The Monastic Life - A Book Review of Ulrich Köpf, Mönchtum als Lebensform: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Tübingen 2021).
NB. I originally wrote this book review for a monastic journal but unfortunately the editors forgot to publish it.
When I received this 683-page tome, I imagined that the best way to start a review of it was a personal anecdote about my longtime admiration for the author. Among the very first books that I read when I started my specialization in medieval history in the early nineties in Nijmegen was a work because of which I probably continued it: Religiöse Erfahrung in der Theologie Bernhards von Clairvaux (1980) by Ulrich Köpf, the later Professor for Church History and Director of the Institut for Late Middle Ages and Reformation at the University of Tübingen. What struck me almost immediately – even then, as a beginning medievalist – was the wonderful balance of historical and theological competences: such rich, interdisciplinary knowlegde! Only much later did I understand that, related to this, there were three more “balances” that characterized not only this work of Köpf: one being a gratifying mix of Protestant and Catholic perspectives, the other a healthy complementarity of generating fresh new insights and grasping theological research traditions, and the third an ability to transcend intra-order perspectives and to situate particular Gemeinschaftbildungen (formations of communities) and Persönlichkeiten (personalities) in broader historical contexts. The work, in short, has always remained a kind of scholarly exemplar for my own work (as a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant) and I am very pleased to see my sense of having had a robust “quadruple gauge” throughout the years confirmed with this latest book by Köpf – another admirable work.
The volume is a collection of previously published articles with a new introduction and three registers (persons, researchers, things). The articles are divided into six parts: General (4 articles); Benedictine Monasticism (3); Cistercians and Carthusians (7); Regular Canons (6); Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans (7); and Religious Women (5). In the introduction, Köpf explains “some basic concepts” (Grundbegriffe) of vita religiosa, a term for which there is no German equivalent. He explains the meaning of “religion” (religio), “religious life” (Ordensleben), “monasticism” (Mönchtum), and some related terms, and dives deeper into the long history of the term “form of life” (Lebensform). Being aware of the problems involved and the criticism they might raise (the Canons Regular and the Franciscans, for example, were not monks in the strict sense of the word), he also explains why he nevertheless chose for the title Mönchtum as a pars pro toto – there was a broader use of the term already in the thirteenth century (3) – and why that phenomenon should be viewed als Lebensform – the inner (spiritual) and outer (institutional) dimensions are inseparable (6). In the end, I am not sure if he really took away the doubts that readers might have, namely, that this collection only covers a selection of “monasticisms,” albeit the most important ones (Benedictine, Cistercian, and Carthusian); and that the title does not do justice to the non-monastic traditions dealt with. They might still be reminded of the persistence of the terminological problem in medieval research, where the word is sometimes used out of negligence (cf. Giorgio Agamben, Altissima povertà: Regole monastiche e forma di vita) and where alternatives are being offered (cf. Gert Melville, Die Welt der mittelalterlichen Klöster. Geschichte und Lebensformen). Only when the reader accepts that “monasticism” includes canon, mendicant, and other ways of life, can he start to appreciate the choice for terms (Mönchtum als Lebensform) that describe the vita religiosa as a sort of singular phenomenon with multiple historical forms.
With this problem out of the way, having framed the subject of vita religiosa in terms of Lebensform (and not, for example, Bewegung, or Frömmigkeit, or Gemeinschaft), Köpf dedicates himself to the various shapes of medieval organized religious life. Before turning to the different orders and persons, he examines in four articles four general, overarching themes: approaching God in the monastery (first published in 2014), places of monastic life (2008), the ideal of imitatio Christi (2000), and the theme of monastic friendship (2006). The first theme can be regarded as religious Grundgeschehen with certain conditions (e.g., separation from the world and rules for communal living) and structures (e.g., three-tiered spiritual ascent and the fourfold scheme of lectio divina). The second theme includes historical places as well as landscapes. Whereas holy places have been studied extensively, the relationship between the history of Christianity and its geographical surroundings is an understudied subject in Church History (95). The third theme is a crucial element of medieval spirituality – a matter which “has received attention from evangelical dogmatic theology and ethics only to a limited extent” (105). Interestingly, this article concludes with an observation that reveals a lot about Köpf’s own program of building bridges between past and present, history and theology, and medieval and Evangelical: “Es scheint mir eine noch nicht wahrgenommene theologische Aufgabe zu sein, die in der Geschichte erprobten und verwirklichten Möglichkeiten der Nachfolge Christi auf ihre systematische Bedeutung für die christliche Ethik hin zu bedenken” [It seems to me to be a theological task that has not yet been recognized, namely to consider the possibilities of following Christ that have been tried and tested throughout history in terms of their systematic significance for Christian ethics] (127). The fourth theme covers a broad range of feelings, dispositions and behaviors. The sources show that friendship in Western monasticism is ambiguous: on the one hand, it is labeled as a “special” form of love that requires much restraint in monastic communities, especially when these are “united in charity,” on the other hand it invites much theological and literary elaboration, mainly among twelfth-century Cistercians.
Concerning the other 28 articles, first published between 1983 and 2017, the only criticism I would like to formulate here is that they are somewhat repetitive and also uneven, as some are more introductory (e.g. “Franz von Assisi”) and some more specific (e.g., “Alpirsbach in der monastischen Reformbewegung des 15. Jahrhunderts”) or detailed (e.g. “Die Terminologie des Chorherrenstifts in schriftlichen Quellen des 12. Jahrhunderts”). We have to remember, however, that this is a collection of gesammelte Aufsätze, essays originally written for a variety of audiences in a time span of almost 35 years. The essays are united, nonetheless, in their effort to return to the – mostly literary – sources and to consider their relation to historical reality carefully and critically. What Köpf writes about the great Franciscan scholar Oktavian Schmucki certainly applies to himself as well: “Er konzentriert sich auf das aus den kritisch gesichteten Quellen Belegbare und das auf Grund einer Abwägung unterschiedlicher, oft fragmentarischer Überlieferungen Wahrscheinliche, wobei er nach Möglichkeit den Gewißheitsgrad seiner Aussagen angibt” [He focuses on what can be substantiated from critically reviewed sources and what is probable based on a weighing of different, often fragmentary traditions, indicating the degree of certainty of his statements wherever possible] (550). One more point should be made, by way of conclusion. In recent years, the study of medieval religious orders has undergone several transformations and turns, including a “linguistic,” a “material,” and an “emotional” one. The work of Wegbereiter like Köpf reminds us of the importance of staying rooted in the research traditions of previous generations, especially in order to learn and to be able to speak about medieval religious forms of life in theologically informed and historically nuanced ways. “Classical” is no curse. This book is a rewarding read and confirms me that my own Lebensform, that of a spirituality-seeking scholar, is, at least for me, a most privileged if not a perfectissima one.
Krijn Pansters,
Franciscan Study Center
Tilburg School of Catholic University
k.pansters@tilburguniversity.edu