The Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin of Tournai by Herman of Tournai (review)

784book reviews suasive. By including so much historiography in the text, Golding's own version of the early history of the GUbertines can at times be difficult to foUow. But the reader who perseveres wUl gain a thorough knowledge of the GUbertine's origins , development, internal organization, economic system, and social context. Sharon K. Elkins Wellesley College and Popefohn XXIIINational Seminary The Restoration of the Monastery of Saint Martin ofTournai. By Herman of Tournai.Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Lynn H. Nelson. [Medieval Texts in Translation.] (Washington, D.C.:The Catholic University of America Press. 1996. Pp. xxix, 248. $34.95 clothbound; $ 1995 paperback.) Herman ofTournai was a mediocre historian, but Lynn Nelson is a very good translator and commentator. Herman composed the Liber de restauratione sancti Martini Tornacensis about 1142. Herman's text is confusing: there are many people with the same name, the narrative doubles back on itself, and Herman had an apparently irresistible desire to write about the politics and marriages of the great, aU of which interrupted the flow of the narrative about the restoration of Saint Martin's. In spite of such problems of composition, Herman recounted the troubled history which foUowed the refounding of an abandoned monastery inTournai. Herman reported that during a famine in 1090, the cathedral canons expelled from the cathedral precincts starving refugees, who took refuge at the ruined monastery. Nelson argues convincingly that the canons' act of cruelty set in motion eighteen years of ecclesiastical, clan, and urban strife untU the monks and canons were reconcUed in 1 108. The foundation or "refoundation" of a monastic house in an urban setting was, at least in this case, disruptive because it threatened the economic interests and religious domination of the cathedral chapter.The monks of Saint Martin 's demanded the return of properties which they claimed had been "lost" centuries earner and which they believed were m the possession of the cathedral chapter. Dtfferent branches of the dominant kin group, whom Nelson caUs the Osmonds, became embroUed in the bitter and violent quarrel between the cathedral chapter and the monastery, which after some hesitation had adopted the Cluniac way of life. By paying careful attention to genealogy, Nelson demonstrated that the Osmonds divided into political alliances centered on the monastery and the cathedral chapter respectively. Chicanery and violence, often carried out among relatively close kin, marked the long-running quarrel. Nelson's analysis is a sober corrective to overly rosy views of the cohesiveness of medieval kin groups. The translation is clear and idiomatic, with much interesting detaU about reUgious , social, and poUtical IUe inTournai and its environs in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The translation is complemented by abundant, useful notes and by six appendices which help the reader understand important top- book reviews785 ics embedded in the text. Nelson is especiaUy good at showing that the seemingly ecclesiastical quarrel was in fact a complex socio-poUtical struggle among kinsmen and their supporters in a smaU city. A teacher could use this weUtranslated and richly annotated book for many purposes in an undergraduate class. My only reservation is that in the extensive notes, the translator is occasionally very judgmental about the moral behavior of these long-dead people. Joseph H. Lynch The Ohio State University Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215-c. 1515- By R. N. Swanson. [Cambridge MedievalTextbooks.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xv, 377. $6995 clothbound; $18.95 paperback.) This volume presents a general survey of Latin Christianity from the Fourth Lateran CouncU to the eve of the Reformation. Aimed at a general audience of undergraduates and scholarly non-specialists, it eschews aU but essential footnotes and documentation.Yet by condensing the disparate themes of late medieval Christianity into a compact and orderly synthesis, it also offers speciaUsts many useful reminders of how particular issues and movements reflected the underlying dynamics of the era. As the title suggests, the book focuses less on institutional Christianity than on the ways people understood and lived their reUgion. However, the Church as "the body of the faithful" still plays the dominant role in Swanson's approach: for him the crucial dialectic involved "the reactions of...