• 1 Compare, for example, a twelfth-century chapter book of Saint-Bénigne-de-Dijon, (...)

2Originally it consisted of an early-thirteenth-century second-edition of the ninth-century monk (of Saint-Germain) Usuard’s Martyrology (used by the monks as a separate necrology for their own community), the Rule of St Benedict, a lectionary (euangelia per circulum anni), and a necrology, later prefaced by a calendar of the feasts observed each month throughout the year1. These texts are the key components of a chapter book, a liturgical work used in the office of Chapter, which normally followed Prime. This office was at the heart of the Benedictine memorialization of the dead, whether of the saints and martyrs, members of their communities and their families, or those of their lay benefactors and members of the monastic communities with which they had contracts of confraternity. It was therefore a very important one.

• 2 The martyrology-necrology text is written in a single column 130 × 195 mm, and (...)

3Martyrologies and necrologies were liturgical texts since they were used as part of an office. As such, they were written with good quality materials on parchment, though they lack ornamentation beyond some rubrication and picking out of initials in a limited range of colours. The books were of moderate size, as befitted a service book designed to be handled daily. The Mont example, which has suffered quite a bit from trimming, averages 200 × 260 mm in width and height, with the various texts all fitting into a single framed column varying between 115 and 150 mm wide by 193-220 mm high, which lends an air of uniformity to a collection put together at widely different dates2. Continuing annotation after the original writing of the texts would eventually lead to further changes (fig. 1).

• 3 Lauwers, 1996, p. 179-180. See below, Appendix, § 1.
• 4 See Appendix, § 2.
• 5 Chevalier, 2021, p. 14. For a pioneering contribution to the study of the abbey’s liturgy (...)
• 6 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 198 is a list of the monasteries with (...)
• 7 Lemaître, 1984, p. 627.
• 8 Reulot, 1966, p. 192-195.
• 9 Lauwers, 1996, p. 105-106.
• 10 On fol. 167v it records the lifting of the siege of the Mont by the English in 1450 on 12 (...)
• 11 The cataloguer of June 1892 labelled this volume on its flyleaf as Collectarium et Obitua (...)

4It was customary when a monk died that his food ration be given to the poor for each of the days of his funeral rites. This was no feast. From about 1235 onwards, additions to the martyrology-necrology text were increasingly of references to the grant of a pittance – a supplement to the food ration offered to the monks themselves – provided for a commemoration on the anniversary of the donor’s death, as well as alms for the poor intended to earn eternal merit for the soul of the deceased3. Entries frequently referred to a grant or grants made when the donor – often one of the monks – was still alive, and so distracted from the true purpose of the text4. Eventually these would require copying into a separate document, whether an obituary, which gave a calendared record of obit dates plus a record of any gift made by the deceased during his life, or a livre de pitances, both of which were often administrative rather than liturgical texts. One such text is an obituary for the abbey surviving in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 215 (fig. 2), which is what Louis Chevalier has recently described as an obituaire-pitancier, although he actually referred to the necrology in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 2145. In fact, the addition of notes concerning the grant of pittances to the earlier text changed its nature and led to the writing of the later text. It is important to note the distinction between these texts because the terms “necrology” and “obituary” are post-medieval and were not used in medieval manuscripts. The most commonly used term in the Middle Ages was martirologium6. This term derived from one of the constituent texts of a chapter book; in addition to its basic meaning referring to a martyrology (calendared account of individuals martyrs) it could mean “necrology”, and even “chapter book”7. An earlier pitancier, now lost, was composed on the orders on Abbot Pierre Le Roy c. 13858. The necrology in the chapter book was used to compile the list of names of the dead to be read aloud at Chapter on the eve of their obit. This “pronouncement” of their names summoned the dead to be present with the living in a sacred act of memorialization9. Distinct from funerary rites or the suffrages of the dead, this was the liturgical and spiritual heart of the office of Chapter. Collating obits with the days on which a pittance was due to be supplied, by contrast, was a matter of housekeeping. Abbot Le Roy’s lost pitancier appears to have fitted the housekeeping bill. The obituaire-pitancier in Avranches 215, produced soon after 1450, combined both roles10. It was a liturgical text, but one which put the thirteenth-century martyrology-necrology, which it may have replaced, on a pared down and much more businesslike footing. Of the early material, only the names of abbots and senior clergy survived. Hence we can be sure that the martyrology-necrology of the chapter book is the martirologum referred to in the description of the office of Chapter in the same manuscript’s ceremonial (Appendix, § 1 below), and was thus still in use c. 1400. For these reasons it is best to maintain a distinction between the necrologies and the later obituary(-pitancier). In preparing editions of the Mont chapter book necrologies, I have collated the abbey’s fifteenth-century obituary with both the necrological texts, but not edited it separately11. It has been very useful in supplying words or phrases illegible in the martyrology-necrology itself.

• 12 For the full history of this office see Huglo, 1986, p. 11-16.
• 13 Morgand, 1962, p. 22-60. See also Rauwel, 2013, p. 1-4. For the full developed (...)
• 14 Lemaître, 1975, p. 1022.
• 15 Lemaître, 1989, p. 61-74; St-Gallen, Stiftbibliothek, cod. 914.
• 16 Lemaître, 1989, p. 27-31.

5The office of Chapter after Prime was required by canon 69 of the capitulary emanating from the Council of Aix in 817, which regularized the Rule of St Benedict, but this only specified a reading from the martyrology, followed by a reading from the Rule or a homily12. The Memoriale qualiter, an ordo that was widely known around by 817, specifies that after the reading, the names of the saints whose feasts fall on the following day should be recited aloud, and followed by the verset and response Pretiosa est in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum eius, from Psalm 11513. The essential addition of the names of the dead of the congregation are found in the second, tenth-century, recension of the Memoriale14. The oldest known chapter book, containing a necrology as well as a martyrology and the Rule, is an early-ninth-century manuscript of Saint-Gall, copied at Reichenau15. Nevertheless, memorializing the saints of the day, most of them martyrs, and remembering those of the congregation who had died were closely linked from early on. In churches where the memento etiam was part of the mass, there is evidence of the use of hinged boards known as diptychs; these more or less transient items on which the names of the dead had been inscribed were the ultimate ancestor of the later chapter books16.

• 17 Schmid and Oexle, 1974, p. 71-172.
• 18 The project Societas et fraternitas is available at https://www.uni-muenster.de/Fruehmittelalter/en (...)
• 19 Lemaître, 1989, p. 72, says that of the 246 chapter books in his Répertoire, 150 (...)
• 20 Lemaître, 1980, p. 37-40.
• 21 Ibid, p. 5-11, 35. I follow Lemaître in distinguishing a necrology from an obituary as th (...)
• 22 Secuntur nomina abbatum huius loci …in dies obitum eorumdem per ordinem, Avranc (...)

6In a parallel development, in a synod held at Attigny in 762, 44 monks, 22 bishops, 5 abbot-bishops and 16 abbots, from all over Francia, convened “for the sake of religion and the salvation of souls”. They decided that each time one of them died the bishops would say 30 masses; the abbots who were not bishops would ask their bishops to say 30 masses in their place; their priest would say 100 masses and their monks 100 psalms17. Many of the impressive Libri Memoriales, or Confraternity books, that resulted from the Attigny act of societas et fraternitas still survive, some of them edited in the research programme of the same name based at the university of Münster18. These consist of primarily unordered groups of names, encompassing both the living and the dead. The move towards an ordered account of the dead was linked to the growing use of martyrologies, a text specially designed to run through a brief account of the saints, with the places of their ministry and their passion, for each day of the liturgical year. The work of various authors including Jerome, Bede, Florus and Adon, ultimately the most successful martyrology was that produced by Usuard, a monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 850s19. The format of the martyrology, and of the calendar, eventually dictated the format of the necrologies that started to replace the old libri memoriales at the end of the tenth century20. The words martirologium and kalendarium were often used for a necrology, as was the case at Mont Saint-Michel21. This indicated that the names of the dead were attached to a day of the year, kalends of January, nones of March, and so on, intended to represent the day on which the subject had actually died – the obitum or obit22. Given that reporting of such events was a lot less straightforward than now, relying on the circulation of breues or mortuary rolls, we should not be surprised that the obit date of one person can vary by several days from house to house in his confraternity network, though overall the degree of agreement is impressive.

• 23 Lemaître, 1980, p. 46-53; Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 122-126. The martyrology-necrology ha (...)

7Early on, names were written into spaces left at the end of each day, or in the margins, of the martyrology. The problem with this was that names continued to accumulate as community members and their confratres died. Limiting the use of the martyrology to the members of the community and those few confratres with whom they had a special bond, and producing a second text, the necrology, organized by date again, for non-members, was a common solution. By the twelfth century it was normal to have a single text, the necrology, containing all the names, divided into two to four columns, often spanning the verso and the recto of the opened manuscript in the manner of the old diptychs, as seen in an early necrology of Saint-Bénigne de Dijon, now Dijon, Bibl. mun., ms 634 (fig. 3). The reason for this was practicality. The constant additions to the necrologies made the texts harder to read and therefore to use, so they needed periodically to be recopied from scratch, to incorporate the additions in an ordered way23. If a martyrology-necrology was being used, producing a new fair copy required that the whole of the martyrology be copied again, so these went out of use quite early. The monks of Mont Saint-Michel made the unusual decision to continue using a martyrology-necrology throughout the medieval period.

• 24 Lecouteux, 2016, p. 1-89.
• 25 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 130 n. 2.
• 26 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 191-195: Rouen, Bibl. mun., ms 1226 (U60) (Jumièges); Paris, Bn (...)
• 27 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 130-131 and 195: Paris, BnF, ms lat. 10062 (Saint-Évroult); (...)
• 28 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 171-187.

8Normandy has no surviving examples of the libri memoriales from Carolingian times, but a number of necrologies do survive from the thirteenth century onward. No complete example has been edited to date. Unfortunately, the pattern of survival is patchy. Only fragments of a necrology remain from Fécamp – rescued from oblivion and edited by Stéphane Lecouteux24 –, and nothing from the great houses of Saint-Ouen and Saint-Wandrille25. Chapter books survive from Jumièges, containing necrologies written between 1390 and 1418, and from Saint-Taurin d’Évreux, with two necrologies written soon after 123826. Other more or less complete examples survive from Saint-Évroult, La Croix-Saint-Leufroy, Le Tréport and Lyre27. By far the most important survival is the chapter book of Mont Saint-Michel, which is the earliest of all, and one which illustrates very well the genesis and use of the Chapter texts28.

• 29 Orléans, Bibl. mun, ms 127 (103), p. 361. It has been discussed several times, including (...)

9In the case of Mont Saint-Michel we are fortunate to have a documentary survival that bridges the gap between the Carolingian libri memoriales or libri vitae and the type of monastic necrology used in the eleventh century. This takes the form of two lists written into a sacramentary written in England and intended for use at Fleury, probably produced on the occasion of a visit of Abbot Gauzlin on business to Normandy, sometime between 1005 and 100929. This document, which we may call the Fleury list, is in two sections, shown in Table 2. In the first section appears the names of 50 monks then living, followed in the second by a calendared list of the names of 40 more who had died. The first name is that of Abbot Mainard II, whose predecessor Mainard I duly appears on 16 April in the calendared list of the dead. His successor, Hildebert I, is the second name on the list, suggesting that he was then the prior. This document is not a necrology, but rather an aide-mémoire for the abbot of Fleury, who could have the names entered in the necrology of Fleury, if his community agreed in chapter. It is also useful confirmation that records of the obit – the day of death – were being kept at the Mont for members of the community. The necrologies in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214 are otherwise the only necrologies of the house to survive.

• 30 The anthroponyms here labelled New Testament are primarily the names of the apostles of J (...)

11The Fleury list contains the names of 90 monks who shared 74 different names. 63 of those 74 are Germanic names (Hildebertus, Frotmundus). Among the rest there is one Breton name, Gleuloes, one certain English name, Goduin, and a handful of Scandinavian names (Anschetellus, Osbernus). Contrast this with the necrology, which has 7,319 entries. 4,924 of these people had Germanic personal names. The number of individual anthroponyms has fallen. Among the other persons there are 156 with names taken from the Old Testament (Adam, Jacob), and 764 from the New Testament (Johannes, Simon), including feminine names such as Johanna. The same pattern is found in the martyrology, which contains the names of 1,612 persons. 976 of these have Germanic names; 39 have Celtic names, 109 have Scandinavian names, 344 have names from the New Testament, and seven are probably English. There are almost 1,200 separate anthroponyms in the necrology, meaning that 15% of the persons named did not share a name with anyone else, compared with the Fleury list where 82% (74 out of 90) had a unique name. The same is seen in the martyrology, which includes the names from the Fleury list. There are 265 personal names, 24 of them feminine; 164 are Germanic, 18 Celtic and 15 New Testament. There were no New Testament names in the Fleury list. By the thirteenth century the two dominant personal names in France and England were William (Germanic) and John (New Testament), neither of which occur in the Fleury list. There are 133 Williams in the martyrology and 479 Williams in the necrology; there are 324 Johns in the necrology and 37 Johannas, and 152 Johns in the martyrology with 19 Johannas. These patterns are typical of the changes in naming practices in this period30. Given that our chances of ever identifying the family origins of the vast majority of these collections of simple personal names – some of them taken or given in religion, rather than by their families – are close to zero, onomastic study of the anthroponyms can help us at least to distinguish the likely regional origins of the monks and their familiares, and to date the entries of their obits.

• 31 Berengar, 2 January; Herimar, 31 August; Heruardus abbas, 3 May; Hildebert abba (...)
• 32 The name of Bonafides (died after c. 1005) occurs in the necrology on 5 February and 19 S (...)
• 33 Abbot Fromund occurs on 8 January; his obit is given as 11 January in the necro (...)
• 34 Obiit Bouo abbas S. Taurini et monachus [huius loci], Avranches, Bibl. patrimon (...)
• 35 On him see Arnoux, 1995, passim; Lecouteux, 2015, t. II, p. 60-69. None of his (...)
• 36 Both these chapter books include a separate necrology in which each day’s entry consists (...)

15The distinction between the martyrology-necrology and the necrology was not always a straightforward one. On 7 January there appears the name of Heldebertus tercius abbas huius loci in the martyrology-necrology, where we should expect to find him. This was Hildebert I, who died in 1017, and who occurs second in the list of living monks in the Fleury list. But if we look at the necrology entry for the same day we find him again. In fact, there are seven examples of this double-entry, four of them occurring among the dead of the Fleury list, and three among the living31. Two monks from the Fleury list, Bonafides and Grimbold, occur only in the necrology32. It is fairly clear that all the names in the Fleury list should be found in the liturgical texts, but also clear that the distinction between the martyrology-necrology and the necrology was not rigid, or not at first. The problem names are mainly those which are not unique. The three Mainards besides the two abbots do not occur in the martyrology-necrology and must be sought in the Necrology text, but there are several candidates in the martyrology-necrology for others with shared names, such as Rotgerius and Martin, and Goscelm must be sought among the six monks named Goscelin. For common names such as Radulfus and Robertus, it is much more difficult to determine if there is any overlap between the two necrologies. Apart from these names in the Fleury list, the other certain examples of such duplication are those of Abbot Fromund of Saint-Taurin, who died on an 8 January soon after 1035; and Abbot Gerard of Saint-Wandrille, who died on 28 November 1029 and is entered there in the necrology. He occurs on the following day in an entry in the martyrology-necrology33. Another example appears to be the mid-eleventh-century abbot Tovo of St Taurin d’Évreux, who was probably a monk of the Mont and died in 108034. Perhaps the latest such entry was of Anastasius the Venetian, who occurs in the necrology on 15 October, and in the martyrology-necrology on 16 October, the feast of the dedicatio ecclesie beati Michaelis de Monte Tumba. This Italian intellectual was a monk of the abbey from c. 1027-1066, but subsequently became a Cluniac from c. 1066 to c. 1080, and then spent one or two years as an anchorite in the Pyrenees following the way of St Romuald. He died around 1083/535. Taken together, these entries may indicate that the first necrology of the abbey was actually a single text, encompassing professi, confratres and familiares, perhaps arranged in columns. Jumièges, for example, arranged its necrology in two columns headed Nomina fratrum and Nomina illorum qui habent anniuersaria, the latter including its own abbots. Saint-Taurin has no headings, but has three columns representing its own monks, its male confratres, and then women36.

• 37 Most recently discussed by Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 67-74.
• 38 See Wollasch, 1979, p. 162, looking at how Cluny’s custom of feeding the poor in remembra (...)
• 39 As evidenced in the necrology, these were for Gloucester, 3 March, Colchester, 29 March, (...)
• 40 Robert de Torigny, Chronique, Leopold Delisle (ed.), II, p. 294-295, reprinted in (...)
• 41 An excellent overview is found in Lauwers, 1996, p. 67-147.

16A change seems to have occurred in recording practice some time between 1035 and 1085. It may indicate that the texts came to be divided into two sets about that time. If so, the most obvious reason would be the increase in the number of confraternity arrangements the abbey had entered into, consequent upon the death of William of Volpiano, abbot of Fécamp, in 103137. The increase in the number of confraternities was often a sign that a community was flourishing, but the increase in commemorations would eventually led to a break point where no more could be managed38. At that point, often reached by the thirteenth century, the number of names recorded was markedly fewer, and the memorialization of some or all confraternities reduced to a blanket commemoration once a year (see fig. 4 below)39. When Robert of Torigny agreed confraternity with the abbots of Cluny, La Cluse and Vézelay, it was stipulated that there would be an annual commemoration of all the dead from each house, rather than individually on their obits. It was kept on 10 May, as recorded in the martyrology-necrology40. Eventually group commemoration became the norm, and in the end the strain of remembrance, apart from funded commemorations, was taken mainly by the Cluniac-inspired feast of All Souls on 2 November, following the previous day’s feast of All Saints41.

• 42 MCCC octogesimo frater Iohannes Eon prior claustralis dedit .c. florenos auri a (...)
• 43 Solemn obit kept on 6 May, though André Laure died in Paris on 25 March 1500; Avranches, (...)
• 44 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 130 fol. 113v.

17There are clear signs of changing use in the entries to the martyrology after 1212. Only 5 of the 64 women were entered in the first hand, and they were all queens or countesses. In 149 cases reference is made to the grant of a pittance. These entries account for some of the many appearances of the same individual before his actual obit. Prior Jean Eon, died 1384, occurs no less than six times, including reference to his gift in 1380 of 100 gold florins for the repair of a tower that had been struck by lightning in 137442. The last abbot to be recorded was André Laure, who died in 1500. The latest entry is probably the obit of Prior Sebastien Ernault, who died 24 May 157043. It is an anomalous entry since none of the abbots after André Laure occur, including Jean de Lamps, died 1523, who had professed Sebastian and was the last of the abbots to be elected before the imposition of the system of commendation, with all its consequences for religious observance44. The obituary, copied around 1450, contains a drastically streamlined account of the obit entries in the martyrology-necrology, and it bolsters the impression given by the later additions to both chapter book necrologies that enthusiasm for the continued addition of names was definitely waning by the late fourteenth century.

• 45 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 202-265; Lemarié, 1967, p. 306-307, (...)
• 46 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 256, printed Keats-Rohan, 2004, p. 186 (...)
• 47 There are two places where a nobleman appeared first in the list, William count of Poitou (...)
• 48 Haimericus (29 March), Guillelmus (23 August), Rotbertus (28 August), Guido (6 September), Henricus(...)
• 49 Julian le Reuerdi (21 December), Fulco de Ulmo (8 March), Iohannes de Duino, legum profes (...)

18An early fifteenth-century ceremonial was later bound into Avranches Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 21445. It describes how the office of prime and chapter were observed, and it explains how the texts were used. As was usual, the task of assembling the names for the day’s liturgy was given to acolytes; in this case they were novices. The task was to compile the names from both necrologies to form a single list for the day. The entries were to be in strict hierarchy, starting with the bishops and abbots, followed by monks46. The same order is seen in the text itself. After the bishops, abbots, and monks, there followed, on a separate line, the secular clergy such as priests and canons, followed, again on separate lines, by laymen and women, who included both religious and laywomen (fig. 4)47. This rigorous and important hierarchy established by the 1212 scribe was to be little respected by his successors in making their additions. Nine canons are named in the necrology48. There were confraternities with canons from the cathedral of Saint-Malo, and the abbeys of Montmorel and Notre-Dame-de-La Réau. In the martyrology-necrology there are three canons, all late additions49. Since the names from the Fleury list are clearly incorporated in the later texts, we can be certain that the canons who remained at the Mont after the 960s were not recorded in the monastic necrologies.

• 50 Huyghebaert, 1972, p. 47-51. Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 38-40.
• 51 Avranches, Bibl. Mun., ms 214, part. 1, p. 1-9, at p. 1; the text was edited by Guillorea (...)
• 52 According to Abbot Nicholas Le Vitrier in 1338, Simon, 1967, p. 177.
• 53 The preservation and recitation of names helped to build and reinforce a sense of (...)

19It is worth pointing out here that necrologies had an “author”. The task of establishing the text to be recopied fell to the cantor, the powerful figure in charge of all the liturgies and their performance, and the man who often doubled as the armarius or archivist50. The Constitutiones (customary or coutumier), bound into the same manuscript, make his role plain. The cantor was the third most senior monk, keeper of the books and archives, holder of the keys to the monastery’s seal, its treasure and the great altar51. It is clear from the necrology that many fewer names were added after 1212 and had probably been declining long before. In the case of the martyrology-necrology, it seems unlikely that all the monks of a community which probably numbered an average of fifty forty professed monks at any one time were recorded52. Some sort of selection process must have operated, perhaps relating to office held and degree of sanctity attained. The names were therefore of some significance, even though some went back to the tenth century and even beyond53.

• 54 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 259; given below, Annexe, § 5, (...)

20The ceremonial specifies that a first list is to be read from the names in the martyrology, where the leading laity remembered were the king and queen of France, the duke and duchess of Normandy, the duke and duchess of Brittany, and their sons and daughters. A second list, similarly arranged, should be made from the necrology, described as de congregatione, i.e. the wider confraternity54. Very few of the names in the Necrology as it was copied c. 1212 identify the monastery of the bearer, those that do appearing near or at the end of the list. This suggests that either the information was not available in the exemplar of the new necrology, or that an earlier decision not to record the information had been taken. It does help to date the death of the bearer to the later-twelfth or early-thirteenth century.

• 55 See Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 54-58 et t. II, annexes 1 et 2, p. 1-34.
• 56 On 8 November, Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 186, Richardus occurs (...)
• 57 Paris, BnF, ms lat. 5757, fol. 2r-36r.
• 58 For this Abbot Lescelin, see Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 84-85, p. 146 n. 2, p. 424, p. 586 (...)

21Attempting to discover anything more about the identity of the names of these dead monks rests on the assumption that his monastery was in confraternity with Mont Saint-Michel. Collation of the names in these necrologies with those appearing in the other surviving Norman necrologies, together with the necrologies of Saint-Bénigne de Dijon and Saint-Germain de Paris, for example, can help to at least narrow the possibilities for identifying the mother house of the monks named, but the pitfalls are numerous55. A single Guillelmus occurring in one of these necrologies might be matched by four of the same name in one of the other necrologies. In cases where there are particularly strong links and where another monastery provides a match in the obits of its professi, the likelihood then increases that the mother house has been identified56. One of these is the abbey of Jumièges. Here we have the advantage also of the necrology of Saint-Évroult, which divides the entries for its confratres into groups, one of which is Jumièges57. Mont Saint-Michel did not record the obits of monks from this monastery, but its necrology provides useful confirmation that many Mont obits refer to monks of Jumièges. The problems are not confined to those with common names, but the less common ones are often easier to distinguish. The uncommonly named Letscelinus abbas whose obit on 8 January was recorded in the martyrology-necrology can easily be identified as the abbot of Saint-Faron de Meaux (d. 1061) because of his association with William of Volpiano, whereas another Abbot Lescelin, of the abbey of Pontoise, who died on the same day in 1176, had no known confraternity with the abbey58. Although we cannot hope to identify all those mentioned in these texts, many useful insights are gained by collating the obits of all these texts and the process amply confirms the importance and general longevity of the underlying confraternity agreements.

• 59 Three abbots of Saint-Bavon are named on 9 March in the necrology, Ralph, Erembold and Ot (...)

22Any hope of unpicking the obits in a Necrology depends upon an understanding of the network of confraternity in which a monastery stood. Links between monasteries were subject to a contract negotiated by the abbots, to be ratified in their Chapters. These associations were not immutable – the intensity of the connection could ebb and flow over time – but the connections at the core of a network could be remarkably stable over centuries. For example, a confraternity was established with Saint-Bavon de Gand in the mid-eleventh century, but it had lapsed by the early thirteenth century59. It was never mentioned in any of the three surviving confraternity lists from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The links forged with Saint-Bénigne de Dijon and Fécamp during the abbacies of William of Volpiano (d. 1031), however, lasted into the fifteenth century.

• 60 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 197-198; the confraternity list on p.  (...)
• 61 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 211, fol. 137v, list of 1326; Avranches, Bibl. patrimon (...)
• 62 Chazelas, 1967, p. 127-150, at p. 129.

23On a previously blank folio of Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, p. 198, following the end of the martyrology, was written a list of the abbots on the recto, and a list of the abbeys in confraternity on the verso. The abbatial list was written when Abbot Pierre Le Roy, who died in 1411, was still alive, and before the death in 1444 of Abbot Robert Jolivet, both of whom were additions to the list. The confraternity list attempts to set out the dates of confraternity agreements as they survived following a fire. In many cases there are no dates. None are earlier than the thirteenth century; the latest is 134960. Two other lists, from the early fourteenth century, offer substantially the same information, though the latest list (see Map, fig. 5) names the nunnery of Saint-Julien-de-Pré in Le Mans instead of Saint-Julien de Tours61. None of them isolate a group of houses in specialissima societas, whereby abbots of each of the associated houses could preside over an office of chapter in any of the others. In 1240 the group consisted of the Mont, Fécamp, Saint-Wandrille, Jumièges, Saint-Julien de Tours, Saint-Pierre-de-la-Couture, Évron, Redon and Saint-Melaine de Rennes62. The three lists usefully confirm what study of the Necrology reveals, primarily about the tenth to mid-thirteenth century, and help to set the parameters within which the identities of persons in the Necrologies might be sought.

• 63 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 159-168.
• 64 Ibid., t. I, p. 252, 255, 257, 259, 262; Lecouteux, 2016, p. 49-51. Distance played a par (...)

24We also know that William of Volpiano, the abbot of Saint-Bénigne de Dijon from 989 until 1031 who transformed the liturgy in many Norman monasteries, starting with Fécamp in 1001, required that around 35 of the monasteries he had reformed or founded share their obit notices as a confraternity after his death. This network extended eastwards into Lorraine and southwards into Italy63. The entries in the Necrology which relate to this network are easily identified and can be verified in other surviving necrologies, both Norman and other, including St Arnoul of Metz and St Gorgon of Gorze. At Mont Saint-Michel, the edges of this network were trimmed back quite a bit before the end of the eleventh century, which helps with the dating of the entries. Stéphane Lecouteux has made a remarkable study of the confraternity network of the abbey of Fécamp, which provides what it may be hoped will be a blueprint for new initiatives in studying necrologies and their associated confraternities in Normandy and beyond. His maps of the Fécamp network illustrate the extent of the Volpiano network at its height, covering many regions of France and extending into Italy and Germany64.

• 65 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 153. See also Lecouteux, 2015, t. II, (...)

25A defining feature of the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel is its liminality. It faces towards England, Normandy, Brittany and Maine. Its connections with the rulers of these regions in tenth and eleventh centuries are attested in its Cartulary. Just as communities personalized their calendars and their martyrologies, so too confraternity networks were unique to each community, despite the multiple overlaps, as is well illustrated by Lecouteux’s maps. The map provided here (fig. 5) shows the confraternity network of Mont Saint-Michel in its mature form, according to the confraternity list of c. 1410. It adds Saint-Médard de Soissons, which does not appear in any of the three lists, but does appear in a group commemoration in the necrology on 5 July65.

• 66 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 181-191.
• 67 On this see Vanderputten, 2013; Rosé, 2008a, p. 135-161; Rosé, 2008b, p. 255-362; Oury, 1997, p. 19 (...)
• 68 Discussed in Keats-Rohan, forthcoming.
• 69 Morelle, 2018, p. 465-474, revising Keats-Rohan, 2000, p. 159-169. Morelle’s welcome fres (...)
• 70 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 69 (Maiol) and p. 174 (Odo). See also (...)

27Two cases stand out immediately. These are the abbey of Saint-Sauveur de Redon in Brittany and the Norman abbey of Saint-Taurin d’Évreux. In both cases the recording of the abbatial series throughout the period c. 1000 to 1212 is more complete than in most others. In many cases, there is a marked break between abbatial obits that starts in the later eleventh century and lasts into the twelfth century. This is unlikely to reflect any breakdown in relations, since the examples include Fécamp and Jumièges, whose monks are otherwise among the most frequently occurring in the Mont entries. It is clear that by the early eleventh century the Mont had an established confraternity network that included Redon, Fleury, Fécamp, Saint-Taurin, Jumièges, Saint-Wandrille, Saint-Ouen and Marmoutier. Stéphane Lecouteux has pointed out that once confraternity was established and memorialization begun, care was taken to include for each house a founder or restorer, and we see that reflected in the list of abbots66. Tenth-century monastic revival and reform was largely driven by the religious themselves. Some became the multi-abbatiate superstars of their time, men like Odo of Cluny (d. 942), reformer of Fleury, and Maiol of Cluny who refounded Saint-Bénigne, and Gausbert of Saint-Julien de Tours, who successfully reformed the fractious community at Marmoutier67. The abbots of Mont Saint-Michel had similar pretentions on a smaller scale68. Mainard I and his community had reached out to Abbot Maiol when he was trying to bring reform to Marmoutier in the mid 980s. The charter recording the grant of land in the Touraine by Maiol and the communities of Cluny and Marmoutier, to the monks of Mont Saint-Michel, at Mainard’s request, was later copied into the cartulary69. This link was clearly important to them. The Mont Usuard Martyrology has an exceptionally fulsome entry for Maiol on 11 May (fig. 6), and on 18 November its primary hand added Ipse die transitus est Odonis abbatis, the rubrication of the initial ‘O’ indicating that it was an obit as well as an addition to the martyrology70.

• 71 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 491-493; Lecouteux, 2020, p. 118-122.
• 72 Ob. Conanus comes Britannie, martyrology-necrology, Avranches, Bibl. patrimonia (...)
• 73 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 213, fol. 173r (Annales de Redon).
• 74 Keats-Rohan, 2006, n^o o. 9, p. 87-88.
• 75 Cartulaire de l’abbaye Saint-Sauveur, Hubert Guillotel (ed), 2014, n^o 10, p. 174-175.
• 76 Ibid., n^o 26, p. 218-224. The evidence was reviewed in Keats-Rohan, 2016, p. 61 (...)
• 77 Abbot Judicaël of Saint-Méen occurs on 4 November, and the monk Lumgomarus on 3 (...)

28The connection with Maiol is significant because it has a bearing on the relationship of the abbey to William of Volpiano, a favoured disciple of Maiol who sent him as abbot to Saint-Bénigne in 989. William was a skilled musician who transformed the singing of the liturgy at Saint-Bénigne, and subsequently exported the result first to Fécamp after 1001, and thereafter to several other Norman abbeys, including Jumièges, Saint-Taurin, and Mont Saint-Michel. It was also adopted in the Breton monasteries of Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer, in the diocese of Saint-Malo, and Saint-Méen, in the diocese of Vannes71. The significance of this is that Duke Geoffrey of Brittany, whose father Conan was buried at the Mont in 992, sought to stimulate monastic revival and reform in Brittany72. Saint-Jacut is believed to have been revived with the help of monks of Mont Saint-Michel. What is certain is that Mainard II of the Mont became abbot-reformer of the abbey of Redon some years before Geoffrey’s death in 100873. He was living at Redon when it was decided that his deputy at the Mont, Hildebert, should become abbot there74. Both Mainard and Hildebert were dead by 1019. Before then, in an act of Alan III of Brittany dated by Guillotel to 1009 to 1019, a grant of land was made to Marmoutier and attested by three abbots, who, in order, were: Hildebert abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, Mainard abbot of Redon and Hinguethen abbot of Saint-Jacut75. The interest here is that Hinguethen had not yet become abbot-reformer of Saint-Méen, which happened c. 1024, but he was clearly already working with senior reformers76. Although it was not until 1023 that a disciple of William of Volpiano, Thierry, abbot of Jumièges, became abbot at the Mont, it seems clear that Hildebert I, abbot from 1009 until his death, and probably Mainard II before him, were already drawn to the musical and liturgical innovations of William and were prepared to implement them. Both Breton monasteries appear on the confraternity lists, but neither made much observable impression77. Curiously, though, Hinguethen was entered twice in the Necrology, on consecutive days. Given the close links, one would have expected a special confraternity would have put Hinguethen’s name in the martyrology, and so perhaps these consecutive entries are a copying error that should instead have seen the name appear in both necrologies, in line with the pattern identified above.

• 78 Lecouteux, 2015, t. I, p. 181.
• 79 See note 57 above.

29The reforms of Saint-Jacut and Saint-Méen coincided with the protracted revival of another Breton abbey, Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, by the monk Felix, sent by Abbot Gauzlin of Fleury at Geoffrey’s request, and then at his widow’s subsequent insistence. He appears twice in the necrology, neither date being his obit date of 4 March. Abbot Gauzlin appears in the martyrology on 16 June, when his obit was actually 8 March. These two cases relate to a phenomenon noted by Stéphane Lecouteux, that the Mont necrologies contain a handful of cases where the entries are in fact of living persons, in the manner of a Liber Vitae78. The latest example is probably the entry listing three abbots of Saint-Bavon, two of them already dead and the third, Fulbert, who died in 1067, then still alive and probably the originator of the confraternity which lasted into the thirteenth century but not beyond79.

• 80 Keats-Rohan, 2006, Appendix II.4, p. 195. Below, Appendix, § 6.
• 81 Ibid., n^o 18, p. 100.
• 82 Ibid., p. 218-221.

30The monastic confraternities are not, however, a strait-jacket in terms of either the compilation or interpretation of the text. While most entries relating to laymen or women, especially those with common names, are difficult if not impossible to identify for lack of supporting documentation, some stand out. The cartulary and related texts revealed the links between the community and the seigneurie of Dol-Combour in Brittany, which in turn is well evidenced in both necrologies. The family of Rivallon I of Dol had a confraternity agreement with the monks, under Abbot Suppo, whose rights at Pontorson he protected; in return for his stewardship they also undertook to feed one pauper daily80. Rivallon himself was probably one of the three Riuallonus laicus to occur in the necrology, on 20 January, 21 March and 31 July. His wife Eremburgis’ name occurs frequently, but only once, on 4 November, with the spelling used in the Cartulary, Heremburgis81. The obits of his sons John bishop-elect of Dol (27 January 1094) and William abbot of Saint-Florent (30 May 1118) occur in the martyrology-necrology. The Roentelina who occurs on 3 June in the Necrology was his mother, Roiantelina vicecomitissa82.

• 83 5 June (Conrad), 12 September (Lambert), 10 April (William). Avranches, Bibl. p (...)
• 84 29 November, martyrology-necrology; also detailed Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, (...)

31There are also obits of noble pilgrims and benefactors who had perhaps visited the Mont Saint-Michel, or had aspired to, and/or wanted to be remembered there. These include Lambert, count of Florennes, who died in 1015, the emperor Conrad II, who died in 1039, and William, count of Poitou (d. 1137), father of Eleanor of Aquitaine83, Philip IV le Bel visited in 1311, granting a lifesize image of St Michael, covered in gold leaf84. It was placed below a painting of St Michael in the nave, in a specially built niche.

• 85 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 147.
• 86 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 38. Commemoratio fratrum nos (...)

32The monks also found space to remember the poor and nameless pilgrims who had died in their treacherous bay. The first example was written directly into the text of the martyrology, rather than a marginal note as all the subsequent entries were. This was doubtless prompted by the horrific loss of 66 souls on 29 September 1201 that it records (see fig. 1 above). A marginal entry for the same day records the loss of 23 pilgrims in 132885. There are 11 other similar entries, all dating around the autumn equinox, between 29 August and 7 October. Three entries, between 12 January and 6 March, refer to the deaths of paupers seeking alms. On 6 March 1228, 38 paupers were killed by the collapse of four houses, though many others were rescued badly wounded (semimortuis extracti), while in 1250 many paupers were drowned on 7 February, though the bodies of some twenty of them were recovered and buried. The necrology has a group commemoration on 28 September for all our pilgrim brothers who rest in this cemetery86.

• 87 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 51.
• 88 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 163, fol. 76v. Fulbert of Chartres, The letters and (...)
• 89 Fol. 83v-101v, attributed to Iohannes Fiscannensis in error in the Virtual Library accoun (...)
• 90 Peter Abelard, Sic et Non, ed. Boyer and Mckeon, 1977. Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, (...)
• 91 Marenbon, 2013, p. 28-43, especially 38-43.
• 92 Expositio in Hexameron, Mary Romig (ed.) 2004, p. xx-xxxi, xlviii-lxx. Dating a (...)
• 93 A curious absence from the Mont necrologies is the name of Anselm of Aosta, abbot of (...)

33There are also examples reflecting the spiritual and intellectual life of the community, including the scribes who copied the texts (see note 99). Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, who promoted the cult of the Virgin and died in 1028 or 1029, was remembered in the Martyrology on 5 April (he died on 10 April)87. The Mont manuscript Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 163, of the mid-eleventh century, contains a letter of Fulbert to King Robert explaining a recent rain of blood, while Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 235, a collection of scientific texts, contains his mnemonic mathematical poem De libra et partibus eius, illustrated with the symbols for each of the terms describing the parts (fig. 7)88. The De uitae ordine et morum institutione of the monk John, appointed by William of Volpiano as first abbot of Fruttuaria, is found in a fine copy in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 58, of c. 1070-1090, the best and oldest surviving copy of this text89. He died on 16 February c. 1049 and duly appears in the Mont necrology. Likewise, Peter Abelard, the great scholastic philosopher, is found in the necrology on 21 April as Petrus Abarlardus (fig. 8), a mistranscription of Abaelardus, the spelling of his name as it appears in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 12, fol. 132r, Incipit prologus Petri Abaelardi in sic et non. A monk of Saint-Denis and one-time abbot of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, Abelard shone as an intellectual rather than as an ecclesiastic, although his writings earned him condemnation as a heretic. Amongst the surviving manuscripts of the Mont, three contain the works of Abelard, including his influential Sic et Non, written between 1121 and 1132, in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 1290. Indeed, Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale., ms 232 contains the De intellectibus, the only surviving fragment of a work by Abelard dating to around 1122 to 112591. Mary Romig, the most recent editor of his Expositio in Hexameron, written in the early to mid 1130s, identified Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 135 as the most important surviving copy, arguing that the main scribe and annotator was none other than Abelard himself (fig. 9)92. Only in the case of Fulcher can we be sure of a personal connection of some sort with the monks because he appears in their martyrology-necrology, but this is quite likely to be true of the others as well, certainly in the case of Abelard, since they do not fit into the contemporary fraternity network93.

• 94 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 33. Leclercq, 1993, p. 357-3 (...)
• 95 Jacquemard, 2006, passim; Jacquemard 2000, p. 98.
• 96 Jacquemard, 2002, p. 108-111. Another of John’s Chartrain masters whose work fitted well (...)
• 97 Jacquemard, 2002, p. 121.
• 98 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 60 (25 April) or p. 105 (18 July) or p (...)

34There was certainly a personal connection with John of Ravenna, abbot of Fécamp (d. 1078), an admired writer of spiritual texts, who appears in the martyrology-necrology on 22 February. The larger works do not appear in extant Mont manuscripts, but his prayers of apology have been identified in the Mont’s eleventh-century sacramentary, now New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, ms 64194. Also known personally was Richard, bishop of Avranches, who died in 1182. A former archdeacon of Coutances (from c. 1154 to 1170), he was mentioned as an inspired teacher by John of Salisbury, who died as bishop of Chartres in 1180. At the time John was his student, Richard was known as episcopus, or L’Évêque. He became bishop of Avranches in 1170 and was well known to the monks under Robert of Torigny. Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 235 is a compilation of scientific works, relating to geometry and astrology, and a translation from the Arabic of a work on the astrolabe, the whole being copied between 1145 and 1155 by a single scribe. Some of the texts were linked to Gerbert of Aurillac and the school of Reims, including letters written to his pupil Constantine, a monk of Fleury who became abbot of Saint-Mesmin de Micy and was a conduit of these texts to the school of Chartres95. Whilst Fulcher may have initiated this school, it comes most clearly into view in the first half of the twelfth century, after which it was eclipsed by the school of Paris. John of Salisbury is our most important witness to this period, the 1130s and 1140s, when he studied under masters from both schools96. Richard L’Évêque, later a close friend of Robert of Torigny, was praised as a master of the quadrivium by John. A short paragraph on the height of the sun at the equinox and solstice in Coutances in Avranches 235 may have been written by him; indeed, Catherine Jacquemard has suggested he may have been the scribe who wrote the whole of this remarkable manuscript97. As bishop of Avranches, Richard appears in the Mont’s martyrology-necrology, but Constantine of Micy appears in the necrology98.

• 99 Viola, 1993, p. 289-312; Minio-Paluello, 1952, p. 265-304; Jacquemard, 2002, p. 114-115.
• 100 Châtillon, 1997, p. 313-320.
• 101 Alexander, 1970, p. 3 note 4. The monk Martin appears in the Fleury list (Table 2) among (...)
• 102 Jeauneau, 1985, p. 7-75; Lapidge, 1992, p. 97-114.
• 103 Froumund, Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, Karl Strecker (ed.), 1925, p. 24; Wood, (...)
• 104 Israhel episcopus conuersus Sancti Maximini, necrology of Echternach, Paris, BnF, ms lati (...)
• 105 The designation is possibly an honorific, describing close association with the work of b (...)

35Abelard (d. 1142) was a leading proponent of Aristotelian logic, and Mont Saint-Michel became one of the most important centres of diffusion of Aristotelian knowledge during the second half of the twelfth century, perhaps with the assistance of Richard L’Évêque99. The monks’ interest in Aristotelian ideas can be traced even further back to works of the Carolingian renaissance. One of them, the much glossed fourth-century Categoriae Decem of the Pseudo-Augustine, influenced Carolingian writers whose work was copied at the Mont, including Alcuin, Remigius of Auxerre and John Scotus Eriugena100. In Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 229, a compilation of such works written in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, there are two quires written by a priest called Martin “somewhere near Brittany”, according to Bischoff, and containing the Categoriae Decem101. The text is preceded by the diagram shown in fig. 10; on the opening folio of the text there appears a gloss on the Greek words for the categories, shown in fig. 11. Edouard Jeauneau identified this material as the work of Israel the Grammarian, who occurs as both scotus and brito, and is now generally recognized as a Breton102. He was a well-known intellectual of the mid-tenth century, found first at the court of King Æthelstan (d. 939) in the 930s. He wrote Versus de arte metrica in England, using the prologue for a successful bid for the patronage of another intellectual, Robert, archbishop of Trèves (d. 956), whom he assisted at a meeting of bishops at Verdun in 947. The abbey of Saint-Maximin de Trèves (Trier), newly restored by Robert who consecrated the church in 942, eventually became Israel’s home for the rest of his life. Described by Froutmund of Tegernsee as Robert’s “light”, i.e. counsellor, Israel became tutor to Otto II’s brother Bruno, future archbishop of Cologne and duke of Lorraine (d. 965), at Aachen, where he helped the emperor to set up a court school in emulation of Charlemagne103. Israel died as a monk of Saint-Maximin c. 968/69, on a 26 April according to the monastery’s necrology. He also occurs in the necrologies of Echternach, and Merseburg, where his obit was given as 24 April104. Each described him as episcopus, though he is not known to have held a see105.

• 106 Cartulaire de Redon, fol. 149v, c. 1110-1031.
• 107 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 2, p. 136. I am grateful to Professor Caroli (...)

36The very rare name Israel occurs twice in the necrology of Mont Saint-Michel. The first occurrence, on 1 January, may well refer to an eleventh-century monk of Redon of that name106. The Bretons were unusual in their ready use of Old Testament names. The second occurrence comes on 25 April, splitting the difference between the obit dates of Trèves and Merseburg for Israel the Grammarian107.

• 108 Jeauneau, 1985.
• 109 Alexander, 1967, p. 239-245; Alexander, 1970.
• 110 Marenbon, 1981, p. 173-206.
• 111 Avranches Bibl. patrimoniale, mss 47, 230. On Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 230 see n (...)

37Jeauneau’s work focused on Israel’s “commonplace book”, now St Petersburg, Public Library, ms Lat. F. v. VI. N 3, containing texts on medicine, grammar, dialectic and philosophy108. The first four quires were produced in the abbey of Corbie, and the fifth was a collection of opuscula by Israel himself. The texts overlap with a similar manuscript, now Paris, BnF, ms latin 12949, written in the ninth and tenth centuries and which has some of the texts on Aristotle’s Categories also in Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 229. By the late tenth century Mont Saint-Michel was one of the leading centres of manuscript production, on a par with Saint-Bertin, Saint-Vaast, Saint-Amand and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Among its sources were manuscripts from Corbie, Trier, and English centres such as Winchester and Canterbury109. The texts were those used by Carolingian scholars to study Aristotelian ideas before the new translations of the logical corpus in the twelfth century completely changed the way Aristotle was used. Among them was Boethius’ translation of Aristotle’s Categoriae, his translation of Porphyry’s Isagoge (glossed by Israel in the Paris manuscript), and the Categoriae decem of the Pseudo-Augustine. The many Carolingian glosses to this text have been analysed by John Marenbon, who showed that in some manuscripts, including Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 229 and the Paris manuscript, the glosses were influenced by the work of the ninth-century philosopher John Scotus Eriugena. Israel’s glosses to the Isagoge recommended Eriugena’s masterpiece Periphyseon110. Another of the distinctions of the intellectual life of Mont Saint-Michel was its interest in the work of this great thinker, whose ideas were controversial in his own time. Among its manuscripts are copies of Eriugena’s translations of the Pseudo-Denis’ De caelesti hierarchia, and an important early recension of part of the Periphyseon, which was later reworked by Duns Scotus (d. 1308) because certain aspects were condemned as heresy111.

• 112 Avranches, Bibl. patrimoniale, ms 214, part. 1, p. 157, Anschitillus; Dijon, Bibl. mun., (...)

38There is no way of knowing for certain whether the Israel of 25 April in the Mont necrology was Israel the Grammarian, but it is by no means as unlikely as it might seem. What the cases of Bishop Fulbert and Peter Abelard have already shown is that the intellectual life of the abbey did leave its mark on its necrologies in a manner distinct from the normal route of monastic confraternity, though likely related to it via the movement of both monks and books in the business of copying, lending and exchanging of texts and ideas. Lecouteux’s thesis has demonstrated the importance of this phenomenon in compelling detail for Fécamp and its confraternity. Other types of business were doubtless also involved, but monks certainly travelled. Ansquetill, a Montois monk found among the living in the Fleury list, would later die at Saint-Bénigne de Dijon. Peter, a monk of Jumièges, died at the Mont on an 11 March after 1212112. Without the necrologies, knowledge of their deaths far from home would probably not have reached us.

• 113 Wollasch, 1979, p. 167.
• 114 Ibid., p. 146-147.
• 115 Witness the so-called ‘oldest necrology’ of Saint-Maximin: Roberg, 2008.

39The study of necrologies depends upon study of the associated documents produced by the community in question, not just their charters, annals and histories, but also the manuscripts they copied and the origins of their exemplars. The study will depend heavily upon an examination of the confraternity networks formed, their extent and their evolution over time. Just as important, because revelatory of some of the intimate concerns of the community, is the evidence of the martyrology proper and the calendars. Without all these, the necrologies are just a collection of names. A peculiar interest lies in the part of the text representing the heyday of personal commemoration in the office of Chapter, between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. If one is fortunate, as in the case of Mont Saint-Michel, the entries will be decipherable in terms of both hierarchy and chronology. The faithfulness with which the order was respected on re-copying has been noted before113. The duty of praying for the dead, and therefore assisting their passage in the after-life, was a sacred one, and the associated texts are amongst the nearest we can hope to come to an “objective” record of the past114. Obituarial material could be used in forgeries, but not if were intended as a necrology used in the liturgical sense115. The otherwise largely lost history of Mont Saint-Michel in the tenth century perhaps survives in part as a palimpsest in the necrologies that have come down to us. Will we only ever be able to decipher it, if at all, if we have the courage to look beyond the confines of traditional studies of Norman monasticism and ask new questions?