He brought Lombard masons and sculptors to Dijon to rebuild the monastic basilica
with a huge crypt for relics and a large rotunda modeled on the Holy Sepulcher and an
oculus at the top, placed at the east end (1001–18). Although not subsequently copied, the
building prefigures Romanesque art in its drive for size, its use of sculpture, and its stone
vaults. William traveled a great deal, and sometime in the mid-1010s he added the monk
Raoul Glaber to his suite, commanding him to write his history of the “events and
prodigies” of the year 1000. In it, Raoul featured William as one of the great geniuses
responsible for the renewal of Christian society and for the “white mantle of churches”
with which Europe robed itself shortly after the millennium. Attempting to retire to his
family monastery in his old age, William was called away to Fécamp, where he died in
1031 in his seventieth year. After his death, his monastic empire vanished; there was
apparently little to hold it together beyond his formidable personality. His only important
disciple was John of Fécamp.
Richard Landes
[See also: CLUNY; DIJON; FÉCAMP; MILLENNIALISM; ODILO; RAOUL
GLABER; ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE]
Raoul Glaber. Vita Willelmi. In Rodulfus Glaber Opera, ed. John France. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989,
pp. 254–302.
Bulst, Nithard. Untersuchungen zu den Kloster-reformen Wilhelms von Dijon (962–1031). Bonn:
Röhrscheid, 1973.
Herval, R. “Un moine de l’an mille: Guillaume de Volpiano, premier abbé de Fécamp.” L’abbaye
bénédictine de Fécamp: ouvrage scientifique du XIIIe centenaire. 3 vols. Fécamp: Durand,
1959, Vol. 1, pp. 27–44, 321–22.
Williams, Watkin. “William of Dijon: A Monastic Reformer of the Early XIth Century.” Downside
Review 152(1934): 520–45.
WINE TRADE
. Much more important in the medieval world than they are today, wines were a part of
the everyday life of both rich and poor. In addition, Christianity demanded wine for ritual
purposes. The wines were put into barrels within hours (or, at most, days) of being
pressed, when they had not yet completed the fermentation process, and were consumed
young, generally within a year after production. Since the wines retained unfermented
sugars and yeast, they were more nutritional than today’s table wines.
The Middle Ages had a variety of solutions to the problem of distributing wines to
areas that did not favor their production. One solution was to plant vines over a much
greater area than is done today, for example, around Laon, an important medieval center.
The wines produced in such areas, however, were barely drinkable. Some monastic
institutions not located in regions that favored the production of wines acquired
properties in wine-producing regions or maintained friendly relations with lords in those
regions, who supplied wine to satisfy their needs. The earliest stages of commerce in
wines are obscure, but by the 12th century a clear correlation exists between regions that
were famed for their wines, such as Cahors and Pourçain in the Bourbonnais, and centers
of early capital accumulation.
The Encyclopedia 1853