Читать книгу The Chapter of St Cloud - Marcus Attwater - Страница 7

When he got home Dominic put on a recording of Allegri's Miserere. They had just started rehearsing it with the choir, and he liked to get a feel for the music as it was performed by others. A large production together with St Oda's Singers, it would be his first big project since he joined the Cathedral Choir. Now he hummed along bits as he started getting supper together. Asperges me hysopo…

He had been living in the flat for five months, having taken over at the history department during a lecturer's pregnancy leave. From the new term onward he would be teaching his own courses full-time. It had been a good move. Things had been all right in Canterbury, but while he was there he would always feel like half of a couple that no longer existed. It was the place of his life with Blake. They had broken up nearly two years ago now - two years! - but only since he moved had Dominic felt all right with that, here in his own place. Now, when he took stock, he could be content. Dominic Walsingham, 36, lecturer in the history and historiography of the middle ages, reasonably accomplished tenor voice, unreasonable fondness for gothic architecture, nice brown eyes. Not bad, really.

It was James Sutherland who had supported his candidacy for the post, he suspected. James had been his thesis supervisor when he was still at university, he owed him a lot. It must have been the conference last year that put him in mind of Dominic again. The Third International Conference of Monastic Life in the Middle Ages at Kalamazoo, Michigan. He'd laughed when he saw that incongruous place name tagged on. But he had never been to the States before, and he had been invited to present a paper, so he went. The conference was held on a large everything-provided campus, which seemed to exist without any relation to the outside world. There were medievalists from all over the world, with the largest contingent from the home university. There was a lot of top quality work coming from there, Dominic knew, and yet it always struck him as a little unlikely, that someone, a lot of someones, in the American Midwest had chosen to study the history of another continent. Where he grew up, the next medieval church was five minutes' walk away, ten minutes on a bus brought you to a full-scale castle. How did you get interested in the European Middle Ages when there weren't any physical ties to that time? He always planned to ask the question when he met a real Midwestern medievalist, but they all proved more interested in talking about the paper he read. He'd been quite proud of it. The Monastic Rule in History and Memory: Creative Contradictions. There were some vociferous disagreeing voices during question time, which was always good. The essay was to be printed in the proceedings, they assured him he'd have a copy any month now. He had enjoyed the conference. In the evenings, when there were no discussions or lectures, the Brits had tended to stick together in the bar, exchanging university gossip and bemoaning the transatlantic inability to brew a proper cup of tea. It was on one such evening that James had mentioned the Chapter of St Cloud. They were at their table as usual, James and Dominic, Claire Althorpe, and Stuart Tanner from Aberdeen. They had been listening to an address about monastic filiation that afternoon, maybe that was what brought it on.

'I assume you've heard of the Chapter of St Cloud?' James asked, 'French order, grew from an abbey founded in 550. Joined the Cistercians in the twelfth century, founded abbeys in England and all over the place, the usual story. Except that it still exists. A student of mine was going to write a thesis on its history, but he decided against it at the last moment. Went for teacher's training instead.' James grimaced. 'But you know, a history of the chapter has not been written yet. So there it is, up for grabs.'

'Why don't you write it yourself, James?' Claire had asked.

'Not my thing, dear,' he had shaken his head, 'No, this is stuff for an up and coming young academic to make his mark with.' James had never learned to modify his speech on feminist principles, and Claire had winced, but only a little.

'St Cloud was Clovis's grandson, wasn't he?' Stuart had said, 'I know my Merovingians. I wouldn't be much good at the later stuff, though.'

Dominic hadn't said much then. But the name stuck in his mind, and when he got home he had, idly at first, then with more sense of purpose, started to find out about the chapter. James had been right when he said it still existed, but only up to a point. There apparently still was an organisation calling itself the Chapter of St Cloud, Le Chapitre de St Cloud in France, though how much it had to do with the original order was unclear. But as a medievalist, he was more interested in the earlier centuries anyway. After he moved house, Dominic had seriously started to research the history of the chapter, from the founding of the first abbey onward. It was mentioned in secondary sources fairly often, but very little in the historiography of the monastic orders. Dominic had started to wonder why historians had kept away from it. There was little material for the early years, but that hadn't stopped people writing books about things whose existence was even more doubtfully documented - the Holy Grail sprang to mind. And it wasn't as if the chapter had been insignificant, some respectable scholars had emerged from behind its walls. Every student of medieval thought knew Thomas of St Cloud's De Vita Sancta, mostly in James Sutherland's translation, and religious historians still read Judith of Paris. But something stopped earlier students of the chapter from getting very far, and no book about it ever appeared.

Dominic dished up his supper and took it through to eat on the settee. He put an end to the repeating Miserere and put on a Tallis CD instead. Maybe that friendly linguist would be in the library again tomorrow. It had been nice talking to someone new, he hadn't proved very good at making friends in this new town so far. He hadn't asked her name, he now realised, nor she his. How typical.