The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth-Century France: (Knowledge Communities)

This book is a study of the programmatic oral performance of the written word and its impact on art and text. Communal singing and reading of the Latin texts that formed the core of Christian ritual and belief consumed many hours of the Benedictine monk's day. These texts-read and sung out loud, memorized, and copied into manuscripts-were often illustrated by the very same monks who participated in the choir liturgy. The meaning of these illustrations sometimes only becomes clear when they are read in the context of the texts these monks heard read. The earliest manuscripts of Cîteaux, copied and illuminated at the same time that the new monastery's liturgy was being reformed, demonstrate the transformation of aural experience to visual and textual legacy.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations, List of Abbreviation, Acknowledgments, Introduction, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God Early Cîteaux Voice and Memory at Cîteaux Meditations on the Song of Songs, The Plan of Action After Early Cîteaux, Chapter 1. The Joy of Psalmody The Night Office Reconstructing Advent at Cîteaux The Advent Cursus at the New Monastery, Chapter 2. Jerome's Legacy at Twelfth-Century Cîteaux Cîteaux and Jerome Stephen as a New Jerome Jerome in the Liturgy Picturing Jerome at Cîteaux Jerome's Letters, Chapter 3. The Virgin and the Abbot And There Shall Come Forth a Rod Out of Jesse The Jesse Tree Christ as Priest Jesus's Prefigurations The Virgo Lactans Bernard of Clairvaux, The Virgin, and the Legacy of Cîteaux's Art and Liturgy, Chapter 4. Fruitful Words in the Stephen Harding Bible Biting, Chewing, and Swallowing: Eating the Word Were All Twelfth-Century Animals Hungry for Scripture? The Meaning of Ornament in the Cîteaux Scriptorium Lips, Tongues, and Ears: Picturing the Spoken Word Fruitful Words in the Refectory Herod's Downfall and the Sin of Gluttony Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Sung Scripture, Conclusion, Appendices, Bibliography, List of Manuscripts Cited.

About the Author :
Diane Reilly is Associate Professor of Art History at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her first book, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of Saint-Vanne and the Saint-Vaast Bible (Brill, 2006) explored connections between art, politics and monastic reform.

Review :
"Reilly's exemplary interdisciplinary work demonstrates how monastic artists and liturgists made tangible links between what they heard, painted, and read, and it shows how these connections shaped the religious experience of early Cistercian monks." - Martha G. Newman, The University of Texas at Austin, Speculum, 96/1, January 2021 "This book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the spiritual project that animated the early life of Cîteaux, founded in 1098." - Monica Brînzei, sehepunkte.de, May 2019. Read the full review online "This volume contributes to our understanding of the liturgical and mental world of the early Cistercian monks and to the oral and aural community associated with early Cîteaux... It is a welcome contribution." - Constance Hoffman Berman, Mediaevistik 32, 2019 "Diane J. Reilly’s study provides a productive interpretation of familiar material, not by applying new methodologies but rather by insisting on the importance of the liturgy as the context for and within which these manuscripts were made." - Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Medium Ævum, Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 2, 2019