Between carolingian legacy and "gregorian reform". Discursive strategies, monastic identity and power struggles in Redon in the XI-XII centuries

Through cross analysis of the Vita Conwoinis, of the Redon cartulary and of the remains of the "small cartulary", this study seeks to determine the manner in which the Redon community of the eleventh and twelfth centuries perceived its past and sought to place itself in the wider political, social and institutional context. It seems that the discursive strategy employed by the monks was based on valorising a biased conception of the Carolingian legacy and celebrating the commitment of their abbey to Church reform as promoted by the papacy and the renewed episcopal corps. These choices led the monks of the Gregorian age to minimise the role of the dukes of Britany, despite the fact that they had initiated monastic renewal at the beginning of the eleventh century and had made the abbey into one of the major centres of their power throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries.