After Georges Duby published Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme in 1978, the division of society into three orders - those who pray, those who work and those who fight - has become one of the most influential paradigms of medieval ideological history. Duby’s points of departure were two eleventh-century texts: the Carmen ad Rotbertum regem, a political text written in the form of a satirical poem by Bishop Adalbero of Laon (977-c. 1035) and the famous speech by Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai(c. 975-1051) delivered as a protest against the Peace of God movement and inserted in the anonymous Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium, or Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai. Duby’s interpretation profoundly influenced subsequent historiographical discussions on the ideology behind the tripartite division of society and the key texts related to his study. Since then, the attention of scholars has focused almost entirely on reconstructing the ideological, political and societal context within which the Three Orders scheme originated. Despite many discussions on Gerard’s original intentions and the true significance of his speech, very little attention has been paid to the fact that it has been preserved only as part of a much larger text, namely the Deeds. Why the chronicler integrated the speech into the Deeds and whether or not its position in the text and its relationship with other factors are of any significance to its interpretation are questions that have eluded comprehensive study. These questions are crucial to our understanding of the original purpose of the speech, since the preserved text of the speech seems to have been conceived in reference to other parts of the Deeds, specifically those referring to the Peace of God movement. This reveals how the text cannot be interpreted adequately without taking into account other textual remains from Gerard’s tenure as bishop. These observations could possibly enable us to gain insight into the primary reason why Gerard’s Three Orders speech was embedded in the Deeds, and how its subsequent use was meant to function.

This article focuses on the way St Margaret’s Convent of regular canonesses in Gouda organized its memoria culture, treating it as a window onto the wider field of liturgical commemoration in the early Devotio Moderna. It is now becoming clear that the religious houses originating in this movement soon took the path towards full monastic status. The speedy maturation of liturgical facilities was concomitant with this development. St Margaret’s has been singled out because of its relatively ample documentation and also because it represents the Chapter of Sion, a small chapter rivalling the Chapter of Windesheim. After an initial beginning shortly before 1400, a restoration of monastic life took place around 1450, which ended a period of crisis. As part of this restoration, the convent’s memory was put in order. This is documented by two manuscripts: Gouda Kloosters inv. 95, containing both a chronicle and a cartulary, and London MS 2939, in which a necrology has been preserved. The chronicle and cartulary were devised together, with the cartulary organized not as an aid in the administration of the convent’s possessions but as a prop to the remembrance of its benefactors. The necrology has an independent origin. Together they enable us to analyse the way the convent (re-)construed its memory, thereby underlining its identity and perpetuating the fruits of the restoration.

A religious community’s foundation was a unique moment in the building of institutional remembrance and the identity of the founder(s) was of primary importance to the identity and cohesion of the religious group. However, as few foundation stories have emerged from communities of regular canons in Flanders, the tale of the Watten priory, the earliest community of regular canons in Flanders, is all the more illustrative. The existence of different genres in which Odfried, the founder, is remembered reflects the search for a fitting memoria for the man who unleashed a controversial debate between advocates and opponents of Church reform. The fact that he also continued to stir emotions after his death is shown by the Watten Exordium and two miracle stories, one written at Watten, the other at Saint-Riquier Abbey in Picardy. Odfried was remembered as someone who undeniably had great qualities, merits that even partook of saintliness, though in the long run they were not to result in his lasting veneration a...

This article deals with commemorative aspects of the late-medieval prologues to the sermon collections preserved from the Brussels convent of Jericho. By composing these collections, Augustinian Canonesses Maria van Pee, Barbara Cuyermans and Janne Colijns, and the other anonymous sisters involved in the process, collectively made books that could not only be used to edify the convent but could also serve to recall, in an act of memoria, the priests who were responsible for their spiritual care, as well as the women who initially redacted the sermons (this last being due to information added posthumously). This culture of remembrance via sermon collections was maintained until long after the Middle Ages, as is shown by the prologue to the seventeenth-century collection of sermons written by Canoness Maria A. de Folije. Finally, the article connects these prologues and the sermon manuscripts to the broader literary, visual and liturgical memoria culture in the convent.

This essay shows that the late medieval Carthusian innovation of the monastic ‘donates’ (or donati) was adopted by most of the reformist religious orders and congregations in Germany and the Low Countries in the fifteenth century. Furthermore, it is argued that the earliest communities of Modern Devout, the so-called Brethren of the Common Life, constituted donates ‘in the private’, outside of the walls of cloisters. To understand this institutional choice of the early Modern Devout, it is useful to look at the literary output of Henry of Coesfeld, prior of the charterhouse of Monnikhuizen near Arnhem. The initiator of the Modern Devotion, Geert Grote, had stayed at Monnikhuizen during Henry’s priorate. It allows one to place Henry of Coesfeld’s ideas on reform as well as the success of the ‘donate’ institution within a larger context of religious perfection, moral decline within the ‘traditional’ orders, and ‘modern-day’ excesses of lay piety.