This volume focuses on three abbeys in each of two socially and politically diverse frontier areas for the purpose of assessing the commonalities and differences that developed among Cistercian houses over two centuries. By her command of languages, her careful reading of surviving documents, and her thorough command of secondary literature, Emilia Jamroziak has been able to correct some long-standing mythic generalizations and has set a new standard for assessing the Cistercian impact on the medieval church and society and the monks' responses to differing socio-economic pressures across the broad geographic reach of the Order.
The two frontiers studied are the ever-shifting Scottish-English frontier and the Pomeranian and Neumark borderlands which became the diocese of Kamien. Two of the Scottish abbeys, Dundrennan and Holm Cultrum, were daughter houses of the Yorkshire Rievaulx and the third, Melrose, a royal foundation which predated its Cistercian community. The Pomeranian houses are K bacz, founded in 1174 by the Danish Esrom, and its two thirteenth-century daughter houses, Marienwalde (Bierzwnik), and Himmelstädt (Mironice). A very helpful concordance of Polish and German place names and several maps assist readers unfamiliar with the geographies of the two areas or bewildered by the nomenclature.
The introduction orients readers to the existing historiography of the regions and to the frontier studies which began with the late nineteenth-century American frontier experience and were extended in the twentieth century to medieval Europe. As well as providing an overview of the social and political context of both areas and the Cistercian entry into them, the introduction presents a thorough survey of the existing historiography of frontier monasticism. This alone is worth the price of the book; the notes constitute a bibliographic treasure trove.
The first chapter examines, on the one hand, the motives—whether piety and the hope of heaven by association, sympathy with church reform or a desire to demonstrate or improve their social rank and influence—which drew secular or ecclesiastical magnates to support Cistercian foundations; and, on the other, the importance to the monks of establishing firm and long-standing connections with them, and their willingness to recompense open-handedness with hospitality and burial within the monastic enclosure. In the process, by drawing evidence from the Chronicle of Melrose and Necrology of Kolbacz, the author dispels the myth that early Cistercians allowed no outsiders to be buried in their cemeteries, despite the repeated restrictions imposed by General Chapter between 1180 and 1251.
The following chapter enlarges on the benefits to the monks of building a wide network of benefactors in the hope of long term economic stability and deflection of external dangers. Here, as in the first chapter, Jamroziak's evidence challenges the “myth” that Cistercians chose, or accepted, only wilderness sites for new foundations. The six abbeys examined here, all in frontier areas, “were founded in places already inhabited,” areas which, as in Scotland, provided on-going support or which, as in Pomerania, allowed the monks to profit as the fortunes of their secular neighbors waned (55).
Next Jamroziak compares the monks' activities in currying of local ties and adopting some local customs as the influence of local vocations and local bishops and patrons increased over time, with their simultaneous strong sense of community and continuing ties with their mother houses despite political and ethnic circumstances which sometimes interrupted frequent contact. That surviving monastic records provide little overt evidence of continuing contact between mother and daughter houses, Jamroziak argues, suggests that on-going transactions were regarded as routine rather than noteworthy.
Chapter 4 traces Cistercian relations with the secular church. The two centuries studied show a transition from the Order's early twelfth-century expansion under episcopal patronage and reform-minded bishops' awareness of the reciprocal benefits of the association to the sometimes less cordial monastic-episcopal relations which ensued when bishops turned their attention from fostering houses of intercession to furthering pastoral activities and defending their own interests, not least their quest to establish their independence from more powerful and more ancient sees.
Recurring hardships assailed the border abbeys during the Anglo-Scottish Wars at the turn of the fourteenth century, but in the Pomeranian area “local violence and common robbery were widespread” over an extended period and included the kidnapping and death of Cistercians and the raiding and pillaging of monastic lands, especially granges (167). The economic damage and social-political uncertainty in some cases made regular observance nearly impossible, alienated potential patrons, and subjected monastic houses to the depredations of resentful or opportunistic neighbors, religious and secular, and of apostate lay brothers.
The book's conclusion neatly sums up, in a little over four pages, a study marked by thorough research, detailed analysis of documentary evidence, and an impressive command of both primary and secondary literature. Jamroziak gathers from her study evidence of the significance of the Cistercians in strengthening reform church structures and offering an intercessory service to the highborn and highly placed in the High Middle Ages, and of their influence on local rural economies and in expanding the frontiers of western European culture and social norms. “In the border context,” she writes, “Cistercians represented not only the latest spiritual ‘fashion’ in effective spiritual intercessions, but also a particular model of the wider idea of Church mission in the world. They also had something to contribute to internal ecclesiastical administration and championed higher expectations for prelates” (197–198). In both areas, the monks arrived during a time of political, religious, and social transition. The histories of the areas led to different responses. In the fluid Scottish-English borderlands, political conflict was, for the most part, bi-lateral, and the monks enjoyed on-going patronage and benefitted from a fairly stable consensual relationship with their neighbors. In Pomerania, however, early patronage dwindled in the endemic local and regional conflict at multiple levels, and the monks secured their own interests and achieved economic independence by purchasing lands and acquiring resentful vassals.
How successful, then, were Cistercians on the frontier? “Ultimately” Jamroziak concludes, “all six houses passed their tests of survival–their demise came only with the Reformation–but the measure of their success is more complex depending on how we define it. Is it the accumulation of large estates, lasting and close relationships with patrons and benefactors, or quick recovery from war damages? We can see a rather mixed picture across the case studies depending on which measure we take” (201). It is a modestly stated conclusion to a study which offers new insights born of careful comparative research and should put to rest the tendency is past studies to measure all medieval Cistercians against the Anglo-French model of the twelfth century. Unfortunately, the list price will forestall its widespread use in graduate seminars.
