Cusimano, Richard

About the author: Richard Cusimano is a Professor of History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He studied philosophy and classical languages at St. Louis University where he also did graduate studies in history. He received his doctoral degree in Medieval and Renaissance history from the University of Georgia. With John Moorhead, he translated The Deeds of Louis the Fat, published by the Catholic University of America Press in 1992.

Translation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Morigny, France, C. 1100-1150

2003 0-7734-6637-1
Written during the 12th century by monks at the Benedictine abbey of Morigny, about fifty kilometers south of Paris, the Chronicle describes the abbey’s foundation, its purchase by King Philip I, its difficulties surviving its initial poverty, its heated quarrel over proprietorships with the canons of the church of Saint-Martin in Old Etampes, and its bitter dispute with the church of Notre Dame of Etampes over burial rights. Besides revealing the intrigues and scandals of 12th-century churchman vying for money, power, and influence, these parts of the text detail an abbey’s struggle to be born and survive in a society filled with churches, and with powers, both lay and ecclesiastical, competing either to help it or harm it. This, the first published translation of the Chronicle, will be a significant addition to early 12th-century studies.