Non enim legimus hoc a regula Benedicti …: Benedictines and the University of Paris in the 13th century

When one searches for the origins of an educational connection between Benedictine scholars and the University of Paris, one must reflect for a long time before arriving at even vague answers.¹ Perhaps one may find these origins in the career of Jean Mabillon (1632-1707), the French Benedictine who gave diplomatic criticism a scientific foundation in history. The Reform congregation of the Maurists (Congregation of Saint Maur) also attempted to make an impressive connection between the monastic life and the pursuit of education and research. History as a science benefited in particular from the work of these highly educated Benedictines. The center of this new kind of scholarship was formed by the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Germain-des Prés. Indeed, in the tower of the monastery sits a stone-bust of Mabillon, which still overlooks the scenery, but it is doubtful many will even recognize it.² Still, the Maurists had no strong connection to the University of Paris. It may be fruitful to look further back in time, before Mabillon and the Maurists. Was there a significant medieval Benedictine figure who both represented the interests of the order and had a connection to the University of Paris?

For the Benedictine monk and famous chronicler Matthew (Matthaeus) Paris († 1259) from St Albans in England, the thought of monks seeking university training was clearly anathema. He condemned the Cistercians because they no longer despised Dominicans, Franciscans, and secular legal scholars but wanted to do exactly the same as they did: to introduce university education among their monks. As is well-known, the Mendicant orders established study houses (mansiones) in the city of Paris as well as in other towns with reputable schools. They wanted to instruct their members in theology, spiritual, and secular law (… in theologia, decretis et legibus studerent). In Matthew's eyes, this imitation of the new educational model of the Mendicant order revealed the arrogance (superbia) of the entire world. He believed respect for cloisters in general and the severity of the monastic principles in particular would be lost if monks pursued this new educational path. At the universities, monks would study human-based knowledge about the despised mortal world! Such a pursuit was not intended in the rule of St. Benedict, which was much older and therefore wiser. As will soon be shown, Matthew was correct, at least on this point. After all, Benedict called for a life of solitude in the monastery, not in the disturbances of an increasingly conceited world.³ In the stern eyes of the Benedictine, the Mendicant friars were on completely the wrong path. Real monks could not live in the world and study worldly knowledge; they should instead pursue a life of prayer in the remoteness of the monastery.

Matthew and others like him insisted that the Benedictines should stay away from the 'evil' of university knowledge and should not assume the new development of some trendy orders who found these new urban-based educational spaces attractive. They believed, and feared, education was becoming a worldly endeavor, one strongly against God's eternal order. In Matthew's view, the Cistercians had built a house of study in Paris only because they wanted to attain the same profane reputation as the Franciscans and Dominicans. They were simply imitators of an unwelcome and troublesome trend: the weakening of the religious and intellectual power of the old monastic orders (Et sic propter mundi nequitias rigor ordinis monastici in parte est enervatus).⁴ They had become the enemies of the old monastic ideals of reading, singing, and contemplation.

But Matthew could not stop the Cistercians. The order founded a study house in the name of St Bernard in 1244 or 1245.⁵ The Pope confirmed it on 6 January 1245 and again on 4 September of the same year. This new type of education could be received only in Paris in those days, and the need for a new generation of religious teachers was high. Still, some abbots—not only Benedictine but also Cistercian—resisted such educational...