Monastic Communities and Canonical Clergy in the Carolingian World (780-840): Categorizing the Church (Medieval Monastic Studies, 8)

"In the years 816-819, a series of councils was held at the imperial palace in Aachen. The goal of the meetings was to settle a number of questions about ecclesiastical organization. These issues were hotly debated throughout the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries, and then reinvigorated by the renewal of empire under Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious. At the centre of the ensuing debate stood the distinction between monks and monastic communities on the one hand, and the so-called clerici canonici and their communities on the other. Many other reforms were proposed in its wake: the position of the episcopacy needed to be renegotiated, the role of the imperial court needed to be consolidated, and the place of every Christian within the renewed Carolingian Church needed to be redefined. What started out as a seemingly straightforward reorganisation of the religious communities that dotted the Frankish ecclesiastical landscape thus quickly turned into a broad movement that necessitated an almost complete categorization of the orders of the Church. The contributions to this volume each zoom in on various aspects of these negotiations: their prehistory, their implementation, and their influence. In doing so, previously held assumptions about the scope, the goals, and the impact of the 'Carolingian Church Reforms' will also be re-assessed."--Page 4 de la couverture Table of Contents 7 List of Illustrations 9 Acknowledgements 11 Institutions, Identities, and the Realization of Reform 13 The Monastic Reforms of 816–19 33 Origins 47 The Organization of the Clergy and the canonici in the Sixth Century 49 Choreography and Confession 59 Confusion and the Need to Choose? 99 Old Norms, New Boundaries 129 What is a canonicus? 131 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 179 Loose Canonesses? 217 Reception and Reflection 239 ‘Superior to Canons, and Remaining Inferior to Monks’ 241 This is a Cleric 267 The ‘Apostates’ of Saint-Denis 301 Debating the una regula 323 Reform in Practice 353 Monks Pray, Priests Teach, Canons Sing, and the Laity Listens 355 Cathedral and Monastic 381 Implementing Liturgical Change in Ninth-Century Lyon 403 Ordering the Church in the Ordines Romani 425 Index 447 Medieval Monastic Studies 455