Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
The proliferation of new monastic orders in the twelfth century presented the Church with a dilemma which had previously challenged the theologians of Christendom: the flowering of diversity within the unity of the faith. Just as theologians had had to resolve contradictions among the writings of the Fathers – the primary authorities for the interpretation of the Bible, and hence the elucidation of God's truth as it was perceived – so, in the new climate of monastic revival, ecclesiastical leaders had to come to terms with the existence of a variety of new interpretations of the Rule of St Benedict, and indeed that of St Augustine – the primary guides to the living of a true Christian life.
1 The concept of a rule for the canons, based on the authority of St Augustine, was in itself a relative novelty. Their life was accorded equal status with that of themonks by Pope Urbann, who declared in a bull of 1092 that both the monastic and the canonical lives were instituted by apostolic practice, although this remained far from uncontested: Little, L. K., Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe, Ithaca 1978, 103Google Scholar; Chenu, M.-D., Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Taylor, J. and Little, L. K., Chicago 1968, 216Google Scholar. Peter of Celle treated monks and canons equally in his treatise on claustral discipline. See below, pp. 397–8.
2 Augustine is cited by de Ghellinck, J. (Le mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle, Bruges 1948, 517–18)Google Scholar as the first author to use the terms diversa and adversa together in the context of theology. Augustine states in the prologue to the Retractationes, in a passage stressing the need for unity of interpretation, ‘Magistros autem plures tune fieri existimo, cum diversa atque inter se adversa sentiunt’ (‘I think that many teachers arise when there are different and mutually opposed opinions’): Sancti Aurelii Augustini Retractationum Libri II, ed. Mutzenbecher, A. (CCSL lvii), 6Google Scholar. English translation in Bogan, M. I., Saint Augustine, The Retractations, Washington, DC 1968, at p. 4Google Scholar.
3 Meyvaert, P., ‘Diversity within unity: a Gregorian theme’, Heythrop Journal iv (1963), 141–62, esp. p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 For a full exposition of the application of this concept to the fields of theology and canon law, see de Ghellinck, , Le mouvement théologique, 472–99Google Scholar, and in addition pp. 517–23, where the development of the various formulae expressing the idea is examined. The letter of Anselm of Laon is cited here at p. 520, and is PL clxii. 1587A. See also Silvestre, H., ‘Diversi sed non adversi’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale xxxi (1964), 124–32Google Scholar, at p. 125 n. 4, for examples of its use in theology and monastic writings.
5 Heer, F., The Medieval World: Europe 1100–1350, trans. Sondheimer, J., London 1962, New York 1963, 90Google Scholar; first publ. as Mittelalter von 1100 bis 1350, Zürich 1961.
6 ‘ubi vult spirat’: John, iii. 8Google Scholar.
7 Letter 150, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. Constable, G., 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, i. 367–71, and nn. at ii. 199Google Scholar. The letter is dated mid-Oct. 1149. The quotation is at i. 371.
8 See especially Knowles, D., Cistercians and Cluniacs: the controversy between St Bernard and Peter the Venerable, Oxford 1955Google Scholar; Dimier, M. A., ‘Un témoin tardif du conflit entre cisterciens et clunisiens’, in Constable, G. and Kritzeck, J. (eds), Petrus Venerabilis 1156–1956, Studia Anselmiana xl (1956), 81–90Google Scholar; Constable, G., ‘Cluny, Cîteaux, La Chartreuse. San Bernardo e la diversità delle forme di vita religiosa nel XII secolo’, Studi su S. Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Rome 1975, 93–114Google Scholar; and Bredero, A. H., Cluny et Cîteaux au douzième siècle, Amsterdam 1985Google Scholar.
9 Cluny, and the Benedictine order generally, was facing a challenge to its undisputed ascendancy in the monastic world, rather than a threat to its existence. It is notable, as Bredero, pointed out, that ‘the number of Benedictine abbeys taken over by the Cistercians was very small, and among them there was not even one Cluniac monastery’: Cluny et Cîteaux, 358Google Scholar.
10 Constable, , ‘Cluny, Cîteaux, La Chartreuse’, 94Google Scholar. The article appears in Italian (trans. R. Giacone) and the original quotation reads, ‘mold storici guardano al monachesimo del XII secolo come ad uno spettro focale di relativa semplicità, che si estende tra due poli: di rilassamento da un lato, e di austerità dall'altro … II rapporto tra Cluny, Citeaux e La Chartreuse dovrebbe perciò essere interpretato non come una linea retta, bensì come un triangolo, con influenze ed ínflussi reciproci, e formante solo una parte minuscola – benché centrale – dell'intero sistema’.
11 Recent works on the concept of amicitia in the Middle Ages include: Robinson, I. S., ‘The friendship network of Gregory VII’, History lxiii (1978), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar(discussing friendship as political allegiance); McGuire, B. P., Friendship and Community: the monastic experience 350–1250, Kalamazoo 1988Google Scholar(exploring the personal aspects of friendship in the Middle Ages, and providing a full bibliography); McLoughlin, J., ‘Amicitia in practice: John of Salisbury (c. 1120–1180) and his circle’, in Williams, Daniel (ed.), England in the Twelfth Century, Woodbridge 1990, 165–81Google Scholar(discussing the practical application of friendship as a bond of allegiance); and Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm: a portrait in a landscape, Cambridge 1990, 147–54Google Scholar (discussing the spiritual aspect of amicitia). For friendship in the ancient world, see Brunt, P. A., ‘Amicitia in the late Roman Republic’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society n.s. ii, cxci (1965), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fraisse, J. C., Philia – la notion d' amitié dans la philosophie antique, Paris 1974Google Scholar. A discussion of friendship in Byzantine society can be found in Mullet, M. E., ‘Byzantium: a friendly society?’, Past and Present cxviii (1988), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Peter of Celle was born c. 1115 into a noble family of Champagne. He spent part of his youth at the Cluniac house of St Martin des Champs, near Paris, and some time at Provins with his lifelong friend John of Salisbury. By 1145 he was abbot of Montier-la-Celle, a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of Troyes, and in 1162 he became abbot of St Rémi, Reims. He succeeded John of Salisbury as bishop of Chartres in 1181 and died on 19 Feb. 1183. On his dates see The Letters of John of Salisbury, ed. Millor, W.J. and Brooke, C. N. L., 2 vols, Edinburgh 1955 (repr. Oxford 1986), Oxford 1979, at i, p. ix n. 1Google Scholar. The extant works of Peter of Celle comprise a collection of letters, 96 sermons, four treatises (De Disciplina Claustrali, De Conscientia, De Puritate Animae and De Affiictione et Lectione) and five commentaries (two on Ruth, two on the Tabernacle of Moses and De Panibus, an account of the references to bread in the Bible). These works appear in PL ccii. 397–1146, and an account of them appears in Viller, M. and others (eds), Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, 14 vols to date, Paris 1937Google Scholar-, xii/2. 1526–9.
13 For details of the polemical writings of St Bernard and Peter the Venerable, see Knowles, Cistercians and Cluniacs and Bredero, Cluny et Cîteaux.
14 St Bernard, , letter 1, Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. Leclercq, J., 8 vols, Rome 1957–1977, vii. 1–11Google Scholar; Apologia, ibid. iii. 63–108. Peter, the Venerable, letter 28, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, i. 52–101Google Scholar, and nn. at ii. 115–20.
15 Peter the Venerable's letter 28 was addressed to Bernard, as the most significant figure in the Cistercian movement, even though it was not necessarily his charges that were being answered. Constable's, comment on the connection was that ‘In addressing his reply to Bernard, Peter must have had some reason, even if he had never seen the Apologia or the letter to Robert, for associating him with the attack on Cluny and the old monasticism’: The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ii. 274Google Scholar. Bernard was, for Peter, the representative of the Cistercian movement, rather than a personal opponent in debate. It was not a private battle between the two men. On the nature of these exchanges, see, ibid, ii, appendix E, 270–4.
16 Letters of St Bernard, in Sancti Bemardi Opera, vii–viiiGoogle Scholar; letters of Peter the Venerable in The Letters of Peter the Venerable.
17 Dimier, M.-A., ‘Saint Bernard et le droit en matière de Transitus’, Revue Mabillon xliii (1953), 48–82Google Scholar. It was regarded as permissible for monks to transfer between orders, so long as they moved to a more rigorous order. This had obvious implications of the superiority of one order over another, which added to the quarrels.
18 ‘Quisquis ergo ad patriam caelestem festinas, hanc minimam inchoationis regulam descriptam adjuvante Christo perfice’ (‘Whoever you are, therefore, who are hastening to your heavenly homeland, fulfil first of all, with Christ's help, this little rule for beginners’): ‘Rule of St Benedict’, c. 73, The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. McCann, J., London 1952Google Scholar; La Régie de Saint Benoit, ed. Neufville, J. and Vogüe, A., 6 vols, Paris 1972Google Scholar.
19 Knowles, , Cistercians and Cluniacs, 17Google Scholar.
20 In one letter, Peter the Venerable reduced the controversy to a question of the envy of the black monks for the white, and the pride of the white, with no differences in substance between the orders: letter 111, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, i. 274–99. Some important institutional differences between the orders are not mentioned at all in the literature. Thus Bredero, notes that ‘The point on which the differences between Cistercians and Cluniacs were maintained longest and about which no mention was made at all in the polemical writings exchanged between the orders, was the organisation of these orders’: Cluny et Cîteaux, 354Google Scholar.
21 Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui surd in ecclesia, ed. Constable, G. and Smith, B., Oxford 1972Google Scholar. The editors make the point that this treatise is only one exampleof a type of controversial literature little studied by modern historians, but that it is anexceptionally perceptive and impartial example: pp. xii–xiii.
22 Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloître, ed. de Martel, G., Paris 1977, 120Google Scholar.
23 De Disciplina Claustrali, c. 1: Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloître, 118; Peter of Celle, Selected Works, trans. Feiss, H., Kalamazoo 1987, 69Google Scholar. Elsewhere Peter links canons and monks together when discussing the apostles, ‘Quid dicam de canonicis sive monachis istis, scilicet apostolis?’ (‘What shall I say about these canons and monks, the apostles?’): De Disciplina Claustrali, c. 2: Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloître, 124; Peter of Celle, Selected Works, 71. This is important, since many monks would deny that the canonical life had equal apostolic authority to their own.
24 De Disciplina Claustrali, c. 2: Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloître, 128; Peter of Celle, Selected Works, 72. The passage reads ‘Convenit in quibusdam nostra et vestra claustralis disciplina; differt in quibusdam. Sunt enim quaedam quasi substantialia in religione, quaedam accidentalia. Substantiale est religionis sine quo non est religio. Accidentale, quod adest et abest pro loco, pro tempore, pro causa, pro persona, pro caeteris circumstantiis praeter religionis corruptionem’. (‘In some matters our claustral discipline and yours coincide; on other points they differ. Some things pertain to the substance of religious life, others are accidentals. Without the substantial element there is no religious life. An accidental element can be present or absent because of place, time, cause, person or other circumstances, aside from the decay of religious life.’).
25 De Disciplina Claustrali, c. 8: Pierre de Celle, L'École du Cloitre, 174; Peter of Celle, Selected Works, 85.
26 The evidence for Peter of Celle's connection with St Martin des Champs comes from one of his own letters, PL ccii. no. 159, where he says, ‘Ego ipse apud Sanctum Martinum de campis adolescentulus verissimis experimentis quod dico gustavi’. This is a letter addressed to the community at Cluny in which Peter complains of their laxity and falling away from the high standards of monastic discipline.
27 Prologue, , Libellus, 2–3Google Scholar.
28 Ibid. p. xxiii.
29 If he was a canon, then he may have had a vested interest in trying to show his order to be the equal of the monks'. His identity is not known, but the fact that he divided all the orders according to criteria of laxity and strictness, rather than simply defending the canons' validity, shows that this work cannot easily be dismissed as crudely partisan.
30 Sancti Bernardi Opera, iii. 85, 87. See also English translation inThe Works of Bernard of Clairvaux: Treatises 1, Shannon 1970, 39, 41Google Scholar.
31 For a discussion of Bernard's defence of diversity in terms of the coat of many colours, see Constable, , ‘Cluny, Cîteaux, La Chartreuse’, 94–5Google Scholar.
32 Sancti Bemardi Opera, iii. 94.
33 Bernard's use of absit in the first sentence of this quotation has been interpreted in different ways: The Works of Bernard ofClairvaux: Treatises 1, translates, ‘Though such abuses are in the Order, I hope they are not of the Order’ (p. 51); Bredero, Cluny et Citeaux, translates ‘Although these things occur in your order, this does not mean at all that they proceed from the nature of your order’ (p. 362). It is possible that Bernard's meaning was less emphatic than the latter, and more neutral than the former, having the sense (rather inelegant in English) of ‘let it not be that’.
34 Constable, points out that Bernard was among the first defenders of diversity: ‘Cluny, Citeaux, La Chartreuse’, 94Google Scholar.
35 See Bredero, Cluny et Cîteaux, especially chs iii–v. The interpretation of Bredero and others of this affair is discussed in Pacaut, M., L'Ordre de Cluny, Paris 1986, 196–204Google Scholar.
36 This was an increasingly common state of affairs, as will be seen below in the discussions of other disputes, and of Peter of Celle's activities.
37 See Van Engen, J., Rupert of Deutz, Los Angeles 1983, 299–334Google Scholar. Rupert's chief polemical works were De Divinis Officiis (c. 1110, a defence of the elaborate ornamentation of the Benedictine altars); Altercatio monachi el clerici quod liceat monacho praedicare (1119/22, a defence of the right of monks to preach and teach, refuting claims to a monopoly in this field by the canons regular); and Super quaedam capitula regulae Benedicti (1125, a fully-fledged polemic against the Cistercian order, in the form of a commentary on the Rule of St Benedict). Even a polemicist such as Rupert was able to state that the monks and canons were different but not opposed, although he did not portraythem as equals. In his Altercatio monachi et clerici he says ‘Diversa inquam, ut dicere coeperam haec sunt, sed non contraria’: PL clxx. 540.
38 On the Riposte see Talbot, C. H., ‘The date and author of the Riposte’, Studia Anselmiana xl (1956), 72–80Google Scholar; on the Dialogus see Knowles, , Cistercians and Cluniacs, 32Google Scholar.
39 This shift in attitude is discussed in Constable, , ‘Cluny, Citeaux, La Chartreuse’, 96–7Google Scholar.
40 Anselm of Havelberg's, Dialogi, PL clxxxviii. 1141Google Scholar. Th e treatise is a t cols 1139–1248. This passage is also cited in Chenu, , Nature, Man and Society, at p. 217Google Scholar.
41 On the Golden Letter, see Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu (Lettre d' Or), ed. Déchanet, J., Paris 1975Google Scholar; and Dimier, , ‘Un témoin tardif du conflit’, 84Google Scholar.
42 Letter 171, PL ccii. 618A–C.
43 Knowles, , Cistercians and Cluniacs, 23–6Google Scholar; Sancti Bernardi Opera, vii. 239–41, letter 91.
44 Knowles, says of the document containing Peter's, Statuta (PL clxxxix. 1025–1048)Google Scholarthat ‘Taken as a whole, it may be said to supply a complete vindication of St Bernard's Apology’: Cistercians and Cluniacs, 27.
45 For maps showing the monasteries of Champagne, see Lusse, J., ‘Le monachisme en Champagne des origines au Xlle siècle’, in La Champagne Benedictine (Travaux de l'Académie Nationale de Reims clx, 1981), 24–78Google Scholar. See also the comment in Libellus, p. xviii: ‘The diocese of Liège was a recognised centre of religious and intellectual activity at that time (i.e. early twelfth century), and together with its neighbouring dioceses in the province of Reims showed a degree of ferment in the life of its religious institutions hardly equalled anywhere else in Europe.’
46 Peter's letters were primarily vehicles for the expression of elevated spiritual or pious sentiment. Letter collections of this period were literary rather than archival endeavours, works of moral exhortation rather than the products of an administrator's office. The details of specific business enter relatively rarely, sometimes only in cryptic postscripts. Often the letter was an introductory oration or a gift to accompany a verbal message, by which the real business would be conveyed. They provide, therefore, a sample only, and not an exhaustive survey, of the author's involvement in the affairs of other houses. Of Peter of Celle's letters 180 survive. The recipients are largely monastic, and include Benedictines, Cistercians, Carthusians and Grandimontines. A large number are letters of friendship, having no other purpose than to convey sentiments appropriate to the cultivation of amicitia. Most of these letters are found in PL ccii. 405–636. Others appear inLeclercq, J., ‘Nouvelles lettres de Pierre de Celle’, Studia Anselmiana xliii (1958), 160–79Google Scholar. These letters, and the concept of amicitia developed in them, are the subject of my ‘A Study of the Letters of Abbot Peter of la-Celle (c. 1115–1183)’, unpubl. PhD diss., Cambridge 1992Google Scholar. A full account of the manuscript and printed tradition is given there.
47 Letter 51 in Peter of Celle's collection, PL ccii. 476B–C. The abbot referred to is St Bernard.
48 Peter of Celle enjoyed close relations with Clairvaux over the years, and wrote letters to many members of the community (ibid, nos 49–52, 57–9, 61–6). Nicolas of Clairvaux, also known as Nicolas of Montiéramy, was his most frequent correspondent there. On his election to the bishopric of Chartres, Peter wrote to the general chapter of the Cistercian Order describing himself as a pupil of St Bernard (‘Recolat igitur sanctissimum vestrum collegium, unum me esse de alumnis beatissimi Bernardi’, letter 174, ibid. 632C–633B). He clearly held Clairvaux in the highest esteem. See alsoWellstein, G., ‘Die freundschaftlichen Beziehungen des Benediktiners Petrus Cellensis zu den Cisterziensern’, Cistercienser Chronik xxxviii (1926), 213–18Google Scholar. Full details of this, and the other affairs described below, appear in Haseldine, ‘Letters of Abbot Peter’, esp. ch. ii and app. 1.
49 Peter's letters concerning Lapley are PL ccii. nos 129, to Richard Peche, bishop of Chester; 130, to Abbot Ranulf of Buildwas; and 152–3, to Ralph of Bedford, prior of Worcester. There is also a later letter, no. 154, to Prior Inganus of Lapley. This affair cannot be dated more closely than 1162–73: it must be later than 1162, for Peter was already abbot of St Rémi, and earlier than 1173, when a reference to the new prior appears in a letter of John of Salisbury: The Letters of John of Salisbury, ii, no. 310, dated? 1173.
50 Letter 130, PL ccii. 578A.
51 Letter 129, ibid. 577B.
52 This affair raises the whole issue of episcopal authority with regard to monasteries. The point here is simply to contrast Peter's attitude to the bishop and to the local Cistercian abbot.
53 The letter to Ulric of Villers is letter 142, ibid. 584C–586C.
54 On St Bernard's attitude to transitus, and the superiority of the Cistercian Order, see Dimier, , ‘Saint Bernard et le droit en matière de Transitus’, 48–82Google Scholar; Picasso, G., ‘San Bernardo e il “Transitus” dei monaci’, Studi su S. Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Rome 1975, 181–200Google Scholar; and Constable, ‘Cluny, Citeaux, La Chartreuse’, 98–105Google Scholar.
56 This is letter 60 in the Peter of Celle collection as it appears in PL(Migne added to the original collection a number of letters of Nicolas of Clairvaux to or concerning Peter): PL ccii. 488C–489B.
58 Sancti Bernardi Opera, viii. 211, letter 293.
59 Peter's letters to Chézy are PL ccii. no. 38, concerning amonk who has been treated unfairly and with excessive severity by some of his fellow monks (although the letter does not give exact details) and no. 39, urging the monks not to let their abbot leave. Both letters present a picture of a divided community.
60 On th e relations between St Bernard an d Simon of Chézy, see Bernard de Clairvaux, Commission d'Histoire de l'Ordre de Citeaux, in, preface by Merton, T., Paris 1953, 240–1Google Scholar. According to the Vita Prima (PL clxxxv. 461–2) Bernard refused Simon's pleas to be allowed to join Clairvaux, but assured him that he would die a monk of Clairvaux. In letter 293 (Sancti Bernardi Opera, viii. 210–11) Bernard says that he will not stand in Simon's way if he wishes to transfer. Whatever the truth of the discussions and arguments which lie behind this apparent contradiction was, Simon did not go to Clairvaux duringBernard's lifetime. The dispute concerning Adam must fall between 1145 and 1151 because of Nicolas's involvement: Peter was not at la-Celle before 1145, and Nicolas had been expelled from Clairvaux by 1151. On Nicolas of Clairvaux see Benton, J. F., ‘The court of Champagne as a literary centre’, Speculum xxxvi (1961), 551–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 555–7, and Dictionnaire de Spiritualite, xi. 255–9.
59 Peter's letters are PL ccii. nos 175, 176. All four letters (the two by Peter, one by Stephen of Tournai, PL ccxi. 361–70, no. 71, and one by the member of the community of St Victor) appear together in MS Dijon B.M. 189, fos 3–5. They were evidently written at the request of Peter of Pavia, papal legate to France (see Stephen of Tournai, letter 72, PL ccxi. 370–1, a covering letter to accompany the one in the small MS Dijon collection). Peter of Pavia was legate in France 1174–8 and 1180–2 (Ganzer, K., Die Entwicklung des auswärtigen Kardinalats im hohen Mittelalter, Tübingen 1963, 123–5Google Scholar; Delehaye, H., ‘Pierre de Pavie légat du pape Alexandre III en France’, Revue des questions historiques xlix (1891), 5–61Google Scholar, at pp. 30–40, 49–61). Stephen of Tournai's letter was written while he was abbot of St Genevieve (1177–92, PL ccxi. 331; Gallia Christiana vii. 720–6). Peter was at St R6mi until 1181. This leaves either 1177–8 or 1180–1 as possible dates for this dispute.
60 See Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu (Lettre d'Or), 27, where Déchanet notes, ‘Ces attaques ne nous sont connues que par la réplique qui leur est donnée, précisément dans la lettre d'or.'
61 Peter of Celle, letters 40, 42 (PL ccii): both mention monks who have transferred to Mont-Dieu.
62 Peter's letters to Mont-Dieu are nos 40–7 (ibid.). On the attempt to found a new charterhouse in Champagne, see letter 48 to Basil of la Grande Chartreuse. On the Carthusian mission to Denmark, see letters 20, to Eskil of Lund, and 144 bis, to Basil of la Grande Chartreuse. On Peter's efforts on behalf of Val-Dieu, see letters 86, to Cardinal Albert of San Lorenzo in Lucina, and 116, to William aux Blanches Mains, archbishop of Sens. Full details of these, and Peter's other involvements with the Carthusians, are given in Haseldine, , ‘Letters of Abbot Peter’, 43–9Google Scholar.
63 Bernerède of St Crépin: abbot of St Crépin-le-Grand de Soissons 1162/3–1179, occ. as cardinal bishop of Palestrina from May 1179, d. 3 Jul. 1180 (Gallia Christiana ix. 398–9; The Letters of John of Salisbury, ii. 723, n. 11). Peter's letters to Bernerède are nos 93–5, 97–9, 101–2 (PL ccii). On the succession to the abbacy at St Crépin, see letter 95. On the quarrel with St Médard, see letter 148 (addressed to the abbots of St Crépin and St Médard). A full description of Peter's relations with Bernerëde appears in Haseldine, , ‘Letters of Abbot Peter’, 56–62Google Scholar.
64 It is worth noting that, as well as expressing enthusiastic support for other orders, such as the Cistercians, Carthusians and Grandimontines, Peter of Celle did not shrink from attacking abuses and lapses of discipline in his own. Some of his letters to the communities of Cluny and Molesme (see especially nos 25 to Peter the Venerable, 159 to the monks of Cluny and 156 to Molesme) lament and expose failures to maintain the high standards of monastic life which had characterised these monasteries in the past.
65 With reference to the last point in this list, see Peter the Venerable's comment in a letter to Bernard of Clairvaux (letter 111, The Letters of Peter the Venerable, i. 290) that often disputes arose from nothing more fundamental than the envy of black monks for white, and the pride of white monks with regard to the black.
66 Constable, , ‘Cluny, Citeaux, La Chartreuse’, 107Google Scholar. The original quotation reads ‘Le amicizie tra i leaders monastici rappresentano un'altra utile indicazione per le relazione tra monastici, in quanto l'amicizia nel Medio Evo, come nell'Antichità, era affare politico e personale ad un tempo e ricopriva “ogni grado di relazione genuinamente ed apertamente amichevale”.’ The final quotation is from Brunt, , ‘Amicitia in the late Roman Republic’, 20Google Scholar.
67 A correlation between the instances of Peter of Celle cultivating friendships and his involvements in various disputes and controversies suggests that amicitia, in this monastic circle, was often sought primarily for its own sake, whatever its later benefits may have been, rather than sought for immediate gain when an ally was required urgently. The cultivation of friendship and its motivation in Peter of Celle's circle is examined in Haseldine, , ‘Letters of Abbot Peter’, 145–52Google Scholar.
68 De Amicitia xiv. 51, Cicero; De Senectute, de Amicitia, de Divinatione, ed. Falconer, W. A., London-Cambridge, Mass. 1971, 162–3Google Scholar.
69 ‘Placuit dignationi vestrae me annumerare in amicorum vestrorum collegio’: Peter of Celle, letter 91, PL ccii. 538C; on Peter of Pavia's recommendation of Peter of Celle, Bernerède of St Crépin and others for the cardinalate, in 1178, see Glorieux, P., ‘Candidats à la pourpre en 1178’, Mélanges de science religieuse xi (1954), 5–30Google Scholar.
70 ‘Rogo amicitiam et fraternitatem vestram’: letter 175, PL ccii. 634A. It is clear from these letters (175–6) that Peter had not met the novices.
71 ‘In negotiis amicorum gerendis tantumdem bonae fidei exigitur, quantum et in propriis. Nee ignoro fraternam sollicitudinem vestram operam dedisse, quatenus fidei vestrae commissum negotium, bono inchoatum principio, fine meliori clauderetur’: letter 130, ibid. 577C, to Ranulf of Buildwas; ‘Inde est, charissime amice, quod contra propositum et voluntatem cordis vestri, fratrem P. priorem de Lapelee cogimur amovere’: letter 152, ibid. 596A, to Ralph of Bedford, prior of Worcester.
72 For John of Salisbury's report to Peter on the state of Lapley, see The Letters of John of Salisbury, ii, letter 310, esp. pp. 758–61. Peter's letters concerning Lapley are PL ccii. no. 16, to John of St Malo, and nos 68, 74, to John of Salisbury.
73 Letter 118, ibid. 568C.
74 For Peter of Celle's letter to Hardouin of Larrivour see Leclercq, , ‘Nouvelles Lettres de Pierre de Celle’, 174–7Google Scholar.