Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages: Richard of Saint-Vanne and the Politics of Reform

by Steven Vanderputten

Overview

Around the turn of the first millennium AD, there emerged in the former Carolingian Empire a generation of abbots that came to be remembered as one of the most influential in the history of Western monasticism. In this book Steven Vanderputten reevaluates the historical significance of this generation of monastic leaders through an in-depth study of one of its most prominent figures, Richard of Saint-Vanne. During his lifetime, Richard (d. 1046) served as abbot of numerous monasteries, which gained him a reputation as a highly successful administrator and reformer of monastic discipline. As Vanderputten shows, however, a more complex view of Richard’s career, spirituality, and motivations enables us to better evaluate his achievements as church leader and reformer.

Vanderputten analyzes various accounts of Richard’s life, contemporary sources that are revealing of his worldview and self-conception, and the evidence relating to his actions as a monastic reformer and as a promoter of conversion. Richard himself conceived of his life as an evolving commentary on a wide range of issues relating to individual spirituality, monastic discipline, and religious leadership. This commentary, which combined highly conservative and revolutionary elements, reached far beyond the walls of the monastery and concerned many of the issues that would divide the church and its subjects in the later eleventh century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801456305
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	09/22/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Steven Vanderputten is Professor of Medieval History at Ghent University. He is the author of Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900–1100, also from Cornell, editor of Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, Tenth–Thirteenth Centuries), and coeditor of Ecclesia in medio nationis: Reflections on the Study of Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Imagining Richard in Medieval and Modern Historiography2. Ecclesiastical Office, Religious Virtuosity, and the Apostolic Imperative3. Imagining Saint-Vanne4. "Founder and Head of Many Monasteries"5. Converting the WorldConclusionAppendix A: Chronology of Major Events in Richard's Life
Appendix B: The Life of Roding
Appendix C: Monastic Reading at Saint-Vanne
Appendix D: Overview of Richard’s Abbacies Outside of Saint-Vanne
Appendix E: Overview of Richard’s "Priors"
Appendix F: Overview of Richard’s SuccessorsBibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Marc Saurette

Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages is a fresh and necessary reexamination of Richard of Saint-Vanne. Steven Vanderputten's portrait of Richard unfolds in an analytical, narrative, and most entertaining fashion. Each chapter reveals further insights about Richard from different sources and keeps the reader anticipating what will come next. Vanderputten argues in clear, straightforward prose that seems to arrive effortlessly at answers that in fact draw on his wide range of knowledge.

Editorial Reviews

Vanderputten places Richard within the wider context of ecclesiastical leadership at the turn of the first millennium.... Using multiple ecclesiastical chronicles, the eleventh-century Life of Richard, and some of Richard's own writings, Vanderputten paints a picture of Richard as a dynamic figure, part of the aristocratic elite of tenth-century Lotharingue who developed an ideal of following the suffering Christ, nudus Christum nudum sequere.

The Historian

Steven Vanderputten is a productive scholar, publishing a spate of books and articles over the past decade, most of which deal with questions of monastic history in medieval Flanders and the surrounding areas in the tenth and eleventh centuries. With Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages Vanderputten turns his attention to a monastic figure, who he argues has been oft misinterpreted: Richard of Saint-Vanne. Vanderputten gives us the most thorough investigation of the life and actions of Richard to date, and does so in an impressive manner.

Comitatus 47

"Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages is a fresh and necessary reexamination of Richard of Saint-Vanne. Steven Vanderputten's portrait of Richard unfolds in an analytical, narrative, and most entertaining fashion. Each chapter reveals further insights about Richard from different sources and keeps the reader anticipating what will come next. Vanderputten argues in clear, straightforward prose that seems to arrive effortlessly at answers that in fact draw on his wide range of knowledge."

Marc Saurette

"Vanderputten places Richard within the wider context of ecclesiastical leadership at the turn of the first millennium.... Using multiple ecclesiastical chronicles, the eleventh-century Life of Richard, and some of Richard's own writings, Vanderputten paints a picture of Richard as a dynamic figure, part of the aristocratic elite of tenth-century Lotharingue who developed an ideal of following the suffering Christ, nudus Christum nudum sequere."

THE HISTORIAN

"Steven Vanderputten is a productive scholar, publishing a spate of books and articles over the past decade, most of which deal with questions of monastic history in medieval Flanders and the surrounding areas in the tenth and eleventh centuries. With Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages Vanderputten turns his attention to a monastic figure, who he argues has been oft misinterpreted: Richard of Saint-Vanne. Vanderputten gives us the most thorough investigation of the life and actions of Richard to date, and does so in an impressive manner."

Comitatus 47 - Greg Peters

"Steven Vanderputten is a productive scholar, publishing a spate of books andarticles over the past decade, most of which deal with questions of monastichistory in medieval Flanders and the surrounding areas in the tenth andeleventh centuries. With Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle AgesVanderputten turns his attention to a monastic figure, who he argues has beenoft misinterpreted: Richard of Saint-Vanne. Vanderputten gives us the mostthorough investigation of the life and actions of Richard to date, and does so inan impressive manner." — Greg Peters,Comitatus 47

"Imagining Religious Leadership in the Middle Ages is a fresh and necessary reexamination of Richard of Saint-Vanne. Steven Vanderputten's portrait of Richard unfolds in an analytical, narrative, and most entertaining fashion. Each chapter reveals further insights about Richard from different sources and keeps the reader anticipating what will come next. Vanderputten argues in clear, straightforward prose that seems to arrive effortlessly at answers that in fact draw on his wide range of knowledge."—Marc Saurette, Carleton University

From the Publisher