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The Consolation of Community: Innovation and Ideas of History in Ratpert's ‘Casus Sancti Galli’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2013
Abstract
This paper takes the case study of a well-known but also rather poorly-regarded text, Ratpert of St Gall's Casus Sancti Galli, to examine some of the methodological issues of modern historians reading medieval historians. It is argued that features of Ratpert of St Gall's monastic history which modern readers have found frustrating or even boring were actually the result of the author's specific rhetorical strategies and ideas of history. Ratpert developed an innovative way of writing the history of a Christian community in the mortal world. Unlike other monastic historians who were developing the genre at the time and who followed more hagiographical models, Ratpert chose to put the anonymous, timeless collective of the monks at the centre of his text. His idea of history suggests a lack of effective human agency in the world, in which ups and downs forever follow one another, and contrasts this with the eternity of God.
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References
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13 Ratpert, St Galler Klostergeschichten (Casus sancti Galli), ed. and trans. H. Steiner, MGH, SRG 75, Hanover 2002 (hereinafter the editor's introduction will be cited as Steiner, ‘Einleitung’).
14 The international project, ‘The St Gall Monastery Plan: Codex Sangallensis 1092: content and context’ can be found online at http://www.stgallplan.org/index.html, and a growing number of manuscripts from St Gall can be viewed online thanks to the Codices Electronici Sangallenses project at http://www.e–codices.unifr.ch/en/list/csg/Shelfmark/20/0.
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17 For a summary of the scholarly discussion on Ratpert's dates see Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 2–6. Rupert Schaab recently argued for 873 as the likely date of Ratpert's profession as a monk, based on a comparison of the Reichenau confraternity book with the St Gall Book of Professions: Mönch in St Gallen: zur inneren Geschichte eines frühmittelalterlichen Klosters, Ostfildern 2003, 89.
18 Ekkehard iv, Casus Sancti Galli: Sanktgaller Klostergeschichten, ed. and trans. H. Haefele, Darmstadt 1991, c.36. 80.
19 Ibid. c.35. 80.
20 Ibid. c.33. 76–8.
21 ‘Ratpert autem inter ambos […] medius incedebat, scolarum ab adolescentia magister, doctor planus et benivolus, disciplinis asperior, raro praeter fratres pedem claustro promovens, duos calceos annum habens; excursus mortem nominans, sepe Tuotilonem itinerarium, ut se caveret, amplexibus monens’: ibid.
22 Brunhölzl, F., Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Munich 1975, 61Google Scholar.
23 Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 8–9.
24 ‘Es geht ihm vor allem um die institutionelle und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung der Gallusabtei’: Tremp, E., ‘Geschichtsschreibung in St Gallen und auf der Reichenau’, in Tremp, E., Schmuki, K. and Flury, T. (eds), Eremus und Insula: Sankt Gallen und die Reichenau im Mittelalter, Sankt Gallen 2002, 45–57Google Scholar at p. 48. See also Brunhölzl, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur, 60–1.
25 ‘nüchtern und sachlich’: Tremp, ‘Geschichtsschreibung’, 48; ‘farbenlos’: Haefele, H. F., ‘Ekkehard (iv) von St Gallen’, in Ruh, K. (ed.), Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ii, Berlin 1980Google Scholar, coll. 455–65 at col. 463. See also H. F. Haefele, Notizen zu einer Übung zu Ratperts Casus an der Universität Zürich (1974?) aus dem Nachlass, cited in Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 8: ‘In dieser Chronik lebt tatsächlich ein klarer, sachgerechter, praktischer Verstand.’
26 From the late nineteenth until the middle of the twentieth century, scholarly debate on Ratpert between historians such as G. Meyer von Knonau, Th. Sickel, K. Beyerle, G. Caro, H. K. Gahnal and T. Schiess concentrated on comparing his acounts of St Gall's early history with the charter evidence. For references to all these works see May, U., Untersuchungen zur frühmittelalterlichen Siedlungs-, Personen- und Besitzgeschichte anhand der Sankt Galler Urkunden, Frankfurt-am-Main 1976Google Scholar, esp. pp. 56–63. Some of these debates are summarised in Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 37–47.
27 For the manuscript transmission in general see Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 81–115. The relevant part of the earliest extant manuscript containing Ratpert's work, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 614, has been dated to the late ninth or early tenth century (but is not an autograph).
28 For the interpretation of casus as ‘Wechselfälle des Schicksals’, ‘ups and downs’, fortunes and misfortunes, see Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 13–14, 16, 24, and the discussion at pp. 18–19 below.
29 ‘Haec autem omnia plenius scire cupit et quaedam in hoc opusculo sequentia, a nobis vero ex aliqua parte contacta, in libris actuum eorundem sanctorum plenissime digesta reperiet’: Ratpert, Casus, c.1 (2), 144, regarding the Lives of St Columbanus and St Gall. See also, regarding the Life of St Otmar: ‘Postea vero ob quam causam et quando et qualiter idem abbas a Warino et Ruadhardo exilio damnatus ad perpetuam sit coronam perductus, in libris vitae ipsius, qui scire desiderat, pleniter degesta repperiet’: c.2 (6), 154–6. The reader is referred to charters: ‘Quisqus autem vult scire, quantę fuerint causae ob redemptione praedicti census et monasterii securitatem et praeterea ob tributariorum praedictorum reconciliationem ad episcopatum contraditę, legat in cartis supra memoratis, et invenire poterit, quod quaerit’: c.8 (25), 200–2.
30 Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 107.
31 Ratpert explicitly stated that he selected only what was ‘necessary’ from existing writings for his work, dealing with the early events only briefly the quicker to get to those not yet touched on in other texts: ‘Nos vero, ut cępimus, ex notis, quae sunt necessaria, pauca ex parte tangamus et ad intacta citius Deo donante properemus’: Casus, c.1 (3), 144.
32 Ibid. c.8 (23–5), 198–202.
33 Ibid. c.9 (26–34), 203–36.
34 Ibid. c.9 (31), 230–2.
35 von den Steinen, W., Notker der Dichter und seine geistige Welt, Berne 1948, i. 523–4Google Scholar.
36 Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 20.
37 For a recent discussion of the conflict between St Gall and Constance see Wiech, M., Das Amt des Abtes im Konflikt: Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen um Äbte früh- und hochmittelalterlicher Klöster unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bodenseeregion, Siegburg 1999Google Scholar.
38 ‘Geschichtsschreibung als Mahnung und Ansporn’: Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 22.
39 von den Steinen, Notker der Dichter, i. 524; Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 21.
40 ‘varios casus, qui nunc etiam prioribus ampliores variantur in mundo’: Ratpert, Casus, c.9 (33), 234.
41 Wartmann, H., Das Urkundenbuch der Abtei Sankt Gallen, II: Die Jahre 840–920, Zürich 1866Google Scholar, no. 680 at pp. 281–2. See also B. Merta, ‘Recht und Propaganda in Narrationes karolingischer Herrscherurkunden’, in Scharer and Scheibelreiter, Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, 141–57 at p. 155.
42 Collectio Sangallensis Salomonis III. tempore conscripta, ed. E. Zeumer, MGH Formulae, Berlin 1886, 390–433. It is not known when Salomo iii took up either office. His uncle and predecessor as bishop, Salomo ii, died in December 889, whereas Abbot Bernhard of St Gall was not deposed until after May 890. The first extant charter is from St Gall, dated to August 890, in which Salomo was called ‘Salomon episcopus et abba monasterii sancti Galli’: Wartmann, Urkundenbuch, no. 679, pp. 280–1.
43 Ekkehard iv, Casus Sancti Galli, esp. c.1, 18; c.3, 22.
44 von den Steinen, W., ‘Notkers des Dichters Formelbuch’, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Geschichte xxv (1945), 449–90Google Scholar.
45 Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, esp. pp. 12–24.
46 This has been most recently edited by Pradié, P., Chronique des abbés de Fontanelle (Saint-Wandrille), Paris 1999Google Scholar.
47 This has been edited and translated by Brett, C. as The monks of Redon: Gesta Sanctorum Rotonensium and Vita Conuuoionis, Woodbridge 1989Google Scholar.
48 Steiner, ‘Vorwort’, v, and ‘Einleitung’, 66–80.
49 Brett, Monks of Redon, 65–6.
50 The monastery of Fulda once had a complete chain of individual abbot's Lives, which scholars have seen as adding up to a kind of monastic history: J. Raaijmakers, ‘Sacred time, sacred space: history and identity in the monastery of Fulda (744–856)’, unpubl. PhD diss. Amsterdam 2003, 135–66.
51 The division of the text into sections according to abbacies, retained by Steiner in his edition, was first introduced in a mid fifteenth-century manuscript: Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 87–8.
52 The exception to this rule is a sentence on Grimald, showing that although a secular cleric by his habit, he was a monk in his way of life: ‘Orationibus sepius insistebat, elemonisarum largitatem solus prae ceteris possidebat, in tantum ut pater pauperum vocaretur et esset’: Ratpert, Casus, c.9 (28), 216.
53 This is true of Waldo concoenobiota: ibid. c.3 (8), 164; Wolfleoz monasterii sancti Galli coenobiota: c.5 (12), 174; Gozpert eiusdem congregationis monachus: c.6 (13), 174; Bernwig monachus noster: c.7 (17), 186; and Hartmut: c.8 (19), 190.
54 ‘Statim vero cupiens penitus omnem spem securitatis nostris aufferre ad ipsum monasterium venit atque cautissima investigatione perquisivit, si alicubi aliquod exemplar ipsius cartę inveniri potuisset; quod cum nequaquam invenisset, quia omnino non erat, delatum est ei, quod Amalgarius monachus et diaconus eam exemplari tradere voluisset. Cuius facti licet ille securus esset, tamen nequaquam de hoc aliter apud episcopum se potuit excusare, nisi in altario sancti Galli cum iuramento firmaret, nec se eam ullo modo habere scriptam, nec in aliquo loco scire esse conscriptam’: ibid. c.5 (12), 172.
55 ‘Habuerunt autem adhuc fratres monasterii nostri firmissimum emunitatis praeceptum’: ibid. c.5 (10), 168.
56 According to Ratpert's narrative, the monks elected four of the eight abbots (after Otmar) whom he mentioned in his work: Waldo: ibid. c.3 (8),164; Gozpert: c.6 (13), 174; Hartmut, as prior: c.8 (19), 190–2; as abbot: c.9 (29), 218; and Bernhard: c.9 (34), 236.
57 ‘monachi [Grimaldum abbatem] flagitare cęperunt’: ibid. c.8 (19), 190.
58 The monks refuse Werdo as abbot whilst he remains a secular clerk: ‘Quem tamen monachi in tali habitu commanentem minime susceperunt abbatem’: ibid. c.5 (10), 168.
59 ‘Senserant enim [fratres] cartam a rege datam multum esse depravatam et multo aliter, quam rex iuberet et res eorum indigeret, esse conscriptam. Idcirco nepotem [Iohannis episcopi] sibi abbatem eligere neglexerant’: ibid. c.3 (8), 162.
60 ‘consolationem in eo [Wolfleoz episcopo] se habere posse confisi sunt’: ibid. c.6 (13), 176.
61 ‘fratres nostros tristitia non parva agitari , eo quod securitas electionis eorum, quę tam multis, ut ante praediximus, laboribus sepe difficillime fuerat adquisita, tam facile de eorum potestate deficiebat excussa’: ibid. c.8 (19), 190.
62 ‘quidam vasallo imperatoris nomine Engilrammo, in cuius fide multum praesumebant, ipsam cartam, immo totius securitatis spem commendaverunt’: ibid. c.5 (11), 170–2.
63 On the Franks as appearing at the side of Carolingian kings and emperors in the Annales regni francorum see McKitterick, R., ‘Political ideology in Carolingian historiography’, in Innes, M. and Hen, Y. (eds), The uses of the past in the early Middle Ages, Cambridge 2000, 162–74Google Scholar, esp. pp. 167–8, though I see this Frankish identity as representing not a gens but only the political elites involved in Carolingian expansion and consolidation. In contrast to Ratpert's monks, the most striking feature of the collective Franci, as described in the Annales, is that they appeared as agents only when linked to a Carolingian ruler: the ideology propagated here is their dependence on Carolingian leadership, not a newly-found Frankish group identity.
64 For examples from Ratpert's Casus see ‘Post obitum vero Grimaldi fratres iuxta permissam sibi licentiam protinus cum maximo unanimitatis consensu Hartmotum sibi elegerunt abbatem’: c.9 (29), 218; ‘omnes pariter senes et iuvenes a primo usque ad ultimum Domino donante communi consilio atque una voce Bernhardum sibi elegerunt abbatem’: c.9 (34), 236; ‘Omnibus vero rationabiliter constitutis, domnus imperator omnes ibidem conversantes laetos efficiens, ipse quoque laetus de monasterio abscessit’: c.9 (35), 238.
65 For the Israelites worshipping the golden calf see Exodus xxxii. 1–9. For the crowd choosing Barabas to be freed rather than Jesus see Matthew xxvii. 15–25 and parallels.
66 ‘monasterium nostrum’: Ratpert, Casus, c.2 (6), 156; c.3 (8), 164; c.5 (10), 168 (bis); c.5 (11), 170 (bis); c.6 (16), 182, 184; c.7 (18), 188; c.8 (20), 192; c.8 (21), 194; c.9 (28), 216, 218; c.9 (29), 220; c.9 (31), 230 (bis); c.9 (33), 234.
67 This only starts at the very end of the account of Otmar's abbacy, when there seems to be a transition from the more distant founding history to the theme of the conflict with Constance. The first occurrence of ‘nostrum monasterium’ refers to the 740s, when Bishop Sidonius of Constance tries to take control of the monastery: ibid. c.2 (6), 156.
68 ‘nostri monachi’: ibid. c.5 (1), 174; ‘nostri fratres’: c.8 (19), 190; ‘nostra congregatio’: c.6 (16), 182.
69 ‘nostri’: ibid. c.3 (8), 164 (referring to the year 782); c.5 (10), 168; c.8 (21), 194; c.9 (35), 238.
70 charters: ‘omnes immunitatis cartas a patre eius Hludowico nobis condonatas’: ibid. c.9 (31), 230; property: ‘res nostrae’: c.5 (10), 168; c.7 (18), 188; ‘omnia nostra a Deo concessa’: c.9 (29), 220; Abbot Bernwig: ‘abbas noster’: c.7 (17), 186. See also ‘proficuo nobis errore’, Bishop Wolfleoz reads the wrong charter in front of Louis the Pious: c.6 (15), 180; ‘monachus noster’: c.7 (17), 186; ‘nos semper securi extiteramus’: c.9 (29), 220.
71 The abbots conceptually seem to have fallen outside the monastic community, as is shown, for example, by the abbot's lodgings being located outside the claustrum on the Plan of St Gall. Ratpert's crucial scene, and the only one in which he employs direct speech, his account of Abbot Grimald's dialogue with the monastic community, with Hartmut as spokesperson, also illustrates this boundary. Grimald, about to start the negotiations which finally lead to the resolution of the conflict, is explicitly described as entering the claustra monasterii, where he called the elder monks to him. The locus for this dialogue is thus the threshold of the claustrum, where the abbot is met by the representatives of its inhabitants: ibid. c.8 (21), 194.
72 For an introduction to St Gall's confraternity agreements and other necrological material see Geuenich, D., ‘Liturgisches Gebetsgedenken in St Gallen’, in Ochsenbein, P. (ed.), Das Kloster Sankt Gallen im Mittelalter: die kulturelle Blüte vom 8. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1999, 83–94Google Scholar.
73 Schmid, K., ‘Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der Sankt Galler Verbrüderungsbücher des 9. Jahrhunderts’, in Borgolte, M., Geuenich, D. and Schmid, K. (eds), Subsidia Sangallensia, I: Materialien und Urkunden zu den Verbrüderungsbüchern und zu den älteren Urkunden des Stiftsarchivs St. Gallen, Sankt Gallen 1986, 81–283Google Scholar at p. 88.
74 Cf. Neiske, F., ‘“Bei deinem Namen habe ich dich gerufen”: Individuum und Seelenheil in der frühmittealterlichen Klostergemeinschaft’, in Melville, G. and Schürer, M. (eds), Das Eigene und das Ganze: zum Individuellen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum, Münster 2002, 89–106Google Scholar. Neiske sees the development of confraternity books as evidence of an ‘increased desire for individualisation’ (p. 104), but also stresses that the salvation of the individuals named in the Libri memoriales depended conceptually on the merits of the community and its prayers (p. 105).
75 Steiner, ‘Einleitung’, 14–6; Nelson, J. L., ‘Feasts, games, and inversions: reflections on the ups and downs of St Gall’, in Nagy, B. and Sebök, M. (eds), The man of many devices, who wandered full many ways: Festschrift in honour of Janos M. Bak, Budapest 1999, 269–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, though this regards Ekkehard iv's continuation of Ratpert's work. On the concept of casus see the very useful article by Frakes, J. C., ‘The ancient concept of casus and its early medieval interpretations’, Vivarium xxii (1984), 1–34Google Scholar.
76 Ratpert, Casus, c.9 (33), 234. See n. 41 above.
77 This back and forth easily feels confusing and frustrating to a modern reader, more used to narratives of progress and causal development.
78 ‘Ours made Waldo, one of their community, their abbot, with the king's permission. But matters did not remain thus to the end, as we will show in the following’: Ratpert, Casus, c.3 (8), 164.
79 ‘But as night and day succeeded each other in turn, so adverse and happy events often intermingled, and such changes alternated’: ibid. c.8 (21), 194.
80 Another cyclical allusion comes in the use of the phrase transeunte curriculo temporum to indicate the passage of time, used twice by Ratpert: ibid. c.9 (28), 216; c.9 (33), 234.
81 MacLean, Kingship and politics, 214–17.
82 See Courcelle, P., La ‘Consolation de philosophie’ dans la tradition littéraire: antécédents et postérité de Boèce, Paris 1967Google Scholar, esp. pp. 29, 259–63, 275.
83 Steiner, H., ‘Überlegungen zur Person und zur causa scribendi der Casus sancti Galli Ratperts’, Protokoll über die Arbeitssitzung am 17. Juni 2000 des Konstanzer Arbeitskreises für mittelalterliche Geschichte, no. 379, Constance 2000Google Scholar, no pagination.
84 ‘Since in this world inconstancy is sure,/And rampant changes are the rule,/Then trust in fleeting goods, you fool!/Expect men's transient fortunes to endure!/One thing is fixed, by eternal law arranged;/Nothing which comes to be remains unchanged’: Boethius, Philosophiae consolationis libri quinque, ii, m.3, lines13–18, ed. K Büchner, Heidelberg 1977, 26; trans. by Walsh, P. G. in Boethius: The consolation of philosophy, Oxford 1999, 25Google Scholar.
85 Glauche, G., Schullektüre im Mittelalter: Enstehungen und Wandlungen des Lektürekanons bis 1200 nach den Quellen dargestellt, Munich 1970, 60Google Scholar.
86 Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, v, pr.1, 96–7. Frakes convincingly established that Boethius distinguished between fortuna and casus, as referring to chance in the realm of human activity and in natural events, respectively, but this distinction is not crucial to the understanding of Boethius’ arguments and was not maintained by Notker Labeo in his translation, either: ‘Ancient concept of casus’, 11, 13.
87 ‘Quo fit, ut, tametsi vobis hunc ordinem minime considerare valentibus confusa omnia perturbataque videantur, nihilo minus tamen suus modus ad bonum dirigens cuncta disponat.’(‘So although the general picture may seem to you mortals one of confusion and turmoil because you are totally unable to visualise this order of things, all of them nonetheless have their own pattern, which orders them and directs them towards the good’): Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, iv pr.6 (trans. Walsh, p. 89); later on in the same chapter (p. 91): ‘Neque enim fas est homini cunctas divinae operae machinas uel ingenio comprehendere uel explicare sermone. Hoc tantum perspexisse sufficiat, quod naturarum omnium proditur deus idem ad bonum dirigens cuncta disponat.’ (‘For it is not right for a man either mentally to grasp or to explain in words all the workings of God's creation. It must be enough merely to realise that God, the author of everything in nature, orders all of them and guides them to the good’) (trans. Walsh, 92). See also v pr.5, 107–8.
88 ‘whilst over all things rules our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is the honour and glory for all time’: Ratpert, Casus c.9 (35), 238.
89 In the discussion recorded after Steiner, ‘Überlegungen zur Person und zur causa scribendi’, Steiner speculated that dissenting opinions might have been possible at St Gall at this time because strong decani ruled the monastery in the (often absent) abbots’ stead. Whilst this was clearly the case, I still doubt that Salomo would have tolerated such open criticism and subversion of his authority as provided by Steiner's interpretation of Ratpert's text.
90 ‘Venerabilis namque Constantiensis ecclesię praesul nomine Salomon, cum suę sedis dignitatem non solum non minuere, sed etiam in omnibus vellet religiose accumulare’: Ratpert, Casus, c.8 (21), 194. Steiner reads this passage as ‘ironic’ (‘Einleitung’, 79), and it is truly ambiguous. The adjective and adverb used, however, at least make a straight reading, in which Ratpert is distancing the bishop's good and dutiful motivations from the – in his eyes – illegitimate tax.
91 Sidonius, bishop of Constance 746–60, acts nequiter and pessime, and an attack of diarrhoea ‘manifests what is in his mind’ (‘quid in mente habuerit, poena corporis et illuvies ventris … manifestavit’); he dies miserably, ‘de cloaca corporis vitam exalavit penam miseriis’: Ratpert, Casus, c.2 (6) 158.