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VOL.XCIV
The Catholic Historical
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ROllERT TRISCO
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GLENNOLSEN
JACQUES GRES-GAYER
Advisory Editors
Table of Contents
JANUARY, 2008
ARTICLES:
The Assassin-Saint:The
life and Cult of Carino
of Balsamo
••...•.................••......•.
Catholic Men in Support of the Women's
Movement in England
Donald S. Prudlo
Suffrage
Etalne Clark
22
Philip Gleason
45
fared Wicks, SJ.
75
Fabio Lopez-Lazaro
102
Thomas M. Izblcki
108
From an Indefinite Homogeneity: Catholic Colleges in
AntebellumAmerica
..•..........••••........•..
REVIEW ARTICLE:
More light on Vatican Council 11 •••••••••••••••••••••
REVIEW ESSAYS:
Recent Works on the Early Modem History of
Spanish Muslims •..•...•...............•...
The Germans and the Papal Penitentiary:
Poenitenttartae Germanicum
Repertorium
.....•...........
BOOK REVIEWS ...........••...•.......•.•..•..•.............
115
BRIEF N011CES ......••...•••.....
190
NOTES AND COMMENTS
••.•...•.••.•.•.•
, . • .. . .. . . •• . .. . . . • . . . . .. . . .
·••......••••.........
193
PERIODICAL UTERATIJRE
202
OTIlER BOOKS RECEIVED
216
The Catholic Historical
ReviewVOL.XCIV
JULY,2008
No.3
PUERI, IUVENES,AND VIRI:
AGE AND UTIUTY IN THE GREGORIAN REFORM
BY
KArnLEEN G. CUSHING*
This article explores the role played by ideas about age and appropriate bebauior for different stages of life in shaping the eleventhcentury ecclesiastical reformers' vision for an ordered Christian society-notable
at a time when tbe role of tbe Cburcb and especially
tbe papacy as both tbe definer and enforcer ofutilitas was increasingly emphasized. By focusing on bow some influential reformers
and writers characterized youth, adulthood, and that shadowy stage
between them, tbe iuventus, tbis article examines the extent to which
the reformers not only drew upon tbe language of age and life stages
but also combined them with ideas of suitability and utility in a
pouierful rhetoric that reinforced tbeir scheme of social definition.
The definition of precise roles for all parts of the societas cbristtana has long been acknowledged as a fundamental part of the movement for ecclesiastical reform in the later eleventh century. I Old
"Dr. Cushing is a Reader in medieval history in Keele University's Department of
History in Keele, United Kingdom.An early version of this article was presented at the
International Medieval Congress at Leeds In July 2005. The author would like to thank
Philip Morgan, Glyn Redworth, and Deborah Youngs for reading successive drafts and
also the anonymous reviewers of The Catboltc Historical Review for their comments
and suggestions.
IThe literature is vast: some seminal works include Gerd TeIlenbach, Church, State,
and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest, trans. Ralph F. Bennett
(Oxford, 1940; repr. Toronto, 1991); Ian S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the
Investiture Contest: The Polemical Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, UK, 1978); Karl J. Leyser, "The Polemics of the Papal Revolution; in idem,
435
,__
436
AGE AND UTIUIY IN TIlE GREGORIAN REFORM
assumptions of privilege and status were often set to one side as individuals were increasingly evaluated in terms of their efficacy in the
promotion of the reformers' goals," Not only were kings and noblesfriends and foes alike-reprimanded
and castigated for their failure to
live up to the reformers' expectations, even the clergy were pointedly
reminded of their specific place in the new order of thlngs.! Indeed, it
can be argued that Gregory VII in particular, as well as reformers associated with him, by increasingly defining individuals in terms of their
function, their suitability (idoneitas), and perhaps especially their utility (utilitas), thereby focused their attention less on the broader issues
of pastoral care, penance, and personal salvation than 'on more pressing practical and ecclesiological issues.
Such a view-however
tenable in part-nevertheless
presents a
problematic characterization of the reformers and their program for
the renovation of the Church and Christian society, one in which both
pastoral care and concern for penance, in fact, played an integral part.
Gregory VII, for instance, repeatedly displayed a strong interest in the
spiritual well-being of the wider Christian familia. He exhorted and
Medieval Germany and Its Neighbours (London, 1982), pp. 138-60; Robert I. Moore,·
"Family,CommuniIy and Cult on the Eve of the Gregorian Reform," Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 30 (1980), 49-69; idem, The First European
Revolution (Oxford, 2(00). See also Kathleen G. Cushing, Reform and the Papacy In the
Eleventh Century: Spirituality and Social Change (Manchester, UK, 2(05) and literature
cited there. For examples, see Erich Caspar, ed., Registrurn Gregorii VII, [Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Epistolae selectae), t.2, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1920-23); English trans.
Herbert E.}.Cowdrey, The Register of Pope Gregory VII:An English Translation (Oxford,
2000), e.g., Reg., 2.41,2.50,4.22,5.5,9.2.10
the following, the pagination for Cowdrey's
translation will be given in ( ).
.
;
lEven to the extent that-as in the case ofWilliam I of England-Gregory was prepared to overlook certain shortcomings: Registrum Gregorii VII, 9.5, pp. 579-80
(405-06): "The king of England, who to be sure does not in certain respects conduct
himself as scrupulously [ita religiose) as we desire, nevertheless he does not destroy or
sell the churches of God . .. he compels even by an oath priests to abandon the wives
and laymen the tithes that they are holding." See also Reg. 7.1, pp. 458-60 (324-25). .
'For example, Registrurn Gregorii VII, 1:19,45,56,57,60,61,63;
2:1,11,15,29,30,
31,45; 3:2,10; 4:23, 28; 5:10,12,19; 6:26; 7:14a; 9:17, 29, 35. See also Herbert E.J.
Cowdrey, ed., The Epistolae uagantes 0/ Pope Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972), nos. 6-11, 13,
14,16-17,24,26,27,31,38,45,
48.An important example from Gregory's close associate is the letter of Anselm U of Lucca to King William I of England: Carl Erdmann and
Norbert Fickermann, eds., Brie/sammlungen der Zeit Heinrichs IV, [MGH,Briefen der
deutschen Kaiseneitl, (Weimar, 1950),5:1, pp. 15-17:"non sine causa gladium portas,"
The German episcopate In particular came to view Gregory VII as a "periculosus homo
who ordered the clergy as If to his bailiffs: see lan S. Robinson, "Periculosus homo:
GregoryVII and Episcopal AuthoriIy," Viator, 9 (1978), 103-33.
ft.
BY KATIlLEEN
G. CUSHING
437
offered spiritual advice to individuals as diverse as Matilda ofThscany,
Empress Agnes, Queen Judith of Hungary, William the Conqueror,
Count Albert of Calw, Olaf III of Norway, the kings and princes of
Spain, Centullus of Bearn, the people of Bohemia, and the monks of
Vallombrosa and Cluny, as well as addressing numerous letters, especially in the later years of his pontificate, to all the faithful." Indeed, it
can be argued in many ways that even his letters of chastisement were
motivated by pastoral concern, perhaps most notably seen in his
rebuke of Abbot Hugh of Cluny over the monastic profession of Duke
Hugh of Burgundy in 1079.5 Both before and during his pontificate,
Gregory was clearly devoted to urging monastic and canonical orders
to ever more stringent interpretations of religious life, and as Cowdrey
has argued, "before all else, his motives were religious." Moreover, at
his November synod in Rome in 1078, Gregory famously promulgated
an important initiative against false penances and described how true
penance should be given. Here he not only showed himself to be especially preoccupied with specific consideration of individuals' positions
and occupations but also stressed the importance of inner contrition
largely lacking in the earlier penitential tradition where, when determining the amount of penance required, considerable emphasis had
been placed on formulaic compensation along with the status, age, and
condition of individuals (be it clerical or lay).? Although the connec-
4For example, Reg. 1.47, pp. 71-73 (51-53); 1.85, pp. 121-23 (89-90); 2.11, pp.
142-43 (106); 2.44, pp. 180-82 (133-34); 2.72, pp. 232-33 (167); 4.28, pp. 343-47
(242-45); 6.13, pp. 415-18 (292-94); 6.20, pp. 431-32 (304). Epistolae uagantes, no. 2,
pp. 4-6; no. 32,pp. 84-86; no. 39,pp. 96-98; no. 54,pp. 128-34;no. 55,pp.134-36.
5Reg. 6.17, pp. 423-24 (298-99); see also 1.62, pp. 90-91 (65-66).
6&e Herbert E.]. Cowdrey, "The Spirituality of Pope Gregory VII,"in The Mystical
Tradition and the Cartbustans, ed.]ames Hogg (Salzburg, 1995), 1:1-22. See also idem,
Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085 (Oxford, 1998), esp, pp. 37-71, 325-26, 529-36, 573,
659-76,683-97, and here p. 695; Uta-Renate BlumenthaI, Gregor VII.Papst zwischen
Canossa und Kirchenreform (Darmstadt, 200 1), esp. pp. 31-42, 106-119. See also John
T. Gilchrist, "The Reception of Pope Gregory VII Into the Canon Law (1073-1141),"
Zeitschrift der Sauigny-Sttftung für Rechtsgeschichte, kan.Abt., 90 (1973),35-82; and
idem, "The Reception of Pope Gregory VII into the Canon Law (1073-1141), Part 11,"
ibld.,97 (1980), 192-229, both repr. In Idem, Canon Law in tbe Age of Reform, 1lib
and 12tb Centuries [Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS406J, (Aldershot, UK, 1993),
not continuously paginated, art. VIII and IX. .
'Reg.,6. 5b, c.6 (14, 15), p. 404 (284):"Falsas penitentias dicimus.tThe literature on
penance In the earlier Middle Ages is vast; some key works Include: CyrilIe Vogel, Les
-ue« paenitenttales" (Tumhout, 1978); Raymond Kottje, Die Bussbücber Halitgars
von Cambral und des Hrabanus Maurus (Berlin, 1980); Man J. Frantzen, The Literature
of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, NJ, 1983); Pierre]. Payer,Sex and
tbe Penitentlals: The Development of a Sexual Code (Toronto, 1984); Ludger Körntgen,
438
AGE AND lITIlIIY
IN TIlE GREGORIAN REFORM
tion of penance and reform in the eleventh century is beyond the
scope of the present article," the extent to which ideas about age and
appropriate behavior for different stages of life played a role in shaping the reformers' vision for an ordered Christian society remains
something of a neglected topic. By focusing on how some influential
eleventh-century reformers and writers characterized youth, adulthood, and that shadowy stage between them, the iuoentusr this article explores the extent to which the reformers not only drew upon
the language of age and life stages but also combined them with ideas
of suitability and utility in a powerful rhetoric that reinforced their
scheme of social definition. This is not to suggest that the Gregorian
period was necessarily innovative in its concepts of youth and utility;
the Carolingianworld would offer any number of interesting parallels,
Studien zu den Quellen der frühmittelalterlichen
Bussbücber (Sigmaringen, 1993);
Rob Meens, "Children and Confession in the Early Middle Ages; in The Churcb and
Cbildhood, ed. Diana Wood, [Studies in Church History, 31I, (Oxford, 1994), pp. 53-65;
Idem, "The Frequency and Nature of Early Medieval Penance; in Handling Sin:
Confession in the Middle Ages, ed, Peter Biller and A1astair J. Minnis (Woodbridge, VI(,
1998), pp. 35-61; Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900-1050 (Woodbridge, VK,
zoo 1); Idem, "Penance in the Age of the Gregorian Reform; in Retribution, Repentance,
and Reconciliation, ed. Kate Cooper and jeremy Gregory, [Studies in Church History,
401, (Woodbridge, UK, Z004), pp. 47 -73; and most recently, Rob Meens, "Penitentials and
the Practice of Penance in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries," Early Medieval Europe,
14, no. 1 (ZOO6),7-21. Whereas members of the higher ecclesiastical orders almost
invariably attracted a harsher if not longer penance including deposition from office,
minores often received milder forms of penance than their adult counterparts. For
instance, in the influential penitential collection of Bishop Halltgar of Cambrai, cornposed c. 829-830, priests were required to take the age of the offender into account
when meting out the penalties for theft: Paenltentiale, 6.26- Z8, in Die Bussbücher und
das kanonische Bussuerfabren, ed. H. J. Schmitz, Z vols. (Dusseldorf, 1898), 2:295. The
emphasis on age was especially apparent in the treatment of sins of a sexual nature,
where youth could nearly always mitigate the amount of the compensation required: for
instance, a widely transmitted decretal of Leo I stipulated that, under certain circumstances, premarital sexual activiry in adolescentia was to be judged incontinence rather
than fornication: Leo I to Rusticus of Narbonne, Bpistotae 90 (87), c.Il: JK 544; ex
Dionysiana, c.Z5 [Patrologlae cursus completus, series Latinai, ed.]acques-Paul Migne,
67:290.
8See Hamilton, "Penance in the Age of the Gregorian Reform," and Kathleen G.
Cushing, Power, Discipline and Pastoral Care: Penance and Reform in EleventhCentury Italy (Manchester, UK, forthcoming).
9for a number of late antique and medieval authors, iuoentus did constitute adulthood: see Shulamith Shahar, Chtldhood In the Middle Ages (London, 1990), p. 2Z; and
Deborah Youngs, The Life Cycle In Western Europe, c. 1300-c. 1500 (Manchester, UK,
ZOO6),esp, pp. %-125, 126-92. This usage was not consistent in the eleventh century:
see below.
BY KATHLEEN G. CUSHING
439
albeit in a different reforming context.!" Rather, the rhetoric seemed to
acquire a new (or renewed) urgency as the reformers sought to underline the role of the Church and especially the papacy as both the
definer and enforcer of utilitas.
Late antique and subsequent medieval writers had clear, if not
always consistent, ideas about the different stages of life, on the whole
taking their definitions from Isidore of Seville. These stages were generally seen to include adolescentia, iuventus, senectus, and senium,
although some if not most literati also divided preadult life into infantia, pueritia, and adolescentia, leaving iuventus as something of a
postadolescent period, which might or might not be equated with full
adult status. II Although many agreed that infancy lasted until age
seven, and that pueritia ended at age twelve for girls and at age fourteen for boys (at least outside of a monastery, where pueritia might
extend to age twenty-five'"), there was no clear consensus as to when
adolescence came to an end, with some suggesting twenty-one,
twenty-five, twenty-eight, or thirty and others extending it even to
thirty-five. In the anonymous Life of Pope Leo IX, for instance, Leo (or
Bruno as he was known before his elevation) was said to be entering
the latter phase of adolescence in his twenty-third year.13 On the question of when iuventus ended, there was even less agreement: for some,
"youth" lasted to age forty or even forty-five, as the famous case of
William Marshall makes clear.
The ambiguity surrounding such intellectual definitions was if anything more acute in practice, especially in the ecclesiastical and, above
all, monastic worlds, where what may appear in one context to be setting out a typology of life-stage categories is in reality' a variable and
frequently imprecise terminology intelligible only in the particular
context of the record, and not always even then Theodore of
Canterbury, for instance, described the infantes monasterii as includ10Although beyond the scope of the present article, such a comparative study would
be a very useful one.
JlFor more discussion, see Shahar, Childbood in the Middle Ages, pp. 21-31; and
Youngs, Life Cycle in the Middle Ages, pp. 96-125.
12See Meens, "Children and Confession in the Early Middle Ages,' pp. 53-54.
J3VitaLeonisIX,I.7,lA vie äupape Leon IX (Brunon, eveque de Toul),with facing
Latin and French, ed. Michel Parisse, trans. Monique Goullet, [Lesclassiques de l'bistoire
de France au Moyen Ägel, (Paris, 1997), p. 22. See also the critical edition by Hans-Geerg
Krause,Die ToulerVita Leas IX, [MGH,Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 7l)'(llannover,
2007).
440
AGEAND UIlUTY
IN THE GREGORIAN REFORM
ing those up to age fourteen, while the pueri monasterii encompassed
monks up to age twenty-flve.l" Giles Constable, however, has shown
with evidence from tenth- and eleventh-century monastic customaries
from Cluny that language was usually inconsistent, with a variety of
terms such as matores.priores, seniores, infantes, iuniores, minores,
and pueri being used without clear definitions. IS The Rule of St.
Benedict had displayed a predilection for the terms seniores and
iuniores, the former generally suggesting older monks or at least earlier entrants into religious life, who were spiritually more experienced.
Yet in many Cluniac and other customaries, although the two groups
were often juxtaposed, what the words actually denoted in terms of
position or status was not clearly specified.l'' The terminology of
iuuenes or iuventus was especially ambiguous. Sometimes in the customaries it seems to denote a position of authority, either in terms of
liturgical duties or more broadly in situating this group's place within
the monastery's hierarchy. At other times, it seems to refer to individuals who still needed guidance from the seniores, or to ones who were
at least clearly distinct from, and generally inferior to, them. Bernard of
Zell, for instance, referred to the magistri puerorum and the custodes
iuuenumP In the Vallombrosan redaction of the Cluniac customary,
the younger monks, who were not to speak except within the hearing
of the master, are referred to as infantes. 18 In the Fulda-Trier customary, however, where the separate arrangements both for retiring to the
dormitory and sleeping for the infantes and the adolescentes are elaborated, it is noted that the remaining iuventus sleep among the
sentortbus.i? Yet elsewhere-in
the Liber tramitts, for instance-the
tuuenes are to be under custodia whilst in the clotster.-"
In his article on youth in twelfth-century Francia, Georges Duby
famously argued that boys between the ages of fifteen and about nine, 14Meens,"Children and Confession," p. 54.
15GilesConstable, •Sentores et puerl a Cluny aux X", xi< siecles," repr. in Idem, Cluny
from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries, [Variorunt Collected Studies Series], 2
(Aldershot, UK, 2(00), orig. pp. 17-24.
16Constable,· Sentores et puerl," pp. 17-18.
17Ordo Cluniacensis, I, 3-4 in Vetus dtsciplina monastica, ed. Marquard Herrgott
(Paris, 1726), pp. 143-44.
18Consuetudines cluniacensium
antiquiores cum redactiontbus deriuatis,
Redactio vallumbrosana in Consuetudinum saeculi X, XI, XII, ed. Kassius Hallinger, 4
pts, (Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, 7], 2 (Siegburg, 1984-86), pp. 366-67.
19Redactio Puldensis-Tretnrensis, c.29, ibid., 3, p. 288.
20Liber tramüts aevi Odilonis abbatis, c.198, ed. Peter Dinter (CCM, 10], (Siegburg,
1980), p. 279.
BY KATHLEEN G. CUSHING
441
teen who had not completed their military training were generally
considered to oe pueri or at least adolescentesP Such individuals only
became iuuenes on the completion of military training, but remained
thus until they acquired wives or flefs when, as a consequence, they
became oirt. Although Duby did note that the term iuuenes was occasionally used for certain groups of churchmen and especially monks.P
he argued that it was most frequently employed to denote warriors at
a specific stage in their careers-warriors,
moreover, who were no
longer adolescents but quasi-adults. Thus, for Duby, tuoentus was more
than simply an age group; it also denoted a socioeconomic condition,
describing the young and (in some cases) less young who were unmarried, did not have their own lands, and required patronage or parental
concession to become fully adult males.P The consistency in meaning
that Duby ascribed to iutentus in early twelfth-century Francia seems,
however, to be lacking in broader contemporary usage. Duby seems
generally to have used iuuenes to refer to knights up to the time that
they married. In the Ecclesiastical History, however, as Duby does in
fact note, Orderic describes married knights as "youths" but referred to
knights who had fathered children (even if they were younger men) as
"viri."This suggests a more complicated criteria-at least for contemporaries-beyond
actual age for what made a man a "man/ This was
something that the reformers would problematize with ideas of utility
and spiritual progress.
The language of the e1eventh-century reformers drew inevitably
upon a long tradition of pastoral rhetoric and biblical imagery that was
invariably paternalistic, and, unsurprisingIy, successive e1eventh-century
popes, priests, abbots, and monks addressed the recipients of their letters and their flocks as their sons or daughters and often more broadly
as simply their children. This terminology of youth and age was, of
course, a commonplace within the Church whereby ecclesiastical
superiors instructed, chastened, and guided the spiritually less adept.
The eleventh-century hermit and cardinal-bishop Peter Damian, for
instance, frequently employed such language in his letters, although
interestingly, he also on occasion inverted this discourse as means of
emphasizing his own humility. For example, in a letter to the hermit
21Georges Duby, 'Youth and Aristocratic Society," in Idem, The Chivalrous Society,
trans. Cynthia Postan (London, 19m, pp. 112-22.
l2Ibld., p. 112, referring to Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, 3 (2.47, 94): The
Ecclesiastical History of Orderte Vltalis, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall,6 vols. (Oxford,
1969-80),2:48,106.
23Duby,"Youth and Aristocratic Society: pp. 113-14.
442
AGE AND UTILITY INTHEGREGORIAN
REFORM
Teuzo between 1055 and 1057 following a particularly acrimonious
face-to-face meeting, he noted that what a "iunioris' [meaning himself] has dared to say may perhaps taste bitter .... "24The language suggests less one who is younger in age than one who is less tried in spiritual terms. Damian returned to this theme in a letter to his secretary,
Ariprandus, between 1057 and 1058, whom he reprimanded for not
following the rules of the hermitage on the "pretext of untested youth
[ne per aetatis adhuc inbecilis)" and who thus needed to be on his
guard and accept reproof "even from those younger [tuniorts] than
himself."25Here, it must said, the language is less ambiguous ..
For Damian, however, both the analogies and language of youth and
age were more frequently used to describe the state of one's spiritual
ability, with youth often, although not always, denoting a less spiritually advanced person. For instance, in a letter to an unnamed bishop in
1043, he described the duty of episcopal office to "nourish us who are
younger [iuniores and hence less adept] at the breasts of holy preaching."26Damian would later chastise the lawyer Atto for his failure to
undertake the monastic profession in terms of his emulating a puer,
who "as in play" [quasi ludendo] attempted to take back from God
what he had first offered him.27
Damian most often reached for the analogies of youth and age to
express the idea of growing in spiritual ability.This had a long tradition
in monastic hagiographie literature with which Damian was undeniably familiar." Writing to Countess Blanche in 1059-60 (and later to
Alexander 11in 1064) of how his disciple Dominic Loricatus tried to
help a brother hermit who could not bring himself to endure the
Z'Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, ed. Kurt ReindeI, 4 vols. [MGH, Briefe der
deutschen Kaiserzeit. 5/1-4), (Munich, 1983-93), letter 44, 2:33; English trans. Owen J.
Blum with Irven M. Resnick, 6 vols., [The Fathers of the Church, Mediaeval Continuation), (Washington, DC, 1989-2(04). Hereafter cited as letter, volume: page, followed by
translation volume and page. •
»iu«, letter 54, 2:141; trans., 2:345. Damian gives a comparable example with similar language in his Life of Romuald, in which the monks at Sant'Apollinare in Classe grow
irate at being instructed by a "iunioris" who is still a novice: Vita beati Romualdi, c.3,
ed. Giovanni Tabacco [Fonti per la storia d'Italia, 94) (Rome, 1957), p. 19.
26DieBriefe des Petrus Damiani,letter 5, 1:112-13; trans., 1:94.
=ua., letter 25, 1:235; trans.,1:238.
2I!Forexample,John of Salerno, Vita sancti Odonis, c.16 [PL,133:50) where Odo,
although a "young beginner [iuventus)" is seen to surpass the ranks of the old men in
spiritual ability. See also Odo of Cluny, Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis comitis, c.9 [PI.,
133:649), where Gerald, having experienced temptation, is described as a youth, but one
who "like a man" was more discreet for the experience.
BY KAlliLEEN G. CUSHlNG
443
"blessed discipline"-that is, the self-flagellation for which Dominic
was especially famed-Damian recorded Dominic as saying: "God is
surely strong enough to lift you up from lowly things to those that are
higher and to toughen the milk-fed days of your childhood [infantiam] until you grow to manly strength [ad iuuenalis roboris incrementa ftrmareir?' Although here iuuenalis would seem to imply
manly status and hence adulthood as Isidore had recommended, elsewhere Damian was more specific about different stages of life,which
he dearly saw as reflecting different phases of the route to spiritual
improvement. For Damian, of course, the spiritual life was a battle, a
race in which only the true atbleticus would come through.t? That
said, he recognized that men engaged in this "battle" not simply
because of their own decision but chiefly through the prompting of
God,who inspired to his service men of all different ages: some from
"ripe old age" (senectute matures), some from the "full vigor of surging youth" (iuvenalis incrementi vigore robustos), some from the
"flower of adolescence" (primo pubescentis adolescenciae), and even
those who were still "nursing infants" (puericiae tactanttsy."
Although in many ways Damian's shifting language probably
reflects the broader ambiguity within monastic culture in defining age,
status, and condition, it is clear that he equated progress in spiritual life
with the condition of becoming a "vir."In a letter to the hermit William
in 1045, Damian urged him to take up arms "like a man [corripe arma
viriliter] ... and eagerly charge where the battle rages."32Acting
viriliter for Damian was, of course, about more than mere age: it was
essentially the ability both to exert control over one's natural sinful
proclivities and the means of transforming one's self into a more perfect spiritual being. It was also, perhaps inescapably, gendered. This is
evident not only when he urged Countess Adelaide of'Turin in 1064 to
act viriliter-to
act beyond her normal condition of weakness as a
woman to promote and enforce spiritual renewal and reform-but
29DieBriefe des Petrus Damianl, letter 66, 2:276; trans., 3:165-66 (the translation of
·juvenalis" follows Blum here). a.letter 109,3:214; trans.,4:218.
3OForexample, Vita beati Romualdi, c.17, p. 41, where Damian describes Romuald's
ambition to reach new heights each day, to go from strength to strength. a. Irven M.
Resnick, •Litterati, Spirituales, and Lay Christians according to Otloh of Saint Emmeram,"
Church History, 55 (1986), 165-78.
31Die Briefedes Petrus Dam/ani, letter 117,3:318; trans., 4:320. Here the context
would suggest that "iuvenalis" is not equated with full adult status, which is reflected in
Blum's translation by 'yourh,"
3zlbid.,letter 10, 1:135;trans.,l:122.
444
AGE AND UI1IIfY
IN TIlE GREGORlAN REFORM
also in his Liber gomorrhianus, where Damian encouraged sodomitical bishops to eschew that sin and act "viriliter."33 For Damian, the
highest means of acting viriliter, of exerting the necessary self-control,
was naturally the monastic routine and especially the eremitical
lifestyle, where individuals battled for spiritual perfection within the
confines of their cells. Here again, his language is striking, even if we
discount the use of homo I homines as principally aimed at underlining the opposition of man to God. For Damian, the cell was the
"wrestling ring where brave men [homines] are engaged," a place
where a "man [homo] of clean heart sees God."34Moreover, within the
hermit's cell, even "holy boys [sancti pueril [could] curb the passion
of raging fires."35Indeed.for Damian, the cell was the key accessory "to
the secret deliberation of God with men [hominuml."36 Although convictions such as these had long lain at the heart of monastic and especially eremitical ideology whereby the monastic routine promoted
through its daily, weekly, and even annual cycles of liturgy the opportunity for self-examination that progressively dissolved the individual
from his desires.t? Damlan's flexible use of different stages of life here
is intriguing. Although he clearly believed that a youth could aspire to
and even reach this plateau, spiritual achievement was framed in terms
of the ability to move beyond the capriciousness of youth, of extending self-control over desire-in short, of acting "uiriltter"
Whereas Damian's terminology reflected the ambiguity of the
monastic tradition, Gregory VII also had what might be called a flexible understanding of different stages of life, although a decretal (TL
5291) modeled on Isidore's Etymologies with a ruling about how to
determine the age of puberty and adulthood is attributed to him in
»tu«, letter 114, 3:297; trans., 4:295. O. Liber Gomorrblanus, letter 31, 1:322;
trans.; 2:42. On gendered language and the reformers, see: Jo Ann McNamara, "The
Herrenfrage. The Restructuring of the Gender System, 1050-1150," in Medieval
Masculintties: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. Clare Lees (Minneapolis, 1994),
pp. 3-29; Dyan EIliott,"The Priest's Wife: Female Erasure and the Gregorian Reform," and
idem, "Avatars of the Priest's Wife: The Return of the Repressed," both in idem, Fallen
Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality and Demonology In the Middle Ages (philadelphia, 1999),
pp. 81-106,107-26, and literature cited there.
;. 34DleBriefe des Petrus Damiani,letter 28, 1:273-74; trans., 1:283.
35lbld. Blum translates puerl here as "young men"; I think, however, that "boys" is
more appropriate given the context.
36/bld.
3'Such ideas are especially apparent in John Cassian and Gregory I: see Conrad
Leyser,Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory I (Oxford, 2000), esp. pp.
33-61,120-22,160ff.
.
BY KATIiLEEN
G. CUSHING
445
some manuscrtpts." What is intriguing with Gregory, however, is the
extent to which his letters juxtaposed ideas of utility and suitability
with the terminology of age, even though not always consistently. For
instance, the suitability of Gilduin as the candidate for the bishopric of
Dol in 1076 was not, in the end, enough for his promotion. Gregory,
while noting that Gilduin came from a good family and was of sound
character, added that he was not yet "mature or informed enough to
bear the weight of the episcopate quapropter eiusdem iuoents. "39
Here, it is dear that iuoenis is not equated with full adult status, especially as Gregory would refer to the successful candidate, Ivo, as vir,
commenting that he was suitable in terms of knowledge and gravity of
character as well as his age.40
. Yet on other occasions, age or youthful status was not an impediment, as can be seen in the promotion of Richard as the new abbot of
St.Victor in Marseille in November 1079.41 This, however, is an intriguing example. In a letter to Richard, Gregory expressed some reservations about the abbot-elect's suitability, wishing that "the hope of so
many brothers concerning you may not be in vain," and he stated that
Richard "should manfully [vir/lifer] put on the holy enthusiasm of [his]
brother" (whom he was succeeding). Moreover, Richard needed to
"flee worldly and youthful desires [iuvena/ia des/deria] like death ...
lest by reason of [his] youthfulness [iuventutis] a holy monastery
should. ; . suffer any kind of harm to its religion."42 Here, even though
Gregory accepted that Richard was suitable, it is striking that he
emphasized the need for him to act beyond what he clearly saw as
Richard's "youthful" condition and to assume the "spiritual-age" that his
position required.
like Damian, Gregory seemed, at least rhetorically, to equate maturity with the ability for self-control and youth with the lack thereof.
This can be seen clearly in his dealings with Philip I of France, who
,sEpistolae oagantes, appendix B, 75, p. 158 and annotation.'
YJReglstrum Gregorü VII, 4.4, pp. 300-01 (213). Gregory also rejected Bishop
Ranierius of Orleans and demanded his deposition, as he was not of canonical age: Reg.,
5.8-9, pp. 359-61 (253-55). The issue of canonical ages appropriate for ordination is a
vast topic: see, most recently, Roger E. Reynolds, "The Onlination of Clerics in the Middle
Ages,· in Idem, Clerical Orders In tbe Early Middle Ages; Duties and Ordination,
IVariorum Collected Studies Series, CS6701, (Aldershot, UK, 1999), pp. 1-9, and literature
cited there.
¥lRegistrum G7T!gorilVII, 4.4, pp. 301-02 (213) .
•IReg., 7.7, p. 468 (331).
·ZJbid., p. 468 (331).
446
AGE AND
urnrrr
IN TIfE GREGORIAN REFOR.'d
was repeatedly castigated on account of youthful, and hence for
Gregory, inappropriate, behavior. Writing to the bishops of France in
September 1074 for instance, Gregory noted that Philip needed" ... to
correct his faults, and abandoning the ways of his youth [iuventutis]
... begin to restore the bruised dignity and glory of his kingdom.?"
Gregory would later acknowledge his own role in allowing the king to
continue in these misguided ways.Writing to Count William of Poitou
in November the same year,he noted that it had been a long time "that
we have put up with his iniquities ... [that] for a long time by sparing
his youthfulness [here called suae adulescentiae], we have overlooked
the harm to the Church."44(At that time,Philip was twenty-two.) Philip
continued to be a thorn in Gregory's side throughout his pontificate,
and after the prolonged struggle first to correct and then oust
Archbishop Manasses of Rheims, Gregory wrote to the king in
December 1080 and again couched his condemnation of Philip's role
in terms of age and suitability,noting that while he had "bore with the
past failings of your youth [adolescentia] in the hope of your correction," now that Philip had become a "man in years" (tarn aetate vir
factus), he was obliged to "see to it in this matter that we should not
seem fruitlessly to have spared the faults of your youth [iuventutis] .,,45
Here it could be suggested that in aspiring to encourage Philip to act
in accordance with what was apposite for his "life-age,"Gregory had
now recognized that it was perhaps less an issue of the king's physical
age than the need for him to accept papal guidance and act like a
"man" with maturity and gravity.
Gregory's most revealing attitudes toward age and utility are found,
perhaps unsurprisingly, with reference to the German king Henry Iv.
In a letter written shortly after his elevation to the apostolic see in
1073 when Henry IV's status was still under scrutiny due to his continuing communion with advisers who had been excommunicated by
Alexander 11,Gregory sternly informed Bishop Bruno of Verona that he
would fully esteem the king on "the condition that ... forsaking his
youthful pursuits [here,puerilibus studiis]" he be diligent in "wisely
imitating the pattern of holy kings"-in other words, that he be
"useful."46For his own part, Henry IV relied on the excuse of "youth"
(pueritiay to explain his less than ideal past behavior-something for
which he had been reprimanded on the occasion of his majority in
43Reg.,2.5, p. 132 (98).
44Reg.,2.18,p.151 (112).
4~Reg.,8.20, p. 543 (386).
46Reg., 1.24. pp. 40-41 (30).
BY KATHLEEN G. CUSHING
447
1065 by Peter Damian, who urged him "with manly vigor [to] rouse
yourself to spiritual enthustasm."? Writing to the pope in late August
1073, Henry explained that his failing derived "partly [from] the enticement of deluding youth [pueritia], partly by the licenses of [his] own
imperious power, and partly by the seducing deceptions of those
whose counsels [he had] been all too gullible [seductilesnimium] in
following."48Here, perhaps unwittingly, youth was equated with delusion, with an inability to cope with the responsibilities of power and
with a failure to discern the quality of counsel; in other words, Henry
had effectively admitted to being unsuitable for kingship. This contrasted sharply with Gregory VII,who, even in adolescentia,possessed
the ability to undertake a path to master his own desires, as recorded
by his hagiographer, Paul of Bernried.t?
For Gregory, however, Henry was not always characterized as a bad
"youth."In December 1074, Henry was in fact the person to whom the
pope intended to entrust the Roman Church while he journeyed to
come to the aid of eastern Christians. 50 Moreover, in the early part of
1075, Gregory commended Henry for "manfully" (viriliter) resisting
simony." This suggests that Henry's apparent willingness to work to
promote reform had compensated for his earlier juvenile behavior and
had emphasized his suitability. Yet as their relations deteriorated
throughout that year and thereafter, Henry's uncooperative, disobedient, and even sacrilegious behavior was frequently described in terms
of youth, a behavior moreover that stood in sharp contrast to that of
the "obedient" and "suitable" Rudolf of Rheinfeiden. 52
·'Die Briefe des Petrus Damiant, letter 120,3:385; 3:388; trans., 5:392:"robor aetatis
adhuc tibi deesse.·
48Registrum Gregorii VII, 1.29a, p: 49 (35).
49paul of Bemried, Vita Gregorii VII, c.1.6 [PI., 148:421; lan S. Robinson, trans., The
Papal Reform of tbe Eleventb Century: Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII
(Manchester, UK, 2004), pp. 262-364, here c.lO, p. 266. This, of course, is a topos of
hagiography, as a saint's youth was often described as a prodigious omen of sanctity or
else was ignored altogether: see Pierre Toubert, Les structures du Latium medieval' Le
Latium meridional et la Sabine du IX' siecle a la fin du XII' stede, 2 vols.
[Bibliotheque des ecoles francaises d' Athenes et de Rome, 221 I,(Rome, 1973),2:806-40,
here p. 812 Also reprinted as "Essai sur Ies modeles hagiographiques de la reforme gregorienne; in Idem, Etudes sur l'Italie medieoale (IX<-XJV< siecles), [Variorum Collected
Studies,CS 461,(London, 1976), with same pagination.
50Registrum Gregorii VII, 2.31, pp. 165-68 (123).
51Reg.,3.3, p. 246 (176).
52For example, Reg., 1.21, p. 35 (24-25), where the quality of Rudolf's counsel is
emphasized; 2.45, pp. 182-85 (136), in which Rudolf, with the other princes, is required
to assist with the boycott of simoniacal and unchaste clergy; and especially 4.23, p. 336
448
AGEAND UI1IIfY INTIiE GREGORlAN REFORM
Other eleventh-century writers also suggest that ideas about utility .
and age were coalescing in reform rhetoric.Although clearly a work of
hagiography, the Vita Gregorii VII by Paul of Bernried nevertheless
offers some telling examples, especially given the fact that its author
had access to the pope's letters, as well as other "Gregorian" materials
such as works of Anselm of Lucca, Bernold of Constance, and Bonizo
of SutrL53In the uüa, Paul also described the problem of Henry IV in
terms of his "youth." Noting the forbearance of successive popes, Paul
wrote that "when all men reported the evidence of his youthful imperfections [here,pueritiae imperfectaei, the Roman pontiffs bore with
his impudence, supposing that when he reached manhood [virile
tempus] he could correct himself."54For Paul, the king's inability to act
like a man-having reached that age (maiorum ascendenscurrum)necessitated action on the part of Gregory VII.Paul also underlined the
failure of the king by stressing the suitability of Rudolf of Rheinfelden,
whom he characterized as "a man [vir] outstanding for his humility
and suitable [idoneus] for the royal honour in age and in morals."55
Moreover, according to the Vita Gregorii, Rudolf even refused to associate his own son with the kingship because of his insistence that the
princes elect as his successor one whom they found worthy by virtue
of his age as well as the dignity of his character.=wrtnng in 1128 after
the resolution of the investiture controversy, it was, of course, Paul's
intention to refute contemporary critics and provide the reformers
with their martyr and saint.Yet his characterization of Henry's failings
and lack of suitability in terms of youth strikes a chord with the depic;
'j
•
(237), where Gregory evaluates the problem of the two kings, noting the qualities the
"true" one will have: "but to the other who shall be humbly obedient to our command
and who shall show obedience to the universal Mother as befits a Christian king."
5'The uita contains fifteen texts found in the Register and ten from the epistolae
uagantes. Horst Fuhrmann argued against Paul's direct use of Gregory's Register. "Zur
Benutzung des Registers Gregors VII. durch Paul von Bernried," Studi Gregoriani, 5
(1956), 299-312, concluding that these: were derived from collections of the pope's letters circulating in Germany, ones that show connections to that compiled by Bemold of
Constance and that used by Hugh of F1avigny.See Robinson, Papal Reform Movement,
pp. 75-78, and Patrick Healy, The Cbronicle of Hugb of Ravigny: Reform and the
Investiture Contest in tbe Late Eleventb Century (Aldershot, UK, 2006), pp. 100-38.
, ~ Vita Gregorll VII, c.6.52 [Pl.,148:66); trans., c.60, p. 304.
»tu«, c.l0.85 [Pl., 148:84); trans., c.95, p. 366: "virum sane in humilitate praecipuum, regio honore aerate et moribus ldoneum."
56lbid.,c.l0.85 [PL 148:84); trans.,c.95,p. 366:'omne hereditarium Ius in eo repudiavit et vel flIio suo se hoc adoptaturum fore penitus abnegavit; Iustissime in arbitrio principum esse: decemens, ut post mortem eius Iibere non magis fllium elus quam alium
eligerent, nisi quem ad id culminis aetate et morum gravitate dignum Invenissent,"
BY KATIfLEEN
G. CUSHING
449
non of the king by one of the most gifted, if idiosyncratic of eleventhcentury historians, the monk Lampert of Hersfeld.
Lampert was among the most vociferous of Henry IV's critics and
almost invariably expressed his condemnations in terms of the king's
"youthful," even "juvenile," behavior. Thus in his annals for 1073, he
referred to the king's youthful disposition (iuvenilis animis) and his
correspondingly stubborn refusal to accept correction, both of which
frequently led to inappropriate, even tyrannical, behavior.F According
to Lampert, Henry also displayed the inconstancy of a youthful disposition (iuvenilisanimi
inconstantia) and youthful ineptitude (iuvenuts ineptiae).5BYet what is especially striking is Iampert's linkage of
this youthful behavior to what he described as Henry's perverse sexual
habits. The combination of these led him "to giving himself over to
worse and to destroying the royal office to which he should have
brought manly dignity [pro virili portione)."59 For Lampert, the office
of a Christian king necessitated a display of gravitas and self-control
whatever the individual's "year-age."
.
This is not the place to elaborate further on Henry's supposed
sexual deviance. The .cumulative effect in Lampert's depiction, however, is that a bad king results from one who-because
of spiritual
immaturity-is
unable to master his own sexuality, like a puer to
whom lenience may need to be shown; a puer, moreover, who needed
the watchful eye of an ecclesiastical custodian. What might have been
tolerated in a mere youth as misguided activity or even as incontinence, for a man, and especially for a king, was excoriated as a youthful, even unnatural, lack of self-control. In the end for some eleventhcentury reformers, although ideas of utility were being expressed in
the terminology of youth and age, it is evident that age itself was perhaps less the issue than the ability of an individual to act beyond his
pueritia, adolescentia~ or iuventus, as a useful vir in spirit.
S'Lamperti Hersfeldenensis opera, ed. ono Holder-Egger
1894),Annales a. 1073, p. 170.
S8/bld.,Annales a. 1072, p. 291, p.140.
S9Ibtd.,p.140.
[MGH, SRG) (Hannover,