The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth‑Century France 9789462985940, 9789048537181

Table of contents :
Cover
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
Early Cîteaux
Voice and Memory at Cîteaux
Meditations on the Song of Songs
The Plan of Action
After Early Cîteaux
1 The Joy of Psalmody
The Night Office
Reconstructing Advent at Cîteaux
The Advent Cursus at the New Monastery
2 Jerome’s Legacy at Twelfth-Century Cîteaux
Cîteaux and Jerome
Stephen as a New Jerome
Jerome in the Liturgy
Picturing Jerome at Cîteaux
Jerome’s Letters
3 The Virgin and the Abbot
And There Shall Come Forth a Rod Out of Jesse
The Jesse Tree
Christ as Priest
Jesus’ Prefigurations
The Virgo Lactans
Bernard of Clairvaux, the Virgin, and the Legacy of Cîteaux’s Art and Liturgy
4 Fruitful Words in the Stephen Harding Bible
Biting, Chewing, and Swallowing: Eating the Word
Were All Twelfth-Century Animals Hungry for Scripture?
The Meaning of Ornament in the Cîteaux Scriptorium
Lips, Tongues, and Ears: Picturing the Spoken Word
Fruitful Words in the Refectory
Herod’s Downfall and the Sin of Gluttony
Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Sung Scripture
Conclusion: Beyond Sound
Appendices
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITIES

Diane J. Reilly

The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth-Century France

The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth-Century France

Knowledge Communities This series focuses on innovative scholarship in the areas of intellectual history and the history of ideas, particularly as they relate to the communication of knowledge within and among diverse scholarly, literary, religious, and social communities across Western Europe. Interdisciplinary in nature, the series especially encourages new methodological outlooks that draw on the disciplines of philosophy, theology, musicology, anthropology, paleography, and codicology. Knowledge Communities addresses the myriad ways in which knowledge was expressed and inculcated, not only focusing upon scholarly texts from the period but also emphasizing the importance of emotions, ritual, performance, images, and gestures as modalities that communicate and acculturate ideas. The series publishes cutting-edge work that explores the nexus between ideas, communities, and individuals in medieval and early modern Europe. Series Editor Clare Monagle, Macquarie University Editorial Board Mette Bruun, University of Copenhagen Babette Hellemans, University of Groningen Severin Kitanov, Salem State University Alex Novikoff, Fordham University Willemien Otten, University of Chicago Divinity School

The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth-Century France

Diane J. Reilly

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 170, fol. 32r Source: Art Resource Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 594 0 e-isbn 978 90 4853 718 1 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462985940 nur 684 © Diane J. Reilly / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Abbreviations 9 Acknowledgments 11 Introduction 13 The Love of Learning and the Desire for God 15 Early Cîteaux 21 Voice and Memory at Cîteaux 28 Meditations on the Song of Songs 32 The Plan of Action 34 After Early Cîteaux 37 1 The Joy of Psalmody The Night Office Reconstructing Advent at Cîteaux The Advent Cursus at the New Monastery

39 40 44 47

2 Jerome’s Legacy at Twelfth-Century Cîteaux Cîteaux and Jerome Stephen as a New Jerome Jerome in the Liturgy Picturing Jerome at Cîteaux Jerome’s Letters

59 62 64 70 74 80

3 The Virgin and the Abbot And There Shall Come Forth a Rod Out of Jesse The Jesse Tree Christ as Priest Jesus’ Prefigurations The Virgo Lactans Bernard of Clairvaux, the Virgin, and the Legacy of Cîteaux’s Art and Liturgy

95 96 99 111 120 125 130

4 Fruitful Words in the Stephen Harding Bible Biting, Chewing, and Swallowing: Eating the Word Were All Twelfth-Century Animals Hungry for Scripture? The Meaning of Ornament in the Cîteaux Scriptorium Lips, Tongues, and Ears: Picturing the Spoken Word Fruitful Words in the Refectory Herod’s Downfall and the Sin of Gluttony Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Sung Scripture

141 143 154 159 165 167 176 181



189

Conclusion: Beyond Sound

Appendices

195

Bibliography

205

Index

219

List of Figures and Plates Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10

Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 21v © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 60r. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 3v. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 131, fol. 3r. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 132, fol. 1r. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 66r. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 107v. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 152r. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 183v. © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 198r. © Lambeth Palace Library

23

33 75 77 78 79 85 90 91 103

Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Figure 18 Figure 19 Figure 20

Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 2, fol. 148r. 104 © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 2, fol. 406r. 106 © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon London, British Library MS Cotton Titus D.XXVII, fol. 75v. 109 © The British Library Board London, British Library MS Harley 603, fol. 1r. 110 © The British Library Board London, British Library MS Cotton Nero D.IV, fol. 93v. 147 © The British Library Board Manchester, John Rylands University Library MS 9, fol. 50v. 148 © The University of Manchester London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 258v. 151 © Lambeth Palace Library Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 30, fol. 10v. 158 © Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale MS 11, fol. 11v. 172 © Bibliothèque municipale de Boulogne-sur-Mer Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale MS 11, fol. 62r. 173 © Bibliothèque municipale de Boulogne-sur-Mer

Plates All Plates copyright Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon unless otherwise noted Plate 1 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 12, fol. 3v. I Plate 2 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 173, fol. 29r. II Plate 3 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 163r. III Plate 4 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 2v. IV Plate 5 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 182r. V Plate 6 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 4v. VI Plate 7 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 5r. VII Plate 8 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 5r, detail. VIII Plate 9 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 40v. IX Plate 10 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 29v. X Plate 11 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 14r. XI Plate 12 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 170, fol. 32r. XII Plate 13 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 56v. XIII © Art Resource Plate 14 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 128v. XIV Plate 15 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 136v. XV Plate 16 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 41r. XVI

Abbreviations Biblia sacra

Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. Bonifatius Fischer et al., 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969). Can chant reference number from Debra Lacoste (Project Manager and Principal Researcher) and Jan Koláček (Web Developer). Cantus: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant – Inventories of Chant Sources. Available from . “Night Office Lectionary” Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Cistercian Night Office Lectionary in the Twelfth Century,” ed. Diane Reilly, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cis­ tercienses 66, (2015): 71-186. PL Patrologia cursus completus series Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 207 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Catholique, 1844-1855). Primitive Cistercian Breviary The Primitive Cistercian Breviary (Staatsbi­ bliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS. Lat. Oct. 402) with Variants from the “Bernardine” Cistercian Breviary, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell, Spicilegium Friburgense; Texts Concerning the History of Cistercian Life 44 (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2007). SBO Sancti Bernardi Opera, eds. Jean Leclercq, Henri Rochais, and Charles H. Talbot, 3 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993-2000). SC Sources chrétiennes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1941- ). Vulgate Bible The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation, 6 vols., ed. Swift Edgar and Angela Kinney, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 1, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 21 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010-2013).

Acknowledgments In the time since I began to study the early Cistercians I have incurred innumerable debts to scholars and institutions as well as to family and friends. My first forays into the world of the Cistercians took place during the term of a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto. My colleagues that year, Anne-Laurance Caudano, Dan Hobbins, Kostis Kourelis, Vasileios Marinis, John Ott, Sharon Salvadori, and Janet Sorrentino, as well as the Institute’s faculty and staff, provided invaluable feedback during the earliest stages of my work. My field work in France in the fall of 2009 was supported by a travel grant from the College Arts and Humanities Institute at Indiana University. I am grateful to the librarians at the municipal libraries of Laon (Laurence Richard), Arras (Pascal Rideau), Cambrai (Annie Fournier), Reims (Matthieu Gerbault), Douai (Jean Vilbas), and especially to the entire staff of the Bibliothèque municipale of Dijon, whose helpfulness and cheer made my many visits there so productive. I thank the organizers, participants and audiences of the events at which I presented earlier stages of this work, including Susan Boynton, organizer of “Performing and Presenting the Word: Medieval Bibles in Context” at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Museum of Biblical Art (2007), Glenn Peers, at the University of Texas at Austin (2007), Steven Vanderputten in Ghent, who organized “Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication” (2008), and “The Beginnings of Cistercian Abbeys” (2010), Robert Maxwell, at the University of Pennsylvania (2011), Kati Ihnat and Emma Hornby, at The Old Hispanic Office Project, organizers of “Senses of the Liturgy: Medieval Ritual Interpretation and Practice,” University of Bristol (2013), and Tjamke Snijders, organizer of a session at the International Medieval Institute at Leeds (2015). Parts of this study were also presented at The International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo (2008 and 2014) and The Medieval Academy of America at Yale (2010). I am grateful to David Bell, who unearthed and shared with me Brother Chrysogonus Waddell’s typescript of his study of the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary, and to Terryl Kinder, who then shepherded it through to publication. This would be a completely different study without their contributions. Conversations with Susan Boynton, Mette Birkdal Bruun, Tova Leigh Choate, Isabelle Cochelin, Jay Diehl, Margot Fassler, Jeffrey Hamburger, Brian Patrick Maguire, Lauren Mancia, Martha Newman, and Steve Vanderputten, among many others, gave me inspiration and food for

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

thought. I can take credit for the numerous mistakes that likely remain, however. My institutional home, Indiana University, has supported my work at every stage. The College Arts and Humanities Institute funded time to finish a first draft with a course release, while the Institute for Advanced Study provided a course release for revisions and funding for photograph permissions and indexing. My colleagues both in the Department of Art History and the Medieval Studies Institute have provided moral and intellectual support. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Julia Grella O’Connell, who copy-edited the draft, Shannon Cunningham, my editor at Amsterdam University Press, Eyal Poleg, and Claire Monagle, editor of Knowledge Communities, who both provided insightful critiques of the entire manuscript, and Lindsey Hansen, who organized photographs and permissions and prepared the index. Finally, my family, parents Rae and Peter Reilly and Carol Lawrence, sister Karen, husband Giles Knox and son Ian endured the Cistercians for over a decade. I am grateful for their support and patience. Diane J. Reilly June 2018

Introduction Then Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the multitude of men and women and all those that could understand in the first day of the seventh month. And he read it plainly in the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday before the men and women and all those that could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book (2 Ezra 8: 2-3).1

The practice of reading Scripture aloud to the congregation of the faithful has its roots in the Old Testament. Long before Christian monasteries codified the practice of continuously reading aloud from the Bible as a component of their routine observances, second-century Christians were described by Tertullian and Justin Martyr as listening to readings from Scripture and singing psalmody as part of their Eucharistic celebrations.2 By the time of the beginnings of communal monasticism, the systematic reading of Scripture surrounded by psalmody and prayers at regular hours was common to most religious houses, though the content of these services could vary widely. In western Europe, The Rule of St. Benedict codified the round of readings from Scripture, Patristics and homilies, introducing to western monasticism what was, for a time, the almost universal paired expectations that all monks would hear the entire Bible and discourses on Scripture in the course of a single year, and that members of the same community would share the same listener experience.3 Those who stood together in the choir and heard the same lections and prayers, and themselves sang the same memorized Psalms, canticles, and chants, and sat together listening to the weekly reader in the refectory 1 Vulgate Bible IIB:1568-1571. Adtulit ergo Ezra, sacerdos, legem coram multitudine virorum et mulierum cunctisque qui poterant intellegere in die prima mensis septimi. Et legit in eo aperte in platea quae erat ante portam aquarum de mane usqua ad mediam diem in conspectu virorum et mulierum et sapientium, et aures omnis populi erant erectae ad librum. Biblia sacra I:664. In his commentary on the liturgy, the ninth-century ecclesiastical leader Amalarius of Metz opined, “Let us accept that Ezra was a lector in the Old Testament; he will teach us how we ought to read.” Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, ed. and trans. Eric Knibbs, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 35 , 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014) I:407. 2 Maxwell E. Johnson, “The Apostolic Tradition,” in The Oxford History of Christian Worship, eds. Geoffrey Wainwright and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 32-75 at 50. 3 Duncan Robertson, Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading, Cistercian Studies 238 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), xiv-xv.

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

as well as during Chapter and at Collation, built an exactly comparable repertoire of words and interpretations specific to the monastic cursus of that house.4 Their internalization of that body of text varied only according to each individual’s power of memory and the personal experiences he or she brought into the choir. We can differentiate the group defined by this shared experience from what Brian Stock calls the “textual community,” i.e. a group sharing access to the same written texts by way of an intermediary who interpreted those texts for it.5 In one of Stock’s examples, Bernard of Clairvaux’s powerful elucidation of the Song of Songs created a commonality of understanding among the Cistercians, linking them as a community at the same time that Bernard mapped out a means of interiorizing the text for their spiritual benefit.6 While this unifying force within a specific “literate culture” certainly existed,7 it was overlapped by the oral and aural experience of text that was even more specific and localized. As with the “emotional communities” posited by Barbara Rosenwein,8 individuals may not have recognized themselves as members of the community built by this shared oral experience and the internalized body of texts that resulted, although they certainly were able to identify when the oral reading and chant practices of another house differed from those in their own, and frequently critiqued

4 For an introduction to the opportunities for public reading in a Benedictine context, see Teresa Webber, “Reading in the Refectory: Monastic Practice in England, c. 1000-1300” (London University Annual John Coffin Memorial Palaeography Lecture, 18 February, 2010, revised edition 2013, Institute of English Studies Online Publication, School of Advanced Studies, University of London), http://events.sas.ac.uk/ies/publications/1009. I have previously shown how even among monasteries that claimed to be administratively linked, the readings the monks heard could differ. Diane J. Reilly, “The Cluniac Giant Bible and the Ordo librorum ad legendum: a reassessment of monastic Bible reading and Cluniac customary instructions,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny/Du coeur de la nuit à la fin du jour: les coutumes clunisiennes au moyen âge, eds. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 163-189. 5 Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 90. 6 Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 405. 7 Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 91. 8 Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). I will avoid using the term “oral community” because it could be understood in scholarly contexts to describe communities that identif ied themselves through a shared language of communication, or that were primarily oral. Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Methuen, 1982), 74. The Cîteaux choir could potentially be understood as a locus of “secondary orality,” according to Ong’s formulation, 136, because there written texts were mediated by oral delivery.

Introduction

15

the differences.9 This book examines the effects of the phenomenon of a shared repertoire of text-based experiences on the surviving texts and images created during the first years of the Cistercian movement.

The Love of Learning and the Desire for God Since the publication in 1957 of Jean Leclercq’s seminal study of Western monasticism in the central Middle Ages, monastic reading and learning have been intimately linked in the minds of scholars who seek to parse the actions and outlook of twelfth-century monks. As Leclercq described, “In general, monks did not acquire their religious formation in a school, under a scholastic, by means of the quaestio, but individually, under the guidance of an abbot, a spiritual father, through the reading of the Bible and the Fathers, within the liturgical framework of the monastic life. Hence, there arose a type of Christian culture with marked characteristics: a disinterested culture which was ‘contemplative’ in bent.”10 While most scholars have happily echoed Leclercq’s thesis that the monastic context fostered a specifically monastic educational repertoire, “reading of the Bible and the Fathers,” they have often ignored the qualifier that immediately followed: “within the liturgical framework of the monastic life.” Leclercq’s own statements about whether the liturgical cursus in which every Benedictine monk participated was part and parcel of this learning process are contradictory. Leclercq repeats, “The liturgy … is the medium through which the Bible and the patristic tradition are received,”11 and “it was the liturgy itself which formed the usual and ordinary commentary on Holy Scripture and the Fathers,” but he also describes the primary purpose of the liturgy as to glorify God.12 Rumination on the texts from which the liturgy was built in order to achieve understanding, he implies, occurred when a monk had comparative leisure to dwell on passages uninterrupted, to read them aloud to himself in a low tone, prompting a “repeated mastication of the divine words.”13 But was this by necessity a solitary activity, with words muttered in an undertone? Or 9 For examples of this from the Cistercian reform, see Bede K. Lackner, “The Liturgy of Early Cîteaux,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History Presented to Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan, Cistercian Studies 13 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 1-34 at 17-20. 10 Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catharine Misrahi, 3rd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 2. 11 Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 71, also 236. 12 Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 237. 13 Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 72-73.

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

could the words be sung out in a choir or read aloud in a refectory? How were the monks edified by what they heard? When the first Cistercians set about furnishing their monastic life with texts, both those they copied for choir use and those they drafted anew, they answered this question with the choices they made. The manuscripts they copied, confined to “the Bible and the patristic tradition” identified by Leclercq as the core of liturgical learning, are replete with images that both echo the lections and chants they had heard communally, and affirm the importance of hearing, speaking, and ingesting the Word. The size of most of these manuscripts indicates that they were intended for communal use, meaning that they were destined to be read aloud in a communal space, and the markings within many of them confirm that this was indeed how they were employed. The care that went into correcting the text of the Bible and perfecting the form and the words of the liturgy signals a profound concern for what the monks heard and sang as a group. The words and images chosen for emphasis by these early Cistercians also reveal that the monks had become preoccupied with the themes of hearing and speaking, or singing, the words of Scripture and the liturgy, and the sensation of taste they inspired. As Leclercq pointed out, use of the metaphor of eating and digestion to describe the monastic way of reading was already widespread.14 Once Bernard of Clairvaux had left Cîteaux for Clairvaux, he wrote movingly about experiencing the Divine through hearing and savoring the Word. The earliest Cistercians left no similar explanation for why their texts and imagery reveal such a focus on the importance of experiencing Scripture though the senses.15 Instead, we can deduce from the evidence provided by their energetic reform of their communal liturgy, and the texts and images that resulted, that they believed this was the best way to learn and the most direct route to the Divine. The earliest days of the new order coincided with the widespread, Continental emergence of what is sometimes called affective piety, usually described as a desire for a heightened sensation of God’s presence and an emotional response to the experience of God, achieved through solitary

14 Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 73. 15 Indeed, the lack of any writing by the earliest Cistercians that qualifies as straightforwardly spiritual or theological has led many scholars to discuss early Cistercian spiritual theology beginning with the monastery’s third decade. See, recently, Bernard McGinn, “The spiritual teaching of the early Cistercians,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Bruun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 218-232.

Introduction

17

prayer and meditation.16 Two of the miniatures painted in the early Cîteaux scriptorium, as we will see in Chapter 3, highlight the tender relationship between Mary and Jesus that is often associated with this movement’s quest for emotional connections with the members of the Holy Family. Many other illuminations seem to make a more allusive reference to the senses through which the Cîteaux monks gained their spiritual experiences: hearing, speaking, and tasting the Word. By the later Middle Ages, at least according to the emphasis of scholars, individuals had assumed enough control over their own spiritual lives that this private prayer activity was largely self-directed. Already the devotional literature of the eleventh and twelfth centuries focused on private prayer and contemplation as the means to a more intimate experience of spirituality. Anselm of Canterbury’s Orationes sive meditationes, written almost contemporaneously with the foundation of Cîteaux for Anselm’s brother monks and most famously sent to pious laywomen like Adelaide, daughter of William the Conqueror, and Matilda of Tuscany for their private use, exhibit that impulse.17 The early proponents of affective spirituality, who were often the spiritual advisors of monks and nuns, encouraged them to understand that while their individual lectio divina was an opportunity for solitary meditations on the Divine, communal liturgical practice in the form of the Office could also be meditative, and a vehicle for similar spiritual experiences. Rachel Fulton Brown and Susan Boynton have already disproved the once common assumption that liturgical practices were by nature hollow, mechanical exercises that satisfied society’s demands for observances while the real work of contemplation took place in private and was necessarily spontaneous in character.18 As Fulton Brown revealed in her study of the Admont 16 The earliest synthetic scholarly treatment of this development is Richard Southern’s The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 226-228, while a succinct introduction can be found in Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, eds. Frank Anthony Carl Mantello and A. G. Rigg (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 695-696. For more recent critiques of the commonly received chronology, see Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 61, and Scott DeGregorio, “Affective Spirituality: Theory and Practice in Bede and Alfred the Great,” Essays in Medieval Studies 22 (2005): 129-139 at 130. 17 Richard Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 91-112. Southern claimed (102) that with St. Anselm’s compositions the “environment of prayer has shifted decisively from the church to the chamber, and from communal effort to severe and lonely introspection.” 18 Rachel Fulton, “Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice,” Speculum 81 (2006): 700-783 at 702-705 and 713, and Susan Boynton, “Prayer as Liturgical Performance in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastic Psalters,” Speculum 82 (2007): 896-931, esp. 897.

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

Stiftbibliothek’s copy of the Orationes, MS 289, prayers were intended to elicit spiritual experiences even when liturgically programmed.19 Sermons written by and for monks, including by Bernard of Clairvaux, reveal that the communal spaces of the monastery were also the locus of pious meditation, even when done in unison with others. Describing the communal psalmody of the Clairvaux monks, Bernard advised, “But the soul that is sincere and wise will not fail to chew the psalm with the teeth, as it were, of the mind, because if he swallows it in a lump, without proper mastication, the palate will be cheated of the delicious flavor, sweeter even than honey that drips from the comb [Ps. 18:11].”20 Bernard’s description of speaking, or singing, as analogous to tasting evokes the concept that the spiritual experience could be accessed through bodily sensation. Before Bernard wrote, within Cîteaux, his brethren appear from the images and texts that they left behind to have consciously embraced the idea that the senses would allow them to engage Scripture in a more profound way, and that this experience brought them closer to God. This belief saturated the imagery they produced and the choices they made in what to sing and hear, and drove them to revise their liturgy and Scripture to make what they therefore “tasted” more perfect.21 This apparent focus on the sense of hearing, and the spiritual sense of taste it inspired, as an avenue to spiritual experience runs counter to traditional interpretations of early Cistercian spirituality, which, in line with patristic teachings, advocated the denial of the senses in favor of asceticism that allowed inner, spiritual knowledge.22 Scholars generally acknowledge that although medieval writers before the twelfth century used the metaphorical vocabulary of the senses to explain encounters with God, much as patristic 19 Fulton, “Praying with Anselm,” 705 and 732. 20 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:5, On the Song of Songs I, trans. Kilian Walsh, Cistercian Fathers Series 4 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 41-42. Tantum illum terere non negligat fidelis et prudens anima quibusdam dentibus intelligentiae suae, ne si forte integrum glutiat, et non mansum, frustretur palatum sapore desiderabili, et dulciori super mel et favum [Ps. 18:11]. Sermones super Cantica Canticorum I (1-35), Sancti Bernardi Opera 1, eds. Jean Leclercq, Henri Rochais and Charles H. Talbot (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993), repr. Sermons sur le Cantique I (Sermons 1-15), SC 414 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996), 164. 21 Rachel Fulton Brown already observed, based the contents of surviving eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts, that there appears to be a correlation between the desire for more meaningful prayer and an impulse to reform the liturgy. Fulton, “Praying with Anselm,” 714-715. 22 Jean-Baptiste Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne primitive: mythe ou réalité? Studia et Documenta 3 (Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 1986), 224-249 and Gordon Rudy, Mystical Language of Sensation in the Later Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2001), 1-10. See Rudy’s critique of scholarly attempts to identify medieval “experiences” of God, however, 10-12.

Introduction

19

authors had, this was not an endorsement of the corporeal senses, which were to be overcome. Bernard, on the other hand, seemed to waver between two poles. In writing like the passage quoted above, he drew on the language of the senses so forcefully that the reader could almost taste the dripping honey of Scripture.23 In other places, he seemed to revile the bodily senses, with the exception of hearing. The wisdom that is good and true, as holy Job experienced it, is drawn out of secret places [Job 28:18]. Why then seek it from without, in your bodily senses? Taste resides in the palate, but wisdom in the heart. Do not look for wisdom with your eyes of flesh, because flesh and blood will not reveal it to you, but the Spirit [Mt 16:17]. Do not look for it in what the mouth tastes, for it is not found in the land of those who live for pleasure [Job 28: 13] … Only the hearing that catches the word possesses the truth.24

In this Bernard may have echoed Origen, who also made special exceptions for the senses of sight and hearing, because they enabled an encounter with the Bible, and through it, the Logos.25 As Gordon Rudy points out, Bernard elevates the sense of hearing even above that of sight as the primary spiritual sense. Describing the bride encountering her beloved in the Song of Songs, Bernard writes, “Hearing leads to sight, faith comes from what is heard [Rom 10:17] … Accordingly she sees him coming after hearing his voice; even the Holy Spirit maintains here the order which the prophet thus described: Hear O daughter, and see [Ps. 44:11].”26 The first half of Sermon 28 on the Song of Songs is an extended meditation on hearing in which Bernard returns again 23 Rudy, Mystical Language, 45-65. 24 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 28:8. On the Song of Songs II, trans. Kilian Walsh, Cistercian Fathers Series 7 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1983), 94-95. Bona et vera sapientia trahitur de occultis [Job 28:18], ut sapit beatus Iob. Quid foris eam quaeris in corporis sensu? Sapor in palate, in corde est sapientia. Ne quaeras sapientiam in oculo carnis, quia caro et sanguis non revelat eam, sed spiritus [Mt 16:17]. Non in gustu oris: nec enim invenitur in terra suaviter viventium [Job 28: 13] … Solus habet auditus verum, qui percipit verbum. Sancti Bernardi Opera 1, repr. Sermons sur le Cantique II (16-32), SC 431 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1998), 360. 25 Rudy, Mystical Language, 3-4. Rudy specifies that Bernard believed that exegesis allowed one to know the incarnate Christ rather than the “eternal Logos” (46-47). 26 Rudy, Mystical Language, 55-56, and Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 53:2. On the Song of Songs III, trans. Kilian Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds, Cistercian Fathers Series 31 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1979), 59-60. Auditus ducit ad visum: fides ex auditu … [Rom 10:17] Videt itaque venientem, quem loquentem audierat, observante etiam hic ordinem illum Spirito Sancto, qui apud Prophetam descriptus eta: Audi filia, et vide [Ps. 44:11]. Sermones super Cantica Canticorum II (36-86), SBO 2, repr. Sermons sur le Cantique IV (Sermons 51-68), SC 472 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2003), 80.

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and again to its power to impart truth: “The hearing succeeded where the sight failed. Appearances deceived the eye, but truth poured itself into the ear,” and “Hence the Prophet says: You will give to my hearing joy and gladness [Ps 50:10] for the beatific vision is the reward of faithful hearing. We merit the beatific vision by our constancy in listening.”27 His language regarding touch and taste instead seems metaphorical and symbolic. As Rudy explains, “Grace is the touch of the Bridegroom’s embrace [SC 51.5-6], an ‘oil of unction’ granted by the Holy Spirit [SC 14.6, SC 8.2]. This ‘anointing’ is a ‘touch’ and an ‘experience’ that brings the elect to God through virtue and makes them just such that they taste God’s sweetness [Sent. 2:23] … Bernard asserts that he longs for this touch and to taste this food, which he knows indirectly, by its odor only [SC 14.6].”28 Bernard composed the Sermons and Sentences in the decades after he left Cîteaux, yet his understanding of the role of these senses in spiritual life aligns remarkably closely with the imagery we find in the manuscripts he certainly saw. Was he inspired by the manuscripts themselves? Or by the reform philosophy that gave rise to them? The first decades of the monastery of Cîteaux provide a unique window into the invention of a monastic ordo and its tools according to the values of a movement’s founders. We are especially lucky that so many of the manuscripts the monks made right after the monastery was founded survive. One of the founding monks, Stephen Harding, described his editorial activities and reform of the liturgy in texts that survive. The newly reformed Cistercian breviary and lectionary are preserved, and another early Cistercian, Bernard of Clairvaux, recalled his early monastic experiences in his theological works. Other monasteries may have followed the same process and subscribed to the same beliefs, and certainly at other Benedictine houses similar aural experiences shaped the working textual repertoire of their inhabitants and the literary and artistic works they produced. Yet because of these accidents of survival, only Cîteaux serves as such a revealing time capsule of the artistic and textual patrimony of a newly founded community of monks as Western Europe stood on the brink of scholasticism, the rise 27 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 28:5. On the Song of Songs II, 91-92. Auditus invenit quod non visus. Oculum species fefellit, auri veritas se infudit … Unde Propheta: Auditui meo, inquit, dabis gaudium et laetitiam [Ps 50:10], quod fidelis tribributio auditionis beata visio sit, et beatae meritum visionis fidelis auditio. Sancti Bernardi Opera 1, repr. SC 431, 354-356. 28 Rudy, Mystical Language, 58. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 51:5-6, On the Song of Songs III, 44-45. Sermon 14:6, On the Song of Songs I, 102-103. I could not locate in Sermon 8.2 the passage referenced by Rudy. Bernard of Clairvaux, The Parables (trans. Michael Casey) and the Sentences (trans. Francis R. Swietek), Cistercian Fathers Series 55 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2000), 147.

Introduction

21

of the cathedral school, and the explosion of mysticism. The luxuriously decorated manuscripts in particular visualize the monks’ desires. A first step, then, is to describe when and by whom these manuscripts were made.

Early Cîteaux In 1098, Robert, abbot of Molesme, and a group of likeminded companions departed from Molesme in search of greater solitude, as well as the opportunity to build a community in which they could practice a more rigorous form of Benedictine monasticism. The abbey that they founded, originally called the New Monastery and later known by the name of its immediate surroundings, Cîteaux in eastern Burgundy, was at first home to just a few monks – a number soon reduced by the return of Robert and many of the original migrants to Molesme.29 In addition to building necessary structures and following the prescribed Benedictine round of Offices and Masses, Robert’s successors as abbot, first Alberic and then Stephen Harding, oversaw the establishment of a scriptorium where the remaining monks set about copying some of the most striking illuminated manuscripts of early twelfth-century France, many of which are today preserved in the Bibliothèque municipale of Dijon.30 Although the scriptorium at Cîteaux continued to copy and decorate manuscripts throughout the twelfth century, those made in the first decades after the monastery was founded have traditionally been set apart based on the style of their decoration and the fact that they have figural imagery, which by the middle of the century, and perhaps earlier, had been replaced in the Cîteaux scriptorium by the aniconic “Monochrome” style.31 From the inception of the scriptorium, its style evolved rapidly. In the first manuscript 29 Recent synopses of the early history of the Cistercians and its scholarship include Martha G. Newman, “Foundation and Twelfth Century,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Bruun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 25-37 and Emilia Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe 1090-1500 (London and New York: Routledge, 2013): 13-42. 30 Scholars have universally agreed that the manuscripts assuredly copied at Cîteaux were written and illustrated by Cistercian monks, rather than by itinerant lay artists or visiting monks, because, as will become clear below, the same hands can be recognized in manuscripts completed over the course of several decades. 31 The division of the manuscripts produced by the scriptorium in the twelfth century into groups based on style was originally made by Charles Oursel, La miniature du XIIe siècle à l’abbaye de Cîteaux d’après les manuscrits de la bibliothèque de Dijon (Dijon: Le Venot, 1926), and further refined by Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 186-204 and Yolanta Zaluska, L’enluminure et le

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

that can def initively be identif ied as a product of the scriptorium, the first volume of the giant “Stephen Harding” Bible now split in two, the artists appear to have copied the tendril initials found in manuscripts they had imported from the north of France (Plate 1, Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 12, fol. 3v, p. I).32 Very quickly, however, the artists abandoned this derivative style and began to create elongated figures using a lively pen-drawn technique, embedding them in foliate initials or filling partial columns or whole pages. Illuminations in this “First Style” were filled in with colorful paint that defines sweeping drapery folds articulated with color modeling, all on rich blue backgrounds. Eleven manuscripts survive in this style, including the original second volume of the Stephen Harding Bible; a four-volume copy of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job (Plate 2, Dijon BM MS 173, fol. 29r, p. II), and a suite of other Patristic works, all copied in large format, many with lavish painted decoration.33 At some unidentified point, but probably within the first two decades, while many of the same scribes and some of the same artists still worked in the scriptorium, the dominant artistic mode changed once again, this time to an elegant Byzantinizing style which featured figures with severe gazes, clad in voluminous drapery lent depth by the nested folds sometimes called “damp folds” (Figure 1, Dijon BM MS 641, fol. 21v). While the balance of the content of the illuminations shifted away from scenes of violent struggle and hybrid animals and towards the standing authors, dedication scenes and narrative images that had already appeared in the earlier manuscripts, the content of the texts remained very similar. As with the manuscripts decorated in the “First Style,” the seventeen surviving “Second Style” manuscripts are restricted to Patristic texts and a sanctoral lectionary.34 scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle, Studia et Documenta 4 (Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, 1989). 32 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 12-13, Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 190-191 and Zaluska, L’enluminure, 74-75. 33 Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 195-198, Zaluska, L’enluminure, 75-111. See also Angiola Maria Romanini, “Il ‘Maestro dei Moralia’ e le origini di Cîteaux,” Storia dell’arte 32/34 (1978): 221-245. Alessia Trivellone, “‘Styles’ ou enlumineurs dans le scriptorium de Cîteaux? Pour une relecture des premières miniatures cisterciennes,” Cahiers de Saint Michel-de-Cuxa 43 (2012): 83-93 at 87-90, suggests that the miniatures in Dijon BM MSS 14, 15, 168, 169, 170, 173, 143, 145, 147 and 135 were all carried out by a single artist, however differences in facial details and the handling of paint between the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (MSS 168, 169, 170, 173) and Jerome’s Epistles (MS 135) in particular make it unlikely that all miniatures in all of these manuscripts were carried out by the same artist. 34 Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 196-204, Zaluska, L’enluminure, 113-147, Trivellone, “‘Styles’ ou enlunineurs,” 91-92, and Antonio Vannugli, “Il ‘secondo maestro’ di Cîteaux e la sua attività in Borgogna,” Arte medievale 2nd ser. 3 (1989), 2: 51-72.

Introduction

23

Figure 1 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 21v

Between the manuscripts imported by the f irst monks and those they copied and decorated in the first decades of the monastery’s existence, these surviving books, in a manner consistent with what is known about subsequent twelfth-century Cistercian libraries, portray a library that was conservative in nature. The first texts to be copied and collected were those that were required for reading in the choir and refectory according to

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

Benedict’s instructions, and for at least the next century these texts formed the preponderance of the library collection, here and in other Cistercian houses.35 Missing from Cîteaux, however, are all the liturgical books that would also have been necessary for monastic worship, leaving us with only a partial picture of what the first books to be routinely handled by the monks at the New Monastery might have looked like. While the scholarly work of identifying the surviving corpus of manuscripts and describing styles and hands, begun by Charles Oursel in the 1920s and continued by Jean-Baptiste Auberger, Yolanta Zaluska, Antonio Vannugli, and Angiola Maria Romanini in the 1970s and 1980s, has been underway for almost a century, analysis of the meaning of the illuminations found in the manuscripts has been piecemeal. Two approaches have predominated. In the first, the illuminations are used as a foil for Bernard of Clairvaux’s well-known antipathy to imagery, particularly hybrids.36 Zaluska suggested that in his first years at Cîteaux, Bernard reacted so negatively to the Cistercian manuscripts he encountered that the style employed in the scriptorium for several works took on a simplicity that foreshadowed the “Monochrome” style.37 Auberger contrasted the early illuminations from Cîteaux with those from Clairvaux in order to argue for two divergent schools of thought among the early Cistercians, one followed by Stephen and his companions and the other by Bernard and the later arrivals.38 Scholarship in this vein thus portrays the early workshop at Cîteaux as a dead end, interesting for its vibrancy but unconnected to the larger goals of the Cistercian movement as it developed over the course of the twelfth century. This outlook is similar to that espoused by scholars who see Bernard’s repudiation of the earliest Cistercian reform of the liturgy as a 35 See Uwe Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch: Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Quantitative und qualitative Aspekte, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 1: 199-202; the summation of scholarship on English Cistercian libraries in The Libraries of the Cistercians, Gilbertines and Premonstratensians, ed. David Bell, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 3 (London: The British Library, 1992), xxiii-xxvi; the French library collections catalogued by Anne Bondéelle-Souchier, Bibliothèques cisterciennes dans la France médiévale: Répertoire des Abbayes d’hommes (Paris: Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1991); and Nigel F. Palmer’s discussion of Cistercian book use in Zisterzienser und ihre Bücher: Die mittelalterliche Bibliotheksgeschichte von Kloster Eberbah im Rheingau unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der in Oxford und London aufbewahrten Hand­ schriften (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 1998), 153-170. 36 Diane J. Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” in A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 25 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 279-304 at 284-287. 37 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 81. 38 Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 222-223.

Introduction

25

signal that it had failed, rather than as an affirmation that Bernard agreed that close attention to the form and content of the liturgy was essential for the spiritual lives of reformed monks.39 Another approach examines discrete images or groups of images to understand them as tools for a specific spiritual goal or visual reflections of a current concern. Scholars sometimes extract a single miniature from an early Cîteaux manuscript in order to analyze its place in the chronological development of a motif or theme or its connection to historical events. 40 Examples of this approach include Margot Fassler’s study of the twelfthcentury development of the Tree of Jesse iconography, which includes two versions from Cîteaux (see Chapter 2, below), 41 and Walter Cahn’s interpretation of the Stephen Harding Bible’s Gospel of John initial (Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 56v), which situates it in the context of the twelfth-century emergence of heresy (discussed in Chapter 3). 42 Both are useful studies in their own right but do little to inform us about how the artworks were shaped by their Cistercian context. Similarly, Zaluska’s study of the scriptorium as a whole included iconographic analysis of many miniatures, particularly those from the Bible of Stephen Harding, with a particular emphasis on identifying sources of motifs. 43 She did not draw extensive connections either among the illuminations or between the illuminations and their early Cistercian context. Only recently have entire manuscripts or groups of manuscripts been studied as evidence for the early Cistercian experience. The most substantial of these studies is Conrad Rudolph’s work on the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (Dijon BM MSS 168, 169, 170, and 173). The remit he assigned himself was to explain the perplexingly violent and charmingly domestic scenes found in 39 Chrysogonus Waddell, who proclaimed that “the whole chant reform associated with St. Bernard’s name had been a terrible mistake,” agreed that even Bernard praised the motivations that had driven the earliest Cistercians to attempt their reform. “The Origin and Early Evolution of the Cistercian Antiphonary: Reflections on Two Cistercian Chant Reforms,” in The Cistercian Spirit: A Symposium in Memory of Thomas Merton (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 190-223 at 193-195. 40 See Alessia Trivellone’s critique of this approach in “La Bible de Étienne Harding et les origines de Cîteaux: perspectives de recherche,” Bulletin du centre d’études mediévales d’Auxerre 13 (2009): 1-14 at 3. 41 Margot Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity, Fulbert of Chartres, and the Stirps Jesse: Liturgical Innovation circa 1000 and Its Afterlife,” Speculum 75 (2000): 389-434 at 425 and 428. 42 Walter Cahn, “A Defense of the Trinity in the Cîteaux Bible,” Marsyas 11 (1962-1964): 58-62. Others have revisted this initial, including most recently Alessia Trivellone, L’hérétique imagine. Hétérodoxie et iconographie dans l’Occident médiéval, de l’époque carolingienne à l’Inquisition (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 174-188. 43 Zaluska, l’enluminure, 75-111, 134-142.

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

the manuscript in terms of monastic spiritual expression. In his interpretation, the imagery of violent spiritual struggle found in the Moralia was both traditionally Benedictine in its emphasis, and a precursor to Bernard of Clairvaux’s own use of this theme in his written work. 44 The miniatures were also directly related to the text they accompanied. While one can quibble with details of his interpretation (as I do in Chapter 3, below), in general Rudolph’s approach to the Moralia in Job is sound and convincing. Yet it cannot be extended easily to other products of the scriptorium and, in fact, Rudolph in some cases dismisses the possibility that miniatures in other Cîteaux manuscripts express the same spiritual theme. Rudolph’s study, like mine, connects the miniatures he studies to “Cistercian self-conception at a decisive moment in the history of the Order,”45 but although he uses several topical Cistercian texts, he identifies this spiritual theme in only one set of artworks. He links the scriptorium’s effort to copy and illustrate the text of the Moralia explicitly with the Cistercian order’s focus on reading and meditation, but sees the resulting manuscript as one monk’s idiosyncratic spiritual exercise. 46 Most recently, Alessia Trivellone has written a suite of articles dealing with the early Cîteaux manuscripts as a group and in particular with the Bible of Stephen Harding (Dijon BM MSS 12-15).47 Trivellone draws many connections between the iconography of the Cîteaux manuscripts, particularly the Stephen Harding Bible, and recognized Church and social movements of the twelfth century. These include disapproval in some monastic circles of the dialectical method; efforts to hold royalty to account as protectors 44 Conrad Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life: Reading, Art and Polemics in the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 6-7. 45 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 14. 46 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 86. 47 Alessia Trivellone, “La Bible d’Étienne,” 1-14; “Triomphe d’Esther, ambiguïté d’Assuérus. Église et royauté à Cîteaux, sous l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding,” Revue Mabillon 21 (2010): 79-104; “Cîteaux et l’église militante: ecclésiologie et altérité à travers les enluminures des manuscrits réalisés sous Étienne Harding (1108-1133),” Revue Historique 2011/4 (n. 660): 713-745, “‘Styles’ ou enlumineurs dans le scriptorium de Cîteaux? Pour une relecture des premières miniatures cisterciennes,” Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 43 (2012): 83-93; “Le corps dans les miniatures de Cîteaux, entre ‘naturalisme’ et discours moralisant,” Auvergne Sciences (2014): 129-144; “Images et exégèse monastique dans la Bible d’Étienne Harding,” in L’exégèse monastique au moyen âge (XIe-XIVe siècle), eds. Gilbert Dahan and Annie Noblesse-Rocher, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Moyen Âge et Temps Modernes 51 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2014), 85-111; and “Culte des saints et construction identitaire à Cîteaux: Les images de Jérôme dans les manuscrits réalisés sous l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding,” in Normes et hagiographie dans l’Occident latin (VIe-XVIe siècle), eds. Marie-Céline Isaïa and Thomas Granier, Hagiologia 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 215-234.

Introduction

27

of the Church, and to defend it from persecution by its enemies; the rise of anti-Judaism; a monastic preference for the four-fold method of scriptural exegesis; rejection of the sins of lust and gluttony; and support for female monasticism. While in many cases Trivellone does succeed in framing the early Cîteaux imagery within these general trends, at almost no point does she link a specific motivation for an iconographical choice to Cistercian evidence from the period in which the manuscript in question was illuminated. Trivellone most often relies on records from a decade, or many decades, after the manuscripts were produced, 48 or tentative reconstructions of the early experiences of Stephen Harding from before he arrived at Molesme.49 The earliest goals of the members of this tiny community are difficult to reconstruct, as in the first years they were more concerned with the process of setting up the New Monastery than with chronicling their efforts. Scholars now agree that the first surviving descriptions that the Cistercians themselves wrote about their aims are hopelessly compromised as primarysource documents of the attitudes of the original founding monks;50 copied and revised decades after the monks left Molesme and founded the New Monastery, they constitute a recasting of early Cistercian history from the viewpoint of an established movement. Scholars also debate whether the first founders of Cîteaux envisioned their movement as a coherent “order,” and when such an order began to take shape.51 This question is important to understanding how and when uniformity of practice was enforced among 48 For instance, Trivellone (“Triomphe d’Esther”) suggests that depictions of the biblical rulers Ahasuerus, Solomon, David, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, and Herod in the Stephen Harding Bible set up a somewhat ambiguous dichotomy of good and bad kings based on each king’s willingness to defend or persecute the “church,” and connects this to Stephen Harding’s Anglo-Saxon origins and his argument, articulated in a letter from 1129, that Louis VI had infringed on the rights of the Church. This is one conceivable explanation for the choice to illustrate these rulers in the Bible, but it is not supported by any contemporary witness aside from the images themselves. I will address her other hypotheses where relevant in the following chapters. 49 The most striking example of this is her assertion that the Gospel of John initial in the Stephen Harding Bible (Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 56v) demonstrates Stephen’s personal antipathy to the dialectical method, which he must have encountered on his undocumented European wanderings following his departure from the Abbey of Sherborne and prior to his profession at Molesme. Alessia Trivellone, L’hérétique imagine, 174-188, reprised in “La Bible d’Étienne Harding,” 8-9, “Cîteaux et l’église militante,” 732-736, and “Images et exégèse monastique,” 92. 50 See the analysis of the distinction between the monastery’s earliest founders and those who arrived subsequently, described as the “principal founders” in the foundation documents, by Conrad Rudolph, “The ‘Principal Founders’ and the Early Artistic Legislation of Cîteaux,” in Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture 3, Cistercian Studies 89 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 1-33. 51 Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order, 19-25.

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

the houses later described as “Cistercian,” but impacts very little upon our understanding of the artworks created by the first monks at the New Monastery. Unlike the later documents that purport to describe the order’s early history, descriptions of discrete efforts to reform individual texts and practices, such as the Bible and the hymnbook, survive from the monastery’s first decades and offer insights into what role these texts were intended to play in the lives of the New Monastery’s monks. The contents of the surviving manuscripts, including many of the images that embellish them, the tonic accents, and the characteristically Cistercian punctuation that litter the pages,52 as well as the texts that described efforts to assemble and edit staples of monastic reading such as the Bible, antiphonal, and hymnbook, all provide clues that during the abbacies of Alberic and Stephen Harding the New Monastery’s occupants were preoccupied with what they said and heard in the course of their observances.

Voice and Memory at Cîteaux The context in which the reading took place and the structure of the service confirm that, as Leclercq suggested, choir lections were considered both prayer and lesson: the lections read in the choir were surrounded by and paired with prayers and chants that formed an interpretive frame. Scripture lections, read either in the choir or in Chapter, were often followed by homilies that explained their content.53 While Patristic and Carolingian sermons may appear to take the form of an “implied dialogue” addressed to an “imaginary audience,”54 the ubiquity of homilies in the Night Office lectionaries that structured the readings in monasteries, and the homiliaries produced to assemble these readings, testify to the fact that oral exegesis 52 See Nigel Palmer, “Simul cantemus, simul pausemus: Zur mittelalterlichen Zisterzienserinterpunktion,” in Lesevorgänge: Prozesse des Erkennens in mittelalterlichen Texten, Bildern und Handschriften, ed. Martina Backes and Eckart Conrad Lutz (Zürich: Chronos, 2009), 483-570, and Leonard Boyle, ‘Vox Paginae’: An Oral Dimension of Texts, Conferenze 16 (Rome: Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia Storia et Storia dell’Arte in Roma, 1999). See also Jan M. Ziolkowski, Nota Bene: Reading Classics and Writing Melodies in the Early Middle Ages, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 15-16, on the various ways in which neumes and superlinear markings were intended to function. 53 For an introduction to Chapter readings, see Webber, “Reading in the Refectory,” 8-9; for choir reading, see below, Chapter 1. 54 Robertson, Lectio Divina, xvi.

Introduction

29

on Scripture was one of the centerpieces of the monastic cursus.55 The foundation of Cîteaux and subsequent development of the Cistercian order coincided with the growth of urban universities and the individual (and comparably silent) study of texts.56 Nonetheless, the evidence that remains from early Cîteaux points to a form of education that relied more heavily on oral performance and aural experience than on solitary reading.57 In this respect, as in others, the abbey was not innovative, but, rather, quintessentially Benedictine.58 The biggest change was that at Cîteaux the monks ceased to educate boys, and so the students were adults. The surviving manuscripts from the first decades of the New Monastery appear to have provided the texts for the components of choir and refectory reading which could neither routinely be memorized, nor were sung using complex melodies. With the exception of an early Psalter (Dijon BM MS 30, from Saint-Vaast in Arras), all the manuscripts from Cîteaux itself that would have recorded the shorter and more easily memorized chants and prayers are lost. The comprehensive reform of the chant repertoire not long after Stephen’s death also creates stumbling blocks for those who seek to identify musical symbolism such as contrafacts – the practice of using melodic quotations which, when sung, could cue memories of other, related feasts.59 The words of the memorized chants and their distribution throughout the office, on the other hand, can be reconstructed, and it is clear that Stephen and his contemporaries were just as concerned with chant texts as with the lections provided by the preserved manuscripts. It is with the impact of these words on the Cîteaux manuscripts, rather than with the music to which they were set, that I am most concerned.

55 Beverly Mayne Kienzle, “The Twelfth-Century Monastic Sermon,” in The Sermon, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, fasc. 81-83 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 271-323, esp. 281. 56 Martha G. Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform 1098-1180 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), esp. 37-41, explores in detail the contrast between Cistercian monasteries and urban schools. 57 Diane J. Reilly, “Education, Liturgy and Practice in Early Cîteaux,” in Understanding Mo­ nastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries), ed. Steven Vanderputten, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 85-114. 58 Katherine Zieman, Singing the New Song: Literacy and Liturgy in Late Medieval England, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 11-13, points out that Archbishop Leidrad, who founded song schools in Lyon, argued as early as the eighth century that his students learned to sing and read lections as a step towards spiritual understanding. 59 The classic study of this second reform is Claire Maître, La réforme cistercienne du plain-chant: Étude d’un traité théorique, Cîteaux: Studia et Documenta 6 (Brecht: Commentarii cistercienses, 1995).

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

As in other Benedictine monasteries, memorization allowed the Cîteaux monks to participate in the service in unison. Before individual missals and breviaries became ubiquitous in the thirteenth century and beyond, memorization of the chants and prayers that formed the predictable backbone of the choir observance was a practical necessity. All the same, it would be a mistake to regard the practice of memorizing a large body of chants, and the rush to create manuscripts for communal lection reading, as merely expedient choices.60 In the twelfth century, the memorization of vast quantities of text was considered a necessary stage in the process of internalization of and meditation upon its content.61 The chants that monks memorized were often either excerpted directly from Scripture or echoed it closely. In singing the chants, monks recalled to mind the words they had already digested, singing them for others to hear rather than murmuring them quietly as in individual reading. Along with the Psalms, then, the Cîteaux monks had, so to speak, a vast repertoire of Scripture excerpts at their mental fingertips, and participated in using them to frame the lections from the Bible and Patristics which were read or sung aloud. These combinations of texts, which were created when they were sung and heard in the choir, but otherwise at this time existed only piecemeal in the books from which a cantor drew to construct the service, found a visual outlet in the manuscripts that were decorated in the Cîteaux scriptorium nearby. Recent scholarship on manuscripts intended for monastic use has linked choir practice and what we see in the manuscripts that survive. For instance, Michael Curschmann revealed how the twelfth-century artist who illuminated a copy of Anselm’s Orationes sive meditationes for the nunnery at Admont not only drew inspiration from the liturgy in designing the imagery, but even added (or instructed a scribe to add) musical neumes above the tituli inscribed in the rotuli that wind through each illumination.62 Because the manuscript has not been firmly localized, Curschmann mined 60 Jean Leclercq suggested that communal reading of Patristic texts was motivated primarily by economic necessity in “Textes et manuscrits cisterciens dans des bibliothèques des ÉtatsUnis,” Traditio 17 (1961): 163-183 at 174. See Anna Maria Busse Berger’s argument against the presumption that memorization of chant became the norm simply because the monks lacked enough manuscripts in Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), especially 47-50. 61 Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), especially 156-188. 62 Admont, Stiftsbibliothek 289. Michael Curschmann, “Integrating Anselm: pictures and the liturgy in a twelfth-century manuscript of the ‘Orationes sive meditationes’,” in Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music, and Sound, eds. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 295-312.

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references to the liturgy from the surviving corpus of medieval chants as a whole, rather than from a cursus specific to any one house. Nonetheless, like the Cîteaux manuscripts, the Admont Anselm demonstrates the power of what Curschman calls “liturgical memory” to shape a manuscript’s visual program, even when the manuscript itself wasn’t intended to provide texts for the services its miniatures echoed. Remarkably, although the manuscript is embellished with images of monks, nuns, canons and canonesses communally at prayer, the petite dimensions of the book reveal that it could not have been used by more than two nuns simultaneously, differentiating it from the monumental early Cîteaux volumes.63 In contrast, the thirteenth-century Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock was probably intended to be used in the choir. Like the Admont Anselm, the illuminations in this Mass chant book bristle with rotuli that quote directly from the liturgy, in this case often borrowing from the chants that surround the image. The tituli also echo the biblical lections read in the choir and refectory, and were, as Judith Oliver points out, “composed from memory, based on the scribe’s intimate knowledge of liturgical texts,”64 even though by the time this manuscript was made the nuns often relied on a choirbook such as this in addition to memorizing many of the chants.65 Unlike with Curschmann’s study of the Admont Anselm, Oliver was able to reconstruct references to the Mass liturgy specific to Gisela’s house, the Cistercian nunnery of Rulle, using the gradual itself. For those apparently inspired by the Office she turned to more general sources. The assembly of texts and images formed “visual sermons” that commented on the feast being celebrated when the nuns opened the gradual to each image.66 These two manuscripts, both made for the use of nuns, affirm the importance of the spoken and sung word by picturing it as just that, in the form of speech scrolls. The illustrations of a fourteenth-century gradual from Paradies bei Soest also teem with inscriptions in bandaroles and speech scrolls. Taken primarily from the Divine Office, Gospel and Epistle lections, and patristic and later exegesis, the texts serve as a commentary on the liturgy, and “represent an unprecedented and unparalleled attempt to articulate the underlying symbolic 63 Curschmann, “Integrating Anselm,” 308. Dorothy M. Shepard, “Conventual use of St. Anselm’s Prayers and Meditations,” Rutgers Art Review 9-10 (1988-1989): 1-16, agreed that the dimensions of the manuscript indicated it was intended only for individual use. 64 Judith H. Oliver, Singing with Angels: Liturgy, Music and Art in the Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 74-91, quote at 82. 65 Oliver notes that many of the chants in the gradual are abbreviated to the incipit alone, meaning the nuns would have had to recall the rest (Oliver, Singing with Angels, 28). 66 Oliver, Singing with Angels, 91.

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structure of the liturgy,” according to the team of scholars who have studied it most recently.67 While in this Dominican gradual the exegesis likely studied by the nuns has crept into the imagery adjoining the liturgy, in the Cîteaux manuscripts the influence has moved in the other direction: echos of the liturgy have infused the illuminations found in the exegetical manuscripts.

Meditations on the Song of Songs I first became interested in the phenomenon of the visual echo of texts that were read aloud at Cîteaux when I sought to explain an image used to illuminate the biblical Song of Songs in the eleventh-century Saint-Vaast Bible, and to contextualize it among French Bibles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.68 Years of work with Romanesque Bible manuscripts had accustomed me to their variety. Each Bible manuscript was assembled according to the means and needs of its scriptorium and the use for which is was intended, meaning that the models from which these Bibles were copied and the order in which their component parts were compiled could vary dramatically. The Song of Songs, a difficult text filled with passages that can be understood as erotic, was emblematic of this. Although the Scripture of the Song of Songs remains relatively constant from one manuscript to the next, rubrics inserted into the text to identify the speakers of its first-person dialogue differ depending upon which of the rubric sets in circulation was adopted by the scribe. These rubrics identify characters such as Christus and Ecclesia, or, less specifically, a Sponsus and a Sponsa, as the speakers. As Chrysogonus Waddell pointed out in his examination of the Song of Songs illumination in the Stephen Harding Bible (Figure 2, Dijon BM MS 14, fol. 60r), a set of reading directions found in a twelfth-century manuscript from the Cistercian abbey of Vauclair (Laon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 471, fol. 101v) instructed the weekly refectory reader to read these rubrics aloud along with the main text, ensuring that the primary means for the monks’ experience of the Scripture text was in this emended state.69 67 Dusseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek D 11. Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Eva Schlotheuber, Susan Marti and Margot E. Fassler, Liturgical Life and Latin Learning at Paradies bei Soest, 1300-1425. Inscription and Illumination in the Choir Books of a North German Dominican Convent, 2 vols. (Münster: Aschendorff, 2016), I: 736. 68 Arras, Médiathèque MS 559, vol. 2, fol. 141v. Diane J. Reilly, “Picturing the Monastic Drama: Romanesque Illustrations of the Song of Songs,” Word & Image 17 (2001): 389-400. 69 Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Song of Songs in the Stephen Harding Bible,” Liturgy 18 (1984): 27-67.

Introduction

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Figure 2 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 60r

The Stephen Harding Bible’s rubrics are a variant on a standard and popular set already in circulation by the ninth century, in which a scribe’s earlier intervention removed some rubrics and replaced others, with the result that the first four verses of the book’s text became an explicit comparison between Ecclesia and Synagoga. This comparison is depicted

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in the Stephen Harding Bible’s illumination, suggesting that the artist either designed his illustration to echo what he had heard in the refectory, or that he read ahead into the manuscript’s text before he started to draw. Which of these two situations occurred, however, is impossible to say, and the interesting afterlife of this image only complicates things further. Bernard of Clairvaux arrived at Cîteaux by 1113 and, already well educated, would have participated in choir services and the obligatory refectory reading between his arrival and his subsequent departure, in 1115, to become the founding abbot of Clairvaux. Bernard’s fourteenth sermon on the Song of Songs commences with the explanation De iudicio Ecclesia vel Synagogae exhibito, in which he dwells on Christ’s rejection of Synagoga and mercy towards Ecclesia as he explains the book’s f irst three verses. Oddly, Bernard does not address the fourth verse, the one to which the Synagoga label was attached in the Bible, in this sermon, and when he did so in other sermons, he chose a different interpretation: he identified the speaker of the verse as the repentant sinner or the mystical bride. Nonetheless, it seems more than coincidence that the very theme suggested by the miniature and the text as it would have been heard found its way into Bernard’s own exegesis.70

The Plan of Action In this study I seek to identify tangible links between what was heard at Cîteaux, what was painted, and how the earliest Cistercian monks thought about communal reading and singing. Although the impetus behind the monks’, artists’, and editors’ choices may have been a desire for a heightened spiritual experience, I am less concerned with the outcome of that experience than I am with the means they used to achieve it. In Chapter 1 I begin by setting out what is known about what the monks heard in the choir and refectory. Using the Matins Office for Advent as a starting point, I explain the chant and lection components of the service, and how they can be reconstructed from the surviving evidence. The choice of Advent was guided in large part by the 70 Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux,” 300-302. On the Song of Songs I, 97-98. Chrysogonus Waddell noted several instances in which Bernard expected his listeners to connect the words in his sermons to the lections, Psalms, and chants heard in the Office, by echoing words and phrases or imitating the rhetorical style of a reading. “The Liturgical Dimension of Twelfth-Century Cistercian Preaching,” in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 335-349 at 342-344.

Introduction

35

existence of Margot Fassler’s The Virgin of Chartres,71 a foundational study of the Office at Chartres Cathedral, its historical context, and the mirroring of Office components composed specifically for Chartres in artworks created both there and elsewhere. Fassler’s masterful analysis provides a model for this type of detailed excavation of chants and lections, and indicates how the Office can be used both to illuminate the understanding the singers brought to what they saw, and to suggest how they chose to visualize their beliefs in art. Fassler’s thorough explanation of the Advent celebration at Chartres allows one to compare that service with Advent at Cîteaux, throwing into sharp relief the differences in practice between the two communities, as well as the differences in the texts utilized by each community reflected in their respective artworks, as will be revealed in more detail in Chapter 3. Fassler contextualizes the Office chants and their related images within the political and theological currents of tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfthcentury Chartres and its region as a means of understanding how they were used to create history. In contrast, I focus more narrowly on the Cîteaux monks’ choice of chants and lections (in particular those made by Abbot Stephen Harding, who led the charge to edit Scripture and rework chants), and what these choices tell us about how the community interpreted its own efforts. Cîteaux’s Advent chants and lections suggest a subtle emphasis on voice and speech – that is, on mouths and ears. While this may have been intentional, it may also have been the serendipitous result of a juxtaposition of chants and lections chosen with some other theme in mind. Chapter 2 connects the monastery’s focus on the quality of what was heard in the choir and refectory to the community’s clear preoccupation with St. Jerome. Jerome’s edition of the Bible, his commentaries on the Bible, and his explanations of his translation and editorial principles appear to have guided Stephen and his monks in their own scriptorium practices, and they commemorated their debt to him, as far as can be determined by the surviving manuscripts, by depicting him more frequently than any other Patristic author in the manuscripts they created. In Chapter 3 I return to the season of Advent and add to it the feasts of Christmas and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, and trace the influence of the Matins Offices celebrated on these days upon the depictions of the Virgin found in Second Style manuscripts illuminated in the scriptorium’s early decades. The Cîteaux artists created two unique depictions of the newly popular iconography of the Jesse Tree, a symbolic visual fusion of Mary, 71 Margot Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

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a selection of virtues, Old Testament prefigurations or ancestors, and the vine that springs from the “root” of King David’s father, Jesse. The Cîteaux Jesse Trees depart dramatically from the near-contemporary versions found at Chartres, Saint-Denis and elsewhere, which, as Fassler has shown, echo the focus on the Virgin’s genealogy found in texts composed by Fulbert of Chartres. At Cîteaux, the artists instead created Trinitarian images that lauded Christ’s priesthood, and depicted the first virgo lactans found in Western Europe, painting it immediately above the text of the very sermon penned by Fulbert of Chartres for the Nativity of the Virgin which probably inspired the genealogical Jesse Trees so popular elsewhere. These choices reflect the contents of Cîteaux’s Advent and Christmas Offices, and especially the readings and chants assigned to the Ember days, which appear to have echoed in the minds of the artists even when they encountered a text composed for a different feast. As with the Stephen Harding Bible’s Song of Songs illumination, either these miniatures or the chants and lections that inspired them seem to have had special meaning for Bernard of Clairvaux. In sermons composed many years later, Bernard recalled and pondered these same unusual themes when confronting the Scripture passages to which they were related. Emma Dillon has explored the blossoming of references to sound in thirteenth-century prayerbooks, when “a noisy orchestra of fantastical and outrageous sonorities transformed the soundscape of prayer,” as reflections of “contexts vibrating with sound.”72 Visual ruminations on the importance of the oral appear likewise in the early Cîteaux manuscripts, though they take a very different form from the cacophony of instrumentalists, shouting humans, and barking animals populating the margins of the prayerbooks that Dillon describes. In Chapter 4 I explain the many ways in which the Cîteaux artists expressed a preoccupation with biting, chewing, and swallowing, and the connection of their images with the oral transmission of Scripture. Painted initials from the scriptorium’s first decades repeat the theme of chewing the Scripture, either with human and animal heads biting berries, fruit, and greens that spring from the actual letters that compose the text, or with Evangelist symbols and their ilk consuming books. Biting animal heads were ubiquitous in manuscript illumination of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; what separates the Cîteaux biting creatures from their brethren elsewhere is the connection between what they do and eat and the words of the adjacent text. While Conrad Rudolph has dismissed the Stephen Harding Bible’s biting, hacking, and 72 Emma Dillon, The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260-1330, The New Cultural History of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 186, 190, and 175-242 more generally.

Introduction

37

harvesting initials (in contrast to those in the near-contemporary Moralia in Job from the same scriptorium) as unrelated to the texts they introduce,73 I find many links between the themes in the text and the hungry chewing and speaking inhabitants of the monastery’s initials. Other miniatures from the scriptorium express the power of the spoken word, the “performative utterance,” as the animating force in God’s actions. For instance, in the initial prefacing the Book of Luke in the Stephen Harding Bible, two Gospel moments in which God’s will is enacted through the voice of an angel, the Annunciations to Zachariah and Mary, are juxtaposed and contrasted with the suicide of Herod, shown here as the ultimate result of the sin of gluttony. This would have been an object lesson for the monks who heard these sections of Scripture read in the refectory. In a similar vein is the historiated initial prefacing the Book of John, one of the most discussed miniatures from early Cîteaux, which brings together many of the themes woven throughout the scriptorium’s corpus: The seated, tonsured monk at the center of the initial holds a heretical statement written on a rotulus; his eyes, ears, and mouth are pierced by the claws of the evangelist symbol, the eagle, who grasps a rotulus inscribed with the first words of the Gospel of John, In principio erat verbum, countering the heresy offered by the monk. This interpretation is already well known in scholarship, where the seated figure is often misidentified as the heretic Arius.74 As with the Jesse Tree images and the initial prefacing the Book of Luke, the key to understanding the eagle’s violent attack and the true identity of the seated figure is found in the Cîteaux Office. The first words of the Book of John echoed throughout the Christmas season, repeated in chants and lections that argued vigorously against heresy. The monks themselves sang these words, heard them, digested them, and pondered them, using all the sense organs touched in the image by the eagle’s claws. In the conclusion, I briefly visit other avenues that could be explored in order to understand the role of the senses in the creation of art and text at Cîteaux, though this generally remains beyond the remit of the present study.

After Early Cîteaux Cîteaux’s artistic passion for oral and aural themes appears to have had little impact on the manuscripts decorated at its first daughter houses. 73 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, especially 23-24. 74 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 110, and Chapter 3.

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Cistercian monasteries soon ceased altogether to include figural imagery in their artwork, likely in response to legislation favoring aniconic imagery.75 As far as we can tell from what little survives, only the scriptorium at La Ferté-sur-Grosne, founded as a daughter of Cîteaux in 1112 or 1113, produced manuscripts sporting complex figurative initials. La Ferté’s three-volume Moralia in Job (Chalon-sur-Saône, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 7, 8, 9) was likely copied from Cîteaux’s example of the Moralia in Job sometime around 1134, and was illuminated using a style related to Cîteaux’s Second Style, but its miniatures are predominantly devoted to scenes of Job and his interlocutors.76 At Cîteaux itself, artists switched to the austere Monochrome Style, with letters made using only one color, though often elaborated with spirals, palmettes, and leaf forms lent three-dimensionality by painted combs and hatching. The isolation of the early Cîteaux manuscripts within the Cistercian movement makes it difficult to trace the artistic impact of Cîteaux’s early thematic focus. Cîteaux’s daughter houses were founded by migrants from Cîteaux, indoctrinated to follow strictly the practices already in place at the mother house, meaning that these monks likely heard and sang the same words, and that many had seen the manuscripts from which those words were read in choir and refectory. Even the chants and lections they adopted were winnowed from the preexisting Benedictine repertoire, so that in large part these were similar to what other Benedictine monks heard, although rearranged to create new emphases, and set to new music. For this reason, it would not be surprising to find similar visual references to oral and aural experiences and the power of the spoken word in art from other scriptoria. At the inception of Cîteaux, while the monks there contemplated what their new movement should be and how their corporate life should be lived, they no doubt had little time to discuss whether pictures of chewing heads encapsulated their most profound ideals; for a group of artists, however, the process of distinguishing the New Monastery from other monasteries, whether consciously or unconsciously, shaped a unique body of art.

75 Rudolph, “The ‘Principle Founders’,” investigates the many conflicting datings assigned to this legislation. 76 Auberger, L’unanimité cistercienne, 205-211, Zaluska, L’enluminure, 260, and Martine Portelli, “Les manuscrits du XIIe siècle produits par l’abbaye de la Ferté-sur-Grosne, première fille de Cîteaux,” Scriptorium 57 (2003): 89-94.

1

The Joy of Psalmody Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.1

At least an hour into the Night Off ice on the f irst night of Advent, the monks of the New Monastery at Cîteaux sang in unison a chant that quoted directly from the Vulgate’s Psalm 94, verse 2. A standard responsory verse sung in cathedrals and Benedictine monasteries throughout Western Europe on the first night of the church year, it proclaimed the joy of the monks as they anticipated the arrival of their redeemer at Christmas, and described their means of celebration: singing the Psalms. Waiting in joyful anticipation of the advent of God, the monks proclaimed again and again in chants like this that the Lord’s arrival was imminent, and that it was the responsibility of his people to announce it. Like their fellow monks and canons across the continent, the first Cistercians followed a liturgy that they had largely inherited from their predecessors. As Advent began in monastic and cathedral choirs dotting the landscape, monks and canons sang the same chants and heard many of the same readings. Yet an individual cantor could reorder the chants at will, set them to different melodies, and replace one reading with another, creating new emphases and different aural experiences of text so that each monastery’s celebration of Advent was unique. At Cîteaux in its f irst decades just such a reworking took place. In this chapter I will outline how the Night Office liturgy was practiced at twelfth-century Cîteaux, and what sources can help us to reconstruct it. A comparison between the Advent Night Office as it was celebrated at Cîteaux and the same Office celebrated at the cathedral of Chartres will reveal the distinctiveness of Cîteaux’s newly reformed liturgy, which seems to have intentionally foregrounded the theme of spoken and sung words. Once the basic armature of the liturgy is in place we will be able to appreciate the unusually prominent role played by Jerome and his editorial work in the aural and visual heritage of Cîteaux, explained in the next chapter. First, we need to understand the liturgical context into which Jerome’s words, and the images they inspired, were set.

1

Preocupemus faciem eius in confessione, et in psalmis iubilemus ei. Can 007562a.

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The Night Office The early Cistercian Night Office in its basic outline followed the norms that had been established for Benedictine monasteries over the previous several hundred years.2 Every night of the year, the monks arose from their beds in the dormitory at the sound of a bell or the shaking of a clapper, and entered the choir, following a carefully scripted set of movements, which they shared with most other Benedictine monks of the period.3 Performing a series of choreographed turns and bows, the monks took their places in the choirstalls, and the Office, also called Matins, began. Designated monks sang a string of prayers, including the Credo, the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria, a hymn, and an invitatory, or invitation to prayer, specific to Matins. Then, following the lead of the abbot, the monks sang the first of the assigned antiphons, launching the first of between one and four “nocturns,” the suite of sung texts that formed the bulk of the Night Office. These included antiphons, meaning brief snippets of text, sung to a memorized syllabic melody, and usually drawn either from the Psalms that followed or from other parts of Scripture; Psalms, as assigned to each day by Saint Benedict, sung using memorized “Psalm tones”; versicles, short biblical phrases simply sung; blessings taken from an established repertoire; lections intoned using a single repeating note, sometimes with a falling cadence at the end of a sentence or phrase; and great (or “prolix”) responsories with their accompanying verses and refrains – repeated excerpts from the responsories that had preceded the verses. The responsory/verse pairs that framed the lections were sung using elaborate melodies – often ornamented with lengthy melismatic passages, in which the singer lingered over a single syllable while performing many different notes.4 No monk was to intone more than one lection within 2 A preliminary study that reveals how closely Cistercian liturgical practice aligned with older Benedictine customs is Bruno Schneider, “Cîteaux und die benediktinische Tradition: Die Quellenfrage des Liber usuum im Lichte der Consuetudines monasticae,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 16, fasc. 3-4 (1960) and 17, fasc. 1-2 (1961). 3 Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia Cisterciensis Ordinis’ des Cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 153-288 at 230-233. 4 Susan Boynton, “The Bible and the Liturgy,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception and Performance in Western Christianity, eds. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 10-33; and Lila Collamore, “Charting the Divine Office,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, eds. Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3-11, provide useful and accessible outlines of the parts of the Office of Matins. More detailed descriptions of each chant genre can be found in David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 46-295.

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the same nocturn or sing more than one great responsory, meaning that the work of singing the service was to be spread out among the professed brothers.5 The number of nocturns performed, and the number of lections contained in each nocturn, was dictated by the status of the day. While on an ordinary weekday, a single nocturn with three lections drawn from a book of Scripture sufficed, on the Sunday of a feast such as Advent, the weekly reader intoned three nocturns, each comprising four Scripture passages or homilies, or, on the feast day of a saint, passages from his or her vita, followed by the Gospel pericope of the day, all surrounded by a lengthy series of sung chants. Unlike the liturgy of the Mass, the text of which was prescribed and closely monitored by Rome, the liturgy of the Office could be tailored to the desires of each individual foundation.6 The choice of antiphons, responsories, and other chants tended to follow those suggested by books the monastery inherited at the time of its foundation, or sought from a source considered authoritative. The choice of which readings should populate the Night Office was left either to the discretion of the cantor or of his superior; he was often inspired by the traditions in which he and his monks had been schooled and the books they had to hand, all of which built on the foundations offered by the Benedictine Rule: “Books of divine authority should be read at Vigils, from both the Old and New Testaments, and also commentaries on them written by well-known orthodox Catholic Fathers.”7 Benedict’s instructions on appropriate readings for the Night Office were so laconic, however, that churchmen felt the need to develop handbooks and ordines to provide a structure for the array of Scripture and homiliary literature from which they could choose. By as early as the eighth century, ordines librorum, which distributed the Scripture readings throughout the year in the Night Office and the refectory, were mandated by leading churches such as St. Peter’s in Rome. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries these ordines were often transcribed into lectern Bibles or incorporated into customaries.8 5 Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 232. 6 Eric Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998), 159. 7 The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. and trans. Bruce L. Venarde, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 6 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 58-61 8 Diane J. Reilly, “The Cluniac Giant Bible and the Ordo librorum ad legendum: A Reassessment of Monastic Bible Reading and Cluniac Customary Instructions,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: the Medieval Cluniac Customs/Du cour de la nuit à la fin du jour: les coutumes clunisiennes au Moyen Age, eds. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina Monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 163-189, passim.

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Homiliaries, such as the compilation made by Paul the Deacon, assembled readings appropriate to each season that could be paired with Scripture, especially the Gospel lections that closed the Night Office. The length of each reading was also a matter of choice and varied from one institution to another. Monks who visited unfamiliar houses sometimes commented on the surprisingly short or tediously lengthy readings they encountered there. Before the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when breviaries, which aggregated all or most of the material necessary for the Office, became common, the cantor, whose responsibility it was to prepare the texts for the reader, might have referred to a guide listing the incipit and explicit of each reading, or even simply guessed at the appropriate length.9 The cantor or sacristan could have signalled the lector to cease reading with a nod or ringing of a bell.10 Others marked the beginning and end of each reading directly into the margins of the relevant manuscript with ink or a simple drypoint X. That subsequent cantors sometimes disagreed with the choices made by their predecessors is revealed by manuscript margins sporting sequences of abrasions where lection marks have been erased. Both modern scholars and medieval observers credited Cîteaux’s founders with undertaking a thorough overhaul of the Divine Office. As part of their effort to return to the Office as they imagined it was experienced by Benedict and his companions at Subiaco and Montecassino, the monks, probably led by their second permanent abbot, Stephen Harding, sought out an early Ambrosian hymnal, which they believed they could secure in Milan, and an early antiphonal, acquired from Metz.11 The reworked hymns and chants that resulted from this antiquarian activity were allegedly so different from 9 “Night Off ice Lectionary,” 85-86. Tellingly, the breviary is not listed among the books mandated by the Exordium Cistercii for a newly founded Cistercian abbey, while the books that would have provided the necessary texts, including a Psalter, hymnal, antiphonal, collectar, gradual, and missal, as well as a Gospel book, “book of choir readings,” martyrology, calendar, and Rule, are (Exordium Cistercii, no. 10, Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, Studia et Documenta 9 [Nuits-Saint-George: Cîteaux: Commentarii Cisterciensis, 1999], 26). Similarly, in its description of the role of the cantor, the Ecclesiastica Officia specifies that he is responsible for keeping track of the antiphonary, hymnal, gradual, lectionary, collectary, and calendar, as well as the books that are read in the refectory and at collation, but says nothing about a breviary (Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 275). 10 Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 232, 274. 11 For introductions to this reform and its notoriety at the time, see Bede K. Lackner, “The Liturgy of Early Cîteaux,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History Presented to Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan Cistercian Studies 13 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 1-34 at 7-8; Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience of the Liturgy,” in Rule and Life. An Interdisciplinary Symposium (CS 12), ed. Basil Pennington (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 77-116;

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those to which their contemporaries were accustomed that Abelard, who had been irked by Bernard of Clairvaux’s critique of the version of the Lord’s Prayer which he had recommended to the nuns of La Paraclete, complained to Bernard that the Cistercians celebrated the Divine Office in a manner that was overly innovative, particularly in its choice of hymns, its lack of litanies for the saints, and the absence of its commemorations of the Virgin Mary.12 Bernard himself grumbled that the antiphonary his predecessors had imported from Metz was “unsatisfactory: texts and melodies were found to be corrupt, quite badly structured, and deserving of contempt in almost every respect.”13 Others observed that the monks of Cîteaux had truncated their observances so much that they gained several extra hours of sleep a night.14 In reality, the early Cistercian liturgical reform was not a revolution but a process of refining and streamlining a pre-existing system. The monks had arrived at Cîteaux with a complement of books taken from, and later restored to, Molesme.15 Even as their original leader, Abbot Robert, and many of his brethren returned to Molesme, the monks were allowed to retain Robert’s breviary long enough to finish copying it, revealing that these first reformers didn’t set out with the intention of inventing their liturgy from scratch. As will become clear, the founders eventually adapted the homiliary, Psalm cycle, and Scripture reading cycle to which they were accustomed to a standard Office structure, inserting antiphons and pruning away ceremonies that they found superfluous, such as Offices for the dead. They inserted a tiny repertoire of thirty-three hymns imported from Milan and believed to be authentically Ambrosian.16 What remained was a Divine Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 59-60; and Claire Maître, La réforme cistercienne du plain-chant. Étude d’un traité théorique, Studia et Documenta 6 (Brecht: Commentarii cistercienses, 1995). 12 See Lackner, “The Liturgy,” 17; Chrysogonus Waddell, “Peter Abelard’s Letter 10 and Cistercian Liturgical Reform,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History 2, ed. John Summerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 75-86; and Letter 10 in Letters of Peter Abelard: Beyond the Personal, trans. and intr. Jan Ziolkowski (Washington: Catholic University Press, 2012), 75-98. 13 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 31. Bernard of Clairvaux, “Prologue to the Cistercian Antiphonary,” trans. Chrysogonus Waddell, The Words of Bernard of Clairvaux I, Treatises I, ed. M. Basil Pennington, Cistercian Fathers Series 1 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 161. Itaque examinatus displicuit, eo quod et cantu, et littera inventum sit vitiosum, et incompositum nimis, ac paene per omnia contemptibile. SBO 3, repr. Bernard de Clairvaux, Office de Saint Victor, Prologue à l’antiphonaire, Lettre 398, SC 527 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2009), 116. 14 Lackner, “The Liturgy,” 19. 15 Waddell has explored in multiple studies the many ways in which the Cistercians drew on their Benedictine liturgical heritage. See especially Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience,” 80-81, 92-93. 16 Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Origin and Early Evolution of the Cistercian Antiphonary: Reflections on Two Cistercian Chant Reforms,” in The Cistercian Spirit: A Symposium in Memory of

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Office liturgy tightly focused on Scripture and Patristics, as the Benedictine Rule prescribed.

Reconstructing Advent at Cîteaux In its celebration of the season of Advent, as in other seasons, the early Cistercians simultaneously embraced the liturgical norms they had inherited from the houses in which the monastery’s founders had spent much of their monastic careers, and charted a new course in their choice of chants. A rich liturgical tradition surrounding Advent had developed in the Christian west from the fourth century onwards, with coherent themes tied to fasting, penitence, and the anticipation of the Nativity.17 The season of Advent signalled both the start of the liturgical calendar and the coming of the Messiah. Its identification with the concept of arrival contributed to the multiplicity of other biblical references found in its liturgy: to the Incarnation; to Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem; to his Second Coming; and to the prophetic role of John the Baptist.18 Different houses could emphasize one or more of these themes through their choices of antiphons, lections, and responsories, thus tailoring their celebrations of the Office to the saints and holidays with which they most identified.19 For this reason, the study of a foundation’s unique development of the Advent service can reveal local concerns, as Margot Fassler recently revealed in her authoritative investigation of the near-contemporary development of the Advent liturgy at Chartres Cathedral.20 Eleventh- and twelfth-century Chartres witnessed a flowering of devotion to the Virgin Mary, culminating in the appearance of sculpture and stained glass programs that harmonized with its liturgical cursus. The Marian and Advent feasts were at that time thought to have been outfitted with their liturgies by the Thomas Merton, ed. Basil Pennington, Cistercian Studies 3 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 190-223 at 204-205. 17 On the early development of the Offices for Advent, see Margot Fassler, “Sermons, Sacramentaries, and Early Sources for the Office in the Latin West: The Example of Advent,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, 15-47. 18 See Fassler, “Sermons, Sacramentaries,” and idem, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), esp. 55-78. 19 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, studies how the Advent Office as it developed at Chartres encapsulated the historical circumstances and traditional allegiances of the cathedral. 20 Also helpful is the fact that because Advent was the beginning of the church year, its liturgy was written at the beginning of most monastic temporal breviaries, when enthusiasm for a new copying project was still high and such ancillary markings as rubrics and musical notation were likely to be added.

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cathedral’s renowned early-eleventh-century bishop, Fulbert of Chartres, and his putative role in building the history of Chartres contributed to a local belief in Chartres’ historical significance and relationship to Mary.21 Likewise, as I discuss in Chapter 3, if we examine the words used in the liturgy for this season at Cîteaux, the surviving lectern Bible from which the Office lections were probably read, and giant illuminated copies of a Commentary on Isaiah and a sanctoral lectionary that were likely read in the refectory, we can see the profound effect the Cîteaux Office had upon the monks’ visual conception of the Virgin Mary. Any reconstruction of the Advent Divine Office as practiced in the earliest days of the New Monastery is at best tentative. None of the original liturgical books from Cîteaux itself, prescribed in the Exordium Cistercii for each Cistercian house, survives. Such was the uniformity in practice sought by the founders, however, that manuscripts of the liturgy preserved from other Cistercian monasteries can be regarded as reliable witnesses of practice at the mother house. Fortunately, examples of a lectionary, breviary, customary, and composite antiphonary from Cistercian daughter houses provide valuable evidence which can be used to recreate the Advent Night Office as it was observed among the founding monks. Chrysogonus Waddell’s reconstruction of the Night Office lectionary is drawn from a group of partially preserved early lectionaries, which were certainly prepared some time before the last possible date, 1147, of the vast reworking of the Cistercian liturgy undertaken at Bernard’s urging. Waddell compared these to a complete lectionary prepared at Cîteaux around 1180. The early manuscripts are Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 869, which preserves the entire Temporal cycle up to the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost; Troyes BM MS 394, a winter-season Temporal and Sanctoral lectionary with large gaps likely written at Igny before 1147;22 and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS nouv. acq. lat. 2202, a lectionary for the Sanctoral cycle written some time before 1180 at Acquafredda, a daughter house of Morimond.23 A small hand breviary copied around 1132 for a Cistercian house is also preserved in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (MS Lat. Oct. 402) and records the texts of the Psalms, antiphons, responsories, versicles, and collects (although not the accompanying melodies), as well 21 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 55-56, 64-75. 22 Anne Bondéelle-Souchier does not include either of these manuscripts in her Bibliothèques cisterciennes dans la France médiévale: Répertoire des abbayes d’hommes (Paris: CNRS, 1991). Troyes BM MS 394 may have been excluded because it was preserved in a house of nuns. 23 “Night Office Lectionary”; see 95 for its date and provenance.

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as abbreviated indications for a set of lections.24 Waddell, who edited its text, warns us, however, that, Whereas these breviary manuscripts reproduce faithfully the complete texts of antiphons, responsories, hymns, versicles and the like, the Night Office readings are represented only by mini-texts excerpted from the bulky lectionaries read at Vigils. While there is certain evidence that the same brief excerpts were often reproduced from manuscript to manuscript, there is also overwhelming evidence that scribes were relatively free to follow their own fancy in providing these excerpts.25

Thus, the lections attested in the surviving lectionaries, rather than the brief lection excerpts noted in the single surviving early breviary, are more likely to represent those actually read at Cîteaux. The cycle of Scripture reading, derived from an ordo librorum and embedded in a prose text, as well as indications of many antiphons and responsories, are also preserved in the earliest Cistercian customary. This is a single, small manuscript now found in the Biblioteca Comunale of Trento. While the provenance of the manuscript is contested, scholars have proposed a variety of possible places of origin in Northern Italy and Germany.26 It records the form of the customary as it was composed during the abbacy of Stephen Harding, and certainly before Bernard of Clairvaux’s intervention in the liturgy between 1132 and 1147.27 Small amounts of the earliest musical settings can also be recovered from a heavily reworked compilation of various antiphonaries outfitted with diastematic neumes preserved at Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk in Westmalle, Belgium, as MS 12A-B. The manuscript begins imperfectly, at the responsory following the first lection of the first nocturn of Advent. Two more fragments preserved as guard leaves in Vatican Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Pal. Lat. 559 and 562 were written at Schönau in the twelfth century.28 What can be 24 Primitive Cistercian Breviary. See also Bruno Griesser, “Das Lektionen- und Perikopensystem im Stephans-Breviar,” Cistercienserchronik 71 (1964): 67-91. 25 “Night Office Lectionary,” 107, and idem, “The Early Cistercian Experience,” 89, note 41. 26 See the recent discussion in Constance Berman, “The Cistercian Manuscript, Trent 1711, Version One and Its Exemplar,” in Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Jonathan Wilcox (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 159-176, and Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 154-161. 27 Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 161-162. 28 François Kovacs, “Fragments du chant cistercien primitif,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 6, fasc. 1-4 (1950): 140-150.

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deciphered follows the “chant dialect” used at Metz, and also recorded in two Metz antiphonaries, one from the Cathedral and one from the monastery of St. Arnould, both of which were unfortunately destroyed in World War II.29 What these sources reveal is that while the musical settings of the antiphons and responsories may have shocked listeners unfamiliar with Metz chant, the texts that were married to these tones were almost entirely canonical, despite the hyperbolic statements of critics like Abelard and Bernard. The choice of lections, on the other hand, would have struck some listeners as old-fashioned, and the choice of hymns as mystifying.

The Advent Cursus at the New Monastery The Advent season unfolded over the course of four Sundays, and the intervening weeknight Offices were a constant revisiting of the same types of sources and themes. To understand how monumental this liturgical celebration was, and how much of a presence it would have maintained in the minds of the monks, novices, and conversi who heard it, it is instructive to take stock of the total number of elements and words from which it was made. Already by the close of the first nocturn on the first night of Advent, the monks had chanted or heard more than a thousand words of Psalms, almost two hundred words of antiphons, responsories, their corresponding verses, refrains taken from the preceding responsories, and roughly a thousand words of Jerome’s Prologue and his translation of the Book of Isaiah.30 As at the Benedictine houses from which these monks originally hailed, individual monks intoned assigned lections from a book, and likewise individual monks chanted the responsories that followed, but the antiphons, hymns, and Psalms were sung from memory by the entire monastic congregation. Two more nocturns followed, tripling the amount of text the monks absorbed that first night. While the Cistercians 29 Waddell, “Cistercian Antiphonary,” 216. Solutor Rodolphe Marroszéki, “Les origins du chant cistercien: recherches sur les réformes du plain-chant cistercien au XIIe siècle,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 8, fasc. 1-2 (1952), was completed before the discovery of this manuscript. While it surveys the development of Metz chant (15-23), it offers little specif ic information about the chants composed for early twelfth-century Cîteaux. The antiphonary has been edited and published in a facsimile volume by Alicia Scarcez, L’antiphonaire 12A-B de Westmalle dans l’histoire du chant cistercien au XIIe siècle. Bibliologia: Elementa ad librorum studia pertinentia 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). 30 An accurate estimate of the length of Scripture readings is hampered by the fact that the surviving lectionaries combine the second through eighth lections in a single reference.

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had certainly trimmed the Office significantly from what was celebrated at liturgical powerhouses like Cluny,31 the remaining ceremonial would still have taken several hours to perform. The first part of the first night’s Matins Office is summarized in Appendix 1, in outline form, based on the hand breviary now in Berlin and on Waddell’s reconstruction of the early lectionary.32 As scholars of the liturgy have long observed, the antiphons, great responsories, and verses that framed the Scripture and sermon lections served as a kind of aural gloss that interpreted the text both in the light of the subject feast and of how the feast was interpreted locally.33 The easiest way to understand the dramatic impact which the practice of the liturgy could have on the intellectual and spiritual life of a community is to examine the discrepancies in liturgy between two foundations, and to note the impact that these discrepancies made upon the artistic and literary traditions that developed subsequently. Fortunately, Margot Fassler’s monumental work on the art and liturgy of Chartres Cathedral in the eleventh and twelfth centuries provides for just such a juxtaposition,34 though, as I discuss in Chapter 3, Fassler’s work also makes it clear that a foundation’s artistic choices were based upon more than its liturgical chants and lections. We must first set the stage for this discussion by examining which aspects of Cîteaux’s Advent liturgy were unusual, and how these might reflect the monastery’s particular outlook. At Cîteaux, the responsories hewed closely to themes traditionally associated with Advent, and, indeed, most are the same responsories used at Chartres Cathedral a century later, though it is clear even from the first nocturn that the lections with which they were paired deviated, as did many responsory verses.35 While at Chartres the nocturn lections commenced with the first verse of Isaiah, at Cîteaux the monks would first have heard Jerome’s prologue, which explained his textual apparatus, his worry over how to do justice to the speech of one so eloquent, his defence of his decision to translate the prophet, his plea to Paula and Eustochium to pray to God on his behalf, and his explanation of Isaiah’s prophetic importance:

31 Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience,” 86; the author notes that the length of Cluny’s liturgy is itself often exaggerated. 32 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 103-108, and idem, “Night Office Lectionary.” 33 See, most recently Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 65. 34 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, esp. 55-129. 35 See Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 63, table 3.1.

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Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem and in Judaea and to the ten tribes in captivity and he concealed an oracle about each kingdom, sometimes combined, sometimes separate. And when he looks to present history and makes known the return of the people to Judaea after the captivity in Babylon, then his whole care is to the calling of the gentiles and the advent of Christ.36

At both Chartres and Cîteaux the same responsory was sung after the first lection, though each foundation assigned it a different final responsory verse. Thus, both choirs would have sung, Responsory (R).37 Gazing from afar, behold I see the power of the Lord, the whole earth clothed in clouds; go out to meet him and say: tell us, are you he who will reign over the people of Israel? Verse (V). All you that are earthborn and you sons of men, rich and poor together. Refrain. Go out to meet him and say, tell us if you are the one who is to reign over the people of Israel? V. O thou that rulest Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep, thou that sittest upon the cherubims.38

But at Cîteaux, the monks concluded the first responsory set with, V. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and he will enter in.39 36 Prophetavit autem Isaias in Jerusalem, et in Iudaea, necdum decem tribubus in captivitatem ductis: ac de utroque regno, nunc commixtim, nunc separatim texit oraculum. Et cum interdum ad praesentem respiciat historiam et post babyloniam captivitatem reditum populi significet in Iudaeam: tamen omnis ei cura de vocatione gentium et adventu Christi est. Biblia sacra II:1096. Trans. Joan Ferrante, Medieval Women’s Latin Letters, http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/ letter/292.html. 37 I employ here the abbreviations for chant genres found in the CANTUS database where they exist. 38 R. Aspiciens a longe, ecce uideo dei potenciam uenientem, et nebulam totam terram tegentem; ite o[b]uiam ei, et dicite: nuncia nobis, si tu es ipse qui regnaturus es in populo Israel. V. Quique terrigene et filii hominum, simil in unum diues et pauper. Refrain. Ite o[b]uiam ei, et dicite: nuncia nobis, si tu es ipse qui regnaturus es in populo Israel. V. Qui regis Israel intende qui deducis uelut ouem Joseph qui sedes super cherubim. 39 V. Tollite portas principes uestras et eleuamini portae aeternales et introiuit.

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while at Chartres they would have sung, V. Behold the sovereign Lord will come with his host. 40

At Chartres this set of chants immediately followed Isaiah 1:3, “The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.” As Fassler explains, the responsories and verses found at Chartres expound on the Advent of Christ and what those waiting expectantly will see. They also provide an important counterpoint to Isaiah’s words in the first nocturn lections read at Chartres (Isaiah 1:1-3, 4-6a, and 6b-9), which chastised his listeners for abandoning their God. She notes that in their commentaries on the Advent liturgy, Amalarius of Metz and Odorannus of Sens agreed that the responsories proclaimed the coming of the Lord using [prophetic] voices such as those of John the Baptist and the Angel Gabriel.41 The responsories and verses sung at Cîteaux differed from those used at Chartres only in one verse, which shared the same theme as the one it replaced. 42 Nonetheless, although the chants carried the same resonances, at Cîteaux they were tied to a different reading and in some ways much more closely echoed its themes. At Cîteaux, the first responsory, Aspiciens a longe, “Gazing from afar,” and its accompanying verses followed Jerome’s prologue, which offered a brief reference to a messianic interpretation of Isaiah, but dwelt far longer on Isaiah’s eloquence and Jerome’s troubled relationship with the text, as we will see in more detail in the next chapter. This theme was amplified by the first verse paired with the responsory that would have immediately followed the lection: “All you that are earthborn and you sons of men, rich and poor together.” This verse is a direct quote of Psalm 48:3. To the monks, who memorized the Psalms as the first stage of their education and sang the entire Psalm repertoire each week, this verse would immediately have brought to mind the preceding and following Psalm verses: “Hear these things, all ye nations! Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world. [All you that are earthborn, and you sons of men: both rich and poor together.] My mouth shall speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart understanding. I will incline my ear to a parable.”43 Speaking, 40 V. Ecce dominator dominus cum virtute veniet. Can 006128a. 41 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 64-72. 42 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 63. At Chartres, the third verse after the first responsory was Ecce dominator dominus (Can 006128a) rather than Tollite portas principes (Can 006129c). 43 Vulgate Bible III:279. Audite haec, omnes gentes; auribus percipite, omnes qui habitatis orbem: quique terrigenae et filii hominum, simul in unum dives et pauper. Os meum loquetur sapientiam, et meditatio cordis mei prudentiam. Inclinabo in parabolam aurem meam … Biblia sacra I:828.

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listening, mouths, and ears are the focus of the beginning of this Psalm, a theme well matched to the lection, Jerome’s prologue. Because the surviving Cîteaux lectionaries do not divide the following readings from Isaiah into discrete sections, we have no way of knowing where within Isaiah’s text the responsories would have fallen there. The Book of Isaiah’s first several chapters offer a lengthy diatribe against the transgressions of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, warning them that God has rejected their offerings in the face of their sinfulness and urging them to repent before his coming judgment. Interspersed in the Cîteaux Night Office were three more responsories traditionally tied to the first nocturn: Lection 2-8 (encompassing first and second nocturns): Isaiah 1:1-3:36 Responsory, verse, and refrain for Lection 2: R. I beheld therefore in the vision of the night, and lo: one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven; and he gave him power and glory and a kingdom, and all people, tribes and tongues shall serve him. V. Behold the Lord (is) sovereign; when he comes. 44 Refrain. And he gave him power and glory and a kingdom, and all people, tribes and tongues shall serve him. 45

Responsory, verse, and refrain for Lection 3: R. The Angel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary, betrothed to Joseph, and announced to her the word; and she was terrified by his glory: Do not fear, Mary; you have become full of the grace of the Lord; behold you will conceive and give birth, and he will be called the son of God. V. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

44 The standard verse reads Ecce dominator dominus; cum uirtute ueniet. The Cîteaux version, which is unique among the catalogued chant repertoire, thus differs subtly in meaning. 45 R. Aspiciebam in uisu noctis, et ecce in nubibus caeli filius hominis uenit; et datum est ei regnum et honor, et omnis populus, tribus et linguae seruient ei. V. Ecce dominator dominus (est); cum ueniet. Et datum.

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Refrain. Behold you will conceive and give birth, and he will be called the son of God. 46

Responsory, verse, and refrain for Lection 4: R. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; the Holy Spirit come over you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you; so that from you will be born he who will be called the son of God. V. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and he will enter in. Refrain. The son of God. 47

At this point, Cîteaux’s Advent liturgy has already diverged from that prescribed at Chartres Cathedral, both because the Chartres canons followed the Roman cursus proper to secular and canonical foundations (meaning that each of the nocturns on feast days required three lections rather than the four of the monastic cursus), and also because the lections themselves differed significantly. The Chartres breviary demanded that in the three nocturns comprising the Night Office on the first night of Advent, the canons read Isaiah 1:1 through 1:9, followed by three sermons by Maximus of Turin, a Gospel reading from Matthew 21, 48 and three readings from Bede’s commentary on Matthew 21. The Cîteaux breviary instead called for the monks to read Jerome’s prologue to Isaiah, a much longer section of the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1 through 3:26), Matthew 21:1-9, and a homily on Matthew attributed to Pseudo-Chrysostom. The parting of ways between what was sung and heard at Chartres and at Cîteaux became pronounced in the second nocturn. While the Chartres canons had moved on to Maximus’ sermons, at Cîteaux the responsories 46 R. Missus est Gabriel angelus ad Mariam uirginem desponsatam Ioseph, nuncians ei uerbum; et expauescens uirgo de lumine: Ne timeas, Maria; inuenisti gratiam apud dominum; ecce concipies et paries, et uocabitur altissimi filius. V. Aue Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum. Ecce. 47 R. Aue Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum; spiritus sanctus superueniet in te, et uirtus altissimi obumbrabit tibi; quod enim ex te nascetur uocabitur filius dei. V. Tollite portas, principes, uestras, et eleuamini portae eternales, et introibit. Filius. 48 In her main text, Fassler (The Virgin of Chartres, 63) lists the Gospel pericope as Matthew 21, on Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, but erroneously identifies it as Matthew 24 in her table of readings.

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and their accompanying verses once again glossed Isaiah, which the monks continued to read, with the leitmotiv of sounding and listening, as well as presenting the theme of the coming of the Lord (Appendix 2). The versicle and response that began the nocturn were quickly followed by the demand in a responsory that the monks make a joyful noise. W. The Lord will come forth out of his place. W Response. He will come and save his people. 49

Lection 5: Isaiah 1-3:26 R. We look for the Savior, our Lord, Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory. V. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms. Refrain. Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory.50

Lection 6: Isaiah 1-3:26 R. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it to the ends of the earth and to the islands that are afar off, and say, our Savior will come. V. From the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea. Refrain. Our Savior will come.51 49 W. Egredietur dominus de loco sancto suo. Response. Veniet ut saluet populum suum. Can 600743a. This response is not listed in the Berlin breviary, but is a standard accompaniment to this versicle. 50 R. Saluatorem expectamus dominum Ihesum Christum, qui reformabit corpus humilitatis nostre configuratum corpori claritatis sue. Can 007562. V. Preocupemus faciem eius in confessione, et in psalmis iubilemus ei. Qui. Can 007562a. This was changed in the chant reform to Sobrie et iuste, Can 007562b. 51 R. Audite uerbum domini, gentes, et annunciate in finibus terrae, et in insulis que procul sunt, dicite: Saluator noster adueniet. V. A solis ortu et occasu, ab aquilone et mari. Saluator. This was changed in the chant reform to Annunciate et auditum facite, Can 006149v, as witnessed in the Westmalle Antiphonary but

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Lection 7: Isaiah 1-3:26 R. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, says the lord, and his name shall be called Wonderful, God, the Mighty. V. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and he will enter in.52

Lection 8: Isaiah 1-3:26 R. I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send; see the affliction of thy people; as you have said, come and deliver us. V. From the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea.53

Note how the verse following Lection Five’s responsory calls on the listeners to make a joyful noise with psalmody, while the responsory for Lection Six demands that they hear the word of the Lord and declare it. Unfortunately, in the surviving noted Cistercian antiphonary compilation from Westmalle, both the text and the notation for verse five were reworked after the Bernardine chant reform, so that text is now that of a different verse, Sobrie et iuste; in the case of the responsory for Lection Six, however, the musical notation is revealing. The vellum has been ripped away on the outside of the folio, taking with it the word audite, “hear.” The word annunciate, “declare,” on the other hand, is crowned with an elaborate melisma written by the original scribe that hovers over the final syllables: iate.54

not, apparently, the Berlin Breviary. Interestingly, in the Westmalle Antiphonary, annunciate and clamate in this verse are also crowned with elaborate melismas written by a later hand. Scarcez, L’antiphonaire 12 A-B de Westmalle, 150. 52 R. Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet filium, dicit dominus; et uocabitur nomen eius Admirabilis, Deus, Fortis. V. Tollite portas, principes, uestras, et eleuamini portae eternales, et introibit. This was changed in the chant reform to Super solium, Can 0062b. 53 R. Obsecro, domine, mitte quem missurus es; uide afflictionem populi tui; sicut locutus es, ueni et libera nos. V. A solis ortu et occasu, ab aquilone et mari. This was changed in the chant reform to Memento nostri domine, Can 007305zc. 54 Scarcez, L’antiphonaire 12 A-B de Westmalle, 150. For an analysis of these scribal hands and chart of attributions, see 102-104 and 375.

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The responsory for Lection Eight sung at Cîteaux treats the theme in a subtler fashion. It refers to a conversation between Moses and God at the Burning Bush, which would certainly have been familiar to the monks, as Exodus was read in the choir and refectory in the season of Lent.55 In this passage, after God has laid upon Moses the heavy burden of leading the Israelites, Moses demurs, pleading inarticulacy: “I beseech thee, Lord, I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before: and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue.” The Lord said to him: “Who made man’s mouth? Or who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Did not I? Go therefore and I will be in thy mouth: and I will teach thee what thou shalt speak.” But he said: “I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send.” (Exodus 4:10-13)56

These antiphonal references to the Lord’s advent, and the necessity that man both praise him and evangelize on his behalf, frame Isaiah’s text, which roundly condemns the inhabitants of Jerusalem and warns them of the Lord’s judgment. If a canon from Chartres Cathedral had joined the monks of Cîteaux for the first Sunday of Advent, he would have found the combination of lections, responsories, and verses in the second nocturn a dramatic departure from those heard at Chartres, even though the cathedral breviary specified the same responsories as those sung at Cîteaux for Lections Five through Eight. Because a cathedral nocturn incorporated only three lections, its second nocturn included Responsories Four through Six, rather than Five through Eight. Furthermore, at Chartres they were paired with different readings: Responsories Five and Six followed lections from the commentary by Maximus of Turin, Responsory Seven (part of the third nocturn at Chartres) was joined to the Gospel pericope from Matthew 21 (the Entry into Jerusalem), while Responsory Eight followed a lection from Bede’s commentary on the Gospel passage. At Cîteaux, sometime before 1147, the verses joined to the responsories were revised, and thereafter for the most part conformed to those used at Chartres; in the early days, however, they largely differed. 55 “Night Office Lectionary,” 113. 56 Vulgate Bible I:293. Ait Moses obsecro Domine non sum eloquens ab heri et nudius tertius et ex quo locutus es ad servum tuum inpeditioris et tardioris linguae sum; dixit Dominus ad eum quis fecit os hominis aut quis fabricates est mutum et surdum videntem et caecum nonne ego; perge igitur et ego ero in ore tuo doceboque te quid loquaris; at ille obsecro inquit Domine mitte quem missurus es. Biblia sacra I:80.

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Therefore, while at Cîteaux the monks proclaimed after Responsory Five, “Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with Psalms,” the Chartres canons instead sang the verse: “We should live soberly and justly and godly in this world,” from Paul’s epistle to Titus 2:12.57 The role of sound in God’s plan was not entirely neglected among the Chartres verses, however. At Cîteaux, after Responsory Six, the monks sang the verse, “From the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea. Our Saviour will come.” The cathedral canons instead sang a verse copied from Isaiah 48:20, “Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, declare it with the voice of joy: make this to be heard and speak it out even to the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.”58 While the Chartres canons left off reading Isaiah after only nine verses, in the Cîteaux Advent cursus, the night’s lections from the Book of Isaiah totalled 79 verses in addition to the prologue. In the Cîteaux Advent cursus, the final words of Isaiah would have fallen immediately before Responsory Eight, the excerpt from Moses’ desperate plea to God. They paint a vivid picture of the state of Jerusalem in anticipation of God’s terrible judgment. Lection. In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes and little moons and chains and necklaces and bracelets and bonnets and bodkins and ornaments of the legs and tablets and sweet balls and earrings, and rings and jewels hanging on the forehead and changes of apparel and short cloaks and fine linen, and crisping pins and looking glasses and lawns and headbands and fine veils. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle a cord, and instead of curled hair baldness, and instead of a stomacher haircloth. Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy valiant ones in battle. And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground (Isaiah 3:18-26).59 57 At Cîteaux, Preocupemus faciem eius in confessione, et in psalmis iubilemus ei (Can 007562a), at Chartres, Sobrie et juste et pie uiuamus in hoc saecul (Can 007562b). 58 At Cîteaux, A solis ortu et occasu, ab aquilone et mari (Can 006149a), at Chartres, Annuntiate et auditam facite (Can 006149b). 59 Vulgate Bible IV:15. In die illa auferet Dominus ornatum calciamentorum et lunulas; et torques et monilia et armillas et mitras; discriminalia et periscelidas et murenulas et olfactoriola et inaures; et anulos et gemmas in fronte pendentes; et mutoria et pallia et linteamina et acus; et specula et sindones et vittas et theristra; et erit pro suavi odore fetor et pro zona funiculus et pro crispanti crine calvitium et pro fascia pectorali cilicium; pulcherrimi quoque viri tui gladio cadent et fortes tui in proelio; et maerebunt atque lugebunt protae eius et desolata in terra sedebit. Biblia sacra II:1100.

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R. I beseech thee, Lord, send whom thou wilt send; see the suffering of your people; as you have said, come and deliver us. V. From the rising and from the setting of the sun, from the north and from the sea.

The responsory and verse that followed begged God to send as a messenger of his word someone endowed with the gift of eloquence. They pleaded for deliverance, but with the understanding, already implied in the responsories and verses of the rest of the second nocturn, that this deliverance relied on the work of the monks and their continuous psalmody and proclamation of God’s word. The Cistercian monks, in addition to rejecting all of the ornaments condemned in Isaiah’s description, took up the charge to prepare for God’s arrival with song. Thematically, they had arrived back at the point first made by Jerome in the prologue that had begun the night’s lections: that eloquence was important in the transmission of the word of God.

2

Jerome’s Legacy at Twelfth-Century Cîteaux No one who saw the prophets described with verses would think that they were bound by metre in Hebrew, and similarly with the Psalms or works of Solomon. But they are inscribed with colons and commas, as in Demosthenes and Tully, who certainly wrote prose and not poetry. We, for the utility of the readers, have distinguished the new translation with a new manner of writing. But first it should be known about Isaiah that his speech was fluent, indeed that he was a man of noble and urbane eloquence, with no touch of the rustic. Therefore more than with others, translation could not preserve the flower of his speech.1

Hours before daybreak on the first Sunday of Advent, the first sentences penned by Jerome to serve as a prologue to his translation of the book of Isaiah rang out in the cold night air of the Cîteaux choir. The liturgical year had begun. For the next twelve months, the monks who sang, and the lay brothers and novices who listened, would traverse biblical time, reordered according to a liturgical framework. As we saw in the previous chapter, on the first night of Advent, monks took turns cantillating first Jerome’s prologue, then the first three chapters of the book of Isaiah itself, followed by a homily they attributed to John Chrysostom on the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel of Mark.2 These readings, the liturgical antiphons and responsories that framed them, and the Gospel pericopes with which they were grouped in the Night Office, all worked in concert to foster in the listeners a synthetic understanding of the feast.3 Over the next several 1 Nemo cum propheta versibus viderit esse descriptos, metro eos aestimet apud Hebraeos ligari et aliquid simile habere de Psalmis vel operibus Salomonis; sed quod in Demosthene et Tullio solet fieri, ut per cola scribantur et commata, qui utique prosa et non versibus conscripserunt, nos quoque utilitati legentium providentes, interpretationem novam, novo scribendi genere distinximus. Ac primum de Isaia sciendum, quod in sermone suo disertus sit: quippe ut vir nobilis et urbanae eloquentiae, nec habens quidpiam in eloquio rusticitatis admistum. Unde accidit, ut prae caeteris, florem sermonis ejus translatio non potuerit conservare. Biblia sacra II:1096. Trans. Joan Ferrante, Medieval Women’s Latin Letters, http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/292.html. 2 “Night Office Lectionary,” 99. 3 Margot Fassler studies how a somewhat different selection of Advent lessons and chants created meaning in The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 55-78.

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nights of Advent, and each day in the refectory, the monks continued to read the book of Isaiah, though for shorter periods, completing the first four chapters in time to begin chapter five, as assigned by their breviary, on the second Sunday of Advent. By the fourth Sunday of Advent, they had nearly reached the end of Isaiah, chapter 51. 4 This temporal journey had begun with Jerome’s meditation, above, on the challenges of translating Scripture. In the earliest days of the monastery, the monk assigned as lector probably read the book of Isaiah and its prologue from a manuscript the founding monks had brought with them from Molesme, and which probably returned to Molesme with Abbot Robert when he departed the New Monastery in 1100.5 By 1113, however, Stephen Harding had provided the monks with a new and magnificent two-volume lectern Bible, carefully copied and decorated with large illuminated initials, multi-colored capitals, and highlighted versals. The second half of the now-split first volume (today Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 13), would have provided the text for the Advent Isaiah readings, the prologue on fol. 62r, and the beginning of the book of Isaiah on fol. 62v. Many of the other texts for the Night Office would have been provided by liturgical handbooks, such as a collectary, antiphonal, hymnal, or homiliary, none of which survive from early Cîteaux. Most of the monks, however, experienced the service only in aural form. Professed Benedictine monks, including the Cistercians, who adhered to an even more rigid application of Benedict’s rule, were expected to memorize much of the treasury of liturgical chant, the singing of which occupied the greater part of their time during the Office.6 Breviaries intended for individual monks did not become common until the thirteenth century, and in any event the choir of the New Monastery had no more than three lamps and a single candle for the lectern,7 leaving all but the assigned lector in relative 4 “Night Office Lectionary,” 100-101. 5 Chrysogonus Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, Studia et Documenta 9 (Nuits-Saint-George: Cîteaux: Commentarii Cisterciensis, 1999), 425-426. The religious authorities who approved Robert’s controversial return to Molesme allowed him to take with him all of the books he had brought except for a breviary, suggesting that by this time they had manufactured or imported the basic complement of manuscripts necessary for proper observance. 6 Anne Marie Busse Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 48-49, and Susan Boynton, “Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,” in Medieval Monastic Education, ed. George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig (Leicester, London and New York: Leicester University Press, 2000), 6-9. 7 The Ecclesiastica Officia specifies that three lamps be lit during Matins: one at the steps to the sanctuary, one in the middle of the choir, and a third at the back of the choir. Likewise, in the description of the chores assigned to the servitor ecclesiae, he was to ascend to the lectern

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darkness. In the choir, Scripture passages and homilies were cantillated aloud by the lector from a codex, and long and complex chants were likewise sung by a mature member of the community, guided by a manuscript. The shorter chants, sung by the entire congregation, provided the scaffolding upon which these longer chants were set. Drawn from a memorized repertoire, the shorter chants were often repeated many times within the same season. These words and their musical settings would have been as familiar to the twelfth-century monks as an advertising jingle is to us today, and would easily have been called to mind by a story or musical motif. Deployed to create thematic connections between different moments in the liturgical calendar, the chants glossed the lections and unified the often disparate readings that might be only tangentially connected to the subject of a feast. While few monks had memorized the entirety of the Gospels, let alone the whole canon of Scripture, most could command an encyclopedic knowledge of the scriptural snippets excerpted in chant. The spiritual and theological writings of the monks of this period are studded with such quotes, attesting to the powerful role of the aural and oral experience of text. Like the early Christians, the Cistercians heard Scripture read aloud far more frequently than they read it themselves. Thus Jerome’s worry, expressed in his prologue to Isaiah, that he had inadequately preserved the spoken eloquence of the text in his translation, was justified: the words Jerome chose would have an unexpected afterlife in the minds and voices of all those who would hear them as chants.8 Stephen Harding shared Jerome’s concern. In the monastery’s f irst decades, he prioritized the creation of a new Bible that allowed Jerome’s translations to be heard in as correct a form as possible, as we shall see. At the same time, the monastery’s Night Office was reworked to include many of the prologues in which Jerome explained and defended the choices he made as an editor and translator, so that the monks were reminded regularly that the texts they heard were the products of a vast editorial project intended to render the words of Scripture as accurately as possible into Latin. On the first night of Advent, when the monks would have heard Jerome’s meditation on the problem of maintaining the elegance of Isaiah’s speech in his translation, antiphons and responsories that flanked the and light a candle when the preliminary collect preceding the nocturns was read. See Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia Cisterciensis Ordinis’ des Cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 153-288, at 230, 233, and 266. 8 Although as scholars of the liturgy have shown, pre-Vulgate versions of Scripture, particularly the Psalter, also enjoyed a prolonged afterlife in the liturgy. See Joseph Dyer, “Latin Psalters, Old Roman and Gregorian Chants,” Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 68 (1986): 11-30.

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Night Office readings from Isaiah highlighted the role of the spoken word in revealing God’s plan, as we saw in Chapter 1. In addition, the manuscripts created by Cîteaux’s scriptorium in its first decades to provide Night Office and refectory readings display a preoccupation with Jerome. Although we can only judge the manuscripts that survive, a disproportionate number depict Jerome distributing his text, and a manuscript compilation of his texts recasts Jerome’s work as pseudo-Scripture and Jerome himself as divinely inspired.

Cîteaux and Jerome The choice to commence the annual monastic lectio continua with Jerome’s prologue to the Book of Isaiah was common but not universal among Benedictine houses in the tenth through twelfth centuries.9 The single copy of an early Cistercian breviary preserved in Berlin (like, as we have seen, the breviary used at Chartres Cathedral) launches the first nocturn with the first words of the Book of Isaiah itself.10 That the prologue was read at Cîteaux in the first nocturn, more typically dedicated to readings from actual Scripture, testifies to the esteem in which the monks held Jerome as the editor and translator of the Vulgate. Jerome’s prologue to the book was included in virtually every medieval Latin manuscript Bible of the time, and was viewed as an obligatory introduction to Isaiah’s prophetic text. In lectern Bibles Jerome’s prologues were typically written in the same script as the Scripture itself, often embellished with their own decorative initials, and sometimes included in the apparatus of lection marks that accrued around the Bible texts they prefaced. In the Stephen Harding Bible (Dijon BM MS 13, fols. 62r to 83v), the manuscript from which the Cîteaux monks undoubtedly read these lections, the words of both Jerome and Isaiah have been heightened with the same apparatus of tonic accents, hyphens and i-dots by the same scribe. The prologue contrasted markedly with the Bible text in genre, however. It was originally drafted in the form of a letter addressed to Paula and her daughter, Eustochium, Jerome’s Roman correspondents and patrons. As we have already seen, Jerome begins not by explaining the spiritual import of the prophet’s words but, rather, the 9 See, for instance, Raymond Étaix, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Cluny,” Recherches Augus­ tiniennes 11 (1976): 91-159 at 95, and Anselme Davril, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Fleury: Essai de reconstitution,” Revue Bénédictine 89 (1979): 110-164 at 115. 10 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 104, and above, 48.

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hazards of translation and his choice of punctuation. His teaching starts not with the meat of Scripture and its interpretation, but rather with the mechanics of reproducing the text and its drawbacks as a means of transmitting Isaiah’s original words. Jerome nonetheless tackled the translation project, as Paula and Eustochium had requested, so that they and others could benefit from Isaiah’s prophecies, revealed more fully in Jerome’s new Vulgate rendering, he asserted, than in the allusive Septuagint.11 In case Isaiah’s “evangelizing” work wasn’t sufficiently obvious, however, Jerome later composed his commentary on the book, this time addressed solely to Eustochium, as Paula was by then dead. This prologue to Isaiah is typical of the prologues Jerome drafted for each of his works of translation. Jerome’s prologues are, by and large, not exegetical, and provide few comments on the theological importance of the book. Instead Jerome sometimes complained to the patron who requested the translation about his working conditions or the haste with which he felt compelled to work. The greater part of each prologue is dedicated to delivering invectives against the critics of Jerome’s translations and, to a lesser extent, asking for the supportive prayers of his friends. He also described, often in colorful language, stumbling blocks to providing the truest rendering of the text, including divergences between different textual traditions, the quality of the original author’s speech, and struggles with unfamiliar languages.12 His description of Esther is particularly revealing:13 “The common edition drags the book by knotted ropes of words hither and yon, adding to it things which may have been said or heard at any time”;14 as is that of Job: For an indirectness and a slipperiness attaches to the whole book, even in the Hebrew; and, as orators say in Greek, it is tricked out with figures of speech, and while it says one thing, it does another; just as if you close 11 On Jerome’s own use of the terms “Vulgate” and “Septuagint,” however, see Cornelia Linde, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura? Textual Criticism of the Latin Bible between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century, Medium Aevum Monographs 29 (Oxford: The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 2012), 8-16. 12 Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 202, points out that we should not take at face value Jerome’s claims that the pressure of deadlines and the demands of his patrons impacted the elegance of his prose, as many of his contemporaries made the same excuses. 13 Quem librum editio vulgata laciniosis hinc inde verborum funibus trahit, addends ea quae ex tempore dici poterant et audiri. Biblia sacra I:712. 14 Trans. Kevin Edgecomb, http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/patristic-stuff/vulgate-prologues/.

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your hand to hold an eel or a little muraena, the more you squeeze it, the sooner it escapes.15

These same preoccupations with the quality of the written text, its aural characteristics, and its accessibility to those who should learn from it shaped the manuscripts crafted by the earliest monks of Cîteaux and the liturgy in which they were read. The founding of a new monastery necessitated the production of a new complement of service books. In the case of Cîteaux, these books were created in concert with the redaction of a new breviary, a new hymnbook, and a new edition of the Bible, a testament to the fact that the monastery’s founders believed that the words sung in the choir and spoken in the refectory were as important a component of their endeavor as the rejection of material excess would come to be within the next decades. Profoundly concerned with the quality of Scripture available to his monks, Stephen Harding, Cîteaux’s second abbot, set out to edit the Vulgate, comparing it, according to his own attestation, to every version he could find, and consulting with local Jewish scholars. That he modeled his method on that of Jerome is hardly surprising,16 given that Jerome’s explanations of his own methodology prefaced so many books of Scripture. Stephen and his scriptorium seem to have gone beyond Jerome’s advice, however, not only in expanding the perimeters of their editorial project to include chants and hymns, but also in presenting his work, in both format and decoration, in a way that recast Jerome himself as a divinely-inspired, pseudo-biblical author.

Stephen as a New Jerome One of Stephen’s earliest recorded undertakings, begun most likely even before his election as abbot, was to prepare a new edition of the Bible. Matthieu Cauwe carried out a preliminary sounding of the Stephen Harding Bible’s text in order to identify the abbot’s editorial philosophy. He 15 Obliquus enim etiam apud Hebraeos totus liber fertur et lubricus et quod graece rethores vocant εσχηµατισµευος, dumque aliud loquitur aliud agit, ut si velis anguillam aut murenulam strictis tenere manibus, quanto fortius presseris, tanto citius elabitur. Biblia sacra I:731. Translation from A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series 2, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1890-1900), vol. 6, St. Jerome: Letters and Selected Works, trans. William H. Fremantle, George Lewis, and William G. Martley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1892), 491. 16 Jean-Baptiste Auberger, “Importance de saint Jérôme dans le choix des premiers Pères de Cîteaux,” Collectanea cistercensia 60 (1998): 295-311 at 304-311

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perceptively observed that Stephen’s intention seems to have been to “give the community a biblical text that would correspond to the ideals of the reform and to the necessity of monastic life, without drawing too far away from the text that the liturgy and the lectio divina had carved into the monks’ memory.”17 Given that the Bible was to be read aloud, as the markings throughout it clearly attest, jarring discrepancies between the chants and the lections to which the monks were accustomed and those in their new lectern Bible would have grated on the ears of his listeners. Like Jerome, when Stephen described his editing practices, he often chose words that reflected the primarily aural quality of texts in the lived experience of all Benedictine monks, not just those at Cîteaux. In the text commonly called the “Monitum,” which was added to the end of the first codex of the two-volume Bible set (Dijon BM MS 13, fol. 151v), Stephen affirmed, Having completed the book, we were more than a little disturbed by the disagreements between the texts, because reason plainly leads us to expect that what was translated from a single font of Hebraic truth by one translator, namely blessed Jerome, [and] chosen by our ancestors who had left aside other interpreters, ought to speak with one voice.18

Note that although Martha Krieg, author of our English translation, has chosen to translate dissonantia as “disagreements,” it can equally appropriately be translated as “dissonances,” particularly because in the last words 17 Matthieu Cauwe, “La Bible d’Étienne Harding. Principes de critique textuelle mis en oeuvre aux livres de Samuel,” Revue Bénédictine 103 (1993): 414-444 at 443, “qu’à fournir à la communauté un texte biblique qui réponde à l’idéal de réforme en même temps qu’aux nécessités de toute vie monastique sans s’opposer au texte que la liturgie et la lectio divina avaient inscrit dans la mémoire des frères.” Trans. Martha F. Krieg in Claudio Stercal, Stephen Harding: A Biographical Sketch and Texts, Cistercian Studies Series 226 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2008), 48-49. 18 Qua digesta, non modice de dissonantia historiarum turbati sumus, quia hoc plena edocet ratio, ut quod ab uno interprete, videlicet beato Iheronimo, quem ceteris interpretibus omissis, nostrates iamiamque susceperunt, de uno hebraice veritatis fonte translatum est, unum debeat sonare. Stephen Harding, Monitum 5, Latin text, Stercal, Stephen Harding, 52; trans. Krieg, in Stercal, Stephen Harding, 53. Stephen’s statement betrays the mistaken belief he shared with his contemporaries, that Jerome had translated the entire Bible, while in reality the Vetus Latina versions of several books (Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, and Maccabees) were imported into what became the Vulgate, as were Latin translations by Jerome’s students and contemporaries (Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse). See Linde, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura?, 32-37. For those books, as we will see, no prologues authored by Jerome were available, and falsely attributed prologues were substituted.

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of this sentence (unum debeat sonare), what Stephen really seems to ask is that the texts “sound as one.”19 Stephen returned to his sonic metaphors two sentences later, when he described questioning Jewish experts about their own versions of the text. Therefore, being greatly amazed at the disharmony among our books which we received from a single translator, we resorted to certain Jews expert in their Scripture, and we interrogated them most diligently in romance speech …20

According to Stephen, once the Jews opened their books for examination, he found that both the Hebraic and the “Chaldean,” or Aramaic, texts were, so to speak, “in harmony”: Therefore, believing in the truth of the Hebrew and Chaldean and the many Latin books which did not have these passages, but which agreed with these two languages in all the rest …21

We can be almost certain that in his final injunction, Nunc vero omnes qui hoc volumen sunt lecturi rogamus (“Now truly we request all who read this book in the future”), Stephen meant, as he said more literally, “all those who are to read,” to include those who were to read it out loud. Should we take at face value Stephen’s description of his editorial process, as has nearly everyone who has examined this text?22 Beryl Smalley observed 19 Stephen used the same term, dissonantem, two sentences earlier to describe the discrepancies he discovered between the various copies of the Bible he collected. Cauwe, in his translation of the Monitum into French, also elides the reference to sound, expressing this passage as “doit être formulé d’une seule manière” (Cauwe, “La bible d’Étienne Harding,” 416), however Auberger’s translation (“Importance de saint Jérôme,” 301-302) uses the terms “la dissonance” and “cela doit donc render un seul son.” 20 Unde nos multum de discordia nostrorum librorum quos ab uno interprete suscipimus am­ mirantes, iudeos quosdam in sua scriptura peritos adivimus, ac diligentissime lingua romana ab eis inquisivimus … (Stephen Harding, Monitum 7. Latin text, Stercal, Stephen Harding, 54, English translation Krieg, in Stercal, Stephen Harding, 55). 21 Qua propter hebraice atque chaldaice veritati et multis libris latinis qui illa non habebant, sed per omnia duabus illis linguis concordabant credentes … (Stephen Harding, Monitum 10, Latin text, Stercal, Stephen Harding, 54; English translation Krieg, in Stercal, Stephen Harding, 55). 22 See, among others, Auberger, “Importance de saint Jérôme,” 302-304, Linde, How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura?, 117; Cauwe, “La bible,” 417; and Michael Signer, “Polemic and Exegesis: The Varieties of Twelfth-Century Hebraism,” in Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraicists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 21-32 at 23-24. The veracity of Jerome’s claims that he

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that the willingness of twelfth-century biblical scholars to consult the local Jewish population in order to achieve a perfect edition of Jerome’s Vulgate testified to the relative harmony that reigned between Christians and Jews in Northern France at the time.23 Descriptions of near-contemporary interactions between Jews and members of the nearby monastery of SaintMartin-des-Champs from the work of Peter the Venerable, however, reveal a hostility towards the Burgundian Jewish community that would seem to make such exchanges unlikely, if not impossible.24 All the same, scholars have identified a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the Talmud in Peter the Venerable’s own Adversus Judaeos, 25 and Stephen’s testimony that he “interrogated [Jewish scriptural scholars] most diligently in romance speech,”26 at first blush, sounds almost like an eyewitness account of such an interview, particularly given what we now assume about diglossia among twelfth-century Jews.27 While marginal notations in the Stephen Harding Bible claim to note variations observed in Hebrew manuscripts, no scholar has yet collated the actual emendations in the Stephen Harding Bible, presumably the product of these conversations with local Jews, with surviving “Hebraic or Chaldean” versions in order to validate Stephen’s statement.28 Whether or not he actually examined these foreign-language editions, his description of his editorial procedure in the Monitum may have been inspired by what he read in Jerome’s prologues.29 Stephen said plainly in his consulted Jewish scholars has also been questioned at times, though is now largely accepted; see Williams, The Monk and the Book, 60 and 226-231. 23 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 77-80. 24 Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Les juifs dans l’oeuvre de Pierre le Venerable,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale Xe-XIIe siècles 30 (1987): 331-346 and Dominique Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christiandom Face Heresy, Judaism, and Islam (1000-1150), trans. Graham Robert Edwards (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 275-322. 25 Torrell, “Les juifs,” 335, citing especially Yvonne Friedman in her edition Petri Venerabilis adversus Iudeorum inveteratam duritiem, ed. Yvonne Friedman, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Medievalis 58 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), xv. 26 “Diligentissime lingua romana ab eis inquisivimus” (Stephen Harding, Monitum 7, Latin text, Stercal, Stephen Harding, 54; English translation Krieg, in Stercal, Stephen Harding, 55). 27 Kirsten A. Fudeman, Vernacular Voices: Language and Identity in Medieval French Jewish Communities (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 1-25. 28 Cauwe, “Le bible,” 428 and 442, suggests that Stephen selected which Latin version to favor based on its correspondence with the Hebrew version, rather than editing his text directly from the Hebrew. In addition to Cauwe, several scholars have attempted to identify the Bible recensions closest to Stephen’s version. See Cauwe, “La bible,” 418-419 for a complete bibliography. For our purposes, identifying which versions of the Hebrew or Vulgate Bibles Stephen consulted is less important than understanding how he conceptualized his process and goals. 29 Cauwe, “La bible,” 441, and Auberger, “Importance de saint Jérôme,” 302.

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Monitum that he was guided by Jerome’s prologues in his quest to identify the appropriate sources: However, there are certain books in the Old Testament which were translated by this same translator of ours [Jerome] not from the Hebrew but from the Chaldean speech, because they are found that way among the Jews, as he himself writes in the prologue to Daniel; and we have accepted those as we have the other books according to his translation.30

Not only did he follow Jerome’s advice on his choice of sources, he also assembled the individual books of the Bible in the order prescribed by Jerome in his “Helmeted Introduction,” to Kings, which is included in the current second volume of the Stephen Harding Bible (Dijon BM MS 13), and which before the breviary reform carried out on Bernard’s instructions, was assigned to be read on both the first and second Sundays after Pentecost.31 Furthermore, Stephen suppressed the Book of Baruch. Even though it was included in the Alcuinian Bibles from which, according to Cauwe, Stephen most likely derived his editions, it had been rejected by Jerome in his prologue to Jeremiah.32 He also framed his Monitum as an explanation of his work, much as Jerome did his prologues, although without anything equivalent to Jerome’s frequent, stinging denunciations of his detractors. In his prologue to the Pentateuch, Jerome explained that his work had been commissioned by Desiderius so that others could hear it, and pleaded, “that I might hand over to our hearers a translation of the Pentateuch in the Latin tongue from the Hebrew language.”33 Jerome defended his choice to include passages in the Vulgate translation that were not found in the Vetus Latina or Septuaginta, using references to the Hebrew books, and advised critics to go and check the sources themselves: 30 Sunt tamen quidam veteris testamenti libri, qui non de hebraico sed chaldaico sermone ab eosdem nostro interprete sunt translati, quia sic eos apud iudeos invenit, sicut ipsemet in prologo super danihele scribit; nosque illos sicuti ceteros libros secundum eius translationem suscepimus (Stephen Harding, Monitum 6; Latin text, Stercal, Stephen Harding, 52; English translation Krieg, in Stercal, Stephen Harding, 53). Jerome’s prologue to Daniel was read on the second to last Sunday before the start of Advent, meaning the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (“Night Office Lectionary,” 125). 31 See Cauwe, “Le bible,” 421, and “Night Office Lectionary,” 119-120. For the text of this prologue, see A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 6, 489-490. 32 Biblia sacra II:1166. 33 Ut translatum in latinam linguam de hebraeo sermone Pentateuchum nostrorum auribus traderem. Biblia sacra I:3. English translation Kevin Edgecomb, http://www.bombaxo.com/ blog/jeromes-prologue-to-genesis/.

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If anywhere in the translation I have been seen by you to err, ask the Hebrews. Consult the teachers of the many different cities. What theirs have of Christ, your books do not have.34

Stephen was likely led to suspect that he had included material that Jerome had not considered canonical by statements such as Jerome’s observation in his prologue to Joshua: They might find what they seek, especially when among the Latins there are as many versions as there are books, and everyone has, according to his own judgment, either added or subtracted whatever seemed right to him, and indeed he may not have been able to be certain what differed.35

Similarly, in the prologue to Judith (read in the choir on the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost), Jerome explained, I have removed the extremely faulty variety of the many books; only those which I was able to find in the Chaldean words with understanding intact did I express in Latin ones.36

In fact, in nearly all of his prologues, Jerome touched upon the problem of passages that had crept into the Bible through the errors of translators. The first sentence of Jerome’s prologue to the Books of Kings also mentions the languages of the Hebrews, Syrians, and Chaldaens.37 This may have, along with other prologues, guided Stephen to his (by then very anachronistic) use of the term chaldaicam; it is unlikely that Stephen would have recognized Chaldaen in the volumes the Jews allegedly opened before him, especially because he did not know Hebrew.38 34 Sicubi in translatione videor errare, interroga hebraeos, diversarum urbium magistros consule: quod illi habent de Christo, tui codices non habent. Biblia sacra I:4. 35 Haec illis conferentes inveniant quod requirunt, maxime cum apud Latinos tot sint exemplaria quot codices, et unusquisque pro arbitrio suo vel addiderit vel subtraxerit quod ei visum est, et utique non possit verum esse quod dissonet. Biblia sacra I:285. It is worth noting here that Jerome used the same word as Stephen to denote textual divergences: dissonet. Trans. Kevin Edgecomb, http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/patristic-stuff/vulgate-prologues/. 36 Multorum codicum varietatem vitiosissimam aputavi; sola ea quae intellegentia integra in verbis chaldeis invenire potui, latinis expressi. Biblia sacra I:691. 37 Viginti et duas esse litteras apud Hebraeos, Syrorum quoque et Chaldeorum lingua testatur. Biblia sacra I:364. 38 The prologues to Tobit and Judith also claim that the books were originally written in “Chaldean.” The term is today used to refer to a modern Neo-Aramaic dialect, which was never

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In his prologue to Tobit, Jerome also explained that he used an oral transmission process, similar to that which Stephen claimed to have adopted, in order to access the text written in Chaldean: Because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker very skilled in both languages, I took to the work of one day, and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words.39

By no means did Stephen model the phrasing of his Monitum on Jerome’s prologues. Even these brief excerpts show that Stephen’s descriptive lexicon for his work differed profoundly from that used by Jerome: where Jerome termed his Jewish contemporaries hebreos, Stephen called them iudeos; Jerome most often identified the books they consulted as codices, while Stephen used the term libros. Likewise, while Jerome suggested that one inter­ roga hebreos, Stephen described his interaction with the Jews as inquisivimus. Furthermore, as Cauwe has noted, the marginal notations in the Bible itself intimate that its editor more frequently followed the examples provided by Latin rather than Hebrew manuscripts, with the excuse that more shared the same reading, or that the Latin manuscripts were very old and authentic.40 Stephen’s claims about his editorial preferences were therefore not entirely accurate. Nonetheless, the version of the text at which he arrived would have been perceived by his contemporaries to be closest to the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, if not closest to the Hebrew Bible that was Jerome’s source.41

Jerome in the Liturgy At the same time that the Bible was being edited, Cîteaux’s liturgical reformers, likely led by Stephen, made sure that the monks would understand the a language of Scripture. Jerome instead used the term to refer to Aramaic. On Jerome’s use of the term, see Edmon Louis Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 114 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 139-140. On the languages common to the Jews of northern France in this period, see Fudeman, Vernacular Voices, 1-25. 39 Et quia vicina est Chaldeorum lingua sermoni hebraico, utriusque linguae peritissimum loquacem repperiens, unius diei laborem arripui et quicquid ille mihi hebraicis verbis expressit, haec ego accito notario, sermonibus latinis exposui. Biblia sacra I:676. Trans. Kevin Edgecomb, http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/patristic-stuff/vulgate-prologues/. 40 Cauwe, “La bible,” 437. 41 Cauwe, “La bible,” 438 and 441.

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challenges Jerome (and by extension, Stephen) had faced in his editorial project by incorporating many more Hieronemian Vulgate prologues into Cîteaux’s Night Office lectionary than were typically read in Benedictine houses, meaning that at regular intervals, the Cistercian monks would have heard readings about Jerome’s editorial endeavors. The Ecclesiastica Officia, Cîteaux’s early customary, provided relatively vague instructions on when individual biblical books were to be read. The mandate for the period after the Feast of the Circumcision is typical. In that time, from Septuagesima up until Sunday, the books are so distributed that such a part of Genesis is read at Matins that according to the judgment of the cantor will fittingly serve as Matins lections for the whole of that time. The remaining part, if there is anything left from these Matins, and any other books which follow up to the book of Kings, are read in the refectory, where it is to be carefully arranged that they are read though before the Sunday Office in which Iudica me domine is sung.42

The author of the Cîteaux Lectionary refined these directions by assigning specific passages of Scripture to at least some nights, and instructing that the prologues were to be read as well. In the case of Septuagesima, the author of the lectionary assigned the prologue to the Pentateuch to the first Sunday, along with Genesis 1:1 through 2:14, and four readings from Gregory’s homily on the assigned gospel pericope, Matthew 20:1-16. 43 In almost every case, when the lectionary refines the instructions for reading from the Bible, it specifies that Jerome’s prologue should be the first reading of the series.44 The table in Appendix 3 lists the prologues in the order in which they were cantillated in the choir. Cîteaux’s choir monks would have heard, at regular intervals, discussions of the original languages of Scripture, the quality of the written versions, and reminders that these preserved, at least in the case of the prophetic books, 42 Hoc tempore, a LXX scilicet usque ad dominicam, qua libri diuiduntur, pars genesis ad uigilias legatur ea, que uigiliarum lectionibus per totum hoc tempus ad arbitrium cantoris conuenienter sufficere possit. Reliqua uero pars, si quid ab his uigiliis residuum est, alii quoque libri qui secuntur, usque ad libros regum in refectorio legantur, ubi hoc sollicite prouideatur, ut ante dominicam qua canitur officium Iudica me domine (Ps. 25:1 in the Roman version) perlecti sint. Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 190. Psalm 25 was sung on the first Sunday after the Octave of Epiphany (Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 176). The Roman version, Iudica me, domine, rather than the Vulgate Iudica me, deus, is specified in both the customary and the breviary. 43 “Night Office Lectionary,” 111. 44 “Night Office Lectionary,” 99-125.

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spoken words. Each of these prologues framed the biblical text they were about to hear as the work of translators and editors. While the prologues were a standard component of every twelfth-century copy of the Vulgate, the Cîteaux lectionary’s insistance that almost all of Jerome’s prologues be read aloud is unusual. Most revealing is a comparison between the summer portion of the Molesme breviary, which presumably witnesses the lections known to the earliest Cîteaux monks before they migrated to the New Monastery, and the surviving Cluny and Fleury lectionaries. Breviaries, as Waddell pointed out, are less reliable testaments than lectionaries to which lections were read in actual practice, because the scribes responsible for copying them tended to excerpt the lections arbitrarily. Only one manuscript (Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 807) preserves Molesme’s nocturn readings. It dates from seventy-five years after the monks departed for Cîteaux, and as Waddell describes it, “it is a quite tawdry manuscript, with much material that is missing”;45 thus, we must approach it with caution. A comparison between this partial record of Molesme’s Night Office liturgy and the evidence for practices at Cluny and Fleury, however, will show that it most likely preserves traditions common to Benedictine monasteries in eleventh- and twelfth-century France. The surviving portion of the Molesme breviary begins only in the midst of the vigil preceding Easter, and yet already by the first Sunday after the octave of Easter, the Night Office lections begin to diverge from those used at Cîteaux. While the Cistercian monks read Walafrid Strabo’s prologue to Apocalypse, the Molesme monks launched directly into Scripture. Two Sundays later, the Molesme monks heard the Canonical Epistles, skipping the Pseudo-Jerome prologue found in the early Cisterican lectionary. They likewise passed over Jerome’s prologues to the books of Kings, the Solomonic books, Ecclesiastes, Walafrid Strabo’s prologue to Wisdom, Jerome’s prologues to Job, Tobit, the Maccabees, and the prologue to Daniel.46 Because the Molesme monks followed a slightly different schedule for reading the books of the Bible as lections, we cannot identify whether they read the prefaces to Judith, Esther, and Ezechiel, but the surviving portion of their Night Office cursus reveals that, in general, they prioritized actual Scripture over prologue in their lections. 45 Chrysogonus Waddell, The Summer Season Molesme Breviary (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale Manuscript 807), 3 vols., Cistercian Liturgy Series 10-12 (Trappist, KY: Gethsemani Abbey, 1985), I:iii-iv and, on scribal approaches to breviary assembly, 77-78. 46 “Night Office Lectionary,” 116-124, and Waddell, The Summer-Season Molesme Breviary IIA, 3-169.

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The same is true of the Fleury and Cluny lectionaries, though there the divergence is not so stark, largely because the winter portions of these lectionaries survive, and are more similar to the Cîteaux lectionary. At both Fleury and Cluny, the monks launched their first Advent nocturn with Jerome’s prologue to Isaiah, and on Septuagesima Sunday read a prologue before commencing Genesis. Here the Fleury and Cluny lectionaries provide different types of information. At Fleury, the scribe typically indicated within the rubric that a prologue was to be read, but didn’t identify which. At Cluny, the scribe instead helpfully provided the prologue incipits. On Passion Sunday, as at Cîteaux, Cluny and Fleury monks read a prologue to Jeremiah, and, at Fleury at least, they read a prologue to Apocalypse on the first Sunday after the octave of Easter. After that, at both Fleury and Cluny and presumably also at monasteries which were influenced by them, prologues were passed over in favor of Scripture for several months. In the Fleury lectionary, an unidentified prologue was read before Proverbs in July, and then the prologues to Job, Tobit, Maccabees, and Ezekiel were read in August through November. At Cluny, no more prologues were read before Jerome’s prologue to Ezekiel, which was prescribed for November. 47 While neither of these traditions aligns exactly with that surviving from Molesme, at both Fleury and Cluny, prologues were largely neglected outside of the period between Advent and Easter. Chrysogonus Waddell has already noted, in his study of the Cistercian Night Office lectionary, that the monks incorporated a wealth of misattributed sermons, either because their sources provided the wrong attributions, or because, as specified by Benedict’s rule, they were determined to assemble readings only from the early Fathers.48 As Jerome was regarded as the Church Father par excellence, it was appropriate to augment the lectionary with as many of his texts, including those misattributed to him, as were relevant. The content of these prologues, however, focused as it is on issues of language, voice, and editorial choice, strikes a very different chord from the scriptural exegeses more common as patristic lections in the Night Office, signaling that what was considered relevant at Cîteaux may have differed from what was thought appropriate at other houses. Also distinctive, in terms of prologues, is the manuscript produced as the result of Stephen’s editorial efforts: the Stephen Harding Bible. While 47 See Davril, “Le lectionnaire de l’off ice à Fleury,” 115-134, and Étaix, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Cluny,” 95-108. It should also be noted that the Primitive Cistercian Breviary records no biblical prologues at all as lections. 48 “Night Office Lectionary,” 79-82.

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almost every contemporary Bible prefaces the Pentateuch with Jerome’s letter to Paulinus, Frater Ambrosius, this text is missing from the Stephen Harding Bible, and based on the codicology of the first volume, there is no reason to assume it was ever there. It is instead found in the lavish volume of Jerome’s epistles crafted at almost the same time, as will be discussed below. 49 Other prologues that were read in the choir were also left out of the Bible. For instance, the unattributed prologue to Maccabees is missing, while the scribes did include prologues to Joshua, the Minor Prophets, Chronicles, and a “prosa” written by Jerome on the subject of Job, none of which are prescribed in the lectionary. Given that the lectionary was likely a work in progress while this Bible was being compiled, we shouldn’t necessarily be surprised at these discrepancies. It is probably significant that later in the twelfth century a scribe found it necessary to add a tipped in leaf with the missing prologue for Maccabees, which the Cîteaux monks read shortly before Advent.

Picturing Jerome at Cîteaux If the contents of the Bible didn’t necessarily reflect the focus on Jerome’s prologues found in the liturgical cursus produced in almost the same period, the work of the scriptorium’s artists certainly did. The Cîteaux workshop is known for the remarkably luxurious manuscripts it produced in the few decades before figurative illumination was banned in Cistercian houses. In this brief period, a total of five portraits of Jerome were painted by several different artists. The works of many other patristic authors were copied at the Cîteaux scriptorium, but among them apparently only Gregory merited an author portrait at the beginning of a stand-alone volume of text he himself had authored, before his Registrum Gregorii (Dijon BM MS 180, fol. 1r) and in the first volume of the Moralia in Job (Dijon BM MS 168, fol. 7r). The surviving Cîteaux manuscripts seem to show that within the monastery’s scriptorium, artists were as interested as editors and liturgists in highlighting Jerome’s legacy, and moreover elevating Jerome to the rank of a divinely-inspired author, like an evangelist. One of the earliest examples is found in the Stephen Harding Bible, whose artist included a nod to Jerome’s contribution to the monks’ experience of Scripture. Before a misattributed prologue to the Gospels, Sciendum etiam ne quis ignarum, Jerome, tonsured and wearing a white cowel outlined 49 Dijon BM MS 135, fol. 102r-104r.

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Figure 3 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 3v

in brown, delivers his translation in the form of a codex into the hands of Pope Damasus (Figure 3, Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 3v), forming the “H” of the spurious salutation Hieronimus Damaso pape.50 Alessia Trivellone has 50 PL 29:529-530 note c, Fridericus Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco Suárez, 1940-1980) I:284, #601.

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proposed that Jerome, dressed as a monk and delivering his own edition of Scripture, here serves as a simulacrum of Stephen Harding, who was himself so preoccupied with correcting the biblical text used by his spiritual charges.51 Trivellone’s argument that Jerome’s habit, depicted using the neutral, untinted parchment, was intended to recall the undyed habits of the Cistercian monks, is unconvincing, both because early Cistercian statutes said nothing concerning the color or dying of habits, and because other images of Jerome and putative Cistercian monks in the early Cisterician manuscripts depict brown or grey habits, as Trivellone herself observes.52 Descriptions of the early Cistercians as “white” monks come from a decade or more after the Bible was painted. As we have already seen, though, Jerome may have provided a model for Stephen’s editorial work as well as how he framed it. It is certainly possible that the artists and those who saw the manuscript may have imagined Stephen in the guise of Jerome. Strikingly, in three of the other manuscripts in which Jerome is depicted, the artists have chosen to show him in communication with the women who had commissioned the work, or who served as his interlocutor. In a compilation of Jerome’s Letters and Sermons, also painted at Cîteaux soon after it was founded, Jerome is shown inscribing the first words of his letter to Eustochium, Audi, filia, on a codex with a quill while looking towards his disciple, who holds the lamp and palm of a pious virgin martyr (Plate 3, Dijon BM MS 135, fol. 163r, p. III). In a copy of Jerome’s commentary on Ezekiel, the prologue opens with an author portrait in which Jerome, depicted as a tonsured monk, deposits his work into the veiled hands of Eustochium (Figure 4, Dijon BM MS 131, fol. 3r). At the beginning of a manuscript of Jerome’s Commentaries on Daniel, the Minor Prophets and Ecclesiastes (Figure 5, Dijon BM MS 132, fol. 1r) we see him again, delivering his work to Marcella and Principia. Trivellone suggests that this focus on the women to and for whom he wrote could once again serve as a signal that Jerome stands in for Stephen Harding, who she claims supported female monasticism by founding Le Tart. Some connection between Cîteaux and this house is undeniable, however recent literature has cast into doubt the idea that Stephen Harding founded the abbey, favoring instead the hypothesis that Elizabeth de Verge, 51 Alessia Trivellone, “Culte de saints et construction identitaire à Cîteaux: les images de Jérôme dans les manuscrits réalisés sous l’abbatiat d’Étienne Harding,” in Normes et hagiographie dans l’Occident latin (vie-xvie siècle), Hagiologia 9, ed. Marie-Céline Isaïa and Thomas Granier (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 215-234. 52 Trivellone, “Culte de saints,” 221-224. She argues that the dyed habits seen in other early Cistercian manuscripts represent the use of a symbolic language of color.

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Figure 4 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 131, fol. 3r

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Figure 5 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 132, fol. 1r

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Figure 6 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 66r

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a patron of Stephen’s, founded Le Tart herself with Stephen’s support.53 No evidence comparable to the rich correspondence between Jerome and his female patrons survives for Stephen. Instead Trivellone suggests that the imagery itself provides proof of Stephen’s pastoral role and a defense against those who criticized his foundation of Le Tart in his lifetime, although no such criticism is recorded.54 This assertion can be neither proved nor disproved given our current knowledge. Equally interesting, however, is a more tangible detail. In the image of Jerome delivering his work to Marcella and Principia, as Yolanta Zaluska has pointed out, the artist added a divine hand that descends from above to bless the patristic author, as if the source of his words was heavenly inspiration, an unusual detail in depictions of Jerome.55 Only in the monastery’s sanctoral lectionary, where Jerome is shown enthroned on the crossbar of the “H” of Hieronimus, the first word of his vita (Figure 6, Dijon BM MS 641, fol. 66r), is he not seen promulgating his work.56

Jerome’s Letters The manuscript of Jerome’s letters and sermons copied at Cîteaux, today Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, is the most forthright demonstration, in its format, its imagery, and the apparatus that accrued around the text, of the monastery’s attitude to Jerome. Jean-Baptiste Auberger has pointed 53 For a recent survey of the vexed question of Cistercian nunneries with representative bibliography, see Elizabeth Freeman, “Nuns,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Brun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 100-111. Constance H. Berman, “Were there Twelfth-Century Cistercian Nuns?” Church History 68 (1999): 824-864 at 828-829 and note 15 examines the cartulary evidence for Le Tart’s foundation. See also Eleanor Campion, “Cîteaux Our Mother? Early Cistercian Women’s History Revisited,” in Cistercian Studies Quarterly 34 (1999): 483-499 and Emilia Jamroziak, The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe 1090-1500 (London: Routledge, 2013), 124-155. 54 Trivellone, “Culte de saintes,” 230-231. 55 Zaluska, L’enluminure et le scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle, Studia et Documenta 4 (Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, 1989), 134. The only images that show Jerome as divinely inspired that predate this manuscript are an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Jerome’s Vita Pauli Thebaei from Saint Augustine’s in Canterbury, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 389, fol. 1v; a twelfth-century manuscript from East Anglia, Dublin, Chester Beatty Library MS W.22, fol. 3v; and a late-eleventh-century Gospelbook from the Lower Rhine, London, British Library Harley MS 2820, fol. 12v. 56 I will take up in Chapter 4 the question of whether the monk seated in the Stephen Harding Bible’s initial for John (Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 56v), immediately after the Monarchian prologue Hic est Iohannes Evangelista (Stegmüller I:624), is Jerome.

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out that Jerome’s many pronouncements to his correspondents on rigorous monasticism were mirrored in the practices of the early Cistercians,57 although one could note that several of these, such as the mandates to live a simple and sober life, to dress simply, to eat plain food, and to read Scripture and especially the Psalter, could equally have been inspired by Benedict’s rule. The letters also reveal in their format how the monks envisaged Jerome. Most explicit are the initials, which reconceive his writings in terms of pseudo-Scripture by showing Jerome as divinely inspired, by picturing the biblical authors from whom he gleaned quotes, and by illustrating the texts of Jerome’s letters as if they were themselves Scripture. The biblical format of the codex and the annotations added to the text reinforce this impression. Tellingly, many of the letters embellished with figural initials address questions related to editing and translating Scripture. The manuscript was most likely created within a decade of the completion of the Stephen Harding Bible. The monumental volume of letters and sermons, 45 cm high and decorated with dozens of vibrantly painted initials, has been described by Zaluska as “without debate the richest manuscript executed at Cîteaux, because it totals a hundred and forty-two initials (of which seven are historiated).”58 It is arranged in a three-column format, a departure from common practice; only four manuscripts from twelfthcentury Cîteaux employ this scheme, and two of them (Dijon BM MS 135 and the multi-volume sanctoral lectionary, Dijon BM MSS 641, 642, 643), were copied out in the scriptorium’s first decades. Zaluska reasonably speculates that the scribe of MS 135, who probably preceded the scribe of the sanctoral lectionary volumes, adopted the three-column layout in order to give his manuscript the “cachet d’authenticité” of earlier Visigothic, Theodulphian, and Catalan Bibles and Patristic works sometimes copied in this format, including an eighth-century Visigothic copy of Jerome’s Epistles joined to Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae.59 The three-column arrangement is most commonly found in manuscripts of monumental scale and luxurious execution. MS 135 may be the most ornamented copy of Jerome’s Letters to 57 Auberger, “Importance de saint Jérôme,” 305-309. 58 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 82, “sans conteste le plus riche manuscrit exécuté à Cîteaux puisqu’il totalise cent quarante-deux initiales (dont sept historiées).” 59 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 40-41 and note 5. The early Jerome Epistles manuscript is El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo & I.14. See Michel Huglo, “La tradición de la Musica Isidori en la Península Ibérica,” in Hispania Vetus: Manuscritos litúrgico-musicales de los orígenes visigóticos a la transición francorromana (siglos IX-XII), ed. Susana Zapke (Bilbao: Fundación BBVA, 2007), 61-92 at 68-69. However, no similar early manuscript that could have served as a model survives from the Cîteaux collection.

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survive from the period. Jerome’s Epistles and Sermons must have attained a special status at Cîteaux, given that the monks used this unusual format, and invested so much energy in a manuscript that was not explicitly prescribed to be read in the choir. The Benedictine Rule specified what was to be read aloud outside the choir in only the broadest terms. Chapter 38, “The Reader for the Week,” explains that “Reading should not be absent from the brothers’ meals, nor should someone who happens to take up a book read it there, but the one who will read for the whole week should begin on Sunday,”60 but says no more about the contents of the reading. Chapter 42, “Nobody Should Speak After Compline,” mandates, “If it is an ordinary day, as soon as they rise from supper, the brothers should all sit down together and one of them should read the Conferences, or the Lives of the Fathers or something else to edify listeners, but not the Heptateuch or the Books of Kings, because it will not be good for weak minds to hear those parts of scripture at that time; they should be read at other times.”61 Most scholars of Benedictine monastic practice, particularly those who frame the activities of the monks using specific instructions found in customaries, assume that the types of readings listed above were also assigned for the refectory. At Cîteaux, where the author of the Night Office lectionary had populated Matins with over a dozen of Jerome’s prologues describing his work of biblical translation, Jerome’s Epistles and Sermons were probably considered suitable for refectory or chapter reading. The Cîteaux Jerome manuscript was certainly read aloud somewhere, as a dense system of tonic accents and hyphens was added some time after the original scribe finished his work. Similarly, the illuminations prefacing many of the letters and sermons create the impression that Jerome was a conduit for God’s word, and that his works were akin to Scripture in subject matter and their reliance on scriptural authors. Jerome’s letter to Eustochium, prefaced by the historiated initial containing Jerome’s portrait (Plate 3, Dijon BM MS 135, fol. 163r, p. III), is a lengthy disquisition on the dangers and joys of choosing a life of pious chastity, recounting Jerome’s own struggles with temptation in the desert, and larded with biblical examples. The artist ignored these ready-made narrative moments in favor of depicting the biblical origin of the first words of Jerome’s words: Audi filia et vide et inclina aurem tuam … (“Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear …”), which are drawn

60 The Rule of Saint Benedict, 134-135. 61 The Rule of Saint Benedict, 144-145.

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from Psalm 44:11.62 Fittingly, while Jerome looks towards his veiled disciple, the recipient of his letter, Eustochium raises her eyes instead to Christ, who grips his own book with the first words of the Psalm inscribed and makes a gesture of blessing. Jerome has become the medium through which Eustochium receives the divine word, symbolized by the Word Incarnate.63 This miniature is characteristic of the more narrative strain of historiated initial found in the second half of this manuscript. Conrad Rudolph has proposed that the artist of the Cîteaux scriptorium’s famed Moralia in Job manuscripts (Dijon BM MSS 168, 169, 170, 173) completed their illuminations serially, working from the first to the last of the folios, as they were intended to be bound. His working method, according to Rudolph, is revealed by the ever-increasing sophistication with which he addressed the spiritual import of the text which the initials accompanied.64 The same seems to be true of the artist who illuminated MS 135. Although Zaluska suggests that by the time this manuscript was copied and painted the workshop had been active for as long as a decade, the work of this artist is seen elsewhere only in manuscripts associated with the Second Style; he may have been a new arrival to Cîteaux.65 If so, he quickly adapted to the scriptorium’s decorative repertoire of multi-colored tendrils twined through rectilinear panes from which letter forms were constructed; curved and cup-shaped leaves, buds, and berries; and snapping animals and birds, while avoiding the explicitly martial imagery found in both the Stephen Harding Bible and the Moralia in Job. Where humans appear in the letters, they do not brandish hatchets or swords and, unlike in the Moralia, in only one case is a figure garbed as a monk; this figure is the portrait of Jerome. The opening folio is typical of this artist’s work in the first half of the Cîteaux Jerome. A full-page frame encloses a foliate initial and display text opening Jerome’s letter, Quanto studio et amore (“With what loving zeal”) to his nephew Heliodorus, who has rejected Jerome’s invitation to join him in 62 Jerome, Letter 22, Saint Jérôme Lettres, 8 vols., ed. and trans. Jérôme Labourt (Paris: Société d’édition “Les belles lettres,” 1951-1963), I:110. 63 Trivellone, “Culte des saintes,” 230, suggests that the two legs of the initial A, one holding Jerome and the other Eustochium, represent the male and female branches of Cistercian monasticism. 64 Conrad Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life: Reading, Art and Polemics in the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), passim. 65 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 84. Trivellone, “Culte des saints” 226, note 43, the author argues against Zaluska that the Jerome Epistles volume was decorated by the same artist who illuminated the Stephen Harding Bible, and discrepancies between the two manuscripts are explained by the evolution of his style over time, but provides no detailed comparison to justify this assertion.

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the ascetic life (Plate 4, Dijon BM MS 135, fol. 2v, p. IV).66 Above the first lines of the text, a bearded man with a somewhat fish-eyed countenance, clad in a short tunic with gold trim, clambers through twisting, leafy vines, his mouth open to bite into a cluster of golden berries hanging before him. His bare feet dangle below and he appears to ignore the bird and beast who bite his legs. Surrounding them all, the lush foliage tinted green, red, and blue sprouts dozens of gold berries that shine against a deep blue background. While the miniature displays no obvious narrative, the man, in his secular garb, seems to partake of the golden fruit of Jerome’s advice while worry or temptation, in the form of the smaller beasts, assail him. It may at least indirectly illustrate Jerome’s invitation to Heliodorus: At your departure you asked me to send you a letter of invitation when I took up my home in the desert … . Are you coming out, pray, from your chamber to the battle-field, from the shade to the sun? A body that is used to a tunic cannot support a cuirass, a head that has worn a linen hood shrinks from a helmet … . Lo, the adversary within your own heart is trying now to slay Christ! Lo, the enemy’s camp is sighing now for the bounty which you received before your service began.67

After this first folio, however, gold disappears from the artist’s color palette, and for the next fifty initials, even this kind of allusive reference to the letter texts is absent. The lavishly painted initials are accented with hybrid beast forms, animal heads, and, occasionally, human heads attached to animal bodies, many of whom bite the letter forms or their own tails. On fol. 70 an unidentifiable bearded man in layman’s clothes hangs from the flowering tail of a dragon, while on fol. 79v the curved body of another unshod, bearded layman forms the bow of the letter C for Credimus in unum deum patrem omnipotentem. His mouth gapes open while his right hand grasps a small blue fish. This is the text known as the “Faith of Damasus” (Fides Damasi), often attributed to Jerome but probably composed in fifth-century

66 Jerome, Letter 14, Saint Jérôme Lettres I:33. 67 Quoniam igitur et tu ipse abiens postularas, ut tibi, postquam ad deserta migrassam, invi­ tatoriam a me scriptam transmitterem … Et tu mihi de cubiculo ad aciem, de umbra egrederis ad solem? Corpus adsuetum tunica loricae onus non suffert, caput opertum linteo galeam recusat … Ecce adversarius in pectore tuo Christum conatur occidere; ecce donativum, quod militaturus accepturus acceperas, hostilia castra suspirant. Jerome, Letter 14, Select Letters of Jerome, trans. Frederick A. Wright, The Loeb Classical Library 1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933, rpr. 1963), 28-31.

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Figure 7 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 107v

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Gaul.68 From this point on in the manuscript, depictions of men become more common; they are found on fols. 85v, 89, and 102, although their iconographic significance is vague. This situation changes on fol. 107v (Figure 7). Here one of the largest of the manuscript’s historiated initials is found before a letter written by Jerome in 395 now known as Letter 57, “To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating.” The initial depicts a balding, bearded man encased within the frame that forms the upright of the letter P, for Paulus: this is undoubtedly Paul, depicted with his characteristic receding hairline and beard. He grasps a book in his left hand and wraps his right arm around the inner frame of the letter’s upright, where it comes very close to the grasping hands of the crowned figure whose curved body forms the bow of the letter. The first words of the text reveal the identities of the two figures: The apostle Paul when he appeared before King Agrippa to answer the charges which were brought against him, wishing to use language intelligible to his hearers and confident of the success of his cause, began by congratulating himself in these words: I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee touching all the things whereof I am accused by the Jews: especially because thou art expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews [Acts 26:2-3]. He had read the saying of Jesus: Well is him that speaketh in the ears of them that will hear [Eccl. 25:9];69 and he knew that a pleader only succeeds in proportion as he impresses his judge. On this occasion I too think myself happy that learned ears will hear my defence. For a rash tongue charges me with ignorance or falsehood; it alleges that in translating another man’s letter I have made mistakes through incapacity or carelessness …70

68 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition, ed. Frank Leslie Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone (London: Oxford University Press, 2005). Edition in Andrew Ewbank Burn, An Introduction to the Creeds and to the Te Deum (London: Methuen & Co., 1899), 244-246. 69 Saint Jérome Lettres III:56, notes that this quote is instead from Ecclesiasticus 25:9, and Fremantle et al. correct Jerome’s attribution in the English translation. 70 Paulus apostolus praesente Agrippa rege de criminibus responsurus quae posset intellegere qui auditurus erat, securus de causae victoria statim in principio gratulatur dicens: de omnibus quibus accusor a Iudaeis, o rex Agrippa, aestimo me beatum cum apud te sim hodie defendendus qui praecipue nosti cunctas quae in Iudaeis sunt consuetudines et quaestiones [Acts 26:2-3]. Legerat enim illud Esaiae: Beatus qui in aures loquitur audientis [Eccl. 25:9], et noverat tantum oratoris verba proficere quantum iudicis prudentia cognovisset. Unde et ego beatum me in hoc dumtaxat negotio iudico quod apud eruditas aures inperitiae linguae responsurus sum quae obicit mihi vel ignorantiam vel mendacium, si aut nescivi alienas litteras vere interpretari aut nolui …

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The biblical event to which Jerome refers at the beginning of his letter to Pammachius occurred after Paul’s arrest and imprisonment in Caesaria. The governor, Festus, brought Paul before Agrippa so that the King could examine him and discover whether he had committed any crime worthy of execution. Paul recounted his conversion and apostolic mission so effectively that Agrippa responded, “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian.” Nonetheless, he arranged for Paul to be deported to Rome.71 Juxtaposing Paul with Agrippa here allowed the artist simultaneously to allude to three different but relevant themes. Agrippa claimed that he was nearly converted by the persuasiveness of Paul’s speech, the same issue that Jerome addressed in the beginning of the prologue he penned to accompany his translation of Isaiah, and which preoccupied him throughout his translating career. The image also echoes the one already encountered in the initial for Jerome’s letter to Eustochium, Audi, filia, of the transmission of Scripture, as Paul is shown grasping a book, most likely understood to be the one he authored: the Pauline Epistles. Placing Paul, rather than Jerome, next to the letter also effectively identifies Paul as the most relevant author connected to the text in the adjacent column, even though its actual author was Jerome and the Scripture he quoted came from the Book of Acts. Note that, like the historiated initial prefacing Jerome’s letter to Eustochium, the two figures in the initial are not shown in dialogue: Paul holds a book, the standard attribute of an author, and though he is described as speaking, his mouth is firmly closed. This is the typical means by which authors were portrayed in initials that commenced the texts they had authored in this period, including in the nearly contemporary Stephen Harding Bible, in which David, Solomon, Luke, and James (Dijon BM MS 14, fols. 13v, and 56r, and MS 15, fols. 68r and 83v) are all shown either composing or holding their texts. The depiction of Herod is more unusual, for his mouth hangs open as if he were shouting, or attempting to swallow the letter that he grasps. My examination of the motif of the open mouth in early Cisterican miniatures, which follows in Chapter 4, will shed more light on the meaning of this motif. The content of the letter itself, which may encapsulate how Stephen and his workshop understood their responsibility to copy, edit, and proclaim Scripture, probably provides an explanation for why it merited such a large initial, the first of the manuscript that was narrative in function. Jerome, Letter 57, Saint Jérôme Lettres III:55-56. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series 2, vol. 6, 112. 71 Acts 26:1-27:1.

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The artist has shown the same biblical event that Jerome used in the letter to defend his attempts to further the Christian mission through his own scholarly work. Much of the f irst part of Jerome’s disquisition is a diatribe against his critics, including Rufinus, whom he alleged had solicited a monk to obtain another letter he had informally translated for Eusebius of Cremona. Here he explains the distinction he made in editorial practice between works of Scripture and those of mere commentary or correspondence: For I myself not only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the Greek (except in the case of the holy scriptures where even the order of the words is a mystery) I render sense for sense and not word for word.72

Here we see an explanation for an editorial technique found in the Stephen Harding Bible, in which construe marks were inserted above New Testament passages. Jerome then proceeds to demonstrate how the Evangelists and Apostles themselves had not followed this principle and had instead, according to the Scriptures as preserved in Greek and Latin, departed dramatically from the text of the many prophecies they quoted from the Hebrew, prioritizing the meaning over the exact words when rendering Scripture passages into a new language. He also points out the many additions to and deletions from the Scriptures made by subsequent copyists, which he claims to have rectified in his own version: But how shall we deal with the Hebrew originals in which these passages and others like them are omitted, passages so numerous that to reproduce them all would require books without number? The number of the omissions is shown alike by the asterisks mentioned above and by my own version when compared by a careful reader with the old translation. Yet the Septuagint has rightly kept its place in the churches, either because it is the first of all the versions in time, made before the coming of Christ, or else because it has been used by the apostles (only however in places where it does not disagree with the Hebrew).73 72 Ego enim non solum fateor, sed libera voce profiteor me in interpretatione Graecorum absque scripturis sanctis, ubi et verborum ordo mysterium est, non verbum e verbo sed sensum exprimere de sensu. Saint Jérome Lettres III:59, Letter 57:5. Translation, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 6, 113. 73 Sed quid faciemus ad authenticos libros, in quibus haec non feruntur adscripta et cetera his similia? quae si proferre nitamur, infinitis libris opus est. Porro quanta dimiserint vel asterisci ut dixi, testes sunt vel nostrai interpretatio, si a diligenti lectore translationi veteri conferatur; et tamen

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In Dijon MS 135, fol. 109v, a twelfth-century scribe wrote a firm, dark “nota” mark in the margin next to this passage.74 The scribe who added this annotation was clearly interested in Jerome’s translation philosophy regarding Scripture. The artist, however, continued to illustrate the book as if it were itself Scripture: the illuminations that follow depict either moments from Scripture, authors of Scripture, or the transmission of Scripture. On fol. 152r (Figure 8), John the Evangelist, holding a book and an outsized martyr’s palm, forms the letter I of Jerome’s epistle to his aunt, Castorina, Letter 13, flanking his own words: Quicumque odit fratrem suum, homicida est, “Whoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”75 Jerome quoted John’s first Epistle as his opening salvo in an attempt to convince his aunt to put aside the feud that had soured their relationship. John, rather than Jerome, however, is given the status of an author here, similar to Paul at the opening of Letter 57. Near the end of the manuscript the scribe compiled homiletic works either authored by or attributed to Jerome. Sermons for Christmas, Epiphany, Quadragesima, Parasceve (Good Friday), and two for Easter all received narrative initials, although, according to the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary, none of these was read in the choir during any of the relevant feasts. One of the more striking illuminations is that opening the Sermon for Easter, Non queo, fratres charissimi, quem mente concepi (“I have not the power to bring forth in words what I conceive in my mind”),76 which begins on fol. 183v (Figure 9). The letter N is constructed from the diagonal form made by the tomb from which the resurrected Christ climbs and the two flanking angels, one of whom perches on the discarded lid of the tomb. Three recumbent, sleeping soldiers, discarded spears under their feet, are crushed iure Septuaginta editio botinuit in ecclesiis, vel quia ab apostolis, in quibus tamen ab Hebraico non discrepat, usurpata. Saint Jérome Lettres III:70-71, Letter 57:11 Translation, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 6, 118. 74 Or, because this is a gutter between two columns, the ‘nota’ mark could be meant to indicate the passage Igitur, quia et errasse humanum est et confiteri errorem prudentis. Saint Jérome Lettres III:72, Letter 57:12. A further nota mark can be found on the following recto, next to the passage Nec reprehendo in quolibet Christiano sermonis inperitiam-atque utinam Socraticum illud haberemus: ‘scio, quod nescio’ et alterius sapientis: ‘te ipsum intellege’!, venerationi mihi semper fuit non verbose rusticitas sed sancta simplicitas (“I do not think the worse of any Christian because he lacks skill to express himself; and I heartily wish that we could all say with Socrates ‘I know that I know nothing;’ and carry out the precept of another wise man, ‘Know thyself.’ I have always held in esteem a holy simplicity but not a wordy rudeness”). Translation, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 6, 118. 75 Letter 13. Saint Jérôme Lettres I:32-33. Translation, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 6, 13. The first words are taken from I John 3:15. 76 Dijon BM MS 135, fol. 183v, Jerome, On Easter Sunday (Homily 93), PL 30:224-226.

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Figure 8 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 152r

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Figure 9 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 183v

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beneath it. The tomb, guards, and angelic visitors are not mentioned in the accompanying sermon; instead, the artist may have been prompted by the rubric, which assigns the sermon to Easter, to illustrate the Resurrection, which is only alluded to, rather than described, in the sermon itself. The initial literally illustrates the moment of the resurrection as told in Matthew 28:2, 4, “And behold: there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and coming rolled back the stone and sat upon it … . And for fear of him the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men.” The first in the sequence of sermons, on fol. 182r, is Hodie verus sol ortus est mundo, Maximus of Turin’s Sermon 7 for Epiphany, labeled here Incipit sermo beati hieronimi de Natali.77 According to the Cisterican Night Office lectionary, this sermon was not read during the Christmas Matins Office, though other, similar sermons by Maximus of Turin were. Nonetheless, the reference to Christmas in the rubric before the sermon once again seems to have inspired the artist to adapt an illustration of the moment as described in the Gospel to this sermon (Plate 5, p. V). As in the initial before the Easter sermon, the stem of this sermon’s opening initial, H, is formed by an angel bearing a flowering staff, who this time unfurls a scroll which forms the bow of the letter and surrounds the busts of five shepherds. Their gazes are riveted upon the angelic messenger, while below them their flocks stare vacantly. The scroll contains a tiny inscription: Natus est uobis hodie saluator qui est christus dominus in ciuitate David et hoc gaudium annuncio uobis. The sermon itself says nothing about the shepherds or their flocks, or about the joyful announcement made by the angels on high, but instead dwells on the Incarnation and its effects: the light of God coming into the world, and the salvation of all mankind. The scroll’s titulus is taken in part from the text of Luke 2:11: natus est vobis hodie salvator qui est Christus Dominus in civitate David (for this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the City of David). The second part loosely references Luke 2:10: ecce enim evangelizo vobis gaudium (“behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy”). Antiphons and responsories for the Matins Office, not surprisingly, dwelled on the virgin birth, but also recalled how the good news was announced to mankind. The final responsory and verse pair of the first nocturn of Christmas asked: R. Quem uidistis pastores? dicite, annunciate nobis in terris quis apparuit; natum uidimus in choro angelorum saluatorem dominum.

77 Jerome, PL 30:220-221 and Maximus, PL 57:545-546. CCSL 23, 182.

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V. Natus est nobis hodie saluator qui est Christus dominus in ciuitate David; Refrain. Natum uidimus in choro angelorum saluatorem dominum.78

An antiphon that was sung at least twice in the week of the octave of the Nativity provides the second half of the titulus: Angelus ad pastores ait: Annuntio uobis gaudium magnum, quia natus est uobis hodie saluator mundi, alleluia.79 Both the responsory and verse pair and the antiphon disappeared from the Nativity and Octave Offices sometime before 1147 when the chant was reformed, but not before they could be faintly echoed in an image that accompanied a sermon likely read aloud in that season. This is not the only case in which chants and lections heard in the Cîteaux choir seem to have shaped the images found in manuscripts probably read elsewhere, as we will see in Chapter 3. Whatever texts inspired them, these illustrations of events from Scripture, in combination with the portraits of standing “authors,” and the three-column format and monumental scale of the book, help to give this manuscript of Jerome’s Epistles a decidedly biblical appearance. As the lengthiest liturgical observance of Benedictine monks, the Office absorbed a substantial proportion of their time and attention, at least among those who followed it with the full rigor prescribed by the Benedictine Rule. One of the first reforming efforts undertaken at the newly founded monastery was a comprehensive reworking of the Office. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the resulting liturgy, at least for the feast of Advent, the beginning of the church year and thus the first part of the breviary that would have been rewritten, highlighted a theme with which they appear to have been preoccupied: the correct and effective vocalization of God’s words. They knew, as we can see from the Annunciation to the Shepherds illustration in the Jerome Epistles manuscript, that the words of the Office lingered in the minds of the monks long after they had been sung in the choir. The Cîteaux monks, faced with the task of reforming the cycle of reading and singing, both inside and outside the choir, and armed with a body of patristic texts approved by Benedict, turned to Jerome as both a source and a model. Jerome, who edited, translated, and transmitted the Scripture to members of his flock, had forged the path that the Cistercian monks, and particularly their abbots, would follow. The early Cistercians enhanced the stature of Jerome’s work by augmenting the number of lections dedicated to 78 Can 007470 and 007470a. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 140. 79 Can 001404. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 148 and 150.

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his writing in the Office, imitated it in their editorial projects, and copied his writings in a large and luxurious compilation outfitted with illuminations that highlighted links to Scripture, making him, in a sense, the prototypical Cistercian scholarly shepherd. Whether this truly represented Jerome’s own sense of vocation almost eight hundred years earlier is another question, however Jerome himself seems to have considered the work of translation inextricable from those of reading aloud, teaching, and spiritual leadership. In a letter from 384 to his friend Marcella, in which he recounts how they learned of the sudden death of the Roman widow and nun Lea, he described the moment when the sad news arrived: When in the third hour of the day [Terce] we had begun to read the 72nd psalm, the beginning of the third book, and we were compelled to teach the part of the title at the end of the second book, the part that extends to the beginning of the third book – that “the hymns of David, son of Jesse, end,” is the end of the previous book, and “psalm Asaph” the beginning of the following – and we had reached that place in which the just man says: I was saying, if I had spoken this way, I would have been untrue to the generation of your children [Ps. 72:15], which is not so expressed in the Latin manuscripts, suddenly it was announced to us that the most holy Lea had left her body.80

Jerome devotes the rest of the letter to chastising Marcella for her shortsightedness in lamenting the death of one so clearly bound for eternal reward, and never returns to the seemingly prosaic task of explaining the titling conventions and variant translations of the Psalms. Although Stephen must have known this letter, as it is found on fols. 179r-179v of MS 135, we have no equivalent letters attributed to Stephen that blend so strikingly Stephen’s own roles as text editor, liturgical reformer and spiritual teacher. Instead we must judge from the product of his work that, like Jerome, he believed these vocations to be connected. 80 Saint Jérôme Lettres II:8, Letter 23, Cum hora ferme tertia hodiernae diei septuagesimum secundum psalmum, id est tertii libri principium, legere coepissemus et docere cogeremur tituli ipsius partem ad finem secundi libri, partem ad principium tertii libri pertinere – quod scilicet ‘defecerunt hymni Dauid, filii Iesse,’ finis esset prioris, ‘psalmus’ uero ‘Asaph’ principium sequentis – et usque ad eum locum peruenissemus, in quo iustus loquitur: dicebam: si narrauero sic, ecce generationem filiorum tuorum praeuaricatus sum [Ps. 72:15], quod in Latinis codicibus non ita habemus expressum, repente nobis nuntiatum est sanctissimam Leam exisse de corpore. Translation, Joan Ferrante at https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/300.html

PL ATES

Plate 1 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 12, fol. 3v

I

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Plate 2 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 173, fol. 29r

PL ATES

Plate 3 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 163r

III

IV 

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Plate 4 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 2v

PL ATES

Plate 5 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fol. 182r

V

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Plate 6 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 4v

PL ATES

Plate 7 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 5r

VII

VIII 

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Plate 8 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129, fol. 5r, detail

PL ATES

Plate 9 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 641, fol. 40v

IX

X

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Plate 10 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 29v

PL ATES

Plate 11 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 14r

XI

XII 

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Plate 12 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 170, fol. 32r

PL ATES

Plate 13 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 56v

XIII

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Plate 14 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 128v

PL ATES

Plate 15 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 14, fol. 136v

XV

XVI 

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Plate 16 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 41r

3

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R. O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches, and make your flowers and fruit; for the days of the lord draw nigh. V. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a savior. Refrain. For the days of the lord draw nigh.1

It should come as no surprise that when the monks of Cîteaux turned their attention to the task of illuminating their earliest surviving luxury codices, they drew on the passages most familiar to them, those they heard and sang in the liturgy. Whether or not these books were intended for choir use, the events and personages mentioned in the texts they contained sometimes prompted the monks to decorate them with motifs drawn not from the words immediately adjacent to the images but rather from lections and chants they remembered from associated feasts, as we have already seen with the Pseudo-Jerome sermon in the Jerome Epistles manuscript (Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135, fols. 182r and 185v).2 We can also see this in illuminations depicting the Virgin Mary. Two manuscripts from early Cîteaux were outfitted with miniatures that portrayed the Virgin in innovative ways, compiling preexisting motifs inspired by the Matins lections and chants with which the monks celebrated Advent and Christmas. Liturgy was not the sole driver behind the larger phenomenon of Marian devotion, yet the liturgy of an individual monastic house shaped the spiritual environment in which Cistercian theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux developed and worked.3 Therefore it is worth tracing the links between the 1 R. Montes Israhel, ramos [uestros] expandite et florete et fructus facite; prope est ut ueniat dies domini. V. Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum; aperiatur terra et germinet saluatorem. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 108. 2 See above, 92-93. 3 See Diane J. Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” in A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 279-304 at 299-300, and Reilly, “Education, Liturgy and Practice in Early Cîteaux,” in Understanding Monastic Practices of Oral Communication (Western Europe, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries), ed. Steven Vanderputten, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 85-114 at 111-114.

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ways Mary was described and celebrated in the liturgy in the first decades of the New Monastery, the ways she was depicted in art, and the ways she was treated in Bernard’s spiritual writings. These connections reveal how the aural experience of chant and Scripture lections read during the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and the Nativity of the Virgin inspired Cîteaux artists to apply Trinitarian and sacramental iconography, the virgo lactans formula, and images of the biblical foreshadowings of the virgin birth to texts associated with, but not read, during those feasts. Bernard’s writings show that once he left Cîteaux to guide his own monastery as abbot, he may have recollected either the chants or the images when he composed his own meditations on the Virgin.

And There Shall Come Forth a Rod Out of Jesse The culmination of the first night of Advent was the final nocturn. Here, the responsories and their accompanying verses reflect the longing for the Lord’s arrival, which reached a fever pitch. As with the first two Advent nocturns, introduced in Chapter 1, the third nocturn used at Cîteaux proves to be distinctive when compared with those found elsewhere. At Chartres Cathedral, the Roman cursus allowed for only nine lections, and thus only nine responsories and verses in the Matins service for the first night of Advent.4 This meant that there the Office ended before it could be crowned with the many metaphorical references to the fruitfulness of the earth sung at the New Monastery. At Cîteaux, on the other hand, the monks proclaimed at the culmination of their service that the mountains, heavens, and earth would rejoice, dew would anoint the land, and the hills would flow with milk and honey as the Lord arrived to liberate his people from captivity. Another leitmotiv is signaled by the opening versicle of the nocturn: Egredietur uirga de radice Iesse, and its antiphonal response: Et flos de radice eius ascendet.5 The third and final Advent nocturn (Appendix 4) moved from the Old Testament reading to a Gospel pericope and its interpretation. Even once the monks had switched from reading the Book of Isaiah to PseudoChrysostom’s homily on Matthew, however, the antiphons and responsories still peppered the service with references to Isaiah’s text. More than half 4 Margot Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Literature and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 63. 5 W. And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse. Response. And the flower of his rod will ascend.

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of the responsories and verses, the paired antiphon and versicle, and two of the three choices of canticle either quoted or were inspired by Isaiah’s prophecies of the advent of a messiah, though the texts of the responsories were tweaked to make them more directly predictive of the Advent of the Lord, both in the Incarnation and as a prelude to judgment.6 For instance, in the responsory after Lection 9, the scriptural “because the Lord hath comforted his people,” has been changed to “because our Lord will come,” while in the responsory after Lection 12, Isaiah’s descriptive words have been put directly into the Lord’s mouth, who declares “I come.” A. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. His eyes shall see the king in all his glory.7 Gospel reading: Matthew 21:1-9, the entry into Jerusalem. W. And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse. Response. And the flower of his rod will ascend.8

Lections 9-12: Pseudo-Chrysostom’s Opus Imperfectum Matthaeum, Homily 379 Lection 9 R. Give praise, o ye heavens, and rejoice, o earth, ye mountains, give praise with jubilation: because our Lord comes, and will have mercy on his poor. V. Behold the sovereign Lord when he comes in glory. Refrain. And he will have mercy on his poor.10

6 The same had occurred in the second nocturn, when Isaiah 7:14, Ecce uirgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et uocabitur nomen eius [Emmanuel] (“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel”), was revised to become the seventh responsory: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, says the lord, and his name shall be called Wonderful, God, Mighty.” 7 A. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Regem in decore suo uidebunt oculi eius. 8 W. Egredietur uirga de radice Jesse. Response. Et flos de radice eius ascendet. 9 PG 56:834 n. 1, lines 1-21; 55-64. 10 R. Letentur c[a]eli et exultet terra; iubilate montes laudem; quia dominus noster ueniet, et pauperum suorum miserebitur. V. Ecce dominator dominus cum uirtute ueniet. Refrain. Et pauperum suorum miserebitur.

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Lection 10 R. Strangers shall pass through it no more, and in that day, the mountains shall drop down with sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk and honey, says the Lord. V. I will come, says the Lord, and I will heal the sufferings of my people. Refrain. And in that day, the mountains shall drop down with sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk and honey, says the Lord.11

Lection 11 R. O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches, and make your flowers and fruit; for the days of the Lord draw nigh. V. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a savior. Refrain. For the days of the Lord draw nigh.12

Lection 12 R. Let your tired hands be strengthened, and your weak knees be confirmed. The Lord says to the weak-spirited and those ailing in mind, “Do not fear, because I come to burst asunder the bonds of your captivity.” V. City of Jerusalem, do not weep; because soon your salvation comes. Refrain. The Lord says, “Because I come to burst asunder the bonds of your captivity.”13 11 R. Alieni non transibunt per Iherusalem amplius, nam in illa die tillabunt montes dulcedi­ nem, et colles fluent lac et mel, dicit dominus. V. Ego ueniam, dicit dominus, et sanabo contricionem populi mei. Refrain. Nam in illa die tillabunt montes dulcedinem, et colles fluent lac et mel, dicit dominus. 12 R. Montes Israhel, ramos [uestros] expandite et florete et fructus facite; prope est ut ueniat dies domini. V. Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum; aperiatur terra et germinet saluatorem. Refrain. Prope est ut ueniat dies domini. 13 R. Confortamini, manus fatigate, et, genua dissolute, roboramini; qui pusillo animo estis, mente conualescite, ne timete, dicit dominus, quia uenio disrumpere iugum captiuitatis uestre. V. Civitas Iherusalem, noli flere; quia cito ueniet salus tua; Refrain. Dicit dominus, quia uenio disrumpere iugum captiuitatis uestre.

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Hymn: Te Deum laudamus Gospel Reading (again): Matthew 21:1-9a Hymn: Te decet laus Collect: Excita domine quesumus … (CO 2554)

Fruit and flowers and their buds abound in the third nocturn’s chants. The biblical passage that inspired the eleventh responsory, Ezekiel 36:8, made no mention of flowers: “But as for you, O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel.” This is instead an elaboration of the responsory’s author, probably inspired by the opening versicle, given that the two chants usually appeared together. The answering verse, on the other hand, comes directly from the text of Isaiah 45:8: Aperiatur terra, et germinet saluatorem, “Let the earth be opened and bud forth a savior.”

The Jesse Tree The motifs of Jesse’s rod, or root, and the budding forth of a savior from that metaphorical genealogy, were some of the most fruitful iconographic topoi explored by the early Cîteaux artists. In two different manuscripts, a lectern-sized copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah (Plates 6 and 7, Dijon BM MS 129, pp. VI and VII), and the first volume of a sanctoral lectionary of similar dimensions (Plate 9, Dijon BM MS 641, p. IX), the Cîteaux artists painted two of the earliest surviving depictions of the Tree of Jesse, representing the theme in two very different ways by joining preexisting iconographic formulae of Byzantine origin to unusual combinations of surrounding motifs.14 The intellectual ferment that characterized the early years of Cîteaux, when Alberic and Stephen Harding fostered a scriptorium dedicated to copying and revising Scripture and commentaries, would have encouraged the monks to ornament their manuscripts with miniatures that expressed complex interpretations of biblical events. In the case of the Jesse Tree images, the Advent chants and the lection texts they framed 14 The recent bibliography on the use of this iconographic motif in the twelfth century is summarized in Karine Boulanger, “L’iconographie de l’arbre de Jessé au Moyen Age,” in Marie, fille d’Israël, fille de Sion, ed. Michel Dupuy and Jean Longère, Études Mariales: Bulletin de la Société Française d’Études Mariales (Paris: Médiaspaul, 2003), 168-183, and Margot Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity, Fulbert of Chartres and the Stirps Jesse: Liturgical Innovation circa 1000 and its Afterlife,” Speculum 75 (2000): 389-434.

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seem to have influenced the way in which the trope of the Tree of Jesse was constructed in these manuscripts. Both manuscripts were decorated in what Yolanta Zaluska called the “Second Style.” Second Style painting is characterized by a skilled application of nested, v-shaped damp folds to the voluminous drapery that clothes the figures. Figures and other pictorial elements are outlined in brown pen, while color modeling in the style’s bright jewel tones is rendered with dexterously-applied parallel lines, using the neutral parchment background as a foil. Garments fall in rippling pleats, and are occasionally edged with carefully-delineated jeweled borders. Oval faces have pursed, frowning lips and slight double chins. The cheeks and brows of the larger faces are touched with pink, but otherwise left largely unmodeled. The Second Style can be considered a variant of the Byzantine-influenced mode of drapery and facial rendering then sweeping Europe, and already practiced as near to Cîteaux as the scriptorium of Cluny. As Zaluska points out, none of the manuscripts painted in the Second Style include any internal evidence that would allow them to be dated securely.15 Nevertheless, as Zaluska has shown, the manuscripts of the First and Second Styles share both scribes and artists; thus we can be assured that they were created during the lifetimes of monks who arrived at Cîteaux within the first decade after its foundation, and probably while Stephen Harding’s liturgical and editorial philosophies still held sway within the scriptorium, therefore before the sweeping reform of the hymnal and antiphonal completed by 1147. Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah served as a dense and very thorough disquisition on Isaiah’s words. Jerome claimed in a letter that usually serves as the commentary’s prologue: “You compel me, virgin of Christ Eustochium, to go on to Isaiah; and give you what I promised your holy mother Paula while she was alive.”16 Paula and Eustochium, the recipients of Jerome’s translation of Isaiah, had clearly sought from him a longer exposition on the meaning of Isaiah’s prophecies. As the monks of Cîteaux undoubtedly understood, Jerome had intended this work to serve as a companion, one of many libros explanationis, or “books of explanation,” to his planned duplex edition of the Bible. While Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah did not form part of the program of choir reading at Cîteaux, the format of this 15 Yolanta Zaluska, L’enluminure et le scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle, Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses: Studia et Documenta IV (Nuit-Saint-Georges: Cîteaux, 1989), 113. 16 Cogis me, virgo Christi Eustochium, transire ad Esaiam; et quod sanctae matri tuae Paulae, dum viveret, pollicitus sum, tibi reddere. Prologus, Commentarius in Esaiam, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 73, ed. M. Adriaen (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), 1−4. Trans. Joan Ferrante, http:// epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/273.html.

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manuscript copy is typical of the volumes that furnished the refectory readings, as prescribed by Benedict, although it lacks many of the scribal emendations seen in other early Cîteaux manuscripts, which might indicate how heavily it was used. Today the manuscript begins with a later addition: a lengthy sermon described by its rubric as sermo de canone factus in capitulo clareuallensis a quodam canonico de ordine premonstratensi (“sermon on the canon [of the mass] delivered in the Clairvaux chapter by a canon of the Premonstratensian order”).17 Jerome’s text begins on fol. 4r, with his letter to Eustochium, prefaced with several lines of capitals and a multicolored foliate initial inhabited by an egret. The letter ends in the left-hand column of fol. 4v. The right-hand column is consumed by a giant standing Virgin Mary, who lifts a miniature boy Christ in a single draped hand (Plate 6, p. VI). The child tenderly grasps his mother around the neck with one hand, resting his cheek on hers in the Eleousa – the Virgin of Tenderness – type that first appeared in Byzantine art, perhaps as early as the sixth century.18 With his right hand he blesses one of two hovering angels, each of whom carries a vessel, also in draped hands. One vessel is in the form of a pyx, the storage container for consecrated hosts. The other angel appears to carry a straight-sided bowl filled with a red substance. A dove of the Holy Spirit perches on the Virgin’s beaded halo, and she grips between thumb and forefinger a cutting of a budding stem composed of four curving, serrated green leaves, two red and white fronds, and a crowning red flower bud. The Virgin and Child hover above a supine, sleeping Jesse, out of whose shrouding blanket rises a sturdy forked stalk. The illumination is unfinished. Faint graphite lines reveal that if finished as planned, the Virgin’s slippered feet would have rested on two curving branches that arched outwards before winding back towards the Virgin’s knees. Above, traces of graphite show that the vine was intended to climb, trellis-like, beside the standing mother and child. Below the reclining Jesse, a later hand has inscribed two abbreviated words: Egredietur uirga.

17 The same sermon is found attached to Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Canonis missae expositio in a twelfth-century manuscript from Clairvaux, now Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 302. 18 Zaluska, l’enluminure, 136-138, Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Milan: Skira, 2000), 43. See Robert Bergman, “The Earliest Eleousa: A Coptic Ivory in the Walters Art Gallery,” The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 48 (1990): 37-56, on the origins and diffusion of this iconography. Egyptian ivories of this type found their way to northern Europe; witness the many Coptic ivories installed on the ambo of Henry II at Aachen, suggesting a possible pathway for this motif from Byzantium to Burgundy.

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On the facing folio, the text of Jerome’s commentary begins (Plate 8, p. VIII). In the upper left hand of the text block, a giant initial V, for the first words of the text, Visio Ysaiae filii Amos, is inhabited by the haloed prophet, Isaiah. With his right hand, he points towards the holy pair and its angelic honor guard; in his left hand he grasps the end of a rotulus that unfurls over his arms. Inscribed within is the titulus: Egredietur uirga de radice iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet et requiescet super eum spiritus domini. Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet filium. The first words of the titulus are taken from Isaiah 11:1-2, which provides the versicle and response that opened the third nocturn. The final words, Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet filium, are drawn from Isaiah 7:14, and were also used for the responsory following Lection 7 of the second nocturn.19 From the early centuries of Christianity, Patristic commentators linked Isaiah’s prophecy of a rod, “virga,” that would bring forth a savior from the root of Jesse to the “virgo,” Mary. As Zaluska points out, the Virgin was also portrayed holding a lily or branch in late eleventh-century English and French miniatures.20 The more elaborate Tree of Jesse, which incorporated Jesse, a tree or vine, and the Virgin had existed as an iconographic type, however, for only a short time before it was adapted by the Cîteaux artist in Jerome’s Commentary. The variation he created is unique in its period: it does not include the ladder-like arrangements of progenitors and flanking prophets, or the royal regalia – the crowns, enthroned kings grasping scepter-like vines, and fleur-de-lis – that would come to dominate Tree of Jesse iconography, as seen in the Lambeth Bible, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 198r (Figure 10), or in the Chartres Cathedral or Saint-Denis lancet windows, both installed around the middle of the twelfth century. In those artworks, as both Margot Fassler and James Johnson have shown, the royal lineage of Christ was emphasized in answer to historical imperatives that dictated the church’s role in undergirding dynastic hegemony using biblical iconography.21 19 M. Kilian Hufgard compares the miniature on fol. 4v to Bernard’s first and second sermons for Advent and sees in the miniature a reflection of Bernard’s words. Hufgard, “An Inspirational and Iconographic Source for Two Early Cistercian Miniatures,” in Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture 3, Cistercian Studies Series 89 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications,1987), 69-80. Nevertheless, Bernard’s interpretation does not depart from the words of Isaiah or from Jerome’s interpretation of those words, making it difficult to see his sermons either as inspiration for or as a reflection of this image. 20 Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), 2-7, and Zaluska, L’enluminure, 134-136. 21 James R. Johnson, “The Tree of Jesse Window of Chartres: Laudes Regiae,” Speculum 36 (1961): 1-22.

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Figure 10 London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 198r

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Figure 11 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 2, fol. 148r

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At the nearby Benedictine abbey of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon, at almost the same time, the monks copied a lectern Bible (Figure 11, Dijon BM MS 2, fol. 148r). An artist provided a historiated initial to open the book of Isaiah that is composed of several of the elements common to twelfth-century Jesse Trees: here a recumbent Jesse sleeps, draped similarly to the Jesse from Cîteaux, while a sturdy shrub with eight hearty branches sprouts from his groin. One branch ends in a curling leaf; the rest terminate in roundels, each housing a standing bird. This provides a straightforward picture of Isaiah 11:1-3: And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.22

Another version of the Jesse Tree can be found on fol. 406r (Figure 12) of the same manuscript, inhabiting the L initial at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, which opens with a genealogy that lists in sixteen verses the ancestors of Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matt. 1:16). The initial exhibits more typical Tree of Jesse motifs: Jesse stands between two twining vines that rise from the ground below him, and grips them tightly with his hands; a bust-length Virgin stands in a medallion formed from vine above, the Christ Child balanced on one hip; Jesus’ left hand makes a gesture of blessing while the right holds a spool-shaped object; Mary’s left hand is open in a gesture of prayer. In the roundel above a bird has alighted, towards whom the seated author, Matthew, turns. Matthew’s text, below, describes Jesse as the son of Obed and the father of David, explaining the initial as a subtle nod to the themes of royalty and genealogy. Jesse’s root, the rod, and the flower, however, are absent from both Matthew’s genealogy and from the illumination. In the Cîteaux copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah, the artist has instead taken four of the motifs found in the two Saint-Benigne Bible miniatures – the supine, sleeping Jesse, the scrolling vine that emerges from his midsection, the standing Virgin and Child, and the perched dove – and added to them motifs not otherwise seen: the hovering angels bearing vessels, 22 Vulgate Bible IV:47. Et egredietur virga de radice Iesse, et flos de radice eius ascendit. Et requi­ escet super eum spiritus Domini: spiritus sapientiae et intellectus, spiritus consilii et fortitudinis, spiritus scientiae et pietatis; et replebit eum spiritus timoris Domini. Biblia sacra II:1108.

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Figure 12 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 2, fol. 406r

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and the flowering shoot held by Mary. The image has, in many ways, been reduced to the essence of Isaiah’s text as represented in the two chants recalled in the titulus on the scroll held by Isaiah opposite, showing the rod that emerges from the root of Jesse and ascends to flower, and the Virgin who conceives and bears a son. The spirit of the Lord rests upon them in the form of a dove, an addition not connected to the chant itself, but to the Scripture that immediately follows. Like the text that inspired the chant, this text would have been sung and read aloud during Advent, though in the form of nocturn lections and refectory reading. It is tempting to believe that this composition was inspired directly by the responsory and versicle echoed in the scroll Isaiah holds, yet teasing apart the various sources that may have guided the artist, whether commentaries or chants, is challenging, as both drew on the same scripture repertoire and made the same elaborate textual and interpretive interconnections. For example, in his commentary on Isaiah 11:1-2, which provided the responsory text Egredietur uirga de radice Iesse, Jerome references Isaiah 7:14, the source of the versicle: But we understand the rod from the root of Jesse to be the holy Virgin Mary, which has nothing to do with joining her to a shrub; as we have read above: Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son [Isaiah 1:14]. And for “flower,” our Lord Savior, as it is said in the Song of Solomon: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valley [Songs 2:1]. For “root”… we read “trunk.” And “flower”… they translated “bud,” as they have shown, that a long time after the Babylonian captivity, no one possessing the glory of the ancient reign of David’s stock, Mary as if from the trunk would arise, and from Mary Christ would arise. The spirit of the Lord rests over this flower, which suddenly sprang from the trunk and from the root of Jesse through the Virgin Mary.23

What Jerome’s discussions of Isaiah 7:14 and 11:1 do not offer, however, is an explanation for the Trinitarian and sacrificial dimensions of the Jesse 23 Nos autem virgam de radice Jesse, sanctam Mariam Virginem intelligamus, quae nullum habuit sibi fruticem cohaerentem; de qua et supra legimus: Ecce Virgo concipiet et pariet filium (Isaiah 1:14). Et florem Dominum Salvatorem, qui dicit in Cantico Canticorum: Ego flos campi et lilium convallium (Songs 2:1). Pro radice … id est, truncum. Et pro flore … germen transtulerunt, ut ostenderent, quod multo post tempore Babylonicae captivitatis, nullo de stirpe David antiqui regni gloriam possidente, quasi de trunco Maria, et de Maria Christus exortus sit. Super hunc igitur florem, qui de trunco et de radice Jesse per Mariam Virginem repente consurget, requiescet spiritus Domini. PL 24:144B-D.

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Tree that a Cîteaux artist painted into Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah. These, instead, accord with the body of Advent chant that accompanied the reading of the Isaiah lections. The two angels carrying the liturgical vessels foreshadow Jesus’ sacrifice while also completing an unusual Trinity of Word, Body, and Spirit. One way in which Cîteaux’s standing Virgin differs strikingly from her counterpart in the Bible of Saint-Benigne is in her relationship with the Holy Spirit. In that manuscript, the dove perches, reasonably enough, on a furled leaf. The bird’s arched neck twists around so that his beak can meet his wing, almost as if he were preening. In the Cîteaux commentary manuscript, on the other hand, the bird perches on the delicate line of beads that forms the Virgin’s insubstantial halo. The motif of the Holy Spirit resting either on the Virgin’s head, on her crown, or on her halo can be found as early as the ninth century. In the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliothek MS 31), the dove rests directly on the Virgin’s veiled head in two facing illustrations, those prefacing the hymn Gloria in Excelsis, fol. 89v, which lists the various manifestations of the Trinity, and the Credo, or Apostles’ Creed, fol. 90, which is an affirmation of Trinitarian belief.24 By the eleventh century the motif was, if not ubiquitous, at least well documented in English manuscripts such as the Anglo-Saxon copy of the Utrecht Psalter and the Canterbury Psalter, as well as in the New Minster Office Book (Figure 13, London, British Library MS Cotton Titus D.XXVII, fol. 75v). In the Office Book it appears before the Office of the Trinity as part of a complex explication of Trinitarian theology, an apparent attempt to emphasize the human facet of Christ’s nature in conjunction with the other persons of the Trinity. This time the dove’s feet rest inside Mary’s jeweled diadem. In all of these examples, Jesus, Mary, and the Holy Spirit are flanked by one or more adult representations of the Trinity, either God the Father or God the Son, or both. In these versions the cluster of divine figures can also be joined by the Lamb of the Apocalypse or the empty throne, or etoimasia, awaiting the Lord’s coming in glory.25 It would be very satisfying to encounter such a theme in the image prefacing Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah, given that it was likely read during 24 http://psalter.library.uu.nl/page?p=185&res=2&x=0&y=0. The foundational study of this subject is Ernst Kantorowicz, “The Quinity of Winchester,” Art Bulletin 29 (1947): 73-85. For the Utrecht Credo and Gloria illustrations, 79. 25 Kantorowicz, “The Quinity,” 79. The Chludov Psalter’s illumination for the Annunciation, accompanying Ps. 44:11, Moscow Historical Museum, MS D 129, fol. 45, is closest to the Cîteaux version in its use of the bird on halo motif.

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Figure 13 London, British Library MS Cotton Titus D.XXVII, fol. 75v

Advent, when this “coming” was keenly anticipated. Instead, in the Cîteaux manuscript, the adult emanations of the godhead are missing. The artist, if he was familiar with the Anglo-Saxon tradition, has borrowed only the grouping of the Virgin, Child, and dove. Another early eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon copy of the Utrecht Psalter, the Harley Psalter (London BL MS Harley 603), provides an equally intriguing comparison. On the first folio one

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Figure 14 London, British Library MS Harley 603, fol. 1r

finds a full-page tinted line-drawing showing a Trinity within a mandorla flanked by fluttering angels (Figure 14). The adult Christ, identifiable by his cruciform halo, takes the place of an enthroned Virgin, his arms encircling a younger figure seated in his lap. His right hand tenderly cradles the boy’s head, pressing him to his cheek, while at the same time it grasps an unfurled rotulus. His left hand grips tightly the tailfeathers of a dove who perches on one end of the rotulus. The boy’s right hand is raised in a sign of blessing; his

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left holds a giant orb.26 This image turns the Eleousa type on its head: instead of Virgin and incarnate Word, we see three different and yet indissoluble manifestations of God, referencing Word, Incarnation, heavenly Ruler, and Apocalypse, in the form of the mandorla held by angels. Most significant for our understanding of the Cîteaux miniature, perhaps, are the Harley manuscript’s fluttering angels: the lower pair in the Anglo-Saxon miniature, with feet raised high, are reminiscent of the angels who float on either side of our Virgin and Child.27

Christ as Priest In the Cîteaux Isaiah commentary, the angel behind Jesus’ head holds a pyx or ciborium (a cylindrical vessel with a conical lid topped with a knob that was used to transport the consecrated host) and points to it with its free hand.28 The angel’s eyes meet those of the Virgin, as if the two of them acknowledge the coming sacrifice represented by the unseen contents of the pyx. Interestingly, such a vessel was, according to the Cluniac customary, suspended in a golden Eucharistic dove over the altar at Cluny,29 no doubt a custom about which the Cîteaux monks had heard, even if none had seen it themselves. Pyxes of the later eleventh and twelfth centuries could be carved from ivory or cast in metal; one late eleventh- or early twelfth-century example, a cylindrical ivory pyx possibly from northern France, uses as its 26 Kantorowicz, “The Quinity,” 84-85. Kantorowicz interprets the larger f igure as God the Father; however, the crossed nimbus indicates his identity as God the Son. 27 Gérard Cames, “Parfums et diadème: Le Cantique des Cantiques dans l’iconographie mariale romane,” Miscellanea codicologica F. Masai dicata MCMLXXIX, 2 vols., ed. Pierre Cockshaw, Monique-Cécile Garand and Pierre Jodogne (Ghent: Story-Scientia, 1979), I:241-243 at 242, also compares the flanking angels to those who hover above the Virgin in Byzantine images of the Dormition, or those who stand on either side in Coronation images. 28 Zaluska, in L’enluminure, 138, following the suggestion of Cames (241-248), identifies these objects as a perfume box and a diadem, both unlikely given the sizes and shapes of the vessels shown. Gras, in “Les manuscrits de Citeaux,” Les dossiers de l’Archéologie 14 (1976), Enluminure carolingienne et romane, 94-99 (cited by Cames, 242), suggests that the object on the left represents the church at Cîteaux, an unlikely proposition given that at that time the monastery was still primarily wooden, quite simple in form, and didn’t include a rotunda or rounded apse. Furthermore, as Cames points out, symbolic architecture was typically offered by donors, not angels. 29 Ulrich of Zell’s customary recounts this practice in chapter VIII, De majore missa in diebus Dominicis, PL 149:653C. Ipsae autem hostiae cum fuerint consecratae, mutantur quatuor cum illis quae in pixide, et in aurea columba super altare pendente jugiter servantur; maxime propter infirmos, ut quidquid de eis eveniat, viaticum sit in promptu. It is also mentioned at 723A.

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background for a depiction of monks enacting the Visitatio sepulchri liturgical play an architectural arcade reminiscent of the row of tiny arches on the Cîteaux manuscript’s pyx.30 Indeed, images of the Three Maries Visiting the Tomb often include Eucharistic vessels such as pyxes and censers to indicate the herbs and ointments they carried to the tomb, and to link the moment to Christ’s sacrifice as celebrated in the liturgy.31 The vessel held by the angel opposite is harder to identify. Its contents resemble glowing coals or tiny leaping flames. Could this be the bottom half of a censer? Angels cense the Virgin and Child in many medieval images, but typically the censers have the form of a thurible and are swung, not carried. Angels are non-corporeal, and thus need not fear burns from the reflected heat of the charcoal-hot contents. In an attempt to achieve symmetry, the artist may have decided to forego the censer’s chains and lid. Alternatively, this could represent a navicula, or incense boat. The reddish glow could represent the resins of common types of incense, or myrrh, which was processed on the feast of Epiphany.32 Like a pyx, a censer could be understood as a reference to Jesus’ sacrifice: Bede, in his commentary on the Apocalypse, explained, “Another version has: ‘upon the altar,’ because he offered to his Father on our behalf his golden censer – that is, his immaculate body conceived of the Holy Spirit – upon the altar of the cross.” Amalarius of Metz quoted Bede’s gloss and explained “The bread extended on the altar reveals the Lord’s body extended on the cross, which we eat.”33 This could represent a vial, or fiala. While later the fiala (phiala) was generally represented as a tall,

30 Peter Lasko, “Anglo-Saxon or Norman? Observations on Some Ivory Carvings in the English Romanesque Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery,” The Burlington Magazine 126 (1984): 216-225. 31 See, for instance, the Carolingian Saint-Gall ivory of the Three Maries at the Sepulcher now in the Victoria and Albert, no. 380-1871, in which the foremost Mary carries a cylindrical pyx with a conical lid. 32 Cames, in “Parfums et diadème” (243-244), guided by the many references to sweet smelling ointments in the Song of Songs, suggests that this represents a casket of myrrh, and that the image represents the tender embrace of the Sponsus and Sponsa. On the symbolism of the Sponsa as Mary in a Cistercian context, which postdates this miniature, see Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 195-288. 33 4:47, Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, ed. and trans. Eric Knibbs, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 35, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014) II:622-625, chapter 47, “On the position of the Lord’s body and chalice on the altar,” De quo altari dicit Beda secundo libro super Apocalypsin: “Alia editio habet: ‘super aram,’ eo quod super altare crucis turibulum suum aureum – id est corpus immaculatum et Spiritu Sancto conceptum – obtulerit Patri pro nobis” (Bede, Explanatio Apocalypsis, 2:8). Panis extensus super altare corpus Domini monstrat extensum in cruce, quod nos manducamus.

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narrow-necked flask,34 the term itself could refer to a broad, shallow vessel that held wine, water, or candles.35 In 1 Paralipomenon 28:17, King David gave for the temple fialas et turibula, bowls and censors. In Apocalypse 5:8, the apocalyptic elders held fialas aureas plenas odoramentorum, incense, while in Apocalypse 16-17, angels poured out vials of God’s wrath. If this is a visual reference to the Apocalypse, the angel inserts an apocalyptic note similar to the mandorla found in the Harley Psalter. Regardless of the vessel’s contents, the Christ child blesses this liturgical implement, indicating his role as High Priest.36 The Cîteaux monks were undoubtedly familiar with Amalarius of Metz’s De Ecclesiastico Officio, the most common handbook for understanding the liturgy from the Carolingian period through the twelfth century.37 Amalarius’s explanation of the actions surrounding the Eucharist make the relationship between the angels and Christ even more plain: When the holy women present themselves at the Lord’s tomb, they find that his spirit has returned to its body, and they see a vision of angels at the tomb, and they tell the apostles what they saw. Bede provides useful instruction about this in his treatise on Luke: “Just as we read that the angels attended the body of the savior after it had been placed in the tomb,” he says, “so too should we believe that they assist during the consecration, when the mysteries of the same holy body are celebrated.”38

If the artist was intimately familiar with Amalarius’ treatise, he may also have intended to invest this image with even more overt Eucharistic 34 See, for instance, from a thirteenth-century English Apocalypse manuscript, London, British Library MS Add 18633, fol. 31v, one of many depictions of Apocalypse 16-17 in which angels hold such flasks. 35 C. Du Cange, G. A. Louis Henschel, Pierre Carpenter, Christoph Adelung, and Léopold Favre, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, 10 vols. (Niort: L. Favre, 1883-1887), vol. 6, col. 304a, and Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 1369 36 Around the same time, theologians began to assign a priestly dimension to Mary: Bernard of Clairvaux, in his sermon for the Purification (PL 183:370C), explained that Mary offered her son to God at the Temple and simultaneously offered the Eucharistic host for the salvation of mankind (Elizabeth Saxon, The Eucharist in Romanesque France: Iconography and Theology [Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006], 205). 37 Although no copy of this survives from early Cîteaux, the Cistercian monks who originated in Saint-Vaast in Arras would have been familiar with that monastery’s ninth-century copy, Catalogue générale des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des départements, 7 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1849-1885), IV: 251-252, Arras, Médiathèque MS 699 (627). 38 Book 3:30, Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, II:209-211.

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symbolism, based on the Carolingian cleric’s explanation of the remnants of the host: The body of Christ is triform, namely of those who have tasted death and those who are going to die. The first is the holy and immaculate form that was assumed from the Virgin Mary; the second is the one that walked on earth; the third is the one that lies in the tomb. In the particle of offering dipped in the chalice, the body of Christ that has just risen from the dead is revealed; in the part that was eaten by the priest and the people, that which yet walks upon the earth; in the part left upon the altar, that which lies in the tomb. That same body takes the offering with it to the tomb, and the holy church calls it the viaticum of the dying.39

The closed-topped pyx, or ciborium, was the vessel used to take the consecrated Eucharist to communicants outside the church, including the dying. Ernst Kantorowicz, in his exploration of medieval Trinitarian imagery, denied that western artists developed a theme that became familiar in the Byzantine world after the twelfth century: that of Jesus as chief priest confronting himself as the sacrificial Eucharist in a liturgical procession.40 Yet symbolically this is what occurs in the Cîteaux image. To understand why this might be found joined to an image that seems to summarize Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin birth so deeply imbedded the Advent liturgy, we need to travel further into the celebrations of the Advent season. The readings for the following Sundays and Ember days in the third week of Advent are summarized in Appendix 5. The readings for the remainder of the Advent season hewed, for the most part, to the themes we have already encountered. They stressed the many advents of God over the course of the history of creation (such as Luke 21:25-33, read on the second Sunday of Advent, in which Christ foretells the Second Coming), and also the prophetic role of John the Baptist in preparing the way (Matthew 11:2-10, read on the third Sunday of Advent). The monks continued to read Isaiah both in the choir and in the refectory. 41 Interspersed between the Isaiah 39 Book 3:35, Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, II:227. 40 Kantorowicz, “The Quinity,” 83-84. 41 The monks were to complete the entirety of Isaiah, as specified in the Ecclesiastica Officia, Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Off icia Cisterciensis Ordinis’ des Cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 153-288 at 183: Et sciendum, quod isayas incipitur prima dominica ad vigilias et deinde totus legitur per adventum. This instruction was refined in later versions of the customary to specify that Isaiah should be read not only at Matins but also in the refectory.

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lections were passages from the Gospels, and homilies by Bede, Gregory the Great, and Augustine, or so they believed according to the rubrics identifying them in the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary. These homilies both glossed the Gospel lections and cast light on larger spiritual questions. Christ’s eternal kingship was a dominant theme of the antiphons, responsories, and verses that framed these readings, as was the role of Mary in the Incarnation.42 Chants for the ferial days, or weekdays, between Advent Sundays kept these themes at the forefront of the monks’ thoughts. For instance, on the Friday before the second Sunday of Advent, the Gospel antiphon prescribed for the service of Lauds stated, “Behold the Lord, and a man from the house of David will come to sit in the throne, alleluia.”43 The invitatory anthem for Matins in the second Sunday of Advent predicted, “Christ our king, who John preached would be the coming lamb, will arrive.”44 The first responsory for the second nocturn, containing yet more lections from Isaiah, foretold, “Behold, the Lord our protector, holy Israel, will come having the crown of kingdoms on his head.”45 On the third Sunday of Advent, the Virgin’s role was highlighted. The ninth and eleventh responsories returned to the imagery inspired by Isaiah. The eleventh responsory quoted directly from Isaiah 11:1 and 5, while the verse filled in the scriptural gap between with Isaiah 11:2, proclaiming, R. There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root; and justice will be the girdle of his loins, and faith the girdle of his reins. V. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding. Refrain. And justice will be the girdle of his loins, and faith the girdle of his reins. 46 42 See also Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 75-78 and Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity,” 395-396. 43 Ecce ueniet dominus, et homo de domo David sedere in throno, alleluia. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 112, Can 002549. 44 Rex noster adueniet Christus, quem Iohannes predicauit agnum esse uenturum. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 112, Can 001155. This chant was repeated in the form of a responsory after the ninth lection on the second Sunday of Advent. 45 Ecce ueniet dominus protector noster, sanctus Israhel, coronam regni habens in capite suo. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 114, Can 006613. 46 R. Egredietur uirga de radice Iesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet; et erit iustitia cingulum lumborum eius, et fides cintorium renum eius. V. Et requiescet super eum spiritus domini, spiritus sapiencie et intellectus.

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The final responsory of the third Sunday of Advent unifies these themes by combining passages from Jeremiah 23:5-6, again pulling a section from the middle of the passage to serve as the verse: R. “Behold the days come,” saith the Lord, “and I will raise up to David a just branch, and a king shall reign, and shall be wise: and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth; and this is the name that they will call him: the Lord, Our Just One.” V. “In those days shall Judah be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently. Refrain. And this is the name that they shall call him: the Lord, Our Just One.”47

Note that while the Douay-Rheims translators preferred to translate flos as “flower,” Jerome, when he used the term to explain Isaiah 7 and 11 (above), seems to have understood this as a more tender sprig, bud, or sprout, as implied by the verb form, germino, to bud or sprout forth. This was likely the understanding shared by the monks, and certainly the one pictured in the Isaiah commentary’s Jesse Tree. The Ember Days of Advent, which followed the third Sunday, demanded special observances, including dietary restrictions and special sequences of prayers, antiphons, and responsories. The gospel readings and lections for this period were especially focused on the Incarnation, and the theological and spiritual explanations for this event. Ember Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday also included prescribed sermons rather than the abbreviated lections normal for weeknights. It is in these readings that we find Christ described as a priest, and encounter the theme of the Trinity. The theme of Christ’s priesthood was introduced on Ember Wednesday. In a sermon Bede wrote for the Feast of the Annunciation but which was read at Cîteaux on this night, he took pains to explain that David’s line was both a royal and a priestly one, and that the priestly heritage was appropriate to Refrain. Et erit iustitia cingulum lumborum eius, et fides cintorium renum eius. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 122, Can 006641 and 006641a. 47 R. Ecce dies ueniunt, dicit dominus, et suscitabo David germen iustum; et regnabit rex, et sapiens erit, et faciet iudicium et iusticiam in terra; et hoc est nomen quod uocabunt eum: dominus iustus noster. V. In diebus illus saluabitur Iuda, et Israhel habitabit confidenter. Refrain. Et hoc est nomen quod uocabunt eum: dominus iustus noster. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 123, Can 006583 and 006583a.

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his sacrifice: “Furthermore the prophet testified to his priestly dignity, in which he deigned to offer the sacrifice of his flesh for our salvation, ‘Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisidech.’”48 The sermons from Ember Thursday echoed this idea, while adding that of the Trinity. The first, read as the first lection and attributed in the Night Office lectionary to Augustine, was in fact a composite of two preexisting texts: Honoratus’s Epistola ad Arcadium, and the anonymous Sermo CaillauSaint Yves.49 This sermon offers a straightforward declaration of Trinitarian theology, and could easily have prompted the Cîteaux artist to attach this unique depiction of the Trinity to Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah. Near the beginning, the author states, “The one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is not Gods, but One. Three in Word, One in godly substance.”50 What follows is a lengthy explication of the principle of the indissolubility of these three parts, including an enticing musical metaphor: And so consider the lute. As a tune renders music of sweet sounds, three parts are seen to be present: knowledge, hand, and string, and yet one sound is heard; knowledge proclaims, hand plucks, string resounds. Three parts are in operation; but only the string sounds what is heard: neither the knowledge nor the hand renders the sound, but those parts are in operation with that string.51

More topical to understanding the illumination prefacing Jerome’s commentary is another passage, near the end of the sermon: That rod of Aaron, with which we have been dealing, was the Virgin Mary, who for us conceived and gave birth to Christ the true priest, of whom David predicted: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech [Ps. 109:4]: as already was said in a verse above, The Lord sent forth from Sion a Rod of your Virtue [Ps. 109:2]. And the Prophet Isaiah 48 PL 94:13D-14B. Porro de pontificali ejus dignitate, in qua pro nostra redemptione hostiam suae carnis offerre dignatus est, testatur Propheta, qui ait: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech (Psal. CX). 49 “Night Office Lectionary,” 101, and also Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 183. As PseudoAugustine Sermon 245, PL 39:2196-2198. 50 PL 39:2196. Deus unus est Pater, Deus unus est Filius, Deus unus est Spiritus sanctus; non tres dii, sed unus est Deus: tres in vocabulis, unus in deitate substantiae. 51 PL 39:2197. Adhuc citharam respice. Ut musicum melos sonis dulcibus reddat, tria pariter adesse videntur, ars, manus et chorda: et tamen unus sonus auditur; ars dictat, manus tangit, resonat chorda. Tria pariter operantur; sed sola chorda personat quod auditur: nec ars nec manus sonum reddunt, sed ea cum chorda pariter operantur.

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plainly so described Holy Mary, saying: And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him [Isaiah 11:1-2]. Therefore this rod produced a nut, which was an image of the body of the Lord. The nut united in its body three substances: bark, shell, and kernel. The bark can be compared to flesh, the shell to bone, the inner kernel to spirit. The bark of the nut signifies the flesh of the Savior, which had in it the roughness or bitterness of the Passion.52

It is tempting to see the Cîteaux Virgin’s multi-layered bud, with its prominent curling leaves and red heart, as a nod to this fruitful metaphor.53 One cannot deny, however, that it resembles a budding flower more than it does a nut. The passage’s reminders of Jesus’ eternal priesthood and his bitter sacrifice, however, appear in the priestly motifs that surround the Virgin and Christ Child in the image. The second and third lections for Ember Thursday were drawn from an anonymous sermon, Contra iudeos, paganos et Arianos.54 Although this text influenced other artists when they conceptualized the Tree of Jesse, it is less informative in this case. The text itself is thought to have inspired early dramas in which the prophets themselves speak their prophecies of the Virgin, and these dramas in turn are sometimes identified as the inspiration for depictions of the Tree of Jesse populated with standing prophets, as seen in the stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral, Saint-Denis, and in the full-page miniature found before the Book of Isaiah in the mid-twelfthcentury Lambeth Bible (Figure 10, Lambeth Palace MS 3, fol. 198r).55 No 52 PL 39:2197. Virga illa, unde agebamus, Aaron virgo Maria fuit, quae nobis Christum verum sacerdotem concepit et peperit, de quo modo David cecinit, Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech [Ps. 109:4]: superiori namque versu jam dixerat, Virgam virtutis tuae emittet Dominus ex Sion [Ps. 109:2]. Et Isaias propheta apertius Mariam sanctam designat, dicens: Exiet virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet, et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini, spiritus sapientiae et intellectus [Isaiah 11:1-2]. Quod ergo haec virga nuces produxit, imago Dominici corporis fuit. Nux enim trinam habet in suo corpore substantiae unionem, corium, testam et nucleum. In corio caro, in testa ossa, in nucleo interior anima comparatur. In corio nucis carnem significat Salvatoris, quae habuit in se asperitatem vel amaritudinem passionis. 53 It may be that the homilist also wanted the listener to link this metaphor to the miracle of Aaron’s rod, which blossomed and brought forth almonds in one night (Num. 17), a story retold in Fulbert of Chartres’ sermon Approbate consuetudinis, discussed below and by Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 85-86. If so, the artist of the Cîteaux Jesse Tree has done little to help the process along. 54 “Night Office Lectionary,” 101, PL 95:1470C-1475AB. 55 Watson, Tree of Jesse, 10-37, effectively undermines the proposition that early Tree of Jesse depictions mirrored drama in either their choice of prophets or their inscriptions. For the

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exposure to drama was necessary at Cîteaux, of course, because the monks heard the sermon itself read aloud during the Advent season. Yet the artists spurned the iconographic formula of multiple prophets surrounding the fruit of their prophecy – a trope that would become standard in later iterations of the Tree of Jesse – and restricted their Jesse Tree to Jesse, the Virgin, and Christ. Because the illumination prefacing Jerome’s Commentary was never completed, one can’t know for certain what iconographic components the artist may have planned to add. Given the limited amount of space between the towering Virgin figure and the folio’s inner margin on the right, or the left-hand text column, opposite, it would be nearly impossible to reconstruct a version of the Tree of Jesse type that could include an array of progenitors and prophets, such as in the near-contemporary stained glass lancets from Chartres or Saint-Denis, or a flock of doves symbolizing the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, as seen in an eleventh-century Coronation Gospels of King Vratislaus (Prague University Library Vyšehrad MS XIV. A. 13, fols. 4r-4v), the Lambeth Bible, the twelfth-century Siegburg Lectionary (London, BL MS Harley 2889, fol. 4r), or the Bible of Saint-Benigne (Figure 11).56 As Christmas approached, the Night Office liturgy reiterated the themes of Christ’s priesthood, Mary’s origin, and the imminent arrival of the Savior. The responsory and verse following the first lection on Ember Friday, Bede’s homily on the Visitation,57 recalled, R. Our redeemer will come to us, a lamb without stain, according to the order of Melchisedech; made a high priest forever and ever. V. Behold, the sovereign Lord of hosts will come with vigor. Refrain. Made a high priest forever and ever.58

Lambeth Bible, Dorothy M. Shepard, Introducing the Lambeth Bible: A Study of Texts and Imagery (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 143-151. 56 On the Prague and Harley manuscripts, see Watson, Tree of Jesse, 83-87; also Jean Anne Hayes Williams, “The earliest Dated Tree of Jesse Image: Thematically Reconsidered,” Athanor (2000), 17-23. 57 “Night Office Lectionary,” 101, PL 94:15A-22BC. 58 R. Redemptor pro nobis ingreditur, agnus sine macula, secundum ordinem Melchisedec pontifex factus est in eternum et in seculum seculi. V. Ecce dominator dominus cum uirtute ueniet. Refrain. Pontifex factus est in eternum et in seculum seculi. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 127, Can 007421 and 007421a. This is a variant form of the chant, which usually begins Praecursor pro nobis. In its more typical form it is closest to Hebrews 6:20, ubi praecursor pro nobis introiit,

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Jesus’ Prefigurations On Ember Saturday, the single assigned nocturn prescribed Gregory’s homily on Luke 3:1-11, about John the Baptist’s mission,59 with a final responsory and verse restating a now familiar theme: R. The root of Jesse, who will arise to judge the nations, the nations will hope in him, and his name will be called blessed in eternity. V. Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and his name will be called Emmanuel.60

Other responsories herald the Savior’s arrival, repeating either the topoi or the very chants used earlier in Advent. These culminate with a set of chants popularly known as the “O Antiphons,” sung on the fifth weekday, meaning Thursday, following the fourth Sunday of Advent, and thus immediately before the Vigil of Christmas. These mention specific prefigurations and symbols of the Savior: Wisdom; Adonai, who appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush; the Root of Jesse; the Key of David, who relieves all who are imprisoned; the Morning Star; the King of Nations; and Emmanuel.61 The same theme is taken up in the nocturn lections for the Matins of the vigil before Christmas. The reading assigned to this feast was a Latin translation of Origen’s homily on the gospel pericope, Matthew 1:18-25, about Joseph’s dilemma upon discovering that his virgin bride was with child, and his encounter in a dream with an angel who explained the Incarnation. In the midst of his detailed exposition on Matthew’s words, “When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph,” Origen offers a list of prefigurations of the virgin birth: Who every heard of such a thing? Who saw such as this? Who could devise this, that a mother would be a virgin, and procreate intact, who also remained a virgin and gave birth? So it was that a bush was seen to Iesus, secundum ordinem Melchisedech pontifex factus in aeternum. The verse drew on Isaiah 10:33, Ecce: dominator Dominus … 59 “Night Office Lectionary,” 102, PL 76:1160B-1170B. 60 R. Radix iesse, qui exurget iudicare gentes, in eum gentes sperabunt, et erit nomen eius benedictum in secula. V. Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet filium, et uocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 129, Can 007508 and 007508c. 61 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 134-135. Can 004081, 003988, 004075, 004041, 004050, 004078, 004025.

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burn, and the fire didn’t touch it, and so three boys had been closed into a furnace, and yet the fire didn’t injure them, nor was the smell of smoke in them: or however it was in Daniel, who, shut in the cave of lions, the doors not opened, dinner was brought to him by Habbakuk: so also that this holy virgin begot the Lord, but remained intact.62

Yet another responsory, that following the seventh lection in Matins of the third Sunday in Advent, proclaims, “Let the Lord descend like rain on a fleece; in his days shall justice spring up and abundance of peace.”63 This responsory refers to the miracle of Gideon and the fleece (Judges 6:36-40), but uses the words of Psalm 71:6-7, “He shall come down like rain upon the fleece and as showers falling gently upon the earth. In his days shall justice spring up and an abundance of peace.”64 Among the antiphons prescribed for the third Sunday of Advent, the fifth day of the final week of Advent, and the lections for the vigil preceding Christmas, the monks would have heard allusions to all of the prefigurations pictured in the second example of a Jesse Tree painted by the early Cîteaux monks, that found in the sanctoral lectionary (Plate 9, Dijon BM 641, fol. 40v, p. IX). The miniature is embedded in a reading prefaced with the rubric sermo domni fulberti carntensis episcopi. This is a sermon attributed to the early eleventh-century bishop, Fulbert of Chartres, which begins Approbate consuetudinis est.65 The miniature, like that in Cîteaux’s manuscript of Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah, was painted in the Second Style and using the same color palette, complex drapery folds, and neutral parchment background. Whereas the image in the Isaiah commentary distills the theme of Jesus’ origins to its essence, the image in the sanctoral lectionary was constructed both to demonstrate Jesus’ lineage and to catalogue the many foreshadowings of his advent. The format adopted for this second miniature 62 “Night Office Lectionary,” 102, and PL 95:1163A-1167B, at 1163B. Quis unquam ista audivit? quis vidit talia? quis hoc excogitare potuit, ut mater virgo esset, et intacta generaret, quae et virgo permansit et genuit? Sicut enim quondam rubus comburi videbatur, et ignis eum non tangebat, et sicut tres pueri in camino inclusi habebantur, et tamen eos non laedebat incendium, nec odor fumi erat in eis: vel quemadmodum fuit in Daniele, cui, intra lacum leonum incluso, claustris non apertis, allatum est ei prandium ab Abacuc: ita et haec sancta virgo genuit Dominum, sed intacta permansit. 63 Descendet dominus sicut pluuia in uellus; orietur in diebus eius iusticia et habundancia pacis. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 121, Can 006408. This responsory was also sung after the sixth lection on the feast of the Annunciation, 471. 64 Vulgate Bible III:356. Descendet sicut pluvia in vellus, et sicut stillicidia stillantia super terram. Orietur in diebus eius iustitia et abundantia pacis … 65 PL 141:320C-324B.

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is somewhat reminiscent of the leafy trellis populated with standing figures found in the Chartres and Saint-Denis stained glass windows, or in the Bible of Saint-Benigne. A rectangular frame holds a twining blue and green vine clasped together at top, middle, and bottom to create an hourglass shape that holds Jesse, standing below, the Virgin and Christ child, enthroned above him, and at the top, a nimbed Holy Spirit with wings spread as if about to launch into flight. Jesse, flanked by a titulus, “IESSE,” wears a tunic with a richly-jeweled border, but no crown, similar to his depiction in the Saint-Benigne Bible. Otherwise the iconography diverges sharply from that seen elsewhere. Mary, labelled “THEOTOKOS,” likewise displays no royal regalia, but nurses her child with a bare breast in one of the earliest surviving western European examples of a virgo lactans, an image known in the Byzantine tradition as the Galaktotrophousa.66 Arranged around this brief family tree are a group of narrative vignettes: Moses, who grasps a rod and removes his shoes while a nimbed head, labelled “DNS IN RUBO” erupts from a multi-colored, leafy column of flame before him (Exodus 3); Daniel, who sits on a globe and lifts a hand in a gesture of acceptance to the seven lions flanking him, labelled “LACUS LEONUM” (Daniel 6:10-24); Gideon, who observes green and blue dew showering from a heavenly arch onto a downy pile of fleece, labelled “PLUVIA DESCENDENS IN VELLUS” (Judges 6:36-40); and the busts of three boys and an angel within a fiery enclosure, labelled “TRES PUERI IN CAMINO” (Daniel 3:8-23). Strikingly, these last two labels use not the descriptive words found in the account of each event in the Books of Judges and Daniel, but instead those used in either the Cîteaux Night Office lections or the Advent chants. The Vulgate describes the three boys in the fire with the terms viri and fornax, but those found in the Origen sermon read on the vigil before the Nativity are pueri and caminus, as in the miniature’s titulus. The chant referencing Gideon’s fleece uses the words of Psalm 72, Descendet dominus sicut pluvia in vellus, as does the miniature’s label, while the Vulgate does not describe God’s action, but only the result: “And, rising before day, wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew.”67 66 Like the Eleousa motif, the Galaktotrophousa may have originated in Egypt, perhaps as early as the sixth century (Bergman, “The Earliest Eleousa,” 49). The Cîteaux version resembles most closely, among earlier examples, Galaktotrophousa images in manuscripts from ninth-century Egypt (for instance Pierpont Morgan Library M.574, fol. 2r, or M.612 fol. 1v, in which Jesus grasps a furled scroll rather than his mother’s offered breast or hand, and the breast itself does not make contact with Jesus’ mouth). 67 Vulgate Bible IIA:174. Et de nocte consurgens expresso vellere, concham rore implevit. Judges 6:38.

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Fulbert of Chartres’s sermon Approbate consuetudinis est, the text immediately below this miniature, was written in the wake of the catastrophic fire of 1020 that destroyed Chartres Cathedral and much of the surrounding town. Fassler, in The Virgin of Chartres, shows that Fulbert had several interrelated goals in composing the sermon. He wished to use the until now minor feast of the Virgin’s Nativity as a means to enhance her cult and through it, the value of Chartres’ Marian relic; and he hoped to provide the readings for a distinctive Chartrian liturgy to be celebrated on the day of the feast. To do this, he both defended the non-scriptural miracle stories that had aggregated around the few nuggets of information about her life offered by the evangelists, and stitched together the prophetic predictions and foreshadowings of her birth. He insisted on her elevated heredity, her virtue, and her power over the earthly and heavenly fates of Christians. He also retold stories of miracles credited to Mary, and glossed the hymn Ave maris stella, which was sung on her feast day.68 Although the Cîteaux monks who had migrated from Molesme knew these works, they specifically chose to exclude them when they revised the liturgy for the New Monastery. These monks would have been familiar with Fulbert’s sermon from their time spent in the Molesme choir. In the Molesme sanctoral, Fulbert’s sermon was assigned to the very occasion for which it was composed: Matins of the feast of Mary’s Nativity, September 8. It was paired with a lection from Jerome’s commentary on Matthew, incipit In ysaia legimus.69 At Molesme, the hymn Ave maris stella prefaced the first nocturn on this night and was sung again on the Sunday after the octave of the feast.70 According to the early Cistercian Night Office Lectionary, however, Fulbert’s sermon was not read by the Cîteaux monks. For their twelve-lection Matins service they instead paired the reading from Jerome’s commentary on Matthew with a sermon that they attributed to Augustine, Adest nobis, dilectissimi, and an excerpt from a letter that they attributed to Jerome, Omnes virgines, celebrate, that was actually written by Paschasius Radbertus.71 On the Feast of the Nativity, at Lauds the next morning, and again at Vespers the monks sang Mysterium ecclesiae, a hymn also proper

68 Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, 83-88, and Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity,” 403-416. 69 Chrysogonus Waddell, The Summer Season Molesme Breviary (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale Manuscript 807), 3 vols., Cistercian Liturgy Series 10-12 (Trappist, KY: Gethsemani Abbey, 1985), I, 192 and IIB, 414-418 and 423. 70 Waddell, The Summer Season Molesme Breviary IIB, 413 and 424. 71 “Night Office Lectionary,” 143. For the Pseudo-Augustine Sermon, PL 39:2104-2107; for the Paschasius Radbertus letter, PL 30:139CD-140C.

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to the Annunciation, the Purification, and the Assumption, instead of Ave maris stella, the hymn so lovingly glossed by Fulbert.72 The rubric prefacing the sermon itself in the Cîteaux sanctoral lectionary does not indicate when it was supposed to be read. Were Fulbert’s sermon and the text that followed it in the sanctoral lectionary, the miracle story of Theophilus of Adana, read aloud at Cîteaux?73 Could they have been assigned to the octave of the Nativity? Neither the Primitive Cistercian Breviary nor the Early Cistercian Night Office Lectionary lists such a feast. Perhaps the two Marian texts were instead read in the refectory. Interestingly, the illustration accompanying Fulbert’s sermon has little to do with the text, as Yolanta Zaluska noted in her study of the Cîteaux manuscripts.74 Rather than using the text immediately in front of him as inspiration, the artist seems to have drawn on his memories of chants and lections that we know were read and sung in the Cîteaux choir. In writing his homily, Fulbert himself drew upon many of the passages which would have been familiar to him and the Cîteaux monks from the liturgy. He quotes Isaiah 11:1-2, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,”75 and Isaiah 7:14, “Behold: a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel,”76 which, as we have already seen, provided a versicle and responsory sung during the first nocturns of Advent at Cîteaux.77 Fulbert also quotes Isaiah 9:6, “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us … and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty,” which provided the second half of the responsory 72 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 445, 469, 529, and 544. See also Chrysogonus Waddell, The Twelfth-Century Cistercian Hymnal, 3 vols., Cistercian Liturgy Series 1 (Trappist, KY: Gethsemani Abbey, 1984), I, book 2:85-88 and II:94-95. Mysterium Ecclesiae was sung to a newly composed melody that mimicked that of Ave maris stella at the beginning, but then diverged to give it, as Waddell describes, an “exuberant character,” with an “emotive warmth and lyric intensity characteristic of early Cistercian piety.” Ave maris stella replaced it when the hymnal was revised (Waddell, Twelfth-Century Hymnal, I, 2:89). This hymn is not preserved in the Westmalle antiphonary. 73 This text is Factum est autem priusquam incursio fieret in romana re publica, edited as part of a thirteenth-century collection in Gonzalo de Berceo Obras Completas II, Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora, 2nd edition (London: Tamesis Books, 1980), 235-242. 74 Zaluska, L’enluminures, 138-142. See also Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” 299-300, for the afterlife of this image in Bernard’s sermons. 75 Vulgate Bible IV:46. Egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet, et requiescet super eum Spiritus Domini. 76 Vulgate Bible IV:28. Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel. 77 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 107, Can 008044; 105, Can 006620.

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following Lection 7 in the first night of Advent.78 Fulbert observes, she “who was about to bear the supreme king and priest, took her origin from the royal tribe, and, at the same time, the priestly one as well,”79 echoing the sacerdotal theme so prominent in the Advent liturgy and in the Tree of Jesse miniature prefacing Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah in the Cîteaux manuscript. In the sanctoral lectionary miniature, Jesse stands between two curving strands of vine; the trope that he is himself the source of this root is not pictured literally, though this detail may be drawn from Fulbert’s text (“just as that rod with no root, without any support of nature or of art, bore fruit”).80 Nonetheless, no details suggest Jesus’ royal and priestly offices, even though the image joined to Jerome’s commentary on Isaiah had privileged this role. Perhaps the artist was prompted by the allusions to antiphons and responsories associated with Advent and Christmas, a season saturated with references to the Virgin, to recall Origen’s homily and its list of prefigurations when composing the miniature found with Fulbert’s sermon.81 Of the four prefiguring events shown – Moses and the Burning Bush, Gideon and the Golden Fleece, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, and the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace – none is mentioned directly in Fulbert’s text, and only Moses and Aaron’s flowering rod, not the Burning Bush, is discussed. The artist has depicted Moses anachronistically carrying Aaron’s rod, but the image of the rod does not burst into flower or fruit, as it is described in Fulbert’s sermon.

The Virgo Lactans Likewise, nowhere in his sermon does Fulbert refer to the Virgin’s role as Jesus’ physical nurturer, yet that is what is pictured immediately above the sermon in the sanctoral lectionary. The topos of Mary giving Jesus her nourishing milk was well represented in theological discourse from the early 78 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 105, Can 007562. Vulgate Bible IV:36. Puer, natus est nobis, filius datus est nobis, et vocabitur nomen ejus Admirabilis, Consiliarius, Deus fortis. 79 De regali nempe tribu simul et sacerdotali duxit originem, quae summum Regem atque Pontificem erat paritura. PL 141:321D. See the elegant translation in Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, Appendix E, 427. 80 Illa virga sine radice, sine quolibet naturae vel artis adminiculo fructificavit. PL 141:321C and Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, Appendix E, 427. 81 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 141, and n. 96, following Jean Fournée, “Les orientations doctrinales de l’iconographie mariale à la fin de l’époque romane,” Bulletin du Centre international d’études romanes (1971), 23-60 at 40, suggests that the miniature is closest in its collection of prefigurations to a homily Honorius of Autun drafted for the Annunciation. She acknowledges, however, that the received dating of this work makes it unlikely the monks of early Cîteaux would have read it.

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Christian period onwards, and the earliest Cistercians would surely have been aware of it.82 The Cîteaux monks could have appended this iconographic formula and its surrounding framework of prefigurations to Fulbert’s sermon based on an internal doctrinal discussion no longer available to us. Educated monks who saw the miniature likely understood the Eucharistic and spiritual implications of this conceit. As with the compendium of prefigurations, however, the Advent and Christmas seasons may have spurred the monks to insert the virgo lactans into an otherwise straightforward image addressing Mary’s origins, both genealogical and scriptural. A prolix responsory found at the end of the second nocturn of Christmas in the early Cistercian breviary expounds: R. Blessed fruit of the Virgin Mary’s womb, which carried the son of the eternal father, and blessed breasts which nursed Christ the Lord; because today for the salvation of the world he deigned to be born of a virgin.83

This responsory was repeated at the end of the second nocturn of Matins on the Octave of Christmas. Sprinkled throughout the Christmas season was an antiphon on a similar theme. A. Blessed the womb who carried you, O Christ, and blessed the breasts that nursed the Lord and Savior of the world, alleluia.84

This was sung during Vespers of the fifth day after Christmas, again in the Vespers before and Matins of the Octave, once at Vespers on the following day, and one last time during Vespers before the second Sunday after Christmas. Given that most monks would have memorized at least the antiphon, the theme of the Virgin as a nursing mother could not have been far from their minds when a feast demanded chants in praise of her. Indeed, it is almost surprising to find that the monks who constructed the 82 The theological discourse from which the virgo lactans motif developed is vast. For its origins in early Egypt, where the earliest examples of the iconography appeared, see André Grabar, Early Christian Art; From the Rise of Christianity to the Death of Theodosius, trans. Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons (New York: Odyssey, 1968). 83 R. Beata uiscera Marie uiriginis, que portauerunt eterni patris filium, et beata ubera, que lactauerunt Christum dominum; quia hodie pro salute mundi de uirgine nasci dignatus est. Can 006171, Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 141 and 157. 84 A. Beatus uenter qui te portauit, Christe, et beata ubera que te lactauerunt dominum et saluatorem mundi, alleluia. Can 001668, Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 146, 151, 152, 154, and 159. This antiphon is discussed by Zaluska in L’enluminure but she does not connect it to its place in the liturgy (Zaluska, L’enluminure, 139).

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Office for the Nativity of the Virgin didn’t borrow this chant. The liturgy they developed for the feast of Mary’s Nativity and other Marian feasts, however, may have provided the first impetus for attaching this image to a sermon usually assigned to that day. The Office designed by the early Cîteaux monks to celebrate the Feast of Mary’s Nativity departed in large part both from the Office as it was celebrated at Molesme, and from the one used at late-eleventh-century Chartres, where Marian devotion was especially observed. The first monks borrowed the majority of the chants for the first nocturn of the feast, including invitatory, antiphons, responsories, and versicles from other holidays, including the feasts of the Assumption, Purification, and St. Agnes.85 The monks did not employ the newer responsories incorporated by Fulbert into the feast, Stirps Iesse (Can 007709), Ad nutum domini (Can 006024), or Solem iustitiae (Can 007677), even though all three of them were used at Molesme, because they were too new to be included in the Metz antiphonary they used as their guide.86 Later Cistercian liturgical reformers clearly found this approach inadequate, and by 1147 almost the entirety of this liturgy was scrapped and replaced. Their revision rearranged and replaced antiphons, responsories, and versets, but did not add the Chartrian responsories composed by Fulbert. Appendix 6 collects the chants and lections from the Feast of the Nativity of Mary at Cîteaux, and compares them to those found at Chartres and Molesme. The Chants assigned to the Feast of Mary’s Nativity at Cîteaux praise her in elevated but relatively generic terms. An antiphon for the first nocturn hails her thus: A. Even as chosen myrrh thou gavest the odor of sweetness, O holy mother of God,87

while a responsory for the fourth lection, written for this feast, sings, R. Today the blessed Virgin Mary is born from the line of David, through whom salvation of the world appeared to believers, and whose glorious life brought light to the world.88 85 The Cîteaux monks were not the only religious to resort to large-scale borrowing to construct a liturgy for this newly important feast; see Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity,” 405-406. 86 Waddell, The Summer Season Molesme Breviary IIB, 413 and 418-419. 87 A. Sicut mirra electa odorem dedisti suauitatis, sacra dei genetix. 88 R. Hodie nata est beata uirgo Maria ex progenie David, per quam salus mundi credentibus apparuit, cuius uita gloriosa lucem dedit seculo.

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The responsory for the twelfth and final lection heralds her: R. The nativity of the glorious Virgin Mary, from the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Judah, sprung from the root of David, whose glorious life illuminates all churches.89

Both of these make allusions to the Virgin’s heredity without directly describing the Jesse Tree as we see it in either miniature. Because many of the Cîteaux chants assigned to the day were borrowed from other feasts, rather than composed specifically for this day, they treat Mary’s role generically, offering praise but rarely addressing her actual nativity, and never its prefigurations. Little about these chants recalls specific details found in the sanctoral lectionary’s Jesse Tree. No hymns, antiphons, or responsories in the early Cistercian breviary use the term theotokos.90 The accumulated chants assigned to Mary’s nativity, rather, use the term dei genitrix seven times to describe her, and, though they never use the term theotokos, as found in the miniature, a well-educated monk could easily have made this translation. This theme is common enough among chants and lections, however, that one cannot pin the source of inspiration to the chants of this one feast, particularly since the concept of Mary as the Mother of God became ubiquitous after the Council of Ephesus in 431. Furthermore, that the Cîteaux artists adapted two iconographic formulae then popular in Byzantine icons and ivories (the eleousa, the Virgin of Tenderness, and the galaktotrophousa, or virgo lactans) suggests that the artists drew from an available visual repertoire, rather than inventing this composition anew. In particular, none of the chants sung on the feast of Mary’s nativity describes the most innovative aspect of the miniature: the virgo lactans motif. This is all the more surprising because, as we have seen, the prolix responsory found at the end of the second nocturn of Christmas Matins, and in the octave, and an antiphon used throughout the season, express this idea specifically. Instead, when confronted with a text that celebrated the Nativity of the Virgin, the artist of the Tree of Jesse image may have been reminded of this theme, and his memory of the chants from earlier seasons 89 R. Nativitas gloriose uirginis Marie ex semine Abrahe, orta de tribu Iuda, generosa ex stirpe David, cuius uita inclita cunctas illustrat ecclesias. 90 Zaluska, in L’enluminure, notes that Watson, in Tree of Jesse (90, n. 3), suggested as inspiration the hymn O beata Theotokos alma (L’enluminure, 140, n. 90). Neither this hymn nor another hymn verse that uses the term O mundi domina piaque maris (Can 830452e), nor the antiphon Ave o theotokos virgo Maria (Can 001540), were sung by the early Cistercians.

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may have been cued, by one of the Matins lections assigned to the Virgin’s nativity that he had heard in the choir. None of the readings assigned to the Office celebrating the Nativity of the Virgin in the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary was written specifically to address that event.91 The sermon attributed to Augustine that furnished the f irst six lections was a disquisition on the Annunciation. The next two lections, attributed to Jerome but excised from a letter by Paschasius Radbertus, Cogitis me, were addressed to a community of professed nuns on the subject of the Virgin’s chastity.92 The final four readings came from Jerome’s commentary on Matthew 1:1-18, which described Jesus’ genealogy, but named Mary only as Jesus’ mother and Joseph’s betrothed. The Pseudo-Augustine sermon expounds upon the virginity of Mary and her role in humanity’s salvation after the fall caused by Eve’s sin. Putting words into the mouth of Gabriel at the Annunciation, the author expresses with colorful language the doctrine that Mary remained virginal in every respect: Remember, Mary, in the book of the prophet Isaiah you have read of that virgin who gives birth; rejoice and exult, because you have merited so to be. You are the Virgin here prefigured, behold you will conceive in your womb, not by a man but by the Holy Spirit; and you will be with child, and will remain incorrupt. You will give birth to a son, and you will not suffer any detriment to your virginity. You will complete a pregnancy, and you will always be an intact mother. You will suffer the burden of your womb, and you will not lose the modesty of chastity. Your breasts will swell, and your genitals will remain intact.93

This reading was not found in the Cîteaux sanctoral lectionary manuscript. The artist responsible for this image may have remembered the readings assigned for the day when confronted with a sermon written on the subject of the Virgin’s nativity, and may have made the mental leap to the chants 91 See above, note XX. 92 Paschasius Radbertus, De Assumptione Sanctae Mariae Virginis, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 56C, ed. Albert Ripberger (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985), 155. On this sermon, particularly as a component of the Assumption liturgy, see Rachel Fulton, “‘Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?’: The Song of Songs as the Historia for the Office of the Assumption,” Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998): 55-122. 93 Recole, Maria, in libro Isaiae, prophetae virginem quam parituram legisti et gaude atque exsulta, quia tu esse meruisti. Tu ibi praefigurata es Virgo, tu ecce concipies in utero, non de viro, sed de Spiritu sancto: et gravida eris, et incorrupta permanebis. Paries quidem filium, et virginitatis non patieris detrimentum. Efficieris gravida, et eris mater semper intacta. Senties pondera ventris, et pudorem non perdes castitatis. Intumescent ubera tua, et intacta manent genitalia tua. PL 39:2106.

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expressing similar themes he remembered from the Night Office. This, of course, would have been much more likely if the monks had absorbed spiritual teachings that left them open to this suggestion.

Bernard of Clairvaux, the Virgin, and the Legacy of Cîteaux’s Art and Liturgy The eleventh and twelfth centuries were pivotal in the development of allegorical interpretations of Mary’s role in the history of salvation, and these interpretations were frequently expressed in the liturgy.94 For instance, in Anglo-Norman England the early-twelfth-century abbot of Bury Saint Edmunds revived the feast of Mary’s conception, but it was met with resistance at other houses like Westminster. Nonetheless, someone composed a new office liturgy for it with completely original chants, now preserved only in manuscripts found in France. This office focused on Mary’s genealogy and conception before time.95 Like the feast of Mary’s conception, the Feast of the Assumption has no evidential basis in Scripture, and as Rachel Fulton has shown, ninth-century liturgists struggled to create a suitable sequence of chants and lessons to celebrate it. Probably following the more tangential suggestions of church fathers, they devised chants from scriptural passages that created an allegorical link between figures such as the Bride in the Song of Songs and Mary.96 Twelfth- and thirteenth-century commentators such as Honorius Augustodunensis and William Durandus defended these allegorical parallels, while at the same time artists throughout western Europe began to juxtapose the Virgin with her adult son in new ways, including as the Bride of Christ and as his heavenly co-ruler. Equally lively were discussions on the subject of Mary’s bodily connection with the infant Christ, the nurturing, mothering role of Christ himself, and the pain of the Virgin at his death, all outgrowths of the invention of what has been termed “affective piety.”97 As has been firmly established by the work of Caroline Walker Bynum, Mary’s milk and Jesus’ blood, 94 See especially Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 195-288 and Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 124-157. 95 Kati Ihnat, Mother of Mercy, Bane of Jews: Devotion to the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Norman England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 23-28. 96 Fulton, “‘Quae est ista,’” 55-91. 97 For this shift in the twelfth century, see especially Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 129-131, and Fulton, From Judgment to Passion, 198-201.

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mingled from the point of his conception because both were expressions of the same essence, took on Eucharistic and sacrificial overtones in the Middle Ages, and were imbued with the sense of an extraordinary ability to nourish and heal.98 Textual and visual images of lactation miracles, in which the devout suckled from Jesus and Mary, were primarily latemedieval phenomena, but they drew on exegeses of early Church fathers like Clement of Alexandria, who compared God nourishing mankind with the blood of the Eucharist to a mother suckling her child.99 By the middle of the twelfth century, Cistercian monks, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Guerric of Igny popularized a preexisting mode of conceptualizing Jesus as himself a mother.100 Were the monks at early Cîteaux party to these theological conversations, and did it contribute to their decision to employ iconographic formulae that depict the Virgin in this nurturing and tender way? Recreating the theological and spiritual currents running through early Cîteaux’s cloister and choir is even more difficult than reconstructing its liturgy. The earliest documents appear to prioritize practical methods over spiritual goals, an ethos which Cîteaux apparently shared with the Benedictine reformers of the eleventh century; the records of the earlier reforms indicate the belief that the spiritual tenor of monastic life would be strengthened by streamlining the economic and administrative management of the monasteries.101 In the case of the Cistercians, statutes, treatises, and the customary defined how they sought to remake their setting, lifestyle, and liturgical cursus, yet the spiritual aims of these monks are stated in only the vaguest of terms, such as “[they] chose rather to be occupied with heavenly pursuits than entangled in earthly affairs,” and the suggestion that their abbot was “a most ardent lover and most faithful promoter of 98 Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 269-274. See also Beth Williamson, “The Virgin Lactans as Second Eve: Image of the Salvatrix,” Studies in Iconography 19 (1998): 105-138, for the visual depiction of this theology in Early Modern Italy. 99 Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 270. 100 Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 110-126. Both the trope of the nursing Jesus and that of Jesus as the nurturing mother actually originated in the Patristic period, although they were not taken up by later authors until the twelfth century. 101 See Diane J. Reilly, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of Saint-Vanne and the Saint-Vaast Bible, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 128 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 97-98 and Reilly, “French Romanesque Giant Bibles and their English Relatives: Blood Relatives or Adopted Children?” Scriptorium 56 (2002): 294-311. For a critique of the idea of “monastic reform” given these limitations, see Steven Vanderputten, Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900-1100 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 3-8.

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religious observance, of poverty, and of the discipline of the rule.”102 Even these statements are unreliable, however, because the documents were written so long after the events. Nonetheless, within a generation, the order’s chief theologians had established the Cistercian order as a dominant force in the development of the Marian cult in Western Europe. Bernard of Clairvaux was reputed to be in the vanguard of this effort although, as Waddell points out, Bernard’s own Marian theology was in no way innovative, but instead squarely reconciled with that of the early Fathers of the Church.103 This approach was wholly appropriate to one who embraced the Cistercian order’s focus on the reading of Patristics, particularly in the choir. It is especially important to acknowledge this given the proliferation after Bernard’s death of texts and images that connected him to the miraculous lactation of Mary, in which the Virgin heals him with her milk.104 While Bernard made many metaphorical references in his works to the nourishing spiritual properties of milk, unlike other twelfth-century writers he did not describe himself or his monks as suckling from Mary’s breast, but rather from Jesus’.105 Bernard’s earliest works addressing the Virgin are nearly contemporary with the creation of the sanctoral lectionary and the commentary on Isaiah in the Cîteaux scriptorium.106 His early sermons and tracts, largely written for the 102 From the Exordium Cistercii, I:11-12 and II:24-26. Chrysogonus Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts from Early Cîteaux: Latin Text in Dual Edition with English Translation and Notes, Studia et Documenta 9 (Nuits-Saint-George: Cîteaux: Commentarii Cisterciensis, 1999), 400-401. See also Jean Leclercq, “The Intentions of the Founders of the Cistercian Order,” in The Cistercian Spirit: A Symposium in Memory of Thomas Merton, Cistercian Studies Series 3 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 88-133, especially 94-96. 103 For a summary of Bernard’s Marian works and their characteristics, see Magnificat: Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Bernard of Clairvaux and Amadeus of Lausanne, trans. Marie-Bernard Saïd and Grace Perigo, intro. Chrysogonus Waddell, Cistercian Fathers Series 18 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1979), xiv-xxii. Rachel Fulton provides an insightful reassessment of Bernard’s Mariology in From Judgment to Passion, 303-309 and 563-564, notes 76-78. 104 Brian Patrick McGuire, The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and his Tradition, Cistercian Studies Series 126 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 189-225 and James France, Medieval Images of Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian Studies Series 210 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2007, 205-237. 105 See especially Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 115-119. 106 Scholars generally deny that Bernard influenced the pictorial programs of the early Cistercian manuscripts, many arguing that because the contents of the Apologia criticized ostentatious displays of figurative art the most lavishly decorated of the Cîteaux manuscripts could not have been produced while he resided at Cîteaux. See Henrietta Leyser, Hermits of the New Monasticism: A Study of Religious Communities in Western Europe 1000-1150 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1984), 65, who assumes that the illustrated vitae sanctorum must predate Bernard’s spiritual leadership: “It is also a striking illustration of the vigour and originality of Cîteaux before St. Bernard

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consumption of his companion monks, likely both molded the community’s spirituality and reflected the beliefs they shared. Bernard, already well educated when he arrived at Cîteaux, would have sung the liturgy with the rest of the choir monks. Like them, he would have been required to memorize the antiphons and psalms, and doubtless was assigned the task of cantillating lections and even singing invitatories and responsories. We have no direct evidence that he employed the manuscripts that survive from early Cîteaux, but reflections of their contents appear in his written work,107 as do echoes of the chants sung at Advent and at the Marian feasts of her Nativity and those of the Annunciation, Purification, and Assumption. Without a more fixed chronology for the chants, early Cîteaux manuscripts, and the texts composed by Bernard, it is impossible to know how each influenced the other. Needless to say, evidence abounds that Bernard not only observed but also remembered the art and architecture he encountered.108 However they were inspired, Bernard’s spiritual ruminations on the Virgin inform us of the Marian theology operant at early-twelfth-century Cîteaux. After an exhausting struggle to found and build the new monastery of Clairvaux, Bernard was sent on retreat for a year under the protection of Bishop William of Champeaux. During that time, and thus within the first two decades after the founding of the order, the abbot wrote four homilies in praise of the Virgin which describe Mary as a spiritual beacon. Because of his circumstances, Bernard could not have foreseen reading these to his fellow monks in the immediate future; as he explained: Even though there is no real need for me to write this for the brothers’ spiritual progress – which must always be my first concern – and even though there does not seem to be any immediate use for such an undertaking, nevertheless, as long as it in no way prevents me from being at their service, it seems to me they ought not to take it amiss if I satisfy my own devotion.109 became dominant.” See also Richard Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 239; Southern makes a false parallel between the expressive properties of language and art in that period, saying “the picture is a compendium of the new devotion to the humanity of the Savior and His earthly Mother,” but “rich though the artist is in suggestion, he has not learnt to express the pathos with which already the pupils of St. Anselm, and later those of St. Bernard, approached the subject of this illustration.” 107 Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” 299-300. 108 Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” 279-304 summarizes the bibliography on this subject. 109 Ad quod sane opus faciendum, etsi nulla fratrum, quorum me profectibus deservire necesse est, vel necessitas urgeat, vel utilitas moneat, dum tamen ex hoc non impediar, quo ad quaeque

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Nonetheless, the sermons are exegetical in nature, a purpose affirmed in the final passage of his last sermon: “I have explained the gospel reading as best I can.”110 The sermons treat the words of Luke 1:26-48, which were read on the feast of the Annunciation,111 and also, in the first section of the first sermon, recall the words of antiphons and responsories, both those sung on the feast of the Annunciation and those sung during Advent: The heavens dropped dew from above and the clouds showered the Just One (cf. Isaiah 45:8), causing the earth to open out and, rejoicing, to blossom forth a Savior (cf. Isaiah 35:2). The Lord showed his kindness and our earth bore its fruit.112

There follows a long meditation on Mary’s virginity and humility and Jesus’ obedience to her, interspersed with the relevant words from Luke and countless other scriptural quotations, in the same format as sermons Bernard intended for the Night Office. In the midst of the second sermon, Bernard accumulates the pref igurations of the Incarnation and virgin birth seen in the Cîteaux miniatures. The Burning Bush and Aaron’s rod, the shoot that comes forth from the rod of Jesse and its blossom – quoting Isaiah 7:14 – and Gideon’s fleece are aligned with the prophecy of Jeremiah, “The Lord has created a new thing on earth: a woman shall enclose a man.” Bernard explains this seeming paradox thus: For I would have said that Jesus was a man not only when he was called a prophet mighty in deed and word [Luke 24:19], but even when his mother was nursing at her gentle breast [cf. Songs 8:1] the tender limbs of the infant God or keeping him safe within her womb.113

ipsorum necessaria minus paratus inveniar, non arbitror eos debere gravari, si propriae satisfacio devotioni. Bernard of Clairvaux, Preface, Magnificat, 3, Latin text, À la louange de la vierge Mère, SC 390 [Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1993], 104). 110 Lectionem evangelicam exposui, sicut potui, nec ignoro quod non omnibus placebit (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 4:11, Magnificat, 58. SC 390, 239). 111 Quando rorantibus caelis desuper nubibusque pluentibus iustum, aperta est terra, laeta germinans Salvatorem; quando, Domino dante benignitatem et terra nostra reddente fructum suum (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 1, Magnificat, 5, and “Night Office Lectionary,” 135). 112 Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 1:1, Magnificat, 6. SC 390, 108. 113 Virum autem dixerim fuisse Iesum, non solum cum iam diceretur vir propheta, potens in opere et sermone [Luke 24:19], sed etiam cum tenera adhuc infantis Dei membra mater blando vel foveret in gremio [cf. Songs 8:1], vel duraret in utero (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 2:9, Magnificat, 21-22. SC 390, 146).

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As with the Advent responsory used at Cîteaux and the miniature in the sanctoral lectionary, Bernard chose the words of Psalm 72:6 to describe the miracle of Gideon’s fleece, rather than the words from Judges 6, saying, “Gideon’s action seems to fit in quite prettily with the prophet’s words where he says: ‘May he come down like rain upon the fleece.’”114 He later repeats the list of prophecies and prefigurations,115 and later still affirms the genealogies of both Joseph and Mary as belonging to the royal house of David.116 The third sermon continues in this exegetical vein. After repeating the words of an antiphon sung at Nones on Advent weekdays, Ecce ueniet propheta magnus, et ipse renouabit Iherusalem, alleluia117 (“Behold a great prophet will come, and he will rebuild Jerusalem, alleluia”), Bernard relates: You, however, virgin maid, will give birth to a little child, you will feed a little child and suckle a little one. But as you gaze at this little one, think how great he is.118

He later continues: Let us learn from his humility, imitate his gentleness, embrace his love, share his sufferings, be washed in his blood.119

These passages have an emotional tenor that accords with the tender embrace shared by the Virgin and her child in the Isaiah Commentary’s Tree of Jesse. They also catalogue the very iconography used in the Cîteaux scriptorium, and embed the imagery in a defense of the Virgin’s role in salvation. Bernard’s later work likewise assembles the motifs linked to the Virgin in the liturgy, and heightens the emotional tone with which he describes Mary’s intercessionary powers. The earliest compilation of Bernard’s liturgical

114 Huic quoque Gedeonico facto propheticum dictum pulchre satis convenire videtur, ubi legitur: Descendet sicut pluvia in vellus (Can 006408. Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 2:7, Magnificat, 20. SC 390, 142). 115 Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 2:11, Magnificat, 23. 116 Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 2:16, Magnificat, 29. 117 Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 3:13, Magnificat, 43 and Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 111, Can 002552. 118 Et tu quidem, o Virgo, parvulum paries, parvulum nutries, parvulum lactabis; sed videns parvum, cogita magnum (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 3:13, Magnificat, 43. SC 390, 198). 119 Discamus eius humilitatem, imitemur mansuetudinem, amplectamur dilectionem, com­ municemus passionibus, lavemur in sanguine eius (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily 3:14, Magnificat, 44. SC 390, 200).

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sermons was distributed by 1138,120 but many of the sermons were likely first composed earlier, for the abbot’s use in the Clairvaux choir on feast days.121 In his sermons for Advent, Bernard begins to address the same themes highlighted in both the Advent liturgy and the Cistercian miniatures we have examined so far. At the end of his first sermon, he anticipates that he will expound on the very passages culled from Isaiah 7:14 and 11:1-2 that provided our chants, and that were heard in the Clairvaux choir in the season of Advent: From these mountains was produced, as we have seen, the root of Jesse, whence, according to the prophet, came out a stalk, and emerging from that a flower ascended over which rests the sevenfold Spirit … [cf. Isaiah 11:1-2] Behold, he said, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and his name will be called Emmanuel [Isaiah 7:14], which is interpreted God is with us [Matt. 1:23] … But the consideration of that very profound mystery must be left for another day; that is material enough for another sermon, and today’s has already been too long.122

In Bernard’s second sermon, his thoughts return to the theme of the Jesse Tree. Quoting again Isaiah 11:1-2, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse … and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,” he explains what is already commonly understood: the rod is Virgo Dei genitrix, and the flower is his son. He describes this flower as white and ruddy, quoting the Song of Songs 5:10; as a flower on whom the angels desire to look (I Peter 1:12); and as a flower whose perfume recalls the dead to life; she has triumphed over the serpent and is the Tree of Life, who alone was chosen to carry the fruit that brought about their salvation.123 Bernard affirms that the “royal” 120 Jean Leclercq, “Introduction,” SBO IV:119 and 127-130. 121 Scholars debate whether the works Bernard described as sermons were originally preached. On this issue see Duncan Robertson, Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading, Cistercian Studies Series 238 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press for Cistercian Publications, 2011), 179-180, and my review, in The Medieval Review [online] 13.09.50. 122 Ex his montibus prodiit, ut invenies, radix Iesse, unde, iuxta Prophetam, egressa est virga, et exinde flos ascendit, super quem requievit Spiritus septiformis … .[cf. Isaiah 11:1-2] Ecce, inquit, virgo concipiet et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel [Isaiah 7:14], quod interpretatur Nobiscum Deus … [Matt. 1:23] Sed necesse est altissimi huius sacramenti considerationem diei alteri reservare: digna est enim proprio sermone materia, praesertim quod in longum iam hodiernus sermo processerit (Bernard of Clairvaux, In adventu Domini: Sermo Primus I:11, Sermons pour l’année I.1, int. Marielle Lamy, trans. Marie-Imelda Huille, SC 480 [Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2004], 118-119). 123 Bernard of Clairvaux, In adventu Domini II:4, SC 480, 128-129.

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virgin is the means, the via, through which the savior came, and she is the means by which Bernard and his listeners can ascend to him who, through her, descended to them. Domina nostra, mediatrix nostra, advocata nostra, he calls her, and begs her to extend to him and his brethren her mercy through which she can intercede on their behalf before her son, because the abundance of her charity covereth a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8).124 In addition to the motifs that recall the Cîteaux miniatures, the themes so prominent in Bernard’s writings, including those of intercession and of salvation arriving through the vessel of the Virgin Mary, were leitmotivs of chants associated with the Marian feasts at Cîteaux, particularly those used for the feasts of the Nativity and Purification. For instance, the first responsory for the first nocturn of the Nativity of the Virgin, which would have been embedded in the Pseudo-Augustine reading on Mary’s virginity and her role in the salvation of humanity, asserts: R. Your birth, O virgin mother of God, was announced with joy to the universal world. From you was born the Christ our God, the sun of justice, who freeing us from the curse gave blessing, and confounding death gave us everlasting life.125

The third antiphon before the second nocturn, thus still followed by a reading from the Pseudo-Augustine sermon, begs: A. After the birth you remained a virgin inviolate; Mother of God, intercede for us.126

Again after the fifth lection, the responsory asks: R. We devotedly celebrate the birth of the most blessed Virgin Mary, so that she will intercede for us to her son the Lord Jesus Christ.127 124 Bernard of Clairvaux, In adventu Domini II:5, SC 480, 132-133. 125 R. Nativitas tua, dei genitrix uirgo, gaudium annuntiauit uniuerso mundo. Ex te enim ortus est sol iustitiae Christus deus noster, qui soluens maledictionem dedit benedictionem, et confundens mortem donauit nobis uitam sempiternam. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 544, Can 007199. 126 A. Post partum uirgo inuiolata permansisti; dei genitrix, intercede pro nobis. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 545, Can 004332. This was also sung on the feast of the Purification. It was removed from the Office in the chant reform before 1147 and replaced with Talis est dilectus, Can 005098. 127 R. Beatissime virginis Marie nativitatem devotissime celebremus, ut ipsa pro nobis intercedat ad dominum Ihesum Christum. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 546, Can 006184. The pre-1147 form reordered the responsories, replacing this with Gloriose uiriginis, Can 006781 and moving this responsory to the first nocturn.

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And then after the sixth and last lection from Pseudo Augustine: R. We recall the most worthy origin of the glorious Virgin Mary, whose humility the Lord regarded; she conceived by the annunciate angel the redeemer of the world.128

And finally after the twelfth and final lection, following Jerome’s commentary on Matthew 1:1-18, a responsory lists the Marian genealogy: R. The Nativity of the glorious Virgin Mary out of the seed of Abraham, arising from the tribe of Juda, generated from the root of David, whose chaste life illumines the whole church.129

Bernard composed a wealth of work that considered the Virgin in her many roles, not all of which can be examined here; some of it, such as his sermons on the Song of Songs, was written later in his career and long after he had left Cîteaux.130 The examples above – the four sermons specifically addressing Mary written very early in his career as abbot and soon after the foundation of Clairvaux, and the sermons written for the season of Advent dating from perhaps two decades later – provide a window into the place of the Virgin at Cîteaux and among its first daughter houses in the first four decades of the twelfth century. Bernard’s discussion of Mary is grounded in the same scriptural prefigurations used in the liturgical chants and lections, and acknowledges the importance of Mary’s genealogy, symbolized by the Jesse Tree. Great weight is given to her humility, her piety, her nurturing of her son, her sacrifice on behalf of humanity, and her ability to serve as its advocate before her son, all well established themes propounded in the monastic liturgical tradition from which the Cistercians built their own celebrations. There is nothing in Bernard’s work that contradicts the characterization of Mary and her relationship with her son that we see in the two Cîteaux 128 R. Gloriose virginis Marie ortum dignissimum recolimus, cuius dominus humilitatem respexit; angelo nuntiate concepit redemptorem mundi. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 546, Can 006781. This responsory was replaced in the chant reform with CAO IV 6339 but moved within the same nocturn. 129 R. Nativitas gloriose virginis Marie ex semine Abrahe, orta de tribu Iuda, generosa ex stripe David, cuius vita inclita cunctas illustrat ecclesias. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 547, Can 007198. This was replaced in the chant reform with the responsory, Beata progenies unde Christus natus est. Quam gloriosa est uirgo quae caeli regem genuit, Can 006169. 130 Most of these works are discussed, although in a more pastoral vein, in Wilhelm Klimmer, Bernhard und Maria: Bernhard von Clairvaux der Minnesänger der Gottesmutter (Paderborn: Bonifacius-Druckerei, 1953).

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miniatures. Neither is there anything particularly novel, such as a strong focus on a motif that would suggest that either Bernard’s discussion of Mary or the miniatures arose from a theological current unique to Cîteaux at that moment.131 Instead, Bernard’s work, the liturgical chants and readings, and the miniatures echo one another. In much the same way that the work of twelfth-century commentators on Mary’s nativity crystalized and defended Mariological ideas first expressed in the liturgy centuries earlier, as Fulton has shown, Bernard restates, albeit with a more emotional tone, the same themes used by his monastic forebears. Bernard’s sermons, at least nominally designed to be read aloud, rightly resonated with the readings and chants that his fellow monks heard and knew. He and his brethren resided in a setting in which knowledge was transmitted orally, and no sharp distinction was made between different genres of oral utterance. Like all Benedictines, the monks attended to chant, choir lection, chapter homily, and refectory reading with the same openness to spiritual enrichment, the well-cultivated power of memory, and the ability to generate the kinds of complex networks of symbolism, keyed to their liturgical cursus, seen in these images.

131 See Fulton’s analysis of Anselm of Canterbury’s late eleventh-century prayers to the Virgin, which address many of the same themes, in From Judgment to Passion, 95-243.

4

Fruitful Words in the Stephen Harding Bible

Joined therefore as you are in songs of praise with heaven’s own singers, since you too are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household [Eph. 2:19], sing wisely [Psalms 46: 8]. As food is sweet to the palate, so does a psalm delight the heart. But the soul that is sincere and wise will not fail to chew the psalm with the teeth, as it were, of the mind, because if he swallows it in a lump, without proper mastication, the palate will be cheated of the delicious flavor, sweeter even than honey that drips from the comb [Psalms 18:11]. Let us with the Apostles offer a honey-comb [Luke 24:42] at the table of the Lord in the heavenly banquet. As honey flows from the comb so should devotion flow from the words; otherwise if one attempts to assimilate them without the condiment of the Spirit the written letters bring death [2 Cor. 3:6]. − Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, Sermon 71

Alimentary metaphors such as this abound in the works of medieval authors who discussed their experience of reading Scripture. Many of them drew on the Apostle Paul’s comparison between levels of scriptural exegesis and types of physical sustenance: “I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet” (1 Cor. 3:2).2 The words were to be savoured, chewed, and swallowed so that their goodness could be digested by the reader or listener. In his preface to the Gospels, Jerome anticipated that criticisms of his translation would ensue when a reader, “who when he will have picked up the scroll in his hand, and taken a single taste of it, and seen what he 1 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:5, Song of Songs I, trans. Killian Walsh, Cistercian Fathers Series 4 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 41-42. Laudem ergo cum caeli cantoribus in commune ducentes, utpote cives sanctorum et domestici Dei [Eph. 2:19], psallite sapienter [Ps. 46: 8]. Cibus in ore, psalmus in corde sapit. Tantum illum terere non negligat fidelis et prudens anima quibusdam dentibus intelligentiae suae, ne si forte integrum glutiat, et non mansum, frustretur palatum sapore desiderabili, et dulciori super mel et favum [Ps. 18:11]. Offeramus cum Apostolis in caelesti convivio et in dominica mensa favum mellis [Lk 24:42]. Mel in cera, devotio in littera est. Alioquin littera occidit [2 Cor. 3:6], si absque spiritus condimento glutieris. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons sur le Cantique I (1-15), Oeuvres Complètes X. SC 414 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996), 164. 2 Vulgate Bible VI:873. Lac vobis potum dedi, non escam. Biblia sacra II:1771. See also Hebrews 5:12-14. Duncan Robertson, Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading, Cistercian Studies Series 238 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2011), 63.

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will have read to differ, might not instantly raise his voice, calling me a forger, proclaiming me to be a sacrilegious man, that I might dare to add, to change, or to correct anything in the old books?”3 Bernard’s expression of this popular topos can be found in his meditation on the first verse of the Song of Songs, Osculetur me osculo oris sui – “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth” – and immediately follows his lament over the apathy demonstrated by his fellow monks as they sang the Night Office: That the holy angels do condescend to mingle with us when we praise God in psalmody is very clearly stated by the Psalmist … For this reason it makes me sad to see some of you deep in the throes of sleep during the night office, to see that instead of showing reverence for those princely citizens of heaven you appear like corpses. When you are fervent they respond with eagerness and are filled with delight in participating in your solemn offices. What I fear is that one day, repelled by your sloth, they will angrily depart.4

His advice to his listeners on celebrating the Office with appropriate rigor continues: But if like St. Paul you sing praises not only with the spirit but with the mind [1 Cor. 14:15] as well, you too will experience the truth of Jesus’ statement: the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life [John 6:64] and the truth too of the words of Wisdom, My spirit is sweet above honey [Sir. 24:27].5

Bernard wrote these words long after he had departed Cîteaux for Clairvaux, and probably no earlier than 1135. Yet their emphasis on the almost tangible facet of the oral performance of the Word, and the sanctity of this action 3 Quis enim doctus pariter vel indoctus, cum in manus volumen adsumpserit et a saliva quam semel inbibit viderit discrepare quod lectitat, non statim erumpat in vocem, me falsarium me clamans esse sacrilegum, qui audeam aliquid in veteribus libris addere, mutare, corrigere? Biblia sacra II:1515. Trans. Kevin Edgecomb, http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/patristic-stuff/vulgate-prologues/ 4 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:4. Nam quod psallentibus quoque dignanter admisceri sancti angeli soleant, quid eo manifestius quod Psalmista ait … Doleo proinde aliquos vestrum gravi in sacris vigiliis deprimi somno, nec caeli cives revereri, sed in praesentia principum tamquam mortuos apparere, cum vestra ipsi alacritate permoti, vestris interesse solemniis delectentur. Vereor ne nostram desidiam quandoque abominantes, cum indignatione recedant … SC 414, 160-162. 5 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:5. Si autem cum Apostolo psallas spiritu, psallas mente [1 Cor. 14:15], cognosces et tu de illius veritate sermonis, quem dixit Iesus: Verba quae locutus sum vobis, spiritus et vita sunt [John 6:64]; et item aeque legimus dicente Sapientia: Spiritus meus super mel dulcis [Sir. 24:27]. SC 414, 164-166.

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as it took place in the church choir as part of the Divine Office and in the refectory, was recorded visibly in the earliest manuscript products of the Cîteaux scriptorium, codices Bernard certainly would have seen and used as one of the better educated converts who entered the New Monastery in its first decade. Most significantly, in the Stephen Harding Bible, copied and decorated at the direction of Abbot Stephen as one of the scriptorium’s first signature projects, an artist explored several different means of representing both the ways that Scripture was spoken, sung, and savoured, and the way that the spoken Word of God worked in the world. In addition to a plethora of decorations that highlight the ingestion and expression of the words of the text, three of the four historiated initials opening books of the Gospels very specifically depict God’s word being eaten or spoken, and the power that arises from those acts. Thus, Bernard echoed a theme celebrated by patristic authors and Cistercian artists alike, latching onto the central importance of singing and speaking the Scripture. As we will see, not every hungry beast who nibbles at a leaf, either in a Cîteaux manuscript or in those produced by other scriptoria, participated in this kind of visual exegesis. Links between imagery and the words near it must be teased from the onslaught of visual and textual information provided by even a single opening in a manuscript codex. Yet careful attention reveals that on some occasions, the artists certainly intended to draw a connection between words that refer to acts of speaking, listening, and eating, related biblical or extra-biblical tales that highlight the same themes, and even the monastic settings in which these words would have been heard. Relying on the ubiquity of the digested word topos in exegetical writing, the artists must have expected the lector and listeners to piece together words, images, context and memory to appreciate the meaning they created.

Biting, Chewing, and Swallowing: Eating the Word An intriguing historiated initial built from the evangelist symbol for Mark opens his Gospel in the Stephen Harding Bible, Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 15, fol. 29v (Plate 10, p. X).6 A furry lion with a luxuriously full ruff and flowing tail balances on his hind legs, standing upright as if anthropomorphized. His front legs are wrapped around a gilded codex, 6 Yolanta Zaluska, L’enluminure et le scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle, Studia et Documenta IV (Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, 1989), 193-200.

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clasping it to his chest and lifting it to his face, where his lips close around the upper edge of the binding. Upswept multi-coloured wings sprout from behind the lion’s nimbed head, while he gazes, wide-eyed, at the incipit to the book of Mark painted before him. The Gospel of Mark, immediately adjacent to this evangelist symbol, begins with the story of John the Baptist, who was understood both by the gospel’s author and by medieval interpreters to serve as a harbinger of the advent of the savior: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaias, the prophet: “Behold, I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare the way before thee. The voice of one crying in the desert: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” John was in the desert baptizing and preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins (Mark 1:1-4).7

In the Stephen Harding Bible, the image is prefaced (fols. 29r-29v) by the so-called Prologus monarchianus, one of the short fourth- or fifth-century “Monarchian” prologues commonly found in medieval Latin Bibles, including those connected with Alcuin and Theodulph. Its convoluted but nonetheless powerful text explains the initial chapters of the book of Mark in terms of prophetic and animating voices, and their meaning to the reader.8 For composing the introduction of the beginning [of his Gospel] with the voice of the prophet’s cry, he showed the purpose of [his] Levitical election so that he – declaring by the voice of the heralding messenger that John, the son of Zacharias, [was] the predestinated one – might point out at the beginning of the narration of the “Gospel” that the Word, made flesh, had not only been sent out, but that, through the word of the divine voice the body of the Lord had been diffused into all things, in order that he who reads these things might know to acknowledge to whom he was 7 Vulgate Bible VI:179. Initium evangelii Iesu Christi, Filii Dei. Sicut scriptum est in Esaia, propheta: “Ecce mitto angelum meum ante faciem tuam, qui praeparabit viam tuam ante te. Vox clamantis in deserto: ‘Parate viam Domini; rectas facite semitas eius.’” Fuit Iohannes in deserto baptizans et praedicans baptismum paenitentiae in remissionem peccatorum. Biblia sacra II:1574. 8 Fridericus Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid: Cosejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco Suárez, 1940-1980), I:284, #607, edited in Peter Corssen, Monarchianische Prologe Evangelien: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Kanons, Texte und Untersuchen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur XV:1 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1896), 9-10.

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indebted for the beginning of the flesh in the Lord and the tabernacle of God coming as flesh, and also that he might find in himself the word of the voice which had been lost in the consonants.9

Untangling the complicated run-on sentence in the original Latin reveals the author of the prologue, asserting that Mark himself had appropriated the voice of the annunciatory angel (praedicans … in voce angeli), who had been sent by God to foretell the Incarnation (verbum caro factum) through John’s ministry. The author explains further that the Incarnation had been activated by a divine voice (per verbum divinae vocis animatum), and, finally, that the reader (qui haec legens) should find within himself the same word preached by that voice (in se verbum vocis … inveniret). The final word in this portion of the common translation, “consonants” for consonantibus, jars the reader. After so many references to the voice as a means of transmission, did the author intend to employ this as a technical term for a speech sound? The prologue’s author may instead have meant the reader to recall an aural experience. In consonantibus perdideret can mean “hidden within harmonies,” “resoundings,” or even “clamour.” He who reads, therefore, may be enjoined to find within himself the means to identify, and perhaps sound out, the true voice. Could this prologue have anything to do with the Cîteaux manuscript’s unusual version of the evangelist Mark’s symbol? The lion of Saint Mark commonly held books in earlier depictions, and its mouth occasionally expressed its role in transmitting Scripture. In the Lindisfarne Gospels’ author portrait (Figure 15, London, British Library MS Cotton Nero D.IV, fol. 93v), a lion grasping a closed book hovers or leaps over the head of the writing evangelist, while his mouth spits forth either a slender trumpet or a blank rotulus.10 Michelle Brown has suggested that this form may have been intended to indicate “the connection between the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Christ,” given that Mark is shown as youthful, 9 Nam initium principii in voce propheticae exclamationis instituens ordinem Leviticae electionis ostendit ut, praedicans praedestinatum Iohannem filium Zachariae in voce angeli adnuntiantis, non emissum solum verbum caro factum sed corpus domini in omnia per verbum divinae vocis animatum initio evangelicae praedicationis ostenderet, ut qui haec legens sciret cui initium carnis in domino et dei advenientis habitaculum caro deberet agnoscere, atque in se verbum vocis quod in consonantibus perdiderat inveniret. Latin edition Corssen, Monarchianische Prologe, 9, and trans. Daniel J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition: Selected Source Material for the Study of the History ... (Grand Rapids: Baker House Books, 1958), 63-65. 10 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_nero_d_iv_f089v. Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe, The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 346-355, 366-367.

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perhaps a reference to the resurrected saviour. According to Brown, the rotulus or trumpet issuing from the lion’s mouth may have been inspired by readings from the Apocalypse that demanded that Jesus’ followers spread the Word in script and voice: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, ‘What thou seest write in a book and send it to the seven churches’” (Rev. 1:1011).11 The image might more directly refer to the text of the Monarchian prologue, which precedes the Gospel of Mark on fols. 90r-v, and which describes Mark as “declaring by the voice of the heralding messenger.” In the early-ninth-century Lorsch Gospels (Alba Iulia [Romania], Bibl. Batthyáneum, MS R II 1, fol. 77v), the author portrait of Mark and his symbol face the same preface (78r-v), here written in gold uncials. Above the seated evangelist, a lion holding an open codex roars through a gaping mouth, the bottom jaw of which seems to dip under the book’s cover. The Evangelist below lifts his right hand, holding a quill, up to his left ear, as if straining to hear the lion’s voice.12 A copy also produced at Lorsch (Figure 16, Manchester, John Rylands Univ. Libr. MS 9, fol. 50v) likewise juxtaposes the Evangelist portrait and the Monarchian prologue (fols. 51r-v). Here the lion and book combination has been reinterpreted: the book is closed, and the lion’s roaring mouth, embellished with spiky teeth, is entirely in front of it. In the earlier Lorsch Gospels, the Evangelist’s open codex was left blank; in the Manchester volume, it has been inscribed with verse 1:3 from Mark’s Gospel, which itself was borrowed from chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah: Vox clamantis in deserto, “Parate viam Domini.”13 Undoubtedly this was inspired by the facing prologue’s explanation that Mark began his Gospel by “composing the introduction of the beginning with the voice of the prophet’s cry.” From this we can infer that in both manuscripts, the artists were intent on showing the oral transmission of Scripture, at least in part.

11 Vulgate Bible VI:1319. Fui in spiritu in dominica die et audivi post me vocem magnam tamquam tubae dicentis, “Quod vides scribe in libro et mitte septem ecclesiis quae sunt in Asia.” Biblia sacra II:1882. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels, 349-353. This motif also appears in later reflections or copies of the Hiberno-Saxon manuscript, such as in the portrait of Luke in the Grimbald Gospels, BL MS Add. 34890, fol. 73v, an early-eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon manuscript. 12 http://www.bibnat.ro/expozitie-virtuala/Codex-Aureus-c1-ro.htm. 13 http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/view/jrl_latin-ms-9/0108?&ui_lang=eng. A similar composition of closed book held within the lion’s open mouth is found in the Gero Codex, Darmstadt, Landesbibliothek MS 1948, fol. 2v. See Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Harvey Miller, 1999), pl. 2.

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Figure 15 London, British Library MS Cotton Nero D.IV, fol. 93v

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Figure 16 Manchester, John Rylands University Library MS 9, fol. 50v

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By the second quarter of the twelfth century, at least one other scriptorium may have adopted the motif of the lion devouring the scriptures similar to the Stephen Harding Bible’s evangelist symbol. In a Gospel book, a Norman artist depicted Mark seated on a crouching lion’s back, quill and pen-knife in hand, writing words from the first two verses of Mark on a codex held in the beast’s open mouth (Sées, Archives diocésaines [formerly Bibliothèque de l’Evêché] MS 5, fol. 36v).14 The last words of the Monarchian prologue can be seen directly above. While Walter Cahn described the book as “lodged in the jaws of the beast,”15 and William Hinkle explained that it was “conveniently held for him in the lion’s upturned jaws,”16 the lion may be taking a more active role in the consumption, or perhaps the dissemination, of the text. The historiated initial that faces the evangelist portrait (fol. 37) once again depicts the evangelist and his symbol, paired with a series of three animals playing instruments.17 The viewer is thus cued to imagine the resounding of the text. All the same, in addition to the fact that, unlike in the Cîteaux Bible, here it is the human Mark who is ultimately responsible for expressing the text, artists in England, Normandy, and Flanders at that time developed a practice of showing the symbols cheerfully supporting their evangelists’ writing tools and surfaces “like trained domestic pets,” in Hinkle’s words, leaving the intentions of the Sées Gospel artist ambiguous.18 In visual sequences and composites of evangelist symbols from the ninth century onwards, while the lion often opens his mouth in a roar, his companion symbols typically keep theirs closed. Carolingian examples include the Adoration of the Lamb image from the Gospels of Saint Médard of Soissons (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 8850, fol. 1v), in which the exclamation of the Apocalyptic Beasts, “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,” is inscribed between them, yet only the lion opens his mouth.19 The same is true throughout the manuscript’s canon tables, and in the 14 William M. Hinkle, “A Mounted Evangelist in a Twelfth-Century Gospel Book in Sées,” Aachener Kunstblätter 44 (1973): 193-210. 15 Walter Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts in France: The Twelfth Century: A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in France, 2 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1996) II:31-32, no. 20. 16 Hinkle, “A Mounted Evangelist,” 194. 17 Hinkle suggests that the inspiration to embed these creatures in the stem of the initial came by way of an earlier manuscript from Préaux (Rouen BM MS 498, fol. 174v) or something similar. The artist of the Sées Gospels, however, added the musical motifs to his source (Hinkle, “A Mounted Evangelist,” 199). 18 Hinkle, “A Mounted Evangelist,” 203-205. 19 Florentine Mütherich and Joachim E. Gaehde, Carolingian Painting (New York: George Braziller, 1976), 38. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452550p/f1.item.r=Evangiles%20 Soissons.

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evangelist portraits prefacing each gospel. In a Romanesque version from the series of evangelist portraits in the Corbie Gospels, discussed above, the lion roars towards the evangelist’s upturned face while the other symbols apparently remain silent.20 This phenomenon is not universal, however; in other examples, the lion’s mouth is shut. The Cîteaux lion, on the other hand, consumes rather than proclaims the Word. His mouth is clamped shut on the closed volume of Scripture, and his action is unmistakable: he is eating the book. This was not a new concept, either in the Bible itself or among those who described the lectio divina or lectio continua;21 in the book of Ezekiel, the prophet’s work commenced when he consumed the very words he was to transmit by eating them at God’s command. And he said to me, “Son of man, eat all that thou shalt find; eat this book, and go speak to the children of Israel.” And I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that book, and he said to me, “Son of man, thy belly shall eat, and thy bowels shall be filled with this book which I give thee.” And I did eat it: and it was sweet as honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 3:1-3).22

Several decades after the creation of the Stephen Harding Bible’s Mark initial, an English workshop illustrated this very moment in the Lambeth Bible (Figure 17, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 258v).23 Ezekiel pivots towards a heavenly hand that thrusts an unfurled scroll into his open mouth. No surviving image with a similar iconography predates the Cîteaux miniature, which in any event differs from the Lambeth illumination in several ways, including the fact that the lion doesn’t receive the book from any outside source. While there is no reason to believe that the Cîteaux artists were inspired by a preexisting Ezekiel image, commentaries on Ezekiel and others by the same Patristic authors certainly known in the Cîteaux scriptorium provide an additional framework for understanding the Cistercian initial. 20 Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts, the Corbie Gospels discussed above, Amiens BM MS 24, fols. 15, 53, 77v and 108v; see also Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts II: no. 142, a Gospelbook from Saint-Vanne, Verdun BM MS 43, fols. 1v, 28v, 45v and 75r, from the first half of the twelfth century. 21 Robertson, Lectio Divina, 63-64. 22 Vulgate Bible IV:665. Et dixit ad me, “Fili hominis, quodcumque inveneris comede; comede volumen istud, et vadens loquere ad filios Israel.” Et aperui os meum, et cibavit me volumine illo, et dixit ad me, “Fili hominis, venter tuus comedet, et viscera tua conplebuntur volumine isto quod ego do tibi.” Et comedi illud, et factum est in ore meo sicut mel dulce. Biblia sacra II:1268. 23 Dorothy M. Shepard, Introducing the Lambeth Bible: A Study of Texts and Imagery (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 154-162.

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Figure 17 London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, fol. 258v

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The Cîteaux scribes and artists prepared a large and carefully painted copy of Jerome’s commentary on Ezekiel in the same campaign during which they prepared the commentary on Isaiah examined in Chapter 2, and illustrated it with a miniature depicting Jerome transmitting the text to Eustochium, who had commissioned it (Figure 4, Dijon, BM MS 131, fol. 3r). Jerome’s commentary on the Ezekiel passage in question largely falls in line with that of other patristic authors. He glosses the passage, “Thy belly shall eat, and thy bowels shall be filled with this book which I give thee,” (Ezekiel 3:3) as “When through careful meditation we have stored up the book of the Lord in the vault of memory, our belly is filled spiritually, and our innards are satiated.”24 Gregory the Great’s commentary on Ezekiel explores the same theme in more depth. Like Paul, Gregory discriminates between the introductory, superficial understanding of Scripture, accessed by “drinking” it, and a more profound knowledge, achieved only once the words have been absorbed and digested by means of extended meditation, a kind of contemplative chewing and then swallowing of the words.25 Glossing the passage “‘Eat this book, and go speak to the children of Israel.’ And I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that book,” Gregory says: The Holy Scripture is our food and drink … whence he said through another prophet [Amos], Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord [Amos. 8:11] … . In those most obscure things that cannot be understood unless they are explained, the Holy Scripture is food, because whatever is explained so that it is understood, is as if it is chewed so that it is swallowed. In those things that are, however, more open, [the Holy Scripture] is drink. We do not swallow a drink by chewing.26 24 Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel, PL 25:25-490D. Quando vero assidua meditatione in memoriae thesauro librum Domini condiderimus, impletur spiritualiter venter noster, et saturantur viscera. PL 25:35D. 25 Robertson, Lectio Divina, 63. See also Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 164-168. 26 Hom. in Hiez. 1.10.2, Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem Propheteam, ed. Marcus Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 142 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971), 145. Scriptura sacra cibus noster et potus est. Vnde etiam per prophetam alium Dominus minatur: Mittam famem in terram, non famem panis, neque sitim aquae, sed audiendi uerbum Domini [Amos. 8:11] … In rebus enim obscurioribus quae intelligi nequeunt nisi exponantur, Scriptura sacra cibus est, quia quidquid exponitur ut intellegatur, quasi manditur ut glutiatur. In rebus uero apertioribus potus est. Potum enim non mandendo glutimus.

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Gregory also touches on this theme in the Moralia in Job, 20, which begins on fol. 29r of Dijon BM MS 173, the scriptorium’s famous Gregory manuscript, and is illustrated with a miniature of a layman prying open the jaws of a winged dragon (Plate 2, p. II).27 Here he examines the theme from the perspective of hunger rather than that of satiation. In glossing Job 30:3-4, “Barren with want and hunger, who gnawed in the wilderness, disfigured with calamity and misery, and they ate grass and barks of trees, and the root of junipers was their food,” Gregory explains, That is wont to be “gnawed” which cannot be eaten. Now heretics, because they apply themselves to make out Scripture by their own power, assuredly never can comprehend it, which … whilst they do not make out, they, as it were, do not eat. And because, not being aided by grace from on high, they are unable to eat it, they as it were “gnaw” it with certain efforts … Who do also “eat the barks of trees,” because there are some who in the sacred volumes respect the outside of the letter only, nor keep in safety any thing belonging to the spiritual meaning, whereas they imagine that there is nothing more in the words of God, but that which they may hear on the outside.28

Does the Cîteaux lion gnaw on the gilded binding, accessing only the outside? Or does he consume the words, experiencing their spiritual goodness in preparation for proclaiming them? In Jerome’s first homily on the Gospel of Mark, he explained how all four apocalyptic beasts should be understood. At the same time he revealed the place of the lion symbol in the context of the first verses of Mark’s gospel, the ones written across from the lion initial in the Stephen Harding Bible, and why only the lion is shown with an open mouth when the evangelist symbols are grouped together:

27 Conrad Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life: Reading, Art and Polemics in the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 45. 28 Morals on the Book of Job by S. Gregory the Great … 3 vols., A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church 21 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845), II, at 463-464. Moralia in Iob, PL 75:509-1162, and PL 76:9-781, at 76: 149, Rodi solet quod comedi non potest. Haeretici autem quia Scripturam sacram intelligere sua virtute moliuntur, eam procul dubio apprehendere nequaquam possunt; quam dum non intelligunt, quasi non edunt. Et quia per supernam gratiam non adjuti hanc comedere nequeunt, quasi quibusdam illam nisibus rodunt. Exterius quippe illam contrectant, cum quidem conantur, sed non ad ejus interiora perveniunt … Qui arborum quoque cortices mandunt, quia sunt nonnulli qui in sacris voluminibus solam litterae superficiem venerantur, nec quidquam de spiritali intellectu custodiunt, cum nihil in verbis Dei amplius nisi hoc quod exterius audierint esse suspicantur.

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The four-faced (tetrámorphon) creature that we met in the Apocalypse of John and in the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecy … In Matthew, this human being has the face of a man; in Luke, an ox; in John, an eagle; in Mark, the lion crying in the desert … The one crying out in the desert is, indeed, the lion whose roar fills all the other animals with terror and huddles them together in a paralysis of fear. At the same time ponder well that John the Baptist is called the voice, but our Lord Jesus the word; the servant comes before the master.29

Taken together, the preface, other well-known exegeses on the biblical theme of the bodily consumption of the text, and Jerome’s interpretation of the lion all suggest that the Cîteaux lion, standing in for John the Baptist, ingests and digests the word of God before preaching it. After ingesting the Word, the lion, like the reader, should be able to “find in himself the word of the voice which had been lost in the consonants,” as instructed by the Monarchian prologue. While there can be little doubt that the Stephen Harding Bible’s Mark symbol is eating a gilded volume of Scripture, what this means for his relationship to the words inside is at first glance a bit ambiguous. Surrounding texts reveal how this unusual image was intended to be understood: it is the prelude to the expression of God’s words. When it comes to other depictions of animals eating the text inscribed on the page, however, it is often harder to pin down whether these devices are purely ornamental or serve a similar interpretive function.

Were All Twelfth-Century Animals Hungry for Scripture? The Cîteaux artists shared a repertoire of hungry animal motifs with many other eleventh- and twelfth-century scriptoria, including those that may have contributed both scribes and manuscripts to the Cîteaux scriptorium. Yet there are few cases in which examples from other houses can be interpreted in the same way as those manufactured at the New Monastery. Stephen Harding hailed originally from the Abbey of Sherborne, in Dorset. In the 29 Jerome, The Homilies of St. Jerome, 2 vols., The Fathers of the Church 48 and 57, trans. Marie Ligouri Ewald (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1964-1966), II:121, Homily 75, Qui in heremo personat, utique leo est, ad cuius uocem omnia animalia pertimescunt, et concurrunt, et fugere non audent. Simul que considerate quod iohannes baptista uox dicitur, et dominus noster iesus sermo: seruus praecedit dominum. Germanus Morin, Sancti Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentarioli in Psalmos, Analecta Maredsolana 3, pt. 1 (1895), 319.

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late tenth-century Sherborne Pontifical (Paris BN MS lat. 943), tentatively attributed to either the abbey itself or to Canterbury, artists employed a restrained line-drawing style with grave standing figures, and a single initial (see fol. 10r) of pen-drawn interlace, with terminals made of square-jawed heads whose mouths snap closed over the slender tendrils making up the initials.30 The initial is imbedded in the text of ceremonies for the dedication of the church. It commences a routine prayer, Actiones nostras quaesumus domine, and follows an antiphon, Zachaee festinans (Can 005515), that make no mention of consumption. Two of the first Cîteaux monks, John and Hilbod, had originally come from Saint-Vaast in Arras, where manuscripts illuminated with a FrancoSaxon and Anglo-Saxon repertoire of interlace, scrolling acanthus, and snapping animal heads dominated the scriptorium’s output. There one finds in the Saint-Vaast Bible (Arras, Médiathèque MS 559 [435], fol. 158r) – a manuscript the two professed monks would certainly have encountered in the course of their observances – delicate tendrils bitten by snapping heads almost identical to those found in the manuscript from late tenth-century Sherborne. The same can be seen in an illuminated initial in a contemporary manuscript of Jerome’s commentary on the Psalms from Saint-Vaast (Arras, Médiathèque MS 860 [530], fol. 91v). Tendril or foliate initials with biting heads are virtually ubiquitous in manuscript illumination from the later tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, however. One example similar to the Saint-Vaast and Sherborne initials survives in an early twelfth-century Limousin Bible, Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine MS 1, fol. 74r. Initials crowded with seemingly hungry animal heads were also used by the artists of the Grande Chartreuse in their multi-volume lectern Bible early in the twelfth century (for example fols. 114r or 123v in Grenoble BM MS 17), regardless of the content of the texts they illustrate.31 The Cîteaux artists thus embraced a pre-existing and well-represented tradition of predominantly decorative hungry zoomorphs. Also popular in northern European scriptoria from the Carolingian period onwards were initials not only inhabited by zoomorphs, but also using animals’ bodies as the structures of the initials themselves (see, for instance, the early ninth-century Corbie Psalter, Amiens BM MS 18, fols. 4r, 4v, 5r, 10r, 10v, etc.). Although torsos, legs, and tails were less common a 30 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001165p/f25.zoom.r=latin%20943.langEN. 31 Dominique Mielle de Becdelièvre, Prêcher en silence: enquête codicologique sur les manuscrits du XIIe siècle de la Grande Chartreuse (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université Jean Monnet, 2004), 312-315.

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component than isolated heads and feet, they abound as stems, bows, limbs, and serifs in eleventh-century English and French illuminations that the Cîteaux artists may have seen. In the late eleventh-century Corbie Gospels, possibly from Beauvais (Amiens BM MS 24, fol. 109r), writhing, biting dragons provide the uprights and diagonal of a capital N for the composite initials I and N, for In principio erat verbum, the first words of the Gospel of John.32 Are the beasts eating the Word made flesh? At the beginning of Book of Wisdom in the Bible from the Grande Chartreuse (Grenoble BM MS 18, fol. 90v), an inverted lion, his feet and tail seemingly hovering in the air, snarls at a double-ended dragon, the two together forming the L of the brief prologue of Liber sapientiae apud hebreos.33 This etymological preface justifies the book’s title, since the text represents Christ’s Incarnation and Passion, and “Christ is the wisdom of the Father,” but offers no overt rationale for the animal imagery. It is immediately followed by the historiated initial that opens the book itself (D, for Diligite iustitiam, fol. 91r) populated by two wolves, one inverted, who bite each other’s legs, and an Escher-esque series of biting lion and bird heads. Such combinations appear throughout the Bible’s three volumes. With the possible exception of the Alba Julia Lorsch Gospels evangelist symbol, whose mouth opens around a codex, however, animals who eat books are absent from the pictorial tradition preceding the Stephen Harding Bible, and those who eat parts of letters, whether composed of tendrils, leaves, or other animals, were likely not invested with similar symbolism. Clearly not every biting and chewing animal depicted in a biblical text was intended to evoke the idea of ingesting Scripture. Similarly, in their earliest products, the Cîteaux scriptorium’s artists apparently demanded no more from their painted beasts than that they provide lively decoration, demarcating the beginnings of sections of text. The first volume of the Bible of Stephen Harding, now split into Dijon MSS 12 and 13,34 was painted by a different artist from the one responsible for the second half of the Bible. This first artist employed a style probably inspired at least in part by the volumes originally from Saint-Vaast, which the monks either brought with them from Molesme, or were given soon after they arrived at Cîteaux.35 These Northern French manuscripts were 32 http://blog.metmuseum.org/penandparchment/exhibition-images/cat170r1_49b/ 33 Stegmüller, Repertorium, I:270, #468. 34 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 192-193. 35 Zaluska, Les enluminures, 267-272. Zaluska argues that the way in which the decorative components were assembled by the Cîteaux artists differs from that used at Saint-Vaast, but believes that generally their style derived from that common north of the Loire at the time (74-75).

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decorated with somewhat clumsily-penned leafy tendril initials, drawn primarily with red ink. Red, blue, green, and yellow paint fills in the empty regions between the white leaves accented with red, green, or black lines, typically consistent with the primary ink color, and pen-drawn interlace set into panels fills descenders and frames (see Dijon BM MS 30, the Psalter of Robert of Molesme, fols. 10v [Figure 18] and 25r, MS 177, Gregory’s homilies on the Gospels, p. 188). Occasionally an animal head bites the interlace (Dijon BM MS 179, Gregory’s Dialogues, fol. 86). The first artist of the Stephen Harding Bible appears to have adapted this vocabulary with a few modifications. Rather than filling the interstices between initial elements with a mosaic of differently coloured panels, uniform blue provides the background for the red pen of the initials. Contrasting acid green paint fills some elements of the tendril and initial frames. The beaded fillets, interlace panels, and plump, curving tendrils common to the Saint-Vaast manuscripts remain, but a greater variety of beasts both form the initials and populate them, starting with the first initial, D, for Jerome’s prologue Desiderii mei desideratas (Dijon BM MS 12, fol. 2r). Here the curving back of a winged dragon forms the bow of the capital, its neck and tail grasped by dog-like heads serving as serifs for the letter’s minim. In the next capital, I for In principio (Dijon BM MS 12, fol. 3v, Plate 1, p. I), tiny freestanding animals, including a lion, a pelican, a stag, and a human-headed dog, stand rather awkwardly on the twining tendril. All of them attempt to eat the leaves or berries sprouting from the vine. Perhaps these creatures and their food are intended to represent the “green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind (Genesis 1:12)”; “the fowl that may fly over the earth (Genesis 1:20)”; and “the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth (Genesis 1:24),” “wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon (Genesis 1:30)”;36 but no details distinguish these buds and beasts from others found throughout MSS 12 and 13 when such things are not described in the texts they accompany.37 Furthermore, several of the animals ornamenting the initial I are hybrids, a genre not typically found among the animals of the Creation narrative. The 36 Vulgate Bible I:5, 7. Herbam virentem, et facientem semen, et lignum pomiferum faciens fructum iuxta genus suum … volatile super terram sub firmamento caeli … . animam viventem in genere suo, iumenta, et reptilia, et bestias terrae secundum species suas … . et quibus est anima vivens, ut habeant ad vescendum. Biblia sacra I:5-6. 37 See, for instance, the hart tangled in tendril inside the V commencing the preface Viginti et duas before 1 Samuel, MS 13, fol. 2r, and the deer or dog eating the tendril inside the F for Fuit vir unus, the beginning of 1 Samuel, MS 13, fol. 3v.

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Figure 18 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 30, fol. 10v

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first human-headed figure one encounters in the manuscript is the bearded quadruped eating “seeds” in the Genesis initial. Readers would have seen another human face at the beginning of Hosea (MS 13, fol. 132v), although this one, sprouting from the bow of the uncial V for Verbum Domini, turns away from the Scripture verse with his mouth closed. Like the original first volume, the second volume of the Bible has been split in two to become MSS 14 and 15. Near the beginning of MS 14, another hybrid beast with human characteristics appears. On fol. 14r (Plate 11, p. XI), in the initial to the first Psalm, B, a centaur with long, dark hair twists to grasp the frame of the initial on one side and an unfurling leaf on the other. The artist responsible, whose work dominates MSS 14 and 15, drew from the same colour palette and repertoire of biting animal heads, tendrils, leaves, berries, belts, and beads used by the artist of MSS 12 and 13, and likewise set his initials against a blue ground. This second artist worked with a much greater fluidity of line and subtler shading, however. His leaves and branches, highlighted with gradations of blue, red, and green, rather than the first artist’s blunt pen strokes, achieve a lively three-dimensionality, while his centaur, girded with a beaded gold belt beneath corrugations indicating ribs, appears to have been caught in the act of scampering through the shrubbery. The unevenly-penned interlace panels from the earlier volumes have disappeared, replaced by simple green painted grounds within the panels set into the framework of the initials.

The Meaning of Ornament in the Cîteaux Scriptorium The greatest innovation of this artist within the Stephen Harding Bible was his introduction of narrative scenes into the initials and on blank pages, or in empty spaces at the top or bottom of text columns. These narrative vignettes, as we will see, include details not drawn from the biblical text itself, and signal a profound shift in the artistic philosophy of the workshop. The artists responsible for illustrating the second volume of the Bible began to dedicate their efforts in part to using visual storytelling techniques to augment and interpret the texts. This shift occurred not just in this volume, but also in others, such as the Cîteaux Moralia in Job (Dijon MSS 168, 169, 170 and 173) and a collection of Jerome’s letters and sermons (Dijon MS 135; see Chapter 2). Despite the fact that the two Bible volumes exhibit contrasting styles and types of content, Yolanta Zaluska and others have used the manuscripts’ codicological characteristics to defend the long-held belief that they were meant to go together, and that they were produced

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either simultaneously or serially in short order. The work of the same scribe appears in both, although three scribes participated in the project as a whole: Zaluska’s “Scribe A,” who was responsible for the entirety of the original first volume, copied many parts of the second volume containing the new decorative style.38 Within libraries from this period it is not unusual to encounter two or more volumes of the same Bible that differ strikingly in artistic personality. To copy and illustrate a lectern Bible was a project of gargantuan proportions and expense, and often occurred over decades, leading to inconsistencies in style, format, and even size. A similar discrepancy in appearance can be witnessed if the first three volumes of the Moralia in Job are compared with the last: the first three manuscripts measure between 33 and 35 centimetres in height, while the fourth is more than ten centimetres taller.39 To medieval readers accustomed to library collections aggregated over the course of generations, this heterogeneity within what we perceive to be a “set” was normal. Should the dramatic change in artistic style and content that occurred between the original first and second volumes of the Bible lead us to invest the population of animals, hybrids, and humans that scramble through the initials of the second with greater narrative and symbolic import? Conrad Rudolph explored the meaning of similar motifs in the Cîteaux Moralia in Job, which Zaluska argues was copied at the same time and by one of the same scribes as the Bible, and primarily decorated by the artist who also decorated the Bible’s second volume. 40 Rudolph ascribes exact meanings, inspired by the texts they accompany, to many Moralia initials previously believed to be generic depictions of warlike beasts and threatening hybrids. As Rudolph explains, monastic writers of all stripes called on militaristic imagery and themes of violent spiritual struggle to depict the inner lives of their flocks. The earliest Cistercians embraced this idiom and expressed it in both their textual and artistic creations, including the sermon Stephen Harding drafted for the Cîteaux monks on the occasion of the death of his predecessor, Alberic, and in the First Style paintings added to their early manuscripts. 41 European art of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is strongly characterized by violence perpetrated by beasts, men, and hybrids of the two, and it 38 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 57, 67-69. 39 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 21 and Zaluska, L’enluminure, 200-204. 40 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 69, 77-79, also Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 19-20. 41 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 7-8, 23 and passim.

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is now generally accepted that this iconography could serve as a metaphor for spiritual battle.42 Rudolph’s innovation is to tie individual details of this imagery to specific texts, including those adjoining the images and those certainly known to the artists who created them. Similarly, he invests the Moralia in Job’s depictions of “daily life,” previously read as charming memorializations of the physical challenges faced by the early monks, with symbolic meaning tied to Gregory’s exhortations in the accompanying texts. 43 Rudolph’s determination to identify as many initials as possible that participate in the predefined themes of “spiritual struggle” and “daily life,” however, may have led him to disregard other readings of the Moralia’s imagery, and at the same time to deny similar images in the Stephen Harding Bible any meaning at all because they, understandably, could not participate in the Moralia’s program. In the initial to Book 20 of the Moralia (Plate 2, Dijon BM MS 173, fol. 29, p. II) encountered above [p. 153], the first letter of the text, Q for quamvis, is formed by the mirrored curving backs of a green and yellow winged dragon, and a layman with pursed lips, robed in flowing red, who pries open the jaws of the monster. Rudolph interprets this as a depiction of spiritual struggle, with reference to a section of text embedded in Book 20, chapter 8: But all the Elect so long as they are in this life never hold out to themselves the assurance of security. For being at all times alive to suspicion against temptations, they dread the plottings of the hidden enemy … . For we have always to be on the watch … . For holy men are so assured touching hope, that nevertheless they are ever mistrustful touching temptation … . They trust and they fear. 44

In Rudolph’s reading, the man, through his curved posture, telegraphs his readiness to spring away if the jaws of the “hidden enemy” should snap shut. Other aspects of the text, less allusive than the passage identified by Rudolph, may also have inspired the image: for instance, much earlier 42 The debate on this issue is summarized in Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 9-12. T. A. Heslop, “Brief in Words but Heavy in the Weight of its Mysteries,” Art History 9 (1986): 1-11 at 1-5 offers examples of scholarship that affirm this interpretation. 43 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 62-65. 44 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 45, and note 31, 107. A Library of the Fathers … 21, 451-452, PL 76:139, Sed electi quique quandiu in hac vita sunt, securitatis sibi confidentiam non promittunt. Horis enim omnibus contra tentamenta suspecti, occulti hostis insidias metuunt … . Vigilandum quippe semper est … . Sancti etenim viri sic de spe certi sunt, ut tamen semper sint de tentatione suspecti … . confidunt, et timent.

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in the same chapter – in fact found in the column beside the image in the Cîteaux Moralia – Gregory comments on Job 29:21-23: “They that heard me waited for my sentence and being attentive held their peace at my counsel. To my words they durst add nothing, and my speech dropped upon them. They waited for me as for rain, and they opened their mouth as for a latter shower.”45 Gregory’s commentary explains that, while the faithful wait for wisdom to be delivered through preaching, opening the mouths of their parched hearts to the soothing words and daring to add nothing, heretics and the iniquitous embroider the words of the Holy Church.46 It is possible that the visibly silent man is wresting open the mouth of a heretic to receive the pluviam of holy preaching. Either interpretation credits the artist with considerable imagination and a deep knowledge of the text, and assumes in the early twelfth-century Cistercian viewer the ability to understand the connection. The second interpretation relies on the principle that a reading based on the actual words in the manuscript – and their corresponding images when these are available – is to be preferred over one that is comparatively tangential in meaning. At the beginning of the Moralia’s Book 13 (Plate 12, Dijon BM MS 170, fol. 32r, p. XII), an initial E, for esse, serves as the skeleton over which a vine clambers, sprouting clusters of fruit. Two tunic-clad laymen scramble over this trellis-like framework, their legs interlaced in the letter. One wields a knife to slice a bundle of grapes or berries from the vine while the other, attentive to the work of his companion above, places a cluster of the fruit into a shallow basin. Rudolph attests that the initial, part of his “daily life” strand, is tied to Gregory’s exposition of Job 16:18: “These things I have suffered without the iniquity of my hand when I offered pure prayers to God.”47 Rudolph explains: The figures refer to a passage in that book (Moralia 13:25-27) which culminates a long discussion of the adversities of the Church by invoking the blood of Christ – of which the fruit of the vine as the source of the wine of the Eucharist is a venerable symbol. “It happened that the blood of our redeemer which his persecutors – raging – had spilled, afterward, believing, they drank, proclaiming him to be the Son of God.” Translated 45 Vulgate Bible III:99. Qui me audiebant expectabant sententiam et intenti tacebant ad consilium meum. Verbis meis addere nihil audebant, et super illos stillabat eloquium meum. Expectabant me sicut pluviam, et os suum aperiebant quasi ad imbrem serotinum. Biblia sacra I:754. 46 Gregory, Moralia in Iob, 20:2-5. 47 Vulgate Bible III:57. Haec passus sum absque iniquitate manus meae cum haberem mundas ad Deum preces. Biblia sacra I:745.

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into the visual vocabulary of daily life, the man in the upper half of the initial cuts the vine with a knife – spilling the blood of Christ, the true vine (John 15:1) – while the man in the lower half receives the fruit of the vine, looking upward in enlightenment. 48

But in the Cîteaux Moralia manuscript the text found on the folio on which the image appears, as well on as the preceding folios, ponders the meaning of the trees, vines, and fruit named in the Book of Job in a fashion that may have inspired this image much more directly. In Job 14, Job dwells on the brevity of life, saying “A tree hath hope. If it be cut, it groweth green again, and the boughs thereof sprout. If its root be old in the earth, and its stock be dead in the dust, at the scent of water it shall spring and bring forth leaves” (Job 14:7-9). 49 Gregory provides detailed exegeses relating the tree, unsurprisingly, to the Cross, and to the greenness of everlasting life, and the root to the preaching of the Word.50 At Job 15:29, one finds this description of the wicked: “He shall not be enriched, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he push his root in the earth.” Gregory explains in his Book 12, chapter 53: This wicked man does not “send forth his root in the earth,” in that he never plants the thoughts of his heart into the desire of the eternal life … And hence it is said by the Prophet, Shall again take root downwardly, and bear fruit upwards [Isaiah 37:31]. For when we stretch our thought in sympathizing with a poor neighbour; “we as it were send a root downwards, that we may bear the fruit of recompense above.”51

Commenting on Job 15:33-34, “He shall be blasted as a vine when its grapes are in the first flower and as an olive tree that casteth its flower, for the congregation of the hypocrite is barren,”52 Gregory explains: 48 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 77 and 119, note 150. 49 Vulgate Bible III:53. Lignum habet spem. Si praecisum fuerit, rursum virescit, et rami eius pullulant. Si senuerit in terra radix eius et in pulvere emortuus fuerit truncus illius, ad odorem aquae germinabit, et faciet comam. Biblia sacra I:744. 50 Gregory, Moralia in Iob, Book 12:5-7. 51 Gregory, Moralia in Iob, Book 12:53. A Library of Fathers … 21, 78-79. PL 75:1012, Iniquus iste in terra radicem suam non mittit, quia nunquam ad aeternae vitae desiderium cordis sui cogitationes plantat … . Unde et per prophetam dicitur: Mittet radicem deorsum, et faciet fructum sursum [Isaiah 37:31]. Cum enim cogitationem nostram ad compatiendum indigenti proximo tendimus, quasi radicem deorsum mittimus, ut retributionis fructum superius faciamus. 52 Vulgate Bible III:53-55. Laedetur quasi vinea in primo flore botrus eius et quasi oliva florem suum, congregatio enim hypocritae sterilis … Biblia sacra I:744.

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We have not then to look whether the vines flourish, but if the blossoms are strong for the bearing of fruit, in that it is not any thing to admire if a man begins good works, but it is much to be admired, if with a right intention he holds on in good works … Now hypocrites gather together good works, but their gathering itself is barren, in that in the things they do they never make it their object to receive fruit in the eternal recompensing. They look fruitful and green to the eyes of their fellow-creatures, but in the sight of the hidden Judge they appear unfruitful and blasted.53

This text is found in the Cîteaux Moralia on the folio directly facing the initial, and a prominent Nota monogram embellishes the margin next to it. On the following folio, to the right of the initial, one finds Gregory, so to speak, hoeing the same row: Now holy men hear with forbearance, even what they never remember to have done, although those wrong things which they see to be urged against themselves, they know to be committed by their very accusers; and when they cannot correct them by preaching, they suffer them by submitting to the evil, that if they cannot attain the fruit of their conversion, they may at least win by those very persons the reward of long endurance.54

All but the first of these passages of the Moralia, including that identified by Rudolph, are found in the Cîteaux manuscript in the same quire in which the initial was painted. If the painter had access to the entire quire while he worked, which is likely, a variety of prompts could have inspired the artist to populate this initial with men harvesting the fruit of the vine, although not all of them fit neatly into Rudolph’s paradigm in which spiritual struggle is rendered visually in terms of daily life.

53 Gregory, Moralia in Iob, Book 12:61. A Library of the Fathers … 21, 83-84. PL 75:1016, Non ergo intuendum est si vinea floreant, sed si flores ad partum fructuum convalescant, quia mirum non est si quis bona inchoet, sed valde mirabile est si intentione recta in bono opere perduret … Congregant vero et hypocritae bona opera, sed eorum sterilis est ipsa congregatio, quia per hoc quod agunt fructum recipere in aeterna retributione non appetunt. Fecundi et virides in suis operibus humanis oculis videntur, sed in conspectu occulti judicis infecundi et aridi apparent. 54 Gregory, Moralia in Iob, Book 13:1. A Library of the Fathers … 21, 87. PL 75:1017C, Sancti autem viri patienter audiunt etiam quae se nunquam fecisse meminerunt, quamvis ea mala quae sibi ingeri conspiciunt ab ipsis suis criminatoribus noverint perpetrata; et cum eos praedicando corrigere non possunt, patiendo tolerant, quatenus si fructum conversionis eorum non valent, ex ipsis tamen praemium longanimitatis acquirant.

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Lips, Tongues, and Ears: Picturing the Spoken Word Despite contending that the same artist who painted what was originally the second volume of the Stephen Harding Bible was also responsible for the illuminations in Cîteaux’s Moralia in Job manuscript, Rudolph dismisses the notion that the Bible’s fifty-six figural initials could carry a similarly complex interpretive meaning. He asserts that “all but three are either purely ornamental, primarily narrative, or act as straightforward author portraits or symbols of the Evangelists.” Of the three exceptions, he contends that the initial to the Song of Songs (Figure 2, Dijon BM MS 14, fol. 60r, discussed in the Introduction) “operates in a symbolically simple manner,” while the initial to John (Plate 13, Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 56v, p. XIII) “is more complex but goes outside the text for a significant part of its basic meaning.” Only the initial to Wisdom (Plate 14, Dijon BM MS 14, fol. 128v, p. XIV) “might be said to demonstrably convey a content of spiritual struggle approaching that of the Cîteaux Moralia; but again, this is without a direct relation to the literality or sense of the text in the manner of the Cîteaux Moralia.”55 As we have already seen with the lion of Mark, however, historiated initials in the Bible’s second half can encapsulate several levels of symbolism and address themes other than spiritual struggle. Given the sophistication with which this artist apparently approached the Moralia, one would expect a similar level of complexity in the Bible’s miniatures, and this is certainly true of the Wisdom initial. The initial that commences Wisdom is composed of a hybrid half-man, half beast, or “semi-homo” as Rudolph terms the type,56 who grasps the clawed forearms of a dragon, while a bearded layman armed with sword and shield comes nose-to-nose and tongue-to-tongue with it. At some point in the manuscript’s history, the tongue of the dragon was scored with a sharp implement. Could the knightly figure be the man instructed to “love justice” (Diligite iustitiam), as the first words of Wisdom instruct? The text of Wisdom’s first chapter, found directly under the initial, explains: For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent and will not acquit the evil speaker from his lips, for God is witness of his reins, and he is a true searcher of his heart and a hearer of his tongue. For the spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world, and that, which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice. Therefore he that speaketh unjust things cannot be hid, neither 55 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 23-24. 56 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 56-57.

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shall the chastising judgment pass him by … Keep yourselves therefore from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and refrain your tongue from distraction, for an obscure speech shall not go for naught and the mouth that belieth killeth the soul (Wisdom 1:8-11).57

In fact, verses six through eleven all address speech and hearing. If we follow Rudolph’s reading of the warrior, monster, and semi-homo, we have here, outside the Moralia, a spiritual knight battling a monster, who is in turn bitten by the half-irrational semi-homo with whom he struggles. Armed with weapons of sword and teeth, the two wrestle with the temptation of evil speech. A later reader seems to have assigned a negative connotation to the mouth and tongue of the dragon and violently scored it. Rudolph quite reasonably argues against the principle forwarded by Sandy Heslop in relation to the Moralia miniatures and more generally, that figurative initials intended to relate to the meaning of the associated text will always be related to the text found on the same folio;58 yet here, as in the Moralia, the artist appears to have used the adjacent text as a starting point when designing the initial. The next initial in the manuscript, for Ecclesiasticus (Plate 15, Dijon BM MS 14, fol. 136v, p. XV), abandons the theme of spiritual conflict while still toying with the concept of the oral. In the initial for the first words of the text, Omnis sapientia a domino deo est, a male head hangs at the bottom of the letter’s skeleton as if suspended by the hoop of the O strung through his ears. Directly above him, the head of his balding companion has been pierced diagonally, so that the hoop enters through one ear and emerges through his mouth. Immediately across from the initial on the facing folio are the opening words of chapter 2: Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble thy heart, and endure. Incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding (Ecclesiasticus 2:1-2).59 57 Vulgate Bible III:757-759. Quoniam spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum, et hoc quod continet omnia scientiam habet vocis. Propter hoc qui loquitur iniqua non potest latere, nec praeteriet illum corripiens iudicium … Custodite ergo vos a murmuratione, quae nihil prodest, et a detractione parcite linguae, quoniam sermo obscurus in vacuum non ibit os autem quod mentitur occidit animam. Biblia sacra II:1003. 58 Rudolph, Violence and Daily Life, 9, and Heslop, “Brief in Words,” 2-3. 59 Vulgate Bible III: 849. Fili, accedens ad servituti Dei, sta in iustitia et timore, et praepara animam tuam ad temptationem. Deprime cor tuum, et sustine. Inclina aurem tuam, et excipe verba intellectus. Biblia sacra II:1031. The initial and incipit are found on a tipped in singleton

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A prologue to Ecclesiasticus purportedly written by the author Jesu, Sirach’s grandson, is found on fol. 135v. Even though this was considered a canonical part of the text in the Middle Ages,60 here it has been separated from the rest of the text by the chapter list. It praises the didactic value of Scripture, saying: The knowledge of many and great things hath been shewed us by the law and the prophets, and others that have followed them, for which things Israel is to be commended for doctrine and wisdom, because not only they that speak must needs be skilful, but strangers also both speaking and writing may by their means become most learned.61

When regarded in the context of these textual passages, one found on the folio preceding the initial and the other on the folio facing it, we may understand that the lower man in the initial absorbs the wisdom, or knowledge, that is from God through his outsized ears while the upper man both receives through his ear and ingests with his mouth, or (more likely) speaks this same wisdom.

Fruitful Words in the Refectory Among the three initials from the Stephen Harding Bible that we have examined so far – for Mark, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus – the artist seems to have experimented with different ways of expressing in visual terms the value of the spoken word, whether the murmurings of the impious or the nourishing fruit of Scripture. In the cases of the Mark initial and possibly that appended to Ecclesiasticus, beast and man appear to eat the Scripture. The first chapters of Ecclesiasticus, according to the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary, were read in the Night Office service for the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost,62 in the same office for which Bernard instructed penned by a different scribe from the one responsible for the majority of the quire, including the text above, found on fol. 137r, but both folios were part of the same campaign. See Zaluska, L’enluminure, 198, fig. 7b. 60 Stegmüller, Repertorium, 10. 61 Vulgate Bible III: 841. Multorum nobis et magnorum per legem et prophetas aliosque qui secuti sunt illos sapientia demonstrata est, in quibus oportet laudare Israhel doctrinae et sapientiae causa, quia non solum ipsos loquentes necesse est peritos, sed etiam extraneos posse et dicentes et scribentes doctissimos fieri. Biblia sacra II:1029. 62 “Night Office Lectionary,” 123. The lectionary specifies that Ecclesiasticus 1:1-3:12, 4:12-5:3 and 6:5-23 were to be read. In the abbreviated Cistercian Breviary, shorter passages of Ecclesiasticus

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that the sweet words of Scripture were to be savoured like honey from the comb. According to the instructions of the early Cistercian customary, the Ecclesiastica officia, Ecclesiasticus was to be continued in the refectory, where monks participated in their material repast, in August.63 After the chant reform that occurred before 1147, the first chapters of Mark were read in the choir on the first Sunday of Advent, accompanied by a homily by the Venerable Bede. Before this reform – thus during the period when the Stephen Harding Bible was created – the beginning of Mark was read only in the refectory.64 This is a distinct departure from previous monastic practice, as no other surviving ordo librorum mandates reading the Gospels in the refectory.65 The Stephen Harding Bible’s evangelist symbol for Mark seems to be suggesting, as did many other monastic commentators, that the spiritual food of Scripture reading take precedence over the mundane meal offered at the refectory table. Interestingly, the lion grips the volume tightly with both paws as he chews, visually echoing the detailed instructions for refectory conduct found in the Ecclesiastica officia: monks were to take up the cups holding their beverages or the straws through which they sipped them with both hands.66 As Chrysogonus Waddell points out, in the were read on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, joined to a homily by Bede on the Gospel pericope, Luke 10:23-37. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 366-368. 63 Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia Cisterciensis Ordinis’ des cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 153-280 at 208. Danièle Choisselet and Placide Vernet, Les Ecclesiastica officia cisterciens du XIIème siècle. Text latin selon les manuscrits édités de Trent 1711, Ljubluana 31 et Dijon 114 … La documentation cistercienne 22 (Reiningue: Abbaye d’Oelenberg, 1989), 132, demonstrates that this was Cistercian practice throughout the twelfth century. 64 “Night Off ice Lectionary,” 100, and Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Off icia,’” 208. In kalendi octobris leguntur duo libri machabeorum, dum canitur ‘adaperiat dominus’. Et cum perlecti fuerint, legimus quatuor libros evangeliorum in refectorio tantum [usque ad passiones. Et dimissis passionibus, quod reliquum est legatur]. Later manuscripts of the Ecclesiastica officia also included the phrases between square brackets. Choisselet and Vernet, Les Ecclesiastica officia, 132. 65 Michel Andrieu, Les ordines Romani du Haut Moyen Age, 5 vols., Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, Études et documents 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 1931-1961), II:475-526, and Diane J. Reilly, “The Cluniac Giant Bible and the Ordo Librorum Ad Legendum: A Reassessment of Monastic Bible Reading and Cluniac Customary Instructions,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny/Du coeur de la nuit à la fin du jour: les coutumes clunisiennes au moyen âge, eds. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 163-189 at 166-167. 66 Qui bibit, duabus manibus siphum teneat. Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica officia,’” 243. While in Classical Latin the term sipho more properly indicated a pipe or straw, by the Middle Ages it was also used to refer to a cup. The term sciffus was used to describe a communion cup by the year 1000 [Ronald E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources with Supplement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980], 427). Choisselet and Vernet, Les Ecclesiastica

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instructions for the distribution of books at Lent, monks were to receive them, bowing, in both hands, a formal, ritual behavior that expressed both the monk’s reverence for the text and, as the customary specifies, his joy at receiving it.67 The ritualized passing of implements or vessels was only one of many aspects of the monks’ prescribed behavior in the refectory that signaled the symbolic nature of their food and drink. As Tova Leigh-Choate has revealed, the sequence of events prescribed for monastic refectory meals, which included chants, prayers, blessings, lections, prescribed movements, and hierarchical seating, just as in the monastic choir, would have reinforced for the monks that their mundane meal was simply a continuation of the liturgy that dominated their days and nights, and indeed was even described in the same sources: monastic customaries and ordinals.68 As with choir offices, the amount and type of food provided in the choir, the level of festivity with which the chants were sung, and the length and content of the readings, in addition to such details as, at some houses, the quality of the tablecloths employed, could be dictated by the rank of a day’s feast.69 Cîteaux was certainly no exception when it came to these refectory practices. The Ecclesiastica officia prescribes many of the same prayers and blessings said elsewhere, which would have helped to link the refectory table with the church altar, the earthly repast of the refectory with the Eucharistic meal, and the readings in both locations with the concept of sustenance.70 Particularly given the fact that their meals were accompanied by reading from edifying works, the parallelism between food and Scripture would have been unmistakable. Yet lurking at the edges of the refectory observance was the potential for sin. While the miniature for the Gospel of Mark may Officia, 227, translate this instruction as “Celui qui boit tiendra sa coupe à deux mains.” In the section of the Ecclesiastica officia that describes festival masses, a liturgical straw was instead called a fistula, and the communion cup the calix (Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 221). 67 “Night Office Lectionary,” 76. Quos monachi duabus manibus pre gaudio divinarum scriptur­ arum suscipientes singuli profunde coram cantore letanter inclinet. Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica officia,’” 193. 68 Tova Leigh-Choate, “Singing for Their Supper: Chant in the Medieval Refectory.” Paper delivered at the 18th Meeting of Cantus Planus, Dublin, Ireland, 6 August 2016. I am grateful to Dr. Leigh-Choate for her willingness to share a pre-publication version of this study with me. Leigh-Choate notes that details of what she terms the “table office” are only sparsely recorded, but that we can “presume that these are like the tip of the iceberg, reflecting a somewhat larger ‘hidden’ tradition.” 69 Leigh-Choate, “‘To be sated at the heavenly table instead of at the present one’: Abbot Suger on food, feasting and song.” Paper delivered at the “Senses of the Liturgy” Conference, University of Bristol, 21 May 2015. 70 Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia,’” 280.

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symbolically elevate the act of eating, the miniature for the Gospel of Luke instead juxtaposes the power of God’s words with the vice of gluttony. In both instances, the locus in which reading took place, the refectory, may have shaped the approach taken by the artist to these two artworks. Before the Book of Luke (Plate 16, Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 41r, p. XVI), the evangelist symbol, the ox, stands placidly, grasping the gilded volume with one bent foreleg. Opposite, a three-story initial F, for fuit, depicts what can be termed “fruitful words,” also known as “performative utterances,” or words of Scripture that effectuated divine events, exactly as described in the Monarchian prologue attached to the Book of Mark.71 In the prologue, the author explained that the angel announced the coming of the predestined one, and that the word of a divine voice had diffused the body of the Lord, “declaring by the voice of the heralding messenger that John, the son of Zacharias, [was] the predestined one … . [that] the Word, made flesh, had not only been sent out, but that, through the word of the divine voice the body of the Lord had been diffused into all things.”72 We see both of these events in the initial. At the top, the angel Gabriel hovers above a startled Zechariah, who swings a censor with his right hand and gestures upwards with his left.73 As described in Luke 1:11-20, the angel announced his good tidings that Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, would be delivered of a son, but when Zechariah questioned the power of God to work such a miracle, the angel struck him dumb, explaining that this was “because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time.”74 Below, we see the floating, horizontal Gabriel again, delivering his message to the Virgin Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women (Luke 1:28).”75 Mary lifts both hands in a gesture of submissiveness. When Mary asked how both she and her cousin Elizabeth could possibly conceive, the angel answered, “Because no word shall be impossible with 71 The visual expression of this theme has been explored most recently by Nancy Ševčenko, “Written Voices: The Spoken Word in Middle Byzantine Monumental Painting,” in Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music and Sound, eds. Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 8-9 and notes 16 and 38. 72 Monarchian prologue to Mark, Theron, Evidence of Tradition, 62-63. Ut praedicans praedes­ tinatum Iohannem filium Zachariae in voce angeli adnuntiantis, non emissum solum verbum caro factum sed corpus domini in omnia per verbum divinae vocis animatum. 73 Unfortunately, a later hand has overpainted the staff, halo, lips, cheeks, and belt of this angel with a startling red. 74 Vulgate Bible VI:293. Pro eo quod non credidisti verbis meis, quae implebuntur in tempore suo. Biblia sacra II:1606. 75 Vulgate Bible IV:295. Have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus. Biblia sacra II:1606.

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God (Luke 1:37).”76 The suicide of Herod, depicted immediately below, was not recounted in the Bible, although Luke set the stage for Zechariah’s angelic visitation by giving the temporal cue, “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachary (1:5).”77 The Annunciation had been popular with artists as a means for representing the Incarnation from the early Christian period onwards. Nonetheless, the composition of the scene in this case, which joins a standing Virgin Mary to a hovering, horizontal angel Gabriel, was innovative. Typically, the Virgin was shown seated on a cushioned bench while the angel stood next to her. Depictions of Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah are comparatively rare in northern Europe, but, as with the Annunciation to the Virgin, they customarily featured a standing, rather than hovering, archangel. A pair of images prefacing the gospels of Matthew and Luke in the lavishly illuminated late-tenth-century Boulogne Gospels, once housed and probably painted at the Flemish abbey of Saint-Bertin (Boulogne-sur-mer BM MS 11, fols. 11v and 62r, Figures 19 and 20), is representative. In the two-page opening prefacing the beginning of Matthew, Mary sits on a cushioned bench, a lectern bearing an open book to one side, while a standing Gabriel addresses her. A titulus above, drawn from Caelius Sedulius’s Carmen paschale, explains the event: Angelus intactae cecinit properata Mariae (book 2, line 36). At the incipit for the book of Luke, inside an initial Q for the canonical prologue, Quoniam quidem, Zechariah stands before the entrance to a building and swings his censer towards an altar. An angel standing to the right addresses him with a speaking gesture.78 Angels hover in a prone position in other miniatures in the Boulogne Gospels (see fol. 56r before the book of Mark), but Gabriel is not among them. The fact that these two moments have been aligned visually in the Stephen Harding Bible, by sharing the same initial, as well as by their similar compositional structures – and the additional fact that they are joined to the scene of Herod’s suicide – suggest several potential sources of inspiration. The top two events were closely linked in the Monarchian prologue, which itself emphasized that God’s power was delivered through the angel’s words, the “performative utterances” already mentioned, and although that prologue prefaced Mark (not Luke, where this initial is 76 Vulgate Bible VI:297. Ave gratia pleta: Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus … . Quia non erit impossibile apud Deum omne verbum. Biblia sacra II:1607. 77 Vulgate Bible VI:291. Fuit in diebus Herodis, regis Iudaeae, sacerdos quidam nomine Zaccharias. Biblia sacra II:1605. 78 As with many of the Boulogne Gospels’ miniatures, the blue and green background inside the initial once featured an inscription, which is now heavily abraded and illegible.

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Figure 19 Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale MS 11, fol. 11v

found), the same artist decorated both books, meaning he was most likely familiar with the prologue. Both Annunciations also served as preludes to the speaking of texts that would come to have extraordinary liturgical import: the Benedictus, also known as the Canticle of Zechariah (Luke 1:64-79), delivered by Zechariah immediately after the birth of John the Baptist; and the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), uttered by Mary when she encountered her cousin Elizabeth at the Visitation. The Benedictus was a standard part of the monastic cursus for the office of Lauds, while the

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Figure 20 Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale MS 11, fol. 62r

Magnificat was sung in the course of every Vespers.79 While antiphons and versicles based on the two canticles appear in the Cîteaux offices, neither canticle is explicitly prescribed in the Primitive Cistercian Breviary. Each may have been regarded as so routine a component of the liturgy, however, 79 Lila Collamore, “Prelude: Charting the Divine Office,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, eds. Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7-9.

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that to list it in a breviary was considered superfluous. Each was addressed in the Ecclesiastica officia.80 Psalter manuscripts were typically augmented with a selection of canticles, and although the number and variety depended on the liturgical norms of its home or destination, in Northern Europe the Benedictus and the Magnificat were always included.81 These Psalters also establish a precedent for illustrating both canticles. In the Carolingian Corbie Psalter (Amiens BM MS 18), before the Benedictus (fol. 136r), Zechariah stands to the left of an altar and swings a censer with his right hand, while an angel holding a sceptre addresses him from the right.82 On the verso of the same folio, the Magnificat commences with a charming initial, in which Mary and Elizabeth bow so deeply to each other that their halos bump, their backs forming the curves of the initial M.83 In this case, unlike with the Benedictus, the miniature depicts the moment at which the canticle was first spoken. As with the Boulogne Gospel book’s illuminations of the annunciations to Mary and Zechariah, neither of the Corbie Psalter’s compositions could have provided a visual inspiration for the Stephen Harding initial, particularly its hovering archangels. Nonetheless, exposure to a Psalter manuscript with illustrated canticles could have primed the Cîteaux artist to identify the events that precipitated these songs of joy as the parts of Luke’s text worthy of illustration.84 It is important to keep in mind that the Cîteaux manuscript’s twin Annunciations do not illustrate the events at which the canticles themselves were first uttered, and that the sections of Scripture text from which these 80 Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica officia,’” 233. 81 The standard resource on these canticles is still James Mearns, The Canticles of the Christian Church, Eastern and Western, in Early and Medieval Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914). On the Latin canticles in the Carolingian period and beyond, see 61-70. On Psalter manuscripts with Canticles, see most recently Diane J. Reilly, “Meditation, Translation and the Liturgy: The Medieval Illustrated Psalter in the West,” in Vaticanus Graecus 752: A Hapax Psalter from Eleventh-Century Constantinople, eds. Barbara Crostini and Glenn Peers, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Studi e Testi 504 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2016), 569-608. 82 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452190t/f279.image.r=corbie%20psautier. Another early manuscript image of Zechariah and the angel can be seen on the incipit page to Luke in the ninth-century Gospel book of Saint-Riquier, Abbeville, Bibliothèque municipale MS 4, fol. 102r, although in this case the two are simple busts in pendant medallions. The manuscript is digitized in Gallica, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55005654j/f207.image. 83 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452190t/f280.image.r=corbie%20psautier 84 As in the Saint-Bertin Gospelbook, hovering angels can be found in the manuscript. In the initial beginning the Canticle of the Three Children, the Benedicite omnia opera (Daniel 3:57ff., fol. 134v), a hovering angel descends upon the three boys framed within an arcaded furnace. For the text of the canticle, Biblia sacra II:1350.

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canticles were excerpted are not highlighted in any way on the Bible’s folios; nor are the two Scripture passages that form the basis for the top two motifs in the initial joined in the Night Office lection cycle. At Cîteaux, Luke 1:57-68, describing the birth of John the Baptist (though not its foretelling), was read on the feast of his Nativity, June 24. An antiphon drawn from the gospel account of Zechariah’s visit to the temple, Ingresso Zacharia templum domini apparuit ei Gabriel angelus stans a dextris altaris incensi, was sung at the preceding Vespers.85 Two responsories among those flanking the nocturn lections also link John’s birth to the angelic manifestation in the Temple: Gabriel angelus apparuit Zacharie, dicens: Nascetur tibi filius; nomen eius Iohannes uocabitur, et multi in natiuitate eius gaudebunt,86 and Locutus est angelus domini ad Zachariam, dicens: Generabis puerum in senectute tua, et habebit nomen Iohannes.87 Neither the chants nor the lections connect Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah to the Archangel’s later visit to Mary. Luke 1:26-38, describing the Annunciation to Mary, was read in the Night Office on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, and explained in the nocturns with two texts. The first is an excerpt from the first book of Bede’s Commentary on the Book of Luke, and dwells on Mary’s surprise at the angelic visitor’s statement and on Jesus’s Davidic genealogy. Similarly, the second is an excerpt from the second book of Ambrose’s Commentary on Luke, which compares the Lucan narrative to that in Matthew, and shows special concern for Mary’s relationship with Joseph after her encounter with

85 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 492, Can 003338. The popularity of this antiphon in itself may explain why this event was consistently depicted with Zechariah holding a censer and Gabriel standing to the right of an altar. The antiphon was excerpted from Luke 1:9-11, “going into the temple of the Lord. And all the multitude of the people was praying without at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.” Vulgate Bible VI:293. 86 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 494, Can 006757. “The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, saying, “A son will be born to you, and you will call his name John, and many shall rejoice at his birth,” (Luke 1:13-14) and “The angel of the Lord spoke to Zechariah, saying, ‘You will have a child in your old age, and he will have the name John.’” 87 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 495, Can 601332. This comparatively rare responsory has so far been identified in only three other manuscripts, two of them Cistercian. At Cîteaux, both responsories accompanied a sermon attributed to Pseudo-Maximus that orients the birth narrative towards the joy manifested by John, Elizabeth, and Mary at the Visitation, as well as Zechariah’s recovery of the power of speech after John’s birth, and John’s prophetic work (“Night Office Lectionary,” 136, Pseudo-Maximus, Homily 65, PL 57:383B-388A). The third and final nocturn was devoted to the first part of Bede’s homily for the nativity of John the Baptist, which likewise focuses on John’s role in the salvation story (“Night Office Lectionary,” 136, Bede, Homily II:4, PL 94:210AB-211AB).

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the angel.88 The antiphons and responsories, many of them also sprinkled throughout the Advent season, rehearse the angelic visitation,89 but neither the lections nor the chants align the two Annunciations shown in the Luke initial or refer to Herod’s death. The series of chapters encompassing both Infancy narratives, and thus the combination of moments depicted here, was read in succession only in the refectory.90 Although any viewer intimately familiar with the monastic cursus could have recognized that both the upper scenes served as preludes to important components of the liturgy, a further layer of meaning may have been prompted both by the venue where the passages were read together, and by the addition of the suicide of Herod to the illumination.

Herod’s Downfall and the Sin of Gluttony Herod, crowned and garbed in a short tunic and pointy slippers, gazes upward at Zechariah and Mary as they receive the wondrous messages delivered by Gabriel. With one hand, Herod plunges the blade of a knife into his chest, while the other grasps a red orb.91 The Bible’s mentions of Herod probably refer to at least two different historical rulers: the first, Herod the Great, ruled in the time of Zechariah and Mary, and his death is not described in Scripture; the second, Herod Antipas, was likely the individual credited with inspiring the execution of John the Baptist. The Bible’s description of the death of Herod Antipas provides none of the details we see here, with the possible exception of Herod’s crown. Acts 12:21-23 recounts: And upon a day appointed Herod being arrayed in kingly apparel sat in the judgment seat and made an oration to them. And the people made acclamation, saying, “It is the voice of a god and not of a man.” And forthwith an angel of the Lord struck him, because he had not 88 “Night Off ice Lectionary,” 134, Bede, Expositio in Ev. Lucae I, 1:28-37, PL 92:316-319, and Ambrose, Expositio Ev. Sec. Lucam II:1-10 (1:27-32; PL 15:1552-1556). On the chants assigned to this feast at early Cîteaux, see above, Chapter 3. 89 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 469-475. 90 As with the Gospel descriptions of the twin Annunciations, the sections of Luke 1 that inspired the Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55 and the Benedictus, Luke 1:68-79, were included in the refectory reading, but not the Night Office reading for the Feast of the Annunciation. 91 The blood trickling from his wound, pox-like spots on his leg, and splotch of red on the orb may be the work of the same hand responsible for the red overpainting on the angel above.

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given the honour to God, and being eaten up with worms he gave up the ghost.92

This account of Herod Antipas’s demise would seem to complete a trio of events that showcase God’s intervention through, or because of, the spoken word. As Zechariah is struck dumb after doubting God’s abilities, Herod is struck dead after pretending to speak with the voice of God. As with both Annunciations, this fateful action occurs through the intervention of an angel. Yet the artist instead chose to depict an extra-biblical event, the death of Herod the Great. Flavius Josephus describes in both his Antiquitates and De bello Iudaico that while in the depths of a grave and putrifying illness which gave rise to an insatiable but fruitless desire to eat, Herod sought to kill himself with the knife that his servants brought with an apple, but was prevented by his cousin.93 Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica abridged Josephus’s account, creating the impression that Herod had actually succeeded in his attempt, an abridgement that was repeated in a medieval history often attributed to Haymo of Auxerre, in which the difference between Herod the Great and Herod Antipas was also elided.94 This version of the story was then borrowed and embroidered in a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew once thought to have been authored by Remigius of Auxerre, but now tentatively linked to Haymo.95 The commentary specified that Herod stabbed himself in the chest after being unable to satisfy a hunger so voracious that his cooks were hard pressed to prepare enough food. Whether the Cîteaux monks were familiar with Josephus’ story or with its 92 Vulgate Bible VI:685. Statuto autem die Herodes vestitus veste regia sedit pro tribunali et contionabatur ad eos. Populus autem adclamabat, “Dei voces et non hominis.” Confestim autem percussit eum angelus Domini, eo quod non dedisset honorem Deo, et consumptus a vermibus exspiravit. Biblia sacra II:1719. 93 Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates 17:7. The Works of Josephus: New Updated Version, trans. William Whiston (Northampton, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 463. On Josephus’s works in Continental scriptoria, see Diane J. Reilly, “Reims, Liège and Institutional Reform in the Central Middle Ages: The Manuscript Evidence,” in Medieval Liège at the Crossroads of Europe: Monastic Society and Culture, 1000-1300, eds. Steven Vanderputten, Tjamke Snijders, and Jay Diehl, Medieval Church Studies 37 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 109-150. 94 Haymo of Auxerre, Historiae sacrae epitome, I:8, PL 118:821C. On the development of the story of Herod’s suicide, see Alexander Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages: Vol. II: The Curse on Self Murder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 343-356, esp. 347-348, and, in the context of the Stephen Harding Bible, Zaluska, L’enluminure, 107-110. 95 Remigius of Auxerre, Homiliae 6, PL 131:865-932 at 898B, Stegmüller, Repertorium I, no. 7226, and Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages, 348. This homily does not appear in the early Cîteaux lectionary.

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later Christian reinterpretations, they probably connected Herod’s death with the vice of gluttony. As with the angel’s appearance to Zechariah, this scene is virtually unknown in the preexisting artistic tradition. Only at Lambach in Austria was Herod’s attempted suicide shown, and in this case his cousin’s interference is depicted as well.96 Zaluska points out that there is no obvious explanation for Herod’s participation in the Bible’s visual sequence. The story of Herod’s massacre of the innocent firstborn and the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt was recounted in Matthew, not Luke, where this miniature is found in the Stephen Harding Bible.97 Immediately after describing the massacre, Matthew reports that “Herod was dead (Matthew 2:19),” but says nothing of the cause. The artist has chosen to juxtapose wanton corporeal consumption with the acts wrought by divine speech, a fitting warning for monks who ate while listening to this reading, and who needed to prioritize spiritual over physical refreshment. The setting in which the Gospels were read at Cîteaux, the refectory, thus may have inspired, even unconsciously, this unique combination of motifs. Irene Kabala’s synthetic study of the origins of refectory practice and decorative traditions draws together many of the themes we have already encountered. As Kabala explains, images found in medieval refectories “provided vehicles for meditation, diverting the mind from carnal pleasure to spiritual ‘ruminatio.’”98 Most popular as monumental subjects were sacramental and apocalyptic scenes such as Christ in Majesty or the Last Judgment, known at Cluny and its dependencies,99 or the Crucif ixion, recommended by Benedict of Aniane and well documented in England and at Montecassino.100 The first western example of a Last Supper associated with a refectory likely appeared at Saint-Bénigne in Dijon in the middle of the twelfth century.101 These subjects are not found in the Stephen Harding Bible, and as far as we know no such images existed in the ephemeral

96 Zaluska, l’enluminure, 109. 97 Zaluska, l’enluminure, 109, Matthew 2. 98 Irene Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories in France, Italy and England until 1250,” Ph.D Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2001, 8. 99 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 145-155, 199-215. 100 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 126-142. 101 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 259-268. While the Saint-Bénigne Last Supper was found in a tympanum at the entrance to the refectory, the first known Last Supper decorating the interior of a refectory survives at the Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome (Kabala, 285-286).

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refectory built for the first inhabitants of the New Monastery.102 Instead the miniatures in the Stephen Harding Bible may recall theological discussions that reflected upon activities particular to the refectory, particularly those about the danger of gluttony and the contrast between carnal sustenance and the spiritual nourishment provided by the weekly refectory reader as part of the lectio continua.103 Because one of the primary goals of the early Cistercians was to return to a strict observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, they would have been conversant with Benedict’s condemnation of gluttony. In the first chapter of his Rule, Benedict denounced the variety of monks he termed “gyrovagues,” in part because of their penchant for self-indulgence in the form of gluttony: “Always wandering and never stable, serving their own wills and the lure of gluttony.”104 He described gluttony in the severest of terms: But above all excess is to be avoided so that indigestion never steals up on a monk, because nothing is so inappropriate to every Christian as excess, as our Lord says, “See to it that your hearts be not weighed down by over-indulgence” (Luke 21:34).105

Perhaps inspired by this, the Cistercians had instituted additional fasts into their routine.106 In both the Gospels of Mark and Luke, Christ’s injunction, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mark 4:4; Luke 4:4), suggests that physical and spiritual sustenance should travel hand in hand.107 From very early in the Christian monastic tradition, leaders instructed that reading was to accompany eating, which was itself restricted to set times and places, in order to stem the temptation to gluttony.108 The Rules of the Master and Isidore of Seville, 102 On the very limited documentation for the first Cistercian structures, see Matthias Untermann, “Gebaute unanimitas. Zu den ‘Bauvorschriften’ der Zisterzienser,” in Zisterzienser. Norm, Kultur, Reform-900 Jahre Zisterzienser, ed. Ulrich Knefelkamp (Berlin: Springer, 2001), 239-266. 103 Scholarly exploration of the subject of food and fasting as components of medieval piety has blossomed in recent decades. Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), provides a foundation for these studies. 104 RB 1, The Rule of Saint Benedict, ed. and trans. Bruce L. Venarde, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 6 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 17. 105 RB 39, The Rule of Saint Benedict, 139. 106 Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast, 42. 107 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 67-68. 108 Carruthers also surveys monastic instructions on refectory reading and the symbolism of digestion in The Book of Memory, 165-167.

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among others, enjoined the monks to listen to readings during the meal, and John Cassian specified that the monks listen in utter silence.109 Benedict reaffirmed these practices in his Rule, prescribing that “there should be complete silence, so that nobody’s muttering or voice is heard there except the reader’s,” but adding that the superior might, if he wished, explain passages from the reading “for the purpose of edification.”110 The preliminary acts of the Council of Aachen reiterated that reading during meals was to be the standard.111 The combination of the activities of eating and listening – by the twelfth century almost universal in western monasticism – made the association between the spoken word of God delivered from the refectory lectern and the material sustenance available in the room at the same time inescapable. The Cîteaux artist may not have been the first to link the themes and motifs in the Luke initial to the idea of the spoken word. At the Cluniac priory of Saint Fortunatus in Charlieu, Odo of Cluny sponsored the rebuilding of the refectory in the 1040s. The stone, two-story structure featured an elevated lectern reached by a flight of stairs at one end. On the front of this lectern, thus facing the assembled monks, was a relief depicting the Annunciation,112 making explicit the connection between the spoken words of the lector and the animating words of Gabriel. It is also possible that the choice of Herod as the exemplar of gluttony in the Stephen Harding Bible was suggested by the medieval understanding that man’s fall had been actuated by the act of eating – specifically the eating of an apple, the fruit pictured in Herod’s hand. Kabala describes the verses painted on the walls of Bishop Neon’s triclinium, the banqueting hall in his episcopal palace. Joined to depictions of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes 109 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 54. Regula Magistri, 24, The rule of the Master = Regula Magistri, trans. Luke Eberle, Cistercian Studies 6 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1977), 177-180, Isidore’s Regula Monachorum chapter 9, PL 83:867-894 at 878, and John Cassian’s Institutiones, 4:17, Institutions cénobitique, trans. Jean-Claude Gy, SC 109 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1965), 143-144. See also Teresa Webber, “Reading in the Refectory: Monastic Practice in England, c. 1000-1300,” London University Annual John Coffin Memorial Palaeography Lecture, 18 February 2010, Revised edition 2013, Institute of English Studies Online Publications, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, http://events.sas.ac.uk/ies/publications/1009. 110 RB 38, The Rule of Saint Benedict, 135. 111 Actuum praeliminarium synodi primae Aquisgranensis commentationes sive statuta Murba­ censia 3.443, edited as Synodi Primae Aquisgranensis, ed. Joseph Semmler, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 1 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1963), 453-468 at 442-443 and Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 304. 112 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 206, with extensive bibliography, 342-345. Unfortunately, neither Kabala nor the nineteenth-century scholar who first identified the relief provide a tentative date.

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and Psalm 148 were hexametric poems, recorded by Agnellus of Ravenna, that recounted the steps of Creation. The last recorded verse ends, “He commanded him not to eat the forbidden apple. Spurning the command, thus man lost himself and everything else.”113 While it is unlikely that any of the Cîteaux monks had visited Bishop Neon’s episcopal banqueting hall, any monk who heard the story of Herod’s suicide would have recognized that the vehicle of Adam’s fall and Herod’s suicide (both acts spawned by gluttony) was the same fruit.

Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Sung Scripture The historiated initial prefacing the book of John in the Stephen Harding Bible has excited more scholarly discussion than any other single early Cistercian miniature (Plate 13, Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 56v, p. XIII).114 Few agree on what is depicted, let alone on what it means. Yolanta Zaluska describes the image as the heretic Arius, seated in place of the Evangelist and killed by his symbol. The latter sinks the claws of his right paw into the principle sense organs of the heretic: mouth, eye and ear. The symbol holds in his beak an unfurled rotulus on which one reads the name John and the first words of his Gospel, Iohannes. In prinicipio erat verbum et verbum erat apud Deum (Io. 1:1). Arius also holds an inscribed rotulus and points the index finger of his right hand at the text, which gives his name and a celebrated phrase related to his heresy, Arrius. Erat aliquando quando non erat.115 113 Kabala, “Medieval Decorated Refectories,” 86, and 305-308, after Agnelli Ravennatis Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaeualis 199 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 177, Praecepit uetita ne mandere poma./ Praeceptum spernens, sic perdidit omnia secum. Agnellus of Ravenna, The Book of the Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna, trans. Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 127. 114 See a preliminary discussion in Diane J. Reilly, “Lectern Bibles and Liturgical Reform in the Central Middle Ages,” in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception and Performance in Western Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 105-125 at 119-121. 115 “L’hérétique Arius, assis à la place de l’Évangéliste et meurti par son Symbole. Ce dernier enfonce les griffes de sa patte droite dans les principaux organes de sens de l’hérétique: bouche, oeil, orielle. La Symbole tient dans son bec un phylactère déployé sur lequel on lit le nom de Jean et les premiers mots de son Évangile (Iohannes. In principio erat uerbum et uerbum erat apud Deum (Io. 1:1). Arius aussi tient un phylactère inscrit et il pointe l’index de la main droite

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Was the seated monk really intended to represent Arius, the early-fourthcentury Alexandrian heretic? The beliefs of Arius and his followers (that only God the Father was eternal; his Son had been created and was thus inferior) were condemned at the council of Nicaea in 325. The introductory statement from John, “In the beginning was the word,” was often used to counter the claims of Arius and his followers,116 while the wording found on the rotulus held by the monk, Erat aliquando quando non erat, “There was a time when he was not,” was drawn directly from the heretical propositions anathematized at the Nicaea council.117 Yet the specifics of Arius’ death, like those of Herod’s, had been described and circulated by the twelfth century, and are not pictured here.118 Arius, like Herod, suffered from an ailment of the bowels, which in this case apparently led to a gruesome episode of diarrhoea aggravated by the deadly expulsion of his small intestine and various other nearby organs. If this image does not show Arius’ death, as described by Zaluska, perhaps it is intended to signify the defeat of his heresy. Walter Cahn has pointed out that an established convention for depicting the triumph of orthodoxy by the twelfth century was the heretic crushed bodily by his adversary, often one or more members of the Trinity.119 In the Anglo-Saxon Eadwig Gospels, likely painted at Christ Church, Canterbury around 1020, and, according to an inscription at the end of the manuscript, copied by Eadwig Basan, sur ce texte qui donne son nom et un phrase célèbre se rapportant à son hérésie: Arrius. Erat aliquando quando non erat” (Zaluska, L’enluminure, 110). 116 Walter Cahn has explored the connections between this initial and heresy in depth in “A Defense of the Trinity in the Cîteaux Bible,” Marsyas 11 (1962-1964): 58-62. On texts that used John in the argument against Arianism, see note 9, and idem “Heresy and Interpretation in Romanesque Art,” in Romanesque and Gothic: Essays for George Zarnecki (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987), 27-33 at note 26. Two of them, Augustine’s Tractatus in evangelium Iohannis (PL 35:1394) and De Trinitate (PL 42:825), were copied in the Cîteaux scriptorium in its first decades: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Hamilton 55, a First Style manuscript (Zaluska, L’enluminure, 206-207) and Dijon BM MS 141, a Second Style manuscript (225-226). Neither was excerpted into the Cîteaux Night Office nocturns. 117 Cahn, “A Defense of the Trinity,” 59. 118 His death was described in varying levels of detail by both Athanasius, in his letter to Serapion, letter 54, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series 2, 14 vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1890-1900), vol. 4, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892), 565, and Socrates Scholasticus in his own Ecclesiastical History, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890), 35, although this was likely known only in Greek. 119 Cahn, “A Defense of the Trinity” 59-60 and idem, “Heresy and Interpretation,” 31, also Alessia Trivellone, L’hérétique imaginé: Hétérodoxie et iconographie dans l’Occident médiéval, de l’époque carolingienne à l’Inquisition, Collection d’études médiévales de Nice 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009).

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John himself triumphs over a subjugated Arius by crushing him under his footstool, his toes resting on the heretics forehead.120 John, like his symbol in the Cîteaux manuscript, holds a rotulus, bearing the opening words of his text, that snakes towards Arius’ ear, while Arius’ rotulus states, “Erat tempus quando non erat.” Intriguingly, Arius appears to share the same short hair, tonsure, and light-coloured cassock used to depict the monks of Christ Church in another manuscript copied by Eadwig, the Arundel Psalter, London, British Library MS Arundel 155, fol. 133r. There is no denying that the supine monk is indeed the heretic, as his right arm is inscribed, “Arrius.” Lauren Mancia shows how artists at the Benedictine abbeys of SaintWandrille and Fécamp in Normandy used a similar visual formula to counter the perceived threat of monks leaving the fold in order to live as hermits, consequently exposing them to the temptation of heresy.121 Artists in those scriptoria showed the heretic defeated by a champion of orthodoxy, either Athanasius (BnF MS lat. 1684, fol. 1r) or Augustine (BnF MS lat. 2079, fol. 1v). Augustine towers over Faustus the Manichaean, piercing his mouth with the pointy end of his crozier, while Athanasius uses his crozier to stab Arrius in the heart. Mancia proposes that the artists were not responding to itinerant heterodox preachers and their converts, but were rather directing their efforts towards potentially wayward monks, as both heretics are shown tonsured.122 Such images went hand in hand with the writing program of Abbot John at Fécamp (served 1028-1078), as well as library collecting policies that favoured defences of orthodoxy from patristic authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Boethius, and Ambrose. All of these tools were intended to reorient John’s flock towards the correct forms of devotion.123 In the two images from Fécamp, the heretics, although tonsured, are dressed in the garb of laymen, signaling their status as lapsed monks in the guise of heretics. In the Stephen Harding Bible, on the other hand, the man holding the “Arian” rotulus, like the defeated heretic in the Eadwig Gospels, wears a cassock. While in the Stephen Harding Bible the eagle’s talons pierce the monk’s mouth, as in one of the Fécamp images, he also appears to attack the organs, the eyes and ears, that perceived the heretical text and its antidote, the excerpt from the Book of John. Cahn argues 120 Zaluska, L’enluminure, 110, and Trivellone, L’hérétique imaginé, 146-151. August Kestner Museum (Hannover), WM XXIa 36, fol. 147v. Helmar Härtel, Handschriften des Kestner-Museums zu Hannover (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999), 12-15. 121 Lauren Mancia, “John of Fécamp and Affective Reform in Eleventh-Century Normandy,” Anglo-Norman Studies 37 (2015): 161-179. 122 Mancia, “John of Fécamp,” 162-165. 123 Mancia, “John of Fécamp,” 167-169 and 172-179.

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that the eagle’s attack on the monk’s mouth could reasonably be linked to standards for the punishment of blasphemy, but acknowledges that this was not a punishment mandated for heretics.124 Blinding may also have been a popular punishment, but piercing of the eardrums was not. Alessia Trivellone suggests that, like the lapsed monks in the Norman examples discussed by Mancia, the seated man in the Stephen Harding initial is a false monk, signalled by the fact that his white habit covers inappropriately coloured blue clothes and green shoes, and that with his disputing gesture he proclaims the words on the rotulus. Furthermore, she asserts that the image represents a condemnation of the dialectical method, because of the visual juxtaposition of John’s words with Arius’ and because of the monk’s gesture, seen in many images of debate, including those with heretics. According to Trivellone, the eagle’s action argues instead for the contemplative reading of Scripture.125 There are some inherent contradictions in Trivellone’s interpretation. Why would the artist have chosen to condemn dialectic using a visual depiction of dialectic, in the form of the opposing authors and speech scrolls? And why would he have used the same gesturing finger to indicate a negative form of intellectual exchange in the case of the monk holding Arius’s statement, but a positive one in the image of Jerome transmitting his translation of Scripture to Damasus in the same manuscript (Dijon BM MS 15, fol. 3v)? Finally, how can the monk’s garments be considered improper when St. Jerome, also garbed as a monk, wears a blue under-tunic in his author portrait in the Commentary on Isaiah, Dijon BM MS 131, fol. 3r, and green shoes in his author portrait in the Commentary on Daniel, Dijon BM MS 132, fol. 1r? Charles Oursel ignored the monk’s heretical rotulus altogether, and assigned the eagle a more benign task: he believed that the evangelist symbol was imprinting the word of God onto each of a simple monk’s sense organs.126 Others have acknowledged the heretical content of the monk’s scroll, but suggested that the eagle is lifting the monk, perhaps engaged in lectio divina, towards higher contemplation of Scripture, which will lead the monk to reject the false beliefs represented by the rotulus he holds.127 Even though the words to which the monk gestures are clearly heretical, perhaps the actions of both the eagle and the monk should be considered beneficial. 124 Cahn, “A Defense of the Trinity,” 62. 125 Trivellone, L’hérétique imaginé, 174-188. 126 Charles Oursel, La miniature du XIIe siècle à l’abbaye de Cîteaux d’après les manuscrits de la bibliothèque de Dijon (Dijon: L. Venot, 1926), 27. 127 See Trivellone, L’hérétique imaginé, 177, for summary bibliography.

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Rather than depicting the violent correction of a wayward monk using a sword through the heart or mouth as in Mancia’s Norman examples, here the monk may participate in the correction, absorbing and speaking (or singing) the healing words after having explained the heresy in the nocturn lections, as we will see. The text held by the eagle penetrates the eyes and the ears and is spoken by the mouth of the monk, a salvific process that took place repeatedly in the Cîteaux choir in the season of Christmas and on All Saints’ Day. Trivellone connects this image to attacks on heretics and scholastics made by Cistercians such as Bernard of Clairvaux and William of Saint-Thierry that began roughly two decades after the Bible of Stephen Harding was f inished.128 It isn’t necessary to frame the artistic choices of the earlytwelfth-century monks using mid-twelfth-century Cistercian polemics, however. While the earliest Cistercians did not engage in a battle against heresy themselves, they were certainly aware of its existence. Two of the first monks had originally hailed from Saint-Vaast in Arras, where the local bishop had organized a synod to try a band of reputed heretics roughly 75 years before the foundation of the New Monastery.129 The beliefs of these heretics had little to do with those espoused by Arius, and the synod more likely served as an opportunity for the bishop to shore up his jurisdiction than to stamp out actual heterodoxy.130 Nonetheless the Cîteaux monks would have been well aware that activities that church authorities defined as heretical could take place around them. As if in anticipation of encountering a heretic in person, during the Christmas season the monks together listened to Bede’s disquisition on heresy and learned how the first words of John’s gospel could be used as a defence. As with the rest of the Cistercian Night Office lectionary, the readings for Christmas were borrowed from the homiliary of Paul the Deacon, and 128 See especially Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Cistercians, Heresy and Crusade in Occitania, 1145-1229: Preaching in the Lord’s Vineyard (York: York Medieval Press, 2001), 78-108, Constant J. Mews, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard,” in A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 133-168, and E. Rozanne Elder, “Bernard and William of Saint Thierry,” in A Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, 108-132. 129 Interestingly, the only surviving record of this heresy once belonged to Cîteaux’s library, although the manuscript in which it is now found, Dijon BM MS 582, dates from the late twelfth century, at the earliest. Gerardi Cameracensis Acta Synodi Atrebatensis, Vita Autberti, Vita Tertia Gaugerici … , ed. Steven Vanderputten and Diane J. Reilly, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 270 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 9-14. 130 See a recent summary of the literature in Steven Vanderputten and Diane J. Reilly, “Reconciliation and record keeping: Heresy, secular dissent and the exercise of episcopal authority in eleventh-century Cambrai,” Journal of Medieval History 37 (2011): 343-357.

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thus were the same ones heard that night in other, though not all, monastic choirs across Europe.131 While many of the lections assigned to Christmas Matins ponder themes associated with Jesus’ birth (such as his genealogy as described in the Book of Matthew, the infancy narrative provided in the book of Luke, Mary’s virginity, Jesus’s swaddling clothes and the stable where he was born), the Cîteaux lectionary dwelt especially on the importance of John 1:1-4, even though the Gospel pericope for the feast was not John 1, but Matthew 1:1-16. The first lection of the first nocturn, Pope Leo’s homily for Christmas day, expounded on John 1:1: “The Word therefore is God of God, the Son of God, who in the beginning was with God, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made, who was made man thus liberating man from eternal death.”132 Of the three Christmas sermons attributed to Maximus of Turin also assigned to Matins, Sermon 10, read as lection six, touched again on the first words of John, but also pondered the inability of man’s words and tongue, or the congregation’s corruptibilis oris, “corruptible mouth,” truly to articulate the immense majesty of God.133 Sermon 13, read as Lection 7, set the first words of John in the context of Old Testament prophecy.134 In the eighth lection the monks read Pope Leo’s next sermon on the Nativity, which ended by castigating non-believers who tried to seduce others away from true belief.135 The final lection was one of Bede’s homilies on the Nativity.136 This was fitting as Bede’s homily was in itself a meditation on the first chapter of the Book of John. As he reflected on the very verses found in the Stephen Harding Bible’s John initial, Bede explained their meaning as a defence against the claims of heretics, some of them apparently Arian according to the beliefs he describes: 131 See above, Chapter 2. Réginald Grégoire, Les homéliares du moyen âge, inventaire et analyse des manuscrits, Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Series Maior Fontes VI (Rome: Herder, 1966), 79-80. The office lectionary from Cluny shared some of the same readings, but truncated the Bede homily, and replaced Leo’s homilies with selections from Augustine. Raymond Étaix, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Cluny,” Recherches Augustiniennes 11 (1976): 91-159 at 96-97. Fleury shared no Christmas readings at all with Cîteaux. Anselme Davril, “Le lectionnaire de l’office à Fleury: Essai de reconstitution,” Revue Bénédictine 89 (1979): 110-164 at 116-117. 132 PL 54:190D-193A at 192A. Verbum igitur Dei Deus, Filius Dei, qui in principio erat apud Deum, per quem facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil (Joan. 1:1-3), propter liberandum ab aeterna morte hominem, factus est homo (“Night Office Lectionary,” 102). 133 Sermon 10, PL 57:241C-244C at 243B, “Night Office Lectionary,” 103-104. 134 Sermon 11, PL 57:243D-248A and Sermon 13, PL 57:249C-252A, “Night Office Lectionary,” 103. 135 PL 54:193B-199A, “Night Office Lectionary,” 103. 136 “Night Office Lectionary,” 104. Bede’s homily, PL 94:38CD-44C.

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And to a remarkable extent blessed John, at the beginning of his gospel, properly imbues [us with] the faith of believers concerning the divinity of the Saviour, and he powerfully wins out over heretics’ lack of faith. Now there were heretics who said “if Christ was born, there was a time when he did not exist.” [John] refutes them with his first utterance when he says: “In the Beginning was the Word.” He does not say, “In the beginning the Word began to be.”137

The next section lists further false beliefs of heretics and uses the next phrase taken from John, also found on the eagle’s rotulus, to refute them: In the same way there were heretics who, denying that the holy Trinity is three persons, said, “The same God is Father when he wills, Son when he wills, Holy Spirit when he wills; nevertheless, he himself is one.” Destroying this error, [John] adds, “And the Word was with God.”138

While after 1147 the final lection from Bede was truncated to only part of the sermon, ending immediately after the first excerpt, at early Cîteaux the entire sermon commenting on John 1:1-14 was read. The last section, explaining the phrase, “Plenum gratiae et veritatis (John 1:14)” as applying to the Virgin Mary as the genetrix Dei, revisited the putative beliefs of heretics: He was also filled with truth, that very divinity of the Word, which had deigned to assume the singularly chosen human being with whom he would be one person, Christ, not altering anything of his divine substance in making his human nature (as heretics wish), but remaining with the Father.139

137 Bede the Venerable, Homilies on the Gospels. Book One, Advent to Lent, trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst, Cistercian Studies 110 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 74. PL 94:39B. Et mire beatus Joannes in initio Evangelii sui de divinitate Salvatoris, et fidem recte credentium sublimiter imbuit, et haereticorum perfidiam potenter exsuperat. Fuere namque haeretici, qui dicerent: Si ergo natus est Christus, erat tempus quando ille non erat: quos primo sermone redarguit, cum ait: In principio erat Verbum. Neque vero ait, In principio coepit esse Verbum, sed in principio erat Verbum. 138 Cistercian Studies 110, 75. PL 94:39C. Item fuerunt haeretici qui, tres sanctae Trinitatis personas esse negantes, dicerent: Idem Deus quando vult, Pater est; quando vult, Filius est; quando vult, Spiritus sanctus est; ipse tamen unum est. Quorum destruens errorem, subjungit: Et Verbum erat apud Deum. 139 Cistercian Studies 110, 82. PL 94:44A. Idem veritatis plenus erat, et est ipsa videlicet Verbi divinitate, quae hominem illum singulariter electum, cum quo una Christi persona esset, assumere

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The final and likely most florid responsory of Christmas Matins, In principio erat uerbum, followed: R. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing.140 V. that was made. In him was life, and life was the light of men.141 Refrain. All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing.

Together the responsory and verse complete the first four verses of John 1. As their many hours in the choir on Christmas night drew to a close, the monks were left to ponder the power of John’s words to correct apostasy. They sang the same responsory again on the fifth day of Christmas, on the Sunday before the octave of the feast, on the octave itself, and then on the feast of All Saints.142 Subsequent generations of Cîteaux monks must have found the service onerous, because by 1147 the length of each of these lections had been substantially reduced, though, unlike the responsories, they were not rearranged. In the early years of the New Monastery, at the close of this marathon set of nocturns, the final lection returned to the theme of using the words of the Bible as a defence against heretical beliefs. The monks then sang out their final and most powerful argument against denials of Christ’s eternal divinity: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” the same words grasped by the Stephen Harding Bible’s eagle, which pierces the monk’s ears, eyes and mouth, nourishing him with the heavenly food of Scripture, which he and his brethren sang aloud.

dignata est, non aliquid suae divinae substantiae, ut haeretici volunt, in faciendam hominis naturam commutans; sed ipsa apud Patrem manens. 140 R. In principio erat uerbum et uerbum erat apud deum et deus erat uerbum. Hoc erat in principio apud deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 144, Can 006927. In the chant reform this responsory and verse pair were replaced with Can 007840, while In principio erat verbum and its accompanying verse were moved earlier in the service. This responsory is sung as the final responsory of Christmas in only one other monastic antiphonary catalogued in Cantus, Valenciennes BM MS 114, from twelfth-century Saint-Amand. 141 V. quod factum est. In ipso uita erat, et uita erat lux hominum. Refrain. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 144, Can 006927a. 142 Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 147, 152, 158, 570.



Conclusion: Beyond Sound

Recent scholarship, particularly that of Éric Palazzo, has cast light on the role of physical senses other than hearing in the liturgy.1 The senses served as a way of knowing God and his creation, most perfectly experienced in the multi-sensory performance of church ritual, where, as Palazzo says, “the ‘activation’ of the sensory elements of the liturgy (of which art is but one), [generates] the in presentia which aims to make the manifestation of the invisible concrete.”2 For him, the sensory experience of the artwork as a thing helps to create a sacred space when it is activated within the liturgy.3 I have not yet grappled with the way in which the early Cistercian manuscripts examined here may have been used to make the divine manifest. Unlike the Gospel books that are Palazzo’s particular interest, the surviving Cistercian manuscripts were not employed during sacramental rituals, yet when the monks sang and cantillated the words found within they voiced the word of God. The materiality of the books themselves may have played a role in this. Our evidence that the early Cistercian monks considered the senses as a component of choir worship, or the impact of physical sensation on their experience of Scripture in the choir, is largely tangential. The depictions we have seen of figures eating, speaking, and listening to Scripture testify that the monks of the New Monastery valued the oral dimension of their spiritual practice. The efforts they made to collect and correct the appropriate texts and melodies for choir and refectory reading support this impression. Yet early Cistercian writers never said explicitly that the sense of sound mattered. Stephen Harding’s argument in his Monitum, that the books of the Bible, as translated by Jerome, ought to “sound as one,” may come closest to a direct testimony that in the monastery’s early years the founders cared about aural experience. 4 Traces of their attitudes to other senses are equally scanty. We have occasionally encountered the metaphorical and physical sense of taste 1 Palazzo summarizes the contributions of earlier scholars in, “Art, Liturgy and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages,” Viator 41 (2010), 25-56 at 25-33. Also idem, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens dans la liturgie et l’art au Moyen Âge (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2014). 2 Palazzo, “Art, Liturgy and the Five Senses,” 32. 3 See also the work of Anna Bücheler, Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile Metaphors in Medieval Manuscripts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018). 4 Unum debeat sonare from Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 13, fol. 150v, transcribed in Claudio Stercal, Stephen Harding: A Biographical Sketch and Texts, Cistercian Studies Series 226 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2008), 52. See above, Chapter 2, pp. XXX.

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because medieval writers often equated the salutary effects of speaking Scripture with imbibing the sweetness of spiritual nourishment, and warned of the potential sinfulness of savoring material food.5 What about the other senses, those of sight, touch and smell? The Cistercian preoccupation with what monks saw has dominated scholarship on Cistercian art for decades because of the legislation mandating simplicity that began to appear by the 1130s. Our f irst evidence that a Cistercian monk was concerned with this is Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia to Abbot William of Saint Thierry, written ca. 1124-1125, while some of the manuscripts we have examined were likely still being compiled.6 Pinning down early Cistercian attitudes to touch and smell would be more challenging, and, like discerning the importance of sight, that task is beyond the remit of this study. Nonetheless, a few tantalizing clues suggest that the impact of these and other kinds of physical sensations, both those the monks created intentionally, and those that were byproducts of their austere lifestyle, also weighed on their minds. As we read above in Chapter 4, within a few decades of his arrival at Cîteaux, Bernard of Clairvaux testified to the importance of “concentration on the sacred texts,” and the outcome for monks who neglected the oral and aural facets of psalmody. Bernard chastised his brethren for giving in to their weariness during Matins. As his monks slumbered “like corpses” in the midst of the nocturns, Bernard lamented the impression they made on the choirs of angels who joined them in worship.7 If the monks sang with complete absorption, the observing heavenly assembly would “smell this sweet fragrance [Phil 4:18] in the heavens, they will surely say of you too: ‘What is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, breathing of myrrh and frankincense and every perfume the merchant knows?’” [Songs 3:6]8 As was his habit, Bernard here used a physical sense, that of smell,

5 For a broader view of the medieval concept of sweetness, see Mary Carruthers, “Sweetness,” Speculum 81 (2006): 999-1013, also Palazzo, L’invention chrétienne des cinq sens, loc. 791. 6 See a brief summary in Diane J. Reilly, “Art,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order, ed. Mette Birkedal Bruun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 125-139. 7 See above, 142. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:4. Song of Songs I, trans. Killian Walsh, Cistercian Fathers Series 4 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 40-41. 8 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 7:6 … odorati odorem suavitatis [Phil 4:18] in caelestibus, de te quoque dicent: Quae est ista quae ascendit per desertum sicut virgule fumi ex aromatibus myrrhae et thuris, et universi pulveris pigmentarii [Songs 3:6]? Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons sur le Cantique I (1-15), Oeuvres Complètes X. SC 414 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996), 166.

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metaphorically.9 Yet, he also referred to an environmental factor: the scent of incense would have lingered in the choir. Two tales recorded after Bernard’s death appear to have been inspired by the trope of angels correcting inattentive singing of the Night Office or rewarding fervancy, but each enhanced the actions of the visiting angels to call on even more senses. In a miracle story recorded in the later twelfth century Liber visionum et miraculorum of John of Clairvaux,10 and then borrowed by Conrad of Eberbach for his Exordium magnum, angels once again visited the choir. While the slow modulation of the psalmody was prolonging Vigils, the Lord Abbot opened his eyes and, looking around, saw an angel standing beside each monk, diligently recording on pieces of parchment, like a notary, what each monk was chanting, omitting not the slightest syllable uttered in negligence. But they were writing in different ways. Some were writing in gold, others in silver, several in black, and some in water, and a few did not write anything at all.11

In this case, Bernard’s vision served to instruct the monks on the spiritual outcome of their “fervent zeal” in chanting the psalms or the wages of succumbing to “sleep or laziness,” at the same time that it transformed an oral and aural experience into a visual one for Bernard, at least according to Conrad’s description. In another miracle tale recorded by Conrad, in the midst of singing the hymn Te Deum laudamus, Bernard, 9 See also Gorden Rudy, Mystical Language of Sensation in the Later Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2001), 45-66. 10 Brian Patrick McGuire, “The First Cistercian Renewal and a Changing Image of Saint Bernard,” in The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and his Tradition, Cistercian Studies Series 126 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 153-187 at 158-159. This tale has been edited in Collectaneum exemplorum et visionum clarevallense. E codice Trecensi 946, ed. Olivier Legendre, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 208 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 264-265. 11 Book II, chapter 3. The Great Beginning of Cîteaux: A Narrative of the Beginning of the Cistercian Order. The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach, trans. Benedicta Ward and Paul Savage, ed. E. Rozanne Elder, Cistercian Fathers Series 72 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 132. Cumque morosa psalmodiae modulatio uigilias protelaret, aperuit Dominus oculos eius et ecce respiciens uidit singulos angelos iuxta singulos monachos stantes et, quod quisque eorum psallebat, in scedulis more notariorum tam diligenter excipientes, ut nec minimam syllabam quantumcumque negligenter prolatam omitterent. Scribebant uero diuerso modo. Nam quidem eorum scribebant auro, alii argento, nonnulli atramento, aliqui etiam aqua, quidam uero penitus nil scribebant. Exordium magnum cisterciense sive narratio de initio cisterciensis ordinis auctore Conrado …, ed. Bruno Griesser, Corpus christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 138 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), 75.

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saw holy angels radiating great brightness, their faces aglow with attentiveness, passing now here, now there, through each choir, urging the singers on, joining with them, and standing back as if applauding, so that they sang that divine hymn all the way through with devotion and succeeded in accomplishing it in all its modes. The holy man learned from this that the hymn was indeed divine and well known to the holy angels, who seemed to give great attention to the task of having the brothers sing to the honor of God with fervent devotion. One of the spiritual brothers was even allowed to see a flame of great radiance burst from the lips of the cantor and rise up on high as the hymn was being intoned.12

Both of these miracles were recorded decades after Bernard’s death. Yet both share with Bernard’s commentary the intense focus on vocal performance that Bernard himself had described in his sermon. Both also hint at what Judith Oliver has termed “symbolic synaesthesia.” Describing the chanting of the nuns of thirteenth-century Marienbrunn from a gradual with multicoloured words, she explains “such merging and dissolution of the senses provided the nuns with exultant visions of a higher spiritual plain in their performance of liturgical services.”13 Like Bernard in the second vision recorded by Conrad, Mechtild of Hackeborn, thirteenth-century cantrix at the Cistercian convent of Helfta, experienced visions during the Night Office in which Christ and saints appeared with clothes embroidered in golden words of chant or writing words of Scripture that shone like crystals.14 In each case Bernard (or his hagiographer) seems to describe a sensory experience that serves as a heavenly reward or warning – the senses of sight and smell are consciously employed or called upon to augment what the monks heard, or more exactly what they created to be heard. But what of less voluntary sensations that must also have been routine among the monks? To frame his study of the early Cistercian Night Office lectionary, 12 Book II, chapter 4. The Great Beginning of Cîteaux, 134 … . uidit sanctos angelos multa claritate fulgentes, mira etiam uultus alacritate deuotos, qui utrumque chorum percurrentes modo hunc, modo illum excitabant, cantantibus aderant et quasi congratulantes astabant et, ut diuinis ille ymnus cum deuotione percanteretur, modis omnibus elaborare stagebant. Intellexit ergo uir santus ymnum illum uere esse diuinum et angelis sanctis familiarem, quos tanta instantia uidebat operam dare, quatenus a fratribus ad honorem Dei cum feruore deuotionis cantaretur. Cuidam etiam fratri spiritali uidere concessum est, dum idem ymnus inciperetur, quod ab ore incipientis flamma magni splendoris erumpebat et sursum conscendebat. Exordium magnum cisterciense, 76. 13 Judith H. Oliver, “Sounds and Visions of Heaven: The Fusion of Music and Art in the Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbroeck,” in Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music and Sound (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 237-250 at 246. 14 Oliver, “Sounds and Visions of Heaven,” 239-240.

Conclusion: Beyond Sound

193

Chrysogonus Waddell pondered the sensory experience of the monks in the choir. His thoughts deserve to be quoted in full. It would not be wayward to our purpose to touch briefly on some of the environmental factors which helped condition the monk’s actual hearing of these texts. In the twelfth century there was probably no great dearth of Cistercian monks of more than ample proportions; but for the average White monk, the hard manual labor, the intense cold in certain periods of the year, and the frugal refectory fare must have led more often than not to a chronic state of semi-starvation. Admittedly this would have been a bit taxing on one’s nervous system; but, if not carried too far, it would have tended in many instances to heighten the monk’s sensitivity to visual and auditory phenomena. Granted that indiscreet fasting sometimes led, alas, to lunacy rather than to a deeper life of prayer; and granted, too, that an excessive asceticism sometimes resulted, not in heightened spiritual insight, but in hallucination; still, if submitted to with generosity and intelligence, the traditional monastic ascesis to this day is quite effective in bringing to full wakefulness dormant psychological and spiritual powers. Though there are plenty of texts to suggest that drowsiness during Vigils was an ever-present problem for many twelfth-century monks, for those monks who did manage to stay awake and alert, the situation was ideal for receiving with maximum impact the word proclaimed by the reader. The church was virtually in total darkness, even on the greatest feasts. The psalms, which formed the bulk of the Office, were chanted by memory, as were also most of the antiphons, reponsories and other chants. For those monks who needed it, there was an Office antiphonary open on a single lectern placed in the center of the choir; and a single candle provided the minimal light needed for the deciphering of the neums. As a general rule, the readings themselves were chanted from an elevated position, so as to ensure the maximum of audibility. The melodic formulas were reduced to a few relatively simple inflections meant to serve the interests of intelligibility, as well as to help create a climate of seriousness, order and reverence. With all material sense distractions thus eliminated, concentration on the sacred texts, cantillated in this solemn, stylized manner, was considerably facilitated.15 15 “Night Office Lectionary,” 76-77. Nancy Klein Maguire, An Infinity of Little Hours. Five Young Men and their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 172-181, describes a modern Carthusian monk who suffered a breakdown under similar circumstances.

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If the earliest Cistercians attempted to control the sensory perceptions (cold, hunger, darkness, weariness), common to all Benedictine choirs, that could impede or even distort the experience of worship, we have little evidence of it. The instructions found in their customary for practical matters related to the Night Office differ little from those found in other customaries of the period.16 What a modern audience might consider “hardship,” however, was more likely viewed by the medieval monks as an austerity suitable to their aims. The heightened sensation of sound that may have resulted was equally appropriate to Cistercian monks and all who sought to follow the Benedictine Rule.

16 Bruno Griesser, “Die ‘Ecclesiastica Officia Cisterciensis Ordinis’ des Cod. 1711 von Trient,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956): 153-288 at 230-233.

Appendices Appendix 1: Matins, First Sunday of Advent, prelude and first nocturn Genre

Latin text or text incipit

Invitatory (I)c Regem uenturum dominum: uenite adoremusd

PS 22, 23 A PS 24, 25 Versicle (W)

001149

After Ps. 94:1-2

002349

Ps. 20:1

The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture

002420

Ps. 22:1-2

Oculi mei semper ad My eyes are ever dominum towards the Lord

004108

After Ps. 24:15

Ex Sion specie decoris eius

008060

Ps. 49:2

Dominus regit me et nichil michi deerit; in loco pascue ibi me collocauit

Out of Sion the loveliness of his Beauty.

Lection 1

R

V

V V Lection 2 R

Scripture Source

The Lord, the King who is to come: come let us adore [him]. In thy strength, o Lord, the king shall rejoice

Antiphon (A) Domine in uirtute tua letabitur rex Psalms (PS) 20, 21 A

English text or text Cantus incipita numberb

Jerome’s Preface to Isaiah Gazing from afar, Aspiciens a longe, ecce uideo dei poten- behold I see the power of the Lord ciam uenientem coming Quique terrigene et All you that are filii hominum earthborn and you sons of men Qui regis O thou that rulest Israel Tollite portas, Lift up your gates, O principese ye princes Aspiciebam in uisu noctisf

I beheld, therefore, in the vision of the night

006129

006129a

Ps. 48:3

006129b

After Ps. 79:2

006129c

After Ps. 23:7

006128

Isaiah 1-3:26 Daniel 7:13-14

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Genre

Latin text or text incipit

English text or text Cantus incipita numberb

Scripture Source

V

Ecce dominator dominus est; cum ueniet. Et datumg

Behold the lord (is) sovereign

006128a

See Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres, p. 68

Missus est Gabriel angelus ad Mariam uirginem Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum. Ecce

The Angel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

007170

Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum Tollite portas, principes, uestras, et eleuamini, portae eternales, et introibit. Filiush

006157 Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Lift up your gates, O 006157b ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates

Lection 3 R

V

Lection 4 R

V

Isaiah 1-3:26 After Luke 1:26-32

007170a

Isaiah 1-3:26

After Ps. 23:7

a. Latin incipits retain the orthography reproduced in Primitive Cistercian Breviary, and, “Night Office Lectionary,” 71-183, except where indicated with square brackets. English translations of Scripture follow Vulgate Bible. b. The Cantus Database: Inventories of Chant Sources, http://cantus.uwaterloo.ca, uses RenatoJohanne Hesbert, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, 6 vols., Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Ser. Mai., Fontes 7-12 (Rome: Herder, 1963-1979) (hereafter CAO), as the basis for its cataloguing system. CAO numbers index by volume and chant number, e.g. III 1149 = volume and chant number, with antiphons located in vol. III, and versicles and responsories located in vol. IV. Cantus numbers (Can) usually use the CAO numbers appending the prefix 00. c. I will use the genre abbreviations found in the Cantus Database: Antiphon (A), Canticle (Ca), Invitatory Antiphon (I), Psalm (PS), Responsory (R), Responsory Verse (V), Versicle (W). d. This was replaced by 1147 with a new invitatory, Ecce uenit rex, Can 001074. e. This was replaced by 1147 with a new verse, Excita domine, CAO IV 6129d, Can 006129d. f. Westmalle A-B, fol. 1r begins at “in” in this responsory. g. This short snippet following a verse in a breviary indicates the refrain drawn from the preceding responsory. The verse was replaced by 1147 with, Potestas eius, CAO IV 6128b, Can 006128b. h. This was replaced by 1147 with Quomodo fiet, CAO IV 6157a, Can 006157a.

197

Appendices

Appendix 2: Matins, First Sunday of Advent, second nocturn Genre

Latin text or text incipit

English text or text Cantus incipit numbers

Scripture Source

A

Dominus defensor uite mee

The Lord is the protector of my life

002404

After Ps. 26:1

Adorate dominum in Adore ye the Lord in 001290 aula sancta eius his holy court

After Ps. 28:2

In tua iusticia, libera me, domine

Deliver me in thy justice, Lord

After Ps. 30:1

Egredietur dominus de loco suo

The Lord will come 008043 forth out of his place

Saluatorem expectamus dominum Preocupemus faciem eius

We look for the Savior, our Lord

007562

After Micah 1:3a Isaiah 1-3:26 Philip. 3:20-21

Let us come before his presence

007562a

Ps. 94:2

Audite uerbum domini, gentes, et annunciate A solis ortu et occasub

Here the word of the 006149 Lord, o ye nations, and declare it From the rising and 006149a from the setting

Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet

Behold a virgin shall conceive

006620

Tollite portasc

Lift up your gates

006620a

Obsecro, domine, mitte quem missurus es A solis ortu

I beseech thee, Lord, 007305 send whom thou wilt send From the rising and 007305a from the setting

PS 26, 27 A PS 28, 29 A PS 30, 31 W Lection 5 R

V Lection 6 R

V Lection 7 R

V Lection 8 R

V

003300

Isaiah 1-3:26 Jeremiah 31:10

Ps. 106:3 Isaiah 1-3:26 After Isaiah 7:14; and Isaiah 9:6 After Ps. 23:7 Isaiah 1-3:26 Exodus 4:13 and Exodus 3:7, 8 Ps. 106:3

a. Micah 1:3: Quia ecce Dominus egredietur de loco suo, also included in Jerome’s commentary on the Book of Isaiah. b. This was changed by 1147 to Annunciate et auditum, Can 006149b. c. This was changed by 1147 to Super solium, Can 006620b.

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Appendix 3: Prologues read in the Cîteaux Night Office * falsely attributed to Jerome in an incipit in the Cistercian Night Office Lectionary Date

Biblical Book

1st Sunday of Advent Septuagesima Sunday Fifth Sunday of Lent Sunday after the Octave of Easter Third Sunday after the Octave of Easter Trinity Sunday (first Sunday after Pentecost) (before 1147) Second Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (this prologue in addition, before 1147) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs

Incipit

Nemo cum propheta versibus Pentateuch Desiderii mei desideratas Jeremiah Ieremias propheta cui hic prologus Apocalypse Iohannes apostolus et evangelista, a Christo electus Canonical Non idem ordo est apud Graecos Epistles

Author

Stegmüller numbera and printed source

Jerome

481, BSIVb II:1096

Jerome

285, BSIV I:3

Jerome

487, BSIV II:1166

Walafrid Strabo? 834, PL 114:709 (Ps. Isidore of Seville)* Pseudo-Jerome* 809, PL 29:821-832

Kings

Viginti et duas litteras esse apud Hebraeos

Jerome

323, BSIV II:364-366

Kings

Viginti et duas litteras esse apud Hebraeos Chromatio et helidoro episcopis Ieronimus Tribus nominibus vocatum fuisse

Jerome

323, BSIV II:364-366

Jerome

BSIV II:957

Jerome

456, PL 23:1063

Liber sapientae apud Hebraeos nusquam est Cogor per singulos scripturae

Walafrid Strabo (Not attributed in lectionary) Jerome

468, PL 82:233

Wisdom

Job

Tobit

Judith

Jerome Chromatio et Heliodoro episcopis Hieronymus Apud hebraeos liber Jerome Iudith

344, BSIV I:731-732

BSIV I:676

335, BSIV I:691

199

Appendices

Date

Biblical Book

Incipit

Author

Stegmüller numbera and printed source

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Esther

Librum hester variis translatoribus

Jerome

341, BSIV I:712

Maccabees

Machabeorum libri duo prenotant

551

Ezechiel

Iezechiel propheta cum ioachim rege

Pseudo-Jerome (not attributed in lectionary) Jerome

Daniel

Danielem prophetam iuxta Septuaginta

Jerome

494, BSIV II:1341-1342

491, BSIV II:1266

a. Fridericus Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco Suárez, 1940-1980), I. b. Biblia Sacra

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Appendix 4: The third nocturn of the first Sunday of Adventa Genre

Latin text or text incipit

English text or text incipit

Canticle

Domine, miserere nostri Audite qui longe estis Miserere, domine, plebi tue Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Regem in decore.

Oh Lord, have mercy on us. Hear, you that are far off Have mercy on thy people (His eyes shall see) the king in all his glory

Egredietur uirga de radice Jesse Letentur celi et exultet terra

Canticle Canticle Antiphon

Gospel Versicle Lection 9 Responsory Verse

Ecce dominator dominus cumb

Lection 10 ResponAlieni non sory transibunt Verse Ego ueniam, dicit dominus Lection 11 ResponMontes Israhel, sory ramos uestros Verse

Rorate, celi, desuper

Lection 12 ResponConfortamini, sory manus fatigate Verse Ciuitas Iherusalem, noli flere

CANTUS numbers

Source

Isaiah 33:2-10 Isaiah 33:13-18 Sirach 36:14-19 004592

Isaiah 33:17

And there shall come forth a rod

008044

Matthew 21:1-9 Isaiah 11:1

Give praise, O ye heavens and rejoice Behold: the sovereign Lord of hosts

007068

Ps. Chrysostom Hom. 73 Isaiah 49:13

006128a

After Isaiah 10:33

Strangers shall pass 006066 through it no more I will come, says the 006066a Lord 007177 O mountains of Israel, shoot ye forth your branches Drop down dew, ye 007177a heavens Strengthen ye the 006321 feeble hands Do not weep city of 006321a Jerusalem

Ps. Chrysostom Hom. 73 Joel 3:17-18 After Jeremiah 3:22 Ps. Chrysostom Hom. 73 Ezechiel 36:8

Isaiah 45:8 Ps. Chrysostom Hom. 73 Isaiah 35:3-4

a. Primitive Cistercian Breviary, 106-108 and idem, “Night Office Lectionary,” 99-100. b. This responsory and verse pair were also assigned to Lection 9 at Chartres Cathedral. Those attached to Lections 10 through 12 at Cîteaux are not found in the Chartres cursus. Margot Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Literature and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 63.

Appendices

201

Appendix 5: Readings for subsequent Sundays, and Ember days in the third week of Advent Matins, Second Sunday of Advent1 Lections 1-8: Isaiah 5:1-8:8 Lections 9-12, Gregory’s Homily on the Gospel I Gospel reading: Luke 21:25-33, Predicting the Second Coming Matins, Third Sunday of Advent2 Lections 1-8: Isaiah 41:1-44:28 Lections 9-12 Homilies of Gregory I, 1:1-4 Gospel reading: Matthew 11:2-10, on John the Baptist’s prophetic role Matins: Ember days: Wednesday3 Lections 1-3: Bede, Homily 1 (PL 94:9A-14D) Matins: Ember days: Thursday4 Lection 1: Honoratius Ep. Ad Arcadium and Sermo Caillau-Saint-Yves 1, 7:3-5 (PL 50:567 and PLS 2:858-859) Lections 2-3: Quoduultdeus, Sermo 4 Contra iudeos, paganos et Arianos, cc. 11-17 (PL 42:1123-1127) Matins: Ember days: Friday5 Lections 1-3: Bede, Homily 1:4 (PL 94:14A-22 BC) Matins: Ember days: Saturday6 Lections 1-3: Gregory’s Homilies on Gospels I, 20 (PL 76:1160B-170B) Matins: Fourth Sunday in Advent7 Lections 1-3: Isaiah 51:1-20 Lection 4: Isaiah 54:1-10 Lections 5-8: Isaiah 63:16-65:25 Lections 9-12: Gregory’s Homilies on the Gospels I, 7:1-3 Gospel Reading: John 1:19-28. John the Baptist announces the coming of the Messiah 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

“Night Office Lectionary,” 100. “Night Office Lectionary,” 100. “Night Office Lectionary,” 100. “Night Office Lectionary,” 101. “Night Office Lectionary,” 101. “Night Office Lectionary,” 101. “Night Office Lectionary,” 101-102.

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Appendix 6: Cîteaux, Feast of the Nativity of Mary, September 8 * Changed in the reform of chant before 1147 + Same formulary used at Molesme \ Same formulary used at Chartres8 Genre

Latin text or text incipit

CANTUS numbers

Invitatory

Regem dei genetricis*

Antiphon 1

Benedicta tu in mulieribus*+

Antiphon 2

Sicut myrrha electa odorem dedisti suauitatis sancta dei genetrix *+ Ante torum hujus uirginis frequentate nobis dulcia cantica dramatis * Specie tua et pulcritudine tua intende, prospere procede et regna* Adiuuabit eam dues uultu suo; dues in medio eius, non commouebitur* O quam pulchra es casta generatio cum claritate*

No source found Also used for the Assumption 001709, first 5 antiphons also used for the Purification; this antiphon also used for Advent, the Feasts of Saint Agatha, the Annunciation, and the Assumption 004942; this antiphon also used for the Feast of Saint Agatha and the Annunciation 001438, this antiphon also used for the Feast of Saint Agatha and the Common of Virgin Martyrs 004987, this antiphon also used for the Feasts of Saints Agatha and Cecilia, and the Assumption 001282, this antiphon also used for the Feasts of Saints Agatha and Cecilia, the Assumption, and the Common of Virgins 004069, this antiphon also used for the Feasts of Saints Agnes and Agatha, and the Common of Virgins

Antiphon 3

Antiphon 4

Antiphon 5

Antiphon 6

Lection I Responsory Verse Lection II Responsory Verse Lection III Responsory

Pseudo Augustine Natiuitas tua, dei genitrix uirgo +(Lec. IV)\(Lec. V) Aue Maria gratia plena Pseudo Augustine Beatam me dicent omnes generationes* Magnificat anima mea* Pseudo Augustine Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis*

007199 007199a 006172, this responsory also used for the Assumption 006172za 006446, this responsory also used for the Assumption and the Common of Virgin Martyrs

8 Margot Fassler, “Mary’s Nativity, Fulbert of Chartres and the Stirps Jesse: Liturgical Innovation circa 1000 and its Afterlife,” Speculum 75 (2000): 389-434 at 418. Fassler notes that the chant order she gives here is that used in the late eleventh century, and so may not be the same as that originally designed by Fulbert.

203

Appendices

Genre

Latin text or text incipit

CANTUS numbers

Verse Lection IV Responsory

Dilexisti iustitiam Pseudo Augustine Hodie nata est beata uirgo Maria *+\(Lec. 1) Beatissime uiriginis Marie nativitatem*+(Lec. 2) Speciosa facta es et suauis in deliciis tuis*+

006446b

Verse Antiphon 1

Antiphon 2 Antiphon 3

Antiphon 4 Antiphon 5 Antiphon 6

Sicut letantium omnium nostrum habitatio*+ Hec est que nesciuit thorum in delictis*+(Noct 1)

Post partum uirgo inuiolata permansisti*+ Gaude Maria uirgo cunctas hereses sola*+ Dignare me laudare te uirgo sacrata*

Versicle

Adiuuabit eam deus uultu*

Lection V Responsory

Pseudo Augustine Beatissime uirginis Marie natiuitatem*\ (Lec. 2) Cum iocunditate natiuitatem beate Marie celebremus* Pseudo Augustine Gloriose uirginis Marie ortum dignissimum recolimus*+ (Lec. 3)\ (Lec. 4) Beatissime uirginis* Pseudo Augustine Corde et animo Christo canamus gloriam*+ (Lec. Ev) \ (Lect. 7) Omnes pariter congregati dominum collaudemus* Pseudo Augustine Regali ex progenie Maria exorta refulget*

Verse Lection VI Responsory

Verse Lection VII Responsory

Verse Lection VIII Responsory

006854 006854a 004988, all antiphons for second nocturn also used for the Purification; this antiphon also used for the Feast of Saint Agatha and the Assumption 004936, this antiphon also used for the Assumption 003001, this antiphon also used for the Feast of Saint Cecilia, the Assumption, the Common of Virgin Martyrs and non Martyrs 004332, this antiphon also used for the Annunciation and the Assumption 002924, this antiphon also used for the Annunciation and the Assumption 002217, this antiphon also used for the Assumption, and the Common of Virgin Martyrs 007934, this versicle also used for the Feasts of Saints Agnes and Agatha, the Purification, the Annunciation, and the Common of Virgin Martyrs 006184 006184b

006781

006781a 006339

006339c

007519

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Genre

Latin text or text incipit

CANTUS numbers

Verse

Cum iocunditate natiuitatem beate Marie* Beata progenies unde Christus natus est Elegit eam dominus et praeelegit eam*

007519b

Antiphon Versicle

Lection IX Responsory Verse Lection X Responsory Verse Lection XI Responsory

Verse Lection XII Responsory

Verse

Jerome Comm. on Matthew Benedicta et uenerabilis est uirgo Maria* Aue Maria* Jerome, Comm. on Matthew Super salutem et omnem pulcritudinem* Ualde eam nobis oportet uenerari* Jerome, Comm. on Matthew Natiuitatem hodiernam perpetue uirginis genitricis dei Marie*+ (lec. 6) Cum iocunditate natiuitatem beate marie celebremus* Jerome, Comm. on Matthew Natiuitas gloriose uirginis Marie ex semine Abrahe*+ (lec. 7) \ (lec. 8) Natiuitas est hodie sancte Marie uirginis*

001572 008046, this versicle also used for the Feasts of Saints Agnes and Agatha, the Purification, and the Common of Virgin Martyrs 006243 CAO 6243b (Can 006244a) 007726 007726d

007200

006184b

007198

007198b

Bibliography Manuscripts Cited Abbeville, Bibliothèque municipale MS 4 Admont, Stiftbibliothek MS 289 Alba Iulia (Romania), Bibl. Batthyáneum, MS R II 1 (Lorsch Gospels) Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale MS 18 (Corbie Psalter) Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale MS 24 (Corbie Gospels) Arras, Médiathèque MS 559 (435) (Saint-Vaast Bible) Arras, Médiathèque MS 860 (530) Arras, Médiathèque MS 699 (627) Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Hamilton 55 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz MS Lat. Oct. 402 Boulogne-sur-mer, Bibliothèque municipale MS 11 (Boulogne Gospels) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 389 Chalon-sur-Saône, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 7, 8, 9 Darmstadt, Landesbibliothek MS 1948 (Gero Codex) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 2 (Bible of Saint-Bénigne) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 129 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 12-15 (Stephen Harding Bible) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 30 (Psalter of Robert of Molesme) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 131 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 132 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 135 (Jerome’s Letters) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 141 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 143 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 145 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 147 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 168, 169, 170 and 173 (Moralia in Job) Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 177 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 179 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 180 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 582 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 641, 642, 643 (Sanctoral Lectionary) Dublin, Chester Beatty Library MS W.22 Dusseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek D 11 El Escorial, Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo & I.14 Grenoble, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 17, 18 (Grande Chartreuse Bible) Hannover, August Kestner Museum WM XXIa 36 Laon, Bibliothèque municipale MS 471 London, British Library MS Add 34890 (Grimbald Gospels) London, British Library MS Add 18633 London, British Library MS Arundel 155 (Arundel Psalter) London, British Library MS Cotton Nero D.IV (Lindisfarne Gospels) London, British Library MS Cotton Titus D.XXVII (New Minster Office Book) London, British Library MS Harley 603 (Harley Psalter)

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London, British Library MS Harley 2889 (Siegburg Lectionary) London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3 (Lambeth Bible) Manchester, John Rylands University Library MS 9 Moscow, Historical Museum, MS D 129 (Chludov Psalter) New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M.574 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M.612 Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine MS 1 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 943 (Sherborne Pontifical) Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 1684 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat 2079 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 8850 (Gospels of Saint Médard of Soissons) Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS nouv. acq. lat. 2202 Prague, University Library Vyšehrad MS XIV. A. 13 (Coronation Gospels of King Vratislaus) Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale MS 498 Sées, Archives diocésaines MS 5 Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 302 Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 394 Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 807 Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 869 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliothek MS 31 (Utrecht Psalter) Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal. Lat. 559 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal. Lat. 562 Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale MS 43 Westmalle, Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk MS 12A-B

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Index Page numbers in italics refer to images and plates. Abbeville Bibliothèque municipale MS 4 174n82 abbots 15, 21, 34-35, 40-43, 60, 64, 93, 96, 130-38, 143, 169, 183, 190-91 Abelard see Peter Abelard Acquafredda 45 Acts, Book of 65n18, 86-87, 176 Adam 181 Adonai 120 Aelred of Rievaulx 131 affective piety 16-17, 130 Admont Stiftbibliothek MS 289 (Admont Anselm) 17-18, 30n62, 31 see also nunneries Advent 34-61, 68n30, 73-74, 93-99, 102n19, 107-09, 114-16, 119-26, 133-38, 144, 168, 176, 195-98, 200-02; see also Liturgy, Night Office Agnellus of Ravenna 181 Agrippa 86-87 Alba Iulia Bibl. Batthyáneum MS R II 1 146, 156 Alberic 21, 28, 99, 160 Alcuin 144; see also Bibles allegory 130 altars 111-14, 169, 171-75 Amalarius of Metz 13n1, 50, 112-13 Ambrose 183 Commentary on Luke, 175 Amiens Bibliothèque municipale MS 18 (Corbie Psalter) 155, 174 Bibliothèque municipale MS 24 (Corbie Gospels) 150, 156 Amos 102, 152 angels 89, 92, 101, 105, 108-13, 136, 142, 171, 174n84, 190-92 archangels 174 aniconic imagery 21, 38 animals 36, 83, 149, 154-60 hybrid 22, 24, 84, 157-60, 165 Annunciation 108n5, 124-125 and n81, 129, 133, 171-76, 180, 202-03 Feast of 116, 121n63, 134, 175-76 and n90 to the Virgin Mary 37, 171, 174, 175 to the Shepherds 93 to Zechariah 37, 174 Anselm of Canterbury 17n17, 133-34, 139n131 Orationes sive meditationes 17, 30 anti-Judaism 27, 67 antiphons 40-48, 59, 61, 92-93, 96-97, 115-16, 121, 125-28, 133-35, 137, 155, 173, 175-76, 193, 195, 200, 202-04

antiphonals 28, 42-47, 54-55, 60, 96, 127, 100, 188n140, 193 Apocalypse 111 beasts of 149, 153 Book of 65n18, 73, 113, 146, 154, 198 elders of 113 Lamb of 108 see also iconography Apostles 88, 108, 113, 141 apple 177, 180-81 Arius 37, 181-85; see also heresy Arras Médiathèque MS 559 (435) (Saint-Vaast Bible) 32 and n68, 155 Médiathèque MS 699 (627) 113n37 Médiathèque MS 860 (530) 155 Saint-Vaast, monastery 29, 113n37, 155-57, 185 asceticism 18, 193 Athanasius 183 Auberger, Jean-Baptiste 24, 66n19, 80-81 Augustine 115, 117, 123, 129, 183 author portraits 74-80, 87, 105, 145-46, 165, 184; see also Gregory the Great, Jerome Babylon 49, 56, 107 bandaroles see speech scrolls Baruch, Book of 65n18, 68 beasts 84, 143, 149, 156-60, 165, 167; see also Apocalypse Bede 185 Commentary on the Apocalypse 112 Commentary on Luke 113, 175 Commentary on Matthew 52 Commentary on the Gospels 55, 167-68n62 homilies 115-16, 168 Homily I 201 Homily on the Visitation 119 Homily for the Nativity of John the Baptist 175n87 Homily on the Nativity 186-87 Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation 116 bells 40, 42 Benedict of Aniane 178 Benedictine Rule 13, 41, 44, 60, 73, 81-82, 93, 179-80, 194 Benedictus (Canticle of Zechariah) 172-74, 202 Berlin Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Lat. Oct. 402 (Berlin Breviary, Primitive Cistercian Breviary) 45, 48, 53-54nn49 and 51, 62

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Hamilton 55 184 Bernard of Clairvaux 16, 18-20, 24-26, 43, 45-47, 54, 68, 95-96, 130-39, 167, 185, 190-92 Apologia 190 Commentary on the Song of Songs 14, 19, 34, 136, 138, 141-42 sermons on the Virgin Mary 96, 133, 138 Sentences 20 sermons 14, 18, 20, 34, 36, 102n19, 113n36, 132-36, 139, 142-43 Bibles 13, 15-16, 19, 28, 30, 35, 61-65, 100, 144, 150, 160, 171, 188, 189 Alcuinian 68 Catalan 81 Douay-Rheims translation 116 Hebrew 70 lectern 41, 45, 60, 62, 65, 67, 105, 155, 160 Theodulphian 81 Visigothic 81 Vulgate 39, 62-72, 122, 196na see also Arras Médiathèque MS 559, Dijon Bibliothèque municipale MSS 2 and 12-15, Grenoble Bibliothèque municipale MSS 17-18, Lambeth Palace Library MS 3, Paris Mazarine MS 1 birds 83-84, 105, 108, 156 biting 36, 143, 155-56, 159 blessings 40, 137, 169 gesture 83, 105, 110 blood 19, 130-31, 135, 162-63, 176n91 Boethius 183 Boulogne-sur-Mer Bibliothèque municipale MS 11 (Boulogne Gospels) 171, 172, 173, 174 bread 112, 179 breviaries 30, 42-46, 48, 52, 55, 60, 64, 68, 72, 93, 124, 174, 196ng Cistercian 20, 62, 73n47, 124, 126, 128, 173 temporal 44n20 see also Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Lat. Oct. 402 Bride, mystical 34 Bridegroom, mystical 20 Brown, Michelle 145-46 Brown, Rachel Fulton 17-18n21, 130-32n103, 139 Burgundy 21, 101n18 Bury Saint Edmunds 130 Bynum, Caroline Walker 130 Caelius Sedulius Carmen paschale 171 Caesarea 87 Cahn, Walter 25, 149, 182 and n116, 183 calendars 42n9 Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 389 80n55 canon tables 149

canons 31, 39, 52, 55, 56 canonesses 31 Canterbury 155 canticles 13, 173-75; see also Benedictus and Magnificat cantillation 59, 61, 71, 133, 189, 193 cantors 30, 39, 41-42, 71, 192 cathedral school 21 Cauwe, Matthieu 64, 68, 70 censers 112, 170-71, 174, 175n85 Chaldean(s) 56, 66-70 Chalon-sur-Saône Bibliothèque municipale MSS 7-9 38 Chartres 35, 36, 44-45, 48-56, 62, 96, 102, 118-19, 122-23, 127, 196, 200, 202 chastity 82, 129 chewing 36-38, 143, 152, 156 choir(s) 13-14, 16, 23, 28-38, 40, 49, 55, 64, 69-71, 74, 82, 89, 95, 114, 129, 132-33, 168-69, 188-94 Benedictine 194 cathedral 39 Clairvaux 136 Cîteaux 14n8, 59-61, 71, 93, 124, 131, 143, 185 lections 28, 139 Molesme 123 Christmas see feasts Christ 34, 51-54, 69, 83-84, 88, 92, 100, 110, 113, 137, 144, 162, 179, 182, 187-88, 192 advent of 49-50 Christus 32, 198, 203-04 Entry into Jerusalem 44, 52n48 eternal Logos 19n25 genealogy 102, 105, 121 lamb 115, 119 in Majesty 178 Incarnation 19n25, 156 kingship 115 Nativity 44, 93, 122, 124, 186 Passion 73, 118, 156 priesthood 36, 111-25 resurrection 89, 92, 145-46 sacrifice 108-18 Second Coming 44, 114, 201 triform nature 108, 110, 113, 187-88 Virgin and Child 101, 105-22 see also iconography, Jesus, Virgin Mary Chronicles, Book of 74 ciborium 111, 114 Cîteaux choir see choir(s) New Monastery 21, 24, 27-29, 38-39, 45, 47, 60, 72, 96, 123, 143, 154, 179, 185, 188, 189 scriptorium 17, 21-26, 30, 35-37, 62, 64, 74, 81-83, 99-100, 132, 135, 143, 150, 153-65, 181-82 Clairvaux 16, 18, 24, 34, 101, 133, 136, 138, 142; see also choir(s) claws 37, 181

Index

Clement of Alexandria 131 Cluny 48, 72-73, 111, 178 scriptorium 100 codicology 74 collation 14, 42n9 collectars 42n9 collects 45 Conrad of Eberbach Exordium magnum 191 consecration 113 contemplation 17, 184 Contra iudeos 118, 201 contrafacts 29 Council of Aachen 180 Council of Ephesus (431) 128 Council of Nicaea (325) 182 Creation 114, 157, 181 Credo (Apostles’ Creed) 40, 108 cross 112, 163 crowns 108, 115, 122, 176 cursus see liturgy customaries 45-46, 71, 111, 114n41, 131, 168-69, 194; see also Ecclesiastica Officia damp folds 22, 100 Daniel 121, 122, 125 Book of 68, 72, 76, 122, 184, 195, 199 in the Lion’s Den 121-22, 125 see also iconography Damasus, pope 75, 84, 184 Darmstadt Landesbibliothek MS 1948 (Gero Codex) 32n67, 146n13 David, king 27n48, 36, 87, 92-94, 105-07, 113-17, 120, 127-28, 135, 138, 175 Demosthenes 59 Desiderius 68 dialectical method 26-27 and n49, 184 dialogue 28, 32, 87 Dijon 21 Bibliothèque municipale MS 2 (Bible of Saint-Bénigne) 104, 105, 106 Bibliothèque municipale MSS 12-15 (Stephen Harding Bible) 22 and n33-27 and n49, 32, 33, 60, 62, 65, 68, 75, 75, 80n56, 87, 143, 156-57 and n37, 159, 165-66, 170, 181, 184, Plates 1, 10-11, 13-16 Bibliothèque municipale MS 30 (Psalter of Robert of Molseme) 29, 157, 158 Bibliothèque municipale MS 129 99, Plates 6-8 Bibliothèque municipale MS 131 22n33, 76, 77, 152, 184 Bibliothèque municipale MS 132 76, 78, 184 Bibliothèque municipale MS 135 (Jerome’s Letters) 22n33, 76, 80-84, 85, 89, 90, 91, 94-95, 159, Plates 3-5 Bibliothèque municipale MS 141 182n116

221 Bibliothèque municipale MS 143 22n33 Bibliothèque municipale MS 145 22n33 Bibliothèque municipale MS 147 22n33 Bibliothèque municipale MSS 168-70 and 173 (Moralia in Job) 22n33, 25, 37, 74, 83, 153, 159-62, Plates 2, 12 Bibliothèque municipale MS 177 157 Bibliothèque municipale MS 179 157 Bibliothèque municipale MS 180 74 Bibliothèque municipale MS 582 185n129 Bibliothèque municipale MS 641-43 (Sanctoral Lectionary) 22, 23, 79, 80, 81, 99, 121, Plate 9 diglossia 67 Divine Word (the Word) 15-19, 51-54, 57, 82-83, 93, 108, 111, 117, 142-56, 163, 170, 184-89, 197 dormitories 40 Douay-Rheims translation see Bibles dove, of the Holy Spirit 101, 105-11, 119 dragons 84, 153, 156-57, 161, 165-66 drama 118-19 drapery 22, 100, 121 drink 152, 169; see also food Dublin Chester Beatty Library MS W.22 80n55 Dusseldorf Paradies bei Soest 31 Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek D 11 32n67 Eadwig Basan 182-83; see also Hannover eagle 37, 154, 183-88; see also birds, Evangelist symbols, John ears 13, 35, 37, 51, 65, 86, 165-67, 183, 185, 188 Easter see feasts eating 16, 143-59, 170, 179-80, 189 Ecclesia 32-34 Ecclesiastes, Book of 72, 76 Ecclesiastica Officia 42n9, 71, 113-14, 168-69, 174 Ecclesiasticus, Book of 65n18, 86n68, 166-68 editorial practices/techniques 73, 94; see also Jerome, Stephen Harding editors 34, 72-74, 94 education 29, 50 El Escorial Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo & I.14 81n59 Eleousa see Virgin Mary Elizabeth 170-75 Elizabeth de Verge 76-80 Emmanuel 120, 124, 136 Ember days 36, 114, 116-20, 201 England 149, 178 Anglo-Norman 130 Entry into Jerusalem 44, 52n48, 55, 97 Epiphany see feasts epistles 31, 56, 87 Canonical 72, 198 see also Jerome Epistles, Book of 65n18, 87

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Esther, Book of 199 etoimasia 108 Eucharist 13, 111-14, 126, 131, 162, 169 Eusebius of Cremona 88 Eusebius of Caesarea Historia Ecclesiastica 177 Eustochium 48, 62-63, 76, 82-83, 87, 100-01, 152; see also Jerome Evangelist symbols 36-37, 143-44, 149, 153-54, 156, 168, 170, 184 Evangelist portraits 146, 149-50 Evangelists 88, 123, 145-46, 149, 181; see also John, Luke, Mark, Matthew exegesis 19n25, 27-28, 31-32, 34, 63, 73, 131, 134-35, 141, 143, 154, 163 Exodus, Book of 55, 122, 197 explicits 42 eyes 19, 37, 83, 97, 111, 164, 183, 185, 188, 191, 195, 200 Ezekiel 73, 76 Book of 99, 150, 152 prophecies 154 Fassler, Margot 25, 35-36, 44, 48, 50, 102, 123, 196, 202n9 fasting 44, 179, 193 Faustus the Manichaean 183 feasts 29, 31, 36, 48, 52, 59, 61, 89, 95, 126, 128, 136, 169 All Saints 185, 188 Annunciation 116, 133-34, 175, 202-03 Assumption 127, 130, 133, 202-03 Christmas 35-39, 89, 92, 95-96, 119-21, 125-26, 128, 185-86, 188 Circumcision 71 Common of the Virgin Martyrs 202-04 Easter 72-73, 89, 92, 198 Epiphany 89, 92, 112 Marian 44, 127-39 Nativity 123-24, 137, 175 Nativity of John the Baptist 175 Nativity of the Virgin Mary 35, 96, 123-33, 137, 202-04 octave of Christmas 126, 128, 188 octave of Easter 72-73, 198 octave of the Nativity 93 octave of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary 123-24 Purification 127, 133, 137, 203-04 saints 41 St. Agatha 127, 202-04 St. Agnes 203-04 St. Cecilia 202-03 see also Advent, Ember Days, Pentecost Fécamp 183 ferial days 115 Ferté-sur-Grosne Scriptorium 38 Festus 87

First Style 22, 160 Flanders 149 flesh 19, 117-18, 144-45, 156, 170 Flight into Egypt see iconography flocks 92-93, 119, 160, 183 Flavius Josephus Antiquitates 177-78 De bello Iudaico 177-78 food 20, 81, 141, 152-53, 157, 168-69, 177, 179n103, 188-90; see also eating, drink fruit 36, 84, 95-99, 119, 125-26, 134-36, 157, 162-64, 167, 180-81 Fulbert of Chartres 36, 45 Approbate consuetudinis est 121-23 homilies 124-25 sermons 118n53, 121-30 Gabriel, archangel 50-51, 129, 170-71, 175-76, 180, 196 genealogy 36, 99, 105, 129-30, 138, 175, 186 Genesis, Book of 71, 73, 157, 159 Gideon and the Golden Fleece 121-22, 125, 134-35; see also iconography Gloria 40, 108 gluttony 27, 37, 170, 176-81 graduals 31-32, 42n9, 192 Greek 63, 88 Gisela von Kerssenbrock 31 Gradual of see Osnabrück God 15-20, 37, 39, 48, 50-57, 62, 92, 111-14, 122, 124, 131, 136, 141-42, 150, 162-71, 176-77, 186, 189-92 godhead 109 the Father 108, 117, 182, 187 wrath of 113 see also Christ, Divine Word, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Virgin Mary gold 84, 111-12, 146, 159, 191-92 Good Friday 89 Gospel books 42n9, 149, 174 and n82, 189 Gospel of John 25, 27n49, 37, 142, 156, 163, 165, 181-88; see also John Evangelist Gospel of Luke 37, 92, 114, 120, 134, 141, 170-80, 186, 196, 201; see also Luke Evangelist Gospel of Mark 59, 143-49, 153, 168-71, 179; see also Mark Evangelist Gospel of Matthew 52, 55, 71, 92, 96-97, 99, 114, 120, 129, 171, 175-78, 186, 200-01 commentaries on 52, 55, 123, 129, 138, 177, 204 see also Matthew Evangelist Gospels 37, 61, 74, 92, 115-16, 134, 141, 143-44, 150, 168, 178 pericopes 41, 52n48, 55, 59, 71, 96, 120, 168, 186 Gregory the Great 152-53, 161 author portrait 74 Dialogues 157 Homily on Luke 3:1-11 120

Index

Homily on Matthew 20:1-16 71 Homily on the Gospels 115, 157, 201 Commentary on Ezekiel 152 Moralia in Job 22, 25-26, 37-38, 74, 83, 153, 159-64, 160-66 Registrum Gregorii 74 Grenoble Bibliothèque municipale MS 17-18 (Grande Chartreuse Bible) 155-56 Guerric of Igny 131 Habbakuk 121 habit (clothing) 76, 184 halos 101-02, 108, 110, 174 handbooks 41, 60, 113 Hannover August Kestner Museum WM XXIa 36 (Eadwig Gospels) 182-83 harvesting 37, 164 Haymo of Auxerre 177 heads 36, 38, 84, 108-111, 115, 122, 144-45, 155-59, 166 hearing 16-20, 152, 166, 189, 193 hebreos 70, 156, 198-99 Hebrew 59, 63-70, 88 Helfta see nunneries Heliodorus 83-84, 198 Heptateuch 82 heresy 25, 37, 181-85 heretics 153, 162, 181-87 Herod 27n48, 37, 87, 171, 176-82 Herod Antipas 176-77 Herod the Great 176-77 see also iconography Hinkle, William 149 Holy Family 17, 178 Holy Spirit 19, 20, 52, 101, 108, 112, 117, 119, 122, 129, 187 homilies 13, 28, 41, 61, 115, 124-25, 139, 168 Night Office 28 on Christmas 186 on Luke 120 on Mark 59, 153 on Matthew 52, 71, 96-97, 120 on the Gospels 115, 157, 201 on the Nativity 186 on the Visitation 119 on the Virgin Mary 133 see also Bede, Gregory the Great, Jerome homiliaries 28, 41-43, 60, 185 Honoratus Epistola ad Arcadium 117 Honorius Augustodunensis 130 Hosea, Book of 159 host 101, 111, 113n36, 114; see also Eucharist hymns 40, 42-43, 46-47, 60, 64, 94, 99, 108, 123-24, 128, 191-92 hymnbook (hymnals) 28, 42, 60 64, 100

223 iconography (study of) 26-27, 84-86, 96, 150, 161 Aaron, rod of 117-18, 125, 134 Adoration of the Lamb 149 Annunciation to the Shepherds 92-93 Annunciation to the Virgin 171-72, 174-76, 180 Annunciation to Zechariah 171-72, 174-78 Apocalypse 108, 111-13, 146, 153-54 Arius 37, 181-85 Christ in Majesty 178 Crucifixion 178 Daniel in the Lion’s Den 121-22, 125 Eleousa (Virgin of Tenderness) 101, 111, 122n66, 128 Ezekiel 150-52 Flight into Egypt 178 Gideon and the Golden Fleece 121-22, 125, 135 Herod, Suicide of 37, 87, 171, 176-81 Infancy of Christ 176 Isaiah 102, 107 John, Evangelist 37, 154, 181-87 Last Judgment 178 Last Supper 178 Luke, Evangelist 87, 146n11, 154, 174, 176 Mark, Evangelist 143-150, 153-57, 165-68 Massacre of the Innocents 178 Matthew, Evangelist 92, 105, 154, 171 Moses and the Burning Bush 122, 125, 134 Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes 180 Paul before Agrippa 87 prophets 102, 118-19 Resurrection of Christ 89-92, 145-46 sacramental 96, 178 Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit 119 Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace 12122, 125 Three Maries Visiting the Tomb 112-13 Tree of Jesse 25, 35-37, 96-122, 125, 128, 134 Trinitarian 36, 96, 107-11, 114 Virgin and Child 101-22 virgo lactans (galaktotrophousa) 96, 122, 126n82, 125-26, 128, 131, 135-36 Igny 45 Immanuel see Emmanuel Incarnation 44, 92, 97, 111, 115-16, 120, 134, 145, 156, 171; see also Christ incense 112-13, 127, 190-91, 202 incipits 31n65, 42, 73, 92, 123, 144, 166-67 and n59, 171, 174n82 initials 25, 27n49, 36-38, 60, 62, 80-89, 92, 102, 105, 150-67, 170-71, 174-76, 180, 184, 186, 195-204 composite 156 figurative 38, 74, 81, 132n108, 166 foliate 22, 83, 101, 155

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historiated 37, 81-83, 86-87, 89, 105, 143, 149, 156, 165, 181 tendril 22, 155, 157 interlace 155-59 invitatory 40, 115, 127, 133, 195, 202 Isaiah 59, 129 Book of 47-48, 50-57, 59-62, 96-99, 102-07, 114-15, 118, 124, 134-36, 144, 146, 163, 195-98, 200-01 prophecies 48-49, 63, 97, 100, 102, 114-15 see also iconography, Jerome Isidore of Seville 179-80, 198 Etymologiae 81 Israel 49-50, 95, 98-99, 115-16, 150, 152, 167, 195, 200 Israelites 55 iudeos 70, 118, 201 ivory 101n18, 111-12, 128 Jacob 56 James 87 jaws 146, 149, 153, 155, 161 Jeremiah Book of 73, 116, 197-98, 200 prophecies 134 Jerome 59-94, 183-84, 198 as translator and editor 35, 39, 47, 59-69, 71, 75, 87-89, 94, 100, 120, 141, 184 author portraits 74-80, 82-83, 152, 184 Commentary on Daniel 76, 184 Commentary on Ecclesiastes 76 Commentary on Esther 63 Commentary on Ezekiel 76, 152 Commentary on Isaiah 99-111, 116-21, 125, 132, 135, 152, 184, 197 Commentary on Matthew 123-25, 129, 138, 204 Commentary on the Minor Prophets 76 Commentary on the Psalms 155 Epistles (letters) 22n33, 74, 76, 80-82, 89, 93, 95, 159 Faith of Damasus (Fides Damasi) 84 First Homily on the Gospel of Mark 153-54 Homily on Matthew 20:1-16 71 Letter to Castorina 89 Letter to Eustochium 62-63, 76, 82-83, 87, 101, 152 Letter to Heliodorus 83-84 Letter to Marcella 94 Letter to Pammachius (Letter 57) 86-88 Letter to Paulinus 74 prologues (general) 61-63, 67-72, 74, 82, 198-99 Prologue to Daniel 68n30, 72 Prologue to Esther 72 Prologue to Ezechiel 72-73, 152 Prologue to Isaiah 47-52, 57, 59-63, 73, 87, 100, 195 Prologue to Jeremiah 68

Prologue to Job 72 Prologue to Joshua 69 Prologue to Judith 69, 72 Prologue to Kings 68-69, 72 Prologue to the Maccabees 72 Prologue to Tobit 70, 72 Prologue to the Gospels 141-42 Prologue to the Pentateuch 68, 71 Sermons 76, 80-82, 89, 92, 159 Vulgate 39, 62-72, 122, 196na Jerusalem 49, 51, 55-56, 98, 135, 200 Entry into Jerusalem 44, 52n48, 55, 97 Jesse 94-97, 102-07, 115, 118-20, 124, 136, 138, 200; see also iconography Jesu prologue to Ecclesiasticus 167 Jesus 17, 53, 86, 105, 108, 111-18, 120-25, 129-34, 142-46, 154, 175, 186; see also Christ Jews (medieval) 66-70, 86 Job 19, 38, 63, 198 Book of 19, 72-74, 153, 162-63 Moralia in Job see Gregory the Great John, Evangelist 25, 115, 181-88 Apocalypse 112, 154 epistles 89 see also iconography, Gospel of John John Cassian 180 John Chrysostom 59 John of Clairvaux Liber visionum et miraculorum 191 John of Fécamp 183 John the Baptist 50, 120, 144-45, 154, 170-76 execution 176 Nativity of 172, 175 prophetic role 44, 114, 201 Johnson, James 102 Joseph 49, 51, 105, 120, 129, 135, 175 Judaea 49 Judah 51, 116, 128 Judges, Book of 121-22, 135 judgment 51, 55-56, 69, 71, 97, 116, 166, 176; see also Last Judgment Justin Martyr 13 Kabala, Irene 178 Kantorwicz, Ernst 114 King David see David kings 27n48, 102 kingdoms 49-51, 115 Kings, Book of 68-72, 82, 198 La Paraclete see nunneries Lambach 178 Laon Bibliothèque municipale MS 471 32 Last Judgment 178 Latin 61-62, 66-70, 88, 94, 120, 144-45, 195-97, 200-04 Lauds see liturgy

225

Index

Le Tart see nunneries Leclercq, Jean 15-16, 28 lectern 60, 99, 171, 180, 193; see also Bibles lectio continua 62, 150, 179 lectio divina 17, 65, 150, 184 lection marks 42, 62 lectionaries 45-48 Fleury 72-73, 186n131 Cîteaux Night Office 20, 28, 45, 51, 71-73, 82, 89, 92, 115-17, 123-29, 167, 185-86, 192, 196na, 198-99, 201 Cluny 72-73 sanctoral 22, 45, 80-81, 99, 121-29, 132, 135 temporal 45 lector 42, 60-61, 143, 180 see also reader Lent 55, 169, 198 Leigh-Choate, Tova 169 Leo, pope 186 Liber visionum et miraculorum 191 libros explanationis 100 lily 102, 107 litanies for the saints 43 liturgy 13-18, 25, 31-32, 43-44, 48, 65, 93, 95-96, 112, 133, 142, 169, 173, 176, 189 Advent 44-52, 93, 114, 125, 136 Carolingian 113 Chartrain see Chartres commentary on 31 Lauds 115, 123, 172 Marian 44-45, 95-96, 123-39 Mass 31, 41 Matins 34-35, 39-40, 48, 71-72, 82, 92, 95, 115, 119-29, 186, 190, 195-97, 201 Nones 135 reform of 18n21, 20, 24, 39, 46, 123, 127 structure of 32, 39 liturgical calendar 44, 61 London British Library MS Add. 18633 113n34 British Library MS Add. 34890 (Grimbald Gospels) 146n11 British Library MS Arundel 155 (Arundel Psalter) 183 British Library MS Cotton Nero D.IV (Lindisfarne Gospels) 145, 147 British Library MS Cotton Titus D.XXVII (New Minster Office Book) 108, 109 British Library MS Harley 603 (Harley Psalter) 109, 110, 111, 113 British Library MS Harley 2820 80 British Library MS Harley 2889 (Siegburg Lectionary) 119 Lambeth Palace Library MS 3 (Lambeth Bible) 102, 103, 118-19, 150, 151; see also Bibles Lord’s Prayer 40, 43 Louis VI 27n48 Luke, Evangelist 37, 134, 171

commentaries on 175 see also Gospel of Luke, iconography lust 27 Maccabees, Book of 65n18, 72-74, 199 Magnificat 172-74, 202 Manchester John Rylands University Library MS 9 146, 148 Mancia, Lauren 183-85 mandorlas 110-13 Marcella and Principia 76, 80, 94 margins 36, 42, 119, 164; see also notations Marienbrunn see nunneries Mark, Evangelist 145-46; see also Gospel of Mark, iconography martyrologies 42n9 martyrs 76, 89, 202-04 Mary see Virgin Mary Mass chant books 31; see also graduals, liturgy Massacre of the Innocents 178 Masses 21, 101 Matins see liturgy Matthew, Evangelist see Gospel of Matthew, iconography Maximus of Turin 186 Sermon 7 for Epiphany 92 sermons 52, 92 meals 82, 168-69, 180 meditations 17-19, 26, 30, 32, 50, 60-61, 96, 134, 142, 152, 178, 186 Melchisidech 117, 119 melismas 40, 54 melodies 29, 39, 40, 43, 45, 189, 193 memory 28-31, 47, 65, 124, 128, 143, 152, 193 liturgical 31 memorization 13, 29-31, 40, 50, 60-61, 126, 133 power of 14, 139 Messiah 44, 97, 201 Metz 47 antiphonal 42-43, 127 Milan Ambrosian hymnal 42-43 milk 125, 130-32, 141 and honey 96-98 miracles 118n53, 121, 123-24, 131, 135, 170, 191 missals 30, 42n9 Molesme 21, 27, 43, 60, 72-73, 123, 127, 156, 202 breviary 72 Night Office 72 Robert see Robert of Molesme sanctoral 123 see also choir(s) Monarchian prologue 144, 146, 149, 154, 170-71 monochrome 21, 24, 38 Montecassino 42, 178 Morimond 45

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Moscow Historical Museum MS D 129 (Chludov Psalter) 108n25 Moses and the Burning Bush 55-56, 120-25, 134; see also iconography mouths 19, 35, 37, 50-51, 55, 84, 87, 97, 122n66, 129, 142, 145-88 Moralia in Job see Gregory the Great music 38 musical notation 44n20, 54 musical settings 46-47, 61 musical symbolism 29, 61, 117, 149n17 myrrh see incense Mysterium ecclesiae 123-24 and n72 mysticism 21 Nativity see Christ, Virgin Mary Nativity of John the Baptist 172, 175 Nebuchadnezzar 27n48 Neon, Bishop triclinium 180-81 New Monastery see Cîteaux New York Pierpont Morgan Library M.574 122n66 Pierpont Morgan Library M.612 122n66 neumes 30, 46, 193 Night Office (Matins) 40-44, 46, 51, 59-62, 130, 134, 142, 167, 175, 191-92, 194 Advent 39, 45, 52 Annunciation 175 Molesme 72 see also lectionaries, liturgy, Cîteaux nocturns 40-41, 46-57, 60-61 and n7, 62, 72-73, 92, 96, 99, 102, 107, 115, 120-28, 137, 175, 185-90, 195-97, 200, 203 Nones see liturgy Normandy 149, 183 notations marginal 67, 70, 89 musical 44n20, 54 nourishment 141, 169, 179-80, 190 novices 47, 59 nunneries 80n53 Admont 30 Helfta 191 La Paraclete 43 Le Tart 76-80 Marienbrunn 192 Rulle 31 nuns 17, 31-32, 43, 45n22, 94, 129, 192 Odo of Cluny 180 odor 20, 127 Odorannus of Sens 50 Office(s) 17, 29, 31, 41-48, 60, 71, 93-94, 143, 169, 172-73, 193 Advent 36, 39, 44n17, 45, 96 Annunciation 175 Benedictine 21 Christmas 36, 92

Cîteaux 37, 45, 51, 71 for the dead 43 Nativity 93, 127 Nativity of the Virgin Mary 127-29 Trinity 108 see also liturgy, Night Office Oliver, Judith 31, 192 orbs 111, 176 ordo librorum 46, 168 Origen 19 homilies 120, 125 sermons 122 ornament 40, 56-57, 81, 99, 154, 157, 159-65 orthodoxy 181-88 Osnabrück Diözesanarchiv Inf. No. Ma 101 (Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock) 31 Oursel, Charles 24, 184 Palazzo, Eric 189 palms 38, 76, 89 Parasceve see Good Friday Paris Bibliothèque Mazarine MS 1 155 Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 943 (Sherborne Pontifical) 155 Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 1684 183 Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 2079 183 Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 8850 (Gospels of Saint Médard of Soissons) 149 Bibliothèque nationale de France MS nouv. acq. lat. 2202 45 Paschasius Radbertus 123 Cogitis me 129 Passion see Christ Patristics 13, 30, 44, 132 authors 19, 35, 74, 80, 102, 143, 150-52, 183 Church Fathers 15, 41, 73, 82, 130-32 exegesis 31 lections 30, 73 sermons 28 teachings 18 texts 22, 81, 93 traditions 15-16 patrons 62-63, 80 Paul, Apostle 86-89, 141-42, 152 Epistles 56, 87 see also iconography Paul the Deacon 42, 185 Paula 48, 62-63, 100; see also Eustochium Paulinus 74 Pentateuch 68, 71, 74, 198 Pentecost 45, 68-69, 167, 198-99 penitence 44 performances 189 liturgical 192

Index

vocal 29, 142, 192 Peter Abelard 43, 47 Peter the Venerable Adversus Judaeos 67 piety 138, 179n102 Prague University Library Vyšehrad MS XIV.A.13 (Coronation Gospels of King Vratislaus) 119 prayers 13, 17-18, 28-31, 36, 40, 63, 105, 116, 155, 162, 169, 193 prefigurations 36, 120-38 priests 13, 114, 171; see also Christ, priesthood of Primitive Cistercian Breviary see Berlin Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Lat. Oct. 402 Prologus monarchianus see Monarchian prologue prophecies 88, 118-19, 135, 186; see also Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah prophets 19-20, 48, 59, 62, 117, 129, 134-36, 144, 163, 167, 198-99 Minor Prophets 74, 76 see also Amos, Ezekiel, iconography, Isaiah, Jeremiah psalmody 13, 18, 39, 54, 57, 142, 190-91 Psalms 13, 18, 30, 34n70, 39-57, 59, 83, 94, 121-22, 133, 135, 141-42, 154-55, 159, 181, 190-93, 195-96 psalters 29, 42n9, 61n8, 81, 108-09, 113, 155, 157, 174, 183 Pseudo-Augustine 129, 137-38, 202-03 Pseudo-Chrysostom 96-97, 200 homily on Matthew 52, 97 Pseudo-Jerome 72, 95, 198-99 punctuation 28, 63 pyx 101, 111-14 Quadragesima 89 quaestio 15 quills 76, 146, 149 reader 13, 19, 32, 41-42, 59, 82, 88, 141, 144-45, 154, 159-60, 166, 179-80, 193; see also lector reading (act of) 15-16, 23, 26-29, 36, 39, 42, 82, 93, 100, 133, 141, 168, 179-80 chapter 82 communal 30, 34 directions 32, 71 oral 13-14, 94 refectory 29, 34, 62, 101, 139, 167-80, 189 rhetorical style 34 solitary 29-30 readings (liturgical) 14n4, 28, 39-42, 50, 61, 70, 72, 82, 114-16, 123, 139, 169-70, 186n131, 193, 201 Apocalypse 146 Gospel 52, 55, 59, 96-99, 116, 134, 201

227 homilies 13, 43 Isaiah 51, 56, 59-60, 96, 108 lection 30 Night Office 46, 62, 129, 176n90, 185 Patristics 13, 15, 52, 55, 59, 71, 73, 96, 120, 123, 129, 132, 137, 161 Psalms 43 Scripture 13, 15, 41, 43, 46-47 and n30, 62, 96, 168, 178, 184 refectory 13, 16, 23, 29-38, 41-42, 45, 55, 60-64, 71, 82, 101, 107, 114, 124, 139, 143, 167-70, 176-80, 189, 193 reformers 43, 70, 94, 127, 131 reforms 16, 20, 25, 28, 65, 131; see also liturgy refrains 40, 47, 49-53, 93, 95, 97-98, 115-16, 119, 166, 188 regalia 102, 122 Remigius of Auxerre 177 Resurrection see Christ Robert of Molesme 21, 43, 60, 157 rod 96-107, 115-18, 122-25, 134-36, 200 Romanini, Angiola Maria 24 Rome 41, 87, 178n101 Rosenwein, Barbara 14 rotuli see speech scrolls Rouen Bibliothèque municipale MS 498 149n17 royalty 26, 105; see also kings rubrics 32-33, 44n20, 73, 92, 101, 115, 121, 124 Rudolph, Conrad 25-26, 36-38, 83, 160-66 Rudy, Gordon 19-20 Rufinus 88 Rulle see nunneries rumination 15, 36, 133 sacrifice 108-18, 138 sacristans 42 saints 41, 43-44, 141, 192 Saint-Bénigne 105, 178; see also Dijon Bibliothèque municipale MS 2 Saint-Bertin 171 Saint-Denis 36, 102, 118-19 Saint Fortunatus 180 Saint-Martin-des-Champs 67 Saint-Vaast see Arras Mediathèque MS 559 Saint-Wandrille 183 salvation 92, 98, 113n36, 117, 126-37 San Paolo Fuori le Mura 178n101 sanctoral see lectionaries scents 163, 191; see also odor scepters 102, 174 scholasticism 20 Schönau 45 scribes 22, 30-33, 46, 54, 62, 70, 72-74, 81-82, 89, 100, 152, 154, 160, 166-67n59 scriptorium 17, 21-26, 30, 32, 35-38, 62, 64, 74, 81, 83, 99-100, 132, 135, 143, 149-56, 159, 182 sculpture 44 Second Coming see Christ

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The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in T welfth- Century France

Second Style 22, 35, 38, 83, 100, 121 Sées Archives diocésaines MS 5 149 senses 16-20, 37, 181, 184, 189-92; see also hearing, sight, taste, touch Septuagesima 71-73, 198-99 Septuagint (Septuaginta) 63, 68, 88, 199 Sermo Caillau-Saint Yves 117, 201 sermons 18, 28, 31, 73, 93, 101, 116-19, 127, 129, 137-38, 175n87, 186; see also Bede, Bernard of Clairvaux, Fulbert of Chartres, Jerome, Maximus of Turin, Origen, Stephen Harding Sherborne 27n49, 154-55 shepherds 92, 94 sight 19-20, 164, 190, 192 sinfulness 51, 190 singing 13, 16, 18, 29-30, 34, 39, 41, 60, 93, 127, 133, 141-43, 185, 191-92 singers 35, 40, 141, 192 sinners 34 sins 27, 37, 129, 137, 144, 169, 176-81 Sirach 167, 200 Smalley, Beryl 66 Solomon 27n48, 59, 72, 87, 107 Song of Songs 32, 36, 112n32, 130, 165 sound 36, 40, 56, 66, 117, 145, 189, 194 speaking 16-18, 37, 50, 87, 143, 167, 171-72, 185, 189-90 speech 35, 48, 59-63, 67-70, 87, 145, 162, 166, 175n87, 178 speech scrolls 31, 92, 107, 150, 184 bandaroles 31 rotuli 30-31, 37, 102, 110, 145-46, 181-87 Sponsa and Sponsus 32, 112n32; see also Bride, Bridegroom St. Arnould 47 St. Benedict 24, 40-44, 101, 179-80; see also Benedictine Rule St. Peter’s see Vatican City stained glass 44, 102, 118-19, 122 Stephen Harding 21, 24, 27-29, 35, 42, 46, 60-80, 87, 99, 143, 154, 189 as translator and editor 20, 64-76, 88, 94, 100 Monitum 65-70, 189 iconography 174 sermons 160 see also Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale MSS 12-15 Stock, Brian 14 Subiaco 42 sustenance see nourishment swords 56, 165-66, 185 symbolism 29, 114, 139, 156, 165 Synagoga 33-34 Talmud 67 taste (sense) 16, 18-20, 114, 141, 189 teaching (action) 63, 94

teachings (spiritual) 18, 130 temptation 82-84, 161, 166, 179, 183 Tertullian 13 tetramorph 154 Theodulph 144; see also Bibles theology Marian 132-33 Trinitarian 107-08, 117 Theophilus of Adana 124 Theotokos 122, 128 Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace 121-22, 125, 174n84; see also iconography throne 108, 115 tituli 30-31, 92-93, 102, 107, 122, 171 tongues 51, 55, 68, 86, 165-67 tonic accents 28, 62, 82 tonsure 37, 74, 76, 183 touch (sense) 20, 59, 86, 190 translations 128, 145; see also Jerome, Stephen Harding translators 69, 72, 116; see also Jerome, Stephen Harding transmission 57, 87, 89, 145 oral 36, 70, 146 Tree of Jesse see iconography Trinity 108, 110, 116-17, 182, 187, 198 Trivellone, Alessia 26-27, 75-76, 80, 184-85 Troyes Bibliothèque municipale MS 302 101n17 Bibliothèque municipale MS 394 45 Bibliothèque municipale MS 807 72 Bibliothèque municipale MS 869 45 truth 19-20, 65-66, 142, 187 Tully 59 uncials 146, 159 unction 20 universities 29 Utrecht Universiteitsbibliothek MS 31 (Utrecht Psalter) 108-09 Valenciennes Bibliothèque municipale MS 114 188n140 Vannugli, Antonio 24 Vatican City Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal. Lat. 559 46 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal. Lat. 562 46 St. Peter’s 41 Vauclair 32 Verdun Bibliothèque municipale MS 43 150n20 Saint-Vanne 150n20 versals 60 verses (responsory) 33-34, 40, 47-57, 59, 96-97, 105, 115, 149, 153, 166, 180, 186-88

Index

versicles 40, 45-46, 53, 96-97, 99, 102, 107, 124, 127, 173, 195-96, 200, 203-04 Vespers 123, 126, 173, 175 vessels 101, 105, 112-13, 122, 169 Eucharistic 101, 111-14 liturgical 108 Mary as 137 see also pyx Vigils 41, 46, 72, 191, 193 Christmas 120-21 Nativity 122 vine(s) 36, 84, 102, 105, 122, 125, 157, 162-64 violence 160 virgins 54, 76, 100, 123, 202-04 Virgin Mary 17, 35-36, 43, 44-45, 51-52, 54, 95-139, 170-71, 197 Annunciation to the Virgin 37, 129, 171-77, 180, 196, 202-03 Bride 130 chastity 129 enthroned 110, 122 galaktotrophousa 122, 128 genealogy of the Virgin 36, 130, 135, 138 genitrix dei 128, 136, 187 Eleousa (Virgin of Tenderness) 101, 111, 128 intercessor 135-37 Marian devotion 95, 127 Nativity of the Virgin 36, 96, 123, 127-33, 137-39 origins/conception 119, 126, 130 relics 123 role in the Incarnation 115 role in salvation 130 Theotokos 122, 128 Tree of Life 136

229 Virgin and Child 101, 105, 109, 111-12, 118, 122 virgin birth 92, 96-97, 114, 120, 134 virgo lactans 36, 96, 122, 125-30 Visitation 119, 172, 175-76 see also iconography virtue 20, 117, 123 virtues 36 Visitation 119, 172, 175-76 visions 20, 51, 113, 191-92 vitae 41, 80 voice(s) 19, 28, 35, 37, 50, 56, 61, 65, 73, 142, 144-46, 154, 165, 170, 176-78, 180 Vulgate Bible see Bibles Waddell, Chrysogonus 25n39, 32, 45-46, 48, 72-73, 132, 168, 193 Walafrid Strabo 198 prologue to Apocalypse 72 prologue to Wisdom 72 Westmalle Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk MS 12A-B (Westmalle Antiphonary) 46, 53-54 Westminster 130 William Durandus 130 William of Champeaux 133 William of Saint-Theirry, abbot 185, 190 wine 113, 162 Wisdom, Book of 65n18, 72, 156, 165-67, 198 workshops 83, 150 Cîteaux 24, 74, 87, 159 see also scriptorium Zaluska, Yolanta 24-25, 80-83, 100-02, 124, 159-60, 178, 181-82 Zechariah 37, 170-78