This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Peter Damian and ‘the World’: Asceticism, Reform and Society in Eleventh-Century Italy Gledhill, Michael Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 13. Mar. 2023 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ T itle: Peter Damian and ‘the World’: Asceticism, Reform and Society in Eleventh-Century Italy A uthor:Michael Gledhill The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ You are free to: Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Peter Damian and ‘the World’: Asceticism, Reform and Society in Eleventh-Century Italy Michael Richard Gledhill A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Department of History, King’s College London 2012 1 Contents Acknowledgements 3 List of abbreviations 4 List of maps and Illustrations 4 Abstract 5 Introduction 6 Chapter One: Damian, Ravenna and Urban Cultures 36 Chapter Two: Damian and the Italian Magnates 94 Chapter Three: Peter Damian, his Hermitages and Material Exchange 135 Chapter Four: Peter Damian and the Empress Agnes 197 Concluding Remarks 243 Bibliography of Works Cited 248 2 Acknowledgements I would, first and foremost, like to thank my two supervisors, Prof. Janet Nelson and Dr. Serena Ferente, who have advised me with patience and support for the last few years. It was Prof. Nelson’s MA course on ‘official and unofficial’ medieval religion that first introduced me to Peter Damian, and to his amazingly rich collection of letters. Both of my supervisors have always brought stimulating questions and challenging ideas to the work that I have discussed with them, and I count myself incredibly lucky to have worked with historians of such calibre. I will be forever grateful that they took me on as their student, and I am proud to have been (so far as I am aware), Prof. Nelson’s last, and Dr. Ferente’s first, student to submit their thesis. I cannot overstate how much I have learned from both of them. The financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council has been crucial for the completion of this project. Their money bought me the time I needed to undertake the research and training necessary to write this thesis. On top of this they funded my research trip to Italy (November – December 2011), where I was lucky enough to be able to spend precious time with the manuscripts in the Vatican Library, and to travel to Fonte Avellana and Monte Cassino to get a first-hand look at the landscape of medieval asceticism. The librarians in the Vatican Library were extremely curteous and helpful, as were the staff at the monasteries I visited, and they have my thanks. King’s College London has been a wonderful institution at which to pursue my research. The college has my especial gratitude for providing me with vital training, particularly in languages, free of charge. The library staff at the Maughan have also been a great help. But, much more than this, I have been lucky to work in a stimulating research environment in the department of History. The post-graduate medievalist community at King’s – Henry Fairbairn, Chris Tilley, Julie Mumby, Richard Cassidy, Mike Clasby, Sophie Ambler, William Stewart-Parker and Dhwani Patel – have always been willing to share ideas and blueberry muffins in the canteen at the IHR. The IHR itself, and the evening seminars that it supports, have been very useful indeed. I would also like to thank my parents for their love and support, and for accepting that their son was going to be a student for much longer than might be deemed reasonable. My grandfather, Harland Thickett, has been a great help with proof-reading drafts of the chapters that follow. My erstwhile flatmate Chris Millard, with whom I have shared the road of academic development for the last 9 years, has been a veritable fountain of ideas 3 and a rock of companionship. There are many others whose ideas, support and friendship have been invaluable. And (saving the best till last) I’d like to thank my wife, Ann O’Reilly, without whom, constant in her belief, love, and willingness to discuss eleventh-century hermits more often than anyone should have to, this project could not have been finished. List of Abbreviations BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Blum O. Blum and I. Resnick, Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation: The Letters of Peter Damian, 6 vols (1-3, 5-7) (Washington, 1989- 2005) MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores PL Patrologiae Latina ed. J. P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1844 – 1864) Reindel K. Reindel, (ed.), Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, 4 vols (Munich, 1983-1993) SCH Studies in Church History Illustrations and Maps Fig. 1: Fonte Avellana looking south-east 34 Fig. 2: Monte Cassino 35 Fig. 3: Tenth-century chuch at Fonte Avellana 35 Fig. 4: Cloister at Fonte Avellana 35 Fig. 5: Teuzo in Florence 93 Fig. 6: Neumes in Ottob. Lat. 339, 6r 157 Fig. 7: Map of places in Chapter 3 196 4 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to conduct an analysis of Peter Damian’s letters specifically grounded in the immediate social and political contexts within which the letters were produced. Whilst Damian (c. 1007 – 1072) is generally seen as an important figure in the history of the Church as a whole, he is rarely studied as an active member of his contemporary Italian society. This thesis will seek to relate the ecclesiastical to the social, and the clerical/monastic to the lay, and to integrate Damian’s approach to women and to gender into the broader picture of his activity in northern and central Italy. The thesis examines how Damian interacted with “the world” – what he saw as constituting the “saeculum”, and how he set himself apart from it. As a hermit, prior, cardinal, papal legate and reformer, Damian straddled institutions, and came into contact with powerful lay people and ecclesiastics alike. What must be done is to build a context, through these interactions, for Damian’s rhetoric. There is a sizable corpus of material relating to Damian’s social contacts, comprising letters, charters and some narrative works. His role as prior of Fonte Avellana brought him into a series of complex relationships with religious institutions and laymen, yet it remains understudied. Through this material we can see how Damian’s positioning of himself as being ‘otherworldly’ was in fact a key aspect of how he acted in the world. N.B. Biblical quotes are taken from the Douay-Rheims English translation of the Latin Vulgate. 5 Introduction With this thesis I hope to reveal an aspect of the life of Peter Damian (c. 1007 – 1072) that has received very little attention from historians up till now: Damian’s relationship with ‘the world’, or the saeculum as it appears in his writings.1 This enquiry will not be limited to ‘the world’ as an abstract concept, but will look at the relationships that Damian formed with men and women across northern and central Italy’s social landscape: from the peasantry that surrounded his rural hermitages and urbanised local notables, through aristocrats high and low, to the emperor and empress themselves. In studying such a well-known and influential figure, I am naturally building upon an already rich and diverse body of historical scholarship. Much of the historiography surrounding Peter Damian has come from a strong tradition of religious (particularly Catholic) and theological history. This has focused, by and large, on his theological and philosophical writings.2 Irven Resnick (who completed the task of translating Damian’s Letters following the death of the previous translator, Owen Blum O.S.B.) has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the complex ideas contained in some of his longer works. Damian’s De Divina Omnipotentia (Letter 119) is perhaps his most famous theological work, and it is this text, which explores the relationship between God and time, which ensures Damian a place in histories of medieval philosophy.3 In a similar vein, there has been a lot of work on Damian’s writings that concern the 1 The saeculum is a key Augustinian concept, where the Two Cities were permixtae – ‘all mixed up’. See R. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge, 1970). 2 See, for example, P. McNulty, St. Peter Damian: Selected Writings on the Spiritual Life (London, 1959). 3 I. Resnick, ‘Peter Damian on the Restoration of Virginity: A Problem for Medieval Theology’, Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988), pp. 125 – 134; I. Resnick, Divine power and possibility in St Peter Damian's De divina omnipotentia (New York, 1992). John Marenbon points out that in this work Damian anticipated thirteenth- and fourteenth-century discussions of divine omnipotence, Early Medieval Philosophy (450 – 1150) (London, 1988), pp. 91 – 94. The text also gets a passing mention in B. Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London, 1946), p. 434. 6 monastic and eremitic life. Irven Resnick, Colin Phipps and Emily Bannister have explored the distinction between eremitism and coenobitic monasticism in Damian’s thought, and have found that there was a significant dialogue between the two. Nor was this a purely theoretical interaction, as Damian corresponded with, and visited Monte Cassino and Cluny (particularly with the abbots, Desiderius and Hugh respectively), and exchanged ideas with both.4 The context of the eleventh-century reform movements has dominated the study of Damian’s writings. The importance of Damian’s Liber Gratissimus (a treatise on simony in which he asserted that the ordinations performed by simoniacal bishops remain valid) has long been recognised,5 and the text positions Damian as a moderate voice in the ecclesiastical-legal histories of the reforms.6 More recently attention has been given to Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus (Book of Gomorrah), in which he heavily criticised the sexual practices of the clergy, and warned against the spread of sodomy. After Pierre Payer published an English translation of the book as a stand-alone text,7 it was taken up by John Boswell in his history of homosexuality, and is now treated as a pivotal text by historians of sexuality, whether they agree with the ‘Boswell Thesis’ or not.8 4 I. Resnick, ‘Odo of Tournai and Peter Damian: Poverty and Crisis in the Eleventh Century’, Revue Bénédictine 104 (1988), pp. 114 – 140; I. Resnick, ‘Peter Damian on Cluny, Liturgy and Penance’, Journal of Religious History 15 (1988), pp. 61-75; C. Phipps, ‘Romuald — Model Hermit: Eremitical Theory in Saint Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi, Chapters 16-27’ in W. Sheils (ed.), Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition (SCH 22, 1985), pp. 65–77; E. Bannister ‘‘A monastic ark against the current flood’: the manuscripts of Peter Damian at the Abbey of Montecassino’, European Review of History 17 (2010), pp. 221–40. 5 J. P. Whitney, ‘Peter Damiani and Humbert’, The Cambridge Historical Journal 1 (1925), pp. 95-142. 6 The works of Ian Robinson, Gerd Tellenbach and Uta-Renate Blumenthal are good examples of this tradition. 7 P. J. Payer, Book of Gomorrah: An Eleventh-Century Treatise against Clerical Homosexual Practices (Waterloo, Ontario, 1962). 8 J. Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago, 1980); M. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, 1998). 7 Given the importance of his work to these, to put it broadly, histories of thought, it has been remarked that there has been a surprising lack of biographical works on Damian,9 but as the study of reform itself has advanced since the 1980s, this has started to impact on how Damian is seen. Henrietta Leyser and Lester Little both produced very important (though quite different) analyses of eleventh- and twelfth-century eremitism as a social phenomenon,10 and in 1980 Bob Moore published the tremendously influential paper ‘Family, Community and Cult on the Eve of the Gregorian Reform’.11 What makes Moore’s paper so important is that previously the study of reform rhetoric (particularly the focus on simony and nicolaitism) and theology had proceeded more or less independently of the study of the social, political and economic developments of the eleventh century. The Church and monasteries had certainly been part of the social story, but as powerful institutions in the Italian landscape.12 Moore, drawing on the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas,13 sought an analysis that encompassed both the changes in religious rhetoric and the social upheaval of the time. Focusing less upon 9 E. Bannister, Peter Damian (c. 1007 – 1072), monastic ideology and the religious revolution of the eleventh century (Unpublished PhD thesis, Keele, 2008), pp. 68 – 69. 10 H. Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism: A Study of Religious Communities in Western Europe 1000 – 1150 (London, 1984); L. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London, 1978); Little’s work does not focus solely on the eleventh century, but it occupies a pivotal place in his narrative as a period of economic change. A thesis of economic change (particularly monetisation) driving religious change in this period was also put forward in A. Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1978), and R. I. Moore The First European Revolution, c. 970 – 1215 (Oxford, 2000). 11 R. I. Moore, ‘Family, Community and Cult on the Eve of the Gregorian Reform’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Fifth Series, Vol. 30, (1980), pp. 49-69. 12 C. Violante, ‘I Vescovi dell’Italia Centro-Settentrionale e lo Sviluppo dell’Economia Monetaria’, Studi sulla Cristianità Medioevale: Società, Istituzioni, Spiritualità 5 (1964), pp. 325 – 347; G. Dameron, Episcopal Power and Florentine Society: 1000 – 1320 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991); cf. L. Provero, ‘Forty Years of Rural History for the Italian Middle Ages’ in I. Alfonso (ed.), The Rural History of Medieval European Societies: Trends and Perspectives (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 141 – 172. 13 The first medievalist to introduce Douglas as an aid to understand Europe around the millenium was Janet L. Nelson in her ‘Society, Theodicy and the Origins of Heresy: Towards a Reassessment of the Medieval Evidence’ in D. Baker (ed.) Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest SCH 9 (1972), pp. 65 – 77. Nelson took inspiration from Douglas’s Natural Symbols to try and understand the new ascetics as a ‘natural symbol’ of the renewed cosmic order. Most other medieval historians, including Moore, Leyser, Elliot and others, have turned instead to Purity and Danger, where Douglas laid out the basis of ‘pollution theory’, whereby people and things should not be understood as inherently offensive, but rather as offensive to the order of social categories (hence the famous phrase that dirt is ‘matter out of place’). In later years Douglas critiqued and refined her theories, although these works, like How Institutions Think and Risk and Blame have not had any real impact on the historiography of the eleventh century. For Douglas references, see bibliography. 8
Description: