The Cistercians and the Glossa Ordinaria
Constance B. Bouchard
The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXVIAPRIL, 2000No. 2 THE CISTERCIANS AND GLOSSA ORDINARIA BY Constance B. Bouchard* intellectual Renaissance of the twelfth century is usually seen as composed two distinct strands. One strand was made up monastic "love learning," to use Jean Leclercq's phrase, most commonly presented devoted almost entirely a reading and contemplation steeped in traditions that went back early Middle Ages. Cistercians, major new order century, may have differed from black monks many respects, including greater emphasis on spiritual experience their theology, but they were still Benedictines, overall approach study scholarship assumed been fully within traditional framework.1 other this paradigm, contrast, "scholastic"learning schools emerging universities,where texts taken apart, critically analyzed, discussed with logic.2 It these secular clergy, not monasteries, "Dr. Bouchard professor history University ofAkron. She preliminary version paper at Thirty-second International Congress Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamzoo, May, 1997. acknowledges help given her by Professors Karlfried Froehlich ofPrinceton Theological Seminary E.Ann Matter Pennsylvania when she beginning glossa ordinaria. Preliminary research possible fellowship John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, return trip Troyes funded ofAkron Faculty Research Committee. Leclercq, Love ofLearning Desirefor God, trans. Catharine Misrahi (New York, 1961). David Knowles, Monastic Order Englandfrom Time ofSt. Dunstan Fourth Lateran Council, 940-1216, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 211-212. François Vandenbroucke, Louis Bouyer, Spirituality ofthe MiddleAges ("A History Christian Spirituality,"Vol. [New 1968]), 187-242. M.-D. 183 184THE scholars attributed development middle extensive commentaries analyses Bible, written its margins between lines, which collectively become known This article will challenge has so widely accepted for over generation underlying assumptions never re-examined.3 As I shall argue here, principally basis glossed biblical manuscripts first fifty years ordinaria indicates main strands twelfth-century thought, scholastic , often thought. Specifically, demonstrate although books Bible originally product schools, much dissemination due Cistercian order. And, even more importantly, Cistercians together provides insights into advances century. Some comments nature are necessary. idea writing is, course, very old one. In West,Augustine's number different both laid medieval theology provided model later commentators could develop own exegesis. Commentaries Origen Gregory Great certain also influential. Bede especially continued tradition, three centuries after Augustine, his Bible. By Carolingian period such Hrabanus Maurus creating comChenu Nature, Man, Society Twelfth Century, trans.Jerome Taylor Lester K. Little (Chicago, 1968), 270-309. 5A biography Cistercians' influential leader states categorically that"he had no affinity Scholasticism"; Adriaan H. Bredero, Bernard Clairvaux: Between Cult (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1996), p. 15.A similar assumption...
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