«Tenere vivo il fuoco o adorare le ceneri ? ». Cluny e il mondo universitario nel XIII secolo : tra riappropriazione della tradizione e ridifinizione della propria identità

During the thirteenth century, various monastic orders gave the opportunity to its members to attend the university faculties, particularly theological and legal ones. It was a revolution destined to deeply mark relations with the urban schools that until a few decades earlier had been the subject of suspicion and harsh condemnations. This revolution also brought a reformulation of some cornerstones of monastic life. Cluny was one of these. From the forties of the thirteenth century, in fact, the abbot of Cluny with the Board governing the order began to plan the establishment of a college in Paris upholding monks from twenty-six priories, considered suitable for a higher education course in theology. What implications had for Cluny the relationship with the university milieux in terms of redefinition of monastic identity? How was the new statute of monk-student elaborated and accepted inside the order? The analysis of law sources – statuta, diffinitiones of general chapters, canonical visits –, in particular, allows to respond in part to these questions following the evolution of this process in the thirteenth century. Furthermore, it allows to understand if and how the Cluniacensis ecclesia was able to take advantage of the rapid transformation of social and ecclesial conditions, to position itself within the space of thirteenth century vita regularis. Finally it allows to verify the level of innovation of the order responses to the change.