Recent Research on Canons Regular in the German Empire of the 11th and 12th Centuries
By Stefan Weinfurter
Historische Zeitschrift, No. 224 (1977)
Introduction: For decades the reform movement of the canons of the 11th and 12th centuries remained to a great degree unnoticed by historians. The Premonstratensians, who in this report are treated only in passing, have to be regarded as a certain exception. Cluny, Gorze, Hirsau and the reform papacy fill the spectrum of church and monastic reform of this period. But for about twenty years now the significance of the canons regular has more and more become the focus of attention. And today you can no longer avoid ascribing to them an essential portion of the deep reaching reform efforts of the time. Their heyday can be situated in the first half of the 12th century. During this time they contributed not only a series of popes – Honorius II, Innocent II, Lucius II, as well as Hadrian IV shortly after mid-century and finally Gregory VIII in the second half of the century – but they also gave inestimable momentum for the area of the German Empire, which forms the basis of this report. As expected, this is the case for the spiritual and intellectual interests, but, perhaps more decisively, as we can recognize today, also for the areas of constitutional law and politics.
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