Fictions of the Inner Life: Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

276 Pages·2004·1.214 MB·English

by  Ineke Van ’t Spijker

KATERN 1
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FICTIONS OF THE INNER LIFE
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DISPUTATIO
EDITORIAL BOARD
Georgiana Donavin (Westminster College)
Cary J. Nederman (Texas A&M University)
Richard Utz (University of Northern Iowa)
VOLUME 4
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FICTIONS OF THE INNER LIFE
Religious Literature and Formation of the Self
in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
by
Ineke van ’t Spijker
H
F

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Spijker, Ienje van ’t, 1954-
Fictions of the inner life : religious literature and formation of the self in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. – (Disputatio ; 4)
1.Peter Damian, Saint, 1007?-1072 2.Hugh, of Saint-Victor, 1096?-1141
3.Richard, of Saint-Victor, d. 1173 4.William, of Saint-Thierry, Abbot of Saint-
Thierry, ca. 1085-1148? 5.Self (Philosophy) 6.Philosophy, Medieval
I.Title
189
ISBN 2503515142
© 2004, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2004/0095/73
ISBN: 2-503-51514-2
Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper.
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Contents
Preface vii
List of Abbreviations ix
CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1
CHAPTER TWO Peter Damian: Violence and Fragility 19
CHAPTER THREE Hugh of Saint-Victor: Theology and Interiority 59
CHAPTER FOUR Richard of Saint-Victor: Exegesis and the Inner Man 129
CHAPTER FIVE William of Saint-Thierry: Experience and the Religious
Subject 185
EPILOGUE Fictions of the Inner Life 233
Bibliography 243
Index 259
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Preface
Space and time…, and life and death, heaven and hell, day and night, are human
images imposed like form upon the void
Richard Ellmann
L
ike twelfth-century monks moulding themselves by excision of vices and idle
cogitations, writing this book was very much an exercise in excision and
concentration. Conceiving of it as part of an integral project was rewarding—
looking at a medieval cathedral or a modern painting, watching a film, or reading a
novel, or just any article in a daily paper, would form the inevitable digressions and
provoke thoughts about human self-perceptions. But in the end it was only by
concentration on four medieval authors that a book could materialize. As its subject
is as elusive as the monastic reader’s goal, the monk’s endless alternating between
diffidence and confidence—the first usually more prominent—also often seemed
familiar. If unlike a monk, who is never supposed to consider his work as finished, I
have finished this book, I am presented with a welcome opportunity to acknowledge
my debts to many people and thank them.
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funded the research
post which enabled me to do the research for this work, and I am grateful for their
patience in seeing, finally, this book. I thank my friends and colleagues at the
History Department of Utrecht University, where I held this research post, and at the
Utrecht Center for Medieval Studies for their support. At the History Department
and the Department of Mediaevistiek of the University of Groningen I enjoyed the
support of and stimulating discussions with many colleagues, friends, and students. I
have fond memories of the discussions with members of Nil (Nil Ardentibus
Arduum) in Utrecht, and of the Historische Kring in Groningen, who generously
shared their ideas with me. When I first came to live in Cambridge I was a visiting
fellow at Clare Hall, and my college affiliation, now as a life member, has proved to
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viii
be much more than just institutional. Both in Utrecht and Groningen, and now in
Cambridge, I pay tribute to the endless efforts of the library staff.
I am grateful to the Board of Disputatio for accepting to publish my book in their
series, and especially to Cary Nederman for guiding me through the whole process. I
thank him and the two anonymous readers for their encouraging and helpful
comments. I am grateful to Luc Jocqué for welcoming me to Brepols, to Simon
Forde for giving his advice on many questions and realizing publication, and to Julie
Burbidge for her expert copy-editing and generous help during the process.
There is always a tension between, in monastic terms, the active and the
contemplative life, but, as monks well knew, however attractive the solitude of
contemplation, or writing a book, the active life comes not only as distraction, but as
a support for contemplation as well. My friends have supported me in this long
project all along.
I would like to express my special thanks to Rainer Berndt, Douglas Moggach,
Trudy Lemmers, Burcht Pranger, and Henk Teunis, who have all read the book or
parts of it in earlier and/or later stages, and helped me to clarify my thoughts and
their formulations. I would read and remember their comments in times of
diffidence. Each of them knows what I owe them.
If this book is about ‘human images’, my remaining interest in these images
reflects the embracing humanity of my parents.
It did not take a move to Cambridge to find Hugh of Saint-Victor’s lines on exile
beautiful and strangely comforting. If those lines now somehow resonate with a
more reassuring tone, it is because of Nick, my husband and dearest friend.
Correcting my English and discussing what I really wanted to say are only the least
of the things I thank him for, or rather, those other things are beyond thanks.
Ineke van ’t Spijker
Cambridge
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Abbreviations
CCSL: Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954–)
CCCM: Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Medievalis (Turnhout: Brepols,
1966–)
CSEL: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: Hoelder-
Pichler-Tempsky, 1866–)
PL: Patrologiae cursus completus … Series Latina, ed. by J. P. Migne, 221
vols (Paris, 1841–1864)
SAO: S. Anselmi Cantuarensi Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. by Franciscus
Salesius Schmitt, 6 vols (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-
Holzboog, 1968, facsimile reprint of the first edn, Seckau, Rome,
Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1938–1961)
SBO: Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. by J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot, H. M. Rochais,
8 vols (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–1977)
SC: Sources chrétiennes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1941–)
For most of the translations of biblical texts into English I have used the New
Revised Standard Version. In some cases (where it seemed to do more justice to the
Latin) I have used the Authorized Version (AV) and I have indicated this in the text.
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