Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons by John Howe

Abstract

Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons. By John Howe. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1997. Pp. xxiii, 220. $37.50.) John Howe's study of hagiographical dossier of Dominic of Sora (d. 1032) is a superb example of how traditional strengths of medieval studies (close study and comparison of manuscripts, careful genealogical reconstruction) can be felicitously combined with new interpretive approaches. The result is a stimulating exploration of ecclesiastical reform in its social context based on a rigorously researched case study. The book opens with an evocative description of rugged geographical and social terrain of Abruzzi, Lazio, and Umbria in ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. After describing World, Howe sketches Dominic's career as a monk, a hermit, a reforming priest, a wandering preacher, a founder of churches and monasteries. The most interesting parts of study are its central chapters analyzing Holiness, his 'Benedictine' Monastic System, and his Patrons and Followers. Two closing chapters describe and analyze undoing of saint's life work and several appendices set out Howe's reconstruction of hagiographical dossier, genealogy of Counts of Marsica, and their patronage relations with Monte Cassino. The author arrives at several important conclusions. Howe's evidence adds to growing scholarly acknowledgment of well articulated reform ideals in early eleventh century and to relative unimportance of papacy to early formulation of reform program.Before there was a center, Howe pithily concludes,there was reform . (p. 160). Howe's emphasis on concrete character of Dominic's ecclesiastical work is also salutary. While historical narratives of reform era continue to stress rhetoric of investiture contest, theoretical foundations of papal authority, monastic spirituality, and legal formulation of reform principles, Church Reform places physical aspects of renewing religious life at heart of its story. Dominic builds churches and monasteries with his own hands, melting lime for mortar and placing stones. He physically traverses a harsh and impoverished landscape, bringing healing and prayer to remote communities. Dominic ministers to sinful elites, instructing them to give their wealth to endow churches and monasteries. As Howe rightly notes, this grubby accumulation of ecclesiastical property would make possible intellectual and spiritual achievements of later generations (p. 160). The concrete quality of Dominic's reform efforts also extends to his charisma. Rather than relying upon standard topoi of holiness and biblical allusions, Dominic's hagiographers locate his sanctity in minute articulation of specific deeds. Howe's application of ideas of Brian Stock to character of Dominic's monasticism should, moreover, command interest of scholars in religious studies and historians of monasticism. Dominic's interactions with monasteries he founded often contradicted letter and spirit of Rule, and yet he and his successors clearly considered these houses to be following St. Benedict's precepts. Howe suggests, invoking Stock, that the puzzling features of Dominic's 'Benedictinism' can be understood if his system and its counterparts are viewed as manifestations of a largely oral and customary monastic tradition, one for which Benedictine Rule was most authoritative supporting document but not an absolute guide (p. …