ABSTRACT
The final major event which affected Suger's handling of the abbacy was his assumption of the regency between 1147 and 1149. Suger did little to rescue Adam's reputation. Adam was less involved in royal business than his gifted subordinate, but he was by no means the political nonentity depicted by Suger. Suger was not the only critic of Adam's abbacy of St-Denis. Suger saw this as an act of great importance, a reflection of the great Ordinance of Abbot Hilduin, which established reformed Carolingian monasticism at St-Denis in 832. Two influences shaped Suger's approach to monastic reform, on the one hand that of the Roman curia, on the other that of the French reformists of the new monasticism. Suger's known reforms were the antithesis of those advocated by William of St-Thierry. The acquisition of Argenteuil has done little for Suger's reputation.
