Cluniac customs beyond cluny: Patterns of use in the Southern low countries

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which the customary of Cluny was used in monastic communities of the southern Low Countries. Through an examination of an unpublished and little-known letter concerning liturgical practices that is preserved in a copy of the customary from the monastery of Saint-Trond, it argues that there was no single use for the customary among monastic communities in the southern Low Countries. Rather, it was a flexible document whose use was dictated more by the local context in which it was deployed and the goals and traditions of particular communities. The letter and the manuscript it contains reveals two possible such uses for the customary: it could operate as an instrument of monastic authority or serve as an inspirational text for Benedictine identity.