The tale of the militant monk of Cluny also undergoes major revision. In the earlier version in distinctio 4, Walter tells of a well-heeled man who, after leaving his land and wealth to his sons, decides to become a monk of Cluny.76 After a few years in the monastery, he is asked to return to his native country to serve as an adviser. His abbot grudgingly permits him to leave the monastery but asks the monk to swear not to take up arms. The monk accedes to his abbot’s wish. Eventually, however, war engulfs the monk’s country, and, in the heat of the battle, the monk finds himself unarmed in the middle of his force, which is outnumbered and in retreat. Against his oath, he dons his armor, seizes his weapons, rouses his men, and leads his army to victory. Unused to such exertion—monastic life has apparently dulled his martial skills—he takes off part of his armor to rest and is promptly struck by an enemy’s well-aimed arrow. Dying and finding no one fit for receiving his confession, he enjoins a small boy to do so, after which the repentant monk dies.
In this early version in distinctio 4, the tale of the Cluniac monk falls in the middle of a series of tales “about deaths in which God’s judgment is uncertain.”77 In the tale that follows that of the Cluniac monk, God’s judgment remains uncertain in a very literal fashion.78 A knight of Brittany finds his deceased wife among a great band of women at night in a deserted area, in what seems to be a gathering of otherworldly fairies. Working up his courage, the knight snatches his wife away. Seemingly against the laws of nature, they live together for many years, and she even bears him children. Was she really dead? Moreover, the tale preceding the Cluniac monk’s concerns Eudo, an impoverished nobleman who makes a deal with the devil to regain wealth and influence. With eternal damnation imminent, Eudo seeks penance from an angry bishop who hastily replies that for his extraordinary sins Eudo should leap into a fire. Without hesitation Eudo jumps into the flames and burns to ashes. The readers and hearers of this tale are then asked to debate “if this knight had the correct zeal”—that is, will he be saved?79 Indeed, the ending of the Cluniac monk’s tale echoes this question in its last words: “The monk passed away in the faith of Christ and with good hope and inflamed zeal of penance.”80 Readers here are also asked if the monk’s confession to the young boy outweighs the breaking of his oath of pacifism to his abbot: the tale begins, “One can also question the salvation of a monk of Cluny.”81 All three of these deaths involve some type of uncertainty, whether spiritual or literal.
Dubious deaths, the context of the early version of the tale of the militant monk of Cluny, are one of Walter’s favorite topics, but in his revision of this tale Walter leaves them aside in an effort to focus on the elements of sin and penance. Here in distinctio 1, it fits comfortably into the series of stories concerning “recent events” that Walter places immediately after the tale of King Herla.82 Its new context contains an exemplary story of the king of Portugal, a small encomium of the bishop of London, Walter’s distress at the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, and, most important, an account of Guichard III of Beaujeu (d.1137). Guichard retires to the monastery of Cluny in his old age and becomes an excellent poet. However, much to the dismay of his abbot, Guichard interrupts his leisure to retake his land from his rebellious son. After a successful military campaign, Guichard returns to Cluny, remains faithful to his vows, and dies a good death. Walter follows Guichard’s tale with the militant monk of Cluny, which, though removed from its earlier context of dubious deaths in distinctio 4, sits happily in its new surroundings in distinctio 1. Walter has, however, made several adjustments to the tale. First of all, he has added an appropriate transition between the two tales of extra-claustral activity: “But for others it can turn out otherwise. Far more pitiful was what happened to a noble and robust man who was likewise a monk at the same place and who was similarly called back to arms by the very same necessity.”83 Aside from the increased attention to continuity, Walter has excised material deemed unnecessary. Gone is any discussion of the monk’s broken vow, a crucial element in the earlier story that concerns the efficacy of the monk’s repentance. Similarly, in the unrevised tale the monk attempts to make a truce with the enemy, but they double-cross him and secretly gather a large force to ambush him and his men. This betrayal sets the scene for the monk’s fateful battle and provides some extenuating circumstances for breaking his vow: it is only when the monk’s own men are in dire need that he decides to take up arms. However, in the revised tale Walter has apparently decided that all these details are superfluous, and he removes any trace of the attempted truce and the monk’s desperate situation. Instead, he quickly describes how the monk “suffered repeated reverses in battle with magnificent and unbroken spirit” and how he “rose again from defeat as if newborn to the fight; kindled as it were with quickened rage.”84 This compression curtails the nuances of the monk’s dilemma by excising any discussion about betrayal and any explanations for the monk’s breaking of his vow, with the result that the monk’s moral dilemma has disappeared completely. Instead, in its revised form in distinctio 1 this tale illustrates another dilemma, one closer to Walter’s everyday experiences in court: obtaining and keeping a peaceful, unharried life.
The first fifteen chapters of distinctio 1 do not concern moral quandaries or the afterlife. Indeed, although the court is the ostensible subject of these chapters, the theme that binds them all together is Walter’s frustrated quest for quies, “quiet.” The court, with its instability and torment, is the greatest manifestation of disquiet in Walter’s own life. But, as he admits while excusing his lord Henry, disquiet is a symptom not merely of the court but of the fallen world in general: “in this world nothing is free from disturbance [quietum], and no one is able to enjoy any kind of tranquillity [tranquillitate] for long.”85 Henry’s court, so Walter glibly claims, has inherited the ghostly wanderings of the ancient King Herla: “But from that time, that phantom circuit has been at peace [quieuit], as if they have passed down their wanderings to us for their own peace [quietem].”86 Ironically, the only place in the world that seems to have peace in Walter’s day is Jerusalem, where, after the defeat of the crusaders, Saladin and his forces “established peace [pacem] with the firmest of occupations, so that their will is now done on earth as it is in hell.”87
For Walter, the chaos of the court and the world at large is antithetical to literary pursuits; he admits no romantic notions about inspirational chaos. Walter replies to Geoffrey, the unknown and possibly fictional person urging him to write:
Writing poetry is for someone with a peaceful [quiete] as well as a collected [collecte] mind. Poets desire a completely safe abode [residenciam] where they can maintain a constant presence, and when the body and material wealth are at their peak, it will not do any good unless the mind is set at ease [tranquillus] by internal peace [interna pace]. Therefore, what you are asking of me, that an ignorant and inexperienced man write from this place, is no less a miracle than if you were to command new boys to sing from the furnace of another Nebuchadnezzar.88
Walter