Libellus de scripturis et verbis patrum (Little Book of Writings and Words of the Fathers)
Libellus de scripturis et verbis patrum collectus
Tota vita christiani boni sanctum desiderium est.
Our renderingThe whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.
What it is
John's second major work, the Libellus is a reworking of the Confessio theologica arranged as a florilegium of scripture and patristic sentences for lovers of the contemplative life—essentially the version he sent to an anonymous nun around 1030 and then further revised. It was this recension that, retitled 'Meditations of Saint Augustine,' achieved over 450 manuscript copies between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, making it among the most widely read devotional texts in medieval Christendom. Eleven manuscripts survive from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries made for houses in Fécamp's immediate network. Its patristic anthology format made it ideal for the kind of spiritual reading (lectio divina) practiced both in monasteries and in the private chapels of great nobles.
Why it still matters
The Libellus, circulating as the pseudo-Augustinian 'Meditations,' is available in early-modern print editions; today a Christian can use it as a patristic anthology for lectio divina, reading a short section slowly and allowing its compressed scriptural and Augustinian phrases to become a springboard for personal prayer.
Kept alongside
Orationes sive Meditationes — Collection for Princess Adeliza of Normandy
Orationes sive Meditationes / Flores Psalmorum
Anselm of Bec, composing his prayers and meditations between 1070 and 1080, sent a personally curated collection to Adeliza (Adelaide), daughter of William the Conqueror, around 1071. The packet included the 'Flores Psalmorum' (Flowers of the Psalms—a selection of psalm verses compiled at Adeliza's request) and seven of his Orationes (including prayers to St Stephen and St Mary Magdalene), accompanied by an instructional letter on how to use them. Adeliza lived near Bec without formal vows under the guardianship of Roger de Beaumont, making this one of the clearest documented cases of a Norman royal receiving a private bespoke devotional collection directly from its author. Anselm's prayers—intimate, theologically sophisticated, designed to 'stir up the mind of the reader to the love and fear of God'—defined the affective prayer tradition for the next two centuries.
Summe Sacerdos et vere Pontifex (Supreme Priest and True Pontiff)
Summe sacerdos et vere Pontifex
A private preparatory prayer for Holy Communion, composed by John of Fécamp and circulated for centuries as a prayer of St. Ambrose in the pre-Mass prayers of the Roman Rite. Beginning 'Summe sacerdos et vere Pontifex, qui te obtulisti deo patri hostiam puram...,' it meditates on the priest's unworthiness before the Eucharist and implores Christ's mercy through His Precious Blood. Its inclusion in pre-Mass devotions anchored it to the court chapel practice of every Norman, Capetian, and imperial chaplain who followed the Roman rite. The misattribution to Ambrose guaranteed it universal prestige. André Wilmart's twentieth-century scholarship restored authorship to John.
Confessio theologica (Theological Confession)
Confessio theologica
John of Fécamp's masterwork of affective monastic devotion, composed as an extended prayer-confession in three parts, drawing heavily on Scripture, Augustine, Cassian, and Gregory. As abbot of Saint-Bénigne de Dijon and later of Fécamp, John was in close contact with Emperor Henry III and Empress Agnes of Poitiers; after Henry's death, Agnes placed herself under John's spiritual direction and he composed for her a series of ascetical works (Liber precum variarum, De divina contemplatio Christique amore, De superna Hierusalem, De institutione viduae, De vita et moribus virginum). The Confessio circulated primarily to monasteries in Fécamp's Norman network and was the seedbed of the enormously popular pseudo-Augustine Meditationes, which circulated under false attribution throughout the Middle Ages.