [the bishop’s] defenders’.12 The abbot’s diocesan bishop, Arnulf of Orleans, represented the prosecution. The crux of this dispute concerned the inviolability and interpret¬ ation of the sacred canon law. The main points of contention for Abbo and Rome concerned the right of ecclesiastical jurisdiction: that is, who had the authority to depose Arnulf from the see of Reims: the king and his bishops or the pope alone. There was a practical and local dimension to this argument: if new papal decretals could not supersede existing laws, then monastic exemption privileges would never be recognised and/or dutifully obeyed by the episcopate. Furthermore, as Gerbert’s account of the council relates, the defence team mounted procedural arguments about the absence of proper legal notification, the failure to present the case to Rome, and the process of judgement itself.13 In Richer’s words, moreover, Abbo and his team sought - among other objectives - that ‘the

122

Freedom and protection

pope should be apprised of the proceedings’ and that ‘all of his [Arnulf’s] actions should be examined and judged at a general synod under the authority of the bishop of Rome’. ‘This’, according to the assembled bishops at Saint-Basle, ‘was the proper way to proceed according to both divine and human laws’.14 The fundamental challenge to papal authority is likely why Abbo became involved in the first place. Ideologically, the pope’s ability to intervene in matters of local/regional dispute was being questioned; any weakening of Rome’s position carried direct and profound consequences for the effective power of monastic exemption privileges. In other words, the quarrel was not immediately personal and localised. Rather, the council of Saint-Basle challenged the pope’s right to contravene ancient canon¬ ical decrees, revealing as a result a strong anti-papal sentiment among the northern French episcopate that risked undermining not only the political currency of exemption privileges, but also the fundamental basis of their authority as deriving from Rome. The matter was not easily resolved. The resilience exemplified among the French episcopate extended to the synod of Chelles in 993 where, having been reprimanded for Arnulf of Reims’s deposition and Gerbert’s subsequent elevation to the see, the assembled bishops of Gaul met to dis¬ cuss the ‘various criticisms’ levelled against them by the new pope, John XV (985-96).15 However, the gathering of ecclesiastics served only to bol¬ ster the authority of the French Church, concluding on legal and proced¬ ural terms in support of their initial actions at Saint-Basle. In his record for this meeting, Richer of Saint-Remi noted how the entire congregation ‘ordained that if the pope propounded anything that was contrary to the decrees of the fathers, it would be considered null and void, in accordance with the saying of the Apostle: “Completely avoid the man who is a her¬ etic and dissents from the Church’”16 (Titus 3:10). On the authority of the regional meeting he further concluded, ‘according to the text of the canon: “Let no one presume to undermine what has been established by a provincial synod” ’17 - a statement that ‘simply meant opposing to pontif¬ ical privileges the principle of the Council of Chalcedon [451] that monks should be subject to their diocesan bishops’.18 This confrontation pivoted on the question of a bishop’s right to inter¬ vene in monastic affairs. According to his contemporary biographer (or hagiographer), Aimoinus of Fleury, whose account is not without bias,19 Abbo was actively compiling a legal defence against his diocesan bishop of Orleans, whose injustices required him to have these means readily at hand.20 He was not shy of opportunities during his abbacy to use this

Making concessions

123

material. Indeed, shortly after Chelles, a council gathered at Saint-Denis (993/4) which saw Abbo once again defending the privileges of monks against their local bishops.21 As Aimoinus tells us, ‘when they [the bishops] ought to have conversed on the purity of faith, the correction of their depraved behaviour and that of their subjects, as the popular proverb says, they turned all their talk to church tithes which they [were] attempting to take away from the laity and the monks serving God’.22 An ensuing riot, led by laymen and monks, dispersed the gathered bishops in all directions; yet blame ultimately fell on both sides of the quarrel. While the French kings seemingly took the monks’ side, Archbishop Gerbert of Reims and the other bishops excommunicated the monks of Saint-Denis for their actions, while Abbo bore the brunt of their anger.23 But in the end, the bishops’ actions put Gerbert in an uncomfortable position, primarily because the preservation of tithes (lay and monastic) was of great interest to the French kings. The monastery’s geographic location, being so close to the Capetian power base in Paris, undoubtedly played some role as well. As a consequence, the archbishop of Reims was ‘urged to celebrate the divine services before these condemned persons and not to act contrary to the privileges granted by the Roman Church to the monastery of SaintDenis’ - a direct reference to the papal privileges granted to that monas¬ tery in 757. ‘To these [royal] orders’, as Gerbert himself wrote, ‘we answer that we will assent to privileges promulgated under the authority of the canons, and we will not accept as law whatever be decreed contrary to ecclesiastical laws.’24 A monastery’s insecurities are readily exposed in such disputes with episcopal authorities. Whereas the law strongly endorsed the bishops’ oversight over monastic communities, with traditional reference to the canons of Chalcedon (451), Arles (455), and Carthage (525), exemptions provided an immediate and potentially powerful solution for the monks. Seeking stronger legal backing for his own monastery, Abbo sought to reconfirm Fleury’s exemption privileges, first issued at Rome under popes John VIII in 878 and Leo VII in 938.25 The abbot set about acquiring these from Rome methodically, ‘step by step’.26 Whereas the former docu¬ ment confirmed privileges granted to the monastery under emperors Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the latter grant provided freedom from local rule, freedom of abbatial election, and an inalienable right over their lands and possessions. Historically, Fleury was well accustomed to receiving such favours, both papal and royal, which by the late tenth cen¬ tury had become ‘a standard means of reaffirming the monastery’s place in society and ensuring institutional support for a monastery’s rights’.27

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Freedom and protection

Abbo’s first visit to Rome (in 994), however, proved unsuccessful in renewing these privileges for his monastery. As Abbo himself noted, ‘I came, on bended knee, to the magnificent chambers of the prince of the apostles; but I found - alas, o woe - the Roman Church widowed of a worthy shepherd.’28 Aimoinus tells us that Pope John XV refused to grant privileges to Fleury without a suitable bribe.29 Travelling for a second time to Rome, and onward to the pope’s exiled base in Spoleto, in 996 for the same purpose, Abbo was more successful in acquiring privileges from a young Pope Gregory V (996-9).30 These were granted as a special favour from the new pope, who provided autonomous spiritual and adminis¬ trative governance to the monks of Fleury by declaring the abbot primus inter abbates Galliae (‘first among the abbots of Gaul’) - recognition, it is thought, for the monastery’s unique possession of the relics of Saint Benedict. Among the most contentious privileges granted to Fleury in this charter concerned the jurisdictional limitations imposed on the dio¬ cesan bishop of Orleans, who - it was declared - could only participate in the religious community upon invitation. Abbo thus petitioned the pope for a privilege that restricted the bishop from entering the cloister or participating in the liturgical celebrations.31 As an added measure, more¬ over, the privilege afforded the abbot protection against any accusations, which - if they ever arose - were to be handled by a provincial synod or by direct appeal to the apostolic see in Rome. Abbo’s political manoeuvring was paramount to securing these exemp¬ tion privileges. The abbot’s precalculated measures on behalf of his mon¬ astery contributed to reaching his desired objective. To back up his claim, it is thought that he carried with him a forged charter purported to be from Pope Gregory IV (827-44), which comprised formulae from the authentic privileges granted to Fleury by popes John VIII (878) and Leo VII (938).32 But significantly, the forgery also contained privileges that were found lacking in the originals, which explains in part the justification for its fabrication in the first place. As mentioned above, these privileges granted freedom from outside interference, freedom in abbatial elections, and confirmation of the monastery’s possessions - common privileges that can be found in many other exemption charters. The distinguishing and unique provisions, however, concerned the administering of Fleury’s possessions and the offer of papal protection. Together, these characteristics ranked the abbot of Fleury as first among the abbots of Gaul, in addition to offering him the right to be judged by a provincial council or by Rome directly.33 This particular privilege did not embody any formulae from the Liber diurnus or convey ‘complete

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exemption in the twelfth-century sense’, but it ‘effectively met Abbo’s desire to break the coercive power of the bishop of Orleans over his mon¬ astery’.34 Furthermore, the granting of this special charter forged a new partnership; one might also argue that a dangerous precedent accom¬ panied it, one which impacted the legal development of exemptions more generally. As an invented product of charged political status and purpose, it benefited the monks of Fleury in the short term while also serving to broaden papal authority in France. Gregory V was no unwitting supporter of monastic exemption, though it has been argued that ‘he was not at all conscious of doing something unusual or even revolutionary’.35 It was his concern ‘to uphold already established procedure and tradition’.36 At the beginning of his pon¬ tificate the pope granted protection to the monastery of Saint Peter in Brugnato (diocese of Genoa), which is interpreted as active resistance to Bishop Gottfried of Luni, who had tried to subordinate the monastery’s possessions. In this case the pope cited the authority and precedent of his predecessors, popes John XIII (965-72) and Benedict VII (874—83). One month prior to issuing the privileges to Fleury, moreover, the pope granted similar privileges of immunity to the monastery of Saint-Martin at Tours in September 996, thereby assuring its autonomy from epis¬ copal interference with the complementary protection of the apostolic see.37 Here again, Gregory considered his contribution as building on established authority of previous popes, namely Adeodatus II (672-6) and Nicholas I (858-67).38 The culmination of Gregory’s efforts to free mon¬ asteries from secular control is most famously characterised, however, by the pope’s exemption privilege for the monastery of Cluny in 998, which provided ‘the decisive step towards emancipation of the monastics from the authority of the bishops’.39 As Teta Moehs has argued, ‘by removing monasteries via exemption from episcopal control and placing them under its own protection, the papacy could thereafter develop a vast corps of monks which would be directly tied to it, and could presumably be counted on to loyally support any pontifical action’.40 Furthermore, ‘the Roman Church could use this method of exemption as another effective means of control, particularly in cases where the bishops in a given area, as in France, opposed and defied papal overlordship’.41 The political value of Fleury’s privilege survived Abbo’s death, when the monastery once again became embroiled in a dispute with its dio¬ cesan bishop.42 Ignoring the privileges conceded to the monastery by Pope Gregory V in 996, Bishop Fulk of Orleans entered the cloister without the abbot’s invitation, thereby provoking a furore that draws some comparison

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to the earlier case of Saint-Denis. Ousted from the monastery by Abbot Gauzlin, the prelate appealed directly to the archbishop of Sens. To address the issue, a provincial synod assembled at Sens in 1008, though the out¬ come ultimately worked in the bishop’s favour: upon presenting Fleury’s privilege as a measure of defence, Gauzlin was excommunicated by the gathered ecclesiastics. The original papal privilege issued by Gregory V was not only ignored but it was also snatched from the abbot’s hands by his opponents, who threatened to have it burned. The only recourse to this action was to appeal directly to the pope in Rome - a right enumerated in the original privilege granted under Abbo’s reign. According to Fulbert of Chartes, whose letter to the abbot of Fleury provides his own view on the subject, the bishop’s actions with respect to the monastery were entirely justified: sicut decet. Furthermore, he could find no law (legem) or manner of reasoning (modem ratiocinationis) that would permit the monks of Fleury to be removed from the bishop’s yoke of subjection (a jugo subjectionis).43 Referring to the Roman/papal authority on which the privilege was founded, Fulbert considered it a ‘new rhetoric’ that had not descended from heaven but rather fallen from it.44 His meaning becomes clearer from a subsequent letter to the bishop of Orleans, in which he encouraged the prelate to show forgiveness if the abbot acknowledged his guilt. If, on the other hand, Gauzlin persisted in his pride and refused to acknowledge his canonical subjection (subjectio canonica) to the bishop of Orleans, the consequences were impossible to fathom.45 The stakes in this dispute had taken on new legal proportions. The direct challenge to Fleury’s autonomy not only undermined the rights and freedoms conceded in the papal privilege, but in so doing it posed a fundamental challenge to Roman authority and the pope’s ability to pro¬ tect the monastery. For these reasons, both ideological and practical, the papacy intervened. From the papacy’s perspective, the insubordination of regional French bishops and an apathetic secular ruler formed the pivotal problem. Having already dispatched a trusted legate to attend the council of Sens in 1008 (Bishop Peter of Piperno), at which the abbot of Fleury was initially excommunicated, Pope John XVIII (1003-9) was now deeply invested in the outcome of the monastery’s local dispute with its bishop. Unlike his predecessor, this pope was well aware of the situation’s gravity and its potential impact on his ability to govern western Christendom. Exemption privileges for Fruttuaria and Saint-Benigne (1006) at Dijon clearly dem¬ onstrate his customary interest and practice in granting monastic freedom and protection.46 The monastic appeal to Rome for assistance did not go

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unanswered; John issued a letter to King Robert of the Pious in which he explained how the bishops’ decision represented nothing short of a usurpation of Roman authority, demanding that he send Fulk, Gauzlin, and Archbishop Lietry of Sens to Rome on pain of anathema.47 While the outcome to this dispute is unknown, it is nevertheless clear that Rome’s authority in French ecclesiastical matters was being vigorously tested. The monks employed the strategy of appeal, which in theory reinforced the abbey’s independence from local diocesan control. Papal intervention in diocesan affairs became a pervasive theme in this period. The rights and freedoms afforded to monasteries played an important part in establishing this political orientation. A similar dis¬ pute highlighting episcopal-monastic tensions arose over monastery at Beaulieu-les-Loches (built between 1005 and 1008), whose basilica Count Fulk Nerra of Anjou sought to have consecrated against the wishes of Archbishop Hugh of Tours. The near-contemporary chronicler Rodulfus Glaber treated the whole affair as a lesson in the canonical rights of bishops within their own dioceses.48 Based on a privilege granted to the monastery by Pope John XVIII (1007), however, Beaulieu’s relationship with Rome included the characteristic promise of Saints Peter and Paul’s tuitio and defensio, effectively limiting episcopal powers while freeing the monas¬ tery from the dominatio of any secular or ecclesiastical ruler. Furthermore, Pope John declared special protection for this monastery ‘under [our] jur¬ isdiction and protection’ {sub jure et defensione) against anyone who defied the privilege’s authority, with particular mention given to the episcopacy.49 The pretext surrounding the monastery’s exemption is significant in defining the very nature of apostolic protection. Count Fulk of Anjou’s journey to Rome formed part of his wider political strategy against the rival house of Blois. Following his assassination of the royal favourite Hugh of Beauvais, Fulk departed on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (1009-11) - thus avoiding charges of lese majeste and murder - before seeking absolution from Pope Sergius IV (1009-12). Glaber tells us that in Rome he explained to the pope ‘the reason for his journey, demanded his own way, and offered rich presents’.50 A surviving papal bull (dated 1012) mentions the arch¬ bishop of Tours’s initial opposition to the consecration. It elaborates further on the reasons for rejecting Hugh’s arguments, his eventual agreement to the terms, finally declaring that the cardinal legate, Bishop Peter of Piperno, would be dispatched {nostra vice) to Beaulieu in order to consecrate the church in line with the duke’s wishes.’1 Episcopal opposition to this level of papal intervention informs Glaber’s Historiae. The archbishop’s right of consecration was the issue

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at stake, a jurisdictional prerogative acknowledged in Sergius’ bull and one reportedly given due consideration through a formal hearing of lay and ecclesiastical authorities in Rome.52 Citing the bishop of Porto, who was charged with representing the archbishop of Tours, the hull defended the right of consecration with reference to the canonical statues and laws of Justinian.53 Yet the pope ultimately decided in the count of Anjou’s favour, which, according to Glaber’s account, fuelled anger among French ecclesiastics. ‘All were equally hostile,’ he wrote, ‘because it was shameful that he who ruled the Apostolic See was breaking the original apostolic intention and the tenor of the canons, especially when it is an old and well-founded rule that no bishop may presume to exercise any authority in the diocese of another unless he is asked, or at least permitted, to do so by its own bishop.’54 Elaborating on the extent of Rome’s authority, Glaber further noted that ‘[although the pontiff of the Roman church, because of the dignity of the apostolic see, is honoured more than any other bishop, he is not permitted to transgress the canon law in any way. For each bishop in the orthodox church is bridegroom of his own see and equally embodies the Saviour, and so none should interfere insolently in the diocese of another bishopric.’55 Confirming the decisions of his first papal bull, Sergius issued a second bull intended to counter any mounting or lingering episcopal opposition. By extending the privileges of protection over the servientes (servants), adjutores (helpers), and amici (friends), and threatening excommunication on anyone who challenged his authority, the pope was delivering a clear message about his see’s responsibility and duty of care.56 This particular case illustrates how Rome’s initiative - under excellent political and spir¬ itual pretexts - positioned the papacy more firmly in local affairs and the long-term politics of France. It also highlights the calculated political force of monastic exemption privileges in this period, especially where apostolic protection was among the commodities on offer. This rhetoric of papal power runs parallel to the developing law of exemption privileges - well before the canonists began formulating the subject in their collections and commentaries. It provided a necessary prerequisite to determining their contemporary purpose and political value. While the archbishop of Tours’s appeal to canon law is certainly interesting to note, especially as a construct intended to limit papal inter¬ ference in another diocese, its intended force pales in comparison to the authority cited by the likes of Pope Sylvester II (999-1003). In a letter to the abbess of the monastery of Saints Peter and Servatus the Confessor of Quedlinburg, to cite one example, he noted that ‘because the rights

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and the unavoidable obligations of divine laws require that whatever may legitimately and reasonably be requested from our apostolic benevolence, be denied to no one, we deem it proper that if we have discovered in the privileges of our predecessors or in other sacred ecclesiastical documents, statements and facts worth preserving, we should reaffirm these if requested, by reiterating the evidence of their permanence’.57 Significantly, according to this account, the pope considered it his uni¬ versal right to interfere. In this particular case, however, he was never¬ theless ‘persuaded by the pious intercession of the most glorious august emperor of the Romans, Otto III, and by the sacred petitions of his illus¬ trious sister, Lady Adelaide’, to get involved. But as the pope argued: we have the power to take the initiative with all such liberality as this within the bosom of the Mother Church lest we should offer any objection to one making requests by the force of apostolic authority, we have partially renewed the privilege in its own words according to the copies of our predecessors and have added to it, ratifying this in order the this same place of Quedlinburg may manage its own affairs to include the abbess, the handmaidens of Christ and servants of the holy order, and those serving God and the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, and Saint Servatus ...S8

Furthermore, making this monastery ‘subject only to the Highest See, that of Rome, and to its apostolic occupant, namely the universal pope, and immune from the yoke of obedience to anyone else, and flourishing under perpetual freedom’, Sylvester was assisting it to ‘grow by God’s favour’.59 In practice, this offer of protection and immunity translated to limiting episcopal rights of visitation, which the pope established beyond all doubt as a right belonging only to the Roman pontiff. The bishop was permitted only to celebrate the mass upon invitation from the abbess, whose ‘apostolic dominion’ granted her the freedom to choose a trusted agent to perform the requisite liturgical services of the Roman order. Exemption privileges of this sort demanded recognition of Rome’s authority. As such, they embodied three elements that Lemarignier iden¬ tified as ‘the tie of temporal subjection, spiritual exemption, and Roman primacy’.6(1 Yet the political situation in France on the eve of the first millen¬ nium seemed poised to keep monasteries firmly within the organisational framework of diocesan bishops, whose challenges to papal interference were themselves individual markers of episcopal independence. As the above-mentioned cases illustrate, however, Abbo of Fleury’s conviction to protect monks inspired him to prepare an arsenal of legislative evidence

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against any such further attacks. The rights of monasteries against their diocesan bishops was well represented in his Co/lectio canonum and his letters. Together, these contemporary sources offer some mature ideas on papal primacy that help explain the developing law of papal privileges. On the critical issue of papal power, for example, Abbo sought to ensure that the authority of the Roman and apostolic see shines over the universal church of the whole world with the favour of Christ our Lord. And no wonder, when the pontiffs of the same see are seen to fill the place of Saint Peter, who is the prince of the whole church. From the Christian emperors they have also obtained this same singular excellence that, episcopal churches or monasteries of men or nuns having been founded, they would never lose the law which they [the popes] once imposed on them under the anathema of excommunication, unless necessity intervened.61

Necessity often did intervene. As noted elsewhere in his collection: The ecclesiastical rules which the Greeks call ‘canons’ are invented by the holy Fathers for this purpose, that we would walk on the path of justice without any digression from the truth ... However, not each invention follows necessity in such a way that it would be impossible to develop in any other way from what someone has found ... Accordingly, one has to consider the site of countries, the quality of the times, the weakness of man, and other necessities of matter, which habitually change the rules of the various provinces. By lawful power much has also been changed on behalf of the general expediency of the churches, which no believer would censure ... For even papal decretals, which have such authority that the opinions of many men look for the judgement of the Roman pontiff, are subject to the same considerations. Always the scales are tipped in such [canons] in favour of utility and honesty and against the seductive lures of pleasure which holy men flee ...62

The basis of such authority (auctoritas) clearly derived from the written law, both Roman and divine. For Abbo, it consisted of the power (potestas), hierarchy, and order inherent in the ecclesiastical institution, which was responsible for defining the relationship between the monk and his bishop. In a letter addressed to Pope Gregory V, he wrote: ‘Now, the Roman church in its excellence over all churches has this privilege that, as she holds the principate of the apostolic head as key-bearer of the heavenly kingdom, the Roman Church likewise bestows authority to virtually all her limbs, which are dispersed over the four corners of the whole earth.’63

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No one, Abbo stated, should contravene the Roman Church, for as Gregory the Great wrote to Bishop John of Squillace (598): ‘It is certain that it is extremely serious and contrary to a priests’ way of life to abolish the privileges of any monastery, bestowed on it long before and to strive to reduce to nothing what has been set aside for quietness.’64 Here the authority of Rome is connected directly to its ability to grant privileges to various churches and monasteries throughout Christendom. Citing Pseudo-Isidore (Pope Gregory IV) in another letter, Abbo elaborated on this concept by stating that: It is not lawful to anyone to have the intention or the possibility to trans¬ gress either the precepts of the apostolic see or the ministry of their dispos¬ ition, because it is proper that all should follow charity. Let therefore anyone who would go against the apostolic decretals be overthrown by the suffering of his ruin, nor afterwards have his place among the priests; but let him be banished from his ministry, so that thenceforth no one has to beware of his judgement, because already he is damned by the sacred and apostolic church and its authority, and no one would be able to doubt of his in obedience and presumption. One has to demand the degradation fitting to major excommuni¬ cation from him, to whom the discipline of the holy church was entrusted, not only because he did have to obey the orders of the holy church aforesaid, but also because he had to teach others not to disregard them. Let him, who did not want to comply with the apostolic precepts, be a stranger to the divine and pontifical offers.65

Legitimising the pope’s authority was essential to bolstering monastic claims of autonomous governance. Ancient authority and apostolic pre¬ cedent were integral to any defence of monastic rights and privileges of exemption. Few sources were more authoritative in this respect than the letters of Gregory the Great.66 In a lengthy letter addressed to ‘G’ (Abbot Gauzbert of Saint Julian ofTours?), Abbo addressed his concerns with monastic-episcopal relations by citing at length from this pope’s letters to bishops Marinianus of Ravenna (8.17), John of Ravenna (5.1), John of Orvieto (1.12), Castor of Rimini (5.49), and Abbot Luminosus of Saints Thomas and Andrew of Rimini (5.47).67 The abbot’s letter could itself be considered as a mini-canonical collection in its own right, a dossier whose canonical authority was drawn from an available collection at Fleury compiled in the second half of the ninth century (Ms lat. 2278).68 Abbo also cites from Gregory’s letter (written March 598) to Boniface, the first defender of the Church, which introduces the

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Freedom and protection

‘honour of provincial control’ as a privilege afforded by the generosity of pontiffs.69 Introduced in the context of ecclesiastical priority, whose authority derived ultimately from Rome, Abbo emphasised the idea that ‘these decrees of our [i.e. the papacy’s] constitution’, which were set down by privileges, ‘should be preserved with perpetual stability and without any opposition’.70 Citing Gregory’s letter directly, the abbot added that ‘this applies to what we have decreed in writing, or what seems to have been arranged about them in our presence, and we decree that they should not be annulled or changed by any bishop, in whole or in part, for any reason at all’.7' He backs up this centralised ruling by citing another Gregorian letter to the bishop of Carthage (2.40), in which the pope laid bare his position on ecclesiastical privileges: ‘For just as we defend our own rights, even so we preserve its own rights for each individual church. And I do not bestow on anyone with the favour of grace more than he deserves, nor with the stimulus of vanity shall I take away from anyone what is rightfully his.’72 The partitioning of rights, duties, and obligations belonged to the pope’s domain, as the sole figure deemed responsible and authoritative enough to dictate on matters of regular discipline and correction.73 The vicissitudes of ecclesiastical life and governance breathed new life into exemption privileges. According to Cowdrey, ‘the rights which, in close association with the Papacy, Abbo had won for his monastery in defiance of the bishops, now opened the way in France towards a kind of monastic exemption, which unambiguously looked forward to twelfthcentury norms’.74 Lemarignier classified these developments into two decisive stages: scriptural and institutional. For the former, Abbo cited directly from sixth-century Gregorian letters and decretals which were later incorporated into select canonical collections in defence of monas¬ teries, their monks, and specific liberties. The latter consideration was ‘la mise au point du privilege d’exemption totale’.75 That is, the acquisition of exemption privileges was fast becoming recognised as the direct line of resistance against an oppressive episcopate. Not every abbot and mon¬ astery was seeking them for this explicit purpose, but we can certainly recognise their changing character and legal potency as political weapons in matters of local and regional dispute. Indeed, Abbo formulated some of the main canonical principles and defences for monastic rights and liber¬ ties, whose precedents came to prominence over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is worth examining this later reception before returning in the next chapter to the ecclesiastical and political climate from which these legal ideas originated.

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A systematic and complete law of exemption privileges took centuries to develop. This achievement can be attributed first and foremost to the work of medieval canonists in the High Middle Ages. Master Gratian of Bologna’s role in this enterprise was pivotal, setting forth principles in the mid-twelfth century that informed the practice well past the con¬ ciliar movement of the sixteenth. Causa 25 of his Decretum (compiled c. 1140) is devoted entirely to the subject of privileges {privilegia), where he presents two interrelated cases based on the Roman Church having granted privileges to a baptismal church and privileges to a monastic house respectively. The questions arising from this legal discussion concerned whether papal privileges could override the ancient canons, and whether a subsequent privilege could supersede a prior issuance. The inherent meaning and use of privileges lay at the heart of this debate, whose understanding relied implicitly on contemporary notions of papal power, inviolability, and primacy. In other words, Gratian explained exemptions from the law by emphasising the papacy’s unique and centralised role in issuing them. His ability to do so, however, represents the culmination of an evolutionary process - a theoretical flashpoint that stands somewhat at odds with the institutional practice, precedent, and spirit of exemption in the early Middle Ages. Sacredness of the canons provided the bedrock for this later medi¬ eval interpretation. There was no greater, more ancient, and unchanging authority in the Christian tradition. According to the Decretum, ‘privileges of churches, institutes of holy canons, and fixed decrees from the vener¬ able [council of] Nicaea, should never be wrongly overthrown or changed anew’.76 The historical precedents of popes Gelasius, Leo I, Hilary, Urban, Zosimus, Marcelinus, Pelagius, Adrian, Damasus, Gregory I, and Leo IV were cited to show the papacy’s role in upholding the canons while punishing their violators (C.25 q. 1 cc. 1-13). Indeed, Gratian presented the Roman Church as the source/creator of the law, citing the New Testament to illustrate the pope’s voluntary obedience to it, even as somebody who was in theory above it. Astonishing the people with his doctrine, Jesus had taught the scribes and the Pharisees ‘as one having authority’ (Matt. 7:29). According to the glossa ordinaria, this legal precedent (as captured in the twelfth century) came from the Roman law. The sixth-century Codex of Emperor Justinian decreed that ‘although the jurisprudence of the empire exempts the sovereign [i.e. emperor] from complying with the ordinary legal formalities, still, no duty is so incumbent upon him as to live in obedience to the laws’ (Codex, 6.23.3). According to the Digest, moreover, ‘the emperor is free from the operation of the law, and though the empress

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Freedom and protection

is undoubtedly subject to it, still, the emperors generally confer upon her the same privileges which they themselves enjoy’ (Digest, 1.3.31). This secular ruler, very much like the pope’s role in issuing special exemption privileges, has the force of law; since by a Royal ordinance which was passed concerning his sovereignty, the people conferred upon him all their own authority and power. Therefore, everything which the emperor decrees by a letter over his signature, whether he decided after examining it or did so without judicial consideration or ordered it by means of an edict, has the force of law; and these are what we generally designate constitutions. Among the latter there are some which are special, and are not to be employed as precedents; for whatever the emperor has granted to anyone as a reward of merit, or where he inflicts a penalty, or relieves a person in an unusual way, this does not extend beyond the party in question.77

The authority and prestige of Rome was central to the argument of ‘vol¬ untary obedience’. To ecclesiastics and secular rulers alike, ancient canons were incontestably sacred; the power to change them resided with the pope alone (C.25 q. 1 c.6). While any such action against the prophets or apostles was considered an error, and the pope’s role was ‘to preserve the rule of true faith and to deviate in no single wise from the constitutions of the Fathers’ (C.25 q.l c.9), the granting of privileges nevertheless provided the necessary legal justification for exemptions to the law. That is, their function and value was entirely dependent on the recognised authority of the issuant. In a dictum post canon 16 (C.25 q.l), Gratian noted that ‘the holy Roman church confers right and authority on the sacred canons’. Therefore, he continued, ‘it is lawful for [the pope] to grant special privileges contrary to the general decrees and as a special favour to con¬ cede what is forbidden by general decree’.78 To avoid contradiction, the papal privilege was treated separately from the general laws represented in canons and decrees; its creation could not invalidate or nufilly ancient laws, because it provided an exception to the rule. The special status attributed to papal privileges takes its origins from this interpretation. It provided a legal basis for the recipient that derives from the issuant’s supreme and centralised (i.e. Roman) authority. Further legitimation to this effect was given in the second quaestio of Gratian’s Decretum (consisting of twenty-one canons), which stated that papal privileges were inviolate (C.25 q.2 c.l). The second canon cited a letter from Pope Leo I (dated 452) declaring that privileges granted to monasteries and churches could not be changed (C.25 q.2 c.2). Citing a

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letter from Pope Nicholas II to the church in Milan (dated 1059), more¬ over, the privilege’s function was equated with the authority on which it was founded. To this end, anyone found violating a privilege of the Roman Church was deemed heretical.79 The authority conceded to the pope with respect to the law (cf. C.25 q.l) did not permit abrogating earlier papal decrees (C.25 q.2 c.ll), as indicated above, but according to the glossa or dinar ia, ‘the privileges of churches [and presumably mon¬ asteries] are not to be understood as remaining inviolate in the sense the apostolic see cannot derogate from them. They should rather be under¬ stood as remaining inviolate in the sense that no one without the authority of the pope may contravene them.’80 As Gratian wrote, ‘the privileges of churches are to be preserved undisturbed at all times and it is forbidden to any to contravene them - except with the authority of him by whom they were granted’. With especial reference to the example and authority of popes Leo I, Gregory I, and Gelasius I, Gratian proceeded to state that only the Roman Church ‘may out of motives of piety or necessity alter either wholly or partially what she has previously conceded’.81 A glossator on the Decretum, Master Rolandus, elaborated on this principle c. 1150, stating that ‘the Roman pontiff can alter ancient privileges. On this subject it must be noted that the Roman Church ... confers right and authority on the sacred canons; that she never binds herself to them, but freely judges them and reserved to herself the right to change them.’82 This general interpretation of a privilege’s meaning was integral to its contemporary political function. In this respect, the historical use of privilegium is traceable to private law (lex privata), which borrows its defin¬ ition from late antiquity and bears some resemblance to its later treatment by canonists in the twelfth and subsequent centuries. In Cicero’s De legibus (1.3), Pro domo (17, 43), and Paradoxon (IV, 32), the Codex Theodosianus (5.3.4), and Justinian’s Corpus iuris civilis (Codex, 1.22.2-5; 3.11.2; Institutes, I, 2, 6; I, 4, 1), the privilege implies exempting a private citizen from civil law, effectively preventing them from reaping any benefits.82 The political thrust of this message was intended to challenge the exceptions enforced by the ruling or dominant political force. It then came to embody a ‘special right’ (ius speciale) and ‘prerogative’ that, during Justinian’s reign, distinguished between ‘privilege of person’ and ‘privilege of cause’. It is thanks to this development that the granting of privileges continued in practice throughout the Middle Ages. Indeed, the privilege, ‘demon¬ strating as it did the ruler’s omnipotence and beneficence, and thanks to its lofty origin, came to constitute the noblest sort of right, alongside the imperial rescript or command’.84

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Freedom and protection

This classical, Roman interpretation found its way into Gratian’s Decretum. The later collection cited Isidore of Seville’s seventh-century conception of privileges as its main example: ‘Private statutes are the laws of individuals, private laws {privates leges) as it were. It is called a “private statute” {privilegium) because it is applied in private use.’85 Contemporaneous to this description was another meaning of lex privatioy which does not take its origins from Roman law but rather first entered canonistic doctrine through the writings of Paucapalea in the late 1140s.86 Acknowledging its inheritance from private law, the twelfth-century treatise De doctrina privilegiorum (compiled in the late 1150s or 1160s) elaborated on the definition by stating that a ‘privilege is a papal or imperial sanction, by whose threat confirmed rights are kept inviolate. Privilege is derived from ‘private law’ that is special law; indeed anyone trusting in a privilege defends his person and possessions by a special law. Or, as Pope Clement testified: ‘The word “privilege” gets its name from “priva¬ tion of the laws,” namely that neither law nor edict can overturn a rightly made privilege.’87 The concept of being exempted from the ins commune (‘common law’) was embedded in this alternate definition, which first appeared in canonical discussions alongside the privileges of lex privata in the Summa Coloniensis before 1170 (and later in the Sutnma Monacensis).88 This twofold definition meant that privileges granted either exemption or freedom from the common law. Medieval canonists like Stephen of Tournai, Rolandus, Eckhard of Cremona, Huggucio of Pisa, Bernard of Pavia, Bernard of Parma, Rufinus of Bologna, and Pope Innocent IV included one or the other in their commentaries.89 Consideration of both was common by the time of Hostiensis (d. 1271), who defined privileges as ‘a special or private right (ius) allowed contrary to ordinary [law]’.90 Indeed, it is to Hostiensis’ Summa aurea (written c. 1253) that we com¬ monly and anachronistically refer for the most ‘general’ (generate) and ‘specific’ (speciale) legal categories {species) of papal exemption privileges.91 According to this sophisticated legal articulation, he contended that all privileges should be interpreted in the strictest sense, so as to limit any misunderstanding of rights and liberties. The scope and interpretation of papal privileges occupied much of the canonists’ attention. Remarking on its distinction from a confirmation, the anonymous Halberstadt (early thirteenth century) noted in his Ars dictandi (2.5.1-2) that ‘a privilege is forever’. It is, he says, ‘like a private law’. ‘Some say’, moreover, ‘that privileges are only of apostolic prelates and of kings, that testaments and confirmations are of bishops and of others. But usage says otherwise.’ Indeed, notable exceptions to the law are

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found in the Old and New Testaments, such as when the priest Ahimelech gave David holy bread (shewbread) that was meant only for the priests (1 Sam. 21:1-6; Matt. 12:3-4), or when Jesus came down from the mountain and touched a leper (Matt. 8:1-4). Biblical examples of this nature dem¬ onstrate the implicit and in-principle acceptance that special rights were permissible and not incompatible with the practice or full letter of the law. To Alberic of Monte Cassino, however, privileges were ‘grants of highest pontiffs to any church’. Furthermore, ‘the matter in privileges is of this sort: the pontiff should say that at the request of some worthy person or for some other reason he grants or confirms to some church by this or that pontifical authority’.92 As the personification of judicial supremacy and personal immunity, papal privileges captivated the Decretists’ imagination for good reason. As the twelfth-century canonist Rufinus of Bologna (d. 1191) remarked, petitions to Rome for exemptions to the law imbued the papacy with its status as a centralised spiritual and political authority.93 ‘It is certain’, as Richard Helmholz argued, ‘that by adopting an expansive theory of the right to issue privileges, canonists were asserting the pope’s right to exempt individuals and groups of individuals from their normal duty to obey the law.’94 The existence of such a practice was evoked in the last quarter of the eleventh century under Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), who in a letter to the archbishop of Reims noted that ‘certain things can be conceded in privileges with respect to a particular case, person, time and place, which, if considerations of necessity or greater utility demand it, may lawfully be changed’.95 Such rhetoric calls to mind his famous Dictatus pupae (