The Monks of Tiron: A Monastic Community and Religious Reform in the Twelfth Century

282 Pages·2014·2.142 MB·English

by  Dr Kathleen Thompson

The Monks of Tiron

This book offers the first comprehensive history of the order of Tiron.
As a unique survey of the Tironensian experience, it sheds new light on
traditional assumptions of twelfth-century monastic history. Previous
sketches have been shaped by the life of the founder, the Vita Bernardi,
which depicts the forests of western France teeming with holy men, and
that self-image of hermit preachers in the wilderness has been deeply
influential in the historiography of twelfth-century reform. Drawing
from the latest advances in the understanding of hagiography and insti-
tutional memory, Thompson reinterprets key sources to offer a valuable
contribution to the history of monasticism. She outlines the rapid dis-
semination of the Tironensian approach in the first thirty years of its
existence, its network of contacts with the lay elite and the impact on
the Tironensians of the successes of the Cistercians and Mendicants.
Kathleen Thompson is Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the
Department of History at the University of Sheffield.

The Monks of Tiron

A Monastic Community and Religious Reform
in the Twelfth Century
Kathleen Thompson
Senior Honorary Research Fellow, Department of History,
University of Sheffield
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107021242
© Kathleen Thompson 2014
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2014
Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Thompson, Kathleen, 1951–
The monks of Tiron : a monastic community and religious reform in the
twelfth century / Kathleen Thompson, Senior Honorary Research Fellow,
Department of History, University of Sheffield.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-02124-2 (hardback)
1. Tironensians. I. Title.
BX4087.T46 2014
271′.79–dc23
2014013619
ISBN 978-1-107-02124-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents

List of figures and tables page vi
Acknowledgements vii
List of abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 Developing the Tiron narrative 8
2 Uncovering Tiron’s literary history 34
3 Documenting Tiron’s success 62
4 Abbot Bernard 95
5 The monastery at Tiron 126
6 Mother and daughters 155
Epilogue: the thirteenth century 186
Conclusion 195
Appendix 1: the composition of the Vita beati Bernardi
Tironensis – a critical analysis 202
Appendix 2: Tironensian possessions 221
Bibliography 246
Index 265
v
Figures and tables

Figure 1 The manuscript tradition of Souchet’s edition page 36
Figure 2 The manuscript tradition of Henskens’ edition 38
Table 1 The structure of the Vita Bernardi and the
Brevis descriptio compared 28
vi
Acknowledgements

In writing this book I have incurred many debts and I am pleased to
be able to acknowledge them here. I am grateful to the librarians and
archivists from whom I have received help, and in particular to Suzanne
Foster, the archivist of Winchester College, who has always been ready
to respond to questions and provide photos over a number of years and,
of course, to the Warden and Scholars of Winchester College for permit-
ting me to use their archives. Mme Brigitte Feret and her colleagues at
the Archives départementales d’Eure-et-Loir have been welcoming and
helpful to me during the course of several visits, and the special collec-
tions team of the University of Bristol library has helped with a number
of detailed enquiries. Christine Ferdinand welcomed me to the library of
Magdalen College, Oxford.
I have presented my findings to seminars at the Institute of Historical
Research and the universities of Sheffield, Reading and Bristol, and I
am grateful for the contributions of members of those seminars. I have
been very fortunate in being able to discuss my research with David
Bates, the late Marjorie Chibnall, Michael Clanchy, Jacques Dalarun,
Gillian Evans, Jean-Hervé Foulon, Véronique Gazeau, Lindy Grant,
Judith Green, Christopher Holdsworth, Chris Lewis, Monika Otter, Julie
Potter, Amanda Power, Liesbeth van Houts and Nick Vincent. Andrew
Smith kindly provided a copy of his unpublished thesis on the cartulary
of Kelso, and Fabien Pacquet shared with me the early results of his
research on Hambye. I am grateful, too, for David Crouch’s thoughtful
gift of a copy of the printed edition of the Tiron cartulary. Two enormous
debts need special thanks: the first to Teresa Webber for her palaeograph-
ical analysis of the Tiron cartulary and the second to Edmund King for
his advice throughout the project and for reading the book in draft. I owe
to Edmund, too, an introduction to Robyn Parker, with whom I have
enjoyed lively discussions on lives of the twelfth-century hermits.
The monks of Tiron have been part of my life for a considerable time,
and I have made them part of others’ lives too. Kathryn Mills was a
great help with French grammar. Sophie Montagne-Chambolle was
vii
viii Acknowledgements
generous in her hospitality at Tourouvre, and Mike Bates has seen more
Tironensian sites than he wanted to, because he was willing to drive a
non-driver in both France and England. Above all, my husband, Ray, and
my daughters, Eleanor and Anne, have been very patient and supportive,
while they, too, lived alongside the monks of Tiron.