Cœnobia Turonenses: St Martin's communities in Tours, their practices and networks from late Antiquity until the 13th century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Philippe Depreux
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411345970

This project focuses on the relationship between the two communities claiming the heritage of St Martin: Marmoutier, the community he himself founded, and St Martin’s which grew around his tomb – a relationship poised between synergy and competition – and on the networks associated with the two communities. The project plans to study the links of these communities (their status could fluctuate between that of a community of canons and a monastery) with one another, with their own dependent communities (St Julian, Cormery, St Cosme and Beaumont) and with the archbishop and the cathedral chapter (St Maurice’s). The links studied will be not only institutional but also those arising from the social, religious and cultural sphere, the topography and the architecture. The communities of Tours allow us a unique opportunity to observe the transformations of western monasticism from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages and their impact at the level of a polycentric microcosm.The research programme is composed of three interconnected lines, which all require the use of a multiplicity of sources and methods of analysis. In the first instance (1), the study of the relations between St Martin’s and Marmoutier, which requires a critical re-examination of the whole body of written material from the Early Middle Ages and of the production of the Tours scriptoria will enable us to reconstruct the separate institutional structure of these two communities during the 10th c. Both created networks of connections with other communities (institutional or based on amicitia). We will study (2) a variety of examples of these connections, notably in terms of architecture, liturgy and diplomacy in order better to understand the social, cultural and liturgical impact of their choices on cenobitic life. Differences between the two communities crystallised around the practices of monastic life, especially during the monastic reform of the 10th c. and the Gregorian Reform of the 11th-12th c. In this context, Marmoutier came to be seen as the Cluny of Western France (3). The study of the monastic buildings provides an opportunity to re-examine the monastic practices of the great Tours community, and the discourse of excellence that the monks of Marmoutier put forward. That is why the project proposes to make an examination of the monastic establishment of Marmoutier in its own right.The project will eventually include several on-line databases and GIS as well as the publication of articles, a critical edition with translation of the narrative sources and a one-volume synthesis, the latter two co-edited. The digitisation of numerous manuscripts will enable the creation of a virtual library of the Tours repositories to be made accessible to scholars and the public. A video will show the architectural evolution of the abbey church at Marmoutier between the 10th and the 12th c., and a CD will be produced to disseminate the liturgical works sung in the monastery at the time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Elisabeth Lorans