L’insoutenable légèreté d’être moine: introspection et réforme individuelle dans l’Œuvre de Smaragde et le Chronicon de Saint-Mihiel (IXe-XIe siècle)

Abstract

This essay takes a look at the construction of the legacy of the abbot Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (c. 760-c. 840), and asks the question to what extent he could and should be remembered as a “reformer”. Based on the intellectual activi - ties and monastic practices of Smaragdus during his lifetime, and re-interpreting his biography in the eleventh-century Chronicon S. Michaelis monasterii, my aim is to show that monastic thinkers in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian world distinguished between institutional and individual reforms – and that teachers like Smaragdus were remembered for their role in promoting this latter type of “reform”, which explicitly aimed at the moral perfection of Christians rather than the improvement of institutions.