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131  Chapter 6 Shaping Reformed Identities Richard of Saint-Vanne had definite—if, by all accounts,conservative—ideas about how life within the monastery should be organized, particularly in four interlinked domains. One concerned internal discipline, as represented most grippingly in his circular letter from 1012– 1013;1 the second referred to the remembrance of the dead;2 the third covered the shaping of institutional identities centered on the patron saint, his relics, and his cult;3 and finally,there was the management of monastic book collections .4 His agency in all of these domains is well attested, and specialists have argued that his individual behavior and preaching,as well as that of the initial circle of like-minded reformers,set standards for reformist government. This view is corroborated by medieval accounts such as the anonymous Deeds of the abbots of Lobbes,quoted in the introduction,and the equally anonymous Life of Thierry,abbot of Saint-Hubert and a former disciple of Richard,writ1 . Hugo of Flavigny, Chronicon, ed. Pertz, 381–91; see the discussion of this letter and of Richard ’s vision of monastic obedience in chapter 4. 2. According to Hugo of Flavigny, Richard arranged for a calendar listing the patrons of SaintVanne to be read daily in the chapter,and he ordered every community in his care to possess a necrology (Chronicon, ed. Pertz, 380). See also further, at n. 10. 3. Healy, Chronicle, 45–47. 4. See the discussion in chapter 4 and Wagner, “Richard.” 132 CHAPTER 6 ten at Lobbes between 1084 and 1091. According to the latter text, Richard “paid visit to innumerable male communities, recalling their uncultivated souls from the cult of piety to religion [itself],and instructed them to live according to his example.”5 If the many other references in contemporary and near-contemporary accounts to how the reformers transmitted their ideas about abbatial leadership, monastic discipline, relations with secular society, and other subjects can be trusted, setting examples through word and deed occupied a central place in abbots’ self-conceived mission as reformers.6 In addition, scholars like Hallinger and Dauphin have inferred attempts at creating what Brian Stock would call a “textual community” of reformed institutions that related to all the aforementioned domains.7 It has been suggested, for instance, that a fragmentary customary known as the Consuetudines Sancti Vitonis Virdunensis reflected the organization of monastic life at Saint-Vanne during Richard’s abbacy,8 and at least one twelfth-century commentator seems to allude to such fixed guidelines by claiming that his community had transmitted Richard’s “institutions”for over a century.9 Richard authored a sermon giving instructions on how to pray for the dead,and promoted the production of necrological manuscripts.10 He also appears to have been an active letter writer, and the Life of Poppo claims that the monks of Stavelot assembled a volume consisting of copies of Richard’s original letters to their abbot.11 Even though the exact contents of these exhortatory letters are unknown,they may well have contained instructions relating to reformist leadership and internal discipline. Collections of Lives of the patron saints of reformed institutions also circulated in reformist circles,12 and Richard himself is known to have written at least two hagiographic texts in an attempt to stimulate the veneration of the patron saints of Beaulieu and Saint-Vanne, both of which he led as abbot.13 Given Richard’s stature as a figurehead of reform,it is tempting to overlook the fact that his and his fellow reformers’ initiatives in these domains should be framed not in the context of an abstract, semi-institutionalized—and, as 5. Vita Theoderici abbatis Andaginensis, ed. Wattenbach, 41. 6. On this, see Vanderputten, “Oboedientia.” 7. For the concept of “textual communities,” see Stock, Implications. 8. Consuetudines SanctiVitonisVirdunensis, ed. Wegener and Hallinger. 9. See the introduction. 10. Quomodo est orandum pro defunctis, edited in Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, 355–56. At the end of his abbacy at Saint-Vanne,the monks produced a Liber vitae that was used to record the names of both members of the community and lay familiares; see Healy, Chronicle, 39. 11. The Life speaks of litterae exhortatoriae;Onulf and Everhelm,Vita Popponis,ed. Wattenbach,313. 12. See further, at nn. 44 and 45. 13. The aforementioned Vita Rodingi, ed. d’Achéry and Mabillon, 532–38 and the Vita Sancti VitoniVirdunensis/Libellus de miraculis sancti patris nostriVitoni, ed. Dauphin, 361–78. SHAPING REFORMED IDENTITIES 133 we have...

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