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MEDIEVAL MARRIAGE
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Medieval Marriage<br />
<br />
Symbolism and Society<br />
D. L. d’AVRAY
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp<br />
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UXORI CARISSIMAE
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Acknowledgements<br />
The following are among those who have earned my gratitude. The<br />
Archivio Segreto Vaticano Prefect and sta·, Louis-Jacques Bataillon,<br />
Nicole B‹eriou, John Blair, Paul Brand, Paul Brennan, Martin<br />
Brett, the British Academy for a Research Readership to work on<br />
this project and for microfilm, Christopher Brooke, Jim Brundage,<br />
Peter Clarke, Stephen Davies, Trevor Dean, Sally Dixon-Smith,<br />
Gero Dolezalek, Charles Donahue, Jenifer Dye, Barbara Harvey,<br />
Julian Hoppit, Olwen Hufton, Robert Lerner, my Love and Marriage<br />
Special Subject classes, in which some brilliant students have<br />
taught me a lot, David Luscombe, Patrick Nold, the ocials of the<br />
Penitenzieria Apostolica for permission to use their archive, Catherine<br />
Rider, Kirsi Salonen, Ludwig Schmugge, R•udiger Schnell, Julia<br />
Walworth (both as uxor carissima and as Merton Fellow Librarian),<br />
John Wa‹s, Chris Wickham, and Anders Winroth.<br />
D.L.d’A.<br />
December 2004
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Contents<br />
Note on Transcriptions xii<br />
Abbreviations xii<br />
Introduction 1<br />
1. Mass Communication 19<br />
(a) Preliminaries 19<br />
(b) TheEarlyMiddleAges 20<br />
(c) Mass Communication in the Age of the Friars 37<br />
(d) The Message about Marriage 58<br />
2. Indissolubility 74<br />
(a) From the Roman Empire to the Carolingian Empire 74<br />
(b) c.800–c.1200 82<br />
(c) The Age of Innocent III 99<br />
(d) Indissolubility in Practice 108<br />
3. Bigamy 131<br />
(a) Bigamy and Becoming a Priest 131<br />
(b) The Marriage Ceremony 141<br />
(c) Clerics in Minor Orders 157<br />
4. Consummation 168<br />
(a) Consummation and the Medieval Church’s Idea of<br />
Sex 168<br />
(b) The Dissolution of the Unconsummated Marriage:<br />
From Hincmar to Alexander III 176<br />
(c) The Social E·ects of Alexander III’s Decision 180<br />
(d) Long-Term Developments 188<br />
Conclusion 200
x Contents<br />
DOCUMENTS<br />
Chapter 1<br />
1. 1. Marriage symbolism in the Bavarian Homiliary 208<br />
1. 2. Homily on the text ‘Nuptiae factae sunt’ (John 2: 1) in<br />
the Bavarian Homiliary 211<br />
1. 3. Marriage symbolism in the Beaune Homiliary 214<br />
1. 4. Nonconformist variants in Hugues de Saint-Cher 217<br />
1. 5. Nonconformist variants in Jean de la Rochelle 217<br />
1. 6. Nonconformist variants in Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t 218<br />
1. 7. Nonconformist variants in G‹erard de Mailly 218<br />
1. 8. Nonconformist variants in Guibert de Tournai 219<br />
1. 9. A sermon on marriage by Jean Halgrin d’Abbeville 219<br />
1. 10. A sermon on marriage by Konrad Holtnicker 223<br />
1. 11. A sermon on marriage by Servasanto da Faenza 226<br />
1. 12. A sermon on marriage by Aldobrandino da Toscanella<br />
(Schneyer no. 404) 232<br />
1. 13. A sermon on marriage by Aldobrandino da Toscanella<br />
(Schneyer no. 48) 238<br />
Chapter 2<br />
2. 1. Proof in ‘forbidden degrees’ cases: Hostiensis attacks<br />
laxity 242<br />
2. 2. Proof in ‘forbidden degrees’ cases: the rigorism of<br />
Hostiensis 246<br />
Chapter 3<br />
3. 1. Johannes de Deo, De dispensationibus, on bigamy 249<br />
3. 2. Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) on Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX, X. 5. 9. 1: bigamy and loss of clerical<br />
status 250<br />
3. 3. Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) on Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX, X. 1. 21. 5: the symbolic understanding<br />
of bigamy 251<br />
3. 4. Bull of Pope Alexander IV to the prelates of France 253<br />
3. 5. Bull of Pope Gregory X to King Philip III of France 254<br />
3. 6. Bull of Pope John XXII to King Philip V of France 254<br />
3. 7. Bull of Pope John XXII to King Charles IV of France 255<br />
3. 8. Questions on marriage in MS London, BL Royal<br />
11. A. XIV 256
Contents xi<br />
3. 9. Passage on bigamy in the Pupilla oculi of Johannes de<br />
Burgo 262<br />
3. 10. A ‘bigamy’ case from the gaol delivery rolls (6 June<br />
1320) 265<br />
3. 11. The case of Five-Wife Francis, from the archive of the<br />
Apostolic Penitentiary 267<br />
3. 12. The case of Petrus Martorel, from the archive of the<br />
Apostolic Penitentiary 269<br />
Chapter 4<br />
4. 1. Consummation and its consequences in a canon-law<br />
commentary: a link to late medieval papal dissolutions<br />
of ratum non consummatum marriages 270<br />
4. 2. Ricardus de Mediavilla: marriage and entry into a<br />
religious order before consummation 273<br />
4. 3. Ricardus de Mediavilla on the marriage of Mary and<br />
Joseph 275<br />
4. 4. A consummation case in the papal registers<br />
(John XXII) 276<br />
4. 5. Consummation and indissolubility in the Oculus<br />
sacerdotis of William of Pagula 282<br />
4. 6. Johannes de Burgo on the marriage of Mary and Joseph 283<br />
4. 7. A case from the archive of the Apostolic Penitentiary:<br />
Constance of Padilla 285<br />
4. 8. Another non-consummation case from the archive of<br />
the Apostolic Penitentiary 286<br />
Bibliography 288<br />
Index of Manuscripts 310<br />
General Index 312
Note on Transcriptions<br />
My transcription conventions are explained in detail in previous<br />
books (The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Di·used from Paris<br />
before 1300 (Oxford, 1985), xi; Death and the Prince: Memorial<br />
Preaching before 1350 (Oxford, 1994), 7–8; Medieval Marriage Sermons:<br />
Mass Communication in a Culture without Print (Oxford,<br />
2001), 43). An asterisk before a word indicates the presence of an<br />
error too trivial to deserve specifying. In the present volume I normalize<br />
‘d’ to ‘t’ in ‘sicut’, and ‘t’ to ‘d’ in ‘sed’; and ‘n’ to ‘m’ in<br />
words like ‘comprobatum’, ‘imprecatur’, ‘immo’, and ‘tempore’.<br />
The problem arises because the letter is often swallowed up in an<br />
abbreviation and there is no standard classical or medieval orthography.<br />
I have normalized in these cases even where, as occasionally<br />
happens, the other form is written in full: e.g. sicud or inprecatur.<br />
Abbreviations<br />
BAV Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana<br />
BL British Library<br />
BN Biblioth›eque Nationale de France<br />
Migne, PL J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina<br />
MS/ms. Manuscript<br />
X. Decretals of GregoryIX (X. 2. 20. 47 =book 2, titulus<br />
20, chapter 47 of the Decretals)
Introduction<br />
How the modern intellectual sees medieval marriage<br />
For centuries in Europe, formal marriage was a private contract between<br />
landed families, designed to insure that property remained within a particular<br />
lineage. In the upper classes, families essentially married other families,<br />
forging political alliances and social obligations among relatives and kin.<br />
It was during the Reformation, with the emergence of the early Protestant<br />
idea of ‘companionate marriage,’ that the emotional bond between husband<br />
and wife came to be seen as an end in itself. As the social historian<br />
Lawrence Stone noted, this was a marked departure from the Catholic idea<br />
of chastity, which considered earthly marriage a more or less unfortunate<br />
necessity meant to accommodate human weakness; ‘It is better to marry<br />
than to burn,’ St. Paul had said, but he made it sound like a close call. So<br />
when the Puritans wrote of husbands and wives as mutually respectful and<br />
a·ectionate partners they were moving towards a new understanding of<br />
marriage as a kind of spiritual friendship.<br />
It is too easy for scholars to forget what the non-specialist intelligentsia<br />
thinks about their field, and the New Yorker is a good place<br />
to find out. Such a caricature in such a high-quality magazine reminds<br />
one of the time lag between research and general educated<br />
awareness. Not everything is wrong. Marriages were a mechanism<br />
for linking families and family fortunes in the Middle Ages as<br />
in subsequent ages up until and including the nineteenth century.<br />
Still, most of the rest is wrong. It was not always the family that had<br />
power. In some periods and regions lords controlled marriages of<br />
those who held land from them. Free choice by individuals was an<br />
A. Haslett, ‘A Critic at Large’, New Yorker (31 May 2004), 76–80 at 76.<br />
See e.g. R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225<br />
(Oxford, 2000), 549–51; A. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence<br />
(Cambridge, Mass., etc., 1994), passim.<br />
See e.g. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225,<br />
547–9; R. Boutruche, Seigneurie et f‹eodalit‹e: l’apog‹ee (XIe–XIIIe si›ecles) (Paris,<br />
1970), 229–30; G. Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century<br />
France, trans. E. Forster (Baltimore etc., 1978), 97–8 (there was no published French<br />
edition); J. B. Freed, Noble Bondsmen: Ministerial Marriages in the Archdiocese of<br />
Salzburg, 1100–1343 (Ithaca, NY, etc., 1995); S. L. Waugh, The Lordship of England:
2 Introduction<br />
important factor in the later Middle Ages, with backing from the<br />
Church. Marital a·ection was a social reality (as common sense<br />
would suggest), and it was strongly encouraged by influential texts.<br />
None of this is at all new, though clearly a reminder is not superfluous.<br />
This book aims to bring out a di·erent dimension of the<br />
social history of medieval marriage, correcting from another angle<br />
the idea that it was driven mainly by the landed ambitions of families.<br />
Social and legal practice was infused with marriage symbolism.<br />
Symbolism gave meaning to practice and a·ected it, not least by<br />
helping to create a combination of monogamy and indissolubility<br />
probably unique in the history of literate societies.<br />
Marriage symbolism in religions<br />
The theme, then, is marriage symbolism’s e·ect on social practice.<br />
Symbolism was crucial in the theory of marriage first, and even<br />
before the Middle Ages began. Central to the meaning of marriage,<br />
symbolism eventually became part of marriage law and changed<br />
behaviour through law, the decades around 1200 marking a turning<br />
point.<br />
I shall start with a rapid glance at the comparative religious history<br />
of the topic. Then I shall briefly indicate the kind of work<br />
that has already been done on medieval Western marriage symbolism.<br />
That will be balanced by the most rapid tour d’horizon<br />
of recent work on the social history of medieval marriage, since<br />
I aim to bring it together with the history of marriage symbolism.<br />
Like food, love and marriage are the basis of strong religious<br />
symbolism. In the study of comparative religion there is a keyword<br />
for it: ‘sacred marriage’ or hieros gamos. An important variety is<br />
parallelism between the marriage of two gods and the marriage of<br />
Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics 1217–1327 (Princeton<br />
etc., 1988).<br />
See below, pp. 124–9.<br />
F. M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward: The Community of the<br />
Realm in the Thirteenth Century (2 vols.; Oxford, 1947), i. 157 n. 1.<br />
See below, pp. 69, 129; also A. MacFarlane, Marriage and Love in England, 1300–<br />
1840: Modes of Reproduction (Oxford, 1986), 182–3, to show that a non-medievalist<br />
can get it right. Scholars have known all this for a long time: see e.g. H. A. Kelly,<br />
Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca, NY, 1975).<br />
K. W. Bolle, ‘Hieros Gamos’, in M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion,<br />
vi (New York etc., 1987), 317–21.
Introduction 3<br />
ordinary men and women. It can be found in ancient Mesopotamia,<br />
and it has been studied quite recently as living religion in a south<br />
Indian temple. In the second case we know a lot about it. The<br />
marriage ritual between the two gods is represented by statues in<br />
the temple. If the gods do not consummate the marriage regularly,<br />
the female becomes a dangerous force and a general threat.<br />
This temple ritual belongs to one of the main types of marriage<br />
symbolism in the world history of religions: the union of a male and<br />
a female god, mirroring the union of man and woman in marriage.<br />
There are a number of such marriages or sexual relationships in<br />
the Hindu pantheon: notably Rama and Sita, Vishnu and Laksmi,<br />
Siva and Parvati, Krishna and Radha. With the last two pairs<br />
at least the female partner can be presented as human or quasihuman,<br />
as we shall see. However, the motif of the marriage of two<br />
unambiguously divine beings has in itself only a loose relation to<br />
the argument of this book. Analogy between the marriage of two<br />
gods and marriage of human to human is not the same as analogy<br />
between human union with God and marriage of human to human.<br />
Non-Christian cases of this second sort of symbolism are harder<br />
to find. Some promising possibilities turn out on inspection to be<br />
very di·erent from the symbolism with which we are concerned.<br />
There is a scholarly literature on what looks at first like the same<br />
kind of thing in ancient Mesopotamia: a mythical human hero,<br />
represented by a king, who wins the love of a goddess. The story<br />
has even been connected with the Song of Songs, subject of St<br />
Bernard’s famous sermons, which would bring it even closer to<br />
our theme. However, the stories or putative rituals may have had<br />
another meaning—say the celebration of the king’s prowess in love<br />
as in everything else—and the whole subject is too fraught with<br />
controversy to be drawn into our argument.<br />
G. Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature (London etc., 1994),<br />
ch. 12.<br />
C. J. Fuller, ‘The Divine Couple’s Relationship in a South Indian Temple:<br />
Minaksi and Sundare‹svara at Madurai’, History of Religions, 19 (1980), 321–48.<br />
For an interesting analysis of di·erent types of relationship see F. A. Marglin,<br />
‘Types of Sexual Union and their Implicit Meanings’, in J. S. Hawley and D. M.<br />
Wul· (eds.), The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India (Berkeley, 1982),<br />
298–315.<br />
S. N. Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in<br />
Ancient Sumer (Bloomington, Ind., etc., 1969), esp. ch. 5.<br />
Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature, ch. 11, on ‘“Words of<br />
Seduction”: Courtly Love Poetry’, argues against ‘the neo-primitive “fertility rite”
4 Introduction<br />
The ancient Greek stories in which gods and humans mate do<br />
not on the whole look like symbols of non-sexual love betweeen<br />
thedivineandthehuman. A possible exception is the marriage<br />
of the god Dionysus to the ‘Basilinna’, the wife of the Archon<br />
Basileus (‘ruler-king’, literally, the member of the panel of rulers at<br />
Athens most especially responsible for sacred a·airs). In this case<br />
a marriage ritual may stand for the union of human and divine.<br />
In Hindu India at least marriage can represent the union of<br />
human and divine. There is even a specific name for this kind<br />
of passionate devotion to a god: ‘Bhakti’. The love of Radha and<br />
the god Krishna is particularly relevant. Radha would stand for<br />
the human side. There is a problem: Radha herself has a ‘claim<br />
to divinity’. Still, at least sometimes the idea of Radha seems<br />
to gather up in it the idea of a devout person’s union with the<br />
divine. As one historian of religion has commented: ‘As the feminine<br />
worldward side of the masculine–feminine Radha–Krishna she is<br />
the tie between deity and all souls, since she is one with the gopis<br />
[milkmaids or cowgirls, co-lovers with Radha of Krishna] and thus<br />
with those whom the gopis represent, namely all humankind.’ The<br />
notion that the construct of Sacred Marriage implies’ (129; on the king’s prowess,<br />
109–10). If she is right, one cannot use without reservation the conclusions of<br />
Kramer. For further references on the debate about ‘sacred marriage’ in ancient<br />
Mesopotamia see A. Kuhrt, ‘Babylon’, in E. J. Bakker, I. J. F. De Jong, and H.<br />
van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden etc., 2002), 475–96 at 492<br />
n. 37. In the foregoing (not only on Mesopotamia) I have been helped by Kuhrt’s<br />
clear distinction between two kinds of sacred marriage: ‘one is the marriage of two<br />
gods, represented by their statues; the other a ceremony during which the goddess<br />
of erotic love, Inanna/Ishtar (represented by a priestess?), and the king in the guise<br />
of her mythical lover, Dumuzi, had intercourse’. It is the second kind which is the<br />
subject of dispute.<br />
On the whole subject see A. Avagianou, Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek<br />
Religion (Europ•aische Hochschulschriften, ser. 15, 54; Berne etc., 1991).<br />
‘We could explain this strange and unique ritual in Greek religion as the legitimized<br />
σµµειξις of divine and human via marriage’ (Avagianou, Sacred Marriage<br />
in the Rituals of Greek Religion, 200).<br />
Cf. Hawley, ‘A Vernacular Portrait: Radha in the Sur Sagar’, in Hawley and<br />
Wul·, The Divine Consort, 42–56 at 56.<br />
N. Hein, ‘Comments: Radha and Erotic Community’, in Hawley and Wul·,<br />
The Divine Consort, 116–24 at 120, commenting on Hawley’s paper. Max Weber<br />
has some good remarks on the love of Krishna, and his parallel with Pietism is helpful:<br />
‘Was der alten klassischen Bhagavata-Religiosit•at zun•achst noch fehlte oder<br />
jedenfalls—wenn es in ihr schon existierte—von der vornehmen Literatenschicht<br />
nicht rezipiert wurde, war die br•unstige Heilandsminne der sp•ateren Krischna-<br />
Religiosit•at. A• hnlich wie etwa die lutherische Orthodoxie die psychologisch gleichartige<br />
pietistische Christus-Liebe (Zinzendorf) als unklassische Neuerung ablehnte’
Introduction 5<br />
role of these gopis accentuates the human side.<br />
There are other problems. The love of Krishna and Radha (not<br />
to mention the other gopis) is sensual in the extreme—too much so<br />
for a divine message? Perhaps not. Look at the following passage<br />
from Mechtild of Magdeburg, a thirteenth-century female mystic<br />
in the spiritual tradition of Bernard of Clairvaux.<br />
‘Stay, Lady Soul.’<br />
‘What do you bid me, Lord?’<br />
‘Take o· your clothes.’<br />
‘Lord, what will happen to me then?’<br />
‘Lady Soul, you are so utterly formed to my nature<br />
That not the slightest thing can be between you and me.’<br />
...<br />
Then a blessed stillness<br />
That both desire comes over them.<br />
He surrenders himself to her,<br />
And she surrenders herself to him.<br />
What happens to her then—she knows—<br />
And that is fine with me.<br />
But this cannot last long.<br />
When two lovers meet secretly,<br />
They must often part from one another inseparably.<br />
At least since St Bernard a surface sensuality has been part of the<br />
discourse of Christian mysticism.<br />
It might be objected that the love a·air of Krishna and Radha is<br />
extra-marital. Then again, she is one of many lovers of Krishna.<br />
Does his polygyny nullify the analogy with the medieval West?<br />
(Die Wirschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Hinduismus und Buddhismus (1916–20),<br />
repr. in Gesammelte Aufs•atze zur Religionssoziologie, ii. Hinduismus und Buddhismus<br />
(T •ubingen, 1988), 198). Weber also mentions the ‘br•unstige kultische Minne zu<br />
pers•onlichen Nothelfern, welche als Fleischwerdung gro¢er erbarmender G•otter<br />
galten’ (ibid. 202) of the popular ‘orgiastic’ religion rejected by Brahman intellectuals.<br />
There is a large literature on Mechtild. See e.g. A. Hollywood, The Soul as<br />
Virgin Wife: Mechtild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (Studies<br />
in Spirituality and Theology, 1; Notre Dame etc., 1995), 1–2, and chs. 3 and 7;<br />
H. E. Keller, My Secret is Mine: Studies on Religion and Eros in the German Middle<br />
Ages (Leuven, 2000), 107–10, with further bibliographical references. Mechtild’s<br />
Flowering Light of Godhead, from which the passage quoted comes, was probably<br />
composed in or near the third quarter of the thirteenth century (ibid. 108).<br />
Mechtild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. and intro. F.<br />
Tobin (New York etc., 1998), 62; cf. B. Newman, From Virile Woman to Woman-<br />
Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia, 1995), 150.
6 Introduction<br />
These objections fade on closer inspection even if they do not entirely<br />
disappear. The passion of Krishna and Radha may be extramarital<br />
or even adulterous in some versions, but one line strongly<br />
represented in Hindu theology is that they were in reality married.<br />
The other passionate cowgirls can be understood as di·erent forms<br />
of Radha herself. Anyway, one must not be too literal-minded<br />
with this sort of religious language. The Western image of God<br />
as the bridegroom of enormous numbers of soul-brides could be<br />
understood as polygamy, but this would be clumsy. Medieval Western<br />
marriage sermons sometimes built their symbolism around an<br />
Old Testament story: Esther’s triumphant displacement of Vashti<br />
as wife of the Persian king. In context this is clearly not an endorsement<br />
of divorce. With any symbol the analogy breaks down<br />
somewhere, and the trick is to know when to stop pressing the<br />
comparison (a principle very relevant to gendered imagery).<br />
The union of the the male god Siva with his wife Parvati can also<br />
symbolize the union of human and divine. As a standard reference<br />
work puts it, ‘Their marriage is a model of male dominance with<br />
Parvati docilely serving her husband, though this is also a model<br />
of the way a mortal should serve the god.’ It is true that Parvati<br />
is also a goddess, but a goddess close to humanity. Thus humans,<br />
women at least, can assimilate their religious experience to Parvati’s<br />
loving devotion to her husband. ‘Parvati, the daughter of the<br />
mountain Himalaya, is an ambiguous semi-divinity . . . Although<br />
poetic metaphors accorded her divine status, she is the quintessence<br />
of the lowly mortal woman worshipping the lofty male god.’<br />
It is true that this description cannot be simply applied to Christian<br />
marriage symbolism. There may indeed be a tendency in Christian<br />
mysticism towards gender specialization—human woman as<br />
Hawley, ‘A Vernacular Portrait’, 53; D. M. Wul·, ‘Radha: Consort and Conqueror<br />
of Krishna’, in J. S. Hawley and D. M. Wul· (eds.), Devi: Goddesses of India<br />
(Berkeley etc., 1996), 109–34 at 133 n. 30.<br />
S. Goswami, ‘Radha: The Play; and Perfection of Rasa’, in Hawley and Wul·,<br />
The Divine Consort, 72–88 at 81: ‘the many gopis are but manifestations of the body<br />
of Radha’. (This represents the point of view of a modern devotee.).<br />
D. L. d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture<br />
without Print (Oxford, 2001), index, s.v. ‘Assuerus’.<br />
Article on ‘P»arvat»§’, in J. Bowker (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of World Religion<br />
(Oxford, 1997), 737.<br />
W. D. O’Flaherty, ‘The Shifting Balance of Power in the Marriage of Siva and<br />
Parvati’, in Hawley and Wul·, The Divine Consort, 129–43 at 135. (The comment<br />
relates to a specific set of sources.).
Introduction 7<br />
bride, notably—but either sex can take the female role in the symbolic<br />
register, as is evident from Bernard of Clairvaux’s sermons on<br />
the Song of Songs, where the monks are the bride. Nevertheless,<br />
the following simple and powerful idea is shared by Christianity<br />
and Hinduism: that union between humans and the divine is like a<br />
marriage.<br />
Hinduism also shares with Catholic Christianity a strong doctrine<br />
of the indissolubility of marriage. The correlation with the similar<br />
approach to marriage symbolism is significant and should be borne<br />
in mind by readers following the argument of this book. There is<br />
no sociological entailment here, no necessity, but the ideal type of a<br />
relation between the social rule of unbreakable marriage and highly<br />
developed marriage symbolism makes sense.<br />
In Christian spirituality it is the ‘soul–God =bride–bridegroom’<br />
imagery which comes closest to Hinduism. Another variant of marriage<br />
symbolism, the image of the Church as bride of Christ, is further<br />
away from Hindu analogues. This is because of its collective or<br />
corporate community character, the idea of ‘the Church’ and even<br />
the human race as in some sense a unity, capable of being collectively<br />
infected by original sin and collectively redeemed by Christ.<br />
So far as one can generalize, Hinduism does indeed emphasize the<br />
character of the whole universe as a collective whole, but much less<br />
so the human race, or the collective identity of a society within it. In<br />
Hinduism there is the self (atman), there are status groups (castes)<br />
through which the self passes on the journey of reincarnations towards<br />
final release, and there is the All, but the idea of a society as<br />
an organic body with a collective role in the drama of History is<br />
alien. The medieval Church saw itself as just such a society, whose<br />
relation to God could be called a marriage.<br />
To this symbolism the closest parallel is in ancient Israel, where<br />
the Jewish people are themselves, collectively, the bride of God.<br />
It has been pointed out that according to Deuteronomy 24: 1–4 ‘a<br />
divorced woman who has remarried can never be reconciled with<br />
her former husband. Because God is anxious to bring back Israel<br />
as his beloved spouse, he must never have divorced her.’<br />
Keller argues that ‘the roles of bride and bridegroom become fixed with regard<br />
to gender’, suggesting that there was a ‘gradual narrowing of the role of the bride to<br />
(primarily religious) women on the one hand’ and a ‘successive masculinization of<br />
the divine bridegroom on the other hand’ (My Secret is Mine, 8).<br />
See, however, below, n. 36.<br />
C. Stuhlmueller, ch. 22 on ‘Deutero-Isaiah’, in The Jerome Biblical Commen-
8 Introduction<br />
The Song of Songs may or may not be about the love of God<br />
and his people, but in any case this religious interpretation of these<br />
songs is the ‘oldest interpretation, in both Christian and Jewish<br />
tradition’. Hebrew ideas about God’s marriage to or love of his<br />
chosen people are not only a parallel to but also a crucial source for<br />
Christian marriage symbolism. The reading of the Song of Songs<br />
adopted by the third-century Christian theologian Origen owed<br />
much to Jewish tradition, and Origen is a decisive influence on the<br />
whole subsequent tradition of Christian marriage symbolism (on<br />
the ‘Church as bride of Christ’ as well as on the ‘Soul as bride of<br />
Christ’ themes).<br />
Thus the Bernardine tradition of bridal mysticism has parallels in<br />
Hinduism, and the image of Christ’s marriage to the Church draws<br />
on Old Testament Judaism. What may be harder to find in other<br />
religious traditions is the sober rationality with which medieval<br />
scholastic writers and canon lawyers integrated marriage symbolism<br />
into their systematic and coherent religious frameworks. The<br />
Supplement to the Summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas succinctly<br />
integrates the di·erent levels into a coherent structure. Marriage<br />
is formed by signs of consent, usually verbal, not necessarily in a<br />
religious ceremony. These external signs represent a further level:<br />
the binding of man and woman. If the couple are Christians, this<br />
signifies and also brings about a spiritual union. This is the ‘sacrament’<br />
in the more technical theological sense, worked out by the<br />
time of Aquinas, of a sign of grace that brought about what it represented.<br />
Beyond that, there is another layer still. The spiritual<br />
union of man and woman represents, but does not bring about, the<br />
union of Christ and the Church. This dense symbolism from the<br />
tary, ed. R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy, i (London, 1968), 366–86<br />
at 377, on Isa. 50, with reference to Isa. 54: 6–8 and 61: 4–5.<br />
R. E. Murphy, ch. 30, ‘Canticle of Canticles’, ibid. 506–10 at 507.<br />
‘For Christian readings of the Song of Songs, especially as popularized by<br />
Origen, this assumption [that the “Old Testament” is reflected in the “New Testament”]<br />
automatically suggested the scope of prior meanings; that is, the poems read<br />
by Jews as the love between God and Israel naturally find their “true” sense as the<br />
love between Christ and the Church’ (E. A. Matter, The Voice of my Beloved: The<br />
Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, c.1990), 51).<br />
Supplementum, 42. 1, ‘Ad quartum’ and ‘Ad quintum’, 42. 2, ‘Respondeo’,<br />
and 42–3, ‘Respondeo’ and ‘Ad secundum’: see SanctiThomaeAquinatis...opera<br />
omnia, iussu . . . Leonis XIII P.M. edita, xii (Rome, 1906), 81–2. For the Supplement,<br />
put together after the death of Aquinas on the basis of his commentary on the<br />
Sentences of Peter the Lombard, see J. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d’Aquino: His Life,
Introduction 9<br />
world of rational speculative scholastic theology is a far cry from<br />
the emotional outpourings of the Bernardine tradition.<br />
The parallelism between symbolic and literal can take one by<br />
surprise. The Summa theologica Supplement raises this objection:<br />
Sacraments have ecacy from the passion of Christ. But a person<br />
does not become conformed to the passion through marriage, which<br />
is accompanied by delight. Theansweristhatmarriageisconformed<br />
to the passion not through pain but through the love which<br />
Christ showed the Church by su·ering to unite her to himself as<br />
his bride.<br />
State of research<br />
Aquinas is one writer among many powerful minds who created a<br />
tradition of rationally analysing marriage symbolism. This tradition<br />
has been well studied, above all in a little-known but (for our<br />
Thought and Works (Oxford, 1974), 362. In his view the compilation ‘was, no doubt,<br />
the work of Thomas’s earliest editors working under the direction of Reginald of<br />
Piperno’. These passages are taken from Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences<br />
of Peter Lombard at dist. 26, qu. 2, arts. 1–3 (see the concordance of Supplement<br />
and commentary in SanctiThomaeAquinatis...operaomnia, vol. xii, p. xxv, and<br />
S. Tommaso d’Aquino: Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo e testo integrale<br />
di Pietro Lombardo. Libro quarto. Distinzioni 24–42. L’Ordine, il Matrimonio, trans.<br />
and ed. by ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’ (Bologna, 2001), 196–<br />
206. For Aquinas on marriage as a symbol of the union of Christ and the Church<br />
see R. J. Lawrence, The Sacramental Interpretation of Ephesians 5: 32 from Peter<br />
Lombard to the Council of Trent (The Catholic University of America Studies in<br />
Sacred Theology, Second Series, 145; Washington, 1963), 67–72. The whole of this<br />
work is relevant for the theological background it provides to the social history<br />
which is the main focus of this book. For another scholastic theologian’s marriage<br />
symbolism see Pierre de Tarantaise, commenting on Peter Lombard, Sentences,<br />
4, dist. 26, qu. 3: ‘Coniunctio exterius apparens per signa aliqua est sacramentum<br />
tantum: coniunctio animorum interior sacramentum et res: e·ectus gratiae quae ibi<br />
confertur, res non sacramentum: res inquantum primo significata, res vero significata<br />
secundario coniunctio Christi et Ecclesiae’ (Innocentii Quinti Pontificis Maximi ...<br />
In IV. librum Sententiarum commentaria, iv (Toulouse, 1651), 287).<br />
Cf. Summa theologica, 3. 62. 5 for the theology presupposed.<br />
Supplementum, 42. 1, obj. 3.<br />
Ibid., ‘ad tertium’ (objection and response are taken from Aquinas’s commentary<br />
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard: see Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro<br />
Lombardo . . ., trans. and ed. ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’, dist. 26,<br />
qu. 2, a. 1, pp. 196, 198). Cf. Pierre de Tarantaise: ‘Ad 4 de Passione. Resp. Christus<br />
est passus a}ictionem carnis ex charitate spirituali quam habebat ad Ecclesiam.<br />
Quoad primum, matrimonium non significabat passum, sed quoad secundum’ (Innocentii<br />
Quinti . . . commentaria, iv. 287). For the similar thinking in Ricardus de<br />
Mediavilla see T. Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, misterio y signo: siglos IX al XIII (Pamplona,<br />
1971), 319–20.
10 Introduction<br />
topic) fundamental book, Rinc‹on’s El matrimonio, mistero y signo.<br />
A main function of the present volume is to demonstrate the relevance<br />
of Rinc‹on’s findings to legal practice and social history.<br />
Rinc‹on prefers the word ‘Significac‹§on’ to symbolism. He wants<br />
to emphasize that the connection between human marriage and<br />
Christ’s union with the Church goes far beyond subjective ‘spiritual<br />
sense’-type parallelism. Though ‘symbolism’ will be used<br />
loosely to cover both kinds of meaning here, the distinction is worth<br />
bearing in mind: it reminds us that in theological texts marriage is<br />
linked to the union of Christ and the Church by a tight web of close<br />
logical reasoning. The same is true of canon-law commentaries,<br />
which Rinc‹on studies alongside the strictly theological texts.<br />
It is rash but important to generalize about world history: if the<br />
generalization is misleading, someone will point it out, but otherwise<br />
no one will know either way. I would suggest, then, that there<br />
is nothing in the world history of religions much like the developments<br />
Rinc‹on describes. If Rinc‹on has made an exemplary analysis<br />
of the theological and canon legal texts, marriage symbolism in literary<br />
and mystical texts has been the object of studies distinguished<br />
by literary sensitivity and a preoccupation with the paradoxes of a<br />
gendered symbolism which both men and women could in principle<br />
use for their relation to God. The bridal mysticism of Bernard of<br />
See n. 32 ad fin. I have not found this book in the British Library, Bodleian Library,<br />
or Cambridge University Library. There are copies in the Birmingham University<br />
Library, the Biblioth›eque Nationale de France, in several German libraries,<br />
and of course in Spain. More recently, see T. Rinc‹on-P‹erez [the same author, I<br />
take it], El matrimonio cristiano: sacramento de la Creaci‹on y de la Redenci‹on. Claves<br />
de un debate teol‹ogico-can‹onico (Estudios Can‹onicos, 1; Pamplona, 1997), chs. 1–3.<br />
For marriage symbolism in connection with sacramentality see also Lawrence, The<br />
Sacramental Interpretation of Ephesians 5: 32, which should in turn be bracketed<br />
with S. P. Heaney, The Development of the Sacramentality of Marriage from Anselm<br />
of Laon to Thomas Aquinas (The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred<br />
Theology, Second Series, 134; Washington, 1963).<br />
‘Creemos fundamental distinguir entre simbolismo o paralelismo simb‹olico y<br />
significaci‹on come tal. Lo primero, en t‹erminos gramaticales, equivale a una simple<br />
yuxtaposici‹on del sentido m‹§stico y el sentido literal. Mientras que en la en la<br />
significaci‹on come tal existe un subordinaci‹on o dependencia profunda del signo en<br />
relaci‹on con la cosa significada’ (Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, misterio y signo, 270 n. 48).<br />
Thus N. Cartlidge, Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100–1300<br />
(Cambridge etc., 1997), develops a persuasive argument that despite the exaltation<br />
of virginity over marriage in some of the texts he studies they still make marriage<br />
symbolize a ‘true drama of feeling’ and stand as ‘a paradigm of emotional commitment’;<br />
‘the sponsa Christi-motif is much more than a rhetorical metaphor for<br />
spiritual union: it is used to evoke a psychological process’ (159).<br />
e.g. Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: ‘If monks wished to play
Introduction 11<br />
Clairvaux has also been thoroughly examined. Perhaps a majority<br />
of the writers on all these topics have a background in literature<br />
or religious studies (defined to include theology and canon law).<br />
That is no defect: it has doubtless sharpened their perception of<br />
religious subtleties and nuances. The present study has a somewhat<br />
di·erent and complementary aspect because it comes from a historian<br />
formed in an age when the social history of marriage was the<br />
hottest of historiographical topics.<br />
Before the 1970s not much of the history of marriage was written<br />
from history departments. Excellent work was done by church<br />
lawyers: catholics like Esmein and Dauvillier, but also Protestants<br />
like Sohm and Friedberg, engaged in a controversy about<br />
the introduction of civil marriage into Prussia, whose resonances<br />
seem faint today. (The contribution of German Protestants to medi-<br />
the starring role in this love story, they had to adopt a feminine persona—as many<br />
did—to pursue a heterosexual love a·air with their God. It might be assumed that<br />
when women began to compose their own mystical texts, they could more easily<br />
havefollowedthepathalreadylaidoutbymen.But...somewomenforgeda...<br />
less stereotypical way that allowed them a wider emotional range’, adopting the<br />
discourse of fin amour which ‘could encourage women writers to experiment with<br />
gender roles just as monks did within the Song of Songs tradition’ (138). (C. W.<br />
Bynum is almost certainly an inspiration behind this kind of analysis: see e.g. her<br />
‘“And Woman his Humanity”: Female Imagery in the Religious Writings of the<br />
Later Middle Ages’, in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the<br />
Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1991), 151–79 at 176–9.) Or again<br />
Keller, My Secret is Mine: ‘Bernard of Clairvaux’s e·orts to re-establish the bridal<br />
metaphor in the monastic life of both sexes mark precisely the beginning of the<br />
definitive exclusion of monks from the concept’ (35); ‘Precisely the history of the<br />
motif of the bride of God itself, both its gender-specific fixing of the role of the bride<br />
of God and its attempts to force open such narrowings make clear that the human<br />
world of the sexes and its historically-determined mechanisms push their way into<br />
spiritual eroticism by the back door’ (263). Keller’s bibliography is a good guide<br />
to recent literature on marriage/bridal symbolism. For an exemplary analysis of<br />
gender in marriage symbolism see A. Volfing, John the Evangelist and Medieval<br />
German Writing: Imitating the Inimitable (Oxford, 2001), 138–60.<br />
J. Leclercq, Le Mariage vu par les moines au XIIe si›ecle (Paris, 1983), ch. 7, is an<br />
especially important study. See too his Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France:<br />
Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford, 1979).<br />
A. Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique ed. R. G‹enestal and J. Dauvillier, 2nd<br />
edn. (2 vols.; Paris, 1929–35).<br />
J. Dauvillier, Le Mariage dans le droit classique de l’‹eglise depuis le D‹ecret de<br />
Gratien (1140) jusqu’›a lamortdeCl‹ement V (1314) (Paris, 1933).<br />
R. Sohm, Das Recht der Eheschlie¢ung aus dem deutschen und kanonischen Recht<br />
geschichtlich entwickelt: Eine Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Verh•altniss der kirchlichen<br />
Trauung zur Civilehe (Weimar, 1875).<br />
E. Friedberg, Verlobung und Trauung, zugleich als Kritik von Sohm: Das Recht<br />
der Eheschlie¢ung (Leipzig, 1876).
12 Introduction<br />
eval canon-law history would be an interesting topic.) The great<br />
Gabriel Le Bras defies classification: he was somewhere between<br />
law, theology and sociology: a great historian by nature but not<br />
by formal training. Joyce, a theologian, wrote a fine synthesis,<br />
and the German school of Catholic medieval historical theology,<br />
notably M•uller, Brandl, and Ziegler, also made contributions<br />
which have lost little of their value today. Still, they were not writing<br />
primarily for a community of historians and, perhaps more important,<br />
they wrote at a time when social history had not attained the<br />
dominance it enjoyed in the last decades of the twentieth century.<br />
Non-historians have continued to contribute even in those decades.<br />
Goody, who raised with great intelligence even if he did<br />
not solve the historical problem of the ‘forbidden degrees’, came<br />
from anthropology; Gaudemet, Weigand, Helmholz, and Donahue<br />
were again from law; Jean Leclercq, though clearly a<br />
historian in his attitudes and approach and with his finger on the<br />
See especially his article on ‘Mariage. III. La doctrine du mariage chez les<br />
th‹eologiens et canonistes depuis l’an mille’, in Dictionnaire de th‹eologie catholique<br />
(15 vols. excluding indexes; Paris, 1899–1950), ix (1926), 2123–223.<br />
G. H. Joyce, Christian Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Study (London<br />
etc., 1933).<br />
M. M•uller, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus von der Paradiesesehe und ihre Auswirkung<br />
in der Sexualethik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts bis Thomas von Aquin:<br />
Eine moralgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Studien zur Geschichte der katholischen<br />
Moraltheologie, 1; Regensburg, 1954).<br />
L. Brandl, Die Sexualethik des heiligen Albertus Magnus (Regensburg, 1955).<br />
J. G. Ziegler, Die Ehelehre der P•onitentialsummen von 1200–1350: Eine Untersuchung<br />
zur Geschichte der Moral- und Pastoraltheologie (Regensburg, 1956).<br />
J. Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge,<br />
1983). This has received a fair amount of criticism though there has been a general<br />
appreciation too of the way the book has opened up the subject. For my own critiques<br />
see ‘Peter Damian, Consanguinity and Church Property’, in L. Smith and B. Ward<br />
(eds.), Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Margaret Gibson<br />
(London, 1992), 71–80 at 76–7, and ‘Lay Kinship Solidarity and Papal Law’, in P.<br />
Sta·ord, J. L. Nelson, and J. Martindale (eds.), Law, Laity and Solidarities: Essays<br />
in Honour of Susan Reynolds (Manchester, 2001), 188–99.<br />
J. Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident: les m¥urs et le droit (Paris, 1987), to<br />
name only one of his contributions.<br />
R. Weigand, Liebe und Ehe im Mittelalter (Bibliotheca Eruditorum, 7; Goldbach,<br />
1993).<br />
R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974).<br />
C. Donahue, Jr., ‘The Monastic Judge: Social Practice, Formal Rule, and the<br />
Medieval Canon Law of Incest’, in P. Landau, with M. Petzolt (eds.), De iure<br />
canonico medii aevi: Festschrift f•ur Rudolf Weigand (Studia Gratiana, 27; Rome,<br />
1996), 49–69; (with Norma Adams), Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the<br />
Province of Canterbury, c. 1200–1301 (Selden Society, 95; London, 1981).<br />
See above, n. 37.
Introduction 13<br />
pulse of his time’s historiography, was writing from a monastery<br />
rather than a history department. Hubertus Lutterbach comes from<br />
theology. Students of vernacular literature like Schumacher and<br />
Burch have done thought-provoking work. Cartlidge’s study,<br />
mentioned above under the rubric of symbolic marriage, talks<br />
about perceptions of real human marriage as well. Perhaps the<br />
most important recent historian of medieval marriage and sexuality,<br />
R•udiger Schnell holds his chair in a department of Germanistik,<br />
though he has mastered the bibliography in all medieval<br />
fields on these topics to an astonishing degree. Only the historian<br />
Brundage, on whom below, can come near him as a guide to this<br />
practically endless sea of secondary scholarship.<br />
Brundage is one of a substantial number of historians employed<br />
in history departments who have added to this tower of scholarship<br />
recently, holding their own with colleagues from other sectors of<br />
academe. They are not necessarily more impartial—indeed, in this<br />
field historians tend to make their ideological aliations as evident<br />
as historians of monasticism used to before the First World War.<br />
Moreover, some have continued to use the same types of evidence as<br />
scholars from other disciplines: Payer’s The Bridling of Desire is<br />
in the tradition of historical theology and Brundage’s opus magnum<br />
is based above all on penitentials and canon-law commentaries so<br />
far as primary sources are concerned, although, as just noted, he<br />
is remarkably successful in getting a grip on the enormous mass<br />
H. Lutterbach, Sexualit•at im Mittelalter: Eine Kulturstudie anhand von Bu¢b•uchern<br />
des 6. bis 12. Jahrhunderts (Cologne etc., 1999). Although the style is detached,<br />
there are signs that he is himself fighting a battle within the world of Catholic<br />
theology.<br />
M. Schumacher, Die Auffassung der Ehe in den Dichtungen Wolframs von Eschenbach<br />
(Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abt., Untersuchungen und Texte, 3. Reihe,<br />
Untersuchungen und Einzeldarstellungen; Heidelberg, 1967).<br />
S. L. Burch, ‘A Study of Some Aspects of Marriage as Presented in Selected<br />
Octosyllabic French Romances of the 12th and 13th Centuries’ (unpublished Ph.D.<br />
thesis, University College London, 1982).<br />
See above all R. Schnell, Sexualit•at und Emotionalit•at in der vormodernen Ehe<br />
(Cologne etc., 2002).<br />
Theopus magnum is J. A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval<br />
Europe (Chicago etc., 1987). Brundage’s publications on medieval marriage and sex<br />
are too numerous to list here, but special mention must be made of his ‘The Merry<br />
Widow’s Serious Sister: Remarriage in Classical Canon Law’, in R. R. Edward and<br />
V. Ziegler (eds.), Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society (Woodbridge,<br />
1995), 33–48, which is directly relevant to Chapter 3.<br />
P. J. Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages<br />
(Toronto etc., 1993).
14 Introduction<br />
of secondary scholarship about medieval marriage in three or four<br />
academic languages. Conversely, the analyses of actual court records<br />
by Weigand and Helmholz take us firmly beyond the world of ‘book<br />
texts’, if one may so put it. By and large, however, the professional<br />
historians have helped to root the subject more firmly in social<br />
history—converging with some of the lawyers in this respect.<br />
Christopher Brooke was very early in the field, including sections<br />
on marriage in a general survey, a historian somewhat ahead<br />
of his time. In a series of subsequent publications, he brought to<br />
bear on the history of marriage a knowledge of central medieval<br />
social history that owed much to his involvement with the Oxford<br />
Medieval Texts editorial project. The present study takes up a<br />
question that he put more clearly than any of the other historians<br />
who made up the wave of writing on medieval marriage: namely,<br />
what was di·erent about the Christian marriage of the Middle<br />
Ages? The Christianization of marriage in the twelfth century has<br />
been a central thread. Georges Duby used his remarkable architectonic<br />
literary gifts to develop an elegant and still broadly valid<br />
schema: an aristocratic model, favouring legitimate marriage but allowing<br />
easy divorce, and tolerating the marriage of close relatives,<br />
opposed to a clerical model emphasizing indissoluble monogamous<br />
marriage—exogamy. The endogamy/exogamy part of the thesis<br />
requires further commentary out of place in this argument, but<br />
the notion that the two models grew closer together in the early<br />
thirteenth century is broadly right. The lay nobility came to accept<br />
indissolubility, and the Church reduced the circle of forbidden<br />
degrees of relationship, allowing closer relatives to marry. All this<br />
needs to be put in the context of a rationality perhaps not fully<br />
understood by Duby. It should also be noted that he was able to<br />
draw on some crucial discoveries made earlier by John Baldwin<br />
about the thinking behind the changes in marriage law e·ected<br />
by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. In general Duby’s work<br />
tends to leave the impression that the medieval Church took a nega-<br />
C. N. L. Brooke, Europe in the Central Middle Ages 962–1154 (London, 1964;<br />
3rd edn. Harlow, 2000): in first edition 245–7 and index s.v. ‘Marriage’.<br />
His results were drawn together in The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford,<br />
1989), still probably the best way into the subject.<br />
Duby, Medieval Marriage; id.,Le Chevalier, la femme et le pr^etre: le mariage<br />
dans la France f‹eodale (Paris, 1981).<br />
J. W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the<br />
Chanter and his Circle (2 vols.; Princeton, 1970), i. 332–7, ii. 222–7 (classic pages).
Introduction 15<br />
tive view of marriage, a view corrected in friendly fashion by Jean<br />
Leclercq (and as we shall see quite contrary to copious evidence<br />
of which he was unaware). Dyan Elliott’s study of ‘Spiritual Marriage’<br />
(understood not in the usual sense of symbolic marriage but<br />
as marriage without sex) used saints’ lives alongside theological and<br />
canon-law texts, and tried to reconstruct actual practices. David<br />
Herlihy traced the change from an early medieval society where<br />
the rich and powerful had more than their fair share of women to a<br />
society where the husband-and-wife couple was the norm at all levels<br />
of society: the slimness of his Medieval Households is in inverse<br />
proportion to its achievement. Michael Borgolte has set the medieval<br />
Church’s e·orts to enforce monogamy and indissolubility in a<br />
comparative framework by showing how its sphere of influence was<br />
ringed with an outer sphere of polygyny, among the Muslims and<br />
Jews outside the borders of Latin Europe but also among Christians<br />
who came in contact with them or who maintained a polygynous<br />
subculture.<br />
The general trend of most recent work has been to emphasize the<br />
growing though always limited influence of the Church’s models<br />
on the social history of marriage (indeed, Borgolte emphasizes it<br />
too). This is particularly but not exclusively true of the work by<br />
scholars in history departments. This study will draw heavily on<br />
their results, especially the findings of scholars who have studied<br />
ecclesiastical court evidence.<br />
The argument<br />
The specific aim of the present study is to draw together the social<br />
history of marriage and the history of marriage symbolism. I<br />
am not quite the first historian to have seen the connection, for<br />
D. Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton,<br />
1993). Her use of ‘spiritual marriage’ to mean marriage without sex is perhaps<br />
confusing since the phrase often means marriage as metaphor, but there is a pedigree<br />
behind her terminology: see P. de Labriolle, ‘Le “mariage spirituel” dans l’antiquit‹e<br />
chr‹etienne’, Revue historique, 137 (1921), 204–25.<br />
D. Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, Mass., etc., 1985).<br />
M. Borgolte, ‘Kulturelle Einheit und religi•ose Di·erenz: Zur Verbreitung<br />
der Polygynie im mittelalterlichen Europa’, Zeitschrift f•ur historische Forschung,<br />
31 (2004), 1–36; for aristocratic polygyny in regions or cultures within Christian<br />
Europe see ibid. 7 n. 23 from p. 6 (referring to the work of Jan R•udiger).<br />
Ibid. 11, 13.<br />
As an example see the able survey by D. O. Hughes, ‘Il matrimonio nell’Italia<br />
medievale’, in M. De Giorgio and C. Klapisch-Zuber (eds.), Storia del matrimonio<br />
(Rome etc., 1996), 5–61, notably 18–24, 44–9.
16 Introduction<br />
I think that Marcel Pacaut caught the essence of it in a few perceptive<br />
lines. Most of the actual links of causation need to be traced.<br />
This enterprise is related to the skilful elucidations by canon-law<br />
historians of marriage symbolism’s influence on the idea of the<br />
episcopal oce, to Dye’s important study of Marian marriage<br />
In a brief article that anticipates more than any other study the general approach<br />
of this book, Pacaut develops with respect to the twelfth century an argument that<br />
works even better for the mid-thirteenth century and after. To do justice to his<br />
priority a full quotation is required:<br />
le renvoi du couple Christ- ‹Eglise . . . tend aussi ›a exposer que le Christ et l’ ‹Eglise<br />
—et de m^emeleChristetl’^ame — sont uns comme le sont l’‹epoux et l’‹epouse<br />
dans leur union charnelle, ainsi que le sugg›ere Pierre Lombard, ce qui se rapporte<br />
›a une image claire et simple selon laquelle l’union des corps est d’autant plus<br />
parfaite qu’elle repose sur l’amour et ce qui revient ›a rapprocher un mod›ele (pour<br />
l’^ame) et une r‹ealit‹e dicile ›a saisir (pour l’ ‹Eglise) d’un autre mod›ele facilement<br />
concevable, presque “visualis‹e” et non utopique, car il existait certainement. C’est<br />
l›a aussi le sens profond de la m‹etaphore reprise dans les sermons sur le Cantique<br />
des Cantiques, qui ne peuvent exclure l’appel ›alar‹ealit‹e charnelle, et dont on peut<br />
tirer parfois, ›a l’inverse, qu’il serait souhaitable que les ‹epoux soient unis comme<br />
le Christ l’est avec son ‹Eglise.<br />
Ces propos ressortissent en fait ›a une m‹editation mystique et sont en m^eme<br />
temps le reflet de la pastorale di·us‹ee par le clerg‹e. Celle-ci insiste sur la valeur<br />
de l’amour conjugal et sur sa n‹ecessit‹e pour accomplir le mariage par le moyen de<br />
l’union des corps. Elle souligne que le consentement, qui fait que l’union charnelle<br />
n’est pas honteuse, oriente les vies vers l’amour. Elle atteste donc aussi de ce qu’un<br />
e·ort s’accomplit alors afin que la r‹eussite amoureuse, physique et sentimentale,<br />
soit facilit‹ee par l’engagement consensuel reconnu, ›al’‹epoque o›u le droit cherche,<br />
sur une autre voie, ›a normaliser cet engagement, sans lequel la pr‹edication et<br />
la r‹eflexion spirituelle ne reposeraient, dans leur ‹elaboration, sur aucun support<br />
solide. (‘Sur quelques donn‹ees du droit matrimonial dans la seconde moiti‹e du<br />
xiiE si›ecle’, in Histoire et soci‹et‹e: m‹elanges o·erts ›a Georges Duby. Textes r‹eunis<br />
par les m‹edi‹evistes de l’Universit‹e deProvence(2 vols.; Aix-en-Provence, 1992), i.<br />
31–41 at 40)<br />
Keller, My Secret is Mine, especially chapter 2, also explores the interplay between<br />
symbolism and social practice. Her findings are very di·erent (without being<br />
necessarily incompatible), because she concentrates on social practices which<br />
are ‘Firmly rooted in the tradition of Germanic Law’ (p. 69)—Muntehe etc.—<br />
rather than the social structure created in the high and late Middle Ages by canon<br />
law. I. Persson, Ehe und Zeichen: Studien zu Eheschlie¢ung und Ehepraxis anhand<br />
der fr•uhmittelhochdeutschen religi•osen Lehrdichtungen ‘Vom Rechte’, ‘Hochzeit’ und<br />
‘Schopf von dem l^one’ (G•oppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 617; G•oppingen, 1995),<br />
takes a close look at the relation between the details of marriage in poetic allegory and<br />
legal notions of marriage: see notably pp. 127–8. I am in sympathy with the approach<br />
but the contrast she draws between the Germanic and the canon-law attitudes to<br />
consummation may be overstated: see below, ch. 4 n. 16.<br />
S. Kuttner, ‘Pope Lucius III and the Bigamous Archbishop of Palermo’ (1961),<br />
repr. in id., The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages<br />
(London, 1980), no. vii; R.L.Benson,The Bishop Elect: A Study in Medieval<br />
Ecclesiastical Oce (Princeton, 1968), 122–9, 136–49; J. Gaudemet, ‘Le symbolisme<br />
du mariage entre l’‹ev^eque et son ‹eglise et ses consequences juridiques’ (1985), repr.
Introduction 17<br />
symbolism, and to Gabriella Zarri’s remarkable account of marriage<br />
symbolism in rituals and iconography. It is nevertheless a<br />
quite distinct line of enquiry.<br />
There will be a lot of thick description of the symbolic forms<br />
of thought underlying marriage law and practice, but the book<br />
has preoccupations which are rather played down in anthropology<br />
›a laCli·ord Geertz (which sees the study of society as more like<br />
interpreting a poem than causal analysis): force (not necessarily in a<br />
negative sense) and timing. In a nutshell, I shall try to establish how,<br />
when, and why marriage symbolism became a force in the lay world.<br />
Stated baldly, the line of interpretation goes like this. Marriage is<br />
a powerful symbol of the union of the human and the divine. Most<br />
relationships are superficial compared with marriage. Marriage is<br />
one of the strongest experiences in many people’s lives. Comparison<br />
with marriage is a way of conveying the strength of the bond<br />
between God and humanity. Marriage has many dimensions which<br />
can be explored to bring out by analogy aspects of union with God.<br />
A symbol or metaphor is capable of generating new ideas about<br />
the relationship it describes, whether that relationship is real or<br />
imaginary. It can also a·ect social policy and structures. Marriage<br />
is a ‘generative’ metaphor, vivid, full of unexpected possibilities,<br />
potentially a powerful influence on thought and action. (Not all<br />
metaphors are like this. Many have limited use and quickly become<br />
desiccated, like the ‘man is a wolf’ formula beloved of philosophers<br />
who discuss metaphor.) Other powerful generative metaphors are<br />
the meal as a symbol of community, the body as a symbol of the<br />
state, or the ‘conduit’ metaphor for communication.<br />
in id., Droit de l’ ‹Eglise et vie sociale au Moyen ^Age (Northampton, 1989), no. ix,<br />
110–23.<br />
J. M. Dye, ‘The Virgin as Sponsa c.1100–c.1400’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
University College London, 2001).<br />
G. Zarri, Recinti: donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima et›a moderna([Bologna],<br />
2000), ch. 4. It deals (to quote a summary earlier in the same book) especially<br />
with the ‘pratica medievale di matrimoni simbolici, che aveva lo scopo, tra l’altro, di<br />
confermare la sacralit›a del matrimonio cristiano, in assenza di una ritualit›a religiosa<br />
pubblica nel matrimonio della coppia celebrato prevalentemente tra le mura domestiche’<br />
(26). I share Zarri’s preoccupation with the connections between symbolism<br />
and social practices.<br />
D. A. Sch•on, ‘’Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-Setting in<br />
Social Policy’, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge, 1979), 254–<br />
83.<br />
M. J. Reddy, ‘The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of Frame Conflict in our Language<br />
about Language’, in Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 284–324.
18 Introduction<br />
It will be argued that marriage symbolism had a quite limited<br />
causal impact for much of the Middle Ages: up until the long century<br />
around the year 1200. Therefore the explanations advanced<br />
in this book will often take the form of elucidating ‘neutralizing<br />
causes’, forces that neutralize a causal process which might otherwise<br />
be expected. I shall attempt to explain what prevented marriage<br />
symbolism for so long from becoming a force in the lay world.<br />
From the thirteenth century on it was indeed a force and changed<br />
social patterns.
1<br />
Mass Communication<br />
(a) Preliminaries<br />
The bulk of this book deals with the e·ect of marriage symbolism<br />
outside the texts that transmitted it. Much of the discussion is<br />
about the changes it brought about through law in social practice,<br />
but a natural starting point is its power over the minds of the<br />
laity through the cumulative force of mass communication. The<br />
argument of the present chapter makes the assumption that the<br />
cumulative repetition of much the same message by a powerful<br />
mass medium does have an e·ect on the thoughts of the people<br />
at the receiving end. It is an assumption. Some feel that the mass<br />
media do not really change people’s thinking at all. They may be<br />
right with regard to short-term propaganda. Brief intense political<br />
campaigns or revivalist preaching may well have a transitory impact<br />
and no lasting e·ect on attitudes. Can the same be true of ideas<br />
repeated over years and decades? Ideas propagated over a long<br />
period of time by modern newspapers (for instance) surely leave<br />
some mark on the minds of readers, as a dripping tap leaves a stain<br />
in a sink. As with modern newspapers, there is little hard empirical<br />
evidence at the reception end. Could one establish with absolute<br />
certainty the e·ect of newspapers on a single reader? Paradoxically,<br />
one can be more confident about aggregate e·ects. Ideas repeated<br />
to great masses of people over many decades will have impinged in<br />
some way on the minds of a significant portion of the audience: this<br />
much is taken for granted. The whole argument of this chapter is<br />
vulnerable to extreme scepticism on this point, but such scepticism<br />
flies in the face of common sense. The question then becomes one<br />
of timing and scale: when did marriage symbolism become such a<br />
regular part of preaching that laypeople who went to sermons could<br />
hardly escape it? It will be answered as follows:<br />
D. L. d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture<br />
without Print (Oxford, 2001), 14.
20 Chapter 1<br />
å Marriage symbolism was not preached to a mass public in the<br />
early Middle Ages. The influential collections containing marriage<br />
symbolism were not intended for popular preaching, the<br />
many surviving sermons intended for popular preaching contain<br />
relatively little marriage symbolism, and the impact of<br />
marriage symbolism would have been limited by extra-textual<br />
factors (late development of the parish system, incapacity of<br />
many priests to use Latin models e·ectively).<br />
å Preaching was a system of mass communication in the age of<br />
the friars. The large number of surviving manuscripts of model<br />
sermons represents a tiny proportion of the number that once<br />
existed, and each model sermon could be preached again and<br />
again.<br />
å Marriage symbolism is highly developed in late medieval<br />
preaching and rested securely on a literal-sense idea of marriage<br />
as good and holy. The symbolism of marriage and the<br />
praise of ordinary human marriage were complementary and<br />
are found together in the sermons that transmitted marriage<br />
symbolism to the masses.<br />
The middle section on preaching as mass communication and the<br />
long discussion of the loss rate of preaching manuscripts and of<br />
how so many could have been produced in the first place is the key<br />
to the argument that in the age of the Franciscans and Dominicans<br />
marriage symbolism was propagated so insistently and repeatedly<br />
to so many people that it must have been a social force. Some of<br />
the people could have ignored it all of the time and all of the people<br />
surely ignored it much of the time, but all of the people could not<br />
have ignored it all of the time.<br />
(b) The Early Middle Ages<br />
Bernard of Clairvaux and Haymo of Auxerre<br />
Marriage symbolism in preaching is associated with the sermons<br />
on the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux, but in fact it can<br />
be found long before, though in a more sober idiom. A ninthcentury<br />
homily by Haymo of Auxerre has, at least embryonically,<br />
the main features of the genre of sermons on the second Sunday<br />
On Haymo/Haimo see B. Gansweidt, ‘Haimo. 1. Haimo v. Auxerre’, in Lexikon<br />
des Mittelalters, iv (Munich etc., 1989), 1863; on the homily see D. L. d’Avray, ‘Sym-
Mass Communication 21<br />
after Epiphany (mostly sermons on the text Nuptiae factae sunt,<br />
John 2: 1) that would be the principal vehicle for marriage preaching<br />
in future centuries. Marriage is good. Christ’s presence at a<br />
wedding refutes heretics who condemn marriage. (He mentions<br />
Tatian and Marcion: later preachers would have the Cathars in<br />
mind.) Genesis proves that God created man male and female,<br />
and said that for the love of her husband a woman should leave<br />
father and mother and be one flesh with her husband. In Matthew<br />
Christ told the apostles that a husband must not leave his wife.<br />
Teachings of St Paul take their turn: husband and wife must pay<br />
the marriage ‘debt’ (make love at the other’s request). Husbands<br />
should love their wives as Christ loved his Church. In fact Haymo<br />
makes a good florilegium of biblical texts which are positive about<br />
marriage—ordinary human marriage. Then he goes on to the marriage<br />
of Christ and the Church, again presented through scriptural<br />
authorities. This combination of literal and spiritual (i.e. symbolic)<br />
marriage within the same framework is characteristic of the later<br />
‘Marriage feast of Cana’ genre of sermons on the second Sunday<br />
after Epiphany. (From here on this genre will also be called the<br />
Nuptiae factae sunt genre, the Latin for the first words of the reading<br />
‘There was a marriage . . .’.) The question remains, did this<br />
kind of marriage symbolism get through to the laity via popular<br />
preaching in the early Middle Ages? It is a hard question to answer.<br />
That will be apparent from the oscillations in the presentation of<br />
the data below. On balance, however, and in the current state of the<br />
evidence, it looks as though marriage symbolism in sermons could<br />
not have had a major impact on the laity before the thirteenth century.<br />
The debate about early medieval popular preaching<br />
It is much disputed whether popular preaching happened at all<br />
in this period (defined roughly as from the late sixth to the late<br />
twelfth century). A relatively recent article argues for a minimalist<br />
position: hardly any preaching. That rather extreme position<br />
seems hard to maintain in the light of work by Thomas Amos,<br />
who seems to have shown that there was a good deal of popu-<br />
bolism and Medieval Religious Thought’, in P. Linehan and J. L. Nelson (eds.), The<br />
Medieval World (London etc., 2003), 267–78 at 268–9.<br />
R. E. McLaughlin, ‘The Word Eclipsed: Preaching in the Early Middle Ages’,<br />
Traditio, 46 (1991), 77–122.
22 Chapter 1<br />
lar preaching. (He concentrates on the Carolingian period, but<br />
casts an eye back to earlier preaching.) His doctoral thesis on early<br />
medieval preaching unfortunately remains unpublished, but some<br />
of the findings have appeared in print as articles. He has identified<br />
‘over nine hundred sermons written or adapted by Carolingian<br />
authors as sources of popular preaching in the period<br />
750–950’. One collection has been properly edited in a modern<br />
edition: I shall refer to this by the name of its editor, Mercier.<br />
Three more are in Migne’s Patrologia Latina and easy to consult.<br />
Other popular Carolingian homiliaries have been studied in<br />
articles by three specialists whose work has changed our understanding<br />
of homiliaries: Barr‹e, Bouhot, and ‹Etaix. Yet another<br />
article argues that the homilies on the Gospels of Gregory the<br />
Great were widely used for popular preaching in the early Middle<br />
Ages.<br />
Marriage symbolism in early medieval popular preaching: a<br />
significant absence<br />
This is not sucient to show that marriage symbolism reached the<br />
people via the pulpit. We still need to ask how regularly marriage<br />
symbolism appeared in these sermons, and how many ordinary<br />
priests actually used the sermons Amos has studied. Even assuming<br />
that a non-trivial number of priests had reasonable Latin and<br />
a homiliary of the right level for their needs, a problem to which<br />
we must return, how much about marriage and marriage symbolism<br />
would it contain? My provisional verdict is that there was<br />
relatively little preaching about marriage symbolism in the Carolingian<br />
period. This is based mainly on a search for sermons on<br />
the Gospel reading of the marriage feast of Cana, which would<br />
‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,<br />
Michigan State University, 1983). I have used this important thesis extensively:<br />
it led me to most of those sermons/homiliaries discussed below which Amos<br />
does not discuss in print.<br />
T. L. Amos, ‘Preaching and the Sermon in the Carolingian World’, in T. L.<br />
Amos, E. A. Green, and B. M. Kienzle (eds.), De ore Domini: Preacher and Word in<br />
the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, 1989), 41–60 at 47.<br />
XIV hom‹elies du IXe si›ecle de l’Italie du Nord, ed. P. Mercier (Sources chr‹etiennes,<br />
161; Paris, 1970).<br />
Amos, ‘Preaching and the Sermon in the Carolingian World’, 57 n. 31, for<br />
bibliography.<br />
P. A. DeLeeuw, ‘Gregory the Great’s “Homilies on the Gospels” in the Early<br />
Middle Ages’, Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 26 (1985), 855–69.
Mass Communication 23<br />
be a powerful vehicle for the popularization of marriage symbolism<br />
from the thirteenth century on. In the last three medieval<br />
centuries sermons on this reading or ‘pericope’ would combine<br />
a real appreciation of marriage as a human institution with welldeveloped<br />
symbolism. Arguably, it was this complementarity of<br />
literal and symbolic levels that gave the symbolism its force. It is<br />
conceivable that early medieval marriage symbolism was expressed<br />
through some other preaching genre—say sermons on a di·erent<br />
pericope—but it is unlikely. I have probably missed a few marriage<br />
feast of Cana sermons, but perhaps not a significant number of<br />
those that survive. There are few early medieval sermons on the<br />
marriage feast of Cana pericope, but when one looks at them one<br />
by one it becomes clear that most contain little marriage symbolism,<br />
or were probably not intended primarily for popular preaching.<br />
Caesarius of Arles (d. 542) wrote two sermons on this pericope.<br />
Moreover, he was an influential popular preacher both in his own<br />
time and afterwards, through copies of his homilies. One of the<br />
series of Carolingian popular sermons analysed by Amos in fact<br />
includes one of the two sermons in question. However, on closer<br />
inspection the relevance of the two sermons fades away—there is<br />
too little marriage symbolism of any significance in them. In each<br />
case it amounts to only a few lines. Incidentally, the sermons are<br />
written in a Latin which would probably have proved challeng-<br />
I have followed up most of the relevant footnotes to texts in Amos’s very thoroughly<br />
documented ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, and also<br />
made searches in the CD-ROM of Migne’s PL.<br />
Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis sermones, pt. 2, ed. G. Morin (Corpus Christianorum<br />
Series Latina, 104; Turnhout, 1953), sermon 167, pp. 682–87, and sermon 168,<br />
pp. 688–91.<br />
Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, emphasizes Caesarius’<br />
importance: he preached himself and encouraged parish priests to preach from<br />
collections of sermons (31–2); after his death his sermons circulated in Merovingian<br />
Gaul (56); his influence continued in the Carolingian period (213, 215 (‘a sermon<br />
modelled closely after the works of Caesarius’), 393).<br />
Ibid. 393: Caesarius, sermon 167 =no. 15 on Amos’s list.<br />
Caesarius, sermon 167: ‘Dies ergo erat nuptialis et festa, quia advenienti sponso<br />
redempta iungebatur ecclesia: illi, inquam, sponso, quem omnia ab initio mundi<br />
saecula spoponderunt; qui descendit ad terras, ut dilectam suam ad celsitudinis suae<br />
thalamos invitaret, dans ei in praesenti arram sanguinis sui, ’; sermo 168: ‘Itaque tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo<br />
suo descendit ad terras, ecclesiae ex gentibus congregandae suscepta incarnatione<br />
iungendus. Cui quidem ecclesiae, quae utique sumus nos, et arras et dotem dedit:<br />
arras dedit, quando nobis est ex lege promissus; dotem dedit, quando pro nobis est
24 Chapter 1<br />
ing to the average member of the lower clergy in Merovingian or<br />
Carolingian Francia.<br />
Moving forward from the dying Roman Empire to Anglo-Saxon<br />
England in the age of Bede (d. 735), we find a sermon on the<br />
marriage feast of Cana reading in the latter’s homiliary, but no<br />
evidence that the homily was meant for a lay audience. It is worth<br />
hearing Andries Van der Walt, the scholar who has studied it most<br />
intensively: ‘There is little doubt among modern scholars that<br />
Bede’s homilies were primarily intended to be delivered to his<br />
fellow monks. . . . There is ample evidence in the homilies that<br />
Bede was indeed talking to monks’ (ibid. 52). Among a good<br />
deal of other evidence, Van Der Walt quotes the following words<br />
from Bede’s Homily 1. 13: ‘we who have left behind carnal affections<br />
and earthly possessions, who, out of love for the angelic<br />
way of life, have declined to marry and produce children after<br />
the flesh’—and comments that this ‘seems to be a fairly accurate<br />
description of Bede’s usual audience’ (ibid. 56). A note of caution<br />
is added: ‘there is no evidence in the homilies to support<br />
the belief that he preached either outside the monastery or to a<br />
purely secular audience. A few homilies, however, do suggest that a<br />
larger audience than usual were present when they were delivered’<br />
(ibid. 56–7). Van Der Walt discusses a few passages which may<br />
suggest that ‘lay people from the vicinity came to the monastery<br />
church either to attend the last week of Easter celebrations or to<br />
receive baptism’ (ibid. 57). Thus ‘it . . . cannot be ruled out altogether<br />
that on occasions such as Easter and Pentecost Bede had<br />
a number of lay people among his audience. But in all these instances<br />
the tone of the homilies remains distinctly monastic’ (ibid.<br />
58). The Sunday with the marriage-feast reading was in any case<br />
inmolatus. Et alio modo potest accipi: ut arras praesentem gratiam, dotem intellegamus<br />
vitam aeternam’ (pp. 682–3, 688 Morin).<br />
Bedae venerabilis Homeliarum libri II,inBedae venerabilis opera, pars III: opera<br />
homiletica, pars IV: opera rhythmica, ed. D. Hurst (Corpus Christianorum Series<br />
Latina, 122; Turnout, 1955), 95–104: homilia 14 post Epiphaniam. Hurst believes<br />
that the homilies in this collection were written towards the end of Bede’s life<br />
(ibid. vii).<br />
A. G. P. Van Der Walt, ‘The Homiliary of the Venerable Bede and Early Medieval<br />
Preaching’ (unpublished thesis, University of London, 1981). The early death<br />
of this meticulous scholar (my first doctoral student) precluded publication of more<br />
than a tiny fraction of his thesis.<br />
The evidence is set out on pp. 52–8.
Mass Communication 25<br />
probably not important enough to warrant an exceptional audience.<br />
Conceivably, the homilies were later adapted to a non-monastic<br />
audience. In the mid-eighth century (747–51) the English missionary<br />
Boniface asked Egbert, Archbishop of York to send him Bede’s<br />
book of homilies for the year ‘because it would be a very handy<br />
and useful manual for us in our preaching’. Presumably Boniface<br />
did not know what the homilies were like when he wrote, so<br />
this does not prove that he actually found them usable for popular<br />
preaching. (Or again, perhaps Boniface had preaching to the<br />
clergy in mind.) One cannot rule out the possibility that the marriage<br />
symbolism in the Cana homily reached some laypeople in<br />
the course of the homiliary’s reception history, but to assume a<br />
major impact on lay society would not be remotely justified by the<br />
evidence.<br />
The next natural stopping place in this brief survey is the<br />
Carolingian period. Here material becomes plentiful. The ensuing<br />
discussion will need to work laboriously through it, in order<br />
to demonstrate the broadly negative conclusion, viz. that not much<br />
marriage symbolism got through to the laity in the early Middle<br />
Ages. Perhaps this finding should be put more cautiously: that sermon<br />
evidence for transmission of marriage symbolism to the people<br />
through preaching is slight. It is fair to the reader to say that only<br />
scholars specially interested in early medieval preaching need read<br />
through the collection-by-collection analysis which follows.<br />
The homiliaries of the ‘School of Auxerre’ might seem to o·er<br />
evidence of the di·usion of marriage symbolism to a mass audience,<br />
but in fact it is unlikely that they did so. The homily by<br />
Haymo discussed above deserves close attention here. There is also<br />
a homily on the Gospel reading of the marriage feast of Cana by<br />
Heiric of Auxerre. The question is: were these homilies used for<br />
popular preaching? The great specialist on the homilies of the Auxerre<br />
school believed that they were for private devotion, at least<br />
The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, Being the Lives of SS. Willibrord,<br />
Boniface, Sturm, Leoba and Lebuin, together with the Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald<br />
and a Selection from the Correspondence of St. Boniface, ed. and trans. C. H. Talbot<br />
(London etc., 1954), 138.<br />
Heirici Autissiodorensis homiliae per circulum anni, ed. R. Quadri (Corpus Christianorum<br />
Continuatio Mediaevalis, 116; Turnhout, 1992), homily 1. 20, pp. 160–8.<br />
The homilies of Remigius of Auxerre printed in Migne, PL 131. 865–932, do not<br />
include a sermon on the marriage feast of Cana pericope.
26 Chapter 1<br />
at first. Heiric’s scholarly editor echoed his sentiments. Jean<br />
Leclercq too believed that the homiliaries of the School of Auxerre<br />
‘were used, except in exceptional cases, neither for the [monastic]<br />
oce, nor for the mass, but for devotion’—i.e. private devotion,<br />
not popular preaching. It would be rash to exclude the possibility<br />
of the redeployment of these works for popular preaching. Still,<br />
if that was not the original intention, and if Europe was not exactly<br />
full of parish priests whose Latin was good enough to adapt<br />
homiliaries with ease from Latin into the vernacular and for the<br />
needs of a lay audience, one must wonder how large a lay public<br />
the marriage feast of Cana sermons in these compilations ever<br />
reached.<br />
Similar considerations apply to the homiliary of Paul the Deacon.<br />
This was commissioned by Charlemagne, who approved it and<br />
ordered its publication. However, he probably did not see it as a<br />
tool for popular preaching. His idea in commissioning the work<br />
was to make available ‘a series of readings from the works of the<br />
Fathers for use at the night oce of the church’ (Smetana, loc. cit.):<br />
an essentially clerical liturgical ritual.<br />
So collections which look like obvious starting points for a history<br />
of the impact of marriage symbolism on the lay world turn out<br />
not to have been intended for the laity at all, at least by those who<br />
brought them into being. It is worth quoting here the comment<br />
of Thomas Amos, especially since he is in general a ‘maximalist’<br />
about preaching in the Carolingian world as well as the scholar who<br />
has examined the whole problem most thoroughly: ‘The collection<br />
of Paul the Deacon and the works of the Auxerre masters were not<br />
‘Ils sont d’abord destin‹es ›a l’usage priv‹e’ (H. Barr‹e, Les Hom‹eliaires carolingiens<br />
de l’‹ecole d’Auxerre: authenticit‹e, inventaire, tableaux comparatifs, initia (Studi<br />
e testi, 225; Vatican City, 1962), 140.<br />
‘Dopo la prima generazione di omeliari cosidetti “patristici” come quelli de<br />
Alano di Farfa o di Paolo Diacono, si arriva, passando da Smaragdo di St. Mihiel,<br />
Rabano Mauro e le composizioni bavaresi a una nuova generazione di raccolte<br />
omiletiche non pi ›u direttamente destinate alla predicazione, ma piuttosto e in primo<br />
luogo alla lettura privata. . . . ›E in questo nuovo genere dove i due celebri scolastici<br />
di S. Germano di Auxerre, Aimone ed Eirico, faranno valere tutta la loro tecnica<br />
esegetica’ (Heirici . . . homiliae,ed.Quadri,x–xi).<br />
J. Leclercq, ‘Pr‹eface’ to R. Gr‹egoire, Les Hom‹eliaires du Moyen ^Age: inventaire<br />
et analyse des manuscrits (Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, series maior, Fontes,<br />
6; Rome, 1966), vi.<br />
C. L. Smetana, ‘Paul the Deacon’s Patristic Anthology’, in P. E. Szarmach and<br />
B. F. Hupp‹e(eds.),The Old English Homily and its Backgrounds (Albany, NY, 1978),<br />
75–97 at 76.
Mass Communication 27<br />
intended for popular audiences. The first of those was liturgical in<br />
nature, designed for the use of cathedral clergy during the oces,<br />
while the last was monastic in nature, intended for private or group<br />
study and meditation.’<br />
The homiliary of Smaragdus of St Mihiel (d. after 825) does contain<br />
a homily on our marriage feast pericope; according to Amos<br />
it was written for ‘private meditation’. He adds that it ‘came from<br />
and was intended for a monastic milieu’ (ibid. 199). This opinion<br />
carries much weight.<br />
A set of ‘Cat‹ech›eses celtiques’ discovered by Andr‹e Wilmart in<br />
MS Vatican Library Reg. Lat. 49 does contain a homiletic commentary<br />
on the marriage feast of Cana. At first sight this looks<br />
promising. On closer examination the quantity of marriage symbolism<br />
turns out to be fairly exiguous.<br />
I have also drawn a blank with the following sets of homilies<br />
or sermons, in that they they seem not to deal with the marriage<br />
feast of Cana, the natural locus for marriage symbolism in a sermon<br />
collection:<br />
Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 12 n. 6.<br />
Migne, PL 102. 84–90.<br />
Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 198–9.<br />
Analecta reginensia: extraits des manuscrits latins de la Reine Christine conserv‹es<br />
au Vatican, ed. A. Wilmart (Studi e testi, 59; Vatican City, 1933), ‘III Cat‹ech›eses<br />
celtiques’, 29–112. Wilmart’s extract vii from this manuscript is a commentary on<br />
2 John: 1–11, the marriage feast of Cana narrative.<br />
The passages are so short that they may be quoted (I run Wilmart’s paragraphs<br />
together): ‘DIE TERTIO: dies tertius legem tertiam sig(nificat), in qua<br />
Christus et aeclesia copulati sunt, quando ad illam uenit post tribulationem fidei<br />
trinitatis. NUPTIAE FACTAE SUNT: idest copulatio Christi est et aecclesiae, de<br />
qua sal(uator) dixit: OSCULETUR ME AB OSCULO ORIS SUI. IN CA(NAM)<br />
GAL(ILAEAE), id est in aeclesia in mundo constituta. Chanan enim domus epularum<br />
interpretatur, quod significat aeclesiam, in qua aepulae Christi per orationem<br />
Sanctorum praeparantur, ut ipse dicit: DOMUS MEA DOMUS ORATIONIS<br />
VOCABITUR . . .’ (74). There follows the interpretation of the Hebrew names<br />
‘Chanan’ and ‘Galilea’. Here the connection with marriage symbolism is rather exiguous<br />
and insubstantial. Then: ‘ET ERAT IBI MATER IHESU. Rogatus autem<br />
et Ihesus uenire ad nuptias cum discipulis suis ad nuptias uenit, idest ad copula(tionem)<br />
sibi aeclesiae catholicae quae erat sponsa eius, quia demancipatum diaboli<br />
eruens dedit ei dotem. Nam tribuit ei pignus, idest spiritum sanctum, nec<br />
gratis eam eruit, sed pretio sancti sanguinis sui redimit’ (75). There is a little<br />
more further on: ‘Sponsus autem in postremo a·erens uinum optimum significat<br />
Christum praedicantem euangelium post legem et profe(tas), qui est sponsus<br />
aecclesiae catholicae, cuius filii sunt omnes fideles. Item architriclinus figura est<br />
eorum omnium qui prius nesciunt uerbi dei uinum et postea bibunt, ut Paulus fuit’<br />
(78). That is about all the marriage symbolism there is in the passage printed by<br />
Wilmart.
28 Chapter 1<br />
å a homily sermo de conscientia printed by Roger Reynolds;<br />
å the homilies in XIV hom‹elies, ed.Mercier;<br />
å the pseudo-Bede collection of homilies (to judge from the<br />
manuscript I used);<br />
å the thirty-three sermons surviving in MS Cracow, Capitular<br />
Library 43 (to judge by the thorough sermon-by-sermon analysis<br />
of them by Pierre David);<br />
å the homilies attributed to Eligius;<br />
å the homilies attibuted to Boniface;<br />
å the homilies written by Rhabanus Maurus for Bishop Haistulf<br />
of Metz;<br />
å the ‘Bouhot–Folliet’ Carolingian sermon collection;<br />
å the ‘Saint P›ere de Chartres’ homiliary;<br />
å The ‘Newberry Library Homiliary’;<br />
R. E. Reynolds, ‘The Pseudo-Augustinian “Sermo de Conscientia” and the<br />
Related Canonical “Dicta sancti Gregorii papae”’, Revue b‹en‹edictine, 81 (1971),<br />
310–17 at 316–17.<br />
XIV hom‹elies du IXE si›ecle d’un auteur inconnu de l’Italie du nord ,ed.P.Mercier<br />
(Paris, 1970).<br />
On the pseudo-Bede collection see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 212, 231–2 n. 63. To check this collection I used MS Oxford,<br />
Bodleian Library Laud. Misc. 427.<br />
P. David, ‘Un recueil de conf‹erences monastiques irlandaises du viiiE si›ecle:<br />
notes sur le manuscrit de la biblioth›eque du chapitre de Cracovie’, Revue b‹en‹edictine,<br />
49 (1937), 62–89; cf. Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’,<br />
210–11.<br />
Migne, PL 87. 593–654. On this collection see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature<br />
of the Carolingian Sermon’, 208–9, 230 n. 48.<br />
Migne, PL 89. 843–72; see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 207–8, 229 nn. 40–4.<br />
Migne, PL 110. 9–134; see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 203, 227–8 nn. 26–7.<br />
See J.-P. Bouhot, ‘Un sermonnaire carolingien’, Revue d’histoire des textes, 4<br />
(1974), 181–223; G. Folliet, ‘Deux nouveaux t‹emoins du Sermonnaire carolingien<br />
r‹ecemment reconstitu‹e’, Revue des ‹etudes augustiniennes, 23 (1977), 155–98 at 181–<br />
98; Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 211, 231 n. 59;<br />
Migne, PL, suppl. 2. 1234–5.<br />
There is no sermon on the ‘Nuptiae’ pericope for Epiphany, to judge from<br />
Barr‹e’sanalysisinLes Hom‹eliaires, 17–24 and table of incipits; on this homiliary<br />
see also Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 213, 232<br />
n. 64.<br />
To judge by the list of incipits in M. P. Cunningham, ‘Contents of the Newberry<br />
Library Homiliarium’, Sacris erudiri, 7 (1955), 267–301 at 298–300; on this<br />
homiliary see also Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 213,<br />
232 n. 66.
Mass Communication 29<br />
å the sermon for Epiphany found by ‹Etaix in a homiliary written<br />
in Luxeuil script;<br />
å the sermons on the Christian life from MSS Verdun 64 and<br />
Munich, Clm. 12612edited by Morin in 1905 (though there is<br />
interesting material on marriage in the literal sense in these);<br />
å a homily on tithes and fasting (in other respects rather significant);<br />
å a lengthy sermon by Agobard of Lyons (apart from a short<br />
passage);<br />
å Atto of Vercelli’s sermons edited in Migne;<br />
å the florilegium in MS Montpellier H308, put together by<br />
Florus of Lyons;<br />
å the sermon on St Judocus by Abbot Lupus of Ferri›eres;<br />
R. ‹Etaix, ‘Sermon pour l’ ‹Epiphanie tir‹e d’un homiliaire en ‹Ecriture de Luxeuil’,<br />
Revue b‹en‹edictine, 81 (1971), 7–13.<br />
D. G. Morin, ‘Textes in‹edits relatifs au symbole et ›a laviechr‹etienne’, Revue<br />
b‹en‹edictine, 22 (1905), 505–24 at 515–19 and 519–23.<br />
Notably, from the Verdun manuscript sermon: ‘Nullus homo praesumat cumcupinam<br />
habere: quia quamdiu cumcupinam habet homo, deum contra se iratum<br />
habet, quia deus uxorem dixit habere, non cumcupinam. Nullus homo se praesumat<br />
cum comatre sua aut parente propinqua aut filiastra aut nouerca aut cognata aut deo<br />
sacrata ad uxorem sociatam: quia propter ista mala opera uenit ira dei super uos . . .<br />
Ille homo qui uxorem suam dimiserat propter fornicationis causam et aliam sociauerat,<br />
dimittat illam uxorem quam postea priserat, et agat paenitentiam propter<br />
peccata sua: quia si hoc non fecerit, non potest penitentiam fructuosam agere. Uxores<br />
uestras in Christi amore diligite: quia qui uxorem habuit, et dimiserat illam<br />
propter se ipsam, si despecta fuerit, damnatus erit in die iudicii: quia talem uxorem<br />
te uoluit deus dare, talem tibi dedit. Et uos, feminae, diligite maritos uestros, et<br />
amate illos in Christi amore’ (ibid. 516–17). Note the idea that marriages are made<br />
in heaven.<br />
Migne, PL 129. 1261–2; see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 217, 234 n. 86.<br />
Migne, PL 104. 267–88; see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 204, 228 n. 31; the few lines of marriage symbolism in this long<br />
sermon are as follows: ‘Ostendit etiam caput exaltatum ad quantam sublimitatem<br />
elevat corpus suum, et unitatem capitis et corporis, sponsi videlicet et sponsae.<br />
Unde dicitur: Induit me vestimentis salutis, et indumento justitiae circumdedit me<br />
quasi sponsum decoratum corona, et quasi sponsam ornatam monilibus suis. Seenim<br />
dixit sponsum, se sponsam. Haec tanta unitas est illud inaestimabile et ine·abile<br />
bonum, quod nec oculus vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascendit, quod<br />
praeparavit Deus diligentibus se; cum Agnus ille est sponsus gregis sui, pastor<br />
ovium suarum; et qui est agnus in passione, leo in resurrectione . . .’ (Migne, PL<br />
104. 273). Migne, PL 134. 833–60.<br />
The florilegium is analysed in C. Charlier, ‘Une ¥uvre inconnue de Florus<br />
de Lyon: la collection “de fide” de Montpellier’, Traditio, 8 (1952). 81–109 at<br />
81–5; cf. Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 204, 228<br />
n. 32.<br />
See Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 205, 228 n. 34,
30 Chapter 1<br />
å the homilies of Gregory the Great (much used for preaching<br />
in the early Middle Ages).<br />
One may probably add MS Laon, Biblioth›eque Municipale 265.<br />
I have not seen this directly but there is a fairly full analysis in<br />
a study of Laon Cathedral School by John Contreni, which does<br />
not suggest that it contains marriage symbolism, apart perhaps<br />
from a few lines which are not enough to a·ect the argument being<br />
developed here. Of the ‘Mondsee Homiliary’ (of Abbot Lantperhtus<br />
of St Michael of Mondsee) only the summer portion has<br />
survived (the marriage feast of Cana reading comes in the winter).<br />
One cannot exclude the possibility that these collections contain<br />
some marriage symbolism in other places. I have mostly worked<br />
from beginnings of sermons (incipits) in compiling the list in the<br />
preceding paragraph, and it is always conceivable that pockets of<br />
marriage symbolism lurk in the body of the sermons or homilies,<br />
without the incipit giving a clue, as is the case with the fifteen lines<br />
or so of spousal symbolism in the last of the ‘five sermons of Abbo’<br />
of St-Germain printed in Migne, or with paragraphs 4 and 5 of<br />
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 3883, transcribed<br />
below as Document 1. 1. WemayalsonotethataWolfenb•uttel<br />
collection analysed by Reginald Gr‹egoire contains a sermon by Augustine,<br />
again not on the Cana reading, where marriage symbolism<br />
is an important part of the structure. Even so, it is hard to ima-<br />
citing W. Levison, ‘Eine Predigt des Lupus von Ferrieres’, in id., Aus rheinischer<br />
und fr•ankischer Fr•uhzeit (D •usseldorf, 1947), 561–4 (not seen, but I have read the<br />
sermon in MS BL Royal 8. B. XIV, fos. 131V–133V).<br />
DeLeeuw, ‘Gregory the Great’s “Homilies on the Gospels” in the Early Middle<br />
Ages’. Marriage symbolism is only rather slightly represented, to judge by the old<br />
but full index: see Migne, PL 76. 1414.<br />
Analysis of the manuscript in J. J. Contreni, The Cathedral School of Laon from<br />
850 to 930: Its Manuscripts and Masters (Munich, 1978), 130–3. In his list of the<br />
contents of this composite manuscript he includes (131) ‘texts on matrimony and<br />
baptism, an excerpt from Isidore of Seville’s De ecclesiasticis ociis’. Contreni does<br />
not give a reference, but this work by Isidore does have a section on marriage at<br />
2. 20, and this includes short passages of marriage symbolism, for which see Migne,<br />
PL 83. 810, 812–13.<br />
Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 203–4.<br />
For the five sermons, see Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian<br />
Sermon’, 206, 229 nn. 36–7, and Migne, PL 132. 761–78. The passage in question<br />
is at 775. 9–24.<br />
Augustine, sermon 238, Migne, PL 38. 1125–6: see R. Gr‹egoire, ‘La collection
Mass Communication 31<br />
gine that this would substantially a·ect the shape of our imaginary<br />
graph charting the prominence of marriage as metaphor.<br />
Marriage symbolism in early ‘marriage feast of Cana’ homilies: some<br />
exceptional examples<br />
A few surviving homiliaries do have sermons on the marriage feast<br />
of Cana pericope containing some marriage symbolism. Two of<br />
them are transcribed below, as Documents 1. 2 and 1. 3. There<br />
are some good passages of marriage symbolism, which are short<br />
enough to be quoted. We may begin with the following from the<br />
‘Bavarian Homiliary’ (Document 1. 1)—not, however, from the<br />
pericope of the marriage feast of Cana, which would be the usual<br />
venue for marriage doctrine and symbolism in sermons of the last<br />
three medieval centuries. It is especially interesting for the way<br />
it combines commentary on marriage in the literal sense with the<br />
symbolic meaning of marriage:<br />
Therefore, although a virgin is ranked at one hundred, and a married<br />
woman at thirty, nevertheless a chaste [married] woman is better than a<br />
proud virgin. For that chaste woman, serving her husband, has a rank of<br />
thirty: for the proud virgin no rank at all will be left. In her is fulfilled the<br />
words of the Psalmist (Ps. 17: 28): ‘You will save the humble people, and<br />
you will bring down the eyes of the proud.’ And since St Paul calls the<br />
whole catholic Church a virgin, seeing in her not only the virgins in body,<br />
but [also] wanting the minds of all to be free from corruption: when he<br />
says this: ‘I have prepared you for one husband, to present you as a chaste<br />
virgin’, the souls not only of holy nuns, but also of all men and women,<br />
if they have had the will to keep, with chastity of body, virginity in those<br />
aforesaid five senses, should not doubt that they are brides of Christ. For<br />
Christ is to be understood as the bridegroom not of bodies but of souls.<br />
And therefore, dearest brethren: both men and women, both boys and<br />
girls, if they keep their virginity until they are married, and do not corrupt<br />
their souls through these five senses, that is, sight, hearing, taste, smell, or<br />
touch, while they use them well, on the day of judgement, when the gates<br />
are opened, will be worthy to enter into the eternal marriage chamber of the<br />
bridegroom. But those who both corrupt their bodies before marriage by<br />
some adulterous union, and afterwards do not cease to wound their souls<br />
homil‹etique du Ms. Wolfenb•uttel 4096’, Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 14 (1973), 259–86<br />
at 276 no. 41, and Amos, ‘The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon’, 214<br />
at nn. 71–2.<br />
Cf.Mark4:20.<br />
prepared] espoused in Vulgate, but it may not be a scribal error
32 Chapter 1<br />
by living evilly throughout their lives, by hearing evilly, by speaking evilly,<br />
if a fruitful and worthy penance does not provide a cure, will shout out<br />
without justification after the gates have been closed: ‘Lord, Lord, open<br />
for us’ (Mt. 25: 11; cf. Luke 13: 25).—‘Amen I tell you, I know you not<br />
whence you are’ (Mt. 25: 12; Luke 13: 25). (Document 1. 1. 4)<br />
There may be other such passages in early medieval homiliaries,<br />
since (as already noted) I have concentrated my search on Cana<br />
pericope homiliaries (influenced by the late medieval pattern), but<br />
I would be surprised if they are very plentiful. The Cana pericope<br />
of the same ‘Bavarian Homiliary’ does include a couple of relevant<br />
passages. Near the beginning of the sermon we find:<br />
It says: ‘There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus<br />
was there. Jesus and his disciples were invited to the marriage.’ It is great<br />
humility in our Lord that he deigned to come to a human marriage. But<br />
yet, in that same place he produced a great mystery.<br />
Therefore, there came to a marriage celebrated in the carnal way on<br />
earth our Lord and Saviour, who descended from heaven to earth to join<br />
the Church to himself by a spiritual love. His marriage bed, indeed, was<br />
the womb of the uncorrupted Virgin, in which God was joined to human<br />
nature, and from which, when he was born, he came out to join the Church<br />
of the faithful to himself. But he had always from the beginning of the<br />
world been invited to this marriage by holy and just men, who begged him<br />
with all their might to carry out the redemption of the human race that he<br />
had promised. (Document 1. 2. 1–2)<br />
The remainder of the sermon concentrates on other parts of the<br />
Gospel reading: the transformation of the water into wine, the<br />
conversation between Jesus and his mother and its meaning, and<br />
the six water jars which provide a vehicle for surveying the six ages<br />
of world history.<br />
Some more quotable and relevant passages can be found in the<br />
homily on the Cana reading in the ‘Beaune Homiliary’. It starts<br />
with marriage symbolism:<br />
Dearest brethren, we have heard when the holy Gospel was read that<br />
on the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. What is that<br />
marriage, if not our winning? What are those celebrations but the joys of<br />
our salvation? They are done on the third day, because in the third period<br />
of the world the delight of this celebration occurred. For there was one<br />
period of nature, and the other of the grace of heaven, in which Christ,<br />
Probably in the sense of ‘Christ’s winning of us’, rather than ‘our gain’.
Mass Communication 33<br />
invited to the marriage, revealed himself by the power of his works as God<br />
hidden in man, and from the unstable history of the heathen united to<br />
himself a permanent wife. But among the music provided by the prophets<br />
to celebrate the wedding, the wine of grace was lacking. This the mother<br />
raised reproachfully with her son. (Document 1. 3. 1)<br />
Marriage symbolism reappears a little later as the theme of the six<br />
ages of the world is introduced—an interesting combination of two<br />
motifs with no necessary connection:<br />
Those six water jars, however, signify the six ages, and these ages continue<br />
to stay like empty vessels, unless filled by Christ. In each and every one of<br />
them there were not lacking prophecies of the bride and bridegroom, and<br />
these, made clear in Christ, aimed at the salvation of all the nations.<br />
In the first water jar, who is symbolized by Adam and Eve, if not Christ<br />
and the Church? And who is shown in the second, in which Noah commanded<br />
the mystical ark, if not the same Christ on the wood of the cross,<br />
joining to himself as bride the Church from all the nations? (Document<br />
1. 3. 3–4)<br />
After a rapid survey of the ages of the world, there is another<br />
passage of marriage symbolism, this time launched by the remark<br />
in the Gospel reading that the water jars held ‘two or three measures<br />
apiece’:<br />
To Christ, indeed, and his intervention on behalf of the nations, pertained<br />
the prophecies of the six water jars, each of which held twofold or threefold<br />
measures, and are signified in the foreskin and circumcision, or in the three<br />
divisions of the world, since Christ the bridegroom came to choose for<br />
himself a single bride out of every people and every kind of men, and for<br />
her he mixed the wine of grace, a wine which is pronounced good by the<br />
wine steward, that is, the chorus of holy doctors, and preferred to all the<br />
pleasures of the previous age . . . (Document 1. 3. 5)<br />
These are nice passages, but they are not enough to change the general<br />
impression of a meagre crop, especially compared to the last<br />
three medieval centuries, where there are extremely large numbers<br />
of sermons on the marriage feast of Cana pericope, a high proportion<br />
of them with much to say both about human marriage proper<br />
and about what it symbolizes.<br />
England: a special case<br />
The biggest exception to our generalization about the early Middle<br />
Ages is England, where homilies were produced in the vernacular.
34 Chapter 1<br />
This may have been because the Latin of the English clergy was<br />
even worse on average than elsewhere—a plausible position though<br />
hard to prove. Whatever the reason, vernacular homilies would<br />
surely have been much more accessible to the lower clergy. They<br />
are easily accessible to the historian too, since the content of the<br />
corpus has been thoroughly indexed.<br />
Perhaps the earliest relevant passage is from the Blickling Homilies.<br />
(These are one of two collections of vernacular Anglo-Saxon<br />
homilies whose date, setting in life, and audience all seem uncertain.)<br />
In a sermon for the Annunciation we find the following:<br />
‘the Heavenly King shall prepare thy womb as a bridal chamber for<br />
his son, and also great joy in the bride-chamber . . .’ And again,<br />
‘Let us rejoice then in the union of God and men, and in the union<br />
of the bridegroom and the bride, that is Christ and holy church.’<br />
This is marriage symbolism, but there is apparently not much more<br />
of it in vernacular collections other than ªlfric’s. ªlfric uses marriage<br />
symbolism in several places, one of them his homily on the<br />
marriage feast of Cana Gospel reading.<br />
Pastoral delivery systems in the early Middle Ages<br />
The vernacular tradition in England raises a question about the<br />
Continent and indeed about the impact of Latin texts in England<br />
itself. Were most laypeople near enough to a church to have even<br />
the possibility of hearing regular sermons? Would the mass of the<br />
clergy have been capable, suciently Latin-literate, to use Latin<br />
R. DiNapoli, An Index of Theme and Image to the Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon<br />
Church, Comprising the Homilies of ªlfric, Wulfstan, and the Blickling and Vercelli<br />
Codices (Hockwold cum Wilton, 1995): for marriage, see pp. 62–3.<br />
C. D. Wright, ‘Vercelli Homilies XI–XIII and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine<br />
Reform: Tailored Sources and Implied Audiences’, in C. Muessig (ed.), Preacher,<br />
Sermon and Audience in the Middle Ages (Leiden etc., 2002), 203–27 at 205–6. See<br />
also especially M. Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England<br />
(Cambridge, 1990): ‘we have no unambiguous proof that the anonymous works<br />
do belong to the pre-reform period, rather than to a date closer to the dates of<br />
compilation of the manuscripts in which they are found’ (264); she cautions against<br />
assigning the anonymous homilies to the pre-reform period (264–6).<br />
The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, from the Marquis of Lothian’s<br />
Unique MS. A.D. 971, ed. and trans. R. Morris (London, 1880), 8.<br />
Ibid. 10.<br />
See DiNapoli, Index of Theme and Image, 63, under ‘the Church is Christ’s<br />
bride’.<br />
For a commentary on this homily with analysis of its sources see M. Godden,<br />
ªlfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, ed. M. Godden<br />
(Early English Text Society, SS 18; Oxford, 2000), 370–80.
Mass Communication 35<br />
sermons intended for popular preaching? Now pastoral provision<br />
in the early Middle Ages is a low-certainty area. The map of the<br />
spread of the parish system has not yet been definitively drawn, and<br />
there was almost certainly significant regional variation. Scholars<br />
can provide respectable reasons for almost diametrically opposite<br />
positions: one can believe in massive pastoral provision and one can<br />
doubt if there was much, outside the radius of a small number of<br />
centres. There has been a tendency recently to take a ‘maximalist’<br />
view. On this view, substantial ‘mother churches’ in one way or<br />
another provided pastoral services to large areas, and did so quite<br />
eciently. The communities of clergy in these mother churches<br />
may have been quite well educated.<br />
The tendency to show that there could have been a lot of pastoral<br />
provision before the parish has done good by stopping scholars<br />
from taking the contrary for granted, but the question remains: how<br />
ecient was the delivery system for turning written Latin sermons<br />
into vernacular popular preaching? Here one should remember a<br />
famous passage of Bede about the need for everyone to know the<br />
Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. He tells Archbishop Egbert<br />
to<br />
[m]ake the ignorant people—that is, those who are acquainted with no<br />
language but their own—say them in their own language and repeat them<br />
assiduously. This ought to be done, not only in the case of laymen, that is,<br />
those still leading a secular life, but also of those clerics or monks who are<br />
ignorant of the Latin language. . . . On this account I have myself often<br />
given to many ignorant priests both of these, the Creed and the Lord’s<br />
Prayer, translated into the English language.<br />
Many priests whose Latin was so bad that they could not translate<br />
the Lord’s Prayer? The implications are considerable. Only the very<br />
simplest model sermons or homilies would have been helpful to the<br />
average priest, and for some of these ill-educated priests the Latin<br />
of even the simplest model sermon would have been challenging.<br />
So how much got through to the laity?<br />
Cf.W.Davies,Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany<br />
(London, 1988), 25 and n. 44.<br />
See notably, for the British Isles, J. Blair and R. Sharpe (eds.), Pastoral Care<br />
before the Parish (Leicester etc., 1992).<br />
John Blair reminded me of this passage.<br />
Letter of Bede to Archbishop Egbert, translated in English Historical Documents<br />
c. 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1955), no. 170, pp. 735–45 at 737–8.
36 Chapter 1<br />
It is worth listing the possibilities in ascending order of improbability.<br />
That some Latin sermons written for popular preaching<br />
were actually preached from monasteries or pre-parish pastoral<br />
centres is almost certain. That such texts were available in most<br />
pre-parish centres is much less certain. That there was a critical<br />
mass of Latin educated priests in most pre-parish centres is about<br />
equally unlikely, though not impossible. That most pre-parish pastoral<br />
centres had both a critical mass of Latin educated priests and<br />
model popular sermons in Latin for them to use is less likely still.<br />
That they prepared sermons from these Latin texts every Sunday<br />
and took them out to the surrounding villages is even less likely, and<br />
we may note that the Sunday on which the marriage feast of Cana<br />
reading occurred was not a major feast. Add to this accumulation<br />
of improbabilities the earlier finding, that little of the surviving<br />
corpus of popular early medieval sermons is about marriage symbolism,<br />
and the probability of such symbolism being preached to<br />
large numbers of laypeople in the early medieval centuries looks<br />
remote.<br />
‘Maximalists’ about pastoral care and preaching in the early<br />
Middle Ages should not regard this as an attack on their position.<br />
The point at issue is the impact of one particular theme, marriage<br />
symbolism. It may very well be that many quasi-monastic centres<br />
reached out to large areas of the countryside surrounding them,<br />
and evangelized energetically.<br />
The England of ªlfric apart, however, it is far from clear that<br />
there was much marriage preaching accessible to laypeople until the<br />
end of the twefth century. That century is a great age of preaching,<br />
but it was predominantly directed towards clerics, notably monks<br />
and canons. No doubt a careful search for popular sermons such<br />
as Amos conducted for the Carolingian era would yield a significant<br />
number of Latin texts designed to serve as models for popular<br />
preaching. Whether many of them would contain a lot of marriage<br />
symbolism is much more doubtful. The natural place to look for<br />
such symbolism is preaching on the text ‘There was a marriage in<br />
Cana of Galilee’: Nuptiae factae sunt in Chana Galileae. Migne’s<br />
Patrologia Latina contains relatively few sermons on this text, no-<br />
In a personal communication John Blair has raised the possibility of lively<br />
‘charismatic’ vernacular preaching, not too much tied to Latin sources, in pre-Viking<br />
England.<br />
M. de Reu, La Parole du Seigneur: moines et chanoines m‹edi‹evaux pr^echant<br />
l’Ascension et le Royaume des Cieux (Brussels etc., 1996), 228–9.
Mass Communication 37<br />
tably few from the twelfth century. The homily on the marriage<br />
feast of Cana Gospel reading by Bruno of Segni (d. 1123) does<br />
not contain a great deal of marriage symbolism, but concentrates<br />
mainly on the symbolism of the water jars that figure in the Cana<br />
reading.<br />
To recapitulate: in the early medieval centuries and up until<br />
c.1200, there was no mass communication of marriage symbolism,<br />
or at least, no significant evidence of anything like that has come to<br />
light so far. With the thirteenth century everything changes, even<br />
before mendicant preachers made their mark.<br />
(c) Mass Communication in the Age of the Friars<br />
Model sermons and oral preaching<br />
Any given model sermon could be preached ‘live’ again and again<br />
to di·erent audiences, so that the model sermons written on parchment<br />
are the tip of an ‘oral’ iceberg: this is one half of the proposition<br />
that preaching was a form of mass communication, the less controversial<br />
half. The more controversial half is that surviving sermon<br />
manuscripts are the tip of an iceberg of lost codices and quires.<br />
This chapter is in a sense a remote sequel to a 1985 study which<br />
tried among other things to show how model sermons worked.<br />
Synthesizing and reinforcing a scholarly consensus, it argued that<br />
The audience and ‘setting in life’ of Bruno’s homilies have been cautiously<br />
characterized by his historian: ‘Les morceaux qui ne se trouvent pas dans les commentaires<br />
sont de la main de Bruno, semble-t-il. Cet ensemble o·re donc un certain<br />
int‹er^et: il prouve qu’un commentaire ex‹eg‹etique ‹etait jug‹e apte›a une utilisation<br />
pastorale, bien qu’il soit tr›es probable que cet hom‹eliaire de Bruno n’‹etait pas destin‹e<br />
›a une c‹el‹ebration liturgique, mais plut^ot ›a une lecture publique ou priv‹ee’ (R.<br />
Gr‹egoire, Bruno de Segni, ex‹eg›ete m‹edi‹evale et th‹eologien monastique (Centro Italiano<br />
di Studi sull’alto medioevo, 3; Spoleto, 1965), 87; and de Reu, La Parole, 228).<br />
‘S. Brunonis Episcopi Signiensis Homilia xviii, Dominica II post Epiphaniam’,<br />
in Migne, PL 165. 767 and 461–6.<br />
D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Di·used from Paris before<br />
1300 (Oxford, 1985), chs. 2 and 3, and passim.<br />
A particularly important influence on the field in general was L.-J. Bataillon,<br />
‘Approaches to the Study of Medieval Sermons’, Leeds Studies in English, ns 11<br />
(1980), 19–35, repr. in id., La Pr‹edication au XIIIe si›ecle en France et Italie: ‹etudes et<br />
documents (Aldershot, 1993), no. i (most of the other articles in the same collection<br />
of reprints are relevant in one way or another). See now N. B‹eriou, ‘Les sermons<br />
latins apr›es 1200’, in B. M. Kienzle (ed.), The Sermon (Typologie des sources du<br />
Moyen ^Age Occidental, 81–3; Turnhout, 2000), 363–447, esp. 405–9. The same<br />
author’s magisterial L’Av›enement des ma^§tres de la Parole: la pr‹edication ›a Paris au<br />
XIIIe si›ecle (2 vols.; Collection des ‹Etudes Augustiniennes, S‹erie Moyen ^Age et
38 Chapter 1<br />
model sermons were readily available to Franciscans, Dominicans,<br />
and similar preachers in manuscript books and quires. These books<br />
were often very small and portable and can be called pocket books<br />
or vade-mecum books. The number of such portable books to<br />
have survived is noteworthy, expecially in view of the huge loss<br />
rate of manuscripts, above all the sort friars were likely to carry<br />
around with them (on this see the following section). These model<br />
sermons could be preached again and again by the same or different<br />
preachers. The Latin of the model could be turned into any<br />
vernacular, so a book of model sermons could be used in any part<br />
of Europe.<br />
Most of this holds good in principle for popular model sermons of<br />
the earlier Middle Ages. Yet it is a di·erent world. The respectable<br />
list of early medieval popular sermons put together by Thomas<br />
Amos and others pales into total insignificance when one looks at the<br />
nine volumes (excluding indexes) of J. B. Schneyer’s Repertorium.<br />
Each volume lists only the beginnings and ends of sermons and<br />
the call numbers of manuscripts, but requires hundreds of pages—<br />
sometimes around a thousand—to convey that basic information:<br />
and this just for sermons between 1150 and 1350. We have seen<br />
that few popular sermons on the marriage feast of Cana Gospel<br />
reading survive from the early Middle Ages, whereas the index<br />
of the Repertorium lists some 280 for these two centuries alone.<br />
Furthermore, there were almost certainly many more preachers<br />
with the education to get good use out of model sermons. Richard<br />
Southern calculated that there were around 28,000 Franciscans<br />
and 12,000 Dominicans in the early fourteenth century, and a great<br />
many of these would have been preachers.<br />
Since model sermons were meant to be reused, and there was<br />
no prejudice against derivative preaching except to an ‹elite congregation,<br />
one may infer that many oral events corresponded to each<br />
written sermon. Preachers would not have to follow the model ex-<br />
Temps Modernes, 31; Paris, 1998) concentrates on sermons actually preached and<br />
transmitted by reportatio.<br />
D. L. d’Avray (with A. C. de la Mare), ‘Portable Vademecum Books Containing<br />
Franciscan and Dominican Texts’, in A. C. de la Mare and B. C. Barker-Benfield<br />
(eds.), Manuscripts at Oxford: An Exhibition in Memory of Richard William Hunt . . .<br />
on Themes Selected and Described by Some of his Friends (Exhibition catalogue,<br />
Bodleian Library; Oxford, 1980), 60–4.<br />
R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth,<br />
1970), 285.
Mass Communication 39<br />
actly, and almost certainly mixed and matched their contents with<br />
material from other preaching aids like exemplum collections and<br />
collections of saints’ lives. Yet even if one cannot assume a precise<br />
correlation between any one model sermon and any one live<br />
preaching event, there was probably a fair correspondence between<br />
the aggregate content of widely di·used model sermon collections<br />
and the aggregate content of live preaching. It is the same with<br />
newspapers today. It would be hard to know the e·ect of any one<br />
tabloid topos on any one reader, but one can be fairly sure that the<br />
aggregate of newspaper articles on, say, immigration has an e·ect<br />
on the aggregate of attitudes in large sectors of the population, so<br />
that newspapers may be regarded as a social force. So too with<br />
model sermons in the Middle Ages.<br />
The ultimate audience would usually be lay. Not invariably. Some<br />
friars or other priests might simply read a book of sermons for pleasure<br />
or edification. When the sermons were by a famous man like<br />
Bonaventure, that might even be the normal usage. But with the<br />
general run of workaday sermon collections one can hardly see usage<br />
stopping with reading. On that hypothesis the instructions for<br />
preachers in sermons are hard to explain. When we do have prefaces,<br />
they make it clear that the sermon collections could indeed<br />
be designed to serve as models and tools for preaching: and this<br />
really settles the issue. Furthermore, however, many model sermons<br />
were not much more than divisions and scriptural authorities.<br />
These were definitely not just for reading. But if they were tools<br />
for preachers, there is no reason to doubt that the fuller sermons<br />
were too. Again, there are other genres of preaching aid: exempla,<br />
distinction collections, etc. Why should actual sermons not serve<br />
as a preaching aid? They provide structures to hold materials from<br />
other preaching aids together.<br />
Another proviso: model sermons might be used from time to time<br />
to preach not to lay but to clerical audiences in circumstances where<br />
As Robert Lerner wisely pointed out to me in a personal communication.<br />
D’Avray, Preaching of the Friars, 106–8.<br />
Ibid. 108–10; see now N. B‹eriou, ‘Les prologues de recueils de sermons latins<br />
du xiiE au xvE si›ecle’, in J. Hamesse (ed.), Les Prologues m‹edi‹evaux: actes du colloque<br />
international organis‹e par l’Academia Belgica et l’ ‹Ecole Franc«aisedeRomeavecle<br />
concours de la F.I.D.E.M. (Rome, 26–28 mars 1998) (Textes et ‹etudes du Moyen<br />
^Age, 15; Turnhout, 2000) 395–426 at 414–16.<br />
B‹eriou, ‘Les prologues’, sect. II.i; R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, Preachers,<br />
Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland<br />
(Studies and Texts, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 47; Toronto, 1979).
40 Chapter 1<br />
the listeners were unlikely to care about intellectual property.<br />
However, it would be natural for a preacher to think twice about<br />
using for (say) fellow Franciscans a sermon which members of his<br />
audience might have in a book of their own. Grosso modo, one<br />
may assume that the content of model sermons tells us about the<br />
content of preaching to the laity. We cannot tell which sentences<br />
of any given model sermon were used on any given occasion, but<br />
we can be fairly sure that themes and structures of thought which<br />
recur again and again in model sermons reached large numbers<br />
of laypeople at some time or another. Similarly, we cannot know<br />
what any one lay listener made of a sermon, but we can make very<br />
educated guesses about aggregate impact, or at least about whether<br />
a given idea was likely to be familiar to large numbers of people.<br />
Lost sermon manuscripts<br />
The present volume is the sequel to a 2001 study seeking among<br />
other things to demonstrate that marriage preaching belonged to a<br />
system of mass communication. The sermons edited there would<br />
have circulated in large numbers of manuscripts now lost (quite<br />
apart from the fact that any written version could be preached<br />
again and again to di·erent audiences). The number of lost manuscripts<br />
would seem to have been unconsciously but grossly underestimated.<br />
There are two connected theses: first, that the loss rate<br />
of manuscripts of this genre at least was a lot higher than most<br />
medievalists tend to suspect; and second, that not only professional<br />
scribes, but also Franciscans and Dominicans, copied sermon<br />
manuscripts to professional standards—so that they were available<br />
to confr›eres and were not just personal books. Thus we have a<br />
fact: that the number of written model sermons was greater than<br />
the large number surviving to an extent that has not been appreciated;<br />
and an explanation of how it was possible to put so many<br />
manuscripts into circulation before the invention of printing.<br />
The evidence is cumulative: recent discoveries about a massive<br />
destruction of ‘useless’ manuscripts to provide pieces of parchment<br />
for binders, whose business was expanding through the ceiling;<br />
the almost total disappearance of books from Franciscan and<br />
Academics in particular could in some circumstances think a great deal about<br />
intellectual property: B. Smalley, EnglishFriarsandAntiquityintheEarlyFourteenth<br />
Century (Oxford, 1960), 308.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons.
Mass Communication 41<br />
Dominican libraries that must once have been very large; the utilitarian<br />
attitude to books; the book rules of the friars, quite di·erent<br />
from the conventions governing the libraries of Benedictine and<br />
Cistercian houses—rules that made attrition inevitable; the use of<br />
quaterni, unbound quires; and, finally, technical textual arguments<br />
that also point to large-scale losses. These arguments each have<br />
considerable force on their own, but they also converge towards the<br />
same conclusion—massive losses of sermon manuscripts. The convergence<br />
strengthens each individual argument, as is normal with<br />
evidence of the historical type.<br />
It should be noted that the argument has implications that go<br />
beyond the history of preaching. Model sermons were not the only<br />
books produced and then lost in enormous numbers. The arguments<br />
developed below relativize the whole notion of the print<br />
revolution (while showing that the pressure it put on binders led<br />
to destruction of manuscripts and a misleading impression today<br />
about the di·erence between the number of manuscripts and of<br />
printed books). However, these implications for other genres are<br />
Here I return to the case argued in Medieval Marriage Sermons, 15–30, in order<br />
to answer the arguments set out in Robert Lerner’s courteous but critical review<br />
in Speculum, 79 (2004), 163–5. First a clarification. I did not mean to say that only<br />
practising preachers would have made ‘nonconformist’ changes and that formal<br />
hands point to the existence of an industry. My point about nonconformist changes<br />
(see below) was that they show that there was a skilled and confident amateur<br />
labour force copying manuscripts—for the use of others as well as themselves—<br />
in addition to the production by commercial scribes. My aim at this point was<br />
not to demonstrate a massive loss rate (my arguments for that are quite di·erent)<br />
but to explain how it had been possible for so many manuscripts to be produced.<br />
So Lerner’s evidence that independent scribal variation can be found in all sorts<br />
of texts (not just sermons) is no objection to my argument, and indeed I made<br />
a similar point myself in Medieval Marriage Sermons, 23 n. 62. My argument<br />
about formal hands, too briefly made, was that confident variation was not confined<br />
to personal notebooks which would never be copied and which only one person<br />
could use: see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 25, ‘not the end of the line’. Since<br />
Lerner’s reading of my book will have reached more readers than the book itself,<br />
I must stress that his version of it contains misunderstandings, for which my overcompression<br />
is probably responsible. I further develop the arguments about mass<br />
communication in ‘Printing, Mass Communication and Religious Reformation: The<br />
Middle Ages and After’, in J. Crick and A. Walsham (eds.), TheUsesofScriptand<br />
Print, 1300–1700 (Cambridge, 2004), 50–70. Note that there I analyse the arguments<br />
of Uwe Neddermeyer’s very important Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch:<br />
Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der fr•uhen Neuzeit. Quantitative<br />
und qualitative Aspekte (2 vols.; Buchwissenschaftliche Beitr•age aus dem Deutschen<br />
Bucharchiv M•unchen, 61; Wiesbaden, 1998). I do not repeat this analysis here but<br />
it is important for the present argument: Neddermeyer has arguments for a lower<br />
loss rate which are ingenious but do not take into account the di·erence between<br />
the ways in which the friars and the older orders used books.
42 Chapter 1<br />
not the principal concern: and of course most other genres would<br />
not be further di·used by the oral ‘multiplier’ e·ect that has just<br />
been discussed.<br />
Binding and the great book massacre<br />
One of the stranger phenomena of book history is the great destruction<br />
of books around 1500. Destruction of books in the Reformation<br />
need not surprise us, but this elimination of a large part of the book<br />
stock had nothing to do with religious di·erences. The phenomenon<br />
was uncovered by Gerhardt Powitz in an essay that no historian<br />
of the transition from script to print can a·ord to ignore. Its implications<br />
for the present argument are considerable, and in fact they<br />
ought to a·ect the whole way we look at the impact of printing:<br />
hence the liberal quotations from a paper that could easily escape<br />
the attention of non-specialist readers.<br />
Old manuscript books were broken up to provide parchment to<br />
help bind more favoured books, according to Powitz, for parchment<br />
was in demand for binding, used for pastedowns, flyleaves, and in<br />
the structure of the spine. Thus, for instance:<br />
The Dominican house at Frankfurt possessed the Summa dictaminis of<br />
Guido Faba in a manuscript of the thirteenth century. Even towards the<br />
end of the fifteenth century the the librarian of the convent . . . gave<br />
the volume the call number N4and the ex-libris ‘fratrum predicatorum<br />
in Franckfordia’ [Dominicans in Frankfurt]. Not long after (around<br />
1500) the manuscript was cut up; remains of it can still be found in<br />
the bindings of incunables which belonged to the convent, among them<br />
the sheet with the call number and the ex-libris. (Powitz, ‘Libri inutiles’,<br />
300)<br />
Or again:<br />
new books in a modern form were appearing in an abundance hitherto<br />
unimaginable; in view of this, it was inevitable that a replacement of the<br />
textual foundations within genres, a change of repertoire, should take place.<br />
The sermon collections of Pierre de Reims and Jacques de Lausanne, neither<br />
of which got into print in the fifteenth century, were in the possession<br />
of the Frankfurt Dominican house in manuscripts of the thirteenth and<br />
fourteenth centuries. Around 1500 these preaching texts were recycled—<br />
G. Powitz, ‘Libri inutiles in mittelalterlichen Bibliotheken: Bemerkungen •uber<br />
Alienatio, Palimpsestierung und Makulierung’, Scriptorium, 50 (1996), 288–304.<br />
The key word is ‘Makulierung’, which I translate as ‘recycling’. I am very grateful<br />
to Marc-Aeilko Aris for drawing my attention to this article.
Mass Communication 43<br />
perhaps because of a preference for building up a collection of some of the<br />
printed preaching collections by other authors that were just coming on<br />
the market? (Powitz, ‘Libri inutiles’, 301–2, emphasis added)<br />
Unfashionable books were sacrificed in a frenetic period of bookbinding.<br />
Powitz writes of a<br />
great wave of recycling, which in the fifteenth century, and to be precise in<br />
the decades around 1500, burst over ecclesiastical libraries. It is a process<br />
of unprecedented intensity and one with highly influential consequences<br />
for the history of libraries: a very large proportion of the medieval manuscripts<br />
that had been successfully passed down to that point was destroyed<br />
within a few decades, at a stroke, just like that. (Powitz, ‘Libri inutiles’,<br />
299)<br />
Powitz calls this the ‘great work of destruction [gro¢e Zerst•orungswerk]’,<br />
the ‘book massacre [B•uchersterben]’ of the period<br />
around 1500 (ibid.).<br />
Why? The principal answer is that the invention of printing<br />
produced a flood of books that needed to be bound. However,<br />
this is not the sole explanation. For some reason, the period around<br />
1500 also saw the rebinding of many old manuscripts. So other<br />
old manuscripts were cannibalized to provide parchment for pastedowns<br />
etc.<br />
Demand for recycled manuscripts went through the ceiling, both<br />
in the in-house binderies of religious houses and also in the com-<br />
Together with ibid. n. 40: ‘Frankfurt a.M. StUB Fragm.lat. VIII 53 (Petrus<br />
Remensis); III 72 (Jacobus de Lausanna); vgl. auch Fragm.lat. X 27’.<br />
‘Die Kernfrage, die sich stellt, lautet: Wie konnte es in der Zeit um 1500 zu<br />
einer Makulierungswelle diesen Ausma¢es kommen?’ (ibid. 300).<br />
‘Als eine bestimmende Triebkraft ist ohne Zweifel die Einf•uhrung des Buchdrucks<br />
in Rechnung zu stellen, der gro¢e Medienwandel, dessen tiefgreifender,<br />
epochaler Charakter den Zeitgenossen seit etwa 1470/80 zunehmend bewu¢t geworden<br />
sein mu¢. . . . Nicht selten wird der Erwerb von Drucken mit dem Ausscheiden<br />
von Handschriften gleichen Inhalts Hand in Hand gegangen sein. Ein<br />
Beispiel: F •ur den Lateinunterricht der Klosterschule erwarben die Frankfurter<br />
Dominikaner zwischen 1485 und 1500 mindestens 20 gedruckte Exemplare des<br />
Doctrinale, der Versgrammatik des Alexander de Villa Dei. Vollst•andige Handschriften<br />
dieses Textes aus dem Frankfurter Kloster sind bezeichnenderweise nicht<br />
nachweisbar, wohl aber 10 Codices discissi . . . Dies k•onnten die Reste von Handschriften<br />
sein, die man bis zum Erwerb der Drucke benutzt hatte’ (ibid. 301).<br />
‘Zu der gleichen Zeit, als die in Mengen auf den Markt dr•angenden •altesten<br />
Drucke und die zun•achst weiterhin entstehenden Handschriften ihren ersten Einband<br />
erhielten, machten Kl•oster und Stifte sich daran, Tausende von •alteren B •uchern<br />
(also Handschriften) umzubinden’ (ibid. 302).
44 Chapter 1<br />
mercial city binderies. ‘The “looting” . . . was universal, wherever<br />
parchment was available’ (ibid. 303).<br />
Powitz’s revolutionary findings were anticipated in a very restricted<br />
domain by Neil Ker in his study of Oxford pastedowns,<br />
a study with such an antiquarian air that its implications for the<br />
history of the book were not properly realized. This too is a study<br />
of the recycling of manuscripts, revealing large-scale destruction of<br />
manuscripts, and making it clear that the pastedowns that survive<br />
must be a modest proportion of the number binders actually used:<br />
We can seldom collect together as much as the twentieth part of a complete<br />
book; often no more than a hundredth part, or even less. There is no<br />
reason to doubt that the binders used the whole of these books and many<br />
others now entirely lost. They will have used many thousands of leaves as<br />
wrappers of ephemeral notebooks, account books, and light-weight printed<br />
books and many thousands as pastedowns in bindings which no longer<br />
exist. (Ker, Fragments of Medieval Manuscripts, xii)<br />
Ker also points out (p. xi) that not one of the 265 philosophical<br />
books in the Merton College distribution for borrowing by the<br />
fellows of 1519 is extant, at least in the college library—the implication<br />
being that recycling for the benefit of binders has much to<br />
do with this.<br />
These borrowable philosophical books were only one sector of<br />
Merton’s magnificent library, and other sectors have survived very<br />
well. The same cannot be said for the libraries of the Franciscans<br />
and Dominicans in England. Their history shows that the<br />
modern distribution of manuscripts is an utterly unreliable guide<br />
to the medieval state of a·airs. It is possible to speak with some<br />
confidence thanks to the researches of Ker, Watson, Humphreys,<br />
Mynors, and of Richard and Mary Rouse. It is in fact astonishing<br />
‘Der auf diesen Voraussetzungen basierende Aufschwung des Buchbindewesens<br />
hat den Bedarf an Handschriftenmakulatur in die H•ohe schnellen lassen, und<br />
dies nicht nur im Bereich der kl•osterlichen und kirchlichen Hausbuchbindereien,<br />
sondern ebenso in den Buchbinderwerkst•atten des st•adtischen Gewerbes’ (ibid.).<br />
N. R. Ker, Fragments of Medieval Manuscripts Used as Pastedowns in Oxford<br />
Bindings, with a Survey of Oxford Binding c. 1515–1620 (Oxford Bibliographical<br />
Society Publications, ns 5; Oxford, 1954).<br />
N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd<br />
edn. (London, 1964), and A. Watson, Supplement to the Second Edition (London,<br />
1987); K. W. Humphreys, The Friars’ Libraries (Corpus of British Medieval Library<br />
Catalogues; London, 1990); R. H. Rouse, M. A. Rouse, and R. A. B. Mynors,<br />
Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum (Corpus of Medieval Library<br />
Catalogues; London, 1991).
Mass Communication 45<br />
how few manuscripts have survived from medieval Franciscan and<br />
Dominican libraries in England.<br />
Losses from mendicant libraries<br />
The case of the London Franciscan and Dominican convents conveys<br />
a warning to anyone who thinks that the modern pattern of<br />
survival is any kind of guide to the medieval situation. In a large<br />
Franciscan or Dominican convent one would expect a lot of manuscripts.<br />
The Dominican convent in London was large. In 1300, 92<br />
friars lived there according to a recent study. Of the few books<br />
surviving from their library, not one would be classed as a model<br />
sermon collection or preaching aid.<br />
It is the same with the Franciscans. In 1300 there would seem<br />
to have been 76 of them in London. Of the handful of surviving<br />
manuscripts from the library, one, the ‘Postillae’ of Bertrand de la<br />
Tour, could count as a model sermon collection. Another includes<br />
a few folios from a thirteenth-century sermon manuscript. Athird<br />
manuscript is a ‘vocabulary of the Bible’ and might count as a<br />
preaching aid if one stretched a point.<br />
Similarly with the Oxford Dominican house: according to the<br />
historian of the early Dominicans in England, the number of friars<br />
at Oxford ‘fluctuates . . . between 60 and 96’. Just three books<br />
have survived: Oxford, Merton College 132; Cambridge, Trinity<br />
College 347; and Oxford, Bodleian Lat. bib. d. 9. None of these<br />
seems to be a sermon manuscript.<br />
Rouse, Rouse, and Mynors, Registrum Anglie, cxlvii n. 66; Humphreys, The<br />
Friars’ Libraries, xx.<br />
J. R •ohrkasten, ‘Mendikantische Armut in der Praxis: Das Beispiel London’,<br />
in G. Melville and A. Kehnel (eds.), In proposito paupertatis: Studien zum Armutsverst•andnis<br />
bei den mittelalterlichen Bettelorden (Vita regularis: Ordnungen und<br />
Deutungen religi•osen Lebens im Mittelalter, 13; M•unster, 2001), 135–67 at 146.<br />
Ker, Medieval Libraries, 124.<br />
Ker, Medieval Libraries, 123; Watson, Supplement, 47.<br />
R•ohrkasten, ‘Mendikantische Armut in der Praxis’, 146.<br />
Ker, Medieval Libraries, 123.<br />
MS London, BL Royal 4. D. iv.<br />
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodl. 429 =Summary Catalogue no. 2599.<br />
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 239 =Summary Catalogue no. 21813.<br />
W. A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Institutum Historicum<br />
FF. Praedicatorum, Dissertationes Historicae, 14; Rome, 1951).<br />
Ker, Medieval Libraries, 142; Watson, Supplement, 52.<br />
The Bodleian manuscript, which formerly belonged to Neil Ker (see Ker and<br />
Watson, locc. citt.), is a Bible, almost certainly thirteenth century (personal exami-
46 Chapter 1<br />
So the known survival rate of sermon collections is nil for one big<br />
mendicant convent and a handful for another. Yet the number of<br />
sermon collections in each library in the Middle Ages must surely<br />
have been in three figures. In the Franciscan Library of Padua<br />
there were no fewer than 230 collections of sermons at the end of<br />
the medieval period, to judge by the 1499 catalogue. Even if our<br />
three English friars’ libraries were each half the size of Padua’s,<br />
that still implies a loss rate on a notable scale, to put it mildly.<br />
In the case of the Franciscans and Dominicans a further factor<br />
has to be taken into account, one which suggests that their loss rate<br />
taken as a whole must have been far greater than that of the older<br />
orders, however great that may have been. With the older orders,<br />
a book belonged to the library. Monks were assigned books, but<br />
normally they would read them within the monastery. The norm<br />
was for a fully professed monk to spend his whole life in the same<br />
monastery. Thus it would be easy for the librarian to keep track<br />
of library books. He might decide to destroy some books for their<br />
parchment, but he was not so likely simply to lose track of large<br />
numbers of books.<br />
The same would be true of the books of Franciscans and Dominicans—but<br />
only when they were attached to libraries. As we have<br />
seen, the loss rate could be huge nevertheless: but this would be<br />
mainly because of the decision to recycle ‘useless books’ for their<br />
parchment, or because of the break-up of the convent and its library<br />
during the Reformation or a ‘secularization’. Friars’ books belonging<br />
to a convent library presumably faced much the same risks as<br />
Benedictine or Cistercian books. However, whole categories of friars’<br />
books were not attached to any library, and were consequently<br />
much more vulnerable.<br />
nation); Trinity 347 is ‘W. Woodford contra Wiclevum’: M. R. James, The Western<br />
Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (4 vols.; Cambridge, 1900–<br />
4), i. 473–5. Merton 132 has a commentary on the Sentences and ‘institutiones in<br />
sacram paginam’ of Simon of Tournai: H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum mss. qui in<br />
collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (2 pts.; Oxford, 1852), pt. 1. 57–8.<br />
K. W. Humphreys, The Library of the Franciscans of the Convent of St. Antony,<br />
Padua, at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century (Studies in the History of Libraries<br />
and Librarianship, 3, Safaho-Monografien, 4; Amsterdam, 1966), 15. In this case<br />
many have survived: see Humphreys’ concordance of catalogue entries and surviving<br />
manuscripts.
Mass Communication 47<br />
Books without libraries<br />
As Neil Ker put it, ‘The books individual friars had the use of<br />
might be the property of the order, or of the province, or of the<br />
custody, and were carried from house to house.’ Ker was able to<br />
draw on Humphreys’ careful study of the book provisions of the<br />
friars. This makes it clear that books were not ‘anchored’ to<br />
any one library. A book unattached to a library is in danger in<br />
the long run, especially if it is small and unadorned. It is like a<br />
ship without a convoy in submarine-infested waters. Books could<br />
belong to provinces or in the Franciscan case also to custodies<br />
(subdivisions of Franciscan provinces) rather than to individual<br />
convents (Humphreys, 27–8, 52 n. 51). The Dominican provincial<br />
priors were supposed to ‘keep a written list recording which books<br />
belong[ed] to the [provincial] community and to which brothers<br />
they [were] assigned’ (ibid. 27 n. 59). This sort of regulation seldom<br />
works properly.<br />
Clearly it was hard to keep track of both provincial books and<br />
conventual books out on loan. Humphreys quotes an order to the<br />
friars of the French Dominican province that<br />
brothers who have books granted to them for their use, whether by the<br />
provincial priors or by any of the convents, are bound to inform in writing<br />
the same priors of convents or their deputies (vicariis), and the provincial<br />
prior so far as the books of the province are concerned, within a month<br />
from receipt of this memorandum, about the aforesaid books, or otherwise<br />
they are ipso facto deprived of the use of these books. (Humphreys, 28–9<br />
n. 68)<br />
In other words, there was no record of who had what. Even modern<br />
libraries with immaculate records have trouble with readers who<br />
forget what they have out. Despite the rather pathetic-sounding<br />
e·orts to introduce some discipline into the borrowing system,<br />
it was a recipe for the loss of books, though from the point of<br />
view of the Dominicans’ pastoral ecacy it was a perfectly sensible<br />
arrangement. Franciscans too take out books. It is worth quoting<br />
Humphreys’ summary of regulations about what to do when a<br />
Franciscan friar died. They are a prudent librarian’s nightmare:<br />
The books of a friar dying when away from his native convent were to<br />
be collected by the custodian or by the warden and sent back to the of-<br />
K. W. Humphreys, The Book Provisions of the Mediaeval Friars 1215–1400<br />
(Amsterdam, 1964).
48 Chapter 1<br />
ficers in charge of the custodies where the books had been first issued. The<br />
convent, custody or province which assigned the books was to have such<br />
books returned; other volumes, i.e. gifts, or the personal books of a friar<br />
were to go to the convent at which the friar had first been received. If it was<br />
impossible to discover who had originally assigned the books, they were to<br />
be sent to the province from which the friar first came. Any friar who had<br />
lent a book to another should ensure that it was returned to the custodian<br />
or warden at the death of the borrower. (Humphreys, 52)<br />
It is hard to imagine that this system worked like clockwork.<br />
Though books belonged to Franciscan custodies, Humphreys<br />
points out (57) that there is no evidence that every custody had a<br />
library. If books lacked a physical home, it must have been dicult<br />
to keep track of them. Again, we know that books could be loaned<br />
to a Franciscan for life (ibid. 62). Friars could move around Europe<br />
a good deal in the course of their life, and books must have got lost<br />
in one way or another.<br />
The implications should not be understated. No doubt some of<br />
these books were eventually incorporated into mendicant libraries,<br />
but often they would leave the order: books of deceased friars could<br />
be sold (Humphreys, 28, 53). Some were probably purchased by<br />
the older orders, which built up large collections of sermons in<br />
their libraries. This may explain why so many mendicant sermon<br />
collections survive in monastic libraries. There they would have a<br />
stable existence, unless recycled at the end of the Middle Ages for<br />
parchment. Books that went into private hands surely had much<br />
less chance of survival. It is a law that books outside libraries tend<br />
eventually to disappear. Of course, they were physically sturdy, so<br />
their nomadic existence could have continued for some time. Yet<br />
the very sturdiness of their parchment would in the end make them<br />
desirable to commercial bookbinders. One suspects that they were<br />
even more vulnerable to recycling than books in monastic libraries,<br />
because unwanted books are more of a nuisance to an individual<br />
and his heirs than to a large institution with continuity and a lot of<br />
space.<br />
Quaterni<br />
Even more vulnerable than books would have been the quaterni or<br />
unbound quires used by the friars. We know that friars used them.<br />
Roger Bacon says that the secular clergy with pastoral responsibili-
Mass Communication 49<br />
ties tended to have a weak formation in theology or preaching, so<br />
that when obliged to take on the task of preaching they ‘borrow and<br />
beg the quaterni of the young friars’. A 1267 regulation of the<br />
Roman province of the Dominican order banned friars from selling<br />
books or quaterni that they had written, unless they obtained the<br />
provincial prior’s permission first. Not only friars used quaterni:<br />
the Paris secular Jean d’Ess^omes left to the Sorbonne a manuscript<br />
of sermons and miscellanea which looks as if it was put together<br />
from originally independent quaterni. (This is a reminder that<br />
highly educated members of the secular clergy count as ‘honorary<br />
friars’ for the purpose of this study.) A discussion by Gervase of<br />
Mont Saint- ‹Eloi of originality in preaching says that great masters<br />
have been shamed by someone saying that ‘I will show you in my<br />
quaterno the whole sermon you have given’. ‘Great masters’ were<br />
supposed to compose their own sermons for some sorts of setting<br />
at least, whereas the imaginary critic would presumably have had<br />
the same sermon in his notebook to use as a model when preaching<br />
to a di·erent sort of audience. In any case, it is further evidence<br />
that a quaternus was a normal way of carrying around sermons.<br />
If a quaternus was not bound together with others into a book, its<br />
chances of survival would have been slight compared with, say, an<br />
illuminated Bible in a big Benedictine library. In fact, a quaternus<br />
written in 1300 probably had a lower chance of making it to 1500<br />
than the illuminated Bible of making it from 1100 to 1500. Different<br />
genres of book paid di·erent rates of interest to time, in the<br />
sense that the rate of attrition in one kind of book must have been<br />
much higher than with others. The attrition rate of friars’ quaterni,<br />
as of friars’ books unattached to a library, two categories which no<br />
doubt heavily overlapped, must have been particularly high: and<br />
sermon texts will have figured largely in both categories.<br />
The word he used is ‘praelati’, which seems to have included priests who had<br />
authority over a parish as well as ‘prelates’ in the modern sense: and I am assuming<br />
from the context that he is likely to have the former in mind.<br />
Roger Bacon, Opus tertium,inFr. Rogeri Bacon opera quaedam hactenus inedita,<br />
ed. J. S. Brewer, i (Rolls Series; London, 1859), 309; d’Avray, Medieval Marriage<br />
Sermons, 19.<br />
Humphreys, Book Provisions, 26; d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 26.<br />
MS Paris, BN lat. 16499: see d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 235–7, for<br />
further references, especially to the findings of M. Mabille.<br />
Smalley, English Friars, 308.
50 Chapter 1<br />
The pecia argument<br />
The last argument for a high loss rate is very technical: it involves<br />
a two-step inference from some surprising facts about transmission<br />
of sermon manuscripts by the pecia system (the system used<br />
to facilitate the copying of manuscripts in university milieux of the<br />
thirteenth and the first part of the fourteenth centuries). The details<br />
of the argument have been set out elsewhere and need not be<br />
repeated. The following recapitulation only explains the general<br />
structure of the argument.<br />
The first step is a demonstration that the loss rate of pecia manuscripts<br />
could be high by examining the transmission of a Franciscan<br />
sermon collection called Legifer. Withthepecia system, a university<br />
‘stationer’ had in his shop manuscripts of works believed to be<br />
in demand, in the form of loose quires. These shop manuscripts<br />
are called ‘pecia exemplars’. Their quires were hired out to people<br />
who wanted to copy the work. The copies are called ‘pecia copies’.<br />
Because the quires were loose, more than one scribe could be copying<br />
at the same time: one could be copying the first quire, another<br />
the second, another the third, and so on, although it was not likely<br />
to work out as simply as that since the scribes were operating independently,<br />
probably commissioned by di·erent people. A more<br />
probable scenario would be that the scribe finished a quire and returned<br />
it to take out the next, only to find that someone else had<br />
it out. In that case he could take out the next one in the sequence,<br />
and leave an appropriate space to be filled later when the borrowed<br />
quire was back in the shop. Scribes often noted in the margins of<br />
their own manuscripts break points between quires in the pecia exemplar:<br />
they might write ‘pe.’ and a number. (Note that in a pecia<br />
copy the pecia marks will not normally coincide with the beginning<br />
of a quire.) Even when they did not, there are often tell-tale<br />
signs, such as a change of ink at the point where we know a new<br />
exemplar quire began, or compressed writing because they had left<br />
insucient space for the contents of a quire copied out of sequence.<br />
The system was first properly understood and explained by Jean<br />
Destrez, who devoted his life to it and travelled around European<br />
libraries looking for manuscripts with pecia indications, whether<br />
exemplars or copies. Few individuals have ever looked at so many<br />
medieval manuscripts in so many di·erent libraries, and it is un-<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 17–19; id., ‘Printing, Mass Communication<br />
and Religious Reformation’, 52–6.
Mass Communication 51<br />
likely that anyone since has developed such a sharp eye for a pecia<br />
indication. He published a big book long before his manuscript<br />
work was complete, and so many of his later findings never got into<br />
print, but fortunately he left his voluminous notes in good order,<br />
and they may be consulted today in the Dominican study centre of<br />
Le Saulchoir in Paris.<br />
Since Destrez, scholars have worked out some more details of<br />
how the system worked. They have been able to show how some<br />
pecia exemplars had to be duplicated, presumably because of demand,<br />
and how others had to be remade in part, presumably because<br />
some parts had become soiled or damaged by over-use. The<br />
Franciscan sermon collection called Legifer is one such collection.<br />
We have an exemplar and a copy, but the marginal numbers in the<br />
copy do not coincide with the quire numbers of the exemplar all the<br />
way through. The natural inference is that the original exemplar<br />
was so heavily used that parts had to be remade.<br />
If so, many copies were made from it. However, Destrez found<br />
only one pecia copy. Now, he must have missed some manuscripts<br />
with pecia indications. As indicated above, manuscripts copied from<br />
pecia exemplars did not necessarily have the tell-tale numbers in<br />
the margin, and the other pecia indications are easier to miss. Still,<br />
Destrez had the best eye in the world for such indications and<br />
devoted his working life to looking for them. Thus it is thoughtprovoking<br />
that he did not find more pecia copies of this work. The<br />
natural explanation is that many others have disappeared: again, an<br />
indication of a high loss rate.<br />
There is a second step to the argument. Pecia transmission accounts<br />
for only a small proportion of surviving sermon manuscripts.<br />
So one may say this: if surviving pecia manuscripts represent<br />
only the tip of the small iceberg of those that once existed,<br />
surviving sermon manuscripts tout court represent only a tiny proportion<br />
of the number of sermon manuscripts tout court that once<br />
existed. This complex argument would not be overwhelming on<br />
its own. There are too many links in the chain of inference for<br />
J. Destrez, La Pecia dans les manuscrits universitaires du XIIIe et du XIVe si›ecle<br />
(Paris, 1935).<br />
I set out a converging argument about the pecia transmission of the sermons of<br />
Pierre de Reims in Medieval Marriage Sermons, 17–18. It is not the only hypothesis<br />
that fits the data, but it is the hypothesis with the most comfortable fit. As an<br />
argument for a large loss rate it would not stand on its own, but it reinforces and<br />
draws strength from the other arguments.
52 Chapter 1<br />
certainty. Still, it fits very well with the other evidence and adds<br />
significant support to an already strong case.<br />
Here the subject is sermon manuscripts and model sermons,<br />
but it should be said again that the implications extend to other<br />
genres of manuscripts of this period, some of which survive in<br />
far more copies than the sermon collections studied here. The<br />
implication is that their original di·usion was proportionally larger.<br />
So the concept of late medieval mass communication should not be<br />
confined to the friars or to model sermon collections and preaching<br />
aids—though it should be remembered that only these were further<br />
systematically multiplied by repeated oral events.<br />
Convergence<br />
Each of the foregoing arguments—the great book massacre, the vanished<br />
mendicant libraries, books without libraries, quaterni without<br />
books, pecia inferences—has considerable force, but they also<br />
support one another more or less independently. The onus of proof<br />
should be on those who deny a colossal loss rate of mendicant manuscripts<br />
like model sermons, and other manuscripts facing similar<br />
perils. Quantification would be quite artificial, but, despite the talk<br />
of tips of icebergs, one in ten would surely be too optimistic by far.<br />
It is perfectly possible that only one in fifty got through to our day:<br />
perhaps even fewer. Even with fifteenth-century printed books,<br />
the survival rate averages only about 1.2 per cent for small-format<br />
books, and these books have had fewer centuries to survive and<br />
would have been less attractive to bookbinders seeking strong scrap<br />
materials. The low figure is eloquent. It is all the more remarkable<br />
that we still have so many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sermon<br />
collections in books of this format: just the size that friars<br />
could have carried easily with them when they moved to a di·erent<br />
This was stressed in Robert Lerner’s review of Medieval Marriage Sermons in<br />
Speculum. He intended it as a reductio ad absurdum: the absurd conclusion being that<br />
medieval books which survive to this day in hundreds of manuscripts could have<br />
originally been transmitted by thousands of manuscripts. But in fact there is nothing<br />
absurd about this conclusion, though it runs against some assumptions which are as<br />
prevalent as they are ungrounded in evidence.<br />
‘. . . bei Oktavb•anden allerdings nur bis zu 3% (Durchschnittswert 1,2%)<br />
[erhalten]’ (Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch, 75); ‘Schmale<br />
B•andesindfastausnahmslosnurnochvereinzeltvohanden....Oktavb•ande [sind]<br />
heute in jedem Fall sehr selten’ (ibid. 76).
Mass Communication 53<br />
house or province. Common though they still are, there may have<br />
been a hundred times more of them, or still more than that, at the<br />
start of the fourteenth century.<br />
Production of manuscripts by friars<br />
If so many manuscripts have been lost, they must have been first<br />
produced. How could they have been produced in such numbers<br />
without the help of printing? In essence, the answer is that a double<br />
labour force was at work. On the one hand, there were professional<br />
scribes. There has been an idea in the air in the oral culture<br />
of modern manuscript scholars that such commercial scribes took<br />
over the work of monastic scriptoria entirely. However it may be<br />
with monastic scriptoria, which lie outside the scope of the present<br />
study, it is a mistake to think that the new orders of friars relied<br />
only on the products of commercial scribes. They certainly got<br />
many of their books this way. (Other books originally copied by<br />
paid scribes for someone else would have been passed on as gifts<br />
to mendicant convents.) There is no doubt that very many manuscripts<br />
used by friars were produced by this first labour force of<br />
paid scribes. However, the second labour force consisted of the friars<br />
themselves, who copied their own manuscripts. It also included<br />
any other literate priests who copied sermon collections for their<br />
own use and—this is important—the use of others.<br />
There is a good deal of direct evidence for the copying activity<br />
of friars: chronicle evidence and their own regulations. Then<br />
there is a quite di·erent kind of evidence which converges towards<br />
the same conclusion: the nature of variants in many sermon manuscripts.<br />
In some manuscripts there are many free and independent<br />
variants: not mistakes but voluntary changes that make sense. They<br />
represent an independent attitude on the part of the scribe, and this<br />
has considerable implications.<br />
Such variants may be found in the critical apparatus of Medieval<br />
Marriage Sermons,moreorlesspassim. They are also more clearly<br />
D’Avray , ‘Portable Vademecum Books Containing Franciscan and Dominican<br />
Texts’.<br />
M. Mulchahey, ‘More Notes on the Education of the Fratres communes in the<br />
Dominican Order: Elias de Ferreriis of Salagnac’s Libellus de doctrina fratrum’, in<br />
J. Brown and W. P. Stoneman (eds.), A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of<br />
Leonard E. Boyle, O.P. (Notre Dame, Ind., 1997), 328–69 at 338.<br />
Collected in d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 25–8.
54 Chapter 1<br />
illustrated in another study, and some more evidence of the same<br />
kind is provided in Documents 1. 4–8. The changes are not necessarily<br />
drastic. Small unnecessary modifications betray an attitude<br />
to the text di·erent from that of hired scribes.<br />
These independent variants are not a peculiarity of Franciscan<br />
and Dominican sermon manuscripts. In vernacular texts they are<br />
exceedingly common, and they may also be found in other genres<br />
of Latin text. There is a whole spectrum from the scribe-author<br />
who rewrites the whole thing to a copyist who feels free to change<br />
the wording occasionally, but deliberately (so I am not counting<br />
simple inversions of words, which can occur even when a scribe is<br />
trying to copy exactly, word for word).<br />
On the other hand, many texts do not have any semi-authorial or<br />
independent-minded interventions. A majority of the manuscripts<br />
collated for Medieval Marriage Sermons trytogiveastandardtext.<br />
I would be amazed to find such improvisation in a copy made<br />
from pecia exemplars at university stationers; it is not normal in<br />
canon-law manuscripts.<br />
The following principles are in tune with common sense and<br />
may confidently be proposed as hypotheses which no one is likely<br />
to succeed in falsifying.<br />
(1) Manuscripts of works by authors of known authority, when<br />
copied by commercial scribes working for hire, would seldom<br />
if ever have independent, deliberate, nonconformist variants.<br />
Like any copies, they will have errors, but we should not find<br />
improvisation. The reason: if you pay someone to copy a work,<br />
you do not expect him to alter the text as he goes along. So, for<br />
instance, a pecia copy of a sermon collection in the university<br />
stationer’s shop will necessarily be conformist.<br />
(2) Consequently, when the text of a manuscript varies freely from<br />
the standard one, not in error but deliberately, it was probably<br />
not copied by a commercial scribe. (Or if it was, it descends<br />
from a manuscript which was not the work of a commercial<br />
scribe.) The reason: if you are not working for money and feel<br />
D’Avray, ‘Printing, Mass Communication and Religious Reformation’, 69–70.<br />
See d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 23 n. 62.<br />
My instinct was confirmed by conversation with Kent Emery (who knows the<br />
pecia transmission of Henry of Ghent).<br />
My own impression confirmed by conversation with Dr Martin Bertram.<br />
This should be interpreted as an invitation to try.
Mass Communication 55<br />
at home with the material, you are not obliged to follow the<br />
exemplar slavishly. So a sermon collection copied by a friar<br />
who was an experienced preacher could have nonconformist<br />
variants.<br />
(3) A manuscript with a script of professional quality and where<br />
the text is conformist could either be the work of a commercial<br />
scribe or of someone working on his own account. The reason:<br />
a commercial scribe had to be conformist, but a person working<br />
on his own account and without pay could be conformist too:<br />
nonconformity was not an obligation. So a sermon collection<br />
with a conformist text might or might not have been copied by<br />
afriar.<br />
These principles are an appeal to common sense. The way to falsify<br />
them would be to find a substantial number of manuscripts of Latin<br />
works where the scribe was demonstrably working for hire but<br />
where the text nevertheless contains nonconformist variants. Until<br />
or unless the principles are falsified, the hypothesis holding the field<br />
is that both commercial scribes and friars copied mendicant model<br />
sermon collections.<br />
To clear up any misunderstanding: free scribal variations are<br />
not in themselves evidence of mass communication. Works with a<br />
minute di·usion could be copied this way. The free variants are<br />
evidence of a second labour force alongside professional scribes,<br />
pointing to an explanation of how such a high rate of production<br />
was possible. This fact also shows how the production of so many<br />
manuscripts could be economically viable despite the relatively<br />
high cost of medieval books. If friars rather than paid scribes<br />
did the copying, the greater part of the cost of a book would be<br />
saved. Louis-Jacques Bataillon has provided evidence suggesting<br />
that in the later thirteenth century parchment represented about<br />
20 per cent of the cost of a book. This would have made the economics<br />
of large-scale book production viable for friars. It must be<br />
remembered that the cost of parchment varied a lot. MS BN Lat.<br />
I am indebted to Robert Lerner for raising the question of the cost of book<br />
production.<br />
L.-J. Bataillon, ‘Les conditions de travail des ma^§tres de l’universit‹e deParis<br />
au xiiiE si›ecle’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et th‹eologiques, 67 (1983), 417–32 at<br />
423 n. 25.<br />
M. Gullick, ‘From Parchmenter to Scribe: Some Observations on the Manufacture<br />
and Preparation of Medieval Parchment Based upon a Review of the Literary
56 Chapter 1<br />
16497 (written on cheap parchment) cost 12 sol. of Paris all told,<br />
so the parchment would have cost between 2 and 3 sol., between a<br />
quarter and a third of a florin, quite a modest sum. Alms given<br />
by Louis IX in 1256 give a relative idea of the cost of the parchment<br />
for this book. Thus pittances of bread and wine for fourteen days<br />
came to £38. 17s. 8d. in Paris currency, pittances from the kitchen<br />
for eighteen days came to £33. 2s. 6d., and alms for 200 poor on<br />
14 August came to £20, a little short of the cost of the parchment<br />
for BN Lat. 16497 for each poor person. On the assumption that<br />
the parchment was the main monetary cost because the labour cost<br />
only the future user’s time, the book—of this sort and in these<br />
circumstances—becomes a relatively inexpensive article.<br />
Another study notes a fifteenth-century English manuscript<br />
composed of parchment quires (sixteen pages per quire) which cost<br />
a penny-halfpenny each. To put this in perspective by comparison<br />
with a peasant inventory from 1457: two buckets are valued at<br />
a shilling, which makes each worth four quires; a sheet cost 4d.,<br />
more than two quires; two worn canvasses cost 4d., each more than<br />
a quire; a chair cost 3d., two quires. Friars received substantial<br />
donations, and money on this scale would have been readily available.<br />
In the light of these figures, some of the ideas current among<br />
scholars about the minimum cost of a basic parchment book are<br />
exaggerated by orders of magnitude.<br />
As just noted, manuscripts with maverick modifications of the<br />
text can be written as well as if they were produced by professional<br />
scribes. Whoever improvised upon the text did so in a physical form<br />
that others could use and copy. These maverick texts with nonconformist<br />
variants are not confined to personal preaching notebooks<br />
which could only be of use to the man who wrote them.<br />
Here it is useful to invent a term: cul-de-sac books. A cul-de-sac<br />
Evidence’, in P. R•uck, Pergament: Geschichte, Struktur, Restaurierung, Herstellung<br />
(Historische Hilfswissenschaften, 2; Sigmaringen, 1991), 145–57 at 147, 151.<br />
Bataillon, ‘Les conditions de travail’, 423 n. 24 (citing M. Mabille, ‘Les<br />
manuscrits de Jean d’Essomes conserv‹es ›a la Biblioth›eque Nationale de Paris’,<br />
Biblioth›eque de l’ ‹Ecole des Chartes, 130 (1972), 231–4).<br />
Cf. P. Spu·ord, with the assistance of W. Wilkinson and S. Tolley, Handbook of<br />
Medieval Exchange (Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 13; London,<br />
1986), 168.<br />
E. M. Hallam, Capetian France 987–1328 (London etc., 1980), 233, table 5.1.<br />
Cf. Gullick, ‘From Parchmenter to Scribe’, 151.<br />
C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England<br />
c. 1200–1520 (Cambridge, 1989), 170.
Mass Communication 57<br />
codex is a manuscript which is at the end of the line of tradition,<br />
because it is too untidy, informal, and personalized for anyone to<br />
use it as an exemplar. For the same reasons, it is unlikely to be<br />
passed on to new owners capable of using it in the same way as the<br />
man who wrote it.<br />
The manuscripts under discussion here were not cul-de-sac<br />
books. These model sermons could be the exemplars of further<br />
copies, and they could be used by other preachers, not only by the<br />
man who copied them. The point is really an answer to a potential<br />
objection: viz., that manuscripts with nonconformist variants were<br />
just private books, usable only by the man who made them and<br />
sterile in terms of the transmission of the text. The relevance to the<br />
mass communication thesis is thus real but indirect.<br />
To conclude. There may have been up to c.40,000 Franciscans<br />
and Dominicans in the early fourteenth century. It was common<br />
for friars to copy sermon collections. Not all Franciscans and<br />
Dominicans did, we can be sure. On the other hand, there were<br />
also Carmelites, Augustinian Hermits, educated members of the<br />
secular clergy who could match the pastoral activity of the friars,<br />
and probably also some members of the older orders. This<br />
formidable labour force worked alongside the commercial scribes<br />
who also copied sermon manuscripts. There has been a tendency<br />
to assume that the commercial scribes did all the work: hence the<br />
demonstration above that they did not carry the burden of copying<br />
alone. An enormous number of books to help preachers resulted.<br />
Even the number that has survived is huge, but it may be a tiny<br />
percentage, perhaps even as low as 1 per cent, of the number that<br />
once existed. The survival rate was probably quite uneven, biased<br />
against quaterni and friars’ books not linked to libraries: though<br />
I am again putting right a misapprehension (for which I blame my lack of<br />
clarity) in the Speculum review by Lerner, who understood me to mean that maverick<br />
variants in a manuscript of professional appearance are evidence of a copying<br />
industry, which is not in fact my view.<br />
The estimate of R. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle<br />
Ages (Harmondsworth, 1970), 285.<br />
‘[A] certain number of monks, at least in the thirteenth century, went to Oxford<br />
to learn preaching, partly with the aim of dispensing with the services of friars in the<br />
cathedral priories, where friction had developed between the mendicants and the<br />
possessioners. Preaching in both Latin and English was contemplated’ (D. Knowles,<br />
The Religious Orders in Engand, ii. TheEndoftheMiddleAges(Cambridge, 1961),<br />
24). I do not see why such monastic preachers should not have copied sermon<br />
manuscripts.
58 Chapter 1<br />
library books too were vulnerable to the great book massacre of<br />
c.1500. Each of these innumerable model sermons on parchment<br />
could have been used repeatedly for vernacular ‘live’ preaching<br />
(the ‘multiplier e·ect’). While we cannot even guess at the impact<br />
of an individual sermon on an individual, the cumulative impact<br />
of sermon topoi on the the sermon-going public cannot have been<br />
slight. These considerations entitle us to regard mendicant preaching<br />
as a social force in the same kind of sense as a modern mass<br />
medium. It remains to examine the content of the message where<br />
marriage and marriage symbolism are concerned.<br />
(d) The Message about Marriage<br />
Marriage symbolism<br />
Anyone who skims through the sermons edited and translated in<br />
Medieval Marriage Sermons, or through the complementary corpus<br />
of sermons in the ‘Documents’ section corresponding to this<br />
chapter, will realize that marriage symbolism is prominent and<br />
perhaps usually predominant. (The following analyses will be<br />
based on these two dossiers, but one could carry out a similar exercise<br />
with late medieval sermons.) As a symbol, marriage is as<br />
a rule overwhelmingly positive in preaching, but it can stand for<br />
an intense commitment of any kind, including commitment to sin<br />
or the Devil. The sinful soul is ‘the daughter and bride of the<br />
Devil’. The three stages that lead up to the finalization of a<br />
marriage—initiation (engagement), ratification (present consent),<br />
and consummation—stages which we shall meet again and again<br />
and which are normally full of positive significance, can stand for<br />
the three stages that finalize a sin. Thought or pleasure is initiation,<br />
consent is ratification, deed is consummation.<br />
A detail of language should be noted. Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t<br />
The sermons did not have to take the approach they did, for they normally<br />
start from the Gospel reading about the marriage feast of Cana, and instead of<br />
exalting marriage on the literal and symbolic levels, the path they actually took,<br />
they might have concentrated on an influential apocryphal story according to which<br />
the bridegroom of Cana was St John the Evangelist, who opted for celibacy between<br />
wedding and consummation: see A. Volfing, John the Evangelist and Medieval<br />
German Writing: Imitating the Inimitable (Oxford, 2001), 29–31.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 4/2/;<br />
G‹erard de Mailly paras. 3–7; Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 8.<br />
Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 8.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 4.
Mass Communication 59<br />
calls this evil marriage ‘carnal marriage’. However, ‘carnal’ does not<br />
necessarily have negative associations. There are sermons where it<br />
is used in a positive sense.<br />
A common motif or topos is the marriage of Christ and human<br />
nature. This is the incarnation, the union of divine and human<br />
‘in the womb of the Virgin’, when the Lord ‘took up our nature<br />
and completely united it to himself for ever’. This is compared<br />
by one preacher to the marriage between a woman of ill repute<br />
in the Old Testament and Osee (i.e. Hosea), who gave his name<br />
to the book of the Bible in which the story occurs. The woman<br />
is called Gomer. Pierre de Reims explains that the Hebrew name<br />
means ‘taken up’. The idea is that human nature is ‘taken up’ and<br />
united to the saviour, Osee. The two natures become ‘truly two in<br />
one flesh’.<br />
The marriage feast of Cana took place ‘on the third day’, according<br />
to the words of the Gospel. Guibert de Tournai picks up on<br />
this detail and uses it in his symbolism. The first day is the age<br />
of nature: that is, before God gave the Law of the Old Testament<br />
to the Jews. The second day is the ‘age of scripture’, the age of<br />
the Old Testament. The third day is the age of grace, when divine<br />
and human nature were united in one person. Guibert is interesting<br />
on the consummation of this marriage. He understands<br />
it in two ways. First, there is the Passion of Jesus Christ. At the<br />
climax of the passion, Jesus said: ‘It is consummated’. The other<br />
‘consummation’ is the resurrection. Here one needs to be aware of<br />
thirteenth-century marriage law and theology to understand the<br />
implications of Guibert’s comment. He says that after the resurrection,<br />
there will be no more division of Christ’s body and soul<br />
or Divinity and Humanity. Guibert shows his knowledge that it<br />
is only after consummation that Christian marriage becomes absolutely<br />
indissoluble. As we shall see in a later chapter, before that<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 121, 134.<br />
See ibid.: Pierre de Reims, para. 2 (also p. 121, on the Angers version, and<br />
pp. 122, 122–3, on the Milan version); Guibert de Tournai, paras. 4, 6, 8 (and<br />
pp. 285 and 316, on the Assisi version); Jean Halgrin: Document 1. 9. 5;Servasanto<br />
da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 21–2.<br />
Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 21.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Reims, para. 2.<br />
Ibid.: Guibert de Tournai, para. 4. Ibid., para. 6.<br />
As often with Guibert, he has not quite thought it through: of course the<br />
Divinity and Humanity, as opposed to body and soul, would have been inseparable<br />
right from the incarnation according to standard theology.
60 Chapter 1<br />
it could be dissolved at least by the entry of one partner into a<br />
religious order.<br />
Clearly connected with the ‘marriage to human nature’ topos is<br />
the image of Christ’s marriage to the Church: the two meanings are<br />
imperfectly distinct. One version of Pierre de Reims puts it thus:<br />
the marriage feast of Cana was ‘a sign or sacrament of the joining<br />
together of Christ and the Church: just as Christ did not lay down<br />
human nature once he had taken it up, so too marriage is not divided<br />
or sent away’. However, the ‘marriage to the Church’ motif may<br />
be analysed apart without doing violence to the data.<br />
The ‘initiation–ratification–consummation’ topos comes into<br />
play again. The three stages of betrothal, consent in the present<br />
tense, and sexual intercourse were, as already noted, a familiar<br />
schema in theology and canon law, and through law a·ected practice.<br />
Familiarity with social practice will have enhanced the symbolism,<br />
as with Guibert de Tournai’s reflection on ‘consummation’,<br />
examined above. Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t comes close to echoing one<br />
of Guibert’s thoughts. He says that ‘the matrimonial bond of this<br />
marriage, that is, the marriage of Christ and the Church, was initiated<br />
in the promise of the Son of God which was made to the holy<br />
fathers, ratified in the incarnation, and consummated in Christ’s<br />
passion.’<br />
This takes him on to the Eucharist, the meal of Christ’s body and<br />
blood. It is the feast that goes with the marriage. The Eucharist is<br />
the wedding banquet again in another preacher’s development of a<br />
story from the Bible used frequently in marriage symbolism. This<br />
is the story of Ahasuerus and Esther, applied to the marriage of<br />
Christ and the Church. The proud consort of the king of the<br />
Medes and Persians is replaced as queen by a beautiful Jewish girl.<br />
In the biblical account revenge on the enemies of the Jews follows.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, 121.<br />
In the corpus used for this analysis I note the following cases: d’Avray, Medieval<br />
Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 11, also p. 134; Pierre de<br />
Saint-Beno^§t, paras. 7–9, and also, for the Trinity College Dublin manuscript,<br />
p. 226; ‘Documents’: Konrad Holtnicker, 1. 10. 9; Servasanto da Faenza, 1. 11. 23.<br />
He means to the great men of Old Testament times.<br />
Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 8.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 9.<br />
Ahasuerus, Assuerus in the Latin Vulgate, corresponds to the historical Xerxes<br />
I.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 7; Konrad<br />
Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 9.
Mass Communication 61<br />
The preachers are not interested in that, but in the symbolism of<br />
the marriage. Vashti the first queen represents the synagogue, and<br />
Esther the Jewish girl stands for the Christian Church.<br />
Could this Vashti–Esther symbolism have undermined marital<br />
indissolubility? It seems unlikely. For one thing, the story is set<br />
in Old Testament times, when the rules were di·erent, as preachers<br />
knew and could explain. Much more importantly, the whole<br />
emphasis is on the symbolism of salvation history and the point<br />
about the Old Testament dispensation and its replacement by the<br />
Christian Church, with the Old Testament narrative serving as an<br />
allegory. When the preacher moves into scriptural narrative as the<br />
basis for imagery, the change of discourse would probably have<br />
been evident to most attentive listeners, especially since supplementary<br />
clarification would have been possible in the ‘live’ sermon<br />
preached from the model if any necessity had been apparent. The<br />
message—replacement of Synagogue by Church—would have explained<br />
to the listener why the story was being used. When it came<br />
to types of discourse and changes of register in oral sermons, there<br />
is no reason to think late medieval listeners were obtuse, and there<br />
is an exotic tone to the story which marked it as belonging to the<br />
Old Testament ‘other’. The line between this allegory and the analyses<br />
of Christian marriage, whether as a symbol or at the literal<br />
level, would not have been hard for most listeners to intuit.<br />
The Esther story comes up again under our next heading: the<br />
marriage of the individual soul to Christ or God. In Guibert de<br />
Tournai this is linked with the ‘initiation–ratification–consummation’<br />
topos:<br />
The third marriage is the spiritual one of Christ and the faithful soul.<br />
This is the marriage of Assuerus with Esther. Esther 2: 17–18: ‘the king<br />
made Esther reign in the place of Vashti, and he ordered that a banquet be<br />
prepared for the union and marriage with Esther’.<br />
And this is what is said in today’s Gospel: that the water was changed<br />
into wine, for the banquet of that marriage: the water, that is, of contrition,<br />
into the wine of consolation. For it is said in Mark 2: 19: ‘Can the children<br />
of the marriage fast, as long as the bridegroom is with them?’<br />
This marriage is initiated in good thought, ratified in consent, and consummated<br />
in good action.<br />
Guibert is quite eloquent in his section on the marriage of the<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Guibert de Tournai, paras. 12–14.
62 Chapter 1<br />
soul. Some of the credit goes to the quotations he chooses, but<br />
no source is cited for the following passage: ‘In good consent he<br />
comes: not as a lord imposing labour, not as a judge striking fear,<br />
not as a master correcting error, not as a doctor drastically curing<br />
a disease, but as a bridegroom arousing love.’ This passage too<br />
may be a quotation, of course—Guibert was derivative. In this<br />
‘model sermon’ genre it was unimportant: ecacy mattered more<br />
than originality.<br />
Even from the surviving Latin models one can guess that some<br />
developments of the ‘marriage to the soul’ image could have stimulated<br />
mental images in listeners. Pierre de Reims develops a<br />
comparison between a soul who is betrothed to but then betrays<br />
Christ and a poor girl betrothed to the son of a king but who<br />
is unfaithful to him and loses everything. As he works through<br />
the analogy, he evokes the social condition of a peasant girl. For<br />
example: ‘if she were free and responsible for herself, after all this<br />
she might still be able to get a living for herself from somewhere or<br />
other; but it is not so, because she has fallen into a great bondage.’<br />
This would be a much stronger image for listeners familiar with<br />
the stigma of servile status in thirteenth-century France than it is<br />
for a modern reader, unless the historian can reconstruct some of<br />
the lost connotations.<br />
The imagery can be very simple. Jean Halgrin talks about the<br />
soul who, forgetful of her engagement ring, does not keep the<br />
faith of marriage, when women as a rule keep their engagement<br />
ring thoughout their life. An image like this would not need<br />
to be developed: the listeners would provide their own supplementary<br />
images. A much fuller image which could have triggered<br />
associations precisely because it was analysed in greater depth<br />
was that of the ideal husband, represented by G‹erard de Mailly<br />
in the corpus analysed here and in fact quite a widespread<br />
e.g. ibid., para. 17/7/ (the motif of the beautiful captive also used by Pierre de<br />
Reims, paras. 19–20); and para. 18, a passage from St John Chrysostom which is<br />
rather fine.<br />
Ibid., para. 14.<br />
Cf. D. L. d’Avray and M. Tausche, ‘Marriage Sermons in ad status Collections<br />
of the Central Middle Ages’, in N. B‹eriou and D. L. d’Avray, with P. Cole, J.<br />
Riley-Smith, and M. Tausche, Modern Questions about Medieval Sermons: Essays<br />
on Marriage, Death, History and Sanctity (Spoleto etc., 1994), 77–134 at 94.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Reims, para. 13/1/.<br />
As I tried to do in Medieval Marriage Sermons, 61–2.<br />
Jean Halgrin, Document 1. 9. 8.
Mass Communication 63<br />
topos. G‹erard says that Christ has all the qualities of an ideal<br />
bridegroom: he is eloquent, wealthy, wise, attractive in appearance,<br />
powerful, noble—and immortal. This last quality is clearly<br />
not for the human bridegroom, however idealized, but in general<br />
the list converges—perhaps more closely than coincidence can account<br />
for—with the image of the attractive knight found in the<br />
romances of Chr‹etien de Troyes. That is not to say that Chr‹etien<br />
influenced the preacher. More probably, they both reflect generally<br />
current social assumptions. However, this means that G‹erard’s list<br />
would have struck cords in the imaginative and fantasy life of many<br />
listeners.<br />
The image of the soul’s marriage to God is turned by the Florentine<br />
Aldobrandino da Toscanella into a reflection on the nobility of<br />
man: it could be designated ‘other-worldly humanism’. Explaining<br />
why the marriage of God and the soul really belongs to the next life,<br />
he gives a fascinating glimpse of his structured universe. Creatures<br />
are ranked in order of nobility, as are their settings in the elements.<br />
Thus plants go with earth; above them, fish with the nobler element<br />
of water; above them, the birds of the air, a still higher element. So<br />
‘those things which are fittingly grouped together in nature are fittingly<br />
grouped together in a place, as all plants are on earth’ (and<br />
so on). But man has a likeness to God, so the marriage takes place<br />
in heaven. ‘For . . . a noble pilgrim does not willingly contract a<br />
marriageinthelandofhispilgrimage...butreturnstotheplace<br />
of his birth.’<br />
This leads on to the general unsatisfactoriness of life in this world,<br />
where ‘we are made sad, we grow heated, we get thirsty, we grieve,<br />
wegetsick...Forinthisworldthereisnoonewhocouldhaveall<br />
good things without some evil. For some are good-looking, and yet<br />
poor; some are noble, but reduced to beggary; some are rich and<br />
noble, but su·er from ill health; some are rich and noble and healthy,<br />
but childless; but some, though they have children, nevertheless<br />
It is analysed in N. B‹eriou and D. L. d’Avray, ‘The Image of the Ideal Husband<br />
in Thirteenth Century France’ (1990), in B‹eriou and d’Avray, Modern Questions<br />
about Medieval Sermons, 31–61.<br />
For the explanation of the analogy see d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons:<br />
G‹erard de Mailly, paras. 21–9.<br />
See B‹eriou and d’Avray, ‘The Image of the Ideal Husband in Thirteenth<br />
Century France’, 42–6, for a fuller analysis of the parallels.<br />
See Aldobrandino da Toscanella, Document 1. 12. 5.
64 Chapter 1<br />
have children who are foolish or evil; and if they are good, they are<br />
short-lived.’<br />
Aldobrandino de Toscanella has in e·ect located the marriage<br />
of the soul to God in heaven. Once again, the di·erent kinds of<br />
symbolic marriage prove to be imperfectly distinct. With Pierre de<br />
Saint-Beno^§t the eternal marriage in heaven is a continuation of<br />
the marriage of Christ and the Church. In the present, the feast is<br />
the Eucharist, compared to a midday meal. In the future, that is in<br />
eternity in heaven, there is the evening feast.<br />
The marriage feast of the lamb in the Book of Revelations, or<br />
Apocalypse, is a favourite motif for this ultimate marriage. The<br />
problem of representing heaven is overcome by using such scripturally<br />
inspired imagery. Another example: ‘[The Lord] satiates<br />
them with the flood of his pleasure, and he inebriates them with the<br />
wine of his plenty’ (derived from Ps. 35: 9).<br />
One could give much more detail about marriage symbolism in<br />
preaching, but the argument does not require it. It should be sufficiently<br />
clear that it is important in model sermon collections of the<br />
thirteenth century (and the same could be demonstrated for model<br />
sermons circulating in the last two medieval centuries). That needs<br />
to be taken together with the previous demonstration that model<br />
sermons were a form of mass communication, so that they can be<br />
called a social force.<br />
Symbolism’s literal foundation<br />
The next stage of the argument is that the symbolic use of marriage<br />
in these sermons rested securely on a literal-sense idea of marriage<br />
as good and holy: an idea propagated by the same sermons that<br />
transmitted marriage symbolism to the masses. The marriage symbolism<br />
was not dissociated from marriage in its mundane literal<br />
sense. A positive evaluation of ‘real’ marriage and the enthusiasm<br />
for marriage symbolism were complementary.<br />
The fact that many marriage sermons bring instruction on marriage<br />
in the literal sense within the same frame as marriage symbolism<br />
has implications. One could have envisaged a genre of marriage<br />
Ibid. 1. 12. 7. This passage sounds as though it could have been lifted from an<br />
earlier writer, but if so I have failed to find the source.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 9.<br />
Ibid., para. 24; G‹erard de Mailly, para. 37; Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1.<br />
10. 10; Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 25.<br />
Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 24.
Mass Communication 65<br />
symbolism which actually deprecated the ordinary human marriage<br />
of men and women. We actually find this view represented among<br />
the Cathars: ‘spiritual’ symbolic marriage between the soul and<br />
God, good; human marriage with sex, bad—not marriage at all but<br />
whoring.<br />
Instead, many sermons for the second Sunday after Epiphany<br />
make vigorous propaganda for human marriage as well as developing<br />
the theme of symbolic marriage. This provided a solid literal<br />
base for the symbolic ideas.<br />
Preaching and the sacralization of marriage<br />
This line of thought needs to be extended beyond textual analysis.<br />
The propaganda for human marriage in this genre of preaching<br />
will have helped to sacralize the social institution. Preaching would<br />
have conferred a religious aura on marriage.<br />
This would have been particularly important in parts of Europe<br />
where a religious marriage ceremony was not required by the<br />
Church. In parts of Italy couples could get married in a civil ceremony<br />
not only with full validity, but also with the full approval<br />
of the Church. There seems to have been no general rule about a<br />
religious ceremony in canon law—a fact often missed in the past<br />
by good scholars. After 1215 it is true that banns had to be read<br />
in order to stay within the rules, but the reading of banns would<br />
not have the same sort of psychological and religious impact as a<br />
religious ceremony.<br />
As a consequence, marriage could easily have seemed a very<br />
secular thing to the laity—had it not been for preaching. As it was,<br />
from the mid-thirteenth century at least it would have been hard<br />
for a layman or woman living in a town and attending mendicant<br />
sermons to avoid hearing every year or so sermons explaining the<br />
religious value of marriage, literally understood.<br />
Attitudes to sex before and after the Cathars<br />
In some sermons from our corpus symbolic marriage is the dominant<br />
theme and not much space is allotted to the goodness of marriage<br />
in the literal sense, but even when the point is made succinctly,<br />
M. G. Pegg, The Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245–1246<br />
(Princeton etc., 2001), 176 n. 27: report of the view of a Cathar believer.<br />
Here I am leaving out of account the whole question of clandestine marriages<br />
where the couple did not bother to have the banns read in advance. These will be<br />
discussed below, in Chapter 2.
66 Chapter 1<br />
the endorsement of the legal sexual union of men and women by<br />
these celibate preachers is unambiguous. To some degree this can<br />
be explained as a reaction to the Cathars, who had spread like wildfire<br />
in the twelfth century and who tended to think that sex was bad<br />
inside or outside marriage and that procreative sex was the worst<br />
kind. In the Cathar Book of Two Principles, one of the few Cathar<br />
writings to survive systematic persecution, there is an interesting<br />
polemic (in its own terms dazzlingly skilful) by one Cathar sect<br />
against another in which the evilness of marriage is used as common<br />
ground from which a logical refutation can be mounted.<br />
The logic of the system, so far as one can generalize about it, was<br />
that the whole material world was the product of an evil principle.<br />
Souls were seen as good, bodies as bad. Sex perpetuated the chain<br />
of bodies.<br />
The goodness of marriage in the literal sense had been preached<br />
before the Cathars appeared on the scene. The following passage<br />
from Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis deserves attention—it<br />
was not discussed before as it is not about marriage symbolism—<br />
for it undermines the assumption that the early medieval Church<br />
was generally negative about marriage. It comes from a section<br />
explaining, to quote its heading, that ‘Those who are bound by<br />
marriage, and those who are free from the ties of marriage, are not<br />
to be given the same advice’. It uses the Old Testament narrative<br />
of Lot’s flight from Sodom as a sort of parable. He stopped o· on<br />
the way to the mountains at a place called Segor:<br />
Lot . . . finding Segor, by no means immediately ascended the mountains.<br />
Indeed, to flee from burning Sodom is to reject the illicit fires of the flesh.<br />
For the height of the mountains is the purity of those who are continent.<br />
Or truly, those people also are in e·ect [quasi] on the mountain who cleave<br />
to carnal union, but who are yet not weakened by any pleasure of the flesh<br />
over and above the intercourse that is due for begetting children. Indeed,<br />
to stand on the mountain is to seek only the fruit of procreation in the<br />
flesh. But since there are many who do indeed abandon the crimes of the<br />
flesh, and who, being in the state of matrimony, do not however keep to<br />
For further references on the Cathar attitude to marriage see d’Avray, Medieval<br />
Marriage Sermons, 11, citing Arno Borst on the Cathar condemnation and on what<br />
was apparently a more favourable attitude in a later phase, and Le Roy Ladurie for<br />
the idea of marriage as instrumentally useful but equivalent to fornication in value<br />
terms.<br />
For a convenient translation of the passage in question see W. L. Wakefield<br />
and A. P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York etc., 1969), no. 59,<br />
p. 570. Migne, PL 77. 101.
Mass Communication 67<br />
the norms of that use of marriage which alone is proper, therefore did Lot<br />
indeed leave Sodom, but yet he did not reach the heights quickly, because<br />
now the way of life that earns damnation is left behind, but still the height<br />
of conjugal continence is not kept to in a rarefied way. For Segor is truly<br />
a city at a point midway, which can save the fugitive who is weak, namely<br />
because, when a married couple have intercourse through incontinence,<br />
they both flee the lapses of crimes [scelerum], and yet are saved through<br />
apardon[venia]. They find as it were a little city in which they may be<br />
protected from the flames, because this conjugal life, while not marvellous<br />
in its virtues, is nevertheless safe from punishment. (Migne, PL 70. 102–3)<br />
In short, marital sex motivated by the desire for children virtually<br />
puts married couples on the same level with monks and nuns;<br />
marital sex ‘through incontinence’ is only half-way to the heights,<br />
yet a means of salvation. It is quite possible that these ideas did<br />
get into some popular preaching in the early Middle Ages. So this<br />
passage may be more important for the history of marriage preaching<br />
than the defence of marriage at the beginning of Haymo of<br />
Auxerre’s sermon on the Cana pericope. (Haymo’s homiliary<br />
was not primarily for popular preaching, as we have seen.) So<br />
thirteenth-century preachers were drawing on tradition as well as<br />
reacting against Cathars. Nevertheless, the success of the Cathar<br />
movement probably helps to explain why some of them were so<br />
insistent about the goodness of marriage.<br />
Thirteenth-century preachers allude to St Paul’s prophecy that<br />
heretics would come and condemn marriage. St Paul was probably<br />
attacking contemporary Gnostics. Early medieval homiliaries,<br />
notably that of Haymo of Auxerre, picked up the passage but<br />
probably did not have any contemporary heretics in mind. Our<br />
thirteenth-century preachers, however, could hardly have failed to<br />
think that the Cathars, who briefly mounted such a serious challenge<br />
to Catholicism in southern France and Italy, were a fulfilment<br />
of the prophecy.<br />
For our purposes the balance of tradition and reaction in the<br />
For the passage giving arguments for marriage see Haymo of Auxerre, homily<br />
18, Dominica II post Epiphaniam, inMigne,PL 118. 126–37 at 126–7.<br />
See above, pp. 25–6.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, the sermon<br />
analysed but not edited, p. 132; G‹erard de Mailly, para. 1; Guibert de Tournai,<br />
para. 1; Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 11.<br />
Haymo of Auxerre, homily 18, Dominica II post Epiphaniam, inMigne,PL<br />
118. 126.
68 Chapter 1<br />
genesis of thirteenth-century preachers’ attitudes to marriage matters<br />
less than the impact of their preaching. The great di·erence<br />
between the last three medieval centuries and the preceding period<br />
was that positive ideas about marriage were pumped out by a<br />
preaching system which was capable of bringing them to very large<br />
numbers of laypeople.<br />
The following topoi become very familiar to anyone who reads a<br />
range of later medieval marriage sermons. Here they are illustrated<br />
only from the sermons transcribed in the Documents section below<br />
and those edited in Medieval Marriage Sermons,butthemotifsare<br />
also common outside this double corpus.<br />
God created marriage<br />
‘For it was instituted not by any contemptible person, not by a<br />
man, not by an angel, but by God.’ Sermons outside our corpus<br />
compare marriage favourably in this respect with the great religious<br />
orders.<br />
Marriage was made in Paradise<br />
As Konrad Holtnicker put it, marriage was instituted ‘not in a<br />
contemptible place, not in a corner, as clandestine marriages are<br />
made nowadays, but in Paradise’. Holtnicker goes on to complain<br />
about people who ‘contract marriage after many lapses and acts of<br />
fornication’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, he sees marriage itself as noble:<br />
in sharp contrast to extramarital sex. Other sermons make the point<br />
about Paradise more simply.<br />
Marriage was instituted in a sinless world<br />
This motif is obviously closely connected with the ‘Paradise’ topos.<br />
In sermons it tends to be just another compliment to marriage, but<br />
there was a reservoir of theological reflection in the background,<br />
on the nature of marriage in Paradise: whether it involved pleasure<br />
Konrad Holtnicker, Document 1. 10. 4; cf.d’Avray,Medieval Marriage Sermons:<br />
Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 1.<br />
N. B‹eriou and D. L. d’Avray, ‘Henry of Provins, O.P.’s Comparison of the<br />
Dominican and Franciscan Orders with the “Order” of Matrimony’, in B‹eriou and<br />
d’Avray, Modern Questions about Medieval Sermons, 71–5.<br />
Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 4.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 1; Guibert<br />
de Tournai, para. 1; Jean Halgrin: Document 1. 9. 1.
Mass Communication 69<br />
etc. Probably preachers did not discuss in any depth the theology<br />
of marriage in Paradise. Still, the topos implied that marriage went<br />
with human nature in its pristine perfect state, and was not just a<br />
remedy for concupiscence and lust.<br />
The double cause<br />
Preachers distinguish between the function of marriage before the<br />
sin of Adam and Eve and after it. In the state of innocence, it was<br />
for the sake of children (though they had not got as far as having<br />
any before the first sin was committed), but after the original sin<br />
marriage became a remedy for fornication also. Behind this lies<br />
the idea that the original sin disrupted the balance of human nature<br />
and the control by mind and will over passion and desire. Marriage<br />
acquired the supplementary function of regulating unruly passions.<br />
Put like this, the preacher’s view sounds unromantic. That would<br />
be somewhat misleading. Their married love is not the love of<br />
medieval romances, it is true: it is not an unstoppable emotional<br />
force. Still, married love is a very central theme. Guibert de<br />
Tournai seems to have had a sense for it, writing that ‘“Man will<br />
leave [his father and mother]” by the privilege of love, for that love<br />
by which husband and wife love one another is more vehement than<br />
all carnal loves.’<br />
Christ was present at a marriage feast<br />
The preachers argue that Christ’s presence implies approval.<br />
Servasanto develops the argument thoroughly:<br />
M. M•uller, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus von der Paradiesesehe und ihre Auswirkung<br />
in der Sexualethik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts bis Thomas von Aquin: Eine moralgeschichtliche<br />
Untersuchung (Studien zur Geschichte der katholischen Moraltheologie,<br />
1; Regensburg, 1954), 277–9. ‘Yes’ was the outcome of the debate.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 1; cf.<br />
d’Avray and Tausche, ‘Marriage Sermons in ad status Collections of the Central<br />
Middle Ages’, 104–6.<br />
See d’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons, index, s.v. ‘marriage, love and’; also<br />
id., ‘The Gospel of the Marriage Feast of Cana and Marriage Preaching in France’,<br />
in B‹eriou and d’Avray, Modern Questions about Medieval Sermons, 135–53 at 143–4.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Guibert de Tournai, para. 9; cf. d’Avray<br />
and Tausche, ‘Marriage Sermons in ad status Collections of the Central Middle<br />
Ages’, 128–31.<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 1; Pierre<br />
de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 1; Guibert de Tournai, para 1; Jean Halgrin: Document 1.<br />
9. 1; Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 5; Servasanto da Faenza: Document<br />
1. 11. 13.
70 Chapter 1<br />
Again, if marriage had been evil, the Lord would have taught that it is<br />
evil, nor would he have honoured it with his presence, nor eaten there, nor<br />
adorned it with so solemn a miracle, nor permitted his most holy mother<br />
to be present. Therefore in honouring a marriage with all these things, he<br />
showed that it was good.<br />
Again, the canon says, and this is self-evident, that the error which is not<br />
resisted is approved, nor is a man who abandons the e·ort to resist a public<br />
wrong immune from suspicion of being secretly involved. Therefore, if<br />
marriage were evil, since the Lord was present at it, and did not resist that<br />
evil when it would have been possible for him to do so, and did confute it<br />
when he was the teacher of truth, in failing to obstruct evil, he approves it.<br />
But this is utterly impossible. Therefore so is the first point, namely, that<br />
marriage is evil. (Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 12–13)<br />
The miracle at Cana<br />
Christ’s endorsement of marriage is also demonstrated by the miracle<br />
worked at the wedding feast.<br />
Against the background of all these topoi, one or two preachers<br />
stand out for their more original or sophisticated apologias for<br />
marriage. Aldobrandino da Toscanella is unusual for his time in<br />
asserting that it confers grace. Until some point in the thirteenth<br />
century there was no consensus that marriage actually did confer<br />
grace: many thought that it was the one sacrament that did not.<br />
By the second half of the thirteenth century the conviction that<br />
Christian marriage conferred grace had more or less won the day.<br />
However, it should not surprise us that preaching lagged behind<br />
theological development. Aldobrandinoda Toscanella, though, had<br />
apparently been keeping up with academic theology. He puts it<br />
like this:<br />
Again . . . in marriage grace is conferred. In so far as it is contracted in<br />
the faith of Christ, it has the power to confer the grace which helps with<br />
doing those works which are required in marriage. And we see an example<br />
of this in the field of natural philosophy, for whenever the power of doing<br />
something is given to anything, helps are also provided by means of which<br />
D’Avray, Medieval Marriage Sermons: Hugues de Saint-Cher, para. 1; Pierre<br />
de Saint-Beno^§t, para. 1; Guibert de Tournai, para. 1; Jean Halgrin: Document 1.<br />
9. 1; Konrad Holtnicker: Document 1. 10. 6; Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1.<br />
11. 12.<br />
D’Avray, ‘The Gospel of the Marriage Feast of Cana and Marriage Preaching<br />
in France’, 149, citing D. Burr, The Persecution of Peter Olivi (Transactions of the<br />
American Philosophical Society, ns 66, pt. 5; Philadelphia, 1976), 45–6.
Mass Communication 71<br />
those things may be attained. Therefore, since God has disposed it that<br />
man has the power in matrimony of using his wife for the procreation of<br />
children, he is also given the grace without which he cannot do it in a<br />
fitting way: just as God, or Nature, which gives the power of walking to an<br />
animal, gives it the instruments, namely legs, with which it may be able to<br />
walk. (Aldobrandino da Toscanella: Document 1. 13. 5)<br />
Nature and Aristotle<br />
Aldobrandino da Toscanella is keen on nature as well as grace,<br />
standing out from most preachers in the corpus for his special interest<br />
in it, except that Servasanto, the other Florentine preacher<br />
included, is very like him in this respect. In one of his sermons Aldobrandino<br />
celebrates nature in a passage where the precise train of<br />
thought, though not immediately evident in detail, is optimistic and<br />
evocative: for example, ‘natural things are delightful, . . . Everything<br />
is a matter of delight in the time that belongs to it, like sweet<br />
wine in winter, dry wine in summer’. The same paragraph eventually<br />
leads into the Aristotelian idea that everything in nature<br />
strives towards the imperishable and the divine. Some things are<br />
imperishable in themselves so do not need to reproduce. Others<br />
have to achieve a sort of permanence by producing something like<br />
themselves. Thus ‘it may be preserved in something which is like<br />
itself because of the divine being, and thus it conserves nature’.<br />
Servasanto da Faenza finds his way to the same idea, which<br />
he presents slightly di·erently, perhaps because refutation of the<br />
Cathars is at the forefront of his mind. His language and way of<br />
thinking are syllogistic and no less Aristotelian than Aldobrandino’s,<br />
a warning not to attempt a sharp distinction between Franciscan<br />
and Dominican Florentine preaching. He argues that if<br />
something has a good end (note the teleological thinking), then it<br />
too is good. But the end (i.e. the ‘telos’) of generation is to bring<br />
into the world children for the worship of God and to preserve in<br />
Aldobrandino da Toscanella: Document 1. 13. 3.<br />
Deriving probably from De anima bk. 2, 415a–b.<br />
See Aristotle’s De Anima in the Version of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary<br />
of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. and trans. K. Foster, S. Humphries, and I.<br />
Thomas (London, 1951), 210 and 214–15, for the translation and/or commentary<br />
which Aldobrandino may have used.<br />
D. L. d’Avray, ‘Philosophy in Preaching: The Case of a Franciscan Based in<br />
Thirteenth-Century Florence (Servasanto da Faenza)’, in R. G. Newhauser and<br />
J. A. Alford (eds.), Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages: Philological<br />
Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel (Binghampton, NY, 1995), 263–73.
72 Chapter 1<br />
them the being that comes from God. This is a good end. So procreation<br />
must be good. Then comes the Aristotle citation, as with<br />
Aldobrandino.<br />
Servasanto uses a series of other arguments from nature, notably:<br />
nothing made by nature is superfluous, so the sexual organs<br />
must be there to be used (properly, of course). Nature provided for<br />
reproduction, just as for nutrition; but if nutrition is good, so is<br />
reproduction. It is a greater thing to conserve the species than the<br />
individual; but nutrition preserves only the individual, reproduction<br />
the species; so the sexual act of generation is more necessary<br />
to the universe and not sinful.<br />
All this has a relevance to the argument about the influence of<br />
marriage symbolism. The positive rationale for marriage in preaching<br />
converged with the symbolic message but will also have helped<br />
to foster social attitudes in the public which could give a secure base<br />
for the reception of the symbolism. The less that attitudes to marriage<br />
were coloured by religious approval, the weaker the base for<br />
religious marriage symbolism. Marriage would be a weaker symbol<br />
of union with God for people who thought that marriage in the<br />
normal human sense had nothing at all to do with their religion.<br />
Conclusion<br />
There is every reason to think that marriage symbolism became<br />
a powerful force in the lay world through preaching, from the<br />
thirteenth century on. The symbol of metaphor was intrinsically<br />
powerful, at least for many of those who had the basic religious<br />
beliefs and some positive experience of marriage.<br />
Why did this not happen before the thirteenth century? The<br />
simple answer seems to be that an adequate delivery system for<br />
bringing marriage doctrine and marriage symbolism to the laity<br />
had not been in place. There was some popular preaching, but the<br />
Carolingian reforms had anticipated the preaching revolution of<br />
the thirteenth century on a relatively minute scale. The total volume<br />
of preaching material was very small in comparison with that<br />
of the last three medieval centuries. In any case a high proportion<br />
of ordinary priests were not well equipped educationally to make<br />
e·ective use of Latin homiliaries or sermons even if they had them.<br />
Furthermore, marriage symbolism seems to have played a relatively<br />
insignificant role in what preaching there was. Though the verdict<br />
Servasanto da Faenza: Document 1. 11. 5.
Mass Communication 73<br />
has to be provisional until more research on early medieval preaching<br />
has been published, everything points to a watershed shortly<br />
after 1200, when university-trained clergy and above all the friars<br />
started preaching and producing model sermon collections. The<br />
sermons tended to include a marriage sermon in which propaganda<br />
for human marriage was combined with marriage symbolism.<br />
Something similar might have come about much earlier if the<br />
Carolingian experiment had not fallen apart in the ninth century,<br />
owing to invasion, succession crises, and lack of a firm economic<br />
infrastructure for government. Weak economic infrastructure may<br />
also be the ultimate reason for the generally low level of clerical<br />
education, which would have limited the amount of preaching<br />
from model marriage sermons even if they had been available. The<br />
infrastructural frailties of the period before 1200 are the main reason<br />
why marriage symbolism had relatively little impact in the lay<br />
world before that date.<br />
Even if it had done, the symbolism would have been undermined<br />
by marriage practices. Before the pontificate of Innocent III, the<br />
Church’s ocial religious emphasis on the indissolubility of marriage<br />
had been undermined by the easy annulments. The male lay<br />
‹elite now accepted the principle and the authority of the Church’s<br />
courts where the validity of marriage was concerned. Still they<br />
managed to change wives quite easily when they wanted to by discovering<br />
real or imaginary impediments which enabled them to get<br />
the marriage annulled. Before the Church courts gained a monopoly<br />
of such cases it had probably been even easier to end a marriage<br />
with a nominal annulment. All that changed in the thirteenth century,<br />
and as it happened marriage symbolism seems to have been<br />
a powerful force behind the change, which drastically a·ected the<br />
whole social institution of marriage.<br />
I have argued that marriage symbolism became a social force<br />
when preaching became a medium of mass communication in the<br />
thirteenth century, but so far this has meant a force on people’s<br />
minds, rather than on their behaviour. In the remainder of the<br />
book I shall look at the ways in which marriage symbolism worked<br />
through law to a·ect social practice. The chronology is roughly the<br />
same, the period around 1200 being decisive.
2<br />
Indissolubility<br />
(a) From the Roman Empire to the Carolingian Empire<br />
Causes and e·ects<br />
A potential cause may be neutralized for centuries by other social<br />
forces. If they are weakened, the cause is activated. One argument<br />
developed below is that Augustinian marriage symbolism’s tendency<br />
to promote indissolubility was unlikely to take e·ect while<br />
so many of the clergy could identify with the sexually active lay<br />
male.<br />
Then again, ideas may lie dormant for a long time, until influential<br />
persons infuse them with intensity and power. This began to<br />
happen when intellectuals at the proto-university of Paris revitalized<br />
Augustinian marriage symbolism. More decisive still was Innocent<br />
III’s determination to turn symbolism into social fact.The<br />
degree to which he succeeded will be discussed, and I shall argue<br />
that Church tribunals did not make a mockery out of indissolubility<br />
after his time, as they had arguably done often in the twelfth<br />
century. So far as law can control life, Innocent and the symbolism<br />
behind his thinking left a deep mark on the social practice<br />
of marriage. Establishing that proposition will involve analysis of<br />
some comments by a great canonist (Hostiensis) that seem to show<br />
the opposite; analysis also of the meaning of the large class of ‘precontract’<br />
cases in the church courts. The latter show that indissolubility<br />
overrode other considerations, including rules about marriage<br />
in church where they obtained. Indissolubility could furthermore<br />
be enforced by excommunication at the deserted spouse’s request.<br />
Thus indissolubility had become a constraint on social behaviour.<br />
It limited or channelled sexual and emotional freedom to an extent<br />
unparalleled in most societies. The character of the constraint<br />
should not be misunderstood. In two important respects it did<br />
coexist with freedom. Legal separation was an option: sometimes
Indissolubility 75<br />
there were even papal legal remedies to safeguard a wife’s property<br />
in such circumstances. Again, indissolubility was the counterpart<br />
of a strong emphasis by the Church on real freedom at the point<br />
of commitment to marriage: another rather unusual feature of later<br />
medieval canon law in a broad comparative perspective.<br />
Augustine of Hippo against the social world of late antiquity<br />
A marriage system di·erent from any other in the history of great<br />
civilizations was in large part produced by the reciprocal causal<br />
interplay of symbolism and social practice: but the process took<br />
800 years, from Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth<br />
century to Innocent III at the start of the thirteenth. The specific<br />
thing was marriage of one man to one woman for life. I have<br />
failed to find the combination of monogamy and indissolubility in<br />
any other major civilization. It is hard to overstate the importance<br />
of this. Hinduism has indissolubility with polygamy, pagan Rome<br />
monogamy with divorce, classical China the same but with status<br />
accorded to concubinage, Judaism and Islam allow both polygamy<br />
and divorce in principle.<br />
Here we are talking about norms. Many people will always get<br />
around a social norm. On the other hand, to say that norms leave<br />
social behaviour una·ected would be an extreme view. Another<br />
qualification: in many or most societies monogamy for life may<br />
have been general practice without being a norm. Economics and<br />
sentiment both encourage it, countering the tendencies of men to<br />
use power to get sex and make alliances. The fact remains that there<br />
is something unusual about what happened in the West.<br />
In explaining this development some familiar names will come<br />
up: especially Augustine of Hippo, Gregory VII, and Innocent III.<br />
However, it is first and foremost the history of an idea, a symbolic<br />
idea that came to give meaning to social practice. The idea itself is<br />
older than the medieval West and found in other civilizations, as we<br />
noted at the start of the book: the idea that the union of man and<br />
woman stands for the union of God and humans. We saw that it was<br />
an image for God’s relation with his chosen people the Jews before<br />
it became a symbol of Christ’s union with the Church. Augustine<br />
For a useful survey (from a Catholic point of view) of texts giving the mind of<br />
ecclesiastical writers from antiquity to the twelfth century see F. Delpini, Indissolubilit›a<br />
matrimoniale e divorzio dal I al XII secolo (Archivio ambrosiano, 37; Milan,<br />
1979).
76 Chapter 2<br />
of Hippo was the man who turned the image into a social time<br />
bomb.<br />
In his treatise On the Good of Marriage (probably written in 401)<br />
Augustine linked indissolubility with symbolism:<br />
the bond of fellowship between spouses is so strong that though the purpose<br />
of their attachment is for begetting children, the marriage is not dissolved<br />
even in order to beget them. A man could put away a barren wife and marry<br />
one by whom to have children, but that is not permitted . . . Admittedly if<br />
an adulterous wife or husband were abandoned and one or other of them<br />
married another, more persons would be born; yet if, as the divine law<br />
seems to lay down, this is not permitted, who would not become alive to<br />
the significance of so strong a marriage bond?<br />
My belief is that the bond would certainly not have been so strong<br />
had not some sacred symbol of something more profound than this feeble<br />
mortality of ours become attached to it, and when people abandoned it<br />
and were keen to dissolve it, it remained unshaken to punish them; for the<br />
marriage alliance is not rescinded by the divorce [i.e. separation] which<br />
comes between them, and so they remain wedded to each other even when<br />
separated; and they commit adultery with those to whom they are attached<br />
even after their divorce, whether the wife associates with a man, or the<br />
husband with a woman. However, it is only ‘in the city of our God, upon<br />
his holy mountain’ that this situation with a wife applies.<br />
The significance of Augustine’s thinking was recognized in a<br />
concise, acute, and little-known paper by R. Kuiters. He noted<br />
that Augustine did not explain indissolubility in terms of ‘nature’:<br />
Augustine’s logic led him to find in the relation of husband and wife to<br />
the union of Christ and the Church the solid base on which he establishes<br />
the indissolubility which is specific to Christian marriage. . . . To play its<br />
role as a similitude, marriage must be adapted and brought nearer to the<br />
original....Divorcebecomes...inconceivableandwithoute·ect,for<br />
even though they are separated by their wills, the husband and wife remain<br />
united in the City of God by a religious (sacramental) bond. (Kuiters, 10,<br />
my trans.)<br />
Augustine, De bono coniugali, 7,inAugustine: De bono coniugali; De sancta<br />
virginitate, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh (Oxford, 2001), 17.<br />
R. Kuiters, ‘Saint Augustin et l’indissolubilit‹e du mariage’, Augustiniana, 9<br />
(1959), 5–11. Also good on Augustine is S. P. Heaney, The Development of the<br />
Sacramentality of Marriage from Anselm of Laon to Thomas Aquinas, (The Catholic<br />
University of America Studies in Sacred Theology, Second Series, 134; Washington,<br />
1963), xiv.<br />
Augustine strengthened his idea in a work written a couple of decades later (419–<br />
20), ‘On marriage and concupiscence’: ‘Les ‹epoux sont invit‹es, voire moralement
Indissolubility 77<br />
A strikingly similar interpretation of Augustine was reached in a<br />
more recent study:<br />
Augustinebelieves...thatGodmademarriageindissolublesothatit<br />
mightsymbolizetheunionbetweenChristandtheChurch....thelittle<br />
sacrament (i.e., marriage bond) is a sacrament of the great sacrament (i.e.,<br />
the mystery of the inseparable union between Christ and the Church).<br />
Indissolubility is the salient feature of the comparison and the point of<br />
assimilation.’<br />
The individual elements of Augustine’s synthesis were not so<br />
new. Indissolubility of marriage was a well-established idea in the<br />
Christian writers of the first five centuries. Similarly,theideaof<br />
symbolic marriage was important in the Christian ancient world<br />
before Augustine, as well as in biblical texts that would of course<br />
have been familiar. However, Augustine welded the two components<br />
into a combination that would eventually become socially<br />
powerful.<br />
In his own day and for centuries after it, however, Augustine’s<br />
ideas about indissolubility and symbolism had little to do with the<br />
law and social practice around him: neither reflecting nor much affecting<br />
them, so far as we can see. The Christian law of the expiring<br />
Western Empire and its resilient Byzantine counterpart allowed divorce.<br />
Studying the history of texts, studying ‘historical theology’,<br />
oblig‹es d’^etre la r‹eplique de l’union du Christ ›a son ‹Eglise. . . . Le fondement (la<br />
res) de ce sacrement, c’est que l’homme et la femme sont ins‹eparablement unis par<br />
le mariage pour toute leur vie. La continuit‹e de ce sacrement est sauvegard‹ee dans<br />
le Christ et l’ ‹Eglise’ (Kuiters, p. 10).<br />
It was almost certainly independent, so the convergence confirms the truth of<br />
the interpretation.<br />
P. L. Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage<br />
during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden etc., 1994), 301.<br />
‘Parmi les auteurs des cinq premiers si›ecles consid‹er‹es comme orthodoxes un<br />
seul donne donc clairement au mari tromp‹e la permission de contracter ›a nouveau<br />
mariage, l’inconnu d‹esign‹e sous le nom d’Ambrosiaster. Des signes d’une attitude<br />
moins rigide ›al’‹egard des remari‹es peuvent ^etre d‹ecel‹es dans le canon 10 du concile<br />
d’Arles et dans le canon 9 de Basile, mais rien ne permet de dire qu’ils acceptent<br />
ces secondes noces: seules le font les ‹ev^eques bl^am‹es par Orig›ene’ (H. Crouzel, ‘Les<br />
P›eres de l’ ‹Eglise ont-ils permis le remariage apr›es s‹eparation?’, in id., Mariage et<br />
divorce, c‹elibat et caract›ere sacerdotaux dans l’‹eglise ancienne: ‹etudes diverses ( ‹Etudes<br />
d’histoire du culte et des institutions chr‹etiennes, 11; Turin, 1982), 3–43 at 43).<br />
Crouzel goes on to say that he is not personally an unquestioning advocate of<br />
absolute marital indissolubility, but the interpretation of patristic texts should not<br />
be a·ected by the modern scholar’s personal views.<br />
Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church, 49–65. Reynolds argues that the
78 Chapter 2<br />
can leave a false impression of continuity. Augustine’s views run<br />
right through the subsequent history of thought, but only in the<br />
thirteenth century did social and legal practice move into line with<br />
the symbolic theology of marriage he worked out. Social practice<br />
converged slowly with the Augustinian ideal, the gap between them<br />
huge until the early thirteenth century.<br />
Early medieval m‹enages<br />
Beneath the stormy surface of political events in the age of Augustine<br />
and the successor states to Rome—the age held together in<br />
the mind by the writings of Peter Brown—a slow transformation<br />
of marriage structure occurred. A world of ‘commensurable household<br />
units’ evolved, a contrast with both classical and ‘barbarian’<br />
society:<br />
In classical society, mass slavery alone assured that some households might<br />
include scores or even hundreds of persons, while many slaves and poor<br />
freemen were denied any sort of independent domestic life. . . . The polygynous<br />
practices of the northern barbarians, the concentration of women in<br />
the households of the rich, also accentuated the di·erences in domestic organization<br />
up and down the social scale. (Herlihy, Medieval Households, 59)<br />
The change from slavery to serfdom and the influence of Christianity<br />
evened up the di·erences between households, so that most<br />
men could live with a woman and only a few men had a lot of<br />
women (Herlihy, 59–62). ‘The appearance of commensurable domestic<br />
units in the early Middle Ages, the formation of a symmetrical<br />
array of households encompassing the entire community, mark<br />
an epoch in the history of the European family’ (ibid. 62).<br />
This development should not be confused with a victory for indissolubility.<br />
‘The Church’ was not yet making any concerted or<br />
determined e·orts against the practice of divorce. Even the legis-<br />
aim of the Christian emperors ‘was to make divorce more dicult, and to ensure<br />
that persons did not divorce without good cause’ (62) and that ‘they aimed to bring<br />
the law of divorce into line with Christian teaching, but that what they knew as<br />
the Christian doctrine of marriage was less dogmatic and less theological than the<br />
doctrine of men like Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine’ (64).<br />
See D. Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, Mass., etc., 1985), ch. 3 (‘commensurable<br />
units’, p. 57; ‘commensurate household units’, p. 61).<br />
For the whole Frankish period see I. Fahrner, Geschichte der Ehescheidung im<br />
kanonischen Recht, i.Geschichte des Unaufl•oslichkeitsprinzips und der vollkommenen<br />
Scheidung der Ehe (Freiburg i.Br., 1903) 47–105; G. Fransen, ‘La rupture du<br />
mariage’, in Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Il matrimonio nella so-
Indissolubility 79<br />
lation of church councils was not unanimous against divorce and<br />
remarriage: the Council of Angers in 453 permitted men to remarry<br />
and the Council of Vannes (465) accepted it apparently for<br />
either husband or wife if adultery was demonstrated. In the following<br />
century the opposition of the Church to divorce was limp<br />
and in 506 the Council of Agde admitted the principle. The early<br />
penitentials—a curious genre whose influence and setting in life<br />
are not easy to determine—are rigorous but ‘in the seventh century<br />
Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, allowed divorce on<br />
grounds of adultery, desire to enter religion, desertion for five years,<br />
the reduction of either partner to slavery, or the wife’s abduction<br />
into captivity’.<br />
If churchmen were not of one voice in condemning divorce, we<br />
should not expect greater rigour from lay authorities and do not<br />
find it. According to P. L. Reynolds, the law codes of the Germanic<br />
successor states ‘contain remarkably little on the subject of<br />
the dissolution of marriage’, but this ‘may be due to the ease with<br />
which persons (especially men) could dissolve their marriages’.<br />
For women, divorce after a properly formalized marriage may have<br />
become harder than in Roman times (ibid. 99–100). ‘If an unfortunate<br />
Burgundian woman attempted to divorce her husband<br />
she was to be smothered in mire.’ Possibly it was easier in early<br />
ciet›a altomedievale (2 vols.; Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto<br />
medieoevo, 24; Spoleto, 1977), ii. 603–30, esp. 623–6; J.-A. McNamara and S. F.<br />
Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’, in S. M. Stuard (ed.),<br />
Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1976), 96–124; J. Gaudemet, ‘Deuxi›eme<br />
partie: les incertitudes du haut Moyen ^Age’, in id., Le Mariage en Occident: les<br />
m¥urs et le droit (Paris, 1987), 93–132; R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde<br />
franc (VIIe–Xe si›ecle): essai d’anthropologie sociale (Paris, 1995), 277–85; and A. Esmyol,<br />
Geliebte oder Ehefrau: Konkubinen im fr•uhen Mittelalter (Beihefte zum Archiv<br />
f•ur Kulturgeschichte, 52; Cologne etc., 2002). The main thesis of the last-named<br />
work is to expose as a myth the idea of a type of marriage (‘Friedelehe’) between<br />
‘Muntehe’ on the one hand (where a free woman passed from her family’s control<br />
to her husband’s with a corresponding property transaction) and concubinage on<br />
the other: which would normally be between a free man and an unfree woman, so<br />
that a free woman’s status was drastically diminished if she entered into such a<br />
union.<br />
McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’,<br />
97–8. Ibid. 100.<br />
P. Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early<br />
Middle Ages (London, 1983; repr. London etc., 1998), 80.<br />
Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church, 99.<br />
McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’,<br />
100.
80 Chapter 2<br />
Anglo-Saxon England. To return to the Continent: McNamara<br />
and Wemple found that ‘all the codes recognized that a man could<br />
repudiate his wife for very slender reasons by requiring some monetary<br />
consolation for the uno·ending wife thus left with her children’.<br />
It went beyond divorce. ‘Traditions of polygamy died hard<br />
among the Merovingians’, noted Wallace-Hadrill, commenting on<br />
the murder of King Chilperic’s queen, at the instigation of a mistress<br />
it was said—‘the mistresses of Chilperic saw no reason to<br />
grant to the Visigothic princess the position of unique influence<br />
she demanded’.<br />
Not only kings ignored the rules: Pippin of Herstal, the father of<br />
Charles Martel, is a striking case. In one of the few sources for<br />
the period we read that ‘Pippin took a second wife, the noble and<br />
lovely Alpaida. She gave him a son, and they called him in his own<br />
language Charles. And the child grew, and a proper child he undoubtedly<br />
was.’ The chronicler omits to mention at that point that<br />
his wife Plectrudis was still alive. At Pippin’s death ‘his widow, the<br />
before-mentioned lady Plectrudis, took everything under her control’.<br />
One must not be too cut-and-dried in characterizing early<br />
medieval relationships. Between the ideal-types of full monogamy<br />
‘...marriageswerenotregardedasindissolubleanditwasnotalwaysthe<br />
wife who was discarded. In ªthelbert’s code the woman who wanted to end her<br />
marriage faced no legal obstacles. After clause 77, defining the man’s right to return<br />
the “fraudulent” woman, come clauses that spell out the property claims of the wife<br />
who wishes to leave her husband; she may do so—and no grounds are specified—<br />
taking with her half the goods and all the children; if the children stay with the<br />
husband then the wife herself receives a child’s share’ (H. Leyser, Medieval Women:<br />
A Social History of Women in England 450–1500 (London, 1995), 45).<br />
McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’,<br />
100. Cf. Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 74: ‘If doubt must hang over<br />
polygamy, serial monogamy is crystal clear. . . . many kings repudiated one wife to<br />
marry the next.’<br />
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings (Toronto etc., 1982), 134. On<br />
early medieval polygamy and concubinage see too M. Borgolte, ‘Kulturelle Einheit<br />
und religi•ose Di·erenz: Zur Verbreitung der Polygynie im mittelalterlichen<br />
Europa’, Zeitschrift f•ur historische Forschung, 31 (2004), 1–36 at 10 and n. 41, with<br />
further references.<br />
See The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, with its Continuations, ed.<br />
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (London etc., 1960), 86 (for the second wife) and 87–9 (for<br />
the survival of the first). Paul Fouracre directed me to this case.<br />
Ibid. 86. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc, 271, comments in<br />
connection with this case that ‘Le syst›eme germanique r‹epondait aux motivations<br />
sociales de la polygamie’.<br />
The Fourth Book of Fredegar, ed. Wallace-Hadrill, 87.
Indissolubility 81<br />
and full bigamy or polygamy there are intermediate stages, not<br />
necessarily clearly distinguished from one another: concubinage<br />
where the woman was not just a mistress but had an ocial or<br />
semi-ocial position, or was a wife but not in the fullest sense, or<br />
where the line between wife and concubine was blurred.<br />
The evidence of formularies gives a glimpse of what were presumably<br />
regular social patterns and suggests that divorce was normal in<br />
the barbarian West, and not only at the top of the social scale. The<br />
following item in the formulary of Marculf is extremely significant:<br />
Since not charity according to God but discord reigns between N. and his<br />
wife N., and because of this they are in no way able to live together, it<br />
was the will of each of them, that they should separate from the union of<br />
marriage, and this they have done. They have consequently had written<br />
and confirmed these two letters with the same content to be given to each<br />
other, so that each of them should be free to do what they wish: whether to<br />
enter the service of God in a monastery, or to enter into a marital union:<br />
and neither should have to answer to their neighbour [proximi] forit.But<br />
if either of the two parties should want to change this or make some claim<br />
against the other one of the couple, they must pay a pound of gold to the<br />
other, and, as they have agreed, they shall be kept away from their own<br />
marriage and shall remain with the party they have chosen.<br />
‘Neighbour’ here may be a clumsy way of referring to the other<br />
party in the dissolved marriage, or to third parties, but it makes<br />
no substantive di·erence. The meaning of the final clause is also<br />
clumsily formulated. It seems to say that if one party tries to reverse<br />
the agreement they must pay a penalty, and cannot interfere with<br />
their former partner’s new relationship.<br />
Thus it is hard to detect any influence of Augustine’s ideas about<br />
marriage on the pre-Carolingian world. Conceivably this is because<br />
of the state of the sources, but more probably the influence was<br />
absent. No doubt Augustinian marriage symbolism found a place<br />
of some kind in the consciousness of some learned men. Still, a<br />
chasm separated it from social practice.<br />
Cf. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc, 271–4, and J. Ch‹elini, L’Aube<br />
du Moyen A^ge: naissance de la chr‹etient‹e occidentale. La vie religieuse des la•§cs dans<br />
l’Europe carolingienne (750–900) (Paris, 1991), 139, 140–1.<br />
Marculfi formularum libri duo, ed. A. Uddholm (Collectio Scriptorum Veterum<br />
Uppsaliensis; Uppsala, 1962), bk. 2, ch. 3, p. 273.<br />
J. Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident: les m¥urs et le droit (Paris, 1987), 120<br />
and nn. 46 and 47 for further references.
82 Chapter 2<br />
(b) c.800–c.1200<br />
Carolingian contradictions<br />
The place of the Carolingian era in the history of marriage is like<br />
its place in medieval history generally: there are moments when<br />
one could be in the thirteenth century, but the new social forms<br />
and patterns do not quite come to anything. As with the revival of<br />
trade, the power of the state, and the creative application of hard<br />
questions to theological problems, so too with lifelong monogamy<br />
or indissolubility: there are confident new beginnings, then it tails<br />
o·, and even when the forces of change look strong there are contradictory<br />
tendencies.<br />
With marriage the picture is confused. Councils legislate against<br />
indissolubility, councils permit divorce, popes send mixed signals,<br />
the practice of great men sometimes seems Merovingian and sometimes<br />
it could come straight out of the thirteenth century, when<br />
people took church law very seriously.<br />
Charlemagne’s sexual history is not so di·erent from the Merovingian<br />
pattern. His life was full of marriages and semi-ocial<br />
liaisons with concubines, and at least one of the marriages involved<br />
repudiation of an existing full wife: he had Himiltrud either as<br />
a concubine or as a wife, then the daughter of Desiderius King<br />
of the Lombards while Himiltrud was still living, then Hildegard<br />
while the Lombard princess was still alive. Things were very<br />
di·erent with his son and successor Louis the Pious. When his<br />
wife was condemned for adultery in 830, Louis had to promise to<br />
enter a monastery, which ‘seems to demonstrate that by this time<br />
the indissolubility even of adulterous marriages became generally<br />
accepted’. That might suggest a clear trend towards indissoluble<br />
marriage at the highest level at least, but not so. A few decades<br />
later Lothar II, king of the Middle Kingdom (of the successor<br />
states of the Frankish empire), tried hard to change wives, though<br />
as we shall see he was thwarted by a powerful pope. That might<br />
Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 60; McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage<br />
and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’, 104–5; Gaudemet, Le Mariage en<br />
Occident, 122.<br />
McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’,<br />
106.<br />
For the case see e.g. ibid. 108–11; Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 126–7;<br />
and, for political context, see J. L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (London etc., 1992),<br />
214–17.
Indissolubility 83<br />
of course fit the same trend, but there is no clear-cut direction:<br />
not long afterwards we find Charles the Bald making his son Louis<br />
the Stammerer divorce his wife Ansgard and marry a Burgundian<br />
noblewoman named Adelaide. As we shall see, royal marriages<br />
continued to be very breakable after the Carolingian era.<br />
The secular and church legislation also sent mixed signals. It<br />
may or may not seem paradoxical that Charlemagne legislated in<br />
favour of indissolubility. Under his successor, in 829, a council<br />
at Paris said that for a cuckolded husband to remarry was another<br />
adultery. On the other hand, the council of Compi›egne in 757<br />
permitted divorce in the modern sense of allowing remarriage.<br />
It is the same story with the penitentials. The Jesuit scholar Joyce<br />
even thought that a penitential tradition deriving from Theodore,<br />
the Greek archbishop of Canterbury, was responsible for a growing<br />
tolerance for divorce. Joyce was an impressive historian but<br />
almost certainly wrong on this point: he surely underestimated the<br />
prevalence of divorce with remarriage before Theodore. But still,<br />
a very soft line on indissolubility is characteristic of penitentials<br />
from around 700. On the other hand, some late penitentials were<br />
more supportive of indissolubility.<br />
Mixed signals came even from Rome. On the one hand, two<br />
mid-eighth-century popes were strongly for indissolubility. A letter<br />
of Pope Zachary to Pippin took a hard line. His successor<br />
Nelson, Charles the Bald, 232; Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 75.<br />
Bishops gathered by Charlemagne at Friuli ruled that adultery did not end a<br />
marriage, and ‘This legislation was later incorporated into the Capitulary to the<br />
Missi in 802 extending it to the whole empire’ (McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage<br />
and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’, 104). The Admonitio Generalis of 789<br />
contained an indissolubility canon deriving from the Dionysio-Hadriana canonlaw<br />
collection which had been sent by the pope in 774: Fahrner, Geschichte des<br />
Unaufl•oslichkeitsprinzips und der vollkommenen Scheidung der Ehe, 82.<br />
McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’,<br />
105.<br />
Ibid. 103; J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), 171;<br />
Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 80. See also Fahrner, Geschichte des<br />
Unaufl•oslichkeitsprinzips und der vollkommenen Scheidung der Ehe, 75–7.<br />
G. H. Joyce, Christian Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Study (London<br />
etc., 1933), 337–41.<br />
Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 132; P. Daudet, ‹Etudes sur l’histoire de<br />
la juridiction matrimoniale: les origines carolingiennes de la comp‹etence exclusive de<br />
l’ ‹Eglise — France et Germanie (Paris, 1933), 62–4.<br />
Gaudemet, Le mariage en Occident, 132; Daudet, ‹Etudes sur l’histoire de la<br />
juridiction matrimoniale, 64.<br />
Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 120 (note the error of ixE for viiiE); McNa-
84 Chapter 2<br />
Stephen II allowed separation only if one spouse was possessed or<br />
su·ering from leprosy: even so, the marriage was not dissolved.<br />
On the other hand, it is possible that the Roman synod held by<br />
Pope Eugenius II in 826 permitted divorce on grounds of adultery<br />
(definitely forbidding it, however, on any other grounds). This<br />
was a provincial synod, not a general council. It has not given rise<br />
to the polemics aroused by Gregory II’s letter to Boniface about a<br />
man whose wife was sick so that he could not (had never been able<br />
to?) have intercourse with her: nor should it. Perhaps one could<br />
say that the doctrine of indissolubility was in about the same kind<br />
of state as the doctrine of the Trinity had been before Nicaea or<br />
the doctrine of Christ’s divinity and humanity before Chalcedon:<br />
positions were possible that would later be excluded.<br />
In parenthesis, another decree of this synod deserves mention.<br />
Decree 37 forbids any man to have two wives or concubines.<br />
Nothing surprising about that—except that it was necessary to say<br />
mara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom’, 102; Ch‹elini,<br />
L’Aube du Moyen A^ge, 229; W. Kelly, Pope Gregory II on Divorce and Remarriage<br />
(Analecta Gregoriana, 203, Series Facultatis Iuris Canonici, Sectio B, 37; Rome,<br />
1976), 71–2.<br />
Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 129.<br />
Concilium Romanum, 826, no. 36: ‘De his, qui adhibitam sibi uxorem relinquerunt<br />
et aliam sociaverunt. Nulli liceat, excepta causa fornicationis, adhibitam<br />
uxorem relinquere et deinde aliam copulare; alioquin transgressorem priori convenit<br />
sociari coniugio’ (Concilia aevi Karolini, ed. A. Wermingho· (2 vols.; Monumenta<br />
Germaniae Historica, Legum Sectio III, Concilia, 2. 1–2; Hanover, 1906–8), ii.<br />
582). Fahrner commented on this that ‘Dieser an sich zweideutige Kanon kann bei<br />
der Stellung der r•omischen Kirche nur dahin gedeutet werden, da¢ im Falle des<br />
Ehebruchs eine unvollkommene Scheidung gestattet ist’ (Fahrner, Geschichte des<br />
Unaufl•oslichkeitsprinzips und der vollkommenen Scheidung der Ehe, 83n.3)—but<br />
permission to divorce (without qualification) on grounds of adultery is the most obvious<br />
sense of the Latin. On the synod in its context see T. F. X. Noble, ‘The Place<br />
in Papal History of the Roman Synod of 826’, Church History, 45 (1976), 434–54.<br />
The essence of Noble’s argument is that the synod aimed to take the initiative in<br />
leading the reform of Christendom away from the Carolingians.<br />
It consisted of the pope and ‘sixty-two bishops drawn from the Roman church<br />
province and from parts of what had been Lombard Italy’ (Noble, ‘The Place<br />
in Papal History of the Roman Synod of 826’, 442); ‘In the context of the synodal<br />
activity of the Carolingian period the Roman synod of 826 was, basically, a provincial<br />
synod’ (ibid. 446).<br />
Kelly, Pope Gregory II on Divorce and Remarriage, esp. 315, where Kelly concludes<br />
that ‘although the possibility that Gregory permitted divorce and remarriage<br />
cannot be completely ruled out, the likelihood that he did so must be considered to<br />
be remote’.<br />
Noble, ‘The Place in Papal History of the Roman Synod of 826’, 454, with<br />
further references.
Indissolubility 85<br />
so at all. One cannot invariably infer a practice from legislation<br />
against it, but as a rule of thumb the inference has much to be said<br />
for it. The decree does seem to imply that a tolerance of polygamy<br />
(or at least bigamy) was widespread enough in early eighth-century<br />
society to provoke ecclesiastical condemnation. An educated guess<br />
would be that at this time many men kept a semi-ocial concubine<br />
alongside their ocial wife.<br />
A generation after the Roman synod indissolubility found a tenacious<br />
and powerful defender in Pope Nicholas I. He thwarted King<br />
Lothar II’s attempted divorce from Theutberga with an intransigence<br />
hard to imagine in the Merovingian era. It was already a sign<br />
of changed times that Lothar got his clergy to make a canon-law<br />
case. Pope Nicholas I paid it no heed. He acted like a thirteenth<br />
century pope, except that an Innocent III would have laboriously<br />
considered the precise canon-law arguments at issue. Otherwise,<br />
it could have been Innocent III frustrating Philip Augustus more<br />
than three centuries later.<br />
Lothar II’s queen, Theutberga, had found another defender in<br />
Hincmar of Reims, the marriage guru of ninth-century Francia—<br />
Cf. R. Kottje, ‘Kirchliches Recht und p•apstlicher Autorit•atsanspruch: Zu den<br />
Auseinandersetzungen •uber die Ehe Lothars II.’, in H. Mordek (ed.), Aus Kirche<br />
und Reich: Studien zu Theologie, Politik und Recht im Mittelalter. Festschrift f•ur<br />
Friedrich Kempf zu seinem f•unfundsiebzigsten Geburtstag und f•unfzigj•ahrigen Doktorjubil•aum<br />
(Sigmaringen, 1983), 97–103 at 103: ‘Es mag sein, da¢ er Lothar und<br />
seine Anh•anger besser durchschaut, ihre Motive klarer erkannt hat, als es uns die<br />
erhaltenen Zeugnisse der Auseinandersetzungen erm•oglichen. Selbst dann ist als bemerkenswert<br />
festzuhalten, da¢ er nicht nur auf die — wenigstens formal — rechtlich<br />
begr•undeten Darlegungen der Partei Lothars nicht eingegangen, sondern auch seine<br />
Urteile nicht mit •uberliefertem kirchlichem Recht begr•undet hat’. Kottje inclines<br />
to the view that it was all about power for Nicholas, but the latter may have felt deep<br />
scepticism about the case without wanting or perhaps feeling equipped to wade<br />
into the quagmire of canon-law arguments. For a di·erent perspective see Nelson,<br />
Charles the Bald, 199: ‘Subsequently, Theutberga revealed her state of mind [in<br />
accepting a life of penance in a convent for alleged sins]: “I will say whatever they<br />
want—not because it’s true but because I fear for my life”’. Letha B•ohringer argued<br />
that ‘Lothar seine Gemahlin 857 aufgrund von Ressentiments verstie¢, deren<br />
Hintergrund wahrscheinlich ein tiefer Konflikt zwischen ihm und iherer Familie<br />
bildete. . . . Die mit dem Scheidungsgesuch Lothars befa¢ten Bisch•ofe . . .unterst•utzten<br />
ihren K•onig . . . aus Loyalit•at’ (Hincmar of Reims, De divortio Lotharii<br />
regis et Theutbergae reginae, ed. L. B•ohringer (Monumenta Germaniae Historica,<br />
Concilia, 4, suppl. 1; Hanover, 1992), 17. Thus Kottje’s reading—that assertion of<br />
papal power was the main reason why the divorce was prevented—should not be<br />
regarded as the last word on this case. For a recent discussion of the Lothar II–<br />
Nicholas I confrontation see Esmyol, Geliebte oder Ehefrau, 159–70.<br />
Not an unqualified defender: B•ohringer points out that Hincmar ‘gestattet . . .<br />
dem K•onig grunds•atzlich Scheidung und Wiederheirat (auch mit Waldrada!), wenn
86 Chapter 2<br />
‘conseilleur matrimoniale’, as Gaudemet called him. The crisis<br />
led him to write a lengthy and important treatise on marriage.<br />
Hincmar played an even more central role in another high-profile<br />
marriage case, that of Stephen of Auvergne.<br />
That case anticipates the high Middle Ages in more than one<br />
respect. It suggests that the Church’s rules had penetrated the<br />
consciousness of the higher nobility; it anticipates the emphasis<br />
on the mystical significance of consummation which became an<br />
essential element of marriage law and theology from the late twelfth<br />
century on; finally, it shows the power of symbolic reflection to<br />
shape the course of events.<br />
Stephen of Auvergne had got himself into a position where he<br />
seemed doomed to choose between incest and the dissolution of a<br />
marriage to which he had consented. The woman’s father brought<br />
him before a church council (Tusey). Hincmar extricated Stephen<br />
from the mess, arguing that it was morally impossible to consummate<br />
the marriage, which was thus necessarily null. The case and<br />
the way it was resolved show that the Church was on the way to becoming<br />
the rule-maker in marriage matters. We shall look again in<br />
a later chapter at the place of consummation in the argument. For<br />
the moment, however, we must note that ‘Beyond the social aspect<br />
of marriage he sees a Christian mystery that reflects the Incarnation<br />
and Christ’s marriage with his Church; and he sees it much<br />
as Augustine had seen it. Marriage, in a word, was a signum of the<br />
great and true mystery of Christ’s incorporation in the church . . .<br />
a unique and irreversible gift’. Hincmar was continuing the wellestablished<br />
tradition of taking marriage symbolism seriously, but<br />
Theutberga des Inzestes •uberf•uhrt wird’ (Hincmar, De divortio, 19). But he ‘•au¢ert<br />
allerdings schwere Bedenken gegen das bisherige Verfahren und starke Zweifel an<br />
der Stichhaltigkeit der Vorw •urfe. Solange der Sachverhalt nicht gekl•art sei, betont<br />
er, d•urfe die Ehe nicht gel•ost werden’ (ibid.).<br />
Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 125. On Hincmar and Lothar’s divorce, see<br />
e.g. ibid. 126–7; McNamara and Wemple, ‘Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish<br />
Kingdom’, 108–11.<br />
Hincmar of Reims, De divortio.<br />
For a full analysis see Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church, 348, 351,<br />
354–61; for a di·erent perspective, Nelson, Charles the Bald, 196–7.<br />
Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 410.<br />
Cf. Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 120 (speaking about Hincmar but not<br />
about the particular case of Stephen of Auvergne): ‘l’insistance mise sur le sacramentum,<br />
le symbole de l’union du Christ et de l’ ‹Eglise renforcent encore la doctrine<br />
de l’indissolubilit‹e. D‹ej‹a Isidore de S‹eville avait qualifi‹e lemariaged’“inseparabile
Indissolubility 87<br />
making it work to solve a real-life, high-profile case. It is typical<br />
of Carolingian history: ninth-century events foreshadowing structures<br />
of the thirteenth century and beyond, a moment anticipating<br />
a later longue dur‹ee.<br />
The ‘False Decretals’ and the attitude of the Church establishment,<br />
c.850–1200<br />
The indissolubility principle may have been strengthened in the<br />
long term by ideas about the episcopal oce in the legal compilations<br />
called the ‘False Decretals’. In these we find a stress on<br />
the marriage of the bishop to the church he ruled. The False<br />
or Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals seem to have been put together in<br />
the mid-ninth century to strengthen the hand of ordinary bishops<br />
in dealing with metropolitan bishops who claimed authority<br />
over them. It was a world in which bishops might be driven from<br />
their sees (perhaps because of their own shortcomings) and the<br />
symbolism of indissolubility delegitimized such expulsions: just<br />
as Christ is indissolubly married to the whole Church, so is the<br />
individual bishop indissolubly married to his see. The symbolism<br />
of the bishop’s marriage to his church was widely di·used by<br />
canon-law collections that drew on the False Decretals, including<br />
the most influential collection of all, Gratian’s Decretum. Bishops<br />
were, needless to say, influential in the thought and life of Church<br />
and society. The False Decretals and the subsequent collections<br />
they influenced must have made bishops think more about marriage<br />
symbolism and indissolubility, in connection with their own<br />
oce but also generally. It was not enough to transform society, but<br />
sacramentum”, en se r‹ef‹erant ›a l’union indissociable du Christ et de son ‹Eglise. On<br />
retrouve la m^eme id‹ee et la m^eme justification chez beaucoup d’auteurs de l’‹epoque<br />
carolingienne’ (with further references).<br />
J. Gaudemet, ‘Le symbolisme du mariage entre l’‹ev^eque et son ‹eglise et ses<br />
consequences juridiques’ (1985), repr. in id., Droit de l’ ‹Eglise et vie sociale au Moyen<br />
A^ge (Northampton, 1989), no. ix, 110–23 at 113–14.<br />
The standard study is H. Fuhrmann, Einflu¢ und Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen<br />
F•alschungen: Von ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeit (3 vols.; Schriften<br />
der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 24. 1–3; Stuttgart, 1972–4).<br />
Gaudemet, ‘Le symbolisme du mariage’, 114: ‘Trop d’‹ev^eques, en ce milieu du<br />
ixE si›ecle, sont indignes et leur peuple, scandalis‹e etoutr‹e, les chasse. C’est contre<br />
ce d‹esordre et ces voies de fait que s’insurgent les Fausses-D‹ecr‹etales. Le principe<br />
est celui de l’attache ind‹efectible au si›ege. Les textes sur l’union des ‹epoux viennent<br />
le fortifier’ (the analogy breaks down in that the pope’s power to remove a bishop is<br />
admitted).<br />
Ibid. 114–15. Noteesp.Pars2,C.7,q.1,c.11.
88 Chapter 2<br />
it helped smooth the ground for the transformation that took place<br />
in the central Middle Ages.<br />
Celibacy and the attitude of the Church establishment, c.1050–1200<br />
The e·ect of celibacy on the seriousness with which the Church establishment<br />
took indissolubility deserves greater prominence in the<br />
history of marriage. Here we have to do with one of those forces that<br />
neutralize, counteract, or remove another force that had until then<br />
held a development in check. With this kind of causation definitive<br />
proof is impossible. Equally, it is foolish to shut one’s eyes to the<br />
probability that it changed the situation. The development that was<br />
held in check up to this point was the translation of Augustinian<br />
marriage symbolism into the social practice of indissolubility. The<br />
obstacle was the form of life of influential clergymen, or at any rate<br />
many of them. Their way of life was too close to that of the average<br />
sexually active upper-class layman for them to take a really hard<br />
line with the latter.<br />
This development came so late because the intense movement<br />
in favour of clerical celibacy did not get under way until the papal<br />
reform of the mid-eleventh century; I would suggest that this<br />
movement powerfully reinforced the psychological commitment of<br />
bishops, senior churchmen, and the celibate masters of the urban<br />
schools that can be described as pre-universities to the enforcement<br />
of indissolubility on the laity.<br />
The following general explanatory schema is not demonstrable<br />
but it is adequate to explain the timing of the tightening of the<br />
marriage law in the West. In societies where men hold most of the<br />
power, it is to be expected that the law will tolerate relatively free<br />
divorce, or polygamy, or ocial concubinage, or some combination<br />
of the above. In patriarchal societies, a critical mass of men may<br />
like the idea of having more than one woman. (The reverse pattern<br />
would be predictable in a truly matriarchal society, but such societies<br />
are not common: matriarchal inheritance rules do not make<br />
a matriarchal society.) Rulers especially are likely to want to exercise<br />
their power in the sexual domain too, and to be disinclined<br />
towards either laborious clandestinity or loss of respectability. If<br />
divorce is easy to obtain, the pressure for polygamy will be less.<br />
Most modern societies fit that pattern. If polygamy or legal concubinage<br />
is allowed, the pressure for divorce will be less. Hindu India<br />
definitely fits that pattern.
Indissolubility 89<br />
High-caste marriage in Hindu India is an interesting case for<br />
comparison. Hinduism has a marriage model in many ways reminiscent<br />
of the one that developed in the medieval period—so far<br />
as one can generalize about the variety of di·erent tendencies and<br />
movements called ‘Hinduism’ for short. Marriage was sacramental<br />
and theoretically indissoluble; in most circumstances the first<br />
wife had a quite special status. Nevertheless, polygamy was normal<br />
for rulers and others who could a·ord it, and even divorce might<br />
be legitimated. A simple explanation is that the Brahman religious<br />
specialists who were the custodians of the religion were themselves<br />
sexually active males who could relate to and shared the sexual<br />
drives of the powerful men they advised.<br />
As for religions such as Judaism and Islam, it is almost (actually<br />
not quite) a circular argument to say that rules laid down by<br />
charismatic religious leaders who were not themselves restricted to<br />
one woman are unlikely to impose monogamy and indissolubility.<br />
For believers, this is because God revealed the rules to them. For<br />
unbelievers, their own form of life may have a·ected their thought<br />
on the subject.<br />
In a society where power over marriage is held by celibates, however,<br />
a psychological barrier is removed. Men without any women<br />
at all may not have sympathy for other men who say they cannot<br />
manage with only one. The normal assumption that men will have<br />
a visceral sympathy with other men needs to be put into reverse. A<br />
genuinely celibate clerical hierarchy can helpfully be seen as a third<br />
gender where questions of divorce and polygyny are concerned—a<br />
thought that has received inadequate attention.<br />
Cf. the following passage from the Koran: ‘O prophet, we have allowed thee thy<br />
wives unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy right<br />
hand possesseth, of the booty which GOD hath granted thee; and the daughters<br />
of thy uncle, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on thy father’s side and on thy<br />
mother’s side, who have fled with thee from Mecca, andanyother believing woman,<br />
if she give herself unto the prophet; in case the prophet desireth to take her to wife.<br />
This is a peculiar privilege granted unto thee, above the rest of the true believers.<br />
We know what we have ordained them concerning their wives, and the slaves whom<br />
their right hands possess: lest it should be deemed acrimeintheeto make use of the<br />
privilege granted thee; for GOD is gracious and merciful. Thou mayest postpone the<br />
turn of such of thy wives as thou shalt please, in being called to thy bed; andthou<br />
mayest take unto thee her whom thou shalt please, and her whom thou shalt desire<br />
of those whom thou shalt have before rejected: and it shall be no crime in thee’ (The<br />
Koran: Commonly Called the Alkoran of Mohammed, ed. and trans. G. Sale (London<br />
etc., 1887), 318–19).<br />
However, it was suggested to me by S. Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval
90 Chapter 2<br />
Until the mid-eleventh century many of the clergy in Western<br />
Europe lived respectably if not perhaps quite legitimately under<br />
a matrimonial or quasi-matrimonial regime not unlike that of the<br />
laity. One symptomatic example: at the beginning of the eleventh<br />
century we find an archbishop of Lyons and another bishop granting<br />
in return for rent a property to a certain Rozelin—a canon<br />
and thus a clergyman with a substantial position—and to his partner<br />
Amandola. The modern English usage of ‘partner’ precisely<br />
renders the Latin word fidelis. There is no hint of disreputability.<br />
By and large this was not untypical of the better-o· clergy’s<br />
lifestyle in the early Middle Ages, so far as one can judge from<br />
patchy evidence. There is a change of atmosphere with the Gregorian<br />
reform in the mid to late eleventh century, a fierce attempt to<br />
make clerical celibacy a reality. Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand)<br />
was associated in people’s minds with this campaign, though it<br />
began well before he became pope. A little Ely chronicle says simply<br />
that ‘Hildebrand the archdeacon, elected as pope, himself banned<br />
clerics, apart from the ones to whom the canons permitted it,<br />
from living with women’. Even after Gregory VII put the full<br />
force of his intense personality as well as the papal oce behind<br />
the campaign for clerical celibacy, it took quite a while to change<br />
practice. Arguably,unrespectable concubinage at parish-priest level<br />
remained common until the eighteenth or nineteenth century: but<br />
it had no legitimation, and in some regions it was believed that<br />
French Literature (Cambridge, 1995), which develops (pp. 94, 103) the analogous<br />
argument that clerical writers of romances, like Chr‹etien de Troyes, cannot be<br />
aligned with either the female or the male protagonists, because the latter are knights,<br />
whose social status and values are quite di·erent from their own; and I think the<br />
idea of the clergy as a third gender is generally ‘in the air’ among scholars at present.<br />
Die Urkunden der burgundischen Rudolfinger, ed. T. Schie·er with H. E. Mayer<br />
(Monumenta Germaniae Historica Regum Burgundiae e Stirpe Rudolfina, Diplomata<br />
et Acta; Munich, 1977), no. 152, p. 334.<br />
For a survey of the history of celibacy see G. Denzler, Das Papsttum und der<br />
Amtsz•olibat, i.Die Zeit bis zur Reformation (P•apste und Papsttum, 5.1; Stuttgart,<br />
1973).<br />
See e.g. C. N. L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989), 64.<br />
This presumably refers to clerics in minor orders. Cf. C. Mirbt, Quellen zur<br />
Geschichte des Papsttums und des r•omischen Katholizismus, 5th edn. (T •ubingen, 1934),<br />
no. 291, pp. 151–2 (and no. 271, p. 143, item 3, for the celibacy decree of Pope Nicolaus<br />
II at the Lateran synod of 1059); Denzler, Das Papsttum und der Amtsz•olibat,<br />
i. 65.<br />
‘Hyldebrandus archidiaconus papa electus ipse [ms. corrected and unclear] interdixit<br />
clericis cum mulieribus habitare nisi quas canones exceperunt’ (MS BL<br />
Cotton Domitian XV, fo. 6VA, new foliation).
Indissolubility 91<br />
anyone who received the kiss of peace from the ‘priestess’ had no<br />
part in the Mass. Even at the relatively elevated level of canonries,<br />
however, marriage or de facto marriage was respectable deep into the<br />
twelfth century. Christopher Brooke has described the period 1090<br />
to 1130 as ‘the heyday of the married canons’ at St Paul’s Cathedral.<br />
In Hereford it took longer for celibacy to take hold: until the<br />
end of the twelfth century. Still, by the time Innocent III became<br />
pope the men who ran the Church mostly lived without women<br />
and sex. That was bound to make a di·erence to their attitude, to<br />
make them less indulgent towards the serial polygamy of patriarchal<br />
males. This is not the sort of explanation one can footnote.<br />
Without it, however, one is left with an unsolved problem. It may<br />
also appeal to those who think that social practice and ‘forms of life’<br />
a·ect the intensity with which attitudes are held.<br />
The establishment of celibacy coincided with the crystallization<br />
and professionalization of ecclesiastical courts, and it is the combination<br />
which was to be so deadly to polygyny. It was argued above<br />
that kings and nobles might have resisted church jurisdiction over<br />
marriage if they had not had the ‘forbidden degrees’ escape route<br />
to fall back on. When Innocent III put a stop to that, the church<br />
courts’ control of suits about whether a marriage was firmly in place<br />
was taken for granted.<br />
Divorce and law c.900–c.1200: the survival of patriarchal patterns<br />
The change in attitude on the part of the Church establishment<br />
did not, however, succeed in changing the noble and royal habit of<br />
changing wives until the thirteenth century, and this time lag can<br />
be adequately explained. The following schema is another oversimplification,<br />
in that there were surely individuals who do not<br />
fit the crude generalizations: but it is close enough to the myriad<br />
facts on the ground, irrecoverable in all their details, to explain why<br />
the principle of monogamy and social practice stayed far apart until<br />
D. L. d’Avray and M. Tausche, ‘Marriage Sermons in ad status Collections<br />
of the Central Middle Ages’, in N. B‹eriou and D. L. d’Avray (with P. Cole, J.<br />
Riley-Smith, and M. Tausche), Modern Questions about Medieval Sermons: Essays<br />
on Marriage, Death, History and Sanctity (Spoleto etc., 1994), 77–134 at 126 n. 204.<br />
Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, 84.<br />
J. Barrow, ‘Hereford Bishops and Married Clergy c.1130–1240’, Historical Research<br />
[formerly Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research], 60 (1987), 1–8. The<br />
cases she studies ‘suggest that marriage of the higher clergy continued in parts of<br />
England to as late as 1200, a date about fifty years later than that suggested as the<br />
latest date for marriage among the higher clergy by Professor Brooke’ (ibid. 4).
92 Chapter 2<br />
Innocent III. Here I leave aside areas on the borders of Latin Christian<br />
Europe and some long-Christianized areas within it in which<br />
polygamy of an old-fashioned sort seems to have been tenacious.<br />
In the three centuries from c.900 to c.1200 great men continued to<br />
change wives without much diculty, but the way in which they<br />
did so altered. In the late ninth and tenth centuries the Church had<br />
no monopoly of marriage cases. It looks as though marriages could<br />
be dissolved without consulting any church tribunal: the scanty<br />
data do not show us lay judges in action in marriage cases, but<br />
there is enough evidence to suggest that often powerful men just<br />
did what they wanted. The marriage to Adela•§de of Louis V of<br />
France (not yet sole king—his father Lothar III was still in charge)<br />
is a good example. Without jurisdiction, the Church had no control.<br />
Laypeople were not disrespectful of all church rules. On the<br />
contrary, they made astonishing e·orts to comply with the rules<br />
against marrying kin. This may be because churchmen had been<br />
attacking the marriage of kin quite vehemently for centuries, and<br />
Borgolte, ‘Kulturelle Einheit und religi•ose Di·erenz’, 10–23: a good corrective<br />
to the present chapter’s concentration on the ‘core’ regions of Latin Europe.<br />
‘Les rares cas d’esp›ece que fournissent les tr›es pauvres sources du xE si›ecle ne<br />
font plus appara^§tre le juge la•§c. Mais, ›a c^ot‹e de quelques e·orts du juge eccl‹esiastique,<br />
on trouve encore la preuve d’un tel arbitraire de la part des maris que parler<br />
d’une comp‹etence exclusive au profit des ‹ev^eques semble finalement une gageure’<br />
(P. Daudet, L’ ‹Etablissement de la comp‹etence de l’‹eglise en mati›ere de divorce @ de<br />
consanguinit‹e (France — X›e me–XII›e me si›ecles) ( ‹Etudes sur l’histoire de la juridiction<br />
matrimoniale; Paris, 1941), 18); ‘A la fin du xE si›ecle l’on peut recueillir dans les<br />
chroniques plusieurs preuves que les la•§ques, tout au moins les grands, rompent ›a<br />
leur convenance les liens conjugaux, de fac«onplusoumoinsarbitraire,auprixdeplus<br />
ou moins de scandale, sans que l’autorit‹e eccl‹esiastique soit consult‹ee, sans qu’elle<br />
paraisse protester’ (ibid. 21–2). Cf. Sta·ord, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 74–<br />
5: ‘Edward the Elder probably dismissed ªl}aed to marry Eadgifu; Henry the<br />
Fowler rid himself of Hatheburg to take Mathilda; Edgar disposed of Wulfthryth<br />
to marry ªlfthryth, if not ªthelflaed to marry Wulfthryth; and Robert the Pious<br />
summarily dismissed both Rozala and Bertha. Hugh of Arles, when he fled from<br />
MaroziainRome,scarcelywentthroughtheformalities.Atinyminority...madea<br />
thorough job of it by murdering their wives. The majority found legitimate excuses<br />
for disposing of unwanted women.’<br />
Daudet, L’ ‹Etablissement de la comp‹etence de l’‹eglise, 22.<br />
‘After the “seven forbidden” degrees had been established as the norm in the<br />
early Middle Ages, in the later ninth and tenth centuries the greatest noble families,<br />
including Eleanor’s and Louis’s ancestors, had tried to avoid such marriages in<br />
the first place’ (C. B. Bouchard, ‘Eleanor’s Divorce from Louis VII: The Uses<br />
of Consanguinuity’, in B. Wheeler and J. C. Parsons (eds.), Eleanor of Aquitaine:<br />
Lord and Lady (New York and Basingstoke, 2002), 223–35 at 225). Bouchard gives<br />
reference to her previous work on this issue and answers objections to it, to my mind<br />
convincingly—her findings are a remarkable achievement.<br />
‘...tratdiefr•uhmittelalterliche Kirche seit dem 6. Jahrhundert f•ur die Durch-
Indissolubility 93<br />
the message may have begun to sink in after a long time lag (quite<br />
a good model for medieval lay religion in general). However, so<br />
far as one can judge from patchy evidence, magnates treated the<br />
principles of indissolubility and perhaps even monogamy with less<br />
respect, and prelates could not do much about it: nor do they seem<br />
to have tried very hard in the tenth century.<br />
If we move fast forward to the twelfth century, we find a quite<br />
di·erent state of a·airs with a very similar outcome so far as ease<br />
of divorce was concerned. On the one hand, there was a new world<br />
of marriage jurisdiction. Throughout the century questions about<br />
the validity of marriage were deemed to belong to the Church. As<br />
the century progressed, church jurisdiction became rationalized<br />
in several ways. Decrees of popes and councils were synthesized<br />
in Gratian’s Decretum, which took on the role of a legal code.<br />
The result was analysed by keen legal minds. A functioning system<br />
of ecclesiastical courts began to crystallize, run by an emergent<br />
bureaucracy at the local level and at Rome. Towards the end of the<br />
twelfth century series of doubtful points about marriage law were<br />
tested by cases setting precedents.<br />
Yet this did not a·ect patterns of lay practice as much as one<br />
might expect. Kings and great nobles had stopped trying to obey<br />
setzung des Verbotes geschlechtlicher Beziehungen zwischen blutsverwandten und<br />
verschw•agerten Personen ein. Hatte man diese Delikte zwar auch schon vereinzelt<br />
in Konzilsbeschl•ussen seit dem 4. Jahrhundert geahndet, so trat die Kirche seit dem<br />
6. Jahrhundert doch mit zuvor unbekanntem Nachdruck f•ur die kirchenrechtliche<br />
Durchsetzung der Inzest-Verbote ein’ (H. Lutterbach, Sexualit•at im Mittelalter:<br />
Eine Kulturstudie anhand von Bu¢b•uchern des 6. bis 12. Jahrhunderts (Cologne etc.,<br />
1999), 172 and sect. 2.3.3.2 passim, with further references, especially to the work<br />
of Paul Mikat and Mayke de Jong).<br />
Daudet, L’ ‹Etablissement, pt. 1, ch. 1, sect. II. ii, passim.<br />
On marriage in the twelfth century in general, see Brooke, The Medieval Idea<br />
of Marriage (this splendidly readable and balanced synthesis is especially strong<br />
on the twelfth century); G. Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-<br />
Century France, trans. E. Foster (Baltimore etc., 1978); id., Le Chevalier, la femme<br />
et le pr^etre: le mariage dans la France f‹eodale (Paris, 1981); and a brilliant essay,<br />
far more important than its brevity would suggest, by John Gillingham, ‘Love,<br />
Marriage and Politics in the Twelfth Century’ (1989), repr. in id., Richard C¥ur<br />
de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century (London etc., 1994),<br />
243–55.<br />
See now A. Winroth, The Making of Gratian’s Decretum (Cambridge, 2000).<br />
On these cases see the important study by V. Pfa·, ‘Das kirchliche Eherecht<br />
am Ende des zw•olften Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung f•ur Rechtsgeschichte,<br />
94 [Zeitschrift f•ur Rechtsgeschichte, 107], kanonistische Abteilung, 63<br />
(1977), 73–117.
94 Chapter 2<br />
the Church’s rules on the forbidden degrees of kinship. There<br />
may be various explanations, but one could be precisely that they<br />
had worked out a way of making the Church’s own law work against<br />
itself. They played the ‘forbidden degree’ rules o· against the indissolubility<br />
rules. If a king or nobleman married a woman related<br />
within the extensive forbidden degrees of consanguinity or anity,<br />
and did not seek a dispensation, he had an annulment in his pocket.<br />
John Baldwin found a remarkable passage in the writings of Peter<br />
the Chanter: a knight saying explicitly that he was going to marry<br />
a particular woman with a large dowry who was possibly related to<br />
him in the third degree of anity, and that if she didn’t please him<br />
he would be able to get the marriage dissolved. It would be valid<br />
in church law: a church court would have to recognize it. This may<br />
explain why the laity so readily accepted church jurisdiction over<br />
marriage cases.<br />
Between the tenth century and the twelfth we find what the foregoing<br />
would lead us to expect: the rise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,<br />
roughly coinciding with a decline in observance of ‘forbidden de-<br />
Cf. Bouchard, ‘Eleanor’s Divorce from Louis VII’, 225, speaking of the dissolution<br />
of Louis VII’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine: ‘this divorce, a case of a<br />
prominent couple breaking up on the grounds of consanguinity with the divorce the<br />
husband’s idea, not the bishops’, was not typical of the entire Middle Ages, only of<br />
the twelfth century’.<br />
‘Sicut audivit magister militem quemdem [recte quemdam?] de uxore ducenda<br />
dicentem: Bene est michi quia magna est dos. In tercio genere anitatis forsitan<br />
est illa mihi, et ideo non ita mihi proxima, quod ab ea separer. Sed si voluero et<br />
non placebit michi, per anitatem illam discidium procurare potero. Ecce quanta<br />
derisio in ecclesia propter huiusmodi tradiciones’ (quoted by J. W. Baldwin, Masters,<br />
Princes, and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle (2 vols.;<br />
Princeton, 1970), ii. 225 n. 179, and analysis at i. 335).<br />
‘Mesurons le chemin parcouru, en trente ans: en 1031, au concile de Bourges, le<br />
juge d’ ‹Eglise n’est pas mentionn‹e lorsqu’est admis le divorce pour cause d’adult›ere;<br />
en 1060, au contraire, le concile de Tours investit l’‹ev^eque d’un pouvoir d’appr‹eciation<br />
pratiquement sans limite, dans tous les cas de divorce et de s‹eparation’ (Daudet,<br />
L’ ‹Etablissement de la comp‹etence de l’‹eglise, 43); ‘A l’‹epoque d’Yves de Chartres, non<br />
seulement l’‹ev^eque est pleinement comp‹etent, pour faire cesser une s‹eparation non<br />
canoniquement motiv‹ee et, ›a l’inverse, pour s‹eparer un mariage ou m^eme pour le<br />
d‹eclarer nul, mais encore la fermet‹e des lignes g‹en‹erales de la proc‹edure suivie<br />
devant lui d‹enote d‹ej›a une pratique bien assise. Cette comp‹etence pleine est aussi<br />
une comp‹etence exclusive. Apr›es plus d’un si›ecledegraved‹ecadence doctrinale et<br />
judiciaire, l’‹episcopat franc«aisar‹eclam‹e, en 1031, cette comp‹etence; trente ans apr›es<br />
il l’a pos‹ee comme une r›egle. Et si, durant la fin du xiE si›ecle, certain fid›eles ont pu<br />
tenter de se soustraire ›alaloicanonique,gr^ace ›a la force de leur situation personnelle,<br />
ils se sont finalement inclin‹es: les r‹epudiations arbitraires sont impossible d‹esormais,<br />
en droit sinon en fait’ (ibid. 68).
Indissolubility 95<br />
gree’ laws. The more church justice blocked the path to divorce,<br />
the more the magnates tended to choose marriages which they knew<br />
could be annulled at need—whether or not by coincidence, perhaps<br />
with a half-awareness midway between innocence and calculation.<br />
The Church did not control the point of entry into a marriage. At<br />
the risk of a little disingenuity, the great laymen had it both ways:<br />
they could change wives and get religious legitimation.<br />
It is worth pausing to reflect on these frequent annulments, which<br />
made the system look two-faced: unbreakable monogamy in principle,<br />
but a popular loophole to facilitate changing wives. How can<br />
this be squared with a very eminent specialist’s statement that ‘If<br />
you take the rough with the smooth—if you take a wider view of the<br />
nature of inheritance than just the production of a ceaseless flow of<br />
male heirs—the doctrine of legitimate monogamy [i.e. the medieval<br />
Church’s model, including the ban on divorce] may produce very<br />
satisfactory results.’ Brooke is calling in question the assumption<br />
that easy divorce was in the interest, even the pragmatic interest,<br />
of medieval kings and nobles. Now it is true in a sense that indissoluble<br />
monogamy was arguably just as good for the class as a<br />
whole even in pragmatic terms: Brooke’s insight is valid. However,<br />
the issue falls into a large class of cases where the willingness of<br />
some individuals to risk a sacrifice produces an aggregate and average<br />
advantage. His argument is structurally similar to ‘everyone<br />
is better o· if individuals don’t cheat in paying taxes’, ‘waiting is<br />
more ecient in an orderly queue’, ‘interrogated prisoners will get<br />
lighter sentences if they manage not to inform on each other’ (the<br />
famous ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’). The problem that bedevils the ‘rational<br />
choice theorists’ who devote themselves to such issues is that<br />
this undoubted aggregate advantage will not necessarily be enough<br />
to make an individual accept a sacrifice. It can actually be in the<br />
individual interest of the toughest man in the queue to push his<br />
way to the front. You may know that another family’s good fortune<br />
in acquiring your lands balances your unhappy awareness that<br />
‘In the eleventh century . . . [the greatest noble families] began to marry cousins,<br />
not first cousins or even generally second cousins, but often third cousins—the same<br />
degree of relationship as that between Louis and Eleanor’ (Bouchard, ‘Eleanor’s<br />
Divorce from Louis VII’, 225). Bouchard notes that ‘several such unions ...were<br />
dissolved against the wishes of the principals’ (ibid.).<br />
C. N. L. Brooke, Europe in the Central Middle Ages, 962–1154, 3rd edn. (Harlow,<br />
2000), 151. The first edition of this book was published in 1964, and already included<br />
a substantial discussion of the history of marriage. Brooke was in advance of the wave<br />
of scholarship from the 1970s on.
96 Chapter 2<br />
the territory will be lost to your family after your death, because<br />
you have no heir. That may not stop you thinking of marrying a<br />
new, younger, and more fertile wife, especially if your sexual drive<br />
encourages you. Other reasons may stop you: love for your wife,<br />
belief in ‘till death do us part’, but not pragmatic considerations.<br />
The Capetian policy of marrying early and often was not untypical.<br />
It takes strong ‘internalized norms’ to produce the collectively rational<br />
system that Brooke describes, for pragmatism alone will not<br />
do it, and in the twelfth century not enough of the magnates had<br />
made the ‘one-man-one-woman’ model their own for the system to<br />
work that way.<br />
In the sublimated regions of romantic fiction we find symptoms<br />
of the feeling that marriage was not necessarily for life. In the<br />
twelfth century there was still an idea that one was released from<br />
even a long-standing and consummated marriage if one’s spouse<br />
entered a religious order. (This is the more comprehensible if we<br />
remember that not so very long before, in the early eighth century,<br />
this possibility had been timidly admitted even by the bishop and<br />
canon-law specialist Fulbert of Chartres.) The feeling seems to<br />
have been quite powerful even in the second half of the twelfth<br />
century. We find it in the Lai by Marie de France called Eliduc.<br />
Here we have a version of the eternal triangle in which the wife<br />
becomes a nun to free her husband to marry the other woman.<br />
The similar plot line in the romance Ille et Galeron by Gautier<br />
d’Arras is worth a close look. Ille has left his wife Galeron after<br />
receiving a disfiguring wound, because he thought she would not<br />
be able to stand the sight of him. He underestimates her devotion.<br />
She travels far and wide looking for him, and finally finds him as<br />
he is about to marry another woman. She makes a sad speech and<br />
o·ers to enter a nunnery so that he can go ahead and marry the<br />
other woman:<br />
[4124] Since then I have climbed down many a great hill, and up many a<br />
mountain, su·ered many a hardship and o·ered up many a coin for your<br />
sake, and all of this strikes me as very little. When I saw that I could not<br />
find you and that all my men were dead, I came away to the pope here in<br />
Daudet, L’ ‹Etablissement de la comp‹etence de l’‹eglise, 26–30. Daudet notes that<br />
‘l’‹ev^eque n’exclut, en principe, ni l’entr‹ee d’Aude, en religion, ni le mariage nouveau<br />
de Galeran’ (ibid. 28).<br />
R. L. Krueger, ‘Questions of Gender in Old French Romance’, in ead. (ed.),<br />
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 8 at p. 139.
Indissolubility 97<br />
Rome; I bared my conscience to him, and he imposed a penance on me.<br />
I have been in this town ever since: it will be four years this summer. So<br />
help me God, whose servant I am, there was never anyone who gave me<br />
any news of you until today; but now I have news which I know is good<br />
andwelcometoyouandallyourfriends....[4145] My lord, I can see<br />
very well that I am keeping you too long: you are due to marry the king’s<br />
daughter. For God’s sake, may I be in your thoughts and in your wife’s, so<br />
that for the sake of God and his countenance the pope may do this much<br />
for me, and find a place for me in an abbey. May God sanctify and bless<br />
you! I intend to pray God night and day to grant you a place in Paradise<br />
when our souls leave our bodies, when evil doers will be left outside.<br />
She takes it for granted that her entry into a nunnery will leave<br />
him free to remarry. Entry into the religious life would end the<br />
marriage, which had definitely been consummated. Gautier had<br />
earlier told his readers that ‘Ille, who had longed for her so much,<br />
shared one bed with Galeron, and they experienced such joy and<br />
such delight that it defies description’ (ibid. 53). As it happens, Ille<br />
does not take up her o·er. He still loves Galeron and the marriage<br />
to the other woman is called o·.<br />
Furthermore, the whole atmosphere is religiously charged, and<br />
there is no hint of unorthodoxy. On the contrary, Galeron assumes<br />
the pope will be involved. This is not a courtly love counter-culture.<br />
The passage reflects genuine unclarity among pious laypeople about<br />
the indissolubility doctrine held by the higher clergy.<br />
That becomes doubly evident later in the poem, when Galeron<br />
takes a vow in childbirth to enter a nunnery (ibid. 178–9) and Ille<br />
can consider marrying the other woman, whom he also loves. Ille<br />
was confused about his emotions. The poet compares his heart to<br />
atower:<br />
Who was inside? The first love, which held it by force of custom; except<br />
that his love for the maiden, which was outside, frequently accused her,<br />
saying that she had no right to be there inside, and intended to demonstrate<br />
logically and prove that love for a nun has no title to the heart of a castellan,<br />
a duke, a count or a king, and that it is on the contrary wholly unreasonable<br />
that it should be allowed, that it should be permitted to be there. It was Ille<br />
who su·ered, Ille who felt the e·ects of this. The first love was dicult to<br />
overcome, and did not know what on earth to reply, but what she did say<br />
Gautier d’Arras, Ille et Galeron, ed. and trans. P. Eley (King’s College London<br />
Medieval Studies, 13; London, 1996), 139.<br />
In a later chapter it will be explained that an unconsummated marriage could<br />
be dissolved by entry into a monastery.
98 Chapter 2<br />
was that she was the rightful occupant; this is what her title deed said; and<br />
the second replied that it was null and void from the moment she became<br />
a nun: what use does a nun have for a castle? [5653] But a king’s daughter<br />
does, who has the power to give and to take away, and let the nun read her<br />
psalter in the abbey and in the church! (Ille et Galeron, trans. Eley, 191)<br />
Ille eventually marries the second lady, after rescuing her from<br />
an unwanted suitor and his army. The religious legitimacy of the<br />
marriage is stressed:<br />
All the Romans eagerly endeavoured to see to it that Ille the noble warrior<br />
should have the crown; they were all well aware that his wife was a nun.<br />
Duke Ille wanted it very much, and the prospect did not displease Ganor<br />
[the other woman] in the least; the pope used his best endeavours; so there<br />
was no alternative but for it to be done. The pope celebrated their marriage;<br />
Rome was glad and rejoiced at it. (Ille et Galeron, trans. Eley, 221)<br />
Abelard and H‹elo•§se<br />
Abelard or the Abelard persona in Letter 4 of the famous correspondence<br />
with H‹elo•§se had thought di·erently, and this was the<br />
view that would ultimately prevail. When they were both committed<br />
by vows to the religious life, he had still been able to write:<br />
Come too, my inseparable companion, and join me in thanksgiving, you<br />
who were made my partner both in guilt and in grace. For the Lord is not<br />
unmindful also of your own salvation, indeed, he has you much in mind,<br />
for by a kind of holy presage of his name he marked you out to be especially<br />
his when he named you H‹elo•§se, after his own name, Elohim. In his mercy,<br />
I say, he intended to provide for two people in one, the two whom the devil<br />
sought to destroy in one; since a short while before this happening he had<br />
bound us together by the indissoluble bond of the marriage sacrament.<br />
Most scholars at present think that the correspondence is genuine<br />
or at least that it is an only semi-fictionalized literary composition<br />
by Abelard and H‹elo•§se themselves. Abelard died in 1142/3, so the<br />
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. B. Radice (Harmondsworth etc.,<br />
1974), 149 (in the revised edition by M. Clanchy (2003) the passage will be found<br />
under ‘Letter 5’, p. 83).<br />
M. T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford, 1997), 15, 154–5.<br />
D. Luscombe, ‘From Paris to the Paraclete: The Correspondence of Abelard<br />
and Heloise’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 74 (1988), 247–83, esp. 270, and<br />
also 278, where he raises the attractive and plausible possibility of a ‘compact between<br />
Heloise and Abelard jointly to share, compose and exchange their thoughts,<br />
experiences and principles in fictive correspondence’.
Indissolubility 99<br />
view he expresses definitely antedates the attitudes in Eliduc and<br />
Ille et Galeron. It is not surprising that the author of a Latin text<br />
(let alone the immensely learned Abelard) should be more in touch<br />
with the long theoretical tradition that marriage was indissoluble<br />
than vernacular romances.<br />
The attitude of Abelard and H‹elo•§se to indissolubility may be<br />
symptomatic of a gradual but general shift of attitudes towards<br />
divorce in the twelfth century, preparing the way for the transformation<br />
of law and consequently society e·ected by Innocent III,<br />
to be discussed below. It is actually rather surprising how few marriages<br />
are dissolved in vernacular romances: Marie de France and<br />
Gautier d’Arras apart, instances of true divorce in the modern sense<br />
are extremely dicult to find. Exceptions tend to prove the rule.<br />
Thus in Chr‹etien de Troyes’s romance Clig›es the marriage of the<br />
heroine to the emperor in Constantinople is never consummated,<br />
a fact that she regards as crucial. Poems like Chr‹etien’s Erec and<br />
Eneide or Yvain, or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzifal, suggest<br />
that the idea of durable married love had great appeal in literature<br />
even if great men found it constricting in practice.<br />
In the twelfth century the lay ‹elite show signs of accepting the<br />
theory that the clergy were trying to turn into law, but maintained<br />
traditional habits of serial polygamy by using a loophole in the<br />
Church’s own rules. Paradoxically, this may have played a part in<br />
the eventual triumph of indissolubility. It enabled the nobility to<br />
get used to ecclesiastical domination of marriage without changing<br />
the pattern of their legitimized sex lives too much. By the time<br />
they were compelled to do so, they had been paying lip-service<br />
to indissolubility and working within canon-law rules for so long<br />
that they could not easily justify resistance after the convenient<br />
loophole had been closed. There were few ideological obstacles to<br />
be overcome in lay minds when a new wave of clerical intensity<br />
washed over Western marriage. It drew much of its impetus from<br />
the proto-university schools.<br />
(c) The Age of Innocent III<br />
Symbolism, the schools, and Innocent III<br />
A wind of change was getting up among academics in the twelfth<br />
century. Peter Lombard brought out clearly the connection between<br />
marriage symbolism and indissolubility. He took up Augustine’s
100 Chapter 2<br />
ideas and rechargedthem with influence. After the Lombard’s place<br />
in the tradition had become secure, and then for more than a century,<br />
every serious theologian would be steered towards reflection<br />
on the subject. Their conclusions have been closely analysed in a<br />
neglected book by Tomas Rinc‹on.<br />
The most important thing about Rinc‹on’s findings for our purposes<br />
is that they provide the background which makes sense of<br />
some epoch-making decisions by Pope Innocent III, who made<br />
this symbolic reasoning about marriage his own. Against the background<br />
of twelfth-century thought reconstructed by Rinc‹on, this<br />
was explicable, almost predictable. Thus Peter of Poitiers uses language<br />
which we shall meet again in Innocent’s decretal Debitum<br />
(X. 1. 21. 5). Peter says that ‘The sacrament is here the consent<br />
of minds and carnal joining, and there are not two sacraments, but<br />
one sacrament: of the union of Christ to the Church which comes<br />
about through charity, and of the bodily union which comes about<br />
through conformity of nature—of which the sign is carnal joining,<br />
just as consent of minds is the sign of spiritual union.’ Peter was a<br />
prominent Paris theologian in the late twelfth century. He would<br />
have been teaching when the young Lothario Segni, the future Innocent<br />
III, was a student there. However, the whole tradition of<br />
thought about marriage symbolism in twelfth-century Paris is a<br />
relevant context to Innocent’s decisions.<br />
T. Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, misterio y signo: siglos IX–XIII (Pamplona, 1971).<br />
Rinc‹on deals with canonists as well as theologians.<br />
Peter of Poitiers, Sententiarum libri quinque, 5. 14 (Migne, PL 211. 1257),<br />
cited by Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, 208 and n. 308. Note that the Migne edition has<br />
‘consensus animorum’ then ‘consensus animarum’; Rinc‹on silently emends.<br />
On Peter of Poitiers, and for further references, see F. Robb, ‘Intellectual Traditon<br />
and Misunderstanding: The Development of Academic Theology on the Trinity<br />
in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University<br />
College London, 1993), 108–9. The work from which this is taken was influential:<br />
see ibid. 108.<br />
On the future Innocent III’s time as a student in Paris see W. Imkamp, Das<br />
Kirchenbild Innocenz’ III. (1198–1216) (P•apste und Papsttum, 22; Stuttgart, 1983),<br />
24: ‘d•urfte sein Pariser Studienaufenthalt in die ersten beiden Drittel der 80er Jahre<br />
des 12. Jahrhunderts fallen’; and Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants, i. 44:<br />
‘Peter of Poitiers . . . acceded to the theological chair left vacant by Peter Comestor<br />
in 1169, was made chancellor of Notre-Dame in 1193’.<br />
On this see Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, pt. 2, ch. 2, and the conclusions on p. 212,<br />
which are worth quoting since the book is hard to obtain: ‘1.A El matrimonio es<br />
un v‹§nculo indisoluble por ser sacramento de la uni‹on indisoluble de Cristo con la<br />
Iglesia. 2.A El divorcio es pecado porque rompe esta significaci‹on. 3.A La uni‹on de<br />
Cristo con la Iglesia se realiz‹odedobleforma:porelamoryporlacarne.Loprimero<br />
se significa por el consentimiento, lo segundo por la c‹opula. El matrimonio-signo,
Indissolubility 101<br />
We see symbolic reasoning at work when Innocent refused to<br />
annul the marriage of Peter I of Aragon to Maria de Montpellier.<br />
Explaining his decision, he explicitly links the sacrament of human<br />
marriage with the sacrament of the union of Christ with the Church,<br />
of God with the faithful soul, and of the second person of the<br />
Trinity with human nature. The decision is hard to explain in<br />
terms of Realpolitik, as a recent careful analysis by Martin Aurell<br />
has demonstrated. Consequently, the reason Innocent gives looks<br />
like the real explanation. We know that Innocent liked marriage<br />
as a spiritual metaphor—it is the basis of one of his allegorical<br />
treatises and of an important sermon on the anniversary of his<br />
coronation—but symbolism which shapes action is something different.<br />
The central theme of the present study is of course that<br />
marriage symbolism became a force in the real social and political<br />
world, with Innocent III’s pontificate marking a turning point.<br />
The symbolic reasoning that surfaces briefly in Innocent’s expla-<br />
en efecto, debe plegarse jurܤdica y vitalmente a las exigencias dimanantes de la cosa<br />
significada. 4.AEsplena y estrictamente sacramento el matrimonio integrado por<br />
los dos elementos. Es sacramento en sentido amplio cuando media s‹olo un v‹§nculo<br />
consensual.’ Rinc‹on’s pt. 2, ch. 3, on ‘La significaci‹on en las fuentes can‹onicas<br />
del siglo XII’, is also important as backround to Innocent III. For Innocent III’s<br />
thought on marriage generally see M. Maccarrone, ‘Sacramentalit›a e indissolubilit›a<br />
del matrimonio nella dottrina di Innocenzo III’, Lateranum, 44 (1978), 449–514.<br />
‘. . . et maxime ubi agitur de matrimonii sacramento, quod ante peccatum in<br />
paradiso a Domino institutum, praeter propagationis humani generis fructum, illud<br />
ine·abile sacramentum, conjunctionis Christi videlicet ad sanctam Ecclesiam Dei<br />
ad fidelem animam, et ipsius verbi ad humanam naturam, noscitur figurare’, cited<br />
by Inkamp, Das Kirchenbild Innocenz’ III., 224 n. 130.<br />
‘Innocent III n’avait pas un pr‹ejug‹e particuli›erement favorable pour Maria . . .<br />
Tous semblaient contre la dame: ses ennemis ‹etaient s^urs d’obtenir sa destitution.<br />
Elle d‹ecida alors de changer le cours des ‹ev‹enements, en d‹efendant personnellement<br />
ses droits ›a Rome’ (M. Aurelle, Les Noces du comt‹e: mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne<br />
(753–1213) (Paris, 1995), 456–7 (Aurell summarizes the grounds for the decision<br />
ibid. 457). He notes that Peter I was an ally of Innocent in his Languedoc policy (ibid.<br />
458), and comments that ‘Le verdict ne r‹epondait pas ›a la pressante conjoncture<br />
politique, mais bien plut^ot ›a l’application stricte de la l‹egislation canonique: le<br />
mariage de Pere IER avec Marie de Montferrat aurait parfaitement convenu ›a la<br />
croisade en Terre sainte, pr‹econis‹ee de longue date par le Saint Si›ege, tout comme<br />
l’union avec Marie de France serait la bienvenue ›al’‹epoque o›u Innocent III pr^onait<br />
une solution pacifique ›a la crise albigeoise. Le tribunal, indi·‹erent aux subtilit‹es de<br />
la diplomatie, ne s’arr^eta pas ›a ce genre de consid‹erations. Profond‹ement enracin‹e<br />
dans la conscience des juges romains, le mod›ele matrimonial chr‹etien avait pris le<br />
dessus sur les contingentes strat‹egies temporelles’ (ibid. 458).<br />
R. Kay, ‘Innocent III as Canonist and Theologian: The Case of Spiritual<br />
Matrimony’, in J. C. Moore (ed.), Pope Innocent III and his World (Aldershot etc.,<br />
1999), 35–49.
102 Chapter 2<br />
nation of this decision is set out in detail in his decretal Debitum,<br />
which will be discussed in more detail in the chapter on bigamy: it<br />
is a key text. As will become clear there, this intellectually gifted<br />
ecclesiastical politician had a coherent and consistent symbolic rationale<br />
in mind. Granted his ability to turn ideas into action, we<br />
should not be surprised to find him behind the most thoroughgoing<br />
attempt—probably in human history up to that point—to impose<br />
a ‘one man to one woman for life’ model of marriage on a large<br />
literate society.<br />
Innocent’s intransigence towards royal matrimonial wishes<br />
showed the way things were going. Even more remarkable than his<br />
decision to confirm Marie de Montpellier’s marriage was his refusal<br />
after much diplomatic delay to grant an annulment to Philip II Augustus<br />
of France. Innocent needed Philip as an ally. In the early<br />
thirteenth century Philip made himself the most powerful ruler in<br />
Europe. The empire was divided by a succession crisis and had<br />
no serious centralized revenues by comparison with France. The<br />
Angevin empire under King John su·ered a humiliating defeat and<br />
a massive loss of land to Philip. Behind his success was wealth.<br />
Innocent was trying to get a pro-papal candidate made Holy Roman<br />
Emperor; in 1207 he imposed his candidate as archbishop of<br />
Canterbury after a disputed election, and found himself locked in<br />
a serious conflict with the king of England. By inflexibility towards<br />
Philip he was taking a risk. In hindsight, we know he could afford<br />
to, but he could not have been so sure in advance: the other<br />
crises were too serious. The rejected girl was a Danish princess.<br />
Staying on good terms with Denmark was desirable, but good relations<br />
with France were more important by far: in the early 1200s<br />
France had achieved a position comparable to that of the United<br />
States from the 1990s: not the only power that mattered, but far<br />
As Rinc‹on recognized: ‘En la exposici‹on detallada que acabamos de hacer, ha<br />
quedado, a nuestro juicio, incuestablemente patente la relevancia jur‹§dica de la significaci‹on<br />
sacramental del matrimonio, debido, en gran manera, al peso magisterial<br />
yjur‹§dico de la decretal Debitum de Inocencio III’ (El matrimonio, 403).<br />
In addition to works cited below, see J. Gaudemet. ‘Le dossier canonique sur<br />
mariage de Philippe Auguste et d’Ingeburge de Danemark (1193–1213)’, Revue<br />
historique de droit franc«ais et ‹etranger, 62 (1984), 15–29, repr. in id., Droit de l’ ‹Eglise<br />
et vie sociale au Moyen A^ge, no.xiv.<br />
For instance, to judge by the accounts of 1202/3, ‘An overwhelming surplus<br />
was...availableforthecostsofthe“hotel”andthemilitary campaign against John’<br />
(J.W.Baldwin,The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal<br />
Power in the Middle Ages (Berkely etc., 1986), 174).
Indissolubility 103<br />
stronger than any other. After conquering Normandy and other<br />
domains of King John of England, in 1204 Philip stood alone in<br />
terms of power. Innocent showed a conciliatory spirit by legitimating<br />
Philip’s children by his mistress. The tone and intensity of his<br />
pressure on Philip varied with the configurations of church power<br />
politics. But nothing would make Innocent actually dissolve the<br />
There is more to be said about the Danish side of the crisis, and Frederik<br />
Pedersen has this in hand. Though he emphasizes Denmark’s influence more, our<br />
positions are not far apart. In a personal communication he agrees ‘that the case<br />
could never have ended in a victory for Philip. Innocent was far too committed to<br />
the consensual theory of marriage and too clever a politician to fall for the rather<br />
lame excuses Philip presented as reasons for his wish for the dissolution of his<br />
marriage to Ingeborg’.<br />
Of this, Georges Duby wrote that ‘the most important consideration for Rome<br />
was the increase in power that might accrue to it from the ascension to the French<br />
throne of a bastard legitimized by the pope’ (Medieval Marriage, 78). This is an<br />
instance of Duby’s tendency to over-explain. The desire to please Philip at that<br />
critical time is a sucient explanation. Anyway, it was not as if legitimation could<br />
be withdrawn, so it would not have given a future pope much of a hold over a<br />
future king who might not inherit anyway (and did not: in the event, Philip’s son by<br />
a previous marriage to a wife who had died succeeded him as Louis VIII). Again,<br />
what of the power that would have accrued to Rome from the marriage of the king to<br />
a mistress turned into a queen by the pope’s decision? Such arguments are shadowboxing<br />
either way: with a scholar of Duby’s fame and a widely read work like this<br />
the danger is that some people might assume that there is positive evidence.<br />
This led a nineteenth-century historian of the case to think that Innocent III’s<br />
overriding priorities were political: ‘zu einem sofortigen energischen Vorgehen,<br />
wie er es gegen einen minder m•achtigen F•ursten in dieser Zeit •ubte, mochte sich<br />
Innocenz gegen den K•onig von Frankreich bei der unklaren Lage der Dinge im<br />
Reich, die ihm gute Beziehungen zu Philipp wertvoll machen mu¢ten, doch nicht<br />
entschlie¢en k•onnen’ (R. Davidsohn, Philipp II. August von Frankreich und Ingeborg<br />
(Stuttgart, 1888), 71); ‘mu¢te sich eine Angelegenheit geistlichen Zwanges, in der<br />
es nur gegolten h•atte, die moralische Hoheit des apostolischen Amtes zur Geltung<br />
zu bringen, mit den Interessen weltlicher Politik des Papsttums kreuzen, mu¢te<br />
sie durch diese bestimmt und vielfach gehemmt werden. Wo die Pflicht des Oberhirten<br />
schnelles Einschreiten gefordert h•atte, erheischte das Interesse politischer<br />
Machtstellung kluges Abwarten’ (ibid. 74–5). Davidsohn did not grasp that, for<br />
Innocent, indissolubility was a value not up for negotiation, whereas such matters<br />
of timing, tone, and sanctions were the objects of instrumental calculation. Innocent<br />
had a ‘Verantwortlichkeitsethik’ anchored in some fixed values rather than a ‘Gesinnungsethik’<br />
which would have compelled him to treat each decision as an absolute<br />
moral imperative. For a better insight into Innocent’s mind see R. H. Tenbrock,<br />
Eherecht und Ehepolitik bei Innocenz III. (doctoral dissertation for the University of<br />
M•unster; Dortmund-H•orde, [1933?]), 99: ‘es kennzeichnet die Gr•o¢e dieses Papstes<br />
und Staatsmannes, da¢ er im Grunde niemals bewu¢t von dem Wege des Rechts<br />
abwich. Er verlangsamte wohl den Schritt auf diesem steilen und rauhen Wege, um<br />
Ausschau zu halten nach Nebenpfaden, die ihn zwar nicht vom Ziele wegf•uhrten,<br />
aber ihm gestatteten, manchen Vorteil f•ur die Kirche zu erlangen. Das bedeutete<br />
freilich oft ein Zur•uckweichen vor den Schwierigkeiten und eine Angst, gewisse<br />
•au¢ere Erfolge, Erfolge des Politikers, des Mannes, der der Welt “zugewandt” ist,
104 Chapter 2<br />
marriage. Innocent really is a confusing figure for historians who<br />
divide great men into idealists and power-brokers.<br />
Thus Innocent III took the exalted idea of indissolubility out of<br />
the ivory tower and into the world of power politics. At the end of<br />
his pontificate he tried to make it a more general norm in practice.<br />
At the Fourth Lateran Council the loopholes which had permitted<br />
not only monarchs but also many lesser noblemen to get out of marriages<br />
were closed. The circle of forbidden degrees was drawn much<br />
smaller. The ban had extended up to the seventh degree of consanguinity:<br />
anyone with a great-great-great-great-great-grandparent<br />
in common, any sixth cousin, that is. The same rule applied to affinity:<br />
one could not marry the widow, widower, or former sexual<br />
partner of a sixth cousin. Both anity and consanguinity were now<br />
reduced from seven degrees to four: one could not marry a third<br />
cousin or anyone who had slept with one or been married to a deceased<br />
third cousin, but beyond that there was no problem; obscure<br />
extra modes of anity were abolished altogether.<br />
aufgeben zu m •ussen. Aber gerade dadurch war es ihm beschieden, “seine Papstidee<br />
in die reale Wirklichkeit zu •ubersetzen und die Macht des Papsttums aufs<br />
h•ochste zu steigern”.’ An excellent brief treatment in context is in Baldwin, Masters,<br />
Princes, and Merchants, i. 235 and ii. 225–6. M.-B. Brugui›ere, ‘Le mariage de<br />
Philippe-Auguste et d’Isambour de Danemark: aspects canoniques et politiques’,<br />
in Universit‹e des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse, M‹elanges o·erts ›a Jean Dauvillier<br />
(Toulouse, 1979), 135–56 (I am grateful to Alexandra Sanmark for drawing my<br />
attention to this), and ead., ‘Canon Law and Royal Weddings, Theory and Practice:<br />
The French Example, 987–1215’, in S. Chodorow (ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth<br />
International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series<br />
C, Subsidia, 9; Vatican City, 1992), 473–96, makes some surprising assertions and<br />
assumptions. She thinks that Innocent’s legitimation of Philip’s children by Agnes<br />
of M‹eran ‘n’est gu›ere susceptible que d’une explication: depuis son accession au<br />
tr^one de saint Pierre, il avait d‹ecouvert le bien fond‹e delarequ^ete de Philippe Auguste...etilnepouvaitplusmettreenp‹erilsans<br />
raison valable la succession au tr^one<br />
de France’ (‘Le mariage de Philippe-Auguste et d’Isambour de Danemark’, 145–6).<br />
This will not do. Legitimacy was not a matter of principle like indissolubility. The<br />
fundamental implausibility is that forbidden degrees that would have annulled the<br />
marriage without diculty were ascertainable but not used by Philip Augustus, who,<br />
she suggests astonishingly, was not really trying after his initial e·ort. A secondary<br />
implausibility is that fear of o·ending Denmark was a major reason for frustrating<br />
Philip Augustus: a topsy-turvy sense of power realities in the early thirteenth century.<br />
(As noted above, however, Frederik Pedersen has in press a paper emphasizing<br />
the importance of Denmark.) I hope to return to these questions in detail.<br />
Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 205–6; Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and<br />
Merchants, i. 336–7. Baldwin gives fascinating evidence that Innocent was influenced<br />
by Peter the Chanter: see ibid. 332–7 (Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident, 205,<br />
comments, ‘On peut en discuter’). Baldwin, i. 336, is probably mistaken in thinking<br />
that hearsay testimony was banned by Lateran IV: see below.
Indissolubility 105<br />
The change in the consanguinity laws dovetailed with another<br />
measure designed to prevent annulments by precluding invalid<br />
marriages. This was Canon 51, on clandestine marriages. It laid<br />
down that banns must be read in advance of a marriage, to give time<br />
for any impediments to come to light. This gave neighbours who<br />
heard the banns time to bring up a problem if there was one, and<br />
gave the priests time to investigate whether there was any impediment.<br />
Note that this decree did not require marriage in church or by<br />
a priest, as some good historians have assumed. It was not about<br />
sacralizing the ritual of entry into marriage, which varied from one<br />
part of Europe to another: in parts of Italy a purely secular marriage<br />
contract was quite acceptable in the eyes of the Church. Marriage<br />
was a sacrament whether or not a priest was present. The decree<br />
was part of a determined e·ort to block the twelfth-century nobles’<br />
favourite escape route from marriage. The smaller the circle of<br />
possible impediments, the easier it would be to discover them; furthermore,<br />
there would be time to discover them and a public request<br />
for anyone who knew of one to make it known before the marriage.<br />
The Fourth Lateran Council did not go so far as to declare marriage<br />
invalid if the banns had not been read. Perhaps there was<br />
uncertainty about the limits of the Church’s power to add a condition<br />
of validity to a sacrament; or more probably there was fear that<br />
marriage practices were too varied and ingrained and that such a<br />
rule would create many invalid marriages; or perhaps the problems<br />
were not thought through. At any rate plenty of people did get<br />
married clandestinely, without having the banns read, as we shall<br />
see. Nevertheless, it is clear that Innocent and the Council were in<br />
earnest in their e·ort to make annulment much harder.<br />
Tighter rules about proof<br />
In addition to redrawing the limits of consanguinity and generalizing<br />
the system of banns, Innocent III, or rather the Fourth Lateran<br />
Council, made it harder to prove in court, tightening up the evidence<br />
requirements. Hearsay evidence had been allowed before<br />
Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. J. Alberigo et al., 3rd edn. (Bologna,<br />
1973), 258.<br />
See D. L. d’Avray, ‘Marriage Ceremonies and the Church in Italy after 1215’,<br />
in T. Dean and K. J. P. Lowe (eds.), Marriage in Italy 1300–1650 (Cambridge,<br />
1998), 107–15 at 107–9, for historians’ views.<br />
The best starting point on this topic is R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in<br />
Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974), 81–2.
106 Chapter 2<br />
because it had been so hard to reconstruct genealogies linking sixth<br />
cousins going back to great-great-great-great-great-grandparents:<br />
now it was still allowed, but rigorous requirements had to be observed.<br />
For a certain tolerance of less than rigorous evidence had been<br />
acceptable when dealing with the distant past, rather as scholars<br />
nowadays allow a little more leeway to early than to late medieval<br />
historians when it comes to rigorous demonstration. Reduction of<br />
the forbidden degrees to four brought the family facts in question<br />
nearer to the present. A couple related in the fourth degree<br />
would have a great-great-grandparent in common, and they might<br />
even be still alive. In noble families couples could a·ord to marry<br />
shortly after puberty. An elementary calculation brings the implications<br />
home. Pregnancy and childbirth at 16 were possible and<br />
respectable. Suppose this happened in two lines coming down from<br />
a common ancestor. A woman could be a great-great-grandmother<br />
at 64. Seven years later her great-great-great-grandchildren might<br />
be the subject of marriage negotiations. (Betrothal was acceptable<br />
after the age of reason had been reached.)Atthatpointthefamilies<br />
involved could consider whether there were any canonical impediments.<br />
The common ancestor linking the couple in the fourth<br />
degree of consanguinity could be alive.<br />
It is unlikely that common ancestors of fourth-degree relatives<br />
often actually lived to see an annulment process between their<br />
great-great-grandchildren. Suppose that the young couple became<br />
engaged without anyone bothering about the impediment, and married<br />
without the banns being read (or without anyone being so tactless<br />
as to protest). The great-great-grandmother would be elderly<br />
by the time they got married. Possibly she would be dead by then.<br />
If the husband sought an annulment a few years later (perhaps because<br />
he wanted to make a new political marriage alliance), more<br />
time still would have elapsed and our great-great-grand-maternal<br />
common ancestor would very probably be dead. Even so, many<br />
people alive would have known her and they could have sworn to<br />
the genealogy at first hand, with no need for hearsay evidence.<br />
Not all ‘forbidden degree’ cases would have presented so few<br />
‘Aquinas’, Supplement to Summa theologica, 43. 2, in Sancti Thomae Aquinatis<br />
. . . opera omnia, iussu . . . Leonis XIII P.M. edita, xii (Rome, 1906), 83–4<br />
(‘Supplementum’ section, which is separately paginated): an interesting essay in<br />
developmental child psychology.
Indissolubility 107<br />
problems of proof. If children were born in both lines coming<br />
down from the common ancestor at thirty-year intervals between<br />
the generations rather than sixteen-year intervals, the genealogy<br />
would stretch back into a more distant past. For this reason, no<br />
doubt, the decree did allow hearsay evidence, but only under the<br />
stringent conditions to which we must now turn.<br />
These conditions are set out with forceful directness by Hostiensis,<br />
Henry of Susa (Latin Segusium) or Henricus de Bartholomaeis,<br />
doyen of thirteenth-century canonists (in a career full of success<br />
he also rose high in the service of King Henry III of England and<br />
ended up a cardinal), in an important passage which is edited below<br />
(Document 2. 2. 1). Hostiensis comments directly on the decree of<br />
Lateran IV: it had been incorporated into the Decretals of Gregory<br />
IX, which put it before the eyes of every canon lawyer. It was<br />
natural for Hostiensis to discuss it at length in his great Lectura<br />
on the Decretals, and his own remarks would have reached a wide<br />
and respectful professional audience. Witnesses giving indirect<br />
evidence must be of good repute, must have learnt of the forbidden<br />
degree relationship before the beginning of the legal case, and must<br />
have learnt it from ‘elders’ (antiquioribus). There must be more<br />
than one witness of good repute, reporting the testimony of more<br />
than one source of good repute. The witnesses in the annulment<br />
case must not be motivated by hatred, love, fear, or advantage. They<br />
must be able to identify properly the individuals in the genealogy to<br />
which they bear witness, and they must know how to count the degrees<br />
of consanguinity or anity. They must swear that they heard<br />
the facts to which they bear witness from their elders, and believe<br />
them personally, and they must have seen some of the people in the<br />
kin group they reconstruct acting as relatives.<br />
No paraphrase is as forceful as Hostiensis’s own words, which<br />
give judges a numbered checklist and deserve to be quoted:<br />
The first thing is that one should consider whether the witness carries<br />
weight or not. Second, whether he or she learnt the things to which testimony<br />
is given before the beginning of the lawsuit. Third, whether the<br />
witness heard this from his or her elders. Fourth, whether the witness heard<br />
it from at least two people. Fifth, whether the two were suspicious types or<br />
of bad reputation, or whether they were trustworthy and unexceptionable.<br />
K. Pennington, ‘An Earlier Recension of Hostiensis’s Lectura on the Decretals’<br />
(1987), repr. in id., Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150–1550 (Aldershot etc., 1993),<br />
no. xvii (retaining the original pagination: 77–90), at 79.
108 Chapter 2<br />
Sixth, whether only one person heard this from several people, even if they<br />
were of good reputation, or whether several witnesses of evil repute heard<br />
it from men even of good repute. Seventh, granted that there are several<br />
of good repute, who heard it from several of good repute, whether they are<br />
motivated by hatred, a·ection, fear, or advantage. Eighth, whether they<br />
have described the persons by their own names or at least by adequate<br />
periphrases. Ninth, whether they distinguish the individual degrees on<br />
both sides, counting them out clearly. Tenth, whether they conclude by<br />
swearing that their depositions are based on what they have heard from<br />
their elders. Eleventh, whether they believe that it is so. Twelfth, whether<br />
they have seen some of the persons of the degrees which they have counted<br />
out acting as relatives.<br />
These are the twelve things, in the order specified above, which are to be<br />
absolutely kept before the mind; it is by questioning the witnesses about the<br />
greater part of these things that the enquiry should be conducted. If one of<br />
them should be lacking, the testimony is held to be insucient, as is made<br />
clear at the beginning of this passage. And when there is an annulment<br />
case turning on consanguinity or anity, the judge should memorize these<br />
twelve questions, and he should question every witness about them or the<br />
majority of them, in such a way as not to leave out even one of them, indeed<br />
he should conduct his examination with the utmost rigour even if the case<br />
is contested. For the argument, see below: ‘Concerning a man who has<br />
intercourse with a blood relative of his wife’, Super eo; ...(Document<br />
2. 1. 2–3)<br />
(d) Indissolubility in Practice<br />
How far were the rules about proof observed?<br />
Hostiensis feels very strongly about the need for rigour in annulment<br />
cases. He suddenly breaks out of his normal dry and technical<br />
manner of writing to say with outrage that these rules for evidence<br />
in annulment cases had been widely disregarded by the judges of<br />
his own time:<br />
So far, however, the judges of our time have kept this badly, caring little<br />
or nothing for such things. Therefore they despise the canonical form<br />
and pass many sentences of annulment contrary to God and justice, not<br />
without dangers to their souls and the souls of many others, dangers which<br />
My interpretation here is that the judge must obviously conduct a careful<br />
interrogation when the case is not contested, because of the danger of collusion, but<br />
that he must still do so even if the case is adversarial and one party is casting doubt<br />
on the claims of the other.
Indissolubility 109<br />
we solemnly entreat them not to neglect in the future, but to hold before<br />
their minds. (Document 2. 1. 4)<br />
The tone is reminiscent of protests against the ease of annulments<br />
in the United States in the late twentieth century—and indeed,<br />
we shall have to consider the possibility that the experience which<br />
sparked o· Hostiensis’s protest was localized, since the situation he<br />
describes does not fit very easily with what we know from church<br />
court records, where we have them. He was a man experienced in the<br />
world’s a·airs, but there is no tolerant cynicism here: his warning<br />
about the danger to the souls of the judges and many others seems<br />
to come from the heart.<br />
Hostiensis uses the word actenus (so far), as if he expected the<br />
situation to change, and perhaps it did. He was himself an enormously<br />
influential man and probably did not underestimate the<br />
e·ect of his vehement protest on readers and pupils—for in the<br />
nature of the case it is likely that he expressed himself with still<br />
greater freedom, which is saying a lot, in his academic teaching.<br />
Discussions during academic teaching may lie behind the objections<br />
Hostiensis raises. An imaginary interlocutor challenges him<br />
by saying that the law normally tries to make as much proof as<br />
possible available: so why not in annulment cases? Hostiensis has<br />
two answers. The first is much the same as the point made earlier,<br />
namely that proof had become much easier since the number of<br />
forbidden degrees had been reduced to four, so that strict standards<br />
should now be expected. His second argument is an allusion<br />
to the ‘examples’ of how hearsay evidence could be abused. The<br />
decretal which gave rise to the whole discussion had referred to the<br />
many examples that showed the danger of hearsay evidence and<br />
the consequent need for rigour. An earlier passage in Hostiensis’s<br />
commentary takes this remark as a cue for the remarkable<br />
story of Raymund Barellus, of the diocese of Nice (printed below<br />
as Document 2. 1. 1).<br />
Barellus worked the following scam to get marriages dissolved.<br />
He was old, and claimed to be able to reconstruct practically any<br />
Cf. R. H. Vasoli, What God Has Joined Together: The Annulment Crisis in<br />
American Catholicism (New York and Oxford, 1998).<br />
‘quia tamen pluribus exemplis et certis experimentis didicimus, ex hoc multa<br />
pericula contra legitima provenisse coniugia, statuimus, ne super hoc recipiantur<br />
de cetero testes de auditu, quum iam quartum gradum prohibitio non excedat, nisi<br />
forte [then the list of rigorous conditions begins]’ (X. 2. 20. 47).
110 Chapter 2<br />
genealogy (in the locality, obviously). However, as a single witness<br />
he would be unable to provide sucient testimony: it was standard<br />
practice to require two. He would take a group of ten or a dozen<br />
people, tell them the genealogy, divide them into groups, and get<br />
people from di·erent groups to relay the genealogy to other people<br />
who could then act as witnesses in the annulment suits, claiming<br />
that they heard the genealogy from their elders.<br />
I have failed to identify this ingenious subverter of the law. It is<br />
possible that his interesting activities were carried on before 1215<br />
and that Hostiensis only knows of him by reputation, but it seems<br />
much more likely that the canonist had direct knowledge of these<br />
machinations, and was genuinely shocked by their cynicism. He had<br />
been prior of the cathedral church of Antibes in the same general<br />
region. If applied with conscientious rigour, the detailed rules he<br />
gives for evidence would probably have stymied Barellus.<br />
The next imaginary interlocutor suggests that this rigour might<br />
throw the baby out with the bathwater. If all the rules are observed<br />
to the letter, can a case ever be made for an annulment on grounds<br />
of consanguinity? Hostiensis responds strongly. The benefit of the<br />
doubt should always be given in favour of marriage. Better that a<br />
union within the forbidden degrees continue than that a valid one<br />
be dissolved. His position is quite similar mutatis mutandis to a<br />
traditional attitude to crime: better that a guilty man go free than<br />
that an innocent man be convicted.<br />
Hostiensis explains his rationale. Indissolubility is a matter of<br />
divine law, the forbidden degrees are made by human ecclesiastical<br />
law. He makes it clear that he has in mind primarily the third<br />
or fourth degrees of consanguinity and anity, which he is sure<br />
are not subject to an absolute divine prohibition; he indicates that<br />
the second degree might be in the same category, but he is being<br />
careful. He thinks that where the degrees are so close that divine<br />
law is an issue, the relationship will be so evident that witnesses<br />
would hardly be needed.<br />
On the face of it, this passage gives clear evidence that ‘soft’<br />
annulments were still the norm after 1215. That would be to go<br />
beyond the evidence. We too should exercise, as historians, the<br />
kind of rigour that Hostiensis liked in judges. It does not follow<br />
at all that the situation was the same as before 1215. To begin<br />
with, not all conscientious canonists would necessarily have gone<br />
all the way with him. He is not just saying that substantively valid
Indissolubility 111<br />
marriages should not be undone with the help of formalities: he<br />
is saying that substantively invalid marriages should be allowed<br />
to stand if any part of the formal proof process is deficient. He<br />
views marriages in the way that a tenacious defence lawyer today<br />
views the innocence of clients: the prosecution should have to get<br />
every technicality right. He attacks a predecessor who put forward<br />
the following argument. If one witness proves that Martin is the<br />
son of John, and a di·erent witness proves that Bertha is John’s<br />
daughter, that is a sucient demonstration that Martin and Bertha<br />
are siblings. Hostiensis will have none of it. The reasoning is against<br />
the wording of the decretal, and in any case there might be more<br />
than one John. We may well feel that the last point is weak, because<br />
it is only a thought experiment in which the identity of John might<br />
be presumed secure and unambiguous in the testimony of both<br />
witnesses. On the other hand, Hostiensis seems to be right about the<br />
literal meaning of the decretal. All the same, his opponent, on whom<br />
he pours scorn, was not trying to find an escape clause to allow<br />
unjustified annulments: he was just drawing a logical conclusion<br />
which makes sense in itself.<br />
More to the point, most of the surviving church court evidence<br />
is later than the time when Hostiensis was writing. As we shall<br />
see, it tells a di·erent story, in which annulments on grounds of<br />
consanguinity are rare. Perhaps Hostiensis was generalizing from<br />
limited experience from one part of France at a time for which we<br />
have little court record evidence. It may be that there were great<br />
regional di·erences (just as c.2000 an extremely high proportion<br />
of Catholic annulments were from the United States). It is even<br />
possible that his own influence, or rather the great influence of his<br />
commentary, had an e·ect upon attitudes.<br />
If so, we may note in passing that this is another instance of<br />
marriage symbolism a·ecting social practice. The next two chapters<br />
will show how deeply Hostiensis’s thinking about ‘bigamy’<br />
and consummation was bound up with marriage symbolism. In<br />
particular, a long passage about consummation shows that indissolubility<br />
was closely connected in his mind with the representation<br />
of Christ’s union to the Church—a position familiar by now, but<br />
expressed with unusual power.<br />
Whether or not Hostiensis was responsible for tougher treatment<br />
of consanguinity or anity cases for annulment can only be<br />
For the foregoing, see below, Document 2. 2.
112 Chapter 2<br />
guessed. The educated guess is surely that he must have had some<br />
influence because of his great status, but could not have worked a<br />
transformation on his own. However that may be, there is a good<br />
deal of evidence that the ‘forbidden degrees’ loophole was no longer<br />
a popular escape route from marriage in the fourteenth century, in<br />
the areas where ecclesiastical court record evidence has survived<br />
and has been studied.<br />
Records of real cases from local church courts<br />
Most of the evidence survives (or is known to survive) in England,<br />
and the English evidence for marriage litigation has been the subject<br />
of several fine studies. It is worth quoting some of the conclusions:<br />
Helmholz: ‘It is all but irresistible to conclude that divorces were<br />
often procured under the system of kinship disqualification. The<br />
Church court records, however, do not support that conclusion.<br />
The hard fact is that there were few divorces on these grounds.’<br />
Helmholz provides various explanations: people tried to avoid marrying<br />
kin, they looked for wives outside their community, forbidden<br />
degrees were hard to prove under the tough conditions of evidence<br />
(ibid. 79–85).<br />
Sheehan (writing about a late fourteenth-century Ely consistory<br />
court register): ‘the court’s principal activity was the vindication<br />
and defence of the marriage bond; pleas of annulment occurred<br />
infrequently’; ‘It becomes evident that marriages were not especially<br />
threatened by impediments of consanguinity and anity’<br />
(ibid. 75); ‘the court was primarily a body for the proof and defence<br />
of marriage rather than an instrument of easy annulment’ (ibid. 76).<br />
Ingram:<br />
Today the bulk of matrimonial litigation . . . relates to divorce. In late<br />
medieval and early modern England the situation was very di·erent. It is<br />
true that, although legal divorce in the modern sense was unknown, it was<br />
possible on rigorously specified grounds to bring actions for the annulment<br />
of marriage or for separation from bed and board. However, all the available<br />
evidence indicates that, throughout the period from the fourteenth to<br />
Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, 79.<br />
M. M. Sheehan, ‘The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-<br />
Century England: Evidence of an Ely Register’ (1971), repr. in id., Marriage, Family,<br />
and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. J. K. Farge (Cardi·, 1996), 38–76<br />
at 74.
Indissolubility 113<br />
the seventeenth centuries, such suits were comparatively infrequent: cases<br />
concerning the formation of marriage, not marital breakdown, normally<br />
constituted the bulk of matrimonial litigation in the English ecclesiastical<br />
courts.<br />
Pedersen (studying the fourteenth-century consistory court of<br />
York): ‘Perhaps most surprising, however . . . is the fact that according<br />
to the cause papers no marriages were annulled because of<br />
consanguinity.’<br />
Three other scholars may be cited to show that the English situation<br />
was not exceptional—that annulments on grounds of consanguinity<br />
were rare on the Continent too:<br />
Weigand:<br />
‘Consanguinity’ and ‘Anity’. When one considers the extent of these impediments<br />
in the Middle Ages, even after the reduction in 1215 to the<br />
fourth degree according to the canonical and thus also the Germanic computation,<br />
one might presume that these impediments played a very great<br />
role. Indeed, occasionally one finds it written in the scholarly literature<br />
that these and other impediments would have been able to provide the<br />
interested parties with a rationale for dissolving the marriages which they<br />
could subsequently use pretty well whenever they wanted. In reality, however,<br />
they played only a subordinate role; furthermore, the annulment of<br />
a marriage occurred only on the basis of genuine proofs, and certainly not<br />
on the basis of mere assertion by the parties involved.<br />
M. Ingram, ‘Spousals Litigation in the English Ecclesiastical Courts c.1350–<br />
c.1640’, in R. B. Outhwaite (ed.), Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History<br />
of Marriage (London, 1981), 35–57 at 35–6.<br />
F. Pedersen, Marriage Disputes in Medieval England (London etc., 2000), 137.<br />
R. Weigand, ‘Zur mittelalterlichen kirchlichen Ehegerichtsbarkeit: Rechtsvergleichende<br />
Untersuchung’ (1981), repr. in id., Liebe und Ehe im Mittelalter (Bibliotheca<br />
Eruditorum, 7; Goldbach, 1993), new pagination at foot pp. 307*–341*,<br />
at 325*–326* (my translation). Weigand goes on to summarize the findings for individual<br />
church courts where records have survived. He notes among other things<br />
an interesting finding in a study of northern French dioceses. On the one hand,<br />
consanguinity cases were quite common. On the other, they seem not to have aimed<br />
at a dissolution of the marriage. Instead, the data show couples being instructed<br />
to obtain dispensations that would put their marriage right. There is reason to<br />
think that the papal Penitentiary dealt with such dispensations quite eciently:<br />
for this aspect of its work see L. Schmugge, P. Hersperger, and B. Wiggenhauser,<br />
Die Supplikenregister der p•apstlichen P•onitentiarie aus der Zeit Pius’ II. (1458–1464)<br />
(T •ubingen, 1996), 72–3, 80–8, and K. Salonen, The Penitentiary as a Well of Grace in<br />
the Late Middle Ages: The Example of the Province of Uppsala 1448–1527 (Annales<br />
Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, 313; Helsinki, 2001), 109–19.
114 Chapter 2<br />
Lombardi (writing about Florence at the end of the period and in<br />
the subsequent one):<br />
If we consider the cases as a whole, it becomes evident that people did not<br />
for the most part have recourse to the tribunal for the purpose of breaking<br />
a matrimonial bond. More numerous were the cases which had to do with<br />
the formation of the bond.<br />
Donahue:<br />
My own research has focussed on England and France. Anne Lefebvre<br />
has surveyed the surviving records from late medieval France. Professor<br />
Weigand and Klaus Lindner have worked on Germany. An international<br />
group on ecclesiastical court records has produced reports on the surviving<br />
records of Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, The Netherlands,<br />
and Switzerland, and has made some preliminary soundings in Germany,<br />
Spain and Italy. While the patterns of these records and of their survival<br />
vary markedly from country to country, and considerably more work in situ<br />
needs to be done, the conclusions about incest cases that Helmholz and<br />
Sheehan arrived at on the basis [of] a relatively small sample of English<br />
cases have held up remarkably well: Incest cases do not comprise a large<br />
portion of the marriage business of the medieval church courts. There are<br />
somesuchcases....Thenumber...however,palesincomparisonwith<br />
the number of instance cases in which one party is seeking to enforce a<br />
marriage legitimately—as he or she alleges—entered into or to obtain a<br />
separation on the ground of adultery or cruelty, or in comparison with<br />
the number of ex ocio prosecutions of fornication or adultery. . . . First,<br />
the search has now been extended widely enough and has covered enough<br />
di·erent types and levels of courts that we are probably safe in arguing<br />
that the records are not there. Second, with a bit more hesitancy, we can<br />
probably argue that the records never were there, i.e., that the sample is<br />
wide enough and the circumstances of its survival peculiar enough that we<br />
D. Lombardi, Matrimoni di antico regime (Annali dell’Istituto storico italogermanico<br />
in Trento, Monografie, 34; Bologna, 2001), 171 (my translation). Cf. ibid.<br />
175: ‘il numero delle cause di nullit›a resta comunque limitato, finch‹e, a partire dal<br />
ventennio 1670–1689, sparisce del tutto. Ne possiamo forse dedurre che il principio<br />
di indissolubilit›a si fosse profondamente radicato nelle coscienze dei fedeli, oltre che<br />
tra i guidici, sensibili alle esigenze di salvaguardia del vincolo.’<br />
Donahue means cases involving the forbidden degrees of kinship (consanguinity<br />
and anity). I am not sure that the word incest in the sense that anthropologists<br />
use it, or indeed in the everyday sense, captures the way it was regarded in this period:<br />
except where very close kinship was concerned, the rules were seen increasingly as<br />
designed to produce on the aggregate a sociologically desirable harmony between<br />
extended families, rather than moral absolutes barring the way to pollution. See<br />
D. L. d’Avray, ‘Lay Kinship Solidarity and Papal Law’, in P. Sta·ord, J. L. Nelson,<br />
and J. Martindale (eds.), Law, Laity and Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan<br />
Reynolds (Manchester, 2001), 188–99.
Indissolubility 115<br />
are probably looking at a relatively unbiased sample of what once was. . . .<br />
Third, not only were relatively few cases of incest recorded, but there were<br />
relativelyfewsuchcases....wecanprobablyrejectonceandforallthe<br />
suggestion that all medieval marriages were de facto dissoluble because of<br />
the incest rules.<br />
These converging investigations discredit the view once current<br />
that the forbidden degrees provided a let-out clause for most marriages<br />
in the Middle Ages. Of course it is possible that despite Donahue’s<br />
confidence more records may come to light and that these<br />
might alter the picture. It is hard to know what may or may not<br />
survive in Italy because it was normal for ordinary notaries to keep<br />
ecclesiastical court records and to mingle them with perfectly secular<br />
documents. So more Italian ecclesiastical court cases about<br />
marriage will probably be found from time to time and it is possible<br />
that they may lead future scholars to rethink Donahue’s verdict—<br />
but it does not seem likely. One set of Italian church court records<br />
that seems to have escaped the scholars just quoted reminds us<br />
that consanguinity cases need not be about the couple’s desire to<br />
get out of a marriage, for in an Asti case of 1265 it is just the<br />
opposite. A married couple, Pietro Rugio and Agnesina Rugna,<br />
were reported as being related in the forbidden degrees. There followed<br />
an investigation. Seven witnesses bore out the accusation,<br />
so the marriage was pronounced null. Then Pietro and Agnesina<br />
appeared and said under oath that they did not know themselves<br />
C. Donahue, Jr., ‘The Monastic Judge: Social Practice, Formal Rule, and<br />
the Medieval Canon Law of Incest’, in P. Landau, with M. Petzolt (eds.), De iure<br />
canonico medii aevi: Festschrift f•ur Rudolf Weigand (Studia Gratiana, 27; Rome,<br />
1996), 49–69 at 55–6.<br />
A case in point was drawn to my attention by Chris Wickham: marriage cases<br />
mixed with records of debt etc. in the records of Guglielmo Cassinese towards the<br />
end of the twelfth century: see Guglielmo Cassinese (1190–1192), ed. M. W. Hall,<br />
H. C. Krueger, and R. L. Reynolds (2 vols.; Notai liguri del sec. XII, 2; Documenti<br />
e studi per la storia del commercio e del diritto commerziale italiano, 12–13; Turin,<br />
1938). This has some interesting cases (e.g. vol. ii, no. 1293, pp. 70–1; no. 1467, pp.<br />
138–40; no. 1641, pp. 212–13), though they do not a·ect the argument of this book<br />
either way.<br />
Documenti capitolari del secolo XIII (1265–66, 1285–88, 1291, 1296–98), ‘a<br />
cura di Pietro Dacquino’, ed. A. M. Cotto Meluccio (Asti, 1987). (Trevor Dean<br />
directed me to this rich and fascinating set of documents.) The collection reinforces<br />
the conclusions of Donahue, Weigand, et al. A search through the entries listed in<br />
the index under ‘Cause matrimoniali’ did not reveal a single case of annulment on<br />
grounds of consanguinity or anity. As with English material, to which these cases<br />
bear a striking resemblance, the disputes seem to turn on the formation of marriage:<br />
consent, pre-contract, etc. Ibid., nos. 74 and 75, pp. 36–7.
116 Chapter 2<br />
to be blood relatives. They were released from excommunication.<br />
The investigation seems to have continued, and we do not know<br />
the outcome.<br />
Consanguinity cases do not in themselves show that indissolubility<br />
was taken lightly. It they result from the initiative of local<br />
church authorities, rather than the husband, they attest only to zeal<br />
for the consanguinity rules. The large number of indissolubility<br />
cases from the Southern Burgundian Netherlands can be and have<br />
been explained in this way. Though they do not conform to the<br />
general pattern described by Donahue, they do not resemble the<br />
twelfth-century pattern of easy annulments either: all the indications<br />
are that the couples wanted to stay married and that the local<br />
church’s agenda was to enforce the ‘forbidden degrees’ legislation<br />
of 1215.<br />
The ‘easy annulments’ theory works well for the long century before<br />
Lateran IV in 1215, but after that date it is a historians’ myth<br />
which modern scholarship has dispelled. This needs to be said with<br />
some emphasis, for even so fine a historian as Robert Bartlett, in a<br />
recent standard work which goes up to 1225, suggests that ‘aristocrats<br />
were adept at using the rules of consanguinity to get something<br />
like divorce on demand’, without noting the transformation of the<br />
situation near the end of this period.<br />
The meaning of ‘pre-contract’ cases<br />
Here an objection could be raised. In England at least, among<br />
the commonest sorts of case in later medieval church courts were<br />
‘pre-contract’ cases, where a marriage was challenged by someone<br />
claiming a prior marriage to one of the partners. Behind such cases<br />
might lie an earlier clandestine marriage. If a man and a woman<br />
contracted a marriage by simple consent, without having banns<br />
read first, it was a sin but valid. If the court believed in the earlier<br />
marriage, the later one was dissolved. Did not pre-contract cases<br />
make a mockery of indissolubility? If so, that undermines the thesis<br />
that symbolism eventually brought about a transformation of<br />
marriage practice.<br />
M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, ‘Incestuous Marriages: Formal Rules and<br />
Social Practice in the Southern Burgundian Netherlands’, in I. Davis, M. M •uller,<br />
and S. Rees Jones (eds.), Love, Marriage, and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages<br />
(International Medieval Research, 11; Turnhout, 2003), 77–95.<br />
R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225 (Oxford,<br />
2000), 558. The examples he gives are all pre-1215.
Indissolubility 117<br />
On the contrary: pre-contract cases were premissed on the conviction<br />
that a marriage was indissoluble. The first marriage contract<br />
may have been informal, may have taken place in sinful circumstances,<br />
but even so, it overrode any subsequent marriage, however<br />
religious the ceremony. Marriage was so absolutely indissoluble<br />
that even a marriage contracted in an alehouse stood against a<br />
subsequent marriage solemnized by a papal legate in Canterbury<br />
Cathedral. According to the predominant view, widely publicized<br />
in pastoral manuals, the sacramentality of marriage did not require<br />
a religious ritual, merely the exchange of consent. Two influential<br />
English pastoral manuals from di·erent halves of the fourteenth<br />
century deserve special attention. William of Pagula defines marriage<br />
thus:<br />
Marriage is contracted by consent alone through words in the present<br />
tense, as when a man says: ‘I take you to be my wife’, or the woman says:<br />
‘I take you to be my man or husband’. Whether or not an oath is inserted,<br />
it is not permitted to contract another marriage.<br />
A little later he says:<br />
Two things are necessary for a marriage to take place, namely, substance<br />
and form. For the substance, the consent is there. For the form, the words<br />
reckoned to express consent in the present tense, as when he says: ‘I take<br />
you to be mine’, and the woman says: ‘I take you to be mine’, or other<br />
words expressing consent in the present tense.<br />
Another extremely popular English priests’ manual produced<br />
later in the fourteenth century, the Pupilla oculi of Johannes de<br />
Burgo, is even clearer:<br />
With respect to the minister of this sacrament, it should be noted that<br />
no other minister is required apart from the couple contracting the marriage.<br />
. . . It is clear also that the ministry of a priest is not required for<br />
the conferral of this sacrament, and that the sacerdotal blessing which the<br />
priest is accustomed to pronounce over the husband and wife, or the other<br />
‘Contrahitur matrimonium solo consensu per verba de presenti, ut ubi dicit:<br />
“Accipio te in meam uxorem”, vel mulier dicit: “Accipio te in meum virum vel<br />
maritum”. Sive iuramentum sit interpositum vel non, non licet alteri ad alia vota<br />
transire’ (MS BL Royal 8. B. XV, fo. 141R).<br />
‘Duo sunt necessaria ad esse matrimonii, scilicet substantia et forma. Pro<br />
substantia, est ibi consensus. Pro forma, verba deputata ad exprimendum consensum<br />
de presenti, ut ubi dicit: “Accipio te in meam”, et mulier dicit: “Accipio te in meum”,<br />
vel alia verba consensum de presenti exprimentia’ (ibid., fo. 142V).
118 Chapter 2<br />
prayers pronounced by him, are not the form of the sacrament, nor of its<br />
essence, but something sacramental pertaining to the adornment of the<br />
sacrament.<br />
A theologian here or there may have associated the Church’s<br />
blessing with marriage’s character as a sacrament, but it is mistaken<br />
to think that this was the general view, as has been suggested<br />
for England in a recent study. Paradoxically, every pre-contract<br />
‘De ministro huius sacramenti est notandum quod non *requiritur alius ministerdistinctusabipsiscontrahentibus....Patetetiamquodadcollationemhuius<br />
sacramenti non *requiritur ministerium sacerdotis, et quod illa benedictio sacerdotalis<br />
quam solet presbiter super coniuges proferre, sive alie orationes ab ipso prolate,<br />
non sunt forma sacramenti, nec de eius essentia, sed quid sacramentale ad ornatum<br />
pertinens sacramenti’ (MS BL Royal 11. B. X, fo. 124RA).<br />
See the important and able article by Christine Peters, ‘Gender, Sacrament<br />
and Ritual: The Making and Meaning of Marriage in Late Medieval and Early<br />
Modern England’, Past and Present, 169 (2000), 63–96 at 67–9, where she argues<br />
that ‘For Aquinas, the form of sacrament of marriage was exchange of consent in<br />
words of the present tense, the couple were the ministers of the sacrament, and<br />
other rituals merely contributed to its honour and dignity. For others, including<br />
Duns Scotus and Bonaventure, form comprised both exchange of consent using<br />
specified words and the blessing by the church. Practice in late medieval England<br />
suggests that it was this second view which was generally understood by clergy and<br />
laity alike’ (67). The evidence of key English priests’ manuals does not bear that<br />
out: see previous note. The argument Peters goes on to give is interesting but not<br />
decisive: it is conceivable that some writers located the sacrament in the blessing,<br />
but she does not produce enough evidence to outweigh the passages from priests’<br />
manuals cited above and to demonstrate a predominance in England of the view that<br />
the blessing rather than consent was the crucial sacramental element. That liturgical<br />
texts describe the nuptial blessing as ‘benedictio sacramentalis’ is inconclusive. As<br />
is shown in Chapter 3, sect. (b), this came to mean one short phrase, and one<br />
blessing among many, in the Sarum manual, the most important liturgy of later<br />
medieval England. About the canonist Bernard of Pavia Peters may be right (68<br />
n. 12), but a learned analysis by J. A. Brundage seems to undermine her reading: see<br />
‘The Merry Widow’s Serious Sister: Remarriage in Classical Canon Law’, in R. R.<br />
Edwards and V. Ziegler (eds.), Matrons and Marginal Women in Medieval Society<br />
(Woodbridge, 1995), 33–48 at 40. Peters suggests (67 and n. 10) that important<br />
theologians thought that it was the priestly blessing that conferred the sacrament,<br />
but in fact this is far from clear: see the fundamental article by Gabriel Le Bras,<br />
‘Mariage. III. La doctrine du mariage chez les th‹eologiens et canonistes depuis<br />
l’an mille’, in Dictionnaire de th‹eologie catholique (15 vols.; Paris, 1899–1950), ix<br />
(1926), 2123–223 at 2206–7. Peters cites a couple of striking pieces of evidence from<br />
England: views of Lollard heretics who (she argues) had to ‘abjure the belief that<br />
mutual exchange of consent without the prescribed form of words and/or church<br />
solemnization was sucient for the sacrament of marriage’ (68–9 and n. 13). Now<br />
one of the cases she cites (N. Tanner, Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich 1428–<br />
31 (Camden Fourth Series, 20; London, 1977), 111) is not relevant to her general<br />
argument about sacramentality. John Reve had to withdraw the opinion that there<br />
could be the sacrament of matrimony ‘withoute contract of wordes or solempnisacion<br />
yn churche’. This only proves that the Church insisted on solemnization or at least
Indissolubility 119<br />
case was an act of homage to the clergy’s idea that marriage was<br />
unbreakable. These cases spoke a di·erent language from the forbidden<br />
degrees cases of the twelfth century.<br />
The big di·erence between such cases and annulments on<br />
grounds of forbidden degrees in the twelfth century is this: in the<br />
twelfth century laymen used the canon law against itself. The structure<br />
of the law sent conflicting signals, not in theory but in practice.<br />
The forbidden degrees loophole made it look as though the Church<br />
did not really mean what it said about indissolubility. To many it<br />
must have seemed like an ideal to which one had to pay lip-service,<br />
while working around it to achieve a realistic flexibility adapted<br />
to human weakness. Though the wide extension of the forbidden<br />
degrees had not actually come about to facilitate serial monogamy,<br />
that was the appearance. They had in fact arisen out of the reforming<br />
zeal of men like Peter Damian, who would have been shocked<br />
at the way they were used. Later reformers like Peter the Chanter,<br />
the academic, and Innocent III, the man in power, were evidently<br />
shocked too and did something about it.<br />
Wherever there is a law that seriously aims to change behaviour,<br />
people will find ways to frustrate its intentions. The measures put<br />
in place under Innocent III to make marriages lifelong are no<br />
exception—the scam invented by Raymundus Barellus has already<br />
been noted. So: if you wanted to leave your spouse you could try<br />
to persuade a church court that you had been married to someone<br />
else first. (This would work especially well if you did actually want<br />
to marry that person.) We have remarked that this happened; it<br />
may have been common. There is an exemplum about a man who<br />
married a woman and then did not want to take her as his wife. She<br />
took him to a church court with witnesses, proving her case. He<br />
countered by claiming that he had been married before to another<br />
woman. A date was set for him to prove it. On the day before the<br />
verbal consent: which implies the assumption by the Church that verbal consent<br />
without a blessing was enough for the sacrament of marriage (special cases like<br />
mutes are not in the picture here.) The other case that Peters cites (71) does not<br />
seem to be an abjuration in the strict sense. John Pyrye is giving information about<br />
opinions he had learnt from the condemned heretic William White, one of which<br />
was ‘quod solus mutuus consensus inter virum et mulierem sucit ad sacramentum<br />
matrimonii sui’. Clearly this is regarded by the authorities as a bad idea. Could this<br />
simply be because the obligation to marry in church was heavily emphasized by the<br />
late medieval English Church, as a matter of positive law?<br />
See above, p. 116.
120 Chapter 2<br />
trial, he and the woman went through a form of marriage in front of<br />
the two witnesses he had persuaded to support him. At the hearing,<br />
the first witness swore that he had witnessed the contract, allegedly<br />
seven years earlier. The question was put to him: how did he have<br />
the circumstances so fresh in his mind? He answered (lying through<br />
his teeth) that it was no wonder, because on that same day one of his<br />
children had drowned. The other witness perjured himself just as<br />
plausibly. When asked how he had kept the circumstances so fresh<br />
in his mind for seven years, he said ‘Lord, it is no wonder, because<br />
on the same day when I had to climb over a wall, I fell and broke<br />
one of my shins in the fall.’ Old-fashioned perjury frustrates any<br />
law. That is a di·erent matter from the law frustrating the law.<br />
Perjurious and collusive pre-contract cases might have made contemporaries<br />
cynical about human nature. They would not induce<br />
cynicism about the Church’s real intentions.<br />
Evidence of papal registers<br />
Again, sometimes pure corruption could frustrate the law. In 1234<br />
Pope Gregory IX wrote to the archbishop of Vienne about the<br />
bishop of Orange. People were saying alarming things about him.<br />
He was a serial seducer, and assisted in this by a female helper<br />
whom he had installed and was supporting in church accommodation,<br />
committing simony in his disposal of benefices, denying<br />
justice, preventing appeals, and also taking money to annul good<br />
marriages and tolerate invalid ones. The bishop at the centre of<br />
‘In eodem episcopatu [Norwich], in decanatu de Len, contigit quod quidam<br />
contraxit cum quadam muliere, et post illum contractum ipse eam in coniugem<br />
accipere noluit. Ipsa igitur coram ordinario loci [fo. 82VA] et testibus productis [predictis<br />
ms.] ipsum petiit in maritum ac vendicavit. Igitur cum contra ipsum per<br />
testes esset probatum, excepit, dicens quod antea cum quadam alia contraxerat; et<br />
ad hoc probandum per testes diem certum assignavit. Die igitur illo probationis<br />
faciende statuto, cum muliere cum qua contraxisse se dixerat et duobus qui hoc testificare<br />
deberent die prefixo venit. Set priusquam ante ordinarium accederet, coram<br />
illis duobus mulierem per verba de presenti accepit in uxorem, eodem scilicet die<br />
quo debuit probationem suam facere. Iuratus igitur unus ex predictis, iuravit se<br />
vidisse dictum contractum, lapso iam septennio. Cui cum examinator eius diceret:<br />
“Qualiter ita recenter habes in memoria tales circumstantias?”: et ille: “Domine, ne<br />
mireris, quia illo die quidam de filiis meis submersus est in aqua et periit.” Post<br />
hec iuratus alius aperte testatur eadem. Cui cum examinator diceret: “Mirum michi<br />
videtur quod tales circumstantias per septennium tam recenter retinuisti”, respondit:<br />
“Domine, non est mirum, quia eodem die cum debui transire murum cecidi, et<br />
ex casu illo confracta est una de tibiis meis.”’ (MS BL Add. 33956, fo. 82rb–va; cf.<br />
MS BL Harley 2385, fo. 69VB).<br />
The printed calendar of the commission is as follows: ‘Archiepiscopo Vien-
Indissolubility 121<br />
these alleged scandals was already excommunicated when the pope<br />
asked the archbishop to investigate. The annulments for bribes<br />
find their place among a series of accusations that mark this out as<br />
a dramatically untypical case.<br />
For in general the papal registers tell much the same story as the<br />
local church court records studied by the scholars quoted above.<br />
In the thirteenth century at least, annulments are hard to find in<br />
them. The overwhelming majority of cases are about dispensations<br />
to get married or stay married despite an impediment.<br />
Balance sheet<br />
To sum up: Indissolubility was a reality of social life at least from<br />
the pontificate of Innocent III. No doubt there were other places<br />
and perhaps whole regions where easy annulments were possible for<br />
one reason or another. New evidence may be found which dilutes<br />
the strong conclusions of Donahue and others. Nevertheless, those<br />
conclusions look set to stand.<br />
Enforcement<br />
The indissolubility principle was extended: popes and lower ecclesiastical<br />
authorities provided the means for a deserted spouse to<br />
reel in the errant partner. Papal formularies include letters setting<br />
in motion proceedings to bring back a husband or wife who had<br />
nensi, Apostolicae Sedis legato, mandat quatenus, ad Aurasicensem (=Arausicensem)<br />
civitatem accedens, de Aurasicensi episcopo inquirat, qui, . . . quamplures<br />
focarias habens, ut dicebatur; surripiens virginibus castitatis vinculum, pro quibus<br />
et aliis facilitate damnabili seducendis, quamdam miseram, in procurandis alienis<br />
lapsibus forte per proprios eruditam, [auxiliatricem] specialem sibi constituerat,<br />
eique unum de domiciliis Aurasicensis ecclesiae, cujus indigna pane vescebatur,<br />
deputaverat; ad ecclesias et ecclesiastica beneficia conferenda symoniacam advocans<br />
pravitatem; justitiam petentibus non impendens et emissis appellationibus super<br />
illatis ab ipso molestiis minime deferens; interventu pecuniae matrimonia legitima<br />
dirimens et prohibitis obstaculum non opponens; divina ocia, licet excommunicationum<br />
sententiis innodatus, celebrare praesumens,—in multos excessus ceciderat;<br />
quae invenerit Summo Pontifici suis litteris fideliter rescribat’ (Les Registres de<br />
Gr‹egoire IX, ed. L. Auvray, i (Paris, 1896), no. 1709, col. 942.<br />
I read through the marriage cases in the ‹Ecole Franc«aisedeRomecalendarsof<br />
papal registers up to and including Boniface VIII, using the analytical indices for<br />
the registers where they exist. I have not attempted a systematic trawl of fourteenthcentury<br />
registers.<br />
Royal annulments are a special case because of the pressure the parties could<br />
bring to bear. It is nevertheless my prima facie impression that even kings found<br />
it hard or impossible to get an annulment unless their case in law held water. The<br />
question requires further investigation and I hope to deal with it in a separate study.
122 Chapter 2<br />
moved out and tell the delinquent to treat deserted partners with<br />
‘marital a·ection’. A letter from the bishop of Lincoln in 1298<br />
shows the same attitude at work at episcopal level. Robert Huthe<br />
had married Mariot la Carter two decades before, lived with her<br />
nine years, and had six children with her. Then he left her for Agnes<br />
la Rus, defied excommunication by the archdeacon of Lincoln, and<br />
moved away to the area under the archdeacon of Ely. The latter is<br />
asked to pursue the matter. One assumes that the deserted wife<br />
Mariot la Carter had set the process in motion.<br />
An apparently real example of such an excommunication survives<br />
in a miscellaneous British Library manuscript:<br />
Formula for an Excommunication. In the year of the Lord 1309, on Friday,<br />
27 June, I, John, parish priest in Matray, since James/Jacob son of<br />
Hedbeigerius does not want to accept his wife Bridget, who had been<br />
adjudged to him by the sentence of the venerable father the Lord John<br />
bishop of Brixen (Brininen), and to treat her with marital a·ection, after<br />
being admonished by me three times on this matter in the presence of<br />
witnesses—and the witnesses should be named—exercising my authority<br />
I excommunicate him with this document.<br />
‘Contra virum recedentem ab uxore et adultere adherentem. Iud. Sua nobis<br />
G. de . . mulier conquestione monstravit quod R. de . . laicus diocesis, ea dimissa,<br />
propria temeritate cuidam adultere inpudenter adheret. Mandamus quatenus, si<br />
est ita, dictum R. ut, adultera ipsa dimissa, nominatam uxorem suam recipiat et<br />
maritali, ut tenetur, a·ectione pertractet, monitione premissa per censuram ecclesiasticam<br />
iustitia exigente compellas’ (MS BL Lansdowne 397, fo. 154R (newer<br />
foliation)). The double dots in papal documents mean that a proper name has<br />
been omitted. ‘Iud.’ could be extended as ‘Iudici’ or ‘Iudicibus’. If the latter, the<br />
last word would be extended as ‘compellatis’. Cf. P. Herde, Audientia litterarum<br />
contradictarum: Untersuchungen •uber die p•apstlichen Justizbriefe und die p•apstliche<br />
Delegationsgerichtsbarkeit vom 13. bis zum Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts (2 vols.;<br />
Bibliothek des Deutschen historischen Instituts in Rom, 31–2; T •ubingen, 1970),<br />
ii. 302.<br />
The Rolls and Register of Bishop Oliver Sutton, 1280–1299, ed. R. M. T. Hill,<br />
vi. Memoranda, May 19, 1297–September 12, 1299 (Lincoln, 1969), 84–5.<br />
‘Forma excommunicationis. Anno Domini M.O CCCIX.O proxima feria sexta<br />
post nativitatem sancti Baptiste, ego Iohannes, plebanus in Matray, quia Iacobus<br />
filius Hedbeigerii Brigidam uxorem suam sibi adiudicatam per sententiam venerabilis<br />
patris domini Iohannis Brixinensis episcopi non vult accipere et eam maritali<br />
a·ectione tractare, ter per per me monitus super hoc coram testibus—et nominentur<br />
testes—auctoritate qua fungor eum (interlined) excommmunico in hiis scriptis’ (MS<br />
BL Add. 18347, fo. 40R). The context is a small set of models for the correct form<br />
of an excommunication, but this one, at least, is so circumstantial that it is probably<br />
based on a real case.
Indissolubility 123<br />
Legal separation<br />
The law of indissolubility did not force a couple to stay together<br />
in all circumstances, and this should be factored into any assessment<br />
of marriage in the age of papal monarchy. Church law was<br />
inflexible about remarriage but took a di·erent attitude to legal<br />
separation, about which it could be quite flexible at least in the<br />
later medieval centuries, when indissolubility was being enforced<br />
(a chronology for the social history of legal separation in the preceding<br />
centuries has not been established). To take a concrete<br />
example: legal separation was the outcome in a messy case that<br />
came before the vicar of the bishop of Asti. The matter came<br />
to a head in 1265. A woman called Agnesina was ordered to return<br />
to her husband Guglielmo, who gave money as security that<br />
he would not injure her. There was a guarantor in case he did<br />
not pay. Some days later the guarantor withdrew, anxious about<br />
the husband’s stupidity. Agnesina was released from excommunication<br />
for desertion. Her husband accused her of a long-term<br />
adulterous a·air. She and a man named Bachino had been sleeping<br />
together in his shop and elsewhere for years, the husband alleged.<br />
Agnesina was very happy with the idea of a legal separation. A<br />
few days after this there seems to have been another change of<br />
mind. Guglielmo withdrew the charge of adultery and wanted his<br />
wife back. She was prepared to comply but wanted ‘a good security<br />
with a substantial penalty’: presumably a way of ensuring<br />
that he paid punitive damages if he hurt her. However, that idea<br />
seems to have been dropped: within a few days the bishop’s vicar in<br />
matters spiritual pronounced the legal separation, after Agnesina<br />
had admitted adultery. It is spelt out that neither party could remarry.<br />
For some good recent studies of legal separation, mainly covering the later<br />
Middle Ages and the early modern period, see S. S. Menchi and D. Quaglioni (eds.),<br />
Coniugi nemici: i processi matrimoniali. La separazione in Italia dal XII al XVIII secolo<br />
(I processi matrimoniali degli archivi ecclesiastici italiani, 1; Annali dell’Istituto<br />
storico italo-germanico in Trento, Quaderni, 53; Bologna, 2000), especially—for the<br />
Middle Ages—D. Quaglioni, ‘“Divortium a diversitate mentium”: la separazione<br />
personale dei coniugi nelle dottrine di diritto comune (appunti per una discussione)’,<br />
95–118; C. Meek, ‘“Simone ha aderito alla fede di Maometto”: la “fornicazione<br />
spirituale” come causa di separazione (Lucca 1424)’, 121–39; and S. Chojnacki, ‘Il<br />
divorzio di Cateruzza: rappresentazione femminile ed esito processuale (Venezia<br />
1465)’, 371–416.<br />
Documenti capitolari del secolo XIII, ed. Cotto Meluccio, nos. 48–51, pp. 24–6.<br />
‘bonam securitatem sub magna pena’ (no. 50, p. 26).
124 Chapter 2<br />
If a woman (or a man, but it was more likely to be a woman)<br />
had diculty in getting a legal separation, she could even go to the<br />
pope: there was a routine mechanism, probably necessary only in<br />
cases where local ecclesiastics were not trusted—for instance, if the<br />
husband was a friend of the bishop. A formulary of the Audientia<br />
litterarum contradictarum, the oce through which routine litigation<br />
at the papal curia passed, gives an interesting example of a<br />
papal letter setting in motion the proceedings towards a legal separation.<br />
It is clearly based on a real case, for the husband is named<br />
as a knight called Antonio de Luna of Zaragoza. The complaint<br />
had been made by his wife Alienor. Antonio had been a persistent<br />
adulterer and had apparently also treated her cruelly, so she was in<br />
physical danger living with him. She asks for a legal separation, divortium<br />
quoad thorum et mutuam servitutem. Furthermore, and this<br />
is important, she wants her dowry to be returned, together with<br />
anything else assigned to Antony as part of the marriage settlement.<br />
Thus property was involved. It was not just a matter of the<br />
couple splitting up and living apart: a legal settlement could hardly<br />
be avoided if Alienor wanted everything back, and the other side of<br />
the case would in fairness have to be heard. The pope—or rather<br />
the administrators acting with his authority—appoints the bishops<br />
of Barcelona and Vich as judges delegate, suspending the canonlaw<br />
rules designed to make sure that judges and parties were not<br />
too far apart geographically. One suspects that the husband was<br />
powerful locally and that judges from some distance away were<br />
appointed to ensure that the trial was fair to the wife.<br />
Even with the possibility of legal separation, the medieval Church<br />
was asking more of married couples than most cultures and religions<br />
have done, since it did not permit remarriage so long as the<br />
first marriage was deemed to be genuine. This was clearly a demanding<br />
doctrine. The obverse was that the Church demanded a<br />
high level of freedom at the point of entry into marriage, so that<br />
any pressure that would frighten a reasonable person was enough<br />
to invalidate a marriage.<br />
Indissolubility and free consent<br />
Marriage was an unbreakable bond but it had to be accepted freely<br />
in the first place. In the Church’s ocial thinking marriage was a<br />
Herde, Audientia litterarum contradictarum, 308–9.<br />
See ibid. 309 nn. 2 and 3.
Indissolubility 125<br />
strong, free, individual choice. There is a certain logic to this link<br />
between indissolubility and freedom. Because the commitment was<br />
for life, responsibility must be undiminished by family or other<br />
pressure. A choice that could not be revoked must not be imposed.<br />
This frame of mind, which was embodied in law, could not be<br />
further from the caricature of medieval marriage as nothing but a<br />
matter of families and property.<br />
In the half century before Innocent III, the power to chose<br />
and freedom of consent seem to have come to the fore in Church<br />
thinking at the highest level. Family or other external pressures<br />
continued throughout the Middle Ages and afterwards into recent<br />
times. The marriage of the Vanderbilt heiress to the duke of Marlborough<br />
in 1895 is a case of de facto coercion that should make<br />
modernists think about how much their period really di·ers from<br />
the Middle Ages. A wealthy American woman was pressured by<br />
her parents into giving up the perfectly acceptable wealthy New<br />
York lawyer whom she loved, in order to marry an English peer<br />
whom she did not, for reasons which had nothing whatsoever to do<br />
with the legal power to choose. Social pressure is stronger than law.<br />
Such cases can still be found today, though the fashion for marrying<br />
American heiresses to British aristocrats is no longer an oppressive<br />
force. Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied that a law of free choice<br />
will make a real di·erence in many cases.<br />
The canon-law compilation and textbook by Gratian gave a<br />
powerful impetus to the power to choose. As the classic article<br />
which brought out this feature of his thought put it:<br />
Gratian recognized the place of individualistic, unsocial decision-making<br />
in the choice of spouses . . . Underlying this deference to the individual was<br />
the conviction that ‘consent makes marriage’—not any consent, not merely<br />
lustful consent to intercourse, not merely intellectual consent to a shared<br />
life, but consent informed with that special quality that Gratian, drawing<br />
on the Roman law, denominated ‘marital a·ection,’ an emotion-coloured<br />
assent to the other as husband or wife. Neither Church nor feudal lord<br />
For the concept of consent in an earlier period see I. Weber, ‘“Consensus<br />
facit nuptias!” •Uberlegungen zum ehelichen Konsens in normativen Texten des<br />
Fr•uhmittelalters’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung f•ur Rechtsgeschichte, 118, kanonistiche<br />
Abteilung, 87 (2001), 31–66.<br />
My source is the chapter on ‘The Financial Times meets Hello!: Anglo-<br />
American Marital Relations 1870–1945’, in a forthcoming history of Anglo-American<br />
relations by my colleague Professor Kathy Burk, to whom my thanks.
126 Chapter 2<br />
nor family could supply that element. Where it was wanting, there was no<br />
marriage.<br />
Gratian’s textbook was among the most influential books of the<br />
Middle Ages: not just a·ecting thinking but also action, for it was<br />
the handbook of the new professionalized church lawyers who ran<br />
the well-organized hierarchy of ecclesiastical courts that came into<br />
being around this time. Gratian’s ideas about the power to choose<br />
were therefore much more than ideals. They exercised power over<br />
society.<br />
The line of thought was taken further by a pope who left a mark<br />
on church law almost as deep as Gratian’s. This was Alexander III,<br />
pope from 1159 to 1181. Gratian’s synthesis of the law had left<br />
many questions unanswered. The hardest cases about marriage<br />
were often concluded by a papal decretal, which became case law<br />
from then on. Alexander III issued many such decretals, notably<br />
in marriage cases, and many were incorporated in the code of case<br />
law issued in 1234, so that they remained legally binding and were<br />
closely studied by practising church lawyers up to 1917 (when the<br />
medieval church law was replaced).<br />
The free consent doctrine of Alexander III is the subject of another<br />
classic article which converges towards the same general interpretation<br />
of later medieval marriage. The two investigations<br />
must have been pursued at around the same time, which would<br />
make the similarity of the findings about adjacent topics all the<br />
more striking.<br />
Alexander III ‘requires only the consent of the bride and groom<br />
and rejects a requirement of the consent of anyone other than the<br />
bride and groom’. In previous legal tradition or traditions, ‘the<br />
family, the master, and in feudal times, the lord, play an important<br />
role’. Alexander’s position may have vacillated a little during<br />
his pontificate, but the law he left to posterity put the couple,<br />
J. T. Noonan, ‘Power to Choose’, Viator, 4 (1973), 419–34 at 425.<br />
C. Donahue, Jr., ‘The Policy of Alexander the Third’s Consent Theory of<br />
Marriage’, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon<br />
Law, Toronto, 21–25 August 1972 (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C, Subsidia,<br />
5; Vatican City, 1976), 251–79.<br />
Ibid. 256; J. A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe<br />
(Chicago etc., 1987), 335–6.<br />
Donahue, ‘The Policy of Alexander the Third’s Consent Theory of Marriage’,<br />
256.<br />
For the problems of working out a coherent chronogical development of his
Indissolubility 127<br />
the man and the woman, at the centre of the stage without any<br />
supporting cast to upstage them. Donahue even made the intriguing<br />
and attractive suggestion that Alexander’s marriage rules ‘represent<br />
an unconscious attempt to incorporate the acceptable elements of<br />
courtly love into the law of the Church’. Less tentatively, he<br />
argues that ‘The coincidence . . . of an ethic of love which, in marked<br />
contrast to the general practice of society, puts a high premium on<br />
the consent of the woman, with a set of legal rules which make<br />
valid marriage by the consent of the parties alone is almost too<br />
extraordinary to arise by chance’ (ibid.).<br />
The social forces pushing against free consent in practice must<br />
have been hard to withstand. Nevertheless, the influence of canon<br />
law on social practice should not be underestimated either. To quote<br />
Noonan again:<br />
If a father beat his daughter severely to enforce his choice, the marriage<br />
wasnull,asaYorkcaseshows....Attemptsbyparentstocoercemightalso<br />
be treated as sin and punished by refusal of the sacraments—a father, for<br />
example, might be denied absolution on his deathbed if his will disinherited<br />
a daughter refusing to marry as he directed.<br />
Local church court records are not common for the thirteenth century<br />
outside Italy, but they survive for thirteenth-century Pisa and<br />
a similar picture has emerged:<br />
In a series of cases judged at the beginning of the thirteenth century by<br />
the episcopal court of Pisa, some women who had been betrothed refused<br />
to obey their own parents and guardians and rejected the marriages<br />
arranged by them, maintaining, as did Gherardesca, the daughter of Gherardo<br />
Magliolachi, that the choice of a husband for her ‘was not and is not<br />
to her mind’, and that ‘she has not given her consent and does not intend<br />
to give it’.<br />
A couple of cases that went right up to the pope show aware-<br />
thought as expressed in his decretals, see Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage,<br />
169–72, and also 133 n. 37.<br />
Donahue, ‘The Policy of Alexander the Third’s Consent Theory of Marriage’,<br />
279.<br />
Noonan, ‘Power to Choose’, 433–4.<br />
D. O. Hughes, ‘Il matrimonio nell’Italia medievale’, in M. De Giorgio and<br />
C. Klapisch-Zuber (eds.), Storia del matrimonio (Rome etc., 1996), 5–61 at 20–<br />
1 (my translation), citing Das Imbreviaturbuch des Erzbischoflichen Gerichtsnotars<br />
Hubaldus aus Pisa (Mai bis August 1230), ed. G. Dolezalek (Forschungen zur neueren<br />
Privatrechtsgeschichte, 13; Cologne etc., 1969), 101–2.
128 Chapter 2<br />
ness of the rationale behind the rules. A woman named Gemma<br />
had a daughter whose name is simply given as ‘T’. The daughter<br />
was betrothed to a boy when they were both less than seven, and<br />
a penalty clause was included in the arrangement. Still, when she<br />
grew up she married someone else. The father of her childhood<br />
fianc‹e attempted to enforce the penalty clause. In 1231 the pope<br />
gave delegates the power to stop him, because marriages should be<br />
free. In a case of 1233 a French clergyman was able to bring in the<br />
pope to help a relative. Her father had died and her guardian had<br />
arranged for her to marry the son of a certain Theobald, when the<br />
son came of age. If this son died first, she would marry another son.<br />
Theobald and the son specified under plan A both died; there was<br />
another son but he was not yet old enough to marry. So Theobald’s<br />
widow seems to have imprisoned (‘presumes to detain’) the girl,<br />
who was now of marriageable age. The clergyman petitioned for<br />
her release and freedom to marry someone else. The pope commissioned<br />
the bishop of Le Mans to investigate and judge the case.<br />
If the facts turned out to be as stated, the girl was to be released,<br />
or else the woman holding her would face ecclesiastical censure.<br />
Again the pope states the rationale that ‘marriages should be free’,<br />
matrimonia libera esse debeant.<br />
The hard line on indissolubility needs to be set against the insistence<br />
on liberty. Marriage was for life, but it must be entered freely.<br />
We have seen—it is the theme of this chapter—that symbolism underlay<br />
the idea that marriage was for life. It seems also to connect<br />
with the thought that marriage must be free. To quote Noonan yet<br />
again:<br />
Unwilling marriages usually brought bad results. But why was freedom a<br />
positive good? Reflection on the canons led to an answer put in the terms of<br />
the great mystery of the Epistle to the Ephesians, succinctly stated in 1457<br />
by the last great commentator on Gratian, Juan de Torquemada: ‘Marriage<br />
signifies the conjunction of Christ and the Church which is made through<br />
the liberty of love. Therefore, it cannot be made by coerced consent.’<br />
‘cum vero libera matrimonia esse debeant’: the phrase is from the calendar in<br />
Les Registres de Gr‹egoire IX, ed. Auvray, vol. i, no. 719, col. 449, but it looks as<br />
though the editor has taken it from the words of the papal letter.<br />
‘proneptis’: it can mean great-granddaughter, but in context ‘great-niece’ is<br />
more likely.<br />
Les Registres de Gr‹egoire IX, ed. Auvray, vol. i, no. 1188, cols. 671–2.<br />
Noonan, ‘Power to Choose’, 434.
Indissolubility 129<br />
A similar formula is found in the ‘Supplement’ to the Summa theologica<br />
(further research may well show it to be a topos). In a question<br />
on ‘Whether a coerced consent makes a marriage void’ we meet the<br />
remark that ‘marriage signifies the conjunction of Christ and the<br />
Church, which is brought about in the liberty of love. Therefore it<br />
cannot be brought about through a coerced consent’.<br />
Explanations<br />
To conclude: the law of indissolubility became e·ective from the<br />
early thirteenth century on. Apparently contrary evidence—the<br />
strictures of Hostiensis, the plethora of pre-contract cases—fades<br />
away on closer examination. The law had teeth, but we need to<br />
remember that legal separation was possible and also that freedom<br />
at the point of entry into marriage was stressed, balancing the rule<br />
of strict indissolubility.<br />
We have traced the path of this doctrine from theological into<br />
social history. Several compatible explanations have been given for<br />
the timing: the influence of the ‘False Decretals’, which emphasized<br />
the bishop’s unbreakable ‘marriage’ to his church; the spread of<br />
celibacy in the power ‹elite of the clergy; the flowering of canon law<br />
and church courts. All of these help to explain why indissolubility<br />
moved from theory into practice in the central Middle Ages. These<br />
forces account only for the timing, however, and a certain idea of<br />
marriage marked in advance the lines along which they ran. In<br />
history ideas can have a delayed-action impact. In recent centuries,<br />
for instance, ideas of human equality and rights have been applied<br />
to new categories of persons and situations gradually, long after the<br />
basic principle had become a social premiss. People pay lip-service<br />
to a principle for decades or centuries, but one day some group<br />
takes it seriously.<br />
Without the principle of indissolubility, one man to one woman<br />
for life, the idea stretching back to Augustine and before, clerical<br />
energies and legal organization would have been pointed in a different<br />
direction. This takes us back to the beginning: the rationale<br />
‘matrimonium significat coniunctionem Christi ad Ecclesiam, quae fit secundum<br />
libertatem amoris. Ergo non potest fieri per consensum coactum’ (Supplementum,<br />
q. 47, art. 3, in SanctiThomaeAquinatis...operaomnia,iussu...Leonis<br />
XIII P.M. edita, xii (Roma 1906), ‘Supplementum’ section (separately paginated),<br />
90. The remark comes in the ‘Sed contra’ section, which usually (as here) goes in<br />
the direction of the writer’s own view, as expressed in the ‘Respondeo dicendum’<br />
section.
130 Chapter 2<br />
of the principle as articulated lucidly by Augustine.The rationale<br />
is a symbol, the equation of Christ’s union with the Church and<br />
the union of man and wife, symbolism which was released from the<br />
realm of texts and went on to transform law and society.
3<br />
Bigamy<br />
(a) Bigamy and Becoming a Priest<br />
The meaning of ‘bigamy’<br />
Bigamy in this context does not mean having two wives at the same<br />
time. It refers to a man’s marriage to a widow or his remarriage<br />
after his wife’s death. For the laity it was legitimate in the Middle<br />
Ages. It was not banned by the Church, and in fact was extremely<br />
common, as any social and political historian knows. On the other<br />
hand there were rules about bigamy that may at first seem strange.<br />
They have not been much studied though a few good publications<br />
lay a solid foundation. The key rules for our purposes are: (a) a<br />
man who has been made a widower twice or whose deceased wife<br />
was a widow is banned from the priesthood; (b) a central blessing<br />
P. Fedele, ‘Vedovanza e seconde Nozze’, in Il matrimonio nella societ›a altomedievale<br />
(Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo, 24; 2<br />
vols.; Spoleto, 1977), ii. 820–43 at 825. B. Jussen, Der Name der Witwe: Erkundungen<br />
zur Semantik der mittelalterlichen Bu¢kultur (Ver•o·entlichungen des Max-Planck-<br />
Instituts f•ur Geschichte, 158; G•ottingen, 2000), is less relevant to the current investigation<br />
than might appear, perhaps surprisingly, since our general ideas about<br />
history should be done are so similar. It tells an important monographic story about<br />
the creation of the schema of di·erential afterlife rewards for virgins, widows, and<br />
married people c.400 by writers like Jerome, the corresponding development in the<br />
early Middle Ages of a distinct status group of women who had resolved not to remarry,<br />
and the metaphor of the penitential Church as a widow. It is not really about<br />
widows who remarried, as was normal and respectable. For canon-law background<br />
see J. A. Brundage, ‘The Merry Widow’s Serious Sister: Remarriage in Classical<br />
Canon Law’, in R. R. Edwards and V. Ziegler (eds.), Matrons and Marginal Women<br />
in Medieval Society (Woodbridge, 1995), 33–48.<br />
See above all S. Kuttner, ‘Pope Lucius III and the Bigamous Archbishop of<br />
Palermo’ (1961), repr. in id., The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law<br />
in the Middle Ages (London, 1980), no. vii, pp. 409–53; H. Schadt, ‘Die Arbores<br />
bigamiae als heilsgeschichtliche Schemata: Zum Verh•altnis von Kanonistik und<br />
Kunstgeschichte’, in W. Busch (ed.), Kunst als Bedeutungstr•ager: Gedenkschrift f•ur<br />
G•unter Bandmann (Berlin, 1978), 129–47. Also useful are the article by J. Vergier-<br />
Boimond, ‘Bigamie (l’irr‹egularit‹e de)’, in R. Naz (ed.), Dictionnaire de droit canonique,<br />
ii (Paris, 1937), 853–88, and A. Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, 2nd<br />
edn.,rev.R.G‹enestal and J. Dauvillier (2 vols.; Paris, 1929–35), ii. 119–25.
132 Chapter 3<br />
must be omitted from the marriage ceremony in the case of second<br />
marriages; and (c) a cleric in minor orders can be married but only<br />
once and only if his wife was a virgin. This section deals with the<br />
first of these three rules.<br />
Marriage symbolism, bigamy, and eligibility for the priesthood<br />
The rule against admitting double widowers and widowers of widows<br />
to the priesthood seems to derive ultimately from scriptural<br />
texts: from the New Testament, especially Titus 1: 5–7, which<br />
states that a presbyter should be the husband of one wife; and from<br />
the Old Testament, especially Leviticus 21: 13–14 and Ezechiel 44,<br />
which say that the high priest must not marry a widow (among other<br />
excluded categories). For our purposes it is not necessary to explain<br />
the origin of these prohibitions. Probably they can be accounted<br />
for along the lines pioneered by Mary Douglas. The passage from<br />
Titus would in itself provide an explanation for the survival of<br />
the rules, though not a complete one because it could have been<br />
reinterpreted. Thus, it seems to imply a married priesthood, yet<br />
was not understood to mean that. So the ‘one wife’ could have<br />
been explained away too: she could have been the Church or God<br />
or Christ. Widows and widowers in the literal sense could have<br />
been taken out of the picture. We do not need to explain why they<br />
were left in it in the early Christian centuries, as our concern is the<br />
Middle Ages.<br />
Why were the rules so important in the Middle Ages? Of Max<br />
Weber’s famous four determinants of social action, tradition, emotion,<br />
value-rational motivation, and ends–means calculation, the<br />
first, tradition, must surely have done much to keep the bigamy<br />
rules in operation. Their very antiquity must have discouraged the<br />
thought of simply abandoning them. That is taken for granted in<br />
this chapter. I attempt to show, however, that symbolic value rationality<br />
was another important reason and motive for respecting these<br />
traditions. A sign of the vitality of this symbolic value rationality<br />
is that it enabled development and modification of the rules. Their<br />
history is marked by vitality and change. Their symbolic rationale<br />
stimulates original reflections by famous writers. Tradition is thus<br />
M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept[s] of Pollution and Taboo,<br />
with a new preface by the author (London etc., 2002).<br />
M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundri¢ der verstehenden Soziologie,<br />
ed. J. Winckelmann, 5th rev. edn. (3 vols.; T •ubingen, 1976), i. 12.
Bigamy 133<br />
necessary but not sucient to explain the medieval history of the<br />
bigamy rules.<br />
For historians of the Middle Ages, Augustine of Hippo’s rationale<br />
in terms of Christ’s marriage to the Church is a sucient<br />
starting point for causal explanation in terms of symbolic values.<br />
In a passage that would run like a thread through the future law of<br />
bigamy, Augustine put it thus:<br />
In the future, the one city will be composed of many souls who have ‘one<br />
soul and one heart’ in God, and after this earthly pilgrimage it will be the<br />
perfection of our unity, in which all men’s thoughts will not be hidden from<br />
each other, and will in no way be opposed to each other. For this reason<br />
the sacrament of marriage has in our time been reduced to one husband<br />
and one wife, so that it is not possible for a man to be ordained minister of<br />
the Church if he has had more than one wife. This has been more clearly<br />
understood by those who have decreed that a man who as a catechumen<br />
or pagan had a second wife, should not be ordained. The concern here is<br />
with the sacrament, not with sinning. In baptism all sins are forgiven, but<br />
he who said ‘If you have taken a wife, you have not sinned, and if a virgin<br />
marries, she does not sin’, and ‘Let her do what she wishes; she does not<br />
sin, let her marry’ [1 Cor. 7: 28, 36], made it suciently clear that marriage<br />
is no sin. Now to ensure the sacred nature of the sacrament, a woman who<br />
has lost her virginity, even if she is a catechumen, cannot after baptism be<br />
consecrated among the virgins of God. So similarly it has not seemed out<br />
of place that a man who has had more than one wife, though not having<br />
committed any sin, has not observed the norm, so to say, of the sacrament,<br />
which was required not to gain the reward of a good life, but for the seal of<br />
ecclesiastical ordination.<br />
Augustine was writing at a time when priests could still have wives<br />
but were not supposed to have sex with them. As the theory that<br />
priests should be unmarried gained acceptance, the rule would have<br />
come to refer to the categories just mentioned, twice widowed men<br />
and widowers of widows. It applied to bishops, priests, and deacons;<br />
in the Rome of late antiquity it seems to have extended to clerics in<br />
minor orders too, but this was not general in the West; the rule was<br />
extended to subdeacons in the course of the early Middle Ages.<br />
Where the early medieval centuries are concerned, it is hard to<br />
Augustine, De bono coniugali, 21[xviii], in Augustine: De bono coniugali; De<br />
sancta virginitate, ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh (Oxford, 2001), 39–41.<br />
H. C. Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, 3rd rev. edn.<br />
(2 vols.; London, 1907), ch. 5, esp. 74–6.<br />
Kuttner, ‘Pope Lucius III and the Bigamous Archbishop of Palermo’, 411–12.
134 Chapter 3<br />
say how far the rules about ‘bigamy’ were enforced in practice.<br />
Historians generally assume that the sexual abstinence of priests<br />
was honoured in the breach rather than the observance, so one<br />
might argue a fortiori that ‘bigamy’ rules were still less likely to be<br />
obeyed—but that might be a false inference and a false assumption<br />
about the relative gravity of the two deviations from the rules.<br />
As with so many topics in the history of Europe before c.1000,<br />
agnosticism is the only safe position.<br />
Peter Damian<br />
Rules about the clergy undoubtedly began to bite into social practice<br />
by the end of the eleventh century. Celibacy was taken in deadly<br />
earnest by the leaders of the eleventh-century reform. One of these<br />
leaders also wrote some fascinating lines on bigamy, which tend to<br />
suggest that the rules were taken seriously in his day. This was Peter<br />
Damian, like Hildebrand himself a reformer of passionate intensity.<br />
In a letter to a hermit about the mystical body of Christ, in which<br />
he explains how the words Dominus vobiscum, ‘TheLordbewith<br />
you’ in the plural, can meaningfully be used by someone who is on<br />
his own, he points out that there are things in the Church which<br />
seem otiose from the point of view of human reason, but which are<br />
from God if one takes account of the virtutisintimae...sacramentum,<br />
a phrase hard to translate but which might from the passage<br />
that follows be rendered: ‘the mysterious symbol of intimate power’<br />
(ibid. 264). The passage goes like this:<br />
For who might not find it strange that it is laid down by provisions of canon<br />
law that no ‘bigamist’ may by any means be raised to the priesthood, but<br />
that one who has lapsed and committed fornication, even if he is a priest,<br />
may after he has completed his penance be restored to the oce that<br />
he held by right before? For indeed St Paul’s opinion of fornication is<br />
quite clear when we read that ‘neither fornicators nor servers of idols nor<br />
adulterers will possess the kingdom of God’. But on those who contract<br />
second marriages, it continues as follows: ‘A woman’, he says, ‘is bound<br />
by the law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies, she is at<br />
They understood it as a ban on marriage, not just on sex with a wife with whom<br />
one might have had children before becoming a priest.<br />
Peter Damian, Letter 28, to the Hermit Leo of Sitria, in Die Briefe des Petrus<br />
Damiani, ed. K. Reindel, i (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Die Briefe der<br />
deutschen Kaiserzeit, 4; Munich, 1983), 248–78.<br />
‘digamum’, which (just like ‘bigamus’) would include a man who had remarried<br />
after his wife’s death and a man who had married a widow who had then died.
Bigamy 135<br />
liberty: let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord.’ Without a doubt,<br />
with the words of the one passage and the other he shows clearly both that<br />
‘bigamists’ do not break the rule of God’s law and that fornicators are cut<br />
o· at the peril of their soul from the kingdom of God on account of their<br />
lack of carnal restraint.<br />
How to explain, then, that men who do not sin fall away from all hope<br />
of becoming priests, while men who are eliminated by ill-doing from the<br />
kingdom of God do not lose the prospect of ecclesiastical rank if they have<br />
completed their penance worthily? For this reason only: that with those<br />
who are joined in second marriages the focus is not on sin but on the symbol<br />
[sacramentum] of the Church. For just as Christ—who is the ‘high priest<br />
of future goods’ [Hebr. 9: 11], and the true ‘priest according to the order<br />
of Melchisedech’ [Ps. 109: 4], the one, that is, who o·ered the lamb of his<br />
own body on the altar of the cross to God the Father for the salvation of the<br />
world—is the husband of one bride, that is of the whole holy Church, which<br />
is without doubt a virgin, since it keeps the integrity of the faith inviolably:<br />
so too each and every priest is commanded to be the husband of one wife,<br />
so that he may seem to present the image of that supreme spouse. With<br />
‘bigamists’, therefore, the issue is not the assessment of sin but rather the<br />
form of the sacrament, and when they are excluded, it is not that a crime<br />
is being punished, but that the mystical rule of the true priesthood is<br />
kept: otherwise, how would something be counted among crimes that the<br />
doctrine of St Paul permits to take place licitly? But the sacred canons<br />
too designate those who condemn second marriages as belonging to the<br />
Novatian heresy. Therefore, in order that we may show we always hold the<br />
mystery of ecclesiastical unity, there can be no objection if we use a verbal<br />
expression even if it is not so very necessary. (Ibid. 464–5)<br />
The train of reasoning would seem to be this. Second marriages<br />
rule out the priesthood not because there is anything wrong with<br />
second marriages per se, for on the contrary, they are entirely licit<br />
and it is heretical to deny that; even so, they are ruled out for priests<br />
in order to make a symbolic or mystical point about the union of<br />
Christ and the Church. God expresses himself in symbolic ways<br />
which do not quite make sense on the level of literal-minded human<br />
reasoning. Thus in the same way the plural expression Dominus<br />
vobiscum can be used in a context which would otherwise require<br />
the singular in order to make a point about the mystical unity of<br />
the Church.<br />
One manuscript cited in the apparatus criticus reads ‘sacramenti’.
136 Chapter 3<br />
Innocent III’s decretal Debitum<br />
Peter Damian seems to take it for granted that the rule banning<br />
‘bigamists’ from the priesthood is not a dead letter, and the conviction<br />
with which he expounds its symbolic meaning is unmistakable.<br />
The eleventh-century reformer thought along the same lines as St<br />
Augustine at the end of the Roman Empire. So did Innocent III<br />
in the early thirteenth century. In 1206 the symbolic rationale of<br />
the bigamy rules enabled him to solve a concrete case in a decision<br />
that would be incorporated into the canon-law compilation of<br />
1234, a compilation that remained in force until 1917. Thus many<br />
commentators would reflect on the pope’s reasoning. The decretal<br />
in question is known as Debitum (X. 1. 21. 5). It is important for<br />
the history of both bigamy and consummation, the subject of the<br />
next chapter. Innocent III’s pivotal role in the history of marriage<br />
symbolism and its social impact will not have escaped notice.<br />
A man marries a widow who had never had sex with her husband:<br />
she comes to him a virgin, and dies before him. Can he become a<br />
priest, or is he banned by the ‘bigamy’ rule? Innocent’s answer is<br />
a meditation on the significance of the symbolism and at the same<br />
time a practical legal verdict. He reasons as follows:<br />
Since there are two things in marriage, namely the consent of minds and<br />
the intercourse of bodies, one of which signifies the charity which obtains in<br />
spirit between God and the just soul . . . while the other signifies [designat]<br />
the conformity of flesh which obtains between Christ and the Church, to<br />
which second thing pertains that to which the Evangelist bears witness:<br />
‘The word was made flesh and dwelt among us’: therefore a marriage which<br />
is not consummated by the intercourse of bodies is not suited to signify<br />
the marriage which was contracted between Christ and the Church by the<br />
mystery of the incarnation, in relation to which St Paul, expounding the<br />
words said by the first-made man, ‘This now is bone of my bones and flesh<br />
of my flesh, and because of this a man will leave his father and his mother,<br />
and cleave to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh’, immediately adds:<br />
‘ButthisIsayisagreatsacramentum [sacrament? symbol? mystery?] in<br />
Christ and the Church’. Since, therefore, it is forbidden because of the<br />
defect of the sacramentum for a twice married man [bigamus] or husband of<br />
a widow to presume to be elevated to holy orders, because she [the wife]<br />
is not the only woman of only one man, nor is he one belonging to one:<br />
therefore, where the mingling of bodies is lacking with spouses of this sort,<br />
this sign [signaculum] of the sacrament is not lacking. Therefore a man<br />
who marries a woman who has been married to another man without ever<br />
sleeping with him should not on this account be prevented from being
Bigamy 137<br />
elevated to the priesthood, since the woman did not divide her flesh into<br />
more than one part, and he did not do so either.<br />
So symbolism solves a concrete case. Here the image works causally.<br />
Above all, a case like this is a symptom of how much in earnest<br />
intellectuals such as Innocent III were about marriage symbolism.<br />
This case will turn up again in the context of consummation.<br />
Hostiensis and the ‘Tree of Bigamy’<br />
Apart from its immediate practical e·ects, this decretal of Innocent<br />
III is important for the history of ‘bigamy’ because it gave rise<br />
to an astonishingly elaborate visual and conceptual structure in the<br />
Golden Summa (Summa aurea) of Hostiensis, perhaps the greatest<br />
of the medieval canon lawyers. This is the ‘Tree of Bigamy’, which<br />
is accompanied by a lengthy textual commentary. Diagram and<br />
commentary have been thoroughly studied by Hermann Schadt,<br />
who perceived their interest for art history, so that they need not delay<br />
us here, but they are a remarkable monument to legal marriage<br />
symbolism. On the right hand side of the diagram (heraldically<br />
speaking, or the left-hand side as one looks at it) are all the good<br />
marriages. Most are symbolic but one is the marriage of Adam<br />
and Eve. Hostiensis has human marriage in mind. He says it is<br />
one of the seven sacraments of the Church and the greatest in<br />
its signification (and he gives other reasons for the greatness and<br />
goodness of marriage). So the literal base of the symbol is secured,<br />
but symbolic marriages dominate diagram and commentary,<br />
examples being the marriage of God and the Virgin Mary<br />
and that of Peter with the Church (ibid., fo. 42RA–B). In the section<br />
or cellula on the marriage of the Son of God with the Church<br />
the rationale of the bigamy rule is spelt out: no one can marry the<br />
Church unless he is similar to his spouse. We are treated to a<br />
Schadt, ‘Die Arbores bigamiae als heilsgeschichtliche Schemata’.<br />
‘In secunda cellula ita scribitur matrimonium Ade et Eve in paradiso contractum.<br />
Hoc est unum de vii sacramentis ecclesie, quod est maius et dignius aliis quo<br />
ad significationem. Cum enim omnia alia sacramenta precedat, merito aliqua [read<br />
alia?] sequentia per ipsum habent significari non e contra. Hoc enim quod non est,<br />
significarenonposset...Notaigiturquodhocsacramentuminmagnaveneratione<br />
haberi debet, tum ratione autoris, qui ipsum instituit, scilicet dei’ (and so on with<br />
other reasons) (Hostiensis/Henricus de Segusio, Summa aurea (Lyons, 1548 edn.),<br />
fo. 41VB; I have used BL C 66 K 7). Note that the Summa is a di·erent work from<br />
the Lectura, used extensively in the previous chapter.<br />
‘nullus potest desponsare ecclesiam, nisi sit similis sponso suo’ (ibid., fo. 42RA);<br />
cf. Schadt, ‘Die Arbores bigamiae als heilsgeschichtliche Schemata’, 134.
138 Chapter 3<br />
dialogue between a bishop and a layman who wants to take holy<br />
orders:<br />
bishop: Do you want to marry the Church, that is, do you want to take<br />
holy orders?<br />
layman: Ido.<br />
bishop: Are you a ‘bigamist’, that is, have you married two wives in<br />
succession?<br />
layman: Ihave.<br />
The bishop’s decision: ‘You have to be rejected—even if you had married<br />
one wife who was not a virgin. For God the spouse of the Church had only<br />
one human partner, who was a virgin, nor did he divide the word made<br />
flesh into pieces’.<br />
On the opposite side of the diagram are evil unions, described<br />
as bonds, vincula, rather than matrimonia. They include the bond<br />
between hell and the Devil, man and sin, heresies and the Devil,<br />
etc. In these bonds there is no unity, but everything is division and<br />
schism. They are associated with bigamy, which denotes division,<br />
whereas the order of priesthood signifies unity: so the two cannot<br />
come together in the same person. Hostiensis uses strong words,<br />
though he makes it clear that he is not talking about the ethics of<br />
‘bigamy’ but rather of its signification. Morals and symbolism are<br />
distinct registers. Successive ‘bigamy’ is morally unimpeachable<br />
and the problem is in the symbolic register.<br />
In intellectual and cultural histories of the Middle Ages marriage<br />
symbolism goes with mysticism and monastic theology rather<br />
than with canon law (though the marriage symbolism of the episco-<br />
‘dicere potest episcopus: “Vis desponsare ecclesiam?”, id est, “Vis ad ordines<br />
promoveri?”. Responsio laici: “Volo”. Interrogatio episcopi: “Es tu bigamus?”, id<br />
est, “Duxisti duas uxores successive?”. Responsio laici: “Duxi”. Determinatio episcopi:<br />
“Repellendus es—etiam si unicam et corruptam uxorem carnalem duxisses.<br />
Nam deus sponsus ecclesie non habuit, nisi unicam humanam, et virginem, nec<br />
divisit verbum incarnatum in plures”’ (Hostiensis/Henricus de Segusio, Summa<br />
aurea, fo.42RA).<br />
‘In omnibus his vinculis vel ipsorum aliquo nulla unitas est, nulla firmitas,<br />
nulla integritas: sed totum divisio, totum schisma, totum falsitas, totum corruptio,<br />
et hoc per bigamiam representatur sive per bigamum qui divisus fuit sive corruptus<br />
in matrimonio, sicut precedentes in vinculis infernalibus, sive diabolicis; sicut ergo<br />
deus et diabolus in eundem subiectum simul, et semel, et eodem modo cadere non<br />
possunt, quia nemo potest servire deo et mammone, sic bigamia, que divisionem<br />
denotat, et ordo sacer, qui unitatem designat, in eundum subiectum simul et semel<br />
congrue cadere non possunt’ (ibid., fo. 42VB).<br />
‘Ergo bigami in vinea [read linea?] ista cadunt et per ipsam presentantur: non<br />
quo ad vite meritum, sed quo ad ordinationis signaculum’ (ibid.).
Bigamy 139<br />
pal oce has been thoroughly studied by legal historians). This<br />
is evidently a misleading segregation where marriage symbolism<br />
is concerned. The symbolism is not an afterthought or a playful<br />
decoration. It is an essential element in their thinking . This was<br />
apparent in the history of indissolubility traced above, and it holds<br />
good also for attitudes to ‘bigamy’ and consummation.<br />
Bigamy and dispensation<br />
Document 3. 1, from the mid-thirteenth-century canonist Johannes<br />
de Deo’s treatise on dispensations, is another example of a symbolic<br />
analysis with practical social implications. Johannes sets out to explain<br />
why in his view a dispensation is possible in some ‘bigamy’<br />
cases and not in others. The passage is dicult because compressed,<br />
but the sense of it seems to be as follows.With ‘true’ bigamy dispensation<br />
is impossible, because it would go against the words of<br />
St Paul—he means the remarks about ‘a husband of one wife’. (Incidentally,<br />
this view of Johannes would not prevail, but that is not<br />
the issue here.) So when is a candidate for holy orders truly bigamous?<br />
The broad answer will be familiar by now. It is when the<br />
sacramental symbolism is lacking from his previous married life,<br />
because he has been married twice or married to a woman who had<br />
been married at least once before. Johannes goes into a miniature<br />
analysis of the type of sacramental symbolism which is not as it<br />
should be with true bigamists. As for the undefective symbolism, it<br />
is primarily the representation of Christ’s union with the Church.<br />
However, there is secondary symbolism too (consignificatum est).<br />
He specifies the union of the divinity with Christ’s flesh, a union<br />
never broken. Then, as if by way of an afterthought, Johannes says<br />
that there are three unions: the union of the Divinity to the flesh,<br />
the union of the Divinity to the soul, and the union of soul to body.<br />
Only this last one was ever divided—at the death of Christ. He adds<br />
another union: that of the soul of the just person to God, a union<br />
based on faith and charity, one that can sometimes be broken by<br />
mortal sin.<br />
This little analysis completed, Johannes returns to the practical<br />
problem of when a dispensation by the pope is possible. His line<br />
is that the sacramental symbolism is not defective in cases where<br />
there are not two genuine marriages: that is, where one of the two is<br />
invalid. He lists such cases. One seems to be bigamy in the modern<br />
By Kuttner, Benson, and Gaudemet: see Introduction, n. 69.
140 Chapter 3<br />
sense, when a man marries a second time during his first wife’s<br />
lifetime, so that the second marriage is invalid. Another situation<br />
listed is that of a man in holy orders (probably he means a subdeacon<br />
or someone of higher rank) who marries a woman who is not a<br />
virgin. In this case the marriage is null. It would in fact have been<br />
null even if the woman were a virgin. After 1139 it was clear law<br />
that the marriage of a cleric in major orders (a subdeacon, deacon,<br />
or priest) was not only illicit but also invalid. So why does John<br />
raise the case in the context of ‘bigamy’ and what di·erence does it<br />
make whether the woman was a virgin?<br />
The fact that the woman is not a virgin may have been introduced<br />
by Johannes because a rigorist understanding of ‘bigamy’<br />
sometimes included marriages to women who had previously slept<br />
with another man, whether or not they were widows. Reading between<br />
the lines, John’s point may be this: if a priest invalidly marries<br />
a virgin, he can after separating from the woman and undergoing<br />
a long penance obtain a dispensation from a bishop to resume his<br />
priestly oce. On the other hand, if the woman had not been a<br />
virgin, an episcopal dispensation would not be enough, because<br />
the sexual union had been akin to bigamy, bigamy by extension so<br />
to speak.<br />
A casuistry of bigamy and its implications<br />
If we take Innocent III’s decretal Debitum and Johannes de Deo’s<br />
analysis together, an important conclusion about the social relevance<br />
of marriage symbolism begins to emerge. The rationality of<br />
marriage symbolism was the basis of a casuistry of ‘bigamy’ cases,<br />
providing the principles that could enable discrimination between<br />
apparently similar cases and settle the law when its application<br />
to ambiguous instances was unobvious. Incidentally, we have here<br />
a criterion for distinguishing between unthinking ‘tradition’ and<br />
‘value rationality’ as determinants of social action. Value rationality<br />
is not just about general principles, far from it, but they are an<br />
important element, and can be invoked and applied by casuistry to<br />
settle ambiguous concrete cases. Tradition alone could not provide<br />
such a casuistry. Its social relevance was confined to men who had<br />
been married and widowed.<br />
The remainder of this chapter deals with people who did not seek<br />
to become priests. Section (b) deals with second weddings, and the<br />
final section with married clerics in minor orders. In neither case
Bigamy 141<br />
is marriage symbolism the sole relevant factor but without taking<br />
account of marriage symbolism one cannot make sense of the social<br />
history of either.<br />
(b) The Marriage Ceremony<br />
Suspicion of second marriages and its ritual implications<br />
Symbolism may not have been crucial to the history of second<br />
marriages until relatively late in our period. In the early period<br />
other rationales seem to have influenced attitudes more, and this<br />
background must be sketched in first. From an early period priestly<br />
intervention in second weddings was limited. Some such rule seems<br />
to be common to both Eastern and Western Christianity, in itself a<br />
symptom of antiquity. So far as the West is concerned, a decisive<br />
moment was the reception of early fourth-century legislation of the<br />
Council of Neocaesarea into the influential canon-law collection<br />
of Dionysius Exiguus, c.500, which would ensure its currency in<br />
the Latin Church. In the form in which we find it in Dionysius, it<br />
states:<br />
It is inappropriate that a priest should join in the meal at the marriage of a<br />
person who has been married previously, for since the twice married person<br />
needs to do penance, what priest could give consent to such a marriage for<br />
the sake of a banquet?<br />
The need to do penance after a second marriage had already been<br />
spelt out in another decree of the same council, also adopted by<br />
Dionysius.<br />
K. Ritzer, Formen, Riten und religi•oses Brauchtum der Eheschlie¢ung in den<br />
christlichen Kirchen des ersten Jahrtausends, 2nd edn., ed. U. Hermann and W. Heckenbach<br />
(Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen; M•unster Westfalen,<br />
1981), index, s.v. ‘Wiederverheiratung’.<br />
‘A Cappadocian Council of uncertain date (probably early 4th cent., before 325).<br />
It passed 15 canons concerned chiefly with disciplinary and marriage questions’<br />
(F.L.CrossandE.A.Livingstone(eds.),The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian<br />
Church (Oxford, 1997), 1136).<br />
‘Presbyterum in nuptiis bigami prandere non convenit, quia cum poenitentia<br />
bigamus egeat, quis erit presbyter qui propter convivium talibus nuptiis possit<br />
praebere consensum’ (Dionysius Exiguus, Codex Canonum Ecclesiasticorum, ‘Regulae<br />
prolatae in synodo Neocaesariensi XIV, no. li, inMigne,PL 67. 156).<br />
‘De his qui in plurimas nuptias inciderunt, et tempus quidem praefinitum<br />
manifestum est, sed conversatio eorum, et fides, tempus abbreviat’ (Regulae ...,<br />
no. xlvii,inMigne,PL 67. 155). A more up-to-date and critical edition of Dionysius’<br />
canon-law collections is much to be desired.
142 Chapter 3<br />
If the twice-married person needed to do penance, it seems implied<br />
that there was something morally a little dubious about remarrying.<br />
Indeed that idea existed. Esmein’s classic history of the<br />
canon law of marriage suggests two reasons. One was the rigorist<br />
view of sex that had some currency in the patristic period: if a person<br />
had to get married, once was enough; the other was an ideal<br />
of true monogamy, unspoilt by remarriage. This second reason is<br />
close to the thinking of Brahman Hinduism about remarriage, but<br />
Esmein reminds us that pagan Roman religion had a counterpart<br />
for special cases and that Tacitus attributed a similar attitude to the<br />
Germans (ibid.).<br />
The legitimacy of remarriage<br />
An alternative view and the one that prevailed is that no moral<br />
stigma attached to second marriages. Jerome put that view in no<br />
uncertain terms: not only a second but a fifth or a sixth marriage was<br />
licit. Remarriage after a partner’s death was absolutely normal<br />
throughout the Middle Ages. The papacy had no problem with<br />
that. In the central Middle Ages we find popes (Lucius III and<br />
Alexander IV) banning taxes imposed by abbots or a bishop on the<br />
remarriage of widows. Peter Lombard said succinctly that ‘not<br />
only first or second marriages are licit, but even third and fourth<br />
marriages should not be condemned’. He quoted the passage from<br />
Jerome.<br />
Twelfth-century authorities: Peter Lombard, Gratian, and two papal<br />
decrees<br />
Even so, Lombard did quote a passage from pseudo-Ambrose<br />
(‘Ambrosiaster’), which runs: ‘first marriages only are instituted<br />
by God, whereas second marriages are permitted. And first mar-<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 120.<br />
Ibid. 119–21. Cf. Jussen, Der Name der Witwe, 170–1 (granting the substantive<br />
point while stressing negativity about second marriages).<br />
Epist. 48 (ad Pammachium), para. 18 (Migne, PL 22. 508), cited by Ignatius<br />
Brady, the anonymous editor, in Magistri Petri Lombardi Parisiensis Episcopi Sententiae<br />
in IV libris distinctae, 3rd edn., ed. Patres Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras<br />
Aquas (2 vols.; Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 4–5; Grottaferrata, 1971–81), ii.<br />
Liber III et IV, 509 (listing the letter as number 43—presumably a slip).<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 124–5 n. 5. In the same note Esmein<br />
points out that in 1391 the bishop of Chartres armed in Parlement that charivaris<br />
against the remarriage of widows were forbidden by synodal statutes.<br />
Sententiae, 4. 42. 7, ii. 508 Brady.
Bigamy 143<br />
riages are celebrated above with the blessing of God, whereas<br />
second marriages lack glory even in the present.’ The reference<br />
to ‘blessing’ may have influenced the later path of the limitation on<br />
priestly participation.<br />
The ruling from the Roman Empire survived into Gratian’s Decretum,<br />
verbally modified if the editions are to be trusted but substantially<br />
much the same. Gratian prefaces this with the comment<br />
that ‘There is a general ban on men and women contracting marriages<br />
frequently. Therefore priests ought not to take part in the<br />
marriage when it is a second wedding, as is read in the Council of<br />
Neocaesarea.’<br />
Not everything in Gratian was treated as binding, but two later<br />
twelfth-century papal decretals reinforced the idea that second marriages<br />
should be treated di·erently, especially since both became<br />
incorporated in the 1234 canon-law collection that became the authoritative<br />
lawbook of Western Christendom. Pope Alexander III<br />
laid it down that a ‘chaplain’ who ‘celebrated the blessing with a<br />
second [wife]’ was ‘suspended from his oce and benefice until<br />
absolved by the apostolic see’. The reference to ‘the blessing’<br />
marks this out from Gratian and the Council of Neocaesarea decree.<br />
‘sublimiter’: probably meaning ‘in heaven’, though it may mean something<br />
vaguer: ‘in the heights, sublimely’.<br />
‘primae nuptiae tantum a Domino sunt institutae, secundae vero sunt permissae.<br />
Et primae nuptiae sub benedictione Dei celebrantur sublimiter, secundae vero<br />
etiam in praesenti carent gloria’ (Ambrosiaster on 1 Cor. 7: 10, in Migne, PL 17.<br />
225; cited by Peter Lombard, Sententiae, 4. 42. 7, ii. 509 Brady).<br />
‘Fides et conuersatio penitenciam adbreuiet eorum, qui frequenter ducunt uxores.<br />
De his, qui frequenter uxores ducunt, et de his, qui sepius nubunt, tempus quidem<br />
his manifestum constitutum est, sed conuersatio et fides eorum tempus adbreuiat.<br />
Presbiterum uero secundarum nuptiarum conubio interesse non debere;<br />
maxime cum precipiatur secundis nuptiis penitenciam tribuere: quis erit presbiter,<br />
qui propter conuiuium illis consentiat nuptiis?’ (Decretum, Pars II, C. 31, q. 1, c. 8,<br />
in E. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1879–81; repr. Graz, 1955),<br />
i. 1110).<br />
‘conubio’, but ‘convivio’ in another edition: see ‘Editio Romana’ apparatus in<br />
Friedberg.<br />
Decretum, Pars II, C. 31, q. 1, c. 7, in Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, i.<br />
1110.<br />
‘secunda’.<br />
‘Capellanum . . . quem benedictionem cum secunda . . . constiterit celebrasse,<br />
ab ocio beneficioque suspensum, cum literarum tuarum testimonio . . . ad sedem<br />
apostolicam nullatenus destinare postponas’ (Decretals of Gregory IX, X. 4. 21.<br />
1, in Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii. 730). The passages marked as omitted are<br />
those left out in the 1234 canon-law collection and supplied by Friedberg from other<br />
sources.
144 Chapter 3<br />
Perhaps it was influenced by the pseudo-Ambrose passage noted<br />
above.<br />
Urban III’s decree also concentrates on ‘the blessing’. ‘A man or<br />
a woman, passing to a second marriage, ought not to be blessed by<br />
a priest, for, since they have been blessed on another occasion, their<br />
blessing should not be repeated.’ We shall shortly need to look<br />
more closely at what in terms of external ritual might be implied<br />
by ‘the blessing’.<br />
The meaning of the rules about the marriage blessing<br />
More immediately, what was the thinking behind these decrees?<br />
No definitive answer can be given at present. It would be a good research<br />
topic. Canon-law commentaries on Gratian, Decretum, Pars<br />
II, C. 31, q. 1, cc. 7–8, could be collected with the aid of Kuttner’s<br />
Repertorium, the main Decretalist commentaries on Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX, X. 4. 21. 1 and 3, could be reviewed; commentaries<br />
on Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 42. 7, could be found with the aid<br />
of Stegm•uller’s Repertorium. It would be a bonus for the argument<br />
of this book if symbolic reasoning turned out to be central,<br />
but I would not predict that. The most likely guess, no substitute<br />
for an investigation, is that the rationale behind the papal decrees<br />
was a mixture of tradition, respect for the attitude embodied in<br />
pseudo-Ambrose, and a sense that the blessing was a kind of ritual<br />
that should not be repeated. The last thought might be explicable<br />
in terms of the uncrystallized state of thought about marriage as a<br />
sacrament. Bernard of Parma in his standard gloss on the Decretals<br />
of Gregory IX suggested as a reason that a sacrament should<br />
not be repeated. Other canonists rejected the idea that the nuptial<br />
blessing (as opposed to marriage itself) was a sacrament. Thus<br />
Go·redus of Trani (writing in the years 1241–3) pointed out that<br />
‘Vir autem vel mulier, ad bigamiam transiens, non debet a presbytero benedici,<br />
quia, quum alia vice benedicti sint, eorum benedictio iterari non debet’ (Decretals<br />
of Gregory IX, X. 4. 21. 3, in Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii. 731).<br />
S. Kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik (1140–1234): Prodromos Corporis glossarum,<br />
i (Studi e testi, 71; Vatican City, 1937).<br />
F. Stegm •uller, Repertorium commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lombardi (2<br />
vols.; W•urzburg, 1947). The canny researcher would save time by following in the<br />
footsteps of P. Biller, The Measure of Multitude: Population in Medieval Thought<br />
(Oxford, 2000), ch. 7.2, pp. 166–77.<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 123. For Bernard of Parma see P.<br />
Erd•o, Storia della scienza del diritto canonico: una introduzione (Rome, 1999), 90.<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 123 at n. 4.
Bigamy 145<br />
the nuptial blessing was not a sacrament, though marriage itself<br />
was, and that some sacraments could be repeated. One should<br />
also mention Hostiensis’s suggestion that if one of the partners<br />
in a marriage had been blessed at a previous marriage the unity<br />
of flesh in the consummation of the second marriage would be<br />
enough to communicate the blessing to the unblessed partner, so<br />
that the second marriage did not require a reprise. Was this idea<br />
also around in the twelfth century? The most likely overall hypothesis<br />
is that Alexander III and Urban III were not themselves<br />
absolutely clear in their minds and that it seemed safest to them to<br />
stick to a rule deemed traditional.<br />
A feeling that the blessing should not be repeated because it was<br />
‘sacramental’ or ‘quasi-sacramental’, and a certain stigma attached<br />
to second marriages, are the reasons for the rule given in the curious<br />
questions about marriage in MS BL Royal 11. A. XIV (see below,<br />
Document 3. 8. 20–1). It may be significant, though, that there is a<br />
long passage nearby (3. 8. 19) which is full of marriage symbolism,<br />
drawing out the significance of the placing of the principal blessing<br />
shortly before communion in the mass:<br />
...inthecommunionofthebodyandbloodofChristthelowestthings<br />
are joined to the highest, that is, the human mind is joined to the body of<br />
Christ, in fact to God himself. Since, therefore, marital union [copulatio]<br />
signifies this joining, and indeed also the very union by which the same<br />
deity is united to the humanity as one person in Christ, who is most truly<br />
contained in the aforesaid sacrament [of the Eucharist], it was most fittingly<br />
laid down that the blessing which has the principal place in marriage be<br />
solemnly conferred before communion or the the reception of the same<br />
blessed body, as the sign before the signified.<br />
Whether or not symbolism had been important in the thinking<br />
behind the rule originally, it was certainly important from the<br />
thirteenth century on. The analysis in Thomas Aquinas’s widely<br />
di·used commentary on the Sentences deserves close attention.<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 123 and especially n. 5; for Go·redus<br />
see Erd•o, Storia della scienza del diritto canonico, 98.<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 124 and n. 3.<br />
In the extracts below I translate and paraphrase from the Latin text given in<br />
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, qu. 3, art. 2, in<br />
S. Tommaso d’Aquino: Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo e testo integrale di<br />
Pietro Lombardo. Libro quarto. Distinzioni 24–42. L’Ordine, il Matrimonio, trans. and<br />
ed. by the ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’ (Bologna, 2001), 888–90.<br />
For the commented text see Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 42. 7, ii. 508–9 Brady).
146 Chapter 3<br />
He is discussing the question of whether a second marriage is a<br />
sacrament, concluding that it is and that consequently—this is the<br />
interesting part—it is an obstacle to a priestly career. (He means<br />
even after the second wife’s death—otherwise the point would be<br />
obvious in his context.) First come the arguments against regarding<br />
a second marriage as a sacrament, the usual scholastic method of<br />
beginning with what can be said against one’s own point of view:<br />
1. It seems that a second marriage is not a sacrament. For if someone<br />
repeats a sacrament, he does an injury to it. But one should not do injury<br />
to any sacrament. Therefore, if a second marriage were a sacrament, it<br />
would certainly not be something to be repeated. 2. Besides, in every<br />
sacrament some blessing plays a part. But not in a second marriage, as the<br />
text [of Peter Lombard’s Sentences] says. Therefore no sacrament happens<br />
there. 3. Besides, signification is of the essence of a sacrament. But in a<br />
second marriage the signification of marriage is not preserved: because it<br />
is not a marriage of one to one, like Christ and the Church. Therefore<br />
it is not a sacrament. 4. Besides, one sacrament is not an impediment to<br />
the reception of another. But a second marriage is an impediment to the<br />
reception of priestly orders Therefore it is not a sacrament.<br />
Then Aquinas begins to set out the reasons on the other side,<br />
reasons why a second marriage is after all a sacrament:<br />
On the other hand, sexual intercourse in a second marriage is excused from<br />
sin, just as in a first marriage. But marital sexual intercourse is excused<br />
by the three goods of marriage, which are faith, children, and sacrament.<br />
Therefore a second marriage is a sacrament.<br />
Besides, from a non-sacramental second union of man and woman, no<br />
irregularity is contracted, as is evident with respect to fornication. But an<br />
irregularity is contracted in a second marriage. Therefore it is sacramental.<br />
Here Aquinas means that fornication by a widower does not make<br />
him a ‘bigamist’ and bar him from holy orders: in e·ect his point is<br />
that this happens with a second marriage only because it is a proper<br />
sacramental union. This casts an interesting light on the issue of<br />
clerical ‘bigamy’, discussed in the sections that precede and follow<br />
this one. It is because of the high sacramental status of marriage<br />
that two successive marriages rule out a priestly career even after<br />
the second wife’s death, and are incompatible with clerical status,<br />
according to this reasoning. The ‘irregularity’ does not reflect badly<br />
on marriage as a state: rather the contrary.<br />
Note: the subject of the first section of this chapter.
Bigamy 147<br />
Now the main arguments for the sacramentality of second marriages<br />
begin:<br />
I reply that one should say that wherever one finds the things which are of<br />
the essence of marriage, that is a true sacrament; so, since everything that<br />
is of the essence of the sacrament is found in a second marriage, because<br />
there is the matter required, which the legitimate status of the persons<br />
supplies, and the form required, that is the expression of internal consent<br />
through words: it is also clear that a second marriage is a sacrament just<br />
like a first one.<br />
Next Aquinas disposes of the objections. The argument about repeatability<br />
is disposed of very easily. The objection applies only<br />
to sacraments whose e·ect is perpetual, where repetition might<br />
imply that the first administration of the sacrament did not work.<br />
Where the e·ect of a sacrament is not perpetual, this does not apply.<br />
Clearly it does not apply in the case of the sacrament of penance. In<br />
disposing of the remaining objections Aquinas allows symbolism<br />
to dominate his reasoning:<br />
. . . although a second marriage taken in itself is a perfect sacrament, yet<br />
taken in relation to a first marriage it has something of a defect in the<br />
sacrament, since it does not have the full signification, since it is not of one<br />
woman to one man, as with the marriage of Christ and the Church; and<br />
by reason of this defect the blessing is withdrawn from second marriages.<br />
But this should be understood of the case where the second marriage<br />
is the second for both the man and the woman, or for the woman only.<br />
For if a virgin contracts marriage with a man who has had another wife,<br />
the marriage is blessed none the less: for the signification is in some way<br />
preserved even in relation to the first marriage, since Christ, even if he<br />
had a single Church as a bride, nevertheless has many persons within one<br />
Church as brides; but the soul cannot be the bride of any other but Christ,<br />
since with the demon it commits fornication, and there is no spiritual<br />
marriage there; and because of this, when a woman marries for the second<br />
time, the marriage is not blessed because of a defect of the sacrament.<br />
Aquinas’s argument has taken him on to the issue of the blessing<br />
of second marriages. He has a symbolic rationale to explain why<br />
Aquinas’s remaining arguments, or responses to arguments, do not add much<br />
for our purposes, though they continue the same line of symbolic thought: ‘Ad<br />
tertium dicendum, quod significatio perfecta invenitur in secundo matrimonio secundum<br />
se considerato, non autem si consideretur in ordine ad praecedens matrimonium;<br />
et sic habet defectum sacramenti. Ad quartum dicendum, quod secundum<br />
matrimonium impedit sacramentum ordinis quantum ad id quod habet de defectu<br />
sacramenti, et non inquantum est sacramentum’ (ibid. 890).
148 Chapter 3<br />
amarriagecouldbeblessedifitwasthefirsttimeforthebride<br />
even if not for the bridegroom. This practice does indeed seem to<br />
have been found ‘in some churches’. Bernard of Pavia notes it, as<br />
does Hostiensis. The same evidence proves that it was not the<br />
general rule. The practice might be explained also in terms of<br />
the patriarchal assumption that properly speaking ‘man is polygamous,<br />
woman is monogamous’. Aquinas finds a quite di·erent<br />
meaning in it.<br />
Meaning and reception: the ‘inner side’ of ritual<br />
This raises the crucial question: do meanings imposed a posteriori—as<br />
this turn at least in Aquinas’s argument may well have<br />
been—have any relevance to social history? I would suggest that<br />
the answer is: ‘sometimes but not always’ . For example, most of<br />
Aquinas’s analysis is really relevant to the social history of bigamy,<br />
while the idea just mentioned—the explanation of why a marriage<br />
could be blessed when it was the wife’s first marriage—may be<br />
interesting for the intellectual historian but not for the social historian,<br />
as being too much of an afterthought, too remote from<br />
practice.<br />
To decide what is relevant to social history one needs to ask<br />
further questions. One was used in the preceding section, which<br />
suggested the following criterion: was the internal rationale used<br />
casuistically, as a way of classifying dicult or marginal practical<br />
cases? If it was doing that, then it was a·ecting practice, not just<br />
redescribing it. Here are two more questions. Was the new understanding<br />
of the social practice so widespread as to change it so to<br />
speak from the inside? Is this inner change revealed by external<br />
symptoms, minor in themselves but indicative of the new thinking<br />
that was altering the social meaning?<br />
The notion that social practice has an ‘inner side’ which is the<br />
real object of the social scientist’s (or historian’s) research has been<br />
around for a long time. In the second half of the twentieth cen-<br />
See Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 124–5, with references.<br />
Nor did it receive general approval. Hostiensis disapproved (see ibid.), and<br />
the interesting, probably fake bull attributed variously to Pope John XXII and<br />
Pope Benedict XII generously allowed the maximalist interpretation that if either<br />
of the couple in a second marriage had not been blessed in a previous marriage, the<br />
new marriage might be blessed: see the discussion by Johannes de Burgo, below,<br />
Document 3. 9. 5.
Bigamy 149<br />
tury there were classic expositions by Peter Winch and Cli·ord<br />
Geertz. Behind them lies Max Weber. Some key quotations: ‘let<br />
human behaviour . . . be called “action” if and insofar as the person<br />
or persons who act connect it with a subjective meaning’ (Weber);<br />
‘Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in<br />
webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those<br />
webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science<br />
in search of law but an interpretive one in seach of meaning’<br />
(Geertz); ‘social interaction can more profitably be compared to<br />
the exchange of ideas in a conversation than to the interaction of<br />
forces in a physical system’ (Winch).<br />
A brief consideration of the history of Christmas suggests that<br />
Weber, Winch, and Geertz were on the right lines. Christmas was<br />
celebrated at the winter solstice from Julius Caesar’s time. The<br />
pagan religious significance grew. The sun came to be regarded<br />
by many as the divinity behind other gods. In 274 the emperor<br />
made 25 December the ‘Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun’. The<br />
idea of Christ as ‘the sun of righteousness’ (Mal. 4: 2) enabled<br />
the transition to a Christian feast. Then for centuries and for<br />
many still Christmas celebrated the birth of Christ. Now for many<br />
others it is instead a secular festival of good fellowship and the<br />
family. To take celebration of Christmas today as proof of religious<br />
feeling would be a mistake, just as it is a mistake to assume that its<br />
incorporation into Christian liturgy indicated the survival of pagan<br />
religion. What counts is the meaning behind the actions and rituals.<br />
Nevertheless, a text here and there is not enough to establish that a<br />
ritual has modified its meaning. The texts suggesting that need to<br />
be influential and popular. Furthermore, one would expect small<br />
but symptomatic changes in the mode of celebration. Thus a family<br />
P. Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London<br />
etc., 1958).<br />
e.g. C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (London etc.,<br />
1973; repr. 1993).<br />
The sentence in full: ‘“Handeln” soll dabei ein menschliches Verhalten (einerlei<br />
ob •au¢eres oder innerliches Tun, Unterlassen oder Dulden) hei¢en, wenn und<br />
insofern als der oder die Handelnden mit ihm einen subjektiven Sinn verbinden’<br />
(Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1).<br />
C. Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, in<br />
id., The Interpretation of Cultures, 3–30at5.<br />
Winch, The Idea of a Social Science, 128.<br />
The foregoing is taken from B. Blackburn and L. Holford-Strevens, The Oxford<br />
Companion to the Year (Oxford, 1999), 514–15.
150 Chapter 3<br />
today that is vaguely Christian but not churchgoing might go to a<br />
carol service and join in heartily, whereas a wholly secular family<br />
might not unless some other social obligation were involved. So the<br />
fine print of practice can usually indicate a shift in the meanings<br />
behind it.<br />
Ritual changes and symbolic meaning<br />
In the remainder of this section, therefore, I shall try to show that a<br />
strong emphasis on a symbolic rationale correlated with change in<br />
ritual, and that the symbolic rationale could have penetrated well<br />
below the theological ‹elite.<br />
We shall be looking closely at the ritual of second weddings and<br />
at how this ritual was interpeted at a level less exalted than that of<br />
Thomas Aquinas. The social history of this ritual seems to have<br />
received scholarly attention only on the margins of more general<br />
histories of marriage liturgy, and there is a need for a concentrated<br />
study of it by a historical liturgiologist. The following reconstruction<br />
is only sketchy and tentative. It should also be said immediately<br />
that there was clearly a great range of practice where the rituals of<br />
second weddings are concerned. We also need to remember that<br />
there were parts of Europe where no church wedding ceremony<br />
was required by the Church for a first marriage, apparently. That<br />
would make the ritual of the second marriage less important. The<br />
J.-B. Molin and P. Mutembe, Le Rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au XVIe<br />
si›ecle (Th‹eologie historique, 26; Paris, 1974), 236, 243–4, is useful but very brief.<br />
There is a useful chapter in L. Duchesne, Christian Worship, its Origin and Evolution:<br />
A Study of the Latin Liturgy up to the Time of Charlemagne, trans.M.L.McClure,<br />
5th edn. (London, 1919), ch. 14, but it does not cover the period that mainly concerns<br />
us. Ritzer, Formen, Riten und religi•oses Brauchtum der Eheschlie¢ung, hassome<br />
important pages: see index, s.v. ‘Wiederverheiratung’, but mainly pp. 160, 166, 168–<br />
9 (Ritzer also discusses the history of second weddings in Eastern Christianity, but<br />
these are not within the scope of this study). B. Binder, Geschichte des feierlichen<br />
Ehesegens von der Entstehung der Ritualien bis zur Gegenwart, mit Ber•ucksichtigung<br />
damit zusammenh•angender Riten, Sitten und Br•auche: Eine liturgiegeschichtliche Untersuchung<br />
(Metten, 1938), 84–8, provides a good miniature history of ‘Segnung<br />
bei zweiten Ehen’. He gives special attention to English rituals, commenting (88)<br />
that ‘Aus diesen kurzen Berichten ist bereits ersichtlich, wie schwierig und unklar<br />
bez•uglich dieser Frage die Verh•altnisse lagen’. See too K. Stevenson, Nuptial Blessing:<br />
A Study of Christian Marriage Rites (Alcuin Club Collections, 64; London,<br />
1982), 80–1, 82, and also (important background) 40–1, for the nuptial blessing in<br />
the Gregorian Sacramentary.<br />
Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique, ii. 124–5. See also Johannnes de Burgo’s<br />
comment: ‘nisi consuetudo alicuius ecclesie aliter obtineret. Tunc enim possent sine<br />
periculo benedici’ (Document 3. 9. 4).<br />
D. L. d’Avray, ‘Marriage Ceremonies and the Church in Italy after 1215’, in
Bigamy 151<br />
ceremony could be omitted altogether without anything seeming<br />
odd. Where this was the case the analysis that follows is less applicable.<br />
So the remarks that follow are certainly not meant to apply to<br />
Western Christendom generally; and indeed they bear particularly<br />
on England so far as the later Middle Ages are concerned.<br />
So what significant patterns can one observe in the history of<br />
second weddings? For one thing, it looks as though the limitation<br />
on priestly participation became increasingly specific, in the sense<br />
that less and less was forbidden, with the consequence that the<br />
proverbial Martian observer would have found it harder and harder<br />
to tell a first wedding from a second wedding.<br />
Back in the fourth century the contrast between first and second<br />
weddings may have been sharp. The decrees of the Council of Neocaesarea<br />
as transmitted by Dionysius Exiguus seem to ban priests<br />
altogether from participating in second weddings. As for interpretation<br />
of the version in Gratian, Pars II, C. 31, q. 1, cc. 7–8,<br />
there is a problem of textual criticism to complicate things: there<br />
are variant readings, one implying a ban on participation in the<br />
wedding (conubio), another on participation in the banquet (convivio).<br />
Perhaps the di·erence is not so important. Would it make<br />
sense to let a priest conduct a wedding but ban him from the banquet?<br />
More probably, the legislation would be taken to mean that<br />
the priest should just not be involved in a second wedding, though<br />
this is no more than a guess.<br />
The papal decretals from the twelfth century are di·erent and<br />
already more specific. They both forbid the priest to give ‘the blessing’,<br />
whatever that may mean. The natural assumption might be<br />
that ‘the blessing’ is shorthand for the whole celebration of a second<br />
marriage with a religious ritual. It was not, however, so understood,<br />
to judge by the texts printed as Documents 3. 8 and 3. 9, and by<br />
the fascinating discussion in versions of the Sarum Manual.<br />
An interesting and apparently unstudied text can tell us more<br />
about the rituals that went with marriage. The questions on Marriage<br />
in MS BL Royal 11. A. XIV (printed as Document 3. 8)<br />
indicate that there are several blessings at and around a wedding.<br />
(Though this text may survive in only one manuscript and its<br />
T. Dean and K. J. P. Lowe (eds.), Marriage in Italy, 1300–1650 (Cambridge, 1998),<br />
107–15.<br />
See above, p. 141.<br />
See the apparatus critici in Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, i. 1110.
152 Chapter 3<br />
author’s theological views have no particular importance, the extract<br />
printed is valuable for the practices it describes.) Four blessings<br />
are listed as normal for first marriages: at the entrance of the<br />
church, at the beginning of the mass, before the kiss of peace, and<br />
at the marriage bed (Document 3. 8. 8). The author says that he<br />
does not know of any authority which specifies what blessing Urban<br />
III intended in the decretal X. 4. 21. 3, and concludes that one<br />
must go by custom (Document 3. 8. 7; cf.3. 8. 27). According to<br />
the common custom of the Church, the blessing forbidden by the<br />
decretal is the one after the Agnus Dei and before the kiss of peace<br />
(Document 3. 8. 8).<br />
This gives us a more precise idea of the e·ect of the decretals<br />
about second marriages. They were not understood to mean that<br />
such marriages should be without a religious ceremony. Indeed,<br />
the nuptial mass would seem to have been quite acceptable at a<br />
second marriage. One particular blessing is omitted, but the priest<br />
is crucially involved in the wedding throughout. This is a quite different<br />
picture from what one finds in the Council of Neocaesarea<br />
legislation as preserved by Dionysius Exiguus and in Gratian. It is<br />
clear from this document that couples who had been married before<br />
were not relegated to a dry or secular ceremony. They had plenty<br />
of religious ritual. However it may have been in late antiquity or<br />
even in subsequent centuries, any idea that the priest must distance<br />
himself from second weddings seems to have disappeared.<br />
The evidence of the Sarum Manual<br />
The Sarum manual of the dominant liturgical rite in England casts<br />
even more light on what actually went on in first and second wedding<br />
ceremonies. It is helpfully explicit and has been edited in a<br />
critical and thorough manner, so it is useful to follow the relevant<br />
section in detail. During the canon of the mass, the central section<br />
that includes the consecration, the bride and groom prostrate<br />
themselves before the altar. If they are both getting married for<br />
the first time, four clerics in surplices hold a cloak (pallium) over<br />
them, each cleric holding a corner. This eye-catching ritual was<br />
apparently to be left out of second marriages. That may have been<br />
a disappointment to some couples on those occasions.<br />
See Manuale ad usum percelebris Ecclesie Sarisburiensis, ed. A. J. Collins (Henry<br />
Bradshaw Society, 91; London, 1960), 53–8.<br />
‘ad gradum altaris’ (ibid. 53).
Bigamy 153<br />
Textually, however, the di·erence between first and second marriage<br />
seems to come down to one section of one blessing. The<br />
section is the part in which marriage is compared to the marriage of<br />
Christ and the Church. The canon of the mass is completed and the<br />
Lord’s Prayer is said. In a normal mass the Agnus Dei (‘Lamb of<br />
God who takest away the sins of the world . . .’) and the kiss of peace<br />
would follow, but the marriage liturgy inserts special blessings at<br />
this point, after a prayer to God to help the new union. The words<br />
are as follows, with the blessing that especially concerns us in bold:<br />
Let us pray. O God, who by the power of your might made everything from<br />
nothing, who, after ordering the first elements [exordiis] of the universe, established<br />
for man, made in the image of God, the inseparable assistance of<br />
woman in order that you might give to the female body a beginning from<br />
male flesh, teaching that what it was pleasing to establish from one it<br />
would never be right to put asunder: O God, who consecrated conjugal<br />
union [copulam] with such an excellent mystery so that you might<br />
prefigure [presignares] the sacrament of Christ and the Church in<br />
the covenant [federe] of a marriage [nuptiarum]; O God, through<br />
whom woman is joined to man and a social bond ordained from the beginning<br />
has bestowed on it that blessing which alone was not removed either<br />
by the punishment of original sin or by the sentence of the Flood: look<br />
favourably on this your maidservant who is to be joined in the partnership<br />
of marriage and asks to be strengthened by your protection. May the<br />
bond of love and peace be in her: may she marry as one faithful and chaste<br />
in Christ: and may she continue to follow the example of holy women. May<br />
she be lovable as Rachel was to her husband: wise as Rebecca: long-lived<br />
and faithful as Sara. [The prayer for the bride continues for some lines.]<br />
The Sarum manual seems to di·er from the anonymous author<br />
of the questions in MS BL Royal 11. A. XIV (Document 3. 8)<br />
by omitting still less of the ritual for a first marriage. Instead of<br />
leaving out the whole blessing, the Sarum rite seems to cut only the<br />
few words that I have printed in bold. Before these words in the<br />
manual we find the note: ‘Here begins the sacramental blessing’,<br />
and after it the words ‘Here the sacramental blessing ends’. At<br />
The Latin really requires ‘quod quod’ here, but the second ‘quod’ may have<br />
been omitted because it is inelegant.<br />
I am emending the edition from ‘tua que’ to ‘tuaque’ as the sense requires.<br />
For what follows see too Stevenson, Nuptial Blessing, 80–1. By his account the<br />
Hereford and York rites are in line with the Sarum rite, the only one I have examined<br />
myself. ‘Hic incipit benedictio sacramentalis’ (53 Collins).<br />
‘Hic finitur benedictio sacramentalis’ (54 Collins).
154 Chapter 3<br />
the end of the whole prayer we find the following: ‘Note that the<br />
clause“OGod,who...withsuchanexcellentmystery”to“O<br />
God, through whom woman is joined to man” is not said in second<br />
marriages.’<br />
The Sarum manual cites Urban III’s decree (X. 4. 21. 3) about<br />
the blessing of second marriages by the priest in such a way as to<br />
imply that the decree was directed only at this one short clause.<br />
The explanation given is that ‘the flesh that has been blessed draws<br />
to itself the flesh that has not been blessed’ (56 Collins).<br />
The manual has not finished. It seems it cannot leave the topic<br />
of second marriages alone, for there is plenty more. The author<br />
quotes pseudo-Ambrose’s negative comments about second marriages,<br />
remarks that there are a number of blessings associated with<br />
marriage, from that at the entrance to that of the marriage bed in<br />
the evening, and returns to the question of which blessing should<br />
be omitted.<br />
Now his attention is on the prayer beginning ‘O God who by the<br />
power of your might . . .’, which includes two more ‘O God who . . .’<br />
clauses, including the one printed above in bold type. According to<br />
this long rubric, each of these ‘O God who . . .’ clauses is a separate<br />
blessing. One imagines, then, that the priest would make the sign<br />
of the cross three times over the couple during this prayer.<br />
It is the middle ‘O God who . . .’ blessing that must be omitted in<br />
second marriages, we are told, and presumably on those occasions<br />
the sign of the cross would be made only twice. The prohibition on<br />
blessing such marriages has been reduced to the omission of this<br />
short clause: ‘O God, who consecrated conjugal union [copulam]<br />
with such an excellent mystery, so that you might prefigure the<br />
sacrament of Christ and the Church in the covenant of a marriage.’<br />
The reason for narrowing it down to this point is that only this<br />
clause was about the symbolism of Christ’s union with the Church.<br />
To put it another way: the interpretation of the prohibition’s rationale<br />
as symbolic had the practical ritual consequence of retaining<br />
almost all of the words of the marriage service apart from this brief<br />
clause. It is a symptom that the symbolism is not just epiphenomenal,<br />
not merely a surface coating: it has a·ected the social meaning<br />
of marriage.<br />
No accident, then, that the manual cites at this point the decretal<br />
‘plures benedictiones sunt in nuptiis celebrandis .scilicet. in introitu ecclesie et<br />
super pallium et post missam et super thorum in sero’ (56 Collins).
Bigamy 155<br />
Debitum of Innocent III, discussed in the previous section, perhaps<br />
the single most important document for medieval marriage<br />
symbolism as a practical social force. It will be remembered that<br />
this was the decretal that prompted Hostiensis’s amazing Tree of<br />
Bigamy, that visual monument to marriage symbolism.<br />
The attention shifts briefly from symbolism, as the manual’s rubric<br />
now moves on to the question of which marriages precisely are<br />
a·ected by the prohibition, and to a full quotation of the strange,<br />
probably fake, papal bull that purported to settle such questions.<br />
The bull also removed the obligation of priests to seek absolution<br />
from the pope if they had broken the rule. This forgery is a fascinating<br />
little problem in its own right, but not necessarily relevant<br />
to the theme of marriage symbolism. The Sarum manual has only<br />
temporarily let go of that theme, however, and returns with another<br />
substantial piece of symbolic reasoning before moving on. The passage<br />
in question is none other than one from Aquinas which was<br />
quoted above, in which Aquinas explains that a second marriage<br />
is a perfect sacrament taken in itself, but defective in relation to a<br />
first marriage because it is not of one woman to one man and thus<br />
imperfectly represents the marriage of Christ and the Church.<br />
The rubrics in the Sarum manual illuminate the thinking behind<br />
the ritual practice and explain how the prohibition against blessing<br />
second marriages could be interpreted as omission of one small<br />
clause. This may have been peculiar to England.<br />
See the excellent discussion of the bull in Manuale, ed. Collins, 54–6 at n. 65.<br />
The ‘papal bull’ in question was called Concertationi antique, fromitsopening<br />
words. If forged, the perpetrator knew that discourse. John XXII and Benedict XII<br />
both used similar language in documents aiming to put an end to controversy. A<br />
decretal of John XXII settling the question of whether entry into holy orders (as opposed<br />
to entry into a religious order) dissolved an unconsummated marriage begins:<br />
‘Antiquae concertationi finem cupientes imponere’ (Extrav. Jo. XXII 6. 1, ii. 1212<br />
Friedberg). The same pope’s ‘Cum inter nonnullos’ has ‘Nos huic concertationi<br />
finem imponere cupientes’ (C. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des<br />
r•omischen Katholizismus, 5th edn. (T •ubingen, 1934), no. 379, p. 219); see also BenedictXII,‘BenedictusDeus’:‘praedecessornoster...addecisionemconcertationum<br />
huiusmodi se pararet’ (Mirbt, Quellen, no. 382, p. 222). Even so, the consensus is<br />
that this strange document, brought to England by ‘Master John Haysted’ according<br />
to the Sarum Missal, is a forgery.<br />
See above, pp. 145–8, esp. 147. As the editor of the Sarum manual points out,<br />
the words ‘Ad hoc dico’ are substituted for Aquinas’s ‘Ad secundum dicendum’<br />
(omitted from my translation above) (Manuale, ed. Collins, 58 n. 82).<br />
Molin and Mutembe, Le Rituel du mariage en France, 243–4, suggest that<br />
in France the changes were more substantial, though they find that at Narbonne<br />
and Saint-Pons ‘on ne supprime que la formule de b‹en‹ediction Deus qui potestate’
156 Chapter 3<br />
The evidence of the Pupilla oculi<br />
Where England is concerned, the evidence of the Sarum Missal is<br />
complemented by that of Johannes de Burgo, author of the Pupilla<br />
oculi, ‘The Pupil of the Eye’ (the title is an allusion to the earlier<br />
‘Eye of the Priest’ by William of Pagula), a late fourteenth-century<br />
priests’ manual that was influential, to judge by its wide di·usion.<br />
The Sarum rubrics etc. had probably got into the Sarum books before<br />
the appearance of the Pupilla, but the popular pastoral handbook<br />
would have reinforced the message of the liturgical books.<br />
It was in fact a practically identical message. The following passage<br />
from Johannes de Burgo is extremely close to the wording of<br />
a passage from the Sarum rubric translated above:<br />
But since several blessings are given at a wedding, that is, over the couple<br />
getting married at the entrance of the church, over a cloak after mass, and<br />
over the marriage bed in the evening, it should therefore be noted that<br />
all the blessings or prayers of blessing that are said at a first marriage,<br />
are said also at a second one—even where both spouses or one of them<br />
had previously been blessed—apart from the one that begins: OGod,who<br />
consecrated conjugal union [copulam] with such an excellent mystery up to O<br />
God, through whom woman, in which the theme is the unity of Christ and<br />
the Church which is represented in a first marriage, but not in a second:<br />
see Decretals of Gregory IX, De bigamis, the chapter Debitum.<br />
These explanations show that the symbolic rationale could have<br />
penetrated well below the level of the ivory-tower ‹elite, one of the<br />
criteria suggested above as a ground for treating it as part of the<br />
social meaning of the ritual practice. This conclusion is strengthened<br />
if one bears in mind a finding of the first chapter: that the loss<br />
rate of manuscripts was huge, for some genres of book especially.<br />
Pastoral handbooks which would lie around a parish priest’s house<br />
and liturgical books that were functional rather than for show, used<br />
(243)—that is, all three ‘O God who . . .’ clauses were suppressed, but no other<br />
words—which would bring them into line with the questions in MS BL Royal<br />
11. A. XIV.<br />
On this work see W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century,<br />
2nd edn. (1962; repr. Toronto etc., 1980), 213–14; see also introduction to Document<br />
3. 9 for further references. The author was quite an important man: chancellor of<br />
Cambridge University.<br />
‘Almost certainly . . . these rubrics, etc., were already in the Sarum books when<br />
the Pupilla appeared, having probably been introduced before 1370’ (Manuale, ed.<br />
Collins, 56 (n. 65 from p. 54)).<br />
Document 3. 9. 8:comparewithManuale, ed. Collins, 56, lines 6–end.
Bigamy 157<br />
at parish level rather than in cathedral or monastic churches, are<br />
among the genres of book that would have been vulnerable. Since<br />
the Pupilla oculi, at least, nevertheless survives in a large number of<br />
manuscripts, we can be fairly sure that its impact in late medieval<br />
England was massive.<br />
The other criterion for detecting a change in social meaning from<br />
within—an external change symptomatic of the symbolic meaning<br />
of the ritual practice—was satisfied above: the narrowing down<br />
of the prohibition, in England at least, to a few words about the<br />
marriage of Christ and the Church. So whatever the origins of<br />
the liturgical rules about second marriages, symbolism was part<br />
of their social meaning in late medieval England. Other parts of<br />
Europe deserve fuller investigation, but we must now turn to a<br />
di·erent strand of marriage symbolism’s social meaning and to<br />
married clerics in minor orders.<br />
(c) Clerics in Minor Orders<br />
Clerics in minor orders as a status group<br />
The first part of this chapter looked at men who wanted to become<br />
priests or at least to be elevated to the higher orders of subdeacon or<br />
deacon. The second part dealt with the ceremonies for second marriages<br />
of laypeople. We may now turn to a third category, a status<br />
group somewhat neglected by historians: the legimately married<br />
clerics in minor orders. Of the rungs on the ladder up to holy orders<br />
the top three were for subdeacons, deacons, and priests, in<br />
ascending order. Perched on the lower rungs were large numbers of<br />
legitimately married clerics. We have little idea how many. It may<br />
have been a substantial class.<br />
Marriage barred them from ecclesiastical benefices but not from<br />
the considerable privileges of a separate status group. One important<br />
privilege was immunitiy from prosecution in secular courts.<br />
Ecclesiastical courts did not use the death penalty, so this privilege<br />
could literally be a life-saver. Another advantage was heavy spiritual<br />
protection against physical assault: anyone who laid violent hands<br />
on a cleric was under an anathema until he sought absolution from<br />
the pope; a bishop could not absolve him; only at the point of death<br />
‘Decretals of Gregory IX’, X. 3. 3. 2 seems to say that a married cleric who<br />
vowed perpetual chastity might perhaps be eligible for benefices. Such a vow would<br />
require the wife’s consent, though this decretal does not discuss the matter.
158 Chapter 3<br />
could the rule be relaxed. Some of the documents to be discussed<br />
later on point to further advantages.<br />
Papal bulls to kings of France<br />
The first document relating to this section (Document 3. 4) is<br />
relevant to our investigation for a di·erent reason. It is a bull of<br />
pope Alexander IV, a response to a request by King Louis IX.<br />
To judge from the response, the request was uncontroversial: if<br />
married clergy committed some dreadful crime and if they had<br />
already been stripped of their clerical status for some other reason,<br />
the prelates of France should not prevent the king’s men from<br />
bringing these malefactors to justice. Even Thomas Becket would<br />
not have minded this because the criminals were not being judged<br />
twice for the same o·ence.<br />
The bull is relevant because it uses the following formula: ‘clerics<br />
who are bigamous and husbands of widows and also other married<br />
clerics’. Assuming that the papal document echoes the original<br />
request, as was normal, why did Louis IX not simply say ‘married<br />
clergy’? That would have included the ‘bigamous and husbands of<br />
widows’. Why mention them separately?<br />
The following explanation, which does not claim to be more than<br />
a hypothesis, is that he did so to give his request the most favourable<br />
spin. Bigamous clergy and husbands of widows were marginal categories<br />
whose right to ecclesiastical justice even for a first crime was,<br />
as we shall see, questioned by influential canon lawyers. By listing<br />
them first, the king would have softened any possible impression<br />
of a Church–State conflict. The phrase (which may well have been<br />
formulaic) put a ‘consensus spin’ on the request.<br />
The other papal bulls edited in the documents section of this<br />
chapter (Documents 3. 5–7) seem to do the same thing. (I continue<br />
to assume that they too echo the wording of royal requests to which<br />
they are responding.) They all say ‘married clerics whether bigamous<br />
or monogamous’,where ‘married clerics’ would have suced.<br />
Explicit mention of bigamous clerics subtly emphasized the unreasonableness<br />
of objecting, even from a high ecclesiastical standpoint:<br />
rather as if it were said today that ‘asylum-seekers who first entered<br />
the country illegally or who declared themselves at an immigration<br />
point should be obliged to carry an electronic tag’.<br />
Gratian, Pars II, C. 27, q. 4, c. 29.<br />
The original is now Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no. 296.
Bigamy 159<br />
This first point about minor orders is a modest one: a hypothesis<br />
that marriage symbolism had an indirect e·ect on French royal<br />
diplomatic practice. It presupposes the findings about ‘bigamy’<br />
and symbolism set out in the first two sections, especially the first.<br />
The sequence of thought is: marriage symbolism put ‘bigamous’<br />
clerics in a bad light so far as the Church was concerned, French<br />
kings knew this, so they put an e·ective rhetorical spin on requests<br />
to the pope by making an unnecessary allusion to bigamous clerics.<br />
The ruling of the Second Council of Lyons and its origins<br />
The next point relates to a larger issue: in 1274 ‘bigamous’ clerics in<br />
minor orders were stripped of the privileges of their clerical status<br />
by the Second Council of Lyons, a decision that had major social<br />
consequences. As should by now be predictable, the decree groups<br />
together men who had remarried after their first wife’s death and<br />
men who had married widows. As we shall see, its force could also<br />
be extended to clerics who married a woman who was not a virgin.<br />
However, a cleric in minor orders who had been married only once,<br />
and to a virgin, could continue to enjoy clerical privileges. Here<br />
we have a legal situation that makes absolutely no sense from the<br />
outside.<br />
Up to a point it can be explained by the desire of kings, especially<br />
the king of France, to extend royal jurisdiction as far as possible.<br />
(Just before the council Philip III had obtained from the pope an<br />
instruction to the French bishops to treat the ‘bigamous’ as laymen,<br />
but there had been a loophole in this preliminary document.)The<br />
death of Becket had turned the tide in favour of clerical immunity,<br />
but this does not mean that monarchs were happy with the development.<br />
Married clerics especially were less likely than beneficed<br />
priests and the like to be deterred by purely ecclesiastical justice:<br />
an excommunication by a church court could cut a man o· from<br />
the income from his benefice and block his career, but none of that<br />
applied to clerics in minor orders. In e·ect they fell between two<br />
stools if they were not subject to secular justice either. They were a<br />
potentially disruptive element.<br />
B. Roberg, Das zweite Konzil von Lyon [1274] (Paderborn etc., 1990), 319–21.<br />
Ibid. 320.<br />
For the consequences of excommunication, the great sanction of ecclesiastical<br />
justice, for benefice holders and career prospects, see E. Vodola, Excommunication<br />
in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986), 58.
160 Chapter 3<br />
Again, it is not so surprising that the papacy was compliant with<br />
the wishes of kings in relation to married clerics. Popes did not<br />
hold any particular brief for this awkward marginal category. It is<br />
likely that the celibate higher clergy generally looked down on them<br />
for having things both ways. So if the papacy had simply agreed<br />
to reclassify married clerics as subject to secular justice, adequate<br />
explanations in terms of power interests and ingrained prejudices<br />
would be at hand and one would not have to bring marriage symbolism<br />
into the account.<br />
It is clear, however, that popes did not feel they could simply turn<br />
a large category of clerics over to secular justice without implicitly<br />
abandoning the idea that only the church courts judged the clergy.<br />
That idea was clearly stronger than any prejudice there may have<br />
been against clerics who could not cope with celibacy.The popes<br />
could not abandon married clerics purely because they were married:<br />
so long as the marriage was not against canon law, they would<br />
be abandoning them as clerics.<br />
The ‘bigamy’ theory helped the popes to meet monarchs half<br />
way. It gave them a principled rationale for giving kings some of<br />
what they wanted without running the risk of conceding the thin<br />
end of the wedge. Their cooperation with kings could be quite<br />
genuinely presented as a sti·ening of canon-law principle rather<br />
than a dilution of it.<br />
In fact, a strong current of academic canon-law opinion seems<br />
to have been in favour of some such change, though it was not the<br />
only view. The commentary on the Decretals of Gregory IX by<br />
Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) was apparently written when<br />
he was already pope (incredibly enough, and an encouragement to<br />
all administrators with academic urges). He argues thus in the passage<br />
printed below as Document 3. 2. Ifaclericinminororders<br />
does something altogether contrary to his status, he loses it. The<br />
examples are: marrying for a second time or marrying a woman<br />
not a virgin; or becoming a knight and employing violence (seva<br />
exercuerit)—by which he presumably means becoming a real fighting<br />
knight as opposed to acquiring this status for the sake of social<br />
esteem, administrative oce, etc. On the other hand, if someone<br />
became the kind of knight who did not use violence or if he married<br />
a virgin, he could keep his clerical status. The fact that Innocent<br />
IV apparently assumes that one could be a knight and a<br />
Vergier-Boimond, ‘Bigamie (l’irr‹egularit‹e de)’, 872.
Bigamy 161<br />
cleric at the same time is an indication of how large this class of<br />
clerics in minor orders may have been: it could have extended far<br />
beyond the boundaries of what modern historians normally think<br />
of as ‘the clergy’. However, the immediately relevant point is the<br />
canonist pope’s conviction that it was fine to be a married cleric,<br />
but to marry twice or to marry a non-virgin was totally contrary to<br />
clerical status.<br />
The suspicion that symbolism informs this sharp distinction is<br />
confirmed if one turns to Innocent IV’s commentary on the Decretals<br />
of Gregory IX, X. 1. 21. 5, the decree Debitum of his predecessor<br />
but one, Innocent III, a key text in this history. Innocent IV was<br />
hard-headed as a canonist just as he was as a political decisionmaker,<br />
but there is nothing pragmatic about his analysis of bigamy<br />
in the commentary on this decretal (see Document 3. 3 below),<br />
which is full of symbolism. Interestingly, he uses the word sacramentum<br />
to mean something close to ‘representation’ (or perhaps the<br />
union that is represented, for as with the text on which he is commenting<br />
there is a little ambiguity). Thus carnal union between a<br />
husband and a wife is a ‘sacrament’ of Christ’s incarnation. Only<br />
in a marriage between two spouses, and not more than two, is there<br />
a representation of one Church subject to one Christ.<br />
Innocent IV asks how one gets this ‘sacrament’ out of the authority,<br />
by which he seems to mean the Genesis passage (2: 23–4)<br />
to which the Pauline Ephesians 5: 30 refers. Innocent points to the<br />
use of the grammmatical singular for ‘bone’, ‘flesh’, and ‘wife’, and<br />
to the sentence ‘they shall be two in one flesh’.<br />
Moving down the decretal he is explaining, Innocent IV comments<br />
that ‘between two only’—indicating that this is the only marriage<br />
for each partner—symbolizes the one Church subject to one<br />
husband. In a second marriage this sacramentum, representation,<br />
is lacking. Such a marriage could actually signify that a plurality<br />
of Churches were attached to one husband. He is in e·ect saying<br />
that a second marriage symbolically misrepresents the unity of the<br />
Church, an idea familiar by now.<br />
If we take together the two extracts from Innocent IV’s commentary,<br />
we can say the following. Here we have a work which enjoyed<br />
Cf.J.F.vonSchulte,DieGeschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen<br />
Rechts, ii (Stuttgart, 1877; repr. Graz, 1956), 92, on his extremely practical outlook.<br />
‘AndAdamsaid:Thisisboneofmybones,andfleshofmyflesh;...Wherefore<br />
a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; they shall be<br />
two in one flesh.’
162 Chapter 3<br />
a ‘full and general authority’ until long after the Second Council of<br />
Lyons. He is for eliminating from the married minor clergy this<br />
one category: the bigamists, men whose wife was not the first, or<br />
who had been married before, or even who had not been a virgin before<br />
the marriage. The Second Council of Lyons duly eliminates the<br />
bigamists, definitively dislodging from their status a major section<br />
of the minor clergy. This was surely not due to the pope-canonist’s<br />
individual influence alone, but he was a particularly powerful representative<br />
of a strong current of canonistic opinion. In giving his<br />
views on bigamy and the married minor clergy Innocent does not<br />
discuss its symbolic rationale, but the symbolic underpinnings of<br />
his ideas about bigamy are unmistakable in his comments on his<br />
namesake’s decree Debitum, which deals with candidates for the<br />
priesthood, rather than with the married clergy who did not aspire<br />
to rise above minor orders, but where the issue of defining what is<br />
defective about a bigamist is identical.<br />
At the risk of repetition, it should be stressed that marriage symbolism<br />
did not necessarily provide the impetus for removing large<br />
numbers of men from the privileged ranks of the minor clergy, and<br />
that the trigger for the change was probably the French king’s desire<br />
to extend his jurisdiction: but symbolism providedthe rationale<br />
for the new clear line that was drawn and determined its contours.<br />
Without the symbolism there is no reason to think that the border<br />
would have been redrawn in that way at that time, however much<br />
monarchs may have wanted to get as many individuals as possible<br />
onto their side of the legal border, and however little popes may<br />
have cared about the minor clergy as such.<br />
Consequences in England<br />
The explanation of the new borderline may lie in the realms of<br />
symbolism, but its consequences can be called brutally practical,<br />
notably in England. In no time at all King Edward I passed the<br />
‘Statute on Bigamists’, turning the council’s new ruling into Englishcommonlaw.<br />
A concrete case from the reign of Edward’s<br />
‘Man kann ihm [his Apparatus in quinque libros decretalium] in der That kaum<br />
einen zweiten Kommentar der Dekretalen als ganz ebenb•urtig zur Seite stellen.<br />
Seine innere Bedeutung und das Ansehen seines Verfassers vercha·ten ihm eine<br />
volle und allgemeine Autorit•at bis zu den Zeiten, wo eine g•anzlich unwissenschaftliche<br />
und geistlose Richtung im kirchlichen Forum den Sieg erlangt hatte’ (von<br />
Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts, ii. 92).<br />
F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of
Bigamy 163<br />
son Edward II, printed below as Document 3. 10, shows what a<br />
di·erence could be made in practice—literally between life and<br />
death.<br />
At the centre of the case is a fairly big-time criminal named<br />
John of Worcester (variously ‘Wyrettstre’ and ‘Wyrecestre’). He<br />
was apparently responsible for some major coups of robbery and<br />
burglary: for instance, he took goods and chattels to the value of<br />
£100 from a house (in London) of the bishop of Bath and Wells.<br />
He also robbed the chancellor of the exchequer, no less, of £40.<br />
These were large sums in the currency of the time, though he could<br />
have been hanged for much less, or indeed even for the attempt to<br />
rob or burgle. When John was captured, he argued that he was a<br />
cleric and exempt from royal jurisdiction. That would have saved<br />
his skin, since church courts did not have the death penalty.<br />
He would have got away with it. The authorities had an answer,<br />
however: John was a bigamist, the husband of a widow. A jury<br />
found that his wife Alice had indeed been married previously, to<br />
a man called William of Thurston who had died in the Tower of<br />
London. Despite some further legal moves, John’s last good hope<br />
was gone. He was hanged almost certainly in 1320. In a way, he<br />
was killed by symbolic reasoning.<br />
The results of the 1274 ‘bigamy’ ruling have been especially well<br />
studied for France, by G‹enestal. He relates cases which would be<br />
grist to the hermeneutic anthropologist’s mill, and which will be<br />
Edward I, ed. S. F. C. Milsom (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1968), bk. 2, ch. 2, ≈5, i. 445;<br />
L. C. Gabel, Benefit of Clergy in England in the Later Middle Ages (Smith College<br />
Studies in History, 14. 1–4; New York, 1969), 88.<br />
I must have been led to this case via Gabel, Benefit, 89 n. 108, listing references<br />
to examples of cases involving bigamy from the gaol delivery rolls. She uses an<br />
outdated numbering system, so the match is not evident.<br />
‘In neither burglary nor robbery was the value of the goods stolen of any<br />
relevance to the charge. To have taken nothing at all was immaterial; the mere<br />
attempting to rob, or simply breaking into a house with that or another felonious<br />
intent was sucient, if proven, to warrant a sentence of death’ (J. G. Bellamy, The<br />
Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England: Felony before the Courts from Edward I<br />
to the Sixteenth Century (Stroud, 1998), 77.<br />
He abandoned his last legal move on the Saturday after the feast of the Translation<br />
of the Martyr (Becket) in the fourteenth regnal year. Edward II’s fourteenth<br />
regnal year started on 8 July 1320. The feast in question falls on 7 July, so in 1320<br />
the Saturday following it was 12 July. See C. R. Cheney and M. Jones, A Handbook<br />
of Dates for Students of British History (Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks,<br />
4; Cambridge, 2000), 34, 85, 173. I am assuming the execution was not much<br />
further delayed.<br />
R. G‹enestal, Le Privilegium fori en France du d‹ecret de Gratien ›alafinduXIVe
164 Chapter 3<br />
discussed in the next chapter because they involve consummation.<br />
It will be apparent already that the topics of bigamy and consummation<br />
are closely related.<br />
There is reason to think that the implications of the 1274 decision<br />
extended beyond exemption from secular justice. We have already<br />
noted that clerical status a·orded a spiritual defence against physical<br />
attack, in that anyone who laid violent hands on a cleric could<br />
only be absolved by the pope (except at point of death). In losing<br />
that privilege, bigamous clerics, or ex-clerics as they would now<br />
be, lost a lot in their violent society. Were there other privileges as<br />
well? The matter has not been suciently studied, but some pieces<br />
of evidence suggest that there may have been. Specimens of the<br />
evidence will be discussed below, but there is an earlier decretal of<br />
Honorius III that seems to anticipate their main message. It was<br />
subsequently included in the Decretals of Gregory IX (X. 3. 3. 9),<br />
in a truncated form, but it is the fuller form that concerns us here.<br />
Interestingly, it is addressed to Berengaria, the widow of Richard I<br />
of England, who appears to be living at or around Le Mans, on<br />
lands received at her marriage.<br />
Honorius is responding to a complaint that many literati, having<br />
abandoned their clerical tonsure, entered into marriage, and<br />
involved themselves in secular business, have then resumed their<br />
tonsure and clerical status in order to avoid the customary justitiae<br />
and the due obsequia. (Others never abandon their tonsure, for the<br />
same reason.) The justitiae could simply be their subjection to the<br />
secularcourts,butwhatdoesthewordobsequia refer to?<br />
An obsequium can mean a service and also a payment. That<br />
strongly suggests that the advantages of being a cleric extended<br />
beyond legal exemption in the narrower sense of privilegium fori<br />
(the right to be tried in an ecclesiastical rather than a secular tribunal).<br />
si›ecle (2 vols.; Biblioth›eque de l’ ‹Ecole des hautes ‹etudes, Sciences religieuses, 35, 39;<br />
Paris, 1921–4), i. 62–80.<br />
Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, i. 459; Regesta pontificum Romanorum inde ab<br />
a. post Christum natum 1198 ad a. 1304, ed. A. Potthast, i (Berlin, 1874), no. 5755,<br />
p. 506; E. Hallam, ‘Berengaria’, in H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds.), The<br />
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (60 vols.; Oxford, 2004), v. 321–2; Regesta<br />
Honorii Papae III, ed. P. Pressuti, i (Rome, 1888; repr. Hildesheim etc., 1978),<br />
no. 1224, p. 202.
Bigamy 165<br />
Advantages beyond ‘benefit of clergy’: bulls to French kings and<br />
Penitentiary evidence<br />
In slightly di·erent language, Documents 3. 5–7 below suggest<br />
much the same. In these cases a pope writes to a French king who<br />
has clearly asked for the bull in question; and the bulls (1273, 1317,<br />
and 1322) follow the same pattern. The king has drawn the pope’s<br />
attention to an abuse. Clerics ‘both bigamous and monogamous’ in<br />
his land have given up their tonsure and have taken on secular jobs,<br />
acting as ‹echevins and the like in towns and other places and as baillis<br />
etc. of princes. The popes reel o· a list of names of secular oces<br />
which could involve the shedding of blood (which was forbidden<br />
to clerics). Now, we may note in passing that the king has apparently<br />
used the device discussed above of mentioning that some of<br />
the clerics are bigamous, presumably to get the pope’s sympathy.<br />
Nevertheless, it is what follows that mainly concerns us: they use<br />
their clerical status as a pretext to deprive the king of consuetae<br />
iustitiae and debita servitia, customary ‘justices’ and due ‘services’.<br />
What are these ‘services’? It sounds as though they are financial<br />
but in any case it looks like a perk for being a cleric in addition to<br />
exemption from trial in a secular court.<br />
Some much later documents about bigamy confirm the impression<br />
that the advantages of being a cleric transcended ‘benefit of<br />
clergy’ as normally understood. They are early sixteenth-century<br />
requests by bigamous clerics to the papal Penitentiary to grant dispensations<br />
so that they could retain their clerical status. Though<br />
a negative is hard to prove, it looks as though such dispensations<br />
were not part of the Penitentiary’s business much before the date<br />
of these entries in the Penitentiary registers. It is not known why<br />
the papacy started granting such dispensations around this time.<br />
There is reason to think that bishops could grant ‘bigamy’ dispensations<br />
to clerics in minor orders when there was grave cause.<br />
On the registers of the Penitenzieria apostolica seee.g.L.Schmugge,P.Hersperger,<br />
and B. Wiggenhauser, Die Supplikenregister der p•apstlichen P•onitentiarie aus<br />
der Zeit Pius’ II. (1458–1464) (T •ubingen, 1996), and K. Salonen, The Penitentiary<br />
as a Well of Grace in the Late Middle Ages: The Example of the Province of Uppsala<br />
1448–1527 (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, 313; Helsinki, 2001).<br />
I have asked excellent specialists in the pre-1500 Penitentiary (Prof. Ludwig<br />
Schmugge, Dr Kirsi Salonen, Dr Peter Clarke) if they have noticed such cases in<br />
the registers on which they have worked, and they do not remember doing so.<br />
See the following papal Penitentiary regulations relating to clerical ‘irregularity’:<br />
‘≈ Qui duas uxores simul vel successive habuerit. . . . ≈ Qui contrahit cum vidua<br />
vel corrupta . . . ≈ Et nota quod qui duxit viduam a primo viro intactam vel qui
166 Chapter 3<br />
Probably it was that or nothing until around this time. Bishops<br />
may have granted dispensations readily in straightforward cases;<br />
in cases where several ‘bigamies’ were involved, there may have<br />
been nothing to be done. For whatever reason, in the early sixteenth<br />
century characters like Five-Wife Francis (Document 3. 11)<br />
started going to the top and asked the Penitentiary. In his case<br />
his multiple ‘bigamies’ would probably have made a dispensation<br />
from the bishop impossible. Even in milder cases like our second<br />
one (Document 3. 12) the petitioner probably came to the Pentitentiary<br />
because he had failed with the bishop or knew he had no<br />
chance. The question of why these cases start to appear is in any<br />
case unimportant for the immediate purpose.<br />
‘Five-Wife Francis’, Franciscus Sola from Gerona, had successively<br />
married no fewer than five women after becoming a cleric:<br />
three virgins and two widows. Nevertheless, he asked for a dispensation.<br />
Pedro Martorel of Barcelona was only a double bigamist, so<br />
to speak. He had married a virgin after becoming a widower, then<br />
after her death he had married a widow.<br />
These two cases also imply that a bigamous cleric in minor orders<br />
lost more than just immunity from secular prosecution. To scrutinize<br />
the formulae: Five-Wife Francis asked that he might use all the<br />
‘privileges, graces, concessions, and indults [omnibus et singulis privilegiis,<br />
gratiis, concessionibus et indultis]’ enjoyed by clerics who are<br />
married for the first time, to a woman who had been a virgin before<br />
marriage. Pedro Martorel’s list is a little longer: he wants to use ‘all<br />
privileges, immunities, exemptions, graces, favours, concessions,<br />
pre-eminences, liberties, and indults [omnibus et singulis privilegiis,<br />
immunitatibus, exemptionibus, gratiis, favoribus concessionibus, preeminentiis,<br />
libertatibus et indultis]’ of such clerics. These formulae<br />
suggest that the advantages of clerical status even for married men<br />
in minor orders were multiple, and extended well beyond immunity<br />
from secular criminal prosecution.<br />
duas habuit uxores, sed mortua prima in cognita [fo. 36v] nonestbigamus...≈ Qui<br />
cum virgine contraxit si eam post adulterium cognovit . . . ≈ Qui infra sacros ordines<br />
de facto contraxit . . . [≈] Qui post votum castitatis emisssum professione regulari<br />
contenta de facto matrimonium contraxit. . . . ≈ In istis quinque casibus bigamie<br />
episcopus potest dispensare: in minoribus ordinibus tantum, propter necessitatem:<br />
xxiiii. Di. Lator [sic ms. in error] (probably Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 18) et c.<br />
Si subditus [sic ms. in error] (probably Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 17). Et Di. prima<br />
Placuit [not found]’ (MS Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. Lat. 3994,<br />
fo. 36r–v).
Bigamy 167<br />
Both these cases are from Spain. Perhaps clerical status made<br />
even more di·erence there than elsewhere. The tangible and intangible<br />
advantages of legitimately married clerics is a subject crying<br />
out for more research. One would like to know, for instance, how<br />
much di·erence if any clerical status made to secular financial obligations<br />
to local and central government in the various regions of<br />
Europe. The intangible advantages should not be forgotten either.<br />
Married clerics had a special status in the Weberiansense: they were<br />
set apart from other laypeople in their own and other people’s estimation.<br />
A first step, however, would be to investigate systematically<br />
the practical pay-o·s.<br />
The more we learn about the advantages married clerics enjoyed<br />
over other married men, the more we should appreciate the social<br />
relevance of marriage symbolism. These advantages were forfeited<br />
by remarriage, marriage to a widow, even marriage to a woman<br />
no longer a virgin, and the rationale for that was the symbolic<br />
defectiveness of the clerics’ marriage. For by the thirteenth century,<br />
when the rule about clerics in minor orders was laid down, the<br />
symbolic grounds for the rules seem solidly established.<br />
Bigamy and the Wife of Bath<br />
Chaucer scholars could learn something from reflection on these<br />
developments. Much has been written about the Wife of Bath’s last<br />
husband, Jankyn, and the ‘Book of Wicked Wives’ with which he<br />
nourished a sturdy anti-feminism. Scholars seem not to have made<br />
the following connections, of which it seems likely that Chaucer<br />
was aware. The husband in question had been a ‘clerk’ (cleric) of<br />
Oxford. The Wife of Bath had got through several husbands before<br />
him, and when the Oxford man married her he was automatically<br />
declassified from clerical status. Some of Chaucer’s contemporary<br />
readers would surely have been more attuned to these implications<br />
than modern literary scholars.<br />
‘Bigamy’ is an elegant illustration of the thesis that life a·ected<br />
marriage symbolism and marriage symbolism life. Consummation<br />
is another such case.
4<br />
Consummation<br />
(a) Consummation and the Medieval Church’s Idea of Sex<br />
Bigamy and consummation<br />
A consummated marriage symbolizes the union of Christ and the<br />
Church, an unconsummated one only the union of God with the just<br />
soul. So if a woman marries a man but never has sexual intercourse<br />
with him, and then after his death marries another man and does<br />
sleep with him, her flesh has not been divided: she is uniquely his<br />
in flesh and he uniquely hers. Thus the symbolism of the sacrament<br />
of marriage is not defective, so if she dies, the man is no ‘bigamist’<br />
and may become a priest. That is Innocent III’s argument in the<br />
decretal Debitum.<br />
Similar reasoning could a·ect the fate of married clerics in minor<br />
orders. ‘Bigamy’ would normally lose them clerical status and<br />
immunity, but if the wife’s previous marriage had not been consummated<br />
(or, according to a strict interpretation, if she had never lost<br />
her virginity), there was no problem. The man remained a cleric,<br />
out of reach of secular criminal justice.<br />
The historian of clerical privilege in France has studied practical<br />
consequences in concrete cases. There was a cleric named Imbert<br />
who had been put in a secular prison. The archbishop of Lyons<br />
demanded that he be surrendered. The royal procurator objected<br />
that he was a ‘bigamist’. The archbishop replied that Imbert’s wife<br />
had not been married before, or that if she had, the marriage had<br />
never been consummated. The procurator still thought that the<br />
presumption of law was against Imbert, and it may have been to<br />
avoid such an argument that another cleric called Perrin took an<br />
extreme precaution. Since the friends of the girl he planned to<br />
X. 1. 21. 5.<br />
I follow R. G‹enestal, Le Privilegium fori en France du d‹ecret de Gratien ›alafindu<br />
XIVe si›ecle (2 vols.; Biblioth›eque de l’ ‹Ecole des hautes ‹etudes, Sciences religieuses,<br />
35, 39; Paris, 1921–4), i. 73–4.
Consummation 169<br />
marry told him that she was still a virgin, he set in motion a formal<br />
legal enquiry to establish her virginity. It was not her virginity<br />
as such that he was worried about. He wanted to establish ‘the<br />
privilege of his tonsure’.<br />
These are quirky cases, exotic curiosities. Bizarre-seeming behaviour<br />
by people in other cultures is always a cue for historical<br />
analysis, a challenge to make sense of it by ‘thick description’. In<br />
the cases just examined, the inner logic is the rationality of marriage<br />
symbolism, and consummation is at the centre of the symbolism.<br />
The Church’s endorsement of marital sex<br />
It is worth pausing to reflect on the implications of this. The ideas<br />
and practices discussed in this chapter amount to a massive objection<br />
to the widespread assumption that the medieval Church<br />
tolerated sex only grudgingly, as a lesser evil. This modern view is<br />
so deeply embedded in unscholarly and even scholarly writings that<br />
it will probably always survive the overwhelming evidence against<br />
it, but there is no real excuse for retaining it as a generalization.<br />
There is an excuse for the misconception. Medieval religious<br />
writers were indeed ambiguous about pleasure as a motive for sex,<br />
but in the thirteenth century and after, pleasure was deemed legitimate<br />
as an e·ect of marital sex. (An analogy would be the instinct<br />
quite current today that it is natural to feel good after performing<br />
a kind act but wrong to perform a kind act in order to feel good<br />
about oneself. Their attitude was Kantian, avant le mot.) From<br />
Peter Abelard on, medieval scholasticism moved away from Augustine’s<br />
view that sexual pleasure did not exist before original sin.<br />
Grand coutumier, quoted by G‹enestal, Le Privilegium fori,i.74n.2.<br />
Here it is worth quoting P. Tox‹e, ‘La copula carnalis chez les canonistes m‹edi‹evaux’,<br />
in M. Rouche (ed.), Mariage et sexualit‹e auMoyenA^ge: accord ou crise?<br />
(Cultures et civilisations m‹edi‹evales, 21; Paris, 2000), 123–33 at 129: ‘Si les canonistes<br />
ont r‹epugn‹e ›a une conception trop spiritualiste du mariage qui ne serait<br />
fond‹e‹e que sur le seul ‹echange des consentements, ce n’est pas seulement pour faire<br />
droit ›alamentalit‹e ou aux m¥urs du temps pour lesquelles la copulatio joue un r^ole<br />
majeur, mais aussi et surtout ›a cause d’une conception symbolique, spirituelle de<br />
l’acte charnel, dans le mariage. Quoiqu’on en dise, il y a une valorisation positive de<br />
cet acte qui n’est pas n‹ecessaire ›a l’union des c¥urs (les th‹eologiens et canonistes sont<br />
d’accord sur ce point et citent l’exemple du mariage de la Vierge Marie) mais qui<br />
peut l’exprimer et aider ›a yparvenir.Lacopulatio a pour ces auteurs une dimension<br />
symbolique, spirituelle, sacramentelle, et c’est pourquoi elle n’est pas un ‹el‹ement<br />
parmi d’autres des obligations du mariage. . . . L’union charnelle seule, signifie<br />
l’union du Christ et de son ‹Eglise, indissoluble. Et c’est pourquoi l’union dont le<br />
mariage consomm‹e estd‹esormais le signe ne peut ^etre dissoute.’
170 Chapter 4<br />
Sexual pleasure was natural for humans and sex in Paradise, before<br />
original sin, would have been pleasurable. More gradually, in the<br />
period of ‘High Scholasticism’, the thought gained ground that sexual<br />
pleasure need not be wrong at all. John Gillingham’s brilliant<br />
short synthesis on twelfth-century marriage illustrates this point<br />
from sources that escape the historians of scholasticism. He quotes<br />
Matthew Paris’s formula for a proper marriage: ‘Law connects<br />
them, love and sexual compatibility’, and notes Innocent III’s<br />
advice to Philip Augustus—that ‘It was not enough to give Ingeborg<br />
the public status of a queen. He must also sleep with her,<br />
for “nothing could be more honourable or more holy than this”’<br />
(ibid.). The data about consummation’s powerful symbolic status<br />
converge with these findings.<br />
Hinduism and Catholicism<br />
In fact medieval Christianity resembled some Hindu sects in the<br />
central importance accorded to sexual intercourse as a symbol of<br />
human union with the divine. In both cases the meaning attaches<br />
to real sexual intercourse: more is involved than a literary topos.<br />
There are important anities between the Hindu and the Catholic<br />
conception of marriage: in addition to the religious meaning attached<br />
to sex, there is a common emphasis on indissolubility. A<br />
big di·erence, of course, is the medieval Church’s emphasis on the<br />
union of one to one, absolutely excluding polygamy, as the symbol<br />
of Christ’s union with the Church.<br />
M. M•uller, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus von der Paradiesesehe und ihre Auswirkung<br />
in der Sexualethik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts bis Thomas von Aquin:<br />
Eine moralgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Studien zur Geschichte der katholischen<br />
Moraltheologie, 1; Regensburg, 1954), 276–9.<br />
Ibid. 285–6; P. J. Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle<br />
Ages (Toronto etc., 1993), 82–3. Cf. e.g. the supplement to the Summa theologica<br />
of Thomas Aquinas, q. 41, art. 3–4 (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis . . . opera omnia,<br />
iussu...LeonisXIIIP.M.edita, xii (Rome, 1906), 79–80) and q. 49, art. 1 and 4<br />
(ibid. 92–3, 94–5). On Albert the Great, see L. Brandl, Die Sexualethik des heiligen<br />
Albertus Magnus: Eine moralgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Studien zur Geschichte<br />
der katholischen Moraltheologie, 2; Regensburg, 1955).<br />
J. Gillingham,‘Love, Marriage and Politics in the Twelfth Century’ (1989), repr.<br />
in id., Richard C¥ur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century<br />
(London etc., 1994), 243–55 at 251; ‘sexual compatibility’ translates ‘concordia lecti’<br />
in Gillingham’s paraphrase.<br />
M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Hinduismus und Buddhismus<br />
(1916–20), repr. in Gesammelte Aufs•atze zur Religionssoziologie, ii. Hinduismus und<br />
Buddhismus (T •ubingen, 1988), esp. 326–50.<br />
Or a symbol of his union with human nature: but this is not a separate meaning—<br />
it is the basis of his union with the Church.
Consummation 171<br />
Consummation in marriage symbolism<br />
These are points that need to be emphasized, but they lie somewhat<br />
to the side of our central theme. As in the last two chapters, the effects<br />
on law and through law on social practice will be singled out<br />
for special attention. It is appropriate to end with consummation<br />
because it is a central junction in the network of ideas explored in<br />
this book. We have just noted its connection with ‘bigamy’ symbolism.<br />
It is a common motif in the marriage symbolism transmitted to<br />
the masses by preaching, as was noted in Chapter 1. (The formula<br />
of ‘initiation, ratification, and consummation’ comes up again and<br />
again. Confining ourselves to the six texts edited in Medieval Marriage<br />
Sermons, we find it used as a basis for marriage symbolism in<br />
Jean de la Rochelle (passim), Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t (paragraphs 4–<br />
10), G‹erard de Mailly (5–7), and Guibert de Tournai (6 and 14).)<br />
The present chapter will explore more closely its intimate links<br />
with indissolubility, the theme of Chapter 2. There the e·orts of<br />
Philip Augustus to extricate himself from his marriage to Ingeborg<br />
of Denmark were briefly described. One of the lines he tried was the<br />
following: the marriage was never consummated, and she will go<br />
into a religious order, so that the marriage can be ended and a new<br />
marriage becomes possible. Pope Innocent III was unimpressed,<br />
but not because he rejected the principle. He was simply sceptical<br />
about the alleged facts in this particular case: non-consummation<br />
and the queen’s willingness to become a nun. Much of the current<br />
chapter will turn on the case law made by Pope Alexander III that<br />
the French king was trying to use for his purpose.<br />
Consummation is also central in a genre that this study has deliberately<br />
neglected as lying at some distance from social history:<br />
scholastic theology. By way of compensation two ‘questions’ from<br />
the later thirteenth-century theologian Ricardus de Mediavilla<br />
are printed below as Documents 4. 2 and 4. 3. They show the<br />
theological importance that he invests in consummation.<br />
In the ‘question’ printed as Document 4. 3 Ricardus asks<br />
whether the marriage of Mary and Joseph was perfect. From a<br />
medieval theologian one would hardly expect anything but an un-<br />
Here in a negative sense, symbolizing the stages of marriage to sin.<br />
For a good bibliography on Richard, whose biography is obscure but whose<br />
intellectual influence was great, see article on ‘Richard of Middleton’, in F. L. Cross<br />
and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd<br />
edn. (Oxford, 1997), 1396.
172 Chapter 4<br />
qualified ‘yes!’ to this question. This a priori expectation is misleading:<br />
instead we get a very qualified ‘yes’ together with a distinction<br />
between two di·erent sorts of perfection. There is perfection<br />
in matters pertaining to the essence of a thing and there are perfections<br />
that do not pertain to the essence. The marriage of Mary<br />
and Joseph had the first kind but not the second, because it did<br />
not represent the unity of Christ and Church as perfectly as does<br />
a consummated marriage. This was not just a hypothesis of ‹elite<br />
ivory-tower theology. Document 4. 6, from the Pupilla oculi, the<br />
popular fourteenth-century priests’ manual by Johannes de Burgo,<br />
shows how the idea could be di·used to a wider circle.<br />
Ricardus manages to cite the authority of Peter Lombard, who<br />
was of course the doyen of twelfth-century theologians. In fact,<br />
however, Peter’s emphasis had been subtly di·erent. The reader<br />
could come away thinking that a marriage without sex was holier<br />
than a consummated one, and that the perfect signification of a<br />
consummated marriage was secondary to that. It is a nuance, but<br />
not a trivial one. Earlier on the Lombard had said outright of the<br />
marriage of Mary and Joseph that it was holier and more perfect<br />
because it was without sex.<br />
Another of the ‘questions’ by Ricardus de Mediavilla (below,<br />
Document 4. 2) may explain why he took a di·erent view of unconsummated<br />
marriages from Peter Lombard. Here he asks whether<br />
On this issue see P. S. Gold, ‘The Marriage of Mary and Joseph in the Twelfth-<br />
Century Ideology of Marriage’, in V. L. Bullough and J. A. Brundage (eds.), Sexual<br />
Practices and the Medieval Church (1982; repr. Amherst, NY, 1994), 102–17 and 249–<br />
51. This is an honest and intelligent piece of work but leaves out some important<br />
pieces of the jigsaw, in particular Alexander III’s decision about unconsummated<br />
marriages and Gaudemet’s work on its origins (both discussed in sect. (b) of the<br />
current chapter).<br />
Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 30. 2, in Magistri Petri Lombardi Parisiensis Episcopi<br />
Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, 3rd edn., ed. Patres Collegii S. Bonaventurae<br />
[I. Brady] (2 vols.; Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 4–5; Grottaferrata, 1971–81), ii.<br />
439–41.<br />
‘Inter quos, ut ait Augustinus, perfectum fuit coniugium: perfectum quidem<br />
non in significatione, sed in sanctitate. Sanctiora enim sunt coniugia pari voto continentium’<br />
(Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 30. 2, ii. 440 Brady); ‘Sed intelligendum<br />
est coniugium perfici commixtione corporali non quantum ad veritatem vel sanctitatem<br />
coniugii, sed quantum ad significationem, quia perfectius unionem Christi et<br />
Ecclesiae tunc figurat’ (ibid., ii. 440–1 Brady).<br />
‘Hanc si secundum superficiem verborum quis acceperit, inducitur in errorem<br />
tantum ut dicat sine carnali copula non posse contrahi matrimonium, et inter<br />
Mariam et Ioseph non fuisse coniugium, vel non fuisse perfectum. Quod nefas est<br />
sentire: tanto enim sanctius fuit atque perfectius, quanto a carnali opere immunius’<br />
(Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 26. 6, ii. 421 Brady).
Consummation 173<br />
a non-consummated marriage can be dissolved by one partner’s<br />
entry into a religious order. The answer is yes. His explanation involves<br />
symbolism and is akin to his comments about the marriage of<br />
Mary and Joseph. An unconsummated marriage is still a spiritual<br />
union only. It can be dissolved when one party dies to the world by<br />
entering the religious life. This is in accordance with the meaning<br />
or symbolism of such a marriage: it stands only for the breakable<br />
union between God and the soul, not for the indissoluble union of<br />
human nature to the person of the Son of God. He cites canon law:<br />
cases decided by the pope and setting precedents.<br />
Ricardus cites two decisions by Pope Alexander III that are central<br />
to the argument of this chapter. It was the decision of Alexander<br />
III (1159–81) that an unconsummated marriage could be dissolved,<br />
really dissolved after really existing, dissolved as by a divorce<br />
in the modern sense, so that remarriage was allowed, if one<br />
partner entered a religious order. The letters are worth quoting.<br />
Neither seems to be precisely datable, so we shall follow the order<br />
in which they were inserted into the Decretals of Gregory IX. The<br />
first is addressed to the bishop of Salerno. These are the the critical<br />
words:<br />
It is true that after legitimate consent in the present tense, it is permitted to<br />
one partner, even against the will of the other, to choose a monastery (just<br />
as certain saints were called away from weddings), so long as they have<br />
not had carnal intercourse; and it is permitted to the other who remains<br />
to marry again, if he or she does not want to keep continence after being<br />
admonished to do so. For since they have not been made one flesh, one<br />
may well cross over to God, and the other remain in the world.<br />
The second is addressed to the bishop of Brescia. The wife had<br />
been excommunicated for refusing to return to her husband and<br />
X. 3. 32. 2 and 7. Though neither these cases nor Ricardus de Mediavilla’s ideas<br />
actually contradict Inga Persson’s comment that ‘Nur das kanonische Ehemodell<br />
spricht einer Ehe auch ohne copula umfassende G •ultigkeit, Perfektion und volle<br />
Sakramentalit•at zu’ (I. Persson, Ehe und Zeichen: Studien zu Eheschlie¢ung und<br />
Ehepraxis anhand der fr•uhmittelhochdeutschen religi•osen Lehrdichtungen ‘Vom Rechte’,<br />
‘Hochzeit’ und ‘Schopf von dem l^one’ (G•oppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 617;<br />
G•oppingen, 1995), 127), for although an unconsummated marriage was indeed<br />
valid and sacramental and in a sense perfect, her formula underplays the crucial<br />
significance of consummation in canon law and theology.<br />
X. 3. 32. 2, in E. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1879–81;<br />
repr. Graz, 1955), ii. 579; cf. Regesta pontificum Romanorum ab condita Ecclesia ad<br />
annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, edP.Ja·‹e, W. Wattenbach, et al., 2nd<br />
edn. (2 vols., Leipzig, 1885–8), ii, no. 14091 (9141), p. 394.
174 Chapter 4<br />
show him ‘marital a·ection’. Alexander says that she need not do<br />
so provided that the marriage had not yet been consummated and<br />
that she enters a religious order. After she has done so, the husband<br />
can remarry. The passage that matters most is as follows (note that<br />
the words in italics were in the original letter but were not included<br />
in the Decretals of Gregory IX):<br />
...sincethe aforesaid woman, though married to the aforesaid man,<br />
nevertheless has not yet had intercourse with him, as she asserts, we order,<br />
commanding you, brother, through apostolic writings, that, if the aforesaid<br />
man has not known this woman carnally, and the same woman, as we are<br />
informed by you, wishes to enter a religous order, you should—after receiving<br />
from her sucient guarantee that she should either enter the religious<br />
life or return to her husband before two months have elapsed—absolve her<br />
from the sentence which binds her, no objection or appeal being permitted,<br />
in such a way that if she enters the religious life, each should restore to<br />
the other person what they are known to have received from that person,<br />
and the husband himself, while she takes the habit, should have the freedom<br />
to remarry. Indeed, when the Lord says in the Gospel that a man is not<br />
allowed to send away his wife except on account of fornication, it is to be<br />
understood, if one draws out the meaning of the Scripture, to refer to those<br />
whose marriage has been consummated by carnal union.<br />
The possibility of remarriage is explicit in both letters, though the<br />
second would have lost clarity as transmitted in the Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX because of the omission of the words ‘should have<br />
the freedom to remarry’. There is no such unclarity in the letter<br />
to the bishop of Salerno as transmitted in the Decretals, whose<br />
gender symmetry is also important. On the other hand, the second<br />
decretal, to the bishop of Brescia, left all subsequent canonists to<br />
reflect on the idea that the di·erence between a consummated and<br />
unconsummated marriage was rooted in the Gospel itself.<br />
I follow the scholarly edition of the Decretals: see Friedberg, Corpus iuris<br />
canonici, ii, Prolegomena, p. xlv: ‘Ut vero quae inserui [from other sources for<br />
the document] a Gregoriano textu discerni possent, illa italicis quos vocant typis<br />
exprimenda curavi.’ It was unhelpful of Friedberg to hide this line, absolutely<br />
crucial for the use of his edition, in the middle of a paragraph of a lengthy introduction.<br />
The word is desponsata, which can also mean betrothed, but that meaning does<br />
not seem possible in the context.<br />
X. 3. 32. 7: Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii. 581; Regesta pontificum Romanorum,<br />
ed.Ja·‹e et al., ii, no. 13787 (8854), p. 371.
The implications of Alexander III’s decision<br />
Consummation 175<br />
Alexander III’s emphasis on consummation has long been recognized<br />
as decisive for the long-term history of marriage in the<br />
Catholic Church. Even so, there is room for clarification, since<br />
the point has not been spelt out in two of the best books on the<br />
history of marriage, one linking it too closely for complete clarity<br />
with the distinct issue of annulment on grounds of impotence (distinct<br />
because in the cases just discussed there is no indication of<br />
impotence), another just missing it out, though mentioning annulment<br />
for impotence and impediment of anity. So it is worth<br />
re-emphasizing that although all cases of impotence must have been<br />
non-consummation cases, the converse does not hold. With many<br />
non-consummation cases the ability of the spouses to consummate<br />
the marriage was not in doubt and not the issue.<br />
The idea that the marriage of Mary and Joseph was in a certain<br />
sense imperfect because unconsummated percolated down from<br />
speculative to pastoral theology. We find it in the late fourteenthcentury<br />
priests’ manual discussed above and also in connection with<br />
‘Bigamy’: the Pupilla oculi, by Johannes de Burgo, chancellor of the<br />
University of Cambridge. The passage is printed and translated<br />
below, as Document 4. 6. These remarks would have reached a<br />
relatively wide public, far beyond that of academic theologians and<br />
theology students, for it was well adapted to its task, and transmitted<br />
in many manuscripts and then later in print.<br />
It seems likely that papal case law prompted by actual situations<br />
Cf.e.g.G.H.Joyce,Christian Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Study<br />
(London etc., 1933), 428–9, 449–63.<br />
C. N. L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989), 132–3 and<br />
n. 37.<br />
D. Lombardi, Matrimoni di antico regime (Annali dell’Istituto storico italogermanico<br />
in Trento, Monografie, 34; Bologna, 2001), 30: ‘La questione di pi ›u<br />
dicile soluzione era quando una persona, dopo aver contratto matrimonio per<br />
verba de praesenti, ne contraeva un altro, con un secondo partner, e lo consumava.<br />
Quale dei due vincoli era valido? Le risposte date da Alessandro III mostravano<br />
ancora qualche segno di incertezza. In diverse decretali expresse la validit›a del<br />
primo, puramente consensuale, . . . In altre decretali, invece, Alessandro insistette<br />
sul valore della consumazione. Stabilݤ che il rapporto sessuale intervenuto tra il<br />
partner e un parente dell’altro, prima del matrimonio, impedisse la conclusione del<br />
matrimonio. O, ancora, che la non consumazione, a causa dell’impotenza di uno dei<br />
coniugi, rendesse nullo il matrimonio.’ Nothing here about the dissolution of the<br />
matrimonium ratum sed non consummatum.<br />
W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, 2nd edn. (1962;<br />
repr. Toronto etc., 1980), 213–14 (and on Johannes also above, pp. 156–7 and 172).
176 Chapter 4<br />
helped deflect theological tradition into a new channel. The following<br />
fascinating comment by Stephen Langton caught Sir Maurice<br />
Powicke’s acute eye long ago:<br />
We say that it is not our business nor is it possible to define how far<br />
[quantum] the pope can go. For who would have dared to say before the time<br />
of pope Alexander that a woman who had not consummated her marriage<br />
could transfer herself to the monastic life? Who would not have denied that<br />
the lord pope, in the light of the saying in the gospel, ‘whomsoever God<br />
hath joined let no man put asunder,’ could give dispensation in a matter of<br />
this kind? But afterwards when the decretal was issued, any man who had<br />
previously denied it would say that the lord pope could dispense.<br />
Alexander’s decision was unexpected but it did not come out of<br />
nowhere. A long tradition of thought about symbolism, consummation,<br />
and indissolubility lies behind it and makes sense of it.<br />
Alexander must have been aware of this tradition if only because<br />
it showed itself in the most influential canon-law text of his time,<br />
Gratian’s Decretum. The relevant passage is in the section on the<br />
conversion of married people to the religious life, the part of the<br />
work directly relevant to the case Alexander decided.<br />
(b) The Dissolution of the Unconsummated<br />
Marriage: From Hincmar to Alexander III<br />
‘One flesh’ and the ‘great mystery’<br />
Perhaps the ultimate origins of the developments described here<br />
lie in the ‘one flesh’ passages in the Gospels combined with St<br />
Paul’s ‘great mystery’ passage at Ephesians 5: 32. Did a marriage<br />
where the couple had not become one in flesh mirror the marriage<br />
of Christ to the Church as perfectly as after consummation? The<br />
eventual answer given in our period should not astonish us, in view<br />
of these New Testament passages, with which clerical writers about<br />
marriage were naturally familiar. Nevertheless, it was a long time<br />
before theological thought turned in this direction. The process has<br />
been traced in a fundamental and little-known paper by the legal<br />
historian Jean Gaudemet, and the next few paragraphs are largely<br />
apr‹ecis of his findings.<br />
Langton, quoted in F. M. Powicke, Stephen Langton (Oxford, 1928), 140.<br />
Pars II, C. 27, q. 2, c. 7. e.g. Matt. 19: 5.<br />
‘Recherche sur les origines historiques de la facult‹e deromprelemariage
Consummation 177<br />
Pope Leo I<br />
A key text in the story is a passage from Pope Leo I’s decretal letter<br />
to Rusticus of Narbonne:<br />
Not every woman joined to a man is the man’s wife, for not every son<br />
is his father’s heir. The bonds of marriage between free men and women<br />
follow the rule of law and are between equals, as the Lord established,<br />
long before the beginning of Roman law. Therefore a wife is one thing, a<br />
concubine is another, just as a slave girl is one thing, and a free woman<br />
another. . . . Therefore since the society of marriage was established from<br />
the beginning in such a way that it should have in it, beyond the union<br />
of the sexes, the symbol [sacramentum] of Christ and the Church, there is<br />
no doubt that a woman of whom we learn that the nuptial mystery [mysterium]<br />
has been lacking has nothing to do with marriage. Therefore, if<br />
a cleric anywhere has given his daughter in marriage to a man who has<br />
a concubine, it should not be treated as if he has given her to a married<br />
man, unless perchance that woman has been freed, and given a dowry<br />
in accordance with the law, and accorded the honour of a public wedding.<br />
One of the issues was: when is a marriage not a marriage but<br />
a sexual partnership? The question arose because in one or more<br />
cases the daughter of a priest or deacon under Bishop Rusticus’s<br />
authority had been heading for marriage with a man who already<br />
had a partner. Should the partner be counted as a wife? Pope<br />
Leo gives criteria for deciding whether this existing partner is<br />
a wife. If she is a slave who has not been freed, she is judged<br />
not to be a wife. (Why does the bishop not extend his question<br />
to daughters of laypeople too? Probably because his practical<br />
authority over marriage did not extend beyond the clergy.)<br />
Behind the assumption that a slave girl was not a wife lay the<br />
whole tradition of classical antiquity. It was taken for granted<br />
that slaves could not marry. The only way to marry a female<br />
slave was to set her free. Christianity’s doctrine of equality before<br />
God had not yet eroded this assumption. If we look forward<br />
to the Council of Ch^alons-sur-Saone in 813, we see that in the<br />
non consomm‹e’, in S. Kuttner and K. Pennington (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth<br />
International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series<br />
C, Subsidia, 6; Vatican City, 1980), 309–31.<br />
Ep. 167. 4, Migne, PL 54. 1204–5, cited by Gaudemet, ‘Recherche sur les<br />
origines historiques’, 309.
178 Chapter 4<br />
long run the Church rejected the exclusion of unfreed slaves from<br />
marriage.<br />
To return to the text. It shows that priests and deacons had<br />
daughters and were presumably still married. The discipline of the<br />
Western Church at this date was that a a man in holy orders should<br />
live chastely with his wife. One may guess at the following pattern.<br />
A man becomes a ‘cleric’ and embarks on the road to becoming a<br />
priest, relatively young. He marries and has children. On one of the<br />
ritual stages on the way to becoming a priest, the diaconate or the<br />
subdiaconate, he supposedly stops having sex with his wife.<br />
What does the sentence about the sacramentum of Christ and the<br />
Church mean? Leo implies that a bodily union is not itself enough to<br />
make a marriage. A true marriage is a mirror of the union of Christ<br />
and the Church. The signs that such a marriage has taken place are<br />
that the couple are free (freed if necessary), that the woman has a<br />
dowry (which she could not have if she were a slave and ineligible<br />
for matrimony), and a public ceremony. Sexual partnership is not<br />
enough to symbolize the mystery of Christ and the Church.<br />
Hincmar of Reims to Gratian<br />
In the ninth century Hincmar, the powerful archbishop of Reims,<br />
modified the Latin and the sense of Leo’s text to produce a completely<br />
di·erent meaning: namely, that until the couple have sexual<br />
intercourse, marriage does not properly symbolize the union of<br />
Christ and the Church. He developed this new reading in the context<br />
of a real problem, a case touched on briefly in Chapter 2. A<br />
nobleman called Stephen of Auvergne had been through a marriage<br />
ceremony with a woman when he had slept with a close relative of<br />
hers. By the rules of the time, this made it a sin to sleep with his<br />
wife. Hincmar was called in to decide what should be done. He said<br />
that the marriage could be ended. It could not be consummated<br />
morally. Until it was consummated it did not mirror the union of<br />
Christ and the Church, so it could be dissolved.<br />
Concilia aevi Karolini, ed. A. Wermingho· (2 vols.; Monumenta Germaniae<br />
Historica, Legum Sectio III, Concilia, 2. 1–2; Hanover etc., 1906–8), no. 30,<br />
i/1. 279.<br />
We may leave aside here the question of whether or when the rule about chastity<br />
was applied to subdeacons (the subdiaconate being the antepenultimate rung on the<br />
ladder of priestly orders). The requirement seems to have included deacons as well<br />
as priests more or less from its introduction.<br />
Gaudemet, ‘Recherche sur les origines historiques’, 315–18.
Consummation 179<br />
Gaudemet shows that this rereading of the text of Leo did not<br />
have any impact until the twelfth century. Then some books of<br />
church law start altering Leo’s text in the same kind of way as Hincmar<br />
had done. One of them was Gratian’s Decretum. Gaudemet<br />
is cautious about the connection between the Hincmar–Stephen of<br />
Auvergne case in the ninth century and Gratian in the twelfth. He<br />
thinks that the influence of Hincmar’s text on Gratian is not direct<br />
and that the chain of texts linking them cannot be reconstructed:<br />
too many links are missing. Nevertheless, he agrees that Hincmar<br />
was the intellectual ancestor of the text in Gratian, Pars II, C. 27,<br />
q. 2, c. 17, a transformed version of Leo the Great’s remark, that<br />
reads as follows:<br />
Since the social bond of marriage was instituted from the beginning in<br />
such a way that without sexual intercourse marriages would not contain<br />
the symbol of the union of Christ and the Church, there is no doubt that a<br />
woman whom we learn to have been without the nuptial mystery does not<br />
pertain to marriage.<br />
Gaudemet concludes his paper with the comment that the interpolated<br />
passage would ‘leave its impress thenceforward on the canonical<br />
doctrine of marriage’. He sees this as decisive in the history<br />
of the origins of the power to break a non-consummated marriage<br />
(the title of his paper is ‘Investigation into the historical origins of<br />
the power to break a non-consummated marriage’). If he is right,<br />
as I believe he is, symbolism was crucial to the reasoning behind<br />
the development.<br />
So careful and dense is Gaudemet’s wording, in fact, that one can read his text<br />
several times without being absolutely sure how much or how little he is claiming.<br />
His overall conclusion is worth quoting: ‘Doctrine commune des P›eres, le<br />
consensualisme matrimonial est scrupuleusement conserv‹e par les collections canoniques<br />
jusqu’aux ann‹ees 1123–1130. Hincmar, pour r‹esoudre une grave dicult‹e, y<br />
fait ‹echec afin de permettre la rupture d’une union non consomm‹ee. Mais le traitement<br />
qu’il infligea au responsum de L‹eon n’atteignit pas la transmission du texte<br />
dans les collections canoniques. La doctrine avanc‹ee par l’archev^eque de Reims<br />
repara^§t entre 1123 et 1130 dans une collection qui du coup interpole le texte<br />
de L‹eon. Interpolation que l’on retrouve dans le D‹ecret de Gratien et qui marquera<br />
d‹esormais la doctrine canonique du mariage’ (‘Recherche sur les origines<br />
historiques’, 331).
180 Chapter 4<br />
(c) The Social E·ects of Alexander III’s Decision<br />
John XXII and the count of Anguillaria<br />
A genuine but unconsummated marriage, then, could be broken if<br />
one spouse entered a religious order. Does it matter much to the<br />
social historian? Is it more than a minor curiosity in the history<br />
of canon-law doctrines? Did it a·ect more than a tiny number of<br />
couples, where one spouse had suddenly died before the marriage<br />
could be consummated?<br />
Here it helps to move forward for a moment to the early fourteenth<br />
century, to a concrete case that can be reconstructed in detail<br />
and casts light on the dynamics of marriages between ratification<br />
and consummation. The transcriptions from a register of Pope<br />
John XXII printed as Document 4. 4 are enough to suggest that<br />
Alexander’s decision could have serious social implications. The<br />
letters relate to a marriage between the count of Anguillaria and<br />
the daughter of Stefano da Colonna—a member of the great family<br />
which turns up repeatedly in papal history. In this case the pope<br />
badly needed Colonna’s help against his arch-opponent Ludwig of<br />
Bavaria, and may have earned it partly by intervention in the marriage.<br />
The details are summarized in the introduction to the set of<br />
documents, but the essence of the situation was as follows.<br />
The count of Anguillaria had placed Colonna’s daughter Agnes<br />
in an impossible position by postponing consummation. We have<br />
no reason to think that the count was contemplating entry into a<br />
religious order, which would have released Agnes. The only way<br />
out would be for her to become a nun herself, which was probably<br />
the last thing she wanted to do. It would also have enabled the count<br />
to marry another woman, adding insult to injury. In this case the<br />
pope helped out by putting pressure on the count to consummate<br />
the marriage and thus make it indissoluble.<br />
The case points to an unintended e·ect of Alexander III’s decision.<br />
If the consummation was postponed for any reason, the<br />
husband was left with a great deal of leverage over the bride and<br />
her family. Presumably fathers who knew their way around tried<br />
to take precautions to prevent this situation when arranging a marriage.<br />
Conversely, delay in consummating could have been a way<br />
I leave aside the question of whether any solemn vow of chastity even apart<br />
from entry into a religious order dissolved a marriage: but see P. Glorieux, ‘Le<br />
Quodlibet de Pierre de Tarentaise’, Recherches de th‹eologie anciennne et m‹edievale, 9<br />
(1937), 237–80 at 243–4. I owe this reference to Patrick Nold.
Consummation 181<br />
to put pressure on the father of the bride to pay the dowry. Thus<br />
Alexander III’s decision will have been a causal factor not only in<br />
cases where the marriage was never consummated, but also in cases<br />
where it was ultimately consummated but only after a significant<br />
time lag.<br />
Last-minute conversion to a life without sex<br />
Moving to a more idealistic level, there may have been more lastminute<br />
conversions to perpetual chastity than one would imagine,<br />
for the ideal was widely di·used in vernacular literature. It was<br />
constantly reinforced by one of the most successful stories current<br />
in the medieval West, the legend of St Alexis. It survives in many<br />
vernacular versions, in addition to the Latin ones. The core of<br />
the story is that Alexis is pressured into marriage by his father,<br />
leaves to pursue a life of poverty before consummating the marriage,<br />
returns to his father’s house as a beggar without being recognized,<br />
where he is given a sort of shelter until his death, after which he<br />
is recognized and a written explanation of his life is found in his<br />
clenched hand. According to one version, only his wife is able to<br />
remove the document.<br />
The Alexis story is famous among students of medieval heresy.<br />
According to an account of the origins of the Waldensian movement,<br />
one of the great heretical movements of the Middle Ages,<br />
surviving to this day, the founder underwent his conversion when<br />
he heard the legend of St Alexis being told by a jongleur. Itisa<br />
symptom of the story’s wide di·usion. Little though it appeals to<br />
most modern sensibilities, it could have influenced people, just as<br />
Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther apparently caused a vogue<br />
for Romantic suicides.<br />
One real-life counterpart to the story of St Alexis is the case of<br />
Christina of Markyate. Her parents put heavy pressure on her<br />
A. Gieysztor, ‘Pauper sum et peregrinus: lal‹egende de saint Alexis en Occident.<br />
Un id‹eal de pauvret‹e’, in M. Mollat (ed.), ‹Etudes sur l’histoire de la pauvret‹e<br />
(Publications de la Sorbonne, s‹erie ‘Etudes’, 8; Paris, 1974), 125–39 at 126. For<br />
a sensitive exploration of the ideas about marriage in one of the versions, see N.<br />
Cartlidge, Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100–1300 (Woodbridge etc.,<br />
1997), 77–106.<br />
Gieysztor, ‘Pauper sum et peregrinus’, 127. In the canonical version, equally<br />
interestingly, only the pope is able to take the document from his hand (ibid. 136).<br />
For two vivid retellings of the story see Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage,<br />
144–8, and R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225<br />
(Oxford, 2000), 550–1.
182 Chapter 4<br />
to marry, though she wanted a celibate life devoted only to God.<br />
They eventually got her to go through with the ceremony, but<br />
she absolutely refused to consummate the marriage. Her husband<br />
Burthred made various attempts. On one occasion she managed to<br />
dissuade him. He lost face with his friends, and on another occasion<br />
burst into her room with a group of them, but she hid. In the end the<br />
marriage was never consummated and she was able to have the life<br />
she wanted. It was just the kind of case for which Alexander III’s<br />
law was designed, though it came too late to help her.<br />
The question remains: was a time lag between present consent<br />
and consummation at all common? If it was not, the dissolution of<br />
a non-consummated marriage would seldom be an issue because<br />
most newly-weds would hardly have time to reconsider. Christina<br />
of Markyate was clear in her mind from the start that she did not<br />
want to consummate her marriage, but unless there was a time lag,<br />
second thoughts would rarely have a chance to take root.<br />
Consummation delayed because of youth<br />
In fact, however, there is quite a lot of evidence that a significant delay<br />
between marriage and consummation was normal. There were<br />
a number of reasons why this was so. One might be the youth of the<br />
couple or at least of the bride. It was common for women to marry<br />
young, not long after puberty. The bride’s parents might well<br />
prefer to keep her at home for a time, while delaying the exchange<br />
of present consent would carry with it the risk of the bridegroom<br />
changing his mind and marrying someone else.<br />
Proxy marriages<br />
Another reason might be that the words of present consent were<br />
given by proxy. It had been so with the marriage of the count of<br />
Anguillaria to Stefano da Colonna’s daughter. An earlier example<br />
is King Henry III of England’s invalid marriage to Joan of Ponthieu.<br />
When the abortive marriage was annulled long after, the<br />
reason given was that Henry and Joan were related within the forbidden<br />
degrees. This must have been known when the words of con-<br />
D. Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, Mass., etc., 1985), 103–7.<br />
See Document 4. 2 below, first full paragraph after the table of contents.<br />
The whole story is laid out in a massive papal bull, preserved in MS BL Cotton<br />
Cleopatra E. 1, fos. 194V–195R: see D. L. d’Avray, ‘Authentication of Marital Status:<br />
A Thirteenth Century English Royal Annulment Process and Later Medieval Cases<br />
from the Papal Penitentiary’, English Historical Review, forthcoming.
Consummation 183<br />
sent were exchanged. Henry was seeking a dispensation from the<br />
impediment, and dropped the attempt when the marriage ceased to<br />
seem desirable. It is significant that he nevertheless stressed during<br />
the annulment proceedings that the marriage had not been consummated.<br />
Dowry and delay<br />
Other reasons will be illustrated as the data are presented below:<br />
the bridegroom might delay consummation until the bride’s father<br />
had paid the dowry; consent might be exchanged during one of<br />
the liturgical periods when marriages could not be celebrated, or<br />
consummation postponed until after a church wedding. Whatever<br />
the reasons, there is plenty of evidence that sexual intercourse by<br />
no means always followed quickly on the exchange of consent, even<br />
though a couple were married from that point on.<br />
At least so far as Italy is concerned, the convention of a gap between<br />
consent and consummation has already been noted by some<br />
historians. Following earlier studies, Brundage notes that couples<br />
commonly had to wait until the dowry had been paid before sleeping<br />
with each other. According to another study, there might be<br />
a gap of at least a year between the exchange of present consent in<br />
front of a notary and the church ceremony. In the interval the bride<br />
continued to live with her parents, presumably without sleeping<br />
with her husband. To this one might add the throwaway line by<br />
Hostiensis, to the e·ect that it had been normal in Modena for<br />
a second, consummated marriage to out-trump a first, unconsummated<br />
one (see Document 4. 1). This comment makes no sense if a<br />
time lag had not been fairly common in the city.<br />
Three English cases<br />
These fairly firm findings can be complemented with evidence from<br />
England, at the other end of Europe. The twelfth-century Anstey<br />
Line 33 of the papal bull.<br />
J. A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago<br />
and London, 1987), 504: ‘Consummation was also frequently linked to property<br />
considerations. In Italian towns couples often initiated conjugal relations only when<br />
the dowry had been paid’ (he gives further references to works by C. Klapisch-Zuber<br />
and J. Heers).<br />
E. Hall, The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van<br />
Eyck’s Double Portrait (Berkeley etc., 1994), 53.<br />
Alluding to X. 4. 4. 5, as Patrick Nold kindly pointed out to me.
184 Chapter 4<br />
case, rather famous among historians of marriage because it established<br />
the principle that consent makes a marriage, might never<br />
have happened had there not been a long delay between present<br />
consent and consummation. The following passage is central to the<br />
history of medieval marriage as well as being directly relevant to<br />
our specific problem:<br />
As to your question concerning the sacrament of marriage, I give you this<br />
brief answer. With regard to the lady who you said was given in marriage<br />
by her father, and was returned into her father’s keeping by the man to<br />
whom she had been given until on a day appointed he should take her into<br />
his own house, I say that, if it was done by lawful consent, she was a wife<br />
from the moment when by her promise freely given she consented to be<br />
his wife. For it was not a promise for the future, but a present arrangement<br />
with immediate e·ect.<br />
Here we see a decision that present consent alone makes a valid<br />
marriage. It is also mentioned as if quite normal that the wife went<br />
back to live in her father’s house for a time. What looks like a similar<br />
arrangement is agreed in a later thirteenth-century original charter<br />
in the British Library. It is a marriage agreement, but some complex<br />
financial arrangements between the fathers of bride and groom are<br />
included in it. For our purposes what matters is a provision that<br />
the bride, Maud, would remain with her father for a year after her<br />
marriage before joining her husband.<br />
The dowry theme discussed above in connection with Italy is<br />
made explicit in a Berkshire case from the mid-thirteenth century.<br />
We read that<br />
Alexander . . . says that he did not keep any of the chattels of the aforesaid<br />
The words are purportedly those of Pope Innocent II, as quoted in a letter of<br />
the bishop of Winchester, quoted in a letter by Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury,<br />
actually composed by his aide John of Salisbury! See The Letters of John of Salisbury,<br />
ed. W. J. Millor, SJ, H. E. Butler, and C. N. L. Brooke, i. The Early Letters (1153–<br />
1161) (Oxford, 1986), 228–9. For background see Brooke, The Medieval Idea of<br />
Marriage, 148–52.<br />
‘Et por cestes choses le dit Monser Barthe’ dorra au dit Monser Robert mil’ et<br />
deux centz mars a paier, cest a saver deux centz mars lendemein de la seint Johan<br />
prochein avenir, a quen iour le dit monser Robert fera la dite reconisaunce de vint<br />
mil’ mars et deux centz mars ala seint Jake prochein suant a quen iour est acorde qe<br />
le mariage se fera entre les avantditz Robert et Maud, et deux centz mars au Noel<br />
prochein suant, deux centz mars ala Pasque prochein suant, deux centz mars ala<br />
seint Johan prochein suant, et deux centz mars ala seint Michel prochein suant. Et<br />
la dite Maud demorra en la garde le dit monser Barthe’ a ses custages un an apres le<br />
iour du mariage’ (MS BL Harley Charter 45. F. 11, lines 18–23 (unprinted so far as<br />
Iknow)).
Consummation 185<br />
Stephen from him, indeed he says that in truth the aforesaid Stephen<br />
was espoused to the daughter of the aforesaid Walter, and since the same<br />
Stephen did not want to take his aforesaid wife home after he had espoused<br />
her, until the aforesaid Walter paid him back twenty shillings that he owed<br />
him...<br />
Here a debt is the reason for the delay in consummating the marriage.<br />
A legal way to end delay: the Audientia litterarum contradictarum<br />
In such cases an enterprising spouse might have recourse to a routinized<br />
procedure at the papal court. We know about it through<br />
a formulary of the Audientia litterarum contradictarum, the papal<br />
court that dealt with routine cases which would be passed on to<br />
judges delegate. Di·erent form letters deal with several variants<br />
of the problem. Thus, the girl might refuse to join her husband,<br />
or her father might prevent her, or again the wife might use the<br />
‘Et Alexander venit et de·endit vim et injuriam quando etc., et dicit quod nulla<br />
catalla predicti Stephani ei detinet immo dicit quod revera predictus Stephanus<br />
disponsavit filiam predicti Walteri, et quia idem Stephanus noluit predictam uxorem<br />
suam postquam ipsam desponsaverat ad hospicium suum ducere donec predictus<br />
Walterus redderet ei xx solidos quod ei debuit’ (The Roll and Writ File of the<br />
Berkshire Eyre of 1248, ed. M. T. Clanchy (London, 1973), 195). I have used the<br />
word ‘espoused’ to translate ‘desponsare’, to capture the ambiguity of a word which<br />
can mean either ‘marry’ or ‘betroth’, but the use of the word ‘wife’, uxor, makes it<br />
overwhelmingly probable that the espousal had been in words of the present tense,<br />
so constituting the ‘ratification’ of a true marriage according to the Church.<br />
On the system see P. Herde, Audientia litterarum contradictarum: Untersuchungen<br />
•uber die p•apstlichen Justizbriefe und die p•apstliche Delegationsgerichtsbarkeit vom<br />
13. bis zum Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts (2 vols.; Bibliothek des deutschen historischen<br />
Instituts in Rom, 31–2; T •ubingen, 1970). The system, which cannot be<br />
described here, was a brilliant administrative creation, enabling a combination of<br />
local knowledge and central authority hard to parallel in world history before the<br />
twentieth century: though the English system of royal writs and local juries did<br />
the same over a smaller geographical area. The formulary could be compared to a<br />
register of writs in England.<br />
Herde, Audientia litterarum contradictarum, ii. 298–302. One variant (ibid.,<br />
K 155a, ii. 300–1) specifies that the marriage had been consummated. In the other<br />
variants it would appear that it had not.<br />
‘Episcopo. Sua nobis . . laicus petitione monstravit, quod, cum ipse cum M.<br />
filia . . matrimonium per verba legitime contraxerit de presenti, eadem tamen M.<br />
ab ipso non patitur se traduci.—mandamus, quatinus, si est ita, predictam M.,<br />
quod ab eodem viro se traduci libere patiatur, monitione premissa per censuram<br />
ecclesiasticam, sicut iustum fuerit, appellatione remota compellas’ (ibid., K 152,<br />
ii. 298).<br />
‘Episcopo. Conquestus est nobis . . laicus, quod, licet ipse cum M. muliere . .<br />
diocesis matrimonium legitime per verba contraxerit de presenti, tamen eadem ab
186 Chapter 4<br />
procedure when her husband would not let her come to live with<br />
him after the marriage had been contracted. All these situations<br />
imply a time lag. The Audientia evidence shows that something<br />
could be done about a time lag unwelcome to one partner, but the<br />
remedy would hardly have been rapid.<br />
The evidence that consummation did not always follow swiftly<br />
on marriage by present consent may be concluded with two cases<br />
from Spain, from the very end of the medieval period. They come<br />
from the registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary, and both read like<br />
one-paragraph novels.<br />
Cases from the papal Penitentiary registers<br />
The first (Document 4. 7) also raises complex legal issues. It was<br />
handled in 1499. The petitioner and central figure was a woman<br />
called Constance of Padilla, who was in the service of a nobleman<br />
named Bonadilla. This man seems to have taken violent exception<br />
to a marriage that she had contracted by words of the present tense,<br />
and acted before the couple could consummate it. A likely scenario<br />
is that her new husband was someone of higher social status, for<br />
whom her noble master had other plans. This would explain why<br />
the couple did not live together after getting married. If Bonadilla<br />
had been informed in advance, presumably he would have tried<br />
to prevent the exchange of consent. However, the rule that consent<br />
alone was enough for a valid marriage made it hard to stop a<br />
determined couple. Bonadilla’s solution was to force Constance to<br />
enter a Conceptionist nunnery (the Conceptionists were a branch<br />
of the Franciscan order). As we shall see, it would be crucial to<br />
Constance’s case that she had been compelled to join the Conceptionists:<br />
it was not a free choice. Nevertheless, she made the normal<br />
profession as a nun. She could not tolerate the religious life, however,<br />
and she left. By this time the man she had married by ‘present<br />
ipso contra iustitiam non patitur se traduci patre mulieris eiusdem id presumente<br />
temere impedire.—mandamus, quatinus, si est ita, prefatam mulierem, ut se ab<br />
eodem viro suo, ut tenetur, libere traduci permittat, et prefatum patrem eius, quod ab<br />
huiusmodi impedimento desistat, monitione premissa per censuram ecclesiasticam<br />
appellatione remota previa ratione compellas’ (ibid., K 154, ii. 299–300).<br />
‘Episcopo. Sua nobis B. de . . mulier petitione monstravit, quod, cum I. de . .<br />
laicus tue diocesis cum ipsa legitime matrimonium per verba contraxerit de presenti,<br />
idem tamen I. eam non curat, ut tenetur, traducere in uxorem (vel aliter: eam non<br />
curat traducere, ut tenetur).—mandamus, quatinus, si est ita, dictum I., ut eam<br />
traducere studeat, monitione premissa per censuram ecclesiasticam, sicut iustum<br />
fuerit, appellatione remota compellas’ (ibid., K 156, ii. 301–2).
Consummation 187<br />
consent’ had remarried, and this time he had consummated the<br />
union. Yet when Constance ran away from her life as a nun, he<br />
clearly wanted her still: the whole point of the case is to allow them<br />
to live as man and wife.<br />
How could this possibly be allowed in church law? One would<br />
have thought that Alexander III’s rulings stood against it: entry<br />
into a religious order would have dissolved the first unconsummated<br />
marriage, the second marriage was consummated and so<br />
indissoluble. The key to her case, however, is that she entered the<br />
order under compulsion. Becoming a nun was like getting married<br />
in that true freedom of choice was required and the lack of it<br />
made the decision void. Constance’s case was that she did not truly<br />
consent to the religious life, so that her first marriage had after<br />
all never been dissolved, with the consequence that her husband’s<br />
second marriage was invalid. The whole story makes vivid another<br />
way in which the consummation of a marriage might be delayed, as<br />
well as the interaction of Alexander’s decision in the twelfth century<br />
with social life centuries later (and with another canon-law<br />
principle: free consent before lifelong commitment to a religious<br />
order). The case was committed to judges delegate. If they found<br />
the facts to be as stated, and if her husband got his second marriage<br />
annulled, the judges were to give her the means of authenticating<br />
her marriage to any ignorant persons who called it into question.<br />
The second case (Document 4. 8) concerns a Juan Sams (?)<br />
of Burgos diocese. He had married Catherine, daughter of Juan<br />
Gomez. They did not consummate the marriage immediately, and<br />
in the interval she slept with another man. Evidently this changed<br />
everything, and ‘induced by penitence or for some other reason’ she<br />
entered the Order of the Holy Trinity. At least, she made profession<br />
of the rule of the order without entering one of its monasteries, but<br />
it must have been enough to bring her within the scope of Alexander<br />
III’s decrees. Juan Sams had got as far as getting engaged to a<br />
woman who is named in the petition. However, he wanted something<br />
to show the ignorant that he could go ahead and marry her<br />
validly. This is yet another scenario of how Alexander III’s judgment<br />
might be applied in practice.<br />
It should be clear from the above that non-consummation cases<br />
were di·erent socially, as well as legally, from impotence cases. The<br />
legal di·erence was in itself profound. Where permanent impotence<br />
could be established, the marriage would be annulled. That
188 Chapter 4<br />
would be a declaration that it had never existed. Non-consummated<br />
marriages were real marriages from the moment the words of present<br />
consent were spoken. Thus their dissolution was more like a<br />
divorce in the modern sense. (The medieval word divortium normally<br />
means either an annulment or a legal separation.)<br />
So much for the legal di·erence. The social di·erence is that the<br />
couple had probably never lived together in non-consummation<br />
cases. We have seen that a variety of situations explain why that<br />
might be so.<br />
Thus there is every reason to think that delay was a common occurrence,<br />
and consequently that the late twelfth-century decision<br />
of Alexander III opened up an option for a larger proportion of<br />
newly married couples than one might initially suppose. From the<br />
fifteenth century on the opening was widened. Reflection in the intervening<br />
period on the symbolic rationale for Alexander’s decision<br />
would open the way to a wide papal discretion to dissolve (rather<br />
than annul) unconsummated marriages.<br />
(d) Long-Term Developments<br />
Holy orders<br />
The symbolic rationale continued to work like a yeast within medieval<br />
marriage doctrine, producing practical consequences for which<br />
the thirteenth-century papacy clearly did not feel ready. Symbolism<br />
was a powerful and active intellectual ingredient, stimulating<br />
speculation by the Church’s intellectuals. In the early fourteenth<br />
century the Dominican theologian John of Naples considered the<br />
question of whether holy orders dissolved an unconsummated marriage<br />
just as entering a religious order did, concluding that a future<br />
papal decision was needed to settle the problem. A decision by Pope<br />
John XXII did in fact follow: holy orders did not dissolve an unconsummated<br />
marriage unless the man also entered a religious order.<br />
The pope’s decision marked the di·erence between the priesthood<br />
and the religious life, but perhaps left open the further question of<br />
whether a pope could change the law so that in future entry into<br />
the priesthood had the same e·ect as becoming a religious: we are<br />
on a borderland between doctrine and law here. So this flurry of<br />
In the foregoing I have plagiarized my own discussion in D. L. d’Avray, ‘Christendom:<br />
Medieval Christianity’, in P. Byrne and L. Houlden (eds.), Companion En-
Consummation 189<br />
debate led to no practical di·erence. That would come later and in<br />
a somewhat di·erent form, as will become apparent.<br />
Contrasting cases from the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries<br />
Between Alexander III’s decision in the late twelfth century and the<br />
fifteenth century there is no new substantial change in practice as a<br />
consequence of symbolic reflection. Then, after this long time lag<br />
the speculation was translated into more social change. The process<br />
seems to have begun in the fifteenth century but gathered strength<br />
in the early modern period. The fifteenth-century changes will be<br />
discussed shortly, but a good sense of the trajectory and its direction<br />
can be obtained by confronting an early thirteenth-century case<br />
with one from the early seventeenth century. The contrast brings<br />
out more clearly than a detailed narrative the di·erence between<br />
the period from the late twelfth century to the early fifteenth, on<br />
the one hand, and the subsequent period (continuing to this day in<br />
Catholic marriage law) on the other.<br />
The thirteenth-century case had come to Pope Innocent III because<br />
of its complexity and the unsolved legal problem it raised.<br />
Because it set a precedent, it was preserved in the Decretals of Gregory<br />
IX (X. 4. 15. 6), published in 1234. Innocent’s letter itself was<br />
sent on 3 July 1206. It was addressed to the bishop of Auxerre,<br />
as the ordinary responsible. The case turned on a woman who had<br />
been unable to consummate her marriage.<br />
The rules for annulments on grounds of impotence were followed.<br />
Married women inspected her to determine whether she<br />
really was unable to consummate a marriage, and concluded that<br />
she was. The bishop annulled the marriage, and persuaded her to<br />
make a promise to enter a religious order. Whether she simply made<br />
a promise, or took a solemn vow and entered a religious order, seems<br />
to have been empirically unclear to Innocent, who would go on to<br />
give solutions for either case.<br />
cyclopedia of Theology (London etc., 1995), 206–29 at 220. Dr Patrick Nold has in<br />
hand a study of the whole problem, on the basis of unpublished opinions by theologians<br />
consulted by the pope before his decision. He pointed out to me that the<br />
question related to deacons and subdeacons as well as priests. Examining the ideas<br />
of theologians consulted by John XXII, he has found interesting discussion of the<br />
putative unconsummated marriage—at Cana in Galilee—of John the Evangelist.<br />
That theme does not seem to play much part in the causal sequences studied in the<br />
present book.<br />
Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii. 706–7.
190 Chapter 4<br />
The husband apparently remarried, as he was entitled to do after<br />
the first marriage had been declared null and void. So far, so<br />
simple. Complications began when the woman encountered a man<br />
with whom she found she could have sexual intercourse. They got<br />
married (whether or not after they had slept together, the letter<br />
does not say). Her second man appears to have been the bearer of<br />
the letter to the pope, asking for the marriage to be regularized.<br />
It was not to happen. Innocent evidently felt that his hands were<br />
tied by the principle of indissolubility. He could not decide the case<br />
on sympathy, and drive a wedge through the whole principle of the<br />
unbreakability of marriage. He therefore gave a decision that would<br />
bear hard on the woman, who had apparently found happiness.<br />
Characteristically, Innocent’s analysis was like a precision tool.<br />
The annulment had been based on an empirical conclusion subsequently<br />
falsified. The court had thought the woman was frigid,<br />
unable to have intercourse with a man, and that had been proved<br />
wrong. Consequently, the court’s verdict had to be reversed. Ecclesiastical<br />
courts, even the papal court, were not deemed infallible<br />
in annulment cases, any more than we think our secular courts are<br />
infallible. The judges had to decide as best they could on the evidence.<br />
They did not have the power to make a marriage invalid,<br />
any more than a judge now has the power to make a man guilty<br />
of murder. They could only declare the proven truth as they saw<br />
it. If they were proved wrong afterwards, the judgment had to be<br />
reversed. That would reinstate the first marriage, with one proviso.<br />
The proviso is the rule that entry into a religious order dissolves<br />
an unconsummated marriage. If the woman had really done that,<br />
Innocent reasons, then the first marriage was dissolved. This would<br />
not be an annulment, for it would have been a real valid marriage,<br />
and a null marriage is a marriage existing only in appearance, but<br />
still the marriage would cease to be one. On that assumption the<br />
first man was free to stay with his new wife. On the other hand,<br />
the woman would not be free to remarry because she would have<br />
taken a vow of perpetual chastity. So her second marriage would be<br />
invalid.<br />
On the other hand, Innocent is far from sure whether the woman<br />
did more than promise to enter a religious order. He clearly thinks<br />
A small caveat here. One never knows exactly what lies behind such legal cases.<br />
It is conceivable that the woman and her second husband actually wanted that<br />
marriage declared null and the first reinstated. But it does not seem likely.
Consummation 191<br />
she may have stopped short of actually committing herself solemnly<br />
to that life. If she did not make such a commitment, the picture<br />
changes, and the first marriage is not after all dissolved. If the first<br />
marriage is reinstated, the original couple find that they are married<br />
after all. Both have to leave their current partner.<br />
It was a hard decision for the parties, one must imagine. On the<br />
face of it, no one ended up with the desired partner. But we need<br />
to look at the situation from Innocent’s point of view: he could<br />
not change his ethical principles because of a hard case, or let the<br />
hard case make a bad law. The rationality of the pope’s decision can<br />
hardly be questioned, within the terms of his own ethical and religious<br />
system. The judgement of impotence had been mistaken, and<br />
even an unconsummated marriage could not be dissolved except by<br />
undertaking a solemn vow of chastity.<br />
If we move fast forward four centuries we find a similar case<br />
treated di·erently: the principles of Innocent have not been jettisoned,<br />
in fact a style of reasoning dear to him has been at work, but<br />
the outcome has been to create more room for man¥uvre. The case<br />
was decided by the ‘Congregationof the Council’, a body which was<br />
responsible for implementing the decrees of the Council of Trent<br />
and whose activity curiously parallels the stream of papal case law<br />
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. (The ideal-type which elucidates<br />
both phenomena is that reform legislation requires concrete<br />
clarification.) It is reported by the interesting seventeenth-century<br />
theologian and canon lawyer Jacob Pignatelli.<br />
The case concerned a Spanish couple, Garcܤa de Vargas and<br />
Elizabeth de Lezano. They got married when he was 16 and she was<br />
14, but she found herself unable to consummate the union. As with<br />
the thirteenth-century case from Auxerre, she was examined by<br />
matrons who confirmed that she was too ‘narrow’ for intercourse.<br />
The bishop seems not to have waited for the usual three years<br />
of cohabitation (to test whether the impotence was permanent)<br />
before judging the case. The marriage annulled, the man married<br />
another woman. Evidently she died, so he married again. Then<br />
that wife died, and so he married yet again; Garcܤa seems to have<br />
J. Pignatelli, Consultationes canonicae, i (Venice, 1736), consultation 148, pp.<br />
184–6 at 186. I was led to this important source by Joyce, Christian Marriage,<br />
446 n. 2. On Pignatelli see H. Hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae Catholicae<br />
theologos exhibens aetate, natione, disciplinis distinctos, 3rd edn. (5 vols.; Innsbruck,<br />
1903–13; repr. New York, n.d.), iv. Aetas recens: Seculum secundum post celebratum<br />
Concilium Tridentinum. Ab anno 1664–1763 (1910), 264–5.
192 Chapter 4<br />
been unlucky with his marriages. By the time the case came to the<br />
Congregation of the Council, Elizabeth was 30. It seems that time<br />
had cured the problem of narrowness, and now she wanted to marry<br />
and have children.<br />
The case is virtually the same as the previous one from the thirteenth<br />
century, except that no mention is made by Pignatelli of<br />
entry into a religious order. For Innocent III there would presumably<br />
have been only one answer: the annulment had been granted<br />
in error, the first marriage thus remained valid, and so Garcܤa must<br />
give up his current wife and return to Elizabeth.<br />
Instead we get a di·erent outcome. The local bishop is told to<br />
make sure that the whole story is correct. On that assumption,<br />
the congregation grants a dispensation to dissolve the marriage,<br />
provided that this is what both Elizabeth and Garcܤa want.<br />
A new kind of reasoning about non-consummation cases lies behind<br />
this outcome. For Innocent III there were two straightforward<br />
questions: was the woman really unable to have sex, and had<br />
she taken a vow of perpetual chastity as a nun? In the early modern<br />
period the calculations become much more complicated. They<br />
come under Max Weber’s much-misunderstood rubric Zweckra-<br />
‘Concinit alia declaratio in una Seguntina, in qua narrabatur, quod alias fuerat<br />
contractum, matrimonium inter Garziam de Vargas in aetate sexdecim annorum, et<br />
Elisabetham de Lezano annorum quatuordecim, et quod mulier reperta est arcta, ita<br />
ut a matronis post inspectionem relatum fuerit eam ad hujusmodi matrimonium esse<br />
inhabilem. Unde Ordinarius non expectata triennali cohabitatione, matrimonium nullum<br />
declaravit, et viro licentiam dedit, ut aliam uxorem duceret, prout successive cum<br />
duabus aliis fecit, et prolem suscepit, et de praesenti cum secunda uxore vivit. Quoniam<br />
vero dictam Elizabeth annorum triginta, et grandior e·ecta nunc a viro cognosci<br />
potest, ut matronae, quae illam inspexere, referunt, cupiens esse mater supplicat pro<br />
dispensatione, ut matrimonium cum alio contrahere posset’ (Pignatelli, Consultationes<br />
canonicae, loc. cit.).<br />
‘Die 12. Septembris 1609. Sacra, etc. censuit, hujusmodi dispensationem esse<br />
concedendam. Id est committendum Episcopo, ut si sibi constiterit Elisabetham hodie esse<br />
cognoscibilem, veraque esse caetera in supplicatione narrata, atque etiam tam ipsam quam<br />
Garziam, a quo post matrimonium per verba de praesenti contractum, tanquam arcta<br />
per sententiam dinitivam separata fuit, concorditer supplicare, petitam dispensationem<br />
concedat’ (ibid.).<br />
E. Saurwein, Der Ursprung des Rechtsinstituts der p•apstlichen Dispens von der<br />
nicht vollzogenen Ehe: Eine interpretation der Dekretalen Alexanders III. und Urbans<br />
III. (Analecta Gregoriana, 125, Series Facultatis Iuris Canonici, Sectio B, 43; Rome,<br />
1980), argues that the principle that non-consummated marriages might be dissolved<br />
for reasons other than entry into a religious order was already embodied in the<br />
legislation of Alexander III. That view has much to be said for it, but it can take<br />
a long time before an implicit consequence is fully realized and translated into<br />
practice, and Innocent III certainly does not seem to have felt ready to do so.
Consummation 193<br />
tionalit•at: the weighing up of causes and e·ects, pros and cons, in a<br />
space left free, but yet usually (as here) defined and constrained by<br />
values. Pignatelli gives us an imaginary illustration at the beginning<br />
of the same ‘consultation’.<br />
A young couple who have barely reached sexual maturity get<br />
married. The husband’s parents were not informed and are enraged<br />
on finding out. Great hostility between them and the wife’s<br />
parents ensues, and the couple themselves become hostile towards<br />
each other. There is more. The man is unable to consummate the<br />
marriage, though they live together for five months and he tries<br />
hard to do it. Moreover, it turns out that he is subject to insane<br />
rages. This mental instability and the hatred that he has now conceived<br />
for his wife lead her to fear that he might kill her, and so she<br />
leaves him. There seems no hope of resolving the situation. The<br />
anger on all sides only increases. Can the marriage be dissolved?<br />
Note that the obvious solution, annulment on grounds of impotence,<br />
seems ruled out by the fear for the woman’s physical safety.<br />
The medieval Church was quite happy with the idea of a legal<br />
separation, but it would condemn her to lifelong celibacy, for the<br />
couple had not cohabited long enough for his impotence to be<br />
proved in canon law.<br />
Pignatelli concludes that dissolution of the marriage by papal<br />
‘Zweckrational handelt, wer sein Handeln nach Zweck, Mitteln und Nebenfolgen<br />
orientiert und dabei sowohl die Mittel gegen die Zwecke, wie die Zwecke<br />
gegen die Nebenfolgen, wie endlich auch die verschiedenen m•oglichen Zwecke<br />
gegeneinander rational abw•agt . . . Absolute Zweckrationalit•at des Handelns ist<br />
aber . . . nur ein im wesentlichen konstruktiver Grenzfall’ (M. Weber, Wirtschaft<br />
und Gesellchaft: Grundri¢ der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. J. Winckelmann, 5th rev.<br />
edn. (3 vols.; T •ubingen, 1976), i. 13).<br />
‘Quidam juvenes optimates, vix pubertatem excedentes matrimonium per verba<br />
de praesenti contraxerunt, insciis viri parentibus, quorum indignatio tanta fuit, ut<br />
inter illos, et parentes uxoris, ac deinde inter ipsos conjuges odium immane, et<br />
crudele exortum fuerit, ac propterea magnus timor accesserit scandalorum, et infelicis<br />
exitus matrimonii absque spe remedii. Item vir spatio quinque mensium<br />
quibus cum conjuge post celebratum matrimonium cohabitavit, detectus fuit nedum<br />
impotens, eo quia matrimonium, quamvis studiose operam copulae dederit,<br />
consummare non potuit, verum etiam furiosus, et talia furoris habere intervalla, ut<br />
probabiliter dubitaretur, quod hujusmodi furore aliquando correptus, juncto odio<br />
penitus insito, eandem uxorem esset occisurus, quam ob causam se separarunt.<br />
Furor autem viri, et odium diuturnum tam inter ipsos conjuges, quam inter eorum<br />
parentes, et consanguineos nequit vel precibus mitigari, vel tempore, communique<br />
utilitate deponi, vel vetustate sedari: quinimmo in dies magis magisque discordia<br />
ira acerbior, intimo odio, et corde obstinato concepta exardescit. Quapropter consensu<br />
omnium exposcitur ejusdem matrimonii dissolutio’ (Pignatelli, Consultationes<br />
canonicae, consultation 148, p. 184).
194 Chapter 4<br />
dispensation is justified in view of the serious circumstances he<br />
has outlined. His reasoning is of the sort that modern secular<br />
divorce court judges might use. On the one hand, to dissolve a<br />
marriage is a grave thing, not to be done without powerful reasons;<br />
but on the other hand, the reasons are weighty, for the marriage has<br />
irretrievably broken down, and is the source of great animosity. For<br />
a consummated marriage such reasoning would be inconceivable in<br />
this tradition.<br />
The reasons are set out why consequences can be weighed with<br />
unconsummated marriages while pure principle rules the law on<br />
consummated marriages. God gave a dispensing power to his vicar<br />
in matters which are inferred remotely rather than proximately<br />
from the principles of natural law and which contain an element of<br />
human rather than divine regulation; at least where ratified (nonconsummated)<br />
marriages are concerned, the power is a way of<br />
putting an end to scandals and strengthening peace in the state;<br />
after all, the signification of marriage is incomplete before consummation;<br />
before that it merely stands for the union of God and<br />
the soul through charity, but afterwards, Christ’s union with the<br />
Church; the Lord’s saying (Matt. 19: 6) that ‘What God has joined<br />
together, let no one put asunder’ comes after the words ‘and they<br />
will be two in one flesh’; again, St Paul’s reference in Ephesians 5 to<br />
‘the great sacrament’ comes after the words ‘they will be two in one<br />
flesh’; then Pignatelli quotes the passage of Leo the Great which<br />
was analysed in the first half of this chapter, naturally in the form<br />
which made the commingling of the sexes a sort of sine qua non of<br />
marriage’s proper representation of Christ and the Church. It is<br />
Ibid., passim, esp. pp. 185–6.<br />
I am paraphrasing the following passage: ‘Quod attinet ad potestatem Pontificis<br />
dispensandi non est dubitandum ex communi Canonistarum sententia, qui omnes,<br />
uno vel altero discrepante, docent, posse Summum Pontificem potestate quidem<br />
ordinaria matrimonium ratum ex causa dirimere. Quia Pontifex potest divina authoritate<br />
dispensare in aliquibus, quae non deducuntur proxime ex principiis juris<br />
naturae, sed remote, et quae habent admixtum aliquid obligationis humanae. Credibileque<br />
omnino est, Deum suo Vicario hanc potestatem contulisse, quae regimini<br />
Ecclesiae necessaria erat. Nam hac ratione, saltem in matrimoniiis ratis, multa scandala<br />
cessant, pax in Republica stabilitur, sine qua matrimonium est pactio servitutis.<br />
Quandoquidem matrimonii Sacramentum, quoad significationem non est completum<br />
usque ad carnalem copulam inclusive; ita quod matrimonium contractum sive<br />
ratum significet conjunctionem Dei ad animam per charitatem, consummatum vero<br />
conjunctionem Christi ad Ecclesiam. Prima autem conjunctio est solubilis, non secunda;<br />
ideoque matrimonium ratum solvi potest, non vero consummatum. Unde<br />
Dominus, Matth. 19. non dixit: Quos Deus [p. 185] conjunxit homo non separet, nisi
Consummation 195<br />
consummation with its attendant symbolism that takes indissolubility<br />
from the realm of calculated consequences into the realm of<br />
unshakeable principle.<br />
The fifteenth century: from theory to practice<br />
We have noted several milestones in the history of consummation:<br />
prelates judging cases where theological theory intersected with<br />
concrete social practice and developed in consequence. Hincmar of<br />
Reims was one such milestone and Alexander III another. Somewhere<br />
in the four hundred years between the two cases narrated<br />
at the start of this section there must have been another milestone.<br />
Quite probably it was Martin V (1417–31), the first pope after the<br />
Great Schism. George Joyce noted long ago a claim by St Antoninus<br />
of Florence to have seen bulls by Martin V and Eugenius IV<br />
which actually exercised the power to dissolve unconsummated<br />
marriages. Much more recently direct evidence of real cases from<br />
Martin V’s pontificate was brought to light by K. A. Fink. The<br />
second of the two cases he printed may not have been successful<br />
(ibid. 436), and the third could have been reformulated as a case<br />
for annulment on grounds of defective consent, but the first and<br />
earliest case is a perfect example, and everything suggests that it<br />
would have gone through if the facts stated were borne out by the<br />
investigation that the pope entrusted to the bishop of Augsburg.<br />
The events to be investigated took place in Munich, or at least<br />
that was the home town of the protagonists, Stefan Puetrich and<br />
Ursula, daughter of Heinrich Part. According to the documents,<br />
the story is as follows. The couple were from important families,<br />
post illa verba: et erunt duo in carne una. Et Apostolus ad Ephes. 5 non dixit hoc<br />
Sacramentum magnum in Christo, et Ecclesia, nisi post illa verba Et erunt duo in<br />
carne una. Et ideo Leo Pontifex, inquit, ut referunt Magister in 2 d. 1etGratian.27<br />
q. 1 Societas nuptialis ita est a principio instituta, ut praeter commixtionem sexuum non<br />
habeat Christi, et Ecclesiae Sacramentum. Textusestin cap. Ex publico, ubi Gloss. v.<br />
Consummatum de convers. conjug.’ (ibid., pp. 184–5).<br />
Joyce, Christian Marriage, 434. Joyce’s treatment of the whole matter, in his<br />
ch. 10, is as usual remarkably well informed.<br />
K. A. Fink, ‘Fr•uhe urkundliche Belege f•ur die Aufl•osung des matrimonium<br />
ratum consumatum durch p•apstliche Dispensation’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung<br />
f•ur Rechtsgeschichte, 77[Zeitschrift f•ur Rechtsgeschichte, 90], kanonistische Abteilung,<br />
46 (1960), 434–42.<br />
‘licet ad iussum matris sue purum emisit consensum, ipsa tamen corde et animo<br />
semper dissensit’ (ibid. 441).<br />
Fink prints all the documents he found bearing on the case, ibid. 437–9.
196 Chapter 4<br />
since the three dukes of Bavaria would intervene with the pope to<br />
try to obtain a resolution after the marriage had gone sour, emphasizing<br />
the power of the two families involved and the danger<br />
to peace resulting from the break-up. The couple had got married<br />
by present consent but had not immediately started living and<br />
sleeping together. (As we have seen, there was nothing abnormal<br />
about this.) Before that could happen, Stefan had a nasty shock:<br />
it turned out that Ursula was very pregnant. He knew he could<br />
not be the father. In fact she gave birth to a child only about five<br />
weeks after the marriage. How he had failed to notice her condition<br />
is not explained. Perhaps she dressed carefully and perhaps<br />
he assumed she had a full figure. When the truth came out he was<br />
apparently enraged, and refused to proceed to solemnize the marriage.<br />
(This presumably means that the church service had been<br />
held over after the exchange of present consent, fitting a pattern<br />
of marriage–delay–church service–consummation.) He would not<br />
accept her as his bedfellow (conthoralem). Relations between the<br />
two powerful families became so bad that deaths and injuries were<br />
feared. It is the kind of story that historians are tempted to tell with<br />
a smile on their lips, but the humiliation and anger cannot have<br />
been amusing for anyone involved.<br />
Could the pope provide a solution? There was no case for an annulment<br />
here: undisclosed pregnancy was not among the grounds<br />
deemed sucient to vitiate consent. The pope’s preferred solution<br />
was for Stefan or Ursula or both to enter a religious order, thus dissolving<br />
the marriage in the by now time-honouredway. He realized,<br />
however, that this might not be acceptable to either of them. He was<br />
therefore prepared to dissolve the marriage on his own authority,<br />
once he was assured that both parties wanted that.<br />
The symbolic rationale: William of Pagula<br />
The symbolic rationale for this remarkable power may by this time<br />
have become a commonplace in theory. In the extract printed here<br />
as Document 4. 5, from the fourteenth-century priests’ manual<br />
by William of Pagula, a work in a pastoral genre drawing on both<br />
theology and canon law, we find a cautious intermediate position,<br />
before stating the by now familiar symbolic reasons: ‘A marriage<br />
See the classic unpublished thesis by L. E. Boyle, ‘A Study of the Works<br />
Attributed to William of Pagula: With Special Reference to the Oculus sacerdotis<br />
and Summa summarum’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1956).
Consummation 197<br />
can be dissolved before the consummation of the marriage, say by<br />
entering a religious order’ (emphasis added). The single word ‘say’<br />
(puta) has large implications. It indicates that entry into a religious<br />
order may not be the only reason for dissolving an unconsummated<br />
marriage.<br />
It is probably significant that William of Pagula was a trained<br />
canon lawyer. The influence of canon lawyers was surely central<br />
in the development we have analysed, for by and large canonists<br />
admitted the theory behind Martin V’s decision long before<br />
his pontificate, whereas the weight of theological opinion seems to<br />
have been rather against it. This might seem like a stereotyped<br />
clash between pragmatic lawyers and idealistic theologians, but in<br />
fact the canon-law reasoning is highly theological, and furthermore<br />
symbolically theological. The analysis of the views about ‘bigamy’<br />
of Hostiensis should have prepared us for this. He is perhaps the<br />
best person to analyse in this connection too, for his influence and<br />
reputation were enormous—he even gets a mention in Dante’s Paradiso<br />
(12. 82–97). His opinion would have carried great weight<br />
with subsequent canon lawyers and popes.<br />
The symbolic rationale in detail: Hostiensis<br />
A remarkable passage is printed below as Document 4. 1. It follows<br />
a long and complex discussion in which symbolism also figures<br />
largely, but to follow its twists and turns would be a distraction from<br />
the central points stated in the passage selected. This passage has its<br />
twists and turns too: sometimes the canonist narrows the focus to<br />
dissolution by entry into an order, at other moments he is thinking<br />
about the general power to dissolve, but really he seems to have both<br />
in mind. Hostiensis concludes, towards the end of the analysis, that<br />
the pope has the power to dissolve unconsummated marriages provided<br />
that the partners consent. The implication is that he can do<br />
this with his ‘unbounded’ (absoluta) power even without a special<br />
reason. However, the rule that a marriage can be dissolved before<br />
consummation by one partner’s entry into a religious order is a<br />
much more normal thing, coming within the pope’s bounded (ordinata)<br />
power. Hostiensis assimilates this to the papacy’s power to<br />
Joyce, Christian Marriage, 431–6 (noting important exceptions in each camp).<br />
Pointed out by J. A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London etc., 1995), 214.<br />
For Hostiensis’s discussion of the issue in his other synthesis, the Summa aurea,<br />
see Joyce, Christian Marriage, 432–3.
198 Chapter 4<br />
tighten or relax impediments to marriage, saying that a particular<br />
cardinal whom he names had convinced him of this. Keeping the<br />
focus for the moment on the rule about entry into a religious order,<br />
he argues that the unconsummated marriage symbolizes only the<br />
marriage of God and soul through charity. (At this point he makes<br />
explicit his debt to Innocent III’s decretal Debitum (X. 1. 21. 5),<br />
which keeps turning up in the history of marriage symbolism as a<br />
social force.) The union of God and soul is not diminished but enhanced<br />
by entry into a religious order, he argues. This he links with<br />
another thought: the Virgin Mary was able to be Joseph’s spouse<br />
and at the same time truly married to God. The implication is that<br />
this was possible because the marriage of Mary and Joseph was unconsummated.<br />
The parallel lines between symbol and symbolized<br />
seem to come together in these points about virginity and marriage<br />
to God. Probably he is breaking some basic rule of symbolic<br />
discourse, but in any case his train of thought moves o· again to<br />
the power of the Church to dissolve unconsummated marriages not<br />
only because of entry into a religious order, but for any just cause. Is<br />
this against Scripture—‘What God has joined together let no man<br />
put asunder’? No, because that commandment refers to consummated<br />
marriages. Where a marriage is not consummated, we (here<br />
he is speaking as if with the pope’s voice) can decree what we like<br />
about it. In practice the pope should use his bounded rather than<br />
his unbounded power and only dissolve such marriages for a good<br />
reason: laxity is not what Hostiensis wants. He is envisaging the<br />
weighing of consequences or arguments: to outweigh the great undesirability<br />
of ending a marriage, there should be proportionately<br />
strong reasons. If, however, the marriage has been consummated,<br />
the situation is transformed because it symbolizes something that<br />
cannot be broken. To suggest that a consummated marriage could<br />
be dissolved by entry into a religious order is like suggesting that<br />
another faith or Church might replace the one Christ married, and<br />
this suggestion would be heretical.<br />
It is a strong statement: divorce and remarriage after consummation<br />
would be like Christ discarding the Church and replacing<br />
it with a new one. Throughout the passage symbolism is decisive.<br />
Is this just a rhetorical ornament? Far from it: Hostiensis seems to<br />
take it with extreme seriousness. Without the symbolic rationale,<br />
the law could have been left with a fossilized rule: entering a religious<br />
order ends an unconsummated marriage. With the symbolic
Consummation 199<br />
argument, the intellectual situation was still fluid, leaving open<br />
the possibility of a further crystallization of practical law in the fifteenth<br />
century. Marriage symbolism in Hostiensis and the tradition<br />
he represents is not a discourse of mysticism or a literary trope, and<br />
it goes far beyond the allegorical interpretation of Scripture that<br />
we find everywhere in medieval and patristic writings. As has been<br />
argued throughout, it is a force capable ultimately of shaping social<br />
practice, as we have seen it was in the case of indissolubility and<br />
‘bigamy’.
Conclusion<br />
Synopsis<br />
Behind all the detail, this book has developed some simple and<br />
straightforward ideas which can be summarized in a small space as<br />
a series of propositions.<br />
Marriage symbolism is common in many religions. There are<br />
some close parallels between medieval marriage symbolism and<br />
the marriage/love symbolism of Hinduism in particular, but the<br />
parallels are still closer with the ancient Hebrew idea of the people<br />
of Israel as spouse of God, an idea which was of course a lineal<br />
ancestor of Christian marriage symbolism.<br />
Marriage symbolism was not preached to a mass public in the<br />
early Middle Ages. Preaching became a system of mass communication<br />
in the age of the friars and marriage symbolism was highly<br />
developed in a genre of preaching from the thirteenth century onwards.<br />
Only then did preaching about marriage symbolism reach<br />
a huge public and become a social force in the same kind of way<br />
that radio is today (that is, not so powerful as television, but still<br />
a mass medium to be reckoned with). In marriage preaching the<br />
symbolism rested securely on a literal-sense idea of marriage as<br />
good and holy.<br />
Augustine of Hippo developed remarks from the New Testament<br />
into a strongly stated theology of marriage symbolism, deriving<br />
indissolubility from the analogy between human marriage and the<br />
union of Christ and the Church. A wide gulf separated this theory<br />
from social practice for centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages<br />
it had turned into a social force underpinning the unbreakability of<br />
the marriage bond.<br />
Marriage symbolism conditioned the rules about who could become<br />
a priest. It changed the meaning of wedding ritual from<br />
within. In the thirteenth century it helped reclassify a class of minor<br />
clerics as laymen.<br />
Consummation was central to the idea of marriage in the later<br />
medieval centuries. Symbolic reasoning going back to Hincmar
Conclusion 201<br />
of Reims lay behind Pope Alexander III’s judgement that a nonconsummated<br />
marriage could be dissolved by the entry of one partner<br />
into a religious order. This decision had a social impact. Symbolic<br />
reflection continued in its wake, eventually enabling popes<br />
to dissolve unconsummated marriages in the light of instrumental<br />
calculation.<br />
Disclaimers<br />
There have been so many studies of medieval marriage in recent<br />
years that in this book it has been possible to develop an argument<br />
and present fresh data without writing a general history of the<br />
subject to provide context and balance. The general books that are<br />
available complement each other well, so the danger of imbalance is<br />
diminished. Ideally, this book would be read after or together with<br />
Brooke’s Medieval Idea of Marriage, which looks at the subject<br />
from many angles, without concentrating on one single thesis. The<br />
present study is, however, monographic, not monocausal. I am not<br />
saying that symbolism is all that mattered in the social history of<br />
medieval marriage, far from it. Symbolism deserves a central place<br />
in medieval marriage’s social history, not the central place (if such<br />
exists). I have merely tried to show how powerful symbolism was<br />
even outside the areas studied by historians of religious thought.<br />
The main vehicles of symbolism’s power in the world, the world<br />
outside texts, were preaching and law, both of which a·ected all<br />
social classes and both genders (even the law being gender-symmetrical<br />
to a greater degree than with the other great systems of<br />
sacred law). Nevertheless, it seems likely that di·erent classes and<br />
genders were a·ected in di·erent ways. Again, one would expect<br />
urbanization to a·ect the overall picture. The evidence I have found<br />
is, however, too patchy to pursue these lines of investigation systematically.<br />
I hope someone in the future may do better.<br />
So far as gender is concerned, this study has not contributed<br />
much to the recent but already distinguished tradition of analysing<br />
symbolism in gender terms. There are reasons. The Church as<br />
bride of Christ is composed of men as well as women. The soul<br />
as bride of Christ is the soul of a man as much as the soul of a<br />
woman. The bride can stand for Christ and the bridegroom for the<br />
Church. This in itself diminishes the impact of the symbolism on<br />
real gender relations. Furthermore, the point of the symbolism ana-<br />
The analogy between Christ and the Church could be taken both ways: Christ
202 Conclusion<br />
lysed throughout this book is not about gender specificity so much<br />
as unity and indissolubility. Some of the texts used in this study<br />
could certainly bear a little more gender analysis in the context of<br />
a di·erent investigation, but it might be somewhat peripheral to<br />
their principal significance.<br />
Narrative<br />
It is an interesting exercise to rerun in pr‹ecis form the preceding<br />
(primarily) analytical and social history as a narrative, including<br />
the ‘great men’. An obvious starting point would be Augustine of<br />
Hippo, c.400. With clarity and force he linked marriage symbolism<br />
and indissolubility. He also set out lucidly the principles behind the<br />
rules about ‘bigamy’ in its technical sense.<br />
Next would come Hincmar, in the mid-ninth century. He put<br />
consummation in the foreground as crucial to the meaning of marriage.<br />
He anticipated later developments and had an influence on<br />
them. Like so much about the Carolingians and their ‘renaissance’,<br />
future transformations are adumbrated without being actualized,<br />
except transitorily.<br />
Then come Peter Lombard and Gratian in the mid-twelfth century.<br />
They helped put the ideas of Augustine and Hincmar before<br />
the ‹elite who ran the western Church. After the Lombard’s<br />
Sentences had become a standard textbook, every serious theology<br />
student would be likely to come across Augustine’s ideas about<br />
symbolism and the nature of Christian marriage. The symbolic<br />
reasons for thinking consummation changed the meaning of marriage<br />
were inescapably available in Gratian’s Decretum. Hemade<br />
Hincmar’s line of thought widely accessible, and almost certainly<br />
as the man or Christ as the woman: ‘vidue, id est, corrupte, quia licet fuisset vidua,<br />
dummodononcorrupta,nonprohibetur...Sedquareexigiturmaiorcastitasin<br />
uxore quam in viro, quia maritus corrupte, si cum ea una caro eciatur promoveri<br />
non potest . . . Sed ille qui habuit concubinam post [potest ms.] uxorem vel ante<br />
promoveri potest, ut xxxiiii. [xxiiii ms.] Di.Fraternitatis. H. [=Huguccio?] dixit<br />
quod vir significat ecclesiam, que in parte recessit a Christo adulterando recedendo<br />
a fide, etsi in parte virgo fuerit, et ideo non deest significatio sacramenti in viro<br />
quamvis non sit virgo. Uxor *vero significat Christum, qui numquam ecclesiam<br />
dimisit,...Aliidicunt,etvideturmelius,quodvirsignificat Christum qui primo<br />
copulavit sibi sinagogam et postea ecclesiam, scilicet de gentibus, *militantem, in<br />
qua sunt boni et mali, et ideo non nocet si vir non fuerit virgo; uxor vero significat<br />
ecclesiam triumphantem in qua non est macula’ (Bernard of Parma, glossa ordinaria<br />
to Decretals, at X. 1. 21. 5, Debitum, inMSBLRoyal9.C.I,fo.35RB, right-hand<br />
lower margin).
Conclusion 203<br />
influenced Alexander III’s decision about consummation and entry<br />
into a religious order.<br />
Thus Alexander III (d. 1181) has a place in the ‘great men’ narrative.<br />
His authoritative decisions fixed the principle that consent<br />
makes a marriage, but that on the other hand only a consummated<br />
marriage between a baptized couple is indissoluble. This synthesis<br />
would be explained in coherent and rational symbolic terms by<br />
scholastic theologians.<br />
Innocent III in the early thirteenth century has a pre-eminent<br />
position in the narrative. His thinking on marriage was demonstrably<br />
entwined with symbolic reasoning, which he translated into<br />
practice by enforcing indissolubility in the face of very powerful<br />
men who were his allies, and by changing canon law to close the<br />
largest loophole for annulments.<br />
Innocent also approved the Franciscan and Dominican orders,<br />
whose preachers would popularize marriage symbolism, especially<br />
the ‘initiation–ratification–consummation’ schema. They will also<br />
have helped to imprint marriage symbolism on public opinion,<br />
helped by its convergence with social practices formed by a law<br />
influenced by the same symbolism.<br />
Innocent III’s new rules about evidence in annulment cases were<br />
not properly observed at first, and were quite probably never universally<br />
enforced. The canonist Hostiensis (d. 1271) not only remarked<br />
on this but made an impassioned plea to judges to take the<br />
rules with the utmost seriousness. Since he was widely studied and<br />
famous—he even has his place in Dante’s Divine Comedy—he is not<br />
only a witness but in all probability an influence on thought and<br />
practice, so he too earns a place in the narrative. He adopted such a<br />
hard line about the rules of proof in annulment cases that we must<br />
take his strictures with a pinch of salt. The remarkable thing is how<br />
seriously indissolubility was enforced. Symbolism lay behind the<br />
seriousness.<br />
Hostiensis’s canonist contemporary Innocent IV reflected on the<br />
symbolic rationale of rules about marrying virgins (once only) and<br />
the path to the priesthood. He also reflected on which married<br />
clerics in minor orders should keep their status, and decided that<br />
the ‘bigamous’ should not. He represented a strong current of thirteenth-century<br />
church law opinion, and in 1274 a large number of<br />
legitimately married clerics in minor orders were deprived of their<br />
status because they were, in the technical sense, bigamous.
204 Conclusion<br />
In the fourteenth century, if not earlier, the meaning of the marriage<br />
ceremony was changed, at least in England, to foreground<br />
symbolic reasons for changing the ritual of second marriages (details<br />
and definitions varying). Paradoxically, this tended to assimilate<br />
the ritual to that of first marriages, by pinpointing a specific<br />
symbolic clause that could be excised while the rest was retained.<br />
In the fifteenth century, under Pope Martin V, we see the beginnings<br />
of a trend to enlarge the range of reasons for dissolving<br />
an unconsummated marriage (it should be stressed that the issue<br />
here is not impotence). This trend continued into the early modern<br />
period and afterwards. Symbolism provided the rationale.<br />
In the sixteenth century popes began to grant dispensations for<br />
‘bigamous’ clerics in minor orders to retain their clerical status<br />
in circumstances where a bishop was likely to refuse. The papal<br />
Penitentiary register entries that reveal this also hint at the wide<br />
range of privileges clerical status might entail, and which many<br />
would have lost because of bigamy symbolism.<br />
All these curious details are symptoms of something bigger: a<br />
strong conviction that the analogy between marriage and Christ’s<br />
union with the Church was far more than a figure of speech.<br />
Explanations in a nutshell<br />
How to explain the influence of marriage symbolism and its timing?<br />
The symbolic rationale had roots deep in the Christian past, so the<br />
delayed reaction is interesting.<br />
In the case of preaching, the explanation is simply that there<br />
probably was relatively little marriage preaching,symbolic or otherwise,<br />
until the central Middle Ages.<br />
In the case of indissolubility, popes were seldom in a position to<br />
enforce their strong line on a powerful laity. Acceptance of exclusive<br />
Church jurisdiction in marriage cases was practically a sine qua non.<br />
So was a religious leadership strong enough to stand up to kings<br />
and great nobles.<br />
Why were they so ready to do so? A plausible if undemonstrable<br />
explanation has to do with the discipline of clerical celibacy. It had<br />
been in place in theory for centuries. However, from the late twelfth<br />
century the leadership of the Church systematically tried to impose<br />
celibacy on the clergy from the level of subdeacon upwards. By the<br />
end of the twelfth century a de facto wife or public mistress would<br />
have been an obstacle to high church oce. A celibate clergy is likely
Conclusion 205<br />
to take a less tolerant attitude to sexual weakness by married males<br />
than a clergy in the same position as laymen. Brahmins, rabbis,<br />
muftis were married men and at some level must have sympathized<br />
with the predicament of other men who wanted to change wives for<br />
one reason or another. Celibate popes and bishops were more likely<br />
to feel that if they were doing without any women at all, laymen<br />
could make do with one. This explanation is an ideal-type. In so<br />
far as clerics lapsed from their ideal, the reasoning sketched out<br />
does not apply. Still, to say that clerical celibacy meant no more<br />
in the early thirteenth century than the early eleventh would be an<br />
extreme position. So the rise of celibacy would have given impetus<br />
to the force of marriage symbolism. One cannot footnote it but to<br />
many it will seem common sense.<br />
In the case of ‘bigamy’, the sheer appeal of marriage symbolism<br />
to legal minds like Innocent III and Hostiensis seems to have been<br />
a considerable factor, paradoxical though it may seem. Alongside<br />
this, one may set harmonious relations obtaining between popes<br />
and English and French kings for much of the thirteenth century.<br />
The monarchs wanted ‘bigamous’ clerics out of the ecclesiastical<br />
courts, and churchmen could oblige because they were operating<br />
in a co-operative mode. That was not the whole story, however.<br />
Kings had learnt to use the language of ‘bigamy’ to put popes in<br />
the right frame of mind to make concessions, and churchmen could<br />
see the new rule about bigamous clerics in minor orders as a logical<br />
consequence of the rationale of marriage symbolism.<br />
With consummation, the role of canon law as troubleshooter for<br />
theology is crucial. The position of consummation in marriage had<br />
been uncertain for centuries. Sooner or later concrete cases would<br />
turn on the theological questions. With the papacy operating at an<br />
increasing tempo as supreme court for problematic cases, it is not<br />
surprising that the question should be settled. If it was to be settled,<br />
the logic of marriage symbolism would provide the rationale. After<br />
it had been settled, the symbolic rationale was not forgotten.<br />
Causal reciprocity of substructure and superstructure<br />
Mary Douglas has written that ‘without the relevant supporting<br />
classifications and values the material aspects of an organization<br />
would not be viable, and, vice versa, without the appropriate or-
206 Conclusion<br />
ganization, the cultural values would make no sense. Culture and<br />
society are one as mind and brain.’<br />
Mary Douglas’s model probably works for many societies. Even<br />
so, the interplay of marriage symbolism and practice in the late<br />
medieval West is not just another case of a common human pattern.<br />
The symbolism has priority in initiating the system of reciprocal<br />
forces: it sets the whole thing going. That is not so easy to find<br />
in other civilizations (scholarly readers are urged to try: I shall be<br />
glad if they succeed). Symbolic reasoning about marriage had to<br />
overcome tendencies which are strong in most societies: the desire<br />
of many men and women (especially men) to change spouses or<br />
have more than one. The defeat of these tendencies at the institutional<br />
level was a deep cut against the social grain. Only then, after<br />
symbolism had cut society into a new shape, did social structure<br />
serve the symbolism, strengthening the force that had made it what<br />
it was. Perhaps the more usual human pattern is for the structure<br />
of the symbolism to mould itself to the structure of society, though<br />
with most societies studied by twentieth-century social anthropologists<br />
there was a dearth of historical data about the development<br />
of the system studied. At any rate, in the medieval West the causal<br />
influence flowed in the opposite direction, symbolism moulding<br />
social structure.<br />
For once the historian has the advantage over anthropologists.<br />
It is possible to reconstruct the genesis of this system of mutual<br />
causality. It turns out that intellectuals played a crucial part in the<br />
process. The reciprocal cycle is started by ideas which had remained<br />
in a rarefied world until turned into practice by serious energetic<br />
men who took them seriously. Once they had done so, the flow of<br />
causation began to go both ways. Symbolism starts the process but<br />
eventually the process becomes reciprocal.<br />
In the Middle Ages, then, it was on the whole the marriage symbolism<br />
that came first, and gradually moulded law and thus society<br />
in its image. However, that made a di·erence to the symbolism.<br />
M. Douglas, A Feeling for Hierarchy (Dayton, Oh., 2002), 27. Mary Douglas<br />
is very good on this this kind of interplay: to quote her slightly out of context, the<br />
work of anthropologists, ‘especially the French’, shows ‘how the categories of the<br />
world are established by being embedded in daily practice. This is a marvellously<br />
dynamic and interactive view of the relation of knowledge to behaviour: the analogies<br />
from practice justify the knowledge and the knowledge justifies the action’ (M.<br />
Douglas, ‘Raisonnements circulaires: retour nostalgique ›a L‹evy-Bruhl’, Gradhiva,<br />
30–1 (2001–2), 1–14 at 8 (this ‘translation’ is in fact Douglas’s original English<br />
version, which she kindly showed me).
Conclusion 207<br />
Always a strong image, the union of man and woman, it came to be<br />
rooted also in social practice, which made it concrete in a di·erent<br />
way. When ideas are embodied in social practice, they take on a<br />
new force, even if they helped to create the social practice in the<br />
first place.
Documents<br />
The first digit of each document’s number identifies the chapter whose<br />
arguments it illustrates.<br />
Documents Relating to Chapter 1: Mass Communication<br />
1. 1. Marriage symbolism in the Bavarian Homiliary<br />
This is one of the few examples found of a homily addressed apparently to<br />
an ultimate lay audience containing marriage symbolism. It comes from a<br />
collection of Bavarian origin, composed in the ninth century probably for<br />
the churches of Salzburg and Augsburg, and relatively widely di·used as<br />
homily collections of this period go.<br />
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 3833<br />
Parchment manuscript, 192 folios, ‘in fol.’, two columns (unlike the<br />
other sermon from the same manuscript, printed below as Document<br />
1. 2), date c.1000 (the Staatsbibliothek catalogue dates it to the tenth<br />
century, Barr‹e to the first half of the eleventh). The use of ‘@’ to mean<br />
‘et’ within a word, the ‘ae’ as well as the ‘e caudata’, and the ‘cc’ type ‘a’,<br />
as in ‘la@tificccr@’, p. 43, line 7, together with the absence of spacing<br />
between some words, favour the earlier date, though these indications<br />
are not decisive. According to the catalogue, the homiliary is preceded<br />
by ‘capitula sermonum’.<br />
Note. The ‘e caudata’ is here represented thus: ‘ae’.<br />
Pp. 57 col. a–59 col. a:<br />
Omelia. Lectionis eiusdem<br />
1. In lectione quae nobis recitata est, fratres karissimi, audivimus Dominum<br />
dicentem (Mt. 25: 1): ‘*Simile est regnum caelorum decem<br />
virginibus quae accipientes lampades suas, exierunt obviam sponso et<br />
All this from H. Barr‹e, Les Hom‹eliaires carolingiens de l’‹ecole d’Auxerre: authenticit‹e<br />
— inventaire — tableaux comparatifs — initia (Studi e testi, 225; Vatican City,<br />
1962), 26.<br />
Description based on C. F. Halm et al.. Catalogus codicum Latinorum Bibliothecae<br />
Regiae Monacensis (secundum Andreae Schmelleri indices), 2nd rev. edn. (2 vols.;<br />
Munich, 1892–4), i/2, Codices num. 2501–5250 complectens (1894), 143; on Barr‹e,<br />
Les Hom‹eliaires carolingiens, 26; and on microfilm printout of the homily.
Documents: 1. 1 209<br />
sponsae’. Haec si secundum litteram tantum intellegimus nimirum durum<br />
videtur et asperum. Absit hoc a sensibus christianis ut tam parvus<br />
numerus veniat ad vitam aeternam. Et ideo quia nulla ratione secundum<br />
litteram intellegi debet, quia et revera ipse Dominus similitudinem esse<br />
dixit, requiramus quare quinque dictae sunt fatuae aut quinque prudentes.<br />
Illae enim quinque prudentes significant omnes sanctos qui<br />
cum Christo sunt regnaturi.<br />
2. E contrario, illae quinque fatuae figuram habere videntur christianorum<br />
malorum qui sine operibus bonis de solo tantum christiano nomine<br />
gloriantur. Ideo autem et ille fatuae quinque et ille prudentes quinque<br />
dicuntur, quia quinque sensus in omnibus hominibus esse probantur,<br />
visus videlicet, [p. 57 col. b] auditus, gustus, odoratus, et tactus, et quia<br />
per istos sensus, velut per quasdam ianuas vel fenestras, aut vita aut mors<br />
ingreditur ad animas nostras. De quibus et propheta dicit (Jerem. 9: 21):<br />
Intravit ‘mors per fenestras nostras’. Ideo et ibi quinque virgines dicuntur<br />
prudentes quae istis sensibus bene utuntur, et ibi quinque fatuae<br />
quae per istos quinque sensus magis mortem quam vitam excipiunt.<br />
3. Quomodo autem isti quinque sensus, velut quinque virgines, aut virginitatem<br />
custodiant, aut corruptioni subiaceant, diligentius requiramus.<br />
Si aliquis vir aut mulier viderit filium aut filiam alienam, servum<br />
aut ancillam, et per concupiscentiam diligenter aspexerit, corrupta est<br />
una virgo, quia per oculos, id est fenestras corporis in secretum cordis<br />
venenum mortis intravit. Si vero aliquis, sive religiosus clericus sive<br />
laicus, homines detrahentes, sermones etiam otiosos et cantica luxuriosa<br />
vel turpia proferentes libenter audierit, et cum delectatione placido auditu<br />
susceperit, corrupta est alia virgo. . . . [p. 58 col. a] . . . Et revera,<br />
fratres karissimi, quid prodest viro vel feminae si in corpore virginitas<br />
custoditur, quando per malas concupiscentias cordis integritas violatur?<br />
Quid prodest in uno membro preferre castitatem, et in omnibus sensibus<br />
habere corruptionem? Nam et illae virgines quae ‘agnum secuntur’<br />
(Apoc. 14: 4) non propter hoc sequuntur agnum, quia solam virginitatem<br />
corporis servaverunt: denique, cum dixisset (Apoc. 14: 4): ‘Hi<br />
[p. 58 col. b] sunt qui cum mulieribus non coinquinaverunt se’, adiunxit<br />
(Apoc. 14: 5): ‘Et non est inventum in ore eorum mendacium:<br />
sine macula sunt.’ Qui ergo de sola castitate corporis gloriatur, diligenter<br />
*attendat quia si mendacium diligit, cum illis sanctis virginibus<br />
si] interlined<br />
religiosus clericus] possibly corrected by subsequent punctuation to religiosus, clericus,<br />
which would change the meaning from ‘whether a religious cleric or a layman’ to<br />
‘whether a religious, a cleric, or a layman’<br />
vel] velut ms., but probably corrected<br />
secuntur] physical lacuna follows in ms.<br />
se] physical lacuna follows in ms.<br />
est] added as correction?
210 Documents: 1. 1<br />
Christum sequi non poterit. Nulla ergo virgo de sola corporis virginitate<br />
presumat, quia si inoboediens fuerit, aut linguosa, ab illo thalamo<br />
sponsi caelestis se noverit excludendam.<br />
4. Cum ergo virgo centesimum gradum teneat, et mulier coniugata tricesimum,<br />
melior tamen est mulier casta quam virgo superba. Illa<br />
enim casta mulier, marito serviens, tricesimum possidet gradum: virgini<br />
superbae nec unus gradus remanebit. Adimpletur in illa quod<br />
ait psalmista (Ps. 17: 28): ‘Tu populum humilem salvum facies, et<br />
oculos superborum humiliabis’. Et quia totam ecclesiam catholicam<br />
beatus Apostolus virginem vocat, non solas in ea considerans corpore<br />
virgines, sed incorruptas omnium desiderans mentes, ita dicens<br />
(2 Cor. 11: 2): ‘Aptavi vos uni viro virginem castam exhibere<br />
Christo’, non solum sanctarum monialium, sed etiam omnium virorum<br />
vel mulierum animae, si cum castitate corporis in illis supradictis<br />
quinque sensibus virginitatem servare voluerint, sponsas Christi<br />
se esse non dubitent. Non enim corporum [p. 59 col. a] sed animarum<br />
sponsus intellegendus est Christus. Et ideo, fratres karissimi, tam viri<br />
quam feminae, tam pueri quam puelle, si virginitatem usque ad nuptias<br />
servant, et per istos quinque sensus, id est, visus, auditus, gustus, odoratus,<br />
vel tactus, dum eis bene utuntur, suas animas non corrumpunt,<br />
in die iudicii, apertis ianuis, ad eternum sponsi thalamum feliciter<br />
merebuntur intrare. Illi vero qui et corpora sua ante nuptias adulterina<br />
coniunctione corrumpunt, et postea per totam vitam suam male<br />
vivendo, male audiendo, male loquendo, animas suas vulnerare non<br />
desinunt, si eis fructuosa et digna paenitentia non subvenerit, clausis<br />
ianuis sine causa clamabunt: ‘Domine, Domine, aperi nobis’ (Mt. 25:<br />
11; cf. Luke 13: 25).—‘Amen, dico vobis, nescio vos, unde sitis’ (Mt.<br />
25: 12; Luke 13: 25).<br />
5. Haec ergo, fratres karissimi, si fideliter et diligenter adtendimus et<br />
cum castitate corporis etiam integritatem cordis auxiliante Domino<br />
custodiamus, non cum fatuis proiciemur ‘in tenebras exteriores. Ibi<br />
erit fletus et stridor dentium’ (Mt. 8 12; 22: 13; 25: 30):—sed cum<br />
sapientibus ad spiritales nuptias intromissi audire merebimur: ‘Euge,<br />
serve bone et fidelis, intra in gaudium domini tui’ (Mt. 25: 21 and 23).<br />
Cf.Mark4:20.<br />
incorruptas] incorruptas esse understood?<br />
Aptavi] Despondi in Vulgate<br />
sanctarum] after correction<br />
animae] guessed from sense—in ms. corrected and hard to read<br />
cum castitate] castitatem ms.<br />
ianuis] ianuus ms.<br />
si] added in margin<br />
castitate] corr. from castate
Documents: 1. 2 211<br />
1. 2. Homily on the text ‘Nuptiae factae sunt’ (John 2: 1) in<br />
the Bavarian Homiliary<br />
See Document 1. 1. This text from the same manuscript illustrates the<br />
same points.<br />
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 3833<br />
For description see Document 1.1. Note that this sermon, unlike the<br />
previous text, is in one column.<br />
Pp. 43–46:<br />
In illo tempore nuptiae factae sunt in Chana Galileae, et erat mater Iesu<br />
ibi et reliq.<br />
OMELIA LECTIONIS EIUSDEM<br />
1. Quod Dominus atque salvator noster ad nuptias vocatus non solum<br />
venire sed et miraculum ibidem quo convivas laetificaret facere dignatus<br />
est, audivit in presenti lectione dilectio vestra. ‘Nuptiae’, inquit,<br />
‘factae sunt in Chana Galileae et erat mater Iesu ibi. Vocatus<br />
est autem Iesus et discipuli eius ad nuptias.’ Magna quidem humilitas<br />
est Domini nostri quod ad humanas nuptias venire dignatus est. Sed<br />
tamen magnum ibidem gessit mysterium.<br />
2. Venit igitur ad nuptias carnali more caelebratas in terra Dominus et<br />
salvator noster qui, ad copulandam sibi spiritali amore ecclesiam, de<br />
caelo descendit ad terras. Cuius quidem thalamus incorruptae virginis<br />
uterus fuit, in quo deus humanae naturae coniunctus, et ex quo ad<br />
sociandam sibi fidelium ecclesiam natus processit. Vocatus est autem<br />
ad has nuptias semper ab initio mundi per sanctos viros et iustos, qui<br />
eum tota intentione deprecati sunt ut humani generis redemptionem,<br />
quam promisit, impleret.<br />
3. ‘Et deficiente vino, dixit mater Iesu ad eum: “Vinum non habent”’<br />
(John 2: 4). Veniente autem Domino ad has nuptias in hunc mundum,<br />
multas pro fidelibus suis iniurias et tribulationes sustinens, [e]os ab<br />
aeterna morte redemit, et ad regnum caeleste perduxit, cum deficiebat<br />
vinum veteris observantiae legis ut vinum nobis gratiae spiritalis<br />
largiretur, per quam omnia secreta legis a nobis spiritaliter intellegerentur,<br />
et per miracula sua, quae operatus est latenter in homine,<br />
divinitatis suae potentiam demonstraret, et credentium in eum fides<br />
aucta proficeret.<br />
4. Sed audiamus quod sequitur. ‘Dicit ei Iesus: “Quid mihi et tibi est,<br />
mulier? Nondum venit hora mea”’. Neque enim matrem suam inhono-<br />
Above the line, in small script: ‘Vocatus est autem Iesus et discipuli eius cum eo<br />
ad’ (the remainder has probably been cut o· by the binder)<br />
venire] xv added in margin (later script?)<br />
[e]os] lacuna in ms., filled from the sense
212 Documents: 1. 2<br />
ravit, qui nos iubet honorare patrem et matrem, nec eam sibi matrem<br />
negavit esse, ex cuius virginitate carnem suscipere non dispexit. Sed<br />
‘Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier? Nondum venit hora mea’ ita intellegendum<br />
est, ac si diceret: ‘Quid divinitati quam ex patre semper habui,<br />
cum tua carne commune est ex qua carnem suscepi? [p. 44] quia divinitatem<br />
meam quae *facit miraculum non tu genuisti, sed infirmitatem<br />
meam peperisti. Nondum venit hora passionis meae, in qua pro salute<br />
mundi mori disposui. Sed ante sunt fideles elegendi, ante sanitatum<br />
mirabilia facienda, ante evangelium est predicandum, et sic humanitatis<br />
meae ostendenda infirmitas in passione, ut mox divinitatis meae<br />
potentia clarescat in resurrectione’.<br />
5. ‘Dicit mater Iesu ministris: “Quodcumque dixerit vobis facite”. Erant<br />
autem ibi lapideae hydriae sex positae, secundum purificationem Iudaeorum.<br />
Et dicit Iesus: “Implete hydrias aqua” (John 2: 5–7). Et<br />
impleverunt eas usque ad summum.’ Hydriae vocantur vasa aquae receptui<br />
preparata. Sex ergo hydrie sex aetates huius seculi designant, in<br />
quibus omnibus electos suos Dominus suo semper erudivit precepto,<br />
quae precepta omnia insipida velut aqua fuerunt antequam Christus<br />
veniens ea in vinum, id est, in spiritalem intellectum, convertit.<br />
6. Prima ergo aetas ab Adam usque ad Noe atque diluvium. Secunda a<br />
Noe usque ad Abraham. Tertia ab Abraham usque ad David. Quarta<br />
a David usque ad captivitatem populi dei. Quinta ab ipsa captivitate<br />
usque ad Christum. Sexta a nativitate Christi modo agitur usque in<br />
finem saeculi. Per has ergo sex aetates, precepta Domini semper data<br />
fuerunt ad electos quosque quae omnia Christus, cum veniret, in<br />
vinum convertit, id est, spiritaliter intellegenda monstravit.<br />
7. Audiamus ergo eamdem aquam, id est, divinam scripturam, in vinum<br />
nobis suavissimum, spiritu sancto monstrante, Christoque operante,<br />
conversam.<br />
8. In prima aetate seculi, Abel iustum frater invidens occidit, et ab hoc<br />
ipse perpetua *martyrum gloria beatus, fratricida impius aeterna maledictione<br />
damnatus est. Quicumque hoc audiens formidat cum impiis<br />
damnari, cupiens cum electis beatificari, omnem fomitem odii et invidie<br />
festinet abicere, deoque placere per sacrificium iustitiae, per<br />
modestiam innocentiae, per virtutem innocentiae, procurat, aquam<br />
in] interlined, perhaps in a later hand<br />
Iudaeorum] corr. from idaeorum<br />
precepta] cepta ms.<br />
Fuerunt] corr. from funt<br />
monstravit] corr. from mostravit<br />
nobis] corr. from nos<br />
conversam] conversum ms.<br />
festinet] read festinat (in line with formidat and procurat)?<br />
innocentiae . . . innocentiae] sic
Documents: 1. 2 213<br />
hydriae primae in vinum spiritale conversam habet, quia innocentia<br />
Abel iusti imitando Christum sequitur, qui innocens et sine causa<br />
damnatus, nobis innocentiae bonum demonstravit exemplum. Qui<br />
vero cum fratricida invidia stimulatur, etiam quicquid boni operatur<br />
per invidiam consumitur, quia per invidiam omne malum nascitur, et<br />
per innocentiam magnum malum extinguitur, et magnum perficitur<br />
[p. 45] bonum.<br />
9. Secunda aetate seculi inchoante deletus est diluvio mundus ob magnitudinem<br />
criminum. Sed solus Noe propter iustitiam cum domo sua<br />
liberatur in arca. Audita ergo hac vastatione horribili, paucorumque<br />
liberatione mirabili, quisquis bonis moribus vivere coeperit, timens<br />
perire cum reprobis, desiderans liberari cum electis, secundam hydriam<br />
aquae qua mundaretur accipit in vinum spiritalis intellegentiae<br />
conversam. Nos vero post baptismum, quod diluvium significat, nonnisi<br />
per iustitiae opera a peccatorum nexibus eripi meremur. Ideo<br />
iustitiam in omnibus et super omnia diligamus, per quam ad vitam<br />
perveniamus sempiternam.<br />
10. In tertia aetate, deus Abrahae temptavit oboedientiam, eique filium<br />
unicum iussit immolare, sed pro filio aries immolatur. Hoc quasi aqua<br />
nihil profectus fieri videtur antequam hoc Christus in vinum spiritalis<br />
intelligentiae convertit. Nam Abraham significat deum patrem,<br />
qui pro nobis unicum tradidit filium, qui factus est oboediens patri<br />
usque ad mortem, et mortuus est propter delicta nostra, sicut Abraham<br />
non filium immolavit sed arietem, quia non divinitas Christi mori<br />
potuit, sed humanitas, quam pro nobis suscipere dignatus est. Audiens<br />
quisque quanta virtus est oboedientiae, quam meliorem sacrificio esse<br />
Dominus testatur, ipsam oboedientiam pro Domino subire et adimplere<br />
satagerit, perpetuae benedictionis hereditatem cum Abraham<br />
consequi delectatur, habet aquam tertiae hydriae in spiritale vinum<br />
conversam.<br />
11. Quarta aetate David gigantem proprio occidit gladio. Quid nobis<br />
auditum profuit? Sed Christus, per quem David significatur, antiquum<br />
hostem humani generis propria sua morte prostravit, nosque ab aeterna<br />
morte liberavit. Ecce, hic aquam quartaehydriae in vinum spiritalis<br />
intellegentiae conversam habemus! Quisquis igitur haec audiens,<br />
Christum imitari desiderans qui pro nobis mori dignatus est, non pro<br />
conversam] conversum ms.<br />
cum] cam ms.<br />
conversam] conversum ms.<br />
intelligentiae] corr. from intellentiae<br />
tradidit] letters obscured in ms.<br />
perpetuae] read et perpetuae?<br />
conversam] conversum ms.<br />
gladio] unclear in ms.
214 Documents: 1. 2<br />
Christo corporis mortem subire necesse est, sed mori concupiscentiis<br />
carnis et desideriis huius mundi studeat, regnum a Christo percipiet<br />
sempiternum.<br />
12. Quinta aetate populus dei in Babylonia tenebatur captivus, et per<br />
Hiesum sacerdotem magnum eiusque socios ad terram repromissionis<br />
adductus. Hoc cum nobis dicitur quasi aquae saporem sentimus.<br />
Si ergo intellegimus quod totus mundus captivus tenebatur sub potestate<br />
diaboli, antequam per Iesum Christum liberaretur et [p. 46]vitae<br />
aeterne nobis ianuae panderentur, habemus aquam quintae hydriaein<br />
spiritalem conversam saporem.<br />
13. Sexta aetate Christus resurrexit a mortuis et ascendit in caelos. Significat<br />
quod deus pater, qui illum suscitavit a mortuis, omnes quoque<br />
credentes et in fide eius perseverantes a morte resuscitavit aeterna et<br />
consedere secum facit in caelesti regno cum Christo.<br />
14. Nobis ergo fratres karissimi, ut audistis, Christus fecit vinum de aqua,<br />
quando per sanctos doctores demonstravit quid spiritalis sensus in<br />
veteri lege latuit. Praeparemus ergo corda nostra ut digna sint accipere<br />
gratiam spiritalem. Mundemus corda et corpora nostra ab omni carnali<br />
concupiscentia. Abstineamus nos ab omni immunditia, teneamus<br />
fidem rectam, et totam spem nostram in dei promissionem et eius<br />
misericordiam dirigamus. Caritatem dei et proximi super omnia et in<br />
omnibus observemus. Deprecamur indesinenter misericordiam dei ut<br />
omnes actus nostros et desideria in suam dirigat voluntatem, et tota<br />
intentione cordis eius inhereamur preceptis, ut post hanc presentem vitam<br />
aeterna gaudia cum Christo et omnibus sanctis habere mereamur,<br />
per eum qui vivit et regnat deus per omnia saecula seculorum, Amen.<br />
1. 3. Marriage symbolism in the Beaune Homiliary<br />
This is another of the small number of known cases of marriage symbolism<br />
in early medieval popular preaching.<br />
MS Paris, BN Lat. 3794<br />
A parchment manuscript, 290ÿ185/190 mm., 169 folios, twelfth century,<br />
in ‘Plusieurs mains de style allemand’ according to the catalogue.<br />
The provenance is the H^otel Dieu of Beaune. The manuscript contains<br />
homilies and sermons.<br />
Though for the sake of overall consistency I have maintained the policy<br />
of normalizing ‘n’ to ‘m’ in words where there is no standard medieval<br />
Description based on Biblioth›eque Nationale, Catalogue g‹en‹eral des manuscrits<br />
latins, vii. (Nos 3776 ›a 3835): Hom‹eliaires (Paris, 1988), 155–66 (a very full description),<br />
and on microfilm of the sermon.
Documents: 1. 3 215<br />
orthography and the letter is often swallowed up in an abbreviation, it<br />
would not have been justified for this scribe alone as he has a distinct<br />
preference for ‘n’: e.g. for ‘inmutatio’ rather than ‘immutatio’.<br />
The Biblioth›eque Nationale catalogue classifies the manuscript under<br />
the general heading of ‘Hom‹eliaires’ and describes it as a ‘Sermonarium’.<br />
As noted in the text, the Beaune Homiliary seems to have been for<br />
popular preaching.<br />
‘O holy brothers’ in the final paragraph may suggest that this was at<br />
least originally addressed to monks.<br />
Fos. 5V–7R:<br />
Sermo post Epiphaniam<br />
1. Audivimus fratres carissimi cum sacrum legeretur evangelium quod die<br />
tertia nuptie facte sunt in Chana Galileae. Quae sunt ille nuptiae nisi<br />
nostra adquisitio? Quae sunt illa convivia, nisi nostrae salutis gaudia,<br />
quae die tertia facta sunt, quia tertio mundi tempore huius convivii<br />
facta est letitia? Nam unum fuit tempus nature, aliud celestium gratiae,<br />
quo Christus, ad nuptias invitatus, se ut latentem in homine deum,<br />
operum virtute detexeret, et ex volubilitate gentium stabilem sibi coniungeret<br />
sponsam. Sed inter nuptiales prophetarum simphonias, vinum<br />
gratiae deficiebat. Quod mater querimoniis [fo. 6r] agitcumfilio,utet<br />
filii gloria innotesceret, et convivis vinum suceret. Cui filius non indignando<br />
negavit, sed veritatem proferendo respondit: ‘Quid michi et<br />
tibi est mulier? Nondum venit hora mea.’ Ad quamdam horam in veritate<br />
rursum agnovit, quasi dixisset: ‘Quod de me facit miraculum, non<br />
tu genuisti, sed quia genuisti infirmitatem meam, tunc illam agnosces<br />
cum illa pendebit in cruce. Tunc et te cognoscam etiam ex illa natura<br />
quae mori non potest. Sed ante sunt discipuli eligendi; ante sunt sanitates<br />
perficiende; ante evangelium predicandum: et sic est humanitatis<br />
ostendenda infirmitas in passione, ut mox divinitatis potentia clarescat<br />
in resurrectione.’<br />
2. Post haec tamen veritatis oracula, produnt deum pietatis miracula. Nam<br />
statuuntur hydriae sex, et insipide legis aqua implentur, quae mox<br />
in ferventis gratiae vina mutantur. Nec aquis aliquid minuitur, dum<br />
virtus saporis augetur. Ita legalis iota non solvitur, dum evangelicus<br />
apex apponitur, sed moriens legis littera, spiritu vivificatur gratiae. Et<br />
ideo ubi vinum defecit, Christus vinum fecit, quia umbra removetur, et<br />
veritas presentatur. Credit lex, et gratia succedit, carnalia spiritalibus<br />
commutantur, in novum testamentum observatio vetusta transfunditur,<br />
vetera transierunt, [fo. 6v] facta sunt omnia nova. Vino deficiente, vinum<br />
aliud ministratur, quia lex novum odorem vite reddidit in gratia, et quae<br />
in sola littera evanescit, spiritali intellectu reviviscit.<br />
se] om. ms.—conjecture
216 Documents: 1. 3<br />
3. Sex autem hidriae ille, sex significant aetates, quae aetates quasi vasa<br />
inania permanent, nisi a Christo implerentur. In quibus singulis prophetiae<br />
non defuerunt de sponso et sponsa, quae in Christo manifestate,<br />
ad omnium gentium intendebant salutem.<br />
4. Quis in prima hydria per Adam et Eva figuratur, nisi Christus et aecclesia?<br />
Et quis in secunda monstratur, in qua Noe misticam regebat<br />
archam, nisi idem Christus in ligno crucis sponsam sibi aecclesiam<br />
ex omnibus coniungens gentibus? Et quis in tertia ostenditur hydria,<br />
ubi Abraham unicum ducebat ad immolandum, nisi unicus filius dei<br />
traditus a deo patre, pro salute omnium immolandus? Qui crucem<br />
passionis suae, ut Isaac ligna, propriis portavit humeris? Et quis per<br />
David in quarta designatur hydria, nisi Christus noster bellator, qui<br />
superbissimum diabolicae potentiae caput suo potentissimo mucrone<br />
truncavit? Cui dictum est per eumdem David ex quo carnem habuit:<br />
‘Exurge deus, iudica terram: tu hereditabis in omnibus gentibus’ (Ps.<br />
81: 8). In quinta hydria Danihel vidit lapidem precisum de monte sine<br />
manibus, et fregisse omnia regna terrarum (Daniel 2 esp. 34 @ 44–5).<br />
Lapis iste est quem reprobaverunt aedificantes: [fo. 7r] in caput anguli<br />
factus est (Ps. 117: 22), qui facit utraque unum, et non est in alio aliquo<br />
salus (Act. 4: 12). Sexta hydria Iohannes Baptista clamat: ‘Ecce agnus<br />
dei! Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi’ (John 1: 29).<br />
5. Ad Christum vero et advocationem gentium sex hydriarum prophetiae<br />
pertinebant, quae singule metretas binas vel ternas tenebant, et vel in<br />
preputio et circumcisione, vel in tribus mundi divisionibus designantur,<br />
quia Christus sponsus ex omni gente et ex omni genere hominum sibi<br />
unam sponsam eligere venit, cui gratie vinum miscuit, quod ab architriclino,<br />
id est, sanctorum choro doctorum, probatur, et omnibus prioris<br />
seculi deliciis prefertur: quia in prophetia umbra tegebat, in evangelio<br />
veritas aperuit; in illa figuratio, in hoc manifestatio; illa predixit,<br />
hoc retexit; illa promisit, hoc reddidit. Ideo obtimum servatum vinum,<br />
usque dum venit auxilium divinum, et factus est liber, qui fuit servus.<br />
Et non solum de penali ereptus est miseria, sed etiam caelesti insertus<br />
est felicitati. Ecce vera, carissimi, ecce predicanda miracula, quaeinnos<br />
cotidie clementia gerit divina, quando de filiis tenebrarum filios lucis<br />
ecit. Haec est vero ‘immutatio dextere excelsi’ (Psalm 76: 11), quod<br />
ipse in nobis, O fratres sancti, ecere dignetur, qui cum patre et spiritu<br />
sancto vivit et regnat deus per omnia secula seculorum, Amen.<br />
sponsa] sponsae ms.<br />
traditus] traditur ms.<br />
designantur] designatur ms.<br />
hoc] illa ms.
Documents: 1. 4 217<br />
1. 4. Nonconformist variants in Hugues de Saint-Cher<br />
This extract, together with Documents 1. 5–8, illustrates the argument in<br />
Chapter 1 that many sermon manuscripts were written by intelligent users<br />
(like friars) rather than scribes working for pay, who would have not felt<br />
entitled to modify the text as if it belonged to them. This implies an army<br />
of friars and other such people copying sermon manuscripts, alongside<br />
paid scribes, so that there was a double labour force that can explain the<br />
large number of sermon manuscripts which must have been in circulation.<br />
text<br />
13/1/ Primum est ut sit iusta et in se discreta per refrenationem illicitorum<br />
et punitionem uitiorum. /2/ Osee ii (19): ‘Sponsabo te michi in iustitia et<br />
iudicio’—ecce primum quo ad se; et bene addidit ‘in iudicio’, quia sine discretione<br />
et iudicio iustitiam exercere de carne non prodest. /3/ Eccli. xxxiii<br />
(31): ‘Si est tibi servus fidelis, sit tibi quasi anima tua’, etc. 14/1/ Secundum<br />
est ut sit misericors et leta quoad familiam et amicos sponsi. /2/ Unde<br />
sequitur in auctoritate premissa: ‘in misericordia et miserationibus’—ecce<br />
secundum quoad proximum, ut dicatur misericordia in compassione cordis<br />
et miseratio in exibitione operis.<br />
(For a translation, see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 159.)<br />
free variants<br />
13/1/ iusta . . . uitiorum] munda et iusta in se per resecationem illicitorum et discreta<br />
ad aliqua licitorum M in se] tamen Be refrenationem] districtionem Vo<br />
13/2/–14/2/ (all)] Unde sponsabo te michi in iustitia et iudicio—ecce prima duo.—Ut<br />
sit misericors et leta quo ad familiam et amicos sponsi. Unde sequitur: In misericordia<br />
et miserationibus. Ecce tertium. Misericordia notatur in cordis compassione,<br />
miseratio in exibitione operis M<br />
1. 5. Nonconformist variants in Jean de la Rochelle<br />
See introductory comments on 1. 4.<br />
text<br />
4/1/ Secunde nuptie significate sunt in desponsatione Ysaac cum Rebecca,<br />
Gen. xxiiii, et ibidem (Gen. 24: 63) dicitur quod Ysaac exivit in agro ad<br />
meditandum, et ideo per ipsum significatur spiritus, qui ad meditandum<br />
exivit in agro contemplationis, in quo est proprie meditatio.<br />
(For a translation, see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 187.)<br />
free variant<br />
significatur . . . meditatio] significantur nuptie spectantes ad meditandum in agro<br />
contemplationis, ad quem agrum exire oportet Mu
218 Documents: 1. 6<br />
1. 6. Nonconformist variants in Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t<br />
See introductory comments on 1. 4.<br />
text<br />
9/1/ Cuius matrimonii convivium celebratur cotidie in convivio eucharistie.<br />
/2/ Sed iste nuptie non solum habent convivium in presenti, sed etiam<br />
in futuro. /3/ Ita enim sollempnes sunt quod nec in presenti nec in futuro<br />
deficiunt, sed in presenti habent quasi prandium matutinum, in futuro<br />
quasi cenam vespertinam, et ille sunt nuptie eternales.<br />
(For a translation, see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 217.)<br />
free variants<br />
9/1/ convivio] sacramento M eucharistie] Quarte nuptie sunt nuptie glorie added in<br />
Pv: Quarte sunt nuptie eternales added in V,whichomits9/2–3/ 9/2–3/ (all)]Sed<br />
iste nuptie non solum habent convivium in presenti, sive prandium matutinum, sed<br />
in futuro habent quasi cenam, et iste sunt nuptie eternales M 9/3/ deficiunt]<br />
desinunt Pv et ille . . . eternales] Item quarte sunt nuptie eternales Wi<br />
1. 7. Nonconformist variants in G‹erard de Mailly<br />
See introductory comments on 1. 4.<br />
text<br />
31/1/ Propter quod preceptum est in Levit. 21 (13–14) quod sacerdos, id<br />
est Christus, ‘virginem ducat uxorem; viduam autem et repudiatam et sordidam<br />
et meretricem non accipiat’. /2/ Per ‘meretricem’ intelligitur anima<br />
que omnibus immunditiis et peccatis mortalibus se exponit. /3/ Per ‘sordidam’,<br />
illa que, licet a peccatis mortalibus se abstineat, adhuc habet sordidas<br />
a·ectiones, quia adhuc nimium acitur circa temporalia. /4/ De qua dicitur<br />
Tren. primo (9): ‘sordes eius in pedibus eius’. /5/ Per ‘repudiatam’<br />
intelligitur anima que licet non aciatur circa temporalia uel carnalia, hoc<br />
tamen non est quia ea repudiaverit, immo potius quia ab ipsis repudiata<br />
est; et libenter se ingereret adhuc si posset recipi—sicut lecatores nutriti<br />
in curiis, quando eiciuntur per unum hostium, redeunt per aliud. /6/ Per<br />
‘viduam’ intelligitur anima cui mundus mortuus est, sed non ipsa mundo,<br />
que adhuc libenter de mundanis et carnalibus loquitur et cogitat, sicut<br />
vidua de marito mortuo, licet fuerit ei pessimus.<br />
(For a translation, see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 265 and 267.)<br />
free variants<br />
31/1/ Propter . . . 21] Leui. xxi precipitur P7 Propter quod] Propter hoc Pr<br />
31/2–6/ (all) Vidua appellatur anima peccatrix que separata est a Christo. Repudiata,<br />
quia derelicta a deo. Sordida, quia maculata peccato. Meretrix, quia exposita<br />
dyabolo P7 31/2/ mortalibus] etiam mortalibus Pr 31/3/ adhuc] tamen<br />
adhuc Pr 31/5/ aciatur] multum aciatur Pr immo] sed Pr
Documents: 1. 8 219<br />
1. 8. Nonconformist variants in Guibert de Tournai<br />
See introductory comments on 1. 4.<br />
text<br />
15/1/ Debet autem sponsa que vocatur ad has nuptias esse casta quo ad<br />
carnis aut saltem mentis integritatem, quia, Levit. xxi (10–13), summus<br />
pontifex ducit tantum virginem.<br />
(For a translation, see Medieval Marriage Sermons, 307.)<br />
free variant<br />
15/1/ (all)] Sed advertendum quod anima sive sponsa que ad has nuptias invitatur<br />
debet esse multipliciter ornata, scilicet anima [natura ms.?] debet esse casta quo ad<br />
carnis et mentis integritatem; debet esse discreta per veram humilitatem; debet esse<br />
maxime libera per ipsam caritatem. Primo dico quod anima debet esse, etc. A2<br />
1. 9. A sermon on marriage by Jean Halgrin d’Abbeville<br />
This sermon emphasizes marriage symbolism and at the same time the<br />
goodness of marriage on the human and literal level. The sermon and<br />
collection belong to the ‘model sermon’ genre. To judge from the date of<br />
manuscripts of it that I have seen over the years, the collection seems to have<br />
been popular in the generation immediately before the friars’ collections<br />
became widely di·used: indeed, it was possibly the most popular of its<br />
generation. Jean Halgrin d’Abbeville was a learned member of the secular<br />
clergy and a trusted agent of papal policy. A generation later he might well<br />
have been a friar.<br />
MS BL Arundel 132<br />
A parchment manuscript, 315ÿ194 mm., last folio number 145, 2 columns,<br />
probably second quarter of the thirteenth century. Palmer, Zisterzienser,<br />
puts it in the third quarter, but the writing is above the top<br />
line, and where the ‘a’ has two compartments, the top one is not closed, so<br />
a slightly earlier date is more probable. Note the reversed-‘c’ ‘con-’ sign,<br />
another early indication except with German manuscripts (there seems<br />
no reason to think that this book was made in Germany, though it ended<br />
up in the library of the Cistercian monastery of Eberbach). From spot<br />
checks at the beginning and end, it seems that the manuscript is filled<br />
Second sermon on the text Nuptie facte sunt (J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium der<br />
lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters f•ur die Zeit von 1150–1350 (11 vols.; M•unster,<br />
1969–90), iii. 512, Johannes Halgrinus de Abbatisvilla, no. 32).<br />
Description based on personal examination, and on N. F. Palmer, Zisterzienser<br />
und ihre B•ucher: Die mittelalterliche Bibliotheksgeschichte von Kloster Eberbach im<br />
Rheingau unter besonderer Ber•ucksichtigung der in Oxford und London aufbewahrten<br />
Handschriften (Regensburg, 1998), 282.
220 Documents: 1. 9<br />
with the Sermones de tempore of Jean Halgrin/‘Johannes Halgrinus de<br />
Abbatisvilla’.<br />
Fos. 23VA–24RB:<br />
1. ‘Nuptie facte sunt in Chana Galilee, et erat mater Iesu ibi’, etc. Prima<br />
est inter religiones matrimonium, quod Dominus noster instituit in<br />
paradyso, et ante peccatum, et nuptias sua presentia honoravit, et<br />
signorum suorum initio, quod fecit coram discipulis suis. Declaratur<br />
autem et religio matrimonii designatione loci, in quo facte sunt nuptie,<br />
et miraculi qualitate. Facte sunt quidem nuptie in Chana, vico Galylee.<br />
Chana zelus interpretatur, et proprie zelus est amor coniugis ad coniugem.<br />
Zelatur enim alter alterum tamquam sibi soli proprium, et<br />
in hoc fides coniugii designatur. Galylea transmigratio interpretatur,<br />
et in coniugio unus coniugum transmigrat in alterius potestatem, dicente<br />
Apostolo, prima ad Chor. vii (4): ‘vir non habet potestatem sui<br />
corporis, sed mulier’, et e converso.<br />
2. Aque in vinum muta tio [fo. 23vb] significat quod tantum debet distare<br />
vita coniugatorum a vita ante coniugium, quantum distat aqua a vino,<br />
quoniam carnalis societas ante coniugium comparatur aque, que fluit<br />
sine ordine. Inordinatus est enim cursus fluvii et distortus. Vinum<br />
vero non sine ordine fluit, sed cum ordine et mensura, et significat<br />
coniunctionem viri et mulieris in matrimonio. Nam in carnali commixtione<br />
matrimonii, tempus, locus, voluntas, et actus: omnia debent<br />
esse ordinata.<br />
3. ‘Mater Iesu erat ibi’: in quo ostenditur castitas et fecunditas. Non enim<br />
propter fecunditatem in matrimonio perit castitas. De qua dicit angelus<br />
ad Thobiam, reddens rationem quare diabolus interfecisset vii viros<br />
qui Saram filiam Raguel duxerant, dicens (Tob. 6: 14): ‘Hii namque<br />
qui ita suscipiunt coniugium ut deum a sua mente excludant, et libidini<br />
vacent, in hiis potestatem habet demonium’. Et iterum Tobias viii (9)<br />
orans ad Dominum ait: ‘Et vero Domine, tu scis quod non libidinis<br />
causa accipio sororem meam, sed sola dilectione posteritatis, in qua<br />
nomen tuum sit benedictum in secula.’ Hoc etenim fine desideranda<br />
est posteritas, ut educatur proles ad cultum dei, et parentes filios,<br />
quos genuerunt ad huius seculi miseriam, per malam doctrinam non<br />
generent ad gehennam.<br />
4. ‘Vocatus est Iesus et discipuli eius ad nuptias’, ostendens qui debeant<br />
vocari ad convivium nuptiale, scilicet pauperes et boni, non scurre et<br />
‘Chana “zelus” vel “emulatio” vel “possedis eos” aut “possessio eorum”’ (MS<br />
BL Add. 31,830, fo. 447RA).<br />
‘Galilea “rota” vel “volubilis” sive “transmeans” aut “transmigratio mea”’ (ibid.,<br />
fo. 452RA).<br />
With apl’ in margin<br />
viii] vii ms.
Documents: 1. 9 221<br />
hystriones. Sed hodie, sicut habetur in Exodo viii, Egypti rane intrant<br />
in cibos pharaonis, scilicet hystriones garruli et clamosi qui intrant in<br />
reliquias ciborum et vestimentorum nobilium que debent pauperibus<br />
erogare.<br />
5. Nuptie iste significant nuptias divinitatis et humanitatis in utero virginis<br />
celebratas. In hiis nuptiis erat vinum quamdiu apostoli gaudebant<br />
de presentia sponsi, dicente Domino in Matheo ix (15): ‘Non possunt<br />
filii nuptiarum lugere quamdiu cum eis presens est sponsus.<br />
6. Defecit vinum cum Dominus, transiturus ad patrem, dixit eis, Ioh. xvi<br />
(20): ‘Amen, dico vobis, plorabitis et flebitis, mundus autem gaudebit;<br />
vos contristabimini’; conversa est aqua in vinum cum dixit: ‘Tristitia<br />
vestra vertetur in gaudium’.<br />
7. Item hee nuptie significant nuptias Christi et fidelis anime, quod matrimonium<br />
describit, Osee ii (20 @ 19), dicens: ‘Sponsabo te in fide;<br />
sponsabo te in iustitia et iudicio et in misericordia et miserationibus;<br />
sponsabo te in sempiternum’. Ter dicit ‘sponsabo’ ut ostendat illud<br />
matrimonium initiatum, ratum et consummatum.<br />
8. Initiatur enim in fide, per quam anima dei sponsa ecitur, anulo fidei<br />
subarrata, de quo Ihere. ii (32): ‘Numquid obliviscetur virgo ornamenti<br />
sui, id est, anuli desponsationis sue, aut sponsa fascie pectoralis<br />
sue’, tu autem ‘oblita es mei in diebus innumeris’. Arguit animam que,<br />
oblita anuli de sponsationis, [fo. 24ra] fidem non servat coniugii, cum<br />
mulieres consueverint servare anulum desponsationis sue toto tempore<br />
vite sue’.<br />
9. Ratum et consumatum ecitur hoc matrimonium ‘in iustitia et iudicio<br />
et misericordia et miserationibus’. Iudicium est in discussione boni et<br />
mali et duorum malorum inter se; iustitia in punitione culpe. Sunt<br />
multi qui bene iudicant, sed non sunt boni iustitiarii: peccata sua condempnant<br />
sed districte non vindicant. Unde Ysaias xxviii (17) ‘Ponam<br />
iudicium in pondere et iustitiam in mensura’. Iudicium quasi in statera<br />
diiudicat pondera, et penam culpe commensurat iustitia. Misericordia<br />
est in eorumdem compassione. Miseratio, in beneficii datione. Et precedit<br />
misericordia miserationem. Unde ‘iustus miseretur et tribuet’<br />
(Ps. 36: 21), et ‘plus est compati ex corde quam dare’, sicut dicit Gregorius.<br />
Consumatur autem matrimonium in eternitate, sed in quo sit<br />
consumatio non dicit propheta Osee, sed hoc tantum: ‘Sponsabo te in<br />
sempiternum’, ostendens quod ine·abilis est consumati matrimonii<br />
beata delectatio.<br />
10. In hiis nuptiis vinum deficit, scilicet amor huius seculi inebrians, de<br />
quo Ysa. xvi (10) ‘Auferetur letitia et exultatio de Carmelo’. Carmelus,<br />
nuptiarum] sponsi in Vulgate<br />
consummatum] confirmatum ms.<br />
xxviii] xxii ms.<br />
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, 36 (Migne, PL 76. 180).
222 Documents: 1. 9<br />
‘mons fertilis’, significat sterilitatem bonorum temporalium, et interpretatur<br />
‘mollis’ vel ‘tener’, et ‘ab omni rigore per delicias dissolutus’:<br />
a quibus auferetur letitia et exultatio, data ipsis gratia penitentie. Sequitur<br />
(ibid.): ‘vinum non culcabit in torculari’. Qui calcare consueverat,<br />
calcans in torculari multo labore vinum exprimit, et seipsum<br />
totum polluit in exprimendo: et amator huius seculi vix a suis laboribus<br />
modicum delectationis exprimet, et hoc non habebit sine peccati<br />
macula.<br />
11. ‘Deficiente vino dicit mater Iesu: “Vinum non habent”. Et ait Iesus:<br />
“Quid michi et tibi est, mulier?”’, quasi dicat: ‘Quid a te accepi, per<br />
quod vinum eis miraculose dare possim? A te quidem accepi carnem<br />
que velut uva premetur in cruce, et fluet vinum sanguinis mei: sed<br />
numdum venit hora, quia nondum Iudas extendit calcaneum super<br />
uvam. Siquidem beata virgo vitis. Unde in Ecc(li) xxiiii (23) habetur:<br />
‘Ego quasi vitis fructificavi suavitatem odoris, et flores mei fructus<br />
honoris et honestatis’, scilicet Christum, qui duo attulit unguenta,<br />
unum contra infirmitatem anime, aliud contra infirmitatem corporis.<br />
Sanavit enim infirmitatem anime unguento gratie remittentis peccata,<br />
et sanabit infirmitatem corporis immortalitatis et incorruptibilitatis<br />
unguento. Unde in Cant(ico canticorum) (1: 2–3): ‘in odore unguentorum<br />
tuorum curremus; adolescentule dilexerunt te nimis’. Bene dicit<br />
‘in odore’. Semper enim canis venaticus nasum habet in odore illius<br />
fere quam querit. In hunc modum, qui querit Dominum ab odore<br />
suavitatis eius non recedit, donec invenerit et plene perceperit quod<br />
intendit.<br />
12. Sequitur: ‘Dicit Iesus: “Implete ydrias aqua”’. Ydrie sunt corda nostra,<br />
ab ‘ydor’, quod est aqua. Non enim debent esse corda nostra<br />
vasa vinaria, sed aquatica, lacrimis scilicet compunctionis plena, non<br />
[fo. 24rb] vino terrene delectationis, et debent impleri ydrie iste usque<br />
ad summum, quia in pleno non amplius apponi potest, in semipleno<br />
autem potest, quia si plenum fuerit cor hominis lacrimis contritionis,<br />
non poterit diabolus infundere venenum prave suggestionis.<br />
13. Sex autem ydrie dicte sunt propter sex facies sive peccatorum latera,<br />
que designantur in sex lateribus lapidis quadrati, de quibus in Trenis<br />
(3: 9): ‘conclusit vias meas lapidibus quadris’. Sunt enim peccatis<br />
propriis concluse vie peccatoris, ut clausus peccati carcere prodire<br />
non possit cum voluerit. Sex autem peccati latera sunt consensus in<br />
I have checked a thirteenth-century version of the Interpretationes nominum<br />
Hebraicorum, but found only the following, an imperfect match: ‘Carmelus “mollis”<br />
vel “tenellus” sive “cognoscens circumcisionem” aut “scientia circumcisionis”’ (MS<br />
BL Add. 31,830, fo. 446RA).<br />
calcaneum] calneum ms.<br />
Siquidem] ms. unclear<br />
curremus] Vulgate: currimus ms.
Documents: 1. 9 223<br />
peccatum, consuetudo vel iteratio mali operis, gloriatio de peccato,<br />
excusatio peccati, postremo desperatio venie vel nimia presumptio<br />
venie, que peccandi securitatem inducit.<br />
14. Capiunt autem singule ydrie metretas binas vel ternas. Due metrete<br />
sunt contritio et confessio, que suciunt exeuntibus de seculo. Tres<br />
metrete sunt confessio, contritio, satisfactio, que manentibus in hac<br />
vita sunt necessaria.<br />
15. Igitur ydrie cordium, que sex varietatibus peccatorum deformantur,<br />
predictis aquis per compunctionem impleri iubentur. Si autem hiis<br />
aquis implete fuerint ydrie iste, Dominus aquas convertet in vinum et<br />
tristitiam penitentie commutabit in gaudium et letitiam felicitatis, et<br />
glorie sempiterne. Quod nobis prestare dignetur, etc.<br />
1. 10. A sermon on marriage by Konrad Holtnicker<br />
This sermon also illustrates the combination of marriage symbolism and<br />
emphasis on the holiness of marriage on a literal and human level. The<br />
sermon and collection belong to the ‘model sermon’ genre. The author<br />
was a thirteenth-century German Franciscan.<br />
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 2946 (=M), with<br />
occasional corrections from MS Paris, BN lat. 3742 ( =P)<br />
M is a parchment manuscript, ‘in 4O’, of 308 folios. The catalogue dates<br />
it to the fourteenth century; I would put it in the first or even second<br />
half of the thirteenth. In addition to the ‘de tempore’ sermon collection<br />
from which this comes, and what looks from the description like an<br />
index applying the sermons to liturgical slots, it contains the ‘Liber<br />
scintillarum’, presumably the work by Defensor of Li›ege. It came to the<br />
Staatsbibliothek from the Bridgettine nunnery of Altm•unster.<br />
There is an exemplary scholarly description of P in Biblioth›eque Nationale,<br />
Catalogue g‹en‹eral des manuscrits latins, vi.(Nos 3536 ›a 3775B)<br />
(Paris, 1975), 701–5.<br />
M,fo.28RA–VA, corrected from P, fos.xR–xiR:<br />
1. ‘Nuptie facte sunt’ et cetera, Io. 2 (1). Nota quod sunt nuptie ociose,<br />
perniciose, gratiose, gloriose. Prime sunt viri et mulieris cohabitantis,<br />
secunde sunt anime peccantis et dyaboli, tertie sunt Christi et ecclesie<br />
militantis, quarte sunt Christi et ecclesie triumphantis.<br />
2. Prime igitur sunt nuptie ociose viri et mulieris contrahentis. Tob. 9<br />
(12): Cum timore Domini nuptiarum convivium exercebant. Expone<br />
Schneyer, Repertorium, i. 751, ‘Conradus Holtnicker de Saxonia OM’, no. 54.<br />
Description based on Hahn et al., Catalogus codicum Latinorum Bibliothecae<br />
Regiae Monacensis, i/2. 52, and on a microfilm printout of the sermon.<br />
Tob. 9] Iob. 49 M.
224 Documents: 1. 10<br />
hystoriam quomodo 7 viros Sare demonium occidit, et quomodo tribus<br />
noctibus orationi vacabant.<br />
3. Has nuptias honoravit Dominus quadrupliciter: scilicet:<br />
4. Institutione. Institute enim sunt non a vili persona, non ab homine,<br />
non ab angelo, sed a deo. Institute sunt non in vili loco, non in stabulo,<br />
non in angulo, sicut iam fiunt clandestina matrimonia, sed in paradyso.<br />
Institute sunt non in statu culpe, sed innocentie, non post lapsum<br />
hominis, sed ante. Sed heu, modo post multos lapsus et fornicationes<br />
multi contrahunt.<br />
5. Associatione, quia Iesus et mater et discipuli eius in nuptiis erant, non<br />
histriones, non corizantes, ut modo.<br />
6. Operatione, quia in nuptiis aquam in vinum convertit. Sed heu, modo<br />
magice artes non divine exercentur in nuptiis.<br />
7. Significatione. Eph. 5 (32): Sacramentum hoc magnum est. Augustinus:<br />
Bone sunt nuptie in quibus tanto sunt meliores coniugati, quam<br />
castiores ac fideliores deum timent, maxime si filios carnaliter desiderant,<br />
spiritualiter nutriunt.<br />
8. Secunde sunt nuptie perniciose, scilicet dyaboli et anime peccantis.<br />
1 Macc. 9 (41): ‘Converse sunt nuptie in luctum et vox musicorum<br />
in lamentum’. Nota hystoriam, quomodo filii Zambri cum tympanis<br />
et musicis adduxerunt sponsam filiam unam de magnis principibus<br />
Chanaan, super quos irruit Ionathas et interfecit eos. Zambri<br />
Luciferum significat. Interpretatur enim ‘dies amaricans’. Lucifer<br />
autem ante lapsum dies fuit, post lapsum vero amaricans totum<br />
mundum. Sap. 2 (24) ‘Invidia dyaboli mors intravit in orbem’, etc.<br />
Huius filii sunt demones, non natura sed imitatione. Ps. (143: 11):<br />
‘Erue me de manu filiorum alienorum’. Chanaan mundum significat.<br />
Interpretatur enim ‘commutatus’. Mutatio est autem mundi primo<br />
per aquam diluvii, in fine per ignem iudicii, medio autem tempore<br />
per aquam baptismi et ig nem [fo. 28rb] spiritus sancti. ‘Hec mutatio<br />
dextere excelse’ (Ps. 76: 11). Principes Chanaan sunt demones. Eph.<br />
6 (12): ‘Non est nobis colluctatio (adversus carnem et sanguinem: sed<br />
adversus principes, et potestates, adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum<br />
harum, contra spiritualia nequitie, in celestibus)’ etc. Anima ergo pec-<br />
enim sunt] sunt enim sunt M<br />
clandestina] clamdestina M<br />
nutriunt] nutriantur M: nutriant P<br />
Macc.] Mach. corrected from Mich. in M<br />
significat] signat is also a possible extension of the abbreviation<br />
‘Zambri, “iste lacescans” vel “iste amaricans”’ (MS BL Add. 31,830, fo. 470RA).<br />
amaricans] amorificans M<br />
2] 1 M<br />
‘Canaam “commutatus” vel “commutatio”’ (BL Add. 31,830, fo. 446RA).<br />
est autem] corrected from autem est in M
Documents: 1. 10 225<br />
catrix filia est et sponsa dyaboli, que nunc dyabolo cum mundanis<br />
gaudiis adducitur. Sed Ionatha, id est Christo, in morte vel in iudicio<br />
superveniente mala societas dampnatione percutitur. Iob 21 (12–13):<br />
‘Tenent tympanum et cytharam’, etc., usque ‘et in puncto ad inferna<br />
descendunt’. In hiis nuptiis non aqua in vinum, sed vinum temporalis<br />
lascivie in aquam eterni fletus convertitur. Unde supra bene dicitur<br />
quod converse sunt nuptie in luctum. Bernardus: ‘Eia letare, iuvenis,<br />
in adolescentia tua, ut decedente pariter cum etate temporali letitia,<br />
succedat que te absorbeat eterna tristitia.’<br />
9. Tertie sunt nuptie gratiose, Christi scilicet et ecclesie militantis. Mt<br />
22 (2): ‘Simile factum est regnum celorum homini regi qui fecit nuptias<br />
filio suo’, id est, Christo, cuius sponsa est ecclesia sive anima<br />
fidelis. Io. 3 (29): ‘Qui habet sponsam, sponsus est’. Sicut autem<br />
in nuptiis convivium constituitur, vestes et dona largiuntur, sic et<br />
Christus fecit, sicut signatum est Hester 2 (18), ubi dicitur quod iussit<br />
Assuerus ‘convivium preparari permagnificum pro coniunctione<br />
et nuptiis Hester’: ‘dona largitus est’, etc. Assuerus Christum, Hester<br />
ecclesiam significat, quam pro Vasti, id est synagoga reprobata<br />
assumpsit. Convivium permagnificum est in quo corpus suum ad<br />
comedendum et sanguinem ad bibendum dat. Largitus est etiam dona<br />
in cruce ubi sponsam duxit. Dedit enim corpus tortori, spiritum patri,<br />
matrem Iohanni, paradysum latroni. Sed postmodum etiam dedit<br />
dona. Spiritus sancti, Ps. (67: 19), dedit ‘dona hominibus’; vestes<br />
etiam dedit et nudus in cruce remansit. In hiis nuptiis aqua in vinum<br />
convertitur cum lacrimas doloris gratia spiritus sancti sequitur. Ps.<br />
(103: 15): ‘Vinum letificet cor hominis’. Crisostomus: ‘Dominus ipse<br />
est qui consolatur flentes, dolentes curat, penitentes informat’.<br />
10. Quarte sunt nuptie gloriose, Christi scilicet et ecclesie triumphantis.<br />
Mt. 25 (10): ‘Que parate erant, intraverunt cum eo ad nuptias’.<br />
Omnem iocunditatem et delectationem quam visus, auditus, gustus<br />
aut omnium hominum sensus omnes habent vel habebunt in omnibus<br />
cum] P:etiamM?<br />
21] 31 M<br />
Bernard of Clairvaux, Ep. 2. 10, in Sancti Bernardi opera, ed. J. Leclercq and<br />
H. Rochais, vii. Epistolae, I: corpus epistolarum 1–180 (Rome, 1974), 20–1.<br />
Tertie] Tertio M?<br />
constituitur] P: construitur M<br />
signatum] significatum also a possible extension of the abbreviation<br />
permagnificum] per manus per magnificum M<br />
significat] or signat<br />
Permagnificum] permagnum M?<br />
Spiritus sancti, Ps. dedit] P:Spiritums.deditM<br />
informat] corrected from format in M<br />
Not found.<br />
Quarte] iiii ms.
226 Documents: 1. 10<br />
nuptiis mundi que fuerunt et sunt et erunt, incomparabiliter excedit<br />
gaudium nuptiale in celis. Apo. 19 (7): ‘Gaudeamus et exultemus et<br />
demus gloriam deo, quia venerunt nuptie agni’. In hiis nuptiis aqua in<br />
vinum con vertitur [fo. 28va] dum presens miseria in eternam iocunditatem<br />
et in eternas delicias commutatur. Ieronimus: ‘Miserie deliciis<br />
et delicie miseriis commutantur. In nostro arbitrio est vel divitem sequi<br />
vel Lazarum’.<br />
1. 11. A sermon on marriage by Servasanto da Faenza<br />
This text provides further illustration of the combination of marriage symbolism<br />
and emphasis on the holiness of marriage on a literal and human<br />
level. Regarding the goodness of human marriage, note the attack on contemporary<br />
dualist heretics, the ‘Patareni’, clearly the Cathars. The Aristotelian<br />
colouring and the formal logic are also a striking feature, untypical<br />
of thirteenth-century sermons generally, though the misnomer ‘scholastic<br />
preaching’ has tended to obscure the general pattern. Servasanto was a<br />
preacher active in Florence in the later thirteenth century. The unusually<br />
sophisticated lay audience there may have had a taste for rather intellectual<br />
sermons (more intellectual, paradoxically, than sermons for university<br />
audiences of the same period at Paris, where there was a genre distinction<br />
between preaching on the one hand and scholastic teaching with ‘quaestiones’,<br />
logic, and philosophy on the other). This Florentine milieu could<br />
have a·ected Servasanto’s perception of a lay congregation’s horizon of<br />
expectation, even though his sermon collection is not just intended for a<br />
Florentine public—it belongs to the genre of model sermon collections,<br />
containing texts meant to be preached by friars and other preachers to<br />
congregations anywhere.<br />
MS Troyes, Biblioth›eque Municipale 1440<br />
Parchment manuscript, ‘In-quarto’, 372 folios, two columns, coloured<br />
initials. The manuscript is probably Italian, because it has the distinctive<br />
Italian superscript ‘r’ abbreviation, which looks like an ‘a’with the<br />
convertitur] concealed by crease but supplied from sense<br />
Jerome, Epistola 48, para. 21 (Migne, PL 22. 511).<br />
Schneyer, Repertorium, v. 378, ‘Servasanctus de Faenza OM’, no. 32. There is<br />
an incunable edition of this (1484), to which Carlo Delcorno and Nicole B‹eriou drew<br />
my attention. I have examined it in the Reuttlingen, shelfmark IB. 10693, ‘sermo<br />
xxxii’, but there is no reason to prefer it to the manuscript used here, which is a<br />
couple of centuries earlier.<br />
See D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Di·used from Paris<br />
before 1300 (Oxford, 1985), 76–7, 155 n. 2, 158.<br />
Description based on Minist›ere de l’‹education nationale, Catalogue g‹en‹eral des<br />
manuscrits des biblioth›eques publiques des d‹epartements (7 vols.; Paris, 1849–85), ii.<br />
Troyes (1855), 603, and on microfilm printout of the sermon.
Documents: 1. 11 227<br />
top sliced o·, or like a ‘u’ (e.g. fo. 98RA, 10up,honorare) .Thetwocompartment<br />
‘a’ is sometimes closed and sometimes not, which suggests<br />
a date in the mid- to late thirteenth century. The many paragraph<br />
marks also place it in the second half of the century rather than earlier.<br />
The fairly ample space between the lines and relative regularity of the<br />
script are more characteristic of thirteenth- than fourteenth-century<br />
hands.<br />
The manuscript contains a collection of sermons on the epistles and<br />
Gospels of the liturgical year.<br />
Fos. 95VB–98VA:<br />
1. ‘Nuptie facte sunt in Chana Galilee, et erat mater Jesu ibi’, Io. 2<br />
(1). Tales sunt qui dampnant matrimonium quales sunt illi qui in<br />
die media impingunt in murum propter defectum luminis oculorum.<br />
Nam omni ceco ille magis cecus esse probatur qui oculos habens<br />
videre non sinitur. Adeo enim constat esse clarissimum, et veris testimoniis<br />
comprobatum, a deo esse matrimonium institutum, ut omni<br />
ceco fit cecior quicumque dicit contrarium. Nam matrimonium esse<br />
bonum probat natura; probat scriptura; et probant sanctorum exempla.<br />
2. Dico quod primum argumentum sumitur ex natura. Natura enim<br />
refugit omne superfluum, nec admittit aliquid diminutum. Unde nec<br />
habundat superfluis, nec deficit in necessariis, nec aliquid frustra facit,<br />
sicut omnis *phylosophya dicit. Ergo, si natura ad generationem facit<br />
membra apta et congrua, et fecit ea non superflua neque frustra, ergo<br />
generare est de intentione nature. Sed quod naturale est, peccatum<br />
non est, si fiat [fo. 96ra] eo modo quo institutum est. Actus ergo<br />
generative de se peccatum non est. Non ergo matrimonium malum<br />
est.<br />
3. Item sicut natura dedit homini potentiam nutritivam, sic dedit et generativam.<br />
Sed non peccat homo si debito modo et tempore congruo<br />
satisfaciat *nutritive. Ergo non peccat si debito modo a deo ordinato<br />
tempore congruo et loco debito satisfaciat generative.<br />
4. Item longe maius est et nobilius est et magis necessarium est speciem<br />
quam individuum conservare. Sed per generativam fit conservatio<br />
speciei, per nutritivam vero fit conservatio individui. Ergo universo<br />
magis est necessarius actus generative quam nutritive. Ergo si non<br />
peccatur in nutritiva, multo minus nec in generativa.<br />
5. Item, cuius finis bonus est, ipsum quoque bonum est. Sed finis generative<br />
est ad cultum dei filios generare et divinum esse in successionibus<br />
conservare. Et constat hoc bonum esse. Ergo et bonum est generare.<br />
comprobatum] comprobatur ms.<br />
nec] om. ms.
228 Documents: 1. 11<br />
Phylosophus: Ad hoc data est homini vis generativa ut conservetur<br />
esse divinum.<br />
6. Item, matrimonium esse ex instinctu nature [fo. 96rb] docent omnes<br />
sensibiles creature. Quis docuit omnia animalia aquatica, aerea, et<br />
terrea ut coniungantur bina, masculus et femina? Quis docuit ipsa animalia<br />
masculina esse zelotipa et unumquodque bellare pro sua femina?<br />
Quis docuit ipsa animalia masculina vindicare adulteria? Nonne leo<br />
pardum mortaliter odit, et eum persequitur et occidit, quia cum leena<br />
concumbit? Et ipsam suam feminam dum adulterium sentit, quod flatu<br />
cognoscit, verberibus acit, et quandoque interimit? Quis docuit ciconiam<br />
masculam femine fidem thori servare, et in ea adulterum concubitum<br />
vindicare, quod ex solo cognoscit odore? Quis docuit turturem<br />
tantam fidem coniugi marito servare, ut eo mortuo nulli umquam alteri<br />
se coniungat, sed omnem societatem refugiat, sola semper incedat,<br />
et amissum comparem semper gemat? Quis marinos pisces instruxit<br />
ut inter eos nulla adulteria committantur, sed sic unusquisque suo<br />
compari iungitur, ut numquam alteri uniatur?<br />
7. Hec est igitur lex illa, quam natura docuit omnia animantia. Ex instinctu<br />
ergo nature sunt matrimonia, [fo. 96va] et ideo iusta et sancta,<br />
si debito fuerint modo servata.<br />
8. Secundo patet hoc ipsum ex divina scriptura. Nam dicitur Mt. 19 (4)<br />
quod deus ab initio masculum et feminam fecit eos. Sed non frustra<br />
fecit eos in sexu distinctu, non incassum. Precepit eis ut crescerent,<br />
cum crescere nisi per mutuam coniunctionem non possent. Ergo ad<br />
hoc eos sic fecit, ut mutuo se coniungerent.<br />
9. Item si matrimonium malum esset, eius separatio bona est, quia cuius<br />
coniunctio mala est, eius divisio bona est. Sed Dominus dicit matrimonium<br />
preter adulterium nulla esse causa alia separandum. Ergo matrimonium<br />
non est malum. Et est malum vel bonum. Ergo est bonum.<br />
Minor probatur Mt. 19 (3–9), ubi pharisei querentes dixerunt: ‘Si licet<br />
homini dimittere uxorem suam quacumque ex causa?’ Quibus Dominus<br />
ait: ‘Non legistis quia qui fecit homines, ab initio, masculum et<br />
feminam fecit eos? Propter quod’, inquit, ‘dimittet homo patrem et<br />
Perhaps Arist. De anima, 415a–b, in William of Moerbeke’s translation, 2. 7<br />
(Sancti Thoma Aquinatis . . . opera omnia, iussu Leonis XIII P.M. edita, xlv/1.<br />
Sentencia libri de anima, ed. [R.-A. Gauthier] (Rome, 1984), 95 (the editor, who<br />
modestly left his name o· the title-page, gives a critical edition of William of Moerbeke’s<br />
translation of Aristotle as well as of Aquinas’s commentary); Aristotle’s De<br />
anima in the Versions of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary of Thomas Aquinas,<br />
ed. and trans. K. Foster, S. Humphries, and I. Thomas (London, 1951), 210.<br />
terrea] read terrena?<br />
Quis . . . femina] supplied in margin<br />
servare] supplied in margin<br />
Set non frustra fecit eos] supplied in margin<br />
est] read esset?
Documents: 1. 11 229<br />
matrem et adherebit uxori sue, et erunt duo in carne una.’ [fo. 96vb]<br />
Et subdit: ‘Quos ergo deus coniunxit, homo non separet.’ Et illi e<br />
contra dixerunt: ‘Quid ergo Moyses mandavit dari libellum repudii<br />
et dimitti?’ Et Dominus: ‘Ad duritiam cordis vestri permisit vobis<br />
*dimittere uxores vestras. Ab initio autem non sic fuit. Dico ergo vobis<br />
quia quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam nisi ob causam fornicationis,<br />
et aliam duxerit, mechatur.’ Quid istis expressius? Quid apertius? Est<br />
igitur cecus qui doctrine tam aperte et solutioni tam solide a doctore<br />
veritatis date nititur contraire.<br />
10. Item Apostolus 1 Cor. 7 (2): ‘Bonum est’, inquit ‘homini mulierem non<br />
tangere. Sed propter fornicationem unusquisque suam uxorem habeat,<br />
et unaqueque suum virum.’ Nunc quero: aut propter fornicationem<br />
vitandam, aut faciendam? Non utique faciendam, quia ipse alibi prohibet,<br />
1 Cor. 6 (18): ‘Fugite fornicationem’. Ergo uxorem haberi concedit<br />
propter fornicationem vitandam. Ergo dum uxor cognoscitur,<br />
peccatum vitatur. Matrimonium igitur bonum esse probatur. [fo. 97ra]<br />
Nec te moveat quod dicit: ‘bonum est mulierem non tangere’ (1 Cor. 7:<br />
1). Vult enim dicere quod melius est caste vivere quam non continere.<br />
Unde subdit (1 Cor. 7: 9) ‘Volo omnes homines esse sicut ego sum’,<br />
unde ‘bonum est si sic permaneant sicut ego’, sed ‘si non continent,<br />
nubant: melius est’ inquit, ‘nubere, quam uri’. Et multa apertissima<br />
sunt ibi de materia ista.<br />
11. Item 1 Ti. v (11): ‘adolescentiores viduas devita’, et subdit (1 ad Tim. 5:<br />
14): ‘Volo ergo iuniores viduas nubere, filios procreare, matresfamilias<br />
esse’. Nichil istis apertius. Igitur errant qui matrimonium dampnant.<br />
Unde dicitur 1 Ti. 4 (1–3) ‘Spiritus manifeste dicit quia in novissimis<br />
temporibus discedent quidam a fide, attendentes spiritibus erroris et<br />
doctrinis demoniorum in ypocrisi loquentium mendacium, et cauteriatam<br />
habentium suam conscientiam, prohibentium nubere et abstinere<br />
a cibis quos deus creavit’. Manifestum est igitur quod omnes illi errant<br />
qui nuptias dampnant et cibos aliis comedere vetant. Sed ista faciunt<br />
Patareni. Isti igitur sunt illi heretici de quibus prophetavit spiritus<br />
Apostoli.<br />
12. Item, si nuptie male essent, Dominus ma las [fo. 97rb] esse docuisset,<br />
nec eas sua presentia decorasset, nec ibi comedisset, nec eas tam<br />
sollempni miraculo adornasset, nec matrem suam sanctissimam adesse<br />
permisisset. Ergo dum istis omnibus nuptias decoravit, bonas eas esse<br />
ostendit.<br />
13. Item canon dixit, et hoc per se notum existit, quod error cui non<br />
dimitti] dimittere in Vulgate<br />
Non utique faciendam] supplied in margin<br />
Note that the scribe uses both roman and arabic numerals for biblical chapters:<br />
the latter here, the former a couple of lines above.<br />
et doctrinis . . . conscientiam] supplied in margin
230 Documents: 1. 11<br />
resistitur, approbatur, nec caret scrupulo societatis occulte qui manifesto<br />
facinori desinit obviare. Ergo, si matrimonium malum esset,<br />
cum Dominus presens esset, et non illi malo resisteret cum resistere<br />
posset, nec illud redargueret, cum doctor veritatis existeret, dum non<br />
impediebat malum, approbat. Sed hoc est impossibilissimum. Ergo,<br />
et primum: matrimonium scilicet esse malum.<br />
14. Item Apostolus, Ro. 1 (32), loquens de peccatis, sic in fine concludit<br />
quod ‘non solum facientes, sed qui consentiunt facientibus digni sunt<br />
morte.’ Sed consentire est tacere cum possis arguere. Sed si matrimonium<br />
malum erat, et Dominus redarguere poterat, et non redarguebat,<br />
ergo consentiebat, ergo peccabat, ergo filius mortis erat. Sed hoc impossibilissimum<br />
erat. Ergo matrimonium non est malum.<br />
15. Tertio probatur hoc ipsum per sanctorum exempla. Nam constat dominam<br />
nostram matrimonio Joseph fuisse coniunctam. Unde dicitur,<br />
Mt. 1 (20): ‘Ioseph fili David, noli timere accipere Mariam coniugem<br />
tuam’. Sed nulli matrimonialiter iuncta fuisset, si matrimonium<br />
malum esset. Ergo matrimonium bonum est.<br />
16. Item, si dicas matrimonium ratione carnalis copule, non in se, esse<br />
malum, quare domina nostra potuit matrimonialiter Ioseph iungi, sed<br />
non ab eo cognosci, contra dicitur Luc. 1 (6–7) quod Zacharias et uxor<br />
illius erant ambo iusti ante deum incedentes in omnibus mandatis<br />
Domini sine querela: et addiditur ibi quod sterilis erat Elysabeth. Sed<br />
sterilem se esse nescivisset nisi vir suus *eam cognovisset. Ergo non<br />
peccat eam cognoscens, quia si peccasset, iustus non fuisset.<br />
17. Item ibidem (13) dicitur: ‘Ne timeas’, inquit angelus, ‘Zacharia, quoniam<br />
exaudita est deprecatio [fo. 97vb] tua, et Elysabeth uxor tua pariet<br />
tibi filium’, etc. Sed filium non pareret nisi eam cognosceret; nec ad<br />
eam ipse accederet, nec angelus ei hoc diceret, si hoc esset peccatum.<br />
Ergo uxorem cognoscere causa prolis habende et ad cultum dei<br />
nutriende non est peccatum, sed potius magnum bonum.<br />
18. Item dicitur in Mt. (8: 14) quod Dominus intravit domum ubi socrus<br />
Petri tenebatur magnis febribus. Sed si socrus Petri erat, ergo eius<br />
filiam in uxorem Petrus habebat, nec eam ob Christi discipulatum<br />
dimiserat, quia Christus contrarium docebat. Non est ergo malum,<br />
sed bonum.<br />
19. In verbo premisso ostenduntur nuptie honorabiles: primo ex parte<br />
invitantium, secundo vero ex parte convivantium. Nam ad nuptias<br />
invitantes fuerunt sancti et Domini consobrini. Sed ad nuptias convivantes<br />
fuerunt sanctissimi, quia mater Domini, Christus et eius discipuli.<br />
Primum notatur cum dicitur (Io. 2: 1): ‘Nuptie facte sunt’,<br />
1] 2 ms.<br />
et] d’Avray: om. ms.<br />
nutriende] d’Avray: nutriendum ms.<br />
vero] supplied in margin
Documents: 1. 11 231<br />
supple, a consobrinis. Secundum notatur cum additur (ibid.) ‘et erat<br />
mater Iesu ibi’ tunc.<br />
20. Ut ergo de carnalibus nuptiis nichil ultra dicamus, quia habun danter<br />
[fo. 98ra] iam diximus quantum ipse Dominus donare est dignatus, notandum<br />
est breviter quod Dominus noster triplices nuptias fecit. Nam<br />
primas nuptias celebravit in utero virginis per nostre nature assumptionem.<br />
Secundas nuptias celebravit in crucis patibulo per ecclesie sibi<br />
copulationem. Tertias nuptias fecit in celo per eternam refectionem.<br />
21. Dico quod primas nuptias Dominus fecit in virginis utero, dum nostram<br />
naturam assumpsit et sibi eam perpetuo copulavit. O quales<br />
nuptie fuerunt iste, quam humano generi pretiose, quam deliciose,<br />
quam amande, quam venerande, quantisve laudibus extollende! In<br />
quo rex noster nos magis potuit honorare, quam nostram naturam sibi<br />
in unitate persone unire, ut non sit alius Dominus, alius hominis filius,<br />
sed idem et unus simul homo et deus? O quanta gratia, quam ampla<br />
misericordia, quam caritas immensa, quia non angelos apprehendit,<br />
sed semen Abrae apprehendit. Et propterea ad [fo. 98rb] gaudendum<br />
invitamur, Apoc. 19 (7): ‘Gaudeamus’, inquit, ‘et exultemus, et demus<br />
gloriam deo, quia venerunt nuptie agni’, etc.<br />
22. Et vere dicuntur facte in Chana Galilee, quia et zelo amoris maximi<br />
factum est, ut ‘a summo celo esset egressio eius’ (Ps. 18: 7), et quia<br />
‘ipse tamquam sponsus esset procedens de thalamo suo’ (Ps. 18: 6).<br />
23. Secundas nuptias Christus fecit in ligno quando ecclesiam sanguine<br />
suo mundavit et eam sibi perpetuo federe copulavit. Hee nuptie quamvis<br />
fuerint sponso valde amare, nobis facte sunt valde proficue, dum<br />
nobis tradidit carnem in cibum, sanguinem in potum, et se totum in<br />
pretium. Unde dicitur ad Eph. v (25) ‘Sicut Christus dilexit ecclesiam’,<br />
etc. Et ideo de hiis nuptiis exponitur illud Mt. (22: 2) ‘Simile factum<br />
est regnum celorum homini regi qui fecit nuptias filio suo.’ Tunc enim<br />
deus pater nuptias filio suo fecit quando ei ecclesiam copulavit.<br />
24. Tertias nuptias Dominus fecit et facit in celo, dum suos dilectos sibi<br />
in gloria copulat. De [fo. 98va] torrente voluptatis sue satiat, et de vino<br />
sue ubertatis inebriat: Ps. (35: 9–10) ‘Inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus<br />
tue, et torrente voluptatis tue potabis eos, quoniam apud te est fons<br />
vite’. Et ideo ipse dicit in Luc. (14: 17) Ecce parata sunt omnia: venite<br />
ad nuptias.<br />
25. O felices nuptie, ubi omnes *convivantes sunt reges, ubi ferculum<br />
mense appositum est omne bonum et ubi ministrator est summum<br />
bonum. Et propterea dicitur, Apoc. (19: 9) ‘beati qui ad cenam agni<br />
vocati sunt’.<br />
26. Nonne illi vere beati sunt, cui omnia optata succedunt, omnia bona<br />
Paraphrase more than direct quotation.<br />
cui] quibus recte
232 Documents: 1. 11<br />
apposita sunt, et omnia mala absunt? Ad hanc igitur cenam nos Dominus<br />
introducat, cui soli cum patre et spiritu sancto est honor et gloria<br />
in secula seculorum, Amen.<br />
1. 12. A sermon on marriage by Aldobrandino da Toscanella<br />
(Schneyer no. 404)<br />
This sermon and the next one both illustrate the same main argument that<br />
marriage symbolism goes together with a highly positive presentation of<br />
marriage on the literal and human level. The two texts belong to the ‘model<br />
sermon’ genre. Like Servasanto, Aldobrandino likes quoting Aristotle. He<br />
too lived in the midst of a sophisticated Florentine public and it is probably<br />
no accident that these two preachers include much more philosophy in their<br />
sermons than was usual in their time among preachers based elsewhere.<br />
A glance at the notes will show, furthermore, that Aldobrandino draws<br />
much more learning into his preaching than any of the other preachers<br />
transcribed here, including Servasanto.<br />
MS Rome, Casanatense 4560 ( =C)<br />
In C the sermon is written in a clear expert hand, in two columns, with<br />
paragraph marks, perhaps in the first half of the fourteenth century. The<br />
scholarly catalogue of the Casanatense manuscripts that is in progress<br />
has not progressed as far as this one.<br />
Fos. 42VA–45RB:<br />
Dominica prima post octavas Epiphanie. De evangelio.<br />
1. Nuptie facte sunt in Cana Galilee, Io. secundo (1) [fo. 42vb] Secundum<br />
quod vult beatus Ieronimus super Ioanne, iste nuptie celebrantur<br />
pro Iohanne evangelista sponso, quem Iesus vocavit de hiis nuptiis,<br />
volentem nubere sponse carnis, quam non nominat. Vocatus autem est<br />
ad perpetuam virginitatem, unitus sponso deo, qui requirit spirituale<br />
connubium. Unde ea que in *evangelio ponuntur ad congruitatem<br />
nuptiarum carnalium, accipienda sunt ad necessitatem spiritualium,<br />
que sunt tria. Et primum est circumstantia temporis, quia ‘die tertio’.<br />
Schneyer, Repertorium, i, no. 404, p. 254.<br />
I use a siglum in the apparatus rather than ‘ms.’ because in Document 1. 13 I<br />
use this manuscript together with others.<br />
Cf. ps.-Jerome, Expositio quattuor evangeliorum, at the words ‘Discipulus, quem<br />
amabat Iesus’ (Migne, PL 30. 588); cf. E. Dekkers et al., Clavis patrum Latinorum,<br />
3rd edn. (Turnhout, 1995), no. 631, p. 219; K. Froelich and M. T. Gibson (eds.),<br />
Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps, Adolph<br />
Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81 (4 vols.; Turnhout, 1992), iv, Prologue to John, p. 223<br />
(thanks to Patrick Nold for the reference).<br />
evangelista] evangelica C
Documents: 1. 12 233<br />
Secundum est congruentia loci, quia ‘in Chana Galilee’. Tertium est<br />
presentia matris, quia ‘erat ibi mater Iesu’.<br />
2. Quo ad primum, attendendum quod ad spirituale connubium oportet<br />
attendere ternarium in ‘die’, et hoc quia anima maxime perficitur cum<br />
coniungitur suo principio, propter quod facta est, scilicet deo: sicut<br />
vestimentum est perfectum cum induitur et equus cum equitatur.<br />
Omnis autem perfectio consistit in quodam ternario:—sicut videmus<br />
perfectionem in divinis esse in ternario personarum patris et filii et<br />
spiritus sancti; in angelis, perfectionem in tribus ierarchiis et ter ternis<br />
ordinibus; in corporibus: longitudinem, latitu dinem [fo. 42va] etprofunditatem;<br />
in naturalibus: substantiam, virtutem et operationem; in<br />
moralibus: scire, velle et delectabiliter operari; in peccatoribus: concupiscentia<br />
carnis, concupiscentia occulorum et superbia vite; in medicina<br />
peccati: contritio, confessio, et satisfactio; in virtutibus: fidem,<br />
spem, et caritatem. Ergo, die tertio fit et perficitur connubium spirituale.<br />
3. Primo namque die inchoat fides, per cognitionem; secundo spes, per<br />
extensionem; tertio vero die perficit caritas per amplexativum amorem,<br />
per quam dicit (Cant. 3: 4): ‘Tenui eum nec dimittam’. Fides enim non<br />
potest cum deo perficere nuptias primo die, quia compatitur secum<br />
peccatum mortale, licet remaneat informis: nam ‘demones credunt et<br />
contremiscunt’ (Iacob. 2: 19). Item, secundo die non facit spes, quia<br />
etiam peccator potest habere eam. Sed tertio die facit caritas, quia<br />
qui adheret deo, unus spiritus est. Amor enim est virtus unitiva, et<br />
transformans amantem in amatum. Exemplum: sicut beatus Ignatius,<br />
desponsatus deo per amorem, non potuit a suo sponso nec tor mentis<br />
[fo. 43rb] nec morte separari ab eo, unde eum inter tormenta nominans<br />
occisus est, in cuius corde diviso inventum est nomen Iesu, unde<br />
Apostolus, Ro. 8 (38–9) ‘certus sum quod nec mors, nec vita, nec angeli<br />
poterunt nos separare a caritate dei, que est in Christo Iesu’. Et sic<br />
patet primum, scilicet circumstantia temporis.<br />
4. Secundo, oportet attendere quod sit congruentia loci, quia ‘in Chana<br />
Galilee’, quod interpretatur ‘zelus transmigrationis’. Unde oportet<br />
nos per zelum et amorem de hoc mundo transmigrare ad consummandum<br />
istud spirituale matrimonium, quod bene per Ysaac significatur,<br />
de quo adiuravit Habraam servum suum ne acciperet ei uxorem de filiabus<br />
terre in qua habitat, sed iret in Mesopotamiam Sirie, ut notatur<br />
Ge(n.) 24. Nam in mundo isto non potest fieri matrimonium.<br />
perfectum cum induitur] perfectivum cum induimur C<br />
contritio] contrititio C<br />
‘Chana “zelus” . . .’ (MS BL Add. 31,830, fo. 447RA).<br />
‘Galilea “rota” vel “volubilis”sive “transmeans” aut “transmigratio mea”’ (ibid.,<br />
fo. 452RA).<br />
significatur] om. C
234 Documents: 1. 12<br />
5. Primo, quia in mundo non est aliqua creatura que conveniat nostre<br />
nobilitati. Videmus enim quod deus unicuique creature dedit locum<br />
secundum suam nobilitatem: ut plantis terram; et quia pisces sunt nobiliores<br />
plantis, dedit eis nobiliorem locum, scilicet aquam; [fo. 43va]et<br />
quia aves sunt nobiliores piscibus, dedit eis nobiliorem locum, scilicet<br />
aerem; et illa que conveniunt in natura, conveniunt in locum, sicut<br />
plante omnes in terra, et omnes pisces in aqua, et omnes aves in aere.<br />
Homo autem habet similitudinem cum deo, quia ad eius similitudinem<br />
factus, ergo conveniens est quod conversetur cum deo in celo, propter<br />
suam nobilitatem, et ibi matrimonium faciat. Apostolus, Ph. 3 (20):<br />
‘Nostra conversatio in celis est’, id est, esse debet. Videmus enim quod<br />
peregrinus nobilis non libenter contrahit matrimonium in terra peregrinationis<br />
sue, specialiter si terra illa sit ignobilis, sed revertitur ad<br />
locum nativitatis sue, per quem modum Apostolus, volens connubium<br />
facere conveniens sue nobilitati, quia non habebat hic manentem civitatem,<br />
dixit (Philipp. 3: 13): posteriorum oblitus, ‘ad anteriora me<br />
extendo’.<br />
6. Secundo, quia mundus iste non competit nostre quieti. Nullus enim<br />
in mundo isto est bene quietus, eo quod mundus est semper in motu.<br />
Videmus autem quod qui est in re mota semper movetur ipse, sicut qui<br />
est in navi fluctuanti, fluctuat et ipse. Unde Augustinus: ‘Fecisti nos,<br />
Domine, [fo. 43vb] ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat<br />
in te.’ Unde Boetius dicit: ‘Quis est tam composite felicitatis qui non<br />
ex aliqua parte cum status sui qualitate rixetur?’ Et Gregorius: ‘Qui<br />
labenti innititur, necesse est ut cum labente labatur.’<br />
7. Tertio, quia mundus iste non convenit nostre sanitati. Videmus enim<br />
quod locus est conservativus locati: sicut rosa quamdiu est in spina<br />
virens conservatur, sed in manu pallescit; et piscis in mari vel in aqua<br />
vivit, extra aquam moritur. Ita, in mundo isto tristamur, exurimur,<br />
sitimus, dolemus, infirmamur. Unde Augustinus dicit: ‘Quesivi in<br />
mente mea et non inveni locum anime mee, nisi te, deus, in quo colliguntur<br />
dispersa.’ In mundo enim isto nullus est qui habeat omnia<br />
omnes] supplied in margin<br />
dixit] .d. C<br />
Cf. Phil. 3: 13: ‘Unum autem, quae quidem retro sunt obliviscens, ad ea vero<br />
quae sunt prior, extendens meipsum’.<br />
Augustine, Confessions, 1.1(Migne,PL 32. 659).<br />
Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio,2.4.12(Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii Philosophiae<br />
consolatio, ed. L. Bieler (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 94; Turnhout,<br />
1984), 24).<br />
Not found under Gregory in the CD-ROM of Migne, PL, but see Peter of<br />
Blois, De XII utilitatibus tribulationis (Migne, PL 207. 994): ‘et inde consequi<br />
nullum bonum imo malum finem, secundum Gregorium, dicentem “Qui labenti<br />
innititur, necesse est ut cum labente labatur”’.<br />
Augustine, Confessions, 10. 40 (Migne, PL 32. 806).
Documents: 1. 12 235<br />
bona sine aliquo malo. Aliqui enim sunt pulcri, et tamen pauperes;<br />
aliqui nobiles, sed mendici; aliqui divites et nobiles, sed infirmi; aliqui<br />
divites et nobiles et sani, sed sine liberis; aliqui autem, licet sint cum<br />
filiis, tamen habent eos insensatos, vel malos; et si sint boni, sunt brevis<br />
vite. Et ideo Boetius dicit: ‘Anxia est [fo. 44ra] conditio humanorum<br />
bonorum, que vel numquam tota proveniat, vel numquam perpetua<br />
subsistat’: sed in deo sunt omnia bona collecta sine aliquo malo’.<br />
Unde David (Ps. 16: 15): ‘Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua’. Exemplum<br />
de filio cuiusdam regis, qui intravit religionem. Cum autem<br />
pater voluit eum extrahere, dixit filius: ‘Libenter faciam, dum tamen<br />
faciatis quod in regno nostro non infirmentur ita nobiles sicut ignobiles’,<br />
cui cum pater diceret se non posse: ‘Et ideo volo properare ad<br />
illud regnum ubi nullus infirmatur.’ Quod pater audiens compunctus<br />
corde adquievit. Et sic patet secundum.<br />
8. Tertio, oportet quod sit presentia matris, scilicet Maria, que interpretatur<br />
‘maris amaritudo’, et significat penitentiam de peccatis. Nullus<br />
enim se potest de peccato excusare, quia sicut dicit Apostolus, Ro. 3<br />
(23) ‘Omnes peccaverunt et egent gratia dei’. Mare autem, sicut sapiens<br />
dicit, in superficie est amarum et salsum, quia calor solis trahit<br />
partes subtiles aque, et grosse remanentes aduruntur, et fiunt amare;<br />
profundum vero, quia calor solis non potest attingere nec agere, partes<br />
eius rema nent [fo. 44rb] dulces: sic penitentia in presenti quidem, sicut<br />
in superficie, est amara, sed in fundo, id est, in futuro, dulcis erit, quia<br />
recipiet fructum pacatissimum. Et ideo dicit Apostolus, Ad He(br.) xii<br />
(11) ‘Omnis pena in presenti quidem videtur non esse gaudii, sed<br />
meroris, sed in fine recipiet fructum pacatissimum’.<br />
9. Et convenienter penitentia etiam in presenti debet esse dulcis de peccato,<br />
quia ipsum peccatum infert multum dampnum, penitentia vero<br />
restituit dampnum. Ro(m): Peccatum enim tollit naturam. Nam<br />
homo est substantia *animata, sensibilis, rationalis.<br />
10. Sed peccatum primo tollit substantiam. Substantia enim dicitur quasi<br />
per se stans. Sed peccatum non per se stat, sed est ipsum nichil. Nichil<br />
enim est illud quod non includit finem, sicut dicitur de pomo putrido,<br />
quia nichil valet quia non includit debitum finem, scilicet manducationem.<br />
Ita peccatum dicitur nichil quia excludit a fine, scilicet a vita<br />
This echoes the sentiments though not the precise wording of Boethius, Philosophiae<br />
consolatio, 2. 4. 13–14, p. 24 Bieler.<br />
Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio 2. 4. 12, p. 24 Bieler.<br />
‘Maria . . . aut “mare amarum” . . .’ (MS BL 31,830, fo. 458VB).<br />
Cf. Aristotle’s Meteorology in the Arabico-Latin Tradition: A Critical Editon<br />
of the Texts, with Introduction and Indices, ed. P. L. Schoonheim (Leiden, 2000),<br />
tractatus secundus, 3, p. 72.<br />
pena] disciplina in Vulgate<br />
Not found: perhaps Aldobrandinus misremembered. A space is left in C.
236 Documents: 1. 12<br />
eterna. Et ideo dicit Augustinus quod peccatum nichil est, et nichil<br />
fiunt homines cum peccant; et propheta (Ps. 72: 22): ‘Ad nichilum<br />
redactus sum et nescivi’; et propter exclusionem a fine dicebat (Ps. 68:<br />
3): ‘Infixus sum in limo profundi, et non [fo. 44va] est substantia’.<br />
11. Item secundo tollit animatum. Nam anima magis est ubi amat quam<br />
ubi animat, sicut Augustinus dicit. Sed omne peccatum causatur<br />
vel ex amore vel ex timore deordinato: sicut Augustinus dicit super<br />
illum Psalmi (79/80: 17): ‘Incensa igitur et su·osa’, etc., quod omne<br />
peccatum provenit vel ex amore male inflammante, vel ex timore male<br />
humiliante. Sed avarus deordinate amat pecuniam, et ideo anima eius<br />
plus est in bursa quam in corpore, et ita etiam de concupiscentia, quia<br />
anima plus est in re quam concupiscit quam cum corpore proprio.<br />
Unde propheta Osee 7 (11) dicit in persona peccatoris: ‘E·raym<br />
quasi columba non habens cor’.<br />
12. Item, tertio, peccatum tollit sensum. Nam, ut dicit sapiens, nichil est<br />
sensitivum sine calore. Videmus enim quod paraliticus et dormiens<br />
non sentiunt, et ratio huius est quia calor in eis recolligitur ad cor,<br />
et sic remanent membra stupida, sicut in mortuis. Hoc autem facit<br />
peccatum. Nam facit sicut venenum, quod statim ut sumitur vadit<br />
ad cor, quod est fons vite, et occidit. Ita peccatum vadit ad fontem<br />
vite [fo. 44vb] spiritualis et caloris, scilicet ad ipsam caritatem, et occidit<br />
animam, quia accipit ab ea virtutem sensitivam. Unde in Cant.<br />
anima peccatrix, insensibilis facta, dicit: ‘Traxerunt me et non dolui,<br />
vulneraverunt me et non sensi’.<br />
13. Item, quarto, peccatum tollit rationem. Nam peccatum est contra rationem<br />
facere, sicut dicit Dam(ascenus). Videmus autem quod unum<br />
Augustine, In Joannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV, 13, on John 1: 3 (Migne,<br />
PL 35. 1385).<br />
Not found in Augustine, but see Bernard of Clairvaux, De praecepto et dispensatione,<br />
60inƒuvres compl›etes, xxi. Le Pr‹ecepte et la dispense. La Conversion, ed.F.<br />
Callerot, J. Miethke, and C. Jaquinod (Sources chr‹etiennes, 457; Paris, 2000), 276<br />
(the tag is much quoted with various attributions).<br />
Augustine, Ennarationes in Psalmos, at Ps. 79 (80): 17 (Sancti Aurelii Augustini<br />
Ennarationes in Psalmos LI–C, ed. D. E. Dekkers and I. Fraipont (Corpus Christianorum<br />
Series Latina, 39, Aurelii Augustini Opera, 10/2; Turnhout, 1956), para.<br />
13, pp. 1117–18), possibly via Peter Lombard, Sentences, 2. 42. 4 (262) (Magistri<br />
Petri Lombardi Parisiensis Episcopi Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, 3rd edn., ed.<br />
Patres Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas [I. Brady] (2 vols.; Spicilegium<br />
Bonaventurianum, 4–5; Grottaferrata, 1971–81), i/2. Liber I et II, 569).<br />
7] between lines<br />
Aristotle, De anima, 425a6, in William of Moerbeke’s translation, 2. 25, p. 172<br />
Gauthier; Aristotle’s De Anima in the Versions of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary<br />
of Thomas Aquinas, ed.Fosteret al., p. 348.<br />
The quotation is a mixture of Prov. 23: 35 and Song of Songs 5: 7.<br />
Possibly an erroneous reference from memory to ps.-Dionysius, De divinis<br />
nominibus, 4. 32, perhaps via Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, 1–2 q. 71 a. 6:
Documents: 1. 12 237<br />
contrarium destruit aliud, sicut egritudo destruit sanitatem, et frigiditas<br />
caliditatem: sic peccatum, quia est contra rationem, destruit<br />
eam. Ablata vero ratione, homo remanet bestia, quia nulla est differentia<br />
inter hominem et bestiam nisi per rationem, sicut sapiens<br />
dicit. Et ideo in octavo Methaphysice dicit quod ita se habent differentie<br />
in speciebus, sicut unitates in numeris. Videmus enim quod<br />
unitate remota a quinario constituit aliam speciem, scilicet quaternarium;<br />
addita autem, constituit aliam, scilicet senarium. Ita est in<br />
speciebus, quia quedam sunt que habent esse tantum sicut unitatem,<br />
ut lapides; quedam autem habent dualitatem, scilicet esse et vivere, ut<br />
plante; quedam habent trinitatem, scilicet esse, vivere, et sentire, ut<br />
animalia; quedam [fo. 45ra] autem habent quaternitatem, scilicet esse,<br />
vivere, sentire, et intelligere vel ratiocinari, sicut homo. Sed peccatum,<br />
ut dictum est, aufert rationem ab homine, et ita aufert a quaternario<br />
unitatem, et ita reponitur in alia specie, scilicet in ternario, qui competebat<br />
bestiis. Unde propheta dicit de peccatore (Ps. 48: 13 @ 21):<br />
‘Homo cum in honore esset non intellexit. *Comparatus est iumentis<br />
insipientibus’, etc.<br />
14. Item tollit peccatum potentiam. Omnis enim potentia dicit ordinationem<br />
ad actum, sicut posse videre ordinatur ad videre et non ad<br />
cecari vel cecum esse; et posse ambulare ordinatur ad ambulare et non<br />
ad claudicare, quia claudicare est defectus potentie. Cum ergo potentia<br />
hominis ordinetur ad aliquid perfectum, quia egreditur a perfecto sicut<br />
ab ipso homine, peccare autem tollat perfectionem, ergo tollit potentiam,<br />
quia fornicari non est posse, sed defectus potentie, quia est vinci<br />
a passione concupiscentie, et decipi non est potentia sed impotentia.<br />
In omni enim peccato est victoria alicuius virtutis vel potentie a vitio,<br />
sicut in avaro vincitur liberalitas, et vincit avaritia, et in guloso vincitur<br />
temperantia, et vincit gula. Et propterea [fo. 45rb] dicebat propheta, tali<br />
potentia destitutum se videns, ‘Miserere mei, quoniam infirmus sum’;<br />
et alibi (Ps. 30: 11): ‘infirmata est virtus mea’.<br />
15. Item, peccatum tollit vitam, quod super omnia diligitur, quod patet<br />
‘Sed malum hominis est contra rationem esse, ut Dionysius dicit, 4 cap. De div. nom.<br />
Ergo potius debuit dici quod peccatum sit contra rationem, quam quod peccatum sit<br />
contra legem eternam.’ For a roughly similar thought, but not in the same wording,<br />
in Burgundio of Pisa’s translation of St John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, 95, see<br />
Saint John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa: Versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus, ed.<br />
E. M. Buytaert (Franciscan Institute Publications, Text Series, 8; St Bonaventure,<br />
NY, etc., 1955), 359–60. I may have missed a closer match at some less obvious place<br />
in the text.<br />
Possibly a reference to the discussion of Aristotle’s views in Thomas Aquinas,<br />
Summa theologica, 1, q. 85, a. 3.<br />
Cf. Aristoteles Latinus, xxv/3.2. Metaphysica Lib. I–XIV, ed. Gudrun Vuillemin-Diem<br />
(Leiden etc., 1995), 173–4 (Metaph. 1043B35 and 1044A10).
238 Documents: 1. 12<br />
quia omnis operatio hominis ordinatur ad vite conservationem, sicut<br />
agricultura et molendinus et panificatura propter cibum, qui conservat<br />
vitam; lanificium, texture ars et sutoria propter vestitum qui defendit<br />
a frigore, quod tollit vitam; hedificativa et medicina et pigmentaria<br />
propter potionem qua elongatur vita. Et ideo ingeniavit natura quod<br />
loca illa ubi est vita sint bene munita, quia cerebrum munivit fortissimo<br />
osse, venas abscondit in occultissimo loco, cor vallavit multis<br />
costis. Sed peccatum frangit caput, quia abicit Christum. Caput<br />
enim viri Christus. Item, inficit venas: Ps. (13: 1): ‘Corrupti sunt et<br />
abhominabiles facti sunt in studiis suis’. Item, occidit cor. Rogemus<br />
(etc.).<br />
1. 13. A sermon on marriage by Aldobrandino da Toscanella<br />
(Schneyer no. 48)<br />
See comments on Document 1. 12.<br />
MS Rome, Casanatense 4560 =C<br />
Fos. 45RB–47RA:<br />
1. ‘Nuptie facte sunt’, etc., Io. secundo. In serie presentis evangelii notantur<br />
quattuor. Et primum est iucunditas coniugii: ibi: ‘Nuptie’. Secundum<br />
est pietas subsidii: [fo. 45va] ibi: ‘dixit mater Iesu ad eum’.<br />
Tertium est sublimitas miraculi, ibi: ‘implete ydrias aqua’. Quartum<br />
est utilitas collegii, ibi: ‘et crediderunt in eum discipuli eius’.<br />
2. Primo quidem evangelium loquitur de iocunditate coniugii, quia<br />
‘Nuptie facte sunt’. Matrimonium quidem est res magne iocunditatis,<br />
et ideo in nuptiis consueverunt ostendi signa magne letitie, ad hoc ut<br />
sponsus et sponsa mutuo se diligant, qui in tanto gaudio et letitia coniunguntur.<br />
Et vere est materia *magne iocunditatis, quia: conservat<br />
naturam, sanat plagam, adquirit gratiam, conservat amicitiam:—que<br />
omnia sunt iocunda. Et ideo, primo, matrimonium est in ocium<br />
nature, in remedium concupiscentie, in sacramentum ecclesie, in consortium<br />
amicitie.<br />
3. Primo est in ocium nature et conservat eam. Sed res naturales sunt<br />
iocunde, quod sic patet: Quelibet res est delectabilis in suo tempore,<br />
sicut vinum dulce in hyeme, acerbum in estate. Et quia ars imitatur<br />
naturam, videmus quod artes diversa artificiata secundum diversa<br />
tempora faciunt. Matrimonium autem est nature opus. Unde legitur<br />
in primo Distinctionum quod ius naturale est maris et femine<br />
abhominabiles] abhominabilis C<br />
Schneyer, Repertorium, i, no. 48, p. 226.<br />
Distinctionum quod ius naturale] supplied from MS Troyes, Biblioth›eque Municipale<br />
1263, fo. 44r: quamvis naturale C
Documents: 1. 13 239<br />
[fo. 45vb] coniunctio, quam nos vocamus matrimonium. Quod etiam<br />
patet sic. Natura etiam intendit esse perpetuum et divinum, et ideo in<br />
rebus incorruptibilibus, in quibus salvatur per unum individuum, non<br />
dedit generationem. Unde non sunt plures soles, nec lune, nec plures<br />
stelle unius speciei, sed quelibet facit speciem. Inferioribus autem et<br />
corruptibilibus, quia individua corrumpuntur, fecit multitudinem individuorum,<br />
et ideo dicit Philosophus, in secundo de Anima, quod<br />
data est vis generativa in rebus ut quod non potest salvari in se, salvetur<br />
in suo simili, propter esse divinum, et sic conservat naturam: quod est<br />
primum.<br />
4. Item, secundo, sanat plagam matrimonium. Unde institutum est in<br />
remedium concupiscentie, si legittime teneatur. Unde facit quod concupiscentia<br />
carnalis, que alias esset peccatum mortale, si recte teneatur,<br />
fit sine peccato.<br />
5. Item, tertio, in matrimonio confertur gratia. In quantum fide Christi<br />
contrahitur, habet ut conferat gratiam adiuvantem ad illa operanda<br />
que in matrimonio requiruntur. Et huius exemplum videmus in naturalibus,<br />
quia cuicumque datur aliqua facultas, dantur etiam auxilia<br />
quibus ad illa perveniri possit. Unde cum in matri monio [fo. 46ra]<br />
detur homini ex divina institutione facultas utendi uxore sua ad prolis<br />
procreationem, datur etiam gratia sine qua id convenienter facere non<br />
posset: sicut deus, vel natura, que dedit virtutem gressivam animali,<br />
dedit ei instrumenta, scilicet pedes, per quos gradi posset.<br />
6. Item, quarto, matrimonium conservat amicitiam, facit societatem<br />
communicativam, et institutum est in consortium, propter mutuum<br />
obsequium. Nam quedam sunt que naturaliter viris competunt, scilicet,<br />
fodere, scribere, hedificare; quedam autem mulieribus, sicut panificare,<br />
et nere, et huiusmodi, que videntur naturam consequi mulieris,<br />
quia ab ipsa pueritia panificant de luto, nent lanam, que opera<br />
muliebria sunt. E converso pueri lignum equitant, gladio se precingunt,<br />
que opera virilia sunt, sicut Plato dicit. Unde bene dicitur, Gen.<br />
ii (18): ‘faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi’.<br />
7. Sequitur secundum, scilicet pietas patrocinii, quia ‘dixit mater Iesu<br />
ad eum’. Mater pietatis semper in necessitate succurrit, quod quidem<br />
competit sibi quadruplici ratione. Et primo propter convenientiam<br />
Gratian, Decretum, ParsI,D.1c.7.<br />
corruptibilibus] corrected from incorruptibilibus in C<br />
Perhaps Aristotle, De anima, 415a–b, in William of Moerbeke’s translation, 2. 7,<br />
p. 95 Gauthier; Aristotle’s De anima in the Versions of William of Moerbeke and the<br />
Commentary of Thomas Aquinas, ed.Fosteret al., p. 210.<br />
peccato] C adds and deletes mortali<br />
videntur] videtur (viUR) C<br />
Direct Latin source not found.
240 Documents: 1. 13<br />
vocabuli. Secundo propter congruentiam principii. Tertio propter<br />
habundantiam beneficii. Quarto propter excellentiam preconii.<br />
8. Primo propter con venientiam [fo. 46rb] vocabuli. Dicitur enim Maria<br />
‘stella maris’, id est, peccatoris amari, quia cor peccatoris quasi mare<br />
fervens. Videmus autem quod stella, quanto plus influit de luce, non<br />
minus habet. Et ratio huius est quia spiritualia, quanto plus communicantur,<br />
non minuuntur, sicut scientia, quanto plus communicatur,<br />
magis augetur, et candele lumen quotcumque candelis communicetur,<br />
non minuitur. Corporalia vero communicata diminuuntur: sicut panis,<br />
si a pluribus videatur, non diminuitur, quia color quid spirituale<br />
est in recipiente, scilicet in organo; si vero a pluribus gustetur, consumitur,<br />
quia sapor materialiter et naturaliter percipitur. Quia igitur<br />
beata virgo est ditissima in donis sive bonis spiritualibus, absque sui<br />
diminutione ea communicat. Unde ipsa invitat, dicens (Eccli. 24: 26):<br />
‘Transite ad me, omnes qui concupiscitis me, et a generationibus meis<br />
implemini’.<br />
9. Secundo propter congruentiam principii. Videmus enim in natura<br />
quod ea que habent rationem principii, quicquid virtutis habent influunt,<br />
sicut cor influit spiritus vitales omnibus membris, sicut cerebrum<br />
influit sensum et motum in totum corpus, [fo. 46va] sicut radix influit<br />
humorem in omnibus ramis, sicut sol influit lumen omnibus stellis, sicut<br />
mare influit humorem omnibus humidis, sicut ignis influit calorem<br />
omnibus calidis, et sicut celum influit motum omnibus elementis. Et<br />
ideo Bernardus dicit: ‘Intuemini quanto dilectionis a·ectu eam a nobis<br />
voluit honorari, qui totius boni plenitudinem posuit in Maria, ut si<br />
quid nobis boni est et virtutis et gratie, ab ea in nos noverimus redundare<br />
que est ortus plenus deliciarum quem perflavit auster ille divinus,<br />
ut undique fluant et refluant aromata eius et carismata gratiarum’.<br />
10. Tertio, propter habundantiam beneficii. Ipsa enim est aqueductus, qui<br />
quantum recipit, tantum influit, et se omnibus communiter exhibet:<br />
sic beata Maria omnibus sinum sue pietatis et gratie aperit, ut de<br />
plenitudine eius accipiant universi, sicut Bernardus dicit.<br />
11. Quarto, propter excellentiam patrocinii. Sic enim dicit quidam ad<br />
beatam virginem: ‘Si non essent peccatores, mater [fo. 46vb] dei num-<br />
‘Maria . . .“stella maris” . . .’ (MS BL Add. 31,830, fo. 458VB).<br />
The sense of this is made clearer by the free variant in MS Troyes, Biblioth›eque<br />
Municipale 1263, fo. 45R: ‘Sicut patet in candela, quia licet ad unam candelam<br />
centum accendantur, non minuitur lumen prime’.<br />
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo in dominica infra octauam assumptionis, 2,inSancti<br />
Bernardi opera, v.Sermones II, ed. J. Leclercq and H. Rochais (Rome, 1968), 263.<br />
aperit] apperit C<br />
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo in nativitate beatae Virginis, 6, pp. 278–9 Leclercq<br />
and Rochais.<br />
patrocinii] preconii C
Documents: 1. 13 241<br />
quam fores, et si non essent redimendi, nulla tibi pariendi fuisset<br />
necessitas’. Quia ergo propter peccatores et miseros facta est mater<br />
dei, rependit peccatoribus vicem, admittendo eis et eis impetrando<br />
gratiam adiutricem. Et sic patet secundum.<br />
12. Tertio ponitur sublimitas miraculi, ibi: ‘Implete ydrias aqua’. Circa<br />
quod quattuor includuntur, scilicet:<br />
13. Transmutatio humoris, quia convertit aquam in vinum. Mutavit enim<br />
qualitatem, sed servavit quantitatem.<br />
14. Secundo perfectio saporis, quia optimum vinum fecit. In omnibus<br />
enim que deus fecit, hoc servavit: quod melius fecit quam natura<br />
posset, sicut primum hominem pulcriorem omnibus hominibus qui<br />
post naturaliter generantur, et primam feminam pulcherimam, preter<br />
Christum et beatam virginem. Et cum illuminavit cecos, dedit eis<br />
pulcherimos oculos. Et cum sanavit febricitantes, ut socrum Symonis,<br />
reddidit eam subito perfectissime sanitati, sine langore et aliqua<br />
debilitate, quod non potest facere natura. Cum autem aquam transmutavit<br />
in vinum, fe cit [fo. 47ra] melius quam grecum vel vernacinum,<br />
et melius quam natura facere posset.<br />
15. Tertio, ostensio vigoris, quia, sicut dicit Crisostomus, istud fuit<br />
primum miraculum quod Christus fecit, per quod eliditur Liber de<br />
Infantia Salvatoris, qui dicit eum multa miracula fecisse, quod non<br />
fuisset conveniens, quia potuisset credi fantasma, et eius miracula fantastica.<br />
Unde filius dei, verus homo, servavit tempus humane operationis<br />
conveniens, scilicet xxx annorum, ne phantasma reputaretur.<br />
16. Quarto ponitur assecutio honoris, quia manifestavit gloriam suam,<br />
quam prius puerilis etas obtexerat. Rogemus [etc.].<br />
pariendi] patiendi C<br />
admittendo eis] MS Vatican City, BAV Chigi C. IV. 99, fo. 271vb: admittendo C<br />
vigoris] viroris C (a possible reading)<br />
For John Chrysostom’s homilies on the Gospel of St John see F. Liotta, ‘Burgundione’,<br />
in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, xv (Rome, 1972), 423–8 at 425; he<br />
gives references to incunable editions (Hain, Repertorium, nos. *5036 and *5037),<br />
but in the absence of a critical edition I have used MS Merton College Oxford 30:<br />
the passage arguing that Jesus had not worked miracles before the Cana wedding is<br />
on fo. 155rb–va.<br />
Cf.M.R.James,The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), 58–65, 70–9.<br />
operationis] MS Vatican City, BAV Chigi C. IV. 99, fo. 272ra: generationis C
242 Documents: 2. 1<br />
Documents Relating to Chapter 2: Indissolubility<br />
2. 1. Proof in ‘forbidden degrees’ cases: Hostiensis attacks<br />
laxity<br />
This relates to the discussion in Chapter 2 about the ecacy of the Fourth<br />
Lateran Council’s measures to reduce the number of annulments. It comes<br />
from Hostiensis’s Lectura on the Decretals at X. 2. 20. 47, ‘De testibus et<br />
attestationibus’, c. Licet ex quadam. Hostiensis or Henry of Susa (Henricus<br />
de Segusio, Henricus de Bartholomaeis) was with Innocent IV probably<br />
the greatest and most influential canonist of the Decretalist period (1234–<br />
1917). He wrote in the established genre of commentary on the Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX. Here he attacks judges who ignored the Lateran IV rules. This<br />
passage seems to suggest that the council did not achieve its objective with<br />
respect to annulments, but the inference may be false, because Document<br />
2. 2 gives reason to think that Hostiensis set the bar of legally valid proof<br />
exceptionally high.<br />
MS Oxford, New College 205 (=O), using MS BL Arundel 485<br />
(=A2) to illustrate the second edition of the Lectura<br />
O<br />
A parchment manuscript, 400ÿ280 mm. Script is second half of the<br />
thirteenth century (I concur with Pennington’s dating). One might even<br />
narrow it down further. The Decretals text is written below the top<br />
ruled line, a sign that the manuscript is after 1250, but there are twocompartment<br />
‘a’s where the top compartment is not closed, so it may<br />
not be after about 1280. The main text is in two columns, the gloss<br />
spreading over the margins, left and right, head and foot. ‘The format<br />
of the Decretals of Gregory IX in the manuscript was obviously<br />
designed to accommodate a much larger apparatus than usual’ (Pennington).<br />
Both main text and gloss are written in expert hands, both<br />
of which look Italian. The glossing hand has the distinctive superscript<br />
‘r’, as in ‘MaUtinus’, which seems peculiar to Italian scribes. Pennington<br />
describes the glossing hand as ‘small, but careful and clear’, but in places<br />
I choose this siglum because later on I use A1 for BL Arundel 471. Arundel 485<br />
contains books 1–2 and Arundel 471 books 3–5. This is why I do not stick to the same<br />
manuscript of the later version of the commentary. Both the Arundel manuscripts<br />
seem to be pecia manuscripts, representing a text or texts probably widely available.<br />
Description based on K. Pennington, ‘An Earlier Recension of Hostiensis’s<br />
Lectura on the Decretals’ (1987), repr. in id., Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150–1550<br />
(Aldershot etc., 1993), no. xvii (retaining the original pagination: 77–90) at 77, and<br />
on personal inspection of the manuscript.
Documents: 2. 1 243<br />
it is faded and consequently a little dicult. There are initials in red and<br />
blue, in both the main script and the glossing script.<br />
On fo. 1 there are tables of contents in later medieval hands. The<br />
Decretals and Hostiensis’s apparatus on them in the form of a gloss take<br />
up fos. 2R–241R. ‘The back flyleaf (fol. 242) is the text of a commentary<br />
on X. 1. 3. 32–1. 3. 37. Several glosses are signed Johannes Andreae’<br />
(Pennington).<br />
A2<br />
A parchment manuscript, 440ÿ285 mm., 2 columns, the final folio numbered<br />
320, initials and paragraph marks in red and blue.<br />
Writing is below the top line. The script or scripts (see below) could be<br />
Italian to judge from the ‘u’-shaped superscript ‘r/‘re’, but otherwise it<br />
would be hard to say whether the scribe was Italian and he may not have<br />
been. It is a pecia manuscript, produced by the university stationers. See<br />
e.g. ‘finitur hic li’ in the margin on fo. 253VB, alongside what looks like a<br />
change of handwriting.<br />
The manuscript is taken up with Hostiensis’s Lectura on the first two<br />
books of the Decretals of Gregory IX.<br />
The discoveries of Kenneth Pennington have shown that it is desirable<br />
to compare manuscripts of the two authorial ‘editions’ of this<br />
commentary. I use the early recension, transmitted in O. Pennington<br />
says of this manuscript that it ‘will be an indispensable text for those<br />
whowishtostudyHostiensis’sideas....Ihavecheckeditsreadingsin<br />
many passages, and they are most often as good or better than the best<br />
manuscripts we have of his second recension. With it we will be better<br />
able to understand his thought and trace its development’ (86). It was<br />
apparently completed between1254 and 1265 (ibid. 81); the terminus post<br />
quem may be pushed a little later, to 1262.<br />
To compare the passages in question in this manuscript with the<br />
second edition, which was the version most people would have known, I<br />
have given variants from MS BL Arundel 485 in the apparatus (ignoring<br />
orthographic variants, transpositions, a few silly errors, and other trivia).<br />
As noted above, it is a pecia manuscript—a further reason for using it,<br />
since it was probably representative of an important proportion of the<br />
transmission of the text.<br />
The early printed editions of Hostiensis’s Lectura on the Decretals are<br />
Description based on personal inspection.<br />
Pennington, ‘An Earlier Recension’, 82, 85.<br />
K. Pennington, ‘Henry de Segusio (Hostiensis)’ (1993), repr. in id., Popes,<br />
Canonists and Texts, no.xvi (paginated 1–12) at 8. For the dates of the other great<br />
synthesis of Hostiensis, see ibid. 5–6. Note that the information about the dating of<br />
the two syntheses in J. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London etc., 1995), 214,<br />
does not correspond to Pennington’s findings and may be mistaken.
244 Documents: 2. 1<br />
not necessarily reliable: see Pennington, ‘An Earlier Recension’, 85. I did<br />
consult the Paris 1512 edition (British Library call number C.104.l.10),<br />
and in fact it does not give a substantially di·erent text from that of A2.<br />
Still, the text of a pecia manuscript from around 1300 is clearly better<br />
for our comparative purpose: it takes us directly to what was widely<br />
available in the second half of the thirteenth century.<br />
O, fo.91RA, left-hand gloss, and A2, fo. 238VB:<br />
1. ‘quia tamen,verboexemplis—puta Raymundi Barelli, habitatoris castri<br />
de Pilia Niciensis diocesis, qui hac occasione omnia matrimonia separabat.<br />
Erat enim antiquus homo et statim adinveniebat parentelam et<br />
ipsam computabat, dicens se quasi omnes vidisse. Et hoc asserebat<br />
coram x vel xii. Postea dividebat illos per partes tres vel quatuor, et<br />
sic tres ex illis coram aliis x hoc idem asserebant simul, dicentes quod<br />
ita audierant a maioribus suis; et illos secundos inducebat postea ad<br />
probandam consanguinitatem. Experimentis: experto crede magistro.<br />
Et de hoc nota supra, eodem, Preterea, ad finem.<br />
O, fo.91RB, right-hand gloss, and A2, fo. 239RB–VA:<br />
2. . . . Primum est quod considerari oportet utrum testis sit gravis vel<br />
levis. Secundum utrum ante litem motam testificata didicerit. Tertium,<br />
utrum ab antiquioribus suis hoc audierit. Quartum, utrum ad<br />
minus a duobus hoc audierit. Quintum, utrum illi duo essent suspecti<br />
vel infames vel fidedigni et omni exceptione maiores. Sextum, utrum<br />
unus tantum hoc audierit a pluribus, quamvis bone fame, vel plures<br />
infames ab hominibus etiam bone fame. Septimum, esto quod plures<br />
sunt bone fame, qui a pluribus bone fame hoc audierunt, utrum odio,<br />
amore, timore vel commodo ad hoc procedant. Octavum utrum propriis<br />
nominibus vel saltem sucientibus circumloqutionibus personas<br />
graduum duxerint exprimendas. Nonum, utrum singulos gradus<br />
ab utroque latere clara computatione distinguant. Decimum, utrum<br />
concludant in suo iuramento quod secundum quod deponunt a suis<br />
maioribus acceperunt. Undecimum, utrum credant ita esse. Duode-<br />
se] om. A2<br />
idem] om. A2<br />
nota] no. O, A2:notaturispossible ‘Etenim circumspectus judex atque discretus motum animi sui ex argumentis et<br />
testimoniis, quae rei aptiora esse compererit, confirmabit’ (X. 2. 20. 27 =E. Friedberg,<br />
Corpus iuris canonici (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1879–81; repr. Graz, 1955), ii. 324,<br />
omitting the words in italic, since these were not in the Decretals as ‘published’ in<br />
the Middle Ages: Friedberg restored them from the sources of the Decretals).<br />
audierit] audiverit A2<br />
sunt] sint A2<br />
Octavum] Octavo A2<br />
duxerint] dixerint A2 (evident error)<br />
credant] credan then space then erasure in A2
Documents: 2. 1 245<br />
cimum, utrum viderint aliquas de personis graduum quos computant<br />
pro consanguineis se habere.<br />
3. Hec sunt xii, per ordinem supra specificata, que sunt omnino consideranda,<br />
et super maiori parte querendo a testibus examinatio facienda,<br />
quorum si unum deficiat, testimonium insuciens reputatur,<br />
ut patet in hoc verbo in principio. Et hec duodecim interrogatoria<br />
circa causam matrimonialem, quando ob causam consanguinitatis seu<br />
anitatis ad divortium agitur, debet habere iudex in memoria, et super<br />
ipsis sive maiori parte ipsorum testem quemlibet interrogare, ita<br />
quod nec unum dimittat, imo ad unguem examinet, etsi partes etiam<br />
contradicant. Argumentum infra ‘De eo qui cognovit consanguineam<br />
uxoris sue’, Super eo; ...<br />
4. Hec tamen male servaverunt actenus iudices nostri temporis, de talibus<br />
parum aut nichil curantes. Unde contra deum et iustitiam, hac<br />
forma canonica spreta, multas sententias divortii, non sine animarum<br />
suarum et multarum aliarum periculis, protulerunt:—que obsecramus<br />
de cetero non negligant, sed advertant.<br />
5. Diceret quis: quare sic artatur hic probationis facultas, cum alias subveniatur<br />
probationibus: supra, eodem, Significavit, et c. Albricus.<br />
Respondeo: quia plurimis exemplis, etc., ut supra, eodem, rubrica i,<br />
verbo Quia tamen plurimis; et quia quartum gradum hec prohibitio non<br />
excedit: supra, eodem, ≈i, in principio.<br />
6. Diceret alius: si hec forma servetur, ob causam consanguinitatis vel<br />
anitatis dabitur divortii sententia vix aut numquam: numquid tutius<br />
esset hanc formam omittere et sententiam divortii ferre, et si<br />
omittantur aliqua de predictis? Respondeo: Non! Imo melius est,<br />
nisi ad unguem probentur omnia, pro matrimonio iudicare. Et sic<br />
continuatur sequens verbum tolerabilius,etc.<br />
7. tolerabilius,verbohominum. Ergo loquitur quando queritur de secundo<br />
vel saltem tertio vel quarto gradu, quos non prohibet lex divina, ut<br />
patet in eo quod legitur et notatur infra ‘De divortiis’, Gaudemus<br />
X. 4. 13. 5.<br />
X. 2. 20. 41.<br />
X. 2. 20. 43. The two decretals just cited both tend to maximize the amount of<br />
evidence legally admissible.<br />
The part of the decretal which deals with the dangers of hearsay evidence, and<br />
where Hostiensis’s commentary discusses the scam of Raymundus Barellus.<br />
That is, after the forbidden degrees had been reduced from seven to four, it was<br />
no longer necessary to reconstruct the distant genealogical past, and it was possible<br />
to insist on rigorous evidence for the relatively recent genealogies required.<br />
numquid] numquid igitur A2<br />
omittantur] omittatur A2<br />
est] om. A2<br />
tolerabilius, etc.tolerabilius, verbo]tolerabilius verbo A2 (error by eyeskip)<br />
X. 4. 19. 8.
246 Documents: 2. 1<br />
rubrica i. Primus enim et secundus pro maiori parte reputantur<br />
notorii. Unde in illis non requireretur accusator vel testis, ut patet<br />
infra, ‘De divortiis’, Porro, ≈ Praeterea.<br />
8. Dimittere copulatos. Hic enim nullum periculum est, ex quo is qui<br />
impedimentum induxit dicit quod tolerabilius est, cum et ipse videatur<br />
tacite dispensare. Et ex hoc, in dubio debeant coniuges ad sui<br />
prelati consilium suam conscientiam informare: infra, ‘De sententia<br />
excommunicationis’ Inquisitioni.<br />
9. Et ex hoc nota quod quandocumque agitur de impedimento canonico<br />
semper est in dubio pro matrimonio iudicandum, ut hic, et infra, ‘De<br />
[Sententia et] re iudicata’, circa finem. Et appello ‘dubium’ ex quo<br />
deficit testis in uno de xii superius numeratis. Et est istud contra<br />
magistros qui consueverunt glosare contra matrimonia et pro divortiis<br />
iudicare, ut patet supra, eodem ≈, verboet ab utroque, super verbo<br />
singulos gradus.<br />
10. Non dicat ergo se ubi dubitandum est certum iudex; supra, ‘De rescriptis’,<br />
Cum contingat, ≈ penult. Domini separare, sive coniungere:<br />
hic enim semper periculum est, quia nec papa potest in talibus dispensare,<br />
ut legitur et notatur supra, ‘De restitutione spoliatorum’<br />
Litteras.<br />
2. 2. Proof in ‘forbidden degrees’ cases: the rigorism of<br />
Hostiensis<br />
The following passage from the same commentary of Hostiensis dilutes<br />
the force of the preceding passages: it suggests that he was a hard-liner on<br />
the calculation of degrees, and that the canonists he accuses of laxity may<br />
rubrica] responsio or respondeo A2<br />
et] vel A2<br />
reputantur] ruputantur A2<br />
requireretur] requiretur A2<br />
X. 4. 19. 3.<br />
dispensare] dispensare. Et super hoc ius istud promulgatur: licet ad quodlibet<br />
preceptum iudicis non intendat dispensare, ut legitur et notatur supra, ‘De restitutione<br />
spolii’, Litteras, ≈ Opinioni (X. 2. 12. 13) A2<br />
X. 5. 39. 44.<br />
nota] no A2 (could be extended as notatur)<br />
X. 2. 27.<br />
supra, eodem ≈, verboet] om. A2<br />
These references are to phrases within the decretal which is the subject of the<br />
whole analysis, X. 2. 20. 47.<br />
certum] A2: certus O, in error<br />
X. 1. 3. 24.<br />
hic] hoc A2<br />
restitutione] rescriptis A2<br />
X. 2. 13. 13.
Documents: 2. 2 247<br />
have been within the limits of honest interpretation of the law. In fact, he<br />
seems to be addressing his polemic against a particular canonist, Johannes<br />
Teutonicus, who wrote a commentary on the decrees of the Fourth Lateran<br />
Council. The passage printed here in heavy type and between brackets<br />
from ‘singulos gradus’ to ‘improbari, ut supra, eodem, Series’ isaclose<br />
paraphrase of the earlier writer. Hostiensis is quoting him in full before<br />
refuting him. It is not the historian’s place to pass judgement on the dispute<br />
between canonists, but it does not look as though Johannes Teutonicus is<br />
deliberately playing fast and loose with the law and with indissolubility.<br />
That alters the picture significantly. Hostiensis may be right in thinking<br />
that some people were cutting corners to obtain fake annulments, but he<br />
may exaggerate the problem and his fellow canonists may have been less<br />
complicitous in subverting the law than might at first appear.<br />
The transcription is based on the same manuscripts as Document 2. 1,<br />
q.v. for sigla and descriptions.<br />
O, fo.91RB, gloss at foot of the page, and A2, fo. 239RA–B:<br />
1. Et ab utroque verbo: et est hoc tertium quod requiritur quo ad dictum<br />
singulos gradus. ÉSed numquid tenetur probare de stipite?<br />
Non, quia non reperitur cautum. Imo sucit incipere a germanis,<br />
infra ‘De consanguinitate’, Tua; supra, eodem, Series,<br />
dummodo gradus ex utroque latere distinguantur, ut hic, et ibi,<br />
et supra, eodem, Cum in tua Rubrica i; xxxv q.v. c.i etc.,<br />
Parentele. Sed quid si quidam testes probant de uno latere<br />
tantum et alii de alio tantum? Numquid erat probata consanguinitas?<br />
Quidam dicunt quod non, quia nec isti probant consanguinitatem<br />
nec illi. Sed certe qui hoc dicunt ceci sunt, quia si<br />
probatur de Martino quod sit filius Iohannis, per consequens<br />
probatur quod Iohannes est pater Martini. Item si aliqui alii<br />
testes probant quod Berta est filia Iohannis, per consequens probatum<br />
est quod Iohannes est pater Berte. Cum ergo constet iudici<br />
quod Iohannes est pater Martini, item constet ei quod est pater<br />
Berte, ergo constat ei quod Martinus et Berta sunt frater et soror,<br />
et ita probata est consanguinitas—quod concedo. Etiam sic non<br />
semper requiritur quod testes ex utroque latere notam habeant<br />
For the passage in question, see Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis una<br />
cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. A. Garcܤa y Garcܤa (Monumenta Iuris Canonici,<br />
Series A: Corpus Glossatorum, 2; Vatican City, 1981), 261.<br />
X. 4. 14. 7.<br />
X. 2. 20. 26.<br />
X. 2. 20. 44.<br />
Rubrica] Probably a reference to the first section of Hostiensis’s own commentary<br />
on this decretal<br />
Decretum, Pars II, C. 35, q. 5, c. 1: especially c. 4.<br />
erat] erit A2
248 Documents: 2. 2<br />
consanguinitatem. Item, si volo improbare consanguinitatem,<br />
non est necesse quod omnes gradus improbentur, sed sucit<br />
unum gradum improbari, ut supra, eodem, Series.Ö—Secundum<br />
Io(hannem Teutonicum).<br />
2. Sed, salva pace sua, magis cecus est qui non videt: nam hic aperte dicitur<br />
contrarium, scilicet quod non sucit computatio unius lateris: imo<br />
necesse est quod utrumque latus computent iidem testes, . . . Nec obstat<br />
exemplum Iohannis, cum alius Iohannes posset esse pater Martini, et<br />
alius Iohannes pater Berte.<br />
3. Etsi etiam constaret quod utrique testes de eodem Iohanne intelligerent,<br />
ad hoc ut vera probatio esset non suceret testimonium de auditu: imo<br />
multa alia requirerentur ad hoc ut filiatio probaretur, quia nec facilis,<br />
imo valde dicilis est probatio, ut patet in eo quod notatur supra, ‘De<br />
filiis presbiterorum’, Michael. In casu autem isto sucit testimonium<br />
de auditu pro maiori parte, et ideo non admittitur nisi consanguinitas ex<br />
utroque latere computetur. Et est ratio quare sub hac forma restringitur,<br />
quia plurimis exemplis, etc, ut supra, eadem Rubrica, verbo quia tamen;<br />
et quia tolerabilius est, etc., ut infra, eodem capitulo, ante finem.<br />
4. Cecus est ergo qui per glosam capitaneam conatur textum maxime tot<br />
virium contra rationem et in periculum animarum subvertere et hanc<br />
destruere formam scriptam quam omnino servari oportet. Argumentum<br />
supra, ‘De electione’, Quia propter; supra, ‘De rescriptis’, ‘Cum<br />
dilecta’; ≈ fi(ne), clara. Non ergo ab uno latere tantum, alioquin computatio<br />
reputari debet obscura que nec gradus hinc inde distinguit.<br />
5. Et in suo, verbum: quasi dicat: adhuc non sucit quod testes computent<br />
clare distinguendo gradus ex utroque latere, quicquid scribat<br />
Iohannes. Imo adhuc requiritur quod in suo nichilominus etc. Et est<br />
hoc quartum quod requiritur quo ad dictum. Quod deponunt: dictam<br />
scilicet claram computationem ex utroque latere. Et credere: et hoc est<br />
quintum quod requiritur. Sed nec tales, verbum: adhuc addit sextum,<br />
Item . . . consanguinitatem] om. A2<br />
X. 2. 20. 26: Garcܤa y Garcܤa, Constitutiones, 261 n. 17, gives the reference X. 2.<br />
20. 30, which does not seem to fit.<br />
contrarium] contrarius A2<br />
pater] esse pater A2<br />
X. 1. 17. 13.<br />
plurimis] pluribus A2<br />
virium contra] fultum viribus et contra A2<br />
X. 1. 6. 42.<br />
X. 1. 3. 22.<br />
‘≈ fi(ne), clara’ is almost certainly a reference to the words ‘clara computatione’<br />
towards the end of the decretal Licet ex quadam (X. 2. 20. 47) which is the subject<br />
of this whole part of the commentary.<br />
testes computent] testis computet A2<br />
computent] computet O<br />
et hoc] verbum: ethocA2
Documents: 2. 2 249<br />
ad maiorem confusionem Iohannis, quod si deficiat *quantumcumque<br />
testis ex utroque latere gradus computet, testimonium non valebit. Et<br />
hoc est Sed nec tales suciant etc. vidisse. Sic nec sucit testimonium<br />
de auditu per omnia.<br />
Documents Relating to Chapter 3: Bigamy<br />
3. 1. Johannes de Deo, De dispensationibus, on bigamy<br />
This passage shows symbolism providing the principles for a casuistry<br />
of the applications of the bigamy rules to concrete cases: illustrating the<br />
important point that where symbolism provides a criterion for settling<br />
tricky specific cases it is more than just a traditional survival without causal<br />
importance. The work from which the passage comes belongs to the genre<br />
of canon-law treatises on special topics.<br />
MS London, BL Royal 5 A 1<br />
Parchment manuscript, originally belonged to Rochester Priory, 170ÿ<br />
130 mm., 206 folios, thirteenth century, ‘in several di·erent hands’,<br />
paragraph marks and initials in red; the section from which this passage<br />
comes is in one column. The contents are a varied selection of theological,<br />
moral, and canon legal writings, fully listed in the admirable Royal<br />
catalogue.<br />
Fo. 157R–V:<br />
Dicturi de bigamia, distinguendum est que sit causa quare dispensatur in<br />
una bigamia et non in altera, et debes tenere quod non possit cum vero bigamo<br />
dispensare quia non est in eo signatum nec consignatum. Signatum<br />
est coniunctio vel unio inter Christum et ecclesiam, quod signatur per illam<br />
unionem maris et femine [fo. 157v] in commixtione carnis. ≈ Item consignatum<br />
est, scilicet unio deitatis ad carnem Christi, que unio numquam fuit<br />
divisa. Tres enim sunt uniones, scilicet: deitatis ad carnem Christi: hec<br />
numquam separata fuit. ≈ Item unio deitatis ad animam. Similiter hec<br />
numquam divisa fuit. ≈ Item unio anime ad carnem: hec in morte Christi<br />
fuit separata. ≈ Est etiam unio anime iuste ad deum per fidem et caritatem.<br />
Hec quandoque propter peccatum mortale separatur. Sic ergo propter defectum<br />
non dispensatur in bigamo vero, quia esset contra Apostolum. Ut<br />
Description based on personal inspection and on G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson,<br />
Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (4 vols.;<br />
London, 1921), i. 93–4.<br />
signatum] sigAtum, which can also be extended as significatum. Here and in subsequent<br />
cases I have chosen the more probable alternative<br />
divisa] diversa ms.?
250 Documents: 3. 1<br />
ergo sciat quis sit vere bigamus, et quis presumptivus, sic distinguimus.<br />
≈ Verus bigamus est qui duas uxores successive habuit. ≈ Item bigamus est<br />
qui contraxit cum vidua vel repudiata ab alio et cognita. ≈ Item bigamus est<br />
iuris interpretatione qui cum prima contraxit de iure et cum secunda de<br />
facto. Credo tamen quod papa possit cum tali dispensare, quia non deficit<br />
in illo sacramentum. Item bigamus est qui post ordinem sacramentum contraxit<br />
cum corrupta, scilicet *iuris interpretatione. Si tamen contraheretur<br />
cum virgine, possit post longam penitentiam ab episcopo dispensari. ≈ Item<br />
bigamus dicitur monachus si contraxit matrimonium, cum in talibus possit<br />
dispensari, quia non verum fuit matrimonium. ≈ Item qui similiter<br />
contrahit cum duabus vel de facto contraxit successive cum duabus. Queritur<br />
utrum possit esse uxor, et tum presumptive vel interpretative dicitur<br />
bigamus, et possit cum talibus dispensare. Hii sunt modi bigamie. Unde<br />
versus: Bigamus est factus hic si transibis ad actus.<br />
3. 2. Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) on Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX, X. 5. 9. 1: bigamy and loss of clerical status<br />
In the following passage Innocent IV anticipates the ruling of the Second<br />
Council of Lyons that clerics in minor orders lost their status and privileges<br />
if they did something ‘altogether contrary to [their] order, such as marrying<br />
a second wife or a woman who was not a virgin’: a strict definition of the<br />
‘irregularity’ of bigamy and one that would be applied in secular courts. I<br />
put the most significant passages in heavy type.<br />
Printed edition, BL L. 23. f. 3. (1): Apparatus . . . Innocentii pape . . .<br />
super V libris decretalium (Lyons, 1525)<br />
Fo. cxciiiiRB:<br />
Item no. H. dixit quod nedum alii sed etiam psalmista et lector semper<br />
gaudebunt privilegio clericali, et ulterius non possunt vivere seculariter nec<br />
fieri milites. xx. q. iii. Eos. Sed alii contradicunt, cum quibus et nos sentimus,<br />
distinguentes: si sumpsit aliquid penitus contrarium ordini, ut<br />
si accepit secundam uxorem vel corruptam vel fecit se militem et seva<br />
exercuerit: tunc privatur omni privilegio clericali. lxxxiiii. di. Quisquis. Si<br />
vero non fecit penitus aliquid contrarium ordini, scilicet ducendo<br />
virginem, vel fiendo miles, dummodo non exerceat seva, potest vivere<br />
non] autem ms., making no sense<br />
Hostiensis?<br />
xx] xxi in edition<br />
Gratian, Pars II, C. 20, q. 3, c. 3.<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 84, c. 5.
Documents: 3. 2 251<br />
clericaliter, et privilegio clericali gaudere. xxxii. di. Seriatim, Si qui vero.<br />
Sed si velit vivere seculariter, negotiando, tabernam tenendo, vel tonsuram<br />
dimittendo, tunc nullo gaudebit privilegio.<br />
3. 3. Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) on Decretals of<br />
Gregory IX, X. 1. 21. 5: the symbolic understanding of<br />
bigamy<br />
This passage shows that Innocent IV explained ‘bigamy’ in symbolic<br />
terms.<br />
In the analysis in Chapter 3 I do not discuss the last part of this extract.<br />
This is because I believe that at this point in his argument the symbolism<br />
may be simply rationalizing a position that he and others held for other<br />
reasons (whereas in the rest of the extract the symbolism is an active<br />
ingredient in his thought, so to speak). Innocent seems to make his own<br />
the strong line on bigamy, viz., that the wife the candidate for the priesthood<br />
has lost must have been a virgin when they married. It must not only have<br />
been her first marriage: she must not have had any other sexual partner<br />
before. This raised for him and others the following tricky question. If the<br />
wife had to have been a virgin when they married, why did it not matter<br />
for strict legal purposes if the candidate had slept with a concubine since<br />
his wife’s death?<br />
I suspect the real reason was that too many men would have been barred<br />
from the priesthood if there had been a rule that candidates be virgins<br />
or even a rule that they had not slept with a woman since their wife had<br />
died. The rule that if a candidate had been married before it must have<br />
been once only and to a virgin would not eliminate so many. Who was<br />
going to test whether the deceased wife was a virgin? In any case it was<br />
more likely that a respectable woman would be a virgin before marriage<br />
than a man of the same social status. In other words, there is a gender<br />
asymmetry here explicable from the simple fact that it was a man’s world,<br />
rather than from symbolism. Symbolism explains why the deceased wife<br />
had to be a virgin, or the living wife, in the case of clerics in minor orders,<br />
but not why the priest or cleric did not have to be a virgin too: there<br />
a degree of pragmatic indulgence is a more probable explanation than<br />
symbolism. Some symbolic justification or other had to be found, but it<br />
could have been simply epiphenomenal, a cloak for the real reason, even if<br />
contemporaries would not have seen that clearly. If I thought that this was<br />
the case with symbolic reasoning generally, the thesis of this book would be<br />
much weaker; however, it does seem to be true in the case of this particular<br />
gender asymmetry.<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 32, c. 14.<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 32, c. 3.
252 Documents: 3. 3<br />
Even so, the symbolic reasons, or rationalizations, discussed by Innocent<br />
IV are quite interesting. He alludes to an explanation o·ered by<br />
Huguccio (perhaps the most famous of commentators on the Decretum of<br />
Gratian, though his great work has never been printed). According to this<br />
reading of the symbolism, the husband is the Church, and the Church<br />
often commits adultery by straying from the faith. This view sounds controversial,<br />
if Huguccio did indeed say that. It seems to suggest that the<br />
Church as a whole regularly errs. The line of thought deserves investigation<br />
from the manuscripts, though it is tangential here. Also interesting<br />
is the reversal of the gender roles, so that the wife represents Christ, who<br />
never sent the Church away. Again, this is a motif worthy of investigation.<br />
Innocent IV in any case gives a di·erent symbolic account. For him, the<br />
husband is Christ. He married first the Synagogue and then the Church.<br />
Thus it does no harm if the husband’s flesh is divided. But the Church, in<br />
the wife’s role, remains always a virgin, at least in mind. Here he quotes<br />
1 Corinthians 11: 2: ‘For I have espoused you to one husband, that I<br />
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ’. Thus the sacramentum, the<br />
representation, is defective in the wife if she should divide her flesh.<br />
Transcription is from the early printed edition used for Document 3. 2,<br />
q.v. Note that here I use square brackets where elsewhere I would use round<br />
parentheses. This is because this early printed edition, unlike medieval<br />
manuscripts, uses round brackets, which I have retained.<br />
Fo. xlvRB–VA:<br />
Debitum....≈ (Iuxta quod) id est ad ostendendum quod carnalis copula est<br />
sacramentum incarnationis Christi, et quod tantum inter duos coniuges<br />
est sacramentum illud quod in matrimonio signatur, id est, una ecclesia<br />
uni viro Christo subdita; non est autem sacramentum hic ubi alter coniugumcarnemsuaminpluresdivisit....[fo.<br />
xlvva] ...≈ Sed queres<br />
quomodo ex hac auctoritate sumitur hoc sacramentum. Respondeo: exeo<br />
quod in singulari numero posuit [Gen: 2: 23; Eph. 5: 30] ‘os’ ‘caro’ ‘carne’<br />
‘uxori’, et ex verbo ultimo [Gen. 2: 24; Eph. 5: 31]: ‘erunt duo in carne<br />
una’, quasi non divident carnes suas in plures. (Sacramenti): illius scilicet<br />
quia matrimonium inter duos tantum signat unam ecclesiam uni viro<br />
Christo subditam: in secundo autem coniugio non est hoc sacramentum,<br />
nec esse potest: immo potius posset significare plures ecclesias uni viro<br />
subditas. Ministerium autem incarnationis bene potest signare in secundo<br />
matrimonio. . . . (≈ Carnem): sed quare magis exigitur in uxore quam in<br />
viro? Nam maritus corrupte promoveri non potest, xxxiiii. di. Curandum,<br />
Precipimus, sicut si vir. Ille autem qui post uxorem habuit concubinam<br />
Rn’] can also be extended as Responsio<br />
signare] read signari?<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 9.<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 10.
Documents: 3. 3 253<br />
promoveri potest, xxxiiii. di. Fraternitatis. Ugo dicit quod vir significat<br />
ecclesiam que sepe adulteratur exorbitando a fide, et ita non deest significatio<br />
sacramenti, licet vir adulteretur. Uxor autem significat Christum qui<br />
numquam ecclesiam dimisit. Ipse enim est fons vivus cui non communicat<br />
alienus. Ego credo quod vir significat Christum qui sibi copulavit sinagogam<br />
et post ecclesiam, et ideo non nocet si vir dividit carnem suam in<br />
plures. Uxor autem ecclesiam que semper virgo permansit, saltem mente:<br />
unde ‘Despondi enim vos uni viro’, etc. [2. Cor. 11: 2]: C. xxvii. questio.<br />
i. Nuptiarum. Unde si uxor in plures carnem suam dividat, deficit in ea<br />
sacramentum.<br />
3. 4. Bull of Pope Alexander IV to the prelates of France<br />
Unlike the bulls that follow, this has been printed, and in a modern edition,<br />
but it is useful to publish it afresh here as background to the others. For<br />
the existing edition see Archives Nationales, Layettes du tr‹esor des chartes,<br />
ed.J.B.A.T.Teuletet al. (5 vols.; Paris, 1863–1909), iii, ed. J. de Laborde<br />
(1875), no. 4580, p. 504.<br />
For description see Les Actes pontificaux originaux des Archives Nationales<br />
de Paris, ed. B. Barbiche (3 vols.; Vatican City, 1975–82), i. 1198–<br />
1261 (1975), no. 1037, p. 400.<br />
Bulls like this would not normally result from an unprompted papal<br />
initiative. The words ‘bigami et viduarum mariti et alii etiam clerici uxorati’<br />
(lines /2/–/3/) probably reflect the phraseology of the letter to which the<br />
pope is responding. The hypothesis is that the French king had begun by<br />
mentioning ‘bigamous’ clergy to weaken any instinct to back the clergy’s<br />
privileges in any circumstances. Papal bulls were more often than not<br />
a response to a request from someone else rather than an independent<br />
initiative. The form of the bull is quite normal.<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no. 296<br />
31 Jan. 1260 (Anagni):<br />
Alexander episcopus servus servorum dei. Venerabilibus fratribus archiepiscopis<br />
et episcopis et dilectis filiis aliis ecclesiarum /1/ prelatis per regnum<br />
Francie constitutis salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Exparte<br />
carissimi in Christo filii nostri .. regis /2/ Francorum illustris fuit propositum<br />
coram nobis quod nonnulli clerici bigami et viduarum mariti et alii<br />
etiam /3/ clerici uxorati regni sui diversa maleficia committere non verentur<br />
que oculos divine maiestatis o·endunt /4/ et homines scandalizant.<br />
Quocirca universitati vestre per apostolica scripta mandamus quatinus non<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 34, c. 7.<br />
i.e. Huguccio (I have not traced the passage).<br />
Gratian, Pars II, C. 27, q. 1, c. 41.
254 Documents: 3. 4<br />
impediatis /5/ quominus idem rex comites et barones ipsius regni sub quorum<br />
iurisdictione malefactores ipsi consistunt /6/ ipsos in enormibus dumtaxat<br />
criminibus deprehensos que sanguinis penam requirunt eis primitus<br />
/7/ clericali gradu previa ratione privatis puniant secundum quod iustitia<br />
suadebit, consuetudine contraria /8/ non obstante. Datum Anagnie ii kal.<br />
Februar’ /9/ pontificatus nostri anno sexto. /10/<br />
3. 5. Bull of Pope Gregory X to King Philip III of France<br />
For the source genre see Document 3. 4. For description see Les Actes<br />
pontificaux originaux des Archives Nationales de Paris, ii. 1261–1304, ed.<br />
B. Barbiche (Vatican City, 1978), no. 1511, p. 189.<br />
The words ‘consuetas iustitias et debita servitia’ (lines /4/–/5/) suggest<br />
that clerical status exempted a man from more than just secular jurisdiction.<br />
This helps establish the social impact of the denial of clerical status<br />
to ‘bigamous’ clerics in minor orders by the Second Council of Lyons.<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709, no. 296 (2)<br />
31 March 1273 (Orvieto):<br />
Gregorius episcopus servus servorum dei. carissimo in Christo filio .. regi<br />
Francorum illustri salutem et apostolicam /1/ benedictionem. Ex parte tua<br />
fuit propositum coram nobis quod nonnulli clerici coniugati, tam bigami<br />
quam mo nogami, /2/ terre tue habitu et tonsura clericali reiectis civitatum<br />
et aliorum locorum eciuntur maiores, pares, /3/ et scabini, et principum<br />
ballivi, vicomites seu prepositi seculares, et, per exigentiam ociorum taliter<br />
as sumptorum, /4/ sanguinis vindictam exercent, clericis interdictam,<br />
et tamen sub pretextu clericatus tibi consuetas /5/ iustitias et debita servitia<br />
subtrahere non verentur. Cum igitur reddenda sint que sunt Cesaris Cesari,<br />
et /6/ que sunt dei deo, equanimiter duximus tolerandum si a talibus iustitias<br />
debitas velut ab aliis uxo ratis /7/ exigas et servitia consueta. Datum<br />
apud Urbemveterem ii kal. aprilis /8/ pontificatus nostri anno secundo. /9/<br />
3. 6. Bull of Pope John XXII to King Philip V of France<br />
The interest of the phrase ‘consuetas iustitias et debita servitia’ is explained<br />
in the introduction to Document 3. 5. Philip V became king in this year and<br />
presumably wanted the privilege renewed, suggesting that the issue was<br />
still alive. For the source genre see Document 3. 4. For description see Les<br />
Actes pontificaux originaux des Archives Nationales de Paris, iii. 1305–1415,<br />
ed. B. Barbiche (Vatican City, 1982), no. 2547, p. 129; see too Jean XXII<br />
(1316–1334): Lettres communes, ed. G. Mollat (16 vols.; Biblioth›eque des<br />
‹Ecoles franc«aises d’Ath›enes et de Rome; Paris, 1904–47), no. 4740, i. 436.
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709, no. 298 (10)<br />
Documents: 3. 6 255<br />
13 Aug. 1317 (Avignon):<br />
Johannes episcopus servus servorum dei, carissimo in Christo filio .. regi<br />
Francie et Navarre illustri, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Ex parte<br />
/1/ tua fuit propositum coram nobis quod nonnulli clerici coniugati, tam<br />
bigami quam monogami, terre tue, habitu et tonsura cleri cali /2/ reiectis,<br />
civitatum et aliorum locorum eciuntur maiores, pares, et scabini, et principum<br />
ballivi, vicomites seu /3/ prepositi seculares, et, per exigentiam<br />
ociorum taliter assumptorum, sanguinis vindictam exercent, clericis interdictam,<br />
et /4/ tamen, sub pretextu clericatus, tibi consuetas iustitias<br />
et debita servitia subtrahere non verentur. Cum igitur redden da /5/ sint<br />
que sunt Cesaris Cesari, et que sunt dei deo, felicis recordationis Gregorii<br />
papae X predecessoris nostri, /6/ qui super hoc litteras apostolicas clare<br />
memorie .. regi Francie, proprio nomine non expresso, concessit, vestigia<br />
immittantes /7/ equanimiter duximus tolerandum si a talibus iustitias<br />
debitas velut ab aliis uxoratis exigas et servitia consueta. /8/<br />
Datum Avinion’ idus augusti pontificatus nostri anno primo. /9/<br />
3. 7. Bull of Pope John XXII to King Charles IV of France<br />
The interest of the phrase ‘consuetas iustitias et debita servitia’ is explained<br />
in the introduction to the Document 3. 5. Charles IV became king in this<br />
year and presumably wanted the privilege renewed. For the genre see<br />
above, Document 3. 4. For description, see Les Actes pontificaux originaux<br />
des Archives Nationales de Paris, iii. 1305–1415, ed. B. Barbiche, no. 2646,<br />
p. 169; cf. Jean XXII (1316–1334): lettres communes, ed. Mollat, no. 15725,<br />
iv. 122.<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709, no. 298 (12)<br />
3 July 1322 (Avignon):<br />
Iohannes episcopus servus servorum dei carissimo in Christo filio .. regi<br />
Francie et Navarre illustri, salutem et apostolicam /1/ benedictionem. Ex<br />
parte tua fuit propositum coram nobis quod nonnulli clerici coniugati, tam<br />
bigami quam monogami , /2/ terre tue, habitu et tonsura clericali reiectis,<br />
civitatum et aliorum locorum eciuntur maiores, pares, et scabini /3/ et<br />
principum ballivi, vicomites seu prepositi seculares, et per exigentiam officiorum<br />
taliter assumptorum, sanguinis /4/ vindictam exercent, clericis<br />
interdictam, et tamen, sub pretextu clericatus, tibi consuetas iustitias et<br />
debita servitia subtra here /5/ non verentur. Cum igitur reddenda sint que<br />
sunt Cesaris Cesari et que sunt dei deo, felicis recordatio nis /6/ Gregorii<br />
pape X predecessoris nostri, qui super hoc litteras apostolicas clare me-
256 Documents: 3. 7<br />
morie regi Francie, proprio nomi ne /7/ non expresso, concessit, vestigia<br />
immitantes, equanimiter duximus tolerandum, si a talibus iustitias debitas<br />
velut /8/ ab aliis uxoratis exigas et servitia consueta. Datum Avinione v<br />
non. Iulii pontificatus nostri anno sexto. /9/<br />
3. 8. Questions on marriage in MS London, BL Royal 11.<br />
A. XIV<br />
The following question on second marriages is relevant in the context<br />
of ‘Bigamy’, especially for the light it sheds on marriage liturgy and its<br />
meaning.<br />
MS London, BL Royal 11. A. XIV<br />
Parchment manuscript, 215ÿ160 mm., last parchment folio numbered<br />
312, initials and paragraph marks in red and blue. Ian Doyle dates it to<br />
the early to mid-fifteenth century.<br />
Fos. 184V–187R:<br />
1. Sic igitur expeditum est de hiis que querebantur de matrimonii fundamento<br />
et de eius complemento. Consequenter querebatur de eiusdem<br />
ornamento, ad quod pertinet solempnis benedictio.<br />
2. Circa quam querebuntur duo, quarum prima est Cum benedictio in<br />
secundis nuptiis simpliciter prohibeatur, Extra ‘De secundis nuptiis’,<br />
Capellanum et in solempnizatione nuptiarum plures fiunt benedictiones,<br />
querebatur utrum illa prohibitio se extendat ad omnes illas<br />
benedictiones vel ad unam tantum illarum, et, si ad unam, quero: Ad<br />
quam? Quod autem ad omnes videtur, quia decretalis nullam excipit.<br />
3. In oppositum est communis consuetudo que solam illam benedictionem<br />
que sit circa Agnus dei in secundis nuptiis dimittit. Hec questio<br />
est michi multum dubia: tum quia qui nichil excipit totum includere<br />
videtur, nunc autem decretalis predicta prohibens benedictionem in<br />
secundis nuptiis nullam excipit; tum quia sola consuetudo est in contrarium.<br />
Scribitur enim Extra, ‘De secundis nuptiis’, Capellanum:<br />
‘Capellanum, quem benedictionem cum secunda constiterit celebrasse<br />
ab ocio beneficioque suspensum cum litterarum tuarum testimonio<br />
ad sedem apostolicam nullatenus destinare postponas.’<br />
Description based on Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, i.<br />
341–2, and on personal inspection.<br />
To whom I showed the manuscript.<br />
Consequenter] Convenienter could be read<br />
Questio trigesima tertia added in margin in ms.<br />
X. 4. 21. 1.<br />
Scribitur] Scibitur ms.<br />
X. 4. 21. 1.<br />
Capellanum . . . postponas] underlined in red
Documents: 3. 8 257<br />
4. Dicunt autem hic quidam, sicut patet in quodam apparatu super Reymundum<br />
libro tertio, t(itulo) ‘De sacramentis iterandis vel non et<br />
consecratione ecclesiarum’, quod predicta decretalis potest intelligi<br />
de illo qui, sciens maritum alicuius vivere, benedixerit uxorem eius<br />
cum alio; vel secundum consuetudinem illarum ecclesiarum in quibus<br />
non adhibetur benedictio secundis nuptiis.<br />
5. Nescio unde istud dictum autoritatem habeat. Nam infra, e(odem)<br />
t(itulo), scilicet ‘De secundis nuptiis’, Vir autem, simpliciter interdicitur<br />
benedictio supradicta hoc modo: ‘Vir autem aut mulier ad<br />
bigamiam transiens non debet a presbitero benedici, quia, cum alia<br />
vice benedicti sint, eorum benedictio [fo. 185r] iterari non debet.’ Hic<br />
autem dicit Rymundus ubi supra quod *hoc intelligendum est ubi de<br />
consuetudine alicuius ecclesie aliud obtineret; tunc enim possent sine<br />
periculo iterari: ‘De penitentia’, D(istinctio) tertia [Gratian, Pars II,<br />
D.3depen.c.33],≈ ex persona. Videtur tamen aliis, ut Hostiensi,<br />
quod nulla consuetudo hoc operatur. Sed quicquid sit de hoc, hic<br />
in primis est sciendum, quod secunde nuptie dicuntur quecumque secuntur<br />
primas, etiam si millesime sint, ut patet ≈ ‘De secundis nuptiis’,<br />
Si quis, ≈ Talem; licet vulgo ‘secundum’ dici consueverit quod statim<br />
post primum sequitur.<br />
6. Secundo est sciendum quod in illo capitulo Vir autem aut mulier ad<br />
Gloss by Guillelmus Redonensis on Raymond of Pe~naforte’s Summa for confessors:<br />
‘Capellanum. Ibi precipitur quod capellanus qui benedictione cum secunda<br />
celebraverat ab ocio et beneficio suspensus mittatur ad curiam: sed istud potest<br />
intelligi de illo qui, sciens maritum alicuius vivere, benedixit uxorem eius cum alio;<br />
vel intelligitur vel [vel ...velsic ms.: read vel...secundum?] consuetudinem<br />
illarum ecclesiarum in quibus non adhibetur benedictio secundis nuptiis, nec debet<br />
nisi ubi est consuetudo quod iteretur. Ambr(osius) De Penitentia di. i. iii Reperiuntur<br />
[=Gratian, D. 1 de pen. c. 3]. Licite ibi vero notavit H. quod Lazarus post<br />
suscitationem suam non posset repetere uxorem suam vel e converso, et quod si<br />
vellet eam [fo. 148r, right-hand gloss] iterum [interim ms.] habere uxorem, oporteret<br />
contrahere de novo. Non tamen esset bigamus quia [corr. from qui] non divideret<br />
carnem suam propter hoc in duas’ (MS BL Royal 8. A. II, fos. 147v–148r, gloss).<br />
Incidentally, this manuscript has an extraordinary layout, in which the main text<br />
and gloss are laid out in a varied series of geometric patterns.<br />
X. 4. 21. 3. Rymundus] sic ms. aliud] aT ms.<br />
i.e. Gratian speaking in his own person rather than quoting an authority.<br />
Cf. Hostiensis, Lectura, on X. 4. 21. 3: Vir autem (MS BL Arundel 471, fo. 193RB,<br />
lines 24 ·.).<br />
hoc] hic could be read<br />
Corpus Iuris Civilis,code5.9.8.2,quotedbyHostiensis(HenricusdeSegusio,<br />
Summa aurea (Lyons, 1548 edn.), fo. 225VB), probably in the light of the ordinary<br />
gloss on ‘secundo toro’, which reads: ‘id est, tertio. omne enim matrimonium potest<br />
dici secundum, quod primum sequitur. Vel forte respectu secundi quod est primum<br />
post secundum. et sic de aliis’ (Corpus iuris civilis, ed. I. Fehi, iv (Lyons, 1627;<br />
repr. Osnabr•uck, 1966), col. 1174). (Many thanks to Martin Brett, Gero Dolezalek,<br />
Charles Donahue, and Anders Winroth for finding these sources for me after an<br />
appeal to a canon lawyers’ e-mail list.)
258 Documents: 3. 8<br />
bigamiam transiens, per bigamiam intelliguntur secunda vota, hoc est,<br />
matrimonia secundo contracta, ut sit sensus ad bigamiam transiens, id<br />
est, ad secunda vota, vel matrimonia secundo contracta, supra eodem<br />
titulo, capitulo illo—Quod ideo fit quia per secunda vota sepius contrahitur<br />
bigamia.<br />
7. Quantum autem ad questionem in se, nullam penitus invenio autoritatem<br />
qua possumus informari de qua benedictione intelligi debeat<br />
decretalis, et ideo in proposito sola consuetudo locum tenet, et summe<br />
valet autoritas illa que scribitur Extra ‘De consuetudine’ Cum dilectus,<br />
quod consuetudo approbata est optima legum interpres, nam<br />
Decretorum Distinctio prima Consuetudo dicitur sic: ‘Consuetudo<br />
autem est ius *quoddam moribus institutum quod pro lege suscipitur<br />
dum decit lex, ubi Glossa dicit sic, quod tunc demum recurrendum<br />
est ad consuetudinem cum lex deficit. Sed planum est quod hic<br />
deficit nobis lex quantum ad expressionem supradicte benedictionis.<br />
Unde quantum est ex parte legis scripte, non magis est omittenda vel<br />
danda tanquam prohibita una benedictio in secundis nuptiis quam alia.<br />
8. Nunc autem communis ecclesie consuetudo est quod ista benedictio<br />
que datur post Agnus dei, et ante osculum pacis datum, in secundis<br />
nuptiis est omittenda seu non danda: ergo pro prohibita est habenda:<br />
et quod ista consuetudo tamquam rationabilis sit *approbanda declaro<br />
sic. Nam, cum quattuor dentur benedictiones in primis nuptiis, una<br />
in ostio ecclesie, alia in principio misse, tertia ante pacis osculum et<br />
quarta ad lectum: inter istas tertia benedictio principalitatem tenet,<br />
quia maxime respicit totius matrimonii perfectionem et consummationem.<br />
Nunc autem benedictio potissime respicit matrimonii consummationem,<br />
et hoc attestatur quod scribitur Gen. 2: ‘Masculum et<br />
feminam creavit eos, benedixitque illis deus, et ait: Crescite et multiplicamini<br />
et replete terram’. Unde beatus Augustinus De Civitate Dei<br />
Libro decimo quarto capitulo vicesimo secundo dicit sic: ‘Nos<br />
autem nullo modo dubitamus secundum benedictionem dei “Crescite<br />
et multiplicamini et implete terram” donum esse nuptiarum, quas deus<br />
ante peccatum hominis ab initio constituit, creando masculum et feminam,<br />
qui sexus utique in carne est’; hec Augustinus, et infra [fo. 185v],<br />
dicit quod cum ‘evidentissime appareat in diversi sexus corporibus,<br />
X. 4. 21. 3. X. 1. 4. 8. autem] pro ms.<br />
Gratian, Pars I, D. 1, c. 5.<br />
‘is lacking—Here it seems recourse is made to custom only when ordinance<br />
is lacking’ (Gratian, The Treatise on Laws (Decretum DD. 1–20) with the Ordinary<br />
Gloss, ed. and trans. A. Thompson, J. Gordley, and K. Christensen (Studies in<br />
Medieval and Modern Canon Law, 2; Washington, 1993), 5.<br />
ergo] igitur could be read<br />
decimo quarto] 14O ms.<br />
vicesimo secundo] 22.a ms.<br />
Augustine, De civitate Dei, 14. 22 (Migne, PL 41. 429).
Documents: 3. 8 259<br />
masculum et feminam, ita creatos, ut prolem generando crescerent,<br />
et multiplicarentur, et impleant terram, magne surditatis est reluctari’,<br />
dicendo scilicet predictam benedictionem non referri ad prolis<br />
multiplicationem. Hec ergo multiplicatio est principalis e·ectus predicte<br />
benedictionis. Sed hec in sola tertia benedictione imprecatur:<br />
ibi enim dicitur: ‘Sit fecunda in sobole’, et nusquam alibi in tota<br />
sollempnitate nuptiali.<br />
9. Nam loquendo de prima benedictione que fit in ostio ecclesie ibi dicuntur<br />
tres orationes, in quarum prima pro sponsis petitur longevitas<br />
secure conversationis, in secunda sagacitas superne cognitionis, in tertia,<br />
condignitas divine acceptationis.<br />
10. Prima oratio incipit: ‘Respice Domine de celo’, etc. Secunda incipit:<br />
‘Deus Abraham, deus Ysaac’, etc. Tertia: ‘Benedicat vos omnipotens<br />
deus’, etc.<br />
11. De benedictione vero anuli nichil ad propositum nostrum.<br />
12. In secunda vero benedictione que fit ante inchoationem misse tres dicuntur<br />
orationes in quarum prima pro sponsis petitur benignitas paternalis<br />
remissionis; in secunda iocunditas filialis consolationis; in tertia<br />
stabilitas visceralis copulationis. Prima oratio incipit sic: ‘Benedicat<br />
vos deus pater’ etc. Secunda sic: ‘Respice Domine propitius super<br />
hunc famulum tuum et hanc famulam tuam’, etc. Tertia sic: ‘Omnipotens<br />
deus, qui primos parentes’ etc.<br />
13. In tertia vero benedictione, que fit post Agnus dei et ante osculum pacis,<br />
dicuntur due tantum orationes: una brevis, in qua pro sponsis petitur<br />
celestis auxilii assistentia, et alia bene prolixa, in qua petitur finalis<br />
matrimonii ecacia. Prima incipit: Propitiare Domine etc. Secunda<br />
incipit: Deus qui potestate virtutis tue, etc.<br />
14. In ista vero ultima oratione, in qua petitur finalis matrimonii ecacia<br />
surditatis] absurditatis Augustine<br />
referri] referi ms. benedictione] benedictio ne ms.<br />
Cf. Manuale ad usum percelebris Ecclesie Sarisburiensis: From the Edition Printed<br />
at Rouen in 1543 . . ., ed. A. J. Collins (Henry Bradshaw Society, 91; London,<br />
1960), 54.<br />
I have not found this exact pattern of blessings, but cf. J.-B. Molin and P.<br />
Mutembe, Le Rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au XVIe si›ecle (Th‹eologie historique,<br />
26; Paris, 1974), 288, 305.<br />
Cf. Manuale, ed. Collins, 49 (where this blessing is placed before the rubric<br />
‘Hic intrent ecclesiam usque ad gradum altaris’); Missale Romanum Mediolani, 1474,<br />
facsimile ed. R. Lippe (2 vols.; Henry Bradshaw Society, 33; London, 1899–1907),<br />
ii. 320. Cf. Manuale, ed. Collins, 50.<br />
Cf. ibid. (which adds ‘sempiterne’ after ‘Omnipotens’).<br />
Ibid. 53; The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great, ed. H. A. Wilson<br />
(Henry Bradshaw Society, 49; London, 1915), 121; Missale Romanum, ed. Lippe,<br />
ii. 321<br />
Manuale, ed. Collins, 53; Gregorian Sacramentary, ed. Wilson, 121; Missale<br />
Romanum, ed. Lippe, ii. 321. For this prayer see MS BL Add. 41174, fo. 264va–b.
260 Documents: 3. 8<br />
cum suis annexis, ad inclinandam clementiam et benivolentiam autoris<br />
matrimonii, qui deus est, allegantur in principio eiusdem orationis tria<br />
bona matrimonii tamquam propterea matrimonium instituerit.<br />
15. Primo igitur pro bono prolis allegatur fecunditas propagationis, et<br />
hoc est quod in primis dicitur: Deus qui potestate virtutis tue de nichilo<br />
cuncta fecisti, qui dispositis universitatis exordiis homini ad ymaginem dei<br />
facto, ideo inseparabile mulieris adiutorium condidisti, ut femineo corpori<br />
de virili carne dares [fo. 186r] principium docens quod ex uno placuisset<br />
institui numquam liceret disiungi.<br />
16. Secundo pro bono sacramenti allegatur significationis congruitas, et<br />
hic est quod convenienter in eadem oratione dicitur: Deus qui tam<br />
excellenti misterio coniugalem copulam consecrasti ut Christi et ecclesie<br />
sacramentum presignares in federe nuptiarum.<br />
17. Tertio pro bono fidei, quod etiam in prima parte tactum est, allegatur<br />
coniunctionis inseparabilitas, et hoc est quod continue dicitur in<br />
predicta oratione: Deus per quem mulier iungitur viro et societas principaliter<br />
ordinata, ea benedictione donatur que sola nec per originalis penam<br />
peccati nec per diluvii est ablata sententiam, respice propitius super hanc<br />
famulam tuam, etc. Et versus finem orationis dicitur: sit fecunda in<br />
sobole,etc.<br />
18. Ex quibus omnibus patet quod ista benedictio est principalis, tamquam<br />
ad quam cetere precedentes ordinantur, et pro cuius e·ectus conservatione<br />
fit sequens benedictio, scilicet ad lectum, sicut patet intuentibus.<br />
19. Ad hoc etiam poterit esse congruitas bona, nam, secundum beatum<br />
Augustinum, in illa oratione Summe sacerdos, in communione corporis<br />
et sanguinis Christi yma *summis coniunguntur, scilicet mens<br />
humana corpori Christi, immo ipsi deo. Quia ergo copulatio maritalis<br />
istam coniunctionem significat, immo et ipsam unionem qua<br />
personaliter ipsa deitas humanitati in Christo unitur, qui verissime<br />
in sacramento predicto continetur, ordinatissime institutum est quod<br />
illa benedictio qui principalitatem in matrimonio tenet ante communionem<br />
seu perceptionem eiusdem corporis benedicti solempniter<br />
conferatur tamquam signum ante signatum.<br />
20. Propterea due ponuntur rationes quare benedictio in secundis nuptiis<br />
non est danda. Una est sacramenti attestatio, in signum enim quod<br />
hec benedictio que datur in primis nuptiis est quasi sacramentalis,<br />
ideo iterari non debet. Prima q. prima Quod quidam et trigesima<br />
secunda q. septima *Quemadmodum, et De Consecratione Distinctio<br />
quarta, Ostenditur; et hec ratio implicatur in decretali supradicta Vir<br />
autem.<br />
igitur] ergo could be read<br />
Gratian, Decretum, Pars II, C. 1, q. 1, c. 97.<br />
Gratian, Decretum, Pars II, C. 32, q. 7, c. 10.<br />
Gratian, Decretum, Pars III, D. 4 de cons., c. 32. X. 4. 21. 3.
Documents: 3. 8 261<br />
21. Alia ratio est secundarum nuptiarum detestatio, quia quantum ad istam<br />
benedictionem iterandam secunde nuptie fornicatio dicuntur: trigesima<br />
prima q. prima: Hac ratione. Ibi enim sic scribitur: ‘Hac<br />
ratione Apostolus precepit secundas nuptias adire propter incontinentiam<br />
hominum. Nam secundam quidem accipere secundum preceptum<br />
Apostoli licitum est, secundum autem veritatis rationem vere<br />
fornicatio est’: quasi dicat, secundum Hostiensem, titulo ‘De secundis<br />
nuptiis’ super primum capitulum: Sicut nec fornicatores benedicendi<br />
sunt, sic nec secundo contrahentes, quia alias benedicti fuerunt.<br />
22. Illa igitur benedictio inter ceteras principalitatem tenet in qua maxime<br />
exprimitur ipsum matrimonii sacramentum quantum ad eius bona et<br />
eis annexa quo ad primam [fo. 186v] rationem, et in qua maxime imprecatur<br />
castitatis et honestatis munditia quo ad secundam rationem.<br />
Sed hec est illa tertia benedictio, que datur post Agnus dei. Inipsa<br />
enim maxime exprimitur ipsum sacramentum et eius triplex bonum,<br />
ut patuit ex predictis.<br />
23. In ipsa etiam maxime castitas et honestas petitur seu imprecatur. Ibi<br />
enim dicitur: Fidelis et casta nubat in Christo, imitatrixque sanctarum<br />
permaneat feminarum, etinfra,Uni thoro iuncta contactus illicitos fugiat,etinfra,Sit<br />
verecundia gravis, pudore venerabilis doctrinis celestibus<br />
erudita.<br />
24. Predictam igitur consuetudinem tamquam rationalem approbando,<br />
dico pro questione quod prohibitio papalis expressa in decretali supradicta<br />
se extendit vel ad illam solam tertiam benedictionem que datur<br />
post Agnus dei; vel ad omnes adeo quod quicumque sacerdos illam<br />
dederit in secundis nuptiis, etiam ceteris omissis, penam superius taxatam<br />
a iure eo facto incurrit, si vero eam non dederit, nulla ceterarum<br />
benedictionum omissa, credo quod ratione predicte consuetudinis predicte<br />
pene subiacere non debet.<br />
25. Nec obstant communes rubrice que ponuntur in oratione ad sponsalia<br />
facienda, quia quamvis in prima benedictione, que fit in ostio, et in secunda,<br />
que fit in principio misse, tituli seu rubrice sint ‘benedictiones’,<br />
in tertia vero benedictione, que fit post Agnus dei, titulus seu rubrica sit<br />
‘orationes’, ille tamen orationes verius et realius sint benedictio quam<br />
prime, ut prius ostensum est.<br />
26. Hoc iterum patet. Nam prime due benedictiones non sunt nisi divine<br />
Gratian, Decretum, Pars II, C. 31, q. 1, c. 9.<br />
Apostolus precepit] apostoli preceperunt Friedberg edn.<br />
veritatis] unclear in ms.<br />
Hostiensis, Lectura, at X. 4. 21. 1 (MS BL Arundel 471, fo. 193RA, from line<br />
15 up).<br />
Fidelis] delis ms.<br />
Cf. Manuale, ed. Collins, 54.<br />
extendit] extentit ms.
262 Documents: 3. 8<br />
benedictionis imprecationes, et hoc quo ad quedam que tam sponsis<br />
quam aliis sunt communia, sicut intuentibus patet. Tertia vero benedictio<br />
est divine benedictionis imprecatio, non solum pro vite sanctitate<br />
et honestate et aliis huiusmodi, sed etiam pro propagationis fecunditate,<br />
et non solum est divine benedictionis imprecatio, immo eius<br />
domini benedictionis tamquam collate rite contrahentibus explicatio.<br />
Deus, inquit, per quem mulier iungitur viro et societas principaliter<br />
ordinata ea benedictione donatur, etc.<br />
27. Ad argumentum in oppositum cum dicitur quod decretalis illa nullam<br />
benedictionem excipit, igitur ad omnes se extendit, dicendum quod<br />
aliud est nichil excipere, et totum exprimere. Nam sequitur: qui totum<br />
exprimit vel dicit, nichil excipit, non tamen e converso: quia et si in<br />
aliqua lege vel iure nichil expresse excipiatur, poterit tamen aliquid<br />
excipi, vel per consuetudinem, vel per aliquam aliam legem: et sic est<br />
in proposito.<br />
28. Non enim prohibet expresse predicta decretalis omnem benedictionem<br />
dari nec precipit nullam benedictionem dari, sed absolute interdicit<br />
benedictionem dari [fo. 187r] cum quo stare potest quod alique dentur<br />
et alia tanquam principalis non detur.<br />
3. 9. Passage on bigamy in the Pupilla oculi of Johannes de<br />
Burgo<br />
This passage shows the impact of the rule against blessing second marriages.<br />
The penalty for blessing them clearly caused so much worry that<br />
someone took the trouble of forging a decretal diminishing the consequences.<br />
Pope John XXII was the alleged author of this decretal, which<br />
allowed the local bishop to absolve priests who blessed second marriages.<br />
Note that the symbolic rationale of the rule against blessing second marriages<br />
comes out clearly.<br />
The work comes within the genre of pastoral manuals. It was probably<br />
intended primarily for ecclesiastical administrators with an academic<br />
training behind them, and it was popular, to judge from the surviving<br />
manuscript di·usion. For the author see R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the<br />
Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Publications of the<br />
Journal of Medieval Latin, 1; [Turnhout], 1997), no. 626, p. 222.<br />
The passage comes in part 8, ch. 18, of the Pupilla oculi.<br />
Cf. Manuale, ed. Collins, 54.<br />
This is convincingly argued by R. M. Ball, ‘The Education of the English<br />
Parish Clergy in the Later Middle Ages with Particular Reference to the Manuals of<br />
Instruction’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1976), 70–1.
MS London, BL Royal 11. B. X<br />
Documents: 3. 9 263<br />
Parchment manuscript, 265ÿ170 mm. ‘iii+188 folios’, possibly late<br />
fourteenth century, initials blue with red decoration, paragraph marks<br />
in red (but blue in some passages written in red). In addition to the<br />
Pupilla oculi, it includes pastoral materials, a defence of religious images<br />
by Walter Hilton, the ‘Vision of St Paul’, and an ‘Apocryphal epistle of<br />
Christ to St Peter’: full details in the scholarly catalogue. It is the sort<br />
of combination of texts that an educated parish priest in late medieval<br />
England might be expected to enjoy and find useful.<br />
Fos. 146VA–147RA:<br />
1. Capitulum decimum octavum. De secundis nuptiis et quomodo uxor<br />
est tractanda.<br />
2. Infra tempus luctus, id est, infra annum post mortem mariti sui, mulier,<br />
sine aliqua legalis infamie iactura seu alia pena, nubendi alteri liberam<br />
habeat facultatem: Extra de secundis nuptiis, capitulo ult.<br />
3. Nullus ad secundas nuptias migrare presumat donec ei constet quod ab<br />
hac vita migravit coniux eius. Si autem alter coniugum non certificatus<br />
de morte sui coniugis alteri nupserit, debitum tenetur reddere, sed<br />
non potest exigere, et si de prioris coniugis vita postmodum constiterit,<br />
relictis adulterinis amplexibus ad priorem coniugem revertatur. Extra,<br />
eodem titulo, capitulo 2. De hac materia vide supra, capitulo 12.s.<br />
4. Item vir vel mulier ad bigamiam transiens non debet iterum a presbitero<br />
benedici. Extra eodem titulo Vir autem. Hoc intelligunt B(ernardus)<br />
et Go(·redus): nisi consuetudo alicuius ecclesie aliter obtineret. Tunc<br />
enim possent sine periculo benedici. De Penitentia Di. 3 ≈ ex per-<br />
Description based on Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, i.<br />
348, and on personal inspection.<br />
decimum octavum] 18M ms.<br />
X. 4. 21. 5.<br />
nupserit] nupterit or nupcerit ms.?<br />
X. 4. 21. 2.<br />
The ‘s’ refers to a subdivision of ch. 12. In this manuscript at least marginal<br />
letters mark sections of the text of chapters.<br />
eodem] c. ms.?<br />
X. 4. 21. 3.<br />
I initially read the ‘B’ in ms. as a ‘W’, and it is not like the ‘B’ a few lines<br />
later (see below at n. 15), but both cases must refer to Bernard of Parma, Glossa<br />
ordinaria on X. 4. 21. 3: ‘Et benedictio ista cum aliquis secundam ducit virginem<br />
iteratur secundum consuetudinem quorumdam locorum; et hoc si papa sciat talem<br />
consuetudinem: alias non licet’ (MS BL Royal 9. C. I, fo. 152VA, left-hand gloss).<br />
This must be Go·redus de Trano but I have not identified the passages with<br />
certainty. Go·redus de Trano, Summa super titulis decretalium at X. 4. 21 (I have<br />
used MS BL Arundel 431, fo. 80VA)—a dense mass of cross-references—might be<br />
one of them but the wording does not seem very close.<br />
De benedictionibus in secundis nuptiis in margin
264 Documents: 3. 9<br />
sona. Et quod dicitur de secundis nuptiis non benedicendis intelligi<br />
debet quando tam ex parte viri quam ex parte mulieris sunt secunde,<br />
vel saltem ex parte mulieris. Si autem virgo contrahat cum illo qui<br />
prius habuit uxorem aliam, nichilominus nuptie benedicentur, secundum<br />
Tho(mam), Di. 43. Et concordat Ber(nardus) super capitulo Vir<br />
autem.<br />
5. Dicit Hostiensis: persone nubentes non benedicuntur in secundis nuptiis:<br />
cuius ratio est quia per carnem a lias [fo. 146vb] benedictam caro non<br />
benedicta cum qua iungitur benedicitur. In commixtione enim corporum,<br />
per quam eciuntur una caro vir et mulier, caro benedicta trahit<br />
ad se non benedictam, sicut oleum sanctum trahit ad se oleum mixtum,<br />
non sanctum: et sic totum fit sanctum, secundum Hostiensem in Glosa<br />
super capitulo Vir autem. Hic videtur Hostiensis innuere quod nulle<br />
secunde nuptie sint benedicende. Cuius contrarium dicit Tho(mas), sed<br />
huic antique concertationi finem ponit quedam constitutio que creditur<br />
fuisse Io(hannis) 22, ubi dicitur quod si forsan alter eorum vel ambo ad<br />
secundas nuptias transeuntium in primis benedicti non fuerint, danda<br />
est benedictio in secundis nuptiis: quod sic intelligo: quod si maritus<br />
vidue mortue, qui non fuit benedictus in secundis nuptiis illius vidue,<br />
contraxit cum relicta vidua, que non fuit benedicta in secundis nuptiis<br />
mariti sui, debent nuptie eorum secunde benedici, quia neuter eorum<br />
prius in nuptiis fuerat benedictus.<br />
6. Consimiliter, si ille qui prius contraxit cum vidua, et non fuit in secundis<br />
nuptiis eius benedictus, contrahat cum virgine, seu e converso,<br />
benedicende sunt nuptie eorum. Sic intelligo illam constitutionem que<br />
incipit Concertationi antique.<br />
7. Item, de iure antiquo capellanus benedicens secundas nuptias suspensus<br />
erat ab ocio et beneficio, et mittendus fuerat ad sedem apostolicam<br />
pro absolutione obtinenda, ut Extra, eodem titulo, capitulo 1. Sed<br />
iste rigor hodie temperatur, ita quod presbiteri qui secundas nuptias<br />
benedixerint, etiam scienter, ex hoc ad sedem apostolicam venire minime<br />
teneantur, sed a pena suspensionis in hoc casu a iure inducta per<br />
suos possunt diocesanos absolvi. Hec habentur in dicta constitutione<br />
Concertationi antique, que dicitur fuisse Johannis 22.<br />
8. Sed quia in nuptiis plures dantur benedictiones, videlicet super nu-<br />
Gratian, Pars II, D. 3, de pen., c. 21.<br />
For ‘43’ read ‘42’: see S. Tommaso d’Aquino: Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro<br />
Lombardo e testo integrale di Pietro Lombardo. Libro quarto. Distinzioni 24–42.<br />
L’Ordine, il Matrimonio, trans. and ed. ‘Redazione delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’<br />
(Bologna, 2001), dist. 42, q. 3, a. 2, solutio, p. 890.<br />
Bernard of Parma, passage cited above (n. 10).<br />
Hostiensis, Lectura, on X. 4. 21. 3 (MS BL Arundel 471, fo. 193RB).<br />
See above, p. 155, on this probably fake bull.<br />
See above, p. 155.<br />
X. 4. 21. 1.
Documents: 3. 9 265<br />
bentes introitu ecclesie, super pallium post missam, et super thorum<br />
in sero, ideo notandum quod omnes benedictiones sive orationes benedictionales<br />
que dicuntur in primis nuptiis, dicuntur etiam in secundis,<br />
etiam ubi uterque coniugum vel alter prius fuerat benedictus, preter<br />
illam que incipit Deus qui tam [fo. 147ra] excellenti misterio coniugalem<br />
copulam consecrasti etc., usque Deus per quem mulier, in qua agitur<br />
de unitate Christi et ecclesie que figuratur in primis nuptiis non in<br />
secundis, ut Extra, De Bigamis, capitulo Debitum. Ideo in secundis<br />
nuptiis illa oratio penitus omittenda est, ubi videlicet alter nubentium<br />
est bigamus prius benedictus vel vidua prius benedicta.<br />
9. Si vir et mulier contrahant in facie ecclesie et benedicantur, et postea<br />
divortietur inter eos ante carnalem copulam propter aliquod impedimentum<br />
legitimum, neutrius secunde nuptie benedicentur si convolent<br />
ad secunda vota, quia benedictio spiritualis tante ecacie est quod<br />
semper operatur nisi recipiens fuerit contrarie voluntatis, et benedictio<br />
semel accepta non potest amitti: quod enim factum est, nequit non fieri,<br />
secundum Hostiensem in Summa, rubrica ‘De secundis nuptiis’.<br />
3. 10. A ‘bigamy’ case from the gaol delivery rolls (6 June<br />
1320)<br />
This document shows how the rules about ‘bigamy’ could be a matter of life<br />
and death. The Second Council of Lyons ruled that clerics in minor orders<br />
who married widows or were otherwise ‘bigamous’ lost their clerical status,<br />
and hence their immunity from secular justice. This was rapidly adopted<br />
in England. Because he was married to a widow, John of Worcester was<br />
unable to plead his clergy and escape hanging for his very considerable<br />
felonies.<br />
For a brief mention of this case see J. R•ohrkasten, Die englische Kronzeugen<br />
1130–1330 (Berliner historische Studien, 16; Berlin, 1990), 345 and<br />
n. 837. For gaol delivery rolls as a genre of source see ibid. 44–58.<br />
The National Archives, JUST 3. 41/1<br />
The manuscript consists of long strips sewn together, varying in length<br />
but very approximately 700ÿ220 mm., with cases recorded on both<br />
sides. The following summary is attached to the document on a modern<br />
etc.] c. ms.<br />
X. 1. 21. 5.<br />
benedicantur] benedicuntur ms.<br />
et] om. ms.<br />
divortietur] divortiatur ms., with a mark over the a<br />
Hostiensis (Henricus de Segusio), Summa aurea (Lyons, 1548 edn.), fo. 225VB.<br />
I owe this reference to Dr Susanne Jenks.
266 Documents: 3. 10<br />
typed sheet: ‘Newgate gaol deliveries by Henry Spigurnel and fellows,<br />
10–14 Edward II (1316–1320). Plea Roll.’<br />
Membrane xxxviii d:<br />
Iohannes de Wyrcestre captus ad sectam Iohannis de Weston’ militis pro<br />
quadam roberia ei facta apud Novum Castrum /1/ super Tynam de quindecim<br />
libris sterlingorum in denariis numeratis, anulis, et firmaculis au reis<br />
/2/ et Ciphis argenteis et aliis iocalibus et bonis et catellis ad valentiam<br />
centum librarum. Et pro burga ria /3/ domus Roberti de Kestevene in<br />
Distaflane in Warda de Bredstrete London’ et quadam /4/ roberia ibidem<br />
noctanter felonice facta de bonis et catallis . . Bathonensis et Wellensis<br />
Episcopi ad valentiam /5/ centum librarum etc. Et etiam pro burgaria<br />
domus Hervici de Staunton’ Cancellarii de Scaccario domini Regis /6/ infra<br />
Aldredesgate, et roberia eidem Hervico ibidem felonice facta de bonis<br />
et catallis ad valentiam quadra ginta /7/ librarum. Unde rettatus est, etc.<br />
Venit et quesitus qualiter se velit de feloniis predictis acquietare, /8/ dicit<br />
quod clericus est, etc., et non potest hic inde respondere, etc. Et super<br />
hoc obiectum est eidem Iohanni /9/ quod privilegio clericali gaudere non<br />
debet, eo quod bigamus est, eo quod duxit in uxorem quamdam viduam<br />
/10/ nomine Aliciam, que prius fuerat uxor cuiusdam Willelmi de<br />
Thurston’, qui obiit in prisona domini Regis /11/ in Turri London’ etc.<br />
Et predictus Iohannes dicit quod ipse non est bigamus, et quod numquam<br />
aliquam /12/ habuit uxorem, etc. Ideo inquiratur per patriam, etc. Et super<br />
hoc Robertus de Ware, Iohannes de Waleden’, /13/ Willelmus le Maderman,<br />
Gilbertus le Sherman, Willelmus le Skynnere, Johannes de Kent,<br />
deyere, Simon /14/ de Tournham, Henricus de Somerset, Willelmus le<br />
Hastere, Thomas atte Ramme, Simon le Taillour, /15/ et Willelmus de<br />
Nottele, iurati Warde Castri Baynardi et de visneto kaii Sancti Pauli, ubi<br />
predicti Iohannes et predicta /16/ Alicia fecerunt moram iam per quinquennium,<br />
dicunt super sacramentum suum quod predictus Iohannes de<br />
Wyrecestre, post mor tem /17/ cuiusdam Willelmi de Thurston’ primi viri<br />
predicte Alicie, qui obiit in prisona in Turri London’, duxit /18/ eamdem<br />
Aliciam viduam in uxorem, et in eorum visneto ipsam tenuit pro uxore sua.<br />
Unde dicunt precise quod predictus /19/ Iohannes bigamus est, etc. Ideo<br />
idem Iohannes respondit de feloniis predictis. Et quesitus qualiter se velit<br />
de roberiis, /20/ burgariis, et feloniis predictis acquietare, precise refutat<br />
se ponere inde super aliquam patriam, etc. Ideo, tamquam /21/ refutans<br />
communem legem, committitur gaole ad penam, etc. Postea, coram eisdem<br />
i.e. Dista· Lane.<br />
Thurston’] or Thurstoun<br />
London’] or Londoun<br />
i.e. St Paul’s wharf or quay.<br />
Thurston’] or Thurstoun<br />
London’] or Londoun
Documents: 3. 10 267<br />
iustitiariis et coram Iohanne de /22/ Shirbourn’, tenente locum Stephani<br />
de Abyndon’, coron(atoris) domini Regis Civitatis London’, predictus<br />
Iohannes de Wy recestre /23/ cognovit roberias, burgarias, et felonias ei<br />
impositas, et se esse latronem, et devenit probator, etc. Et fecit /24/ appellum,<br />
etc. Postea coram eisdem iustitiariis, die sabbati proxima post festum<br />
translationis sancti Thome Martiris anno /25/ Regis nunc quartodecimo,<br />
idem Iohannes probator recusavit se de appello suo predicto. Ideo ipse<br />
suspensus, etc. /26/<br />
At head of recto folio:<br />
Adhuc de Deliberatione Gaole de Neugate Die Veneris proxima post<br />
Octabas sancte Trinitatis Anno regni regis E. filii regis E. tertiodecimo.<br />
—Spigurnel.<br />
In margins:<br />
by line 1: Northumbr’<br />
by line 2: Lond’<br />
by line 4: Bredstr’<br />
by line 6: Aldredesg’<br />
by line 22: pena<br />
by line 24–5: probator<br />
by line 26: suspensus<br />
3. 11. The case of Five-Wife Francis, from the archive of the<br />
Apostolic Penitentiary<br />
This document suggests that the privileges of clerics in minor orders did<br />
not stop with ‘privilege of clergy’ (subjection to church courts rather than<br />
secular courts). These privileges were forfeited through ‘bigamy’ (unless<br />
the cleric could obtain a dispensation, as here). Thus the loss of a range of<br />
real privileges can be traced back causally to marriage symbolism, another<br />
example of its practical impact on society.<br />
The document comes in a register of decisions by the Apostolic Penitentiary.<br />
Archivio Segreto Vaticano Penitenzieria ap. 75<br />
Paper manuscript, 295ÿ215 mm.; the last modern folio number is 478.<br />
According to the Prospettivo (a very brief unprinted conspectus of<br />
Penitentiary registers), vol. 75 is Clem VII, 1526. The volume identifies<br />
itself throughout as ‘Anno 4O Clementis papa VII’.<br />
Abyndon’] or Abindoun<br />
London’] or Londoun<br />
See above, p. 165 n. 88, for bibliography on the Penitentiary.<br />
Description based on personal inspection.
268 Documents: 3. 11<br />
Fo. 298R, new foliation:<br />
At head of page Anno 4O Clementis Pape vii<br />
Heading, left-hand margin: Bigamia<br />
Heading, centre: Cordellas. Taxatio xiii1- 2 <br />
Halfway down entry, left-hand margin: iiii Idus Aprilis<br />
Halfway down entry, right-hand margin: Gerundensis<br />
Franciscus Scola clericus Gerundensis exponit quod /1/ ipse ex magno<br />
devotionis fervore desiderat suo cleri cali /2/ caractere, quo alias rite insignitus<br />
fuit, et illius /3/ privilegiis uti et gaudere. Sed quia postmodum<br />
cum /4/ tribus virginibus et duabus viduis mulieribus /5/ successive matrimonium<br />
contraxit et consumavit, bigamiam /6/ incurrendo, desiderium<br />
suum in hac parte adimplere /7/ posse dubitat inconsulta desuper apostolica<br />
sede. Quare /8/ ipse asserens se cum prima muliere matrimonium<br />
/9/ forsan consumasse et similiter, antequam ultimo contraheret, /10/ ut<br />
clericali caractere et privilegiis clericalibus uti vale ret /11/ a sede apostolica<br />
indultum forsan fuisse, supplicatur, etc. /12/ sibi ut dicto suo clericali caractere<br />
ac omnibus et singulis /13/ privilegiis, gratiis, concessionibus et<br />
indultis quibus clerici /14/ cum unica et virgine coniugati utuntur, potiuntur,<br />
et /15/ gaudent, seu uti, potiri et gaudere poterunt quomodolibet,<br />
/16/ in futurum uti, potiri et gaudere libere et licite /17/ valeat in omnibus<br />
et per omnia, citra tamen ascensum /18/ ad superiores ordines, perinde<br />
ac si bigamiam huiusmodi /19/ F. nullatenus incurrisset, veris, etc., concedere<br />
et in dulgere, /20/ non obstantibus premissis et apostolicis ac in<br />
provin cialibus /21/ et sinodalibus conciliis editis generalibus vel /22/ specialibus<br />
constitutionibus et ordinationibus, necnon impe rialibus /23/ ac<br />
regiis, regnique legibus et practmaticis /24/ sanctionibus, statutisque municipalibus<br />
privilegiisquoque in dultis /25/ et literis apostolicis etiam felicis<br />
recordationis dominorum Innocentii viii, Alexandri vi, /26/ et aliorum<br />
Romanorum pontificum etiam super observantia dictarum sanctionum et<br />
certi /27 habitus delatione concessis ceterisque contrariis quibuscumque<br />
dignemini /28/ de gratia speciali.<br />
Fiat de speciali M. R(egens).<br />
1- 2 ] looks like a division sign.<br />
mulieribus] ms. adds and deletes viduis<br />
desuper] de super ms.<br />
The implication is that this previous dispensation had been meant to take care of<br />
past marriages but not to allow him to marry again and yet keep his clerical status.<br />
F.] deleted? I am also not quite certain that this is an F<br />
Practmaticis] sic ms.
Documents: 3. 12 269<br />
3. 12. The case of Petrus Martorel, from the archive of the<br />
Apostolic Penitentiary<br />
This reinforces the points made on the basis of Document 3. 11.<br />
Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Penitenzieria ap. 75<br />
See Document 3. 11.<br />
Fo. 473V, new foliation:<br />
At head of page: Roma apud S.P. [ =Sanctum Petrum]<br />
Head of facing page: Anno 4O Clementis pape vii<br />
Heading, left-hand margin: Bigamia cum assistentia.<br />
Heading, centre: Villa Nova, tax. xviiii1- 2<br />
Halfway down entry, left-hand margin: xi kl. decembr.<br />
Halfway down entry, right-hand margin: Barchinonen(sis)<br />
Petrus Martorel Clericus coniugatus Barchinonesis /1/ exponit quod ipse<br />
ex magno devotionis fervore cupit /2/ clericali caractere quo alias rite<br />
insignitus fuit uti, sed /3/ quia postmodum matrimonium per verba de<br />
presenti cum una, /4/ virgine, et, illa de medio sublata, cum alia, vidua,<br />
mulie ribus /5/, contraxit, illudque carnali copula consumavit, /6/ bigamiam<br />
incurrendo, desiderium suum in hac parte adim plere /7/ posse non<br />
sperat, sede apostolica de super inconsulta. /8/ Supplicat igitur humiliter<br />
S(anctitati) V(estre) idem orator quatenus sibi ut /9/ dicto suo clericali<br />
caractere, illiusque omnibus et singulis privi legiis, /10/ immunitatibus,<br />
exemptionibus, gratiis, favoribus /11/ concessionibus, preeminentiis, libertatibus<br />
et indultis /12/ quibus alii clerici, cum unica et virgine coniugati,<br />
utuntur, /13/ potiuntur, et gaudent, seu uti, potiri, et gaudere pote runt<br />
/14/ quomodolibet, in futurum uti, potiri et gaudere libere /15/ et licite possit<br />
et valeat, citra tamen ascensum ad /16/ superiores ordines, indulgere ac<br />
secum misericorditer dispensare, /17/ non obstantibus premissis necnon<br />
constitutionibus et ordinationibus /18/ apostolicis ac tam provincialibus<br />
quam sinodalibus etiam Barchinonensis /19/ ecclesie iuramento confirmatione<br />
apostolica vel quavis /20/ firmitate alia roboratis statutis et consuetudinibus<br />
/21/ privilegiisquoque, indultis et litteris apostolicis ac legibus<br />
/22/ imperialibus et regalibus ac pragmaticis sanctionibus /23/ quibus omnibus<br />
illorum omnium tenores ac si de verbo ad /24/ verbum insererentur<br />
presentibus pro sucienter expressis /25/ habendis, illis alias in suo robore<br />
permansuris, hac vice /26/ dumtaxat specialiter et expresse placeat derogare<br />
/27/ ceterisque contrariis quibuscumque dignemini de /28/ gratia speciali.<br />
/29/ Fiat de speciali L. Gomez Regens /30/<br />
Cum assistentia que committatur discretis /31/ viris priori monasterii<br />
desuper] de super ms.
270 Documents: 3. 12<br />
sancti Dominici Barchinonensis /32/ et Iacobo Zaragossa Canonico Barchinonensi<br />
et /33/ eorum cuilibet.<br />
Fiat L<br />
Documents Relating to Chapter 4: Consummation<br />
4. 1. Consummation and its consequences in a canon-law<br />
commentary: a link to late medieval papal dissolutions<br />
of ratum non consummatum marriages<br />
This text shows how closely marriage symbolism is bound up with the<br />
question of the dissolution (not annulment) of a non-consummated (but<br />
valid) marriage in the thought of one of the most influential medieval<br />
canonists. It sets the background to the late medieval and early modern<br />
developments analysed in Chapter 4. It is from Hostiensis’s Lectura on<br />
Decretals of Gregory IX, X. 3. 32. 7, ‘De conversione coniugatorum’, Ex<br />
publico instrumento. For a good analysis based on the 1581 Venice edition<br />
see T. Rinc‹on, El matrimonio, mistero y signo: siglos IX al XIII (Pamplona,<br />
1971), 397–402.<br />
For the reasons for using two manuscripts rather than the edition see<br />
above, introduction to Document 2. 1. As noted there, Kenneth Pennington’s<br />
discovery of the early version in MS Oxford, New College 205 opened<br />
up the whole question of the manuscript tradition of the Lectura. The Oxford<br />
manuscript represents an edition probably completed between 1262<br />
and 1265.<br />
To see the early and late versions of this passage together is extremely<br />
interesting: one can see how Hostiensis’s thought developed. The long<br />
additions in the later version show how much his mind had continued to<br />
work on the topic.<br />
The case deals with a woman who had not yet consummated her marriage<br />
and who wanted to enter a religious order instead of doing so. The bishop of<br />
Verona had ordered her to return to her husband or face excommunication.<br />
Innocent had reversed this: she had two months to enter a religious order or<br />
return to her husband. If she entered the order, the marriage was dissolved.<br />
MS Oxford, New College 205 (=O), using MS London, BL Arundel<br />
471 (= A1) to illustrate the second edition of the Lectura<br />
For the base manuscript, see above at Document 2. 1. It will be remembered<br />
that MS Oxford, New College 205 (fo. 151RB, right-hand gloss)<br />
Pennington, ‘An Earlier Recension of Hostiensis’s Lectura on the Decretals’.<br />
To distinguish it from A2, MS BL Arundel 485, used above at Documents<br />
2. 1–2.
Documents: 4. 1 271<br />
(=O) is the earlier edition of Hostiensis’s Lectura. AsatDocument2. 1<br />
(and 2. 2), the later edition’s readings are shown in the apparatus criticus,<br />
though from a di·erent manuscript since the manuscript used for 2. 1<br />
and 2. 2 does not cover this part of the Lectura.<br />
For the later edition I have chosen MS London, BL Arundel 471 (fo.<br />
95RA) (=A1). This is a parchment manuscript, 440 mm.ÿ280 mm.; the<br />
last folio number is 308. There are initials and paragraph marks in red<br />
and blue. It contains the commentary by Hostiensis on the last three<br />
books of the Decretals of Gregory IX, and is a pecia copy: see below.<br />
The script seems to be Italian: at least, it has the ‘u’-shaped superscript,<br />
which is a fairly good indication of Italian origin when it replaces ‘r’ or<br />
‘er’. Thus it may have been produced by the pecia system at Bologna,<br />
though further research (e.g. into the number of peciae) would be needed<br />
to establish this with certainty. It could be late thirteenth century. It is<br />
thus a good manuscript of the later recension to compare with O, the<br />
carrier of the early version.<br />
A section of the passage edited below is also irreproachably edited<br />
by Pennington in the article discussed above. He was illustrating the<br />
di·erence between the two recensions. The passage he edited begins<br />
‘Hac etiam ratione . . .’ and ends ‘. . . melius commutavit, infra de vot.<br />
Scripture’ (see p. 83 of Pennington). I have marked the passage clearly<br />
in my edition, and duplicated Pennington’s work in order to help the<br />
reader by keeping the passage as a whole. I retain my own slightly different<br />
editorial style and I have clearly marked the point where I continue<br />
without Pennington’s guidance.<br />
The small duplication of e·ort is useful for another reason than the<br />
reader’s convenience. It suggests that the version in the 1581 edition<br />
used by Pennington for Hostiensis’s ‘second edition’ is fairly close to<br />
the manuscript I used, which is representative of a family almost certainly<br />
widely available, because it is a pecia manuscript, di·used by the<br />
university system of multiple copying. In A1 the pecia evidence is clear:<br />
e.g. fo. 95VA, four lines up: ‘fi. xlvii.pe.’. To show how a pecia text compares<br />
with the first recension, I have recorded all significant readings,<br />
including errors: it is useful to be reminded how poor pecia texts can be.<br />
Note, however, that though the scribe has a habit of writing ‘coniuc-’ for<br />
‘coniunc-’, I have not recorded these cases.<br />
O, fo. 151RB, right-hand gloss; A1, fo.95RA:<br />
1. Hac etiam ratione considerata possent sponsi de presenti ante carnis<br />
copulam auctoritate pape se adinvicem absolvere, sicut legitur in<br />
sponsalibus ‘De Sponsalibus’ c. ii, quia contrarius actus congruus intervenire<br />
potest. Argumentum infra, ‘De regulis iuris’, Omnis res: licet<br />
sponsalibus ‘De Sponsalibus’ c. ii, quia] sponsalibus de futuro. Infra de spon-<br />
[See p. 272 for n. 3 cont. and nn. 4 and 5.
272 Documents: 4. 1<br />
altero invito hoc non posset. . . . Sed post carnis copulam non posset<br />
hoc fieri, quia nec actus congruus intervenire posset. . . .<br />
2. Hoc autem intelligo de potestate absoluta, non de potestate ordinaria,<br />
nisi alia causa subesset. Non enim fit quod hic statuitur sine causa.<br />
3. Potuit ergo papa circa non consumatum matrimonium hanc constitutionem<br />
facere etiam de potestate ordinata: et est ratio quia, cum per<br />
tale matrimonium caritas, que consistit in spiritu inter deum et iustam<br />
animam, tantum representetur, supra, ‘De bigamis’, Debitum nichil<br />
absurdum sequi si talis possit religionem intrare, quia non dissolvitur<br />
sed potius augetur hoc vinculum caritatis, nec videtur voti violator qui<br />
hoc in melius commutavit, infra ‘De voto’, Scripture.<br />
salibus c. ii. Et posset reddi ratio quia ante carnis copulam utroque consentiente in<br />
dissensu A1<br />
X. 4. 1. 2. X. 5. 41. 1. hoc non] hoc vero A1<br />
carnis] carnalis A1 congruus] contrarius congruus A1<br />
ordinaria] ordinata A1<br />
causa] causa. Sed et probabiliter dici potest quod cum ecclesia circa impedimenta<br />
matrimonii restringenda vel laxanda potestatem habeat, ut patet in eo quod legitur<br />
et notatur infra ‘De consanguinitate’, Non debet (X. 4. 14. 8), statuere vero [corrected<br />
from non?] potuit et hoc: quod coniunx ante carnis copulam etiam invito consorte<br />
posset religionem intrare, et alius in seculo remanens cum alia contrahere, impedimento<br />
hoc non obstante. Et hanc rationem reddidit [corrected from reddit] michi<br />
Dominus Matheus Sancte Marie in Portic. Dyaconus Cardinalis. Et si queras unde<br />
procedit tanta potestas ecclesie, vide quod legitur et notatur supra, ‘De translatione<br />
*episcopi’c.iR(ubrica)ietc.iietiii(X.1.7.1–3).A1<br />
X. 1. 21. 5.<br />
sequi] sequitur A1 hoc] per hoc A1 infra] vel infra A1<br />
Scripture. Verum]Scripture. [Extract edited by Pennington ends here.] Ad<br />
quod etiam designandum gloriosa domina nostra [interlined] beatissima virgo Maria,<br />
quamvis vera sponsa Ioseph, hoc tamen non obstante vero deo matrimonialiter<br />
iuncta fuit. xxvii q. ii, Beata Maria et ≈ Cum ergo (Gratian, Decretum, Pars II, C. 27,<br />
q. 2, c. 3 and c. 2). Unde et circa matrimonium non consummatum potest ecclesia<br />
interpretari et statuere quicquid placet, dum tamen iusta causa subsit, ut notatur<br />
infra, eodem, Ex parte ii ≈i, verbo Etiam et si unus (X. 3. 32. 14). Et hoc est [cum ms.?]<br />
quod hic evidenter voluit ostendere quando dixit: Sane quod Dominus, etc.[=Sane,<br />
quod Dominus in Evangelio dicit, non licere viro, nisi ob causam fornicationis, uxorem<br />
suam dimittere: intelligendum est, secundum interpretationem sacri eloquii, de hiis quorum<br />
matrimonium carnali copula est consummatum, sine qua consummari non potest],<br />
quasi dicat: ‘Nec obstat si [sed ms?] opponas: quando interpretamur vel statuimus<br />
per quod videatur solvi matrimonium coniugale videmur facere contra deum, qui<br />
dixit: ‘Quos deus coniunxit’, etc. (Matt. 19: 6; Mark 10: 9); et per consequens videmur<br />
errare, cum nichil possumus statuere contra deum, ut patet in eo quod notatur<br />
supra ‘De restitutione spolii’, Litteras, ≈ Opinioni. Vere dico: Non obstat talis oppositio,<br />
quia illa auctoritas intelligenda de coniunctis non tantum animo sed et corpore.<br />
Ubi ergo deest coniunctio corporum, nichil facimus contra deum, et ideo circa tale<br />
matrimonium possimus [posimus ms.] statuere quicquid placet de potestate nostra<br />
absoluta, id est de plenitudine potestatis. Quod et verum est: sed non expedit quod<br />
in hoc nimis laxet habenas, nec etiam tutum est. . . . Verum A1<br />
X. 3. 24. 4.
Documents: 4. 1 273<br />
[Extract edited by Pennington ends here.]<br />
4. Verum, ex quo matrimonium consumatum est, hoc nequit fieri, quia<br />
cum per ipsum representetur conformitas que consistit in carne inter<br />
Christum et ecclesiam, ut supra, ‘De bigamis’, Debitum, hec nullatenus<br />
rumpi potest. Ideo si quis diceret quod postea posset vir vel uxor ad religionem<br />
migrare, unionis dicte conformitatis violator esset, et innueret<br />
quod expectaret adhuc aliam fidem et aliam ecclesiam quam Christus<br />
sibi uniret, et iterum desponsaret, quod falsissimum et hereticum<br />
esset . . .<br />
4. 2. Ricardus de Mediavilla: marriage and entry into a<br />
religious order before consummation<br />
In this text a thirteenth-century theologian gives a symbolic rationale for<br />
the law or principle that a non-consummated marriage, though real and<br />
valid, could be dissolved by one partner’s entry into a religious order. The<br />
author is rather an obscure figure but the work from which this comes was<br />
very widespread and influential. It is a commentary on the Sentences of Peter<br />
Lombard, the most common genre for high-level theological synthesis<br />
in the last three medieval centuries.<br />
I have used the 1499 Venice edition Ricardus de Media Villa super quarto<br />
Sententiarum (BL call number IA 23001). A comparison with MS Oxford,<br />
Bodl. 744 leads me to think that the edition gives a reliable text.<br />
Fos. 189VB–190RA:<br />
[Distinctio XXVII, Articulus II, Questio II]<br />
1. Secundo queritur utrum matrimonium non consumatum possit dissolvi<br />
per religionis ingressum: et videtur quod non, quia, matrimonio contracto,<br />
statim alter coniugum tenetur alteri petenti reddere debitum,<br />
quia, sicut dicitur ·. ‘De regulis iuris’, In omnibus: ‘In omnibus obligationibus<br />
in quibus dies non ponitur presenti die debetur.’ Sed hoc<br />
non esset verum si matrimonium non consumatum solvi posset per religionis<br />
ingressum, quia coniunx exactus obiicere posset petenti se velle<br />
religionem intrare. Ergo non solvitur tale matrimonium per religionis<br />
ingressum.<br />
2. Item altero intrante religionem, aut alter statim potest contrahere aut<br />
non. Si non, non est solutum matrimonium. Si sic, cum ille qui intravit<br />
consumatum est] consumatum A1<br />
quia] quod A1<br />
X. 1. 21. 5.<br />
conformitatis] conformitas A1<br />
quam] qua A1<br />
Cf. Aquinas, Summa theologica, 3, q. 29, a. 2.<br />
‘·’ =Justinian, Dig. 50. 17. 14.
274 Documents: 4. 2<br />
religionem possit ante suam professionem redire ad seculum, contingere<br />
posset quod una esset sponsa duorum simul in seculo remanentium,<br />
quod falsum est.<br />
3. Item, aut ille qui remansit in seculo potest contrahere matrimonium<br />
ante alterius professionem, aut non. Si sic, tunc solveretur matrimonium,<br />
nulla interveniente morte, nec corporali, nec spirituali, quia intrans<br />
religionem non moritur spiritualiter seculo usque ad suam professionem.<br />
Si non, tunc ille qui religionem intravit posset parum ante<br />
suam professionem aliam religionem intrare, et postea aliam, et sic remanens<br />
in seculo sine culpa sua defraudaretur multo tempore suo iure,<br />
quod est inconueniens.<br />
4. Contra, Magister, huius Di[stinctionis] c. 6, et est 27 q. 2, Desponsatam<br />
‘Desponsatam puellam non licet parentibus alii viro tradere, tamen licet<br />
monasterium sibi eligere’: quod verum non esset nisi illa obligatio solvi<br />
posset per religionis ingressum.<br />
5. Item, Extra ‘De conversione coniugatorum’, Verum: ‘Post consensum<br />
legitimum de presenti, licitum est alteri, altero etiam repugnante, eligere<br />
monasterium’. Et parum post: ‘dummodo carnalis commixtio non intervenerit<br />
inter eos, et alteri remanenti, si commonitus continentiam<br />
[fo. 139va] servarenoluerit, licitum est ad secunda vota transire.’<br />
6. Respondeo: quod in matrimonio non consumato adhuc non est nisi coniunctio<br />
spiritualis, et ideo per mortem qua homo spiritualiter seculo<br />
moritur potest solvi: qua morte moritur per hoc quod in religione<br />
profitetur. Et hec ratio tangitur Extra, ‘De conversione coniugatorum’,<br />
Verum, ubi dicitur quod ‘cum non fuissent una caro simul e·ecti, satis<br />
potest unus ad deum transire, et alter in seculo remanere.’ Huic concordat<br />
significatio predicti matrimonii, quo non significatur unio humane<br />
nature ad personam filii dei, que est indissolubilis, sed significat dissolubilem<br />
unionem que est inter deum et animam per charitatem vie;<br />
nec illud verbum salvatoris scriptum, Matth. 19—Non licet viro nisi ob<br />
causam fornicationis uxorem suam dimittere—intelligendum est: nisi<br />
de his quorum matrimonium carnali est copula consumatum: Extra,<br />
‘De conversione conjugatorum’, Ex publico.<br />
7. Ad primum in oppositum dicendum quod in illa obligatione, si alter<br />
coniugum proponat se velle religionem intrare, est indulta a iure dilatio<br />
duorum mensium ad reddendum debitum: Extra, ‘De conversione<br />
See Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 27. 6, ii. 425 Brady. Brady, the anonymous<br />
editor, notes that the Decree beginning ‘Desponsatam puellam . . .’, attributed here<br />
by the Lombard to Eusebius papa, is spurious.<br />
X. 3. 32. 2.<br />
noluerit] voluerit 1499 edition<br />
X. 3. 32. 2.<br />
X. 3. 32. 7.
Documents: 4. 2 275<br />
coniugatorum’, Ex publico. In casu tamen committitur arbitrio iudicis<br />
utrum plus vel minus tempus indulgeat ad profitendum, ut dicit<br />
Gl(ossa) ibidem.<br />
8. Ad secundum dicendum quod remanens in seculo non potest contrahere<br />
matrimonium ante professionem alterius in religione, quia tunc primo<br />
ille qui est in religione moritur spiritualiter mundo, et ideo tunc primo<br />
vinculum matrimonii solvitur.<br />
9. Ad tertium dicendum quod ille qui remanet in seculo non potest matrimonium<br />
contrahere ante professionem illius qui religionem intravit: et<br />
si de facto contraheret, et alius ante suam professionem de religione<br />
exiret, ei esset restituendus. Ad subveniendum tamen remanenti in<br />
seculo, ne suo iure fraudulenter privetur, iudex illi qui intravit religionem<br />
prefigere debet terminum peremptorium infra quem profiteatur,<br />
aut consumet matrimonium: alioquin ipsum excommunicet: ut habetur<br />
in predicta decretali in gl(ossa), et supra, titulo proximo, capitulo<br />
Statuimus, in glo(ssa).<br />
4. 3. Ricardus de Mediavilla on the marriage of Mary and<br />
Joseph<br />
See introduction to Document 4. 2.<br />
Fo. 202RB–VA:<br />
[Distinctio 30, Articulus 2, Questio 2]<br />
1. Secundo queritur utrum inter Mariam et Ioseph fuerit perfectum matrimonium.<br />
Et videtur *quod non. . . . Item, ad perfectum matrimonium<br />
requiritur consensus in carnalem copulam, quia ad hoc requiritur obligatio<br />
ad reddendum debitum cum ab altero coniuge exigitur. Sed beata<br />
virgo in carnalem copulam non consensit, quia, ut habitum est in questione<br />
precedenti, voverat virginitatem: et constat quod votum suum<br />
Ibid.<br />
Bernard of Parma, Glossa ordinaria, X. 3. 32. 7: ‘Licet dicatur de duobus mensibus,<br />
credo quod istud committeretur arbitrio iudicis utrum plus vel minus tempus<br />
indulgeat ad profitendum dicenti se velle intrare religionem, et currit a tempore illo<br />
quo iudex statuit terminum’ (MS BL Royal 9. C. 1, fo. 123VB, right-hand gloss).<br />
X. 3. 32. 7.<br />
For the gloss of Bernard of Parma see above, n. 9.<br />
X. 3. 31. 23.<br />
The following passage fits well enough. Bernard of Parma starts with the case of<br />
a church left vacant while the prospective monk is trying his vocation, then moves<br />
on to the case of a married man: ‘Idem credo servandum si alter sponsus intret<br />
religionem quod infra certum tempus profiteatur, alioquin compellitur redire ad<br />
sponsam, quia et ibi periculum imminet fornicationis’ (MS BL Royal 9. C. 1, fo.<br />
123 RB, right-hand gloss).
276 Documents: 4. 3<br />
non violavit. Ergo inter ipsam et Ioseph perfectum matrimonium non<br />
fuit....<br />
2. Respondeo quod perfectio rei duplex est: quedam in esse primo, quedam<br />
in esse secundo. Prima in hoc consistit quod res habet omnia que pertinent<br />
ad eius essentiam. Secunda consistit in quibusdam perfectionibus<br />
non pertinentibus ad essentiam.<br />
3. Primo modo fuit perfectum matrimonium inter Mariam et Joseph,<br />
non secundo: quia non ita perfecte significavit *indivisibilem unionem<br />
Christi et ecclesie et humane nature cum divina persona sicut matrimonium<br />
consumatum. Unde dicit Magister huius distinctionis c. 3 quod<br />
fuit perfectum: non in significatione, quia, ut infra dicitur, eodem, matrimonium<br />
consumatum perfectius unionem Christi et ecclesie figurat<br />
[fo. 202va] . . . Ad tertium dicendum quod ad primam matrimonii perfectionem<br />
non requiritur consensus in carnalem copulam, nisi implicite et<br />
sub conditione, scilicet, si alter coniunx eam exegerit, et si deus debitum<br />
reddendi non relaxaverit: et sic beata virgo in carnalem copulam consensit.<br />
Nec in hoc periculo se exposuit, nec suo voto in aliquo derogavit,<br />
quia divina inspiratione certificata fuit quod Ioseph ab ea numquam exigeret<br />
carnalem copulam, et quod si Joseph exigeret, deus eam a debito<br />
absolveret reddendi. Et sic intelligitur auctoritas allegata secundo ad<br />
secundam partem, quod patet, quia postquam dictum est: ‘consensit<br />
in carnalem copulam’, statim subiungitur: ‘non illam appetendo, sed<br />
divine inspirationi in utroque obediendo.’<br />
4. 4. A consummation case in the papal registers (John XXII)<br />
These passages show that the practical social and political implications<br />
of the symbolic theology and canon law of non-consummated marriages<br />
are more far-reaching than is at first apparent. They are from Archivio<br />
Segreto Vaticano, Vatican Register 115, which has not been calendared<br />
except for entries connected with France. This is a register deriving from<br />
Peter Lombard, Sentences, 4. 30. 2. 3, ii. 440 Brady (note: chapter 2, not chapter<br />
3).<br />
Ibid. 4. 30. 2. 5, ii. 440–1 Brady.<br />
The following note in the calendar for France is worth quoting as a warning<br />
about the numbering of the folios: ‘Les lettres secr›etes des ann‹ees XIII et XIV<br />
du pontificat de Jean XXII (5 septembre 1328–4 septembre 1330) sont conserv‹ees<br />
dans le registre Vatican 115. Chacun des feuillets de celui-ci porte une double<br />
num‹erotation, la premi›ere en chi·res romains dans la marge sup‹erieure du recto,<br />
l’autre, en chi·res arabes, dans le coin sup‹erieur droit de la m^eme page. Ces deux<br />
num‹erotations ne co•§ncident pas car, d’une part, le premier num‹erorateur n’a pas<br />
tenu compte des feuillets contenant l’Index plac‹e ent^ete du registre, et d’autre<br />
part, pour les lettres de l’ann‹ee XIV, il a recommenc‹e la num‹erotation au fol. 1, qui<br />
correspond ainsi au folio 205 de la num‹erotation en chi·res arabes, alors que celle-ci<br />
est continue du premier au dernier feuillet du registre’ (Lettres secr›etes et curiales du
Documents: 4. 4 277<br />
the Camera Apostolica (as opposed to the Cancellaria Apostolica): see M.<br />
Giusti, Studi sui Registri di bolle papali (Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 1;<br />
Vatican City, 1979), 27–8, 130, 139.<br />
On the Vatican Registers of this period see K. A. Fink, Das vatikanische<br />
Archiv: Einf•uhring in die Best•ande und ihre Erforschung, 2nd enlarged edn.<br />
(Rome, 1951), 36–7, one good guide among several.<br />
The background to these extracts from the uncalendared papal register<br />
is elucidated by documents printed in Vatikanische Akten zur deutschen<br />
Geschichte in der Zeit Kaiser Ludwigs des Bayern, auf Veranlassung seiner<br />
Majest•at des K•onigs von Bayern herausgegeben durch die historische Commission<br />
bei der k•oniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed. S. von Riezler<br />
(Innsbruck, 1891): no. 785, p. 311; no. 864, p. 331; no. 890, p. 338; no. 911,<br />
p. 347; no. 943a, p. 357; no. 1000, p. 374.<br />
Pope John XXII was in the middle of a struggle ›a l’outrance with Ludwig<br />
of Bavaria. John refused to recognize Ludwig as Holy Roman Emperor<br />
elect. Ludwig countered by leading an army into Italy, allying with the papacy’s<br />
Ghibelline opponents, capturing Rome, installing an antipope, and<br />
declaring John a heretic and no pope. Ludwig controlled Rome from 7<br />
January to 4 August 1328. Historians have perhaps tended to underestimate<br />
the degree of danger to John XXII as pope. At any rate, it would have<br />
taken a clairvoyant to be sure in 1327 that Ludwig was certain to lose.<br />
Stefano da Colonna was on the papal side—more or less. In fact, John<br />
XXII seems to have been far from confident of his loyalty. In January<br />
1327 John wrote to Stefano about news that the latter had received rebels<br />
against the Roman Church, ‘which we can scarcely believe’; on 16 June<br />
of the same year he provided Jacopo son of Stefano with a canonry at<br />
the Lateran church, presumably to keep him sweet; on 28 November<br />
1327 he wrote to tell Stefano of his trust in him despite the rumours, but<br />
exhorted him to think of his good name; in a letter of 24 September to<br />
the legate of Tuscany John expresses what sounds like genuine confidence<br />
in Stefano; on 17 April 1328 he expresses surprise at Stefano’s apparent<br />
pape Jean XXII (1316–1334) relatives ›a la France, publi‹ees ou analys‹ees d’apr›es les<br />
registres du Vatican, ed. A. Coulon and S. Cl‹emencet, fasc. 8 (Paris, 1965), 3 n. 1).<br />
For a convenient summary of these events and their context see H. Thomas,<br />
Deutsche Geschichte des Mittelalters 1250–1500 (Stuttgart etc., 1983), 177–80, or the<br />
old but good G. Mollat, Les Papes d’Avignon 1305–1378 (Paris, 1949), 330–46.<br />
Vatikanische Akten, no. 785, p. 311.<br />
Ibid, no. 864, pp. 331–2.<br />
Ibid., no. 943a, p. 357.<br />
‘Et ut melius et utilius procedere valeas ad premissa, datis in oblivionem preteritis,<br />
que tuis possent in hac parte processibus multipliciter obviare, te cum dilecto<br />
filio, nobili viro, Stephano de Columpna, quem circa ea, que honorem ecclesie<br />
ac regium respiciunt, promptum reperies, (ut) credimus, et devotum, amicabiliter<br />
habeas et . . . favorabiliter prosequaris’ (ibid., no. 911, p. 347).
278 Documents: 4. 4<br />
inactivity in the cause. However, it appears that Stefano came through in<br />
the end, spearheading with one other man the papal come-back in Rome<br />
after Ludwig had left the city.<br />
Thus John XXII owed much to Stefano da Colonna. Against this background,<br />
the documents printed below fall into place. The count of Anguillaria<br />
had married Colonna’s daughter by consent but had not yet<br />
consummated the union. That put the woman in a very dicult position.<br />
An unconsummated marriage could be dissolved, but only through entry<br />
into a religious order. In all probability, she did not want to do this, which<br />
would have allowed the count to marry another woman and add insult to<br />
injury. She herself could not marry anyone else, since the count evidently<br />
had no plans to become a monk. John XXII helped out by putting pressure<br />
on the count to consummate the marriage and make it indissoluble.<br />
Vatican Register 115<br />
Fo. 1RA, from the table of contents to the volume:<br />
Episcopo Mothon’ et duobus collegis scribitur quod cogant comitem Anguillarie<br />
resilientem a consumatione matrimonii cum Agnete de Columpna,<br />
quam desponsaverat, ad consummandum matrimonium cum eadem.<br />
Eiusdem super eodem quod summarie et de plano eundum Comitem compellant.<br />
Eidem comiti quod adimpleat promissum matrimonii contrahendi.<br />
Eidem comiti conceditur quod dictum matrimonium solempnizare possit<br />
temporibus prohibitis a iure.<br />
Johanni sancti *Theodori diacono cardinali legato scribitur quod nedum<br />
desistat ab impedimento dicti matrimonii, ymmo inducat dictum comitem<br />
ad consumandum. . . .<br />
‘Miramur, quod de aliis devotis ipsarum partium in imminentibus negociis ibi<br />
ecclesie audivimus devocionem, quam operose curant ostendere, de te autem nichil,<br />
quod in faciendo consistat, ab aliquo nunciatur. Rogamus igitur discretionem tuam<br />
et hortamur attente, ut te promptius quam abhactenus habeas in agendis, unde tibi<br />
laudis premium non immerito redimas et uberiorem benivolenciam consequaris<br />
ecclesie, sicut optas, non omittens carissimi in Christo filii nostri R. Regis Sicilie<br />
illustris te in premissis voluntati et placito coaptare’ (ibid., no. 1000, p. 374).<br />
In a letter of 28 August 1328 John XXII reported thus to the king of France:<br />
‘die4.presentismensisAugustiLudovico....Urbemcumignominiaetdispendiis<br />
plurimis exeunte dilecti filii, nobiles viri, Stephanus de Columpna miles et Bertuldus<br />
de Filiis Ursi Urbem intraverunt eandem, per quorum solertem industriam<br />
Romanus populus se peccasse considerans et cognoscens, pacificatus et humiliatus<br />
extitit et eosdem nobiles pro nobis et st. Dei ecclesia constituit senatores’ (ibid.,<br />
no. 1075, p. 396).
Fos. 29RA–30RA, from the letters as registered:<br />
Documents: 4. 4 279<br />
Episcopo Mothonensi et Laurentio Capocie Lateranensi ac Nicolao de<br />
Fuscis de Berta Tiburtinensi ecclesiarum canonicis.<br />
Significavit nobis dilectus filius nobilis vir Stephanus de Columpna quod<br />
dilectus filius nobilis vir Ursus comes Anguillarie tractatu prehibito de<br />
matrimonio inter ipsum Ursum et dilectam in Christo filiam nobilem<br />
mulierem Agnetem eiusdem Stephani filiam contrahendo sponsalia primo<br />
cum eadem Agnete tunc etatis nubilis existente per procuratorem ad id<br />
suciens mandatum habentem contraxit et de huiusmodi sponsalibus non<br />
violandis sed ad e·ectum deducendis prestitit sacramentum per procuratorem<br />
eumdem; et deinde, non multo tempore post, Ursus prefatus ad contrahendum<br />
matrimonium per verba de presenti cum Agnete prefata certum<br />
constituit solemniter et legittime procuratorem et nuncium specialem, dans<br />
etiam in mandatis eidem quod iuraret ad sancta dei evangelia in animam<br />
ipsius comitis quod idem comes quando ipse procurator et nuntius esset<br />
in presentia dicte Agnetis ex tempore ipsius mandati pro tempore eiusdem<br />
presentie et ex tempore ipsius presentie pro tempore eiusdem mandati in<br />
eamdem Agnetem velut in suam veram et legittimam uxorem per ipsum<br />
procuratorem et nuntium consenserat et eam ab ipsa vel illa hora in antea<br />
[fo. 29rb] in suam veram et legittimam uxorem haberet, et ea vivente,<br />
aliam non reciperet temporibus vite sue, ac ipsam Agnetem ad domum<br />
suam traduceret et cum eadem matrimonium carnali copula consummaret<br />
ac potestatem liberam omnia alia faciendi que in premissis forent oportuna<br />
etiam si mandatum exigerent speciale, promisit tuncque idem comes<br />
se gratum et ratum habiturum perpetuo quicquid in premissis et circa<br />
premissa procuraret et ageret procurator et nuntius antedictus, et quoquomodo<br />
vel causa non contra faceret vel veniret, hecque omnia et singula ipse<br />
comes iuravit ad sancta dei evangelia semper grata et rata habere et tenere<br />
et contra ea quovis tempore quomodolibet non facere vel venire. Procurator<br />
itaque et nuntius sepedictus huiusmodi mandato suscepto ad dicte<br />
Agnetis accedens presentiam cum ipsa vice et nomine dicti Ursi comitis, et<br />
pro ipso, matrimonium per verba de presenti rite contraxit et ipsam anulo<br />
subarravit. Ad maiorem huiusmodi rei firmitatem ad sancta dei evangelia<br />
in animam dicti comitis ipsi Agneti iuravit vice et nomine quibus supra hoc<br />
matrimonium perpetuo tenere, et nullo umquam tempore quomodolibet<br />
contrafacere vel venire; ac nichilominus nomine dotis a Stephano supradicto<br />
certam recepit pecunie quantitatem. Et insuper, ut fertur, prefatus<br />
comes Agnetem predictam post premissa suam nominavit uxorem. Cum<br />
autem idem comes, ut dicitur, seductus, supradictum matrimonium distulerit<br />
atque di·erat plus debito ac etiam recusaverit et recuset solemnizare<br />
et consumare ac sepedictam Agnem traducere in uxorem, eamque maritali<br />
a·ectione tractare, pretendens supradictum mandatum ad dictum matrimonium<br />
contrahendum priusquam idem matrimonium contraheretur se
280 Documents: 4. 4<br />
revocasse, post tamen sponsalia predicta, ut premittitur, iurata, et penitus<br />
ignorante sepedicta Agnete, fuit nobis pro parte dicti Stephani suppliciter<br />
postulatum ut providere super hoc de oportuno remedio digneremur. Nos<br />
itaque, huiusmodi supplicationibus inclinati, mandamus quatenus vos, vel<br />
alter vestrum, si summarie, de plano, sine strepitu et figura iudicii premissis<br />
vel alicui ex ipsis quod suciet veritatem reperitis su·ragari, prefatum<br />
comi tem [fo. 29va] ad observandum et implendum promissiones et<br />
iuramenta predicta dictumque matrimonium solemnizandum et prefatam<br />
Agnetem in suam uxorem traducendam, eamque maritali a·ectione tractandum,<br />
per censuram ecclesiasticam ratione previa compellatis. Datum<br />
Avinione X. kal. januarii anno tertiodecimo [23 December 1328].<br />
Eisdem<br />
Significavit nobis, etc., ut in precedenti usque ad illum locum ‘et penitus<br />
ignorante sepedicta Agnete’, super hoc per dictum Stephanum provisionis<br />
nostre remedio suppliciter implorato. Nos suis in hac parte supplicationibus<br />
inclinati committimus et mandamus quatenus, vocatis qui fuerint<br />
evocandi, faciatis super premissis simpliciter summarie et de plano, sine<br />
strepitu et figura iudicii iustitie complementum, facientes quod inde decreveritis<br />
per censuram ecclesiasticam firmiter observari, contradictores,<br />
etc., nonobstant’ si eis, etc. Quod si non omnes hiis exequendis potueritis<br />
interesse, tu, frater episcopus, una cum eorum altero, ea nichilominus<br />
exequaris. Datum Avinione X kal. martii anno tertiodecimo [20 February<br />
1329].<br />
Urso Comiti Anguillarie<br />
Attendentes impedimenta varia que morosa dilatatio coniugalem consumandi<br />
copulam matrimoniis interdum ingerere consuevit, cupientesque<br />
eisdem quantum cum deo possumus obviare, ut matrimonium, quod inter<br />
te et dilectam in Christo filiam nobilem mulierem Agnetem natam<br />
nobilis viri Stephani de Columpna contractum asseritur, vel, si illud contrahi<br />
contigerit, postquam contractum, alias tamen canonice, fuerit, possitis<br />
temporibus a iure vel consuetudine seu statuto prohibitis in facie<br />
solemnizare ecclesie impune devotioni vestre tenore presentium indulgemus.<br />
Nulli ergo, etc. Datum Avinione XVII kalendas maii anno tertiodecimo<br />
[15 April 1329].<br />
In eumdem modum dilecte in Christo filie nobili mulieri Agneti nate dilecti<br />
filii nobilis viri Stephani de Columpna verbis competenter mutatis. Datum<br />
ut supra.<br />
...<br />
[fo. 29vb]<br />
...
Documents: 4. 4 281<br />
Urso comiti Anguillarie<br />
Alias tibi, fili, post nostre salutationis eloquium per nostras litteras scripsimus<br />
in hac forma: Scias, fili, ex quorumdam relatione fideli ad nostram<br />
pervenisse notitiam quod dilectam in Christo filiam nobilem mulierem<br />
Agnetem natam dilecti filii nobilis viri Stephani de Columpna in uxorem<br />
tuam desponsasti per verba matrimonium exprimentia de presenti. Sane,<br />
quia, ut intelleximus, quorumdam seductus consilio a contracto intendis<br />
et niteris resilire, nos, attendentes quod hoc tibi non licet nec posses,<br />
nisi de facto dumtaxat, perficere sine dei o·ensa, tue periculo anime, ac<br />
scandalo plurimorum, nobilitatem tuam rogamus et hortamur attente, tibi<br />
nichilominus paterno ac sano consilio suadentes, quatenus prudenter tue<br />
in hac parte saluti providens et honori sine de·ectu adimpleas quod laudabiliter<br />
actore Domino promisisti. Verentes autem quod propter viarum<br />
discrimina non sic cito ut cupimus ad te littere ipse perveniant, et habentes<br />
cordi predictum negotium pro partis bono et commodo utriusque, predictas<br />
litteras paterna solicitudine duximus iterandas. Datum V kal. januarii<br />
anno tertiodecimo [28 December 1328].<br />
Johanni Sancti Theodori diacono cardinali apostolice sedis legato<br />
Quorumdam relatione fideli ad nostram noveris notitiam pervenisse quod<br />
quamvis dilectus filius nobilis vir Ursus Comes Anguillarie dilectam in<br />
Christo nobilem mulierem Agnetem natam dilecti filii nobilis viri Stephani<br />
de Columpna desponsaverit in uxorem suam per verba matrimonium exprimentia<br />
de presenti, impedimentum, quod [fo. 30ra] vix credere possumus,<br />
per te tamen ingeritur, quominus ipsum matrimonium consummetur.<br />
Sane, attendentes quod ab hoc eidem comiti resilire non licet nec<br />
posset nisi de facto dumtaxat aliud perficere sine dei o·ensa, sue periculo<br />
anime, ac scandalo plurimorum, discretionem tuam rogamus et hortamur<br />
attente, tibi nichilominus, fili, salubriter suadentes ut, premissis attentis,<br />
nedum a predicto impedimento desistas, sed quantum in te alias fuerit et a<br />
Domino tibi conceditur illius complemento ecacem prebeas operam, et<br />
diligenter obstacula quecumque removeas, si per alios ingerantur. Datum<br />
II non. Novembris anno tertiodecimo [4 November 1328].<br />
In eumdem modum, mutatis mutandis, nobili viro Neapoleoni de Filiis<br />
Ursi de Urbe<br />
In eumdem modum nobili viro Bertoldo de Filiis Ursi de Urbe.<br />
In eumdem modum mutatis mutandis nobili mulieri Constantie matri dicti<br />
Ursi relicte quondam Francisci Comitis Anguillarie.<br />
perficere] perficere?
282 Documents: 4. 5<br />
4. 5. Consummation and indissolubility in the Oculus<br />
sacerdotis of William of Pagula<br />
This document shows that di·usion to a wider audience of the symbolic<br />
rationale of the rule that entry into a religious order by one partner in an<br />
unconsummated marriage left the other partner free to remarry. Pastoral<br />
manuals like this were designed for ordinary priests to help them look after<br />
their lay parishioners better. The Latin is simple and clear. The Oculus<br />
sacerdotis is an exellent example of the genre, especially well developed<br />
in England, apparently. For the author see Sharpe, Handlist, no. 2141<br />
(‘William of Paull’), p. 799, with further references, especially to work by<br />
Leonard Boyle. The passage is from Oculus sacerdotis, 3.14.<br />
London, BL MS Royal 6. E. I<br />
Parchment manuscript, 390 mm.ÿ270 mm., 121 folios; paragraph marks<br />
in red and blue, initial letters mostly or all in blue but with red decoration.<br />
The manuscript looks late fourteenth century, according to Warner and<br />
Gilson. In addition to the Oculus sacerdotis, itcontainstheSacramentale,<br />
‘a treatise, mainly theological, on the sacraments, by the canonist<br />
W[illelmus] de Monte Hauduno . . . d. circ. 1343’. There is more pastoral<br />
material at the extremities of the manuscript.<br />
Fo. 68VA:<br />
Matrimonium solvi potest ante consummationem matrimonii, puta per<br />
ingressum religionis, et non post matrimonium consummatum. Ratio est<br />
quia in coniugio sunt duo, videlicet consensus animorum, et commixtio<br />
corporum. Consensus *animorum significat caritatem, que consistit in<br />
spiritu inter deum et iustam animam—et anima separari a deo potest per<br />
peccatum: sic matrimonium *solvi potest per ingressum religionis, sed<br />
commixtio corporum significat conformitatem que consistit in carne inter<br />
Christum et ecclesiam, et illa coniunctio Christi ad ecclesiam designatur<br />
per unionem qua iuncta est divinitas carni humane in utero virginali. Unde<br />
quia humana caro nunquam a deitate separata est, ideo propter talem<br />
coniunctionem nunquam dissolvitur matrimonium. Vel potest dici quod<br />
facilius potest una anima separari a deo quam tota ecclesia: Extra ‘De<br />
Bigamis’ c(apitulo). Debitum, et xxvii q. ii. c(apitulo) Qua propter in<br />
Glosa et Extra ‘[De] Conver. Coniugatorum’ c(apitulo) Ex publico in<br />
Glosa ult.<br />
Description based on Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts, i.<br />
150, and on personal inspection.<br />
significat] or signat<br />
significat] or signat<br />
X. 1. 21. 5.<br />
Pars II, C. 27, q. 2, c. 37.<br />
‘Qua propter. perficiunt.—Non quo ad sui essentiam, sed ad significatio-<br />
[See p. 283 for n. 6 cont. and nn. 7 and 8.
Documents: 4. 6 283<br />
4. 6. Johannes de Burgo on the marriage of Mary and Joseph<br />
This text is from the Pupilla oculi (8. 1–2). The work is another pastoral<br />
manual. It was in fact based on the Oculus sacerdotis of William of Pagula,<br />
though it was probably aimed at a somewhat di·erent readership:<br />
academically trained ecclesiastical administrators as opposed to ordinary<br />
parish priests (see discussion in the introduction to Document 3. 9). It puts<br />
over in a practical genre the view that the marriage of Mary and Joseph<br />
was in a sense lacking in perfection because it had not been consummated.<br />
Johannes agrees that in another sense it is perfect, but the passage shows<br />
how far the importance of consummation had penetrated into the world of<br />
religious administration and high-level pastoral government.<br />
Johannes de Burgo was learned and cites interesting authorities. The<br />
ideas of Duns Scotus to which he alludes are interesting in their own<br />
right and deserve close study, which the references below in n. 2 aim to<br />
facilitate.<br />
nem. Non tamen sequitur quod ante non fuerit perfectum, quia perfectum amplius<br />
potest perfici: xi. q. iii Quod predecessor (Pars II, C. 11, q. 3, c. 105), perficitur<br />
autem matrimonium per coitum quo ad sui significationem, quia tunc utramque<br />
habet significationem, scilicet, coniunctionem anime fidelis ad deum, et Christi ad<br />
ecclesiam, ut Extra ‘De bygamis’ in c. Debitum (X. 1. 21. 5). Sed quare separatur<br />
matrimonium causa religionis post coniunctionem anime fidelis ad deum et non<br />
post coniunctionem Christi ad ecclesiam? Ratio est quia anima separatur a deo per<br />
peccatum. Unde non est mirum si post talem *coniunctionem matrimonium separetur.<br />
Sed illa coniunctio Christi ad ecclesiam designatur per unionem qua unita est<br />
divinitas carni humane in utero virginali, unde quia humana caro numquam a deitate<br />
separata [separatur ms.] est ideo per talem coniunctionem numquam dissolvitur<br />
matrimonium; vel potest dici quod facilius est quod una anima separetur a deo quam<br />
tota ecclesia, immo impossibile est quod tota ecclesia separetur a deo, quia ecclesia<br />
non potest nulla esse’ (MS BL Royal 9. C. III, fo. 225RB, right-hand gloss).<br />
X. 3. 32. 7.<br />
The following passage from Bernard of Parma’s Glossa ordinaria to the Decretals<br />
could be meant (‘Duplex’ is supplied in the margin in a di·erent hand before initial<br />
‘Est’): ‘Est consummatio que sit quo ad matrimonii essentiam que fuit facta in<br />
paradiso ab ipso Domino per coniunctionem animorum que designat conformitatem<br />
fidelis anime ad Christum, ut ibi; et est consummatio quo ad sacramentum Christi<br />
ad ecclesiam per incarnationem verbi dei in utero virginali quod designatur per<br />
illud matrimonium quod est carnali copula consummatum, ut hic, et supra, “De<br />
Bigamis”, Debitum (X. 1. 21. 5); xxvii. q. ii, In omni, R(ubrica) (Pars II, C. 27, q. 2, c.<br />
36); vel saltem quo ad hoc quod impedire possit propositum religionis: Lau(rentius).<br />
Notavit hic Alanus quod matrimonium non consummatum sortitur naturam ex<br />
constitutione ecclesie, et ideo circa illud latissime patet pape potestas. Vin(centius)<br />
dixit quod papa per dispensationem posset dissolvere tale matrimonium, posset<br />
etiam statuere quod secundum matrimonium rumperetur; secus de consummato,<br />
quod ab ipso Domino rationem suam [sortitur], et ideo sola interpretatio circa illud<br />
pertinet ad papam, non dispensatio vel contraria constituendo [read constitutio?].<br />
Contra tamen infra “De sponsa duorum”, c. ult.’ (MS Royal 9. C. 1, fo. 123VB,<br />
right-hand gloss).
284 Documents: 4. 6<br />
MS London, BL Royal 11. B. X<br />
For a brief description of the manuscript see Document 3. 9.<br />
Fo. 124RA–B:<br />
Item ad verum matrimonium requiritur intentio specialis vel generalis, ut<br />
scilicet vir intendat tradere mulieri perpetuam potestatem corporis sui, et e<br />
converso, ipsa corporis sui potestatem viro suo quo ad carnalem copulam,<br />
saltem sub conditione implicita, videlicet si petatur. Unde inter beatam<br />
Virginem et Ioseph fuit perfectum matrimonium perfectione quam facit<br />
consensus per verba de presenti expressus, sed non perfectione quam facit<br />
carnalis copula, que est actus proprius matrimonii, in quem numquam<br />
consensit explicite, sed implicite solum, ut dicit Tho. Di. 30: id est, sub<br />
conditione implicita, si peteretur. Et hoc in nullo preiudica vit [fo. 124rb]<br />
voto suo de virginitate servanda, quia sucienter certificata fuit a deo<br />
quod actus huiusmodi matrimonialis numquam a suo coniuge peteretur.<br />
Transtulit ergo in virum suum potestatem sui corporis, sed non usum,<br />
secundum Scotum Di. 30. q. 2. Hec dicit Ber. in Glossa, quod quamvis<br />
alter coniugum vel uterque intendat numquam reddere debitum alteri,<br />
quin etiam negare petitum, tenet matrimonium, ut creditur, dum tamen<br />
illud non deducatur in pactum.<br />
Cf. Aquinas, Commento alle Sentenze di Pietro Lombardo, trans. and ed. ‘Redazione<br />
delle Edizioni Studio Domenicano’, dist. 30, q. 2, a. 1, solutio ii, p. 346.<br />
The critical edition of John Duns Scotus has not reached book 4 of either his<br />
Oxford or his Paris commentary on the Lombard’s Sentences. Sharpe,Handlist,<br />
no. 674, p. 239, comments with respect to the Opus Oxoniense that the ‘text printed<br />
byWaddingandreprinted...isnotpure’.Hedoesnotmakethesamecommentof<br />
the pre-critical edition of the Opus Parisiense, but it has seemed simpler and safer<br />
to use manuscripts. The relevant passage from the Oxford Sentence commentary<br />
is in a question inc. ‘Secundo quero utrum inter Mariam et Iosep fuerit verum<br />
matrimonium’ (MS Oxford, Merton College 66, fos. 214VB–215RB, a manuscript<br />
contemporary with the author, to judge from the script, and designated one of the<br />
‘codices constanter adhibiti’ in the introductory volume to the critical edition which<br />
is in progress: see Ioannis Duns Scoti opera omnia, ed. C. Balic et al., i (Vatican City,<br />
1950), 32*–34*). Note especially the passage beginning ‘Respondeo [or Responsio]:<br />
In contractu matrimonii [matrimonium ms. here and below?] mutua est datio corporum<br />
ad copulam carnalem nonnisi sub conditione implicita, scilicet: si petatur’ and<br />
ending ‘propter honestam causam aliquam’ (ibid., fo. 215ra–b). The pertinent passage<br />
in the Paris Sentence commentary of Scotus is also in a question ‘Utrum inter<br />
Mariam et Ioseph fuerat [sic] verum matrimonium’ (MS Oxford, Merton College<br />
63, fos. 63R–64R). Note especially the passage beginning ‘Ideo dico quod absolute<br />
vovit castitatem’ and ending ‘Ergo potest esse dominium corporis sine usu perpetuo’<br />
(ibid., fos. 63V–64R).<br />
Hec] sic ms.<br />
Not found (but presumably a gloss of Bernardus of Parma).
Documents: 4. 7 285<br />
4. 7. A case from the archive of the Apostolic Penitentiary:<br />
Constance of Padilla<br />
The case, discussed in detail in Chapter 4, illustrates the way in which<br />
high-level ideas about consummation could a·ect real-life situations.<br />
Penitenzieria Apostolica Register, vol. 48<br />
Paper manuscript, 285ÿ215 mm. The last folio in the volume is numbered<br />
989. Line numbers refer to the main body of the entry only.<br />
Fo. 634R–V:<br />
Head of the page: Anno octavo domini Alexandri pape vi<br />
Above the entry: Octobr’ 1499<br />
Halfway down the entry, left-hand margin: Rome iiii Non. Septembris<br />
Halfway down the entry, right-hand margin: Segobien [ =Segubien(sis)]<br />
Constantia de Padilla, mulier Segoviensis, exponit /1/ quod alias, postquam<br />
ipsa matrimonium per verba legitima /2/ de presenti cum quodam viro<br />
nullo iure sibi prohi bito /3/ coniuncta contraxerat, carnali copula minime<br />
/4/ subsecuta, ipsam per vim et metum cuiusdam nobilis /5/ Bonadille<br />
Marchisie Modie Conchensis diocesis, cui /6/ tunc ipsa exponens inserviebat<br />
et forsan certarum /7/ aliarum personarum *compulsi monasterium<br />
Sancti Petri /8/ de Las Ducuans ordinis *Conceptionis sub regula<br />
Sancte Clare /9/ Toletan’ ingressa fuit et professionem pro moniales<br />
/10/ dicti monasterii emitti solitam *emisit; et deinde dictus /11/ eius vir<br />
matrimonium seu potius contubernium pro simi lia /12/ verba de presenti<br />
cum quadam alia muliere nullo /13/ etiam sibi iure prohibita contraxit, illudque<br />
carnali /14/ copula consumavit. Postmodum vero dicta exponens<br />
/15/ dictum monasterium illicentiata exivit et ad civitatem /16/ Abulen-<br />
I ignore all foliations apart from the modern stamped foliation.<br />
At the head of fos. 633V and 634V: ‘Rome apud sanctum Petrum’.<br />
But this may not relate to this particular case.<br />
ipsam] ipsa recte<br />
i.e. of Cuenca<br />
*compulsi] compulsa recte. The scribe may have been unsure how to extend the<br />
abbreviation: he had written ipsam above, as if for an accusative and infinitive construction,<br />
but then goes on to write ingressa fuit below<br />
*Conceptionis] ms. very unclear: looks like Conceptianum<br />
This may be the same as the house listed as ‘Toledo, Sancta Maria Immaculada’<br />
in the brief article by T. Morel in Diccionario de historia eclesiastica de Espa~na (5<br />
vols. so far; 1972–87, the last being suppl. 1), iii (Madrid, 1973), 1684. According to<br />
Morel, it was only long afterwards that the community joined the Benedictine Order.<br />
He makes no mention of the Franciscan rule, but the ‘Immaculate’ (an allusion to<br />
the Immaculate Conception) fits the description in our case.<br />
pro] per recte<br />
moniales] m’LES ms.<br />
pro] per recte
286 Documents: 4. 7<br />
sem se transtulit, in qua est de presenti. Cum autem, /17/ Pater Sancte,<br />
dicta exponens *antequam *dictum monasterium /18/ ingrederetur, matrimonium<br />
per verba de presenti cum /19/ dicto viro nullo sibi *iure prohibito<br />
consueta ut /20/ premittitur contraxit et pro vi et metum ingressa<br />
/21/ et in eo cum animi sui quiete manere non valens /22/ ut premissum<br />
est exivit, cupiatque in seculo cum dicto /23/ suo viro remanere, et<br />
mater eci liberum, a nonnullis /24/ tamen simplicibus et iurisignarus<br />
ac ipsius ex ponentis /25/ forsan emulis asseritur ipsam propter premissa<br />
/26/ dicto ordini astrictam esse et propterea in seculo /27/ cum dicto suo<br />
viro /28/ licite remanere non posse, ad ora igitur talium et /29/ aliorum<br />
sibi super hiis obloqui volentium emulorum obstruenda, /30/ [fo. 634v]<br />
quare, etc., quatenus ipsam ab excessibus hiusmodi absolvi /31/ necnon<br />
in seculo cum dicto suo viro postquam a dicta /32/ secunda muliere in<br />
iudicio ecclesie separatus fuerit rema nere /33/ possit libere et licite, alio<br />
tamen canonico /34/ non obstante, prolem suscipiendam exinde legitimam<br />
decer nere /35/ declarari mandare dignemini: ut in forma. /36/<br />
Et committatur vicario generali ordinis /37/ sancte Clare provincie Hispanie<br />
/38/ et archdiacono de Sepulveda in /39/ ecclesia Segobiensi.<br />
Fiat Iul.<br />
Videat eam D. Do. De Iacobatiis Iul. /40/<br />
Committatur eisdem ut vocatis vocandis constito de assertis et quod<br />
per metum quod caderet in constantem professionem emi serit nec postea<br />
expresse vel tacite ratificaverit declaret ut petitur.<br />
4. 8. Another non-consummation case from the archive of<br />
the Apostolic Penitentiary<br />
In this case Juan from the diocese of Burgos claims that he married Catherine<br />
daughter of Juan G‹omez, who committed adultery with another man<br />
before the marriage had been consummated; she then repented and entered<br />
a religious order. Juan subsequently became engaged to Maria and asks<br />
permission to marry her. It is a classic ‘ratum non consummatum’ case and<br />
illustrates the same point as Document 4. 7.<br />
i.e. Avila.<br />
pro vi et metum] sic ms.<br />
liberum] liberorum recte<br />
tamen] tamen et could be read<br />
iurisignarus] iurisignaris recte<br />
viro] remanere et mater eci liberum (sic) added and deleted in ms.<br />
Presumably a Penitentiary ocial.<br />
The following passage is indented and behind a bracket; I discontinue the line<br />
numbering
Penitenzieria Apostolica Register vol. 60<br />
Documents: 4. 8 287<br />
Paper manuscript, 285ÿ205 mm. The last folio in the volume is numbered<br />
468. Line numbers refer to the main body of the entry only.<br />
Fos. 21V–22R:<br />
Head of fo. 21v: Rome apud s. P.<br />
Head of fo. 22r: Anno quarto Leonis pape X<br />
Above the entry: Contreras taxatio iiii Ÿ 3<br />
Heading, left-hand margin: Declaratio matrimonialis<br />
Halfway down the left-hand margin: iiii Id. Aprilis<br />
Halfway down the right-hand margin: Burgen.<br />
Iohannes Sams de Rochas laicus Burgensis diocesis /1/ exponit quod<br />
postquam ipse alias matrimonium per verba /2/ de presenti cum Catherina<br />
filia Iohannis Gomez /3/ muliere loci de Rochas dicte diocesis contraxerat,<br />
non /4/ tamen cognoverat, eademque Catherina post commissum /5/ cum<br />
alio viro adulterium, penitentia ducta seu alias, habitum /6/ ordinis sancte<br />
Trinitatis per manus ministri monasterii eiusdem /7/ sancte Trinitatis<br />
probe et extra muros Burgen. /8/ [fo. 22r] assumpserat, et professionem per<br />
moniales dicti ordinis /9/ emitti solitam, absque tamen ingressu alicuius<br />
monasterii earumdem /10/ monialium, in manibus dicti ministri emiserat<br />
regularem, /11/ prefatus orator sponsalia per verba de futuro cum quadam<br />
/12/ Maria filia Gundisalvi Martieres de Quexiquata, /13/ muliere dicte<br />
diocesis, contraxit. Cuperet idem orator cum eadem /14/ Maria matrimonium<br />
contrahere et in eo postquam contractum /15/ foret licite remanere,<br />
ab aliquibus tamen simplicibus /16/ et iurisignaris etc. Ad igitur talium<br />
et aliorum sibi /17/ in futurum obloqui volentium ora obstruenda, supplicatur<br />
etc. /18/ quatenus, si vocatis vocandis constiterit de assertis, oratorem<br />
/19/ ipsum premissis non obstantibus, matrimonium cum prefata<br />
/20/ Maria contrahere, et in eo postquam contractum fuerit /21/ remanere,<br />
licite posse declarari, prolem exinde suscipiendam /22/ etc. man(dare)<br />
dignemini in forma. FIAT IN FORMA M. R(egens)<br />
This is repeated halfway down the left-hand margin of the continuation of the<br />
entry on fo. 22R.<br />
This is repeated halfway down the right-hand margin of the continuation of the<br />
entry on fo. 22R.<br />
Sams] Sa followed by three minims and an s in ms., so could also be Savis or Sains<br />
or Sanis<br />
Quexiquata] I transcribe this tentatively as I have not been able to find the name
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ministe›re de l’e‹ducation nationale, Catalogue g‹en‹eral des manuscrits
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des biblioth›eques publiques des d‹epartements (7 vols.; Paris, 1849–85), ii.<br />
Troyes (1855).<br />
mirbt, ¢., Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des r•omischen Katholizismus,<br />
5th edn. (T•ubingen, 1934).<br />
Missale Romanum Mediolani, 1474, facsimile ed. R. Lippe (2 vols.; Henry<br />
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molho, a., Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge,<br />
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molin, J.-b.,andmutembe, P., Le Rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au<br />
XVIe si›ecle (Th‹eologie historique, 26; Paris, 1974).<br />
mollat, G., Les Papes d’Avignon 1305–1378 (Paris, 1949).<br />
moore, J. ¢. (ed.), Pope Innocent III and his World (Aldershot etc., 1988).<br />
morel, t.,‘Toledo,Sancta Mar‹§a Immaculada’, in Diccionario de historia<br />
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morin, d. G., ‘Textesin‹edits relatifs au symbole et ›a laviechr‹etienne’,<br />
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mulchahey, m., ‘More Notes on the Education of the Fratres communes<br />
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Bayern, auf Veranlassung seiner Majest•at des K•onigs von Bayern herausgegeben<br />
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Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Hinduismus und Buddhismus
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1956).
Index of Manuscripts<br />
I include only manuscripts I have personally used at least on microfilm. Manuscripts<br />
discussed at second hand are included in the main index.<br />
London, BL Add. 33956: 120 n. 126<br />
London, BL Add. 18347: 122 n. 132<br />
London, BL Add. 31830: Documents<br />
1. 9–13 notes passim (I use this<br />
manuscript as a source for interpretations<br />
of Hebrew names)<br />
London, BL Arundel 132: Document<br />
1. 9<br />
London, BL Arundel 431: 263 n. 11<br />
London, BL Arundel 471: 257 n. 14,<br />
261 n. 44, 264 n. 16, Document<br />
4. 1<br />
London, BL Arundel 485: Documents<br />
2. 1–2, 270 n. 2<br />
London, BL Cotton Cleopatra E. 1:<br />
182 n. 41, 183 n. 42<br />
London, BL Cotton Domitian XV: 90<br />
n. 59<br />
London, BL Harley 2385: 120 n. 126<br />
London, BL Harley Charter 45. F. 11:<br />
184 n. 47<br />
London, BL Lansdowne 397: 122 n.<br />
130<br />
London, BL Royal 5. A. I: Document<br />
3. 1<br />
London, BL Royal 6. E. I: Document<br />
4. 5<br />
London, BL Royal 8. A. II: 257 n. 9<br />
London, BL Royal 8. B. XV: p. 117<br />
nn. 121–2<br />
London, BL Royal 9. C. I: 263 n. 10,<br />
275 nn. 9 @ 13, 283 n. 8 (from<br />
282)<br />
London, BL Royal 9. C. III: 282–3 n.<br />
6<br />
London, BL Royal 11. A. XIV: 145,<br />
151–2, Document 3. 8<br />
London, BL Royal 11. B. X: p. 118 n.<br />
123, Document 3. 9<br />
London, BL Royal 11. B. X: Documents<br />
3. 9, 4. 6<br />
London, The National Archives,<br />
JUST 3. 41/1: Document 3. 10<br />
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 2946:<br />
Document 1. 10<br />
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 3833:<br />
Documents 1. 1–2<br />
Oxford, Merton College 30: 241 n. 18<br />
Oxford, Merton College 63: 284 n. 2<br />
Oxford, Merton College 66: 284 n. 2<br />
Oxford, New College 205: Documents<br />
2. 1–2, 4. 1<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no.<br />
296 [sic]: 158, Document 3. 4<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no.<br />
296 (2): Document 3. 5<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no.<br />
298 (10): Document 3. 6<br />
Paris, Archives Nationales J 709 no.<br />
298 (12): Document 3. 7<br />
Paris, BN lat 3742: Document 1. 10<br />
Paris, BN lat. 3794: Document 1. 3<br />
Rome, Casanatense 4560: Documents<br />
1. 12–13<br />
Troyes, Biblioth›eque Municipale<br />
1263: 238 n. 2, 240 n. 10<br />
Troyes, Biblioth›eque Municipale<br />
1440: Document 1. 11<br />
Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano<br />
Penitenzieria ap. 48: Document<br />
4. 7<br />
Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano<br />
Penitenzieria ap. 60: Document<br />
4. 8<br />
Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano<br />
Penitenzieria ap. 75: Documents<br />
3. 11–12
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica<br />
Vaticana Chigi C. IV. 99: 241 nn.<br />
16, 20<br />
Index of Manuscripts 311<br />
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica<br />
Vaticana Vat. Lat. 3994: 165–6 n.<br />
90
General Index<br />
Though I have not attempted to index all the scholars whose works are cited in<br />
the notes, I have included some where I thought this would help readers. The<br />
line is rather arbitrary and there is a bias towards more recent writers. I include<br />
also manuscripts which are mentioned as studied by other scholars but which I<br />
have not consulted personally (conversely, I have not included these in the Index<br />
of Manuscripts). When indexing the Documents, I have not included names and<br />
themes if the appropriate forward references are already provided in the main text;<br />
nor do I index the sources identified in the notes. Thus the index is highly selective<br />
so far as the Documents are concerned.<br />
Abbo of St-Germain 30<br />
Abelard 98–9<br />
Adelaide, wife of Louis the Stammerer<br />
83<br />
Adela•§de, wife of Louis V of France<br />
92<br />
adultery 82, 123<br />
creatures and Document 1. 11. 6<br />
ªlfric 34, 36<br />
a·ectio maritalis: see marital a·ection<br />
anity 14, 175<br />
see also forbidden degrees<br />
Agde, Council of (506) 79<br />
age of first marriage 182, 191<br />
ages of history 32, 33<br />
Agobard of Lyons 29<br />
Ahasuerus 60<br />
Aldobrandino da Toscanella 63–4,<br />
Documents 1. 12–13<br />
Alexander III, Pope 126–7, 143–5,<br />
171, ch. 4 passim, 201, 203<br />
Alexander IV, Pope 142, 158<br />
allegory 61<br />
Alpaida, wife of Pippin of Herstal 80<br />
Altm•unster, Bridgettine nunnery 223<br />
Amandola, partner of Rozelin 90<br />
Amos, T. 21–31 passim<br />
Angers, Council of (453) 79<br />
Anglo-Saxon England:<br />
divorce in 79–80<br />
preaching in 33–4<br />
see also Bede<br />
Anguillaria, Count of 180–1, 182,<br />
Document 4. 4<br />
annulments ch. 2 passim<br />
Ansgard 83<br />
Anstey case 183–4<br />
anthropology 17<br />
Antibes 110<br />
Antoninus of Florence, St 195<br />
Aquinas 8, 9, 145–8, 150<br />
Archon Basileus 4<br />
Aris, Marc-Aeilko 42 n. 79<br />
Aristotle, 226, 232<br />
see also marriage, Aristotle and<br />
Assuerus 60 n. 146<br />
Asti 115, 123<br />
asymmetry, gender 251<br />
Atto of Vercelli 29<br />
attrition of manuscripts ch. 1 (c)<br />
passim<br />
Audientia litterarum contradictarum<br />
122 n. 130, 124, 185–6<br />
Augsburg, ninth-century homily composed<br />
for church of Documents 1.<br />
1–2<br />
Augustine of Hippo 30, 75–8, 81, 88,<br />
129–30, 202<br />
and ‘bigamy’ 133<br />
Augustinian Hermits 57<br />
Aurelle, M. 101<br />
Auxerre, School of, audience of homilies<br />
from 25–7<br />
Baldwin, J. W. 14, 94 n. 73, 100 n. 87,<br />
102 n. 94, 104 nn. 97–8<br />
Ball, R. M. 262 n. 1<br />
banns 65
Barellus, Raymund 109–10, 119<br />
Barr‹e, H. 25–6, 208 n. 1<br />
Barrow, J. 91 n. 62<br />
Bartlett, Robert 1 n. 3, 116, 181 n. 38<br />
Basilinna 4<br />
Bataillon, L.-J. 37 n. 69, 55, 56 n. 122<br />
‘Bavarian Homiliary’ 30, 31, 32,<br />
Documents 1. 1–2<br />
‘Beaune Homiliary’ 32–3, Document<br />
1. 3<br />
Becket, Thomas 158<br />
Bede 24–5<br />
Pseudo-Bede 28<br />
Bellamy, J. G. 163 n. 84<br />
Benedict XII, Pope 148 n. 46, 155 n.<br />
66<br />
Benedictine libraries 41, 46<br />
benedictio sacramentalis 118 n. 124,<br />
153–5<br />
benefit of clergy, and ‘bigamous’<br />
clerics 159–65<br />
B‹eriou, N. 37 n. 69, 226 n. 1<br />
Berkshire Eyre, 184–5<br />
BernardofClairvaux,St3,5,7,9,<br />
10–11, 20<br />
Bernard of Parma 144<br />
Bernard of Pavia, 118 n. 124, 148<br />
Bertram, Martin 54 n. 117<br />
BertranddelaTour45<br />
betrothal 60<br />
see also initiation<br />
Bhakti 4<br />
bigamy, irregularity of 111, ch. 3<br />
passim, 168–9, 171, 199<br />
Tree of 137–9<br />
Biller, P. 144 n. 37<br />
Binder, B. 150 n. 53<br />
binding, and book destruction 42–4<br />
bishop, marriage to his church 16, 87,<br />
138–9<br />
Blair, J. 35 nn. 61–2, 36 n. 64<br />
blessings, at weddings ch. 3 (b) passim,<br />
200<br />
Blickling Homilies 34<br />
B•ohringer, L. 85–6 nn. 41–2<br />
Bonaventure 39, 118 n. 124<br />
Boniface, St 25<br />
homilies attributed to 28<br />
‘book massacre’ 42–4<br />
Book of Two Principles 66<br />
books:<br />
borrowing of 44, 47–8<br />
cost of 55–7<br />
General Index 313<br />
history of the book ch. 1 (c) passim<br />
production by friar scribes 53–7<br />
sale of by friars 49<br />
unattached to libraries 46–8<br />
utilitarian attitude to 41<br />
see also manuscript books; printed<br />
books; small manuscripts<br />
Borgolte, M. 15, 92 n. 63<br />
Borst, A. 66 n. 165<br />
Bouchard, C. B. 92 n. 66, 94 n. 72<br />
‘Bouhot–Folliet’ sermon collection 28<br />
Boyle, L. E. 196 n. 69<br />
Brandl, L. 12, 170 n. 6<br />
Brautmystik 5, 6<br />
Brescia, bishop of 173–4<br />
bridegroom, qualities of 63<br />
Brooke, C. N. L. 14, 90 n. 57, 91 n.<br />
61, 93 n. 69, 95–6, 126–7 n. 144,<br />
175 n. 22, 181 n. 38, 184 n. 46,<br />
201<br />
Brown, Peter 78<br />
Brugui›ere, M.-B. 104 n. 97<br />
Brundage, J. 13, 118 n. 124, 126 n.<br />
142, 131 n. 1, 183, 197 n. 71<br />
Bruno of Segni 37<br />
‘B•uchersterben’ 43<br />
Burgos 187<br />
Burk, Kathy 125 n. 139<br />
Bynum, Caroline Walker 11 n. 36<br />
Caesarius of Arles 23–4<br />
Cana, marriage feast of ch. 1 passim<br />
canon law 10, chs. 2–4 passim<br />
German Protestant scholars and<br />
11–12<br />
canon-law manuscripts, lack of improvisation<br />
in 54<br />
Canticle of Canticles: see Song of<br />
Songs<br />
Capetian dynasty, marriage policy of<br />
96<br />
Carmelites 57<br />
Carolingian period 22, 25–33, 72, 73,<br />
82–8<br />
see also Hincmar of Reims<br />
Cartlidge, N. 13, 181 n. 36<br />
casuistry, as index of symbolism’s<br />
force 140–1<br />
‘Cat‹ech›eses celtiques’ 27<br />
Cathars 21, 65–7, 226<br />
Catherine Gomez 187, Document 4. 8<br />
causation 74, 88<br />
‘neutralizing’ causation 74
314 General Index<br />
reciprocity of substructure and<br />
superstructure 205–7<br />
time lag in 129<br />
celibacy of the clergy 88–91, 129<br />
Charlemagne 82, 83<br />
Charles Martel 80<br />
chastity, marital, according to Jean<br />
Halgrin Document 1. 9. 3<br />
Chaucer 167<br />
childlessness:<br />
and indissolubility 76<br />
as a}iction 63, Document 1. 12. 7<br />
child psychology, in the Supplement<br />
to the Summa theologica 106 n.<br />
102<br />
China, classical, marriage in 75<br />
chivalry 63<br />
Chr‹etien de Troyes 63, 99<br />
Christ, represented by the wife 252<br />
Christina of Markyate 181–2<br />
Christmas, meaning of 149–50<br />
Chrysostom, John, homilies on John<br />
241 n. 18<br />
Cistercian libraries 41, 46<br />
Clanchy, M. T. 98 nn. 81–2, 185 n. 48<br />
clandestine marriages 65 n. 164, 68,<br />
105<br />
Clarke, Peter 165 n. 89<br />
Clayton, M. 34 n. 55<br />
clergy, and celibacy 74, 88–91, 204–5<br />
minor orders 133 and ch. 3 (c)<br />
passim, 200<br />
marriage of clerics in major orders<br />
invalid (from 1139) 140<br />
marriage without sex 133, 178<br />
see also celibacy of the clergy; minor<br />
orders, clerics in<br />
Clig›es, ofChr‹etien de Troyes 99<br />
Clm. 12612: 29<br />
coercion, marriage voided by 124–9<br />
Collins, A. J. 152–6 notes passim,<br />
259–62 notes passim<br />
Colonna, Agnes 180, Document 4. 4<br />
Colonna, Stefano da 180, 182, 277–8<br />
‘commensurable household units’ 78<br />
Common Law, English, and ‘bigamy’<br />
162–3<br />
Compi›egne, Council of (757) 83<br />
Conceptionists 186<br />
Congregation of the Council [of<br />
Trent] 191–2<br />
consanguinity 14, 92–3<br />
see also forbidden degrees<br />
consent to marriage, free 75, 124–9<br />
Constance of Padilla 186–7, Document<br />
4. 7<br />
consummation and indissolubility<br />
59–60, ch. 4 passim<br />
consummation of marriage 58, 60, 61,<br />
86, 97, 111, ch. 4 passim, 201, 205<br />
and decretal Debitum 136, 198<br />
and John XXII 155 n. 66<br />
Contreni, J. 30<br />
Council of Lyons, Second (1274)<br />
159–64<br />
councils 79, 82<br />
courts, ecclesiastical 73, 74, 94–5,<br />
107–16, 123–4, 127–8<br />
and clerical privilege ch. 3 (c) passim<br />
fallibility of 190<br />
criminous clercs ch. 3 (c) passim<br />
Crouzel, H. 77 n. 7<br />
custom Document 3. 8. 7<br />
Dante 197<br />
Daudet, P. 92 nn. 64–5, 93 n. 68, 94<br />
n. 74, 96 n. 77<br />
David, P. 28<br />
Davidsohn, R. 103 n. 97<br />
Davies, W. 35<br />
Dean, T. 115 n. 117<br />
Decretals of Gregory IX 107, 143–<br />
4 nn. 34–5, 156, 164, 173–4,<br />
Documents 2. 1–2, 3. 2–3, 4. 1,<br />
source references beginning ‘X.’<br />
passim<br />
de Jong, Mayke 92–3 n. 67<br />
Delcorno, Carlo 226 n. 1<br />
Denmark 102<br />
Denzler, G. 90 nn. 56 @ 58<br />
Desiderius 82<br />
desponsata, meaning of 174 n. 19<br />
Destrez, Jean 50–52<br />
Devil, ‘marriage’ to 58<br />
Dionysius Exiguus, 141, 151, 152<br />
Dionysus (Greek god) 4<br />
dispensations:<br />
and ‘bigamy’ 139–40<br />
to dissolve unconsummated marriage<br />
192–5, 204<br />
distinction collections 39<br />
divorce, 14, 84, 88, 92, 99, 191–4<br />
formularies and 81<br />
in modern sense 78<br />
in world religions 75
Dolezalek, G. 127 n. 147<br />
Dominicans 20<br />
as preachers ch 1 (d) passim<br />
as scribes 53–7<br />
Donahue, C. 12, 114–16, 126 nn. 141<br />
@ 143, 127 n. 145<br />
Douglas, M. 132, 205–6<br />
Doyle, Ian 256<br />
Duby, G. 1 n. 3, 14–15, 93 n. 69, 103<br />
n. 96<br />
Duns Scotus 118 n. 124, 283–4<br />
Dyer,C.56n.126<br />
Eberbach, Cistercian monastery of 219<br />
ecclesiastical courts: see courts<br />
economic infrastructure, weak in<br />
Carolingian period 73<br />
economics and monogamy 75<br />
Edward I of England 162<br />
Edward II of England 163<br />
Egbert, Archbishop of York 25, 35<br />
Eliduc 96, 99<br />
Eligius, homilies attributed to 28<br />
Elizabeth de Lezano 191–2<br />
Elliott, D. 15<br />
Emery, Kent 54, 116<br />
endogamy 14<br />
ends–means calculation 132, 192–5<br />
enforcement of indissolubility 121–2<br />
England, marriage ritual in 155 and<br />
ch. 3 (b) passim, 204<br />
cases of delayed consummation<br />
from 183–5<br />
Ephesians 5: 32: 176, 194<br />
Erec and Eneide, ofChr‹etien de<br />
Troyes 99<br />
Esmein, A. 131 n. 2, 142, 144 nn.<br />
38–9, 145 nn. 40–1, 148 n. 45<br />
Esther 6, 60–1<br />
as Church 61<br />
‹Etaix, R. 29<br />
Eucharist 60, 145<br />
Eugenius II, Pope 84<br />
Eugenius IV, Pope 195<br />
excommunication for deserting spouse<br />
74, 122<br />
exempla 39<br />
ex ocio prosecutions in ecclesiastical<br />
courts 114, 116<br />
exogamy 14<br />
fallibility of the Church, according to<br />
a canonist 252<br />
General Index 315<br />
False Decretals 87–8, 129<br />
fasting, homily on 29<br />
Fedele, P. 131 n. 1<br />
Fink, K. A. 195–6, 277<br />
Florence, intellectual milieu 226, 232<br />
Florus of Lyons 29<br />
Folliet: see ‘Bouhot–Folliet’ sermon<br />
collection<br />
forbidden degrees 14, 92–4, 104–16,<br />
175, 182<br />
pope’s power to dispense 197–8<br />
forged bull 148 n. 46, 155<br />
forms of life 88, 91<br />
formularies 81, 122 n. 132, 185–6<br />
and divorce, 81<br />
Fouracre, Paul 80 n. 19<br />
Fourth Lateran Council 14, 65, 104–8<br />
commentary on by Johannes Teutonicus<br />
247<br />
France:<br />
bulls to kings of 158–9, Documents<br />
3. 5–7<br />
c.1200, power of 102<br />
Franciscans, 20<br />
as preachers ch. 1 (c) and (d) passim<br />
as scribes 53–7<br />
Franciscus Sola 166<br />
friars 20<br />
‘honorary’, educated secular clergy<br />
as 49<br />
as preachers ch. 1 (d) passim<br />
as scribes ch. 1 (c) passim<br />
Fuhrmann, H. 87 n. 49<br />
FulbertofChartres96<br />
Gabel, L. C. 162–3 nn. 82–3<br />
Garc‹§a de Vargas 191–2<br />
Gaudemet, J. 12, 16–17 n. 69, 81 n.<br />
24, 82 n. 27, 83–7 notes passim,<br />
102 n. 93, 104 n. 98, 176–9<br />
Gaunt, S. 89–90 n. 54<br />
Gautier d’Arras 96–8, 99<br />
Geertz, C. 17, 149<br />
gender 10–11 n. 36, 89–90, 201–2,<br />
204–5, 251–2<br />
G‹enestal, R. 163–4, 168–9<br />
G‹erard de Mailly ch. 1 (d) passim, 171<br />
Gervase of Mont Saint- ‹Eloi 49<br />
gifts, books as 53<br />
Gillingham, J. 93 n. 69, 170<br />
Goethe 181<br />
Go·redus of Trani 144–5<br />
Gold, P. S. 172 n. 12
316 General Index<br />
Gomer 59<br />
Goody, J. 12<br />
gopis 4–5<br />
Grand coutumier 169 n. 3<br />
Gratian 93, 125–6, 142–4, 176, 179,<br />
202, 252<br />
Greece, classical, marriage symbolism<br />
in 4<br />
Gregorian Reform 88, 90–1<br />
Gregory II, Pope 84<br />
Gregory the Great 22, 30, 66–7<br />
Gregory VII, Pope 75, 90, 134<br />
Gregory IX 120<br />
see also Decretals of Gregory IX<br />
Guglielmo Cassinese 115 n. 116<br />
Guibert de Tournai ch. 1 (d) passim,<br />
171<br />
Guido Faba 42<br />
Guillelmus Redonensis 257 n. 9<br />
Gullick, M. 55 n. 121, 56 n. 125<br />
Haistulf of Metz 28<br />
Hallam, E. 56 n. 124, 164 n. 87<br />
Haymo of Auxerre 20–1, 25–6, 67<br />
heaven, ‘marriage’ of soul to God<br />
located in 63–4<br />
Hebrew names, interpretation of 59<br />
Heiric of Auxerre 25–6<br />
Helmholz, R. H. 12, 105 n. 101, 112,<br />
114<br />
H‹elo•§se 98–9<br />
Henricus de Bartholomaeis: see<br />
Hostiensis<br />
Henry III of England 182–3<br />
Henry of Susa: see Hostiensis<br />
Herde, P. 122 n. 130, 185–6 nn. 50–3<br />
Hereford Cathedral, canons at 91<br />
Hereford rite 153 n. 62<br />
Herlihy, D. 78, 182 n. 39<br />
Hildebrand: see Gregory VII, Pope<br />
Hildegard, and Charlemagne 82<br />
Himiltrud, and Charlemagne 82<br />
Hincmar of Reims, 85–7, 178–9, 195,<br />
200–1, 202<br />
Hindu marriage 142<br />
and indissolubility 7, 89, 170<br />
and marriage symbolism 3, 4–8, 200<br />
and polygamy/polygyny 5–6, 88–9,<br />
170<br />
history, six ages of 32, 33<br />
holy orders, and non-consummation<br />
188–9<br />
homiliaries 20–37 passim, Documents<br />
1. 1–3<br />
homilies transmitted in vernacular<br />
33–4<br />
‘honorary friars’, educated secular<br />
clergy as 49<br />
Honorius III, Pope 164<br />
Hosea 59<br />
Hostiensis 74, 107–12, 148 n. 46, 183,<br />
197–9, 205, Documents 2. 1–2, 4.<br />
1<br />
and Tree of Bigamy 137–9, 203<br />
Hughes, D. O. 127 n. 147<br />
Huguccio 252<br />
Hugues de Saint-Cher 60 n. 142, 67<br />
n. 170, 68 n. 175, 69 n. 180<br />
humanism 63<br />
Christian Document 1. 12. 5<br />
Humphreys, K. W. 44, 46 n. 90, 47–8<br />
ideal type, as explanation 91–5<br />
Ille et Galeron 96–8, 99<br />
ill health, 63 Document 1. 12. 7<br />
Imbert, cleric 168<br />
Imkamp, W. 100 n. 87, 101 n. 89<br />
impotence 175, 189–94<br />
incarnation as marriage 59, Document<br />
1. 2. 2<br />
indissolubility 14, 73, 59–61, ch. 2<br />
passim, 176, 199<br />
individuals, influence of on social<br />
history 74<br />
Ingeborg of Denmark 102–4, 171<br />
Ingram, M. 112–13<br />
initiation of marriage 58, 60, 61<br />
initiation–ratification–consummation<br />
58, 61, 171<br />
Innocent II, Pope 184 n. 46<br />
Innocent III, Pope 73, 74, 75, 85,<br />
91–2, 203, 205<br />
advice on sex and marriage to Philip<br />
Augustus 170<br />
analytical abilities of 190<br />
and a case from Auxerre 189–91<br />
changes law to make annulments<br />
hard to get 104–8 119, 121<br />
decretal Debitum 136–7, 155, 156,<br />
161–2, 168, 198<br />
influenced by marriage symbolism<br />
99–102<br />
refuses annulments to rulers 101–4,<br />
171<br />
Innocent IV, Pope 160–2, 203 Documents<br />
3. 2–3
instrumental rationality 132, 192–5<br />
intellectual property 40<br />
Islam, marriage in 75, 89<br />
Israel, people of, as bride of God 7–8,<br />
75, 200<br />
Jacques de Lausanne 42<br />
Jean d’Ess^omes 49<br />
Jean de la Rochelle 171<br />
Jean Halgrin ch. 1 (d) passim, Document<br />
1. 9<br />
Jenks, Susanne 265 n. 1<br />
jesters (hystriones), at marriage celebrations<br />
Document 1. 9. 4<br />
Jewish people: see Israel<br />
Joan of Ponthieu 182–3<br />
Johannes de Burgo 117–18, 148 n. 46,<br />
156–7, 172, 175, Documents 3. 9,<br />
4. 6<br />
Johannes de Deo 139–40, Document<br />
3. 1<br />
Johannes Teutonicus 247<br />
John, King of England 102<br />
John XXII, Pope 148 n. 46, 155 n.<br />
66, 180–1, 188, Document 4. 4<br />
John Chrysostom, St 62 n. 149<br />
homilies on John 241 n. 18<br />
John the Evangelist, marriage of 11 n.<br />
36, 58 n. 130, 189 n. 54<br />
John of Naples 188<br />
John of Worcester 163<br />
Joseph, marriage to the Virgin Mary<br />
171–3, 175, Document 4. 3<br />
Joyce, G. H. 12, 83, 175 n. 21, 195,<br />
197 nn. 70 @ 72<br />
Juan Sams (?) 187, Document 4. 8<br />
Judaism, marriage in 75, 89<br />
judges delegate, papal 185–7<br />
Judocus, St, sermon on 29<br />
Jussen, B. 131 n. 1<br />
Kay, R. 101 n. 91<br />
Kelly, W. 83–4 n. 35, 84 n. 39<br />
Ker, N. 44–5<br />
knight, image of 63<br />
Knowles, D. 57 n. 129<br />
Konrad Holtnicker ch. 1 (d) passim,<br />
Document 1. 10<br />
Koran 89 n. 53<br />
Kottje, R. 85 n. 41<br />
Krishna 3, 4, 5<br />
Kuhrt, Amelie 3–4 n. 12<br />
Kuiters, R. 76–7<br />
General Index 317<br />
Kuttner, S. 16 n. 69, 131 n. 2, 133 n.<br />
7, 144 n. 36<br />
Lakshmi 3<br />
Langton, Stephen 176<br />
Lantperhtus of St Michael 30<br />
Laon, School of 30<br />
Lateran IV: see Fourth Lateran Council<br />
Latin, parish priests’ knowledge of 22,<br />
26, 34–6, 72<br />
law as social force chs. 2–4 passim<br />
Le Bras, G. 12, 118 n. 124<br />
Leclercq, Jean 12–13, 15, 26<br />
legal separation of spouses 74–5, 123–<br />
4<br />
Legifer, sermon collection called 50,<br />
51<br />
Le Jan, R. 80 n. 20, 81 n. 22<br />
Leo I, Pope 177–9, 194<br />
Lerner, Robert 39 n. 72, 41 n. 78, 52<br />
n. 109, 55 n. 119, 57 n. 127<br />
Le Roi Ladurie 66 n. 165<br />
Le Saulchoir 51<br />
Leyser,H.80n.16<br />
libri inutiles 42–6<br />
logic, formal 226<br />
Lombardi, D. 114, 175 n. 23<br />
London, Dominican and Franciscan<br />
convents 45<br />
loss rate: see manuscript books<br />
Lothar II, king of the Middle Kingdom<br />
82, 85<br />
Louis V of France 92<br />
Louis IX of France 158<br />
Louis the Pious 82<br />
Louis the Stammerer 83<br />
love:<br />
transforms lover into loved one<br />
Document 1. 12. 3<br />
see also marriage, love and<br />
Lucius III, Pope 142<br />
Ludwig of Bavaria 180, 277–8<br />
Lupus of Ferri›eres 29<br />
Luscombe, D. 98 n. 83<br />
Lutterbach, H. 13, 92–3 n. 67<br />
Maccarrone, M. 101 n. 88<br />
McNamara,J.A.79nn.11@ 15, 80,<br />
82 n. 25<br />
Maitland, F. W. 162–3 n. 82<br />
‘Makulierung’ 42–4, 46<br />
manuscript books, loss rate of 20, ch.
318 General Index<br />
1(c)passim<br />
see also small manuscripts<br />
Marculf, formulary of 81<br />
Maria de Montpellier 101<br />
Marie de France 96, 99<br />
marital a·ection 122, 125, 174<br />
marriage:<br />
Aristotle and 71–2<br />
Cathar view of 65–6<br />
church wedding not always required<br />
by Church 65, 105, 150<br />
controlled by lord 1, 126<br />
to create family alliances 1, 2<br />
of Christ and Church passim<br />
of Christ and human nature 59<br />
and Christ’s passion 9, 59<br />
of Christ and soul passim<br />
consent enough for sacramentality<br />
117–19<br />
free consent to, 1–2, 75, 124–9<br />
goodness of 21, 64–72<br />
goodness of sex in 72, 146, 169–70<br />
and grace 70–1<br />
heretics condemn 21<br />
layers of meaning in sacrament of 8<br />
love and 2, 9, 69, 127; see also<br />
marital a·ection<br />
marriage debt 21<br />
‘marriage’ to the Devil 58<br />
married woman can be better than<br />
proud virgin 31<br />
medieval model unique in world<br />
history 2<br />
preaching and sacralization of 65,<br />
200<br />
remarriage legitimate 142<br />
second marriages ch. 3 (b) passim<br />
sex before 31, 68<br />
‘spiritual marriage’, meaning of<br />
phrase 15<br />
symbolic marriages 16–17<br />
topoi about, 68–70<br />
see also clandestine marriages<br />
marriage feast of Cana ch. 1 passim<br />
Martin V, Pope 195–7, 204<br />
Mary the Virgin, marriage to Joseph<br />
171–3, 175, Document 4. 3<br />
mass communication ch. 1 passim, 200<br />
e·ects, 19, 39, 58<br />
Matthew, Book of:<br />
19: 5: 176<br />
19: 6: 194<br />
meaning: see social meaning<br />
Mechtild of Magdeburg 5<br />
Mercier, P., homilies edited by 22, 28<br />
Merton College, books lost 44<br />
Mesopotamia, marriage symbolism in<br />
3<br />
metaphor 17<br />
Mikat, Paul 92–3 n. 67<br />
Minaksi 3 n. 9<br />
minor orders, clerics in 133<br />
minster system 35<br />
missionaries, English, to the Continent<br />
25<br />
model sermons 37–8 and ch. 1 passim<br />
Modena 183<br />
Molin, J.-B. 150 n. 53, 155 n. 68, 259<br />
n. 30<br />
monastic libraries 46<br />
‘Mondsee Homiliary’ 30<br />
monogamy 14<br />
see also polygyny and polygamy<br />
Morin,D.G.29<br />
‘mother churches’ 35<br />
MS Cambridge, Trinity College 347:<br />
347–8<br />
MS Cracow, Capitular Library 43: 28<br />
MS Laon, Biblioth›eque Municipale<br />
265: 30<br />
MS London, BL Royal 4. D. iv: 45 n.<br />
93<br />
MS Montpellier H308: 29<br />
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodl.<br />
429: 45<br />
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library,<br />
Bodleian Lat. bib. d. 9: 45<br />
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce<br />
239: 45<br />
MS Oxford, Merton College 132: 45<br />
MS Paris, BN lat. 16499: 49<br />
MS Vatican Library Reg. Lat. 49: 27<br />
MS Verdun 64: 29<br />
MS Wolfenb•uttel 4096: 30–1 n. 50<br />
Mulchahey, M. 53 n. 112<br />
M•uller, M. 12, 69 n. 176, 170 n. 5<br />
Munich 195–6<br />
Mutembe, P. 150 n. 53, 155 n. 68, 259<br />
n. 30<br />
Mynors, R. A. B. 44<br />
mysticism, bridal 4–5<br />
narrative history, the book’s argument<br />
rearranged as 202–4<br />
nature and marriage 71–2<br />
Neddermeyer, U. 41 n. 78, 52 n. 110
Nelson, J. L. 82 n. 27, 83 n. 28, 85 n.<br />
41, 86 n. 45<br />
Neocaesarea, Council of 141, 151, 152<br />
‘Newberry Library Homiliary’ 28<br />
Newman, B. 5 n. 18, 10 n. 36<br />
newspapers, impact of on opinion 39<br />
Nice, diocese of, annulments in 109<br />
Nicholas I, Pope 85<br />
nobility 63<br />
and indissolubility 14 n. 65<br />
of man Document 1. 12. 5<br />
Noble, T. F. X. 84 nn. 37-8 @ 40<br />
Nold, Patrick 180 n. 35, 183 n. 45,<br />
189 n. 54, 232 n. 3<br />
Noonan, J. T. 125–6, 127, 128<br />
norms and social behaviour 75<br />
Nuptiae factae sunt sermons, ch. 1<br />
passim<br />
nuptial blessing 118, ch. 3 (b) passim<br />
Oliver Sutton, bishop of Lincoln 122<br />
oral events 52, 61<br />
Orange, bishop of, scandalous behaviour<br />
of 120–1<br />
Order of the Holy Trinity 187, Document<br />
4. 8<br />
Origen 8<br />
originality in preaching 40, 49, 62<br />
original sin 69<br />
Osee 59<br />
Oxford Medieval Texts 14<br />
Pacaut, M. 16<br />
Padua, Franciscan Library at 46<br />
Palmer,N.F.219n.2<br />
Pantin, W. A. 156 n. 69, 175 n. 24<br />
papacy, compliant attitude towards<br />
kings 160<br />
papal registers, evidence of 120–1,<br />
127–8, Document 4. 4<br />
Paradise:<br />
marriage instituted in 68, 69 n. 176<br />
pleasure of sex in 170<br />
parchment, cost of 55–6<br />
Paris, Council of (829) 83<br />
parish priests, knowledge of Latin 22,<br />
26, 34–6, 72<br />
parish system 20, 35<br />
Parvati 3, 6,<br />
Parzifal, of Wolfram von Eschenbach<br />
99<br />
Passion, Christ’s, and marriage 9<br />
pastedowns 42–6<br />
General Index 319<br />
Patareni (i.e. Cathars) 226, Document<br />
1. 11. 11<br />
patriarchal societies, and indissolubility<br />
of marriage 88–9<br />
Patrologia Latina, containsfewsermons<br />
on text Nuptiae factae sunt<br />
36–7<br />
Paul, St 31<br />
Payer, J. 170 n. 6<br />
peasant girl, social condition of 62<br />
pecia transmission 50–2, 54, 243, 271<br />
Pedersen, F. 103 n. 95, 104 n. 97, 113<br />
Pedro Martorel 166<br />
Pegg,M.G.65n.163<br />
Penitentiary: see next entry<br />
Penitenzieria Apostolica 165–7, 186–7,<br />
204, Documents 3. 11–12, 4. 7–8<br />
Pennington, K. 107 n. 103, 242–4,<br />
270–1<br />
perfection, triple in character Document<br />
1. 12. 2<br />
Perrin, cleric 168–9<br />
Persson, I. 173 n. 16<br />
Peter I of Aragon 101<br />
Peter the Chanter 94, 119<br />
Peter Damian 119, 134–5<br />
Peter Lombard 8–9 n. 29, 99–100,<br />
142–6, 172–3, 202<br />
Peter of Poitiers 100<br />
Peters, Christine 118–19 n. 124<br />
Pfa·,V.93n.71<br />
Philip III of France 159<br />
Philip Augustus, king of France 85,<br />
102–4, 170, 171<br />
Pierre de Reims 42, 51 n. 108, ch. 1<br />
(d) passim<br />
Pierre de Saint-Beno^§t ch. 1 (d) passim,<br />
171<br />
Pierre de Tarentaise 8–9 n. 29, 32<br />
Pignatelli, Jacob 191–5<br />
pilgrimage, life as 63, Document 1.<br />
12. 5<br />
Pippin, first Carolingian king 83<br />
Pippin of Herstal 80<br />
‘plagiarism’ 40, 49<br />
Plectrudis, wife of Pippin of Herstal<br />
80<br />
pocket books for preachers 38<br />
polygyny and polygamy 5, 6, 15, 75,<br />
78, 88–9, 91, 92<br />
power, absolute and ordained 197–8<br />
Powicke, Sir Maurice 176<br />
Powitz, G. 42–4
320 General Index<br />
preaching, popular ch. 1 passim<br />
‘pre-contract’ cases 74, 115 n. 117,<br />
116–20<br />
priests:<br />
knowledge of Latin 22, 26, 34–6<br />
as scribes 53<br />
printed books, survival rate of 52<br />
‘print revolution’, relativized 41, ch. 1<br />
(c) passim<br />
Prisoner’s Dilemma 95<br />
privilegium fori: see benefit of clergy<br />
proof in annulment cases 105–12<br />
proxy marriages 182–3<br />
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals: see False<br />
Decretals<br />
Pupilla oculi: see Johannes de Burgo<br />
quaterni 37, 41, 48–9, 50–2, 57<br />
quires: see preceding entry<br />
Radha 3, 4, 5<br />
Rama 3<br />
ratification of marriage 58, 60, 61, 180<br />
rational-choice theory 95–6<br />
rationality 95–6<br />
Raymund Barellus 109–10, 119<br />
reason, destroyed by sin Document 1.<br />
12. 13<br />
reception, reconstruction of 62–3<br />
recycling of manuscripts 42–4, 46<br />
Remigius of Auxerre 25 n. 18<br />
Reynolds, R. E. 28<br />
Reynolds, R. L. 77–8, 79, 86 n. 45<br />
Rhabanus Maurus 28<br />
Ricardus de Mediavilla 171–3, Documents<br />
4. 2–3<br />
Rinc‹on, T. 9 n. 32, 10, 100, 102 n. 92,<br />
270<br />
Ritzer, K. 141 n. 19, 150 n. 53<br />
Robb, Fiona 100 n. 86<br />
Rochester Priory 249<br />
Roger Bacon 48–9<br />
R•ohrkasten, J. 45 n. 88, 265<br />
Roman synod of 826: 84–5<br />
Rome, classical, marriage in 75<br />
Rouse, R. H. and M. A. 44, 45<br />
royal annulments 121 n. 129<br />
see also Innocent III<br />
Rozelin, and his partner Amandola 90<br />
rulers, sexual power of 80, 82, 88<br />
Rusticus, Bishop 177<br />
sacrament 8<br />
sacramentality:<br />
of marriage without a wedding<br />
117–19<br />
of second marriages 146–8<br />
St Alexis, legend of 181<br />
St Paul’s Cathedral, canons at 91<br />
‘Saint P›ere de Chartres’ homiliary 28<br />
saints’ lives, as preaching aids 39<br />
Salerno, bishop of 173–4<br />
Salonen, K. 113 n. 112, 165 nn. 88–9<br />
salvation history 61<br />
Salzburg, ninth-century homily composed<br />
for church of Documents 1.<br />
1–2<br />
Sanmark, Alexandra 104 n. 97<br />
Sarum manual 118 n. 124, 152–5<br />
Schadt, H. 131 n. 2, 137–9<br />
Schmugge, L. 113 n. 112, 165 nn.<br />
88–9<br />
Schnell, R. 13<br />
Schneyer, J. B. 38<br />
scholastic method, rare in thirteenthcentury<br />
preaching 226<br />
scribal variation 41 n. 78, Documents<br />
1. 4–8<br />
scribes, friars as 53–8<br />
commercial 53<br />
script, German features 219<br />
script, indications of date 219, 227,<br />
242–3<br />
script, Italian features 226–7, 242–3,<br />
271<br />
scriptoria, monastic 53<br />
second marriages ch. 3 (b) passim<br />
secular clergy, educated, as ‘honorary<br />
friars’ 49<br />
Segor 66–7<br />
senses 31, Documents 1. 1. 2–4, 1. 10.<br />
10<br />
separation, legal 123–4<br />
sermo de conscientia 28<br />
Servasanto da Faenza 60 n. 142, 69–<br />
70, 71–2, Document 1. 11<br />
servile status 62<br />
sex: see marriage<br />
Sharpe, R. 262, 282<br />
Sheehan, M. M. 112, 114<br />
Sinibaldo dei Fieschi: see Innocent IV<br />
Sita 3<br />
Siva 3, 6<br />
slavery 78, 177–8<br />
wrong to look lustfully at servus or<br />
ancilla Document 1. 1. 3
small manuscripts, disproportionately<br />
low survival rate of 52<br />
Smaragdus of St Mihiel 27<br />
Smetana, C. L. 26<br />
social meaning 75, 148–50, 154, 157,<br />
169<br />
Sodom 67<br />
Song of Songs 3<br />
soul, as bride 5–6<br />
Southern, R. W. 38, 57 n. 128<br />
Spain, clerical status in 167<br />
Spigurnel, Henry 266<br />
Sta·ord, P. 79 n. 13, 80 n. 17, 82 n.<br />
25, 83 nn. 28 @ 31, 92 n. 64<br />
stationers, university: see pecia transmission<br />
Statute on Bigamists 162–3<br />
Stephen II, Pope 84<br />
Stephen Langton 176<br />
Stephen of Auvergne 86, 178–9<br />
Stevenson, K. 150 n. 53, 153 n. 62<br />
Stone, Lawrence 1<br />
subdeacons 133, 157, 178<br />
substructure, 205–6<br />
Summa theologica, Supplement to 106,<br />
129<br />
Sundare‹svara, 3 n. 9<br />
superstructure 205–6<br />
Sutton, Oliver, bishop of Lincoln 122<br />
symbolism, literal foundation of 64–5<br />
Tarentaise, Pierre de 8–9 n. 29<br />
teleological thinking 71<br />
Tenbrock, R. H. 103–4 n. 97<br />
Theodore of Tarsus 79, 83<br />
Theutberga, wife of Lothar II 85<br />
Thomas Aquinas, St: see Aquinas<br />
Thomas Becket 158<br />
threes, and perfection Document 1.<br />
12. 2<br />
timing, explanation of 204–5<br />
tithes, homily on 29<br />
tonsure 164<br />
topoi about marriage 68–70<br />
Tox‹e, P. 169 n. 4<br />
Tree of Bigamy 137–9<br />
Trent, Council of 191<br />
universe, structured 63, Document 1.<br />
12. 5<br />
university stationers: see pecia transmission<br />
Urban III, Pope 144–5, 154<br />
General Index 321<br />
urbanization 201<br />
vade-mecum books 38<br />
value rationality 132<br />
Vanderbilt heiress 125<br />
Van der Walt, Andries 24<br />
Vannes, Council of (465) 79<br />
variants, textual, implications of 53–5<br />
Vashti,6,61<br />
as synagogue 61<br />
vernacular 33–4, 38<br />
vernacular romances and marriage<br />
96–7, 99<br />
violence, husband’s against wife 124,<br />
193<br />
virginity 31<br />
loss of 168<br />
virgins, wise and foolish Document 1.<br />
1<br />
Vishnu 3<br />
Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, M.<br />
116 n. 119<br />
Vodola, E. 159 n. 77<br />
Volfing, A. 11. n. 36, 58 n. 130<br />
von Riezler, S. 277<br />
von Schulte, J. F. 161 n. 79, 162 n. 81<br />
Waldensian movement 181<br />
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. 80, 83 n. 31<br />
Weber, I. 125 n. 138<br />
Weber, Max 4–5 n. 16, 132, 149, 167,<br />
170 n. 8, 192–3<br />
wedding ritual ch.3 (b) passim<br />
Weigand, R. 113, 115 n. 117<br />
Wemple,S.F.79nn.11@ 13, 80, 82<br />
nn. 25–6<br />
Wertrationalit•at 132, 194–5<br />
Wickham, Chris 115 n. 116<br />
wife, represents Christ 252<br />
Wife of Bath, Chaucer’s 167<br />
William of Pagula 117, 156, 196–7,<br />
Document 4. 5<br />
Wilmart, A. 27<br />
Winch, P. 149<br />
Winroth, A. 93 n. 70<br />
Wolfram von Eschenbach, 99<br />
world, unsatisfactoriness of 63–4<br />
writs, in England 185 n. 49<br />
‘X.’: see Decretals of Gregory IX<br />
Xerxes 60 n. 146<br />
York rite 153 n. 62
322 General Index<br />
Yvain,ofChr‹etien de Troyes 99<br />
Zachary, Pope 83<br />
Zarri, G. 17<br />
Zweckrationalit•at 132, 192–5