Aelred of Rievaulx’s Relational Anthropology in Socio-Historical and Religious Context

Abstract

The Cistercian monk, Aelred of Rievaulx, is unique in his emphasis on relationship with others. While Aelred’s socio-historical context—that of a twelfth-century Renaissance, Cistercian community, with its increased emphasis on friendship—contributed to his relational anthropology, I argue that Aelred possessed his own relational vision, and out of passionate love was active in pursuing unity between his secular and religious communities, and also with other persons in his communities. This relational vision and action, which is highly consonant with contemporary anthropology, is embedded in the theological anthropology of his writings, where he confirms that the essence of the human being is relational.

Keywords

Aelred of Rievaulx Relational Anthropology the Twelfth Century Renaissance Cistercian Community Friendship

Introduction

In medieval history, the twelfth century is a period that witnessed so many changes and developments it has been described as ‘the twelfth-century Renaissance’. While this concept is explored further below, it can immediately be noted that a major feature of a renaissance is interest in the human. This interest had increased within the medieval church of the twelfth century, For example, William of St. Thierry, who belonged to the Cistercian order which emerged from the dynamics of that century, developed in his writings on The Nature of the Body and the Soul, a comprehensive anthropology in which he characterized humans as holistic beings. He did not ignore the physical bodies of human beings in his discussions about the relationship between the body and the soul.¹ Another Cistercian monk with a distinctive perspective on the human was Aelred of Rievaulx. Moving beyond the prevailing view of the human person, which focused only on interior faculties, such as mind, reason, and so on,² Aelred saw the human as a being who is always in relation to others. In order to understand Aelred’s thinking, I explore the way his relational anthropology was formed from his socio-historical context and then reflected in his writings, especially in Spiritual Friendship and The Mirror of Charity. I also argue that Aelred played an active role in creating the political peace of his time, along with the unity of his community. I disagree with the view that Aelred was a person who simply responded passively to his context. Finally, I draw out the implications of Aelred’s anthropology for the twenty-first-century context.

Aelred’s Socio-Historical Context

People’s lives are rooted in the historical and social environment in which they live, and their thoughts reflect the age to which they belong. In order to understand someone, it is necessary to investigate that person’s life and context from various perspectives. Aelred of Rievaulx lived in the twelfth century, and in order to discover what it was about that context that contributed to the formation of his anthropology, I briefly review the socio-historical studies of that century. It is not possible to do this comprehensively, so I will simply note some characteristics of the time that would have had either direct or indirect influence on Aelred.

The Twelfth-Century Renaissance?

The medieval age is no longer referred to as the ‘Dark Ages,’ largely as a result of twentieth century debates about the term ‘twelfth-century Renaissance’. According to ‘Haskins’ Thesis,’ a starting point for the debates provided by Charles Homer Haskins,³ the notion of a Renaissance of the twelfth century is very useful, although it is difficult to determine a clear-cut period of the twelfth century to which it applies. Further, the word ‘renaissance’ could wrongly bring to mind the fifteenth-century Renaissance. The twelfth-century Renaissance is certainly distinct from the Carolingian Renaissance, which was driven by royal powers, or from the fifteenth-century Renaissance, which emerged in mostly Italian regions. The twelfth-century Renaissance can be found across all of Western Europe, and it was not led by a particular group. In this Renaissance, various developments occurred regardless of geographical location.⁴ There are those who disagree with Haskins, however. On the one hand, Erwin Panofsky connects the twelfth-century Renaissance to the fifteenth-century Renaissance, by arguing that the former had features of a proto-Renaissance, i.e., proto-humanism.⁵ On the other hand, Eva Matthews Sanford, although acknowledging the usefulness of the term ‘the Renaissance of the twelfth century’, argues it is not necessary to employ specific terms such as Renaissance and proto-Renaissance to describe distinct developments in the twelfth century.⁶ Likewise, even though various interpretations of the twelfth century exist, nobody denies that dynamic challenges and changes occurred across almost all areas in which humans were involved (i.e., politics, the economy, culture, literature, language, science, and religion). Some important aspects of this interesting century follow.

Population Growth

In spite of a shortage of precise data, population growth in the medieval era is commonly considered to have decreased in the fifth and sixth centuries, increased significantly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and gradually declined through the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The population of 1200 ce had increased to approximately 600 million from 48 million in 1000 ce.⁷ Population growth during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was the result of numerous intricately related factors, which Sidney R. Packard lists as follows:

The list would include agricultural changes combined with a large expansion of cultivated land, the growth of commerce and the rise of towns, the emergence of more stable political units, the further organization of ecclesiastical institutions and the progressive secularization of religion itself, the development of vernacular languages and especially the wider extension of literacy among the laity, and many others.⁸

The Growth of Commerce and Towns

As stated above, one of the most important factors in population growth is economic growth. Economies improved through the development of commerce and the rise in numbers and sizes of cities in the twelfth century. Towns became crowded and active markets were established. The progress of commerce encouraged the formation of many guilds, or organizations of traders, which existed even before the emergence of states.⁹ Bridges made with stones played an important role in the expansion of commercial areas.¹⁰ At this time, coins were regularly circulated and the coin industry developed.¹¹ In addition, trade in timber, spice, salt, fish, iron, and domestic animals was energetically practiced.¹²

Changes in Social Classes

The developments in commerce and trade and the growth of towns changed the economic structure of the twelfth century. The traditional feudalism of the medieval era was really a social system based upon the economy.¹³ The structural transformation of the economy thus shook the social system in the medieval period. Many peasants escaped feudalism and became citizens by moving into the cities. Even if individuals remained peasants, they achieved their freedom from feudalism through the cultivation of new lands. This shift is considered to have contributed to the advancement of the freedom of the European people.¹⁴

In this context, feudal lords could no longer depend on peasants. Many lords lived in cities and went on to form the aristocratic class in the cities. Prior to technological developments in weaponry and the institutionalization of the army, the knight class had been decreasing and weakening.¹⁵ Instead, the commercial class was increasing through significant growth in commerce, with many merchants becoming rich.

These important features of the twelfth century influenced religion also. In particular, the growth of the population, itself due to economic development, is directly related to the increase in religious people and institutions. At the same time, growing economic prosperity and the increase in the numbers of the rich might have facilitated the religious reaction against wealth by medieval Christians, which was evident in their rediscovery of asceticism and emphasis on poverty. This connection leads us to Aelred’s religious context.

Aelred’s Cistercian Context

The revival of many kinds of monastic movements embedded in wider societies can be considered a typical phenomenon of twelfth-century Christianity. In order to understand the characteristics of twelfth century monasticism, we need to look briefly at the development of the monastic movement leading up to this period.

Asceticism, which had been practiced individually in secluded places, began to change into organized monasticism from the fourth century onwards.¹⁶ Out of people’s need to find peace in the chaotic world of the fifth and sixth centuries, monasteries were established everywhere, and monastic orders and rules emerged. Typical among these was the Benedictine rule. In the ninth century, during the middle of the Carolingian Renaissance, Benedictine monasticism reached its culmination. Given that society at that time was more stable, the function of the monastery changed from being a place of shelter to a collective and public place that met social needs.¹⁷ However, between the late ninth and the early tenth centuries, monasticism degenerated rapidly, and the numbers of monasteries decreased significantly, as indicated by the extreme case of monasteries almost disappearing in England. In the background was medieval feudalism. In many cases, kings and feudal lords attempted to control the properties of monasteries and to appoint abbots according to their political and economical interests. Monks often possessed their own fortunes and lived with their families outside the monasteries.¹⁸

A reformation followed the corruption, however, and included a monastic movement called the ‘Cluniac reforms,’ with the Cluny monastery built in Burgundy in 909 ce as its center. Cluniac monks strove to be closer to the life of earlier monastic communities and pursued freedom from the control of secular powers.¹⁹ After the Gregorian Reform, which accomplished the centralization of the Catholic Church’s authority around the Pope in the eleventh century, Cluniac monasticism flourished in the twelfth century, with the number of Cluniac monasteries reaching 2,000.²⁰ This sort of development ensured that monastic communities were connected to each other and consequently integrated the one organization under the same spirit and rule. At the same time, a movement to free monastic communities from local diocese and bishops had also begun.²¹

The trend by which monasteries developed into international institutions expanded with the emergence of the Cistercian order in the twelfth century. In 1098, a Cluniac monk, Robert of Molesme, along with nineteen colleagues, established a new monastery in Cîteaux near Dijon.²² Realizing that the Cluniac order had become estranged from the spirituality of the Benedictine Rule, the new group attempted to pursue ‘poverty, solitude, and simplicity of life’, by following the Benedictine Rule strictly and completely.²³ The Cistercians’ ascetical life was based on manual labor, and an emphasis on love, which was often related to the ‘mystical experience of God’. Basil Pennington describes this mystical experience as follows: ‘If mystical experience is the key element in Cistercian spirituality, it must be remembered that for the Cistercian fathers such mysticism could not exist without an experience of ascetical living.’²⁴

The Cistercian monastic movement grew in fame after Bernard of Clairvaux joined, and then it expanded across all of Europe during the twelfth century. Even though the Cistercian order became an international organization like the Cluniac order, a point of difference is that the Cistercians gave autonomy to individual local monasteries. The Cistercian community was also more open to outsiders than the Cluniac.²⁵ The increasing enrollment of people in the monasteries can also be understood in the context of the population growth of the twelfth century.

We also need to consider another demographic factor related to the developmental history of the monastic community. Giovanni Miccoli claims that monasticism gradually became more communal and approachable through a history in which they developed from private discipline to discipline in community, and from local to global community, and through expanded contact with outside world. Giles Constable makes a similar argument with his description of the relationship between the monastic community and external society.²⁶

Because the early monastic communities following the Benedictine Rule attached great importance to labor, they attempted to supply their own needs,²⁷ yet because of the need to prepare for liturgy and worship, it was impossible to be completely self-sufficient, and a relationship with the outside world was inevitable. However, as monastic communities such as the Cluniac order grew in size, they strove for self-sufficiency and separation from the outside world. At the same time, the value of labor decreased, while prayer and meditation came to be considered more valuable and appropriate activities for monks. Then, in the twelfth century, the atmosphere changed once again, to the point where labor was rediscovered as a valuable means of cultivating spirituality. The Cistercian monks cultivated lands by themselves and sometimes received reclaimed land. They also attempted to establish monasteries that were closer to well-established neighboring communities. The Cistercians were generous to visiting guests. At the very least, an encounter with external society was necessary for producing the monks’ food and books.²⁸

The work of constructing monastery buildings also involved meetings and collaborations with various kinds of people, such as feudal lords, bankers, architects, workers, and so on. In Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory, Peter Fergusson and Stuart Harrison show how the Cistercian abbots, including Aelred in the twelfth century, participated and intervened in constructing monasteries, although there were differing degrees of involvement.²⁹ The Cistercian order evolved, enjoyed economic success and its properties accumulated through many donations. This aspect of the order was widely criticized, even in the twelfth century. The Cistercian monks’ pastoral activities outside of the monastery also gradually increased in areas such as preaching, charitable work (distribution of clothes and foods) and the treatment of the sick.³⁰ One of the most important features distinguishing the Cistercians from the Cluniac order was their relationship with local diocese, bishop, and secular powers. The Cluniac order had endeavored to escape excessive intervention and power abuse by local bishops and secular powers until the eleventh century, but the twelfth-century Cistercians enjoyed friendly mutual relations with bishops, lords, and kings.³¹

In her article, ‘The Cistercian Conception of Community: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality’, Caroline Walker Bynum argues that we should properly evaluate the Cistercians’ concerns about community and love of neighbors. According to Bynum, the Benedictine community before the Cistercians had ‘little interest in interpersonal relations’, even though it provided the environment of a ‘monastic family’.³² In addition, unlike the Benedictine order, which emphasized obedience rather than love, the Cistercians had abundant expressions about love and its results, and about personal and interior emotions.³³ Bynum’s analysis is very consistent with the argument in her masterwork, Jesus as Mother: in interpreting the human of the twelfth century, one should always locate the growth of individual persons (individuality) in connection with the community to which the person belonged.³⁴

Likewise, the monastic movement in the medieval age developed with a tendency towards communality within the monastery and increased openness to outsiders. In particular, the Cistercian community, which included Aelred, stressed love and relationships between its members. Until the twelfth century, it was also the best community for openness to and interaction with the external world. Aelred’s social and religious background thus seems to be in harmony with a life in which he underscored the importance of relationality.

Aelred’s Context of Friendship

Aelred’s Cistercian order demonstrated that the community was bounded by love, a beautiful phenomenon that can be interpreted with the keyword, ‘friendship.’ In his article, ‘Monastic Friendship and Toleration in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Life,’ Brian Patrick McGuire explains in detail why the Cistercians emphasized friendship.³⁵ During the years 750–850 ce the scope of friendship was limited to ‘an elitist cult’ in the Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian worlds. From 1050 to 1200 ce, friendship was more widely practiced within monasticism. Then, from the thirteenth century, the church and its theologians developed an unfavorable attitude towards love between monks.³⁶ For most of the history of the church and monasticism, except for the twelfth century, particular relationships and love were evaluated negatively. There were three reasons for this.³⁷ First, monastic life required a separation from the outside world. Second, there was a fear that if monks became close to each other, the relationship could evolve into homosexuality. Third, and the most critical reason, a special relationship could destroy the harmony of the whole community.

From 1050 ce, friendships between monasteries and friendships between monks increased. This was part of the monastic reforms. The institutionalization of monasticism coexisted with personal friendships.³⁸ McGuire insists that in order to see the burgeoning concern with, and the practice of friendship, we need to pay attention to the Cistercian order. There are three reasons why the Cistercians attempted to connect and develop friendship and faith. First, the Cistercians uncovered a tradition of friendship when they studied the classical and patristic traditions.³⁹ Second, feudalism was the background for the recruitment of monks. The Cistercians did not always leave their families when they entered a monastery. For instance, Bernard of Clairvaux enrolled in a monastery along with his entire family.⁴⁰ This was an application of feudal family life to monasticism. Some Cistercians also kept their aristocratic positions within the monastery. They acknowledged a hierarchy of human relationships and feudal society, and this was reflected in their understanding of the relationships of lords, being that of mutual dependence and loyalty.⁴¹ Third, Cistercian monks considered personal experiences as necessary elements for the advancement of monastic life. The writing of autobiographies spread. Bernard shared his experiences with his friends. Aelred stopped to write Mirror of Charity when weeping for one of his most loving friends, Simon. For Cistercians, ‘individual experiences [were] integrated into the wisdom of the group’, and they were encouraged to develop love of God by creating harmony between personal demands and experiences, and communal life.⁴²

Aelred’s Relational Life and Anthropology

Martin Heidegger’s definition of the human as a being-in-the-world is not without application to Aelred, the Abbot of Rievaulx. Thus far I have outlined the historical, political, and religious factors which made up the twelfth century. These discussions illuminate the interrelation between Aelred’s particular life and theology. This section will thus examine Aelred’s life and theology, in particular his anthropology, in light of the contextual background provided above.

Aelred’s relational life

In 1110 ce, exactly ten years into the twelfth century, Aelred was born in the Northumberland town of Hexham, the son of Eilaf, a treasurer of relics and a married pastor.⁴³ Between 1124 and 1134 ce, Aelred spent his adolescence in the court of David I, the King of Scotland and there he received a royal education. During this time he read classical and patristic writings, such as Cicero’s On Friendship, which influenced his own later work, Spiritual Friendship.⁴⁴ In 1134 ce, Aelred decided to become a monk of Rievaulx.⁴⁵

Why did Aelred become a Cistercian monk? To answer this question, Pierre-André Burton proposes an interesting hypothesis in his article, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England: The Socio-Historical Context of the Foundation of Rievaulx (1132).’⁴⁶ Burton provides extensive political and social context to back the hypothesis that the Gregorian reform had a decisive influence on Aelred’s enrollment in the Cistercian order. In other words, he argues that Aelred’s ambitious vision of a peace settlement and of political unity between England and Scotland, played an important part in leading him to the Cistercian house. Burton agrees with Marsha Dutton, who criticizes McGuire for arguing that it was Aelred’s sexual and psychological identity led him into a monastic tradition that required celibacy.⁴⁷ At the same time, Burton is not satisfied with Dutton’s argument that, because of the Gregorian reform prohibiting the succession of the clergy, Aelred inevitably chose the Cistercian community, i.e., a different tradition from that of his father.⁴⁸ In 1108 ce, Archbishop Thomas II, who pursued the Gregorian reforms, urged Aelred’s father, Eilaf, to resign from Hexham’s clergy in order to give the position to the Augustinian Regular Canon. This event had negative economic and psychological consequences for Aelred’s life and family, despite sufficient compensation being given to Eilaf in the form of estates and revenue.⁴⁹ However, McGuire and Dutton’s opinions are limited: Aelred is depicted as a person who passively responds to an exterior cause or event. Yet when a person makes an important decision about their direction in life, that person’s primary value or vision is generally a critical determining factor.

Burton looks at Aelred’s vision in light of the story of Bishop Thurstan and Walter Espec who contributed to the founding of the Rievaulx monastery. Although Bishop Thurstan also followed the Gregorian reforms, like his predecessor, Bishop Thomas II he had great interest in Cluniac monasticism and was favorable toward establishing a monastery within his diocese. For example, this bishop allowed some thirteen monks to be enrolled in the Cistercian organization while they organized a building site in the Skell valley, where they founded the Fountains monastery.

Walter Espec, who provided a building lot for the Rievaulx monastery, is more important for our discussion, however. Around 1122 ce, the King of England, Henry I, made Espec responsible for England’s expansion in the North, for instance, in Yorkshire. The King gave Espec the castle of Helmsley for his loyalty. The castle was located near Rievaulx, which Espec founded. Furthermore, Espec sponsored numerous religious organizations, including two Cistercian monasteries, Rievaulx and Wardon. This is described in Aelred’s writing as follows: ‘As he had no children as heirs…he made Christ the heir of all his best possessions.’⁵⁰ According to Burton, after the Norman Conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in the latter part of the eleventh century, kings and aristocrats of the early twelfth century had some anxieties about their political status and land. In this context, the establishment of monasteries became a legitimate and meaningful means of confirming their estates. Royalty and the nobility considered themselves sponsors and protectors of monasteries.⁵¹ The significant reason that Espec founded and supported monasteries was that through his absolute loyalty to Henry I of England, he sought to resolve the conflict and establish a peaceful settlement between Henry I and David I of Scotland.⁵² According to Aelred’s friend and biographer, Walter Daniel, Aelred played a similarly active role in establishing peace in his area.⁵³ Burton draws on a study by Gaetano Raciti of Aelred’s vocation, in which Aelred is characterized as being led by ‘a kind of ecumenical passion.’ This passion encouraged him ‘to work all-out to abolish or transcend the troubles, division, ideological oppositions, the exclusivism, the individualistic compartmentalization, the intolerance, and the fanaticism, and promote understanding, compassion, reconciliation, peace, the acceptance of differences, the welcoming of otherness, and the placing of particular gifts in common.’⁵⁴ According to Dutton, Aelred requested that Henry I construct a peaceful bridge, and advised him to govern the nation with honor, virtue, and sanctity.⁵⁵ Burton’s inference from the above explanation is supported by the fact that Aelred wrote so many historical works on the monarchs of England and Scotland in his life that he was originally recognized as a historian.⁵⁶

Aelred’s vision for unity and peace was consistent with his practice of love within his community. In 1142 ce, one year after becoming novice master in Rievaulx, Aelred became abbot of Revesby in Lincolnshire. Four years later he was back at Rievaulx as Abbot.⁵⁷ As Abbot, he welcomed people and showed them kindness, regardless of who they were. Fergusson and Harrison provide a good description of Aelred’s openness to people, irrespective of their social status:

Standards for the admission of postulants were unusually broad; no one, not even the emotionally unstable, was turned away. Just as remarkable was the informality that governed the community’s relationship with their abbot. Monks lounged on Aelred’s bed during their visits to his residence, a notable familiarity when one recalls Aelred’s high social rank within feudal society, his position as lord abbot of the monastery and his standing as the most prominent churchman of his day.⁵⁸

Due to this openness and generosity, many gathered around Aelred, and after his abbatial appointment at Rievaulx monastery, the number of monks increased to approximately six hundred. Gaetano Raciti cites Daniel’s report:

Hence it was that monks in need of mercy and compassion flocked to Rievaulx from foreign peoples and from the ends of the earth…. And so those wanderers in the world to whom no house of religion gave entrance, came to Rievaulx, the mother of mercy, and found the gates open, entered by them freely, giving thanks unto their Lord.’⁵⁹

After investigating Daniel’s biography of Aelred and Aelred’s sermons, Raciti concludes that Aelred primarily helped and cared for the weak within his community. On the assumption that spiritual discretion (discretio) must direct the dispensation (dispensatio) to the weak, Aelred pursued the unity of the community ‘through a constant process of reconciling the strong and the weak, resulting in a continuous mutual reaffirmation of communion with each other.’⁶⁰ Aelred therefore made his life valuable and meaningful by actively providing a passionate love and vision for the unity of his secular society and religious community. He did not end his path to truth there. Aelred transformed the precious values embedded in his life into theological works and thus left theological and spiritual bequests for the church and for believers of the coming ages. I will now explore Aelred’s contribution to theological anthropology.

Aelred’s relational anthropology

In this section, I explore Aelred’s anthropology through a survey of his main theological works, The Mirror of Charity⁶¹ and Spiritual Friendship.⁶² For Aelred, the human being is certainly a creature created by God.⁶³ Like other Christian writers, the human is considered a being in the image of God, the Trinity. In particular, following Augustine, the human being’s main faculties are constituted by a triadic structure, namely, intellect, memory, and will, as an analogy of the God of the Trinity.⁶⁴ However, the way in which Aelred identifies will with love and then emphasizes love, transcends the Augustinian tradition. Aelred says, ‘Man reaches his true and unceasing happiness by means of these three powers, but it is in the third, namely love, that the foretaste of blessedness is to be found.’⁶⁵ On this point, John R. Sommerfeldt argues that ‘Aelred offers an additional power or faculty of the soul: the affectus.’⁶⁶ Sommerfeldt accepts McGuire’s argument that the best translation of the term affectus is not affection, but ‘attachment.’⁶⁷ Sommerfeldt finds this definition of attachment in one of Aelred’s sermons: ‘Attachment is, it seems to me, a sort of spontaneous inclination of the mind toward someone.’⁶⁸

This definition is very important for Aelred’s relational understanding of human beings for three significant reasons. The first is the relationship between God and human beings: According to Sommerfeldt, ‘attachment’ is the essential link through which humankind, as an image of God, relates to God, because for Aelred love or charity is a cosmological principle and God is love itself.⁶⁹ Through ‘attachment,’ as another human faculty, cosmology and anthropology are interrelated. In the Mirror of Charity, Aelred understands the sin of humankind as a misuse of love.⁷⁰ In Spiritual Friendship, he talks about the limitations of human friendship. Humans who practice love wrongly can be understood as falling under the category of sin.⁷¹ Even though Aelred was influenced by Cicero’s logic of friendship, he infused a spiritual perspective into the question of friendship, thereby transcending Cicero. The problems of distorted love are resolved by God in the Trinity and in salvation. Love is retrieved and fulfilled through Christ in whom God is incarnated as perfect love.⁷² We can be sure here that for Aelred love should be grasped in a trinitarian and Christological way.

Secondly, it is important that Aelred sees attachment as spontaneous inclination. As stated above, because the relation to God is the major premise for Aelred’s apprehension of love, this remark is not necessarily to be understood in a humanistic way, in terms of which humans can achieve a perfect love by themselves. Rather, Aelred writes about the dangers and imperfections of human inclinations over many pages of The Mirror of Charity. Human beings have limiting inclinations, such as a serious consideration for appearance, an indulgence in physical lust, and family-centered and egoistic love.⁷³ Aelred argues that these inclinations should be guided by reason in becoming true love. Finally, three elements—reason, feeling, and will—need to be in collaboration.⁷⁴ However, despite these limitations, inclination with feeling is an inevitable constituent of true love. Aelred remarks, ‘The more love we feel, the more delight and fervour we shall find in going in search of the object of our love. Desire excites love, and, as we have already seen, it must go before love to show the way.’⁷⁵ Therefore, in Aelred’s theology, spontaneous inclination seems to be one of the imprints of the Trinity, which is marked on the soul as the image of God.⁷⁶

Thirdly, the most important aspect of Aelred’s definition of ‘attachment’ is that it is impossible for attachment to be discussed outside of relationality with others. To illustrate this theme, in The Mirror of Charity Aelred uses two interesting metaphors. The first is the metaphor of the Sabbath, and the second is that of Noah’s Ark. For Aelred, the three kinds of Sabbaths—seventh day, seventh year, and jubilee year—individually indicate love of one’s self, love of brother (neighbor), and love of God.⁷⁷ This metaphor is aligned with Jesus’ two great commandments, i.e., love for God and love for neighbor, which Aelred discusses in the later part of his writing.⁷⁸ His argument is very consistent. All elements of love—the love of self, the love of neighbor, and the love of God—are mutually and closely related to each other. Their separation cannot be considered. If one loves oneself, one can love neighbor. If one loves neighbor, one can love God. The reverse is also true. If a person does not love God, it is not possible to love him or herself or neighbor in the right way.⁷⁹ In the metaphor of Noah’s Ark, even the seat of the enemy is settled in the ark.⁸⁰ Aelred envisions a unity of love through the ark that embraces all beings from animals to humans and even enemies.

For Aelred, love of other (neighbor) plays a key role when human beings go forward in the true love that is love of God. In Spiritual Friendship, Aelred comprehensively explicates the love of neighbor from a spiritual perspective. Like his theological description of love, Aelred has a balanced view of friendship. He advises that we need to be careful when making friends and disciplined when building up friendship.⁸¹ True friendship should be discerned according to four criteria: ‘loyalty, right intention, discretion, and patience’.⁸² It is true friendship that is unbroken.⁸³ In Aelred’s theology, friendship as a positive element exists in order to bring about the love of God and unity with God. While he points out that the Latin word for friend, amicus, originally came from the Latin word, amor, for love,⁸⁴ Aelred says of friendship’s inseparability from divine love: ‘Friendship is mutual harmony in affairs human and divine coupled with benevolence and charity.’⁸⁵ He also asserts that ‘friendship cannot endure without charity’,⁸⁶ and friendship is a true charity, ‘since he that abides in friendship, abides in God, and God in him.’⁸⁷

In particular, Aelred’s concept of friendship is so Christological that true friendship is fulfilled within Christ.⁸⁸ In ‘Friendship: the Mysticism of Aelred of Rievaulx’, Katherine Henn depicts Aelred’s dynamics of friendship in the following sentences:

Friendship is not two persons melting in one Absolute, nor is it two incomplete half persons uniting to form one whole person, nor is it two persons who together are still two distinct and unique although enhanced and enriched, but rather it is two complete and distinct persons who together are unique and distinct and enhanced and enriched and whose friendship has “a life of its own,” forming a meta-self or meta-person, a unique third-self.⁸⁹

Here, the third-self points to the Christ as a ‘trinitarian whole.’⁹⁰ On the other hand, friendship should be necessary, not only for the love of God, but also for being a true human.

In his book, Aelred of Rievaulx; Pursuing Perfect Happiness, Sommerfeldt shows that for Aelred, friendship as a cosmological and fundamental principle is universal and can be found in animals, plants, and even angels. It goes without saying that humans are not exempt from this principle. ‘From the first moment of their existence on earth, human beings have been so constituted by God that they need the intimate companionship of one another to be truly human.’⁹¹ As the title of Sommerfeldt’s book implies, for Aelred, friendship (relationship with other beings) is an indispensable condition for happiness.⁹² Sommerfeldt also calls human beings in friendship social animals, like other animals in his articles cited above.⁹³ ‘For Aelred, as we have seen, this fundamental human characteristic is a reflection of a basic social need with which a loving God informs all of nature.’⁹⁴

Therefore, for Aelred of Rievaulx, human beings exist in relationships with other beings and with God in a fundamental sense, and can find happiness only if they love self, neighbors, and ultimately God. As a result, the human is essentially relational.

Conclusions

As discussed above, Aelred’s life unfolded at the center of political, social, and religious changes in the twelfth century. Yet he did not remain passive in this flow of change. As implied in Raciti’s analysis, Aelred’s character, which was open and generous to other people and compassionate toward the weak, did not originate from his natural quality.⁹⁵ Instead Aelred actively responded to his socio-historical and religious context through his vision for love, peace, and unity within a community and between communities. This active response was reflected deeply in Aelred’s anthropology. For Aelred, love of neighbor and love of God are inseparably interconnected. Furthermore, the human being can be a true human and achieve true happiness through relationships with other beings such as friends, neighbors, and ultimately God as our true friend.

I want to finish this article with a suggestion that Aelred’s relational anthropology needs to be compared with contemporary anthropology. Here I want to pay attention to an important change in philosophy and theology after the twentieth century, that can be called a ‘relational turn’. Norwegian theologian, LeRon Shults, writes that we need to note ‘the philosophical turn to relationality’ as a critical background for contemporary anthropology’s exploration of human beings.⁹⁶ In his book, God as Trinity, in which a blossoming of the discussion of the Trinity after the twentieth century has challenged classical metaphysics and its concept of God, such as immutable and non-relational Being, a Lutheran theologian, Ted Peters, writes about the close relationship between the Trinity and the human person in terms of relationality: ‘Relationality—a social-psychological concept so important for understanding human personality in our time—is becoming the key for unlocking newer understandings of the divine life.’⁹⁷ In this contemporary context of relationality, Aelred’s anthropology should be highly relevant. In this respect, Richard Wanner argues in his article, ‘Aelred of Rievaulx: Twelfth-Century Answers to Twentieth-Century Questions’, that Aelred could provide some answers to questions from the relational paradigm of the post-twentieth century.⁹⁸ Therefore, even though there is a significant contextual gap between the twelfth and the twentieth centuries, Aelred’s life and theology have a value that should be explored in our time and brought into dialogue with contemporary thinkers on relationality.

Footnotes

1

Bernard McGinn, Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian Anthropology (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ).

2

St. Augustine’s triadic structure of the human as an image of the trinity—mind, knowledge, and love (or will)—had a dominating influence on medieval anthropology. Augustine and Augustinian Heritage Institute, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, ), 282.

3

Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard university press, ).

4

C. Warren Hollister, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance (New York: Wiley, ), 9–18.

5

Hollister, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance, 19.

6

Hollister, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance, 34.

7

Sidney Raymond Packard, 12th Century Europe: An Interpretive Essay (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, ), 18–19.

8

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 20–21.

9

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 51–53.

10

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 57.

11

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 70.

12

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 72–74.

13

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 30.

14

Hollister, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance, 67.

15

Packard, 12th Century Europe, 30–32.

16

Jean Leclercq, ‘Monasticism and Asceticism: 2. Western Christianity’, in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York: Crossroad, ), 113.

17

Giovanni Miccoli, ‘Monks’, in Medieval Callings, ed. Jacques Le Goff (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, ), 42–50.

18

Leclercq, ‘Monasticism and Asceticism: 2.’, 124–5.

19

Leclercq, ‘Monasticism and Asceticism: 2.’, 125–6.

20

Leclercq, ‘Monasticism and Asceticism’, 128.

21

Miccoli, ‘Monks’, 52.

22

The name of Cistercian order was originated from this regional name.

23

Basil Pennington, ‘The Religious World of the Twelfth Century: 3. The Cistercians’, in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (New York: Crossroad, ), 205–6.

24

Pennington, ‘The Religious World of the Twelfth Century: 3.’, 208.

25

Miccoli, ‘Monks’ 66.

26

In a colloquium in , which discusses the relationship between monasteries and their neighbors, Constable shows how the twelfth-century hermits lived together with other people such as other hermits, servants, visitors, and how they played various roles in society, such as healers, advisors, and even bankers. Mary S. Woodward, ‘Love of Neighbor in the Twelfth Century’, in Monastic Studies, 12 (Pine City, NY: Mount Saviour Monastery, 1976), 291–2.

27

Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, ), 211–23.

28

At that time, books were made of animals’ skins. This went against the monastic tradition, which did not allow it, but it was inescapable.

29

Peter Fergusson and Stuart A. Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey: Community, Architecture, Memory, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ), 67.

30

Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 236–7. This trend is connected to mendicant orders of the thirteenth century.

31

Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 245–50.

32

Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Cistercian Conception of Community: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality’, Harvard Theological Review 68, no. 3–4 (): 274.

33

Bynum, ‘Cistercian Conception of Community’, 283.

34

Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?’ in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982). Cf. Brian Patrick McGuire, ‘Aelred’s Attachments: Individual Growth in Community Life’, in Eigene Und Das Ganze (Manchester, UK: LIT, ).

35

Three years after McGuire wrote this article, he published a comprehensively researched book under the theme friendship from 350 to 1250. Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship & Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250, Cistercian Studies Series: No. 95 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ).

36

Brian Patrick McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship and Toleration in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Life’, in Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition (London: Basil Blackwell, ), 147.

37

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 149.

38

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 150.

39

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 152.

40

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 153.

41

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 154.

42

McGuire, ‘Monastic Friendship’, 154–8.

43

Pennington, ‘The Religious World of the Twelfth Century: 3.’, 214; Aelred Squire, Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study (London,: S.P.C.K., ), 4.

44

Squire, Aelred, 14.

45

Pennington, ‘The Religious World of the Twelfth Century: 3.’, 214.

46

Pierre-Andrew Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England: The Socio-Historical Context of the Foundation of Rievaulx (1132)’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 42, no. 2 (2007).

47

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 155.

48

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’,156.

49

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 166-167 cf. Squire, Aelred, 10.

50

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 172–3.

51

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 159–63.

52

These kings had territorial disputes even if they were related.

53

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 180.

54

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 180.

55

Burton, ‘The Beginnings of Cistercian Expansion in England’, 181.

56

Aelred wrote various historiographies: Genealogy of the Kings of England (1153–1154), The Battle of the Standard (1155), and Life of Saint Edward the Confessor (1163). John R. Sommerfeldt, Aelred of Rievaulx: Pursuing Perfect Happiness (Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, ), 3. Marsha L. Dutton has recently edited and collected Aelred’s historical works. Aelred of Rievaulx, The Historical Works, ed. Marsha L. Dutton, trans. Jane Patricia Freeland, Cistercian Fathers Series (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2005).

57

Pennington, ‘The Religious World of the Twelfth Century: 3.’, 214.

58

Fergusson and Harrison, Rievaulx Abbey, 66.

59

Gaetano Raciti, ‘The Preferential Option for the Weak in the Aelredian Community Model’, Cistercian Studies 32, no. 1 (1997): 12.

60

Raciti, ‘The Preferential Option’, 7.

61

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity; the Speculum Caritatis of St. Aelred of Rievaulx, trans. Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (London: A. R. Mowbray, ). Aelred of Rievaulx encountered Bernard of Clairvaux and developed a friendship with him over Aelred’s mission trip to Rome. Bernard, who was deeply impressed by Aelred, asked him to write about love later. It is interesting that this exhortation of Bernard became Aelred’s motivation for writing this book.

62

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, trans. Mary Eugenia Laker (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, ).

63

Aelred The Mirror of Charity, 3.

64

Aelred The Mirror of Charity, 5.

65

Aelred The Mirror of Charity, 5.

66

John R. Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality: Cosmology and Anthropology’, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 38, no. 1 (): 23.

67

McGuire, Friendship & Community, 298; McGuire, ‘Aelred’s Attachments’, 440, Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality’.

68

Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality’.

69

Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality’, 20–1.

70

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 6.

71

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 58–9.

72

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 7.

73

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 106, 116.

74

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 110.

75

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 122–123.

76

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 7.

77

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 82.

78

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 132–4.

79

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 82–91, 132–4.

80

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 136.

81

Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, 115, Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 93.

82

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 105.

83

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 65.

84

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 54.

85

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 53.

86

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 65.

87

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 66.

88

Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 54.

89

Katherine Henn, ‘Friendship: The Mysticism of Aelred of Rievaulx’, Journal of Dharma 4 (1979): 115.

90

Henn, ‘Friendship’, 115–6.

91

Sommerfeldt, Aelred of Rievaulx, 77.

92

Sommerfeldt, Aelred of Rievaulx, 77.

93

Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality’, 25. cf. Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship, 63.

94

Sommerfeldt, ‘The Roots of Aelred’s Spirituality’, 25–6.

95

Raciti, ‘The Preferential Option’, 16.

96

F. LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2003), 11. In fact, in philosophical anthropology of the twentieth century, many philosophers have increasingly emphasized relationships with other beings, e.g., Marin Buber, Immanuel Levinas, and Paul Ricoeur. Cf. Martin Buber, I and Thou, 2^nd edn (New York: Scribner, 1958), Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969), Paul Ricœur, Oneself as Another (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, ).

97

Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life, (Louisville, KY: Westminster/J. Knox Press, ).

98

Richard J. Wanner, ‘Aelred of Rievaulx: Twelfth-Century Answers to Twentieth-Century Questions’, Review for Religious 46 (1987): 914.

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