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Le Bienheureux Herluin. Fondateur et premier abbé du Bec. Vita Herluini de Gilbert Crespin. Traduction et études. Edited by Raphaël Flaujac, Jean-Hervé Foulon and Véronique Gazeau. Pp. 177 incl. 14 figs. Le Bec-Hellouin: Ateliers du Bec, 2020. €18 (paper). 978 2 908109 16 0

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Joan Greatrex*
Affiliation:
Robinson College, Cambridge
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2022

This slim but impressive volume, written in French, is a noteworthy addition to contemporary studies of medieval Benedictine monasticism. Its focus is on the foundation and early years of the abbey of Bec in Normandy; and its interest and significance for English medieval scholars and students are enhanced by the fact that two among the first generation of monks, contemporaries of the founding abbot Herluin, went on to become archbishops of Canterbury. Lanfranc, prior of Bec and later abbot of Caen, was appointed archbishop by William the Conqueror in 1070, and Anselm, Herluin's successor as abbot, followed Lanfranc to Canterbury in 1093. The earliest surviving biography of Herluin was written by Gilbert Crispin, a monk contemporary of Herluin, who went on to become abbot of Westminster (1088–1117). Crispin's biography is included here in a French translation based on the English text edited by J. Armitage Robinson in Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster: a study of the abbey under Norman rule (Cambridge 1911), 85–110. Also included here is a brief commentary by a contemporary abbot of Bec, Dom Paul-Emmanuel Clénet (1996–2020). This is followed by four essays on various aspects of Herluin's life and after-life and cult written by two French professors, one being one of the editors mentioned above, and one a contemporary monk of Bec. These provide additional evidence surrounding the development of the cult of Herluin, who still awaits canonisation, along with copies of five of his epitaphs several of which are reprinted here from Vatican manuscripts. Also included in this volume are the details of the several examinations of Herluin's tomb in 1707, and in 1792 when it had to be moved to a parish church as a result of the French Revolution's closure and destruction of the abbey church; and once again, most recently in 1959, when it was brought to rest in a place of honour in the newly reconstructed abbey church. The editors have also provided a chronology of Herluin's life and bibliographies of the primary source material and printed modern references.