Abbatial Obedience, Liturgical Reform, and the Threat of Monastic Autonomy at the Turn of the Twelfth Century

The author argues that the introduction of the written promise of obedience made by abbots to the local bishop, as recorded in liturgical manuals of the late-twelfth century, was the result of a process that began at least a century earlier. By looking at an exceptional set of liturgical and archival sources from the Bishopric of Arras in northern France and putting them in their appropriate canonical, liturgical, and political contexts, the author shows how, in the late- eleventh and early-twelfth centuries, reformist bishops were experimenting with a ritual repertoire that included references—be they intended or inferred—to both the monastic profession and secular homage.