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Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Caroline Walker Bynum
Caroline Walker Bynum
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle
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Did the twelfth century discover the individual? For a number of years now medievalists have claimed that it did. Indeed, over the past fifty years, in what Wallace Ferguson calls ‘the revolt of the medievalists’, scholars have claimed for the twelfth century many of the characteristics once given to the fifteenth century by Michelet and Burckhardt. As a result, standard textbook accounts now attribute to the twelfth century some or all of the following: ‘humanism’, both in the narrow sense of study of the Latin literary classics and in the broader sense of an emphasis on human dignity, virtue and efficacy; ‘renaissance’, both in the sense of revival of forms and ideas from the past (classical and patristic) and in the sense of consciousness of rebirth, and historical perspective; ‘the discovery of nature and man’, both in the sense of an emphasis on the cosmos and human nature as entities with laws governing their behaviour and in the sense of a new interest in the particular, seen especially in the ‘naturalism’ of the visual arts around the year 1200. In the past fifteen years, however, claims for the twelfth century have increasingly been claims for the discovery of ‘the individual’, who crops up–with his attendant characteristic ‘individuality’—in many recent titles. In the area of political theory, Walter Ullmann has seen the individual emerging in the shift from subject to citizen. Peter Dronke, Robert Hanning and other literary critics have argued for the emergence of the individual both as author and as hero of twelfth-century poetry and romance. And, in the area of religious thought, R. W. Southern, Colin Morris and John Benton have called to our attention a new concern with self-discovery and psychological self-examination, an increased sensitivity to the boundary between self and other and an optimism about the capacity of the individual for achievement.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

2 Ferguson, W. K., The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation, Boston, New York, etc. 1948, 329–85.Google Scholar

3 Ullmann, Walter, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages, Baltimore 1966.Google Scholar

4 Dronke, Peter, Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1970Google Scholar ; Harming, R. W., The Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance, New Haven and London 1977Google Scholar . See also Per Nykrog, ‘The Rise of Literary Fiction’, paper delivered at The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century Conference, 26–9 November 1977, Cambridge, Mass., to appear (hereafter cited as RTC Conference).

5 Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages, New Haven 1959, 219–57Google Scholar ; idem, ‘Medieval Humanism’ , Medieval Humanism, New York 1970, 29–60Google Scholar ; Morris, Colin, The Discovery of the Individual: 1050–1100, 1972, Harper Torchbooks, New York 1973Google Scholar ; Benton, John, ‘Individualism and Conformity in Medieval Western Europe’, Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam, ed. Banani, A. and Vryonis, S. Jr, Wiesbaden 1977, 145–58Google Scholar ; idem , ‘Consciousness of Self and of “Personality”’, paper delivered at RTC Conference. This interpretation is also suggested in Brown, Peter, ‘Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change’, Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt: Perspectives on the First Millenium B.C., Daedalus, civ (Spring 1975), 135–51Google Scholar , and White, Lynn, ‘Science and the Sense of Self’, Limits of Scientific Inquiry, Daedalus, cvii (Spring 1978), 47–59Google Scholar , and was adumbrated almost half a century ago in the works of Andre Wilmart; see idem , Auteurs spirituels el textes de'vots du moyen age latin: Etudes d'histoire litteraire, Paris 1932Google Scholar . Radding, C. M., ‘Evolution of Medieval Mentalities: A Cognitive-Structural Approach’, American Historical Review, lxxxiii (1978), 577–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar . which appeared after my essay was completed, agrees in passing (p. 596) with some of the points I make here.

6 See , Morris, op. cit., 11–13Google Scholar , where he says that ‘The Church of the twelfth century thus saw a revival of personal piety…but it failed to recover a sense of community for the faithful as a whole.’ Burckhardt, of course, saw a similar stress on the individual at the expense of community in the fifteenth century: Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 1860, Modern Library, New York 1954, 100Google Scholar.

7 There is a great deal of recent literature on this twelfth-century religious revival. The best discussions are Grundmann, still Herbert, Religiose Bewegungen im Mittelalter, Berlin 1935Google Scholar ; reprint with additional material, 1961; Chenu, M. D., ‘Moines, clercs, laics: au carrefour de la vie evangelique’, La theologie au douzieme siecle (Etudes de philosophic medievale, xlv), Paris 1957, 225–51Google Scholar ; Vicaire, M. H., Limitation des apotres: moines, chanoines, mendiants (IVe–XIlIe siécles), Paris 1963Google Scholar.

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9 See Morris, op. cit., and Benton, ‘Consciousness of Self’, for these examples and others.

10 For the purposes of this essay the ‘twelfth century’must be taken to begin about 1050, as the title of Morris's book suggests. Scholars have also questioned whether the verb should be ‘discover’or ‘re-discover’, pointing most frequently to the case of Augustine in late antiquity; see Benton, ‘Consciousness of Self. Whether or not we see Augustine as more aware of the inner process than twelfth-century writers, it is clear that his treatment of ‘consciousness’, which has some affinities to modern phenomenology, is not very much like twelfth-century analyses.

11 See Benton, ‘Consciousness of Self’, and , Morris, Discovery, especially 64–5Google Scholar.

12 See note 7 above.

13 Ciles Constable, ‘The Multiplicity of Religious Orders in the Twelfth Century: Pluralism and Competition’, paper delivered at The York University Conference on Consciousness and Group Identification in High Medieval Religion, 7–9 April 1978, to appear. See also Constable, ‘Introduction’, to Ubeltus de divenis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in aecclesia, ed. Constable, G. and Smith, B., Oxford 1972, xi–xxviiGoogle Scholar , and Congar, Yves, ‘Les Laics et l'ecclesiologie des “ordines” chezles theologiens des Xle et Xlle siécles’, I Laid nella ‘societas Christiana’ dei secoli XI e XII: Atti delta terza settimana internazionale di studio Mendola, 21–27 Agosto 1965 (Miscellanea del Cerftro di Studi Medioevafi, V), Milan 1968, 83–117Google Scholar.

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19 Hofmeister, Philipp, ‘Der Obertritt in eine andre religiose Genossenschaft’, Archiv fur Katholisches Kirchenrecht, cviii (1928), 419–81Google Scholar ; Fina, Kurt, ‘“Ovem suam requirere.” Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Ordenswechels iii 12. Jahrhundert’, Augustiniana, vii (1957), 33–56Google Scholar ; Roby, Douglass, ‘Stabilitas and Transitus: Understanding Passage from One Religious Order to Another in Twelfth-Century Monastic Controversy’, Unpublished Yale Ph.D. Thesis 1971Google Scholar.

20 Constable, ‘Multiplicity’and Congar, ‘Les Laics'. For an analysis of how secular society saw itself and its divisions see Goff, Jacques Le, ‘Note sur societe tripartie, ideologic monarchique et renouveau economique dans la chretiente du IXe au XI Ie siécle’, Pour un autre Moyen Age: Temps, travail, et culture en Occident: 18 essais, Paris 1977, 80–90Google Scholar.

21 Libellus de diversis ordinibus, 15.

22 Ibid., 15–17; and see , Anselm of , Havelberg, Dialogi, especially i.1–2, P.L., clxxxviii. 1141–4.Google Scholar

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24 Aelred of Rievaulx, De institutions inclusarum, xxvii, in Aelred, Opera omnia, i: Opera ascetica, ed. Hoste, A. and Talbot, C. H. (Corpus christianorum: continuatio mediaevalis, i), Turnhout 1971, 661Google Scholar.

25 Isaac of Stella , Sermons, ed. Hoste, A. and Salet, Gaston (Sources chretiennes, cxxx and ccvii), Paris 1967 and 1974, ii, nos. 29 and 34, pp. 166–80 and 232–54Google Scholar . See the discussion of Isaac in my article , ‘Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing’, Harvard Theological Review, lxx (1977), 257–84Google Scholar.

26 Abelard, Peter, Historia calamitatum, ed. Muckle, J. T., ‘Abelard's Letter of Consolation to a Friend (Historia calamtatum’), Medieval Studies, vii (1950), 163–213Google Scholar . And see Southern, R. W., ‘The Letters of Abelard and Heloise’, Humanism, 86–104Google Scholar ; Benton, John, ‘Fraud, Fiction and Borrowing in the Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise’, Pierre Abe'lard-Pierre le Venerable: Les Courants philosophiques, litteraires et artistiques en Occident au milieu de Xlle siécle, Paris, 1975, 469–512Google Scholar ; McLaughlin, Mary, ‘Abelard as Autobiographer: The Motives and Meaning of His “Story of Calamities’”, Speculum, xlii (1967), 463–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and , Hanning, The Individual, 17–34Google Scholar.

27 Life of Gerald of Salles, ii. 18 , Ada Sanctorum: October, X, Brussels 1861, 258dGoogle Scholar ; cited by Giles Constable in ‘Reform and Renewal in Religious Life’, paper delivered at RTC Conference. This paper also gives a number of other examples of the importance of models in twelfth-century thought.

28 , Aelred of , Rievaulx, Speculum caritatis, i. 34Google Scholar . cix in Opera, i. 61.

29 , Gerhoh, Liber de aedificio, xlivGoogle Scholar , P.L., cxciv. 1305c.

30 , Hugh of Victor, St, De institutione novitiorum, viiGoogle Scholar , P.L., clxxvi, cols. 93sd-933c. For the seal metaphor used slightly more ‘in wardly’, see Anselm of Canterbury, Epistle 4 , Opera omnia, ed. Schmitt, F. S., iii, Edinburgh 1946, 104Google Scholar ; see also , Eadmer, The Life of St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Southern, R. W., London 1962, 20–1 and 37–8Google Scholar.

31 Philip ot Harvengt, De silentio dericorum, which is part vi ot De institution clencorum, P.L., cciii. 943–1206, especially i, 945–6.

32 Reprehensio libelli Abbatis Claravallensis, xxxiii, ed. Wilmart, A., ‘Une riposte de l'ancien monachisme au manifeste de S. Bernard’, Revue benedidine, xlvi (1934), 343Google Scholar.

33 See note 30 above and Philip of Harvengt, De dignitale ctericorum, which is part i of De institutione dericorum, xix and xxii, P.L., cciii. 690b, 682b and 694a.

34 Philip, De obedientia dericorum, which is part v of De institutione dericorum, xlii, P.L., cciii. 937c.

35 Miscellanea, i.114, P.L., clxxvii. 542a-c. On the Miscellanea, see Baron, Roger, Etudes sur Hugues de saint-Victor, Paris 1963, 66Google Scholar and references given there.

36 Morrison, K. F., ‘The Structure of Holiness in Othloh's Vita Bonijatii and Ebo's Vita Ottonis’, Law, Church and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. Pennington, K. and Somerville, R., Philadelphia 1977, 131–56Google Scholar ; Javelet, Robert, Image et ressemblance au douiieme siecle de saint Anselme a Alain de Lille, Paris 1967Google Scholar , i and ii. It is perhaps not totally far-fetched to point out that the theme of ‘likeness’is extremely important in love literature and literature of friendship in the twelfth century. The influence of Cicero's De amicitia suggested that love must be between ‘likes'; see Gilson, Etienne, The Mystical Theology of SI Bernard, New York 1940Google Scholar , and Roby, Douglass, ‘Introduction’, in Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship (Cistercian Fathers Series, v), Washington D.C. 1974Google Scholar . We find this idea reflected in the romance of Amis and Amiloun, ed. Leach, MacEdward, London 1937Google Scholar , where two knights who are devoted to each other resemble each other so much that one can stand in for the other at a tournament.

Steven Ozment has suggested that the loss of the category of ‘likeness’marks a radical break between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries; idem, ‘Luther and the Late Middle Ages: The Formation of Reformation Thought’ , Transition and Revolution: Problems and Issues of European Renaissance and Reformation History, ed. Kingdon, Robert, Minneapolis 1974, 109–29.Google Scholar

37 A great deal has been written recently on these themes in the twelfth century. See, inter alia, Chenu, ‘Moines, clercs, laics’ ; McDonnell, E. W., ‘The Vita Apostolica: Diversity or Dissent?’ Church History, xxiv (1955), 15–31Google Scholar ; Vicaire, Limitation des apotres ; Olsen, Glenn, ‘The Idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the Writings of the Twelfth-Century Canonists’, Traditio, xxv (1969), 61–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Miccoli, Giovanni, Chiesa Gregoriana; ricerche sulla riforma del secolo XI, Florence 1966, 225–99Google Scholar ; and Constable, ‘Reform and Renewal’.

38 Everwini Steinfeldensis praepositi ad S. Bemardum, P.L., clxxxii. 678–80; translated in Heresies of the High Middle Ages, ed. Wakefield, Walter and Evans, A. P., New York and London 1969, 127–32Google Scholar , and quoted in Lambert, Malcolm, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus, New York 1976, 60–1Google Scholar.

39 See Libellus de diversis ordinibus, 59. The author is clearly aware that arguments about what can be compared to what or what is a model for what are frequently efforts to define a way of life; see ibid., 13.

40 On the importance of this idea in twelfth-century religious writing, see my forth-coming book, Docere Verbo et Exemplo: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality, Harvard Theological Monographs.

41 Anonymous, Prologue and Preface In regulam beati Augustini, MS. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek 2207, fos. 11v-12v.

42 Philip of Harvengt, De dignitale, ii, col. 670a-b, and De obedientia, xli, col. 933C-d.

43 This concentration on the ‘inwardness’of twelfth-century religion is also due to a tendency in recent scholarship to emphasise the Cistercians. I have tried in this article to modify that emphasis by citing from a wide selection of twelfth-century authors. The implications of this observation are spelled out in my forthcoming book, Docere.

44 J. C. Schmitt, ‘Techniques du corps et conscience de groupe: A propos du De institutions novitiorum de Hugues de saint Victor’, paper delivered at The York University Conference on Consciousness and Group Identification in High Medieval Religion, 7–9 April 1978, to appear.

45 Francis was not, of course, the first case of stigmata. See Amann, E., ‘Stigmatisation’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, xiv. 2, Paris 1941Google Scholar , col. 2617 ; McDonnell, E. W., Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture, 1954; reprint New York 1969, 318Google Scholar.

46 Anonymous series of ninety sermons on the Benedictine Rule, MS Auxerre 50, fo. 116v.a.

47 See Daniel, E. R., The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages, Lexington 1975, 26–54.Google Scholar

48 See Trinkaus, Charles, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, Chicago 1970, i and iiGoogle Scholar , and Constable, Giles, ‘Twelfth-Century Spirituality and the Late Middle Ages’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, v. Proceedings of the Southern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer, 1969, 1971, 27–60Google Scholar.

49 Much recent discussion seems to be moving toward this interpretation; see, for example. , Brown, ‘Society and the Supernatural’, 146–7.Google Scholar

50 See Southern, ‘Humanism’.