Inside and Out: The Twelfth-Century Renaissance and the Growth of Professionalism in Monastic Administration

This paper explores a neglected aspect of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: the effect on monastic communities of increasing “professionalism” in monastic administration, as the charisma of St. Anselm gave way to the management prowess of Suger. Just as the explosion of recordkeeping in royal administration in this period brought increased professionalism in government, a similar professionalization can be traced in monastic administration. This paper addresses the degree to which monastic communities approved or disapproved of its effects on monastic life.

Such a study is possible because many communities participated in a monastic variant of the so-called “discovery of the individual.” For monastic communities, it was the discovery of the community’s own identity. In the twelfth century, a new form of monastic chronicle emerges: the house-history, in which the community articulates its own concerns, including the wish to be consulted about decisions affecting the house as a whole.

One of the most striking aspects of these house-histories is their increasing concern with the responsibility of the abbot to provide for the material as well as spiritual needs of the monks in precisely those terms. These communities would often seem to be taking issue with St. Benedict’s famous dictum that abbots should take no thought for the morrow. Instead, these monastic authors argue explicitly that spiritual success must rest on a solid basis of material wealth. This paper will demonstrate that monastic chronicles formed part of a larger conversation about concepts of good monastic leadership taking place in England, France and the Low Countries.  In an age that increasingly valued accountability in both a broad and narrow sense, monastic chronicles are an ideal place to seek the articulation of the views of those who were affected by the new methods of leadership that the new learning of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance fostered.