Abbot Suger of St-Denis (The Medieval World)

Based on a fresh reading of primary sources, Lindy Grant's comprehensive biography of Abbot Suger (1081-1151) provides a reassessment of a key figure of the twelfth century. Active in secular and religious affairs alike - Suger was Regent of France and also abbot of one of the most important abbeys in Europe during the time of the Gregorian reforms. But he is primarily remembered as a great artistic patron whose commissions included buildings in the new Gothic style. Lindy Grant reviews him in all these roles - and offers a corrective to the current tendency to exaggerate his role as architect of both French royal power and the new gothic form. Abbot Suger (c.1081-1151) was a pivotal figure in the France of his day. Active in both religious and political affairs, he has numerous claims, in a variety of fields, on the modern reader. He was abbot (from 1122) of one of Europe's most important monasteries, at a time when Gregorian reform and the new monasticism were having an immense impact on the medieval church. He was also a politician and diplomat of international importance, in the service of both Louis VI and his son Louis VII, for whom he acted as Regent during the king's absence on the Second Crusade. Lindy Grant's comprehensive study of this multifaceted figure is a major event. Derived from a fresh reading of the primary sources, it is the first full biography of Suger in English. It provides a much-needed corrective to many of the current ideas about him. Based on the fragmented modern literature (itself usually written from an art-historical angle), these have tended to set Suger in artificial isolation, and as a result to exaggerate both his role as a doer and his originality as a thinker. While saluting his energy in all these many fields, Lindy Grant - by seeing him whole, and setting him firmly in the full historical context of the twelfth century - shows how far he was in fact a man of his times rather than a man ahead of them. In doing so, she presents a uniquely vivid picture of the interaction of church and state in Capetian France. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of Genealogical Tables 10 List of Maps 11 Editor's Preface 12 Author's Preface 14 Abbreviations 17 Part I: Setting the Scene 22 Chapter 1 Interpreting Suger 24 Chapter 2 Reading between the Lines: Suger's writings 53 Chapter 3 Low Horizons: the Political and Religious Landscape of Capetian France around 1100 71 Part II: Active Life 94 Chapter 4 Youth and Education 96 Chapter 5 The Young Politician, 1106-1122 106 Chapter 6 The Abbot as Politician, 1122-1137 129 Chapter 7 The Abbot as Politician, 1137-the mid-1140s 163 Chapter 8 The Regent, 1147-1149 177 Part III: The Abbot's Life 200 Chapter 9 Suger as Abbot: Pastor of his Flock 202 Chapter 10 The Abbot as Guardian of Abbey Property 229 Chapter 11 The Patron 259 Part IV: Drawing The Curtain 296 Chapter 12 The Final Years, 1149-1151 298 Chapter 13 Conclusion: Broad Horizons - Abbot Suger and the Political and Religious Landscape of Capetian France around 1150 315 Genealogical Tables 330 Maps and Plans 336 Index 345