I ‘Libri Miraculorum’ Cistercensi. Visioni dell’aldilà e crisi istituzionale tra XII e XIII secolo

Starting from the second half of the 12th century, and for at least fifty years, a number of miracle collections was produced in Clairvaux and in other houses of the Cistercian Order. These sources offer an interesting point of view on medieval monasticism and on the political and cultural panorama of Europe between the 12th and the 13th centuries, because the white monks recorded in them aspects of their daily life, of their liturgy, and of the norm and customs they followed, with the precise intent of preserving and spreading their ‘modus vivendi’. At the turn of the 12th century, the Cistercian Order had to face serious challenges regarding their political, economical and spiritual life. Hagiography mirrored the most pressing issues of an age of profound change; through miracle literature, the white monks recomposed their tensions and ambitions in the frame of the supernatural charisma, in order to affirm and legitimate a superiority in decline.