The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy

Introduction

Its small and relatively compact size was essential for an itinerant archbishop . Measuring six by nine inches, the size of a fairly small book, it was not difficult to carry. Except for the last few folios, which are charred, and an occasional hole, it is in remarkably good condition for a document seven hundred and fifty years old.1 At 387 folios (774 pages), it is by no means short, but it has a long and detailed story to tell. From August 1248 through December 1269, it records the daily activities of Eudes Rigaud, the first Franciscan archbishop of Rouen. The archbishop’s Register paints a vivid picture of day-to-day ecclesiastical life in thirteenth-century Normandy from the perspective of an administrator in search of problems needing correction.2 Reading the Register, we eavesdrop on the archbishop’s hundreds of visitations to monasteries, nunneries, houses of regular canons, hospitals, cathedral chapters, and country parishes. We follow the archbishop as he finds clerics who are unchaste, who gamble, and who get drunk; we hear about monasteries that are financially mismanaged; we meet parish priests who still have to be taught how to conjugate simple Latin verbs; we learn of priests who do not attend their local church councils ; and there are even the exceptional reports of two monks thought to have had sexual relations with each other. The Register is not a self-conscious document. Its author seems to have had no desire to project a particular image of himself or his times. He intended it solely for his own use and that of subsequent archbishops of Rouen. The Register functioned as both a calendar and an archive. While inspecting a monastery, for example, Eudes could turn to his Register to review his previous visitations. Had he collected a procuration fee at his last visitation ? Had he warned the abbot about the need to impose greater moral discipline ? In many ways, the Register functioned like the notes of a modern Introduction 2 The Holy Bureaucrat physician. Just as doctors’ notes follow patients’ medical histories, the Register tracked the spiritual and financial health of religious establishments. At the top of each folio appeared the year, week, and diocese under visitation. For quick and easy reference, headings in the margins provided the names of places visited and the procuration fees collected (summa procurationis). During subsequent visitations of the same religious house, if the archbishop encountered any resistance to his collection of a procuration, he could turn to his Register for a record of exactly how much he had collected during previous visitations. Eudes was an assiduous collector of procurations, and they represented a major source of revenue. In a typical year, he collected over 200 livres tournois in procurations from monastic houses. Thus it was extremely useful to have a record of every procuration collected, and in cases where he collected no procuration, a note indicated that he had paid for his own expenses (cum nostris expensis). Eudes’s lists of the procurations he collected resembled the roll lists found in royal and municipal receipt rolls beginning in the early thirteenth century.3 In addition to recording the past, the Register served as a kind of working calendar. Places that the archbishop intended to visit were entered next to the appropriate dates. If the archbishop’s secretary later found that not enough space had been left for a particular date, he used arrows and carets to squeeze additional information into the margins and corners.4 At times, too much space was allotted for a particular day, and a large blank space was left.5 When the archbishop changed his plans, his secretary had to cross out scheduled trips and move them to different dates.6 Perhaps at the archbishop ’s insistence, the Register was constantly being amended and updated. Errors in page numbering and dating were crossed out and corrected.7 In a section dealing with the crimes of priests (diffamationes), several priests’ records were crossed out and replaced by simple explanations in the margins : “he resigned,” “he was incarcerated,” “he was deprived [of his benefice].” It was almost as though Eudes excised these priests’ existence from the record. When the archbishop admitted men to orders, his secretary created a chart with four columns, one with the names of those ordained as acolytes, one for those promoted as subdeacons, one for deacons, and one for priests. Eudes could thus keep careful track of who had been admitted to which orders...