ABSTRACT
Contemporary accounts of the introduction or reintroduction of Benedictine monasticism in England provide a detailed insight into the ideology and objectives of its principal agents. Richer’s account of the synod is preceded by a passage describing how in May 972, Adalbero held an archdiocesan synod to consolidate the previous year’s transformation of Mouzon, a former house of canons, into a Benedictine monastery. According to Richer, the archbishop’s enthusiastic supervision of the reform guaranteed that, in subsequent years, monastic life in the Reims region once again flourished. Historical truth, selective reporting, and literary invention are so entangled in Richer’s chronicle that we should not want to choose between accepting and rejecting his account of what was said at the 972/974 synod. By the time Richer drafted his account of the 972/974 synod, circumstances in the archdiocese had again changed drastically.
