Crises of cenobitism: abbatial leadership and monastic competition in late eleventh-century Flanders

Brief bibliographic essays on recent publications in the fields of Greek literature, Latin literature, Greek history, Roman history, and art and archaeology. With an index of books reviewed. This paper, part of a wider investigation of monastic reform in the central middle ages as a long-term process, argues that the challenges faced by the "older" Benedictine institutions in late 11C Flanders arose from structural factors related to traditional monasticism in Flemish society, and from the institutional dynamics and historical legacies of each specific institution. Focusing on the leadership of one Flemish abbey, Saint-Bertin, the study shows that the expansion of traditional monasticism in the region was preceded by, and partly coincided with, institutional crises affecting single monasteries. Such crises, in which the loss of former patrons were a determining factor, became evident as early as the third and fourth decades of the 11C, long before alternative forms of religious organisations became significant social and institutional phenomena. When the wave of new Benedictine foundations gained momentum after c1050, abbots in older houses had already initiated a slow incremental process of restoration and "reform between the reforms", which has eluded the scrutiny of scholars. This paved the way for a restoration of former associations with highly placed patrons, the counts of Flanders in particular, and for a return to a leading role in regional monasticism several years before the Cluniac reforms of the early 1100s. (Quotes from original text)