Rob Meens

Sanctuary, Penance, and Dispute Settlement under Charlemagne: The Conflict between Alcuin and Theodulf of Orléans over a Sinful Cleric

The following essay will try to highlight the importance of religious factors in dispute management by discussing a conflict in Tours in the year 801/2. This dispute, erupting when a cleric sought refuge in the Basilica of St. Martin in Tours, would involve the local community; Alcuin of York, at that time abbot of the monastery of St. Martin; his former fellow courtier Theodulf, archbishop of Or leans; and the emperor Charlemagne himself. An analysis of this conflict will sug gest that the right of sanctuary and the practice of penance were of particular importance in the management of conflicts in the Carolingian age. While early medieval conflicts have often been examined on the basis of charters or narrative sources, here another genre will form the basis of the discussion: medieval letters. The Tours case we know from five letters dating from 801/2, all closely related to Alcuin. They were edited by Ernst Dummler as a coherent cluster (letters 245 49), and while it may at first sight seem odd that these letters illuminating a sad episode in Alcuins life have been preserved, it should be remembered that these letters were nowhere transmitted together in any medieval letter collection. The first two letters, almost identical, were addressed to two of Alcuins pupils at court, Witto/Candidus and Fredegisus/Nathaniel, and to an influential bishop, possibly Hildebold of Cologne or Arn of Salzburg. The third letter is a letter of defense from Alcuin to Charlemagne; the fourth is addressed to Arn of Salzburg, asking for protection for a particular monk from Tours. Dummler drew these four letters from three different collections of Alcuins correspondence, adding a fifth letter from Charlemagne relating to this conflict from a Tours manuscript containing mainly patristic texts and capitularies.1 From the extant correspondence it is evi

Ritual Purity and the Influence of Gregory the Great in the Early Middle Ages

Unity and diversity form a theme which Gregory the Great addressed in his famous set of answers to Augustine of Canterbury. Augustine had asked the Pope: Even though the faith is one, are there varying customs in the churches? and is there one form of mass in the Holy Roman Church and another in the Churches of Gaul? To this, the Pope replied: My brother, you know the customs of the Roman Church in which, of course, you were brought up. But it is my wish that if you have found any customs in the Roman or the Gaulish church or any other church which may be more pleasing to Almighty God, you should make a careful selection of them and sedulously teach the Church of the English, which is still new in the faith, what you have been able to gather from other churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of a place, but places are to be loved for the sake of their good things. Therefore choose from every individual Church whatever things are devout, religious, and right. And when you have collected these as it were into one pot, put them on the English table for their use.

Children and Confession in the Early Middle Ages

The handbooks for confessors known as penitentials are, I shall argue, an important source for our knowledge of early medieval attitudes on the part of churchmen and others towards children. These texts, basically lists of sins with the prescription of an appropriate penance for each iniquity, can be said to reflect widespread practices and ideas. They originated in the Irish and British Churches in the sixth century and spread from there over all of Western Europe, where they remained in use until the twelfth century.

Master of Penance: Gratian and the Development of Penitential Thought and Law in the Twelfth Century by Atria A. Larson (review)

Master of Penance: Gratian and the Development of Penitential Thought and Law in the Twelfth Century. By Atria A. Larson. [Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, Vol. 11.] (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2014. Pp. xx, 553.

Kirchliche Buße und Konfliktbewältigung

65.00. ISBN 978-0-8123-2168-7.)This careful study of Gratians thinking on the topic of penance reworks a dissertation written at The Catholic University of America into a rich and carefully argued book. The study of Gratian and his work has recently been transformed by Anders Winroths discovery of the original version of Gratians groundbreaking work, a version that differs in many respects from the work regarded by scholars as Gratians Decretum. This study considers results that help to refine the findings of Winroth in this field.The book is devoted mainly to the part of Gratians Decretum that we know as De Penitentia and was included in causa 33, a case that discussed a man who had become impotent as a result of magical means (maleficium). When the man confessed his sin to God alone, he was relieved of his impotence, and this formed the incentive for Gratian to discuss the efficacy of confession in some detail. The treatise is thus placed rather awkwardly in the conception of the whole work. This, together with a clearly more theological approach that contrasts with the more legal character of the rest of the work, has in the past led to doubts about its authenticity. Since De Penitentia is, however, included in the first recension that Winroth discovered, it must be regarded as an authentic part of the Decretum. Several parts of the text, however, found in the standard edition of Gratian as prepared by Emil Friedberg do not appear in the early recensions and must therefore have been added later.Atria Larson carefully tries to reconstruct Gratians thinking about penance on the basis of the text of the first recension. In doing so, she establishes that Gratian composed his work in a systematic way, the economy of which is hardly visible in the edition by Friedberg because of the many accretions included in its text. Larson is able to demonstrate that Gratian composed his work with great care and diligence, and that it ties in neatly with the other parts of the Decretum in which penance is discussed. The author establishes Gratians reliance on many works that are associated with the school of Anselm of Laon and concludes that it would be unwise to deny the direct relationship between the two-that is, Gratian must have been a disciple of this school. That would explain the close affinities between Gratians work and that of Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, although there is no proof of any direct acquaintance with their works (or vice versa). The affinities are to be explained by the fact that all three men were indebted to Anselms teachings. Larson regards the Decretum first of all as a textbook, reflecting Gratians teaching in Bologna. His work was meant to instruct the clergy and should be considered as part of a broader movement for educational reform of the clergy. …

Politics, mirrors of princes and the Bible: sins, kings and the well-being of the realm

Peter Brown hat in seinen Studien zum mehrmals betont, dass eine solche Person eine wichtige Rolle spielte in der spätantiken Gesellschaft. Ein fungierte nicht nur als Vermittler zwischen der lokalen Ebene einerseits und der führende politische Elite andererseits, er erteilte auch vielen Menschen Rat und versuchte, Konflikte innerhalb der lokalen Gemeinschaft zu lösen 1. Die religiöse Autorität des Heiligen, die asketische Autorität, wie Claudia Rapp sie in ihrem Buch über heilige Bischöfe in der Spätantike bezeichnet hat, war dem Heiligen dabei sehr behilflich 2. Seine Rolle als Vermittler zwischen dem Irdischen und dem Himmlischen, war von außerordentlichem Belang bei der Vermittlung in lokalen Konflikten. Die große Bedeutung eines Bezugs zum Überirdischen in der Lösung von lokalen Konflikten zeigt sich auch in Browns Untersuchung des Gottesurteils 3. Wenn man diese Urteile nicht länger als irrationale Rechtsformen betrachtet, sondern als soziale Instrumente, mit denen Gemeinschaften Konflikte lösen oder doch wenigstens in Schranken halten konnten, dann bietet der Bezug zum Überirdischen in vielen Fällen einen Ausweg aus einer schwierigen Situation. Es bietet den Beteiligten nicht nur mehr Spielraum als sonst, sondern ermöglicht auch eine Lösung mit weniger Gesichtsverlust, da man nicht dem Gegner direkt nachgibt, sondern sich vor Gott verbeugt. In der Forschung zur Konfliktbewältigung im Mittelalter wird meines Erachtens die religiöse Dimension, der Bezug auf das Überirdische, nicht genügend betrachtet, und ich werde hier versuchen, diese Dimension etwas mehr hervorzuheben 4. Eines