Galand of Reigny on Marriage, Family, Community in "Libellus proverbiorum"

Abstract

This article presents what and how the Cistercian monk Galand of Reigny, who lived in the 12th century, wrote about the family in his short work Libellus proverbiorum, dedicated to the famous St Bernard of Clairvaux. The Book of Proverbs and its author are almost completely unknown in Poland. However, Libellus is a research-interesting example of the ‘light’ religious literature of the time written at a ‘medium’ level. The paper first introduces Galand and the monastic community to which he belonged and briefly discusses his literary work and the nature and diverse content of the work in question. In the second part, it discusses those passages of the Libellus proverbiorum in which the author addresses the theme of marriage, and family – in the literal sense, as well as in relation to the community of monks or to the Church as a whole. Firstly, the references in Galand’s
text to biblical figures of spouses and families (Adam and Eve, Isaac and Rebecca
and their sons, among others) are pointed out, then to well-known figures from Greek mythology (Orpheus and Eurydice), then to references to the life of ordinary families known to the author: to spouses, to mothers, widows and mothers-in-law, sons and daughters, and finally to comparisons of the life of a monastic and ecclesiastical community to a family united by love. Galand evokes the image of the family both in the proverbs themselves and in his (literal or allegorical) explanations, glosses them. His work carries, in an accessible, simple, and sometimes humorous form, moral instructions to deepen the religiousness and spirituality of both the monk and the layperson. The article includes excerpts from the Book of Proverbs translated by the author of this paper. The translation is based on the 1998 edition of Galand’s text in the Sources chrétiennes series (SC 436).