2) See, for example, André Déléage, La vie économique et sociale de la Bourgogne dans le haut Moyen Age (Mâcon: 1941): 2: 861. Back To Text
3) Maurice Prou and Alexandre Vidier, Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Société historique et archéologique du Gatinais: 5 (Paris: 1907) I: 71. Walter Berry (personal communication) has suggested that we may be dealing with an estate, since the text mentions not only the usual holdings of cultivated and uncultivated lands and vines, but forests as well. I would like thank Mr. Berry for discussing at some length with me the early history of Paray. Back To Text
4) Prou and Vidier, I: 73. Back To Text
5) Ulysse Chevalier, Cartulaire du prieuré de Paray-le-Monial (Paris: 1890) [hereafter C]: # 2. The history of the monastic establishment at Paray is outlined in a series of charters, the majority of which date to the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The original medieval copy of this cartulary seems to have existed until the middle of the nineteenth century, but is now lost. The present collection of charters, published in 1890, is only known to us through Early-Modern copies. Chevalier (p. v) apparently believed that the original had been lost sometime during the eighteenth century, perhaps when the priory's treasury was sacked during the French Revolution. However, the anonymous author of the article documenting the restoration of the church by Etienne Millet, apparently saw the original. The author, possibly Millet himself, relates that he saw "une relation manuscrite qui fait partie du livre capitulaire de l'abbaye" (Archives: 8). The manuscript in question is probably the book entitled "Fundatio monasterii Vallis aureae," mentioned in the Revolutionary Process-verbal (AN: F 19-611B [or 611/2]: "Extrait du registre de la municipalité de la ville de Paray").
As C: # 12 makes clear, the cartulary in its present form was begun under prior Hugh in the 1080s, meaning that the earliest history of the abbey was recorded in documents collected and copied one hundred years after the establishment's foundation; C: # 12, and pp. ix-x, xiv. For a discussion of prior Hugh, see M. Canat de Chizy, Origines du prieuré de Notre-Dame de Paray-le-Monial (Chalon-sur-Saône: 1876): 121-124. Only a very small number of the published charters are dated. Chevalier in his edition of the cartulary made no attempt to provide dates for the vast majority that were not dated. The task of dating the undated charters is very difficult because, as Chevalier points out (p. x), there are later insertions and the like. Décréau (p. 92) believed that the cartulary in the form that has come down to us was re-edited twice, first ca 1120, and then again around 1200. Since a new, critical edition of the cartulary was beyond the means and aims of this project, I have used the cartulary as best I could. Please note that in Chevalier's edition, the surviving charters are not arranged in chronological order.
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6) See, C: # 12, where we find the phrase: "domnus Hugo hoc tempore moderno." Hugh's priorate overlapped with the reign of Hugh II count of Chalon (ca 1065 to ca 1075) and the abbacy of Saint Hugh at Cluny. He was still prior when Guy de Thiers guaranteed Paray's rights and immunities before his departure for Jerusalem, probably for the crusade in 1096; see, Canat de Chizy: 121-124, who believes Hugh lived well into the twelfth century. Back To Text
7) C: # 3. Back To Text
8) C: # 213 and # 214. Back To Text
9) Claude Courtépée, Description générale et particulière de Bourgogne, rev. ed. (Dijon: 1848), III: 53. Back To Text
10) Courtépée, III: 53. Back To Text
11) C: # 2. Back To Text
12) Like other scholars Décréau accepts Courtépée's idea that the monastery was located at a different site than the present one and suggests that a site on the hill to the southeast of the Hôtel de Pèlerins, known as La Vigne, was the original location of Lambert's foundation. Décréau relates that a chapel stood there until it was torn down in 1927. He points out that this site has a little stream which could be the one that was mentioned as being near the monastery in the later redaction of the foundation story; Décréau: 18 and 93. See C: # 2, for the reference to the stream. In addition, Décréau informs us that until the eighteenth century, the nearby hill was called Survaux, and that the general area was referred to as Orval in a document of 1765. He also relates that old maps refer to the land on the side of the Paray-Charolles road in this area as Orval or Orvaux; Décréau: 18 and 93. The cadastraux of 1838, in the offices of the Services Techniques of the town of Paray, also refer to this area as Orval. Décréau states that this chapel had "chapiteaux ouvragés." While these capitals could have been lost at the time of the destruction of the chapel, no one I spoke to concerning the history of the town knew anything either about them or about the chapel mentioned by Décréau. Back To Text
13) Besides the reference in the Perrecy charter, the parish church is mentioned in the eleventh-century Pouillé (the list of churches) of the diocese of Autun, as dedicated to the Virgin (Anatole de Charmasse, Cartulaire de l'éveché d'Autun (Autun: 1880): 366). It is also mentioned in the fourteenth-century Pouillé as part of the holdings of the priory (ibid.: 372). Furthermore, a church dedicated to the Virgin, probably this one, as it is contrasted with the abbey church, also dedicated to the Virgin, is mentioned in the "Vita" of Saint Hugh, see below. Back To Text
14) C: # 2. Back To Text
15) Décréau: 93-94. Back To Text
16) Michel Bouillot, "Contribution à l'étude des plans des villes clunisiennes," Mélanges d'histoire et d'archéologie offerts au Professor Kenneth John Conant (Mâcon: 1977): 190 and 194. Bouillot's suggestion does not rule out that, with the increasing importance of the monastery, the original small town could have later reoriented itself towards the priory. Back To Text
17) For the persistent belief in the importance of this date, see, for example, François Cucherat, "Fondation du monastère bénédictin," Guide historique et archéologique du pèlerin à Paray-le Monial (Paray-le-Monial: 1884): 9; and Raymond Oursel Bourgogne romane, 8th edition (La Pierre-qui-Vire: 1986): 163. Joan Evans, The Romanesque Architecture of the Order of Cluny (Cambridge: 1938): 13, apparently misread this date as 1104, and believed that it was a key date for the twelfth-century construction. Back To Text
18) Cucherat, ibid.; C: xiii; and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Etude historique et archéologique sur l'église de Paray-le-Monial," Mémoires de la Société Eduenne n.s. 14 (1885): 334 and 346. Back To Text
19) No visits to Paray are recorded for Odilo in late 1004; for Odilo's activities at this time, see Jacques Hourlier, Saint Odilon Abbé de Cluny (Louvain, 1964): 71-72. Back To Text
20) Courtépée, III: 53-54. Canat de Chizy (1876: 11 n. 2) is the only previous scholar to note Courtépée's hesitation about this information. The Archives article (p. 6, n.2) mentions that the dedication is also found in a manuscript in the possession of the mayor of Paray; however, the article makes no indication as to this manuscript's date. Possibly, it is the book referred to in the Revolutionary Process-verbal. Back To Text
21) Especially Charles and Raymond Oursel. Their views are outlined in the previous chapter. Back To Text
22) Canat de Chizy: 102. For the cartulary of Marcigny, see Jean Richard, Le cartulaire de Marcigny-sur-Loire (1045-1144): Essai de reconstruction d'un manuscrit disparu (Dijon: 1957). Back To Text
23) For this view, see Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Paray-le-Monial," Cong. arch. (Moulins/Nevers) 80 (1913): 53; Virey, 1962: 13; Charles Oursel, "Paray-le-Monial et Cluny," Art Studies: Medieval, Renaissance and Modern 4 (1926): 93-94; and Raymond and Anne-Marie Oursel, Les églises romanes de l'Autunois et du Brionnais (Mâcon: 1956): 245-47. There were three lives written soon after Hugh's canonization on 1 January 1120. The earliest by a certain Gilo was written in 1120-21, with a second by Rainuld of Semur (a.k.a. Rainuld of Vézelay), abbot of Vézelay following not long after ca 1122. A third, probably written sometime later than Rainuld's, by Hildebert de Lavardin (a.k.a. Hildebert of Le Mans), Bishop of Le Mans, closely parallels and is probably based upon Gilo's. Though Gilo's appears to be the earliest, Rainuld's is particularly important because he was both a Cluniac monk and a nephew of Saint High. For a discussion of the various "Vitae" of Saint Hugh, see Theodore Schieffer, "Notice sur les vies de saint Hugues, abbé de Cluny," 3me sér. Le Moyen Age 7 (1936): 81-103; Adriaan H. Bredero, "La canonisation de Saint Hugues et celle de ses devanciers," Le gouvernement d'Hughes de Semur à Cluny: Actes du Colloque scientifique international: Cluny, Septembre 1988, edited by Brigitte Maurice (Cluny: 1990): 154 and 168 nn. 18-20; Neil Stratford, "The Documentary Evidence for Cluny III," ibid.: 285 and 296-97 nn. 13-14; Carolyn M. Carty, "The Role of Gunzo's Dream in the Building of Cluny III," Gesta 27 (1988): 119-20 n.1, 121 n. 19 and 122-23 n.47; Frank Barlow, "The Canonization and the Early Lives of Hugh I, Abbot of Cluny," Analecta bollandiana 98 (1980): 297-334; and H.E.J. Cowdrey, Two Studies in Cluniac History, 1049-1126 (Studi Gregoriani per la storia della "Libertas Ecclesiae," 11) (Rome: 1978). Back To Text
24) Raindulus of Semur writes: "Puer quidam monachus apud Paredum monasterium, dum in choro cum fratibus oraret, una tabulis cadente, quae in lacunari turris eminentis jungebatur, contritus a vertice est. Curritur ad venerabilem patrem, qui tunc forte in altera ecclesia, Dei scilicet Genitrici, divino operi insistebat; et tam gravis collisio pueri jam pene examinis ei nuntiatur. Qui ubi advenit, aqua benedicta faciem ejus rigat et oratione subsecuta spiritum vix palpitantem et ad exitum properantem retinuit: inde paulatim resumptis viribus sanus effectus longo tempore supervixit." "Vita Hugonis," Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. III: 660. The related passage in Gilo's "Vita Hugonis" reads: "Hoc nempe causa exstitit ut plurima ejus miracula supprimerentur. Tali si quidem modo occultatum fuit, quod apud Paredum fecit pietatis exhibitor. Turris in quam signa in medio dependentia consistunt compage soluta puerum scholarum qui suberat pene exstinxit; tabula enim de culmine ipsius collapsa innocentum percussit, stravit, et ut videbatur, exanimavit. Dolorem impendunt qui consulere nesciunt; nuntiantque patri puerum jam exstinctum qui in militie spiritualis procinctu vix vivere inchoasset. Accessit pius visitator, et corpusculo confracto adhibens fomentum celestis gratie ad membra emortua tenuem flatum revocavit. Protinus decumbentum in statum erigens nomine conclamatum suo excitavit et pristine restituit. Hoc quoque ad notiam nostram pervenit, eo revelante qui prestitit." Cited from Charles Oursel, "Paray-le-Monial et Cluny," Art Studies: Medieval, Renaissance and Modern 4 (1926): 92. Back To Text
25) Hildebert de Lavardin, "Vita Hugonis," Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. III: 641. Back To Text
26) See, for example, Virey, 1962: 13; and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, "Etude historique et archéologique sur l'église de Paray-le-Monial," Mémoires de la Société Eduenne n.s. 14 (1885): 334-36. Back To Text
27) For example, as was pointed out in the previous chapter, Raymond Oursel called the incident in the "Vita" one of the "textes précieux" for dating Burgundian Romanesque; Raymond Oursel, DEF, IIA: 126. Back To Text
28) Kenneth Conant has suggested that the incident took place in the upper story of the porch, which he believes was used for the novitiate; Kenneth John Conant, "The History of Romanesque Cluny as Clarified by Excavation and Comparisons," Monumentum 7 (1971): 32 n. 21. While the unvaulted state of the porch towers would make it possible for someone to be struck by a falling piece of wood without having to propose scaffolding, all versions of the incident report it as having taken place in the choro of the church. Generally, chorus is the specific term used for that part of the church in which the monks chanted their offices, namely the continuation of the nave east of the crossing, which is often today refered to as the choir; see Adolph Mettler, "Die zweiten Kirche in Cluni und die Kirchen in Hirsau nach den 'Gewohnheiten' des XI. Jahrhunderts," Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Architektur 3:12 (September 1910): 277-80, and idem, ibid., 4:1 (Oktober 1910): 1-4. Back To Text
29) A fact also known from the two medieval pouillés (Charmasse: 366 and 372). Back To Text
30) Not a particularly surprising fact considering what we know about Cluniac church building of the period. Back To Text
31) See Francis Salet, "Cluny III," Bul. mon. 126 (1968): 281, esp. n.2. Back To Text
32) Canat de Chizy, 100-115. The lords of Bourbon probably became interested in the monastery when Humbert I, lord of Bourbon, married Ermnegarde, the sister of Hugh II, count of Chalon. Digoine to the east of Paray should not be confused with Digoin on the Loire to the west of Paray. Back To Text
33) Until the time of Peter the Venerable, Cluniac priors were generally elected by the community they ruled over. Peter initiated a program in which the abbot of Cluny named the priors. By selecting priors from outside of the community they ruled, the abbot of Cluny was better able to control the daughter houses of the order; Giles Constable, "Monastic Legislation at Cluny in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries," reprinted in Cluniac Studies (London: 1980) # I: 151-61. My discussion below closely follows Canat de Chizy: 115-133. Back To Text
34) C: # 12; the phrase "quorum aliquos nominari placet," indicates that what follows is only a partial list of the priors down to the time of the document. Back To Text
35) C: # 145 and # 96. He may as well be the Artaldus named as deacon in C: # 82, presumably before he assumed priorship. Canat de Chizy (118) incorrectly cites Hugh as the first prior of Paray. Hugh's priorship is unlikely as he only took monastic vows shortly before he died in 1039. Back To Text
36) C: # 12 lists Gonterius as Artauldus' successor. C: # 111 names Gonterius as prior at the time Bishop/Count Hugh was preparing for his pilgrimage to the Holy Land (ca 1036). Back To Text
37) C: # 12, "Ut prior multis locum ditavit necessaris, id est edificiis..." Back To Text
38) Canat de Chizy: 12. Back To Text
39) For a list, see ibid.: 124. Back To Text
40) See the discussion of the cartulary above. Back To Text
41) C: # 202. Back To Text
42) C: # 221 and # 222 for the treaty of 1180; for 1205, C: # 225 and # 226. The treaty of 1238 is reported by Courtépée, III: 55. For a more complete discussion of the problems between Paray and the counts of Chalon and the resulting treaties, see Canat de Chizy: 49-69. Back To Text
Send any comments or suggestions to Minott Kerr at:
mkerr@reed.eduLast Modified: 3 March 1997