Bruce Venarde has provided both students and scholars of medieval monasticism, as well as all persons interested in late eleventh- and early twelfth century France, a superb collection of sources relating to the life and deeds of one of the most controversial figures of the period, Robert of Arbrissel. Robert was the founder and spiritual father of Fontevraud, an abbey of nuns with a community of brothers in residence who performed the manual labor considered unsuitable for women. Robert's plan and rule for Fontevraud succeeded, for it soon replicated itself into numerous daughter houses. His religious way of life, however, was unique for the age in which he lived. For as Venarde indicates in his well-crafted and informative Introduction, an attempt to understand Robert's complex personality and the motives behind his actions leads to a variety of viewpoints. Was he a proto-feminist, a mystical visionary, an itinerant and charismatic preacher attempting to rebel against or reform the clerical lifestyle of his age, an advocate for the powerless, a friend of the powerful, or a hermit seeking solitude to atone for his sins? Venarde withholds his own viewpoint, presents the major sources on Robert's life, and lets the reader decide for himself.
Venarde's book begins with a helpful chronology of Robert's life and an Introduction that explains Robert of Arbrissel's world in both its lay and clerical contexts--the Peace of God, the Truce of God, warrior as well as peasant society, the role of women, the Investiture Controversy, clerical celibacy, Church reform, and the appeal of the wilderness that, besides Fontevraud, led to foundations at Citeaux and Chartreuse. Included also is a useful map that locates the more important places mentioned in the translated sources and a short Introduction before each source that provides good information on each source's author and what influences may have shaped that author's point of view. An Afterword follows the translated sources. It outlines the history of Fontevraud from its initial successes to the failed nineteenth-century attempts to revive the abbey after its dissolution during the French Revolution. It also briefly discusses the fruitless efforts to canonize Robert. Venarde's Endnotes to his book contribute valuable information both for the reader who knows little as well as the one who knows much about Robert and his era. He explains medieval terminology and practices, and gives further bibliographical information as well as alternative translations of certain passages.
The translated sources themselves begin with Archbishop Baudri of Dol's First Life of Robert of Arbrissel written about 1118, two years after Robert's death in 1116. In his Introduction to this document, Venarde discusses Baudri's other writings, and among them is a 1,368-line letter-poem addressed to Adela, sister of William the Conqueror and wife of Count Stephen of Blois. It imagines the wall tapestries hanging in the rooms of her palace, and it may well be a mnemonic device, a memory palace, such as those discussed by the Ancient Roman writers Pliny the Elder and Quintillian as well as the famous one taught to the Chinese Ming Dynasty Court by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci in the late sixteenth century. Baudri addressed his Life of Robert to Petronilla, the first abbess of Fontevraud, who requested that he write it; and he began his text showing a reluctance to undertake the task because of forgetfulness caused by advanced age and his lack of knowledge about Robert. He even mildly scolded Petronilla for sending him only a few scanty notes on the subject of his text.
Archbishop Baudri's Life falls into the formulaic genre of hagiography that applauds certain aspects of a holy person's life for purposes of edification. Such works abounded in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and were never intended to be a biography in the modern sense of the term. Yet Baudri gave certain reliable nuggets of information when he began his discussion of Robert's life in the section 7 of his text. His father was a farmer-priest of the village of Arbrissel in Brittany, a region of northwestern France that Baudri described as a somewhat lawless place where the clergy lived sinful, simonaical lives. Peter Abelard, who was also a native Breton, later confirmed Baudri's depiction of Brittany when Peter gave a similar description of his homeland in his History of My Misfortunes. Robert left Brittany and went to Paris for his studies; then the bishop of Rennes, the major city of Brittany, recalled Robert to help in the reform of his diocesan clergy and made him his archpriest. After the death of the bishop, Robert sought refuge in Angers where he continued his studies, but the appeal of the wilderness led him to La Roe near Arbrissel where he established a community of canons. He then left La Roe to begin his itinerant preaching at the request of Pope Urban II who had journeyed into France to preach the First Crusade. The charismatic Robert attracted many followers of both sexes, whom he later settled at Fontevraud, a somewhat remote place just south of the Loire River in western France. A motley crowd of "poor and noble, widows and virgins, old and young, whores and those who spurned men" (17), even lepers, gathered there; and thus the abbey of Fontevraud began. Robert left Fontevraud in the charge of two very capable women, one of whom was Petronilla; and he then continued his itinerant preaching that led to the foundation of daughter houses of Fontevraud. He died at one such foundation, Orsan, in 1116.
The Second Life of Arbrissel (ca. 1120), written by Andreas, a monk of Fontevraud and probably Robert's chaplain, covers only the last year of Robert's life. It also falls into the genre of hagiography. The Life began as Robert foresaw that his life was coming to an end. So he assembled the brethren at Fontevraud to have them confirm their desire to live under the rule of the nuns and have them consent to his wish to appoint Petronilla as their first abbess. The monks assented to his wishes, and Gerard of Angouleme, the papal legate of the Aquitaine, as well as Pope Paschal II confirmed her in the position. Andreas then briefly discussed a few of the customs that Robert bequeathed to Fontevraud before outlining Robert's final journey that ended with his death near Bourges at Orsan. Andreas devoted numerous pages to Robert's last days which he spent receiving the sacraments of Extreme Unction and Communion, praying, chastising himself, begging the archbishop of Bourges and Alard, the lord of the district, unsuccessfully to allow his body to be buried at Fontevraud, exhorting his companions to fulfill their vows, and finally dying in a most humble and saintly manner after defeating Satan's final attempt to snatch away his soul. Abbess Petronilla and the nuns then waged a brief but intense battle against the archbishop of Bourges who wanted to keep the sacred relic of Robert's body in his diocese. The archbishop relented and allowed Robert's body to be carried back to Fontevraud where he was buried in the abbey church but not in the common cemetery as Robert had requested. The nuns feared that his body could easily be stolen from such a place. Andreas then finished his account of Robert's life with a eulogy of praise for Robert's numerous virtues and saintly acts.
Venarde's next section of documents contains the extant writings of Robert of Arbrissel himself. The first is a sermon to Countess Ermengarde, daughter of Fulk IV of Anjou and wife of Count Alan IV of Brittany. Ermengarde had written Robert seeking advice on how to have her marriage annulled and thus flee the wilds of Brittany, a land of beasts and simonaical, lustful clergymen. Robert informed her that her bonds of matrimony could not be dissolved by the Church, that she should keep her mind on God even while she lived and slept at an aristocratic court, and that she should always "believe, love, hope in God, and do good..." (77). Common to all medieval clerical letters and sermons, the text is filled with quotes from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The letter, however, does not reflect the sort of rhetoric that would substantiate Robert's reputation as a powerful hermit-preacher. His skills were obviously oral in nature rather than literary. There follows two charters written by Robert: (A) To Bishop Peter of Poitiers (1109), that placed Fontevraud and all its properties in his diocese under his protection in return for prayers and other spiritual benefits for him and his clergy; and (B) To Gerald of Sales (1115), who had earlier been a hermit companion of Robert in the forests on the border of Brittany and Anjou, and to whom Robert now granted the properties that Fontevraud had in southwestern France, on which Gerald founded the monastery of Cadouin. In general, Fontevraud and its daughter houses followed the Rule of Saint Benedict, but a fragment of the Customs that Robert wrote ca. 1115 for the nuns and brothers under his care has survived, and it comes next among Robert's translated writings. He imposed strict silence on the nuns, not even permitting them to use sign language or eat meat even when ill as was commonly done in other Benedictine houses. In addition, the fragment confirmed Petronilla's authority as abbess, defined the powers of the cloistral prioress, and provided for the election of subsequent abbesses.
Immediately following Robert's writings, Venarde provides his readers with two translated letters to Robert: the first from a bishop, Marbode of Rennes (ca. 1098), and the second from an abbot, Geoffrey of Vendome (ca. 1107). At this point readers of the previous documents learn why no one within five hundred years after Robert's death tried to have him canonized and why the subsequent attempts to do so failed. Both letters condemned Robert severely for his unorthodox and controversial lifestyle, yet both writers recognized something in Robert's character and achievements that led them to exhort him (albeit unsuccessfully) to change. Marbode's letter brought a variety of charges against Robert: intimacy with women followers "not only by day at a common table but also by night in a common bed" (93), disregard for appropriate canonical dress so much so that he lacked "only a club to complete the outfit of a lunatic" (96-97), attacks against his fellow clergymen that led laypeople to abandon them in order to follow him, and finally acceptance of all sorts of untested men and women into religious life who were unprepared to succeed in it. Geoffrey of Vendome limited his short letter to Robert only to admonishing him for living intimately among women. Both writers admitted that they had heard only reports and rumors about Robert; but they were worried that if such charges were true, then Robert had endangered the salvation of his soul. Both letters were heavily misogynistic in tone but so were the writings of Augustine and the passages of Scripture quoted as Marbode and Geoffrey exhorted Robert to change his religious lifestyle. Venarde's translated documents end with a section of supplementary biographical materials that complement those previously given.
It is impossible to avoid errors no matter how many times one proofreads a text, but there seem to be only two in Venarde's work. Louis VII instead of Louis VI is named as king on p. xxvi, and endnote 7 on p. 129 names William (VII of Poitiers, IX of Aquitaine) as Eleanor's father rather than her grandfather. Indexes are the scourge of all historical writers, but they are excellent tools for researchers. An index to the translated sources would have also improved this text. However, Venarde's style of translating renders the medieval documents about Robert's life into enjoyable reading for a modern audience. He avoids the formal, pretentious, and highly rhetorical style of most medieval, Latin writers. Despite the somewhat insignificant shortcomings mentioned in this paragraph, Bruce Venarde's Robert of Arbrissel: A Medieval Religious Life, is a most worthy contribution to the study of late eleventh- and early twelfth-century France, medieval monasticism, Church reform, and an enigmatic and controversial monastic founder. It will enlighten the general reader of history as well as be a welcome addition to a list of books required for a university-level course in the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. It is a work well done.