The monastic origins of discipline: From the rule to the norm?

Monasticism and discipline

Christian monasticism is often evoked by Foucault as a one of the matrices of the formation of discipline. Discipline and Punish refers many times to monastic communities to account for the conditions of emergence and development of discipline—for example, the “regulated rigor of the convent” is evoked to illustrate the perfect image of prison labor. ⁹ Within the investigation on “police” conducted in Security, territory, population, the image of a convent is used to illustrate the idea of regulation that characterizes discipline. ¹⁰ But it is undoubtedly in the lectures at Collège de France Psychiatric power, delivered before Discipline and punish was published, that Foucault’s intuitions regarding the role of monasticism in the formation of discipline emerge more clearly. In those lectures, Foucault affirms that prior to the 17th and 18th centuries—that is, the period in which discipline extended in modern European societies—discipline was already at work in Middle Age religious communities. Among these, he particularly mentions the Cistercian reform. As Foucault explains, the Cistercian reform (11th and 12th centuries) constituted a response to the Cluniac form of monasticism, which “had been surrounded or even invaded by the feudal system.” ¹¹ By reacting to Cluniac monasticism, the Cistercian reform:

Restored a certain discipline to the order by reconstituting a disciplinary apparatus which was seen as referred back to a more original and forgotten rule; a disciplinary system in which we find the rule of poverty, the obligation of manual labor and the full use of time, the disappearance of personal possessions and extravagant expenditure, the regulation of eating and closing, the rule of internal obedience, and the tightening up of the hierarchy. ¹²

The rule in question is the Benedictine Rule. As the editor of Psychiatric Power Jacques Lagrange explains, the objective of the Cistercian reformation was to return to the strict observance of Saint Benedict’s Rule, emphasizing poverty, silence, work, and renunciation of the world. ¹³ C. H. Lawrence argues that the Cistercian reformation “began as a reaction against the corporate world, worldly involvements, and surfeited liturgical ritualism, of the Carolingian monastic tradition.” ¹⁴ The “unique constitution” of the Cistercian order “influenced all subsequent orders and in time colored the thinking of the Western Church as whole.” ¹⁵ However, the monastic observance fostered by the Cistercian reformation made no claim to originality. Its avowed aim was the restoration of a primitive usage of the Rule. Lawrence notes, “it was simply a question to getting back to the Rule of St. Benedict, which was to be observed to the letter.” ¹⁶ Thus, the Rule of St. Benedict seems to be the cornerstone of the disciplinary mechanisms developed in the Cistercian reformation. This gives to the Rule considerable genealogical relevance because it suggests that it could be conceived as a focal point of both the descent (provenance) and emergence ¹⁷ of discipline.

These are not the only references within the Foucauldian corpus that show Foucault’s interest for the Benedictine Rule. The folder “monastic rules” (règles monastiques) ¹⁸ of the preparatory notes of Discipline and Punish housed at the Fonds Michel Foucault, contains Foucault’s reading notes of Cuthbert Butler’s book Benedictine monachism, studies in Benedictine life and rule. ¹⁹ The research on discipline conducted in Psychiatric Power have probably drawn Foucault to Cuthbert Butler’s book. However, Foucault’s reading notes are not focused on the disciplinary dimension of the Rule. They are rather centered on Butler’s characterization of the abbot based on the Rule. Foucault’s notes on “the power of the abbot” (le pouvoir de l’abbé) highlight that the abbot “represents Christ,” and describe the abbot as: 1) the “father,” 2) the “shepherd of God’s flock,” 3) the wise [physician]*, 4) the master, and 5) the dispenser who must dispose all things [prudently and justly]*. ²⁰ The description of the abbot’s as the “shepherd of God’s flock” is particularly suggestive because of its conceptual proximity with pastoral power’s account of “salvation.” ²¹ The reading notes describe the abbot as a shepherd of God’s flock who takes care of each member of the flock but has to accept to temporarily abandon the flock to save one of the sheep. As a shepherd, the abbot is also responsible before God for what could happen to the sheep. ²² Furthermore, it is worth noting that the Rule is also one the main sources of Foucault’s research on pastoral power. ²³

The comparison between Psychiatric Power and Security, territory, population therefore suggests that the reading of the Rule has played a significant role in the development of Foucault’s approach to pastoral power. But could the Rule have been relevant for the shaping of discipline as Foucault’s previous research insinuate?

Benedictine rule. From the rule to the norm?

In order to investigate the relevance of the Rule in the shaping of discipline, I will draw on the principal elements of Foucault’s account of discipline as examined in Foucault’s main investigation on discipline in Discipline and Punish: 1) space, 2) time, 3) individuals’ occupation, and 4) judgment (sanction). The possible genealogical connection between the rule and the norm will be analyzed through the latter element. This is because “the normalizing judgement (la sanction normalisatrice)” is the only section of Discipline and Punish in which Foucault deals with disciplinary normalization.

Space

Discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space through four techniques: 1) enclosure, 2) the principle of elementary location or partitioning, 3) the rule of functional sites, and 4) the organization of ranks. ²⁴ The first two are directly related to the monastic milieu. The model of monastic enclosure was gradually imposed in schools, military barracks, and factories in order to guarantee “the specification of a place heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself” that discipline sometimes requires. ²⁵ The monastic cell constitutes an “architectural and religious method” based on which disciplinary “analytical space” ²⁶ is organized through the principle of elementary location or partitioning. The cell allows us to divide the disciplinary space “into as many sections as there are bodies or elements to be distributed,” and therefore guarantees the disciplinary procedures that aim at “knowing, mastering, and using” individuals’ bodies. ²⁷

Enclosure is a central principle of Benedict’s Rule. Chapter 4 defines the enclosure of the monastery (claustra) as the workshop (officina) wherein the monk has to execute all the tasks of monastic life. ²⁸ Chapter 66 of the Rule states that the monastery should be so arranged “that all necessary things, such as water, mill, garden, and various crafts, may be within the enclosure (intra monasterium), so that the monks may not be compelled to wonder outside it.” ²⁹ Given the relevance that it attributes to enclosure, the Rule could be considered as a significant precedent of discipline. However, Benedict did not elaborate the principle of enclosure, which was already developed by previous monasticism. ³⁰ As far as monastic cell space division is concerned, the Rule does not seem to play a significant role vis-à-vis discipline. In the wake of the modifications introduced by 5th century’s monasticism, ³¹ the Rule does not organize the space in cells. According to Rule’s chapter 22, the monks sleep in “separate beds” (singular lecta) in “one place” (in uno loco), namely the dormitory. ³² The absence of singular cells shows that Rule’s approach to space is much less demarcated than discipline’s. This is because, unlike discipline, the Rule does not tend to assign an exclusive place to each individual. Interestingly, discipline seems to restore the use of cell developed by eastern monastic tradition, with which Benedict’s Rule breaks. Cells were, in fact, a typical element of primitive monasticism. ³³ However, common monastic activities, such as liturgy and manual work, along with the dangers related to the temptation of property and gluttony progressively led the use of the cell to a “crisis.” ³⁴ Furthermore, the Rule does not seem to be relevant for the development of the two other techniques on which disciplinary space relies. Supervision and useful organization of space, the two main features of “the rule of functional sites,” ³⁵ are not central elements of Benedict’s Rule. However, the Rule establishes that the monks must be supervised in specific situations, such as while in dormitories (chap. 22) and reading (chap. 48). ³⁶ Division in ranks is not used by the rule to define the place a monk “occupies in classification,” ³⁷ even if the Rule restores the system of ranks. ³⁸ However, such a system does not concern individuals’ space situation but monks’ hierarchy. A Benedictine community is governed by the abbot, and the monks are ranked according to seniority (chap. 63). ³⁹

Time

Foucault affirms that discipline modifies the monastic’s timetable model “three great methods (procédés)”: “establish rhythms, impose particular occupations, regulate the cycles of repetition” ⁴⁰ . Discipline both “refines” these methods through quantification of time “in quarter hours, in minutes, in seconds,” and “assures the quality of the time used” through “constant supervision,” “pressure of supervisors,” and “elimination of anything that might distract or disturb.” ⁴¹

The Rule includes a clear timetable which varies with the seasons of the year (summer, winter, and Lent). Such a timetable establishes both the length and the specific moments of the day of monks’ main activities—that is, liturgy, manual labor, and sacred reading. Monks woke up around 2 a.m. in winter and 3 a.m. in summer. Afterward, they went to the oratory to sing the office of Vigils. In winter, there was a reading interval between Vigils and morning office. In summer, morning office took place immediately after Vigils. The rest of the day was dedicated to manual labor and sacred reading. Such activities were interrupted four times by shorter offices, which were sung at the first, third, sixth, and ninth hour. In winter, the monks took one meal around 2.30 p.m., whereas during Lent, fasting ended around 5 p.m. In summer, the monks had lunch at noon and supper between 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. After lunch, they took a nap that could last more than 2 hours. This helped them to make up night sleeping hours which were shorter during the summer. At sundown, monks got together to hear the reading of Cassian’s Conferences or other similar literature, and sang compline. Afterward, they went to bed. Sunday’s timetable was slightly different. On Sunday, and also on other special days, the evening office and reading time were longer, and solemn mass was said. ⁴² The Benedictine Rule’s timetable seems therefore to constitute an illustrative example of “the methods of temporal regulation” developed by “religious orders” on which discipline draws. ⁴³ However, if from the point of view of time regulation, the Rule could be considered as a relevant antecedent of discipline, the Rule does not play the same role vis-à-vis the two other “fundamental virtues” of disciplinary time, namely “precision and application.” ⁴⁴ These are crucial for discipline’s body shaping techniques. Through the “temporal elaboration of the act,” illustrated by the Ordonnance of 1 January 1776 to regulate the exercise of infantry, “time penetrates the body and with it all the meticulous controls of power.” ⁴⁵ On the contrary, time regulation in Rule aims to organize monastery’s activity from a global perspective and, consequently, does not focus on individuals’ body. Furthermore, like the temporal elaboration of the act, the “linear” or “evolutive time”, built up by disciplinary methods relies rather on methods developed by the army, as Foucault himself points out. ⁴⁶ Such methods—for example, “divide duration into successive or parallel segments” which, for example, allow to “teach in turn posture, marching, the handling of weapons, shooting”—are central to discipline. This is because the “‘seriation’ of successive activities makes possible a whole investment of duration by power.” ⁴⁷

The timetable provided by the Rule seems therefore to fit into Foucault’s hypothesis regarding the refinement introduced by discipline to monastic methods of time organization. However, unlike discipline, the Rule aims to regulate monastery’s main activities rather than individuals’ bodies. Such difference entails a considerable discontinuity with regards to the object of disciplinary time regulation—that is, the body—and allows to observe to what extent Foucault’s diagnosis of the formation of discipline relies on non-Christian references, in particular the army.

Activity

Manual labor (opera manuum), sacred reading (lectio divina), and liturgy (opus Dei) are the three main monastic activities regulated by Rule. The comparison between these activities and discipline’s account of activity allows us to grasp a twofold contrast between Rule and discipline. Such contrast becomes clearer if we consider that the description of discipline’s “control of activity” ⁴⁸ is grounded largely on military references. First, in line with the organization of time, the Benedictine Rule’s organization of activity does not pivot on individuals’ body. Chapters 8 to 19 of the Rule include a very specific description of monastic liturgy. The regulation of liturgy focuses on the ritual performed by the monks and not on monks’ bodies. Sacred reading’s goal consists in monks’ general education and amendment, but it does not concern the body in particular. Through manual labor (Chapter 48), monks’ bodies serve God as their spirits do through the two other activities. Second, and importantly, the Rule’s organization of activities does not aim to increase the forces of the body, as discipline does ⁴⁹ , but to organize the monastery. ⁵⁰ In doing so, Benedict provides instructions whose main aim is to return to God, from whom men and women have “strayed by the sloth of disobedience,” ⁵¹ that is the original sin that provoked the Fall of Man. The spiritual art is a set of moral maxims which provide the tools (instumenta) to achieve the main goal of monastic life. Chapter 4 of the Rule lists such tools (e.g. to love the Lord God with all one’s heart, all one’s soul, and all one’s strength, not to steal, not to covet). ⁵² The spiritual art is combined with obedience and humility. Obedience “without delay (oboedientia sine mora)” (Chapter 5) constitutes the first degree of humility. As soon anything has been ordered by the superior, monks “receive it as a divine command and cannot suffer any delay in executing it.” ⁵³ Obedience is the “only certain way to reach God,” ⁵⁴ and “supposes the abandonment of that which occupies individuals” as well as “the interruption of personal tendency towards things, projects, and ideals” ⁵⁵ . So, obedience entails abandonment of both one’s “own affairs” and “own will” (ergo hii tales, relinquentes statim quae sua sunt et voluntatem propriam deserentes). ⁵⁶ Humility, “summarizes whole Benedict’s ascetism”. ⁵⁷ Chapter 7 describes “the ladder (scala)” allowing to attain “the summit of supreme humility,” which constitutes a “heavenly exaltation.” ⁵⁸ Such a “ladder” includes 12 degrees. Many of these degrees insist on the idea that, in order to reach salvation, individuals should renounce to their own will (e.g. 2^nd degree: “…a man love not his own will, nor delight in fulfilling his own desires…”). ⁵⁹

Despite this contrast regarding the role of the body in the regulation of activity, it is possible to draw up a suggestive parallel between the Rule’s and discipline’s account of obedience. Both the Rule and discipline tend to produce individuals’ obedience. However, in the Rule obedience not only constitutes an effect of the application of the Rule: it also works as the condition and the necessary means for reaching salvation. Furthermore, unlike discipline, Benedict’s approach to obedience does not involve the maximization of body’s forces, although the Rule does not tend to its opposite either. Unlike primitive monasticism, Benedict’s ascetism does not foster the body’s mortification. ⁶⁰

Individuals’ correction constitutes perhaps the most significant point of comparison between Benedict’s ascetism and discipline. In order to better address it, it is worth focusing on discipline’s account of judgement (sanction). In doing so, I will problematize the contrast between the monastic rule and the norm.

Judgment (sanction)

Along with “hierarchic surveillance” and “examination,” “normalizing judgement (sanction normalisatrice)” is one of the three “instruments” through which discipline spread in modern society. ⁶¹ Normalizing judgement relies on five elements: 1) infra-penality (i.e. a kind of punishment of behavior that does not rely on the law); 2) the punishment of “the domain of not-conforming” (i.e. individuals’ conduct that does not meet the expected result); 3) correction, which aims to reduce the gaps between individuals through exercise and repetition in order to optimize human behavior; 4) a gratification-sanction system, which allows the definition of behavior and performance on the basis of the opposed values of good and evil, and to rank the “good” and the “bad” actors in relation to one another; and 5) distribution according to rank or grades, which “marks the gaps, hierarchizes qualities, skills and aptitudes”, but “also punishes and rewards.” ⁶² All these elements rely on the organization of discipline described through space, time, and activity. However, it is through “normalizing judgement” that Foucault specifically describes the mechanisms through which “the perpetual penality” at work in disciplinary institutions “normalizes”. ⁶³

As pointed out, Foucault does not develop a conceptualization of the disciplinary norm. His account of the norm is rather constructed through a twofold strategy. First, by opposing the norm to the law. ⁶⁴ Second, by describing both the procedures on which the norm relies and the effects that the norm provokes. Foucault defines the “power of normalization” as what both “imposes homogeneity” and “individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities, and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.” ⁶⁵ What seems to characterize the norm is therefore the way in which it draws on homogeneity to produce individualization. The norm produces individualization through homogenization, as illustrated by the system of honorary classification of the Ecole Militaire in 18th century. In this system, a constant pressure is exerted on pupils “to conform them to the same model (homogenization), so they might all be subjected to ‘subordination’, docility, attention in studies and exercises (…) so they might all be like one another” ⁶⁶ . In short, the norm “differentiates individuals from one another,” through the application of an “overall rule” ⁶⁷ (règle d’ensemble) to the whole group of individuals. In doing so, the norm, combined with the two other instruments of discipline, fabricates “the individual.” ⁶⁸ The effects of the norm seem therefore to go far beyond individuals’ body.

Chapters 23 to 30 of the Rules comprise a specific section devoted to disciplinary punishment. This “code of regular discipline” ⁶⁹ is completed by other specific punishments disseminated in the rest of the Rule—for example, arriving late to Vigils (Chap. 43, 4–9). The punishment established by this section of the Rule includes secret and public admonition, exclusion from common activities, fasting, excommunication, corporal punishment, and expulsion from the monastery. Adalbert de Vogüé argues that Benedict’s approach to disciplinary punishment is characterized by the aim to heal or cure. ⁷⁰ Benedict’s originality in this respect is easier to grasp when compared to the Rule of the Master, one of the main sources of Benedictine Rule. ⁷¹ While the Master draws on an “objective criterion”—that is, the punishment is based on the nature of the fault— Benedict’s goal is individuals’ salvation. ⁷² In comparison to the Master, Benedict adopts therefore a more subjective perspective. Such an approach to punishment seems to reflect Benedict’s particular concern for subjectivity. ⁷³ Despite the specificity of this section of the Rule, the objective of individuals’ amendment runs through the whole Rule. The ascetical dimension of the Rule includes important elements vis-à-vis human amendment or correction. Like disciplinary norms, these elements also have a considerable effect on the constitution of individuals. Many of the degrees of humility included in the chapter 7 of the Rule illustrate the impact on individuals sought by Benedict’s asceticism—for example, 4^th degree: “meeting in this obedience with difficulties and contradictions and even injustice, he should with a quiet mind hold fast to patience”; 5^th degree, the monk must “humbly confess and conceal not from his abbot any evil thoughts that enters in his heart.” ⁷⁴ Such modifications also involve individual’s body, as shown by the last degree of humility, according to which the “monk should not only be humble of heart but also in his behavior (body) (sed etiam ipso corpore humilitatim videntibus se semper indicet).” ⁷⁵ In order to do so, the monk “should always have his head bowed and his eyes downcast, pondering always the guilt of his sins…” ⁷⁶ But, could such an amendment involve mechanisms of normalization similar to the ones described by Foucault?