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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
As self-appointed guardians of light who performed many of their activities between sunset and sunrise, medieval monks and nuns had a special relationship with fire, light, and darkness. While medieval monastic authors wrote copiously about light, however, modern scholars have shown comparatively little interest in this topic. Using the concept of lightscape, this essay recreates the unique Latin monastic culture of light of the tenth to thirteenth centuries, considering how religious communities used natural and artificial light as well as darkness to reinforce spiritual lessons, heighten the sensory experience of liturgical life, and signal distinctions between orders in a reform-minded age. Evidence from material culture as well as several textual genres demonstrates that monastic uses of candles, oil lamps, and lanterns reflected the commitment to a strictly regulated life which foregrounded bonds of community and encouraged constant spiritual and physical vigilance. Contemporary understandings of fire and light as heavenly matter also conditioned religious to see everyday light-sources as ready conduits for the miraculous, as well as technologies by which earthly spaces could be made to approximate heavenly ones.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Medieval Association of the Pacific’s annual meeting in April 2023. Thanks are due to the presider, Maile Hutterer, as well as members of the audience for their good questions. Conversations with my wonderful colleagues at the University of Puget Sound, especially Kriszta Kotsis, Denise Despres, and Amy Fisher, have helped me develop my thinking on premodern material culture. Finally, I am grateful to Scott G. Bruce for his kind interest in my work, and to Traditio’s reviewers for their astute suggestions. Any remaining errors or infelicities are my own.
1 Ulrich of Cluny, Consuetudines Cluniacenses 2.8: “Quod si inter lectiones ille qui laternam ligneam circumfert ad eum venerit, et putans cum dormire, lumen contra faciem ejus intenderit, si vigilat, iterum reverenter inclinat; at si obdormivit et laterna posita fuerit ante cum, excitatus perlustrat primum cum ea dextrum chorum, et per medium rediens, chorum exteriorem, novissime sinistrum. Si quem offenderit obdormisse, tunc contra ejus oculos lumen ter intendit; si tertia vice non evigilaverit, ponit ante eum laternam, ut ab ipso quoque excitato similiter portetur.” PL 149, col. 706; and compare similar instructions in the Constitutions of Lanfranc 3 and 86, ed. David Knowles and Christopher N. L. Brooke, 2nd ed. (New York, 2002), 10 and 118; and Consuetudines Affligenienses 4, ed. Robert J. Sullivan, in Consuetudines benedictinae variae (saec. XI–saec. XIV), ed. Giles Constable, CCM 6 (Siegburg, 1975), 125. On the history of Ulrich’s text, see Cochelin, Isabelle, “Discipline and the Problem of Cluny’s Customaries,” in A Companion to the Abbey of Cluny in the Middle Ages, ed. Bruce, Scott G. and Vanderputten, Steven (Leiden, 2022), 204–22Google Scholar. Nigel of Canterbury’s reference to the lantern ritual suggests that it was still widely associated with Cluny in the twelfth century. See Nigel Longchamp, Speculum stultorum, line 2085, ed. Jill Mann (Oxford, 2023), 206.
2 The phrase is from Pope Urban II’s 1097 bull, quoted in Dominique Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism, and Islam, 1000–1150, trans. Graham Edwards (Ithaca, 2002), 79. Compare the description of Cîteaux in the Exordium Magnum Cisterciense, prol., ed. Bruno Greisser, CCCM 138 (Turnhout, 1994), 2.
3 One exception is Terryl N. Kinder, Cistercian Europe: Architecture of Contemplation (Grand Rapids, MI, 2002), 141–43, 172–74, 195–99, and 217–23, which includes a sensitive discussion of the ways in which building plans and lighting choices shaped monastic spirituality.
4 See Paul Fouracre, Eternal Light and Earthly Concerns: Belief and the Shaping of Medieval Society (Manchester, 2021); Catherine Vincent, Fiat lux: Lumière et luminaires dans la vie religieuse du XIIe au XVIe siècle (Paris, 2004); and now Natural Light in Medieval Churches, ed. Vladimir Ivanovici and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Leiden, 2022).
5 Nancy Gonlin and Meghan E. Strong, “Archaeology of Night, Darkness, and Luminosity in Ancient Urban Environments,” in After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape and Lightscape of Ancient Cities, ed. Nancy Gonlin and Meghan E. Strong (Boulder, 2022), 3–32; and for a discussion touching on medieval contexts, Marion Dowd, “Darkness and Light in the Archaeological Past: Sensory Perspectives,” in The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology, ed. Robin Skeates and Jo Day (London, 2019), 193–209.
6 Mary W. Helms, “Before the Dawn: Monks and the Night in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Europe,” Anthropos 99 (2004): 177–91, at 177–79; and Bille, Mikkel and Sørensen, Tim Flohr, “An Anthropology of Luminosity: The Agency of Light,” Journal of Material Culture 12 (2007): 263–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 264–67.
7 Abelard, Ep. 8.52, ed. and trans. David Luscombe, in The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise (Oxford, 2013), 414; Consuetudines Floriacenses Antiquiores 8, ed. Anselme Davril and Linus Donnat, in Consuetudinum Saeculi X/XI/XII Monumenta non-Cluniacensia, ed. Kassius Hallinger, CCCM 7.3 (Siegburg, 1984), 15; Statuta Casinensia 4, ed. Tommaso Leccisotti and Caroline Walker Bynum, in Consuetudines benedictinae variae, ed. Constable, 237–39; Ulrich of Cluny, Consuetudines Cluniacenses 3.12, PL 149, cols. 754–55; Ecclesiastica officia 114.11–14, ed. Danièle Choisselet and Placide Vernet, in Les Ecclesiastica officia cisterciennes du XIIe siècle (Turnhout, 1989), 320; and Observancie Regulares 15, ed. John Willis Clark, in Observances in Use in the Augustinian Priory of S. Giles and S. Andrew at Barnwell, Cambridgeshire (Cambridge, 1897), 74–76. Monastic sign lexicons suggest the range of lighting equipment. See Scott G. Bruce, Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism: The Cluniac Tradition, c. 900–1200 (Cambridge, 2007), 128–31, 136, and 140–41.
8 While lamps were usually filled with olive oil in southern Europe, further north, fuel derived from animal fat, fish, nuts, and seeds was common. See Geoff Egan, The Medieval Household: Daily Living, c.1150–c.1450 (London, 1998), 126–51; Katherine Barclay and Martin Biddle, “Stone and Pottery Lamps,” in Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester, ed. Martin Biddle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1990), 2:983–1000; and Thomas Bitterli, “A Light is On in the Hut: Light and Lighting Equipment in Medieval Everyday Life,” in Glass, Wax, and Metal: Lighting Technologies in Late Antique, Byzantine and Medieval Times, ed. Ioannis Motsianos and Karen S. Garnett (Oxford, 2019), 13–18. While religious sometimes mixed tallow and beeswax to produce a pleasanter-smelling but still economical fuel (Jacquelyn Frith et al., “Sweetness and Light: Chemical Evidence of Beeswax and Tallow Candles at Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire,” Medieval Archaeology 48 [2004]: 220–27), there is also evidence that even well-resourced communities like the abbey of St Peter, Gloucester, relied heavily on tallow. See Shaffrey, Ruth et al., “A Stone Cresset from Dulverton House, Gloucester,” Medieval Archaeology 66 (2022): 431–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 When a monastery acquired expensive lighting equipment, it was noteworthy enough to be recorded. See, for example, The Chronicle and Historical Notes of Bernard Itier, ed. Andrew W. Lewis (Oxford, 2012), 69 and 139; and Hugh of Poitiers, Historia Vizeliacensis monasterii 4, in Monumenta Vizeliacensia: Textes relatifs à l’histoire de l’abbaye de Vézelay, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CCCM 42 and 42 suppl., 2 vols. (Turnhout, 1976–80), 1:521.
10 Tallow lights were a common subject of complaint down to the nineteenth century. In Bleak House Esther Summerson notes the “two great office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow,” phrasing which vividly evokes tallow’s unpleasant sensory qualities. See Charles Dickens, Bleak House (London, 1873), 20.
11 Burn-time depends on several variables, including fuel type, wick material, and ambient room temperature. In my own experiments with a replica cresset lamp, one tablespoon of olive oil burned for about forty minutes in a well-ventilated indoor space room at 65°F, but required wick-trimming well before the oil was expended. Alexsei Vaiman has experimented extensively with different fuels and wicks, though using Roman-style ceramic lamps whose design is quite different from the kinds of lamps commonly used in medieval monasteries. See Vaiman, “Experiment with Kindling Oil Lamps,” EXARC Journal 3 (2020), available at https://exarc.net/ark:/88735/10527 (last accessed 18 July 2023). My thanks to Mario Zimmerman for sharing his perspective as an archaeologist and prompting me to think about these variables.
12 D. R. Dendy, The Use of Lights in Christian Worship (London, 1959), 20–25; and Vincent, Fiat lux (n. 4 above), 216–21.
13 Vincent, Fiat lux (n. 4 above), 76–79.
14 Jane Geddes, “Cistercian Metalwork in England,” in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. Christopher Norton and David Park (Cambridge, 1986), 256–65.
15 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, 4.336, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thomson, and Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–99), 1:580.
16 See the Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter, ed. Chrysogonus Waddell (Cîteaux, 2002), 180, 562, 619, and 640; and the excerpts from the Exordium parvum and 1152 statutes edited as an Appendix to Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles, ed. Norton and Park, 323–25.
17 Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia ad Guillelmum Abbatem 12, ed. Jean Leclerq, Christopher H. Talbot, and Henry M. Rochais, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 vols. (Rome, 1957–77), 3:81-108, at 105; trans. Pauline Matarasso, Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century (London, 1993), 55.
18 Chronica Jocelini de Brakelond, de rebus gestis Samsonis abbatis monasterii Sancti Edmundi, anno 1182, ed. John Gage Rokewode (London, 1840), 23.
19 Regula Benedicti, prol.: “et apertis oculis nostris ad deificum lumen, attonitis auribus audiamus divina cotidie clamans … Et quid dicit? Venite filii, audite me; timorem Domini docebo vos. Currite dum lumen vitae habetis, ne tenebrae mortis vos comprehendant.” ed. and trans. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, MN, 1981), 16. Medieval commentators viewed this passage as an exhortation to flee the path of damnation. See, for example, Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel, Expositio in Regulam S. Benedicti, prol., ed. Alfred Spannagel and Pius Engelbert, CCM 8 (Siegburg, 1974), 28.
20 John 8:12 (“Again therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying: I am the light of the world. He that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life”) in particular was a mainstay of the feasts of All Saints, Nativity, Epiphany, Passion Week, and Saints Peter and Paul. See CANTUS: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant, University of Waterloo, IDs 001419, 002592, 005498, and g03565a, https://cantus.uwaterloo.ca (accessed 6 December 2022).
21 Hugh of Saint Victor, De naturis ignis et speciebus, PL 177, cols. 567–72.
22 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 3.5–6, ed. Joseph Zycha, CSEL 28.1 (Vienna, 1894), 67–68; Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 7.3.23 and 7.5.15, ed. Stephen A. Barney et al. (Cambridge, 2006), 159 and 161; and Thierry of Chartres, Tractatus de sex dierum operibus, ed. N. Häring, in “The Creation and Creator of the World According to Thierry of Chartres and Clarenbaldus of Arras,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 22 (1955): 137–216, at 186.
23 Ambrose, De Isaac uel anima 8.77–78, ed. Karl Schenkl, CSEL 32.1 (Vienna, 1897), 695–98; Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, 1.8.28, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 142 (Turnhout, 1971), 118; Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Commentarius aureus in Psalmos et cantica ferialia 6.1, PL 72, col. 711; Richard of Saint Victor, Tractatus de quatuor gradibus violentae charitatis, PL 196, cols. 1221–22; and for discussion of this trope, Michael D. Barbezat, Burning Bodies: Communities, Eschatology, and the Punishment of Heresy in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 2018), 12–23.
24 Barbezat, Burning Bodies, 25–26.
25 Die Chronik des Klosters Petershausen 5.43, ed. Otto Feger (Lindau, 1956), 236; trans. Alison I. Beach, Shannon M. T. Li, and Samuel S. Sutherland as Monastic Experience in Twelfth-Century Germany: The Chronicle of Petershausen (Manchester, 2020), 172. Compare Francis of Assisi’s insistence that “Brother Fire” be permitted to burn his clothing, as discussed in Jones, Peter J. A., “Bones, Fire, and Falcons: Loving Things in Medieval Europe,” Journal of Material Culture 26 (2021): 433–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 439–41.
26 Frederick S. Paxton, The Death Ritual at Cluny in the Central Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2013), 188.
28 Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 5.39 and 7.2.25–27, ed. Barney et al., 130 and 156; and Remigius of Auxerre, Expositio super Genesim, 1.3, ed. Burton Van Name Edwards, CCCM 136 (Turnhout, 1999), 9–10.
29 (Pseudo-) Rabanus Maurus, Allegoriae in sacram scripturam, PL 112, cols. 989–90.
30 For example, William of Saint-Thierry’s description of Mont Dieu in his Epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei, 1.1 and 3.2, PL 184, cols. 309 and 356; and Orderic Vitalis’ description of the monks of Cîteaux as “lucernae lucentes in caliginoso loco” in his Historia ecclesiastica, 8.26, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80), 4:324.
31 Liber de doctrina uel liber sententiarum, prol. and 6, in Scriptores ordinis Grandimontensis, ed. Jean Becquet (Turnhout, 1968), 4 and 8–9.
32 Hugh of Saint Victor, De naturis ignis 1.173, PL 177, col. 568; Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, 2010), 120, 175, and 225; and Barbezat, Burning Bodies (n. 23 above), 17–18.
33 Gerhoh of Reichersberg, Commentarius aureus in Psalmos et cantica ferialia 1.6, PL 193, col. 711; Anselm, Oratio 13: Ad sanctum Stephanum, in S. Anselmi Cantuarensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1946–49), 3:53–54; and for background, Jacqueline E. Jung, “Compassion as Moral Virtue: Another Look at the Wise and Foolish Virgins in Gothic Art,” in Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, ed. Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Martha Dana Rust (Leiden, 2018), 76–127, at 89–90.
34 For example, Athanasius of Alexandria, Vita Antonii 93, ed. G. J. M. Bartelink, SC 400 (Paris, 1994), 374; Possidius, Sancti Augustini vita scripta a Possidio episcopo 5, ed. Herbert T. Weiskotten (Princeton, 1919), 50; Hincmar of Reims, Vita Remigii 3, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 3 (Hanover, 1896), 263–64; and Peter the Venerable, De miraculis libri duo 2.14, ed. Denise Bouthillier, CCCM 83 (Turnhout, 1988), 123–24.
35 Odo of Cluny, Sermo 3: De Sancto Benedicto abbate, PL 133, cols. 721–29, at col. 725.
36 A topic fully discussed in Dallas G. Denery, Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and Religious Life (Cambridge, 2005).
37 Augustine’s theory of illumination was foundational here. See Lydia Schumacher, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Chichester, 2011), 1–16. See also Lakey, Christopher R., “The Materiality of Light in Medieval Italian Painting,” English Language Notes 53 (2015): 119–36, at 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen, “In Visible Presence: The Role of Light in Shaping Religious Atmospheres,” in The Oxford Handbook of Light in Archaeology, ed. Costas Papadopoulos and Holley Moyes (Oxford, 2021), 303–24.
38 Hildebert of Lavardin, Epistolae 1.9: “cum ibi luminaria praeparas, luminis ubi adesse auctorem et corde credimus et ore confitemur.” PL 171, col. 161; quoted and discussed by Fiona J. Griffiths, “Like the Sister of Aaron: Medieval Religious Women as Makers and Donors of Liturgical Textiles,” in Female ‘vita religiosa’ Between Antiquity and the High Middle Ages: Structures, Developments, and Spatial Contexts, ed. Gert Melville and Anne Müller (Vienna, 2011), 343–74, at 344.
39 Relying mostly on the Acta Sanctorum, C. Grant Loomis identified hundreds of miracles related to fire and light. See C. Grant Loomis, White Magic: An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge, MA, 1948), 27–32 and 143–51.
40 Some of these were collected by Jacobus da Voragine in Legenda aurea 37, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2 vols. (Florence, 1998), 1:249–51. See also Ronald C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (New York, 1995), 95–96; and Rachel Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2011), 161–62 and 166.
41 Sicard of Cremona, Mitrale, sive de officiis ecclesiasticis summa 1.13, PL 213, cols. 44–45.
42 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Accession M.7649.1861. For a description, see George Zarnecki, English Romanesque Art, 1066–1200 (London, 1984), 249.
43 Hildegard’s use of light imagery is discussed in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley, 1998), 20–21.
44 Snoek, G. J. C., Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction (Leiden, 1995), 322–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 Gregory the Great’s account of Saint Benedict’s light-filled vision was hugely influential. See Dialogues 2.35, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Paul Antin, 3 vols. SC 251, 260, and 265 (Paris, 1978–80), 2:236–38.
46 Adam R. Stead, “Eye Hath Not Seen … Which Things God Hath Prepared: Imagining Heaven and Hell in Medieval Art in Romanesque and Gothic Art,” in Imagining the Medieval Afterlife, ed. Richard Matthew Pollard (Cambridge, 2020), 204–205 and fig. 5.
47 For example, De quatuordecim partibus beatitudinis 3, ed. Avril Henry and D. A. Trotter (Oxford, 1994), 135; Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis 1.30, ed. Luca Robertini (Spoleto, 1994), 135; and Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 7.20, ed. Joseph Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne, 1851), 2:25–28.
48 Gautier de Coincy, Les miracles de Nostre Dame 8, ed. V. Frederic Koenig, 4 vols. (Geneva, 1966–70), 4:295–320, at 305–306; trans. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York, 2000), 649.
49 Christopher M. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven, 2006), 162–63.
50 Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx 58, ed. and trans. Maurice Powicke (Oxford, 1950), 62–63. Compare Adam of Eynsham, Magna vita sancti Hugonis: The Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, ed. Decima L. Douie and D. H. Farmer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1985), 2:218–29.
51 Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2000), 160–65. This trope also reflects the Neoplatonic theory of vision, which involved the emission of fire or light from a viewer’s eyes towards an object under examination.
52 Vita sancti Raynerii Pisani 3: “ab oculus eius fulgor exiit, nimius, ut per triduum quascumque inspiceret litteras, non viderentur atramento scriptae, sed auro omnes impressae. … Tunc illuminavit eum lux vera Christus de infinitis….” in AS, June, 4:433.
53 Vita sancti Popponis abbatis Stabulensis 3, in AS, January, 3:254.
54 Vita beatae Idae Nivellensis 22, ed. Chrysostomus Henriquez, in Quinque prudentes virgines (Antwerp, 1630), 255–57; trans. Martinus Cawley, in Send Me God: The Lives of Ida the Compassionate of Nivelles, Nun of La Ramée, Arnulf, Lay Brother of Villers, and Abundus, Monk of Villers, by Goswin of Bossut (University Park, PA, 2005), 65–66.
55 Vita beatae Idae Nivellensis 22, ed. Henriquez, 255.
56 Lambert of Deutz, Vita sancti Heriberti 4: “credente in lucem et filio lucis, per noctem clara luminariat…. Contigit aliquando negligentia, ut casu eidem extingueretur lucerna…vir Dei in circuitu suo claritatis perfunderetur radiis….” in AS, March, 2:473.
57 Guibert of Nogent, Monodiae 1.15, ed. E.-R. Labande, in Guibert de Nogent, Autobiographie (Paris, 1981), 116–18.
58 Vita sanctae Gudilae virginis prima 7: “Exaudivit Deus preces virginis, quas pro receptione fudit luminis: et tenebras, quas ingessit princeps tenebrarum, disrupit luce misericordiarum suarum.” in AS, January, 8:525.
59 For example, Flodoard of Reims’s story about oil-burning lamps in Historiae ecclesiae Remensis libri quatuor 4.53, PL 135, cols. 327–28. Compare the miracle of the lamp which burned above the tomb of Saint Omer in Vincent, Fiat lux (n. 4 above), 287.
60 Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis 1.26, ed. Robertini (n. 47 above), 130–31; trans. Pamela Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia, 1995), 96.
61 Altfrid, Vita sancti Liudgeri episcopi Mimigardefordensis et miracula 28, ed. Georg Pertz, MGH, Scriptores 2 (Hannover, 1829), 422–23. Compare Radbod, Vita sanctae Godebertae virginis 18, PL 150, cols. 1525–26; and Miracula sancti Benedicti 2.13, ed. and trans. Anselme Davril, Annie Dufour, and Gillette Labory, in Les miracles de Saint Benoît, Miracula sancti Benedicti (Paris, 2019), 226.
62 Miracula Sancti Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta 11, in AS, April, 2:572–73.
63 Hariulf of Saint-Riquier, Vita Madelgisili, PL 174, cols. 1448–49; and compare the similar story told by Arbeo of Freising about Emmeram’s relics in Vita sancti Emmerammi 3, in “Arbeonis episcopi Frisingensis Vita sancti Emmerammi authentica,” Analecta Bollandiana 8 (1889): 211–55, at 245–46.
64 Vita Hamonis monachi 11, ed. E.-P. Sauvage, in “Vita beati Hamonis monachi Coenobii Saviniacensis,” Analecta Bollandiana 2 (1883): 500–60, at 517; trans. Hugh Feiss, Maureen M. O’Brien, and Ronald Pepin, in Robert of La Chaise-Dieu and Stephen of Obazine (Collegeville, MN, 2010), 187.
65 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum 4.89, ed. Strange (n. 47 above), 1:255.
66 Geoffrey Grossus, Vita beati Bernardi Tironiensis 11, PL 172, col. 1421; trans. Ruth Harwood Cline, The Life of Blessed Bernard of Tiron (Washington, D.C., 2009), 97–98. Compare Caesarius of Heisterbach’s story about Abbess Sophia of Hoven in Dialogus miraculorum 10.16, ed. Strange (n. 47 above), 2:229.
67 Vita sancti Wigberti presbyteri et confessoris 2, in AS, August, 3:136; Translatio sancti Stephani fundatoris ordinis Grandimontensis 5, in AS, February, 2:210; Vita sancti Meinulphi diaconi 2, in AS, October, 3:214; and Miracula sancti Uldalrici 1, in AS, July, 2:125.
68 Regula Benedicti 53, ed. and trans. Fry (n. 19 above), 259.
69 Recent work has shown how such imagery links blackness to sin and degradation while valorizing whiteness as the ideal spiritual/corporeal state. See, for example, Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2018), 181–256; and M. Lindsay Kaplan, Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity (Oxford, 2019), 81–102.
70 For example, Miracula sancti Benedicti 3.2 and 7.13–7.14, ed. Davril, Dufour, and Labory (n. 61 above), 240–42 and 410–12; Les curieuses recherches du Mont Sainct Michel, ed. Eugéne de Robillard de Beaurepaire and Thomas Le Roy, 2 vols. (Caen, 1878), 1:879; and Miracula ecclesiae Constantiensis 1, 3, 16, 21, and 32, ed. E.-A. Pigeon, in Histoire de la cathédrale de Coutances (Coutances, 1876), 368–69, 376, 378, and 383.
71 While this idea was already current in late antiquity, it took on renewed significance in the twelfth century as stained glass came into widespread use in church interiors. See Herbert L. Kessler, “Consider the Glass, It Can Teach You: The Medium’s Lesson,” in Investigations in Medieval Stained Glass: Materials, Methods, and Expressions, ed. Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz and Elizabeth Pastan (Leiden, 2019), 143–72, at 146–47.
72 On Suger, see Herbert L. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia, 2000), 190–205; and Martin Büchsel, “Licht und Metaphysik in der Gotik: Noch einmal zu Suger von Saint-Denis,” in Licht und Farbe in der mittelalterlichen Backsteinarchitektur des südlichen Ostseeraums, ed. Ernst Badstübner et al. (Berlin, 2005), 24–37. Compare the description of the church of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon, which seems to anticipate some of Suger’s responses: Martindale, Andrew, “The Romanesque Church of S. Bénigne at Dijon and ms. 591 in the Bibliothèque municipale,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 25 (1962): 21–56, at 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 Gilchrist, Roberta, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women (London, 1994), 129–33Google Scholar; Thomas Coomans, Life Inside the Cloister: Understanding Monastic Architecture (Leuven, 2018), 32 and 102; and Maximilian Sternberg, Cistercian Architecture and Medieval Society (Leiden, 2013), 63–69. For an exhaustive catalogue of lighting types, see Henry-René d’Allemagne, Histoire du luminaire depuis l’époque romaine jusqu’au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1891), 1–134.
74 The Cistercian statutes are an excellent illustrative example: Ecclesiastica officia 4.2, 114.3, and 116.4, ed. Choisselet and Vernet (n. 7 above), 70, 318, and 326.
75 Studies of light levels within extant monastic churches have added considerably to our knowledge of planned natural lightscapes, and demonstrate that the medieval builders used their understanding of astronomy to plan seasonal light-related effects; see Travis Yeager et al., “Modeling the Sunlight Illumination of the Church at Studenica Monastery,” in Natural Light in Medieval Churches, ed. Ivanovici and Sullivan (n. 4 above), 253–77; Sullivan, Alice Isabella and Ivanovici, Vladimir, “Space, Image, Light: Toward an Understanding of Moldavian Architecture in the Fifteenth Century,” Gesta 60 (2021): 81–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Martins, Ana M. T. and Carlos, Jorge, “Essence of Daylight in the Cistercian Monastic Church of S. Bento de Cástris, Évora, Portugal,” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 245 (2017): 1–10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
76 For example, Bernard of Cluny, Ordo Cluniacensis sive consuetudines 1.15, in Vetus Disciplina Monastica, ed. Marquard Hergott (Paris, 1726), 269–70. This custom is reminiscent of the practice of light-bearers accompanying the cross and sacramentals in liturgical procession.
77 Constitutions of Lanfranc 99–100, ed. Knowles and Brooke (n. 1 above), 146–47; and Consuetudines Affligenienses 24, ed. O’Sullivan (n. 1 above), 143. The story about the monk who did a poor job in his duty as Saint Benedict’s candle-bearer would have been well-known; Gregory the Great, Dialogues, 2.20, ed. de Vogüé and Antin (n. 45 above), 2:196.
79 Regula magistri 30.17, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé, SC 105–107, 3 vols. (Paris, 1964), 2:164–66.
80 Scott G. Bruce, “Lurking with Spiritual Intent: A Note on the Origin and Function of the Monastic Roundsman (Circator),” Revue bénédictine 109 (1999): 75–89.
81 Peter the Venerable, Statuta 49: “Causa instituti huius fuit ut filii lucis semper in luce etiam corporali conversentur…. Omnis qui male agit, odit lucem, et non venit ad lucem, ut non arguantur opera eius; qui autem facit veritatem, venit ad lucem, ut manifestentur opera eius, quia in Deo sunt facta.” ed. Giles Constable, in Consuetudines benedictinae variae (n. 7 above), 80. Compare Hildemar of Corbie, Expositio regulae 22, ed. Rupert Mittermüller (Regensburg, 1880), 331.
83 Quoting Peter Jeffrey, “Psalmody and Prayer in Early Monasticism,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, Volume 1: Origins to the Eleventh Century, ed. Alison I. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin (Cambridge, 2020), 115. See also James W. McKinnon, “The Origins of the Western Office,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, ed. Margot E. Fassler (Oxford, 2001), 63–73, at 65. On the obligation to pray at dawn in readiness for Christ’s return, see Hildemar of Corbie, Expositio 9, ed. Mittermüller, 283.
84 Vespers was known as lucernarium in the earliest rules. See Jonathan Black, “The Divine Office and Private Devotion in the Latin West,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo, MI, 2001), 41–64, at 47. For the place of Psalm 133 in the office, see Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa (Ithaca, 2006), 66–67 (Table 2.1).
85 Prudentius, Cathemerinon 5, in Carmina, ed. Maurice P. Cunningham, CCSL 126 (Turnhout, 1966), 23–28, at 23.
86 Kinder, Cistercian Europe (n. 3 above), 172. Special care was taken that the lectern be supplied with a lantern holding a candle that was easy to light and gave off sufficient light for readers. See Redactio sancti Emmerammi dicta Einsidlensis 23, ed. Maria Wegener and Candida Elvert, in Consuetudines Saeculi X/XI/XII (n. 7 above), 203–204.
87 Dowd, “Darkness and Light,” (n. 5 above) 197; and Kathryn Kamp and John Whittaker, “The Night Is Different: Sensescapes and Affordances in Ancient Arizona,” in Archaeology of the Night: Life after Dark in the Ancient World, ed. Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell (Boulder, 2018), 77–94.
88 Helms, “Before the Dawn” (n. 6 above).
89 Hildemar of Corbie, Expositio 13, ed. Mittermüller (n. 81 above), 294.
90 Lanfranc, Constitutions 62–65, ed. Knowles and Brooke (n. 1 above), 84–89; Guido of Farfa, Disciplina Farfensis et monasterii S. Pauli Romae, 1.5 and 1.23, in Vetus disciplina monastica, ed. Hergott (n. 76 above), 47 and 66; and Peter the Venerable, Statuta 52, ed. Constable (n. 81 above), 82. Compare the self-conscious limitations on the number of lamps by the Cistercian statutes, even at major feasts, cited in n. 92, below.
91 Leo of Ostia, Chronica monasterii Casinensis 3.32(33), PL 173, cols. 756–57.
93 Lanfranc, Constitutions 66–67 and 73, ed. Knowles and Brooke (n. 1 above), 88–91 and 96–99. Compare Bernard of Cluny, Ordo Cluniacensis 29, ed. Hergott (n. 76 above), 272; Ulrich of Cluny, Consuetudines Cluniacenses 1.11, PL 149, cols. 654–56; and The Customary of the Benedictine Monasteries of Saint Augustine, Canterbury, and Saint Peter, Westminster, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, 2 vols. (London, 1902–1904), 2:268-90 (Appendix).
95 See Alastair J. MacGregory, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum: Their Use at Tenebrae and at the Paschal Vigil (Collegeville, MN, 1992), 34–123; and Catherine Gauthier, “L’encens et le luminaire dans le haut Moyen Âge occidental: Liturgie et pratiques dévotionnelles,” (Ph.D. diss., Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2008). Compare the extinguishing of candles at the end of monastic burial services, as described by Paxton, Death Ritual (n. 26 above), 91, 127, and 163.
97 Roberta Gilchrist, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge, 2012), 181.
98 MacGregory, Fire and Light, 309–18, 339–59, and 407–409; and for summaries of the symbolism, see Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma Ecclesiae 3.100-102, PL 172, col. 668; and Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis 18, ed. and trans. Eric Knibbs, in Alamar of Metz, On the Liturgy, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 2014), 1:192–96. Cistercian statutes place a three-pound limit on the candle: Ecclesiastica officia 23.3, ed. Choisselet and Vernet (n. 7 above), 109–10.
100 Guerric of Igny, Sermo primus in purificatione 5: “Verbum in carne tamquam lumen in cera …” ed. John Morson and Hilary Costello, in Guerric d’Igny: Sermons, ed. John Morson and Hilary Costello, SC 166 and 202, 2 vols. (Paris, 1970–73), 1:318–20.
101 For a conceptual overview, see Sørenson, Marie Louise Stig and Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina, “Embodied Knowledge: Reflections on Belief and Technology,” in Embodied Knowledge Perspectives on Belief and Technology, ed. Sørenson and Rebay-Salisbury (Oxford, 2013), 1–8.Google Scholar