abbot, Poppo (1020–1048), who worked to develop the material infrastructure of Stavelot and to expand Remacle’s cult.81 Poppo, another external appointee, had connections to the emperor and the reform leader Richard of Verdun. In all, Poppo was involved with the reform and leadership of least twenty houses, and ensured that many of his followers and supporters became leaders of monastic communities in the region.82 These political and religious connections gave Poppo an immense ability to effect change at Stavelot. He rebuilt Stavelot’s basilica, oversaw the completion of the Miracula Remacli, worked to ensure Stavelot’s rights to free abbatial election, and restored and consolidated properties. Yet he was ultimately unable to fully unite the two houses, which had been fighting off and on over supremacy since the tenth century.
The final stages of this conflict are recorded in the Triumphus Remacli (hereafter Triumphus), which was written around 1065 by monks from Stavelot. The Triumphus provides details of the worst part of the schism and the formal separation of Malmedy from Stavelot, which is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. It also makes a powerful hagiographical claim of Remacle’s ultimate control of both houses. Malmedy’s monks countered Stavelot’s claims in part by producing their own hagiographic literature, including the Translatio et Miracula s. Quirini (hereafter Translatio Quirini) and the Passio Agilolfi. Both works, probably written between 1061 and 1071, are attributed by most scholars to the same unknown author (a monk from Malmedy). The Translatio Quirini records the translation of the bodies of saints Quirin, Nicasius, and Scubicule from the outskirts of Paris to Malmedy. The text contains stories of the trip, including the miracles performed by the saints and the reception of the monks by various communities. The second source, the Passio Agilolfi (hereafter Passio) tells the story of a single saint, Agilolf, the semi-mythical eighth-century abbot we met at the start of the chapter.
The burgeoning hagiographical output was part of a general rise in Stave-lot-Malmedy’s cultural profile over the course of the 1000s. The Meuse River valley had become a center for monastic and church schools, and Liège was a literary and cultural center of note. The literary and especially artistic and crafts productions of the region are referred to now as “Mosan” works. The chance survival of a library catalog from Stavelot shows that the monks had a large collection of religious and secular works. In addition to many commentaries on scripture, liturgical books, hymnals, antiphonaries, numerous copies of the Bible, and theological works, they had standard works of importance to monastic houses, such as the lives of the ancient fathers and the rules of St. Basil and St. Benedict. The monks also had copies of the most popular and common hagiographical works and, of course, the biographies of saints of local importance. The breadth of these religious holdings is a reminder that the monks of Stavelot developed their worldview and their environmental imagination based on more than just scripture. Ties to Liège might have helped the monks also develop substantial holdings in geography, grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, agriculture, law, and zoology.83
By 1100, signs pointed to a renewed cultural and religious florescence, but the monasteries faced another abbatial crisis. Between 1098 and 1119, two external abbots were in charge. One of these, Poppo II of Beaumont (1105–19), was remembered (according to an 1128 charter) as the “depopulator of our lands.”84 After Poppo II’s abbacy, the monks of Stavelot elected their own candidate, Warnier, but the emperor never confirmed him and the pope deposed him five years later. Finally, in 1124, the monks elected Cuono de Logne, and he was confirmed. However, Cuono was not a monk from Stavelot, but from Malmedy, making him the first monk of Malmedy to be appointed as abbot of both houses.85
When Cuono was elected, a monk named Wibald was the porter at Stavelot. Wibald was a native of the Ardennes. He became a monk at Waulsort and then went to Liège to study theology, liberal arts, medicine, and agronomy under Rupert of Deutz, an influential scholar and a leading figure in the investiture controversy. Wibald gained the attention of the royal government, and in 1131 Lothar III invested him as abbot of Stavelot-Malmedy. He was a powerful and learned abbot who reshaped both the material and intellectual property of the monasteries, and his abbacy heralds what many historians have identified as Stavelot-Malmedy’s “golden age.”86
In the 1130s, Wibald accompanied Lothar III to Italy, where he briefly served as abbot of Monte Cassino. This risky post did not go unrewarded. Only three days after he placed Wibald as head of Monte Cassino, Lothar gave Stavelot the “Golden Bull of Aquino.” Issued on purple parchment, written in gold ink, and sealed with the golden bull, this charter was “the most honorable, most distinguished, and at the same time most extensive charter that Stavelot ever received.”87 This was a comprehensive confirmation of the relationship between the monastery and the Empire. In addition to affirming all earlier holdings granted by former emperors, Lothar reestablished Otto II’s election rules, added to Stavelot’s landed wealth, and again confirmed Stavelot’s supremacy, decreeing that Malmedy was never to be allowed to separate from Stavelot “which it is now tempted to do for the third time.”88 He placed the monasteries under his explicit protection and control, stating that their holdings would remain “in the hands and in the service” of the emperor.
When elected abbot of Stavelot, Wibald swore “to regain scattered properties” and protect the monks and their lands.89 He actively pursued new lands and new privileges, procuring at least eight royal charters for Stavelot, and six for Corvey.90 This is more than have survived from the previous 130 years, and the two diplomas that Wibald received from Frederick Barbarossa in 1152 and 1153 would be the last surviving royal charters to the monasteries for almost two hundred years.91 Wibald also received privileges from at least five of the six popes who reigned while he was abbot.92
Yet because of his international reputation, Wibald was rarely in residence at Stavelot. His longest stay was from 1130 to 1135, and his last substantial residence at Stavelot was in 1148, when he remained for almost a year. From 1139 on, Wibald spent a considerable amount of time in the court of Conrad III of Staufen (1138–1155). He served in the royal chancery, attended imperial assemblies, and was involved in all affairs between Conrad and Byzantium.93 Wibald’s support for Conrad’s political concerns eventually led to his leadership of a third monastery, Corvey, which split his attention even further.94 He was also frequently involved in broader church affairs, traveling to other monasteries, attending church assemblies, and visiting Rome.
After the winter of 1150/51, Wibald spent most of his time at Corvey. Although not particularly beneficial for Stavelot, Wibald’s long periods of absence are advantageous for modern historians, since he accumulated a vast correspondence. Wibald wrote and received hundreds of letters from emperors, popes, bishops, nobles, and his own subordinates, and collected them in his “letter book.”95 Wibald’s letters (along with the other documents associated with his abbacy) comprise more than one-third of all of the documents surviving from the foundation of Stavelot and Malmedy to around 1200.96
A man of letters with an interest in science, Wibald was a true “twelfthcentury Renaissance” man. The subjects of his letters range from discussions of fine theological points to the handling of routine administrative tasks. He used these letters to exchange knowledge, manuscripts, medicines, and even, in one case, rabbits.97 Wibald was also a patron of local artisans, and invested heavily in the decoration of Stavelot’s altars and shrines. One of Wibald’s surviving commissions, a bust of St. Alexander, is a fine example of Mosan metal- and enamel-working, as is the thirteenth-century reliquary of Remacle, considered a masterpiece of the style.98 Wibald also commissionedand probably designed two elaborate golden altarpieces (or retables), both now lost. Their programs are known, however: the first depicted Remacle’s foundation of the houses, and the second showed the mysteries of the passion and the resurrection of Christ, with the figures of Wibald and his patroness and correspondent Empress Irene. Further underscoring his broad imperial connections, he may also have commissioned a gold and enamel reliquary known as the Stavelot
