Part-and-parcel of these troubled times were energetic preachers
and others who worked to reform the Latin Christian church and its constituent parts
striving to insulate the church against the sinfulness of the world through efforts to abolish priestly marriage; end the practice of the buying and selling church offices ­– whether overtly or implicitly – known as simony; and inoculate the clergy from the polluting influence of lay politics
which sought to impose something of monastic rigor upon the church as a whole
came attempts to reinvigorate or reform Christian cenobitic life itself
which some reformers saw as having strayed away from religious discipline and into profane laxity
Charismatic founders spearheaded the foundation of the Cistercian
and Carthusian religious orders in quick succession at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century
These new orders quickly began to transform the cenobitic religious landscape that the traditional monasteries had so long dominated
traditional monasteries – perhaps most prominently among them the great monastic houses of Cluny in Burgundy and Hirsau in the Black Forest – were not quiescent on their own behalf
They likewise pursued reforms aimed at ending the perceived laxity of monastic discipline and restoring the rigor of traditional monastic practice as the founder of the western Benedictine tradition
This was all part of a process that reformers undertook in order to
in the classic formulation of Giles Constable in his Reformation of the Twelfth Century
by imposing on them a standard of life previously reserved for monks
a common thread uniting monastic reformers was the belief of each that their modes of reformed monastic life offered the best and purest return to the ideals of the early church and the first apostolic community
Rather than addressing the topic of monastic reform from the usual perspective of the reformers
who have often thereby acquired an aura of sanctified heroism because of their commitment to revitalizing or reinterpreting spiritual and disciplinary practices
The Trauma of Monastic Reform: Community and Conflict in Twelfth Century Germany
to consider those monks considered in need of reform
Beach draws upon recent work suggesting that medieval monastic reform was a process – often lengthy and on-going – and combines this insight with social scientific theories concerning trauma to suggest that monastic reform could have long-lasting and traumatic effects upon those selected for improvement
The center of her investigation is the monastery of Petershausen
located on the north bank of the mouth of the Rhine River as it flows out of Lake Constance in what is now the far southern edge of Baden-Württemberg in Germany
Beach begins her study with a helpful orientation to the landscape of the Lake Constance region; the city and bishopric of Constance and its important bishops; and the monastery of Peterhausen itself
founded in 983 by Bishop of Constance Gebhard II as part of the bishops’ plans to mirror the spiritual geography of Rome
Gebhard’s predecessors had already provided churches that intentionally reflected Roman counterparts: St
Now Gebhard completed the spiritual landscape by creating and endowing his new Benedictine monastery north of Constance in reflection of St
deliberately choosing a location north of the river – and on the other side of the river from Constance itself – in reflection of St
Peter’s position on the north bank of the Tiber in Rome
Gebhard would himself be buried in Petershausen and subsequently venerated there as holy patron and protector of the monastery and its monks
Theodoric’s abbacy was a golden age according to the anonymous monk who authored the chronicle at the core of Beach’s book
Over decades stretching into the mid-twelfth century
this monk recorded the history of the monastery
His account of the reform process at Petershausen affords Beach rich material for analysis and she takes full advantage as she links the chronicler’s account with the broader religious reforms and political transformations occurring elsewhere in the region
Beach’s central contention is that monastic reform was not necessarily an unmitigated positive and that those considered “unreformed” could – and indeed
often did – experience the process of reformation as a traumatic one
and traditions that lost out to the practices introduced from Hirsau
and even the power hierarchy of the monastery itself experienced a tectonic shift that resulted in what Beach
terms “cultural trauma,” a case when “affirmed values and norms are threatened
and the accepted ideals and beliefs of the target culture are challenged
The anxiety within Petershausen is suggested by the fact that more than half of the monks
fled the monastery before the arrival of the reformers from Hirsau
seeking refuge at the nearby imperial monastery of Reichenau or becoming secular clergy
Those who remained found themselves subjected to the rigorous lifestyle of Hirsau reformers as recorded in their customary
which replaced their own written and oral customs with prescriptive rules on topics ranging from the performance of the liturgy and the governance of the monastery to how monks ought to bathe and shave
These were not the only changes that the reformers brought with them
For alongside the novel regulations for the monks
the Hirsau reformers introduced new members to the monastic community who were not themselves monks and whose very presence threatened the monks’ efforts to seclude themselves from the sinfulness of a dangerous world
One of these new groups was known as the fratres barbati (bearded brothers)
fratres exteriores (outer or external brothers)
They were an innovation of the Hirsau reformers: lay brothers – typically drawn from the regional nobility – who lived a religious life without
These lay brothers were partially inspired by the monastic reformers’ notion that the imitation of Jesus’s apostles could serve as a means of salvation
and attracted to the models of apostolic purity proclaimed by reforming monasteries
The particular enthusiasm for becoming a lay brother at this time
also stemmed from the chaos and warfare that descended on Swabia (largely
but not wholly geographically synonymous with modern-day Baden-Württemberg) and the Empire at large as the papal-imperial conflict escalated
 Escaping violence and chaos in favor of a spiritual path had a certain appeal
with lay brothers significantly outnumbering actual monks at reforming monasteries; at Petershausen
forty avowed monks lived alongside fifty barbati brethren by Abbot Theodoric’s death in 1116
the reality that the lay brothers formed a kind of second-class monk
the lay brothers lived apart from the monks and prayed separately as well
or engaging in other jobs that the chronicler Bernold of Constance (c
1054-1100) referred to with approval as “the more contemptible offices.”
Women were the other significant group that sparked anxieties for the monks of Petershausen
With the Hirsau movement came not only the barbati
so too did their arrival entail the presence of but also religiously-inclined women seeking reform communities
These women were not necessarily nuns; as Beach notes
texts refer to women associated with the Hirsau reforms using a variety of Latinate terms
The sources that discuss these women are imprecise or ambiguous about the nature of their profession and relationship to the monastery
reflecting the experimental quality of the early Hirsau reforms
lay women could embrace quasi-religious modes of life at home or on the margins of the monastic community
and only later became incorporated into formal groupings of religious or semi-religious women
While the Petershausen chronicler stressed the purity of men and women living in a dual-sex community
he could not conceal the existence of complaints and suspicions about the practice
The “proximity anxiety” that monks harbored for women is reflected in sources of the time as well as archaeological remnants
which provide material proof for monastic accounts of religious women enclosed behind elaborately locked doors rarely opened to the outside world or even to the male part of the monastery
The Petershausen chronicler praised the presence of religious women at Petershausen in what Beach terms a “positive
light.” Women nevertheless remained both physically and spiritually relegated to the margins of the monastic community
who labeled them with terms like “exceedingly religious woman.” Monks feared the prospect and consequences of contact with women so much that this separation even extended to the celebration of the Mass and Divine Office
If women and the barbati served as sources of internal anxiety for the monks
the vagaries of lay aristocratic support also proved to be a wellspring of distress
the Counts of Bregenz were important dynastic supporters of Petershausen
Their patronage in the form of donations and secular protection formed part of the support network that enabled Petershausen
the monks and nuns engaged in prayer cycles for their patrons’ families and served as repositories for noble sons and daughters and places of burial for their dead
and granted patrons a spot in the “imagined community” of the monastery
Count Ulrich X of Bregenz altered this relationship with Petershausen
when he requested of Abbot Theodoric that the community support the foundation of a new monastery nearer to the counts themselves
Petershausen was on the far western end of Lake Constance
while the Bregenzer counts lived on its eastern shores
Theodoric agreed to the plan under the condition that the new monastery remain under the management of Petershausen
relations between Count Rudolf of Bregenz and Petershausen’s episcopal overlord
deteriorated to the point of warfare and the bishop was forced to flee to St
leaving Petershausen and the rest of the bishop’s see at the mercy of the count
the Petershausen chronicler offers an unequivocally positive narrative of reform
He praised the success of the Hirsau reform at Petershausen
credited it with rescuing the monastery from moribundity
had performed many miracles and appeared in visions designed to signal his approval of the reform
Beach identifies a “narrative of the trauma of reform” in the chronicle as well
The death of Abbot Theodoric in 1116 led to a series of serious problems
In addition to the violence found both outside and within the monastery
incompetent financial management threatened to ruin the monastery
The Petershausen chronicler reports that abbots had to sell off precious gold and silver from objects that the monastery’s founder had donated
while greedy monks engaged in covert theft
was that the founder Gebhard II revoked the protection that his saintly body had provided the monastery and allowed the community to experience destruction in 1159
A cataclysmic fire destroyed most of the monastery’s buildings
forcing the monks to attempt to rebuild in the wake of this powerful expression of saintly dissatisfaction with the monastic community’s inept or corrupt membership
Alison Beach provides an exceptional history of the “shock to the cultural tissue” of the monastery that reform wrought at Petershausen
along with its ambivalent results in an age and landscape marred by political chaos and violence
For medievalists in the English-speaking world
Beach offers up a study showcasing the benefits of microhistorical or Landesgeschichte (regional history) approaches to medieval monastic history
Her physical understanding of Petershausen and its surroundings enriches and enlivens her skillful and sensitive reading of the sources
giving the Petershausen chronicle a rich sense of time and place that is not always at hand in such studies
Her decision to move the technical discussion of the Heidelberg manuscript containing the original Petershausen chronicle to the first appendix bears fruit in the main body of the text
which manages splendid clarity and evocativeness throughout
clear– a valuable resource for specialists
historians and anyone seeking to learn more about religious
Kevin Lucas Lord is a historian of the religious
and intellectual history of the European Middle Ages
His current research is focused on the last in a series of conflicts between the medieval Holy Roman Emperor and the papacy
he holds degrees from Yale University (Ph.D.)
and the Community College of Aurora (A.A.)
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