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The Geographical, Social and Ecclesiastical Origins of the Bishops of Auxerre and Sens in the Central Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Constance B. Bouchard
Constance B. Bouchard
Affiliation:
presently engaged in post-doctoral research in the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
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Extract

The type of man who became bishop during the central Middle Ages depended both on who influenced the selection of the bishop and on what qualities a bishop was expected to have by those who chose him. The process by which a medieval bishop was elected has been studied in great detail, and recently attention has been turned to the backgrounds of some of the men who were elected, especially their social origins.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 277 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1977

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References

1. The classic studies include Tour, P. Imbart de la, Les élections épiscopales dans l'eglise de France du IXe au XIIe siècle (Paris, 1891);Google ScholarRoland, Emile, Les chanoines et les élections épiscopales du XIe au XIVe siècle (Aurillac, 1909);Google ScholarBarraclough, Geoffrey, “The Making of a Bishop in the Middle Ages: The Part of the Pope in Law and Fact,” Catholic Historical Review 19 (1933–1934): 275–319;Google ScholarPacaut, Marcel, Louis VII et les élections épiscopales dans le royaume de France (Paris, 1957).Google Scholar Sections on episcopal elections are given in the two major works on ecclesiastical institutions in the Middle Ages: LeBras, Gabriel, Institutions ecclésiastiques de la Chrétienté médiévale, vol. 12 of Histoire de l'Eglise depuis les origines jusqu à nos jours, ed. by Fliche, Augustin and Martin, Victor (Paris, 1959–1964);Google Scholar and Lemarignier, Jean-François, Gaudemet, Jean, and Mollat, Guillaume, Institutions ecclésiastiques, vol. 3 of Historie des institutions françaises au moyen age, ed. by Lot, Ferdinand and Fawtier, Robert (Paris, 1962).Google Scholar Robert Benson considered the chief neglected question concerning episcopal elections to be when and how a bishop actually took power once he was elected. See The Bishop Elect (Princeton, 1968).Google Scholar

2. The pioneering work on the social origins of bishops was done by Aloys Schulte at the beginning of this century in a study of the Rhineland bishops from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. See Der Adel und die deutsche Kirche im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1910).Google Scholar Further German studies concentrated on the thirteenth century and continued to emphasize the Rhineland; see the summary of these studies given by Lewis, Frank R., “Prelates and Nobles in the Rhineland: A Church Province in the Thirteenth Century,” History, n.s. 22 (1937): 193–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar More recently, the Institut de Droit Canonique de Strasbourg has launched a broad study of the social, geographic, and ecclesiastical origins of the bishops of northern France elected between 1150 and 1350, concentrating on the sees of northern France; their findings are summarized by Gaudemet, J., “Recherches sur l'episcopat mèdiéval en France,” in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. by Kuttner, Stephen and Ryan, J. Joseph (Vatican City, 1965), pp. 139–154.Google Scholar This research has inspired several more detailed studies of a single see or archdiocese, usually over a short period of time. For southern France, these include works on the origins of the bishops of the provinces of Narbonne, Aix, and Aries in the thirteenth century, published in Les éyêques, les clercs, et le roi (1250–1300) (Touloise, 1972).Google Scholar For Lotharingia, Léopold Génicot has done an in-depth study of the origins of all the bishops of Liège from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. See “Haut clergé et noblesse dans le diocèse de Liége du XIe au XVe siècle,” in Adel und Kirche, ed. by Josef Fleckenstein and Karl Schmid (Freiburg, 1968), pp. 237–258.Google Scholar Before the publication of the initial findings of the Institut de Droit Canonique de Strasbourg, Pacaut had already examined the social origins of the French bishops elected between 1137 and 1180 as part of his study of what sort of man Louis VII favored for the French episcopacy, and William Mendel Newman had discussed the process by which a French bishopric might be kept within the family as part of his discussion of one extended noble family. See Newman's, Les seigneurs de Nesle en Picardie (XIIe XIIIe siècle) (Philadelphia, 1971),Google Scholar a work completed around 1960 though published ten years later. Material on the social origins of English bishops has generally been contained in studies concerned with the training bishops received before their election and the part they played in government once elected; most of these are concerned with the thirteenth and later centuries. See the works cited by Knowles, David, “The English Bishops, 1070–1532,” in Medieval Studies Presented to Aubrey Gwynn, ed. by Watt, J. A., Morrall, J. B., and Martin, F. X. (Dublin, 1961), pp. 283–296,Google Scholar especially his The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951),Google Scholar and Gibbs, Marion and Lang, Jane, Bishops and Reform 1215–1272 (Oxford, 1934),Google Scholar still very useful in spite of its date.

3. The chief chronicle sources are the “Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorum,” in Bibliothèque Historique de l'Yonne 1, ed. by L.-M. Durn (Auxerre, 1850), 309–509;Google ScholarRobert, of St.-Marien, , “Chronicon,” Monumenta Germaniae historica (hereafter, MGH SS) 26:219–287;Google ScholarClarius, of Sens, , “Chronicon Sancti-Petri-Vivi Senonensis,” Bibliothêque Historique 2 (Auxerre, 1863): 451–550;Google Scholar“Historia Francorum Senonensis,” MGH SS 9:364–369;Google ScholarCourlon, Geoffrey de, “Chronicon,” MGH SS 26:613–622.Google Scholar

4. The archival documents on the bishops of Auxerre and Sens in the central Middle Ages are found in series G and H of the Archives de l'Yonne, most of which can be conveniently consulted in the editions of Quantin, Maximilien, Cartulaire général de l'Yonne, 2 vols. (Auxerre, 1854–1860),Google Scholar and Recueil de piéces pour faire suit au cartulaire général de l'Yonne (Auxerre, 1873).Google Scholar The obituaries can be found in Longnon, Auguste, Vidier, Alexandre, and Mirot, Léon, eds., Diocèses d'Orléans, d'Auxerre, et de Nevers, vol. 3 of Obituaires de la province de Sens (Paris, 1909);Google Scholar and Longnon, Auguste and Molinier, Auguste, eds., Diocéses de Sens et de Paris, vol. 1 of Obituaires de la province de Sens (Paris, 1902).Google Scholar

5. Gaudemet, p. 139, n. 1.

6. Guillemain, and Martin, , Les évêques, les clercs, et le roi, p. 93;Google Scholar Baratier, ibid., p. 125.

7. Génicot, p. 253.

8. Schulte, p. 62; Génicot, p. 249; Guillemain and Martin, p. 94.

9. Gaudemet, p. 141.

10. Ibid., p. 140.

11. Pacaut, pp. 121–122.

12. Gaudemet, p. 141; Génicot, pp. 257–258.

13. This is the conclusion of LeBras, p. 373, and of Lamarignier, Gaudemet, and Mollat, p. 176.

14. Migne, , Patrologia Latina 162, col. 70:Google Scholar “Commendant enim eum satis accurate electores ejus, et generis nobilitate, et morurn honestate, et publicarum actionum strenuitate.”

15. The social origins of Richard, the local monk elected by the local clergy and people in 961, are also not clear. His biographer gives the names of his parents but does not call them noble. One could say that his father was probably not a count or duke, or the biographer would have mentioned it, but since at this time the medieval concept of a noble class was only just developing, it is impossible to characterize further his family's status.

16. Henry Sanglier is often cited as a bishop chosen by the king. There is, however, no contemporary evidence to support such a statement, which seems to have originated with the comment of the editors of Gallia Christiana (vol. 12, col. 44) that he was elected ad preces regis. The documents themselves indicate that his election was canonically correct.

17. There is an imprecision in the term mediocris genere. It certainly need not mean that Henry's family was of peasant stock. Since at the beginning of the thirteenth century the nobility was being defined more rigidly and legalistically, it is even possible that Henry's family consisted of knights or military men that modern scholars would call noble.

18. At least part of the chapter wanted Hugh of Noyers or else William of Seignelay, respectively bishop of Auxerre and future bishop of Auxerre, both of the lower nobility of the region.

19. Pacaut, pp. 110–115.

20. Callahan, Thomas Jr, “The Renaissance of Monastic Bishops in England, 1135–1154,” Studia Monastica 16 (1974): 55–56.Google Scholar

21. Guilleman and Martin, p. 103: Baratier, p. 127.

22. Gibbs and Lang, p. 49.

23. Pacaut, p. 115.

24. For the number of French bishops from the black and white monks between 1137 and 1180, see Pacaut, p. 110.

25. Ibid., pp. 117–121.

26. Olsen, Glenn, “The Idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the Writings of the Twelfth-Century Canonists,” Traditio 25 (1969): 61–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Chronica sive Historia de Duobus Civitatibus, ed. Adolph Hofmeister (Hanover: MGH SS in Usum Scholarum, 1912), 4,Google Scholar Prologue, p. 183.

28. Congar, Yves, “Modèle monastique et modèle sacerdotal en Occident de Grégoire VII (1073–1085) à Innocent III (1198),” Etudes de civilisation médiévale (IXe-XIIesi): Mélanges offerts a Edmond-René Labande (Poitiers, 1973), p. 156.Google Scholar

29. LeBras, p. 385; Génicot, p. 253; Newman, pp. 11–13.

30. Newman, pp. 100–104.

31. Gaudemet, pp. 142–143; Pacaut, pp. 135–136.

32. Acta Sanctorum, NOv. 3:645.

33. The term “family” is used here in the sense of a group of blood relatives that considered itself a unit separate from the rest of society, a unit defined primarily in terms of the male line. It is not really equivalent to the modern meaning of the term.

34. Newman, p. 125 ff.

35. “Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorum,” p. 415.

36. Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge, 1963), p. 10.Google Scholar

37. Newman found the same pattern for the dioceses of Soissons and Beauvais, p. 10.

38. Lewis, p. 197, has given some examples of German sees in the thirteenth century where a layman might order an unwilling chapter to accept his relative as their new bishop.

39. One could say that the family as a whole considered itself a unit and acted as such even when divided into secular and ecclesiastical branches. Newman, p. 102, carries this to extremes in almost completely blurring the distinction between the two branches, saying that both were involved in wars and both administered temporal property.