Scholars used to imagine Richard of Saint-Vanne (c. 970–1046) as the father of a Lotharingian network of reformed Benedictine abbeys. Hugh of Flavigny, writing in about 1097, whose chronicle incorporates the earliest biography, implied that he was able to impose uniform observances upon a large number of monasteries supposedly under his direction, and that he did so in a Cluniac spirit: that is, independently of the bishops and more drawing the nobility in his wake than working on their behalf. During the twelfth century these ideas gave rise to the belief that Richard had founded a movement and that the abbots of the monasteries that he had reformed convened each year at Saint-Vanne. Ernst Sackur and Kassius Hallinger conveyed this interpretation of Richard's career to most twentieth-century historians, and the revisionist argument is only now prevailing thanks to the work of Steven Vanderputten, notably in his Monastic reform as process: realities and representations in medieval Flanders, 900–1100 (Ithaca, NY 2013) and the present monograph.

Vanderputten's approach is to challenge inherited assumptions by deconstructing the notion of reform. Here and in his previous monograph he argues that the connotations of positive change associated with this word and often with a saintly individual conceal cumulative processes of restructuring (rather like those in modern universities) by which monastic institutions experienced change, not necessarily in a way that was linear, beneficial or even comprehensible. Vanderputten is interested in the idea of image projection: that Richard may have put about the impression that his services were indispensable. Thus, when a monastery's patron became frustrated with its progress or nurtured new ambitions, Richard was the fixer who would sort it out, creating in the minds of his contemporaries a managerial persona, insofar as they acknowledged his expertise even if they were unsure of his achievements. Vanderputten attributes his success to his readiness – at least at the point of employment – to implement whichever measures the patron desired to impose. Both spiritual and mercurial, he embodied prestige without the risk of antagonism inherent in importing a zealot or sectary. Yet, as Vanderputten shows, he seldom remained long in charge of any institution, either because he preferred to implement changes then pass the leadership to others or because he disappointed. The tension latent in the sources has generated conflicting impressions in the historiography, of an ardent autonomous reformer on the one hand and of a serviceable agent of lay interests on the other. Vanderputten's study – it is avowedly not a biography – resolves the dialectic by modelling Richard as a virtuoso whose understanding of his divine calling evolved pragmatically.

The theory behind this model is explained in the introduction and developed in chapter ii, where Weber's view of virtuoso religiosity, mediated through the commentary of Ilana Silber, is joined to Erving Goffman's conception of the presentation of the self. In the light of their ideas we are encouraged to regard Richard as a man who saw himself not as a monastic reformer, or as an abbot or even a monk, but as a member of a spiritual elite whose exceptional qualities entitled him and obliged him to provide leadership in religious affairs. Following Goffman, Vanderputten asks whether Richard's mission, in addition to being a sincere pursuit, was ‘part of a deliberate strategy of self-representation’ which affirmed his leadership credentials. But unlike others who regarded themselves as members of this elite (such as John of Fécamp and Robert of Tombelaine) Richard did not leave many spiritual writings. The Life of Roding, which is thought to be his work, is rambling and predictable, with no sign that the author was interested in expounding the deeper meaning of things. In chapter ii, Vanderputten discusses this Life and claims to discern enough similarities in its trajectory and Richard's career to warrant the conclusion that, ‘considered together with the sources on which it relied, it may be regarded as his spiritual autobiography’ (p. 67). There is now this tendency among scholars to suppose that hagiography conceals autobiography, as if medieval hagiographers were egotists who were compelled to write about themselves. If this were true such forays might add to our knowledge, but the premise lacks foundation, and it invites confirmation bias.

Another avant-garde initiative in Vanderputten's quest for the real Richard is his framing of the eleventh-century ‘self’ in relation to the theory of the modern sociologist Goffman rather than the literature concerning the discovery of the individual in which trained historians such as Colin Morris and Caroline Walker Bynum, attempting to reconstruct past thought, debate whether such a thing existed. Between St Augustine and Guibert of Nogent, autobiography was a neglected genre. In Richard's day, the self was a confusion of impulses involving the will, the spirit, God, the devil and the flesh. Any discussion of his ‘self-representation’ needs to take account of this, although none of the above detracts from the fact that Vanderputten's portrayal of a flawed virtuoso is both appealing and convincing. His deep understanding of eleventh-century thought is often apparent, despite the trendy theory (a sweetener to some).

Like many notable religious figures of the eleventh century, Richard dispensed with the idea of vocation in search of God. At different times he was a secular cleric, an abbot, a freelance administrator, a hermit, a pilgrim, a preacher and an instructor in morality. His anonymity obtains in the fact that the many spiritual currents of the age bore him along. Chronologically he bridges the divide between the monastic reformers of the late tenth century and the ‘new hermits’ identified by Henrietta Leyser who were emerging in the 1040s. Future studies must incorporate Richard into this wider picture, now that Vanderputten has published a discussion worthy of the complexity of his career. The model that he constructs will cause us to question our assumptions about ‘reformers’ such as Dunstan of Canterbury and William of Volpiano; and in an age which still fetishises greatness, it will appeal to historians who wish to recover real human beings from the past.