The Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, 666-1129 (review)

The absence of an edition of Montier-en-Der's charters has long been a source of frustration, given the monastery's underappreciated importance. It was founded in the mid-seventh century as part of the movement influenced by Luxeuil (indeed, all editions of Luxeuil's ground-breaking exemption go back to the copy in Montier-en-Der's cartulary), and the family of its founder, Bercharius, appears to have been one of the greatest in the Merovingian kingdoms. Guarding an invasion route between East and West Francia, its ninth-century rectors and patrons were consistently among Charles the Bald's most trusted palatines (Wulfad, Adalgarius, Boso). In the 930's it was one of the first houses brought into the monastic reforms emanating from Toul. A subsequent abbot, Adso, was one of the period's most interesting writers. Another was so close to Leo IX that the pope gave him his own name (Bruno). Der remained a favored recipient of privileges of the early reform popes. It also developed extremely close ties with the counts of Champagne and the first lords of Joinville. Bouchard's splendid edition is therefore a treasure.

Compiled in the 1120's, the cartulary contains 167 acts ranging from the seventh through the early twelfth centuries, ending with the privilege for Luxueil and the monastery's important polyptich. Bouchard adds another nine acts from other sources (including several that show the monks' continuing ties with Boso's family, when they sought refuge from the Northmen in Vienne with his son). The collection sounds many themes familiar to historians who work with monastic charters: the replacement of a mixed rule under Louis the Pious; the abbacy's subsequent secularization; the reform program which gave secularized altars to monasteries; recurring troubles with banal lords. But there is much else besides. In keeping with current understandings, Bouchard maintains the cartulary's integrity as a designed compilation created by an author (several, in fact), and she has been scrupulous in disentangling the forgeries that are unusually rife in the cartulary (particularly among the papal bulls). This allows a reader to see how much those forgeries seemed designed to insert the monastery into an ongoing ecclesiastical, Frankish history almost epic in scope (e.g., no. 87). Though not as circumstantial as those from western France, the disputed charters are unusually detailed and foresightful in their settlements. I know of few charters that insist so explicitly on the ties of societas and fraternitas given to lay donors. Fascinatingly, one charter has a donor captured and wounded in battle demanding that the monks ransom him per fraternitatem (no. 118). Crusades figure prominently in several acts (as does a campaign in Spain, no. 83), in which the monastery funded expenses for donors. In others one sees new ideas of Christian piety being inculcated among lay aristocrats (e.g., no. 37). However, one of the most unusual aspects of these acts are the small glimpses they give into the bonds of family. Clearly having bettered himself, a priest redeems his mother, sister, and his sister's sons from servitude (no. 115). A knight gives property he had from his mother and her father, for his soul and theirs, and for his sister who had just been buried in the monastery, and asks that when he dies he be buried next to her (no. 97; cf. no. 48). In an intriguing charter (no. 54), the monks recount how a young man wanted to give over his entire inheritance from his mother and become a monk, but the monks resisted because he could not promise his father's agreement. They compromised by allowing him to live with them for five months, testing his commitment, until the father finally came and agreed...