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Varieties of Monastic Discipline in Southern Italy During the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
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The conquest of southern Italy by the Normans during the eleventh century incorporated what had hitherto been a peripheral region more fully within the mainstream of Western Europe. However, notwithstanding this, in a number of respects the development of the Church in Norman Italy followed its own idiosyncratic pattern, rather different from the trends that prevailed in other parts of contemporary Latin Christendom. This distinctive evolution can be clearly observed in south Italian monasticism during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
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References
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32 Vitae Quatuor Priorum Abbatum Cavensium, ed. L. Mattei-Cerasoli, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ns: vol. 6, pt 5.1 (Bologna, 1941) [hereafter: VQPA], 7 (twelve monks only), 8 (Alferius retires to his cell to die), 12 (Leo’s cell). The Rule of St Benedict was, however, observed at the subordinate monastery of St Nicholas de Palma, that Leo founded, S. Leone and G. Vitolo, eds, Codex Diplomatics Cavensis, ix (Cava, 1984), 328–32, no. 103 (1071), and presumably therefore by the mother house as well by this date, and perhaps before St Nich olas was founded in 1062. Cava itself was founded between 1016 and 1025, S. Leone, ‘La Data di fondazione della badia di Cava’, Benedictina 22 (1975), 335–46 [reprinted in Leone and Vitolo, Minima Cauensia, 45–59].
33 For example, the foundation charters of the monastery of St Andrew of Brindisi in 1059: Faciatis exinde secundum testum regule Sancti Benedicti docet, Codice Diplomatico Brindisiano i (492–1290), ed. G. M. Monti (Trani, 1940), 7–9, no. 4; Holy Trinity, Mileto, in 1080, L.-R. Ménager, ‘L’Abbaye bénédictine de la Trinité de Mileto en Calabre à l’époque normande’, Bullettino del archivio paleografico italiano, ns 4–5 (1958/9), 41–3, no. 13; and in a donation by the founder to the nunnery of St John the Evangelist at Lecce in 1133, Pastore, M., ed., Le Pergamene di San Giovanni Evangelista in Lecce, (Lecce, 1970), 1–3, no. 1.Google Scholar
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37 Petri Diaconi: Ortus et Vita Iustorum Cenobii Casinensis, ed. R. H. Rodgers (Berkeley, CA, 1972), 75. Regesto della antica badia di S. Matteo de Castello o Servorum Dei, ed. M. Inguanez (Montecassino, 1914), 2–5, nos 2–3. Sansterre, ‘Recherches sur les ermites du Mont-Cassin’, 68.
38 Vita, ce. 12–13, ActaSS Iun. 7 (Paris, 1867), 101–2. The Life has also been edited by G. Mongelli, ‘Legenda de Vita et Obitu S. Guilielmi Confessons et Heremite’, Samnium 24 (1961), 144–72; 25 (1962). 48–73.
39 Ibid., c. 16, at 103.
40 Codice diplomatico verginiano, ed. P. M. Tropeano, 13 vols (Montevergine, 1977–2000), 2: 199–203, no. 148.
41 Vita c. 24; ActaSS Iun. 7, 105–6.
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46 Vita Iohannis, cc. 49–50; ActaSS Iun. 5, 49–50.
47 Stated in the first surviving papal bull for Pulsano, Panarelli, Dal Gargano, 291–3.
48 Italia Pontificia, ed. P. F. Kehr, 10 vols (Berlin, 1905–75), ix; Samnium-Apulia-Lucania, ed. W. Holtzmann (Berlin, 1962), 109, no. 1.
49 Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism, 86–96, points to a general tendency of eremitic monks towards adoption of a conventual lifestyle: in southern Italy, however, the model was specifically Benedictine.
50 ‘The prior of the hermits of Majella’ received a grant from the Bishop-elect of Chieti in 1141, and the community was still described as one of hermits in a bull of Alexander III in 1175, although at some point between 1164 and 1175 its head had become an abbot, Collectio Bullarum Vaticanae, 1: xxi, 62–4.
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52 VQPA, 17–18. These events took place in the late 1060s, during the lifetime of his predecessor Leo, while Peter was acting as the latter’s deputy. They did not prevent him succeeding Leo as abbot in 1079.
53 G. Vitolo, ‘Cava e Cluny’, in Leone and Vitolo, Minima Cavensia, 19–44. The death of Abbot Peter in 1123 was presaged by a vision of three of the holy abbots of Cluny, VQPA, 26.
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56 White, Latin Monasticism, 184.
57 Cartulaire general de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de St. Jean de Jérusalem (1100—1310), ed. J. Delaville Le Roulx, 4 vols (Paris, 1894–1906), 1: 29–30, no. 30. A. Luttrell, ‘Gli Ospedalierinel Mezzogiorno’, in G. Musca ed., Il Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo e le Crociale, Atti delle quattordicesime giornate normanno-sveve, 2000 (Bari, 2002), 290–1.
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