The Archbishop of Reims, his Court Poets, and Church Reform in the Late Eleventh Century

FAIN: FT-59041-11

John Ott
Portland State University (Portland, OR 97207-0751)

This interdisciplinary, archival research project examines the poetry, letters, and manuscripts produced at the archiepiscopal court of Reims (northern France) during the rule of Manasses I (c. 1069-1080). By examining first-hand a number of unpublished, unedited manuscripts containing works by members of the Reims court circle, I intend to shed light on the complex and controversial process of church reform in medieval Europe, and revise conventional narratives of reform that project Archbishop Manasses as an antagonist of the Roman agenda. More broadly, my aim is to challenge the traditional way historians have explained the process of church-state separation in medieval Europe, especially their reliance on the dichotomous model of resistance/reform.

Associated Products

Texts and Church Reform: The Eleventh-Century Manuscripts of the Provosts of Reims (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Texts and Church Reform: The Eleventh-Century Manuscripts of the Provosts of Reims
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: This paper examines two manuscripts belonging to two successive provosts of Sainte-Marie (Notre-Dame) of Reims, Odalric (fl. 1025-1075) and Manasses (1075/6-1096; later archbishop, 1096-1106). The manuscripts, currently Bibliothèque municipale de Reims Mss. 15 and 1402, both bear an ex libris clearly identifying their owners. BM Reims 15 contains a variety of texts, including the capitular necrology (10th-12th century), a tripartite Psalter, a farrago of canons, an episcopal list of Reims, and the earliest known copy (I do not believe it has been identified as such) of the Textus miraculi quod Dominus ad destructionem symoniacae heresis operari dignatus est in episcopatu Florentino (on Petrus Igneus and Bishop Petrus Mezzabarbo of Florence). Its contents, added at different times from ca. 1050-, indicate that BM Reims 15 was very much a ‘working’ text, a sort of reference or archive for the provost and chapter. BM Reims 1402, belonging to Manasses, is more straightforward. A passionary (hyemalis secundus), its texts focus heavily on local bishop-saints (Archbishops Remigius, Rigobertus) and fathers of the church (Pope Gregory I, Pope Sylvester, Benedict). It further contains, inserted just before the vita of Pope Gregory, four of that pontiff’s letters, apparently selected for their thematic significance and, I will argue, connection to reform ideas on clerical celibacy and simony. I will argue that their manuscripts reveal the means by which the seminal ideas of church reform concerning simony and priestly conduct were introduced into the powerful archdiocese of Reims. Collectively, they suggest the ‘indirect’ and often piecemeal ways in which reformist ideas were transmitted—through textual exempla and canonical farragos—which adjusts our traditional view of reform as directly conveyed through intentional canonical collections or papal fiat. BM Reims 15 and 1402 give us a taste of what church reform ‘on the ground’ looked like.
Date: 08/11/2012
Conference Name: XIV Quadrennial International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto

Poetry, Pride and Power: The Archbishop’s Court at Reims and the Politics of Reform in the Late Eleventh Century (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Poetry, Pride and Power: The Archbishop’s Court at Reims and the Politics of Reform in the Late Eleventh Century
Abstract: This paper examined the clash of cultures between the court poets of archbishop Manasses I of Reims (c. 1069-1080) and the reform party in the cathedral chapter, using the texts produced by both parties in the course of their conflict. It demonstrates an important "culture war" between reformed and unreformed ideas of clerical life and patronage.
Author: John S. Ott
Date: 09/12/2012
Location: University of Nevada-Reno

Erasing Bad Memories: Fashioning the Posthumous Reputation of Manasses I, Archbishop of Reims, c. 1069-1080 (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Erasing Bad Memories: Fashioning the Posthumous Reputation of Manasses I, Archbishop of Reims, c. 1069-1080
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: Modern scholarly memories of the Archbishop of Reims, Manasses I de Gournay (r. c. 1069-1080) are, even at their most generous, overwhelmingly negative. He is literally a textbook example of a venal, corrupt prelate, having appeared through multiple editions in a chapter of a popular North American medieval history (Warren Hollister and Judith Bennett, Medieval Europe: A Short History, used widely in undergraduate courses) on the so-called Investiture Controversy. This posthumous fashioning of Manasses’ reputation and memory began shortly after the archprelate’s removal from the see of Reims by Gregory VII, and culminated in the infamous dictum of Guibert of Nogent (d. c. 1124), who, in his autobiography, noted that Manasses had supposedly said that ‘being an archbishop would not be such a bad thing, if only it did not mean having to sing the Mass’. This paper will aim to do two things. (1) It will examine this process of selective forgetting and the erasure of Manasses’ memory at Reims, pursuing it through primary sources but also, critically, through two manuscripts produced at Reims (BM Reims MS 15 and BM Reims MS 1411), one contemporaneous with Manasses, the second somewhat later (late eleventh/early twelfth century). (2) It will look at the way in which particular memories of Manasses were retained, and how others were forgotten—that is, how and why Guibert’s (and others’) memories of Manasses—the product of stories told about the disgraced prelate rather than the abbot of Nogent’s personal memory of him—came to be.
Date: 07/04/2013
Primary URL: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc/imc-2013/
Primary URL Description: International Medieval Congress program, Leeds, July 2013
Conference Name: International Medieval Congress, Leeds

Speech and Silence at the Council of Reims (1049) (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Speech and Silence at the Council of Reims (1049)
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: Among Leo’s ecclesiastical assemblies, his council at Reims, held between 3-5 October 1049 in the abbey church of Saint-Remi, is the best documented. Despite its widely acknowledged importance for papal reform initiatives in the mid-eleventh century, the council is less studied than it deserves. One particularly neglected aspect of the Reims council is its ritual dynamic and subsequent memorialization in later historical accounts. In this paper I will offer a few observations concerning Leo IX’s strategic use of speech and silence during the council to coerce the assembled clergy into upholding the papal agenda, and explore the transmission in reformist circles of stories from Leo’s council associated with the miraculous silencing of simoniacs, at Reims and elsewhere.
Date: 07/27/2013
Conference Name: Workshop: Rhetorik, Ritual und Recht: Reden und Predigten auf Kirchenversammlungen des Mittelalters (11.-15. Jahrhundert), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany

‘Reims and Rome are Equals’: Archbishop Manasses I (c. 1069-1080), Pope Gregory VII, and the Fortunes of Historical Exceptionalism (Book Section)
Title: ‘Reims and Rome are Equals’: Archbishop Manasses I (c. 1069-1080), Pope Gregory VII, and the Fortunes of Historical Exceptionalism
Author: John S. Ott
Editor: Sigrid Danielson and Evan A. Gatti
Abstract: This paper explores the ecclesiology of Manasses I, the archbishop of Reims (c. 1069-1080) as expressed through the works of his court poet, Fulcoius of Beauvais, whom Manasses patronized during his pontificate. It shows how court poetry produced at Reims was used as a tool of diplomacy with popes Alexander II and Gregory VII, and further how that poetry reflected the mores of the archbishop's court -- mores that clashed with the reform ambitions of the papacy.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503547992-1
Primary URL Description: Link to book in Brepols catalog
Access Model: Purchase
Publisher: Brepols
Book Title: Envisioning the Bishop. Images and the Episcopacy in the Middle Ages
ISBN: 9782503547992

Personal Histories: The Revival of Archiepiscopal Historiography at Reims in the Eleventh Century (Book Section)
Title: Personal Histories: The Revival of Archiepiscopal Historiography at Reims in the Eleventh Century
Author: John S. Ott
Editor: N/a
Abstract: In this fifth chapter of my monograph on Bishops, Authority, and Community in Northwestern Europe, I examine the complicated relationships of Archbishop Gervais of Reims (1055-1067) to local histories and their sources. At Reims under Gervais, historical memory proved crucial to constituting episcopal authority, often in the face of conflict and change. Bishops’ embrace of the past enabled them both to connect with local communities and to participate in the sacred history of the place they inhabited. By taking literary and liturgical possession of his predecessors’ stories and connecting themselves to an ultimately apostolic tradition, Gervais proclaimed his authority and inscribed himself within both the living and historical communities of Reims. This chapter draws on material found in BM Reims MS 15.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/bishops-authority-and-community-in-northwestern-europe-c1050-1150/C5920771B049F75D9CEEF48C896024F0
Primary URL Description: Link to CUP catalog entry for book
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Title: Bishops, Authority, and Community in Northwestern Europe, c. 1050-1150
ISBN: 9781139084703

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