Ermites de France et d'Italie (XIe-XVe siecle) (review)

In 1962 a symposium at Mendola was the basis for L'Eremitismo in Occidente, the authoritative survey of western hermitism in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Nearly forty years later, the Ecole française in Rome and the University of Siena were inspired to hold a similar colloquium at the charterhouse of Pontignano, the basis of the work reviewed here. The result, however, is much less coherent. In part this is because of its broader chronological parameters; in part because of its random mix of general surveys with regional, source, and case studies. The focus on France and Italy is also limiting, although freely violated by papers such as Marina Miladinov's study on high medieval Hungarian hermits (pp. 389-411) and Catherine Santchi's survey of the historical sources for hermits in eastern Switzerland (pp. 413-437). The volume offers a broad and diverse sampling of recent researches on medieval hermits, but these cannot be easily pulled together even by Sofia Boesch Gajano's summary conclusion (pp. 479-492).

Certain contributions stand out. Jean-Marie Sansterre, writing on monastic attitudes in France and Italy toward the revival of hermitism in the tenth and eleventh centuries, combines a wonderful command of the bibliography with a nuanced analysis of tensions between monks and hermits (pp. 29-46). Cécile Caby offers a rare overview of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century regularization of hermitism (pp. 47-80). Jean-Hervé Foulon's survey of sources for hermitism in the west of France offers detailed charts, lists, and maps (pp. 81-113). Mario Sensi studies relationships between hermits and rural communities near Spoleto (pp. 343-371). André Vauchez examines the portrayal of hermitism in French and Italian hagiographical sources (pp. 373-388).

Individual hermits treated include Robert of Arbrissel (pp. 137-154), John ofMatera (pp. 211-240), William the Great (pp. 299-314), and Franco Lippi (pp. 315-342). Regional studies survey early medieval northern France (pp. 1-27), western France (pp. 81-113), Normandy (pp. 115-135), Greek/Latin southern Italy (pp. 175-198), and Apulia (pp. 199-209). There are descriptions of urban reclusion in France (pp. 155-173) and in Italy (pp. 241-253), archival sources for the Augustinian hermits of Siena (pp. 255-276), eremitical architecture in Tuscany (pp. 277-298), the fifteenth-century "Jesuiti," and Franciscan hermitism in fifteenth-century French Burgundy.

Themes in this volume indicate progress made since the Mendola symposium. Popular hermitism is assumed to be potentially related to other popular movements, perhaps filling similar needs, perhaps inversely related to popular heretical movements (pp. 101-102) and to reformed monasticism (pp. 175-176). The thirteenth century is identified as the "golden age" of hermitism, atleast in central Italy (p. 365). Yet some of the optimism of the original Mendola symposium is lacking. Scholars in the 1960's, working in a recently opened field, saw the hermits' quest for solitude as a key to understanding medieval spirituality. The contributors here tend to be more circumspect, wellaware not only of huge gaps in the available sources but also of how thosesources are often subtly concerned with contemporary monastic idealsand may be using portrayals of hermits as foils in debates on other matters. This volume does not replace earlier work, but does usefully supplement it.