Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons by John Howe (review)

532BOOK REVIEWS Roman, there were some attempts to reuse old Exultet scrolls by erasing the texts and music and writing new texts and music in their place. This is shown most clearly in Plate 3. (For convenience, it may be examined in a mirror.) The original capital letters remain, though after the first line the text is now written in Gothic, rather than Beneventan characters; the Beneventan notation has also been replaced. The book has many valuable features. Among them is its description of each of the relevant surviving sources. As one example, there is an Exultet scroll in the British Library (Additional MS 30337), shown here in Plate 16, that is made up of twelve membranes, each of them measuring about eleven by twenty-four inches (except for one that is unusually short; there is more variation in length from one membrane to another than in width). Fully unrolled, it would be more than twenty-two feet long! What makes this scroll of unusual interest, apart from the exceptional beauty of its illuminations, is the fact that it may include a depiction of a feature of the abbey church of Montecassino before its eleventhcentury renovation. Professor Kelly is to be congratulated on his meticulous presentation of the evidence contained in these remarkable sources and the fascinating contribution to ecclesiastical history that his work offers. Ruth Steiner The Catholic University ofAmerica Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons. ByJohn Howe. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1997. Pp. xxiii, 220. $37.50.) John Howe's study of the hagiographical dossier ofDominic of Sora (d. 1032) is a superb example of how the traditional strengths of medieval studies (close study and comparison of manuscripts, careful genealogical reconstruction) can be felicitously combined with new interpretive approaches. The result is a stimulating exploration of ecclesiastical reform in its social context based on a rigorously researched case study. The book opens with an evocative description of the rugged geographical and social terrain of the Abruzzi, Lazio, and Umbría in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.After describing"Dominic's World,"Howe sketches Dominic's career as a monk, a hermit, a reforming priest, a wandering preacher, a founder of churches and monasteries. The most interesting parts of the study are its central chapters analyzing "Dominic's Holiness," his "'Benedictine' Monastic System ," and his "Patrons and Followers." Two closing chapters describe and analyze the undoing of the saint's life work and several appendices set out Howe's reconstruction of the hagiographical dossier, the genealogy of the Counts of Marsica, and their patronage relations with Monte Cassino. The author arrives at several important conclusions. Howe's evidence adds to the book reviews533 growing scholarly acknowledgment ofwell articulated reform ideals in the early eleventh century and to the relative unimportance of the papacy to the early formulation ofthe reform program. "Before there was a center," Howe pithily concludes,"there was reform . . ."(p. 160). Howe's emphasis on the concrete character of Dominic's ecclesiastical work is also salutary. While historical narratives of the reform era continue to stress the rhetoric of the investiture contest, the theoretical foundations of papal authority , monastic spirituality, and the legal formulation of reform principles, Church Reform places the physical aspects of renewing religious life at the heart of its story. Dominic builds churches and monasteries with his own hands, melting lime for mortar and placing stones. He physically traverses a harsh and impoverished landscape, bringing healing and prayer to remote communities. Dominic ministers to sinful elites, instructing them to give their wealth to endow churches and monasteries. As Howe rightly notes, this "grubby accumulation of ecclesiastical property would make possible the intellectual and spiritual achievements of later generations" (p. 160). The concrete quality of Dominic's reform efforts also extends to his charisma. Rather than relying upon standard topoi of holiness and biblical allusions, Dominic's hagiographers locate his sanctity in the minute articulation of specific deeds. Howe's application of the ideas of Brian Stock to the character of Dominic's "Benedictine" monasticism should, moreover, command the interest of scholars in religious studies and historians of monasticism. Dominic's...