Monasticism and Manuscript Culture in Medieval Europe

Monasticism and Manuscript Culture in Medieval Europe offers a new perspective on the abbey at Cluny, one of the medieval Christianitys most influential institutions. Most historical approaches to Cluny have embraced a predictable "e;rise and fall"e; narrative, determined largely by the extent of the abbeys legislative reach. In this volume, Scott G. Bruce instead focuses on Clunys cultural history through close attention to manuscript evidence. Rather than emphasizing the great Burgundian abbeys exceptionalism, the essays in this book underscore the interconnectedness of Cluniac devotional practices and written culture with contemporary Benedictine houses, even those, like the Cistercians, commonly seen as being at odds with the brethren of Cluny. As the essays in Monasticism and Manuscript Culture in Medieval Europe make clear, Cluny was a center of cultural production at once receptive and influential, embedded in a dynamic field of monastic institutions, some friendly, some competitive, but all participating in a vibrant cross-pollination of written texts studied by monks in the safety of their cloisters and carried by them throughout Europe, to the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land.