History
Around the year 1000, the Latin Church was grappling with changing socio-political, economic and cultural realities. The Latin Church was itself to be transformed and defined in its attempts to consolidate its hold over the different peoples of western Europe. One of the problems which the Church faced in the year 1000 was that it was often organized around competing local institutions or power structures, be they rural churches, local monasteries or private chapels. In many ways the papacy around the year 1000 was just another centre of local power in a western Europe where power emanated from many localized centres. The higher orders in the Roman Church were somewhat different than those found elsewhere in western Europe. Despite centuries of political decline, the organization of the Church in Rome had nonetheless developed an immensely elaborate liturgical life with its own peculiar grades of churches and officials.
The highest level of Jewish religious expression is the performance of the mitzvoth, the divine Commandments. This chapter relates to those Commandments that the sages define as inherently 'male'. It describes how the sages attempted to dictate to women the manner of their observance of mitzvot set aside for women alone. The chapter shows that during the Middle Ages, women found a way of their own to relate to the world of mitzvot and keep the Commandments. It also describes the performance of the mitzvot by women and the manner in which they defined and differentiated their femininity by means of the Commandments. Women's exclusion from learning implies that they would not be well versed in the language of prayer in the synagogue. The understanding developed in the consciousness of women that they were the ones who initiated the rituals of the Sabbath and sanctified the holy day.
The Conclusion reaffirms the importance of understanding the eleventh-century monastic affective piety for scholars of the Anglo-Norman world, of monasticism, of medieval devotion, and of medieval Christianity more generally. This study proves that the eleventh century was in fact a period of innovation – one that came before the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century – a time when monks were not just interested in reforming rules and customs, but also their interior, emotional selves. In this conclusion, I state that by examining the work and context of one medieval individual – John of Fécamp – scholars can move from heretofore accepted generalisations about medieval ‘affective’ spiritual practice to a more vibrant understanding of the enigmatic, lived, emotional experiences of medieval Christian monks.
This chapter shows how John’s Confessio theologica was both of a piece with traditional monastic texts and ‘new’ on the monastic scene. In his Confessio theologica, John both built on reform and devotional precedents long-established in the monastic sphere, and developed a distinctive focus on reforming his monks’ interior, emotional practices that was substantially his own. To do this, I first explore John’s sources for the Confessio theologica in this chapter. I start by tracing the age-old monastic precedents that John draws on in his Confessio theologica, precedents that scholars often cite but rarely examine. I also trace more rare sources of John’s, books that he encountered in his childhood monastery in Ravenna, under the guidance of monastic reformer Romualdus of Ravenna, or his time at Cluny or at Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, under the guidance of Odilo of Cluny and William of Volpiano. After carefully tracing his pedigree, I then highlight what is source-less in John’s Confessio theologica, showing which ideas are truly John’s own.
Scholars of the Middle Ages have long taught that highly emotional Christian
devotion, often called ‘affective piety’, originated in Europe after the twelfth
century, and was primarily practised by late medieval communities of mendicants,
lay people, and women. As the first study of affective piety in an
eleventh-century monastic context, this book revises our understanding of
affective spirituality’s origins, characteristics, and uses in medieval
Christianity.
Emotional monasticism: Affective piety at the eleventh-century
monastery of John of Fécamp traces the early monastic history of affective
devotion through the life and works of the earliest-known writer of emotional
prayers, John of Fécamp, abbot of the Norman monastery of Fécamp from 1028 to
1078. The book examines John’s major work, the Confessio theologica; John’s
early influences and educational background in Ravenna and Dijon; the
emotion-filled devotional programme of Fécamp’s liturgical, manuscript, and
intellectual culture, and its relation to the monastery’s efforts at reform; the
cultivation of affective principles in the monastery’s work beyond the
monastery’s walls; and John’s later medieval legacy at Fécamp, throughout
Normandy, and beyond. Emotional monasticism will appeal to scholars of
monasticism, of the history of emotion, and of medieval Christianity. The book
exposes the early medieval monastic roots of later medieval affective piety,
re-examines the importance of John of Fécamp’s prayers for the first time since
his work was discovered, casts a new light on the devotional life of monks in
medieval Europe before the twelfth century, and redefines how we should
understand the history of Christianity.
The Introduction presents how the traditional story of medieval ‘affective piety’ is more complicated than we have tended to allow in the historiography. I summarise this historiography, showing how it has neglected the possibility of affectivity before Anselm and in the eleventh-century male Benedictine context. I argue that by looking at Fécamp as a wellspring of eleventh-century monastic affective piety, we can better understand what its uses were, as well as its reception, in its earliest identified medieval context. I assert that attention to emotional devotion in the Benedictine context deepens our understanding of Benedictine monasticism itself, bringing into focus both the spiritual lives of monastic individuals and the interior dimensions of eleventh-century monastic reform. Emotional reform emerges as an important aspect of my picture of the period, alongside the practices of exterior, regular, or institutional reform already detailed by other scholars.
This chapter examines John’s legacy after his death, both at Fécamp and in the wider medieval spiritual landscape. The chapter first shows how John’s students and followers at Fécamp elaborated on the seeds of affective devotion that John’s Confessio theologica planted: a cult to the precious blood of Christ was established at Fécamp; John’s students Maurilius of Rouen and Gerbert of Saint-Wandrille wrote affective prayers to a crucified Christ; Guibert of Nogent, a Norman monk, wrote his own memoir in the style of Augustine’s Confessions thanks to John; and, most famously, Anselm of Bec wrote his prayers and meditations, following in the steps of the greatest Norman abbot of the generation before him. This chapter moves on to discuss how John’s Confessio theologic’s ideas changed in the hands of the Cistercians, and how they circulated in the later Middle Ages, often misattributed in manuscripts to Anselm or Bernard or Francis. This chapter concludes by making clear the parts of John’s Confessio theologica’s devotional method that served as the foundation for later medieval affective devotional practice, and the parts of John’s ideas that abandoned in later iterations of affective devotion practised by Cistercians, mendicants, mystics, and the laity.
This chapter demonstrates that John’s emotional reform priorities were not solely acted upon within the walls of the monastic community at Fécamp, but also coloured his interactions with the secular world. As the abbot of the most prominent abbey in Normandy, John regularly interacted with lay lords and dukes of Normandy and Holy Roman Empresses, among others. Using charters, letters, and chronicles, this chapter shows how John’s particular brand of piety was not restricted only to the contemplative moments he had inside the monastery, but also motivated John’s wider responsibilities as a politically, socially, and economically involved abbot. This chapter thus argues against the historiographical narrative that abbots were either spiritual recluses who resented their worldly activities or political players who relished their worldly power. Instead, this chapter shows that an abbot’s worldly activity could be part and parcel with his spiritual goals, aiming to erode our modern notion that worldly activity could not also be spiritual behaviour in medieval Europe.
This chapter examines the pervasiveness of John’s devotional method among his contemporary brethren at Fécamp. The chapter first demonstrates that the affective prescriptions contained in John's Confessio theologica were promoted and enforced by the various devotional media at Fécamp – in the library, in the liturgy, and in sermons. The chapter then explores the complex relationship between emotional reform and discipline, as such affective rhetoric seems to have played a dual role in the monastery, both emotionally connecting the monastic practitioner to his God and keeping him in line under his abbot. This chapter, therefore, unlike other studies of affective piety, shows how affectivity was not just about a devotee’s emotional empathy with the crucified Christ, but also about a monastic devotee’s Christ-like obedience. I break scholarly ground by enumerating the uses of affective piety particular to the Benedictine monastery of the eleventh century.
This chapter performs a careful reading of the entire text of John’s Confessio theologica in order to define the nature of John’s affective piety. This reading clarifies the historical record, which often only highlights selections from John’s Confessio theologica rather than systematically analyses the whole thing. The chapter details John’s affective prescriptions to his reader, and also uses manuscript evidence to show how these were particularly aimed at monastic readers in Fécamp’s network. The examination provided here will satisfy historians of emotion, who will be interested in the contours of devotional emotion in this eleventh-century context; it also provides a basis for the remaining analyses in the book.