108 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 109

down from the fathers." 47 This command, though nowhere fixed in a The norms of life embodied in the charismatic would thus find a
specific rule, did not in fact make it possible, as it had with Stephen of trans personal support that guaranteed the longevity of the community.
Thiers, for him to adopt a stance that explicitly rejected all the norms But they would also thereby be fixed to norms that were precisely
that had grown up after the gospels. Rather, it established a practice . defined and for the most part unalterable-fixed, that is, precisely to
of life grounded in the charisma of the leader. On the question of the that which polemics had long denounced as "pharisaical traditions."
legally binding norms of this way of life, his Vita reads, And in fact, Stephen soon compelled his hermits to accept the guard-
ianship of the nearby cloister of Dalon, which had been founded for
And because no one had taken on the enacted law [lex other hermits as a Benedictine abbey in 1114. They thereby learned
posita] of any kind of order, the instructions of the master how those who by virtue of their pious way of life were "veterans
[instituta magistri] were the guide, not those of any stat- of the heavenly militia" 5° could still see themselves as the purest of
ute-instructions that taught nothing more than humility, beginners in monastic life. The ironic sentiment of Ivo of Chartres
obedience, poverty, discipline, and above all abiding love. about the arrogance of hermits who already saw themselves as mas-
Such things were in that day the holy man's true and right ters here found full expression. The link to Dalon did quickly fall
teaching, which he handed down both confidentially and apart, but in 1147 Stephen of Obazine 's congregation of monasteries
openly to those who followed him. This law [hec lex] was was successfully integrated into an order that was already institution-
put in force at that time, and no one was concerned with ally established and that followed the Rule of Saint Benedict to the
pharisaical traditions [pharisaice traditiones]. 48
letter: the Cistercians, who will receive extensive treatment below.
This postscript in particular underscores with unusual precision-as
has been noted-Stephen's conscious renunciation of a literal adher- Charismatic Preaching and Religious Movements
ence to the inherited regulations of monastic life.
Here again the source of the norms guiding this way of life was the The eremitical life did not play itself out on the public stage. By
charismatic figure whom God had chosen for that purpose, and here virtue of their retreat from the world, hermits avoided life "among
too, as a consequence, everything depended on the living person of that the people" (1 Pet 2: 12) and sought seclusion. Hermits in principle
charismatic. Had Stephen decided, like Bruno of Cologne, to leave his thus provoked only those who, as their competitors with respect to
community, as he at one time considered doing, the community would form, were directly challenged by their ways-the traditional mon-
certainly have been in danger of disintegrating. A structure like this was asteries, for example, whose members had walked away and which
all the more p~lpably in danger as the community grew larger through were defended by a figure like Ivo of Chartres as visiting bishop. But
additional foundations, including those of strictly enclosed women. a completely different situation emerged when individual hermits
Contemporaries were notably aware of the problem in Obazine, and graced with a special charisma refused to remain in their remote
Stephen's Vita articulated their concern, framing it in biblical terms: places and chose instead to leave the "forest deserts" in order to
"But because :the days of mankind are short [Job 14:15] and human wander "through the land, renouncing all possessions in imitation of
learning lasts only as long as the teacher lives and is present, they re- the apostles, exhorting to penitence and peace, as well as agitating
solved to recognize one of those orders authorized in the church, so that against the sins of the clergy." 51
also after the teacher's passing the authority of the written law would A consciousness of apostolic mission had of course long been
remain behind for them, as something that would never have an end."49 seen in connection with eremitic life. Romuald (of Camaldoli) and

50
47
Aubrun, Vie de saint Etienne, 54. Aubrun, Vie de saint Etienne, 106.
51
48
Aubrun, Vie de saint Etienne, 70. Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages (Notre
49
Aubrun, Vie de saint Etienne, 96. Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 18.
110 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 111

Gunther ofNiederalteich, mentioned above, were two examples,·from they all embodied a certain kind of Christian zeal, a brief comparison
the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, respectively. In the decades of their individual careers is worthwhile.
around the tum from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, however, Bernard of Tiron53 ( 1046-1117) entered the Benedictine commu-
not only did the number of such "wandering preachers" grow con- .nity of Saint-Cyprian in Poitiers at the age of twenty and by 1076
siderably, but the quality of their apostolic engagement changed in became prior of the tradition-rich abbey of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe
fundamental ways. 52 They confronted a new, broad public that cut in Poitou. In 1096 he withdrew to a hermit colony in the forest of
across social ranks, since their times-an age of dissatisfaction with Craon and thereafter to the Chausey-Isles off the coast of Normandy.
the social order and of longing for new paths to salvation that were Four years later he returned to the aforementioned abbey to lead it
now open to every Christian (even to those who remained in the himself as abbot. After he had been unable to bring any fundamental
world)-needed charismatic figures who were able to show the way. reform to fruition there, he again became a hermit as well as a highly
These wandering preachers did just that by pointing out obstacles esteemed wandering preacher. In 1109 he received a plot of land in
to salvation as well as abuses both among the clergy and within the Tiron, west of Paris, and there, with the support of Bishop Ivo of
institutions of the church, by calling for repentance and penance, Chartres, he founded a Benedictine monastery that became the center
and sometimes even by promising to open the gates to heaven-a of a large congregation of monasteries.
promise open to all who turned from the world, who dissolved social Vitalis of Savigny (ca. 1060-1122),54 mentioned above, came from
bonds, and who turned within themselves. The eremitical ascetics had Normandy and after his consecration as a secular priest became the
already made it to heaven's gates, but they now presented their ideas chaplain of the brother of William the Conqueror, Robert of Mor-
in the public forum and proclaimed heaven as a goal every Christian tain, who gave Vitalis secure provision in the form of a prebend (a
could reach. Such a new perspective could be provocative-and for position that secured his livelihood) in the canonry of Saint-Evroul,
the most part that provocation was quite intentional. which Robert had founded. Struck by the shallowness of religious
The four most prominent personalities among these wandering life as it had come to be lived there, and seeing no model way of life
preachers were Bernard ofTiron, Vitalis of Savigny, Robert of Arbrissel, in Benedictine communities that had become too wealthy, around
and Norbert of Xanten. Their biographies all shared in common 1093 or 1095/96 Vitalis too withdrew into the forests of Craon and
one thing that was to be of great significance for their emergence became the leader of a group of hermits. He too was drawn again
in public, and they shared it with some of the more reclusive her- and again back into the world both to preach and to found eremitical
mits-Romuald, for example, Bruno of Cologne, and Stephen of communities in other regions, communities that in their tum became
Obazine. Before they renounced the world, they had already put an important centers for retreat. Vitalis's words, masterfully composed,
ecclesiastical career behind them and were priests, whether as secular moved the people because of their honesty, earnestness, and wealth
clerics or monks. Moreover, they had put an end to their restless ways of incorruptible judgment. Nor did he shy away from inserting him-
as wandering preachers, turned back to the ways of ecclesiastical self into matters of high politics, working, for example, to establish
institutions, and become founders of monasteries. Precisely because

53
On the following, see Bernard Beck, Saint Bernard de Tiron, l 'ermite, le
52
For an overview, see Johannes von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger moine et le monde (Cormeilles-le-Royal: Ed. La Mandragore, 1998).
54
Frankreichs. Studien zur Geschichte des Monchtums, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Die- 0n the following, see Jaap J. van Moolenbroek, Vitall'ermite, predicateur
trich, 1903, 1906); Grundmann, Religious Movements, 17-21. For exemplary itinerant, fondateur de l'abbaye normande de Savigny (Assen: Van Gorcum,
contexts in Italy, especially concerning John of Matera and his congregation of 1990); see also "The Life of Blessed Vitalis of Savigny," trans. Hugh Feiss, in
Pulsano, see Francesco Panarelli, Dal Gargano alla Toscana. Il monachesimo Lives of the Monastic Reformers, 2: Abbot Vitalis of Savigny, Abbot Godfrey of
riformato Iatino dei Pulsanesi (secoli XII-XIV) (Rome: Istituto storico italiano Savigny, Peter ofAvranches, Blessed Hamo, ed. and trans. Hugh Feiss et al., CS
per i1 Medio Evo, 1997). 230 (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2014), 41-94.
 112 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 113

peace in the civil war between Henry I, king of England and duke that they could live there undisturbed and in a regulated way (that is,
of Normandy, and his brother Robert Curthose. In the end Vitalis according to the Rule of Augustine and in the "manner of the early
also received a plot of land, where in 1113 he founded (becoming church"). The discussion will later return to this form of community.
sedentary, so to speak) the abbey of Savigny as a double monastery. In 1096 in Angers Robert met Pope Urban II and was allowed to
That community in tum became the center of a large congregation preach before him. Urban came to realize that the "Holy Spirit had
of twenty-five houses in France and England, and in 1147 it was personally opened Robert's mouth." 56 Insofar as the sources allow
accepted (like the congregation of Stephen of Obazine) into the Cis- reconstruction of the events, Robert received from Urban a general
tercian Order. license to preach, one not bound to any particular diocese. A pe-
The life of Robert of ArbrisseP5 (ca. 1045-1116) was undoubtedly riod of intense preaching activity followed. As Robert moved from
the most spectacular of all those hermits who took up residence in place to place, he gathered unprecedented throngs of followers, with
the forest of Craon during the last decades of the eleventh century. every social status represented among them-poor and rich, men and
Robert, son of a parish priest and himself consecrated as a priest, women, established and marginal. Women above all felt drawn to his
took up his father's position inArbrissel in Brittany in 1076 and there message, which appealed to the individual soul of every Christian
gained his first experience at preaching. Entangled in the struggles instead of one or another defined position within the social order,
over the simoniacal election of the bishop of Rennes, in 1078 he which Robert saw as all too often propped up by simoniacal and
transferred to Paris to study but was called back in 1088/89 to become morally depraved churchmen.
bishop of Rennes. In the meantime he had transformed himself from So much proximity to women and so much criticism of the clergy
a savvy player within a corrupt system into an advocate of church were bound to incite resistance. Marbod, Robert's former teacher
reform who would now combat Nicolaitism-clerical marriage or and now bishop, felt compelled to admonish him. The result was
concubinage-as well as simony in his bishopric. Yet the reactions to a notable written exchange57 in which Marbod described Robert's
his zeal compelled him after a few years to take up study again in a public appearance in dramatic terms: he showed himself clothed in
different place-this time in Angers. His teacher there was Marbod, a threadbare and tom hooded cloak, with his legs half bare, a long
later bishop of Rennes. beard, roughly cut hair across his face, and bare feet. Robert answered
In 1095 Robert finally decided to withdraw in asceticism and that his manner of appearance allowed him to win authority among
solitude, which he hoped to find in the forests of Craon. He quickly the common folk and to arouse a feeling of compassion among the
made a name for himself there, both as a zealot for austerity and educated. But Marbod strongly disagreed. He told Robert, not without
penance and as a gifted speaker and convincing charismatic. At his justification, that his clothing and appearance were not appropriate
place of resid~nce, La Roe, he founded a community for clerics, so for a priest: "The wise man will not bring public morals into disor-
der and draw the people to himself through novelties."58 He insisted
55 that Robert was misleading the common people and that the learned
On the following, see Jacques Dalarun, Robert ofArbrissel: Sex, Sin, and
Salvation in the Middle Ages (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of elite saw him as creating only the appearance of religious passion.
America Press, 2006); Jacques Dalarun, ed., Robert d'Arbrissel et la vie reli- Moreover, Marbod claimed, in his sermons Robert criticized the
gieuse dans l 'ouest de la France (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004); Jacques Dalarun et
al., eds., Les deux vies de Robert d'Arbrissel, fondateur de Fontevraud (Turnhout:
56
Brepols, 2006); Herve Oudart, Robert D 'Arbrissel ermite et predicateur (Spo- Baudri de Bourgueil, Historia magistri Roberti, in Les deux vies de Robert
leto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di studi sull'alto Medioevo, 2010). Chronology d'Arbrissel,fondateur de Fontevraud. Legendes, ecrits et temoignages. Edition
following Jean Longere, "Robert d' Arbrissel predicateur," in Robert d'Arbrissel des sources avec introductions et traductions fram;;aises (Turnhout: Brepols,
et la vie religieuse dans l 'ouest de la France. Actes du colloque international de 2006), 156.
Fontevraud a !'occasion du JX• centenaire de lafondation de l'abbaye, 13-16 57
Dalarun et al., Les deux vies, 526-57.
' decembre 2001, ed. Jacques Dalarun (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 87-104. 58
Dalarun et al., Les deux vies, 540.
114 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 115

clergy heavily before the common people, thereby drawing together of place, however, since already in 1103 and 1104, and once more
such crowds of both women and men that many priests no longer had thereafter, he went on a series of preaching tours-the last of which
communities to serve. Robert was, he declared, to return to common took him to Berry, where he died in 1116. From Fontevraud would
sense (sensus communis) 59 and to reintegrate himself into the con- .emerge a congregation of monasteries that came to enjoy the decisive
ventions of the church. support of the Plantagenet dynasty and that would boast some forty
In the year 1100 at the Council of Poitiers, assembled in the pres- settlements by the middle of the twelfth century.
ence of two legates of Pope Paschal II, Robert was exhorted in all The life of Norbert of Xanten63 ( 1080/85-1134) took sharper turns
severity to bring stability to his restless band of followers of both than those just surveyed, but it nevertheless remained within the
sexes in such a way that he could settle them in a lasting community. boundaries of what was typical for a wandering preacher. Of noble
One year later Robert founded a monastery for women and men in a descent, even as a child he held a prebend that secured him a good
glade named Fons Evraldi (Fontevraud) near Saumur, on a property income from the community of Saint Victor in Xanten on the lower
he had received as a gift from the bishop of Poitiers, Peter II. He gave Rhine. At first he reached only to the rank of sub-deacon within the
its leadership over to Hersendis, an administratively experienced church hierarchy. His political connections, however, were more
noblewoman from the house of Champagne, and placed at her side significant. Through these, by way of the archbishop of Cologne,
Petronilla of Chemille, who was by 1115 already her follower. Frederick I, Norbert won early access to the German royal court, ac-
Petronilla was more than a mere administrator. She had full power companying Henry V to Rome for his coronation as emperor in 1111.
over the women as well as the men of the monastery, and she was But then suddenly-after a lightning strike, according to the ac-
revered by both the sisters and the brothers as a "spiritual mother." 60 count of his Vita-in 1115 Norbert had a complete change of heart:
This kind of prominence for women, which allowed a level of es- the career clergyman now turned from his former way of life, left
teem for female independence foreign to the Middle Ages, rested on Saint Victor, and resolved to live a life of repentance. At first he
Robert's vision of his own life-which in Robert's own words was sought the Benedictine abbey of Siegburg (discussed above) and had
to do everything in the world for the benefit of holy women. 61 himself consecrated by the archbishop of Cologne as deacon and
In the wake of the decision to institutionalize what was now an en- priest on the same day-even though that was against the rules laid
closed way of life, Robert sought to make every provision necessary out by canon law. But a constant search for salvation drew Norbert,
to ensure the stability of his community. Somewhat later he therefore like many, away from his own kind and in rapid succession on to the
wrote for Fontevraud its own constitutions, which took the place of a next stages in his journey: first to the regular canonry of Klosterrath,
formal rule an,d which Pope Calixtus II confirmed. 62 Robert himself near Aachen, which had been founded shortly before by the hermit
obviously did hot feel bound by the command to observe stability Ailbert as a center of strict discipline, then to the hermit Liudolf,

63
59
Dalarun eta!., Les deux vies, 544. On the following, see Franz J. Felten, "Norbert von Xanten-vom Wan-
60
Jacques Dalarun, Gouverner c'est servir: Essai de democratie medievale derprediger zum Kirchenfiirsten," in Norbert von Xanten, ed. Kaspar Elm (Co-
(Paris: Alma, 2012), 156. logne: Wienand, 1984), 67-157; Stefan Weinfurter, "Norbert von Xanten als
61
Bruce L. Venarde, "Robert of Arbrissel and Women's vita religiosa. Look- Reformkanoniker und Stifter des Pra.monstratenserordens," in Elm, Norbert von
ing Back and Ahead," in Female vita religiosa between Late Antiquity and the Xanten, 159-88; Stefan Weinfurter, "Norbert von Xanten und die Entstehung
High Middle Ages: Structures, Developments and Spatial Contexts, ed. Geft des Pramonstratenserordens," in Barbarossa und die Priimonstratenser (Gop-
Melville and Anne Muller (Berlin: LIT, 2011), 329--40. pingen: Gesellschaft fur staufische Geschichte, 1989), 67-100; Franz J. Felten,
62
Jacques Dalarun, "Les plus anciens statuts de Fontevraud," in Dalarun, "Zwischen Berufung und Amt. Norbert von Xanten und seinesgleichen im ersten
Robert d'Arbrissel et la vie religieuse, 139-72; Dalarun et al., Les deux vies, Viertel des 12. Jahrhunderts," in Charisma und religiosen Gemeinschaften im
388--405. Mittelalter, ed. Giancarlo Andenna et al. (Munster: LIT, 2005), 103--49.
116 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 117

a relentless critic of negligent office holders in the church. Subse- 1145), an ascetic and a highly educated monk who roughly attacked
quently Norbert turned to harsh ascetic exercises in a hermitage he the lifestyle of the clergy in his preaching around Le Mans and later
had established near Xanten. But clothed in a garment of animal southern France, met a similar fate.
skin he also struck out on what were presumably preaching tours in . In face of the inquiry at Fritzlar, Norbert took immediate action.
Hainault and Flanders, where with great rhetorical skill he called his He gave up both his prebend and his cell in the abbey of Siegburg
audience to repentance and reform. and hurried off with two companions on a pilgrimage to southern
These activities roused suspicion. Before a synod in Fritzlar in July France--continually preaching, barefoot and in the clothing of a pen-
1118, Norbert was not only accused of preaching beyond the bound- itent, "without roof or a secure home," with "only Christ as leader,"
aries of his diocese but also explicitly charged with accusations that as one of his vitae described him. 66 In Saint-Gilles in November of
were usually cast against heretics. Why did he wear clothing made 1118, "through God's providence" 67 he met Pope Gelasius II, who
of sheep and goat skins? That was a question Robert of Arbrissel had saw the spirit of God (spiritus Dei) dwelling in him. 68 Norbert used
already faced. Another question followed: Why did Norbert pretend the occasion to have the pope both free him from the guilt of having
to live like one who had embraced religious life while still drawing received two consecrations on the same day and grant him permis-
from his prebend and remaining involved in worldly affairs? The sion to preach in every place he wished in Christendom (ubique
accusation of hypocrisy thus hung in the air, the same accusation that terrarum). 69
Ivo of Chartres had leveled against others who had fled their monas- At Easter in 1119, after many of his early companions had died,
teries. Norbert defended himself by appealing to both his duties as a Norbert found a new companion in the cleric Hugh of Posses, who
priest and-this point made visibly by the way he dressed-the model would soon play an important role in shaping Norbert's legacy. To-
of John the Baptist. But he found the most fundamental justification gether they wandered through northern France, trusting (as his vitae
for his penitential preaching in a passage from the apostle James: emphasize) that God would give them what they needed to survive.
"Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from In a way similar to the experience of the recently deceased Robert
death and cover over a multitude of sins" (Jas 5:20). of Arbrissel, great crowds of people in cities and towns flocked to
The outcome of these accusations is unknown. But they emphat- Norbert whenever he read Mass, preached penance, and taught his
ically reveal the liminal position of all of these wandering preach- listeners about the way of life of prelates and the obedience of sub-
ers-a position that, as the fate of others shows, could be most jects, the temptations of the world, heavenly life, and the happiness
dangerous for those concerned. So it was that contemporaries had of the blessed. It was unavoidable that the success of his teaching
seen a figure like Peter of Bruis 64 (d. 1139), a priest from the French inspired envy and animosity. But Norbert did not allow himself to
Alps, as having crossed a still-permeable boundary when he advanced be deterred. Rather, in keeping with the teaching of the Epistle of
the call for a purely spiritual church in the area around Embrun- James, cited above, he instead turned many from their error. And as
thereby radically renouncing nearly all of the symbolism of sacrament one of his vitae emphasizes 70-here taking a swipe at established
and ritual that sustained the institutional church. Although a synod monasteries-Norbert enjoyed much more acceptance and approval
in Reims in 1119 declared Peter a heretic, he continued to preach than any monk of his era.
until he was lynched by an enraged mob. Henry of Lausanne 65 (d.

64 66
James V. Fearns, "Peter von Bruis und die religiOse Bewegung des 12. Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1272.
67
Jahrhunderts," Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte 48 (1966): 311-35. Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1272.
65 68
Adriaan H. Bredero, Christenheit und Christentum im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1272.
69
Franz Steiner, 1998), 169-80; Monique Zerner, "L'heretique Henri dans les Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1273.
10
sources de son temps (1135-1145)," Revue Mabillon, n.s. 25 (2014): 79-134. Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1277.
118 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 119

In autumn of 1119 Norbert's life witnessed another fundamental

turn. At the bidding of Calixtus II, who was holding a synod in
Reims that was crucial for the course of the Investiture controversy,
Norbert was placed under the guardianship of the bishop of Laon,
Bartholomew. He was to arrange for Norbert to settle down, and he
secured for him at first the leadership of a canonry in Laon. Nor-
bert was ultimately able to ward off this move, however, by plac-
ing extreme demands on the inhabitants. He declared his intention
to continue to live a life guided exclusively by the Gospel and the
apostles. The canons whom he governed would be thus required to
live as imitators of Christ (imitatores Christi), to be contemptuous of
the world, naked and voluntarily poor while voluntarily embracing
hunger, thirst, and insult. Norbert's program crystalized all that his
contemporaries typically articulated whenever they sought to live
a meaningful Christian life by completely renouncing all worldly
things. The same things were said in great detail about Norbert's
contemporary Stephen of Thiers, for example, and Norbert lived
out the same ideal himself, often to the point of complete bodily
exhaustion. But among the canons who were obliged to obey him, as
two worlds of religious life clashed irreconcilably with one another,
Norbert's ways encountered heavy resistance. The project failed
before it had even begun.
Thereafter, in 1120, Bartholomew entrusted to Norbert the glade
called Premontre, east of Laon, leaving it to him as his own without
any obligation to pay tithes or other duties, so that he could erect a
double monastery there. It came together successfully as a commu-
nity of women and men, laity and clergy. Through his preaching he
was able to wih them in large numbers and then to bind them together
in spirit into one community.
Surviving evidence from this early community of Premontre-as
from the community of Stephen of Obazine-reveals a sense of com-
plete trust in Norbert's salvation-oriented, charismatic leadership. So
one source reports, for example, that whenever Norbert went out to
preach, demons always found their way into the monastery-in the
metaphorical imagination of the day, his contemporaries thus under-
stood themselves as being completely without protection from tlie
devil. By 1121, according to his Vita, Norbert had already gathered Augustine gives his Rule to Norbert of Xanten. Manuscript illumination from the
thirty new novices around himself, and he "cared for them morning twelfth century.
120 The World of Medieval Monasticism Return to the Desert 121

and night with the word of salvation and admonished them with of Obazine. 73 The new measure could seem simply boundless in its
consoling speech not to fall away from the blessed intentions and desire to be close to God, and precisely for that reason a need arose
the voluntary povetty they had taken upon themselves. And what he for radically new points of orientation.
taught he showed to them through his own example, just as the eagle . Such figures seemed to capture, as through a magnifying lens, the
teaches his young to fly." 71 His followers could thus at first trust that religious desires of so many Christians in their day. Their appearance,
what they heard from his mouth was enough to save them, so that set before the background of the established structures of the church,
they needed neither a fixed order nor a rule for their way of life. But brought about the clash of two seemingly irreconcilable interpreta-
Norbert taught them a better way, declaring the Rule of Augustine, in tions of how best to realize Christian faith. Herbert Grundmann has
the strict form of the so-called Ordo monasterii, to be binding upon characterized this apparent impasse, the result of a fundamental doubt
them. He thus emphasized, as had Stephen of Obazine, that evangeli- in the ability of the church to ensure salvation, as follows:
cal teaching could not be fulfilled over the long term without written Out of such questions and doubts arose a religious con-
order, without rules or those things established by the fathers. 72 sciousness which no longer saw the essence of Christianity
Norbert was thus able to build a congregation of monasteries that as fulfilled in the Church alone as an order of salvation
was legally tailored to him. From that congregation grew the Premon- or in the doctrine of the Church alone as its dogma and
stratensian Order, after Norbert's life took one last tum-his elevation tradition. Instead, this new consciousness sought to realize
to archbishop of Magdeburg in 1126. The Order's emergence will Christianity as a religious way of life immediately binding
be treated below. upon every individual genuine Christian, a commitment
more essential to the salvation of his soul than his position
in the hierarchical ordo of the Church or his belief in the
A Return to the Institutions of the Church doctrines of the Fathers of the Church and its theologians. 74
All of the careers sketched briefly here, both those of the reclusive
hermits and of those who had gone out preaching among people of Those who strove for this kind of "realization of Christianity" did
the world, were shaped by a restless agitation that arose from an not, for all of their retreat from the world, live their lives in hiding,
almost unquenchable desire to find still better paths to salvation. since their way of life was a message and an invitation. Moreover,
For some, forms of asceticism, of poverty and chastity, seemed ever insofar as they went on pilgrimages of preaching and were endowed
more dissatisfying. For others there was hope of finding ever more with great charisma, almost of necessity they drew together com-
suitable place~ to build community, or places to advance the message munities that shared a common spirit. But their followers need not
of the faith, calls to repentance, and critiques of established ways. always have been of the same mind as the ascetics they took to be
The measure of such things was no longer to be found automatically their models. Many wanted to retreat again from their positions of
in fixed rules, dogmatic formulas, or definitive solutions; it would leadership-so it was said, at least, of Stephen of Obazine, and Bruno
be found within-in the individual self, through expressions like "a of Cologne in fact turned away from his community. But among
burning fire" (ignis ardens), as was said, for example, of Stephen the wandering preachers too the same tendency appears after the
foundation of their communities: Robert of Arbrissel did not take
over as the leader of Fontevraud but continued on his pilgrimage of
71
Vita Norberti B, PL 170:1291. preaching. Norbert of Xanten's circumstance was similar, until at
72
Werner Bomm, "Augustinusregel, professio canonica und Pramonstratenser
im 12. Jahrhundert. Das Beispiel der Norbert-Viten Philipps von Harvengt und
Anselms von Havelberg," in Regula Sancti Augustini. Normative Grundlage
differenter Verbiinde im Mittelalter, ed. Gert Melville and Anne Muller (Paring:
73
Vie de saint Etienne d'Obazine, 58.
74 Grundmann, Religious Movements, 7-8.
Augustiner-Chorherren-Verlag, 2002), 239-94.
 The Success of the Cistercian Model 159

way of life according to the Ordo monasterii, as an alternative of the

vita canonica to the monastic tradition of the Cistercians.
In the beginning this alliance understood itself, as a whole, almost
.like an enclosed community, 5me in which Norbert took on a role al-
most like a bishop. But after his departure in 1126 to take his position
7 as archbishop of Magdeburg, the group was forced to orient itself in
fundamentally new ways. Although as archbishop Norbert continued
to look out for his followers in his old congregation, as the accounts
The Success of the Cistercian Model of his life emphasize, and although he established a common life for
the clerics in his diocese, the disciples he had left behind remained
without a leader. They thus faced the fearful possibility that their
cluster of monasteries might be dissolved or at least that the affairs
From the Premonstratensians to the Gilbertines of individual monasteries might become subject to the interventions
and the Carthusians of local bishops.
The Cistercian model of organjzation had hardly been developed The Cistercian model stood ready as a way to counterbalance any
loss of leadership and to secure a lasting stability by way of statutes,
before it had already become an essential element of religious corpo-
rations in general. Other religious congregations quickly took over the authorities, and organizations-especially the general chapter-that
would be valid apart from personal ties. The driving force behind the
foundational principles of the Cistercians' innovative structure, and
they did so in a variety of different ways. This fact casts a distinctive congregation's remaking of itself on this model, and in that sense the
light on both the flexibility of such rationally formed instruments of actual founder of the Order, was Hugh of Posses, who had so long
accompanied Norbert on his preaching tours 2 and whom Norbert had
organization and on their power of innovation. Only a few examples
established as abbot of Premontre when faced with the dissolution
of the wide range of possibilities can be noted here.
In the forefront of those religious congregations that quickly im- (dis solutio) of the congregation after his departure for Magdeburg.
itated the Cistercian model was a group that sought in 1142 to dif- Shortly thereafter the other monasteries received an abbot and thereby
fuse alienating strife among its members by entering into a fraternal established themselves for the first time as independent corporations.
relationship of prayer with the Cistercians: the Premonstratensians. 1 They were able, by means of common statutes that were put in force
Under the chf)rismatic leadership of the wandering preacher Norbert in 1130, to come together in a new way. 3 The programmatic statements
of Xanten, introduced above, an alliance in the old tradition expanded
after 1120 from the mother monastery at Premontre. In legal terms, 2
Kaspar Elm, "Hugo von Posses. Erster Abt von Premontre und Organisa-
the members of the new alliance were proprietary monasteries of tor des Pramonstratenserordens," in Studien zum Priimonstratenserorden, ed.
Norbert's. Its'leading houses were Floreffe in Namur and Cappenberg Irene Crusius and Helmut Flachenecker (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
in Westphalia. As the alliance multiplied in the following decades, its 2003), 35-55.
3
monasteries offered themselves, on the basis of their extremely strict On the law governing the Premonstratensian Order, see Bruno Krings, "Das
Ordensrecht der Pramonstratenser vom spaten 12. Jahrhundert bis zum Jahr
1227. Der liber consuetudinum und die Dekrete des Generalkapitels," Analecta
1 See pp. 118-20. On the following, see Stefan Weinfurter, "Norbert von Praemonstratensia 69 (1993): 107-242; also Bruno Krings, "Zum Ordensrecht
Xanten und die Entstehung des Pramonstratenserordens," in Barbarossa und die der Pramonstratenser bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts," Analecta Praemon-
Priimonstratenser (Goppingen: Gesellschaft ftir staufische Geschichte, 1989), stratensia 76 (2000): 9-28; Jorg Oberste, "Regie, coutumes et statuts. Le systeme
67-100; see also, for a general outline, BernardArdura, Premontres: histoire et normatif des premontres aux XI1e-XIIIe siecles," in Regulae-Consuetudines-
spiritualite (Saint-Etienne: Publications de la Universite de Saint-Etienne, 1995). Statuta, ed. CristinaAndenna and Gert Melville (Munster: LIT, 2005), 261-76.

158
160 The World of Medieval Monasticism The Success of the Cistercian Model 161

recorded in those statutes asserted that there was an indissoluble established monasteries as well as by establishing new foundations.
unity among the abbeys, that the Rule was to be observed by all in Already the first statutes recorded, under the rubric "On constructing
a unified manner, and that the same way of life, the same habit, and new abbeys" (de construendis abbatiis), 8 outlined the process: how at
the same liturgical books were to be common to all. 4 When a sec- · least twelve canons were to be provided with necessities like a copy
ond body of statutes was drawn up around the middle of the twelfth of the Rule, Mass books, and psalters, how they were to be sent out
century, it recorded the same ideals more firmly still: uniformity from an abbey to a suitable locale for the founding of a new settle-
both in outward customs (uniformitas exterius servata in moribus) ment, and how they were to establish that settlement promptly. In the
and in inward unity of the heart (unitas, que interius servanda est in second half of the twelfth century the Order already encompassed
cordibus) were to reign over all. 5 two hundred abbeys.
Even before the completion of the first statutes, the circles of Alongside a supportive nobility who were also strongly interested
Premontre had already held general chapters that took on tasks like in founding women's communities, it was above all reform-minded
those found among the Cistercians. These chapters were now estab- bishops who supported male settlements and who sought to integrate
lished in the statutes as a central authority. The statutes now also those communities into their diocesan organizations. To be sure, an
regulated visitations, which were both to be carried out with paternal orientation toward pastoral care had to develop first. In the beginning
care (paterna sollicitudine) among daughter houses and to ensure the contemporary observers still saw the Premonstratensians as contem-
observance of a common order. The second redaction of the statutes platively oriented hermits, 9 but already by 1123, with the founding
then established a broader and more expansive practice of visita- of the community of Ilbenstadt in the Wetterau, the archbishop of
tion, one that was unknown among the Cistercians. It would extend Mainz had made provision for the enjoyment of parochial rights.
control along lines of filiation-for the first time in the monastic The foundation of Varlar near Coesfeld received baptismal, burial,
world-by way of building provinces, so-called circaries, in which and preaching rights from its beginnings in 1129. In a charter issued
visitors (circatores) were to relieve the father-abbots of the burdens in 1144 for the Swabian community of Roggenburg, Pope Lucius II
of supervision. 6 explicitly conferred on the Premonstratensians the right to discharge
From the alliance of monasteries around Norbert of Xanten, the such duties directly rather than through appointed secular clergy. The
Premonstratensian Order7 had thus emerged as an independent legal cathedral chapters of Havelberg, Ratzeburg, and Brandenburg, too,
body. Pope Innocent II confirmed its existence in 1131 and at the taken over by the Premonstratensians after Norbert's death, were
same time gave the new Order official papal protection. harnessed for pastoral work within the structures of episcopal orga-
From the beginnings of this process of institutionalization, efforts nization. The Premonstratensians thus grew slowly, with a force that
were made to expand the Premonstratensian ranks by taking over varied by time and place, into established patterns of pastoral care.
They also changed their stance with regard to their women's
communities rather quickly. 10 Around 1146/47 a Benedictine abbot
4 Les premiers statuts de l'Ordre de Premontre. Le elm 17174 (Xlle siecle),
and careful observer of Premonstratensian affairs, Herman of Tour-
ed. Raphael van Waefelghem (Leuven: Smeesters, 1913), 15-74. nai, described how "Norbert worked to convert not only men but
5 Les statuts de Premontre au milieu de Xlle siecle, ed. Placide Lefevre and

Wilfried Marcel Grauwen (Averbode: Praemonstratensia, 1978), 1-52, here 1.

8
6 Jorg Oberste, Visitation und Ordensorganisation (Munster: LIT, 1996), Les premiers statuts de l'Ordre de Premontre, ed. Waefelghem, 33.
9
160-251. -- Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui .sunt in aecclesia, ed.
7 Gert Melville, "Zur Semantik von ordo im Religiosentum der ersten Hillfte Giles Constable and BernardS. Smith, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003),
des 12. Jahrhunderts. Lucius II., seine Bulle vom 19. Mai 1144, und der 'Orden' 56-72.
10
der Pramonstratenser," in Crusius and Flachenecker, Studien zum Priimonstra- Bruno Krings, "Die Pramonstratenser und ihr weiblicher Zweig," in Crusius
tenserorden, 201-24. and Flachenecker, Studien zum Priimonstratenserorden, 75-105.
162 The World of Medieval Monasticism The Success of the Cistercian Model 163

also women followers, so that today in various places belonging to the challenge was not with larger and highly ambitious houses, such
Premontre more than a thousand of them can be seen serving God as Steinfeld in the Eifel, which later had a large and widespread
in such hard discipline and under permanent silence as was hardly network of daughter houses, including the renowned monastery of
ever the case in the strictest of male communities." 11 Yet his view .Strahov in Prague. Rather, the challenge centered on the divergence
was already outdated: the double monastery in Premontre itself had between those houses that felt themselves to belong to Premontre
already been disbanded by the end of the 1130s, with the women's and those founded from Magdeburg that for the most part belonged
community then relocated to the somewhat distant house of Fon- to a visitation circuit centered in Saxony. That divergence was never
tanelles. Other double monasteries suffered similar fates, although quite overcome, even deep into the later Middle Ages. And even
there remained strong legal and pastoral ties between men's and though from the 1140s these communities made repeated attempts to
women's convents. In France especially, aversion toward women's find common ground on such things as the habit or norms governing
monasteries grew so strong that between 1154 and 1176 the Premon- visitation and attendance at general chapter, there always remained a
stratensian general chapter went so far as to prohibit the founding certain degree of difference. In the peripheral regions, especially, a
of any more women's communities. In view of the pressures of a great divergence from the practices of the center persisted regarding
period of remarkably strong growth, the measure was in any case the frequency of attending general chapters. Yet the tolerance of such
not enforceable, and in the reform statutes of 1236 women were a range of variation clearly diffused many potential tensions within
once again quite regularly the subject of legislation, which now also the Order and thus helped to maintain a careful balance.
included a distinction between choir nuns (sorores cantantes) and Not least because of their great success in missionary and colo-
conversae (sorores non cantantes). nizing work east of the Elbe among the Wends, 14 within a few years
Premonstratensian monasteries, like those of the Cistercians, were after their appearance among the ranks of the regular canons, the
scattered over all of Latin Christendom, including the Holy Land- Premonstratensians reached a status similar to that of the Cistercians
though not in a comparably dense network, but rather with a notable among the monks.
concentration in the northern and northeastern regions of modem With a speed similar to the Premonstratensians, the congrega-
France, in the region of modem Belgium and the Netherlands, and tion of the canons of Arrouaise 15 also adopted the Cistercian model.
in the middle and lower Rhine. 12 The three primary abbeys of the Founded in Flanders in 1090, the abbey lived according to the Ordo
Order-Floreffe, Cuissy, and Saint Martin in Laon (the last a com- nov us, and already in the second quarter of the twelfth century some
munity that at first, before the founding of Premontre, had resisted nineteen foundations belonged to its circle, most established through
Norbert's reform)-alllay within the French-speaking region. new foundations, appropriations, or transfers facilitated by founders
The ideal of uniformity (uniformitas) had been embraced in all from among the lesser nobility. Thereafter further foundations were
houses recorded in the Premonstratensian statutes from the middle of made in England, Scotland, Silesia, and France. By around 1129/32
the twelfth century. But that ideal, in contrast to inner unity (unitas), there is already evidence of a general chapter, charged with super-
proved difficult to enforce strictly in every house. 13 In this respect vision of practices of visitation and with making all major decisions
regarding matters of supreme judicial authority and legislation. From
the end of the twelfth century the abbot of Arrouaise came to occupy
11
Roger Wilmans, ed., Ex Heermanni Laudunensis libra Ill, MGH 12:657-59,
cited from Krings, "Die Pramonstratenser," 75-76n2.
12
Norbert Backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense, 3 vols. (Straubing: 14
Attenkofer, 1949-1956), vol. 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983). On one exemplary Franz Winter, Die Priimonstratenser des zwolften Jahrhunderts und ihre
region of expansion, see Ingrid Ehlers-Kisseler, Die Anfiinge der Priimonstra- Bedeutung fiir das nordostliche Deutschland (Aalen: Scientia, 1865).
15
tenser im Erzbistum Koln (Cologne: Bohlau, 1997). On the following, see Ludo Milis, L'ordre des chanoines reguliers d'Ar-
13
Jorg Oberste, "Zwischen uniformitas und diversitas. Zentralitat als Kern- rouaise, 2 vols. (Bruges: De Temple, 1969). See also MonumentaArroasiensia.
problem des frtihen Pramonstratenserordens (12./13. Jahrhundert)," in Crusius Textes narratifs et diplomatiques de l'abbaye d'Arrouaise, ed. Ludo Milis and
and Flachenecker, Studien zum Priimonstratenserorden, 225-50. Benoit-Michel Tock (Tumhout: Brepols, 2000).