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The Catholic Historical Review 88.1 (2002) 111-112



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Book Review

Des clercs au service de la réforme: Études et documents sur les chanoines réguliers de la province de Rouen


Des clercs au service de la réforme: Études et documents sur les chanoines réguliers de la province de Rouen. Edited by Mathieu Arnoux. [Bibliotheca Victorina, Volume XI.] (Turnhout: Brepols. 2000. Pp. 404. 70.00 Euros.)

Canons regular have always been overshadowed by monks. These canons were groups of priests attached to a church, who followed a semimonastic rule and adopted voluntary poverty, but who brought the liturgy to the world rather than retreating from the world. By the end of the twelfth century such canons probably outnumbered cloistered monks in western Europe. Yet studies of these canons remain few in comparison to studies of members of the better-known monastic orders. There were several canonical orders, such as the Premonstratensians or the Victorines, but no overarching order to which their houses could all be construed as belonging, and many houses functioned entirely independently.

In this volume a group of scholars set out to make canons regular better known, concentrating on those in the archdiocese of Rouen (essentially the duchy of Normandy) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The best-known group of Norman canons regular is probably the cathedral chapter of Séez, the only French body of cathedral canons to adopt a rule of poverty and common life. More commonly, especially in rural areas, houses of canons regular evolved out of communities of hermits. Overall Normandy had some four dozen houses [End Page 111] of canons regular by the end of the thirteenth century (twice as many as the number of Cistercian establishments), and this volume seeks to show their role in overall religious reform during the High Middle Ages. About half of the text is an overview by Mathieu Arnoux of the history of the Norman canons and their impact over a period of three centuries. The rest is three case studies of individual houses, by Véronique Gazeau, by Mathieu Arnoux again, and by Christine Demetz-Van Torhoudt. The volume is completed by an edition of selected chronicles and charters, many not previously published, which provide some of the evidence for the history of canons in the region.

The volume is useful not only as a regional study of Norman canons regular but also as an in-depth analysis of the reasons that houses of such canons appeared in the first place and of the ways that canons regular evolved over the High Middle Ages. In particular, Arnoux sees the foundation of so many houses of canons regular in the twelfth century as a reaction both to the difficulties the bishops were having when faced with the depradations of the English kings--also dukes of Normandy--and to the fact that a great many Norman Benedictine houses were dependent on mother houses from far outside the region. He also discusses the canons' benefactors: some were of the great noble families who had earlier endowed monastic foundations, but others were simple knights or even townsmen. The English kings themselves also played an important role in the spread of houses of canons in the region.

The implications of the studies presented here go far beyond the region and should be of interest to anyone studying canons regular or the broader reform movement of the period. Indeed, my chief criticism of this handsomely-produced volume is that it would have been helpful if the authors had drawn more comparisons with what is known about canons outside of Normandy.

 



Constance B. Bouchard
University of Akron

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