Visions, reading and identity in the monastic culture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries: Otloh of St Emmeram and Guibert of Nogent

Abstract

The period from 1050 and 1150 was a dynamic one in the history of visionary literature; this thesis examines ideas about reading, writing, and self-definition in monastic communities of the day, with particular reference to the visionary collections of Otloh of St. Emmeram (d. 1067) and Guibert of Nogent (d. 1124). Each wrote about his own religious visions and those of religious and lay contemporaries. Each thereby contributed chapters to the histories of autobiography, of reading and writing, and of the human soul in this world and the next.

The first chapter examines the autobiographical portion of the Liber Visionum of Otloh of St. Emmeram. I trace the narrative of Otloh's conversion to the monastic life as described through his visions and demonstrate how Otloh's identity as an author, a scribe, and an intellectual is reflected in the content of his visionary experiences. Chapter Two is also about Otloh and the remainder of this text, including stories about dreams and visions drawn from his own monastic milieu in Southern Germany. This second chapter describes how currents of eleventh-century monastic reform and of papal and imperial politics affected Otloh's community.

Guibert of Nogent's conversion to monastic life was strongly influenced by his mother's dreams and visions. In my third chapter, I examine the connection between Guibert's treatment of her visions and his interest in biblical scholarship, which is evident in his autobiographical work, the Monodiae. I conclude by examining the philosophical connections between this work and the fourth book of his treatise on relics.

The concluding chapter offers a survey of the ways the visionary tradition develops after Otloh and Guibert. The methodologies I have proposed for studying visionary accounts invite a re-evaluation of the works of such figures as Peter the Venerable of Cluny, Alberic of Settefrati, Hildegard of Bingen and several other monastic writers of the twelfth century. I argue that visions continue to be a tool in constructing identity, and that monastic identity was fundamentally linked to reading, writing, and moral reform.