This fine collection of essays is appropriately dedicated to the late Giles Constable († 2021) who contributed so much to Cluniac studies over his long career and with whom the editors discussed plans for the volume. In the very first article of the first volume of The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies published just over ten years ago in 2011, Constable himself drew on his vast expertise to set out his ideas on “The Future of Cluniac Studies” (1–16). His opening sentence (“So much has been written about Cluny—dozens of books and hundreds of articles—that it is easy to forget how much work remains to be done”—quoted by the editors [8]) finds both fulfilment and endorsement here: fulfilment in the sense that the authors demonstrate how much has been added to our knowledge of Cluny and ecclesia Cluniacensis over ten years, and endorsement in that the editors and authors point out that the scope for further investigation is still there. The volume mines a vast scholarship of Cluniac studies but asks new questions and sets new agenda that have emerged over the last decades—indeed it is the first volume of collected studies on Cluny for fifty years—and offers lively new approaches and ideas. Among these are investigations of how the Cluniacs themselves fashioned their history and identity, reconsiderations of ecclesia Cluniacensis from the bottom up rather than the top down (that is, appreciating local and regional forces that might have shaped it), the role of women, the importance of space and performance, encounters with others, and legacies. At the same time, the editors (perhaps modestly) call it “a starting point” for readers’ own enquiries, and an inspiration for future research.
In the introduction, Scott G. Bruce and Steven Vanderputten give a masterly summary of the historiography of Cluny and of the polarisation of views that see it, on the one hand, as representing the purest form of monastic life and, on the other, setting medieval monasticism on the road to decline. The sixteen essays are neatly divided into four sections. The first (“A Brief History of Cluny and Cluniac Monasticism”) contains essays by Isabelle Rosé, Steven Vanderputten, Marc Sourette, and Denyse Riche, which take us chronologically from the tenth century, through the period of growth in the eleventh and early twelfth century (which Vanderputten argues was largely unplanned) to the late medieval period and beyond. The second section, “Cluniac Identities” (Steven Vanderputten, Susan Boyton, Anne Baud, and Sébastien Barret), examines the tools by which the Cluniacs fashioned their distinctive identities: through abbatial biographies, liturgy, archaeology, and memory. The third section, “The Cares of the Cloister” (Robert F. Berkhofer, Isabelle Cochelin, Michael Hänchen and Gert Melville, and Eliana Mahnani), explores issues of authority. Here are debated abbatial lordship, the customaries, the role of the General Chapter and its legislation, and Cluny's relationship with women religious. Finally, “Beyond the Cloister” allows Constance B. Bouchard, Benjamin Pohl, and Scott G. Bruce to discuss lay patronage, Cluniac exemption, the Crusades, and Cluny's relics—all of which engaged the Cluniacs with those way beyond their precincts, as well as those who visited.
The volume provides admirable testimony to the value of interdisciplinary studies; and authors adopt approaches that are historical, literary, archaeological, architectural, liturgical, legal, and visual. This leads to a rich overlap, as important questions are addressed in different ways. Thus, Rosé and Baud both draw effectively on the results of archaeological investigations at Cluny, which have revealed so much about the first settlement there. Vanderputten, Surette, and Boynton stress the gradual emergence of ecclesia Cluniacensis, which has been obscured by the Cluniacs’ own construction of a historical narrative and an invented tradition (Vanderputten). To this, Hänchen and Melville add the way in which the reforms of Abbot Hugh V (1199–1217) marked a turning point in Cluniac administration and identity, the introduction of a general chapter and visitation transforming a network of monasteries into an order with “a transpersonal legal identity.” Hand in hand with this came the creation of a corporate memory, so effectively demonstrated by Barret to have been written into the materiality of the abbey, its monuments and liturgical practices. The monks’ curation of their own memory encompassed the memorialisation of their special friends and benefactors—and we must remember that it was Abbot Odilo who introduced the feast of All Souls on November 1. It is a compelling argument that Cluny's archival organisation reflects, in its cartularies, the changing priorities of memory and self-perception. Magnani's discussion of the role of women reflects current trends, which seek to bridge the divide between cloistered and non-cloistered women religious. Thus, whereas the association of Cluny with women traditionally begins with the foundation of Marcigny, there were also women ascetics (house ascetics) linked to the abbey: Marcigny marks an end as well as a beginning.
There is much more that could be said about this thoughtful volume and its rich and thought-provoking essays. Mention must be made of the extensive (over forty pages) bibliography, and congratulations are due to the authors and to the editors for their skilful planning and execution.
