Urban II - Offprint

8/13/2019 Urban II - Offprint

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Vol. 81 December 2012 No. 4

CHURCH

HISTORY

Studies inChristianity & Culture

Published quarterly by

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CHURCH HISTORY

2012, The American Society of Church History


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CHURCH HISTORY

Studies in Christianity and Culture

Editors

John CorriganAmanda Porterfield

Senior Assistant to the Editors

Tammy Heise

Assistants to the Editors

Cara L. BurnidgeCharles McCrary

Emily Suzanne Clark

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Associate Editors

Elizabeth A. Clark Duke UniversityThomas Noble University of Notre DameCarlos Eire Yale UniversityHugh McLeod University of BirminghamDana Robert Boston UniversityEnrique Dussel Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

CHURCHHISTORY (ISSN 0009-6407)


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ARTICLES

765 Monastic Literacy in John Cassian: Toward a NewSublimityREBECCAKRAWIEC

796 The Last Carolingian Exegete: Pope Urban II, the Weightof Tradition, and Christian ReconquestMATTHEWGABRIELE

815 Where Two Crosses Met: Religious Accommodation

between a Reformed Protestant Community and aCommandery of the Order of Malta (Loudun, circa15601660)EDWINBEZZINA

852 Vital Nature and Vital Piety: Johann Arndt and theEvangelical Vitalism of Cotton MatherBRETTMALCOLMGRAINGER

873 A Leavening Force: African American Women andChristian Mission in the Civil Rights EraMARYK. SCHUENEMAN

903 The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trendsin Historical ResearchC. P. E. NOTHAFT

BOOK REVIEW FORUM

The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious RevolutionSecularized Society. Reviewed by Hans J. Hillerbrand,Robert A. Yelle, David M. Whitford, and Mark A. Nollwith a reply by Brad S. Gregory

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES

943 Budde, Michael L. and Karen Scott, eds.,Witness of the Body: The Past,Present, and Future of Martyrdom ............................... Jonathan L. Zecher


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996 Johnston, Warren,Revelation Restored: The Apocalypse in Later Seventeenth-Century England...................................................................Paul S. Seaver

998 Smith, Gary Scott,Heaven in the American Imagination........... Peter Gardella

1000 Tennant, Bob,Conscience, Consciousness and Ethics in Joseph ButlersPhilosophy and Ministry ................................................. James J. S. Foster1001 Walsham, Alexandra,The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and

Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland............... Peter W. Williams1003 Wright, Luke Savin Herrick,Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Anglican

Church................................................................................. Paul H. Friesen1005 Wergland, Glendyne R.,Sisters in the Faith: Shaker Women and Equality of the

Sexes................................................................................... Martha L. Finch1007 Howard, Thomas Albert,God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the

Religious Divide .................................................................... Daniel L. Pals1011 Sill, Ulrike,Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission

in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana .................................Andrew E. Barnes1013 Robinson, James,Divine Healing: The Formative Years, 18301890: Theological

Roots in the Transatlantic World.............................................Joseph Williams1015 Cantor, Geoffrey,Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851 ..........Anthony J.

Steinhoff1018 Harris, Susan K.,Gods Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898

1902................................................................... Kathryn Hamilton Warren1020 Young, Amos and Estrelda Y. Alexander, eds.,Afro-Pentecostalism: Black

Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture..................................................................................... Kathleen Hladky

1023 Robson, Laura,Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine......................................................................................Brooke Sherrard

1026 Greene, Robert H.,Bodies Like Bright Stars: Saints and Relics in OrthodoxRussia .......................................................................... Scott M. Kenworthy

1028 Marty, Martin E.,Dietrich BonhoefferssLetters and Papers from Prison: ABiography................................................................Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C.

1031 Dormady, Jason,Primitive Revolution: Restorationist Religion and the Idea ofthe Mexican Revolution, 19401968 .............................. Michael P. Guno

1033 Schelkens, Karim,Catholic Theology of Revelation on the Eve of Vatican II: ARedaction History of the SchemaDe fontibus revelationis (19601962)

.................................................................................. James P. McCartin

1034 Cleary, Edward L.,The Rise of Charismatic Catholicism in Latin America............................................................................ Kristy Nabhan-Warren1037 Harline, Craig,Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and

Modern America .............................................................. Heather R. White1039 Gilmour, Michael J.,The Gospel According to Bob Dylan: The Old, Old Story

for Modern Times...................................................... Theodore Louis Trost1042 Stephens, Randall J. and Karl W. Giberson,The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in

a Secular Age ..................................................................... Steven P. Miller1044 Gardner, Christine J.,Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical

Abstinence Campaigns....................................................... Amy DeRogatis

1047 BOOKS RECEIVED

1056 INDEX


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The Last Carolingian Exegete: Pope Urban II,

the Weight of Tradition, and ChristianReconquest

MATTHEWGABRIELE

Pope Urban II (108899) was trained at Reims and Cluny before entering the orbit ofthe Gregorians around Rome. As such, Urban was first trained as an exegete. Byconsidering how Urban used one particular verse (Daniel 2:21) and tracing thatverses intellectual lineage forward from the Fathers, through the Carolingians, we

get a clearer picture not just of the vibrancy of eleventh-century intellectual life butalso, ultimately, of Urbans understanding of the arc of sacred history. As a trainedCarolingian exegete, Urban continued the work of his ninth-century predecessors,calling the Christian people (populus christianus)to mend their ways and strike backagainst the pagans, so that God would return His hand and allow the Christians toreconquer the Mediterranean world.

INthe late tenth century, Abbot Maiolus of Cluny (d. 994) asked one of his

monks to copy Hrabanus Mauruss (d. 852) commentary on the Book ofJeremiah. Maiolus also asked the scribe for Hrabanuss original dedicatory

letter to Lothar I (84055). The manuscript survives intact, complete with thescribes explanation of the request, Hrabanuss letter, and his commentary.1

Maioluss request for the commentary certainly was not odd; his was astandard kind of request, one made throughout the early Middle Ages. Butwhy ask for the dedicatory letter as well? What could that have added to hisunderstanding of the commentary? The answer is simple enough to miss.Maiolus wanted the codex he commissioned to be one that spoke to the sins

of the Israelites and loss of Jerusalem (Jeremiah), the work of the Fathers(Jeromes commentary, which was the basis for Hrabanuss), and thetribulations of the New Israel as they echoed forward from the past, throughthe ninth century and into Maioluss own day (Hrabanus and his dedicatory

Matthew Gabriele is an Associate Professor of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech.

1London, BL Add. 22820. On the scriptorium of Cluny under Maiolus, see Monique-CcileGarand, Copistes de Cluny au temps de saint Maieul (948-994), Bibliothque de lcole deschartes136 (1978): 536. On the circumstances of Hrabanuscommentary, see Mayke De Jong,The Empire as Ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus & BiblicalHistoriafor Rulers,inThe Uses of the

Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000), 191226.

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letter). Ninth-century churchmen sought the meaning of sacred history inexegesis, and Maiolus of Cluny was a product of that tradition. In order tounderstand a biblical book, in order to understand Gods will, even as early asthe tenth century, one had to first consult the Carolingian masters on thatsubject, who would help the reader understand the Fathers. Only then couldyou approach the Bible, which would reveal Gods plan for the world.2

Biblical verses were never naked in the early Middle Ages. They wereclothed in the heavy garments of tradition and weighed down with the

burden of commentary. We have the tendency to see an eleventh-centurymonastic chronicler cite Jeremiah and think Jeremiah, when we should bethinking, with author and reader, Hrabanus, Haimo, Paschasius, andJerome. Perhaps our modern approach has something to do with the waynineteenth-century historiography still constrains the questions we ask oftexts, perhaps something to do with our relative unfamiliarity with medievalexegesis, perhaps something to do with what we (think we) do know aboutexegesis. But when we forget that men of the early Middle Ages, and thetenth and eleventh centuries especially, encountered the Bible throughCarolingian and Patristic commentaries, we miss things. We could miss thefact that a citation from Psalms, for instance, could evoke not only its placein the liturgy but also the explications of Alcuin (d. 804), Smaragdus ofSt-Mihiel (d. ca. 840), Walahfrid Strabo (d. 849), Prudentius of Troyes(d. 861), and Remigius of Auxerre (d. 908), among others (to name only theCarolingians).3 A brief early eleventh-century annalistic reference to Ezekielcould conjure a host of associations in the mind of the reader andfundamentally recast the meaning of a passage.4

One of the first letters Pope Urban II (108899) wrote after ascending to thepapacy in 1088 was directed to the people of Salzburg. Urban began bycommending the faithful to act manfully and be consoled by the power of

2Silvia Cantelli Berarducci, Lesegesi della Rinascita carolingia,in La Bibbia nel Medioevo,ed. G. Cremascoli and C. Leonardi (Bologna, Italy: Edizioni dehoniane, 1996), 198; GilbertDahan, Lire la Bible au Moyen ge (Geneva: Droz, 2009), 11, 16. Fundamental to the study ofmedieval exegesis are still Henri de Lubac,Exgse Mdivale: les quatre sens de lEcriture, 2vols. (Paris: Aubier, 195464); and Jean Danielou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in theBiblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. Wulstan Hibberd (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1960).

3See the example in Katherine Allen Smith,War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture(Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell & Brewer, 2011), 127. Other examples in Sumi Shimahara, Daniel et lesvisions politiques lpoque carolingienne, Mdivales 55 (2008): 21; and Carol Scheppard,Prophetic History: Tales of Righteousness and Calls to Action in the Ecologae Tractatorum inPsalterium, in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. Celia Chazelle and Burtonvan Name Edwards (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 6173. See also, more generally, on this processof associationthe catenaMary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory inMedieval Culture(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

4Matthew Gabriele, An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, andJerusalem before the First Crusade(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 11719.

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God, so that they will rise up on behalf of the house of Israel against the enemyand be godly warriors (bellatores Domini) on the Day of the Lord (referencingEzekiel 13:5). This was important because, citing 2 Timothy 3:1, Urban warnedthe faithful that they lived in a dangerous time(tempora periculosa). But, allwas not lost. Urban reminded his audience that if we mended our ways, Godwould hear our prayers and the ecclesia would be restored to its pristine,uncorrupted state.5 On its surface, this appears to be a rather standardeleventh-century call to reform. But Urbans citation of the verse fromEzekieland how he modified it6placed him in a particular Carolingian(and Cluniac) exegetical tradition. Urban was thinking eschatologically,linking the actions of the faithful in this world to their future salvation. Thisinterpretation is strengthened through the exegesis of another verse. At leastsince Alcuin in the late eighth century, exegetes had associated thedangerous times of 2 Timothy 3:1 to the depredations of the antichrist.7

These realizations recast our understanding of the letter, switching its tonefrom staid call to reform to furious call to arms. This is a realization thatcould have vast implications for how we understand Urban IIs papacy,especially as we approach 1095 and the call to holy war in the East.8

Exegetical tradition suggested to Urban a particular understanding of sacredhistory. There was optimism in his heart. He said that because of mans sins, theecclesiawas collectively punished with the pagan invasions of the seventh and

5Nunc ergo precor et amplector fraternitatem vestram, ut agatis viriliter atque constanter, et

confortemini in potentia virtutis Dei ascendentes ex adverso et opponentes murum pro domoIsrael [Ezek. 13:5], ut strenuissimi Domini bellatores stetis in praelio in die ipsius. Vos ergo quispiritualiter estis, eos qui instructi non sunt verbis et exemplis instruite, et exhortamini sicutscitis et necessitas exigit hujus periculosi temporis [2 Tim. 3:1]. . . Insuper apud omnipotentisDei misericordiam continuas preces effundite, quatenus et Ecclesiam suam sanctam in gradumpristinum misericorditer restaurare dignetur(Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:284).

6Cf. the Vulgate: non ascendistis ex adverso neque opposuistis murum pro domo Israhel utstaretis in proelio in die Domini;and Urbans letter (note 5 above): ascendentes ex adverso etopponentes murum pro domo Israel, ut strenuissimi Domini bellatores stetis in praelio in dieipsius. Note how Urban has changed the temporal frame of the verse. Instead of saying whatdid not happen, Urban is using Ezekiel to show what is happening now.

7On the use of 2 Timothy 3:1, see Wolfram Brandes, Tempora periculosa sunt. Eschatologischesim Vorfeld der Kaiserkrnung Karls des Grossen, in Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794:Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur, ed. Rainer Berndt, Jr. (Mainz, Germany: Selbstverl.der Gesellschaft fr mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 1997), 4979; and on the tradition ofEzekiel 13:5, see Matthew Gabriele, Odo of Cluny, Adso of Montier-en-Der, and the Pincer ofPast and Future,(unpublished manuscript).

8H. E. J. Cowdrey has suggested that Cluny played an important, if indirect, role in shapingUrban IIs ideas but his focus was on the liturgy, rather than on Urban s intellectual formation.Philippe Buc and Jay Rubenstein have linked exegesis and the First Crusade, but not throughUrban II. See H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Urban II and the Idea of Crusade, Studi Medievali 36(1995): 72930; idem, Cluny and the First Crusade, Revue Bndictine 83 (1975): 285311;Philippe Buc, Exgse et violence dans la tradition occidentale, Annali di Storia moderna econtemporanea16 (2010): 13144; and Jay Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven: The First Crusadeand the Quest for the Apocalypse(New York: Basic Books, 2011).

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eighth centuries. Now, however, at the end of the eleventh, the time ofreconquest was at hand.9 In this letter, the warriors of God (bellatores

Domini), working with the clerics instructing them, have become the agentsof change. Their actions would touch Gods mercy and the liberation of theChurch and restoration of Christianity would soon come.

This article will examine the exegetical tradition that gave weight to some ofthe biblical citations in Urban IIs letters. Urban drew primarily from a Frankishexegetical tradition that survived amidst, and indeed thrived because of, the

political disorder of the late ninth and tenth centuries. As an heir to andparticipant in that tradition, Urban II brought exegesis out of the cloister,applying exegetical lessons to contemporary events.10 Ninth-centuryFrankish exegetes thought their world was crumbling around them but nevergave up hope. They saw a way out, foretold for them in the pages ofScripture, and they used their commentaries to illuminate the way forward.Urban II continued their work and, throughout the 1090s, the Latin Westrejoiced as the New Israel returned to its proper path, as prophecy began tocome true when Christs enemies were pushed back in Iberia, Sicily, andPalestine.

I. A CHANGE OFTIMES ANDAGES: HOWODO OFLAGRYBECAMEPOPEURBANII

A boy named Odo was born, likely to the lords of Lagry in the county ofChampagne, circa 1035. He began his education nearby, at the cathedralschool of Reims probably under Bruno of Cologne (d. 1101), who wouldlater found Chartreuse. Odo remained at Reims from circa 105067 but thenmoved to Cluny and became prior under Abbot Hugh the Great of Smur(d. 1109). Around 1080, he went to Rome to pursue Clunys interests and

his talents were spotted by Pope Gregory VII (107385), who elevated Odoto the cardinal-bishopric of Ostia shortly thereafter. After the death of PopeVictor III (108688), Odo became Pope Urban II.11

9Alfons Becker,Papst Urban II (10881099), 2 vols. (Stuttgart, Germany: Hiersemann, 196488), 2:35258.

10On the application of exegesis, the origins of a theology of politics,see the underutilizedGerard E. Caspary,Politics and Exegesis: Origen and the Two Swords, (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1979), especially 810, 18991; and more recently Philippe Buc, Lambiguitedu livre: Prince, pouvoir et peuple dans les commentaires de la Bible au Moyen ge (Paris:Beauchesne, 1994); idem, La vengeance de Dieu: De lexgse patristique la rformeecclsiastique et la premire croisade, in La Vengeance, 4001200, ed. DominiqueBarthlemy, Franois Bougard, and Rgine Le Jan (Rome: cole franaise de Rome, 2006),45186.

11Becker,Papst Urban II, 1:2490.



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We do not know much about Urbans education under Bruno at Reims. Mostlikely, the Carolingian educational program begun in the ninth century wascarried into the tenth and eleventh. Hincmar of Reims (d. 882) began toexpand the cathedral schools library and, in the 890s, schoolmastersRemigius of Auxerre and Hucbald of Saint-Amand (d. ca. 932) began toattract students from throughout Europe. Gerbert of Reims (later PopeSylvester II [9981002]) continued this tradition in the tenth century.Carolingian exegesis featured prominently in that library, with extantcommentaries by Haimo of Auxerre (d. ca. 875), Heiric of Auxerre,Remigius of Auxerre, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, and Ansegisus of Reims (d.ca. 833), among others, so we can reasonably guess that they featuredheavily in the educational program.12

We are on surer ground when it comes to Cluny. Most likely, both the schooland library at Cluny were begun by Odo of Cluny, who was himself an exegete

by training.13 This would make sense, as he studied under the prolific exegeteRemigius of Auxerre in Paris, then became a monk at Baume as well as itsschoolmaster. When Abbot Berno of Baume (d. 927) moved to Cluny, Odowent with him, bringing his volumes from Tours to start Clunys school andlibrary.14 We are fortunate to have a catalog of Clunys library as it existedcirca 1100, perhaps even from just the time Urban was using it as prior. Thecatalogue, printed by Lopold Delisle in the late nineteenth century and firstthought to be from the mid twelfth-century, has now been shown to date tocirca 1100 and reflect the interests of abbots Odo, Maiolus, Odilo, andHugh.15 The collection contained over thirty different biblical commentariesfrom the ninth century. There are a few works by Paschasius, a number by

12On Bruno at Reims, see Patrick Demouy, Bruno et la rforme de lglise de Reims,inSaintBruno et sa posterit spirituelle: Actes du colloque international de 8 et 9 octobre 2001 a lInstitutcatholique de Paris, ed. Alain Girard, Daniel le Blvec, and Nathalie Nabert (Salzburg, Austria:Institut fr Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2003), 1320. On the educational tradition andmanuscripts, see Jason Glenn,Politics and History in the Tenth Century: The Work and World ofRicher of Reims (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5464; Becker, Papst UrbanII., 1: 3135; and Michel Sot,Un historien et son glise au Xe sicle: Flodoard de Reims(Paris:Fayard, 1993), 7274. On tenth-century education as a continuation of the ninth, see John J.Contreni, The Tenth Century: The Perspective from the Schools,in Haut Moyen-ge: Culture,education et socit: tudes offerts Pierre Rich, ed. Michel Sot, et al. (Paris: ditionseuropennes Erasme, 1990), 37987.

13See below at note 27.14On Odos biography, now Isabelle Ros, Construire une socit seigneuriale: Itinraire et

ecclsiologie de labb Odon de Cluny (fin du IXe - milieu du Xe sicle) (Turnhout: Brepols,2008), 35368. On his education, see See John of Salerno, Vita sancti Odonis, PL 133:45, 52.

15Veronika von Bren, Le grand catalogue de la bibliothque de Cluny,in Le gouvernementdHugues de Semur Cluny: Actes du colloque scientifique international(Cluny, France: MuseOchier, 1990), 25460; idem, Le catalogue de la bibliothque de Cluny du XIe siclereconstitu,Scriptorium46 (1992): 25667. The catalog itself can be found at Lopold Delisle,Inventaire des manuscrits de la Bibliothque Nationale: Fonds de Cluni (Paris: Champion,1884), 33773, online at http://tertullian.org/articles/delisle_cluny_catalogue.htm.

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Alcuin, and an entire section headed by Hrabanus.16 There are alsocommentaries by Haimo of Auxerre on the Minor Prophets, on Genesis, onthe letters of Paul, on the Apocalypse, on Isaiah, on Ezekiel, on Jeremiah,and on Daniel.17

We even have evidence that these books were read. The Liber tramitis, aCluniac customary (later copied at Farfa) originally dating to the 1040s andthe abbacy of Odilo, lists the books that were distributed to the monks forreading during the Easter season. Of the sixty-four books distributed, twenty-nine are biblical exegesis (45%). Of those twenty-nine, sixteen of them arefrom the ninth century (25% overall, 55% of all exegesis). These worksinclude Alcuin on the Trinity (and another perhaps on Ecclesiastes),Ambrose Autpert on Revelation, Hrabanus on Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Kings,and Maccabees, and finally Haimo of Auxerre on the Letters of Paul,Revelation, Isaiah, and Genesis (and perhaps two others by him on theMinor Prophets and Psalms).18

There is meaning in the books that Urban II saw on the shelves. Populating alibrary with these volumes was not an innocent choice. First, as anyone whohas seen any tenth-, eleventh-, or twelfth-century codices of Carolingianexegesis can attest, these can be massive volumes, sometimes running intothe hundreds of folios. A tenth-century copy of Haimos commentary onRevelation runs to 148 folios. An eleventh-century Italian copy of hiscommentary on some of Pauls letters comes in at 146 folios (this particularcodex only contains Haimos work on Romans and some of 1 Corinthians).An early twelfth-century version of Haimos exegesis of Isaiah, from BurySt. Edmunds, is 125 folios.19 Sometimesthough not alwaysthese are

prestige pieces, written on high quality vellum and filled with illustrations.20

Regardless, these codices, which almost always contain only one text,

16Delisle,Inventaire des manuscrits, nos. 234, 27172 (Paschasius), 8586, 242, 367, 375, 410,521 (Alcuin), and 33891 (Hrabanus, though not all these are by him).

17Delisle,Inventaire des manuscrits, nos. 347, 427, 430, 431, 428, and 429, respectively. Weshould also note that there are a number of unattributed commentaries in the catalog, whichcould well be Carolingian in origin. For example, the catalog also lists (no. 557) Volumen inquo continetur tractatus de grammatica, habens in principio expositionem somniorumNabuchodonosor. This text, specifically on Daniel 2, may well be another of Haimos, giventhe Auxerre connection to Clunys collection, Haimos interest in grammar, his status as a schoolmaster, and his interest in the Old Testament prophets. On Haimo as grammarian, see below.

18Andr Wilmart, Le couvent et la bibliothque de Cluny vers le milieu du Xle sicle,RevueMabillon11 (1921): 9294, 1046. Text itself atLiber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, ed. PeterDinter, CCM 10 (Siegburg, Germany: Verlag Franz Schmitt, 1980), 26164.

19See, respectively, London, BL Harley 3026; London, BL Harley 3102; and London, BLEgerton 2782.

20See the description of an eleventh-century version of Haimo on Ezekiel in Patricia Stirnemann,Lillustration du commentaire dHaymon sur Ezchiel: Paris, B.N. latin 12302, in Lcolecarolingienne dAuxerre: De Murethach Remi, 830-908, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat, ColetteJeudy, and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), 93117.



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intended as stand-alone additions to a cloisters library, would require a greatdeal of time and investment of resources.

More important to our discussion here, the Carolingian commentaries thatfilled the library at Cluny, that were read by its monks, framed the wayscripture was later understood and hence their readers understanding of thearc of sacred history. We have already seen how Maiolus of Cluny wasinterested in Hrabanuss commentary on Jeremiah but there is more evidencethat Carolingian exegesis shaped his thinking. During his captivity in theAlps at the hands of some Islamic brigands, Maiolus of Cluny wrote to hiscongregation, referencing the hordes of Belial that surrounded him. Indoing so, Maiolus was deliberately evoking Haimo of Auxerres commentaryon 2 Thessalonians.21 The Cluniac manuscripts produced under Maiolusssuccessor Odilo continued to evoke Carolingian precedents.22 Indeed,Haimos exegesis of Revelation was the pillar of later Cluniac tradition onthat topic, perhaps even inspiring the image of the Last Judgment thatoverlooked the refectory in Cluny.23 Moreover, Odilos institution of thefeast of All Souls may have been a manifestation of this legacy. Odilo seemsto have taken at least some of these ideas from, again, Haimos commentaryon Revelation, specifically in that the feast made clear that the monks too,like the Carolingians before them, were concerned with the whole Christian

people (populus christianus).24 Finally, we should not forget that because

21Scott G. Bruce, An Abbot Between Two Cultures: Maiolus of Cluny Confronts the Muslimsof La Garde-Freinet,Early Medieval Europe15 (2007): 43739. Bruce erroneously follows thePLs attribution of the commentary to Haimo of Halberstadt. It is, however, indeed Haimo ofAuxerres. See P. Riccardo Quadri, Aimone di Auxerre a la luce dei Collectaneadi Heiric diAuxerre(Padua, Italy: Antenore, 1962), 718.

22In the dedicatory verses ofOdilos Bible(Paris BNF lat. 15176), the scribe stole a poem fromAlcuin to Charlemagne, replacing Alcuins name with his and Charlemagnes with Odilos. Anothercompilation on Mary commissioned by Odilo in the early eleventh century included Haimoscommentary on the Song of Songs. See, respectively, Neil Stratford, La Bible dite dOdilon,in Cluny 9102010: Onze Sicles De Rayonnement, ed. Neil Stratford (Paris: Editions duPatrimoine Centre des monuments nationaux, 2010), 92; and Monique-Ccile Garand, Unecollection personelle de Saint Odilon de Cluny et ses complements, Scriptorium 33 (1979):16380.

23Dominique Iogna-Prat,Order & Exculsion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism,and Islam (10001150), trans. Graham Robert Edwards (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,2002), 106; Isabelle Cochelin, When Monks Were the Book: The Bible and Monasticism (6th-11th Centuries), in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception, andPerformance in Western Christianity, ed. Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (New York:Columbia University Press, 2011), 64. See also Michael E. Hoenicke Moore, Demons and theBattle for Souls at Cluny, Studies in Religion/ Sciences Religieuses 32 (2003): 48891; whosuggests that Odilos demonology was rooted in Carolingian thought.

24Guy Lobrichon, Lordre de ce temps et les dsordres de la Fin: Apocalypse et socit, du XIe la fin du XIe sicle,inThe Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke,Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkhenhuysen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), 235; andRobert G. Heath, Crux Imperatorum Philosophia: Imperial Horizons of the Cluniac Confraternitas,9641109(Pittsburgh, Penn: Pickwick Press, 1976), 9394.

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Abbot Hugh was first educated in Auxerre before arriving at Cluny, he waslikely exposed to the works of the Auxerrois exegetes as part of hisformative training.25

Beryl Smalley famously suggested that the tenth century was a sort of blackhole,with no exegesis produced between the death of Remigius of Auxerreand Fulbert of Chartres (d. 1028).26 But perhaps we should reconsider. Thetenth century was actually a rich time for exegesis, with expositors of thesacred books offering their own glosses on sacred texts. We shouldremember that works like Odo of Clunys Collationum libri tres, written inthe first half of the tenth century, were indeed exegesis; his hagiographerspecifically referred to that text as Odos three books on Jeremiah.27

Moreover, ninth-century exegetes were read, copied, re-read, and re-copiedthroughout this period. For instance, Haimo of Auxerre was a prolificexegete, a man who wove his ideas throughout all of his sixteencommentaries, which were copied consistently into the sixteenth century. Hiscommentary on Isaiah survives in twelve manuscripts that can becomfortably dated to before 1100 CE, his Homilies survive in seventeenmanuscripts, his commentary on the Song of Songs in twenty-threemanuscripts, on the Apocalypse in twenty-five, and on the letters of Paul infifty. All before 1100.28 Many of these, as noted above, found their way intoClunys library and into the hands of their monks.

Pope Urban II was an heir to this tradition, both Carolingian and Cluniac; helearned at Reims and Clunythe former founded by Remigius of Auxerre, thelatter by one of his students.29 At both Reims and Cluny, ninth-century exegesis

populated their libraries and, most likely formed the foundation of theireducational programs. A key to understanding how this tradition manifesteditself in Urbans thinking can be found in his use of a particular verse. In theVulgate, Daniel 2:21 reads [Deus qui] mutat tempora, et tates: transfert

25N. Bulst, Hugo I. v. Semur, hl., 6. Abt v. Cluny, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols.(Stuttgart: Metzler, [1977]1999), vol. 5, cols 16566.

26Beryl Smalley,The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, Ind.: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1964), 44. More recently echoed in Lobrichon, Lordre de ce temps et lesdsordres de la Fin,23637.

27John of Salerno,Vita Odonis, PL 133:49, 60. Most likely, Odo is specifically commenting onwhat we know of as the Book of Lamentations, which Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertushad both also commented on in three books. See E. Ann Matter, The Lamentations Commentariesof Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus, Traditio 38 (1982): 13763. See also Ros,Construire une socit seigneuriale, 132n365; and Barbara Rosenwein, Rhinocerous Bound:Cluny in the Tenth Century(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 57, 6667, 72.

28See the dated (but still impressive) list compiled by Burton van Name Edwards at http://www.tcnj.edu/~chazelle/carindex.htm. See also the case study in Dominique Iogna-Prat, Lieu de culte etexgse liturgique lpoque carolingienne,inThe Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed.Celia Chazelle and Burton van Name Edwards (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 24243.

29In addition, Abbot Maiolus of Cluny reformed Saint-Germain in 980. See Rosenwein,Rhinoceros Bound, 54.



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regna, atque constituit.30 Urban directly referenced the verse three times in hisextant letters. First, in a 1091 letter to Bishop Berengar of Vic, elevating him tothe newly restored archbishopric of Tarragona, Urban wondered at theineffability of Gods ability to transform kingdoms and change times (Daniel2:21), having exalted the city in the past but then allowing the Saracens to

punish Christians for their sins. Thepopulus christianushad suffered for 390years under the people of Hagar. Now, however, the city was being liberatedand restored.31 In 1093, writing to Count Roger of Sicily (d. 1101), Urbannoted that the all Christian people rejoiced that God was changing thetime and transforming the kingdom (Daniel 2:21), in that men fromWestern partshad recaptured Sicily from the Saracens, ending 300 years ofChristian servitude to the gentiles.32 Then, in 1098, Urban wrote to BishopGerland of Girgenti (in Sicily), echoing the same sentiments. Beginning thisletter by again invoking Daniel 2:21, Urban gave thanks that, even thoughthe pagans had once trampled Christian regions, Counts Robert and Rogerhad now expelled the pagan Saracens from Sicily and restored the Christiancommunity(ecclesia) on that island.33

30God changes times and ages; erects and transforms kingdoms.

31Justus autem Dominus in viis suis, et sanctus in omnibus operibus suis, qui, cum in plerisque

judiciis incomprehensibilis habeatur, in nullo unquam valet reprehensibilis aestimari, ipse transfertregna et mutat tempora [Dan. 2:21]: ipsi visum est in eadem urbe olim Tarraconensis urbis gloriamexaltare; ipsi visum est in eadem urbe peccata populi sui visitare. Cum enim in ea Christianorumpopulus habitaret, visitavit in virga iniquitates eorum et in verberibus peccata eorum. Sed eccejam transactis trecentis nonaginta annis, ex quo praefatam urbem Agarenorum gens propesolitariam fecerit, principum suorum cordibus inspirare dignatus est ut ejusdem urbis restitutioni,secundum praeceptum apostolicae sedis, cui auctoritate Dei, licet indigni, praesidemus,insisterent(Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:33233). The best single account of Urbans interest inTarragona remains unpublished, see Lawrence J. McCrank, Restoration and Reconquest inMedieval Catalonia: The Church and Principality of Tarragona, 9711177 (PhD Dissertation,History, University of Virginia, 1974).

32Universis fere per orbem Christianorum populis notum esse credimus Siciliae insulam, multis

quondam et nobilibus illustratam Ecclesiis, opibusque et populo copiosam, multorumque religioneeffulsisse virorum, et quarumdam sanctissimarum martyrum et virginum claruisse martyrio. . . .Dominator autem rerum omnium Deus, cujus sapientia et fortitudo, quando vult, regnumtransfert, et mutat tempora [Dan. 2:21], quemadmodum ex occidentis partibus militemRogerium, scilicet virum et consilio optimum, et bello strenuissimum, ad eamdem insulamtranstulit, qui multo labore, frequentibus praeliis, et crebris suorum militum caede et sanguiniseffusione regionem praedictam a servitute gentilium opitulante Domino liberavit (Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:37071).

33Omnipotentis Dei dispositione mutantur tempora, transferuntur regna [Dan. 2:21]; hinc est

quod magni nominis nationes dirutas et depressas, viles vero atque exiguas nonnunquamlegimus exaltatas; hinc est quod in quibusdam regionibus Christiani nominis potestatempaganorum feritas occupavit, in quibusdam iterum paganorum tyrannidem Christianae potentiaedignitas conculcavit. Sicut nostris temporibus gloriosissimorum principum Roberti ducis etRogerii comitis fortitudine supremae dignationis miseratio omnem Saracenorum molestiam inSicilia insula expugnavit, et antiquum Ecclesiae sanctae statum pro voluntatis suae beneplacitorecuperavit(Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:510). This particular letter bears a strong resemblanceto a 1083 letter given by Gregory VII to Archbishop Alcherius of Palermo. See the discussion of

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In general, Urban seems to have been saying in these letters that theChristian people had suffered under the yoke of Gods enemies since theeighth and ninth centuries but God had changed the times, and Christiansnow led the reconquest.34 God alone, of course, could enact the change oftimes and ages but He did so specifically to protect His people. The

pagan invasions were the beginning of a downward arc but not the end ofsacred history. Time marched on and the Christian people still had a roleto play.

II. THEWEIGHT OFTRADITION ONDANIEL2:21

Pope Gregory I the Great (590-604) understood Daniel 2:21 to be anexplanation of how God could work through the papacy in governing theconduct of kings.35 Perhaps unsurprisingly, this reasoning was well receivedduring the Investiture Contest. Peter Damian (d. 1072) and Manegold ofLautenbach (d. before 1103), for example, deployed the phrase (often copiedverbatim from Gregory the Great) to speak of the power God had, throughthe papacy, to shape the conduct of kingdoms.36

Jerome (d. 420), however, had understood the verse a bit differently and his

commentaries loomed large on the mental map of medieval thought. Hisexegesis of Daniel 2:21 said that Gods will governed empires as well asmen. For him, the verse pointed forward to the latter half of Daniel 2(Nebuchadnezzars dream of the statue) and the decline of kingdoms. Godallowed evil men to do evil things in order to punish the wicked, and so on

Gregorys letter in Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in theMiddle Ages (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 36.

34Generally, see the discussion in Becker,Papst Urban II, 2: 35557.35GregoryI,Registrum, ed. P. Ewald and L. M. Hartmann, MGH Epist. 2 (Berlin: Monumenta

Germaniae Historica, 1899), 397. This tradition has been traced back in Ingrid Heike Ringel,Ipse transfert regna et mutat tempora: Beobachtungen zur Herkunft von Dan. 2,21 bei UrbanII, in Deus qui mutat tempora: Menschen und Institutionen im Wandel des Mittelalters, eds.Ernst-Dieter Hehl, Hubertus Seibert, and Franz Staab (Sigmaringen, Germany: J. Thorbecke,1987), 13756.

36For example, Manegold of Lautenbach, Ad Geberhardum, ed. K. Francke, MGH LdL 1(Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1891), 362; and Peter Damian,Epistolae, ed. Kurt Reindel, MGH Epist. 4:1 (Mnich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1983),143. Daniel was referenced more generally by other authors involved in the conflict betweenking and pope but never specifically Daniel 2:21. For instance, see Anonymous of Hersfeld,Deunitate ecclesiae conservanda, ed. W. Schweckenbecher, MGH LdL 2 (Hannover, Germany:Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1892), 204, 231; and Bernold of Hildesheim, Liber canonumcontra Heinricum IV, ed. F. Thaner, MGH LdL 1 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, 1891), 483, 502.



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until the tribulations described in Revelation.37 Jerome viewed Daniel astheodicy and an explanation of how providence governed politics. Mansactions only shaped the course of history insofar as his sins brought downGods wrath.

And Jeromes was the understanding of Daniel followed by the vast majorityof early medieval authors, especially those active in the ninth and tenthcenturies. For example, citations of Daniel can be found in the 829 Councilof Paris, as well as in the work of Theodulf of Orlans (d. 821), Dhuoda (d.ca. 843), Sedulius Scotus (d. after 865), Heiric of Auxerre (d. ca. 875), JohnScotus Eriugena (d. ca. 877), Christian of Stavelot (d. ca. 880), Notker theStammerer (d. 912), and in the anonymous Vision of Charlemagne fromcirca 870.38 In the tenth century, Liudprand of Cremona (d. 970/ 972),Hrosvita of Gandersheim (d. ca. 975), Fulcuin of Lobbes (d. 990), Adso ofMontier-en-Der (d. 992), and Heriger of Lobbes (d. 1007) would continue touse Daniel to illuminate their writings.39 In addition, and more importantly,at least five (and maybe as many as seven) new commentaries on Danielarose out of Carolingian Francia. These were the first attempted sinceJerome. Peter of Pisa (d. ca. 799) and an anonymous Gloss of St-Gall

37Jerome,In Danielem, ed. Francisco Glorie, CCSL 75A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1964), 787. Formore on Jeromes commentary, see Rgis Courtray, Prophte des temps derniers: Jromecommente Daniel(Paris: Beauchesne, 2009).

38Concilium Parisiense, MGH Concilia 2.2 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, 1908), 541; Theodulf of Orlans, Carminae, MGH Poetae 1 (Berlin: MonumentaGermaniae Historica, 1881), 474, 475, 492; idem, Libri Carolini, ed. Ann Freeman and PaulMeyvaert (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1998), 154, 156, 306;Dhuoda, Liber Manualis, ed. and trans. Marcelle Thibaux (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998), 98, 142, 176; Sedulius Scottus, Collectaneum miscellaneum, ed. D. Simpson,CCCM 67 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), 81, 113, 159, 168, 182, 214; Heiric of Auxerre,Collecteana, ed. Riccardo Quadri, Spicilegium Friburgense 2 (Freiburg, Germany: FreiburgUniversity Press, 1966), 115, 117, 120, 121, 12427, 130, 155; John Scotus Eriugena,Expositiones in hierarchiam coelestem, ed. J. Barbet, CCCM 31 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975),13132, 185, 191; Christian of Stavelot, Expositio super librum generationis, ed. R. B. C.Huygens, CCCM 224 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 436, 439; Notker the Stammerer,Gesta KaroliMagni imperatoris, ed. H. F. Haefele, MGH SRG n.s. 12 (Berlin: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, 1959), 1; and on the Visio Karoli Magni, see Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics ofDreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 2008.Ingrid Ringel has noted that Beatus of Libana (d. ca. 798) and Paulus Alvarus of Cordoba (d.after 860) referenced Daniel extensively in their writings and should be seen as havinginfluenced Urban. Yet, neither specifically invoked Daniel 2:21 and neither were found inClunys library. See Ringel, Ipse transfert regna, 13756; Beatus of Libana, Commentariusin Apocalypsin, ed. E. Romero-Pose, 2 vols. (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico, 1985); and PaulusAlvarus,Indiculus Luminosus, PL 121:51356.

39Liudprand of Cremona,Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana, ed. Joseph Becker, MGHSRG 41 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1915), 195; Hrosvita ofGandersheim, Gesta Ottonis, ed. P. von Winterfeld, MGH SRG 34 (Berlin: MonumentaGermaniae Historica, 1902), 204; Fulcuin of Lobbes, Gesta abbatum Lobiensium, MGH SS 4:55, 71; Adso of Montier-en-Der, De antichristo, ed. D. Verhelst, CCCM 45 (Turnhout: Brepols,1976), 25, and 122, 148; and Heriger of Lobbes, Epistolae, PL 159:1129.

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were produced during the eighth century, while Hrabanus Maurus, Angelomusof Luxeuil (d. ca. 855), Haimo of Auxerre, and two other anonymous authorswrote during the ninth.40

Two of the most influential Carolingian exegetes, both during the ninthcentury and afterwards, were Hrabanus and Haimo. Both wrotecommentaries on Daniel in the 840s and both were part of a second stagein the development of Carolingian biblical interpretation, one that becamealmost an exegesis of exegesis, seeking to illuminate both the Bible and theFathers at the same time. As such, both were still heavily dependent onJeromes interpretation of Daniel.41 Indeed, Hrabanus, who was archbishopof Mainz at the time he wrote his commentary, mostly copied Jeromeverbatim. For example, Hrabanuss exegesis of Daniel 2:21 changed nothingfrom Jeromes original interpretation.42

Haimo was a different kind of exegete. We know very little about his life butdo know he was a monk at Saint-Germain of Auxerre and master of its schoolinto the 860s, when he left to become abbot of Cessy-les-Bois. At that time,Haimos pupil Heiric of Auxerre returned to Saint-Germain in order to takeHaimos place.43 Haimos commentary on Daniel reformulated Jeromesunderstanding of the text, adding other patristic interpretations of certainverses to his work and making comparisons across biblical books thatJerome did not. As Guy Lobrichon has noted, an exegete was not requiredto repeat all that his predecessors had said; he was, however, obliged to take

40Shimahara, Daniel et les visions,1921; idem, Le succs mdival de lAnnotation brvesur DanieldHaymon dAuxerre, texte scolaire carolingien exhortant la rforme, in tudesdexgse carolingienne: Autour dHaymon dAuxerre, ed. Sumi Shimahara (Turnhout: Brepols,2007), 12425; and Rgis Courtray, La rception duCommentaire sur Danielde Jrme danslOccident mdival chrtien (VIIe-XIIe sicle),Sacris Erudiri44 (2005): 12741.

41On the development of exegesis in the ninth century, see Celia Chazelle, and Burton van NameEdwards, Introduction: The Study of the Bible and Carolingian Culture,inThe Study of the Biblein the Carolingian Era, ed. Celia Chazelle and Burton van Name Edwards (Turnhout: Brepols,2003), 1012; and especially Berarducci, Lesegesi della Rinascita carolingia,16798.

42Ipse mutat tempora et aetates, transfert regna atque constituit. Non ergo miremur siquando

cernimus regibus reges et regnis regna succedere, quae dei gubernantur et mutantur arbitrio.Causasque singulorum nouit ille qui conditor est omnium, et saepe malos reges patitur suscitariut mali malos puniant; simulque subostendit, et generali disputatione preparat auditorem, etsomnium quod uidit esse de mutationem et succisionem regnorum (Hrbanus Maurus, InDanielem). Text courtesy of William Schipper, personal correspondance, 7 October 2009. Prof.Schipper is currently preparing an edition of the commentary for the CCCM. Hrabanusdedicatory epistle of the work (to Louis the German [84076]) is available at Hrabanus Maurus,Ad Ludowicum, ed. Ernest Dmmler, MGH Epist. Karol. 5 (Berlin: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, 1899), 46769. See also Courtray, La rception duCommentaire,12730.

43See Quadri, Aimone di Auxerre, 718; and John J. Contreni, Haimo of Auxerre, Abbot ofSasceium (Cessy-les-Bois), and a New Sermon on 1 John V, 410, Rvue Bndictine 85(1975): 30320. Heiric, in turn, was succeeded at Saint-Germain by Remigius of Auxerre, wholater moved north, first taking over the cathedral school at Reims in 893 at the request ofArchbishop Fulco (d. 900), then moving to Paris after his patrons death. See Contreni, Haimoof Auxerre,307.



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a position, even if only by his silence on some interpretations . . . up to thatpoint. Haimo was not afraid to take a position, even changing the receivedmeaning of particular verses from Jeromes original.44 This was true forDaniel 2:21. As Jerome had, Haimo still understood the verse to referencethe succession of earthly kingdoms, in that it looked forward to vision of thestatue that Nebuchadnezzar would have later in that chapter. But unlikeJerome and Hrabanus, Haimo saw Gods hand in the changing of kingdomsas not simply explaining why evil men rule, but also how good men profit.Good men are tested by evil and emerge as better men (probatiores).45

Jerome thought that Daniel pointed downa descent in kingdoms towardsthe chaos of the End. Haimo agreed but then pointed back up. Good men,caught in an inferno of tyranny, could emerge steeled, ready to do God swill. For Haimo, exegetes could read the signs for evidence of Gods planfor sacred history and suggest the proper course of action.46 Things, in otherwords, could change for the better. And Haimo wove this idea throughout allhis exegesis. His commentary on Ezekiel 38:19 likened that versesdescription of the shaking in the land of Israel to the righteous anger of theChristian emperors against heretics. As Constantine (30637) raged againstArius, so did Charlemagne (768814) against Felix of Urgell. By theiractions, Haimo said, these rulers did Gods work and added to the populuschristianus.47 In Haimos eyes, the rulers of his time (particularly Charles theBald [84077]) needed reformation; they needed to listen to the new

prophets, who reminded these rulers of the examples of old.48 But theserulers were only archetypes; they could not do Gods work alone. The realactors in this story seem to have been the Franks/Israel as a wholethe

populus christianus. Haimo on Isaiah 5:2630 signaled that God had movedHis favor from the Jews to the men of Italy, Gaul, and Hispania (the men ofHaimos own West Francia). These were the men who acted as agents of

44Guy Lobrichon, Stalking the Signs: The Apocalyptic Commentaries,inThe Apocalyptic Year1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950-1050, ed. Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, andDavid C. van Meter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 69. On Haimos changes, seeCourtray, La rception du Commentaire, 13339; and then, for specific instances, Shimahara,Succs mdival,14346; idem, Daniel et les visions,2427; and idem, Reprsentation dupouvoir,8182, 89.

45Ipse mutat tempora, id est sua prouidentia et dispositione facit reges regibus succedere, et

regnis regna. Et interdum permittat malos regnare ut et mali malos puniant, et boni per eosprobatiores fiant. Quarum rerum ideo meminit quia mutationem futuram in uisione cognouit(Haimo of Auxerre,In Danielem). Text courtesy of Sumi Shimahara, personal correspondance, 3October 2009. Dr. Shimahara is currently preparing an edition of this commentary for the CCCM.

46Contreni, Haimo of Auxerre,234; and Shimahara, Le succs mdival,15963.47John J. Contreni, Haimo of Auxerres Commentary on Ezekiel, in Lcole carolingienne

dAuxerre: De Murethach Remi, 830908, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat, Colette Jeudy, and GuyLobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), 235.

48Shimahara, Le succs mdival,163; and idem, Daniel et les visions,2527.

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Gods will, punishing the Jews for their sins under Titus and Vespasian in 70CE, then spreading the gospel to the all the worlds peoples.49

It is probably not a coincidence that the vast majority of the authors namedabove (17/21) who evoked or referenced Daniel did so after circa 830, amid the

perceived political chaos of Charlemagnes descendents, when the old orderseemed to be breaking down, when sons revolted against their father andCharlemagnes empire factionalized between East and West. It is also

probably not a coincidence that about seventy-one percent of the aboveauthors (15/21)including Hrabanus and Haimowrote after 840, when thenew chosen people began to spill their brothersblood in civil war. In thesecircumstances, Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, andDaniel, who cried out against Israels failure to keep its covenant with God,lamenting the loss of Jerusalem, ruing the breakup of Davids kingdom,seemed to be particularly relevant as churchmen looked on while their worldseemed to crumble around them. In some instances, these exegetes sawthemselves as the new prophets for the new Israel.50 They watched as theFranks descended into fratricidal war after a perceived Golden Age. Theywatched the New Israel splinter because of its sins, just as had the Israel ofold. In his commentary on Ezekiel, Haimo referred to Charles specifically asJeroboam,Solomons son who allowed the kingdom of Israel to splinter.51

The Carolingian educational program that emphasized the Franks as a newchosen people had begun under Charlemagne but ironically took hold in theFrankish imagination just as the empire was coming apart.52 As Alcuin, the

Annales regni Francorum, ThegansGesta Hludowici imperatoris, Nithards

49Text reproduced in Haimo of Auxerre,In Isaiam 5,1-6,1, in C. Gabriel, Commentaires inditsdHaymon dAuxerre sur Isae 5,1 - 6,1, Sacris Erudiri 35 (1995): 10910. This sentiment ofcollective responsibility was especially pronounced in one of Haimos contemporaries, Nithard,who saw greed driving the evil actions of his contemporaries. Nithard, Historiarum libri III, ed.E. Mller, MGH SRG 44 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1907),especially 3950.

50Wala (d. 836), for example, could be seen as a new Jeremiah. Notker the Stammerer was a newDaniel. See Mayke de Jong,The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis thePious, 814-840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 10211, 14647, 16669; andDutton,Politics of Dreaming, 199200; respectively. More generally, see Sumi Shimahara, LaReprsentation du pouvoir sculier chez Haymon dAuxerre, in The Multiple Meanings ofScripture: The Role of Exegesis in Early-Christian and Medieval Culture, ed. Ineke vantSpijker (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009), 7799; John J. Contreni, By Lions, Bishops areMeant; by Wolves, Priests: History, Exegesis, and the Carolingian Church in Haimo ofAuxerres Commentary on Ezechiel, Francia 29 (2002): 3153; Dutton, Politics of Dreaming,13840, 2045; and Pierre Rich, La Bible et la vie politique dans le haut Moyen ge,in LeMoyen Age et la Bible, ed. Pierre Rich and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), 385400.

51Contreni, History, Exegesis,49.52See Mary Garrison, The Franks as the New Israel? Education for an Identity from Pippin to

Charlemagne,in The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Yitzhak Hen and MatthewInnes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 11461; and Gabriele, Empire ofMemory, 97106.



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Histories, the Annales of Saint-Vaast, the decrees of the councils of Anjou(850) and Quierzy (853), and Regino of Prms Chronicon (among others)all asserted, the Franks were the populus christianus.53 They protected theecclesia, supported the Frankish ruler, and fought Gods enemies. Asthe new Israel, Frankish victory in battle depended on the actions of thecommunity as a whole, exemplified through the righteousness of their ruler.Gods favor, however, was contingent and could be withdrawn if his peoplestrayed from the true path.54

Notker the Stammerer, likely writing in the 880s for Charles the Fat (87688), also linked Daniel 2:21 with Nebuchadnezzars vision of the statue.55

Notker explained that God had brought low the statue of the Romans,anchored by feet of clay, but had newly raised up the golden head of anotherstatue among the FranksCharlemagnewho had begun something new,something great.56 For Notker, the arc of sacred history was like a parabola;it began with a descent of kingdoms but then, at its nadir, could rise againwith the Franks. Notker hoped that his new Charles, who once again(briefly) united Charlemagnes empire, would inspire the Franks to emulatetheir ancestors and bring themselves back into Gods favor. Notker hopedthat the Franks, even amid the political and social turmoil of the late ninthcentury, would eventually listen to the new prophets and purge themselves ofsin, so that God would replace His beneficent hand upon them.

53Alcuin,Epistolae, ed. Ernest Dmmler, MGH Epist. Karol 4 (Berlin: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica, 1895), 25, 146, 259, 289, 292, and 295;Annales regni Francorum, ed. Friedrich Krauze,MGH SRG 6 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1895), 88; Thegan, GestaHludowici imperatoris, ed. Ernst Tremp, MGH SRG 64 (Hannover, Germany: MonumentaGermaniae Historica 1995), 204, 208; Nithard,Historiarum, ed. Mller, 25, 28, 32, 3435, 40;Annales Vedastini, ed. B. de Simson, MGH SRG 12 (Hannover, Germany: MonumentaGermaniae Historica 1909), 45, 48, 54, 57; Concilium Anjou, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, MGHConcilia 3 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica 1984), 205; ConciliumQuierzy, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, MGH Concilia 3 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta GermaniaeHistorica 1984), 408, 41920, 423; and Regino of Prm,Chronicon, ed. Friedrich Kurze, MGHSRG 50 (Hannover, Germany: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1890), 119. More generally,see Ildar H. Garipzanov,The Symbolic Language of Authority in the Carolingian World (c. 751877)(Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2008), 28283, 3067.

54de Jong,The Penitential State, especially chapters 46. See also Courtney M. Booker, PastConvictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians (Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

55On the composition of Notkers Gesta Karoli Magni, see Simon Maclean, Kingship andPolitics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2014.

56Notker,Gesta Karoli Magni, ed. Haefele, 1. On Notkers sources, see Hans-Werner Goetz,Strukturen der sptkarolinischen Epoche im Spiegel der Vorstellungen eines ZeitgenssischenMnchs: Eine Interpretation der Gesta Karoli Notkers von Sankt Gallen (Bonn, Germany:Habelt, 1981), 7071. In another similar instance, Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) wrote to KingStephen of Hungary (9971038) in 1000 CE, invoking Daniel 2:21 to praise the ascent ofStephen to the throne, like a new David over Israel (the Hungarians). See discussion in Whalen,Dominion of God, 2021.

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The ecclesia, the community of all the faithful, laymen and clerics, overwhom the Frankish king ruled,57 suffered from a surfeit of avarice: rulersfighting each other and oppressing the poor, clerics caring too much for thisworld, buying and selling their offices. God therefore withdrew his hand andthe Franks were punished by pagan invasions. The New Israel neededrestoration to return to Gods favor, to defeat Gods enemies and set theChristian world in order.58

III. CONCLUSION: URBANII AND THEASCENT OFSACREDHISTORY

Pope Gregory I and his late eleventh-century acolytes used Daniel 2:21 to speak

of how God moved through the papacy to manifest His will. Jerome suggestedthat the movement of times and ages was one of decline, inevitably down,towards the End. Haimo of Auxerre blazed a somewhat new trail, suggestingthat sacred history could rebound and that newly steeled better men(probatiores) would bring the Franks back to God. Urban seems closest tothis latter path, perhaps because he had read Haimos commentary on theMinor Prophets, or on Genesis, or the letters of Paul, or Revelation, orIsaiah, or Ezekiel, or Jeremiah, or Danielall of which sat on Clunysshelves.59 Urban II looked on hopefully. In the three instances in which

Urban explicitly referenced Daniel 2:21, he gave agency to the Christianpeople.60 Only God could change times and ages but He responded, in asense, to the actions of the populus christianus. Their sins had allowed the

pagan conquests to occur but their later actions began the reconquest.Even when not specifically invoking that verse from Daniel, the belief that

Gods hand was shielding the Christian advance against His enemiessuffused Urbans letters. At the beginning of his pontificate (1088), Urban IIwrote to Archbishop Bernard of Toledo. Bernard had been at Cluny withUrban and Toledo had just been retaken from the Muslims in 1085 by King

Alfonso VI of Lon-Castille (10651109). Toledo, Urban began, had longhad ecclesiastical authority in both Iberia and Gaul, but the sins of its peoplehad caused it to be lost to the Saracens for nearly 370 years. Now, however,the city has been liberated by the populus christianus and restored to itsformer glory.61 The people of Christ provided a bulwark against the Saracens

by retaking Tarragona, wrote Urban in 1089.62 In 1091, Urban wrote to the

57For example, see Mayke De Jong, Charlemagnes Church, in Charlemagne: Empire andSociety, ed. Joanna Story (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2005), 10335.

58Contreni, History, Exegesis,3853.59See above at note 17.60Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:33233, 37072, and 51011.61Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:288.62Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:303.



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abbot of St. Bartholomew in Lipari (Sicily) to explain how the Wests sins hadcaused them to lose Sicily to the Saracens. Now, however, the Christians werereclaiming what was rightfully theirs.63 Urban expressed similar thoughts inletters for St. Agatha in Catania (Sicily) in 1092 and the bishopric ofBarbastro (in Iberia) around 1099.64 Writing to some Catalonian nobles inlate 1095, Urban linked the struggles in Asia and Iberia. These counts werealso fighting on behalf of the people of Christ, striking back against theSaracens.65 Similarly, in 1098 Urban would marvel to the bishop of Huescahow in the preceding years, the Christian people had exalted the faith bysimultaneously fighting the Turks in Asia and the Moors in Spain, restoringcities in both places to their previous Christian worship.66

Thepopulus christianusnow opposed the Saracens. They had, according toUrban, liberated Toledo, Tarragona, all Sicily, and were progressing to the HolyLand. These were the agents of Urbans reconquest and restoration. This was aninth-century promise come true. Urban read Daniel through Haimo of Auxerreand, as Haimo had assured his readers, the arc of sacred history began to bend

back upwards. The new Israel now listened to their watchmen and God hadnow returned His hand. He was transforming kingdoms and changingtimesfor the better. The wicked had tested the faithful and forged them intoinstruments of Gods will so that what had once been lost, was now beingretaken.

The particular vision of reconquest promoted by Pope Urban II bore itsfullest fruit in 1095-96, when more than 100,000 people, from all levels ofsociety, left hearth and home in order to rescue their eastern brothers, expelChrists enemies from the Holy Land, and reclaim Jerusalem. Those whohave considered the sources of Urbans thinking (primarily scholars of theCrusades) are now generally in agreement that Urban was heavily influenced

by the ideas of the reforming papacy, and Pope Gregory VII (107485) inparticular.67 Indeed, Gregory VII and the reform papacy probably did play arole in shaping Urbans thinking. After all, Urban spent a good deal of time

63Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:329.64Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:33941, 539, respectively.65Papsturkunden in Katalanien, ed. Paul Kehr, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der

Wissenschaften zu Gttingen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1926), no. 23.66Urban II,Epistolae, PL 151:504.67See Carl Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (Stuttgart, Germany: W.

Kohlhammer, 1935; English trans., Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977). Morerecently, see H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Gregorian Papacy, Byzantium, and the First Crusade,Byzantinische Forschungen13 (1988): 14569; Becker, Papst Urban II., 2:294300; JonathanRiley-Smith,The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997),4951; Jean Flori,La guerre sainte: La formation de lide de croisade dans lOccident chrtien(Paris: Picard, 2001); Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), 139; Christopher Tyerman,Gods War: A New History of the Crusades(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 2757; and William J. Purkis, Crusading

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in and around Roman reforming circles after 1080.68 But Gregorys conceptionof Christian reconquest, while similar in its general outlines to Urbans,ultimately differs in specifics. Similar to his namesake who preceded him onthe papal throne and other eleventh-century reformers, Gregory VII sawGods hand working primarily through the papacy. For example, comparehow each conceptualized their proposed expeditions to the East. GregoryVII, who followed his papal namesake, would lead the army himself and the

papacy would literally transform kingdoms.At no point did Urban suggestanything similar.69 Gregory VII and Urban II belonged to similar, yetdistinct, textual communities.70

Instead, Urbanin all his writingsfocused on the Christian people(populus christianus). Even the different versions of his 1095 speech atClermont, as problematic as we now realize them to be,71 strikinglycorroborate the general outlines of this historical understanding. Here, groupof pagans marauded into Christian territory, desecrating religious houses,tormenting and killing Christians. This all occurred as a punishment for theircollective sins and fulfillment of events foretold in the books of Isaiah andJeremiah (among others). The remedy? Purify the Christian community andhave the Franks fight back. Only then, with the help of God, would Christsenemies be defeated. But, again, this narrative of sacred history can betraced back to the ninth century, as the arc of sin, punishment, purification,and redemption was laid out by ninth-century chroniclers and exegetes

Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, c.1095-c.1187(Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell & Brewer, 2008),1822.

68Urban may also have found some of Gregorys ideas appealing because, when Gregory himselfwas a monk, he may have imbibed some of the same Cluniac material Urban did. After his initialeducation, likely at the Lateran, Hildebrand spent time at the Cluniac house of St. Marys-on-the-Aventine in Rome (reformed by Odo of Cluny), then perhaps at one of the many monasteries aroundCologne, and probably visited Cluny itself near the end of Odilos abbacy. See H. E. J. Cowdrey,Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 2830.

69On Gregorys proposed expedition, see H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VIIs CrusadingPlans of 1074,in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, ed.B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982), 2740; and more recently Paul Magdalino, Church, Empire and Christendom in c. 600 and c.1075: The View from the Registers of Popes Gregory I and Gregory VII, in CristianitadOccidente e cristianitadOriente (secoli VI-XI): 24-30 aprile 2003 (Spoleto, Italy: Presso laSede della Fondazione, 2004), especially 2830.

70Brian Stock,The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation inthe Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), especially88240; also Gabriele,Empire of Memory, 112.

71For instance, see Marcus Bull, Views of Muslims and of Jerusalem in Miracle Stories, c.1000c. 1200: Reflections on the Study of the First Crusaders Motivations,in The Experienceof Crusading, ed. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2001), 1:22; and Gabriele, Empire of Memory, 14550.



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reacting to the arrival of the Northmen.72 This was a narrative that would havebeen familiar to speaker and audience alike. The story Urban told in 1095

took because it was one that both he and his aristocratic audience knew.He was retelling their shared history as Franks.73

Frankish exegesis gave Urban a language to understand the movement ofsacred history and how Old Testament prophets spoke to events past and

present. For Urban, the united Christian people of the eighth and ninthcenturies were punished for their sins with the pagan invasions. But Godcould change times and ages, erect and transform kingdoms. What wentdown could come back up. Beginning in the ninth century, the newwatchmen over the house of Israel had seen what was happening and had

been crying out their warnings. No one, however, seemed to be listening andChristians throughout the Mediterranean world suffered Gods wrath becauseof their sins. Odo of Lagry, monk of Cluny then Pope Urban II, himselfsteeped in ninth-century exegesis, continued that call so that at the end of theeleventh century, the work that had begun centuries before could becompleted. During the 1090s, Urban watched in wonder as the new chosen

people finally listened to the new prophets, reclaimed Gods favor, foughtback against His enemies, and began to restore the entire Mediterraneanworld to its ancient, rightful worship of the Lord.74

72Simon Coupland, The Rod of Gods Wrath or the People of Gods Wrath? The CarolingianTheology of the Viking Invasions, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42 (1991): 53554;and Anna Trumbore Jones, Pitying the Desolation of Such a Place: Rebuilding ReligiousHouses and Constructing Memory in Aquitaine in the Wake of the Viking Incursions, Viator37(2006): 85102.

73See Gabriele,Empire of Memory, 14559, especially 15354.74In his account of the First Crusade, Baldric of Dol may have sensed, but certainly echoed,

Urbans reliance on Daniel 2:21 in explaining the events he witnessed. See Baldric of Dol,Historia Jerosolimitana, RHC Occ. 4:9; and the discussion in Whalen, Dominion of God, 53.

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