Twelfth-century Epistolary Language of Friendship Reconsidered. The Case of Guibert of Gembloux

Abstract

Historians regard the twelfth century as the golden age of friendship. Nevertheless, the correct interpretation of this culture of friendship and its literary manifestations is under debate. Researchers into the amicitia debate increasingly rely on the “ network approach”, which is centered on the use of the language of friendship. In the present article, this quantitative approach is applied to a late twelfth-century collection of letters by a Benedictine monk, Guibert of Gembloux, and is complemented by a close reading of four case studies. Guibert’s correspondence attests to a spiritual interpretation of friendship that can function as an identifying discourse within a horizontal network among a monastic elite.