In search of a true vita canonica. Normative texts and their manuscripts as alternative witnesses for the emergence of the canonical reform movement (9th-11th century)

Traditionally the history of the religious orders is narrated along the
lines of a pattern of rise, decline, and reform. The historiography of
the canonical order is no exception. Decades of steady decline are
said to have been followed around the middle of the 11th century by
a period of reform, culminating in the emergence of a new type of
religious – the ‘regular’ canon –, as opposed to the non-reformed
‘secular’ canon. This project questions this long-established
paradigm of decline and subsequent reform, as well as the apparent
dichotomy between secular and regular canons. It will do so by
looking at neglected manuscript evidence from 9th- to 11th-century
communities of canons in France (Western Francia). A thorough
study of normative texts in these manuscripts will uncover the
canons’ ever deep concern for the quality of religious life, and their
continued search for authoritative texts from the very beginning
onwards (texts ranging from the New testament and patristic authors
to early canonical and Carolingian legislation). Thus, the project will
argue on the basis of normative sources that the 11th-century
canonical reform, rather than being a brand-new movement,
constitutes the continuation of centuries-long efforts at searching the
most suitable form for the vita canonica. The movement’s supposedly
sudden emergence around the middle of the 11th century should be
seen as a retrospective construct, promoted in contemporary
institutional and historiographical sources.