Suger en question: Regards croises sur Saint-Denis

Abstract

This volume contains thirteen papers that were first presented at a conference sponsored by the Institut Allemand de Paris in co-operation with the Institute of Historical Research. As the Introduction by the editor states, the conference provided a forum for reconsidering the place of Suger in the context of his time and in consideration of the documented sources of the activities of his contemporaries. A recent study that questioned the uniqueness and originality of Suger's achievements together with new editions of his oeuvres by Françoise Gasparri, and Andreas Speer and Günther Binding gave rise to this re-evaluation not only of Suger but also of accepted scholarly interpretations of his oeuvres. A majority of the papers in this volume reconsider the abbot and his writings. In reviewing his life critically, Jean Dufour's essay, ‘Suger, personnage complexe’, credits him with achieving his goals even at the risk of manipulating documents. In ‘Abbés réformateurs, abbés constructeurs—quelques précurseurs et contemporains de Suger’, Frank G. Hirschmann highlights other less prominent abbots whose reforms and activities paralleled those of Suger. Rolf Grosse, in ‘L’Abbé Adam, prédécesseur de Suger’, points out that many of the achievements claimed by Suger were in fact initiated by his predecessor whose accomplishments Suger deliberately eclipsed in his writings. ‘Geoffrey of Lèves, bishop of Chartres: “Famous wheeler and dealer in secular business”’, by Lindy Grant, rescues this contemporary of Suger from near oblivion by outlining his distinguished career both as a statesman and diplomatic leader in church reform. Recent excavations reported by Michaël Wyss in ‘Apport des recherches archéologiques récentes pour la connaissance de Saint-Denis aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, add to our knowledge not only of the abbey precincts but also of its fortifications as well as other structures that were both ecclesiastical and secular, some domestic and some relating to crafts in the town that revolved around the abbey. Most significant for the crafts was evidence of lead moulds and fragments of painted glass that documents the existence of glass-making in the century preceding Suger's famous windows. In ‘L’Abbé Suger de Saint-Denis et la papauté’, Françoise Gasparri enumerates the numerous occasions on which Suger accompanied and attended a succession of popes. In the beginning, when he was executing missions for his king, Suger created strong personal ties with the popes. The author emphasises the importance of Suger's exposure to the glories of Rome and to the magnificently reconstructed abbey of Monte Cassino as influences on Suger's aesthetic preferences. In the essay ‘Suger et Bernard de Clairvaux’, Julian Führer rehearses the history of the uneasy relationship between the two men. ‘Les Écrits de Suger comme source d’une esthétique médiévale’, by Andreas Speer, questions the assumptions of earlier critics such as Erwin Panofsky and Otto von Simson who had idealised Suger as the creator of a new aesthetic based on neo-platonic metaphysics and had developed the concept of the abbey church as cradle of the Gothic style. Speer demonstrates instead the historical and liturgical sources underlying Suger's writings and emphasises the significance of daily rituals in explicating the twelfth-century building programmes he sponsored. ‘Suger, faussaire de chartes’, by Jens Peter Clausen points out that not every claim of falsifications by Suger of charters, claims, and royal acts is valid, but that Suger tended to manipulate and recombine existing elements to the benefit of the abbey. In ‘Suger et les archives; en relisant deux passages du De Administratione’, Laurent Morelle weighs the significance of two phrases used by Suger in his reference to a charter involving the dependency of the monastery of Argenteuil and questions whether Suger even had the earlier charter before him in 1129. In ‘Retour sur le Cartulaire blanc de Saint-Denis’, Olivier Guyotjeannin summarises and gives a critique of the cartulary based on the preliminary findings of a collaborative work by students of the École des Chartes. He includes a table showing among other things the uneven distribution of documents chronologically in the compilation and the number of original transcripts. Finally, he raises the question of how posterity at the abbey had viewed and appreciated Suger's acts. ‘Rois et nobles au temps de la paix de Dieu’, by Dominique Barthélemy points out the changing attitudes under the Capetians, and changing perceptions and roles of the kings, the nobles, and the clergy in the time of la Paix de Dieu.