A Re-formed Landscape, c. 1100–c. 1200

Abstract

Abstract This chapter addresses the impact of the Gregorian reforms on the south of France, particularly with regard to the experience of Christianity in a local setting. It engages with Florian Mazel’s suggestion that the Reform might be seen as a ‘total social phenomenon’ in which relations between lay powers and the Church were reworked very considerably; here, however, the focus is on what effects this had upon local churches. It is argued, against some earlier scholarship, that the shift of local churches from lay into monastic or episcopal hands did not necessarily have a major effect upon the provision of services to the laity: both because there was more activity preceding the reforms than some historians have noted, and because subsequent monastic or episcopal ownership was in the first instance more concerned with income than with the provision of pastoral care. The chapter also explores, via a converted layman called Pons de Léras, how we can see the wider circulation of ideas about apostolic piety in the twelfth century, noting in this regard the establishment of more Cistercian foundations, and Templar and Hospitaller houses, across the region. A study of surviving wills from this century also demonstrates some changes to lay piety more broadly, and discussion of certain ‘heretics’ in the early twelfth century further outlines wider shifts in lay concerns.