Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of David Luscombe

Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages

Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters Begründet von

Josef Koch Weitergeführt von

Paul Wilpert, Albert Zimmermann und Jan A. Aertsen Herausgegeben von

Andreas Speer In Zusammenarbeit mit

Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Kent Emery, Jr. und Wouter Goris

BAND 106

David Luscombe

Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages Essays in Honour of David Luscombe

Edited by

Joseph Canning, Edmund King and Martial Staub

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knowledge, discipline, and power in the Middle Ages : essays in honour of David Luscombe / edited by Joseph Canning, Edmund King and Martial Staub. p. cm. — (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters ; Bd. 106) English and German. “A bibliography of the published writings of David Luscombe”—P. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20434-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Europe—Intellectual life—To 1500. 2. Learning and scholarship—Europe— History—Medieval, 500-1500. 3. Civilization, Medieval. I. Luscombe, D. E. (David Edward) II. Canning, Joseph, 1944- III. King, Edmund. IV. Staub, Martial. CB353.K56 2011 940.1—dc22 2011006723

ISSN 1069-8028 ISBN 978 90 04 20434 8 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ............................................................................ Preface ................................................................................................. List of Abbreviations .........................................................................

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David Luscombe: An Appreciation ................................................ Christopher Brooke

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Pertransibunt plurimi: Reading Daniel to Transgress Authority ......................................................................................... Robert E. Lerner

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How Can We Know Who Holds Legitimate Power? Dante on the Right and the Wrong Uses of Knowledge ......................... Joseph Canning

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Knowledge of the Origins: Constructing Identity and Ordering Monastic Life in the Middle Ages ............................ Gert Melville

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Seeking Remedies for Great Danger: Contemporary Appraisals of Roger Bacon’s Expertise .......................................................... Amanda Power

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The Arrival of the Pagan Philosophers in the North: A Twelfth-Century Florilegium in Edinburgh University Library ............................................................................................. Charles Burnett

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Questioning the Music of the Spheres in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Johannes de Grocheio and Jerome de Moravia OP ..... Constant J. Mews

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Papal Policy on Judging the Orthodoxy of University Masters, a Research Problem ....................................................................... William J. Courtenay

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Jean Gerson and the Renewal of Scholastic Discourse 1400–1415 ....................................................................................... Brian Patrick McGuire

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Controversy and Compromise in Religious Communities in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries .......................................... Giles Constable

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Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in der politischen Ekklesiologie der Augustinerschule des 14. Jahrhunderts .............................. Jürgen Miethke

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The Power of Wisdom: Four Case Studies of a Late Thirteenth Century Debate .............................................................................. Andreas Speer

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Liberty and Limit: Controlling and Challenging Knowledge in Late Medieval Europe ................................................................... Martin Kintzinger

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Peter Abelard’s Theory of Virtues and its Context ...................... John Marenbon The Discipline of the Republic and the Knowledge of the Citizens: What we may Learn from Late Medieval Endowment Practice ..................................................................... Martial Staub

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A Bibliography of the Published Writings of David Luscombe ........................................................................................

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Index of Manuscripts ........................................................................ General Index .....................................................................................

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS David Luscombe. © Ian M. Spooner Photography, Sheffield ..............................................................................

frontispiece

Fig. 1. “The house of knowledge”: Archbishop Frederick of Cologne in his study. Cologne, Dombibliothek, Dom Hs. 59, fo. 1r. © Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek Köln .....................................................................

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Fig. 2. Charles V, king of France, in his study. Paris, BnF, fr. 24287, fo. 2r. © Bibliothèque nationale de France .............

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Fig. 3. The acclamation of king Charles V. Paris, BnF, fr. 2813, fo. 3v. © Bibliothèque nationale de France ..............................

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Fig. 4. Sceptre, made for king Charles V, showing the emperor Charlemagne. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Objets d’art, Inv. MS 83. © Musée du Louvre .........................

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Fig. 5. King Charles V listens to a lecture. Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS 9505-6, fo. 2v. © Bibliothèque royale de Belgique .............................................

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PREFACE This collection of essays is based on a conference in honour of David Luscombe held at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield from the 15th to the 17th of September 2006 on “Knowledge, Discipline and Power, 12th to 16th centuries.” The impressive array of contributors from different disciplines from all around the world is tribute to the diversity and richness of David Luscombe’s publications during a career that is inextricably associated with the University of Sheffield, where he held the Chair of Medieval History from 1972 to his retirement in 2003. There are only a few scholars, however, whose contribution to scholarship is so distinctive and substantial that it prompts colleagues, friends and pupils to reflect on the impact it has had on, and the potential it has for, their fields. David Luscombe undoubtedly belongs to that rare type of scholar, and the present volume may be seen as a modest testimony to his exceptional influence and unceasing inspiration. The reassessment of the relationship between power and knowledge has been at the core of new developments in the humanities and the social sciences since the 1960s. By then, classical sociology and neoMarxist thought had already questioned both Francis Bacon’s assumption according to which knowledge is a direct source of power and the opposite opinion, expressed by Marx, that knowledge is a mere function of power. Yet neither the followers of Durkheim and Max Weber nor Mannheim and Gramsci had conceived of power and knowledge as being decentralised “technologies,” which are intrinsically linked to each other. Michel Foucault has played an essential role both in this shift in perspective and in its popularisation within academia, as the common equation of power and knowledge and the success of notions like “technologies” and “discipline” clearly demonstrate. In this context, “discipline” designates the effects of the decentralised technologies of power and knowledge on individuals and collectives that are, in turn, shaped by them as “subjects” and as “population.” The contribution made by historians of medieval and early modern society, thought and philosophy to this paradigm shift (and, incidentally, to the work of Michel Foucault) has often been underestimated. Pre-modern European societies were, after all, decentralised by modern

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standards. This does not mean, however, that no effort was undertaken to centralize power. To the contrary, the time span between the 12th and the 16th centuries was characterised by an incessant institutional struggle between centralising and decentralising tendencies as seen, in particular, in the rise of central Christian institutions in the postGregorian era and the development of their successors and counterparts from the Late Middle Ages. These developments are well known even if the historiography of the period has generally been reluctant to acknowledge their importance. Ever since Jacob Burckhardt contrasted the modernity of the (Italian) late Middle Ages, which he famously called, after Jules Michelet, the “Renaissance,” with the presupposed backwardness of the (non-Italian) Middle Ages, the historiography of the 12th to 16th centuries has been dominated by the period’s relationship to modernity. Whereas Charles Homer Haskins’ Renaissance of the Twelfth Century constitutes the most outspoken attempt to date to “modernise” the Middle Ages, recent historiography has been keener to question the modernisation paradigm in medieval and early modern history. Only a few scholars have, however, been able to break with the common master narrative(s) of the period. It may not be surprising, in the light of what has been said, that the breakthrough to a more balanced perspective—that has eventually prompted a better understanding of the complexity and the significance of institutional arrangements in twelfth to seventeenth-century Europe—happened at the confluence of history, intellectual history and history of philosophy. David Luscombe, in particular, has paved the way for such a development. His original and ambitious way of combining the method of all three fields has enabled him to retrace with great accuracy and exemplary force of conviction the connexions between politics (both ecclesiastical and secular), scholarly institutions and doctrinal debates both in individual cases like Abelard and in the development of sets of ideas like hierarchical thought in the late Middle Ages and early modernity. The essays collected in this volume shed light on this recent historiographical shift and make a series of suggestions as to how the pioneering work of David Luscombe and his peers may be taken forward. These suggestions are as diverse as David Luscombe’s work with which they resonate. Yet it is striking that all contributions share a couple of assumptions about power and knowledge which can hardly be dismissed.

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First, power is best approached through obedience or, for that matter, disobedience. This perspective, which has explicitly been formulated by Max Weber, reaches back to Marx and Nietzsche and has also been endorsed, albeit in different terms, by Durkheim and Freud. Yet the social sciences have not thought this perspective through and have, in particular, fallen short of acknowledging the extent to which power constitutes obeying people, individually and collectively, as “subjects”. From this, it follows that the social sciences have generally underestimated the procedures that are at the core of the constitution and implementation of knowledge. Knowledge is essential to power precisely because it can be, and generally has been, “disciplined.” A second general assumption is common to the contributions collected in this volume. It comes with an even more explicit reference to Foucault’s work than the previous one. Power has been related to “telling the truth” (the παρρησία, on which Foucault elaborated in his later work) throughout European history. Power can only achieve obedience if people are convinced that the truth is engaged. Conversely, knowledge, as an essential part of power, and discipline, as the way knowledge exerts power, are fundamentally bound by ethics, as the discourse of truth is likely to be checked at any given time against both the extent to which, in people’s minds, the life style of the speaker conforms with the expressed truth and the wisdom that is generally accepted as the most trustworthy. Ultimately, therefore, discipline is a matter of ethics. Again, the ethical context within which “power/ knowledge” is exercised is in line with the interests of scholars of premodern Europe. The contributions collected in this volume attest to this as they provide examples of the disciplinary dimension of technologies of “power/knowledge.” The volume’s contributions are divided into four sections around the reflections outlined above: 1) A first set of contributions illustrates the paradigm shift towards “power/knowledge” in recent scholarship. Christopher Brooke’s essay follows on this introduction by outlining David Luscombe’s contribution to history and history of philosophy. Robert Lerner’s and Joseph Canning’s contributions, on the one hand, and Gert Melville’s essay, on the other hand, complement each other in that they show that a relationship of reciprocal legitimation exists between knowledge and power. Lerner and Canning both illustrate

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in different contexts (mainly Gioacchino da Fiore and Dante) how knowledge confers legitimacy. Melville convincingly demonstrates that monastic fictions of the past are not mere functional knowledge, let alone forgeries, but that they should rather be seen as examples of the production of knowledge itself in the process of legitimation. Amanda Power questions the assumption that Roger Bacon’s intellectual innovations were a cause of concern for his contemporaries, proposing instead that they were interested in the access to power offered by his work. 2) The contributions by Charles Burnett, Constant Mews, William Courtenay, and Brian McGuire all describe individual technologies of “power/knowledge.” From a twelfth-century Florilegium manuscript at Edinburgh University Library to Jean Gerson’s treatise On the Dignity of the Celebration of Mass, from thirteenth-century music theory at the University of Paris to a reassessment of the aims of scholasticism at the same place two centuries later, from the world of scholars to the papal court, at the one end, and the parish clergy, at the other end, these contributions explore an array of technologies of “power/knowledge” through texts and communication, such as intertextuality and translation, the constitution of canons of knowledge, as well as judicial, administrative and pastoral procedures. 3) A third series of contributions deals with the formation of individual and collective “subjects” through technologies of “knowledge/power.” The essays collected there show both how these technologies worked and what effect they had on selected groups. Giles Constable and Jürgen Miethke explore the extent to which the constitution of new religious orders in the 12th and 13th centuries interacted with the redefinition of knowledge. 4) A last set of contributions relates to the ethical context of “knowledge/power” procedures through an emphasis on both the definition of wisdom and the public framework of reference of “knowledge/ power” procedures. Whereas Andreas Speer pays attention to competing conceptions of wisdom mainly at the University of Paris in the 13th century, Martin Kintzinger stresses the importance of wisdom for the exercise of power by the Valois kings of France. John Marenbon argues that Peter Abelard’s conception of natural virtues, while theoretically insisting on their acquired character and, hence, their availability for non-Christians, was ultimately counterbalanced by Abelard’s ambivalent reference to St Augustine’s emphasis on Christian charity and God’s grace. Martial Staub shows how

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“discipline” explicitly referred to ethics in the republican context of the late medieval Italian and German city-states. The Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield, in the establishment of which David Luscombe had taken a leading role, provided the ideal venue for a conference in his honour. We must thank the then Director of the HRI, Professor David Shepherd, for his hospitality and support. Within the Department of History, Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, Professor Bob Shoemaker, Mrs Beverley Eaton, Mrs Lynda Hodge-Mannion, Dr Morn Capper and Dr Gary Rivett, made valued contributions to the organising and smooth running of the conference. Financial support for speakers was mostly provided by the University of Sheffield, through the kind offices of the Vice-Chancellor (the late Professor Robert Boucher), and the British Academy. In the production of the volume, the editors must first thank Professor Andreas Speer for facilitating its acceptance in the “Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters,” under his editorship. At the publishers we have greatly benefited from the consistent support and advice of Dr Julian Deahl, Ms Gera van Bedaf, and Mrs Marcella Mulder.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ATCA BL BnF BGPhThMA CCCM CERCOR CUP EHR EW JEH JTS MGH Mon. NMT OMT PL RTAM STGM

Arxiu de textos catalans antics British Library Bibliothèque nationale de France Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis Centre européen de recherches sur les congrégations et ordres religieux Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle and E. Châtelain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889-97) English Historical Review Jean Gerson, Early Works, trans. Brian Patrick McGuire. Classics of Western Spirituality 92 (New York, 1998) Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Theological Studies Monumenta Germaniae historica Dante, Monarchia, ed. Prue Shaw, Cambridge Medieval Classics 4 (Cambridge, 1995) Nelson Medieval Texts Oxford Medieval Texts Patrologia latina Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters

DAVID LUSCOMBE: AN APPRECIATION Christopher Brooke David Luscombe went to school in London in the 1940s and 50s and played a leading role in the British Academy in London as Publications Secretary in the 1990s; and he has lectured in many parts of the British Isles, in at least five European Countries, in Canada, the United States and Japan. But his life is essentially a tale of two cities: he served his apprenticeship in Cambridge, and the scene of his major creative work has been in Sheffield. From 1956 to 1964 he was a student and research fellow at King’s College, Cambridge; and from 1957 he was sitting at the feet of David Knowles—from 1959 as a research student under his supervision. To Dom David he owed his introduction to medieval thought; and he has left a penetrating and generous account of Knowles as a teacher.1 But the chief lesson Dom David’s research students learned from him was to fend for themselves: he set them an inspiring example, he was a kindly and sympathetic presence—and later on he was tireless in writing references for them—but comment and advice was sparing; David Luscombe recalled that one of the longest comments he received was a complaint about his handwriting. None the less he certainly felt—as I felt myself—that the impact of the personality, the outlook and the achievement of David Knowles was a critical element in his formation. Meanwhile David Luscombe was pursuing the pupils of Peter Abelard, to such good effect that he secured a research fellowship at King’s in 1962, a Ph.D. in 1964, and the publication of The School of Peter Abelard in 1969.2 From 1964 to 1972 he was fellow and director of studies in History in Churchill College. His Cambridge career illustrates two 1 David Luscombe, “David Knowles and his pupils,” in Christopher Brooke, Roger Lovatt, David Luscombe and Aelred Sillem, David Knowles Remembered (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), pp. 123–39. In composing this appreciation I have been much indebted to the help of Professors Edmund King and Sir Ian Kershaw. 2 D.E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 2:14 (Cambridge, Eng., 1969). Later on David Luscombe was first an Advisory Editor, then General Editor, of the 3rd series of Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, vols. 1–52.

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striking features of that era: Churchill, founded primarily to serve science and technology, has always prided itself (like Caltech) on the distinction of its fellows in the humanities; and the strange constitution of the university has dictated that some of its most eminent medieval historians have been college but not university lecturers. From this Sheffield was to profit. It could reasonably be said of medieval studies in Sheffield, as Suetonius said of Augustus’ Rome, that “he found it brick and left it marble”—save that he has not yet left it. He was Professor of Medieval History from 1972 to 2003, holding a Leverhulme Research Professorship between 1995 and 2000, and acting as a central figure in the creation and running of the Humanities Research Institute from 1994 till 2003—but still an active presence in his metaphorical retirement. A few years before David came to Sheffield in 1972, Edward Miller had entered a very modest inheritance and greatly enhanced it. But the transformation of Sheffield into a major international centre of medieval studies coincides with David’s career there. He would be the first to say that he has been one of a diverse group of distinguished colleagues, that his achievement has been team-work—not only with medieval colleagues, for in recent years Sheffield history in the eyes of the wider world has been dominated by David Luscombe and Sir Ian Kershaw. It is my privilege to claim close friendship with David for over thirty years, and to recall Ian as a lively student at Liverpool over forty years ago. Indeed, David’s achievement in Sheffield has spread far beyond the bounds of medieval history: he has been Deputy Dean and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and from 1990 to 1994 Pro-Vice-Chancellor—after 1991 in harness with Sir Gareth Roberts, a dynamic and demanding Vice-Chancellor. He played a creative role in the formation of the Humanities Research Institute and guided it into smooth water. In innumerable committees his voice has carried great weight. Like Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park, he never raises his voice, yet he is attended to; and he is like her in no other way, for hard work, careful preparation, firmness, persistence and determination have been his leading characteristics—and his achievement would be unimaginable without them. Above all, his role in Sheffield has reflected the prestige of a scholar whose work is admired and appreciated in every part of the globe where medieval studies and medieval thought are valued. His sheaf of books and quiverful of articles—well over a hundred of them—have

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illuminated many regions of medieval thought; but at their heart lie the works of two men and a ghost: Peter Abelard, John of Salisbury and Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite. The last of these was a shadowy monk of about 500 A.D. who owed his prestige to the claim that he was indeed Dionysius or Denis the disciple of St Paul named in Acts, and he enjoyed immense prestige throughout the mid and late middle ages both for his doctrines and for his name; and both led in more recent times to a measure of neglect. David Luscombe above all, in a series of fundamental articles, has taught us how deep and pervasive was his influence, especially in his teachings on hierarchy, so paradoxically powerful in a Church which learned from St Paul that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. In 1980 the late Dean of Salisbury, Sydney Evans, organized a conference to celebrate the eighth centenary of the death of John of Salisbury, and asked me to help him arrange it, which I agreed to do, so long as I could enlist David’s aid in selecting the contributors. In the event David was mainly responsible for convening the remarkable group of international scholars who gathered in Salisbury Close in July 1980. The conference papers were published, with some notable additions, in 1984, nobly edited by Michael Wilks.3 Yet the chief credit for this notable collection is David’s. He contributed to it a survey and bibliography of recent scholarship;4 and he later (among other contributions) brought John into the 21st century in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.5 The event of 1980 illustrates a characteristic element in our friendship: again and again I have pillaged the extraordinary riches of his knowledge of the bibliography of his field—and enjoyed his generous response to a cry for help. Thus when I was studying the place of Heloise and Abelard in the history of marriage, I naturally turned to David for guidance in the literature on their letters. The great advances which have been made in our knowledge of Abelard and his writings owe an immense debt to David. He perceived long ago the extreme complexity 3 The World of John of Salisbury, ed. Michael Wilks, Studies in Church History. Subsidia 3 (1984; repr. Woodbridge, 1994). 4 “John of Salisbury in recent scholarship,” and “John of Salisbury: A bibliography 1953–82,” ibid., pp. 21–37, 445–57. 5 David Luscombe, “Salisbury, John of (late 1110s–1180),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004; online ed., 2006 ).

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involved in disentangling the transmission of some of Abelard’s theological works; and after himself providing a model edition of the Ethics,6 and laying the foundations for a great edition of the Letters, he collected a galaxy of talented young scholars in Sheffield to work with him in re-building the foundations for the study of Abelard’s theology. The fundamental task of our generation of medieval scholars has been to replace the foundations of the subject; and David has approached the task through three channels. The texts have to be critically edited and the whole manuscript tradition surveyed; the range of scholarly interpretation has to be examined and weighed; and the texts have to be interpreted with all the instruments at our command. His early work on Abelard’s disciples prepared him for the task; his edition of the Ethics was his first major entry into the enormous labour of reediting the works of Abelard. Many hands have been involved, including those who worked with him in Sheffield during the 1980s;7 and the enterprise has been an exceptionally fruitful example of the need and value of fundamental textual work based on expertise in palaeography and bibliography—and on a deep knowledge and understanding of a creative thinker of peculiarly subtle and complex mind. It is not only Abelard one has to grasp, but the world of ideas in which he lived. Already in the Ethics David provided the solution to difficult textual problems and an introduction which remains the fundamental study of twelfth century ethics. In his collaborative work on the theological treatises he and his colleagues have succeeded in making sense of a textual tradition of great complexity, made worse at every stage by Abelard’s own agility in shifting his ground in successive revisions. But the ultimate test for a student of Abelard is to interpret the character and role of Heloise—and to determine the authenticity of her correspondence with Abelard. This has generated one of the most 6

Peter Abelard, Ethics, ed. and trans. D.E. Luscombe, OMT (Oxford, 1971). To cite just a few of these publications: Julia S. Barrow, “Tractatus magistri Petri Abaielardi de Sacramento Altaris,” Traditio 40 (1984), 328–36; Charles S.F. Burnett, “Peter Abelard, Soliloquium: a critical edition,” Studi Medievali 25 (1984), 857–94; Constant Mews, “On dating the works of Peter Abelard,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 52 (1985), 73–134; Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 3. Theologia “Summi boni”, Theologia “Scholarium”, eds. E.M. Buytaert and C.J. Mews, CCCM 13 (Turnhout, 1987); Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 5. Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Mary Romig, assisted by David Luscombe, and Abbreviatio Petri Abaelardi Expositionis in Hexameron, ed. Charles Burnett, assisted by David Luscombe, CCCM 15 (Turnhout, 2004). 7

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fascinating debates on historical method of recent decades, involving arguments about manuscript transmission, literary style, technical historical details, and broad issues of human probability. From time to time David has contributed to the debate, especially in his Raleigh Lecture of 1988.8 In this he illustrates by example how discussion of the authenticity of the correspondence must be viewed in a wider context of contemporary evidence and of the politics of Paris, the Church and the sexes. He also mobilised an important technical argument, based on a wide knowledge of twelfth-century bibles, to refute the objection that the Historia Calamitatum gave a biblical reference not in use till later in the century. The lecture is a brilliant foretaste of his edition and translation of the Letters which is still in the making—a reminder that this modest tribute is a report on work in progress: there is more—we hope, much more—to come. We have visited David in his study, among his books, among his colleagues in the University. We have still to visit the other scene of his creative work, his home; and the final word in this brief expression of warm admiration and affection must be for Megan, the closest of all his colleagues. For our picture of him is inseparable from her. Generations of Sheffield students and staff have enjoyed Megan’s and David’s hospitality and witnessed a close-knit family. They will have shared their pleasure when their second granddaughter was named Eloise.

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David Luscombe, “From Paris to the Paraclete: The correspondence of Abelard and Heloise,” Proceedings of the British Academy 74 (1988), 247–83. In this lecture, David partly builds on, partly revises Peter Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies, University of Glasgow. W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture 26 (Glasgow, 1976).

PERTRANSIBUNT PLURIMI: READING DANIEL TO TRANSGRESS AUTHORITY* Robert E. Lerner The Bible says “knowledge shall multiply.” What an opportunity for library publicity! Researchers in the Bodleian find a verse from the Book of Daniel greeting them as they ascend the stairs to the reading room: “Plurimi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia.” The meaning seems clear; recently it has provided Peter Brown with a stirring conclusion to a delightful autobiographical sketch: On looking back at my own life of learning, I still think that the best motto for us all is to be found at the foot of the stairs that led up from the old entrance to the Bodleian Library. Above a list of donors is a strange verse, taken from the Book of Daniel; Plurimi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia (Daniel 12:4) “Many shall go to and fro and ever more abundant shall be their knowledge.”1

Oxonian orators agree that the verse foretells the multiplication of learning: “In the Bodleian Library, a place not to be mentioned without reverence, there is a staircase, up which scholars toil on their way to the top floor, that strong-hold of the Muses, that veritable paradise of the inquisitive. Those who climb it find inscribed on the wall these words from the Prophet Daniel: ‘Very many shall pass through, and knowledge shall be multiplied.’ The fulfilment of this inspired utterance, no less than the urgent needs of the University, calls for the constant production of a great stream of books.” It may be added that Sir Steven Runciman commemorated his 95th birthday by paying for the replacement of the London Library’s “alarming passenger lift” and

* This paper has benefited greatly from critical discussion at the Sheffield conference of September 2006 in honor of David Luscombe as well as at a workshop session of the Colloquium for High and Late Medieval Intellectual and Religious History held at the Newberry Library in February of 2007. The author is particularly indebted for comments and corrections to Catherine Arney, Richard Kieckhefer, Constant Mews, Barbara Newman, Sylvain Piron, and John Van Engen. 1 Peter Brown, A Life of Learning, Charles Homer Haskins Lecture, 2003 (New York, 2003), p. 20.

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warmly approved the motto chosen for it from the Book of Daniel: “Plurimi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia.”2 Yet Peter Brown did say that the verse from Daniel is “strange.” In the Middle Ages the verse was never taken to apply approvingly to the inexorable proliferation of knowledge. Instead, it was interpreted variously to mean: 1.) that scriptural truth is refractory yet ultimately open to one correct meaning; 2.) that the proliferation of diverse expressions about the faith requires that they be pared down; 3.) that scripture is so inherently rich in interlocking meanings that new ones are legitimately susceptible of discovery; 4.) that knowledge of salvation has advanced incrementally in the past; and 5.) that knowledge of salvation has advanced and will continue to advance. Here I will review these alternatives with emphasis on the fifth, a medieval idea of progress that offered a rationale for the contravention of authority.3 The first alternative was posited by St. Jerome, who translated the Book of Daniel into Latin and then commented on the product. In his commentary, Jerome grappled with our passage in context. The prophet Daniel had been privy to special revelation throughout the book which bore his name, yet now he is told in the complete verse four of book twelve: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the appointed time; many shall pass over and knowledge will be manifold.”4 The two parts of the verse do not obviously cohere, but Jerome still interpreted them as a unit. The initial words to Daniel patently command concealment, or, as Jerome says: “He who had revealed manifold truth to Daniel now signifies that the things he has said are matters of secrecy, and he orders him to roll up the scroll and . . . set a seal upon the book.” The emphasis accordingly is on eso-

2 Oxford University Gazette, 27 May 2004: speeches by the Public Orator. Obituary of Sir Steven Runciman, The Times, 2 November 2000. I am deeply indebted to my research advisor, Professor Omnicompetent Google, for these references. 3 My review of medieval citations of the verse from Daniel is intended to be broad but not encyclopedic; doubtless I have overlooked many examples. Moreover, the use of Daniel 12:4 by Francis Bacon to support an idea of secular progress (see also the frontispiece to the edition of 1620 of Bacon’s Instauratio magna) is beyond my realm of expertise; instead the reader may be referred to the classic work of Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626–1660 (London, 1975). 4 I take this to be the most literal translation of the Vulgate text: “Tu autem, Daniel, claude sermones et signa librum usque ad tempus statutum: plurimi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia.” The story I tell here would not be tellable without Jerome, for the Jerusalem Bible follows the Septuagint in giving: “Many will wander this way and that, and wickedness [!] will go on increasing.”

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tericism. The “book” is to be “sealed” metaphorically: “many will read it and inquire as to its fulfilment in history, differing in their opinions because of its great obscurity.” Uncomfortable with eschatology, Jerome avoided reading “the time appointed” as the time of the End. Nor did he take the verb “pertransire” to connote forward movement. Rather, he writes: “as for the statement ‘Many shall pass over’, or ‘pass through’ [he equates pertransire with percurrere], this indicates that it will be read by many, as we are accustomed to say ‘I have gone through a book.’” Daniel’s “sealed book” is purposely difficult, like the sealed books of Isaiah and the Revelation of St. John. Yet the seal can be broken by “one who has learned the mysteries”: “The book can be opened by one who has learned the mysteries of Scripture and understands its hidden truths . . . and [one] who can interpret the parables and translate the letter which killeth into the spirit which giveth life.” In sum, for Jerome the portentous message to Daniel meant that readers at whatever time will differ about the meaning of prophetic books in Scripture, but those (with some circular logic) who “have learned the mysteries” will penetrate it. Within the formal history of exegesis, Jerome’s commentary on Daniel became definitive, its authority being reinforced in the early twelfth century by the Glossa ordinaria. The interlinear and marginal glosses for Daniel 12:4 both depend on Jerome. For the glossator “multiplex erit scientia” means that although different people will have different views regarding a text of great obscurity, true meaning can be reached (following Jerome) “by one who has learned the mysteries of Scripture.”5 Several decades later, when Andrew of St. Victor decided to supplement the Gloss with a set of literal explications of Daniel, he terminated his endeavor at 11:2, saying “the rest that follows until the end of the work is so carefully exposited by St. Jerome that it is superfluous to add anything more.” Nicholas of Lyra did return to comment on all of Daniel, but nevertheless paraphrased Jerome. For him, the sealing of the book meant that the “vulgar” were not meant to comprehend it. It followed that “Plurimi pertransibunt” meant that some would read the book harmfully and others piously, with “multiplex erit scientia” referring to their varying expositions.6 5

I use Biblia latina cum glossa ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps of Adolph [sic for Adolf ] Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81, 3 (Turnhout, 1992), p. 359. 6 Nicolaus de Lyra, Postilla super totam bibliam, 2 (1492; repr. Frankfurt/M., 1971), sig. FFFiivb: “Similiter nec vulgaribus hominibus qui non possunt talia capere, propter

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As would be expected, Jerome’s reading of Daniel 12:4 rubbed off on numerous high medieval theological writers who cited “Pertransibunt plurimi” in isolation. Robert of Liège (more often, but misleadingly, known as Rupert of Deutz) used the tag to tell of how “the holy fathers and our doctors faithfully exposit the holy scriptures,” and William of Tyre employed it as a paean to the eternal memory of his many Parisian masters who worked so hard to establish the truth.7 Stephen Langton observed in his commentary on Ruth that God does not reveal everything immediately to scriptural commentators but so disposes that certain matters are left over for their industry, then citing “Pertransibunt plurimi” to confirm the proposition.8 Asking why holy wisdom is hidden in mystery, Alexander of Hales responded that mystery stimulates study and cited “Pertransibunt plurimi” in support.9 As opposed to those who understood “going forth” as a victory for exegetical correctness, by roughly 1300 some theologians came to think that too many of their colleagues were claiming victory. That is, the proliferation of Sentence commentaries and questiones had become such that some scholastics called for paring down theological expressions. The evil implications of diversity in theological inquiry were reproved in three scholastic treatises of c. 1300. A short treatise under the name of St. Thomas uses “Pertransibunt plurimi” as its incipit. Here “multiplex erit scientia” is understood as difference and branded as a lamentable condition of humans in via. For the author, a single certain science will be the glory of the saints; meanwhile, diversity of opinion must be narrowed into concordance with the light of faith that suffers no mere opinions.10 Also employing “Pertransibunt plu-

Christus loquebatur turbis in parabolis . . . Plurimi pertransibunt, legentes, scilicet librum istum aliqui malignantes, aliqui devote tractantes. Et multiplex erit scientia, id est expositio circa ista.” 7 William of Tyre, Chronicon, 2 vols., CCCM 63, 63A (Turnhout, 1986), 2:881: “quibus perhenniter vivunt oblivionis dispendia non sensuri, quorum lumen quasi syderum secundum Danyelis sermonem, quo ait: Pertransibunt plurimi, et erit scientia multiplex, et item: fulgebunt iusti sicut firmamentum . . . [Dan. 12:3]” 8 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 510, fol. 83rb: “Dominus non omnia revelavit expositoribus sacre pagine, sed etiam dispensavit ut aliquid ex industria relinquerent . . . quia ut dicitur in Daniele: ‘transibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.’” 9 Summa theologica, Q. 1, c. 4, art. 1. I use the translation by A.J. Minnis and A.B. Scott, Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c. 1100–c. 1375: The Commentary Tradition, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1998), pp. 214–15. 10 Text from the Parma edition of the Opera omnia of St. Thomas (1864), given as Thomas de Sutton (?), Pertransibunt plurimi: www.corpusthomisticum.org/xp2.html: “ideo in hominibus ratio invenitur que est umbra intelligentie: et inde est, quod sunt

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rimi” as an incipit, the Carmelite Gerard of Bologna, writing around 1310, opened a theological summa by complaining about the current multiplicity of useless questiones and diverse opinions. His intention was to eschew useless multiplicity and cut back the many opinions to one.11 A last example of this hostile attitude toward multiplicity comes from a questio of 1313 by Henry of Harclay concerning the possibility of foretelling last things. Henry refers mordantly to “the great forest of opinions and assertions of authorities” on his subject, as foretold by Daniel, multiplex erit sentencia [sic], and then proceeds to refute them in turn.12 A third alternative shows that Daniel’s words about “multiplicity” were really prophetic, for in addition to those who sought one true sense and those who complained about the proliferation of senses were those who maintained in connection with Daniel 12:4 that diversity of interpretation was a beneficent result of the richness of Scripture.13 This position is found in twelfth-century northern France, where diversity of Biblical readings was beginning to abound. St. Bernard had no hesitation in writing frequently: “you think . . . but I think.”14 Isaac of Stella, who studied in several northern French schools, expressed his

diverse opiniones apud homines propter defectum plene lucis in cognoscendo . . . hoc est lumen fidei que nullam patitur opinionem infra suos terminos: totum enim certissimum est quod fides habet . . . diversitas igitur opinionis si qua fuerit, extra terminos fidei teneatur.” 11 Summa magistri Gerardi Bononiensis, in Paul de Vooght, Les sources de la doctrine chrétienne (Bruges, 1954), 269: “Attendentes enim tam ex multiplicatione prefata quam ex frequenti repeticione eorumdem dictorum inducente plerisque fastidium . . . propositum huius negocii erit, resecata pro posse multiplicitate inutile, ea que spectant ad sacram theologiam . . . redigendo in unum opiniones multiplices.” 12 Franz Pelster, “Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay über die zweite Ankunft Christi,” Archivio Italiano per la storia della pietá 1 (1951), 25–82, here 56: “Sed restat pro questione scire quando veniet, si sciri potest per Scripturam Sacram et auctoritatem sanctorum. Et hic est silva magna opinionum et varia allegatio auctoritatum. Et hoc fuit predictum Danielis 12, quod multiplex esset sentencia.” It was probably not accidental that Henry’s main target was Arnald of Villanova; for the latter’s positive use of the Daniel quotation, see below. 13 For the formula “diversi sed non adversi,” apparently first documented in a letter of 1117 by Anselm of Laon, Hubert Silvestre, “ ‘Diversi sed non adversi,’” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 31 (1964), 124–32, citing previous literature. But this formula concerns the issue of apparent Patristic disagreement in the past rather than the possibility of new readings of Scripture that add to diversity. Nevertheless, the principle of licit exegetical diversity was enshrined by St. Augustine, especially in his De doctrina Christiana: see Book 3, c. 27. 14 Many such passages in Bernard’s writings are assembled by Peter Dinzelbacher, Religiosität und Mentalität des Mittelalters (Klagenfurt, 2003), p. 386.

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approval of interpretative diversity in a sermon of mid-century. Citing Daniel 12:4 as a proof text, he averred that “the same parable or even the same passage of Scripture that seems to be very clear can be exposited correctly and commented on differently by one or another without their ever exhausting it . . . thus it often happens that commentators who disagree about the same scriptural text or offer different readings [sententie] can be fully in accord with the Holy Spirit, provided that they do not stray from the faith and the building of charity.”15 Another ringing endorsement in behalf of the principle of exegetical diversity appears in the writings of St. Bonaventure. Treating the gift of knowledge (scientia) in his Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1268), he dilates on the inexhaustible wealth of Scripture, comparable to the water of the sea.16 Scripture is not only like the sea in its depth, i.e. profundity, but like the sea in its breadth: the multiformity of its senses. Even though Bonaventure’s subject was knowledge (scientia), and even though he quoted Daniel’s “multiplex erit scientia” correctly to make his point, he modulated scientia in his exposition, as did Isaac of Stella before him, to sententia: “meaning.” As he wrote, “Some wonder that in the same Scripture we have so many meanings. But this is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Even in a single word (una littera) many meanings (multiplex sententia) abound, for in theology both things and voices are signified, and when there are many properties of a thing, then through one thing different things can be meant.” The great Franciscan surely did not intend to imply that Scripture could be read ad libitum: those lacking the guidance of the Spirit were obviously beyond the pale. Nevertheless he emphasized openness to a range of possibilities. That the positive view of diversity could relate to a notion of improvement can be seen in a passage from the exegesis of Richard of Saint-Victor. In the prologue to his commentary on Ezechiel (c. 1150), Richard criticizes those who are loath to acknowledge omissions of the Fathers. He himself is providing a literal commentary on Ezechiel even though the book had been treated exhaustively for its spiritual sense by Gregory the Great. In justification he states: “For our part, let us take with all greediness what the Fathers have discussed; let us investigate eagerly what they have left untouched; let us offer with all

15 16

Isaac de l’Etoile, Sermons, Sources chrétiennes 130 (Paris, 1967), pp. 292–95. Saint Bonaventure, Opera omnia, 10 vols. (Quaracchi, 1882–1902), 5:476B.

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generosity the fruits of our research, that we may fulfill that which is written: ‘Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold.’ ”17 Note, however, that Richard was not claiming to be correcting misreadings by Gregory or offering a qualitative improvement in method. He merely was offering a supplement authorized by the richness of Scripture. In effect he was standing on the shoulders of giants while pulling their hair. My fourth alternative is a genuine theory of divinely-ordained progress. It must be said that a progressive reading of Daniel 12:4 is by no means intuitive: “pertransire” has the connotation of going back and forth rather than direct forward movement, and “multiplex” unquestionably means “varied,” not “better.” Thus a resort to the verse to underwrite progressivism ironically needed authorization from authority, and that authority was available in the oeuvre of Gregory the Great. In his Homilies on Ezechiel (book II, homily 4) Gregory finds reason to declare: “The spiritual knowledge of the fathers grew with increments of time. As Moses was more instructed than Abraham, and the prophets more instructed than Moses, so the Apostles were more instructed than the prophets in the knowledge of almighty God, for I err if Scripture does not speak thus when it states ‘Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold.’ ”18 Gregory then specifies that Abraham, Moses, and the prophets knew divinity by steps leading to the Apostles, who knew divinity directly, whence he repeats for good measure:

17 Richard of Saint-Victor, Prologus in visionem Ezechielis, PL 196, cols. 527–28. I quote the translation in Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1952), p. 108. Smalley’s citation has made this quotation rather well known: see P.C. Bori, L’interpretazione infinita: L’ermeneutica cristiana antica e le sue trasformazioni (Bologna, 1987), pp. 82–83; Edward M. Peters, “Transgressing the Limits Set by the Fathers: Authority and Impious Exegesis in Medieval Thought,” in Christendom and its Discontents, eds. Scott L. Waugh and Peter D. Diehl (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 338–62, here 350; Gian Luca Potestà, “ ‘Intelligentia Scripturarum’ und Kritik des Prophetismus bei Joachim von Fiore,” in Neue Richtungen in der hoch- und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner (Munich, 1996), pp. 95–119, here 111–12. 18 Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, Corpus Christianorum. Series latina 142 (Turnhout, 1971), p. 267: “Sciendum est quia et per incrementa temporum crevit scientia spiritalium patrum. Plus namque Moyses quam Abraham, plus prophetae quam Moyses, plus apostoli quam prophetae in omnipotentis Dei scientia eruditi sunt. Fallor si haec ipsa Scriptura non loquitur: Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” John Van Engen points out to me aptly that Gregory’s concept of the growth of spiritual knowledge makes him a distant forefather of Joachim of Fiore.

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“Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.”19 It is unclear only whether knowledge advances beyond the Apostles. Gregory does state in conclusion that “the more the world is led towards its end, so much the more is the access to eternal knowledge opened more largely.”20 Perhaps, then, he was referring to advance in his own day, but he could just as well have been referring to knowledge attained by the Apostles, who in his view were close to the End.21 A passage from Gregory’s Moralia on Job is more explicit in this regard. Although progress of knowledge in the past is not here at issue, this tells of the growth of knowledge toward the End: “With the end of the world indeed being imminent, heavenly knowledge advances and grows larger with time; hence it is said through Daniel: ‘Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold.’ ”22 Given Gregory’s conviction that earthly time would soon be over, it seems somewhat perverse to call him a “progressivist.”23 Yet Gregory stood out in interpreting Daniel’s “multiplex” to mean better and surely offered clear patristic authority for a theory of the advance of salvational knowledge. It would take different expertise than mine to explain why Gregory the Great came to the view he did; I can only report that his position was exceptional in the patristic repertoire and seldom reiterated until the twelfth century.24 A stunning example of an early-medieval monastic author who took just the opposite tack from Gregory is that of Heriger of Lobbes. In his Deeds of the Bishops of Liège (c. 1000), 19 Ibid., pp. 267–68: “Plus ergo quam prophetae de devota scientia noverunt, quia quod illi solo spiritu viderunt, isti [sc. apostoli] etiam corporaliter viderunt. Impleta itaque est ea, quam superius diximus, Danielis sententia: Quia Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” 20 Ibid., p. 268: “quanto mundus ad extremitatem ducitur, tanto nobis aeternae scientiae aditus largius aperitur.” 21 An excellent account of Gregory’s intense conviction that the End was nigh is R.A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 51–63. 22 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, Libri I–IX. Corpus Christianorum. Series latina, 143 (Turnhout, 1979), p. 267: “Urgente etenim mundi fine, superna scientia proficit et largius cum tempore excrescit. Hinc namque per Danielem dicitur Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” 23 Indeed Markus, Gregory the Great, p. 63, points out that Gregory “sometimes suggested that miracles would cease as the end drew near.” Markus does not consider the passages in Gregory to which I have called attention. 24 As noted by Amos Funkenstein, Heilsplan und natürliche Entwicklung: Gegenwartsbestimmung im Geschichtsdenken des Mittelalters (Munich, 1965), pp. 62–63, an exception is found in the writings of the Carolingian, Walafrid Strabo; nevertheless the progressive changes to which Walafrid alludes do not include any in the content of the faith.

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Heriger offers a preface lamenting decline from the past. He opens with a quotation from Cicero—“Antiquity, being nearer to its origin and divine descent, was better able, perhaps, to divine the truth”— and immediately links this with Daniel 12:4: “Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit sententia [sic].” After that Heriger speaks in his own voice, saying “among the ancients, reason certainly flourished . . . but among those of today credulity, which pollutes the knowledge of those who came before.” Clearly for him Daniel’s “multiplicity of knowledge” was a retrograde jumble of confusion.25 Matters changed in the first half of the twelfth century when we witness several of the most prominent writers of the age taking a positive view of the progress of knowledge with reference to the Daniel quotation. The question, however, arises as to whether any maintained that progress continued to their own day. St. Bernard and Hugh of SaintVictor may be considered together because Hugh in this instance borrowed verbatim in his Sacraments of the Christian Faith from a letter he had received from Bernard.26 According to Bernard, and Hugh in his wake, the fact that knowledge of the faith grew in the past was observed by “the holy pope Gregory” (citing Gregory on Ezechiel ) and proven by Daniel 12:4. But Bernard and Hugh stopped with the Apostles and ignored Gregory’s statement that “the more the world is led towards its end, so much the more is the access to eternal knowledge opened more largely.” Otto of Freising at first seems bolder. He appropriates the Daniel quotation in the prologue to the fifth book of his Two Cities. Here he pauses to consider the temporal advance of knowledge and asserts that: “Because we live and learn in a more advanced age of the earth, we are able to build on the basis of all that has been discovered before and thus are all the more able to discover new things.”27 Otto’s predecessors, “however remarkable in wisdom and excelling in genius,” were ignorant 25

Heriger, Gesta pontificum Tungrensium sive Leodicensium, PL 139, cols. 1003–4. Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola LXXVII: Ad Magistrum Hugonem de Sancto Victore, in J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, eds., Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 vols. (Rome, 1957– 77), 7:194–95; Hugh’s borrowing is in De sacramentis Christianae fidei, PL 176, cols. 336–38; English translation by Roy J. Deferrari, Hugh of St. Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 176. The verbatim dependence of Hugh on St. Bernard was noticed by Heinrich Weisweiler, “Die Arbeitsmethode Hugos von St. Viktor: Ein Beitrag zum Entstehen seines Hauptwerkes De Sacramentis,” Scholastik, 20–24 (1949), 59–87, 232–67, here 60, 63–64. 27 I use the facing-page edition and German translation: Otto of Freising, Chronica sive historia de duabus civitatibus, eds. A. Hofmeister and W. Lammers (Darmstadt, 1960), pp. 372–75. 26

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of matters that have become clear over time, for, as one reads in Daniel 12:4: “Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” Yet unlike St. Bernard and Hugh of Saint-Victor, Otto is not referring to growth in knowledge of the faith but rather to the growth of human science. And even so he quickly vitiates his initial announcement by offering a sketch of the transfer of human science over time from East to West—from Babylonia and Egypt through Greece and Rome to the France and Spain of his own day. A principle of steady improvement is obviously lacking here, for the sages of Otto’s day turn out to be “Berengar, Manegold, and Anselm [of Laon].” Whether Otto believed that these three were as “remarkable in wisdom” as Plato and Aristotle is debatable, but he surely did not think they were more remarkable. Then too, he concludes his discussion with a palindrome of the opening. Now he says that proof of our advanced knowledge consists in the fact that we do not have to trust predictions of the mutability of things but can actually see that we live in a time of decline and the world’s senility.28 That leaves us with Peter Abelard, who cited Daniel 12:4 frequently. (And fortunately so in terms of a volume meant to honor David Luscombe.) Given Abelard’s fabled self-confidence, he seems a more likely candidate than the others to propose a theory of progress inclusive of the present. In fact he once maintained that his logical teaching advanced beyond that of Aristotle and Boethius, “bringing the doctrine to perfection.”29 But declaring superiority to Aristotle and Boethius was altogether different from saying or implying the same about Augustine and Gregory. Although Abelard quoted Daniel 12:4 as often as five times to buttress arguments about progress, we need to look carefully at how he did so. In one case the progress to which Abelard alludes occurs in the deep past. In his commentary on the Hexaemeron, written for the nuns of the Paraclete, he equates the first six days of creation with the Augustinian six ages of the world. According to Augustine, and after him Isidore of Seville, the third age ran from Abraham to David and the

28 Ibid., p. 374: “nos iam deficientem et tanquam ultimi senii extremum spiritum trahentem cernimus.” 29 Abelard, Dialectica, ed. L.M. de Rijk (Assen, 1956), pp. 145–46 (without reference to Daniel ), as cited by R.W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe 2: The Heroic Age (Oxford, 2001), pp. 108–109.

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fourth from David to the Babylonian Captivity.30 Abelard accepts this but infuses a new meaning: whereas Augustine considered the fourth age to be the time of the Kingdom, Abelard views it as the time of the prophets, beginning with Samuel. And that leads him to explain that the fourth age advanced beyond its predecessor as young manhood advances beyond adolescence because the prophets had a clearer knowledge of Christ than the patriarchs: “Pertransibunt plurimi . . .”31 Elsewhere Abelard views “philosophers” as more far-sighted than prophets. I refer to a passage in his Theologia ‘Summi boni’, wherein he maintains that the terminology “son of God” employed (according to him) by the “philosophers” was superior to that of the prophets, who referred to the “word of the Lord.”32 How could it be that pagan philosophers expressed themselves better than Hebrew prophets about divine truth? Assuming without discussion that these pagans were vessels of divine illumination, Abelard invokes a principle of progressive change over time. The philosophers treated the generation of Father to Son “more openly” than the prophets because the latter were obliged to keep the faith veiled when the faithful were uncultivated. Philosophers possessed a greater zeal for inquiry into truth, and “teaching about creatures grew with knowledge of the Creator.” All told: “knowledge gained strength with the successiveness of study and ability, which is what Daniel considered when he said: ‘Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold.’”33

30

See Augustine, De catechandis rudibus, c. 22; Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 5, 39. Abelard, Expositio in Hexaemeron, PL 178, col. 772c: “Quarta die facta luminaria lucem prophetarum post legem significant longe apertius de Christo loquentium quam lex antiqua fecerat, sicut dicit Daniel: Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia . . .” On this commentary, David Luscombe, “The Bible in the Work of Peter Abelard and his ‘School,’ ” in Neue Richtungen, ed. Lerner (as n. 17 above), pp. 79–93, here 89. It may be noted in passing that Abelard refers to prophetic knowledge “tam in viris, ut in Samuele Nathan, quam in feminis sicut in Anna.” Barbara Newman kindly alerted me to the certainty that the “Anna” here is not the mother of the Virgin, but rather the prophetess Anna (Hannah) of I Sam. 1–2. 32 For him one of these philosophers was “Hermes, qui latine Mercurius dicitur”: see Abelard, Opera theologica: 3. Theologia ‘Summi boni’; Theologia ‘Scholarium’, CCCM 13 (Turnhout, 1987), p. 98. 33 Ibid., pp. 185–86: “Notandum vero quod, cum tam prophete quam philosophi divinam generationem attingere ausi sunt, multo apertius philosophi hanc designaverint . . . Non solum ideo quod apertius philosophi quam prophete hanc generationem distinxerunt, verum etiam quia hanc fidem in gentibus maxime fructificaturam noverat, que facilius a gentibus susciperetur, si aperte testimonio suorum doctorum, i.e. philosophorum, commendaretur. Hec autem fides temporibus rudis populi a prophetis occultanda fuit; tempore vero philosophorum multiplicatio studio inquirende 31

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Almost inevitably, Abelard also refers to an advance from all that came before to the Gospel. In his Soliloquium he states that “to the extent that the teachings of the philosophers are better, so much more perfect than all sacred instructions [is] the teaching of the Gospel which Christ himself transmitted.”34 Abelard evidently drew on Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezechiel for his quotation from Daniel in the Theologia ‘Summi boni’,35 and in the Soliloquium he refers to the source explicitly. (He would have known Gregory’s standard commentary as a result of his own exegesis of Ezechiel while studying at Laon). Drawing on Gregory’s reference to the growth of “spiritual knowledge of the fathers,” he proclaims: “How much more perfect a knowledge of God was attained by those who were instructed by the only-begotten Son of God than [that attained] by the ancient fathers, as Gregory states in the last part of his third homily on Ezekiel: the knowledge of God grew by increments of time in the fathers; whence Daniel: ‘Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold.’ ”36 Abelard’s fourth and fifth relevant citations of Daniel 12:4 refer to a Christian Father, St. Jerome. Both come from works addressed to the nuns of the Paraclete. In “On the Study of Letters” Abelard points out that others had translated Scripture before Jerome, but “the translation of St. Jerome, which is the most recent and which draws from the Hebrew and the Greek surpasses the older translations.” For him this is fitting, for “new things rise higher; whence Daniel ‘Many shall pass over and knowledge will be manifold.’ ”37 If Abelard here allows veritatis, una cum creaturarum doctrina crevit et creatoris intelligentia . . . Quod autem per successionem tum studio tum ingenio scientie convaluerunt, considerabat Daniel cum dicebat: Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” For a French translation see Jean Jolivet, trans.: Abélard, Du bien suprême (Montreal, 1978), pp. 113–14. 34 Charles S.F. Burnett, “Peter Abelard, ‘Soliloquium’: A Critical Edition,” Studi medievali 3:25 (1984), 857–94, here 890. I am most grateful to Constant Mews for clarifying my understanding of Abelard’s arguments in the Soliloquium and for saving me from error regarding Abelard on other points. 35 Theologia ‘Summi boni’, p. 186: “Psalmista, teste Gregorio,” where the source is misidentified in the editorial apparatus. It is Homiliae in Hiezechihelem 2, Hom. 3, par. 3: CCCM 142, p. 238. 36 Burnett, ed., p. 890: “Quanto autem de Deo perfectiorem sint adepti scientiam quam antiqui Patres, hii qui ab ipso unigento Dei sunt edocti, Gregorius in extrema parte Ezechielis homelia iii edisserens, ait: ‘Per temporum incrementa crevit in patribus scientia Dei’, unde Daniel: ‘Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” 37 Abelard, Epistola 9: De studio litterarum, ed. Edmé Renno Smits, Peter Abelard, Letters IX–XIV (Groningen, 1983), p. 235. For an English translation, see Vera Morton and J. Wogan-Browne, Guidance for Women in Twelfth-Century Convents (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 121–38. The passage is noted in David Luscombe, “‘Scientia’ and

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knowledge to advance among the Fathers (counting Latin translators of Scripture before Jerome as Fathers), in my last citation he allows it to advance even beyond the Fathers. In this case he is referring in a sermon to the bodily assumption of the Virgin, which he understood Jerome to have held in doubt.38 Abelard nevertheless found an account of the assumption in Gregory of Tours and prefers to accept Gregory. How could it be that St. Jerome was unaware of the truth? His answer is that “many shall pass over, and knowledge is [sic] manifold.” For Abelard, it is entirely possible that some truth remained in doubt at the time of Jerome that later was made manifest by the Holy Spirit.39 There is a neat progression in the five passages from Abelard: prophets advance beyond patriarchs; philosophers beyond prophets; Gospels beyond everything preceding; a Father beyond patristic predecessors; and a post-patristic ecclesiastical writer beyond a Father. Yet even in the last case Abelard is not claiming personal revelation or superior knowledge for himself; he is preferring a previously expressed truth that he deemed to be ratified by the Holy Spirit.40 Despite his comfort in quoting Daniel, he never maintains that knowledge of the faith advances into the present. Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135–1202), the pivotal figure in my account, took an entirely different stance. For him, knowledge of salvational truth was destined to advance from past to present to future, as if on a stairway to paradise. The Abbot was so taken with the import of Daniel 12:4 that he cited the verse at least nine times, and his use of it innovated profoundly. Far from limiting the growth of truth to the past, Joachim stated in the fifth book of his Concordia that “knowledge will be multiplied through every age of the world, just as it is written

‘disciplina’ in the Correspondence of Peter Abelard and Heloise,” in “Scientia” und “Disciplina”: Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Rainer Berndt et al. (Berlin, 2002), pp. 79–89, here 85. 38 Constant Mews informs me that the actual author of the passage in question doubting the bodily assumption was Paschasius Radbertus. 39 In Assumptione Beatae Mariae, PL 178, col. 543cd: “Non ignoramus beatum Hieronymum . . . in tantum dubitasse de resurrectione hac . . . sed cum in Daniele scriptum sit: ‘Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia’, et beatus Benedictus in regula dicet quia ‘revelat Deus saepe iuniori, quod non revelat maiori’, potuit contingere ut quod tempore Hieronymi latuit incertum, postmodum revelante Spiritu fieret manifestum.” 40 The point is made by Heinrich Weisweiler, “Abaelard und die Leibliche Aufnahme Mariens in den Himmel,” Scholastik 25 (1950), 235–47, here 237–38.

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‘Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia’ .”41 None before him had maintained that those of the present see more clearly into the faith than those of the past, but in his Tractatus super quatuor evangelia Joachim said that the “teaching of the Church” has continued to grow from the time of John the Baptist to his own day.42 And he went further. In his Dialogi he has a disciple say: “Inasmuch as it is written ‘Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia’ no doubt exists that the closer the splendor of the future age approaches, so much the more the darkness of our ignorance is removed from the eyes of the mind”; in the Concordia, book five, he looks into the future by saying in connection with the lines from Daniel that in the coming third status “the mysteries will be naked and open to the faithful.”43 Interrelated with his belief in progress was the fact that Joachim saw himself as a beneficiary of the march of time. In his Enchiridion super Apocalypsim he explains that Christians in the days of John the Baptist were unable to speak of the concordance between the second status and third (a crucial concept for him) because the appointed time mentioned by Daniel had not yet come: but now it has.44 With particular boldness he confronts the Fathers in the Concordia. Referring to divergent understandings of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, he asserts that “certain fathers” interpreted the dream mistakenly, writing according to their opinions or reconsiderations, but “we, who are at the end, are able to gather much about the end of things which were concealed from the ancients, according to the angel—as we have

41 Joachim of Fiore, Concordia Novi et Veteris Testamenti (1519; repr. Frankfurt/M, 1964), fol. 96va: “per singulas etates mundi multiplicabitur scientia, sicut scriptum est: Pertransibunt plurimi . . .” My treatment of Joachim’s use of the Daniel verse expands on that by Potestà, “ ‘Intelligentia Scripturarum’” (as n. 16), pp. 109–12. 42 Joachim of Fiore, Tractatus super quatuor evangelia, ed. F. Santi (Rome, 2002), p. 7: “doctrinam lactentis ecclesie, que incipiens a Iohanne baptista velut per intervalla temporum pervenit ad incrementum usque ad hec tempora nostra, iuxta illud Danielis: Pertransibunt plurimi . . .” 43 Idem, Dialogi de prescientia Dei, ed. G.L. Potestà (Rome, 1995), p. 111, ll. 17–18: “Cum scriptum sit: Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia, dubium esse non debet quod quo magis appropinquat splendor seculi futuri, eo auferentur ab oculis cordis tenebre ignorantie nostre”; idem, Concordia. fol. 96va: “in tertio statu nuda erunt mysteria et aperta fidelibus quia per singulas etates mundi multiplicatur scientia sicut scriptum est ‘Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.’” 44 Idem, Enchiridion super Apocalypsim, ed. E.K. Burger (Toronto, 1986), p. 46, ll. 1205–7: “Et ideo in illis diebus loqui de concordia secundi status Christiani non poterant, quia nondum venerat tempus illud statutum, de quo dicit angelus Danieli . . .”

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already remembered in this work—saying to Daniel, ‘Pertransibunt plurimi.’”45 Joachim’s assertions linked to Daniel 12:4 correspond to others. Regarding the “saints,” he writes that although they saw much, it was “through a glass darkly”: one must remember “when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (I Cor. 13:10); granted that those of the present are not equal in merits, “who does not know that we are nearer to those times which were designated in the time of the revelations of Elijah?”46 Or else: “if something is revealed to a younger one, then let the first be silent.”47 This confidence was based on the principle that those closer to the End were beneficiaries of the growth of “spiritual intelligence.” As Joachim explained in his Apocalypse commentary, “the authority of the Fathers” divides the history of salvation into three periods: before the law, under the law, and under grace. But for him the third period should be called “the time under the gospel” and a fourth time must be added: “under spiritual intelligence.”48 Advance of salvational history accordingly dictates

45

Idem, Concordia, fol. 127rb: “Ita exposuerunt quidam patrum ut imperio romano . . . unde et aliqua opinando scripserunt, aliqua retractando emendaverunt, aliqua reliquerunt intacta exponenda singula in temporibus suis. Nos autem, qui in fine sumus, multa possumus colligere de fine rerum [que latebunt antiquos] dictente—ut iam meminimus in hoc opere—angelo Danielis: Pertransibunt plurimi . . .” The words in brackets, lacking in the Venetian edition, are taken from a working edition of the Concordia at my disposal made by Herbert Grundmann; very likely the omission was the product of scribal censorship. (Joachim here is coolly contradicting a tradition based on Jerome which had Nebuchadnezzar’s dream alluding to four empires, the last of which was the Roman, whereas his own reading extended into the future, advancing to the Saracens and the “last kingdom in the time of Antichrist.”) 46 Concordia, fol. 101rb: “Licet enim multa viderint sancti per speculum in enigmate, non sunt tamen ausi presumere aliquid contra illam sententia dicentes; ‘Cum autem venerit quod perfectum est, evacuabitur quod ex parte est’ . . . Verum etsi impares meritis, quis tamen nesciat viciniores nos esse illi tempori quod designatum est in tempore revelationis Helye?” (The Venetian edition has “in libro revelationis,” but I follow Herbert Grundmann’s reading.) This and the following two quotations have been introduced by Matthias Riedl, Joachim von Fiore: Denker der vollendeten Menschheit (Würzburg, 2004), pp. 287–88. 47 Concordia, fols. 84vb–85ra: “Quia dum inveniunt scriptum in apostolo: Si iuniori revelatum, tum fuerit prior taceat . . .” Joachim here is somewhat stretching for his own purpose the sense of I Cor. 14:30: “si alii revelatum fuerit sedenti . . . prior taceat.” 48 Expositio in Apocalypsim (1527; repr. Frankfurt/M, 1964), fol. 5va; I use the modern punctuation offered by Riedl, pp. 287–88: “Nec illi auctoritati patrum putetur esse contrarium, qua dictum est tempus ante legem, tempus sub lege, tempus sub gratia, quia et illud in suo genere dici necessarium fuit et istud in suo necessarium est. Nam ut teneamus utrumque, tertia quoque assignatio temporum adiungenda est, id est tempus sub littera evangelii, tempus sub spiritali intellectu, tempus manifeste

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a new hermeneutic, and the new hermeneutic requires supersession of the Fathers. My readers by now will be thinking that this paper is cast entirely in the philological mode: variations and transformations in the interpretation of a line of Scripture. While I would make no apology for that, I will conclude by showing how Joachim’s radical view of intellectual progress “made a difference” when it was used by some of his intellectual heirs to defend themselves against theological censure. My first example is that of the irrepressible Arnald of Villanova (c.1235–1311), who announced in a treatise, On the Advent of Antichrist, presented to the theological faculty of Paris in 1300 that an innovative reckoning based on a passage from Daniel (12:11–12) foretold that Antichrist would come to reign openly in 1368.49 The Parisian theologians were appalled for three reasons: Arnald’s pronouncement contravened two passages from the New Testament which warned against reckoning the exact time of the end; his computation was based on a novel hermeneutical principle; and at any rate he was a layman who had no business intruding into the realm of theological doctrine. Consequently they managed to have him arrested in contravention of his diplomatic immunity (he had been in Paris on a mission for the king of Aragon) and then pressured him into confessing “errors” they had extracted from his treatise. Furious, once he was released he energetically sought vindication and frequently cited Daniel 12:4 in his successive attempts.50 visionis Dei. Omnia tempora simul quinque, licet quintum quod erit in patria, abusive, non proprie tempus dicatur. Dicimus tamen in perhenni seculorum tempore primum itaque tempus ante legem. Secundum sub lege, tertium sub evangelio, quartum sub spiritali intellectu, quintum in manifesta visione Dei.” Among other authorities who used the triad “ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia” was Augustine; see Enchiridion cap.118, as Corpus Christianorum 46, pp. 112–13. 49 The treatise De adventu antichristi is edited by J. Perarnau i Espelt, Arxiu de textos catalans antics [henceforth: ATCA] 7/8 (1988–1989), 134–69. For a narrative of events surrounding the publication of the treatise, Matthias Kaup and Robert E. Lerner, “Gentilis of Foligno Interprets the Prophecy ‘Woe to the World,’” Traditio 56 (2001), 149–211, here 154–57, and Josep Perarnau i Espelt, “Sobre la primera crisi entorn el De adventu Antichristi d’Arnau de Vilanova,” ATCA 20 (2001), 349–402. The latter is corrected on an important detail by Michael R. McVaugh, “Arnau de Vilanova and Paris: One Embassy or Two?” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 73 (2006), 29–42. 50 Arnald’s frequent citations of Daniel 12:4 (but not all of them) have already been noted by Gian Luca Potestà, “Dall’annuncio dell’Anticristo all’attesa del pastore angelico,” ATCA 13 (1994), 287–344, here 314, with n. 104. John of Paris, who responded to Arnald’s De adventu Antichristi in his own De Antichristo of 1300, used

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Even before the cause célèbre of 1300, Arnald, well-versed in Joachim’s Concordia,51 had expressed in his earliest writings on religion the principle of the incremental progress of salvational knowledge.52 But in a letter of 1300 written to King Philip IV protesting his treatment at the hands of the Parisian theologians he introduced “Pertransibunt plurimi” to make what was probably the boldest statement about the legitimacy of theological innovation expressed until that time. Conceding that his reading of Scripture to foretell the coming of Antichrist was new, he declared that “such novelty is not inappropriate if it is in keeping with charity and faith . . . nor is it inappropriate if I expound something in another way than our Fathers expounded it.” Sounding as if he no longer lived in the Middle Ages, he insisted: “if a novelty is rationally based and useful, it is not horrible but should be embraced.”53 Arnald subsequently addressed the legitimacy of innovation according to the flow of time. In his treatise On the Bells of the Church (1301), the verse as his incipit without Arnald’s progressivist intent. See Johannes Parisiensis, De antichristo, in Expositio magni prophete Joachim in librum beati Cirilli de magnis tribulationibus (Venice, 1516), fol. 44ra. For the use of the verse by Henry of Harclay, another of Arnald’s critics, see above n. 12. 51 On Arnald’s debt to Joachim, see the important statement of Potestà, “Dall’annuncio,” p. 314, n. 105. (Potestà refers to a similarity between the opening of Arnald’s treatise De adventu Antichristi and the preface to the Concordia and points out that Arnald owned a copy of the Concordia.) Further relevant evidence is exhibited by Potestà, “L’anno dell’Anticristo: Il calcolo di Arnaldo di Villanova nella letteratura teologica e profetica del XIV secolo,” Rivista di storia del cristianesimo 4 (2007), 431–64, here 433–36. 52 Arnald of Villanova, Introductio in librum [Ioachim] de semine scripturarum, in Arnaldi de Villanova opera theologica omnia: 3, ed. Josep Perarnau (Barcelona, 2004), p. 94: “Frumenta namque misteriorum Dei, que in orreo sacri voluminis recondita sunt, sicut nec ibidem simul reposita sunt, sic nec simul revelatione distribuuntur, sed potius successive.” Idem, Allocutio super significatione nominis thetragramaton in Opera theologica omnia: 3, p. 172: “Sensus enim particulares sacrorum eloquiorum, non simul sed successive per partes temporum et durationes mundi paulatim emergunt . . . Et quanto magis illud tempus appropinquabit, tanto magis germinabunt grana doctrine sacre.” 53 Notificatio, protestatio ac requisitio ad regem Francorum, ed. J. Perarnau i Espelt, ATCA 20 (2001), 382–88, here 385–86: “Novitas ratione suffulta et utilis non est horrenda, sed pocius amplectenda . . . scire debent quod talis novitas non est inconveniens postquam caritati et fidei non repugnat, ymo, testibus sacris expositoribus, est a Spiritu Sancto; nec est inconveniens aliter nunc exponi quod exposuerunt nostri patres.” This passage is noted by Luca Bianchi, “Censure, liberté et progrès intellectuel à l’université de Paris au XIIIe siècle,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 63 (1996), 45–93, here 90. In a supplement to De adventu Antichristi responding to “the Parisian doctors” and probably written late in 1300, Arnald also cites Daniel 12:4, to uphold the legitimacy of “new exposition”: ATCA 7/8 (1988–1989), p. 160.

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he referred to the divine mandate to Daniel to “shut up the words and seal the book even to the appointed time,” and specified that “the appointed time” was when knowledge about the coming of Antichrist would be necessary—for him, the present.54 In his Response to the Objections (1304/1305), a work devoted entirely to self-exculpation, he again posited the congruence between the announcement of truth and chronology. Referring to the words “many will go forth and sententia [sic] will be multiplied,” he stated that “sentences” were not “opinions,” but truthful expositions, expressed successively rather than concurrently, according to the demands of the catholic faith. Hence it would be “insane” to say: “the doctors who came before you exposited differently, and therefore your exposition is vacuous or depraved.”55 In contrast to an Isaac of Stella or Richard of St. Victor, Arnald here is not only welcoming multiplicity but implying that as a result of the passage of time and the demands of the faith recent “sentences” are more truthful than others. But lacking in Arnald of Villanova is any appropriation of Joachim of Fiore’s principle of the collective advance of “spiritual understanding.” Although he saw truth advancing with time and urged the embrace of useful novelty, he portrayed himself as a lonely herald on a watchtower instead of belonging to a collective vanguard of the spiritually enlightened. For the full Joachite position in this regard we must turn to Petrus Johannis Olivi OFM (1248–1298), the theologically deepest Joachite after Joachim. Combining Joachim’s ideas with his own Franciscan commitments, Olivi adhered to the principle of a vanguard

54 De mysterio cymbalorum ecclesie, ed. J. Perarnau i Espelt, ATCA 7/8 (1988–1989), 7–133, here 95–96. 55 Tractatus quidam in quo respondetur obiectionibus que fiebant contra tractatum Arnaldi de adventu Antichristi, ed. J. Perarnau i Espelt, ATCA 20 (2001), 201–348, here 234: “Non dixit: Opinio, sed: Sententia, ut significaret aperte quod materia potest exponi secundum exigentiam veritatis chatolice. Constat enim quod nec omnes expositores eorum fuerint contemporanei et simul exponentes, nec sensus, quos in eis Spiritus reposuit, simul et eodem tempore fidelibus revellantur, sed successive . . . Igitur, si expositores qui precesserunt unum ex illis expresserunt et aliquis succedens alium ex eidem afferet, non solum temerarius esset sed inimicus chatolice veritatis, qui detestaretur secundum sensum, ideo quoniam esset alius a primo; nec modica foret insania dicere: Doctores qui precesserunt aliter exponunt quam tu; ergo, tua expositio nulla vel prava.” Any doubts about Arnald of Villanova’s genuine authorship of this work have been resolved by Rosario Andrea Lo Bello, “Arnaldo di Villanova dall’esegesi alla profezia,” Florensia 16/17 (2002–2003), 169–214, and Potestà “L’anno dell’Anticristo,” 432 n. 4.

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because he saw it embodied in his own day by Franciscan rigorists.56 One finds this position expressed in connection with our verse from Daniel in Olivi’s most extended consideration of the flow of history, his Lectura super Apocalypsim (1297). Here he declares that “the solar light of the wisdom of Christ is seen ever more greatly at the end of the ages” and then adduces Gregory the Great and Daniel 12:4 in support.57 Strikingly the passage from Gregory that Olivi chooses is the one from the Moralia on Job rather than the passage from the Homilies on Ezechiel employed by Bernard, Hugh of Saint-Victor, and Abelard. Evidently Olivi knew his patristics well and was able to appropriate the single quotation that was most apt.58 Well before he wrote his Lectura Super Apocalypsim, Olivi recognized that “some people accuse me of following dreams and fantastic visions like a soothsayer, and of rashly busying myself with the prediction of future events.”59 The vanguard principle implicitly answers this, for those more greatly endowed than others with “the solar light of wisdom” are no

56

For an exposition of Olivi’s progressivism, see David Burr, Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom (Philadelphia, 1993). Note Burr, pp. 187–88: “The idea of progression is inherent as well in his tendency to draw a parallel between church history and progress through the various grades of perfection or contemplation. This progressive element might be said to underline Olivi’s link with Joachim, but he surpasses even Joachim in this respect.” The earliest defense of Franciscan novelty that I know was offered by St. Bonaventure. See the passage from his Collations on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (from Opera omnia, 5, p. 492) cited by Beryl Smalley, “Ecclesiastical Attitudes to Novelty, c. 1100–c. 1250,” in eadem, Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning (London, 1981), pp. 97–115, here 99–110: “Dicit ‘ordo ficititius est, de novo institutus . . .’ Carissimi! quantumque sit ordo fictitius et novus, est tamen bonus.” 57 Passage cited by Paolo Vian, “Dalla gioia dello spirito alla prova della chiesa: 2. tertius generalis status mundi nella Lectura super Apocalipsim di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi,” in L’etá dello spirito e la fine dei tempi in Gioacchino da Fiore e nel gioachimismo medievale, ed. Antonio Crocco (San Giovanni in Fiore, 1986), pp. 165–215, here 206: “Quod autem circa finem huius seculi amplius innotescat solaris lux sapientie Christi docet expresse Gregorius . . . hinc namque per Danielem dicitur Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia . . .” 58 Olivi’s disciple, Barthélemy Sicard, was much less daring in glossing Daniel 12:4 in his commentary on the book of Daniel. See Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Cod. Plut. 8 dext. 9, fol. 58va: “Pertransibunt plurimi, id est multi et diversi percurrent hanc visionem sic occulte et mystice descripta, vel pertransibunt per varias successiones temporum, diversimode de hanc visionem explicando, et ideo multiplex erit scientia huius visionis explicativa. Non enim revelabitur clare a deo nisi usque ad tempus a deo prefinitum.” I am grateful to Sylvain Piron for providing me with his transcription from this unpublished text. 59 Olivi’s “Letter to R.,” probably dating from 1283. I follow the translation of Burr, Peaceable Kingdom, p. 65.

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soothsayers. Olivi died without having to adduce the principle against hierarchical onslaught in his own defense, but in 1325 tenets from his Lectura were subjected to a theological examination in Avignon antecedent to the formal condemnation of the entire commentary by Pope John XXII in 1326.60 Two weighty critics of the Lectura, Jacques Fournier (later to become Pope Benedict XII) and Bonagratia of Bergamo, reported that unidentified “quidam” spoke up for Olivi’s orthodoxy.61 Most likely the plural “quidam” stood for a single person, in which case he may have been Olivi’s noted ally, Ubertino da Casale.62 Certainly the “quidam” knew Olivi’s work well enough to revive his citation of Gregory and Daniel to defend his cause and support doctrinal advance: in this version it was the appointed conversion of gentiles and Jews toward the end of time that dictated the enlargement of “eternal science” and the growing “superabundance of the light of the wisdom of God and his Scriptures.”63 That the position was under-

60 At an uncertain date but probably in connection with the campaigns against Olivi’s Lectura, Augustine of Ancona OESA, a zealous opponent of Olivi’s party, dedicated questiones to John XXII meant to combat the view that St. John, the presumed author of the book of Revelation, was more inspired than any of the other Apostles, and posed for debate Gregory the Great on Ezechiel and Daniel 12:4 regarding doctrinal progress. See Questiones de sancto Johanne apostolo, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 8495, fols. 14r–16r, here 14r. (These questiones deserve more scholarly attention than they have yet received.) 61 Sylvain Piron and I independently identified a substantial part of Jacques Fournier’s evaluation of the views of Joachim and Olivi (annus presens: 1325), hitherto thought missing, in Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale, 1087, fols. 220r–275v. For a demonstration of the identification, see Piron, “Censures et condamnations de Pierre de Jean Olivi: enquête dans les marges du Vatican,” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 118 (2006), 313–73. (Sylvain Piron reminded me of Fournier’s quotation of his opponent’s reference to Daniel 12:4 in this text.) For Bonagratia of Bergamo as the author of the Allegationes in MS BnF lat. 4190, fols. 40r-49v, see Sylvain Piron, “Bonagrazia de Bergame, auteur des Allegationes sur les articles extraits par Jean XXII de la Lectura super Apocalipsim d’Olivi,” in Revirescunt chartae codices documenta textus: Miscellanea in honorem Fr. Caesaris Cenci OFM , eds. A. Cacciotti and P. Sella (Rome, 2002), pp. 1065–87. 62 Piron, “Bonagrazia,” pp. 1075–77; I am less certain than is Piron that the author is Ubertino, who may no longer have been on the scene in Avignon. 63 Jacques Fournier in Avignon 1087, fol. 241rb–va, quoting an “excusatio” in Olivi’s behalf also known by Bonagratia of Bergamo: “Cum igitur circa finem mundi expectetur ingressus ad Christum et conversio non solum plenitudinis gentium set etiam Iudeorum, non est inconveniens si viris perfectis illius temporis dentur a deo aliqua dona que non perficiunt hominem in se nec / propter se, set propter alios que ad hunc requiruntur finem [sic; recte: fidem?] amplius largiantur. De hoc sic loquitur beatus Gregorius super Ezechiel parte ii, impleta est ea quam supra diximus sentencia Daniel qui pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit sciencia. Sequitur quia quantum mundus ad extremum ducetur, tanto nobis eterne scientie aditus largius aperitur.” (The second

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stood to be theologically outrageous, however, appears in Fournier’s rebuttal: “although with the approach of the end of the world knowledge is multiplied, nevertheless it does not go beyond that which the apostles had.”64 A last example I may cite is that of another disciple of Olivi’s, the Franciscan John of Rupescissa, who languished in various prisons for over twenty years (1344 to c. 1365) because of his outspoken commitment to apostolic poverty and apocalyptic prophecy.65 His most innovative doctrinal position was his belief in the imminent coming of a literal millennium, a marvelous reign of the saints on earth to last for a thousand years.66 Rupescissa’s evidence lay in Revelation 20:1–6, a scriptural passage that had been interpreted figuratively by St. Augustine. For Augustine and countless exegetes who followed him Revelation 20:1–6 referred to the present rather than the future: the saints were already reigning with God in the Church. Moreover, Revelation’s “thousand years” were not to be understood literally but were to be read as an arbitrary round number standing for any length of time that might at God’s pleasure transpire between the Incarnation and the Judgment. Joachim and Olivi had chipped away at the Augustinian position without fully contradicting the most authoritative of Fathers, but Rupescissa took an ax. In his Liber secretorum eventuum (1349), he acknowledged Augustine’s figurative reading but said that “we are not obliged to follow the explications of all the doctors on every point.” For him, this would only be necessary if it could be proven that all the secrets of Scripture were fully revealed to Augustine and other doctors

italicized passage is taken from Gregory; a reader of c.1400 drew a hand in the margin with a finger pointing exactly at the quotation from Daniel 12:4.) Bonagratia, Allegationes super articulis tractis per dominum papam de postilla quam composuit frater Petrus Iohannis super Apocalipsim, BnF lat. 4190, fol. 49v: “Falsum est quod convertatur [orbis] per preclara et superhabunda et superamiranda lumina sapientie Dei et scripturarum suarum et quod oporteat statum illis temporis elevari et intrare . . . Nec obstat predictis quod quidam allegant ad defensionem dicti articuli, dictum beati Gregorii super Ezechielem II parte, super illo verbo Dan. XII, Pertransibunt . . .” (I use a typescript edition generously provided by Sylvain Piron.) 64 Avignon 1087, fol. 242ra: “Quamvis autem appropinquante mundi termino multiplex sit [sic] scientia, tamen non excedet illam quam apostoli habuerunt.” 65 For the most recent biographical information, André Vauchez et al., eds., Jean de Roquetaillaide: Liber ostensor quod adesse festinant tempora (Rome, 2006), pp. 1–4, and passim. 66 For the larger doctrinal context, Robert E. Lerner, “The Medieval Return to the Thousand-Year Sabbath,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, eds. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992), pp. 50–71.

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in the past so that nothing remained to be treated thereafter: “but the exceptional doctor Gregory says the opposite in his ninth homily on Ezechiel where he teaches that those who come later and are closer to the end of the ages understand the truths hidden in the holy scriptures more limpidly and clearly.”67 Although Rupescissa, writing from prison, misremembered which work of Gregory the Great he meant, he surely was alluding to Gregory’s ninth homily from the Moralia on Job.68 This had already been cited by Olivi and took Daniel’s “Pertransibunt plurimi” as its scriptural warrant. Beryl Smalley, ever quotable, once observed that although medieval teachers of the arts could write books entitled Poetria nova or Rhetorica novissima, “no theologian called his book The New Theology.”69 True enough. Yet Joachim of Fiore and his heirs did innovate greatly, and they did so in part by using Daniel 12:4 as an authority to undermine authority.

67 Johannes de Rupescissa: Liber Secretorum Eventuum, eds. Robert E. Lerner and C. Morerod-Fattebert (Fribourg, 1994), p. 181: “Nec in omnibus tenemur sequi expositiones omnium doctorum, quas posuerunt opinando potius quam aliquid contra veritatem textus temere asserendo, nisi ex sacro textu vel ex determinatione Ecclesie probaretur quod Augustino et ceteris doctoribus olim preteritis fuerunt omnia Scripturarum et prophetiarum archana funditus revelata, ita quod posteris non deberet aliquid ulterius revelari. Cuius oppositum asserit eximius doctor Gregorius, omelia nona super Ezechielem, ubi docet posteriores et magis propinquos fini seculi limpidius et clarius intelligere Scripturarum sacrarum veritates occultas.” 68 A passage from Rupescissa’s newly discovered and still unpublished Sexdequiloquium written in 1352–53 reveals his attachment to quoting Gregory the Great in support of his own progressive theology; I believe too that it shows he knew both pronouncements by Gregory (one from the Homilies on Ezechiel, the other from the Moralia on Job) discussed above. The Sexdequiloquium is currently being edited by a team under the direction of Sylvain Piron; the passage in question is from 9.3.7: “Et nota quod fulgentissimus doctor Gregorius super Ezechielem omelia nona [sic] totis viribus nititur probare quod generalis ecclesie sit versus finem seculi theoriis spiritualibus celestium veritatum sollempniter ornanda et doctores illius temporis divinis veritatibus perlustrandi, allegans inter alias raciones quas ponit quod ecclesia continue de novo a spiritu usque ad finem seculi illustrari non dessat et doctores tunc temporis ex hoc divinas veritates clarius intelligent.” 69 Smalley, “Ecclesiastical Attitudes to Novelty,” p. 110.

HOW CAN WE KNOW WHO HOLDS LEGITIMATE POWER? DANTE ON THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG USES OF KNOWLEDGE Joseph Canning The question of the right and the wrong uses of knowledge lay at the core of Dante’s approach to politics in his tract, Monarchia. What knowledge was relevant for speculation about politics? What forms of argument were admissible for sustaining arguments about political matters? In his attempt to demonstrate that the rule of the universal Roman emperor was necessary for the well-being of humanity, a rule independent of the papacy, Dante confronted a key question in late medieval political thought: Did revelation in the form of Scripture provide sources relevant to political argument? Could propositions concerning the government of human society and the exercise of power within it be proved or disproved by reference to Biblical texts? Was there any sense in which the Old and New Testaments were relevant outside moral and theological matters? If they were not, clearly a whole, venerable structure of political speculation would collapse. Dante’s overall position on which kinds of knowledge were relevant to politics, and the right and wrong uses of such knowledge, can be briefly summed up. The correct path was a normative approach consisting of logical deduction from first principles according to the rules of scholastic dialectic. The conclusions arrived at by this process were then confirmed empirically by reference to experience which included appeal to historical knowledge—past experience. The Roman emperor acted as guide to humanity in this world by the lights of philosophy.1 The incorrect path was that of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Dante rejected the claims of the papacy to jurisdictional superiority

1 Dante had foreshadowed this view in Convivio, 4.6. See the discussion in Peter Armour, Dante’s Griffin and the History of the World. A Study of the Earthly Paradise (Purgatorio, Cantos XXIX–XXXIII) (Oxford, 1989), pp. 124–25. See also Bruno Nardi, Dal “Convivio” alla “Commedia”: sei saggi danteschi, Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi studi storici 18 (1960; repr. Rome, 1992), p. 91, and John Took, “‘Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram’: Justice and the Just Ruler in Dante,” in Dante and Governance, ed. John Woodhouse (Oxford, 1997), p. 144.

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over the emperor on the grounds that the popes were arguing illogically from texts which were not relevant to politics and the exercise of power in this world. In short, Dante accepted that Scripture could validly be interpreted allegorically, but denied that papal deductions from such allegories could provide valid proofs for papal jurisdictional claims. The pope’s role was to interpret Scripture as mankind’s guide for the next life, not its ruler in this one: Man needed a double guide according to his double end: that is, the supreme Pontiff who, following Revelation, would lead the human race through to eternal life, and the Emperor who, following the writings of philosophy, would lead the human race to its temporal happiness.2

Dante’s diminishing of the role of Scripture in political argument did not mean that he rejected God’s role in human affairs—quite the reverse. He held that God stood behind nature but could only be known by his effects, as shown in Dante’s use of the seal and wax image: For nature is in the mind of the first mover, who is God, and then in the heavens, as in an instrument by means of which the likeness of eternal goodness is spread out into the fluidity of matter . . . The will of God is indeed invisible in itself and the invisible things of God “are perceived and understood through things which have been made.” For while the seal is hidden, the wax bearing the impression of it (although the seal remains hidden), reveals clear knowledge of it. Nor is it strange, if the divine will must be sought through signs, since even that of humans, outside the person willing, is discerned only through signs.3

2 “Opus fuit homini duplici directivo secundum duplicem finem: scilicet summo Pontifice, qui secundum revelata humanum genus perduceret ad vitam eternam, et Imperatore, qui secundum phylosphica documenta genus humanum ad temporalem felicitatem dirigeret” (Mon., 3.16,10, p. 146)—all references are to the Latin text of Monarchia in Dante, Monarchia, ed. and trans. Prue Shaw, Cambridge Medieval Classics 4 (Cambridge, 1995)—the English translations are my own. 3 “Est enim natura in mente primi motoris, qui Deus est; deinde in celo, tanquam in organo quo mediante similitudo bonitatis ecterne in fluitantem materiam explicatur . . . Voluntas quidem Dei per se invisibilis est; et invisibilia Dei “per ea que facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur”; nam, occulto existente sigillo, cera impressa de illo quamvis occulto tradit notitiam manifestam. Nec mirum si divina voluntas per signa querenda est, cum etiam humana extra volentem non aliter quam per signa cernatur” (Mon., 2.2.2–8, pp. 48 and 51). See the discussion in Gennaro Sasso, Dante, l’imperatore e Aristotele, Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo. Nuovi studi storici 62 (Rome, 2002), p. 198.

dante on the right and the wrong uses of knowledge 31 The electors’ choice of the emperor was an expression of the divine will (they were “proclaimers of divine providence”),4 but this did not justify the popes in using illegitimate interpretations of Scripture to support their claims to control the emperor. The correct path The first fifteen of the sixteen chapters of Book I of Monarchia consisted of an attempt to demonstrate the proposition that the rule of one man was necessary for universal peace, the means for achieving the happiness and well-being of humanity.5 A range of deductive arguments from first principles was employed, including ones for unity under one leader. One person must direct mankind to its one goal.6 All parts of the human race were ordered to the ruler of the whole.7 The microcosm of this world was related to the macrocosm, so that there should be one ruler on earth just as God ruled the universe.8 Humanity most resembled God when it was under one ruler.9 Central to Dante’s approach was his understanding of man as an intellectual being: “It is clear therefore that the ultimate potentiality of humanity itself is the intellectual potentiality or faculty.”10 His contention was that the full intellectual capacity of the human race, the realisation of the possible intellect of humanity, in thought and action could only be achieved under the rule of one monarch.11 Such argument was purely theoretical and was at a philosophical level. But did it have any relation to the world of fact? For Dante, it was crucial that the findings of reason were confirmed by the

4

“Denunciatores divine providentie” (Mon., 3.16.13, p. 148). Mon., 1.4.5–6, p. 12. 6 Mon., 1.5, pp. 12–14. 7 Mon., 1.6, p. 16. 8 Mon., 1.7, pp. 16–18. 9 Mon., 1.8, p. 18. 10 “Patet igitur quod ultimum de potentia ipsius humanitatis est potentia sive virtus intellectiva” (Mon., 1.3.7, p. 8). 11 Mon., 1.3.4–10, pp. 8–10; Mon., 4.1.1, p. 10; Mon., 1.5.9, p. 14. For medieval discussions of the Aristotelian notion of the possible or potential intellect see, for instance, Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinborg, and Eleonore Stump, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, 1100–1600 (Cambridge, 1982), especially pp. 595–601 and pp. 613–15. For a discussion of Dante’s usage of the concept, see for instance, Dante’s Monarchia, trans., with an introduction and commentary, by Richard Kay, Studies and Texts 131 (Toronto, 1998), pp. 18–21. 5

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empirical test of experience. He considered that the correctness of his theoretical arguments was even more firmly proved by the witness of past experience—the lessons of history. The switch to this approach came in the final chapter of Book I. Having given such exhaustive treatment to his deductive arguments from first principles he appealed to history, described as “memorable experience” (experientia memorabilis) for confirmation. The historical fact he alluded to was the peaceful condition of the Roman empire at the time of Christ’s birth—the perfect monarchy.12 This providential view of history was of course a traditional one within medieval historiography (but not one which the mature Augustine accepted). That Dante expressed this view was unremarkable. What was significant was the nature of Dante’s appeal to Scripture at this point. Here and elsewhere Dante treated Scripture as a valid source for historical proofs, as providing information relevant to his empirical arguments. In terms of politics, Scripture for him performed the role of memorable sacred history. Scripture did not provide those philosophical principles from which political truths could be deduced. This last chapter of Book I served as a prologue to Book II, where he assembled a mass of empirical justifications for the Romans’ possession of universal empire, drawing on Roman history, notably from the works of Latin poets and historians, and on Scripture as sacred history. Dante’s most audacious argument was in the final chapter of Book II. He treated the atonement as a central event in human history but he understood it in such a way that it justified the Roman Empire. He produced the extraordinary argument that for the atonement to be valid, Christ had to be condemned and punished by a judge appointed by legitimate, universal authority, namely the Emperor Tiberius: And if the Roman Empire was not by right, the sin of Adam was not punished in Christ. This however is false . . . If therefore Christ had not suffered under a judge with ordinary jurisdiction, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And he could not have been a judge with ordinary jurisdiction, unless he had jurisdiction over the whole human race, since the whole human race was punished in the flesh of Christ 12 “Rationibus omnibus supra positis experientia memorabilis attestatur: status videlicet illius mortalium quem Dei Filius, in salutem hominis hominem assumpturus, vel expectavit vel cum voluit ipse disposuit. Nam si a lapsu primorum parentum, qui diverticulum fuit totius nostre deviationis, dispositiones hominum et tempora recolamus, non inveniemus nisi sub divo Augusto monarcha, existente Monarchia perfecta, mundum undique fuisse quietum” (Mon., 1.16.1, p. 42).

dante on the right and the wrong uses of knowledge 33 who bore our sorrows, as the Prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose vicar Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole human race, unless the Roman Empire had been by right.13

This was a theologically idiosyncratic view to say the least: one which went against theological orthodoxy and was rapidly condemned by his opponents, as for instance Guido Vernani showed.14 Dante of course considered that he had thereby produced an irrefutable argument in the emperor’s favour but in this he seemed to have been alone. In this use of the Bible as sacred history he was going out on a limb far outside the traditional providential view.15 The wrong path Dante set out to demonstrate that the papacy’s arguments, whereby it claimed that the emperor derived his temporal power from the pope, were wrongly founded. He maintained that papal arguments were faulty because they were based on texts irrelevant to politics and government, that is Scriptural passages with purely spiritual or emotional significance (rather than historical), and because they were elaborated by an unsuitable method, that of allegorical interpretation suited to emotional or spiritual persuasion, rather than the dialectical approach applicable to politics.16 In rejecting the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, Dante was following an established tradition in medieval exegesis and one which went back at least to Augustine who had maintained that allegory had

13 “Et si romanum Imperium de iure non fuit, peccatum Ade in Cristo non fuit punitum; hoc autem est falsum . . . Si ergo sub ordinario iudice Cristus passus non fuisset, illa pena punitio non fuisset. Et iudex ordinarius esse non poterat nisi supra totum humanum genus iurisdictionem habens, cum totum humanum genus in carne illa Cristi portantis dolores nostros, ut ait Propheta, puniretur. Et supra totum humanum genus Tyberius Cesar, cuius vicarius erat Pilatus, iurisdictionem non habuisset, nisi romanum Imperium de iure fuisset” (Mon., 2.11.1–5, pp. 94–96). 14 See Guido Vernani, De reprobatione Monarchie composite a Dante Alighiero Florentino (critical texts in Thomas Kaeppeli (ed.), Der Dantegegner Guido Vernani, OP, von Rimini, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 28 (1937–38), pp. 107–46; and Nevio Matteini, Il più antico oppositore politico de Dante, Guido Vernani da Rimini, Il pensiero medioevale 1:6 (Padua, 1958)). 15 See for instance Jean Rivière, “La dogme de la rédemption. Etudes critiques et documents,” in Bibliothèque de la Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 5 (Louvain, 1931), pp. 350–51. 16 See Mon., 3.4, pp. 106–112.

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only emotional and persuasive power and could not prove any theological point, for which a literal reading of Scripture was required.17 Amongst Dante’s contemporaries, John of Paris was notable for reiterating this point of view in his tract, De regia potestate et papali.18 Dante addressed the papal arguments which had the greatest prominence in his day. From the times of Gregory VII and Innocent III, the papacy had used the sun-moon allegory to illustrate the emperor’s subordination to the pope: the lesser light, the moon (representing the emperor) shone only by the reflection from the greater light, the sun (representing the pope). Dante sought to show logical inconsistencies in this interpretation—how could the two lights have this significance if they were created earlier in the days of creation than man, since they were being understood to represent the emperor and the pope? He did admittedly score an own-goal by arguing that the moon did have some light of its own—a misunderstanding of the causes of the faint light from the moon observable during a lunar eclipse.19 Dante did not however employ the imagery which he used in Purgatorio where he referred to the “two suns” of papal and imperial power—an image better suited to his argument.20 He had to consider the papal version of the two-swords theory, whereby one was understood to represent spiritual power and the other secular, with the latter being derived from the former and exercised at the command of the pope. Dante favoured a literalist interpretation of the text of Luke, “Here are two swords” (Luke 22:38) and sought to demonstrate that the papal argument was based on a false allegorical interpretation.21 He maintained, following a tradition of biblical exegesis, that any figurative interpretation of the text would apply to the Pauline notion of the sword of the spirit: But if those words of Christ and Peter are to be understood figuratively, they are not to be made to mean what those people say but to relate to

17

The literal interpretation of Scripture was also identified with the historical. ch.18—see critical edition in Fritz Bleienstein, ed., Johannes Quidort von Paris über königliche und päpstliche Gewalt (De regia potestate et papali), Textkritische Edition mit deutscher Übersetzung (Stuttgart, 1969), pp. 167–68. 19 For Dante’s treatment of the sun-moon allegory see Mon., 3.4, pp. 106–12. 20 Purgatorio, xvi, 107. See the discussion in E.H. Kantorowicz, “Dante’s ‘Two Suns’ ” in his Selected Studies (Locust Valley, N.Y., 1965), pp. 325–38; Anthony K. Cassell, “ ‘Luna est ecclesia’: Dante and the ‘Two Great Lights,’” Dante Studies, 119 (2001), 1–26. 21 Mon., 3.9, pp. 122–26. 18

dante on the right and the wrong uses of knowledge 35 that sword of which Matthew thus writes, “Do not therefore think that I came to send peace to earth; I did not come to send peace but the sword.”22

Peter, he considered, had a very straightforward understanding of Christ’s words. In his discussion of the gifts of the Magi in Mt 2:1–13, however, there may have appeared some softening of Dante’s position on the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He accepted both the literal understanding of the gifts of frankincense and gold and also the allegorical interpretation whereby these signified that Christ was lord of temporal and spiritual things. But he explicitly rejected the pro-papal inference from this allegory that Christ’s vicar also thereby had authority over both. He argued that this approach used a false syllogism: “God is the lord of spiritual and temporal things; the supreme Pontiff is God’s vicar; therefore he is lord of spiritual and temporal things.”23 The fault in the argument according to Dante was that the term “God” was not the same as “God’s vicar.” St Peter’s successors did not have divine authority: the allegorical interpretation could not apply to the powers of the pope. Dante also considered the fundamental proof-text of the papal position, Mt 16:19—“Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.” Gregory VII, and after him Innocent III, interpreted the word, “whatever,” as justifying an extremely wide-ranging application of papal power. Dante sought to show logical flaws in the papal argument by showing that “whatever” could not mean, literally, “whatever”: And thus the universal sign which is contained in “whatever” is limited in its applicability by the office of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. If it is understood this way, this proposition is true, but not so absolutely, as is clear.24

22 “Quod si verba illa Cristi et Petri typice sunt accipienda, non ad hoc quod dicunt isti trahenda sunt, sed referenda sunt ad sensum illius gladii de quo scribit Matheus sic: ‘Nolite ergo arbitrari quia veni mictere pacem in terram: non veni pacem mictere, sed gladium’ ” (Mon., 3.9.18, p. 126). 23 “Deus est dominus spiritualium et temporalium; summus Pontifex est vicarius Dei; ergo est dominus spiritualium et temporalium” (Mon., 3.7.2, p. 116). 24 “Et sic signum universale quod includitur in “quodcunque” contrahitur in sua distributione ab offitio clavium regni celorum: et sic assumendo, vera est illa propositio; absolute vero non, ut patet” (Mon., 3.8.10, p. 120).

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The office of the keys did not contain the power to bind or loose the laws of the Empire. He had to address the Donation of Constantine because of the use which was made of it by his pro-papal opponents. He attempted to reveal logical faults in their position and also employed a well-known Roman law argument to show that the Donation was legally invalid. He maintained that Constantine was neither in a position to give the Donation to the church, nor the church in one to receive it. The Emperor would thereby have been alienating the Empire, which would have gone against the duties of his office; the church would have been infringing the injunction of Christ that it should not have worldly possessions: But the church was entirely unsuited to receiving temporal possessions through an express prohibitive command, as we have thus in Matthew: “Do not possess gold or silver, nor copper coins in your money-belts, nor wallet for your journey.”25

Any imperial gifts to the church must not diminish imperial ownership over them and would place the church in the position merely of their administrator not their possessor, a role especially for the good of the poor. All the above topics were to be expected in a tract by an author attacking the papal interpretation of the relationship between spiritual and temporal power. There was, however, another argument produced by Dante and which attacked the core of the hierocratic position in an ingenious fashion. Central to the hierocratic interpretation was a reductio ad unum—an argument from unity. All power must ultimately be derived from one source—on earth, the pope (who derived his power from God). Dante argued that the pope and the emperor, as individual men, shared a common humanity. But the offices of pope and of emperor were essentially accidental attributes of both of them. He accused the papacy of making the logical error of basing its reductio ad unum on these accidental qualities (an argument per accidens). A true reductio ad unum in the cases of emperor and pope would apply to their common nature as human beings—the relationship of

25

“Sed Ecclesia omnino indisposita erat ad temporalia recipienda per preceptum prohibitivum expressum, ut habemus per Matheum sic: ‘Nolite possidere aurum, neque argentum, necque pecuniam in zonis vestris, non peram in via’” (Mon., 3.10.14, p. 130).

dante on the right and the wrong uses of knowledge 37 imperial to papal office would not be at issue. But if their offices were considered, then this reduction would be to a principle of authority outside themselves (such as God) to which papal and imperial authority were relative.26 Dante, as a believing Christian, accepted the intrinsic superiority of the spiritual over the temporal but in such a way that the authority of the emperor in the earthly paradise of this life was not diminished by that of the pope, the guide towards the heavenly paradise of the next life. The emperor retained his autonomy: both powers existed in parallel. Dante held, however, that the power of the emperor would be increased by co-operation with the spiritual grace bestowed by the pope; that temporal power would be made more effective thereby. This is made clear in Monarchia, 3.4.18–20: As regards its existence, in no way does the moon depend on the sun . . . But as regards its better and more effective operation, it does receive something from the sun, that is abundance of light, and having received this, it operates more effectively. Thus therefore I say that temporal rulership does not receive its existence from the spiritual, nor its power which is its authority, nor even its operation as such; but it well receives from it that by which it may operate more effectively through the light of grace which in heaven and on earth the blessing of the supreme Pontiff infuses into it.27

This argument was reiterated in the famous final paragraph of the whole text where Dante reviewed his achievement in having answered the three questions he set himself at the beginning of his tract: whether the office of emperor was necessary for the well-being of the world; whether the Roman people had obtained that empire by right; and whether the authority of the emperor depended immediately from God or from another. He said, The truth of this last question is not to be understood so strictly that the Roman Prince is not in some way subordinate to the Roman Pontiff,

26 Mon., 3.12, pp. 132–36. For a discussion of Dante’s argument see Giovanni Di Giannatale, “Papa e imperatore in “Monarchia III, 12,” L’Alighieri, 22 (1981), 46–60. 27 “Quantum est ad esse, nullo modo luna dependet a sole . . . Sed quantum ad melius et virtuosius operandum, recipit aliquid a sole, quia lucem habundantem: qua recepta, virtuosius operatur. Sic ergo dico quod regimen temporale non recipit esse a spirituali, nec virtutem que est eius auctoritas, nec etiam operationem simpliciter; sed bene ab eo recipit ut virtuosius operetur per lucem gratie quam in celo et in terra benedictio summi Pontificis infundit illi” (p. 112). See Sabrina Ferrara, “Dante, Cino, il sole e la luna,” L’Alighieri, n.s. 25 (2002), 27–47.

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joseph canning since this mortal happiness is in some way ordered to immortal happiness. Let Caesar therefore show that reverence to Peter which a firstborn son should show to his father, so that illuminated by the light of paternal grace he may more effectively light up the orb of the world, over which he has been placed by Him, who is the governor or all things spiritual and temporal.28

What we find in Dante is a version of the same argument which John of Paris had employed and which was entirely destructive of the hierocratic position.29 The hierocratic argument assumed that the universe was hierarchically ordered and that what was inferior was derived from what was superior. The temporal power was inferior to the spiritual and must therefore derive its power from it. The superior could in turn revoke that delegated power of the inferior. Dante, like John of Paris, pointed out that just because the pope was the spiritual superior of the emperor, it did not follow that the temporal power of the emperor was derived from the pope. Temporal and spiritual power were different in kind although spiritual power had greater dignity absolutely. For Dante, the ultimate source of imperial authority was God but not through the agency of the church but rather through the choice of the princely electors. God stood behind nature: he was the force driving the macrocosm which the microcosm of this world, this cockpit or threshing-floor, reflected. As he said, “This is the target at which the protector of the world, who is called the Roman Prince, should aim, that there should be freedom with peace in this threshingfloor of mortals.”30 Dante also had to confront juristic arguments to some extent because of the way in which the papacy elaborated its claims in terms of canon law. As we have seen in the case of the Donation of Constantine, he showed some knowledge of juristic argument but there was no question of a detailed refutation of canonist pro-papal positions. Dante sought to destroy canonists’ arguments on the grounds of the method 28 “Que quidem veritas ultime questionis non sic stricte recipienda est, ut romanus Princeps in aliquo romano Pontifici non subiaceat, cum mortalis ista felicitas quodammodo ad inmortalem felicitatem ordinetur. Illa igitur reverentia Cesar utatur ad Petrum qua primogenitus filius debet uti ad patrem: ut luce paterne gratie illustratus virtuosius orbem terre irradiet, cui ab Illo solo prefectus est, qui est omnium spiritualium et temporalium gubernator” (Mon., 3.16.17–18, p. 148). 29 See John of Paris, De regali potestate et papali, 5, ed. Bleienstein, pp. 88–89. 30 “Hoc est illud signum ad quod maxime debet intendere curator orbis, qui dicitur romanus Princeps, ut scilicet in areola ista mortalium libere cum pace vivatur” (Mon. 3.16.11, p. 146). See also Paradiso. xxii, 151.

dante on the right and the wrong uses of knowledge 39 they employed. To do so, Dante followed the usual criticism which the theologians and philosophers levelled against the jurists, by accusing them of using a narrative method rather than a dialectical one, which was that apposite to political questions: the jurists argued in an entirely circular way in terms of legal texts. For instance, the popes made claims in decretals and the canonists argued exclusively in terms of these decretals rather than normatively from first principles and empirically from experience. Dante was not seeking to denigrate papal decretals as such (indeed he said he venerated them) but to castigate improper conclusions drawn from them.31 What is striking about Dante’s approach is that he sought to disprove papal positions on the grounds that the arguments employed were illogical or inapposite. It was a thoroughly intellectual approach suited to his understanding of man as an intellectual being. His argument in favour of one emperor for humanity derived from his notion of the shared intellectual capability of humanity. The governmental claims of the papacy, because they were illogical and undermined the correct order for ruling this world, were illegitimate. Dante indeed recognised that there existed a multiplicity of rulers and governments but they should submit to the overall guidance of the emperor; if they did not, as he recognised was the case, the correct order would be undermined and peace destroyed. Lesser rulers could deal with regulation through laws they made suited to local conditions; the emperor’s role was to lay down general guidelines—a relationship like that between the theoretical and the practical intellects.32 For, Dante relevant knowledge, correctly interpreted, demonstrated the legitimacy of the empire, a legitimacy which historical experience confirmed.

31 32

See, for instance, Mon., 3.3.9, p. 104. See Mon., 1.14, pp. 36–38.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORIGINS: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY AND ORDERING MONASTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES Gert Melville In his important essay on historical legitimization, Kaspar Elm raises a number of very fundamental questions on the use of historical arguments in the sphere of medieval religious orders: “Which function does historical legitimization have in the formation, maintenance, and change of the system of religious orders? How much did historical arguments help new orders and congregations to find their place and to exercise their specific function in the already existing system of regulated communities? Were historical arguments able to provide stability for orders and congregations who saw their existence threatened due to the loss of their original function or to external or internal pressures, and to prevent their final decline? . . . What significance did their respective origins have for the consolidation of certain groups, and to what extent were these origins suitable to facilitate the integration of these groups into the system of Church and orders? What were they able to contribute to the differentiation between communities featuring identical goals or similar forms of organization? And how much did they facilitate the union and association of such communities?”1 These are central questions about knowledge and its use, since one can only use one’s origins as a meaningful argument, if one has knowledge of them. This may sound trivial, but this very realization reveals a serious and complex problem. On the one hand, there should be no doubt as to the great usefulness that historical arguments have had for monasteries and religious orders in the Middle Ages, since they continually used such arguments. This conclusion, set against the background of a culture determined by tradition, which seems to characterize the medieval period in Europe at

1

Kaspar Elm, “Die Bedeutung historischer Legitimation für Entstehung, Funktion und Bestand des mittelalterlichen Ordenswesens,” in Herkunft und Ursprung: Historische und mythische Formen der Legitimation, ed. Peter Wunderli (Sigmaringen, 1994), pp. 71–90, at 73.

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first glance (at second glance, this might not seem so certain anymore), may also not come as too big of a surprise. As we know, medieval institutions of ecclesiastical as well as of secular government strove, on principle, to grasp, record, and spread the knowledge of their historical continuity2—be it their endeavors to continue the Liber pontificalis throughout all centuries in order to prove the uninterrupted line of succession begun with Peter,3 be it the recording of dynastic continuity extending from Brutus to the late medieval kings of England by means of chronicles,4 or be it the attempt to trace the pattern of erudition from Athens via Rome to Paris and Oxford by following the course of the translationes,5 to name just a few examples. On the other hand, there is another aspect that proves considerably more difficult to grasp at the first attempt, and this is the fact that references to history has to fulfill functions within the vita religiosa that differ remarkably. Quite pragmatically, they could serve as—as we have already suggested above—means of legitimization, consolidation, self-assertion, establishment of one’s own identity, integration, or differentiation. Faced with such a broad range of functions, we must assume many very different points of orientation and forms had to be generated for this reference to the past and to the origins. In the process, however, the limits to this probably became clear quite soon, since the past and the origins were by no means always accessible whenever they were needed, what is more, they were often completely obscured. Those forces that destroyed continuity often played a considerably more dominant role in the course of time, in the Middle Ages, which were not really that static, than the stabilizing forces. Added to this, the demands as to the scope of continuities far exceeded the measure of continuity that actual historical structures were actually able to provide. “Reference to the past” then, could only mean—that is, if once was not willing to resign and renounce the argumentative

2 See Cécile Caby, “La mémoire des origines dans les institutions médiévales: bilan d’un séminaire collectif,” in Écrire son histoire: les communautés régulières face à leur passé: actes du 5 Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.R., Saint-Étienne, 6–8 novembre 2002, Travaux et recherches 18 (Saint-Étienne 2006), pp. 13–20. 3 See Ottorino Bertolini, “Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’,” in La storiografia altomedioevale, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 17 (Spoleto, 1970), pp. 387–456. 4 See Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England 2: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century, (London, 1982), passim. 5 See Vincenzo Cilento, “Il mito medievale della ‚Translatio studii’,” Filologia e letteratura 12 (1966), 1–15.

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value of history completely: “fictitious construction of a past”.6 The innumerable instances of historical forgery in the Middle Ages—one need only think of the so-called Privilegium maius as probably one of the most eccentric instances7—are such an obvious case in point that no further explanation is needed. For the questions about knowledge and its use that we originally raised, though, some remarkable consequences result from this.— One common definition (Oxford English Dictionary) is the following: “Knowledge is gained either by experience, learning and perception, or through association and reasoning”. And one may add: “Knowledge is characterized subjectively by certainty, and objectively by truth”.— But what, then, can we consider subjectively “certain”, or objectively “true”, if historical knowledge is based on (fictitious) construction? There is only one answer to this question: historical knowledge is “certain” and “true” if its “certainty” and “truthfulness” seem plausible, if it convincingly presents itself as a result of experience, learning and perception that does not run counter to reasoning. The point, though, of this definition lies in an implicit circular argument: it is precisely that which is claimed to be true through fictitious construction that appears “certain” and “true” and not contradictory to experience and perception, since it is though this very process of construction alone that history reveals a meaning to those who seek it.8 Therefore, “knowledge” is limited to “information furnished with meaning”. Which is not to say that this is not much! Usually, a meaning first had to be imparted through great intellectual efforts; knowledge had to be produced deliberately and purposefully.9 6 See also Gert Melville, “Kompilation, Fiktion und Diskurs. Aspekte zur heuristischen Methode der mittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreiber,” in Historische Methode, eds. Christian Meier and Jörn Rüsen, Beiträge zur Historik 5 (Munich, 1988), pp. 133–53. 7 See also Eva Schlotheuber, “Das Privilegium maius—eine habsburgische Fälschung im Ringen um Rang und Einfluss,” in Die Geburt Österreichs: 850 Jahre Privilegium minus, eds. Peter Schmid and Heinrich Wanderwitz (Regensburg, 2007), pp. 143–65. 8 More fully treated in: Gert Melville, “Durch Fiktionen von der Wirklichkeit zur Wahrheit. Zum mittelalterlichen Umgang mit Widersprüchen zwischen Empirie und kultureller Axiomatik,” in Fiktion und Fiktionalität in den Literaturen des Mittelalters: Jan-Dirk Müller zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Ursula Peters and Rainer Warning (Munich, 2009), pp. 83–104. 9 This also applies to symbolic structures: Gert Melville, “Construction and deconstruction of religious symbols in the Middle Ages,” in Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities. The British Isles in Context, eds. Anne Müller and Karen Stöber, Vita regularis 40 (Münster, 2009), pp. 3–19.

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In the following study, I will attempt to sketch, in a comparative way, the most significant and remarkably different forms in which historical knowledge was produced and used in the monastic world of the Middle Ages.10 Given the necessarily limited space of this presentation, we must content ourselves with selected examples of individual work complexes, which will, nevertheless, enable us to set up a highly informative typology. Around the year 1272, Girardus de Arvernia, a cleric from the diocese of Clermont-Ferrand, wrote a universal chronicle bearing the title Abbreviatio historie figuralis at the request of Ivo I, abbot of Cluny.11 Girardus had close personal connections to leading Cluniacs and, according to his own attestations, he was filled with worry about the fate of this order, which, at that time, was going through a rather tumultuous stage of institutional reorientation accompanied by crises of reputation. The universal chronicle was oriented towards Cluny to a remarkable degree: it integrated the monastery and its congregation into salvific history in such a way as to make them appear as the constitutive elements of this history. In the prologue, Girardus already characterized Cluny as a place, where, unsurpassed, tranquility of meditation, power of discipline, love of obedience, orderliness of custom, etc. prevailed. He then concluded his work by advocating the Cluniacs’ claim to an outstanding position: “. . . among the entire multitude of religious orders that adorn the Bride of Christ, the Lord accepts the gift of service from the hand of the Cluniac order the most gladly, as it is a humbler order than the others”.12

10 Gert Melville, “Geltungsgeschichten am Tor zur Ewigkeit. Zu Konstruktionen von Vergangenheit und Zukunft im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum,” in Geltungsgeschichten: über die Stabilisierung und Legitimierung institutioneller Ordnungen, eds. Id. and Hans Vorländer (Cologne, 2002), pp. 75–108. 11 See also Gert Melville, “Geschichte in graphischer Gestalt. Untersuchungen zu einem spätmittelalterlichen Darstellungsprinzip,” in Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, ed. Hans Patze, Vorträge und Forschungen 31 (Sigmaringen, 1987), pp. 57–154, at p. 85ff; Id., “Die ‚Exhortatiunculae’ des Girardus de Arvernia an die Cluniazenser. Bilanz im Alltag einer Reformierungsphase,” in Ecclesia et regnum: Beiträge zur Geschichte von Kirche, Recht und Staat im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Franz-Josef Schmale zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, eds. Dieter Berg and Hans-Werner Goetz (Bochum, 1989), pp. 203–234. 12 Martin Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 21 (Paris, 1855), p. 213.

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This suggestion of a leading role, however, he sought to prove with concrete examples by adding to the common pattern found in salvific history of the “Six Ages of the World”, or, that is, by changing it to a series of seven Ages, the last of which—being the epoch immediately preceding the Eschaton—he attributed to the abbots of Cluny. Thus, he not only distanced himself from all traditional schemata of periodization, but he also succeeded in giving this idiosyncratic new order of things a particularly impressive visual appearance: his entire historical work is permeated by a web of lines and circles, which, for each Age of the World respectively, have as point of orientation certain main lines of succession. The first two, for instance, have the chain of patriarchs as their point of orientation; the third one follows the chain of judges, and so forth. In the depiction of the Sixth Age, one can see the succession of popes, with its beginning in Jesus Christ, on the left hand side, and that of the emperors on the right—each of them with their respective picture set inside a circle. In these details, he did not stray from the more common modes of depiction that had originally only aimed to give biblical matter a didactic quality, but that had indeed proved themselves to be equally well-suited to visualize the dual relationship between the two highest powers in this last Age of the World.13 Girardus then broke with these conventions radically: as of the founding date of Cluny, in the year 911, he abruptly discontinued the parallel listing of popes and emperors and attached the line of Cluniac abbots instead, thus placing their line in a position that would determine all further events. From the mention of Berno, the first abbot, onward, the course of the text is divided into sections whose major themes are determined by the abbacies that follow, and that provide the opportunity to fill in the deeds of the abbots, as well as events occurring in the order of Cluny itself and in the world at large. In doing so, the author remained faithful to the common structural pattern of the so-called “Series gestorum”, which had once been established as a prototypical form of institutional historiography by the “Liber Pontificalis”.14 This principle consisted in always attributing the deeds of those holding a leading office (i.e. the Pope, a bishop, or—as

13 For a precise description see, Melville, “Geschichte in graphischer Gestalt,” p. 85ff., and illustrations, pp. 132–35. 14 See also Gert Melville, “ ‘. . . de gestis sive statutis Romanorum pontificum . . .’‚ Rechtssätze in Papstgeschichtswerken,” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 9 (1971), 377– 400.

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in our example—the abbot of Cluny) to never changing categories of action (e.g. legislative deeds, consecrations, construction work, etc.), which led to the creation of texts that featured thematic repetition despite different concrete realizations, and to the demonstration of uniformity with regards to the activities of all office-holders. In addition to this mode of depiction, one also finds colored bands drawn around each abbacy that features vignettes of the respective emperor, pope and king of France of that time presented within circles—or, in case one of these personages already ruled under the previous abbot, just the comment idem. The optical impression thus given is one of a succession of centers that are, as it were, orbited by satellite ‘planets’. Thanks to its design, it was not difficult for contemporaries consulting the history book to realize what its author was aiming for: first, he sought to demonstrate the long-lasting continuity of the Cluniac affiliation’s institutional structure, this continuity having been initiated by Berno, the first abbot, and continued without interruption throughout the abbacies of his successors up to his own day.15 Given the collective’s monarchical structure, the abbots of Cluny had, over time, always been in charge of securing and increasing the validity of those values that defined the order’s identity. And then, as a second goal, the author wished to illustrate the Cluny collective’s unsurpassable rank within the larger global structure of worldly powers and institutions by pointing out the (supposed) fact that the beginning of Cluny had even marked the dawn of a new— and, what is more, the last—era in salvific history, an era in which the emperors, popes and kings of France (in whose realm lay Cluny) were now removed from their leading positions in world history, formerly exemplified by their own lines of ascendance, and individually attached to Cluny’s lines of succession instead. This view postulated a great validity of Cluniac values rooted in the world order as portrayed by salvific history. This validity, however, appeared justified by the evident fact that it had continuously existed from the very first moment it entered history, with the founding of Cluny. And this, on the other hand, means that it was by continuously keeping up and passing on

15 Denyse Riche, “Cluny au miroir de Cluny. Regard des clunisiens sur leur histoire,” in Écrire son histoire (see above, n. 2), pp. 185–220.

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a claim to validity that this claim was given actual validity in the first place, and that it was even cumulatively reinforced. Religious institutions such as orders or monasteries saw themselves confronted, probably more often than they would have liked, with the necessity of drawing on these very continuities and origins that they did not possess.16 The reason for this was mostly the insufficient time span existing between the time of the institution’s foundation, which was accompanied by the actual bestowing of validity upon its own values, and the present. This shortcoming made it impossible for the institutions to assert their own identity in a context marked by competition for recognition and acquisition of (material and intellectual ) resources. This development had been of special relevance since the time when the vita religiosa had started to split up into different orders and associations that were distinct from each other both in spiritual and organizational matters—thus, since the early 12th century. In this time, more critical voices began to make themselves heard, denouncing this tendency as a disruption of order and the many innovations as seeds of confusion. “Why are so many novitates entering the Church of God? Why are so many orders forming within it?” These were questions that were leveled, for instance, at Bishop Anselm von Havelberg,17 a Premonstratensian, in the fifth decade of the twelfth century, and that he was still able to answer reassuringly by pointing out the manifold nature of the gifts bestowed one after the other on Christianity by the Holy Ghost according to the respective circumstances. Some 70 years later, though, during the Fourth Lateran Council (in the year 1215), the decision was reached to contain what had evolved in such an unconstrained way, and to tie anything with new claims of validity to old traditional forms of validity—to put it more concretely: from then on, no new formations of orders were to be allowed, and any future developments were to be bound to one of the Rules already

16 A famous example is provided in, Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. James P. Carley, Arthurian studies 44 (Cambridge, 2001). See also, Anne Müller, “Mechanismen künstlichen Alterns. Zur Raumpräsenz des Vergangenen in englischen Benediktinerklöstern nach der normannischen Eroberung,” in Kloster und Welt im Mittelalter—Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in der Ordenslandschaft des Mittelalters, eds. Ernst Bremer, Jörg Jarnut, and Matthias Wemhoff (Munich, forthcoming). 17 Markus Schürer, “Innovation und Variabilität als Instrument göttlicher Pädagogik: Anselm von Havelberg in den Diskursen um die Legitimation religiöser Lebensformen,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 42 (2007), 373–96.

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existing.18 Thus, newly formed associations could see their very existence threatened if they did not succeed in drawing on an extensive continuity, which was just what they did not possess. Let us, then, briefly look at a case illustrating this problem particularly well, one that expressly stood in contrast to the writings of Girardus de Arvernia, who, as we have seen, had access to a whole reservoir of historical materials.19 This example also demonstrates that one could indeed compensate for the impossibility of documenting continuity in a credible way by making one’s explanations convincing. Furthermore, it shows that, apparently, there were no interruptions of validity between the present and the time of origin, since whatever was valid then was simply still valid today. In the year 1256, the Pope joined several associations of hermits together to form one new order, the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, under the Rule of St. Augustine.20 As the members of this order followed the principle of living without regular income or private property, they were considered mendicants. In 1272 then, the Second Council of Lyons set itself the goal of further reinforcing the measures of selection implemented by the Fourth Lateran Council. It made the decision to dissolve not only all associations that had been formed later than 1215 and that remained unrecognized to that day, but also those that had been approved after 1215, if they belonged—with the exception of the Dominicans and Franciscans—to the mendicant orders.21 The Hermits of St. Augustine, though the Council postponed enforcement in their case for a certain amount of time, were also immediately affected by this decision. “The struggle for survival, which continued into the first decades of the fourteenth century”, as Kaspar Elm puts 18 See also Michele Maccarrone, “Le costituzioni del IV concilio lateranense sui religiosi,” in Nuovi studi su Innocenzo III, Nuovi studi storici 25 (Rome, 1995), pp. 1–45. 19 For full treatment of Cluny’s written tradition and its preservation, see also Sebastian Barret, La mémoire et l’écrit. L’abbaye de Cluny et ses archives (Xe–XVIIIe siècle), Vita regularis 19 (Münster, 2004). 20 Cristina Andenna, “Non est haec vita apostolica, sed confusio Babylonica: L’invenzione di un ordine nel secolo XIII,” in Regulae—Consuetudines—Statuta: studi sulle fonti normative degli ordini religiosi nei secoli centrali del Medioevo, Vita regularis 25 (Münster, 2005), pp. 567–631. With regard to England, Francis Xavier Roth, A History of the English Austin Friars (1249–1538), Cassiciacum: American series 6 (New York, 1966). 21 Joseph Alberigo, ed., Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, 3th ed. (Bologna, 1973), p. 326f; See also Paolo Andreini, “Il II Concilio di Lione ed i religiosi. Analisi della costituzione 23,” L’Italia Francescana 61 (1986), 585–600.

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it quite drastically,22 forced them to apply more rigid measures: they changed the facts of their history. That which had born validity during their short existence had to be transformed into a figuration that would be convergent with the old traditional forms of the Vita religiosa: the Hermits of St. Augustine had to write a history of validity of their own that would, on the one hand, reach further back than the order’s actual age (that is to say that it would not just go back to the order’s founding year, 1256, but even beyond the year 1215), and that, on the other hand, would modify the historical points of reference in such a way as to avoid the dangerous label of a mendicant order. When, in 1298, they finally received permission by Boniface VIII to continue as an independent order—and, it is important to note, this was in part due to the fact that their institutio had been proven to occur before the Fourth Lateran Council—it was obvious that they had successfully asserted their historical argumentation. This has come down to us in the highly elaborate version of Henry of Friemar’s De origine et progressu ordinis fratrum eremitarum St. Augustini et vero ac proprio titulo eisdem,23 written a little later. In this tract, none lesser than Church Father St. Augustine, who had actually been of highest importance to the world of medieval religiosity for constructing Rules of communal life for clerics,24 was made a genuine hermit. Among other things, this piece of writing claimed that, even though the Egyptian desert dwellers may have been the first to follow the hermit way of life, St. Augustine had developed the specific lifestyle that the Hermits of St. Augustine would adopt when he was visiting other hermits in Tuscia for a longer period of time, giving them a Rule to live by while he was there: “And when, in the wilderness of Tuscia, he had found many hermits leading a holy way of life, he finally came to our place, which is called Centumcellae. This was, as is said (ut dicitur), the first monastery of our order, and St. Augustine lived with the brethren there for two years. After he had made sufficient progress in his knowledge of the faith, he wrote a Rule for their way of life and gave it to them. All of this can be gathered from ancient unabbreviated

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Elm, “Bedeutung historischer Legitimation” (see above, n. 1), p. 77. Rudolph Eugen Arbesmann, “Henry of Friemar’s ‘Treatise on the origin and development of the Order of the Hermit Friars and its true and real title’,” Augustiniana 6 (1956), 37–145. 24 Luc M.J. Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1967). 23

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legends (ex antiquis legendis non abbreviatis)”.25 Based on such a structure of argumentation (which, of course, was further elaborated in terms of contents, for instance by the claim that St. Augustine had already worn the habit of the Hermits of St. Augustine as well ), it seemed quite evident to the author that not only the Hermits of St. Augustine had a founder of unsurpassable prestige, but the order itself had existed for a venerably long time, and that it was definitely older than its competitors whose claims so obviously went unchallenged, the Dominicans and the Franciscans.26 The process of proving this, though, contained a problem that the quote given above and featuring the words ut dicitur already implied. The author lacked the sources with which he could have proven uninterrupted continuity from the times of St. Augustine to his own. The method of the proof itself was clear: one had to list the order’s leaders (the priores generales), who were the ones bearing responsibility for passing on all that was considered of primordial value, in an unbroken line. And the author proceeded in just such a way,27 succeeding, at least, in compiling the names of some of the leading figures that formed a line covering a certain amount of time before the union in 1256 (therefore, before the actual founding of the order). But he had to admit defeat when he attempted to go further back in time: “The question of who had been the shepherds of the order from the times of blessed St. Augustine onward, that is from the year of Our Lord 430, remains unanswered due to negligence on behalf of the scribes and the length of time that has passed”.28 Considering the previously mentioned fact that the Hermits of St. Augustine were successful with such a construed history of their origins, and that they were able to justify their existence, the proof of their longstanding validity, though, incomplete, appears to have been completely sufficient. Girardus de Arvernia had been in need of explic-

25 Arbesmann, “Henry of Friemar’s Treatise,” p. 96; See also Kaspar Elm, “Paulus von Theben und Augustinus als Ordensgründer. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichtsschreibung der Eremiten- und Bettelorden des 13. Jahrhunderts,” in Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, pp. 371–97. 26 . . . quod ordo fratrum eremitarum sancti Augustini ex sui institutione multo antiquior est ordinibus fratrum praedicatorum et minorum, . . .; Arbesmann, “Henry of Friemar’s Treatise,” p. 109. 27 Arbesmann, “Henry of Friemar’s Treatise,” pp. 111–15. 28 Arbesmann, “Henry of Friemar’s Treatise,” p. 111.

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itly demonstrating an unbroken series because, within the Cluniac tradition, validity was only accorded if it had been continuously passed on during each phase of salvific history. Henry of Friemar’s case was entirely different, since to him it had to be of particular importance to highlight the creation of validity and, therefore, the origins. He, too, was concerned with the transmission of validity from the origins onward, but, faced with the task of presenting a founding father of unsurpassable prestige in a credible way, it was of much greater significance to show the immediate connection between the beginning and the present. It was thus that one could claim, as it were, the continued presence of the beginning in the here and now, which rendered the passing of time itself irrelevant and only made the great length of time that had passed seem important. It was precisely because he appeared so present now that the St. Augustine from an inconceivably distant point in the past, when validity was first created, justified the Hermits of St. Augustine, declared to be exceedingly old, in claiming validity for themselves ‘even’ in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To make current validity appear plausible through descriptions of historical events, documentation of continuity was not necessarily required, particularly in the case of religious associations. The phenomenon of timeless validity from the origins onward, manifesting itself over and over again in various individual phenomena throughout history, could replace that of continuity. The reason for this lay in the view of human Rules as being rooted in the laws of God, which meant that the validity of concrete structures for action could be derived from meta-historical regulations. Let us again use a highly illustrative example: The Rule written for the hermit order of the Camaldolites at the beginning of the twelfth century—the Liber heremitice regule—showed rather a high degree of self-confidence concerning the religious way of life for which it sought to provide normative measures. The first sentence already reads: “Even though there are very many kinds of religio through which one may serve the one God, fight for the one King, and search for the one life, . . . it is the solitary way of life [solitaria conversatio] in particular that stands out, as has been shown. For it is the lifestyle that vanquishes the World, that keeps the flesh within bounds, that conquers demons, that abolishes crime, that curbs vice and that paralyzes the fleshly obsessions, which war with the soul. This is especially the life that purifies the mind, that illuminates the conscience,

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that cleans the intellect, that gives birth to knowledge, . . .”.29 And it was possible to make such a eulogy on the extraordinary value of the hermit’s life even more powerful, as can be seen in the following text: the Woman of the Apocalypse, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet” (Rev. 12:1)—a commonly known symbol of the church—was evoked as the timeless executor of all that retreat from a battle against evil into solitude could achieve. “For the dragon”, one reads further, “is standing before the woman with the intention of devouring her child. The woman, however, fled into the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time until the end of her struggle”.30 The conclusion seemed obvious to the author of the Rule: that is why, he explained, it seemed highly reasonable (unde apparet evidentissime) to suppose that there was no safer refuge, no better protection against the advances of the “Old Serpent”—that is, of the devil—than the bulwark that the solitary way of life offered. So, the author first listed norms of conduct that he could safely assume would not meet with any resistance, because they were universally acknowledged virtues of the Christian search for salvation. What was more problematic, though, was his simultaneous claim that the hermit lifestyle was the way of life that best ensured the realization of these norms and offered protection against the powers of evil. Since, according to traditional views—and to the Rule of St. Benedict, which mentioned it by name—the cenobite way of life provided the greatest safety from sin, and the life as a hermit was only suited to the very strong and to those that had already received particular training.31 Therefore, the author definitely needed special arguments that would prove the validity of his claims. And he found them, as we have seen,

29 Giuseppe Vedovato, ed., Liber heremitice regule, in Camaldoli e la sua congregazione dalle origini al 1184. Storia e documentazione, Italia benedettina 13 (Cesena, 1994), pp. 286–309, at 286; on this rule, see further Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule,” pp. 77–88. 30 Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 286; See also Apc 12:4–7: . . . et draco stetit ante mulierem quae erat paritura, ut cum peperisset filium eius devoraret . . . et mulier fugit in solitudinem ubi habet locum paratum a Deo ut ibi pascant illam diebus mille ducentis sexaginta et factum est proelium in caelo . . . 31 Rule of St Benedict 1, 3–5: Deinde secundum genus est anachoritarum, id est eremitarum, horum qui non conversationis fervore novicio, sed monasterii probatione diuturna, qui didicerunt contra diabolum multorum solacio iam docti pugnare, et bene exstructi fraterna ex acie ad singularem pugnam eremi, securi iam sine consolatione alterius, sola manu vel brachio contra vitia carnis vel cogitationum, Deo auxiliante, pugnare sufficiunt.

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in the form of the Woman of the Apocalypse, and thus, in a reference to an instruction that had been revealed and willed by God, and that gave validity to any norm of conduct that could be derived from it. It is remarkable, though, that he did not content himself with making this universal statement, but rather turned his attention to just such forms of conduct that, according to him, could be found again and again in the course of history. “So many of such an eminently sacred band of models and examples [Huius sacratissime militie auctoritates et exempla] can be found that they cannot be counted due to their sheer number.”32 With these words, he then begins to list a series of exemplary hermits,33 starting with Moses and moving from David, Elijah, Elisha, and John the Baptist to Christ, the Desert Fathers and the pagan philosophers, as well as to Benedict of Nursia, and finally Romuald, the founder of Camaldoli. In the process, he repeats the word exemplum in the respective headings like a stereotype, which leads to the suggestion of a veritable categorical series: Exemplum David et Helie, Exemplum Elisei prophete, Exemplum Iohannis Baptiste, Exemplum Iohannis Baptiste, Exemplum Salvatoris, Exempla patrum antiquorum, Exempla phylosophorum, Exemplum sancti Benedicti, Exemplum sancti Romualdi.34 All the above named persons chose a life of solitude either of their own free will or because God had commanded them to—and each of these lives could be depicted as new evidence for the extraordinary benefits one could reap from the hermit lifestyle. The individual evaluations followed the model of biblical exegesis.35 Thus, for instance, the author described Moses’ retreat to the solitude of Mount Sinai as an act that deprived him of all possibility to seek refuge with other people but enabled him to receive the divine law and to be honored

32

Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 286. The author comments: Nos vero de multis pauca eligentes, pluraque relinquimus, prudenti lectori querenda esse suademus; Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 286. 34 Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” pp. 287–90. On exempla see, for instance: L’Exemplum, eds. Claude Bremont, Jacques Le Goff, and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Turnhout, 1982); Peter von Moos, Geschichte als Topik: das rhetorische Exemplum von der Antike zur Neuzeit und die historiae im “Policraticus” Johanns von Salisbury (Hildesheim, 1988); Les Exempla médiévaux: nouvelles perspectives, eds. Jacques Berlioz and Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu (Paris, 1998); Markus Schürer, “Das Beispiel im Begriff. Aspekte einer begriffsgeschichtlichen Erschließung exemplarischen Erzählens im Mittelalter,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 38 (2003), 199–237. 35 Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1979). 33

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by the appearance of God.36 This then led the author to conclude (quo exemplo monstravit, these are his exact words!) that anyone striving to be uplifted by a heavenly vision and to be shaped by divine teaching should keep away from human interaction and communal life. A similar interpretation—just to name one last example—was given to Elijah’s solitary retreat to Mount Horeb, the desert like Mount of God that was traditionally described as the summit of abstinence from drink. “For this”, he continues to explain, “is how Mount Horeb is interpreted (sic enim interpretatur Horeb): just as you dry out the humidity of desire within you, the Fiend, who lives in humid places will not be able to remain in you—in the words of the Lord’s prophet: ’You have drained the waters of the River Ethan”, which means ‘you have stunted the vices of desire’.37 Aside from employing this technique of using typological preconfigurations,38 which he subsequently also applied to other figures in the Bible (especially to David, Elijah, and Elisha), the author, in several cases, simply referred to the specific significance of these exemplary lifestyles for salvific history. John the Baptist, for instance, was singled out as/for having laid the foundations of solitary life in the New Testament (solitarie vite in novo testamento admiranda posuit fundamenta), later followed by Christ and then by the Egyptian Desert Fathers.39 Benedict of Nursia was presented as the “beneficent father of monks”, whose religio, however, still took its origins from solitary struggle, in Romuald’s case finally, the author emphasized the fact that his path had taken the opposite direction, that is to say it took him from the worldly rank of a nobleman to cenobite life in a monastery, then to his struggle in solitude and to the creation of hermitic life in many places.40 What was dealt with here was indeed a form of validity that was not depicted as primordial and that did not require a temporal continuum in order to maintain or increase its force. The knowledge acquired with the help of the exempla given could only make the validity more credible, not, more legitimate, since its legitimacy was rooted in a 36

Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 287. Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 287. 38 See also Ernst Friedrich Ohly, “Typology as a form of historical thought,” in Sensus spiritualis. Studies in medieval significs and the philology of culture, eds. Id. and Samuel Peter Jaffe (Chicago, 2005), pp. 31–67. 39 Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” pp. 288–89. 40 Vedovato, “Liber heremitice regule” p. 290. 37

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higher order beyond all happenings. The exempla, though, certainly constituted models of instruction for the Camaldolite way of life at that time, which were not only supposed to inspire imitators, but also affirmed their own religious way and gave it validity. Within the range of medieval religious life, however, this kind of argumentation which used such models of instruction, was able to make do entirely without multiple chains of differentiation and to restrict itself to one single reference as long as this was a reference to a concrete and crucial instance of absolute, incontestable, and unsurpassable validity. To illustrate this phenomenon more clearly, let us look at the following final examples: Stephen of Muret,41 who had retreated into the solitude of the woods near Limoges around 1076 and had attracted a considerable number of disciples around him over the subsequent decades, so that daughter houses were founded, and later even an organized affiliation—that of the order of Grandmont—was particularly aware of the necessity to make his way of life—his religio—appear plausible and justified before/to his environment. Like other members of the charismatic movement of his time, he also sought religious paths that would permit the realization of a vita perfectionis outside of the customs of existing monasteries. In doing this, though, he ran the risk of being accused that he, too, simply wanted to live in privatis locis proprio jure with his community, like “outlaws”. This, for instance, was the bitter reproach leveled at other groups of hermits who separated themselves from society by Ivo of Chartres.42 Thus, Stephen of Muret admonished his disciples that they should and could stand up to any third party

41 See also Jean Becquet, Etudes Grandmontaines, (Ussel, 1998); Carole A. Hutchison, The Hermit Monks of Grandmont (Kalamazoo, 1989). On Stephen’s charismatic role see, Gert Melville, “Von der Regula regularum zur Stephansregel. Der normative Sonderweg der Grandmontenser bei der Auffächerung der vita religiosa im 12. Jahrhundert,” in Vom Kloster zum Klosterverband. Das Werkzeug der Schriftlichkeit, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 74 (Munich, 1997), pp. 342–363; Id., “In solitudine ac paupertate. Stephans von Muret Evangelium vor Franz von Assisi,” in In proposito paupertatis: Studien zum Armutsverständnis bei den mittelalterlichen Bettelorden, Vita regularis 13 (Münster, 2001), pp. 7–30; Cristina Andenna, “Dall‘esempio alla santità. Stefano di Thiers e Stefano di Obazine: modelli di vita o fondatori di ordini?” in Das Eigene und das Ganze. Zum Individuellen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum, Vita regularis 16 (Münster, 2002), pp. 177–224. 42 See also Gert Melville, “In privatis locis proprio jure vivere. Zu Diskursen des frühen 12. Jahrhunderts um religiöse Eigenbestimmung oder institutionelle Einbindung,” in Kulturarbeit und Kirche: Festschrift Msgr. Dr. Paul Mai zum 70. Geburtstag, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Bistums Regensburg 39 (Regensburg, 2005), pp. 25–38.

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asking questions on whether or not they were living according to any order or Rule at all. For again and again, they were reproached for being followers of an unseemly novelty, since they evidently adhered neither to the Rule of St. Augustine nor to that of St. Benedict, which made them appear to be neither monks nor members of the canon. The exact words were: “What you are considered to be is a novelty; it neither corresponds to the ordo nor to the regula described by the teachers of the Holy Church”.43 Stephen then provided his disciples with a whole catalogue of arguments that would make it possible for them, so he thought, to prove that the way they were living actually fulfilled all the aspects of religious ordo and by regula as they should be understood especially well because their way of life meant nothing less than unconditional succession of Christ in radical, evangelical poverty.44 The logic of these statements rested on an assumption that was the starting point of Stephen’s teachings: “There is no Rule other than the Gospel of Christ”.45 By working with this axiom, he disregarded every tradition and idea that had historically evolved in the Church, and he went directly back to that one point in salvific history that was the crucial one for him because it was there that the origins of all Rules and orders lay. He dismissed any objections emphasizing that it was, after all, St. Benedict who had created the Rule for the monks, since in his view, this Rule could only be defined as such due to the fact that it had also been drawn from the Gospel. Innumerable are the Rules, he continues, when they are made by man, “so many prophets, so many Rules, so many apostles, so many Rules, so many teachers, so many Rules”.46 The Rule that was created after his death by members of his order, who based it closely on his own words, stated these observations even more precisely and especially intensified their message on the problem of tradition. There were, they explained, several paths and ways of access to the house of the Lord. These, however, did not represent—even though they had been set down in writing by holy fathers and were, as of then, named the Rule of St. Basil, or

43 “Liber de doctrina uel Liber sententiarum sev rationvm beati viri Stephani primi patris religionis Grandimontis,” in Scriptores ordinis Grandimontensis, ed. Jean Becquet, CCCM 8 (Turnhout, 1968), pp. 3–62, at 60. 44 “Liber de doctrina,” pp. 60–62. 45 “Liber de doctrina,” p. 5. 46 “Liber de doctrina,” p. 3.

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that of St. Augustine, or that of St. Benedict—the origins, but had rather sprouted from them. This fact was succinctly highlighted with the following words: “Not the roots, but the branches are they, not the head, but rather the limbs”.47 There exists, one reads, only one principal Regula Regularum, from which all others spring like rivers from a source. It is the Holy Gospel as reported to the apostles by the Savior. It is inexhaustible so that all who have already drunk from it have left enough for those to follow—just as present and future generations would do. A prominent parallel to this can be found about a hundred years later in St. Francis of Assisi,48 who can be compared with Stephen of Muret in many ways anyhow, and especially regarding his radical opinion on poverty.49 Jacob of Vitry, the meticulous observer of monastic life during the third decade of the thirteenth century, wrote that, at that time, God added a fourth foundation of regular life to the three already existing ones, that is to the religiones of the hermits, the monks, and the Canons. Although, he hastened to specify, if one looked at conditions in the early Church—the ecclesia primitiua— more closely in comparison, one would realize that God was not actually adding a new Rule but merely renewing an old one that had lain dormant up until that point and appeared all but dead. And this Rule was now the religio of the fraters minorum—the disciples of St. Francis of Assisi—who “strove so hard to renew (reformare) the religious way of life, the poverty and humility of the early Church in themselves, by drinking of the clear waters from the source of the Gospel, that they tried to follow not only the instructions but also the advice put forth in the Gospel completely, in deliberate imitation of apostolic life.”50 47 “Regula venerabilis viri Stephani Muretensis,” in Scriptores ordinis Grandimontensis, pp. 63–99, at 66. 48 See for instance, Raoul Manselli, S. Francesco d’Assisi (Roma, 1980); Giovanni Miccoli, Francesco d’Assisi e l’Ordine dei minori (Milan, 1999); Roberto Rusconi, Francesco d’Assisi nelle fonti e negli scritti (Padua, 2002); Grado Giovanni Merlo, Tra eremo e città. Studi su Francesco d’Assisi e sul francescanesimo medievale (Assisi, 2007); Jacques Dalarun, Francis of Assisi and Power (St. Bonaventure, NY, 2007). 49 See also Ilarino da Milano, “Un prefrancescanesimo nell’evangelismo di S. Stefano di Muret istitutore di Grandmont?” in Miscellanea Melchor de Pobladura, ed. Isidoro de Villapadierna, 2 (Rome, 1964), pp. 75–97; Melville, “In solitudine ac paupertate” (see above, n. 41), pp. 7–30. 50 The Historia Occidentalis of Jacques de Vitry, ed. John Frederick Hinnebusch (Fribourg, 1972), p. 158. See also Pia Gemelli, “Giacomo da Vitry e le origini del movimento francescano,” Aevum 39 (1965), 474–95; Kaspar Elm, “Die Entwicklung des Franziskanerordens zwischen dem ersten und letzten Zeugnis des Jakob von Vitry,”

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As if in a backwards direction, Jacob of Vitry thus rearranged the existing orders. He traced the Minorites back to the primordial point in the history of religious life—dismissing the fact that they had established traditions in the meantime—so that the question of whether they should have had to adopt one of the existing Rules was superfluous in the first place. The establishment of such a connection was by no means an arbitrary interpretation on Jacob’s part. When St. Francis of Assisi had first appeared before Pope Innocent III (in the year 1209), a Cardinal had already characterized him with the following words: “I have found a perfect man, who wishes to live according to the form of the Holy Gospel and to observe the perfection of the Gospels in everything”.51 Furthermore, in this meeting with the Pope, St. Francis refused to accept one of the existing Rules, and he later repeated this decision using the following explanation, which approaches Stephen’s rigid argumentation very closely in its structure: “And so I do not want you to name any Rule for me, neither that of St. Benedict, nor that of St. Augustine or of St. Bernard, and no other way or form of life except for that which God in His mercy has shown and given to me either”.52 Stephen of Muret brought up the comparison with the roots and branches of a tree. Both, meaning St. Francis of Assisi as well, mentioned the one source, from the waters of which one was always to drink directly. These are two images with the same structure. They refer to the primordial point to which one could return directly. And this return manifested itself as a dismissal of tradition, as a new start of something old that had always possessed validity since its creation.

in Vitasfratrum: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eremiten- und Mendikantenorden des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, eds. Id. and Dieter Berg (Werl, 1994), pp. 173–193. 51 Attributed to Cardinal John of St. Paul, by the author of Anonymus Perusinus, in Lorenzo di Fonzo, “L’Anonimo Perugino tra le Fonti Francescane del sec. XIII. Rapporti letterari e testo critico,” Miscellanea Franciscana 72 (1972), c. 7 § 33. 52 Le Speculum perfectionis, ed. Paul Sabatier, 1 (Manchester, 1928), p. 196; and so also in the Legenda Perusina in, “Compilatio Assisiensis” dagli Scritti di fr. Leone e Compagni su S. Francesco d’Assisi. L’edizione integrale dal Ms. 1046 di Perugia con versione italiana a fronte, ed. Marino Bigaroni (Assisi, 1975), p. 54ff; see also Gert Melville, “Der geteilte Franziskus. Beobachtungen zum institutionellen Umgang mit Charisma,” in Kunst, Macht und Institution: Studien zur Philosophischen Anthropologie, soziologischen Theorie und Kultursoziologie der Moderne. Festschrift für Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, eds. Joachim Fischer and Hans Joas (Frankfurt a. M., 2003), pp. 347–63.

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If one were to inquire about the structural differences as well as the analogies between the four examples given of referencing the origins and constructing meaning, now, one would easily recognize that they primarily featured differences in using a few identical component parts. Basically, what all these examples were always concerned with was, on the one hand, the question of individual historic events representing the construction or the affirmation of validity, and, on the other hand, that of a historic time span that would increase validity. The individual events referred to something original and/or an updating, but they also always encompassed the present—the time span referred to something that signified the continuance and/or the drawing of a connection into the present. The difference in the use of these elements, however, is of great significance, since it corresponds precisely to the range of different functions that can be attributed to the use of historic knowledge in the medieval vita religiosa. To convey the knowledge of a continuum from the monastery’s time of foundation onward, this was the main focus of Girardus de Arvernia. He had to depict the validity of the Cluniac vita religiosa, which was rooted in salvific history, in such a way as to render plausible the claim that the incessant updating of this validity was accomplished through continual actions of the abbots. This transmission of validity, then, in turn increased the validity through an accumulation of actions in similar conformity with the validity over a steadily increasing span of time, and thus reached into the present, which could be continued up to the Eschaton. Only the length of the time span beginning with the decisive founding moment of the Augustinian religio had been of relevance for Henry of Friemar; although, at the same time, he had to prove that this founding time still showed itself to be present in his time. So, his focus was on the actual transmission of validity, not specifically on accumulating continuity as in the case of Girardus. High age and founding conditions of highest importance (the work of a Church Father!) had—as he intended to show—created sufficient foundations that could merely be updated successively, but the quality of which could not be increased any further. The opening passage from the Camaldolite Rule dealt with the description of individual phenomena, which steadily repeated themselves and were the concrete realizations of timeless validity. That which was valid for the vita eremitica was never subordinate to any founding act. It rather constituted part of the divine canons and ordinances.

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Consequently, the goal was to demonstrate that it always possessed the same relevance, which did not have to be proven first, but which could be illustrated in the form of exemplary incidents at best. Thus, the span of time specified, in which the cited exempla were temporally and historically embedded, was universal. Transmission of validity, then, did not take place within certain time spans, but occurred in the shape of applying trans-temporal validity to temporal incidents. By positing as absolute a single moment in time, at which the Rule of all Rules was once created and invested with a validity that could not be questioned anymore, Stephen of Muret, and analogously St. Francis of Assisi, was able to ignore any temporal aspect of transmission of validity in the past and to focus directly on this very moment. The basis for this was the assumption that a validity such as that of the Gospel of Christ did not require accumulative continuity and did not need to be affirmed by retrospective updating (for instance in the shape of individual Rules derived from it) in order for it to be valid in any present time whatsoever. The time span reached from the establishment of the vita evangelica up to the time of the two religious men, but in contrast to Henry of Friemar for example, the issue was not to document a temporal line of connection of great age, but rather to show a transfer of validity in the form of a jump in time. All of these stories were concerned with the dimension of the past, but it is remarkable that, in doing so, they did not by any means all use the dimensions of continuity or great age to the same extent. Rather, references to timeless and exemplary phenomena played a role as well. The first two examples featured orders that had already existed for a longer period of time but were facing a crisis. They sought to give themselves a “history of their own” with regards to their specific institutional character, so that they might affirm its special quality, stand out from their competitors, and justify their irrevocable claim to existence. For this, they did indeed need to prove the duration of validity—or, more precisely, the continuance of the transmission of validity. The last two examples referred to new, or at least only recently institutionalized forms of the vita religiosa. For them, the emphasis had to be on the justification of their newness, their novitas, which was a characteristic that could be eyed quite skeptically in the Middle Ages. In order to accomplish this, it was important that they draw on significant individual points of reference from the time of the origins, which contained that very validity that they could then transfer onto their own situation.

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Excepting the tract by Henry of Friemar, which primarily features justification by reference to age and to the origins, the explanations we have discussed are all closely linked to texts or situations with a prospective orientation: the chronicle-like writings of Girardus are followed by an exhortation that mentions the current instances of mismanagement in the Cluniac order and suggests solutions; in the case of the Camaldolite text, we are even dealing with the introduction to a book of Rules; the comments of Stephen of Muret, then, can be found in the parenetic collection of his dogmas, or in the order’s Rule that was fashioned after them; and the observations by St. Francis of Assisi were, in part, made at the time that people wanted to persuade him to write an edited Rule containing parts of other works, and, in part, written into his last will and testament. Such a combination of retrospective and prospective elements is symptomatic of the way knowledge was used in the medieval vita religiosa. Stories like the ones given here, in which validity is transmitted from the past into the present, enable the teller, on the one hand, to show that what is currently claimed to be the valid order of things is really justified, and, on the other hand, to encourage the continuance of this transmission into the future. That is why it was always of particular importance, when dealing with historical knowledge of this kind, that one referred to the overcoming of the present as a suggested course for the future. Men and women of the Middle Ages, who left the world behind in a search for sanctification and entered the closed circle of a monastic community, believed that, by doing this, they were now standing at the gate to eternity, since the timeless validity of God’s order now appeared closer to them than it was to those people who had stayed behind in the worldly sphere. Nevertheless they knew that they themselves were not beyond temporality yet either—and, thus, not beyond change, or the threat of decay and of failure, in other words: the transition from a via perfectionis to a via defectionis, as Bonaventure has demonstrated so vividly.53 For this reason, they sought to build a future 53 See St Bonaventure’s fundamental insight as to how religious congregations decay: Omne, quod non habet esse suum a se, deficiendo tendit in non-esse, nisi sustentetur ab eo qui dat ei esse; sic et omnis Ordo et omnis homo. Unde non solum Ordines Religiosorum, sed etiam episcoporum et clericorum et laicorum et universalis status multum deficit quantum ad communem statum ab eo quod in principio fuit. See Determinationes quaestionum circa Regulam Fratrum minorum, ed. in Doctoris seraphici S. Bonaventurae . . . opera omnia, 8, Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi, 1898), pp. 337–374, at 349.

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for themselves, in which the uninterrupted transmission of valid order was ensured, as well as to construct a past that made clear the value of this transmission of validity. This recourse to the past and the future, which provided stability, represented an achievement that could only be made with the help of a method that had been constructed in a remarkably rational way. Special knowledge had to be produced deliberately and purposefully and then applied for pragmatic use. Maybe this form of rationality was made possible by the fact that, thanks to the spiritual insights gained into Eternity as a religious, one was also an expert on the permanence of orders that had been valid from the origins of one’s own identity onward.

SEEKING REMEDIES FOR GREAT DANGER: CONTEMPORARY APPRAISALS OF ROGER BACON’S EXPERTISE Amanda Power The English antiquarian, John Leland, once wrote that it would be “easier to collect all the leaves of the Sibyls” than all the manuscripts containing works by Roger Bacon.1 This rich inheritance is by no means exhausted, and has already enabled scholars to uncover the nature of Bacon’s thought and influence across a wide range of disciplines.2 Yet the paucity of extant references to him by his contemporaries has meant that our sense of Bacon as a personality and an actor in the affairs of his age is extremely circumscribed. His role in his own society has been established more by tracing the presence and development of his ideas through various texts than by the study of any direct allusions to him in the works of others. The current view rests largely on the reading of two sorts of evidence. One is his own writings, chiefly the scattering of autobiographical remarks and his comments on individuals and current affairs. The other is the bald report in a fourteenth-century chronicle which states that some of his ideas had been condemned by the Franciscan order. The effect of these readings has been to create a persistent, but rather narrow sketch of Bacon. He has been represented as a great thinker, but one notable for his bitterness, aggression, isolation and even eccentricity.3 It is possible that this image has blinded us to the implications of contradictory evidence: Bacon’s own references to friends and collaborators; indications of esteem within the order; official approval of his work in high political and ecclesiastical circles. In the case of a figure as central to our understanding of the thirteenth century as Bacon, more care needs 1 “ut facilius sit Sibyllae folia colligere, quam nomina librorum quos scripsit”: Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Anthony Hall (2 vols., Oxford, 1709), vol. 2, p. 258. 2 The range is best indicated by the essays in Jeremiah Hackett (ed.), Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays (Leiden, 1997). 3 The idea of Bacon as a solitary and isolated victim of the ignorance of his age has its roots in the anti-papal sentiment of the Reformation, reinforced during the crises of the nineteenth century. See Amanda Power, “A Mirror for Every Age: the Reputation of Roger Bacon,” English Historical Review, 121.492 (2006), 657–92.

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to be taken over this issue. As Momigliano noted in another context: “The lack of attention to, or the lack of information about, the way of life of an individual . . . does of course produce problems for the evaluation of the group to which the individual belonged.”4 In what follows, I should like to re-examine the extant references to Bacon by name, and to propose that he may have been admired by at least some of his contemporaries for precisely the qualities that—amid the alien values of modernity—we have assumed caused him to stand in some disrepute. In particular, it will be suggested that he was appreciated for his intense zeal for reform, which required harsh criticism of his society, and his detailed knowledge of methods for employing the “power of wisdom” in the service of the Church. The old debate over the putative condemnation of Roger Bacon has been renewed in recent decades. The only evidence for the condemnation is a brief paragraph in the Chronica XXIV generalium ordinis minorum, completed between 1369 and 1374. It reports that in ca. 1278, Jerome of Ascoli, Minister General of the Franciscan order: “after consultation with many brothers, condemned and reproved the teaching of Brother Roger Bacon of England, a master of sacred theology, because it contained some suspected novelties. On account of these novelties the same Roger was condemned to prison.” The rest of the order was instructed to avoid his teachings and the Pope was informed.5 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this paragraph has affected historical perceptions of Bacon more than all of his writings considered together. Although no direct supporting evidence for its claims has ever come to light, historians have, with some exceptions, been remarkably willing to accept the substance of its testimony. There has been much speculation about the aspects of Bacon’s thought or personality that might have provoked such a condemnation. Various possibilities have been suggested, many of which focus on Bacon’s

4

Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, 1987), p. 164. “Hic Generalis frater Hieronymus de multorum fratrum consilio condemnavit et reprobavit doctrinam fratris Rogerii Bachonis Anglici, sacrae theologiae magistri, continentem aliquas novitates suspectas, propter quas fuit idem Rogerius carceri condemnatus, praecipiendo omnibus fratribus, ut nullus illam teneret, sed ipsam vitaret ut per Ordinem reprobatam. Super hoc etiam scripsit domino Papae Nicolao praefato, ut per eius auctoritatem doctrina illa periculosa totaliter sopiretur.” Luke Wadding (ed.), Chronica XXIV generalium ordinis minorum (Quaracchi, 1897), p. 360. 5

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interest in astrology and other occult arts.6 The relationship between his work and the 1277 condemnations at the University of Paris has been fruitfully explored, although the resulting studies have not clarified the issue at hand.7 Amid all this activity, it is striking that what has not happened is a renewed consideration of the Chronica XXIV generalium itself—a text of questionable accuracy that belongs within the complicated traditions of Franciscan historical writing—or of the circumstances within which it was compiled. The Chronica was largely a compilation drawn from older sources, as its author acknowledged at the outset; as such, it is most often used as a supplementary source for information on the early centuries of the Franciscan order.8 Its composite nature encouraged Sabatier to think

6 Paul L. Sidelko, “The Condemnation of Roger Bacon,” Journal of Medieval History, 22.1 (1996), 69–81 [astrological errors, use of pagan and occult texts]; John D. North, “Roger Bacon and the Saracens,” in ed. Graziella Federici Vescovini, Filosofia e scienza classica, arabo-latina medievale e l’età moderna: Ciclo di seminari internazionali (26–27 gennaio 1996) (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1999), 129–160, pp. 141–2 [use of texts from the Muslim world]; R. James Long, “Roger Bacon on the Nature and Place of Angels,” Vivarium, 35.2 (1997), 266–82 [angelology]. David Lindberg, by comparison, feels that the tradition of the condemnation is questionable at best, especially as Bacon’s “scientific” thought was “not at all dangerous” with the possible exception of his “proastrological stance.” Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1996), pp. xix–xx. Important earlier contributions are Lynn Thorndike, “The True Roger Bacon, I,” American Historical Review, 21.2 (1916), 237–57, p. 245; “The True Roger Bacon, II,” American Historical Review, 21.3 (1916), 468–80, pp. 473–74; A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the first thirteen centuries of our era (8 vols. London, 1923–58), vol. 2, pp. 628–29 [in which he argued that Bacon was not condemned for magic or astrology]; Theodore Crowley, Roger Bacon: the Problem of the Soul in his Philosophical Commentaries (Louvain, 1950), pp. 67–72 [astronomy, alchemy and attacks on contemporary theologians]; Stewart C. Easton, Roger Bacon and His Search for a Universal Science: A Reconsideration of the Life and Work of Roger Bacon in the Light of His Own stated Purposes (Oxford, 1952), pp. 192–202 [not for errors of doctrine, but for general attitude and Spiritual/Joachite leanings]. For surveys of developing scholarly attitudes to Bacon see: Franco Alessio, Introduzione a Ruggero Bacone (Rome, 1985), pp. 121–30; Agustí Boadas I Llavat, “Roger Bacon (1292–1992): Història de la Crítica,” in P. Llorente et al. (eds.), Actes del simposi internacional de filosofía de l’edat mitjana. El pensament antropològic medieval en els àmbits islàmic, hebreu i cristà, Vic-Girona, 11–16 d’abril de 1993 (Vic, 1996), 209–22; Power, “Mirror.” 7 In particular, Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon, Aristotle, and the Parisian Condemnations of 1270, 1277,” Vivarium, 35.2 (1997), 283–314; Jeremiah Hackett, “Aristotle, Astrologia, and Controversy at the University of Paris (1266–1274),” in John Van Engen (ed.), Learning Institutionalised: Teaching in the Medieval University (Notre Dame, 2000), 69–111; Steven J. Williams, “Roger Bacon and the Secret of Secrets,” in Hackett (ed.), Roger Bacon, 365–93, esp. pp. 372–78. 8 See Marie Teresa Dolso, La Chronica XXIV generalium: il difficile percorso dell’unità nella storia francescana (Padua, 2003), esp. part 4.

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that the material on Bacon was reliable because it might, he believed, have been drawn from some lost, earlier “Chroniques officielles de l’ordre.”9 His suggestion is plausible in itself, for there are a number of chronicles, exempla-collections and other writings concerning the history of the order of which nothing is now known but their titles.10 However, the account called Bacon a “master of sacred theology,” which he was not; probably indicating that it was not written by a contemporary or anyone with secure knowledge of the environment in which the events allegedly occurred.11 This places the source at some distance from the events that it recorded. This distance may also be suggested by the nature of the account itself. In contrast to much of the Chronica’s content, it is rather bare and unrevealing: no moral is drawn; no hint is given as to the nature of the “suspected novelties”; nothing more is said of the fame or fate of Bacon. On the other hand, the author was correct about Bacon’s nationality, and was probably right to associate him with both “novelties” of thought and their condemnation, regardless of whether Bacon was indeed condemned.12 The Chronica account thus stands somewhere between record and rumour. But how far can it, and its putative earlier sources, be treated as straightforward accounts of what were believed to be past events? Until recently, little attention has been paid to the Chronica as a coherent text on its own terms. It has been accepted as a compilation without much attention to questions of how its author selected and reworked his sources in order to forge what became a moderately

9 Chronica, p. 1. Paul Sabatier, quoted from a private communication in Roger Bacon, Opus maius, ed. John Henry Bridges (3 vols. Oxford, 1897–1900), vol. 3, p. 158. Dolso does not question the account either. La Chronica, p. 306. 10 Some of these are discussed in Annette Kehnel, “The Narrative Tradition of the Medieval Franciscan Friars on the British Isles: Introduction to the Sources,” Franciscan Studies, 63 (2005), 461–530. 11 Bacon’s only work claiming to be “utilia theologiae” was his last, known now in only two manuscripts: one of the late thirteenth century and a seventeenth century copy of it. Roger Bacon, Compendium of the Study of Theology, ed. and trans. Thomas S. Maloney (Leiden, 1988), pp. 34, 24–25. It deals chiefly with semantics and is hardly a work of theology. While Javier Andonegui has made strong claims for its influence (“Rogerio Bacon: su ultima obra sobre el significado,” Antonianum, 74.2 (1999), 253–305), could this work alone have been enough to bestow the unearned title on Bacon? 12 Hackett has argued that Bacon was closely involved in the debates linked to Tempier’s condemnations; he has proposed that Bacon was a “whistleblower.” “Aristotle, Astrologia,” p. 76.

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successful new history of the order.13 This is particularly surprising in view of the well-publicised difficulties of using Franciscan sources. Generations of historians of the order have puzzled over the “Franciscan question”: how to penetrate the layers of hagiography and ideology constructed by medieval Franciscan authors in order to discover the realities behind.14 A wealth of legendae, vitae, exempla, specula and chronicles were written, among other reasons, to promote certain interpretations of how the order should function.15 The Chronica was not only constructed out of such materials, but was itself no exception. As Dolso has recently argued, it was a book of, and written for, troubled times. According to its author, more than two-thirds of the friars had succumbed to the plague during the previous twenty years. Long-running tensions over how to fulfil the mendicant apostolate were hardening and he watched unhappily as his order fragmented towards formal division. He put together his narrative of the order’s history partly in an attempt to urge unity on his brothers.16 Perhaps echoes of this agenda should be heard in the prominence given in the report on Bacon to the fact that he was condemned by “Brother Jerome after consultation with many brothers”? The emphasis in the 13 It is, for example, notable that the far greater scandal and condemnation of Gerald of Borgo San Donnino went unmentioned. On the Chronica, see Marie Teresa Dolso, “I manoscritti della Chronica XXIV Generalium Ordinis Minorum,” Franciscana, 6 (2004), 185–261; Dolso, La Chronica. 14 See Jacques Dalarun, La Malavventura di Francesco d’Assisi: per un uso storico delle leggende francescane (Milan, 1996). 15 Bert Roest, Reading the Book of History: Intellectual Contexts and Educational Functions of Franciscan Historiography 1226–ca. 1350 (Groningen, 1996); Manfred Zips, “Franziskanische Didaxe und Geschichtsschreibung im späteren Mittelalter: Einige Überlegungen zum Geschichtsdenken der Minoriten im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert,” in Christa Tuczay et al. (eds.), Ir sult sprechen willekomen: Grenzenlose Mediävistik: Festschrift für Helment Girkhan zum 60. Geburtstag (Bern, 1998), 839–57; Gabrielle Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore, 1997). This did not necessarily preclude accuracy, as David Burr has suggested. “John XXII and the Spirituals: is Angelo Clareno telling the truth?,” Franciscan Studies, 63 (2005), 271–287. See also Adnan A. Husain, “Writing Identity as remembered history: person, place, and time in Friar Salimbene’s autobiographical prose map,” Viator 36 (2005), 265–292; Bert Roest, “Compilation as theme and praxis in Franciscan universal chronicles,” in Peter Binkley (ed.), Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1–4 July 1996 (Leiden, 1997), 213–25; Marc Boriosi, “La Cronica de Fra Salimbene, une ‘cronique-polemique’?,” Collectanea Franciscana 66.1–2 (1996), 127–65. 16 Dolso, La Chronica. For the plague deaths, see Chronica, pp. 544, 558. On the divisions, see D. Nimmo, Reform and Division in the Medieval Franciscan Order: From Saint Francis to the Foundation of the Capuchins (Rome, 1987). 1368 is the date often given as the beginning of the observant movement.

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Chronica on the widespread assent within the order to the condemnation is the only evidence for one of the major recurring themes in Bacon biography: that of his unpopularity with his fellow friars. The view that his criticisms of others would have made him unpopular enough to provoke the friars to act against him is, perhaps, logical enough, but is not substantiated in extant evidence.17 The account then claimed that “all the brothers” were instructed to avoid Bacon’s “dangerous teaching.” If such an admonition was given, it was not obeyed.18 Finally, the Chronica account does not itself sound like one of the many anti-intellectual attacks on educated friars, but if it were indeed extracted from an earlier source, we cannot know its context and the emphasis with which it was originally recorded.19 None of these possibilities are enough to justify disregarding the testimony of the Chronica, but they do indicate the need for greater caution in its use and sensitivity to the possibility of agendas invisible to our eyes but clearer to those of contemporaries. Much of the

17 In addition to the works cited in note 4 above, see for this view George Molland, “Roger Bacon” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This is also the implication in both Richard Lemay, “Roger Bacon’s attitude toward the Latin translations and translators of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” in Hackett (ed.), Roger Bacon, 25–47 and Juergen Miethke, “Die Kritik des franziskaners Roger Bacon an der Schwertmission des deutschen Ordens,” in eds. Andrzej Radzimínski and Janusz Tandecki, Prusy—Polska—Europa: studia z dziejów średniowiecza i czasów wczesnonowożytnych: prace ofiarowane Profesorowi Zenonowi Hubertowi Nowakowi w sześćdziesiątą piątą rocznicę urodzin i w czterdziestolecie pracy naukowej (Toruń, 1999), 45–55. For the hypothesis that Bacon was the target of attacks by Bonaventure, see Camille Bérubé, “Le dialogue de S. Bonaventure et de Roger Bacon,” Collectanea Franciscana, 39 (1969), 59–103; Camille Bérubé, De la philosophie à la sagesse chez St Bonaventure et Roger Bacon (Rome, 1976); Franco Alessio, Mito e scienza in Ruggero Bacone (Milan, 1957), pp. 85–97. 18 Much has been written on the influence of Bacon’s work; for its impact during the 1270s and 1280s, see: David C. Lindberg, “Lines of influence in thirteenth-century optics: Bacon, Witelo and Pecham,” Speculum, 46 (1971), 66–83; Katherine H. Tachau, Vision and certitude in the age of Ockham: optics, epistemology and the foundation of semantics, 1250–1345 (1988), pp. 27–54; Katherine H. Tachau, “Seeing as Action and Passion in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.), The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 2006), 336–59, pp. 352–53; Dallas G. Denery II, Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology and Religious Life (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 75–115. 19 The author included exempla critical of learning (e.g. pp. 81, 101, 288), but on the whole he used “learned” as a term of approbation (e.g. p. 270) and exhibited a cautious acceptance of education in its proper place (see pp. 130–32, for an inaccurate, but approving, account of Anthony of Padua and Adam Marsh studying theology together in Milan, discussed in Dolso, La Chronica, pp. 87–89).

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Chronica’s historical matter can be traced to earlier sources, and thus measured against their versions. The section on Bacon, from our perspective at least, appears ex nihilo nearly a century after the events it purports to describe. This is almost certainly deceptive. The account probably relates to the ways that Bacon was remembered and regarded at that time, but since we do not have a clear idea of what they were, we cannot tell how it does. We do, however, know that very different memories and interpretations were abroad at the time. A decade after the completion of the Chronica XXIV generalium, a little-noticed account of Bacon was recorded in Ragusa, in Dalmatia, by a Franciscan called Peter of Trau. His work celebrated the achievements of the friars, including those of “Brother Roger called Bachon, an Englishman [who] . . . was a man of such great subtlety in natural philosophy that he was more interested in pursuing his wonderful experiments (which provide the truest form of knowledge) than in writing with a pen or teaching with words.” The account went on to speak of Bacon’s ability to walk over bridges built of condensed air and to construct mirrors with remarkable properties. One mirror could light candles and the other could show “what men were doing in the most remote parts of the world.” These mirrors were eventually destroyed by the university in Oxford, not because they were suspect novelties, but because they distracted the students from their studies. Peter emphasised that Bacon had accomplished these things through scientia experimentalis, with a strongly-implied distinction between this and magic. Significantly, he noted: “Roger made mention of similar things, and even greater ones, for the glory of God, in his letter to Pope Clement IV.”20 Although this source has only been used in passing to indicate the emergence of the “legendary” Bacon, these claims were in fact either closely based on things that Bacon had written or were extrapolated from them. He had indeed described to Clement burning mirrors that could ignite objects by concentrating the rays of the sun and mirrors

20 “frater Rogerius dictus Bachon Anglicus . . . tante subtilitatis in naturali phylosophia extitit ut magis eius mirabilibus experimentis (quibus nulla verior scientia) quam scripture stilo aut doctrine verbo insistens’; ‘quid agebant homines in quantumcumque remotis constituti partibus”; “De similibus et maioribus idem Rogerius mencionem facit in sua Epistola ad papam Clementem quartam ad laudem Dei”: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc. 525, fos. 202v–203v, transcribed in George Molland, “Roger Bacon as Magician,” Traditio, 30 (1947), 445–60, pp. 446–47.

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that could be used to spy out distant lands.21 Furthermore, Peter legitimised these apparently “magical” deeds in precisely the same way as Bacon had done himself, if more crudely. Bacon had maintained that scientia experimentalis “purges all the magical arts,” “condemns all invocation of demons” and evaluated and discredited books of magic.22 The destruction of the mirrors might just conceivably be a variant on the condemnation story, but it may equally serve simply as a comic coda. In short, while the Chronica has been taken seriously and this source has not, it is this one that shows genuine, if limited, acquaintance with Bacon’s ideas, the context within which Bacon wrote them down, and his justifications for them. The Chronica, on the other hand, betrayed confusion about who Bacon was, the nature of his field of expertise, and was extremely vague about why he was condemned. Its author probably had better access to the records of the order, but either did not know Bacon’s work, or chose not to use it to flesh out his remarks. The Chronica is full of stories of wonders and miracles, but Bacon’s capacity to perform wonders without the aid of either demons or notable personal sanctity did not fit into its ideological paradigms. The sources agree that Bacon was in possession of knowledge that might be dangerous or at least inconvenient, but the Chronica claimed that this caused his condemnation, while Peter of Trau presented it as a reason for admiration. It is the latter reaction that comes through more strongly in the material contemporary with Bacon. The best piece of evidence for Bacon’s standing in his own society has rarely been read as such: the letter written to him by Pope Clement IV in 1266. From it we learn the following details. At some point during the 1260s, Bacon came to the attention of a prominent Frenchman who was blazing a rapid upwards path through the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Gui de Foulques,

21

Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of De multiplicatione specierum and De speculis comburentibus, ed. David C. Lindberg (Oxford, 1983), pp. 152–56 (burning mirrors); Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva, pp. 330–332 (spying mirrors and condensed air). For a discussion of the relationship between the “legendary” Bacon and Bacon’s own works, see Molland, “Roger Bacon as Magician”; George Molland, “Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval Science,” Vivarium 31 (1993), 140–61. 22 “evacuat omnes artes magicas”; “damnat omnem demonum invocationem” Andrew George Little (ed.), Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon Including a Fragment Now Printed for the First Time (Aberdeen, 1912), pp. 47–48. Nicolas WeillParot, “Encadrement ou dévoilement: L’occulte et le Secret dans la nature chez Albert le Grand et Roger Bacon,” Micrologus, 14 (2006), 151–70.

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intimate of Louis IX of France, came to know something of Bacon’s ideas and asked to know more of them. Before Bacon responded, Gui became Pope Clement IV. Bacon then wrote to him care of King Henry III’s highly-experienced envoy to the papal curia, William Bonecor. William was not merely the bearer of letters, but also understood Bacon’s thinking well enough to explain it to the pope. It is worth emphasising the high status of these men. Bacon was eager to present himself in his own writings as humble, poor and obscure—as a Franciscan should be—but in fact, his project was communicated by the trusted representative of a king to the head of the whole Church. These men were not credulous or easily imposed upon: they were sophisticated men of the world, who must certainly have known enough about Bacon’s standing and the nature of his interests to judge him worth serious attention. The consequence of William’s interview with Clement was a letter commanding Bacon to send a “fair copy” of his work to the curia. He was to do it without regard for any command to the contrary of any prelate or for the constitutions of his order, which explicitly forbade such communications without permission.23 Finally, and most impressively, Clement asked Bacon to: “explain to us the remedies that you think we should adopt to address those issues that you have recently described as the occasion of such great danger, and do this quickly and as secretly as possible.”24 The dangers are not clear from this letter, but what is clear is that Clement was asking Bacon for guidance in crucial, urgent and secret affairs. Bacon may have written sections of what became the Opus maius, Opus minus and Opus tertium as separate treatises over the years.25 However, the structure within which the sections were fitted was meant for Clement, who was frequently addressed directly in the texts. From this, we may gain an idea of what Clement meant by both “dangers” and “remedies.” At the beginning of the Opus maius, Bacon 23 For the statute banning dissemination of work outside the order without permission see: “Statuta generalia Ordinis edita in Capitulis generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, Assisii an. 1279 atque Parisiis an. 1292,” ed. Michael Bihl, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 34.1–2 (1941), 13–91, p. 73. 24 “et per tuas nobis declares litteras quae tibi videntur adhibenda remedia circa illa, quae nuper occasione tanti discriminis intimasti: et hoc quanto secretius poteris facias indilate.” “Epistola Clementis Papae IV. ad Rogerium Baconem,” in J.S. Brewer (ed.), Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita (London, 1859), p. 1. 25 The construction of the text and the relationship of the three volumes has exercised historians over the years. See esp. Eugenio Massa, Ruggero Bacone: etica e poetica nella storia dell’ “Opus maius” (Rome, 1955).

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said that the “matters under discussion are serious and unusual” and emphasised that they should be read with “the grace and favour which human fragility requires.”26 His subject was sapientia: its attainment and its application “to all matters, so that they can be directed by it in the proper way.” “For,” he went on, “by the light of wisdom the Church of God is governed; the public affairs of the faithful are regulated; the conversion of unbelievers is brought about; and those who are obstinate in their malice can be restrained by the power of wisdom, so that they can be driven away from the borders of the Church in a better way than by the shedding of Christian blood. Everything that requires the guidance of wisdom can be included within these four categories.”27 As the text went on, it became increasingly evident that when Bacon wrote of “the power of wisdom,” he meant the arts and sciences that would allow the wise to harness the forces of nature. Some of these branches of learning had been known to patriarchs, prophets, philosophers and saints in the ancient world; then lost; and now were being recovered through translations from Greek, Arabic and Hebrew texts. Others had been tainted by long association with magic, demons and charlatans, but could be purged through scientia experimentalis so that Christians could use them. The danger, wrote Bacon, was that these processes of restoration would be impeded by the ignorance and superstition of the prejudiced majority. The corrupt moral state of society in the last days of the world meant that there were hardly any people of sufficient virtue to undertake the study of these great secrets. Meanwhile, the perils that threatened Christendom from without—both hostile infideles and the shadowy immanence of Antichrist—intensified the urgency of the situation. Bacon was quite clear that the remedies for such immense dangers were themselves dangerous. Indeed, he noted: “these works seem to ordinary students to be beyond human comprehension.”28 They were

26 “Quoniam autem illa de quibus agitur sunt grandia et insolita, gratiam et favorem humanae fragilitatis requirunt.” Opus maius, 1.1, vol. 3, p. 1. 27 “. . . quomodo ad omnia comparetur, ut per eam modis congruis dirigantur. Nam per lumen sapientiae ordinatur ecclesia Dei, respublica fidelium disponitur, infidelium conversio procuratur, et illi qui in malitia obstinati sunt valent per virtutem sapientiae reprimi, ut melius a finibus ecclesiae longius pellantur, quam per effusionem sanguinis Christiani. Omnia vero quae indigent regimine sapientiae ad haec quatuor reducuntur”. Opus maius, 1.1, vol. 3, p. 1. 28 “haec opera videntur vulgo studentium esse supra humanum intellectum” Opus maius, 4.4.16; vol. 1, p. 394.

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usually kept secret by the wise, but Bacon was convinced that the time had come to reveal their existence and nature to the pope. He felt that: “since this is one of the most important areas of knowledge, and at least to some extent powerful in all areas, it should not be hidden from your Glory.”29 Even so, he wrote: “I want to come to this subject delicately, from a variety of directions, because the material is difficult and there are many objections to it.”30 He brought to bear every available assurance for what he proposed, re-iterating the familiar arguments against “magic” and astrological determinism and setting out the careful distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate forms of knowledge.31 On this basis, in the Opus maius and the two supplementary works, he was as open as he dared be with Clement.32 It is probably testament to Bacon’s fierce conviction, but also his trust in the pope, that he was prepared to commit himself as far as he did. It was no light thing to write of techniques for converting infideles: “I reveal in the treatise that I am sending, that anyone can be influenced to good and evil, both in public and private, by the potency of the heavens, without coercion.”33 In the later works, he was still more

29 “Unde cum hoc sit unum de maximis, et quasi potens quodammodo in omnia, non decet ut Vestrae Gloriae occultetur”: Roger Bacon, Opus maius, 4.4.16, vol. 1, p. 392. 30 “ad hoc volo innuere per multas vias, quia materia difficilis est et magnae contradictionis”: Opus maius, 3.14, vol. 3, p. 123. 31 On magic, see Valerie I.J. Flint, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1991), pp. 13–58; Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 19–42; A. George Molland, “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation of Past Mathematics,” in F. Jamil Ragep and Sally P. Ragep, Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-modern Science held at the University of Oklahoma (Leiden, 1996), 347–65. On astrology and determinism, see: Jole Agrimi and Chiara Crisciani, “Albumazar nell’Astrologia di Ruggero Bacone,” ACME 25.1 (1972), 315–38; Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon on Astronomy-Astrology: the Sources of the Scientia Experimentalis,” in Hackett (ed.), Roger Bacon, 175–98. On other “secrets” see: Weill-Parot, “Encadrement”; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, “Ruggero Bacone e l’alchimia di lunga vita. Riflessioni sui testi,” in Chiara Crisciani and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (eds.), Alchimia e medicina nel medioevo (Firenze, 2003), 33–54; Benoît Grévin, “Entre Magie et Sémiotique: Roger Bacon et les caractères chinois,” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales, 70.1 (2003), 118–38. 32 See Étienne Anheim, Benoît Grévin and Martin Morard, “Exégèse judéo-chrétienne, magie et linguistique: un recueil de notes inédites attribuées à Roger Bacon,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge 68 (2001) 95–154, p. 134 for the suggestion that Bacon was more evasive about his Arabic and even Hebrew material than he was about his Latin and Greek. 33 “Ostendo enim in tractatu quem mitto, quod induci potest aliquis ad bonum et malum, tam publicum quam privatum, per virtutes coelorum sine coactione”: Roger Bacon, Opus maius, 4.4.16, vol. 1, p. 393.

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open about the real nature of the “remedies” that he had in mind. He discussed the various types of magicians, all of whom either wittingly or unwittingly worked through demons, then proposed the possibility of another kind, one who would work through knowledge and wisdom—“with the authority of the greatest pontiff; [one] who must be wholly subordinate to the Roman Church”—to bring great good to society. Such men, confronted with Antichrist, would be able to thwart his evil magic with the power of wisdom and protect the faithful in the hour of their greatest tribulation.34 He emphasised that it was only the pure, unstained Christian soul, working with papal consent and “acting through the grace of God,” that could channel the forces of knowledge and nature to change the world.35 In his broad analysis, Bacon spoke very precisely to the categories of concern put forward by successive popes during his lifetime. Both Lateran IV and Lyons I had been called to address a range of external and internal threats in a context of apocalyptic fear and moral reform.36 Many other friars castigated their contemporaries in language at least as violent as Bacon’s and suggested a range of remedies, from the reform of pastoral care through to strategies for more successful crusades.37 The savage rhetoric employed was often borrowed from prophetic and apocalyptic texts, and was, if anything, approved by contemporaries as appropriate to the gravity of the situation. Bacon wrote within these genres and to the same ends as others. He differed only in the means that he proposed and perhaps in the scale of his ambition. It is fairly certain that Clement had some idea of what Bacon had in mind, and had specifically requested the sort of information that he received— otherwise there would have been no need for the intense secrecy and

34 “auctoritate summi pontificis, qui subjecti et subditi pedibus Romane ecclesie debent”: Roger Bacon, Part of the Opus tertium, p. 17. 35 “mandata per gratiam Dei”: Opus maius, 3.14, vol. 3, pp. 124–5. 36 John C. Moore, Pope Innocent III (1160/61–1216): To root up and to plant (Leiden, 2003); H. Wolter and H. Holstein, Lyon I et Lyon II (Paris, 1966); Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 2009). 37 If we consider only men whom Bacon expressly admired, there are the uncompromising accusations made against everyone from refractory clerics to cardinals and even popes by Adam Marsh and Robert Grosseteste. See C.H. Lawrence (ed. and trans.), The Letters of Adam Marsh, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2006); Adae de Marisco, Epistolae, in J.S. Brewer (ed.), Monumenta Franciscana, 2 vols. (London, 1858), vol. 1, esp. Letter 246, pp. 414–37; Servus Gieben, “Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons 1250: Edition of the Documents,” Collectanea franciscana, 41 (1971), 340–93.

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the disobedience to superiors. The results of his instructions were, famously, uncomfortable for Bacon. Yet we should not take this to mean that Bacon was the isolated figure familiar from much of the historiography. On the contrary, Bacon had many acquaintances among “the wise” and had arrived at his ideas in discussion with contemporaries such as Peter of Maricourt. The circulation of his writings and their growing influence is apparent from at least the 1270s.38 He was well-supported in his enterprise for Clement, which may elucidate the mild mystery of how he managed to write so much in the circumstances that he had described with such palpable distress. Although he did not, he claimed, manage to secure much financial assistance from the great and the good of Paris, his own friends were more helpful. He told Clement that, at his insistence, they gave him the little money that they had; they sold possessions to raise more and even borrowed at interest for him.39 Jeremiah Hackett has suggested, on the basis of manuscript evidence, that Bacon may have had the assistance of at least one fellow-scholar in revising the constituent elements of the Opus maius.40 Bacon spoke affectionately of his students and the friends who usually read his work. He told Clement that the scribe taking down the Opus tertium for him was “dear to my heart.”41 Finally, we know that it was one of Bacon’s students, a young man called John, who eventually carried the manuscripts to the papal curia. One last piece of evidence may indicate the manner in which ordinary members of Bacon’s order came to regard his interests and possibly his standing as an expert on secret and powerful knowledge. It was noted by A.G. Little in 1912, but nothing has since been made of it in Bacon scholarship.42 Somewhere between 1275 and 1279, in the Franciscan convent at Cork, a friar compiled a book of exempla

38

Erhard Schlund, “Petrus Peregrinus von Maricourt: sein Leben und seine Schriften (ein Beitrag zur Roger Baco-forschung),” Archivum franciscanum historicum, 4 (1911), 436–55. On the circulation of his writings, see above n. 14. 39 Opus tertium in J.S. Brewer (ed.), Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera, pp. 16–17. 40 In particular, Peter of Limoges. “The Hand of Roger Bacon, the Writing of the Perspectiva and MS Paris BN Lat. 7434,” in Jacqueline Hamesse (ed.), Roma, Magistra Mundi, Itineraria Culturae Medievalis: Mélanges offerts au Père L.E. Boyle à l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998), vol. 1, 323–36. 41 Opus maius, 1.10, vol. 3, p. 24; 3.1, vol. 1, p. 82; 6.1, vol. 2, pp. 170–1; Opus tertium, pp. 13; ‘secundum cor meum’ Little (ed.), Part of the Opus Tertium, p. 83. 42 A.G. Little, “Franciscans at Oxford,” in Paul Sabatier et al. (eds.), Franciscan Essays (Aberdeen, 1912), 71–87, pp. 82–83.

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for use in preaching.43 Looking back to his student days in Paris, he recalled a story that had been told to him and “Brother Roger called Bacun” by a well-known English surgeon, Peter of Arden. It was a dark and cautionary tale. The surgeon, who had married a Parisian woman and settled in that city, had befriended a learned Spanish magus, and shown him much hospitality. The magician, wishing to make some return for this kindness, led the surgeon out of the city at night and, by his arts, summoned a demon who would answer any question put to him. The attraction of this illicit, supernatural source of information proved irresistible. Night after night, the men left the city to converse further with the demon. It happened, however, that the fifth of these nights was the Feast of the Assumption and, despite the magician’s rituals, the demon did not appear. The magician was not discouraged, but continued to call with such determination that eventually the Devil himself came to them, “lamenting and sighing . . . in the manner of a beaten boy.” “It is extraordinary,” he remarked resentfully. “Angels are celebrating the feast of the Virgin Mary in heaven, and you cannot be quiet on earth!” The men were astonished and horrified. Recording the story, years later, the friar drew from it the moral that Christians ought to respect a feast-day of such importance that even the Devil was compelled to preach its significance.44 Roger Bacon, who had been there with the friar and the surgeon and had heard the story told, evidently needed no introduction for the readers of the Liber exemplorum. This is in contrast to the detail supplied about Peter of Arden who, according to the author, was known

43 For the dating, see Little, “Introduction,” p. ix. It appears to be the earliest extant collection, and the first to be arranged alphabetically, although it drew on earlier collections. Claude Bremond, Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt, L’“exemplum” (Turnhout, 1982), pp. 60–61. For the wider context of Franciscan exempla collections, see Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Recueils franciscains d’ ‘exempla’ et perfectionnement des techniques intellectuels du XIIIe au XVe siècle,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartres, 135.1 (1977), 5–21; Kehnel, “Narrative Tradition,” esp. pp. 475–95; Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, “L’image du père fondateur dans les recueils d’Exempla franciscains des XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Gert Melville and Jörg Oberste (eds), Die Bettelorden im Aufbau: Beiträge zu Institutionalisierungsprozessen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum (Münster, 1999), 215–41; Roest, Reading the Book; David L. D’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985). 44 “lugens et suspirans . . . ad modum pueri verberati”; “Mirum est, inquit, de vobis. Angeli enim in celo faciunt festum de Maria Virgine, et vos non potestis quiescere in terra!”: A.G. Little (ed.), Liber exemplorum ad usum praedicantium: saeculo xiii compositus a quodam fratre minore anglio de provincia hiberniae (Aberdeen, 1908), ch. 38, p. 22.

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to all the clerics in Ireland at the time. Indeed, although the author referred to many contemporaries throughout the surviving sections of the Liber, Bacon was virtually the only person mentioned without introductory preamble. Generally, individuals were introduced with a statement in praise of their character or an indication of the offices they had held; sometimes both.45 This was standard practice in medieval texts drawing their auctoritas from the reports of contemporaries. In this particular case, Bacon was merely a witness to the encounter. His reliability was not essential to the acceptance of the story. Even so, he was serving a distinct narrative function. He was twice mentioned: “a certain thing once told to me and to Brother Roger called Bacon in Paris” and then only a few lines later: “He related to me and Brother Roger Bacon…”46 The author was palpably eager to associate the story with Bacon. The association was not a negative one: if Bacon was in trouble with his order or suspect in any way, news of it had not penetrated to Cork. Was the emphasis simply because Bacon was renowned for his learning? Or could it have been more than that? Could it have been that Bacon was known for his expertise in arcane matters, and so was an appropriate figure to stand as witness to the story? We know that Bacon was greatly interested in such stories. He had included similar exempla in his work for Clement. One of these concerned a devout woman who longed to have a child and was given hope by a heretical “bishop,” who promised her a son. The heretic called on the services of a necromancer, and the three of them met in a secret place in order to summon a demon. When the demon appeared, in the form of a boy wearing a crown, the heretic and the necromancer urged the woman to put her request to him. But she was too terrified to speak, gripped by the fear of God. While she remained silent, the demon withdrew to a nearby wall and took off his crown, worshipping and genuflecting. When he came back to them, the men asked him why he had behaved so oddly. The demon explained that a priest had passed on the other side of the wall, carrying a consecrated host to a sickbed in a nearby house. The demon had been compelled by God’s law to adore the body of Christ. For Bacon, the story was further proof of the wonderful power of the Eucharist. It was also a story of 45

On character see Liber exemplorum, pp. 25, 28, 55 etc.; on offices see pp. 41, 42, 81 etc. 46 “quoddam, mihi et fratri Rogero dicto Bacun Parisius quondam relatum”; “michi et fratri Rogero Bacun narravit”: Liber exemplorum, p. 22.

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miraculous conversion, for after hearing the words of the demon, the heretic became a “true Christian” and persecuted heresy with all the vigour of the convert. Bacon knew that there were many such tales, but he was eager to tell his own, for it was authentic and had not yet been written down.47 Both stories draw us across imaginative and temporal frontiers into a world described by medieval Franciscans: strange to us, intricate, shadowy and unexpected. Here lived Friar Roger, a man whom historians would still be discussing seven hundred years later, but who was once one of a pair of English friars swapping confidential tales of occult matters with a fellow-countryman somewhere in the crowded, turbulent city of Paris. In the world revealed by the two stories, fantastical conjurations came of human needs: friendship, the hunger for knowledge, the desire for a child. They occurred in close proximity to the commonplace: the city at night; a priest carrying the Eucharist to a sick parishioner. Yet for all the subversive exoticism of magical arts, those who used them could only discover in the end what they ought to have known in the first place—the nature of the cosmos in all its ordered beauty, bound by laws of such power that even demons could be forced to work for holy ends.48 This was the point that both the nameless friar of Cork, and Bacon himself, sought to make with their stories. The relationship between the mundane, the illicit and the sublime was subtle. All the greatest questions had already been answered, but enigmatically, suggestively, leaving humans full of curiosity and uncertainty about where the limits of legitimate inquiry might lie. Much of Bacon’s work was directed at re-defining these boundaries in order to put the Church in possession of his vision of the fullness of power. Historians have, over the centuries, been inclined to feel that the Church may not have understood or appreciated these efforts. The little evidence that we have suggests otherwise.

47 Rogeri Baconis, Moralis Philosophia, ed. Eugenio Massa (Turin, 1953), IV.iii.1, pp. 225, 226. 48 Bacon was, of course, acutely conscious that demons usually sought to work evil. Little (ed.), Part of the Opus Tertium, p. 16. On the ambiguities of demonic roles in this genre, see Barbara Newman, “Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women, Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life in the Thirteenth Century,” Speculum 73.3 (1998), 733–70; Aaron Gurevich, “Santi iracondi e demoni buoni negli ‘exempla’ ,” in Santi e Demoni nell’ alto medioevo occidentale (secoli V–XI) 7–13 aprile 1988, 2 vols. (Spoleto, 1989), vol. 2, 1043–63. On the folkloric qualities of exempla more generally, see Bremond et al., L’“exemplum,” pp. 90–107.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE PAGAN PHILOSOPHERS IN THE NORTH: A TWELFTH-CENTURY FLORILEGIUM IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY1 Charles Burnett One characteristic of Latin theologians and philosophers of the first half of the twelfth century, is that they exploited the pagan philosophers, either for independent justification for the truths of the Christian religion, or for “natural reason” which established truths which were independent of any revealed religion. Peter Abelard both paraded the pagan philosophers as witnesses to the Christian verities and set up the “philosopher” as a foil to the Christian and the Jew in his Dialogus.2 The sources for pagan philosophy were Plato’s Timaeus, Macrobius’s Commentaries on the Dream of Scipio, Martianus Capella’s Marriage of Mercury and Philology and the Asclepius of Hermes Trismegistus. Manuscripts of these texts started to proliferate in the early twelfth century and all these texts became the subject of commentaries. What I would like to draw attention to here, however, is another manifestation of these pagan philosophers, and that is in the form of a florilegium. This florilegium is included in a manuscript that appears to have accompanied the earliest Dominicans to venture into the northern regions of the British Isles. For the manuscript belonged to “Clement, of the order of preachers”, who may be Clement, bishop of Dunblane, who was part of the group of Dominicans who were invited to

1 I am very grateful for the help of Bruce Barker-Benfield, Peter Dronke, Anna Somfai, Helen Dixon, Sheila Noble and her colleagues at the University Library, Edinburgh, David Juste, Richard Sharpe, Richard Gameson, and Hanna Vorholt for help of diverse kinds. Above all, I am grateful to David Luscombe for supporting my research both by his own example and by his constant encouragement. Numerical references are made to the excerpts of pagan texts in the Edinburgh manuscript, as listed in the Appendix. 2 See David Luscombe, “Peter Abelard and the Poets,” in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon (Leiden, 2001), pp. 155–71, and John Marenbon, “Imaginary Pagans, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance,” in Continuities and Disruptions between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, eds. José Meirinhos, Charles Burnett, and Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-laNeuve, 2008), pp. 151–65.

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Scotland by king Alexander II in 1230.3 Bishop Clement died in 1258, and eventually the manuscript arrived in Edinburgh, University Library, where it was given the class mark D. b. IV. 6. The manuscript has been written by several different hands, but the facts that the writing is in long lines and above the top line, abbreviations and “biting” are restrained, the tironian “et” is uncrossed, and the upright “d” and e-caudata are retained by some of the hands, suggest a date before the end of twelfth century, and perhaps as early as the third quarter of that century.4 For the original context of the manuscript’s compilation one can only make deductions from its contents. The manuscript consists of two unequal parts: the first three fifths contain excerpts from the whole of the Bible and some related texts,5 while the last two fifths contain the Florilegium of pagan authors. Two of the hands appear in both parts of the manuscript, and the same mentality seems to lie behind the compilation of these Biblical excerpts and those from the pagan authors. All the excerpts follow the order of the original text,6 a running head gives the author or work from which the excerpts have been taken, and, usually, each excerpt is signalled by

3 Fol. 243v (see Appendix below). It has been alleged that “Clementis” has also been written above an erasure in the first ex libris, but this name can no longer be read. The cognomen in the second ex libris is not clear. Richard Sharpe (Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 [Turnhout, 1997], p. 86), mentions a “Clement OP”, who was bishop of Dunblane and died in 1258. In Jacques Quétif and Jacques Échard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum (Rome, 1719), 1:149, Clement is said to have come from Paris, and ibid., p. 111, the Dominicans are said to have first came to Scotland in 1230 and at that date the king of Scotland was in Paris. The second part of Quétif and Échard’s information presumably comes from Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, where we read that “anno sequenti, id est domini mo ccxxx [1230] ingrediuntur primo fratres Jacobini quos allexit Alexander rex”: 9.47, ed. D.E. R. Watt (Aberdeen, 1990), p. 144. The Scotichronicon further mentions the death of “egregius praedicator de ordine Praedicatorum Clemens episcopus Dumblanensis variarum linguarum interpres eloquentissimus” in 1256 (an error for 1258: see ibid., 9.48, ed. Watt, p. 146 and note). If this is not empty praise, it suggests that Clement had some reputation for learning. However, the only work tentatively attributed to him—a sermon by “frater Clemens” in British Library, Egerton 655, fols. 142v–143v—shows no knowledge of Platonic texts. Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi 1 (Rome, 1970), pp. 269–70, does not add further information. 4 This is the informal judgement expressed by Michael Gullick. 5 Isidore’s De fide catholica contra Iudaeos is copied in full, presumably because this text, in itself, consists mainly of excerpts from the Bible. Bat-Sheva Albert (“De fide catholica contra Judaeos d’Isidore de Séville: La polémique anti-judaïque dans l’Espagne du viie siècle,” Revue des études juives 141 (1982), 289–316, see p. 316), concludes that Isidore wrote the De fide catholica as a kind of theological primer for Christian clerics. 6 The only exception are excerpts 10 and 11 from Cicero’s De natura deorum,

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a paraph.7 This suggests that there was some master-plan behind the excerpting. It is probable that the transcription of this manuscript was supervised by a single scholar, who wished to include under one cover both the texts most important for Christian theology, and those giving information relevant to theology from pagan texts. If one is looking for the hand of this master scholar, it is presumably that of the running heads, which has also added the last sentence of the Somnium Scipionis (fol. 179v), the headings within the text and in the margins on fols 192r and 198r, and the glosses to the Biblical texts; the last indicate a particular interest in cosmology and psychology.8 The excerpts range from a single sentence to several pages of text. Errors in the transcription make it clear that the scribes were sometimes copying from fuller texts,9 and at times failed to notice what excerpt should be copied.10 A plausible scenario is that the scribes are students following the plan of a master, who marked the excerpts to be copied in the respective texts. It is not easy to decide why only excerpts of texts have been copied, for there are no introductions or other interventions on the part of the editor that could give any clues. It is possible that excerpts were made because the master did not have the money or the time to copy whole works. It may be that this scholar was a Dominican who was planning to go to some remote area where he thought that he would not have access to any books, and this manuscript was meant to serve as a complete library. It is more probable, however, that a personal interest in certain subjects determined the choice of excerpts. The master pays particular attention to the text of Calcidius. This is the only text for which the title is given in display script, followed by a large, ornamental initial. The excerpts from Calcidius take up a

which could either have been copied in the wrong order, or have been transcribed from a defective manuscript. 7 Paraphs (symbols indicating the beginnings of paragraphs) are missing for the excerpts from the Psalms, and those from Cicero’s De natura deorum and the first part of the Asclepius. 8 Cf. fol. 28v (within Isaiah): corpora supplicia pacientur nam omnis spiritus flatus dei est et impassibilis. Unde salomon: et spiritus redit ad deum qui dedit illum; fol. 64v (within Matthew): sol luna et stelle commovebunt; fol. 79v (within Apocalypse): nota .vii. stellas. There are no glosses after fol. 79v. 9 E.g. in Macrobius, excerpts 38 and 45, the scribe continues to copy the text immediately following the excerpts, and then crosses out these continuations. 10 E.g. after Macrobius, excerpt 18, the scribe begins to copy excerpt 20, but then crosses this out, realising that he has omitted an intervening excerpt.

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larger number of folios than those of any other author, and only this text is annotated.11 The passages that were included are those on the creation of the world by God, the property of the number 7, the anima mundi, the planets, time and eternity, demons, fate and providence, human souls, the sense of sight, and matter (“silva”), the last of which constitutes the longest excerpt in the manuscript (fols 223v–232r = ed. Waszink, pp. 279.8–311.15). Passages relating to the same subjects are chosen from the other texts.12 Common to the excerpts as a whole is the interest in references directly to Plato (especially when he is quoted verbatim),13 and to the “Platonici”.14 Also included, however, are the opinions of other Greek philosophers (Alexander Milesius, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Chrysippus, Empedocles, Epicurus, Heraclitus, Hesiod and Parmenides),15 and of Moses and the Hebrews.16 Particularly noteworthy is that the editor picks out the passages emphasizing that man is born to contemplate the heavens (Cicero 11; Calcidius 39), and discussions of the cause of the benevolence and malevolence of the planets (Macrobius 40 and 42), and of the possibility of predicting the future (Cicero 22–3; Calcidius 36–7). He likes definitions17 and apophthegms.18

11 There is evidence that this annotation, which always takes the form of the “Nota”monogram, was copied from the exemplar, since it is written in the same hand as the text, and includes at least one correction of a word miscopied from a previous gloss: “cognominetur” has been expunged and replaced by “habeatur“ (fol. 204v). 12 In the following notes, the serial number of the excerpt (as in the Appendix below) immediately follows the authority. The creation of the world by God: Macrobius 30–1, Asclepius 5. The property of the number 7: Macrobius, 11–12. The anima mundi: Macrobius 14, Cicero 4. The planets: Macrobius 40, 42. Time and eternity: Macrobius 48, 50–2, Asclepius 8. Demons: Cicero 16, Asclepius 5–6, 12 (Socrates’ familiar spirit is not only the subject of De deo Socratis, but also mentioned in Cicero 29 and Calcidius 19 and 22). Fate and providence: Cicero 20, 22, Asclepius 5–6, 12. Human souls: Macrobius 24–9, 35, 53–63, Cicero 26. Matter: Asclepius 4. 13 Plato in general: Macrobius 5, 35, Cicero 4, Calcidius 18. References to, and quotations from Plato’s works: Crito and Euthydemon: Calcidius 37; Epinomis: Apuleius 2; Laws: Cicero 5; Phaedrus: Macrobius 1, 52, Calcidius 10, 14, 19, 23, 32, 41; Republic: Calcidius 19, 37; Timaeus: Macrobius 11, 14, 40, 44–5, Cicero 5. 14 Macrobius 3–4, 23, 28, 53. 15 Alexander Milesius: Calcidius 11; Anaxagoras: Calcidius 39; Aristotle: Macrobius 58, 60, 61, Cicero 16, Calcidius 31; Chrysippus: Calcidius 31; Empedocles: Calcidius 29, 30, 41, 49; Epicurus: Cicero 7; Heraclitus: Cicero 27, Calcidius 33–4; Hesiod: Macrobius 20; Parmenides: Calcidius 45 and 49. 16 Calcidius 19, 22, 30, 41. 17 Macrobius 6–8, 10, 17 (definitions of oracle, vision, dream, plenitude, prudence); Calcidius 12 (knowledge and opinion). 18 Cicero 1–3, Calcidius 1, 20, 21.

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The plan seems to have been to place Plato first (being, in the words of Cicero quoted in De natura deorum, excerpt 5, “like some god of the philosophers”),19 to add texts which give Platonic doctrine, and end the quotations from Classical authors with the most important account of Platonism, that of Calcidius. But the Calcidius excerpts are not the last in the manuscript. They are followed by extracts from a completely different source: the Great Introduction to Astrology of Albumasar, in the translation of Hermann of Carinthia. Who would have thought of adding Albumasar to the pagan philosophers, and why? Albumasar is the best-known figure in astrology of the Western Middle Ages. He is the prolific writer Abu Ma‘shar Ja‘far ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Balkhi, who was born in Khurasan in 787 A.D. and died in Wasit in Iraq in 886, but spent most of his life in Baghdad, the political and cultural centre of the Islamic world.20 Several of his Arabic writings were translated into Latin in the twelfth century, and became the foundation of the science of astrology in the West. His Great Introduction to Astrology was the most important of these: not only does it bring together all the information necessary for an astrologer concerning the planets, the signs of the zodiac, the astrological places and so on, but also it provides the theoretical justification, based largely on Aristotelian natural science, for the doctrine, and includes, as its first book, a detailed philosophical defense of astrology. This work was translated twice in the twelfth century. The earlier translation was apparently made in 1133 by John of Seville, the prolific translator of texts on arithmetic, astrology and astronomy, working possibly in the Portuguese area of Limia and in Toledo in the 1130s and early 1140s.21 Then, in 1140, Hermann of Carinthia, who is attested “on the banks of the Ebro” (1141), in León (sometime between 1141 and 1143), Toulouse (I June 1143) and Béziers (later in 1143), made another translation, which he dedicated to his fellow translator, Robert of 19 Platonem quasi quendam deum philosophorum: De natura deorum, ¶32, ed. Wilhelm Ax (Leipzig, 1933), p. 61.6. 20 See David Pingree, “Abu Ma‘shar,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. C.C. Gillispie, 1 (New York, 1970), pp. 32–9, and Charles Burnett, “Abū Ma‘shar (AD 787–886) and his Major Texts on Astrology,” in Kayd. Studies in History of Mathematics, Astronomy and Astrology in Memory of David Pingree. Rome Oriental Series 102 (Rome, 2009), ed. Antonio Panaino and Stefano Buscherini, pp. 17–29. 21 See Burnett, “ ‘Magister Iohannes Hispalensis et Limiensis’ and Qusta ibn Luqa’s De differentia spiritus et animae: a Portuguese Contribution to the Arts Curriculum?,” Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos 7–8 (Porto, 1995), 221–67, and idem, “John of Seville and John of Spain: a mise au point,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 44 (2002), 59–78.

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Ketton.22 The second translation shows no knowledge of the earlier translation, and, as we shall see, its early diffusion was very different from that of John’s translation. Both translations have recently been edited, together with the original Arabic text, by Richard Lemay, who used all the manuscripts and manuscript-fragments known to him.23 The series of excerpts in the Edinburgh manuscript, however, which includes roughly one ninth of the five books that are excerpted, apparently escaped Lemay’s attention.24 A contemporary hand (probably that of the editor of the manuscript) has added “dicta albumassar” in the upper margin of the first page. The excerpts have simply been lifted from a copy of Hermann’s text, without any introductory remarks, or commentary or paraphrasing. They treat the following subjects:25 how midwives can predict the sex of the baby before it is born (1); a quotation of the “Philosopher” (Aristotle) and the statement that the stars have control of the harmony of the soul and the body, in the context of the rebuttal of the claim that the stars cannot indicate the contingent (i.e. what may or may not happen in the future), but only what will necessarily happen (2); the rebuttal of those who criticize astrology out of spite, having failed to master it themselves (3); the definition of the “public” species of astrology (i.e. general astrology, concerned with natural events that affect whole societies, such as wars, famines, earthquakes, conflagrations, and floods), and of the “private” species, which concern

22 For Hermann’s biography see C.H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Medieval Science, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), pp. 43–66. Peter the Venerable reported his presence on the banks of the Ebro, together with his fellow translator, Robert of Ketton. 23 Richard Lemay: Abu Ma‘šar al-Balhi, Kitāb al-madkhal al-kabīr ilá ‘ilm aḥkām al-nujūm, Liber introductorii maioris ad scientiam judiciorum astrorum, 9 vols. (Naples, 1995–96). This publication consists of critical editions of the Arabic text (vols 1–3), and of the Latin translations by John of Seville (vols 4–6) and Hermann of Carinthia (vols 7–8), and concludes with a volume of indexes (vol. 9). Lemay describes all the manuscripts known to him in Arabic and Latin, and takes into account the variant readings of these manuscripts in his apparatus. 24 The Edinburgh manuscript is not included among the fragmentary witnesses to Hermann’s translation in Lemay (n. 23 above), 7: 126–29. The excerpts amount to 346 lines of Lemay’s text. The whole text (bks 1–8) of Hermann’s translation consists of 5668 lines, while bks 1–5, from which the excerpts have been taken, comprises 3068 lines. 25 The serial numbers of the excerpts, listed in the Appendix below, have been added.

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events that an individual cannot totally avoid (4); the six requirements (“circumstantiae”)26 of an art—its starting point, basis, branches, proof, fruit, and perfection27—as applied to astrology (5); a quotation from Hippocrates’ Liber Hebdomadum28 saying that the Moon and the planets soften the darkness of the night (6); the affect of the Moon on tides (7), on animals, plants, metals, and on increase and decrease (8); the question of whether the Ptolemy who wrote the Almagest was the same as the Ptolemy who wrote the Tetrabiblos (9); the question of whether the planets have elemental qualities, colours and flavours (10); the different effects of the movements of the planets over this world, which is bound to the celestial world by a kind of natural affection (11); the effects of the planets on the weather (12) and on elemental qualities (13); a quotation of Hermes “Abidemon” describing the Moon as the “matter” of the Sun, and the Sun as the “form” of the Moon (14); and the story of the invention of astronomy in Mesopotamia by Shem, the son of Noah, and its consequent spread to other nations, among whom the Egyptians became the most proficient (15). As in the case of the excerpts from the other texts in the manuscript, the editor shows a predilection for choosing passages in which there are references to Classical authorities (Aristotle, Hipparchus, Ptolemy and Hermes), and chooses a passage which dovetails into Old Testament history. The inclusion of Hermann’s Albumasar amongst this particular collection of pagan authors is significant. Hermann of Carinthia not only translated the Great Introduction, but also used it extensively in his own cosmogony, the De essentiis, which was completed at Béziers three years later (in 1143), and which was also dedicated to Robert of Ketton.29 The texts that have been gathered together in the Edinburgh manuscript are conspicuous authorities in the De essentiis, as can be seen from taking them one by one.30 26 Note that Hermann uses the term also used by his teacher, Thierry of Chartres, in his accessus ad artes: see K. Fredborg, The Latin Rhetorical Commentaries by Thierry of Chartres (Toronto, 1988), pp. 19–22. The Arabic gives only “things” (ashya’). 27 Hermann’s terms are “initium, radix, rami, argumentum, fructus” and “finis”. J.-C. Vadet describes some of Albumasar’s terms as belonging to the Islamic traditionalists (masters of hadith): see his “Une défense de l’astrologie dans le Madhal d’Abu Ma‘šar al Balhi,” Annales Islamologiques 5 (1963), 131–80 (p. 141). 28 See M. Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden, 1970), p. 32, no. 20. 29 Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, ed. and trans. C. Burnett (Leiden, 1982). 30 The references are given in full in the “Index locorum” in Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, pp. 370–81.

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Plato, Timaeus: Hermann refers to Plato by name seven times, and silently quotes from Calcidius’s translation a further 21 times, and from his commentary nine times. Moreover, he uses the Timaeus with Calcidius’s commentary as the model for the dramatic form of the De essentiis. He also refers to Apuleius, De deo Socratis. As for Martianus Capella, Hermann refers to him by name once, and this appears to be the only use he makes of The Marriage of Mercury and Philology. On the other hand, Hermann never refers to Macrobius by name, but silently quotes from his commentaries on the Somnium Scipionis frequently (at least 14 times). To Cicero’s Somnium itself Hermann refers three times, while Cicero’s De natura deorum receives a single mention. After Plato and Macrobius, among the pagan Classical philosophers it is Hermes Trismegistus of the Asclepius that Hermann quotes most frequently (9 times). But Albumasar, as one might expect, is also referred to frequently—some 37 times altogether. Hermann’s interest specifically in Platonism is reflected in the way he refers to his master, Thierry of Chartres, as “the soul of Plato reincarnate among mortals.”31 The correspondence of the authorities excerpted in the Edinburgh manuscript and those favoured by Hermann is remarkable, but this cannot lead us to the conclusion that the manuscript itself was the source for Hermann of his Platonism. For he quotes from passages that are not included in the manuscript.32 One should rather consider the Edinburgh manuscript in respect to the fortuna of Hermann’s work and as evidence of interests he shared with his contemporaries. Two out of the four known manuscripts of the De essentiis are English;33 they show a version of the text revised by the author, and

31 “. . . tibi, inquam, diligentissime preceptor Theodorice, quem haut equidem ambigam, Platonis animam celitus iterum mortalibus accommodatam”: in Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, p. 349. 32 Amongst the passages cited in the De essentiis which are not among the excerpts in the Edinburgh manuscript are Macrobius, Commentarii, 1.2.19 (ed. Willis, p. 8; De essentiis, 58rE), 1.11.8 (ed. Willis, pp. 46–7; ibid., 65vB), 2.9.2 (ed. Willis, pp. 122–3; ibid., 64vH), Cicero, De natura deorum, ed. Ax, p. 73.6–18 (ibid., 71rD), Asclepius, ed. Nock, p. 299.3–5 (ibid., 65vC), p. 307.5–12 (ibid., 68rH), p. 318.7–11 (ibid. 72vH), and Calcidius, Commentary, ed. Waszink, pp. 135–7 (ibid., 67vH–68rD). 33 These are London, British Library, Cotton, Titus D.IV, s. xiii3/4 (see Colker, next note, p. 216) and Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 243, copied in 1423 A.D. from a unique collection of twelfth and early thirteenth-century philosophical texts: see Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, pp. 65–6.

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possibly brought to England by Robert of Ketton, the dedicatee. A third manuscript, a fragment from a book-binding, has been identified as being written in “a compact romanesque French hand of the midtwelfth century,” and may be part of an early recension of the text.34 The fourth, a manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples,35 was written in the south of France also in the mid-twelfth century, and includes Hermann’s translation of the Great Introduction and a text on the construction of the astrolabe, written by Hermann’s only known pupil, Rudolph of Bruges, in 1144; it is plausible that this manuscript, which gives a unique version of the De essentiis, belongs to the entourage of Hermann. It is significant that, at least the De essentiis in Hermann’s own revised version was known in England, as we shall see. The text of the Great Introduction that the Edinburgh florilegium is closest to is that of Oxford, Corpus Christi College 95, with which it shares five readings uniquely. This is the only twelfth-century manuscript of the Great Introduction aside from the Naples manuscript which also includes the De essentiis, and it preserves an early form of the text of Hermann’s translation, without the glosses that have been incorporated into the text in later manuscripts.36 Moreover, like the Edinburgh manuscript, it does not include other texts on technical astrology; rather, the copy of the Great Introduction is bound with two twelfth-century humanistic works on cosmology: Daniel of Morley’s Philosophia37 and William of Conches’s Dragmaticon.38 The latter

34

M.L. Colker, “A Newly Discovered Manuscript of Hermann of Carinthia’s De essentiis,” Revue d’histoire des textes 16 (1986), 213–28. The fragment was in the private possession of Colker and now belongs to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 35 Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.C.50. 36 A full description is given in Lemay (n. 23 above), 7: 94–103. 37 The Oxford manuscript is one of the five known manuscripts of the Philosophia used in the edition of Gregor Maurach, “Daniel von Morley, ‘Philosophia’,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 14 (1979), 204–55. According to Maurach (p. 207) it is very closely related to, and probably derives from, the copy in London, British Library, Arundel 377, a late twelfth-century manuscript from the Priory of Ely. 38 William of Conches, Dragmaticon, ed. I. Ronca, CCCM 152 (Turnhout, 1997), p. li. Again, this copy is most closely related to the one in Arundel 377 (Tortosa, Biblioteca capitular, 144, also has affinities with these two manuscripts): ibid., pp. liv, lxv and lxxii. The copies of the works of Daniel and William are thought to have been made approximately a century later than that of the Great Introduction: see J.J.G. Alexander and E. Temple, Illuminated Manuscripts in Oxford College Libraries, The University Archives and the Taylor Institute (Oxford, 1985), no. 131 (fols. 59–117, Albumazar, Astrologia c. 1200) and no. 236 (fols. 1–58v, xiiiex with marginal drawings added, saec. xivI).

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work, written between 1144 and 1149 for Henry II’s father, Geoffrey, Duke of Normandy, for the education of his sons, itself uses a broad range of pagan cosmological texts, Adelard of Bath’s Quaestiones naturales, and translations of Arabic medical texts associated with Salerno and Monte Cassino.39 Daniel of Morley wrote his Philosophia soon after 1175 and dedicated it to John of Oxford, bishop of Norwich from 1175–1200 and a familiaris of the King. Daniel had visited Toledo where he had heard lectures given by the translator, Gerard of Cremona, and he purports to give an account of the Arabic science he learnt there. The astrological information in his text, however, is taken from Adelard of Bath’s translation of Albumasar’s Abbreviation of the Great Introduction to Astrology, and from Hermann’s translation of the Great Introduction itself,40 and could therefore have been added after Daniel’s return to England. Both texts accompanying the Great Introduction in the Oxford manuscript have, then, a close connection with the Angevin court, and with English learning.41 Richard Lemay conjectures that the Oxford manuscript could have belonged to Daniel of Morley himself, who would have wished to have a copy of the Great Introduction.42 A problem with this hypothesis is that the copy of Albumasar’s work occurs in a different booklet from that of Daniel’s Philosophia, to which it may have been attached considerably later. But even if Daniel can be associated with this copy of the Great Introduction, he could not have been solely responsible for introducing the text to England. The text may already have been brought to this country (as could also the De essentiis), by Robert of

39 That William knew and used the Great Introduction, as claimed by Richard Lemay in Abu Ma‘shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century (Beirut, 1962), pp. 157–95, is less likely. 40 C. Burnett, “The Institutional Context of Arabic-Latin Translations of the Middle Ages: A Reassessment of the ‘School of Toledo’,” in Vocabulary of Teaching and Research between the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. O. Weijers, CIVICIMA, Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen âge 8 (Turnhout, 1995), pp. 214–35. 41 The connections of these two works (and those of Adelard) with the court of Henry II and his father, as witnessed inter alia by the contents of MS British Library, Arundel 377, are dealt with in more detail in C. Burnett, The Introduction of Arabic Learning into England (London, 1997), pp. 31–69. For the culture of Henry II’s court see also C. Haskins, “Henry II as a Patron of Literature,” in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Thomas Frederick Tout, ed. A.G. Little and F.M. Powicke (Manchester, 1925), pp. 71–77 and Peter Dronke, “Peter of Blois and Poetry at the Court of Henry II,” in idem, The Medieval Poet and His World (Rome, 1984), pp. 281–339. 42 Lemay (n. 23 above), 7: 97.

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Ketton, the dedicatee.43 In any case, it was already known in England soon after its composition. For the earliest known citation of the text is in the Speculum fidei written between 1156 and 1160 by Robert of Cricklade, prior of St Frideswide in Oxford from 1141 until after 1188, and dedicated to Robert, Earl of Leicester.44 Robert of Cricklade quotes excerpts on God commending the guidance of nature to the stars,45 and on the alleged indication in the sign of Virgo of the birth of Christ.46 Robert of Leicester, as Henry II’s justiciar from 1154 to 1167, was head of the Curia regis, so it may be significant that another scholar belonging to the entourage of Henry II, Peter of Blois, also cites Hermann’s translation of the Great Introduction.47 We may see, therefore, an interest among the intellectuals of the Angevin court in Albumasar’s work similar to that already seen in the cosmologies of William of Conches and Daniel of Morley. The question remains as to whether the Edinburgh manuscript can be associated with this intellectual milieu.

43 The facts we have about the biography of Robert do not prove decisively that Robert returned to England after his collaboration with Hermann “on the banks of the Ebro.” Also at issue is how many “Roberts” there are: see Charles Burnett, “Ketton, Robert of (fl. 1141–1157),” Oxford DNB. 44 See Haskins, Studies (n. 22 above), pp. 168–71 for Robert of Cricklade’s interest in natural science, his travels in Italy, and the possibility that he is the “Roboratus” to whom Henricus Aristippus dedicated his translation of Plato’s Phaedo in 1156; for his Speculum fidei see R.W. Hunt, “English Learning in the Late Twelfth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4:19 (1936), 19–42 (pp. 31–33, 37–38), and Sharpe, Handlist (n. 3 above), pp. 532–33. Robert’s citations of the Great Introduction are printed and discussed by M.-T. d’Alverny in “Humbertus de Balesma,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 51 (1985), 127–91 (pp. 139–41); she acknowledges Richard Hunt as the source for her information. That Robert had a manuscript of the Great Introduction in his hands, rather than quoted it second hand, is indicated by his own words: “Hec sunt dicta Abumaxar, nec mutata, nec mutuata, sicut ea legi in ipsius codice” (“These are the very words of Albumasar, neither changed, nor borrowed just as I read them in his manuscript”): d’Alverny, “Humbertus de Balesma,” p. 141. 45 “Abumaxar vero in primo libro astrologie, capitulo tercio, ait: constat opificem genitoremque universitatis Deum sidereis motibus nature ducatum commendasse”: Speculum fidei, bk 1, ch. 20 (in d’Alverny, “Humbertus de Balesma,” p. 141) = Great Introduction, 3, c. 3, ed. Lemay (n. 23 above), 8: 12, lines 373–5. 46 “Virgo signum facile (read: fertile) bipertitum triforme. Oritur in primo eius decano…quem nos grece Christum dicimus”: Speculum fidei, bk 3, ch. 36 (in d’Alverny, “Humbertus de Balesma,” p. 141) = Great Introduction, 6, c. 1, ed. Lemay, 8: 101, lines 256–64. 47 Peter of Blois cites the same excerpt concerning the indication of the birth of Christ in the sign of Virgo, in his Contra perfidiam Iudaeorum, chapter 12: see d’Alverny, “Humbertus de Balesma,” pp. 141–42.

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The combination of texts in the Oxford and Edinburgh manuscripts, as well as the use of the Great Introduction in Hermann’s De essentiis and Daniel of Morley’s Philosophia, indicate that Albumasar’s work, in Hermann’s translation, was seen as complementary to pagan Classical texts on cosmology. This contrasts with John of Seville’s earlier translation which, from the beginning of its transmission, travels only with other works of astrology (mostly translated from Arabic), and is first used as an authority for the justification of astrology in the Liber iudiciorum (“The Book of Judgements”) of Raymond of Marseilles of 1141 AD. The different styles of the two translations of the Great Introduction also reflect their different contexts. Hermann has deliberately used a humanistic Latin style, which testifies to his own knowledge of the Classics and that of his learned contemporaries, so that the Latin in the florilegium is not markedly divergent from that of the pagan classical texts that it accompanies. John of Seville, on the other hand, follows the Arabic text closely, and is largely responsible for establishing the technical terms and “translation style” of the Latin of medieval astrology—a language that differs markedly from the cultured Latin of the schools. With John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona at Toledo we can see the beginning of the establishment of textbooks for specialists in specific fields; Hermann of Carinthia, together with his teacher Thierry of Chartres and his older contemporary Adelard of Bath, still represent a tradition in which all arts form a single whole, and each contributes to the education of the cultured man. The florilegium in the Edinburgh manuscript reflects this culture, which appears to have been brought north by the Dominicans in the early thirteenth century. Appendix: The excerpts from pagan authors in Edinburgh University Library, D. b. IV. 6 (Borland 16) Each excerpt introduced by a paraph (paragraph marker) is given a separate number, even if the excerpts are consecutive in the original text.48

48 The brief catalogue description of the manuscript in C. Borland, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Mediaeval Manuscripts in Edinburgh University Library (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 21–2, can be supplemented by C. Burnett, “A Florilegium

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Fols 144r–150r. Plato, Timaeus:49 1 pp. 7.1–8.1; 2 pp. 12.1–18.6; 3 pp. 20.15–21.6; 4 pp. 21.11–22.8; 5 pp. 22.17–23.12; 6 p. 27.3–6; 7 p. 29.1–8; 8 pp. 29.19–32.10; 9 pp. 34.13–35.9; 10 pp. 35.10–41.8; 11 pp. 41.12–24; 12 p. 46.7–25; 13 p. 47.14–15. Fols 150r–157r. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii:50 1 p. 1.4–2.11; 2 p. 2.11–16; 3 pp. 2.17–6.1; 4 pp. 7.14–10.6; 5 pp. 11.1–12.2; 6 pp. 12.21– 13.22; 7 pp. 14.26–17.2; 8 pp. 19.9–20.2; 9 pp. 27.13–28.4; 10 p. 33.16–23; 11 pp. 41.5–42.2; 12 pp. 54.19–57.12. Fols 158r-179v. Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis and Cicero, Somnium Scipionis.51 1 p. 2.22–6; 2 pp. 2.26–3.1; 3 p. 3.16–24; 4 pp. 4.27–5.6; 5 p. 7.1–13; 6 p. 10.12–15; 7 p. 10.15– 21; 8 p. 10.21–24; 9 pp. 11.30–12.17; 10 p. 15.4–7; 11 pp. 15.18–20.22; 12 pp. 20.22–22.9; 13 p. 24.21–33; 14 pp. 26.22–27.2; 15 pp. 28.4–29.9; 16 pp. 34.2–35.23; 17 p. 37.11–14; 18 p. 40.1–19; 19 pp. 40.30–41.1; 20 p. 41.4–12; 21 pp. 41.13–42.2; 22 p. 43.1–8; 23 pp. 4.29–31; 24 pp. 47.25–49.3; 25 p. 49.17–31; 26 p. 51.9–15; 27 p. 52.20–3; 28 pp. 53.7–54.1; 29 p. 55.26–33; 30 p. 56.6–13; 31 p. 56.22–3; 32 p. 57.7–8; 33 p. 57.25–28; 34 p. 58.2–17; 35 pp. 58.28–59.13; 36 p. 66.6–14; 37 p. 67.13–15; 38 pp. 68.6–69.13; 39 pp. 75.32–76.15; 40 pp. 77.1–84.28; 41 pp. 88.30– 89.29; 42 pp. 90.25–91.13; 43 p. 100.24–6; 44 pp. 101.27–102.2; 45 p. 102.2–24; 46 p. 105.1–5; 47 pp. 105.18–106.8; 48 p. 126.10–12; 49 pp. 126.17–127.30; 50 p. 128.1–11; 51 p. 132.6–11; 52 pp. 133.11–134.2; 53 p. 134.3–24; 54 p. 134.24–29; 55 p. 134.29–32; 56 p. 134.32–4; 57 pp. 134.34–135.2; 58 p. 135.2–16; 59 p. 135.16–32; 60 p. 136.1–16; 61 pp. 136.16–137.19; 62 pp. 137.19–138.11; 63 pp. 138.11–139.13; 64 p. 152.15–20; 65 pp. 155.1–163.28 (the complete Somnium Scipionis). Fols 180r–192r. Cicero, De natura deorum:52 1 p. 5.29; 2 p. 6.30–34; 3 p. 9.4–9; 4 p. 10.12–23; 5 pp. 13.14–15.8; 6 p. 21.4–10; 7 pp. 26.9–27.5; 8 p. 50.5–18; 9 pp. 52.5–54.4; 10 p. 101.2–14; 11 pp. 106.24–107.3; 12 pp. 56.26–57.4; 13 pp. 57.14–58.3; 14 pp. 58.28–59.1; 15 p. 61.5–11; 16

of Pagan Philosophical Writings in Edinburgh, University Library, D. b. IV. 6,” in preparation. 49 The pages and line numbers of Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. J. H. Waszink, Plato Latinus 4, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1975), are given. 50 The pages and line numbers of Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, ed. J. Willis (Leipzig, 1983), are given. 51 The pages and line numbers of Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. J. Willis (Leipzig, 1970), are given. 52 The pages and line numbers have been taken from the edition of W. Ax (Leipzig, 1933).

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pp. 63.26–66.6; 17 p. 66.26–31; 18 p. 67.2–3; 19 pp. 77.17–78.15; 20 pp. 79.3–6; 21 p. 81.15–25; 22 pp. 115.21–116.14; 23 p. 117.9–20; 24 p. 119.11–31; 25 pp. 121.21–122.1; 26 pp. 122.14–124.11; 27 pp. 129.4– 134.29; 28 p. 137.6–14; 29 pp. 140.26–148.68; 30 pp. 153.14–155.17; 31 pp. 156.18–160.9. Fols 192r–198r. Asclepius:53 1 pp. 297.17–298.9; 2 pp. 298.17–303.20; 3 p. 311.1–24; 4 p. 313.4–9; 5 pp. 323.23–333.4; 6 pp. 333.13–335.6; 7 p. 336.3–11; 8 pp. 338.17–339.7; 9 p. 340.16–21; 10 p. 344.1–9; 11 p. 345.7–24; 12 pp. 347.5–355.14. Fols 198r–203v. Apuleius, De deo Socratis:54 1 pp. 10.5–11.12; 2 pp. 15.1–24.9; 3 pp. 25.3–38.18. Fols 204r–236v. Calcidius, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus:55 1 p. 74.6–8; 2 pp. 75.11–76.6; 3 pp. 78.15–79.5; 4 pp. 80.21–81.1; 5 pp. 84.20–85.20; 6 pp. 87.6–89.12; 7 p. 100.10–12; 8 p. 103.1–12; 9 p. 103.17–20; 10 pp. 104.20–105.18; 11 p. 120.1–10; 12 pp. 154.3–156.2; 13 p. 164.4; 14 p. 166.13–17; 15 pp. 168.14–170.5; 16 pp. 172.12– 173.17; 17 pp. 174.8–175.3; 18 pp. 175.16–185.14; 19 pp. 187.10–190.4; 20 p. 191.13–14; 21 p. 197.16; 22 pp. 199.1–203.8; 23 pp. 204.3–208.1; 24 pp. 208.14–209.2; 25 pp. 210.22–213.20; 26 pp. 214.9–215.2; 27 p. 215.14–18; 28 p. 217.21–26; 29 pp. 218.8–221.18; 30 pp. 231.17– 233.5; 31 pp. 233.13–241.10; 32 pp. 242.15–245.12; 33 p. 249.11–13; 34 pp. 252.11–254.9; 35 pp. 257.19–258.11; 36 p. 260.5–13; 37 pp. 260.20–265.3; 38 pp. 266.8–267.8; 39 p. 271.1–11; 40 pp. 273.15– 275.1; 41 pp. 279.8–311.15; 42 pp. 312.19–317.2; 43 pp. 318.1–320.1; 44 pp. 324.18–325.8; 45 p. 328.6–13; 46 pp. 334.21–335.4; 47 pp. 337.19– 338.6; 48 p. 340.6–11; 49 pp. 341.11–342.7. Fols 237r–243r. Albumasar, Great Introduction to Astrology:56 1 p. 6.163–87; 2 pp. 17.551–61; 3 p. 20.665–70; 4 p. 23. 774–86; 5 p. 40. 123–9; 6 pp. 42–3. 219–22; 7 pp. 43–4.254–81; 8 pp. 53–4.587–626; 9 pp. 56.16–23; 10 pp. 58–9.86–122; 11 pp. 61.193–5; 12 pp. 63–4.256– 325; 13 pp. 69–70.481–540; 14 p. 76.128–39; 15 pp. 85–6.442–64.

53 The pages and line numbers have been taken from Corpus Hermeticum, ed. D. Nock and A. Festugière, 2 (Paris, 1945). Only excerpts 7–12 are marked with paraphs, probably because a change of hand has occurred between excerpt 6 and 7. 54 The pages and line numbers of Apuleius Platonicus Madaurensis,Opera quae supersunt 3: De philosophia libri, ed. C. Moreschini (Stuttgart, 1991), are given. 55 The pages and line numbers of J.H. Waszink (n. 49 above), are given. 56 The pages and line numbers of Richard Lemay (n. 23 above), vol. 8, are given.

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Fol. 243v. On the final page of the manuscript there is the following thirteenth-century inscription:57 Iste liber est fratris Clementis ordinis fratrum predicatorum. In isto volumine sunt isti libri per ordinem. Tota biblia abreviata <sicut> poteris intueri. Postea liber qui vocatur testimoniorum Ysidori contra Iudeos et sunt du boni et necessarii. Postea tymeus platonis. Postea marcianus. Postea liber macrobii. Postea liber tullii de natura deorum. Postea trismogestus (sic!) ad asclepium et hammonam et ermium. Postea liber apulii madaurensis de deo socratis. Postea liber calcidii in tymeo. Postea dicta albumasar. Iste liber est fratris Clementis Rocha (?) ordinis predicatorum.

57 This has been taken from Borland’s description (n. 47 above), checked against the manuscript itself. The inscription is now very difficult to read.

QUESTIONING THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PARIS: JOHANNES DE GROCHEIO AND JEROME DE MORAVIA OP Constant J. Mews Changing the curriculum within any university is always a difficult enterprise. Much has been written about the impact in Paris in the thirteenth century of newly translated scientific works of Aristotle on thinking about such major issues as the eternity of the world. Less attention, however, has been given to the implications of the impact of Aristotelian thought for thinking about music, a discipline that was always considered to be a natural part of mathematica. In this paper, I shall explore the tension between Aristotelian and Boethian perspectives on music at the University of Paris in the later thirteenth century through comparing two, very different treatises: the Ars musice of Johannes de Grocheio, active in Paris in the later thirteenth century, and the Tractatus de musica of the Dominican, Jerome (Hieronymus) de Moravia. Whereas Jerome draws heavily on the authority of Boethius, Grocheio turns to Aristotle to justify an account based on the practice of music in Paris. After introducing these two figures, I shall explore the contrasting ways in which they respond to the authority of both Boethius’s De musica and Aristotle’s De caelo. Grocheio’s only known composition is preserved anonymously simply as an Ars musice in (H) London, British Library, Harley 281, fols. 39–52, a rich anthology of treatises about music, copied in around 1300.1 Copied in a single hand, this volume opens with a collection of

1 The most recent edition of the Ars musice is that of Ernst Rohloff, with valuable facsimile reproduction of the two surviving manuscripts, Die Quellenhandschriften zum Musiktraktat des Johannes de Grocheio. In Faksimile herausgegeben nebst Übertragung des Textes und Übersetzung in Deutsche, dazu Bericht, Literaturschau, Tabellen und Indices (Leipzig, 1972), henceforward referred to as Rohloff 1972. The work was first edited from the Darmstadt MS by Johannes Wolf, “Die Musiklehre des Johannes de Grocheo,” Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft 1 (1899–1900), 69–120; Rohloff studied the work in a Leipzig dissertation of 1925, published as Studien zum Musiktraktat des Johannes de Grocheo, Media Latinitas Musica 1 (Leipzig, 1930; 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1943), but published the edition as Der Musiktraktat des Johannes de Grocheo, Media Latinitas Musica 2 (Leipzig, 1943), drawing on both manuscripts.

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treatises by, or attributed to, Guido of Arezzo, and a Cistercian tonary. Then follow Grocheio’s Ars musice and two treatises on the tones, one by Petrus de Cruce, a secular cleric of Amiens, the second by Guy of Saint-Denis, who may well be responsible for compiling the Harley MS as a whole in around 1300.2 Grocheio is identified by name as its author only in a second (textually inferior) copy, produced in the early fourteenth century and belonging to the Carthusian library of St Barbara, Cologne (D: Darmstadt, Landesbibliothek 2663, fols. 56–69):3 Explicit theoria magistri Johannis de Grocheio, regentis Parisius. (The last two words, indicating that he was a regent master at Paris, were added subsequently by the same hand, Parisius being scarcely legible). No other records have been found that mention him, adding to the air of mystery which surrounds his achievement. Christopher Page has suggested that he came from Gruchy, in Normandy, a supposition strengthened by his occasional reference to forms of song and dance practised in Normandy.4

An English translation was produced by Albert Seay, Concerning music (De musica) (Colorado Springs, 1973). References are given to the Rohloff 1972 edition, and the folio of the Harley manuscript, while Grocheio’s text is cited from an edition and translation forthcoming with TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI), being prepared by the author with John Crossley, Catherine Jeffreys, Leigh McKinnon, and Carol Williams (all from Monash University, Australia). I am indebted to these colleagues for illuminating so many points in this paper, in particular to John Crossley, as also to Nancy van Deusen, for discussing this paper. Thanks are also due to the Australian Research Council for funding this project. 2 The Harley manuscript is described by Michel Huglo and Nancy Phillips in The Theory of Music: Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts, eds. Joseph Smits van Waesberghe, Peter Fischer, and Christian Maas, RISM, 6 vols. (Munich, 1961–2003), 4:74–78. The texts attributed to Guido of Arezzo have been extended with a heavily edited version of the De musica sometimes assigned to pseudo-Odo, as well as with further material, assembled by Guy of Saint-Denis; see Constant J. Mews, John N. Crossley, Catherine Jeffreys and Carol Williams, “Guy of Saint-Denis and the Compilation of Texts about Music in London, British Library, Harl. MS. 281,” Electronic British Library Journal (2008), art. 6, pp. 1–34 . The two treatises on the tones in this manuscript are Petrus de Cruce, Tractatus de tonis, ed. Denis Harbinson, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 29 (Rome, 1976) and Guido von Saint-Denis, Tractatus de tonis, ed. Sieglinde van de Klundert, 2 vols. (Bubenreuth, 1998). Guy speaks favourably about Petrus de Cruce as a great composer at Amiens, Tractatus de tonis 2.1 and 2.8, ed. van de Klundert, pp. 78, 133. 3 The Darmstadt manuscript is described in detail by Richard Bruce Marks, The Medieval Manuscript Library of the Charterhouse of St Barbara at Cologne, 2 vols., Analecta Cartusiana 21–22 (Salzburg, 1974), 2:361–63, more detailed than Michel Huglo and Christian Meyer, The Theory of Music 3 (1986), 41–42. 4 Christopher Page, “Johannes de Grocheio on Secular Music: a Corrected Text and a New Translation,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 2 (1993), 17–41, repr. in Music and Instruments of the Middle Ages: Studies on Texts and Performance (Aldershot, 1997).

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Grocheio has attracted limited attention from musicologists for providing the first known account of various types of secular music.5 Yet, unlike the music theorist John of Garland, Grocheio attracts little attention within standard histories of music theory.6 Part of our problem is uncertainty about exactly when Grocheio composed his Ars musice. Although Rohloff had dated it to around 1275, Page assigned it to around 1300, on a fragile assumption that the influential theorist, Franco of Cologne, to whom Grocheio frequently refers, wrote around 1280 rather than around 1260, as others have argued. I shall propose that it makes more sense to date Grocheio’s critique of Boethius to the 1270s, when there was still much heated debate within the University of Paris about a range of views linked with the teaching of Aristotle.7 This article provides a valuable new edition of selected excerpts of Grocheio, relating to secular music. 5 Besides the study by Page, “Johannes de Grocheio on Secular Music” (n. 4 above), see also his The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life and Ideas in France, 1100–1300 (Berkeley, 1990), and Discarding images: Reflections on Music and Culture in Medieval France (Oxford, 1993), as well as Timothy J. McGee, “Medieval Dances: Matching the Repertory with Grocheio’s Descriptions,” Journal of Musicology 7 (1989), 498–517. Aristotelian themes are studied by Mathias Bielitz, “Materia und forma bei Johannes de Grocheo,” Die Musikforschung 38 (1985), 257–77 and “Hat Johannes de Grocheo eigentlich auch über Musik geschrieben?” Die Musikforschung 41 (1988), 144–50; Ellinore Fladt, Die Musikauffassung des Johannes de Grocheo im Kontext der hochmittelalterlichen Aristoteles-Rezeption, Berliner musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 26 (Munich, 1987); John Haines and Patricia DeWitt, “Johannes de Grocheio and Aristotelian Natural Philosophy,” Early Music History 27 (2008), 47–98. 6 Grocheio is not mentioned The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge, 2002), while John of Garland is discussed, by: Sarah Fuller in relation to musica mensurabilis, in her chapter “Organum-discantuscontrapunctus in the Middle Ages,” pp. 485–87; Jan Herlinger, “Medieval canonics,” pp. 173, 176; Anna Maria Busse Berger, “The evolution of rythmic notation,” pp. 628–35. In Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, F. Alberto Gallo, Max Haas, Klaus-Jürgen Sachs, Die Mittelalterliche Lehre von der Mehrstimmigkeit, Geschichte der Musiktheorie, ed. Frieder Zaminer, Bd 5 (Darmstadt, 1984), Max Haas refers in passing to “der schwierig einzuordnenden Schrift des Johannes de Grocheio” in his chapter, “Die Musiklehre von Garlandia bis Franco,” p. 119; Sachs refers to Grocheio only briefly in “Die Contrapunctus-Lehre im 14. un 15 Jh.,” pp. 169, 174; F. Alberto Gallo, “Die Notationslehre im 14. und 15 Jh.,” p. 259, opens his chapter with Grocheio’s statement about his describing music performed in Paris, without discussing the treatise. 7 Rohloff 1972, p. 11; Page, “Johannes de Grocheio on Secular Music,” p. 17. This date is repeated in his entry, “Grocheio, Johannes de,” in the Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 26/4/2006), . In the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (a database of all medieval texts of Latin music theory), Grocheio is classified among fourteenth- rather than thirteenth-century writers. Page dated Franco’s composition to after 1280, not questioning the argument that Franco postdates Lambert, advanced by W. Frobenius: “Zur Datierung von Francos Ars cantus mensurabilis,” Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 27 (1970), 122–27. This dating of Franco’s work is disputed, however. Andrew Hughes, in his New Grove entry “Franco

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The second figure whom I wish to present, Jerome de Moravia, was a Dominican—perhaps from Moray in Scotland, if we follow the argument of Michel Huglo.8 His Tractatus de musica is a compilation of great importance for incorporating a number of significant music treatises of the thirteenth century, including those of John of Garland, Franco of Cologne, and Peter of Picardy on measured music, the foundation of polyphony.9 Whether the John of Garland who composed treatises on both musica plana and musica mensurabilis is a separate person from the grammarian and liturgist of the same name, active in Paris from the 1220s to his death in around 1272, is one of many issues that I cannot go into here.10 The only passage in which Jerome of Cologne” dates Franco’s Ars mensurabilis cantus to around 1260 (thinking that 1240, mentioned by some, is too early), although he notes the views of G. Reaney and A. Gilles, following Frobenius, dating Franco to around 1280, Franconis de Colonia Ars cantus mensurabilis, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 18 (Rome, 1974). 8 Hieronymus de Moravia, Tractatus de musica, ed. Simon M. Cserba (Regensburg, 1935). A new edition and translation into French by Guy Lobrichon and Christian Meyer is forthcoming. On this treatise, see Jérôme de Moravie: un théoricien de la musique dans le milieu intellectuel parisien du XIIIe siècle: actes du Colloque de Royaumont, 1989, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris, 1992). M. Huglo argues that the epithets Moravo and de Moravia given to Jerome indicate that he was from the diocese of Moray, Scotland, where a Dominican convent was founded at Elgin in the 1220s: “La Musica du Fr. Prêcheur Jérome de Moray,” in Max Lütolf zum 60. Geburtstag, eds. B. Hangartner and U. Fischer (Basle, 1994), pp. 113–16. 9 Jerome quotes from John of Garland on musica plana in Tractatus de musica 1, ed. Cserba, p. 10. Four different reportationes, Musica plana Iohannis de Garlandia, are edited by Christian Meyer (Badenr, 1998). In Tractatus de musica 26, ed. Cserba, pp. 194–230, Jerome quotes in extenso the De mensurabili musica of John of Garland, edited by E. Reimer, Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 10–11 (Wiesbaden, 1972). Jerome then quotes (ed. Cserba, pp. 230–259), Franco de Colonia (ed. Cserba, pp. 259–63), and Petrus Picardus (ed. Cserba, pp. 263–88). In Tractatus 27, he quotes extensively from Boethius, De musica 4. 10 W.G. Waite argued that they were the same person, “Johannes de Garlandia. Poet and Musician,” Speculum 35 (1960), 179–95. This argument was first questioned by E. Reimer in the introduction to his edition, Iohannis de Garlandia De mensurabili musica, 1:13–17, and has been repeated by many scholars, including Rebecca Baltzer, in her article “Iohannes de Garlandia,” New Grove, in which she advances the suggestion of P. Whitcomb that the music theorist may be a bookseller of the same name: “Teachers, Booksellers, and Taxes: Reinvestigating the Life and Activities of Johannes de Garlandia,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 8 (1999), 1–13. Reimer’s argument is based on the fact that Jerome of Moray describes him as both Johannes gallicus and as Johannes dictus de Garlangia (Tractatus 1, ed. Cserba, 10 [certainly a scribal error for Garlandia, correctly cited in Tractatus 26 (ed. Cserba, p. 194)], whereas John of Garland says that he was born in England (but lived in Paris from around 1220 to his death c. 1272). The reference to his being gallicus could be a mistaken assumption based on his long residence in the clos de Garlande on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. On the grammarian John of Garland, see L’ars lectoria ecclesie de Jean de Garlande: une grammaire versifiée du XIIIe siècle et ses gloses, ed. Elsa Marguin-

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acknowledges Aristotle is a long citation from the commentary of Thomas Aquinas on Aristotle’s De caelo et mundo, started around 1271/72, during his second sojourn in Paris, but left incomplete at his death in 1274. The manuscript containing Jerome’s treatise (Paris, BNF lat. 16663), from the late 13th century, was bequeathed by Peter of Limoges to the Sorbonne at his death in 1304. In many ways, Jerome’s treatise is much more representative as a guide to 13th century music theory because of its explicit recognition of the authority of Boethius, who passed on to the Latin West (indeed at least to the 16th century) a Pythagorean understanding of musica as underpinning the cosmos (musica mundana), binding body and soul in the human frame (musica humana) and manifest through any natural instrument (like breath) or physical means (musica instrumentalis). Boethius presents musica as a transcendental quality beyond its sensory manifestations. While he concentrates only on this third type, he understands musica to be fundamentally about ideal proportions, and as only secondarily evident in sound.11 Boethius’s De musica was still glossed in the thirteenth century, but less frequently than in the previous century, suggesting a decline in relative influence.12 Nonetheless, as Claude Lafleur has shown in his study of introductory manuals to the study of philosophy, references in these manuals to the first two books of the De musica being read de forma in Paris reveal the power of a traditional curriculum at the University, in which music was studied an aspect of the quadrivium rather than the trivium.13 Music was one of a whole series of disciplines making up the study of philosophy,

Hamon (Turnhout, 2003), and John of Garland, Carmen de Misteriis Ecclesie, ed. and trans. Ewald Könsgen, with commentary by Peter Dinter (Leiden, 2004). 11 Boethius, De institutione musica 1.2, ed. G. Friedlein (Leipzig, 1867), pp. 187–89; Fundamentals of music, trans. Calvin M. Bower, ed. Claude Palisca (New Haven, 1989), p. 9. 12 Michael Bernhard, “Glosses on Boethius’ De institutione musica,” in Music Theory and its Sources. Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. André Barbera (NotreDame, 1990), pp. 136–49, and Calvin M. Bower, “Boethius’ ‘De institutione musica.’ A Handlist of Manuscripts,” Scriptorium 42 (1988), 205–21. Bernhard’s list identifies 23 glossed manuscripts from the 11th century (or 10th–11th), against 19 from the 12th (or 11th–12th), and 11 in the 13th (or 12th–13th). 13 Claude Lafleur, Quatre introductions à la philosophie au XIIIe siècle (Montréal, 1988), pp. 147–51, drawing on the Accessus philosophorum (c. 1230–1240), ed. Lafleur, ibid., p. 204: “Sunt autem in Musica .V. libri partiales, set de forma tantum duo.” This is repeated with the detail that only two books of Boethius are studied in Paris in the Divisio scientiarum of Arnoul (c. 1250), ed. Lafleur, ibid., p. 328: “Sunt autem quinque libri Musice quam tractauit Boetius, quorum duo sunt de forma Parisius.”

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with which a student in the Faculty of Arts was expected to be familiar.14 The problem was that the traditional Boethian notion of musica as a harmony both of the cosmos and of the human body and soul, fitted in well to a monastic anthropology, as Bruce Holsinger has argued.15 In this monastic world view, audible music was simply an imperfect echo of a heavenly harmony. In the environment of the University, however, there was growing uncertainty about the contribution of Boethius to the study of music. While the Dominican theorist Jerome de Moravia took for granted the music of the spheres and concentrated uniquely on music composed in Latin, Grocheio focused on the music that he could hear being performed in the city of Paris, in the vernacular as much as in Latin. Johannes de Grocheio and the Ars musice Grocheio is outspoken in his criticism of the traditional Boethian definition of three types of musica, which he reports was still widely followed by contemporaries: Now certain people, such as Boethius [and] Master John of Garland in their treatises, and their followers, have classified music into three types. Further, they say that one type is cosmic music, indeed another human, but the third instrumental. By cosmic music they designate the harmony caused by the motion of heavenly bodies. Now by human [they designate] the balance of the constitution existing in the human body through the best combination of elements in it. But by instrumental they designate that music which is from sounds of instruments either natural or artificial. Now those who analyse in this way either invent their opinion or wish to follow the Pythagoreans or others more than the truth, or they are ignorant of nature and logic. For first of all they say music in general is of numbered sound. Nevertheless, celestial bodies in movement do not make a sound, although the ancients believed this, nor do they furrow through the orbs according to Aristotle, whose imagination

14 Olga Weijers summarises the role of music in the curriculum, drawing on the texts edited by Lafleur in “La place de la musique à la faculté des arts de Paris,” in La Musica nel pensiero medievale, ed. Letterio Mauro, pp. 245–61. She acknowledges the studies of Claire Maître, “La place d’Aristote dans l’enseignement de la musique à l’Université,” and of Kees Vellekoop, “La place de la musique,” in the volume, L’enseignement des disciplines à la Faculté des arts (Paris et Oxford, XIIIe–XVe siècle), eds. Olga Weijers and Louis Holtz, Studia Artistarium 4 (Turnhout, 1997). 15 Bruce W. Holsinger, Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer (Stanford, 2001).

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 101 and hypothesis ought to be followed in the book about the theory of the planets. Nor is sound properly to be found in the human constitution. For who has heard a constitution sounding?16

Grocheio replaces the tripartite division of Boethius with his own classification, one which effectively turns Boethius on his head. Instead of starting with musica mundana as that which animates the cosmos, a theme implicit to Plato’s Timaeus as well as to Boethian theory, Grocheio begins with music that is performed in Paris: Let us say, therefore, that the music that men practise in Paris can, as is evident, be reduced to 3 broad elements. Now we say that one element is that of simple or civil music, which we call musica vulgalis. But another is that of composed or regulated or rule-based music, which they call measured music. But the third type is what is made from these two and to which these two are, as it were, arranged for the better. This is called ecclesiastical [music], and it is assigned for the praise of the Creator.17

Grocheio is arguing that ecclesiastical music, rather than being an echo of the song of the angels, is based on two foundations, musica vulgalis, manifest in various forms of vernacular song and musica mensurata, the basis of polyphony (whether employing vernacular or Latin religious texts).18 The term vulgalis (used in both manuscripts

16 Rohloff 1972, p. 122; H fol. 40v: “Quidam uero musicam in .3. genera diuidunt, puta boetius, magister Iohannes de guerlandia in suis tractatibus, et eorum sequaces. unum autem genus dicunt de musica mundana, aliud uero de humana, sed tercium de instrumentali. Per mundanam musicam signant armoniam ex motu corporum celestium causatam, per humanam uero temperamentum complexionis in corpore humano existens propter optimam mixtionem elementorum in eo, sed per instrumentalem signant illam que est de sonis instrumentorum, siue naturalium siue artificialium. Qui uero sic diuidunt, aut dictum suum fingunt, aut uolunt pytagoricis uel aliis magis quam ueritati obedire, aut sunt naturam et logicam ignorantes. Prius enim dicunt uniuersaliter musicam esse de sono numerato. Corpora uero celestia in mouendo sonum non faciunt, quamuis antiqui hoc crediderunt. Nec findunt orbes secundum aristotelem, cuius ymaginatio et possibilitas debet tradi in libro de theoria planetarum. Nec etiam in complexione humana sonus proprie reperitur. Quis enim audivit complexionem sonare?” 17 Rohloff 1972, p. 124; H fol. 42r: “Dicamus igitur quod musica qua utuntur homines parisiis, potest ut videtur ad .3. membra generalia reduci. unum autem membrum dicimus de simplici musica uel civili, quam uulgalem musicam appellamus. Aliud autem de musica composita uel regulari uel canonica, quam appellant musicam mensuratam. Sed tercium genus est quod ex istis duobus efficitur et ad quod ista duo tamquam ad melius ordinantur. Quod ecclesiasticum dicitur. Et ad laudandum creatorem deputatum est.” 18 Johannes de Garlandia, De musica mensurabili, ed. Reimer, p. 95: “Repetitio eiusdem vocis est color faciens ignotum sonum esse notum, per quam notitiam auditus suscipit placentiam. Et isto modo utimur in rondellis et cantilenis vulgaribus.”

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rather than vulgaris, as given in the Rohloff edition) seems to mean here “music of the people” without any pejorative sense.19 Jerome, by contrast, employs vulgaris in a more dismissive way when he argues that his discussion will help readers distinguish “whether any chant is urbanus rather than vulgaris, true rather than false.”20 For Grocheio, vulgalis refers to any form of civil or simple music, on which ecclesiastical music is modelled. Grocheio’s critical reference to Boethius and John of Garland “and his followers” applies well to Jerome, who gives a privileged place to Boethius’s De musica as well as to the teaching of John of Garland on both musica plana and musica mensurabilis. Within his writing on musica plana (manifest as “plain” chant), John of Garland presents his teaching as in continuity with that of Boethius, developing the detail (not found in Boethius) that the music of the spheres derives from the concord of the planets.21 What John of Garland calls musica plana, unmeasured music, is broadened by Grocheio into musica vulgalis.

19 Robert Mullaly prefers to translate vulgaris (as rendered in Rohloff ’s edition) as “secular,” though observes that some scholars prefer “vernacular”), in “Johannes de Grocheo’s “Musica Vulgaris”,” Music & Letters 79/1 (1998): 1–26. See also Doris Stockmann, “Musica vulgaris im französischen Hochmittelalter: Johannes de Grocheo in neuer Sicht,” Musikethnologische Sammelbände 7 (1985), 163–180, and “Volksmusik und Musica Vulgaris: Zur Klärung eines hochmittelalterlichen Terminus,” in Tvärspel. Festskrift till Jan Ling (Göteborg, 1984), pp. 117–37. Ps-Odo, Dialogus de musica, ed. Martin Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum, 3 vols. (1784; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), 1:271, speaks of “… symphonia illud etiam et vulgaris musica, fistula videlicet, et cithara sive fidula probant.” 20 Hieronymus de Moravia, Tractatus de musica, ed. Simon M. Cserba (Regensburg 1935), p. 2: “presentem summulam ex diversis majorum nostrorum dictis diligenti studio compilavimus, ut si quando fratres ordinis nostri vel alii, circa qualitatem cantus, an sit urbanus, an vulgaris, verus an falsus, judicare voluerint, et falsum corrigere et novum componere, per ipsius exercitium valeant, quod cupiunt regulariter exercere.” 21 The reportatio prima is presented in Paris, BnF lat. 18514, fols. 85r–94r as Tractatus de musica collectus ex hiis quae dicta sunt a Boetio supra, atque declaratio musice practice (ed. Meyer, p. 3). The supra reference may apply to the glossed text of Boethius’s De musica, preserved immediately before the reportatio prima in this manuscript, copied in either the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries and from southwest France (Meyer, p. xi). The comment about musica mundana and humana is made more briefly in reportatio secunda (ed. Meyer, p. 25), reportatio tertia (ed. Meyer, p. 39: “Mundana est illa que uersatur circa concordantiam planetarum adinuicem et sic musica est quedam species astronomie”), and as the opening statement of reportatio quarta (ed. Meyer, p. 55).

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 103 Grocheio reveals little about himself in the treatise, other than that he is writing in response to unnamed friends, a trope used by many medieval writers.22 He is evidently familiar, however, with many different types of secular cantus (which he uses in a sense closer to the French chant than to English chant). The first type that he describes is cantus gestualis, relating the deeds of both heroes (such as Girard de Vienne) and saints (such as the protomartyr Stephen), and which he justifies as being socially useful: Indeed this cantus ought to be provided for the elderly, for working citizens and for ordinary people while they rest from their usual labour, so that having heard about the miseries and disasters of others, they may more easily bear their own, and any person may approach his work more eagerly. And therefore this cantus is good for the preservation of the whole state.23

The second is cantus coronatus: “crowned by masters and students with sounds . . . and indeed it is normally put together by kings and nobles, and also sung before kings and princes of the earth, so that it may move their spirits to boldness and bravery, magnanimity and liberality, which all make for good government.”24 His third kind, cantus versualis, is of a lighter character, but also has a moral purpose: “For it ought to be performed for the young so that they may not fall

22 Rohloff 1972, p. 110; H fol. 39r: “Quoniam quidam iuvenum amici mei me cum affectu rogaverunt, quatinus eis aliquid de doctrina musicali sub brevibus explicarem, eorum precibus mox acquiescere volui. Eo quod in eis inveni maximam fidelitatem, amiciciam et virtutem. Et per longum tempus ad necessaria vite mee maximum tribuerunt iuvamentum.” 23 Rohloff 1972, p. 130; H fol. 43v: “Cantum vero gestualem dicimus in quo gesta heroum et antiquorum patrum opera recitantur. Sicuti vita et martyria sanctorum, et proelia et adversitates quas antiqui viri pro fide et veritate passi sunt. Sicuti vita beati stephani prothomartyris. Et hystoria regis karoli; cantus autem iste debet antiquis et civibus laborantibus et mediocribus ministrari dum requiescunt ab opere consueto. Ut auditis miseriis et calamitatibus aliorum suas facilius sustineant. Et quilibet opus suum alacrius agrediatur. Et ideo cantus iste valet ad conservationem tocius civitatis.” 24 Rohloff 1972, p. 130; H fol. 43v: “Cantus coronatus ab aliquibus simplex conductus dictus est. Qui propter eius bonitatem In dictamine et cantu a magistris et studentibus circa sonos coronatur. Sicut gallice. Ausi com lunicorne. vel Quant li roussignol. Qui etiam a regibus et nobilibus solet componi. Et etiam coram regibus et principibus terre decantari. ut eorum animos ad audaciam et fortitudinem magnanimitatem et liberalitatem commoveat. Que omnia faciunt ad bonum regimen.”

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completely into idleness. For effort and difficulty have been prepared for him who rejects work and wants to live in idleness.”25 Grocheio does not justify his argument about the social usefulness of music by referring to Aristotle’s Politics (a text not cited in Parisian discussions until the late thirteenth century, when Peter of Auvergne completed the commentary started by Thomas in the last years of his life. Grocheio is similarly interested, however, in its social function. He describes three types of cantilena or song: the round (rotunda or rotundellus), “usually sung in the West, namely in Normandy, by girls and youths at feasts and at great celebrations for their embellishment”; stantipes, in which the diversity of parts and refrain “makes the spirits of youths and girls fix on it because of its difficulty and diverts them from depraved thought”; and ductia, “light and swift in ascent and descent, sung in circular dances by circular dances by youths and girls . . . for this draws the hearts of girls and youths and takes them away from vanity and is said be effective against that passion which is called lovesickness.”26 Grocheio here echoes a notion inherited from Arab medical lore, translated into Latin in the late eleventh century, that music could be a remedy for lovesickness (amor hereos), along with wine and the bath-house.27 Grocheio also refers to a fuller discussion he has made of the benefits of musica vulgalis, “through which whether by the voice or by artificial instruments, the innate trials of humanity may be softened, as we have laid out in more detail in a sermon to Clement, monk of

25 Rohloff 1972, p. 132; H fol. 43v: “Cantus autem iste debet iuvenibus exhiberi. Ne in ocio totaliter sint reperti.” 26 Rohloff 1972, p. 132; H fols. 43v–44r: “Et huiusmodi cantilena versus occidentem puta in normannia solet decantari a puellis et iuvenibus in festis et magnis conviviis ad eorum decorationem. . . . Hec [scil. stantipes] autem facit animos iuvenum et puellarum propter sui difficultatem circa hunc stare et eos a prava cogitatione divertit. . . . Hec enim ducit corda puellarum et iuvenum. et a vanitate removet. et contra passionem que dicitur amor hereos valere dicitur.” 27 This idea about music as a cure for love-sickness is transmitted in the Viaticum of Ibn-al-Jazzar, translated by Constantine the African, and referring back to a lost work of Rufus of Ephesus (fl. 100 CE), edited by Charles Burnett, “European knowledge of Arabic texts about music,” Early Music History 12 (1993), 1–17. It had earlier been edited and translated by M.F. Wack “The Liber De heros morbo of Johannes Afflacius and its significance for medieval love conventions,” Speculum 62 (1987), 324–44, and in her study, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The Viaticum and its Commentaries (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 186–93.

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 105 Lessay.”28 We cannot tell whether he knew Clement from having been brought up at the abbey of Lessay, in Normandy, or because Clement had come to study at Paris.29 In any case, Grocheio felt that a monk ought to know about the beneficial effects of musica vulgalis for all different age groups in society, whether men or women. Grocheio defines his own stance about the nature of music from the very outset of his treatise when he declares that music is to be found among sensibilia. He justifies his inquiry by referring to Aristotle’s comments at the outset of the Physics about the process of growth of all human knowledge, whether sensory or intellectual.30 Grocheio’s comparison of musical inquiry to the process of someone searching to find the distance of the sun from the earth demands a degree of scientific knowledge in his audience.31 Initially he expresses respect for the authority of Boethius, “a worthy and noble man, whose opinions are more to be followed, since he strove to show what he spoke about through demonstration and more trustworthy than those who spoke in fables about music being discovered by the muses or by holy men

28 Rohloff 1972, p. 130; H fol. 43r–43v: “Dicamus igitur quod forme musicales vel species contente sub primo membro quod vulgale dicebamus. ad hoc ordinantur, ut eis mediantibus mitigentur adversitates hominum innate quas magis particulavimus in sermone ad clementem exaquiensem monacum. Et sunt duobus modis. Aut enim in voce humana. aut in instrumentis artificialibus exercentur.” Page, “Johannes de Grocheio on secular music,” 18, correcting the faulty reading in Rohloff (exequiarum monachum) to Exaquiensem monachum (monk of Lessay). 29 James Edmund Sullivan identifies three monks of Lessay as studying at the University of Paris, but in a later period, “Studia Monastica: Benedictine and Cluniac Monks at the University of Paris, 1229–1500,” University of Wisconsin, Madison, PhD Diss., 1982, p. 144. 30 Rohloff 1972, p. 110; H fol. 39r: “Modus autem procedendi erit primo considerare communia que dicuntur principia. et postea ex illis oriencia sigillatim secundum subiecte materie facultatem. Sic enim vadit tota cognitio humana sive sensitiva sive intellectiva, ut ait aristoteles in prohemio physicorum.” Cf. Aristotle, Physica I.1.7 (184a10), trans. James of Venice (AL 7.1:7): “Quoniam quidem intelligere et scire contingit circa omnes scientias, quarum sunt principia aut cause aut elementa, ex horum cognitione (tunc enim opinamur cognoscere unumquodque, cum causas cognoscamus primas et principia prima et usque ad elementa), manifestum est et de natura scientie temptandum prius determinare que circa principia sunt.” The influence on Grocheio of Aristotle’s Physica, together with the commentary of Averroes, is examined by Ellinore Fladt, Die Musikauffassung des Johannes de Grocheo im Kontext der hochmittelalterlichen Aristoteles-Rezeption, Berliner Musikwissenschaftliche Arbeiten 26 (Munich, 1987), pp. 18–32. 31 Rohloff 1972, p. 110; H fol. 39r: “Sicut enim videns modum inveniendi distanciam corporis solis a centro terre non admirabitur sed factus erit sciens. Sic videns inventionem principiorum musice magis erit dispositus ad sciendum.”

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and prophets.”32 He reproduces Boethius’s account of how Pythagoras discovered the principles of music through listening to hammers of differing proportions, namely duple proportion giving the diapason (octave), sesquialter and sesquitertian proportion giving the diapente (fifth) and diatesseron (fourth) respectively, helpfully rendering them as numeric ratios, namely 12:6, 12:8 and 12:9 respectively (rendered in both manuscripts with Arabic numerals).33 Grocheio goes beyond Boethius in introducing a key distinction, namely that the intervals identified by Pythagoras constitute both the principia and the materia or material used by the musicus, who introduces form into material sound.34 This perspective subtly shifts the traditional sense of musicus as simply a theorist, to emphasize that a musicus is also an artifex or practitioner who creates music out of sound, imposing form through art. He distinguishes two core principles namely consonance (consonantia), which he defines as the simultaneous sounding of two notes, and concord (concordantia, not a Boethian term) or one note following another in time.35 While most thirteenth-century theorists tend to use these terms interchangably, Grocheio is much more precise in distinguishing between consonantia as a simultaneous harmony, while concordantia refers to harmonious

32

Rohloff 1972, p. 112; H fol. 39v: “Sed boetius vir valens et nobilis alium tenet modum. Cuius sententie magis est adherendum. eo quod nisus fuit ostendere ea que dixit per demonstrationem.” 33 The scribe of H fol. 39v, generally more accurate than that of D, initially combines Arabic and Roman numerals, and then omits a ratio that is copied wrongly in D: “Invenit unum in dupla proportione ad alterum sicut sunt .12. ad .vi. Et isti adinvicem reddebant consonantiam que dyapason appellatur. Ille idem malleus ad duos alios medios in sexquialtera proportione et sexquitercia se habebat pondere Ita quod ad unum in sexquialtera sicut [.12. ad .8. om. H; 12:6 D] qui dyapente reddebant. Et ad alium se habebat in sexquitercia proportione sicut .12. ad .9. qui dyatessaron resonabant.” 34 Rohloff 1972, p. 114; H fol. 39v: “Ista autem principia sunt et materia qua utitur omnis musicus. Et in ea formam musicam introducit. Licet enim in naturalibus efficiens dicatur principium plus quam materia. In artificiatis tamen materia principium potest dici. Eo quod sit in actu. Et forma artis sit ei accidentalis.” 35 Rohloff 1972, p. 114; H fols. 39v–40r: “Principia autem musice solent consonantie et concordantie appellari. Dico autem concordantiam quando unus sonus cum alio armonice continuatur. Sicut una pars temporis vel motus cum alia continua est. Consonantiam autem dico quando duo soni vel plures simul uniti et in uno tempore unam perfectam armoniam reddunt.”

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 107 intervals manifest sequentially.36 Uncomfortable with the notion of an infinite number of consonances, he argues instead that there are only three, constituting a female trinity: the diapason being like a mother, the diapente a daughter, and the diatesseron proceeding from both. He draws on the authority of John of Damascus to argue that just as the image of the Trinity is shaped in the soul, so the human soul is able to recognize these three perfect consonances.37 Grocheio combines an Aristotelian emphasis on the sensory nature of music with a Christian neoplatonist interest in the conformity of the soul and its auditory capacity with the divine nature. By comparison, John of Garland, accorded great respect by Jerome, is less sophisticated in combining a Boethian definition of music as number related to sound with his understanding of the voces that constitute musica plana and musica mensurabilis. He is more at home with a practically oriented view of music as a science about a multitude of sounds, directed to singing well.38 Grocheio acknowledges the experiential basis for John of Garland’s argument that there was a finite number of concords, namely thirteen, but then counters this by claiming that there are just seven concords (tone, semitone, ditone, semiditone, diatesseron, diapente and diapason), from which all melodies are made. Grocheio suggests that there are seven concords just as there are seven gifts of the spirit, seven planets and seven days in a week Grocheio explains each of these concords in terms of numeric

36 Boethius, De musica 1.3, ed. Friedlein, p. 191: “Est enim consonantia dissimilium inter se vocum in unum redacta concordia.” The Anonymous of St Emmeram (writing in 1279) uses them almost as synonyms De musica mensurata, ed. Jeremy Yudkin, (Bloomington, 1990), p. 260: “sic sex sunt consonantiae vel concordantiae, per quas cantuum variorum…”; Johannes de Garlandia speaks of concord and discord as varieties of consonance, Johannes de Garlandia: De mensurabili musica, ed. Reimer, p. 258: “Consonantiarum quaedam dicuntur concordantiae, quaedam discordantiae. Concordantia dicitur esse, quando duae voces iunguntur in eodem tempore, ita quod una vox potest compati cum alia secundum auditum.” 37 Rohloff 1972, p. 116; H fol. 40v. John of Damascus speaks of the creation of man in God’s image, and as a microcosm, or lesser world in De orthodoxa fide 12, trans. Burgundio of Pisa, ed. E.M. Buytaert (Bonaventure, NY, 1955). 38 John of Garland, De musica plana, Reportatio prima, ed. Meyer, p. 3: “Unde musica sic diffinitur: musica est de numero relato ad sonos et hoc quantum ad subiectum. Item quantum ad opus, musica est de multitudine sonorum. Item quantum ad modum, musica est uera canendi scientia, facilis ad canendi perfectionem uia.” Cf. Reportatio secunda, tertia, ed. Meyer, pp. 23, 39. Cf. Boethius, De institutione arithmetica 1.1, ed. Friedlein, p. 8: “Rursus multitudines alia sunt per se . . . Alia vero per se ipsa non constant, sed ad quiddam aliud referunt, ut duplum . . .”

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proportions.39 Even if he questions that the planets make sound, he still believes music reflects a cosmic harmony. Rather than defining music as number related to sound, Grocheio defines music as “the art or science of numbered sound used harmonically, intended to make singing easier,” emphasizing that music is first of all about sound, the materia of music.40 He comments that although there were many in his own day interested in the practice of this art, few paid attention to the theory (apart from certain speculativi who kept to themselves).41 Grocheio criticizes what he perceives to be a gulf between theorists of musica and those (like Jerome) concerned more with the right practice of cantus. Aristotle’s De caelo, Kilwardby and Bacon Grocheio’s rejection of musica mundana was profoundly shaped by Aristotle’s critique of Pythagorean teaching in the De caelo of the notion that heavenly bodies made music as they moved through the revolving orbs. Aristotle’s De caelo, translated by Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) from an Arabic version in the second half of the twelfth century, but known from a translation made from the Greek by William of Moerbeke in around 1260:

39 Rohloff 1972, p. 118; H fol. 40v. The Rohloff edition disguises the fact that in both manuscripts of the Ars musice, Arabic rather than Roman numerals are used (emulating a scribal habit found in later versions of the Musica plana of John of Garland, who speaks of thirteen steps (two octaves) in his De musica plana, ed. Meyer, p. 14. Arabic numerals are used for proportions in the reportatio secunda, tertia and quarta of John of Garland’s Musica plana, but are not present in the reportatio prima (ed. Meyer, p. 7; cf. pp. 26, 47–48, 55). 40 Rohloff 1972, pp. 120–22; H fol. 41v: “Describunt autem musicam quidam ad formam et materiam considerantes. Dicentes eam esse de numero relato ad sonos. Alii autem ad eius operationem considerantes, dicunt eam artem ad cantandum deputatam. . . . Dicamus igitur quod musica est ars vel scientia de sono numerato armonice sumpto ad cantandum facilius deputata. Dico autem scienciam in quantum principiorum tradit cognitionem. Artem vero in quantum intellectum practicum regulat operando. De sono vero armonico quia est materia propria circa quam operatur. per numerum etiam eius forma designatur. Sed per cantare tangitur operatio ad quam est proprie deputata.” Cf. Johannes de Garlandia, De musica plana, ed. Meyer, p. 3: “Unde musica sic diffinitur: musica est de numero relato ad sonos et hoc quantum ad subiectum. Item quantum ad opus est de multitudine sonorum.” 41 H fol. 39r: “Licet enim plures diebus istis practicam huius artis querant. pauci tamen de eius speculatione sunt curantes. Et adhuc quidam speculativi suas operationes et inventiones abscondunt nolentes aliis publicare.”

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 109 From all this, it is clear that the theory that the movement of the stars produces a harmony, namely that the sounds they make are concordant, in spite of the grace and originality with which it has been stated, is nevertheless untrue. . . . But, as we said before, melodious and poetical as the theory is, it cannot be a true account of the facts.42

In his commentary on the De caelo, Averroes presents this argument of Aristotle with great vim as “irrational.”43 He reports that Aristotle rejected as absurd the Pythagorean argument that there was music that we were unable to hear.44 Integral to the strict Aristotelian physics followed by Averroes was an assumption that the stars, eternally fixed by the creator in the heavens, were of a different order from material reality on earth, and unable to produce an audible sound that might suggest change or decay.45 The story of how Aristotle’s critique in the De caelo became part of Parisian discussion about music is too involved to be told here. While not mentioned in relation to music within introductions to philosophy from the 1230s (according to the dating of Lafleur), Aristotle’s 42 De caelo II.9 (290b), trans. William of Moerbeke, Aristoteles Latinus 8.1–2, ed. F. Boissier (available through the Aristoteles Latinus database): “Manifestum autem ex hiis quoniam et dicere fieri latorum armoniam, tamquam consonantibus factis sonis, leviter quidem dictum est et superflue a dicentibus, non etiam sic habet veritas . . . . Hec autem, quemadmodum dictum est prius, allicienter quidem dicuntur et musice, impossibile autem hunc habere modum.” This modifies only slightly the translation of Grosseteste: “Manifestum autem ex hiis quoniam et dicere fieri latorum armoniam, ut consonantibus factis sonis, decenter seu compte quidem dictum est et superflue a dicentibus, non quidem sic utique habet verum.” 43 Aristotelis Opera cum Averrois Commentariis, vol. 5 (1562; repr. Frankfurt, 1962), fol. 133rb: “Et dicamus quod manifestum est ex eis, quae diximus etiam in sermone dicentis quod accidit ex motu orbium et stellarum vox musicalis propter consonantiam collisionis motus orbium et stellarum, et dicens hoc dicit hoc inuerecunde, et fatue, et veritas eius est in opposito . . . . Et dixerunt hoc stulte, sicut diximus superius, et sermo eorum est impossibilis, scilicet quod motus corporum altissimorum faciat sonum, et non audiatur. Et causa quam dixerunt in hoc est valde debilis.” The discussion of Averroes covers fols. 133ra-135ra. See also the version printed alongside the commentary of Albert the Great (c. 1152), printed in Alberti Magni Opera omnia, ed. P. Hossfeld 5.1 (Monasterii Westfalorum, 1971). See aso Averrois Cordubensis commentum magnum super libro De celo et mundo Aristotelis, ed. Rüdiger Arnzen (Leuven, 2003) [not yet seen]. 44 Aristotelis Opera cum Averrois Commentariis, fol. 134ra: “Non enim solum hoc nihil audire absurbdum est, de quo soluere conantes causam illam asserunt, sed et illud nihil pati sine sensu, excedentes enim soni destruunt etiam inanimatorum corporum moles.” 45 Aristotelis Opera cum Averrois Commentariis, fol. 135vb: “Deinde dedit causam finalem, propter quam necesse est quod istae stellae non mouentur omnino per se et quamuis hoc impossibile sit in eis ex natura earum, tamen illud quod ex necessitate conuenit eis, quod est ex fine, declaratur.”

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arguments begin to surface as a focus for discussion in Philosophica disciplina, from 1245–50.46 In none of these manuals, however, is the authority of Boethius explicitly challenged. Some precedent for Grocheio’s discomfort with Boethian arguments can be seen in the De ortu scientiarum of Robert Kilwardby (1215–79), written around 1250. Kilwardby had taught in Paris as a regent master, between 1237 and 1245, before returning to Oxford to join the Dominicans. In the De ortu, he effectively transforms Hugh of St Victor’s Didascalicon by applying Aristotelian scientific principles to the entire curriculum.47 Kilwardby begins his discussion of music by quoting Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De sensu et sensato to explain how the discipline develops through reflection on and delight in, the object of hearing.48 At the same time, he is indebted to Boethius’s account of how Pythagoras discovered the source of euphony to lie in numeric proportion, and defines the subject of music as harmonic number or things suited to each other “by harmonic proportion.”49 He then observes weakness in Boethius’s definition that arithmetic is about absolute number: “Without prejudice to the more learned, I say, however, as it seems to me, that Boethius did not speak falsehood, but spoke either less perfectly and carefully than he ought, or he intended the same as is clear to me.”50 Kilwardby explains that by “absolute number,” Boethius must mean a condition of abstraction; to Boethius’s notion that music is about “number that is related,” one has to clarify that it is about that which is harmonicum. The musical 46 Lafleur (pp. 127–29) dates Philosophica disciplina (edited in Quatres Introductions, 257–87) to 1245 on the grounds that it does not use the translation of the Liber ethicorum of Robert Grosseteste (c. 1246–47), unlike the Divisio scientiarum of Arnoul. It is quite possible, however, that it comes from around 1250, if Arnoul is writing any time before 1260 (see n. 14 below). Philosophica disciplina is first recorded in Oxford, Corpus Christi College 283, fols. 153rb–155va, immediately before a copy of the statutes of the English nation from 1252 and other university documents copied between 1266 and 1277 (Lafleur, p. 46). 47 Robert Kilwardby, De ortu scientiarum, Auctores britannici medii aevi 4, ed. Albert G. Judy (London, 1976). 48 De ortu scientiarum 18. 126, ed. Judy, pp. 50–51. 49 Ibid., 18.132, ed. Judy, p. 53: “Ex his patet subiectum et finis ac definitio musicae sive harmoniae communiter dictae. Subiectum enim est numerus harmonicus vel res harmonica proportione coaptatae.” Giorgio Stabile comments at length on Kilwardby’s use of Boethius in “Musica et cosmologia: l’armonia delle sfere,” in La Musica nel pensiero medievale, ed. Letterio Mauro (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2001), pp. 11–29. 50 Ibid., 20.139, ed. Judy, p. 56: “Dico autem, ut mihi videtur sine praeiudicio doctiorum, quod Boethius non dixerit falsum, sed aut minus perfecte et exquisite dixerit quam oporteret, aut quod intenderit idem mihi, quod sic patet.”

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 111 theorist must consider “concrete number with natural things,” namely sounds and voces.51 Kilwardby explains that while music and arithmetic are both mathematica, music is first of all about material sound, rather than about number, and is therefore subaltern to arithmetic. At the same time, he does not question Boethius’s assumption that there is also human and cosmic music.52 While moving to a more sensory understanding of music, the Dominican theorist refuses to break publicly with Boethius. Grocheio may have been familiar with Kilwardby’s discussion, but was more explicit in rejecting the notion that a musician should discuss the cantus of the angels, “unless he happens to be a theologian or a prophet.” Roger Bacon provides a much clearer precedent for Grocheio’s explicit rejection of musica mundana and musica humana. In his Opus tertium, written around 1267, Bacon follows Aristotle in explicitly rebuking the Pythagoreans for holding that there are differences in sound generated by the movements of heavenly bodies. Bacon refers to others “philosophizing more subtly” who explained that musica mundana came not from the sound of heavenly bodies, but from the sound generated by rays emanating from those bodies. They said that sound was generated in a three-fold way: namely from the collision of two hard things, namely musica instrumentalis, or from the movement of breaths in the vocal artery, namely musica humana, or from rays rarifying the air, namely musica mundana.53 The interpretation that Bacon

51

Ibid., 20.143, ed. Judy, p. 57: “Aliud etiam est quare mihi videtur addendum esse hoc ipsum harmonicum ad relationem numeri in subiecto musicae, scilicet quia numerus ut a musico consideratur est numerus concretus cum rebus naturalibus . . . . et ideo dixi quod est de numero harmice relato vel de rebus harmonica proportione invicem aptatis secundum quod huiusmodi, volens per harmonicam relationem nitelligi concretionem et materialitatem quae inest numeris de quibus considerat musicus.” 52 Ibid., 21.144–45, ed. Judy, pp. 57–58: “Soni enim et voces res naturales sunt et eorum numerus est numerus naturalis et concretus non abstractus, et hoc dixi de musica sonora sive instrumentali. Similiter autem est in musica humana et mundana si quis inspiciat.” 53 Roger Bacon, Opus Tertium 59, ed. J.S. Brewer, Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, Rolls Series 15 (London, 1859), p. 229: “Sed Aristoteles probat, secundo Caeli et Mundi, quod nullo modo potest sonus generari in celestibus, et quod Pythagoras erravit. Propter quod alii subtiius philosophantes dixerunt quod musica mundana non est ex sono coelestium corporum, sed ex sono generato ex radiis corporum illorum, dicentes sonum tripliciter generari, scilicet ex collisione duri cum duro, de quo est musica instrumentalis, ut in citharis, et psalteriis, et aliis; vel ex motione spirituum ad vocalem arteriam, de quo est musica humana, ut in voce hominis; vel ex radiis rarefacientibus aërem: de tali sono est musica mundana; ut magni viri dixerunt, et valde sapientes, licet non in hoc.” Parallels with Philosophica disciplina are italicized.

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questions here is precisely the interpretation of the Boethian tripartite division maintained in Philosophica disciplina (c. 1245) and alluded to in the similar overview of the curriculum preserved in Ripoll 109 (c. 1240), that musica mundana results from the intersection of the rays of heavenly bodies, musica humana as the movement of breaths in the vocal artery, and instrumental music results from the collision of two hard objects.54 Arnoul, in his Divisio scientiarum (c. 1250) mentions both the view of Boethius, and the interpretation of Philosophica disciplina, which he says is contrary to that of Aristotle in the De caelo, but does not choose between these two authors.55 Bacon, on the other hand, is rigorously sympathetic to Aristotelian principles in holding that musica only concerns what is produced by song and the sound of instruments, delighting the senses. He rejects the notion of a sound that could not be heard, referring back to his De radiis to explain that not every rarefaction of air produces a sound: “And yet let it be held that a sound is not generated from the rays of the heavens, and therefore musica mundana is nothing, although this opinion has endured among the crowd according to the opinion of the ancient Pythagoreans. But it is more recited among the wise, than approved.” Bacon adapts the definition of musica humana as about movement of breaths in the vocal artery and of musica instrumentalis as about the collision of two hard objects put by the anonymous author of Philosophica disciplina (c. 1250), but rejects its definition of musica mundana as absurd.56 Bacon prefers to quote the authority of Cassiodorus, al-Farabi 54 Philosophica disciplina, ed. Lafleur, p. 267: “De primo est musica mundana, que non considerat sonum ex collisione corporum supracelestium, quia hoc improbatur in libro Celi et mundi, set ex radiis istorum corporum intersecantium se et distrahentium partes aeris. Qui quidem sonus est improprius auribus nostris, immo obicitur nature uniuerali uel particulari operanti in isti rebus inferioribus. Sicut enim sonus proprius auribus nostris obicitur et anime humane aficiens eam iocunditate quadam et mouens ad operandum, sic et iste sonus nature operanti in rebus obicitur, et ipsa ex proportione talis soni quadam delectatione reficitur et mouetur ad operandum. De secundo autem est musica humana que considerat proportiones sonorum generatorum ex motu spirituum ad uocalem arteriam, et hec considerat proprortiones uocis humane. De tertio est musica instrumentalis, et hec considerat sonum qui fit ex collisione duri cum duro, ut in instrumentis, cithara et aliis. Parallels with Bacon are italicized. 55 Arnoul, Divisio scientarum, ed. Lafleur (see above, n. 13), p. 327: “Quod tamen ex intersectione corporum celestium generetur sonus, est Aristotilis contrarius in libro Celi et mundi, set potest intelligi quod ex intersectione radiorum generetur, ut dicitur a quibusdam, quia uirtus celestis fortior est elementari in rare faciendo et condensando ut talis sonus generetur.” 56 Bacon, Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, p. 230: “Tantum tamen teneatur, quod non generatur sonus ex radiis coelorum, et ideo nulla est musica mundana, licet secundum

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 113 (as translated by Gerard of Cremona and Gundissalinus), and Augustine, for an understanding of musica that he sees as moving to delight the senses “if there are at the same time gestures, rejoicing, and bodily movement.”57 Bacon is similarly harsh about traditional notions of cosmic music in his Communia mathematica, completed a few years later than in the Opus tertium, perhaps around 1270: “From which it is clear that musica mundana ought to be spoken of as nothing.”58 He ridicules the argument that there could be a sound that is not audible to human ears: “Although there have been those who have ‘dreamed up’ musica mundana and humana, they do not have any truth. Because of this, only musica instrumentalis ought to remain, which can be explained through musical instruments, of which certain are natural instruments, as in the parts of man which serve the voice and gesture, and certain are artificial, such as the harp and the vidula, the psaltery, the organ and other instruments.”59 Unlike Grocheio, Bacon displays no particular interest in musical repertoire. Jerome de Moravia and Aristotle The contrast between Kilwardby’s attempt to accommodate the views of Boethius with the authority of Aristotle, and Bacon’s rejection of Boethian authority parallels the difference between Jerome and Grocheio. Whereas Kilwardby, the learned Dominican, never breaks with Boethius, Bacon provides a precedent for Grocheio in challenging the opinionem antiquorum Pythagoricorum duravit haec opinio apud vulgum. Sed magis recitatur apud sapientes, quam approbatur. Et ideo, quia Boetius fecit mentionem de ea in sua Musica, hoc non est nisi secundum opinionem vulgi recitando. Omnis igitur sonus vel est ex collisione duri cum duro, vel ex motione spiruum ad vocalem arteriam.” 57 Bacon, Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, p. 232: “Nos enim videmus quod ars instrumentorum, et cantus, et metri, et rhythmi, non vadit in plenam delectationem sensibilem, nisi simul adsint gestus, et exultationes, et flexus corporales.” 58 Bacon, Communia mathematica, ed. Robert Steele, Opera hactenus inedita, ed. Robert Steele and Ferdinand M. Delorme, 16 fascicules (Oxford 1905–1940), p. 16: “Ex quibus patet quod nulla debet dicit musica mundana, quoniam si esset sonus ex collisione corporum celestium et sperarum mundi, tamen non esset nostris auribus discernendus, et ideo nobis incognitus, quoniam deficiente sensu deficit sciencia secundum illum, et iterum esset nobis inutilis omnino nec cederet in delectacionem nostram sicut soni mutabiles.” On the date of the Communia mathematica, see David Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature (Oxford, 1983), p. xxv. 59 Bacon, Communia mathematica, ed. Robert Steele, p. 16.

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authority of a staple text in the curriculum. These were not the only two ways of responding to the tension between these two authorities. Gabriela Ilnitchi has shed light on a a quite different attempt to integrate Boethian thought with the new planetary science in a treatise that she has convincingly argued to be the work not of Adalbold of Utrecht in the tenth century (as claimed by its editor), but by a master in the second half of the thirteenth.60 Its defence of the music of the spheres is very different from the pointed critique of both Bacon and Grocheio. Jerome himself drew on the Speculum doctrinale of his fellow Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais (1190–1264). Jerome was not unfamiliar with some new thinking about music, not least through Vincent’s quotation of the De divisione musicae secundum Alphorabium, a treatise on the classification of learning attributed to al-Farabi (translated by Gerard of Cremona and revised by Gundissalinus).61 Yet the only passage of the Tractatus in which Jerome explicitly acknowledges the authority of Aristotle is a long excerpt from the commentary of Thomas Aquinas on the De caelo, that he inserts immediately after a passage from Isidore (itself copied from Vincent of Beauvais), about the world as constituted by a harmony of sounds and about heaven as revolving through the modulation of harmony. Jerome never identifies Thomas by name, quoting him simply for information about Aristotle: “This, the philosopher criticizes in his way in the second book De caelo et 60 Gabriela Ilnitchi, “Musica Mundana, Aristotelian Natural Philosophy and Ptolemaic Astronomy,” Early Music History 21 (2002), 37–74, argues that a treatise, commonly attributed to Adalbold of Utrecht, is in fact from the thirteenth century, Epistola cum tractatu de musica instrumentali humanaque ac mundana, ed. Joseph Smits van Waesberghe, Divitiae musicae artis, A/II (Buren, 1981), 12–29. 61 Tractatus 5, ed. Cserba, 22–23, quoting Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum doctrinale 17.15, ed. Gottfried Göller, Vinzenz von Beauvais O.P. (um 1194–1264) und sein Musiktraktat im Speculum doctrinale, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung 15 (Regensburg, 1959), pp. 86–118, at 92. See De scientiis, ed. and trans. Henry George Farmer, Al-Farabi’s Arabic-Latin Writings on Music, Collection of Oriental Writers on Music 2 (1934; repr. London, 1965), pp. 21–31, and Max Haas, “Studien zur mittelalterlichen Musiklehre I: Eine Übersicht über die Musiklehre im Kontext der Philosophie des 13. und frühen 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Aktuelle Fragen der musikbezogenen Mittelalterforschung: Texte zu einem Basler Kolloquium des Jahres 1975, Forum Musicologicum: Basler Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte 3, ed. Hans Oesch and Wulf Arlt (Winterthur, 1982), pp. 420–21. On the influence of this treatise, see Charles Burnett, “European knowledge of Arabic texts about music,” Early Music History 12 (1993), 1–17, esp. 14. Anna Morelli discusses Vincent’s understanding of sound, in “Suono e musica in un enciclopedista del XII secolo: Vincenzo di Beauvais,” La Musica nel pensiero medievale, ed. Mauro, pp. 81–102 (with edition of passages relating to sound and music).

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 115 mundo.”62 In the passage quoted by Jerome, Thomas reads the De caelo very differently from Averroes, by drawing on the neoplatonist commentary of Simplicius, a text that William of Moerbeke had translated from the Greek, along with the De caelo. Jerome provides no awareness, however, that he has understood the subtlety of the arguments Thomas had provided to him. He simply concludes the extract without referring to Thomas, but simply by saying: “This is the manner and opinion of Aristotle, criticizing the said opinion. But which is the more true opinion of these great men, we do not rashly pronounce upon, but rather leave to be determined by our elders.” Although Jerome’s treatise is customarily dated to after 1271, on the grounds that he quotes from the commentary of Thomas on the De caelo, the way he inserts this extract immediately after Isidore, suggests that he may have already completed it before inserting this passage as an addition in or soon after 1271. Jerome’s manual was like a teacher’s course book that had grown over the years to incorporate new developments, but had difficulty in responding to the challenge presented by the De caelo. Jerome’s failure to identify Aquinas by name suggests, I would argue, that he was given this part of the De caelo directly from Thomas—who was staying at Saint-Jacques in the years 1269–1272. After Thomas’s death in 1274, masters of the Faculty of Arts (quite possibly Peter of Auvergne, subsequently appointed rector in 1275) requested copies of his last writings, including the De caelo, that they had heard about, but could not find in Paris. When Jerome wrote his treatise, Thomas had not yet acquired the authority he would gain with his death.

62 Thomas Aquinas, In Aristotelis libros De caelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologicorum: expositio, ed. R.M. Spiazzi (Turin, 1952), pp. 210–13, quoted in Hieronymus, Tractatus de musica 7, ed. Cserba, pp. 26–34, quoting Thomas, Expositio in Aristotelis De caelo II.xvi, 420–430, ed. Spiazzi, 210–13: “Quod philosophus in secundo libro de caelo et mundo more suo reprobat. . . . Hic est igitur modus et sententia Aristotelis dictam opinionem reprobantis. Sed quae tantorum virorum sit verior opinio, id non temerarie definimus, sed nostris majoribus determinanda relinquimus.” The previous quotation of Isidore, Tractatus 7, ed. Cserba, p. 26 quoting Isidore, Etymologiae 3.17.1: “Hoc est igitur, quod dicit Isidorus libro terti Etymologiarum: Sine musica, inquit, nulla disciplina potest esse perfecta, nihil enim sine illa. Nam et ipse mundus quadam harmonia sonorum fertur esse compositus, et caelum ipsum sub harmoniae modulatione revolvi.” This is quoted fom Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum doctrinale 17.10, ed. Göllner, p. 87.

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The contrast between the way in which Jerome responds to Aristotle’s critique of Pythagorean argument about the music of the spheres and that of Grocheio is telling. Although he may have been provided by Thomas Aquinas with an unusually sophisticated response to the De caelo in 1271/72, Jerome’s major thinking about music had been shaped by figures never explicitly concerned by the criticisms raised by Aristotle in that work. Jerome incorporated new writings about musica mensurata within his treatise, notably by John of Garland, Franco of Cologne and Peter of Picardy, but never challenged the Boethian assumptions about music with which he introduced his treatise. The Dominican tradition, certainly evident in the writing of Kilwardby, always encouraged an accommodating attitude towards the differences between Boethius and Aristotle. Grocheio represented a very different attitude within the Parisian educational environment. His criticisms of “Boethius and John of Garland and his followers” for believing in the music of spheres make full sense if they were directed against Jerome. Grocheio based his understanding of music as first of all based on material sound, manifest not simply through musica plana or plain chant, but through musica vulgalis as well as musica mensurata. His authority for rejecting Boethian teaching was based on comments of Aristotle, not just in the De caelo, but in a range of other writings. Grocheio’s challenge to the authority of Boethius may have been influenced by Bacon’s arguments, raised in the years 1267–70, although it was certainly influenced by other sources as well. Grocheio was building on challenges to the authority of Boethius within the curriculum, first evident in manuals of philosophy from around 1250. Paradoxically, Guy of Saint-Denis, who certainly drew on many ideas in Grocheio’s treatise to help him discuss the tones, and may well have been responsible for preserving the Ars musice in Harley MS 281, never identified Grocheio by name. Did Guy initially come into contact with Grocheio at the College of Saint-Denis? It was physically adjacent to the Dominicans of Saint-Jacques, until Abbot Matthew of Vendôme, decided to establish a more permanent site for the College, closer to the royal palace, in 1267 (although teaching only began at the new site in 1281).63 Did Grocheio leave Paris in some disgrace, 63 Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, La Bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis en France du IXe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1985), pp. 45–47, and ‘Le collège de Paris de

questioning the music of the spheres in 13th-c. paris 117 like Siger of Brabant, deposed from the Faculty of Arts in 1275? These are questions that deserve further exploration. The fact that Grocheio never established himself as an authority should not detract from the significance of his challenge to the power of the Boethian paradigm in considering musica vulgalis to be as legitimate an object of study as the music of the Church.

l’abbaye de Saint-Denis-en-France (XIIIe–XVIIe siècle),” in Sous le règle de Saint Benoît. Structures monastiques et sociétés en France du Moyen Age à l’époque moderne. Abbaye bénédictine. Sainte Marie de Paris, 23–25 octobre 1980, Hautes Etudes médiévales 47 (Geneva, 1982), pp. 461–88.

PAPAL POLICY ON JUDGING THE ORTHODOXY OF UNIVERSITY MASTERS, A RESEARCH PROBLEM William J. Courtenay In a 1987 essay Richard Southern raised a number of significant issues concerning the respective roles of Parisian masters and the papacy in judging the orthodoxy of university teaching.1 Southern’s principal argument was that the balance of authority between the magisterium and the papacy in matters of interpreting orthodoxy, a balanced working relationship that Southern claimed existed throughout most of the thirteenth century, began to crumble in the late thirteenth century and shifted decisively away from the magisterium in 1318 when John XXII initiated the practice of adjudicating questions of orthodox teaching and writing at the papal court rather than by theologians at the universities of Paris and Oxford. The essay left the impression that this shift was never reversed and that for the remainder of the Middle Ages judicial authority in matters of faith and doctrine belonged to the papacy, contested for a time by Conciliarists but not by doctors of theology as a distinct group. In the following year, in a presidential address to the American Society of Church history, I suggested two modifications to Southern’s perceptive thesis.2 The first was that theological masters did not lose their role in judging the orthodoxy of the writings and teachings of university masters and bachelors. It was a shift in the location of that forum, namely from Paris or Oxford to the papal curia at Avignon. John XXII usually sought advice before issuing doctrinal pronouncements, and when determining the orthodoxy of the teaching or statements of university theologians he consistently relied on commissions composed predominantly of Parisian and Oxford masters of theology.

1 R.W. Southern, “The Changing Role of Universities in Medieval Europe,” Historical Research 60 (1987), 133–46. As far as I am aware, Southern was the first to propose that the adjudication of such cases at Avignon, studied in detail by Josef Koch and others, marked a conscious shift in papal policy by John XXII. 2 W.J. Courtenay, “Inquiry and Inquisition: Academic Freedom in Medieval Universities,” Church History 58 (1989), 168–81.

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These commissions, acting under the authority or supervision of a cardinal or prelate, were appointed by the pope to examine the writings or lists of suspect statements of their university colleagues and to offer their judgment on each statement as to whether it was heretical, simply erroneous, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, or permissible in the schools. Final judgment was left to papal authority. The second modification to Southern’s thesis was that 1318 did not mark a permanent change in such judicial procedures. The venue for these cases shifted back to Paris with the death of Benedict XII and the coronation of Clement VI. Cases pending from the last years of Pope Benedict were quickly resolved, with the exception of that of Nicholas of Autrecourt, which dragged on until his condemnation at Avignon in 1346 and his recantation at Paris in 1347. All subsequent cases arising from teaching at Paris were adjudicated at Paris. And just as Southern attributed the shift from Paris to Avignon to the initiative of John XXII, I attributed the shift from Avignon back to the universities of Paris and Oxford to a change in policy on the part of Clement VI. Hans Thijssen, in his final chapter on “academic freedom and teaching authority” in Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, rejected the assumption of papal initiative, either with John XXII or Clement VI.3 Thijssen attributed the shift in judicial venue from university to the papal court to be a result either of where charges were brought, that is, where the initial denunciation was made, as in the case of Jean de Pouilly, or as a result of appeal, as in the case of Meister Eckhart. If denunciations were lodged at Avignon, the papal court would be the court of first instance, just as in the case of Eckhart, it would be a court of appeal. For Thijssen, what appeared to be papal initiative was simply a result of where accusations were actually presented. Similarly, the fact that cases arising after 1342 were adjudicated at Paris or Oxford was again a result of the judicial forum initially chosen by accusers. Zénon Kaluza had earlier arrived at a similar conclusion in the case

3 J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 12–19, especially 18–19: “Even though John XXII and even more so Benedict XII probably encouraged the centralization of the examination of doctrinal orthodoxy, the significance of this ‘move to Avignon’ should not be exaggerated. . . . There was never really a shift in the balance of forces from university to papacy, as Southern claims. First, several jurisdictions were competent in handling charges of false teaching. The choice of the judicial form was determined from below, by person or persons who informed the authorities about their suspicions. . . . it is more accurate to speak of papal responses than of papal initiatives.”

papal policy and the orthodoxy of university masters 121 of the process against Autrecourt, namely that charges were initiated at Avignon on the basis of a complaint and supporting evidence sent from Paris.4 By implication Thijssen granted that masters of theology could and sometimes did exercise judicial power over fellow theologians, albeit it under the ecclesiastical authority of the chancellor at Paris, who was the chancellor of Notre Dame acting under the authority of the bishop. But university masters were simply one of several possible jurisdictions in such matters, and rather than competing for power and authority in judging the orthodoxy of theological statements, they and other courts passively responded to whatever business was placed before them. Recently Isabel Iribarren introduced a variation on the problem.5 She accepted the thesis of a decline in an independent magisterial authority in the early fourteenth century but suggested other reasons for that development. According to her, John XXII, perhaps inadvertently, brought to an end the ecclesiopolitical authority of theological masters not by arrogating that authority to the papacy, as Southern maintained, but by substituting a “renewal of faith” in the original texts of Christianity, which might from one perspective be viewed as a more literal interpretation of Scripture but which Pope John saw as the informed opinion of a simple follower of Christ, which might be inspired and true. The question of a decline in magisterial judicial authority as well as the reasons for shifts in judicial forum between universities and the papal curia in the adjudication of cases involving theological masters deserve further examination. But before doing so, it is important to establish the relation of papacy, magisterium, and councils in the thirteenth century, since purported changes in the fourteenth century necessarily presuppose a previous status quo. Papal, indeed general ecclesiastical support for the Paris faculty of theology in the thirteenth century was primarily because it was viewed as a training ground for a more learned clergy, for church leaders, for the understanding of doctrine in order to defend the faith, and to identify and combat heresy. 4 Z. Kaluza, “Nicolas d’Autrécourt, ami de la vérité,” Histoire littéraire de la France, 42:1 (Paris 1995), 1–233, at 75–96. 5 I. Iribarren, “Theological Authority at the Papal Court in Avignon: The Beatific Vision Controversy,” in La vie culturelle, intellectuelle et scientifique à la cour des papes d’Avignon, ed. J. Hamesse (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 277–301. See also Iribarren, Durandus of St. Pourçain. A Dominican Theologian in the Shadow of Aquinas (Oxford, 2005).

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Its doctrinal role was to understand and fine-tune doctrines already defined, to do the textual and conceptual research on doctrines not yet defined, but it was never to define doctrine or practice. That was the role of councils or of popes acting in consultation with councils and the magisterium. Henry of Ghent was neither the first nor the last Parisian master, either alone or with his fellow theologians, who considered himself qualified also to give what he felt was the correct or more probable solution to a theological question, to explain biblical truth and church doctrine.6 But no thirteenth-century pope looked to university doctors for doctrinal definition but only, and at best, for the analysis and argumentation that allowed others to uncover the truth, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That being said, questions of orthodoxy within the Parisian university community in the thirteenth century, whether in the faculty of theology or the faculty of arts, were adjudicated at Paris by masters of theology, acting under the authority of the bishop of Paris and sometimes in consultation with the pope. In contrast to questions over the orthodoxy of academic opinions in the twelfth century, which almost always concerned masters teaching theology, cases in the thirteenth century before 1280 concerned masters of arts or students in theology. Masters of theology investigated heretical opinions among those inferior in academic rank; they did not investigate the teaching of their colleagues. In fact, the precedent of internal policing by regent masters of theology of those below the rank of master of theology may have influenced procedures among the mendicant orders. The trial of Peter of John Olivi in 1283 was conducted by Franciscan masters of theology, just as the examination of the writings of Durand of St. Pourçain in 1313 was conducted by Dominican masters of theology. The only attempt to investigate and correct a regent master of theology between 1200 and 1280 was the case of William of St. Amour, which failed.

6 Other examples are William of St. Amour in the third quarter of the thirteenth century, or Jean de Pouilly in the early fourteenth century, although Pouilly’s troubles began with his interpretation of papal pronouncements at the Council of Vienne in 1311, not by substituting his opinions in place of the pope’s. On the self-consciousness or self-conception of university masters in the thirteenth century, see Pierre MichaudQuantin, “La conscience d’être membre d’une universitas,” in Beiträge zum Berufsbewusstsein des mittelalterlichen Menschen, ed. Paul Wilpert, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 3 (Berlin, 1964), pp. 1–14; Jacques Le Goff, “Quelle conscience l’université médiévale a-t-elle d’elle-même?,” in Beitrge zum Berufsbewusstsein, pp. 15–29.

papal policy and the orthodoxy of university masters 123 This is probably why Franciscan theologians did not initiate a case against the anti-mendicant views of Jean de Pouilly at Paris, where Pouilly was a secular regent master of theology and the chancellor, Thomas de Bailly, was also a secular theologian. With a faculty of theology split almost evenly between secular masters and those in religious orders, the inevitable impasse would only create further animosity. The papal court at Avignon was potentially a far friendlier judicial venue, and proved to be so. Thijssen is correct that in the case of Jean de Pouilly in 1318 John XXII was not removing a case from Parisian university jurisdiction, although he might have adjudicated it at Paris or elsewhere under a papal legate. The pope summoned Pouilly to Avignon because mendicant theologians requested it. It is also true that the Avignon stage of the condemnation of opinions of Meister Eckhart came to the papal court through the appeal process, and in the case of the charges against Thomas Waleys and his imprisonment, he was already in Avignon when he preached against the views of the pope. There are also differences of opinion on whether Ockham in 1324 and Autrecourt in 1340 were summoned to Avignon because charges against them were initiated there, or whether there was an earlier phase in England and Paris, respectively. Thijssen himself acknowledged there is no evidence on where charges were initially brought in most of these cases, except in the case of Jean de Pouilly. With both Ockham and Autrecourt there is evidence that suggests that some initial inquiry (conducted by English Franciscans in the case of Ockham and perhaps by university masters at Paris acting under the authority of the chancellor in the case of Autrecourt) occurred before Ockham and Autrecourt were summoned to Avignon.7 Five others were summoned to Avignon in 1340 in the same letter to the bishop of Paris that summoned Autrecourt, namely John the Servite, Elias of Courson, Guido of Veliaco, Peter of Monteregali, and the Cistercian, Henry of England.8 Similarly, John XXII insisted that the Franciscans

7 For the evidence on a pre-Avignon investigation of Ockham’s opinions, specifically on “relation”, see G.J. Etzkorn, “Ockham at a Provincial Chapter: 1323. A Prelude to Avignon,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 83 (1990), 557–67. For the view that there was a pre-Avignon phase at Paris in the investigation of Autrecourt, see Thijssen, Censure and Heresy, pp. 76–78. 8 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (subsequently cited as CUP), ed. H. Denifle and É. Châtelain, vol. II (Paris, 1891), #1041, p. 505. On these individuals, see W.J. Courtenay, “Summons to Avignon: Autrecourt’s Codefendants,” in Chemins de la pensée médiévale. Études offertes à Zénon Kaluza, ed. P. Bakker (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 587–598.

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Henry Costesey and Thomas Elmendene be sent to Avignon for trial if, after an initial inquiry at Cambridge, grounds appeared that justified such action.9 In the cases of Ockham, Costesey, Elmendene, Autrecourt, John the Servite, Courson, Veliaco, Monteregali, and the Cistercians Richard of Lincoln and Henry of England, there is no evidence of any denunciation at Avignon that began the process, in fact, no evidence on the location of the initial action of denunciation at all. Somehow word had to have reached the pope, otherwise no summons would have been issued. But the case of Costesey and Elmendene, which Thijssen did not include, suggests that John XXII wanted any serious case of suspect opinion to be examined at the papal court and not left to local ecclesiastical authority or be tried within a university context. Even if John XXII did not consciously initiate a procedure for all such cases to be tried at Avignon—and I doubt there was anything so formal, nor did Southern assert such—it is remarkable that the papal court at Avignon during the pontificates of John XXII and Benedict XII became the place where such cases were in fact adjudicated. Benedict XII’s well-documented displeasure with the University of Paris, particularly in the 1338–1342 period, made him even more inclined to remove cases of suspect teaching from the Paris magisterium, or to let it be known that the papal curia would have no objection to examining such cases at Avignon.10 But just as there is almost no evidence remaining from the initial accusatory stage of these cases that would inform us about where and by whom charges were brought, so too there are no papal pronouncements requiring or requesting that all such cases to be sent to Avignon. What is remarkable is that the practice of adjudicating cases at Avignon ended just as suddenly as it began. By the end of the first year of Clement VI’s pontificate, of the seven cases known to be pending at Avignon at the time of the death of Benedict XII, that of Nicholas of 9 Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. W.H. Bliss, C. Johnson, and J.A. Twemlow, 3 vols. (London, 1893–97), 2: 493, 496. The results of this inquiry, whether adjudicated at Cambridge or transferred to Avignon, are unknown. 10 The actions of Benedict can be read in the texts edited in CUP 2:476–77, 482–83, 487–89, 497–99, and 521–22; Auctarium Chartularii Universitatis Parisiensis, 1: Liber procuratorum nationis Anglicanae (Alemanniae) in Universitate Parisiensi, ed. H. Denifle and É. Châtelain (Paris, 1894), cols. 26, 28–32, 35. For a discussion of Benedict’s actions, see W.J. Courtenay and K.H. Tachau, “Ockham, Ockhamists, and the English-German Nation at Paris, 1339–1341,” History of Universities 2 (1982), 53–96, at 77–78.

papal policy and the orthodoxy of university masters 125 Autrecourt is the only case that was not quickly settled, due in part to a year’s absence of William Curti, the cardinal handling the investigation, but probably due more to Autrecourt’s strong personal conviction that he was in the right, thus delaying a recantation.11 Moreover, no new cases apart from John of Rupescissa (which was a case of popular rather than academic heresy) were tried at Avignon.12 The case of Jean de Mirecourt was handled entirely at Paris through the chancellor, Robert de Bardis, the regent and non-regent masters in theology, and under the auspices of the papal legate, Pastor de Serrescuderio.13 Thijssen interpreted Pastor’s participation as evidence that the case was still under papal authority. But the final condemnation of offending articles was declared by the chancellor and the faculty of theology, without any mention of Pastor. More significantly, the venue was Paris, not Avignon, and even Autrecourt was required to recant and to burn his books at Paris in 1347, in addition to his recantation at Avignon in 1346. If the venue of the trials was simply a matter of where charges were brought or initiated, why are there no precedents between 1200 and 1318 for such cases being tried at Rome or Avignon? Moreover, why were all known cases between 1316 and 1342 adjudicated at Avignon, and then suddenly in 1342 adjudicated only at a university, most notably Paris? Such remarkable shifts in judicial forum suggest some form of papal initiative and could not simply be a result of accusatorial preference. Turning next to Iribarren’s new interpretation of the motivation or spiritual vision of John XXII with regard to scripture, I subscribe to the view that John XXII was rather literal-minded, as evidenced by his interpretation of the requirements, and therefore the timing, for the 11

Kaluza, “Nicolas d’Autrécourt,” pp. 93–128. André Vauchez, “Jean de Roquetaillade (†1366 ca.). Bilan des recherches et état de la question,” in Eschatologie und Hussitismus, ed. A. Patschovsky and F. Šmahel (Prague, 1996), pp. 25–37; Mark Dupuy, “The Unwilling Prophet and the New Maccabees: John of Roquetaillade and the Valois in the Fourteenth Century,” Florilegium 17 (2000), 225–50. 13 CUP 2:610–14; F. Stegmüller, “Die zwei Apologien des Jean de Mirecourt,” Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale (later cited as RTAM) 5 (1933), 40–78, 192–204; W.J. Courtenay, “John of Mirecourt and Gregory of Rimini on Whether God can Undo the Past,” RTAM 39 (1972), 224–56; 40 (1973), 147–74; “John of Mirecourt’s Condemnation: Its Original Form,” RTAM 53 (1986), 190–91; “Erfurt CA 2 127 and the Censured Articles of Mirecourt and Autrecourt,” in Die Bibliotheca Amploniana, ed. A. Speer. Miscellanea Mediaevalia 23 (Berlin, 1995), 341–352. On Pastor, see W.J. Courtenay, “Pastor de Serrescuderio (d. 1356) and MS Saint-Omer 239,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 63 (1996), 325–356. 12

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physical Beatific Vision, or his view that the Franciscans should be forced to acknowledge ownership of the possessions they were actually using.14 But I do not think he believed that just anyone could interpret the Gospel correctly on the basis of direct confrontation with the original texts. The interpretation of the absolute poverty of Christ and the Apostles by the Spiritual Franciscans was in error because it differed from John’s own view and the view of most Franciscans, because it disturbed the Church, and because it challenged papal authority. Many of John’s views were not derived simply from his reading of original sources but from his view of how things were or should be, which even allowed him to reopen questions that presumably had been settled and placed outside discussion by papal decree, such as Nicholas III’s “Exiit qui seminat” of 1279. Secondly, as I suggested above, John XXII did not exclude or marginalize theologians from the papal curia, but in many cases welcomed them to Avignon—not to teach, although several taught in the papal studium and others engaged in quodlibetal disputations, but to serve in other ways. He depended on theologians to staff judicial and legislative commissions established at Avignon, just as Benedict XII subsequently did during his pontificate. While John was concerned that some of what went on in theological classrooms at Paris and Oxford was too philosophical, or sophistical, and did not lead to proper or useful interpretations of Scripture, he also believed that universitytrained theologians were necessary for identifying error and heresy in the writings of their colleagues, past and present. One might say that John, on one level, had almost excessive respect for the technical training of theologians and believed that a sufficient number of theologians from the secular clergy and from the various religious orders, especially those who had risen to high administrative positions in the church, would be able to identify errors within the complex language and argumentation of the schools. At the same time, John XXII probably did not intend that these commissions have a balance between secular theologians and those

14 Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique. Des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XXII, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 289 (Rome, 1995). The latest work on the poverty controversy is the revisionary study by Patrick Nold, Pope John XXII and his Franciscan Cardinal. Bertrand de la Tour and the apostolic poverty controversy (Oxford, 2003).

papal policy and the orthodoxy of university masters 127 from religious orders, nor does an examination of their membership reveal any equitable distribution among the religious orders.15 It appears, instead, that the pope drew upon those who were in residence at Avignon, ensuring that a commission had a sufficient number of theologians to have a diversity of learned opinion, but keeping the number between six and ten for reasons of efficiency or cost, since the theologians were paid for their service.16 More often than not, most commission members, in addition to being doctors of theology, were also prelates or held a major office within their order. This may have been because he knew them better, or to give the decision of the commission hierarchical standing. It also appears that the pope was not reluctant to appoint to the commission a strong opponent of the individual under investigation, even putting the accuser on the commission, thus mixing the roles of prosecutor and judge. It is impossible to know whether the different environments in which the examination of the writings of university theologians took place, university or curia, affected the outcome of the deliberations of the examining theologians. It is certainly true that the views of John XXII on the Beatific Vision received more support at Avignon than at Paris. One need only compare the several treatises favoring his position written by theologians at the curia with the rejection of his view by the theologians convoked at Paris by Philip VI in December 1333. If John’s theologians (that is, the few who defended his view) and Philip’s theologians came to different conclusions on the understanding of the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, it was in part a result of the different environments in which their respective deliberations took place and

15 The commission of theologians appointed to examine the Apocalypse commentary of Peter Olivi was composed of two Carmelites, two Dominicans, two Franciscans, one Benedictine, and one secular master (CUP 2, #790, pp. 238–39). Those who served on the commission to examine the writings of Ockham were three Dominicans, two Augustinian Hermits, and one secular theologian; no Franciscan was appointed (A. Pelzer, “Les 51 articles de Guillaume Occam censurés, en Avignon, en 1326,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 18 (1922), 240–70, at 241–2; J. Koch, “Neue Aktenstucke zu dem gegen Wilhelm Ockham in Avignon gefürten Prozess,” RTAM 7 (1935), 350–80, at 286). 16 The first commission of theologians appointed by John XXII at Avignon to examine potentially heretical statements was concerned with three assertions of Spiritual Franciscans and presented its findings between late March and early June 1318. The commission was composed of four Franciscans, three Dominicans, three Benedictines, one Carmelite, one Cistercian, and one secular, most of whom were also prelates, including six bishops (CUP 2, #760, pp. 215–18).

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the ever-present temptation to support the views of one’s patron. Philip’s theologians had an easier time, since they could support the common opinion without fear of reprisal.17 Neither pope nor king altered the traditional role of the Paris magisterium, even if the latter practiced their consultative juridical expertise at Avignon rather than Paris for a period of over two decades. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was doctors of theology who were expected to identify and remove error among their own members as well as scrutinize the teaching of masters of arts in matters of orthodoxy. They did not lose their right to define doctrine; they never had it. Nor did Philip VI’s council at Vincennes in December 1333, called to examine the teaching on the Beatific Vision of Guiral Ot, and by association that of John XXII, place the university solidly in the royal patronage network. The papacy remained the principal patron of university masters throughout the fourteenth century.18 If anything, the authority of the theological magisterium both over its own members and as a repository for learned opinion useful to popes and kings grew in the course of the fourteenth century, aided in part by the importance of the papal commissions at Avignon that accorded enhanced prestige to theological masters.

17 For the declaration of the council summoned by Philip VI to deliberate on the Beatific Vision and related documentation on the controversy, see CUP II, pp. 414–42; for discussion, see Trottmann, La vision béatifique. 18 This is abundantly clear from the provisions to Parisian masters edited in Rotuli Parisienses. Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris, ed. W.J. Courtenay, 1: 1316–1349 (Leiden, 2002); 2: 1352–1378 (Leiden, 2003).

JEAN GERSON AND THE RENEWAL OF SCHOLASTIC DISCOURSE 1400–1415 Brian Patrick McGuire Jean Gerson (1363–1429) was born into modest circumstances and was sent at the age of fourteen by his parents to the University of Paris.1 Here he showed outstanding abilities in mastering first the arts curriculum and then in reading theology, where he completed his doctorate by 1392. In 1395 he succeeded his teacher, Pierre d’Ailly, as chancellor of the university, a post that gave him some influence in the granting of degrees and the maintenance of academic standards. In 1399, however, Gerson withdrew from Paris to a prebend given him by the duke of Burgundy at the church of Saint Donatian in Bruges. Here he intended to remain the rest of his life, in dedicating himself to the pastoral life and the reform of this church. By September of 1400, however, he had returned to Paris. Gerson’s odyssey, from his home village near Rethel in the Ardennes, to Paris, then to Bruges, and back to Paris, is a story of success and the questioning of that success. In what follows here I will look briefly at some of Gerson’s writings in the first years of the fifteenth century in order to see how he sought through his criticism of the academic life to give it new meaning and to renew its contents. Trained in the question and answer discourse of scholasticism, Gerson sought alternative ways of dealing with academic questions. In general he tried to bring academic life closer to the needs and problems of ordinary people within the Christian Church. At the same time Jean Gerson made use of his own experience in speaking out about matters that concerned him. In Gerson there took place a renewal of scholastic discourse which brought its language and subject matter closer to lived experience.

1 For background, see Brian Patrick McGuire, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2005). Also McGuire, ed., A Companion to Jean Gerson (Leiden, 2006).

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Once he had established himself at Bruges in 1399, Gerson allowed himself to communicate with his colleagues at Paris in order to explain to them why he had left. He described in one letter how he was “forced to please or serve many very great lords who are most hostile.”2 He did not name names, but later in the same letter he remarked how ironical it was that he had accepted the chancellorship in order to escape the intrigues of court life but had ended up being as involved as ever in them. The rich and powerful tyrannized him at the university in the same way as they had done when he was court preacher. As a result he had to give academic degrees to their sons: “. . . to promote those who lacked knowledge and are morally corrupt and sometimes to prefer them to those who are more capable.”3 The university environment, which was supposed to create peace of mind and intellectual depth, was full of “rumors” and “gossipy talk.”4 The result of this atmosphere was that it had become impossible for Gerson as a priest to pray or say the mass properly. In general he felt compelled (he repeats several times the word cogor) to conform to habits and ways of behavior of which he did not approve: “I am forced to follow the crowd in doing what I do not want or what is not permitted, just as one who is an enemy or is suspected of having ambition.”5 The solution for Gerson had been to drop the academic life and go to Bruges, where he could take up the position of dean that he had already assumed in absentia. Here he thought his life would coalesce into a unified whole, without hypocritical behavior, and without the deceits of academic life: “It should be considered what good can be

2 Jean Gerson. Oeuvres Complètes, Epistola 2, ed. Palemon Glorieux (Paris, 1960) vol. 2, p. 18: “Cogor enim pluribus dominis magnis valde qui adversissimi sunt complacere vel obsequi.” The translation is taken from McGuire, Jean Gerson. Early Works. Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1998), p. 161 and will be referred to as EW, with the page number. 3 Gerson, Epistola 2, vol. 2, p. 18, EW, p. 161. 4 Gerson, Epistola 2, p. 18 EW, p. 162: “Cogor assidue rumores audire quae illic cotinue prostrepunt, quibus animae quies omnis eripitur; et in multiloquiis hujusmodi. . . .” 5 Gerson, Epistola 2, p. 19, EW, p. 163: “Cogor multitudinem insequi ad agendum quod non placet aut licet vel ut hostis ac suspectus ambitione haberi.”

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 131 done at Bruges solely by the example of life, without any words.”6 Gerson was tired of the words of scholastic disputation and political maneuvering at the university. Instead he thought he could dedicate himself to a life of contemplation: It should be considered how much love for God there is in the quiet of contemplation of those who live in the way of former saints. And so, if someone is found to be even slightly suitable for this activity, I think it must be conceded that his talent is such, and he is not to do other things . . . .7

Gerson dreamed of attaining a life of peace and quiet, where he could pray and preach and spread the word of God in a way that he found to be impossible at Paris. By 1 April 1400, however, Gerson had regained his hope of reconciling the university with his own spiritual life and desire for integrity. He wrote to his teacher and mentor, Pierre d’Ailly, and told him that what the university needed was more and better sermons.8 To this letter he appended a number of proposals for improvements in the faculty of theology. “Useless teachings” were to be eliminated: he listed some of the wasteful propositions that took up the time of the professors, topics especially concerned with definitions of God and the persons of the Trinity.9 Instead of keeping to the first book of the Sentences by Peter Lombard, with its Trinitarian definitions, masters were also to lecture on the second, third and fourth books, where questions of morals and Christian ethics were dealt with. At the same time the masters were to think of their teaching in terms not only of colleagues and students but also of the general public. It was necessary to “be considered carefully how great is the need for the education of the people and the solution of moral questions in our times.”10 Gerson recalled how during the plague the faculty of medicine had made a handbook for lay people.

6 Gerson, Epistola 2, p. 20. EW, pp. 164–65: “Consideretur quod profectus esse Brugis potest solo etiam vitae exemplo si verba deessent.” 7 Gerson, Epistola 2, p. 22, EW, p. 166: “Consideretur quanta sit caritas Deo in contemplationis quiete viventium more priorum sanctorum. Ideo si quis tenuiter ad hoc aptus inveniatur, cedendum sibi puto quia talentum suum tale est, non alia agibilia saltem in tanto . . . .” 8 Gerson, Epistola 3, p. 25, EW, p. 170. 9 Gerson, Epistola 3, pp. 26–27, EW, pp. 172–73. 10 Gerson, Epistola 3, p. 28, EW, p. 174: “Et pro honore Dei attendatur diligenter quanta est necessitas pro instructione populorum et pro resolutione materiarum moralium temporibus nostris.”

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Now the faculty of theology should do the same “on the main points of our religion, and especially on its precepts, for the instruction of uneducated people.”11 The Gerson who had felt he was compromising his own salvation by remaining at the university was now contemplating returning to it. He was hopeful that necessary changes could be made and especially that the faculty of theology could be reoriented, away from speculative time wasting and towards practical concerns that would be of use for all Christians. He was still wary, however, about whether it would be possible to make this transition. As he wrote his colleagues at the College de Navarre on 29 April 1400: We do write, but our sentences have no weight, our words no number or measure. For all that we write is flabby, mean, slack. We do not write what is new. Instead we repeat what is old but treat and transmit it in a new way. Trying to make these materials our own, we devalue them and make them absurd.12

The answer for Gerson was to make good use of what the past had given, instead of constantly trying to reshape it: “How much wiser it would be to make use of what already has been well invented, rather than to invent what is sought for.”13 This loyalty to the traditions of the past Gerson wanted to combine with living an exemplary life. He asked for academics who were “pious and well-trained” and “who practice what they preach.”14 Thus the academic life consisted not only in being able to argue well but also required attention to the moral content of life: “whatever more greatly and more directly contributes to building charity should be preferred in reading, remembering and meditating.”15

11

Ibid.: “. . . super punctis principalibus nostrae religionis, et specialiter de praeceptis, ad instructionem simplicium . . . .” 12 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 178: “Scribimus, sed absque pondere sententiarum, absque numero et mensura verborum; est enim illud omne quod scribimus flaccidum, illiberale, fluidum. Scribimus non nova sed antiqua noviterque versando et transmutando, dum nostra conamur efficere, prava reddimus et inepta . . . .” 13 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 179: “Porro quanto consultius erat uti bene inventis quam dum quaeruntur invenienda, nec illa afferre quin etiam subvertere bene jam inventa.” 14 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 32, EW, p. 179: “. . . a sanctissimis et expertissimis qui faciebant quae docebant . . . .” 15 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 33, EW, p. 180: “. . . quidquid plus et immediatius caritatem aedificat plus legatur, memoretur, ruminetur.

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 133 Gerson concluded his letter by outlining the three elements in the learning process that he found essential, especially within theology. First of all there was the scholastic content, the discipline and the questions posed by such texts as found in theologians such as Peter Lombard, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and more recently, Henry of Ghent. Secondly came the element of edification: the fruits of scholastic discourse had to be used in order to enter into an interior discourse of the self, “a discreet silence, so that one is separated for a time from the company not only of people but also of cares and worldly affairs.”16 Gerson even recommended taking time off from studies, so that the mind can be devoted wholly to the interior pursuit. Here again he recommended a number of texts, starting with Gregory the Great’s Dialogues. Finally the person trained in scholastic discourse and tempered by the pursuit of edification will be able to use his insights in preaching. All three elements were necessary and important, and Gerson thereby refused to allow the scholastic teacher to suffice with the first stage. He was obliged to go from scholastic knowledge to self-edification and finally to share his insights in preaching. This sharing of the word did not necessarily have to be in public. It could take place “among a few companions” just as well as for a large audience.17 During these months of l400 Gerson was considering how to return to teach and preach in Paris, while at the same time maintaining the interior silence that he loved so much. He was probably already now beginning to realize that the reform of the church of Saint Donatian in Bruges was much more difficult than he had anticipated.18 The canons turned out to be very much concerned about maintaining their special privileges, especially in terms of food and clothing, and Gerson’s regulatory efforts were not welcomed. For the time being the canons outwardly accepted his reform program, but in the years to come they would show both passive and active resistance. Gerson remained a

16 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 34, EW, p. 182: “At vero praeexigitur in secundo, si perfici debeat, secretum silentium, sepositum interim ab omni turba non solum hominum sed sollicitudinum et curae temporalis.” 17 Gerson, Epistola 5, p. 35, EW, pp. 183–84: “. . . nunc inter paucos familiares nunc palam consummatur.” 18 For more information about Gerson’s problems at Saint Donatian, see McGuire, Jean Gerson (see above, n. 1), pp. 97–102. Also E. Vansteenberghe, “Gerson à Bruges,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 31 (1935), 5–52.

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university man whose area of concern was centered on Paris. By September of 1400 he was back home. Already here in the letters to Pierre d’Ailly and to his colleagues at the College de Navarre, Gerson reveals a personal and direct tone that recalls monastic correspondence of the twelfth century.19 Certainly the subjects are not the same, but the desire to convey individual experience through the form of the letter is very much reminiscent of twelfth-century practice. We find here not an echo of Petrarch, for whom every line was meant to impress with its literary qualities and reminiscences.20 Instead there is a sincere desire to reach out for the correspondent in presenting shared values with him, values that Gerson drew from his own inner life. In writing to his colleagues he wanted not only to reform them but also to tell them of the trials and tribulations which he, Gerson, had experienced. Gerson as “Public Intellectual” In an important article Daniel Hobbins has recently presented Gerson as a new type of university intellectual, who was concerned with getting outside the precincts of the academic life and who wanted to influence developments in church and society.21 This is certainly the role that Gerson took on for himself from the time he returned to Paris in September of 1400, even though it needs to be added that Gerson was not doing something completely new in university life. Peter the Chanter already in the mid-twelfth century, before there was a formal university at Paris, inspired the masters of its schools in formulating their theological pursuits in terms of moral questions.22 William of Auvergne (d. 1249) also insisted that the academic life had to contain a pastoral dimension. In treatises on prayer and similar subjects he made it clear that theology had to be useful for ordinary people.23

19 I am thinking in terms of some of the more intimate of Peter the Venerable’s letters. See The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. Giles Constable, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). Also the earlier letters of Saint Anselm of Canterbury. 20 Elsewhere Gerson did imitate Petrarch. See Gilbert Ouy, “Gerson, émule de Pétrarque. Le ‘Pastorium Carmen’, poème de jeunesse de Gerson,” Romania 88 (1967), 175–231. 21 “The Schoolman as Public Intellectual: Jean Gerson and the Late Medieval Tract,” American Historical Review 108 (2003), 1308–1335. 22 See John Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants. The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J., 1970). 23 See his De rhetorica divina, in Guilelmi Alverni Opera Omnia, vol. 1 (1674; repr. Frankfurt, 1963), cols. 336–407.

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 135 Gerson furthered such considerations, but in seeing him as a public intellectual it is important also to consider him as a man who was in doubt about what he was doing and who asked whether he was acting in the right way. In wanting to make sure that people were to benefit from his teachings, Gerson questioned his own motives and methods. With his students he could be bold and experimental, as in teaching courses on subjects such as mystical theology. At the same time he was not satisfied with being a traditional teacher: he insisted on dealing with people outside the university, and especially with women. Already at Bruges Gerson had addressed the possibility that women could have as great theological understanding as men. As he wrote in the spring of 1400 in his introduction to The Mountain of Contemplation: Some persons will wonder and ask why, in a matter so lofty as that of the contemplative life, I choose to write in French rather than in Latin, and more to women than to men. They will say that such a subject is not appropriate for ordinary people who have no Latin. To this challenge I respond that the matter has been dealt with in Latin . . . . But it is different for ordinary people and especially for my sisters. For them I want to write about this way of life . . . . The lack of learning of my sisters cannot keep me from going ahead, for I intend to speak only about what they can fully grasp according to the understanding I have seen in them (selon l’entendement que j’ai esprouvé en elles).24

Gerson knew what he could expect from his sisters, and on that basis he was willing to translate the Latin tradition of mystical theology into a treatise in the vernacular. Thus he fulfilled the agenda he outlined in one of his letters to his colleagues at Paris: to deal with the contemplative life and to make it accessible to ordinary people. Gerson was here walking on a tightrope, for as a learned theologian he was skeptical about non-educated people who claimed to be able to reach the experience of God. He conceded “that holy hermits and some women have gained more in the love of God through this contemplative life than many great scholars manage to do.”25 At the same time, however, he warned against going ahead in this pursuit without proper guidance. Yet Gerson stood fast: “I have shown that learning or knowledge is not necessary. What is required is a

24 Gerson, La montaigne de contemplation, ed. Glorieux, vol. 7.1 (Paris 1966), p. 16; EW, p. 75 25 Gerson, La montaigne, p. 18; EW, p. 77: “Et nous l’avons veu et veons par tant d’experiences es sains hermites et en aulcunes femmes qui plus ont pourfité en l’amour de Dieu par ceste vie contemplative que ne font ou ont fait plusieurs grans clers.”

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deep-rooted faith or belief in God, his power, wisdom, or goodness, and in his commandments, in the fundamental mysteries of our redemption, and in paradise and hell.”26 However much Gerson trusted in his sisters and in their faith which provided the point of departure for their ascent of the mountain of contemplation, he was cautious about other people, especially women, in their pursuit of the mystical life. In early 1402 he wrote what was to be the first of three treatises on the discernment of spirits, the Pauline practice of distinguishing true from false spirits (1 Cor 12:10).27 This treatise can be called gender blind, in the sense that it does not specify women as more prone to diabolical deception than men. Gerson’s purpose was to present clear criteria for being able to determine whether what he called “the coin of spiritual revelation” was genuine.28 In the course of this treatise it becomes clear that Gerson expected the recipients of spiritual revelation to be responsive to learned theologians like himself. He excoriated those who fast excessively and who “tax and weaken their brains with excessive tears.” They are obliged to demonstrate “faith in the warnings of others”: They do not care in listening to or receiving counsel from the learned who are skilled in the law of God. Such people scorn the advice the learned give. Instead, because they have persuaded themselves that they are doing something magnificent, they think they know better than anyone else what is best to do. Of such persons I say that they will quickly fall for every demoniacal illusion.29

Gerson described here how he himself had experienced such a person, a married woman at Arras, a few months before he wrote the treatise. He was appalled by the way she went from starving to bouts

26 Gerson, La montaigne, p. 20; EW, p. 81: “et que ad ce congnoissance ou sciences de lettres n’est point requise outre pleyne et grosse foy ou creance qu’elles ont de Dieu, de sa puissance, sagesse ou bonte, et de ses commandemens et des misteres generaulx de nostre redemption, de paradis et d’enfer.” 27 The subject is receiving a great deal of attention in medieval studies during these years. For Gerson the fullest treatment is Cornelius Roth, Discretio spirituum. Kriterien geistlicher Unterscheidung bei Johannes Gerson (Würzburg, 2001). 28 Gerson, De distinctione verarum revelationum a falsis, ed. Glorieux, vol. 3, p. 39; EW, p. 338: “moneta ista spiritualis revelationis.” 29 Gerson, De distinctione, pp. 42–3; EW, pp. 343–44: “Doctores praeterea et in lege Domini eruditos audire seu consulere non curant et consultos spernunt: nimirum quia se magnum jam aliquid esse persuaserunt sibi ipsis, et quid eos agere conveniat plus omnibus sapere arbitrantur. De talibus pronuntio, quia cito prolabuntur in omnem daemonum illusionem . . . .”

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 137 of bulimia, and at the same time she failed to receive guidance from her confessor or even her husband. And so he concluded that she was arrogant: her singularity lacked discretion, and she refused to follow good advice. With the woman of Arras Gerson was not in doubt that he had met with an imposter. But with another woman who claimed visionary powers, Ermine of Reims, Gerson approved of her revelations, at least the first time he dealt with them.30 What was important for him was that the contemplative person was willing to receive the advice of those trained in theology and skilled in distinguishing true from false revelations. In his scheme the university theology professor was naturally involved with people outside the university, as in trying to give them guidance about their spiritual lives. Thus it was important for Gerson to preach in the parish churches of Paris, and we have as many of his French as his Latin sermons. But the anecdote of the woman of Arras shows that Gerson also could have direct contacts with visionaries—or those who claimed to be visionaries. It is important to see Gerson not only as a scholastic theologian insisting on authority but also as a self-examining Christian questioning his own motives and actions. In this sense he was more than the public intellectual: Gerson was an intellectual willing to convey the contents of his interior life to his audience, as in his treatise on distinguishing true from false revelation. Here he uses the Pauline “I know a man” (2 Corinthians 12:2) in order to speak about his own love affair: I know a man who out of a devotion and a wisdom that were clearly praiseworthy took into the embrace of familiar friendship in the Lord a certain virgin living the religious life. At first there was no trace of carnal love. Finally through frequent contact, love slowly grew, but not wholly in the Lord, until the man could scarcely be separated from the woman, if she went away, without trying to visit her or thinking constantly about her . . . .31

30 See Gerson, Epistola 25, vol.2, pp. 93–96; EW, pp. 244–49. For background, see Entre Dieu et Satan. Les visions d’Ermine de Reims, ed. Claude Arnaud-Gillet (Florence, 1997). 31 Gerson, De distinctione, p. 52; EW pp. 357–58: “Novi hominem qui ex devotione et sapientia plane laudabili, cujusdam virginis religiosae amicitiam ejus in Domino familiarem amplexatus est; deerat primo focus omnis carnalitatis; tandem paulatim ex convictu crebro accrevit amor, sed non penitus in Domino usque adeo ut ab ea visitanda aut recogitanda, si aberat, vix divelli valeret.”

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The man at one point had to be apart from the woman for a greater length of time, and it is then he came to realize that his love was not pure in its content. Gerson warns his audience about something he almost certainly himself had experienced, and he thus reveals skepticism about the practice of chaste spiritual friendships between men and women that go back in Western Christianity to Jerome and Eustochium. What was important for Gerson was self-knowledge, and this could only come through careful examination of conscience, confession, reference to spiritual advisors, and genuine soul-searching. It is no wonder that Gerson wrote a treatise On the Art of Hearing Confessions: for him the priest had to be able to pry out the truth by almost any method, whether it consisted in threats or cajolery or seemingly naive questioning. In order to obtain truth about sexual behavior, the confessor must be almost ruthless: “In such matters the confessor is only to proceed by being quick and indirect, in saying without changing his facial expression: Well, then, I see that you did something similar with such and such.”32 In such writings we find not only the public intellectual but also the parish priest who has himself gone through much soul searching and knows how easy it is to deceive oneself. For Gerson the university professor was obliged to make himself and his knowledge and authority available to different kinds of audiences, in both Latin and in the vernacular. In this process he questioned his own motives and was careful not to trust himself completely. Gerson thus comes across in his many different treatises as a man who at one and the same time was asserting authority and questioning it, just as he at one and the same time believed in revelations and questioned them. He sought to become the Pauline all things to all men in order to save all (1 Corinthians 9:22), and in this manner he transformed scholastic discourse by making it personal and intimate. Gerson’s Self-Doubt and Self-Help A good example of Gerson’s combination of self-criticism and selfconfidence that he could help himself and others is a treatise dated either to 1408 or 1411, but clearly belonging to these fruitful years in

32

Gerson, De arte audiendi confessiones, ed. Glorieux, vol. 8, p. 15; EW p. 373.

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 139 Paris after his return from Bruges and before he left in 1415 for the Council of Constance. The treatise has several names: On the Dignity of the Celebration of the Mass or On Nightly Pollution and Preparation for the Mass.33 It was written for priests who were in doubt about whether or not they could allow themselves to say the mass and receive communion the morning after they had had a nocturnal emission in their sleep. It is an old problem in the Christian Church, but one which usually has been seen in terms of monastic life: the twenty-second of John Cassian’s Conferences is dedicated to nocturnal illusions. Gerson took hold of classic monastic moral theology and applied it to the lives and concerns of ordinary parish priests. He began his treatment in a personal manner by stating that ever since he had been ordained, he had wondered if it was best for a priest who has been “polluted by a night-time dream” should abstain from celebrating mass.34 He had met many members of religious orders— and most recently especially one—who were “greatly disturbed by scruples and hesitation.”35 So on the basis of reason and experimental knowledge (experimentalis cognitionis) Gerson had composed his little treatise. It is worth noting that he refers here to his own experience: as so often in his theology, we are getting more than a summary of what the Fathers and scholastic theologians had said on a subject. Gerson knew about seminal emissions because he had himself experienced them, and now he ventured to provide good advice for priests who felt guilty about them. He first made the point that normally no single human being can know if he is worthy to say the mass. Only a special revelation of God could ever make one certain that he is worthy to celebrate. This leads to the second consideration: priests can go ahead and celebrate on the basis not of God’s special revelation but out of what Gerson calls moral or civil certitude (certitudo moralis aut civilis).36 There is no reason to worry that we might be in mortal sin without knowing it. Each person does “whatever is in his power” in order to escape sin. Here

33 In Glorieux it is called De praeparatione ad missam, vol. 9, pp. 35–50. So far as I know, no translation exists of the whole treatise. 34 Gerson, De praeparatione ad missam, p. 35: “Dubitatum est frequenter apud me et diu, praesertim post susceptum sacerdotium, si quis nocturno pollutus somnio a celebrando missam cessare deberet.” 35 Gerson, De praeparatione, pp. 35–36: “Expertus sum similiter multos praesertim religiosos et novissime quemdam prae ceteris, tali dubitationis scrupulo non parum turbatos . . . .” 36 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 37.

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Gerson makes use of a teaching to which he often reverts in his writings: each of us is to use his own abilities ( facere quod in se est) and then let God do the rest.37 If a priest in the midst of mass remembers some otherwise forgotten sin, he is not to stop the proceedings but to count on the grace and forgiveness of God. In his third consideration, Gerson concedes that there is a “certain lack of control, especially of the lower functions and with the tyrannical law of the parts of the body which are not always subjected to our powers.”38 He is presumably thinking in terms of the involuntary emission of sperm that can take place in sleep. If people experience such things they should turn to “the advice of superiors and the prudent.” As ever, Gerson counts on the learned to be available to the less learned, to soothe their anxiety, and to point out the generosity of God’s grace and forgiveness. In order to illustrate his point, Gerson provides an anecdote about Bernard of Clairvaux. When one of his monks was so full of scruples that he did not dare to celebrate mass, Bernard said to him that he should do so “on the basis of my faith.”39 It is interesting that in the original story, it was a question of a brother’s fear of unworthiness not at celebrating mass but in receiving communion.40 Gerson has transformed the exemplum so it fits into his narrative. Gerson anticipates a response from his listeners that they would have faith too if they had a superior like Bernard. This is rubbish, answers Gerson. What is essential is obedience to the superior, no matter who he may be. “Be careful in the end that in seeking security and not obtaining it, you cast yourself into the deep ditch of selfabsorption and presumption.”41 I think here that Gerson again was speaking about himself and his own experience, in looking for a figure whom he could trust and obey,

37

Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 37: “. . . et quia videtur facere quod in se est ad ejus deletionem, non enim Deus requirit ultra posse.” 38 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 38: “Compatitur etiam deordinationem aliquam, praesertim virium inferiorum et legis tyrannicae membrorum quae non est saepe subdita nostrae potestati.” 39 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 39: “Dixit ei devotus et circumspectus Bernardus postquam hoc accepit: vade frater et in fide mea celebres.” 40 Exordium magnum cisterciense, ed. Bruno Griesser (Rome, 1961), dist. secunda, cap. 6, p. 102: “De monacho quem sacramentis altaris fidem non adhibentem iussit pater sanctus coummunicare fide sua.” 41 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 39: “Caveas ad extremum ne dum quaeris securitatem nec illam adipiscaris, in gravem ruas dijudicationis et praesumptionis foveam.”

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 141 and at the same time becoming the superior whom others were to obey. At the end of the 1390s he felt that he could not bear this burden, but in returning to Paris he reassumed responsibility, both as chancellor of the university and as parish priest. The only way forward was to trust in God and to obey authority. Not blindly, however, for in writing such a treatise Gerson wanted to show his fellow priests that they could trust in themselves. He recalls the example of saints who felt they were unworthy to celebrate the mass and says that their actions are to be “venerated more for the sake of pious understanding, rather than being taken as examples to be followed.”42 Gerson was not looking for spiritual heroes but for men who could carry out the pastoral tasks of the Church. As so often in his writings Gerson directly or indirectly refers to himself. In the ninth consideration, he starts by repeating that we are made worthy to participate in the sacraments not by our own efforts but through God’s gift: I know a man who in truth came to realize that he could never reach a quiet and serene disposition in celebrating the mass because he was in doubt about his own efforts and labor and care and preparation, through confession or otherwise. And so he offered on the altar of his heart the oxen of pride and said with a contrite and humble heart, together with Daniel: “Lord, not for my own justification I prostrate my prayers before you but in your great and many mercies” (Daniel 9:18).43

In order to emphasize his point about our own helplessness to improve our situation, Gerson describes the dream of “a certain person”, who again must be himself. The person was cast into a sewer and tried to hold onto a stick that was covered with excrement. But the rod just sank and provided no help at all. Gerson understood this rod to be our efforts (industria). We should do our best and then leave the rest to God. For if someone had a thousand years at his disposal, he would not be able to make himself sufficiently worthy to celebrate the mass. So the person is to allow himself to feel fear and then put himself 42 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 40: “Sed particularia haec facta quorumdam veneranda, magis sunt pia interpretatione quam in exemplum agendi trahenda.” 43 Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 46: “Scio hominem qui taliter in veritate comperit nunquam potuisse ad quietam et serenam dispositionem celebrandi pertigisse quousque diffidens de omni sua industria et labore et sollicitudine et praeparatione, per confessionem aut alias, immolavit in ara cordis bovem superbiae dixitque in animo contrito et humiliato cum Daniele: Domine, non in justificationibus meis prosterno preces meas ante te sed in tuis miserationibus multis et magnis.”

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into the hands of God. He must say, “I obey to the best of my ability” (obedio ut possum).44 This passage turns from a rational treatise into a description of personal experience and finally into the utterance of prayer: “You are unclean (my soul). Then go cleansed to the font of purity, which cannot be contaminated. You are hungry. Go to be fed with the living and indestructible bread.”45 We are reminded here of the early meditation of Saint Anselm in which the soul that has fornicated must make an account of itself.46 We know that Anselm was an important author for Gerson, so here again we see how he could combine scholastic discourse with monastic spirituality. At the same time we come into contact with the interiority that manifests itself in the Devotio moderna and the Imitation of Christ. It is not by accident that it was long believed that Gerson was the author of that work. Gerson’s Agenda for the Theologian Gerson’s work on the celebration of the mass summarizes his agenda during these years: to make use of his position as professor of theology in order to spread teachings based on authorities but also on his own personal experience. The theologian was not obliged to go through the writings of all his predecessors in order to make his point. Instead he could select what was relevant and then relate the contents to what he himself had thought or felt or lived through or heard from others. This procedure was no different when Gerson was writing to his sisters on the mystical life. The vernacular treatises do not have the same amount of detail about sexual questions, but otherwise he shows the same confidence in his sisters or in lay people in general as he did in his own students. The Montaigne de contemplation draws on the same authors as does the Theologia mystica, except that Gerson has rendered their formulations into French. We can contrast Gerson’s very personal and even intimate writings with those of his master, Pierre d’Ailly. The latter demonstrates the

44

Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 47. Gerson, De praeparatione, p. 48 “Immunda es; accede mundanda ad fontem puritatis incontaminabilem. Esuris; accede pascenda ad panem vivificum et indefectibilem.” 46 The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm, trans. Benedicta Ward, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 221–24. 45

jean gerson and the renewal of scholastic discourse 143 same degree of learning, if not more, for he abounds in quotes and references. But d’Ailly remains as dry as dust, an academic for academics, while Gerson breaks out of the boundaries of traditional academic discourse. This public voice is not just a question of Gerson’s practice of writing relatively brief treatises dealing with a question of the day. It is also a result of Gerson’s eagerness to show his own personal involvement in the question at hand. Thus in making a treatise attacking The Romance of the Rose, Gerson chose to make a mock court of heavenly justice in order to make it possible for dame Chastity to defend her rights.47 What might have been a rather artificial construction becomes vivid and even entertaining: Gerson has invested heart and soul in trying to expose what he considers to be dangerous teachings hidden behind a pleasant facade. He is present and involved from the very first, and so his work is more than a literary construction. It is a personal statement. Gerson’s renewal of scholastic discourse thus comes not only from his taking on a public voice in his writings but also from the moral or ethical commitment that he conveys in different ways: his “I know a man”; his conversion of his expository text into prayer; his use of personal anecdotes. Through such devices Gerson allowed himself to express self-doubt and to engage in self-examination. He reminds us that the medieval university is our base and foundation in whatever we do today in its modern successor. Few of us speak the language of Christianity, but we still seek experience, insight and wisdom. At the end of the Middle Ages, Gerson represents what Augustine shows at the opening of the period: the desire to integrate thought and feeling, the search for bonds with other human beings within communities of enquiry and learning, and the investment of this wisdom and understanding in other people through a pastoral life. What does this program have to do with power? Certainly Gerson felt himself to be powerless in his attempt to transform the medieval church and apply Christian principles to society at large. He left his position as court preacher because he felt the milieu was corrupting him, but thereby he gave up any possibility of influencing the people who were among the most powerful in the France of his day. Gerson believed that knowledge is power, and so he stayed close to the

47 Gerson, Contre le roman de la rose, ed. Glorieux, vol. 7.1., pp. 301–16; EW 378–98.

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university and invested himself in it, however much he felt repelled by academic controversies and pettiness. His attempt in 1399 to escape from academia only brought a realization that he could do less good and exercise even less power at Bruges than in Paris. After some troubled months Gerson returned to his alma mater and dedicated himself to teaching and preaching a theology that was meant to be useful for everyone. In Gerson’s belief in the power of the word of God is a reminder that power, for good and evil, can be spiritual as well as material.

CONTROVERSY AND COMPROMISE IN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES Giles Constable The religious houses founded in the eleventh and twelfth centuries frequently experienced difficulties in their early years. Some of these can be described as “growing pains,” part of the process of gestation and maturation described by Raymond Hostie in his work on the life cycle of religious orders,1 but others were of a serious nature and occasionally erupted into open controversy and threatened the continued existence of the community. Many houses went through what can legitimately be described as a crisis during their early years, frequently after the death or departure of the founder and original members.2 It is the purpose of this paper to look at the nature of these difficulties and to propose a tentative typology of their nature and causes. Before doing so, however, attention should be drawn to some historiographical problems both in the sources and in secondary works. Most contemporary accounts of the reform of old houses and the foundation of new ones were written from the point of view of reformers, who in order to justify the changes described the conditions in old houses in the blackest terms. It was a topos of reform rhetoric to stress the decadence and discord in existing monasteries.3 This was especially true when the account was also a biography of an admired founder or reformer, whose motives and actions were naturally praiseworthy. There was also a tendency in later accounts, which were often written

1 Raymond Hostie, Vie et mort des ordres religieux. Approches psyschosociologiques, Bibliothèque d’études psycho-religieuses (Paris, 1972); Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996), p. 122. 2 See Charles Dereine, “La spiritualité ‘apostolique’ des premiers fondateurs d’Affligem (1083–1100),” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 54 (1959), 44, 52–3, 65, listing briefly the symptoms of crisis in a community. 3 Michel Margue, “Libertas ecclesiae. Réformes monastiques et relecture de l’histoire dans l’espace lotharingien (Xe–XIIe s.). Le cas de l’abbaye d’Echternach,” in Ecrire son histoire. Les communautés régulières face à leur passé. Actes du 5e Colloque international du CERCOR, Saint-Etienne, 6–8 novembre 2002, CERCOR Travaux et recherches 18 (St-Etienne, 2005), pp. 107–23, esp. 118.

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to justify the outcome, to conceal the early difficulties and disagreements, which were presented as the work of the devil. Historians have therefore to read between the lines in order to detect the signs of troubles. Those who equate the success of religious institutions with strong organization and continued growth in size and prosperity tend to regard lack of unity, uncertainty, debate, and compromise as signs of weakness and decline.4 Yet the communities that were most successful in the sense of meeting the religious needs of their members were often the most fragile from an institutional and economic point of view. Some of them disappeared after a few years, leaving almost no mark on the historical record. They were, however, an important part of the religious scene at the time. Keeping these warnings in mind, the difficulties can be considered under three headings, which will be studied here separately, though in practice they were related and overlapped. The first were practical and included the problems encountered by almost all religious houses but in particular by new communities which followed no established rule or institutional model, had no firm economic base, and of which the founders were idealistic and frequently unrealistic. The second category was developmental or organizational and involved the changes as a community grew in numbers and resources, developed customs, and adopted a rule. The third category can be called structural and included the tensions associated with openness to different types of recruits, including women, and with the institution of lay-brothers and lay-sisters, which usually emerged after a period of growth, when the founding members could no longer perform themselves all the tasks of supporting the community and a division between the clerical and lay members emerged. Among the practical problems the first was the choice of a site for a new foundation. Many inexperienced founders chose unsuitable sites, especially when the patrons were reluctant to give away their best land. In England alone twenty-nine Cistercian houses had to move owing to the severity of the climate, the lack (or occasionally excess) of water, and other adverse conditions.5 The harshness of the surroundings appealed to the ascetic instincts of the founders, but experience taught 4

Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1968), pp. 254–63. 5 R.A. Donkin, “The Site Changes of Mediaeval Cistercian Monasteries,” Geography 44 (1959), 251–8.

controversy and compromise in religious communities 147 them to select sites in protected valleys with ample water, as the names Fountains, Rievaulx, and, on the continent, Fontevraud and Clairvaux suggest. Perhaps the most celebrated example of a forced move was that of La Grand Chartreuse, where many monks died in the original site on account of the snows and floods. Economic problems—both poverty and, occasionally, prosperity— affected all types of houses, but especially small eremitical establishments, which were by their nature, and sometimes on principle, without extensive endowments or revenues. Poverty threatened the continued existence of many houses in their early years, including Cîteaux.6 A particular difficulty in houses devoted to the care of the poor, sick, and pilgrims, as they developed and expanded, was the competition for resources between the hospice run by the lay-brothers or lay-sisters and the religious community of monks or canons. These internal tensions were exacerbated by external hostility, which grew as communities developed and acquired property and privileges, and by the rival claims of neighbouring establishments and lay proprietors, including the families of donors. The attitude of local clerics and notables, even those sympathetic to the spiritual and charitable objectives of the founders, might change when they found their own interests threatened by a new house. At Chaumouzey, for instance, the claims of the donor’s brother were eventually bought off only after a long legal battle, and at St Martin, Tournai, the initial support of the local clergy rapidly changed to hostility.7 Quarrels over property and pastoral rights, especially tithes and oblations, marred the relations between new religious houses and their benefactors and neighbours. Recruitment also posed practical difficulties. The problem was not only too few recruits, since small groups of hermits did not always want, and could not handle, numerous new adherents. The idealism of the founders and reformers who established open communities, 6 J. Othon Ducourneau, “Les origines cisterciennes [v],” Revue Mabillon 23 (1933), 178–80, attributed the “crisis” at Cîteaux in 1109/12, before the arrival of Bernard, to poverty, depopulation, and criticism. 7 Seher of Chaumouzey, Primordia Calmosiacensia, I, 2, in L. Duhamel, ed., Documents rares ou inédits de l’histoire des Vosges, 2 (Paris, 1869), pp. 15–16; Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum Cistercii, V, 10, tr. Anthelmette Piébourg, Cîteaux. Studia et documenta 7 (Turnhout, 1998), pp. 303–10. See Albert d’Haenens, “Moines et clercs à Tournai au début du XIIe siècle,” in La vita comune del clero nei secoli XI e XII. Atti della Settimana di studio. Mendola, settembre 1959, 2 vols, Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 3 S., Scienze storiche, 2–3 (Milan, 1962), 2: 102–3.

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including both men and women and members from varied backgrounds, often foundered on the shoals of reality. Robert of Arbrissel attracted so many followers that even a tenth of them, according to his Life, would have been too many.8 Some new houses accepted women. Obazine received entire families, including children. The type and quality of recruits inevitably varied, and some fitted in better than others. Bernard of Clairvaux gave a celebrated description of a singular monk groaning and sighing in his corner and thinking himself holier than others. The special, not to say peculiar, requirements of an acknowledged holy man like Robert of Knaresborough made him unwelcome among the monks of Headley, and the chronicler of Petershausen said that as soon as recluses were enclosed they wanted to be teachers and prophets and to attract crowds. Other contemporaries commented on pseudo-hermits and hypocrites clothed in white who deceived the laity and created problems for the ecclesiastical authorities as well as for religious communities.9 Defections were a constant risk. Anxiety about the loss of members was obsessional in charismatic communities in Antiquity, according to Mary Douglas, and also in the Middle Ages.10 They left for many reasons, including the harshness of life, personal disagreements, declining morale, and an unpopular superior. At Rievaulx under abbot Aelred, whose wisdom was proverbial, four monks left in secret, one of them permanently.11 Uncertainty about the future was endemic, particularly in new houses when the founder, whose charismatic leadership had held the community together, grew old and eventually died. The

8

Baldric of Dol, Vita b. Roberti de Arbrissello, II, 15, in PL 162, col. 1051A. Bernard of Clairvaux, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, 14, in Sancti Bernardi opera, ed. Jean Leclercq, C.H. Talbot, and H.-M. Rochais, 8 vols (Rome, 1955–77), 3: 46–9. Paul Grosjean, ed., “Vitae s. Roberti Knaresburgensis,” Analecta Bollandiana 57 (1939), 370–2; Otto Feger, ed., Die Chronik des Klosters Petershausen, Schwäbische Chroniken des Stauferzeit 3 (Lindau and Konstanz, 1956), p. 34; Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, VIII, 26, ed. and tr. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols, OMT (Oxford, 1969–80), 4: 326–7. 10 Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series 158 (Sheffield, 1993), p. 53. 11 Walter Daniel, Vita Aelredi, 31, ed. and tr. F.M. Powicke, NMT (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 40; see Donald Nicholl, Thurstan, Archbishop of York (1114–1140) (York, 1964), p. 162. Cf. on the crisis at St Denis after the death of Suger, Hubert Glaser, “Wilhelm von Saint-Denis. Ein Humanist aus der Umgebung des Abtes Suger und die Krise seiner Abtei von 1151 bis 1153,” Historisches Jahrbuch 85 (1965), 257–322, esp. 299–305. 9

controversy and compromise in religious communities 149 members, who had previously obeyed the word and followed the example of the founder, had to choose a new superior and agree on an established way of life. The early Franciscans, for instance, were concerned over what would happen after Francis’s death, and in some communities the illness and death of the superior caused serious controversy.12 This helps to explain the tension, and even opposition, that existed between the first and second generations of members in many communities. The need to adopt a monastic or canonical rule usually came after the period of initial growth and presented the second or developmental category of difficulties, which especially confronted communities that had started as informal groups of like-minded adherents around a leader whose life and example they followed. The early Grandmontines called their book of institutions not a rule but a life and were therefore known not as monks or canons but as vitales. The community of Obazine, according to the Life of the founder Stephen, followed “no established law of any order” but was governed by the humana magisteria of Stephen. He personally favoured informal solitude and manual labor, but as the number of his followers increased he realized the need to adopt a rule. After being turned down by the Carthusians, he decided to affiliate with the abbey of Dalon, but when the monks arrived (still according to Stephen’s Life) they imposed “the entire observance of the monastic discipline” on the hermits and “immediately disturbed, corrected, and censured them both in the church and in other places.” This attempt therefore failed, and when they joined the Cistercian order Stephen specified that “Everything [at Obazine] that was contrary to the order would be slowly abolished lest the house could not bear a sudden change while it was still new.”13 The experience of Obazine shows how hard it was for an independent

12 Scripta Leonis, Rufini et Angeli sociorum S. Francisci, 68, ed. and tr. Rosalind Brooke, OMT (Oxford, 1970), p. 206. See Historia monasterii Viconiensis, 7, in MGH. Scriptores in fol., 24: 302; Ferdinand Pauly, Springiersbach, Trierer theologische Studien 13 (Trier, 1962), pp. 59–64; and Ludo Milis, L’ordre des chanoines réguliers d’Arrouaise, 2 vols, Rijksuniversiteit te Gent. Werken uitgegeven door de faculteit van de letteren en wijsbegeerte 147–8 (Bruges, 1969), 1: 124–32. 13 Vie de saint Etienne d’Obazine, ed. and tr. Michel Aubrun, Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de l’Université de Clermont-Ferrand. Publications de l’Institut d’Etudes du Massif Central 6 (Clermond-Ferrand, 1970), pp. 142, 152; see Alexis Grélois, “Les origines contre la réforme. Nouvelles considérations sur la Vie de Saint Etienne d’Obazine,” in Ecrire son histoire (cited n. 3), pp. 369–88.

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group of hermits, which by this time had a separate house of women, to adjust to a new way of life and adopt a written rule. Obazine is the best-known of many examples of the problems of transforming from the way of life of a founder and a relatively few early followers to an established form of religious life. Chancelade in the diocese of Périgeux started in the early twelfth century as a group of fratres living more heremitorum, whose decision to become a house of canons led to a division which was not without bitterness and recrimination. Fontaines-les-Blanches in Touraine was founded by two hermits both named Geoffrey, of whom one was known as “the master” and “the first hermit.” The members of the community urged “master” Geoffrey to join an order, but he refused until, when he was ill, he proposed joining one of four different abbeys, of which they chose Savigny, which later became Cistercian. Some of the original hermits, however, including the two Geoffreys, did not want to become monks and were allowed to settle as hermits elsewhere. This arrangement, though doubtless painful for the individuals involved, appears to have been amicable.14 At Llanthony Priory in Monmouthshire the two founders William and Ernisius lived in harmony until, in the words of the Historia fundationis, “the companionship of two changed into a community of many.” When they discussed whether to become black monks, Cistercians, or canons, William at first “received this unwillingly” and only eventually accepted the decision to become canons.15 Many reformed houses originated in disagreements within existing communities. Cîteaux was established by a group of dissidents from Molesme led by Robert of Molesme. Their departure haunted accounts of early Cistercian history down to modern times and threw a shadow over the reputation of Robert, who was canonized only at a relatively late date. Fountains in Yorkshire was likewise founded by a group of

14 On Obazine, Chancelade, and Fontaines-les-Blanches see Giles Constable, “Individualism and Institutions in Medieval Religious Communities,” in Nicholas Howe, ed., Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World (Notre Dame, 2002), pp. 24–9. On the development of hermits into communities of canons and monks, see Ludo Milis, “Ermites et chanoines réguliers au XIIe siècle,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 22 (1979), 39–80, and Franz-Reiner Erkens, “Die Kanonikerreform in Oberlothringen,” Historisches Jahrbuch 107 (1987), 1–43. 15 Historia fundationis abbatiae de Lanthony, in William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. John Caley, Henry Ellis, and Bulkeley Bandinel, 6 vols in 8 (London, 1817–30, repr. 1846), 6.1: 130. See Milis, “Ermites” (cited n. 14), p. 60.

controversy and compromise in religious communities 151 monks who left the abbey of St Mary at York, of which the abbot objected strongly to the novelty of the enterprise. Some new communities were rebuffed in their search for an affiliation. Obazine tried without success to join La Chartreuse before approaching Dalon and finally the Cistercians. Bernard of Clairvaux at first refused to accept Waldsassen as a daughter-house owing to the defectum of the monks, meaning probably their small number rather than any other defect.16 Gilbert of Sempringham, the founder of the only native English religious order, tried in 1147, according to his Life, “to deliver the care of his houses to the custody of the monks of Cîteaux.” Their rejection may have been owing to the presence of women in the Gilbertine order, but the account, which was written at a time when new houses were under pressure to join established orders, may have been designed to justify Gilbert’s going his own way.17 Be this as it may, it illustrates one of the steps in the institutional development of new religious communities. The Gilbertines also present the best-known example of the third or structural type of difficulty which affected reformed communities: the tensions arising from hierarchical divisions within the community, especially from lay-brothers and lay-sisters, conversi and conversae. This is not the place to study the origins and nature of the institution of lay-brotherhood, which was one of the most original and, in some respects, most puzzling new forms of religious life to emerge in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It first appeared in Italy and Germany in houses of monks and canons, including reformers who wanted to avoid contacts with the outside world or who were unable to perform themselves all the work that had to be done. It thus represented a stage in the institutionalization of new and especially reformed communities which sought to break with the traditional patterns of monastic organization. The precise status and occupations of lay-brothers and lay-sisters varied from order to order and from house to house. The only sure sign that they were not conversi of the old type, who entered religious houses as uneducated and unordained adults but were full members of the community and not barred from being educated and ordained

16

Fundatio monasterii Waldsassensis, 7–8, In MGH. Scriptores in fol., 15.2: 1092. Liber sancti Gileberti, 13, ed. and tr. Raymonde Foreville and Gillian Keir, The Book of St Gilbert, OMT (Oxford, 1987), pp. 40–3. 17

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(in which case they ceased to be conversi), is that the lay-brothers (conversi of the new type), though they took vows and were considered full but subordinate members of the community, could not become clerics or monks. They came mostly, though not exclusively, from the lower classes, wore beards as a sign of their non-clerical status, and as a rule lived apart from the clerical members of the community, often in dependent granges. They were occupied not only with agricultural and other manual labour but also with the outer economic activities of the community, including buying and selling, so that some of them had responsible positions and exercised considerable authority.18 The lay-brothers at Sempringham, according to the Life of Gilbert, included not only poor men, beggars, and fugitives from justice “whom the name of religion has freed” but also men raised at Gilbert’s expense. They were craftsmen and administrators as well as agricultural labourers and showed their ability to conduct their own affairs when they rebelled in the 1160s. The reasons for their discontent are uncertain but included the ambiguous nature of their position in the order, the harshness of their life, and Gilbert’s efforts to segregate them more strictly, limit their activities, and assign more responsibility to the canons. The lay-brothers, after at first gaining the support of pope Alexander III and archbishop Thomas Becket, which suggests that there was some merit in their complaints, were eventually defeated by Gilbert, who was supported by king Henry II and the English bishops.19 The Gilbertines were not the only order to have difficulties with their lay-brothers and, to a lesser extent, lay-sisters. Beginning with

18 See Constable, Reformation (cited n. 1), pp. 77–80 and, on the problems of the lay-brothers, Jean Leclercq, “Comment vivaient les frères convers,” Analecta cisterciensia 21 (1965), 239–58, and in I laici nella “Societas Christiana” dei secoli XI e XII. Atti della terza Settimana internazionale di Studio. Mendola, 21–27 agosto 1965, Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Contributi 3 S: Varia 5 (Milan, 1968), pp. 153–76, who stressed the inferiority of their status to that of monks, and Ludo Milis, Angelic Monks and Earthly Men: Monasticism and its Meaning to Medieval Society (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 33–4. 19 The Book of St Gilbert (cited n. 17), pp. 134–67. See David Knowles, “The Revolt of the Lay Brothers of Sempringham,” English Historical Review 50 (1935), 465–87; Raymonde Foreville, “La crise de l’ordre de Sempringham au XIIe siècle. Nouvelle approche du dossier des frères lais,” Anglo-Norman Studies 6 (1984), 39–57; Giles Constable, “The Lay Brothers and Lay Sisters of the Order of Sempringham,” in Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman, Bar-Ilan Studies in History 4 (Ramat-Gan, 1995), pp. 83–96; and Brian Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order c. 1130–c. 1300 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 40–51.

controversy and compromise in religious communities 153 a protest in 1168 by the lay-brothers at Schönau, who were apparently upset by the inequitable distribution of new shoes, the Cistercians experienced over a hundred serious disturbances in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Of these about three quarters involved laybrothers, or a combination of monks and lay-brothers, and only two involved lay-sisters.20 As at Sempringham, the reasons for the disturbances are hard to establish. The sources are almost unanimously hostile to the lay-brothers, who were depicted as trouble-makers. Changing economic policies and the increasing use of hired servants doubtless changed the position of the lay-brothers, who were looked down upon for their lack of education and their beards, which set them apart from the clerical members of the community. The records of the general chapters suggest that drinking was a problem among the lay-brothers and that their participation in the election of abbots was a source of controversy. The clerical members, or choir monks, as they were called, did not always prevail against the lay-brothers. At Zandfeld, which had been founded as a hospice (hospitalitatis domus) and later entrusted to Arrouaise, the canons left and the house returned to its original status “when the lay-brothers prevailed (inualescentibus) over the canons,” as Lambert of Ardres put it.21 The reasons for the problem are again unknown but may have been connected, as suggested above, with the division of revenues between the canons and the lay-brothers who ran the hospice. At Grandmont in the 1180s the assignment of spiritual responsibilities to the clerics and of secular responsibilities to the lay-brothers seems to have provoked resentment among the clerics, who felt that in important respects they were subordinate to the laybrothers.22

20 Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum (cited n. 7), V, 10, tr. Piébourg, pp. 303–10. See James Donnelly, The Decline of the Medieval Cistercian Laybrotherhood, Fordham University Studies: History Series 3 (New York, 1949) and Martha Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098–1180 (Stanford, 1996), pp. 105–6. 21 Lambert of Ardres, Historia comitum Ghisnensium, 41, in MGH. Scriptores in fol., 24: 582. See Charles Dereine, Les chanoines réguliers au diocèse de Liège avant saint Norbert, Académie royale de Belgique. Classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques. Mémoires in-8o, 2 S., 47.1 (Brussels, 1952), p. 113, and Milis, Arrouaise (cited n. 12), 1: 121–2. 22 Four relevant poems are cited by Joseph Szövérffy, Secular Latin Lyrics and Minor Poetic Forms of the Middle Ages, 4 vols (Concord, N.H., 1992–5), 3: 170–2. See also Jean Becquet, “La première crise de l’Ordre de Grandmont,” Bulletin de la Société

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In these and other cases the institution of the lay-brotherhood was clearly a source of structural weakness in the reformed communities, which in spite of their egalitarian origins tended to be more hierarchically organized than the older monasteries. The existence of an institutionalized underclass which performed essential activities and exercised important responsibilities in the community but was excluded from its central function was an inevitable source of difficulty. The openness of the reformed communities to women was another source of problems, especially as the houses developed and had to make institutional provision for female as well as male members. The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries were a period of widespread recognition of the religious needs of women and of their contribution to religious life, which in many respects contrasted to the usual medieval attitude of mistrust of women. Reformers like Robert of Arbrissel, Stephen of Obazine, Gaucher of Aureil, and Gilbert of Sempringham were concerned to find a place for women in the structure of religious life. Their efforts were not always successful, as is shown by the case of the nun of the Gilbertine house of Watton, who bore a child fathered by a male member of the community, and the next generation of religious leaders returned to the type of strict enclosure which characterized the religious life of women for most of the Middle Ages.23 The organization of the new monastic orders, especially the Cistercians, was another source of structural problems. Unlike the older monastic orders, in which the relationship between the houses was one of a mother-house and dependent priories, the houses in the reformed orders were technically independent but were visited by the communities from which they were founded and their superiors met periodically in general chapters, which attempted to control the entire order. It was a system that worked well enough on a local basis, when all the daughter-houses were situated close to the mother, but less well as the affiliations spread and regular visitations were impossible. Cîteaux itself had difficulty with Morimond, which had a grave crisis in 1124,

archéologique et historique du Limousin 87 (1960), 283–324, repr. with addenda in idem, Etudes grandmontaines, Mémoires et documents sur le Bas-Limousin 22 (Ussel and Paris, 1998), pp. 119–60 and 313–14, and Volkert Pfaff, “Grave scandalum. Die Eremiten von Grandmont und das Papsttum am Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 75 (1989), 133–54. 23 Giles Constable, “Aelred of Rievaulx and the Nun of Watton: An Episode in the Early History of the Gilbertine Order,” in Derek Baker, ed., Medieval Women, Studies in Church History: Subsidia 1 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 205–26.

controversy and compromise in religious communities 155 when the abbot went to the Holy Land, and which was formally added as a fourth daughter of Cîteaux only in 1157. The controversy between Savigny and Furness, which had been founded from Savigny, was exacerbated when Savigny joined the order of Cîteaux.24 Charges of tyranny and abuse of power were not uncommon. The first provost of Frankenthal, who came from the reformed house of Springiersbach, had to resign allegedly for mistreating the lower class members of the community but perhaps on account of the strictness of the ordo. The severity of the punishment of two monks of Selby who had stolen some silver led to charges of tyranny against the abbot. At Rottenbuch the provost secured a letter from the pope protecting him from the dean and “other rebels” and accusing them of disobedience and contempt for the apostolic mandate. In this case the underlying cause of the problem is again unknown.25 The phrase “if the wish and order of the brothers permits” in the Life of Robert of Arbrissel suggests some sort of restriction on the authority of the abbot and division of power in the community about which nothing more is known.26 Compromises of this sort were not uncommon in medieval religious houses. These and the other types of problems discussed in this paper were not restricted to new and reformed houses. Almost all medieval monasteries suffered from difficulties which can be seen as part of the endemic fragility, as it were, of religious communities. Problems of the type described here as practical, including unsuitable sites, harshness of discipline, uncertainty over the future, recruitment, poverty—and occasionally prosperity—were common in new monasteries. Protests and even violent rebellions were likewise not unknown in old houses of black monks and canons. Recently established and reformed houses, however, which lacked the experience and established rules

24

Léopold Delisle, “Documents Relative to the Abbey of Furness,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 6 (1851), 422–3. 25 See (on Frankenthal ) Joseph Semmler, “Das Stift Frankenthal in der Kanonikerreform des 12. Jahrhunderts,” Blätter für pfälzische Kirchengeschichte und religiöse Volkskunde 23 (1956), 101–13; (on Selby) Historia monasterii Selebiensis, 23, in J.T. Fowler, ed., The Coucher Book of Selby, 1, Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Association: Record Series 10 (York, 1891), [20]; and (on Rottenbuch) Regesta pontificum Romanorum. Germania pontificia, 1, ed. Albert Brackmann (Berlin, 1911, repr. 1960), p. 377, no. 8, and Jakob Mois, Das Stift Rottenbuch in der Kirchenreform des XI.–XII. Jahrhunderts, Beiträge zur altbayerischen Kirchengeschichte, 3 F., 19 (Munich, 1953), pp. 304–5. 26 Vita Roberti (cited n. 8), II, 15, in PL 162, col. 1051AB.

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and customs of older houses, were particularly subject to certain types of problems, including those arising (like those of the co-called communes of the 1960s) from their high hopes and ideals, which help to explain their precarious existence during their early years. This fragility was a source not only of weakness but also, paradoxically, of strength, or at least of flexibility and adaptability, which enabled the communities to absorb men and women of differing religious temperaments and needs, who were often excluded as the institutions became stronger and less flexible.

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITA IN DER POLITISCHEN EKKLESIOLOGIE DER AUGUSTINERSCHULE DES 14. JAHRHUNDERTS Jürgen Miethke Die sogenannte „Augustinerschule“ ist selbst ein unsicheres und umstrittenes Gebilde,1 keine gewachsene Institution, deren Hinterlassenschaft ein Historiker im Archiv aufsuchen, deren Privilegien er analysieren und deren Mitglieder er klar abgrenzen könnte: Wenn wir unter der „Augustinerschule“ jene Gruppe von Textproduzenten verstehen, die um die gleiche Zeit demselben kirchlichen Ordensverband (dem Augustinereremitenorden) angehörten und sich zu verschiedenen Fragen gelehrten Interesses in verschiedenen Schriften geäußert haben, so fehlt in dieser Definition der starke Eindruck, den ein heutiger Leser—und wohl auch ein damaliger Leser dieser Literatur—von dem gemeinsamen, dem in sich durchaus einheitlichen Aussagewillen der verschiedenen Verfasser gewinnen mußte. Das ging weit über die franziskanische Färbung theologischer Schriften im 13. und frühen 14. Jahrhundert hinaus. Auch über die frühen Schüler des Thomas von Aquin im Dominikanerorden, die damals noch keineswegs eine „thomistische“ Schule bildeten, zeigen keineswegs dieselbe Geschlossenheit.2 Angebbare Gründe für diese „Stromlinienform“ der Augustiner lassen sich benennen. Der Orden der Kirche, dem alle Mitglieder der Augustinerschule angehörten, war der Bettelorden der Augustineremiten. Erst in der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts auf Veranlassung der Kurie aus verschiedenen eremitischen Gemeinschaften vorwiegend in Italien zusammengeführt, hatte der Orden sein spätes Erscheinen auf der * Hier drucke ich den Text, wie ich ihn in Sheffield am 16. September 2006 auf dem Colloquium zu Ehren von David E. Luscombe gehalten habe; nur die nötigsten Belege sind beigefügt. 1 Zusammenfassend Adolar Zumkeller, „Augustinerschule,“ in: Lexikon des Mittelalters 1 (1980), 1222–3. 2 Dazu prägnant bereits etwa Frederic J. Roensch, Early Thomistic School (Dubuque, Iowa, 1964); mit neuen Einsichten jetzt Andrea A. Robiglio, La sopravvivenza e la gloria, Appunti sulla formazione della prima scuola tomista (sec. XIV) (sacra doctrina, Bibliotheca) (Bologna, 2008).

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Bühne, ebenso wie auch die klar erkennbare kuriale Geburtshilfe mit einer Orientierung beantwortet, die wie von selbst zu einem besonders papst- und kurienorientierten Bewußtsein der Augustinereremiten führte. Damit hatte der Orden von seinen Anfängen an den mendikantischen Konkurrenten, den Franziskanern und Dominikanern, sowie auch den Carmeliten nachgeeifert und zugleich einem gewissen apologetischen Druck nachgegeben, seine Existenz durch besonderen Eifer in dieser Richtung rechtfertigend weiter zu entwickeln. Die „Ordensstudien“, zu denen die Augustinereremiten sich alsbald nach ihrer Gründung—wiederum nach dem Vorbild der älteren Mendikantenorden der Dominikaner und Franziskaner—entschlossen haben, haben über dieses gewiß allgemeine Ordensklima hinaus auch den dafür geeigneten Brüdern eine scholastische Ausbildung hoher Qualität ermöglicht. In Paris verfügte der Orden bereits im Jahre der endgültigen Bestätigung seiner Gründung 1257 über ein eigenes Haus, das dann noch im 13. Jahrhundert von einem größeren Konventsneubau abgelöst wurde. Hier an einem damaligen europäischen Zentrum der theologischen Wissenschaften hatten die dorthin abgeordneten Brüder die erstklassige Chance einer mehr als gediegenen Ausbildung. Ab 1287 wurden in dem kommenden halben Jahrhundert allgemein vom Orden verantwortete Studieneinrichtungen, sogenannte „Generalstudien“ des Ordens in Paris und Oxford, in Cambridge, Bologna und Padua, in Neapel und an der päpstlichen Kurie in Rom, in Deutschland etwa in Erfurt, Magdeburg, Wien und Prag eingerichtet, Schulungsstätten, die von parallelen Gründungen in Frankreich und Spanien begleitet wurden. Bereits um die Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts war die Gesamtzahl der studia des Ordens auf insgesamt 28 angewachsen. Danach freilich erlahmte der Gründungseifer sichtlich. Insgesamt aber beteiligten sich die Augustiner mit sicherlich auch großen materiellen Anstrengungen an diesen Parallelstudieneinrichtungen neben den damals sich erst allmählich entfaltenden Universitäten, die das spätmittelalterliche Bildungssystem in heute oft übersehener Weise ergänzten und verdichteten, freilich auch ein gewisses Konkurrenzpotential bereitstellten. Darüber hinaus hatten die Augustinereremiten ihre geistige und intellektuelle Marschroute, die ohnedies angesichts der Kürze der ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Zeit von großer Kohärenz und Einheitlichkeit geprägt war, zusätzlich vor allem einem einzigen Manne zu verdanken, der als erstes Mitglied ihres Ordens nicht allein in Paris ein Studium der Theologie aufnehmen durfte, sondern der auch als erster Augustinereremit dort zum Magister der Theologie promoviert

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 159 wurde, wenn das auch mit einigen Schwierigkeiten verbunden war und einige Jahre lang zu einer Studienunterbrechung geführt hatte: Aegidius Romanus hieß dieser stilbildende und für den Orden insgesamt so wichtige Mann.3 Dieser immens fleißige und in breiter scholastischer Front ungemein produktive Gelehrte hat sich auf vielen Feldern der scholastischen Wissenschaft selbständig getummelt. Seine physikalischen, richtiger naturphilosophischen Lehren haben schon vor einem Jahrhundert die Historiker der Naturwissenschaften interessiert, seine Metaphysik hat ebenfalls die Aufmerksamkeit der Spezialisten erregt. Seine erstaunlich breite Produktion umfaßte neben den klassischen Themen der hochscholastischen Theologie und Philosophie auch das Gebiet der aristotelisch inspirierten praktischen Philosophie. Insbesondere hat er als erster einen wichtigen Neuansatz des Thomas von Aquin aufgegriffen, indem er die aristotelische „Politik“ zur systematischen Grundlage eines eigenen Fürstenspiegels machte, den er im Gegensatz zu diesem Vorbild auch wirklich abgeschlossen hat. Sein dem französischen Thronfolger gewidmeter Fürstenspiegel De regimine principum (von ca. 1277/1279) ist mit über 350 erhaltenen Handschriften zu dem unbestrittenen Bestseller politischer Traktate des Spätmittelalters geworden, auch wenn die Mehrzahl dieser Manuskripte aus späteren Jahrzehnten stammt als dem frühen 14. Jahrhundert.4 Aegidius hat jedenfalls in seinem Orden hohes Prestige und sichtbaren Einfluß gewonnen. Noch bevor er 1292 zum Generalprior gewählt wurde, hat ein 1287 in Florenz tagendes Generalkapitel beschlossen, künftig sollten alle Gelehrten des Ordens „die Meinungen, Lehrsätze und Urteile“, welche Aegidius „bereits geschrieben“ habe „und noch niederschreiben werde“, persönlich vertreten und gegen Angriffe von

3 Die heute maßgebliche Übersicht zur Biographie legten vor Francesco del Punta, Silvia Donati & Concetta Luna, „Egidio Romano“, in: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani XLII (1993), 319b–341a. 4 Gedruckt z. B. als Egidio Colonna (Aegidius Romanus), De regimine principum libri III, ed. F. Hieronymus Samaritanius (1607; repr. Aalen, 1967). Zu den Hss. vgl. die (bisher noch nicht vollständige) Liste in: Aegidii Romani Opera Omnia, I.1.11: Catalogo dei manoscritti (1001–1075): De regimine principum, ed. Francesco del Punta & Concetta Luna, Unione Accademica Nazionale, Corpus philosophorum medii aevi, Texti e studi 12 (Florenz, 1993); den englischen Teilbestand hat untersucht Charles F. Briggs, Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum, Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–c. 1525, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 7 (Cambridge, 1999); einen Teil der französischen Handschriften analysiert demnächst Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Les traductions françaises du De regimine principum de Gilles de Rome: Parcours matériel, culturel et intellectuel d’un discours sur l’éducation. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 39 (Leiden, 2011).

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außen auch verteidigen.5 Diese Mahnung haben künftige Generalkapitel dann mehrmals wiederholt und dem jeweiligen Generalprior auf die Seele gebunden, der diese Forderung an den wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs des Ordens weiterreichen sollte.6 Der Orden verstand sich also explizit als eine Verbreitungsgemeinschaft für die Schriften und die Vorstellungen des Aegidius. Wir brauchen hier nicht zu prüfen, ob dieses Selbstverständnis realistisch war und wirksam umgesetzt werden konnte. Eindeutig ist jedenfalls heute noch eine weite Verbreitung der Manuskripte, welche die zahlreichen Werke des Aegidius überliefern.7 Die erste Generation von Ordensleuten mit Universitätsbildung war zudem fast ausnahmslos durch das Pariser Ordensstudium gegangen; (fast) alle gelehrten Augustiner waren damit Schüler des Aegidius. Darum fanden seine Anregungen auch verstärkt Berücksichtigung im Augustinermilieu. Seine steile Karriere verdankte Aegidius seinem Orden und—nach anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten—der römischen Kurie, insbesondere Papst Bonifaz VIII. persönlich. Aus bescheidensten Anfängen, wahrscheinlich stammte er aus der römischen Unter- oder Mittelschicht, bestenfalls aus der Mittelschicht, führte sein Weg ihn zur theologischen Graduierung in Paris, in die Position des Generalpriors seines Ordens, und, nachdem er sich in dem akuten Konflikt um die Abdankung Coelestins V. publizistisch ganz auf die Seite des Papstes Bonifaz’ VIII. geschlagen hatte, bereits 1295 auf den erzbischöflichen Stuhl von Bourges, einer Kirche, die seit alters den Primat in Gallien 5 [u.a.] Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis 2, ed. Heinrich Denifle & Émile Châtelain (1891 : repr. Brüssel, 1965], S. 12 (Nr. 542): Quia venerabilis magistri nostri fratris Egidii doctrina mundum universum illustrat, diffinimus et mandamus inviolabiliter observari, ut opiniones, positiones et sententias sc r i pt as et sc r i bendas [!] predicti magistri nostri omnes ordinis nostri lectores et studentes recipiant eisdem prebentes assensum et eius doctrine omni qua poterunt sollicitudine, ut et ipsi illuminati alios illuminare possint, sint seduli defensores. [Hervorhebungen von J. Mt.] 6 Vgl. etwa die (ermäßigte) Wiederholung drei Jahre später auf dem Generalkapitel in Regensburg, 1290 Mai, bei Chartularium 2, ed. Denifle & Châtelain, S. 40–42 (Nr. 567), hier S. 42: Precipiat insuper [scil. prior generalis] omnibus regentibus et studentibus ut opiniones et positiones venerabilis fratris nostri Egidii ubique teneant et secundum eius scripta legant. Et ipsi ut zelatores Ordinis cum mandato et sine mandato hec infallibiliter servent. 7 Eine Teilübersicht lieferten zuletzt die Listen mit jeweils peniblen Beschreibungen der einzelnen Hss., die als Vorschaltbände der geplanten kritischen Edition der Opera omnia des Aegidius vorausgeschickt wurden: Aegidii Romani Opera Omnia, ed. Francesco Del Punta Gianfranco Fioravanti, I: Catalogo dei manoscritti, ed. Barbara Faes de Mottoni & Concetta Luna (Unione Accademica Nazionale, Corpus philosophorum medii aevi, Texti e studi) (Florenz, 1987ff.) [die Reihe ist noch nicht abgeschlossen!].

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 161 beanspruchte. Das war eine gewaltige soziale Kletterleistung, die Aegidius seinem päpstlichen Förderer auch dadurch dankte, daß er während des gesamten Pontifikats seines Gönners praktisch ausschließlich an der Kurie zu finden war, wo er an allen Diskussionen offenbar lebhaften Anteil nahm und auch wichtige Anstöße zu geben vermochte. Der berühmteste Fall solcher Beteiligung an einer wichtigen Entscheidungsfindung der Kurie ist Aegidius’ Rolle bei der Vorbereitung der Bulle Unam Sanctam,8 die bekanntlich ihren Ort im Konflikt des Papstes mit dem französischen König Philipp dem Schönen hatte. Aegidius hat nicht nur alsbald noch während der ersten heißen Phase des Streits zwischen Papst und König (um 1296) eine Predigt an der Kurie gehalten,9 in der er den päpstlichen Weltanspruch vorbehaltlos verteidigte. Er hat dann diesen kurzen sermo wenig später (noch vor dem Jahresende von 1302) zu einem eigenen Traktat ausgearbeitet, De ecclesiastica potestate.10 Diese Schrift enthält die wohl radikalste

8 Obwohl bekanntlich auf Befehl Clemens’ V. in den päpstlichen Registern ausgeschabt, wurde der Text aufgenommen in: Les Registres de Boniface VIII, ed. Georges Digard e.a., Bd. 1–4 (Paris, 1884–1935), hier Bd. 3, Nr. 5382. Eine kritische Edition auch in: Ecclesia et status, ed. Iohannes Baptista Lo Grasso (Rom, 1939), Nr. 432–438. Der Text ging in die Extravagantes communes ein und findet sich daher auch bei Emil Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, Bd. 2 (Leipzig, 1881), Sp. 1245–6; er wurde häufig in Quellensammlungen aufgenommen: Regest in Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, ed. August Potthast, (1874–1875; repr. Graz, 1957), Nr. 25189. Auszüge in: Enchiridion symbolorum, editio XXXIIa, ed. Heinrich Denzinger & Adolf Schönmetzer (Barcelona-Freiburg i. B. [usw.], 1963), (die letzte Auflage, bearb. von Paul Hünermann, hat durchgehend die Numerierung von Schönmetzer beibehalten): Enchiridion symbolorum, editio XXXVIIa (1991), Nr. 870–875, vgl. den berühmten Schlußsatz (Nr. 875): Porro subesse Romano pontifici omni humane creature declaramus, dicimus, diffinimus omnino esse de necessitate salutis. 9 Concetta Luna, „Un nuovo documento del conflitto fra Bonifacio VIII e Filippo il Bello: il discorso De potentia domini papae di Egidio Romano (con un’ appendice su Borromeo da Bologna e la Eger cui lenia),“ in: Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 3 (1992), 167–243 [Text: 221–230]. Zur schwierigen Frage der Datierung neuerlich abgewogen Roberto Lambertini, „Il sermo De potestate domini papae di Egidio Romano e la difesa di Bonifacio VIII, Acquisizioni e prospettive della storiografia più recente,“ in: Le culture di Bonifacio VIII, Atti del Convegno organizzato nell’ambito delle Celebrazioni per il VII Centenario della morte, Bologna, 13–15 dicembre 2004 (Rom, 2006), 93–108, bes. 97–99. Ein zusätzliches philologisches Argument für die Entstehung des Sermons vor dem Traktat bei J. Miethke, Rezension zu Giles of Rome’s On Ecclesiastical Power, A Medieval Theory of Government, ed. R.W. Dyson, Records of Western Civilization (New York, 2004). in: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 42 (2007), 307; vgl. auch die Rezension von Kenneth Pennington in: Speculum 81 (2006), 197–8. 10 Ausser der soeben genannten Neuausgabe durch Dyson vgl. Aegidius Romanus, Tractatus de ecclesiastica potestate, ed. Richard Scholz (Leipzig, 1928; reprint Aalen, 1961). Dazu zuletzt monographisch (neben Homann, Totum posse, [wie unten anm.

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Begründung der päpstlichen Ansprüche auf Herrschaft über die Kirche und die Welt, die jemals erdacht worden ist. Ich halte hier nur so viel fest, daß Aegidius in diesem Traktat nach der Meinung des Papstes Bonifaz VIII. so eindrücklich seine Argumente wählte, daß die berühmte Bulle Unam sanctam (November 1302/Januar 1303)11 in wesentlichen Stücken unmittelbar diesen Traktat wörtlich zitiert. Aegidius benutzt nämlich dort geschickt ein breites Spektrum von Traditionen, die ihm den Papst als obersten Leiter der Kirche und der gesamten Christenheit erweisen. Unter den zahlreichen Argumentationssträngen nimmt die Hierarchienlehre des (Pseudo-)Dionysius Areopagita einen gewichtigen Platz ein. Sie erlaubte es dem spätmittelalterlichen Theologen, die neuplatonisch pyramidale Emanationsvorstellung, die der spätantike Anonymus auf die himmlische Ordnung der Geistwesen Gottes und in einer anderen Schrift auf die Ämter der irdischen Kirche angewandt hatte, nun auf die spätmittelalterliche Kirchenverfassung unmittelbar zu übertragen. Das tat Aegidius keineswegs als erster. In Paris hatten das die franziskanischen und dominikanischen Theologen schon das gesamte 13. Jahrhundert hindurch verschiedentlich getan. Und auch die Gegner der Mendikanten aus dem Weltklerus, ein Guillaume de Saint-Amour und seine Freunde hatten das auf ihre ganz eigene Weise vollzogen, um ihre mendikantischen Widersacher in die monastische Untergliederung der unteren Hierarchieklassen einzuschließen.

20] jetzt auch Elmar Krüger, Der Traktat De ecclesiastica potestate des Aegidius Romanus, Eine spätmittelalterliche Herrschaftskonzeption des päpstlichen Universalismus (Forschungen zur kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht, 30) (KölnWeimar-Wien, 2007) [dazu aber die Rezension durch J. Miethke in: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 126 (2009), 652–658]. 11 Zusammenfassend zur Bulle (mit Lit.) etwa Tilman Schmidt in: Lexikon des Mittelalters 8 (1997), 1214–5.; oder Jürgen Miethke, in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3. Auflage, 10 (2001), 375; vgl. auch Jürgen Miethke, De potestate papae, Die päpstliche Amtskompetenz im Widerstreit der politischen Theorie von Thomas von Aquin bis Wilhelm von Ockham (Sptämtittelalter und Reformation, NF 16) (Tübingen, 2000) [Studienausghabe unter dem Titel: Politiktheorie im Mittelalter (UTB 3059) (Tübingen, 2008)], bes. 83f., 113f.; Karl Ubl, „Die Genese der Bulle Unam Sanctam, Anlaß, Vorlagen, Intention,“ in: Politische Reflexion in der Welt des späten Mittelalters / Political Thought in the Age of Scholasticism, ed. Martin Kaufhold, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 103 (Leiden, 2004), 129–149; sowie Francisco Bertelloni, „Sobre las fuentes de la Bula Unam Sanctam (Bonifacio VIII y el De ecclesiastica potestate de Egidio Romano)“, in: Pensiero Politico Medievale 2 (2004 [erschienen Bologna, 2005]), 89–122.

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 163 Aegidius interessiert sich für solche exkludierenden Funktionen des dionysianischen Schemas nicht. Er benutzt es, um den Papst als die hierarchische Spitze aller Christen zu erweisen und zugleich in ihm die Menschheit insgesamt zu unterstellen. Das wird allein schon daran deutlich, wie er Pseudo-Dionysius ausdrücklich zum Zeugen seiner Beweisziele aufruft. In einem der ersten Kapitel benutzt er ein berühmtes Zitat (in Verbindung mit einem Prophetenwort aus Jer 1,10), um ex ordine universi zu beweisen, daß die „Kirche über die Völker und Reiche gesetzt“ sei.12 Ganz ähnlich argumentiert Aegidius später, wo er zeigen will, daß das „materielle Schwert“ des weltlichen Herrschers unter dem geistlichen Schwert des Kirchenhauptes stehen muß. Hier benutzt er zwar eine andere Schrift des Areopagiten, gebraucht aber im Prinzip dasselbe Argument, die gestufte graduelle Hierarchie der Weltordnung,13 die dem Papst die oberste Stelle einräumt, auch wo er praktisch noch nicht als Befehlsgeber in Erscheinung tritt. Noch genauer sieht sich Aegidius die Ausführungen des Areopagiten an, denn er weiß auch dessen Bericht über die Verarbeitungskapazitäten der höheren und niederen Engelklassen geschickt auf die gelehrten und weniger gelehrten Menschen anzuwenden und den Ungelehrten 12 De ecclesiastica potestate I.4 (S. 12 Scholz, S. 18 Dyson): Possumus enim ex ordine universi hoc liquido declarare, quod super gentes et regna sit ecclesia constituta. Nam secundum Dionysium in „De angelica hierarchia“ lex divinitatis est infima in suprema per media reducere. Hoc ergo requirit ordo universi, ut infima in suprema per media reducantur. Si enim eque immediate infima reducerentur in suprema sicut et media, non esset universum recte ordinatum . . . 13 De ecclesiastica potestate I.9 (S. 33 Scholz, S. 58 Dyson): Tercia via ad hoc idem sumitur ex parte ipsius materialis gladii. Quia secundum Dionysium in libro „De divinis nominibus“ capitulo VII per suprema infimorum attinguntur ultima supremorum, ut si spiritus sunt supra corporalia, ultimi spiritus habent movere suprema corpora. Angeli enim et spirituales substancie habentes exercicium immediate super corporalia sunt inferiores aliis angelis qui non mittuntur ad hoc corporalia et inferiora; non decet enim superiores spiritus habere immediatum exercicium super hec corporalia. Sic non decet spiritualem potestatem tamquam superiorem et excellentem habere immediatum exercicium super materialem gladium. Nec decet eam habere huiusmodi gladium ad usum, sed ad nutum. Mit dem Ende des Zitats ist die Formulierung der bekannten Zweischwerterlehre des Bernhard von Clairvaux erreicht, der sich seinerseits dabei nicht auf den Areopagiten gestützt hatte, vgl. Bernhards De consideratione ad Eugenium papam, IV.iii.7, in: S. Bernardi Opera, vol. 3: Tractatus et opuscula, ed. Jean Leclercq & Henri Rochais (Rom, 1963), S. 454: Tuus ergo et ipse [scil. gladius], tuo forsitan nutu, etsi non tua manu, evaginandus (. . .) Uterque ergo Ecclesiae, et spiritualis scilicet gladius, et materialis, sed is quidem pro Ecclesia, ille vero et ab Ecclesia exserendus: ille sacerdotis, is militis manu, sed sane ad nutum sacerdotis et iussum imperatoris. Vgl. dazu auch das ausdrückliche Bernhard-Zitat in De ecclesiastica potestate II.15, sowie III.10 (S. 137 f. bzw. 197 Scholz). Aegidius verkürzt—wie seine Zeitgenossen—jeweils den Wortlaut um Bernhards Hinweis auf den Kaiser.

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die dienende Funktion zuzuweisen,14 die sogar, wie es anderswo, wiederum mit Hilfe dionysianischer Beispiele belegt wird, ihre Wirkung auch dann entfalten müssen, wenn in der Heiligen Schrift etwa nur die „Oberen“ ausdrücklich benannt sind, die aber gar nicht alles das zu tun vermögen, was die „Unteren“ als Aufgabe haben.15 Wenn wir hier Spezialprobleme der Zuordnung der 9 Engelschöre und vier Dämonenklassen einmal beiseite lassen, die Aegidius auch zu erörtern nicht unterläßt,16 so nähert er zum Abschluß doch noch einmal ausdrücklich den Papst an die göttliche Quelle allen Gutes an, indem er diesen als Grund und Ursprung aller Funktionalität in der Kirche beschreibt, der durch sein bloßes Scheinen mit seinem Licht „alles in seinem Stand erhält, alles nach seinem Stand fördert, nichts in der Erfüllung seines Amtes behindert“.17 Es wird aus diesen wenigen direkten Zitaten und ihrer Auslegung klar, was Aegidius an dem Areopagiten faszinierte: die neuplatonische Struktureinheit der Mannigfaltigkeit in der Einheit des Ursprungs, der sich selber in Vielfalt hinein entäußert. Dieses Bild dient dem Theologen dann auch der Beschreibung der irdischen Verfassung der Kirche, und nicht allein dieser, sondern auch der ganzen Welt, wobei der

14 De ecclesiastica potestate II.12 (S. 100 f. Scholz, S. 190 Dyson): In toto autem populo multi sunt quorum intellectus est hebes et grossus, et quia tales sunt parvuli in christo, non esca, sed secundum apostoli sentenciam [I Cor. 3.2] lac est eis pocius tribuendum; (. . .) horum autem doctores debent esse velut nutrices, que prius cibum masticant quam ipsum suo tribuunt alumno. Sic et isti nonnisi doctrinam masticatam capere possunt. Non tamen propter hoc sunt despiciendi, quia et inferiores angeli indigent masticata doctrina, unde et Dionysius in libro „De angelica hierarchia“ probat ,metaphorice loquendo: Angeli superiores habent dentes, quia frangunt et dividunt species et conceptus. . . .[De hierarchia caelesti, c. 15, Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne, 175, 1133D]. 15 De ecclesiastica potestate II.13 (S. 113 Scholz, S. 216 Dyson). 16 De ecclesiastica potestate II.13 (S. 114 Scholz, S. 216 Dyson) nach De hierarchia caelesti, c. 13 [Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne, 175, 111sqq., 1115A]. 17 De ecclesiastica potestate III.2 (S. 154 f. Scholz, S. 294/296 Dyson): loquitur Dionysius in quarto „De divinis nominibus“, dicens quod „sicut sol non raciocinans aut preeligens, sed per seipsum illuminat omnia et facit ea participare lumine ipsius secundum propriam racionem valencia, ita quod est bonum super solem sicut super obscuram imaginem per ipsam essenciam suam omnibus existentibus proporcionaliter immittit tocius bonitatis radios“ (De divinis nominibus c.4, Patrologia Graeca, ed. Migne, 3, 748). (. . .) Secundum quem modum uniformiter se habet ad omnia quia omnia in suo esse conservat, omnia secundum suam virtutem dirigit, nullum in sua accione impedit. Secundum eciam istum modum summus pontifex est quasi quidam sol, qui prout secundum legem communem gubernat ecclesiam et ad omnia uniformiter se habet, quia omnia in suo statu conservat, omnia secundum suum statum promovet, nullum in suo officio impedit.

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 165 Papst den Part Gottes, des höchsten Hierarchen (summus hierarcha) widerspiegelt und (nach menschlicher Möglichkeit) ausfüllt. Schon der spätantike Autor hatte die kirchliche Hierarchie mit der Hierarchie der Engel und Geistwesen in eine deutliche Parallele gesetzt und damit nicht zuletzt die geradezu magische Attrativität seiner Texte für das mittelalterliche Nachdenken über Kirche und Gesellschaft mit begründet.18 Dabei gilt für Aegidius die Hierarchie innerhalb der Kirche und die Einheit ihrer Ämter und Stände wie selbstverständlich auch für die gesellschaftliche und politische Ordnung der gesamten Christenheit, ja der ganzen Welt. Auch diese lebt aus dem lebenspendenden Wirken des höchsten Hierarchen, d.h. Gottes. In ihm findet sie ihre Einheit, ja den Ausdruck ihres eigentlichen Wesens. Aegidius tut darüber hinaus einen Schritt, wenn er im Papst als dem vicarius dei auf Erden den vollkommenen Ersatz für Gottes Gegenwart findet und identifiziert, der alleine unter sich die gesamte Welt begreift und erleuchtet, heiligt und zu Gott führt. Eine geistlich-säkulare Wirkungseinheit in der politischen Wirklichkeit des Spätmittelalters konnte freilich aus den Texten des Dionysius Areopagita nicht unmittelbar gewonnen werden. Hier sind weitere Gedankenfügungen nötig, die dann auch, so überraschend sie sein mögen, bei Aegidius nicht fehlen. Er macht zu diesem Zweck Anleihen vor allem bei Augustin, den er freilich kräftig vereinseitigt und umbiegt.19 Vor allem auf einem Umweg über die Legitimität und die Legitimation weltlicher Herrschaft will er die strikte Notwendigkeit einer Unterordnung jeglicher weltlicher Gewalt unter die Kirche und damit unter den Papst begründen. Da nach Augustin ohne Gerechtigkeit die menschlichen Gemeinwesen nur bloße „Räuberhöhlen“ sein können, kommt Aegidius (in Aufnahme augustinischer Motive, freilich nicht augustinischer Gedanken) zu dem Schluß, daß Gerechtigkeit nur in der wahren von Gott geschenkten Gerechtigkeit gefunden werden kann. Also ist für einen Staat, der nicht eine bloße Räuberhöhle

18 Skizzenhaft dazu Jürgen Miethke, „Kirchenstrukur und Staatstheorien im Zeitalter der Scholastik,“ in: Ordnungskonfigurationen im hohen Mittelalter, ed. Bernd Schneidmüller & Stefan Weinfurter, Vorträge und Forschungen 64 (Ostfildern, 2006), 127–151. 19 Dazu auch Jürgen Miethke, „Papalismus und Augustinismus in der politischen Theorie der spätmittelalterlichen Augustinereremiten, Ein Überblick,“ in: Augustinus—Ethik und Politik. Zwei Würzburger Augustinus-Studientage, ed. Cornelius Mayer (Cassiciacum 39,4 = Res et signa, Augustinus-Studien, 4) (Würzburg, 2009), 243–272.

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bleiben will, die Einfügung in die durch die Kirche vermittelte sakramentale Gnadenordnung unerläßlich. Damit aber muß sich der Leiter des Gemeinwesens, will er legitim sein Amt üben, dem Papste als dem Haupt der Kirche unterwerfen und ihm auch dauerhaft unterworfen bleiben. Ganz ohne die dionysianische Vorstellung der durchgängigen Einheit der Gesamtheit geht dieses Modell einer weltumspannenden Einheit unter kirchlich-hierarchischer Führung durch den Papst aber letzten Endes doch nicht ab. Die Vorstellung, daß schließlich die Einheit aller in einer pyramidalen Hierarchie mit dem Papste als Spitze gedacht werden kann, schöpft dieses Modell der Organisationsvorstellung noch nicht aus. Vielmehr gibt das neuplatonische Ursprungs- und Einheitsdenken dem Autor eine offenbar unwiderstehliche Hilfestellung: Wie bereits in seinem Fürstenspiegel im Monarchen die Ganzheit des Gemeinwesens umschlossen ist, so auch in seinem späten Traktat die Einheit von Kirche und Welt im höchsten Hierarchen, im Papst. Aegidius formuliert das unerschrocken gradualistisch als Summation aller Wesenszüge von Kirche und Weltordnung, die sich im Haupte findet, und kommt zu dem Schluß: Totum posse quod est in ecclesia, reservatur in summo pontifice.20 Das hätte Pseudo-Dionysios selbst ganz gewiß nicht so formulieren können. Diese Vorstellung ermöglicht es Aegidius jedoch, im Papst die Summe und den Gipfel der kirchlichen Verfassung zu erblicken und daraus seine energischen „papalistischen“ Konsequenzen zu ziehen, indem er daraus eine Kompetenzfülle ableitet, die jeden vorherigen Begriff einer plenitudo potestatis übertrifft. Daß Bonifaz VIII. dieses Angebot gerne aufgriff, daß er seinen Weltanspruch in seiner eigentümlichen Rhetorik in der Bulle Unam sanctam an Formulierungen des Aegidius entlang entwickelt hat und dabei auch den Areopagiten nicht ausließ,21 belegt den „Erfolg“, den

20 Unter das Motto dieses Satzes [De ecclesiastica potestate III.9, S. 193 Scholz] hat seine Gesamtdarstellung gestellt Eckhard Homann, Totum posse quod est in ecclesia reservatur in summo pontifici, Studien zur politischen Theorie bei Aegidius Romanus (Contradictio, Studien zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, 2) (Würzburg, 2004). Vgl. auch die Darstellung der spätmittelalterlichen Zwei-Schwerter-Lehre bei Volker Mantey, Zwei Schwerter—zwei Reiche, Martin Luthers Zwei-Reiche-Lehre vor ihrem spätmittelalterlichen Hintergrund, Spätmittelalter und Reformation NR 26 (Tübingen, 2005), hier bes. 22–31. 21 Dazu vor allem David E. Luscombe, „The Lex divinitatis in the Bull Unam sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII,“ in: Church and Government in the Middle Ages, Essays

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 167 Aegidius mit seinem Traktat hatte. Gewiß konnte er mit diesem Text den Bestseller-Erfolg nicht wiederholen, den sein aristotelischer Fürstenspiegel De regimine principum erzielt hatte;22 doch wenn auch die Verbreitung seines Texts mit 5 Manuskripten aus dem 14. Jahrhundert relativ bescheiden geblieben ist, die schroffe Unerbittlichkeit, mit der hier der papale Weltanspruch in unerschütterlicher Konsequenz formuliert und begründet wurde, konnte erst einmal wirken und sie wirkte weiter. Die Schüler und Nachfolger des Aegidius haben die schroffe Absolutheit des aegidianischen Entwurfs nicht vollständig aufrecht erhalten, wenngleich sie, gewiß ein wenig vorsichtiger, auf seinen Bahnen weiter wandelten. Zunächst ist Jakob von Viterbo in die Fußstapfen seines Lehrers getreten, und damit ein Mann, der in Paris bei Aegidius studiert hatte und dann 1292 dessen Nachfolger auf der theologischen Kathedra der Augustinereremiten an der Pariser Universität geworden war, als Aegidius sein Generalpriorat im Orden antrat. Jakob hat dann wenig später, aber an einem von der Kurie deutlich distanzierten Ort (wohl in Neapel), einen eigenen Traktat De regimine Christiano23 vorgelegt, bei dessen Konzeption und Niederschrift er den Wortlaut von Aegidius’ Traktat vielleicht noch nicht kannte. Jakob kannte aber die Vorstellungen seines früheren, langjährigen Lehrers zweifellos so gut, daß ihm der Text kaum wirkliche Überraschungen geboten haben dürfte, wenn er ihn denn überhaupt zu Gesicht bekommen hat. Jakob von Viterbo gelangt zu den gleichen Folgerungen wie Aegidius, doch aufgrund deutlich anderer Prämissen. Den pseudodionysischen Strang der Argumentation stark in den Hintergrund drängend und sich lieber einer teils aristotelischen, teils einer heilsgeschichtlichen Begründung für die Spitzenstellung des Papstes bedienend, kommt er im Endergebnis zu einer ähnlich deutlichen Unterstützung der Bonifazianischen Ansprüche gegenüber weltlichen Königen, vor presented to C.R. Cheney, ed. Christopher N.L. Brooke, D.E. Luscombe, Geoffrey H. Martin & Dorothy Owen (Cambridge, 1976), 205–221. 22 Vgl. oben Anm. 4. 23 Ed. Henri-Xavier Arquillière, Le plus ancien traité de l’Église, Jacques de Viterbe, De regimine Christiano, (Paris, 1926); Neuedition jetzt: James of Viterbo, De regimine Christiano, A Critical Edition and Translation, ed. Robert W. Dyson, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 174 / Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History 6 (Leiden, 2009) [eine Rezension dazu von J. Miethke in Church History and Religious Culture 90 (2010), 682–87]; italienische Übersetzung: Giacomo da Viterbo, Il governo della Chiesa, ed. Giovanni Battista M. Marcoaldi & Amelia Rizzacasa, Biblioteca medievale 15 (Florenz, 1993). Dazu knapp etwa Miethke, De potestate papae, 102–105.

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allem gegenüber dem König von Frankreich, zu dem die Beziehungen des Anjou-Reiches Neapel durchaus eng und rege waren. Anders als Aegidius sieht Jakob die Welt nicht als eine allumfassende Hierarchie mit dem Papst an ihrer Spitze. Die Kirche gilt Jakob vielmehr als ideales regnum im aristotelischen Sinn. Weltliche Herrschaft kann zu letzter Vollendung nur durch die Gnade Gottes gelangen. Hier ist Jakob ganz im Gefolge der Gnadenlehre des Dominikanertheologen Thomas von Aquin geblieben, der bekanntlich gelehrt hatte, daß die Gnade die Natur nicht aufhebe, aber vollende. Nach Jakob jedoch kann solche Gnade allein durch die Kirche vermittelt werden. Daher kann ein weltliches Königreich zu seiner Vollendung nur gelangen, wenn es sich der von der Kirche vermittelten Gnade öffnet, sich der Kirche unterstellt und den Papst als obersten Lenker anerkennt. Der Text tritt auch schon mit seinem Titel nicht in die Tradition der scholastischen Quaestionen ein, sondern gibt sich als eine Schrift De regimine Christiano („Über die christliche Leitung“), und das bedeutete bereits deutlich: er gibt sich als ein Fürstenspiegel zu erkennen. Der Autor hat offensichtlich die Wendung des Thomas von Aquin zu einer systematischen Analyse politisch-gesellschaftlicher Ordnung und des menschlichen Verhaltens darin voll aufgegriffen und auf das Verhältnis von Kirche und weltlichem Gemeinwesen geschickt angewandt. Auch die aristotelisch formulierte Frage nach dem „besten“ Königreich paßte in diese Tradition und diese Textsorte. Die in dem Text entwickelten Thesen mochten auch besser zu den zeitgenössischen Erwartungen passen als die steilen Argumente des Aegidius. Die grandiose Architektur des aegidianischen Textes konnte der besondere Fürstenspiegel Jakobs jedoch nur noch von ferne nachahmen. In der praktischen Unterwerfungsforderung freilich kamen dann jedoch die Entwürfe von Lehrer und Schüler wieder fast nahtlos überein. Der Erfolg des Textes war zwar ungleich bedeutender als der des Aegidiustraktats. Zwar haben auch von diesem Text sich nur insgesamt etwa 10 mittelalterliche Handschriften erhalten, also nur unwesentlich mehr als von Aegidius‘ Traktat, wenngleich insgesamt doppelt so viele. Weil aber noch in der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts der Franziskanerjurist Alvarus Pelagius den gesamten Text—ohne seinen Autor zu benennen—in seine umfängliche Kompilation De statu et planctu ecclesiae aufgenommen hat und weil diese Kompilation wegen ihrer bequemen Zusammenstellung so zahlreicher kanonistischer Belege einen erheblichen Erfolg im Spätmittelalter und in den Frühdrucken der Frühen Neuzeit haben sollte, blieben die Gedanken (wenn auch

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 169 ohne ihren Autor bekannt zu machen) in der politischen Diskussion des Verhältnisses von Staat und Kirche noch lange präsent. Mit dem unmittelbar zeitgenössischen, ja gleichzeitigen Seitenstück hatte die Nachwirkung aegidianischer Ansätze noch keineswegs ihren Abschluß erreicht. Die Katastrophe, in die seine herrische Politik Bonifaz VIII. in Anagni geführt hatte, hatte nämlich keineswegs die Konsequenz, künftig die zur Zeit Bonifaz’ VIII. begonnene Diskussion über die Ansprüche der Kirche und des Papstes gegenüber den weltlichen Herrschern zu beenden. Vielmehr folgte auf den fulminanten Auftakt auch später noch eine langanhaltende Erörterung, die die Themen des bonifazianischen Zeitalters allen veränderten Zeitumständen zum Trotz wieder aufgriff und weiterführte. Das mußte nicht immer in jener wörtlicher Aufnahme alter oder fremder Texte geschehen, wie wir sie bei Alvarus Pelagius beobachten konnten. Die sich nach einigen Monaten und Jahren der Unsicherheit schließlich in Avignon etablierende Kurie der Päpste rief auch weiterhin interessierte Traktatschreiber gewissermaßen auf, sich durch entsprechende Abhandlungen dort in angenehme Erinnerung zu bringen und eine entsprechende Belohnung erwarten zu dürfen. Die Augustinereremiten hielten zunächst an ihrer papalistischen Orientierung fest. Ihre Ordensleitung blieb ständig auch an der Rhône in engster Tuchfühlung mit Papst und Kurie. Wenn nicht der Generalprior sich selber an der Kurie aufhielt, so weilten zumindest geschäftserfahrene Ordensmänner ständig in greifbarer Kuriennähe, um den Interessen des Ordens nachzuhelfen, wenn immer das nötig und möglich war. Für beide der hier genannten causae scribendi liefern Mitglieder des Augustinerordens bereits während des Pontifikats Papst Johannes’ XXII, und damit während der ersten formativen Zeit des avignonesischen Papsttums, bezeichnende Beispiele. Dabei erwies es sich, daß sich diese Autoren weiterhin danach drängten, die päpstlichen Ansprüche gegen alle Widersprüche und Widerlegungsversuche zu verteidigen. Die Augustinereremiten, die sich an der künftigen Diskussion beteiligten, gingen weiter in die Richtung, die Jakob von Viterbo eingeschlagen hatte. Sie strebten keine praktische Veränderung des Ziels an, jedoch versuchten sie, weniger steile Vorlagen in den theoretischen Begründungen zu verwenden, als sie Aegidius gegeben hatte. Damit verliert auch Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in der praktischen Argumentation weiter an Gewicht. Auch bei den Augustinereremiten weicht er insbesondere einerseits den sehr viel eingängigeren

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juristisch-kanonistischen Argumenten und andererseits aristotelischen Überlegungen, die die Grundstudienwirklichkeit der spätscholastischen Universität sehr viel besser aufgriffen, als es Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita hätte tun können. Eine nähere Untersuchung des quantitativ ungemein umfangreichen Werkes eines Augustinus von Ancona könnte das verdeutlichen. Augustinus stammte, wie sein Name sagt, aus den Marken, d.h. aus dem Gebiet des späteren Kirchenstaates. Er hatte aber seine Ausbildung in Paris erhalten und wahrscheinlich noch unter Aegidius Romanus dort studiert. Zur Zeit jedenfalls, da Jakob von Viterbo dort lehrte, hat er (wohl ab 1297) die Stelle eines lector am Ordensstudium in Paris bekleidet. 1312/13 hält er, immer noch in Paris, seine Sentenzenvorlesung, woraufhin er (wohl 1313/1314) dort auch zum magister theologiae promoviert worden sein muß. Erst 1321 begegnet er uns wieder, diesmal in Neapel, am dortigen Ordensstudium der Augustinereremiten. Aus diesen Daten läßt sich die Vermutung ableiten, daß er seinen umfänglichen Text, um den es uns hier geht, vor allem (um 1320) in Neapel abgefaßt hat. Seit November 1322 gehörte der gelehrte Mann dem königlichen Rat König Roberts von Anjou als königlicher Kaplan an. Erst danach wird er etwas häufiger in den Quellen faßbar. Am 2. April 1328 ist er in Neapel gestorben. Augustinus hat sich nie gescheut, mit seinen schriftlichen Erzeugnissen für sein eigenes Fortkommen zu werben. So hat er auch die umfangreichste und zugleich bedeutendste wie wirkungsgmächstigste seiner schriftstellerischen Bemühungen, seine Summa de ecclesiastica potestate vor dem Jahr 1326 dem Papst in Avignon zugesandt mit einer Widmung von geradezu schulmäßiger Ergebenheit und ausdrücklichster Devotion. Den zeitüblichen Usancen gemäß hat sich Papst Johannes XXII. durchaus auch dem Autor erkenntlich gezeigt, indem er ihm mehrfach eine große Summe Geldes anwies, 100 Gulden sofort auf einmal und dann jährlich 10 Goldunzen, donec aliter duceremus eidem auctore domino providendum („bis wir anderweitig für ihn mit Gottes Hilfe sorgen können“). Es ist zweifelhaft, ob Augustinus jemals wirklich in den Genuß dieser päpstlichen Ehrengeschenke gelangt ist. Dreimal in Abständen von jeweils etwa einem Jahr brachte er sich hartnäckig mit der Nachricht an der Kurie in Erinnerung, daß er noch keine Zahlung erhalten habe. Er scheint gestorben zu sein, bevor ihn der reichlich bemessene päpstliche Dank real erreicht hatte. Seine „Summe über die Kompetenz der Kirche“, die sich methodisch die Summa theologiae des Thomas

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 171 von Aquin zum Vorbild genommen hatte, ist ein schulmäßig angelegter Versuch, die Fragen der „kirchlichen Kompetenz“ (denn das bedeutet, modern gesprochen, potestas ecclesiastica) systematisch zu behandeln. Thomas hatte die gesamte theologische Reflexion im Auge gehabt; Augustinus von Ancona widmet sich seinem eigenen Thema, der Kompetenz der Kirche in der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung seiner Zeit, in der Form von 112 Quaestionen, verteilt auf drei „Teile“, untergliedert in jeweils mehrere „Artikel“. Alle haben sie die Form einer scholastischen quaestio, behandeln die jeweils gestellte Frage nach Für und Wider mit der Widerlegung der Einwände und Gegenautoritäten. Der Titel scheint offenbar auch nach dem Vorbild des Aegidius Romanus gewählt zu sein: Summa de ecclesiastica potestate. Der Verfasser kompiliert so erfolgreich Argumente und Gegenargumente zugunsten päpstlicher Kompetenzen, daß noch bis weit in die Neuzeit hinein das Buch kopiert und später gedruckt wurde und immer wieder Leser und Nutzer fand. Pseudo-Dionysius freilich steht nicht im Zentrum der Interessen des Verfassers. Freilich unterläßt er es auch nicht, den Areopagiten direkt zu zitieren, um die oberste Stellung des Papstes in der Christenheit zu belegen: „Nach jenem selben Recht hängt auch das (weltlich-) kaiserliche Gesetz von der Autorität des Papstes ab, nach welchem es von dem göttlichen Recht abhängt, dessen Stellvertreter und Diener ja eben der Papst ist, vor allem deshalb, weil nach Dionysius das Gesetz der Gottheit ja diese Eigentümlichkeit hat, daß seine Wirkung auf die Unteren nur vermittelt durch die Mittleren übergeht. Ein Mittlerer aber zwischen Gott und dem christlichen Volk ist gerade der Papst, deshalb darf kein Gesetz dem christlichen Volk gegeben werden ohne die Autorität des Papstes.“ 24 Es ist deutlich, daß das nicht eine Interpretation des Pseudo-Dionysianischen Kosmos war, sondern nach dem Vorbild des Aegidius die Applikation einer neuplatonischen Sicht auf die Welt, jetzt angewandt auf das Feld päpstlicher Kompetenz. Verzichten wir auf eine weitere Zitation von Beispielen! Der Augustinereremit und frühere Generalprior seines Ordens (1312–1316)

24 Summa art. 44, qu. 1: Illo ergo iure lex imperialis dependet ab auctoritate papae, quo iure dependet a lege divina, cuius ipse papa est vicarius et minister, potissime cum secundum Dionysium lex divinitatis hoc habeat ut eius influentia non transeat ad inferiora nisi per media. Medius autem inter Deum et populum Christianum est ipse papa, unde nulla lex populo Christiano est danda nisi ipsius papae auctoritate. Vgl. dazu De hierarchia caelesti, IV.3 (Patrologia Graeca, ed. Migne, 3, 181 f.).

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Alexander von Sankt Elpidio (†1326)25 soll hier nicht auf seine Benutzung des neuplatonischen Areopagiten hin verhört werden, obwohl sein recht wirkungsreicher Traktat, in Nachfolge wiederum des Aegidius Romanus mit De potestate ecclesiastica überschrieben, durchaus deutliche Spuren einer Dionysius-Benutzung aufgewiesen hat.26 Auch Wilhelm Amidani aus Cremona (†1356 als Bischof von Novara), einer der Nachfolger Alexanders, der außergewöhnlich genug gleich für vier Dienstperioden hintereinander zum Generalprior der Augustinereremiten gewählt worden ist (1326–1342), soll hier nicht mehr selber ausführlich zu Worte kommen, wenngleich er sich 1326/1327 an der Kurie Papst Johannes‘ XXII., und das heißt wahrscheinlich gerade am arbeitsreichen Beginn seiner eigenen Amtszeit als Generalprior seines Ordens, an der polemischen „Widerlegung“ von sechs „Irrtümern“ des ins Fadenkreuz der Inquisition geratenen Defensor pacis des Marsilius von Padua beteiligt hat.27 Seine Fleißarbeit, die von keiner eigenen Kenntnis des Textes des Marsilius zeugt,28 entstand zur Widerlegung

25 Alexander [Fasitelli] de Sancto Elpidio, OSA, De ecclesiastica potestate, etwa bei: Bibliotheca maxima pontificia, ed. Johannes T. Rocaberti de Perelada, tomus II (Rom, 1698), 1–40. Dazu etwa Ugo Mariani, „I maestri agostiniani dell’ Università di Parigi negli anni di insegnamento di Marsilio da Padova,“ in: Marsilio da Padova, Studi raccolti nel sesto centenario della morte, ed. Aldo Cecchini & N. Bobbio (Padua, 1942), 193–205; Ugo Mariani, Chiesa e stato nei teologi agostiniani del secolo XIV, Uomini e dottrine 5 (Rom, 1957), 97–103, 198–203; Miethke, De potestate papae, 105 f. 26 Eingehend dazu Roberto Lambertini, „Alessandro di Sant’Elpidio teorico del potere papale, un primato ‚Romano‘ “, in: Santità e società civile nel medioevo, Esperienze storiche della santità agostiniana, Atti del Convegno di Tolentino, 27–29 ottobre 2004 (Biblioteca Egidiana. 2005 ; Tolentino, 2006), 69–76. 27 Guillelmus [Amidani] [de Villana] aus Cremona, OSA, Tractatus cuius titulus Reprobatio errorum, ed. Darach MacFhionnbhairr, Corpus scriptorum Augustinianorum 4 (Rom 1977). Dazu etwa Gregorio Piaia, „Marsilio da Padova, Guglielmo Amidani e l’idea di sovranità popolare,“ in: Veritas 38 [no 150] (Porto Alegre, 1993) 297–304, jetzt (unter dem Titel:) „L’idea di Sovranità popolare in Marsilio da Padova e Guglielmo Amidani,“ in: Piaia, Marsilio e dintorni, Contributi alla storia delle idée, Miscellanea erudita 61 (Padua, 1999), 104–117. Zusammenfassend Jürgen Miethke, „Wilhelm von Cremona,“ in: Lexikon des Mittelalters 9, col. 170; vgl. auch Miethke, De potestate papae, 106–108. 28 Damit widerspreche ich entschieden dem Urteil von George Garnett, Marsilius of Padua and „the Truth of History“ (Oxford, 2006), der (insbesondere 22–48) methodisch davon ausgeht, daß alle kurialen „Widerlegungsschriften“ eine persönliche Lektüre des Defensor pacis voraussetzen. Dagegen vgl. bereits Miethke, De potestate papae, 233–235. Vgl. auch etwa: Hilary Seton Offler, „The ‚Influence‘ of Ockham’s Political Thinking: The First Century,“ in: Die Gegenwart Ockhams, ed. W. Vossenkuhl & Rudolf Schönberger (Weinheim, 1990), 338–365, jetzt in: Offler, Church and Crown in the Fourteenth Century: Studies in European History and Political Thought, ed. A.I. Doyle, Variorum CS 692 (Aldershot, 2000), Nr. X, hier 346 bzw. 360 Anm. 63:

pseudo-dionysius areopagita und die augustinerschule 173 von sechs wohl von einer Kommission formulierten errores, die aus gänzlich anderem Geist, nämlich von genuin aristotelischer Sicht auf die Politik aus gewonnen worden waren, und beschränkt sich auf eine Diskussion ausschließlich dieser Sätze, ohne auf ihre (aristotelische) Begründung, wie sie Marsilius versucht hatte, mit einer einzigen Silbe einzugehen. Der Areopagite hat, so haben wir es hier verfolgt, den Augustinereremiten bei ihrem eifrigen Bemühen, den Anforderungen des kurialen Rechtfertigungsbedürfnisses Rechnung zu tragen, von Anfang an wichtige Stichworte gegeben, wenn er auch die Texte nicht schlechthin beherrscht hat. Die Applikation der pseudo-dionysianischen Grundgedanken in kühner Übertragung auf die gesellschaftliche Organisation des Mittelalters ist sämtlichen Vertretern der Augustinerschule eigen. Wenn sie die Hierarchienlehre als Versatzstück verwenden, verwenden sie sie in einem massiv ideologischen Sinn. Wenngleich Aegidius Romanus seine Übersetzung der Argumente aus der Ordnung der Geistwesen in die historische Wirklichkeit seinen Schülern und Nachfolgern vorgegeben hatte, so haben sie sich doch bald mit einer gewissermaßen ermäßigten Aufnahme der Engels- und Teufelsherarchien begnügt. Daß die gelehrten Kritiker schon des bonifazianischen Weltanspruches und dann der papalistischen Weltsicht sich damit nicht einverstanden erklären wollten und die Spekulationen in der Nachfolge angeblich der Kirchenväterzeit, nämlich sowohl des Pseudo-Areopagiten als auch eines einseitig ausgelegten Augustinus, aus der Analyse des Verhältnisses von weltlicher und geistlicher Gewalt lieber ganz verbannten, das läßt sich gewiß gut verstehen. Doch müßten wir mit einer Behandlung der Kritik an Pseudo-Dionysius und Augustin im 14. Jahrhundert ein weites neues Feld betreten. Das aber soll anderer Bemühung überlassen bleiben.

“But it seems quite likely, that only extracts from it [i.e. Defensor pacis] had as yet become known at Avignon when John XXII condemned it in October 1327”!

THE POWER OF WISDOM: FOUR CASE STUDIES OF A LATE 13TH CENTURY DEBATE Andreas Speer Introduction: The “Sapiential Question” in the Late 13th Century In the famous opening of his Metaphysics—one of the most commented texts—Aristotle explains the structures of the genesis of knowledge: from sensation to memory to experience to art to knowledge or science (episteme).1 And he indicates the decisive principle, when he speaks about the difference between experience and art: “we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience; . . . and this because the former knows the cause, but the latter does not”. And he adds: “which implies that wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge”.2 This is even more true, when it comes to “episteme”, which has to be understood in the full range and ambiguity of knowledge and its modes of habitualisation as discipline and science. “Since we are seeking this knowledge”, Aristotle states, “we must inquire of what kind are the causes and the principles, the knowledge of which is wisdom (sophia)”.3 According to Aristotle knowledge has to be understood as a process of production guided by constituting principles, which define the epistemic field and what is included in or excluded from it. From this account comes a twofold dynamics into this process of knowledge production. The first is universality: the more universal the knowledge, the more universal the principles. But this implies a certain hierarchy of the principles, described in the second part of the dynamics, which has two aspects: (a) “the science which investigates causes is also more

1 Aristotle, Metaphysics I, 1, 980a21–982a3. Concerning the following interpretation see A. Speer, “The Fragile Convergence. Structures of Metaphysical Thinking,” in The Science of Metaphysics: Historical and Philosophical Investigations, ed. Gregory T. Doolan (Washington, D.C., forthcoming). 2 Metaphysics I, 1, 980a25–28. For the translation I follow in general the revised Oxford translation edited by Jonathan Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vols., Bollingen Series 71–72 (Princeton, 1984). 3 Ibid., I, 2, 982a4–6.

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capable of teaching, for people who teach are those who tell the causes of each thing”;4 and (b) “the science which knows to what end each thing must be done is the most authoritative of the sciences, and more authoritative than any ancillary science”.5 Against this epistemological background we might comprehend the intellectual earthquake that the re-discovery of Aristotle provoked. The reception of the Aristotelian corpus, which must be understood as a process of transformation of the entire intellectual climate, had also an enormous impact on the institutions of learning. Within three decades the curriculum at the university of Paris became fully Aristotelian.6 But there is another consequence that became evident in the various disciplinary interventions and acts of censorship, under which the so-called condemnation of 7 March 1277 of contemporary interpretations functions as an icon, in particular for a new status of philosophy. According to some recent interpretations philosophy was now conceived as an independent, comprehensive doctrine of natural knowledge and ethical perfection, which has no need to call upon divine revelation and supernatural grace, against an old-fashioned, speculative, eclectic theology, which tried to claim the position of true wisdom.7 What we notice is the breaking of the model of an integrated Christian wisdom, which was defined for the Latin tradition by Boethius and Augustine. Boethius in his famous Theological Tractates explained Christian dogma in full accordance with Aristotle in terms of the knowledge of the highest principles, which Aristotle has called theology and which obtains the place of the highest of the theoretical sciences.8 Augustine picked up the Stoic definition of wisdom as the 4

Ibid., I, 2, 982a28–30. Ibid., I, 2, 982b4–6. 6 The evidence can be taken from the student’s curricula and examination questions. See C. Lafleur, “Les ‘guides de l’étudiant’ de la faculté des arts de l’université de Paris au XIIIe siècle,” in Philosophy and Learning. Universities in the Middle Ages, eds. M.J.F.M. Hoenen, J.H.J. Schneider, and G. Wieland (Leiden, 1995), pp. 137–185. 7 See for example K. Flasch, Aufklärung im Mittelalter?, Exzerpta classica 6 (Mainz 1989); A. de Libera, Raison et foi. Archéologie d’une crise d’Albert le Grand à Jean-Paul II (Paris 2003); D. Piché, La condamnation parisienne de 1277. Texte latin, traduction, introduction et commentaire (Paris 1999); A. De Libera, “Philosophie et censure. Remarques sur la crise univesitaire parisienne de 1270–1277,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter?, eds. J.A. Aertsen and A. Speer, Miscellanea mediaevalia 26, (Berlin, 1998), pp. 71–89; L. Bianchi, “1277: A Turning Point in Medieval Philosophy?,” ibid., pp. 90–110. 8 See Boethius, De Sancta Trinitate, 2, ed. C. Moreschini (Leipzig, 2000), pp. 168–70; cf. A. Speer, “The Hidden Heritage: Boethian Metaphysics and Its Medieval Tradition,” Quaestio 5 (2005), 163–81. 5

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true understanding of all human and divine things, but in the 12th and 14th book of De Trinitate he introduced a powerful distinction between the intellectual comprehension of the eternal things—that is wisdom in the proper sense—and the rational, discoursive understanding of the temporal things, at the same time subordinating the latter, the knowledge of the sciences and of philosophy, to the former, the knowledge of theology, which alone can be called wisdom.9 There are already strong indications in the 12th century that those two models were under question and had to be rethought. But the appearance of Aristotle gave rise to a severe debate, in which the understanding of wisdom functioned as a touchstone for the conception and understanding of both theology and philosophy. The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century treatments of the “sapiential question” take their start from Aristotle’s understanding of wisdom as signifying the preeminent knowledge of the first, grounding principles of thought. The characteristics Aristotle assigns to wisdom in Metaphysics I, 2 pertain immediately to the knowledge of First Philosophy, but among theologians the Aristotelian marks of wisdom also served as the main criteria for establishing the superiority of theological sapience. In both respects, wisdom embraces an existential dimension or way of life: theologians and philosophers conceived the search for wisdom as a disciplined exercise that engages all the intellectual and moral virtues and leads, finally, to beatitude.10 With regard to the 1277 condemnation, Etienne Gilson has spoken of the end of the “honeymoon between philosophy and theology”.11 But is this statement true and, if so, to what extent? What are the 9 See Augustine, De Trinitate XII, 14–15 (CCCM 50), pp. 374–380, and XIV, 1, 3 (CCCM 50A), pp. 423–424; cf. A. Speer, “Im Spannungsfeld der Weisheit. Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis von Metaphysik, Religion und Theologie,” in Metaphysik und Religion: zur Signatur des spätantiken Denkens, eds. M. Erler and T. Kobusch (Munich, 2002), pp. 649–72, esp. 655–58. 10 See A. Speer, “The Vocabulary of Wisdom and the Understanding of Philosophy,” in L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au moyen âge, eds. J. Hamesse and C. Steel, Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 8, (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 257–280; id., “Sapientia nostra. Zum Verhältnis von philosophischer und theologischer Weisheit in den Pariser Debatten am Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts,” in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277: Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität von Paris im letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts: Studien und Texte, eds. J.A. Aertsen, K. Emery, Jr., and A. Speer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 28 (Berlin, 2001), pp. 248–75. 11 E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), p. 456; also id., La philosophie au Moyen Âge des origines patristiques à la fin du XIVe siècle (Paris, 1947), p. 605; see further L. Bianchi, “1277: A Turning Point in Medieval Philosophy?” (see nt. 7), p. 104sq.

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reasons for this division of discourses and what are the consequences for their further cohabitation? Do the interventions of ecclesiastical power or intrinsic doctrinal motifs reflect a wider theoretical background? And what is the relation between external intervention and the intrinsic dynamics, and what was the impact? In the following I will present four case studies which point to the complexity of the discussions, in which the understanding of wisdom plays an important role. Hereby special emphasis is given to the theoretical background behind the institutional consequences. 1. The Bishop and the Philosopher: Étienne Tempier and Boethius of Dacia 2. The Theologian and the Metaphysician: Thomas Aquinas 3. The Wisdom of Aristotle and the Wisdom of Augustine: Henry of Ghent 4. The lesemeister and the lebemeister: Meister Eckhart 1st Case Study: The Bishop and the Philosopher: Étienne Tempier and Boethius of Dacia In his famous letter, which accompanies the syllabus of 219 articles and can be understood as a kind of accessus to the “Symbolum Parisinum” from the 7th of March 1277, the bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, gives a brief survey of the leading motives, the subject matter and the reason for his decree, and in particular of the addressees. The target group is well known: the professors especially of the arts faculty at the Sorbonne, particularly those, who have overstepped the Faculty’s boundaries: “nonulli parisius studentes in artibus proprie facultatis limites excedentes.”12 This formula reflects the various conflicts within the university of Paris among faculties, especially between the arts faculty and the faculty of theology, which have grown in the years and decades before. The documents are well preserved in the “Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis” and also the various attempts to define the borders in particular between the two faculties of arts and theology not to mention those matters, which belong to the proper object, the subiectum, 12 Epistola scripta a Stephano episcopo Parisiensis anno 1277, ed. Piché (see nt. 7), p. 72.

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of both sciences.13 In quoting verbatim from the second book of the “Regula pastoralis” of Gregory the Great, Étienne Tempier appeals especially to the responsibility of the teachers, not to confuse the unity of the audience and not to disturb the simple minds by rashly talking: “Qui sapienter loqui nititur, magno opere metuat, ne eius eloquio audientium unitas confundatur”.14 In this context the bishop of Paris reproaches his opponents with holding a double truth theory and joins this claim with the idea of a wrong and a right wisdom. The biblical quotation from the first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1,19sq. = Is 29,14) “perdam sapientiam sapientium”, which Petrus Johannis Olivi also quotes in the opening of his treatise De perlegendis philosophorum libris as a motto of his critical investigation, reveals the direction of Tempier’s argumentation: He denies the possibility of two contradictory truths (duae contrariae veritates), the one based on natural reason and the other based on revelation. In particular there cannot be any truth that contradicts Sacred Scripture. This would be a false wisdom ( falsa sapientia), that will be destroyed according to the already mentioned biblical dictum through true wisdom (vera sapientia).15 The bishop’s letter is often taken as a statement of ecclesiastical power against the freedom of philosophical thought, against the rosy dawn of enlightenment in the Middle Ages, which finally leads to the separation or even the liberation of the sciences from theological and ecclesiastical attempts to control thought.16 In this view the hidden heroes are the arts masters of the 13th century like Boethius of Dacia, who seemed to be explicitly attacked by Étienne Tempier. So, article 154 of the Condemnation: “quod sapientes mundi sunt philosophi tantum”, has been attributed to Boethius’ treatise De aeternitate mundi, in 13 Numerous examples and evidences for these debates can be found in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? (see nt. 7), pp. 553–679 (chap. 5), and in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277 (see nt. 10), pp. 233–503 (chap. 2 & 3). 14 Epistola scripta a Stephano episcopo Parisiensis anno 1277, ed. Piché (see nt. 7), p. 72. 15 Epistola scripta a Stephano episcopo Parisiensis anno 1277, ed. Piché (see nt. 7), p. 74: “Dicunt enim ea esse uera secundum philosophiam, sed non secundum fidem catholicam, quasi sint due contrarie ueritates, et quasi contra ueritatem sacre scripture sit ueritas in dictis gentilium dampnatorum, de quibus scriptum est: ‘Perdam sapientiam sapientium’, quia uera sapientia perdit falsam sapientiam.”—cf. Petrus Iohannis Olivi, De perlegendis philosophorum libris, ed. F. M. Delorme, Antonianum 16 (1941), 31–44, at 37. 16 See nt. 7. See also L. Bianchi, Censure et liberté intellecutelle à l’université de Paris (XIIIe–XIV e siècles) (Paris, 1999); id., Pour une histoire de la double verité (Paris 2008).

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particular to his concluding remarks about the relation between philosophy and faith.17 But there is no indication of a double-truth theory, quite the opposite. Boethius states that there is no contradiction between faith and a philosopher (“nulla est contradictio inter fidem et philosophum”) who according to the ancient philosophical ideal “spends his life in the pursuit of wisdom” (“et isti sunt philosophi, qui ponunt vitam suam in studio sapientiae”). Boethius does not only call anyone who “has acquired the best and ultimate end of human life”, which consists in the perfect state of both theoretical and practical reasoning, a true philosopher, he also states that no Christian, who is able to argue with subtlety and sophistication, may destroy the principles of philosophy (“destruere principia philosophiae”). But he who is not able to argue this way should better obey the sage and follow the Christian law, which in fact is an act of faith and does not belong to science (“fides non est scientia”) based on reason and arguments alone.18 The differences in understanding wisdom between Bishop Étienne and Magister Boethius are obvious. While the bishop takes the revealed truth of Sacred Scripture as a benchmark for all approaches to truth, which have to be related to the one truth and to the one true wisdom (vera sapientia), the arts master accepts only the principles accessible to natural reasoning as the foundation for a true argument that can be called scientific. Even theology—if not reduced to a mere authoritative discipline based on a pure act of faith—has to accept the principal scientific argumentation in order to enter the scientific discourse, which is according to Boethius of Dacia the only true pursuit of wisdom. The context for the display of this debate is the Aristotelian understanding of science and of the special place of wisdom within it. Both the bishop and the magister claim the ordering power of wisdom, but in different directions. While Étienne Tempier tries to defend the superiority of the true wisdom of Christian theology against the wisdom of this world represented by the heterodox teaching of some

17 Cf. Epistola scripta a Stephano episcopo Parisiensis anno 1277, ed. Piché (see nt. 7), p. 126sq. See R. Hissette, Enquête sur les 219 articles condamnés à Paris le 7 mars 1277, Philosophes médiévaux 22 (Louvain, 1977), pp. 18–20. 18 Boethius de Dacia, De aeternitate mundi, ed. N. G. Green-Pedersen, Boethii Daci Opera 6,2 (Hauniae, 1976), pp. 365–66. See D. Piché, La condamnation parisienne de 1277 (see nt. 7), pp. 208–215; F. Van Steenberghen, “Une légende tenace: la théorie de la double vérité,” in id., Introduction à l‘étude de la philosophie medieval, Philosophes médiévaux 17 (Louvain, 1974), pp. 555–70.

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philosophers, which in his view undermines the proclaimed unity of wisdom-oriented knowledge, Boethius of Dacia claims the same primacy for the “studium sapientiae” which he equates with philosophy, i.e. a knowledge based on reason alone. But what is then the place of theology, if one avoids the caricature given by Boethius, when he speaks of a theology based merely on authority and obedience? 2nd Case Study: The Theologian and the Metaphysician: Thomas Aquinas We are in the middle of a dispute, which accompanies the self-understanding of Christian theology from the very beginning, but increases in the 13th century under the growing influence of the Aristotelian epistemology. The focal point of this confrontation of Christian doctrine with a rational and profane understanding of reality and the claim of a universal scientific discourse, which found its institutional complement in the universities, was the question of which science can be called wisdom in the proper sense. Against this background one has to read the opening chapters of Thomas Aquinas’ first Summa, where he stylizes his undertaking in the Summa contra gentiles as an “officium sapientis”.19 This officium combines the Aristotelian notion of the ordering duties of the sage, which are based upon the final causality of our striving for knowledge, and the obligation, based on judgement, to meditate and to proclaim the divine truth and to fight against the errors that contradict the truth. This twofold service to wisdom is grounded in the conviction that there is a common principle for all truth. But contrary to Étienne Tempier Thomas is fully convinced that he is in full accordance with Aristotle, who himself has defined first philosophy as a “science of truth” (“scientia veritatis”), i.e. not of an accidental truth, but of that truth which is the principle of all being (“principium omnium essendi”) and the principle of all truth (“omnis veritatis principium”).20 On the other hand Thomas did not

19 The opening chapter of the Summa contra gentiles treats the question “Quod sit officium sapientis.” For the authenticity of this well documented tradition see Editio Leonina, vols. 15, 29a (introduction). See further R.-P. Gauthier, Saint Thomas d’Aquin: Somme contre les gentiles. Introduction, Éditions Universitaires 1993, pp. 143–63. 20 Thomas de Aquino, Summa contra gentiles 1, c. 1 [5]: “Sed et primam philosophiam Philosophus determinat esse ‘scientiam veritatis’; non cuiuslibet, sed eius verita-

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subordinate faith to natural reasoning as Boethius of Dacia did from the point of view of a philosopher. But he also refused the univocal understanding of theology as a first theoretical science of the other Boethius, the author of the theological tractates and of the “Consolatio philosophiae”, who had given for centuries the most powerful interpretation of this Aristotelian teaching from Metaphysics E and so defined the lines for a “faith seeking understanding”-hermeneutic within the borders of a wide range natural theology.21 It is in the context of the first redaction of the first half of the first book of the Summa contra gentiles that Thomas comments on Boethius’ “Liber quomodo Trinitas unus Deus ac non tres Dii”, in short, his De Trinitate.22 In this unique commentary, unique for the entire 13th century, Thomas examines in great detail Boethius’ understanding of theology within the context of the Aristotelian tripartition of the theoretical sciences. Boethius had taken Aristotle’s determination of the “theologikè epistéme” literally and had brought it to bear even on the mysteries of Christian faith, especially the Trinity and the Incarnation, which became the cognitive content of this theological science. Obviously, for Boethius there is no place for another theology based on biblical exegesis beside a theology that follows the methodological path of the Aristotelian epistemology as it is set up in Metaphysics A and E. Furthermore it seems inappropriate to speak of a speculative philosophical theology based on reason alone vs. a Christian theology based on revelation. For Boethius the first speculative science is “scientia divina” in the proper and full sense of treating the divine substance without either matter or motion, e.g. fully separated and abstract, and this science does not “play with imaginations, but rather apprehend[s] that form which is pure form and no image, which is being itself (ipsum esse) and the source of being”.23

tis quae est origo omnis veritatis, scilicet quae pertinet ad primum principium essendi omnibus; unde et sua veritas est omnis veritatis principium; sic enim est dispositio rerum in veritate sicut in esse.”—Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysica 2, 1 (993 b 30–33). 21 See Boethius, De Sancta Trinitate, praef., ed. C. Moreschini (Leipzig, 2000), pp. 166,21–23: “Sane tantum a nobis quaeri oportet quantum humanae rationis intuitus ad divinitatis valet celsa condescendere.”—See above nt. 8. 22 See J.-P. Torrell, Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, Vestigia 13 (Fribourg, 1993), pp. 141–156, 486sq., 503sq. 23 Boethius, De Sancta Trinitate, 2, ed. Moreschini, pp. 168,68–169,83: “Nam cum tres sint speculativae partes, [. . .] theologica, sine motu abstracta atque separabilis (nam Dei substantia et materia et motu caret): [. . .] in divinis intellectualiter versari

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There is no way for Thomas Aquinas to follow Boethius in the direction of a unified theological understanding of a first speculative science, which also maintains the primacy with regard to the ordering capacity of knowledge according to the firstness of its principles as well as with respect to the primacy of its proper subject. In fact Thomas did accept the Boethian division of the theoretical sciences, taken from the sixth book of the Metaphysics, but he introduces a twofold distinction of divine science, one handed down by the philosophers and the other of those who, through faith, participate in the divine knowledge, the first proceeding “secundum modum nostrum”, the second “secundum modum ipsorum divinorum”.24 This distinction between the theology of the philosophers and Christian theology reflects one of the most important innovations that was achieved in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, namely Christian theology’s becoming a science distinct from philosophy. Thomas elaborates the distinction in his commentary, when discussing the question of the subject of theology or divine science. Thomas’ solution in his De Trinitate-commentary is based on the two ways in which the divine can be studied. Insofar as it is the common principle of all beings, the divine is treated by the philosophers, since by the light of natural reason man can consider the divine only through its effects. Therefore, the subject proper to this science that considers what is common to all beings is not the divine, but being-as-being (ens in quantum est ens). The study of the divine as it is in itself and can be known only insofar as it reveals itself is the concern of another theology, which investigates divine things for their own sake as the subject of science; this is the theology taught in Sacred Scripture.25 oportebit neque deduci ad imaginationes, sed potius ipsam inspicere formam, quae vere forma neque imago est et quae esse ipsum est et ex qua esse est.” 24 Thomas de Aquino, Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 2, c (ed. Leon. 50), p. 95, 65–77: “Et secundum hoc de diuinis duplex scientia habetur: una secundum modum nostrum, qui sensibilium principia accipit ad notificandum diuina, et sic de diuinis philosophi scientiam tradiderunt, philosophiam primam scientiam diuinam dicentes; alia secundum modum ipsorum diuinorum, ut ipsa diuina secundum se ipsa capiantur, que quidem perfecte in statu uie nobis est impossibilis, set fit nobis in statu uie quedam illius cognitionis participatio et assimilatio ad cognitionem diuinam, in quantum per fidem nobis infusam inheremus ipsi prime ueritati propter se ipsam.” 25 Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 4, c (ed. Leon.), p. 154,175–182: “Sic ergo theologia siue scientia diuina est duplex: una in qua considerantur res diuine non tamquam subiectum scientie, set tamquam principia subiecti, et talis est theologia quam philosophi prosequntur, que alio nomine metaphisica dicitur; alia uero que ipsas res diuinas considerat propter se ipsas ut subiectum scientie, et hec est theologia

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For Thomas, however, the main reason for the necessity of the division into two types of theology lies in an understanding of separation different from that of Boethius and furthermore in his new conception of the human intellect which has and is no longer an organ for knowing the divine as the “intelligentia” is for Boethius.26 While for the latter the activity of the intellect goes hand in hand with the understanding of its objects,27 Thomas denies this symmetrical order and therefore comes also to a fundamental asymmetry concerning the understanding of separation vis-à-vis its object. He understands separation in one respect as an activity of the intellect, by which the intellect conceives the “ratio rei” through abstraction. But since the human intellect is by its nature a “ratio” and therefore essentially limited, it cannot reach— even in its fullest activity—those objects like the divine essence, which are completely separated from matter and motion (“sine materia et motu”).28 For philosophical theology, i.e. metaphysics, investigates beings separate in the second sense as its subjects, and beings separate from matter and motion as the principles of its subject, whereas the theology of Sacred Scripture treats beings separate from matter and motion, although it concerns some items in matter and motion insofar as this is needed to throw light on divine things.29 This asymmetry in

que in sacra Scriptura traditur.”—For further consequences of this distinction see P. Porro, “Il posto della metafisica nella divisone delle scienze speculative di Tommaso d’Aquino (Super Boetium De Trinitate, qq. V–VI),” in La Divisione della Filosofia e le sue Ragioni: Lettura di testi medievali (VI–XIII secolo), ed. G. d’Onofrio (Rome, 2001), pp. 185–249, in particular 220sqq. 26 See e.g. Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 5.4.30, ed. Moreschini, p. 149,86–88: “Intelligentiae vero celsior oculus existit; supergressa namque universitatis ambitum, ipsam illam simplicem formam pura mentis acie contuetur.” 27 See Boethius, De Sancta Trinitate, 2, ed. Moreschini, pp. 168,68–169,83; De consolatione philosophiae 5. 4. 27–37, ed. Moreschini, pp. 149,80–150,111; see M. Enders, “Vernunft; Verstand. III. Mittelalter, A. Frühmittelalter,” Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 11 (Basle, 2001), cols. 765–70. 28 See Thomas de Aquino, Expositio libri posteriorum 1, 1 (ed. Leon. I*,2), pp. 4,33– 5,50; De veritate, q. 15, a. 1, c (ed. Leon. 17,2), p. 479,284–292; ibid., ad 8 (ed. Leon. 17,2), p. 482,512–526; J. Péghaire, Intellectus et ratio selon S. Thomas d’Aquin (Paris-Ottawa, 1936), pp. 126–29; A. Speer, “Vernunft; Verstand. III. Mittelalter, D. Hochmittelalter,” Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 11, cols. 780–6. 29 Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 5, a. 4, c (ed. Leon.), p. 154,185–198: “dupliciter potest esse aliquid a materia et motu separatum secundum esse: uno modo sic quod de ratione ipsius rei que separata dicitur sit quod nullo modo in materia et motu esse possit, sicut Deus et angeli dicuntur a materia et motu separati; alio modo sic quod non sit de ratione eius quod sit in materia et motu, set possit esse sine materia et motu quamuis quandoque inueniatur in materia et motu, et sic ens et substantia et potentia et actus sunt separata a materia et motu non dependent sicut mathematica

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the understanding of “separatio” points to the epistemic foundations that distinguish Aquinas from Boethius to the extent that this division leads to fundamentally different concepts of metaphysics. There is no way that one concept is compatible with the other—this is exactly, what Thomas discovered. For this reason Thomas decides to dismiss Boethius rather than to make any attempt to heal the tension between the epistemological understanding of abstraction and the ontological understanding of separation. Therefore, Thomas’ breaking off from commenting on Boethius’ De Trinitate immediately after having reached this result signifies the division of two metaphysical discourses, which occasionally met on the common ground of the Aristotelian understanding of the speculative sciences and their division according to motion and abstraction. What is most commonly interpreted as the development of one and the same discourse, which ultimately leads to the clarification of the status of the first speculative science as metaphysics in the proper sense of a first philosophy vis-à-vis a theology that is, strictly speaking, based on the articuli fidei and thus dealing with the revealed truth, should more precisely be understood as a division of two divergent metaphysical discourses.30 But this division offers the opportunity for Thomas to speak of the double truth and of a twofold wisdom without running into the dilemma of exclusion which explicitly drives Étienne Tempier and at least implicitly Boethius of Dacia. In his Summa contra gentiles Thomas speaks with respect to the cognition of God of a “duplex modus

dependebant, que nunquam nisi in materia esse possunt quamuis sine materia sensibili possint intelligi.”—Cf. Super Boetium De Trinitate, q. 6, a. 1 (ed. Leon.), pp. 162,327–163,395, where Thomas relates the question of the twofold understanding of separatio to a twofold understanding of resolutio, which parallels the division between a separatio secundum rationem and a separatio secundum rem with a via resolutionis, by which the intellect comprehends the multitude in an unified mode, and the proper terminus of the via resolutionis: the most simple causes and the separate substances. While the first resolutio is in the same respect the summit and the border of human reasoning, the very resolutio, which brings the intellectual activity to fulfillment and rest, does lead to an intrinsic as well as to an extrinsic first cause, which is not only common and universal in the first sense, but also most and fully separate from matter and motion. See P. Porro, “Il posto della metafisica” (see nt. 25), pp. 230–241, esp. 208–214. 30 See A. Speer, “The Division of Metaphysical Discourses: Boethius, Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart,” in Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, eds. K. Emery, Jr., R. Friedman, and A. Speer, STGM 105 (Leiden, 2011) pp. 91–115.

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veritatis”.31 This twofold truth concerns the two ways to comprehend the divine intelligibles (divina intelligibilia): the one truth is accessible for the natural reason through questioning and inquiry, the other exceeds the capacity of the human intellect.32 This doubling of the truth does not signify an opposition, but originates from the insight in limitation of the human intellect, which is bound to its material conditions and cannot cognize the divine things “ex parte ipsius Dei”, but only “ex parte cognitionis nostrae”.33 Like Boethius of Dacia Thomas claims that the truth of Christian belief cannot contradict the truth grasped by the intellect according to the rule of non-contradiction, which is also valid for that which exceeds the capacity of human understanding.34 Therefore the principle of non-contradiction serves as the standard also for the cognition of God in both directions: insofar as we mount to the cognition of God through the created causes or insofar as the knowledge of faith is revealed to us. Consequently Thomas tries, in his famous first Quaestio of his Summa theologiae, to model theology according to the Aristotelian understanding of the sciences.35 But he had to recognize an unsurpassable dilemma, that theology does not know per se its principles—one of the key teachings of Aristotle’s epistemology.36 Thomas’ well-known solution to assign theology to those sciences which rely in respect of their principles on subordinate sciences, and to shift the 31 Thomas de Aquino, Summa contra gentiles I, c. 3 [14]: “Est autem in his quae de Deo confitemur duplex veritatis modus. Quaedam namque vera sunt de Deo quae omnem facultatem humanae rationis excedunt, ut Deum esse trinum et unum. Quaedam vero sunt ad quae etiam ratio naturalis pertingere potest, sicut est Deum esse, Deum esse unum, et alia huiusmodi; quae etiam philosophi demonstrative de Deo probaverunt, ducti naturalis lumine rationis.” 32 Summa contra gentiles 1, c. 4 [21]: “Duplici igitur veritate divinorum intelligibilium existente, una ad quam rationis inquisitio pertingere potest, altera quae omne ingenium humanae rationis excedit, utraque convenienter divinitus homini credenda proponitur.” 33 Summa contra gentiles 1, c. 9 [51]: “Dico autem duplicem veritatem divinorum, non ex parte ipsius Dei, qui est una et simplex veritas; sed ex parte cognitionis nostrae, quae ad divina cognoscenda diversimode se habet.” 34 Summa contra gentiles 1, c. 7 [44]: “Principiorum autem naturaliter notorum cognitio nobis divinitus indita: cum ipse Deus sit nostrae auctor naturae. Haec ergo principia etiam divina sapientia continet. Quicquid igitur principiis huiusmodi contrarium est, divinae sapientiae contrariatur. Non igitur a Deo esse potest. Ea igitur quae ex revelatione divina per fidem tenentur, non possunt naturali cognitioni esse contraria.” 35 Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a. 2: “Utrum sacra doctrina sit scientia?” 36 Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a. 2, arg. 1: “Omnis enim scientia procedit ex principiis per se notis. Sed sacra doctrina procedit ex articulis fidei, qui non sunt per se noti, cum non ab omnibus concedantur.”

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evidence of the principles to the knowledge of the saints, in fact calls into question the status of theology within the order of the sciences and especially its status as ordering wisdom.37 Thomas defends this claim by emphasizing the certainty of revelation against the mistakes and errors of natural reasoning. But the price for this compensation for the missing evidence is to accept a special position of theology within the order of the sciences. Since the principles of theology are not evidently known and accessible by natural reason, they cannot serve in the same way as ordering principles for the other sciences as the principles of metaphysics (this claim Thomas had made in the prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences). They only provide the ground for a judgment, in so far as someone embraces the point of view of theology and therefore their principles.38 3rd Case Study: The Wisdom of Aristotle and the Wisdom of Augustine: Henry of Ghent Although even in documents of the Holy See like the encyclical “Fides et Ratio” of the former Pope John Paul II Thomas’ solution is praised as the classic medieval synthesis of Christian faith and reason, of theology and philosophy, it was immediately heavily attacked, foremost by Henry of Ghent, who served prominently on the bishop’s commission, which prepared the list of 219 articles for Étienne Tempier’s syllabus from 7 March 1277. And there is good evidence that Thomas Aquinas was one of the main targets of Tempier’s “March campaign”: indirectly through his ally Giles of Rome, and directly by including in

37 Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a. 2, c & ad 1, and Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 6: “Utrum haec doctrina sit sapientia.”—Cf. M.-D. Chenu. La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle, 3rd ed., Bibliothèque thomiste 33 (Paris 1957), in particular chap. 5. See for this A. Speer, “Theologie als Wissenschaft: Vergessenes Erbe und Herausforderung. Hinführung zu Chenus ‘Theologie als Wissenschaft im 13. Jahrhundert’,” in Die Theologie als Wissenschaft im 13. Jahrhundert, Collection Chenu 4 (Ostfildern, 2008), pp. 7–32, in particular 16–26. 38 Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a. 4, ad 2: “Propria autem huius scientiae [scil. sacrae doctrinae] cognitio est, quae est per revelationem: non autem quae est per naturalem rationem. Et ideo non pertinet ad eam probare principia aliarum scientiarum, sed solum iudicare de eis.“—Cf. In I Sent., prol., a. 1, ed. A. Oliva, Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et sa conception de la ‘sacra doctrina’, Bibliothèque thomiste 58 (Paris 2006), p. 313,47–49): “Ita cum finis totius philosophie sit infra finem theologie et ordinatus ad ipsum, theologia debet omnibus aliis scientiis imperare et uti hiisque in eis traduntur.”—See Bianchi, Pour une histoire de la “double verité” (see nt. 16), pp. 89–92.

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the proscription list of March 7 statements that undoubtedly reflect his doctrinal positions, whether they were directly extracted from his work or whether they are to be found in the teachings of the Arts masters or of his critics like Henry.39 Refusing Thomas’ solution that defines theology’s scientific status according to the model of subalternation—i.e. that “in statu viatoris” we borrow the missing evidence of the theological principles from the saints, the angels or even from God, to whom they are evidently known40—Henry argues that true knowledge (scientia) does not only require the evidence of principles, but also evidence with respect to what is known. While knowledge in the broadest sense of the word (scire large accepto) requires only cognition free from any kind of deception,41 knowledge in the strict sense (stricte sumendo scientia), i.e. science properly speaking, calls “not only for any kind of certain cognition, but for a kind of knowledge whose truth becomes evident to the intellect through the evidence of a thing (ex evidentia rei)”.42 So, the notion of evidence becomes central for the understanding of what science is about. Henry focusses the problem of the relationship between science and wisdom on the question of the precedence (praerogativa) of sapientia with respect to scientia. In doing so he takes Aristotle’s famous list from Metaphysics I, 2 emphasizing especially the question of certitude.

39 With regard to this debate see R. Hissette, “Philosophie et théologie en conflit: Saint Thomas a-t-il été condamné par les maîtres parisiens en 1277?,” Revue théologique du Louvain 28 (1997), 216–26; id., “L’implication de Thomas d’Aquin dans les censure parisiennes de 1277,” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 64 (1997), 3–31; J.F. Wippel, “Bishop Stephen Tempier and Thomas Aquinas: A Separate Process against Aquinas?,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 44 (1977), 117–36; J.M.M.H. Thijssen, “1277 Revisited: A New Interpretation of the Doctrinal Investigations of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome,” Vivarium 35 (1997), 72–101; R. Wielockx, “A Separate Process against Aquinas. A response to John F. Wippel,” in Roma, Magistra Mundi. Itineraria culturae mediaevalis, ed. J. Hamesse, FIDEM, Textes et études du moyen âge 10 (Louvain, 1998), pp. 1009–1030; R. Hissette, “Thomas d’Aquin directement visé par la censure du 7 mars 1277. Réponse à John F. Wippel,” ibid., pp. 425–37. 40 Thomas de Aquino, Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a. 2, c. 41 Henricus Gandavensis, Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae), a. 1, q. 1 (ed. G.A. Wilson [Henrici de Gandavo Opera omnia 21], Leuven 2005), p. 10,93sq.: “Dicendum quod scire large accepto ad omnem notitiam certam qua cognoscitur res sicut est absque omni fallacia et deceptione.” 42 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. J. Badius (1520; repr. Louvain-Paderborn, 1953), p. 42vB: “Stricte vero appellatur scientia non quaecunque certa notitia, sed solummodo eorum quorum veritas intellectui ex rei euidentia apparet.”

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Certainty becomes the main criterion for the perfection of knowledge, because wisdom is defined as a kind of knowledge that surpasses all other kinds of knowledge by its certitude. Wisdom, therefore, is the perfection of all knowledge.43 This perfection is based in particular on the eminence of sapiential knowledge that contemplates the highest and first cause, through which everything is known.44 The main reason for the ordering and commanding status of wisdom is the connection of certitude and evidence. Henry agrees with Thomas Aquinas that this connection points to the very ratio of the Aristotelian criteria.45 But how can theology then be called wisdom, especially in relationship to other sciences, when—as we have seen—our intellect is lacking evidence with respect to the principles as well as to the object known? Henry’s main argument goes back to article 1, question 2 of his Summa, where he distinguishes the certain knowledge of the truth of a thing (veritas rei) according to the intellect (ex parte intellectus) and according to the object known (ex parte intelligibilis).46 There is no knowledge that can be called wisdom only on the strength of that kind of certitude based on the evidence coming from the intellect itself with respect to the object known. In this case mathematics would be the most certain of all sciences—even more certain than metaphysics— and therefore wisdom in the proper sense.47 True certainty, however, exists on the part of the object known and consists in the evidence 43 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43rvL: “Quare cum nomine sapientiae nihil nisi quaedam praerogatiua scientiae exprimit et praerogatiua rei debet esse in eo quod est formale et perfectio eius: perfectio autem formalis scientiae, qua notitia aliqua scientia dicitur, est certitudo notitiae in ipsas. Scientia igitur una ex hac praerogatiua debet dici super alias sapientia, quia scilicet in certitudine alias excedit.” 44 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43vL: “idcirco contingit, quod scientia, quae simpliciter dicenda est sapientia respectu omnium aliarum debet considerare prima principia simpliciter omnium et altissima et maxime inter alia illud, quod est maxime primum. Illud enim est prima causa, et principalis propter quam scientia dicenda est sapientia.” 45 Summa, a.6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43vLM; Thomas de Aquino, In 3 Sent., d. 35, q. 2, a. 1, quaestiuncula 3, solutio 1 [n. 111]: “sapientia secundum nominis sui usum videtur importare eminentem quamdam sufficientiam in cognoscendo, ut et in seipso certitudinem habeat de magnis et mirabilibus quae aliis ignota sunt, et possit de omnibus iudicare, quia ‘unusquisque bene iudicat quae cognoscit’; possit etiam et alios ordinare per dictam eminentiam”.—Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea I, 3 (A 1094 b 28). 46 Summa, a. 1, q. 2, ed. Wilson, pp. 35,141–37,173. 47 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43vN: “Non enim philosophus habet certissimam scientiam quantum est ex parte euidentiae sibi factae de scibilibus in illa scientia; quantam euidentiam multo maiorem habet mathematicus de scibili suae scientiae. Et ideo ratione illa mathematica deberet dici sapientia potius quam metaphysica, quod falsum est.”

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of a thing (evidentia rei) according to the first principles, which are primarily grasped by the intellect, because they are most evident, insofar the intellect grasps them in their own truth (in sua veritate), because they are the first.48 This kind of certitude, which serves as the ground of truth for all knowledge, exists even if our bat-like intellect is not able to grasp it immediately with evidence.49 Henry therefore grounds the excellence of wisdom on the excellence of what is known (scitum). Contrary to knowledge (scientia) wisdom (sapientia) provides an understanding of what is the most known by far and what is the first cause of everything. Therefore, if one takes the two terms sapientia and scientia both properly speaking (stricte) or in the broader sense of the word (large), only theology—despite less evidence with respect to the scitum because of the limitations of the intellect—can be properly called wisdom. With respect to this wisdom all notion (notitia) is properly speaking in the same way knowledge (scientia). Theology, as far as it is science in a minor sense through less evidence on the part of the cognizing subject, becomes wisdom properly speaking by the greater evidence and excellence of its object.50

48 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43vN: “Et est advertendum quod scientia non dicitur sapientia ex certitudine causarum, quas considerat, certitudine dico considerata ex parte scientis, quae causatur ex euidentia sibi facta apud intellectum de re scita, sed certitudine considerata ex parte rei scitae, quia scilicet principia prima, quae considerat, certissima sunt quantum est de se in sua veritate, quia prima sunt. Et ideo sunt in hoc causa veritatis aliorum.” 49 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 43vN: “Et est aduertendum quod scientia non dicitur sapientia ex certitudine causarum quas considerat: certitudine dico considerata ex parte scientis, quae causatur ex euidentia sibi facta apud intellectum de re scita, sed certitudine considerata ex parte rei scitae, quia scilicet principia prima, quae considerat, certissima sunt quantum est de se in sua veritate, quia prima sunt. Et ideo sunt in hoc causa veritatis aliorum, ut dicitur II Metaphysicae, licet propter suam abstractionem et debilitatem nostri intellectus, qui euidentiam illorum non potest attingere, nobis siue sapienti in ea non possunt esse notissima: secundum quod dicitur ibidem quod manifestissima in sua natura sunt difficilis cognitionis in veritate sua, non propter se, sed propter nos; quia dispositio intellectus nostri ad ipsa est similis dispositioni occulorum vespertilionis ad lucem solis. Nisi enim sic esset, prima philosophia, scilicet metaphysica inter scientias philosophicas non diceretur sapientia.”— Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysica 2, 1 (993b7–11); concerning this motif see C. Steel, Der Adler und die Nachteule. Thomas und Albert über die Möglichkeit der Metaphysik, Lectio Albertina 4 (Münster 2001). 50 Summa, a. 6, q. 2, ed. Badius, p. 44rO: “Absolute ergo dicendum, quod theologia vere et proprie debet dici sapientia super omnes scientias humanas, non obstante quod minorem habet evidentiam de suo scibili, quam scientiae philosophicae de suo. Cui concordat Avicenna, qui describens sapientiam dicit in primo Metaphysice: Sapientia est excellentior scientia ad sciendum id quod est excellentius scitum, et est prima causarum totius. Hinc de hac scientia dicit Deuteronomium 4(6): Haec est sapientia

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Henry seems to adopt Augustine’s solution from the twelfth and fourteenth book of De Trinitate, where, by dealing with the Stoic definition of philosophy, he distinguishes between intellectual comprehension of what is eternal (aeterna) and divine (divina), the true wisdom, and rational, discursive understanding of what is temporal (temporalia) and human (humana) knowledge or science.51 But Henry is not simply taking over Augustine’s solution. He is aware of the special position of theology and he is looking for a solution to determine it within the framework of the other sciences. He tries to avoid two extremes: (i) defining theology’s relationship to the sciences according to the model of a mere “reductio artium ad theologiam”,52 and (ii) emphasizing the special character of theology to the extent that he threatens its position within the Aristotelian understanding of the sciences. The reformulation of the Augustinian distinction between sapientia and scientia with explicit reference to Aristotle’s criteria leads to a mutual definition of the borders of Christian theology based on revelation and of the scope of scientific knowledge based on natural reasoning.53 On this ground Henry can argue, that theological and philosophical truth totally match. When we read in the Scripture that the savants of this world have become fools for God, then, Henry explains, this saying does not concern the true principles of philosophy, but only the manifold errors of man.54 The biblical “perdam sapientiam sapientium” nostra et intellectus coram populis. Respectu ergo huius sapientiae omnis alia notitia absolute scientia debet dici.” 51 Augustine, De Trinitate 14.1.3 (CCCM 50A), pp. 423,48–424,56: “Disputantes autem de sapientia definierunt eam dicentes: Sapientia est rerum humanarum scientia. (. . .) ista definitio diuidenda est ut rerum diuinarum scientia sapientia proprie nuncupetur, humanarum autem proprie scientiae nomen obtineat.”—Concerning the genesis and transmission of this definition see the very rich apparatus fontium (CCCM 50A, p. 423), for the differentiation cf. De Trinitate XII,14–15 (CCCM 50, pp. 374–380). 52 See S.F. Brown, “Henry of Ghent’s ‘De reductione artium ad theologiam’,” in Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy, ed. D.M. Gallagher, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 28 (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 194–206, at 202. Moreover this question becomes—according to the criteria of Metaphysics I, 2—the proofcase for the “architectonic power” of theology. In order to speak of a “reductio artium ad theologiam”, a strong deduction of the other sciences from theology has to be demonstrated. In fact, the weak place of theology within the Aristotelian model of subordinated sciences, shows the impossibility of a “reductio” in a strong logical sense. 53 See A. Speer, “Sapientia nostra” (see nt. 10), pp. 260–66, 273–75; further id., “Certitude and Wisdom in Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent,” in Henry of Gent and the Transformation of Scholastic Thought, eds. C. Steel and G. Guldentops, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy 1:31 (Louvain, 2003), pp. 75–100. 54 Henricus de Gandavo, Summa, a. 7, q. 13 (ed. I. Badius), p. 62vR: “Quia dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt, ut dicitur Ro I [I Cor 1,20] . . . Veritas igitur theologica

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(Is 29,14; 1 Cor 1,19sq.), repeatedly quoted by Henry and—as we have seen in the beginning—a leitmotif in Bishop Tempier’s letter, does not concern true wisdom (vera sapientia), but only knowledge that wrongly claims the name “scientia”. Because true wisdom is aware of the borders of human wisdom (humana sapientia) which might be able to treat mundane things (res mundana) in an appropriate manner, but not the divine principles (instituta divina).55 Here the traditional concept of a Christian wisdom seems to be revitalized and reestablished, according to Augustine’s sharp distinction between an intellectual understanding of eternal and divine objects—only this is wisdom in the proper sense—and a discursive and rational understanding of temporal and human objects and the strong subordination of the latter to the former—by far the most influential concept in the Latin West. 4th Case Study: The Lesemeister and the Lebemeister: Meister Eckhart Against the three previous case studies, the fourth case will come as a surprise. It might be even become irritating, if one takes into consideration the fact that Eckhart of Hochheim studied the works of Thomas Aquinas carefully and took his Summa theologiae as a model for his own Opus quaestionum,56 and that he served as a sententiarius in Paris while Henry of Ghent was still teaching there. An anonymous commentary on the Sentences in the manuscript Bruges 491, which Joseph Koch has tried to ascribe to the young Magister Eckhart, at least reflects the impact of Henry and other magistri of this period on some of Eckhart’s ideas. This may be in the form of a student’s

et philosophica in omnibus concordant: et est veritas philosophica manuductiva ad veritatem theologicam et gradus ad illam. Unde rationes que videntur ex principiis philosophiae constructae contrariae veritati fidei et theologiae: non ex veris principiis philosophiae, sed solum per errorem humanae industriae sunt constructae.” 55 Summa, a. 7, q. 9, ed. Badius, p. 59vT.—The historical context of 1277 for Henry’s understanding of philosophy and theology is also discussed by P. Porro, “Filosofia e scienza teologica in Enrico di Gand,” in Verum et certum. Studi di storiografia filosofica in onore di Ada Lamacchia, eds. C. Esposito, P. Ponzino, P. Porro, and V. Castellano (Bari 1998), pp. 415–42. 56 Meister Eckhart, Prologus generalis in opus tripartitum, n. 5 (Lateinische Werke I,1), p. 151,2–6: “Opus autem secundum, quaestionum scilicet, distinguitur secundum materias quaestionum, de quibus agitur ordine quo ponuntur in Summa doctoris egregii venerabilis fratris Thomae de Aquino, quamvis non de omnibus sed paucis, prout se offerebat occasio disputandi, legendi et conferendi.”

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or bachelor’s catena-commentary, which covers some of Eckhart’s lectures at Paris beside those of other masters.57 Eckhart seemed to ignore the thirteenth-century opposition of “philosophi” and “theologi” as well as Aquinas’ distinction of two kinds of “theology”. At the beginning of his Sermon on the feast day of St. Augustine, which Eckhart of Hochheim preached as an university sermon during his first period as magister actu regens at the university of Paris, Eckhart explicitly treats Boethius’ De Trinitate and surprisingly some of the twelfth-century commentaries, notably those of Thierry of Chartres and his student Clarembald of Arras. This sermon already indicates how deeply Eckhart’s metaphysical thinking is rooted in, or at least inspired by, Boethius’ univocal conception of theology as the first speculative science.58 Eckhart explicitly invokes the coherence of metaphysics and of theology based on revelation, which follows from the correspondence of approaching their common subject on the basis of an unifying causality, because every truth is rooted in and proceeds from one source of truth. So, even with respect to the Incarnation Sacred Scripture is in a most convenient way interpreted through what philosophers have written about the nature of things and their properties.59 Eckhart explicitly quotes St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 1:20) but, contrary to Thomas Aquinas, in accordance with its Boethian interpretation that one should try to reconcile, if possible, faith and reason.60 Holy Scripture—Eckhart writes in his commentary on St. John—finds its most appropriate explanation through its correspondence with what the philosophers have written about the nature of things and their properties, especially since there is only one source and one root (“fons et radix”) of the truth, from which all that

57 See A. Speer and W. Goris, “Das Meister-Eckhart-Archiv am Thomas-Institut. Kontinuität der Forschungsaufgaben,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 37 (1995), 149–174, esp. 157–174; see also W. Goris and M. Pickavé, “Die Lectura Thomasina des Guilelmus Petri de Godino (ca. 1260–1336). Ein Beitrag zur Text- und Überlieferungsgeschichte,” in Roma, magistra mundi (see nt. 39), pp. 83–109, esp. 95–109. 58 See in detail A. Speer, “Ethica sive theologia. Wissenschaftseinteilung und Philosophieverständnis bei Meister Eckhart,” in Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter? (see nt. 7), pp. 683–93. 59 See e.g. Expositio s. evangelii sec Iohannem (In Ioh.), n. 481 (Lateinische Werke III), p. 413,10sq.: “unica est vena qua in nos et in omnia fluit esse, ut dicit Augustinus I Confessionum (c. 6, n. 10), ut similiter se habet de bono et de veritate.” 60 See Utrum Pater et Filius, 4, ed. Moreschini, p. 185,66sq. Cf. In Ioh., n. 361 (Lateinische Werke III), pp. 306,5–307,1.

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is true proceeds according to being and understanding, to Scripture and nature.61 On this hermeneutical principle Eckhart built his Opus tripartitum, which has its foundation in fourteen propositions which serve as the axioms for the thousand questions as well as for the exegetical explanations of the same scope.62 In his great unfinished project Eckhart brings together a propositional system, the quaestio-method of scholastic theology, and scriptural exegesis. This integrative approach bridged the borders between scriptural exegesis and speculative thought as well as the borders between natural reasoning and divine revelation. Eckhart’s model of integration might be understood as a reformulation of the Boethian conception of philosophy in its twelfth-century form, the intention of which was not the distinction between a cognition based on revelation and a knowledge based on philosophical reasoning, but rather to unify the two paths of scientia divina.63 In the same university sermon dedicated to St. Augustine Eckhart also introduces a characteristic modification, which points to his understanding of wisdom. When he introduces the Boethian model of speculative philosophy he equates theology with ethics (“ethica sive theologia”).64 This modification points to an affective understanding of wisdom as “sapida scientia”, by which the intellect “in extasi mentis” is elevated beyond its own capacities. Therefore wisdom is related to the

61 In Ioh., n. 185 (Lat. Werke III), pp. 154,14–155,2: “Secundum hoc ergo convenienter valde scriptura sacra sic exponitur, ut in ipsa sint consona, quae philosophi de rerum naturis et ipsarum proprietatibus scripserunt, praesertim cum ex uno fonte et una radice procedat veritatis omne quod verum est, sive essendo sive cognoscendo, in scriptura et in natura.” 62 See the third “praenotandum” of the Prologus generalis in opus tripartitum, n. 11 (Lat. Werke I.1), p. 156,4–10: “Tertio et ultimo est praenotandum quod opus secundum, similiter et tertium sic dependet a primo opere, scilicet propositionum, quod sine ipso sunt parvae utilitatis, eo quod quaestionum declarationes et auctoritatum expositiones plerumque fundantur supra aliquam propositionum. Ut autem hoc exemplariter sit videre et habeatur modus procedendi in totali opere tripartito, prooemialiter praemittemus primam propositionem, primam quaestionem et primae auctoritatis expositionem.”—See J.A. Aertsen, “Der ‘Systematiker’ Eckhart,” in Meister Eckhart in Erfurt, eds. A. Speer and L. Wegener, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 32 (Berlin, 2005), pp. 189–230, esp. 190–195. 63 Compare Thomas’ reading of the very same Boethian text; see the second case study. 64 Sermo die beati Augustini Parisius habitus, n. 2 (Lat. Werke V), pp. 89,13–90,1: “Theoricam sive speculativam ulterius partiuntur in mathematicam, physicam et ethicam sive theologiam“. Hierzu A. Speer, ‘Ethica sive theologia’ (supra nt. 85), pp. 686– 688.

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practical intellect.65 Thus, wisdom seems to win back its moral dimension, but not in the way that philosophical ethics in the thirteenth century was conceived as practical philosophy or moral science.66 There is no such ethics in Meister Eckhart. His ethics of the lebemeister—this term, which has become common in the Eckhart literature, was for first used by Tauler67—must be understood as a practical consequence of the metaphysical view of the lesemeister: Ethics articulates within the realm of an “Einheitsmetaphysik” or integrated metaphysics nothing but the question of the perfection of man.68 For man’s perfection consists in the union with God, Eckhart emphasizes—in the footsteps of the marriage of early Christianity with ancient wisdom—the understanding of wisdom as a turning inward. From there he introduces, while commenting on Sap 7,7: “invocavi, et venit in me spiritus sapientiae”(“I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me”), the famous Augustinian dictum “Noli foras ire, in te ipsum intra” (“Do not go out, enter into yourself ”) from chapter 39 of De vera religione and takes it as the starting point to unfold his understanding of wisdom as entering the interior man.69 Hidden in

65 Sermo die beati Augustini Parisius habitus, n. 2 (Lat. Werke V), pp. 94,14–95,2: “de tertio [i.e. extasi mentis] dicitur secundum est in intellectu practico. Haec cognitio vel sapientia, quasi sapida scientia, quae aliquando intromittit hominem in affectum multum.“ 66 See e.g. G. Wieland, Ethica–scientia practica: die Anfänge der philosopischen Ethik im 13. Jahrhundert, BGPhThMA N.F. 21 (Münster, 1981), pp. 52–129. Further W. Kluxen, Philosophische Ethik bei Thomas von Aquin, Hamburg 21980, Darmstadt 31988. 67 This rather popular characterization goes back to a saying (Sprüche 8, Pfeiffer 599,19–21), although it was disputed among his disciples to what extent Eckhart could serve as a model school teacher (Lesemeister) as well as a teacher of life (Lebemeister). See B. McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (New York, 2001), 1sq. The one Tauler-reference can be found in F. Vetter, Die Predigten Taulers (Berlin, 1910),V 45 (p. 196,28sqq.): “Lieben kinder, die grossen pfaffen und die lesmeister die tsipitierent weder bekentnisse merre und edeler si oder die minne. Aber wir wellen nu al hie sagen von den lebmeistern.” See also chapter 6 in B. McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (1300–1500), A History of Western Christian Mysticism 4 (New York, 2005). Further G. Steer, “Eckhart der meister,” in Literarische Leben: Rollenentwürfe in der Literatur des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters: Festschrift für Volker Mertens zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. M. Meyer and H.-J. Schiewer (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 713–753, esp.720–23. 68 See In Ioh., n. 549 (Lat. Werke III), pp. 479,1–480,1; In Ioh., n. 338 (Lat. Werke III), p. 287,5–8; W. Goris, Einheit als Prinzip und Ziel: Versuch über die Einheitsmetaphysik des ‘Opus tripartitum’ Meister Eckharts, STGM 59 (Leiden, 1997), pp. 332–45, 381–84. 69 Expositio libri Sapientiae (In Sap.), n. 89 (LW II, p. 421,1–5). Cf. Augustinus, De vera religione, XXXIX, 72 (CCCM 32, p. 234,12sq.). For the complex structure of

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the depths of the soul, “in abdito mentis”, there is the inextinguishable light (“inextinguibile lumen”) of the uncreated divine wisdom, which only the intellect as such (“intellectus, inquantum intellectus est”) is able to grasp. In order to be able to grasp this light, man has to turn inward and has finally to transcend himself in God’s self-knowledge, who alone knows himself in himself.70 But this perfection should not be understood in terms of the Aristotelian genesis of knowledge based on intentional acts and modes of habitualisation which are able to generate knowledge. Against this mainly Aristotelian background Eckhart points out that only through a turning to passivity, calmness (gelazzenheit), annihilation, detaching (abgescheidenheit), unknowing (unwizzen) and unbecoming (entwerden) can we attain transcendental consciousness of the identity of the single ground ( grunt), the united one (“ein einig ein”), which Eckhart describes as birthing ( geburt) and breaking-through (durchbrechen). All the instructions Eckhart gave to his audience point to the practice of an attitude, which is more a way of life than an ethical theory, and which is directly deduced from the mind’s attraction towards the one.71 Against sharp epistemological distinctions according to theoretical and practical knowledge Eckhart emphasized the strong connection

Eckhart’s exegesis see A. Speer, “Zwischen Erfurt und Paris: Eckharts Projekt im Kontext. Mit einer Bibelauslegung von Sap. 7,7–10 und Joh. 1,11–13,” in Meister Eckhart in Erfurt (see nt. 62), pp. 3–33, esp. 15–26 and 30–33. 70 In Sap., nn. 94–95 (Lat. Werke II), pp. 428,4–429,4: “Lumen quidem sapientiae, sub ratione sapientiae, non recipitur in corporibus, sed nec in anima rationali, ut natura sive ens est in natura, sed in ipso solo , inquantum intellectus est [. . .]. ‘Eo enim imago est, quo dei capax est’, ut ait Augustinus. Patet igitur ratio, quare lumen sapientiae hoc ipso est inexstinguibile, quo in intellectu recipitur. Ad hoc facit quod Plato probat animam eo esse immortalem, quo capax est et subiectum sapientiae. Et concordat Augustinus libro De immortalitate animae; item quod ipse Augustinus docet quod in abdito mentis semper lucet, quamvis lateat, lumen divinum.”—Cf. A. Speer, “Abditum mentis”, in: Per perscrutationem philosophicam. Neue Perspektiven der mittelalterlichen Forschung, eds. A. Beccarisi, R. Imbach, and P. Porro, CPTMA Beiheft 4 (Hamburg, 2008), pp. 447–74, in particular 461–466.—See also Sermo 15 ‘Homo quidam nobilis’ (Deutsche Werke I), p. 252,1–7: “Ich hân ouch mê gesprochen von dem êrsten beginne und von dem lesten ende. Der vater ist ein begin der gotheit, wan er begrîfet sich selben in im selber. ûz dem gât daz êwige wort inne blîbende, und der heilige geist vliuzet von in beiden inne blîbende und gebirt in niht, wan er ein ende ist der gotheit inne blîbende und aller crêatûren, dâ einiu lûteriu ruowe ist und ein rasten alles des, daz wesen ie gewan. Daz begin ist durch des endes willen, wan in dem lesten ende ruowet allez daz, daz vernünftic wesen ie gewan.” 71 See the “moralis instructio” In Ioh., nn. 105 and 111–115 (LW 3), pp. 90 and 95–100; see the detailed analysis in A. Speer, “Zwischen Erfurt und Paris” (see nt. 69), pp. 22–25.

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between the perfection of knowledge and the perfection of the individual seeking wisdom. In uniting theoretical understanding and one’s own perfection he points to the longue durée of an understanding of philosophy as wisdom, which early Christianity could easily adopt. But since he himself set aside the predominant discourse and its Aristotelian language, he ran the risk, of which he was deeply aware, of being misunderstood and even accused. So, Eckhart warns the audience of his sermons many times that his teachings could be misconceived if separated from their context.72 And although the roots of the process against Eckhart lay in human weaknesses, which also infect religious orders, the Acta Eckhardiana and Eckhart’s Responsio, the so-called Rechtfertigungsschrift, show exactly this kind of misinterpretations, which follow from diverse theoretical foundations.73 In place of a conclusion: Some remarks on methodology and historiography (i) The starting point of this paper was one of the most discussed subjects in medieval philosophy in the last four decades and became the focal point for approaching the historiography of the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The aim of the paper was to contextualize this historical incident, which is often presented as a unique intellectual earthquake, by defining a fourfold topography of the tensions at stake. The tensions point to the underlying epistemological and metaphysical questions of the foundation of knowledge connected to the possibility and the frame of a first

72 See e.g. Eckhart’s concluding remarks in his famous Sermon 52 ‘Beati pauperes spiritu’ (Deutsche Werke II), p. 506,1–3: “Wer dise rede niht enverstât, der enbekümber sîn herze niht dâ mite. Wan als lange der mensche niht glîch enist dirre wârheit, als lange ensol er dise rede niht verstân; wan diz ist ein unbedahtiu wârheit, diu dâ komen ist ûz dem herzen gotes âne mittel.” 73 See the Acta Eckhardiana, Secunda Pars: Processus contra Mag. Eckhardum, nn. 46–67 (Lat. Werke V), pp. 195–606, and the brillant analysis of the editor Loris Sturlese. In fact by far the greatest part of the historical documentation concerning Eckhart’s life is directly related to the process. Cf. W. Trusen, Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart: Vorgeschichte, Verlauf und Folgen (Paderborn, 1988); id., “Meister Eckhart vor seinen Richtern und Zensoren”, in Meister Eckhart: Lebensstationen—Redesituationen, ed. K. Jacobi (Berlin 1997), pp. 335–52; K. Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. III: Mystik des deutschen Predigerordens und ihre Grundlegung durch die Hochscholastik (Munich, 1996), pp. 236–57; R.E. Lerner, “New Evidence for the Condemnation of Meister Eckhart,” Speculum 72 (1997), 347–66.

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science. The battleground is structured by the understanding of the epistemological place marker: wisdom, and the longue durée of its interpretation in ancient philosophy as well as in the Christian tradition, now focussing in the Aristotelian model of theoretical sciences. (ii) It has become obvious that even metaphysics consists in the history of its discourses, and therefore in the history of what was included in and what was excluded from those discourses.74 This is especially true when the striving for knowledge is accompanied by the conviction to tell the story, in our case the history of metaphysics, from the point of view of a governing discourse (“Leitdiskurs”). The stronger the convictions underlying the governing discourse and the more plausible it appears to be, the more forcefully operate the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. In order to enter the discourse, one must assume—intentionally or not—a point of view to facilitate a certain way of framing questions, connecting data, analysing arguments and building syllogisms. But by the very fact that we take this particular point of view, we exclude what cannot be framed, connected and analysed according to its paradigm. The ambiguous dynamics of abstraction and generalisation upon which Aristotle built a convincing theory of science according to the structures of discursive reasoning belongs to the very nature of any discourse that we enter and in which we perform, and we cannot escape these structures because we are not able and therefore are not allowed to attain a godlike point of view. (iii) This is not only true for our interpretations and for the historiographical perspective we take. It is also true with respect to the underlying metaphysical intuitions, which obviously drive the dramatis personae in the story I have tried to reconstruct in this paper; metaphysical and ontological intuitions, which cannot be reduced to one unifying standard model, that works without the dynamics of exclusion we have mentioned. Even if we take the Aristotelian model of epistemology as a point of reference, the four case studies show the complexity and the variety of the dynamics at stake, which lead to a division of metaphysical discourses.

74 See R.G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1998), pp. 49–57; see also A. Speer, “The Fragile Convergence” (see nt. 1).

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Evidently, this division cannot be resolved in terms of right and wrong alternatives. Hence, the impact of the Aristotelian model on the Latin West in the 13th century has to be understood in its complexity and as the interaction between theoretical processes and power structures. Because arguments always have contexts, for that reason they have to be understood not only in themselves, but in their contexts, where they function. The diversity of the four cases underlines the need for studying the phenomena from different perspectives. This requires a plurality of methods which have to be kept separate before asking for convergences and before establishing master narratives. (iv) The underlying theme of “wisdom” points to the longue durée of historical processes and intellectual traditions, which have to be taken into consideration if one speaks of historical events or historical trends.75 The four cases have shown the epistemic and institutional impact of the lasting traditions and epistemai. It is the longue durée that after all connects history with the present and the analyzed events with our times. This makes the history of philosophy a true and necessary part of philosophy itself.

75 See A. Speer, “Das Sein der Dauer,” in Das Sein der Dauer, eds. A. Speer and D. Wirmer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 34 (Berlin, 2008)), pp. xi–xix.

LIBERTY AND LIMIT: CONTROLLING AND CHALLENGING KNOWLEDGE IN LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE Martin Kintzinger 1. The House of Knowledge—or: What is Obvious “I should not begin with the word obviously . . .,” is the first sentence of David Luscombe’s masterly introduction to “Medieval thought,” first published in 1997.1 He was addressing the problem that his subject, medieval thought, does not, strictly speaking, exist—but that nevertheless, he was going to write a book on it. To be more precise: medieval thought does not simply exist, in a material way, but it can be described and explained from contemporary sources. That is what David Luscombe did, and what we can learn from his books. I would like to tackle my subject in a similar way. Obviously, knowledge did and does not exist in a material way. But it can be described as an individual as well as collective capacity and strategy, which helps or even enables people to sustain their life and change their world. Furthermore, knowledge may be explained as part of medieval society, that is of concepts of order, of religious ideals, and of learned traditions or innovations with varying degrees of instrumental value. Knowledge has obviously always been part of the self-consciousness of humankind and of their ideas about the world and their imaginations of reality. Imagination is a highly important concept in this context, since it connects to the specific, contemporary expressions of meanings and interpretations. The Cologne manuscript chosen as the title page of our conference programme points out such an imagination, the one of the “house of knowledge” (mansio or domus in the words of medieval latin sources). Konrad von Megenberg (1309–1374) invented the best known image of this topic. In his Yconomica, published in about 1350, he found a definition of a school, based on the Aristotelian distinction between person, house and community as communicacio personarum in domo /

1

David Luscombe, Medieval Thought (Oxford, 1997), p. 1.

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communicacio personarum docentis hominis et illorum qui ab eo discunt in mansorio sollicitudinis litterarum (community of persons in the house / community of people, that is of the one teaching others and those who are learning from him in a house of scientific studies).2 Centuries later, when universities were coming into existence all over Europe, scholars wrote: “Science has built itself a house.” Instead of “science” some of them preferred to say “wisdom”, in tradition of the ancient symbolic figuration of Sophia or sapientia. Science and wisdom, of course, were not the same then, as will be seen later, just as they are not the same today. However, more important is the fact that there has to be a specific location for them, a “house of knowledge.” Just the same topic is pointed out here, in the so-called “FriedrichLektionar” from around 1130 (see Fig. 1),3 but we do not see a material building or institutional order. The meaning is more complex: Archbishop Frederick (Friedrich von Schwarzenburg, 1100–1131) had himself depicted in an iconographic style we usually associate with Saint Jerome (347/48–419/20), the translator of the Bible into Latin, sitting at his desk in the middle of a small room. Artists mostly entitled this type of image as “Saint Jerome in his studio.” He is writing, and while doing so, a large number of books seem to surround him. Very often a veritable lion, lying at his feet, appears as an attribute. The depicted room is not yet a room for studying, nor a reading room or a library. It simply represents the earliest idea and perhaps most impressive imagination of a very special location: “the wise man’s house”. The manuscript of the “Friedrich-Lektionar,” which this illustration belongs to, contains part of the letter-collection of Saint Jerome. It seems to be clear why the archbishop, having ordered the copy of this letter-collection, decided to have himself represented in a position similar to the one of Saint Jerome.4 Sitting on a decorated throne-like

2

Konrad von Megenberg, Werke. Ökonomik, vol. III, ed. Sabine Krüger, MGH 500–1500. Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters, vol. III. 3 (Stuttgart, 1984), 3.1. in particular cap. 1–4; the quotation cap. 2, p. 17,13. Martin Kintzinger, “Communicatio personarum in domo. Begriff und Verstädnis einer Mitteilung von Wissen, Rat und Handlungsabsichten,” in Kommunikationspraxis und Korrespondenzwesen im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, eds. Heinz-Dieter Heimann and Ivan Hlavácek (Paderborn, 1997), pp. 139–64. 3 Joachim M. Plotzek, “Friedrich-Lektionar [Dom Hs. 59], Köln, gegen 1130,” in Glaube und Wissen im Mittelalter. Die Kölner Dombibliothek, Katalog zur Ausstellung (Cologne, 1998), pp. 187–90. See also Plotzek, “Zur Geschichte der Kölner Dombibliothek,” ibid., pp. 15–64, in particular p. 15f. the illustration of fol. 1r on p. 14. 4 Plotzek, “Friedrich-Lektionar” (see above, n. 3).

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Fig. 1. “The house of knowledge”: Archbishop Frederick of Cologne in his study.

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chair, he is surrounded by a number of books. Their covers are painted in different colors, and all of them are, significantly, arranged as books are in libraries, left and right at his feet, six at each side. Architectural elements show clearly that the archbishop is inside a house, which could indeed be a library, possibly the one of the cathedral of Cologne. During the medieval and early modern period, libraries of cloisters and cathedrals were the most manifest and impressive examples for the systematical register of knowledge. They were always based, in principle, on an encyclopedic order, most commonly the one of the seven liberal arts (artes and scientiae). This could be, and eventually was, specialized and enlarged with other sciences, which originally did not belong to the system. Collections of books, as shown in manuscript illustrations, nearly always indicate a special order or arrangement, which necessarily is the one of the artes.5 In later centuries, other types of “the wise man’s house” appeared, sometimes different in detail, but similar in their focus on the same subject: the learned man among his books. One of the most famous of this kind shows a king sitting on a wooden cathedra: a large bench seat with a broad and high back and even topped by a small roof. The entire piece is obviously made with care, and decorated in a way typical of two sorts of furniture: church-pews and teachers’ desks at late medieval universities. In contemporary illustrations, academics and teachers are mostly to be seen inside such types of cathedra, which symbolically represented their social status.6 What could this have meant for a king, who definitely was neither a cleric nor an academic?

5 Christel Meier, “On the connection between epistemology and encyclopedic ordo in the Middle Ages and the early modern period,” in Schooling and Society: The Ordering and Reordering of Knowledge in the Western Middle Ages, eds. Alasdair MacDonald and Michael W. Twomey, Groningen studies in cultural change 6 (Louvain, 2004), pp. 93–117. Bibliographical information about medieval libraries or the recent research on this subject is not intended here. To the order of the arts and its representation cp. Michael Stolz, Artes-liberales-Zyklen: Formationen des Wissens im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 2004). The most famous example of an artificial representation of the arts is no doubt the western portal of the cathedral of Chartres, built in the middle of the 12th century: ibid., 2: 860, fig. 130, and passim. Cp. the recent study on knowledge, books and libraries in medieval monastic culture: Martin Kintzinger, “Monastische Kultur und die Kunst des Wissens im Mittelalter,” in Kloster und Bildung im Mittelalter, eds. Nathalie Kruppa and Jürgen Wilke, Veröffentlichungen des Max-PlanckInstituts für Geschichte 218 (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 15–46. 6 Cp. the recently published study of Andrea von Hülsen-Esch, Gelehrte im Bild. Repräsentation, Darstellung und Wahrnehmung einer sozialen Gruppe im Mittelalter, VeröffMPGesch 201 (Göttingen, 2006).

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The king is Charles V, king of France, “le roi lettré,” the learned king. (see Fig. 2)7 He himself owned the manuscript showing him sitting in his cathedra. Inside, he has a large lectern which contains, at four levels, a number of books, ten in total. Like the books of Archbishop Frederick, they are coloured in blue and red, but in contrast to them, none of them is standing in a library order. They are waiting to be taken up or have just been put down after use. One book is actually open and the king is reading in it. The room is, obviously, not a library, but something like the king’s personal reading space: from his library he has taken a selection of books to study, which he is going to read at this particular moment. So what actually is this favourite book of his, just opened, which he is reading and pointing at with his finger? 2. Inside and Outside—The Virtues of Knowledge The first words in the book at the king’s lectern can be read: Beatus vir qui in sapientia / [mundabitur?] et qui in iustitia etc.8 Those words are, with little variation, identical with the beginning of the text of the manuscript itself, given in the right of two columnas of the title page: Beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam et qui affluit prudentia (“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding”).9 It is evident that this quotation is taken from the third chapter, verse 13, of the Liber proverbiorum of the Latin Bible.10 In the king’s manuscript the Latin sentence is immediately followed by the French translation: Ceste parole dit que lome est benoit qui treuue sapience et qui afflue largement de prudence.11 This sentence is declared to be a preface (prologue), and serves as the title on top of the page (premier prologue du translateur) as well as at the beginning of the 7 Charles V dans son étude. Jean de Salisbury, Le Policratique. Traduction de Denis Foulechat, 1372. Paris, BnF, MS fr. 24287, fol. 2r. La Bibliothèque royale du Louvre, ed. Jean-Luc Deuffic, Le livre médiéval 2 (Saint-Denis, 2004), p. 6. Cp. Jeannine Quillet, Charles V: le roi lettré: essai sur la pensée politique d’un règne (1984; repr. Paris, 2002), p. 104. 8 This quotation and the following one: BnF franc. 24287, fol. 2 (see above, n. 7). 9 English translation: The Holy Bible. Authorized King James Version (Oxford, 1965), p. 618. 10 Prov. 3: 13: Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1975), 2: 959: beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam et qui affluit prudentia. 11 Cp. the actual version in French translation of the Bible: “Heureux qui a trouvé la sagesse, qui s’est procuré la raison(!).” La Bible. Ancien Testament, vol. 2 (Paris, 1975), p. 234.

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Fig. 2. Charles V, king of France, in his study.

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text (prologue a la comendacion du livre et du tresnoble roy qui le fist translator). The main text then starts in French (Le tres glorieus docteur monseigneur saint ambroise en considerant diverses opinions de beatitude et felicite que pluseurs genz ont par le monde et par especial de tele comme on la puet auoit en . . . ). In the left columna and partly at the beginning of the right one the reader is informed about the text he finds there and the role of the king: he has commanded to have the text translated into French. In fact, it is quite a famous text of political theory from the central Middle Ages: the Policraticus of John of Salisbury (1115/1120–1180), Bishop of Chartres from 1176 to 1180. As is mentioned on the title page, the manuscript of the French translation is from 1372. While the Policraticus itself has a lot to say about the virtues and their value in political prudence, the beginning of the translation just quoted is not taken from the text of John of Salisbury.12 As mentioned, it is the preface of the translator, who also formulated the beginning of the text. In John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, the Proverbs and Solomon are often quoted, but the verse starting the translation never is. Ambrose is named several times, but the sentence given here is also not taken from the Latin Policraticus. To conclude, the translation of the Latin text added arguments and commentaries by the translator, apparently meant to facilitate the understanding of its meaning. Translating a text also meant to comment and to interpret. In the end, the reader gets a new text out of the original version and the commentaries, rolled into one without detailed explanations. In this instance, the example could possibly be the Regimen principum by Aegidius Romanus (about 1243–1316), written about 1280.13 Although it is not clear whether this text really ever was a manual for the education of the prince at the French king’s court, it is dedicated as such. It did eventually become one of the best known texts of its kind in Europe and Charles V possessed an illuminated copy in his library.14 The first chapter treats the following: In qua tractatur ubi est ponenda felicitas et in quo Reges et Principes debeant suam felicitatem ponere 12 Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi Carnotensis policratici sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum libri VIII, ed. Clement C.J. Webb, 2 vols. (1909; repr. Frankfurt/M., 1965). 13 Adolar Zumkeller, “Aegidius Romanus,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 1: 178. The text: Aegidius Romanus, Egidio Colonna, De regimine principum libri III, ed. Hieronymus Samaritanus, (1607; repr. Aalen, 1967), the quotation given here: Index, p. 625f. 14 Bibliothèque royale (see above, n. 7), p. 134, no. 683.

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(Where to find felicity and in what things kings and princes shall find their felicity) / In quibus potentiis habent esse virtutes (in which kind of power there are virtues). Felicitas and virtutes—the two central topics in Aristotelian ethics are the topics the translator added to the original text and he might have done so in order to focus the text on the learning and knowledge of the kind.15 In her biography of King Charles Christine de Pisan, who quotes Aegidius Romanus when she talks about education of princes,16 let personally tell the king to other princes about felicitas in a religiously determined manner: Je ne scay (ce dist le roy), en seigneurie felicité, excepté en une seule chose . . . en poissance de faire bien à autrui.17 Although a learned king, Charles V apparently was not able to read the Latin text himself and he therefore decided to order a French translation. But do the texts he was reading, and the kind of books that were bought, copied, translated and collected in his library, indeed reflect his very personal and individual desire? Undoubtedly, this is more of a modern point of view. The king was not just reading for his personal entertainment, but also for more serious reasons. Studying and reading had to be honest undertakings, and learning and knowing were to follow the right way of virtue: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding”. What does this mean in the context of knowledge and power? It first of all reminded the king and others not to forget that knowledge was not freely at any man’s disposal, not even the king’s. Consequently, there had to be rules governing what manner knowledge was right for him, or, in contrast, what kind of knowledge should be avoided. He was free to know what he desired, but not everything was apt for him to know. He possessed the freedom to learn whatever he wanted to, and do with his knowledge whatever seemed useful. But not every way of studying and using one’s knowledge could be justified. To put it in other words: any definition of knowledge has to take into account the concept of liberty and limit. The biblical topic beatus vir means exactly

15 On Aristotelian ethics cp. Georg Wieland, “The reception and interpretation of Aristotle’s Ethics,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. From the rediscovery of Aristotle to the disintegration of scholasticism, 1100–1600, eds. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinborg, and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 657–72; Wieland, “Happiness: ‘the perfection of man’,” ibid., pp. 673–86. 16 Christine de Pisan, Le livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, 2. 62 [63]. 159., ed. S. Solente (1936–41; repr. Paris, 1977). 17 Christine de Pisan, Livre des fais, 2. 30. 81.

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this: the wise man’s knowledge is set free and at the same time limited by iustitia and prudentia. It is therefore more than knowledge—it is wisdom, sapientia. Returning to Archbishop Frederick in the 12th century, sitting in his “house of knowledge”. The scene is framed by personifications significant in two ways: there are sixteen representatives of the Old and New Testament, five apostles at his right, seven prophets at his left, two others at the bottom and at the top John the Baptist at his right and Moses at his left.18 All of them are depicted in rectangular miniatures. Even more impressive, are the other four allegorical personifications shown at the corners of the illustrations, this time depicted in circular miniatures. These are fortitudo (from the perspective of the central figuration at the right had) and prudentia (left) at the top, iustitia (right) and temperantia (left) at the bottom. The four cardinal virtues serve as admonition to stay aware of what is right and wrong in studying, reading, learning and in human knowledge. Based on the rule of the cardinal virtues, Archbishop Frederick can give his confession as he does on his banderole: Quomodo dilexi legem tuam [domine] tota die meditatio mea est (“O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day”), following psalm 118.19 And finally Christ, shown as risen from the dead in the center of the illumination and directly above Archbishop Frederick, holds a banderole quoting from a chapter of the gospel of Saint John: si quis diligit me sermonem meum servabit et Pater meus diliget eum et ad eum veniemus et mansiones apud eum faciemus (“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him”).20 Following the text of the gospel, this quotation would be Christ’s response to the confession of Frederick, since the first words of the chapter in the gospel read: respondit Iesus et dixit ei (“Jesus answered unto him and said unto him”). The house of the wise man is, so to say, the house where God himself can be found. The mansio, the house where the message of the

18 The description of details here follows an interpretation from inside the picture. So the position at the right side of the central figuration is of higher value than the one at its left. The point of view of the spectator is, logically, exactly the other way round. He finds, what is at the right side, at the left of the picture, and vice versa. 19 Ps. 118: 97. Biblia Vulgata (see above, n. 10), 2: 926. English trans. Holy Bible (see above, n. 9), Ps. 119 [Latin numbering]: 97, p. 606. 20 John, 14: 23. Biblia Vulgata (see above, n. 10), 2: 1686. Holy Bible (see above, n. 9), p. 999.

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Bible and of the cardinal virtues are respected, is in this case, the house of books, the library of Archbishop Frederick. Liberty and limit of this knowledge transform it. It is no longer just a collection of books, ideas or thoughts, but a safeguard for them from evil inside its house and lead it to be substantially more than knowledge, it becomes wisdom (sapientia). Charles V of France in the late 14th century was looking for the same ideal: to become not only a learned, but a wise king, “le roi sage” instead of simply “un roi lettré”. Significantly enough, in our times both terms are attributed to Charles, as if there were no difference of meaning.21 When, in contrast, Christine de Pisan (1365–1429/30), daughter of the king’s court astrologer, was asked by the Duke of Burgundy to write his biography she intended to stress his virtues as a perfect governor. She entitled her portrayal, which she wrote in 1404, as Le livre des faits et bonnes moeurs du sage roy Charles V.22 She repeatedly underlines his wisdom und virtue and she proves his prudence after having seriously studied sciences, as it is already mentioned at the very beginning of the text: Cy commence à parler des vertus du roy Charles, et premierement de sa prudence et sagece.23 Because of their greater value compared to other virtues, prudence and wisdom (prudentia and sapientia) are the most important ones, she writes, and therefore the king has been told them in his education at court. Moreover, wisdom is as well learned knowledge, science and prudence (c’est assavoir de sagece, el quel terme ou seul mot peut estre compris sapience, science et prudence).24 Christine really lays high emphasis upon the final sentence: king’s wisdom, to the extent that the third and last part of her text is entirely concentrated on it.25

21 See Françoise Autrand, Charles V, le sage (Paris, 1994); Quillet, Charles V, le roi lettré (see above, n. 7). 22 Christine de Pisan, Livre des fais (see above, n. 16). Cp. Christine de Pisan, Le livre des Faits et Bonnes Moeurs du roi Charles V. le Sage, eds. Eric Hicks and Thérèse Moreau (Paris, 1997). 23 Christine de Pisan, Livre des fais (see above, n. 16), 1. 22. 59. 24 Ιbid., 2. 1. 7. 25 Ibid., 2. 1.: Cy commence la table des rubriches de la tierce partie de ce livre, laquelle ditte partie parle de sagece. A significant explanation 1. 3. 9.: . . . que je traitteray de noblece de courage, chevalerie et sagece, en distinction de .iii. parties . . .

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3. Knowing and Getting Admonished—The Chances of Knowledge The most convincing personification of an ideal, wise and just king has always been King Solomon of Israel, who lived in the 10th century before Christ if we can believe the scarce historical documentation.26 The Liber proverbiorum as well as the Liber ecclesiastes in the Old Testament were thought to be written or at least authorized by him, although modern judgments disagree. So it is not surprising that the topic of the beatus vir qui invenit sapientiam et qui affluit prudentia as a representative rule for the king’s studies is taken from the Liber proverbiorum of King Solomon. The following verse in the Bible, not quoted in the illustrated manuscript from 1372, but of course well-known, explains a promise of great importance in particular for kings: melior est adquisitio eius [sc. prudentiae] negotiatione argenti et auro primo fructus eius pretiosior est cunctis opibus et omnia quae desiderantur huic non valent conparavi (“for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her”).27 The value of wisdom and prudence is much higher than the one of secular richness—a message which concludes a series of warnings to keep away from vanity (vanitas vanitatum). Even more clearly addressed to the king follows a remarkable word in the Liber ecclesiastes: melior est puer pauper et sapiens rege sene et stulto qui nescit providere in posterum (“better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished”).28 The king’s library had at least two manuscripts of the Solomon-tradition ready to be used in any case.29 Those sentences were often quoted, not only because they transformed an old, biblical tradition of legitimizing kingship, and of

26 Cp. Pekka Särkiö, “Salomo/Salomoschriften,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 29: 724–7; Hendrik J.W. Drijvers, “Sapientia Salomonis, Psalmen Salomos und Oden Salomos,” ibid., pp. 730–32. To the book ecclesiastes of the latin Bible: Diethelm Michel, “Koheletbuch,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 19: 345–56. 27 Prov. 3: 14–15. Biblia Vulgata (see above, n. 10), 2: 960. Holy Bible (see above, n. 9), p. 618. 28 Eccles. 4: 13. Biblia Vulgata (see above, n. 10), 2: 990. Holy Bible (see above, n. 9), p. 643. 29 Bibliothèque royale (see above, n. 7), p. 98, no. 478 (Les Paraboles Salmon & le livre de Ecclesiastiques); p. 100, no. 487 (Cantica Canticorum, Sapiencie, Ecclesiasticus).

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criticising kings in case of mistakes. They also included another message: the king does not necessarily have to know everything himself, nor does he have to learn what is important for government by poring over books himself. The picture of Charles V, “le roi sage”, personally reading in his “studio”, is in this respect extraordinary. But then what is meant by the rex stultus qui nescit providere in posterum of the Liber ecclesiastes? A foolish king is the one who refuses to listen to his counsellors and forgets to look ahead and take care for the future. Learning by admonishment, the bonum consilium of his intimates, his friends at court and first of all his learned counsellors, clerical and secular, has always been the advice given to princes and kings.30 Shortly after having been crowned King of France at the cathedral of Reims in 1364, Charles V received the acclamation of all high-ranking clerics and noblemen, among them the leading bishops and dukes, at the Royal chapel in Paris. More than ten years later, when Emperor Charles IV paid him a visit, King Charles V ordered an illustration of that symbolic act as part of the official court-chronicle, the Grandes Chroniques de France, which then kept being continued. (see Fig. 3)31 These chronicles also contain a great number of illustrations of the writer or chronicler at work, all arranged in just the same way Charles was shown in his “studio”.32 The message here is twofold: The reading king is “at work” too, and his studies belong to his acts of government. His writers and chroniclers are doing their work, as he himself does his own, and they are acting under his command, following his interests. Returning to the scene of acclamation. The chronicles of course did not depict exactly what happened in the history of the realm of France. They show a later generations’ attempt to understand their own time by interpreting the history of their predecessors. Although this is not explained in the picture itself, members of a contemporary

30 Cp. the recent study on the subject of regimina principum: Ulrike Grassnick, Ratgeber des Königs. Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherideal im spätmittelalterlichen England, Europäische Kulturstudien 15 (Cologne, 2004). 31 “Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, Paris, about 1370–1379,” in Paris 1400. Les arts sous Charles VI (Paris, 2004), p. 38, no. 5, picture p. 39. 32 Bernard Guenée, “Die Grandes Chronique de France. Die Geschichte eines Erfolges,” in Jean Fouquet: Die Bilder der Grandes Chroniques de France. Mit der originalen Wiedergabe aller 51 Miniaturen von Manuscrit français 6465 der Bibliothèque nationale in Paris und 60 Schwarzweiß-Abbildungen, eds. François Avril, MarieThérèse Gousset, and Bernard Guenée (Graz, 1987), pp. 71–114, here p. 84.

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Fig. 3. The acclamation of king Charles V.

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court undoubtedly knew that the acclamation of Charles V took place at the Royal chapel, within a brilliant and extraordinary “two-storey” architecture: the official act happened, as was customary, in the king’s chapel on the first floor, while the lower-ranking followers were waiting at ground level. The arrangement of this picture implies learning, a knowledge about social order and hierarchy in the kingdom of France. It therefore had to be shown and explained to foreign kings, whenever they came to Paris as visitors. The message they learned by looking at the picture was simple but impressive: the power of the king of France was based on succession from father to son, on the unconditional support by the kingdom’s bishops and princes and on the respect of the whole people. Finally, historical knowledge as an argument of legitimisation was used extensively in the political theory of the French kingdom. Shortly before 1380, at the same time as the acclamation scene, a new sceptre incorporating a sophisticated political iconography was made for Charles V. A figure of the king is shown on top, which is nearly identical in gesture and attributes of royal authority to imperial statues, and, in particular to late medieval conceptions of the Emperor Charlemagne. In contrast to the actual French crown, this king’s crown resembles the imperial crown, which was in later medieval times associated with Charlemagne even though it belongs to a later time. (see Fig. 4)33 We return to Charles V in his “studio”: it was all this that a king had to learn in order to be aware of the honor of kingship, of the chances and risks of political intimacy to seculars and clerics, and of the rights and duties of a royal governor. Exactly these topics were covered in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, which summarized historical knowledge as well as practical contemporary experience.34 The Policraticus could be used as a manual for kings. Read as a Regimen principum, it explained the order of government and society, and in this respect constituted the type of admonishment, which, in the words of the Liber ecclesiastes, the wise king had to heed with care and responsibility. Even though written between 1156 and 1159, the Policraticus obviously had not lost its value as an admonishment for kings in late

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Sceptre, Paris, shortly before 1380, in Paris 1400 (see above, n. 31), pp. 38–41, picture p. 39. 34 Cp. here and to the following details: Hans-Werner Goetz, “Johannes von Salisbury,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters 5: 599–601.

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Fig. 4. Sceptre, made for king Charles V, showing the emperor Charlemagne.

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medieval Europe. For that reason it was copied, translated and quoted time and again. Nonetheless its value was not only that of a manual. As the subtitle shows, there is powerful criticism in it: Policraticus sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum (“Policraticus or about the ridiculousness of courtiers and the tracks of philosophers”). Similar in its critical stance was the De nugis curialium of Walter Map (1196/97–1130/35), written probably shortly after 1180.35 But unlike the Policraticus, the text of Walter Map was hardly read and it remained unknown at late medieval courts. The French translation of the Policraticus, made for Charles V in 1372, begins with commentaries of the translator: diverses opinions de beatitude et felicite que pluseurs genz ont par le monde.36 Politics is of course central to what the king should know, but it is not enough: a learned king, “le roi sage”, has a broader grasp of reality, for instance of the value of virtues, or the beauty of arts or music. He does so by cultivating sapientia and prudentia, as we already know. 4. Limiting and Translating—Politics of Knowledge We may by now conclude that this broad definition of the king’s knowledge and wisdom was alluded to in the famous sentence of William of Malmesbury (about 1090–1143),37 quoted by his contemporary John of Salisbury: Rex illiteratus quasi asinus coronatus [est] (“an uneducated king is like a crowned donkey”). This does not necessarily mean that a king has to study scientific Latin texts on his own, but that he should be able to read, even if only vernacular texts. To commission translations of Latin texts, as did Charles V of France, could not be faulted, and gave proof of his personal interest in learning. More than any other French king, and more than other European monarchs of his time, Charles V initiated a universally praised programme of translation. He ordered translations of a collection of the most famous texts of the Latin tradition, and he encouraged contemporary authors to write in French 35 Elisabeth Stein, “Walter Map,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters 8: 1997–8. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. M.R. James, rev. C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors, OMT (Oxford, 1983). 36 Charles V dans son étude (see above, n. 7). 37 Cp. Georg Wieland, “Wilhelm von Malmesbury,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters 9: 173–4.

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instead of Latin. Two principles served as criteria for the selection of those texts: the king and his noble counsellors were to know about the most important testimonies of learned tradition, and equally, maybe primarily, about instructions in the art of government. In other words, the king had the liberty to learn and to know, but within limitations: He had to learn and to know what was right for him as the governing prince and as a Christian. The beatus vir is a man—no matter if king or not—who avoids curiosity. Already in late Antiquity, the fathers of the Church had put the verdict of curiositas on the wrong way of looking for knowledge. But the meaning of curiosity changed during the Middle Ages, and so did the selection of contents: from pre-christian traditions in the beginning, to all sorts of knowledge not fitting to one’s own status in later times. Church regulations meant to protect the soul from evil are only one example of development in this context. It led to fights against heresy and its increase from the 12th century onwards, particularly dangerous where religious movement and political opposition coincided, as in the south of France in the 13th century, or in Bohemia in the 15th. Increasingly, secular and ecclesiastical rulers had to depend on theological judgements to determine if a case in question really was to be taken as heresy. In the 14th century at the latest, it was known and accepted all over Europe that the faculty of theology at the University of Paris was the institution in charge. Academic knowledge acquired the international authority to judge on religious as well as intellectual theories. Although university men were still mostly clerics, academic tribunals, unlike the church, were not primarily interested in a single man’s ideas, but in their expression, his preaching or teaching. In 1277, the Bishop of Paris condemned passages mostly from the works of Aristotle, in particular from his natural philosophy, which were not concordant with church doctrine. He did so because, firstly, they had been taught repeatedly and, second, not within the faculty of theology, but the one of the arts. This made clear and official that artists should not be allowed to deal with subjects of theology. It was still this argument which made Jean Gerson (1363–1429), chancellor of the University of Paris, write against the curiosity of the artists three centuries later.38

38 Jean Gerson, “Oeuvres complètes,” in L’oeuvre magistrale 3, ed. Palemon Glorieux, (Paris, 1962), Nr. 99, pp. 224–49: Contra curiositatem studentium. Cp. Martin

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Limitation of knowlege became a systematically used instrument of control in the academic world. Predominantly, this was about defining university disciplines and defending their integrity against each other. Even the identity of academic sciences as a whole had to be defended against insurrections by representatives of practical experience, for instance in the faculty of medicine. The verdict of illegitimate curiosity again helped to repel offenders and competitors. In most cases, such acts of limitation did not intend to convince the other side (and could not, in fact). But they suppressed criticism, even if for a short time only. In a parallel development, the acts of limiting knowledge became an increasingly elaborate defence of faith and religious truth. Repeatedly, decisions had to be reached on whether the teaching of a scholar was concordant with official doctrines of the church in content and wording. Significantly, ecclesiastical authorities reserved the final judgment. In this respect, academic control of knowledge quite often came in touch with the fight against heresy, although it remained a separate sphere. Censorship was gradually becoming more institutionalized within the European universities from the 13th century onwards.39 But it was not always successful: While acts of limiting knowledge could prohibit certain teachings, they also made them more interesting, most especially to those who insisted on the liberty of knowledge. Aristotelian ideas in the Faculty of the arts, for instance, were definitely forbidden by the bishop’s act of 1277. In fact, they continued to be taught, first behind the scenes and later openly again.40

Kintzinger, “Studens artium, Rector parochiae und Magister scolarum im Reich des 15. Jahrhunderts,” in Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 26 (1999), 1–41, at 39. Recently published: G. Matteo Roccati, “A Gersonian text in defense of poetry: De Laudibus elegie spiritualis (ca. 1422–1425),” Traditio 60 (2005), 369–85. 39 Luca Bianchi, Censure et liberté intellectuelle à l’université de Paris (XIIIe–XIVe siècles) (Paris, 1999); J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Censure and heresy at the university of Paris 1200–1400 (Philadelphia, 1998); Perez Zagorin, How the idea of religious tolerance came to the West (Princeton, 2003); Luca Bianchi, “Prophanae novitates et doctrinae peregrinae. La méfiance à l’égard des innovations théoriques aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Tradition—Innovation—Invention. Fortschrittverweigerung und Fotschrittsbewusstsein im Mittelalter, ed. Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Scrinium Friburgense 18 (Berlin, 2005), pp. 211–29. 40 Cp. Alain Boureau, “L’individu, sujet de la vérité et suppôt de l’erreur. Connaissance et dissidence dans le monde scolastique (vers 1270–vers 1330),” in L’individu au Moyen Age: individuation et individualisation avant la modernité, eds. Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Dominique Iogna-Prat (Paris, 2005); Malcolm de Mowbray, “1277 and all that—students and disputations,” Traditio 57 (2002), 217–38.

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In the end, limitation could not overcome liberty. And although censors necessarily had to determine whether new ideas were right or wrong, truth or error, there were no real rules for scientific ethics at the Medieval universities. Apparently, no direct link led from the teaching of ethics, mostly taken from the writings of Aristotle (and therefore put under suspicion themselves), to a practical set of rules, an ethic for research and teaching.41 Censorship was normally intended to clarify disciplinary conflicts between different faculties, sciences, traditions or ideologies, and, of course, to supervise up the sciences’ correlation to ecclesiastical and secular value systems. These reflections and discussions within the academic world do not seem to have had any connection to the topic of the learned king. As a matter of fact, medieval princes and kings did not usually study at universities. No institution of control, neither ecclesiastical nor secular, was able to limit a king’s interest, or to select what he was to read and know. Competition between academic disciplines and quarrels between theoretical and practical knowledge were obviously of no relevance to him. But of course the king had to know how to differentiate between right and wrong, truth and error, as mentioned above. The king didn’t need to fear someone’s formal censorship. As we have already seen however, the exciting controversies within the contemporary academic world did not pass by the king completely.42 On the contrary, as an authority responsible, he occasionally had to confirm ecclesiastical judgements about other people’s writing or teaching. Admonished to look for good and wise counsellors and to follow their advice, kings were by no means excluded from the conflict between liberty and limited knowledge. They were, in fact, concerned doubly: as princes and representatives of royal authority, and as individuals with personal interests. In its first periods of development the University of Paris substantially profited from the king’s support. The advantage he got from the university was no less evident: learned counsellors, lawyers

41 Cp. Georg Wieland, “Reception” (see above, n. 15), pp. 657–72. Wieland stresses that Aristotle’s Ethics, although criticised, never was condemned officially. But in general it received less attention than Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy and metaphysics, p. 657. 42 Cp. a recent study on a typical conflict within late medieval academic world: Sigrid Müller, “Pierre d’Ailly und die ‘richtige’ Thomas-Interpretation: Theologischhermeneutische Prinzipien als Grundlage des Wegestreits,” Traditio 60 (2005), 339–68. Bianchi, “Prophanae novitates” (see above, n. 39). Jacques Verger, “Spes proficiendi. Travail intellectuel et progrès individuel au Moyen Age,” Traditio 60 (2005), 277–91.

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and doctors of medicine in particular. Well educated secretaries, qualified for more than just the writing of Latin formulas, were increasingly needed for the royal administration all over the kingdom. While the king had traditionally been admonished to keep good counsellors and to listen to their advice, the role of a learned, if not a wise counsellor of the ruler became increasingly professionalized. In the late Middle Ages, the king’s counsellors were not only noblemen and bishops. The ruler’s trust was also placed in academically trained lawyers and doctors of law (doctor legum or iutriusque iuris). From a man with a personal relationship to the king, the counsellor became a learned and trained specialist, employed at court with a special function. These men were taken from the universities, which, independent from ecclesiastical institutions and under the influence of royal politics, played an increasingly great role in establishing the government of a “modern” kingdom. The link between knowledge and power became more obvious. Partly as a consequence of this professionalization in counselling, kings now took greater personal interest in understanding the precepts held up to them as decisive for good, just and “modern” government. Very probably, King Charles’s programme of translating texts from Latin into French, in order to collect important texts in the royal library and even to read them himself, may be understood in this context. In the words of Christine de Pisan: Ne dirons nous encore de la sagece du roy Charles, la grant amour qu’il avoit à l’estude et a science; et qu’il soit ainsi bien le demoustroit par la belle assemblée des notables livres et belle librairie, qu’il avoit de tous les plus notables volumes.43 In 1372, the same year in which Charles V had himself depicted in his “studio” on the title page of the translation of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, another French translation was made in Paris, the one of Nicolas Oresme’s (1322–1382) Ethics. In contrast to John of Salisbury, Nicolas was a contemporary and, most important, close to King Charles, who trusted him and honoured him for his service and his scientific studies by giving him high-ranking ecclesiastical and secular positions. He was made bishop of Lisieux in 1377, and given the honorary title of a king’s counsellor in 1378.44 In his preaching and writings, Nicolas was critical of church and government, in his scientific analysis, he

43 44

Pisan, livre des fais (see above, n. 16), 2.12.42. Pascale Bourgain, “Oresme, Nicole,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters 6: 1447–48.

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was an Aristotelian of strict denomination. Between 1365 and 1370, he started to translate the most important works of Aristotle into French.45 He was apparently supported, if not motivated, by the translating programme Charles V had initiated, only a year after his coronation.46 As contemporary catalogues prove, Charles actually collected several texts on ethics, mostly in french translation.47 In about 1374, Oresme finished his translations, which included his own commentary on the translated texts, the Aristotelian Ethics, Politics and Economics. As we have already seen, it was usual and possibly expected in the king’s translation programme for the translator to supply learned commentary. Probably Christine de Pisan’s explanation, the books collected by the king were volumes qui par souverains auteurs aient esté compilés, soit de la Sainte Escripture, de theologie, de philosophie et de toutes sciences tells us about the practice of learned men in preparing texts for the king’s personal study.48 In the case of the Aristotelian ethics, Nicolas Oresme often had to construct and invent special terminology, which also gives them special importance for the development of French as a language of science. In the book of the Aristotelian ethics translated by Nicolas Oresme, a small illustration shows a university scene, the lecture of a professor (a doctor in contemporary terminology) in front of his students. (see Fig. 5)49 Among them, and given pride of place in the illustration, a king is sitting on the bench and looking into his book—very probably an Aristotelian text, though the writing on the pages can’t be read—, to recognize the commentary given by the professor. The figuration of a king as student was, of course, not meant to have realistic, but symbolic meaning. As has often been explained, the professor might symbolically represent Aristotle, the philosophus, as he was called in the Middle Ages. The king would then possibly represent Alexander

45

Cp. C.H. Lohr, “The medieval interpretation of Aristotle,” in Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (see above, n. 15), pp. 80–98. 46 Quillet, Charles V (see above, n. 7), p. 19. 47 Bibliothèque royale (see above, n. 7), p. 37, no. 148; p. 48, no. 204; p. 105, no. 520. 48 Pisan, Livre des fais (see above, n. 16), 2.12.42. 49 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert I, MS 9505–6 (formerly 2902), fo. 2v. Cp. Maistre Nicole Oresme, Le livre de éthiques. D’Aristote. Published from the text of ms 2902, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, ed. Albert Douglas Menut (New York, 1940); Claire Richter Sherman, “Some Visual Definitions in the Illustrations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics in the French Translations of Nicole Oresme,” The Art Bulletin 59 (1977), 320–30.

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Fig. 5. King Charles V listens to a lecture.

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the Great, who had been taught by Aristotle, and who is in fact, often shown as his pupil in scenes like this. Nevertheless, the king here surely is no other else than the actual ruler of France, Charles V, who commissioned Nicolas Oresme’s translation. He is therefore shown as a learned man, studying in person by listening to university lecturers, reading their commentaries on traditional texts and their advice for government. What is to be seen here is the “roi lettré” and the beatus vir qui invenit sapientiam from John of Salisbury’s Policraticus. The link between the two books translated simultaneously at the king’s command is very apparent. Another symbol in the background underlines the context alluded to here: the wall of the room shows, in red color, the fleur-de-lis, the heraldic symbol of the kingdom of France. Normally, it is portrayed in gold on a blue background, as the coat Charles V is wearing in the picture of the Policraticus. Not least, the artist’s way of painting the king’s figure, his head and crown, is very similar to the one of the John of Salisbury translation. The interpretation of the image of Charles V in his “studio” might therefore be relevant for the illustration of the Oresme as well. Further research will have to determine whether there was a special programme of identifying Charles V as a “roi lettré” or “roi sage” in the prefaces, commentaries and illustrations within the manuscripts collected by him. For now, it may be taken as established that he did indeed intend to connect knowledge and power in his self-representation. 6. Limits and Ethics or: What is Still Obvious Translating the learned Latin tradition in the Middle Ages meant more than giving the king a chance to read it personally. Noble society at court as a whole, was possibly able to read it without any public or ecclesiastic control. Through translation, Aristotelian ideas, so far criticised and partly suppressed by the church, were now set free for everybody’s personal interest. As recent research has explained in great detail, when scholastic liberty and logic had their breakthrough from the late 11th and the 12th century onwards, two other rather “modern” ideas were developing simultaneously: those of individuality and intention.50 They are not in 50 Cp. Benoît Grévin, “L’écriture du latin médiéval (XIIe–XIVe siècle). Les paradoxes d’une stylistique,” in L’individu au Moyen Age (see above,

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focus here, but the conflicts inherent in these ideas and the authorities’ tendencies to limit and control individual knowledge are, of course, not to be underestimated.51 It can also be said that the late medieval learned king is by no means a result of those tendencies. Charles V was indeed extraordinary as a book-collector, but not the only “roi lettré” of his time. To admonish him, or, from his own point of view, to be conscious about the necessity to collect, to read and to learn the right, good and useful knowledge, and to avoid dealing with evil and error, had to be part of his programme. Therefore, the warning to look for wisdom and prudence has to be taken seriously. In so far, things had not substantially changed between the 12th century—the time of Archbishop Frederick of Cologne, who presented himself in his library as the house of knowledge and virtue—and the 14th century. What in the Middle Ages was expressed through the topics of virtues, the cardinal virtues in particular, and gathered under the heading of sapientia and prudentia, has developed in various ways since then. Both these words meant categories of interpreting knowledge (artes or scientiae). Wisdom (sapientia) was the correct way to deal with knowledge, supported by honorable intentions and responsibility. Wisdom mainly legitimized knowledge by connecting it to religion, defining it as the truth of God. Prudence, in contrast, usually emphasized functional aspects. Legitimation lay in its effectiveness, for instance in government. Not surprisingly, in early modern times to act with intelligence and cleverness was defined as prudentia politica. Although it was not common terminology in the late Middle Ages, prudentia politica very nearly expresses the intention of a king who was reading learned texts with a critical edge, as commentary on government in general and on his own time in particular. So did Charles V, by selecting the works of John of Salisbury as well as the ones of Nicolas Oresme. While sticking to criteria of religious order and referring to traditions of virtues, authors like John of Salisbury and Nicolas Oresme still incorporated critical commentary into their n. 40), pp. 101–14. Hanna Vollrath, “Konfliktwahrnehmung und Konfliktdarstellung in erzählenden Quellen des 11. Jahrhunderts,” in Erscheinungsformen kultureller Prozesse, ed. Wolfgang Raible, ScriptOralia 13 (Tübingen, 1990), pp. 83–102. At the idea of liberty within medieval philosophy and its connection to ethics: G. Essen, “Freiheit,” in Lexikon der Ethik, eds. Jean-Pierre Wils and Christoph Hübenthal (Paderborn, 2003), pp. 101–12, in particular p. 106f. 51 Boureau, “L’individu,” (see above, n. 40), pp. 289–306.

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texts. One could reformulate the question of what is right to know, and give it another connotation, that of the ethics of science. As mentioned before, there seems to be no direct link from the traditional texts to ethics, specifically to the Aristotelian ethics as read and commented in scholastic science, or to principles of an ethic for scientific practice. However, this impression can be deceiving: on one hand, there don’t seem to be connections between texts about the practice of acting rightly and the teaching on ethics in the medieval university. On the other hand, contemporary reflections about what might nowadays be called ‘ethics of scientific practice’ are very evident. Was there an ethic of science in the Middle Ages? A clear judgement doesn’t yet seem possible. This could be a subject of further research, valuable not at least for its continuing relevance. Conflicts between knowledge, wisdom and politics kept developing. Discussions about limiting and controlling scientific development have taken place from the time of Galileo in the 17th century to the beginning of modern natural science, up to the questions about moral integrity and social responsibility of nuclear technology, and, in the beginning of the 21st century, genetic engineering. Although the dramatic and global consequences implied above, are quite different from the effects of medieval scientific strategies, the principles are still similar to what church and university, king and court were reflecting on (not only) under the reign of Charles V in France. To repeat it again: a project of looking for practical ethics in science at the medieval universities remains to be realized. However, fundamental steps have already been taken years ago, for instance in 1971, with David Luscombe’s edition of and commentary on Peter Abelard’s (1079–1142) Ethics, written in about 1140, at the very beginning of scholastic thought and science.52 This scholastic reflection on ethics was not singular at the time. Since the early twelfth century, there had been an increase of interest in ethics within the cathedral schools of France. David Luscombe summarizes: “Ethical thought was promoted in the twelfth century by theologians . . . and by the teachers and students of the liberal arts”.53 Ethics were given a place in the division of sciences. William of Conches (about 1080–1154) wanted ethics to be taught in the schools: After grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and

52 53

Peter Abelard’s Ethics, ed. David Luscombe, OMT (Oxford, 1971). Ιbid., p. xv.

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before theoretical philosophy, he advocated the teaching of practical philosophy, ethics, economics, and finally politics.54 Hugh of St. Victor (about 1096–1141) systematically categorized the arts in his Didascalicon. He emphasizes the virtues in order to attain honorable and useful learned studies (honesta et utiles studia).55 Since, for Hugh, the origins of science are found in practice, he differentiates between theoretical and practical sciences. The practical sciences can be characterized by ethics or morality. Even more so, within the system of sciences, ethics might be part of wisdom (sapientia), because they reflect on and judge about morality. Finally, the subject of ethics is differentiated into personal (ethica solitaria), private (ethica privata) and public ethics (ethica publica).56 The latter, dealing with society and government, might have been a field of development for a specific ethics of the sciences. Hugh unfortunately did not follow this up. Later theologians and philosophers pointed out some of the aspects already treated by Hugh. Engelbert of Admont (about 1259–1331) for instance prefaced his Speculum virtutum with a definition of ethical science (scientia ethica) as being moral and legal. Although he calls his subject an ethical science, which again has to do with judging human acts, government and society, even Engelbert does not formulate rules or criteria for an ethics of the sciences.57 He knew and quoted the Aristotelian Ethics, while Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Abelard were obviously not yet able to do so.58 As David Luscombe has pointed

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Ιbid., p. xviii. Hugo von Sankt Viktor, Didascalicon de studio legendi, 3. 16. 264, 4–6., ed. Thilo Offergeld, Fontes Christiani (Freiburg/Br., 1997). 56 Hugo, Didascalicon, 2. 1. 156, 20–22, 158. 1f. (see above, n. 55); ibid., 16. 182. 14f.; 19. 188. 14f.; 190. 6–24. Cp. Paulus Engelhardt, “Ethik,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters 4: 54–5. Michael Hauskeller, Geschichte der Ethik. Mittelalter (Munich, 1999), passim. Sigrid Müller, “Der Rückgriff auf die antiqui. Oder die Bedeutung der philosophischen Schulen für die mittelalterliche Ethik und ihre Erforschung,” in Ars und scientia im Mittelalter. Ergebnisse interdisziplinärer Forschung. Festschrift Georg Wieland, eds. Cora Dietl and Dörte Helschinger (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 109–23, with annotations to new literature. 57 Engelbert von Admont, “Speculum virtutum,” in Die Schriften des Alexander von Roes und des Engelbert von Admont 2, ed. Karl Ubl, MGH. Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters 1, 2 (Hannover, 2004), 12. 8. 431,10–15. 58 The reflections on Aristotle in the sort of texts of regimina principum is recently studied at by Ilaria Zamuner, “La tradizione romanza del Secretum secretorum pseudo-aristotelico,” Studi Medievali 46 (2005), 31–116. 55

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out, the Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle was not available at the Paris Faculty of Arts before 1215 and then again in 1255.59 Engelbert’s text, written between 1306 and 1313, marks a change between pre- and post-Aristotelian reflections on ethics. As it is well known, the aristotelian ethics was not adopted as a subject of study in the arts faculty of the universities until the second half of the 14th century. Famous philosophers (such as John Duns Scotus or William Ockham) astonishingly did not write commentaries on it.60 Konrad von Megenberg’s Economics, written probably between 1348 and 1352, tries to explain ethics in a strictly Aristotelian manner. He simply states that ethics was another name for moral philosophy.61 In contrast, Engelbert’s definition of a scientia ethica is, although new and extraordinary in its terminology, more or less traditional in its meaning: . . . moralis scientia et legalis, propter inveniendi et dirigendi moralia et legalia, quibus in statu debito regitur et ad bonum suum perducitur vita humana comuniter et privatim. (Moral and legal science, to determine and manage moral and legal things, through which human life is ruled according to its status, and led to its good in public and private).62 He adds that a king or prince, when writing on philosophy, becomes more prudent (magis prudens).63 The context of Engelbert’s reflections on ethics is science as well as government, but he essentially wants to construct a systematical and theoretical order of values. Scholastic theories in the 14th century did not concentrate on university practice of research and teaching, nor did they look for criteria of judgements about what was right or wrong in the academic world. In other words, they did not find a way into modern scientific ethics. Instead, scholastic texts on ethics turned back to the traditional and still topical question of what a king should be taught, and should read and learn, both as prince and individual. This context is well known

59

Luscombe, Medieval Thought (see above, n. 1), p. 84. Wieland, “reception” (see above, n. 15), pp. 657, 660. 61 Konrad von Megenberg, Ökonomik, vol. III, 1. 10. 43, 3f., ed. Sabine Krüger, MGH Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters, vol. III/5.3. (Stuttgart, 1984), Tercia quoque pars philosophie est philosophia moralis, que in genere ethica dicitur. . . . Cp. vol. I, 1. 1. 23, 5ff., ed. Sabine Krüger, MGH Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters, vol. III/5.1. (Stuttgart, 1973); the treatise about the parts of moral philosophy does not use the word ethics. 62 Engelbert, “Speculum” (see above, n. 57), 431, 12–15. 63 Ιbid., p. 431, 15–20. 60

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to us. Consequently, Engelbert explains the four cardinal virtues prudentia, iusticia, fortitudo and temperancia. Those virtues, he says, are necessary for the self-government of everybody.64 Engelbert’s scholastic theory on ethics thus comes back to the order of the house of knowledge, as depicted in Archbishop Frederick’s manuscript illustration from 1130. Abelard’s Ethics about 10 years later marked an important change. He displaced the traditional system of virtues for a new definition of sins, which looked to intent.65 Emphasizing self-knowledge, he focussed on the new tendencies of individualization—closely related to the problem of liberty and limits of knowledge—and he did so in a very specific way.66 For him, man’s faculty of choice was a subject of reflection and he demanded that judgement of the acts of men should take intention into account, as well as practical consequences. Abelard focusses on responsible action by individuals as a necessity of ethics. God’s law, and the advice to cultivate prudence and wisdom, also retained high value. The connection between science and power could have got a strong impetus through the ideas of Abelard—if his texts had been read more intensively than they apparently were. The programme of providing knowledge for the king and court of France in the reign of Charles V was, of course, influenced by scholastic thought. The link between knowledge and politics seems to have been established by tradition and by the translation of commentaries on Aristotelian ethics, from Abelard up to Nicolas Oresme. But to repeat it again, it obviously was not the theory of ethics and moral philosophy which led to innovations in this field. On the contrary, practical issues and the traditional question of which kind of knowledge was good for a king, in the end resulted in change. “Le roi sage” Charles was a representative of traditional legitimisation of royal government as well an example of modern, learned, effective kingship. His traditional order of virtues, in particular prudentia and sapientia, provided him with a means of selection of knowledge which avoided irritation and destruction. Liberty and limits of knowledge

64

Ιbid., p. 204, 18f. Luscombe, Abelard’s Ethics (see above, n. 52), pp. xxxii–xxxv. Hauskeller, Ethik (see above, n.56), pp. 123, 145–8. 66 Cp. Peter von Moos, “L’individu ou les limites de l’institution ecclésiale,” in L’individu au Moyen Age (see above, n. 40), pp. 271–88. 65

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had reached a temporary balance at his court. We could possibly take it as a proof of a practice of ethics on knowledge at the royal court. But was there time an ethics of scientific practice in the Middle Ages at the same? It might have been so, although, at first glance, it is not readily apparent. If scientific practice were put into focus, not in the sense of systematizing theoretical academic disciplines, but as a social practice and political balance between the liberty and limit of knowledge which existed in late medieval universities, obviously, even this question might be answered.

PETER ABELARD’S THEORY OF VIRTUES AND ITS CONTEXT John Marenbon The relationship between power and philosophical knowledge is sometimes difficult to plot, but ethical theory may provide a point of direct contact, since it is a field where speculation and analysis can be used to endorse or prohibit different sorts of behaviour and ways of life. Thus ethical arguments both exercise direct power, and may be used, distorted or rejected by those in positions of power. One important problem in medieval Christian ethics is the place of natural virtues. Every thinker accepted that there are the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, which only Christians or quasi-Christians can possess. But they also discussed a wider set of virtues—especially the four, which Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, had labelled, as ‘cardinal’: prudence, justice, courage, temperance and their subdivisions—which, they knew, had been central elements in pagan Greek and Roman moral theory. Some of them claimed, however, that, although pagans used the names of these virtues, only Christians could be genuinely prudent, just, courageous or temperate; in short, they rejected natural virtues. Others distinguished between pagan and Christian ways of having these virtues: they accommodated but, to varying extents, subordinated natural virtues. Others seem to have fully accepted natural virtues, since they considered the same natural virtues as valuable for Christians and pagans alike. In the following pages, I shall consider to which of these categories Abelard belongs, and how his attitude to natural virtues compares with that of the early medieval ethical tradition. In each of its aspects, this study continues from and pays tribute to the work of David Luscombe, as the editor of two of Abelard’s most important ethical texts and of a pioneering study, still unreplaced, of Abelard’s early influence.1

1 Peter Abelard’s ‘Ethics’, ed. and transl. David Luscombe, OMT (Oxford, 1971); the Sententiae in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 6, CCCM 14 (Turnhout, 2006)—a volume prepared with the assistance of J. Barrow and C. Mews; The School of Peter Abelard. The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the. Early Scholastic Period (Cambridge, 1969).

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Natural Virtues in the Medieval Period before Abelard No other Christian writer, and probably no other writer at all, had so profound an influence on early medieval philosophy as Augustine. Augustine clearly falls into the group of theorists who reject natural virtues. He considers, along with many ancient theorists, that a virtue is not just a disposition to behave in a certain way, but to behave in that way as a means of achieving the good. But humans, he argues in his Contra Iulianum, can reach their good only through faith in Christ. Those who lack faith in Christ will not, therefore, reach the good and so will not be helped to reach it by any of their disposition. Therefore they do not have any genuine virtues.2 Augustine then compares their apparent virtues to those of a miser who exercises prudence, justice, courage and temperance in order to gain money. Although his position was not always so definite as here, and it has even been questioned whether he was really committed to denying that any pagan was virtuous, Augustine clearly did not want to admit any virtue in the true sense which did not have its basis in the theological virtue of charity, for which faith is a prerequisite. Early medieval thinkers would certainly have had ample encouragement from various statements in his works to reject natural virtues, and many writers followed this lead. Some expressed themselves even more harshly than Augustine at his fiercest. For example, in the eleventh century Bruno of Segni declared that the seeming virtues of Jews, heretics, pagans and philosophers (philosophi) were like false gold and should be shunned as if they were death or poison; nothing, he says elsewhere, is a virtue if it does not have a celestial origin.3 Others simply assumed that prudence, justice, temperance and courage were specifically Christian virtues: this attitude is displayed throughout the Carolingian tradition

2 Cf. Contra Iulianum 4.3.19: “Sed hoc summum bonum praestari hominibus non potest, nisi per Christum et hunc crucifixum, cuius morte mors vincitur, cuius vulneribus natura nostra sanatur. Ideo iustus ex fide Christi vivit. Ex hac enim fide prudenter, fortiter, temperanter, et iuste, ac per hoc his omnibus veris virtutibus recte sapienterque vivit, quia fideliter vivit. Si ergo ad consequendam veram beatitudinem, quam nobis immortalem fides quae in Christo est vera promittit, nihil prosunt homini virtutes; nullo modo verae possunt esse virtutes.” 3 See his Sententiae 2.12 (PL 165, col. 940CD) and his Expositio in Exodum (PL 164, 319A), as quoted in István Bejczy: “Kings, Bishops, and Political Ethics: Bruno of Segni on the Cardinal Virtues,” Mediaeval Studies 64 (2002), 267–86, where further examples of a similar stance (by, for instance, Rupert of Deutz, are given).

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of Biblical exegesis4 and, for example, in the detailed discussion of the virtues in Ermanrich of Ellenwangen’s letter to Grimaldus from the late ninth century.5 At the end of the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury is interested in just one of the cardinal virtues, justice, which he treats in a highly original and acute way, within the framework of Christian theology.6 Anselm’s namesake, who taught theology at Laon at the turn of the twelfth century, talks about the virtues in just one of the Sentences reliably attributed to him, and he takes it for granted that they are based on charity.7 A very different attitude to natural virtue is found in the widelyread Formula vitae honestae by Martin, bishop of Braga, in the 570s. It presents the cardinal virtues without Christian colouring, to such an extent that from the twelfth-century onwards it was usually thought to be by Seneca (and may well be closely based on a lost Senecan text). The Formula is addressed to a layman, King Miro, and it is with this lay audience of a king and his courtiers in mind that Martin writes that he is not aiming setting out the “arduous and perfect things that are brought about by a few outstanding worshippers of God” but what “can be fulfilled even by laymen who live rightly and worthily without the commandments of Holy Scripture just by the natural law of human intelligence.”8 It would make no sense for Martin to write such a treatise if he did not think that these purely natural virtues were valuable to some extent. His implicit theory divides Christian society into the lay majority and the clerical (probably monastic) elite, and seems to suggest that the majority can lead a good life by following natural virtue, as shared with and formulated by, pagans. Just over two centuries after Martin, Alcuin presents an unexpectedly nuanced view of the natural virtues. From some of his work, such as De animae ratione, where each of the four virtues is defined as a way of loving or serving God, he might seem to reject them, at least by passing over them in silence. But his treatise De rhetorica et de

4 See Sibylle Mähl, Quadriga virtutum. Die Kardinaltugenden in der Geistesgeschichte der Karolingerzeit, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 9 (Cologne, 1969), pp. 35–49. 5 See Mähl, Quadriga, pp. 112, 149–56. 6 See especially his De casu diaboli, especially chapters 15–17. 7 Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, 6 vols. (Louvain and Gembloux, 1942–62), 5: 59 (no. 69, from the Liber Pancrisis). 8 Martini episcopi Bracarensis opera omnia, ed. Claude Barlow (New Haven, 1950), p. 237, lines 18–22.

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virtutibus shows a different attitude.9 The virtues are discussed in a textbook of rhetoric because Cicero discusses them at the end of his De inventione, which is Alcuin’s main source. Had Alcuin merely summarized Cicero’s presentation of the virtues, the fact that they are not linked to Christianity could be passed over as mere fidelity to a source. But, in fact, Alcuin uses the dialogue-form of the treatise—his interlocutor is no less than Charlemagne himself—to raise explicitly the question of philosophical and Christian ethics. Following Cicero (II.52), Alcuin explains to the king that the things which should be sought for their own sake are virtue, knowledge, truth and (his own addition) good love (amor bonus). “Is it not the Christian religion which commends these?,” asks Charlemagne. Alcuin agrees, but when he is asked what philosophers have to do with them, he replies that “they understood them in human nature and cultivated them with the greatest zeal.” “So what is the difference between such a philosopher and a Christian?”, his pupil enquires, to be answered snappily: “Faith and baptism.” Charlemagne is satisfied enough to ask Alcuin to go ahead with the “philosophical definitions” of the virtues. At the end of the exposition, Charlemagne expresses his distress that many Christians do not follow the virtues: the philosophers followed them because of their intrinsic worth or to earn praise, but Christians have a far better reason, since if they pursue the virtues in faith and charity they are promised the reward of eternal life.10 Alcuin finishes by explaining, at the king’s request, how “these excellent virtues are to be understood and observed in our Christian religion”—justice, for instance, is equated with charity and all the virtues serve the end of loving God and one’s neighbour. It has been rightly pointed out that in all this final section Alcuin is borrowing Augustinian themes and sometimes passages.11 But Alcuin uses Augustine to reach a very unAugustinian position. Although he recognizes that the philosophers had different and lesser reasons for following the virtues than Christians (their intrinsic worth or human praise), he gives no indication that, in his view, that devalued their pursuit—rather, it made it harder. 9 Rhetores latini minores, ed. Karl Halm (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 523–50 for the treatise, especially pp. 548–50. 10 De rhetorica, ed. Halm, p. 549, ll. 28–32: ‘Sed miror nos christanos, si illi philosophi has virtutes ob illarum tantum dignitatem vel laudem vitae servaverunt, cur nos ab his in multis devio errore declinamus, cum haec nunc in fide et caritate observantibus aeternae gloriae ab ipsa veritate. Christo Iesu, praemia pollicentur.’ 11 Mähl. Quadriga, pp. 109–16.

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The virtues are accepted as valuable in themselves but capable of being transformed into something even more precious when understood and cultivated in a Christian manner. Abelard and Natural Virtues Peter Abelard seems to be a thinker who fully accepted natural virtues. Virtues, he thought, were acquired. Basing himself on Aristotle’s Categories, he classifies them among settled states (habitus), and a settled state is acquired “by care and deliberation” (studio ac deliberatione conquisita).12 In Book II of the Theologia Christiana (c. 1125–7), Abelard eulogizes the ancient pagan philosophers as both the theoreticians and the practitioners of virtues, and they are praised especially for some of the virtues like chastity and abstinence that are often considered exclusively Christian.13 And, in his Collationes—a dreamvision dialogue between a Philosopher, a Christian and a Jew—the Philosopher, who is presented as a Gentile, someone without any written law, is allowed to present the virtues and their classification, which are accepted by the Christian without demur. Abelard believes, indeed, that it is normal practice for Christians to accept the philosophers’ account of the virtues: “It should be noted”, he says in the Sententiae, “that the Church Fathers (sancti) did not change either the definitions of the virtues stated by the philosophers or their divisions into species. Rather, they took them from the philosophers, kept them and expounded them carefully.”14 Yet Abelard also insists, along with Augustine, that virtue is charity. In the Sententiae, he begins his treatment of the virtues by saying, “Since therefore charity is the sum of the virtues, and any virtue 12 Peter Abelard, Collationes 111; ed. and trans. John Marenbon and Giovanni Orlandi, OMT (Oxford, 2001), p. 128. In the Sententiae 252, ed, Luscombe, p. 133, line 2997), he explains how a virtue is a good quality of the mind that becomes a settled state through ‘the attachment of our mind; cf. 256 (ed. Luscombe, p. 135, line 3036): qualitatem ex applicatione uenientem). In Scito teipsum (ed. Luscombe, p. 128), he also describes virtues as coming through per applicacionem nostrum—by ‘our attaching them to ourselves’. See also the commentary on the Categories (c. 1118), Peter Abaelards philosophische Schriften, ed. Bernhard Geyer, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 21 (Freiburg, 1919–33), p. 227. 13 Theologia Christiana 2.27–115; ed. Eligius Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 2, CCCM 12 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 143–84. 14 Sententiae 252; ed. Luscombe, p. 132, lines 2992–5; cf. Theologia Christiana 2.27, ed. Buytaert, p. 143, lines 384–8.

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other than it depends on it . . .” and he goes on to accept Augustine’s dictum that every virtue is charity, explaining that for the virtues that are “wills” ( justice and its subdivisions), this equation is literally true, but that temperance and courage, which are “powers”, are rather from charity.15 The same doctrine is found in the Collationes, not just in the mouth of the Christian, but even in that of the Philosopher (referring to Augustine, but not disagreeing with him).16 Moreover, a close link is made between virtues, merit and salvation. Commenting in his Sententiae on Boethius’s definition of virtue as “the best settled disposition of the mind” (habitus mentis optimus), Abelard says that, because people might be chaste or pious but not on account of God, and so these virtues would not serve towards salvation, the word ‘best’ is added to indicate that it is a disposition “which serves towards the best life, that in which merit may be found” (ad uitam optimam uel in quo meritum consistat).17 Abelard’s views about the extent of pagan knowledge of Christian mysteries, his theory of charity and his theory of grace, seem to offer a way to resolve this tension and reconstruct a coherent theory of natural virtue from Abelard’s various remarks about it. Abelard does not praise the philosophers of Greece and Rome as virtuous pagans: he suggests that they were not really pagans at all. They were gentiles “by nation, not by faith”, Abelard insists, who not only practised the virtues but knew the mystery of the Trinity.18 Indeed, although Abelard sometimes talks of their knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity as a revelation, he believed that for God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit is just for God to be powerful, wise and loving, and “no one of

15

Sententiae 251; ed. Luscombe, p. 132, lines 2977–2988; cf 264; ed. Luscombe, p. 139, lines 3164–8. 16 Collationes 117; ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, p. 132. The Christian says (100; ed. Marenbon and Orlandi, 118): “. . . si proprie uirtus intelligatur, que uidelicet meritum apud Deum optinet, sola caritas uirtus appellanda est.” 17 Sententiae 253; ed. Luscombe, p. 133, lines 3006–10; cf. 252; ed. Luscombe, p. 132, line 2991. See also the comment by the Christian in the Collationes quoted in the preceding note. 18 Theologia Christiana 15; ed. Buytaert, p. 139, lines 240–5: “Gentiles fortasse natione, non fide, omnes fuerunt philosophi, sicut de Iob et amicis eius dicitur. Quomodo enim infidelitati ac damnationi eos omnes deputauerimus, quibus, Apostolo quoque attestante, Deus ipse fidei suae arcana ac profunda Trinitatis mysteria reuelauit, et mirae eorum uirtutes et opera a sanctis quoque doctoribus praedicantur . . .”

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intelligence doubts this, whether he or she is a Jew or a Gentile, and it seems that this faith is lacking to no one.”19 Charity, according to Abelard, is “love which is directed towards the end to which it should be directed” and this end is God and our neighbour.20 The pagan philosophers and other good pagans were perfectly capable of grasping this end and aiming towards, and Abelard clearly believes that they did so. Commenting on Horace’s line “The good hate to sin because of their love of virtue”, he adds If the fact that what is said is “because of their love of virtue” rather than “because of their love of God” seems to have less merit for salvation—as if we were able to have any virtue or any good deed which is not according to God and for his sake, it is easy to find this too among the philosophers—philosophers who set up the highest good, which is God, as both the principle, that is the origin and efficient cause, and end, that is the final cause, of all things . . .21

Moreover, Abelard’s theory of grace makes it easily conceivable that a pagan philosopher could act with charity (what, in the philosopher’s language, would be described as justice).22 Abelard avoids an obviously Pelagian position by insisting that grace is necessary in order for a person to be able to act well. But he insists that this grace is freely offered to everyone—those who will be damned and those who will be saved: this grace is effected simply by our believing in the reward of heavenly happiness.23 And Abelard thought that the idea of a heavenly reward was known to everyone, pagans as well as Christians. It might be argued, then, that for Abelard the virtues are never natural they always depend on charity; but charity, and indeed salvation, was offered to and accepted by many who lived before Christ and are usually described as pagans.24

19 Theologia Summi Boni (c. 1120–1), 3.100; ed. Eligius Buytaert and Constant Mews, Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 3, CCCM 13 (Turnhout, 1987), pp. 200–1, lines 1340–3. Abelard copied this passage into both of the two later versions of the Theologia. 20 Sententiae 242 and cf. 244; ed. Luscombe, p. 127, lines 2880–1 and cf. p. 128, lines 2895–6. 21 Theologia Christiana 2.28; ed. Buytaert, pp. 143, line 394–144, line 400. 22 On the identification of pagan justice and Christian charity, see Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 291–92. 23 Commentary on Romans 4.9.21; ed. E. Buytaert, Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 1, CCCM 11 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 240, line 278–242, line 362; cf. Sententiae 278; ed. Luscombe, p. 144, line 3303–145, line 3320. 24 An interpretation along these lines is suggested, briefly but powerfully by István Bejczy in “The Problem of Natural Virtue” in Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth Century, ed. István Bejczy and R.G. Newhauser, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 130

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There is, though, another feature of Abelard’s thought which rules out this way of reconstructing his position. Abelard held the two following positions: (1) No one can be saved without explicit knowledge of Christ.25 (2) All those who have charity are saved.26 From (1) and (2) it follows that (3) All those who have charity have explicit knowledge of Christ, and so (4) Anyone who does not have explicit knowledge of Christ does not have charity. But, if Abelard also held that (5) Some pagans were virtuous but did not have explicit knowledge of Christ, then Abelard is committed to the conclusion that (6) Some pagans were virtuous without charity. And it is exactly this point, (6), which the reconstruction above seeks to deny. Since (1) is a well-attested position of Abelard’s, and (2) is (Leiden and Boston, 2005), pp. 133–54, at 139: “The point is whether or not human beings can develop virtuous habits without grace, and Abelard never said they could. Second, although Abelard stated in his Theologia Christiana that some ancient philosophers possessed the virtues and were saved, he did not say that they acquired the virtues by natural means. Abelard’s point is that since the ancients had the virtues, one must assume that God divulged to them the principles of the faith. Hence, Abelard did not extend the virtues beyond the realm of faith and grace; he rather extended faith, grace and the virtues beyond the world of the chosen people.” See also István Bejczy, “Deeds without Value: exploring a weak spot in Abelard’s ethics,” Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 70 (2003), 1–21, at pp. 4–5. 25 In a passage which he wrote in his earliest version of the Theologia, the Theologia Summi Boni (1120/1) (3.100; ed. Buytaert and Mews, p. 201, lines 1350–1) and copied into the two later versions, Abelard says that the “sum” of human salvation consists in the mystery of the incarnation “without which belief in the other things is in vain”; cf. Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard, pp. 328–29. 26 Collationes (ed. Marenbon and Orlandi) section 105, p. 124: “Nemo quippe cum illa [sc. caritate] perit, sed non omnes in illa equantur.” (The Christian is speaking.)

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not only affirmed explicitly by Abelard but is a fundamental point of Christian doctrine, the only escape from this argument would be to deny that Abelard held (5). But there are a number of strong grounds for supposing that he did indeed believe that some pagans were virtuous without explicit knowledge of Christ:— (a) Abelard does, indeed, talk about the availability of prophecy about the coming of Christ in the ancient world (through the Sibyls, for instance).27 But he does not seem to be claiming that all the faithful Gentiles he discusses believed in Christ (or at least, believed in him during the main part of their lives, during which they acted with outstanding virtue). It is only with regard to Plato that Abelard ventures an allegorical interpretation which discovers in his work a hidden reference to Christ and his crucifixion.28 Otherwise, although he emphasizes that the philosophers knew about God’s triune nature, the immortality of the soul and the rewards and punishments of the afterlife,29 he stops short of suggesting that they knew about the incarnation and Christ’s work (as opposed to Christ as the Wisdom of God). Abelard makes this very clear when he says that, because they accepted all these doctrines, the preaching of the Gospels was taken up by the philosophers more easily than by the Jews, since they found it to be very closely related to them, and perhaps not in disharmony in anything, except perhaps in those things which pertain to the mysteries of the incarnation, sacraments and resurrection.30

He also says, near the end of his treatment of them in Theologia Christiana 2, that the pre-Christian philosophers were so outstanding in their faith and their life that we should not despair of their having been shown what they needed for salvation—a comment which implies that many, at least, of the faithful Gentiles needed, despite their faith, to have other mysteries revealed to them in order to be saved.31

27 Theologia Summi Boni 1.58–61 (ed. Buytaert and Mews, pp. 107, line 592–110, line 668); Theologia Christiana 1.124–9 (ed. Buytaert, pp. 124, line 1644–129, line 1765), 2. 15 (ed. Buytaert, p. 140, lines 250–6); Theologia Scholarium 1.187–93 (ed. Buytaert and Mews [Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 3], pp. 397, line 2235–402, line 2371). 28 Theologia Christiana 2.16; ed. Buytaert, p. 140, lines 257–65. 29 Cf. Theologia Christiana 2.43; ed. Buytaert, p. 149, lines 600–3: “Quibus . . . et fides Trinitatis reuelata est et ab ipsis praedicata, et spes immortalitatis animae et aeternae retributionis exspectata . . .” 30 Theologia Christiana 2.44; ed. Buytaert, p. 140, lines 607–11. 31 Theologia Christiana 2.115; ed. Buytaert, p. 184, lines 1761–9: “Quod si hi [sc. Vespasianus et Traianus imperatores], post Euangelii traditionem, sine fide Iesu Christi uel gratia baptismi, tanta apud Deum ex ante actae uitae meritis obtinuerunt, quid de

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(b) Besides the group, apparently large, of philosophers whose belief in God includes a knowledge of the Trinity, but not of the Incarnation, there are some who, though theists of some sort, appear even more distant from Christian belief. And yet they too are presented as being virtuous. The most striking example is the Philosopher of the Collationes (admittedly, a fictional character in a dream-setting, but one who presumably reflects Abelard’s view of what is possible). It is made fully clear that he does not accept the Christian faith or indeed acknowledge any purely revealed truths. Moreover, Abelard does not make him belong to the school of ancient philosophy which, he believed, came closest to Christianity, but rather casts him as a strange variety of EpicureanStoic.32 He is allowed to present the whole classification of the virtues, and the Christian does not dissent from it, although he is given the chance to do so. It would be bizarre to suppose that the Philosopher is unable to practise these virtues which he understands so well, and there is no hint in the text that such a strange position is being adopted. Moreover, in Theologia Christiana there are some real figures, such as the Emperors Titus and Trajan, whose virtuous lives are praised even though it is made clear that they were outside the Christian faith.33 (c) Abelard writes in the Problemata Heloissae: . . . it accords with piety and reason that we should judge that whoever, recognizing by natural law that God is the creator and recompenser of all things, cling to him with such zeal that they strive in no way to offend him through consent, which is what sin is properly called, are not at all to be damned. We consider that, before the end of such a person’s life, what he or she needs to be taught for salvation will be revealed either through inspiration or through someone sent to instruct about these things, as we read was done with Cornelius about faith in Christ and receiving baptism.34

philosophis ante aduentum Christi, tam fide quam uita clarissimis, diffidere cogamur ne indulgentiam sint assecuti, aut eorum uita et unius Dei cultus—quem ipsi tunc temporis praecipue habuerunt et scribendo praedicauerunt—magna eis a Deo dona tam in hac quam in futura uita non acquisierit et quae necessaria saluti essent ostenderit . . .” 32 On the figure of the Philosopher, see the Introduction to the edition by Marenbon and Orlandi, pp. l–liv. 33 Theologia Christiana 2.109–10 (Titus), 112 (Trajan); ed. Buytaert, pp. 180, line 1645–181, line 1671; 182, lines 1682–1718. 34 Problemata Heloissae 13, PL 178, col. 696a: “Pietati quippe atque rationi convenit, ut quicumque lege naturali creatorem omnium ac remuneratorem Deum recognoscentes, tanto illi zelo adhaerent, ut per consensum, qui proprie peccatum dicitur, eum nitantur nequaquam offendere, tales arbitremur minime damnandos esse: et quae illum ad salutem necessum est addiscere, ante vitae terminum a Deo revelari sive per inspirationem, sive per aliquem directum quo de his instruatur, sicut in Cornelio

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This passage makes clear that, at a time when Cornelius was not a Christian, his behaviour was exemplary. Although Abelard does not refer explicitly to the virtues, it is difficult to see how he would deny that Cornelius was genuinely virtuous, as a result of which he was given the revelation he needed to be saved.35 In view of (a), (b) and (c), it seems impossible to deny that, according to Abelard, some pagans were virtuous without explicit knowledge of Christ and so without charity, and that this contradicts his explicit view that virtue is charity or derives from charity. Yet there are, within Abelard’s own system, the resources to resolve the contradiction. The reason why Abelard insists that explicit knowledge of Christ and his passion is needed for salvation, and therefore in order to have charity, lies in his explanation of why God became incarnate and suffered on the cross. According to Abelard, Christ was crucified because, through this supreme example of self-sacrifice, he made it possible for Christians to be inflamed with a charity that fears nothing.36 On this view, the difference between a person who is virtuous-without-charity and one who is virtuous-with-charity is a matter of degree: the supernatural aid, provided by belief in Christ’s sacrifice, enables a degree of perseverance, even to death, of which unaided humans are incapable. Abelard needed only to propose that there are two degrees of virtue—virtuewithout-charity and virtue-with-charity, perfected virtue—in order to factum esse legimus de fide Christi ac perceptione baptismi.” See also the position attributed to Abelard in a set of questions on the Pauline Epistles printed in the works of Hugh of St Victor, where he makes a clear link between doing as much (in terms of behaving) as a person outside Christianity can, and being granted what is needed for salvation: PL 175, col. 440cd, quoted by Arthur Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der Frühscholastik 1,1 (Regensburg, 1952), p. 251. 35 Cornelius is also discussed in a passage from Scito teipsum (ed. Luscombe, p. 64, lines 16–21) where it is made clear that, had he not been given this special revelation before dying ‘we could not at all dare to promise him life, however good his deeds seemed (quantumcunque bona opera eius uiderentur). Bejczy (“Deeds without Value,” p. 5) emphasizes the word ‘seemed’, using this passage as evidence that Abelard did not think that unbelievers could be virtuous. But the passage loses its point unless Cornelius was genuinely virtuous enough to deserve the revelation he was given. It is, however, true that here—at odds with the implication of the passage from the Problemata Heloissae quoted in the note above—Abelard wants to stress that God’s ways are unfathomable and that Cornelius might not have been given this revelation; though his ultimate point is that, even so, Cornelius would not actually be guilty because of his unbelief. 36 Commentary on Romans 3, 26; ed. Buytaert, p. 117 lines 242–8: “Nobis autem uidetur quod in hoc iustificati sumus in sanguine Christi et Deo reconciliati, quod per hanc singularem gratiam nobis exhibitam quod Filius suus nostram susceperit naturam et in ipsa nos tam uerbo quam exemplo instituendo usque ad mortem perstitit, nos sibi amplius per amorem adstrixit, ut tanto diuinae gratiae accensi beneficio, nihil iam tolerare propter ipsum uera reformidet caritas.”

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remove the contradiction in his views. Virtue-without-charity would, on his view, not be sufficient itself for salvation, but it would merit the revelation of the Christian mysteries, including Christ’s work, which would then change it into virtue-with-charity. Given the authority of Augustine and his insistence on the impossibility of any virtue at all without charity, it is perhaps not surprising that even a bold thinker like Abelard did not enunciate such a view explicitly, even though his ideas imply it, preferring to leave an incoherence in his account of virtues rather than risk accusations of heresy by clarifying it. The Sentences of Peter the Lombard, which became the standard textbook in the theology faculties of the medieval universities, are influenced in many ways by Abelard, as David Luscombe has shown.37 On the question of virtue, however, the Lombard chose a strictly Augustinian definition: a virtue is “a good quality of the mind, by which one lives rightly, and which no one uses badly, which God alone works in a human being”.38 The implication of this definition is that all virtues, properly speaking, are not acquired but infused by God. Although later twelfth and thirteenth-century thinkers made a place for acquired virtues of the sort that pagans might have through their concept of “political” virtues, it is questionable whether, for any of them, natural virtues had nearly so fundamental a role as they did for Abelard.39

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Luscombe, The School, pp. 261–80. Peter Lombard, Sententiae 2, distinction 27, chapter 5: “. . . bona qualitas mentis, qua recte vivitur, et qua nullus male utitut, quam Deus solus in homine operator.” The Lombard attributes this definition to Augustine, but it is in fact his own formulation of Augustine’s position. 39 The fundamental study remains Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et e XIII siècles 3 (Louvain and Gembloux, 1949), Part (i), pp. 99–150 (“Les premières définitions et classifications des vertus au moyen âge”) and Part (ii), pp. 459–535 (“Les vertus morales infuses pendant la second moitié du XIIIe siècle”). 38

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CITIZENS: WHAT WE MAY LEARN FROM LATE MEDIEVAL ENDOWMENT PRACTICE Martial Staub A fairly general interrogation stands at the beginning of this paper: what knowledge, if any, does ethics need? This question is in many respects intriguing, especially in our days as it hints at the central political and intellectual issue of moral relativism.1 Historians can possibly contribute all sorts of useful insights to the debates surrounding this issue by looking at past societies. Yet there may be an even more immediate benefit in shifting the focus from the present to the past, at least for historians of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Indeed, some of the main notions of the history of that period and the phenomena they describe have been related to either knowledge or ethics, or both of them. This is obvious in the case of humanism, but it also applies to the Reformation and, to introduce a more recent set of analysis, to late medieval and Renaissance republicanism. German church historian Berndt Hamm has worked out what he calls “normative centring” in the very process of the Reformation.2 According to his interpretation, late medieval reform movements and, later, sixteenth-century Reformation initiatives, both protestant and catholic, aimed to design an ethics that would provide a few simple and clear guidelines to people. On the other hand, these guidelines were to be concentrated enough to encompass all aspects of existence, as they were intended to ensure unity and peace to urban society that was undergoing rapid differentiation. In part, Hamm’s interpretation relies on evidences from the city of Nuremberg, to which this

1

Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London, 1985), pp. 132–

173. 2

Berndt Hamm, “Normative Centering in the 15th and 16th Centuries: Observations on Religiosity, Theology, and Iconology,” in The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety: Essays by Berndt Hamm, ed. Robert J. Bast, Studies in the History of Christian Thought 110 (Leiden, 2004), pp. 1–46.

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paper will also refer. Yet my paper is in the first place concerned with humanism and, to start with, republicanism. Historians have defined republicanism on the ground of ethics. Most famously, Hans Baron explained the rise of Florentine republicanism through a moral shift, which he dated to the early decades of the 15th century, from a morality centred on the ideal of the vita contemplativa to an ethics of vivere civile—“a way of life given over to civic concerns and the (ultimately political) activity of citizenship”, as John Pocock has eventually formulated it.3 Pocock himself and with him the Cambridge School of the history of political thought have, however, more than Baron stressed the knowledge revolution which, according to them, led to late medieval and Renaissance republicanism. Yet their interpretations of the intellectual background of late medieval and Renaissance republicanism differ greatly. While Quentin Skinner has insisted on the importance of the study of classical rhetoric and, eventually, of the very argumentation of republican Roman authors in the development of republicanism,4 John Pocock has deemed it shaped by the reception of Aristotle’s practical philosophy in the specific context of the Italian city-states.5 Authors of the Cambridge School have been mainly interested in the tradition of political thought that arose from the rebirth of republican knowledge from the 13th century and that, according to them, would last long after the failure of the republican experience to which it gave rise in the first place. Even so, it is striking that these scholars have not posed the question of the input of republican knowledge into late medieval and Renaissance ethics. This is particularly intriguing in Pocock’s case, for Aristotle made some explicit assumptions about the link between knowledge and ethics. Like Plato, Aristotle could not conceive of any ethics that was not rationally justifiable. Ethics could be enforced only if each person was convinced that he had good reason to live ethically and this reason appealed to him “in terms of something about himself ”, as Bernard Williams put it.6 Unlike Plato, however, Aristotle made a basic

3 John G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), p. 56. 4 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1: The Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 23–48. 5 Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 66–75. 6 Williams, Ethics, p. 32.

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distinction between theoretical reason, as “deployed in philosophy and sciences”, and practical reason as “the intellectual faculty central to ethical life”.7 The point was that Aristotle saw practical reason led by self-interest. Accordingly, self-interest implied knowledge and did not necessarily coincide with the individuals’ perceived or, for that matter, immediate interest. This paper is based on the assumptions that those and similar considerations about the way knowledge was tied to ethics played an essential role in late medieval and Renaissance republicanism and that examining the link between knowledge and ethics in this context can contribute crucial insights into the nature of late medieval and Renaissance republicanism. At least, we may gain some additional knowledge about its social basis and its intellectual environment. It is, indeed, the aim of this paper to show that late medieval and Renaissance republicanism was to a very large extent a practical phenomenon and that republicanism significantly impacted on humanism precisely because of its pragmatism. How practical republicanism was can be shown by looking at late medieval endowments. The impact of endowments on late medieval society has been appreciated by historians of the period.8 Yet the most comprehensive model of social analysis of the endowment practice to date is probably Paul Veyne’s study on Bread and Circuses, which deals, as its title suggests, with examples from the ancient world.9 According to Veyne, “euergetism”, as he calls benefactions made by wealthy citizens to public life and infrastructure in Hellenistic cities and imperial Rome, aimed to reflect the political status of the ruling class, which consisted of notables.10 “Notable” designates two things in Veyne’s mind. Following Max Weber, Veyne first insists on the availability of notables for public action.11 Yet the notables’ authority originates in leisure being the most visible sign of wealth in the agrarian

7

Williams, Ethics, pp. 34–53. See Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, 1992), and Michael Borgolte, ‘Totale Geschichte’ des Mittelalters: Das Beispiel der Stiftungen (Berlin, 1993). 9 Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism, transl. Brian Pearce (London, 1990). 10 Veyne, Bread and Circuses, pp. 42–54. 11 Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley, 1978), 2: 950. 8

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context of traditional societies and people consequently expecting wealthy citizens to take special responsibility for the city. This means, secondly, that local concerns are particularly valued by both the ruling and the ruled classes. The latter point matters as much as the first to Veyne’s interpretation of the endowment practice in traditional societies. From the first it can be deduced that endowments were the price paid by members of the ruling class for their wealth. However, the most important conclusion to be drawn from these points, in particular from the second, is that endowments fundamentally contributed to a de-politicising of civic life, whose main characteristic was parochialism.12 The terms of Veyne’s analysis have been shared by social historians of the Middle Ages with respect to late medieval endowments even if their perspective on power turns out to be less static. Thus, medievalists have been more inclined to emphasise the contribution of symbolic representation to settling power relationships, which are generally assumed to have been far less stable than Veyne seems to admit.13 Contrary to these views, I should, however, like to show that late medieval endowment practices were genuinely political. A first evidence of this is that endowments were a very common practice in late medieval society, as will become apparent from the example below. It should, then, be noted that smaller endowments like anniversaries for dead relatives contributed to more general tasks such as providing additional equipment and personnel for a church. English and German sources provide many examples of this kind.14 More significantly, though, it appears from evidence from the German city of Nuremberg, on which I shall focus, that social difference did not matter as much as one would expect if representation was as essential a dimension of power as usually stated by historians.

12

Veyne, Bread and Circuses, pp. 259–261. See, for instance, Hermann Kamp, Memoria und Selbstdarstellung: Die Stiftungen des burgundischen Kanzlers Rolin (Sigmaringen, 1993). 14 For England, see Clive Burgess, “ ‘For the Increase of Divine Service’: Chantries in the Parish in Late Medieval Bristol,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985), pp. 46–65; id., “ ‘By Quick and by Dead’: Wills and Pious Provision in Late Medieval Bristol,” English Historical Review 102 (1987), pp. 837–858; id., “A Fond Thing Vainly Invented’: An essay on Purgatory and Pious Motive in late medieval England,” in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750, ed. Susan Wright (London, 1988), pp. 56–84. 13

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Nuremberg was one of the most populous and wealthiest cities in fifteenth-century Europe. The wealth of the free imperial city of Nuremberg was based on the unique combination of mining investment, international trade and high-value manufactures, especially in metalworking, and contributed to making it a centre of the Northern European Renaissance. Although its fast growing population had already passed the mark of 20,000 inhabitants in the middle of the 15th century, Nuremberg had only two parish churches.15 After the northern parish church of St Sebald had been extended in the 14th century, the parishioners of the southern parish church of St Lawrence were under pressure to emulate their neighbours on the other bank of the river Pegnitz. In 1439 the extension of St Lawrence finally started. The project would end as late as 1477. Eventually, the town’s population approached 25,000 inhabitants. Local archives record this major urban project (annual costs were equivalent to 0.5% of Nuremberg’s estimated GDP) and especially the involvement of the people in it. As it appears, the construction expenses were mainly covered by endowments, donations and collections.16 To start with, anniversaries seem to have been popular as a way of contributing to the expenses. As the parish accounts show, the capital needed for running anniversaries was entrusted to the churchwardens for their disposal even when those anniversaries had been kept for generations. That capital would usually have covered much more than what was necessary for standard anniversaries. It is particularly noteworthy that, although this practice increased the costs of anniversaries, its social basis remained as broad as in St Sebald, where it was not unknown, though. Yet, however common anniversaries were, they were not accessible to all people. Many people’s contribution merely consisted in the money they put in the collection at the mass. Not surprisingly, the annual total of the collections fluctuated considerably. By a second looking at the records, however, a certain pattern of behaviour becomes apparent. Until the beginning of the 1460s, collections on

15 Martial Staub, Les paroisses et la Cité: Nuremberg du XIIIe siècle à la Réforme (Paris, 2003). 16 Martial Staub, “Stifter als ‘Unternehmer’: Frömmigkeit und Innovation im späteren Mittelalter am Beispiel Nürnbergs,” in Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter: Politischsoziale Kontexte, visuelle Praxis, körperliche Ausdrucksformen, ed. Klaus Schreiner (Munich, 2002), pp. 155–176.

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religious holidays associated with the local parish community (festival of St Lawrence, etc.) were particularly successful. After that date, most of the money was collected on the occasion of masses for the dead, as if people’s largesse had been more strictly channelled. Interestingly, a similar pattern is to be observed regarding the endowment of anniversaries. Whereas those were quite common in the first instance, this was less the case after 1460, which corresponded with the end of the first stage of the extension. Still, anniversaries set up in the later stage were far more generously funded. Although this development may have sharpened the awareness of social difference, generally speaking people’s financial contribution towards the construction expenses did not. That richer and poorer parishioners behaved in a similar way, as can be seen from the fluctuations of both the endowments and the collections, must, to the contrary, have considerably blurred the visibility of social boundaries. Obviously, Nuremberg’s populus felt as responsible as the town’s elite for the well-being of their city. Despite the common Latin origin of “parish” and “parochialism”, those people’s commitment to their parish must not be interpreted as a form of parochialism. Late medieval endowment practice was highly political. In fact, in the case of Nuremberg, it happened to be a particularly visible manifestation of republicanism. Late medieval republicanism was largely practical, in other words. In the following section, I should like to show that, as a practical phenomenon, late medieval and Renaissance republicanism could significantly impact on humanism. It will appear that some central notions of humanist thought can be associated with an elaborated reflection on republican practice. John Pocock has stressed how essential a role “discipline” played in Machiavelli’s attempt to re-state the link between politics and ethics.17 According to him, Machiavelli opened a gap between politics and morality by opposing freedom to classical moral values. This gap originated in Machiavelli’s conviction that stability was not “virtuous” as tradition had admitted following the classics. In the past, Sparta and, in Machiavelli’s days, Venice had gained stability at the price of dominating their vicinity. This, Machiavelli felt, according to Pocock’s

17

Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 201–203.

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interpretation, was contradictory to the ideal of a republic.18 Yet this contradiction between freedom and empire, between internal liberty and external servitude, could not be resolved. Sparta was to decay for not having acknowledged that contradiction and, subsequently, for not being able to deal with the tensions it created. Rome, to the contrary, tried to take advantage of this contradiction in order to ensure freedom. Pocock’s Machiavelli is a moralist. He assumes that politics is genuinely about freedom and that freedom is in itself virtuous, even if this means that ethics is to leave the ground of the classical tradition and virtue is to be redefined. That Rome failed as tragically as Sparta does not matter, therefore. For Rome was—not only politically, but also morally—a model of a republic. If Machiavelli replaced the traditional moral order with a new one, as Pocock suggests, then “discipline” must have re-introduced something like practical reason into it. In fact, Pocock very much interprets Machiavelli’s use of the notion of “discipline” as a substitute for the Aristotelian “harmony”, that is, as a disposition which made sure that the citizens’ legitimate pursuit of their own interest did not degenerate into conflict. However, by “discipline”, Machiavelli possibly meant something more precise than Pocock admits. Considerations about “discipline” were at the very core of The Art of War, a dialogue Machiavelli wrote while he was working on the more famous Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. Pocock rightly stresses that this book is nothing less than an argument for the public monopoly of the use of force against external enemies.19 Yet, on the other hand, Machiavelli was fully aware of the danger of monopolies. One generation later, the young Etienne de la Boétie was to provide the most striking formulation of the ambivalence that Machiavelli and many of his fellow republican contemporaries had felt about monopolies while warning that “when the point is reached, through big favours or little ones, that large profits or small are obtained under a tyrant, there are found almost as many people to whom tyranny seems advantageous as those to whom liberty would seem desirable”.20 Following this analysis of the threat that monopolies posed to freedom, the author of the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude 18

Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 196–199. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, pp. 200–201. 20 Etienne de la Boétie, Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, transl. Harry Kurz, 2nd ed. (Montreal, 1997), p. 72. 19

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famously concluded that despots subdued their subjects “by the means of others”.21 “Discipline” was to some extent the exact opposite to “voluntary servitude” and prevented the self-interest of the citizens from becoming destructive. This is why Machiavelli emphasised the importance of “discipline” in The Art of War. Put positively, this notion enabled Machiavelli to describe, in part metaphorically, how the selfinterest of the citizens could be tied to ethics and how the republic, in the end, might be settled. In a long development about how to best arm soldiers in the second book of The Art of War, Machiavelli introduces some general considerations about discipline. As Fabrizio remarks,22 “if [the ancient Romans] had to choose either a place so rough—so as to guard themselves against cavalrymen—that they were not able to deploy their orders, or one where they had more fear of cavalrymen but were able to spread out, they always took the latter and let the former go”.23 What seems to be a military stratagem or technicality gives rise to a digression about the importance of discipline and its meaning. “A spirited army is not made so,” Machiavelli writes, “by having spirited men in it but by having well-ordered orders. For,” as he explains, “if I am among the first combatants, and I know where I have to retreat once I have been overcome and who has to follow in my place, I will always fight with spirit, seeing succour nearby. If I am among the second combatants, when the first ones are pushed and repelled I will not be afraid, because I will have presupposed that it can be so and I will have desired it so as to be the one who gives victory to my master, and not they.” Functions and expertises differ among the soldiered ranks of an army. What matters more, however, is that they are not immediately complementary. Complementarities are to be arranged and even more trained. “These exercises are very necessary where one makes a new army,” Machiavelli reckons; “and where an old army is, they are necessary. For even though the Romans knew the orders of their armies from childhood, nonetheless one sees how those captains continually exercised them in them.”24

21

La Boétie, Discourse, p. 73. On Fabrizio’s “identity” and his role in the dialogue, see Marcia Colish, “Machiavelli’s Art of War: A Reconsideration,” Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998), pp. 1151–1168. 23 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War, transl. Christopher Lynch (Chicago, 2003), p. 43. 24 Machiavelli, Art of War, pp. 48–49. 22

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The question remains why functions are not immediately complementary and, thus, why training is necessary. Machiavelli gives us some decisive clues in the second book of his Discourses. A first indication can be found in chapter VI, where we find again the mention that the Romans used to field enormous armies. The reason for this, Machiavelli argues here, is that it enabled them to keep their wars short, as “the intention of those who make war by choice or out of ambition is to acquire territory and to maintain it, and to proceed in such a way that it enriches but does not impoverish their native city and the countryside”.25 Policy is clearly driven by the citizens’ self-interests in this conception. This does not mean, however, that self-interest is not referred to the city. To the contrary, the Romans planned to enrich themselves of the booty of war so as to “serve as guard-post at the Roman borders to the profit of the colonists, who owned these lands as private property, as well as to the Roman treasury, which maintained these guard-posts without expenses”. Self-interests can be combined, it seems, albeit on a negative basis. This is a very important addition as it emphasises that categories of self-interest are genuinely divergent. Yet, on the other hand, they definitively have the potential to be reconciled. “Discipline” is what contributes to mobilising the civic potential inherent in self-interest. In a passage of chapter XVI that echoes in many respects the extract from The Art of War commented upon above, Machiavelli stresses the confusion to which an army without discipline is condemned. Complaining about the military leaders of his days, he states that having “abandoned all the other institutions and [. . .] fail to observe any part of ancient discipline, [they] have likewise abandoned this one, which is of no little importance”.26 The ancient Romans, he first notes, arranged their legions in three ranks in battle. “Arranged in this matter, then, these formations gave battle, and if the hastati were forced back or conquered, they retreated into the openings in the ranks of the principes, and, all united together, they created one body out of the two formations and re-entered the battle. If these two formations were repulsed and driven back, they all retreated into the openings in the ranks of the triarii, and all three formations having become a single body renewed the struggle.” Machiavelli

25 Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, transl. Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford, 1997), pp. 169–170. 26 Machiavelli, Discourses, pp. 192–193.

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concludes that the real danger comes from harmonisation. “Modern battles,” he complains, “are arranged with one of these two defects: either the formations are placed shoulder to shoulder one after the other, and create a battle line that is wide across but thin toward the rear, which makes it weaker, because there is no depth from front to rear; or when instead, in order to make it stronger, [captains] shorten the formations in the Roman manner, and if the first line is broken, since there is no provision for receiving them into the second line, they become entangled and break themselves up. For if the formation in front is pushed back, it collides with the second, and if the second wants to advance, it is impeded by the first, so that the first formation colliding with the second and the second with the third, so much chaos arises that often only a very small incident can destroy an army.” Harmony can jeopardize the fate of a city by ruining its army through the confusion it causes. Yet harmony could do even more harm to a city, as harmonising self-interests would not merely contribute to confusion and disorder, but more fundamentally induce monopolies. Indeed, a monopolistic behaviour, as Joseph Schumpeter famously defined it, is nothing else than the behaviour of somebody whose success does not severely depend on his own action nor on any reactions to his actions by people acting in a similar way.27 To Schumpeter, short-lived innovation-driven monopoly rents may have been the sine qua for economic growth. Yet this was precisely the kind of situation that La Boétie had in mind when he described the mechanism of “voluntary servitude”. Similarly, Machiavelli’s insistence, in chapter VI of the second book of his Discourses, on the importance for the prosperity of their republic of the Romans not using the tributes of their city for war may deserve more attention than hitherto.28 Only as long as wars were not funded by the treasury, as they eventually would be, were the citizens aware that their interests were not necessarily the same and that they were, at least potentially, competitors. Yet losing sight of that divergence was the most formidable challenge that a republic could face, as the temptation was great to explain it away in a context in which politics was dominated by self-interests. In other words, for Machiavelli it was the citizens’ awareness of their diverging self-interests that best guaranteed the continuation of their

27 Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 6th ed. (London, 2006), p. 99. 28 Machiavelli, Discourses, p. 170.

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self-interests and, thus, ensured their freedom. This is what “discipline” was about according to Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s conception of discipline is very intriguing, especially so because of the implicit assumption on which it rests. According to him, the problem with the divergence of self-interests was not that it threatened harmony, but, to the contrary, that it very much promoted it. In other words, Machiavelli expected people to take something like a relativist view on their own interests when confronted with the divergence of self-interests. They would incline to explain conflicts of interests away by deeming self-interests not comparable to each other. Yet, whereas many liberal thinkers have explicitly reflected on divergences that in their view need to be confined, Machiavelli and the republican tradition hardly developed anything comparable to, say, F.A. Hayek’s theory of codes of values.29 The truth is that republican authors could rely on what they learned from the observation of republican experience across Europe, in communes, confraternities, leagues, universities and even in Church institutions. In a civic context, endowment practice must for instance have appeared as a particularly appropriate way to enhance freedom and the republic against what we may call relativism. In fact, Machiavelli’s conception of discipline offers a very plausible explanation for the citizens of Nuremberg’s involvement in the extension of St Lawrence parish church. However, Machiavelli did not so much draw upon examples from civil life, but he famously preferred to refer to military history. Yet this is mainly to do with the intellectual tools that were available to him and his contemporaries. Classical historiography, especially, was dominated by military events. Other humanist or, even more so, conciliarist authors may have provided a more accurate explanation, but this is best left for another paper. It is, nonetheless, interesting to note that Machiavelli’s use of military history was in part, as we have seen, metaphorical. Even more remarkable, though, is that he interpreted a historical development as important as Rome’s imperial policy as, originally at least, a mere by-product of republican ethics. As it seems, Rome provided Machiavelli with an analytical framework for reflecting on the ethical life of the republics of his day rather than it laid the foundation for a theoretical model to be implemented. 29

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (London, 1944), pp. 59–64.

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Review: Denys Hay, Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the VIIIth to the XVIIIth Centuries (London, 1977), in History 64, 63–4. Review: G.R. Evans, Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford, 1978), in Downside Review 97, 153–4. 1980 Editor, with Rudolf Thomas and others, Petrus Abaelardus (1079–1142). Person, Werk und Wirkung. Trierer theologische Studien 38 (Trier). 339 pp. “The Letters of Heloise and Abelard since Cluny, 1972,” ibid., pp. 19–29. Review: Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford, 1978), in Medium Ævum 49, 108–9. Review: Jean Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France. PsychoHistorical Essays (Oxford, 1979), in Medium Ævum 49, 281–3. Review: E. Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival: A People’s Uprising at Romans, 1579– 1580 (London, 1979), in The Listener, 12 June 1980, 762–3. 1981 Review: G.R. Evans, Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginnings of Theology as an Academic Discipline (Oxford, 1980), in JTS 32, 539. Review: Peter Abelard; A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, trans. Pierre J. Payer (Toronto, 1979), in Medium Ævum 50, 315–16. Review: The Letters of John of Salisbury, 2: The Later Letters, 1163–1180, eds. W.B. Millor and C.N.L. Brooke (OMT, 1979), in History 66, 116–17. Review: David Lunn, The English Benedictines, 1540–1688. From Reformation to Revolution (London, 1980); Benedict’s Disciples, ed. D.H. Farmer (Leominster, 1980), in The Month n.s. 14, 142–3. Review: Colin Platt, The Parish Churches of Medieval England (London, 1981), ibid., 285–6. 1982 “Natural morality and natural law,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, eds. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, and J. Pinborg (Cambridge), pp. 705–19. Reprinted 1984 and 1988. “The State of Nature and the Origins of the State,” ibid., pp. 757–70. Review: The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 1, ed. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, 1980), in JTS 33, 309. Review: Gerald of Wales: “The Jewel of the Church”; a Translation of the “Gemma ecclesiastica” by Giraldus Cambrensis, by John J. Hagen (Leiden, 1979), in Medium Ævum 51, 129–30.

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Review: G.R. Evans, Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford, 1980), in JEH 33, 122–4. Review: Anne Duggan, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of his Letters (Oxford, 1980), in History 67, 120–1. 1983 “St. Anselm and Abelard,” Anselm Studies 1, 207–29. “Excerpts from the Letter Collection of Heloise and Abelard in Notre Dame (Indiana) MS 30,” in Pascua Mediaevalia. Studies voor Prof. Dr. J.M. De Smet. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 1: 10 (Leuven), pp. 529–44. Review: R.H.C. Davis and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern (Oxford, 1981), in JTS 34, 323–4. Review: Michael Packe, King Edward III (London, 1983), in The Listener, 17 February 1983, 23. 1984 “John of Salisbury in Recent Scholarship,” in The World of John of Salisbury, ed. M. Wilks. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 3 (Oxford), pp. 21–37. Reprinted 1994. “John of Salisbury: A Bibliography 1953–82,” ibid., pp. 445–57. “Masters and their Books in the Schools of the Twelfth Century,” Proceedings of the PMR Conference 9, 17–33. (with Julia Barrow and Charles Burnett) “A Checklist of the Manuscripts containing the Writings of Peter Abelard and Heloise and other Works closely associated with Abelard and his School,” Revue d’histoire des textes 14–15, 183–302. Review: G.R. Evans, The Mind of St Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford, 1983), in JTS 35, 563–4. Review: John Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre: Logic, Theology and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981), in Medium Ævum 53, 100–1. Review: John Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy (480–1150): An Introduction (London, 1983), in History 69, 302–3. Review: Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds., Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1982), in History 69, 303–4. Review: L.O. Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century. A Study of Gilbert Porreta’s Thinking and the Theological Expositions of the Doctrine of the Incarnation during the Period 1130–1180 (Leiden, 1982), in JEH 35, 299.

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“Peter Comestor,” in The Bible in the Medieval World. Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, eds. K. Walsh and D. Wood. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 4 (Oxford), pp. 109–29. “New Editions of the Writings of Peter Abelard,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 27, 157–60. “Venezia, Bibl. naz. Marziana, Latini Classe II.26 (2473) and the Dionisian corpus of the university of Paris in the thirteenth century,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 52, 224–7. “The reception of the writings of Denis the pseudo-Areopagite into England,” in Tradition and Change: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Chibnall, eds. D. Greenway, C. Holdsworth and J. Sayers (Cambridge), pp. 115–43. Review: Robert Grosseteste, Hexaëmeron, ed. R.C. Dales and S. Gieben (London, 1982), in JTS 36, 520–1. Review: John H. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983), in History 70, 106. Review: Rosalind Brooke and Christopher Brooke, Popular Religion in the Middle Ages (London, 1984), in History 70, 279–80. Review: Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror of Language. A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge. Revised edition (Lincoln, NB, 1983), in JEH 36, 305–6. 1986 Review: Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period (Oxford, 1984), in JTS 37, 629–32. Review: Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University. The Schools of Paris and their Critics, 1100–1215 (Stanford, 1985), in The Times Literary Supplement, 10 January 1986, 46. 1987 “Wyclif and Hierarchy,” in From Ockham to Wyclif, eds. A. Hudson and M. Wilks. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 5 (Oxford), pp. 233–44. Review: D.H. Farmer, ed., Benedict’s Disciples (Leominster, 1980), in History 72, 97–8. 1988 Editor, with C.N.L. Brooke. David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought. 2nd ed. (London), xxv + 337 pp.

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“Thomas Aquinas and Conceptions of Hierarchy in the Thirteenth Century”, in Thomas Aquinas, ed. A. Zimmermann. Miscellanea Mediaevalia 19 (Berlin), pp. 261–77. “The Formation of Political Thought in the West,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c.350–c.1450, ed. J.H. Burns (Cambridge), pp. 157–73. Reprinted 1991. French trans., by J. Ménard: Histoire de la pensée politique médiévale, 350–1450 (Paris, 1994). (with G.R. Evans) “The Twelfth-Century Renaissance” ibid., pp. 306–38. “Peter Abelard,” in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. P. Dronke (Cambridge), pp. 279–307. Reprinted 1992. “Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite in the Middle Ages from Hilduin to Lorenzo Valla,” in Fälschungen im Mittelalter. Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 33 (Hanover), 1: 133–52. “From Paris to the Paraclete: The Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise.” Raleigh Lecture on History. Proceedings of the British Academy 74, 247–83. Review: Penny Shine Gold, The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth-Century France (Chicago, 1985), in EHR 103, 1027–8. Review: Jan Ziolkowski, Alan of Lille’s Grammar of Sex: The Meaning of Grammar to a Twelfth-Century Intellectual (Medieval Academy of America, 1985), in Speculum 63, 1015–16. Review: Michael Haren, Medieval Thought. The Western Intellectual Tradition from Antiquity to the Thirteenth Century (Basingstoke, 1985), in History 73, 474. Review: Bernard Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (London, 1986), ibid., 475. Review: Beryl Smalley, The Gospels in the Schools c. 1100–c. 1280 (London, 1985), ibid., 475–6. 1989 “Peter Abelard,” in The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia, ed. H.R. Loyn (London), pp. 10–11. “Trivium, Quadrivium and the Organisation of Schools,” in L’Europa dei secoli XI e XII fra novità e tradizione: sviluppi di una cultura. Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevali 12. Pubblicazioni dell’ Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan), pp. 81–100. “Statutes of the SIEPM,” Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale 31, 230–5. (An English translation of the French version published ibid., 28 (1986), 248–51).

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Review: Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, 3. Theologia “Summi Boni”. Theologia “Scholarium”, eds. E.M. Buytaert and C.J. Mews. CCCM 13 (Turnhout, 1987), in JTS 41, 741–3. 1991 (with Christopher Brooke, Roger Lovatt, and Aelred Sillem) David Knowles Remembered (Cambridge). 190 pp. “David Knowles as a Teacher,” ibid., pp. 123–39. “Jean Gerson and Hierarchy,” in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor, eds. I. Wood and G.A. Loud (Woodbridge), pp. 193–200. “The study of medieval philosophy in England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: an initial appraisal,” in Gli studi di filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento. Contributo a un bilancio storiografico, eds. R. Imbach and A. Maierù. Storia e Letteratura. Raccolta di studi e testi 179 (Rome), pp. 131–9. “François de Meyronnes and Hierarchy,” in The Church and Sovereignty: Essays Presented to M.J. Wilks, ed. Diana Wood. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 9 (Oxford), pp. 225–31. “Monasticism in the Lives and Writings of Heloise and Abelard,” Monastic Studies 2: The Continuity of Tradition, ed. Judith Loades (Bangor), 1–11. Review: J.P. Torrell and D. Bouthillier, Pierre le Vénérable et sa vision du monde: Sa vie—son œuvre—l’homme et le démon (Louvain, 1986), in JEH 42, 639–41. Review: R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm. A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge, 1990), in The Tablet, 1 June 1991, 679–80. 1992 “Philosophy and Philosophers in the Schools of the Twelfth Century”, in Vocabulaire des Ecoles et des Méthodes d’Enseignement au Moyen Age, ed. O. Weijers. CIVICIMA. Etudes sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen âge 5 (Turnhout), pp. 73–85. “City and Politics before the Coming of the Politics: Some Illustrations,” in Church and City in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Christopher Brooke, eds. D. Abulafia, M. Franklin, and M. Rubin (Cambridge), pp. 41–55. “The School of Peter Abelard Revisited,” Vivarium 30, 127–38.

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1993 “Sutton, Thomas,” Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons, ed. C.S. Nicholls (Oxford), pp. 654–5. “Prosopografie versus biografie. Het netwerk van Pierre Abélard,” Millennium. Tijdschrift voor middeleeuwse studies 7, 23–33. “Anselm on the Angels,” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 48, 537–49. 1995 “Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite and Central Europe in the Later Middle Ages,” in Société et Eglise, Textes et Discussions dans les Universités d’Europe Centrale pendant le Moyen Age Tardif, ed. S. Włodek. Société Internationale pour l’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale. Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 4 (Turnhout), pp. 45–64. “Ethics and Politics in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Moral and Political Philosophies in the Middle Ages, eds. B. Carlos Bazán, Eduardo Andújar, and Léonard G. Sbrocchi. Publications du Laboratoire de la pensée ancienne et médiévales, Université d’Ottawa 1 (New York), 1: 74–87. 1996 Editor, with G.R. Evans, Anselm, Aosta, Bec and Canterbury. Papers in Commemoration of the Nine-Hundredth Anniversary of Anselm’s Enthronement as Archbishop, 25 September 1093 (Sheffield), 394 pp. Petrus Abaelardus (Petorusu Aberarudusu), “Ethica (Rinrigaku),” trans. Toshiko Ohmichi, in The Collection of the Translated Texts of Medieval Thought (Chusei-shiso-genten-shusei), 7: Early Scholasticism (Zenki-sukoragaku), ed. Gyo Furuta, Institute of Medieval Thought, Sophia University (Tokyo), pp. 526–8 (introduction by the translator), 529–74 (text), 574–86 (endnotes). “The Bible in the Work of Peter Abelard and his ‘School’,” in Neue Richtungen in der hoch—und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 32 (Munich), 79–93. “Peter Abelard and the Arts of Language,” Media Latinitas. A collection of essays to mark the occasion of the retirement of L.J. Engels, ed. R.I.A. Nip et al. Instrumenta Patristica 28 (Turnhout), pp. 101–16. “The Ethics and the Politics in Britain in the Middle Ages,” in Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages, ed. J. Marenbon. Société Internationale pour l’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale. Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 5 (Turnhout), pp. 339–49. “Petrus Comestor,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 26, 291–3.

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“Bec, Christ Church and the Correspondence of St. Anselm.” R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture. Anglo-Norman Studies 18 (1996), 1–17. “L’évêque Fulbert et les arts libéraux autour de l’an 1000,” in Le temps de Fulbert. Actes de l’Université d’été du 8 au 10 juillet 1996. Société Archéologique d’Eure et Loir (Chartres), pp. 105–14. 1997 Medieval Thought. A History of Western Philosophy: 2. Opus (Oxford), 248 pp. Portugese trans., by Lucilia Rodrigues: O Pensamento Medieval (Mem Martins, 2000). Greek trans.: Η Μεσαιωνική Σκέψη (Athens, 2007). “Commentaries on the Politics: Paris and Oxford, XIII–XVth centuries,” in L’Enseignement des Disciplines à la Faculté des Arts (Paris et Oxford, XIIIe–XVe siècles), eds. O. Weijers and L. Holtz. Studia Artistarum: Etudes sur la Faculté des arts dans les Universités médiévales 4 (Turnhout), pp. 313–27. “Dialectic and Rhetoric in the Ninth and Twelfth Centuries: Continuity and Change,” Dialektik und Rhetorik im früheren und hohen Mittelalter: Rezeption, Überlieferung und gesellschaftliche Wirkung antiker Gelehrsamkeit vornehmlich im 9. und 12. Jahrhundert, ed. J. Fried, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 27 (Munich), pp. 1–20. “L’Aréopagitisme chartrain aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” Monde médiéval et société chartraine. Actes du colloque international organisé par la Ville et le Diocèse de Chartres à l’occasion du 8e centenaire de la Cathédrale de Chartres, 8–10 septembre 1994, ed. J.-R. Armogathe (Paris), pp. 113–22. “Peter Abelard’s Carnal Thoughts,” Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, eds. Peter Biller and A.J. Minnis, York Studies in Medieval Theology 1 (York), pp. 31–41. “Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite in the Writings of Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola,” in Néoplatonisme et Philosophie médiévale, ed. Linos G. Benakis, Société Internationale pour l’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale. Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 6 (Turnhout), pp. 93–107. Review: R.W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 1: Foundations (Oxford, 1995), in EHR 112, 945–7. 1998 “Hierarchy in the late Middle Ages: criticism and change”, Political Thought and the Realities of Power in the Middle Ages, eds. Joseph Canning and Otto Gerhard Oexle. Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 147 (Göttingen), pp. 113–26.

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“La création du monde chez Thierry de Chartres,” in Vie spéculative, vie méditative et travail manuel à Chartres au 12e siècle. Autour de Thierry de Chartres et des introducteurs de l’étude des arts mécaniques auprès du quadrivium (Chartres), pp. 79–91. 1999 “Peter Comestor,” Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. J.H. Hayes (Nashville), 2: 273. “William of Ockham and the Michaelists on Robert Grosseteste and Denis the Areopagite,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life. Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff, eds. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 11 (Woodbridge), pp. 93–109. “The Cur Deus Homo and the Ysagoge in theologiam,” in Cur Deus Homo. Atti del Congresso Anselmiano Internazionale. Roma, 21–23 maggio 1998, eds. P. Gilbert, H. Kohlenberger, and E. Salmann. Studia Anselmiana 128 (Rome), pp. 73–86. “Conclusions,” ibid., 849–54. Review: Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works, eds. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford, 1998), in Notes and Queries 46, 510. Review: Sergio Paolo Bonanni, Parlare della Trinità: Lettura della “Theologia Scholarium” di Abelardo (Rome, 1996), in Speculum 74, 132–4. 2000 The Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Monks, Scholars and the Shaping of the European Mind (Tokyo), viii + 280 pp. A volume containing five lectures given in Japan in 1996 and published in Japanese. “Stephan Langton,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 32: 1, 157–60. “Hugh of St. Victor and the Celestial Hierarchy,” in Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter, eds. T. Boiadjiev, G. Kapriev, and A. Speer. Société Internationale pour l’Etude de la Philosophie Médiévale. Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 9 (Turnhout), pp. 159–75. “Peter Abelard and the Creation of the World”, Hombre y Naturaleza en el Pensiamento Medieval. Congreso Internacional de Filosofia Medieval—7o Latino Americano. San Antonio de Padua, Buenos Aires 12–15 de octubre de 1999 in Nuevo Mundo 1, pp. 81–93. Review: John Marenbon, The Philosophy of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1997), in JTS 51, 353–5. Review: Bartholomaei Exoniensis “Contra fatalitatis errorem,” ed. David. N. Bell. CCCM 157 (Turnhout, 1996), in Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 43, 195–6.

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“Peter Abelard and the Poets,” in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon. Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 29 (Leiden), pp. 155–71. “Peter Abelard and the abbey of the Paraclete,” in Pierre Abélard, à l’aube des universités. Actes de la Conférence internationale, Université de Nantes, France, 3–4 octobre 2001, ed. Henri Habrias (Nantes), pp. 477–91. 2002 “St. Anselm and Abelard: A Restatement,” in Saint Anselm—A Thinker for Yesterday and Today. Anselm’s Thought Viewed by Our Contemporaries, eds. C. Viola and F. Van Fleteren. Texts and Studies in Religion 90 (Lewiston, NY), pp. 445–60. “Scientia and disciplina in the correspondence of Peter Abelard and Heloise,” in “Scientia” und “disciplina”: Wissenstheorie und Wissenschaftspraxis im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, eds. R. Berndt, M. Lutz-Bachmann and R.M.W. Stammberger. Erudiri Sapientia 3 (Berlin), pp. 79–89. Review: R.W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2: The Heroic Age (Oxford, 2001), in EHR 117, 899–900. Review: M.T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford, 1997), in JEH 53, 573–5. 2003 “Pierre Abélard et l’abbaye du Paraclet,” Pierre Abélard. Colloque international de Nantes, eds. J. Jolivet and H. Habrias (Rennes), pp. 215–29. “Foreword,” Robert Grosseteste and the Beginnings of a British Theological Tradition, ed. Maura O’Carroll. Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina 69 (Rome), pp. 12–14. “Hierarchy,” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, ed. A.S. McGrade (Cambridge), pp. 60–72. “The Medieval Church,” A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain, ed. E. Nicholson, British Academy (Oxford), pp. 171–86. 2004 Assistant editor, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, 5. Petri Abaelardi Expositio in Hexameron, ed. M. Romig, and Abbreviatio Petri Abaelardi Expositionis in Hexameron, ed. C. Burnett. CCCM 15 (Turnhout, 2004), lxxxvi + 170 pp. Editor, with Jonathan Riley-Smith, The New Cambridge Medieval History, 4, c. 1024–c. 1198 (Cambridge), Part 1, xxi + 917 pp., Part 2, xix + 959 pp.

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(with Jonathan Riley-Smith) “Introduction,” ibid., Part 1, pp. 1–10. “Thought and Learning,” ibid., Part 1, pp. 461–498. (with Jonathan Riley-Smith) “Introduction”, ibid., Part 2, pp. 1–7. “Dieu dit: ‘Que la lumière soit.’ Robert Grosseteste et Genèse 1, 3–5,” in Le Symbolisme de la Lumière au Moyen-Age: de la Spéculation à la Réalité. Actes du Colloque Européen des 5 et 6 juillet 2003. Association des Amis du Centre Médiéval Européen de Chartres (Chartres), pp. 69–74. “Cornwall, John of,” The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 60 vols. (Oxford), 14: 468–9. “Hugh of Amiens,” ibid., 28: 618–19. “Pullen, Robert,” ibid., 45: 535–6. “Salisbury, John of,” ibid., 48: 704–10. “Sutton, Thomas,” ibid., 53: 406–7. “Tournai, Simon de,” ibid., 55: 84–5. “Symbols and their Interpretation: John the Scot and Hugh of Saint Victor on the Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 2,” in Being or Good? Metamorphoses of Neoplatonism, ed. A. Kijewska (Lublin), pp. 343–54. Review: G.R. Evans, Fifty Key Medieval Thinkers (London, 2002), in EHR 119, 773–4. Review: Robert L. Black, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 2001), in Speculum 79, 139–40. Review: Peter Abelard, Collationes, eds. John Marenbon and Giovanni Orlandi (Oxford, 2001), in Speculum 79, 727–8. Review: H.E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 99, 472–3. Review: Symeon of Durham. Historian of Durham and the North, ed. David Rollason (Stamford, 1998), in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 99, 566–7. 2005 “Dionysius Areopagita (Pseudo-), ca. 500,” Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, ed. W.J. Hanegraaff. (Leiden ), 1: 312–13. (with Charles Burnett) “A New Student for Peter Abelard. The Marginalia in British Library Ms Cotton Faustina A. X”, Itinéraires de la raison. Etudes de philosophie médiévale offertes à Maria Cândida Pacheco, ed. J.F. Meirinhos. Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Médiévales. Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age 32 (Louvain-la-Neuve), pp. 163–86.

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“The Sense of Innovation in the Writings of Peter Abelard,” in Tradition, Innovation, Invention. Fortschrittsverweigerung und Fortschrittsbewusstein im Mittelalter, ed. Hans-Joachim Schmidt. Scrinium Friburgense 18 (Berlin), pp. 181–94. “Ethics in the Early Thirteenth Century,” in Albertus Magnus und die Anfänge der Aristoteles-Rezeption im lateinischen Mittelalter. Von Richardus Rufus bis zu Franciscus de Mayronis, eds. L. Honnefelder, R. Wood, M. Dreyer and M.-A. Aris. Subsidia Albertina 1 (Münster), pp. 657–83. “Roger Bacon and Language,” in Britannia Latina: Latin in the Culture of Great Britain from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, eds. C. Burnett and N. Mann. Warburg Institute Colloquia 8 (London), pp. 422–53. Review: Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge 1996), in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 100, 580–3. Review: Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, 4: “Scito te ipsum,” ed. Rainer M. Ilgner (Turnhout, 2001), in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 40, 296–7. Review: Sally N. Vaughn, St Anselm and the Handmaidens of God. A Study of Anselm’s Correspondence with Women (Turnhout, 2003), in Catholic Historical Review 91, 360–1. 2006 Editor, with the assistance of J. Barrow, C. Burnett, K. Keats-Rohan and C.J. Mews, Petri Abaelardi Opera theologica, 6. Sententie Magistri Petri Abaelardi; Assistant editor, Liber Sententiarum Magistri Petri, ed. C.J. Mews. CCCM 14 (Turnhout), 109* + 199 pp. “In memoriam: Sir Richard W. Southern,” in Rationality from Saint Augustine to Saint Anselm. Proceedings of the International Anselm Conference held at the Pazmany Peter Catholic University at Piliscsaba, Hungary on June 20–23, 2002 (Piliscsaba), pp. 16–17. “Anselm’s Writings and his Correspondence,” ibid., pp. 285–97. “Hrabanus Maurus and the Predestination Controversy,” in Hrabanus Maurus: Gelehrter, Abt von Fulda und Erzbischof von Mainz, eds. F.J. Felten and B. Nichtweiss (Mainz), pp. 141–58. Review: Constant J. Mews, Cary J. Nederman, and Rodney M. Thomson, eds., Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West, 1100–1540: Essays in Honour of John O. Ward (Turnhout, 2003), in EHR 121, 901. Review: Alain de Lille: Lettres familières (1167–1170), ed. Françoise Hudry (Paris, 2003), in Medium Ævum 75, 355–6. Review: Philipp W. Roseman, Peter Lombard (Oxford, 2004), in JEH 57, 340.

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Review: Christoph H.F. Meyer, Die Distinktionstechnik in der Kanonistik des 12. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Wissensschaftsgeschichte des Hochmittelalters (Leuven, 2000), in Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 49, 91–2. Review: L. Parisoli, La philosophie normative de Jean Duns Scot. Droit et politique du droit (Rome, 2001), in Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 74, 172–4. Review: The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1162–1170, ed. Anne J. Duggan. OMT (Oxford, 2000), in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 101, 417–18. 2007 “Medieval Thought,” in A Century of British Medieval Studies, ed. A. Deyermond. British Academy (Oxford), pp. 611–30. Review: Evelyn A. Mackie and Joseph Goering, eds., Editing Robert Grosseteste: Papers Given at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 3–4 November 2000 (Toronto, 2003), in Notes and Queries 54, 91–2. Review: John R. Sommerfeldt, Bernard of Clairvaux: On the Life of the Mind (New York, 2004), in JEH 58, 325–6. 2008 “The Hierarchies in the Writings of Alan of Lille, William of Auvergne and St Bonaventure,” in Angels in Medieval Philosophical Enquiry. Their Function and Significance, eds. I. Iribarren and M. Lenz (Aldershot), pp. 15–28. Miscellaneous contributions to the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. R. Bjork. 4 vols. (Oxford). Review: István P. Bejczy and Richard G. Newhauser, eds., Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth Century (Leiden, 2005), in JEH 59, 119–20. 2009 Review: Jean-François Cottier, ed., La Prière en latin, de l’antiquité au XVIe siècle: Formes, évolutions, significations (Turnhout, 2006), in JEH 60, 541–2. Review: Letters of Peter Abelard, Beyond the Personal, trans. Jan M. Ziolkowski (Washington, DC, 2008), in Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 52, 328–30. Review: Timothy Reuter, Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge, 2006), in The Historian 71, 168–9. 2010 “Monks and Friars,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge), 1: 63–75.

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Review: Robert Bartlett, The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages: The Wiles Lectures given at the Queen’s University of Belfast, 2006 (Cambridge, 2008); C.S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007), in JEH 61, 368–9. Review: Thomas J. Bell, Peter Abelard after Marriage. The Spiritual Direction of Heloise and Her Nuns Through Liturgical Songs (Kalamazoo, 2007), in Catholic Historical Review 96, 109–110. 2011 “Crossing Philosophical Boundaries c.1150–c.1250,” in Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities, ed. Spencer E. Young. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 36 (Leiden), pp. 9–27. In Course of Publication Editor, The Letter Collection of Peter Abelard and Heloise, with a revised translation after the translation by Betty Radice. OMT (Oxford). Editor, with David Hey and Lisa Liddy, A Monastic Community in Local Society: The Beauchief Abbey Cartulary, Royal Historical Society, Camden 5th ser. (London). “Instruments of Identification: The Scholastic and University Formation of Intellectuals,” in Religiosità e civiltà: Identità delle forme religiose (secoli X–XIV), ed. Giancarlo Andenna. Settimane internazionali della Mendola. n.s. 2007–2011. Brescia, 9–11 settembre 2009 (Milan).

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale, 1087: 26 notes 61, 63; 27 note 64 Barcelona, Archivio de la Corona de Aragón, Ripoll 109: 112 Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek, 491: 192–3 Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, 9505–5 (formerly 2902): 220–1, 223, Fig. 5 Cologne, Dombibliothek, Dom. Hs. 59: 202, 204, 209, Fig. 1 Darmstadt, Landesbibliothek, 2663: 95 note 1, 96 Edinburgh, University Library, D. b. IV. 6: 79–93 London, British Library, Arundel 377: 87 notes 37–8, 88 note 41 Cotton Titus D. IV: 86 note 33 Egerton 655: 80 note 3 Harley 281: 95–6 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 8495: 26 note 60 Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, VIII. C. 50: 87 note 35 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Misc. 525: 69 note 20 Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 95: 87 243: 86 note 33 283: 110 note 46

274

index of manuscripts

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 24287: 205, 207, Fig. 2 lat. 510: 10 note 8 lat. 4190: 26 note 61, 27 note 63 lat. 16663: 99 lat. 18514: 102 note 21 Tortosa, Biblioteca capitular, 144: 87 note 38

GENERAL INDEX Abelard, Peter 3–5, 16–19, 25, 79, 226, 228, 231, 235–42 Collationes 235–6 Dialogus 79 Ethics 4, 225, 228 Letters 4–5, 18 Problemata Heloissae 240, 241n Sententiae 235–6 Soliloquium 18 Theologia Christiana 235, 239 Theologia ‘Summi boni’ 17–18 Adalbold of Utrecht 114 Adelard of Bath 88, 90 Quaestiones naturales 88 Aegidius Romanus see Giles of Rome Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, St 148 Albumasar 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92 Great Introduction to Astrology 83, 87–8, 92 Alcuin of York 233–5 De animae ratione 233 De rhetorica et de virtutibus 233 Alexander III, pope 152 Alexander the Great 221 Alexander II, king of Scotland 80 Alexander Milesius 82 Alexander of Hales 10 Alexander of St Elphidius 172 De potestate ecclesiastica 172 al-Farabi 112–14 Alvarus Pelagius 168–9 De statu et planctu ecclesiae 168 Ambrose, bishop of Milan, St 207, 231 Amiens (Somme) 96 Anaxagoras 82 Andrew of St Victor 9 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, St 134n, 142, 233 Anselm, bishop of Havelberg 47 Anselm of Laon 11n, 16, 233 Anthony of Padua, St 68n Apuleius, De deo Socratis 86, 92 Aquinas, Thomas, St 99, 104, 114–15, 116, 133, 157, 159, 178, 181–7 Summa contra gentiles 181–2, 185–6 Summa theologiae 170–1, 186–7 Aragon, king see James II

Aristotle 16, 82, 84, 85, 97, 99, 100–1, 113–15, 175–7, 178, 186, 191, 196, 198–9, 201, 217, 221, 223, 244–5 Categories 235 De caelo 95, 99, 108–10, 112, 114–15, 116 De sensu et sensato 110 Economics 221 Ethics 208, 221, 226–7 Metaphysics 110, 175, 177, 182–3 Politics 104, 221 Physics 105, 109 Arnald of Villanova 11n, 22–4 De adventu Antichristi 22, 23n Arnoul 112 Arras (Pas-de-Calais), woman of 136–7 Arrouaise (Pas-de-Calais), abbey 153 Athens 42 Augustine, St 11n, 16–17, 27, 49, 51, 113, 143, 165, 176–7, 178, 194, 232, 234, 242 Contra Iulianum 232 De doctrina Christiana 11n De Trinitate 177, 191 De vera religione 195 Rule 57 Augustine, St, Hermits of 48, 51 studia generalia 158 Augustine of Ancona 26n, 170–1 Averroes 105n, 109, 115 Avignon (Vaucluse), papacy 26, 119, 120–1, 123–8, 163–70, 173n Babylonia 16 Bacon, Francis 8n Bacon, Roger 63–78; 111–14 Communia mathematica 113 Opus maius 71–3, 75 Opus minus 71 Opus tertium 71, 75, 111 Baghdad (Iraq) 83 Baron, Hans 244 Basil, St, Rule 56 Becket,Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, St 152 Benedict, St 53–4 Rule 52, 56–7

276

general index

Benedict XII, pope 26, 120, 124, 126 Berengar of Tours 16 Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, St 11, 15–16, 25, 58, 140, 147n, 148, 151, 163n Berno, abbot of Cluny 45, 46 Béziers (Hérault) 83, 85 Boethius 16, 95, 97, 99–102, 105, 110, 113, 176, 236 De musica 95, 99, 102 Theological Tractates 176 Boethius of Dacia 178–87 De aeternitate mundi 179–80 De Trinitate 182, 183, 185, 193 Bohemia, heresy 217 Bologna (Italy), Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Bonagratia of Bergamo 26 Bonaventure, St 12, 25n, 61, 68n, 133 Boniface VIII, pope 49, 160–2, 166, 169 bull Unam Sanctam 161, 162, 166 Braga (Portugal), bishop see Martin Brown, Peter 7–8 Bruges (West Flanders) 144 church of Saint Donatian 129, 133–4; dean see Jean Gerson Bruno of Segni 232 Brutus 42 Burgundy, duke see Philip II Calcidius 81–3, 86 Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus 86, 92 Camaldoli (Tuscany) 53 Camaldolite order 51 founder see Romuald Rule 51, 59 Cambridge, University 124 Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Canterbury (Kent), archbishops see Becket, Kilwardby, Langton Carmelite order 158 Cassiodorus 112 Celestine V, pope 160 Chancelade (Dordogne), abbey 150 Charlemagne, emperor 214, 234, Fig. 4 Charles IV, emperor 212 Charles V, king of France 205, 207–8, 210, 212, 214, 216–17, 220–1, 223–4, 228–9, Figs. 2–5 Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), bishop see John of Salisbury cathedral 204n

Chartreuse, La Grand (Isère) 147, 151 Chaumouzey (Vosges), abbey 147 Christine de Pisan 208, 210, 220 Livre des faits 210 Chrysippus 82 Cicero 86, 91, 92, 234 De inventione 234 De natura deorum 86, 91 Somnium Scipionis 81, 86, 91 Cistercian order 149, 154–5 English houses 146–7 internal disputes 152–3 Cîteaux (Côte-d’Or), abbey 147, 151, 154–5 foundation 150 Clairvaux (Aube), abbey 147 abbot see Bernard Clarembald of Arras 193 Clement IV, pope 69–71, 74, 77 Clement V, pope 161n Clement VI, pope 120 Clement of Lessay 104–5 Clement, bishop of Dunblane 79–80 Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), diocese 44 Cluny (Saône-et-Loire), abbey 44–7 abbots see Berno, Ivo, Peter the Venerable Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia), archbishop see Friedrich Carthusian monastery 96 cathedral library 204 Constance (Baden-Württemberg), Council (1414–18) 139 Constantine, emperor 36 Constantine the African 104n Cork (Ireland), Franciscan convent 75–6, 78 Liber exemplorum 76 Costesey, Henry 124 Dalon (Dordogne), abbey 151 Daniel of Morley 87–8, 89 Philosophia 87–8, 90 Dante 29–39 Denis the Areopagite 3, 162, 163, 165, 166, 169, 171, 173 Deutz (North Rhine-Westphalia), abbot see Rupert Dolso, Marie Teresa 67 Dominican order 48, 157, 158 in Scotland 79–80, 90 masters of theology 122, 162 Donation of Constantine 36, 38 Douglas, Mary 148

general index Dunblane (Scotland), bishop see Clement Duns Scotus, John 227 Durand of St Pourçain 122 Eckhart, Meister 120, 123, 178, 192–4 Opus tripartitum 192, 194 Egypt 16 Elgin (Scotland), Dominican convent 98n Elias of Courson 123–4 Elm, Kaspar 41, 48 Elmendene, Thomas 124 Empedocles 82 Engelbert of Admont 226–8 England, kings 42, and see Henry II, Henry III Epicurus 82 Erfurt (Thuringia), Hermits of “St Augustine, studium generale 158 Ermanrich of Ellenwangen 233 Ermine of Reims 137 Ernisius, founder of Llanthony 150 Etienne de la Boétie 249–50, 252 Eustochium, St 138 Florence, republicanism 244 Fontaines-les-Blanches (Indre-et-Loire), abbey 150 Fontevraud (Maine-et-Loire), abbey 147 Foulechat, Denis 205n, 207, 216 Fountains (Yorkshire), abbey 147, 150–1 Fournier, Jacques see Benedict XII, pope France 16 Grandes Chroniques de France 212 heresy 217 kings 46, and see Charles V, Philip IV, Philip VI Francis of Assisi, St 57–8, 60, 149 Franciscan order 48, 149, 158 Chronica XXIV generalium ordinis minorum 64–9 masters of theology 122 Minister General see Jerome of Ascoli Franco of Cologne 97–8, 116 Frankenthal (Rhineland-Palatinate), abbey 155 Freising (Bavaria), bishop see Otto Friedrich von Schwarzenburg, archbishop of Cologne 202, 204, 209–10, 224, 228, Fig. 1 Furness (Lancashire), abbey 155

277

Galileo Galilei 225 Gaucher of Aureil 154 Geoffrey, count of Anjou, duke of Normandy (d. 1151) 88 Gerald of Burgo San Donnino 67n Gerard of Bologna 11 Gerard of Cremona 88, 90, 108, 113–14 Germany, emperors 46; and see Charlemagne, Charles IV Gerson, Jean 129–44, 217 On the Art of Hearing Confessions 138 On the Dignity of the Celebration of Mass 139 The Mountain of Contemplation 135, 142 Gilbert of Sempringham, St 151–2, 154 Life 151–2 Gilbertine order 151–2 Giles of Rome 187, 159–60, 163–5, 169, 171, 172, 173, 207–8 De ecclesiastica potestate 161 De regimine principum 159, 207–8 Gilson, Etienne 177 Girard de Vienne 103 Girardus de Arvernia 44–8, 50, 59 Grandmont (Haute-Vienne), abbey 153 Grandmontine order 149 Greece 16 Gregory the Great, pope, St 13–14, 16, 25, 28 Dialogues 133 Homilies on Ezechiel 18, 25 Moralia on Job 14, 25, 28 Regula pastoralis 179 Gregory VII, pope 34–5 Gregory of Tours 19 Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of Lincoln 74n, 110n Gruchy (Manche) 96 Gui de Foulques see Clement IV, pope Guido of Arezzo 96 Guido of Veliaco 123–4 Guido Vernani 33 Gundissalinus, Dominic 113–14 Guy of Saint-Denis 96, 116 Hackett, Jeremiah 75 Hamm, Berndt 243 Havelberg (Saxony-Anhalt), bishop see Anselm Hayek, F.A. 253 Headley (Yorkshire), priory 148

278

general index

Henricus Aristippus 89n Henry II, king of England 88, 152 justiciar, see Robert, earl of Leicester Henry III, king of England 71 Henry of England 123–4 Henry of Friemar 49, 51, 59–61 Henry of Ghent 122, 133, 178, 187–92 Henry of Harclay 11, 23n Heraclitus 82 Heriger of Lobbes 14–15 Hermann of Carinthia 83, 84, 85–6, 87, 89, 90 De essentiis 85–7, 88, 90 Hermes Trismegistus 79, 85–6 Asclepius 79, 86, 92 Hesiod 82 Hipparchus 85 Hippocrates 85 Hobbins, Daniel 134 Holsinger, Bruce 100 Horace 237 Hostie, Raymond 145 Hugh of St Victor 15–16, 25, 226 Didascalicon 110, 226 Huglo, Michel 98 Ibn-al-Jazzar 104n Ilnitchi, Gabriela 114 Innocent III, pope 34–5, 58 Iribarren, Isabel 121, 125 Isaac of Stella 11–12, 24 Isidore of Seville 16–17, 80n, 114–15 Ivo I, abbot of Cluny 44 Ivo, bishop of Chartres 55 Jacob of Vitry 57–8 Jacob of Viterbo 167–70 De regimine Christiano 167–8 James II, king of Aragon 22 Jean de Pouilly 120, 122n, 123 Jerome, St 8–10, 18–19, 21n, 138, 202 Jerome of Ascoli 64, 67 Jerome de Moravia 95, 98, 100, 102, 107–8 Tractatus de musica 95, 98–100, 113–17 Jews 3, 26, 232 in works of Abelard 79, 235, 237, 239 Joachim of Fiore 13n, 19–22, 24–5, 27–8 Concordia 20 Dialogi 20

Enchiridion super Apocalypsim 20 Tractatus super quatuor evangelia 20 Johannes de Grocheio 95–7 Ars musice 95–7, 100–8, 116–17 John XXII, pope 26, 119–21, 123–4, 125–6, 169–70, 172, 173n John Cassian, Conferences 139 John de Mirecourt 125 John of Damascus 107 John of Garland 97–8, 102, 107, 116 John of Oxford, bishop of Norwich 88 John of Paris 22n, 34, 38 John of Rupescissa 27–8, 125 Liber secretorum eventuum 27 John of St Paul, cardinal 58 John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres 3, 207, 216, 220, 224 Policraticus 207, 214, 216, 220, 223 John of Seville 83, 84n, 90 John the Servite 123–4 John, student of Roger Bacon 75 John Paul II, pope 187 Kaluza, Zénon 120 Khurasan 83 Kilwardby, Robert, archbishop of Canterbury 108, 110–11, 116 De ortu scientiarum 110 Knowles, David 1 Konrad von Megenberg 201, 227 Yconomica 201–2, 227 Lafleur, Claude 109 Lambert of Ardres 153 Langton, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury 10 Laon (Aisne), schools 18 Lateran Council, Fourth (1215) 47–8, 74 Leland, John 63 Lemay, Richard 84, 88 León (Spain) 83 Lessay (Manche), abbey 105 monk see Clement Limoges (Haute-Vienne) 55 Lincoln, bishop see Grosseteste Lisieux (Calvados), bishop see Oresme Little, A.G. 75 Llanthony priory (Monmouthshire) 150 Lombard, Peter 133 Sentences 131, 242 Louis IX, king of France 71 Luscombe, David ix–xiii, 1–5, 7n, 16, 79n, 157n, 201, 225, 226, 231, 242

general index Lyons, Council, First (1245) Second (1274) 48

74

Machiavelli 248–53 Art of War 249–51 Discourses 249, 251 Macrobius 81n, 82, 86, 91 Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis 79, 86, 91 Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt), Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Manegold of Lautenbach 16 Map, Walter 216 De nugis curialium 216 Marsh, Adam 68n, 74n Marsilius of Padua 172–3 Defensor Pacis 172 Martianus Capella 86 De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii 79, 86, 91 Martin, bishop of Braga 233 Formula vitae honestae 233 Matthew of Vendôme, abbot of Saint-Denis 116 Mesopotamia 85 Mews, Constant 18n Molesme (Côte-d’Or), abbey 150 abbot see Robert Momigliano, Arnaldo 64 Moray (Scotland) 98 Morimond (Haute-Marne), abbey 154–5 Naples 167, 170 Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 king see Robert of Anjou Nicholas III, pope 126 Nicholas of Autrecourt 120–1, 123–5 Nicholas of Lyra 9 Normandy 96, 104 Norwich (Norfolk), bishop see John of Oxford Novara (Piedmont), bishop see William Amidani Nuremberg (Bavaria) 243, 246–8, 253 St Lawrence parish 247, 253 St Sebald parish 247 Obazine (Corrèze), abbey abbot see Stephen

148–51

279

Ockham, William 123–4, 127n, 227 Oresme, Nicolas, bishop of Lisieux 220–1, 224 Ethics 220 Ot, Guiral 128 Otto, bishop of Freising 15–16 Oxford 42, 110 St Frideswide’s, prior see Robert of Cricklade Oxford, University 69, 119, 120, 126 Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Padua (Italy), Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Page, Christopher 96, 97 Paris 42, 78, 80n, 95, 98–9, 129 bishop 121, 122, 123, 217, and see Tempier chancellor 121 Dominican convent 115, 116 music performance 101 Sainte-Chapelle 212, 214 Paris, University 97, 119, 124–5, 129, 134, 167, 176, 193, 219 chancellor 121, and see Gerson Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis 178 College de Navarre 132, 134 Faculty of Arts 99–100, 115, 122, 178–9, 218, 227, rector see Peter of Auvergne Faculty of Medicine 131–2, 218 Faculty of Theology 22, 121, 122, 123, 131–2, 178–9, 217 Franciscan theologians 162 Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158, 167, 170 Parmenides 82 Paschasius Radbertus 19n Pastor de Serrescuderio 125 Peter, St, apostle 42 Peter of Arden, surgeon 76–7 Peter of Auvergne 104, 115 Peter of Blois 89 Peter of Limoges 99 Peter of Maricourt 75 Peter of Monteregali 123–4 Peter of Picardy 98, 116 Peter of Trau 69 Peter the Chanter 134 Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny 134n

280

general index

Petershausen (Baden-Württemberg), abbey 148 Petrarch 134 Petrus de Cruce 96 Petrus Johannis Olivi 24–8, 122, 127n, 179 De perlegendis philosophorum libris 179 Lectura super Apocalypsim 25 Philip II (“the Bold”), duke of Burgundy 129 Philip IV (“the Fair”), king of France 23, 161 Philip VI, king of France 127–8 Pierre d’Ailly 129, 131, 134, 142–3 Plato 16, 79, 82–3, 86, 239, 244 Timaeus 79, 86, 91, 101 Phaedo 89n Pocock, John 244, 248–9 popes see Benedict XII, Boniface VIII, Celestine V, Clement IV, Clement V, Clement VI, Gregory the Great, Gregory VII, Innocent III, John Paul II, Nicholas III Prague (Czechia), Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Ptolemy 85 Pythagoras 106 Ragusa (Dalmatia) 69 Raymond of Marseilles 90 Liber iudiciorum 90 Reims (Marne), cathedral 212 Rethel (Ardennes) 129 Richard of Lincoln 124 Richard of St Victor 12–13 Rievaulx (Yorkshire), abbey 147–8 abbot see Aelred Robert, abbot of Molesme, St 150 Robert of Anjou, king of Naples 170 Robert de Bardis 125 Robert of Arbrissel 148, 154 Life 148, 155 Robert of Cricklade, prior of St Frideswide’s, Oxford 89 Speculum fidei 89 Robert of Ketton 83–5, 87, 88–9 Robert of Knaresborough 148 Robert of Liège 10 Robert, earl of Leicester (d. 1168) 89 Rohloff, Ernst 97 Roman de la Rose 143

Rome 16, 42 Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158 Romuald, St 53 Rottenbuch (Bavaria), abbey 155 Rudolph of Bruges 87 Rufus of Ephesus 104n Runciman, Sir Steven 7 Rupert, abbot of Deutz 10, 232n Sabatier, Paul 65–6 Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), College 116 abbots see Matthew of Vendôme, Suger Savigny (Manche), abbey 150, 155 Schönau (Baden-Württemberg), abbey 153 Schumpeter, Joseph 252 Selby (Yorkshire), abbey 155 Seneca 233 Sicard, Barthélemy 25n Siger of Brabant 117 Simplicius 115 Skinner, Quentin 244 Smalley, Beryl 28 Southern, Sir Richard 119–21 Spain 16 Springiersbach (Mosel), abbey 155 Stephen of Muret 55–8, 60 Stephen, abbot of Obazine, St 149, 154 Life 149 Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis 148n Tauler, Johannes 195 Tempier, Etienne, bishop of Paris 178–81 Thierry of Chartres 85n, 86, 90, 193 Thijssen, Hans 120, 123, 124 Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ 142 Thomas de Bailly 123 Thomas of Sutton 10n Thomas Waleys 123 Toledo (Spain) 83, 88 Tournai (Hainaut), abbey of St Martin 147 Tuscia (Italy) 49 Ubertino of Casale

26

Veyne, Paul 245–6 Vienna (Austria), Hermits of St Augustine, studium generale 158

general index Vienne (Isère), Council (1311) 122n Vincennes (Val-de-Marne), council (Dec. 1333) 128 Vincent of Beauvais 114 Speculum doctrinale 114 Walafrid Strabo 14n Waldsassen (Bavaria), abbey 151 Wasit (Iraq) 83 Watton (Yorkshire), abbey 154 Weber, Max 245 William Amidani of Cremona, bishop of Novara 172 William Bonecor 71

281

William Curti, cardinal 125 William of Auvergne 134 William of Conches 87, 89, 225–6 Dragmaticon 87–8 William of Malmesbury 216 William of Moerbeke 108, 115 William of St Amour 122, 162 William of Tyre 10 William, founder of Llanthony 150 Williams, Bernard 244 York, St Mary’s abbey

151

Zandfeld (Pas-de-Calais), hospice

153