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The Monastery of St Benedict, Polirone, and its Cluniac Associations

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Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages

Part of the book series: Readings in European History ((SEURH))

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Abstract

In a survey which he produced more than ten years ago concerning recent works on research into Cluny and Cluniac monks, Professor G. Tellenbach came to the conclusion that we were still a long way from any positive knowledge of Cluny and its influence. At the same time he suggested methods of research into areas which still remained to be explored.2 Several of these have, in the meantime, been followed up, not least by Tellenbach himself.3 As a result, it has been realised that a clearer understanding of the nature of Cluny is made possible by research into the history of individuals as shown in the contents of Books of Life, calendars and necrologies.4 Fundamental to this were W. Jorden’s views on the extreme importance which Cluny attached to the commemoration of the dead.5 Necrologies could thus be classified as characteristic liturgical books for Cluniac monasteries. This will necessarily lead to a certain amount of investigation modifying the results already obtained.

[Translated from ‘Das Kloster S. Benedetto di Polirone in seiner cluniacensischen Umwelt’, in Adel und Kirche, Festschrift for Professor G. Tellenbach (to whom this article is dedicated), edited by J. Fleckenstein and K. Schmid (Herder: Freiburg/Basel/Vienna, 1968) pp. 280–93. Ed.]

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References

  1. Hansmartin Schwarzmaier from ‘Das Kloster S. Benedetto di Polirone in seiner cluniacensischen Umwelt’, in Adel und Kirche, Festschrift for Professor G. Tellenbach (to whom this article is dedicated), edited by J. Fleckenstein and K. Schmid (Herder: Freiburg/Basel/Vienna, 1968) pp. 280–93. Ed.]

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  2. G. Tellenbach, ‘Zum Wesen der Cluniacenser’, in Saeculum, 9 (1958) 370, and ‘Zur Erforschung Clunys und der Cluniacenser’, introduction to NF pp. 3 ff.

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  3. From a number of works the following may be quoted: H. Hoffmann, ‘Von Cluny zum Investiturstreit’, in Arch. f. Kulturgesch. 45 (1963) 165 ff.;

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  8. W. Jorden, Das cluniacensische Totengedächtniswesen (1930).

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  22. The documents have been published by P. Torelli, Regesto Mcintovano, I (1914) (‘Reg. Chart. It.’ 12);

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  35. From the introduction to the Liber Vitae it is clear that Abbot William was dead at the time of its composition and that Pope Urban II was still alive. But Abbot William witnessed a transfer of the monastery of St Bartholomew in Lucca to Polirone on 17 June 1099 (see Guidi-Parenti, Regesto del Capitolo di Lucca, 1 (1910) [‘Reg. Chart. Ital.’ 6] no. 573, p. 245; Mem. Doc. Stor. Lucca, IV 2 app. p. 12o), and Urban II died on 29 July in the same year. This narrows the time for the death of Abbot William, the choice of his successor Alberic and the composition of the preface to the Liber Vitae to a few days in July 1099, a surprising precision but hardly questionable. See also my article mentioned p. 129 n. 1 above.

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Noreen Hunt

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© 1971 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Schwarzmaier, H. (1971). The Monastery of St Benedict, Polirone, and its Cluniac Associations. In: Hunt, N. (eds) Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages. Readings in European History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00705-9_8

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