Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900–1100

Monastic Reform as Process makes important interventions in monastic studies, institutional history, and the history of the central Middle Ages as a whole. Very few scholars move so easily and aptly from broad theoretical discussion to minute analysis of particular sources and back again. Steven Vanderputten advances both our empirical knowledge of monastic communities and our insight into the concept of institutional reform.

In sum, Vanderputten's book is persuasive in part because its argumentation reflects the method of the reformers: built up bit by bit with careful attention to different contexts. It might be objected that Vanderputten casts his net too wide: if almost any activity that strengthened a monastery could count as reform, then of course it can be found repeatedly over time. But defining reform programmatically would beg the question, and Vanderputten's insistence that it came in many forms, depending on different contexts, avoids a priori classifications drawn from later reforming chronicles and instead provides a compelling overall framework for explaining change. The book will be invaluable for anyone working on the period and for historians of the twelfth century who want to avoid being blinded by the flashpoints described in reforming narratives.

Rather than tackling a large field of study, Steven Vanderputten limits his focus to Benedictine monasteries in the county of Flanders.. The content here is integrated into a collective viewpoint that allows the reader to reflect on the nature and scope of monastic reforms of the High Middle Ages. As the author says, Rather than looking at reforms as 'flashpoint events', we need to view them as processes worthy of study in their own right.'.

This excellent and clearly written book serves to highlight the ways in which a knowledgeable scholar of regional politics can dislodge overly simplisticyet entrenched narratives through deep contextualization. Vanderputten demonstrates the unreliability of discourses of 'reform' so convincinglythat the reader will be unable to use the word casually again.... This work will be essential not only to researchers of central medieval Flemish history or the history of monastic reformbut also those interested more broadly in the processes of medieval institutional changeparticularly if they are seeking a model for how to situate the initiatives of individuals within larger regional histories. -Kate Craig

This is an important book, a sustained discussion about the nature and meaning of monastic reform in one time and place that should encourage other, similar studies.... I hope Vanderputten's study finds readership not only among those interested in Flanders or monasticism in the central Middle Ages or even ecclesiastical reform more generally. For this is a book about how institutions change, the opportunities available to those who want to change them, and the limits they face in the attempt. It is history as process.

Vanderputten's Monastic Reform as Process reflects where medieval history must go in the twenty-firstcentury. It is rich in archival research, harnessing emergent digital databases to organize an impressiverange of sources effectively which lay beyond the grasp of previous generations of scholars. Yet theauthor directs his inquiries towards key historical questions which traditional scholarship has raised, butcould not answer. The book is an excellent study of monastic reform in medieval Flanders, whichaddresses issues medievalists care about. Its historiographical corrective should appeal to a widerhistorical audience. It also represents a significant step forward as an approach to medieval history,conditioned by the new realities of historical study in the twenty-first century.

Vanderputten's book is persuasive in part because its argumentation reflects the method of the reformers: built up bit by bit with careful attention to different contexts.... [Monastic Reform as Process] will be invaluable for anyone working on the period and for historians of the twelfth century who want to avoid being blinded by the flashpoints described in reforming narratives.

In the impressive Monastic Reform as Process, Steven Vanderputten provides a detailed exploration of reformist monastic groups in Flanders. He also links the study of ecclesiastical change to memory dynamics, particularly a selective recourse to past institutional ideals and experiences.

In this work, Steven Vanderputten brings fresh insight to the question of monastic reform. As a result, we now know that if all politics is local, so is all reform. Indeed, at bottom, Vanderputten teaches that monastic reform is politics. How easy it used to be to speak of monastic reform! We had only to evoke the name of Cluny-or, at most, Cluny, Gorze, and Lotharingia-and all seemed clear. How difficult-how impossible-this will be henceforth!