Abbo of Fleury was born in the Orléanais just before the middle of the tenth century and began his literary and political education in the monastery of Fleury as a young boy. The only source for his early life is a brief synopsis by Aimoin of Fleury, in his Vita s. Abbonis. According to Aimoin, Abbo's family had long-standing ties to the monastery of Fleury and his parents entered him in the monastic school there at a young age. He excelled at his studies and, Aimoin suggests, showed a strong inclination for monastic life. He became a monk at Fleury and eventually a priest as well.

Education in northwestern Europe at this time appears to have been in something of a trough. Abbo could not pursue advanced studies in all the subjects he wished. He therefore traveled to Reims, Paris, and Orléans in order to complete his grounding in the seven liberal arts. Despite this background, he did not learn as much as he wished, and his contemporary Gerbert of Aurillac, who received much of his education in Spain, is usually considered the more accomplished scholar. Nevertheless, Abbo became a teacher at Fleury and probably wrote his early works as aids to his students. Notable among these are studies on the planets. He also became interested in computus (the art of reconciling the disparate astronomical cycles that make up the ecclesiastical calendar). This interest may have sprung from a need to refute apocalyptic heresies of the day. Abbo later recollected that while studying in Paris, he had heard preaching of a millennial apocalypse. Later, his abbot delegated to him the task of refuting a Lotharingian belief that when the Annunciation (March 25) and Good Friday fell on the same day the world would end.

Abbo's education at Fleury was not only in abstract academic subjects. In the late tenth century, Fleury was at the center of political events. Although the monastery had enjoyed the patronage of the Carolingians for many generations, it was also central to the political ambitions of the Robertians (ancestors of the Capetian kings of France), several of whom had held the title Duke of the Franks. As a monastery which had undergone a reform of monastic life along the lines first laid out at Cluny, Fleury had particular significance in giving an aura of respectability and legitimacy to its patrons. Although royal and ducal patronage had many material advantages, there was also a price to be paid in terms of monastic autonomy.

The election of Oylbold as abbot of Fleury in about 985 appears to have been fraught with controversy. The Duke of the Franks took a personal interest in his election, and the community remained divided after his installation. Gerbert of Aurillac, by that time an adviser to the last Carolingian kings of Francia, waged a letter-writing campaign against the "usurper" abbot, whom he did not name but who surely must have been Oylbold himself. Unfortunately, we do not know what the issues were in this election, but they did not dissipate quickly. Gerbert's correspondent at Fleury, Constantine, eventually left the monastery for the community of Micy. Abbo's role in this controversy is unknown, but it is probably significant that he agreed at this time to teach in the English monastery of Ramsey.

Ties between Fleury and the English reformed monasteries went back to Abbo's youth. Fleury had a great reputation for the purity of its monastic profession in the mid-tenth century. This was partly due to its reform by the renowned Odo of Cluny, but also because of its possession of the bones of St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of western monasticism. Fleury in the mid-tenth century entertained many English monks, including such monastic luminaries as Dunstan, Archbishop Oda of Canterbury, and Oda's nephew Oswald, later archbishop of York and founder of Ramsey Abbey. Therefore, it is not surprising that when Ramsey wanted an experienced and widely read teacher, they called upon Fleury to send someone. Why Abbot Oylbold chose to send Abbo is something of a mystery. Certainly from Ramsey's point of view they could have asked for no better teacher. It seems odd, however, that Fleury would spare someone on whose education the community had already expended great resources and who was beginning to make a name for himself in the world of learning. Aimoin, with the air of one who protests too much, was quick to refute any rumor that animosity between Abbo and Oylbold prompted Abbo's departure for England. The single surviving letter between the two is cordial enough, although it is a plea from Abbo that he be allowed to return home from his exile in England. At the very least, Abbo may have been a supporter of a rival candidate for Oylbold's position (if not a candidate himself) and agreed to his temporary removal in order to relieve tensions within Fleury.

The monastery of Ramsey must have presented a stark contrast to Fleury. Fleury was an old foundation, near an urban center with Roman origins and close to the center of French political power. Ramsey, in contrast, was a new foundation, in the remote fenlands of England, of political importance, perhaps, but physically removed from the centers of power. The language of the English appears also to have shocked Abbo. The English monks spoke Latin not as the ancestor of their native tongue but as a wholly foreign language, whose vowel sounds and rhythms were alien to them. Abbo nevertheless developed a fondness for his students and later wrote them a grammatical handbook in which he coached them on proper pronunciation and drew parallels between the special English letters thorn, edh, and wen and the Greek theta and digamma. He also seems to have provided advanced instruction in mathematics, particularly as it related to computus, and Byrhtferth of Ramsey acknowledged him as a mentor.

Abbo did not spend all of his time in England at Ramsey, however. He seems to have visited the archepiscopal courts of Dunstan and Oswald on several occasions. Aimoin claims that Abbo helped smooth out differences between the two men, but gives no details. During one of these visits, Abbo heard the story of the martyrdom of St. Edmund from Dunstan himself. Whether Dunstan told the story in Old English as he had originally heard it, or translated into Latin or Old French for the foreign visitor is unclear—possibly there was a mixing of languages in this oral telling. Upon Abbo's return to Ramsey, the monks begged him to write the story in good Latin. He obliged either shortly before or immediately leaving England in 987.

Abbo had little leisure for scholarly pursuits after his return to Fleury. Nevertheless, he seems to have maintained close contacts with his English counterparts for several years. He composed his Grammatical Questions for the monks of Ramsey and corresponded with Dunstan. His letters to the archbishop are lost, but several of his acrostic poems dedicated to Dunstan survive. Pope Gregory V, in the course of his correspondence with Abbo, asked specifically about Dunstan's health, as if he expected Abbo to have current information on the subject. These and Abbo's other literary and scientific activities can have been at best only distractions from the increasing burdens of his administrative responsibilities.

Almost immediately after Abbo's return, Abbot Oylbold died. The congregation of Fleury endured another disputed abbatial election, this time settling on Abbo to lead the monastery. The administration of a large abbey would under normal circumstances have been a full-time job. By late 987, however, Fleury was entering a particularly difficult time politically. With the death of Louis V, the last Carolingian ruler of France, Hugh Capet had himself crowned king, despite the existence of a Carolingian claimant to the throne. As an institution which had received patronage from both the Carolingians and the Capetians, Fleury found itself in the unenviable position of having to choose sides. Eventually, Abbo made a strong alliance with the Capetians, but during the early years of Capetian rule, the loyalty of Fleury and its abbot were anything but certain. Meanwhile, the monks of Fleury continued to have disputes with Arnulf, the bishop of Orléans, over the land holdings of Fleury and episcopal prerogatives. Since Arnulf was a firm supporter of Hugh Capet and well-connected among the local nobility, Fleury found itself forced to concede much in its disputes in the Orléanais.

As abbot of Fleury and one of the most learned men in Europe, Abbo was frequently drawn into religious and political disputes in the region. Probably the most famous incident occurred at the council of Saint-Basle in 989, where Abbo found himself in the uncomfortable position of arguing against Hugh Capet and Gerbert. The king wished to depose the archbishop of Reims, who had proven a traitor, and Abbo led the defense of the miscreant prelate. The king prevailed at the council and installed Gerbert as the new archbishop. Abbo, however, had the pleasure of reinstating the archbishop several years later. At another council, Abbo had the misfortune to witness a riot over the question of monastic tithes. As a result of this riot, his political enemies hinted that he should be excommunicated for his continued relations with some of the alleged rioters. Shortly after this, Abbo and his retinue suffered a murderous attack by some of the retainers of the bishop of Orléans.

Following the attack on his retinue, Abbo mustered his literary and persuasive skills to redefine his relationship with the other political powers in the Ile de France. In his Apologeticus addressed to Hugh Capet and his son and co-ruler Robert the Pious, Abbo laid out a tripartite division of society in which secular rulers, secular clergy, and regular clergy each had a part to play in the running of a harmonious Christian kingdom. From this point on, Abbo seems to have had much better success in his political affairs. He became a patron of the young Pope Gregory V, persuaded Robert the Pious to divorce Bertha of Blois, whose marriage to Robert Abbo and Gregory considered incestuous, and mediated disputes within several monastic congregations in the Loire valley. In all of these enterprises, his academic accomplishments served him well. His letters, whether to kings, bishops, abbots, or the pope himself, show a sophisticated Latin style, with appropriate references to classical law and literature, as well as arguments based on an extensive knowledge of patristic literature, and a stilted but literate sense of humor. He now applied his interest in acrostic poetry to a more practical purpose than his earlier tributes to Dunstan. His tour de force is a rubricated poem, such as Porphyrius had dedicated to Constantine the Great, directed at the German emperor Otto III. In this poem, Abbo flattered Otto by his implied comparison to Constantine, while reminding him that the power of imperium also carries with it responsibilities, such as protecting the newly installed Pope Gregory V from the depredations of Italian civil wars.

Amid these political concerns, Abbo continued his work as an administrator. Abbo traveled frequently from one priory of Fleury to another and accepted gifts of property from local nobility, while protecting long-established interests. Under his abbacy, the school of Fleury flourished, producing several notable writers. Abbo himself occasionally turned to the quiet of study as an escape from some of his more worldly cares. Although his most important works belong to the earlier part of his career, he took the time to write a letter to some monks of Cluny explaining how to use the canon tables at the front of large Gospel texts. Finally, Abbo took care to preserve Fleury's reputation as a reformed religious house and an example of purity of monastic life for all of Europe.

Nowhere was the task of enforcing monastic discipline more problematic than at Fleury's priory of La Réole in Gascony. Fleury had received La Réole as a priory more than a generation earlier. Despite the best efforts of a long line of Fleurisian abbots, the Gascon monks at this priory remained unwilling to submit to Fleury's regulation. In early 1004, Abbo visited the priory himself to supervise the installation of some Fleurisian monks who were to effect the reform of La Réole. By the fall, however, the situation had deteriorated to the point that his monks begged Abbo to send relief. Abbo and a small retinue began the journey south almost immediately. Aimoin accompanied him and recorded the journey and subsequent events in his Vita s. Abbonis. Although Abbo was able to gain some comfort from celebrating Mass and working on his computus, the situation at La Réole quickly deteriorated. While Abbo was taking some quiet time to himself, a brawl erupted between the southern and northern monks. Hearing the noise, Abbo left his computus and ran outside, just in time to be hit with a spear thrown by one of the Gascons. The wound proved fatal and he died that day. Both sides were alarmed by the sudden turn of events and the riot broke up quickly.

The return of the Fleurisian monks returned home without their leader created a stir in the community. Within a few days, the rest of the monastic world joined them in their grief, as monks from all over Francia came to celebrate the feast of the translation of St. Benedict at Fleury. An encyclical letter recorded the sad event, and the Fleurisians quickly sought to establish a cult of Abbo as a saint. Abbo's tomb at La Réole became a shrine, miracles were recorded, and Aimoin of Fleury began composition of a vita. The cult does not seem to have gained a widespread following, however. Abbo's feast on November 13 appears in few monastic calendars, and was not consistently observed even at Fleury. The shrine at La Réole, however, seems to have been the site of a popular cult. During the religious wars of the sixteenth century, Protestants scattered Abbo's bones. Not until the nineteenth century did Abbo receive significant attention, when the Church attempted to revive local cults in France. The refoundation of a monastery at the site of Fleury in the 1950s marks the beginning of modern scholarship on Abbo, with the publication of a biography by Patrice Cousin, a monk at the new house of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire.

In modern scholarship, Abbo of Fleury appears as a secondary participant in almost every major historical movement of tenth-century Europe. While he is almost never mentioned in general survey texts, his contributions are almost always essential for telling the story of specific movements, such as the revival of science and mathematics, the development of papal prerogatives, the English monastic revival, Latin acrostic poetry, and French political history. Not surprisingly, when scholars have considered the career of Abbo of Fleury, they have tended to separate his literary and scientific life from his administrative and political life. Although this dichotomy is attractive, a fuller consideration of his life reveals that these two sides of his public life should not be separated.

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