Creating The Monastic Past in Medieval Fla - Karine Uge

Creating the Monastic Past in
Medieval Flanders
The creation of a past for themselves was of pressing importance to reli-

gious communities, enabling them to increase their status and legitimise
their existence. This book examines the process in a group of communi-
ties from the southern part of Flanders [the monks of Saint-Bertin at
Saint-Omer, the community of Saint-Rictrude at Marchiennes and the
canons of Saint-Amé at Douai] over a period running from the ninth to
the end of the eleventh century. The central contention is that the
communities produced their narratives [history, hagiography, charter
materials] for a specific time and purpose, frequently as a response to or
intended resolution of internal or external crises. The book also discusses
how the circumstances which triggered narrative production had an
impact not only on the content but also on the form of the texts.
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
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Creating the Monastic Past in
Medieval Flanders
Karine Ugé
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

© Karine Ugé 2005
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
Maps xi
Genealogies xiii
Introduction 1
Part I. Saint-Bertin 17
1 Saint-Bertin from the Foundation to the Eleventh Century 19
2 Cultural Life at Saint-Bertin 37
3 Narrative Production at Saint-Bertin 50
Part II. The Hagiographic Cycle of St Rictrude 95
4 St Rictrude, her Family and the Abbey of Marchiennes (c. 640–1130) 97
5 St Maurontus and St Amatus at Douai 142
Conclusion 162
Bibliography 173
Index 193
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The debt that I have accumulated in the course of this work is immense. First
and foremost, I must express gratitude to my thesis advisor at Boston
College, Robin Fleming. Her impeccable scholarship and the friendly and
intellectually stimulating environment that she cultivated in her seminars
have continuously motivated my desire to pursue this research and broaden
its scope. Since my graduation, she has continuously encouraged me to
publish and improve the book. This project could not have been completed
without the acuity of her advice, her enthusiasm and her endless patience in
correcting my English.
Mark Ormrod, for York Medieval Press, and Caroline Palmer, of Boydell &
Brewer, have trusted my project and greatly helped me to complete this book
with their patience and kind advice. Elisabeth van Houts has encouraged me,
offered me invaluable advice and kindly shared her most recent research
with me. Dean Michael Smyer, Dean of Boston College Graduate School of
Arts and Sciences, generously offered me the grant that made this publication
possible; my gratitude to Michael Smyer is immense. During my graduate
studies, grants from the Bibliographical Society of America and Boston
College allowed me to do research in libraries in France and Belgium. I have
benefited there from the kind offices of Madame Seguin, at the Bibliothèque
Municipale de Boulogne sur Mer, and Madame Le Maner, at the Bibliothèque
Municipale de Saint-Omer.
On both sides of the Atlantic, I have received support and advice from a
great number of scholars. Janet Nelson has made extremely useful comments
on my work and has warmly encouraged me in my path of research. I am
grateful to Alain Dierkens, Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, Anne-Marie Helvétius,
Chris Lewis and Diane Reilly for giving me invaluable opportunities to
present and publish my work. I also wish to thank Professor Laurent Morelle,
who has kindly given me access to his unpublished Thèse d’Habilitation.
In the long and sometimes arduous path of writing a book, my friends and
family have been an invaluable asset. Sharing, almost daily, the joys and
angst of this process with my friends and fellow medievalists Christine
Senecal and Nathalie Stalmans has been a wonderful encouragement. I must
thank my family, whose members have endured years of endless stories
about Flemish monks. My parents, Claire and Robert Ugé, have always
encouraged me and provided me with their warm support. My husband,
Benoit Gerard has patiently read and commented on many a draft. This book
is dedicated to him and our beloved daughters Elisabeth and Alexandra.
vii
ABBREVIATIONS
AA SS Acta Sanctorum
ASB Acta Sanctorum Belgii, ed. J. Ghespuiere (Brussels, 1783–1794),
6 vols
Anal. Boll. Analecta Bollandiana
BAR British Archaeological Series
BCRH Bulletin de la Commission Royale d’Histoire
BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1898–1901), 2
vols
BL British Library, London
BN Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
BSM Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque Municipale
BSAM Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de la Morinie
CLA Codices Latini Antiquiores. A Paleographical Guide to Latin
Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century, ed. E. A. Lowe, 11 vols.
(Oxford, 1934–1966)
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
Diplomata Diplomata Belgica ante annum millesimum centesimum scripta,
Belgica ed. Gysseling and A. C. F. Koch, vol. I, Teksten (Brussels,
1950)
DHGE Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris,
1912– )
KBR Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
SRG Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum
SRM Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum
SS Scriptores
MSAM Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Morinie
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne
(Paris, 1841–1864)
Poet. Lat. Poetae Latini Medii Aevi
RB Revue Bénédictine
RBPH Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire
RHE Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique
RHEF Revue d’Histoire de l’Église de France
RN Revue du Nord
Settimane Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto
Medioevo
S-O Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque Municipale
ix
Abbreviations
VA1, VA2, VA3 Vita S. Audomari Prima, Altera and Tertia

VAL Hucbald, Vita Amati Episcopi Longior
VAm Vita Amandi Episcopi Prima
VB1, VB2, VB3 Vita S. Bertini Prima and Altera; Folcard, Vita Tertia S. Bertini
VE Vita Eusebiae
VM Vita Mauronti
VR Hucbald, Vita S. Rictrudis
VW1 Vita S. Winnoci Prima
x
xi
Map 1. The Flemish Pagi, ca. 900
Map 2. The County of Flanders, ca. 1100
xii
The comital family of Flanders (ninth–twelfth century)
Counts of Flanders appear in bold
xiii
The comital family of Boulogne (ninth–twelfth century)
Counts of Boulogne appear in bold
xiv
Rictrude’s kin according to the studied sources
Names in Bold: earliest tradition found in Hucbald’s Vita Rictrudis (907)

Underlined names: additions developed in the late eleventh century at Douai
Names in italic: additions by Andrew of Marchiennes, Historia Succinta (twelfth
century)
xv
INTRODUCTION
This book examines the processes through which monastic communities

created a usable past for themselves. The central issue is that communities
did not produce historical narratives fortuitously, but rather that they did so
under specific circumstances and that the writing of a text often served as a
catalyst for the resolution of internal or external crises. This ‘utilitarian’
dimension of historiography implies that, in the course of events, communi-
ties kept adapting old accounts of their past in a way that fitted their present
needs. To illustrate my subject, I have chosen to study historical narratives
produced between the ninth and the eleventh centuries by the communities
of Saint-Bertin at Saint-Omer and Saint-Rictrude at Marchiennes, both located
in the southern part of the county of Flanders. I will first provide a brief over-
view of the geographical and historical context and then I will outline the
theoretical framework on which the arguments of the book are based.
Saint-Bertin was founded in the middle of the seventh century by St Omer,
bishop of Thérouanne, in the context of King Dagobert’s efforts to assert his
authority in Neustria. It soon grew into an important religious and economic
centre in the region and can be counted among the most prestigious monas-
teries that were patronized by the Carolingian kings and, later, by the counts
of Flanders. Marchiennes was founded around 640 by St Amand during his
mission in the region of the river Scarpe; it was located on the Scarpe, a few
miles away from Saint-Amand. The double monastery seems to have been
fairly prosperous in the ninth century, but decayed during the tenth. It was
restored in 1024 as a male Benedictine community by a disciple of reformer
Richard of Saint-Vanne under the impetus of Count Baldwin IV and Bishop
Gerard of Cambrai.
Both communities were located in the southern part of the county of Flan-
ders. Flanders, considering its most extensive boundaries, consisted of the
pagi of Waas, Aardenburg, Flanders, Yser, Ghent, Courtrai, Mempisc and
Tournai to the north and to the east, and of Boulonais, Ternois (region of
Thérouanne), Melantois (region of Lille), Pévèle, Ostrevant (region of Douai)
and Artois (region of Arras) to the south. In terms of ecclesiastical organiza-
tion the county encompassed the bishoprics of Thérouanne, Noyon-Tournai,
and Cambrai-Arras: an important part of the archibishopric of Reims.1 In the
1 On the formation and history of the county of Flanders, see most recently, H. J.
Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and
England, c. 879–1160 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 21–7; D. Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London,
1992), pp. 39–55 and A. C. F. Koch, ‘Het Graafschap Vlaanderen van de 9de eeuw tot
1
Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders
Merovingian period, Flanders was controlled by the Neustrian kings and,

after the division of the Frankish Empire by Louis the Pious’ sons in 843, it
made up the northern part of Charles the Bald’s West Frankish kingdom. The
formation of the county was the result of the progressive concentration of
these pagi into the hands of one comes during the ninth century. The forefather
of the Flemish lineage was Baldwin Ironarm, who originally controlled only
two pagi – Ghent and Waas – of the future county of Flanders. In 864, thanks
to Charles’ acknowledgment of Baldwin’s marriage to his daughter Judith,
Baldwin was also entrusted with Ternois and Flanders (and the lay abbacy of
Saint-Peter at Ghent).2 Baldwin Ironarm’s title was not hereditary, and the
pagi that he controlled were not yet perceived as a territorial unit. His son,
Baldwin II (879–918), had to seize power in each of the pagi he once
controlled. Baldwin II quickly regained Flanders, Mempisc, Ghent, Waas and
Courtrai.3 In the south, his expansion was limited by the powerful family of
Eberhard of Friuli. Indeed, in 883, West Frankish king Carloman (d. 884) had
created a marcher region covering Artois and Ternois and entrusted it to
Eberhard’s son, Ralph.4 Ralph’s grandfather, Unroch – Eberhard’s father –
was already known as count of Ternois in the first half of the ninth century.
Ralph’s sister, Helwich, was married to the count of Ostrevant, Hucbald.
Ralph’s uncle, Adalard, had been abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint-Amand.
Furthermore, Ralph was Charles the Bald’s nephew through his mother
Gisela – so he was also related to Baldwin II.5 Hence, Ralph, who was also lay
1070’, in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (Utrecht, 1982), pp. 354–83; a useful
overview running up to the time of Arnulf the Great is found in R. McKitterick, The
Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians (London, 1983), pp. 248–54. See also J.
Dhondt, Études sur la naissance des principautés territoriales (Bruges, 1948); J. Dhondt,
Les Origines de la Flandre et de l’Artois (Arras, 1944); F.-L. Ganshof, La Flandre sous les
premiers comtes (Brussels, 1944) and L. Vanderkindere, La Formation territoriale des
principautés belges au moyen âge, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1902) I.
2 McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms, p. 249; on Ghent and its two abbeys, Saint-Peter
and Saint-Bavo, see G. Declercq, ‘Heiligen, lekenabten en hervormers: De Gentse
abdijen van Sint-Pieters en Sint-Baafs tijdens de Eerste Middeleeuw (7de–12de
eeuw)’, in Ganda en Blandinium. De Gentse Abdijen van Sint-Pieters en Sint-Baafs, ed. G.
Declercq (Ghent, 1997), pp. 13–40 and G. Declercq and A. Verhulst, ‘Early Medieval
Ghent between Two Abbeys and the Count’s Castle’, in Ghent: In Defense of a Rebel-
lious City, ed. J. Decavele (Antwerp, 1989), pp. 37–59; see also A. C. F. Koch, ‘Gent in
de 9de en 10de eeuw. Enkele benaderingen’, Stadsarcheologie. Bodem en Monument in
Gent 14 (1990), 3–43.
3 Ganshof, La Flandre, p. 18.
4 McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms, p. 250.
5 On the family of Eberhard of Friuli, see E. Favre, ‘La famille d’Évrard marquis de
Frioul dans le royaume Franc de l’Ouest’, in Études d’histoire du moyen âge dédiées à
Gabriel Monod (Paris, 1896), pp. 155–62; Ph. Grierson, ‘La maison d’Évrard de Frioul
et les origines du comté de Flandre’, Revue du Nord 24 (1938), 241–66 and J. Dhondt,
‘Une dynastie inconnue de comtes d’Ostrevant’, in Miscellanea Historica in Honorem
Leonis van der Essen (Brussels, 1947), pp. 177–87.
2
Introduction
abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint-Vaast at Arras, constituted a powerful

obstacle to Baldwin’s ambitions in the south. It should come as no surprise
that Baldwin took advantage of Ralph’s death in 892 to progressively, if ruth-
lessly, take control of Ternois, Artois and Vermandois. In 900, Baldwin II
became the first lay abbot of Saint-Bertin.6
Like his father, Baldwin II made a prestigious alliance by marrying a
daughter of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred, Ælfthryth, probably in 883.
Although Baldwin had not been able to keep all the territories he had
conquered (he lost Artois and Vermandois), his power over his county was
such that, at his death in 918, he could pass it on to his two sons, Arnulf
(918–965) and Adalulf (918–933). The elder of Baldwin II’s sons, Arnulf, later
known as ‘the Great’, received the northern pagi, the historical core of the
county. His younger brother, Adalulf, received Ternois, Boulonais and the
lay abbacy of Saint-Bertin. Arnulf pushed the limits of his county southward
to its ‘natural’ borders: the Scarpe and the Canche. In 932, he took
Saint-Vaast, and the next year he succeeded his brother in Boulonais and
Ternois, disregarding the legitimate claims of his two nephews, Baldwin and
Arnulf. By 941, the conquest of Ostrevant no longer posed a problem because
no strong local power countered him there; Arnulf easily conquered southern
Ostrevant along with Douai. Finally, from 952 onwards, his control over
northern Ostrevant was asserted.7
Arnulf’s son, Baldwin III, died before his father, leaving an under-age son,
Arnulf II (976–988). The succession was disputed, and Arnulf I requested the
help of King Lothar IV (941–986); he offered the king Artois, Ostrevant and
Ponthieu in exchange for the young Arnulf’s protection. Furthermore, Arnulf
had to bestow Boulonais and Ternois to their legitimate heir, his nephew
Arnulf, the son of Adalulf.8 Notwithstanding the king’s protection, when
Arnulf II eventually became count in 976, his position had considerably
weakened and he had lost control over Boulonais, Ternois, Waas and Ghent.9
At his death in 988, he left his son Baldwin IV a county which was still
politically frail and had diminished territorially – although Arnulf II had
recovered Arras and the monastery of Saint-Vaast. Baldwin eventually
regained control over the northern part of Ternois, including Saint-Omer. The
southern part of Ternois, which would become the county of Saint-Pol, and
6 Tanner, Families, pp. 24–8.

7 For Arnulf’s conquest of Ostrevant, see Tanner, Families, pp. 32–8; see also E.
Delcambre, ‘L’Ostrevant du IXe au XIIIe siècle’, Le Moyen Âge 28 (1927), 241–79 and
Dhondt, ‘Une dynastie inconnue’.
8 Koch, ‘Het Graafschap Vlaanderen’, p. 369. Arnulf II’s reign is traditionally consid-
ered as a disastrous period for Flanders; more recently, J. Dunbabin, ‘The Reign of
Arnulf II, Count of Flanders, and its Aftermath’, Francia 16 (1989), 53–65, has chal-
lenged this interpretation and proposed a more positive view of the period as a time
of consolidation.
9 Tanner, Families, pp. 39–40.
3
Boulonais, however, remained out of the counts of Flanders’ direct control

and were left under the authority of the successors of Arnulf the Great’s late
brother, Adalulf. Baldwin IV also slightly expanded his territory east of the
Scheldt. It is clear, therefore, that by the time of Baldwin IV, the attention of
the counts of Flanders was focused on the northern part of the county and
that the southern pagi were relatively isolated from the centres of political
decision. Hence the state of the southern pagi would remain unchanged, apart
from the situation of Ostrevant.10 Ostrevant and its main city, Douai, had
been taken over by Arnulf the Great after 943 and remained under his control
until his death in 965. During Arnulf II’s childhood, the region was controlled
by Lothar IV, but it was returned to Arnulf in 988, after the Capetian take-
over. Ostrevant, which was located on the border with the county of
Hainault, remained Flemish until the battle of Cassel (1072), after which it
came under the authority of the counts of Hainault.11
The counts’ involvement in religious matters was strong and constant. As
far as the production of historical narrative at Saint-Bertin and Marchiennes
is concerned, two measures were of peculiar importance: the Benedictine
restoration imposed upon Saint-Bertin by Arnulf the Great and reformer
Gerard of Brogne in the mid-tenth century on the one hand and, on the other
hand, another Benedictine movement commanded by Baldwin IV, Gerard
bishop of Cambrai and reformer Richard of Saint-Vanne, which led to the
reformation of both Saint-Bertin and Marchiennes in the 1020s.
Arnulf the Great always took care to reinforce his authority and prestige
by asserting his control over local monasteries. Saint-Peter’s Ghent fell into
his hands with his inheritance in 918. Upon his re-conquest of Artois in 932,
he claimed the lay abbacy of Saint-Vaast. At his brother’s death in 933, he
took over Ternois and Boulonais, as well as the abbacy of Saint-Bertin; his
gradual conquest of Ostrevant led him to control Saint-Amand, where he
nominated the new abbot in 952. With the assistance of his friend and ally
Gerard of Brogne, he undertook a sweeping movement of Benedictine revival
in his monasteries. The Carolingian legislation of 816–817 was meant to draw
a clear distinction between the religious practice of canons and monks, the
latter of whom were to follow the Benedictine Rule. The effects of this reform
were short-lived, however, and by the tenth century, most monasteries were
no longer Benedictine stricto sensu – and in actual fact, it is unclear that they
had ever been. The goal of Gerard of Brogne’s restoration movement, which
spread in Lotharingia and Flanders thanks to Duke Gislebert and Count
Arnulf’s assistance, was the (re)establishment of the Rule. The specificity of
Gerard’s reform eludes investigation because no customal from his restored
abbeys has survived. In any case, the forceful opposition that Gerard often
10 Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, pp. 45–9.

11 Delcambre, ‘L’Ostrevant’, pp. 259–60.
4
Introduction
met suggests that the observance of the rule that he wished to impose was
fairly severe. Gerard started his religious career by founding a monastic
community on his patrimonial land of Brogne in 921.12 In 931, following the
inventio of St Ghislain’s relics, he was called by Duke Gislebert to ‘restore’ the
abbey of Saint-Ghislain.13 Arnulf and Gerard had probably met in the
920s–930s since both men were connected with the emerging Robertians.14 In
941, Arnulf entrusted Gerard with the abbacy and the reform of Saint-Peter at
Ghent. Besides the re-establishment of the Benedictine Rule, the restoration
involved the restitution of lands which Arnulf had seized for his own profit.
He did not give back everything though – only the lands needed by the
community to maintain a proper standard of living. Furthermore, in blatant
contradiction to the Rule, the count-abbot maintained his right to approve the
regularly elected abbot.15 In 942, Gerard undertook the reform of Saint-
Bavo.16 Once the Ghent abbeys were put on the track of reform, Arnulf sent
Gerard on a similar mission to Saint-Bertin, where he remained abbot until
947. Absorbed by his duties at Ghent, Gerard attempted to entrust
Saint-Bertin’s abbacy to his nephew Wido, but the young man did not share
his uncle’s pious aspirations, and he was soon removed from his post.
Saint-Bertin was then ruled by Womar, a monk from Ghent, until Arnulf gave
the abbacy to his own nephew, Hildebrand, in 950.17 Hildebrand’s reform
was apparently successful and, in 953, Arnulf sent him to restore the abbey of
Saint-Vaast.18 In 948, as soon as he controlled Saint-Riquier, Arnulf nomi-
nated Fulchar, a disciple of Gerard, to restore the community to the Benedic-
12 On Gerard of Brogne, see D. Misonne, ‘La restauration monastique de Gérard de

Brogne’, in Naissance et fonctionnement des réseaux monastiques et canoniaux. Actes du
premier colloque international du C.E.R.C.O.M., Saint-Étienne, 16–18 septembre 1985
(Saint-Étienne, 1991), pp. 117–23 and A. Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres entre Sambre et
Meuse (VIIe–XIe siècle). Contribution à l’histoire religieuse des campagnes du haut moyen
âge, Beihefte der Francia 14 (Sigmaringen, 1985), pp. 220–47; see also Saint Gérard de
Brogne et son oeuvre réformatrice. Études publiées à l’occasion du millénaire de sa mort
(959–1959), RB 70 (1960); on Arnulf and Gerard’s restorations at Ghent, see W. Mohr,
Studien zur Klosterreform des Grafen Arnulf I von Flandern: Tradition und Wirklichkeit in
der Geschichte der Amandus-Kloster, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 22 (Louvain, 1992).
13 On the foundation of Saint-Ghislain, see A.-M. Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques.
Une politique du pouvoir en Hainaut au moyen âge (VIIe–XIe siècle) (Brussels, 1994), pp.
213–34.
14 Gerard was reputed to have have miraculously cured Arnulf from a kidney stone: on
this episode, see A. C. F. Koch, ‘Gérard de Brogne et la maladie du comte Arnould Ier
de Flandre’, RB 70 (1960), 119–26.
15 Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, p. 234.
16 Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, pp. 236–7.
17 Folcuin, Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 13 (Hanover,
1881), pp. 607–35 (c. 107, pp. 628–9); see also Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, pp. 238–9.
18 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 109, pp. 630–1.
5
tine Rule.19 Finally, thanks to his full mastering of Ostrevant, Arnulf took
control of Saint-Amand, which he restored in 952.20
In the short term, the count’s strategy appears to have been beneficial to
both the count and the monks. The restored monasteries were given regular
abbots, but the count remained in control of the nominations. Seized lands
were given back to their legitimate owners, but Arnulf did not feel compelled
to give more than was necessary for the communities’ survival. It would soon
appear, however, that this sweeping reform movement, which had restored
the Benedictine Rule throughout Flanders in exactly a decade, was
short-lived. Paradoxically, the reason for its success, the count of Flanders’
unfaltering support, was also its main weakness. The reactions of the commu-
nities to Gerard and Arnulf’s intervention, especially at Saint-Bertin, clearly
show that the reform was imposed by force from the top, and was not desired
by a majority of the monks.21 Its promoters were a very small circle of people,
closely related to Arnulf and Gerard, who were not able to attract a broad
base of followers. In these conditions, the movement was unlikely survive its
patrons. Gerard’s restorations were too dependent on secular support to
survive Arulf’s death and his successors’ political setbacks. The rapid decay
of Gerard’s Benedictine revival was not limited to Flanders. Alain Dierkens
has shown that by the end of the tenth century Gerard’s own community of
Brogne had already forgotten his reforming action. In this respect, it is signifi-
cant that Gerard’s vita was not written before 1074–1075.22 The fruits of
Gerard of Brogne’s and Arnulf the Great’s reform movement were so meagre
that half a century later, all the monasteries of the county had, once again, to
be restored to Benedictine observance.
Baldwin IV re-conquered northern Ternois, including Saint-Bertin, and
even slightly expanded the Flemish border east of the Scheldt; furthermore,
he laid the foundation for an increasingly centralized Flemish administra-
tion.23 In this scheme, Baldwin’s intervention in ecclesiastical affairs, espe-
cially his relations with the bishopric of Cambrai, played an important part.24
First of all, he tried, to no avail, to interfere with episcopal elections, and, with

21 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 107, pp. 628–9; some monks were so infuriated by Gerard’s inter-
vention, apparently over the issue of individual poverty, that they crossed the
Channel and took refuge in England, where King Æthelstan gave them the abbey of
Bath to restore.
22 On the long-term impact of Gerard’s reform at Brogne, see Dierkens, Abbayes et
chapitres, pp. 245–7.
23 Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, pp. 46–7.
24 On Baldwin IV’s ecclesiastical politics, see D. C. van Meter, ‘Count Baldwin IV,
Richard of Saint-Vanne, and the Inception of Monastic Reform in Eleventh-Century
Flanders’, RB 107 (1997), 130–48.
6
Introduction
more success, to promote the Peace of God.25 Like Arnulf I, Baldwin IV asso-
ciated himself with a monastic reformer, Richard of Saint-Vanne, in order to
revive the Benedictine Rule once again in Flemish monasteries.26
The series of monastic restorations undertaken by Baldwin and Richard in
Flanders cannot be dissociated from the movement of Benedictine revival
initiated throughout the bishopric of Cambrai-Arras by Bishop Erluin and
then by Bishop Gerard I.27 Gerard, future bishop of Cambrai, and Richard,
future abbot of Saint-Vanne at Verdun, had met at the cathedral school of
Reims, where both were probably taught by Gerbert of Aurillac, the future
Pope Sylvester II. Richard had started his career at Reims as a canon, and
became a Benedictine monk when he entered the monastery of Saint-Vanne,
where he became abbot in 1004. Richard’s reform movement was based on the
somewhat old-fashioned principle that monasteries should abide by their
bishop’s strict control, which explains the close collaboration between Richard
and bishops Erluin and Gerard. Richard also encouraged Gerard to take part
in the Peace of God movement.28 Soon after Richard’s election, Saint-Vanne
began to flourish.29 His success was so striking that, as early as 1008, Erluin of
Cambrai asked Richard to re-establish the Rule in the monastery of
Saint-Vaast at Arras, of which he was made abbot. Richard, who tried to
enforce strict Benedictine obedience, did not meet any more enthusiasm from
25 On the Peace movement in Flanders, see J.-F. Lemarignier, ‘Paix et réforme

monastique en Flandre et en Normandie autour de l’année 1023’, in Droit Privé et
institutions régionales. Études historiques offertes à Jean Yver (Paris, 1976), pp. 431–41
and G. Koziol, ‘Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flan-
ders’, in The Peace of God. Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the
Year 1000, ed. R. Landes (Ithaca, 1992), pp. 239–58 and, more recently, D. Barthélémy,
L’an mil et la paix de Dieu. La France Chrétienne et Féodale 980–1060 (Paris, 1999).
26 On Richard of Saint-Vanne, see F. G. Hirschmann, ‘Klosterreform und Grund-
herrschaft: Richard von St. Vanne’, in Grundherrschaft – Kirche – Stadt zwischen Maas
und Rhein während des Hohen Mittelalters, ed. A. Haverkamp and F. G. Hirschmann,
Trierer Historische Forschungen 37 (Mainz, 1997), pp. 125–70; see also H. Dauphin,
Le Bienheureux Richard, abbé de Saint-Vanne de Verdun († 1046), Bibliothèque de la
Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 24 (Louvain, 1946) and K. Hallinger, Gorze-Kluny.
Studien zu den monastischen Lebensformen und Gegensätzen in Hochmittelalter (Rome,
1950). The main sources on Richard of Saint-Vanne are the chronicle of Hugh of
Flavigny, former monk of Saint-Vanne: Chronicon Hugonis Monachi Virdunensis et
Divionensis, Abbatis Flaviniacensis, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS 8 (Hanover, 1848), pp.
280–502; and Richard’s vita: Vita Richardi Abbatis S. Vitoni Verdunensis, ed.W.
Wattenbach, MGH SS 11 (Hanover, 1854), pp. 280–9 (BHL 7220).
27 On Gerard of Cambrai, see E. van Mingroot, ‘Gérard de Cambrai’, in Dictionnaire
d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique 20 (1983), cols. 742–51; the main source on
Gerard’s life and action is the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, ed. L. C. Bethmann,
MGH SS 7 (Hanover, 1846), lib. III, pp. 465–89.
28 Van Mingroot, ‘Gérard de Cambrai’, col. 746; Dauphin, Le Bienheureux Richard, pp.
258–61.
29 On the role of the aristocracy in the success of Richard of Saint-Vanne, see
Hirschmann, ‘Klosterreform und Grundherrschaft’, pp. 131–5.
7
his reformed communities than Gerard of Brogne had met in his time. After
Saint-Vaast, Baldwin and Richard undertook the restoration of Saint-Amand,
of which Richard was abbot from 1013 to 1018, and in 1024, Marchiennes and
its priory of Hamage.30 Marchiennes was originally a mixed community, but it
had progressively become a nunnery. By the eleventh century, Marchiennes
had lost an important part of its landholding – as a result of the nuns’ inability
to defend their interests, according to the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium.
The reformers expelled the nuns, replaced them with Benedictine monks and
returned seized properties.31 In 1029, Baldwin gave Richard the abbacies of
Saint-Peter and Saint-Bavo at Ghent.32 Roderic, a disciple of Leduinus of
Saint-Vaast, became abbot of Saint-Bertin in 1021 and undertook the Benedic-
tine restoration of the monastery despite the community’s protests.33 In 1022,
Roderic restored Bergues-Saint-Winnoc, where the canons were replaced by
monks of Saint-Bertin.34
From a secular point of view, the monastic reform was certainly beneficial
to the monastic communities, thanks to the restitution of lands and the reno-
vation of buildings which accompanied the re-establishment of the Rule. The
effects of the reform were especially visible at Marchiennes. After the writing
by Hucbald of Saint-Amand of the vita of its patron saint, Rictrude, on the
community’s request in 907, the name of Marchiennes had almost completely
vanished from contemporary sources and the community had probably all
but disappeared by the time of its restoration. After Leduinus’s intervention,
Marchiennes flourished as a cultural, artistic and spiritual centre in the
twelfth century. In this case, however, the restoration in fact amounted to a
foundation, since the community settled by Leduinus was a completely new
one, presumably constituted of enthusiastic Benedictine monks. In the
monasteries where the ‘new’ monks brought in by Richard and his disciples
had to convert the ‘old’ monks, the implementation of the reform was more
problematic. The monks of Saint-Vaast tried to rid themselves of their new
abbot by cutting his throat, and the monks of Saint-Bertin were only slightly
less violent in their opposition to Roderic. His successor, Bovo, undertook the
re-building of the abbatial church, which was an important part of Richard’s
reform. By the end of the eleventh century, however, Abbot Lambert found
his community’s religious practice so lax that he tried to submit it to the
authority of Cluny.35
30 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, cc. 26–7, p. 461.

31 On Marchiennes, see below, Chapter 4.
32 Chronicon Hugonis, lib. II, c. 10, p. 377; Annales Blandinienses, ed. Ph. Grierson, in Les
Annales, a. 1029, p. 24, and a. 1032, p. 25.
33 On the circumstances that led Baldwin to instigate the reform of Saint-Bertin, see Van
Meter, ‘Count Baldwin IV’, pp. 143–8.
34 Simon, Gesta Abbatum S. Bertini Sithiensium, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 13
(Hanover, 1881), pp. 635–73 (cc. 1–9, pp. 636–8).
35 Below, Chapter 1.
8
Introduction
*
The central issue of this book, and the one which in some way embraces all
the other issues that will be addressed, is the processes through which
monastic communities created a usable past for themselves.36 Most of the
texts studied here were written in specific circumstances, which were often –
but not always – periods of crisis or upheaval. These moments of crisis, which
spurred on narrative production, were often due to conflicts of authority with
the local bishop, struggles over landholding with neighbours, disputes over
the possession of relics with other religious communities, attempts to reform
religious communities, and issues of prestige and spiritual supremacy.37
Putting quill to parchment was indeed, alongside the ceremonies meant to
assert the supernatural power of their patron saints, one of the most practi-
cable solutions available to monks and canons in conflicts with lay or ecclesi-
astical foes.38 But, as we shall see, narrative production was more than an
answer to external interventions: it was also one of the means through which
communities built a sense of their own identity as a group with a common
past and a common purpose. Writing, and sometimes rewriting, their own
past was for monastic communities a powerful tool of self-representation
which allowed them to gather around a commonly accepted version of their
history. This process strengthened a sense of identity for the group itself as
well as for its representation in the outside world.
The first example to be studied is Saint-Bertin (Sithiu). The community
possessed two main patron saints and shrines: St-Omer’s and St-Bertin’s. In
the ninth century, it was divided between a community of monks centred on
St Bertin’s shrine and a community of canons dedicated to St Omer. Nonethe-
less, Sithiu remained a single landholding unit and there was only one abbot,
who could be a monk or a canon. After Gerard of Brogne’s reform in the
mid-tenth century, monks and canons had their own abbot and the two
communities were more clearly separated. The separation – and the monks’
subsequent loss of control over St Omer’s cult – pitted the two communities
36 For the use of this expression, see P. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and
Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994), p.112 and G. Spiegel,
Romancing the Past: The Rise of the Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-
Century France (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993), pp. 1–2.
37 In her study of the development of Old French historiography, Gabriel Spiegel has
developed the idea that historiography was a powerful tool for redeeming lost
causes; see Romancing the Past, esp. pp. 1–10 and 315–19. For a specific, and
geographically close, example of narratives induced by situations of crisis and
conflict, see also S. Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval
Tours (Ithaca, 1991).
38 On the ways in which monks fought back against their enemies through text produc-
tion, see for example B. Rosenwein, T. Head and S. Farmer, ‘Monks and their
Enemies: A Comparative Approach’, Speculum 66 (1991), 764–96; T. Head, Hagiog-
raphy and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800–1200 (Cambridge, 1990), pp.
177–81 and 290–5.
9
against each other. The monks responded to the loss by producing an endless
series of vitae and forged charters with the sole purpose of re-inventing the
history, and particularly the foundation, of the abbey in their favour.
The second section of this book is devoted to the narrative cycle stemming
from Hucbald of Saint-Amand’s Vita Rictrudis, written at the beginning of the
tenth century for the double community of Marchiennes. Although Hucbald
says that no archives and ancient documents were available to him, he was
able to piece together a remarkably detailed narrative of Rictrude’s life and
the foundation of Marchiennes. Because it introduces a great number of
secondary characters, the Vita Rictrudis was a seminal text which from which
a great deal of other texts and legends could be created. Later authors appro-
priated the legend and adapted it to their needs. Hence, in the course of the
tenth and eleventh centuries, most of Rictrude’s children, who were saints in
their own right, were given their own vitae based on the Vita Rictrudis.
Furthermore, from the eleventh century onward, the core of the legend itself
was considerably altered in order to sacralize the community’s landholding
and to protect it from predatory lay neighbours. Finally, sometime in the
tenth century, the relics of Rictrude’s son, Maurontus, and their friend, St
Amatus, were translated to the chapter church of Douai. The translation of
the saints, who were originally part of the legend of Rictrude and
Marchiennes, generated the appropriation of the Vita Rictrudis by the canons
of Saint-Amé. In their own foundation story, written in the eleventh century,
the canons integrated the sections of the vita which were relevant for the
legend of their tutelary saints and transformed them according to their own
needs – namely the legitimization of their landholding. Therefore, over two
centuries, Rictrude’s legend grew from oral tradition to the Vita Rictrudis, and
then into a complex narrative cycle, composed not only of hagiographic texts,
but also of charters and entries in annals and chronicles.
Considering the fraught circumstances which often triggered narrative
production, there is no doubt that the texts written during occasions of
trouble had strong political overtones which influenced both their content
and their form. In the light of this, it is wise to go beyond exploiting the
sources as mere quarries for facts, and to consider the very writing of these
sources as a telling event in the history of these communities.39 As a result,
more emphasis has been placed in this study on the question ‘Why was this
text written?’ than on the question ‘What factual evidence does this text
preserve?’ Although I have attempted in each chapter to reconstruct the
history of these religious communities as accurately as possible, the main
concern of this study is not the factual reconstruction of some hypothetical
‘historical truth’. Rather, it seeks to determine the motives that led a commu-
39 See G. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography
(Baltimore, 1997).
10
Introduction
nity to write a text about its history and how these motives influenced the
content and the form of the text, and transformed a community’s under-
standing of its past.
Narratives like the ones discussed in this study enabled communities to
represent themselves to their audience in a way that was useful to whatever
present cause absorbed their energies and caused their anxieties. Further-
more, the way they chose to represent their present and their past could
sometimes differ significantly from reality. Indeed, the creation of a past that
could be useful to the present often required the alteration of existing docu-
ments as well as the forging of new ones. This means that in certain circum-
stances, a community looked back at its past history through its archives,
written narratives and oral tradition, and pieced together a new version
better fitted to its present needs. This creation of a new history was
dependent both on the selection and transformation of old documents and
the forging of new ones. Patrick Geary has analysed how the constitution of
monastic archives was an unending process of preservation, neglect and
wilful destruction. And what these practices mean is that, when authors in
the tenth and eleventh centuries started to compose gesta and cartularies, they
were, from the outset, faced with a past which had already been transformed
by the previous generations of monks.40 In other words, the process of
making the past useful was a continuous one throughout a community’s life,
and one has to keep this in mind when studying a given historiographic
work.
Another issue at stake is the problem of forgery and the alteration of the
documents of the past.41 The notion of forgery itself is problematic because it
presupposes that a ‘true’ version of an event was extent before the forgery,
and that historical accuracy pre-existed the creation of the ‘false’ historical
document, be it a charter or new a version of a story. Considering that
monastic communities kept their archives and their historical tradition in a
perpetual flux and that this tradition evolved according to the shifting needs
of the present, the ‘true story’ is often difficult to recover. I have thus often
eschewed the notion of false or true; instead, I have emphasized the reasons
which led to the transformation of older stories or the creation of new ones.
It is essential to discuss the kinds of texts considered here as
‘historiographic’. The word historiography is to be understood in its broadest
40 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, pp. 81–7; the case of the abbey of Saint-Denis as an
example of a monastic community making its archives ‘useful’ by pruning and
forging is particularly telling: see ibid., pp. 107–13, with related bibliography. On
historiographic production and propaganda at Saint-Denis in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, see Spiegel, The Past as Text, pp. 83–98 and 111–62.
41 On the issue of forgery, see the articles in Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Internationaler
Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München 16–19 September 1986
(Hanover, 1988).
11
sense, and it includes the whole range of written documents that tell of events
affecting the community.42 Thus, I have examined historiographic texts stricto
sensu, such as chronicles, annals, historiae, gesta, as well as texts that are gener-
ally associated with historiography, such as hagiography, miracle stories and
relics narratives.43 Beyond this, charter material has also been considered
within the framework of historiography, when it contained narratives
describing past or contemporary events important to the community. For
example, I have taken into account genuine and forged charters that relate a
community’s foundation story. I have also considered charters when their
copying in cartularies or in other forms of narrative, their public presentation
or their forging was part of a concerted effort to transform the community’s
representation of its past. I have made no distinction between texts relating
past events and texts relating contemporary ones. Indeed, whatever the
period they cover, narratives produced by monastic communities are as – and
often even more – informative about the period of their redaction than they
are about the past to which they refer. Finally, whenever it is relevant and
possible, the artistic production, when used to illustrate a community’s past,
42 The bibliography on medieval historiography is abundant; several general studies,

conference proceedings and collections of articles have been published on the subject
in the last few decades: Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, ed. A. Scharer and G.
Scheibelreiter, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichts-
forschung 32 (Vienna, 1994); L’Historiographie médiévale en Europe. Actes du colloque
organisé par la Fondation Européenne de la Science au Centre de Recherches Historiques et
Juridiques de l’Université Paris I du 29 mars au 1er avril 1989 (Paris, 1991); The Writing of
History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to R. W. Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J.
M. Wallace-Hadrill (London, 1981); Le Métier d’historien au moyen âge. Études sur
l’historiographie médiévale, ed. B. Guenée (Paris, 1977); B. Guenée, Histoire et culture
historique au moyen âge (Paris, 1980); .idem, ‘Histoires, annales et chroniques. Essai sur
les genres historiques au moyen âge’, Annales, Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 28
(1973), 997–1016; M. Sot, Un Historien et son église: Flodoard de Reims (Paris, 1993). For
an overview of the historical texts produced in the region studied here in the tenth
and eleventh centuries, see R.-H. Bautier, ‘L’historiographie en France aux Xe et XIe
siècles (France du Nord et de l’Est)’, in La Storiografia Altomedievale, 2 vols. Settimane
17 (Spoleto, 1970), II, pp. 793–850; see also F.-L. Ganshof, ‘L’historiographie dans la
monarchie franque sous les mérovingiens et les carolingiens’, in La Storiografia
Altomedievale II, pp. 631–85. There are also interesting regional studies, for example:
L. Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries (Washington, 1997); E. van Houts, ‘Historical Writing’, in A
Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. C. Harper-Bill and E. van Houts (Wood-
bridge, 2003), pp. 103–21.
43 Most recently, F. Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism and Genre: “Hagiographical” Texts as
Historical Narratives’, Viator 25 (1994), 95–113 has discussed how, beyond their
function as historical sources, hagiographic narratives also had a function as histori-
cal writing, which is still all too often misunderstood and neglected. On the role of
hagiography as historical source, see B. de Gaiffier, ‘Hagiographie et historio-
graphie. Quelques aspects du problème’, in La Storiografia Altomedievale II, pp.
139–66.
12
Introduction
has also been included, since such illustrations were part of the same process
of correcting the past.
Throughout this study on the politics of narrative production, three
closely related subjects have surfaced: the genre of texts produced, the type of
stories told and the intended audience. It is now well acknowledged that the
boundaries between the different narrative genres are not clear-cut and that
the different genres inter-penetrate one another.44 Land donations were
recorded in vitae, chronicles could include charter material as well as
hagiographic texts. Similarly, hagiographic texts, especially vitae of monastic
founders, often contained the history of the foundation of the religious
community in which it was written.45 Beyond this, the commemorative and
liturgical nature of charters, cartularies and gesta has long been recognized.46
Because of the elasticity of the different genres of medieval texts, almost any
kind of text could fulfil almost any need. For example, during the period
studied, a monastic community was as likely to assert its rights over a prop-
erty through hagiographic texts as it was to forge a charter literally claiming a
44 On the impossibility of classifying the different historiographic genres, see Guenée,

‘Histoires, annales et chroniques’; on the inter-penetration of narrative genres, see E.
M. C. van Houts, Local and Regional Chronicles, Typologie 74 (Turnhout, 1995), pp.
14–16 and M. Sot, Gesta Episcoporum, Gesta Abbatum, Typologie 37 (Turnhout, 1981);
see also M. McCormick, Les Annales du Haut Moyen Âge, Typologie 14 (Turnhout,
1975). Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism and Genre’, pp. 102–4 argues for the complete
irrelevance of the modern distinction between genres regarding ninth- to elev-
enth-century narratives.
45 On foundation stories, see J. Kastner, Historiae Fundationum Monasteriorum.
Frühformen mönastischen Institutionsgeschichtschreibung im Mittelalter (Munich, 1974)
and A. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medi-
eval Southern France (Ithaca, 1996).
46 On this, see Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, pp. 102–3; P. Johanek, ‘Zur rechtlichen
Funktion von Traditionsnotitz, Traditionsbuch und früher Siegelurkunde’, in Recht
und Schrift im Mittelalter, ed. P. Classen, Vörtrage und Forschungen 23 (Sigmaringen,
1977), pp. 131–62; B.-M. Tock, ‘Les Textes non diplomatiques dans les cartulaires de
la province de Reims’, in Les Cartulaires. Actes de la Table Ronde organisée par l’École
Nationale des Chartes et le G.D.R. 121 du C.N.R.S. (Paris, 5–7 décembre 1991), ed. O.
Guyotjeannin, L. Morelle and M. Parisse, Mémoires et Documents Publiés par
l’École des Chartes 39 (Paris, 1993), pp. 45–58. For a regional study and a bibliog-
raphy on the topic, see most recently, A.-J. Bijsterveld, ‘The Commemoration of
Patrons and Gifts in Chronicles from the Diocese of Liège, Eleventh–Twelfth
Centuries’, RB 109 (1999), 208–43. For a specific example, see R. Fleming’s studies on
the relation between the cartulary and liturgy at Christchurch, Canterbury:
‘Christchurch’s Sisters and Brothers: An Edition and Discussion of Canterbury Obit-
uary List’, in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Memory of Denis Bethel, ed. M. A.
Meyer (London, 1993), pp. 115–53; idem, ‘History and Liturgy at Pre-Conquest Christ
Church, Canterbury’, Haskins Society Journal 7 (1995), 67–83 and idem, ‘Christ Church
Canterbury’s Anglo-Norman Cartulary’, in Anglo-Norman Political Culture, ed. W.
Hollister (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 83–155.
13
donation.47 As for the type of stories that monastic communities wrote and
transformed to serve their present needs, foundation stories emerge as partic-
ularly important. This is understandable, because foundation stories were
seminal texts for communities’ historical traditions, and they asserted not
only a story about the community’s genesis, but also its spiritual relation to
its patron saint and its legitimate ownership of its original property.48 Given
the spiritual and material importance of these foundation stories, it is not
surprising that tales of a community’s beginning were the most likely to be
remodelled for new needs. Both Marchiennes and Saint-Bertin carefully
crafted and recrafted their foundation stories. The third issue at stake, the
audience, is the most difficult one with which to come to grips, because it is
often extremely difficult to assess to whom the texts were directed and how
they were actually used.49 First of all, it should not be assumed that texts were
aimed at a single audience, but rather, that they could be simultaneously
directed toward both the community and the outside world. For example,
miracle stories in which the saint punishes the community’s spoliators were
as much a warning for their neighbours as they were part of the communal
liturgy that gathered the community around its patron saint. Second, the
intended audience is not always what it first appears to be. For example,
cartularies do not seem to have been used in trials as proof of ownership, but
they certainly played an important role in the commemoration of patrons and
abbots within the monastic communities themselves.50
The intricacy of the issue of inside and outside audience brings us to an
important aspect of the politics of narrative production that I have so far
neglected: its spiritual and liturgical functions. Indeed, while the vitae,
miracle collections and relic narratives may appear as a self-serving and
cynical use of the saints’ protection to fulfil a political agenda, they were
above all else liturgical texts, which bound the community together around
47 B. de Gaiffier, ‘Les Revendications de biens dans quelques documents hagio-

graphiques du onzième siècle’, Anal. Boll. 50 (1932), 123–38.
48 On the formation and transformation of foundation stories, see Kastner, Historiae
Fundationum Monasteriorum and Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past. See, for a
specific example of a dossier of a community’s origins, D. Iogna-Prat, ‘La Geste des
origines dans l’historiographie clunisienne des XIe–XIIe siècles’, RB 102 (1992),
135–91.
49 On the issue of audience, see R. McKitterick, ‘The Audience for Latin Historiography
in the Early Middle Ages: Text Transmission and Manuscript Dissemination’, in
Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, pp. 96–114; this article, however, does not deal
with local historiography. On the audience for hagiographic texts, see K. Heene,
‘Merovingian and Carolingian Hagiography: Continuity or Change in Public and
Aims?’, Anal. Boll. 107 (1989), 415–27, esp. pp. 26–7; Heene shows that from the ninth
century on, a lay audience would not have been literate enough to understand the
Latin hagiographic texts and that priests translated these texts into vernacular for
their sermons.
50 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, pp. 100–7.
14
Introduction
its patron saint. The daily liturgy, the processions outside the cloister, the
public ceremonies involving relics, and of course the oral transmission of
historical and spiritual traditions, were different ways of representing and
asserting the values and concerns of the community. The narratives produced
by monastic communities are only the surviving fragments of this perfor-
mance. Monastic communities were completely identified with their patron
saints and, as a result, the saints’ interests were confused with the communi-
ties’; therefore, when the monks were making legitimate or illegitimate
claims in the interest of their community, they were also acting on behalf of
their patron saint.51
In terms of chronology, the book covers the period running roughly from
the ninth to the end of the eleventh century. Indeed, the process by which
communities engaged in remodelling their past becomes visible from the
ninth century onwards, when they began to write new vitae and compile their
charters into cartularies. I have not generally pursued my investigation much
beyond the beginning of the twelfth century. Indeed, the twelfth century was
a period marked by social, intellectual and religious changes that influenced
the ways monastic communities looked at and used their past. The develop-
ment of Scholastic thought changed the face of historiography by casting
suspicion upon the ‘miraculous’; consequently, historiography was progres-
sively stripped of its super-natural elements.52 By the same token, miracles
and a saint’s patronage could no longer be considered valid means of
asserting a community’s possessions. As charters emerged as the sole
commonly accepted record of property transactions, the earlier trend of
dealing with conflicts through hagiographic and historiographic narratives
receded.53
51 On the fact that monastic land belonged to the community’s patron saints and the
implications of this, see B. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of St Peter: the Social Meaning
of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, 1989).
52 On historiography in the twelfth century, see The Perception of the Past in
Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. P. Magdalino (London, 1992); on the radical transforma-
tion of historiography in the twelfth century, see Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism’, pp.
104–8 and J. Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of
the Past (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 285–324.
53 Although in Flanders this trend was under way earlier than in other regions:
Bijsterveld, ‘The Commemoration of Patrons and Gifts’, p. 209. On the increasing use
and preservation of charters in the central Middle Ages, see M. T. Clanchy, From
Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1993).
15
PART I
Saint-Bertin
THE FIRST ABBEY studied here is the abbey of Saint-Bertin. It is an ideal case
to begin with because of the abundance and variety of texts produced by the
community in the tenth and eleventh centuries in order to reinvent its past.
This wealth of documentation will allow us from the outset to deal with
many of the main issues related to a monastic community’s politics of narra-
tive production: the preservation and alteration of its archives and historical
tradition, the different motives behind its historiographic production, the role
of forgery, and the subjects of genres and types of texts used in the process.
What is more, it happens that Saint-Bertin remained, until it dissolution in the
eighteenth century, embroiled in the same conflicts that had triggered the
production of these narratives in the early Middle Ages. The persistence of
the conflict provides an exceptional opportunity to examine the impact of the
way archives were kept, not only for the Middle Ages and the Early Modern
period, but on our ability to properly reconstruct the past. The profusion of
sources emanating from Saint-Bertin for most of the period covered here
allows us both to reconstruct its history in some detail, and to deal at length
with the issues of the politics of narrative production.
The first chapter of this section, Chapter 1, recounts the history of the
monastery from its foundation by St Omer and St Mummolinus in the middle
of the seventh century, to the end of the eleventh century. Although
Saint-Bertin’s importance as a religious, economical and cultural centre is
unanimously acknowledged, no scholar before has undertaken a comprehen-
sive account of its history. This chapter seeks to correct this situation by
covering the major issues of the life of Saint-Bertin’s community: its founda-
tion and expansion in its first century and its role in the politics of successive
dynasties – Merovingian, Carolingian and Flemish – which controlled and
patronized it. The task of reconstructing Saint-Bertin’s past is facilitated by
the huge number of narrative and diplomatic sources produced by the monks
throughout the period.
17
Saint-Bertin
Chapter 2 deals with the cultural activity at Saint-Bertin, focusing particu-

larly on its library and scriptorium. Because of its proximity to the Channel,
Saint-Bertin was the boarding place for Anglo-Saxon pilgrims, merchants,
travellers and political exiles. The exchanges between Saint-Bertin and
England were reciprocal: on the one hand, several monks from Saint-Bertin
made careers as authors in England, and on the other Saint-Bertin became a
crucible of Continental and Insular influences which are reflected in its
artistic production. This chapter deals with this cultural interplay and
provides a provisional list of manuscripts which belonged to Saint-Bertin’s
library and/or were produced in its scriptorium.
Chapter 3 focuses on narrative production at Saint-Bertin. In the ninth
century, the community was divided between a community of monks
centred on St Bertin’s shrine, and a community of canons, dedicated to St
Omer. Each community had its own shrine and, from the tenth century on, its
own abbot. The separation threw the two communities into strife, which
ended only with the dissolution of the abbey at the French Revolution. This
was the seminal event which led the monks to write distorted hagiographies,
twisted hagiographic texts and forged charters in order to re-invent the
history of the abbey in their favor. This chapter attempts to disentangle the
narrative web created by all these texts and to understand what was at stake.
The section as a whole follows the history of Saint-Bertin until the dissol-
ution of the monastic community, focusing on the role played by the
never-ending conflict with the canons of Saint-Omer. During the later Middle
Ages and the Early Modern period, the monks pursued their production of
polemical texts and persisted in using the old texts composed in the tenth and
eleventh centuries. Several of these texts and charters were carefully
recopied, some of them many times, until the eighteenth century. Because, to
the end, the monks and their archivists were so deeply involved in the
ancient quarrel with the canons of Saint-Omer, it is extremely important to
understand the conditions in which the archives were kept, considered and,
doubtless, purged.
18
CHAPTER ONE
Saint-Bertin from the Foundation to

the Eleventh Century
From the foundation to c. 800
The abbey of Saint-Bertin at Sithiu was founded by St Omer in the 640s. The
foundation of the monastic community is closely associated with the estab-
lishment of the episcopal see of Thérouanne by St Omer, under the impetus
of King Dagobert (623–639) and Acharius, bishop of Noyon (d. 640).1 The
main source for the early history of Saint-Bertin and the bishopric of
Thérouanne is the Vita Audomari Prima (VA1), written at Sithiu in the early
ninth century.2 According to the vita, Omer was born in the region of
Coutances (dep. Manche);3 at his mother’s death, Friulfus and Omer left the
Cotentin region for Burgundy, where they entered the monastery of Luxeuil,
at the time ruled by St Columbanus’s successor, Abbot Eustasius (615–629).4
Friulfus may have become acquainted with Luxeuil and Columbanian
monasticism thanks to the activity of Potentinus, a disciple of Columbanus,
who, according to the Vita Columbani, had gathered a cohort of monks in the
Cotentin region.5 Luxeuil at this time was one of the major breeding grounds
1 On the bishopric of Thérouanne and its origins, Ch. Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne et son
diocèse jusqu’à la fin de l’époque carolingienne’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 158
(2001), 377–406. See also H. Van Werveke, Het Bisdom Terwaan van den Oorsprong tot
het Begin der Vertiende Eeuw (Ghent, 1924); F. Vercauteren, Étude sur les Civitates de la
Belgique Seconde, contribution à l’histoire urbaine du nord de la France de la fin du IIIe à la
fin du XIe siècle, Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de Belgique 33 (Brussels, 1934), pp.
318–23, and J. Heuclin, ‘Le diocèse de Thérouanne à l’époque de Saint Omer’,
Mélanges de Science Religieuse 56 (1999), 81–8.
2 Vita S. Audomari Prima is the first part of a hagiographic triptych which also contains
the vitae of St Bertin and St Winnoc: Vitae Audomari, Bertini, Winnoci (BHL 763) ed. W.
Levison, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover, 1910), pp. 729–86: Vita S. Audomari Prima (VA1), pp.
753–64; Vita S. Bertini Prima (VB1), pp. 765–9, and Vita S. Winnoci Prima (VW1), pp.
769–75.
3 Folcard, the eleventh-century author of the third life of St Bertin, assumed that
Constantia civitate (VA1, c. 1, p. 754) was Constanz, in Germany, but there is no doubt
that Omer was indeed from Coutances (VB3: Vita Tertia Sancti Bertini (BHL 1293), AA
SS, 2 Sept., c. 7, p. 605); on this, see see VA1; Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, p. 390, n. 45.
4 VA1, cc. 1–2, pp. 754–5; Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, pp. 393–4.
5 Jonas of Bobbio, Vitae Columbani Abbatis Discipulorumque (BHL 1898), ed. B. Krusch,
19
Saint-Bertin
for ecclesiastical dignitaries, and Omer shared Eustasius’s teachings with

such men as Chagnoaldus the bishop of Laon, brother of St Faro, Ragnachar
of Basel and the above-mentioned Acharius.6 Still, according to the VA1,
Acharius himself recommended Omer to the king.7 Charles Mériaux has
demonstrated that the designation of Omer as bishop of Thérouanne by
Dagobert is to be understood in political and cultural terms. In the first
decades of the seventh century, Morinie had become a pawn in the
long-lasting conflict between the two regna of Neustria and Austrasia, and its
control was coveted by Neustrian as well as Austrasian aristocrats. In 633,
Dagobert gained control of the region and firmly submitted it to Neustrian
authority. In this context, the choice of Omer, a man of Neustrian origin and a
member of Columbanian circles, as bishop of Thérouanne was a clearly a way
for the king to strengthen his grip over the region.8 That Omer was from
Coutances is not meaningless either: the littoral regions, from Brittany to
Morinie, were in close economic contact and their populations were cultur-
ally close.9
Considering that Omer was designated bishop of Thérouanne during
Dagobert’s reign, the event must have taken place during the 630s.10 A
twelfth-century episcopal list dates Omer’s accession to the see to 638, but no
earlier source exists to confirm or contradict this assertion.11 The same list
MGH SRM IV (Hanover, 1902), lib. I, c. 21, p. 94; G. Coolen, ‘St. Colomban et St.
Omer’, in Mélanges Colombaniens. Actes du Congrès International de Luxeuil (20–23
Juillet 1950) (Paris, 1951), pp. 361–2. These were not Coutances’s first contacts with
Christianity, since St Lô was bishop between 525 and 565, see C. Laplatte,
‘Coutances’, in DHGE 13 (1953), col. 974–7.
6 Vita Columbani, lib. II, c. 8, p.123; on St Columban, Luxeuil and Merovingian monasti-
cism, see Colombanus and Merovingian Monasticism, ed. H. B. Clarke and M. Brennan,
BAR International Series 113 (Oxford, 1981) and F. Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum im
Frankenreich. Kultur und Gesellschaft in Gallien, den Rheinlanden und Bayern am Beispiel
der Monastischen Entwicklung (4 bis 8 Jahrhundert) (Munich, 1965), pp. 121–40; on the
limits of the geographical and temporal influence of ‘Iro-Frankish’ monasticism, see
A. Dierkens, ‘Prolégomène à une histoire des relations culturelles entre les îles
britanniques et le Continent pendant le haut moyen âge’, in La Neustrie. Les pays au
nord de la Loire de 650 à 850, ed. H. Atsma, 2 vols. (Sigmaringen, 1989), I, pp. 371–94.
7 VA1, c. 4, pp. 755–6.
8 Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, p. 384.
9 Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, pp. 389–90.
10 VA1, c. 1, p. 754.
11 The Liber Floridus, written in 1120 by Lambert, a canon of Saint-Omer, contains a list
of bishops of Thérouanne: Series Episcoporum Morinensium, ed. O. Holder-Egger,
MGH SS XIII (Hanover, 1881), p. 389; according to this list, Omer became bishop in
638. The names of his alleged predecessors do not appear in the sources before the
eleventh century: see Levison, Vitae Audomari, Bertini, Winnoci, p. 729. On the Liber
Floridus, see Lamberti S. Audomari Canonici Liber Floridus (Facsimile), ed. A. Derolez
and I. Stubbe (Ghent, 1968); Liber Floridus Colloquium. Papers Read at the International
Meeting Held in the University Library Ghent on 3–5 September1967, ed. A. Derolez
(Ghent, 1973) and A. Derolez, Lambertus qui Librum Fecit. Een Codicologische Studie van
20
From the Foundation to the Eleventh Century
also mentions two alleged predecessors: Audmundus and Athalbert. Those

men are otherwise unknown, and it is most likely that Omer was, indeed, the
first to bear the title.12 The bishopric of Thérouanne roughly corresponds to
the ancient civitas Morinorum. During the later Empire, the city itself was the
chief town of the eastern part of the civitas, while Boulogne-sur-Mer was the
chief town of the littoral part. This administrative division survived into the
Merovingian period, because Jonas of Bobbio calls Omer ‘Praesul Bononiae et
Tharoanensis oppidi’.13
Once settled in his new bishopric, Omer’s first and main task was to orga-
nize his young church. Although the region probably lacked a strong ecclesi-
astical structure, it undoubtedly had been in contact with Christianity before
Omer’s arrival. An early – and probably legendary – phase of evangelization
in the late third century is attributed to SS Fuscianus and Victoricus, compan-
ions of St Denis, and is still remembered in the VA1.14 Another, and more reli-
able, tradition of evangelization of Morinie can be attributed to Victricius,
bishop of Rouen, in the fifth century.15 Scattered sources demonstrate that by
the seventh century Christinanity was ingrained in Morinie, and Omer
certainly did not preach in a religious vacuum. For example, the VA1 recalls
that when Omer visited Boulogne-sur-Mer, he entered a church that certainly
pre-dated the beginning of his mission.16 But the adhesion of the lower strata
of the population not only to Christianity but to forms of belief sponsored by
de Liber Floridus Autograaf (Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Handschrift 92) Ver-

handelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone
Kunst van België, Klasse der Letteren 40 (Brussels, 1978), n. 89.
12 Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, p. 385 and n. 26.
13 Vita Columbani, lib. II, c. 8, p. 124. There is no doubt, however, that the actual see was
Thérouanne and not Boulogne: see Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, p. 389, n. 40.
14 The vitae of Fuscianus and Victoricus belong to the so-called Rictrovarius cycle,
from the name of a Roman prefect believed to have executed many missionaries in
the region of Amiens. De Sanctis Martyribus Fusciano et Victorico, Morinorum
Apostolis (BHL 3225), ASB (Brussels, 1783), I, pp. 153–72 (short version) and ‘Actes
inédits des saints martyrs Fuscien, Victoric et Gentien’ (BHL 3224), ed. Ch. Salmon,
Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie 17 (1861), pp. 113–54 (long version).
On this cycle, see R. Loenertz, ‘La légende parisienne de S. Denys l’Aréopagite, sa
genèse et son premier témoin’, Analecta Bollandiana 64 (1951), 217–37, and
H. Moretus, Les Passions de St Lucien et leurs Derivés Céphalographiques (Louvain,
1953).
15 It is known thanks to a letter of St Paulinus of Nola to Victicius: Sancti Paulini
Epistolae, ed. G. de Hartel, CSEL 29, pars 1 (Vienna, 1894), epist. 18, pp. 128–33; E. de
Moreau, ‘St. Victrice de Rouen, apôtre de la Belgica Secunda’, in Revue Belge de
Philologie et d’Histoire 5 (1926), 71–9 ; Van Werveke, Het Bisdom Terwaan, pp. 14–15 ;
and Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, pp. 380–2.
16 VA1, c. 8, p. 757; on the presence of the church in Morinie before Omer, Mériaux,
‘Thérouanne’, pp. 385–7.
21
Saint-Bertin
the ecclesiastical hierarchy was certainly not yet complete. It is in this sense
that Omer’s missionary activity should be understood.17
In his mission, Omer relied on the support of the local aristocracy and a
close collaboration with his own compatriots. According to the VA1, Omer
had converted and baptized a wealthy man named Adroald who gave him an
important part of his inheritance, the villa of Sithiu and its appurtenances.18
On his new piece of land, Omer built a church, which he dedicated to the
Virgin Mary.19 He also wanted to use Sithiu for the foundation of a monastic
community. To this effect, he invited three of his fellow countrymen,
Mummolinus, Ebertramn and Bertin, ‘three men with one mind’, to join him
from Coutances.20
The foundation of the monastery that would become Saint-Bertin, as
related in the VA1, took place in two phases. In the first stage, Omer offered to
build his companions a monastic house, wherever they liked in the villa of
Sithiu. Thus, Mummolinus, Bertin and others built a first monastery on the
river Aa, at a place known as Vetus Monasterium, today Saint-Momelin, a few
miles north of the town of Saint-Omer (dep. Nord, arr. Dunkerque). But after
some time, as the place proved unfit, the three men decided to relocate the
community. They did so, on a small island formed by two arms of the Aa, a
few miles south of the Vetus Monasterium.21 The new monastery was dedi-
cated to St Peter, and Omer chose Mummolinus as first abbot. Mummolinus
left Sithiu soon after, when he was appointed bishop of Noyon, where he
succeeded St Eligius (d. 660). At about the same time, Ebertramn became
abbot of Saint-Quentin (dep. Aisne), and Bertin, left alone with the commu-
nity, was entrusted with the abbacy by St Omer. A few years later, Omer, old
and tired, died and was buried, according to his will, in his church of the
Virgin Mary.22 Indeed, like many of his successors to the episcopal see, Omer
favored Sithiu as burial place. Clearly, from the onset the monastic commu-
nity superseded Thérouanne in terms of religious and cultural activity as well
as economic and political weight.23
Besides the hagiographic texts, the first years of Sithiu can be recon-
structed with the help of a few charters. The first one is dated 6 September
17 See K-F. Werner’s remarks in ‘Le rôle de l’aristocratie dans la Christianisation du

Nord-Est de la Gaule’, Revue d’Histoire de l’Eglise de France 62 (1975), 45–73 (p. 63).
18 VA1, p. 759. It is highly unlikely that, even in remote Morinie, a member of the aris-
tocracy was still left a pagan.
19 VA1, c. 10, pp. 759–60.
20 VA1, pp. 758–9.
21 VA1, pp. 760–1.
22 VA1, pp. 761–2.
23 Mériaux, ‘Thérouanne’, pp. 397–8. On the development of the town of Saint-Omer,
Histoire de Saint-Omer, ed. A. Derville, Histoire des Villes du Nord-Pas-de-Calais 1
(Lille, 1981); A. Derville, Saint-Omer. Des origines au début du 14e siècle (Lille, 1995).
22
649, and records the circumstances and the details of Adroald’s donation.24
As will be discussed later, this charter is not entirely above suspicion and was
probably partly forged in the tenth century.25 Nevertheless, the year 649, the
eleventh year of King Clovis II’s reign (639–657), is plausible, and the original
assets of Sithiu, as enumerated in the charter, are certainly reliable.26 The
charter deals with the donation, for the purpose of building a monastery, of
the villa called Sithiu, on the river Aa, and its appurtenances, as well as the
neighboring villae.27 Three of the identified villae (Wisques, Tatinghem,
Zudausque) are concentrated around Sithiu, the core of the asset, while the
other six are spread from the North Sea (Synthe, Loon, Le Mat, Le Grand
Zeluc) to the Aisne (Francilly-Selency) and to the south (Fontaine).28 The
lands given by Adroald were very scattered, and St Bertin and his successors
took great care to enlarge and rationalize Sithiu’s landed assets by
exchanging, buying and receiving pieces of land throughout the region.29
Most of these lands were located in the neighborhood of Sithiu and a bit
further away, in the regions of Boulogne, Montreuil and Douai.30 Some of the
purchased lands were, however, located at a fair distance: Appily and Dives,
near Compiègnes, Beveren (Limburg, Belgium).31
With time, the number of monks increased as steadily as the landholding.
The Vita Winnoci (VW1) for example, tells us of the arrival at Sithiu of four
24 Diplomata Belgica ante Annum Millesimum Centesimum Scripta, ed. M. Gysseling and
A. C. F. Koch, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1950), I, no. 1, p. 6.
25 Below, Chapter 3, pp. 55–6.
26 The Annales Blandinienses, p. 4, give 640 as foundation year; these eleventh-century
annals are partly based on a lost set of ninth-century annals from Sithiu: Ph.
Grierson, Les Annales, p. XVI.
27 Diplomata Belgica I, p. 6 no. 1.
28 J.-F. Lemarignier, ‘Quelques remarques sur l’organisation ecclésiastique de la Gaule
du VIIe à la fin du IXe siècle, principalement au nord de la Loire’, in Agricoltura e
Mondo Rurale in Occidente nell’ Alto Medioevo, Settimane 13 (Spoleto, 1966), pp. 451–86
(pp. 465–6); for a detailed account on Sithiu’s landholding, see P. Wacksman’s
unpublished dissertation, ‘Histoire des dépendances de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin du
VIIe à la fin du Xe siècle’, summarized in Positions des thèses de l’École des Chartes
(Paris, 1960), pp. 103–6.
29 Diplomata Belgica I, nos. 1–33, pp. 5–56; Lemarignier, ‘Quelques remarques’, pp.
465–8; on the meaning and evolution of the scattering of monastic landholding, see L.
Musset, ‘Signification et destinée des domaines excentriques pour les abbayes de la
moitié septentrionale de la Gaule jusqu’au XIe siècle’, in Sous la règle de Saint Benoît.
Structures monastiques et sociétés en France du moyen âge à l’époque moderne. Abbaye
bénédictine Saint-Marie de Paris 23–25 octobre 1980 (Geneva, 1982), pp. 167–84. On
Saint-Bertin’s royal diplomas, see C. Brühl, Studien zu den merovingischen Könings-
urkunden (Cologne, 1998), pp. 226–59; T. Közler, Merovingerstudien I, MGH, Studien
und Texte 21 (Hanover, 1998), pp. 111–35).
30 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 8, pp. 20–1, a. 704; no. 13, pp. 27–9, a. 723; no. 19, pp. 38–9, a.
788. Diplomata Belgica I, no. 18, pp. 37–8, a. 776; no. 13, pp. 27–9, a. 723; no. 21, pp. 40–1.
31 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 9, pp. 21–2, a. 708; no. 22, pp. 42–3, a. 806.
23
Saint-Bertin
Bretons, Quadanoc, Ingenoc, Madoc and Winnoc.32 Such an increase in

monks and possessions allowed Sithiu to further its apostolic task by estab-
lishing new monastic houses and patronizing already existing forms of reli-
gious activity. For example, the VW1 mentions the donation of Wormhout
(dep. Pas-de-Calais, arr. Dunkerque) to St Bertin, who decided to found there
a monastery and a hospital for the poor. To this effect, St Bertin sent the four
Bretons to Wormhout, where they built a cella and gathered a small commu-
nity of monks around it.33 The other example of Sithiu’s participation in the
monastic activity of the region is found in a charter dated 685, which records
the donation of the ‘monastery’ of Honnecourt, in the pagus of Cambrai, on
the Schelde. The monastery had been founded, on their own land, by a man
called Amalfrid and his daughter Auriana, who was the abbess. By means of
the charter, Amalfrid gave Honnecourt to Sithiu on condition that he could
keep the usufruct and that Auriana could remain in her cella until her death.34
The monastery may not have been much more than a private church housing
a handful of consecrated women, but it witnesses the religious activity of the
local population and the role Sithiu played as a focus for the monastic life in
the region. Similarly, the priest Felix gave Sithiu a cella in Roksem (eastern
Flanders, Belgium) in 745. His purpose was that after his death, the abbot of
Sithiu would ensure that the cult and the liturgical services which Felix had
promoted there would be maintained.35 Sithiu itself was from the beginning a
center of evangelical activity. St Mary’s basilica was originally a missionary
church, controlled by the bishops of Thérouanne, and assigned to the cura
animarum.36 In 663, Saint-Mary was transferred from the jurisdiction of the
bishop of Thérouanne to the authority of the abbot of Sithiu; the basilica must
then have been ministered by monks from Sithiu or priests delegated by the
monastic community.37
The sources from Sithiu are silent on the religious practices and rule
followed by the monks. Omer was raised at Luxeuil; Bertin, Mummolinus
and Ebertramn had been in contact with Columbanian monasticism in their
32 Vita Winnoci Prima (VW1), pp. 769–70.

33 VW1, p. 770; the community was short lived but its abbot, Winnoc, was honored as a
saint, and his relics were transferred to Saint-Bertin before being translated in 900 to
the chapter of Saint-Martin at Bergues. Around 1022, the chapter was reformed by
Roderic of Saint-Bertin who replaced the canons with Benedictine monks.
34 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 5, pp. 15–17.
35 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 15, pp. 30–4.
36 In the Vita Bertini Prima (VB1), the story of Waldbertus and his wife, who were in the
habit of attending mass at St Mary’s, suggests that in the early years of Sithiu, the
basilica was used by lay people for their private devotion: VB1, c. 2, pp. 765–7.
37 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 3, pp. 9–13. E. Ewig, ‘Das Privileg des Bishofs Audomar von
Terouanne von 663 und die Anfänge des Abtei Sithiu’, in Spätantikes und Fränkisches
Gallien. Gesammelte Schriften (1952–1973), ed. H. Atsma, 2 vols. (Munich, 1973), II, p.
521.
24
native region. Hence, Sithiu, like so many Frankish monasteries founded in

the seventh century in the Luxovian tradition, practiced the so-called Iro-
Frankish monasticism.38 The community most likely followed a Regula mixta,
which combined the two spiritual pillars of early medieval monasticism, the
Columbanian and Benedictine rules, with elements of other rules and local
traditions.39 However, the Columbanian, or Irish, influence was certainly not
long-lasting, and Sithiu, like so many other Neustrian monasteries, cultivated
strong connections with Anglo-Saxon communities, which is only natural
considering its location.40 As will be discussed later, Anglo-Saxon influence is
particularly visible in the impressive number of early medieval manuscripts
written or annotated by Anglo-Saxon hands that have survived from the
library.
In 663, Omer was old and nearly blind; his name appeared for the last time
in contemporary sources among the signatures of the privilege given by
Bishop Drauscius to Saint-Mary of Soissons in 667.41 The VA1, which is
always vague in terms of chronology, does not give any indication about the
date of his death, but in the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium, Folcuin, who usually
describes events in chronological order, placed Omer’s death between his
privilege of 663 and King Theuderic’s privilege of 682.42 Omer was buried in
St Mary’s church, according to his desire expressed in the 663 epistola. The
VB1 is strangely mute on the last years and death of St Bertin, but his second
vita (VB2) provides some details: as he grew old, Bertin, who desired to
devote his remaining years to meditation, retired to a cell and entrusted the
management of the monastery first to the monk Rigobert and then, at
Rigobert’s death, to Erlefrid, who had been raised at Sithiu. Around 700, at
Bertin’s request, Rigobert, built a new church, dedicated to St Martin, which
later became the main church of Sithiu’s community and in which Bertin was
buried at his death (c. 710).43 Up to the ninth century, the chronology of St
Bertin’s successors cannot be established with accuracy, as they are for the
most part known only through the charters in which their names appear. St
38 On the limits of the influence of ‘Iro-Frankish’ monasticism, see A. Dierkens,

‘Prolégomène à une histoire des relations culturelles entre les îles britanniques et le
Continent pendant le haut moyen âge’, in La Neustrie. Les Pays au Nord de la Loire de
650 à 850, ed. H. Atsma, 2 vols. (Sigmaringen, 1989), I, pp. 371–94.
39 On the so-called Benedict-Columbanian Rule and Iro-Frankish monasticism, see
Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum, pp. 152–85.
40 Dierkens, ‘Prolégomène’, pp. 371–94; Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum, p. 523.
41 Diplomata, Chartae, Epistolae, Leges aliaque Instrumenta ad Res Gallo-Francicas
Spectantia, ed. J-M. Pardessus and L. de Bréquigny, 2 vols. (Paris, 1849), II, n. 355.
42 Folcuin, Gesta, cc. 3–4, p. 609; Diplomata Belgica I, no. 4, pp. 13–15; the Gesta is also the
first source to specify that Omer died in the villa of Wavrans, four miles from Sithiu.
The Annales Elnonenses, however, give 697 as the year of Omer’s death. On all this,
see W. Levison, Vitae Audomari, Bertini, Winnoci, p. 730.
43 Vita S. Bertini Altera (VB2) (BHL 1290), AA SS, Sept. 2, c. 13, p. 592, and Folcuin, Gesta,
cc. 12–16, pp. 610–11.
25
Saint-Bertin
Omer’s church was the main burial place for the bishops of Thérouanne,
though some were not buried there. For example, Bishop Folcuin (815–855)
was buried in St Bertin’s church, at the right side of the holy abbot.44 After
Bertin’s death, the links between the bishopric of Thérouanne and the monas-
tery of Sithiu must have remained strong, since several abbots of Sithiu
became bishops: in the eighth century, Erkembod (c. 717–743, bishop c. 723),
whose shrine is still venerated today in Saint-Omer’s cathedral; in the ninth
century, Bishop Humfrid (855–870) became abbot of Saint-Bertin (864–866); in
the tenth century, Wicfridus, praepositus of Saint-Bertin, became bishop of
Thérouanne (935–959).45
During its first century, the abbey of Sithiu grew from an isolated and
slightly eccentric monastic foundation in a newly founded bishopric into an
important regional religious center. Its first abbots massively expanded its
landholding and played their part in the strengthening of Christianity in the
region. However, it was only during the Carolingian period that Sithiu
would truly become a major monastic center. It was after Bertin’s death and
his burial in St Martin’s church, that the monastic community of Sithiu
progressively took the shape it would keep for the next centuries: on the
lower part of the villa, on the bank of the Aa, was the abbatial church, with
the shrine of St Bertin. On the upper part of the villa, on the top of the hill
dominating the landscape, was Saint-Mary basilica, shrine of St Omer and
burial church for many bishops of Thérouanne after him.46
The Carolingian period
The role of Sithiu in the turmoil of the first half of the eighth century does not
appear clearly in the sources. It was to Sithiu that the last Merovingian king,
Childeric III (743–751), was exiled by Pippin III, where he remained until his
death in 755. According to Folcuin, the former king was buried in ‘beati
Bertini ecclesia’.47 Although Childeric’s burial at Saint-Bertin cannot be taken
for granted, his exile to Sithiu shows that the abbot of Saint-Bertin at the time,
44 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 62, p. 620.

45 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 17, p. 611, and c. 67, p. 621.
46 This church became, centuries later, the cathedral of Saint-Omer; on the history of
the cathedral, see La cathédrale de Saint-Omer. 800 ans de mémoire vive, ed. N.
Delanne-Logié and Y.-M. Hilaire (Paris, 2000).
47 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 28, p. 612; see K. H. Krüger, ‘Sithiu/Saint-Bertin als Grablege
Childerics III und der Grafen von Flandern’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 8 (1974),
71–80; Krüger suggests that Folcuin’s affirmation should be put in the context of
competition between Saint-Bertin and Saint-Peter at Ghent as burial place of the
counts of Flanders; on the attitude of the Frankish monasteries toward the Pippinids,
see J. Heuclin, ‘Les abbés des monastères neustriens 650–850’ in La Neustrie I, pp.
321–35.
26
Nanthar I, was trusted by Pippin. However, the exercise of Carolingian

authority, especially regarding the nomination of abbots, becomes clearly
visible in the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium only at the beginning of the ninth
century. The method of election of the abbots during the Merovingian and
the beginning of the Carolingian period is obscure. We have seen that,
according to the VA1, St Omer himself had chosen the first two abbots,
Mummolinus and Bertin.48 Omer’s privilege for Saint-Bertin theoretically
made Sithiu an abbatia libera, free from the control of the bishops of
Thérouanne; however, the privilege, which was only a ‘little exemption’ did
not make any mention of the issue of abbatial election.49 According to the
second vita of St Bertin, Bertin had retired a few years before his death and
had chosen his own successors, Rigobert, and after him Erlefrid, who had
been raised at Sithiu. Erlefrid’s successor, Erkembod, later became bishop of
Thérouanne and remained both bishop and abbot until his death.50 From the
beginning of the ninth century onward, the abbots of Saint-Bertin were all
familiars of the Carolingian court or members of the imperial family. Nanthar
II (805–820) was sent by Charlemagne as an escort for King Eardulf of
Northumbria – expelled from his kingdom, the king had asked for imperial
assistance – and he received the abbatia of Sithiu as a benefice.51 His successor,
the canon Fridugis, was Louis the Pious’ chancellor from 819 to 832. He had
been a pupil of Alcuin, whom he had succeeded as abbot of Tours.52
Fridugis’s abbacy was a turning point in the history of Sithiu because he
divided the community between a community of canons, living around the
shrine of St Omer, and a community of monks, centered on Saint-Bertin.53 In
the meantime, he shared the estates of Sithiu and their revenues between the
monks, the canons and himself; that is, he constituted the mensa fratrum and
the mensa abbatum. The mensa fratrum was shared between monks and canons
proportional to their respective numbers; the monks, who were twice as
numerous, received two-thirds and the canons one-third.54 Later on, under
Abbot Hilduin, the mensa fratrum was divided into two parts, one devoted to
the sustenance of the monks, the other to the sustenance of their servants. On
that occasion, the number of monks allowed at Saint-Bertin was limited to
sixty.55
48 VA1, cc. 11–12, p. 761.

49 Diplomata Belgica I, n. 3, p. 9.
51 Annales Regni Francorum, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1895), a. 808, p. 127.
52 Alcuin had received the right to share all his abbeys among his disciples from
Charlemagne. On Fridugis, see R. Bultot’s notice in DHGE 18 (1977), cols. 1145–7; on
his role as chancellor, see J. Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der Deutschen Könige I:
Grundlegung. Die karolingische Hofkapelle (Stuttgart, 1959), pp. 81–4.
54 On this episode, see below, Chapter 3, pp. 56–60.
55 Recueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, roi de France, ed. G. Tessier and A. Giry, 3 vols.
27
Saint-Bertin
Fridugis’s successor, Hugh (834–844), son of one of Charlemagne’s concu-

bines, was Louis the Pious’ half-brother and was also abbot of Saint-
Quentin.56 The tense political situation of the second half of the ninth century,
characterized by struggles and shaky alliances, was strongly felt at Saint-
Bertin: most of the abbots of the period had interrupted rules, being demoted
only to be called back later. Such was the case of Adalard (844–859 and
861–864), son of Unroch of Ternois (d. 853) and, thanks to the marriage of his
brother Evrard of Friuli with Gisela, sister of Charles the Bald, he was a
member of the king’s extended family. Adalard was given as an oblate to
Saint-Bertin by his father and was later ordained as a canon. Later, Unroch
became a monk at Saint-Bertin and bequeathed most of his fortune to the
monastery.57 Adalard is predominantly known for ordering the breviatio
villarum, the polyptych of Saint-Bertin.58 His abbacy was suddenly inter-
rupted in 859, when he joined Odo of Troyes in his treason against Charles
the Bald in favor of his brother Louis the German.59 The traitor was briefly
replaced by the Welf Hugh, nephew of Empress Judith, but Adalard was
pardoned and got his abbacy back in 861 – some time earlier, he had received
the abbacy of Saint-Amand, where he died and was buried in 864.
At his death, Adalard was succeeded by Humfrid, a former monk from
Prüm, who was also successor of St Folcuin as bishop of Thérouanne
(855–869).60 However, two years after his nomination, Humfrid was removed
from his position in favor of the canon Hilduin (866–877) who had bought the
abbacy for thirty pounds of gold.61 Hilduin has been identified by Ferdinand
Lot with the Hilduin who was briefly administrator of the diocese of Cologne
in 865. This Hilduin had been an unlucky candidate to the bishopric of
Cambrai supported by Lothar II in 863, but he had been turned down by
Hincmar of Reims in 866 in favor of his own candidate, John.62 Indeed,
(Paris, 1952), II, no. 430, pp. 458–63; on this charter, see R. van Caenegem, ‘Le
diplôme de Charles le Chauve pour l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin’, Revue d’Histoire du
Droit 31 (1963), 403–26.
56 Hugh also became Louis’ chancellor in 834: Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle, I, pp. 83–4.
57 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 58, p. 618 and idem, Vita Folquini Episcopi Morinensis (BHL 3079), ed.
O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 151, c. 7, p. 428; on Adalard and his family, see Favre, ‘La
famille d’Évrard’, p. 244.
58 Le polyptyque de Saint-Bertin (844–859). Édition critique et commentaire, ed. F.-L.
Ganshof (Paris, 1975); on this polyptych, see E. Renard, ‘Lectures et relectures d’un
polyptyque carolingien (Saint-Bertin, 844–859)’, RHE 94 (1999), 373–435; and Y.
Morimoto, ‘Problèmes autour du polyptyque de Saint-Bertin (844–859)’, in Le Grand
Domaine aux époques mérovingienne et carolingienne. Actes du Colloque International
(Gand 8–10 septembre 1983), ed. A. Verhulst (Ghent, 1985), pp. 125–51.
62 F. Lot, ‘De quelques personnages du IXe siècle qui ont porté le prénom de Hilduin’,
in Recueil des Travaux Historiques (Paris, 1970), pp. 461–94.
28
Folcuin writes that Hilduin had left the party of Lothar II for Charles, prob-
ably disillusioned by Lothar’s inability to offer him any interesting position.63
In 870, Charles tried once again to make him bishop of Cologne, but Hilduin
was not meant to be bishop, and he was supplanted by Louis the German’s
candidate.64 Nevertheless, he became librarian to Charles the Bald,65 and was
obviously a close and secure ally of the king, who entrusted him with his
pregnant wife Richildis before the battle of Andernach.66 Despite the venality
of the transaction which made Hilduin abbot of Sithiu, Folcuin has only good
things to write about him. It is true that he was generous to his abbey, to
which he bequeathed a pallium and a cappa of great value.67 Furthermore, he
had obtained from his king lands for the mensa fratrum,68 the right for the
monks to hold a market every Friday,69 as well as the right to choose their
dean and other dignitaries, with the approval of the abbot.70 At his death in
877, he was buried with honor at Sithiu, beside St Bertin himself.
Hilduin’s successor was the Canon Fulk (878–882, 892–900). During his
first abbacy, he attempted to organize the defense of Saint-Bertin by building
castelli around the monastery; however, the work could not be completed,
and Saint-Bertin was set on fire by vikings in 878. In 882, at the death of
Hincmar, Fulk became archbishop of Reims and left Saint-Bertin, only to
come back ten years later.71
During Fulk’s ‘sabbatical’ leave, the Unroching Ralph (883–892), son of
Evrard of Friuli and nephew of Abbot Adalard, ruled Saint-Bertin. There has
been some discussion about the status of Ralph, who had long been thought
to bear the title of count, presumably of Ternois. Philip Grierson has demon-
strated that no contemporary source mentions him as count, and he believes
that Ralph was originally an ecclesiastic – at the death of his uncle Adalard
(d. 864), he became abbot of Cysoing, an abbey founded by his father
Evrard.72 Indeed, according to the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium, Baldwin II was
the first layman to rule the abbey. Unfortunately, Folcuin provides few
details about Ralph; he does not even mention his family links with Abbot
63 In the mid-860s, other Lotharingian clerics joined Charles in the hope of getting
better advancement: J. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London, 1992), p. 217 and n. 143.
64 Lot, ‘De quelques personnages du IXe siècle’, p. 466.
65 Diplomata Belgica I, n. 41, p. 73.
66 Annales Bertiniani, ed. F. Grat, J. Vieillard and S. Clémencet, Les Annales de Saint-
Bertin (Paris, 1964), 876, pp. 209–10.
68 Diplomata Belgica I, n. 45, pp. 78–9.
69 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 85, p. 622. Diplomata Belgica I, n. 38, pp. 69–70; n. 39, pp. 71–2; n. 41,
pp. 73–4; n. 43, pp. 75–6; n. 44, pp. 76–8 and n. 45, pp. 78–9.
70 Diplomata Belgica I, n. 44, pp. 76–8.
72 Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae, ed. M. Stratmann, MGH SS 36 (Hanover, 1998),
lib. IV, c. 1, p. 371.
29
Saint-Bertin
Adalard and Count Unroch. In 890, Ralph invited the famous scholar
Hucbald of Saint-Amand to complete his education; in exchange, Hucbald
was given the villa of Itancourt and a community of prayer was instituted
between Saint-Bertin and Saint-Amand.73
Under Flemish authority
In 863, Baldwin I, who already controlled some of the northern pagi of the
future county of Flanders, received Ternois and the lay abbacy of Saint Peter
at Ghent from Charles the Bald.74 With Ternois, also came Saint-Bertin.
Baldwin was buried there, which shows the importance of the abbey at that
early stage in the history of the county. His son, Baldwin II (879–918) had to
reconquer his father’s territories. He did so easily for the northern pagi (Flan-
ders, Mempisc, Waas, Ghent, Courtrai). However, the southern pagi, Ternois
and Boulonais, which his father had once controlled, and Artois, Vermandois
and Ostrevant, which he coveted, were still under the control of the king or
other local potentates, such as the counts of Ternois and Ostrevant.75
Baldwin II was related to Abbot Ralph by marriage and both were related
to the Carolingian king. Therefore, together with Archbishop Fulk, they were
natural allies against King Odo’s coup (888–898), and the three men were
among those who invited Arnulf, king of Eastern Francia, to seize power in
the Western kingdom. Taking advantage of Ralph’s death, Baldwin
conquered Artois, Ternois and their abbeys (Saint-Vaast in 892 and Saint-
Bertin in 900). He eventually lost Artois in 899, but managed to maintain a
firm grip on the regions of Ternois, Boulonais and Tournaisis and on the lay
abbacy of Saint-Bertin, after he had Fulk murdered. Unsurprisingly, Baldwin
II, who had a very bad reputation in Saint-Bertin’s historiography, was
extremely unpopular with the monks. They even renounced Saint-Bertin’s
nascent status as comital burial place rather than allowing Baldwin and his
wife Ælfthryth to be put in their cemetery. At Baldwin’s death, Ælfthryth had
asked the monks of Saint-Bertin to bury her with her husband. They claimed,
however, that no woman, even a dead one, could enter the precinct of the
monastery, so Ælfthryth eventually buried her husband at Saint-Peter at
Ghent, which became the comital mausoleum.76
73 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 94, p. 623, and Diplomata Belgica I, n. 48, pp. 82–3. That Ralph needed
to be taught by Hucbald eight years after receiving the abbey suggests that he may
not have been raised as a churchman.
74 Ganshof, La Flandre, p. 15.
75 Ganshof, La Flandre, pp. 18–19; there was a Count Unroch at Charlemagne’s court,
who signed his testament (Einhard, Vita Karoli, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG
(Hanover, 1911), p. 41) and a Count Unroch was sent on a diplomatic mission to the
Danes by Louis the Pious (Annales Regni Francorum, a. 811, p. 134).
76 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 103 and c. 106, p. 627.
30
From his marriage with Ælfthryth, daughter of Alfred the Great, Baldwin
II had two sons, Arnulf and Adalulf. At his death in 918, his younger son
Adalulf inherited the regions of Ternois and Boulonais, including the abbey
of Saint-Bertin, while the elder one, Arnulf, received all the other counties.77
At Adalulf’s death in 933, Arnulf seized his brother’s possessions, including
the lay abbacy of Saint-Bertin, although Adalulf had two sons, who should
have legitimately inherited.78 During his reign Arnulf consolidated his
control over the territories conquered by his father and extended them south-
ward. In 932, he conquered the Ostrevant, with Saint-Amand and Douai, and
the next year, Artois, with the abbey of Saint-Vaast. Later on, in 948, he took
over Montreuil and a part of the Ponthieu, following the murder of William
Longsword (942).79 Arnulf’s conquests made him the lay abbot of five impor-
tant and extremely wealthy abbeys: Saint-Bertin, Saint-Vaast, Saint-Amand
and Saint-Peter and Saint-Bavo at Ghent, increasing his wealth as well as his
power. For better and for worse, he exerted his authority over his abbeys
with a firm grip. At Saint-Bertin, he ‘convinced’ the monks to transgress the
interdict forbidding any woman to enter the precinct of the abbatial church,
and they allowed his ailing wife Adala to pray over St Bertin’s altar. The
monks’ complaisance earned the community Arnulf’s and Adala’s gratitude
and the fisc of Mercq-Saint-Liévin and its appurtenances.80
Arnulf’s most profound impact on Saint-Bertin was the Benedictine resto-
ration he imposed with his friend and ally, Gerard of Brogne. Arnulf and
Gerard had already restored the Rule at Saint-Peter at Ghent, where Gerard
was made abbot.81 Arnulf and Gerard proceeded in much the same way with
Saint-Bertin: on 15 April 944, Arnulf entrusted Sithiu to Gerard, expecting
him to restore the Benedictine rule. The reformer was not, however, unani-
mously welcomed by the community, and a number of monks left Sithiu;
some took refuge in the villa of Longuenesse and others eventually fled to
England. They were welcomed by King Æthelstan, who hosted them in the
monastery of Bath.82 The monks who did not leave for England eventually
returned to Saint-Bertin. The period following Gerard’s reform was tumul-
tuous and five abbots succeeded one another within a period of ten years.

79 Ganshof, La Flandre, pp. 20–2.
81 For the bibliography on Gerard, above, Introduction, p. 5.
82 According to Folcuin, Gesta, c. 107, p. 629, Æthelstan welcomed the secessionist
monks because he was indebted to Saint-Bertin: in 933, his brother Edwin who was
fleeing England for Flanders, drowned, and his body was found on the banks of
Sithiu. Count Adalulf, who was related to Edwin and Æthelstan through their
common ancestor Alfred the Great, had him buried at Saint-Bertin. As a sign of grati-
tude, Æthelstan made several gifts to Saint-Bertin and was happy, ten years later to
help monks from that abbey.
31
Saint-Bertin
Gerard, who was already abbot of Saint-Peter at Ghent could not properly
rule Saint-Bertin at the same time, and Arnulf requested that the monastery
be ruled by Agilo, a monk of Toul, and Womar, a monk of Saint-Peter at
Ghent– although neither received the title of abbot. At Agilo’s death (c. 947),
Gerard imposed his nephew Wido as abbot; but the young man was soon
removed by the count ‘because he preferred the pleasures of life to the
austerity of abbatial duties’.83 Womar remained alone to rule Saint-Bertin,
still without the abbatial title. This situation was short lived, since Arnulf
soon gave the abbacy to his own nephew, Hildebrand. Hildebrand was
consecrated by the bishop of Thérouanne in 950, and the ceremony was the
occasion for Arnulf to give back to the community the villa of Arques, one of
the main villae of the abbatial mensa, and one which Arnulf had inherited
from his father when given the title of abbot.84
Despite all this trouble, Abbot Hildebrand’s reform was successful – the
monks who remained after 944 were probably the most motivated ones, and
Gerard himself came to Sithiu with his own companions, all of whom came
from different monasteries. In view of Hildebrand’s success, Arnulf decided
to send him to reform his other abbey of Saint-Vaast. Busy with his new task,
Hildebrand asked Arnulf to designate another abbot. Hildebrand was thus
replaced by Regenold in 954.85 From this time on, the abbey was apparently
plagued by successive calamities. First, in 959, the sign of the cross began to
appear on people’s vestments, an event that was ended only when the relics
of St Bertin and St Omer were brought together in the upper church and the
whole community – monks and canons together – paid them honor in a cer-
emony of unification.86 Soon after, the region was struck by an epidemic of
‘leprosy’ and abbot Regenold, infected, had to retire. The care of the commu-
nity was entrusted to the monk Adalulf, who was, however, not granted the
title of abbot – the community had chosen him, but the count refused to
ordain him.87 Adalulf had been given to Saint-Bertin as an oblate some time
before 938 by his father Evrard, who was the advocate of the abbey, and his
mother Riksind, a daughter of Baldwin II.88 It is interesting to note that
Adalulf was among the monks who left Sithiu at the beginning of Gerard’s
reform and came back after some time.89 If Arnulf did not want to make
Adalulf abbot, it was because he had in mind giving the abbacy back to
Hildebrand. At this point, in 961, Adalulf was opportunely sent to England

88 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 106, p. 628; R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde Franc (VIIe–Xe
siècle). Essai d’anthropologie sociale (Paris, 1995), pp. 425–6 and 447.
32
with presents for King Edgar, who had just become king of the West Saxons.
In 962, another misfortune struck the count with the death of his son, Baldwin
III. At about the same time, Adalulf came back from England and began once
again to worry over the election of a new abbot. At this point, Arnulf called
Hildebrand back and gave him the abbacy.90
The Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium ends in 962 with Hildebrand’s reinstate-
ment; the continuation of Folcuin’s Gesta by Simon begins in 1021 with the
abbacy of Roderic (1021–1042).91 Simon, who wrote in the twelfth century,
explains in his introduction that nothing was written about the six abbots
between Adalulf and Roderic. Simon had seen a catalogue of the abbots of
Sithiu (‘Adalolfi, qui in cathalogo ponitur xxvi’).92 The catalogue mentioned
by Simon has disappeared, but the Liber Floridus, written in 1120 by Lambert
of Saint-Omer, contains several lists: prelates who ruled both Saint-Bertin and
Saint-Omer, deans (praepositus) of Saint-Omer and abbots of Saint-Bertin.93
The list containing the abbots has Bernoldus (Regenold?) as twenty-sixth
abbot and does not mention Adalulf – thus following the Gesta Abbatum
Sithiensium. After Bernoldus came Baldwin Pulcher count and abbot, Arnulf
count and abbot, Walter, Trudgand, Odbert and Humfrid. The identities of
Baldwin Pulcher and Arnulf are not clear; Arnulf the Great’s son, Baldwin III
died in 962 and nowhere does Folcuin suggest that Arnulf had given him the
lay abbacy of Saint-Bertin. The only other known Baldwin whose dates could
match this Baldwin is Baldwin Baldzo, who was the guardian of his nephew
Arnulf II during his infancy. During the interregnum, Ternois and Boulonais
were given back to the descendants of Adalulf, and Baldwin may have
received the abbacy of Saint-Bertin on this occasion. The ‘Arnulf count and
abbot’ found in the Liber Floridus could be Arnulf II, but northern Ternois,
and with it the abbey of Saint-Bertin, remained outside the count of Flanders’
control until Baldwin IV (988–1035). Therefore, our Arnulf could be Adalulf’s
son, legitimate heir of Boulonais and Ternois.94 The next abbot in Lambert’s
catalogue is Walter, whose dates are uncertain, but Folcuin dedicated to him
his vita of Folcuin of Thérouanne, which he wrote when he was abbot of
Lobbes (968–990), and a charter dated 975 mentions him as abbot.95 While his

91 Simon, Gesta, c. 1, p. 635.
92 Simon, Gesta, p. 635.
93 Lambert of Saint-Omer, Series Abbatum S. Bertini et Praepositorum S. Audomari
Sithiensium, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 13, pp. 389–91.
94 Ganshof, La Flandre, pp. 27–9.
95 D. Haigneré, Les chartes de Saint-Bertin d’après le Grand Cartulaire de Dom
Charles-Joseph Dewitte, 3 vols. (Saint-Omer, 1886), I, pp. 20–1, n. 64; Folcuin, Gesta,
additamentum, p. 634; Vita Folquini, p. 425; according to H. de Laplane, Les abbés de
Saint-Bertin d’après les anciens monuments de ce monastère (Saint-Omer, 1854), Walter’s
coffin was found during the disastrous excavation campaign of 1843, which
completely destroyed the crypt of the abbatial church. The coffin was covered with
33
Saint-Bertin
successor, Trudgand, is unknown, Saint-Bertin comes back to light in the

sources with its next abbot, Odbert (c. 987–c. 1007). As will be discussed later,
Odbert is famous for reviving the production of illuminated manuscripts at
Saint-Bertin, an art which had flourished there in the ninth century, but had
faded during the tenth.96 Odbert is also known, thanks to two letters he wrote
to the archbishops of Canterbury, Æthelgar (988–990) and Sigeric (990–994).97
From these letters, it appears that Odbert had had friendly relations with
their predecessor Dunstan (959–988), who had spent his exile in Flanders, at
Saint-Peter at Ghent (955–957).98 When Archbishop Æthelgar went to Rome
to receive the pallium, he stayed at Saint-Bertin both going and coming
back.99 In his letter to Sigeric, Odbert offered his hospitality to the archbishop;
sources do not say whether the invitation was accepted, but relations
between Odbert and England remained close since during his abbacy
Saint-Bertin was visited by Anglo-Saxon artists who painted some of his
manuscripts and strongly influenced his own production.100
The continuation of Folcuin written by Simon in the twelfth century begins
with the abbacy of Roderic (1021–1042). A monk of Saint-Vaast, he was
named by the count of Flanders, Baldwin IV ‘the Bearded’ (988–1035), in
order to restore a proper regular life, much needed after ‘the excesses of his
predecessor Humfrid’.101 Obviously, the Benedictine restoration imposed
with much pain by Arnulf the Great, Gerard of Brogne and Hildebrand less
than seventy years earlier, did not outlive its promoters. This is not surpris-
ing: considering the major role played by the counts of Flanders in church
politics in the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious reform needed the
support, and even the initiative, of the count. The troubled political situation
of Ternois in general and Saint-Bertin in particular, which resulted from
Arnulf II’s succession, was not propitious for the maintenance of a high level
of religious observance. Like his great-grand-father Arnulf, Baldwin IV had
undertaken the restoration of the monasteries located in his county under the
influence of Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, and Richard of Saint-Vanne. In 1008,
a leaden plate inscribed with the date of Walter’s death (984) and the length of his
abbacy (twenty years); however, the excavation of Saint-Bertin was so poorly
performed and recorded that it is perilous to trust de Laplane’s descriptions of what
was found.
96 On book production during Odbert’s abbacy, see below, Chapter 2, pp. 46–49; his
name as abbot appears for the first time in a charter dated 993 (Haigneré, Les chartes
de Saint-Bertin, p. 21, no. 64) and in several miracles (AA SS, 2 Sept., pp. 624–8).
97 Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series 63
(London, 1874, pp. 384–5 and 388–9. A new edition is to be published: S. Vander-
putten, ‘Canterbury and Flanders in the Late Tenth Century’, in Anglo Saxon Studies
(2005). I thank the author, who has kindly given me his manuscript.
98 Memorial of Saint Dunstan, p. 389.
99 Memorial of Saint Dunstan, p. 388.
100 Below, p. 47.
101 Simon, Gesta, c. 1, p. 636.
34
Saint-Vaast was reformed by Abbot Leduinus, a disciple of Richard; in 1024,

the abbey of Marchiennes was turned into an all-male Benedictine commu-
nity by Leduinus, and finally, Saint-Bertin was entrusted to Roderic, a
disciple of the same Leduinus.102 Roderic did not meet any more enthusiasm
than had Gerard of Brogne in his time, and some of the monks left the
community upon his arrival.103 In spite of Roderic’s lack of success at
Saint-Bertin, Baldwin IV entrusted him with the restoration of the community
of Bergues-Saint-Winnoc in 1022. Roderic expelled the canons, sent a few
monks from Saint-Bertin and subjected the refounded monastery to Saint-
Bertin.104 Roderic’s abbacy was not a happy time for Sithiu: the buildings
were partly destroyed by a fire and shortly afterward an epidemic killed
eleven of the monks.105
The first signs that Sithiu felt that its landholding was threatened by local
landowners and petty potentates also date from the time of Roderic’s abbacy.
The abbey had been in conflict for some time over holdings which were adja-
cent to the property of local landowners; the bishop of Thérouanne solved the
problem, albeit probably to his own advantage, by taking the disputed lands
for himself in exchange of a series of altars.106 A few years later, Roderic’s
successor, Bovo (1042–1065), had to call for the count’s assistance in a conflict
with the abbey’s advocate.107 Indeed, the usurpation of the abbey’s land-
holding appears to be among the major preoccupations of Simon’s Gesta
Abbatum, and the issue also arises in contemporary miracles of St Bertin.108
Besides the struggle over its landholding, the community of Saint-Bertin
also had to face a series of fires, which obliged several abbots to devote much
time and money to the re-construction of the buildings. After the 1033 blaze,
102 On the circumstances which led Baldwin to restore Saint-Bertin, see van Meter,
‘Count Baldwin IV’.
103 Simon, Gesta, c. 1, p. 636.
104 Roderic ruled Saint-Winnoc for seven years, after which he entrusted the commu-
nity to a monk of Saint-Bertin; see Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, ed. B.
Guérard, Collection de Documents pour Servir à l’Histoire de France (Paris, 1840), c.
9, p. 178 (this chapter is not in the MGH edition).
105 Simon, Gesta, cc. 2–5, pp. 636–7.
106 See Simon, Gesta, c. 6, pp. 637–8; for the text of the bishop’s charter, see Cartulaire de
l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, part 2, c. 7, pp. 175–6.
107 On this occasion, the relics of St Omer and St Bertin were placed on a boat which had
previously been blessed by Drogo of Thérouanne; then the boat moved along the Aa
around Sithiu in order to distinguish the area under the undisputed control of the
community: Simon, Gesta, c. 13, pp. 638–9; for the count’s charter, see Cartulaire de
l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, part 2, c. 14, pp. 184–7.
108 For example, at the time of Abbot Heribert (1065–1081) a man named Bodora had
alienated the villa of Caumont, which was regained thanks to St Bertin: see Simon,
Gesta, c. 19, p. 640, and Herbert’s confirmation charter, in Cartulaire de l’abbaye de
Saint-Bertin, part 2, c. 20, pp. 194–6; at the time of Abbot John (1081–1095), Count
Robert had to help the abbey recover a pond which had been usurped, see Simon,
Gesta, c. 32, p. 642; see also AA SS, 2 Sept., pp. 628–9.
35
Saint-Bertin
Roderic had hastily repaired the main church, but by the time of his
successor, Abbot Bovo (1042–1065), it was already crumbling. Bovo under-
took an ambitious operation of reconstruction and enlargement of the
abbatial church, during which the relics of St Bertin were re-discovered.
There is no doubt that Bovo was hoping that the inventio would stimulate St
Bertin’s cult and would entice the local faithful to make offerings. It does not
appear, however, that the revenues of the community were significantly
augmented, and because of lack of money or time, Bovo was unable to finish
his ambitious project. Bovo’s successor, Heribert (1065–1081), almost finished
the work, but before the roof was completed, the church burnt down once
again.109 Only in the abbacies of John (1081–1095) and Lambert (1095–1125)
was the reconstruction resumed and completed: the new buildings were
consecrated in 1106 by the bishop of Thérouanne.110
109 Simon, Gesta, c. 18, p. 640 and c. 26, p. 642.

110 Simon, Gesta, c. 82, p. 651.
36
CHAPTER TWO
Cultural Life at Saint-Bertin
Introduction
Saint-Bertin was an extremely wealthy and prestigious monastery which had

attracted the attention of successive Carolingian and Flemish rulers. There is
no doubt that Carolingian and, to some extent, Flemish patronage, allowed
Saint-Bertin to become a cultural center which stood in an honored position
among the other Frankish monasteries.1 Saint-Bertin possessed a well-
endowed library and, at different periods of its history, produced its own
manuscripts, some of them aesthetically remarkable. The quality of its library
and scriptorium offered Saint-Bertin the intellectual tools necessary for the
development of a distinguished monastic school. The oblates educated at the
school had good literary abilities, as exemplified by the monk and scholar
Grimbald, who was called to the court of King Alfred (c. 886–887); Folcuin,
who wrote history and hagiography, and in the eleventh century Folcard and
Goscelin, who pursued their careers as writers in England.2 Saint-Bertin’s
relationship with England was indeed continuous during the period; these
1 On the role of Carolingian patronage in the production of manuscripts and the exten-
sion of literary culture throughout the Frankish kingdoms, see R. McKitterick,
‘Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library: The Patronage of Learning’, English
Historical Review 95 (1980), 28–47, and idem, ‘Carolingian Book Production: Some
Problems’, The Library 6th series, 12 (1990), 1–33.
2 On these authors’ contribution to biographical and hagiographic writing in England,
see E. van Houts, ‘The Flemish Contribution to Biographical Writing in the Eleventh
Century’, in The Limits of Medieval Biography: Essays in Honor of Professor Frank Barlow,
ed. D. Bates, J. Crick and S. Hamilton (Woodbridge, forthcoming). On Grimbald, see
P. Grierson, ‘Grimbald of St. Bertin’s’, English Historical Review 55 (1940), 529–61; J.
Bately, ‘Grimbald of St. Bertin’s’, Medium Aevum 35 (1966), 1–10; and Asser’s Life of
King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, ed. and trans. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge
(London, 1983); on Goscelin, see the appendix to The Life of King Edward who Rests at
Westminster, ed. and trans. F. Barlow (Oxford, 1992), pp. 133–49; R. Sharpe,
‘Goscelin’s St. Augustine and St. Mildreth: Hagiography and Liturgy in Context’,
Journal of Theological Studies new series, 41 (1990), 502–16; and S. Millinger, ‘Humility
and Power: Anglo-Saxon Nuns in Anglo-Norman Hagiography’, in Medieval Reli-
gious Women, ed. J. A. Nichols and L. T. Shank, vol. 1: Distant Echoes, Cistercian
Studies Series 71 (Kalamazoo, 1984), pp. 115–29; and T. J. Hamilton, ‘Goscelin of
Canterbury: A Critical Study of his Life, Works and Accomplishments’, 2 vols.
(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Virginia, 1973).
37
Saint-Bertin
contacts were not only documented in the written sources from Saint-Bertin,
but they are also very visible in the surviving manuscripts from the commu-
nity’s library and by its artistic production. Most of the oldest manuscripts
(before 800) which have survived were written or annotated by insular
hands. In the second half of the ninth century, the scriptorium produced a
series of manuscripts in the Franco-Saxon style, a Continental style that origi-
nated in Flanders (at Saint-Amand and Saint-Vaast) and was characterized by
its strong insular overtones. Finally, during Odbert’s abbacy, the Anglo-
Saxon artists who visited Saint-Bertin and painted some of Odbert’s manu-
scripts were extremely influential on Odbert himself and on later artistic
production at Saint-Bertin.
The library
The study of book production and ownership at Saint-Bertin is an immense

task that deserves a comprehensive study of its own. The task of the student
of Saint-Bertin’s library is facilitated by the fact that, in the aftermath of the
French Revolution, most of the manuscripts which survived destruction and
dissemination were gathered in the municipal libraries of Saint-Omer and
Boulogne-sur-Mer.3 About sixty manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts,
which date from the sixth century to the period of Abbot Odbert, can be
attributed to the medieval library of Saint-Bertin, thanks to anathemas and
identification marks which were inscribed on the front pages from the ninth
century to the fifteenth. To these surviving manuscripts should be added the
305 titles making up the catalogue drawn up in the early twelfth century.4
The identification of the origins of Saint-Bertin’s manuscripts is often
problematic. Indeed, apart from a handful of ninth-century de luxe manu-
scripts obviously produced for export and the group of manuscripts associ-
ated with Odbert’s workshop, the surviving books are remarkable for the
diversity of their script and layout. The adoption by a scriptorium of a house
style was indeed the exception rather than the rule in the early Middle Ages,
and, clearly, the manuscripts which were produced for the everyday use of
the school and the community did not bear characteristics which would
allow them to be identified as Saint-Bertin’s products. It is most likely that
Saint-Bertin imported a number of its manuscripts from the numerous
monastic centers of the region. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the libraries
and scriptoria of the neighboring monasteries is still too sketchy to be of
3 On the circumstances under which Saint-Bertin’s manuscripts were gathered in

these libraries, see H. Michelant, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques
publiques des départements, vol. 3: Saint-Omer (Paris, 1861), pp. 3–10, and vol. 4:
Boulogne-sur-Mer (Paris, 1872), pp. 565–9.
4 G. Becker, Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui (Hildesheim, 1885), pp. 181–4.
38
Cultural Life
much help.5 Furthermore, the intensive exchanges of manuscripts and

scribes, which certainly linked all these cultural centers, favored the produc-
tion of a regional style in which differences between scriptoria are hardly
discernible.6
The pre-Carolingian manuscripts

The books from Saint-Bertin’s library dated to before 800 have been identified
by E. A. Lowe in the CLA.7 The oldest is a copy of Ambrose’s Opera dating
from the first half of the sixth century and written in Italian uncial. This
manuscript probably reached Sithiu via England, since marginalia in eighth-
century Anglo-Saxon minuscule, some in the vernacular, are visible on three
folios.8 Fragments of another manuscript of Italian origin, Augustine’s
Enarrationes in Psalmos, dated to the sixth or seventh century, have survived
in two twelfth-century manuscripts.9 Two pre-Caroline minuscule folios of a
commentary on Luke’s Gospel, which were used as fly-leaves in a ninth-
century manuscript, can also be attributed to Saint-Bertin’s library.10 All the
other pre-Carolingian manuscripts are dated from the eighth century and
have an insular connection. A collection of Augustine’s letters dated from the
early eighth century was written in Anglo-Saxon minuscule on a parchment
prepared partly in the Insular and partly in the Continental manner, which
indicates a production in an Insular center on the Continent.11 The eighth-
century fragment of Isidore’s Differentiae, inserted in a tenth-century book,
was also probably written in a Continental center with Insular connections.12
The three remaining eighth-century manuscripts were undoubtedly written
5 The library and scriptorium of Corbie have been studied extensively: D. Ganz, Corbie
in the Carolingian Renaissance, Beihefte der Francia 20 (Sigmaringen, 1990); R.
McKitterick has already given some results from her study on Saint-Amand: The
Frankish Kingdoms, pp. 207–10, ‘Charles the Bald (823–877) and his Library’,
‘Carolingian Book Production’.
6 On the issue of regional and local style in manuscript production, see McKitterick,
‘Carolingian Book Production’; on Carolingian manuscripts and libraries, see also
the articles in B. Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, ed. and
trans. M. Gorman, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 1 (Cam-
bridge, 1994).
7 CLA VI: France.
8 BSM, MS 32; CLA VI, 735; the Anglo-Saxon marginalia are on fols. 61, 61v and 62.
9 BSM, MS 27 (fragment on the back cover) and S-O, MS 150 (fragments, fols. 3, 6, 7, 10,
11, 14, 15); CLA VI, 734.
10 KBR, MS 8654–72, fols. 1 and 208; CLA X, 1542.
11 BSM, MS 58; CLA VI, 737; T. J. Brown has pointed to the paleographical similarities
between MS 58 and MS 74, and has suggested that the manuscript dates from the
beginning of the eighth century; see P. Sims-Williams, ‘An Unpublished Seventh- or
Eighth-Century Anglo-Latin Letter in Boulogne-sur-Mer MS 74 (82)’, Medium Aevum
48 (1979), 1–22 (pp. 1–2).
12 S-O, MS 279 (fols. 1–2); CLA VI, 827
39
Saint-Bertin
in England: the abbreviated text of Apponius’s commentary on the Canticum

Canticorum was written in southern England and bears a paleographical like-
ness to the volume of Augustine’s epistles (BSM 58);13 the fragment of Mark’s
Gospels bound in a ninth-century composite manuscript is in Anglo-Saxon
majuscule from Northumbria;14 finally, the single leaf of Glossae super Amos
inserted in a tenth-century lectionary is in an Irish or Welsh script.15
The predominance of insular manuscripts and manuscripts with insular
connections is immediately striking. Actually, BSM 27 (32), in Italian uncial,
and KBR 8654–72 (fols. 1 and 208) are the only pre-Carolingian manuscripts
from Saint-Bertin that do not display any Insular characteristics. Appraising
the significance of the predominance of Anglo-Saxon books in the early
library is a delicate task because our manuscripts sample is so small and,
considering the relations that the monastery maintained with England were
close throughout the Middle Ages, it is not impossible that some of these
books were given to Saint-Bertin centuries after their fabrication. Although
Sithiu was founded by Continental monks educated in the Luxeuil tradition,
the Anglo-Saxon cultural predominance at Sithiu is not surprising if one
considers the origins of pre-Carolingian manuscripts in other Neustrian
libraries. The major role played by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries in the
transmission of manuscripts in the Frankish world in the seventh and eighth
centuries is well known. Coming from the British Isles, these missionaries
established monasteries throughout the Continent, from the North (Fulda,
Echternach, Luxeuil) to the South (Bobbio). Not only did Columbanus,
Willibrord, Boniface and the like bring manuscripts from home, but they also
rapidly instituted scriptoria in their new foundations. Hence, manuscripts
were produced on the Continent with the techniques, script and ornamenta-
tion style typical of the Insular world. Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxons, who
had a long tradition of close relationships with the papacy, were also the
vectors of transmission for Mediterranean manuscripts from Rome to
northern Europe.16
13 BSM, MS 74; CLA VI, 738; on these two manuscripts, see Sims-Williams, ‘An Unpub-
lished Seventh- or Eighth-Century Anglo-Latin Letter’.
14 S-O, MS 257, fols. 1–7; CLA VI, 826.
15 S-O, MS 342bis; CLA VI, 828.
16 On cultural relations between England and the Continent, see V. Ortenberg, The
English Church and the Continent in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Cultural, Spiritual
and Artistic Exchanges (Oxford, 1992) and W. Levison, England and the Continent in the
Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946); on their impact on manuscript production, see R.
McKitterick, ‘The Scriptoria of Merovingian Gaul: A Survey of the Evidence’, in
Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, pp. 173–207; idem, ‘The Diffusion of Insular
Culture in Neustria between 650 and 850: The Implications of the Manuscript
Evidence’, in La Neustrie II, pp. 395–432; idem, ‘Anglo-Saxon Missionaires in
Germany: Reflections on the Manuscript Evidence’, Transactions of the Cambridge
Bibliographical Society 60 (1989), 291–329; for a specific example, see N. Netzer,
Cultural Interplay in the Eighth Century: The Trier Gospels and the Making of a Scriptorium
40
Cultural Life
All in all, the predominance at Sithiu of Anglo-Saxon and Italian manu-

scripts – which had been forwarded via the British Isles – fits this scheme. If
one considers, for example, the pre-Carolingian library of Corbie, a similar
observation can be made: out of twenty alien manuscripts dating before the
ninth century, five were Italian (all dated before 700) and seven (all the
eighth-century manuscripts which were not produced at Corbie) present an
Insular script and were written either in England or in an Insular center on
the Continent.17 This shows that in the seventh and eighth centuries Corbie
imported most of its books from Britain. But Corbie also had an important
in-house production center, something that cannot be found at Saint-Bertin
before the late eighth century.18 It is also interesting to compare Saint-Bertin
with the other Neustrian libraries listed in the sixth volume of the CLA, which
covers early manuscripts in French libraries, other than the Bibliothèque
Nationale. These modern libraries have inherited medieval manuscripts from
Saint-Vaast (Arras), Saint-Amand (Valenciennes), and Corbie (Amiens);
among the nine manuscripts or fragments identified by Lowe as Insular, five
come from Saint-Bertin, to which should be added the Italian manuscript
which reached Sithiu via England (BSM 32 (37)).19
Drawing broad conclusions from such a small sample is certainly risky,
and the fragmentary state of some of these early books should be a reminder
that our knowledge of Sithiu’s pre-Carolingian library is extremely fragmen-
tary. Nevertheless, the overwhelming predominance of Anglo-Saxon manu-
scripts in the early library of Saint-Bertin suggests that its connections were
chiefly insular. This strong cultural connection between Saint-Bertin and
Anglo-Saxon England in the first centuries of its history is not explicitly docu-
mented in the sources; furthermore, until its destruction by the vikings,
Quentavic was the normal landing place for Anglo-Saxon travelers, pilgrims
at Echternach (Cambridge, 1994). Although these studies focus mostly on Insular

influence on the Continent, England was undoubtedly exposed to Continental influ-
ence; according to Sims-Williams, the monastery of Bath in the seventh century
underwent Continental influence, especially from Chelles; some manuscripts which
might have been written at Bath (such as BSM, MS 58 (Augustine’s Epistulae) and MS
74 (Apponius, In Canticum Canticorum) bear both Insular and Continental character-
istics, which have usually led scholars to consider them as manuscripts from Insular
centers on the Continent, see P. Sims-Williams, ‘Continental Influence at Bath
Monastery in the Seventh Century’, Anglo-Saxon England 4 (1975), 1–10, and idem,
‘An Unpublished Seventh- or Eighth-Century Anglo-Latin Letter’.
17 Ganz, Corbie, pp. 124–30.
18 Ganz has identified ten manuscripts written at Corbie before the time of Abbot
Leodegar (752–c. 765) and seventy-four manuscripts written from Leodegar to
Maurdramnus (c. 770–783): Corbie, pp. 130–41.
19 CLA VI, p. V; the other manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon or Continental Anglo-Saxon
centers are Arras, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 764 (739) from the library of
Saint-Vaast; Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 470 (441) from the cathedral
library; and BSM, MS 42 (47) from the library of Saint-Vaast.
41
Saint-Bertin
and merchants. This is why it is often suggested that the oldest Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts in the library had been brought to Saint-Bertin by tenth- or elev-
enth-century visitors.20 Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that at least of
some of the ancient manuscripts, especially those which were inserted as
fragments in ninth- or tenth-century books, belong to the early period of the
library.
The Carolingian manuscripts

The contents of the library of Saint-Bertin does not offer many surprises.
Patristic works, hagiographic texts and Gospels were predominant. Augus-
tine was undoubtedly the most strongly represented author in the collection,
since his works are found in eight manuscripts: a treatise on the Trinity,21
sermons22 and a volume of miscellaneous works.23 After Augustine came
Ambrose of Milan (Exposition on Luke,24 and one volume of miscellaneous
works25 and Jerome (Breviary on the Psalter,26 On Matthew,27 On the minor
prophets28 and On Ezechiel29). Bede’s commentaries were well represented,
too (On the Pentateuch,30 On the Tabernacle,31 On Paul’s Epistles32). As far as
the remains of a library can reflect its past content, the library of Saint-Bertin
does not seem to have kept up with eighth-century intellectual fashions, since
only two Carolingian authors are represented, in tenth-century copies:
Smaragdus (Commentaries on the Gospels and Epistles),33 and Alcuin (On
Grammar).34 The manuscript of De Grammatica was clearly a teaching tool
since Alcuin’s text was copied together with a dialogued version of
Cassiodorus’s own Grammar. Poetry was represented by Prudentius’s
Carmina.35 The surviving books and the catalogue represent only a part –
20 On relations between Saint-Bertin (and Flanders in general) and England, see Ph.
Grierson, ‘The Relations between England and Flanders before the Norman
Conquest’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th series, 23 (1941), 71–112;
Sims-Williams suggests that the Bath manuscripts (BSM, MSS 58 and 74) could have
reached Saint-Bertin as late as the tenth or eleventh century (‘An Unpublished
Anglo-Latin Letter’, p. 4), but there is no way to solve the problem.
21 BSM, MS 51 (IX).
22 S-O, MS 268 (X).
23 BSM, MSS 48, 52, 60; S-O, MS 254 (IX) and 254 (X).
24 BSM, MS 35 (IX).
25 S-O, MS 72 (IX2).
26 S-O, MS 15 (IX1).
27 S-O, MS 33bis (IX).
28 S-O, MS 279 (IX).
29 BSM, MS 40 (X).
30 BSM, MS 16bis (IX1).
31 BSM, MS 18 (IX2, Corbie).
32 S-O, MS 91 (IX1).
33 BSM, MS 25 and S-O, MS 257 (X).
34 S-O, MS 666 (X).
35 S-O, MS 306 (X).
42
Cultural Life
which is difficult to assess – of the texts available to the monks, as Folcuin’s

mention of the visio Wittonis should remind us.36 Finally, there is no trace of
classical authors among the works which have been preserved. This certainly
does not mean that Saint-Bertin did not have classical works in the
Carolingian period but, unlike Corbie and Saint-Amand, it was probably not
an important center for classical studies. Folcuin’s command of classical Latin
was far from perfect, although he knew such authors as Cicero and Virgil.37
Nevertheless, the early twelfth-century library catalogue mentions a number
of classical poets: Juvenal, Horace, Ovid, Persius, Statius, Terence, Virgil.
Cicero’s Rhetoric is also mentioned as well as a work by Sallust. Of course,
since these manuscripts have disappeared it is impossible to know at what
period they entered the library.
The catalogue
The catalogue of Saint-Bertin’s library contains 305 titles, sorted in approxi-
mate alphabetical order.38 Its first publisher, Dom Berthod, had seen the cata-
logue in a manuscript containing an appendix to Simon’s Gesta Abbatum.
Berthod asserted that the catalogue dated from 1104.39 Unfortunately, the
manuscript and the catalogue have disappeared, and with them any possi-
bility for a new assessment. Nevertheless, its content gives credibility to the
date.40 In the catalogue, as well as in the collection of surviving manuscripts,
the Church Fathers, led by Augustine, prevail. Historical works stand in a
good position too: Orosius’s Universal History, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica
(gesta Anglorum), Gregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum (gesta Francorum), Paul
the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum (gesta Langobardorum), the Gesta
Romanorum Pontificum, the Historia Tripartita, Josephus’s History of the Jewish
Wars, and a Fabula et excidium Troiae. The catalogue – which also mentions a
Rule of St Benedict, the Lex Salica, the Justinian code and more Carolingian
works (by Alcuin, Paschasius Radbert, Smaragdus) – completes our vision of
Saint-Bertin’s medieval library.
36 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 46, p. 614; the Visio Wettini was composed in 827 by Walahfrid
Strabo, then a monk at Fulda. Walahfrid Strabo, Visio Wettini, ed. H. Knittel
(Sigmaringen, 1986); see P. Godman, Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics and
Carolingian Poetry (Oxford, 1987), pp. 130–4.
37 S. Vanderputten, ‘ “Literate Memory” and Social Reassessment in Tenth-Century
Monasticism’, in Mediaevistik (forthcoming).
38 Becker, Catalogi Bibliothecarum, pp. 181–4.
39 A. Berthod, ‘Notice du cartulaire de Simon, manuscrit de la bibliothèque de
Saint-Bertin’, Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale et Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres de
Bruxelles 5 (1788), 227–30.
40 E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, 4 vols. (Lille, 1909–1938), IV:
Les Livres. ‘Scriptoria’ et bibliothèques (Lille, 1938), pp. 628–35.
43
Saint-Bertin
The scriptorium
We have seen that Saint-Bertin’s oldest manuscripts came from the British
Isles and Italy; there is no evidence that there was an active scriptorium at
Saint-Bertin in pre-Carolingian times. The first reference to the fabrication of
books by the monks themselves is found in a royal diploma of 800 in which
Charlemagne granted the abbot and the monks of Sithiu hunting rights in the
monastery’s woods. The diploma specifies that the monks use the skins of
wild beasts to make gloves and book covers (‘ad volumina librorum
tegenda’).41 Book production, especially of upper grade books, does not seem
to have been steady or continuous, and different periods of activity can be
determined. The first one corresponds to the abbacy of Fridugis (820–834).
The second one takes place in the second half of the ninth century, when a
series of de luxe manuscripts illuminated in the Franco-Saxon style was
produced for export. The last period that I will examine here corresponds to
the abbacy of Odbert (c. 986–1007).
The ninth century

According to Folcuin, the scriptorium of Saint-Bertin had been decaying for a
long time when Guntbert, who entered Sithiu during Fridugis’s abbacy,
resuscitated its activity (‘Nam monasterii huius libraria, quae pene omnia
vetustate erant demolita, quoniam peritus erat scriba, propria renovavit
industria’).42 Guntbert produced books for his own library as well as for
export. He, himself, wrote three antiphonaries; he offered one to the canons
of Saint-Omer and another to the community of Saint-Winnoc; the third one,
which was the most beautiful, because it was richly illuminated with gold, he
gave it to Saint-Bertin.43 Furthermore, Guntbert – probably assisted by his
workshop – also wrote a computus for Saint-Bertin as well as many other
books, which Folcuin does not name. Folcuin’s assertion that the activity of
the scriptorium had been decaying for a long time is probably an overstate-
ment, since a manuscript of St Augustine’s Retractations was written in the
time of Abbot Nanthar (805–820).44 Nevertheless, it is not surprising that the
activity of Saint-Bertin’s scriptorium was boosted during Fridugis’s abbacy.
At Tours, where he had succeeded Alcuin as abbot, Fridugis had inherited a
41 Diplomata Belgica I, no. 20, pp. 39–40; hunting rights were confirmed again by Louis
the Pious in 820 (Diplomata Belgica I, no. 25, pp. 46–7).
42 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 52, p. 615: ‘Indeed, thanks to his zeal, he restored the libraries of his
monastery, which had been destroyed by the decay of their pens, because the art of
writing had perished.’ On Guntbert: G. Coolen, ‘Guntbert de Saint-Bertin,
Chronique des temps carolingiens’, Revue du Nord 40 (1958) (Mélanges Dédiés à la
Mémoire de Raymond Monier), 213–24.
44 BSM, MS 44.
44
Cultural Life
flourishing scriptorium; during his abbacy, not only did the scriptorium
maintain its high quality production, but it also introduced artistic innova-
tions.45 The antiphonaries and the computus written by Guntbert have unfor-
tunately disappeared, but some of the other manuscripts produced by his
workshop may still survive.
The second discernible period of book production at Sithiu takes place in
the second half of the ninth century and is represented by six de luxe manu-
scripts, richly decorated in the so-called Franco-Saxon style, which was char-
acteristic of northern French manuscript production. The Franco-Saxon style,
which was exclusively non-figurative, was essentially restricted to capitals,
illuminated with interlace and animal heads painted in bright colors. The
style, the result of the strong influence of Anglo-Saxon art on Carolingian
renaissance illumination, developed in the second half of the ninth century
and its earliest occurrence appears to have been at Saint-Amand.46 The
origins and process of the development of the style is not easy to unravel
since Carolingian illumination from the first half of the ninth century was
already heavily influenced by Anglo-Saxon manuscript production. It is not,
however, surprising that a style characterized by a mix of Anglo-Saxon and
Carolingian features originated in Flanders.
The starting point for the identification of this coherent group of manu-
scripts is Louis the German’s Psalter, now in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.47
Dedicated to ‘Hludovico regi’ (fol. 1v), the psalter contains a litany in which
the names of St Bertin and St Omer are written in purple letters. The
emphasis on the patron saints of Sithiu is the basis for the attribution of the
psalter to this scriptorium. This argument is not above challenge, since many
scriptoria produced books for export, the litanies or calendars of which were
adapted to the recipient’s liturgical needs. Nevertheless, the paleographical
and artistic characteristics of the manuscripts from the group of Louis the
German’s Psalter set them apart from the production of other Franco-Saxon
scriptoria. Furthermore, some of these characteristics are found in the manu-
45 See for example, Basle, Universitätsbibliothek, A.N. I.3, and Stuttgart, Würtem-
bergische Landesbibliothek, HB.II.40, in Charlemagne. Oeuvre, rayonnement et
survivances. Catalogue de l’exposition d’Aix-La-Chapelle, 26 juin – 19 septembre 1965
(Aachen, 1965), nn. 486 and 487; on the Tours scriptorium, see E. K. Rand, A Survey of
the Manuscripts of Tours: Studies in the Script of Tours (Cambridge, 1929) and W.
Koehler, Karolingischen Miniaturen, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1930–1933), I: Die Schule von Tours.
46 On the origins of the Franco-Saxon style, see K. Nordenfalk, ‘Ein karolingische
Sakramentar aus Echternach und seine Vorlaüfer’, Acta Archaeologica 2 (1931),
207–44; C. R. Dodwell, The Pictorial Arts of the West: 800–1200 (New Haven, 1993), p.
74; on illumination at Saint-Amand, see A. Boutémy, ‘Le style franco-saxon, style de
Saint-Amand’, Scriptorium 3 (1949), 260–4, and J. Deshusses, ‘Chronologie des
grands sacramentaires de Saint-Amand’, RB 87 (1977), 230–7.
47 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Theol. lat., fol. 58; see Charle-
magne. Oeuvre, rayonnement et survivances, n. 488, and F. Mütherich and J. Gaehde,
Karolingische Buchmalerei (Munich, 1976), p. 66, n. 17.
45
Saint-Bertin
scripts from Odbert’s workshop, which suggests that he had access to simi-
larly written and ornamented manuscripts in Saint-Bertin’s library. For these
reasons, the attribution of Louis’ Psalter to Saint-Bertin is a plausible one. On
paleographical and stylistic grounds, the Psalter has been dated from the
second half of the ninth century.48 This date rules out Louis the Pious as bene-
factor of the gift and implies, rather, that it was dedicated to Louis the
German. The manuscript may have been offered to Louis by Abbot Adalard
when he betrayed Charles the Bald in his favor in 859.49 Stylistic and
paleographical similarities link another psalter, now in the Wolfenbüttel
Library, to the Berlin psalter.50 To these two manuscripts, should be added
three Gospel books: one now in Prague,51 another in the Vatican library52 and
the Porrentruy Gospels,53 which are more simply decorated than the psalters.
That the scriptorium of Saint-Bertin produced such a coherent group of
manuscripts in a short period of time shows that the scriptorium created
manuscripts with a unified style of script and ornamentation. That all these
manuscripts appear to have left Saint-Bertin at an early date suggests that
they were produced for other communities or as high-status gifts.54
Book production during Odbert’s abbacy (986–1007)

The next intensive period of book production at Saint-Bertin was the abbacy
of Abbot Odbert.55 Sixteen manuscripts written and ornamented by Odbert
48 See Charlemagne. Oeuvre, rayonnement et survivances, but compare with K. Norden-

falk, ‘Ein karolingische Sakramentar’, p. 238.
50 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS 81. 17; see W. Milde, Mittelalterliche
Handschriften der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Francfort, 1972), p. 34.
51 Prague, Cathedral Library, B. 66; see Charlemagne. Oeuvre, rayonnement et survivances,
n. 489.
52 Rome, Bibliotheca Vaticana, Pal. Lat. 47.
53 Porrentruy, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 2; see A. Bruckner, ‘Das Evangelienbuch
von St.-Ursanne’, Varia Codicologica. Essays Presented to G. I. Lieftinck (Amsterdam,
1972), pp. 17–24.
54 For example, Louis the German’s psalter bears annotation by a late ninth-century
hand from southern Germany, which shows that it had left Saint-Bertin directly after
its production.
55 On Odbert’s work, see most recently two unpublished dissertations: S. Lowry, ‘New
York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 333, and Manuscript Illumination at the Monas-
tery of Saint-Bertin under Abbot Odbert (98 – ca. 1007)’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis,
Columbia University, 1993) and C. Kelleher, ‘Illumination at Saint-Bertin at
Saint-Omer under the Abbacy of Odbert’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of
London, 1968). Kelleher has so far provided the most convincing list of manuscripts
that can be attributed to Odbert. These two studies supersede the extensive research
undertaken by André Boutémy: for example, A. Boutémy, ‘Un grand enlumineur du
Xe siècle: l’abbé Odbert de Saint-Bertin’, Annales de la Fédération Archéologique et
Historique de Belgique 32 (1947), 247–54; idem, ‘Influences carolingiennes dans
l’oeuvre de l’abbé Odbert de Saint-Bertin’, in Karolingische und ottonische Kunst, ed. F.
46
Cultural Life
and his workshop have been identified; they are recognizable thanks to their
script and their decoration, figurative or not. It appears that between the
group of Franco-Saxon manuscripts mentioned above and the time of Odbert,
the production of the scriptorium had been curtailed. It is not impossible that
manuscripts were still produced locally, but that they were neither decorated
nor produced in a unified and recognizable house-style during this time. But
the disappearance of manuscripts alone cannot be held responsible for the
absence of tenth-century books identifiable as Saint-Bertin products. When
Odbert and his team started to produce their own manuscripts, it is clear that
the models they had at hand at the library dated from the ninth century. The
most obvious example is the two copies made by Odbert of a manuscript of
Germanicus’s translation of Aratus’s Phenomena (IX2), now in Leiden.56 The
antiquity of Odbert’s models is also discernible through the many
paleographical archaisms of his manuscripts as well as in his decorated
initials, directly derived from the Franco-Saxon style which had flourished at
Saint-Bertin more than a century earlier. These artistic and paleographical
archaisms suggest not only that the production of the scriptorium remained
stagnant during the tenth century, but also that Saint-Bertin was isolated
from the artistic trends which had developed elsewhere (at Reims, Metz and
in England, for example). It could be suggested that Odbert’s copying of
ninth-century models was a deliberate choice, but his enthusiastic adoption,
once confronted with it, of the Winchester style of illumination, which was
flourishing in England at the time, shows his eagerness to adopt new models.
At least two artists, probably from Canterbury, worked on Odbert’s manu-
scripts. One of them added marginal illustrations in a psalter which had been
otherwise entirely decorated by Odbert.57 The other one painted all the deco-
ration and illustration of a Gospel book, now in Boulogne (BSM 11);58 this
painter is identified with the artist who drew the crucifixion in the
Winchester psalter and the Evangelist portraits in the Anhalt Morgan
Gospels from Saint-Vaast.59 Odbert tried to imitate the style of the Canter-
Steiner, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 3

(Wiesbaden, 1957), pp. 427–33; idem, ‘Un monument capital de l’enluminure
anglo-saxonne: le manuscrit 11 de Boulogne-sur-Mer’, Cahiers de Civilisation
Médiévale 1 (1958), 179–82.
56 MS Voss. Lat. Q. 79; Odbert made two copies of the Leiden Aratea: BSM, MS 188, and
Bern, Bürgerbibliothek, Hs. 88; on the direct filiation between the Leiden manuscript
and Odbert’s copies, see Aratea. Kommentar zum Aratus des Germanicus Ms. Voss. Lat.
Q. 79, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, ed. B. Bischoff (Luzern, 1989).
57 BSM, MS 20; see V. Leroquais, Les psautiers manuscrits latins des biblothèques publiques
de France, 3 vols. (Mâcon, 1940–1941), I, 94–101 and III, pls. XV–XXI; and G.
Lobrichon, ‘Le psautier d’Odbert’, in Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed.
H.-J. Martin and J. Vezin (Paris, 1990), pp. 175–7.
58 BSM, MS 11; Boutémy, ‘Un monument capital.’
59 BL, MS Harley 2904, fol. 3; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 827; H.
Swarzenski, ‘The Anhalt Morgan Gospels’, Art Bulletin 31 (1949), 77–83.
47
Saint-Bertin
bury artist; it is most visible in the Christ in Majesty in BSM 56 (fol. 35) which
mimics the corresponding image in BSM 11 (fol. 10). Odbert is also to be cred-
ited with the illuminations in the Pierpont Morgan Gospel, which is distinc-
tively Anglo-Saxon in style, and the painting of the manuscript containing
Bertin’s Vita Altera and other liturgical texts from Saint-Bertin.60 While the
figures in Odbert’s manuscripts were directly inspired by contemporary
English trends, especially the exuberant draperies, their strictly delimited
frames, derived from English manuscript style popular sixty years earlier,
remained severe and disciplined.61 Despite the fact that Odbert’s art was the
result of inspirations from the past (Franco-Saxon, Carolingian, older Anglo-
Saxon style) and the present (Winchester style), it was innovative in many
ways. His taste for historiated initials, which abound in many of his manu-
scripts, prefigures the Romanesque style; furthermore, the Boulogne psalter,
because of the Christological nature of twenty-four of its historiated initials,
figures as a precocious occurrence of the tradition of associating the life of
Christ with the text of the psalter, a practice that flourished from the eleventh
century onward.62
Unlike the group of luxurious Franco-Saxon manuscripts produced at
Saint-Bertin in the ninth century, the group of Odbert’s manuscripts was not
produced for export, since thirteen of the sixteen manuscripts remained at
Saint-Bertin until the French Revolution.63 Unfortunately this period of
artistic renaissance at Saint-Bertin corresponds to the source gap between the
Gesta of Folcuin and the Gesta of Simon; hence the manuscripts are the only
texts left from Odbert’s time. The absence of narrative sources could be
blamed on the fires which had consumed part of the building during
Odbert’s abbacy, and later, at the time of Roderic. If this were the case,
however, the archives before Odbert’s time, such as Folcuin’s Gesta, as well as
Odbert’s own books, would have been destroyed as well. It is most likely that
archives were simply not carefully kept between 962 and 1020. We have seen
that that period was politically troubled for Saint-Bertin and its region:
Arnulf the Great’s successor, Arnulf II, had lost control of Boulonnais and
Ternois, which were ceded to their legitimate heir, Arnulf, son of Arnulf I’s
brother, Adalulf. Eventually, Baldwin IV (988–1035) regained control of
northern Ternois and of Saint-Bertin; once Baldwin had re-conquered the
60 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 333, and BSM, MS 107.

61 Dodwell, Pictorial Arts, p. 202.
62 Dodwell, Pictorial Arts, p. 200.
63 The Pierpont Morgan Gospels was in the chapter library of Beauvais cathedral by
1750; since this manuscript does not bear any identification mark from Saint-Bertin’s
library it is possible that it had reached Beauvais at an early date: Lowry, New York,
Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. 333, pp. 12–13. Odbert’s copy of the Aratea, now in Bern,
Bürgerbibliothek, Hs. 88, was a gift of Bishop Werinhars of Strasbourg (1001–1028) to
Bern cathedral, which suggests that the Bern Aratea left Saint-Bertin soon after its
fabrication; see Aratea. Kommentar zum Aratus, p. 13.
48
Cultural Life
territorial and political authority of the counts of Flanders, he launched a

campaign of religious reforms throughout his county, in collaboration with
Richard of Saint-Vanne and his disciples. It is not accidental that, at
Saint-Bertin, the renewal of interest in keeping archives and writing narra-
tives – such as the Inventio and third vita of St Bertin – corresponds to the
Benedictine restoration of the 1020s. The period during which archives were
not kept and narratives were not written was certainly not an era of decay,
however, as shown by Odbert’s admirable artistic production and the close
relations that the abbot maintained with the archbishops of Canterbury. This
observation is interesting because it raises questions about the respective
roles of narrative and artistic production at Sithiu. At Saint-Bertin, narrative
production was extremely polemical and answered the community’s need to
assert its authority in face of religious or lay enemies. On the other hand, art
was never used as a tool of secular politics – at least in the surviving manu-
scripts. In the eleventh century, the canons of Saint-Omer ordered an illumi-
nated life of their patron saint, some illustrations of which clearly engaged in
the polemic regarding the foundation story of their community.64 At
Saint-Bertin, art production and narrative production did not coincide in time
and purpose. In the following chapter I will examine the process of narrative
production at Saint-Bertin.
64 S-O, MS 698; on this manuscript, see R. Argent Svoboda, ‘The Illustrations of the Life
of St. Omer (Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms. 698)’ (unpublished Ph.D.
thesis, University of Minnesota, 1983).
49
CHAPTER THREE
Narrative Production at Saint-Bertin
Introduction
This chapter explores, through a detailed examination of the main narratives

produced at Saint-Bertin from the ninth to the eleventh century, how the
community transformed its historical tradition, and especially its foundation
story, in order to turn it into a tool of propaganda. I will focus on the content
and method of redaction of the texts themselves as well as on the local polit-
ical background which led to their composition. This will highlight the goals
pursued by the authors, their biases and the role played by each text within
the community. It appears that all these texts are related to a situation of
crisis, to which they were meant to bring resolution. The first group of
studied narratives is the hagiographic texts: the first and second lives of St
Omer (VA1 and VA2) and St Bertin (VB1 and VB2). I will examine how, in the
VA2 and VB2, the monks of Saint-Bertin transformed the foundation legend
of Sithiu in order to assert their patron saint’s prestige and their own
supremacy over the two communities of Saint-Bertin and Saint-Omer. These
new vitae are generally dated to the ninth century and are considered as a
direct answer to Fridugis’s division of the community. I will argue,
however, that they date from the tenth century, and that the Benedictine
restoration of 944 was the event which triggered the monks to rewrite their
foundation story. The second text studied is the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium
written by Folcuin in 962. An examination of Folcuin’s text and of the
circumstances of its redaction reveals its two complementary purposes.
Written in the aftermath of the Benedictine restoration, the Gesta closely
follows and refines the new foundation story asserting St Bertin’s supremacy
at Sithiu. Furthermore, given the context of Count Arnulf’s insistent intru-
sions into the community’s life, the Gesta also meant to offer the community
protection against exactions from lay powers. The third text, the Inventio
Sancti Bertini, written by Abbot Bovo in 1052, relates Bovo’s extraordinary
discovery of St Bertin’s relics. Unlike the second vitae of Omer and Bertin
and the Gesta Abbatum, which were highly popular within the community
and were often quoted and copied, the Inventio found no audience within the
community. I will demonstrate that the monks’ relative indifference was due
to the fact that, contrarily to the other texts, which served the interests of the
community and united it around a commonly accepted tradition, Bovo’s text
50
Narrative Production
was self-serving and written for the author’s own rather than his commu-
nity’s promotion.
The analysis of these texts exemplifies how monastic communities
composed texts in order to answer situations of crises, to protect them against
their enemies or rivals, or to assert their own rights and power. If the text
fulfilled its mission, the community accepted it as a unifying document,
valued it as an asset and perpetuated its tradition through copying. If the text
did not achieve these goals, the chances are that it was rarely echoed in the
community’s later writings. Therefore, the examination of the narratives
produced by the monks of Saint-Bertin reveals much about their aspirations
and their needs as a community.
Hagiography: the foundation story and its transformation
The main source for the origins and foundation of the monastery of Sithiu,
and the earliest, is the hagiographic triptych containing the vitae primae of St
Omer, St Bertin and St Winnoc. The three vitae were written in the ninth
century by the same author and were intended as a coherent group of texts.1
Indeed, the three lives were copied together one after the other in a
tenth-century manuscript.2 The vitae were also copied individually, since a
ninth-century copy of the Vita Audomari Prima (VA1) alone was reproduced in
a manuscript from the Corbie library.3 The triptych was probably written at
the very beginning of the ninth century – some time before 820.4
The VA1 relates the life of St Omer. Born in the region of Coutances, he
entered Luxeuil as an oblate during the abbacy of Eustasius. It was a former
monk of Luxeuil, Acharius of Noyon, who advised King Dagobert that he
should offer Omer the bishopric of Thérouanne.5 After some time, Omer
called to his side three of his countrymen, Mummolinus, Ebertramn and
Bertin, with whom he decided to found a monastery on the villa of Sithiu,
1 For the shared authorship of the three vitae, see L. van der Essen, Étude Critique, pp.
402–3. There are other such cases of vitae of distinct saints grouped into a single text:
J. van der Straeten, ‘Les actes des martyrs d’Aurélien en Bourgogne’, Analecta
Bollandiana 79 (1961), 115–44 and 447–68, and ‘Actes des martyrs d’Aurélien en
Gaule’, Analecta Bollandiana 80 (1962), 116–41.
2 KBR, MS 8318–8320; the origin of the manuscript, which had belonged to the Jesuit
community of Molsheim in Alsace, is unknown; it also contains vitae of other saints
related to Columbanian monasticism.
3 Leningrad, Lat. F v I 12, fols. 99–106; VA1, copied in cursive minuscule, was bound in
the ninth century with other vitae (Dionysius, Fulgentius, Marcellinus, Apollinaris,
and Germanus) of different dates and origins; see Ganz, Corbie, pp. 47, 135 and 155.
4 On the date of the triple vita, see Levison, Vitae Audomari, Bertini, Winnoci, p. 731, and
L. van der Essen, Étude critique et littéraire sur les vitae des saints mérovingiens de
l’Ancienne Belgique (Louvain, 1907), pp. 403–5.
5 VA1, cc. 1–4, pp. 754–6.
51
Saint-Bertin
which had been given to him by Adroald, a man he had converted and
baptized.6 Mummolinus, Ebertramn and Bertin founded a first monastery,
the Vetus Monasterium; however, after some time, they left the place and
undertook a miraculous journey which led them to the location of what
would eventually become the abbey of Saint-Bertin.7 Mummolinus was then
appointed as abbot by Omer, but was replaced by Bertin when Mummolinus
succeeded St Eligius (d. 660) as bishop of Noyon.8 The VA1 ends with the
death of St Omer, his burial in Saint-Mary, which he had built on the upper
side of Sithiu before the arrival of Bertin and his companions, and a few mira-
cles performed at his shrine.9 While the VA1 contains a fair amount of
biographical material about St Omer, the life that follows it, the Vita Bertini
Prima (VB1), is only a succession of topoi, miracles performed by St Bertin
before and after his death, and biblical quotations.10 There is no allusion to
Rigobert and Erlefrid, who became abbots when Bertin, still alive but aging,
wanted to retire from his abbatial obligations. His death, feast day and burial
place are not mentioned either.11 The VB1 is directly followed by the Vita
Winnoci Prima (VW1),12 which relates the arrival of the Breton Winnoc and his
companions to Sithiu, and their foundation of a monastic community at
Wormhoudt, on a piece of land which had been offered to St Bertin by a
wealthy and pious landowner.13 In this hagiographic triptych, St Omer is
clearly the most important character in the cycle, not only because of the
prominence of his role in the foundation of Sithiu, but also because of the
relative abundance of biographical details that the author was able to gather
about him. As for St Bertin, he appears as a secondary character, whose biog-
raphy is scant and who played a lesser role. After all, he owed his later status
as patron saint of Sithiu to Mummolinus’s departure to Noyon. Indeed, it is
worth pointing out that whenever Omer’s three companions, Mummolinus,
Ebertramn and Bertin are mentioned together in the VA1, Bertin’ s name
always comes last.14 Omer’s seminal role in the foundation of Sithiu is
naturally reverberated in the hagiography intended for the community and
in turn, his prominence in the narrative, and Bertin’s relative subordination,
could also reflect the prominence of St Omer’s cult over St Bertin’s in the first
centuries of Sithiu’s existence.
6 VA1, cc. 9–10, pp. 758–60.

7 VA1, c. 11, pp. 760–1.
8 VA1, c. 12, p. 761; VA1 does not specify that he succeeded Eligius but VB2 (St Bertin’s
Vita Altera) wrongly states that Mummolinus succeeded Acharius; VB2 also asserts
that, at about the same time, Ebertramn became abbot of Saint-Quentin (AA SS, 2
Sept., c. 6, p. 591).
9 VA1, cc. 13–17, pp. 762–4.
10 VB1, cc. 18–21, pp. 765–9.
11 All these elements are provided by VB2, cc. 13–14, p. 592.
12 VW1, cc. 22–8, pp. 769–75.
13 VW1, c. 23, pp. 770–1
14 VA1, c. 9, p. 759, and c. 11, p. 760.
52
The relative silence about St Bertin, and his subordination to St Omer are
corrected in the second vitae of St Omer (VA2) and St Bertin (VB2). Like the
VA1 and VB1, the VB2 and VA2 were written by the same author, who closely
followed the text of the VA1 and VB1, and only added, removed or switched
parts of the narrative when it suited his purpose.15 A comparison between the
first and the second vitae of Omer and Bertin will highlight the second
author’s narrative technique.16 First, the author of the VA2 and VB2 has
switched the order of the first lives: the VB2 precedes the the VA2, while the
VA1 precedes the VB1.17 The VB2 is preceded by a long prologue in which the
author announces that he will write about Omer and Bertin while the VA2 has
only a brief prologue. The prologue of the VB2 is copied almost word for
word from the prologue of the VA1, save that the author inserted a line
emphasizing St Bertin’s possession of Sithiu:
Quia igitur sancti viri loca regiminis sui discreta habuerunt, honeste
gubernantes, sanctus videlicet Audomarus episcopatum tervennae; beatus
vero Bertinus coenobium suum proprium Sithiu . . .18
(Thus, the holy men had command over distinct places, ruling them honestly:
St Omer the episcopal see of Thérouanne; St Bertin, his own monastery of
Sithiu.)
The VB2 begins with the arrival of St Bertin and his two companions in the
bishopric of Thérouanne. This passage of the VB2 reverses the order of prece-
dence and places Bertin’s name in first position:
15 Vita S. Audomari Altera (VA2) (BHL 767), AA SS, 3 Sept., pp. 402–6. On the arguments
for a single authorship for VB2 and VA2, see Van der Essen, Étude critique, pp. 406–7.
On the several vitae of St Omer, see J. Van der Straeten, ‘Les vies métriques de saint
Omer’, Anal. Boll. 81 (1963), pp. 59–88. There is a verse version of VB2, which was
written roughly at the same time as the prose vita, since their earliest copies are found
in the same manuscript from Odbert’s scriptorium (BSM, MS 107): Vita Sancti Bertini
Metrica Prior (BHL 1292), ed. F. Morand, Mélanges Historiques 1 (1873), pp. 573–697
(Collection de Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France). Another of Odbert’s
manuscripts, the famous glossed psalter (BSM, MS 20), contains hymns to St Bertin:
P. Stotz, ‘Zwei bisher unbekannte Hymnen auf den heiligen Bertinus’, Mittel-
lateinisches Jahrbuch 24/25 (1989–1990), 489–505.
16 For a comparison between the two vitae, see also E. Spaey, ‘Over middeleeuwsche
heiligenliteratuur’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 3 (1929), 291–303.
17 VB2 has a very long prologue, in which the author announces that he will write about
both St Bertin and St Omer; VA2 has its own short prologue, but it seems that the long
one was intended to encompass the two texts.
18 VB2, p. 591.
53
Saint-Bertin
VA1:19 VB2:20
Post hoc non multo temporis intervallo ad Cum sanctus Audomarus episcopus
beatum Audomarum de predicta ecclesiam
Constantinense regione tres una cum Morinensem regeret, . . . tres una cum
mente viri, Mummolinus, Ebertramnus mente de patria propria, id est
sanctusque Bertinus . . . Constantinense ad eum venerunt; sanctus
videlicet Bertinus, Mummolinus,
Ebertramnus . . .
Shortly after that, from the region of As St Omer was ruling the Church of
Coutances, three men with one spirit Morinie, three men with one spirit joined
joined St Omer: Mummolin, Ebertramn him from his fatherland, Coutances: St
and Bertin. Bertin, Mummolin and Ebertramn.
Even more striking is the change in the story of the foundation of Sithiu made
in the narration of the donation by Adroald:
VA1:21 VB2:22
sanctus Audomarus cum predictis beatis Interea, quidam vir nobilis, . . . Adroaldus
viri . . . monasterium cogitavit . . . nomine, nullum habens filium, tractare
fundare; ad abitandum enim monachis cum beato Audomaro et praedictis Dei famuli
. . . locum abebat aptum. Erat enim cepit, qualiter possessionum suarum
quidam vir potens Adrowaldus nomine Ecclesiam heredem faceret. Quem beatus
. . . quem beatus Audomarus . . . ad fidem Audomarus, inspirante gratia Spiritus sancti,
convertit catholicam . . . Adrowaldus . . . hortatus est, ut sancto Bertino sociisque ejus
nec ullum habens filium, magnam suae . . . quaeque habere poterat, conferet, quatinus
hereditatis partem . . . beato obtulit ibidem coenobium in honore beati Petri . . .
Audomaro, villam quae noto nomine vocatur construendo.
Sithiu.
St Omer considered the foundation of a Meanwhile, a noble man named Adroald,

monastery with the above mentioned as he had no son, started to negotiate
holy men; indeed, he possessed a place with St Omer and the above mentioned
suitable to host monks. Indeed, there was servants of God, to bequeath his posses-
a powerful man named Adroald, whom sions to the Church. St Omer, inspired by
he had converted to the catholic faith. the grace of the Holy Spirit, begged him
Adroald, as he had no son, gave St Omer to give what he had to St Bertin and his
an important part of his inheritance, the companions, in order for them to build a
villa named Sithiu. monastery dedicated to St Peter.
The transformation of the donation story is obvious: according to the VA1,

Adroald had already given the villa Sithiu to Omer before the arrival of
Omer’s three friends. In the VB2, Adroald first wanted to give his land to
Omer, but the bishop of Thérouanne declined the offer and suggested rather
that he give his villa to St Bertin and his friends. Furthermore, the author of
19 VA1, c. 9, pp. 758–9.

20 VB2, c. 4, p. 591.
21 VA1, c. 10, p. 759.
22 VB2, c. 5, p. 591.
54
the VB2 significantly changed the chronology of the events following the
donation. We have seen that in the VA1, the three men first settled in the
Vetus monasterium, which they left after a while, and eventually established
themselves on the small island of Sithiu; there, they founded a monastic
community over which Mummolinus became the first abbot.23 In the VB2, the
order of the events is remarkably different: as in the VA1, the three men first
founded the Vetus Monasterium, but soon after, Mummolinus succeeded
Acharius – in reality Eligius – as bishop of Noyon and Ebertramn was given
the abbacy of Saint-Quentin. Left by himself, Bertin alone undertook the
miraculous journey to the site of Sithiu and alone built a monastery dedicated
to St Peter.24 This new version of the story omits the abbacy of Mummolinus
and implicitly makes Bertin the first abbot of Sithiu; Bertin is also credited
with finding the spot chosen by God for the foundation, since he was alone at
the time. After the story of the foundation, the VB2 follows almost word for
word the second chapter of the VB1.25 The last two chapters of the VB2
mention Bertin’s designation of his successors, Rigobert and Erlefrid, when
he was still alive, and describes his death on 6 September and his burial in his
monastery (‘in coenobio proprio’) – details which do not appear in the VB1.26
Since the purpose of the VB2 was obviously to introduce another version of
the donation and foundation of Sithiu, in which the role played by St Bertin
was much more important than in the VA1, it was necessary for the author to
rewrite the vita of St Omer (VA2) as well, in order to maintain narrative coher-
ence. The VA1 had been altered before by an author who, besides making a
few stylistic changes, had appended a series of miracles (VA1bis); however,
this interpolator did not alter the story of the foundation. It is on the VA1bis
that the author of the VA2 based his own rendition of St Omer’s life.27 He
proceeded with the VA2 as he did with the VB2: after a brief prologue of his
own fabrication, he copied almost word for word the first eight chapters of
the VA1. Of course, he omitted the chapters relating the arrival of Bertin and
his friends, the donation of Sithiu and the foundation of the monastery which
would have been redundant with the VB2. For the remainder of his composi-
tion he followed the VA1bis.
The writing of the VB2 and the VA2 was not the only effort made by the
monks of Saint-Bertin to rewrite the story of the foundation of Sithiu in a
more flattering light for St Bertin: they also forged a charter presenting a
similar rendition of the donation of Sithiu by Adroald. The donation charter
is probably not a complete fabrication, since there is no reason to reject its
23 VA1, c. 11, p. 761.

24 VB2, c. 6, p. 591; VA1 did not specify that the monastery was dedicated to St Peter.
25 VB1, c. 19, pp. 765–7; however, c. 21 of VB1, relating another miracle performed on St
Bertin’s shrine, is omitted.
26 VB2, cc. 13–14, p. 592.
27 Van der Essen, Étude critique, p. 405.
55
Saint-Bertin
enumeration of the original donation. But the prologue, which repeats the
story of Omer suggesting to Adroald that he give Sithiu directly to Bertin, has
certainly been interpolated. Furthermore, the date of the charter, 6
September, has long been deemed suspicious because St Bertin’s feast is 5
September, a coincidence too good to be true.28 It is unfortunately impossible
to determine whether it was the charter or the vita that inspired the other, but
their interdependence is obvious.29 The rewriting of the foundation story
through both the VB2 and the donation charter shows the importance that the
monastic communities attached to the story of their origins. Indeed, a satis-
fying foundation legend was necessary for the community to assert its presti-
gious origins, the greatness of its patron saint and the legitimacy of its
original endowment. In this regard, the legal and the hagiographic texts had
a complementary role to play.30
The coexistence of two versions of the lives of St Omer and St Bertin raises
the issue of the anteriority of one version over the other and their credibility.
So far, I have taken it as obvious that the VA1 and VB1 are the oldest texts.
First of all, there is internal evidence for this: Léon van der Essen had already
remarked that in the VA2 Fuscianus and Victoricus, the alleged first evange-
lists of Morinie, were no longer said to be companions of St Denis (as in the
VA1) but of St Lucian. This alteration suggests an awareness of the vita of St
Denis written by Hilduin of Saint-Denis after 817, who identified Denis of
Paris with Denis the Areopagite.31 Furthermore, the omission of
Mummolinus as first abbot is not credible because he is incidentally quoted
as predecessor of St Bertin in a privilege of Clovis III given in 690.32 But the
best evidence of the posteriority of the VB2 over the triple vita is found in the
text itself and the circumstances of its redaction. I have amply underlined that
the VB2 purports to give St Bertin all the credit for the foundation of Sithiu.
This makes sense only in a context in which the monks of Sithiu would have
felt somewhat estranged from the cult of St Omer: that is, at least after Abbot
Fridugis (820–834) had divided the community between monks and canons
and, more precisely, after the Benedictine restoration of Gerard of Brogne in
the mid-tenth century.
28 Levison, Vitae Audomari, Bertini, Winnoci, pp. 732–3.

29 de Gaiffier, ‘Les revendications de biens’, p. 136, has long ago underlined the inter-
dependence between hagiography and charter production in matters of property
claims.
30 Kastner, Historiae Fundationum Monasteriorum, p. 9, shows the complementary and
even interchangeable roles of foundation charter and narrative source relating the
foundation, with the example of Berchtesgaden, where a lost or missing foundation
charter was replaced in the monastery’s cartulary by a foundation story excerpted
from a narrative text.
31 In this case, Denis could no longer be the Roman companion of Fuscianus and
Victoricus; see Van der Essen, Étude critique, p. 406.
32 Diplomata Belgica 7, p. 19: ‘vir Bertinus abba . . . antecessore suo Mummolino . . .’
56
Although the division of the community between monks and canons did
not immediately lead to the rewriting of the foundation story, it is the event
that triggered the later conflicts of interest between the two communities. The
division was related in some detail by Folcuin in the Gesta Abbatum
Sithiensium (961). Folcuin reports that at the beginning of his abbacy, Fridugis
undertook to divide the community between monks and canons: out of
eighty-three monks serving the church of Saint-Bertin he kept only sixty, and
in the church of Saint-Omer he replaced the forty monks with thirty canons;
and as he was himself a canon, Fridugis went to live at Saint-Omer’s.33 Thus,
Sithiu became a sort of double community, ruled until Gérard of Brogne’s
reform by the same abbot who could be either a monk or a canon. At the same
time, Fridugis constituted the mensa abbatum and the mensa fratrum: he kept
some villae for himself – and his successors – and shared the remaining ones
proportionally between monks and canons. Folcuin, who describes Fridugis
as a greedy despot who purportedly destroyed the monks’ regular life, pres-
ents the operation in an extremely negative light. However, the move was
probably not felt in this way at the time.34 Indeed, the creation of the mensa
fratrum and the mensa abbatum as well as the division of the community
between monks and canons were common features of the time and must be
considered in the broader context of Louis the Pious’ ecclesiastical politics.
First of all, the creation of the mensa fratrum, that is the dedication of a distinct
part of the estates of a monastery for the exclusive use of the community, was
above all a measure of protection for the monks. Louis the Pious needed the
wealth of his monasteries to reward his followers; not only did he perpetuate
the system of secular abbots, but from his reign date the first attested
appointments of laymen to abbacies.35 At a time when abbeys were
commonly given as benefits to the ruler’s close allies, the mensa fratrum
granted the monks an indefeasible income.36 The selection of the abbots by
the king was in blatant violation of the Benedictine Rule; nonetheless secular
and lay abbots were not always a nuisance and were sometimes even appre-
ciated by the communities they ruled.37 At Sithiu, the constitution of the

34 On the significance of Fridugis’s division of the community of Saint-Bertin and
Folcuin’s interpretation, see B. Meijns, ‘Chanoines et moines à Saint-Omer. Le
dédoublement de l’abbaye de Sithiu par Fridogise (820–834) et l’interprétation de
Folcuin (vers 962)’, Revue du Nord 83, no. 342 (2001), 691–705.
35 R. McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms, p. 122.
36 On this plus references, B. Meijns, ‘Chanoines et moines’, p. 699.
37 For example, at Saint-Bertin Abbot Hilduin, who was a canon and had bought the
abbacy from Charles the Bald, was fondly remembered by the Gesta Abbatum;
indeed, his privileged relationship with Charles earned Sithiu several royal
diplomas; on lay abbots, see F. Felten, Äbte und Laienäbte im Frankenreich. Studie zum
Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche im früheren Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1980); idem,
‘Laienäbte in der Karolingerzeit. Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Adelsherrschaft über
57
Saint-Bertin
mensa fratrum, itself made of two distinct parts, one (one third) for the mainte-
nance of the canons of Saint-Omer and one (two thirds) for the monks of
Saint-Bertin, was thus a common feature of Church management at the time.
As for the division of the community between monks and canons, it was
certainly not an attack on regular monastic life, but the consequence of coun-
cils held at Aachen in August 816 and July 817 which resulted in the promul-
gation of a set of decrees imposing strict obedience of the Benedictine Rule on
the monks throughout the Frankish realm.38 The Institutio canonicorum and
the Institutio sanctimonialium were issued for the canons and canonesses 39
The separation of canons, living at Saint-Omer, and monks, living at
Saint-Bertin, is repeated in other communities, such as Saint-Hilaire at
Poitiers and Saint-Martin at Tours, which used to be considered monastic
communities or whose status was already ambiguous, became houses of
canons.40 At Saint-Hilaire at Poitiers the brethren willing to follow the
Benedictine Rule were gathered in the dependent cella of Nouaillé.41 Cormery
was a dependent cella of Saint-Martin, which Alcuin had endowed and filled
with monks from Aniane; when Saint-Martin opted for the ordo canonicus,
Fridugis appointed Cormery to the use of those who wanted to follow the
Rule.42 As for the fact that canons were introduced for the first time at
Saint-Bertin by Fridugis, this seems doubtful. Before and after Benedict of
Aniane’s reform, the distinction between the ordo monasticus and the ordo
canonicus had always been more theoretical than real. Many communities
die Kirche’, in Mönchtum, Episkopat, Adel zur Gründungszeit des Klosters Reichenau, ed.
A. Borst (Sigmaringen, 1974), pp. 397–432; A-M. Helvétius, ‘L’abbatiat laïque comme
relais du pouvoir royal aux frontières du royaume: le cas du Nord de la Neustrie au
IXe siècle’, in La royauté et les élites, pp. 285–99.
38 Synodi I: Aquisgranensis Acta Praeliminaria, Statua Murbacensia, Aquisgranensis Decreta
Authentica (816) and Synodi II: Aquisgranensis Decreta Authentica (817), in Corpus
Consuetudinum Monasticarum, ed. J. Semmler (Sieburg, 1963), I: Initia Consuetudinis
Benedictinae, pp. 423–68; on the divergence between the Benedictine Rule and the
816–817 decrees, see J. Semmler, ‘Benedictus II: una regula – una consuetudo’, in
Benedictine Culture 750–1050, ed. W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (Leuven, 1983), pp.
1–49 (pp. 30–41).
39 Concilia Aevi Karolini, ed. A. Werminghoff, 2 vols. (Hanover, 1906–1908) I: ‘Institutio
canonicorum Aquisgranensis’, pp. 307–420, and ‘Institutio sanctimonialium
Aquisgranensis’, pp. 420–56. On the history of the canonical order and its develop-
ment in Flanders, see most recently B. Meijns, Aken of Jerusalem? Het Ontstaan en de
Hervorming van de Kanonikale Instellingen in Vlaanderen tot circa 1155 (Leuven, 2000).
40 Semmler, ‘Benedictus II’, pp. 13–17; at Saint-Denis until Abbot Hilduin, at
Saint-Martin and at Saint-Hilaire, for example, the major part of the communities did
not accept the reform. Therefore, the minority of monks who wanted to follow the
Rule were sent in a cella belonging to the community (Nouaillé for Saint-Hilaire,
Cormery for Saint-Martin); on Nouaillé, see L. Levillain, ‘Les origines du monastère
de Nouaillé’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 71 (1910), 241–79.
41 Semmler, ‘Benedictus II’, p. 15.
42 On Fridugis’s abbacy at Tours, see Felten, Äbte und Laienäbte, pp. 245–6.
58
followed their own Regula mixta and did not want to give up their local tradi-
tion, which, after 816, automatically relegated them in the category of canons,
even if they considered themselves monks.43 The appellation ‘monks’ and
‘canons’ was not clearly settled either. In 802, Charlemagne had already
written to the community of Tours: ‘sometimes you call yourselves canons,
sometimes monks, sometimes neither’.44 There are reasons to believe that the
situation at Sithiu was as ambiguous as it was at Tours, and the observance of
the monks gathered around Saint-Bertin and Saint-Omer was probably not as
clear as Folcuin implied.
While the division at Sithiu theoretically sanctioned a geographical split
between two different religious lifestyles, it did not result in its division into
two distinct houses: despite the distribution of manses and revenues between
monks and canons, Sithiu remained a single landholding unit, as is mani-
festly clear from the donation charters which were always, before and after
the division, made in the names of St Omer and St Bertin.45 Furthermore, until
the mid-tenth century, when Gerard of Brogne restored the Benedictine Rule
at Sithiu, monks and canons shared the same abbot, who could be a monk or,
more often, a canon. In these conditions, it is difficult to imagine that the
monks within the community remained strict adherents of the Benedictine
rule. The difference between the two groups’ religious practice must have
faded, even though, in accordance with the 816–817 decrees, a larger role was
43 See J. Semmler, ‘Mönche und Kanoniker im Frankenreiche Pippins III und Karls des
Großen’, in Untersuchungen zu Kloster und Stift (Göttingen, 1980), pp. 78–111 (pp.
85–95), who emphasizes that these communities switched so easily from the status of
monks to canons because they had always followed their own Regula mixta and were
thus already departing from strict Benedictine observance; see also A-M. Helvétius’s
remarks in Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 204–8.
44 Epistolae Karolini Aevi, 42, ed. E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1895), ep. 247, pp. 399–40; see J.
Chelini, ‘Alcuin, Charlemagne et Saint-Martin de Tours’, in Mémorial de l’année
martinienne, M.DCCCC.LX–M.DCCCC.LXI, seizième centenaire de l’abbaye de Ligugé,
centenaire de la découverte du tombeau de Saint Martin à Tours (Paris, 1962), pp. 19–50 (p.
42); on Saint-Martin, its abbots and its religious practice, see Felten, Äbte und
Laienäbte, pp. 229–46.
45 The early charters given to Sithiu as the monastery built in honor of Saints Peter and
Paul, St Martin and the Virgin Mary; after the creation of the mensa fratrum and the
division between monks and canons, ninth-century donation charters and royal
privileges were still given to the monastery of Sithiu, ‘where lay St Bertin and St
Omer’, that is, without distinction between canons and monks; on all this, see Meijns,
‘Chanoines et moines’. Nonetheless, in his recent study on Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum
Sithiensium, Laurent Morelle has noticed that, after the division, redactors of private
charters tended to equate Sithiu with the denomination Saint-Peter, implying that
the monks had a sort of leadership over Sithiu: L. Morelle, ‘Ecrit diplomatique et
archives monastiques (France septentrionale, VIIIe–XIIe siècle). Dossier présentéd
devant l’Université de Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne en vue d’obtenir l’Habilitation à
diriger des Recherches. Mémoire: Autour de Folcuin de Saint-Bertin’ (unpublished
Accreditation thesis, Paris, 2001), pp. 126–34 (hereafter quoted as ‘Autour de
Folcuin’). I thank the author for kindly giving me access to his manuscript.
59
Saint-Bertin
given to the praepositus, who was supposed to be a regular monk, chosen

within the community.46 The fading of the boundaries between the monks’
and the canons’ practice, the geographical proximity of the two groups and
their unity under a single abbot makes it unlikely that the monks would have
been tempted to depart from the common historical tradition of the commu-
nity. Furthermore, they probably would not have had the freedom to rewrite
the foundation story of Sithiu in a way which downplayed St Omer’s role.
The actual consequences of the splitting of the community were not suffi-
cient to warrant the creation of the VB2 and VA2 and the forged donation
charter. Furthermore, no material elements exist to show that the text directly
followed the division: the earliest copy of the charter is found in the Gesta
Abbatum Sithiensium (962) and the earliest manuscript of the VB2 dates from
Odbert’s abbacy, at the turn of the tenth century.47 It is thus necessary to turn
to another event which could have stimulated the writing of these – and other
– forgeries.
The general disinterest in the Benedictine Rule discussed above was one of
the reasons that triggered Gerard of Brogne’s series of Benedictine restora-
tions in Flanders and Lotharingia. At Sithiu, while Arnulf of Flanders was
count-abbot, Gerard himself bore the title of abbot, and regular abbots were
designated after him; in addition, from the time of Gerard on, this regular
abbot was distinct from the dean of Saint-Omer. The establishment of two
distinct rulers underlined more clearly the separation of the two communities
than any divisions made by Fridugis. It is, however, likely that once each
community of Sithiu had its own ruler and its own rule, the geographical and
spiritual divisions deepened. Furthermore, the community of Saint-Bertin as
a whole was not happy with Gerard’s intervention; those who stayed were
thus the most ardent supporters of the Rule. As Benedictine monks, these
supporters of Gerard’s not only felt spiritually superior to the canons of
Saint-Omer, but they also considered themselves the legitimate successors of
the monks of Sithiu. Furthermore, this ultimate separation meant that the
monks could no longer be associated with St Omer, whose cult had long been
predominant over the cult of St Bertin. The loss of control over the cult of St
Omer and its revenues, coupled with a heightened sense of their own identity
and superiority, may have encourage the monks of Saint-Bertin to produce
texts which asserted the anteriority and superiority of their community. The
VB2 and VA2, which relegate St Omer to the role of mere intermediary and
transform St Bertin into the beneficiary of the villa of Sithiu and its first abbot,
fulfilled the monks’ need to assert their ownership and authority over the
whole territory of Sithiu – and hence over the canons, their church and their
saint.
46 See Semmler, ‘Mönche und Kanoniker’, p. 92.

47 BSM, MS 107.
60
Since the mid-tenth century, two contradictory versions of the foundation

of Sithiu coexisted: all further historiographic and historical texts composed
by the monks followed the VB2 and the donation charter, which gave a
seminal role to Bertin, while the canons built their later writing upon the
tradition of Omer’s VA1, in which Omer’s role as initiator of the foundation
was emphasized. The third life of St Bertin (VB3), written by the monk
Folcard on the occasion of the invention of St Bertin’s relics by Abbot Bovo in
1050, reflects once again that preoccupation of the monks: its author, follows
the story line of the VB2, but invented new biographical details for St Bertin;
for example, the VB3 asserts that Bertin was a monk of Luxeuil and, like St
Omer, a disciple of Eustasius.48
Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium
Folcuin was born around 935 in a Lotharingian aristocratic family from the
diocese of Liège; he descended from Charles Martel through his illegitimate
son Jerome.49 His family had long had strong links with the monastery: the
brother of his great-grandfather was St Folcuin, bishop of Thérouanne
(817–855), who was buried at Saint-Bertin. In 928, at the time of Count-Abbot
Adalulf, Folcuin’s father initiated the elevation of St Folcuin’s relics.50 Given
these strong family links, it was quite natural that Folcuin was made an
oblate of Saint-Bertin by his parents, Folcuin and Thiedala (in 948) and was
professed in 961.51 Folcuin wrote the Gesta in 962 but did not stay at
Saint-Bertin for long: in December 965, he was designated abbot of Lobbes by
Eracle, bishop of Liège, and on 1 January, he was ordained by Bishop
Ingelram of Cambrai.52 Folcuin ruled Lobbes for twenty-four years, until his
death in 990.53 During his abbacy, he wrote the vita of St Folcuin, which he
dedicated to the community and the abbot of Saint-Bertin, Walter; he also
wrote the gesta of the abbots of Lobbes.
In order to fully reconstruct the text of the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium,it is
necessary to piece together a number of editions and manuscripts. A very old
48 VB3, c. 8, p. 605.
49 On Folcuin, see E. Brouette, ‘Folcuin’, in DHGE 17 (Paris, 1971), cols. 744–749, and
Vanderputten, ‘Literate Memory’; on his family, see Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 260
and 454. Folcuin, Vita Folcuini, c. 3, p. 427; Folcuin, Gesta, c. 104, p. 627.
52 Folcuin, Gesta Abbatum Lobbiensium, ed. G. H. Pertz MGH SS 4 (Hanover, 1851), pp.
52–74 (c. 28, p. 69). On Folcuin’s abbacy at Lobbes, see Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres,
pp. 120–4.
53 Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, p. 124. On narrative production at Lobbes, see A.
Dierkens, ‘La production hagiographique à Lobbes au Xe siècle’, RB 93 (1983),
245–59.
61
Saint-Bertin
copy of the Gesta, which may have been Folcuin’s autograph, survived in
Saint-Bertin’s archives until the French Revolution; it is known as the Vetus
Folcuinus. This manuscript has now disappeared, but it was copied by Joseph
Dewitte, the last archivist of the abbey, before the Revolution (S-O 815).
Joseph Dewitte’s copy of the Gesta was not the first one. Folcuin’s text had
also been copied in the twelfth century together with its continuation by
Simon of Saint-Bertin (BSM 146 and 146a). This manuscript contains a series
of forged charters which were not in the Vetus Folcuinus. Between 1509 and
1512, the monk Alard Tassard made a partial copy of the Gesta, following the
Vetus Folcuinus (S-O 750). In 1693, Bertin Portebois made yet another copy
from the Vetus Folcuinus and the twelfth-century manuscript (Paris, BN, MS
Latin, nouv. acq., 275).54
The text was published for the first time in 1840 by Benjamin Guérard
under the title Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin; Guérard unfortunately
relied without criticism on the twelfth-century copy and his edition is
extremely unreliable.55 In 1841, Oswald Holder-Egger provided the MGH
with an edition of the narrative part of the text, but did not include the
charters.56 In 1950, Maurits Gysseling and A. C. F. Koch published the charters
alone in Diplomata Belgica. And finally, the early ninth-century polyptych
included by Folcuin in his Gesta was published separately by François-Louis
Ganshof in 1975. Thus, Folcuin’s Gesta is now scattered into distinct editions,
which does not do justice to the breadth, purpose, complexity and originality
of the original document.
How did Folcuin construct the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium? Regarding his
sources, Sithiu had a fairly well-furnished library, and Folcuin would have
found there works to provide him with the historical background necessary
for his narrative. For the general history of the Merovingian period he used
Pseudo-Fredegar and the Liber Historiae Francorum.57 For the Carolingian
period, he used the Annales Bertiniani (830–882) and the Annales Sithienses
(532–823). The Annales Bertiniani were written at Reims, and the manuscript
was probably brought from there to Saint-Bertin by Abbot Fulk during his
second abbacy.58 The Annales Sithienses were copied by a single hand into a
54 On the manuscript tradition of the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium, see Diplomata Belgica,
pp. 2–3; Ganshof, Le polyptyque de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, pp. 1–5 and, most recently,
Morelle, Autour de Folcuin, pp. 2–33.
55 Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, ed. B. Guérard, Collection de Documents pour
Servire à l’Histoire de France (Paris, 1840).
56 Folcuin, Gesta.
57 Fredegar, Chronicorum Liber Quartus cum Continuationibus, ed. and trans. J. M.
Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar (London, 1960); Liber
Historiae Francorum, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 215–328.
58 The original has disappeared, but a copy was made at Saint-Bertin in the eleventh
century; see the most recent comments in The Annals of Saint-Bertin, trans. J. Nelson,
Ninth-Century Histories 1 (Manchester, 1991).
62
manuscript of works by St Augustine which had been given to Saint-Bertin in

the ninth-century. These annals run from 532 to 823, but the scribe had
already written down dates for entries up to the year 859.59 The origin of
these annals, which are closely related to the Annales Fuldenses, is unknown,
but they were probably not copied at Saint-Bertin. They mainly concern
themselves with the politics of the reigns of Pippin, Charlemagne and Louis
the Pious and never mention Saint-Bertin itself.60 Folcuin, however, did use
another set of annals, which were copied at Saint-Bertin and were more local
in scope than the Annales Sithienses. These annals have disappeared, but they
were used by Folcuin and the annalist of Saint-Peter at Ghent. Therefore,
their content can be mapped by comparing the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium and
the annals of Saint-Peter.61 Folcuin also used the second life of St Bertin (VB2)
and the forged donation charter of 649. He knew the first life of St Winnoc
(VW1), which follows the first vitae of St Omer and St Bertin (VA1 and VB1) –
which suggests that he probably knew the VA1 and the VB1 as well. The most
important and recurrent source of the Gesta are the forty-eight charters, dated
from 649 to 890, which Folcuin interspersed throughout his narrative. Since
each abbot had at least one charter dated from his abbacy, the charters
allowed Folcuin to reconstruct the succession of the abbots; but it is very
likely that he also had a list. He also copied the polyptych gathered at the
time of Abbot Adalard (844–859). Oral traditions, which are extremely diffi-
cult to track, must also have played some role. And of course, Folcuin, who
entered Saint-Bertin in 948, was a living witness of the last fifteen years of his
narrative.
Folcuin used annals, vitae and charters as sources, but he chose the format
of the Gesta, which had the advantage of combining the characteristics of all
three genres. Gesta Abbatum – and gesta Episcoporum – is a genre that is not
easy to classify or categorize. Because they chronicle the deeds of the abbots,
they can be considered as historical works; but because they also reproduce
the texts of the charters associated with each abbot, they can also be read as
legal documents. Indeed, the word gesta bears the double meaning of ‘deed’
and ‘public record.’ Furthermore, the gesta are often strongly permeated with
hagiographic and even liturgical texts.62 The genre of gesta finds its origins in
59 Annales Sithienses, ed. G. Weitz, MGH SS 13 (Hanover, 1881), pp. 34–8; according to a
dedicace on the first folio, the manuscript, BSM, MS 48, was given to Saint-Bertin in
the ninth century (see Annales Sithienses, p. 34, n. 1).
60 Annales Fuldenses, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1891); see also The Annals of
Fulda, trans. T. Reuter, Ninth-Century Histories 2 (Manchester, 1992).
61 Grierson, Les Annales, p. XVII.
62 On the genre of gesta, see Sot, Gesta Episcoporum, Gesta Abbatum, pp. 17–19. See also
the examples in R.-H. Bautier ‘L’historiographie en France aux Xe et XIe siècles’, pp.
809–16; P. Geary, ‘Entre gestion et gesta’, in Les Cartulaires, pp. 13–26, and B.-M. Tock,
‘Les textes non diplomatiques dans les cartulaires de la province de Reims’, in Les
Cartulaires, pp. 45–58.
63
Saint-Bertin
the Gesta Pontificalis, the deeds of the successive popes and the gifts made by
and to them.63 The twelfth-century book-list from Saint-Bertin mentions the
Gesta Romanorum Pontificum, and the text may well have been there in
Folcuin’s time. But the more immediate model behind Folcuin’s use of gesta
was probably the ninth-century gesta of the abbots of Saint-Wandrille.64 There
are reasons to believe that Saint-Bertin owned a copy of the Gesta of
Fontenelle; indeed, those Gesta were closely linked to a set of hagiographic
texts, the vitae of Sts. Wandrille, Ansbert and Wulframn. All these texts exist
together in one eleventh-century manuscript, and its archetype may have
been at Saint-Bertin, since copies of the vitae were made there in the tenth and
eleventh centuries.65 Both the Gesta and the hagiographic texts from
Fontenelle are deeply concerned with landholding and immunity. Ferdinand
Lot has counted references to sixty-three charters, fifty-one of them from the
Gesta, but unlike the Gesta of Saint-Bertin, the Gesta of Fontenelle does not
include full-text charters. Ian Wood has also noticed the concerns of the
Fontenelle authors with the observance and quality of the Benedictine Rule
followed in the monastery.66 Fontenelle’s combining of Gesta and hagiog-
raphy and its preoccupation with landholding and religious life are mirrored
in Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium. Fontenelle’s text – although written
more than a century earlier and with a different agenda – must have been an
inspiring model for Folcuin. It is also noteworthy that the author of the
famous Le Mans forgeries used a similar combination of Gesta augmented
with charter evidence and hagiographic texts to advance a dubious claim – in
this case, the control of the monastery of Saint-Calais by the bishopric of Le
Mans.67
Thus, the gesta, because of their multiple nature – narrative, hagiographic
and legalistic – were a convenient tool for early medieval authors attempting
to promote their institution’s claims to property and spiritual authority. The
adoption of this genre by Folcuin, however, was not the most obvious of
choices. Although the Gesta became very popular in the eleventh century,
63 Sot, Gesta Episcoporum, p. 17; see for example The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, ed.
and trans. R. Davis (Liverpool, 1995).
64 Gesta Sanctorum Patrum Fontanellensis Coenobii, ed. F. Lohier and J. Laporte (Rouen
and Paris, 1931).
65 S-O, MS 764; on the influence of Fontenelle’s gesta on Folcuin, see H. van Werveke,
‘Saint-Wandrille et Saint-Pierre de Gand (IXe–Xe siècles)’, in Miscellanea Mediaevalia
in Memoriam Jan Frederick Niermeyer (Groningen, 1967), pp. 79–92; on the Gesta of
Saint-Wandrille, see F. Lot, Études critiques sur l’abbaye de Saint-Wandrille,
Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études 204 (Paris, 1913), pp. 3–12, and I. Wood,
‘Saint-Wandrille and its Historiography’, in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages.
Essays Presented to John Taylor, ed. I. Wood and G. A. Loud (London, 1991), pp. 1–14.
66 Wood, ‘Saint-Wandrille’, pp. 8–9.
67 On the Le Mans forgeries, see W. Goffart, The Le Mans Forgeries: A Chapter from the
History of Church Property in the Ninth Century, Harvard Historical Studies 76
(Cambridge, Mass., 1966).
64
only a few examples were produced before this, and, since these texts were
most likely limited to a very local audience, except for the Gesta of Saint-
Wandrille, they were probably unknown to Folcuin.68 Steven Vanderputten
has effectively brought to light the innovative aspects of Folcuin’s discursive
method. Instead of merely aligning transcriptions of charters in chronological
order – as did the author of the Liber Traditionum of Saint-Peter’s Ghent –
Folcuin put the charters in context, introducing and commenting upon them
in the numerous narrative sections. This was a first step toward complex
historical narratives meant to explain, rather than merely document, the
construction of a community in all aspects of its personality.69
A careful examination of the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium reveals Folcuin’s
two main goals: on the one hand, the recording of Sithiu’s historical tradition
– and the promotion of the pro St Bertin version of the foundation as it had
been developed in the VB2 – and, on the other, the recording of assertion of
the abbey’s rights against possible exactions by the count of Flanders. In the
introduction of the Gesta, Folcuin, following the VB2, asserts that St Bertin
was the founder and first abbot of Sithiu:
In hoc codice gesta abbatum Sithiensis cenobii depromere cupientes vel

possessionum traditiones, quae a fidelibus sub uniuscuiusque illorum tem-
pore sacro huic loco cum cartarum inscriptione sunt concessae, describere
volentes, a primo ipsius loci structore domno Bertino abbate operis huius exor-
dium sumamus.70
(In this book, wanting to relate the deeds of the abbots of Sithiu and wishing
to describe the donations of possession made by the faithful to this sacred
place by means of charters at the time of each of them, with Christ’s help, we
have begun the work starting with Saint Bertin, first abbot and founder of this
place.)
Then, in the first chapter, he undertakes to tell the story of Adroald’s donation
in the version given by the VB2 – indeed, Folcuin refers to a vita of St Bertin
(‘velud in Gestis almi patris Bertini legitur’) – and inserts Adroald’s forged
donation charter.71 Folcuin deliberately chose the version of the VB2 over the
version of the VA1, although he probably knew both lives – certainly, he knew
the third part of the original hagiographic triptych, the VW1.72 That Folcuin
chose the version of the foundation which made St Bertin the first abbot is also
68 When he wrote the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium Folcuin did not know Flodoard’s His-
toria Remensis Ecclesiae, which was also known as Gesta Remorum Pontificum, but he
had seen it at Reims before writing the Gesta of Lobbes; see Sot, Gesta Episcoporum, p.
40.
69 Vanderputten, ‘Literate Memory’. Folcuin pushed the narrative method even further
in the Gesta Abbatum Lobiensium.
70 Folcuin, Gesta, p. 607.
71 Diplomata Belgica, no. 1, p. 5.
65
Saint-Bertin
coherent with the bitter feelings he expressed toward the canon Fridugis,
responsible for the splitting of the community between monks and canons.
Another politically charged episode told by Folcuin is the alleged submis-
sion of the canons to the monks in the ninth century. Folcuin relates in
chapter 57 of the Gesta that Abbot Hugh (830–844) had submitted the canons
to the authority of the monks and delegated the custody of both the lower
monastery and Saint-Omer to the monks of Saint-Bertin.73 If this affirmation
proves to be true, this would suggest that the division of the community had
been contested as early as the time of Fridugis’s successor. The alleged
episode was the object of forgeries and later additions to the original text of
the Gesta. The Vetus Folcuinus originally contained only one paragraph on the
subject:
Hugo abbas . . . postquam locum hunc sua constitutione laudabiliter

stabilivit, qua et canonicos Sancti Audomari monachis Sancti Bertini etiam per
describtionem capitularem iuste subjugavit monachumque ab inferius
monasterium ad Sancti Audomari custodiam deputavit, . . .74
(Abbot Hugh . . . commendably strengthened this place thanks to his
constitutio by which, by means of a charter, he subjected the canons of Saint-
Omer to the monks of Saint-Bertin and rightly entrusted a monk of the lower
monastery with the custody of Saint-Omer.)
‘Per describtionem capitularem’ suggests that Folcuin knew of a charter

confirming Hugh’s initiative; but Folcuin, who always copied charters after
the relevant paragraph of the Gesta did not insert the text in this case. It may
be that he knew of its existence only by hearsay. However, a charter given by
Hugh on 29 June 839 was inserted out of chronological order in the Vetus
Folcuinus. Since the Vetus Folcuinus survives only in its eighteenth-century
copy by Charles-Joseph Dewitte, Saint-Bertin’s last archivist, it is difficult to
determine when Hugh’s charter was inserted; but Dewitte’s comments
suggest that the document did not belong to Folcuin’s original text.75 This
charter relates how Fridugis had expelled the monks from Saint-Omer’s
basilica to replace them with canons, and how Hugh gave the control of the
basilica back the monastic community and entrusted St Omer’s custody to a
monk. He also ordered that the monks were to celebrate a solemn mass in the
basilica four times a year, and he restated, in accordance with Omer’s privi-
lege cum epistola, that the monks were to hold the basilica ‘in perpetuo
perenni jure’. This charter was written, so it was claimed, so that the monks
would be protected from the envy of the canons.76 A copy of the Gesta was

75 Ch.-J. Dewitte, Grand Cartulaire, S-O, MS 803; see Folcuin, Gesta, c. 53, p. 616.
76 The charter is published in Cartulaire de Saint-Bertin, pp. 87–8; Gysseling and Koch
did not include it in their Diplomata Belgica edition.
66
made at the end of the twelfth century (BSM, MS 146a); this later copy
contains Hugh’s charter in proper chronological order, plus a new paragraph
on the same issue, which was added to Folcuin’s original text:
Eodem tempore predictus Hugo abbas condolens infelicissimae et

miserrimae divisioni et discissioni venerabilis Sithiensis coenobii ab infando
Fridogiso factae, a domno Folquino tunc Morinorum venerabili antistite
unitatem coenobiorum pristino more reformari impetravit. Quod est privilegio
firmari fecit.77
(In the same period, the above mentioned Abbot Hugh, saddened by the ne-
farious and miserable division of the venerable monastery of Sithiu per-
formed by the abominable Fridugis, was allowed by Folcuin, bishop of the
Morins, to reestablish the past unity of the monastery. This was confirmed by a
privilege.)
This additional paragraph is followed by a charter, dated 20 June 839, and

given by Bishop Folcuin of Thérouanne.78 This charter is an almost word for
word copy of Hugh’s charter, except for the reference to their respective
authors. Besides the copy in BSM, MS 146a, an original of the bishop’s charter
was still extant when Dewitte gathered his Grand Cartulaire.79 The relation
between the two charters and the text of the Gesta is not clear. Hugh’s charter,
although dated nine days after Folcuin’s, does not refer to the bishop’s docu-
ment. Laurent Morelle has clearly demonstrated on diplomatic ground that
both charters were most likely forged in the second half of the eleventh
century, and that Abbot Hugh’s charter was the source for Bishop Folcuin’s80
Since the author of the Gesta did not insert Hugh’s charter himself, his
description of the events in the Gesta and his mention of ‘per describtionem
capitularem’ may have inspired a forger. Finally, doubt should be cast on the
veracity of the episode alluded to by the Gesta. After all, at the time monks
and canons were still ruled by the same abbot, and Hugh would probably
have encountered protest from his canons if he had tried to submit them to
the monks. In this regard, the episode, recounted by Folcuin both in the Gesta
and in his vita Folcuini, of Hugh’s failed attempt to steal the relics of St Omer
to bring them to his abbey of Saint-Quentin, is telling.81 On the one hand, it
illustrates Hugh’s lack of regard for the interests of St Omer’s community,
but on the other, it also suggests that he deemed St Omer’s relics as the most
valuable ones. In these circumstances, it is unlikely that he would have
subjected St Omer’s community to the monks of Saint-Bertin.82

78 The charter is published in Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, pp. 85–7; Gysseling
and Koch did not include this one in their Diplomata Belgica edition.
79 D. Haigneré, Les Chartes de Saint-Bertin, p. 12, n. 35.
80 L. Morelle, Autour de Folcuin, pp. 344–62.
82 The episode is so doubtful and its insertion at the core of the Gesta so awkward that
67
Saint-Bertin
The main argument of the 839 forged charters – control of St Omer’s

church by the monks – is based on St Omer’s exemption from 663. This docu-
ment has been studied in detail by Eugen Ewig.83 Its text is extremely corrupt,
full of repetitions and omissions, making it almost impossible to understand
in places. Ewig has demonstrated that these disturbances were due to the fact
that the charter was the product of the juxtaposition of two distinct types of
documents: an epistola on the one hand and an episcopal privilege on the
other.84 The epistola and the privilege are not only two different documents
from a diplomatic point of view, but they also treat two distinct subjects. The
epistola deals with Saint-Mary: first it records Omer’s with that the basilica be
used as burial church not only for himself, but also for the monk of Sithiu;
second, it records Omer’s transfer of the basilica from his jurisdiction as
bishop of Thérouanne to the authority of the abbot of Sithiu. This transfer
implied that the bishops of Thérouanne forever renounced any kind of right
over Saint-Mary and that St Bertin and his successors as abbot of Sithiu
would have full control over the basilica and the whole island of Sithiu.85 The
privilege, which follows the epistola without transition, deals with Omer’s
grant of liberties to Sithiu – property rights, protection against usurpation,
oblation rights, waiver of the bishop’s hospitality right.86 Based on the same
formulary as many other contemporary episcopal privileges, it belongs to the
category of the ‘little exemption’. Nonetheless, traditional elements of the
little exemption are omitted: election of the abbot, issues of justice within the
monastery or questions of judicial authority over the abbot.87 Despite the
awkwardness and disruption brought about by the conflation of two
different types of documents into one long charter, Ewig did not challenge
the authenticity of the Privilege cum epistola, and he believes that it had origi-
nally been intended as such by Omer.88 However, parts of the charter raise
questions and suggest that the document should not be taken for granted.
First of all, the epistola is by far the most confused and clumsy section; for
example, Omer twice repeats that the basilica was intended as a burial church
for himself and the monks, and that the monks had the duty to bring his body
there after his death. Furthermore, in the epistola, Omer asserts that the
Laurent Morelle has suggested that this excerpt of chapter 57 may have been interpo-
lated in the Vetus Folcuinus: L. Morelle, Autour de Folcuin, pp. 355–61.
83 Diplomata Belgica, no. 3, pp. 10–11; Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’.
84 Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’, p. 532.
85 Diplomata Belgica, no. 3, pp. 10–11.
86 Diplomata Belgica, no. 3, pp. 11–13; Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’, pp. 508–14.
87 Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’, p. 536. On the little and big exemptions, see E. Ewig,
‘Beobachtungen zu den Klosterprivilegien des 7 und frühen 8 jahrhunderts’, in
Spätantikes und Fränkishes Gallien II, pp. 411–26; on episcopal exemptions and royal
immunities, see B. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint and Privileges of
Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester, 1999).
88 Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’, pp. 536–7.
68
basilica was built communi opere with the community of Sithiu, that he had
built it for the monks’ assistance.89 Communi opere seems in contradiction with
the VA1 which states that the basilica was built before the arrival of Bertin and
his friends.
While the privilege is of a fairly common type, apart from the disturbances
brought about by the insertion of the epistola, the epistola itself is more
unusual. Ewig has emphasized the similarities between Omer’s letter and the
St Amand’s codicil. Dated from 675, this document records St Amand’s wish
to be buried in his foundation of Elnone and his request that the monks bring
his remains there, wherever he should die.90 St Amand’s codicil is generally
accepted as authentic and the similarities between the two documents clearly
suggest a common source or even a filiation – although it is difficult to
imagine that St Amand’s text could have been copied from Omer’s letter as
we know it. It is interesting that St Amand’s codicil was probably known at
Sithiu, since St Bertin himself was among its signatories.
To conclude, the epistola cum privilegio presents anomalies that shed doubt
on its integrity. An authentic exemption, still visible in our document, may
well have existed; but a forger may have tampered with the original by
inserting the epistola. The epistola itself may have been entirely forged or,
rather, based on an authentic letter of St Omer. In any case, its substance –
control of the basilica by the monks of Sithiu – as well as the expression
communi opere suggests that it may have been cooked up for the same purpose
as the VB2 and Adroald’s donation charter.
While it is clear that Folcuin’s Gesta passes on the new foundation story of
Sithiu and the pro-Saint-Bertin bias of the reformed community, the author’s
responsibility in the alteration and forgeries is not clear. Did Folcuin gather –
knowingly or not – documents that had already been forged, or is he to be
held accountable for the creation of the new foundation legend and the
related forgeries? I do not believe that the question can be answered defi-
nitely. Some aspects of the Gesta may point to Folcuin’s responsibility. The
close agreement of the Gesta and the new foundation story, as well as their
chronological proximity – Folcuin wrote during the year 962 – is certainly an
argument in favor of this hypothesis. Indeed, as the keeper and compiler of
Sithiu’s archives, he was in the best position to select, alter or make up the
texts he inserted in his Gesta.91 Folcuin’s anger against Fridugis, which
contrasts with his usually dispassionate tone, could be an indication that on
this specific occasion his objectivity was for once at fault.
Besides the transmission of this new historical tradition, Folcuin, and the
patron of the Gesta, the acting-abbot Adalulf, were very much concerned with
89 Diplomata Belgica, no. 3, pp. 10, 11.

90 Ewig, ‘Das Privileg’, pp. 518–19.
91 On St Omer’s exemption: above, Chapter 1, p. 24.
69
Saint-Bertin
the state of Saint-Bertin’s landholding. This is once again stated in Folcuin’s

introduction:
In hoc codice gesta abbatum Sithiensis cenobii depromere cupientes vel

possessionum traditiones, quae a fidelibus sub uniuscuiusque illorum tem-
pore sacro huic loco cum cartarum inscriptione sunt concessae, describere
volentes, a primo ipsius loci structore domno Bertino abbate operis huius ex-
ordium sumamus, Christo auxiliante.92
(In this book, willing to relate the deeds of the abbots of Sithiu and wishing to
describe the donations of possession made by the faithful to this sacred place
by means of charters at the time of each of them, with Christ’s help, we have
begun the work starting with Saint Bertin, first abbot and founder of this
place.)
The gathering of all the charters into one volume had a practical purpose and
allowed anyone who needed to investigate Sithiu’s possession to find the
information easily:
. . . si forsan quis istius loci possessionum investigandarum fuerit avidus, ad

hunc recurrat.93
(. . . if somebody was curious to investigate the possessions of this place, he
could refer to it.)
Furthermore, Folcuin facilitated the reader’s task by dating each charter

according to the year of both the incarnation and the ruler and by setting
apart all the charters concerned with the donation of Stenetland by Guntbert
and Goibert.94 In this regard, the MGH edition, which does not include the
charters, obviously betrays Folcuin’s intention.
At the end of the Gesta, Folcuin repeats once again his and Adalulf’s goal:
Explevi iam, . . . quae iusseras, domine et beatissime necnon et amantissime

pater Adalolfe, comprehendens in uno codice traditiones fidelium cum kartis
earum necnon et gesta abbatum ab ipso primo loci huius structore domno
Bertino abbate usque ad ultimum . . .95
(I have completed what you had ordered, holy and beloved lord and father
Adalulf, gathering into one book the donations made by the faithful with
charters as well as the gesta of the abbots, from the first one, the founder of this
place, St Bertin, to the last one . . .)

94 Folcuin, Gesta, p. 608 and cc. 111–17, pp. 632–4; for the charters, see Diplomata Belgica,
nos. 26, 27, 29, 33, 37 and 40; on these documents, see Morelle, Autour de Folcuin, pp.
363–86.
70
In conclusion, Folcuin insists on the credibility of his documentation – he did

not incorporate anything into his Gesta that he did not find in ancient docu-
ments or had not heard from trustworthy men. He also asks Adalulf to
support him against those who might criticize his work. Finally, at the end of
the text, he lists the names of all the monks living regularly in the monastery,
including the ‘leper’ Regnold, Adalulf and the new abbot Hildebrand.96
The circumstances of its composition highlight the overall purpose of the
Gesta. We have seen that when Abbot Regnold became sick, the care of the
community was entrusted to Adalulf. Adalulf, who had been given to
Saint-Bertin as an oblate some time before 938, was Count Arnulf’s nephew:
his mother, Riksind, was a daughter of Baldwin II.97 Although he had been
chosen by the community, Arnulf refused to consecrate him because he
wanted to give the abbacy to his other nephew Hildebrand. The count’s coer-
cion was contested by the monks as well as by Adalulf, and Arnulf tempor-
arily got rid of the acting-abbot by sending him to England with presents for
King Edgar. When Adalulf came back and started to worry again about the
organization of canonical elections, Arnulf imposed Hildebrand. The Gesta, a
work of enormous breadth, must have taken some time to write, and it was
probably ordered by Adalulf when he was acting abbot, before his ‘exile’ in
England, and completed when Hildebrand became abbot. Considering the
circumstances, Adalulf’s initiative is understandable. His preoccupation with
keeping records of the abbey’s landholding and privileges was obviously a
protection against the count’s sticky fingers. Moreover, the evolution of the
situation at Saint-Bertin during the redaction adds another dimension to
Folcuin’s text. Hildebrand had been imposed by his uncle after a period of
turmoil, but nonetheless a period during which the last two leaders, Abbot
Regnold and Adalulf, had been chosen by and from inside the community.
Thus, recalling the abbots and their gesta (in both meanings of the word),
from the first to the last, was also a reminder to Hildebrand of his responsibil-
ities as the successor of a long list of abbots able to gain large amounts of land
and immunity from lay power. Conversely, the example of Fridugis exempli-
fied how a bad and malevolent abbot – at least in the eyes of the community –
was remembered. The fact that Folcuin listed at the end of his text the names
of those monks who lived according to the rule, gives extra weight to this
message.98

97 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 106, p. 628; Le Jan, Famille et Pouvoir, pp. 425–6 and 447.
98 In my article, ‘Creating a Usable Past in the Tenth Century: Folcuin’s Gesta and the
Crises at Saint-Bertin’, Studi Medievali 3rd series, 37 (1996), 887–903 (p. 897), I consid-
ered these names as a list of signatures. Laurent Morelle has since established, rightly
I believe, that it is strictly a list of names that Folcuin himself had written down.
Naming all the members of the regular community was part of the Gesta’s effort to
present a comprehensive state of the abbey: Morelle, Autour de Folcuin, pp. 301–14.
71
Saint-Bertin
Bovo’s Relatio de Inventione et Elevatione Sancti Bertini99
The ‘Inventio’ of St Bertin’s relics was written shortly after 1052 on the occa-
sion of the elevation of St Bertin’s relics, which Abbot Bovo (1042–1065) had
allegedly discovered during the works of restoration and enlargement of the
abbatial church.100 Inventiones, as a narrative genre, relate the discovery of
relics whose location had been forgotten or hitherto ignored; they belong to a
textual category, closely related to the cult of relics, which can be conve-
niently called ‘relic narratives’.101 The different genres of relic narratives were
particularly popular in northern France in the tenth and eleventh centuries
because of the intensive traffic in relics caused by the disruptions, alleged or
real, brought about by the vikings, and by the subsequent wave of monastic
foundations, refoundations and reforms which spread throughout the
region.102 Among these relic narratives, one group of texts is particularly
remarkable through its association with a specific religious reform: the move-
ment of Benedictine restoration associated with Gerard of Brogne in Flanders
99 The following section has been published under the title ‘Relics as Tools of Power:
The Eleventh-Century Inventio of St Bertin’s Relics and the Assertion of Abbot
Bovo’s Authority’, in Negotiating Secular and Ecclesiastical Power: Western Europe in
the Central Middle Ages, ed. A.-J. Bijsterveld, H. Theunis and A. Wareham (Turnhout,
1999), pp. 51–71.
100 Bovo, Relatio de Inventione et Elevatione Sancti Bertini, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS
151 (Hanover, 1887), pp. 524–34 (BHL 1296).
101 Relic narratives also include translationes, relating the transfer of relics from one
shrine to another, furta, dealing with thefts of relics, adventus, detailing the arrival of
newly found, acquired or stolen relics at a new location, and delationes, the carrying
around of relics in order to bolster a cult and raise money. On relic narratives in
general, see M. Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des
Reliquienkultes, Typologie 33 (Turnhout, 1979). On relics thefts, see P. Geary, Furta
Sacra: Thefts of Relics in Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978). On delationes, see P.
Héliot and M.-L. Chastang, ‘Quêtes et voyages de reliques au profit des églises
françaises au moyen âge’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 59 (1964), 789–822, and 60
(1965), 3–32; R. Kaiser, ‘Quêtes itinérantes avec des reliques pour financer la
construction des églises (XIe–XIIe siècles)’, Le Moyen Âge 2 (1995), 204–25, and E.
Bozoky, ‘Voyages de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux’, in
Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge. XXVIe Congrès de la S.H.M.E.S. (Limoges-Aubazine,
mai 1995) (Paris, 1996), pp. 267–80. On inventiones, see M. Otter, Inventiones : Fiction
and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing (London, 1996), pp.
21–57, and A.-M. Helvétius, ‘Les inventions de reliques en Gaule du Nord
(IXe–XIIIe siècles)’, in Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles. Actes du colloque interna-
tional de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer 4–6 Septembre 1997),
ed. E. Bozoky and A.-M. Helvétius, Hagiologia 1 (Turnhout, 1999, pp. 293–311.
102 F. Lifshitz, ‘The Migration of Neustrian Relics in the Viking Age: The Myth of
Voluntary Exodus, the Reality of Coercion and Theft’, Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995),
175–92, shows how the fear of vikings was used as a spurious explanation for thefts
of relics camouflaged as translations in tenth-century Normandy.
72
and Lotharingia. Because of its date and place of composition, Bovo’s Inventio
fully belongs to this tradition of relic narratives; nonetheless, his agenda went
beyond the advertising of a cult and the bolstering of the corporate identity of
the saint’s community usually associated with inventiones. Indeed, Bovo used
the models available to him, thanks to the continuous textual tradition which
had flourished in Flanders since the mid-tenth century, to compose a seem-
ingly standard inventio. A closer look at Bovo’s Inventio, however, reveals
how much its author perverted the conventions of the genre, in order to
create an extremely personal and self-serving text asserting his own authority
within the monastic community.
To comprehend fully the specificity of this text, it is necessary to look first
at the local tradition of relic narratives which inspired Bovo in writing his
own account; that is, the group of relic narratives which can be associated
directly or indirectly with the Benedictine revival promoted by Gerard of
Brogne in the middle decades of the tenth century.
Between 931 and 953, Gerard founded or re-established the Benedictine
Rule in at least nine monasteries; six of them – including Saint-Bertin – were
located within the territory of his friend and patron Arnulf, count of Flanders,
who forcefully used his authority over the abbeys in his territories to help
Gerard in his mission. As I have already emphasized, the specifics of
Gerard’s reforms remain elusive. However, one aspect of his religious devo-
tion, which he shared with Arnulf, is well known and documented: his fond-
ness of relics. The two men loved relics so much that they had few scruples
when it came to obtaining them, and when they could not get them through
friendly contacts, they did not hesitate to resort to military raids. Arnulf’s and
Gerard’s traffic in relics led to the production of an important corpus of texts
relating to their theft or exploits (depending on the point of view of the
author) and their later consequences.103 It is not clear how much Gerard’s
abbacies stimulated contacts and exchanges of manuscripts between all his
abbeys, but a common textual trend can be observed, and it can safely be
asserted that the abbeys reformed by Gerard played a significant part in the
spreading of relic narratives in the region.
Different types of relic narratives fulfill different purposes: Inventiones
were often composed to justify the foundation or refoundation of a monastic
community at the site of a miraculous discovery. This is indeed the case of the
Inventio Sancti Gisleni, written around 940 by a monk of Saint-Ghislain (near
Mons, Belgium).104 According to the Inventio and the Vita Sancti Gisleni,
103 On Gerard of Brogne and the cult of relics, see E. Bozoky, ‘La politique des reliques
des premiers comtes de Flandre (fin du IXe – fin du XIe siècle)’, in Les reliques, pp.
271–92, and D. Misonne, ‘Gérard de Brogne et sa dévotion aux reliques’, Sacris
Erudiri 25 (1982), 1–26.
104 Inventio et Miracula Sancti Gisleni, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS 152 (Hanover,
1888), pp. 576–9 (BHL 3554).
73
Saint-Bertin
Ghislain had lived in the eighth century and after his death a religious
community had formed around the church that he had built.105 However,
save for references in the early tenth-century life of St Waldetrude, nothing
was recorded about St Ghislain and his eponymous monastery before the
mid-tenth century.106 Things changed when Duke Gislebert of Lotharingia
called on Gerard of Brogne to restore the community, which had fallen –
according to the Inventio – into a state of deep decay. Indeed, no less than
three vitae and one inventio were devoted to Ghislain in the decades after
Gerard’s takeover in 931. The inventio presents the miraculous finding of the
relics as a prefiguration of and a pre-requisite for Gerard’s abbacy. St Ghislain
had remained hidden in the ground because of the sins of his community
(‘peccatis enim nostris exigentibus, tantus patrocinator mortalibus profuturus
palam aberat’),107 and it was only after he revealed himself that Gislebert
decided to invite Gerard to restore a proper monastic life under the Benedic-
tine Rule (‘ergo monachico ordine sub norma sancti habitus instituto,
maioribus demum virtutibus monasterium attolitur’).108 Moreover, the
inventio provided Gerard with the relics needed to gather his community
around the cult of its patron saint and to bolster, if not to create, its sense of
corporate identity. Furthermore, the author’s insistence on the decay
preceding the discovery of the relics and the arrival of Gerard – a literary
device abundantly used by authors of inventiones109 – emphasized the role of
the reformer and the rebirth of his abbey.
Although Saint-Ghislain was the first of Gerard’s documented monastic
restorations, he had already prompted the translation of the relics of St
Eugene, which had been brought from Saint-Denis in 919 to his own monastic
foundation of Brogne (near Namur, Belgium).110 Because Brogne was a brand
new foundation on Gerard’s own estates, its community had no hagiographic
tradition and was in great need of relics and a specific liturgy. The Adventus
sancti Eugenii martyris, the text and the actual transfer of the relics, provided
all of this. The text was read as a sermon on the feast day of St Eugene, on the
anniversary of the arrival of his relics at Brogne.111 It is not as much about the
105 Vita Gisleni Prima, ed. J. Ghesquière, Acta Sanctorum Belgii 4 (Brussels, 1787), pp.
375–84 (BHL 3552).
106 On the foundation of the monastery of Saint-Ghislain and hagiography of the saint,
see Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 213–34.
107 Inventio Sancti Gisleni, c. 1, p. 576.
108 Inventio Sancti Gisleni, c. 6, p. 578.
109 See, for example, the story of the mid-seventh-century translation of SS Benedict
and Scholastic from Monte Cassino, destroyed by the Lombards, to Fleury, written
by Adrevald of Fleury in the late ninth century: Historia Translationis S. Benedicti, ed.
E. de Certain, in Les Miracles de Saint Benoît (Paris, 1868), pp. 1–14 (BHL 1117).
110 D. Misonne, ‘La légende liturgique de la translation de St Eugène de Saint-Denis à
Brogne’, RB 74 (1964), 98–110.
111 Misonne, ‘La légende liturgique de la translation de St Eugène’, p. 98.
74
adventus of St Eugene’s relics at Brogne as it is about their long tribulation

before their removal by the abbot of Saint-Denis. The author begins with a
brief account of St Eugene’s life, which he knew from the saint’s old passio,
and then he relates successively the transfer of Eugene’s relics to Deuil, their
translation to Saint-Denis to protect them from the vikings, the arrival of
Gerard at Saint-Denis and his departure with parts of St Eugene’s body. This
last episode is added at the end of the eighth lesson, which indicates, as
Daniel Misonne has suggested, that the core of the text was already in use at
Saint-Denis, and that the monks from Brogne were content with recycling
and making only superficial changes to the old Dionysian liturgy.112 None-
theless, rudimentary as it was in its composition, the adventus, as the first
liturgical and historical text intended for Brogne, provided the new monas-
tery with the necessary sacred connections with a patron saint, with the
heroic times of the martyrs, and with the great abbey of Saint-Denis – things
it lacked because of the circumstances of its foundation.
The restoration of the abbey of Saint-Peter at Ghent in 941 by Gerard occa-
sioned yet another quest for relics and the composition of new texts cele-
brating their arrival. He was given that opportunity by the presence of the
relics of SS Wandrille, Ansbert and Vulfran near Boulogne, in Arnulf’s terri-
tory. The wandering of the Fontenelle monks throughout northern France
with their relics has been studied abundantly.113 It is enough to recall that
monks of Saint-Wandrille seem to have settled at Ghent at the end of the
ninth or at the beginning of the tenth century. This situation entitled Gerard
to present himself as abbot of Fontenelle, and so to claim a right to possess its
patron saints’ relics. In turn, he tried to use his possession of the relics to legit-
imize his failed attempt to re-establish Saint-Wandrille. With the military
backing of Count Arnulf, he organized a raid on Boulogne in 944, seized the
sacred bones and brought them home, along with many other relics, such as
those of St Omer and St Bertin. A detailed account of the adventus was given
by a monk of Ghent who was probably a first-hand witness of the events.114
At about the same time as Gerard brought the relics of SS Wandrille, Ansbert
and Vulfran from Boulogne to Ghent, he effected a similar transfer of the
relics of SS Gudwald and Bertulf from Montreuil-sur-Mer and Renty
112 Misonne, ‘La légende liturgique de la translation de St Eugène’, pp. 109–10.

113 F. Lot, ‘La destruction de l’abbaye au IXe siècle et les pérégrinations des religieux de
Saint-Wandrille’, in Études critiques sur l’abbaye de Saint-Wandrille, pp. XXX–XLI; van
Werveke, ‘Saint-Wandrille et Saint-Pierre de Gand’; E. van Houts, ‘Historiography
and Hagiography at Saint-Wandrille: The Inventio et Miracula Sancti Vulfranni’,
Anglo-Norman Studies 12 (1989), 233–51.
114 N. Huyghebaert, Une translation de reliques à Gand en 944. Le Sermo de Adventu
Sanctorum Wandregisili, Ansberti et Vulframni in Blandinium, Recueils de Textes pour
Servir à l’Histoire de Belgique (Brussels, 1978); the Adventus only survives today in
its twelfth-century rehandled form, but N. Huyghebaert was able to extract the orig-
inal tenth-century account.
75
Saint-Bertin
(Pas-de-Calais, arr. Saint-Omer) respectively, to Boulogne and then to Ghent.

This episode also became the subject of a new relic narrative, unfortunately
no longer extant.115
All the texts mentioned are positive reactions to the coming or discovery
of new relics, since they were written by members of the community which
initiated the transfers and benefited from them. These texts, which were inte-
grated in the liturgy of the relics’ new places of residence, or were even, as in
the cases of St Ghislain and St Eugene, the first liturgical texts of their
communities, celebrated the new covenant between the saint and his new
hosts. They also praised the abbot able to assemble such strong patronage for
their communities. However, Gerard’s and Arnulf’s intensive appropriation
of relics also aroused hostility from some of the communities who considered
themselves despoiled. For example, Hariulf of Saint-Riquier relates unsym-
pathetically in his Chronicon Centullense (1088), how Arnulf took advantage of
his capture of Montreuil-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) in 948 to seize St Richer’s
relics from the abbey of Centula and bring them to Saint-Bertin; those relics,
according to Hariulf, were given back to the community of Saint-Riquier in
981 by Arnulf’s grandson, his successor as count of Flanders.116 Gerard’s
appropriation of the relics that had belonged to the monks of Fontenelle, and
more specifically those of St Vulfran, also caused contention later on. Once
re-established in their house in the beginning of the eleventh century, the
monks of Fontenelle disputed the presence of St Vulfran at Ghent. Indeed,
according to ninth-century sources from their abbey, they had carried only
the bodies of saints Ansbert and Wandrille in their flight from the vikings. In
1054, probably stung by reading the Inventio Sancti Wandregisili, Ansberti et
Vulframni during a trip to Ghent, a monk from Fontenelle wrote as a counter-
claim the Inventio et Miracula Sancti Vulframni, asserting that Vulfran’s relics
were discovered in 1033 in the main church of his monastery.117
Although all the relic narratives mentioned here share the common point
of stemming from Gerard of Brogne’s monastic restorations and his acquisi-
tion of relics for his new houses, it is impossible to point to any textual rela-
tionships between them. The task of establishing filiation is made even more
problematic because two major texts – the Adventus Sancti Wandregisili and
115 This lost text should not be confused with the Sermo de Adventu SS. Gudwaldi et
Bertulfi, ed. N. Huyghebaert, Sacris Erudiri 23 (1978–1979), pp. 87–113; the Sermo is a
twelfth-century account of the adventus of Gudwald and Bertulf based on the rela-
tion given by the eleventh-century Vita Bertulfi; the Vita Bertulfi itself refers to a
‘libellus qui de eorum adventu scriptus est’, which probably contained the original
account of the Adventus.
116 Hariulf, Chronicon Centulense, ed. F. Lot, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint-Riquier (Ve
S.–1104) (Paris, 1894), pp. 150–2; J. Laporte, ‘Gérard de Brogne à Saint-Wandrille et à
Saint-Riquier’, RB 70 (1960), 142–66.
117 Huyghebaert, Une translation de reliques à Gand, pp. C–CIII; van Houts, ‘Historiog-
raphy and Hagiography at Saint-Wandrille’, pp. 237–8.
76
the Adventus Sancti Gudwaldi – survive only in rehandlings or are only known
through other sources. However, an axis of textual exchange between
Saint-Wandrille, Saint-Peter at Ghent and Saint-Bertin is clearly discernible.
Indeed, it is very likely that the monks of Saint-Wandrille would have been in
contact with the abbey of Saint-Bertin during their wandering in northern
France – Saint-Bertin is only twenty miles from Boulogne, and from 875 to 891
the monks settled at Blangy-en-Artois, a few miles from Saint-Bertin.
Possibly, the acquisition by Saint-Bertin of a corpus of hagiographic texts
from Fontenelle dates from this period of contact.118 Dom Huyghebaert has
suggested that the author of the Adventus Sanctorum Wandregisili, Ansberti et
Vulframni came to know through Saint-Bertin all the Fontenelle sources that
he quoted in his work: the Vita Ansberti, the Vitae and Miracula Wandregisili
and the Gesta Patrum Fontanellensium.119 However, since monks from
Fontenelle had already settled at Saint-Peter at Ghent by the end of the ninth
century, the exchange may have happened the other way around, Saint-
Bertin receiving the Fontenelle manuscripts from Ghent in 944 when Gerard
came to Saint-Bertin to restore the Benedictine Rule. In any case, it is clear
that by the mid-tenth century texts from Fontenelle were known at Saint-
Bertin, since Folcuin most likely modeled his own text on the Gesta Patrum
Fontanellensium.
Another textual link between Ghent and Saint-Bertin might be one of the
most widely consulted relic narratives of the central Middle Ages, the Historia
Translationis S. Benedicti by Adrevald of Fleury. This text relates the finding of
the relics of SS Benedict and Scholastica at Monte Cassino by monks of
Fleury, and their subsequent translation to the Loire valley. Indeed, the full
title of the Adventus of SS Wandrille, Ansbert and Vulfran resembles the
incipit that Adrevald’s text bears in many of its copies.120 The same incipit is
118 S-O, MS 764; on this manuscript, see F. Wormald, ‘Some Illustrated MSS. of the
Lives of the Saints’, Bulletin of the J. Rylands Library (1952), 250–62, and L.
Deschamps, ‘Notice sur un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque municipale de Saint-
Omer’, MSAM 5 (1839–1840), 173–208; an unreliable tradition also suggests that the
relics of SS Wandrille and Ansbert were hidden at Saint-Omer around 846: see
Laporte, ‘Gérard de Brogne à Saint-Wandrille’, 143–5, and A. D’Haenens, Les inva-
sions normandes en Belgique au IXe siècle: le phénomène et sa répercussion dans
l’historiographie médiévale, Recueil de Travaux d’Histoire et de Philologie de
l’Université de Louvain 38 (Louvain, 1967), pp. 258–9.
119 Huyghebaert, Une translation de reliques à Gand, p. LXVI.
120 Huyghebaert, Une translation de reliques à Gand, p. XXIV. The complete title of the
Sermo is Gloriosus a Deo dispositus adventus in Monte Blandinium rite vocato sanctorum
Wandregisili, Ansberti and Vulframni; and the incipit of the Historia Translationis Sancti
Benedicti of Adrevald as found in the Saint-Bertin manuscript as well as in many
other copies is: ‘Incipit gloriosus et a Deo dispositus aventus in cenobio Floriacensis
rite vocato electi . . .’. On this text and its manuscript tradition, see A. Vidier,
L’Historiographie à Saint-Benoît sur Loire et les miracles de St Benoît (Paris, 1965); J.
Hourlier, ‘Le témoignage de Paul Diacre’, in Le culte et les reliques de Saint Benoît et de
77
Saint-Bertin
found in the manuscript of Adrevald’s Translatio copied at Saint-Bertin

around the turn of the millennium by Abbot Odbert.121 Here again,
Adrevald’s text may have reached Saint-Bertin through exchanges with
Ghent. The Historia Translationis Sancti Benedicti also influenced the composi-
tion of relic narratives at Saint-Bertin since, as will be seen, Bovo took inspira-
tion from it when he wrote his Relatio de Inventione et Elevatione Sancti Bertini
shortly after 1052. To finish with the textual interplay between Saint-Bertin,
Saint-Wandrille, and Saint-Peter at Ghent, it is interesting to recall that the
Inventio of St Vulfran was written at Saint-Wandrille only one or two years
after the composition of the Inventio of Saint-Bertin.122 Although this might be
fortuitous, it is striking that both authors used similar literary devices to
make their point: discovery of the relics following the restoration of an abbey,
exaggeration of the physical and spiritual decay of the monastery in the
period before the discovery and references to documents used as sources. But
of course, by the eleventh century, these characteristics were already well-
established topoi of relic narratives, especially inventiones, and are also found,
for example, in the Inventio Sancti Gisleni that I have already mentioned.123
Although direct borrowings – shared phrases, idiosyncratic language and
the like – between the texts previously mentioned and Bovo’s Relatio cannot
be found, it is manifest that Bovo drew on a textual tradition flourishing in
the region, especially in the communities which had been touched by Gerard
of Brogne’s enterprise. However, the circumstances of St Bertin’s inventio and
Bovo’s goals in writing its relation were significantly different from the
circumstances and purpose of the aforementioned texts: Saint-Bertin already
possessed relics supposed to be St Bertin’s, his cult had been continuous
throughout the period, nobody was contesting the community possession of
the relics, and, finally, the monastery had never been abandoned or so
severely damaged that it needed to be refounded. In these circumstances,
why did Bovo feel compelled to write his text? Before discussing his specific
motivation, it is important to look at the tradition of historical writing at
Saint-Bertin upon which Bovo built his own narrative. Throughout the
Middle Ages, the abbey of Saint-Bertin maintained a continuous tradition of
producing many of the traditional medieval genres: annals, Gesta Abbatum
and hagiographic texts. Bovo was not only inspired, in a general way, by the
polemical nature of previous texts, but he also directly used some of them as
sources, especially Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium and the life of St
Sainte Scholastique, ed. A. Beau, Studia Monastica 21 (Monserrat, 1979), pp. 205–11;
idem, ‘La translation d’après les sources narratives’, in ibid., pp. 214–39, and Head,
Hagiography and the Cult of Saints.
121 S-O, MS 350.
122 van Houts, ‘Historiography and Hagiography at Saint-Wandrille’, pp. 237–8 gives
1054 for the date of the redaction.
123 See the examples in M. Otter, Inventiones.
78
Folcuin, bishop of Thérouanne.124 Because of this strong tradition of histori-

ography at Saint-Bertin, it is not only interesting to consider Bovo’s Relatio in
the context of earlier relic narratives, but it is also important to keep in mind
the background offered to him by his own house. Bovo was all the more able
to make good use of these texts considering that, according to Simon’s contin-
uation of the Gesta Abbatum, he was a very educated man, well learned in the
liberal arts.125 He also commissioned a third life of St Bertin by the monk
Folcard, who later made a career in England.
Bovo’s Relatio reports the discovery of the relics of St Bertin in 1050 and
their subsequent translation in 1052. It is useful to begin with a brief account
of the events as they are told by Bovo. In 1033, during the abbacy of his
predecessor, so Bovo tells us, the abbey of Saint-Bertin was struck succes-
sively by two calamities: a fire seriously damaged its main church and,
shortly afterwards, an epidemic killed eleven of the forty monks who made
up the community.126 Since the buildings had been hastily restored after the
blaze, they started to crumble after a few years; so Bovo, four years into his
abbacy, decided to undertake the major work of rebuilding and enlarging the
church.127 As workers were attempting to displace the main altar, their tools
hit a layer of hard stones and old cement which suggested that something
was buried underneath. After the bishop of Thérouanne, the monks, the
canons of Saint-Omer and lay witnesses had gathered around the altar, Bovo
presided over the excavation. They found, buried far beneath under the altar,
a leaden casket containing bones, which were identified by a silver cross as
Sanctus Bertinus Abbas. Bovo specifies that it took three searches to find the
cross, and that he himself found it.128 The inventio, however, was subjected to
a long investigation, and it was not until two years later that the archbishop
of Reims performed the translation of the relics.129
Bovo’s text presents interesting features: it is significantly longer than
many texts of its kind – ten pages of the MGH edition – and it is a first-person
account of a very recent event. Most inventiones on the other hand are shorter,
anonymous, and told by a third party who was not contemporary with the
discovery.130 Bovo’s introduction is particularly important for understanding
his intentions in writing the account, as well as in terms of his technique of
124 Folcuin, Vita Folcuini Episcopi.

125 Simon, Gesta, cc. 10–15, pp. 638–9.
126 Bovo, Relatio, c. 1, pp. 526–7; in the twelfth-century chronicle of Lambert of
Saint-Omer, the entry for 1033 reads: ‘Templum sancti Audomari crematur’
(Lambert of Saint-Omer, Chronica, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS 5 (Hanover, 1844), p. 65).
127 Bovo, Relatio, c. 3, pp. 527–8.
128 Bovo, Relatio, c. 3, p. 528
129 The translation was done on 1May 1052, see Bovo, Relatio, cc. 8–12, pp. 531–53.
130 However, the fifth-century Revelatio Sancti Stephani, ed. S. Vanderlinden, Revue des
Études Byzantines 4 (1946), 178–217, which may have been a model for Bovo, is also a
first-person account of the finding of St Stephen’s relics by Lucianus.
79
Saint-Bertin
writing. He starts with an exchange of letters between himself and Wido,

archbishop of Reims, who had performed the translation of the relics.131 In
the first epistle, Bovo explains how, urged by his fellow monks, he wished to
give a written account of the events for posterity. Neither accepting nor
refusing the task allegedly pushed upon him, but obviously dying to do it,
the abbot begged the prelate to commission him to write the work. Of course,
the archbishop approved of his project and enjoined the abbot to send him a
copy of his work, ‘in order that you are recognized for your writings . . . since
what you described really happened and since they went into my hands,
nothing will have to be added or removed’.132 These first two letters fulfill
three closely related purposes: they legitimize the abbot’s initiative, since the
relatio becomes a commission from the archbishop; they guarantee that the
integrity of the text will be protected, since nothing will be added to or
removed from it, and it will represent the only accepted version of the facts;
and finally, they guarantee that Bovo will be recognized as the author of his
text. The third missive inserted by Bovo confirms the previous two letters and
goes even further by emphasizing the active involvement of the archbishop
in his guarantee of the text: ‘if ever the troubles brought about by the scourge
of rivalry tried to introduce changes, I would turn myself toward your . . .
benevolent protection. Indeed, it is fair that, trusting your noble protection, I
would shield myself behind the walls of your defense’.133
The relationship between fiction and reality in this correspondence is not
easy to unravel: it could reflect more or less faithfully a true exchange, or it
could be a purely literary device. Whatever the case, Bovo’s request for legiti-
mization and protection is clear and understandable in view of the circum-
stances. Indeed, another set of relics was already honored as St Bertin’s, and
the discovery of the new ones during Bovo’s building campaign raised
serious questions. Interestingly, Bovo did not address the problem of the two
sets of St Bertin’s relics with his own authorial voice, but again, he used the
epistolary genre to confer more authority to the story; in this case, they were
letters exchanged between Drogo, bishop of Thérouanne, and the same Wido
of Reims.134 The letters, according to Bovo, were read aloud in a ceremony
which included abbots, archdeacons and monks in front of the new relics.
131 In the course of the eleventh century bishops relied increasingly heavily on the
authority of their metropolitan for the identification and elevation of relics; this
evolution was ratified in 1025 by Gerard of Cambrai at the synod of Arras, see N.
Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints. Formation coutumière d’un droit (Paris,
1975), p. 90.
132 Bovo, Relatio, p. 525. Such a transfer of authorial responsibility from the author to
the patron is a topos of medieval narratives; see M. Sot, ‘Rhétorique et technique
dans les préfaces des gesta episcoporum (IXe–XIIe s.)’, Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale
28 (1985), 181–200.
133 Bovo, Relatio, p. 525.
80
The bishop explained the situation to his superior because ordinary people,
vulgus minus intelligens, were very upset by the two St Bertins and were prob-
ably requesting explanations from ecclesiastical authorities.135 Clearly,
however, the mentally challenged were not the only ones to find the situation
puzzling, since it took two years of investigation before the elevation was
performed. Eventually, in his answer to the bishop of Thérouanne, Wido
carefully advised Drogo and Bovo to place both the old and the new Bertin in
the same shrine and to translate them together.136 One of Bovo’s models for
inserting this correspondence was Adrevald of Fleury’s Translatio Sancti
Benedicti. It is clear that the exchange of letters between Drogo of Thérouanne
and Wido of Reims about the inventio and the identity of the relics is reminis-
cent of the letter addressed around 750 to the monks of Fleury by Pope
Zachary, which Adrevald of Fleury inserted in his Miracula.137 The authen-
ticity of the papal letter is much disputed,138 but by inserting it Adrevald was
making his point very clearly. The monks of Monte Cassino never recognized
Fleury’s possession of Benedict and Scholastica’s relics; but, the pope’s
injunction to the community of Fleury to give Benedict’s relics back to Monte
Cassino was an explicit admission that the relics were indeed at Fleury. In
addition, Bovo’s technique of introducing his account with an epistolary
exchange may have been inspired by the fifth-century Inventio Sancti Stephani,
which was among the most widespread inventio accounts of the Middle Ages,
especially in northern France.139 Indeed, Stephen’s Inventio is known in
Western sources as a set of two epistles: the second epistle is the Latin transla-
tion of the account given in Greek by Lucian, the priest who found Stephen’s
relics near Jerusalem, and it is introduced by a first epistle sent by the priest
Avitus, who translated the text, to the bishop of Braga. Avitus had received a
few of Stephen’s relics from Lucian and he asked his compatriot Paul
Orosius, on his way to Spain, to bring them to Braga; Avitus added the letters
to the relics in order to authenticate them.
Let us now look more closely at Bovo’s interpretation of the events
regarding the discovery of St Bertin’s relics. The story starts with the fire of
1033, which Bovo did not consider pure bad luck, but rather a consequence of
God’s wrath in the face of the laxity of spiritual life in a monastery turned
into a ‘thieves’ den’. The situation was so bad that even SS Omer and Bertin
could no longer play their natural role as intercessors.140 This fire, however,

137 Adrevald of Fleury, Miraculorum Sancti Benedicti. Liber Primus, ed. E. de Certain, in
Les miracles de Saint Benoît, pp. 38–9 (BHL 1123).
138 Vidier, L’Historiographie à Saint-Benoît sur Loire, pp. 160–1, and J. Hourlier, ‘La lettre
de Zacharie’, in Le culte et les reliques de St Benoît, pp. 241–52.
139 Revelatio Sancti Stephani, pp. 178–85.
140 Bovo, Relatio, c. 1, p. 526.
81
Saint-Bertin
was not enough to induce a long-lasting change in the community and, after
a brief period of contrition, the monks fell back again into their old sins. It
was only after a severe epidemic, which killed a good part of the community,
that the surviving monks undertook a true conversio.141 In 1046, as the church
was threatening to collapse, Bovo started his project of rebuilding a larger
sanctuary for the community, in the course of which work he found the
hidden relics of St Bertin.142 Soon after, the monks had a new shrine of gold
and topaz built for their rediscovered patron saint, who immediately
performed miracles. These included the first rains for a very long time,
allowing the withered crops to blossom and fruit.143 In his account of the
discovery of the relics Bovo put himself at center stage: he decided to rebuild
the church, he found the leaden urn, and he discovered the cross with the
name of St Bertin. He also sharply contrasted his own abbacy with the period
of spiritual and physical disintegration of the abbey during the time of his
predecessor – whom he does not blame directly. The episode of the recon-
struction and inventio confers on Bovo’s abbacy a character of renewal for
Saint-Bertin. Not only did he rebuild the physical church of St Bertin, but by
finding his true relics he also re-established his true cult. The attribution to
God’s wrath of the fire which destroyed the church contrasts with Bovo’s
own period of a new covenant between God, St Bertin, and the saint’s
community. This is inherent in the stories of inventiones: as in furta sacra, the
saints remain active in the process, they are not merely found, but rather,
they let themselves be found. Thus, the inventio is also a revelatio. Bovo’s
presentation of his role as the refounder of his abbey is, however, in contra-
diction with facts since his predecessor, Roderic, was actually the spiritual
reformer of Saint-Bertin. Indeed, in 1021, Roderic was called by Count
Baldwin from his monastery of Saint-Vaast at Arras, which had recently been
restored according to the reform of Richard of Saint-Vanne, to re-establish the
regular life at Saint-Bertin.144 It is as a reformer and a ‘studiosus imitator’ and
‘ferventissimus amator’145 of the Benedictine Rule that Roderic was remem-
bered later in the historiography of Saint-Bertin, and it is conceivable that
Bovo, facing the tough task of succeeding him, had to make the claim of being
a pious leader and refounder in his own right.
Thus, the episode of the inventio would be enough to suggest that Bovo
saw and presented himself as chosen and rewarded by St Bertin for being a
good abbot. Indeed, Bovo’s text is as much about himself as about St Bertin
and his relics, and the abbot was not shy in stating this clearly in three
passages. The first one is a comment made after the description of the fire:

144 Simon, Gesta, cc. 1–9, pp. 636–8.
145 Simon, Gesta, c. 5, p. 637.
82
‘God, with the help of His rod, compelled the reform and punished the sins
which had to be atoned for by piety, and He administered lesser punishment
on those who were good, as was demonstrated later at the right time’.146 The
second passage is a more symbolic prefiguration of the inventio, as it relates a
monk’s vision of a magnificent man, dressed in white, who came to inspect
the monastery and blessed the place with his right hand.147 The third expres-
sion of Bovo’s election is found after a long historiographic passage referring
to a very traumatic event for the monks of Saint-Bertin: the division of the
monastery into communities of canons and Benedictine monks, imposed
shortly after 820 by Abbot Fridugis. Bovo followed most of Saint-Bertin’s
authors, regarding the separation as sinful, but he concluded by saying: ‘it
was enough that I gathered our children under my protection for the sins of
the monastery to go away and for the blessed relics, which had been hidden
in emergency, to make themselves visible’.148 The justification for this state-
ment is not clear, because since 950 the canons had their own provost, distinct
from the abbot of Saint-Bertin, although the two communities had close rela-
tions – which, as we have seen, were not always cordial; and no other source
corroborates that the situation changed during Bovo’s abbacy. In any case,
what is significant is the fact that he wanted his readers to believe that he had
in one way or another re-established some sort of unity between the monks
and the canons, and that he was therefore rewarded by St Bertin.149
Because Bovo’s finding of Bertin’s relics was questionable, he had to
provide some explanation and justification for the circumstances which made
the community ignorant of the location of the true relics for such a long time.
To do this, he resorted to the archives of Saint-Bertin and more specifically to
the vita of Folcuin of Thérouanne.150 Bovo asserts that, because the abbey was
threatened by the vikings, St Folcuin translated the relics of St Bertin and
re-buried them in 846 – Bovo and the vita Folcuini both use the word
recondidit, which means ‘to hide’, ‘to bury very deep’. Bovo’s explanation is
actually supported by the vita of Folcuin, although its author associates the
hiding of Bertin with the theft of St Omer’s relics by Abbot Hugh, who had
tried to translate them to his other abbey of Saint-Quentin. According to the

149 The manuscript tradition of Bovo’s Relatio could have told us more about the use he
wanted to make of his text. Unfortunately, the two medieval manuscripts (from
Saint-Bertin and Clairmarais) on which Mabillon based his edition of the Acta
Sanctorum (III, 1, pp. 153–68) have disappeared. For his MGH edition, O. Holder-
Egger copied the text from Mabillon, but he was able to find a sixteenth-century
copy of the first three letters in S-O, MS 746, t. II. Simon inserted the passage
describing the fire and the epidemics in his chapter on Abbot Roderic (cc. 2–5, pp.
636–7).
150 Bovo, Relatio, c. 5, p. 529: ‘meminisse coepi Vita sancti Folcuini . . .’.
83
Saint-Bertin
vita, Folcuin brought the relics of Omer back to his church and re-buried
them; three years later, he exhumed and re-buried St Bertin.151 St Omer’s
relics remained in their secret place until they, too, were discovered in 941,
but unfortunately, no narrative of this inventio has survived.152
The question of the authenticity of Bovo’s find remains, and will always
remain, unanswerable. The hiding of the relics in the ninth century and their
rediscovery in the eleventh are not implausible – although we should not
forget that the vita of St Folcuin was written more than a century after his
death. Bovo’s setting of his Relatio in a very historical context (the destruction
and rebuilding of the church, which are most likely actual events), the intro-
duction of letters and historical sources into the narrative, as well as the
participation of the author in the events, reinforce that impression of histo-
ricity. And historicity and credibility were sensible goals for an author so
anxious about the legitimization and the integrity of his text. Nevertheless,
one detail of the narrative seems inconsistent: Bovo asserts that he found the
little silver cross under St Bertin’s right shoulder, suggesting that the skeleton
was still intact.153 However, the words he used to describe the saint’s
container are scrinium, a little box, a reliquary, and urna, which suggest that it
could not contain an intact body. And indeed, Drogo of Thérouanne said in
his letter to Wido of Reims that the bones were cremated (ossa cinerati).154
Besides this inconsistency in the text, the textual tradition in which Bovo’s
inventio arises sheds light on the degree of historicity one should expect from
such a text. In her study of eleventh- and twelfth-century inventiones from
post-Conquest England, Monika Otter has stressed that the truth which these
texts embodied was essentially symbolic and that, despite the efforts of their
authors to ground their account in a familiar and historical context,
inventiones usually happened in very unlikely circumstances.155 These obser-
vations prove equally true for the earlier Continental inventiones, which is not
surprising since Otter also argues that the genre was probably brought to
England by Goscelin of Canterbury, a monk of Saint-Bertin who lived in
England from the decade preceding the Conquest to his death in the begin-
ning of the twelfth century. Regarding Goscelin, it is interesting to note that,
151 Folcuin, Vita Sancti Folcuini, c. 7, p. 428.

152 According to Lambert of Saint-Omer’s Chronica, p. 65: ’941. Inventio Sancti
Audomari et Bertini’. In his Vita Folcuini, Folcuin alluded to the inventio of St Omer:
c. 7, p. 428: ‘Et praecavens in futurum, ne parili modo aut alio quovis ingenio corpus
auferretur sanctum, terra illud abscondit, ubi per plurimos annos homines quidem
latuit; at revelatum est ubi Dominus voluit.’
153 Bovo, Relatio, c. 3 and c. 4, p. 528.
154 Bovo, Relatio, c. 5, p. 531. The circumstances of their cremation are unclear, but they
could have undergone an ordeal by fire for authentication at the time of the first
translation; on the ordeal of relics by fire, see Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des
saints, p. 134.
155 M. Otter, Inventiones, p. 41.
84
as a monk of Saint Augustine’s at Canterbury from about 1090 until his death,
he was involved in the antagonism between his community and the monks of
Christ Church. He wrote in that context a good deal of polemical writing
strikingly reminiscent of the way the authors from Saint-Bertin dealt with
their own conflicts.156 This suggests that the earlier Bertinian historiographic
culture made its way through the eleventh and twelfth centuries and that
Bovo’s work should also be seen in light of its local tradition.
To go back to the inventiones and their ambiguous relationship with ‘histor-
ical truth’, a few examples can usefully be presented here. I have already
mentioned the Revelatio Sancti Stephani, which, as shown by its manuscript
tradition, was very well-known and influential in Flanders and Lotharingia.157
This story may have been a source for the Inventio Sancti Gisleni: the two texts
present narrative parallels and both the abbeys of Brogne and Saint-Ghislain
possessed an eleventh-century manuscript of the Revelatio. The Revelatio Sancti
Stephani was also known to Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, whose Inventio of St Yves
resembles the older text.158 As for St Ghislain, Anne-Marie Helvétius has
convincingly demonstrated that he never existed: he was an invention of Duke
Gislebert, who needed a pretext for founding a monastic community there, in
order to bolster his domination over the region of Hainault.159 Despite the old
pretension of Fleury to have the relics of St Benedict, their presence in France
was always fought fiercely by the monks of Monte Cassino. Other inventiones
are even more clearly the product of the unbridled medieval imagination
regarding saint cults and relics: the discovery of the skull of John the Baptist in
eleventh-century Aquitaine is only one among the multitude of highly
unlikely discoveries of relics produced by monastic communities in order to
answer their need for power, supremacy, or money.160
More than any other hagiographic texts, relic narratives and especially
inventiones lend themselves to a narrative structure which makes them look
much like historical texts, sometimes even miniature chronicles. It is remark-
able that in many cases the authors of such translations and inventions went
back, in much detail, to the origins of the monastery in which the relics were
allegedly brought or found, and to the events which made the finding
possible. However, since the historicity of these narratives is often question-
able, what really matters, both to us and to their medieval readers, is their
156 Otter, Inventiones, pp. 21–2.

157 Vanderlinden’s edition is based exclusively on manuscripts from Belgian libraries
and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; despite this geographical limitation, he was
able to gather a corpus of more than thirty medieval manuscripts.
158 Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Vita Sancti Yvonis Episcopi Persae in Anglia Depositi, PL 1, pp.
80–90 (BHL 4622).
159 Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 229–31.
160 Inventio Capitis Sancti Johannis, AA SS, Iun. 5, pp. 650–2. On relics and forgeries in
Aquitaine, see R. Landes, Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History: Ademar of
Chabannes, 989–1034 (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).
85
Saint-Bertin
symbolic meaning: the finding or coming of new relics meant the beginning
of a new covenant between the saint and the community. It is only normal
that these texts should have created interest in the context of intensive
monastic reform and social change – in the tenth and eleventh centuries on
the Continent and after the Conquest in England. In the case of the inventio of
St Bertin, however, Bovo subverted the conventions and symbolism of the
genre in order to produce a very individual and self-serving version of the
new covenant. This is not only characteristic of the well-rooted trend to use
narratives as tools of power at Saint-Bertin, but also reveals the personality of
an author who, in quite original ways for his time, insisted so much that his
authorship be recognized for posterity.
In this regard, the legacy left by Bovo in the collective memory of Saint-
Bertin may not have met his expectations. At the time of his death, a gap
already existed between the community’s perception of the events and the
meaning Bovo tried so hard to impose on them. What was recalled in his
epitaph was not his discovery of Saint-Bertin’s relics, but his reconstruction of
the church.161 The little we know about him from sources other than his own
writing is told by Simon. It is ironic that the only passage from the Inventio of
St Bertin that Simon quoted – the story of the fire and the epidemic – was
inserted in the chapter on Bovo’s predecessor, the reformer Roderic.162
Although Simon devoted the following chapter to Bovo’s discovery of the
relics and his writing of a commentariolus attesting the regularity of the
inventio and translation, he did not put much emphasis upon an event which
was supposed to have refounded St Bertin’s true cult. Equally, he did not
emphasize Bovo’s role in the discovery, or attribute it to Bovo’s quality as a
religious leader.163 Furthermore, his tone when writing about Roderic was
clearly warmer and more enthusiastic than were the conventional words of
praise he gave to Bovo. The tepid attitude of the monastic community of
Saint-Bertin both toward Bovo and his unearthing of Saint-Bertin’s new relics
confirms the self-serving character of the facts and the text of the Relatio. It
looks as if the community not only did not need these new relics, but even
that they were superfluous. Bovo’s interpretation of the discovery as a sign of
his own election was not very appealing to the community either, all the
more so since his role as an abbot did not measure up to his own self-image.
Furthermore, the lay community, local potentates and common people alike,
remained equally cold toward the inventio. Nevertheless, they were an impor-
tant presence in Bovo’s story: before the opening of the coffin, Bovo had
invited the castellani of the town as witnesses and, since it was Saturday, the
day of the judicial court, the populace had gathered in town ‘to make fun of
161 Simon, Gesta, c. 15, p. 640: ‘Hanc fabricam primo templi fundavit ab imo; Quam
divinarum portans virtute rotarum. Rexit et erexit contraque pericula texit.’
162 Simon, Gesta, cc. 2–5, pp. 636–7.
163 Simon, Gesta, c. 12, p. 638.
86
the honorable people’ and did not wait long to rush to the church.164 The lay
community was of course as much concerned by St Bertin’s relics as was the
monastic community, since the good working of society as a whole, from
good weather, as shown in the ‘first rains’ miracle,165 and public health, to
peace and justice, depended on his intercession.166 Lay people and pilgrims,
as well as Saint-Bertin’s neighbors, were not passive by-standers of the cult,
and its success or failure depended on their adhesion or rejection. I have
already mentioned that the vulgus had been very skeptical of the new relics
and had pressed the ecclesiastical authorities to provide explanations and
clarify which set of bones were the proper relics. The aristocracy, who were of
course the most likely to honor the ‘true’ relics with donations, were not very
enthusiastic either. On 1 May 1052, the day of the elevation of the new relics,
Countess Adala, daughter of Robert the Pious and wife of Baldwin V of Flan-
ders, was present at the ceremony with her brother Odo and an important
escort (but not the count himself).167 According to the series of miracles that
Bovo added at the end of his story, Adala offered a shroud made of precious
fabric to wrap the relics and gave a piece of salt marsh to the monastery.168
Bovo states that the land donation was authenticated by a charter, but if it
ever existed, it is no longer among the seven surviving charters given during
Bovo’s abbacy. Furthermore, among these charters – agreements with local
lords and privileges from Count Baldwin, Emperor Henry IV and Pope
Victor II, dated from 1051 to 1063 – none is a donation to the abbey nor do
any refer to discovery of the relics (apart from the 1052 charter recording the
inventio and the elevation).169 Neither the charters nor Simon’s Gesta Abbatum
suggests that donations to Saint-Bertin increased and that the cult was
boosted in the years after the inventio. Indeed, Bovo was not even able to
finish the rebuilding of the church that he had undertaken and, at his death in
1065, the work was left unfinished, probably because of lack of financial
means.170 The legacy of Bovo’s Relatio de Inventione et Elevatione Sancti Bertini
suggests that however much the authors of relic narratives tried to historicize
their story, plausibility was not the secret of their success. In order to attract
support from the religious community as well as from the secular world, the
finding of new relics and the writing of the corresponding narrative had to be
meaningful and useful for the community itself.
We have seen that narrative production at Saint-Bertin often coincided
with situations of crisis or major transformations in the life of the community.

166 On the public utility of relics, see Bozoky, ‘Voyage de reliques’.
168 Bovo, Relatio, c. 11, p. 532.
169 Dewitte, Grand Cartulaire, charters 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, pp. 26–31. Charter 74, p. 27,
dated 2 May 1052, records the elevation and gives a summary of the discovery.
170 Simon, Gesta, c. 10, p. 638.
87
Saint-Bertin
The writing of the VB2, the forged donation charter and St Omer’s privilege
cum epistola were written in the aftermath of the Benedictine restoration
imposed by Arnulf the Great and Gerard of Brogne in order to claim the
monks’ superiority and authority over the canons. The Gesta Abbatum, which
had adopted the new foundation story, was also written in order to assert
Saint-Bertin’s landholding in the face of the count of Flanders’ pervasive
attempts to control the abbey and to lay hold on its wealth. The context of
Bovo’s Relatio was not only a situation of crisis at Saint-Bertin – the commu-
nity was certainly impoverished by the destruction of its church – but also a
context of personal crisis for Abbot Bovo, who attempted to use his finding –
and his text – to assert his own authority.
It is interesting to note that the continuation of Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum by
Simon was also written in a context of personal and institutional crises.
Indeed, at the time of its composition, the monastic community was divided
by an internal conflict between pro- and anti-Cluniac factions, in which
Simon himself was involved. Despite the Benedictine restorations of the tenth
and eleventh centuries, the monks of Saint-Bertin had remained unenthusi-
astic about strict observance of the Rule. In 1100, Abbot Lambert (1095–1125),
after an unsuccessful attempt to revive his community’s spiritual enthusiasm,
decided to submit Saint-Bertin to the authority of Cluny. This move was
violently opposed by the majority of the monks, who were extremely reluc-
tant to give up their independence.171 Lambert had to resort to force to expel
the rebellious monks.172 As always, those who remained at Sithiu and the
new recruits who joined the community were extremely enthusiastic and, for
a time, Saint-Bertin flourished under the Cluniac rule and attracted donations
from the local population.173 The anti-Cluny party – the greatest part of the
community, according to Simon – was still active, however, and at Abbot
Lambert’s death in 1125, Saint-Bertin was once again divided between two
factions.174 John (1095–1031), Lambert’s successor, steadfastly refused to
submit himself to the abbot of Cluny who ordered him to make his profession
there. Eventually, in 1131, John was publicly dismissed by the papal legate,
171 Lambert had secretly plotted Saint-Bertin’s submission to Cluny with the count and
countess of Flanders, but the monks were informed of his projects by the bishop and
canons of Thérouanne (Simon, Gesta, c. 64, p. 648); on Saint-Bertin’s Cluniac reform
and its influence in Flanders, see E. Sabbe ‘La réforme clunisienne dans le comté de
Flandre au début du XIIe siècle’ RBPH 9 (1930), 121–38, J. de Smet, ‘Quand Robert II
confia-t-il Saint-Bertin à Cluny?’, RHE 46 (1951), 160–4, and Simon, Gesta, cc. 63–70,
pp. 648–9; reactions to the Cluniac reform were not always as violent as at Saint-
Bertin, see A.-M. Helvétius, ‘Aspects de l’influence de Cluny en Basse-Lotharingie
aux XIe et XIIe siècles’ Publications de la Section Historique de l’Institut Grand-Ducal de
Luxembourg 106 (1991), 49–68.
172 Simon, Gesta, c. 66, p. 648.
173 Simon, Gesta, c. 68, p. 649.
174 Simon, Gesta, c. 115, p. 658 and cc. 126–32, pp. 660–61.
88
fled to Rome after stealing one year of Saint-Bertin’s revenues and disap-
peared forever.175
His successor was Simon (1131–1136), the author of the continuation of the
Gesta Abbatum. Simon was born at Ghent and entered Saint-Bertin as an
oblate.176 ‘Very pious and well-learned’, writes one of the authors who
completed the Gesta up to the year 1187; Simon had a speaking defect. In
1123, he took over the administration of Saint-Bertin when Abbot Lambert
had to retire for health reasons, and in 1127, he became abbot of Auchy,
which was a monastery dependent on Saint-Bertin.177 Since he was from the
anti-Cluny faction, Simon refused to acknowledge the authority of the abbot
of Cluny. As a consequence, Pope Innocent II nullified his election in 1136.178
Simon returned to Ghent where he spent the last years of his life. Neverthe-
less, he died and was buried in the cemetery adjacent to Saint-Omer.179
Indeed, the anti-Cluny faction finally got the last word. In 1139, after much
further lobbying and discussion, Simon’s successor, Leon, received from
Innocent II a clear and definitive declaration of independence for Saint-
Bertin.180
Simon began his continuation at the time of Abbot Lambert, to whom he
dedicated his work, and finished it during his exile at Ghent, since his Gesta
includes his successor’s abbacy.181 Explicitly following Folcuin’s example,
Simon wrote in his prologue that he meant to write the gesta of Lambert’s
predecessors for the emulation of his successors; furthermore, he had gath-
ered the charters given by the princes and various dignitaries and the dona-
tions made by the faithful, in order to ‘avoid controversies and to perpetuate
peace’.182 Since the period covered by Simon’s Gesta goes well beyond the
period studied here, I will not further expand on it. There is, however, an
interesting comparison to make between Folcuin’s Gesta and Simon’s Gesta,
especially concerning the circumstances of their redaction. Like Folcuin,
Simon wrote for an abbot whose authority was threatened from outside – let
us remember that the authority of the acting-abbot Adalulf was challenged
by Arnulf the Great, who eventually demoted him in favor of Hildebrand.
Simon, who finished the Gesta either during his abbacy or, rather, during his
exile, was in a difficult position when he was himself abbot. It is also remark-
able that both gesta were written at a time of crisis and uncertainty following
religious reform. The parallels between the two gesta, and especially between
175 Simon, Gesta, c. 132, p. 661.

176 Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, p. 169; Simon, Gesta, Additamentum, c. 133, p.
661.
177 Simon, Gesta, c. 71, p. 649, and Additamentum, c. 133, p. 661.
178 Simon, Gesta, Additamentum, c. 133, p. 661.
179 Simon, Gesta, Additamentum, c. 16, p. 663.
180 Simon, Gesta, Additamentum, cc. 7, 10, 13, p. 663.
181 See Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin, p. 305.
182 Simon, Gesta, p. 635.
89
Saint-Bertin
the conditions in which they were written, bolsters not only the idea that
narratives were often written in situations of crisis, but also, more specifi-
cally, that gesta, because of their multiple nature, were particularly apt to be
considered as useful narrative tools to reconstruct the past.
Conclusion
The history of Saint-Bertin is peculiar because the conflict between monks

and canons which triggered many of the efforts to create a usable past for the
community – the new vitae, forged charters and Folcuin’s Gesta – continued to
keep the monks busy until the end of the eighteenth century. This unusual
longevity provides an exceptional opportunity to observe the legacy of early
medieval texts in the later Middle Ages and Early Modern period; further-
more, it draws attention to the fact that the problems raised by the selective
maintenance of archives are not limited to the studied period.
The rivalry between the monks of Saint-Bertin and the canons of Saint-
Omer was a pervasive issue in the texts produced by the community of
Saint-Bertin, the VB2 and the related forged charters, the Gesta Abbatum, and
even in the Inventio. Actually, the problem remained central throughout the
history of Saint-Bertin, until the dissolution of the community at the French
Revolution. The discord focused on two major points: on the one hand, the
superiority and anteriority of the monastic community over the canons and
on the other, the possession of St Omer’s relics by the monks. The argument
about anteriority and superiority was the first one to emerge, and it concen-
trated on the foundation story and on the alleged submission of the canons to
the monks. The rivalry between the two groups was a consequence of
Saint-Bertin’s Benedictine restoration and most of the related texts (VB2 and
VA2) and forgeries (Adroald’s donation, St Omer’s privilege) were produced
in the mid-tenth century. The conflict outlived the effects of Gerard’s reform,
as exemplified by the two forged charters asserting the submission of the
canons to the monks which were unknown to Folcuin and were probably
produced in the eleventh or twelfth century.
The rediscovery of St Bertin’s relics by Bovo in 1050 added a new topic for
dispute to the already conflicting questions of supremacy and anteriority: the
possession of St Omer’s relics.183 We have seen that the satisfaction brought
about by the extraordinary finding was dampened by the very embarrassing
fact that the community was already honoring another set of relics as St
Bertin’s. We have also seen that the problem was solved by burying the two
sets of relics together. Soon after the finding, however, word spread that the
relics, not so long ago honored as St Bertin’s, were in fact the body of Omer.
183 See Bovo, Relatio.
90
The rumor was based on the suggestion that, when Omer’s relics were stolen
in 846 by Abbot Hugh, Bishop Folcuin had brought them back to Saint-Bertin
and not to Saint-Omer. In order to thwart the rumor, the canons commis-
sioned a third life of St Omer in which the episode of the theft and recovery of
the relics was added, making it clear that Folcuin had actually brought the
precious bones back to their place of origin.184 It was probably on this occa-
sion that the canons commissioned an illustrated life of St Omer.185 The book
was ornamented with twenty-three miniatures representing scenes from the
life of the saint interspersed throughout the text. Four scenes are particularly
noteworthy: one depicts the donation of Sithiu by Adroald to Omer;186 the
other represents the arrival of St Bertin and his companions, walking with
their heads humbly bent toward an enthroned Omer holding a crosier;187 the
third scene shows the three men embarked in the boat which led to Sithiu;188
finally, the fourth depicts Omer’s burial in St Mary’s church.189 It is clear that
all these scenes represent a direct refutation of the monks’ claims. Further-
more, the canons wrote another text asserting their possession of Omer’s
body; it is a charter, dated from the day after St Bertin’s elevation, contending
that the archbishop of Reims came to Saint-Omer’s church and publicly
displayed his body.190 The monks, who were present during the elevation,
albeit with reluctance according to the charter, signed it too. Whether or not
this document and the facts it records are authentic, its shows that the canons
felt pressured to defend the possession of their relics.
Unfortunately, the precaution was not enough to silence the monks’ claim
to St Omer’s relics and, for the remaining centuries, strife over their posses-
sion kept the two communities constantly bickering. Interestingly, the attacks
almost always came from the monks, who relentlessly put faith in the same
claims over and over again. In the same way, the most dubious texts and
charters displayed in the debates were mostly manufactured by the
Benedictines. The open conflict over Omer’s body started in 1324, when the
abbot of Saint-Bertin announced publicly that the relics of the mysterious
saint buried with St Bertin were actually St Omer’s.191 The canons contested
184 VA3 (BHL 767b–768), AA SS, 3 Sept., pp. 406–16, episode at p. 414.
185 S-O, MS 698; on the manuscript, see R. Argent Svoboda, The Illustrations of the Life of
St. Omer.
186 S-O, MS 698, fol. 15v.
187 S-O, MS 698, fol. 17v.
188 S-O, MS 698, fol. 18.
189 S-O, MS 698, fol. 28.
190 J. de Pas, ‘Charte de reconnaissance du corps de St. Omer par l’archevêque de
Rheims’, BSAM 14 (1922–1929), 125–8.
191 Saint-Omer, Archives Départementales, 2G, Liasses 215–16. On the conflicts
between Saint-Bertin and Saint-Omer in general, see A. Hermand, ‘Recherches sur
la question d’antériorité et de paternité entre les deux monastères primitifs de la
ville de Saint-Omer’, MSAM 9 (1851), 49–192, and O. Bled, ‘Abbatiale et Collégiale.
Les reliques de St. Omer et les reliques de St. Bertin’, MSAM 32 (1914–1920), 5–110.
91
Saint-Bertin
the ‘discovery’ and exhibited their own relics; a succession of claims and
counter-claims, exhibitions and processions of Saint-Omer’s legitimate and
illegitimate relics ensued for more than 150 years. In 1465, the situation was
so heated that the canons brought their case to the Parlement. But the abbot of
Saint-Bertin at the time was an influential figure, and the king’s representa-
tive was not eager to pass a judgment which could have only been unfavor-
able to the abbey. However, tensions between the two opponents were rising
to the point that processions became the occasion of altercations and even
brawls. The necessity for maintaining public order in the city required a deci-
sion from the Parlement.192 It took thirty years of deliberations, but the issue
was facilitated by the election in 1495 of a new provost for the canons. The
illegitimate son of the duke of Burgundy, he was strong enough to counter-
balance the abbot’s connections with the French king. The Parlement’s deci-
sion was not only slow to come, but it was not very bold, since it was decided
to let the two great figures make a deal outside the court. According to the
arrangement, the monks of Saint-Bertin could no longer display St Omer’s
name on the shrine that they carried during general processions.193
Surprisingly enough, the ‘concordat’ was respected and no further claims
to St Omer’s relics were made by the monastic community until the eight-
eenth century. Indeed, during these years the monks were preoccupied with
fighting the canons of Saint-Omer over precedence during religious proces-
sions. Based on the principle that Bertin was the founder of Sithiu and its first
abbot, the contention over precedence was still unresolved when the Revolu-
tionary troops expelled the monks from their abbey. In the thirteenth century,
the abbots appropriated the episcopal right to wear the miter and carry the
cross. However, it was not a crucial issue until the chapter of Saint-Omer
became an episcopal see in 1559. The promotion of their perpetual enemies
re-opened the monks’ old wounds, while the canons, empowered by their
advancement, were eager to receive due honors.
The legal battle over the question of anteriority and supremacy required
the intervention of Pope Clement VIII,194 of Chamillart, secretary of state for
war under Louis XIV, and of Louis XIV himself, as he ordered Chamillart to
resort to any means, even force, to restrain the unruly abbot of Saint-Bertin.195
Besides the intervention of major historical figures, this pathetic provincial
struggle exhausted Saint-Bertin’s wealth, and in 1734, the abbot of Saint-
Bertin had to admit that legal fees and the publication of innumerable
pamphlets on the controversy had seriously endangered the financial situa-
tion of his monastery.196
192 Saint-Omer, Archives Départementales, 2G, Liasses 216–20.

193 Saint-Omer, Archives Départementales, 2G, Liasses 223–5.
194 Saint-Omer, Archives Départementales, 2G, Liasse 230.
92
In the course of the different trials, both parties were careful to submit
relevant documents backing their affirmations. Invariably, the canons would
present their manuscripts containing the Vita Prima of their patron saint or
texts derived form this version, showing that the original donation had be
given first to Omer. The monks would bring the texts of the VB2, Folcuin’s
Gesta and the various charters already mentioned. Both sides tried to use the
vita of Bishop Folcuin to prove that Omer’s body was brought back either to
his own church or to Saint-Bertin. However, if the monks were willing to
introduce their own texts in the debate, they were reluctant to show original
manuscripts; it seems that their tactic was to copy useful excerpts from their
medieval manuscripts and take them to court. Of course, this raised the
canons’ skepticism, especially concerning the charters and the Gesta Abbatum
Sithiensium. In 1735, the lawyer for the chapter suggested that the donation
charters of Omer and Adroald and the charter of Bishop Folcuin were forg-
eries made only thirty years earlier.197 Canon de Rudder, who in 1754
published a whole treatise on the anteriority of Saint-Omer over Saint-Bertin,
went as far as saying that Folcuin’s Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium was a forgery
and that Folcuin himself was an invention.198
Because of the continuation of the conflict throughout the Early Modern
period, Folcuin’s Gesta was a text cherished by successive generations of
monks who repeatedly copied it until the eighteenth century. A very old copy
of the Gesta, which may have been Folcuin’s autograph, survived in Saint-
Bertin’s archives until the French Revolution: it was known as the Vetus
Folcuinus. This manuscript has now disappeared, but it was copied by Joseph
Dewitte, the last archivist of the abbey, before the Revolution (SO 815). Joseph
Dewitte’s copy of the Gesta was not the first one. Folcuin’s text had been
copied in the twelfth century together with its continuation (BSM 146 and
146a). Between 1509 and 1512, the monk Alard Tassard made a partial copy of
the Gesta, following the Vetus Folcuinus (SO 750). In 1693, Bertin Portebois
made yet another copy from the Vetus Folcuinus and the twelfth-century
manuscript (Paris, BN, MS Latin, nouv. acq. 275). These successive copies of
the Gesta tell enough about the importance accorded to the text by the
community of Saint-Bertin. It is all the more striking that the monks were
very secretive with their archives – as experienced by Mabillon himself –
which means that all these copies were certainly not made for an outside
197 Me Poitevin, Mémoire sommaire pour les doyen, chanoines et chapitre de l’église cathédrale
de Saint-Omer, parties intervenantes dans l’instance pendante au conseil (n.p., 1835), p.
12.
198 Ch. de Rudder, La vérité de L’église de Saint-Omer et son antériorité sur l’abbaye de
Saint-Bertin ou réfutation de la Dissertation Historique et Critique sur l’Origine et
l’Ancienneté de l’Abbaye de Saint-Bertin (Paris, 1754), pp. 24–5; it is a reply to a work
commissioned by the monks: Dissertation Historique et Critique sur l’Origine et
l’Ancienneté de l’Abbaye de Saint-Bertin et sur la Supériorité qu’Elle Avait autrefois sur
l’Église de Saint-Omer (Paris, 1737).
93
Saint-Bertin
public. If the Gesta was copied so many times, it is because it was still used in
the Early Modern period, probably in matters of landholding and certainly in
the context of the conflict between monks and canons.
The canons who charged that Folcuin was born of the monks’ imagination
and that the Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium was a forgery aimed only at satisfying
the monks’ inflated ego undoubtedly pushed source criticism a bit too far.
Nevertheless, we have serious reasons to consider with much care and even
distrust the archival legacy left by the monks of Saint-Bertin. While we can
take for granted that the monk Folcuin wrote his Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium in
962 and that a copy of it was made in the twelfth century, the circumstances
of the conservation of Saint-Bertin’s archives should make us cautious about
believing they are trustworthy. Indeed, the religious community spent most
of its life endlessly discussing and reinventing its past in order to win a battle
whose roots dated back to the earliest part of its existence. The evidence left
to the modern historian are layers of forgeries, invented narratives and subtle
omissions built up over nine hundred years. Furthermore, we owe what is
left today of Saint-Bertin’s charters to their last archivist, Joseph Dewitte, who
spent most of his life collecting and copying all the documents kept in the
archives of his abbey from the foundation to his own time.199 Besides his copy
of Folcuin’s Gesta, he gathered all the charters from Saint-Bertin in his
twelve-volume Grand Cartulaire. The originals of the charters were destroyed
during the French Revolution and only Dewitte’s copies survive. This is a
serious problem since Dewitte’s own objectivity is doubtful: he was the first
monk, for more than two centuries after the ‘concordat’, to claim once again
that Saint-Bertin, indeed, possessed the relics of St Omer.200
199 Grand Cartulaire, S-O, MS 803.

200 On Dewitte, see G. Delamotte, ‘Dom Charles-Joseph Dewitte, l’auteur du Grand
Cartulaire de Saint-Bertin pendant la Révolution’, Revue de Lille 29 (1910–1911),
330–44.
94
PART II
The Hagiographic Cycle of St Rictrude
WITH THE STUDY of Saint-Bertin we have seen how one monastic commu-
nity selectively preserved, used and altered its archives and historiographic
narratives and created new ones so as to make its past useful for present
needs. Moreover, from Folcuin’s Gesta to Simon’s Gesta, it is clear that the
community almost continuously – save for the sixty-year gap between the
two gesta – kept archives and produced new narratives based on local
historiographic tradition. In this process, the foundation story of Sithiu
stands out as the main period of the community’s past that was most
frequently used and transformed. Because of the abundance of sources
produced at Saint-Bertin, and because their main rivals, the canons of
Saint-Omer, preserved the original foundation story, it is possible to recon-
struct how and why the monks adjusted their past by means of these new
narratives and forged charters.
In a number of ways, the case of the abbey of Marchiennes is radically
different from that of Saint-Bertin. In comparison with the renowned and
wealthy Saint-Bertin, Marchiennes was a modest community, struggling in the
shadow of its powerful neighbor, Saint-Amand. Unlike Saint-Bertin, there is no
sign of Marchiennes’ archives until the eleventh century. Indeed, by the early
tenth century, because of neglect or destruction, Marchiennes’ archives had
disappeared and the cults and legends of the community’s saints had fallen
into oblivion. Despite the lack of written evidence, Hucbald of Saint-Amand,
who wrote the life of Marchiennes’ patron saint, Rictrude, at the beginning of
the tenth century, was able, thanks to oral tradition and a good deal of ‘imagi-
native memory’, to piece together a remarkably detailed foundation story of
Marchiennes. This seminal text of Marchiennes’ historiography cannot be
compared to other contemporary sources; therefore, the circumstances and the
purpose of its redaction can only be inferred from the text itself. The Vita
Rictrudis not only fulfilled the community’s basic needs for a liturgical text
upon which the cult of its saints could be based, but it also emphasized the
95
community’s secular and spiritual prestige by associating the saint and her
family with a number of prestigious lay and religious people of her time.
Because the Vita Rictrudis introduces a great number of secondary charac-
ters, and because it could not be contradicted by other texts, later authors
were left free to appropriate the legend and adapt it to their needs. Hence, in
the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, most of Rictrude’s children,
who were saints in their own right, were given their own vitae based on the
Vita Rictrudis. Furthermore, from the eleventh century onward, the core of
the legend itself was considerably altered in order to sacralize the commu-
nity’s landholding and to protect it from predatory lay neighbors. Finally,
some time in the tenth century, the relics of Rictrude’s son, Maurontus, and
their friend’s St Amatus, were translated to the chapter church of Douai. The
translation of the saints, who were originally part of the legend of Rictrude
and Marchiennes, generated the appropriation of the Vita Rictrudis by the
canons of Saint-Amé. In their own foundation story, written in the eleventh
century, the canons integrated the sections of the vita that were relevant for
the legend of their tutelary saints and transformed them according to their
own needs – namely the legitimization of their landholding.
Therefore, over two centuries, Rictrude’s legend grew from oral tradition
to the Vita Rictrudis, and then into a complex narrative cycle, composed not
only of hagiographic texts, but also of charters and entries in annals and
chronicles. The first chapter of this section (Chapter 4) will examine the
formation and transformations of Rictrude’s legend at Marchiennes itself.
The second chapter (Chapter 5) will deal with the transformation of the orig-
inal story, yet again, by an entirely different community, the chapter of
Saint-Amé.
96
CHAPTER FOUR
Saint Rictrude, her Family and the Abbey of

Marchiennes (c. 640–1130)
Introduction1
The abbey of Marchiennes (dep. Nord, arr. Douai) was founded around 640
by St Amand in the context of his mission to the Scarpe region. It was located
on the bank of the river Scarpe, a few miles from Saint-Amand.2 The founda-
tion story of the abbey is related in the vita of its patron saint, Rictrude, who,
at the death of her husband Adalbald, entered Marchiennes and became
abbess.3 The abbey may have been built on land that belonged to her
husband’s patrimony, as was the case for its close neighbor, Hamage. The
history of Marchiennes from its foundation to its restoration in 1024 is,
however, obscure because of the scarcity of sources. The overall impression
left by the few remaining documents related to Marchiennes is that of a
low-profile community, living in the shadow of Saint-Amand, which never
fully recovered from the ninth-century secularization and the vikings’ depre-
dations. The abbey of Marchiennes only really took off after the 1024 restora-
tion, which transformed the hitherto mixed community into an exclusively
male one. The restoration initiated a period of artistic and intellectual activity
as well as an intense operation of recovery of spoiled assets.
1 A concise version of this chapter has been published: K. Ugé, ‘The Legend of Saint
Rictrude: Formation and Transformation (Tenth–Twelfth Century)’, in Anglo-
Norman Studies 23 (2001), 281–9.
2 There is no comprehensive study of Marchiennes; see the notice by H. Platelle,
‘Marchiennes’, in Catholicisme, Hier, Aujourd’hui, Demain 8 (Paris, 1979), cols. 414–16.
3 Vita Rictrudis (BHL 7247). There are three different editions of VR: AA SS, 3 May, pp.
81–9, PL 132, cols. 829–48, and ASB 4, ed. J. Ghesquière (Brussels, 1787), pp. 488–503;
each edition is in some ways lacunary and, unless otherwise signaled, I have used the
ASB edition; for the prologue alone, see Vita Rictrudis Prologus, ed. W. Levison, MGH
SRM 6 (Hanover, 1913), pp. 91–4; VR is translated into English by J. Alborg and J. A.
McNamara, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham, 1992), pp. 195–219. On
Hucbald’s hagiographical writings, see J. M. H. Smith, ‘The Hagiography of Hucbald
of Saint-Amand’, Studi Medievali 3rd series, 36 (1994), 517–42; J. M. H. Smith, ‘A Hagi-
ographer at Work: Hucbald and the Library at Saint-Amand’, RB 106 (1996), 151–71,
and H. Platelle, ‘Le thème de la conversion à travers les oeuvres hagiographiques
d’Hucbald de Saint-Amand’, RN 68 (1986), 511–31.
97
Since the abbey of Marchiennes is the central locus of St Rictrude’s legend,

the first section of this chapter will be devoted to the history of the abbey
from its foundation to the twelfth century. In the second section, I will discuss
the formation and transformations of Rictrude’s legend at Marchiennes and I
will show how these transformations reflect changes in the situation of the
community itself. The seminal text of the legend is the Vita Rictrudis (VR) by
Hucbald of Saint-Amand. It was written in 907 after a period during which
the community had lost track of the shrines of its tutelary saints and of the
documents pertaining to its foundation legend. Hence, the VR aimed not only
to tell the story of the life and deeds of its patron saint, but also to create a
narrative of the origins of the abbey. In order to provide a historical context
for Rictrude’s life and to show her spiritual and social distinction as well as
the prestige of her abbey, the VR emphasized Rictrude and her family’s rela-
tions with major religious and lay figures of their time. After the restoration
of Marchiennes in 1024, the foundation legend was once again transformed,
this time to sacralize Marchiennes’ possessions by asserting Rictrude’s
ownership of the original land. Indeed, one of the community’s main preoc-
cupations after its refoundation was the reconstitution of its landed assets.
Finally, in the twelfth century the genealogy of Rictrude’s husband was
‘improved’ in order to link him to the Merovingian royal family and to other
local saints.
Marchiennes and Hamage: history
The foundation of the abbey of Marchiennes occurred in the context of the

missionary work of St Amand in the Scarpe region, and it is probably roughly
contemporary with the foundation of Elnon. The first mention of
Marchiennes is found in the Suppletio to the vita of St Amand, written by Milo
of Saint-Amand between 850 and 872. The first chapter of the Suppletio begins
with an enumeration of the monasteries founded by St Amand: Blandinium
at Ghent, Marchiennes, Leuze, Renaix, Barisis-au-Bois, and of course, Elnon,
where the saint was buried.4
Milo’s list of Amand’s foundations is probably reliable. The foundation of
Elnon by the ‘Apostle of Belgium’ is attested in the Vita Amandi Episcopi Prima
(VAm).5 The VAm also testifies that Amand initiated the foundation of
monasteries in the pagus of Ghent, that is Saint-Peter (Blandinium) and
4 Milo, Vita Amandi Episcopi Secunda (Suppletio Milonis) (BHL 333), ed. B. Krusch, MGH
SRM 5 (Hanover, 1910), c. 1, pp. 450–1; on the Suppletio Milonis, see E. de Moreau,
Saint Amand, apôtre de la Belgique et du nord de la France (Louvain, 1927), pp. 52–62.
5 Vita Amandi Episcopi Prima (VAm) (BHL 332), ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 5 (Hanover,
1910), pp. 428–49 (c. 22, p. 445).
98
St Rictrude and the Abbey of Marchiennes
Saint-Bavo.6 Regarding Barisis, two charters dated 663 and 666 record respec-
tively the donation of the villa by King Childeric II and Amand’s donation of
the same villa to the monks.7 As for Marchiennes – as well as for Leuze and
Renaix – Milo’s text represents the earliest testimony of the community’s
existence and of the role played by Amand in its foundation.8 Still,
Marchiennes’ proximity to Elnon makes it conceivable that both monasteries
were the product of the same mission.
Although Marchiennes was founded in the seventh century, the earliest
account of its foundation is preserved in the VR. As we shall see, Hucbald’s
fairly detailed relation of Rictrude’s life and of the foundation of
Marchiennes, appears to rely on very fragmentary, perhaps even doubtful,
sources. Hucbald dedicated the VR to Bishop Stephen of Liège, who had
insisted that the author sign and date his text, as it was requested from
scholastici.9 The actual patrons of the VR were, however, the clerics and nuns
from Marchiennes, who had petitioned Hucbald to write the life of their
patron saint. Hucbald had first declined the offer, both because he had never
heard anything about the life of the saint, and because all written documents
were alleged to have disappeared when the abbey was destroyed by vikings
(c. 881–883).10 Eventually, the clerics and nuns found scattered fragments of
6 VAm, cc. 13–15, pp. 436–9; on the foundation of Saint-Peter and Saint-Bavo, see most
recently G. Declercq, ‘Heiligen, lekenabten en hervormers’, and Declercq and
Verhulst, ‘Early Medieval Ghent’, with a bibliography.
7 Childeric’s charter is published in Diplomata Regum Francorum ex Stirpe Merowingica.
Diplomata Maiorum Domus Regia. Diplomata Spuria, ed. K. Pertz, MGH (Hanover,
1872), n. 25, pp. 25–6, and Amand’s charter in Diplomata, ed. J.-M. Pardessus, II, pp.
133–4; see de Moreau, St Amand, pp. 227–9.
8 On Leuze and Renaix, see J. Nazet, ‘Antoing et Leuze: fondations monastiques de
Saint Amand?’, in Centenaire du Séminaire d’Histoire Médiévale de l’Université Libre de
Bruxelles, ed. G. Despy (Brussels, 1977), pp. 9–19, and J. Nazet, ‘Crises et réformes
dans les abbayes hainuyères du IXe au début du XIIe siècle’, in Recueil d’études
d’histoire Hainuyère offertes à Maurice-A. Arnould, ed. J.-M. Cauchies and J.-M.
Duvosquel (Mons, 1983), pp. 461–96 (pp. 465–6).
9 VR Prologus, p. 93. Marchiennes was originally located in the territory of the bish-
opric of Tournai, but in the middle of the eighth century it was included in the bish-
opric of Cambrai; as bishop of Liège, Stephen was considered a successor of St
Amand, who was bishop of Maastricht from 648/649 to 651/652. On the bishopric of
Liège, its different sees and its bishops in the early Middle Ages, see J.-L. Kupper,
‘Leodium’, in Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae Occidentalis, Series V: Germaniae
(Stuttgart, 1982) I: Archiepiscopatus Coloniensis, pp. 43–83 (pp. 60–1 for Stephen); see
also idem, ‘La geste des pontifes de l’Église de Tongres, Maastricht ou Liège’, in Liège.
Autour de l’an mil, la naissance d’une principauté (Xe–XIIe siècle) (Liège, 2000), pp.
15–19, and idem, ‘Liste simplifiée des évêques de Tongres-Maastricht-Liège, depuis
les origines jusqu’en 1200’, in ibid., p. 21.
10 VR Prologus, p. 93; the Annales Vedastini, ed. B. de Simpson, in Annales Xantenses et
Vedastini, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1909), pp. 41–82 (p. 48) mention that the vikings
plundered the banks of the river Scarpe in 881 and the Annales Elnonenses, ed. Ph.
Grierson, in Les Annales de Saint-Pierre de Gand et de Saint-Amand, pp. 132–175 (p. 147)
99
texts and presented them to Hucbald, who eventually accepted the commis-
sion, after verifying that they matched the testimony of sworn witnesses, old
enough to have seen the full texts.11 The VR remains the only witness to the
early years of the community; hence, despite the improbable origin of its
sources, it is essential, as a first step, in understanding narrative production
at Marchiennes. A careful examination of the text, of the circumstances of its
redaction and of Hucbald’s narrative technique will then help to identify the
most dubious elements of the legend.
The foundation of Marchiennes and the Vita Rictrudis

According to the VR, Rictrude was born in Gascony to noble parents –
Ernoldus and Lichia – and came of age during the reign of King Clothar II
(584–629) and his son Dagobert (629–39).12 Once of age, she married
Adalbald, a Frankish aristocrat, and member of the king’s court, who owned
land in Ostrevant.13 The political context of Rictrude and Adalbald’s betrothal
was the period between 629, when Charibert became king of Aquitaine, and
632, when Dagobert unified Aquitaine within the Frankish kingdoms under
his sole authority.14 At this time, Franks repeatedly infiltrated Gascony, and
Adalbald was one of them.15 According to Hucbald, among the Franks who
infiltrated Gascony at that time, was also St Amand, who had been exiled
from Dagobert’s court, and who had wandered some time in the region, still
largely pagan, before being recalled in 639 for the baptism of Dagobert’s son,
Sigebert.16 After their marriage, which is thus to be dated between 629 and
632, Adalbald and Rictrude lived in Ostrevant and had four children: a son,
Maurontus and three daughters, Clotsind, Eusebia and Adalsind. The chil-
dren were baptized by the most prestigious people of their time: the first
mention another viking attack on Saint-Amand in 883; Marchiennes may have been
attacked by the intruders at the same time, but the extent of the destruction is, of
course, not measurable; the reference to the vikings was a frequent topos in ninth-
and tenth-century historiography to justify the lack of evidence on the past of
monastic communities.
11 VR Prologus, p. 93.
12 VR, c. 5, p. 490.
13 VR, c. 9, p. 492.
14 VR, cc. 5–9, pp. 490–2; S. Lebecq, Les origines franques, Ve–IXe siècle, Nouvelle Histoire
de la France Médiévale 1 (Paris, 1990), pp. 126–8.
15 VR, c. 9, p. 492.
16 VR, cc. 6–8, pp. 491–2; Hucbald found the story of Amand’s peregrination among the
Vascons in VAm; however, in VAm this episode comes later in Amand’s life, after his
mission at Caloo and after his episcopate at Maastricht (648/649–651/652). It is
presented as his last journey outside northern Francia: see de Moreau, St Amand, pp.
144–5 and 207–8. On the dates of Amand’s episcopate, see A. Dierkens, ‘Saint Amand
et la fondation de l’abbaye de Nivelles’, RN 68 (1986), 325–34.
100
born, Maurontus, was baptized by St Richer, Clotsind by St Amand himself

and Eusebia had Nanthild, wife of King Dagobert, as godmother.17
Some time after their last child was born, Adalbald was assassinated on
his way from Ostrevant to Gascony, and the life of Rictrude’s family was
radically altered.18 Once a widow, Rictrude began contemplating a religious
life, encouraged in that direction by St Amand. Amand’s role in her conver-
sion was a natural step since she lived in Ostrevant, where her husband’s
family was richly endowed and where Amand elected to found his monas-
tery of Elnon.19 Of course, her calling encountered some resistance, since the
king, who is not named but could be Dagobert, wanted to marry her to one of
his optimates. Rictrude carefully staged a dramatic demonstration of her
determination to resist the king’s will and to follow her religious aspirations.
She gave a dinner for the king and his court in her villa of Boiry, and, as
everybody was cheering and drinking, she stood up and took a glass; but
instead of drinking to her guests’ health, as everybody was expecting, she
took a veil which had been blessed by St Amand and placed it on her head to
display her desire to enter the religious life.20 The episode irked the king, but
eventually she was given permission to follow her religious aspirations, and
she entered Marchiennes. The abbey had been founded for a male commu-
nity by Amand himself and ruled by his disciple, Jonatus, who introduced
women, seemingly even before Rictrude joined.
Locum vero ubi spiritualibus daret operam exercitiis, cum consilio et auxilio
saepe dicti Praesulis, qui eidem erat a secretis, elegit valde congruum,
monasterium scilicet Martianas vocatum, quod ab eodem Pontifice super
fluvium Scarb fuerat constructum. Cui perficiendo et ordinando idem
Praesul discipulum suum praefecerat Abbatem S Jonatum, venerabilem
virum, cujus adhuc in eodem monasterio sacrum corpus habetur reconditum.
In quo et monachorum ordinem B Amandus haberi voluit: sed jam dictus
abbas Jonatus sanctimoniales, pro ut sibi visum fuerat, aggregavit.21
(Then, she chose a fitting place, a monastery called Marchiennes, which the
same pontiff had built on the river Scarpe, where she might carry out her spir-
itual exercises, with the prelate’s advice and help in private counsel. The pre-
17 VR, c. 10, p. 493; nothing is said about Adalsind, who died at Marchiennes on a
Christmas Eve during her mother’s abbacy.
18 VR, c. 11, p. 493.
19 Since Hucbald describes at length Amand’s activities in Gascony, it would be
tempting to imagine that the saint had already met Rictrude in her fatherland;
Hucbald, however, does not explicitly make this connection. On the significance of
the consecrated veil, see A.-M. Helvétius, ‘Virgo et virago: réflexions sur le pouvoir
du voile consacré d’après les sources hagiographiques de la Gaule du Nord’, in
Femmes et pouvoir des femmes à Byzance et en Occident (VIe–XIe siècles), ed. S. Lebecq, A.
Dierkens, R. LeJan and J.-M. Sansterre (Lille 1999), pp 189–203.
20 VR, c. 14, p. 495.
21 VR, c. 16, p. 496.
101
late had assigned his venerable disciple Jonatus, whose holy body is still
resting in that monastery, as abbot for its completion and ordering. For
Blessed Amand had intended to install an order of monks there: but the abbot
gathered nuns instead as had been shown to him.22)
Rictrude ruled Marchiennes until her death on 12 May at the age of

seventy-four and was succeeded by her eldest daughter Clotsind.23
The main plot of the VR thus consists of the history of the foundation of
Marchiennes and the life and deeds of St Rictrude before and after she
became abbess of Amand’s foundation. To this main story, Hucbald
appended several sub-plots of which the heroes are two of Rictrude’s chil-
dren, Maurontus and Eusebia, who, following their mother’s example,
embraced the monastic life, became heads of religious communities and later,
saints in their own right. Furthermore, the story of Maurontus is related to
the legend of an otherwise unknown saint, Amatus, bishop of Sion, who
happened to be exiled in the region.
Religious vocation was a tradition in Rictrude’s family: indeed, Adalbald’s
grandmother, Gertrude, had already founded her own monastic community
at Hamage, near Marchiennes.24 Although Hucbald never insinuates that the
original asset of Marchiennes belonged to Adalbald – an idea that eleventh-
and twelfth-century sources would develop – the proximity of the family’s
Eigenklöster of Hamage and the fact that he was known to have many posses-
sions in Ostrevant might indicate that Marchiennes, too, was founded on his
patrimonial lands. At Gertrude’s death, her great-granddaughter, Eusebia,
whom she had raised at Hamage, was appointed abbess. Eusebia was only
twelve years old at the time, however, and her mother, considering her too
young for the responsibility and freedom offered by the position, ordered her
daughter to come back to Marchiennes. Eusebia was so reluctant to join her
mother that Rictrude had to resort to the king’s authority to recover her
daughter. Compelled to leave her monastery by the king’s order, Eusebia left
for Marchiennes with Gertrude’s relics and her small community. Neverthe-
less, Eusebia did not readily accept her mother’s exertion of parental
authority, and she left Marchiennes regularly at night to visit Hamage.
22 Translation in Sainted Women, pp. 207–8.

23 VR, c. 32, p. 502; Hucbald gives the day of her death, but not the year.
24 On Hamage, see H. Platelle, ‘Hamage’, DHGE 22 (1988), cols. 199–200, and Nazet,
‘Crises et réformes’, pp. 476–8; since 1990, the site of Hamage is being excavated by
Etienne Louis and the Service Archéologique du Musée de Douai; E. Louis, ‘Aux
débuts du monachisme en Gaule du Nord: les fouilles de l’abbaye mérovingienne et
carolingienne de Hamage (Nord)’, in Clovis, histoire et mémoire. Le baptême de Clovis et
son écho à travers l’histoire, ed. M. Rouche, 2 vols. (Paris, 1997), II, 843–68, and idem,
‘Sorores et fratres in Hamatico degentes. Naissance, évolution et disparition d’une
abbaye au haut Moyen Age: Hamage (France, Nord)’, De la Meuse à l’Ardenne 29
(1999), 15–47.
102
Although the purpose of the nightly visits was obviously pious – Eusebia
used to bring her prayer book and her harp with her and celebrated the vigils
and offices of the hours – Rictrude’s anger when she heard of her daughter’s
escapades was terrifying. Unable to convince her with words, the mother
resolved to resort to physical punishment. The correction was entrusted to
Eusebia’s brother, Maurontus, who took his role so much to heart that
Eusebia barely survived the beating. Indeed, while her brother was energeti-
cally whipping her, she fell on the sword of one of the acolytes who were
holding her. The wound was so serious that for the remainder of her short
life, she kept spitting blood and pus.25 Eusebia’s determination was, how-
ever, not yet curbed. Abbots, bishops and local potentates vainly tried to
convince her to give up Hamage and to stay with her mother. Finally, the
holy men acknowledged their failure to convince her and, eventually, they
advised Rictrude to let her go back to Hamage. Eusebia took Gertrude’s relics
with her, gathered her community and returned to her beloved monastery.
Maurontus’s beating must have been efficient since, once at Hamage, God
recalled her to his side, and she died, still an adolescent, on 16 March.26
Eusebia’s punishment must have been considered problematic by the
legend’s audience because Hucbald felt compelled to answer ‘those who
would slander the righteous with forked tongues and misplaced pride’, and
who questioned the sanctity of such violent characters.27 As a good theolo-
gian, Hucbald was able to reconcile all the points of view and confirm the
sanctity of all the protagonists.28
Maurontus was Rictrude’s eldest child and only son; he started his career
as a soldier at the king’s court and even contracted a marriage. He soon left
his wife, however, to become a monk and was tonsured at Marchiennes by St
Amand, after a bee had circled his head three times as a sign of election.29
Once tonsured by Amand, Maurontus founded a monastery at Breuil-sur-
Lys, today Merville (Nord, arr. Douai), which was also part of his family’s
patrimony.30 Breuil is an important place within St Rictrude’s legend, because
St Amatus, bishop of Sion in exile, remained in the monastery as a prisoner
under Maurontus’s guardianship.31 According to the VR, Amatus had been
25 VR, c. 25, p. 501.

26 VR, c. 27, pp. 501–2, and c. 31, p. 502.
27 This digression has been cut in the Acta Sanctorum Belgii edition: see AA SS, 3 May, p.
87.
28 On this episode, see I. Deug-Su, ‘La “Vita Rictrudis” di Ubaldo di Saint-Amand:
un’agiografia intelletuale e I santi imperfetti’, Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 31 (1990),
545–82.
29 VR, c. 23, pp. 499–500.
30 VR, c. 24, p. 500.
31 On the bishopric of Sion, see F. O. Dubuis and A. Lugon, ‘Les premiers siècles d’un
diocèse alpin: recherches, acquis et questions sur l’évêché du Valais’, Vallesia 47
(1992), 1–61.
103
‘unfairly accused of treason by King Theoderic III’ (675–691), who sent him to
Péronne under Abbot Ultan’s custody.32 Indeed, the re-establishment of
Theoderic III in Neustria and Burgundy in 675, and the subsequent return to
power of the Neustrian maior Ebroin, induced troubles and revolts in
Burgundy. Amatus may have been among the bishops – such as Filibert of
Jumièges and Chramnelenus of Embrun – who, as partisans of St Leodegar,
were exiled at the time of his arrest and martyred at the hand of Ebroin (c.
678–679).33 At Ultan’s death (at an unknown date), Amatus’s surveillance
was entrusted to Maurontus, who kept him in his monastery of Breuil.
Amatus’s personality will always remain elusive: the VR is the only source
that mentions him; moreover, the history of his diocese in these remote times
is a blank.34 The name of Sion itself must have puzzled the scribes who
copied the VR, since some of them made him bishop of Sens (episcopus
Senonensis) instead of bishop of Sion (episcopus Sedunensis). There is no doubt,
however, that Hucbald originally meant Sion: not only is there no place for
Amatus in the list of the bishops of Sens, but also, as demonstrated by
François Dolbeau, the oldest manuscripts of the VR and of the Vita Amati
Longior (VAL) agree on Sedunensis.35 Furthermore, the identity of Amatus was
probably unclear to Hucbald himself, since in the VR, he gave 13 September
as Amatus of Sion’s feast day, which is also the feast of St Amatus of
Remiremont.36
Despite the apparent paucity of sources he had access to when he wrote
the VR, Hucbald also composed a life of St Amatus, the so-called Vita Amati
Longior (VAL). He added a few details about Amatus’s life which he had not
inserted in his oldest text.37 First of all, the VAL recounts a miracle performed
at Cambrai by Amatus on his way from Péronne to Breuil – he hung his coat
on a sun ray. This miracle emphasizes the sanctity of Amatus, who came to
Breuil in a humiliating position, and helps to justify the holy status that he
would acquire at Marchiennes.38 More interesting is the information that
Amatus stayed at Hamage for a time before going to Breuil, which suggests
32 On Ultan, see Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, pp. 307–9.

33 See I. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms (450–751) (London, 1994), pp. 230–1, and
Lebecq, Les origines franques, pp. 172–6.
34 The last known Merovingian bishop of Sion was Protais, who attended the council of
Châlon-sur-Saône (between 639 and 654), see Dubuis and Lugon, ‘Les premiers
siècles d’un diocèse Alpin’, 29–32.
35 F. Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de saint Amé vénéré à Douai’, Anal. Boll. (1979), 89–110 (pp.
108–9); Vita Amati Longior (BHL 363) is published in Catalogus Codicum
Hagiographicorum Bibliothecae Bruxellensis, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1889), II, 44–55; the oldest
surviving manuscript of VR is Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 849 (XI1) and the
oldest manuscript of VAL is Bollandianus 506 in the Bibliotheque des Bollandistes in
Brussels (XI1) (both were written at Marchiennes).
36 Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de saint Amé’, p. 102, n. 2.
37 Dolbeau has definitely attributed VAL to Hucbald: ‘Le dossier de saint Amé’.
38 VAL, c. 19, pp. 50–1.
104
that Hamage was probably a double monastery. According to the VAL,

during his visit to Hamage, Amatus had impressed Rictrude and Maurontus
so much with his piety that they decided to entrust him with the direction of
Breuil’s community. The VR, on the other hand, did not refer to Amatus’s
abbacy.39
Amatus remained with Maurontus and the community of Breuil until his
death; there, he became a model of piety for all. According to the VR, Amatus
would have died on 13 September, before Maurontus, who buried him with
honor. The VR also specifies that, before his death, Maurontus ‘had given the
whole of its inherited estates over to him through the instrument of charters’.
Since Amatus died before Maurontus, however, the effects of the will were
void.40 Maurontus, who had survived his mother, died on 5 May.41
These are the bare facts about Rictrude’s and her children’s lives and the
foundation of Marchiennes as they were narrated by Hucbald of Saint-
Amand. Although he supplied a fairly detailed description of the foundation
of Marchiennes and of the life of St Rictrude from her youth to her death,
Hucbald provided few elements allowing the precise dating of the events.42
This is not surprising considering that his sources were probably vague, as
will be discussed later in this chapter; furthermore, he had little dated infor-
mation to fix his story on, since even the chronology the vita of St Amand,
original founder of Marchiennes, is uncertain.
Regarding Rictrude’s dates of life and abbacy, it is impossible to give more
than approximate dates. Some evidence is to be found in the VR itself. We
have seen that Rictrude’s wedding to Adalbald took place between 629 and
632. Their daughter Eusebia was held over the baptismal font by Nanthild,
wife of king Dagobert, probably before Dagobert’s death in 639, which
provides a terminus ante quem for Eusebia’s birth. As the third child of a
couple married after 629, Eusebia could not be born before 632, which
provides a terminus post quem for her birth. Therefore, we can consider that
Eusebia was born between 632 and 639. Since Hucbald asserts that she
became abbess of Hamage when she was twelve years old, her abbacy must
have started between 644 and 651. Because the VR also states that Rictrude
had been ruling Marchiennes for some time when her daughter became
abbess, Rictrude’s abbacy may already have begun in the first years of the
640s. Although they remain vague, these dates are in agreement with the
other elements of chronology found in the VR. If we consider that the king
39 VAL, c. 24, p. 53.

40 VR, c. 24, p. 500, and VAL c. 27, p. 54; the corresponding passage of VR is ambiguous
regarding the subject of the bequest, but VAL clearly gives Maurontus as subject.
41 VR, c. 31, p. 502.
42 On the chronology of VR and the impossibility of determining specific dates, see I.
Pagani, ‘Ionas-Ionatus: a proposito della biografia di Giona di Bobbio’, Studi
Medievali 3rd series, 29 (1988), 45–85 (pp. 58–69).
105
who wished her to marry one of his men was Dagobert, her decision to enter
the convent had to be taken by 639, which implies that Rictrude could have
entered Marchiennes in the early 640s. However, we cannot rule out that the
king could have been Clovis II (born in 634); in this case, the episode of the
dinner at Boiry should be pushed forward by at least ten years and Rictrude
would then have entered Marchiennes around 650. Both possibilities are
compatible with the date of death of Rictrude’s husband, Adalbald; indeed,
Adalbald died after 633 – the earliest possible date for his fourth child’s birth.
As for the date of Rictrude’s death, it is as obscure as the other chronological
elements of her biography. She must have been at least twelve years old
when she married Adalbald (c. 629–632), which places her birth in 617 at the
latest; according to the VR, Rictrude was seventy-four years old when she
died, which gives a terminus ante quem of 691 for her death.43 The VAL implies
that she was still alive when Amatus arrived at Hamage, which means that
she was still alive after 676.44 This element confirms the credibility of
Hucbald’s chronology, but, unfortunately, it does not give much precision in
terms of exact dates.
The foundation date of Marchiennes is as nebulous as Rictrude’s date of
entry as head of the community. Since Marchiennes and Elnon are so close to
each other, it is possible that both were founded at about the same period.
Since the VAm, which is the main source for St Amand’s activities, does not
mention Marchiennes among Amand’s foundations, only the foundation of
Elnon could yield information.
His ita peractis, isdem vir domini Amandus in finibus remeavit Francorum
elegitque sibi locum praedicationis aptum, in quo cum fratribus . . .
aedificabat coenobium.45
(Having done this [his mission with the Gascons], Amand came back in the
Frankish kingdom and elected a place suitable for his predication. With his
brothers . . . he undertook to build a monastery.)
The chapter of the VAm regarding the foundation (c. 22) comes after the
passage about the three years of Amand’s episcopate at Maastricht and his
subsequent renunciation to his title (c. 18). Amand’s episcopate is now safely
dated: it started at the end of 648 or the beginning of 649 and ended at the end
of 651 or the beginning of 652.46 The chapter immediately preceding the foun-
43 VR, c. 32, p. 502.

44 VAL, c. 21, pp. 51–2.
45 VAm, c. 22, p. 445; although VAm does not name Elnon here, it is generally accepted
that the passage refers to this monastery; at the end of the text (c. 26, p. 449), Elnon is
nominally mentioned as Amand’s burial place: see E. de Moreau, St Amand, pp.
214–19, and H. Platelle, Le temporel de l’abbaye de Saint-Amand des origines à 1340 (Paris,
1962), pp. 35–7.
46 VAm, c. 18, pp. 442–3.
106
dation deals with Amand’s mission in Gascony. It is not certain, however,

that the author of the VAm even followed a relative chronology. Although the
order of the VAm suggests that Elnon was founded after 652, it is generally
accepted that Amand had received the land from King Dagobert (629–639).47
The VAm alone does not allow precise dating the foundation of Elnon.
Nevertheless, another source testifies that St Amand wandered in the region
of the Scarpe between 639 and 641. Indeed, Jonas of Bobbio, in his introduc-
tion to the Vita Columbani, which he presented to Abbot Bertulf in 641, relates
that he had spent the three previous years wandering with St Amand in the
basins of the Scheldt and Scarpe and in the region of Elnon.48 Hence,
Dagobert may have given Elnon to Amand at that occasion, and the basis for
the foundation of Marchiennes may have been laid at the same time. This is
indeed compatible with the chronological data of the VR.
A last point still needs some discussion: the identity of Jonatus, first abbot
of Marchiennes. Ileana Pagliani has studied thoroughly Jonatus’s dossier and
I will only briefly report her conclusions here. The quasi-homonymy between
Jonas of Bobbio, author of the Vita Columbani, and Jonatus, abbot of
Marchiennes – and Amand’s successor at Elnon according to a twelfth-
century Saint-Amand tradition – has encouraged the merging of the two
characters. That Jonas accompanied Amand in the region makes the assimila-
tion of the two men all the more credible. At first sight, their respective tradi-
tions do not, however, allow for such an operation: Hucbald and later
medieval sources never identify Jonatus with the author of the Vita
Columbani, and nowhere is Jonas of Bobbio mentioned as abbot of
Marchiennes.49 Ileana Pagani’s study on Jonas/Jonatus has demonstrated
that the question cannot be fully resolved, but, nevertheless, she has made the
interesting suggestion that they could well be one and the same character,
whose memory survived according to two distinct traditions: at Marchiennes
and Saint-Amand he was remembered as the first abbot of Marchiennes and
successor of Amand at Elnon; in sources influenced by Luxovian monasti-
cism, he was recalled as Columbanus’s disciple and author of the Vita
Columbani.50 Pagani’s suggestion remains, of course, impossible to prove, but
few elements in the Marchiennes tradition can be. Since it is well attested that
Jonas of Bobbio worked with Amand in the Scarpe region between 639 and
641, if we accept that Jonas and Abbot Jonatus are the same person, it is likely
that Marchiennes was founded during that period.51
47 Elnon would have been founded on land given by Dagobert (629–39) to Amand, but
really would have started as a monastic community after Amand’s episcopate; see
Platelle, Le temporel, pp. 35–6.
48 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, p. 62; on the identity of Jonas-Jonatus, see Pagani,
‘Ionas-Ionatus’.
49 Pagani, ‘Ionas-Ionatus’, pp. 76–85.
50 Pagani, ‘Ionas-Ionatus’, pp. 82–5.
51 Hucbald also wrote a vita of St Jonatus, which unfortunately does not provide any
107
Considering that, because of a dearth of reliable information, Hucbald was

unable to provide specific dates for the events that he recounted, the dates
provided by later authors should not be trusted. The twelfth-century Annales
Marchianenses and Chronicon Marcianense date the foundation of Marchiennes
to the year 610 or 611, which is incompatible with Hucbald’s assertion that it
had been founded by St Amand.52 The same sources date the beginning of
Jonatus’s abbacy to 641, which leave a long gap between the foundation and
the actual creation of the community.53 A thirteenth-century addition to the
Annales asserts that Rictrude died in 688.54 All these dates are plausible
guesses. Rictrude’s birth date then would be 614, which is compatible with
her growing up at the time of Clovis II and her marriage to Adalbald around
630; 648 is also a plausible date for her entrance at Marchiennes. However,
when Hucbald wrote the VR, these dates were clearly not available to him,
and it is unlikely that these later additions are based on documents that he
would have ignored.
If Hucbald’s Vita Rictrudis is to be believed, Marchiennes was founded for
a male community by St Amand around 640. Its first abbot Jonatus soon
introduced women and transformed it into a double monastery. Rictrude was
born in Gascony at the time of Clothar II (584–629), before 617; between 629
and 632, she married Adalbald, a Frank whose estates were located in
Ostrevant. After her husband’s death (after 633), encouraged by St Amand,
Rictrude entered Marchiennes and became abbess (before 651). She died there
at the advanced age of seventy-four (after 676 and before 691) and was
succeeded by her daughter Clotsind. In the Frankish tradition of the
Eigenklöster, Adalbald’s family built monasteries on their estates. Perhaps at
the time of Amand’s mission to the Scarpe area (around 640), Adalbald’s
grandmother, Gertrude, had founded Hamage, located near Marchiennes.
Some time after Rictrude had become abbess of Marchiennes, her twelve-
year-old daughter Eusebia succeeded Gertrude as abbess of Hamage (c.
644–651). Adalbald’s and Rictrude’s son, Maurontus, also founded a
light on the issue; the Vita Jonati (BHL 4447) is partially published in AA SS, 1 Aug.,
pp. 70–4; this edition has to be read with Codicum Hagiographicorum II, pp. 273–5; see
Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de St Amé’, p. 93. The last chapter of the Vita Jonati (BHL 4448)
also relates the invention of SS Rictrude, Maurontus and Jonas at the time of abbess
Judith; it is possible, however, that this paragraph does not belong to Hucbald’s orig-
inal text: in VR, he seemed unsure of the location of the relics; furthermore, an abbess
Judith is mentioned in a charter dated 975.
52 Annales Marchianenses, ed. L. Bethmann, MGH SS 16 (Hanover, 1859), a. 610, p. 610
(addition by a thirteenth-century hand); S. Vanderputten, ‘Compilation et reinven-
tion à la fin du douzième siècle. André de Marchiennes, le Chronicon Marcianense et
l’histoire primitive d’une abbaye bénédictine’, Sacris Erudiri 42 (2003), 403–36 (p. 420)
(further quoted as Chronicon Marcianense); Andrew of Marchiennes, Historia Succinta
de Gestis et Successione Regum Francorum, ed. R. de Beauchamps (Douai, 1633), p. 618.
53 Annales Marchianenses, a. 641, p. 610.
54 Annales Marchianenses, a. 688, p. 610.
108
monastic community on his patrimonial land of Breuil. He kept Amatus,

bishop of Sion, there as a prisoner who had been exiled in northern France in
675. Maurontus died after Amatus and Rictrude at an undetermined date.
Marchiennes from the ninth century to the restoration (1024)

We have seen that when Hucbald wrote the VR in 907, his sources were
scarce. Today, only three mentions of Marchiennes pre-dating the VR
survive: the above-mentioned notice in the Suppletio Milonis, a mention in the
Annales Bertiniani at the year 876 and a charter given by Charles the Bald in
877.
The Annales Bertiniani relate that Charles the Bald, after his defeat at
Andernach, had summoned an assembly at Samoussy on 27 November.
There, he received men from eastern Lotharingia who had deserted Louis the
Younger for him. Charles secured his new allies’ loyalty by giving some of
them whole abbeys intact; to others, he granted benefices from the abbey
lands of Marchiennes, which he had previously divided. From this excerpt, it
appears that in 876 Charles had already created the conventual mensa of
Marchiennes, allocating a portion of the estates for the use of the community
– and subsequently leaving the control of the rest to himself.
Domnus imperator Karolus ad placitum suum in Salmontiaco, sicut

condixerat, venit ibique homines de parte regni quondam Hlotarii, quam
frater suus Hludowicus contra eum acceperat, ad se post fugam de
Andrunaco venientes suscepit, et quibusdam abbatias sicut erant integras
dedit, quibusdam de abbatia Marcianas, quam diviserat, beneficia donavit, et
sic a se abire permisit.55
(The Lord Emperor Charles came to his assembly at Samoussy, as arranged,
and there, he received men from the part of the late Lothar’s realm which
Charles’s brother Louis had acquired by their mutual arrangement. These
men had come over to Charles following his flight from Andernach. To some
of them, he gave whole abbeys intact; to others, he granted benefices from the
abbey-lands of Marchiennes which he had divided up.56)
A charter related to the creation of the conventual mensa still exists. It is a

royal diploma of Charles the Bald, given on 11 July 877 at Ponthion, enumer-
ating a series of possessions and revenues due to the monks and nuns.57
Although the charter seems genuine on the basis of its external characteris-
tics, its authenticity has been challenged on a number of different counts by
its editor. First of all, Georges Tessier has underlined that it presents
abnormal formulae of devotion and corroboration and other internal charac-
55 Annales Bertiniani, a. 876, p. 211.

56 Translation by Janet Nelson, The Annals of Saint-Bertin, a. 876, p. 198.
57 Recueil des Actes de Charles le Chauve, II, no. 435, pp. 471–4.
109
teristics which indicate that it could be a forgery.58 Furthermore, the scribe

simultaneously used formulae appropriate for donations and confirmations,
while the purpose of the charter was only to confirm the lands and revenues
earmarked for the community.59 Since, according to the VR, the archives of
Marchiennes had perished in the viking attacks of 881–883, it seems strange
that this specific charter would be the only document to survive. Neverthe-
less, a charter given in 1046 by Baldwin V to confirm the possessions and
privileges of Marchiennes in his county refers to Charles the Bald’s charter of
877:
Noverint ergo tam futuri quam presentes quod sicut predecessores principes
Karolus videlicet magnus imperator et Lotharius rex, possessiones
Marcianensis ecclesie . . . ita mihi et uxori mee Adele comitisse . . . placuit
confirmare.60
(To those present and to come, know that like my predecessor, the princes
Charles, great emperor and Lothar, king, it has pleased me and my wife
Countess Adala, to confirm the possessions of the monastery of
Marchiennes.)
The places recorded in Baldwin’s charter correspond to the places found in

Charles’ charter. Hence, if Charles the Bald’s charter were a forgery, it would
have been cooked up before 1046, perhaps in the direct aftermath of the resto-
ration. In conclusion, although at first sight it seems unlikely that the charter
could have been transmitted through the eleventh century, there are not
enough elements to rule it out as a forgery. In any case, as far as Marchiennes’
prosperity is concerned, that it had enough estates for Charles to share them
out between his allies suggests that the abbey was still wealthy enough at the
time. Marchiennes appears once again in 975, in a charter given to
Marchiennes by King Lothar at Douai at the request of his wife Emma. This
document records the restitution to the community of the villa of Haines,
which had been seized in the tenth century by the count of Flanders, Arnulf
the Great.61
58 Recueil des Actes de Charles le Chauve, II, no. 435, pp. 472–3; despite his remarks,
Tessier believes that the charter is genuine; one of his arguments is that it was made
on the same model as a charter given by Charles on the same day for Hasnon (Recueil
des actes de Charles le Chauve, II, no. 436, pp. 475–7). It is notable that the same formal
ambiguity – the use of a terminology appropriate for a donation in a confirmation
charter – is also found in other charters from Charles’ chancery, notably in a charter
for Saint-Bertin: see Van Caenegem, ‘Le diplôme de Charles le Chauve du 20 juin 877
pour l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin’, and idem, ‘Note sur la date de la donation de Charles
le Chauve pour l’abbaye de Saint-Bertin’, in Miscellanea Mediaevalia in Memoriam Jan
Frederik Niermeyer, pp. 71–7.
59 Recueil des actes de Charles le Chauve, II, no. 435, p. 473.
60 This charter is published in L’Histoire-Polyptyqye de l’abbaye de Marchiennes
(1116–1121), ed. B. Delmaire (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1985), pp. 97–9.
61 Recueil des Actes de Lothaire et de Louis V, rois de France (954–987), ed. L. Halphen (Paris,
110
These scattered pieces of evidence show that the community of

Marchiennes, despite its ninth-century setback, never completely vanished.
Hamage, on the other hand, never recovered from the viking incursions
which had plagued the Scarpe region in the years 881–883. The small commu-
nity was still mentioned in Charles the Bald’s 877 charter as a double commu-
nity, which was probably dependent on Marchiennes at the time.62
Fortunately, since 1990, excavations on the site of the abbey have been under-
taken by Etienne Louis and the Service Archéologique du Musée de Douai.
The results of the first series of excavations, which are currently being
pursued, have already yielded some interesting information about the
community’s activity. Louis has distinguished five distinct periods of
monastic occupancy. The first one corresponds with the beginnings of
Hamage (second third of the seventh century); several pieces of metalwork
(brooches) and four ceramic bowls are associated with this early period. One
of the bowls is inscribed with a female name, which suggests that they
belonged to the nuns of Hamage. The first church of Hamage – which,
according to Marchiennes’ polyptych, was dedicated to Saint-Peter, and in
which St Eusebia was buried at her death – also dates from that period of
occupation.63 The second period identified by Louis covers the second half of
the seventh century. The second church of Hamage and buildings containing
the nuns’ living quarters were built at that time. This second church can be
identified with Saint-Mary’s, built by a certain abbess Gertrude at the time of
Hatta of Saint-Vaast (c. 680–700), for the translation of St Eusebia’s relics.64
The nuns’ housing was made up of a large rectangular building which was
divided into a dozen of small cells and two larger rooms – the limited
number of cells confirms the small size of Hamage’s community. It also
appears that Saint-Mary’s and the nuns’ living quarters were included within
the cloister, while Saint-Peter’s was left outside, which is consistent with
Hamage’s status as a double monastery (the monks must have been attached
to Saint-Peter and the nuns to Saint-Mary). At least three new buildings were
1908), pp. 93–4; this charter mentions the name of Abbess Judith; on the verso an
eleventh-century hand has copied the text of a donation allegedly made by Judith to
two men of the abbey (published by Le Glay, Mémoire sur les archives de Marchiennes
(Douai, 1854), p. 31, n. 4), but this text is suspect.
62 Recueil des Actes de Charles le Chauve, II, no. 435, p. 474: ‘De villa namque Viriniaco
jubemus tres partes fieri de vino, unam partem ad opus senioris, alteram quoque ad
usus sororum ac fratrum in Marcianis consistentium, tertiam quidem ad opus sororum
ac fratrum in Hamatico degentium . . .’. The wine from Vregny is the only revenue
specifically attributed to Hamage. This suggests that the two communities probably
shared the same abbess or, at least that Hamage was subordinated to Marchiennes;
see Louis, ‘Aux débuts du monachisme’, p. 846.
63 Louis, ‘Aux débuts du monachisme’, pp. 849–54.
64 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita S. Eusebiae (BHL 2736), ed. de Ghesquière, ASB 4, c. 13, p. 563.
111
erected during the eighth century. Finally, the monastery was reconfigured in
the ninth century and a cloister was built.
After the end of the ninth century, no new buildings were erected and the
excavations suggest that the monastery of Hamage was deserted and the site
assigned to agriculture until the twelfth century.65 It is likely that the commu-
nity never recovered from the viking incursions and that the few monks and
nuns who were still living there were incorporated within the Marchiennes
community. Indeed, according to the polyptych of Marchiennes, Eusebia’s
relics were translated from Hamage to Marchiennes at an undetermined
period.66 It appears that, under Abbot Fulcard, Hamage was deserted. It is
possible that Hamage had become a simple priory at the time of the restora-
tion of Marchiennes in 1024.67 It was not until the abbot of Marchiennes
restored Saint-Mary’s in 1133 that Hamage was again the locus of a monastic
community.68
The restoration
We have seen that the last decades of the tenth century and the first decade of
the eleventh century were a troubled period for the county of Flanders.
Arnulf II (965–988) had lost control of Ternois and Boulonnais, and the local
aristocracy had taken advantage of the count’s young age to assert their own
authority and to usurp monastic lands which had hitherto been ‘protected’ by
the counts. Arnulf II’s son, Baldwin IV (988–1035), was able, in a few decades,
to regain the main part of the lost territories and to re-establish comital
authority all over the county. Once his authority was secured, Baldwin
undertook a major operation of monastic restoration throughout his territory.
Indeed, he was eager to regain control over the monastic lands seized by local
petty lords, who had instituted themselves as the advocates of these commu-
nities. Furthermore, the effects of the reform promoted by Arnulf I and
Gerald of Brogne had been short-lived.69 With the collaboration of Richard of
Saint-Vanne and Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai (1012–1051), Baldwin attempted
65 Louis, ‘Aux débuts du monachisme’, pp. 854–64.

66 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, c. 14, p. 76: ‘De istius precipue virignis elevatione vel
translatione quod stilo evidentius prosequendum sit certum nichil occurit.’
67 On these texts, see H. Platelle, ‘Crime et châtiment à Marchiennes. Étude sur la
conception et le fonctionnement de la justice d’après les Miracles de sainte Rictrude
(XIIe s.)’, Sacris Erudiri 24 (1980), 155–202 (p. 159 and n. 10).
68 Louis, ‘Aux débuts du monachisme’, p. 864; in 1024, when the gesta of the bishops of
Cambrai were written, Hamage is described as a place fallen into secular hands,
where a few canons lived: see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, c. 27, p. 461;
on the gesta of Cambrai and their datation, see E. Van Mingroot, ‘Kritisch onderzoek
omtrent de datering van de Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium’, RBPH 53 (1975)
47–132.
69 In this regard, it is noteworthy that Marchiennes was not among the communities
reformed by Gerard, while neighboring Saint-Amand was; Gerard restored exclu-
sively male communities.
112
to impose the Rule in all his monasteries.70 In this context, Marchiennes was
reformed in 1024 by Abbot Leduinus of Saint-Vaast, a disciple of Richard,
and turned into an all-male community. According to the notice in the Gesta
of the bishops of Cambrai, the restoration had been made necessary by the
long period of decline and impoverishment attributed to the nuns’ worldli-
ness and poor management – the usual pretext used to expel women from
monastic houses and replace them with men.71 The same notice seems to
suggest that, at the time, Marchiennes was exclusively occupied by nuns.72
The new church was dedicated in 1026 by Gerard of Cambrai.73
It seems that during the first decades following the restoration by
Leduinus, Marchiennes remained closely associated with Saint-Vaast;
indeed, the five abbots who succeeded Leduinus from 1033 to 1091 were
former monks of that abbey.74 Little is known of the activity of the new
community during the eleventh century; nevertheless, it is likely that one of
the major tasks of the abbots was the recovery of alienated lands. We have
seen that the restitution of lands which had been seized by local lords and the
reconstruction of monastic buildings were an important part of Richard of
Saint-Vanne’s reform. In 1046, Baldwin V gave the new community of
Marchiennes a charter confirming its rights and possessions.75 The written
sources on which Marchiennes could rely to assert its property rights were
probably painfully scarce. We have seen that Hucbald could barely find any
written documents about Rictrude when he composed her vita, allegedly
because of the viking destruction, and Charles the Bald’s 877 charter
recording the revenues earmarked for the use of the monastic community
was probably the only written evidence of Marchiennes’ past wealth. One can
imagine that the restoration and Baldwin IV’s patronage had given good
momentum to the process of land recovery. In order to ensure their defense,
the community of Marchiennes asked his successor, Baldwin V the Bearded
70 Above, pp. 6–8.

71 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, c. 26, p. 461; Annales Marcianenses, p. 614.
72 On this issue, see Pagani, ‘Ionas-Ionatus’, pp. 53–4, n. 27; in his prologue to VR,
Hucbald talks about the clerics and nuns (clericis et sanctimonialibus) of Marchiennes,
which may suggest that it was no longer a mixed community, but a community of
nuns assisted by a few canons for the liturgy. The transformation of the originally
double community would be consistent with the way such communities usually
evolved; on the issue of double communities, see Doppelklöster und andere Formen des
Symbiose mänlicher und weiblicher Religiosen im Mittelalter, ed. K. Elm and M. Parisse,
Berliner Historische Studien 18 (Berlin, 1992).
73 Annales Marchianenses, p. 614.
74 Annales Marchianenses, pp. 614–15: Albricus (1033–1048), Popo, abbot of Saint-Vaast
and Stablo, disciple of Richard (1048) and Wido, monks of Saint-Vaast (1049–1075),
Alard, monk of Saint-Vaast (1075–1091), Richard, monk of Saint-Martin of Tournai
(1091–1102), Alard II, monk of Anchin (1102–1103), Fulcardus, monk of Hasnon
(1103–1115).
75 This charter is published in L’Histoire-Polyptyque, pp. 97–8.
113
(1035–1067), high advocate of Marchiennes, to concede his title as a fief to a

sub-advocate, Hugh, lord of Aubigny – who was also advocate of Saint-Amé
at Douai. A charter dated 1038 purported to record the rights and duties of
the new advocate.76 Gradually, however, the family of Aubigny, which was
located in Artois, lost its charge and the advocacy of Marchiennes was shared
between several families of the region. The family of Landas (dep. Nord, arr.
Douai) seems to have played a major role as advocate of Marchiennes. In con-
temporary sources from Marchiennes, the Landases are pictured as usurpers,
taking advantage of their position to appropriate parts of Marchiennes’
landholding. The first Landas advocate of Marchiennes is attested for the first
time in 1166, but the family and Marchiennes had already been in confronta-
tion much earlier since a Landas, Fulcard, became abbot in 1103 and left a
bitter memory in the community’s writings.77
The twelfth century

According to the Annales Marcianenses, one of the worst periods of usurpation
was the abbacy of the unscrupulous Abbot Fulcard (1103–1115). A former
monk of Hasnon, Fulcard was the lord of Landas’s brother. It is not clear
whether Fulcard was imposed by his powerful kin or whether the commu-
nity had hoped that his family connection would be useful for Marchiennes.
In any case, Fulcard was accused of alienating Marchiennes’ possessions in
order to maintain his expensive way of life and to patronize his entourage.
Facing the opposition of the bishop of Cambrai, Fulcard reluctantly resigned
in 1115.78 He was succeeded by Abbot Amand (1116–1136), former prior of
Anchin. This sad episode forced the community and its abbot to launch an
operation to assert Marchiennes’ landholdings. The first step in this enter-
prise was the gathering of all the information concerning the abbey’s estates:
this resulted in the composition of a polyptych, which Bernard Delmaire, its
recent editor, has dated to between 1116 and 1121.79 The anonymous author
of the polyptych enumerates the sources on which he has based his account:
annals and chronicles, vitae of the saints, gesta of the bishops of Cambrai and
the oral testimony of well informed people:
Nichil enim frivolum, nichil fallaciter commentatum, nichil fictum digestum

est hic nisi quod ex annalibus, ex chronicis, ex excerptione eorum que in
descriptionibus de vita quorundam sanctorum vel in gestis Cameracensium
76 Archive Départementales du Nord Lille, 10H 56/960; published in A. Warnkönig,

Flandrische Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, 3 vols. (Tübingen, 1842), III, no. CLV; on the
Marchiennes advocates, see R. Naz, L’Avouerie de l’abbaye de Marchiennes 1038–1262
(Paris, 1924).
77 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, p. 121.
79 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, pp. 15–29.
114
pontificum repperiuntur seu quod personarum fidelium idonea relatione et

veraci assertione compertum est.80
(Nothing that is recorded here is frivolous, false or deceptive, and there is
nothing here that has not been found in annals, chronicles, in excerpts from
the lives of certain saints or in the Gesta of the bishops of Cambrai, or from the
testimonies of reliable persons.)
Paradoxically, our author does not mention charters among his sources,
although he directly quoted from the 1038 charter setting the rights and
duties of the advocates, and to the 1046 confirmation charter. It is not clear
whether he knew of Charles the Bald’s charter of 877. Once the possessions of
Marchiennes were recorded in the polyptych, Abbot Amand obtained their
official confirmation from the count of Flanders, the bishop of Arras and the
pope.81 Throughout the twelfth century, the successive abbots continued the
efforts to keep a record of Marchiennes’ assets, since all the charters were
copied into a cartulary, which was compiled at this time.82 This was a
common practice of the time, and something especially needed at
Marchiennes because the abbey still had to struggle against the local aristoc-
racy’s exactions. Henri Platelle has demonstrated that the series of miracles of
St Rictrude, Eusebia and Maurontus that were written in the twelfth century
also referred to the conflicts between the community and its lay usurpers,
among whom the Landases were prominent.83 In 1262, the countess of Flan-
ders bought back the advocacy from the Landases, which put an end to their
exactions. Eventually, in 1297, Marchiennes became a royal abbey.84
Narrative production at Marchiennes:

formation and transformations of St Rictrude’s cycle
The origins of the cycle: Hucbald’s Vita Rictrudis

Because of its late date and the suspicious nature of its sources, and despite
the intellectual prestige of its author, Hucbald of Saint-Amand, the VR is to
be considered with much caution as far as ‘historical truth’ is concerned.
80 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, c. 1, pp. 65–6.

81 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, p. 27.
82 Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille, 10H 323.
83 On these texts, see Platelle, ‘Crime et châtiment à Marchiennes’, and idem, ‘La reli-
gion populaire entre la Scarpe et la Lys d’après les miracles de sainte Rictrude de
Marchiennes (XIIème siècle)’ in Alain de Lille, Gautier de Châtillon, Jakemart Giélée et
leur temps. Actes du Colloque de Lille, Octobre 1978, ed. H. Roussel and F. Suard (Lille,
1980), pp. 365–402; on hagiography at Marchiennes in the twelfth century, see also H.
Platelle, ‘La vie d’Hugues de Marchiennes († 1158). Les différentes facettes d’un
document hagiographique’, Bullletin de l’Académie Royale de Belgique. Classe des Lettres
(1992), 73–97.
84 Platelle, ‘Marchiennes’, col. 415.
115
Nevertheless, a careful examination of the manner in which Hucbald

constructed his text and of the sources that he had at his disposal helps sort
out the most dubious elements of the legend. Beyond this tentative factual
reconstitution, the study of Hucbald’s narrative technique reveals much
about the subjective purpose of the text; indeed since the clerics and nuns of
Marchiennes commissioned the VR and provided most of the documentation
themselves, the VR bears the marks of their expectations.
Thanks to Hucbald’s dedication to Bishop Stephen of Liège, we know that
he composed it in 907. Furthermore, Hucbald was thoughtful enough to
provide his readers with some details about the circumstances of the redac-
tion. Hucbald was petitioned by the monks and nuns of Marchiennes to write
the life of St Rictrude and her children:
A clericis et sanctimonialibus congregationis Deo dilectae famulae beatae

Rictrudis rogitatus apponere novum ad conscribendum gesta ipsius
natorumque eius . . .85
(I have been asked by the clerics and nuns of the congregation of God’s
beloved servant Rictrude, to take up my pen anew to write of her acts and her
children.86)
For a while, he hesitated to comply:
diu multumque renisus sum, vel quia meam quantulamcumque scientolam

tantae imparem materiei noveram, vel quia, tanto transacto tempore, nulla
certae relationis de his scripta videram vel audieram, veritus, ne forte dubia
pro certis vel falsa pro veris assererem.87
(Long and hard I have resisted, knowing my paltry knowledge to be inade-
quate for the subject. Moreover, much time has passed and I had never seen or
heard that there was any trustworthy narrative in writing. Thus, I feared to
assert doubtful things as sure and falsehood as sure.88)
After some research, the community of Marchiennes brought him fragments

of texts, which matched the oral tradition. Furthermore, sworn witnesses
testified that the text fragments were in accordance with sources, lost during
the viking invasions:
Cumque renitenti mihi quaedam historiarum exemplaria suis ostenderent

concordantia dictis, de cetero illis quorum non contemnendae videbantur
personae, mihi fidem facientibus, quod haec quae referebant, eadem olim
86 Translation, Sainted Women, p. 198.
116
tradita litteris fuerunt, sed infestatione northmannicae depopulationis

deperierunt.89
(But then, they showed certain samples of her history to my reluctant self con-
firming what certain, not inconsiderable persons swore to me had once been
set down in old writings which had vanished in the wake of the Northman
depopulation.90
Eventually, Hucbald accepted the commission, although he was probably not

completely rid of his apprehension:
postremo adjuratus tremendo Divinae nomine, tandem acquievi

Majestatis.91
(Invoking the name of the Divine Majesty, trembling, I acquiesced.92)
Hucbald’s reluctance to write Rictrude’s vita could be interpreted as concern

for historical truth; however, this concept would be anachronistic when
applied to an early medieval writer. Hucbald’s preoccupation when he
composed the VR for the community of Marchiennes was spiritual, not
historical.
Et si non ut debui, institi tamen ut potui, non phaleris deservire verborum,

sed aedificationi consulere legentium cupiens vel audientium.93
(So, let me begin, if not as well as I should, then as best as I can, not aspiring to
verbal ornamentation but to comfort and edify my reader or listener.94)
Indeed, the VR is interspersed with edifying passages, notably on the status

of married women, widows, virgins and deacons, corresponding to the ideal
behavior of Rictrude, Eusebia and Maurontus. These sermons were
addressed to all the possible audiences who could live at Marchiennes:
brethren, virgin oblates, retired widows and young ladies raised within the
walls with the possibility of eventually leaving the community to get
married.95 Furthermore, as Henri Platelle has made evident, throughout
Hucbald’s work, ‘religious considerations constituted the backbone of the
narrative and thus reflected the author’s very intention’.96 Because of the high
moral standards he applied to his hagiographic works, Hucbald was
95 Smith, ‘A Hagiographer at Work’, p. 156; on edification in Hucbald’s work, see
Smith, ‘The Hagiography of Hucbald’, and Platelle, ‘Le thème de la conversion’.
96 Platelle, ‘Le thème de la conversion’, p. 515.
117
unwilling to propose as a model a saint whose actions were not well known
and whose sanctity could be challenged. Indeed, in his lengthy moral discus-
sion about the episode of Eusebia’s beating, Hucbald refers to those who said:
En quales isti dicuntur esse Sancti, mater innoxiam, insequitur filiam, Deo
militare volentem; filia sicut hostem, sic propriam execratur et refugit
matrem; filius matre consentanea, sororem refugam, asportato clam signo
proditam, dirissimis velut furti ream afficit verberibus pene esque ad mortem
. . . Quae in istis sanctitas, quae pax, quae caritas?97
(Look who they are calling saints: a mother who attacked her innocent daugh-
ter for wanting to serve God; a daughter who detested her mother and fled
her as an enemy; a son who, with his mother’s consent, branded his sister like
a fugitive taken away in secret, or like a condemned thief whipped her so
viciously that she nearly died. What sanctity is here, what peace, what
charity?98)
Hence, Hucbald’s hesitation was probably due more to questions about his
characters’ sanctity than to their historicity. Nevertheless, since he was not
only a good writer but also a good theologian, Hucbald was able to reconcile
all points of view and to answer the arguments of the – real or virtual – oppo-
nents.
This prologue is interesting on several counts. First of all, Hucbald’s care-
fully phrased remarks suggest that Rictrude’s legend was already obscure
and, perhaps, that he feared contestation. Second, the prologue shows that by
the beginning of the tenth century, the abbey of Marchiennes was in a
desperate state since the community had lost nearly all written sources about
its history and its patron saint. The disappearance of these documents could
well be explained by viking attacks undergone by the monasteries of the
region in the years 881–883 – we have seen that Hamage had been deserted at
the end of the ninth century. Nevertheless, it seems that Hucbald had heard
almost nothing about Rictrude before. Hucbald was born in 840 and entered
Saint-Amand, where, as an oblate, he became a pupil of the great scholar
Milo; in these conditions, it is surprising that Rictrude’s story had never
reached him.99 It is thus possible that the written sources had already
vanished before the 880s – or never existed – and that Rictrude’s legend
survived only locally, within the small circle of her community. The decline
may also be related to the spoliation of Marchiennes landholding by Charles
the Bald before 877. The hypothesis that Rictrude’s cult had long been
decaying is strengthened by the fact that Hucbald never mentions the loca-
tion of her and her children’s shrines – a detail about which hagiographers
97 This discussion is not in the ASB edition, see AA SS, 3 May, c. 28, p. 87.
99 On Hucbald’s career, see H. Platelle, ‘Le thème de la conversion’.
118
usually go on at great length. The third interesting point is that all the specific
information about Rictrude was brought to Hucbald by the monks and nuns
of the community themselves. To conclude, Hucbald’s prologue leaves the
impression that, by the beginning of the tenth century, the cults of Rictrude
and her children had been neglected and that the tradition of her legend had
mostly been forgotten.
Rictrude’s sinking into oblivion was probably the result of the decay of
Marchiennes’ community, which might be explained by the viking attacks of
881–883, although it cannot be ruled out that it actually preceded these
events. The decision to order the composition of the VR probably corre-
sponds to an initiative to revitalize of the declining community. Lack of
sources on Marchiennes at that time unfortunately prevents any further
probing of the circumstances of the work’s redaction. Nevertheless, there is
no doubt that the situation of Marchiennes in the early tenth century induced
specific needs for the community – endowing itself with a documented past
and a prestigious patron saint – which in turn influenced the way Rictrude’s
vita was written. Since the monks and nuns brought in all the information
concerning the saint herself, and since her story did not seem to be known by
an outside audience, they were left completely free to construct both the
saint’s life and the story of the foundation of Marchiennes to their own liking,
with little chance of being contradicted. Hence, the VR, in its elements specifi-
cally related to Rictrude’s life, although written by an outsider, can be consid-
ered as the product of the community’s concerted initiative. The important
role played by the community in the reconstruction of the legend implies that
it was a collective work by different authors with different, but compatible,
agendas. Hucbald was mostly interested in edification and the community
was mindful of the assertion of its origins. We will see that, on all counts,
each side’s expectations would be fulfilled and, even, that they were
complementary.
Since, if we can trust Hucbald’s prologue, the monks and nuns provided
the information about Rictrude and the foundation of Marchiennes, it is fairly
easy to discriminate between the elements of the narrative contained in the
fragments which reflect the legends transmitted at Marchiennes, and the
elements brought in by Hucbald himself. Indeed, Hucbald substantiated and
complemented Rictrude’s story with a historical background of his own
making. This historical introduction, which follows the prologue and consti-
tutes the five first chapters of the VR, begins with the legend of the Trojan
origins of the Franks and the baptism of Clovis with holy oil from a flask
directly imported from Heaven.100 In the next two chapters, Hucbald intro-
duces Rictrude, born in an aristocratic milieu, and her fatherland, Gascony,
which he presents as a region still mostly pagan, inhabited by ‘savage
100 VR, c. 4, p. 490.
119
people’. He also discusses the events which occurred between 629 and 632,
running from the beginning of Charibert’s reign to his death and the subse-
quent incorporation of Gascony within the Frankish kingdoms by
Dagobert.101 In the last two chapters of the introduction, Hucbald relates St
Amand’s exile, due to his condemnation of Dagobert’s disreputable private
life, and the baptism of the king’s son, Sigebert III (born in 630–631), by the
saint. It is from this period that Hucbald dates Amand’s mission in
Gascony.102
This introduction to the VR is clearly the product of Hucbald’s personal
knowledge and readings. At Saint-Amand, he had access to a well endowed
library in which historical works had a prominent place.103 The myth of the
Trojan origin of the Franks, the origins of which dated back to the seventh
century, was a well established theme in Merovingian and Carolingian writ-
ings.104 The legend of the flask of heavenly oil used by St Remigius for
Clovis’s baptism had been developed by Hincmar of Reims on the occasion of
Charles the Bald’s anointing. It is not surprising that Hucbald knew and used
this text, since he had taught at Reims in the years following Hincmar’s
death.105 For his exposé on Gascony, Hucbald probably used the fourth book
of Fredegar’s Chronicle.106 Hucbald also had access to the Vita Amandi, where
he found the episode of Amand’s exile by King Dagobert, followed by the
reconciliation and the baptism of Sigebert III by Amand. This episode reveals,
however, that, despite his careful attitude toward his sources, Hucbald did
101 VR, cc. 5–6, pp. 490–91.

102 VR, c. 6, p. 491.
103 On the historical works in Saint-Amand library, see most recently R. McKitterick,
‘L’idéologie politique dans l’historiographie carolingienne’, in La Royauté et les
Élites, pp. 59–70.
104 On this passage, see H. Platelle, ‘Le peuple franc et Clovis vus par Hucbald de
Saint-Amand en 907 – La Vita Rictrudis’, in Childéric-Clovis. 1500e Anniversaire
482–1982 (Tournai, 1982), pp. 220–2; on the Trojan origins of the Franks, see E. Ewig,
‘Troiamythos und fränkische Frühgeschichte’, in Die Franken und die Alemannen bis
zur ‘Schlacht bei Zülpich’ (496/97), ed. D. Geuenich, Ergänzungsbände zum
Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 19 (Berlin, 1998), pp. 1–30, and I.
Wood, ‘Defining the Franks: Frankish Origins in Early Medieval History’, in
Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Forde, L. Johnson and A.
Murray (Leeds, 1995), pp. 47–57.
105 Smith, ‘A Hagiographer at Work’, pp. 164–5; on the legend developed by Hincmar,
see J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘History in the Mind of Archbishop Hincmar’, in The
Writing of History in the Middle Ages, pp. 43–70.
106 Fredegar, Chronicarum Liber Quartus, c. 78, pp. 65–7; J. M. H. Smith suggests (‘A
Hagiographer at Work’, p. 164) that Hucbald knew the episode from the Gesta
Dagoberti I, (B. Krusch (ed.), MGH SRM 2, c. 36 and 38, pp. 414–16); nonetheless,
Hucbald could have seen the text at Reims or at Saint-Bertin; since this passage of
the Gesta Dagoberti is almost literally copied from Fredegar, it is not possible to
determine which text Hucbald used.
120
not always follow them faithfully, since the VAm does not relate Amand’s
mission in Gascony to his conflict with the king.107
Hucbald’s background of historical knowledge provided a convenient
political, geographical and chronological context for Rictrude’s life and the
foundation of Marchiennes. Hence, his introduction set Rictrude’s life in a
historical context that its audience could identify as credible; this process
undoubtedly gave credibility to a story which, otherwise, would have
seemed vague. Moreover, these chapters, which set the context of Rictrude
and Adalbald’s marriage, purport to integrate the couple and their descen-
dants within the broader and holier context of the divine plan. Hucbald
insists on the fact that the conversion of the Franks had been planned from
the beginning of time:
Cum Francorum gentem, in suis primoribus de minore progressam Phrygia,

atque ex regali Trojanorum propagatam prosapia, . . ., ad agnitionem veritatis
divina voluisset venire gratia.108
(When the Frankish nation had, in its primordial past, migrated from lesser
Phrygia and propagated its nobility from the royal stock of Troy, Divine grace
wished it to come to knowledge of the Truth.109)
As a Frank himself, Adalbald partook of the spiritual prestige and the high
achievements of his people. Adalbald, too, came from noble stock: he
possessed many lands and was loved and honored at the king’s court. His
union with the Gascon Rictrude has a parallel with the unification of Gascony
with the Frankish kingdoms under King Dagobert. Furthermore, his personal
lineage shone with piety since his own grandmother, St Gertrude, had
founded a monastic community (Hamage).110 As for Rictrude, her racial
origins could not be magnified in a similar way, since she was born in a
region still mostly pagan. Hence, she is presented as an exception who was
predestined to sanctity.
Cujus incolae licet illo tempore pene omnes daemoniacis essent dediti
cultibus, a Deo tamen praelecta Rictrudis sic ex eisdem impiis et sine Deo
prodiit hominibus, veluti solet rosa de spinosis efflorere sentibus.111
(And, though her natives were at that time given over to the worship of de-
mons, Rictrude was predestine by God to spring from that same impious and
godless people as a rose habitually flowers among the thorns.’112)
107 VR, cc. 6–8, p. 491; VAm, c. 17, pp. 440–3.

108 VR, c. 4, p. 490.
110 VR, c. 9, p. 492.
111 VR, c. 5, p. 490.
121
Hucbald’s assertion that St Amand visited Gascony in the same political

context as the marriage is astute. Although the VR never explicitly states that
Amand and Rictrude met during the saint’s mission in Gascony, the connec-
tion is easily made by the audience and it strengthens the impression that,
from her tender years, Rictrude was meant to become a saint.113 Amand’s
mission also prefigured Rictrude’s conversion to the monastic life: in the
same way he converted the Gascon, Amand guided Rictrude toward the reli-
gious life and introduced her to Marchiennes.
In conclusion, it appears that the historical introduction composed by
Hucbald was meant to provide a credible historical context to the life of St
Rictrude and the foundation of Marchiennes. This preamble also introduces
characters who will be important in the story: St Amand, Dagobert, Adalbald,
and Rictrude herself. Furthermore, the setting of Rictrude and Adalbald’s
union within the divine plan, gives a powerful meaning to her – and her chil-
dren’s – sanctity.
We have seen that the VR is the product of the interaction of two ‘authors’,
Hucbald on the one hand and the community on the other, who had different
but complementary agendas. The historical preamble is clearly the product of
Hucbald’s scholarship; the remaining narrative parts of the vita mostly reflect
the information provided by the monks and nuns of Marchiennes. While the
sources used by Hucbald in his introduction are clearly discernible, most of
the community’s sources are impossible to identify. Nevertheless, its core, if
not its details, seems reliable enough. We have seen that the chronology of
the VR, despite its imprecision, is always strictly plausible; in fact, no
elements of the VR seem obviously chronologically or factually wrong, either
because their context is corroborated by other sources, or because no other
source exists to contradict them.114 This suggests that, through the centuries,
the community had cultivated a written and/or oral tradition which
remained in some important ways faithful to its historical roots. Yet some
elements of the VR are dubious and appear to be the result of the commu-
nity’s late efforts to reconstruct their patron saint’s legend.
In particular, the insistence of the VR on the baptism of Rictrude’s children
by the celebrities of her time seems to be a literary device, which does not
reflect reality. We have seen that Maurontus was baptized by St Richer,
Clotsind, who succeeded her mother as abbess of Marchiennes, by St Amand,
and that Eusebia was the goddaughter of Dagobert’s wife, Nanthild.115 The
overt name-dropping is obviously suspicious. Nevertheless, whether or not
113 VR, c. 6, p. 491.

114 The only chronological incoherence of VR is the assertion that St Amatus was
accompanying Eusebia in her nightly visits to Hamage (VR, c. 25, p. 501); since this
episode occurred before Maurontus had founded Breuil, Amatus could not have
been at Hamage at that time.
115 VR, c. 10, p. 493.
122
these assertions are true does not really matter; what is interesting is that the
VR carefully recorded them. The precise details of the baptisms were meant
to emphasize the historicity of the vita and, above all, to provide its heroes
with prestigious connections. Furthermore, from Hucbald’s point of view,
these prestigious baptisms help to emphasize that, from the outset, Rictrude’s
children were bound for the highest destiny. In this regard, it is notable that
nothing is said about the baptism of Adalsind, who died before her mother,
and who, unlike her brother and sisters, did not have a particularly holy
fate.116
The suspicious nature of the baptisms is further confirmed by the fact that
Maurontus is a blatant creation of the VR, deprived of any historicity. Indeed,
the examination of the manner in which his character was constructed in the
VR shows that his name and many of his attributes were created from narra-
tive elements alien to the VR. Chapters 22 to 24 of the VR are exclusively
concerned with Maurontus’s life and deeds. First of all, Hucbald undertakes
to relate an incident which had occurred during Maurontus’s infancy, at the
occasion of his baptism by St Richer. One day, Richer came on horseback to
visit Rictrude; after chatting with the holy man, she walked along with him,
bearing Maurontus in her arms and asked the holy man to baptize the child.
Perched on his horse, Richer lifted him, but, as he was about to baptize him,
the horse hurled itself forward. Miraculously, the child’s fall was slowed and,
unhurt, he landed on the ground, as lightly as a bird’s feather.117 Later, when
he became an adult, Maurontus joined the king’s service and contracted a
marriage. Immediately, however, he decided to renounce carnal love, appar-
ently under the influence of St Amand. He then went to Marchiennes to
explain his decision to his mother. As Maurontus was standing by the ubiqui-
tous Amand, who was celebrating mass, a bee circled three times around his
head.118 This was the unmistakable sign of his election to the religious life,
and Amand hurried to consecrate him a deacon and to tonsure him. After his
consecration, Maurontus founded the monastery of Breuil, where, as we have
seen, he kept St Amatus in custody.119
Maurontus’s baptism by a holy man and the episode of the bee circling his
head served to emphasize that, from birth, he was among God’s chosen ones.
Maurontus’s election fits well with Hucbald’s inclination to the theme of
prefiguration. However, the baptism scene with St Richer unveils more about
Maurontus than his holy destiny: it also reveals that the character of
116 On the issue of Dagobert and his personal relations with contemporary saints, see C.
Wehrli, Mittelalterliche Überlieferungen von Dagobert I (Bern-Francfort, 1982), pp.
107–37 (p. 113 for St Rictrude); on Dagobert as chronological landmark, see ibid., pp.
135–9.
117 VR, c. 22, p. 498.
118 VR, c. 23, p. 499.
119 VR, c. 24, pp. 499–500.
123
Maurontus himself may be largely fictitious. Indeed, the name and person-
ality of Maurontus seem to result from the confusion of two distinct charac-
ters from the life of St Richer.120 The earliest vita, known as Vita Richarii
Primigenia, relates the same episode, which Alcuin then expanded in his own
Vita Richarii, written between 800 and 804.121 Comparison of the three texts
(the VR and the two vitae of St Richer) shows that Hucbald copied the episode
from Alcuin, rather than from the Vita Primigenia.122 In chapter 10 of the Vita
Richarii, Alcuin reports the following episode. One day, Richer visited a pious
woman named Rictrude (a woman clearly unrelated to our Rictrude) who
asked him to baptize her young son; suddenly, the horse he was riding
became nervous and the child slipped from his arms and fell; but, miracu-
lously his fall was slowed down and he landed softly on the ground,
unhurt.123 It is notable that this passage of the Vita Richarii does not mention
the child’s name. As for Maurontus, he is introduced in chapter 12 of the Vita
Richarii. This Maurontus was one of the king’s foresters who had embraced
the heremetic life at Forest-Montier (dep. Somme, arr. Abbeville), where St
Richer later retired.124 In the Vita Richarii, however, chapters 10 and 12 are
clearly unrelated and nowhere does the text suggest that the forester
Maurontus was Rictrude’s grown-up child. The episode of Maurontus’s
baptism in the VR was clearly copied from the corresponding episode in the
Vita Richarii, obviously because the author of the VR considered that his
Rictrude and the Rictrude of the Vita Richarii were one and the same.125
Except for the similarity of names, there is no reason to believe this, even if it
is not chronologically impossible – Richer died in 645. The attribution of the
name Maurontus to Rictrude’s son obviously results from two operations: the
conflation of chapters 10 and 12 of the Vita Richarii on the one hand, and the
confusion of the two Rictrudes on the other. As Van der Essen believed, the
creation of Maurontus, son of Rictrude of Marchiennes, could be an example
of these text fragments that the monks and nuns of Marchiennes had pains-
120 The earliest vita dates from the eighth century: Vita Richarii Sacerdotis Centulensis
Primigenia (BHL 7223), ed. B. Krusch MGH SRM 7 (Hanover, 1920), pp. 438–53;
Alcuin’s Vita Richarii (BHL 7224), ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 4 (Hanover, 1902), pp.
381–401, written between 800 and 804, closely follows this earlier version; for a
discussion of Maurontus in VR and the Vita Richarii, see P. Geary, Aristocracy in
Provence. The Rhone Basin at the Dawn of the Carolingian Age (Stuttgart, 1985), pp.
131–4.
121 Vita Richarii Primigenia, c. 5, pp. 446–7.
122 See Van der Essen’s comparison of the two texts in Étude critique, pp. 263–4, and
Geary, Aristocracy in Provence, p. 133, n. 23.
123 Alcuin, Vita Richarii, c. 10, p. 394.
124 Alcuin, Vita Richarii, c. 12, p. 396; the corresponding episode in the Vita Primigenia is
c. 8, pp. 448–50.
125 VR, c. 22, pp. 498–9; the name Rictrude was not unusual, and is found in different
places in Francia, see M.-T. Morlet, Les noms de personne sur le territoire de l’Ancienne
Gaule du VIIe au XIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1968), I.
124
takingly gathered and presented to Hucbald.126 The confusion may have been
developed at Marchiennes during the ninth century and reverberated in the
fragments and oral testimonies presented to Hucbald.127 However, I tend to
believe that the merging of these two distinct characters named Rictrude is
more likely the product of Hucbald’s personal historical knowledge, which is
so visible in his introduction. Indeed, given the relations between Alcuin and
Saint-Amand, Hucbald was more likely than the community of Marchiennes
to have a first-hand knowledge of the Vita Richarii.128 In any case, the coinci-
dence of names is too suspicious to be trusted. Moreover, Maurontus’s late
appearance in Marchiennes’ tradition is corroborated by the total ignorance
of his name prior to the writing of the VR. While the names of both Rictrude
and Eusebia already appear in ninth-century calendars and litanies from
Saint-Amand and its region, Maurontus did not surface in similar documents
until the eleventh century.129
The episode of Maurontus is not the only one in the VR that gives an
impression of déjà-vu. The dramatic episode of Rictrude’s refusal to remarry
despite the injunction of the king closely resembles a similar anecdote in the
126 Julia Smith has suggested, however, that Hucbald may have had direct contacts
with the abbey of Saint-Riquier, see ‘A Hagiographer at Work’, p. 165.
127 Alcuin’s Vita Richarii, because of its author’s fame, was widely known and very
influential in the hagiography of northern Francia; see the table of literary depend-
encies in Van der Essen, Étude critique; the Vita Richarii is not mentioned in the
twelfth-century booklist of Saint-Amand, Paris, BN, Lat. 1850, published by A.
Becker, Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui, pp. 231–3; at Marchiennes it was quoted
among the mandatory table readings, see C. A. ‘Les lectures de table des moines de
Marchiennes au XIIIe siècle’, RB 11 (1894), 32. It is noteworthy that Maurontus was
recycled once again in the eleventh-century vita of St Walaric (BHL 8762), ed. B.
Krusch, MGH SRM 4, pp. 157–75, where he is mentioned as a man who started his
career at the king’s court and eventually opted for the religious life after breaking up
his marriage; Van der Essen believed that this Maurontus was the same person as
the king’s forester in the vita Richarii, but different from the Maurontus in VR (see
Étude critique, p. 264); however, I believe that the Maurontus of the Vita Walarici was
more likely inspired by the two Maurontuses, the Maurontus from VR, and the
Maurontus from the Vita Richarii.
128 Alcuin was a friend of Abbot Arn of Saint-Amand and composed a series of inscrip-
tions for the abbey.
129 M. Coens, ‘Anciennes litanies des saints’, Subsidia Hagiographica 37 (Brussels, 1963),
271–4; V. Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliothèques
publiques de France, 4 vols. (Paris, 1924), I, 221; Rictrude and Eusebia also appear
without Maurontus in the litanies of the Leofric Missal, a sacramentary written in
the second half of the ninth century in Flanders or north-east Francia, see M.
Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints (London, 1991), pp. 76–7 and 229. It is also
noteworthy that in the calendars of the ninth-century sacramentaries from
Saint-Amand, Rictrude and Eusebia appear at their natalis, respectively 27 October
and 28 November, rather than at their feast day, day of their death, which were the
only dates given by Hucbald (12 May and 5 May); in a Marchiennes missal from the
early twelfth century both Maurontus and Rictrude appear at their feast days.
125
seventh-century vita of Gertrude of Nivelles.130 The Vita Geretrudis Prima

relates that at a dinner given by her father for King Dagobert, Gertrude was
offered, with the king’s support, to the son of an Austrasian duke. Gertrude,
who had already decided to devote herself to religious life, refused as
strongly as Rictrude had refused the king’s proposal.131 Given the role played
by St Amand in the religious vocation of Gertrude’s mother, Itta, and in the
foundation of her monastery of Nivelles (c. 648–9), it is not surprising to find
similarities between Rictrude and Gertrude’s legends. Hucbald must have
known the legends involving the patron saint of his monastery, and the
community of Marchiennes, so close to Elnon, was probably familiar with
them too. Furthermore, King Dagobert is frequently mentioned as the
villainous matchmaker in many a Vita of Merovingian female saints, which
naturally reflects his politics of strengthening his power through matrimonial
alliances of the aristocracy.132 The creation of Maurontus shows that
Rictrude’s story had been ‘polluted’ at least once by a foreign, non-related
legend because of a coincidence of names. If we remember that by the time of
the redaction of the VR, Rictrude’s legend was already obscure, it is not
implausible that another conflation of this type occurred.
The VR not only offers a story of the foundation of the abbey of
Marchiennes in the seventh century, but also allows us to glimpse the
community in the early tenth century. When Hucbald wrote the VR in 907,
important parts of its tradition were already forgotten. The memory of the
location of the shrines of its major saints – Rictrude, Maurontus, Eusebia and
Jonatus – was probably lost. All written documents pertaining to its history
had disappeared, if they had ever existed. The oral transmission of the
house’s tradition was flawed and confused, as unveiled by the dubious
nature of the character of Maurontus and the ambiguity of Jonatus’s identity.
Thus, in the early tenth century, the community of Marchiennes was in need
of commemorating and, when necessary, recreating its past in order to build
a refreshed tradition. In the face of unfavorable circumstances (decay, lack of
prestige, deprivation of a living cult) the community answered its need for
identity and recognition by producing a narrative re-asserting its antiquity
and the prestigious connections of its patron saints. The decay of
Marchiennes was partly due to ninth-century secularization and viking
incursions. Nonetheless, Marchiennes’ proximity to Saint-Amand may
provide an additional explanation. With its famous patron saint and its pres-
tige, which were powerful magnets for donations, Saint-Amand may have
130 Vita Geretrudis Prima (BHL 3490), ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp.
464–71; on Gertrude and the foundation of the abbey of Nivelles under the influence
of St Amand, see Dierkens, ‘Saint Amand et la fondation de l’abbaye de Nivelles’.
131 Vita Geretrudis Prima, pp. 454–5, and VR, c. 14, p. 495.
132 For example in the vita of St Sadalberga; see Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, p. 223
and nn. 13 and 14.
126
suffocated the small community lying in its shadow. If this were the case, it is
ironic that the monks and nuns from Marchiennes had to rely on a scholar
from Saint-Amand to fulfill the task of reviving their own history.
The Vita Rictrudis Metrica and the Vita Eusebiae

About one hundred years after Hucbald wrote the VR, another monk from
Saint-Amand, John, wrote hagiographic texts for Marchiennes. John is the
author of a verse life of St Rictrude (VR metrica) which, like Hucbald, he dedi-
cated to a bishop – in this case, Erluin of Cambrai (995–1012). The author’s
name is known thanks to letters he wrote to Stephen, a monk of Ghent to
whom he had sent his work for review. The recipient of the work, Erluin, is
known thanks to the acrostic poem John dedicated to him.133 The dedication
to Erluin allows us to date the text with some precision. Unfortunately, the
history of Marchiennes at this time is completely obscure, and it is impossible
to connect the composition of the VR metrica with any specific event. Never-
theless, the writing of the new vita might be related to a renewed effort to
stimulate Rictrude’s cult and, perhaps, to restore a community which had
been inconspicuous throughout the tenth century. Erluin’s intervention could
confirm this hypothesis, since he is known to have been a bishop with a
reforming streak: his restoration of Saint-Vaast with the collaboration of
Richard of Saint-Vanne launched the reform movement which would spread
throughout the bishopric under his successor, Gerard I (1012–1051).
Marchiennes was definitely reformed in 1024 by Leduinus of Saint-Vaast,
backed by Baldwin IV and Bishop Gerard; it is not impossible that Erluin’s
intervention in the hagiographic production of Marchiennes is the only
visible trace of a first reforming attempt. In any case, as far as the transforma-
tions of Rictrude’s legend are concerned, the VR metrica is of little interest
because John faithfully stuck to his model.
The Vita Eusebiae (VE), although it is almost entirely based on the VR, is
the first text to introduce minor changes in the legend. Some of these transfor-
mations are subtle; they are due to the shift of focus from Rictrude to Eusebia.
For example, greater importance is given to Adalbald, Eusebia’s father, than
in the VE. In the historical introduction of the VE, which is inspired by the
corresponding passage of the VR, the author gives fewer details about
Rictrude’s lineage, but he emphasizes Adalbald’s social status.134
133 John of Saint-Amand, Vita S. Rictrudis (BHL 7248), ed. G. Silagi, MGH Poetae 5, 3
(Munich, 1977), pp. 565–96; see the exchange of letters between John and Stephen,
VR metrica, pp. 566–7 and the acrostic poem to Erluin, ed. K. Strecker, MGH Poetae 5,
2 (Dublin and Zurich, 1970), p. 375; see Van der Essen, Étude critique, pp. 265–8.
134 VR, c. 9, p. 492 and VE, c. 3, pp. 558–9; on the comparison between VR and VE, see
Deug-Su, ‘La “Vita Rictrudis” ‘, pp. 563–74.
127
VE, c. 3 VR, c. 5
Quidam Francigena, nomine Adalbaldus, Rictrudis . . . videtur . . . a quodam
non ex mediocribus quilibet unus; sed Francigena, Adalbaldo nomine, natalibus
inter Palatinos proceres potentissimus, orto praeclaris et justis.
locupletissimus in fundis et mancipiorum
reditibus innumeris . . .
A Frank, named Adaldbald, not of Rictrude was seen by a Frank named

modest origin, but most powerful among Adalbald, of noble and honest origins.
the leading men of the palace, he
possessed many estates and innumerable
revenues.
The emphasis on Eusebia and her paternal lineage, at the expense of Rictrude,
is also visible in the passage concerning Adalbald’s murder: the VE suggests
that at his death Adalbald became the object of a cult:
debitum accepit honorificae sepulturae locum, qui usque hodie meretur

experiri, cuius pignora retineat commendata sibi.135
(he received a place suitable for an honorable burial, which, to this day, de-
serves to be known and which retains his valued relics.)
The difference of perspective between the two texts is also visible in the
passages concerning Eusebia’s beating. The author of the VE, unlike Hucbald,
did not maintain cautious neutrality, but he subtly empathized with
Eusebia.136 Besides these differences of perspective, the author of the VE
introduced new information about Marchiennes and Eusebia. First of all, he
dates the foundation of Marchiennes to the time of Dagobert’s father, Clothar
II (584–629) – which is impossible if we can trust Hucbald that it was an initia-
tive of St Amand.137 The VE also asserts that Eusebia ruled Hamage for
twenty-three years (‘In huiusmodi itaque exercitiis septem minus tricenis
vitae huius transcursis annis’), which contradicts Hucbald who said she
barely survived her beating and that she died in the middle of her adoles-
cence.138
The VE, moreover, records two episodes which were not reported by
Hucbald in the VR. First, the author relates the story, told by the vulgus, that,
when a piece of the rod used by Maurontus for Eusebia’s beating had fallen
to the ground, it grew roots and blossomed.139 The second new fact of the VE
is the translation of Eusebia’s relics. At her death, the saint had been buried in
the abbatial church, dedicated to SS Peter and Paul; this dedication was not
given by Hucbald. This church, however, proved unfit because it already
135 VE, c. 5, p. 559.

136 Deug-Su, ‘La “Vita Rictrudis” ‘, p. 563.
137 VE, c. 5, p. 559.
138 VE, c. 12, p. 563.
139 VE, c. 9, p. 562.
128
contained too many relics. For this reason, an abbess named Gertrude,
widow of a certain illustrious Ingomar, decided to build a new church to
which Eusebia’s relics were translated. According to the VE, the ceremony
was presided over by Hatta, abbot of Saint-Vaast at Arras (c. 680–700).140 A
second translation of Eusebia’s relics is mentioned in the twelfth-century
polyptych.141 This translation was made from Hamage to Marchiennes, and
this event may have been the occasion of the composition of Eusebia’s vita.
Leon van der Essen has suggested that John of Saint-Amand, author of the
VR metrica, can be credited with the writing of both the prose and the verse
VE (VE metrica).142 On the basis of stylistic resemblances between the VR
metrica and the VE metrica, Van der Essen has proposed that both should be
attributed to John of Saint-Amand.143 Since the twelfth-century author of the
Miracula S. Eusebiae asserts that the VE and the VE metrica were written by the
same person, this would mean that John is the author of the VE.144 This is
plausible, although the VE and the VR present slightly different points of
view at different places. These differences, however, do not forcibly imply a
different authorship, and they can simply be explained by the fact that the
focus of the VE is Eusebia rather than Rictrude.145 In any case, the VE, the VE
metrica and the VR metrica, even if they were not written by the same author,
were probably composed roughly at the same time, around the millennium,
since they were copied together in an early eleventh-century manuscript
from Marchiennes (now Douai 849), together with Hucbald’s Vita Ionati. And
in this manuscript the author of the VR metrica is presented as John, monk of
Marchiennes. This attribution could denote wishful thinking by a community
willing to claim for itself the author of their patron saint’s vita, or it could
signify John’s actual transfer to Marchiennes.
I have suggested that the writing of the new vitae corresponded to a
concerted effort to revitalize Rictrude’s and Eusebia’s cults two decades
before the restoration imposed by Gerard of Cambrai. This is confirmed by
the care taken in the creation of the early eleventh-century Douai 849, which
is the earliest surviving manuscript of these texts. This manuscript contains
illuminations representing Rictrude, her children and St Jonatus. The
140 VE, c. 13, p. 563; the name Gertrude, which is also the name of the foundress of
Hamage, could denote a family link with the founding family; Gertrude is said to be
the widow of Ingomar, whom Van der Essen (Étude critique, p. 267, n. 5) proposes to
identify with a count of Thérouanne mentioned in the Vita Eligii (p. 726); on the
dates of Hatta’s abbacy, see P. Grierson, ‘The Early Abbots of St. Peters of Ghent’, RB
26 (1936), 129–46 (p. 131).
141 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, c. 14, p. 76.
142 Vita S. Eusebiae metrica (fragments) (BHL 2737), AA SS, 1 Feb., p. 450.
143 Van der Essen, Étude critique, p. 268.
144 Van der Essen, Étude critique, p. 268; Miracula S. Eusebiae (BHL 2738), ed. G.
Guesquière, ASB, 4, c. 3, p. 565.
145 On this point, see Deug-Su, ‘La “Vita Rictrudis” ‘, pp. 563–74.
129
awkwardness of the painting, which contrasts with the high quality achieved
by the scriptorium later in the eleventh century, suggests that it may well
pre-date the restoration. In this regard, it is significant that this manuscript
does not contain the Vita Maurontii, whose cult, as I already hinted, emerged
only after the restoration.
The restoration and the assertion of Marchiennes’ lost property

We have seen that Marchiennes was restored in 1024 under the impetus of
Baldwin IV, Richard of Saint-Vanne and Gerard of Cambrai. The circum-
stances of the restoration are described in the second book of the Gesta
Episcoporum Cameracensium, which was composed around 1024. This notice is
interesting because it presents a new version of the foundation of
Marchiennes, which is slightly but significantly different from Hucbald’s
story in the VR:
Apud villam quoque Marcienas, gloriosa matrona Rictrudis ex proprii

opibus et praediis consilio sancti Amandi, qui tunc temporis insignis
habebatur, monasterium struxit, ubi sanctimonialibus ad serviendum
delegatis, ipsa etiam abbatissa habenas regimini moderata est.146
(On the villa of Marchiennes, the glorious matron Rictrude, with the advice of
St Amand, who was among the illustrious men of his time, built a monastery
on her own estate; there, after the divine service had been delegated to nuns,
she ruled the community in her capacity as abbess.)
In this short passage, there are three variations from the original legend of the
VR. First, the Gesta asserts that Rictrude founded Marchiennes on her own
estate. According to the VR, the foundation was made by Amand, independ-
ently of Rictrude, and Hucbald never mentioned that the land belonged to
Adalbald’s family. Second, the notice suggests that Rictrude was the first
ruler of Marchiennes and that, from the onset, the abbey hosted a female
community. On the other hand, in the VR, Amand had founded Marchiennes
as a male community, and women were introduced by its first abbot, Jonatus.
After Rictrude’s death, however, the situation of the monastery
deteriorated:
ipsarum etiam puellarum ordo viciari et depravari coeperat; iamque magis ac

magis depravatus mos in degeneri posteritate usque in presens duraverat.147
(the congregation of virgins started to degenerate and to fall into depravity;
and so more and more depraved, their behavior persevered in its ignominy
until present times.)
146 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, c. 26, p. 461.

130
Fortunately, Abbot Leduinus, helped by Gerard and Baldwin, saved the situ-
ation:
Leduwinus . . . feminas turpiter viventes mundato loco exturbavit, ac

monachos qui melius et religiosus Deo et prelibatae virgini, quae ibidem
quiescit, deserviant, constituit.148
(Leduinus expelled the women who lived shamefully and, in order to pacify
the place, he constituted a community of monks, so they would serve God
better and more religiously than the aforesaid virgins.)
The nuns’ main sin, beyond religious considerations, may have been their
inability to protect Marchiennes’ landholding against usurpation; indeed, the
author of the polyptych refers to properties lost in the past because of the
abbesses’ carelessness and weakness.149 If Marchiennes’ landholding had
indeed been despoiled in the tenth century, regaining the lost property was
one of the restorer’s main concerns. This explains the changes undergone by
the foundation legend of Marchiennes: claiming that the abbey’s estates origi-
nally belonged to the community’s patron saint was an argument which
could prove useful against the community’s usurpers. As for the notice’s
assertion that Marchiennes was an exclusively female community, it purports
to emphasize the contrast between the worldly nuns and the pious regular
monks who replaced them.
The new male community of Marchiennes took another step in the
rewriting of Rictrude’s legend. We have seen that until the eleventh century,
the two main saints of Marchiennes were Rictrude and Eusebia: Maurontus’s
name was not inserted in litanies and calendars until the eleventh century,
while Eusebia and Rictrude are found in such texts as early as in the ninth
century. Furthermore, when, at the time of Bishop Erluin, John of
Saint-Amand composed the VR metrica and the VE, which were soon after
copied in Douai in 849, he did not write a vita for Maurontus. The reformed
community, perhaps in need of a male tutelary saint, revived – or rather
created – St Maurontus’s cult by writing the Vita Mauronti (VM).150 The first
three chapters of the VM were made by cutting and pasting the relevant
episodes found in the VR. In the fourth chapter, however, the VM departs
from its model by asserting that Maurontus went to Marchiennes at his
mother’s death, that he became abbot and that he died there:

150 Vita Mauronti (BHL 5768–5769), AA SS, 2 May, pp. 53–4, and Catalogus Codicum
Hagiographicorum, II, p. 35; the only difference between the two versions is that at
chapter 1, the version mentioned in the Catalogus reports the whole episode of
Maurontus’s baptism as it was in VR, c. 22, while in the AA SS version, this episode
is summed up in one sentence; see Étude critique, p. 269.
131
Contigit ut adiret Martianas, quas mater ejus sanctissima migrans ad Christo

providentiae suae commiserat.151
(He went to Marchiennes, which his very holy mother had entrusted to his
wise governance as she was dying.)
This interpolation contradicts the VR, which said that Rictrude’s daughter,
Clotsind, succeeded her mother as abbess. By asserting that Maurontus,
rather than Clotsind, succeeded Rictrude, the author may have intended to
insinuate that there was a tradition, dating back to St Rictrude, of
Marchiennes being ruled by men before the women definitely took over. The
Miraculum Mauronti, which relates a miracle that happened during the time
of Abbot Alberic (1033–1948), may have been written at the same period as
the VM.152 Despite this attempt at creating and developing a distinct cult for
St Maurontus, the saint never became an important tutelary figure at
Marchiennes. Indeed, as early as 1024 the canons of the collegiate church of
Saint-Amé at Douai were claiming to possess Maurontus’s relics. Although
they never explained how his relics had reached Douai, the canons’ claims
were not challenged by the community of Marchiennes. By the twelfth
century, the translation of ‘the major part’ of Maurontus’s relics to Douai was
accepted at Marchiennes and considered as the sign of God’s will to reunite
Maurontus with his friend St Amatus.153
The polyptych was written between 1116 and 1121, after a calamitous
period of dispersal of Marchiennes’ property into lay hands. The polyptych
purported to record into a single document all the information concerning
the abbey’s properties and revenues, and it was designed as a defensive tool
against the usurpers. The text of the polyptych itself is preceded by two chap-
ters providing a justification for its composition; the author articulates clearly
the relation between the recording of history and the protection of property:
Opportet itaque ut universi quibus sua defendere et tueri justissimum constat

annales veteres gestaque antiquorum diligenter et memoriter recolant
quatinus contra causidicos et violentos, alienorum appetitores, validum
defensionis murum opponere queant.154
(It is useful, and it is established that it is extremely rightful, to look carefully
at the old annals and the ancient gesta, for those who try to erect a sturdy wall
of defense against the lawsuits, violent acts and appetites of others.)
Once he had established that resorting to ancient historical narratives in
151 Vita S. Mauronti, AA SS, 2 May, c. 4, p. 53.

152 Miraculum sancti Mauronti (BHL 5770) in Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicorum, II, pp.
41–3; see H. Platelle, ‘Crime et châtiment’, p. 161 and n. 12.
153 Miracula sanctae Rictrudis (BHL 7252–7252a) written by Andrew of Marchiennes
between 1164 and 1166, AA SS, 3 May, pp. 92–3.
132
order to protect oneself against usurpation was both useful and lawful, the
author of the polyptych undertook a historical introduction recalling the
origins and the foundation of Marchiennes in thirteen chapters. This histori-
cal setting, which purports to assert the antiquity and the legitimacy of
Marchiennes landholding, was the occasion, once again, to transform
Rictrude’s legend.
Like the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, the polyptych insists on the fact
that Marchiennes was founded on Rictrude’s domain:
in proprio predio illustris matrone Rictrudis beatissime edificari institutum

est monasterium coenobiale.155
(a monastery was instituted and built on the illustrious matron Rictrude’s
own property.)
The polyptych also suggests that the monastery was built for Rictrude.
Furthermore, Rictrude and Adalbald’s social status is magnified: according to
our author, Rictrude came from a senatorial family and Adalbald was a
‘potentissimus dux’. After the foundation, St Aubert, bishop of Cambrai,
gave his benediction to her pious enterprise and dedicated the church.156
Aubert’s intervention, which is found for the first time in this text, is chrono-
logically possible – Aubert is attested in 645–52 and 667 – but geographically
improbable, since Marchiennes was still in the diocese of Tournai at that
time.157
The fifth chapter is the most significant one, because it introduces the will
that Rictrude allegedly bequeathed to her community:
Rictrudis voti compos universa que sibi residua videbantur esse,

testamentum legitimum faciens, perpetuo jure possidenda liberaliter sanctis
Dei et eidem contulit monasterio, que singula annotari suo loco inferius non
incongruum videtur.158
(Rictrude, by means of a testament, conceded in perpetual right to God’s
saints and the monastery, what was left of her properties, which, as it will be
noted below, were not insignificant.)
Chapter six recalls how Jonas – not Jonatus! – first ruled the male community
and how, when Rictrude entered Marchiennes, a community of women was
created. It is also said that Rictrude preferred to remain a simple nun rather

156 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, c. 3, pp. 67–8, and c. 5, pp. 69–70; the polyptych specifies that
the church was dedicated to SS Peter and Paul on 26 November; Hucbald did not
specify the dedication, and the only dedication date given by the calendars from
Marchiennes is 24 July, which corresponds to the 1177 dedication.
157 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, p. 68, n. 6.
133
than becoming abbess.159 It is true that the VR never explicitly said that
Rictrude was abbess, but it was clear that she had the authority of the posi-
tion. Chapter 7 recounts Rictrude’s death and her burial near the altar dedi-
cated to John the Baptist, details which are missing from earlier narratives.160
Chapters 8 to 14 recall the stories of SS Maurontus, Amatus and Eusebia and
the foundations of Hamage and Breuil. These chapters do not depart signifi-
cantly from the data given by the VR and the Vita Amati.
Finally, chapter 15 returns to Rictrude’s will already alluded to in chapter
5. The will had been written down at the time of Clovis II (640–657) and was
legally witnessed by many important and prestigious men of the time.161
Indeed, the accumulation of ‘celebrities’ is impressive: those present included
St Aubert, St Vindicien (Aubert’s successor-to-be), Honoratus (an archdeacon
from Arras who was buried near St Vindicien at Mount St Eligius), St Amand,
St Jonatus, Chrodobaldus (prior of Elnon at the time of Amand), Vincent
Madelgaire, founder of the monastery of Soignies, Amalfrid (founder of the
cella of Honnecourt with his daughter Auriana), and Badilo (who was said to
have brought Mary Magdalen’s relics from Jerusalem to Vezelay).162 It is clear
that all these characters have nothing to do with Rictrude and Marchiennes, if
only because they were all related to the bishopric of Cambrai, while
Marchiennes was, until the middle of the seventh century, in the bishopric of
Tournai. The mention in the witness list of Badilo, whose existence is dubious
in any case, is anachronistic since, according to the tradition from Vezelay, it
was after the viking invasions that Badilo brought Mary Magdalen’s relics to
Vezelay.163 Similarly, Amalfrid and Auriana are attested only in 685, in a
charter from Saint-Bertin.164 Amand and Jonatus belong to the original legend
of St Rictrude; Chrodobaldus is mentioned in the VAm, and in the twelfth
century his relics, which were buried in the crypt beside St Jonatus, were
honored at Marchiennes.165 Although many of these characters are
mentioned in a variety of earlier texts (vitae, charters), it appears that the
author of the polyptych, who is probably to be credited with the invention of
Rictrude’s testament, found their names in the Gesta of Cambrai. Indeed, we
have seen that in his introduction he nominally mentions the Gesta as one of

163 St Bodilon’s relics were honored at Leuze, one of St Amand’s foundations; on
Badilon, see J. Nazet, ‘Saint Badilon à Leuze: les origines d’un culte insolite’,
Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Tournai 4 (1983–1984), 55–69.
164 Amalfrid and Auriana had founded a private monastic community at Honnecourt,
in the bishopric of Cambrai, which they had entrusted to the abbot of Saint-Bertin in
685; see above, Chapter 2, p. 24.
165 L’Histoire-Polyptyque, p. 78; VAm, c. 25, p. 448; on Chrodobaldus’s relics at
Marchiennes, see AA SS, 3 May, p. 153.
134
his sources; it seems that, to compose his list of witnesses, he read through
the Gesta and randomly picked up names of people whose dates could
possibly match the date of Rictrude’s pseudo-will.166 Indeed, his source for
these characters clearly corresponds to notices in the Gesta, and the only
common point between them is exactly their mention in the Gesta. After the
ceremony of the signatures, St Amand and St Aubert, with the approbation of
the king, anathematized those who would despoil the monastery of
Marchiennes.167 Finally, the polyptych itself begins directly after this chapter.
The author’s narrative technique is transparent. By beginning the
polyptych with an introduction relating the foundation of Marchiennes, he
meant to emphasize the antiquity of the monastery and the legitimacy of its
territorial claims. The legitimacy is further strengthened by the assertion that
Marchiennes’ possessions belonged to Rictrude herself. The most interesting
element of the legend’s transformation in the polyptych is St Rictrude’s
alleged will. It is not clear whether the testament was the product of our
author’s imagination or whether this story had already been developed
before, but it is obvious that it is a creation without any documented basis.
This distortion of the legend as it was told by Hucbald is plainly understand-
able. The invented will evidently purported to sacralize Marchiennes’ posses-
sions by asserting Rictrude’s desire that her lands be reserved for the use of
her community.168 Hence the polyptych actually represents a reproduction of
the possessions and rights which were recorded in Rictrude’s testament. It is
also clear that Aubert and Amand’s anathema is actually addressed to the
twelfth-century sticky-fingered local petty lords whose interests were in
conflict with Marchiennes’ over landholding. As for all the new characters
introduced in the foundation story, they play the same role as St Richer and
Nanthild in the VR: their collaboration stresses the prestige of the new foun-
dation and they provide a historical backdrop to the events.
The polyptych was not an isolated effort to make Marchiennes’ landed
166 On St Aubert and St Vindicien, see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. I, pp.
407–10. On Honoratus, see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. I, c. 30, p. 415. On
St Vincent Madelgaire, see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, c. 35, p. 463; St
Vincent was the husband of St Waldetrude, foundress of the monastery of Mons;
both decided to enter religious life slightly before 655: Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et
laïques, pp. 49–53. On Amalfrid and Auriana, see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium,
lib II, c. 10, p. 438. On Bodilo, see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, c. 43, p.
464.
168 Examples of such legitimization of landholding through a donation or testament
given by the saint abound, especially in the eleventh century; see de Gaiffier, ‘Les
revendications de biens’. Parallels can be drawn with the so-called forged donation
of St Aldegund: see P. Bonenfant, ‘Note critique sur le prétendu testament de sainte
Aldegonde’, Bulletin de la Commission Royale d’Histoire 98 (1934), 219–38, who gives
an edition of the document; for the most recent discussion of the text, see Helvétius,
Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 161–8.
135
assets more sacred in order to (re)claim them for the community. During the
twelfth century, several collections of miracles attributed to SS Rictrude,
Jonatus and Eusebia were produced. As Henri Platelle has amply demon-
strated, these collections, written between 1125 and 1174, abound in anec-
dotes of conflicts between the monks and rapacious local lords – among
whom the abbey’s advocates were not the least abusers.169 Hence, the trans-
formation of the foundation legend found in the Cambrai Gesta and espe-
cially in the polyptych and the miracula form a coherent set of written
reactions in direct response to conflicts over landholding with the neigh-
boring aristocracy which had already started in the tenth century and became
increasingly acute during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
New genealogical developments in the twelfth century

During the twelfth century, at the same time as St Rictrude’s legend was
transformed in the polyptych and in miracle collections in a way that empha-
sized her ownership of Marchiennes’ landed assets, her and her husband’s
genealogical trees were improved. Rictrude’s father, Ernold, became identi-
fied with Ernaud of Gironde, hero of the French chanson de geste of Guillaume
d’Orange.170 As for Adalbald, from the twelfth century on he was said to have
two brothers: Erchinoald, a Neustrian mayor of the palace (641–657) and
Sigefridus, St Bertha of Blangy’s husband.
The first source to associate Rictrude’s father with Ernaud de Gironde is
the Chronicon Marcianense, written at the end of the twelfth century by
Andrew of Marchiennes.171
Fuit autem filia Hernoldi clarissimi et fortissimi, cognomento Nobilis . . .

Cuius gesta militaria rithmice composita et eius fratrum adhuc decantantur
in palaciis regum et theatrum populorum.172
(She was the daughter of the very famous and powerful Ernaud the Noble . . .
His military actions, as well as his brother’s, have been put into verse and are
sung in the royal palaces and the people’s theaters.)
The assertion that Adalbald was Erchinoald’s brother appears for the first
169 For a detailed analysis of Marchiennes’ collections of miracles and their relation to
conflicts regarding landholding, see Platelle, ‘La religion populaire’ and ‘Crime et
châtiment’.
170 The cycle of Guillaume takes place, however, in a mythic Carolingian time; on
Guillaume d’Orange and the construction of his legend, see Le Cycle de Guillaume
d’Orange: Anthologie, ed. D. Boutet, Les Lettres Gothiques 4547 (Paris, 1996), and J.
Frappier, Les chansons de geste du cycle de Guillaume d’Orange, 2 vols. (Paris,
1955–1965).
171 K. F. Werner, ‘Andreas von Marchiennes und die Geschichtschreibung von Anchin
und Marchiennes in der zweiten Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Deutsches Archiv 9
(1951), 402–63.
172 Chronicon Marcianense, p. 416.
136
time in the Chronicon Vedastinum, an eleventh-century chronicle written at

Saint-Vaast which was transferred to Marchiennes, where it was annotated
during the twelfth century. This source also adds that the two brothers had
rebuilt the castrum of Douai and built a church in the town:
Defuncto Erchinoaldo palatii comite, viro strenuo et sapiente, Franci Ebroino

iussu regis curam palatii committunt. Hic Erchinoaldus cum fratre
Adabaldo, patre sancti Mauronti, reedicaverunt Duacum castrum et infra
castrum Dei genitricis Marie templum. Hic enim locus antiquitus fuerat
consecratus.173
(At the death of Erchinoald, mayor of the palace, strong and wise man, the
Franks delegated the care of the palace to Ebroin by the king’s order. This
Erchinoald, and his brother Adalbald, St Maurontus’s father, re-built the
castrum of Douai and inside the castrum, built a church dedicated to the Virgin
Mary. Indeed, this place was consecrated in very ancient time.)
Probably following this source, Andrew of Marchiennes repeated the story

and added that parts of Adalbald’s relics had been translated to Saint-
Amand.174 This story was then once again reproduced in a thirteenth-century
addition to the Annales Marchianenses.175
Moreover, different thirteenth-century hands have augmented the Annales
Marchianenses with other details concerning the history of Marchiennes:
Amatus’s exile (685) and Rictrude’s death (688); a twelfth-century hand had
already annotated Amatus’s death (691) and Maurontus’s death (701).176 All
these sources are, however, very late and should not be trusted. We have seen
that when Hucbald wrote the VR, he could barely find any information about
Rictrude and her family; hence, it is very unlikely that later writers had access
to sources that Hucbald would have ignored. It is notable that eleventh- and
early twelfth-century sources – such as the Vita Eusebiae, the Vita Mauronti,
the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, the polyptych – completely ignore the
alleged family links between Adalbald and Erchinoald. Furthermore, the
assertion that Erchinoald and Adalbald rebuilt the castrum of Douai is anach-
ronistic, because, as we shall see in the following chapter, a castrum did not
exist at Douai before the tenth century. The late appearance of the mention of
Adalbald as brother of Erchinoald in a context where all written sources had
long disappeared, is, I believe, strong enough an argument to rule this infor-
mation spurious.177
173 Chronicon Vedastinum, ed. O. Holdr-Egger, MGH SS 13, p. 694.

174 Chronicon Marcianense, p. 418
177 Arguments in favor of this tradition have been put forward, most notably by Geary,
Aristocracy in Provence, pp. 126–48. Geary’s argument is mostly based on his belief
137
The fabrication of a family link between Adalbald and Erchinoald is an

understandable narrative artifice: Erchinoald was said to be related to King
Dagobert through the king’s mother Berthetrude.178 This family connection
with the great king could only raise Rictrude’s family prestige. The origin of
the legend is, however, not clear. It may have been developed at
Marchiennes, where alterations to the VR had already been made. Yet, the
story may also have been cooked up by the canons of the collegiate church of
Saint-Amé at Douai. Indeed, at some point, perhaps in the tenth century, St
Amatus’s and St Maurontus’s relics were translated to Douai, to a church
originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary.179 The foundation story of this
church, which became the collegiate church of Saint-Amé after the transla-
tion, was written down in two related charters issued by the canons, dated
1076. These charters do not mention Adalbald as the church’s founder, but
we shall see in the following chapter that after 1076 the canons of Saint-Amé
attempted to push back the foundation date of their church.180 Therefore, I
believe that the legend making Adalbald and Erchinoald brothers originated
in the milieu of the canons of Saint-Amé and that it was happily reiterated
and, perhaps, improved at Marchiennes.
Andrew of Marchiennes added yet another family link to the dynasty.181
He gave Adalbald and Erchinoald another brother, Sigefridus, count of
Ponthieu and St Bertha of Blangy’s husband. Andrew’s source for this inter-
polation is obscure. The Vita Bertae, written in the tenth century, indeed
mentions that the saint was married to a man named Sigefridus, ‘con-
that the Maurontus of VR is related to the Maurontus of the Vita Richarii; I believe,
however, that Maurontus’s name is a contamination of VR due to the conflation of
two unrelated stories of the Vita Richarii. Geary’s other main argument is the ‘vicin-
ity’ of Erchinoald and Adalbald’s possession (Aristocracy, pp. 135–6); as we have
seen, Adalbald’s possessions were in Ostrevant, while Erchinoald’s family assets
were in the regions of Saint-Wandrille, Jumièges, in the Marne valley and at
Péronne on the Somme; although at the scale of the Frankish kingdoms these
regions are not extremely far away, I think that it is a stretch to consider them as
belonging to the same geographical area. Moreover, Geary has suggested that a few
Maurontuses who lived in Provence in the eighth century could belong to
Rictrude’s lineage. Considering the dubious nature of Maurontus’s name and the
little reliable information that we have about Rictrude, it is risky to infer much about
her lineage from a simple coincidence of names.
178 Fredegar, Chronicorum Liber Quartus, c. 84, p. 71.
179 A similar ‘social upgrading’ appears in the successive legends of St Waudru of
Mons, see J.-M. Cauchies, ‘Hagiographie, historiographie et politique (IXe–XIVe s.):
Sainte Waudru “comtesse”, “duchesse”, “princesse” ‘, in Sainte Waudru devant
l’histoire et devant la foi. Recueil d’études publié à l’occasion du treizième centenaire de sa
mort, ed. J.-M. Cauchies (Mons, 1989), pp. 93–116.
180 Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, roi de France (1059–1108), ed. M. Prou (Paris, 1908), p.
439.
181 Andrew of Marchiennes, Historia Succinta, c. 18, p. 626.
138
sanguineus regis Chlodovei’.182 Sigefridus’s brother was married to a woman

named Rotrude, who lived in her monastery, located thirty miles away from
Blangy.183 Although the names are different, although the Vita Bertae does not
name Marchiennes, and although Blangy (dep. Pas-de-Calais, arr. Arras), was
located in the diocese of Thérouanne, far away from Marchiennes, the gap
between Rictrude and Rotrude was tempting to fill for an author interested in
saintly genealogies. That St Bertha was said to have a daughter named
Gertrude must have made the link between the two families all the more
plausible.184
To conclude, a legend asserting that Adalbald was Erchinoald’s brother –
and thus King Dagobert’s consanguineus – was developed during the twelfth
century. Since this family link is always associated in the sources with their
alleged reconstruction of the castrum of Douai, it is possible that the story was
initiated in that city by the canons of Saint-Amé, who were holding the relics
of Adalbald’s alleged son, Maurontus. Furthermore, Adalbald’s genealogy
was contaminated by the legend of St Bertha because of the quasi-homonymy
between the names of her sister-in-law Rotrude and St Rictrude. We have
seen that the VR had already been similarly contaminated by other vitae, such
as the Vita Richarii, from which it borrowed the name Maurontus, and the
Vita Geretrudis, which may have provided a model for the banquet scene. It is
notable that a few names constantly reappear in all these legends: the two
Rictrudes and the two Maurontuses of the VR and the Vita Richarii; the three
Gertrudes, of Nivelles, Hamage and Blangy. Another St Gertrude, related to
St Aldegund of Maubeuge, is also mentioned in an eleventh-century vita of St
Aldegund.185 Furthermore, the same characters appear over and over again
in all these vitae: St Amand in the Vita Aldegundis Prima (VAld1), the Vita
Geretrudis, the VR and the Vita Berthae; St Richer in the Vita Richarii, the VR
and the Vita Bertae; King Dagobert in the VR and the Vita Geretrudis; St
Aubert in ‘Rictrude’s will’, the VAld1 and the Vita Bertae.
In these conditions, it is not surprising that medieval as well as modern
authors have been tempted to associate all these characters and to attribute to
them some sort of family, or clanic relationships.186 I believe, however, that
182 Vita S. Bertae (BHL 1266), AA SS, 2 Jul., c. 4, p. 50; see Van der Essen, Étude critique,
pp. 420–2.
183 Vita S. Bertae, c. 7, p. 50.
184 Vita S. Bertae, c. 5, p. 50; the Vita Bertae was known at Marchiennes in the twelfth
century: Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 842.
185 On this late Vita Aldegundis (VA5) (BHL 247), AA SS, 3 Jan., pp. 655–62, written c.
1030–1040, and which had been wrongly attributed to Hucbald of Saint-Amand, see
Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 340–2.
186 See, for example, Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 392–3, who suggests, albeit with
reservations, that St Gertrude of Nivelle, St Gertrude of Hamage, St Bertha and St
Rictrude could belong to the same sippe. For other examples of interrelated
hagiographic cycles, see B. de Gaiffier, ‘L’hagiographie dans le marquisat de
139
this is a risky step to take, and that this phenomenon has other explanations.
After all, these names were spread throughout the Frankish kingdoms.187
More significantly, I believe that the mode of transmission of these legends
and the narrative techniques used by the authors account for an important
part of the similarities of names and situations between all these vitae.
Christoph Wehrli has amply demonstrated that Dagobert had become a topos
of medieval historiography and hagiography, who was used both as a chro-
nological landmark and as a way of enhancing saints’ prestige.188 In terms of
name dropping, there is undoubtedly an elaborating narrative process at
work in Rictrude’s cycle: at each stage of its transformation, new prestigious
lay and holy characters were added. As for the insertion of the ‘anonymous’
characters, the case of Maurontus is particularly enlightening. The attribution
to Rictrude of a son named Maurontus shows how two unrelated characters
have been assimilated in order to create a new one. A similar identification
happened with Rotrude, St Bertha’s sister-in-law, and Rictrude. The popu-
larity of the name Gertrude might be in part explained by the popularity of
the saint, especially in milieus related to St Amand.
Conclusion
Rictrude and her kin are at the origin of a narrative cycle initiated in the tenth
century which was further elaborated in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The seminal text of the cycle, the VR, introduced enough events and charac-
ters to allow later writers to use the text and transform the legend according
to the necessities of the time. Hence, the VR inspired various extrapolations
which appear in a series of texts: the Vita Jonati, the Vita Amati, written by
Hucbald himself, the Vita Rictrudis Metrica, the Vita Eusebiae. These new vitae
directly stemmed from the VR, and the new narrative elements they added to
their model aimed mainly at valorizing their saint; the Vita Amati Longior
adds that Amatus became abbot of Breuil, the Vita Eusebiae emphasizes her
paternal lineage and lengthens her life by two decades. The VR and its
sequels were meant to promote the cult of Marchiennes’ saints and to recon-
struct the history of its origins. Hence, in these texts emphasis was put on the
saints’ social prestige, their relations with important people and the support
given by holy people to the foundation. After the restoration, Rictrude’s
legend was significantly altered, especially in those aspects that concerned
Flandre et le duché de Basse-Lotharingie au onzième siècle’, in Études critiques

d’hagiographie et d’iconologie, Subsidia Hagiographica 43 (Brussels, 1967), pp.
415–507.
187 See Morlet, Les noms de personne: nine instances of Gertrude and variants, five of
Rictrude and variants, ten of Maurontus and variants.
188 Wehrli, Mittelalterliche Überlieferungen.
140
the foundation of Marchiennes and the domain’s initial ownership. These

alterations, which are found in the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium and,
principally, in the historical introduction of the polyptych, were meant to
protect the abbey against spoliation by its neighbors. Later in the twelfth
century, new alterations of the legend, probably produced at Douai, focused
on Adalbald, who was credited with civic deeds (the reconstruction of the
castrum) and a blood relationship with King Dagobert. Hence at different
periods, correspond different transformations of the cycle.
Such a cycle developed over centuries is not unique and can be compared,
for example, to the cycle of the abbesses of Maubeuge.189 Such cycles were
especially popular in communities where written sources had disappeared –
or never existed – because they allowed endless narratives developments
while no other source could get in the way of what Amy Remensnyder called
‘imaginative memory’. Thus, successive authors were free to create all the
relations and ramifications needed by the community to magnify and
strengthen itself.190 It is remarkable that, in the case of Rictrude’s cycle, the
re-invention of the saint’s family legend was not limited to her abbey of
Marchiennes and to issues of landholding. The appropriation of two of
Marchiennes’ major saints, Amatus and Maurontus, by the canons of the
collegiate church of Douai led to the exportation of the cycle to another
community. Indeed, the canons of Saint-Amé at Douai appropriated
Rictrude’s original story and modified it according to their own needs and
the social values of their time. This is the subject of the following chapter.
189 On the cycle of St Waldetrude of Mons, her family and their monastic foundations,
see Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques, pp. 45–86.
190 The importance of family in Rictrude’s cycle is also undoubtedly related to her
gender and to Carolingian perceptions of female sanctity: see J. H. M. Smith, ‘The
Problem of Female Sanctity in Carolingian Europe c. 780–920’, Past and Present 146
(1995), 3–37 (pp. 36–7). Regarding Rictrude’s family in VR, it is notable that the
developments are vertical: sanctity is transmitted from the great-grandmother
Gertrude to Eusebia through her grandson Adalbald and his wife, Rictrude; this is
akin to the observations made by Laurent Theis on family representation in
Merovingian hagiography, which contrast with the common vision of a Frankish
society based on horizontal clanic relations: see ‘Saints sans famille? Quelques
remarques sur la famille dans le monde franc à travers les sources hagi-
ographiques’, Revue Historique 255 (1976), 3–30.
141
CHAPTER FIVE
Saint Maurontus and Saint Amatus at Douai
Introduction
From the eleventh century, the canons of the collegiate church of Saint-Amé
at Douai were claiming possession of St Amatus’s and St Maurontus’s relics.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, these saints originally belonged to
St Rictrude’s cycle and were commemorated at the abbey of Marchiennes. In
this chapter, I will examine how the canons of Douai legitimized their appro-
priation of Amatus’s and Maurontus’s relics by selecting the elements from
Rictrude’s cycle pertaining to their tutelary saints, by adapting these elements
to their own interest, and finally, by integrating them within their own foun-
dation legend. The fate of Amatus’s and Maurontus’s legends at Douai is
interesting because their transformations by the canons allow us to investi-
gate how a particular house’s custom-built historical narrative could be
appropriated by another community and adapted for its own ends.
The translation of St Amatus from his monastery of Breuil to the church of
Douai, which prompted the foundation of the community of canons, was
related for the first time in 1076, in a group of charters, or rather charter-
notices, dated 1076. These charters-notices were written at Saint-Amé itself,
and sent for signature to the count of Flanders, Robert the Frisian, and the
king of France, Philip I.1 This foundation story asserts that Arnulf the Great
had brought the relics to Douai in the aftermath of his conquest of the city (c.
950). I have already underlined how positive as well as negative interaction
between religious communities and secular power had an impact on these
communities’ narrative production.2 This is especially striking in the case of
the community of Douai. Indeed, the foundation story was written down in
1076, in the context of the bitter struggles which opposed the counts of Flan-
ders and Hainault over the control of the city. We shall see that this troubled
1 The notice differs from the charter in that it is written in an objective form and the
charter in a subjective form; see O. Guillotjeannin, J. Pycke and B.-M. Tock,
Diplomatique médiévale, L’Atelier du Médiéviste 2 (Turnhout, 1993), p. 25.
2 At Saint-Bertin opposition to Arnulf’s intervention triggered the redaction of the
Gesta Abbatum; at Marchiennes, the polyptych and the miracle collections were
written in a context of struggle between the abbey and its advocates and lay neigh-
bors.
142
St Maurontus and St Amatus at Douai
political context influenced both the time and the manner in which the
community of Saint-Amé produced its own historiographical narratives. It is
indeed not without significance that the foundation legend of Saint-Amé was
related for the first time neither in a hagiographic text nor in a chronicle, but
rather in charters ratified by the highest secular authorities of the time, the
king of France and the count of Flanders.
Because of the close relation between the history of Saint-Amé and the
political context, I will begin this chapter with a brief overview of the history
of Douai and its region during the period. Then, I will examine the narrative
process by which the canons of Saint-Amé adapted the original legend of
Amatus and Maurontus to their own needs. The first aspect of this adaptation
concerns St Amatus. In 1076, this community wrote, apparently for the first
time, the story of its foundation, which is closely related to the translation of
Amatus’s relics from Breuil to Douai.3 The translation, according to the 1076
texts, was initiated by Arnulf the Great, and was justified by the destruction of
Breuil during the vikings’ incursions. The transfer of Amatus’s relics was
accompanied by the transfer to the new community of Saint-Amé of the
estates which had belonged to Breuil. Hence, in their foundation story, the
canons of Saint-Amé presented themselves as both spiritual and material heirs
to the monastic community founded by Maurontus. In order to emphasize
and legitimize this privileged status, the canons integrated, within the founda-
tion story of Saint-Amé, the foundation story of Breuil – which was originally
told in the Vita Rictrudis (VR) and the Vita Amati Longior (VAL) – and trans-
formed it in such a way that the role of St Amatus at Breuil was magnified. The
second aspect of the adaptation of Rictrude’s cycle concerns St Maurontus;
indeed, as we have already seen, the canons should probably be credited with
the development of the legend asserting that Maurontus’s father Adalbald
was a duke of Douai who had rebuilt its castrum. To conclude, I will discuss
how these two transformations of the original story complete each other
because both the foundation legend of Saint-Amé and Maurontus’s improved
genealogy contributed to the legitimization of Saint-Amé’s landholding and
the appropriation of St Amatus and St Maurontus’ cults.
The origins of Douai
The origins of Douai (Nord, chef-lieu) and its early history are obscure and
scarcely documented.4 Before the second third of the tenth century, Douai
seems to have been little more than a pre-urban area of little economic and
3 The canons, however, never justified their possession of Maurontus’s relics.

4 On Douai, see Histoire de Douai, ed. M. Rouche, Histoire des Villes du Nord-
Pas-de-Calais 9 (Westhoek, 1985), pp. 1–42; G. Espinas, La vie urbaine de Douai au
143
strategic importance. Works of canalization, which turned it from a swamp

into an elevated islet favorable for the building of a castrum, might be credited
for its development as a stronghold and a urban entity.5 Excavations have
revealed that the first fortifications date from the tenth century and that,
before that time, Douai was occupied only by farms.6 These observations are
consistent with the first appearance of Douai in our written sources in the
year 930 in the Annals of Flodoard.7 During the following two decades, until
it was annexed by Arnulf I of Flanders, Douai was a pawn in the struggles
which opposed Hugh the Great, Herbert of Vermandois and the Carolingian
rulers in the control of the region of Ostrevant. When the oppidum Duagium
appears in the Annals, it was held by one Arnoldus, vassal of Hugh the Great.
Arnoldus had betrayed Hugh, from whom he had received Douai, for his
arch-rival, Herbert of Vermandois.8 In retaliation, Hugh and his ally,
Gislebert of Lotharingia, took Douai and offered it to the count of Laon,
Roger:
Lotharienses in Franciam cum Gisleberto obviam Hugoni veniunt et

oppidum quoddam nomine Duagium, quod Arnoldus tenebat, adactum
obsidione capiunt.9
(Lotharienses interea Duagium capiunt, et Hugo illud Rotgario, filio Rotgarii,
concedit.10)
Roger of Laon kept Douai for ten years; in 941, he was expelled by King Louis
IV who gave the castrum back to Arnould:
Rotgarius comes, datis obsidibus, dimittur a rege Ludowico, Duagium

castellum reddens Arnoldo.11
moyen âge, 4 vols. (Douai, 1913), I.; F. Brassart, La féodalité dans le nord de la France.
Histoire du château et de la châtellenie de Douai depuis le Xe siècle jusqu’en 1789, 4 vols.
(Douai, 1877–1887); G. Koch and F. D. de Mayer, ‘Douai à la fin du XIe siècle’, RN 33
(1951), 56–60; C. Verlinden, ‘Souveraineté flamande et souveraineté hennuyère à
Douai’, RN 18 (1932), 1–19. On the collegiate church of Saint-Amé, F. Brassart,
‘Mémoire sur un point important de l’histoire de Douai. Établissement de la
collégiale de Saint-Amé dans cette ville’, Souvenirs de la Flandre Wallonne 12 (1872),
5–62. On the region of Douai, see Delcambre, ‘L’Ostrevant’, and P. Feuchère, ‘La
Pevèle du IXe au XIIIe siècle’, RN 33 (1951), 44–55.
5 Espinas, La vie urbaine de Douai, pp. 14–17.
6 On the excavations at Douai, see most recently E. Louis, Mille ans de fortifications à
Douai, IXe–XIXe siècles (Douai, 1997).
7 Flodoard, Annales, ed. P. Lauer (Paris, 1905), a. 930, p. 46.
8 Flodoard, Annales, a. 930, p. 45; on Arnoldus and his family, see Dhondt, ‘Une
dynastie inconnue’.
9 Flodoard, Annals, a. 930, p. 46.
144
This is Arnould’s last mention in our sources. After Arnould’s death, Arnulf
of Flanders became master of Douai in circumstances which remain obscure.
Since 931–932, when he took over Mortagne and Arras, Arnulf had been
persistently pushing the boundaries of his county southward. In 952 Arnulf
was certainly in control of the northern part of Ostrevant since he had the
authority to chose the abbot of Saint-Amand, and his control of southern
Ostrevant (with Douai) was asserted in 956.12 Douai remained under Arnulf’s
control until his death in 965; as we have seen, his grandson Arnulf II could
not succeed him immediately because of his young age. The interregnum was
secured by Lothar IV, who temporarily took control of Artois and Ostrevant,
including Douai.13 These regions remained under Carolingian authority until
987, when Hugh Capet gave them back to their legitimate heir Arnulf II.
Ostrevant remained Flemish until 1071. Located on the border between
Hainault and Flanders, the region was much disturbed by the succession
crisis of 1070. From 1065, thanks to Baldwin VI’s marriage with Richildis,
countess of Hainault, Hainault and Flanders were ruled by the same Count
Baldwin I (VI); Baldwin’s young son, Arnulf, was supposed to inherit both
counties. At Baldwin’s death, his brother, Robert the Frisian, challenged his
nephew’s succession and required Flanders for himself. After his victory at
the battle of Cassel (1071), Robert mastered Flanders without contest. None-
theless, the castellan of Douai remained loyal to Countess Richildis;
Ostrevant succeeded from Flanders and was placed under the count of
Hainault’s authority. Douai, however, remained occupied by Robert the
Frisian, and its situation remained ambiguous until 1089, when both parties
agreed to officially re-integrate the town into the county of Flanders.14
The foundation of the collegiate church and

St Amatus’s translation
The sources regarding the foundation of Saint-Amé are scarce and were
produced much later than the facts they record. Chronologically, the first
source to mention the collegiate church and the existence of a community of
canons at Douai is the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, written around 1024.
The notice about Douai also confirms the presence of St Amatus’s and
Maurontus’s relics there.
Preterea etiam apud castellum Duwaicum monasterium est canonicorum,

ubi corpora sanctorum icacent Morantii atque videlicet Amati.15
12 Espinas, La vie urbaine de Douai, p. 54 and n. 1.

13 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. I, c. 100, p. 442.
14 The political status of Douai was much disputed in these troubled years: see G. Koch
and F. D. de Meyer, ‘Douai à la fin du XIe siècle’, RN 33 (1951), 56–60.
145
The earliest charter concerning Saint-Amé dates from the same period as the
Gesta. It is a charter dated from 1024, and given by Baldwin IV on the occa-
sion of the dedication of St Amatus’s crypt.16 Other charters – land donations
or personal offerings – were given to Saint-Amé after 1024: in 1031–1050,17
105118 and 1071–1074.19 Nevertheless, none of these texts documents the
circumstance of foundation of the community, and it was not before 1076 that
the story was written down. The foundation story of Saint-Amé survives in
two versions. The first one is represented by three charter-notices: two are
dated from 1076 – one signed by Count Robert and the other by King Philip –
and a third one, given by Gerard II of Cambrai, is dated 1081. The second
version is represented by a, probably forged, royal privilege, allegedly given
by Philip I in 1076. A close examination of the foundation story, and espe-
cially a comparison of the two versions, will shed light both on the circum-
stances of the redaction of these charters and on the aims pursued by the
canons.
The foundation story and the 1076 charters

At the beginning of the year 1076, the canons wrote two charter-notices,
which they sent for validation to the count, Robert the Frisian, and to the king
of France, Philip I.20 Philip’s charter was signed at Senlis on 28 February and
Robert’s charter at Lille, after 22 April. Both documents were then probably
sent back to Saint-Amé. These two charters, which are similar word for word,
apart for a few details which I will indicate, record and confirm Saint-Amé’s
rights and properties. Furthermore, they begin with a historical prologue,
detailing the foundation story of the community. The 1076 charters seem to
have given impetus to the church and the cult of Saint-Amé, because, from
that time on, donation and confirmation charters were more regularly given
to the community. Furthermore, two years after, in 1078, Amatus’s relics
were translated to a new shrine by Gerard II of Cambrai.21 At the same
period, a miracle and a summary of the VAL were interpolated into the Gesta
16 Baldwin IV granted Saint-Amé some revenues on the occasion in a charter published

in F. Brassart, La féodalité. Preuves, vol. 1, pp. 3–4; the authenticity of this unsealed
document is, however, not unanimously accepted: see M. Gysseling, Toponymysch
Woordenboek, vol. 1, p. 468.
17 Published in F. Brassart, La féodalité. Preuves, vol. 1, pp. 4–5, and in Ch. Duvivier,
Actes et documents anciens intéressant la Belgique (Brussels, 1898), pp. 182–83.
18 Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille, 1 G 194, no. 1005.
20 Recueil des actes de Philippe Ier, pp. 438–41, and Actes des comtes de Flandre (1071–1128),
ed. F. Vercauteren (Brussels, 1938), pp. 6–11.
21 This translation was documented in the chronicle that opened the Liber Argenteus, a
liturgical manuscript written at Saint-Amé in the thirteenth century; the manuscript
(Paris, BN, nouv. acq. lat. 1965) is seriously damaged, and the chronicle as well as
several other texts have now disappeared; excerpts of the chronicle have been
published in AA SS, 4 Sept., pp. 131–3. See Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de S. Amé’, p. 91.
146
Episcoporum Cameracensium.22 In conclusion, it appears that the 1076 charters

were part of a concerted effort to promote St Amatus’s cult and to assert his
community’s landholdings and rights. This context is all the more interesting
when we consider the foundation story which introduced the two charters of
1076.
The historical prologues of both charters are devoted to the history of the
origins of the community. This story goes back to the monastery of Breuil,
which, as we have seen, had been founded by the son of St Rictrude, to whom
Hucbald had given the name of Maurontus. This prologue is obviously based
on the main sources regarding Maurontus and Amatus, that is the VR and the
VAL.
Philip I’s charter: Robert’s charter:
Senlis, 28 February 1076 Lille, after 22 April 1076
beatus Maurontus, incliti ducis Adalboldi beatus Maurontus, incliti ducis Adalboldi
atque sancte Rictrudis filius, satis accu- atque sancte Rictrudis filius, satis accu-
rate consideravit quia, ut electorum rate consideravit quia, ut electorum
numero asscriberetur, in proprio fundo numero digne asscriberetur, quandoque in
antiquitus Broilo, a modernis autem proprio fundo ab antecessoribus Broilo, a
Menrivilla nominato, . . . ecclesiam a presentibus autem Menrivilla nominato,
fundamento construxit. Ipso vero, . . . ecclesiam a fundamento construxit.
tempore Luchdovici, Francorum regis, ex Ipso vero, tempore Luchdovici,
Dagoberto prognati, bona sibi jure Francorum regis, ex Dagoberto prognati,
hereditario contigientia beato Amato bona sibi jure hereditario contigientia
viventi, Theoderici tirannide a Senonensi beato Amato viventi, Theoderici tirannide
episcopatu depulso, contulit et post beati a Senonensi episcopatu depulso, contulit
viri exitum ab hujus mundi Egipto, ad et post beati viri exitum ab hujus mundi
ipsius honorem in prefata ecclesia Deo Egipto, ad ipsius honorem in prefata
cum sanctis famulando fratres ecclesia Deo cum sanctis famulando
congregavit.23 fratres congregavit.24
(St Maurontus, son of the illustrious duke Adalbald and of St Rictrude, prop-
erly considered, in order to be inscribed among the chosen ones, to build from
bottom up a church . . . on his own property known as Breuil in ancient times
and today called Merville. At the time of Clovis, king of the Franks and son of
Dagobert, he bequeathed the properties which he had lawfully inherited to St
Amatus when he was still alive, as he had been exiled because of Theoderic’s
tyranny; and after the holy man’s death, in his honor, he [Maurontus] gath-
ered in the same church a congregation of holy brethren serving God.)
Like the VR and the VAL, the prologue contends that Maurontus built a
church on his patrimonial land of Breuil, that he bequeathed his possessions
to Amatus and that at Amatus’s death, Maurontus buried him at Breuil.25
22 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. I, c. 23, p. 410; see Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de S.
Amé’, pp. 102 and 105–6.
23 Actes de Philippe Ier, pp. 438–9.
24 Actes des comtes de Flandre, pp. 8–9.
25 VR, c. 24, p. 500; VAL, c. 23, p. 54.
147
This version, however, differs from the original story, because it contends
that Maurontus gathered the congregation at Breuil only after Amatus’s
death, while in the VR and the VAL, it is clear that the monastic community
pre-dated Amatus’s arrival, since the saint was considered as a living model
for the brethren.26
After the description of the foundation of Breuil, the prologue of the
charters departs from its model in order to introduce new historical elements,
which were recorded neither in the VR nor in the VAL, nor in any later
sources produced at Marchiennes. It relates that St Amatus and other saints
were brought to safety at Soissons at the time of the viking incursions (we
have already seen that they were in Ostrevant around 881–883). It is notable
that Robert’s charter transformed the vikings into Vandals.
Philip’s charter: Robert’s charter:

Fratrum itaque congregatio in predicta Fratrum itaque congregatio in predicta
Merenville ecclesia tam diu Deo Merenville ecclesia tam diu Deo
sanctoque Amato servivit quoadusque sanctoque Amato servivit quoadusque
sui corpus patroni sicut alie suorum sui corpus patroni sicut alie suorum
corpora sanctorum, imminente Danorum corpora sanctorum, imminente
atque barbarorum Nortmannorum Wandalorum persequutione,
persequutione, Suessionem, ab Suessionem, ab incursione
incursione persequutorum munitam, persequutorum munitam, conportavit.28
conportavit.27
(And the congregation of brethren served God as well as St Amatus in this

church of Merville, until, as they were threatened by the persecution of the
Danish and Norman barbarians (the Vandals), the community brought the
body of its patron saint as well as other saints to Soissons, as a protection
against the persecutors’ incursions.)
The relics remained at Soissons until the time of Arnulf I of Flanders. Once in
control of Douai, Arnulf brought Amatus’s relics to the town, and placed
them in a church that seems to have pre-existed the translation, and probably
also Arnulf’s taking over. Let us note that Philip’s charter specifies that the
church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, while Robert’s charter ignores this
detail. It also appears from the prologue that the religious community itself
was founded on the occasion of the translation. The transfer of St Amatus
from his defunct community of Breuil to his new community of Douai was
accompanied by a transfer of landed assets. These lands, granted to Saint-
Amé by Arnulf of Flanders, represent the inheritance that Maurontus had
received from his father Adalbald and that he had bequeathed to Amatus.
26 VR, c. 24, p. 500.

27 Actes de Philippe Ier, p. 439.
28 Actes des comtes de Flandre, p. 9.
148
Philip’s charter: Robert’s charter:

Placatis autem predicte persequutionis Placatis autem predicte persequutionis
fluctuationibus et loco Menriville fluctuationibus et loco id est Menrivilla
devastato prefatorum crudelitate, devastato prefatorum Wandalorum
Arnulfus senex, Flandriensium comes, crudelitate, Arnulfus senex,
communi consilio sue terre principum Flandriensium comes, omnium consilio
effecit ut Duacum, gratia exaltandi, sue telluris principum effecit ut Duacum,
deportaretur corpus sanctissimum, et gratia exaltandi, deportaretur corpus
sancti beneficia sibi a sancto Mauronto sanctissimum, et sancti beneficia sibi a
collata cum ceteris ab alliis hominibus sancto Mauronto collata cum ceteris ab
datis, inferius nominanda, usibus fratrum alliis hominibus datis, inferius
Deo et sancto Amato in predicti loci nominanda, usibus fratrum Deo et sancto
ecclesia famulantium, ad honorem Dei Amato in Duacensi ecclesia famulantium
genitricis Marie prius edificata constituit29 constituit.30
(As the aforementioned persecutions and troubles had calmed down and as
the site of Merville had been devastated by these atrocities (the Vandals’ cru-
elty), Arnulf the Elder, count of Flanders, by common counsel of his princely
lands, established, to exalt the divine grace, that the very holy body would be
translated to Douai and that he constitute the benefits bequeathed to him by
St Maurontus, as well as others, given by other men, which are enumerated
hereafter, for the use of the brethren serving God and St Amatus, in the
church of this town, previously built in honor of the Virgin Mary.
To these lands, which the charters enumerate after the prologue, and which
constitute the historical core of the domain, were added new lands, benefits
and exemptions granted by Arnulf II (965–988), Baldwin IV (988–1035),
Countess Adala (d. 1071) and Walter, castellanus of Douai.31 These new dona-
tions are also detailed in both charters.
The same foundation story of Breuil and Saint-Amé appears for the third
time in a charter given by Gerard II, bishop of Cambrai, on 23 May 1081.32 We
have seen that the king’s and the count’s charters presented small differences:
in Robert’s charter, vikings are replaced with Vandals; in Philip’s charter, the
original titulature of the church in which St Amé was translated (Saint-Mary)
is specified, while the detail is missing in Robert’s charter. Gerard II’s charter
follows the king’s version.
The forged royal exemption of 1076 and the transformation of the

foundation story
Besides these details, the three charters mentioned above present exactly the
same foundation story of Saint-Amé: the foundation of a community at Breuil
by Maurontus around St Amatus’s relics; the translation of Amatus’s relics to

31 Actes de Philippe Ier, pp. 439–41, and Actes des comtes de Flandre, pp. 9–11.
149
Soissons for protection, a second translation from Soissons to Douai by

Arnulf the Great; the transfer of the landed assets of Amatus’s former
community to his new community at Douai. Another version of the founda-
tion story was related in a royal diploma of exemption given to Saint-Amé by
Philip I in 1076.33 This diploma, written at the request of Robert the Frisian,
Baldwin of Hainault and his mother Richildis, is a confirmation of the
community’s privileges, which are augmented with immunity from lay
authority and the right of the canons to elect their own provost. Like the three
charter-notices mentioned above, the royal diploma begins with the founda-
tion story of Saint-Amé. Some narrative differences, however, are notable.
Indeed, the privilege slightly modifies the foundation story of Breuil as it was
told in the other charters. This document implies that Maurontus had built
the church for Amatus, while the charter-notices, following the VR and the
VAL, assert that the church was built before Amatus’s arrival. Let us
remember, too, that both royal diplomas differ from Hucbald’s story
regarding the monastic community of Breuil: for Hucbald, the community
was already founded when Amatus arrived; in the Douai charters, the
community was founded specifically to serve Amatus’s cult.
Philip’s charter: Philip’s privilege:

Senlis, 28 February Senlis, 1076
beatus Maurontus, incliti ducis Adalboldi beatus Maurontus, inclyti ducis
atque sancte Rictrudis filius, satis accu- Adalbaldi atque sancte Rictrudis filius,
rate consideravit quia, ut electorum satis accurate consideravit quia, ut
numero asscriberetur, in proprio fundo electorum numero adscriberetur, bona sibi
antiquitus Broilo, a modernis autem jure hereditario contigentia beato Amato, a
Menrivilla nominato, . . . ecclesiam a Senonensi episcopatu Theoderici regis
fundamento construxit. Ipso vero, tempore tyrannide depulso, contulit et in proprio
Luchdovici, Francorum regis, ex fund, antiquitus Broilo, a modernis autem
Dagoberto prognati, bona sibi jure Menrivilla nominato, . . ., pro voto,
hereditario contigientia beato Amato viventi, sanctissimo episcopo Amato ecclesiam
Theoderici tirannide a Senonensi construxit. Postquam vero sanctum
episcopatu depulso, contulit et post beati episcopum, sibi amabilem, Amatum,
viri exitum ab hujus mundi Egipto, ad Dominus ad celestem patriam . . .
ipsius honorem in prefata ecclesia Deo assumpsit, sacrum corpus illius sacer
cum sanctis famulando fratres Maurontus in supradicta ecclesia
congregavit.34 honorifice tumulavit, et ad honorem Dei
ipsiusque sancti, fratres in ipsa ecclesia
congregavit.35
33 Actes de Philippe Ier, n. 81, pp. 207–10.

34 Actes de Philippe Ier, pp. 438–9.
150
St Maurontus, son of the illustrious duke St Maurontus, son of the illustrious duke
Adalbald and of St Rictrude properly Adalbald and of St Rictrude, properly
considered, in order to be inscribed considered, in order to be inscribed
among the chosen ones, to build from among the chosen ones, to bequeath the
bottom up a church, . . . on his own properties which he had lawfully inher-
property known as Breuil in ancient time ited to St Amatus, bishop of Sens [sic]
and today called Merville. At the time of who had been exiled because of
Clovis, king of the Franks and son of Theoderic’s tyranny, and on his own
Dagobert, he bequeathed the properties property, known as Breuil in ancient time
which he had lawfully inherited by St and today called Merville, he built a
Amatus, bishop of Sens [sic] who had church . . . as a tribute to the holy bishop
been exiled because of Theoderic’s Amatus. After this, the Lord recalled to
tyranny, when he was still alive; and after Heaven the holy bishop . . ., Maurontus
the holy man’s death, in his honor, he buried him with honor in the above
gathered in the same church a congrega- mentioned church and, in his honor and
tion of holy brethren serving God. in the honor of God and this saint, he
gathered a community in the same
church.
This alteration is subtle, but significant, since it reinforces the idea that
Breuil’s community was first and foremost Amatus’s community. A less
subtle alteration of the foundation story of Saint-Amé purports to strengthen
the continuity between the old community of Breuil and the new community
of Douai. Indeed, the prologue of the royal exemption omits Amatus’s trans-
lation from Breuil to Soissons, and contends that the relics were directly
transferred to Douai, even before the vikings’ incursions.

Fratrum itaque congregate in predicta Fratrum itaque congregatio in predicta
Merenville ecclesia tam diu Deo ecclesia, divino famulatui mancipata,
sanctoque Amato servivit quoadusque longo tempore permansit quite, donec
sui corpus patroni sicut alie suorum Danorum et Normannorum gens crudelis
corpora sanctorum, imminente Danorum et aspera devastaret ipsam Menrivillam et
atque barbarorum Nortmannorum circa omnem patriam. Sed imminente
persequutione, Suessionem, ab incursione persequutione, fratres solliciti de corpore
persequutorum munitam, conportavit.36 sui patroni, Duacum, a persequutorum
incursione securum illud
deportaverunt.37
And the congregation of brethren served And the congregation of brethren, dedi-
God as well as St Amatus in this church cated to God’s service, remained in peace
of Merville, until, as they were threatened in this church for a long time, until the
by the persecution of the Danish and cruel and rough race of the Danes and
Norman barbarians, the community Normans devastated Merville and all the
carried away the body of its patron saint surrounding regions. Nevertheless, as the
as well as other saints to Soissons, to persecution was imminent, the brethren,
protect it from the persecutors’ worried about their patron’s body,
incursions. carried it away to Douai to protect it from
the persecutors’ incursions.
36 Actes de Philippe Ier, p. 439. 37 Actes de Philippe Ier, p. 209.
151
Hence, according to the privilege, St Amatus’s relics were brought directly

from Breuil to Douai as early as 881–883. Subsequently, the role attributed to
Arnulf the Great in the translation is different in the privilege.

Placatis autem predicte persequutionis et in ecclesia, ab antecessoribus in honore
fluctuationibus et loco Menriville sancti dei genitricis Mariae ibidem in
devastato prefatorum crudelitate, fundo sancti Mauronti edificata
Arnulfus senex, Flandriensium comes, posuerunt. Placatis autem predicte
communi consilio sue terre principum persequutionis turbationibus et loco
effecit ut Duacum, gratia exaltandi, Menriville devastato, Karolus, rex
deportaretur corpus sanctissimum, et Francorum, et Arnulfus, consul
sancti beneficia sibi a sancto Mauronto Flandriensium, a predictis fratribus
collata cum ceteris ab alliis hominibus requisiti quid agerent de corpore tanti
datis, inferius nominanda, usibus fratrum patroni, convocatis episcopis et
Deo et sancto Amato in predicti loci principibus suis, eorum consilio, . . ., hoc
ecclesia famulantium, ad honorem Dei statuerunt ut in Duaco, gratia exaltandi,
genitricis Marie prius edificata constituit38 corpus venerabilis Amati remaneret in
perpetuum in ecclesia beate Dei genitricis
Mariae, in qua superium memoravimus
esse translatum.39
As the above mentioned persecutions and and they placed them [the relics] in a
troubles had calmed down and as the site church dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
of Merville had been devastated by these which had been built by their predeces-
atrocities, Arnulf the Elder, count of sors on St Maurontus’s property. As the
Flanders, by common counsel of his above mentioned persecutions and
princely lands, established, to exalt the troubles had calmed down, and as the
divine grace, that the very holy body site of Merville had been devastated,
would be translated to Douai and that he Charles, king of the Franks, and Arnulf,
constitute the benefits bequeathed to him consul of Flanders, at the request of the
by St Maurontus, as well as others, given above mentioned brethren, who had
by other men, which are enumerated pleaded to them about their patron’s
hereafter, for the use of the brethren body, as he had called his bishops and his
serving God and St Amatus, in the church princes, with the advise of these men, . . .,
of this town, previously built in honor of they decided, to exalt the divine grace,
the Virgin Mary. that venerable Amatus’s body would
remain for ever in the church of the
Virgin Mary, in which, as we have said, it
had been translated.
The mention of Arnulf and King Charles in this context raises some chrono-
logical problems. Arnulf of Flanders’ only contemporary king to be named
Charles is Charles the Simple (879–893 and 898–922); Arnulf was count of
Flanders from 918 to 965. Hence, the decision made by the two rulers to keep
the relics at Douai had to be taken between 918 and 922. We have seen,

152
however, that Arnulf did not gain control of Douai before 943; his interven-
tion in the issue is thus very unlikely. Furthermore, the text suggests that the
events took place in the aftermath of the viking incursions, that is soon after
883. Another detail of the privilege raises suspicion: it says that the church
dedicated to the Virgin Mary had been built on Maurontus’s land by the ‘pre-
decessors’ of the Breuil community. Since we have seen that Douai did not
emerge before the tenth century, the construction of this church and the exis-
tence of a religious community are unlikely. Moreover, it is the first time that
it is asserted that Douai was part of Maurontus’s properties.
These new alterations to the foundation stories of Breuil and Saint-Amé
are extremely dubious. Another detail of Arnulf and Charles’ role in the foun-
dation raises even more questions: they would have granted Saint-Amé’s
libertas by means of a charter. The granting of libertas and property was alleg-
edly recorded in charters, which, unfortunately, had perished in a fire that
destroyed the church, its library and its archives:
Post multa siquidem tempora contigit ut ipsa ecclesia igne vastaretur, in quo
omne librarium simul et privilegia ecclesie perierunt.40
(A long time after that, the church was destroyed by a fire during which all the
library and the privileges perished.)
Hence, in order to protect the community from predators and maintain the
privileges given by Charles and Arnulf, Philip, king of France, confirmed and
renewed what his predecessor had granted. Strangely enough, the other
charters omit to mention these privileges and the fire that would have
destroyed them. Of course this type of reference to accidental destruction
often covers a forgery and should be considered suspicious. Finally, the fact
that Philip was acting at the common request of Robert the Frisian, count of
Flanders, and his historical rivals, Richildis of Hainault and her son Baldwin,
definitely undermines the credibility of this document.41
The different foundation legends of Breuil and Saint-Amé

The four charters that we have examined here present a version of the foun-
dation of the monastery of Breuil which differs from the earliest version,
represented by the VR and the VAL (version A). In addition, these charters
recount the foundation of the collegiate church of Saint-Amé at Douai and the
circumstances in which its possessions were transmitted from Breuil to

41 Comparison between this royal privilege (Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille,
1G 11, no. 40), which was supposed to be issued from the royal chancery, Gerard of
Cambrai’s 1081 charter (1G 10, no. 6) and the other 1076 charters (1G 11, no. 41, and
Archives Générales du Royaume, Brussels, Fonds des Établissements Religieux, no.
7908), which were produced at Douai, suggests that the three documents were all
written in the scriptorium of Saint-Amé.
153
Douai. This episode is recorded in two distinct versions: one version (B) is
represented by the charters given by Robert the Frisian, Philip I and Gerard II
of Cambrai. Within version A, Robert’s and Philip’s charters present two
differences of details and Gerard’s charter follows Philip’s. The second
version (C) is represented by King Philip’s privilege of exemption, dated 1076
without mention of day and month. It is thus interesting, in order to explain
these differences, to examine in what aspects B and C differ from A on the
one hand, and in what aspects B and C differ from each other, on the other
hand.
The B and C story of the foundation of the community gathered by
Maurontus at Breuil in honor of St Amatus is inspired, factually and stylisti-
cally, by A, which was the only available source concerning these events.42
However, B and C diverge from A on an important point: according to A, the
community had already been founded by Maurontus when Amatus went to
Breuil/Merville, since he was said to be a model of piety for the community.
B and C assert, on the contrary, that before Amatus’s death, there was only a
church at Breuil, and that Maurontus explicitly founded the community
around Amatus’s relics. It is also notable that B and C do not completely
agree on this story either: according to B, the church was already built when
Amatus arrived, while in C, Maurontus built it for him. The twist in the
narration of the foundation of the Breuil community can be explained as an
assertion by the canons of Douai that the early community was not only origi-
nally a community dedicated to St Amatus but also that the purpose of its
foundation was Amatus’s cult. As the heirs to St Amatus’s cult and relics, the
canons of Douai wanted to co-opt the prestige of their patron saint – he was
so impressive that a monastic community was founded in his honor. Further-
more, as de facto material heirs to the landholding which originally belonged
to Breuil, the canons needed to emphasize their spiritual filiation – through
the cult of St Amatus – with the Breuil community.
The major discrepancy between B and C concerns the translation of St
Amatus’s relics to Douai. According to B, the relics were first brought to
Soissons, while, according to C, they were directly translated to Douai.
Nevertheless, both B and C agree on the date of the translation from Breuil –
the time of the viking incursions (881–883). Since the VR and the VAL do not
go beyond their heroes’ death, and since Hucbald remained carefully evasive
about the location of their shrines, neither the VR nor the VAL mentions
Amatus’s translation. The VAL was addressed to the community which
possessed Amatus’s relics.43 If we follow B, in 907, this place should have
been Saint-Médard at Soissons, since the transfer to Douai happened during
Arnulf’s reign (918–965). Nonetheless, no elements in the VAL, which
42 VR, c. 24, p. 500, and VAL, c. 23, p. 54.

43 Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de S. Amé’, p. 106; VAL, c. 5, p. 45.
154
remains strongly focused on Marchiennes and Breuil, suggest that Hucbald

was addressing himself to the community of Saint-Médard. Furthermore,
stories of relics carried away from the viking threat always ring untrue. An
argument in favor of a first translation to Soissons exists, however. In some
manuscripts of the VAL, the vita is followed by a short discussion of Amatus’s
feast day. The author of the addition refutes that, as some seemed to believe,
Amatus’s feast day was on 29 April, and asserts that, after inquiring in the
old books of Saint-Médard and in his archives, he found that the feast was
actually 13 September (as in the VR).44 This addition was, however, not
inserted in the earliest manuscript of the vita, copied at Marchiennes in the
early eleventh century, and the reference to Soissons might just be due to the
author’s knowledge of the story of the relics’ stay in the city.45
While the translation from Breuil to Soissons and from Soissons to Douai
presented in B cannot be proved or disproved, the direct translation from
Breuil to Douai is outwardly suspicious. We have seen that the castrum of
Douai dated from the early tenth century, which means that in the 880s it
would not yet have been a safe place to hide relics. Furthermore, before 943,
Arnulf of Flanders was certainly not in a position which allowed him to inter-
vene at Douai. The assertion made by C that the territory of Douai belonged
to Maurontus is as suspicious as anything regarding this dubious character.
According to Hucbald of Saint-Amand, Adalbald, Maurontus’s father, had
possessions in Ostrevant (pago Austrebatense), but the few elements of infor-
mation which were still available in the tenth century make any attempt at
reconstructing the family’s landholding hazardous. Finally, the story of the
fire which allegedly destroyed the charters given by Arnulf and Charles is
dubious for two reasons: it is not mentioned in B and the devastating fire is a
topos used as often as the vikings to justify the lack of written sources.
Because the ways in which C differs from B are so suspicious, it seems that B
is the more reliable version of the foundation of Saint-Amé. The relics of
Saint-Amé would then have been transferred to Soissons around 880 and
only definitely translated to Douai when Arnulf took over the castrum,
around 943. This is consistent, with the great importance that Arnulf gave to
relics as a means to assert his power. St Amatus’s translation to a newly
conquered Douai resembles, for example, the translation of St Wandrille and
Ansbert to Ghent.46
The context of redaction of the foundation stories

The divergences between A on the one hand, and B and C on the other show
that the authors of B and C, who represented the interests of the canons of
44 Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de S. Amé’, pp. 101–02.

45 Dolbeau, ‘Le dossier de S. Amé’, pp. 90 and 101–2.
46 On Arnulf and his use of relics, see K. Ugé, ‘Relics as Tools of Power’, pp. 52–5, and
Bozoky, ‘La politique des reliques des premiers comtes de Flandre’, pp. 276–8.
155
Saint-Amé, wanted to emphasize the antiquity of St Amatus’s cult and the

legitimacy of the canon’s landed possessions. While this purpose is clear and
understandable, it remains nonetheless remarkable that the foundation story
was recorded so late in the history of the community. We have seen that the
existence of the community and the presence of St Amatus in the collegiate
church were attested from 1024 onward. Nonetheless, no foundation story
seems to have been written before 1076. One could argue for lost sources;
nevertheless, I believe that it is not by chance that the foundation story was
recorded in these official documents. If the narration of the origins of Saint-
Amé appears in such detail in this group of charters, it is because the canons,
at this specific time, were in need of recording their foundation legend; in the
same way they especially needed to protect their landholdings. The examina-
tion of the context of redaction could yield some clues on this issue.
We have seen that the conflicts between Flanders and Hainault which
followed Baldwin VI’s death had placed Douai and its region in an uncom-
fortable position because of its location on the borders of the two opponents’
territories. It is generally considered that by 1071 Ostrevant was definitely
included in Hainault, but that Douai remained a Flemish stronghold
controlled by Robert.47 Nevertheless, the status of Douai was probably not
very clear and it is likely that the city was much disputed between the two
counts. In 1076, Robert undoubtedly represented secular authority in Douai,
since he signed their confirmation charter. The two charters given by Gerard
II, bishop of Cambrai in 1081, are dated from the reign of Robert the Frisian.48
However, Douai must have found itself caught in a stranglehold, and it was
in the town’s authorities’ interest to handle each side carefully. In 1086 and
1087, Walter, the castellanus of Douai, appears as witness in two charters
given by the count of Hainault to the abbey of Hasnon.49 And in a charter
dated 1089 Baldwin II of Hainault calls himself Duacensium comes.50
The evidence for the unstable political situation of Douai during the 1070s
and 1080s is unfortunately limited to the few charters mentioned here. This
troubled situation, although it cannot be more clearly detailed, provides an
ideal context for the two 1076 charters; the canons of Saint-Amé, faced with a
potentially unstable political situation wanted to ensure that their posses-
sions and rights were confirmed by the prince officially in power, Robert the
Frisian, and his lord, the king of France. According to the charters, the core of
47 The status of Douai in these troubled years has been much disputed by modern
historians, and the question has not yet been satisfactorily resolved; see Koch and de
Meyer, ‘Douai à la fin du XIe siècle’.
48 23 May 1081, Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille, 1G 109, no. 282 and 1G 10,
no. 6.
49 Delcambre, ‘L’Ostrevent’, p. 258; Brassart, Preuves, XVIII. I and XVIII. III.
50 Delcambre, ‘L’Ostrevent’, pp. 257–60; charter given by Baldwin II to Marchiennes,
Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille, 10H 323.
156
these possessions was the assets that St Maurontus had allegedly bequeathed
to St Amatus, which Robert’s predecessors had augmented with their own
donations. In order to strengthen the legitimacy of their ownership, the
canons also felt the need to recount the circumstances in which they had
received them. This precision is all the more understandable because the
history of their landholding was an unusual one. They had received St
Amatus’s lands together with his relics. Heirs of St Amatus’s cult, the canons
of Douai were also heirs to his possessions. The transmission of lands from
one community – Breuil – to a new one, through the transmission of the
patron saint’s cult, also encouraged the canons to exaggerate the importance
that Amatus had at Breuil by asserting that the Breuil community was
founded exclusively in his honor. Hence, Amatus was the undisputed patron
saint of Breuil – this title could have also been attributed to Maurontus – and
it was thus legitimate that his belongings should follow him in his new
resting place. It is notable that the twelfth-century polyptych of Marchiennes
used the same narrative technique of assimilating a community’s land-
holdings to its patron saint’s alleged bequest, in order to sacralize and protect
them.
The third 1076 charter, the royal privilege of exemption which, as we have
seen, was probably forged after the other two charters, raises another set of
questions. Two problematic aspects of this privilege could yield some clue
regarding its date of fabrication: the reference to Baldwin and Richildis of
Hainault alongside Robert the Frisian, and the omission of the relics’ stay at
Soissons. The common request to Philip by Richildis, Baldwin and Robert is
suspicious, given the two parties’ troubled relations; this suggests that, when
they wrote the charter, the canons were still unsure of the outcome of the
struggle between Flanders and Hainault over Douai. We have seen that in
1089 Baldwin of Hainault was styling himself Duacensium comes. It is conceiv-
able that at the time of Robert’s death and his succession in 1093 by Baldwin
VII, the political situation of Douai became confused. Furthermore, the conse-
cration of a new ruler was a good opportunity to claim past exemption from
secular authority. The omission of the relics’ passage at Soissons and the
assertion that the church to which they were translated in Douai had been
built by brethren from Breuil on a piece of St Maurontus’s landholding could
yield another explanation. This version of the foundation story emphasizes
the filiation between the old and the new communities and pushes back the
foundation of the community by almost three quarters of a century. Félix
Brassart has suggested that the forgery could be related to the foundation of a
new community of canons at Douai. The origins of the collegiate church of
Saint-Peter at Douai are as obscure as the origins of Saint-Amé. Saint-Peter
appears for the first time in the sources in 1117, but it had been founded some
time earlier. The building of the new collegiate church, dedicated to Saint-
Peter, had probably started in 1105, and in 1112 a community of canons was
settled there. In these conditions, investing Saint-Amé with a longer history
157
would indeed have been a skillful way for the canons of Saint-Amé to empha-
size the antiquity of their community. And the attribution of a royal privilege
could only raise their prestige in the face of the rival community51
Adalbald, Erchinoald and the castrum of Douai
We have seen that twelfth- and thirteenth-century sources from Marchiennes

recorded that Adalbald, who was Rictrude’s husband and Maurontus’s
father, was also Erchinoald’s brother. Erchinoald was not only mayor of the
Neustrian palace, he was also said by Fredegar to be related to King Dagobert
through Bertetrude, the king’s mother. In our sources, the legend appears for
the first time in the Chronicon Vedastinum. The manuscript of this chronicle,
written at Saint-Vaast in the second half of the eleventh century, was trans-
ferred to Marchiennes, where it was annotated in the twelfth century. The
passage concerning Erchinoald and Adalbald belongs to the original text.
Defuncto Erchinoaldo palatii comite, viro strenuo et sapiente, Franci Ebroino

iussu regis curam palatii committunt. Hic Erchinoaldus cum fratre
Adabaldo, patre sancti Mauronti, reedicaverunt Duacum castrum et infra
castrum Dei genitricis Marie templum. Hic enim locus antiquitus fuerat
consecratus.52
(At the death of Erchinoald, mayor of the palace, strong and wise man, the
Franks delegated the care of the palace to Ebroin by the king’s order. This
Erchinoald, and his brother Adalbald, St Maurontus’s father, re-built the
castrum of Douai and inside the castrum, built a church dedicated to the Virgin
Mary. Indeed, this place was consecrated in very ancient time.)
Probably based on this passage, Andrew of Marchiennes’ Chronicon

Marcianense (twelfth-century) and a thirteenth-century addition to the Annales
Marchianenses repeat the same story.53 It is also found in the chronicle which
began the Liber Argenteus, a thirteenth-century manuscript which also contains
hagiographical texts of interest to the community.54 It is notable that none of
the earlier sources from Marchiennes, from the VR to the Vita Mauronti,
mentioned Erchinoald as Adalbald’s brother; furthermore, as we have seen,
Douai could hardly be qualified as a castrum before the tenth century. Hence,
this late development of Adalbald’s genealogy is obviously spurious. Relating
51 Brassart, ‘Mémoire sur un point important de l’histoire de Douai’, p. 15; the origins
of Saint-Peter at Douai are obscure, see P. Héliot, ‘Quelques monuments disparus de
la Flandre Wallonne: l’abbaye d’Anchin, les collégiales Saint-Pierre et Saint-Amé de
Douai’, Revue Belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art 28 (1959), 154–64.
52 Chronicon Vedastinum, p. 694.
53 Chronicon Marcianense, p. 456, and Annales Marchianenses, p. 611.
54 On the Liber Argenteus, see above, n. 22.
158
Adalbald to Erchinoald – and thus to Dagobert – had the effect of raising his,
and his children’s, prestige. Asserting that he was dux of Douai and that he
rebuilt the castrum and the church created a historical link between Adalbald,
the city of Douai and the church that would become Saint-Amé. For the canons
of Saint-Amé this interpretation of the VR, which said that Adalbald owned
lands in the pagus Atrebatensis, pushed back the consecration of their church to
the seventh century, and related this consecration to the family of one of their
tutelary saints, Maurontus. It is consistent with the second version of the foun-
dation story, found in the forged royal privilege, which asserts that Douai
belonged to Adalbald’s patrimony. By the same token, since, according to the
VR, Maurontus had bequeathed his heritage to St Amatus, the canons of
Saint-Amé could claim that they were living on a piece of land that historically
belonged to their patron saint.
Conclusion
The canons of Saint-Amé at Douai, amidst the political troubles that were
shaking the region of Ostrevant in the 1070s, felt an urgent need to have their
possessions confirmed by their secular authorities: the count of Flanders, and
his lord, the king of France. This confirmation was the occasion to inscribe on
parchment the history of the community’s origins, and above all, the history
of the transmission of its landholding. This rehearsing of the origins had to be
done in order to explain the circumstances in which the canons had been
endowed with their possessions, and, subsequently, to justify the legitimacy
of these possessions. The foundation legend of a religious community is
usually closely related to its patron saint’s legend. In the case of Saint-Amé,
its patron, Amatus, and its other major saint, his acolyte Maurontus, had a
past of their own, in relation to another community, the abbey of
Marchiennes, which the canons had to take into account. Because of the
geographical proximity between Marchiennes and Douai, the canons could
not deny that Amatus and Maurontus belonged to Marchiennes’ tradition,
and they had to integrate this tradition within their own foundation story.
Not only did they acknowledge St Amatus’s and St Maurontus’s past, but
also they took advantage of the prestige that could be drawn from their asso-
ciation with Rictrude’s cycle to further magnify their own past.
We have seen in the previous chapter that the name of Rictrude’s son,
Maurontus, was probably a creation of Hucbald of Saint-Amand. We have
also seen that Hucbald had only a vague idea about the identity of St Amatus
of Sion, whom he seemed to confuse to some extent with St Amatus of
Remiremont.55 The fate of these saints’ relics was as obscure as their legend.
55 Hucbald said that Amatus of Sion’s feast was 13 September, the day of Amatus of
Remiremont’s own feast.
159
According to the VAL and the VR, Amatus was buried in the abbatial church
of Breuil. Probably because of his geographical estrangement from
Marchiennes, his cult does not appear to have been claimed by the commu-
nity, and his name does not appear in the twelfth-century miracle collections
from Marchiennes. Regarding his cult at Breuil, it is completely obscured by
lack of information on the community itself.56 As for Maurontus, the VR and
the VAL do not specify his burial place, while the eleventh-century Vita
Mauronti asserts, in contradiction with the earlier texts, that he became abbot
of Marchiennes and that he died there.57 The success of a cult, however, relied
on popular adhesion and institutional impulse and not on the saint’s histo-
ricity. Therefore, despite their shadowy histories, Maurontus’s and Amatus’s
cults and legends could be developed without problems at Marchiennes and
Douai. Despite, or rather thanks to, the elusive nature of Amatus’s and
Maurontus’s characters, their legends and cults were easily co-opted and
adapted by the canons of Douai.58 The canons borrowed the history of
Amatus and his community of Breuil from the VR and the VAL, and they
transformed it in such a way that St Amatus appeared not only to be Breuil’s
legitimate patron saint, but also to have been the community’s raison d’être.
This narrative artifice was clearly meant to legitimize the transfer of estates
from Breuil to Douai and to give a sense of antiquity to the canon’s commu-
nity. As for St Maurontus’s relics, the canons never justified their possession.
Given the ambiguity of the texts of Rictrude’s cycle concerning these relics, it
would have been easy for them to assert that St Maurontus reached Douai in
the same circumstances as St Amatus. Perhaps the fact that the community of
Marchiennes never seriously challenged their possession of these relics
exempted the canons from long justifications.
More or less at the same time as the foundation story of Saint-Amé was
elaborated, the canons incorporated their patron saint’s legend into the
history of the city of Douai by asserting that Maurontus’s father, Adalbald,
had been a duke of Douai who had rebuilt its castrum and founded the
church. This legend, which was repeated in twelfth- and thirteenth-century
chronicles from Saint-Vaast (Chronicon Vedastinum) and Marchiennes
(Chronicon Marcianense and Annales Marchianenses) also appeared in the
chronicle copied in the Liber Argenteus. The nature of the story leaves little
doubt that it was created at Douai rather than at Marchiennes. Beyond the
prestige that the canons could gain by asserting that their church dated back
to the seventh century, the legend also has implications regarding the
community’s landholding. Since Maurontus was Adalbald’s heir, and since
56 VAL, c. 27, p. 54 and VR, c. 31, p. 502.

57 AA SS, 2 May, c. 4, p. 53.
58 Obscurity was, indeed, the main characteristic of Western local saints who were
translated to new places, see Geary, Furta Sacra, p. 101.
160
Amatus was Maurontus’s heir, Douai, as well as the assets of Breuil,

belonged to St Amatus.
Subsequently, the foundation story as it was told in the 1076 charters and
the legend of ‘duke Adalbald’ acted to legitimize and sacralize the commu-
nity of Saint-Amé’s possessions in and out of Douai. The translation of relics
from an old community to a new one does not naturally involve a simulta-
neous transfer of the saint’s legend and landholding; the new hosts were
indeed often eager to create a completely new tradition better fitted for their
own needs and aspirations, and to suppress the memory of the saint’s
previous community. Moreover, the new owners did not hesitate to denigrate
the saint’s old resting place in order to justify the transfer and present it as the
expression of the saint’s will.59 By integrating and adapting the tenth-century
legend of St Rictrude to this necessity, the canons were able to assert their
filiation with Marchiennes’ tradition without inducing a conflict of interest
with the monks; they were so successful in this operation that their story was
integrated into Marchiennes’ historiography.
The examination of Saint-Amé’s foundation story shows how carefully the
new legend was crafted by the community, which stresses how important it
was for the canons to have a suitable history of their origins. This example is
interesting, because it shows how the legend of one religious community
could be appropriated by another one and adapted to new needs. Further-
more, it bolsters the observation that we have already made about narrative
production at Saint-Bertin and Marchiennes: that the writing of history is
never gratuitous, neither in its form nor in its timing. The emphasis of the
foundation legend – in the 1076 charters as well as in the chronicles – was
clearly placed on the issue of the legitimacy of the community’s landholding;
that the legend was written down for the first time in confirmation charters is
consistent with its purpose. To conclude, these observations corroborate the
observation that we have already made in previous chapters, that there are a
close relationships between a religious community’s need to assert its
landholding and the (re)writing of its foundation legend, and between its
need to record its possessions and its history.
59 See Geary, Furta Sacra, pp. 78–94.
161
CONCLUSION
Study of the politics of narrative production at Saint-Bertin, Marchiennes and

Saint-Amé lets us examine how each community made its past useful
through the preservation and alteration of its historical tradition. Observing
this process community by community has allowed us not only to study the
life of each of them in some detail, but also to assess their cultural and literary
abilities and their material and spiritual values. To broaden the conclusions
beyond the specifics of each community, I would like to look back at the main
issues raised in the previous chapters. A number of subjects stand out as
fundamental and recurrent: the process of creating a usable past through the
preservation and transformation of a community’s archives and historical
tradition; the impetus behind historiographic production; the issues of
forgery and ‘historical truth’ and the related questions of genre and content.
If we compare how each community engaged in the process of writing and
re-writing its own history, the most significant outcome may be that early
and high medieval historiography knew no general rules and followed no
overreaching conventions. Each community used narrative production to
express its own set of values and to respond to crisis situations in a mostly
idiosyncratic, original and even inventive way. A community’s historio-
graphical politics did not depend on prescribed precepts and methods;
rather, they were the product of the circumstances of the time, the cultural
and intellectual environment of the monastery and of the textual models
available – in Gabriel Spiegel’s words, the ‘social logic of the text’.1
The communities studied engaged in this narrative process for centuries,
through the preservation, destruction and alteration of their historical tradi-
tions and archives. Each community, however, did it in its own, particular
way, with varying intensities, purposes and methods. The monks of Saint-
Bertin, who continuously reinvented their past over a period of eight
hundred years, were the most steadfast in this endeavor. The abbey’s
archives and the narratives produced in the tenth and eleventh centuries
constituted such fruitful records of the past that they remained in use until
the French Revolution. Nevertheless, the conflict that triggered most of the
monks’ writing efforts – their struggle over supremacy and anteriority with
the canons of Saint-Omer – was never resolved. Ironically, despite their
extraordinary perseverance, the monks of Saint-Bertin never found closure;
1 G. Spiegel, ‘History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages’,
Speculum 65 (1990), 84.
162
Conclusion
in a sense, their example illustrates the limits of narrative production as a

means of coping with crises.
The abundance of archival and narrative material, as well as the ‘readabil-
ity’ of the process through which this material was preserved and altered at
Saint-Bertin, is exceptional. In comparison, Marchiennes’ pattern of archive
preservation and historical writing was sporadic. When Hucbald wrote the
Vita Rictrudis (VR) in 907, the foundation legend of Marchiennes and the life
of its patron saint no longer existed in a written form, and its oral transmis-
sion had already altered its content. Although Hucbald attributed the disap-
pearance of written records describing Rictrude’s life to viking depredation,
it is not unlikely that the early community simply did not concern itself with
the preservation of its own archives and ancient manuscripts. And indeed it
was not until the restoration of Marchiennes in 1024 that charters were regu-
larly produced and preserved there. Naturally, this observation raises the
question of the composition and preservation of the community’s archives:
was the transformation of Marchiennes’ patrimony recorded in charters? If it
was, these charters were clearly not carefully preserved. Moreover, it does
not appear that gifts and land exchanges were recorded in other types of
texts, such as vitae and chronicles. It is nonetheless possible that the commu-
nity of Marchiennes did not significantly increase its patrimony between its
foundation and its re-foundation, and that there was, in fact, little to record.
This is why, after 1024, the focus of most narrative production at
Marchiennes – the polyptych and the miracle collections – was the recupera-
tion and legitimization of the community’s assets. That the community of
Marchiennes was not thriving in the ninth and tenth centuries is not contra-
dicted by the picture of the community captured in its pre-1024 narrative
production. Besides the VR and the other vitae composed by Hucbald (the
VAL and Vita Jonati), the other narratives from Marchiennes, which pre-date
the restoration, are the VR metrica and a prose and verse life of St Eusebia
written around the year 1000. It is notable that all these texts were commis-
sioned from authors at Saint-Amand – Hucbald and John – which suggests
that the community did not have the intellectual resources to produce its own
texts. The restoration radically changed this situation: as an effect of Richard
of Saint-Vanne’s reform, charters fixing the possessions and rights of
Marchiennes started being produced and preserved. In the twelfth century,
all the community’s lands and revenues were recorded in the polyptych.
The religious communities studied in this book differed radically in their
size, wealth and intellectual achievements; accordingly, they differed greatly
from one another in their attitudes toward the creation and use of their
historical traditions. There is no doubt that a wealthy and culturally devel-
oped abbey such as Saint-Bertin faced different problems than Marchiennes.
By the same token, these privileged abbeys were more adept at defending
themselves, promoting their patron saint’s cult or raising money with sophis-
ticated literary skills. These inequalities in status and culture account for their
163
different politics of narrative production. Still, it is noteworthy that the

motives behind narrative production were roughly the same for all these
communities: cult promotion, assertion of relics, landholding, conflicts with
other communities etc. Motives alone cannot justify why each adopted
different attitudes toward the preservation and use of its past. Instead, their
different and idiosyncratic politics of narrative production should be
explained in a different way. But before turning to this question let us investi-
gate the different motives that induced these communities to put pen to
parchment.
Although each community had its specific motivations for the production
of historiography, some common themes were shared by all. In the ninth
century, monastic communities intensively engaged in the promotion of their
patron saints’ cults: vitae of the founding fathers were written for the first
time (e.g. the first vitae of SS Omer, Bertin and Winnoc), or old lives were
rewritten according to Carolingian literary tastes and spiritual aspirations.
The stricter regulation of the cult of relics under the Carolingians also forced
monks and nuns to justify the possession of their saints’ relics. Viking attacks
provided an endless source of miracle stories (Libellus Miraculorum S. Bertini),
miraculous findings of relics that had been hidden from them (Inventio S.
Bertini) or a justification for translations of relics to new communities (the
foundation story of Saint-Amé). In the tenth century, the disruption – alleged
or real – brought about by the vikings entailed the production of narratives
aimed at reviving vanishing cults, which also provided communities with a
foundation story and liturgical texts (the VR was written in this context). In
the eleventh century, preoccupation with landholding became a common
incentive to produce texts, which were supposed to help communities fight
back their lay rivals. This trend was already perceptible in the tenth century
(Folcuin’s Gesta), but it permeates most of the eleventh- and twelfth-century
narratives (Simon’s Gesta, Marchiennes’ twelfth-century polyptych). Simi-
larly, efforts were made to protect and claim landholding by emphasizing its
sacred nature through its association with a patron saint (the will in the
Marchiennes polyptych, the foundation story of Saint-Amé at Douai).
The texts cover many of the medieval genres: hagiography (vitae, miracle
collections, relic narratives), history (chronicles, annals, gesta), charters,
cartularies, polyptychs, lists of abbots. Text after text, we have seen that the
formal distinction between genres was more theoretical than actual, and that
these genres interpenetrate one another. As a consequence, the use of these
different genres by monastic authors varied greatly, depending on the partic-
ular circumstances of the moment and the community itself. Indeed, each
community used different narrative tools and adopted its own system of
defense or promotion, best suited to its particular situation.
In this respect, attitudes toward assertion and protection of landholding
are especially significant. At Saint-Bertin, the community adopted a historical
and documentary approach to these problems. Folcuin wrote the Gesta
164
Conclusion
Abbatum in a context in which the count of Flanders had interfered with

monastic matters and had appropriated parts of the community landholding.
The Gesta was written in part to provide the community with a document
that could easily be consulted at all times to find information about
Saint-Bertin’s assets. Similarly, the continuation of the Gesta by Simon, which
records a number of confirmation diplomas, reports conflicts between the
community and local lords.
At Marchiennes, where there was little written documentation available,
the community resorted to the sacralization of its landholding by empha-
sizing its links to St Rictrude. When the eleventh-century reformed abbots
attempted to claim back the community’ s landholding, the foundation story
of the abbey was transformed so that its patron saint, Rictrude, would appear
as the original owner of its lands. In the twelfth century, as the abbey still
engaged in disputes with its neighbors and advocates, an abbot commis-
sioned the composition of the polyptych, which recorded all the possessions
and revenues of the community. Furthermore, the polyptych was preceded
by a historical introduction that not only repeated the legend of Rictrude’s
original ownership of Marchiennes, but also enhanced it with the will
through which she bequeathed her possessions to her community. Although
this text substantially altered the content of the VR, no attempt at adapting
Hucbald’s text was made. Later on, as the conflicts went on, the monks of
Marchiennes produced an enormous corpus of miracle stories in which the
community’s enemies were chastised by St Rictrude and the other saints
associated with the abbey.
At Saint-Amé at Douai, the canons, like the monks of Saint-Bertin, resorted
to a documentary and historical approach, but they combined this with a
sacralization of their landholdings similar to the technique adopted at
Marchiennes. Because the city of Douai was in the midst of acute political
fights over its control, the canons felt the need to gain from their secular
rulers, the count of Flanders and his overlord, the king of France, confirma-
tion of their possessions in a series of diplomas. Furthermore, in the same
charters, they justified their ownership of these lands by relating in detail the
circumstances in which they had received them. Simultaneously, the canons
asserted the sacred nature of their assets by emphasizing the simultaneity of
the transfer of St Amatus’s relics and his lands to the chapter of Douai.
In conclusion, all these communities developed their own protective tools.
Saint-Bertin, which could draw on considerable charter material, resorted to
the writing of gesta with abundant charter material to record and protect its
landholding. And Folcuin did so very early, in the mid-tenth century, at a
time when cartularies were still an exception in the West. At Marchiennes,
where there were no archives until the eleventh century, the community
could not produce documentation of ownership. The author of the polyptych,
who carefully enumerated the sources he used to gather his account of the
community’s landholding, does not even mentions charters anywhere.
165
Hence, even in the polyptych, the legitimacy of Marchiennes’ landholding

was still asserted through its sacred association with St Rictrude rather than
through legal documents. That these communities’ varied narrative answers
to similar problems underlines that, until the twelfth century, narrative
genres were extremely flexible and that early medieval authors used and
adapted them freely, according to their communities’ needs and resources.
Whatever the genre of narrative produced by communities who needed to
represent and transform their past (vitae, charters, polyptychs, chronicles),
foundation stories took a prominent place in all these texts. Foundation
stories were indeed the very texts that asserted the antiquity of the monas-
tery, its privileged relation with its founder – patron saint, king, local ruler –
and the legitimacy of its property. Hence, most communities at some point
provided themselves with a detailed foundation legend: Saint-Bertin,
Marchiennes and Douai, all did this. Not only were these foundation stories
related in different genres, but their focus and purpose notably varied. Here,
the choice of the genre in which the foundation story was related was not
fortuitous: genre and purpose were intimately related. The original founda-
tion of Saint-Bertin, first related in the VA1, was rewritten in favor of the
Benedictine community in another hagiographic text (VB2), and legalized by
a forged donation charter. Folcuin’s Gesta presented a coherent and official
foundation story of Saint-Bertin by tying together the complete new version:
vita and charter. The foundation story of Marchiennes was also told in the vita
of the community’s patron saint. Thanks to a mix of genuine tradition, confu-
sion and imagination, the VR accumulated characters, historical background
details and insistent name-dropping; this narrative technique emphasized the
historicity of the foundation of Marchiennes and of Rictrude’s life, as well as
her spiritual and social prestige. The nature of the VR allowed for endless
developments and alterations, not only at Marchiennes, but also at Douai.
The author and commissioners of the VR seem to have been little concerned
with asserting their landholding, since there is no reference to Marchiennes’
patrimony in the vita and no donation charter was preserved or forged.
Therefore, when it became necessary to do so later, the foundation story was
transformed so that it could be used to protect the community’s assets. Simi-
larly, at Douai, the canons of Saint-Amé remodeled the episode of the foun-
dation of Breuil and St Amatus’s exile as told in the VR and VAL to use it as
their own foundation story. The canons of Douai, however, did not write this
new foundation legend in a vita of their patron saint, but rather, they copied
their foundation story into charters.
Such endless developments were common for communities where the
tradition was obscure and uncertain, and where imaginative memory could
be developed without barrier. This is visible in the VR, where Rictrude and
her children are associated with King Dagobert, Queen Nanthild, St Amand
and St Richer. We have seen that St Richer’s intervention as well as
Maurontus’s name were accidental, and resulted from the confusion between
166
Conclusion
our Rictrude and another woman named Rictrude in the Vita Richarii. Also,
the assertion developed at Douai, that her husband Adalbald was
Erchinoald’s brother, has no historical basis and resulted from a desire to turn
him into a local aristocrat who would have rebuilt the castrum of Douai. The
format of the VR, with its numerous characters, allowed for other develop-
ments. As a result, a twelfth-century tradition invented family links between
St Bertha of Blangy and St Rictrude, again because of a vague similarity of
names. Historians trying to assess a date or the veracity of a fact sometimes
trust these associations of names, because they are plausible. Nevertheless,
careful examination of early medieval narrative techniques shows that the
association of the patron saint and the community with a lay ruler, a presti-
gious bishop or a famous saint, was often a mere narrative device, used to
embellish and historicize an otherwise dubious story.
Dealing with the issue of truth and forgery in early medieval history is
extremely difficult. Forged charters may be the simplest case of forgery to
handle. Some are so obviously wrong in their date and wording that the
question of their veracity is not even an issue. Once the forgery has been
detected, the time and reason of fabrication can usually be inferred with a
little bit of detective work. The question of forged narratives is more difficult,
because it implies that a true version of the story existed, which was then
knowingly altered. The cases of the foundation stories of Saint-Bertin,
Marchiennes and Douai are, in this regard, good examples. The second foun-
dation story of Sithiu concocted by the monks of Saint-Bertin to assert their
superiority over the canons was a transparent transformation of the first
foundation story of the VA1, and its purpose is obvious. Nevertheless, there is
no way to assess whether the earlier text reflected a more truthful account of
the actual circumstances of the foundation of the community, simply because
the possible bias and agenda of the author of the VA1 remains unknown.
What is interesting in comparing the two versions is not so much the
discovery of a hypothetically true story, but, rather, the uncovering of the
message that the authors of both texts wanted to convey. Similarly, according
to the VR, Rictrude was not Marchiennes’ founder, and there is no mention
that she or her husband ever owned its patrimony. Nevertheless, this is
exactly what the foundation story inserted in Marchiennes’ polyptych asserts.
This is not impossible, given that the family owned neighboring Hamage, but
the question cannot be fully settled. Given the circumstances in which
Hucbald gathered his documentation to write the VR, the anteriority of the
VR over later texts of the cycle is not a warranty of truthfulness. Here again,
since we will never know for sure who St Jonatus was or in what year
Marchiennes was founded, what is interesting in the development of
Rictrude’s legend are the motives behind its alteration rather than its
veracity. Finally, the foundation of Saint-Amé exemplifies very well the
futility of disentangling the true and the false from foundation legends. We
have seen that in the first version of their foundation story, recorded in two
167
1076 diplomas, the canons of Saint-Amé had borrowed the foundation story
of Breuil from the VR; nonetheless, they altered the story so that it appeared
that the monastic community had been specifically founded by Maurontus
for Amatus’s cult after his death. In the original version of the VR and VAL,
Maurontus’s community pre-dated St Amatus’s arrival, since the VAL asserts
that Amatus became abbot of Breuil. Technically, the canon of Douai’s
version of the foundation of Breuil is a fabrication; but what about the story
of the VR? We have seen that Maurontus never existed and that St Amatus
was a most mysterious character. Neither of the two Breuil foundation stories
can be qualified as trustworthy. Here again, the interest of these stories lies in
their construction, and not in their authenticity.
The idiosyncratic way in which monastic communities dealt with their
enemies in the tenth and eleventh centuries reflects the absence of a unified
and efficient judicial system before the later twelfth century. In the course of
dispute settlement, communities could bring in a very broad array of docu-
ments, from charters to vitae to miracle stories, as evidence.2 In a context in
which the law was not yet a ‘circumscribed world requiring a close adherence
to set legal procedures and written forms’, each community had to find its
own way to thwart its enemies and to negotiate the most acceptable solution.3
This was all the more so, since the counts often proved unable to ensure a
proper administration of justice and settle conflicts. The polemical nature of
many texts in which monastic authors wrote about their community should
not mislead us into thinking that, struggle and conflicts with the outside
world was their only motivation. Clearly, historical narratives were at least as
significant within communities as they were to any external audience.
Writing about the community’s past purported to commemorate the sacred
origins of the community or to emphasize particularly prominent events, two
of many means to impress on rivals. But it was also a way for the community
to justify its existence and finality.4 The transmission of these stories within
the community ensured that the members knew and partook in the specific
character of their institution. Once the narrative became obsolete because of
new internal or external events, somebody felt compelled to re-write a new
story better fitted to the new circumstances and more meaningful, primarily
for the members of the group. Writing history was thus a powerful tool to
strengthen the cohesion and perenniality of a community.
2 On the impact of the absence of a centralized judicial system on the ways monastic
communities negotiated with their enemies, see B. Rosenwein, ‘Monks and their
Enemies’, pp. 764–9.
3 R. Fleming, Domesday Book and the Law: Society and Legal Custom in Early Medieval
England (Cambridge, 1998), p. 67.
4 See S. Vanderputten, ‘Pourquoi les moines du moyen âge écrivaient-ils de l’histoire’,
Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 42, fasc. II (2001), 705–23 (pp. 716–20). The author
develops the idea that such narratives boosted the community’s ‘self-confidence’.
168
Conclusion
This self-centered – shall we say almost narcissistic? – aspect of monastic

historiography is pervasive among all the communities examined here. Nat-
urally, outside interferences, particularly the counts of Flanders’ interven-
tions in spiritual and secular matters, had a strong impact on the
communities’ lives. Nonetheless, our monastic authors demonstrated little
interest in writing about the broader political or even ecclesiastical context in
which their community existed. This is true not only for Saint-Bertin and
Marchiennes, but also for the other major communities in the county of Flan-
ders, which also produced a fair number of narratives of all kinds in the tenth
and eleventh centuries: Saint-Amand and Saint-Vaast in the south of the
county and Saint-Peter and Saint-Bavo at Ghent in the north.5 Whenever
secular rulers, and singularly the counts of Flanders, appear in these narra-
tives, it is most of the time in respect to their impact on the monastery. Elisa-
beth van Houts has suggested that the Flemish monks’ and clerics’ lack of
interest in comital eulogies was the result of the counts’ inability to properly
settle disputes and protect their religious communities. This is reflected in the
authors’ often ambivalent and sometimes utterly negative representation of
the counts in their narratives: for example, Folcuin’s perception of Arnulf the
Great or his view of Baldwin II. If Flemish authors were not interested in
writing about the politics of their time and region, the counts themselves
made no attempt at patronizing narrative production (historical or other).6 In
Flanders, there was no Dudo of Saint-Quentin or William of Jumièges to tell
us about the glory of Baldwin II, Count Arnulf and their heirs. It is true that
Normandy stands out among all other principalities as particularly rich and
precocious in terms of ‘national’ and dynastic historiography.7 If the Flemish
dynasty was not yet mature for literary patronage in the tenth and eleventh
5 On Saint-Amand and Saint-Vaast, see K. Ugé, ‘Politics of Narrative Production’, pp.

299–340 and 258–98. At Saint-Amand, narratives focused mostly on the cult of the
prestigious saint: vita, miracles, delationes etc. In the second half of the ninth century,
Milo assembled a comprehensive hagiographic dossier arount the original vita. In
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Amand’s relics were used in delationes to assert
the abbey’s property rights. A number of texts describing the events were written on
the occasion. At Saint-Vaast, the possession of Vedast’s relics and, later, the assertion
of the abbey’s landholding, were the main object of narrative production. Saint-Peter
and Saint-Bavo spent much energy producing narratives in the context of the
struggle for prestige supremacy that opposed them for centuries: see I. Van’t Spijker,
‘Gallia du Nord et de l’Ouest. Les provinces ecclésiastiques de Tours, Rouen, Reims
(950–1130)’, in Hagiographies, ed. G. Philippart, 2 vols. (Brepols, 1996) II, 239–90 (pp.
264–70).
6 On lack of comital patronage for historical narratives in Flanders, see E. van Houts,
‘The Flemish Contribution to Biographical Writing in the Eleventh Century’, in The
Limits of Medieval Biography: Essays in Honor of Professor Frank Barlow, ed. D. Bates, J.
Crick and S. Hamilton (Woodbridge, forthcoming); I thank the author for giving me
the manuscript of her article.
7 L. Shopkow, History and Community, and E. van Houts, ‘Historical Writing’.
169
centuries, the talent of local monks found more eager patrons on the other
side of the Channel. Folcard and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin are famous for their
prolific careers as hagiographers and biographers in England, where they
were commissioned by queens, bishops and religious communities to write
historical, polemical and hagiographic works.8
Relations between Saint-Bertin and England had long been close. Around
886, Grimbald had been called to England by King Alfred, who appointed
him abbot of Winchester; in 944, a group of dissident monks fleeing Gerard of
Brogne’s reform sailed to England where they were settled at Bath by King
Edmund. We have seen that at the turn of the millennium Abbot Odbert had
successfully sought the patronage of the archbishop of Canterbury,
Aethelgar, and his successor Siric.9 Manuscript illumination during Odbert’s
abbacy shows that the relationship had been fruitful financially as well as
culturally and artistically. Saint-Bertin was not the only Flemish monastery to
benefit from English patronage: many insular prelates, and singularly the
archbishops of Canterbury, maintained close links with most of the reformed
Flemish monasteries, such as Saint-Vaast and Saint-Peter at Ghent.
Around 1040, Queen Emma, wife of King Aethelred (d. 1016) and after
him of the Danish King Cnut (d. 1035), commissioned during her exile in
Flanders the so-called Encomium Emmae Reginae, a biography of her late
husband Cnut, from a monk of Saint-Bertin. Emma’s choice of a Fleming was
probably determined by circumstances, since she was exiled in Flanders at
the time – and perhaps few Englishmen would have been ready to support
her pro-Danish agenda.10 Whereas the author of the Encomium Emmae wrote
in Flanders for an English queen in exile, both Folcard and Goscelin pursued
most of their careers overseas. Folcard, who had written the third life of St
Bertin around 1050 for Abbot Bovo (1042–1065), left Flanders for England
between 1050 and 1066. In his preface to the vita of St John of Beverly, which
he wrote for Ealdred, bishop of York, Folcard relates that his abbot, out of
‘domestic hatred’, had expelled him ‘out of the monastic ship into the waves
of the sea’ with the assistance of the secular power. Although he does not
name them, there is little doubt that the abbey was Saint-Bertin and the
ungracious abbot was Bovo. The circumstances that led Folcard to England
are obscure. He relates that he had met Ealdred through a queen’s interces-
sion – she was probably Edith, Edward’s wife and Queen Emma’s daughter-
in-law. How Folcard met the queen is unclear. Frank Barlow suggests that
8 E. van Houts, ‘The Flemish Contribution to Biographical Writing’, and S.

Vanderputten, ‘Canterbury and Flanders’.
9 See S. Vanderputten, ‘Canterbury and Flanders’, pp. 8–12 and 18–21, for the edition
and translation of the letters.
10 The text was a political pamphlet with a clear agenda: the promotion of Emma’s sons
by Cnut to the detriment of Edward and Alfred, Aethelred’s sons. For the attribution
of the Encomium, see the editors’ comments: Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. A. Camp-
bell and S. Keynes (Cambridge, 1998).
170
Conclusion
Folcard may have left Flanders for England with Goscelin, another monk of
Saint-Bertin. Goscelin came to England with Bishop Herman of Salisbury, a
man of Lotharingian origin who was entrusted with the bishopric of
Wiltshire thanks to his services to King Edward. Herman was then exiled at
Saint-Bertin from 1055 to 1058 but, thanks to Queen Edith, he was allowed to
come back to England and was given the bishopric of Sherborne. Goscelin,
who had probably met him during his years of exile, joined him shortly after
and remained in Herman’s entourage until the bishop’s death in 1078. Then,
he began a life of migration from monastery to monastery until he settled
down at St Augustine’s Canterbury. Until his death at the beginning of the
twelfth century, Goscelin wrote a great number of vitae for the monasteries he
visited as well as for St Augustine’s. His prolific talent earned him William of
Malmesbury’s praise. In 1065, Queen Edith commissioned a monk of Saint-
Bertin to write her ailing husband’s life: the Vita Edwardi Regis. The work was
completed in 1067, after the king’s death and the Norman Conquest. Its
editor, Frank Barlow has made a good case for attributing the text to either
Folcard of Goscelin.11
During the eleventh century, there was between English institutions and
Flemish writers a situation of demand and supply. Linguistic proximity, a
web of religious spiritual exchanges dating back to the mid tenth-century
Benedictine reforms, as well as a long tradition of cultural and diplomatic
exchanges provided a favorable environment for such relationships. Flemish
institutions, and singularly Saint-Bertin, had developed a high caliber
monastic school, which developed a strong hagiographic and historiographic
tradition. Nonetheless, as far as narrative production was concerned, these
communities remained mostly centered on their own history and used histo-
riography in a way that was useful and meaningful primarily for themselves.
Flemish rulers for their part displayed no interest, and perhaps had no
leverage, to take advantage of their monks’ skills to promote their politics
and dynasty. The writers who were willing to put their literary ability into
practice outside the walls of their monastery – or those who had to leave,
such as Folcard – found eager and enthusiastic patrons across the Channel –
bishops, monastic communities and queens in a difficult situation.12 There,
their commissioners made use of their literary skills, their talent as polemi-
cists and, sometimes of their ability to combine a great deal of imagination
with old sources to create new stories. It is exactly what Eadmer of Canter-
bury meant when, around 1120, he wrote to the monks of Glastonbury who
wanted to prove – wrongly – that they possessed the relics of St Dunstan:
‘Why didn’t you consult some foreigner from overseas? They are knowledge-
11 There is no room here to detail Folcard and Goscelin’s English careers: see Frank
Barlow’s study in The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster Attributed to a Monk
of Saint-Bertin, ed. F. Barlow (Oxford, 1992), pp. xliv–lix.
12 E. van Houts, ‘The Flemish Contribution to Historical Writing’.
171
able, very clever, and they know how to write fiction; they would have
composed some likely lie which you could have bought.’13 There is no doubt
that this sentence can be applied to the many authors whom we have encoun-
tered in this book, who worked so hard for the creation of the monastic past
in Flanders.
13 Memorials of Saint Dunstan, n. 35, pp. 412–22 (p. 415); quoted and translated in E. van
Houts, ‘The Flemish Contribution to Historical Writing’.
172
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Index
Aa, river 22, 23, 26 Baldwin IV (the Bearded), count of

Aachen, councils of 816 and 817 58–60 Flanders 1, 3, 4, 6–8, 33, 34–5, 48–9,
Acharius, bishop of Noyon 19, 20, 51, 55 82, 112–13, 130, 145
Adala, countess of Flanders 31, 87, 110 Baldwin V, count of Flanders 87, 110,
Adalard, abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint- 113, 114
Amand 2, 28, 29–30, 46, 63 Baldwin VI (I), count of Flanders (and
Adalbald, St Rictrude’s husband 97, Hainault) 145, 156
100–2, 108, 121, 122, 127–8, 158–9 Baldwin II, count of Hainault 156–7
marriage with st Rictrude, see St Baldwin Balzo 33
Rictrude Bath, monastery 31, 170
Erchinoald’s brother 136–9, 158–9, Bergues-Saint-Winnoc, monastery 8, 35,
167 44
founder of castrum of Douai 137, 141, Boulonais 2, 3, 30, 31, 33, 112
143, 160 Bovo, abbot of Saint-Bertin 8
Adalsind 100, 123 abbacy 35–6, 86
Adalulf, count of Boulogne 3, 4, 31, 48, see also Inventio s. Bertini
61, 72 Breuil, monastery 103, 104, 105, 108, 123,
Adalulf, acting abbot of Saint-Bertin 134, 140, 142–3, 147–9, 150–5, 157,
32–3, 69–71, 90 160, 166, 168
Adrevald of Fleury 77–8, 81
Adroald 22, 23, 51, 54, 55–6, 65, 69, 90, 91 Canche, river 3
93 Charlemagne 27, 28, 44, 59, 63
Ælfthryth, countess of Flanders 3, 30, 31 Charles the Bald 2, 28, 29, 30, 46, 109–11,
Æthelgar, archbishop of Canterbury 34 113–15, 118, 120
Agilo, abbot of Saint-Bertin 32 Childeric III 26–7
Alcuin 27, 44, 58, 124–5 Chronicon Marcianense 136–7, 139, 158
Andrew of Marchiennes 136, 138, 139, 158 Clothar II 100, 108, 128
Annales Bertiniani 63, 109 Clovis II 23, 106, 108, 134, 147, 150
Annales Marchianenses 108, 137, 158, 160 Clotsind, abbess of Marchiennes 100,
Arnulf, count of Boulogne 3, 33, 48 101, 102, 108, 122, 132
Arnulf I (the Great), count of Flanders 3, Cluny 8, 88
31, 50, 60, 71, 90, 110, 144–5, 153, Corbie 41, 43, 51
155, 169 Coutances 19, 20, 22, 51, 54
and Benedictine reform 4–6, 31–2, 71,
73, 87, 112 Dagobert 1, 19, 20, 51 100, 101, 105, 106,
and cult of relics 75–6, 142, 143, 148–9, 107, 120, 121, 122, 126, 139–41, 147,
152, 154 150, 158–9
Arnulf II, count of Flanders 3, 4, 33–4, Douai 3, 4, 10, 23, 31, 96, 110, 137–9,
48, 112, 145, 149 143–5, 149, 153, 156–9
Arras 1, 2, 3, 7, 144 Drogo, bishop of Thérouanne 80, 81, 84
Artois 3, 30 Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury 34,
172
Baldwin I (Ironarm), count of Flanders 2,
30, 31, 169 Eberhard, count of Friuli 2, 28
Baldwin II, count of Flanders 2, 30 Ebertramn, abbot of Saint-Quentin 22, 51
Baldwin III, son of Baldwin II 3, 33 Ebroin 104, 137, 158
193
Index
Eligius, bishop of Noyon 52, 55 Hamage 8, 97, 102–6, 108, 110–12, 118,
Elnon, see Saint-Amand 121, 128, 129, 134, 139, 167
Erchinoald 136, 137–9, 158–9, 167 Hildebrand, abbot of Saint-Bertin 5, 32,
Erkembod, bishop of Thérouanne and 71
abbot of Sithiu 26, 27 Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Bertin 28–9
Erluin, bishop of Cambrai 6, 71, 127, 131 Hincmar, archbishop of Reims 28–9, 120
Ernoldus, St Rictrude’s father 100, 136 Historia Translationis s. Benedicti 77–8
Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil 19, 51, 61 Hucbald of Saint-Amand 2, 8, 10, 30, 95,
98, 115–22
Fleury 85 Hugh, abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint-
Folcard, monk of Saint-Bertin 37, 79, 61, Quentin 28, 66, 83
169–71 Humfrid, bishop of Thérouanne and
Folcuin, bishop of Thérouanne 26–8, 33, abbot of Saint-Bertin 26, 28
61, 67 Inventio s. Bertini 50, 71–90
Folcuin, author of the Gesta Abbatum Inventio s. Gisleni 73, 78, 85
Sithiensium 61
See also Saint-Bertin and Gesta John of Saint-Amand 127–9, 130
Abbatum Sithiensium Jonas of Bobbio 21, 107, 133
Fontenelle, see Gesta Patrum Jonatus, abbot of Marchiennes 101–2,
Fontanellensium 107–8, 126, 129–30, 133–4, 136, 167
Fulcard, abbot of Marchiennes 114
Fulk, abbot of Saint-Bertin and arch- Lambert, abbot of Saint-Bertin 8, 36, 88–9
bishop of Reims 29, 30 Leduinus, abbot of Saint-Vaast 8, 35, 113,
Franco-Saxon manuscripts 45–6 127, 131
Fridugis, abbot of Sithiu 27, 44–5 Liber Floridus 33
division of Sithiu 57–60 Lothar II 29, 40
Lothar IV 3–4, 145
Gascony 100, 101, 108, 119–22 Louis the Pious 27, 28
Gerard, abbot of Brogne Luxeuil 19, 51
at Saint-Bertin 4, 5, 6, 31–2, 34, 35, 87,
90 Marchiennes 1, 4, 8
Benedictine reform and cult of relics foundation 97–102, 106–9
57, 59–60, 73–8 landholding 109–10, 113, 131
Gerard I, bishop of Cambrai 1, 4, 34, 113, Benedictine refom 35, 97, 112–14
127, 129–31 Polyptych 114, 132–6
Gerard II, bishop of Cambrai 146, 149,
154, 156 Nanthar I, abbot of Sithiu 27
Gertrude, abbess of Hamage 102, 108, Nanthar II, abbot of Sithiu 27, 44
121, 139 Nanthild, queen 101, 105, 122
Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles 126, 139
Gesta Abbatum Sithiensium 50, 57, 61–71, Odbert, abbot of Saint-Bertin 34, 37, 38,
78 46–9
Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium 8, 115, Ostrevant 4, 6, 30, 31, 100, 101, 102, 144,
133, 137, 141, 145–7 145, 147, 155–6, 159
Gesta Patrum Fontanellensium 64, 77
Gislebert, duke of Lotharingia 4, 5, 74, Peace of God 7
85, 144 Péronne 104
Goscelin, monk of Saint-Bertin 37, 84, 85, Philip I, king of France (charter and
169–71 privilege for Saint-Amé) 146,
Grimbald, monk of Saint-Bertin 37, 170 147–53
Guntbert, monk of Saint-Bertin 44, 70 Pippin III 26–7
Hainault 4, 85, 142, 145, 156–7 Ralph, abbot of Saint-Bertin 2, 3, 29–30
194
Index
Regnold, abbot of Saint-Bertin 32, 71 St Aldegund of Maubeuge 139

Revelatio s. Stephani 85 St Amand 69, 98–100, 101, 103, 105,
Richard, abbot of Saint-Vanne 1, 4, 7–9, 106–8, 120–23, 126, 128, 130, 135,
34, 49, 82, 113, 127, 163 139, 140, 166
Richildis, countess of Hainault 145, 150, St Amatus 10, 96, 103–5, 123, 132, 138
153, 157 relics 148–52
Robert the Frisian, count of Flanders 142, St Ansbert, relics 64, 75–8, 155
145–6, 150, 153, 155–6, 157 St Bertha of Blangy 136, 138–9, 140, 167
Charter for Saint-Amé 146–9, 154 St Bertin
Roderic, abbot of Saint-Bertin 8, 33, 34–5, foundation of Sithiu 22, 25, 51–5
82, 86 vitae of St Bertin 25, 50–61
relics 72, 79, 81–2, 84, 87, 91
Saint-Amand 1, 2, 4, 6, 28, 30, 31, 37, 41, St Columbanus 19, 40, 107
43, 45, 98, 99, 101, 107, 125–6, 129, rule 25
137, 144, 163, 169 St Eugene, relics 74–5
Saint-Amé 132, 138–9 St Eusebia 100–1, 102–3, 105, 108, 111–12,
foundation 145–9, 150–5 122, 127–9
Saint-Bavo at Ghent 5, 8, 31, 98, 169 St Ghislain, vita and inventio 73–4
Saint-Bertin 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 17–18 St Maurontus 10, 100, 102, 103–5, 108–9,
see also Sithiu and Saint-Omer 122
abbatial church 22, 26 and St Richer 123–5
Benedictine reform by St Gerard of foundation of Breuil 147–8
Brogne 31–3, 60 relics 146
Benedictine reform by Richard of St Mummolinus, abbot of Sithiu 22, 51–2
Saint-Vanne 34–5, 82 St Omer
conflicts with the canons of Saint- bishop of Thérouanne 20, 51
Omer 90–4 foundation of Sithiu 52
library 37–43 epistola cum privilegio 27, 68–9
manuscript production 44–9 relics 83, 91–2, 94
Saint-Ghislain 5, 73–4 St Richer 101, 122, 123–5
Saint-Omer (community of canons), see St Rictrude (see also vita Rictrudis)
also Sithiu and Saint-Bertin marriage to Adalbald 97, 100, 121–2
St Mary’s basilica 22, 24, 26, 52 and the foundation of Marchiennes
conflicts with the monks of Saint- 101–8, 30
Bertin, see ‘Saint-Bertin, conflicts and St Amad 126
with the canons’ St Ultan 104
Saint-Peter at Ghent 2, 4, 5, 8, 30, 31, 32, St Vulfran, relics 75–8
63, 65, 75, 77, 78, 98 St Wandrille, relics 64, 65, 75–8
Saint-Riquier 5, 76 St Winnoc 23, 51, 52, 63, 164
Saint-Vaast 2, 3, 4, 5, 87, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, Scarpe, river 1, 3, 97, 98, 101, 107–8
37, 41, 47, 82, 113, 127, 136, 158, 160,
169, 170 Ternois 2, 3, 4, 16, 30, 31, 33, 48, 112
Saint-Wandrille 64, 65, 75, 77, 78 Theoderic III 104
Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury 34 Thérouanne 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 51, 53
Simon, abbot of Saint-Bertin, author of
the continuation to the Gesta Unroch, count of Ternois 2, 28, 29, 30
Abbatum Sithiensium 33, 88–9
Sithiu, see also Saint-Bertin and Saint- Vermandois 3, 30, 144
Omer Vita Amandi Episcopi Prima (VAm) 98,
foundation 19–25 106, 107, 120, 134
foundation stories 22–3, 51–61 Vita Amati Longior (VAL) 104, 106, 143,
division of the community 27, 57–60 146–7, 150, 154, 155, 160, 163, 166,
landholding 23 168
195
Index
Vita Audomari prima (VA1) 50–3 Vita Rictrudis 98, 115–22

Vita Audomari secunda (VA2) 50, 53–6 Vita Rictrudis Metrica 127–9
Vita Bertini prima (VB1) 50–3 Vita Winnoci Prima 51–2
Vita Bertini altera (VB2) 50, 53–6, 65
Vita Bertini Tertia (VB3) 59, 79 Wido, abbot of Saint-Bertin 5, 32
Vita Eusebiae 127–9 Wido, archbishop of Reims 80
Vita Folcuini Episcopi 79, 83, 84 Womar, abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint-
Vita Mauronti 131, 132, 137, 159–60 Peter at Ghent 5, 32
Vita Richarii 124, 125, 139, 166
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Creating The Monastic Past in Medieval Fla - Karine Uge

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Creating the Monastic Past in

The creation of a past for themselves was of pressing importance to reli-

Editorial Board (2001–2005):

Professor W. M. Ormrod (Chair; Dept of History)

All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

The right of Karine Ugé to be identified as

First published 2005

A York Medieval Press publication

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

Typeset by Pru Harrison, Hacheston, Suffolk

1 Saint-Bertin from the Foundation to the Eleventh Century 19

2 Cultural Life at Saint-Bertin 37

3 Narrative Production at Saint-Bertin 50

Part II. The Hagiographic Cycle of St Rictrude 95

4 St Rictrude, her Family and the Abbey of Marchiennes (c. 640–1130) 97

5 St Maurontus and St Amatus at Douai 142

VA1, VA2, VA3 Vita S. Audomari Prima, Altera and Tertia

Counts of Flanders appear in bold

Counts of Boulogne appear in bold

Names in Bold: earliest tradition found in Hucbald’s Vita Rictrudis (907)

This book examines the processes through which monastic communities

Merovingian period, Flanders was controlled by the Neustrian kings and,

abbot of Saint-Bertin and Saint-Vaast at Arras, constituted a powerful

6 Tanner, Families, pp. 24–8.

Boulonais, however, remained out of the counts of Flanders’ direct control

10 Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, pp. 45–9.

12 On Gerard of Brogne, see D. Misonne, ‘La restauration monastique de Gérard de

19 Dierkens, Abbayes et chapitres, pp. 239–40.

25 On the Peace movement in Flanders, see J.-F. Lemarignier, ‘Paix et réforme

30 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, lib. II, cc. 26–7, p. 461.

42 The bibliography on medieval historiography is abundant; several general studies,

44 On the impossibility of classifying the different historiographic genres, see Guenée,

47 B. de Gaiffier, ‘Les Revendications de biens dans quelques documents hagio-

Chapter 2 deals with the cultural activity at Saint-Bertin, focusing particu-

Saint-Bertin from the Foundation to

From the foundation to c. 800

for ecclesiastical dignitaries, and Omer shared Eustasius’s teachings with

also mentions two alleged predecessors: Audmundus and Athalbert. Those

de Liber Floridus Autograaf (Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Handschrift 92) Ver-

17 See K-F. Werner’s remarks in ‘Le rôle de l’aristocratie dans la Christianisation du

Bretons, Quadanoc, Ingenoc, Madoc and Winnoc.32 Such an increase in

32 Vita Winnoci Prima (VW1), pp. 769–70.

native region. Hence, Sithiu, like so many Frankish monasteries founded in

38 On the limits of the influence of ‘Iro-Frankish’ monasticism, see A. Dierkens,

The Carolingian period

44 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 62, p. 620.

Nanthar I, was trusted by Pippin. However, the exercise of Carolingian

48 VA1, cc. 11–12, p. 761.

Fridugis’s successor, Hugh (834–844), son of one of Charlemagne’s concu-

Under Flemish authority

77 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 103, p. 627.

83 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 107, pp. 628–9.

90 Folcuin, Gesta, c. 110, pp. 631–21.

successor, Trudgand, is unknown, Saint-Bertin comes back to light in the

Saint-Vaast was reformed by Abbot Leduinus, a disciple of Richard; in 1024,

109 Simon, Gesta, c. 18, p. 640 and c. 26, p. 642.

Cultural Life at Saint-Bertin

Saint-Bertin was an extremely wealthy and prestigious monastery which had

The study of book production and ownership at Saint-Bertin is an immense

3 On the circumstances under which Saint-Bertin’s manuscripts were gathered in

much help.5 Furthermore, the intensive exchanges of manuscripts and