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1 Reform and the Cura monialium at Hohenbourg In 1153, Frederick Barbarossa, the newly elected king and soon-tobe emperor of Germany, paid a single visit to the ancient monastery at Hohenbourg, high in the Vosges mountains of Alsace not far from Strasbourg . As with so much of medieval history, Barbarossa’s visit is recorded only by chance in a diploma that he issued during his stay; no light is shed on the reason for his visit, its length, or the nature of his relationship to the monastery.1 Yet despite this silence Barbarossa’s purpose at Hohenbourg can be understood in light of the secondary evidence: the developments that were associated with his visit and that are recorded in a bull issued some thirty years later by Pope Lucius III (1181–1185). Reflecting what was most likely the sequence of events as they were enshrined in the community’s collective memory, Lucius recalls first how Hohenbourg had been invaded and left ‘‘almost destroyed’’ by Barbarossa’s father, Duke Frederick II of Swabia (d. 1147), and then how Barbarossa, wanting to ‘‘regain the grace of the eternal king,’’ had undertaken to make amends for his father’s transgressions, through the restoration of the community.2 As Hohenbourg’s self-designated reformer, Barbarossa’s first known action was to summon a woman named Relinde to assume the abbacy of the monastery and to execute his plan for its physical and spiritual renewal. Although the details are scarce, Barbarossa’s visit to Hohenbourg must have played some role in his plan for the monastery’s reform. It may be that he had already turned his attention to the community before 1153, in which case his visit allowed him the opportunity to meet with Relinde and to inspect the progress of the reform that he had chosen her to implement . It is equally possible that his visit preceded reform, in which case it must have sparked his interest in the community and marked the beginnings of his active involvement there. In either case, Barbarossa’s reform of Hohenbourg and Relinde’s arrival there sometime around the middle Reform and the Cura monialium at Hohenbourg 25 of the twelfth century ushered in a period that must be reckoned the most vibrant in the monastery’s history. Under Relinde’s care, Hohenbourg’s buildings were restored, its scattered properties reclaimed, and the spiritual life on the mountain, long jeopardized by inconstant and quarrelsome clerics, at last renewed. As a central part of her reform agenda, Relinde orchestrated Hohenbourg’s adoption of the Augustinian Rule, bringing the monastery into the mainstream of religious reform in Alsace and inaugurating the beginning of its ‘‘golden age,’’ an age that is identified above all with Relinde’s successor, Herrad, and with the Hortus deliciarum. Little is known of Hohenbourg in the centuries before Barbarossa’s attention thrust it into the spiritual and political spotlight. Legend has it that Duke Adalric of Alsace had founded the monastery in the late seventh or early eighth century and later given it to his saintly daughter Odile.3 But Hohenbourg’s early history and association with Odile are uncertain; the two are linked only by the late ninth-century or early tenth-century Vita Odiliae.4 Even the nature of Hohenbourg’s first rule, which had allegedly been established by St. Odile herself, is unknown, although by the time that her vita was written, the community most likely followed the Institutio sanctimonialium.5 The obscurity of Hohenbourg’s early history is exacerbated by a series of twelfth-century forgeries that intentionally confused the community’s past. One of these, a false diploma of Louis the Pious (d. 840), was produced at Hohenbourg; the others, a pretended Testament of St. Odile and a falsified Chronicon Ebersheimense, came from Hohenbourg’s rival monasteries at Niedermünster and Ebersheim.6 Each of these sought to recast Hohenbourg’s special relationship to St. Odile in order to gain advantage in the monastic rivalries of the twelfth century. Despite the obscurity of Hohenbourg’s early history, the monastery to which Relinde was called at the middle of the twelfth century was one of real significance, not only within Alsace, but also across southern Germany . Hohenbourg’s connection to St. Odile was central to its importance . Since the monastery housed Odile’s shrine, it was (and, indeed, continues to be) the most popular pilgrimage destination in Alsace. It is even possible that Barbarossa’s visit...

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