The ‘fetters of feudalism’

The institutional practice of exemption did not operate outside existing ecclesiastical and political structures. It required the willing participation of lay and ecclesiastical magnates, whose support reveals a confluence of contemporary factors and motivations at play. That monasteries were increasingly seeking privileges from Rome raises important questions about their rights and authority (spiritual and judicial), and the potential disruption to established norms. This chapter asks whether a monastery’s success in acquiring exemption privileges effectively undermined existing political and ecclesiastical authority. In short: did the growth of this practice in any way contribute to a process of political fragmentation? Did individual religious houses benefit, or seek to benefit, from changing political circumstances? And finally: what role did the papacy play in these wider transformations?

Rome’s orbit

A monastery’s relationship with Rome raises fundamental questions about its origins and nature. Exemption privileges form an important part of this story – a connecting link between the centre in Rome and the Christian periphery. This chapter questions the monastery’s impetus for seeking special exemption from Rome by examining the practice’s development from the papal perspective. It seeks to understand the gravitational pull of ‘Rome’s orbit’, which reveals the precedent, pragmatism, and vision of early medieval popes in the organization and governance of religious life. Formulating the popes’ attitude towards, and involvement in, western monasteries, this chapter explains why the granting of monastic exemptions became so pronounced a feature of papal government in the early Middle Ages.

The road to protection

This chapter examines the historical and conciliar framework of monastic exemption, with a particular interest in tracing its formation and development between the fifth and eighth centuries. Such a focus outlines its growth during the early Middle Ages, which determined the monastery’s place within the local diocesan context. The construction, and subsequent deconstruction, of this relationship underpins this book’s ongoing investigation, which seeks ultimately to understand how and why papal protection became a coveted asset among French monasteries. To make this understanding possible, this chapter asks what came before the surge and why. It argues for an emerging pattern and character of exemption under the Franks, which proved central to developing notions of spiritual and physical protection under the popes. As a consequence of this novel mentality, a monastery’s relationship with its surrounding environment permitted greater degrees of freedom and protection than ever before. This unique transformation took time to develop, forging alliances that effectively shifted individual monasteries away from their Frankish protectorate towards the burgeoning spiritual centre in Rome.

Introduction

The history of monastic exemption in France gives witness to a rich and lively institutional story of freedom and protection. This opening chapter frames the subject, its historiographical traditions, and methodological challenges, advancing the argument for a Roman tradition whose origins and development date firmly to the early Middle Ages.

Epilogue

The practice of monastic exemption changed forever in the late eleventh century. Most modern studies on the subject, in fact, begin their accounts with the pontificate of Urban II (1088–99). Paul Fabre is largely responsible for this enduring chronology and interpretive paradigm. He argued for the papacy’s intervention in a monastery’s spiritual affairs, which in turn marked a reversal of fortunes for the diocesan bishop, where previously he had maintained a foothold through the power of ordination. There is some truth to this claim, even if – as this book has demonstrated – the papacy’s involvement was a constant in monastic life and governance since the late sixth century. This landmark shift in monastic exemption practice nevertheless offers a fitting conclusion to this book. It signals a changing institutional and ideological character that provided a good constitutional model to twelfth-and thirteenth-century popes and canonists. The result was a decidedly more permanent dimension to monastic exemption, which served to define the papacy’s authority over secular and ecclesiastical authorities and the latter’s position within monastic communities. In this respect, exemptions from the late eleventh century came to be used as legislative expressions of the papacy’s proprietary rights – ties of dependency and promises of apostolic protection, whose special relationship provided monasteries with a profitable legal position....

‘Victory of the papacy’?

Monastic exemption was a product of political negotiation and re-negotiation. More than just a passive outcome of individual circumstance, monastic freedom and protection were objectives reached with direct and effective papal support and intervention. These specific rights and liberties were achievable in no small measure because of Rome’s increasing role in challenging unwanted episcopal and lay domination. Although initiated by monks in Christian provinces like France – and supported regionally by Frankish bishops, kings, and magnates – exemptions became increasingly mobilised as powerful social, political, and legal mechanisms of medieval papal governance. This concluding chapter questions this so-called ‘victory of the papacy’, asking whether this is still the most accurate and lasting impression.

Making concessions

The law of monastic exemption is seldom viewed through an early medieval lens. Overcoming this historiographical problem, this chapter defines the character and growth of monastic exemption in a period comparatively lacking in legal expression and rhetoric. It examines how it operated, how it was defined, and what it meant to contemporaries. In what ways did its early practice shape later canon law? What were the precedents which framed later legal developments? To advance our understanding further, the technical form of exemption is stripped down to its constitutive elements. This methodological approach offers a richer understanding of monastic exemption in the early Middle Ages, in turn revealing its inherent value to the papacy in making concessions to the law over many subsequent centuries.

Traditio Romana

The second half of the ninth century is a particularly cogent era for monastic exemption privileges. This chapter explains the promise and growth of papal protection during this period, when it became a defining feature of monastic exemption privileges. As a coveted ambition for many medieval monasteries, this valuable commodity introduced a physical, ideological, and rhetorical dimension into the political exchange, shaping a distinctly Roman tradition.

Prologue

Let me begin this book with a story. There is a twelfth-century collection, known as the Monumenta Vizeliacensia (Ms. 227 Bibliothèque Municipale Auxerre), which contains a particularly memorable and colourful manuscript initial (fol. 22r). Simply described, it shows Count Gerard of Roussilon and his wife, Bertha – proud founders in 858–9 of the Burgundian monasteries of Vézelay and Pothières (see book cover image). At face value, this image recalls a pious act of lay patronage. On the one hand, it commemorates the count and his wife for their donations and endowments, venerating their political and spiritual role in shaping monastic identity and culture. Representing an idealised model of localised governance anchored in the gesture and memory of foundation, it symbolises a harmonious relationship between secular rulers and the religious life. But on the other hand, this image also leaves a lot unsaid....