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Celtic Asceticism and Carolingian Authority in early medieval Brittany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Julia M. H. Smith
Julia M. H. Smith*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

In the earlier Middle Ages, Brittany enjoyed a mixed reputation as a region in which to lead a life of ascetic discipline and dedication to God. The (eleventh-century?) Life of Me wan describes Samson and his disciples leaving Britain for a life of spiritual exile. They headed for Brittany because, according to the hagiographer, the region was not only a ‘desert’ where life would be harsher than elsewhere, but also because the ferocity of its inhabitants made it crueller. Others were not so sure whether this was an advantage. Abelard’s tribulations as abbot of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys are well known: though himself originating from Bretagne gallo, he complained that the Bretons of Bretagne bretonnante were a barbarian, lawless race, and that the monks of Saint-Gildas were dissolute and uncontrollable. Abelard’s comments echo a long tradition of French, or Frankish, castigation of the Bretons, stretching back at least to the ninth century. This criticism often expresses more than hostility to a gens whose language made them incomprehensible and hence ridiculous: amongst the tensions it reflects are problems of Christian discipline and ecclesiastical authority which the Frankish church was unable fully to resolve. In exploring behind the Bretons’ bad reputation, it is worthwhile investigating both the ascetic practices of early medieval Brittany and the reactions to those practices of the Frankish church. In so doing, I hope to elucidate my juxtaposition of ‘Celtic asceticism’ and ‘Carolingian authority’ by showing how Breton ascetic traditions were modified under the impact of Carolingian political circumstances.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 22: Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition , 1985 , pp. 53 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1985

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References

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4 These problems are discussed in the context of the secular church hierarchy in Smith, J.M.H., ‘The “Archbishopric” of Dol and the ecclesiastical politics of ninth-century Brittany’, SCH 18 (1982) pp. 59–70 Google Scholar.

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8 Lib[ri] Hist[oriarum Decern] VIII. 15, MGH SRM 1 (2 ed) pp. 381–3.

9 See the comments on Wulfilaic of Brown, P., ‘Eastern and western Christendom in late antiquity: a parting of the ways’, SCH 13 (1976) pp. 1–24 at p. 16 Google Scholar, and of [ Magdalino, P., ‘The] Byzantine holy man [in the twelfth century]’, The Byzantine Saint, ed Hackel, S. (London 1981) pp. 51–66 at p. 60 Google Scholar.

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11 The most recent survey of the dispute is Poulin, [J-C], ‘Hagiographie et politique. [La première vie de saint Samson de Dol]’, Francia 5 (1977) pp. 1–26 Google Scholar.

12 De die in diem quasi per scalam spiritualem ascendem altius atque altius. [Fawtier, R., La Viede Saint] Samson. [Essai de Critique Hagiographique, BEHE 197] (Paris 1912) 1.13 p. 113 Google Scholar. Samson’s career in Britain and Ireland is the subject of 1.1-51; events in Brittany and Francia are relegated to 1.52-61.

13 For example, most recently by Davies, W., Wales in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester 1982) pp. 151–3 Google Scholar.

14 Well summarised at I.21: ‘admirabilem atque eremiticam immo et caelestem vitam infatigabiliter ducens, non diebus, non noctibus, ab orationibus et a colloquiis Dei cessabat, totum diem operibus manuum et orationibus ducens, totam vero noctem in mysticis Sanctarum Scriptuarum intelligentiis, lucernam sui mansioni portans ut ad legendum intentus, aut aliquid scriberet, aut de spiritualibus theoricis meditaretur.’ (Samson, p. 121). The parallels between the portrayal of Samson in the vita prima and Sulpicius Severus’s portrait of Martin have been stressed by Poulin, ‘Hagiographie et politique’, but he goes too far in seeing Samson as ‘un “alter ego” de Martin’.

15 Characterised in the account of Samson’s rule of the island monastery founded by Piro, where Samson was appointed abbot in succession to Piro, who had died by falling down a well whilst drunk: ‘Obediente illo non voluntarle fratres suos secundum rectam regulam suaviter instituebat, atque hoc loco, non plus anno et dimidio primatum tenens, heremitam se plus quam caenobitam monachum fratres iudicabant’ (Samson, 1.36 p. 133).

16 For general discussions of these works, see Riche, P., ‘Les Hagiographes bretons et la renaissance carolingienne’, Bulletin du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (1966) pp. 651–9 Google Scholar; Kerlouégan, F., ‘Les vies des saints bretons les plus anciennes dans leurs rapports avec les îles britanniques’, Insular Latin Studies ed Herren, M. (Toronto 1981) pp. 195–213 Google Scholar. The many eleventh-century or later Lives of Breton saints are not considered here; for summary discussions, see Duine, F., Memento des Sources Hagiographiques de l’Histoire de Bretagne (Rennes 1918 Google Scholar).

17 [Cuissard, C.,] ‘Vie de Saint Paul [de Léon en Bretagne]’, Revue Celtique 5 (1881-2) pp. 413–60 Google Scholar at pp. 417–8. Wrmonoc claims to be reworking an earlier account. Some credence is given to this by his use of spellings of Breton names that were archaic by the late ninth century. Jackson, K.H., Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh 1953) pp. 41–2 Google Scholar.

18 The dismissive remark of L. Bieler is apt: ‘We notice the almost complete absence not only of genuine historical information, but even of original legendary tradition’. ‘The Celtic hagiographer’, TU 80 (1962) pp. 243–65 at p. 258.

19 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, cap vi p. 249; see Kerlouégan, F., ‘Les Citations d’auteurs latins chrétiens dans les vies des saints bretons carolingiennes’, Etudes Celtiques 19 (1982) pp. 215–57 at pp. 237–8 Google Scholar.

20 A useful study of this vocabulary is Leclercq, J., ‘Eremus et eremita: pour l’histoire du vocabulaire de la vie solitaire’, COCR 25 (1963) pp. 8–30 Google Scholar.

21 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, caps vii, xi, xviii pp. 430–1, 436–7, 449.

22 For example, ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, caps xiv (three springs with healing properties gush out), xv (dealings with wild animals include stroking a wild sow suckling her litter), xviii (copes with a serpent at least one hundred and twenty feet long) pp. 440–2, 442–3, 446–9.

23 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’,”cap xix pp. 449–52.

24 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, cap xiii pp. 439–40.

25 The expressions are derived from Poulin, J-C., L’Idéal de Sainteté dans l’Aquitaine Carolingienne d’après les Sources Hagiographiques (Quebec 1975 Google Scholar); see the important review article of Pohlkamp, W., ‘Hagiographische Texte als Zeugnisse einer “histoire de la sainteté’“, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 11 (1977) pp. 229–40 Google Scholar, and also Leclercq, J. ‘Le Monachisme du haut moyen âge (VIIIe-Xe siècles)’, Théologie de la Vie Monastique Collection Théologie 49 (Paris 1961) pp. 437–445 Google Scholar.

26 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, cap ix pp. 432–3. On Irish traditions of spiritual pilgrimage, Angenendt, A., ‘Die irische Peregrinatio und ihre Auswirkungen auf dem Kontinent vor dem Jahre 800’, Die Iren und Europa im fröheren Mittelalter, ed Löwe, H. (Stuttgart 1982) 1 pp. 52–79 Google Scholar.

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28 Vita [S.] Winwaloei [primi abbatis Landevenecensis, ed C. de Smedt,] An Bol 7 (1888), 1.19, II.9, 14 pp. 205–6, 225, 227. On the recitation of the psalter in culdee rules, Gougaud, L., Christianity in the Celtic Lands (London 1932) pp. 90–50 Google Scholar; Hughes, K.W., The Church in Early Irish Society (London 1966) pp. 178, 180, 186–7 Google Scholar.

29 ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, cap vi p. 429.

30 Vita Winwaloei, II. 12 p. 226.

31 [Ed Semmler, J.,] C[orpus] C[onsuetudinum] M[onasticarum vol] 1 [ed Hallinger, K.] (Siegburg K. 1963) pp. 451–81 Google Scholar. On the significance of this legislation, Semmler, J., ‘Die Beschlüsse des Aachener Konzils imjahre 816’, ZKG 74 (1963) pp. 15–82 Google Scholar; ‘Reichsidee und kirchliche Gesetzgebung’, ZKG 71 (1960) pp. 37–65; Schmitz, P., ‘L’Influence de Saint Benoît d’Aniane sur l’ordre de Saint Benoît’, SSSpoleto 4 (1957) PP. 401–15.Google Scholar

32 Carolingian commentaries on the Benedictine Rule lay great stress on obedience: Schroll, M. A., Benedictine Monasticism as reflected in the Wamefrid-Hildemar Commentaries on the Rule (New York 1941) p. 182 Google Scholar. See also Noble, T.F.X., ‘The monastic ideal as a model for empire: the case of Louis the Pious’, RB 86 (1976) pp. 235–250 Google Scholar.

33 Compare Magdalino’s comments on the reign of Manuel Komnenos ‘Byzantine holy man’.

34 I examined Louis’s Breton diplomas in more detail in ‘Breton monasteries and the reforms of Louis the Pious’, a paper presented to the Seventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, Oxford 1983, forthcoming.

35 Vita Winwaloei, 1.21 p. 209.

36 Vita Winwaloei, II. 13 p. 227.

37 Vita Winwaloei, II.12 p. 226; Compare La Règle de Saint Benoît, 6 vols ed Vogüé, A. de and Neufville, J., cap 55 vol 2 SCR 182 (1972) p. 618 Google Scholar; Synodi primi Aquisgranensis decreta authentica clauses 19–20, CCM 1 pp. 461–2.

38 Lot, F., ‘Les Gesta Sanctorum Rotonensium’ in his Mélanges d’Histoire Bretonne (Paris 1907) pp. 1–13 Google Scholar.

39 Gesta [Sanctorum Rotonensium ed Mabillon, J., ASOSB 4 pt 2] 1.3 pp. 194–5 Google Scholar.

40 Odo of Glanfeuil, Historia Translations S. Mauri, MGH SS 15 pt 1 p. 470.

41 Redon provides a further example: Fidweten, a Breton companion of Gerfred in the woods of central Brittany, reached Redon after Gerfred had left and appears to have been a ‘hermit in residence’ there. Gesta II.5 pp. 207–8. See also the comments on hermits within Benedictine monasticism of Constable, G., ‘Eremitical forms of monastic life’, Istituzioni Monastichi e Istituzioni canonicali in Occidente, Miscellenea del Centro di Studi Medioevali, 9 (1980) pp. 239–64 Google Scholar and Leclercq, J., ‘Pierre le Vénérable et l’érémitisme clunisien’, Petrus Venerabilis, ed Constable, G. and Kritzeck, J. SA 40 (1956) pp. 99–120 Google Scholar especially pp. 99–112. Leclercq’s list of hermits in the Carolingian period is far from exhaustive.

42 Gesta III. 3 pp. 216–7.

43 Cartulaire de l’Abbaye de Redon en Bretagne, ed Courson, A. de (Paris 1863) nos xi, xcvii, appendix iv, xl + xlv pp. 11–12, 73–4, 354, 369, 371-2 Google Scholar. There are other monasteriola which escaped take-over by Redon.

44 Vita Cuenaili, cap 2 ASB Nov. vol i p. 677.

45 Vita Cuenaili cap. 3 p. 678. This chapter, an account of the translatio of Guenael’s relics, cannot have been written earlier than their removal to Paris and Corbeil in the 960s, but the theme of the exclusion of women from the claustra monachorum is common. See ‘Miracles de Saint Magloire’, ed Borderie, A. de La, cap iv, Mémoires de la Société Archéologique et Historique des Côtes-du-Nord 2nd ser 5 (1891) p. 235 Google Scholar; and Wrdisten reports that Winwaloe’s prohibition against women entering the monastic enclosure at Landévennec was still in force at the time he was writing the Life. Vita Winwaloei, II. 5 p. 220.

46 Gesta II.9 p. 211.

47 In this context it is to be recalled that Wrmonoc was a pupil of Wrdisten, and that he wrote his Life of Paul Aurelian as a monk at Landévennec during Wrdisten’s abbacy. Preface to the ‘Vie de Saint Paul’, pp. 417–8.