Non-fiction and essays
University essays
History
Second Year
Castle and Cloister 253
Why was the nobility concerned to be ‘the neighbour’ of monks? (HST 253, Spring 2003)

When William, Duke of Aquitaine donated his favourite hunting ground to his friend Berno, so that Berno
could establish a monastery at Cluny, he stated his reasons as “desiring to provide for my own safety” while
also giving “some little portion for the gain of my soul.”# This example of a foundation charter shows the two
major aspects that explain why European aristocracy gave donations to monasteries, and thereby sought to
be ‘the neighbour’ of monks. Firstly there was a spiritual side, that by giving up lands and money to establish
or endow houses of monks, they might bring salvation to their own souls, and those of their families and
friends. The second aspect was more concerned with social and political reasons, such as a repository for
unsupportable children who were oblated to monasteries. For whatever combination of reasons, as the
social and the spiritual were never really separate in the Middle Ages, by giving something to a monastery,
the noble expected something in return. This is the phenomenon of gift and counter-gift that was a pervading
force in Medieval Europe. In a culture of knights and fighting men, the equivalent in the spiritual world were
the monks. Orderic Vitalis described in his Ecclesiastical History: “Who can recount the vigil, hums, psalms,
prayers, alms, and daily offerings of masses with floods of tears which the monks perform… noble earl, I
earnestly advise you to build such a castle in your county, manned by monks against Satan. Here the cowled
champions will resist Behemoth in constant warfare for your soul.”#
A common theme in the foundation charters of monasteries in the Middle Ages was the desire on the part of
the noble or king to be remembered in the prayers of the monks. Being received into confraternity with the
monastery was a sure way of sharing the observance of the monks. Those benefactors who had donated
something to monasteries had their names written into the libri vitae, or books of life, so that “on the death of
the confrater the community celebrated the full office of the dead for the deceased as it did for its own monks.”
# This was an overwhelming religious incentive for the nobility, as was the possibility of being granted
corrodies, which was the ultimate spiritual reward that a lay person could hope for. By being interred on
sacramental ground, men whose lives had been full of fighting and bloodshed might be able to make some
compensation for the sins of their actions.#
This function of spiritual welfare after death is a principal reason as to why the aristocracy favoured being
patrons and donors of monasteries in particular. Dominique Iogna-Prat has accounted for this preference:
“The monastic community was an elective family in which blood families could reside, and could down the
roots of their lineages. The necrologies and the cartulary preserve the different paths of family memory
distinctly: the names of certain ancestors, the pieces of the patrimony that have passed into the possession
of the Cluniac sanctuary, but with their origin clearly noted.”# Monasteries, with their necrologies and
theocracy based on the ‘cult of the dead’ were an attractive option for the nobility wishing to provide for his
own and his family’s spiritual wellbeing.
One of the religious ideas that the nobility ascribed to was that of vicarious piety. As R W Southern notes,
“there was no need for anyone to endure privation who could pay for someone to act in his place…A great
man could either pay the stipulated sum or engage other men to undertake the penance for him.”# And there
was no greater source of piety than in monasteries. By endowing monks, the great lay leaders hoped that the
monks could atone for their sins, which they might not have the time to perform themselves. It was seen that
the monks’ prayers would “avert the wrath of God from the sins of the people and ensured God’s blessing
upon the king when he went into battle.”# This is one of the reasons that allowed the nobility to embark upon
crusades, knowing that their souls would be taken care of by the sacrifices of monks.
Common gifts to monasteries included lands, estates and towns. Another type of gift was in personnel. On
some occasions, donors would give themselves to the monasteries along with the rest of their property, but a
far more common occurrence was the giving of a child. This process of child-oblation involved the noble
giving a child to a monastery, together with a gift of money or land, and then the monastery would take in the
child. Once inside, the child would be educated and instructed in the monastic life. From a religious
standpoint, the parents expected some sort of return for this ‘investment’, they “calculated the rewards of their
pious act, for they stood to gain a definite amount of clerical prayer and, ultimately, salvation.”# However, this
form of gift demonstrates the crossover of spiritual and social reasons in the nobility wishing to be
associated with monasteries.
In large aristocratic families, there was often not enough land and money to support all the sons, and
especially any unmarried daughters on the family estate. The process of child-oblation was one means by
which nobles could offload their superfluous offspring, releasing them from the financial burden, but still
providing a reasonable life for their sons and daughters. Not only would the child be educated, but also the
rest of the children in the monasteries were invariably other aristocratic offspring. Indeed, families of the
lesser nobility provided most of the monks for the reformed monasteries.# Child-oblation demonstrates the
two sides of the nobility’s association with monasteries, the social and the spiritual.
In examining the influence of Cluniac monasticism on the Middle Ages between the tenth and twelfth
centuries, it is possible to see how the nobility and monasteries interacted. Starting with Duke William’s
original donation in 910, Cluny and its daughter houses received numerous donations. As Cluny grew in
power and prestige, more nobles wished to associate themselves with the monastery and its monks, who
were seen as especially pious and close to God. This association included kings, such as Henry III, later
Emperor Henry. He asked Hugh, abbot of Cluny to be the godfather of his son, Henry IV. In his article, Lynch
declares that “by inviting Abbot Hugh to sponsor the child, Henry may have sought his prayers and those of
the Cluniac monks in special way for the child who was the hope of his dynasty.”# Here it is possible to see
the desire of rulers to have their families associated with arguably the most influential monastery in Western
Europe. It also indicates the importance of personal relationships in an age when there was a lack of central
power and institutions were weak. By having an abbot as part of the family, the positive implications for the
family’s spiritual wellbeing were evident.
A further example of this personal association can be seen in the case of Alfonso VI of Castile and his
relationship with Abbot Hugh of Cluny. After Hugh had secured the release of Alfonso from prison, the
Spanish noble proceeded to establish the first Cluniac monasteries in Spain. This is a clear example of the
influence of great men of monasteries and their influence on great men of the aristocracy.#
In the case of Walter of Trognée, who in the 1120s endowed the Cluniac monastery of Bertrée, some of the
social and political considerations are demonstrated. After giving the land and church of Bertrée to St Peter
and the monks of Cluny, he added some stipulations that would ensure he would not only get spiritual
rewards from his donation. For instance, the “jurisdiction over the lands was to belong to the church on
condition that the advocate, Walter’s brother, Godescalc, was to hold half of it from the church in return for
protecting the church and its properties from all injustices.”# While this allowed Walter to retain some
measure of control over the lands he had granted to the monastery, his reasoning appears to support a more
spiritual motive, that demonstrates the further meshing of the social with the spiritual. Constable goes on to
remark that Walter “hoped that the church would grow in possessions and religion and that he would thus
possess spiritually after his death what he had owned physically during his lifetime.”# Therefore, despite
being able to see how Walter might benefit in political power from his conditions on the donation, it is
questionable whether Walter himself would have seen anything separating the spiritual from the secular
motive.
Walter of Trognée was not the only member of the nobility to provide for advocates in their donations of land to
monasteries. In the twelfth century, many nobles in Europe “used the institution of advocacy to extend their
jurisdiction and powers over lands belonging to monasteries, which were centres of family influence as well
as of intercessory prayer and burial.”# Advocacy was a means of using land that had been donated to
monasteries as a reward for loyal subordinates, the fideles, and also a means of protecting monasteries
from outside threats of attack. This demonstrates a combination of the spiritual and social reasons behind
endowments and gifts.
Association with saints was a common factor in the endowment of monasteries. Founders would often look
to a particular saint, who they felt had assisted them in their lives. For example, dedications to St Martin by
monasteries at Dover and Battle “belonged to churches said to have been built in gratitude to the soldier-
saint for military victory.”# This was a process by which saints could become patrons, and even friends of the
family giving the gift, so that the act of giving would receive rewards of salvation in return. Again Cluny is the
prime example of this, with its association with St Peter being strengthened by the relocation to Cluny of relics
of the apostles from Rome in the 980s.# This provided a stronger incentive for the aristocracy to associate
themselves with Cluny through donations.
The overriding principal behind donations and endowments from the aristocracy to monasteries was the idea
of gift and counter-gift. This basically meant that by giving something to the monastery, whether an estate or a
child, the noble expected they would receive some kind of reward. Often this reward was not expected to be in
this life, but rather for the salvation of their souls in the hereafter. This process of gift and counter-gift was an
accepted part of medieval culture. As Tellenbach notes: “The new abbot…would normally, in conformity with
the customs of the time, bring gifts for the proprietor of the monastery or the prince, which in turn would be
matched by counter-gifts in the form of privileges and still richer counter-gifts.”# The act of giving was seen as
a form of spiritual discipline, through which a link was established between the monks and the noble who
made the endowment. The link could also include the saint of the monastery, as referred to earlier, creating
an even more powerful ally, gathering all together in one large extended family. In this way, donations to Cluny
“were part of repertory of familiar gestures” that had the “significance of including Saint Peter in a circle of
friends and family members.”#
Through a variety of gifts, including donations of land and members of their families, the European nobility
sought to become closely associated with monasteries. The aristocracy believed that by giving to monastic
institutions they could receive spiritual rewards that included the salvation of their souls, and that of their
families. While it is true to say that nobles also received various secular rewards, such as political influence
and stability in an area, at the time these concerns would not have been separated. To knights fighting in
crusades in the name of Christ, they saw their obligation to defend monasteries as a return for the monks’
prayers on their behalf and the chance to be buried alongside the monks – the ultimate spiritual reward.
Being remembered in the prayers of monks, especially those of the ordo cluniacensis – the Cluniac way of
monastic life, was enough to compensate for the unholy lives they led. A culture of gift and counter-gift
prevailed in the society of the Middle Ages, and the nobility expected to receive a reward of some kind in return
for the endowments they bestowed on monasteries. As De Jong describes, the giving of gifts gave a noble
“membership of the ‘community of the altar’, which consisted of all those who prayed for and gave to a
particular saint, and, above all, familiaritas with the sacred.”# By being a ‘neighbour of monks’, the medieval
noble asked that “intercession and constant beseeching may be made for them and atonement made for
their sins.”# It was hoped this might provide a spiritual reward for himself and his family that outweighed any
possible social benefit that a modern observer might seek to imply.

Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Foundation Charter of Gerard, Count of Vienne, for Pothieres and Vezelay (858-59), (MIS)
Foundation Charter of William, Duke of Aquitaine, for Cluny (910), (MIS)
Charter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy, for the monastery of Fecamp, 15 June 990, (MIS)
Odo of Cluny, Life of Gerald of Aurillac, ed. G. Sitwell (London, 1958), excerpt
Secondary Material:
Bartlett, R., The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonisation and Cultural Change (London, 1993).
Binns, A., Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales, 1066-1216 (Woodbridge, 1989).
Bouchard, C. B., Sword, Miter and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980-1198 (Ithaca, NY, 1987).
Constable, G., The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996).
----------------, Cluniac Studies (London, 1980).
De Jong, M., In Samuel’s Image: Child Oblation in the Early Medieval West (NY, 1996).
Hunt, N., ed. Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages (Glasgow, 1971).
Lawrence, C. H., Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 3rd
edn. (London-New York, 2001).
Lynch, J. H., “Hugh I of Cluny’s Sponsorship of Henry IV: Its Context and Consequences”, Speculum 60
(1985), 800-828.
Miller, M. C., “Donors, Their Gifts, and Religious Innovation in Medieval Verona”, Speculum 66 (1991), 27-42.
Reuter, T. ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History Volume III: c.900-c.1024 (Cambridge, 1999).
Rosenwein, B. H. and L. K. Little (eds.), Debating the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1998).
Rosenwein, B. H., Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century (Philadelphia, 1982).
--------------------, To Be the Neighbour of St. Pete: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property 909-1049 (Ithaca,
NY, 1989).
Southern, R. W., Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Penguin, 1990).
Tellenbach, G., The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1993).
Non-fiction


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