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Friend or Foe? The Bishops of Metz in Monastic Historical Narrative, c. 1000–c. 1200

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

SAMANTHA KAHN HERRICK
SAMANTHA KAHN HERRICK*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
*
E-mail: sherrick@maxwell.syr.edu
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Abstract

Monks writing at Saint-Clément, Metz, over roughly two hundred years produced conflicting images of Bishop Theodoric I (965–84). In earlier texts, he is the monks’ benefactor, in later sources, their foe. Historians have sought to flatten this contrast, partly because of their assumptions about monastic reform. This paper offers an alternative reading that questions those assumptions. It suggests that the evolution of Theodoric's image reflects changing ideas about monastic reform and the proper relationship between bishops and monks. It also cautions against accepting narratives – medieval or modern – that obscure the fluidity of such ideas and relationships.

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Type
Research Article
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 253 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Several texts composed at the same monastery over the span of roughly two hundred years all have something to say about a particular bishop. Each text relates the bishop's interactions with the abbey, to a greater or lesser extent. However, even though these texts thus discuss the same man, they portray him in starkly contrasting terms. The earlier texts paint him as the monks’ friend: a benefactor who generously supported their house and shrine. The later sources, on the contrary, make him out almost as a foe who made donations to the abbey only after trying – and failing – to take the monks’ relics. This contrast presents something of a riddle. How should historians interpret the monks’ seemingly unstable image of this bishop?

This riddle is particularly vexing because it makes it difficult to determine the kind of relationship that the bishop had with this monastic community. Understanding that relationship is not only key to reconstructing the history of this particular abbey and its bishops, but also contributes to wider discussions about the nature of episcopal authority, monasticism and reform. The riddle is worth trying to solve. Scholars have previously attempted to do just that by validating one portrait and dismissing the other. That solution does not always do justice to the sources, however. This article develops an alternative approach, in the hope of finding a better solution. Rather than asking which image of the bishop is the right one – friend or foe – it suggests that the monks’ unstable depictions reflect their changing notions of the proper relationship between themselves and their bishop. It thus considers the impact of ecclesiastical reform at the local level, as reflected in the shifting ways in which one monastic community viewed and depicted their bishop.

After tracing these contrasting portraits, the article outlines how scholars have tried to make sense of this riddle and the limitations of their solutions. It then proposes an alternative approach.

Portraying Bishop Theodoric I at Saint-Clément

The texts in question come from the monastery of Saint-Clément, Metz, which lay about half a mile south of the city's ancient walls. Originally dedicated to another saint, Felix, the abbey was increasingly associated with Clement, the city's first bishop, after Bishop Drogo (823–55) placed his relics there in the mid-ninth century.Footnote 1 The abbey eventually became known as Saint-Clément and, although this change was gradual, for the sake of simplicity it is referred to here as ‘Saint-Clément’. At the time of the translation, the church belonged to the episcopal patrimony and the cathedral's archdeacon apparently presided over its clergy.Footnote 2 Around the middle of the tenth century, Bishop Adalbero i (929–62) replaced these clerics with monks and entrusted the abbey to the Irish reformer Caddroë (d. 974/75).Footnote 3 Adalbero also bolstered the abbey's material resources: shortly after the reform, for instance, he granted the monks the local church of Saint-André.Footnote 4 The bishop thus instigated changes that would turn Saint-Clément into a well-endowed regular monastery. Not long afterwards, the newly established monks began to envisage their abbey's history in texts that touch upon the bishop's role there.

At the centre of this new historical vision, however, stood their saint.Footnote 5 Roughly two or three generations after the monks’ arrival, sometime around the year 1000, the first vitae Clementis were composed, one in prose and one in verse.Footnote 6 Both built upon the work of Paul the Deacon, who attributed the conversion of Metz to Clement, a disciple of the Apostle Peter, who sent him to Gaul for that purpose.Footnote 7 The vitae claimed that Clement founded the abbey and designed its crypt as his sepulchre.Footnote 8 They also attributed the monks’ recent advent to his ongoing concern for it. The metrical vita described the church before the monks’ arrival as ‘destroyed and abandoned’, with ‘nettles and brambles growing in the sanctuary’.Footnote 9 In response to this woeful state of affairs, it said that Clement himself selected Caddroë and ‘brought [him] into accord’ with Bishop Adalbero.Footnote 10 Whether or not the abbey had really fallen into such a grievous state, this carefully constructed history justified the monks’ claim to their new home.Footnote 11 It also credited the abbey's renovation collectively to Clement, Caddroë and Bishop Adalbero.

As the monks of the late tenth century brought their history up to the present, they portrayed Adalbero's successor as continuing this partnership. The Vita Caddroë, written at Saint-Clément shortly after the abbot's death in the 970s, praised Bishop Theodoric i (965–84), Adalbero's successor. Caddroë’s hagiographer described Theodoric as a man of ‘unparalleled talent’ who built or restored shrines, imported relics and supported monastic life. He reportedly ‘loved the conversation of the servants of God, he delighted in their company’ and granted the monks of Saint-Clément ‘benefices and estates’. Moreover, the Vita Caddroë related that Theodoric ‘listened to the blessed man himself [Caddroë] as to a revered father, and often called for him, since he knew that the man had “the spirit of counsel” (Is. 11.2)’. Caddroë’s discourse and example, the vita asserted, guided Theodoric toward ‘those things that please God’.Footnote 12 The monk Reimannus, who wrote this vita during Theodoric's episcopate, clearly wished to enlist the bishop in the cause of Caddroë’s sanctity. Perhaps this hope inspired him to flatter Theodoric as a man of ‘unparalleled talent’. Yet Reimannus also depicted the bishop as deferential before Caddroë’s virtue. It therefore appears likely that Theodoric did indeed admire the abbot and seek his counsel, or he might well have objected to this characterisation. Good rapport between the monks and their bishop thus appears to have continued during his episcopate.

Nevertheless, it is this very Bishop Theodoric whom later generations of Saint-Clément's monks would portray so differently, as their abbey's antagonist. Additional tenth-century evidence about him is thus useful, even when that evidence is less explicit.

Such is the case with what appears to be a translation of Clement's relics. The metrical vita describes an ambitious architectural programme that enlarged and beautified both the crypt and the rest of the abbey church in its author's time. Among the later monastic sources that echo this report is one, the Miracula Clementis, which states that the building work included the transfer of Clement's relics, although it does not specify their new location.Footnote 13 This scenario appears likely. Both tenth-century vitae imply that the tomb in the church's crypt was empty in their authors’ day. According to the prose Vita prima, Clement had occupied the crypt tomb for ‘a not inconsiderable time’ but apparently lay there no longer.Footnote 14 The metrical vita was more explicit in saying that Clement ‘had formerly rested’ in the crypt.Footnote 15 Although the language of these sources does not indicate just when the relics had been moved, it seems likely that the refurbishment of the abbey that followed the monks’ arrival had culminated in the translation of Clement's relics, presumably to a more exalted spot in the main church.

Contemporary sources suggest that Bishop Theodoric was ultimately responsible for this great building project. The monk Carus, author of the metrical vita, credited the renovation to one Vindricus, whom he praised and described as his friend. Carus further identified Vindricus as ‘the great primicerius of Metz’ – that is, as one of the highest-ranking members of the cathedral clergy.Footnote 16 This cleric, more often called Wigericus (and subsequently called so here), had accompanied Bishop Theodoric to Italy in the early 970s, when he was the cathedral's cantor. He later served as its custos, before becoming primicerius. The trajectory of Wigericus’ career indicates that Theodoric respected and trusted him, as does the report that, in Italy, the bishop committed precious relics bound for Metz to his care.Footnote 17 The power that Wigericus held at Saint-Clément thus most likely derived from Theodoric, just as the funds that he spent on this prodigious building project presumably flowed from the episcopal purse. The role of the cathedral's primicerius in the ambitious rebuilding of Saint-Clément suggests that Bishop Theodoric, like his predecessor Adalbero, devoted considerable resources to the abbey. All in all, the tenth-century evidence suggests that in his own day Bishop Theodoric was viewed by the monks of Saint-Clément as a benefactor and partner in bringing monastic life at their abbey to fruition.

Later sources, however, paint a very different picture: beginning in the second half of the eleventh century, the monks alleged that Theodoric had tried to remove Clement's relics from the abbey, and failed. This story first appears in the Miracula Clementis, probably produced before 1090.Footnote 18 It then reappears, with new details, in the Chronicon sancti Clementis, around 1200.Footnote 19 It is worth noting that tenth-century sources lend the story a certain credibility. Among other things, Reimannus praised Theodoric for having ‘turned his attention to building and restoring the shrines of the saints, for which reason, he transferred holy bodies and relics into his diocese from wherever he could’.Footnote 20 Another contemporary source similarly reported that Theodoric brought back from Italy (with the help of Wigericus) the relics of no fewer than nineteen saints, including those of the martyrs Vincent, Lawrence and Lucy.Footnote 21 According to his own eleventh-century vita, Theodoric gave many of these relics to the churches that he built or rebuilt, most notably the abbey of Saint-Vincent and the city's cathedral: he reportedly ‘enriched’ the latter with ‘ornaments’ and ‘precious gifts’ that he had either collected himself or received from powerful donors.Footnote 22 In light of these depictions of Theodoric as an energetic church builder and avid collector of relics, the later story that he had designs on the bones of his city's founding bishop seems plausible – even if, as others have noted, these sources say nothing of any plan to remove Clement's body from the abbey.Footnote 23 Instead, they highlight Theodoric's penchant for acquiring relics from far away.

The story of the attempted theft first arose in the Miracula Clementis, which related that Bishop Theodoric wished to move Clement's body to the newly rebuilt cathedral, ‘to be venerated there by all the people’.Footnote 24 To this end, he organised a procession to transport the relics with due solemnity and before a great crowd of onlookers. With hymns, crosses and candles, the bishop and his attendants raised the saint's body from its crypt and set out for the cathedral. But, before they could reach their destination

the bearers of the sacred body were rendered immobile, fixed to the ground, and could neither continue the journey they had begun nor turn back. Therefore, with all those who were there more stunned than might be believed and with many offerings having been promised to saint Clement, if he would permit himself to be carried to the city, but with the faithful able to advance not at all, behold suddenly two youths of ineffable beauty, unknown to the onlookers, placed on their own shoulders the casket, which contained the most precious pearl, and with all recognising that this was a miracle of God, with the greatest speed they brought it back to the monastery and at once were nowhere to be seen.Footnote 25

Faced with such supernatural opposition, Theodoric yielded. According to the Miracula, ‘the bishop, having been frustrated in his purpose, had [the saint] put back in the upper monastery next to the altar, in which place he lay until the primicerius …, with the monastery having been extended, placed [him] where he now rests’.Footnote 26 This story, therefore, explains the transfer of Clement's relics from the abbey crypt to their new location as a result of the bishop's thwarted desire to remove the relics from the abbey altogether.

Bishop Theodoric does not figure in this tale as the monks’ benefactor and partner. Here, the bishop's plans and the saint's wishes collide, which implies that the bishop did not have the abbey's best interests at heart. The saint, of course, prevails, and the bishop is shown that he cannot do whatever he likes at the abbey, but must bow to the saint's will. Indeed, the story could be taken to suggest that Theodoric had his primicerius expand the church and elevate the relics in order to make amends for having violated Clement's wishes.

A similar image of Bishop Theodoric appeared roughly another century later. Around 1200 the Chronicon sancti Clementis retold the story of the thwarted translation once more. According to this text,

Bishop Theodoric, on account of the excellence of the highest pastor of the same city, the first bishop Clement, while he still lay in the sepulcher in which he had first been buried, wished to transfer him to the [cathedral]; but when he had carried him off, it happened, by angelic disposition, that the first pastor was returned to his first tomb accompanied by the chanting of psalms. Having seen this miracle, the bishop … disposed that all the outbuildings of that church should be improved for the use of the monks and he raised the brothers’ food allowance and ennobled their courts with his own seal and consecrated the enlarged and improved church.Footnote 27

This retelling echoes the earlier Miracula in attributing good intentions to Bishop Theodoric. Nevertheless, here too the translation meets heavenly opposition and, consequently, fails. The bishop's subsequent benefactions to the abbey again appear almost penitential, as if he were seeking to make amends both to the saint, whose will he transgressed, and to the saint's guardians, the monks, whose most precious possession he nearly took.

These later depictions of Bishop Theodoric do not match the image found in the earlier sources. Whereas the earlier texts show him as giving Saint-Clément generous support out of zeal for the monastic life, the later accounts imply that he sought to improve the abbey only after having offended its saint – as if to make up for having offended him. This view contrasts sharply with the tenth-century sources’ image of the bishop and the monks as acting in concert and with the shared aim of fostering the abbey's success. Aside from their agreement that Theodoric was an avid collector of relics, these sources hardly seem to be about the same man.

The prevailing explanation

Other scholars have also noted this discrepancy in the monks’ depiction of Bishop Theodoric and have tried to make sense of it. Jean-Charles Picard led the way here and many others have subsequently endorsed his interpretation. Picard maintained that the tenth-century monks said nothing about this attempted translation because to admit that they had nearly lost their relics was ‘embarrassing’.Footnote 28 They preferred, in his view, to pass over this episode in silence. Moreover, he thought that it was easy for the monks to remain silent about this incident, because they had no other reason to criticise Theodoric, who had not punished their resistance. Nevertheless, about a hundred years later, they decided to broadcast the truth, and so they penned the account of the saint's miraculous refusal to leave the abbey.

This logic is not entirely convincing. As Patrick Geary has shown, stories of relic thefts thwarted commonly served to advertise both a saint's power and a firm commitment to his or her current guardians.Footnote 29 Therefore, the failure of an attempt to remove their patron's relics would surely have gratified – rather than embarrassed – the monks of Saint-Clément. Nor did Picard's interpretation explain why a later generation of monks decided to recount the story that ostensibly mortified their community a century earlier.

Moreover, this interpretation accepts too readily the allegation that Bishop Theodoric tried to take the relics. Despite Theodoric's well-attested interest in relics, no contemporary source alleges that he tried to move Clement's body to the cathedral. Picard's argument rests instead on the assumption that a growing rivalry between the suburban abbey and the cathedral played out in competing claims to Clement's relics.Footnote 30 Picard recognised that the first vitae Clementis legitimised the monks’ guardianship of Clement's relics by reporting that he had founded the church that would later become the abbey and chose its crypt as his resting place. In Picard's view, this story fortified the monks against the bishop's aggressions. However, as noted earlier, sources contemporary with Bishop Theodoric hint at good relations between him and the abbey, rather than antagonism. Nor did Picard offer any evidence for such a rivalry, apart from the efforts of the vitae Clementis to tie the saint to the abbey and the later allegations against Theodoric. Perhaps the monks wished to legitimise their possession of the relics – and indeed, of the abbey itself – not because they faced outside antagonism, but merely because they were newcomers. Taking over a church without any Benedictine history, and possibly displacing other clerics in the process, may have caused the newly arrived monks some anxiety. Making the saint responsible for their advent, as the new vitae did, likely assuaged that anxiety, even as it strengthened their claim to guard the founding bishop's tomb. Rivalry with the cathedral is thus not necessary to explain the monks’ desire to establish themselves as Clement's rightful guardians.

Most significantly, Picard's interpretation places more faith in an account written a century or so after the time in question than in the contemporary sources. As he noted, the story that Theodoric tried to remove Clement's relics from the abbey first appeared in the Miracula Clementis, probably composed in the second half of the eleventh century and before 1090.Footnote 31 Neither the tenth-century Vita Caddroë nor the eleventh-century Vita Deodericii, which drew on tenth-century sources, said anything of such an episode. Another supposedly eleventh-century reference to the event occurs in a charter attributed to Bishop Hermann of Metz (1072–90), but in fact heavily interpolated in the twelfth century.Footnote 32 Although aware that contemporary evidence, such as the Vita Caddroë, depicted Theodoric as on good terms with the abbey, Picard nevertheless believed that rivalry was the dominant tenor of this relationship.Footnote 33 Consequently, he interpreted the silence of earlier sources as deliberate omission, and accepted the allegations of later sources – the Miracula Clementis and the Chronicon – that Theodoric attempted to steal Saint-Clément's relics. This reading seems unsatisfactory.

Might it be possible to make sense of these conflicting portraits of Bishop Theodoric without discounting the contemporary evidence? One alternative would be to pay close attention to the sources’ chronology. Rather than trying to reconcile these sources, to flatten them into one consistent narrative, this approach regards them as products of a changing context.

An alternative approach

The monks’ contrasting depictions of Bishop Theodoric took shape over many years. Consequently, the later accounts look back on his reign across a considerable interval – a century or so in the case of the Miracula, and roughly two centuries in the case of the Chronicon. Perhaps these later works portray Theodoric differently than do the tenth-century sources because the monks’ view of the period following their arrival altered over time. Perhaps, in other words, it would be most sensible to approach all these sources as products of the monks’ evolving ideas.

For surely the story of Theodoric's failed theft reflects the concerns of those who recounted it, first in the later eleventh century and then around 1200. Rather than an accurate depiction of the relationship between Bishop Theodoric i and the late tenth-century monks of Saint-Clément, it conveys the way in which these later generations looked back on their abbey's history. The recollection, the story suggests, made them somewhat uneasy. For, as related by both the Miracula Clementis and the Chronicon, the episode does more than simply assert the monks’ right to Clement's relics. It also conveys an implicit warning to the bishops of Metz not to take too free a hand with the abbey. The story makes plain that transgressions against the monks’ rights – such as that attempted by Theodoric – risked provoking heavenly displeasure. This implicit warning suggests that, by the later eleventh century, the monks had come to look back on the bishops’ continued intervention in their house after the establishment of monastic life there with some misgiving.

The period that separated Theodoric's episcopacy, in the tenth century, from the first report of his attempt on the relics, in the later eleventh, of course witnessed widespread debate about monastic life, episcopal authority and the proper relationship between bishops and Benedictine communities. By the time that the monks of Saint-Clément first told the story of Bishop Theodoric's attempted theft, therefore, they had most likely encountered various interpretations of this relationship. No evidence reveals exactly where the monks stood in this debate. The question may have divided their community, as the Investiture Contest seems to have done.Footnote 34 While the debate unfolded, however, the relationship itself began to change. The bishops of Metz continued to play a key role in monastic reform in their diocese and to retain a good deal of control over many reformed abbeys, even as more radical conceptions of monastic liberty from episcopal intervention gained influence.Footnote 35 By 1100, however, the turmoil of the Investiture Contest had significantly weakened the bishops’ power and eroded the patrimonies of many religious communities, regular and secular alike.Footnote 36 In a series of especially dramatic episodes, the emperor Henry iv drove the pro-reform Bishop Hermann into exile in 1084 and personally installed Bishop Walo in his place. For the monks of Saint-Clément, this event may have seemed especially worrisome, since Walo had until that moment been abbot of their great rival, Saint-Arnoul. Walo's episcopacy proved short-lived, however, and he soon withdrew to the abbey of Gorze. The emperor then placed another of his supporters, Bruno of Calw, on the episcopal throne. In 1088 the townspeople, reportedly outraged at Bruno's depredations of church property, drove him from his see and restored Bishop Hermann.Footnote 37 Even if Saint-Clément did not suffer materially from these events – Walo hardly had time to move against his erstwhile rival, and no evidence suggests that Bruno harmed the abbey specifically – the turmoil may well have made them wary of episcopal intervention.

Certainly in the aftermath of the Investiture Contest, the monks strove to bolster their abbey's fortunes and to assert its autonomy. Within the numerous properties that they claimed, they asserted extensive judicial and economic rights, often at the expense of the bishop and his agents.Footnote 38 They also claimed control of several parishes, where they sought to exercise authority and to collect tithes and other offerings that would normally belong to the cathedral canons.Footnote 39 On multiple fronts in this era the monks of Saint-Clément asserted their independence.

Ironically, the monks often pursued their autonomy by invoking the bishop's authority. To sanction their ambitions, they obtained genuine episcopal charters and forged others.Footnote 40 Perhaps the most important example is a charter bearing the name of Bishop Hermann.Footnote 41 He ostensibly granted it in 1090, shortly before his death, after translating Clement's relics to the cathedral for one night. In reality, however, the monks extensively interpolated this charter in the early twelfth century. The resulting text detailed a wide array of rights and possessions, affirmed grants supposedly made by earlier bishops, and curbed the authority of the cathedral canons and the bishop's own agents within the monks’ possessions.Footnote 42

These efforts to constrain episcopal agents and the cathedral clergy contrast sharply with the tenth-century evidence. The monk Carus, who wrote the metrical Vita Clementis around the year 1000, celebrated the work done at the abbey by his friend, the ‘great primicerius’ Wigericus. The monks’ determination to curtail the authority that episcopal agents and cathedral authorities had over them and their properties in the early twelfth century suggests a different attitude. That is, it seems that, around the same time that the monks first alleged that Bishop Theodoric had tried (and failed) to take their relics, or not too long afterward, they valued their autonomy far more than they had when they apparently welcomed the intervention in their house of a high-ranking cathedral official over a century earlier.

Amid widespread debate about how bishops and monks ought to interact, relations between Saint-Clément and Metz cathedral thus did in fact change. Whether the monks sought to implement reform ideals by distancing their bishop, or merely wished to improve their worldly position, remains unclear. But their attitude toward episcopal intervention in their affairs appears to have shifted. Perhaps this shift altered their view of the past. Perhaps they came to look askance at the late tenth-century bishops’ continued involvement in their house and to express this misgiving by means of a story, in which the monks’ rights were miraculously defended against episcopal transgression. However speculative, this hypothesis points up the need to take changing attitudes into account when attempting to explain the evidence.

It also suggests that how the sources are read affects our ability to see such changing attitudes at all. If these particular sources, written over a period of roughly two hundred years, are expected to express unchanging ideas, then they will indeed appear baffling. In light of such expectations, the monks of Saint-Clément seem to have been simply unable to get their image of Bishop Theodoric straight. If, instead, these sources are read as products of different eras, then the disjuncture in their presentations of Theodoric becomes meaningful. It becomes a possible clue to changing attitudes. This reading lets the tenth-century portrait of the bishop as the monks’ supporter stand, and it turns the story of his attempted theft into the creation of a later age – as, indeed, the weight of the evidence indicates that it was.

Implications

Making sense of these conflicting depictions of Bishop Theodoric is only partly a matter of taking the sources’ chronology seriously – and thus allowing them to reflect their authors’ changing ideas. It also depends on how the relationship between medieval monks and bishops is conceptualised. It thus holds implications for our understanding of ecclesiastical reform.

Picard contended that Theodoric had not only tried to steal the relics, but had mistreated the abbey in pursuit of this goal. Caddroë is believed to have died in 974 or 975, roughly ten years before Theodoric's own death.Footnote 43 His successor as abbot of Saint-Clément is generally believed to have been Fingenius.Footnote 44 Yet Carus reported that it was Theodoric's successor, Adalbero ii, who appointed (vocavit) Fingenius.Footnote 45 It is thus unclear who was in charge at Saint-Clément during the last ten years of Theodoric's reign. Since Carus also credited Wigericus with overseeing the abbey's renovation, Picard inferred that this powerful cathedral figure had taken control of the abbey altogether, at the bishop's behest.Footnote 46 This scenario is certainly possible, if uncertain. In Picard's view, however, Wigericus could only have taken charge of the abbey illicitly. He proposed that Theodoric had granted Saint-Clément to the primicerius as a benefice, because ‘he wished to transfer St Clement's body to Metz cathedral and feared the opposition of a regular abbot’.Footnote 47

There are several problems with this argument. One is the likelihood that the alleged relic theft was the invention of a much later age. If Theodoric did place Wigericus at the head of Saint-Clément, therefore, it was probably not for the sake of stealing the relics. In addition, there is no evidence that Theodoric granted Saint-Clément in benefice either to Wigericus or to anyone else. Perhaps most significant, however, is Picard's contention that, had Theodoric given the primicerius control of the abbey, the move would have constituted a betrayal of the reform initiated by his predecessor. In Picard's view, to give this cathedral dignitary authority over Benedictine monks amounted to Theodoric's having ‘temporarily abandoned the cause of monastic reform’.Footnote 48 According to this logic, the bishop's choice of a cathedral official to exercise authority at the abbey, into which his predecessor had introduced monastic life, was inherently suspect.

Picard implied that the abbey, once reformed to house a community of regular monks, should have been separate from the cathedral and, perhaps, free from episcopal intervention altogether. Late eleventh- and twelfth-century monks may have seen the matter in this way – although the evidence for their views on this subject is inconclusive. But sources contemporary with Theodoric's reign suggest that the tenth-century monks saw it otherwise. Carus praised his ‘friend’, the cathedral's primicerius, precisely for his work at the abbey. It thus seems wise to allow that monks’ views of how their bishops ought to intervene – or not intervene – in their abbeys were not static, but changed over time.

This approach yields several dividends. First, it clears Bishop Theodoric from the charge of having tried to steal the relics – a charge that never really fitted in any case. Second, it suggests that the relationship between the monks of Saint-Clément and their bishop was fluid, shaped by evolving ideas and expectations, which sometimes occasioned the renegotiation of institutional ties and boundaries. This interpretation frames that relationship as an ongoing process, one not unlike what Steven Vanderputten has described for monastic reform in Flanders.Footnote 49 Third, this reading underscores the tendency of monastic authors to construct narratives, which sometimes obscure the evolution of ideas and relationships. Lastly, it also reminds us to read our sources carefully. For if late eleventh- and twelfth-century monks writing at Saint-Clément may have projected their own ideas about this question onto the past, then monks elsewhere almost certainly did so too. In order to see the changes in ideas and relationships that we wish to trace and explain, historians must be wary of accepting monastic authors’ constructions of history – or, indeed, our own – too readily. Instead, we must be alert to the riddles that the texts pose. For such riddles may reflect changing attitudes lurking behind the stories that the sources tell.

Footnotes

AASS = Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, ed. Jean Bolland and others, 1643–; ASHAL = Annuaire de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de la Lorraine / Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für lothringische Geschichte und Altertumskunde; BHL = Société des Bollandistes, Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis (Subsidia hagiographica vi, xii, lxx), 1898–1901, 1911, 1986; MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica

References

1 Dionysius Sammarthan and others, Gallia christiana xiii (1785), 866; Gauthier, Nancy, ‘Metz’, in Gauthier, Nancy and Picard, Jean-Charles (eds), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, I: Province ecclésiastique de Trèves (Belgica prima), Paris 1986, 33–53 at pp. 49–50Google Scholar; Picard, Jean-Charles, ‘Le Recours aux origines: les vies de saint Clément, premier évêque de Metz, composées autour de l'an Mil’, in Iogna-Prat, Dominique and Picard, Jean-Charles (eds), Religion et culture autour de l'an Mil: royaume capétien et Lotharingie, Paris 1990, 291–9 at p. 292Google Scholar. The saint Felix to whom the abbey was originally dedicated was either the third bishop of Metz or Felix of Nola. See Paul the Deacon, Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, ed. Kempf, Damien, Leuven 2013, 60Google Scholar, and Versus de episcopis Mettensis civitatis quomodo sibi ex ordine successerunt, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH, Poetae, i (1881), 60–1 at lines 8–18. The translation was noted, probably before 855 but perhaps around 875, in the margins of the martyrology used in Metz cathedral in Drogo's day: ‘xiii kal. April. Mettis translatio corporis sancti Clemen[tis]’: Martyrologium hieronymianum, ed. Louis Duchesne and G. B. De Rossi, AASS Nov. II, pt i (1894), 34. See also Lifshitz, Felice, The name of the saint: the Martyrology of Jerome and access to the sacred in Francia, 627–827, Notre Dame, In 2006, 91–4Google Scholar. Sometime after this event, the church began to be known as Saint-Félix-Saint-Clément and, eventually, Saint-Clément. The timeline of this shift is uncertain: the sacramentary produced for Drogo around 850 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, ms Latin 9428) contains a marginal note (at fo. 127v) in a mid ninth-century hand, which refers to the church as Saint-Clément, but see Picard, ‘Le Recours aux origines’, 292.

2 Miracula Clementis (BHL 1861), ed. Heinrich Volbert Sauerland, in Sancti Clementis primi Mettensis episcopi vita, translatio, ac miracula, Trier 1896, 12–17 at p. 14; Gallia christiana xiii (1785), 866–7. It is unclear what sort of clerics had previously served the church and, although this later text may be wrong about the abbey's early history, it shows how the monks chose to construct it.

3 Reimannus, Vita Caddroë abbatis (BHL 1494), ed. Jean Bolland, AASS March i (1668), 474–81 at §24; Chronicon sancti Clementis Mettense, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH, Scriptores xxiv (1879), 492–502 at p. 498. See also Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 292–3, and Parisse, Michel, ‘Restaurer un monastère au xe siècle: l'example de Gorze’, in Felten, Franz J. and Jaspert, Nikolas (eds), Vita religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm zum 70. Geburtstag, Berlin 1999, 55–78 at p. 67Google Scholar.

4 Studer, Raymond, ‘Catalogue des documents des Archives de la Moselle antérieurs à 1101’, ASHAL xxxii (1923), 121–51Google Scholar at no. 50; François, Jean, Tabouillot, Nicolas and Maugérard, Jean Baptiste, Histoire générale de Metz, ii, Metz 1775, 56Google Scholar; Voltz, Eugène, L'Abbaye de Saint-Clément à Metz: esquisee de son histoire architecturale, Metz 1968, 42Google Scholar; Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293.

5 On the role of a patron saint's cult in unifying monastic communities following a reform see Nightingale, John, Monasteries and patrons in the Gorze reform: Lotharingia, c. 850–1000, Oxford 2001, 175CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The prose text is Vita sancti Clementis episcopi et confessoris Mettensis ecclesiae (BHL 1859), ed. Heinrich Volbert Sauerland, Sancti Clementis, 7–12; the metrical text is Carus, Vita S. Clementis (BHL 1860f), ed. Karl Strecker, MGH, Poetae Latini v. 1/2 (1937), 112–45 (with preface at pp. 109–12). For the sake of clarity the prose text will be referred to as the Vita prima Clementis and the verse one as the metrical vita. The authors’ evident interest in Clement's tomb suggests that each belonged to the abbey that housed it. Both texts are discussed by Chazan, Mireille, ‘Les Évêques de Metz: Clemens’, in Goullet, Monique and Heinzelmann, Martin (eds), Miracles, vies et réécritures dans l'Occident medieval: actes de l'Atelier ‘La Réécriture des Miracles’ (IHAP, juin 2004) et SHG X–XII: dossiers des saints de Metz et Laon et de saint Saturnin de Toulouse, Ostfildern 2006, 152–89Google Scholar at pp. 154–5, 163–6. As Chazan notes, the BHL makes no distinction between the prose Vita prima and the twelfth-century Vita tertia Clementis. See also Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 291, 293, 296, and Philippart, Guy and Wagner, Anne, ‘Hagiographie lorraine (950–1130): les diocèses de Metz, Toul, et Verdun’, in Philippart, Guy and Goullet, Monique (eds), Hagiographies: histoire internationale de la littérature latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550, iv, Turnhout 2006, 583–742Google Scholar at p. 634.

7 Paul the Deacon, Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, 48–50. The same passages appear as part of the Vita prima Clementis, 7–8.

8 Vita prima Clementis, 11; Carus, Vita S. Clementis, 142.

9 ‘Ipse locus quondam destructus tamque relictus, / Presbiter ut tantum vix pauper viveret illic; / Urtice et sentes crescebant aede sacrata. / Custodes falsi sectantes lucra profana / Ausi sacrilegaque manu disperdere sancta, / Clementis criptam mordentes dente canino, / Marmoreas petras vellentes inde tulerunt, / Baptiste Christi sunt ausi frangere templum’: Carus, Vita S. Clementis, 143.

10 ‘Clemens, Privatus, iam Felix atque Iohannes / Cumque suis sociis consorti federe sanctis / Ante deum stantes offensi crimine tanto, … / Clemens hic … / Kadroe clarificat mox clarificatus ab ipso, / … / Concordat pariter abbas cum presule sacro. / Hic prior in donis humilis sacer ipse sacerdos, / A Christo obtinuit Clemens hunc Kadroe sanctum. / Sol latet in nube celestia sydera lustrans, / Et tamen in terris non cernitur ille refulgens: / Sic sanctus Clemens eterna luce choruscans / Abscondit radios, cernant ne terrea corda; / Dignus erat Kadroe claramque videre lucernam. / Inde gregis domini lectus hic sumere curam’: ibid. 143–4.

11 Vanderputten, Steven, Monastic reform as process: realities and representations in medieval Flanders, 900–1100, Ithaca, NY 2013CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Engen, John, ‘The crisis of cenobitism reconsidered: Benedictine monasticism in the years 1050–1150’, Speculum lxi (1986), 269–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 ‘Theodoricus vir … ingenij singularis … intentionem sui animi circa Sanctorum memorias, locosque construendos & restaurandos verterat: quare vndecumque poterat, Sanctorum corpora & reliquias in suam diœcesim transferebat: Seruorum Dei amabat colloquia, consortia diligebat. Vnde amore Dei, Domnique Kaddroë, qui eum vnice dilexerat, locum B. Felicis, his, quibus hodie vsque in eo Christo militantes vtuntur, beneficijs auxit & prædijs, ipsumque beatum virum, ac si Patrem venerabatur, atque ad se crebro vocatum, quia spiritum consilij virum sciebat habere, audiebat, & eius caritatis orationibus se attentius committebat, quas Deo placere, tantarum virtutum testimonio comprobarat’: Reimannus, Vita Caddroë abbatis, §32. For Reimannus see De Gaiffier, Baudouin, ‘Notes sur le culte des SS. Clément de Metz et Caddroë’, Analecta Bollandiana lxxxv (1967), 21–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 32–5.

13 Miracula Clementis, 17 (quoted in n. 26 below). For the author and date see n. 18 below. The Chronicon Sancti Clementis (c. 1200) mentions the building work but gives no details: Chronicon, 499.

14 ‘ipse venerandus antistes sepulcrum sibi, quemadmodum usque hodie cernitur, fecit, in quo etiam non parvo tempore humatus iacuit’: Vita prima Clementis, 11.

15 See n. 16 below.

16 ‘In qua iam cripta Clemens pausaverat olim. / Quam pater egregius Vindricus iam auxit adornans, / Urbis Metensis tunc primicerius ingens. / Sancta et sanctorum post auxerat undique versum, / Et claustrum totum restruxit plus meliusque, / Isque dei cultor construxit nam paradysum, / Ex utero matris cum quo miseratio crevit / … / Servorum Christi cultor ac fidus amator, / quem tibi, rex Christe, commendate Carus amicus’: Carus, Vita S. Clementis, 142. The line ‘Ex utero’ paraphrases Job xxxi.18. I take sancta sanctorum here to refer to the part of the church most central to the liturgy, that is, the chancel. For the office of the primicerius in Metz see Chrodegangi Mettensis episcopi Regula canonicorum, ed. Jerome Bertram, Aldershot 2005, cap. 25 and introduction at p. 21, and Claussen, M. A., The reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula canonicorum in the eighth century, Cambridge 2004, 84–5, 138–49Google Scholar.

17 Sigebert of Gembloux, relying on a roughly contemporary account of the Italian journey written by one of the clerics who travelled with Theodoric, reported that Wigericus was then the cathedral's cantor and later its custos, and also that Theodoric entrusted Wigericus with relics for transportation back to Metz: Vita Deoderici episcopi Mettensis (BHL 8055), ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH, Scriptores iv (1841), 463–83 at p. 476, and introduction pp. 461–3 at p. 461; Sauerland, Sancti Clementis primi Mettensis episcopi vita, translatio, miracula, 17 n. 1; Licht, Tino, Untersuchungen zum biographischen Werk Sigeberts von Gembloux, Heidelberg 2005, 74Google Scholar.

18 Miracula Clementis, 16–17. Jean-Charles Picard dated the composition of this text to before 1090. Mireille Chazan endorses that terminus ante quem and offers a terminus post quem of 1050 or 1070: Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293; Chazan, ‘Les Saints du diocèse de Metz: Clemens’, 173. Both reject the dating by Bauduin de Gaiffier, who dated the text in reference to a doctored charter that he mistook as genuine (see n. 32 below).

19 Chronicon, 499. This text was likely composed in response to the Gesta episcoporum Mettensium. That work, produced in the 1130s by a cleric in the circle of Bishop Étienne de Bar (1120–62), did not portray Saint-Clément favourably and, in particular, downplayed its apostolic traditions. For the context see Arnaud Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques de Metz au moyen âge: les Gesta episcoporum messins de la fin du viiie siècle à la fin du xive siècle’, unpubl. PhD diss. Metz 2010, i. 6–7, 419–24.

20 See n. 12 above.

21 Sigebert, Vita Deoderici, 472–6 (Sigebert drew this information from the account by one of Theodoric's clerics who accompanied him to Italy: see n. 17 above); Wagner, Anne, ‘Collection de reliques et pouvoir épiscopal au xe siècle: l'exemple de Thierry i de Metz’, Revue d'Histoire de l’Église de France lxxxiii (1997), 317–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 ‘Exaedificatam igitur aecclesiam [Sancti-Stephani] liberaliter aecclesiasticis ornamentis honoravit, donariis insuper pretiosis locupletavit, partim a se ipso collatis, partim sui amoris gratia ab optimatibus regni aecclesiae Dei oblatis’: Sigebert, Vita Deoderici, 467: for Saint-Vincent see p. 466; Licht, Untersuchungen zum biographischen Werk, 52, 54.

23 Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 294.

24 ‘Vir vite venerabilis domnus Theodericus de Hamalant Metensis episcopus, dum sanctissima beati Clementis pignora ad ecclesiam, cui prius prefuerat, deferri et ab omni populo ibidem venerari decrevisset’: Miracula Clementis, 16.

25 ‘Cumque letantes pervenissent ad ecclesiam dicatam in honore sancti Laurentii, ita sacri vectores corporis solo fixi immobiles sunt redditi, ut neque ceptum iter peragere neque retro possent reverti. Igitur omnibus, qui aderant, ultra quam credi potest, stupentibus et vota multaque donaria sancto Clementi, si se ad urbem deportari permitteret, devoventibus, sed nichil promoventibus, ecce subito duo iuvenes ineffabilis pulchritudinis, ab omnibus astantibus incogniti, scrinium, quod preciosissimum continebat margaritum [sic] propriis humeris imponunt et, cunctis mirabilia dei cernentibus, cum maxima celeritate ad monasterium referent, statimque nusquam comparuerunt’: ibid. 16–17.

26 ‘Tunc episcopus suo frustratus proposito, in superiori monasterio iuxta altare fecit eum recondi, in quo loco tam diu iacuit, quousque Wigericus primicerius, monasterio prolongato, eum in loco, ubi adhuc quiescit, reposuit’: ibid. 17.

27 ‘Idem etiam Deodericus episcopus pro excellentia summi pastoris eiusdemque civitatis primi presulis Clementis, cum adhuc iaceret in sepulcro, in quo prius tumulatus fuerat, in maiori ecclesia transferri voluisset; set cum deferretur, angelica dispensatione actum est, ut primus pastor ad priorem tumulum cum gloria referretur psallencium. Quo viso miraculo, episcopus cum abbate tunc Fingenio et Wygerico primicerio omnes ipsius ecclesie officinas ad usum monachorum meliorari disposuit prebendasque fratrum et curias eorum proprio sigillo nobilitavit ecclesiamque ipsam in melius auctam consecravit’: Chronicon, 499.

28 Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293–4, 299. Those who have endorsed this view include Chazan, Mireille, ‘Les Vies latines de saint Clément, premier êvéque de Metz’, Francia xxxi/1 (2004), 15–43Google Scholar at p. 18, and ‘Les Saints du diocèse de Metz: Clemens’, 174, 162, 166; Goullet, Monique, ‘Vers une typologie hagiographique, à partir de quelques exemples du nord-est de la France: avec une édition synoptique des deux Vies de saint Evre de Toul’, in Goullet, Monique and Heinzelmann, Martin (eds), La Réécriture hagiographique dans l'occident medieval: transformations formelles et idéologiques, Ostfildern 2003, 109–44Google Scholar at pp. 113–14, 125; Kempf, Damien, ‘A textual détournement: from Paul the Deacon's Liber de episcopis Mettensibus to the Vita Clementis’, Early Medieval Europe xx (2012), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 10–15; Wagner, ‘Collection de reliques’, 337; and Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques’, i. 125.

29 Geary, Patrick J., Furta sacra: thefts of relics in the central Middle Ages, rev. edn, Princeton, NJ 1990, 104–5, 113–14Google Scholar.

30 Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 295, 299.

31 Ibid. 294.

32 Hermann of Metz, Privilegium Bischofs Hermann für St. Clemens 1090, ed. Müsebeck, Ernst, in ‘Zoll und Markt in Metz in der ersten Hälfte des Mittelalters’, ASHAL xv (1903), 1–32Google Scholar at pp. 24–9. This charter was altered twice, most likely before 1130 and again between 1134 and 1139. See also Müsebeck, ‘Zoll und Markt’, 29–30, and Schneider, Jean, La ville de Metz aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, Nancy 1950, 81 n. 16Google Scholar.

33 Picard acknowledged that the Vita Caddroë portrayed Theodoric as consulting Caddroë and making donations to the abbey. However, he saw this support as ending with Caddroë’s death: ‘Recours aux origines’, 293.

34 The community's divergent behaviours toward the reforming Bishop Theoger suggest deep divisions. Theoger, elected in 1118, could not gain entry to the city. In 1119 the abbot of Saint-Clément invited him to the abbey and proposed to lead him from there into the city in a formal procession. The effort was abandoned, however, when a young monk attacked the bishop violently: Vita Theogeri abbatis S. Georgii et episcopi Mettensis (BHL 8109), ed. Philipp Jaffé, MGH, Scriptores xii (1856), 450–79 at p. 478, introduction at pp. 449–50.

35 Wagner, Anne, Gorze au XIe siècle: contribution à l'histoire du monachisme bénédictin dans l'Empire, Nancy-Turnhout 1995, 73–4, 282–3Google Scholar. See also Nightingale, Monasteries and patrons in the Gorze reform.

36 Dantzer, André, ‘La Querelle des investitures dans les évêchés de Metz, Toul, et Verdun’, Annales de l'Est xvi (1902), 85–100Google Scholar; Schneider, La ville de Metz, 70–1, 77–8; Parisse, Michel, ‘Metz dans l’Église impériale’, in Le Moigne, François-Yves (ed.), Histoire de Metz, Toulouse 1986, 110–35Google Scholar; Staats, Sarah, ‘Vision of an Augustinian canon in Lorraine: echoes of the Investiture Conflict in the diocese of Metz at the beginning of the twelfth century’, Analecta Bollandiana cxiii (1995), 127–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erkens, Franz-Reiner, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz im Investiturstreit, Cologne 1987Google Scholar; Müller, Margit, Am Schnittpunkt von Stadt und Land: die Benediktinerabtei St. Arnulf zu Metz im hohen und späten Mittelalter, Trier 1993, 24–39Google Scholar; Robinson, I. S., Henry IV of Germany, 1056–1106, Cambridge 2003, 248, 253Google Scholar; Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques’, i. 187–215.

37 Sancti-Blasii, Bernoldus, Chronicon, ed. H., G.Pertz, MGH, Scriptores v (1844), 385–467Google Scholar at p. 447–48; Erkens, Die Trierer Kirchenprovinz, 45–66; Schneider, La Ville de Metz, 70–1; Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques’, i. 195–8; Müller, Am Schnittpunkt von Stadt und Land, 30–1; Ruperti, F. and Hocquard, G., ‘Hériman, évêque de Metz (1073–1090)’, ASHAL xxxix (1930), 503–78Google Scholar at pp. 540–6; Parisse, Michel and Hari, Arnaud, Catalogue historique des évêques de Metz: le moyen âge, Paris 2015, 26–7Google Scholar, <https://lamop.univ-paris1.fr/fileadmin/lamop/publications/Morceaux_choisis/Morceaux_choisis_Parisse_Hari_2015.pdf>. For the rivalry between Saint-Arnoul and Saint-Clément see Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques’, i. 419–24.

38 The monks’ claims to bannus and centena in several areas of the expanding city aimed to exclude episcopal agents from collecting taxes and overseeing justice in the bishop's name. Similarly, they claimed both the right to hold a substantial yearly fair and to retain the profits from it: Hermann of Metz, Privilegium Bischofs Hermann für St. Clemens 1090, passim; Schneider, La Ville de Metz, 31–2, 81–2 and passim.

39 This author is currently working on another article on this topic.

40 For example, Bishop Etienne de Bar, ‘[Charter granted to Abbot Humbert of Saint-Clément, 1130]’, and ‘[Judgement regarding dispute between Saint-Arnoul and Saint-Clément]’, ed. Michel Parisse, in Actes des princes lorrains, 2ième série, Princes ecclésiastiques, I: Les Évêques de Metz, B: Etienne de Bar (1120–1162), Nancy [1977], 62–4, 102–4. See also the charter cited at n. 32 above. Other abbeys, in Metz and elsewhere, did the same: Wolfram, G., ‘Kritische Bemerkungen zu den Urkunden des Arnulfsklosters’, ASHAL i (1888–9), 40–80Google Scholar at pp. 70–3; Müsebeck, Ernst, ‘Die Benediktinerabtei St. Arnulf vor Metz in den ersten Hälfte des Mittelalters’, ASHAL xxxiii (1901), 164–243Google Scholar; Schneider, La Ville de Metz, 75–6; Müller, Am Schnittpunkt von Stadt und Land; Minn, Gisela, Kathedralstadt und Benediktinerkloster: die Abtei St. Vinzenz und die Stadt Metz im Mittelalter, Trier 2002Google Scholar.

41 Hermann of Metz, Privilegium Bischofs Hermann für St. Clemens 1090.

42 The doctored charter granted or affirmed Saint-Clément's possession of several churches, which the monks claimed as parishes within their control, as well as a stretch of the river Seille on the city's eastern side, and holdings further afield. It granted the abbey bannus and centena, as well as exclusive jurisdiction and revenues within their holdings. Additionally, it gave them the right to hold an eight-day market each May and stipulated that episcopal officials (namely the advocatus and villici civitatis) were to help ensure its success – for instance, by making sure that vendors paid for their stalls. The charter also reported that a Bishop Adalbero had granted Saint-Clément the parish of Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Jean Schneider accepted that claim and proposed that it had been made by Adalbero iii: La Ville de Metz, 30, the interpolations at p. 81 n. 16.

43 Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293.

44 Ibid; Gallia christiana xiii (1785), 867–8.

45 Carus, Vita S. Clementis, 144. The Chronicon, by contrast, refers (p. 499: quoted above at n. 27) to Fingenius as abbot of Saint-Clément during the time that Wigericus was primicerius and oversaw the work at the abbey – that is, still in Theodoric's reign.

46 Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293. Other scholars have endorsed this view: Chazan, ‘Les Saints du diocèse de Metz: Clemens’, 162, 173; Hari, ‘Écrire l'histoire des évêques de Metz’, i. 125.

47 ‘À quel titre intervient-il [Wigericus] à Saint-Félix? On ne voit guère d'autre solution que d'amettre qu'il a été désigné par son évêque comme abbé non régulier de Saint-Félix et qu'il a succédé à Cadroë. Thierry Ier a donc abandoné provisoirement la cause de la réforme monastique et il a donné à nouveau Saint-Félix en bénéfice à un dignitaire du Chapitre cathédral. Ce revirement … montre que l’évêque de Metz a conçu un nouveau projet qui relègue au second plan dans son esprit le souci de la régularité monastique: Thierry Ier veut transférer le corps de saint Clément dans la cathédrale de Metz, et il craint l'opposition d'un abbé régulier’: Picard, ‘Recours aux origines’, 293.

48 See n. 47 above.

49 Vanderputten, Monastic reform as process.