Crises of Cenobitism: Abbatial Leadership and Monastic Competition in Late Eleventh-Century Flanders

Abstract

MONASTIC institutions made a significant contribution to the emergence and consolidation of the mighty county of Flanders in the late ninth and early tenth centuries.1 Following the division of the Frankish empire in 843, more than a dozen pagi situated in the extreme north-eastern part of the Western Frankish kingdom became integrated progressively into the patrimony of one family, the first historically attested head of which was Count Baldwin I, also known as Baldwin Ironarm (861–79). Although formally he only controlled the pagi of Ghent and Waas, Baldwin forced himself into a privileged alliance with the Western Frankish dynasty by abducting and marrying Charles the Bald’s daughter Judith. As a result, in 864, he was entrusted by the king with the pagi of Ternois and Flanders, as well as the lay abbacy of Saint-Peter in Ghent. Baldwin’s position was not hereditary, and his son Baldwin II (r. 879–918), who must be considered the real founder of an actual comital dynasty, was forced to conquer the lands previously controlled by his father. His expansion was kept in check by various ecclesiastical and secular allies of successive Western Frankish kings, even though he managed to find powerful allies in the kings of Wessex.2 The abbots of Saint-Bertin near Saint-Omer, Saint-Vaast in Arras and Elnone/Saint-Amand, all institutions situated in the southern parts of Baldwin I’s territories, played a key role in a decades-long struggle for political supremacy over the region, with the first two of these institutions doubling as fortifications against the Norman invaders. By the 890s, however, Baldwin II had gradually taken control of the Ternois, Artois and Vermandois, and in 900, he obtained the lay abbacy of Saint-Bertin, where his father lay buried. When Baldwin II died in 918, the Ternois and the lay abbacy of Saint-Bertin passed to his son Adalulf, while the Flemish heartland and the lay abbacy of Saint-Peter in Ghent were given to Adalulf's older brother, Arnulf I (r. 918–65). The Artois, which included the strategically situated city of Arras (and the prestigious and wealthy abbey of Saint-Vaast), would remain a bone of contention until Arnulf conquered the region in the 930s. Immediately after taking over Arras, he assumed the title of lay abbot of Saint-Vaast.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 7 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.