Contesting Authority and Community: Models and Practices of Monastic Reform in Late Medieval Central Europe

Abstract

In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Benedictine monks of Melk in Austria copied Hugh of Fouilloy'sOn the Wheel of True Religion, a moral treatise that contrasted well-disciplined and dissolute religious life. Two large images accompany the text. Atop an image depicting a dissolute cloister (Figure 1), an abbot reigns in pride and “curiosity.” He wears a red habit, a red tunic adorned with buttons at the wrists, a red beret, and red boots with golden spurs. A luxuriously adorned dagger hangs on a golden belt. The abbot also holds a falcon in his left hand, and nearby are a backgammon board and a lyre. To the left, a prior aspires to the abbot's glory. He wears fashionable long-toed boots and a red tunic adorned with buttons. He also clutches a blue bag, presumably filled with the cash that is said to fund his ascent “through simony.” To the right of the image, a deposed abbot, pulled down by a demon who clutches his habit, laments his fall from grace “through negligence.” A cloistered monk sleeps below with a pair of dice nearby. Atop the contrasting image of disciplined monks (Figure 2), a humbly clothed and properly tonsured abbot holds his office “in dignity, but humbly and with charity.” The abbot's successor, the prior, ascends reluctantly. His predecessor resigns his office out of true humility. A cloistered monk sits quietly below, reading diligently and embracing willingly his life of poverty and obedience.