Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 9781442698833

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THE LETTERS OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln Translated with Introduction and Annotation by F.A.C. Mantello and Joseph Goering

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2010 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9813-9

Printed on acid-free paper.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Grosseteste, Robert, 1175?–1253 The letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln / translated and annoted by F.A.C. Mantello and Joseph Goering. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9813-9 1. Grosseteste, Robert, 1175?–1253 – Correspondence. 2. Philosophers – Great Britain – Correspondence. 3. Philosophers, Medieval – Correspondence. 4. Theologians – Great Britain – Correspondence. I. Mantello, Frank Anthony Carl, 1945– II. Goering, Joseph, 1947– III. Title PA8330.G65Z48 2010

189'.4

C2009-901768-7

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

acknowledgments abbreviations INTRODUCTION Manuscripts of the Collected Letters Grosseteste’s Letter Collection Nature and Purpose of the Letter Collection Chronology of the Collected Letters Text and Translation LETTERS 1 To Adam Rufus, a former student 2 To Agnellus of Pisa, Franciscan provincial minister, and the Franciscans at Oxford 3 To the dean and canons of Lincoln Cathedral 4 To the abbot and monks of St Mary’s Abbey, Reading 5 To Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester 6 To Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke 7 To Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke 8 To Grosseteste’s sister Ivette 9 To Adam Marsh, Grosseteste’s friend and collaborator 10 To an unnamed master of theology 11 To Michael Belet, administrator and judge 12 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury 13 To W. of Cerda, a master in the schools of Paris 14 To Alard, Dominican provincial prior

xi xiii 3 6 16 18 22 24

35 49 53 58 65 70 73 75 77 80 82 86 88 91

vi

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 52* 53

Contents

To Alard, Dominican provincial prior, and definitors To John of St Giles, OP To William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral To John le Romeyn, subdean of York Cathedral To John Blund, chancellor of York Cathedral To Adam Marsh, Grosseteste’s friend and collaborator To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln To William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral To William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral To Hugh of Pattishall, royal clerk and treasurer of the Exchequer To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury To Henry III, king of England To Philip of Kyme To Elias, Franciscan minister general To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To John of Foxton To Alexander of Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield To Pope Gregory IX To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian To Raymond of Peñafort, OP To Arnulf, OFM, papal penitentiary To Ranfred of Benevento, papal notary To Jordan of Saxony, Dominican master general To Elias, Franciscan minister general To Arnulf, OFM, papal penitentiary To John of Ferentino, papal chamberlain To Thomas of Capua, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian To Richard of Cornwall To Simon de Montfort To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Robert of Hayles, archdeacon of Lincoln To Thomas of Wales, canon of Lincoln Cathedral To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To the clergy of the diocese of Lincoln To the abbot and monks of Fleury

92 93 94 97 99 100 103 104 108 123 125 128 132 135 140 142 144 145 146 147 150 152 155 156 157 159 160 162 163 163 165 166 168 169 172 174 176 179 182 193

Contents

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 72* 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

To the abbot of Fleury To the abbot of the Augustinian canons of Leicester To William, earl of Warren To the abbot and monks of Bury St Edmunds To Pope Gregory IX To Rinaldo of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Ralph de Neville, bishop of Chichester To the abbot and monks of Ramsey Abbey To Pope Gregory IX To Robert of Somercote, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio To John of Ferentino, papal chamberlain To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian To Thomas of Capua, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina To Arnulf, OFM, papal penitentiary To Rinaldo of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To John le Romeyn, subdean of York Cathedral For Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Simon de Montfort To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Pope Gregory IX To William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the papal curia To Pope Gregory IX To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury To Robert of Lexington and fellow itinerant justices To the Augustinian canons of Missenden To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral

vii

195 196 198 200 204 206 208 211 213 216 218 219 221 222 222 223 224 225 229 230 257 262 264 266 268 270 271 273 280 281 283 285 287 290 292 294 295 297 303 306

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Contents

93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

To the dean and chapter of Salisbury Cathedral To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely To Richard of Kirkham, papal judge-delegate To Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester To Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester To Matthew, Dominican provincial prior, and definitors To Henry III, king of England To Henry III, king of England To Eleanor, queen of England To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Martin, papal chamberlain, nuncio, and collector of revenues To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln To the abbot and monks of Fleury To the abbot and monks of Cîteaux To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England To Pope Innocent IV To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln To William of Raleigh, bishop of Winchester, and Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester To William of Nottingham, Franciscan provincial minister To Hugh of St Cher, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina To Walter de Gray, archbishop of York To Pope Innocent IV To ‘T.,’ appointee to a pastoral charge To Henry III, king of England To John of Offington, papal chaplain To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral To the regent masters in theology at Oxford To Henry III, king of England To Henry III, king of England To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury Document setting out Grosseteste’s position on visitation of the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral Appendix A: The Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation Appendix B: Letter (25 August 1245) of Pope Innocent IV concluding the Disputebetween Bishop Grosseteste and His Chapter

114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

309 310 314 315 317 318 321 323 324 326 327 329 330 332 334 336 338 341 345 346 350 351 353 354 355 357 358 360 361 363 364 366 370 371 374 432

438

Contents

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128 To Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Innocenzo, papal scriptor 129 To Robert Marsh, Grosseteste’s official 130 To the regular and secular clergy of the diocese of Lincoln 131 To the lords of England, citizens of London, and common people of the realm 132 To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln

452 454

appendix: summaries of letters, by correspondent

459

select annotated bibliography

485

index of biblical quotations and allusions

491

index of classical, patristic, and medieval sources

503

general index

507

441 447 449

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Acknowledgments

This translation, a small part of which began as an assignment in a course, ‘Pastoralia of the Middle Ages,’ taught by the late Fr Leonard Boyle, OP, at the University of Toronto, has taken shape over many years, by fits and starts, and with an accumulation of many debts of gratitude to those who have so kindly provided assistance. The conventional practice of thanking them here is an entirely inadequate way of expressing our indebtedness for help that has improved many aspects of this volume. We are grateful most of all to Fr Boyle, who stimulated and encouraged our interest in Robert Grosseteste’s career and writings and, to promote this project, even offered as an incentive his personal, annotated copy of Henry Luard’s 1861 edition of Grosseteste’s correspondence. That gift has always been a treasured memorial of a very learned and inspiring teacher. We are also greatly indebted to the Rev Arthur Millward and the late Fr Patrick Plunkett, SJ, who painstakingly reviewed early drafts of the translations of several letters, and to Fr James McEvoy and Dr John Tomarchio, who provided valuable comments on a preliminary English version of Letter 1 in the collection. Our sincere thanks are due as well for the careful evaluations and helpful suggestions of the readers selected by University of Toronto Press to appraise our work. We have also benefited conspicuously from, and are very pleased to acknowledge here, the work of previous translators of selections from Robert Grosseteste’s letter collection – Lee Friedman, James McEvoy, Robert O’Shea, William Abel Pantin, George Perry, John Shinners, Richard Southern, and Francis Stevenson, among others – as well as modern translations of patristic and other texts cited by Grosseteste. When rendering scriptural quotations we have drawn gratefully upon the Douai-Reims and other translations of the Bible.

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Acknowledgments

Several scholars – Albrecht Diem, John Flood, Servus Gieben, James Ginther, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Thomas Halton, Sr Maria Kiely, William Klingshirn, John Lynch, John McGuckin, Timothy Noone, John Petruccione, Daniel Sheerin, and Colin Tite – were good enough to offer assistance or to respond to queries about details of interpretation, sources, or other points. Many librarians, archivists, and curators of manuscript and microfilm collections – Bruce Barker-Benfield, Claire Breay, Penelope Bulloch, Rosalind Caird, Alejandro Cifres, Frances Clarke, William Edwards, James Farge, Peter Goodman, Rhys Griffith, Martin Kauffmann, Linda Major, Kevin McGrath, David McKitterick, Bernard Meehan, Eva Oledzka, Julian Reid, Marina Smyth, Caroline Suma, and Paolo Vian – courteously replied to questions about manuscripts of the letters, provided useful bibliographical suggestions, or helped us in other ways. B.L. Gutekunst and Kevin Gunn, successive heads of the Humanities Library at The Catholic University of America, cheerfully permitted books that do not usually circulate to be removed for consultation from their divisional library. Leila Massouh, once in charge of interlibrary loans at CUA, efficiently traced and obtained copies of materials unavailable there. We wish also to thank Laurence Pittinger, who produced an electronic version of an old typewritten version of part of the translation; Michael Webb, who pointed us in the direction of the letters of Grosseteste that are printed with the bishop’s Rotuli; Margaret Burgess, our copy editor, who meticulously brought the manuscript into conformity with the publisher’s expectations of form and style, and whose sensible suggestions have greatly improved the work; and especially Charlotte Allen, who as project assistant spent countless hours verifying bibliographical and other references in the notes, and whose exacting care rescued us from many blunders. A special debt of gratitude is owed by Frank Mantello to the National Endowment for the Humanities, whose generous financial assistance helped to fund a period of leave from normal academic duties during which a first draft of much of the translation was completed.

Abbreviations

The abbreviations used to identify books of the Bible in the translation and annotations are those listed in The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago, 2003). The text used to trace Grosseteste’s scriptural references is that of the Stuttgart Vulgate: Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. R. Gryson et al., 4th rev. ed (Stuttgart, 1994). ABMA Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi (London/Oxford/New York, 1969–) Adam Marsh, Epp. The Letters of Adam Marsh, ed. and trans. C.H. Lawrence, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2006) Baur, Die Werke L. Baur, Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln (Münster in W., 1912) B.L. British Library Bliss, Calendar W.H. Bliss, ed., Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1 (London, 1894) Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care’ L.E. Boyle, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Pastoral Care,’ in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 8: Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer 1976, ed. D.B.J. Randall (Durham, N.C., 1979), 3–51; repr. in Boyle, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400 (London, 1981)

xiv

Abbreviations

Brooke, Early Franciscan Government R.B. Brooke, Early Franciscan Government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, U.K., 1959) Callus, Grosseteste D.A. Callus, ed., Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death (Oxford, 1955) Carpenter, ‘Hubert de Burgh’ D. Carpenter, ‘The Fall of Hubert de Burgh,’ The Journal of British Studies 19 (1980): 1–17 CCCM Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout, 1966–) CCR [Calendar of] Close Rolls: Henry III, 1227–1272, 14 vols. (London, 1902–38) CCSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina (Turnhout, l954–) Councils and Synods F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney, Councils and Synods with Other Documents relating to the English Church, vol. 2.1: A.D. 1205–1265 (Oxford, 1964) CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna/Leipzig/Prague, 1866–) De decem mandatis Robert Grosseteste, De decem mandatis, ed. R.C. Dales and E.B. King, ABMA 10 (Oxford/New York, 1987) Distinct Voice A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., ed. J. Brown and W.P. Stoneman (Notre Dame, Ind., 1997) DNB Dictionary of National Biography, ed. L. Stephen and S. Lee, 63 vols. and 3 supplementary vols. (London, 1885–1901) Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum Thomas of Eccleston, Tractatus de adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951)

Abbreviations

xv

Editing Robert Grosseteste Editing Robert Grosseteste: Papers given at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 3–4 November 2000, ed. E.A. Mackie and J. Goering (Toronto, 2003) Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals K. Edwards, The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages: A Constitutional Study with Special Reference to the Fourteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Manchester/New York, 1967) Emden, BRUO A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957–59) Fasti: Lincoln J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300, rev. and expanded ed. (London, 1968–), vol. 3: Lincoln, compiled by D.E. Greenway Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300, rev. and expanded ed. (London, 1968–), vol. 2: Monastic Cathedrals, compiled by D.E. Greenway Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform M. Gibbs and J. Lang, Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272, with Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215 (Oxford, 1934; repr. 1962) Glossa ordinaria Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps: Adolph Rusch of Strassburg, 1480/81 (Turnhout, 1992) Gratian, Decretum Gratian, Decretum, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1879; repr. 1959); cited by D. (Distinctio), C. (Causa), q. (questio), c. (capitulum), e.g., D.31 c.1 or C.16 q.1 c.51 Hexaëmeron Robert Grosseteste, Hexaëmeron, ed. R.C. Dales and S. Gieben, ABMA 6 (London, 1982; repr. 1990) Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers W.A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome, 1951) Hist. Univ. Oxford The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 1: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. J.I. Catto (Oxford, 1984)

xvi

Abbreviations

JEH The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (London/New York, 1950–) Lawrence, Edmund of Abingdon C.H. Lawrence, St. Edmund of Abingdon: A Study in Hagiography and History (Oxford, 1960) Luard, Epp. H.R. Luard, ed., Roberti Grosseteste episcopi quondam Lincolniensis epistolae, RS 25 (London, 1861) Madicott, Simon de Montfort J.R. Madicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, U.K./New York, 1994) Major, ‘Familia’ K. Major, ‘The Familia of Robert Grosseteste,’ in Callus, Grosseteste, 216–41 Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, ed. H.R. Luard, RS 57, 7 vols. (London, 1872–83) McEvoy, Philosophy J.J. McEvoy, The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (Oxford, 1982) McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste J.J. McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste (Oxford/New York, 2000) Medieval Religious Houses D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London, 1971) Med. St. Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, 1939–) Morgan, ‘Excommunication’ M.M. Morgan, ‘The Excommunication of Grosseteste in 1243,’ The English Historical Review 57 (1942): 244–50 New Perspectives Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. J.J. McEvoy (Steenbrugge/Turnhout, 1995) O’Carroll, Beginnings Robert Grosseteste and the Beginnings of a British Theological Tradition: Papers Delivered at the Grosseteste Colloquium Held at Greyfriars, Oxford on 3rd July 2002, ed. M. O’Carroll (Rome, 2003)

Abbreviations

xvii

ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. C. Matthew et al., 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004), with online edition, updates, and new entries Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali A. Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali di curia e ‘familiae’ cardinalizie dal 1227 al 1254, 2 vols. (Padua, 1972) PG Patrologiae cursus completus ...: Series Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 166 vols. (Paris, 1857–66) PL Patrologiae cursus completus ...: Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 222 vols. (Paris, 1844–64) Powicke, Henry III F.M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward: The Community of the Realm in the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1947) Rotuli Grosseteste Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi Lincolniensis, A.D. MCCXXXV–MCCLIII, ed. F.N. Davis (London, 1913) Rotuli Welles Rotuli Hugonis de Welles, episcopi Lincolniensis, A.D. MCCIX–MCCXXXV, ed. W.P.W. Phillimore and F.N. Davis, 3 vols. (London, 1907–9) RS Rolls Series [= Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores: Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages], 253 vols. (London, 1858–96; repr. 1964) S. Bernardi Opera Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq, C.H. Talbot, and H. Rochais, 8 vols. (Rome, 1957–77) Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate J.E. Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury, 1198–1254: A Study in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Administration (London, 1971) SC Sources chrétiennes (Paris, 1941–) Southern, Growth R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992)

xviii

Abbreviations

Srawley, ‘Administration’ J.H. Srawley, ‘Grosseteste’s Administration of the Diocese of Lincoln,’ in Callus, Grosseteste, 146–77 Stacey, Politics R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy, and Finance under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford, 1987) Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste F.S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (London, 1899) Tabula Robert Grosseteste, Tabula, ed. P.W. Rosemann, in Opera Roberti Grosseteste Lincolniensis, ed. J.J. McEvoy, vol. 1, CCCM 130 (Turnhout, 1995), 235–320 Tanner, Decrees N.P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (London/ Washington, D.C., 1990); cited by ‘c.’ (canon), ‘cc.’ (canons). Templum dei Robert Grosseteste, Templum dei, ed. J. Goering and F.A.C. Mantello, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 14 (Toronto, 1984) Thomson, Writings S. Harrison Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1235–1253 (Cambridge, 1940; repr. New York, 1971) Turner, Judiciary R.V. Turner, The English Judiciary in the Age of Glanvill and Bracton, c. 1176–1239 (Cambridge, U.K./New York, 1985) VCH Victoria County History [= The Victoria History of the Counties of England] (1901–) Williamson, ‘Legation’ D.M. Williamson, ‘Some Aspects of the Legation of Cardinal Otto in England, 1237–41,’ The English Historical Review 64 (1949): 145–73 X (Liber extra [= Decretales of Pope Gregory IX], in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1879; repr. 1959); cited by book, title, and chapter, e.g., 2.1.8

THE LETTERS OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN

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Introduction

This book provides an annotated English translation of the medieval collection of Robert Grosseteste’s Latin letters. This collection includes conventional epistles as well as documents and other kinds of texts that circulated with them, and is part of one of the largest and most diversified literary legacies of any age. Long valued as an important source of information about their author, bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253 and the most learned and influential churchman of his day, Grosseteste’s letters illustrate, perhaps better than any other source, the character and convictions of a man who was, in the words of a contemporary, ‘an open critic of pope and king, a censurer of prelates, a corrector of monks, a director of priests, a teacher of the clergy, a supporter of scholars, a preacher to the people, a persecutor of the unchaste, an indefatigable student of every kind of text, a hammer and despiser of the Romans; hospitable, generous and urbane, cheerful and affable at the table of bodily refreshment, while devout, tearful, and contrite at the spiritual table; painstaking, commanding respect, and untiring in his episcopal duties.’1 Grosseteste’s letter collection helps us to discover the personality of a man of whom no contemporary or near contemporary vita has come down to us, and whose many other writings convey strong impressions of his erudition but of few of the attributes that set him apart so conspicuously from his contemporaries as an administrator, reformer, and teacher. These letters also offer valuable insights into the prevailing assumptions and preoccupations of the English clergy and laity of his day and illuminate what Richard Southern has called the ‘central period in the consolidation of institutions, habits of thought and religious practices of medieval Europe.’2

4

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

In 1861, Grosseteste’s collected letters, to which some other epistles were added, were published by Henry Richards Luard (1825–91) in the Rolls Series3 and were the first of Grosseteste’s numerous writings to appear in what may be called a critical edition. Replacing the selection of 101 letters printed in 1690 by Edward Brown,4 Luard consulted four manuscripts of the collected letters (see section A, below, MSS A.1–A.4) as well as Brown’s edition and copies of a few of the epistles that circulated independently. Since its publication, Luard’s text has served as the standard edition of Grosseteste’s letter collection, and although a few of its items have been subsequently re-edited by other scholars,5 the numbers assigned to the collected letters, and still employed by researchers, are those used by Luard. He had intended to print the letters, almost all of which have come down to us without formal dating clauses, in chronological order, ‘as far as that could be ascertained,’6 but he was reluctant to depart from the numbering already employed by Brown, who had replicated the sequence of the collected letters in a manuscript he had consulted for his edition (see MS A.6, below). Because Luard appended three letters that became nos. 129–131 in his edition,7 and because he assigned the numbers LII, LII*, LXXII, and LXXII* to four of the letters, his numeration extends from I to CXXXI, but his edition actually contains 133 letters. As the last two of these (nos. 130 and 131) are almost certainly spurious,8 we can speak of 131 authentic letters and documents in Luard’s edition. There are four important preliminary points to keep in mind about Grosseteste’s correspondence. The first is that we must distinguish between the letters (and other texts) selected for inclusion in the bishop’s official letter collection and a second group of stray or uncollected epistles (epistolae vagantes) that survive outside manuscripts of the collected letters. Translated in this volume are the collected letters, supplemented by translations of two others from the second category: no. 129 (to Robert Marsh), extant only in the register of general memoranda of John Dalderby, bishop of Lincoln (1300–20), and added by Luard to the collection and his edition; and no. 132 (to the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln), which survives only in the Liber additamentorum of Matthew Paris and was added to the collection by S.H. Thomson, the compiler of The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge, 1940). To these two letters we have added a translation of a third, no. 128 (to Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Master Innocenzo, a scriptor of Pope Innocent IV), which appears to have been originally in the second category but found its way into three manuscripts of the collected letters and was printed by both Brown and Luard.9 Other epistles in the second

Introduction

5

group that have not been translated here include one (in addition to no. 132) that Matthew Paris copied into his Chronica maiora,10 and the administrative correspondence that was published with Grosseteste’s Rotuli.11 The second point is that our modern sense of a letter as a written means of sending and receiving more or less official, or private, or confidential information makes it difficult for us to understand how collections of letters such as Grosseteste’s could be repositories both for formal and personal letters (some of inordinate length) that provide instructions, convey news, request favours, or offer advice, and for other official texts that we would classify as purely administrative documents or even treatises. Grosseteste’s letter collection is a hybrid of this kind, preserving texts immediately recognizable as conventional letters, along with other ostensibly non-epistolary writings, e.g., episcopal constitutions and philosophical disquisitions. What would seem especially to permit the written communications that fall into these two groups to be classified as letters is the identification of specific recipients within the formal salutations. The third point is that these collected letters and associated texts circulated together, though not always in uniformly complete collections or in the same order, and that the ultimate source of these was perhaps one or more registers or rolls – maintained during Grosseteste’s lifetime – of copies of all such items of correspondence. Given the existence of stray, ‘uncollected’ epistles, evidence that Grosseteste wrote other letters that have been lost,12 and the presumption that drafts of letters would be preserved, just as copies of administrative documents were incorporated into Grosseteste’s Rotuli, at some point a selection from the registered items must have been made, probably, as we argue below,13 by Grosseteste himself, that became the source of the manuscripts of the collected correspondence that have come down to us. This means that the version of the letters we have may not be identical with what was originally sent out, i.e., it may represent an edited text intended for ‘public’ reading. Certainly Grosseteste would have expected his letters to be circulated and quoted, and would himself have shared some of them with readers who were not the recipients named in the salutations. He cannot have been unaware of the importance of his letters as part of his larger literary legacy, and he therefore presumably had a hand in selecting and editing them and in arranging the collection. The fourth point is that it is not always easy to know what to make of the language of many of the collected letters, which is sometimes so bombastic and overwrought as to invite the modern reader’s dismissal as

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

disingenuous. Such florid, exaggerated language, though no doubt conveying among medieval readers an appropriate sense of formality and even elegance, can of course arouse our suspicions about the sincerity or seriousness of a particular sentiment or belief and convey very unflattering impressions of Grosseteste as sycophantic, and even hypocritical, instead of merely politically savvy and capable of using the Latin language with great skill. There can be no doubt that Grosseteste was entirely familiar with the conventions of medieval epistolography, which are not our own, and was influenced by the language, tone, form, and style of the letters of his predecessors and contemporaries, and that modern readers of the letters must therefore prepare themselves to read them not in a straightforward way, but as literary texts necessarily shaped by the vocabulary and rules of the ars dictaminis and by prevailing rhetorical devices and expectations. Since letter writing is one of the most self-conscious of literary genres, where concerns about self-presentation are paramount, the language of letters composed by so intelligent and influential a figure as Grosseteste deserves close study and analysis. He does not, for example, consistently impose upon his epistles the rules of the cursus curie Romane; nor does he allow the conventions of the genre to prevent him from expressing his own genuine feelings and convictions about the character and conduct of the recipients of his letters.14 In the discussion that follows we use the term ‘letter’ or ‘epistle’ (or ‘ep.’; plural: ‘epp.’) broadly to refer to any item clearly identifiable as a letter of Grosseteste or circulating as part of his collected correspondence. A capital ‘L’ preceding a letter number indicates that that number is the one assigned to the letter in Luard’s edition. Manuscripts of the Collected Letters Eleven manuscripts have survived15 containing all of Grosseteste’s letter collection or a selection of epistles from it (see section A, below), and there are copies of some of the collected letters that circulated independently (see section B, below). Grosseteste’s letters were also exploited for collections of excerpts and notes that have come down to us in several manuscripts (see sections C and D, below), and they were cited by Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–59), Adam Marsh (ca. 1200–59), John Wyclif (d. 1384), and other medieval and later writers. The listings below are based, with corrections, upon Thomson, Writings, as supplemented by references to additional manuscript discoveries since the publication of that catalogue in 1940.

Introduction

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A. The following manuscripts contain complete or partial copies of the letter collection. Asterisks identify those manuscripts consulted by Luard for his edition. A.1 *Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 123, pt. 2, fols. 1r–67r. Written in 1456. Luard calls this ‘C.C.C2.’ and notes that it is ‘imperfect, many of the letters having been torn out.’ Copies of epp. L27–L52, L52*, and L53–L56 are missing. The manuscript begins (fol. 1r) with the last eight lines of ep. L57 (Luard, 178: ‘divinitatem’ ... ‘Valete’), followed by – in Luard’s numeration – epp. 58–72, 72*, 20, 114, 92–113, 114bis, 115–126, 26, 78, 73, 127, 9–13, 17–19, 21, 22, 25, 26bis (incomplete), 8, 7, 6, 14, 15, 2, 4, 5, 20bis (incomplete), 23, 24, 72*bis (incomplete), 75, 79, 77, 74, 76, 80–91, 1, 3, 16. There are two numberings of the epistles, one at the beginning and the other at the end of each letter. At the conclusion of ep. L127 (fol. 37v) is a reference to a date (14 December 1456) when the manuscript was being copied: ‘Scripta sunt hec in crastino sancte lucie Anno domini 1456. deo gracias.’ Ep. L91 (fol. 61v) is followed on fols. 62r–63v by a listing in double columns of the letters with summaries of, and notes about, their contents. This listing has 120 entries with two numbering systems, one consecutive (1–120) and the second replicating or approximating Luard’s numeration; as indicated above, four of the entries are duplicates. A.2 *Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 453, pp. 1–395. Written in the early fifteenth century. Luard calls this ‘C.C.C.’; he used it as his base manuscript and reproduced page 1 to face the title page of his edition. It contains 129 letters (Luard’s 1–52, 52*, 53–72, 72*, 73–127) and concludes: ‘Expliciunt epistole domini lincoliensis secundum etc.’ In the manuscript the letters are numbered ‘1’ to ‘127’ in the margins, with epp. 52* and 72* excluded from the numeration. A.3 *Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, 92, pt. 2, fols. 1r–50v. Luard calls this ‘Sid.’ It was copied in the seventeenth century from an unidentified manuscript in Durham: ‘Epistolae quaedam Reuerendi patris Roberti Grosthed, quondam Lincolniensis Episcopi, prout repertae sunt in libro imperfecto manu scripto in bibliotheca Dunelmensi’ (fol. 1r). It contains the following 58 letters as numbered by Luard (but in the codex numbered 1–58): 51, 52, 49, 46, 47, 22, 48, 19, 17, 18, 14–16, 13, 10, 11, 5–7, 2, 27, 28, 53–56, 30, 35, 52* (here called ‘Epistola vicesima nona’), 1, 23, 24, 8, 9, 3, 4, 12, 20, 21, 26, 29, 31–45, 50, 57. A.4 *Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 312, fols. 117v–118r, 126r–184v. This manuscript, called ‘Ox.’ by Luard, is a composite whose second part, containing Grosseteste’s letters, was written in the second half of

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

the fourteenth century. Ep. L128 has been copied on fols. 117v–118r, followed, on fols. 126r–184v and in different hands, by 117 letters in the order of MS A.2, above: L1–L5, L11–L52, L52*, L53–L72, L72*, L73– L99, L107–L127. When first copied, this part of this manuscript preserved copies of letters 1–128 (i.e., L128, L1–L52, L52*, L53–L72, L72*, L73–L127), but two pairs of leaves are missing, and most of ep. L5, all of L6–L10, the first part of L11, the last several lines of L99, all of L100–L106, and the first half of L107 have been lost (i.e., Luard, Epp., 34–51: ‘ultima Judaeorum captivitas ... tuendis a lupo teneris’; 304–17: ‘ad praesens convenire ... aut eis confiteatur’). There are two post-medieval numberings of the letters, one replicating Luard’s numeration but passing over epp. L52* and L72*, which are unnumbered. In the lower margin of fol. 135v (ep. 25) is this note by Thomas Gascoigne (1404–58), theologian and chancellor of Oxford University, who owned this part of the manuscript: ‘copia istarum epistolarum lincolniensis est inter Fratres minores oxonie (non exonie) et ibi sunt omnes eius epistolas et sunt optime. ista nota scripta fuit per Thomam Gascoigne Cancellarium Oxoniensem.’ A related note by Gascoigne, indicating that Grosseteste’s letters could be found as part of the ‘opus lincolniensis inter Fratres Minores,’ is in the lower right corner of fol. 126r. A.5 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 49, fols. 4r–56v. This manuscript, unfortunately replete with careless variants, was unknown to Luard and not listed by Thomson. It is a composite whose first part, copied in the first half of the fifteenth century and once owned by John Dee (1527–1609) and Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631),16 preserves 129 letters of Grosseteste, numbered consecutively in the margins by a modern hand. Using Luard’s numeration, the letters are in this order: L52*, L53–L72, L1–L52, L73–L126, L128, L72*. The first item here (ep. L52*, i.e., Grosseteste’s Constitutiones) is preceded by a heading (‘Constituciones Roberti episcopi lincolniensis Rectoribus vicariis sacerdotibus parrochialibus eiusdem diocesis’) and by a listing of the contents of the constitutions. A.6 London, British Library, Cotton, Otho C.XIV, fols. 7r–80v. This manuscript, written ca. 1400, was badly burned in 1731 in the fire at Ashburnham House in London and reduced from 203 leaves to 108. It has been assumed that this was the copy of the correspondence that Edward Brown transcribed for his edition of 101 letters of Grosseteste,17 and against which he collated other copies ‘in Bibliothecis nostris Cantabrigiensibus.’18 He apparently printed the letters in their order in this Cotton manuscript, numbering them consecutively but skipping those that did

Introduction

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not interest him, including the long document assigned no. 72* by Luard. Thus, in Brown’s edition we have letters 4, 8, 10–12, 17, 22–30, 32, 35–38, 40–52, 53–56, 61–66, 68, 71, 72, 73–104, 106–126, and 128, followed by Grosseteste’s Constitutiones (ep. L52*, but unnumbered by Brown and printed out of sequence). Brown’s order and sequential numbering, which clearly indicates when letters have been omitted, was adopted by Luard, who also proceeded to print the texts passed over by Brown and to introduce the nos. 52* and 72*. Luard’s goal was both to ensure an exact numerical correlation between his own complete edition of the correspondence and Brown’s earlier selection, and to print the texts that he numbered 52* and 72* where they commonly appear in manuscripts of the letters. Because Otho C.XIV was so badly damaged in the Cotton fire, Luard was unable to consult it and instead used Brown’s edition as his source for variant readings of interest from this manuscript. Otho C.XIV has now, however, been rebound, with burnt folios mounted, and annotations in pencil added to the mounts to identify the letters as they were printed by Luard, i.e., L23–L40, L42–L52, L52*, L53–L72, L72*, L73–L77, L90–L99, L111–L124.19 A.7 Prague, Universitní Knihovna, 763 (IV.G.31), fols. 1r–77r. Copied in the early fifteenth century, this collection, headed ‘Incipit liber epistolarum Doctoris eximii Roberti lincoliensis episcopi,’ preserves the following 61 letters in Luard’s numeration, unnumbered in the manuscript except for the first: 1, 7, 8, 10, 9, 58, 59, 25, 112, 51, 52, 74, 75 (with last sentence omitted), 122, 6, 85, 86 (with text omitted after ‘factam’ [Luard, Epp. 271, line 28]), 87–89, 77, 71, 73, 111, 90, 96, 98, 100, 107, 84, 108, 109, 20, 35, 23, 36, 44–46, 48, 47, 49, 76, 79, 78, 101, 102, 29, 30, 33 (with last two sentences omitted), 31, 34, 57, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 (ending at ‘fulcimentum’ [Luard, Epp., 134, line 20] and followed by ‘etc. ut supra immediate’), 13, 72, 72*. The last item is headed ‘Epistola de libertate Cleri sequitur,’ begins ‘Est et aliud ...’ (Luard, Epp., 214, line 8), and continues until ‘... ab ipso usurpari’ (Luard, Epp., 230, line 28), after which follows the first part of this letter, beginning ‘In primis videtur ...’ (Luard, Epp., 205, line 15). The scribe concludes with this ‘explicit’: ‘Et sic est finis Epistolarum in spe beati Roberti Episcopi lincoliensis.’ A.8 Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, 272 (A.166), fols. 2r–79v. Copied in the early fifteenth century, this manuscript preserves 61 unnumbered letters, despite the total given in this note on fol. 1v: ‘In hoc volumine continentur sexaginta due epistole domini Roberti, Episcopi Ecclesie lyncolniensis in Anglia, in spe a domino Yesuchristo deo nostro iam beatificati. Quas

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

quidem qui deuote ac diligenter legerint, ac sana mente intellexerint, adiuuante spiritus sancti gracia multa bona pro salute sua suorumque proximorum consequentur.’ The letters copied here are the same as those in MS A.7, above, and the order, omissions (parts of epp. L75, L86, L33, L41), transposition (in ep. L72*), and ‘explicit’ are the same. On fols. 95v–96v there is a table headed ‘Numerus epistolarum domini Roberti Eximii doctoris Lyncolniensis Episcopy hic continetur,’ with the letters numbered consecutively and assigned brief summarizing titles. A.9 Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, 509 (C.78), fols. 175r–227v. Copied in the first half of the fifteenth century, this collection of 61 letters, numbered consecutively, is headed ‘Epistule Roberti Episcopi lincoliensis diuerse ad diuersos status, condiciones, dignitates hominum transmisse.’ It is identical in content and order to MSS A.7 and A.8, above. On fols. 228r–229r there is a ‘Regestrum Epistolarum diuersarum Roberti Episcopi licoliensis ad homines diuersos transmissarum,’ which consists of a consecutively numbered listing of the letters with brief summarizing titles. A.10 Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, 693 (D.123), fols. 153v–159v. This early fifteenth-century manuscript preserves copies of four unnumbered letters of Grosseteste, i.e., L10 (fols. 153–155r; ‘Epistola Correctiua ad Doctorem theologie lasciuum’), L9 (fols. 155r–156v; ‘Epistola de contemptu honoris et diuiciarum et periculo cure animarum sequitur’), L25 (fols. 156v–159r; ‘Epistola de cura pastorali sequitur’), and L75 (fol. 159r–v, with last sentence and ‘Valete’ omitted; ‘Epistola consolatoria ad eum qui in tribulacioni est constitutus’). The four letters follow the order of MSS A.7, A.8, and A.9 of the correspondence. A.11 Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, 1572 (N.48), fols. 1r–71r. This manuscript of a collection of the letters copied in the middle of the fifteenth century is said to contain 53 letters, but a facsimile has not been available for examination and it has therefore not been possible to verify Thomson’s description of the contents.20 B. Ten of Grosseteste’s letters (nos. L1, L5, L23, L48, L52*, L72, L85, L112, L127, and L128) circulated both within the collections listed above in section A and also independently of them. B.1 Letter L1 (to Adam Rufus) was published in 1912 by Ludwig Baur, who divided it into two separate parts or treatises (De unica forma omnium and De intelligentiis) and based his text upon a collation of the four copies of the collected correspondence (MSS A.1–A.4, above) collated by Luard, together with Prague 763 (MS A.7, above) and other manuscripts.21 In his catalogue

Introduction

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of Grosseteste’s writings, Thomson discusses the independent circulation of this epistle as two separate works and identifies several more copies.22 B.2 Letter L5 (to Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester) is extant outside the collection in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 220, fol. 83r–v, with the marginal title ‘Epistola lincolniensis comitisse Wyntoniensi pro iudeis non molestandis.’ B.3 Letter L23 (to William of Raleigh) was copied in extenso in one of the manuscripts (Cambridge, Trinity College, B.15.20, fols. 884v–887v) of excerpts from Grosseteste’s correspondence (see MS C.4, below). There is a second copy in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawl. D. 351, fols. 1r–3v. B.4 Letter L48 (to Simon de Montfort) survives separately in the register of Richard Swinfield, bishop of Hereford (1283–1317), fol. 12v, now in the Herefordshire County Record Office,23 and also in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D.3.9, fol. 491v. B.5 Letter L52* (Grosseteste’s Constitutiones) circulated apart from the collection in 25 manuscripts.24 B.6 Letter L72 (to John le Romeyn, subdean of York) was copied in extenso within the collection of epistolary extracts in London, British Library, Sloane 683, fols. 13v–14r (see MS C.9, below). B.7 Letter L85 (to the community of Augustinian canons of St Mary the Virgin at Missenden, Buckinghamshire) is also found in Sloane 683, fol. 15r–v (see B.6, above, and MS C.9, below), and in Oxford, Merton College, 47, fol. 208r–v (with the heading ‘Epistula domini lincolniensis directa Conuentui de Messenden pro abbate eligendo’). This Merton copy, reported by Luard as ‘missing,’25 begins with the second paragraph, ‘Cum igitur ministerium ...,’ as printed by Luard, Epp., 269. B.8 Letter L112 (to the archdeacons of Lincoln diocese) is extant in Sloane 683, fols. 20r–21r, along with epp. L72 and L85 (see B.6–B.7, above, and MS C.9, below). B.9 Letter L127 was copied separately from the collected correspondence in two manuscripts (Cambridge, Trinity College, B.15.23, fols. 74r– 88v; London, B.L., Cotton, Nero D.II, fols. 267r–276r) and listed by bibliographers under the titles De cura pastorali and Contra prelatorum ignaviam. B.10 Letter L128, the best known of Grosseteste’s epistles, circulated widely in more than 30 manuscripts.26 C. Nine medieval manuscripts contain extracts from Grosseteste’s collected letters: C.1 London, British Library, Royal 6.E.V, fols. 132r–135r (XIVm)

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

C.2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 218, fols. 92r–94v (XIV2) C.3 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 798, fols. 122v–127v (XIV2) C.4 Cambridge, Trinity College, B.15.20, fols. 883r–890v (XIV2) C.5 London, British Library, Royal 5.C.III, fols. 259r–263v (XV1) C.6 London, British Library, Cotton, Vitellius C.XIV, fols. 3v–6v (XIV2) C.7 Cambridge, Trinity College, 0.4.43, front pastedown (XIV2) C.8 London, British Library, Add. 46,919, fol. 181r–v (before 1333?) C.9 London, British Library, Sloane 683, fols. 2r–22r (XV1) MSS C.1–C.5, above, with similar incipits (‘Notabilia excerpta de epistolis domini Roberti Grostet episcopi lincolniensis ...’) belong to the same group and are joined by MS C.6, parts of whose text have been lost because this copy was damaged in the Cotton fire of 1731.27 Each extract in these six ‘C’ copies is usually assigned a number that is, with the six exceptions here indicated, the same as that of Luard’s edition: 2–6, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 33–38, 44, 45, 47–49, 51, 52, 55 (= L54), 57, 60–62, 64, 65, 69, 71, 72, 73 (= L72*), 76 (= L75), 77 (= L76), 80 (= L79), 86 (= L85). MS C.4 stands apart for incorporating a complete copy of ep. L23 (see B.3, above) between excerpts from letters L22 and L25; MS C.5 omits the excerpts from epp. L72 and L72* found in the other copies, includes only part of those from epp. L6, L57, and L71, and sometimes runs extracts together or drops the number of the letter that is the source of an excerpt. The scribe of MS C.6 stopped copying altogether before completing the extract from the beginning of ep. 86 (= L85) found in the other copies, whereas in those manuscripts (and also on the folio that is now the front pastedown of Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 0.4.43 [MS C.7 in the list above])28 three additional excerpts follow, labelled as having been drawn from epp. ‘87,’ ‘88,’ and ‘89, i.e., from epp. L86–L88 if we continue the sequence of numbers in the list above, but not found in those letters or elsewhere in the extant correspondence.29 Their source has not yet been identified. 87. In cura pastorali constitutus, et eam secundum Scripture leges et regulas non peragens, morte moritur eterne condempnacionis et reus est mortificacionis et eterne mortis omnium animarum cure sue commissarum, siue ille aliunde viuant siue pastoris defectu moriantur. Est eciam Antichristus, quia Christo contrarius viuificacionem neglegit animarum propter quam Christus mortuus est, incarnatus, et passus. Est tercio omni sodomitico detestabilior, dum vi spiritualiter generatiua pastorali officio annexa dampnabiliter abutatur, cuius abusio eo est grauior quo omnem virtutem generatiuam naturaliter incomparabiliter excedit. Est quarto fur et latro, dum

Introduction potestate sibi desuper tradita abutens, et per consequens ipso iure ab ea cadens, res ad ipsam potestatem pertinentes impie contrectat; et cum res huiusmodi sint sacre, sequitur quod sit sacrilegus, a sacris omnibus longe exterminandus. One who has been appointed to a pastoral charge, but who does not perform its duties as required by the laws and norms prescribed by Scripture, is condemned to an everlasting death, and is guilty of the mortification and everlasting death of all the souls entrusted to his care, whether they live by some other means or die for want of a shepherd. He is also the Antichrist, because, in opposition to Christ, he makes no effort to restore souls to life, a restoration for which Christ died, was made flesh, and suffered. Thirdly, he is more detestable than any sodomite when he risks damnation by abusing the spiritually procreative energy attached to the pastoral office, for its abuse is all the more serious the more it far exceeds every naturally procreative virtue. Fourth, he is a thief and a robber, when, because he is abusing the power granted to him from above and as a consequence rightfully loses it, he deals impiously with matters that come within that power’s scope; and since such matters are sacred, it follows that he is guilty of sacrilege and deserving of banishment from everything that is sacred. 88. Ne transgrediaris terminos antiquos, quos posuerunt patres tui [Prv 22:28], cure et officii pastoralis. Antiqui termini a patribus et prophetis, immo a Deo patre per illos et in illis loquente, positi sunt: eius quod infirmum est in grege consolidacio, egroti sanacio, fracti alligacio, abiecti reduccio, perditi quesicio, inuenti in humeris reportacio, reportati pascio – et hoc in pascuis sciencie et doctrine, iusticie et iudicii. Ad hos enim actus se extendit cura et officium pastorale, nec citra subsistens nec habens quo vltra progrediatur. Do not pass beyond the ancient bounds, which your fathers set, of the responsibility and office of the shepherd. Those ancient bounds were set by your fathers and the prophets, or rather by God the Father who spoke through them and in them. That office is the strengthening of what is feeble in the flock, the healing of what is sick, the binding up of what is broken, the bringing back of what has been rejected, the searching for what has been lost, the carrying back upon one’s shoulders of what has been found, the feeding of what has been carried back – and this in pastures of knowledge and doctrine, justice and judgment. For it is to these actions that the shepherd’s responsibility and office are dedicated, neither stopping short nor proceeding beyond them.

13

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste 89. Pastorum opus optimum, acceptissimum, et maxime meritorium est doctrina verbi animas informare, exemplo sancte conuersacionis prouocare, caritate sursum trahere, fide corroborare, puritate decorare et adornare, ac per hoc eas viuificare, quin pocius et deificare. The best, most welcome, and especially meritorious task of shepherds is instructing souls in the Word’s doctrine, challenging them with the example of a holy way of life, drawing them upwards by love, strengthening them with faith, embellishing and adorning them with purity, and thereby restoring them to life and, indeed, making them divine.

MS C.8 (B.L., Add. 46,919; formerly Phillipps MS 8,336) belonged to the Franciscan, William Herebert of Hereford (d. 1333?), who wrote or annotated much of the manuscript. On fol. 181r–v he copied excerpts from eight letters of Grosseteste, identifying the number of the letter and the intended recipient. The extracts are, with corresponding letter numbers in Luard’s edition within parentheses, from epp. 33 (L34), 34 (L35), 75 (L75), 78 (L78; the entire epistle, excluding the address and valediction, has been transcribed), 79 (L79), 103 (L104), 104 (L105), and 112 (L110). Thomson has argued that the early date of this manuscript and the numbering of the extracts from the letters, which is close to that in later copies of the collected correspondence of Grosseteste, provide a terminus ante quem in the early fourteenth century for the establishment of the canon of Grosseteste’s collected letters.30 MS C.9 (B.L., Sloane 683) contains, on fols. 2r–22r, ‘quedam notabilia excerpta ab epistolis domini Roberti grostet episcopi lincolniensis.’ Three of the so-called excerpts here (labelled ‘72,’ ‘86’ (= L85), and ‘111’ (= L112) are in fact full transcriptions of those letters (see B.6–B.8, above); others are quite lengthy; a couple refer to specific letters without citing them. The 68 letters mentioned are as follows, with corresponding numbers in Luard’s edition within parentheses where these differ from the numbers supplied in the manuscript: 1–4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (‘redarguit quemdam theologum de incontinencia sub optimis verbis’; no citation), 11, 13–15, 17–19, 22–26, 34, 35, [36], 37, 44, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60–62, 64, 65, 71, 72 (complete letter), 74 (L73; ‘quam dirigit decano et capitulo lincoln¯’ ...; no citation), 75 (L74), 76 (L75), 80 (L79), 81 (L80), 83 (L82), 84 (L83), 86 (L85; complete letter), 86 [for 88?] (L87), 89 (L90), 91–93 (L92–L94), 95 (L96), 97–102 (L98–L103), 105–107 (L106–L108), 109 (L110), 111 (L112; complete letter), 114 (L115), 118 (L119), 122 (L123), 123 (L124).

Introduction

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D. Two post-medieval manuscripts31 contain excerpts from Grosseteste’s collected letters: D.1 London, British Library, Lansdowne 964, fols. 110r–v, 111v–117r (XVII–XVIII) D.2 Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 280, fols. 163r–168v (XVI–XVII) MS D.1 contains extracts by White Kennett (1660–1728), bishop of Peterborough, from Brown’s Fasciculus32 and also ‘ex Epistolis aliquot MSS ejusdem Roberti Grosthead E[pisco]pi Linc. qui in Fasciculo desiderantur.’ A note by Kennet at the bottom of fol. 114r states that his source for the unprinted excerpts (‘notulas’) – corresponding to Luard, epp. 60, 1–3, 6, 9, 13, 14, 18, 19, 31, 33, 39, 72* – was a liber membranaceus, ‘olim penes Rob[ertum] Cotton, militem ...’ containing ‘epistolas plurimas.’ This Cotton manuscript was, presumably, Otho C.XIV (MS A.6, above). MS D.2 contains, under the heading ‘Epistole Lincolniensis’ and over twelve pages (fols. 163r–168v), a listing or survey of 128 letters of Grosseteste based upon an unidentified manuscript. The hand throughout is the same and the format invariable. Each entry in the list typically identifies the letter by providing a number, Grosseteste’s name (and title) as sender, a reference to the letter’s recipients, and sometimes an excerpt and/or brief notice, e.g., ‘Epistola prima R[oberti] Grosteste, Magistro Ade Rufo, de eo quod deus est prima forma et forma omnium, et de loco Angelorum. “Non est angelus ubique totus simul quia hoc est solius dei proprium.”’ The second entry takes the same form – ‘Epistola secunda R[oberti] G[rosteste], Archidiaconi leicestrensis, Fratri Agnello Ministro fratrum minorum et conuentui Oxoniensi, quos consolatur de corporali absencia fratris Ade’ – and includes three excerpts from the second letter. This pattern continues throughout, often with lengthy excerpts. In the case of ep. 100 (= L98), the entire text has been transcribed, and the copy of ep. 79 (= L78) is almost complete. The margins of the manuscript have been used to repeat the numbers of the letters and to record brief notes of recapitulation. The entries are numbered from 1 to 128 and correspond to Luard’s numbering as follows: 1–52 (= L1–L52), 53 (= L52*), 53bis (= L53), 54–72 (= L54–L72), 73 (= L72*), 74–93 (= L73–L92), 94 (= L93; the recipients are wrongly identified as the Lincoln, rather than Salisbury, dean and chapter), 95 (the recipients are identified as the dean and chapter of Lincoln, but there is no corresponding letter in Luard’s edition), 96–128 (= L94–L126). This manuscript, once the property of Brian Twyne (1581–1644), antiquary, fellow of Corpus Christi College, and, from 1634 until his death, first keeper of the archives of Oxford University, became part of the college library at

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

some point between 1697 and 1702. It is a composite in which notes by several hands, including those of Twyne and the Oxford antiquary Miles Windsor (1541?–1624), also a fellow of this college, have been brought together. The Grosseteste section was, however, copied neither by Twyne nor by Windsor.33 Grosseteste’s Letter Collection In the excellent historical introduction to his 1861 edition of the letters, Henry Luard has this to say about the date and composition of the collection: ‘When or by whom this collection was put together, or why this selection [of letters] was made, cannot be conjectured.’34 This opinion was echoed some eighty years later by S.H. Thomson in his magisterial catalogue of Grosseteste’s writings: ‘The authenticity of the collection as we have it has never seriously been questioned. But the actual time at which the letters were gathered into a canon or by whom has never been learned. We have no MS of the whole collection that we can date earlier than ca. 1400.’ Thomson goes on to conclude: ‘It is hardly possible that Grosseteste can have had any hand in the collection or arrangement of the letters, for, though a general chronological sequence is faintly discernible, it is too uncertain and unreliable to have come from anyone reliably conversant with the persons or events involved; there is no topical arrangement, nor any grouping by correspondents.’35 We are of the opinion that the manuscript evidence discussed above and the historical evidence now available concerning Grosseteste’s career may allow us to reach different, and more precise, conclusions. It will be argued here that the collection of letters was originally completed in or around the year 1246, and that Robert Grosseteste can plausibly be credited with the selection of letters to be included in the collection. To establish these conclusions it is first necessary to determine the scope of the letter collection as it was originally conceived and executed. It will be remembered that Luard printed 133 letters, numbering them 1–131 and adding the numbers 52* and 72* in their respective places. Not all of these 133 items, however, were a part of the original medieval collection. Luard printed letters 130 and 131 from other sources. Neither of these letters is to be found in the manuscripts of the collection discussed above, and both have since proved to be probably spurious.36 Letter 132, dated 1 August 1247, is an authentic letter of Grosseteste, but it was not included by Luard in his edition, nor is it part of any of the manuscripts of the medieval letter collection; it survives only in a copy

Introduction

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made by Matthew Paris and it was added to the collection by Thomson.37 Letter 129, dated 8 May 1248, is also authentic, but was printed by Luard from a Lincoln episcopal register.38 Like letters 130–2, it is not to be found in any of the extant manuscripts of the letter collection, and it should not be considered part of the original collection. Having excluded these last four letters (nos. 129–32) from consideration, we are left with 130 letters (i.e., epp. 1–128, plus letters 52* and 72*) that are to be found in the manuscripts of the collection described above. The earliest of these letters, no. 1, can be dated to about 1225, and the latest letter, no. 128, was written in 1253, the year of Grosseteste’s death. This last letter was famous in medieval England and circulated widely,39 but it is rarely found in the manuscripts of the collected letters. It is absent from MSS A.1, A.2, and A.3, and from all the Prague copies (A.7–A.11). It is added in a different hand and not as part of the letter collection in MS A.4. Only MSS A.5 and A.6 include this epistle as part of the collection. The same story is told by the manuscripts containing extracts from the collection. None of these nine manuscripts (C.1–C.9, above) includes an excerpt from letter 128. We may therefore conclude with some assurance that letter 128 is unlikely to have been part of the original collection of letters, and that it was added at a later date because of its fame and popularity. The remaining letters – nos. 1–127 (including 52* and 72*) – are all well represented in the manuscript tradition outlined above, and we may thus consider the original collection to have excluded letters 128–32 and to have contained 129 items, namely the letters numbered by Luard 1–52, 52*, 53–72, 72*, 73–127. A striking feature of the core collection thus defined is that it contains no letters from the last seven years of Grosseteste’s episcopate. The latest items in the collection, letters 114–26, were written during his eleventh year (June 1245 to June 1246) as bishop. Letter 127, actually a long treatise, was probably composed at the same time, in conjunction with Grosseteste’s visit to the papal curia at Lyons in 1244–5. He would continue to be an active administrator of his diocese until his death in October of 1253. These last seven years were, in some ways, the culminating period of his episcopate, involving another journey to the papal curia at Lyons in 1250 that produced a dossier of texts that would circulate widely in its own right.40 That not a single letter or document from these last seven years was included in the original collection of letters argues strongly for the conclusion that the collection was completed during, or shortly after, the eleventh year of Grosseteste’s episcopate, probably in the year 1246.

18

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

If such a conclusion is tenable, then it is also extremely likely that Grosseteste himself had the primary hand in selecting the letters and ordering them in this collection. We know that he made a similar collection of his teachings in the schools. At some point early in his episcopate he published a collection of 147 Dicta or sayings, describing them thus: ‘In this little book there are 147 chapters. Some are short discourses that I wrote down in few words and in note form to aid the memory when I was still in the schools; they deal with diverse topics and have no continuity one with another. I have given a title to each chapter so that the reader might more easily find what he wants; often the titles promise the reader more than the numbered chapters may deliver. Some of the chapters are sermons that I preached to the clergy or the people at that same time.’41 One might well imagine the letter collection as a companion piece to the Dicta. Just as the Dicta collected 147 documents, large and small, to illustrate the master’s activities in the schools, so the Epistolae collected 129 documents, mostly letters, to illustrate the life and duties of the bishop. Although we have no authorial preface to the letter collection such as we have for the Dicta, it is not difficult to imagine the two as being conceived along similar lines and serving similar purposes. In sum, we would argue from the manuscript evidence that Grosseteste himself selected the epistles that circulated in his letter collection; that his collection originally included letters 1–127 as well as 52* and 72*, but not 128, 129 (found only in a register of a later bishop of Lincoln), 130– 131 (both probably spurious), and 132 (preserved only by Matthew Paris); and that Grosseteste put the collection together during or shortly after 1246. Nature and Purpose of the Letter Collection If we were to identify an overarching theme in the collected letters, it would surely be the centrality of pastoral care (cura animarum) in the life of the Church.42 For Grosseteste, pastoral care was never simply a theoretical concern; rather, it was the central passion of the latter part of his life. From the time he received his first ecclesiastical benefice, in 1225, when he was already more than fifty years old, through his service as archdeacon of Leicester and canon of Lincoln, and his more than eighteen years as bishop of Lincoln (1235–53), the proper care of the souls entrusted to him was his great preoccupation. The letters in this collection give us a privileged view of his thoughts and actions as he exercised the pastoral care himself, and as he encouraged others to do likewise.

Introduction

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Some aspects of Grosseteste’s view of pastoral care may well strike the modern reader as odd. For example, he seems to have presumed that the laws and constitutions of the Church are fundamentally pastoral, and that his job as pastor and bishop was to rely on those laws and to live by them. Grosseteste was certainly no legalist, enforcing the law for its own sake. Rather, he was sincerely convinced that divine law and the law of the Church offered the surest guide on earth to the proper ordering of human relations. Hardly a letter in the collection fails to illustrate this deep commitment. It is instructive to observe what confidence Grosseteste draws from the law in his pastoral interactions with those around him, both great and small. Whether he is refusing the request of a pope, a cardinal, or a powerful lord to grant an unqualified person a benefice in his diocese, or arguing with the king about the appointment of monks and clerics as secular judges, or disputing with his cathedral chapter over their rights and responsibilities, he always rests his case on the overriding primacy of pastoral concerns as these are promoted and protected in the Church’s law. A related issue is the matter of tone. In these letters one sees Grosseteste making the transition from his earlier career as a master in the schools to his new role as supreme authority in his diocese. As a teacher and scholar he wrote with deference and curiosity. Richard Southern has characterized the writings from that earlier period of Grosseteste’s life as being marked by a tentative approach that stressed insight, consideration, and imagination.43 In these collected letters he writes not as a scholar but as a prelate and a shepherd of souls. Here we see him finding his voice as one who speaks with authority, and whose judgments are meant to carry weight.44 Grosseteste is quick to locate the source of this new authority not in his own person, which remains weak and unworthy, but rather in his office. As archdeacon, and then as bishop, he takes upon himself an office that confers on its holder not only responsibilities for the pastoral care of souls entrusted to him, but also the means to meet these responsibilities. Grosseteste finds in the models of bishops who have gone before him, in the universal and particular laws of the Church, and in the hierarchy of the Church itself the means necessary to speak with authority and assurance about even the most complex social and personal problems confronting him. A consideration of Grosseteste’s view of hierarchy may help us in reading and appreciating these letters. Of all the ideas that might characterize his particular approach to the care of souls, that of hierarchy may be the most important, and the most foreign to modern readers. This term has come to connote in modern usage a kind of rigid, authoritarian

20

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

structure that is, among other things, as contrary to democracy as it is possible to be. But this idea had a different resonance in the Middle Ages. The term ‘hierarchy’ itself is a Christian invention, and means, literally, ‘sacred order.’ The term was coined by Pseudo-Dionysius in the fifth century, in his treatises on the angelic and ecclesiastical hierarchies, to describe the ordering of the celestial and ecclesiastical realms. Grosseteste knew these writings well, having himself translated and commented on the entire Dionysian corpus.45 Hierarchy, for Pseudo-Dionysius as for Grosseteste, is one of the charisms or sacred gifts given to the Church. It is instantiated in the sacrament of Holy Orders, and it is the hierarchs (or prelates) marked by this sacrament who are charged with special responsibilities for the ordering of Christian society. Modern scholarship tends to follow modern usage in imagining hierarchy as a ‘top-down’ sort of political and administrative structure, and much attention has been given to the ways in which medieval popes and bishops sought to establish themselves as all-powerful figures in the Church. Often overlooked, however, is the necessary correlative to hierarchy, which has come to be known in modern times as ‘subsidiarity.’ This is the insistence that hierarchical authority is exercised at all levels of the Church, from the highest to the lowest, and that the duty of the higher authorities in a hierarchy is to offer support (subsidium) to those beneath them. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, that hierarchs are endowed with the fullness of power (plenitudo potestatis) that they enjoy. Grosseteste understood perfectly this notion of hierarchy. The hierarch’s task, whether he was the parish priest, the abbot or prior, the archpriest or archdeacon, or the bishop himself, was to offer encouragement, direction, and support to those who were under his care. The bishop’s pastoral staff of office, the crozier or baculus, was a popular image representing these responsibilities. The crook or curved end was to be used to gather in those sheep who wandered away from the flock, while the pointed end, the stimulus, was both for goading reluctant sheep along the right path and for protecting the flock, and its prelates, from attack by those who would carry them off or harm them.46 Should the hierarch immediately responsible fail to exercise his function of support, guidance, and discipline effectively, it became the duty of his superiors to take him to task. From a bishop’s perspective, hierarchy was important. Not only did it give him the power to act with authority and discretion in his own diocese, but it also promised him support (subsidium) from those above.

Introduction

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Grosseteste’s correspondence with archbishops, cardinals, popes, and kings reflects the importance he placed on securing the support of those above him in the hierarchy, and on calling his superiors to account should they fail to provide him with the help he needed, or should they act against the best interest of the lesser hierarchs and their flocks.47 A second theme in the letters that bears emphasis partly because it sounds so unusual to modern ears is Grosseteste’s insistence that such abstract notions as love, truth, mercy, justice, and peace should have real consequences in human action and in the life of the Church. As a bishop and judge, Grosseteste was frequently called upon to choose between the competing claims of justice and mercy. The delicacy required of the prelate in such situations he sets out nicely in his Anglo-Norman poem Le Château d’amour, which Richard Southern has called ‘the fullest expression of [Grosseteste’s] pastoral theology.’48 Early in the poem, Grosseteste tells the story of a powerful king who had four daughters, each named for and embodying a different quality befitting their father. The firstborn daughter was called Mercy, the next Justice, the third Truth, and the youngest Peace. A servant of the king who had committed a grave offence was handed over for punishment and thrown into prison. Mercy hears of his plight and pleads with her father to have pity on the servant and grant him mercy. But when Truth hears this, she is incensed. She reminds her father that mercy without truth is nothing, and that the king’s duty is to seek and proclaim the truth, even when this requires extraordinary courage, and when it would be easier simply to have pity on the evildoer and ignore the claims of truth in the case. The third daughter, Justice, agrees with Truth. The servant deserves judgment, she says, for he has of his own accord forsaken the mercy, truth, justice, and peace that he had formerly enjoyed as a faithful servant. Finally Peace, the youngest daughter, arrives. Her speech sums up much of what Grosseteste thought was important, and difficult, in the judgments he was called upon to make as bishop: Noble father, listen to me. I am undoubtedly your daughter, born of your substance, and before you I should be heard. My two sisters [Truth and Justice] have abandoned me, and make their judgment without me. Similarly, Mercy was not called. No refuge therefore can be found for any living soul. For this reason I have fled; I will make my home with you until this conflict which has arisen among my sisters is resolved at last in peace. But why were truth and justice established if not to keep the peace? Justice has no other calling than to preserve peace. Should I then be denied when

22

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste all things were made for me and set down for my existence? Yet I am not at all preserved if Mercy is not heard. My words should carry great weight, for you are the Prince of peace. Peace is the end of all things; the one who has peace lacks nothing. Without peace there is no value in either riches or wisdom. The one who labours for peace will die in peace. Thus Peace should be heard on behalf of this servant who cries for mercy. I will tell you a most truthful statement about the four of us. Since four were established to make lawful judgments, and must all together make a single judgment, there will be no record of judgment until they are in agreement. They must agree as one and then form the judgment.49

There is scarcely a letter in the collection where one cannot see Grosseteste wrestling, explicitly or implicitly, with the competing claims of mercy and truth, justice and peace. The idea that peace, the last-born daughter, should be the underlying goal and endpoint of all his pastoral decisions may be counter-intuitive, given Grosseteste’s reputation, whether deserved or not, as a harsh and inflexible disciplinarian, but a reading of the letters with the four daughters in mind will reveal the very great importance he ascribed to pastoral care as a means of achieving true and lasting peace. Of course, only Christ, the Prince of Peace, can bring about a full reconciliation of his four daughters, but if any bishop ever took seriously the pastoral responsibility of imitating Christ in this regard, it was surely Robert Grosseteste. Chronology of the Collected Letters With few exceptions, the letters would seem to follow a clear chronological sequence, beginning when Grosseteste was about fifty years old and teaching in the schools, and ending shortly before his death in 1253, the nineteenth year of his episcopate. Master in the schools (perhaps in 1225) Letter 1 Archdeacon and canon of Lincoln Cathedral (1229–34) Letters 2–10 Bishop-elect of Lincoln (25 March–17 June 1235) Letters 11–13 First year as bishop of Lincoln (June 1235–June 1236) Letters 14–28 Second year (June 1236–June 1237) Letters 29–47

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Third year (June 1237–June 1238) Letters 48–57 Fourth year (June 1238–June 1239) Letters 58–72* Fifth year (June 1239–June 1240) Letters 73–85 Sixth year (June 1240–June 1241) Letters 86–9350 Seventh year (June 1241–June 1242) Letters 94–9 Eighth year (June 1242–June 1243) Letter 100 Ninth year (June 1243–June 1244) Letters 101–5,51 107–11 Tenth year (June 1244–June 1245) Letters 106, 112–13 Eleventh year (June 1245–June 1246) Letters 114–27 Twelfth year (June 1246–June 1247) None Thirteenth year (June 1247–June 1248) Letters 129 and 132 (Letter 129 is extant only in a register of a later bishop of Lincoln and was added by Luard to the collection; letter 132 is found only in Matthew Paris’s Chronica maiora and was added by Thomson to the collection.) Fourteenth year (June 1248–June 1249) None Fifteenth year (June 1249–June 1250) None Sixteenth year (June 1250–June 1251) None Seventeenth year (June 1251–June 1252) None Eighteenth year (June 1252–June 1253) Letter 128 (This letter was added to some manuscripts of the collected letters by medieval scribes.) Nineteenth year (June 1253–October 1253) None Letters 130–1 (probably spurious; added to the collection by Luard)

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

Text and Translation With the exception of epp. 1, 21, 22, 52*, 107, and 128, all of which are available in the more recent editions identified below in the headnotes of those letters, this translation is based on Henry R. Luard’s edition of Grosseteste’s collected correspondence for the Rolls Series (London, 1861).52 An examination of parts of Luard’s text against the manuscripts has revealed that his edition is sound, although a few errors have crept in. When it has been necessary to adjust Luard’s text, these emendations have been noted in the headnotes.53 We have translated not only all the texts printed by Luard or replaced by more recent editions, but also the probably spurious letters 130 and 131 in Luard’s volume, letter 132 (extant in Matthew Paris’s Liber additamentorum and added by Thomson to the collection), and two documents associated with Grosseteste’s long dispute with his chapter and printed here as appendices to ep. 127: the chapter’s objections to episcopal visitation (appendix A) and Pope Innocent IV’s letter of 1245 concluding the dispute (appendix B). The translators’ aim has been to provide an accurate and readable aid for the modern student who cannot understand Latin, or whose command of Latin is insecure. To permit easy comparison, when desired, with the Latin text, we have tried to produce a fairly literal translation, although the typically hyperbolic language of medieval epistolography and Grosseteste’s often diffuse style of writing do not pass smoothly into the more restrained and succinct prose preferred today. The demands, for example, of modern English usage have required us to reduce many of Grosseteste’s long sentences to two or more shorter, more easily comprehensible English statements. We have also made an effort to translate most of the modes of address (or deferential periphrases) that abound in the letters for their recipients – vestra veneratio, magnanimitas, caritas, discretio, dilectio, paternitas, fraternitas, dominatio, serenitas, etc., extending to such expanded forms as sanctitas paternitatis vestrae and to personal titles of humility (nostra parvitas) – in ways that seemed to us to be somewhat more natural in plain English. And to avoid any possibility of confusion of referents, Grosseteste’s use of the formal first-person plural – ‘we,’ ‘us,’ ‘our’ – to refer to himself and his actions – has been replaced with the corresponding singular forms. We acknowledge, however, that our preferences in this regard may perhaps help to obscure the self-consciously hierarchical structure that such Latin usages reflect, and within which correspondents sought to delineate and characterize, often in subtle ways, their relationships with one another. A similar hierarchical distinction is of course inevitably lost in the translation of Latin second-person forms

Introduction

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(‘tu/vos,’ ‘tuus/vester,’ etc.) into modern English, where ‘you’ and ‘your’ have both singular and plural functions. Readers who consult this translation alongside the Latin texts of the letters identified in the headnotes will observe not only the adjustments and preferences already mentioned, but also that we have often subdivided the English version into more paragraphs, have supplied identifications of Grosseteste’s scriptural citations within the body of the translation, have provided notes, and have without comment sometimes adjusted Luard’s punctuation in order to produce a coherent translation. On occasion we have gratefully borrowed the felicitous words and phrases and other irresistible renderings of previous translators.

notes 1 Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 5:407: ‘[D]omini Papae et regis redargutor manifestus, praelatorum correptor, monachorum corrector, presbiterorum director, clericorum instructor, scolarium sustentator, populi praedicator, incontinentium persecutor, scripturarum sedulus perscrutator diversarum, Romanorum malleus et contemptor; in mensa refectionis corporalis dapsilis, copiosus et civilis, hilaris et affabilis; in mensa vero spirituali devotus, lacrimosus, et contritus, in officio pontificali sedulus, venerabilis, et infatigabilis.’ For other contemporary and later assessments of Grosseteste and evaluations of his influence, see Southern, Growth, 5–25, 296–322; and J. McEvoy, ‘Robertus Grossatesta Lincolniensis: An Essay in Historiography, Medieval and Modern,’ in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 21–99. 2 Southern, Growth, 4. 3 Luard, Epp., 444 pages, not including glossary and indices. A page of errata follows the title page. An electronic, searchable copy of this edition, excluding the probably spurious letters 130–1 (see n. 8, below), is available at the website The Electronic Grosseteste (http://www.grosseteste.com). For a biography of Luard and an assessment of his editorial skills, see ‘Luard, Henry Richards (1825–1891)’ in ODNB. 4 Orthuinus Gratius [Ortwinus Gratius, Ortwin van Graes], Fasciculus rerum expetendarum & fugiendarum …, ed. Edward Brown, 2 vols. (London, 1690). Brown revised and expanded the earlier collection assembled by van Graes (d. 1542) and first published in 1535 in Cologne. The selection from Grosseteste’s works that was added by Brown is in vol. 2, pp. 250–415, and includes sermons, dicta, and letters. 5 When Luard’s text has been superseded by another edition, this is indicated in the note that prefaces each of the translated letters below.

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The Letters of Robert Grosseteste

6 Luard, Epp., xcii. Instead of arranging the letters in chronological order, Luard imposed this arrangement on his table of contents (xcix–cxxxi), which is for that reason rather difficult to consult. For his listing of the letters, Thomson reported (Writings, 192) that he had made a ‘tentative effort to revise the dates assigned by Luard.’ The translators have made a similar attempt in this book from internal and other evidence. 7 Luard, Epp., 437–44. 8 For these rejected letters (Luard’s 130 and 131), see F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Letter CXXX of Bishop Robert Grosseteste: A Problem of Attribution,’ in Med. St. 36 (1974): 144–59; and idem, ‘Letter CXXXI Ascribed to Robert Grosseteste: A New Edition of the Text,’ in Franciscan Studies 39 (1979): 165–79. 9 For letter 129, see Luard, Epp., 437–9; for letter 132, see Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, vol. 6 (= Liber additamentorum), 134–8 (no. 71). Thomson (Writings, 213) assigned the number ‘132’ to this letter in order to continue Luard’s sequence of numbers. For letter 128, see Brown, Fasciculus (n. 4, above), 400–1; Luard, Epp., 432–7; and n. 26, below. 10 See Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 6:213–17. S. Gieben, ‘Bibliographia universa Roberti Grosseteste ab an. 1473 ad an. 1969,’ in Collectanea Franciscana 39 (1969): 384 (no. 160), was the first of Grosseteste’s bibliographers to notice this letter. For a third letter of Grosseteste preserved by Matthew Paris, see Chronica maiora, 4:506–9, and p. 296n3, below. 11 See Rotuli Grosseteste, 502–7. The editor of these rotuli has appended transcriptions of one letter (pp. 502–3; addressed to W., bishop of Worcester, and undated) ‘preserved in the box with Grosseteste’s rolls’ and of others (pp. 503–7) in the Public Record Office, London. One of these (p. 504), addressed to King Henry III and dated 5 April 1248, reports the deposition of Flandrina (Flandria) de Braos(e) (Brewes), prioress (1241–8) of the Benedictine nunnery of Sts Mary and John the Evangelist at Godstow. Another (p. 503), also to the king, is dated 22 April 1244. Studied by C. Roth, The Jews of Medieval Oxford (Oxford, 1951), 127 (with misidentified source in n. 3), it records Grosseteste’s request that scholars arrested in Oxford for robbing the Jewish community there be surrendered for trial ‘in foro ecclesiastico.’ The other appended letters convey to King Henry III the bishop’s requests for royal coercion, ‘secundum regni ... consuetudinem,’ of designated incorrigible excommunicates. Among the records in the Rotuli, which report institutions to benefices, appointments, licences, grants, settlements of disputes, Inspeximus-charters, etc., there is one (p. 296) in epistolary form, addressed to J., vicar of Spaldwick and dated 11 September 1247, concerning the institution of Robert of Maperton as vicar of Leighton-Bromswold.

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12 Both Luard (Epp., xc–xci) and Thomson (Writings, 192) review some of the evidence for ‘lost’ letters, of which at least twenty are referred to in the correspondence of Grosseteste’s devoted friend, the Franciscan friar Adam Marsh (ca. 1200–59), ed. and trans. C.H. Lawrence, The Letters of Adam Marsh, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2006). For example, no. 16 of Marsh’s epistles – of which Grosseteste was the recipient of sixty – refers (Adam Marsh, Epp., 38–9, 40–1) to letters addressed by the bishop to Adam, to the masters and scholars of Oxford, to Edward of Westminster (keeper of the king’s works at Westminster), and jointly to Adam and a ‘Frater Radulphus’ (probably Ralph of Corbridge). No. 60 refers (Epp., 158–61) to a letter (carta) written in Grosseteste’s own hand and quotes its first sentence: ‘Scripsissem tibi aliqua de delectabilibus et de anxiis, sed circumstantia anxietatis et breuitas temporis non permiserunt.’ Similarly, in no. 28 (Epp., 72–7), Marsh responds to Grosseteste’s remarks in an earlier letter (carta) about the loneliness of his life as a bishop. In letter 51 are references (Epp., 142–3) to the ‘heartache,’ ‘sorrow and sadness’ at his own ‘imperfection,’ and ‘delay in putting his house in order’ that Grosseteste had, among other things, mentioned in the letter to which Adam is replying, and in letter 48 Adam repeats (Epp., 134–5) a remark that was part of a letter sent by Grosseteste in 1250 during his sojourn at the papal curia in Lyons: ‘Non propono nunc cedere, sed per uiam pretactam cum Dei adiutorio procedere.’ The first item in London, B.L., Cotton, Otho C.XV, whose contents are listed (p. 74) by Thomas Smith in his Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Cottonianae (Oxford, 1696), a catalogue produced before the Cotton fire of 1731, is identified as ‘Roberti Episcopi Lincolniensis epistola monitoria ad Priorem & Conventum de Newenham.’ This first text, whose incipit (‘Cupientes religionem veram’) is recorded by Thomas Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (London, 1748), 348, was destroyed by the fire, and the codex now begins with what was originally the second item, although there may be an allusion to the occasion of this letter (the presentation to a church in the patronage of Newnham priory, a community of Augustinian canons in Bedfordshire that appears frequently in Grosseteste’s Rotuli) in Adam Marsh’s letters 36 and 44 (Epp., 104–9, 120–3), which are addressed to Grosseteste. For other possible ‘lost’ letters, see section C, below, where excerpts possibly from three hitherto unknown ‘letters’ are printed with translations. 13 See the section on ‘Grosseteste’s Letter Collection,’ pp. 16–18, below. 14 For an account of the traditions of Latin epistolary writing, see G. Constable, Letters and Letter-Collections, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 17 (Turnhout, 1976), with extensive bibliography. For a valuable

28

15

16

17 18

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste study of an English bishop’s letter collection, see A. Morey and C.N.L. Brooke, Gilbert Foliot and His Letters (Cambridge, U.K., 1965), especially chap. 2. For an examination of modern critical approaches to the genre of epistolography, see G.R. Knight, The Correspondence between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux: A Semantic and Structural Analysis (Aldershot, U.K./ Burlington, Vt., 2002). For the cursus curie Romane, see especially N. Denholm-Young, ‘The Cursus in England,’ in F.M. Powicke, ed., Oxford Essays in Medieval History Presented to Herbert Edward Salter (Oxford, 1934), 68–103; Grosseteste’s letters are described (p. 84) as ‘often shockingly unrhythmical.’ Luard (Epp., xci) refers to two ‘lost’ manuscripts of the collected letters, once in the libraries of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Balliol College, Oxford. The Trinity copy, said by Luard to be part of the Gale Collection donated to the college by Roger Gale in 1738, has been identified by Dr David McKitterick, Librarian, as MS 0.10.16. This volume of seventeenthcentury transcripts in various hands has lost its final section (Grosseteste’s epistles), though three eighteenth-century shelf-lists (Trinity MSS Add.c.146, 147, and 148) and this volume’s own table of contents mention the letter collection. The Balliol manuscript seems likewise to have disappeared, unless it is the copy of the letters that is now the second part of MS Bodley 312 (see MS A.4, below), as has been suggested by R.A.B. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), who gives reasons (p. 381) for supposing that this section of the codex came from Balliol. A third ‘lost’ (or at least unidentified) manuscript of the letter collection is mentioned in n. 31, below. The title of the collection of epistolary excerpts in MS C.2 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 218), below, refers to a copy of letter L1, which is said to have been written ‘superius ex integro’ in the manuscript, but Dr Martin Kauffmann, of the Bodleian’s Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, has in a private communication reported that this copy has not survived. See C.G.C. Tite, ‘“Lost or Stolen or Strayed”: A Survey of Manuscripts Formerly in the Cotton Library,’ in C.J. Wright, ed., Sir Robert Cotton as Collector: Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and His Legacy (London, 1997), 283. See Brown, Fasciculus (n. 4, above), 317, 354, 400, 410; and Luard, Epp., xci–xcii. The principal Cambridge manuscript of the letters consulted by Brown was Sidney Sussex College 92 (see MS A.3, above), but he also examined the copies in Corpus Christi College (MSS 123 and 453: A.1 and A.2, above), and, for epp. 23 and 128, Trinity College MS B.15.20 (see B.3, below). His use of the Latin abbreviations ‘Cod. Ben.’ and ‘Cod. Bened.’ to refer to one

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20 21 22

23

24

25 26

29

of the Cambridge manuscripts he collated must, as Dr Colin Tite has informed us, be his way of identifying Corpus Christi College, as this college was previously often called ‘Benet’ (or ‘Bene’t’s’) College. A handwritten note at the beginning of the rebound Otho C.XIV reports that transcripts, ‘probably from this MS,’ were made by James Ussher (1581–1656) in MS D.3.10 (780) of Trinity College, Dublin. There is no detailed published description of this Dublin manuscript, but in a private communication Dr Frances Clarke, assistant librarian in the Department of Manuscripts, reported that this copy does indeed refer to the Cotton manuscript, but that none of Grosseteste’s letters are among the transcriptions. For further information about the Cotton manuscript of the letters, including its use by John Selden (1584–1654) in his The Historie of Tithes ([London], 1618), see C.G.C. Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London, 2003), 154. Thomson, Writings, 194. Baur, Die Werke, 106–11, 112–19. For defects in Baur’s text, see the headnote to letter 1. Thomson, Writings, 98–9 (no. 46), 104–5 (no. 54). Neither Baur nor Thomson knew of the copies of letter 1 in the College of Arms, London (MS Vincent 418, fols. 159r–160v) and Gloucester Cathedral (MS 2, fols. 80r–82v). This register was edited by W.W. Capes, The Register of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford (A.D. 1283–1317) (Hereford, 1909). Because, however, Grosseteste’s letter had already been published by Luard and had ‘no connexion with the diocese of Hereford,’ Mapes (p. 38) did not provide a transcription of it. This copy of ep. 48 has not been examined and a facsimile has not been requested, as approximately 1/4 inch of the text on the right-hand side of the writing surface has been bound into the gutter. See the list and its headnote in Councils and Synods, 265–7, and the longer list in C.R. Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1968), 11–15. Cheney believed (p. 112) that Brown, the first scholar to print Grosseteste’s Constitutiones (Fasciculus, 2:410–14), had used ‘as his main text’ the copy in MS ‘H’ (Cotton, Nero D.II), but Brown was more likely to have used the ‘codex Cottonianus’ (Otho C.XIV: MS A.6, above) that he had already collated for his text of the letters. Luard, Epp., xci. See the list and accompanying manuscript notes in F.A.C. Mantello, ‘“Optima Epistola”: A Critical Edition and Translation of Letter 128 of Bishop Robert Grosseteste,’ in Distinct Voice, pp. 280–8. To this list may be added the copies of ep. 128 in two Cotton manuscripts, Claudius E.III and

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29 30 31

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste Titus A.XIX, as Dr Colin Tite has kindly informed us. See also Gieben, ‘Bibliographia universa’ (n. 10, above), 384 (no. 161). For pre-fire information about Vitellius C.XIV, see Smith’s Catalogue (n. 12, above); and Tite, Early Records (n. 19, above), 165. For a description of this fragment, see F.A.C. Mantello, ‘The Endleaves of Trinity College Cambridge MS 0.4.43 and John Wyclif’s Responsiones ad argumenta cuiusdam emuli veritatis,’ in Speculum 54 (1979): 100–3, esp. n. 10. The Latin text of the excerpts printed below is based upon a collation of MSS C.1–C.5. There are no significant variants. Thomson, Writings, 192. But see the arguments below (‘Grosseteste’s Letter Collection,’ pp. 16–18) in favour of a much earlier date. A third post-medieval manuscript – Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Moreau 1260, fols. 18r–21v – copied by François-Jean-Gabriel de La Porte du Theil (1742–1815), is described by Thomson (Writings, 194) as a collection of excerpts from Grosseteste’s epistles, but its entries are in fact not extracts but only notes and summaries, e.g., ‘[Ep.] 16, p. 9, Fratri Joanni de S. Aegidio: Vocat eum pro praedicatione verbi Dei.’ There are similar entries for letters 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14–16, 20 (L21), 23, 25, 27, 28, 34, 37, [38], [39], 40, 41, 51, 52, 53 (L52*), 57 (L56), 59 (L58), 60 (L59), 74 (L72*), 95–98 (L80–83), 100 (L59?), 101 (L58?), 103 (L86), 112 (L95), 128 (L111), 134 (L117), 140 (L124), [?] (L127). As in the example, each of these entries, with the heading ‘De Epistolis Roberti Lincolniensis,’ usually includes the number of the letter, a page number, the name of the recipient(s), and a summary of contents. La Porte du Theil was apparently unaware of Brown’s edition of the letters (a reference to which was added by another hand in the top left corner of fol. 18r) and indicated in a note that the source of his entries was a (not yet identified) manuscript from the Dominican community of Gaeta (founded in 1255), which had been made available to the French scholar by the Dominican friar Paolo Pico, secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Index (or Congregation for Forbidden Books): ‘Habet eas [epistolas Roberti Grosseteste] codex MS Bibliothecae Sancti Dominici de Cajeta (= Gaeta). [A]ccepi dictum Codicem a Fratre Paolo Pico Dominicano a Secretis Congregationis Indicis.’ From the series of page numbers, which extend to ‘70,’ recorded by La Porte du Thiel in his notes, it would appear that this manuscript contained a substantial collection of Grosseteste’s letters. We are most grateful to Dr Paolo Vian, director of the Department of Manuscripts at the Vatican Library, for all the time and trouble he took to search for this manuscript among those in the Vatican Library that belonged to the Congregation of the Index before its suppression by Pope Benedict XV in 1917.

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32 See n. 4, above. 33 The handwriting of Windsor and Twyne has been reproduced in The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632–1695 ..., ed. A. Clark, vol. 4: Addenda (Oxford, 1895), plates VII–IX. Twyne’s extensive manuscript collections, some volumes of which (including MS 280) are now in the Corpus library, were exploited by Anthony Wood for his own writings. Clark (ibid., 87–312) has tried to identify every manuscript cited by Wood, and the resulting catalogue, p. 274, indicates that several Twyne volumes used by Wood include excerpts from Grosseteste’s letters. Clark also notes (ibid.) that pp. 23–56 of MS 2 (pt. 2) of Richard James (d. 1638) in the Bodleian Library preserve extracts from Grosseteste’s letters. James was a contemporary and friend of Twyne, a fellow of Corpus, and, from ca. 1625, Sir Robert Cotton’s librarian. We are indebted to Mr Julian Reid, college archivist, for kindly responding to queries about MS 280 of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 34 Luard, Epp., xci. 35 Thomson, Writings, 192. 36 See n. 8, above. 37 See p. 4 and n. 9, above. 38 See p. 4 and n. 9, above. 39 See B.10 (p. 11) and n. 26, above. 40 See Thomson, Writings, 141–7. This dossier has been edited by S. Gieben, ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons 1250: Edition of the Documents,’ in Collectanea Franciscana 41 (1971): 340–93, and studied by J. Goering, ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia,’ in Distinct Voice, 253–71. For a general appreciation of Grosseteste’s activities in this period, see McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 31–50. 41 See Thomson, Writings, 214. A transcription of the Dicta, ed. E.J. Westermann and J. Goering, is available at The Electronic Grosseteste (see n. 3, above). 42 See McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 43–50; and Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care.’ 43 See Southern, Growth, 32–48; and J.R. Ginther, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Theologian’s Task,’ in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 239–63, at 256–62. 44 For an early example of this change from scholar to bishop, see the discussion of letter 5 in J. Goering, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Jews of Leicester,’ in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 181–93. 45 See C.T. Quinn, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Corpus Dionysiacum: Accessing Spiritual Realities through the Word,’ in Editing Robert Grosseteste, 79–101. 46 Grosseteste’s pastoral staff bore the inscription ‘Per baculi formam prelati discito norman’ [= normam, i.e, ‘standard, pattern’].’ See J.W.F. Hill, ‘The

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49 50 51

52 53

The Letters of Robert Grosseteste Tomb of Robert Grosseteste with an Account of its Opening in 1782,’ in Callus, Grosseteste, 246–50, Appendix 3; and J. McEvoy, ‘Robert Grosseteste: The Man and His Legacy,’ in Editing Robert Grosseteste, 3–29, at 21–3. See J. Goering, ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia,’ in Distinct Voice, 253–76. Southern, Growth, 225. For an English translation of this poem, see E.A. Mackie, ‘Robert Grosseteste’s Anglo-Norman Treatise on the Loss and Restoration of Creation, Commonly Known as Le Château d’amour: An English Prose Translation,’ in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 151–79, at 160–79. Mackie, trans., Le Château d’amour, in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 164. Four letters – nos. 86–9 – to Boniface of Savoy are included here perhaps because Boniface was elected archbishop of Canterbury in February, 1241. Two letters – nos. 104–5 – to Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, probably written in the sixth year, and a third letter to Otto and one to Pope Innocent IV – nos. 110 and 111 respectively, probably written in the ninth year – are included here perhaps because of Grosseteste’s preparation for his visit to the papal curia at Lyons in 1244–5. See n. 3, above. Readers are referred also to Luard’s list of errata following the title page of his edition. These corrections have not been reported in the headnotes to the translated letters.

THE LETTERS OF ROBERT GROSSETESTE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN

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1 To Adam Rufus, a former student. A discussion of two questions posed by Adam, the first concerning the proposition, ‘God is the first form and the form of all things,’ and the second concerning intelligences, that is, angels, ‘whether they are in distinct places or in any one place at the same time.’ Written probably between 1225 and 1228. Editions: Baur, Die Werke, 106–19; Luard, Epp., 1–17. The translation below is of Baur’s edition, with the following corrections: p. 106/lines 18–19: read existimabar for existimabam; 106/19: read tamen for enim; 108/20: read ipse forma et species for ipse et species; 109/23: read in mente artificis artificii for in mente artificii; 111/11: read corpora for corpore; 112/13: read sicut for sicus; 112/18: delete mundi corpore sit dimidius at in alio dimidio; 114/9–10: read Augustinus for Ambrosius; 116/1: read video for vides; 117/16: read iuvando for iurando; 118/24: read ista for ita.

To Master Adam Rufus,1 dear to him in Christ, Robert Grosseteste, socalled master,2 sends greeting. With a bountiful and sweet affection you have asked me to send you in writing my thoughts about these words: ‘God is the first form and the form of all things.’3 This I have done as best I could, though not as I 1 Adam Rufus (‘of Oxford’ or ‘of Exeter’) was one of Grosseteste’s favourite students. Here he is addressed as ‘master,’ and he may have been teaching in his own school, perhaps in the Arts faculty at Oxford, when he wrote to Grosseteste asking his opinion on these matters. It has been argued recently that Adam is the author of the scientific treatise on the tides De fluxu et refluxu maris often attributed to Grosseteste; see Southern, Growth, 122–3. It was apparently at Oxford that Adam took the Franciscan habit, ca. 1230. For his exploits as a Franciscan, see Letters 2 and 38. See also Emden, BRUO, 1:660. On the context and dating of this letter, see J.J. McEvoy, ‘Der Brief des Robert Grosseteste an Magister Adam Rufus (Adam von Oxford, O.F.M.): ein Datierungsversuch,’ in Franziskanische Studien 63 (1981): 221–6, and n. 3, below. 2 The honorific title ‘master’ at this time signifies someone who has taught, and was qualified to teach, in the schools. We know very little with certainty about what, when, or where Grosseteste taught in the years before 1229. See Southern, Growth, 62–82; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 19–30; J. Goering, ‘When and Where Did Grosseteste Study Theology,’ in New Perspectives, 56–88. 3 James McEvoy has suggested that the proposition ‘God is the first form and the form of all things’ should be read in light of the writings of John Scotus (Eriugena), which were undergoing careful scrutiny in the schools during the 1220s. Eriugena’s most famous work, the Periphyseon, was condemned by Pope Honorius III in a letter dated 23 January 1225 and addressed to the archbishops and bishops of France. The

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wished to do, for I have preferred to offer an inquiring friend the small amount I had than to be thought to have refused the great amount I was supposed to have. Indeed, on so great a subject as this nothing that is true can be small, although the words used may not be grand because of the speaker’s small competence, and yet because of our small competence to speak of it, it cannot be expressed in grand words. Since that is the case, and your request demands my attention, I am going to say a few things about this grand subject in words that are not grand, replying first of all, dear friend, that in my view it is true that ‘God is form and the form of all things.’ And since he is form, he is of necessity the first form, because before him there was nothing: he is the first and the last. Now, if you ask what makes me think that God is form and the form of all things, my answer is the great authority of the great Augustine. For in the second book of The Free Choice of the Will 4 he says this: ‘Whatever changeable reality you look at, you will be unable to grasp it either by a bodily sense or by mental scrutiny, unless it is held together by some form composed of numbers; take this away and it falls back into nothingness. So have no doubt that there exists some eternal and changeless form that ensures that these changeable things do not cease to exist, but pass through, so to speak, specific temporal stages with measured movements and a precise variety of forms. This eternal and changeless form is neither confined or, as it were, spread out in space, nor extended or altered by time. And it is through this form that all changeable realities are able to receive their forms and to realize and complete, each according to its kind, the numbers belonging to place and time. For every changeable reality must also be something that can receive form. Just as we use the term “changeable” to describe something capable of undergoing change, so I would call “formable” whatever is capable of receiving form. But nothing can impart a form to itself, because nothing can give itself what it does not possess, and certainly a thing is given a form so that it may possess it. So, if anything possesses a form, it has no need to receive what it already possesses. But if it does not possess a form, it cannot

condemnation was also sent to the archbishops, bishops, and prelates of England early in 1225. Grosseteste may be seen to be defending a typically Eriugenian turn of phrase in this letter. See J.J. McEvoy, ‘Nature as Light in Eriugena and Grosseteste,’ in Man and Nature in the Middle Ages, Sewanee Mediaeval Studies, vol. 6, ed. S.J. Ridyard and R.G. Benson (Sewanee, Tenn., 1995), 49–53. 4 Augustine, De libero arbitrio 2.16.44–5 (CCSL 29:267–8).

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receive from itself what it does not possess. Nothing, then, as I have said, can impart a form to itself. So, it is right to conclude that body and soul, as changeable realities, receive their forms from a certain immutable and everlasting form. It was to this form that it was said: You shall change them and they shall be changed, but you yourself are the same, and your years shall have no end [Ps 101:27–8]. By “years without end” the prophet meant “eternity.” Of this same form it was likewise said that though it is itself unchanging, it makes all things new [Ws 7:27]. From this we are also to understand that all things are governed by providence. For if everything in existence becomes nothing if completely deprived of form, then this immutable form, through which all mutable realities subsist so as to reach perfection and completion by the numbers proper to their forms, is itself their providence, for if that one form did not exist, neither would they.’ Likewise, in book 13 of the Confessions5 Augustine addresses God the Father and asks: ‘What claim did inchoate spiritual creation have on you even to flow, unilluminated like the depths of the ocean, but unlike you, had it not by your Word been converted to the same Word by whom it was made and illuminated by him and made into light, though not equally, but conformed to a form equal to you?’ Similarly, in book 11 of the Confessions6 Augustine speaks to the Father, saying: ‘I shall stand and be made whole in you, in my form, your truth.’ Note that these authoritative texts of St Augustine clearly proclaim that God is form and the form of created beings. The text I also cited first, from the second book of The Free Choice of the Will, not only states this but also unerringly argues the point. It may also be argued from the concept of form that God is form, because form is that by which a thing is that which it is, just as the humanity that makes a man a man is the man’s form. Now God is of himself that which he is, for of himself he is God because he is God by virtue of his divinity, and divinity is God. So, since form is that by which a thing is that which it is, God is form. Likewise, who will not grant that God is beautiful of form and appearance? God, then, is form and appearance, since there is nothing in him that he is not. In the same way as, since he is just, he is himself the justice that makes him just, so, since he is beautiful of form and appearance, he is himself the form and appearance that make him beautiful of form and appearance; no, he is in fact beauty itself of form and appearance. 5 Augustine, Confessiones 13.3 (CCSL 27:243). 6 Ibid., 11.30 (CCSL 27:215).

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Similarly, what is form if not the completion or perfection of something? Now God is the completion and perfection that requires no completing or perfecting, and so he is form incapable of being formed, because he is utterly without defect and changeless. God is therefore the most perfect perfection possible, the most complete completion, the most beautiful of forms and appearances. Man is said to be beautiful, and so is the soul, and a house, and the world; there is beautiful this and beautiful that. Take away this and that and see, if you can, beauty in itself. In that way you will see God not as something beautiful by virtue of some form, but as the beauty itself of everything that is beautiful. When you hear God is form or beauty of form, and likewise truth, ‘do not ask,’ what is beauty of form? just as you are not to ask, ‘what is truth? For at once mists of bodily images and clouds of apparitions will place themselves in the way,’ as Augustine says in book 8 of The Trinity,7 ‘and obscure the brightness that first flashed its light upon you when the word truth’ or beauty of form ‘was said. See that you remain in that first flash of light that dazzled you like lightning when truth’ or beauty of form ‘is said to you; remain in it if you can, but if you cannot, you will revert to those usual earthly things.’ Observe that this is how God is of himself form and is said of himself to be form. So that, however, it may become clear in some way how he is the form of created beings – for he is not their form in the same way as if he were the substantial completive part of them, which, together with their matter, is made into a single reality – the meanings of this term ‘form’ must to some extent be explained. Form refers to the archetype on which a craftsman focuses his attention so as to shape the product of his craft as a copy and likeness of it. Thus the wooden foot on which a cobbler focuses to shape a sole after it is called the sole’s form. So, too, the life of good actions upon which we focus so as to mould the conduct of our lives in its likeness is called our form of living. Also called a ‘form’ is that against which material is pressed to be shaped, and when this is done the material receives a form that is a copy of that against which it is pressed. So we say of a silver seal that it is the form of its own wax impression, and of the clay mould used for casting a statue that it is the statue’s form. When a craftsman has in his soul the likeness of the object he is to craft, and focuses on that alone that he keeps in his mind so as to shape his object in its likeness, that likeness of the object in the mind of the craftsman is itself called the form of the 7 Augustine, De trinitate 8.2 (CCSL 50:271).

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object to be crafted. And this meaning of form is not very far in principle from the meaning I gave first. So, imagine in the mind of a craftsman the form of an object to be crafted, as, for example, in an architect’s mind, the form and likeness of a house he is to build. It is on this form and archetype that he focuses exclusively so that he may build a house in imitation of it. And imagine along with this, despite the impossibility, the will of that architect who wants to build the house, a will so powerful that it could by itself apply to the form in his mind the material to be formed into the house, an action by which the material would be shaped into a house. And imagine along with these mental images that the house’s building material were liquid and incapable of remaining in the form it had received if separated from the form in the architect’s mind, just as water given a shape by a silver seal would, once the seal is taken away, immediately lose the shape it had received. So, imagine the will of the architect applying the building material of the house to the form in his mind not only so that by this action the material may be shaped into the house, but also applying it there as long as the house remains in existence as a house, so that the house thus formed may be kept in existence. In the same way, then, in which the form of this material in the mind of that architect would be the form of the house, the creative imagination or wisdom or the Word of the almighty God is the form of all creatures. For it is simultaneously creation’s archetype, and that which brings it about and imparts its form, and that which conserves it in the form it has been given, when creatures are brought into contact with it and recalled to it. Moreover, that God may from this interpretation be called the form of created beings is quite clear from Augustine’s words, partly, for example, from that text I cited above, where he says that everything is governed by divine providence, and that this providence of things is an immutable form through which all mutable realities subsist so as to reach perfection and completion by the numbers proper to their forms. But this meaning of form becomes clear in part also in the rest of the text I cited from book 13 of the Confessions,8 where an angel is said to be converted to the Word of the Father, to the Word that made it, so as to be made into light and be conformed to a form that is equal to the Father, that is, to the Wisdom in which the Father made all things. In this context Augustine also wrote these words: ‘What claim on you had those spiritual and physical natures that you in your wisdom made? On 8 Augustine, Confessiones 13.2 (CCSL 27:242–3).

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that wisdom depended even things inchoate and formless, each of which in its own kind, either spiritual or physical, moves toward an uncontrolled state of excess and a remote dissimilarity to yourself. The spiritual state, though formless, is more excellent than if it were a formed body, but the physical state, though formless, is more excellent than if it had no existence whatsoever. So formless things depend on your Word, unless they are recalled by that same Word to your oneness and given form, and have being from you, the one, the supreme good, and are all very good’ [Gn 1:31]. Similarly, in his first homily on John,9 Augustine has this to say: ‘When a carpenter makes a chest, he first has the chest in his creative imagination. For if he did not have the chest there, from what source could he produce it by his workmanship? But the chest exists in his creative imagination in such a way that it is not the very same chest as it appears to the eyes. In his creative imagination it exists invisibly; in the handiwork it will exist visibly. Look, in the handiwork the chest has been brought into existence. Has it ceased to exist in the creative imagination? Both exist: the chest that was brought into existence in the handiwork, and the one that remains in the creative imagination. For the one chest may disintegrate with age, and from the one that exists in the creative imagination another may be fashioned in turn. Pay attention, then, to the chest as it is in the creative imagination and the one as it is in the handiwork! The second is not life, whereas the first is, because the soul of the craftsman, where all these things are before they are brought into existence, is living. So then, my very dear brothers, because the Wisdom of God, by which all things have been made, contains them all in accordance with his creative imagination before he fashions them therefrom, the things that exist through this imagination are not life immediately from the beginning, but whatever has been made is life in him [Jn 1:3–4]. You see the earth; there is an earth in his creative imagination. You see the sky; there is a sky in his creative imagination. You see the sun and moon; they, too, exist in his creative imagination, but externally they are bodies while in his creative imagination they are life.’ I know that you, from careful scrutiny and comparison of these authoritative texts, have the sagacity to grasp easily that the eternal Wisdom of God is thus the form of all things. It is just as if you were to imagine that the matrix of a silver seal is life, and an intelligence that understands itself, and whose will it is to shape in its own imitation and likeness liquid 9 Cf. Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus 1.17 (CCSL 36:10).

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wax that is more or less ready for imprinting but powerless in itself to remain in any design it has received; and as if it were by this very act of will alone to recall the formless and liquid wax to itself and apply it to itself, and by these actions to imprint it with some measure of its own likeness and in that imprinted likeness to preserve it. So, from what has already been said you will, I am saying, understand that the eternal Wisdom of the Father is the form of all things, just as that matrix of a silver seal, were it to exist, would be the form of the wax imprinted with its likeness in the way I described. Yet I have not mentioned this analogy about the way in which God is the form of all things, just as I have not adduced any of the points above, as in every respect appropriate to God’s excellence, because just as a created being cannot actually express God’s likeness perfectly, so, too, the created mind cannot imagine anything perfectly and entirely like God. You also wanted to know from me what I think about intelligences, that is, angels – whether they are in distinct places or are all in any given place at the same time? To this I reply first of all that God alone is wholly everywhere at the same time. ‘For he,’ as Augustine says in book 5 of The Trinity,10 ‘is present without position and wholly everywhere without location, just as he is good without quality, great without quantity, the creator who lacks nothing, who contains everything without possession, eternal without time, making mutable things without any change in himself, and suffering nothing.’ ‘Yet when we say that God is distributed everywhere, we must resist thinking carnally,’ as Augustine says in his book The Presence of God,11 ‘and divert our mind from our bodily senses, so that we do not suppose that God is distributed through everything by a kind of expansion in size, as earth or water or air or light are distributed. For every such expansion is less in the part than in the whole.’ God, however, is distributed everywhere, but in such a way that he is not spread out like a mass in the expanse of space, so that half is in one half-portion of the world, and half in the other half, and thus the whole of him fills the whole expanse. But he is wholly in the sky taken by itself and wholly in the earth taken by itself, and wholly in both the sky and the earth, confined in no one place, but wholly in himself everywhere, neither larger in the whole than in the part, nor smaller in the part than in the whole, and not more of him in the larger part nor less of him in the smaller one.

10 Cf. Augustine, De trinitate 5.1 (CCSL 50:207); cf. Grosseteste, De decem mandatis 2.5 (p. 24). 11 Augustine, Ep. 187 (De praesentia dei) 4.11 (CSEL 57:90).

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Now, although an understanding of these notions is beyond us, Augustine nevertheless uses the following example in the same text to help us discern them in some way in the midst of obscurity [1 Cor 13:12]. This is what he says:12 ‘Although that immortality of the body, of which Christ’s flesh was the first example and which is promised to us at the end of the world, is indeed something great, it is without question not great in the sense of size; it is a kind of incorporeal perfection, even though it is something possessed carnally. For although the immortal body is itself smaller in one of its parts than in the whole, its immortality is just as complete in the part as in the whole; and although some members are larger than others, there are nevertheless not some that are more immortal than others! Likewise, now, in this life, when we are healthy in every part of ourselves in the way that health is present in the body, we do not say, because the whole hand is larger than one of its fingers, that the health of the whole hand is therefore greater than that of the finger. Rather, when smaller are compared with larger in this way, health is itself found to be equal in those members that are unequal in size, so that a member that is incapable of being as large as another can nevertheless be just as healthy. There would be greater health in larger members if the larger were more healthy. But since this is not the case, and the larger and smaller are equally healthy, there is obviously a disparity in the sizes of the members but a similarity in the health of dissimilar members. Since, then, the body is a substance, its quantity consists in the extent of its bulk, while its health is not a quantity but a quality of it. So the quantity of the body could not attain what its quality could. For quantity, found in the separate parts that cannot be in company with one another, since each one has its own space – the smaller ones less space and the larger ones more – could not be entire or as great in each of the individual parts, but is larger in the larger parts and smaller in the smaller ones, and in no one part as great as throughout the whole body. At the same time, a body’s quality, which health is said to be, is as great in the larger parts as in the smaller ones when the whole body is in good health. For the parts that are less large are not for that reason less healthy, nor are the larger parts therefore more healthy. It must not be said, then, that what a quality of a created body can do in the body may not be done by the substance of the creator. God is therefore distributed through all things. Indeed he himself says through the prophet: I fill heaven and earth 12 Ibid., 4.12–14 (CSEL 57:90–2).

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[Jer 23:24]. But God is so distributed through all things as not to be a quality of the world, but the substance creative of it, ruling the world without toil and sustaining it without effort.’ By these words of Augustine, as I said above, our intellect is to some extent aided to understand – though as if from far off in a cloud – how it is that God is everywhere, because to understand completely how this is so is beyond the mental powers of any living person. Now, just as God is simultaneously and wholly everywhere in the universe, so the soul is simultaneously and wholly everywhere in the animated body. That is why Augustine has this to say when explaining how man is made in the image of God:13 ‘Just as the one God is always wholly everywhere, enlivening, moving, and governing all things, so the soul is wholly active everywhere in its body, enlivening, governing, and moving it; for it is not larger in the larger members of the body and smaller in the smaller ones, but it is wholly in the smallest members and wholly in the largest ones. And this is the image of the unity of the omnipotent God that the soul has in itself.’ In addition, Augustine says the same thing to the blessed Jerome about the origin of the soul:14 ‘The soul is wholly and simultaneously present in all parts of the body, not less in smaller parts and greater in larger parts; yet even so it is in some places more intensely active and in others more feebly, though it is essentially and wholly in each and every part of the body.’ In a similar way God is essentially in all things and wholly in them; yet he is said to be more perfectly in those in whom he dwells. Observe that from these words you have it clearly that the whole soul is essentially everywhere in the body it is animating, just as God is wholly and essentially everywhere in the universe he rules. The soul is not by essence in the heart or brain alone, and elsewhere in the body not by essence but by power, as some people may think,15 not taking into consideration that the power of the soul is either an accident of it, or its entire substance, or part of its substance. But if the soul’s power is its entire substance or part of it, wherever the power of the soul is, there is the

13 Pseudo-Ambrose (Alcuin?), De dignitate conditionis humanae 2 (PL 17:1015); cf. Hexaëmeron 8.7.1 (pp. 228–9). 14 Cf. Augustine, Ep. 166 (De origine animae hominis) 2.4 (CSEL 44:551; PL 33:722). Grosseteste is here quoting the entire passage, including most of the sentence that follows the citation from Augustine, from Peter Lombard, Sententiae 1.37.2.2. 15 This was a popular ancient idea; see McEvoy, Philosophy, 265.

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whole soul, because even where power is a part of the soul’s substance, the soul is wholly there, since it is not stretched out by physical size. But if the power of the soul is said to be an accident of it, since accident cannot be divided from subject, the soul is wherever its power and its substance are. But perhaps those who say that the soul is diffused throughout the whole of the body only by its power imagine the soul as a point of light situated in the heart or brain and diffusing its rays in all directions throughout the entire body. Such imagining is groundless, for the soul, being something purely incorporeal, is not localized. For if it were localized, a line could be drawn to it from a point selected outside the soul’s position, and the space between it and that designated point could be measured and accurately determined. This is even more impossible than a line’s being drawn from a designated point in the body to its health, or to the symmetry and proportion of its elements. So the soul is present in the body without site and whole everywhere without location, that is, without being circumscribed by the surface surrounding it. Yet the soul is commonly said to be, or to be situated, in that part of the body where it initiates the bodily movements it employs to guide the body, as, for example, in the heart, because from there it initiates the bodily movements it employs to bring the body to life; or in the brain, because from there it initiates the bodily movements it employs in perceiving or in moving its body in space.16 It is in terms such as these, then, that a localization is attributed to the soul, a localization that does not belong to it, but rather to the source of the body’s movement. The origin of the latter is the soul itself, which is not localized nor circumscribed by any spatial limitation. Now, just as the soul is present without site and without location, that is, without being circumscribed by any surrounding surface, and is whole everywhere in the body united to it, so, I believe, an angel is present without site and is whole everywhere without location in the body it has assumed for the sake of some ministry. For example, in the visible body – the one it assumed to help it perform its ministry and adapted to itself in wonderful ways – in which an angel appeared to Moses, or Abraham, or Lot,17 or to any other of the holy fathers, the angel was present without site and was whole everywhere without location. It is just as if you were to conceive of a soul that is not united to the body wherein it is, a soul that is not that body’s perfection, but nevertheless moves it and all its parts, just as it does now, and is receptive of its movements, just as it is now. On 16 Cf. Templum dei 2.5 (p. 31). 17 Cf. Ex 23:20–2 (Moses); Gn 18:1–15 (Abraham); Gn 19:1–23 (Lot).

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the basis of the relationship that the soul would retain with the same body and each of its parts, as being the body’s mover and governor and the power that acts upon it, the soul would be said to be present in the body without site, and whole everywhere in it without location. And I do not see what else it could mean for it to be ‘in’ this body, except to be related to it in the way that something moving and acting upon it, or receptive of its movements, is so related. So, in my opinion, to say that angels exist in the bodies they have assumed is to mean that they move and govern those bodies for the purposes of some ministry. But they have no site anywhere in those bodies, except perhaps in the way the soul is said to have a site in the heart, because from there it initiates the vital bodily movements. For that reason, too, site may be attributed to angels where they initiate movements in the bodies they have assumed. When, however, they do not have site in themselves, they are neither circumscribed within those same bodies by any physical surface, nor are they diffused spatially within them as light is diffused in the atmosphere, nor do they have any proximity to those bodies or accurately measurable linear distance from them. Now, if you were to ask how angels move the bodies they have assumed and appropriately transform them for the purposes of their ministry, my answer is that they do so in ways that, for a human being, or at least for one human being, me, are wonderful and indescribable. Yet consider, if you can, how the soul moves your body;18 for although it moves the gross members by the agency of sinews and muscles, and although it moves both of these by bodily spirits, it does not, however, move those spirits by any other intermediate body, but only by volition. For with an appetite that is either natural or voluntary and entirely incorporeal, it moves without an intermediary that corporeal thing that comes closer to the incorporeal by virtue of its subtlety. For the appetites of the soul are the purely incorporeal movements with which it proportionately sets in motion, without any intermediary, that which in bodies more closely approximates incorporeity, and this is bodily spirit or light; when this intermediary is set in motion, it moves the grosser bodies as a result. So, what wonder is it if an angel in its assumed body similarly sets in motion by volition alone first what is subtlest in it, and as a result moves by means of the latter what is both more gross and more remote from pure incorporeity? But it seems that the soul cannot thus physically move the body in a manner proportionate to its own incorporeal movement unless it has 18 Compare this description of bodily motion with Grosseteste’s discussion in the treatise De motu corporali et luce, in Baur, Die Werke, 90–2.

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been bound to the body, so that on account of the bond of this connection a proportionate motion of the body bound to the soul would follow upon the soul’s motion. Moreover, because of that connection there should not be too much surprise if material and local movement in a body attached and united to a soul follows upon that soul’s motion, even though this motion is immaterial and non-local. This happens with a hinge in a door, because that device, when set in motion without being moved itself, so to speak, or changing place, moves the entire door from one place to another. Now, what is the connection of an angel to the body it has assumed, that a proportionate bodily movement in that body should follow upon the angel’s volitional movement? For there is no uniting of an angel with the body it has assumed. I admit, as I said above, that I do not know how an angel moves and transforms its assumed body, especially as it is not united to it. Yet it seems certain that it moves that body by volition alone, just as the soul moves the body to which it is united. So this is what it means for an angel to be in an assumed body: to have the relation to it of something that moves and controls that body for the purpose of some ministry. An angel is also sometimes said to be in a particular place even though it has assumed no body. I do not believe that this is anything other than having some sort of relation – one of authority (praefectura) – to those things that are where the angel is said to be, so that it presides over the things there, either counselling, or assisting, or defending, or guiding them, or behaving in some such way in relation to them, in the way that something acting upon them and presiding over them is related. An angel is also said to be circumscribed by the place to whose contents it has such a relation. But when we read that an incorporeal spirit is circumscribed, this spatial limitation is not the delimitation of a local surface, but the relation of a spirit in some way presiding to what is contained only in that place. So an angel is present in such a place without being situated, and is whole everywhere in that place while not being in place, just as the soul is present in the body without being situated and, though not in place, is whole in every part, and just as God is present in the universe, not situated and not in place, but whole everywhere. And an angel is said to move from place to place when it gives up the position of one presiding over the things contained in one place and takes up the authority (praefectura) of one presiding over the things in a second place. So an angel is not entirely everywhere at once, because this is peculiar to God alone, who simultaneously enlivens, moves, and governs all things that he may be everywhere entire in himself and circumscribed by

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no place. But, as has been stated, whenever an angel is said to be somewhere, this is not because it is enclosed by a delimiting local surface or fixed in position at the point on the end of a line, but because it is set over the things contained in that place, having received some special power to act upon or preside over those contents. Even if an angel were to reveal itself to be ministering as a servant to any thing or things in a place, it would nonetheless be said to be in that place. As a kind of physical punishment, the evil angels are also said to be in the gloomy atmosphere and in hell,19 and likewise the souls of the wicked in the infernal place, because an incorporeal spirit is rightly said to be in that place when it is experiencing pain at the physical motions of the bodies located therein. For just as the soul, when it is in the body it invigorates, experiences pain and torment at the movements of that body because of very intense sensible qualities, so the separated soul that has deserved badly, and demons wickedly disposed toward bodies located in some place, experience pain and torment at the movements of those bodies because of sensible qualities. For just as a spirit that is not united to a body can, when disposed in some way toward that body, move it in the manner in which the soul moves that body when united to it, so evidently a spirit that is not united to a body can, when disposed in some way toward that body, experience pain when there is any movement of the body toward which it is disposed, just as a soul united to a body experiences pain when the body to which it is united is moved. But is it not possible that, just as an evil spirit experiences pain and torment at the movements of the body toward which it is wickedly disposed, a good spirit can experience delight at the movements of the body toward which it is well disposed, and that consequently it is even of benefit to the spirit to be in some physical place, because it can experience delight at the movements of the bodies contained therein? For there are feelings of delight just as there are also those of pain. When experiencing moderate sensations the soul responds with delight, just as it suffers pain as its sensations move toward extremes. But this is a matter about which I would prefer to listen humbly to a wise man than to assert anything rashly. Nevertheless, from what I have said above, if stated correctly, it may be inferred that for a created incorporeal spirit to be in some place or other is for it to have the relationship to the things contained in that place of one presiding over, or ministering to, or in some way acting upon them, or else of one suffering in some way at the movements of the things 19 Peter Lombard, Sententiae 2.8.1.1–3.

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contained there. And it is not that this spirit is in some place in such a way as to be circumscribed by a physical surface or fixed in position at some point, so that the distance or closeness between itself and other things with a fixed site may be measured accurately by drawing lines between them. I have said that evil spirits, and the souls of the wicked, and all souls when they are in the body, experience pain at the movements of particular bodies; I have not said that they are affected by the bodies, because although incorporeal substances may act upon bodies, as, for instance, more noble things on less noble ones, yet the reverse – bodies capable of acting upon incorporeal substances – is never the case, or so it seems, because what is more ignoble cannot act upon that which is more noble. Now, an incorporeal substance, even one that is formless, is more noble than any formed body. Concerning this question Augustine has these remarks in book 6 of his Music:20 ‘I do not believe that the body is animated by the soul except by its maker’s intention. Nor do I think that the soul is affected at all by the body, but it acts concerning it and in it as something divinely subjected to the soul’s dominion, operating at times with ease, at times with difficulty, according as, in proportion with its merits, the corporeal nature is more or less subject to it. So, whatever corporeal things are taken into this body or imposed upon it from without, they do something not in the soul, but in the body itself, something that is either opposed to its operation or consistent with it.’ From these words of Augustine it is clear that the soul, when it is in the body, is not affected by anything corporeal, and yet it must suffer when the body suffers. Similarly, it appears that an incorporeal substance separated from a body is not affected by anything corporeal, and yet at times it necessarily suffers when the body suffers or is moved. We must, however, not assert anything recklessly about this point. One should, however, maintain as a certainty that evil spirits and the souls of the wicked suffer in fire, either because the fire acts upon them, or because they necessarily feel pain when the fire grows hot, just as the soul necessarily suffers pain in the body when the body becomes heated or is stiff from excessive cold, although there is no corporeal action upon the soul, but rather a necessary occasion of that action. This is comparable to moving a mirror: that action is the necessary occasion of the movement of the rays reflected by it, though the mirror, once set in motion, does not cause the rays to move, for they move themselves. 20 Augustine, De musica 6.5.9 (PL 32:1168).

Letter 2

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I thought I had written something to you briefly and succinctly, but as I do not know how to describe a difficult and obscure subject with clarity and brevity, my letter has become too lengthy, and I am afraid that because of its prolixity it will be tedious for you to read. Yet I am asking you to read it and to consult carefully those profoundly intelligent and wise men with whom you associate as to their opinions about these matters. And if you find that, in their view or in your own, I have anywhere deviated from the truth, please write back and correct my error.

2 To Brother Agnellus of Pisa, provincial minister of the Franciscans (Friars Minor) in England, and to the Franciscan community at Oxford. A letter of consolation, to be dated between 1229 and 1232 (when Grosseteste was archdeacon of Leicester), on the departure of Brother Adam Rufus, who is leaving England to preach to the Saracens. Edition: Luard, Epp., 17–21 (reading, p. 18/line 34, velut for vel ut).

To lords most beloved and sincere, and surpassing all others in the most abundant grace, Brother Agnellus,1 minister of the Friars Minor, and the community at Oxford,2 Robert, archdeacon of Leicester,3 sends greeting. You are men of true charity who know it has been written that where your treasure is, there also is your heart [Mt 6:21], and you do not question that

1 Agnellus of Pisa had been appointed by Francis to bring a small group of nine friars to England as head of the English Franciscan province. They reached Dover on 10 September 1224. See A.G. Little, ‘The Franciscan School at Oxford in the Thirteenth Century,’ in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 19 (1926): 803–74, at p. 803. 2 The first Friars Minor arrived in Oxford before the end of October, 1224. The community must have grown rapidly, and a number of Oxford masters joined the order there between 1227 and 1232, including Adam Rufus and Adam Marsh. In addition, many Englishmen who had taken the Franciscan habit in Paris returned to England and joined the Oxford convent during the dispersion of masters and scholars from Paris in 1229. See Little, ‘Franciscan School,’ 803–6; idem, The Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxford, 1892). Cf. Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum. 3 Grosseteste was appointed archdeacon of Leicester, in the diocese of Lincoln, in the spring of 1229. He resigned the office around 1 November of 1232. See Fasti: Lincoln, 34, and Letters 8–9. During these same years he was serving as the first ‘reader’ (teacher) in the Franciscan school at Oxford. See Little, ‘Franciscan School,’ 807–8; D.A. Callus, ‘Robert Grosseteste as Scholar,’ in Callus, Grosseteste, 10–11.

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every precious object of a person’s deeply felt love is called a treasure. You remember, too, that the word ‘heart’ stands for ‘love.’ Hence you acknowledge with complete certainty that love is in the same place as the precious object of that love. Furthermore, it is well known and indisputable that love and lover cannot be separated, and so it is obvious that a lover and the recipient of that love are together. So it is plain that the one who loves and the one who returns that love are together to a much greater degree, because for those who love one another the lover of the other is also the object of the other’s love, and because each of the two entirely enters the other at the moment, as it were, they look upon one another, and because they grasp each other in a mutual embrace and can never be parted. Secondly, you know it has been written that the whole body of believers was one in heart and soul [Acts 4:32], and it is also clearer than the light of day that things that are one are not parted from one another. Those, then, who love one another and have faith while they love can never, as long as they love and believe in this way, be parted and isolated from one another, since they belong together – no, they are actually one – as is plain from the irrefutable authority of Scripture. So grief about the parting of, or distance between, true believers and those who love each other in mutual charity is a futile grief, because this is grief about something that is nothing, that exists only in an illusion born of erroneous opinion and worldly imagining. For the disunion and isolation of those things that are together as one are not a real separation, but only a sham and imaginary one. So, it is unseemly for this kind of grief to befall spiritual men who have both passed beyond worldly imaginings and been bathed in the light of truth, for men like this have nothing to do with what is vain and futile. Now, I am going to explain briefly the purpose of the remarks that have preoccupied me in such a long introduction. Brother Adam of Oxford4 is to be physically separated and isolated from you, while the Lord promotes

4 Adam of Oxford is the same Adam to whom Grosseteste addressed Letter 1. He joined the Franciscans at Oxford on 25 January of some year, perhaps 1230 or 1231. See Little, ‘Franciscan School,’ 833; idem, Grey Friars, 178–9; McEvoy, ‘Der Brief des Robert Grosseteste an Magister Adam Rufus (Adam von Oxford, O.F.M.): ein Datierungsversuch,’ in Franziskanische Studien 63 (1981): 224–5; Southern, Growth, 74. Soon after taking his vows he received permission to embark on a missionary journey among the ‘Saracens and other infidels.’ He went first to Rome, whence he was sent by Pope Gregory IX to preach to the Muslims. Apparently he died before embarking from southern Italy. Many miracles were reported at his tomb in the Franciscan convent in the coastal town of Barletta (Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 17–18); see Letter 38, p. 157.

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this brother’s holy and praiseworthy plan. Some of the brothers who are still the weaker ones could perhaps feel grief at his separation from them in this way – as if this were nothing more than his being parted from them – in the absence of some strengthening beforehand to counteract this weakness, like a tonic that preserves one’s good health. That is why I wanted to send you this letter, to serve as such a tonic for the benefit of those who are weak, should there perhaps be any such brothers in your holy company. It is not that I believe there are not a great many men in your holy society – men made perfect after the measure appropriate to this earthly pilgrimage of ours – who are especially knowledgeable and effective at urging upon weaker members any action they consider best for such brothers, and who wish keenly to do so. But such is the nature of spiritual medicine, that the more people who administer it, the more effectively does it bring about salvation. And spiritual physicians are not jealous of their fellow workers, but desire their numbers to increase as much as possible. That is why Moses, too, desires the spirit of prophecy for everyone when he says: Who may grant that all the people may be prophets and that God may bestow his spirit on them [Nm 11:29]? And the Apostle rejoices at God’s being proclaimed, whether with false motives or true [Phil 1:18]. So the physical parting of bodies should not, as I warned before, be an occasion for grief, even though their being together is a matter for delight, because the isolation of bodies does not separate people from one another, especially those joined in mutual charity and brought together as one. For a man is a man only on the inside, and that is why, when parts of the outer man have been cut off, he remains no less one and the same man. If you amputate my hands and feet and pluck out my eyes, I can still truthfully say and, if you sever my tongue, still truthfully think, that I am Robert, that I exist, that I am that mutilated man who previously was whole. And of those whose bodies have been reduced to dust God has this to say: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, not the God of the dead but of the living [Ex 3:6, Mt 22:32]. Truly, then, do Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live, though their bodies are now dust. So it is in terms of the inner man that a man truly and simply exists and is alive. But as far as concerns that inner man there can by no means be any separation from one another of those who love each other. For that reason, as has been said, there is no separation of those who love one another. So, how is the parting of someone from another something for the latter to grieve about, when the one he truly loves cannot be parted from him? It is easy to see how much one would err were he to believe that the physical distance between human bodies were a matter for grieving. For

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if the distance between himself and another’s body is something for anyone to grieve about, all the more would he have to feel grief at that body’s non-existence. But in the opinion of the blessed Jerome,5 the death of a friend, which is followed by the decay of his body, should not cause one to grieve, and so neither should the distance from oneself of a friend’s body. Nor does it follow that if being in another’s presence is agreeable, that person’s absence must be an occasion for grief. For both movement and rest delight a healthy person; seeing white and black pleases a healthy eye; high- and low-pitched sounds give pleasure to a physically sound sense of hearing. So, too, the presence of a friend’s body is sweet to a wholesome love, and yet its absence, if beneficial, is sweet as well. Suppose, furthermore, that the friend’s body is lifeless: is it really possible that you will love its actual presence? Even if that body were alive with a life that was only vegetative and sensible, its physical presence would not be something to love, but would perhaps be unbearable. That is why, then, a body’s presence is to be understood as its rational life, and why the presence of such a life in and of itself is what one holds dear; this cannot be absent for one who loves another. So Brother Adam’s physical absence from you should distress none of the brothers, especially as any good and reasonable assumption must be that his absence will, with the help of God’s grace, be beneficial. For the light of his knowledge is so bright that with good reason it is being placed most of all where it may dissipate the thickest shadows of unbelief.6 So great, too, is his ardour, that with God’s help it melts and warms hearts of stone and ice. Nor should such a lamp be put under a measure, but on the lampstand, that it may give light not only to those who have been illuminated by faith, but also to everyone in God’s great house [Mt 5:15] who is in the darkness of unbelief. And this lamp should be placed not on the lowest part of the lampstand, but in its middle and on its highest point. If, then, Brother Adam did not have such a plan of his own free will, he would have to be compelled by you to do so, so that every one of God’s freely given gifts would be put to use in him, and none of his bodily members would fail from sluggishness to perform the function and office for which it was properly destined. And no one should be concerned that

5 Cf. Jerome, Ep. 75.1 (CSEL 55:30). 6 This is an allusion to missionary preaching among the infidels. Such preaching evoked widespread interest in the West at this time; see J. Richard, La papauté et les missions d’orient au Moyen Âge (XIIIe–XVe siècles), 2nd ed. (Rome, 1998).

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Adam has studied Sacred Scripture for only a short time.7 For he has the articles of faith firmly fixed in his humble heart, and where humility dwells in a foundation built of catholic faith, heretical wickedness does not enter.8 He has a quick and keen intellect, he has the anointing that teaches about all things,9 he has the Paraclete as his master, who teaches him all the truth [Jn 16:13]. Your order could not be more adorned or honoured by so glowing a jewel than by setting it against the darkness of unbelief.10 And it should not be believed that Adam adopted such a plan impulsively, without careful consideration and deliberation, because I know for a fact that before he received your habit he had fixed this plan firmly in his mind, and he took your habit all the more willingly because he believed that by so doing the plan he had decided on could be completed better and more quickly, and be more useful to those closest to him and more pleasing to God.

3 To the dean, William of Thorney, and the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, 1231–32. Grosseteste had obtained permission to go on pilgrimage, leaving shortly after

7 Adam may have been a student of Grosseteste’s and an academic assistant (socius) to another of his students, Adam Marsh, for a short time before taking the Franciscan habit; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 17; McEvoy, ‘Der Brief des Robert Grosseteste’ (see n. 4, above), 224–5. 8 On the ‘articles of faith’ as the foundation of a Christian life, see Grosseteste’s Templum dei 3.1–4 and 7.13–25 (pp. 32–3, 43–5). 9 ‘Anointing’ probably refers to the sacrament of confirmation, which follows upon baptism, and confers the ‘strengthening’ (confirmatio) of the Holy Spirit or ‘Paraclete.’ Cf. Templum dei 3.2 (p. 32): ‘Confirmation confirms the Holy Spirit in the baptized.’ 10 The Franciscan Order was already well known for its missionary preaching. St Francis had made a missionary tour of Eastern Europe and Egypt in 1219–20, even preaching, at great risk, to the sultan al-Kâmil during the siege of Damietta. Cf. Richard, La papauté, 19–61; E.R. Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages (Lexington, Ky., 1975). In the Rule of 1221 Francis wrote: ‘Any of the friars who are inspired by God to go among the Saracens and other infidels may do so, with permission from their minister. But the minister must give them permission and must not prevent their going, so long as they are suitable. ... And all friars, wherever they are, must remember that they have given and surrendered their bodies to our Lord, Jesus Christ, for love of whom they ought to expose themselves to all enemies both visible and invisible’ (quoted in J.R.H. Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517 [Oxford, 1968], 226).

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Epiphany, 6 January 1232, and returning around Pentecost, in May of that year (see Letter 4). Perhaps he had hoped to accompany Adam Rufus as far as Rome (see Letter 2, n. 4). But the bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, had forbidden him to leave because of disturbances caused by a series of coordinated attacks in the surrounding countryside against Roman clergy holding English benefices. Here Grosseteste describes the circumstances of his change of plans, and defends himself against the charge of inconstancy. Edition: Luard, Epp., 22–5 (reading, p. 22/line 15, prius quam for priusquam, and 24/24, Vindicianus for Vindiciamus).

To the venerable lords, William,1 revered father in Christ and dean of Lincoln, and the revered brothers and fellow canons2 in residence there, Robert, archdeacon of Leicester, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards, together with all his respect. To all of you together as one I respectfully give as many thanks as I can, though not as many as I owe, for so kindly permitting me to go abroad on pilgrimage, and for deigning to bear witness in letters patent to the granting of this permission.3 But I do not wish to hide from men of your discretion the fact that I am for a while longer not going to undertake this pilgrimage, for the following reason: when I had got myself ready to depart on the journey, I went to the venerable father, the lord bishop of Lincoln,4 to say farewell, as was proper, to the one from whom I had, before you so graciously permitted it, received permission to leave. This revered father and lord discussed my pilgrimage with his brother, the lord bishop of Bath, with the archdeacons of Lincoln, Northampton, Huntingdon, and Bedford, and with a great many other discreet and 1 Master William of Thorney (de Thornaco) was dean of Lincoln Cathedral from 1223 to 1239; see Fasti: Lincoln, 10. As dean of the cathedral chapter, he held the highest dignity in the diocese after that of the bishop. Years later, in 1239, when Grosseteste is bishop of Lincoln, he will suspend William from office; see Letters 77, 79–81. 2 The canons of Lincoln Cathedral, of whom Grosseteste was one, formed the governing body or ‘chapter’ of the cathedral church. See Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals, 33–96. 3 Grosseteste’s emphasis on the part played by the dean and chapter in witnessing letters patent that granted him permission to leave should perhaps be read in light of Letter 4 (p. 61): ‘I had also decided to start on my pilgrimage immediately after Epiphany, and my witnesses to this are important and very trustworthy men, so important that no one could object.’ 4 Hugh of Wells was bishop of Lincoln from 1209 to 1235; see Fasti: Lincoln, 3; Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 186.

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prudent men, who, because of their sincere affection for me,5 were not a little anxious about my safety. In accord with their unanimous advice, I was strictly forbidden by our most beloved father and dread lord, the lord bishop of Lincoln, to start on the journey I had proposed. Instead I was to wait until it was better known what the outcome would be of the disturbance that had arisen from the plundering and capture of some Romans and – or so it is said – the murder of some of them.6 If there was any chance that I would fall into the hands of the Romans at a time when their recent injuries were rousing in them a mad craving for revenge, I might meet with danger or incur some serious loss.7 So I decided to accept this advice from such wise and eminent men, whose concern for me reflected the very great sincerity of their love. Were I to ignore their 5 Jocelin of Wells, the younger brother of Bishop Hugh, was bishop of Bath and Wells from 1206 to 1242; see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 186. Four of Grosseteste’s seven fellow-archdeacons were also present at the discussions. That so many dignitaries should be gathered together implies that the ‘disturbances’ (see below) were taken very seriously. 6 This meeting must have occurred late in December, after the first reports of disturbances had been received, but before the details were known. It would be learned subsequently that a formal association (communitas) had been created to oppose by force the growing number of Roman clergy holding parochial benefices in England. This society had sent letters, under its own corporate seal, to bishops and to chapters in the name of ‘the whole community of those who would rather die than be put to shame by the Romans.’ These letters set forth their grievances and asserted their determination ‘to rescue the Church as well as the king and the kingdom from the yoke of such oppressive slavery.’ Similar letters were sent to monasteries and others with patronage of parochial churches, warning them not to pay rent to the Romans for the lands they held that belonged to churches of Roman incumbents, but instead to pay the money to agents of the society. In mid-December, a band of armed and masked men captured and robbed an Italian canon of St Paul’s, Cincio by name, on his way from St Albans to London. John of Ferentino, an Italian archdeacon of Norwich, narrowly escaped a similar fate (Grosseteste will later correspond with John: see Letters 43 and 66). On Christmas Day 1231, masked men plundered the barns of a Roman cleric at Wingham. On the anti-Roman uprising, see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 94–7; Powicke, Henry III, 1:77–9; Councils and Synods, 96–8; N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge, U.K., 1996), 303–9. 7 Bishop Hugh and his counsellors may have feared that Grosseteste would be vulnerable, in Rome, to the ‘law of reprisal.’ According to this law, when a citizen has suffered an offence at the hands of a ‘foreigner’ (one outside the jurisdiction of the city) he may obtain authorization in the form of a charter or letter of reprisal to procede directly against the foreigner, or against his countrymen, to obtain satisfaction; see F. Calasso, Gli ordinamenti giuridici del Rinascimento medievale, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1949), 263–5. Such danger was averted by the intervention, during 1232, of King Henry III in England and Pope Gregory IX in Rome.

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advice, I would fall unwarily into danger and deserve to incur the indignation of such eminent lords and friends, and also be branded as one guilty of stubbornness and presumption. I am hoping that the Lord will not attribute this delay to me, even though he directs that there should be no procrastinating in matters of this kind; indeed, his words are: In everything you do, be quick [Sir 31:27]. That is, whatever is not put off to a time after the right moment, and is not done before that point, takes place quickly. Anything postponed until after that moment involves the vice of procrastination; anything done sooner is not done quickly, but too quickly. I also hope that men of your discretion, so deserving of respect, will not regard my reason for waiting as fickleness or inconstancy, and on that basis – or any others! – count me among those who are tossed about by every gust of teaching [Eph 4:14], who, as Seneca says,8 ‘pass from one intention to another, or are carried over by some chance occurrence; who, like those who swim in rivers, do not make their own way but are swept along.’ For the intention I had earlier conceived remains unchanged as far as I am concerned; in this matter I anticipate no inconsistency on my part, as I want the same thing today as I did yesterday. There has been no ‘shifting’ of a previously formed ‘will,’ which, as Seneca says,9 ‘indicates that the mind is at sea somewhere and hastening in some direction or other as the wind carries it.’ Indeed there is, as this same author states,10 ‘a constancy that cannot be dislodged from its place, and that no force can cause to abandon its intention.’ And my hope is that I could not be dislodged in any way from a good intention, just as I am not in fact being dislodged from this one. So since my will and intention remain as they were, though the actual implementation of the intention is being postponed until the right moment, I know that the kind interpretation of my delay by men of your discretion will not regard it as shallow fickleness and shifting inconstancy. But should someone, faced with the same honourable intention and the same explanation for carrying it out, think that any delay or even a modification, for various reasons or times or other circumstances, is a sign, subject to change, of fickleness and inconstancy, I answer him in the words of the blessed father Augustine below; reading these should not try your patience, though I have now quoted them at

8 Seneca, Ep. 23.8. This and the following quotations from Seneca are listed under the rubric ‘Stability or Constancy’ in Grosseteste’s Tabula, 293; cf. Southern, Growth, 192. 9 Seneca, Ep. 35.4. 10 Seneca, Ep. 67.10.

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length. For in one of his letters against certain individuals who were objecting to substituting the sacraments of the old law with those of the law of grace, he says:11 ‘The natural world and human works are susceptible to change in accord with a certain system, yet the system by which they change is immutable. When a farmer plants in summer something different from what he planted in winter, I do not suppose that his system of cultivation changes; and when a person who has fallen asleep at night rises in the morning, he has not altered the pattern of his life. The master assigned the young man a task different from the one he used to give to him as a boy; and so teaching remains constant and does not change, though what is taught does change. That great physician of our time, Vindician, was consulted by someone and for that patient’s illness ordered a remedy that seemed appropriate at the time; this was employed and good health was the result. Then, some years later, the same physical complaint returned, and the patient thought the same remedy should be used. He grew worse. In astonishment he went back to the physician and pointed out what had happened. But the doctor, who was very sharp with him, replied: ‘You have been treated harshly because I gave no order.’ Everyone who had overheard and knew the physician only a little thought that he was depending not on his medical expertise but on some kind of illicit power. So when he was questioned later by some of the astonished listeners, he explained what they had not understood, that he would not have prescribed that particular remedy for that patient now that he was older. Thus it is only the principles that hold good, so that while there is no change in the skills involved, how those skills are used must change with the times. Indeed, if temporal circumstances change, proper reason often demands that what was done correctly in the past be changed in such a way that it cannot be done correctly unless it is changed; both actions will then be correct, if the change reflects the passage of time. This may also happen with different individuals at the same time, so that one may do something without adverse consequences, but another may not, the difference lying not in the deed itself but in the doer. So, too, in the case of one and the same person at different times, it is sometimes proper for him to do something at one time and not another, the difference lying not in the doer but in the time of the deed.’ So, from these words of the blessed Augustine it is quite clear that, as times and circumstances change,

11 Augustine, Ep. 138.2–4 (CSEL 44:127–9); Grosseteste also quoted this letter, including this portion, in his De cessatione legalium, ed. R.C. Dales and E.B. King, ABMA 7 (London, 1986), 1.10.20–6 (pp. 60–4).

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different actions result in the same manner from one unvarying principle, that one action must often be substituted for another, and that a new set of circumstances may occur and require a person then to abandon something he would have done in the absence of those circumstances at some other time, or even to do something else, or to postpone his action to a more suitable occasion. May you always, revered lords, fare well in the Lord.

4 To Adam of Lathbury, abbot of Reading, and the monks of St Mary’s Abbey, on an annual payment, which Grosseteste disputes, claimed by the convent from him as rector of Abbotsley. Written shortly after Christmas 1231. Edition: Luard, Epp., 25–33.

To the beloved lords in Christ, the abbot1 and community of Reading, Robert, archdeacon of Leicester, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. I wrote you a letter in which I humbly begged you to be willing to agree to a later date for the restoration of peace between us, one, that is, as late as my return from pilgrimage, which I hoped would be around Pentecost, and which would involve also the deferral of the lawsuit.2 If this was unsatisfactory, I requested a postponement at least until one or two days before the day fixed for the suit, promising that at that time my proctor would go to meet yours at Salisbury to reach a settlement there in a friendly fashion.3 And please observe, in the sight of God, that in the letter I sent you there

1 Adam of Lathbury, formerly prior of Leominster, was abbot of the important Benedictine abbey at Reading from 1226 to 1238; see Reading Abbey Cartularies ..., ed. B.R. Kemp, vol. 1 (London, 1986), 28. 2 On Grosseteste’s proposed pilgrimage and its sudden cancellation, see Letter 3. 3 This dispute over payment of parochial revenues to Reading Abbey had apparently begun in 1225 (see n. 5, below), and was nearing its conclusion in 1231. The case was carried on under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in accord with Romanocanonical procedure. For a general description of this procedure, see Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, 42–99; and for the diocesan courts, see C. Morris, ‘From Synod to Consistory: The Bishop’s Courts in England, 1150–1250, in JEH 22 (1971): 115–23; and N. Adams and C. Donahue, Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury, c. 1200–1301 (London, 1981).

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was nothing concocted by me to deceive, nothing fraudulently fabricated; the whole thing was expressed truthfully, from a simple heart. You, however, wrote me back a short letter, regarding which men of your discretion should have seen if it was not swollen with insults and mockeries, and incompatible with the simple eye of true religious life. For this was what the first sentence (clausula) after the salutation had to say, in your own words: ‘In your discretion you are to know that the annual rent – the one we are accustomed to receiving from you and before your time – we have received continuously and peaceably at the hands of the rectors of the Church of Abbotsley for such a long time that the custom is now older than people can remember.’4 Although this sentence does not say precisely that you received this rent until my time continuously and peaceably, that is nevertheless what it insinuates. You are not unaware that this is false, because before my time, for example from the final days of my predecessor right to my own time, that rent was sequestrated by the ordinary of the place.5 It is with this in mind that you should have been compelled to provide information about your right to receive payment. Now, you know that the sin of lying is committed not only in audible words, but also in visible writing, and not only in expressly stated speech, but also by devious insinuation. This sin especially should be exceedingly repugnant to men in religious life, who are citizens of heaven [Phil 3:20] and whose contemplation there is on the purest form of truth; their concern is to give up this earthly life more quickly than to turn from the righteousness of truth by committing the most trivial of lies. If in that quoted sentence you did not intend the insinuation I mentioned, then you included those words thoughtlessly, not to say deceitfully, since, although you have received payment from time to time, but have 4 Grosseteste was presented to the Church of Abbotsley, in Huntingdonshire, by Bishop Hugh of Wells on 25 April 1225; see Rotuli Welles, 3:48. This was apparently Grosseteste’s first ecclesiastical benefice; he was in deacon’s orders (i.e., not yet a priest) and probably more than fifty years old at the time; see Southern, Growth, 69. Grosseteste was assiduous in protecting the fiscal integrity of his benefice: he appears in the king’s court rolls for Easter term, 1226, in a dispute concerning a small parcel of land that pertained to his parish church (Curia Regis Rolls, vol. 12: 9–10 Henry III [London, 1957], 446). 5 The ‘ordinary (judge) of the place’ was either the archdeacon of Huntingdon, in whose jurisdiction Abbotsley lay, or the bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, in his capacity as ‘ordinary’ of the entire diocese. Since the sum of money demanded by the abbot and convent of Reading had been placed in the hands of either the archdeacon or the bishop pending the outcome of the litigation, Grosseteste can argue that payment had not been made ‘continuously and peaceably.’

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not continuously done so right down to my time, such a payment does not give you the right to receive payment continuously from me. And since everyone will have to account on Judgment Day for every thoughtless word [Mt 12:36], any thoughtlessness when expressing yourselves is not at all appropriate for you. The observance of your rule requires a watch set over your mouth and a door round about your lips [Ps 140:3], and the absence of communication in a life of silence.6 In these ways especially should that verse of Scripture be fulfilled, the service of justice shall be silence [Is 32:17]. Next you wrote this – ‘For this reason we are unable to comply with your requests without grave loss’ – which is the same as your saying that you could not comply with them because of falsehood or thoughtlessness, since it is now evident that what had been the premise was false by insinuation or thoughtlessly expressed. Moreover, the person who grants either of two alternative requests heeds in full measure the one who makes those requests. I made two requests, but as alternatives. If you could not have granted one of these without loss, the other you could perhaps have granted with profit for yourselves. You also added the following to your letter: ‘We are not bound to comply with your requests because, as will be able to be inferred from the tenor of your letter, your prudence is striving more for delay than for peace.’ Even if you are perhaps not bound to comply in this matter as mere men, inasmuch as you are men in religious life and by your habit profess to live lives of perfection, you are bound to comply with the requests of all as long as your compliance is not an impediment to the purity of the faith or to moral integrity, and all the more are you bound if your compliance is an aid to the promotion of faith and morals. Furthermore, if from my letter one could conclude that I was craftily striving for delay in the guise of seeking peace, you should have quoted the words in my letter, so that I might be found guilty not by any assertion of yours but from my own words, or have a real basis on which to defend what I said, not the kinds of things you write that I said. Now, God forbid that I would so impair peace that I would use it like a cloak to conceal attempts to postpone peace and cause discord, and that I would of my own accord distance myself from the very goal sought by all things and the object of every effort, and that I would drag down to confusion the tranquillity of order!7

6 See Benedict, Regula 6: De taciturnitate (CSEL 75:38–39). 7 See Augustine, De civitate dei 19.13 (Pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis, ‘The peace of all things is the tranquillity of order’). Grosseteste is alluding here to the order of the physical universe, in which things seek their natural place (e.g., fire moves upward,

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As to the remark you add next in your letter, that although I could not meet with you at Durham on the appointed day, I could nevertheless, had I preferred, have fixed an earlier day to discuss terms of peace with you, before Christmas just past, say, or immediately afterwards, my answer is that after I had made plans to go abroad on pilgrimage, I could not have gone to meet you at Durham before Christmas, not only because time was short, but also because of my preoccupation with affairs requiring my immediate attention. I had also decided to start on my pilgrimage immediately after Epiphany, and my witnesses to this are important and very trustworthy men, so important that no one could object.8 You add that I could have easily made known my intention in writing, but you do not state what you understand to be the issue about which I was to make it known. So, as my intention can only be signified with respect to some specific thing, I am completely at a loss to understand what kind of intention you meant when you used the word, because your interpretation is not one that can be deduced from the word itself. To another of your remarks, that I could have sent the kind of proctor I proposed to send to Salisbury, my answer is that I had determined to send there a certain important man, not a litigant but a lover of peace, through whose efforts I hoped by all means that peace would be restored between us; I had more confidence in him to restore peace than in anyone else. Because he was nearby and had the time, he was able to be in Salisbury one or two days before the day stipulated for the suit, but in view of the distance, problems of timing, and his unavoidable involvement in spiritual matters, he could not be in Durham on the day we had mutually agreed to.9 Your letter also adds that it was unbecoming for me, a man of such great authority, to look for opportunities to deceive people of such simplicity as yourselves, but these words do not seem to smack of pure simplicity, since true simplicity consists in recognizing the truth and loving the good. For if you really believed me to be a man of some authority, in recognizing the truth you would not believe that to trick you I have the wrinkle of duplicity and the stain of a goodwill that is feigned.10 That is heavy things fall) and rest peaceably in that place once it is reached. See his Hexaëmeron 1.17.1 (p. 76): ‘Rest (quies) is a remaining in that which has been acquired, and a striving no further to attain something more.’ 8 See Letter 3. 9 This ‘important man,’ in whom Grosseteste had ‘more confidence ... than in anyone else,’ has not been identified. In light of Letter 9, however, one might think of Adam Marsh, Grosseteste’s close friend and associate. 10 Cf. Eph 5:27.

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to say, true recognition knows that the wrinkle of duplicity and the stain of pretence do not have the weight of any authority, and that authority, when correctly so called, is incompatible with a fairness that is feigned, for this kind of fairness is a double dose of unfairness. But if you believed me to be a man of no authority, in ascribing authority to me not out of any love for the good, you have mocked me like an enemy, forgetting what the wise man had to say: God himself will scorn the scorners and bestow his grace on the meek [Prv 3:34]. In addition to this you added that you have been robbed; to which I reply that I am not the one who robbed you, but on strict instructions from my ordinaries11 I have not paid you the rent you are requesting and will not do so until you provide some information to them concerning your right. I also answer that the ones who only wished to compel you, as was their duty, to make clear your right in accord with an obligation of their office, have not by this action robbed you. Added, too, to your letter was the statement that you have been wearied by dilatory and false exceptions on my part.12 If dilatory exceptions are rejected not by the law but by the rules of rhetoric, and are in fact taught and approved by the law, and Paul himself, since he was a Roman citizen, appealed to Caesar, why do you cite dilatory exceptions as something unfair?13 For such exceptions may be put forward not, as unjust people commonly do, for the sole purpose of postponing justice, but out of a love of deterring unfairness and achieving justice. In this regard, if you consider it unfair that my defenders have put forward some dilatory exceptions, as men committed to the ideals of monastic life you should guard against your own defenders ever protecting you by proposing them. The truth of your charge that these exceptions were false will be better demonstrated not by your own assertion but by the outcome of the case. Furthermore, although some may have been false, which I do not as yet believe, they could nevertheless have been proposed as truthful. For it is

11 Here Grosseteste’s ‘ordinaries’ must be both the archdeacon of Huntingdon and the bishop of Lincoln; see n. 5, above. 12 ‘Exceptions’ were arguments by the defendant in a case; ‘dilatory exceptions’ were directed not against the right on which the action was founded, but against the conduct of the action. See Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, 80–3, who comments (p. 80): ‘The loser in a dilatory ... exception was ordinarily punished by being condemned to pay the consequent costs. Even if the greater number of dilatory exceptions were frivolous and disallowed, instances remain of bona fide objections, which to some extent seem to justify this procedure.’ 13 The apostle Paul’s use of a dilatory exception in Roman law, his appeal to the emperor, is recorded in Acts 25:11.

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possible for human frailty to be deceived into believing, not unreasonably, that truths are falsehoods, and on the other hand into reckoning on many occasions that what is false is true. And so it happens that a person may truthfully and blamelessly – because he is not a liar – tell an untruth, and sometimes mendaciously and culpably tell the truth; so the fact that someone tells an untruth cannot be thrown in his teeth as something shameful. But when he tells a lie, and he knows it to be a lie, this is the detestable vice of lying that kills the soul by repudiating the truth. The person who tells a lie drives away truth itself; with the wrinkle of duplicity he shrinks in an ugly way the soul that is empty of the solidity of truth; and he produces offspring in imitation of the originator of the lie, I mean the devil, who is a liar and the father of lies and is not rooted in the truth [Jn 8:44]. At the end of your letter you ask that, in a manner worthy of God and the brilliance of my knowledge, I be willing to pay you the rent henceforth without quibbling or causing any trouble. But you do not believe me to be a man of brilliant knowledge, just as above you mocked me like an enemy when you ascribed authority to me. If in fact you believe I have even a little brilliance of knowledge, you ought to have thought that I would be able to detect how mockingly or unskilfully that request of yours was stated. For a beginning is flawed and unskilful that provides an opportunity for an opponent, and similarly flawed is an argument that an opponent may twist back against the one who asserts it. Similarly, the request is also flawed, since I, too, could likewise ask that you, in a manner worthy of God and the tranquillity of your religious life and of both parties, desist henceforth from exacting that rent, to which you have no right. These comments of mine have been composed in a much more wordy style than I would wish, but that brief little letter of yours to which I had to reply was swollen with too many words. I have written all this, the Lord knows, not to put you to shame, but with sincere affection to admonish you, as my dearest lords [1 Cor 4:14], not to follow too stubbornly the advice of the kind of men who wrote your letter, who sow the wind and reap the whirlwind [Hos 8:7], and who, as the blessed Bernard says,14 ‘propose not so much laws as lawsuits and quibbles, subverting justice.’ Should I be surprised if I am advised to plough by the man who does not have any means of livelihood except from fees for ploughing? Or, if he does have the means, he nevertheless burns with an insatiable desire for this fee. Such a man will be clever enough to argue persuasively that even a sandy seashore needs ploughing. As holy men who have taken monastic vows you should also reflect that the servants of God should not be litigious, but kindly toward all [2 Tm 2:24], 14 Bernard, De consideratione 1.4.5 (S. Bernardi Opera, 3:399).

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as the Apostle says to Timothy. And similarly he has this to say to the Corinthians: Already indeed it is absolutely a defect in you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather suffer injury? Why not rather let yourself be defrauded? But you actually injure and defraud – and you do this to your brothers [1 Cor 6:7–8]! Heed, I ask, what commentators15 have to say about these verses of the Apostle, and from your own deep scrutiny of their remarks make up your minds as to where you are being led by those who are persuading you to go to law. But if you want to apply these words to me, my answer to you is that I hate lawsuits in every way, and that is why I am still prepared – as I have been from the beginning, and as, if you recall, I several times wrote to you that I was – to pay fully and without objection any rent you demand, if any wise and good man or men, on whom we have both agreed, listen in good faith to your claim, acknowledge also my right to defend myself, and then decide without any suit that your claim to receive the rent is based on good faith, just title, and a right grounded in truth. If you knowingly lack these requirements, you would not be able to receive what you are demanding without – God forbid! – your own damnation, just as I, if I were knowingly to keep what you are asking to have, would bring about my own damnation. So then, if you agree, let the lord bishop of Durham16 be arbiter between us, and let his decision be regarded as valid by both sides. Now, should you holy monks prefer, as is your right, to discuss terms of peace in some other way, I shall be pleased to go and meet you at Durham, or somewhere closer, where and when you wish, assuming life and health and the removal of any unforeseen obstacles, for just as my pilgrimage was once firmly arranged without option, so it has for the present been postponed without option, at the advice and even command of men who are greater than I.17 15 The ‘commentators’ probably include those collected in the Ordinary Gloss on the Bible, a collection of comments from the Church Fathers on each chapter of the Bible. See Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps: Adolph Rusch of Strassburg, 1480/81 (Turnhout, 1992). The monks may also have had a copy of Peter Lombard’s popular commentary on the Pauline epistles, where they would have read – see Collectanea in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (PL 191:1578) – that it is not fitting for the ‘perfect,’ i.e., monks, to sue at law. Grosseteste’s presumption that the abbot and monks of Reading would have commentaries available might be an allusion to the schools of Reading, which were at this time rivals of those at Oxford; see R.W. Southern, ‘From Schools to University,’ in Hist. Univ. Oxford, 1–36, at p. 26. 16 Master Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury from 1217 to 1228, was transferred to the see of Durham in 1228; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 31. 17 See Letter 3.

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Now, nothing in your letter could cause me more distress than your statement, regardless of the feelings that prompted it, that I am a man possessed of authority and brilliant knowledge, since my own view is that I am still not fully qualified to be a disciple of the man of authority and that I am overwhelmed by the darkness of my ignorance of the countless things I should know. But if I do have any authority or knowledge, he alone should be praised for them, and they should be entirely attributed to him to whom we say every day: Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name ascribe the glory [Ps 113:9]. May you, revered lords, fare well in the Lord. Amen.

5 To Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester, concerning the Jews of Leicester and one of Margaret’s agents who is oppressing the residents of Grosseteste’s prebendal parish, St Margaret’s, Leicester. Written between August 1231 (when Simon de Montfort came into his lands in Leicester) and November 1232 (when Grosseteste resigned his archdeaconry). Edition: Luard, Epp., 33–8.

To the excellent lady, most dear in Christ, the Lady Margaret de Quincy,1 countess of Winchester, Robert, archdeacon of Leicester, sends greeting and an assurance of his readiness to serve, together with his sincere and affectionate regards.

1 Margaret de Beaumont, younger sister of Robert, fourth earl of Leicester, married Saer de Quincy, later earl of Winchester, ca. 1190. With her elder sister Amice she inherited the earldom of Leicester after their brother died childless in 1204. Margaret’s inheritance included territory in the eastern suburb of the town of Leicester, in the parish of St Margaret. Her husband died on crusade in 1219, and she lived as a widow until her death at quite an advanced age, in 1235; see ‘Quincy, Saer de,’ in ODNB and DNB. Her granddaughter, also named Margaret, became countess of Lincoln, and it was for this Margaret, upon her widowhood in 1240, that Grosseteste compiled rules of estate management; see D. Oschinsky, Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting (Oxford, 1971), 191–9, 387–416 (Anglo-Norman text and English translation). For recent studies of this letter, see Southern, Growth, 244–9; and J. Goering, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Jews of Leicester,’ and J.A. Watt, ‘Grosseteste and the Jews: A Commentary on Letter V,’ both in O’Carroll, Beginnings, 181–200, 201–16.

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I offer you heartfelt thanks for your lavish generosity, which has anticipated my needs with the greatest number of kindnesses, and not only that, but has completely overwhelmed me on later occasions with even more kindnesses.2 Although kindnesses require no repayment, for the reason that, if they are kindnesses, they are conferred without expectation of any return, a person is nevertheless ungrateful who does not repay a kindness when he can. So, as I desire to give at least something in return for your many great kindnesses, I have found that there is nothing greater to give as repayment than advice that is beneficial and essential for obtaining eternal life. As it happens, I have been presented with a double opportunity to write to your excellency something that is beneficial and instructive. For I have been informed that your excellency has decided to welcome onto your land the Jews whom the lord of Leicester expelled from his town, to prevent their further pitiless exploitation through usury of the Christians who live there.3 If this is indeed your decision, please first consider carefully how Christian princes should welcome and protect Jews.4 2 In the absence of any study of Margaret de Quincy’s career, it is impossible to know what kindnesses or favours (beneficia) she had bestowed on Grosseteste, but they must have been significant; his words suggest more than simulated indebtedness. 3 Simon de Montfort, third son of the famous Albigensian crusader who died in 1218, was born ca. 1208. He came into the Leicester estates of his grandmother, Margaret’s sister, in August of 1231, after spending almost his entire youth with his brother Amaury in France. One of his first recorded acts as lord of Leicester – he would receive the title of earl only in 1239 – is a charter announcing the expulsion of the Jews from the borough of Leicester; see Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, 1–21; pp. 14–16 describe that expulsion. Margaret’s response to the young lord’s order of expulsion seems to have been to invite the Jews of the town to move onto the lands that she held in the Leicester suburbs, including lands in St Margaret’s parish; see Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, 15. Since the parish of St Margaret’s in Leicester constituted Grosseteste’s benefice in the Church of Lincoln (see Fasti: Lincoln, 77), Margaret’s invitation to the Jews of Leicester to settle on her lands, and also the interference by one of her agents with the tithes of St Margaret’s parish (see below), are matters of immediate interest and legitimate concern to Grosseteste. 4 For similar advice concerning the treatment of Jews on Christian estates, see the letter of Thomas Aquinas to the countess of ‘Flanders,’ in Opera omnia ..., vol. 42 (Rome, 1979), 375–8; and cf. L.E. Boyle, ‘Thomas Aquinas and the Duchess of Brabant,’ in Proceedings of the PMR Conference 8 (1983): 25–35. For the situation in England, see J.A. Watt, ‘The English Episcopate, the State and the Jews: The Evidence of the ThirteenthCentury Conciliar Decrees,’ in Thirteenth Century England, vol. 2: Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference, 1987 (London, 1988), 137–47; R.C. Stacey, ‘The Conversion of the Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-Century England,’ in Speculum 67 (1992): 263–83.

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Because of the sin of murder in nailing to the cross and cruelly killing the Saviour of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, so as to avoid suffering the loss of their country and their nationhood as a result of his most salutary preaching,5 they were not only unhappily deprived of their country at the hands of Titus and Vespasian, but were themselves taken captive and then scattered as captives throughout all lands and peoples; and they shall not be restored to freedom until the very end of the world. But at that time, when the full number of nations, as is written, shall enter, that is, into faith, then the whole of Israel, that is to say, the Jewish people, will be saved [Rom 11:25–6] through the same faith in Christ, and restored from captivity to true freedom. In the meantime, however, as long as they persist in their unbelief, blaspheme Christ, the Saviour of the world, and mock his Passion, they will be held captive under the princes of the world as a just punishment for their sin. And it is the duty of the princes who hold them captive to protect them from being killed, and at the same time to prohibit them most strictly from oppressing Christians with usury, and to ensure that they are able to gain their own livelihood by the lawful labour of their hands. Now, this is the last captivity of the Jews; and yet in a great many scriptural passages the prophets say that they ought not to be killed in this captivity. For it was said to Cain, who stands as a type of the Jews, when he had murdered his brother Abel, who stands as a type of Christ, who was slain by the Jews for the salvation of the world: Now, therefore, you shall be cursed upon the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand; when you till the ground, it shall not yield its fruits to you; you shall be a vagrant and an exile on earth. And Cain said to the Lord: My wickedness is too great for me to deserve pardon. Behold, you are driving me today from your face, and from your face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a vagrant and an exile on earth. Every one, therefore, who finds me will kill me. And the Lord said: No, it shall not be so! But whoever kills Cain shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that anyone who found him would not kill him [Gn 4:11–15]. According to this prophecy of the Lord, therefore, a curse is upon this people as long as they persist in unbelief and blasphemy – not only the curse of sin, but also the curse of punishment. And it is the infliction of a just punishment that this people labour hard at tilling ground that, although it produces abundantly from their efforts, nevertheless bears its 5 See Jn 11:48: ‘If we let him alone like this, everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation (locum et gentem).’

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Letter 5

fruits not for them, but for the princes under whom they are held captive. This people is vagrant because of the dispersal, and an exile from its own home, that is, Jerusalem: vagrant because of the uncertainty of a fixed place to live, and an exile because of the fear of death. Yet they have the Lord’s prophecy forbidding their being put to death, and also the command in the Psalm, for concerning them it is written: God has given a sign to me concerning my enemies; slay them not, lest my people ever forget [Ps 58:12]. According to the blessed Augustine, this is to be taken as a reference to the Jews, and he adds the reason why they are not to be slain, namely, because ‘they are the bearers of our books, in which we have the prophecy and the promise of Christ.’6 And so they are witnesses to the Christian faith against the unbelief of the pagans. Furthermore, as was indicated above, at the end they shall turn to Christ, for if the number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved [Rom 9:27]. So, to the mercy of the Lord and for the glory of Christians the Jews owe the fact that they are not slain, and to the justice of God that they are scattered among different nations as vagrants and exiles, and are held captive under princes, and expend much labour tilling the ground to the advantage of those princes and to the meagre support of their own unhappy lives. The Jews should not, then, be indulged by Christian rulers so that they may oppress Christians with usury and from that usury live in luxury and leisure, for they have been sentenced by the Lord to be punished at hard labour. Indeed it is the duty of a Christian prince to use his power to rescue Christians from oppression by unbelievers – not to use infidels greedily and impiously to oppress Christians. It is his duty to respect the Lord’s sentence regarding the penalty imposed on the Jews and not to weaken it by exalting them. For concerning them the Psalm adds: Scatter them by your power and bring them down, O Lord, my protector [Ps 58:12]. ‘Bring down,’ it says, through the humiliation of punishment, not ‘exalt’ through the accumulation of usury. So princes who indulge them or favour their usurious exactions from Christians should know that they are themselves guilty of the sin of the Jews and thus will share in their punishment. For, as the blessed Paul says: Not only those who behave like this but those who consent thereto deserve to die [Rom 1:32]. And, in the words of all the holy commentators, those who have the power to prevent something and do not do so are to be understood as consenting to it.7 Princes, too, 6 Cf. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.22 (CCSL 39:744). 7 Cf. Glossa ordinaria, at Rom 1:32.

Letter 5

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who receive some of the usury extorted by Jews from Christians, live by robbery and mercilessly eat, drink, and clothe themselves in the blood of those whom they were obliged to protect. From these princes, as the prophet says, the Lord will avert his eyes when they stretch out their hands to him and, though they multiply their prayers, he will not hear them; for their hands are covered with blood [Is 1:15], and their garments, mingled with blood, shall be for burning and fuel for the fire [Is 9:5]. So guard against being defiled, my dearest lady, by any complicity in the offences of such princes as these and against incurring the kind of punishments a strict judgment would impose. The second event that has provided a subject for this letter is the following: one of your bailiffs, as I have heard from many sources, has forbidden under a severe penalty any of your people in the parish of my prebend to presume to buy anything from the tithes of those assessed in that parish.8 If he has indeed done this, he has very greatly offended against the laws of man and of God. For he has robbed me of my right to buy and sell, which laws both divine and human not only grant but even protect. This is a benefit of human society and a relief of penury, which not only the natives of the country but even foreigners and servants, both male and female, enjoy in time of peace and war. In opposition to all laws he has made himself judge over me, though no one shall arrogate this honour to himself, but he who is called by God [Heb 5:4], for all power is from God, as the Apostle says.9 Without summoning me, without a conviction, without a confession he has most unjustly condemned me to a penalty reserved for the most depraved individuals. And by his order, too, he has tried to prevent my parishioners from duly paying their tithes, by this action impiously raising his hand against God, who specifically commands the payment of tithes.10 8 Grosseteste’s ‘prebend’ in Lincoln Cathedral consisted of the income from the parish church of Leicester St Margaret and the chapel of Knighton in Leicester; see n. 3, above. For the countess of Winchester’s lands in St Margaret’s parish, see VCH: Leicester, 4:350–61. The complex interrelationship of jurisdictions – that of the borough, the countess and the earl, and the bishop’s ‘liberty’ of St Margaret’s – were a fruitful source of dissension and litigation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; see ibid., p. 16. Apparently Margaret’s bailiff had forbidden the people on her lands to buy any of the goods paid as tithes to the Church of St Margaret and then offered for sale in the Leicester markets. 9 See Rom 13:1. 10 See Mal 3:10: ‘Bring all tithes into the storehouse, so that there is food in my house, and put me to the test in this, says the Lord, if I do not open the floodgates of heaven for you and pour out for you a blessing even to abundance.’

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Letter 6

Inasmuch, then, as such an impious reviler of the God who so enjoins, such an arrogant scorner of the Church and her prelates, is known to be one of your people, because of the respect you are owed I have wanted to bring this matter to your attention before proceeding against the man himself as required by my office. On the other hand, if he takes steps to make restitution at your command, I shall be grateful and content. It is not conducive to the respect due a widow of your holy condition, when you, with Anna, a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel [Lk 2:36], by fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, submit yourself day and night to the Lord, and devoutly venerate Holy Mother Church, and obediently receive and respectfully honour the prelates of the Church, to indulge agents who give orders contrary to the Lord, dishonour Mother Church, and scorn her prelates. If you do not take appropriately harsh measures to restrain the vices of your agents, those vices will be considered your sins, and a cloud, exhaling from their foul and wanton behaviour, will dim the light of your own good works that radiates from your devotion. May you in your humility, so pleasing in one of your rank, not scorn this advice, I beg, for I have been impelled to write it by that charity that is patient and kind, is not conceited nor quick to take offence [1 Cor 13:4–5]. May you fare well in the Lord, my dearest lady.

6 To Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, on the joys of heaven and how a Christian knight may attain them. Written between August 1231 (when Richard became earl) and November 1232 (when Grosseteste resigned his archdeaconry). Edition: Luard, Epp., 38–41 (reading, p. 40/line 27, poenitentia for peccata).

To the illustrious and noble man, the Lord Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke,1 his own Robert, archdeacon of Leicester, sends greeting and an assurance of his eagerness to serve. 1 Richard Marshal, the second son of the famous William Marshal (d. 1219), was born in the early 1190s and died in 1234. He spent most of the years between 1220 and 1231 attending to family affairs in Normandy and at the French court. One English chronicler describes him as having been trained to arms in French conflicts, and another speaks of him as the marshal of the army of the king of France; see ‘Marshal, Richard,’ in ODNB and DNB. In 1231 he returned to England, in August succeeding his elder brother William as earl of Pembroke. When Grosseteste addressed him with

Letter 6

71

It is typical of those of noble character to anticipate with kindnesses the needs of others and, as if taking on the form of those of humbler rank, to defer to others and to welcome them benevolently into the embrace of close friendship. For as the blessed John Chrysostom says: ‘The principal glory, worthy of admiration, of those of noble rank is their ability to be submissive and humble.’2 The son of God, too, exemplified this – although he is one with God the Father and preeminent over all things – by emptying himself, assuming the form of a slave, being made in human likeness, and found in appearance as a man [Phil 2:7]. From experience I have learned that you possess, to your honour, this exceptional kind of great humility. For you have shown kindness even to me, and in deferring to someone of my humble station you have thought fit to welcome me into a close friendship with your excellency. Indeed, because – as Seneca says – we should strive to exceed kindnesses with kindnesses,3 if I could, I would like to surpass the kindnesses I have received by bestowing greater ones in return, or I would like at least to equal them. But even so, although I shall not easily find a way to do this, I shall nevertheless not fail to give what I can. And although I cannot pay back anything that is equal or greater, I shall not cease ceaselessly desiring greater things for you. You have given me your friendship; I shall pray for you for the friendship of God. And because his friendship is bestowed only upon one who despises what is transitory and illusory and has an ardent love for the things of heaven, I have written below, to serve as what might be called the kindling and sparks of heavenly love, a few words about the glory and riches to be found in the Lord’s heavenly home, so that when you have understood their meaning a love of heaven may be nurtured in you and tended until it burns more intensely.4 With respect, then, to the riches of the heavenly abode, the most precious thing will be a light combined with no shadows, interrupted by no changes, restricted by no boundaries, and defined by no limits. There

this letter, Richard had recently returned to England and was in close attendance on the king; see Powicke, Henry III, 1:123–55; Carpenter, ‘Hubert de Burgh.’ 2 John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Mattheum 3.2 (PG 57:55); cf. Robert Grosseteste, Tabula, 283 (De humilitate). 3 Cf. Seneca, De beneficiis 1.4. 4 Apart from a single sentence (p. 72, below, lines 5–9), drawn almost verbatim from Gregory, Moralia in Iob 4.36 (CCSL 143:214), no precise source or analogue has been identified for the description that follows of the joys of heaven and of the means by which a knight like Richard can attain them. Parallels to the imagery and the arguments can be found in many of Grosseteste’s sermons and pastoral writings.

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will be an abundance there of all good things without depletion, a perfection without defect, and an undivided and undiminished sharing by participants in a particular good, because there will be the fullest possible possession of each and every good, as when several eyes look upon every part of the sun without its being divided up for them. And just as in this life we distinguish among duties, so in that state of glory there will no doubt be a distinction among ranks, so that because here one is superior to another in merit, in heaven that person would excel another in his reward. In heaven our spirits will possess a knowledge of all truth without any ignorance, for in the light that is God we shall see the light of every creature of truth, just as the Psalmist says: In your light we shall see light [Ps 35:10]. And in the eternal and uncreated ideas we shall contemplate the existences, forms, and species, the beginnings, progress, circumstances, decay, and fulfilment of all created things. In heaven our love for God will be without measure and limit, but our love for each and every one of our fellow creatures will be in accord with a measure and limit that are appropriate to each of them. In bodies in heaven there will be a lightness that cannot be weighed, a mobility that knows no hindering, a strength that knows not how to suffer pain, and a splendour like that of the sun. And this state of blessedness will not be tainted by envy, because every person will rejoice in everyone else’s glory as much as he will delight in his own. Only in heaven will want be wanting, lack of knowledge unknown, forgetting consigned to forgetfulness, death die, and physical decay decay. There we shall rest from all activity and look upon God, we shall look upon him and love him, we shall love him and praise him forever, because we shall sing the Lord’s mercies everlastingly [Ps 88:2]. To attain these ineffable joys we must with vigour and unconquerable determination strive to ensure that no temporal adversity obstructs or frightens us and thereby holds us back, and that no seductive pleasure reclaims us with its enticements. And because it is improper for so eminent a man, who has been fitted with the belt of knighthood, to proceed half-heartedly on foot along the way that leads to his homeland, you should mount the horse of holy and heavenly desire; its bridle is discretion, its saddle is circumspection, it sees in advance the severity of the Judgment yet to come and the shame of past sin behind. There are two stirrups, humility on the right and repentance on the left, and two spurs, on the right foot the promise of future blessedness and on the left the fear of hell. And because it is unsafe for one to proceed unarmed along this way, where the most cruel thieves lie in ambush, put on the breastplate

Letter 7

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of justice, guard yourself with the shield of faith, protect yourself with the helmet of salvation, gird yourself with the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God [Eph 6:14, 16–17]. May you, who are so noble and yet so humble, so humble and yet so exalted in rank, fare well in the Lord, etc.

7 To Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, on true and false wisdom. Written after November 1232 (when Grosseteste resigned his archdeaconry) and before April 1234 (when Richard died); probably between December 1233 and February 1234. Edition: Luard, Epp., 41–3.

To the illustrious man and noble lord, Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke,1 his own Robert Grosseteste2 sends greeting. Public opinion greatly extols your wisdom, which I confidently hope and ardently desire is not false wisdom but true. To be certain, however, that public opinion is speaking the truth, that my hope is not misplaced, and that my love has what it desires, I wanted to make known to you, who have the ability to choose responsibly, how to distinguish between true

1 In February of 1233 Earl Richard and a group of other English nobles fell out with the king. The dispute escalated into armed conflict during the spring and summer of 1233; see Powicke, Henry III, 1:125–36; N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge, U.K., 1996), 399–428. The war was waged fiercely, and culminated in the Marshal’s capture and burning of Shrewsbury in January of 1234. A truce was arranged in March, and Henry confirmed his promises at a meeting of the great council in April 1234. Meanwhile, Earl Richard had sailed to Ireland in February 1234, where he was wounded in battle. He died on 16 April. Grosseteste’s rather cool letter to his friend on true and false wisdom would seem appropriate in these troubled months of 1233 and 1234. 2 Grosseteste no longer describes himself as ‘archdeacon,’ as he had in the previous letter to Richard. Having resigned his archidiaconal and parochial responsibilities (see Letters 8 and 9), he continued to be active in Oxford and to teach in the Franciscan schools there. The occasion for his sending this letter may have been the mission undertaken by Agnellus of Pisa (see Letter 2), the provincial minister of the Franciscans and a trusted counsellor of King Henry, to make peace between the king and the earl, in December of 1233; see Vincent, Peter des Roches (n. 1, above), 426; Powicke, Henry III, 1:132; Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 76.

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wisdom and false, drawing not on my own discoveries, but on authoritative sources. My goal is to ensure that, once you have examined the characteristics of both kinds of wisdom, you will both fervently esteem the one kind and studiously avoid the other. In the Scriptures wisdom has two designations: one is said to be the wisdom of this world, which, as the apostle James says, is natural, earthbound, and demonic [Jas 3:15]; the other, called the wisdom of the just and the wisdom from above, is, as the same apostle says, in the first place pure, and then peace-loving, moderate, open-minded, in harmony with what is good, full of mercy and good fruits, judging without hypocrisy [Jas 3:17]. When commenting in detail on these two kinds of wisdom, the blessed Gregory has this to say: ‘It is the wisdom of this world to hide the heart behind crafty schemes, to use words to conceal meaning, to show as true what is false, and to explain truths as falsehoods. To be sure, this is the wisdom that the young acquire by practice; this is what is learned at a price by children. Those familiar with it are filled with pride, despising everyone else, while those who know nothing of it, being submissive and timid, admire it in others, because, so long as wrong-headedness is called sophistication, this wicked duplicity, disguised by a name, is what they love. This is the kind of wisdom that teaches its followers to seek positions of great eminence, to rejoice at the vain attainment of temporal glory, to repay in many different ways the evils inflicted by others, to yield to no opponents as long as there is strength to prevail, and, when there is no possibility of exerting power, to pass off as an act of peace and goodness whatever cannot be accomplished through wickedness. On the other hand, the wisdom of the just consists in doing nothing ostentatiously, in using words that make one’s meaning clear, in cherishing the truth as it is and avoiding falsehood, in doing good for no reward but thanks, in being more willing to put up with evil than to be its cause, in not seeking revenge for an injustice, in enduring insults for the sake of the truth, in supposing that there is an advantage in praying for those who are given to insults, in seeking out poverty, in forsaking possessions, in offering no resistance to the thief, and in offering the left cheek to the person who strikes the right one.’3 We are reminded to clap on our feet the shackles of this wisdom, because, as the blessed Augustine says, ‘this is the wisdom that first restrains and then trains and tames its followers, afterwards setting them free and 3 Gregory, Moralia in Iob 10.29 [on Job 12:4] (CCSL 143:570–1).

Letter 8

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giving herself to them for their enjoyment. The ones she has first disciplined with temporal bonds she next will restrain in eternal embraces, and one can imagine nothing more pleasing or firm than this fetter. I admit that the first restrictions are somewhat hard to bear, but I would not call these last ones hard because they are so very sweet, nor would I call them soft because they are so firm. The fetters of the wisdom of this world have a true harshness and a false charm, a certain pain and an uncertain pleasure, a hard labour and an uneasy rest, wealth filled with wretchedness, and hope devoid of happiness.’4 The deceptive wisdom of this world obtrudes itself without prompting, striking persistently at the door of our youth to gain entrance. But true wisdom, as Solomon says, has to be dug up like buried treasure [Prv 2:4]. For, as the blessed Gregory says, ‘this kind of wisdom does not lie on the surface of things because it is deep in the unseen. And we attain and lay hold of it if we relinquish what is seen and bury ourselves in the unseen, and if we so search for it when we dig in our hearts that every earth-bound thought in the mind is expelled from it by the hand of holy discretion, and the mind acquaints itself with the treasure that lies beneath the surface. For the mind easily finds the treasure of wisdom within itself if it rejects that heap of earth-bound thoughts that press down upon it to ill effect.’5 From these words of the blessed Gregory and Augustine we may clearly see to what extent we should strive after the wisdom of the just and flee from that of the world, how truly worthy of praise is the person whom the former wisdom adorns, and how deserving of censure is one whom the world’s wisdom disfigures. I would have written more to your excellency about both kinds of wisdom, were I not afraid of burdening you by saying too much at a time when you are so preoccupied with various concerns.

8 To Grosseteste’s sister Ivette (or Juetta), in reply to her letter asking about his health. Written shortly after 1 November 1232. Edition: Luard, Epp., 43–5.

4 Augustine, Ep. 26.2 (CSEL 34.1:84–5; PL 33:103–4). 5 Gregory, Moralia in Iob 5.5 [on Job 3:21] (CCSL 143:224).

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Letter 8

Master Robert Grosseteste sends to his sister Ivette (or Juetta),1 beloved to him in Christ, his wish for her eternal salvation. As you want to know the state of my health and are very anxious for me to tell you about it in a letter, let me say briefly that before the feast of All Saints I was taken seriously ill with a severe attack of fever. But the hand of divine grace was extended to me, I recovered from my illness, and have been restored to my former and usual good health. You should also know that I have resigned all the sources of income I had, with the exception of the prebend I hold in the Church of Lincoln.2 And you, who wear a nun’s habit and have taken a vow to live the life of a religious, must not in any way be disturbed or saddened if, by my own choice, I have become poorer that I may become richer in virtues; if I am more despicable in the eyes of the world that I may be more acceptable to the citizens of heaven; and if, because obedience is something good, I have given up some temporal benefits; for no virtue merits a heavenly reward except through obedience. We are brother and sister, and you should therefore love in me the good that you love in yourself with an intensity that matches the closeness of our relationship. 1 Grosseteste’s sister is known to us primarily through this letter and through references in two undated letters (nos. 12 and 53) sent to Grosseteste by Adam Marsh (Epp., 30–3, 148–9). Marsh’s second letter was written after her death, and associates her with a chapel or oratory at Cofle (in oratorio suo de Cofle), perhaps the Gilbertine priory of Catley in Lincolnshire. The older biographers say she was a nun at the monastery of Godstow, near Oxford (see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 164), but there seems to be no evidence to substantiate this. Servus Gieben has recently discovered and published a curious account of Grosseteste and his sister in an anonymous chronicle (London, B.L., MS Cotton Titus A.XIX), where it is claimed that Grosseteste’s sister was impregnated by a chamberlain in the bishop’s household. According to this story, the unnamed chamberlain (camerarius) confessed his sin to Grosseteste and subsequently married the sister: see S. Gieben, ‘Anecdota Lincolniensia: La preghiera mattutina del vescovo; La debolezza umana della sorella Ivetta; L’eretica che non voleva bruciare,’ in Negotium fidei: Miscellanea di studi offerti a Mariano D’Alatri in occasione del suo 80 o compleanno, ed. P. Maranesi (Rome, 2002), 127–44, at p. 136. 2 Grosseteste says that he has resigned ‘omnes redditus.’ This has been translated as all fixed sources of income by the older commentators, and has led to much confusion about what it was that he actually resigned; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 106. It is clear from Letters 8–9, however, that ‘redditus’ is to be taken here as referring broadly to ‘sources of income,’ and especially to the prestigious and lucrative office of the archdeaconry of Leicester; cf. Southern, Growth, 75. He also resigned his benefice in the parish church of Abbotsley (see Letter 9), retaining only his canonry in Lincoln Cathedral, consisting of the prebend of Leicester St Margaret; see Fasti: Lincoln, 77, 34. It was this prebend, apparently, that supported Grosseteste when he taught the Franciscans in Oxford.

Letter 9

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Now, the goods that you love in yourself are, or so I hope, those of a true religious life. That life is a striving to reach the peak of perfection, so that a person who lives such a life no longer wrongs his neighbours and calmly bears his neighbours’ wrongs. And when temporal goods are placed in his path, the pleasure they bring in no way weakens his mind’s resolve, and when they are taken away, he is sad only slightly or not at all. He by no means brings along any memories of material goods, and he rejects with the hand of discretion any such memories he has perhaps retained. For the true religious life is a renunciation of the world in accordance with what the Truth declares: Unless a person renounces all that he possesses, he cannot be my disciple [Lk 14:33]. And as the blessed Gregory says: ‘Pious minds do not seek the goods of this world when they do not possess them, and even when such goods are to hand, they tolerate them reluctantly, because they are very much afraid that by caring for external things they will be made to go out from themselves. For unless the mind hides from external desires, it does not penetrate to what is within; nor is it drawn to contemplate what is within, unless it is assiduously withdrawn from concerns that entangle it from without.’3 Since, then, you have professed a life as a religious and value in yourself these and its other similar goods, at least do not begrudge me any effort on my part, feeble though it may be, to acquire them. Accept calmly the fact that I have laid aside the heavier part of a heavy load, and rejoice instead from the bottom of your heart that I am unburdening myself of something whose heavy weight, had I not laid it aside, would overwhelm me. Farewell in Christ.

9 To Adam Marsh, in reply to Adam’s letter concerning Grosseteste’s resignation of his benefices. Written shortly after 1 November 1232. Edition: Luard, Epp., 45–7.

3 Gregory, Moralia in Iob 5.11, 29, 31 [on Job 3:26, 4:12–13] (CCSL 143:231, 253, 257). Southern, Growth, notes (p. 192) that all three of these passages are listed together in Grosseteste’s Tabula, under the heading ‘Contemplation.’

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Letter 9

To Master Adam Marsh,1 most beloved to him in Christ, his own Robert Grosseteste sends greeting. My spirit has in no small way been refreshed by the letter I received from you, with its words of sweet comfort and also of loyal congratulations and generous encouragement. For after laying aside the heavier part of a heavy burden that I did not have the strength to bear, I found no real comfort from anyone until your letter came; instead there were many harsh rebukes, biting detractions, and even expressions of contempt, so hard to bear, from close friends. Moreover, my laying aside of that burden has been repeatedly thrown in my face with the reproach that I am a fool. Although my mind was in turmoil and for a time troubled now and then by these and similar gibes, I have nevertheless now returned to my senses and accept them with joy. For if my conduct in this matter and the like has been foolish, the punishment I am suffering is just; and seeking God’s pardon, I cheerfully and gratefully submit to his just treatment of me. But even if I have wisely freed myself of a heavy burden, I nevertheless know that by this action I am not free of the stain of pollution, since all our justices are like the rag of a menstruous woman [Is 64:6], and our evil deeds are purely evil, but our good deeds are not purely good. So the more devoutly it is to be hoped that the bad that was mixed with the good of my action may be purged clean away, the more joyfully ought I to accept contumely and contempt. What is more, in your love and discretion you should know that, with the help of God’s grace, neither the loss of an office of high rank2 nor the decrease in worldly possessions saddens me but rather cheers me all the more. For I am aware that the perils of high office are neither few nor small – how dangerous the pitfalls are, how few aspire to a more exalted office out of a loving concern for others, how many do so because of their desire to lord it over others, how hard it is to keep pride in check, how rare is the sense of one’s own weakness, how powerful is one’s feeling of contempt for others, how reluctantly one recognizes the needs of

1 Adam Marsh (not to be confused with Adam Rufus of Letter 1) was perhaps Grosseteste’s closest friend and collaborator. He is here addressed as ‘master,’ and we know from other sources that he was a master of arts by 1226. It may be presumed from this address that Adam had not yet joined the Franciscans, something he would do at Worcester, probably in 1233 or 1234. He corresponded regularly with Grosseteste; see Adam Marsh, Epp., 24–171. On Adam, see C.H. Lawrence, ‘The Letters of Adam Marsh and the Franciscan School at Oxford,’ in JEH 42 (1991): 218–38; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 156–8. 2 Apparently a reference to the office of archdeacon.

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one’s weaker brethren, how false and merely fanciful is this position of power, and how true and substantial is the submission of servitude. I know also from experience, and still suffer from the wounds, how many pricking thorns there are in riches, how many occasions riches offer for sinning, how difficult or impossible it is, when they abound, to use them well, how true it is that their abundance impoverishes instead of enriching their possessor, and how blind and torpid is the mind of the one who dreams that he is the possessor of things over which he has no power. For how are these riches in my power, which against my will flee away when I want to keep hold of them? which disappear when I want to grasp them? which decrease when I want to increase them? which vanish when I want them to last? which prick my conscience so sharply when I want pleasantly to enjoy them? For these reasons the Psalmist expressly says: They have slept their sleep, and all the men of wealth have found nothing in their hands [Ps 75:6], that is, in their power. Now, there is one action of mine that some think shrewdly to throw in my teeth, and that is that I abandoned with too little forethought, or so they say, my pastoral charge. For these people I have ready what seems to me an adequate reply, one which even you have known for a long time now. I was driven to do what I did, on the one hand, by my utter inability to perform properly the duties of the charge that, with too little circumspection and too much boldness, I had undertaken, and, on the other hand, by the obedience that obliges me to comply with the constitutions of the apostolic see.3 Now, it is true that a pastoral charge, once undertaken, should only be given up if the pastor who does so is transferred to a more elevated calling, or feels he is unable to manage the cure he has undertaken, or has no hope in that cure of any success with his parishioners, or has involved himself with too little forethought or even, if it is possible, with forethought, in other cures, and so cannot lawfully hold the cure he has undertaken together with those others.4 Nevertheless, I am not trying to justify myself in my action, although I hope it was conceived and born of the fear of God. For, together with Job in his distress, 3 Grosseteste was concerned that he was in contravention of canon law in holding two benefices with care of souls – the parish church of Abbotsley and the prebendal church of St Margaret, Leicester. In Letter 74 he relates that he had consulted the pope about this and been told that it was illicit to hold two curae animarum simultaneously. See Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care,’ 4. 4 On the canon law surrounding renunciations of benefices, see K. Pennington, Pope and Bishops: The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1984), 101–14.

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I fear all my works [Jb 9:28]. And I know that, just as is written in the book of Job, a man cannot be justified compared with God, or one born of woman appear clean, and that if the moon does not shine and the stars are not pure in his sight, how much less man, who is rottenness, and the son of man, who is a worm [Jb 25:4–6]? So then, my beloved friend, I humbly and tearfully beg you not to stop praying to God for me that, if my action was wrong, he may in his infinite mercy forgive it, together with my other great and countless sins; and that, if it was something good, which is what I hope for more, he may mercifully wipe and cleanse away the blemishes that circumstances may have caused in this action and in any other good works I may have done.

10 To an unnamed master of theology, chastising him for his immoral behaviour. Written perhaps between 1232 and 1234, when Grosseteste was teaching at Oxford and active there in academic affairs. Edition: Luard, Epp., 48–50 (reading, p. 50/line 7, amarae for amare).

To Master N.,1 beloved to him because of Christ, Robert Grosseteste sends greeting. You, whom I am accustomed to loving in Christ, I cannot but love because of Christ, for charity never fails [1 Cor 13:8]. Now, I say that I love you not in Christ but because of Christ, since, as a rumour is emphatically and stridently proclaiming about you, you are not in Christ. For the dangerous and putrid infection of lewdness has cut you off from the body of Christ and made you one with the body of the old enemy. Through you, too, the name of Christ is being blasphemed, and because of you Holy Scripture, which you teach with the mouth of a body that is abominably polluted, is by many held in abomination. You are a visible blemish on the clergy, a disgraceful insult to theologians, a joy and delight to the enemies of theology, a laughing stock, a song, and a tale to all the people. How has

1 The initial ‘N’ may stand for a person whose name begins with that letter, but it is more probable that the master’s name has been suppressed here, and represented only by the generic N[omen]. In one manuscript ‘N’ has been replaced by a blank space. This lascivious theologian remains unidentified.

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the gold of your wisdom become dull, the finest colour of your former way of life changed [Lam 4:1]? Return, I beg you, return to your true self. Look at yourself, at how contemptible your body is, being neither strong nor very beautiful in appearance, wasted by diseases and many different toils, consumed by old age, gray-haired, wrinkled of face, near to the grave. Reflect on this and extinguish with the water of reflection the sulphurous breath of the evil spirit and the funeral pyre of lewdness afire within you. You should remember, moreover, your calling. Focus frequently upon the sacred state you have embraced and the vow of chastity attached to it. Think about the cure of souls you have undertaken and the example of chastity that ought to be part of it. Remember that you are a teacher and interpreter of Sacred Scripture, a preacher of the cross of Christ,2 and how inconsistent with these responsibilities is a disgraced lecher. And do not forget, I beg you above all else, that you should fear hell and love the delights of heaven’s joys. Bring all these arguments together and subdue that foul passion of yours for lewd behaviour. But perhaps you will say that I am too ready to believe a rumour and will reproach me with the verse that he who is hasty to trust is light of heart [Sir 19:4]. My answer to this is that this rumour, or rather this shameful accusation, is not recent, but of long standing, and has, furthermore, fallen loudly upon reluctant ears. It is crawling far and wide throughout the land, it is flying to and fro through the air, it is thrusting its head among the stars and knocking at the heavens. If it were a false rumour – and how I wish it were! – it could still not have been so loud unless its source were some appearance of evil, even though one endowed with so many great gifts of wisdom has a duty to avoid not only evil but, in the words of the Apostle, every appearance of evil [1 Thes 5:22]. If, then, the enormous uproar caused by this rumour is justified, take pains, I beg you in the name of the crucified Christ, to live from now on a meritorious and holy life and thereby wipe away the stain of guilt and close the mouths of those who speak evil, to dispel the shadows of your former way of life with the light of good works, and to expel with the odour of good opinion the stench that preceded it.

2 ‘A preacher of the cross of Christ’ implies that this theologian had been chosen as a preacher of a crusade. There were two periods of intensive crusade preaching at this time, one in 1224–25, instigated by Pope Honorius III, and another in 1234, by Pope Gregory IX. See P.J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 146–56, 158–73.

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But if the uproar is unjustified – and how I hope it is! – gird up your loins like a man and destroy its source, the appearance of evil, living your life henceforth honourably among the gentiles, so that, although they now malign you as an evildoer, they may, as they observe you from this day forward, because of your good works give glory to God on the day of his visitation [1 Pt 2:12]. So, with the deepest affection I ask you to drink, lovingly and therefore agreeably and healthfully, the bitter cup that is this letter, as I with bitterness drink the bitter and notorious sweetness that is the lasciviousness blamed on you. And you should not reject these warnings because I am inferior to you, less experienced,3 and perhaps more sickly because of more serious maladies, for on many occasions a doctor who is less experienced and more sickly gives for drinking a cup that will restore good health to one who is more experienced and less sickly than himself; and any fruit that springs from the root of charity can be nothing other than wholesome. So drink, not only agreeably but also greedily, the cup that is this bitter censure, that I may at some time drain with joy the cup that is your transformation into a new man. Fare well unto Christ, that I may at some time dare to conclude a letter to you with the words, ‘Farewell in Christ.’

11 To Michael Belet, royal and ecclesiastical administrator and judge, defending himself against Belet’s charge of excessive severity in declining to institute an unsuitable candidate as rector of a parish in the diocese of Lincoln. Written between Grosseteste’s election as bishop of Lincoln in March of 1235 and his consecration in June of that year. Edition: Luard, Epp., 50–4.

3 Grosseteste may have been ‘inferior’ to the addressee in several ways. For example, Grosseteste may not have been a master of theology, technically speaking – he does not describe himself as ‘master’ in the address – but simply a lector to the Franciscans at Oxford. He was almost certainly ‘less experienced,’ in that he seems to have taken up the study and teaching of theology rather recently; see Letter 1. Grosseteste was, however, active in disciplinary matters at Oxford in 1234, when he was asked to supervise, along with Robert Bacon, OP, and the university chancellor, the arrest of all the prostitutes who failed to obey a royal mandate to leave the town; see Southern, Growth, 71; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 66.

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Robert, with divine permission bishop-elect of Lincoln,1 sends greeting and sincere affection in the Lord to Master Michael Belet,2 beloved to him in Christ. I send you many heartfelt thanks for the loving concern with which you watch over the progress and outcome of my affairs. But my thanks are greater and even more sincere and heartfelt because you have been good enough to rebuke and reproach me with compassion and affection for my own rebuke and reproach, which, as many believe and feel, exceeded all measure and moderation. Now, the root from which this reproach and rebuke of yours sprang up was charity, and fruit that grows from so good a root cannot be evil. Moreover, I beg of your charity, by that charity with which Christ was willing to submit to death on the cross for our sake, that as often as you learn or hear of anything unbecoming or offensive in me, you take care to chop it off with the sickle of rebuke, for the treatment that is your rebuke will not cause me distress but will make me grow. For I know it is written: He who hates reproaches goes astray [Prv 10:17]; and again, He who hates reproaches is a fool [Prv 12:1], but he who yields to his accuser is glorified [Prv 13:18]. Not, however, by way of excusing the gross intemperance of my rebuke, but submitting to the discretion of yourself and other men of sound judgment, and looking forward to a definitive sentence from you and them, I offer the following justification: A certain monk presented to me for institution to a cure of many souls a deacon without the tonsure and, contrary to the council’s regulations, wearing clothes of scarlet and rings on his fingers, in dress and behaviour a layman, or rather a knight, and, as far as could be gathered from his answers, practically illiterate.3 Furthermore, as I recall, I rebuked the

1 Grosseteste was elected bishop of Lincoln in March of 1235 by a unanimous and uncontested vote of the chapter, an unusual occurrence in the thirteenth century; see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 69–93; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 29–30. He was consecrated in June of the same year (see Letter 12). For the powers and duties of a bishop-elect, see R.L. Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton, 1968). 2 Michael Belet was an administrator active in both ecclesiastical and secular affairs. He was a ‘master’ of laws, perhaps at Oxford, as early as 1201, held parochial benefices throughout England, served as guardian of the temporalities of the see of Coventry and Lichfield in 1224, was the hereditary chief butler to the king, and served as a clerk in the king’s household and as a justice in eyre for Northamptonshire; see Emden, BRUO, 1:159–60; ‘Belet, Michael (d. in or before 1247),’ in ODNB. 3 A reference to c. 16 of the Fourth Lateran Council (see Tanner, Decrees, 1:243) or c. 33 of the council of the province of Canterbury, held at Oxford in 1222 (see Councils and Synods, 116); cf. Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 158–73.

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monk who was presenting him in words somewhat like this: ‘You, since you are a monk and by your monastic habit and vow profess perfection, and are thereby bound to expose your earthly life to death for the salvation of souls – how dare you present for institution to a cure of souls someone like this, who by his behaviour and clothing clearly reveals himself to be more likely to kill souls than to cure them? For, as the blessed Augustine declares: “The shepherd of souls is answerable for as many deaths as may result from the spectacle of his own bad example.”4 To the wolf you are surrendering sheep for whose protection from the wolf you are obliged to lay down your life. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the full price of his own blood, gave, indeed, his full life, to a most bitter and shameful death, to save and restore to life each and every soul. And yet your goal is to hand over such a large number of souls to one who by his perverse example will betray and destroy those for every one of whom Christ gave not part of his blood, but all of it; not part of his life, but all of it utterly. You would not give up to the wolf, or to one who would destroy it, a sheep you had bought for twelve pence, and yet your goal is to hand over to such a destroyer a soul that Christ purchased at the price of his own blood, a price incomparably greater than the whole of mere creation! Is not a sheep valued at twelve pence dearer to you than a soul whose value is the blood of Christ? You who treat Christ and his precious blood as worth so little – are you not clearly on your way to hell?’ It was with this kind of rebuke, I confess, that I rebuked that monk. So I ask you and those who love Christ to determine what in this rebuke seems worthy of rebuke or malicious disparagement? Did I imply something that was false? Did I tell the truth when I should have kept silent? Should I have kept silent – I who am responsible for each and every one of those souls for whose care, or rather eternal damnation, this monk presented that deacon? Should I not at least have spoken out against the damnation of those souls that I feared and saw was imminent? Am I not answerable for the death of those souls if I do not resist their death as much as possible and use all my strength to repel it? Shall I not speak even a word of truth to oppose the death of souls, a death I am bound to oppose with my own blood, with my own life and death? Should I have softened the truth in the face of such an imminent death of souls, a

4 Cf. Augustine, Sermo 46.20 (CCSL 41:546–7): ‘Audite et discite oues dei: a malis pastoribus inquirit deus oues suas, et de manibus eorum inquirit mortem illarum.’ See also the provisions of c. 7 of the Fourth Lateran Council, ‘De correctione excessuum’ (Tanner, Decrees, 1:237), and Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care,’ 13–15.

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death that the plain truth I spoke in protest cannot yet repel? For both monk and deacon are still persisting in their plan. But perhaps someone will say that the clothing of a deacon like this is not the best argument that he is himself unsuitable for a cure of souls. To this person my reply is that it is the Lord’s teaching that we should obey our superiors [Heb 13:17]. When caught, then, in the very act of transgressing canon law and conciliar legislation, that deacon was caught committing the crime of disobedience: he is disobedient not only to his superiors, but to God who commands us to obey them. Now, the crime of disobedience is like the sin of witchcraft and the offence of idolatry [1 Sm 15:23]. A man guilty of a crime cannot heal souls of their crimes, and that is why the Apostle says: The bishop, that is, each and every priest and shepherd of souls, must be free from crime [Ti 1:7]. Yet still someone will say: ‘He can repent.’ And I say that, according to the Apostle, the bishop, that is, the priest, must not be a recent convert [1 Tm 3:6]. So once it is plain that he is guilty of a crime, he must first demonstrate suitable signs of his repentance over a suitable period of time, before he would be fit to take on a cure of souls. And, as the blessed Bernard says: We should admit to the guidance of souls ‘not those who are yet to be tested but those who have been tested.’5 There is not, then, or so it seems, anything reprehensible in that rebuke of mine, nor did I imply something false or express a truth about which I should have kept silent. Should I perhaps not have publicly rebuked a person who sins publicly, even though the Apostle says to Timothy: When they commit sins, censure them in the presence of all, so that the others may have fear [1 Tm 5:20]? Or should I perhaps have gently rebuked a fault that endangers souls, even though the Apostle says this to Titus about those who are guilty of such a fault: For that reason reproach them harshly that they may be sound in faith [Ti 1:13]? And it was because Eli the priest rebuked his sinful sons too gently that he was condemned.6 Faults that do not lead to a soul’s destruction may be rebuked gently and borne patiently, but a wise doctor will not be gentle when it comes to squeezing out a deadly poison. Since, then, neither the rebuke in this case, nor its manner appears to be inconsistent with the rule laid down in Scripture, it seems to me that those who rebuke and criticize my rebuke, which, as God is my witness, proceeded from a love for the salvation of souls and a great fear of their 5 Cf. Bernard, De consideratione 4.11 (S. Bernardi Opera, 3:457). 6 Cf. 1 Sm 2–3.

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eternal damnation, care more – I mean no disrespect – for their own interests than those of Jesus Christ [Phil 2:21], and more for the milk and wool than for the sheep themselves; they put light for darkness and darkness for light; they call evil good and good evil [Is 5:20]; they do not grieve at the affliction of Joseph [Am 6:6]. If they were true lovers of Jesus Christ, they would not rebuke me in this case but would join with me in rebuking; they would not condemn me, but would join with me in condemning; they would not snap at me, but would join me in snatching the sheep from the snapping jaws of the wolves. Were they to do so, I have no doubt that the snatching and saving of souls, which I cannot do alone, they and I together would succeed in doing. But because they offer no help and even place impediments in the way of the little I try to do, they should be afraid of being charged with the death of those sheep at the Judgment we must all dread. So it is for you in your discretion to judge whether, in the sight of God and of those who are zealous for the welfare of souls, my rebuke is as reprehensible as is thought. How I wish that these words of the Gospel may apply to me: Blessed will you be when people revile you, and persecute you, and speak all evil against you because of me; rejoice on that day and exult, for your reward is great in heaven [Mt 5:11–12]!

12 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, on the place of Grosseteste’s consecration. Written between April and June 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 54–6.

To the venerable father in Christ, Edmund,1 by the grace of God, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, Robert, by the same grace bishop-elect of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. The Apostle says to the Romans: Make this judgment instead, not to place an obstacle or stumbling block in a brother’s way [Rom 14:13]; and a few words later in the same letter he adds: If your brother is grieved because of your food, then you are no longer walking according to charity; do not by your 1 On Edmund, see Lawrence, Edmund of Abingdon.

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food cause the ruin of a man for whom Christ died [Rom 14:15]. And in a letter to the Corinthians this same Apostle again says: Be careful that this liberty of yours does not become an obstacle for the weak [1 Cor 8:9]; and a little later he adds: If food causes my brother’s downfall, I will never eat meat any more, so as not to cause my brother to fall [1 Cor 8:13]. It is plain that in no action that is in itself neither good nor bad – one, I mean, that can, in and of itself, occur or not occur without sin – should we place an obstacle or stumbling block in a brother’s way. And to demonstrate this, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, teacher and agent of the truth, paid a didrachm so as not to be the downfall of those who received it, even though he was not only a free man but also the Truth itself that frees us from the yoke of slavery.2 So since, as I truly believe, the monks of Canterbury cannot for any reason be prevailed upon to grant me in a spirit of goodwill the favour of being consecrated elsewhere than in the Church of Canterbury, and if I am granted this favour against their will in some other place, they will stumble over this – an action neither good nor bad in itself – as if it were an obstacle, and will fall into the pit of anger, rancour, and hatred; and by appealing against your action they will initiate difficult and expensive lawsuits.3 And since it is not right or proper for the servants of God to go to law [2 Tm 2:24], and it is altogether a defect in some that they have lawsuits with one another [1 Cor 6:7], so as not to cause their downfall and bring ruin – God forbid! – to some weak person for whom Christ died, and so as to walk according to charity [Rom 14:15], inasmuch as I may be granted the favour of being consecrated in the Church of Canterbury without sin and without placing an obstacle or stumbling block in anyone’s path, I humbly prostrate myself at your feet, most holy father, and most devoutly beg that your holiness kindly accede to my request to do me the favour of consecrating me in that church. For it is better to be consecrated in Canterbury, however great the expenditure of this world’s goods may be, than at some other place with savings just as great, but with an obstacle in the path of the weak brother for whom Christ died,

2 See Mt 17:23–6. 3 The extraordinary efforts of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, to secure various rights and privileges in the early thirteenth century, including the privilege of having all suffragan bishops of the Church of Canterbury consecrated only at Canterbury Cathedral, have been told most fully by C. R. Cheney, ‘Magna Carta Beati Thome : Another Canterbury Forgery,’ in his Medieval Texts and Studies (Oxford, 1973), 78–105.

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inasmuch as the Truth solemnly declares: Woe to the person by whom the stumbling block comes [Mt 18:7]! Perhaps some wise men of this world, were they to hear this argument of mine, would regard it as naive or foolish, but I believe that the wisdom that is from above [Jas 3:17] considers it capable of moving every mind that is filled with the fear of God and appropriately on guard against a stumbling block, unless there may perhaps be some reason of which I am unaware why my consecration cannot take place without sin in the Church of Canterbury. So, most revered and beloved father, in this matter may your counsel and mine be not the precepts of men but that counsel concerning which we say each day: Yes, your precepts are my counsel [Ps 118:24]. And similarly, to the one who says, If food causes my brother’s downfall, I will never eat meat anymore, so as not to cause my brother to fall [1 Cor 8:13], let us also say that if my consecration, I mean the favour of your consecrating me and of my receiving consecration at your hands, were celebrated in any place other than the Church of Canterbury and thereby cause our brothers to fall, it will never be celebrated anywhere else, so as not to cause those brothers’ downfall. There is, however, that report you have heard that one of those who were with me at Canterbury spoke harshly to the monks, threatening that, even against their will, I would be consecrated elsewhere. I am quite convinced that this story is completely false, for the men who accompanied me were very peaceable and discreet, and they joined me in addressing the humblest possible requests to the monks.4

13 To W. of Cerda, urging him to give up his teaching in Paris rather than his parochial cure. Written between April and June 1235, when Grosseteste was bishopelect of Lincoln. Edition: Luard, Epp., 57–9.

4 Grosseteste was consecrated by Edmund at Reading Abbey on 17 June 1235, in the presence of five other bishops. On that same day he issued a cautio, stating that his consecration at Reading had proceeded with the consent of the chapter of the monks of Canterbury, obtained in advance by Archbishop Edmund; see Cheney, ‘Magna Carta Beati Thome,’ 95–6.

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Robert, by the grace of God bishop-elect of Lincoln, sends greeting, etc. to Master W. of Cerda,1 beloved to him in Christ. I have received from you, dearly beloved, a letter in which you say that since you are unwilling to lecture at Paris as a regent master and hold a cure of souls simultaneously, your choice for the present is to proceed with your course of lectures rather than to bear the burden of a pastoral charge. For the time being, then, you have postponed taking on the cure of souls to which I have summoned you out of concern for their salvation.2 I praise and commend your eagerness to teach: with the Lord’s favour it will bear fruit for many people. And much more do I praise in you a zeal that is so fervent that it would not allow you to be physically apart from the sheep of Christ were you actually to take on the duty of being their shepherd. But even so, although your zeal for the house of God is so intense as to commend your character, there is good reason to be surprised that you are declining the perpetual task of nourishing souls so you can for a time continue your lecturing. For the one task, lecturing, is a short-term good, while the other, shepherding Christ’s sheep, is of more lasting benefit and for that reason, according to the rules for making choices, better and more desirable, especially as our Lord says to the prince of the apostles: If you love me, feed my sheep [Jn 21:17]; nowhere does he say: ‘If you love me, lecture from a master’s chair to the shepherds of my sheep.’ The blessed Gregory has this to say in his Pastoral Rule about this test of love: ‘If, then, the proof of a man’s love is the care he takes in feeding the sheep, whoever is strong in virtues but refuses to feed God’s flock is guilty of not loving the supreme shepherd.’3 To ensure, then, that refusing a cure does not separate you from the supreme shepherd’s love, you should allow the burden of pastoral office to be placed on your shoulders. It is my certain belief that you are not shaking off this burden like an unruly pack animal, but, as you know that no one claims an honour for himself [Heb 5:4] and that this burden is heavy and filled with terrors, you are reluctantly consenting to take it on only if drawn and driven to do so. Once, however, a person has taken up a pastoral charge, he must bear it courageously and tirelessly.

1 W[illiam?] of Cerda, a master in the schools at Paris, who apparently held a parochial benefice in Lincoln diocese, is known to us only through this letter; he is not otherwise attested in either university or diocesan records. 2 Grosseteste has apparently summoned Master W. to return to England and to take up residence in the benefice with cure of souls that he holds in Lincoln diocese. 3 Gregory, Regula pastoralis 1.5 (SC 381:146).

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To be certain, therefore, that I am not at fault and sinning should it happen that the Lord’s sheep are deprived of the benefit of your indispensable care, and you estranged from the love of the supreme shepherd, I appeal to your humility and charity by prostrating myself at your feet, and with all my heart’s devotion implore, entreat, and beseech you, by the blood shed by Jesus Christ, not to refuse to take up the cure of souls to which you are being drawn, not by me alone but by Christ as well, who for each and every one of them gave the full price of his blood. For Christ is drawing you with ropes of love, and so is the entire heavenly city; he is driving and urging and goading you with the terrors of hell’s punishments. It is with these terrors that Christ threatens and frightens those who stubbornly refuse pastoral office when they are drawn to it. So, since my devotion, which is beseeching you with every exertion, as well as the love of Christ and zeal for souls, is drawing you, not apathetically but vigorously, to the task of guiding souls, in keeping with what the blessed Gregory says in his Rule, even though in your heart you are fleeing from it, you should obediently take on this obligation in spite of your reluctance.4 The Lord Jesus Christ came down from the bosom of the father into a virgin’s womb and suffered death on the cross to save souls, and yet you tremble to step down from a master’s chair to feed, by word, example, and prayer, those for whom the son of God did not hesitate to hand himself over to the hands of those who would harm him and to suffer the torment of the cross. Now, if the need to avoid scandal compels you for the present to choose your lecturer’s duties, as your letter has indicated, this should not stand in the way of your accepting the cure to which you are drawn. For even if you were not preoccupied with your lecturer’s duties, you would not be able actually to reside in this cure before the next feast of the blessed Michael.5 Until that time, then, you will be able to continue your lectures without being anxious about any deficiencies your absence may cause. Indeed, if it suits you and is to your advantage to lecture for another six months or a year, I promise faithfully to employ qualified preachers during that period to make up for your absence as far as the pastor’s duty to preach is concerned.

4 Cf. Gregory, ibid., 1.6 (p. 150). 5 29 September.

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14 To Alard, provincial prior of the Dominican friars in England, requesting the services of friars John of St Giles and Geoffrey of Clive for at least one year. Written shortly after Grosseteste’s consecration in June 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 59–60.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Alard,1 provincial prior of the Friars Preachers in England, Robert, by divine mercy bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. I am well aware of what your holiness has vowed: to long with every impulse of charity for the salvation of souls, to direct your every effort towards that goal, and to bring it about at any cost of sweat and toil. There is no need, then, of many arguments to induce you to support whatever contributes to the salvation of souls. For in this regard you have a ready will, requiring neither push nor pull. So I did not feel the need to use any persuasive words in the request I have included in this letter and directed to so charitable a man as yourself, my reason being that, if you heed my request, it will contribute not a little to the salvation of souls. My request is that your holiness will consent to write a letter and be pleased thereby to direct Brother John of St Giles,2 who is planning to come to England around the next feast of St Michael,3 and Brother Geoffrey of Clive,4 to remain at least for the year ahead close by my side and, in matters that concern the salvation of my own soul and of the flock entrusted to me despite my unworthiness, to be honest counsellors and active assistants,5 the kind who will keep me from falling when I am weak, 1 This letter is the only extant evidence concerning an ‘Alard’ (Alardus) who was prior of the English Dominican province in 1235. See Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 307, 360, 497. 2 John of St Giles was a famous master in the Parisian schools, where he entered the Dominican Order, and was active in ecclesiastical and secular affairs in England after his return from the Continent in 1235. He was close to Grosseteste throughout his episcopate and may have been present at his deathbed in 1253; see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 358–60, 449–51, 459–61; ‘St Giles, John of,’ in ODNB. He is not to be confused with the John of St Giles who was rector of Banbury and a member of Grosseteste’s household; see Major, ‘Familia,’ 220–1, 237. 3 29 September. 4 Geoffrey (Galfridus) of Clive is otherwise unknown; see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 449. 5 On Grosseteste’s use of Dominican and Franciscan friars as counsellors and coadjutors (fulfilling the spirit of c. 10 of the Fourth Lateran Council, ‘De praedicatoribus

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carry me when I am disabled, lift me up when I lose strength, provide a prop when I am unsteady, pick me up when I stumble, help me to my feet when I fall, cheer me when I am filled with fear, spur me on when I am lazy, reform my conduct and that of my household, detect faults and set them right, and establish firmly anything deserving of praise. And although, as I said above, there is no need to persuade you to help in this regard – since what I am after clearly involves a benefit to souls – and likewise no need to plead with you, there is, however, a desire burning within me that makes me plead without restraint. So I throw myself to the ground before the feet of your holiness and with all possible desire, devotion, and humility beg you not to spurn my pleas in this request, nor dismiss them without a hearing. This I humbly beg, imploring and entreating you by the tender mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which the morning sun from on high has visited us [Lk 1:78], and by the shedding of his blood.

15 To Alard, Dominican provincial prior, and the definitors of the Dominican provincial chapter at York. Written in the summer of 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 61.

To the venerable men, most beloved to him in Christ, Brother Alard, provincial prior of the Friars Preachers in England, and the definitors1 in the chapter to be held at York, Robert, by divine mercy bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. I am firmly bound by the responsibilities of the office that has been imposed upon me, despite my unworthiness, to purify the house of God, but I am unable to make even the slightest progress in that task without vigorous and courageous helpers. No such effective helpers in this charge can be found as there are among the friars of your order, who instituendis’ [Tanner, Decrees, 1:239–40]), see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 442–57; Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care,’ 12; and, for example, the bishop’s Letters 15, 16, and 20. 1 ‘Definitors’ or representatives from each of the priories met annually in the English Dominican province from 1230, but few records of these assemblies have survived. This would seem to be the only notice of a provincial chapter meeting at York in 1235. On the administrative organization of the English friars, see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 209–16.

Letter 16

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have been consumed by a zeal for the house of God [Jn 2:17] that strongly incites and inspires them to purify that house of any sordid abominations. For these reasons I have with all possible devotion humbly prostrated myself at the feet of men of such charity as yourselves, with an appeal to your sincere affection to deign kindly to grant the request – if you find it acceptable – that I addressed on another occasion to Brother Alard, the provincial prior (who will explain that request more fully to you).2 There I asked to have with me for a while Brothers John of St Giles and Geoffrey of Clive, and I am also now requesting that you add to these a third friar of yours, one who is trained and tested to be competent in civil and canon law, and whose sane and honest counsel I may confidentially employ in the face of so many dubious cases that arise incessantly, and of such an unpredictable and unreliable assortment of lay lawyers. Farewell in the Lord.

16 To John of St Giles, OP, attempting to persuade him to return to England and to help Grosseteste bear the burden of his pastoral responsibilities. Written in the summer or autumn of 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 62–3.

To the venerable man, most beloved to him in Christ, Brother John of St Giles,1 of the Order of Friars Preachers, his own Robert, by divine permission bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and as much as he has of sincere love and affection. I know that zeal for the house of God consumes you [Jn 2:17], strongly arousing in you the desire to build that house. The skill to build is also something you have, not on a modest scale but conspicuously. It is up to you to put this skill to work gladly and quickly in a place where there is reason to believe that doing so can make God’s heavenly house rise up quickly. Now, unless I am greatly mistaken, the building of this house is something you will be able to accomplish more effectively in your native land than anywhere else.2 There is no need for me to take the trouble to 2 See Letter 14. 1 On John of St Giles, see Letter 14, n. 2.

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give someone as clever as you the reasons why this statement is true, for you will persuade yourself of it with no great effort at all. Furthermore, although you are obliged to proclaim the word of salvation to everyone, you have a special obligation to preach it to those who have with you the kind of brotherly bond that unites your own people. That is also why the Apostle, as you know, specifically wishes to be anathema from Christ for the sake of his brothers who are his kinsmen according to the flesh [Rom 9:3], that is, the Israelites. There is also the fact that your presence, as I firmly believe, is nowhere else longed for by any mortal as much as by me and your very dear comrades who are staying here with me; nor is there any bishop who needs your help in preaching the word of salvation as much as I, who have been weighed down more than anyone else I know by the heaviest burden of pastoral responsibilities. Since, then, your work is known to be more fruitful among your own people, and your obligation to perform it here is more compelling because of your kinship with us, and the efforts of those who desire the sweetness of your presence are more intense, and my own need for you is greater, I prostrate myself at the feet of so humble a man and with heartfelt desire beg you to be kind enough to come and stay with me as my helper in distributing the bread of God’s word; and because the need is urgent, please do this at your earliest possible convenience. Farewell in Christ Jesus our Lord.

17 To William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral, concerning Grosseteste’s refusal to admit an unsuitable candidate to a parochial benefice in Lincoln diocese. Written probably in 1235.

2 John had been teaching as a regent master of theology in Paris from at least 1228. He entered the Dominican Order there in 1230, and continued to lecture as a master of theology in the University of Paris. In 1233 he succeeded Roland of Cremona as the lector in theology in the Dominican house in Toulouse, where he taught until the summer of 1235. He was at Mainz from July to September, 1235, where he witnessed the marriage of Frederick II and the empress Isabella. He returned to England after 14 September 1235; see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 358–9.

Letter 17

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Edition: Luard, Epp., 63–5 (reading, p. 64/line 22, recurreretis for recurretis; 65/14, me a for mea).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, William of Raleigh,1 treasurer of Exeter. I have received from you, dearly beloved, a letter that made me feel, the Lord knows, sad and not a little anxious, because it expressed towards me, someone who loves you in the Lord with sincere affection, an indignation that is unreasonable. For as my witness I call upon our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, who is one and the same judge and witness, that I am not admitting W. of Grana2 to a pastoral charge for this reason alone: he is a minor and not sufficiently educated, still a boy, in fact, who thinks Ovid the greatest letter-writer! I could not entrust a pastoral charge to such a person without transgressing the rules of Sacred Scripture and the revered regulations of the holy fathers.3 By such an action I would clearly condemn myself to hellfire and expose the boy and those who supported him in this case to the risk of damnation, to say nothing of the grave danger to the souls to be entrusted to his care. Were it not for the fact that I do not have time to write it out, I would not find it difficult to make clear my concern from obvious authorities. By not admitting him to a pastoral charge, I am demonstrating to you, to this boy, and to the souls over whom you would like him to be given authority, the same concern that a doctor shows by refusing a drink of cold water to a patient burning with fever, and that one would show by denying a paralytic control of a ship in a storm on rough seas, and that one would show by stopping a man who intends to jump to his death. A person as dear and discerning as yourself should therefore take care not to return to me evil for good and hatred for my love [Ps 108:5], because the Spirit of God is witness to my own spirit, sinner though I am, that,

1 William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral, chief justice of the king’s court (coram rege) from May 1234, and later bishop of Norwich (1239–43) and of Winchester (1244–50), was a distinguished administrator and jurist. He is the authority cited most frequently in the legal treatise known as Bracton, written during and after the 1220s; see Turner, Judiciary, 8, 191–258; ‘Raleigh, William of,’ in ODNB. 2 No record of W. of Grana is to be found in the diocesan records of Grosseteste’s episcopate. 3 See Gratian, Decretum D.48, for the prohibition against ordaining ‘neophytes’ to pastoral office. Cf. Templum dei 17 (pp. 61–2).

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from feelings of sincere and loving concern for your salvation and that of the boy and the souls entrusted to my care, despite my unworthiness, I am not admitting this boy to a pastoral charge because of the danger to him and to us. You also write at the foot of your letter that you would resort to the remedy of an appeal, were you not, out of kindness, taking into consideration the fact that I am new to my office. To this my answer is that, with the Lord as my witness, your appeal would greatly please me, as would your acquisition, on appeal, of the church to which the boy was presented – except for the fact, however, that there could thereby be good reason to fear the damnation of his soul and yours! And, so that you will not, dearly beloved, regard me as ungrateful for your love and for the countless great benefits I have received as a result of your generosity and kindness, I am ready, and have been so now for a long time – Brothers Robert Bacon and Adam Marsh and Masters Robert Marsh, Thomas of Wales, and John, archdeacon of Leicester are my witnesses4 – to grant that boy, out of consideration for your love, 10 marks a year from my own treasury, until such time as he is appointed, through my effort or that of another, to a wealthier ecclesiastical benefice or some other provision is made for him at his own written request. I earnestly ask you, dearly beloved, to permit W. of Grana to receive, together with your goodwill, this annual payment, modest though it is, because the small amount that the just man has surpasses the many riches of sinners. And prostrate at your feet, I beg with all my heart that your heart will on no account stop loving me, because, by the grace of God, neither my death nor my life will separate me from loving you in the Lord.

4 These witnesses are all distinguished scholars and active administrators. Robert Bacon (the text refers to a Rogerus Bacun, but is corrected by Luard to Robertus in his list of errata) was a Dominican friar and lector at the Oxford Dominican friary. Adam Marsh was Grosseteste’s close friend (see Letters 9, 20, etc.) and a Franciscan friar probably since 1233 or 1234. Robert Marsh, the brother of Adam Marsh and an Oxford master, would hold positions of responsibility in Lincoln diocese later in Grosseteste’s episcopacy, and serve as archdeacon of Oxford and dean of Lincoln Cathedral after Grosseteste’s death. Thomas of Wales (Walensis) was another Oxford master who became archdeacon of Lincoln in 1238 and bishop of St David’s in 1247; see Letter 51. The last, John of Basingstoke, archdeacon of Leicester from 1235 to 1252, had spent time in the Latin duchy of Athens, whence he returned with many Greek books; he was one of the key figures in Grosseteste’s study and translations of Greek works of theology and philosophy; see ‘Basingstoke, John of,’ in ODNB.

Letter 18

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18 To John le Romeyn, subdean of York, concerning the conditions under which the farming (subletting) of churches is permissible, justifying his revocation of ecclesiastical farms (leases), and explaining his objections to monastic farmers (leasers) of parish churches. Written probably in 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 65–7.

To the venerable man, Master John le Romeyn,1 subdean of York, Robert, by divine permission bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. I have received a letter from the venerable man, Lord Boezio,2 nuncio of the lord pope and member of his household, supplicating on your behalf that I permit you free disposition of your church at Chalgrave.3 Accordingly, since disposition is not a wilful action but an orderly one, consistent with right reason, I am, and with the Lord’s assent shall be, most ready to grant free disposition of his churches, not only to you, whom I love with special affection as an intimate friend, but also to all other men appointed rectors of churches in my diocese. It is in fact my intention to compel these men, as my office so obliges me, to dispose of them freely should they take it upon themselves to do otherwise. Nevertheless, it must be very well known to a man of your discretion that to put a church to farm is not to dispose of it freely, but is rather more

1 John le Romeyn (Romanus), probably of Roman parentage, was an influential churchman. He was made subdean of York Cathedral in 1228 and treasurer of the cathedral until his death in 1256. He is found already in 1218 acting on behalf of the pope and being addressed as ‘Master John Romanus, canon of York’; see R. Brentano, York Metropolitan Jurisdiction and Papal Judges Delegate (1279–1296) (Berkeley, 1959), 59; ‘Romanus, John (c. 1230–1296),’ in ODNB. 2 Boezio (Boetius), the ‘nuncio’ or representative of the pope in England, served as patron of a papal chamberlain who was being instituted in a chapel in Lincoln diocese in 1234; see Rotuli Welles, 3:213. In 1239 he was described as ‘procurator’ of Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England (1237–41); see Rotuli Grosseteste, 353, and Letter 26. 3 The manuscripts agree in giving the name of John le Romeyn’s church as ‘Chalgrave.’ The only church of that name in the diocese of Lincoln is Chalgrave in Bedfordshire, and it pertained continuously throughout this period to the prior and Augustinian canons of Dunstable. What, if any, connection John le Romeyn had with this church in 1235 is unclear, but the canons of Dunstable are often found disputing the right of monasteries to farm their churches; see Councils and Synods, 264n4.

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accurately to reduce the free bride of Jesus Christ to a condition of slavery, ‘unless by chance,’ as is stated in the decrees of the provincial council, ‘there is a just reason, approved by the bishop of the place, and the church is farmed to an individual who is respected and in holy orders, and concerning whom one should assume it likely that he will put the fruits of the church to good use.’4 Furthermore, the consent of the diocesan has to be one of the conditions, and the diocesan should not give his assent when it is known that one or both of the remaining conditions mentioned in the council’s decrees has not been satisfied. I cannot imagine, however, what ‘just reason’ you might have for putting your church to farm, because a need to reside elsewhere does not prevent your having a prudent and faithful steward, and ‘a respected individual in holy orders,’ such as the council’s regulations require, should not be taken to mean ‘religious bodies’ as recipients of farmed churches. Moreover, such bodies are bound in all their works to preach contempt of the world, whereas they are evidently preaching the contrary by receiving farmed churches, to the great danger and at the serious expense of monastic life and of many souls. If, then, I were to consent to such farming, I would clearly be committing the sin of disobedience by violating the council’s decrees. By consenting to their sin in failing to check and oppose it when I have the power to do so, I would be betraying the souls that I must save and for whose salvation I must sacrifice my life. Because, then, a great man as prudent and discerning as yourself does not want to be guilty of any sin, neither in act nor by consent, I humbly beseech you, whose kindness in the Lord is so dear to me, not at any future time to put the church referred to out to farm. I make this request for the sake of Jesus Christ, who redeemed the Church with his blood and gave her liberty so as to liberate my soul, yours, and many others. You are to know that if from this day forward you provide others with a pernicious example in this regard, you will, as the blessed Augustine has demonstrated in his book about pastors, be guilty of as many deaths as there are souls familiar with your example.5 I also want you to know, dearly beloved, that I am ready to comply with your requests cheerfully and to good effect, as far as I am able without doing violence to the truth

4 Grosseteste is quoting c. 43 of the council of the province of Canterbury, held at Oxford in 1222; see Councils and Synods, 119–20. 5 Cf. Augustine, Sermo 46.20 (CCSL 41:546–7); and see Letter 11, n. 4.

Letter 19

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in return. But, however much you may be my friend, the truth will always be, by the grace of God, more of a friend to me, something you also wish, for you love truth more than yourself. Furthermore, Lord Boezio has written in his letter to me that many were surprised because I revoked the farming of that church on account, or so he says, of an arbitrary personal decision. He also included, in a subtle way, certain threats, to which I briefly reply that were I not to revoke this kind of farming of churches, there are a great many more who would be surprised, I mean all the heavenly citizens on high, and on earth men of goodwill. This was not an arbitrary decision on my part, but a reasonable interpretation of a decree of the council. Nor do I, with the help of him who taught us this, fear the threats of mortals, whose greatest power is to slay merely the body, but I fear him alone who is able to send body and soul to hell [Mt 10:28].

19 To John Blund, chancellor of York Cathedral, explaining his refusal to appoint one of Blund’s relatives to a parochial benefice. Written probably in 1235. Edition: Luard, Epp., 68–9 (reading, p. 68/line 29, vestrum for vestram).

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Master John Blund,1 chancellor of York, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and ever increasing sincere affection. The law of friendship brings even things that seem impossible to the level of possibility, and compels us to bear courageously and gladly any adversity rather than break the bond of love. But the sincerity implicit in this law does not wish anything sinful or dishonourable committed for its sake, nor can the name of friendship or friendship itself in any way endure when someone presumes to do something dishonourable and gives

1 John Blund (ca. 1175–1248) had studied and taught philosophy and theology at Oxford and Paris. He was elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1232, but his consecration was successfully opposed by Simon Langton, the archdeacon of Canterbury, at the papal curia. He was appointed chancellor of York in 1234. See Emden, BRUO, 1:206; D.A. Callus and R.W. Hunt, eds., Iohannes Blund: Tractatus de anima, ABMA 2 (London, 1970): vii–viii; ‘Blund, John,’ in ODNB.

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friendship as the reason. That is why we must firmly agree that neither of us, because we have been bound for a long time by the tie of friendship, would want the other to commit for his sake even the smallest dishonourable act. Assuming this, then, about the sincerity of your love for me, I hope you will not be angry with me for not admitting N., that clerical relation of yours, to the Church of B. My reason is that his admission cannot escape the stain of sin under canonical regulations that direct that those who are insufficiently educated are not to be admitted to a pastoral charge.2 This N. is insufficiently educated; indeed, I would say that he is almost totally illiterate. And to ensure that his ignorance is not concealed from you, I am sending you herewith the answers he gave at his examination,3 and I humbly, firmly, and with all my love ask that this decision of mine not cause you to lessen the sincerity of your love for me, who am yours, or darken the light that shines on me from your countenance [Ps 4:7]. Put my affection for you to the test, I beg you, by letting me do for you something dangerous that would require my suffering hardship rather than guilt. For this is the law of friendship: the willing acceptance of a hardship on a friend’s behalf. Nothing culpable, however, is to be committed for a friend, and it follows that evil men cannot come together in friendship.

20 To Adam Marsh, thanking him for his letters and prayers, and asking him to meet with Grosseteste to help draft certain petitions and requests to the papal curia and to discuss other pressing matters. Written shortly after 14 September 1235, the date of the meeting, mentioned here, of the Dominican provincial chapter at York. Edition: Luard, Epp., 69–71.

2 Canon 27 of the Fourth Lateran Council, ‘De instructione ordinandorum,’ provides that both the ordinand, if ignorant and untrained, and the bishop who ordains such a cleric, should be subject to grave punishment; see Tanner, Decrees, 1:248. 3 For the development of written ordination examinations in this period, see W.J. Dohar, ‘Medieval Ordination Lists: The Origins of a Record,’ in Archives 20 (1992): 17–37.

Letter 20

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To his own Adam Marsh,1 his unworthy and sinful bishop sends greeting and himself. May the requiter of all good things reward you for your diligence and toil. That toil, so conscientious as it is, will not be a wasted effort for you, but eternally fruitful, whatever result it may have as far as I am concerned. As I also trust in the mercy of our blessed Saviour and in the prayers of his most holy mother, I hope that your toil will produce a favourable result even so far as it concerns me. For what seems like tedious and protracted toil to us as we travel through time is on the whole quite hurried or accelerated to those who are placed in the context of eternity. Moreover, for your most holy, sweet, and effective powers of persuasion, which I wish would produce the result you intend on my harshness, I give thanks, not as many as I ought or want to give, but I prostrate myself at the feet of one so sincere and beloved as yourself to give as many as I possibly can. For I have learned from my experience of that persuasiveness that you, and you alone, are a truthful friend, a loyal counsellor, a person whose concern is the truth and not what is illusory, and who rests on a firm and solid foundation, not on a hollow and fragile reed. So, may your holy prayers with their devout entreaties help to ensure that I am persuaded of what you are persuading in such a holy and effective manner, and that what is persuaded is not obstructed in its effect by any deception or scheming on the part of the ancient enemy or his members, so that I am not ever compelled to pay homage to the enemies of truth and the agents of iniquity. And may those same devout and most efficacious entreaties of yours, as well as those of all the saints on earth and in heaven, help to ensure that the thunderings of those who jeer, the mutterings of those who plot, and the taunts of those who disparage, all of which you touched on in the body of your letter, may be turned against the tormentors, just as the fiery javelins of the enemy are humbly and confidently intercepted by the shield of faith and patience.2 May these same tormentors thus be wounded, not fatally, but in a way that leads to their salvation, so that when their wounds are opened, the tumour of pride is reduced in size, and the covering on the mind’s eye is removed, they may see the truth and return to the charity that unites us all.

1 On Adam Marsh, see Letters 8 and 9. 2 Cf. Eph 6:16.

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In addition to this, in your letter you imply that, for want of a better word, you fear that your letters are perhaps sometimes vexing or burdensome to me. I want you to keep this fear very far from your mind, since in this world there is nothing so delightful to me, after your most holy conversation when you are present, as the comfort I derive from your letters.3 Now, I am asking you, beloved friend, so very dear to me, that you not be restrained by any apprehension about taking on this task, and that, as soon as you have spoken with Brother John of St Giles,4 you deign to come to me at Liddington, so that I may take advantage of your counsel in petitions and requests for advice to be sent to the curia.5 For certain new matters6 have come up, in addition to those expressed earlier, about which it would take me too long to write, and which it is not safe for me to share with more than a few people. There are several other things, too, that are pressing, for which I very much need your prompt advice. The other matters you touched on in your letter will, with the Lord’s help, be resolved successfully. I have been left without much comfort and help because Brother Garinus has been recalled and I have no friars with me, neither yours nor any of the Preachers.7 I have not yet received a response to my request to have with me some Friars Preachers, a request I made to the prior provincial and the definitors at the chapter held at York on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.8 Please, on Christ’s behalf, arrange for me to have some friars from your order with me, since their presence is of vital importance to me and the Church. May you, my sincere and beloved friend, fare well in Christ. Please bring this letter back to me when you come. Farewell.

3 For Adam Marsh’s many surviving Letters to Grosseteste, see Letter 9, n. 1. 4 On the Dominican friar John of St Giles, see Letter 14, n. 2. 5 Grosseteste was at his manor of Liddington on 30 September 1235; see Rotuli Grosseteste, x. The petitions sent from there probably included the ones to which Pope Gregory IX responded in July of 1236; see Letters 21, 27, and 28; Bliss, Calendar, 155; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 175. 6 These ‘new matters’ included, no doubt, those issues of public affairs discussed in Letters 23, 24, 26–28; cf. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 169–76. 7 Brother Garinus is probably to be identified with the Franciscan Garinus or Warin of Erwelle; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 97–8. 8 14 September 1235; see Letter 15, n. 1, for the meeting of the Dominican provincial chapter.

Letter 21

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21 To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln, directing them to instruct all monasteries and parish churches in their archdeaconries not to permit the buying or selling of goods within sacred precincts. Written shortly after 9 November 1235, the date of the royal writ mentioned here. Editions: Councils and Synods, 201–3; Luard, Epp., 71–2.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, all the archdeacons appointed throughout the bishopric of Lincoln.1 You are to know that the lord king recently, at Northampton, in response to some brief and mild exhortation, kindly approved, granted, and conceded that merchants henceforth at their fair in Northampton may not offer any goods for sale or engage in buying or selling in the Church or cemetery of All Saints at Northampton.2 The king himself cited in this regard the fact that the Lord cast out of the temple those who were buying and selling.3 The king also instructed that announcements be made at this fair by a public crier forbidding merchants to presume henceforth to engage in any business transactions there. I believe, moreover, that with the same devotion and kindness the lord king will be pleased if in other places, too, those buying and selling are excluded from sacred places in accordance with the teaching of the gospel. Since, then, it is a bishop’s responsibility to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ by casting out and excluding from sacred places those who buy 1 A list of the archdeacons of Lincoln, Huntingdon, Northampton, Leicester, Oxford, Buckingham, Bedford, and Stow at this time can be found in Fasti: Lincoln, 24–47. A brief description of the diocese of Lincoln and its administrative structure is in Southern, Growth, 235–6. 2 The writ, dated 9 November 1235 and directed to the king’s bailiffs at Northampton, required that the market and fair there be moved from the cemetery and Church of All Saints and held henceforth in a vacant space north of the Church (CCR 3:206–7). See J.L. Cate, ‘The Church and Market Reform in England during the Reign of Henry III,’ in Medieval and Historiographical Essays in Honor of James Westfall Thompson, ed. J.L. Cate and E.N. Anderson (Chicago, 1938), 27–65. Grosseteste also obtained a mandate from Pope Gregory IX, dated 26 June 1236, instructing him ‘to put a stop to the practice which obtains in some churches and sacred places of his diocese, of making the house of God a house of merchandise’ (Bliss, Calendar, 155). 3 See Mt 21:12, Mk 11:15.

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and sell, so that I, who am obliged to show the most ardent zeal for the house of the Lord, am not found to be apathetic in this regard, and deserving to be vomited out of the mouth of him who is the faithful and true witness and the beginning of God’s creation [Rv 3:16, 14], and so that I, who am obliged, together with Judas Maccabeus, to purge the Lord’s house of every impurity and abomination,4 do not consent to turning the houses and places of prayer into a den of thieves [Mt 21:13] – for he consents to evil who has the power to prohibit and obstruct it but does not do so5 – I command you to see that a firm injunction is issued on my authority in all the monasteries and parish churches of your archdeaconries against any individual who henceforth presumes, at the cost of his own salvation and contrary to the explicit teaching of the gospel, to offer goods for sale in sacred places or to engage in business transactions there. Take care that this command, since it is not of human but of evangelical inspiration, is carefully observed, by restraining with the Church’s censure those who contravene or rebel against it. Farewell.

22 To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln, directing them to correct various errors and abuses in the parishes under their jurisdictions. Written probably in conjunction with Letter 21, in 1235 or early 1236. Grosseteste apparently followed this letter with his first pastoral visitation of the diocese. Editions: Councils and Synods, 203–5; Luard, Epp., 72–6.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, all the archdeacons appointed throughout the bishopric of Lincoln.1 It is a pastor’s duty to suffer with those who are ignorant and go astray, and to keep watch over the flock entrusted to him as if he will have to give an

4 Cf. 1 Mc 4:36–60, 4 Kgs 23:24. In his Templum dei (6 [pp. 36–7]). Grosseteste uses the same image of Judas Maccabeus cleansing the temple. 5 This is a familiar rule of canon law; cf. Gratian, Decretum D.83 c.3, D.86 c.3, C.17 q.3 c.1, etc. 1 See Letter 21, n. 1.

Letter 22

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account of its souls [Heb 13:17], and to feed that flock, as is written in Jeremiah, with knowledge and doctrine [Jer 3:15]. I acknowledge this duty and desire to do all I can to heal those in the flock entrusted by the Lord’s plan to me, despite my unworthiness, who are ignorant and go astray. I have therefore decided that certain pernicious errors of theirs that are leading them down the dark and slippery path to hell should be mentioned in this letter, and that you, by your ministry throughout your archdeaconries, should point out certain errors to ignorant and misguided people and dissuade them from committing them, and that certain errors should indeed be prohibited and suppressed by canonical censure. And because one who does not control his gluttony and drunkenness strives in vain to overcome his other vices, first of all [1] I order and firmly charge you to prohibit, both at synods and in your chapters, the drinking parties that are commonly called ‘scot-ales,’ to have them prohibited frequently in each and every one of the churches of your archdeaconries each and every year, and to restrain by ecclesiastical censure those who presume to act contrary to prohibitions canonically promulgated, imposing upon such offenders the punishment prescribed by canon law.2 For, as it is written: Wine, that is, everything that inebriates, drunken to excess, makes for quarrels and anger and many a downfall; it is bitterness of the soul, the stumbling block of the fool, sapping strength and causing wounds [Sir 31:38–40]. What is more, it blemishes the image of God in a person by depriving him of the use of his reason, it impedes natural activities, brings on the worst diseases, shortens life, is a stepping stone to apostasy, and engenders countless other evils. So I, who have been appointed to eradicate, exterminate, eliminate, and annihilate faults of this kind,3 must not be remiss in digging out the root of such enormous evils. [2] I order you, furthermore, to prohibit and to have prohibited, by the procedure mentioned above and also by restraining and punishing those who scorn your prohibition, the erecting on planks and wheels of targets for tilting as well as the other similar games where people compete for a prize,4 since both those who are participants in games of this kind and those who are spectators, as Isidore clearly shows, are offering sacrifices to the demons who are the inventors and initiators of such games,5 and also

2 Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes for the diocese of Lincoln), c. 39 (Councils and Synods, 274). 3 Cf. Jer 1:10. 4 Cf. letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), c. 39 (Councils and Synods, 274). 5 See Isidore, Etymologiae 18.27.1.

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since games of this kind frequently provide occasions for anger, hatred, strife, and murder. Moreover, you should by salutary preaching see to it that other games that are played on feast days and are not usually the source of discord are discouraged, because, and the blessed Augustine6 is my witness, it would be much less sinful on such solemn days for women to spin and weave and men to plough, and for them both to perform other works necessary and useful for sustaining life, than to indulge in idle and wanton activities of this kind. For all holy days are observed with divine services and holy works, which are immediately beneficial for the salvation of souls; activities that are characterized by idleness and wantonness are very much more removed from these observances than are necessary and useful activities. [3] You must also ensure that reminders are frequently given in sermons that those who assemble for evening vigils on the eves of saints’ feasts at their churches or shrines, or for funerals, devote themselves there only to the divine services and to praying, so as to avoid their turning to scurrility, games, or perhaps worse behaviour, as has become customary, and thereby provoking upon themselves the anger of the saints whose intercessions they came to obtain. Similarly, at funerals, they must not turn a house of mourning and remembrance, where one is warned against committing further sins, into a house of laughter and joking where sins are multiplied – sins that will end in eternal grief and dark oblivion,7 as wisdom or knowledge or reason will be able to make clear to them. [4] After first giving a warning, you should see that all games of this description are kept out of churches and cemeteries by ecclesiastical censure, because holy places have been removed from human uses, to say nothing of human jests, and converted to divine uses, and those who presume to do the contrary turn a house and place of prayer into a den of thieves [Mt 21:13]. [5] You should also see that frequent warnings are given in sermons in each and every church to mothers and nurses not to place their infants beside them in bed, for fear that they will perhaps carelessly suffocate them, as frequently happens, and children’s deaths are thus caused by the action of those expected to nurture their tender lives.8

6 Cf. Augustine, Tractatus de decem chordis, sermo 9.3 (CCSL 41:110), and Grosseteste, De decem mandatis 3.2 (p. 30). 7 Cf. Prv 14:13, Ws 17:3, Eccl 9:10. 8 Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), c. 41 (Councils and Synods, 274).

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[6] You should also see that secret marriages are in sermons strictly prohibited on a regular basis, and that the dangers that follow after are clearly and carefully set forth, so that if one foresees the evil results of an action, he may more courageously and cautiously avoid their source.9 [7] Moreover, in each and every church you should strictly prohibit one parish from fighting with another over whose banners should come first in processions at the time of the annual visitation and veneration of the mother church.10 These encounters usually result not only in quarrels but also in cruel and bloody fights. Indeed, you should in opposition impose a canonical punishment on those who henceforth presume to violate this prohibition, because people who fight like this thereby violate and dishonour the mother church although they ought to have sanctified and honoured her. Those who dishonour their spiritual mother should not at all escape punishment, when those who dishonour their fleshly mothers are, in accordance with God’s law, cursed and punished with death.11 [8] Furthermore, in certain churches I have found that the corrupt practice has become customary whereby on Easter Sunday the offerings of parishioners are not accepted except at that point after the celebration of Mass when they come up to receive the most holy sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood.12 You should see that this corrupt practice is henceforth very strictly prohibited under grave penalty, since from it arise grave scandal and the implication that the Church’s prelates are disgracefully greedy, and most of all it hinders the devotion of the people approaching to receive so great a sacrament. [9] Moreover, as I have found elsewhere, contrary to the statutes of both general and provincial councils,13 people are refused the sacraments of the Church, and the Eucharist even on Easter Sunday, unless they pay money.14 To ensure that no one is in this regard able on grounds of ignorance, as it were, to give some specious excuse, you should see that the decrees of the councils about this matter are frequently recited, not only in synods but also in chapters, and with the penalty prescribed by canon law punish those who presume to do the contrary. 9 10 11 12 13

Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), c. 42 (Councils and Synods, 274). Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), c. 43 (Councils and Synods, 274). Ex 21:15, 17; Lv 20:9; Dt 21:18–21; cf. Grosseteste, De decem mandatis 4.17 (p. 45). Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), c. 22 (Councils and Synods, 271). Fourth Lateran Council, c. 66 (Tanner, Decrees, 1:265); Council of Oxford (1222), c. 31 (Councils and Synods, 116). 14 Cf. Letter 52* (Grosseteste’s statutes), cc. 22, 27 (Councils and Synods, 271, 272).

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23 To William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral and chief justice of the king’s court, arguing in detail against the law and practice of that court that disinherits children born out of wedlock even when their parents subsequently contract a legitimate marriage. Written probably late in 1235, and certainly before the council of the realm held at Merton on 23 January 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 76–94.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter.1 Although, in imitation of the blessed apostle Paul, who exhorts us to follow his example as he followed Christ’s, I am under obligation to Greek and foreigner, to learned and simple, and thus am ready to proclaim the gospel also to you who are at court [1 Cor 11:1, Rom 1:14–15], to you I am nevertheless much more bound and beholden in my obligation to preach the gospel, so that in you I may have some benefit of the gospel’s power and of an eternal reward. For at court you perform the important office of a judge, and therefore hold a post in which you have power to do more good than the other court officials, if, in accord with God’s command, you do not yield in judgment to the opinion of the majority and so stray from the truth, but justly judge and pursue what is just [Ex 23:2, Dt 16:20]. You also have power to do more harm, should you attempt – God forbid! – the opposite of this. Besides, you are more closely tied to me as a spiritual son, and by a long-standing and special affection, and by the generous bestowal of various benefits, than are the others who pass their time at court. So to you, as I mentioned above, more than to anyone else I have an obligation to pass on the truth of the gospel, so that in you I may gain the reward of eternal salvation that I desire most of all. So as not to incur any blame for not satisfying so great an obligation, I have undertaken to proclaim, gospel-like, the following remarks to you, dearly beloved, whom I closely embrace with the deepest feelings of charity. Do not, I beg, let the undue length of my letter deter you from reading it, though you are preoccupied with so many other things, for this lengthiness has as its source a short word, that is, charity. First of all, then, what I declare and proclaim to you is this: a child born before his parents contracted marriage is legitimized by the subsequent 1 On William of Raleigh, see Letter 17, n. 1.

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marriage of those parents and acquires the right to be his parents’ heir, unless it happens that one parent or both was previously married and this marriage was not dissolved before the child was born. And judges who by judicial sentence disinherit such a child as spurious and illegitimate will be included in the number of those to whom it was said through the prophet Amos: You are turning judgment into wormwood and forsaking justice in the land [Am 5:7]; and again, through the same prophet: You have turned judgment into bitterness, and the fruit of justice into wormwood [Am 6:13]. The framers, too, of the law, or rather of the perversion of the law, whereby a child born before wedlock is adjudged spurious and illegitimate and is deprived of his inheritance, come within the scope of that cry of woe of Isaiah who said: Woe to them who frame wicked laws and, when they write, write injustice to oppress the poor in judgment and to do violence to the cause of the humble amongst my people, that widows might be their prey and that they might plunder orphans [Is 10:1–2]. For this law, whereby a child born before wedlock is disinherited as illegitimate after his parents contract marriage, is a wicked and unjust law, contrary to natural and divine law and also to canon and civil law.2 For as Pope Alexander III writes, ‘the binding force of matrimony is so great that those who were born before it are to be considered legitimate after marriage is contracted,’3 and so it is the binding force of matrimony that legitimizes the child born before it. Matrimony is a natural thing in accord with the law of God and of nature, for these laws established it. What the efficacy of a natural thing produces is something natural, and that is why, since matrimony is in accord with divine and natural law, the legitimation produced by the efficacy of matrimony is a natural legitimation by divine and natural law and in accord with them both; it does not occur as a result of a dispensation from the law. Natural legitimacy that is not the result of a dispensation entails hereditary succession by divine and natural law. That is why the Apostle says to the Romans: But if we are children, then we are heirs, too [Rom 8:17]; and again to the Galatians: If you are a child, then also by God’s own act you are an heir [Gal 4:7].

2 See R.H. Helmholz, ‘Bastardy Litigation in Medieval England,’ in his Canon Law and the Law of England (London/Ronceverte, W.Va., 1987), 187–210. 3 This decretal letter was addressed by Pope Alexander III to Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter (1159–81). It was known to Grosseteste, or to his assistants, probably from the copy included in the collection of papal decretals made by Bernard of Pavia between 1188 and 1192 for use in the schools (Compilatio prima, 4.18.6). It was later included in the authoritative collection of decretals made at the order of Pope Gregory IX in 1234 (X 4.17.6). This pope’s collection incorporated five such compilationes antiquae, ed. E. Friedberg (Leipzig, 1882).

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In the book of Numbers, too, when Moses brought the case of the daughters of Zelophehad to the Lord’s judgment, this was the response he received from him: The daughters of Zelophehad are demanding what is just. Give them the right of possession among their father’s kinsmen and let them succeed him in his inheritance. And to the children of Israel you shall say this: When a man dies leaving no son, his inheritance shall pass to his daughters. If he has no daughter, his brothers are to be his successors. And if he has no brothers, you shall give the inheritance to his father’s brothers. If, however, his father has no brothers, the inheritance shall be given to his closest relatives. This shall be holy to the children of Israel as a perpetual law [Nm 27:5–11]. So, according to the law given by the Lord through Moses, natural and legitimate proximity of kinship – the lawgiver was not concerned with illegitimate kinship – determines one’s legitimate heir. The child legitimized by a subsequent marriage, since he is just as legitimate as the child born after the marriage – the same and equivalent binding force of one and the same sacrament legitimizes them both – and since each child is equally a natural child because each was generated naturally, the first child cannot be less closely related to his parents than the child born after the marriage, especially as a child can be born after wedlock who was conceived before it. So, by natural and divine law, since no heir can be found who is more closely related than this prenuptial child, and the inheritance is to pass to the closest relatives, this child succeeds to it. Those, then, who judicially deprive this child of his inheritance do so in violation of divine and natural law, and no one, especially no Christian, is permitted to do anything contrary to this law. The fact is that we are obligated to do everything according to divine and natural law, even things that were not done before or anything that is presumed to be contrary to expected practice, for in his Confessions Augustine has this to say: ‘When God orders something contrary to anyone’s custom or convention, it must be done even if it has never been done there before; it must be taken up again even if it has been discontinued; and it must be established even if it was not an established practice. For just as among the powers of human society the greater power is entitled to the obedience of the lesser, so God to the obedience of all.’4 Since that is the case, the laws of princes do not prevail over natural and divine law, and if they are opposed to it, there is no reason to comply with them. So Augustine writes to Boniface that ‘whoever is unwilling to 4 Augustine, Confessiones 3.8 (CCSL 27:35); probably quoted here from Gratian, Decretum D.8 c.2.

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comply with imperial laws that are passed contrary to God’s will receives a great reward’;5 this also means, on the other hand, that the one who is willing to comply receives a great punishment. Similarly, Augustine has this to say elsewhere: ‘Anyone who resists a power resists God’s ordinance [Rom 13:2], but what if a power were to order something you should not do? Surely in this case you will pay him no heed. If a proconsul orders one thing, the emperor another, and God something else, what do you decide? The greater power is God. Forgive me, O emperor: you are threatening me with prison, God with hell.’6 So one should comply with God’s law and the law of nature more than the emperor’s law, and that is why that law should be completely abolished – as contrary to divine and natural law and hostile to God’s justice – that has till now prevailed in the court of the lord king, by which prenuptial children are deprived of any share in their father’s patrimony. Otherwise that law, or rather that constitution or legal custom, will thrust into the pit of hellfire those who make judgments in accord with it, give it authority and support, obey it when they cannot, and do not abolish it when they can. It should not surprise you if in fact the binding force of matrimony legitimizes prenuptial children and makes them legitimate heirs, because the good of matrimony, as is evident from Holy Scripture, can bring about results that are much more important and astonishing. Because of this good each of Jacob’s wives, both Rachel and Leah, had sons who were the free and legitimate heirs of their husband Jacob, though born of the wombs of other women who were also slaves. For by Bilhah her slave-girl and Jacob her husband Rachel had two sons, Dan and Naphtali. Rachel did not lie when she said to her husband Jacob: I have here my slave-girl Bilhah; go in to her that she may bear upon my knees, and I may have children by her [Gn 30:3]. And a little later, after the birth of Dan, Rachel said: God has given judgment in my favour and has heard my voice, giving me a son [Gn 30:6–7]. Thus the good of matrimony made the natural sons of another’s womb the legitimate offspring of Rachel herself, because they had been fathered by her husband with the consent of his legitimate wife. So in a similar case Augustine in his tractate on John says of Ishmael: ‘His mother was more Sarah than Hagar, though Hagar’s womb was loaned and she assented. Abraham would not do anything that Sarah would not want, and so Ishmael was more the son of Sarah.’7

5 Augustine, Ep. 185.8 (CSEL 57:7); Gratian, Decretum D.9 c.1. 6 Augustine, Sermo 62.13 (PL 38:420–1); Gratian, Decretum C.11 q.3 c.97. 7 Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus 12.4 (CCSL 36:122).

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Likewise, Leah gave to her husband her slave-girl Zilpah and had two sons by her, Gad and Asher.8 These four sons of Jacob, all born of his two wives’ two slave-girls, but with his wives’ consent, were Jacob’s freeborn sons and his legitimate heirs along with the remaining sons born of his freeborn wives; these four sons were freeborn because of the good and the binding force of the marriage between Jacob and his wives, who agreed to the procreation of children through their slave-girls’ participation. With their remaining brothers these four sons divided the land of promise with the rope of distribution [Ps 77:54], and Scripture calls all Jacob’s sons freeborn, including these four, when it says: All his children (liberi) gathered together to comfort their father in his sorrow, but he would not receive comfort [Gn 37:35]. So, since the good and the binding force of marriage have the power to make children freeborn and legitimate, and the legitimate heirs of a particular husband and his wife, even though they were not born of that wife’s womb but of the womb of another with that wife’s consent, all the more justifiably does the good and the binding force of marriage have the power to make natural children born of a husband and the womb of his wife legitimate children and legitimate heirs, even though they were born before the marriage. For a marriage contract, even if it follows the birth of a child, should have greater weight with respect to a child of a woman’s own womb than an already contracted marriage should have with respect to a child born of another woman’s womb. But perhaps someone will say that by this principle Ishmael should have been Abraham’s heir, just as Isaac was, for with Sarah’s consent Abraham went in to her slave-girl Hagar so that Sarah would receive children by her. But Scripture expressly disinherits Ishmael when Sarah says: Drive out this slave-girl and her son, for the son of this slave-girl shall not be heir with my son Isaac [Gn 21:10]. To this my answer is that Ishmael forfeited legitimation and his inheritance when he made sport of Isaac, for that sport, as the Apostle testifies, was persecution. When relating to the Galatians this story from Genesis, he says: But just as at that time he who had been begotten according to the flesh persecuted him who was according to the spirit, so also now [Gal 4:29]. That sport or, as the Apostle says, persecution, was idolatry according to Jerome,9 which elsewhere in Scripture is also called sport according to what is written in Exodus about those who were wor-

8 Gn 30:11–13. 9 Jerome, Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos 21.9 (CCSL 72:24). Cf. Grosseteste, Expositio in Epistolam Sancti Pauli ad Galatas 4.38 (CCCM 130:126).

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shipping the golden calf: The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to sport [Ex 32:6]. The sin of idolatry unquestionably forfeited liberty and the legitimate right to inherit, for because of this sin we read that the people of Israel were often taken captive and violently, but justly, expelled from the lands of their inheritance. Similarly, Judah the patriarch begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, who was not married to him.10 Yet these two children, as though legitimate, established tribes, houses, and households among the children of Israel and shared in the inheritance in the promised land. But what was it that legitimized them as heirs but the matrimonial devotion of Tamar herself? Her two husbands, Er and Onan, who were Judah’s sons, had died childless. In accordance with the law of the Lord, a near relative of theirs was to beget offspring by her for the husbands who had died. But she had not been married, as Judah himself had promised, to his third son, Shelah, whose wife by law she should have been. So as not to be cheated altogether of offspring by her husbands’ next of kin, in disguise, and out of matrimonial devotion to these kinsfolk, she wished to have a child by Judah. And when Judah himself learned of his daughter-in-law’s devotion, he said: Tamar is more in the right than I am, because I did not give her to my son Shelah [Gn 38:26]. So, if legitimate matrimonial devotion without the sacrament of matrimony itself, now or later, could legitimize the right to inherit, how much more does that sacrament itself, even if the marriage is after rather than before the child’s birth, have the power to legitimize this right? Likewise, if the good of marriage could make any man the legitimate son and heir of someone who did not beget him, all the more justifiably can the good of marriage, even of a subsequent marriage, make a naturalborn son the legitimate son and heir of the one who did beget him. For the good of a subsequent marriage can, it seems, do more for a prenuptial child than can the good of an existing marriage for the one whom a husband has not begotten and was not intending to beget. On account of the good of the marriage between his glorious virgin mother and her husband Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ was Joseph’s son, for the blessed Virgin herself did not lie when she said: Son, why have you treated us like this? See how worried your father and I have been, searching for you [Lk 2:48]. If the blessed Virgin not falsely but truthfully called Joseph the father of our Lord Jesus, and if the Lord Jesus was himself not falsely but truthfully Joseph’s son, this was not because Joseph fathered him in the 10 Gn 38:1–30.

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flesh – may the minds of the faithful never imagine such a thing! – but because the principle of fatherhood and of legitimate sonship was preserved in their relationship. For it is the principle behind the relationship of a legitimate father to his own legitimate son that that father’s legitimate wife bore for her husband a child who is not the offspring of intercourse with anyone else. And it is the principle behind the relationship of a legitimate son to his legitimate father that he is the child of his father’s legitimate wife and not of his father’s intercourse with anyone else. For that reason Augustine in his book The Good of Marriage says: ‘Mary is called Joseph’s spouse from the time of her solemn marriage pledge, although Joseph never had carnal knowledge of her nor was he destined to have. The designation of spouse was not untrue in a case where there had not been, and would not be, any carnal connection. Because of their conjugal fidelity both Mary and Joseph deserved to be called the parents of Christ, not only she as his mother, but also he as his father (as he was also the husband of Christ’s mother), both in any case being parents in mind, but not in the flesh.’11 From these authoritative statements it is clear that the Lord Jesus Christ was truthfully and not falsely the son of Joseph – his son, I say, though not his natural-born son, as he was thought to be, but his legitimate son, as was correctly implied in the words of the blessed Virgin. And had Joseph possessed anything by right of inheritance, who other than the Lord Jesus, born of Joseph’s wife at the appropriate time, but born eternally of God the Father as a person [of the Trinity] before time began, ought to have succeeded Joseph by that same right of inheritance? Could one possibly have denied – assuming that Joseph would have possessed something by hereditary right – that the Lord Jesus, demonstrably both God and man, who was born as God before time began, is Joseph’s legitimate heir, because he was the son of Joseph’s wife neither by fornication nor adultery? If, then, the good of marriage can achieve these more important results, how will it not have the power also to do something less important, such as legitimizing and designating as heir a prenuptial child, even though the marriage follows upon the child’s birth? Examples from nature could also plainly teach us the same thing. For one and the same physical constitution of one and the same person causes the previously black hairs that grew on his head to turn white in response 11 Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.12 (CSEL 42:224); cf. Gratian, Decretum C.27 q.2 c.9; Peter Lombard, Sententiae 4.27.4.2.

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to a change in his bodily humors. Certain birds, too, when the seasons change, experience changes in their plumage, as feathers new, old, and not yet sprouted take on another, quite different colour. And what is more astonishing, changes in age cause certain animals even to change their shapes. If we also assume that the root and trunk of an oleaster could be made to take on the nature of an olive tree, would it not follow that the branches of that oleaster would be likewise transformed? In Thessaly there are two rivers: one of them causes the sheep that drink from it to turn black, while those that drink from the other turn white, and those that drink from both turn both colours.12 There are also countless such changes that involve even retrospective alterations. So when, as the Apostle testifies, anyone who cleaves to a harlot becomes one body with her [1 Cor 6:16], it is certain that that body is an illegitimate one. But let the binding force of marriage make the couple one flesh, and it is certain that this is a legitimate union of flesh. So if, after a physical coupling in the context of fornication or whoring, those who first had meretricious intercourse then contract marriage, the one originally illegitimate body of this couple is transformed into the one legitimate flesh of both. Is it surprising if, like bodies that change and are changed in the natural world, the meretricious and illegitimate body of a couple, when transformed into a single matrimonial and legitimate union of flesh, changes the illegitimate, prenuptial child, the offspring of fornication, into one that is the legitimate child of marriage? Indeed, it would be a great surprise if this change from illegitimacy to legitimacy were not to occur, since the offspring, whether legitimate or not, cleaves very firmly to the one body or the one flesh of both his parents by the natural bond of a sonship constituted by nature, is bound there very closely and by a tie that cannot in any way ever be loosed, has developed there very profoundly, and is more securely rooted there than the hairs in one’s head or skin, or feathers in flesh, or branches in root or trunk. So, when changed by the sacrament of matrimony into one conjugal and legitimate flesh, an originally meretricious and illegitimate body that was naturally born of that flesh and at the time of the change cleaves naturally to it by the natural bond of a sonship constituted by nature cannot but change naturally into what it resembles. So, they are the enemies of all of nature who judge as spurious, and judicially deprive of hereditary succession, the kind of offspring that is naturally, and not by way of dispensation, legitimized and legitimate. 12 Cf. Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 3.25.3.

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And there is nothing else to be said to such judges, especially as in this kind of verdict they are the intransigent enemies of nature and the opponents of creation, except what is written in the book of Wisdom: Creation, serving its maker, blazes with anger for punishment against the unjust [Ws 16:24], and the mighty shall mightily suffer punishments [Ws 6:7]. Sound reason, which prevails over every law and custom, also condemns the judges responsible for this verdict. For if a cause has the power to induce an effect in something that does not yet exist but will exist in the future, much more forcefully will that same cause be able to induce the same effect in something that actually exists. Marriage is the cause of legitimation, and the subject of this legitimacy cannot be anything that is not yet a human being or a member of the human species. So let us assume that a particular woman becomes pregnant by someone through fornication, and that after the conception but before the conceived fetus takes shape in its mother’s womb, receiving the features of a human body, and a rational soul is infused, the father contracts marriage with the woman he had impregnated and then immediately dies. Even according to your judgment, because of the good of this briefest of marriages, a child so conceived and then born of a mother who now has no husband will be legitimate and capable of succeeding by hereditary right to his father’s inheritance. But when the marriage was in existence, the conceived fetus was not yet a human being but an inanimate embryo, which could not be legitimate or illegitimate before the infusion of a rational soul conferred upon it membership in the human species. Since that is so, an inheritance from one’s father is the reason for legitimizing a person who does not yet exist but will exist in the future, even though he was conceived through fornication. In that case, by application of the universal rule mentioned above, marriage will much more be the reason for legitimizing an actual person or one that does in fact exist, even though he was conceived through fornication. For by what power of nature would the legitimacy of an actual marriage, and one that is about to end, be transferred to a future son who would never have the natural bond of natural sonship with his father? And similarly, what power of nature would impede the transfer of the legitimacy of an actual marriage to a real son who does in fact have such a bond? Similarly, I would like to know whether the judges who are to decide such an issue will determine that a child is legitimate or not on the basis of conception alone, or birth, or both together? If by conception alone, then a child conceived through fornication, even if born after his parents’ marriage, will be illegitimate. But from the writ that these judges

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wanted the bishops to write, to the effect that so-and-so was born before or after his parents’ marriage, it is evident that they judge every child born after his parents’ marriage to be legitimate; otherwise, there would be no point in their asking for a reply from the bishops that uses these particular words.13 If, then, they are deciding by conception alone, it is plain that their decision involves two opposing positions: that a child conceived through fornication is illegitimate because of that conception, and is legitimate because of his birth after his parents’ marriage. This is what the writ implies. So they are not deciding the issue of legitimation or its opposite based on conception alone. If they judge legitimation and its opposite on the basis of conception and birth together, then if conception resulted from fornication and the birth is legitimate because of marriage, the child when born will be neither legitimate nor illegitimate, or will be simultaneously legitimate and illegitimate, or partly legitimate and partly illegitimate. Every one of these is inconsistent, for the child will have an illegitimate status on the basis of his conception through fornication, and a legitimate one on the basis of his legitimate birth by marriage. If the judges base their decision on birth alone, since birth entails only pain and none of the uncleanness of sin on the part of the mother who gives birth or of the offspring – original sin’s uncleanness, in which all people share universally and equally, is incurred because of the morally flawed law of reproduction – for what reason will a spurious and illegitimate offspring be described as distinctively unclean? Certainly the Apostle calls spurious children unclean,14 but only in so far as they are spurious. So if they are spurious on the basis of birth alone, they are unclean, too, on that basis alone, and that is inconsistent. Similarly, let us assume that a pregnant woman, brought to the door of the church to be taken as a wife by the man by whom she has conceived through fornication, gives birth while contracting marriage – I mean while these words are being uttered: ‘I take you as my wife,’ and ‘I take you as my husband’ – but part of their child comes forth from his mother’s womb 13 For a copy of the writ to which bishops were expected to respond, see the ‘Draft writ to a bishop,’ in Councils and Synods, 200. This writ from the king concerns a dispute between two individuals over land. One has objected that the other has no right to the land because ‘he was born before the marriage between his father and mother had been solemnly contracted.’ The bishop is instructed to summon the two disputants, to determine when the birth took place, and to make the results of his inquiry known to the king per literas patentes. 14 Cf. 1 Cor 7:14.

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before the words that constitute the substance of marriage are spoken, and the rest of the child after these words have been fully expressed. A child born in this way will, according to these judges, be neither legitimate nor illegitimate, because he was born neither before the marriage nor after, but, as it happened, half before and half after. For this is possible, since giving birth is not an instantaneous action but a successive one, whose movement may even be interrupted by a period of inaction. To the arguments above from divine and natural law and from reason may be added those from canon law, which demonstrate that the aforementioned judgment is unjust. For in a certain decretal letter Alexander III15 ordains that prenuptial children are legitimate because of the good of their parents’ subsequent marriage, that they will be legal successors to their patrimonies, and that those who presume to oppose this are to be made to experience the Church’s severity. So since, as is written in canon law, ‘the laws of the Church cannot be annulled by an imperial decision,’16 and ‘the laws of emperors are to be considered inferior to evangelical, apostolic, and canonical decrees and cannot be prejudicial to them,’17 and ‘the constitutions of princes that are contrary to the canons and decrees of the bishops of Rome have no force,’18 it is plain that the judges responsible for the aforementioned judgment are dissociating and excluding themselves from the obedience they owe to the holy canons and the holy Roman Church, and not only are they unjust judges, but they incur as well the charge of disobedience, and this is especially so if they are clerics in orders or ones appointed to offices that confer rank in the Church. And in order to show that in this judgment of theirs these judges are the ultimate transgressors, there is no kind of law left that they have not violated by it, since civil law, as is very well known, also declares that by subsequent marriage prenuptial children are legitimized and have the right to inherit.19 And, as I have learned from people older than myself, custom in this realm, as received and approved from of old, has also regarded such children as legitimate and entitled to inherit. That is why, as a sign of legitimation, prenuptial offspring are customarily placed under the cloak that is spread out over their parents at the solemnization of the

15 16 17 18 19

See n. 3, above. Gratian, Decretum D.10 c.1 §1. Gratian, Decretum D.10 c.1 §2. Gratian, Decretum D.10 c.4. See Helmholz, ‘Bastardy Litigation’ (see n. 2, above), p. 189 and n. 4.

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marriage.20 What is more, these judges, as the pinnacle of their transgression and its very obvious manifestation, were willing to judge as spurious and deserving of disinheritance even children conceived and born in and of genuine marriage, when they required from bishops a written response to their inquiry as to whether an individual against whom an objection of illegitimacy was raised had been born before or after the marriage was solemnly contracted – several writs in this form were sent from the court and are still in my possession – even though many times a clandestine marriage is contracted with few to attest to it and without solemnization, and then, when a child is born, the marriage is solemnized in the sight of the Church(in facie ecclesiae). To these judges, then, who so plainly err against divine and natural law, as well as canon and civil law, and also against the power of sound reason and of custom approved from of old, that verse from Isaiah applies: They have been confused by wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him who sees, and they have been ignorant of judgment [Is 28:7]. And I believe that that wine is the one that Solomon refers to when he says: They eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of iniquity [Prv 4:17]. With good cause, then, will the Lord, as he promised through Jeremiah, make them drink of the cup of wine of his fury, and whoever drinks from it shall vomit and fall and not rise again before the sword the Lord shall send [Jer 25:15, 27]. Let no one deceive himself by thinking that secular princes have the power to decree anything, and to observe it or cause it to be observed as law, that opposes a law of God or a constitution of the Church, without cutting themselves off from unity with the body of Christ and with the Church, and incurring forever the fires of hell, and justly subverting their own positions of authority. For the princes of this world receive from the Church whatever they have of power and dignity ordained by God, but the princes of the Church receive none of their ecclesiastical power or dignity from any secular power, but immediately from God’s ordinance; and it is impossible for one who receives to rebel against him from whom he receives by means of that which he receives, unless, for

20 On the local customs that Grosseteste would seem to have in mind, see G.C. Homans, English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1941; repr. 1975), 163–7. Grosseteste’s reference to the practice of placing illegitimate children under a cloak (pallium) is one of the earliest and most famous accounts of such a custom. See F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, U.K., 1898), 2:397–8.

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example, the axe were to boast itself against the hewer, or the saw exalt itself against the sawyer, or a rod raise itself against him who lifts it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood [Is 10:15]. The princes of this world ought also to know that both swords, that is, the material and the spiritual, belong to Peter. The spiritual sword is used by the princes of the Church, who by themselves take the part and place of Peter; but the material sword is used by the princes of the Church by the hand and ministry of secular princes, who are obliged to draw and sheathe the sword they carry at the prompting and command of the princes of the Church. For as Paul says: It is not without reason that the secular prince carries a sword; Paul then gives the reason: For he is the agent of God, an avenger who executes wrath on him who does evil [Rom 13:4]. So secular princes carry the sword to serve God, when they exact retribution on evildoers. In the same way, both ecclesiastical and civil peace and law have been entrusted to the direction of Peter and of those who take the place of Peter; through the ministry of secular princes, Peter and his vicars administer and implement temporal peace, which enables us to pass our lives in this world in peaceful association with others, and temporal law, which guides the lives of people living peacefully in society. But by themselves Peter and his vicars administer and implement spiritual peace, by which the faithful are united in one heart and one soul [Acts 4:32] with God, as well as spiritual law, which complies with spiritual peace. For just as secular princes are God’s agents, inasmuch as they carry the sword as avengers who execute wrath on those who do evil, and for that reason are also agents of the Church, Christ’s bride, so, too, inasmuch as they administer temporal peace and law, secular princes are God’s agents and thus also agents of the Church. That is why they do not have the power to preserve, in the laws we employ to protect temporal peace without disturbance, anything opposed to God’s laws or those of the Church, since an agent must not lift his heel [Jn 13:18] against the one he serves. Indeed, that both kinds of sword, and peace, and law belong in the first instance to the princes of the Church is clear not only from commentaries on Sacred Scripture, but also from the actions, ordained by God, of the ancient leaders of God’s people. Appointed leader of the people of Israel by God, and in all things providing a type of the prelates of the Church, Moses by himself governed the people entrusted to him with both kinds of sword, and law, and peace. For, as Scripture says, he was the people’s representative in matters that pertain to God [Ex 18:19], with power to check those who transgressed the commandments of the law,

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for whose observance the tranquillity provided by spiritual peace was instituted. Likewise, putting his sword on his thigh, and going back and forth from gate to gate [Ex 32:27], as the avenger of evils he would punish those who were disturbing the peacefulness of people’s lives; disturbers of the peace, both temporal and spiritual, he would judge and punish in accord with laws he deemed appropriate. Likewise, too, his successor Joshua, as well as later judges, ruled the Lord’s people, themselves holding and wielding the two swords and administering the two kinds of law as a foundation for both temporal and spiritual peace. But after our Lord Jesus Christ appeared on earth as true God and most gentle of lambs, he wished gentleness and a concentration on the divine to be the preeminent concern of princes of the Church. To ensure that the brightness of this preeminent gentleness and concentration on otherwordly matters would not in some measure be obscured by any act of severity or by entanglement in secular affairs, the wielding of the material sword and the execution of temporal laws – in both of which there gleams the greatest possible severity, even if just, and there is the darkness caused by the cloud of preoccupation with earthly concerns, however licit they may be – are passed into the hands of secular princes, though their power is retained in the hands of the princes of the Church. For this reason it was said to Jeremiah, who stands as a type of the prelates: Behold this day I have appointed you over nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, to waste and to destroy, to build and to plant [Jer 1:10]. It is my belief that the Lord Jesus Christ himself revealed and ordained the division, between secular and ecclesiastical princes, of the uses of the two swords, and a similar separation of spiritual from temporal law, and the retention only of the undivided power of both kinds of sword and law in the hands of the princes of the Church. This he did by fleeing to the mountain when he realized that the ones he had fed with the five loaves and two fishes would come to seize him and make him king [Jn 6:15]. He did so again when a man in the crowd said to him, ‘Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,’ and he replied, ‘Man, who appointed me as judge or divider over you’ [Lk 12:13–14]? For up to a point Jesus fled the act of reigning and judging temporal issues; royal or judicial power itself he did not give up, since in truth and by nature he was a king, and the judge of those in heaven and hell and on earth. In this he showed that the princes of the Church in the age of grace ought not in fact to exercise violence or judge matters that are violent or temporal, but that all power remains in ecclesiastical hands, while its actual use in such situations passes from their power to the princes of this world. The laws of the

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princes of the world must therefore yield to divine laws and not oppose those of the Church; but if, with sword or legal enactment, a secular prince opposes Christ or the Church, he is considered disobedient to his father, Christ, who begot him by the word of truth [Jas 1:18], and to his mother, who bore him by the sacred font of baptism. And, as is written in Ecclesiasticus, he is a man of evil reputation for forsaking his father, and is cursed by God for provoking his mother’s anger [Sir 3:18]. His foundation, too, will be uprooted, as is written in the same book, because a mother’s curse uproots the foundation [Sir 3:11]. If, then, the princes and judges of the world wish to avoid this curse, let them trust in the wisdom of Solomon, who says: Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and do not reject the law of your mother, so that grace may be added to your head and a chain to your neck [Prv 1:8–9]. And whose instruction would Solomon be warning his son to hear so attentively, and whose law was he not to reject, but those of God his father and the Church his mother? For what earthly mother’s law would Solomon be warning him not to reject, when earthly mothers, even if they are empresses, are not the framers of any laws? So much evidence makes it very clear that the princes and judges of this world cannot frame laws contrary to the law of God or a constitution of the Church, or put such laws into practice, except by rebelling against God their father and their holy mother the Church, and thus incurring their own eternal damnation and also the overthrow in this world of their own positions of authority. Since this is so, and as you do not wish to destroy the lord king by handing him over to the fires of hell or to separate yourself from the obedience you owe to the holy Roman and catholic Church, you – to whom has been entrusted the ‘talent’ of personal friendship with the king,21 as well as the dignity of wielding a judge’s power – must strive in every way to restore to conformity with God’s laws and those of the Church any laws contrary to them that have thus far been administered by the lord king’s court, to the insult and injury of the eternal King. You should firmly resolve to oppose courageously those who wish to institute such laws in the future or to put them into practice. That is how you will snatch the lord king and yourself, as well as the other secular judges of this realm, from the flames of the everlasting fire. Farewell.

21 See the parable of the talents in Mt 25:14–30. It concludes with the warning that the useless servant will be ‘cast forth into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

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24 To William of Raleigh, responding to his reply to Letter 23. Written in 1235 or early 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 95–7.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter.1 I have received your reply wherein you thank me for what I enjoined upon you in my brief, which was indeed, as you say, not a ‘brief’ but a ‘dissertation.’ But this was necessarily the case, if I were to write to you with proper zeal. He who is a jealous(zelotes) God knows that I wrote to you out of zeal for your salvation and that of the king and the realm, as you could obviously gather from the contents of my letter. But the fact that you rebuke me for the length of my ‘brief,’ and mockingly call it my ‘dissertation,’ is not a very perceptive rebuke, nor is mockery proper for a wise man, since in the very composition I sent to you I called it not a ‘brief’ but an ‘epistle,’ a name you, too, gave it later in your letter. Though it may exceed the briefness of a ‘brief,’ it does not, when one considers the subject matter of that epistle, exceed limits reasonable for epistles. And if you were as familiar with the epistles of the holy fathers as you are with the legal ‘briefs’ you have to read, my epistle would not have seemed too long to you but, given the richness of the material, quite concise in its brevity. Because, however, I have a father’s affection for you, as for a very dear son, I fully pardon the injustice of this rebuke, though with a mother’s heartfelt feelings I deplore your mockery. If Ham was cursed in his son Canaan for mocking his father’s nakedness,2 what may they fear who mock the respect owed a father? You also wrote that you would answer me at greater length if you could apply yourself to composing a long reply, but I trust in God’s truth that not in any of your answers, no matter how long, will you be able to accuse me of falsehood in this matter. Next you imply that my goal is to try and modify the laws of the kingdom by arguments from the Old Testament. The contents of the epistle I sent you do not claim this, if you read it through in a straightforward 1 On William of Raleigh, see Letter 17, n. 1. 2 Gn 9:25.

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manner. No, with that epistle I try to persuade you – along with those who have the power to frame and change laws and whom you have been able to persuade to do so – to make an effort to bring any laws and customs that are contrary to God’s law and the Church’s regulations into agreement with them. Nowhere in the epistle I sent did I imply that you alone are the framer of laws, on the ground that you may do whatever you wish in court; and I am not such a fool as to believe that you or anyone else can, at someone’s prompting, establish or change laws without the counsel of the king and his magnates. Furthermore, to corroborate the law that a bastard, placed beneath the nuptial cloak spread out over his parents at their marriage, arises therefrom still a bastard, you have cited the argument of Richard de Lucy.3 But that argument, in so far as it may be compared in any way with the opposing arguments from divine Scripture and canon law, is obvious ‘to blear-eyed men and barbers.’4 In addition, not all things are lawful, as you seem to imply, that have been permitted thus far by the lord pope. For he permits many things by reason of the hardness of hearts, just as Moses gave and permitted a notice of divorce [Mk 10:4–5]. Nor should you reckon that my writing you that epistle was an insult, because he who is both judge and witness knows that I wrote it not to insult but to justify, and to honour before all others you to whom I wrote before all others. Now, I would gladly write epistles to others, too, as you advise me to do, if I believed I would achieve in them the kind of success I believed I would have with you. You go on to add ironically that I know all the laws, even though I am a man with no legal experience, and a devoted son should not, out of a sense of contrariness, mock his father’s inexperience, as Scripture has this to say to sons about their fathers: If his understanding fails, forgive him, and do not despise him when you are in your strength [Sir 3:15]. You express the wish, furthermore, that I could bear your burden as a judge in court, although this is not what a son should wish, because bearing your judge’s burden is as far from the office of a bishop as the east is from the west [Ps 102:12]. Nor does the time you are spending in court seem to me to be harmful to the kingdom, but it does seem to me to be harmful to your soul, and therefore troubling to me, who love you like a father and am

3 Richard de Lucy (d. 1179) was a royal justiciar under Henry II from 1168 to 1179; see Councils and Synods, 198; Turner, Judiciary, 30. On the nuptial cloak, see Letter 23, n. 20. 4 Horace, Sermones 1.7.3.

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anxious about your salvation. For you do have a large pastoral charge that demands more than you could give it, even if you were altogether free from secular obligations. Now, at the end of this letter, which is not a ‘brief’ or a ‘long brief’ but a brief epistle, I ask you with the greatest possible affection that the comments I wrote to you in this and that other letter – comments that, unless the judgment of my spirit is deceiving me, spring from the root of true affection and a father’s attachment – may in you be the spark, nourishment, and enlargement of an enduring friendship, because, with the favour of Jesus Christ, neither death, nor life, nor tribulation, nor affliction, nor any creature will separate me from your love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord [Rom 8:38–9].

25 To Hugh of Pattishall, a royal clerk and treasurer of the Exchequer, urging him not to seek further ecclesiastical benefices with care of souls, and to attend more diligently to his current pastoral responsibilities. Written in late 1235 or early 1236, probably before receiving the papal mandate, dated 25 April 1236, that instructed Grosseteste to permit Hugh to lease his Lincoln benefices. Edition: Epp., 97–100 (reading, p. 99/line 11, satages for satageres).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Lord Hugh of Pattishall.1 The more fervently I love and embrace you with a father’s affection in arms of charity, the more I am obliged to proclaim to you what I believe will hinder or help the salvation of your soul. Not only does love draw me to proclaim what will bring salvation, but fear presses and pushes me with great force to do so, as there are those threats in Scripture, where it says: A curse on him who withholds his sword from bloodshed [Jer 48:10], that is, the word of preaching from shedding blood and purifying it of sin; and again: If, when I say to a wicked man – You shall surely die, wicked man – and you do not speak to warn this wicked man to give up his ways, this same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand [Ez 3:18].

1 Hugh succeeded the disgraced Peter des Rivaux as treasurer of the royal Exchequer in June of 1234, an office he held until his appointment as bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in July of 1240; see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 189; Carpenter, ‘Hubert de Burgh,’ 7–17.

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So, drawn by love and pushed by fear, with a father’s anxious concern I warn, command, exhort, and implore you to take thought for the salvation of your soul and therefore not to shoulder a greater and heavier pastoral burden than the one you took on previously.2 Otherwise its weight will overwhelm and crush you, as you are now bearing that earlier burden with less than a man’s strength. For you do not, as is your responsibility as a pastor, use the word of preaching to support the person who is weary, nor do you associate personally with your parishioners and thereby stir them to action by the example of a holy way of life. I know nothing about whether with your tears and sighs and earnest prayers you cleanse your flock of its sins and bear that burden with unending compassion. But even so, that you are not carrying out this third part of your pastoral responsibility seems proven by your frequent and uninterrupted involvement in secular affairs, since, as the Apostle testifies, no one who serves as God’s soldier [2 Tm 2:4] may be so involved, and also by your regular association with vain displays and processions and entertainments, whose companion is not usually floods of tears. So from plain and plausible evidence people infer that you are not performing your pastoral duties. In fact, you seem to be one of those shepherds to whom the Lord said through the prophet: You consumed the milk and wore the wool, and you slaughtered what was fat; but you do not feed my flock. You have not strengthened the weak, or healed the sick, or bound up what was broken; you did not bring back what was driven away or search for the lost. But you have ruled over them with harshness and force. And my sheep were scattered because there was no shepherd [Ez 34:3–5]. So that you may escape the punishment to be inflicted on the hireling, who seeks the milk and the wool but does not guard the flock, you must either extricate yourself from your entanglement in and preoccupation with secular affairs and apply yourself vigilantly like a good shepherd to your pastoral duties, or you must give them up and involve yourself lawfully in the affairs of the world; you cannot do both at the same time. 2 Hugh seems to have held at least five parochial benefices at the time of this letter. See A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘Pluralism in the Medieval Church,’ in Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society Reports and Papers 35 (1915): 35–73, at 52–3; and Rotuli Grosseteste, 193, 194, 317, 356, where these benefices were resigned upon Hugh’s appointment to the see of Coventry and Lichfield. A papal mandate dated 25 April 1236 instructed the bishop of Lincoln to allow Hugh to lease his benefices in the diocese of Lincoln, on condition that they were properly served; see Bliss, Calendar, 154.

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But if, as you should, you devote yourself to your pastoral charge, giving up your preoccupation with secular matters so that you may serve as God’s soldier, I am certain that you will not only shrink from taking on a greater pastoral responsibility, but will make every effort, once you realize that you are required to give an account of each and every one of the sheep entrusted to you, to unburden yourself of a great part of the responsibility you have already taken on. Do not let yourself be misled, as many are, by the possibility of obtaining a dispensation to hold more than one ecclesiastical benefice, because a person who uses such a dispensation for any other purpose than to increase faith and charity is abusing it.3 So examine your conscience as to whether you are trying to obtain even more ecclesiastical benefices so that there may be an increase of charity in the sheep, or that you may increase your wealth at their expense. Or do you want more benefices so that you may feed the sheep with words, example, and prayer, or feed yourself with their milk? Consider whether you may, with Augustine, say to God:4 ‘Lord, you know that I spoke; you know that I was not silent; you know that I wept when I spoke and was not heard.’ This is the complete accounting that must be given of one’s sheep. So, if you will be unable to give God this full accounting of the sheep thus far entrusted to you, with what shame do you dare to ask for more sheep to become your charges, for whom you would oblige yourself to give an even more detailed account, down to the very last penny, before the strictest judge and exacter of all? If you could not give an earthly king an accounting of a minor stewardship, how would you ask him for a greater one, for any deficiency in your accounting of it would lead to his having you bound hand and foot and cast out into the outer darkness [Mt 22:13] of prison? Or do you suppose that the Lord will not say to you: Give me an account of your stewardship [Lk 16:2]? No doubt he will say that if you do not give this accounting down to the last coin, he will hand you over to torturers to be racked to a degree exceeding every extreme.5

3 Sometime during the second year of his episcopacy (June 1236–June 1237) Grosseteste instituted Hugh as rector of the Church of Old Warden (Bedfordshire) on condition that he resided there; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 307. 4 Augustine, Sermo 137.15 (PL 38:762); see also p. 183n1, below. 5 Cf. Mt 18:34.

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For these reasons, by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ [1 Pt 1:2], all of which he shed not only for all the sheep but for every single one of them, I implore you, who are most dear to me in Christ, not to bind yourself to giving the more complete and stricter accounting required by a larger cure. You may perhaps fall short in that accounting and for that be handed over to the torturer to be sent to prison, and you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny [Mt 5:26]. The one who searches hearts [Ps 7:10] knows that because of the fear I feel for your danger and that of my sheep, for whom I am obliged to lay down not only rules but also my life,6 I am recommending this action to you with the concern of a father and the compassion of a mother. And with the affection a mother feels when she holds back her resisting child from jumping from a great height, with that same affection would I hold you back if I could, even though you protest and resist, from taking on the pastoral charge you have been offered, to your own great danger and that of those forsaken sheep. But I would be unable to hold you back against your will, if canon law, by which everything is decided in the church militant, were not against you.7 You should, however, be more concerned about guarding against the possibility of God’s law being against you in this matter, for by this law you are destined to be judged, or possibly to advance satisfactorily and be a judge yourself, in the church triumphant.8

26 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, responding to several charges against Grosseteste that had been brought to the archbishop’s attention. Written probably in the winter of 1235–36, after 21 October 1235, when the bishop was cited to appear before the king’s court (see n. 15). Edition: Luard, Epp., 101–5.

6 Cf. Jn 10:15–16. 7 On the canon law concerning pluralism, see c. 13 of the Third Lateran Council and c. 29 of the Fourth Lateran Council (Tanner, Decrees, 1:218, 248). On Grosseteste’s own resignation of plural benefices, see Letters 8 and 9. 8 Cf. Mt 19:28.

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To the revered father and lord in Christ, Edmund,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, his own devoted Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. With proper respect, father, I have received your letter on behalf of the abbot and community of Osney.2 From its wording it was evident to me that that abbot and community have suggested and given you to understand that, because I sequestered the fruits of the Church of Iver, I was the reason why they did not pay Lord Boezio,3 a member of the lord pope’s household, the 50 marks for which, last year, they farmed that church.4 To prevent the possibility of your being deceived in this matter, I am making it known to you, father, who are so discerning, that that abbot and community fully and freely received, without any interference from me, the fruits of the past year, for which they owe the 50 marks now being demanded by Lord Boezio. They were not once hindered by me, even for a moment, from paying those 50 marks, if I remember correctly, nor by the sequestration, which was a reasonable thing for me to do. Those 50 marks are owed for the fruits not of this past autumn, which I did sequester, but of the autumn before that, which was even before my election. And you should know that I, too, was almost deceived in this, having been given to understand that the 50 marks would be owed for the fruits of the autumn just past. Moreover, you should know, father, that the abbot and community never wrote up for me their instruments, if indeed the rector of the Church of Iver has now died, concerning the 50 marks payable for the fruits of the preceding year, as is asserted in their name in your letter.5

1 On Edmund, see Letter 12, n. 1. 2 Osney Abbey was a community of Augustinian Canons situated on the outskirts of Oxford. 3 On Boezio, see Letter 18, n. 2. 4 On the farming (leasing) of churches, see Letter 18. In the autumn of 1235 Grosseteste sequestered the income (50 marks) from the parish of Iver, pending the residence of the rector, Gregory de Crescentiis, who had leased the rectory from Osney Abbey for one mark per annum. Boezio must have been representing Gregory in his absence. 5 In an undated charter (1236?) the abbot and convent of Osney agreed to pay to Bishop Grosseteste the 50 marks of rent from the Church of Iver that they had been

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And because I have now begun, I shall speak to my lord [Gn 18:27] and father about the deceitful trick with which several people are striving to trick not a brother but their own father. For a Proteus is deceiving your wisdom, which is like that of serpents, and your dove-like guilelessness [Mt 10:16]. He changes his appearance and complains to you, father, on behalf of Hugh of Ravel, that, although this Hugh had canonically obtained the parsonage of half the Church of Woodford,6 I have unjustly deprived him of this, and he has therefore appealed for protection to the lord pope and to you. To conduct a summary investigation of this appeal you have appointed as judges the chancellor and the dean of Cambridge, who are summoning me to appear before them in the case, to be informed in their presence of what is just.7 If, in considering this complaint of Hugh, one were not to stand in the corner of general intention – for this corner collects dirt within it and conceals deceit, and its point will pierce with the penetrating sharpness of the pains of hell – but were instead to descend to the plain and luminous surface of specific truth, which does not seek corners, but, as the Saviour says, sets one free,8 it would be found that this Hugh of Ravel could never, up to the present time, have canonically obtained any parsonage without a dispensation. His very appearance plainly demonstrates that he is too young to be canonically admitted to a parsonage and a cure of souls. Moreover, you were also told a lie in this matter, since this Hugh never in fact took possession of the parsonage, but obtained some kind of custody, and that uncanonically, or so it is believed. Next, you have been informed by my beloved sons in Christ, Matthew, archdeacon of Buckinghamshire, and Master Walter of St Quentin,9 that when the case before me was pending between them on the one side, and John of Crakehall,10 canon of Lincoln, on the other, concerning the

6

7 8 9 10

paying to Gregory de Crescentiis, rector of the parish, ‘until the aforesaid rector shall come and reside in the aforesaid church,’ or until Gregory shall present to the bishop papal letters excusing him from residence there. See Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, ed. H.E. Salter, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1935), 329–30. At some point in the first year of Grosseteste’s episcopacy (June 1235–June 1236), he instituted a certain Alexander, chaplain, in the church at Woodford; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 160. ‘Proteus’ and Hugh of Ravel have not been further identified. The ‘Proteus’ mentioned in Homer (Odyssea 4.349–57) and Vergil (Georgica 4.387–529) was a sea-god whose ability to assume various shapes became legendary. The chancellor and dean of Cambridge acted frequently as papal judges delegate; see Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, 284–96 (nos. 9–13 and 112). Cf. Acts 26:26, Jn 8:32, and Letter 71, p. 226. For Matthew of Stratton, archdeacon of Buckinghamshire from 1221 to 1269, see Fasti: Lincoln, 40. Master Walter of St Quentin has not been further identified. On John of Crakehall, see Major, ‘Familia,’ p. 225–6.

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Church of Eddlesborough, the archdeacon and Master Walter appeared in court for judgment and kept rejecting me as suspect, because John belonged to my household and ate at my table, as well as being their plain adversary in this suit. For that reason the archdeacon and Master Walter have appealed for protection to the apostolic see and to you. To conduct a summary investigation of this appeal you have appointed as judges Master R., rector of the Church of St Helen, and the dean of Abingdon.11 Even though, in spite of what has been said, I never myself acted as judge in this suit and, to eliminate all suspicion, I entrusted my role in the case to commissioners who are legally above any suspicion, I am always ready to make corrections, if by chance it should happen that these commissioners were mistaken in any way. Pastoral care demands all my time and attention. So, even if I were able to play the parts of many thousands in performing the tasks that are directly conducive to the salvation of souls, I must not be made to turn from matters that concern God to those that concern the world, or rather dissension, by these kinds of frivolous appeals, and by suppressions of truth and accusations of falsehood on the part of those who are striving to invalidate the ordinary jurisdiction of their prelates. That is why I prostrate myself, father, at your feet and humbly beseech you, who are so very prudent and discerning, to provide wholesome remedies against these distractions and anything like them, as far as is possible. And may the prudence that comes from God in his wisdom and shines forth conspicuously in you, detect any snares of worldly cunning, dispel the darkness of deceit, and make level the course for those who wish to direct their feet along the path of peace and eternal salvation.12 Moreover, although the length of this letter is no doubt wearisome for one so greatly preoccupied as yourself, it is nevertheless not tiresome to someone of your great charity, since charity bears all things.13 So, placing the appropriateness of requesting your advice at a critical moment above the need to avoid prolixity, I further inform you, father, that the lord king and his council wish – when in the king’s court there is raised against anyone from my diocese an objection of bastardy on the grounds that he was born before his parents’ marriage was solemnly contracted – to com-

11 Master R., rector of the Church of St Helen, Abingdon, was possibly Archbishop Edmund’s brother Robert; see J.C. Russell, Dictionary of Writers of Thirteenth Century England (London, 1936; repr. 1971), 128–9. The dean (decanus) of Abingdon has not been identified. 12 Cf. Lk 1:79. 13 Cf. 1 Cor 13:7.

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pel me by royal command to inquire in an ecclesiastical court as to whether the person who is thus identified was born before or after solemnization of his parents’ marriage, and to write in reply a letter to the lord king to the effect that the person was born before solemnization of marriage or after.14 And because I neglected to write back in that form in response to the king’s command, I have been cited to appear in the lord king’s court to answer for this.15 The lord king and his council are also saying that you, along with the bishops, earls, and barons of England, have agreed to this form of inquiry and reply.16 So I very earnestly beg you, father, to deign to inform me by letter whether you have in fact agreed to this form of inquiry and reply, as the lord king and his council are saying, and, if you have done so, I am urgently seeking your fatherly advice as to what I ought to do in this matter. For if I do write back in this form to the lord king, I am afraid of falling into the hands of the living God [Heb 10:31]; but if I refuse to reply in this form when you have agreed to do so, I do not see how I can escape falling into the hands of men. Unless, then, the advice of one so discerning as yourself can deliver me from both these unacceptable outcomes, I am convinced that I should fall into the hands of men, from which God has the power to snatch me, rather than into the hands of God, from which there is no one who can deliver me [Dt 32:39].

27 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, imploring him to persuade the king to rescind his mandate appointing the abbot of Ramsey as itinerant royal justice for the counties of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in Grosseteste’s diocese, and asking for Edmund’s advice on how he should proceed if the king fails to revoke the mandate. Written in 1236, after 4 May, the date of the royal mandate quoted here, and before Grosseteste’s receipt of a papal letter, dated 15 July, that authorized him to act against clerics discharging the office of justice or sheriff in his diocese. Edition: Luard, Epp. 105–8.

14 See Letters 23–24 and especially letter 23, n. 13. 15 Grosseteste was cited on 21 October 1235 before the king’s court for refusing to act on the royal writ; see Councils and Synods, 199–200. 16 A reference to the decision of the council of the realm in October 1234; see Councils and Synods, 198–9.

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To the revered father and lord in Christ, Edmund,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, his own devoted Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. You should know, father, that the abbot of Ramsey,2 of the Order of St Benedict, has received a mandate from the lord king in these words: Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to the abbot of Ramsey, greeting. You are to know that we have appointed you, along with our beloved and faithful Robert of Lexington, Oliver de Vallibus, and John of Holcot, our justice in eyre for all our lawsuits in the counties of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. And we therefore command and beseech you to be willing to assume for the time being the aforementioned burden of the office of justice, together with the aforementioned and faithful [subjects] of ours, and to do so in such a way that you would begin your circuit in the aforementioned counties on the day and at the place that you and your associates shall together consider expedient, applying such diligence in this regard that we should with good reason and with special thanks be obliged to commend the diligence you have brought to this task. I myself witnessed this at Mortlake on the fourth day of May, in the twentieth year of our reign.

Since by the words of this mandate the abbot of Ramsey is appointed an itinerant justice for all royal pleas, if he should take on this kind of judicial burden, he will take on the office, station, and power of a judge, even to decide cases involving bloodshed.3 But if a person is not permitted to take on an office or its ordinary or delegated power because he is forbidden to exercise the functions of that office or its power, it is clear that taking on such office or power is in itself unlawful for every clerk, to say nothing of an abbot of the Order of St Benedict. And he is not absolved of blame even if it is his practice to rise from his judge’s chair when a sentence of condemnation in a case involving bloodshed is to be pronounced, especially as this rising is an obvious sign to everyone that the accused will certainly incur a judgment of condemnation. So such a judge, 1 On Edmund, see Letter 12, n. 1. 2 Ranulph was abbot from 1231 to 1253; see Cartularium monasterii de Rameseia, ed. W.H. Hart and P.A. Lyons, 3 vols., RS 79 (London, 1884–93), 3:180–1. 3 Canon 13 of the provincial council of Oxford (1222) strictly prohibited any cleric from writing or dictating any document that imposed a punishment involving the shedding of blood, or being present when such a judgment was discussed or inflicted; see Councils and Synods, 110.

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though he does not do so orally, by his action enforces, so to speak, a judgment involving bloodshed and turns himself into one of the leaders of the Sodomites whom the prophet reproaches because their hands are full of blood [Is 1:10, 15]. Moreover, according to canon law and the constitutions of councils,4 no clerk is permitted to exercise secular jurisdictions under any princes or laymen by becoming their judge, and should any clerk presume to oppose this, he ought to be deemed unworthy of a ministry in the Church. If those who belong to religious orders rashly dare to attempt it, they should be even more severely punished. So, since any involvement in secular affairs is not only forbidden by divine law to those who serve as God’s soldiers, but the office, jurisdiction, and exercise of this kind of judgeship are also by canon law and the vow of monastic profession absolutely illicit for monks especially, and for this reason the compulsion, injunction, consent, and connivance associated with such activities at the hands of one who can and should prevent them lead to the loss of eternal salvation, I prostrate myself, father, as a suppliant at your feet, and with all possible devotion request that you take steps to advise and persuade the lord king to revoke and cancel the mandate sent to the abbot of Ramsey. Otherwise we would cause the eternal loss of our souls, the king by compulsion or injunction, and we by consent and connivance. I also entreat you, father, to be kind enough to let me have your advice if the lord king by some chance – which God forbid! – does not at your urging revoke his mandate, and the abbot, for whose soul I am responsible, performs the office of judge, thus causing the loss of his own soul as well as a scandal to monastic life and harm to the liberty of the Church. For if in this case I do not myself prevent this abbot from performing this office by warning him beforehand and then restraining him by ecclesiastical censure, I will doubtless fall within the scope of that prophecy of Ezekiel – You did not go up to face the enemy, nor did you place in the way a wall for the house of Israel that you may stand in battle on the day of the Lord [Ez 13:5] – and of that principle of canon law – ‘Any error not contradicted is commended.’5

4 See Third Lateran Council, c. 12 [= X 1.37.1, X 3.50.4]; Fourth Lateran Council, c. 18 [= X 3.50.9] (Tanner, Decrees, 218, 244); Council of Oxford (1222), cc. 12–13 (Councils and Synods, 110). 5 Gratian, Decretum D.83 c.3.

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But if I do oppose this appointment, the king’s ministers will conceivably come and seize my possessions, and as this kind of opposition has not previously been attempted in these parts, I will become a laughing stock and a song all day long [Lam 3:14] among the worldly-wise. So temporal danger threatens on one side and eternal on the other. But since a temporal peril, however great it may be, is completely insignificant or nothing at all in comparison with the least of eternal perils, I am already ashamed of having asked for advice in this matter, since it is only in doubtful matters that one should seek it, and of having said that danger is threatening on both sides, since what is called a temporal peril is really no peril at all, but much more a short cut for one who has forgotten what lies behind and is reaching out to what lies ahead.6 So, with all possible humility and heartfelt supplication I am now entreating you all the more to order me to disregard any temporal loss and, with confidence in God’s help and to the best of my small ability, to place myself in the way in the case before us for the sake of the Church’s liberty and the deliverance of souls from the flames of the everlasting fire.7 For my weakness, when supported by an order from one so circumspect and courageous as yourself, will, through that courage and with the Lord’s help, be unshakeable in the face of blows of wickedness; without such support, my weakness could easily be undermined by the efforts of corrupt men.

28 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, reiterating the urgency of the matter discussed in Letter 27, and raising the further issue of the king’s attempt to bring clerics before the secular courts in personal actions. Written shortly after Letter 27, in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 108–13.

6 Cf. Phil 3:13–14. 7 Grosseteste must already have requested the papal mandate, dated 15 July 1236, authorizing him ‘to proceed against those clerks of his diocese who discharge the offices of justice and sheriff, being obliged thereby to arrest and imprison persons, withdrawing only from criminal causes just before sentence is given, thereby in effect acting as judges’; see Bliss, Calendar, 155.

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To the revered father and lord in Christ, Edmund,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, his own devoted Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. Since you, as a solicitous father and shepherd, are the one most nearly responsible for the welfare of my soul, it is not only proper but necessary to seek your advice most of all when my soul is troubled by uncertainties, and to find with you the most secure of refuges when dangers threaten. No doubt you know very well, father, how the royal power has been exercised to press men in religious orders to take on the office of itinerant justice for all pleas concerning the lord king, and clerks to submit themselves to the judgment of a lay power when prosecuted in a personal action.2 His excellency the lord king is even seriously threatening my own insignificant self because it was suggested to the royal ears that I wish to stand in the way of such actions as, I believe, lead to the loss of souls and the impairment of the Church’s liberty, as if I were by this attempting to take a stand against the crown and the king’s dignity. You too, father, already on two occasions discreetly indicated to me that, in the opinion of wise and discreet men, I should desist and keep my complaints about this hidden until the council you are to hold. Because, then, I am afraid to endanger my soul in the midst of events that are pushing me strongly here and there in various directions, and I desire that you, with the watchful concern of a father, have a very strict regard for the salvation of my soul (for which you have to render a satisfactory account at the strict examination on Judgment Day), I am asking for a clear and simple answer from you as to whether religious who perform this kind of office of itinerant justice, and clerics who submit themselves to lay judgment when accused in a personal action, sin or not? For if they do not sin in these matters, what they are doing must be tolerated. But if they do sin, can you and I, who are bound to lay down our lives for them, without sin fail to confront their sin immediately and abandon them for a time in the snare of sin, so that afterwards, with riper counsel, we may draw them up from the pit of sin? Now, that both religious and clerks would sin in this matter seems clearly demonstrable, for everyone is bound to obey the decrees of the supreme pontiff and the sanctions of

1 On Edmund, see Letter 12, n. 1. 2 See G. B. Flahiff, ‘The Use of Prohibitions by Clerics Against Ecclesiastical Courts in England,’ in Med. St. 3 (1941): 101–16.

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canon law as required by the Apostle’s teaching: Obey your superiors and be subject to them [Heb 13:17]. If, then, they are plainly acting in contravention of these sanctions, are they not disobedient, and do they not commit a sin like witchcraft by rebelling and the crime of idolatry by refusing to obey [1 Sm 15:23]? Now, according to the sanctions of canon law, it is not lawful to appoint those involved in the entanglements of affairs of state to serve God’s ministries.3 Will it then on the contrary be lawful for religious who have been appointed to God’s ministries not only simply but by virtue of the vow they made at the time of their profession to be involved in the entanglements of affairs of state? Have they not, in the words of the bride, stripped off their old robe? How are they, then, to put it on again? They have washed their feet of these iniquities. How will they soil them again [Sg 5:3]? ‘A bishop,’ as the canon says, ‘or priest or deacon is by no means to take on worldly responsibilities; if he should do so, let him be deposed.’4 What, then, of a monk who has by virtue of his vow not only refused the world’s responsibilities but denied himself as well? Did not Gregory likewise very strictly command the Roman protector ‘to compel, by strict execution of his order, Bishop Basil, who was busy with secular lawsuits as though he were one of the laity, and serving the imperial bodyguard to no good purpose, to return to his priestly functions, since his secular preoccupations rendered him unworthy of respect and made light of the reverence due to priests’?5 Does not the same activity similarly render an abbot unworthy of respect and make light of the reverence due to religious life? Or is what was so strictly enjoined upon the Roman protector not enjoined with similar strictness upon the bishop? How, then, does an abbot avoid sin who is busy like a layman with secular lawsuits, thereby rendering himself unworthy of respect and trivializing the reverence due religious life? How likewise his bishop, unless by threat of strict execution of his order he compels the abbot to return to his religious duties? At the Lateran Council, too, it was forbidden ‘for any clerk to presume to exercise secular jurisdictions under princes or laymen by becoming their judge; and if anyone attempts to oppose this, let him be deemed unworthy of a ministry in the Church.’6 Indeed, it is decreed that religious are to be punished even more severely should they dare to attempt

3 4 5 6

Gratian, Decretum D.51 cc.1–5. Gratian, Decretum D.88 c.3. Gratian, Decretum D.88 c.4. Third Lateran Council, c. 12 (Tanner, Decrees, 218).

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any such thing.7 Very numerous, too, are other places in the canons that you and your council know incomparably better than I, in which it is clearly forbidden not only to religious but also to clerks to be judges or to be familiar with secular affairs, or indeed to be found directly involved in any worldly business. How, then, abbots exercising the office of a secular justiciar, and thereby disobedient to canonical regulations, are in this regard immune from sin, I do not at all see. Indeed, I do not know how to excuse from the crime of disobedience in this case even clerks not yet advanced to holy orders. Furthermore, clerks who, when being accused in a personal action, submit themselves to lay judgment, appear clearly to sin because of their disobedience and violation of the Church’s liberty, for canon law prohibits clerks from being accused before a secular judge, and asserts that they may be judged by no layman, and that the person who strikes one of heaven’s soldiers owes suit only in the latter’s lawcourt.8 Many other such sanctions enable one to deduce well enough that a clerk is not to be summoned before a civil judge unless perhaps it is chiefly a question of his lay fee. If, then, religious sin by exercising secular judgment, and clerks accused in personal actions do the same by submitting to secular judgment, shall not we also, who have pastoral responsibility for them, sin by permitting them to sin in this way even once? If we permit this even on one occasion when we can prevent it (though perhaps not without some temporal loss), shall we not be like a demolished wall and a battered fence [Ps 61:4], not first sustaining nor repelling the blows from siege engines, but providing open and unimpeded access to the stones hurtling down from them to slaughter citizens who should have been safe within our fortification? Shall we not thus be hirelings who, when they see persecution threatening, like a wolf coming, abandon the sheep and run away [Jn 10:12]? For what else is persecution at the hands of the royal power, when it compels religious and clerks to take on the duties I described, if they sin by so doing, but a wolf that kills the sheep by the death of sin to which it drags them? If we do not confront this persecution and be the first to stand up to its assault and courageously oppose its killing by sin of our sheep, what are we but shepherds who run away in terror at the sight of the wolf? Besides, if clerks impair the Church’s liberty and thus

7 See ibid., c. 12: ‘Districtius autem decrevimus puniendum, si religosorum quisquam aliquid praedictorum audeat attentare.’ 8 Gratian, Decretum C.11 q.1 c.43; C.21 q.5 cc.1, 2, 5, 6; cf. C. R. Cheney, ‘The Punishment of Felonous Clerks,’ in The English Historical Review 51 (1936): 215–36.

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dishonour Mother Church, and sin by submitting to secular judgment, we prelates, who at the king’s command compel them to answer in a secular law court when accused of a crime, not only risk damnation in permitting them to be cruelly slaughtered by the wolf when we flee in alarm, but worse: we are the ones who most ruthlessly drive to their deaths those for whom we should courageously die. God forbid that bishops and shepherds of souls should ever act in this way! No, they must instead choose, as you clearly know and have excellently and frequently taught, not only to give up all their earthly possessions, but also to suffer a most bitter and shameful death, over and over again if that were possible, rather than sin even once. The sin of bishops in this matter is of no little consequence, especially if, by permitting or carrying out such activities, they act in contravention of the regulations of canon law and of decretal letters, for by solemn vow they promised at the time of their consecrations that they would ‘reverently receive, teach, and preserve the traditions of the orthodox fathers and the decretal constitutions of the holy and apostolic see.’9 So, by the dreaded Last Judgment I beseech and entreat you, holy father, to write back and tell me plainly and clearly – as it is your intention to give a good account on my behalf when strictly examined at that judgment – whether religious and clerks sin or not by performing these duties, and likewise the prelates who are responsible for them, by permitting or conniving at these activities at any time, or, what is more serious, by compelling religious and clerks at the king’s command to perform them, or by postponing, because of their fear of mounting opposition, the reform of such practices while they are going on. Please tell me also specifically what I and those subject to me should not hesitate to do – not in accordance with what the world’s wisdom, which comes from 9 As a part of his consecration as bishop of Lincoln in 1235, Grosseteste was asked a series of questions by Archbishop Edmund, who presided at the ceremony. These questions (with their answers) would have included the following: ‘Q. Do you wish to accommodate all of your prudence, in so far as you are able, to the teachings of Sacred Scripture? A. Yes; with all my heart I wish to consent to and to obey them all. Q. Do you wish by word and example to teach those things you understand from Sacred Scripture to the people for whom you are about to be ordained? A. I do. Q. Do you wish reverently to receive, teach, and preserve the traditions of the orthodox fathers and the decretal constitutions of the holy and apostolic see? A. I do. Q. Do you wish to show faith and submission in all things to the blessed Peter, to whom the power of binding and loosing was given by God, and to me, his unworthy vicar, and my successors? A. I do.’ See M. Andrieu, Le pontifical romain au Moyen-Âge, vol. 1: Le pontifical romain du XII e siècle (Vatican City, 1938), 142. See also Letter 72*, p. 239.

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below, may advise, nor even human wisdom, which is in the middle, but the divine wisdom that comes from above [Jas 3:17] – in the face of so many powerful blows from different directions? And if there is any sin in these activities, ‘you be here a wall of bronze,’10 the first to stand up in defence of faint-hearted men like me against every blow of persecution. You be here a leader in the camp of Israel, fighting the Lord’s fight with that bravest of men, Judas Maccabeus. Take up God’s armour to be able to resist on the evil day and stand in all things perfect, with your loins girt in truth, and having put on the breastplate of justice, and with your feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace. With all these, take up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to stop all the darts of the most evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God [Eph 6:13–17]. Thus armed and leading the way, with your pinions you will cover us and under your wings we shall have hope [Ps 90:4], and a thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand [Ps 90:7]; but the fowlers’ snare will not come near you, nor a bitter word [Ps 90:3], because the angel of the Lord will carry you in all your ways for fear you should ever strike your foot against a stone [Ps 90:11–12].

29 To Henry III, king of England, requesting that Richard Siward, who had been marked with the sign of the crusading cross by Grosseteste, be released from prison in accordance with ecclesiastical norms governing the treatment of crusaders. Written probably in July of 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 114–15 (reading, p. 115/line 27, diffunderet for diffunderit).

To his most excellent lord, Henry,1 by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. The supreme pontiff receives under his personal protection and that of St Peter the persons and property of crusaders once they have taken up the cross. He also orders the defence of their persons and property at 10 Horace, Ep. 1.1.60. 1 On King Henry III, see Powicke, Henry III, 1:123–55.

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the hands of the archbishops, bishops, and all the prelates of the Church. He further decrees that prelates who neglect to show justice to crusaders and their families should be severely punished, and he directs that any who presume to act contrary to this are to be restrained by the prelates of churches through the use of ecclesiastical censure without appeal.2 I abide by all these commands and, for fear of being charged with negligence and the crime of disobedience and subject to the punishments established for them, with all possible affection I have by this letter and through the agency of my beloved son in Christ, the abbot of Dorchester,3 thought fit to beg, exhort, and remind your majesty in the Lord to have Richard Siward, a knight and parishioner of my diocese, who was marked with the cross of a crusader by my own, albeit unworthy, hand, released from the chains of imprisonment.4 Please remember that crusaders, by the very act of taking up of the cross, dedicate and consecrate themselves to defend the Christian faith and to fight against unbelief, even to the shedding of blood and to death itself. If, then, it is not lawful for the royal power to dispose of, seize, or appropriate land assigned and consecrated for burial of the dead, and vessels assigned and consecrated for various ministries of the Church – although, for all that, these and all similar things are incomparably less than a man and their consecration incomparably less than the consecration of a man, and the ministry, too, for which such things are consecrated, incomparably less than the ministry of defending the faith and fighting against unbelief even to the shedding of blood – how will it be lawful for the same power to send to imprisonment in chains a man who has been marked with the cross and thereby dedicated and consecrated for so important a ministry, for in this life nothing greater or more holy than this can be found? The only possible exception would be that, after being marked 2 Fourth Lateran Council, c. 71 (Tanner, Decrees, 1:269); cf. J.A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, Wisc., 1969). 3 The abbot of Dorchester, Richard of Wurthe, was a canon of Osney Abbey before being elevated to the abbacy of Dorchester. Earlier in 1236 Grosseteste had removed from office another Richard, abbot of Dorchester, along with six other abbots and four priors; see Annales monastici, ed. H.R. Luard, 5 vols., RS 36 (London, 1864–69), 3:143 (Dunstable) and 4:83 (Osney); cf. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 131. 4 Richard Siward was a baronial ally of Hubert de Burgh and Richard Marshal in their struggles with the king in 1233 and 1234; see Letters 6–7; Carpenter, ‘Hubert de Burgh,’ 5. Siward was imprisoned by Henry at Gloucester in July of 1236 and released shortly thereafter. See Powicke, Henry III, 1:128–9 and 141n4. The Dunstable annalist reports: ‘In the same year [1236] ... Richard Siward was captured; and because he was signed with the cross, he was freed by the archbishop [Edmund of Abingdon], and received into the household of the king’ (Annales monastici, 3:144).

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with the cross, he profaned his consecration, or, before taking up the cross, he so profaned himself as to be unworthy of that consecration, that is, of his conversion by the sign of the cross into a minister of God. So, if this knight is not guilty of profaning himself in this way, mercy and truth, which, as Solomon said, are a king’s guards, and clemency, by which his throne is strengthened [Prv 20:28], and royal cheerfulness, which descends like dew on the grass [Prv 19:12], should distil in the righteous and swift release of that knight, to the honour of the crucified one and the enlargement of ecclesiastical liberty. Your largeness of heart has enlarged the place of the Church’s tent, as Isaiah admonishes, stretched out the skins of her tabernacles, and lengthened the ropes [Is 54:2]. To you as to Solomon God gave this largeness of heart, like the sand that is on the seashore [3 Kgs 4:29], so that, through the Holy Spirit diffused in your heart [Rom 5:5], it might spread itself far and wide for everyone through the magnificence and most lavish generosity of your favours, and cut itself off from no one by withdrawing these favours, for it is especially magnificent and fitting for the magnanimity of a king, and consistent with the perfection taught by the Gospels, to be generous even to one’s enemies.5

30 To Philip of Kyme, regarding Grosseteste’s quashing of an election of the regular canons at Kyme and the institution there of a prior of Grosseteste’s choosing. Written probably before 4 October 1236 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 116–17.

To the noble man, Lord Philip of Kyme,1 Robert, by divine permission bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards.

5 See Mt 5:48, 44. 1 Philip II of Kyme (d. 1242) served as a royal justice in 1227–28. The Augustinian priory at North Kyme (the subject of this letter) was established by his grandfather, Philip I of Kyme (d. 1192x4). In his index of Grosseteste’s correspondents, Luard (Epp., 451) identifies this Philip as ‘steward to Gilbert de Gant, earl of Lincoln’ and provides a reference to William Dugdale et al., Monasticon Anglicanum, rev. ed., 6 vols. in 8 (London, 1817–30), 1:633, where there is printed a charter from Philip de Kyme, ‘dapifer comitis Gilberti,’ and his wife ‘Hadewisa’ [= Hawise] to Grosseteste, but this Philip is almost certainly Philip I, and the letter addressed to an earlier bishop of Lincoln. See ‘Kyme family (per. c. 1080–c. 1380),’ in ODNB.

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It is written that charity is patient and kind [1 Cor 13:4] and for that reason bears calmly matters grievous and harsh, not only when they are just, but also when unjust. Now, I realize that to you it seems harsh and grievous that I have, on the authority of the council, instituted a prior to your house at Kyme.2 But if charity, without which no one will possess the kingdom of God, burns in your heart, you will not bear this action of mine in a grievous or harsh manner, especially as in this there has been no suggestion of any injustice. Nor was it my intention – of this God, who searches hearts [Ps 7:10] and knows our secrets, is my witness – to detract in any way from a right that is yours and that I wish to remain yours unimpaired. And if you would please examine this case in more detail, you would see that what you have thus far borne in a grievous and harsh manner is neither grievous nor harsh. For is it grievous that a less suitable candidate is with reason rejected and one more suitable and, unless I am mistaken, more useful to you, is substituted without prejudice to anyone’s right? Or are you annoyed that I did not take advantage of your counsel in this action? But it is not customary, just as it is not obligatory, to seek the patrons’ counsel in a case like this. So, in your discretion you should know that, without ever seeking his counsel, I have quashed many elections in monasteries whose patron is the lord king, and by conciliar authority have appointed prelates to these same vacancies.3 When I sent him my appointees together with letters from me announcing their ordination at my hands, the king was good enough to receive them kindly and without delay and to send them to take possession of their temporalities. It should not, then, annoy you to imitate the lord king’s example. Instead, welcome cheerfully and in the outstretched arms of your charity the prior I have canonically instituted according to God’s will, particularly since the man is honourable and pious and did not himself seek the appointment to the priory but was pressed to accept it. If anyone has

2 The canons of the Augustinian priory of Kyme had received permission from Philip to elect a replacement for the prior who had resigned, and Philip had duly instituted him in office. Grosseteste quashed the election on the basis that it had been ‘contrary to the form of the Lateran Council,’ and he instituted instead Roger of Toft, who had been serving as subprior of the Augustinian house of Thornholme; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 11. The next dated act recorded in the rolls is from 4 October 1236. 3 On the provisions of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) concerning elections, see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 137–40; and for Grosseteste’s application of these norms, ibid., 138n11. The only recorded instance of the quashing of an election in a house pertaining to the king during Grosseteste’s first years as bishop is from St Frideswide’s Priory, Oxford; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 446.

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offended you in this case, it was not he but I who have done so, for I compelled him to accept despite his reluctance. So I am asking you to be kind enough to give him your support and to require me to make amends if I have in any way offended you. If you do so, I shall satisfy your wishes both in this case and in others, as far as I am able, without violating what is right and just.

31 To Elias, minister general of the Franciscans, requesting the services of two friars in furthering Grosseteste’s affairs at the papal curia. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 117–18.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Elias,1 minister general of the Friars Minor, Robert, by divine mercy bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. I send you the warmest possible thanks for the favour you did me in permitting some friars to remain with me,2 but I wish I could repay you as you deserve for your affection, which the favour I mentioned has shown to be so abundant. For if I could, by returning your love, match your own, if only in part, I would then, although physically apart from you, take pleasure in the delightful communion of our spirits, and my spirit, united with yours, would ascend together with it into the heavens. And because a hot fire melts and commonly draws upwards in the form of a vapour even ice that it touches, I greatly rejoice that the great heat of your charity is touching me, because it is my hope that my icy disposition will be melted by this touch and be borne upward by the vapour of heavenly desire. And because charity never ends [1 Cor 13:8] nor stands still, but ever increases until that which is perfect has come [1 Cor 13:10], one should always have the courage and confidence to seek even greater things from the charity that has already once been put to the test. 1 Elias of Cortona was the third minister general of the Franciscan Order (1232–9); see R.M. Huber, A Documented History of the Franciscan Order (1182–1517) (Milwaukee, Wisc., 1944), 105–19; Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, 1–171; J.R.H. Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order from Its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), 96–122. See also Letters 41 and 58. 2 The identity of the Franciscans who were permitted by Elias to serve in Grosseteste’s episcopal household is unknown.

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That is why with my most devout prayers I am asking you in your charity to direct Brother Arnulf,3 penitentiary of the lord pope, and also Brother Ralph of Rochester,4 should he happen to be at the curia, to apply themselves vigilantly and effectively and as much as possible – but without disrespect to the integrity and honour of their order – to advancing my affairs, or rather the affairs of the Church, whose advancement through my own, albeit unworthy, ministry I desire.

32 To the dean, William of Thorney, and the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, forbidding there the celebration of the Feast of Fools. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 118–19.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, William the dean and the chapter of Lincoln.1 Since the house of God, by testimony of the prophet and the Son of God, is the house of prayer [Is 56:7, Mt 21:13], it is sacrilegious to turn it into a house of buffoonery, scurrility, and frivolity, and to profane with diabolical inventions a place dedicated to God. And since the circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ was his first suffering and of no little pain, and is also the sign of the spiritual circumcision whereby the foreskins of hearts are removed2 and all carnal pleasures and sensual lusts cut away, it is detestable to violate the sanctity of the venerable solemnity of the Lord’s Circumcision with the sordidness of wanton pleasures. So I command you by virtue of your promise of obedience and firmly charge that you by no means permit the Feast of Fools – filled as it is with 3 On Arnulf (Ernulphus or Ernulfus), a Franciscan friar and penitentiary in the curia of Pope Gregory IX, see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 39–40 and n. p. He is addressed by Grosseteste in Letters 38, 42, and 69. 4 Ralph of Rochester is perhaps to be identified with the Franciscan friar Radulphus who was sent by Gregory IX in May of 1233 with letters to the ‘archbishop of the Greeks’ in Constantinople; see L. Auvray, Les registres de Grégoire IX, 4 vols. (Paris, 1896–1955), 1:738, no. 1316. 1 On the dean and chapter, see Letter 3, n. 1. 2 Cf. Rom 2:25–9. The feast of Christ’s Circumcision is celebrated on 1 January.

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vanity and foul with wanton pleasures, an event hateful to God and beloved of devils – to take place henceforth in the Church of Lincoln on the day of the venerable solemnity of the Lord’s Circumcision.3

33 To John of Foxton, comforting him in his illness and offering to buy some books of Sacred Scripture that John wishes to sell. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 119–20.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards to Lord John of Foxton,1 beloved to him in Christ. I thank God that you are bearing with thanks to him the discomforts that come with illness and are drinking the bitter cup of tribulation with the sweetness of patience. I thank God, too, that for you the whip is conducive to learning, vexation to understanding, temptation to testing, and testing to the hope that does not prove false [Rom 5:4–5]. I also thank you for your love, because out of that love you pray to our Lord Jesus Christ for me, who have been weighed down by the burden of my sins and tormented by the distractions of personal preoccupations, and am thus unable to stand firm unless propped up by the strong support of the prayers of God’s servants. Moreover, to you for your wisdom I offer my warmest thanks, as it has been responsible for your praying and reminding me, to my very great benefit, to prepare myself for that tribunal where all things will lie naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give our account [Heb 4:13]. That wisdom has also endowed you, despite your fear, with the courage to stand up against Leviathan; it has been

3 See G. Wickham, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Feast of Fools,’ in Sewanee Mediaeval Colloquium Occasional Papers 2 (Sewanee, Tenn., 1985), 81–99. Grosseteste will later claim papal authority for prohibiting the Feast of Fools in his diocese; see Letter 52*; Councils and Synods, 273n5. For a general discussion of the Feast of Fools, see E.K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1903), 1:274–335. 1 This John is described as ‘Master’ John of Foxton (Foxtuna) and as custos of the Church of Foxton by Matthew Paris, who also reports that miracles were occurring at his tomb in 1244; see Matthew’s Chronica maiora, 4:378.

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responsible for strengthening you, despite your weakness, to endure temptation; it has roused you from your sluggishness to do good deeds abundantly and to endure evil ones courageously; and, in a word, it has taught you to fear and to tremble before him alone whose light dispels error, whose saving grace banishes grief, and whose protection is a fortification against attack. It has also taught you not to have a fearful heart should armies encamp against you, but instead to have hope, even if wars are waged upon you [Ps 26:3], because the denser the battle lines of your enemies, the greater their collapse as they totter and fall before the brilliant and terrifying splendour of the illumination that comes to us from God. So I entreat our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our illumination and our salvation, that, to reward you for this luminous and salutary teaching, he grant you his light and perpetual salvation, and strengthen you in the trials you endure to achieve the patience that has its perfect work [Jas 1:4]. And may he grant that with the Apostle you may exult in tribulations [Rom 5:3] and know from experience what it means to say: Strength is made perfect in weakness, and when I am weak, then am I strong [2 Cor 12:9–10]. Furthermore, my beloved friend in Christ, Lord J. of Banbury,2 has notified me that you, following the gospel’s path to perfection, are arranging to sell some books of Sacred Scripture in your possession, and to put the money to pious uses. Because I need these books, I sincerely ask your affectionate self to be so kind as to let me have them, if they are in fact for sale, and to send back to me with the bearer of this letter written notice of their price. I will pay you the money, with God’s grace, whenever you like.

34 To Alexander of Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, reproaching him for forbidding the Franciscans to settle in Chester. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 120–2.

2 This J. is perhaps to be identified with John of St Giles, a canon of Lincoln holding the prebend of Banbury from 1231 or 1232 until sometime after 28 January 1237, when he was transferred to the prebend of Leighton Buzzard; see Fasti: Lincoln, 51, 130; cf. Major, ‘Familia,’ 220–1, 237. He is not to be confused with the Dominican friar John of St Giles, on whom see Letter 14, n. 2.

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To his venerable brother in Christ and most dear friend, Alexander,1 by the grace of God bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere brotherly affection in the Lord. The holiness of the religious life as well as persons who live such a life are worthy of veneration and should be brought to our attention and imitated. How this should be done, my brother, you in your discretion know much better than I. For steady and intimate acquaintance with those living this life as well as your uninterrupted experience of the truth and holiness of it, as demonstrated in your own life, have been your very effective teachers. For that reason, it is unbelievable that one who so loves this holy way of life and does its work wishes in any way to diminish in the eyes of certain people the good opinion enjoyed by those living a religious life as well as the integrity of that way of life. Yet I have heard from trustworthy sources that before the people of Chester and certain leading men you so reviled some Friars Minor that both the members and the standing of that order could with good reason become the object of hatred and contempt among your listeners. And I have heard that the reason for this insulting language of yours was the fact that the Friars Minor wished to settle in the city of Chester along with the Friars Preachers.2 Your incredible behaviour, if true, can only, I believe, have resulted from some sudden disturbance of your mind, not from deliberate conviction. For a man of your discretion knows how useful the presence and communal life of the Friars Minor is to the people with whom they dwell, since both by the word of preaching and by the example of a holy and heavenly way of life and the piety manifested in their constant prayer, they continuously and tirelessly promote peace and illuminate the country, and in this regard make good in great measure the deficiencies of prelates.3 1 On Alexander, see N. Vincent, ‘Master Alexander of Stainsby, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1224–1238,’ in JEH 46 (1995): 615–40. 2 Alexander had a long and close association with the Dominican friars. He is probably to be identified with the master of theology whom Dominic asked to teach his first group of friars in Toulouse in 1216, and who accompanied a group of friars to Bologna, ca. 1220, where he continued his instruction. After his election as bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in 1224, he is credited with founding Dominican houses at Chester and Derby in his diocese. He left a portion of his library to the Dominican house in Chester. See Vincent, ‘Alexander of Stainsby,’ 619–23. 3 Grosseteste is echoing the provisions of c. 10 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), ‘On appointing preachers,’ which instructs bishops to associate with themselves suitable men, ‘powerful in word and deed,’ to help in the duties of preaching, hearing confessions, and exercising pastoral care (Tanner, Decrees, 1:239–40). This letter is an

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Now, if perhaps you were afraid at the time that the presence of the Friars Minor in Chester would be prejudicial to the Friars Preachers living there, as if the alms of citizens and people would be insufficient to sustain both orders, you should very carefully note how groundless was your anxiety in this regard, since experience has shown that the dwelling together of both orders of friars in the same city tends to impoverish neither and in fact provides much more than enough for both.4 For alms are like a living fountain: the more abundantly the waters are drawn, the more copiously the fountain pours them forth. They are the flask of oil that is not diminished [3 Kgs 17:14], and the oil multiplied through Elisha that freed the widow’s sons of their debts.5 Nor is this astonishing, since credit for it belongs to Christ, who is poor in his members but in himself is rich and generous, bestowing more and greater benefits than he receives, who multiplied the simplicity of matter into the mass of the world, multiplied the littleness of the seed into the greatness of the tree, and multiplied a few loaves of bread into enough to satisfy the hunger of many thousands.6 So, since the giving of alms is the generous multiplication of opportunities for giving, how can there be fear that an increase in the number of those who receive alms will be for them an occasion for poverty? Indeed, on the contrary, one should hope from this for an increase in prosperity. Because, then, the way of life of the Friars Minor enlightens the people with whom they dwell to recognize the truth, directs, draws, stimulates, and propels them to hasten along the path of peace,7 generously makes good the deficiencies of the prelates under whose authority they live, and provides an occasion not for poverty but for abundance for other poor people, anyone who truly loves the good cannot deliberately reject so great a good as this but should rather make every effort to attract it.

4

5 6 7

early document suggesting that bishops might make use of Dominican and Franciscan friars to fulfil the requirements of this important pastoral constitution; cf. Letters 14–15, 40–41. The Dominicans and Franciscans were founded early in the century as ‘mendicant’ or ‘begging’ orders, and thus were dependent on the alms of the populace rather than on landed endowments, rents, and other fixed sources of income for their maintenance. By 1236, houses of both Dominican and Franciscan friars were to be found in Bristol, Carlisle, London, Northampton, Norwich, and Oxford. See 4 Kgs 4:2–7. See Gn 1:2, Mt 13:31–2, Mk 4:31–2, Mt 14:17–21. For peacemaking as an important aspect of the friars’ work, see A. Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy (Oxford, 1992), esp. 136–56: ‘The Revivalist as Peace-Maker.’

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So, since an ardent love for what is truly good has always abounded in you and does still, it is my hope that you will reconsider, and that in your discretion and holiness you will not only not send these friars away, but will eagerly employ them as your helpers, and will multiply them as much as possible throughout the cities of your diocese, once the groundless fear has been removed that their large numbers may be an occasion for the impoverishment of others.8

35 To Pope Gregory IX. This is the first of a series of letters addressed to the pope and members of the papal curia, expressing Grosseteste’s devotion and asking for their consideration as he undertakes the exercise of his pastoral office. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 123–5.

To the most holy father and most excellent lord, Gregory, by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet his holiness’s servant Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, most devoutly kisses with all submission and respect.1 Because of a common debt of submission, by which not only the Christian people but the entire human race is bound, and without whose payment no one is saved, I owe to you, most holy father and most excellent lord, the fullness of obedience, respect, honour, and fear. It is, however, the special claim of your virtues and their extraordinary lustre that pleasantly excite, keenly stimulate, and strongly urge me, a devoted but insignificant man, to demonstrate those four obligations as well as similar ones, not merely in good and full measure, but also in one that is pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing [Lk 6:38]. 8 On 6 February 1240, more than two years after Alexander’s death, King Henry III gave permission to the Franciscans to build a house in Chester and contributed £10 toward the building; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 80 and n. s. 1 Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) is also addressed in Letters 58, 64, 77, and 81. At some point in 1235 Gregory had written to the archbishop of Canterbury and all his suffragan bishops requiring them ‘to visit, correct, and reform the clergy, both regular and secular, in their dioceses’; see Bliss, Calendar, 150. It is possible that this and the following letters to curial figures are part of Grosseteste’s preparation for the systematic visitation of his diocese; see Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 150–5.

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For who could escape seeing with wonder and awe, who could avoid desiring with a love that is unsurpassable, fearless, and inseparable, your exceedingly fervent zeal for souls, your exceedingly abundant generosity in giving alms, your exceedingly eminent charity and deep personal love for religious, your exceedingly anxious concern not only for all churches [2 Cor 11:28] but for all kingdoms as well, over which, along with their peoples, you have been given authority, in Jeremiah’s place, to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant [Jer 1:10]? So, to your most radiant holiness, which everywhere strikes with the extraordinary splendour of your virtues the eyes even of the blind, prostrate I offer above all else, with less devotion than I would wish but with as much as is possible for me, the gift of my spirit, that is, my burning desire to demonstrate to you, most holy father, obedience and honour, and to you, most excellent lord, respect and fear, if, with the help of the Lord’s grace, my strength to act corresponds to the heat of my desire, not merely, as I said, in full measure, but also in a measure that is pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing. For it is not proper for the summit of power, adorned as it is with the exceedingly eminent splendour of truth, to be honoured only perfunctorily out of obligation; much more should it be honoured out of goodwill, by actions that are gratuitous and more than mere duty requires, although all actions that appear to be supererogatory I would more readily call very strict obligations to a person of such extraordinary and venerable preeminence. And because the impulse of spiritual affection is not revealed in the course of this life unless it finds expression in actions of the body, so that the gift of my spirit, already offered to the radiant glory of your holiness, may not remain completely concealed, I also offer myself as a man entirely ready, to the best of my poor ability, for any physical tasks that you as my teacher shall impose upon me at will. Under the authority of such a teacher, and with the favour of the Holy Spirit, the greatness of any task you order will not frighten me, for all my want of strength, because the Apostle says: I can do all things in him who gives me strength [Phil 4:13]. I also have no fear of such a task because the power of friendship, which is considered inferior to the virtue of obedience, makes impossibilities possible,2 as the wise men of the world say, and because in his Rule the blessed Benedict says: ‘If by any chance burdensome

2 The saying ‘It is friendship that makes even impossibilities possible’ (Amicitia est quae etiam impossibilia redigit ad possibilitatem) is attributed to ‘Tullius’ (Cicero) in an anonymous biblical commentary, probably from the school of St Victor in Paris, ca. 1150: see the Commentarium in Ruth e codice Genouefensi 45, ed. G. de Martel (CCCM 81:61).

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or impossible tasks are imposed on a brother, he should indeed accept with all meekness and obedience the command of him who so orders, and if the superior persists in his decision and command, the one who is junior in rank should know that this is what is best for him and he should obey out of love, trusting in God’s help.’3 If, then, a person must courageously and confidently undertake even impossible tasks at the command of his superior, how much more should he do so at the will of the one who has been given not the rank of a superior but the first rank, the place, that is, of Peter, prince of the apostles and of the whole world. And because I have not yet been able to demonstrate my heart’s devotion to your holiness by my obedient and grateful acceptance of any task you might impose, or by my scrupulous completion, to the best of my small ability, of such a task, as a small demonstration, at least, of my devout submission, I do what I am able to do: with confidence I presume to send to you, the least of men to the greatest, a modest little gift, knowing for a fact that your holiness, whose charity is of surpassing eminence, does not appraise a gift by its large size but by the sincerity and devotion of the giver, although I reckon I can give to one of such commanding holiness nothing that does not, so to speak, belong to you, but can only offer something that is, as it were, already your own. May the most high God long keep you safe for my sake and that of his holy Church. Amen.

36 To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, expressing his respect for and indebtedness to the pope and cardinals and his vow to repay that debt, and commending himself to the protection of Giles, with whom he had previously corresponded. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 125–8.

To the venerable father in Christ, the lord Giles,1 cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the

3 Benedict, Regula 68 (CSEL 75:158–9). 1 Giles (Gilles de Torres/Egidius Hispanus), from Huesca in Spain, was created cardinal deacon by Honorius III in 1216, and died, at over one hundred years of age, in 1255. See Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:16. Matthew Paris called him ‘a pillar of truth and justice in the Roman curia’ (Chronica maiora, 5:529). He is addressed also in Letters 45, 46, and 67.

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Church of Lincoln, offers greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with all honour. Just as the universe is supported by its cardinal points (cardines mundi) and has them to hold it up, as has been surmised and described by those whose concern is the study of its movement,2 so the unshakeable world, that is, the universal Church, which no shaking shall dislodge from the steadfastness of faith, rests firmly upon the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and by them is strongly and firmly supported. For they are the ones whom the Psalm calls the foundations of the world [Ps 17:16], and they are the ones of whom it is written in Job: Beneath him are bowed those who hold up the earth [Jb 9:13]. For they bear the responsibilities of the Church and the burdens of all, as if carrying the world on their shoulders. And just as in the visible universe the sun, conspicuous by a light that surpasses all others, dispels the world’s darkness, lights it up in a unique way, and by its own precisely ordered movement – or so the wise men of the world surmise – disposes and regulates the movements of other natural bodies, so in the world of the Church the supreme pontiff takes the place of the sun. By the surpassing light of his teaching and of his incomparable works he purges the universe of the darkness of error, and by a unique prerogative illuminates it so that it may know the truth. By his disposition he orders, regulates, and governs every movement and action in the universal Church. Therefore, just as – or so seekers after this world’s wisdom and understanding believe – the condition, beauty, and order of the universe are due, next after the world’s creator and the angelic spirits that minister at the creator’s will, to the sun we see and to the cardinal points of the universe, so, too, as they truly believe who know the things that are above, after the world’s creator and redeemer and the heavenly court comprising the blessed spirits of angels and saints, the condition, beauty, and order of the universal Church are each due to its own sun and to its own cardinal points, that is, to the supreme pontiff and the cardinals who assist him. So to the Holy Roman Church is due from all her children the most devout obedience, the most respectful reverence, the most fervent love, and the most humble fear. And these and the like are the more strictly and strongly owing from those who, by their exalted rank in the Church, are closer to the summit of the Church, that is, to the supreme pontiff and the cardinals. In the heavenly hierarchy each and every inferior order of angels, in so far as it is closer to its ultimate head, God, and the supreme order most immediately assisting him, from God receives with greater brilliance 2 For the cardinal points (cardines mundi) see Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 4.89; Isidore, Etymologiae 13.1.1; Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis 9.7.

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the light of understanding, with greater fervour the ardour of charity, with greater firmness the steadfastness in assisting, and with greater dignity the act of ministering.3 So, according to the degree of greater approximation and of more sublime illumination received from the Father of lights, each angelic order more strongly and completely devotes itself to unceasing praise and thanks to that Father, and to obedient, prompt, and effective fulfilment of all prescribed actions. So, too, in the hierarchy of the Church: the higher in ecclesiastical rank and dignity are those who do not forsake the order of sacred government and the unity of the universal Church, the more closely do they, as recipients from the supreme pontiff and from the cardinals who are his intimate assistants of the light of the doctrine of the faith and the guiding principles by which it is right and proper to dwell in the house of God, repay their benefactors with voluntary devotion of mind, and the more effectively do they perform in return the tasks enjoined upon them. So because I, too, although unworthy, have been elevated to the rank and dignity of bishop, I acknowledge that, to the degree that I have attained a higher rank, the more firmly and strictly have I obligated myself in subjection and obedience to the supreme pontiff and to the holy Roman Church. As I desire, then, under no compulsion but of my own free will, to pay the debt I owe to my father, the most holy and supreme pontiff, and to those who assist him, the venerable cardinal-fathers of the holy Roman Church, I intend now, by my remarks in this letter, and at other times (with God’s grace) by a demonstration of another kind, to make known particularly to you, who are a man of discretion, the vow of devout repayment I have made, and with all possible feelings of humility and devotion I ask that, with this vow of mine in mind, you be kind enough to receive me as one worthy of your favour. Moreover, I have chosen with greater confidence to write to you over the other venerable cardinal-fathers of the holy Roman Church, because I am well aware from the trustworthy reports of certain people of your excellency’s virtues, and because, if you remember, when I was archdeacon of Leicester, it was in a very personal way that you concluded your letter to me on behalf of your fine nephew, Master P., who has a benefice in that archdeaconry and is a special and

3 This comparison of the heavenly or angelic hierarchy with the ecclesiastical hierarchy derives from the treatises on these hierarchies by Pseudo-Dionysius, written in Greek perhaps in the fifth century. On Grosseteste’s translation of and commentary on these works, see McEvoy, Philosophy, 69–146; and C.T. Quinn, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Corpus Dionysiacum: Accessing Spiritual Realities through the Word,’ in Editing Robert Grossetste, 79–101. See also Letter 127.

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very dear friend of mine in Christ.4 So it is into your personal and special affection that I, prostrate on the ground, ask that your kind and loving embrace receive me as one especially your own.

37 To Raymond of Peñafort, OP, asking for his oversight and assistance concerning the bishop’s affairs at the curia. One of several letters carried to Rome by Simon of Arden, probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 128–9 (reading, p. 128/line 20, nosset for noscet).

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Raymond1 of the Order of Friars Preachers, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. Although I have not seen your face, I nevertheless firmly believe that I know you because I have become acquainted with the face of your inner man from the trustworthy accounts of those who have told me of your character and works of wisdom;2 and if knowledge of the face within were not the true knowledge of a man, no one would truly know himself, for no one sees his own external face. So it is with confidence that I write to you, not as if you were a stranger but as someone I know. The truth is that I am speaking to you as if you were present here before me, for the presence together of the minds of those who love one another in Christ is closer than the actual presence together of their bodies could be. So, with all possible devotion I ask you, who are

4 ‘Master P.,’ Giles’s nephew, has not been identified. 1 Raymond of Peñafort was trained in law, probably at Bologna, and joined the Dominican Order in Barcelona in 1224. He was entrusted by Pope Gregory IX (see Letter 35) with the compilation of the authentic book of papal decretals, the Liber Extra, published in 1234. In 1238 he was elected master general of the Dominicans. See X. Ochoa and A. Diez, eds., S. Raimundus de Pennaforte: Summa de paenitentia (Rome, 1976), lxiv–lxxiii; and ‘Raymond of Peñafort, St.,’ in The Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 10 (New York, 1988), 266–7. 2 Among the works that Grosseteste had not seen was Raymond’s very influential Summa de paenitentia. A first edition was produced in the 1220s, with a revised and augmented version following in 1234–35. See Ochoa and Diez, eds., Summa de paenitentia, lxxiv–lxxxi.

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present here with me and whom I tightly embrace with arms of charity in Christ, and who requires no merits beforehand but freely hastens to anticipate my needs, that of that care and concern you bestow on all churches so vigilantly and indefatigably, and with the utmost prudence and discretion, you deign to bestow some particle on those affairs of mine (or rather of the church entrusted to me, unworthy though I am) that Simon,3 my clerk and the bearer of this letter, will explain to you more fully. For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ and in consideration of the confidence I take from your kindness, please examine those affairs with care, curtailing what is superfluous, adding what is free of flaws, straightening what is twisted, and casting entirely away whatever may be unjust, so that after being revised and polished by you, and benefiting from your wise counsel and effective assistance, those affairs may receive from the hand of the supreme craftsman, that is, the supreme pontiff, their full and final completion.4 To conclude my letter, I say this before God to your charity, which, as is written, believes all things [1 Cor 13:7]: I declare truthfully that, in the affairs whose promotion by your kind and prudent self I desire, I am seeking nothing transitory, but the eternal salvation of souls alone.

38 To Arnulf, OFM, a papal penitentiary, asking for advice and assistance concerning matters to be brought to his attention by Simon of Arden. Written probably in 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 129–30.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Arnulf,1 penitentiary of the lord pope, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting. With the utmost devotion I give you back for your love all the thanks I can, though not as many as I would wish. For you knew in advance what my needs

3 Simon of Arden was Grosseteste’s envoy to Rome in 1236–7 and again in 1239. See Major, ‘Familia,’ 219. 4 Grosseteste may have been seeking Raymond’s expert advice with regard to the recent canon law relevant to the issues raised in Letter 72* concerning ecclesiastical liberties. 1 Arnulf, a Franciscan friar and penitentiary of Pope Gregory IX, drew some revenues from English benefices and was perhaps an Englishman; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 40 (n. p). Cf. Letters 31, 42, and 69.

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were and even anticipated them with your special affection, and, what is more, with a most extraordinary act of kindness, as I have learned for a fact partly from the trustworthy accounts of several people, and partly from a written report of Brother Adam Rufus2 of happy memory, a former pupil so very dear to me in Christ. At that time he was a very special friend, but now, as I piously hope, he is my patron at the court of the supreme judge. And because the initial, voluntary bestowal of a kindness places its benefactor, in the philosopher’s opinion,3 under obligation to give even more, I am now not only humbly and most devoutly requesting a voluntary kindness, so to speak, but I am also with this appeal compelling you to take on, as it were, that further obligation. For I am asking you to be kind enough to provide as much advice and assistance as possible to expedite those affairs of mine that will be more fully explained to you by Simon, my clerk and the bearer of this letter,4 and left to your discretion. Please do so in such a way that I, and the children of the church that has been entrusted to me despite my unworthiness, may believe that that zeal for souls with which you passionately pursue the salvation of all the children of the universal Church has been especially effective in helping us. And may this zeal please be even more effective, for the reason that – God is my witness! – what I am seeking in expediting my affairs is nothing other than the salvation of souls. With all my heart I also ask you, dearly beloved, who, without expectation of thanks or any meritorious actions of mine, clasped me first in your loving arms, and whom in Christ I embrace in return as tightly as I can, to remove and reject at your discretion anything you disapprove of in my petitions that may not avail the salvation of souls. For it is most disgraceful for a bishop to concern himself, even a little, with anything that may not ‘intend’ (intendat) to save souls, as the very name of bishop means ‘to superintend’ (supra intendere).

39 To Ranfred of Benevento, asking for his help and support at the papal curia. Written probably in 1236 (possibly before August 1236; see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 130–1.

2 On Adam Rufus, see Letters 1–2. 3 See Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 4.3.1124b:10–12. 4 On Simon of Arden, see Letter 37, n. 3.

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To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Ranfred,1 notary of the lord pope, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. If I have omitted anything from your title or have mistaken it, please be kind enough not to hold me responsible. For I know you not so much from the fact that you have this title as from the remarkable renown of your character. From the trustworthy accounts of many people and especially that of my dearly beloved friend, that venerable man, Lord John of Ferentino,2 subdeacon and chaplain of the lord pope and archdeacon of Norwich, I have heard how great is the fear of God with which you turn, along with Job, from evil [Jb 28:28], how great is the love that rouses you to do good things, how great are the prudence and discretion that are your strength in deliberations, and with how much vitality and energy you carry out the official duties entrusted to you. These and similar qualities of mind are the reason for my complete confidence in your kindly nature and why I am writing to you with assurance. And because, with the charity that hopes all things [1 Cor 13:7], I love in faith a person distinguished by such attributes, with humility and devotion I ask that for God’s sake you be kind enough to assist, promote, and expedite my affairs, to the extent that they pertain to the honour of God and the Church and to the salvation of souls. And because the love that burns inside me cannot but burst forth to display itself externally, as a kind of demonstration of the love I have for you, I am sending you for your kindness a very small gift. It is my hope that you will be so kind as to accept this, because the virtue that is the source of your strength does not appraise a gift by its size but by the affection of the giver.

1 Ranfridus or Roffredus Beneventanus (Roffredus of Benevento) studied law at Bologna and Arezzo and then taught at the newly established University of Naples (1224). He served in the papal curia in some unspecified capacity from 1229 until his death ca. 1244. In 1236 he began, but never completed, an important guide to the procedural practices of the papal curia. See I. Baumgärtner, ‘Was muss ein Legist vom Kirchenrecht wissen? Roffredus Beneventanus und seine Libelli de iure canonico,’ in Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Cambridge, 23–27 July 1984, ed. P. Linehan (Vatican City, 1988), 223–45. 2 John of Ferentino (in Italy) was a papal nominee to the archdeaconry of Norwich in 1228; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 64. He was in England in June of 1235, where he was addressed in a letter from the pope as ‘subdeacon and papal chaplain,’ the same titles used in this letter from Grosseteste; see L. Auvray, Les registres de Grégoire IX, 4 vols. (Paris, 1896–1955), 2:69, no. 2593. On 23 August 1236 he was in Rome and was referred to as a papal chamberlain (camerarius); ibid., 2:469, nos. 3302–3; cf. Letter 3, n. 6, and Letters 43 and 66.

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40 To Jordan of Saxony, master general of the Dominicans, asking him to instruct his friars at the papal curia to foster Grosseteste’s affairs, and requesting that he permit John of St Giles to help Grosseteste in the pastoral care of his diocese. Written before February 1237, and possibly before May 1236 (see n. 1). Edition: Luard, Epp., 131–3.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Jordan,1 prior general of the Friars Preachers, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. I am certain that you in your charity remember how great was the friendship you showed me when you were at Oxford2 and often welcomed me with gracious courtesy to share private conversations. You will remember, too, how great was the love with which you so kindly embraced me, though I did not deserve it, out of the goodness of your heart. And because love never fails [1 Cor 13:8], but when present always increases during the span of this life, I know you love me now no less than you did then, but much more so. Since, then, I am certain of this friendship and affection of yours, it is with confidence that I ask you to be willing for God’s sake to write warmly and effectively to some of your friars at the curia to request that they diligently and effectively apply themselves to promoting and expediting my affairs, in so far as they pertain to the honour of God and the Church and to the salvation of souls. Moreover, in your loving concern and discretion you are well aware that my diocese is much larger and more populous than any other in the

1 Jordan of Saxony was Dominic’s successor as master general of the Order of Preachers from 1222 to 1237. He travelled widely and attracted many converts to the new order. Jordan was probably in Paris for the general chapter of the order in May of 1236, leaving soon afterward to visit the new Dominican foundations in the Holy Land. He died in February of 1237 in a shipwreck on his return voyage. See M. Aron, Saint Dominic’s Successor (London, 1955). 2 For Jordan’s visit to Oxford in 1229–30, see Southern, Growth, 74; T. Kaeppeli, ‘Un recueil de sermons prêchés à Paris et en Angleterre conservés dans le Ms. de Canterbury, Cathedr. Libr. D.7 (Jourdain de Saxe O.P., Thomas de Chabham etc.),’ in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 26 (1956): 161–91; A.G. Little and D. Douie, ‘Three Sermons of Friar Jordan of Saxony, the Successor of St. Dominic, preached in England, A.D. 1229,’ in The English Historical Review 54 (1939): 1–19.

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kingdom of England, and for that reason I need more, and more effective, help in preaching God’s word, hearing confessions, and imposing penances;3 I also need wiser counsel in solving, soberly and soundly and in a manner consistent with an understanding of the Scriptures, the various new cases that arise every day. There is no assistant I know of more effective in this respect than Brother John of St Giles,4 who sees and understands my deficiencies in these matters and the full extent of my needs, and is ready to heed my prayers and wishes, if you in your charity will only give your permission and approval. I have therefore prostrated myself humbly at the feet of a man who is kindness itself to beg with all humility and devotion, and to entreat through the blood shed by our Lord Jesus Christ and through the compassion that transfixed his sweetest of mothers as she stood next to her son hanging on the cross, that you hear my petition with ears of compassion and be willing to permit, or rather instruct, Brother John to have the kindness to remain constantly at my side as a support for my weakness, an aid to my inadequacy, a stimulus to my laziness, a pillar of strength when I waver, a prod for my hesitancy, and a consolation in times of trial. Please employ the bearer of this letter to let brother John and me know your decision in this matter.

41 To Elias, minister general of the Franciscan Order, asking him for the assistance of his friars in promoting the bishop’s affairs at the curia and in performing his pastoral duties. Written probably at the same time as Letter 40, and perhaps after 13 March 1236 (see n. 4). Edition: Luard, Epp., 133–4.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Elias,1 minister general

3 This request for help in preaching, hearing confessions, and enjoining penances echoes the words of c. 10 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), ‘On appointing preachers’; see Tanner, Decrees, 1:239–40. Cf. Letter 34, n. 3. 4 On John of St Giles, see Letter 14, n. 2. 1 On Elias of Cortona, see Letter 31, n. 1, and Letter 58, n. 2.

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of the Friars Minor, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. Because your sons, the Friars Minor in England, out of kindness and in a special way embrace me tightly with arms of love,2 and because a father’s affection cannot be separated from that of his sons, and because the head, which sets the body in motion, cannot but be involved in the movements of the body’s members, I am certain that you in your charity, at least through their sincere love, embrace me with a sincere love in Christ. That is why I write with confidence, as if to a faithful friend in Christ, to implore you devoutly and with all possible affection to be so kind as to write, for God’s sake and that of the salvation of souls, to your friars at the curia, so that they will give careful attention to promoting and expediting my affairs, inasmuch as those affairs have as their goal the honour of God and the Church as well as the salvation of souls. For it is not proper for me to want any affairs that are other than holy to be expedited by men who are holy and consecrated to God. And because in God’s sight I return the love of your friars (who love me in a very special and fervent way) more especially and intensely than I do that of other men, it is also my desire to pour out upon you, their head, every little flame of my love. I ask that you please be so kind as to accept, with your typical humility and charity, this desire as a gift from me, for I have nothing more precious than this to offer. Moreover, because my diocese is much larger and more populous than any other in the kingdom of England, and I therefore need more, and more effective, help in preaching God’s word, hearing confessions, and imposing penances, and because there are no assistants I know of for these and similar responsibilities so effective as your friars,3 I have prostrated myself at the feet of a man who is kindness itself to beg with all humility and devotion, and to entreat through the blood shed by our Lord Jesus Christ and through the compassion that transfixed his sweetest of mothers as she stood next to her son hanging on the cross, that you hear my petition with ears of compassion and be willing to permit, or rather instruct, two or four qualified friars of yours, appointed in this

2 On Grosseteste’s relations with the Franciscans in England, see S. Gieben, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Evolution of the Franciscan Order,’ in New Perspectives, 215–32; and McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 51–61. 3 Grosseteste echoes again the wording of c. 10 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215); see Letter 34, n. 3, and Letter 40, n. 3.

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case by you or the minister of the friars in England,4 to have the kindness to remain constantly at my side as a support for my weakness, an aid to my inadequacy, a stimulus to my laziness, a pillar of strength when I waver, a prod for my hesitancy, and a consolation in times of trial.

42 To Arnulf, OFM, a papal penitentiary, thanking him for his support of Simon of Arden at the papal curia. This is the first of a series of letters apparently responding to news sent from the papal curia by Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s envoy there. Written in 1236 or 1237. Edition: Luard, Epp., 134–5.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Brother Arnulf,1 penitentiary of the lord pope, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. For the salutary advice, affable conversation, and sweet consolation you are generously providing without recompense to Simon, my proctor,2 I respectfully send you, a man of true charity, all possible thanks, earnestly imploring that the deep-rooted affection you have for me, which has, I know from services rendered, not only sent forth new growth, but has also increased in strength from being watered with the grace of the Holy Spirit, may always multiply more abundantly, rise higher, put forth more leaves, blossom more fragrantly, and bear more fruit.

4 Agnellus of Pisa, the first minister of the English province, died on 13 March 1236; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 77 (n. c.). Minister General Elias apparently waited almost a year before appointing Albert of Pisa as the new provincial minister for England. Albert arrived in England on 13 December 1236 (ibid., 78–9). Grosseteste’s failure to name the provincial minister may suggest that the letter was written between March and December 1236. 1 On Arnulf, see Letter 38, n. 1. 2 On Simon of Arden, see Letter 37, n. 3.

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43 To John of Ferentino, asking him to assist Simon of Arden at the papal curia. Written probably after 23 August 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 135.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Lord John of Ferentino,1 chamberlain of the lord pope, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends both greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. Charity’s extent is neither fixed nor confinable but always expands ever more broadly, so that it may always receive with an increasing abundance anyone it has once taken into its embrace. Knowing as I do that you have taken me into the embrace of your charity, as one who has been received there ever more often I heap request upon request with ever increasing confidence. So, with all possible devotion I ask you, whose charity has embraced me without recompense, to be kind enough to provide Simon of Arden,2 my proctor at the curia, with the advice and help he needs to expedite my affairs, to the honour of God and the Church and for the salvation of souls. Please know, dearly beloved, that I am always ready to do whatever would please you.

44 To Thomas of Capua, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, asking him to support Grosseteste’s pastoral affairs at the papal curia. Written in 1236 or 1237. Edition: Luard, Epp., 135–7.

1 On John of Ferentino, see Letter 39, n. 2. Between the sending of that letter and this, Grosseteste has apparently learned, probably from Simon of Arden, that John has been made a papal chamberlain. John first appears in the papal registers with that title on 23 August 1236. 2 On Simon of Arden, see Letter 37, n. 3.

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To the venerable father in Christ, the lord Thomas,1 cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with all honour. From a trustworthy report I have learned that out of sincere affection you embraced my predecessor Hugh,2 of happy memory, with a special, personal love, and that by reason of the Lord’s approval you have in your discretion promoted, much more effectively than anyone else, the affairs of the church over which I, despite my unworthiness, with the Lord’s permission now preside. So, since a friendship does not end at the same time as one’s life on earth – for Scripture says that a friend loves at all times [Prv 17:17] – the goodwill you showed Hugh during his lifetime you will likewise, because of the law of friendship, show him in death, as you expedite and promote in your usual way the affairs of his church. For in dying Hugh did not relinquish responsibility for the church he led; instead, as may be found in a text of John Chrysostom, ‘after his physical death a good shepherd all the more vigilantly devotes himself to the flock whose leader he was.’3 Everyone can see that there is in fact no change in the source and the recipient of anything your goodwill does to promote the church whose care Hugh did not relinquish at his death and to help the flock to which he devoted himself. And because I find that the law of friendship has bound you to the church over which my predecessor once presided, as I now preside, despite my incompetence, I desire these bonds, which are not hard to bear but sweet, to be tied up stronger and tighter, and within those same bonds I also place myself. For anyone who thus includes himself is bound more tightly the more people are confined within the loops of those bonds. And I have no fear that you will decline to take me into your affectionate embrace as I strive to include myself, for I am a second Hugh, not only because I am his successor, but because he – may God reward him! – whom you embraced within the breadth of your most special love, had by his special affection made me one with him in heart and mind. So, father, I humbly prostrate myself at your feet to ask from the bottom of my heart that you, whose affection is sweet and strong as death [Sg 8:6], welcome, support, and carry me with you in Hugh, especially as

1 Thomas of Capua (Tommaso da Capua) served as cardinal priest of Santa Sabina from 1216 until his death in August of 1239; see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:13, 2:393. 2 On Hugh of Wells, bishop of Lincoln (1209–35), see Letter 3, n. 4. 3 This reference to Chrysostom has not been identified.

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it is the nature of affection to expand to receive everyone who attempts to enter its embraces, and then to hold him tight to prevent his slipping away. As I am certain that you will not push me away as I try to enter your affectionate embrace, with that confidence I beg you to promote any affairs of the church over which I preside that concern and affect the salvation of the flock whose prelate I am. I beg that you promote them in the way to be revealed to you by the unction of the Holy Spirit, and that I and the church entrusted to me may thus be the means by which you continue to show my deceased predecessor the same goodwill you so graciously showed him when he was alive.

45 To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, thanking him for his letter. Written in 1236 or 1237. Edition: Luard, Epp., 137–8.

To the venerable father in Christ, Lord Giles,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with all honour. I have received with deference and devotion, as was proper, revered father, the letter you recently sent me by way of the lord bishop of Chester.2 This I carefully read, marvelling at the way its words blossom like flowers and how it shines with the silver of eloquence, gleams with the gold of wisdom, and glows red with the flame of charity. Your letter has not exceeded the limits of the charity that rejoices in the truth [1 Cor 13:6], but in its brave attempt to advance along the higher road of the charity that believes all things [1 Cor 13:7] it did exceed the limits of truth in no small way, when without restraint it praised me to the skies by more than fervently enlarging its scope to include what lies ahead as well as on high, and by

1 On Giles, see Letter 36, n. 1. 2 ‘Bishop of Chester’ is an anachronistic title for Alexander of Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. For this prelate, see Letter 34. Stavensby was at the Roman curia in January of 1236 and may have brought this letter with him on his return to England; see N. Vincent, ‘Master Alexander of Stainsby, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1224–1238,’ in JEH 46 (1995): 628, 631, 638.

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attempting to carry me along with it beyond what I am, or rather beyond the nothing that I am. I offer all possible thanks for a charity of such magnitude, and I grieve that nothing I have done entitles me to such generous commendation. But am I to accuse such great charity of falsehood? God forbid! For sincere is the charity in the one who praises me beyond what I truly am, and he considers his assertion to be truthful. The untruth is in my inadequacy, because I am unequal to the words of the one who makes the assertion. Yet, with the Lord’s help, it will be possible, or so I hope, for the untruth that is my defect to be partly restored to the completeness that is truth, if the precious gift conveyed by your letter is received with enthusiasm, put in its place with pleasure, and, to prevent its disappearance, guarded with care inside the emptiness of that defect as in a kind of repository with firm walls – if indeed there is in me some, even if only a little, firmness! – and with a cover placed on top to keep it secure. This gift is the charity of the donor: its firmness strengthens what is weak in the one to whom it is given, its foundation props up what is collapsing, its breadth expands what is cramped, its height raises up what has been let fall, its fullness replenishes what is empty, its gentleness smoothes away what is rough, its sweetness cheers whatever is sorrowful, and its vitality restores life to what has died. For when the gift of charity takes its recipient to a oneness of heart and soul [Acts 4:32], it cannot but then shape the one it has taken and transform him into a likeness of itself. So, I am confident enough to hope that from the precious and priceless possession of so great and magnificent a gift no small success will come my way, and my imperfection will in some measure be empowered thereby to reach perfection. No one knows the price [Jb 28:13] of this gift, as he is also ignorant of the price of wisdom, nor shall solid gold be given for it or silver weighed out in exchange [Jb 28:15]. What, then, to show my gratitude, am I to give back that is equal to so great a gift? I shall not be able to repay you equally until such time as I can love in return, and with a love equal to his, the one who loves me. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

46 To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, agreeing to grant a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral to a cleric recommended by Giles. Written probably after 11 November (feast of St Martin) 1236. Edition: Luard, Epp., 138–40 (reading, p. 139/line 15, excussae for excusse).

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To the venerable father in Christ, Giles,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with all honour. The guarantee of your testimony and evidence of his integrity have recommended Master Richard of Cornwall2 to me in many ways. So, in accord with your wish and, in the end, simply for the sake of God, I have taken care to ‘plant’ this master in the Church of Lincoln. The place, however, in which he has been planted is not known to repay adequately, or as I would wish, the deep penetration of his roots and the spreading of his branches, for the fruits of the prebend to which he has been instituted, St Martin in Dernestall, do not exceed the value of 25 marks. Yet for one residing in the Church of Lincoln they can be worth 50 marks or more every year.3 This plant should not, however, shrink from being planted first in a confined spot, as it is common for experienced farmers to transfer plants of which there is some hope of their bearing fruit from such a spot to one that covers more ground. He should also consider carefully that plants when shaken drop their leaves and fruit upon that land from whose rich soil they draw up life-giving moisture through their roots. So when present and established there, and shaken by the breath of the Holy Spirit, this master should pour words of preaching and examples of a holy way of life into the hearts of those from whom he is to receive his subsistence. And, as you mention in your letter, once plucked (collectus) by me he should summon up all his pluck (totum se colligat) for a ministry that is pleasing to God and that he must devotedly and faithfully exercise for me and the Church of Lincoln as long as he lives. He must not shear his sheep’s wool and take their milk and abandon them to be torn to pieces by the jaws of wolves, or it may happen – God forbid! – that he will be one of those shepherds to whom, through Ezekiel, the Lord says: You consumed the milk, you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed what was fat, but my flock you did not feed [Ez 34:3]. On the contrary, together with the Lord he must feed the Lord’s sheep and make them lie down; he must seek that which has been lost, bring back that which has been driven away, bind up that which has been broken, strengthen that

1 On Giles, see Letter 36, n. 1. 2 For Master Richard of Cornwall, see Fasti: Lincoln, 86–7; and Letter 47. 3 The prebend of St Martin in Dernestall, Oxfordshire, is described in Fasti: Lincoln, 86–7. It was valued at £7 10s (about 10 marks) in 1254. For the additional income of a canon in Lincoln Cathedral, see ‘The Canons’ Emoluments,’ in Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals, 39–49.

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which was weak, protect that which is fat and strong, and feed those sheep with judgment and justice [Ez 34:15–16]. And he should not be averse to coming down from Rome to England to feed them, for to redeem those sheep the son of God the father came down from the seat of majesty to the ignominy of the cross. And because this master will receive none of the fruits of the prebend until the next feast of St Martin,4 I ask that until that time or date he come and stay with me and share my table as one of the clerks of my household. So, father, if you agree, in your discretion please persuade him to take on these responsibilities, that sower and reaper may rejoice together [Jn 4:36] and together receive their reward. Furthermore, to you, so very loving and serene, who seek not what is mine but me alone,5 I offer the vigour of my body to serve and the vigour of my mind, if any there be, to love, beseeching you to open to me your expansive bosom, eagerly gather me up when I enter, and then comfort me. May you, father, fare well in God.

47 To Richard of Cornwall, conferring on him a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral and reminding him of his responsibilities there. Written probably at the same time as Letter 46. Edition: Luard, Epp., 140.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord to the venerable man, Master Richard of Cornwall.1 4 The feast of St Martin is 11 November. Thus the collation of Master Richard must have taken place sometime after this date, probably in 1237. 5 Cf. 2 Cor 12:14: ‘I seek not what is yours, but you.’ 1 Master Richard of Cornwall held the Lincoln Cathedral prebend of St Martin in Dernestall from 1236 or 1237 until ca. 1250; see Fasti: Lincoln, 86–7. In a letter (no. 34) written by Adam Marsh to Grosseteste in 1249, Richard is described as ‘a subdeacon, not unknown to you, who lacks fluency in the English language, a man of entirely honourable life and mature judgement and also learned in both humane letters and divinity’ (Adam Marsh, Epp., 98–9). This Richard is not to be confused with the

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Upon reflecting that, with the Lord’s favour, your outstanding knowledge, enhanced as it is in an exceptional way by a praiseworthy character, will give rise to a large harvest of souls, and desiring to share in that harvest, I have conferred upon you a certain prebend that is in my church and has a cure of souls attached to it.2 Although it is small, do not refuse it, or you may perhaps – God forbid! – be suspected of wanting to seek not the sheep but what belongs to them, contrary to the teaching of the Apostle who says: I seek not what is yours, but you [2 Cor 12:14]. So seek with the Apostle the sheep alone, come to them with the intention of feeding them with the word of preaching, the example of a holy way of life, and the devotion of simple prayer, for it is in these three duties, as you know, that the feeding of the Lord’s flock consists. Since your absence would make it impossible for you to perform them, you are to be conspicuously and persistently present, so that at the time you give your account you are not found deficient when it is said: Give an account of your stewardship [Lk 16:2].

48 To Simon de Montfort, warning him not to punish a burgess from Leicester too severely. Written probably in 1237, and certainly before March 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 141–3.

To the venerable man, most dear in Christ, Lord Simon de Montfort,1 Robert, by divine mercy unworthy minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. Holy and righteous people are of the opinion that it is as wrong not to punish the guilty as it is to punish the innocent. So the person whose concern it is, by virtue of his office, to correct others is unjust if he fails to punish their transgressions. That is why we read that even King Saul was condemned for sparing the king of the Amalechites, whom he should

Richard of Cornwall who was chancellor of York Cathedral from 1225 to 1233, nor with the famous Franciscan scholar, Richard (Rufus) of Cornwall. 2 For the prebend of St Martin in Dernestall, see Letter 46, n. 3. 1 On Simon de Montfort, see Maddicott, Simon de Montfort ; and Letters 5 and 75. Simon married Eleanor, the sister of King Henry III, in January of 1238, and travelled to the papal curia in March 1238 to seek confirmation of the marriage.

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have slain as the Lord had commanded.2 Conversely, then, I infer that punishing the guilty is just and upright, approved before God and men, but punishing the innocent is cruel and brutish – no, it is even diabolical. For what is it but venting one’s rage like a wolf against the lambs, or seizing and tormenting the innocent as the devil likes to do? Now, punishing the guilty short of what they deserve is justice with mercy and an imitation of Christ, who punishes everyone in this way. Punishing the guilty with attention to achieving an exact correspondence and balance with what they deserve is justice applied inflexibly, or perhaps not justice at all, for it wants the intermingling of mercy, and only makes one deserving of being judged without mercy, since it is written that judgment will be without mercy for the one who has shown no mercy [Jas 2:13]. Punishing the guilty beyond what they deserve is an obvious injustice, for the more the punishment exceeds the fault, the more is innocence punished. So those who punish the guilty beyond the measure of their fault are liable to be accused of or charged with punishing innocence, and those who punish innocence are the companions of the Herod who slew the innocents;3 indeed, they are the companions of those who crucified the innocent lamb, God’s own son. If the excessive punishment in question takes the form of a fine, those who punish like this are thieves and robbers in the amount of the fine that exceeds the measure of the fault. Now, thieves and robbers, in the judgment of both the Old and the New Law, are condemned to everlasting hellfire, unless they see reason and give back what they took. And even in this life they often suffer the punishment they themselves inflicted, for Scripture says: Woe to you who plunder! Shall you not yourself also be plundered [Is 33:1]? ‘For there is no law more just than that contrivers of death should perish by their own contrivances.’4 Such robbers also put aside human nature and assume that of a beast, changed within into lions, although externally they look like human beings. That is why the prophet says of every such creature: He became a lion and learned to catch prey and to devour men [Ez 19:3]. The hands of such creatures, as Isaiah tells us, are covered with blood [Is 1:15], and with those hands they not only flay men but bone them as well.5 Will creatures such as these possess the kingdom of God? God forbid! For a garment fouled with blood shall be for burning and for fuel for the fire [Is 9:5].

2 3 4 5

1 Sm 15:23. Mt 2:16–18. Ovid, Ars amatoria 1:655–6. Cf. Mi 3:3.

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Hear also what the Lord promises through the mouth of the prophet to those who store up iniquity and plunder in their houses: Because of this, he says, the land shall be in tribulation and shall be surrounded, and your strength shall be taken from you and your houses sacked [Am 3:11]. And again through the same prophet he says: Because you robbed the poor and took the choice prey from him, you shall build homes with square stone and shall not live in them. You shall plant the most pleasant vineyards and shall not drink their wine [Am 5:11]. To the human race and to each and every human being who suffers the penalty of the first sin it was said, By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread [Gn 3:19], not ‘by the sweat of another’s brow shall you eat another’s bread.’ Those, then, who seize what belongs to others and live off the tears and toil of others, do not participate in the life of penance common to all humanity, and for that reason they shall not be scourged with mortal men [Ps 72:5] but with devils. How terrible it is, then, to punish and plunder the innocent – a crime they too commit who excessively punish wrongdoers – may to some extent be clear from what I have written above. Because for your nobility of character I clasp you tightly in arms of love, I would grieve more than ever were you to fall into such a terrible sin. So, if what I have heard is true, when I see you staggering, so to speak, toward a fall of this kind, I want with the warning in this letter to catch you before you fall. For I have heard that you are determined to punish S.,6 a burgess of yours from Leicester, not indeed in a manner consistent with the measure and extent of his fault, but beyond its measure and exceeding it in punishment. I beseech God that this is far from what you intend to do, or there is danger of your putting aside the man

6 This is almost certainly a reference to Simon Curlevache, an alderman and one of the founding fathers of the borough of Leicester; see M. Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester, vol. 1 (London, 1899), passim. Matthew Paris (Chronica maiora, 3:479) tells how Simon de Montfort, after marrying the king’s sister, fell out with the king and nobles in 1238 and fled England, having previously extorted immense wealth from various people, including one of the citizens of Leicester, Simon Curlevache, whom he slyly cheated out of 500 marks (‘extorta prius undecunque potuit immensa pecunia, ita quod ab uno cive Legrecestriae, Simone Curlevache, quingentas marcas emunxerat’). Maddicott mentions the incident only in passing, saying that de Montfort ‘had extorted money from a Leicester burgess in order to fund his journey to Rome’ (Simon de Montfort, 28). Maddicott’s source is apparently Matthew Paris, who does not associate the flight from England in 1238 chronologically with the Curlevache affair, saying only that de Montfort had ‘previously’ amassed great wealth. Grosseteste’s letter makes it clear that it was harsh judicial treatment of Curlevache, rather than illegal dealings, that was at issue.

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and assuming a lion-like or rather a diabolical savageness, becoming one who with bloody hands flays, bones, and then devours men, a companion of Herod and those who crucified Christ, guilty of the crime of theft and plundering, and thereby condemned to hellfire, perhaps in this life to lose, therefore, the strength to plunder and instead to suffer being plundered and exiled, and to be denied participation in the life of penance common to all humanity. So, do not let savagery vent its rage against this burgess; do not let your conduct be stern and inflexible. Instead let your goodness and mercy triumph over judgment [Jas 2:13], that you may be a model of clemency and gentleness and not a master of cruelty. Farewell.

49 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning the conferral of a prebend on Otto’s chaplain, Master Azzo. Written probably after July 1237. Edition: Luard, Epp., 144–6.

To the venerable father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. I have received with proper respect your holiness’s letter, wherein you mention that you have decided that the prebend formerly held by Master R. of Warminster in the Church of Lincoln should be conferred upon your clerk, Master Azzo.2 First, then, you should know, holy father, that I had already made an appointment to that prebend before I received your holiness’s letter. Second, I want your holiness to know

1 On Otto of Tonengo, see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:76–97. Otto was papal nuncio in England in 1226 and at the papal curia between February 1233 and April 1237; sent back to England as cardinal legate, he arrived in July 1237 and remained there until June of 1241. See Councils and Synods, 155–6, 237. 2 Master Azzo (Acto, Atto) da Parma was a chaplain in Cardinal Otto’s household (see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:92–3, 95, 97). As archdeacon of Leicester, Grosseteste had himself instituted Master Richard of Warminster to the Church of Sibstone in 1234; see Rotuli Welles, 2:311. Richard was also made a canon of Lincoln sometime between 1231 and 1235, but his prebend has not been identified; see Fasti: Lincoln, 138.

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that tribulation or hardship or persecution [Rom 8:35], or any of the other things mentioned by the Apostle, will not, with the help of Christ’s grace, separate my insignificant self from the obedience I owe to the holy Roman Church, an obedience not compelled by fear but enlarged by love. I also call upon the one who searches our hearts [Ps 7:10] and knows our secrets as my witness that, at the command of the lord pope and of you, too, who exercise his authority, I would, though physically feeble and frail, embark cheerfully and agreeably on a journey to the most remote lands of the Saracens to implant and promote the faith and charity of Christ, even to the shedding of my blood. It would be impossible for so great an authority to place upon me a burden whose purpose was to promote faith and charity that I would not bear with affection and rejoicing as much and as long as I could. At the same time, whatever aims at destroying charity I cannot but take ill. And since I am obliged to live by the gospel, which teaches that one ought to fear him alone who can send both body and soul to hell [Mt 10:28], no fear of your power will restrain me from speaking the truth, impelled as I am by the fierce heat of charity. I know, yes, I know for a fact, that the lord pope and the holy Roman Church have the power to dispose freely of all ecclesiastical benefices. I know also that whoever abuses this power builds for the fires of hell.3 I know, too, that whoever does not use this power to promote faith and charity is abusing it. I know further that when ecclesiastical benefices are conferred by an authority with the power to do so, without first asking the consent of the patrons, especially when this might easily be asked, those who so confer provoke against themselves the most terrible hatred of everyone, besides the hatred of those to whom such collation is made and who hate the patrons of the benefices thus conferred. For this practice is shamefully embarrassing to patrons and distressing to those who love them, whereas those who hate them rejoice, jeer, and criticize. So, conferring benefices in this way results in scandal for everyone. There is no need to remind you of the seriousness of this problem. The Church is not built up in this way but rather destroyed; faith and charity are not promoted but repudiated, and the practice is contrary to the

It is this Lincoln benefice that Otto had hoped to have conferred on Azzo, his chaplain. See Letter 74 for another attempt by Otto to find a benefice for his clerk. 3 Cf. Hos 8:14: ‘And Israel has forgotten his Maker and built temples, and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his houses.’

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command of the prince of the apostles, who likewise warned prelates not to lord it over the clergy but to become a pattern to the flock from the heart [1 Pt 5:3]. So, with all due respect, when dealing with this and likewise matters, so prudent a man as your holiness should not have embarrassed my insignificant self, a man most devoted and obedient to you, by conferring a prebend of my church without consulting me, especially as I have always been and am still ready and willing to make, for the full value of that prebend and even more, generous provision for any of your people, not under a coercion that would embarrass me and the church entrusted to me, but of my own free will, for the building up of charity – even though after my consecration as bishop a nephew of the lord pope was promoted to one of the best prebends of the Church of Lincoln.4 So I prostrate myself at the feet of your holiness and humbly ask you to be so kind as to revoke your collation to this prebend, or I, who of all people I would call the one most rejected by your affection, may be unable from embarrassment to lift up my face to you, or to my brother bishops, or to those who are subject to me. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

50 To Robert of Hayles, archdeacon of Lincoln, concerning Grosseteste’s impending visitation of his diocese. Similar letters were sent to the other archdeacons. Written after the Council of London (November 1237) and before the death of Robert of Hayles in the spring of 1238. Editions: Councils and Synods, 263–4; Luard, Epp., 146–7.

Robert, by the grace of God, bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Robert,1 archdeacon of Lincoln. As I have the duty to spread the word of God to everyone in my diocese and am unable to satisfy this obligation by speaking personally to everyone – there are so many parish churches and such a large number of people – I

4 This papal nephew, Master Adenulf dei Conti of Anagni, first appears as a prebendary of Cropredy in Lincoln diocese during Grosseteste’s second year as bishop, 17 June 1236–16 June 1237. See Fasti: Lincoln, 64. 1 On Robert of Hayles, see Fasti: Lincoln, 25; he died sometime between 25 March and 27 May 1238.

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have no other solution in such a situation than the following: When I travel throughout my diocese, and when the rectors of churches, vicars, and parish priests have been assembled before me in their individual deaneries, I shall preach God’s word to them and instruct them as to how they are to teach the people subject to them and to mould them by the example of their own good behaviour. So what I cannot accomplish by myself, I shall achieve in every possible way at least through their ministry.2 I am therefore ordering you to forewarn the deans of your archdeaconry to be quick to call before me those rectors, vicars, and priests in the places and at the times I shall specify to them, that I may find nothing to prevent me from preaching or performing the other duties that pertain to my office. You are, moreover, to see that all the rectors of churches in your archdeaconry whose churches are to be consecrated are forewarned to have ready everything required for the ceremony of consecration, since according to the statutes of the Council of London the consecration of all churches not yet consecrated must take place within the two-year period following that council.3 And as I do not want procurations to be a burden to anyone, and could not, or so I believe, be easily provided with maintenance by rectors of churches in their own houses without greatly burdening them, I ask that you send me in writing your advice about the kind and expense of the procurations I am to receive.4 You are also to let me know which beneficed clerks, whether priests or those in minor orders, have been found guilty of, or have admitted in your presence to, any incontinence and have thereby bound themselves, should they happen to fall into this vice again, to resign their benefices or to suffer some other canonical penalty. And you are to let me have the bonds (or copies of them) of those clerks who have bound themselves in this way.5 Farewell.

2 On Grosseteste’s innovative methods for visiting his diocese, see Councils and Synods, 262–5. 3 See c. 1 of the legatine Council of London (1237): Councils and Synods, 245–6; cf. Letters 56 and 63, both concerned with the consecration of churches. 4 For further evidence of Grosseteste’s concern to limit the expenses incurred by parish churches during his visitations, see J. Goering, ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia,’ in Distinct Voice, 253–76, at pp. 262–9. 5 Canon 16 of the legatine Council of London (1237) strictly bound bishops to seek out and correct clerics who maintained concubines; see Councils and Synods, 252–3. For the practice of taking bonds (instrumenta) guaranteeing compliance in this regard, see ibid., 175n1 (Statutes of Worcester II, c. 31).

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51 To Master Thomas of Wales, outlining the qualities of a good archdeacon and encouraging him to prefer the pastoral to the magisterial office. Written after the death of Robert of Hayles (see Letter 50) in the spring of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 147–51.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Master Thomas of Wales,1 canon of Lincoln. Now that Robert,2 archdeacon of Lincoln, has gone the way of all flesh – may God have mercy on his soul! – I have conferred upon you the archdeaconry of Lincoln together with the prebend held by the late archdeacon, as you are ready to reside in it. For, filled with fear of God, I presumed to confer such an important cure of souls only upon someone who was willing to undertake this charge personally and immediately. For this cure, as you too are well aware, is not of medium size, but exceedingly large, and in need of a rector who is always resident and who attends to it vigilantly, prudently, diligently, and effectively; one who preaches the word of the Lord in and out of season [2 Tm 4:2], shows himself an example of good works [Ti 2:7], grieves anxiously and weeps copiously when his warnings about salvation go unheeded, shakes his hands from all bribes [Is 33:15], and in such an obvious way puts to pious uses the fines he receives from transgressors in punishment of their offences that he could not be defamed as greedy for accepting them; one who, furthermore, rejoices when he is able justly to acquit anyone accused, and who feels compassion when compelled for reasons of justice to condemn someone; one whom neither love nor hatred, fear nor hope, entreaties nor bribes, nor favouritism, divert from an honest judgment, nor whom the opinion of the majority beguiles into straying from that judgment [Ex 23:2]. His delight should be temperance and self-restraint, his repose should be labours and vigils, his whole desire should be to help souls. Exercising jurisdiction should be for 1 Thomas of Wales (Walensis), a canon of Lincoln Cathedral in 1235, first appears in the documents as archdeacon of Lincoln before May of 1238; he was elected bishop of St David’s in 1247 (see Fasti: Lincoln, 25–6, 84–5). Thomas was studying theology in Paris when he received this letter. He returned to England, where he served not only as archdeacon of Lincoln but also as lector to the Oxford Franciscans; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 48–9 and n. f., and Letter 17, n. 4. 2 On Robert of Hayles, the previous incumbent, see Letter 50.

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him a serious and onerous responsibility, but for the good of others this burden must be undertaken with humility and borne with courage. So, because it has been my firmest hope that you, above any others whom I could think of, would be such a pastor, I decided to impose this burden upon you in preference to any others. For God knows that if I had thought of someone whom I would have considered more competent for this pastoral charge, I would have preferred him to you when conferring this burden. And you may be certain that I have summoned you to share my cares and concerns in this matter not to enrich you but to look after souls. So if you love saving souls, no – if you love him who said to Peter, and to us in Peter, If you love me, feed my sheep [Jn 21:17], you should not reject this shepherd’s burden, you should not run away from the task, and you should not be wearied by these cares once you have taken them on. For spiritual sloth alone is the source of this kind of weariness, and love for the salvation of souls, which is strong as death [Sg 8:6], cannot feel weariness in the pursuit of such a goal. But it will seem hard for you, or so I suspect, to leave the schools behind and not to accept promotion to a master’s chair to teach Sacred Scripture. And a great many people will tell you that you should not forsake wisdom for riches, and the good you will be able to do by your teaching in the schools for high office. They will accuse you of greediness and ambition, as if you were abandoning the goods of the mind for the goods of the body, and spiritual things for temporal ones. In any case I do admit that it is an extremely hard and painful thing for me to drag you away from the schools when I consider how much you could, with Christ’s grace to help you, achieve there.3 But who doubts that lesser and more uncertain goods should be forsaken for those that are greater and more certain? And who can doubt that it is a greater good to undertake such an important cure of souls humbly and painstakingly than to teach wisely from a master’s chair? Otherwise, the highest wisdom of all, God’s own son, dwelling incarnate among mankind, would have sat in that chair, wisely teaching wisdom, and would not have gone round the cities and towns curing the sick and preaching humbly to the people [Mt 9:35]: Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [Mt 4:17]; otherwise, teaching would be more important than doing and precept better than example. It is also much more certain of

3 Roger Bacon described Thomas, Grosseteste, and Adam Marsh as three of the greatest masters of theology in his time; see Fr. Rogeri Bacon opera quaedam hactenus inedita, ed. J.S. Brewer, RS, vol. 15 (London, 1859), 88, 428.

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fulfilment that, if you please, you can execute the responsibilities of this cure of souls than that you can teach Sacred Scripture from your master’s chair, because this cure is not now ‘outside the door’ but, if you please, inside it. Teaching, however, is as yet ‘outside the door’ and can be shut out either by illness or by countless other unforeseen circumstances.4 You should also be very afraid that if, for the sake of teaching wisdom in sublime language to a few scholars in Paris, you refuse to teach in weakness – but yet in evidence of the Spirit and of power – Jesus Christ and him crucified [1 Cor 2:1–4] to a great many more simple sheep of Jesus Christ, as a just punishment you will be deprived of both opportunities and will therefore never feed either the scholars from your chair with solid food, or the simple sheep of Christ with the milk [Heb 5:12] of simple doctrine. So avoid both this risk and the wrath of Jesus Christ and take up a greater and more certain good, and thereby soften as much for me as for yourself the hardship of leaving the schools. Now, as to the attempts of a great many people to convince you that you must not forsake wisdom for wealth nor the good of teaching for high office, you are prudent enough to need no direction, since, with the help of Christ’s grace, you will be doing no such thing. For under his guidance you will not be forsaking wisdom but will find it and exercise it in many more ways than is possible in the schools. And you will not cling with illicit love to the riches attached to a spiritual cure or to high offices that last only for a time. For God forbid that your soul, which the light of wisdom has adorned, would embrace excrement! Nor will it be possible to accuse you of greediness or ambition if you take on spiritual responsibilities to which temporal goods are attached, although you could be accused of these faults were you to take on the temporalities as if they were your chief concern, and as if the spiritual goods were dependent on them. But only he who probes our thoughts and hearts [Rv 2:23] can censure you for this, because he alone knows with what intention a person undertakes such responsibilities. If, however, the old enemy, through the agency of the envious, hurls such darts at you for performing the work of God to which you are called, he will for certain throw darts that are no less sharp from the other side should you fail to perform it. For there will be loud shouts that out of a desire for empty glory you rashly and stupidly turned your back on the goods that are of supreme importance and so holy and pleasing to God. 4 Thomas is asked to weigh a doubt against a certainty: he has not yet been granted a master’s chair at Paris but is assured of a pastoral benefice in Lincoln, if he will accept it.

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Protected on all sides, then, by the shield of faith [Eph 6:16], you must with wisdom and courage fend off the darts of the enemy, taking care to do only what honours God and saves souls, to submit humbly to the yoke of the burden imposed upon you, and to pull it courageously, judiciously, and steadfastly, since no matter what common, ignominious, difficult, and heavy burdens the Lord were to command, you would be obliged to carry them eagerly, bravely forsaking not only schools and their honours, but also every grand office, pleasure, and delight of this life. And be on your guard, I beg and entreat you in the name of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, that the high opinion I have of you never disappoints me, and that – God forbid! – you not become a reprobate in the sight of God or cause me any embarrassment in the sight of men. You are to fulfil the ministry entrusted to you and to undertake the work of God not negligently nor deceitfully [Jer 48:10], but diligently, faithfully, and prudently, in such a way that, as Paul says to Timothy, no one may despise your youth [1 Tm 4:12]. Farewell.

52 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning the appointment of the son of the earl of Derby to a parochial benefice in the diocese of Lincoln. Written probably in 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 151–4.

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. I have received your holiness’s letter requesting that I admit to the Church of Rand the clerk Thomas, son of that noble man, Earl Ferrers, although he is ineligible because of his young age to hold an ecclesiastical benefice and is not in holy orders.2 You nevertheless make this

1 On Otto, see Letter 49, n. 1. 2 The earl of Derby, William de Ferrers, recovered his rights of presentation to the parish churches of Rand and Higham Ferrers in the king’s court after 17 June 1238 (Rotuli Grosseteste, 178). His son, Thomas, does not appear in Grosseteste’s Rotuli, but see n. 4, below.

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request because he is a good student and of noble birth, and because through him, if the Lord grants it, many benefits may come to the whole Church of England. God knows that I desire, holy father, to fulfil your requests and commands with all promptness and obedience. It is also my hope that you are not requesting or commanding me to do something that is to any extent gnawing at my conscience. As a man of discretion, your holiness knows full well that something that does not gnaw at the conscience of one who is wiser and more fervent very often troubles a more timid person; and it follows from this that what a more perfect person can do with certainty, one who is less perfect cannot even attempt, unless his conscience has been seared.3 So, because my own imperfection gives me a timid conscience, especially when it comes to appointing and instituting shepherds of souls, I do not dare to admit this Thomas to a pastoral charge, at least not with his present status, for my timid conscience is gnawing at me. Not only do the authority of Scripture and the sanctions of canon law make me exceedingly timid in this regard, since they do not allow the appointment of rectors who are as yet very far from perfection – even though there may be a well-founded hope of their approaching it – but there are also certain principles that greatly touch my heart and in my view are not a little compelling.4 For who, when assigned to save a group of people in a ship on a storm-tossed, rock-ridden sea, hands the rudder that controls the ship over to one who is still completely ignorant of the art of sailing, or does not care about saving those in the ship, or has not the strength to steer the vessel, even though it may perhaps be reasonable to hope that at some future time this same person may become a skilled, courageous, and competent ship’s captain? Would not the one who has been assigned in this way to save souls be responsible for damning the ones he was supposed to save?

3 Cf. 1 Tm 4:1–3: ‘But the Spirit plainly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons, speaking lies hypocritically and having their conscience seared (cauteriatam ... suam conscientiam), forbidding marriage and enjoining abstinence from foods that God has created to be thankfully received by the faithful and those who know the truth.’ 4 Grosseteste’s reservations about the personal qualifications of Thomas de Ferrers seem to be confirmed by the fact that Thomas had to receive the king’s pardon for forest violations in 1242; see CCR, 4:384. But we may imagine that he did indeed mature into a respected cleric: a Master Thomas de Ferariis appears in the rolls of Grosseteste’s second successor, Richard Gravesend, in pious association with the Lincoln schools; see Rotuli Ricardi Gravesend, episcopi Lincolniensis A.D. MCCLVIII–MCCLXXIX, ed. F.N. Davis et al. (London, 1925), 96.

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Let us also take the single example of the man who has been appointed by his patron to put skilled, capable, and careful craftsmen in charge of specific artistic tasks, and he assigns to them men who may, by a remote possibility, be such. But they, perhaps because of the very fact that they are in charge, become all the more lazy about realizing the potential expected of them. Would not the one who engaged them incur the anger of his patron instead of earning his goodwill? The wise head of a household does not hand over his thousand earthly sheep to someone who knows nothing of a shepherd’s responsibilities in the hope that he may, after many years, acquire an understanding of them. Nor does he yoke his bull-calves to a plough, even though he hopes that they can become as strong as oxen, because perhaps even by this very action he would so stunt those calves that they would never attain the strength of full-grown oxen. For although heavy weights are placed upon the strong to increase their strength, they are not placed upon the weak, for fear of their sinking down under the weight of their burdens. If, then, such things are not done in cases where physical danger is the only threat, how could I, who am timid and faint-hearted, presume to do the like when the danger that threatens is as great as the difference between physical things and the greater and better spiritual ones? According to the word of the Lord in Exodus and Ezekiel and to the commentary of the blessed Gregory,5 the shepherd of souls who does not make a loud noise with his preaching is himself spiritually dead and has used all his native powers to kill the sheep entrusted to him. So, does not the person who appointed as shepherd of souls one who only after much time has passed will be able to make a loud noise with the trumpet of preaching provide for a long period an opportunity, or should I say the actual reason, for the death both of the man he has placed in charge and of that man’s charges? Our Lord Jesus Christ gave his most precious life over to a most shameful death to give new life to souls, showing by his example that only those men should be appointed shepherds of souls who do not shrink from punishment of any kind for the sake of the salvation of those souls. How then should a man as insignificant as I dare to appoint as the shepherd for souls redeemed at so great a price a man who would for a long time yet spread death when feeding his sheep rather than one who would give them new

5 See Ez 3:16–19, 33:7–9; Gregory, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam 1.11.9 (CCSL 142:173): ‘Mundus ergo a sanguine eorum non esset, si eis dei consilium annuntiare noluisset, quia cum increpare delinquentes noluerit, eos proculdubio tacendo pastor occidit.’ Grosseteste’s reference to Exodus is uncertain.

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life? How could I dare to aim more at enriching a man from the price of the blood of Jesus Christ than at taking care of the salvation of souls? These thoughts, then, and many more like them, which I do not mention now so as not to bore you by saying too much, strongly deter me, imperfect as I am, from knowingly and consciously appointing unfit shepherds for the souls for whom Christ died, when my goal would be merely to enrich men or to please them. Were I to do so, I would not, to use the Apostle’s words, be a servant of Christ [Gal 1:10]. So I beg your holiness with all my mind and strength to prevail upon the earl to present someone suitable to take charge of the Church of Rand. Otherwise I refer to your holiness whatever is my responsibility in the matter of the admission of the clerk Thomas to that church, for you can do many things lawfully that I in my imperfection cannot do except unlawfully. I do so with the firm hope that you will not make arrangements other than those that you know to be in the best interest of the salvation of souls and pleasing as well to the Judge of all mankind, before whom on judgment day you will give an account even of every idle word [Mt 12:36]. But if your holiness prudently decrees that this clerk Thomas is to be admitted to that church on your authority and appointed a shepherd, a shepherd of my sheep – sheep for whose salvation I am also bound, according to Christ’s teaching and example, to lay down my life [1 Jn 3:16], and for whose peril under such a shepherd my fear would be very great indeed – then to ensure that at least in some measure provision is made for their salvation, I prostrate myself at your feet to request that a suitable vicar be appointed in that church, who will turn it into a good vicarage. Or, something I would prefer much more if it could be done without violating the law, let a suitable shepherd of souls be appointed to the church, let this clerk Thomas be continually resident there, and let some annual payment be made to him from that church, without any cure of souls, and call it a simple benefice. Long may you fare well, holy father.

52* To the clergy of the diocese of Lincoln, presenting Grosseteste’s constitutions for governing his diocese. These were prepared and circulated probably in 1238 or 1239. Editions: Councils and Synods, 267–78; Luard, Epp., 154–66.

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Since I am duty bound to give a good account of my stewardship over you – an accounting which, according to Augustine,1 requires me to speak and not to keep silent, and to weep when I speak and no one listens to me – I cannot pass over in silence what I believe you must know and do.2 [1] Because souls are not saved without obeying the Ten Commandments, I exhort in the Lord and firmly charge that every shepherd of souls and each and every parish priest know the Decalogue, that is, the ten commandments of the law of Moses. These he should frequently preach and explain to the people subject to him. He should also know what the seven deadly sins are and likewise preach to the people the duty of avoiding them. He should know, moreover, at least in simple terms, the seven sacraments of the Church; and those who are priests should especially know what constitutes a true confession and the sacrament of penance, and they should repeatedly teach the laity in the vernacular tongue the form for baptizing. Every priest should also have at least a rudimentary understanding of the faith as contained in both the major and minor creeds, and in the tract called ‘Whoever wishes to be saved’ (Quicunque vult), which is recited daily in church at prime.3 [2] ‘The Eucharist,’ which is the sacrament of the Lord’s body, ‘should always be placed respectfully in a special place, clean and sealed, and stored with devotion and faith. Indeed, every priest should repeatedly teach his parishioners to bow their heads reverently when the saving host is elevated during the celebration of Mass. They should do the same when the priest brings the host to the sick. Properly dressed, he should openly and respectfully carry it there and back, covering it with a clean cloth and holding it with reverence and awe before his chest, always with a candle leading the way, since it is the splendour of eternal light [Ws 7:26]. This is how the faith and devotion of all may be increased,’ as is written

1 Augustine, Sermo 137 (PL 38:762): ‘Communicatis membris Apostolorum, communicatis memoriis sanctorum martyrum, diffusorum per orbem terrarum, et pertinetis ad curam nostram, ut rationem de vobis bonam reddamus. Tota autem ratio nostra quae est, scitis. Domine, scis quia dixi, scis quia non tacui, scis quo animo dixi, scis quia fleui tibi, cum dicerem, et non audirer.’ 2 These statutes were probably circulated by the archdeacons and rural deans to the clergy under their charge. They may also have been read out to the assembled clergy during the course of Grosseteste’s pastoral visitations. For the methods of promulgating and disseminating diocesan statutes, see J. Goering and D.S. Taylor, ‘The Summulae of Bishops Walter de Cantilupe (1240) and Peter Quinel (1287),’ in Speculum 67 (1992): 576–94. 3 These creeds are the ‘Nicene,’ the ‘Apostles’,’ and the ‘Athanasian,’ respectively.

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in the decrees of the general council.4 Further, together with the candle a bell should always precede the venerable host of the body of Christ, its ringing serving to arouse the devotion of the faithful to the adoration they owe so great a sacrament. Priests should also watch with all diligence to avoid the sacred Eucharist’s becoming, because of some crack in the container or because it is kept for a long time, damp or mouldy and thereby either repulsive to look at or disgusting to eat. [3] Priests should be very quick and ready to visit the sick, at night as well as during the day, whenever needed to do so, so that – which God forbid! – a sick person does not die without confession or holy communion or extreme unction because of their negligence. [4] Altar-stones should be decently made, of suitable size, and firmly fixed in the wood surrounding them to prevent their removal. And they are not to be used for purposes other than the celebration of divine service, as, for example, grinding pigments on them or other similar uses. [5] Chrism-cloths should not be put to profane uses. [6] In church the divine office should be performed devoutly and without omissions. Readings, hymns, psalms, for example, and everything else recited in church in praise of God, are to be pronounced completely and with the mind devoutly focusing on the meaning of the words, for fear that – which God forbid! – instead of a whole and living sacrifice one is offered that is mutilated or dead. [7] All shepherds of souls and parish priests, after reciting the divine offices in church, are to devote themselves carefully to prayer and the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that, by being familiar with Scripture, as their office requires, they are always prepared to give a satisfactory response to any who demand an explanation about hope and faith. In addition, they should always ‘remain’ devoted to studying and labouring over Scripture just like the poles that must ‘remain’ in the rings on the ark of the covenant,5 that by constant reading, as if by daily food, their prayer may be nourished and grow fat. [8] Rectors of churches and parish priests are to take greater care that the children in their parishes are well taught to know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Salutation of the Blessed Virgin, and to make the sign

4 This is not a quotation from the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, but from a decretal letter of Honorius III, written in 1219 (X 3.41.10). See also 4 Lateran (1215), cc. 19–20, in Tanner, Decrees, 1:244. 5 Cf. Ex 25:15.

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of the cross correctly. And because, or so I have heard, even some adults are ignorant of these, I am ordering that when people come to confession they are to be carefully examined as to whether they know them and be instructed in them when appropriate by their priests. [9] And because those who carry the Lord’s vessels must be pure, as Isaiah6 says, and must not touch what is unclean, I exhort and order all beneficed clergy and those in minor orders to flee the vice of lust and every voluntary impurity of the flesh, thus preserving the purity of their chastity. [10] No clerk is to marry; and if he does so before taking holy orders, he may not hold an ecclesiastical benefice, nor may he presume to minister in holy orders if he takes them after marriage. [11] Since it is the clergy’s duty to avoid not only evil but every appearance of evil,7 I firmly forbid them to visit nunneries without a valid and obvious reason. [12] I likewise forbid each and every priest to keep a woman in his house, whether a relative or someone else, whose presence could reasonably cause people to suspect that he has done something wrong. [13] In Leviticus the Lord says to Aaron: When you enter the tabernacle of the testimony, you and your sons are not to drink, under pain of death, wine or anything that may cause drunkenness [Lv 10:9]. Since Aaron and his sons, as priests of the Old Law, are the type of priests of our own time, and wine and other inebriating drink the type of drunkenness, and since priests must remain mystically day and night in the tabernacle, keeping the watches of the Lord under pain of death [Lv 8:35], as is recorded in the same book, I firmly forbid any beneficed clergy or those in holy orders to drink or eat to excess or to go to taverns, for fear that they die the eternal death threatened by the law. Instead, through abstinence and sobriety they should become skilful at knowing, in accordance with God’s teaching, how to distinguish between holy and profane and between clean and unclean, and at teaching the people all the laws the Lord has spoken by the hand of Moses.8 [14] Because the Levites were told that they would have no share of the inheritance among the sons of Israel,9 an order that cut the Church’s ministers off from every source of greed and dishonourable income, I

6 7 8 9

See Is 52:11. Cf. 1 Thes 5:22. Cf. Lv 10:10–11. Cf. Nm 18:20–4, Dt 10:8–9.

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firmly exhort and order beneficed clerks or those in holy orders not to engage in business or lend anything out at interest; instead, as the Gospel’s precept instructs: let them lend without hoping for anything in return [Lk 6:35]. [15] They should not grant or receive as farmed property churches or ecclesiastical possessions, except in cases where councils allow exceptions.10 [16] In order to cut away every semblance of greed, I firmly forbid, not merely by the authority of my office but by special apostolic authority,11 beneficed clerks or those raised to the priesthood to become sheriffs or secular justiciars, or to hold bailiwicks that would make them accountable for those bailiwicks to lay authorities. [17] I very strictly forbid any rector of a church to make an agreement of the following type with his priest, namely, that the priest will be able to receive, in addition to his other stipends, the income from annals and trentals,12 because this kind of agreement is an obvious sign that the priest is receiving a stipend that is inadequate. It is inevitable, too, that this priest either will not complete the number of annals and trentals he has undertaken, or will not properly carry out the divine services in his parish church. [18] Rectors of churches should provide such priests with an adequate and decent livelihood, so that a reduced income does not cause churches to be without divine services or the priests themselves to covet dishonourable income or to beg for a living. [19] I firmly forbid the freehold land of church estates to be farmed out to any lay people, unless perhaps such laity are servants of these churches; even then, this requires the permission of the diocesan. [20] Rectors or vicars are not to use a church’s resources to erect buildings in a lay fief that is not part of a church estate; and likewise, tithes are not to be paid on a lay fief, but on a church’s estate. [21] I order that revenues from devout lay persons designated for candles or other worthy functions in churches should not be diverted by their rectors or vicars to their own purposes and profit.

10 See the provincial Council of Oxford (1222), c. 43 (Councils and Synods, 119); and the legatine Council of London (1237), c. 7 (ibid., 248). 11 See the letter of Gregory IX dated 15 July 1236 in Bliss, Calendar, 155. Cf. Letters 27–8. 12 Annals and trentals refer to sets or cycles of Masses offered for the souls of the dead or for some other intention.

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[22] I firmly forbid the reception on Easter Sunday of the offerings that the laity make after Mass when they take holy communion, because this is an obvious sign of greed and clearly harmful to the devotion of those who are receiving communion. [23] I exhort and order the clergy not to attend the performances of mimes, jesters, or actors and not to play board games or with dice or to associate with those who do so, because although these games seem trivial to some, the holy fathers nevertheless teach that people who do such things are offering sacrifices to demons.13 [24] Because the clergy should shine only with the humility of Jesus Christ and the perfection of the Gospels, which teach that if someone strikes you on the right cheek, you are to offer him the other also [Mt 5:39], I warn and order clerks not to bear arms. Instead, they should have a crown and tonsure appropriate to their status and attire suitable both for themselves and for their mounted escorts, just as the sacred councils prescribe.14 [25] Not only on my own but on special apostolic authority15 I forbid anyone to hold several cures of souls, except where a dispensation has been granted to him by the apostolic see. [26] I likewise order the sons of those who lately ministered as priests to resign completely the livings in which they directly succeeded their fathers, and I order the patrons to present suitable candidates to these churches.16 [27] I have heard – and it causes me no small grief – that certain priests extort money from the laity for administering penance or other sacraments, and that some impose penances that entail unseemly payments of money. For example, the woman who had sexual relations with her husband after childbirth but before her purification is from then on required, along with each and every woman to be purified in the same 13 Cf. Letter 22, Grosseteste’s mandate to his archdeacons of 1235/6. 14 See 4 Lateran (1215), c. 16 (Tanner, Decrees, 1:243); Council of Oxford (1222), c. 33 (Councils and Synods, 116); Council of London (1237), c. 14 (ibid., 251). 15 See 4 Lateran (1215), c. 29 (Tanner, Decrees, 1:248–9); Council of London (1237), c. 13 (Councils and Synods, 251). No papal letter addressed to Grosseteste in this regard has come to light. Cheney refers to a papal letter dated 23 January 1239 (ibid., 272n2), but this document does not address the question of holding multiple benefices with care of souls; see Bliss, Calendar, 178. 16 This canon rehearses the tenor of the papal mandate, obtained by the English bishops in 1221 and 1222, to stop hereditary succession in benefices. The mandate addressed to the archbishop of York (8 December 1221) is printed in Councils and Synods, 98–9; a similar mandate for the bishop of Lincoln is dated 19 February 1222 (ibid., 98).

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parish, to bring an offering to the altar; and the murderer, or anyone responsible for the death of another, is required to make an offering on behalf of each and every deceased person in the parish. I absolutely forbid these and similar practices because they abound in greed. [28] I forbid any priest to satisfy a similar greed by imposing annals and trentals17 so that he, as is plain to see, may obtain the income therefrom. [29] I have heard that certain priests make their deacons hear their parishioners’ confessions. There is no need to remind you how absurd this practice is, as it is obviously true that the power of binding and loosing has not been granted to deacons, and that the priests themselves would take advantage of this practise only to have the freedom or time to look after their secular affairs. I therefore firmly forbid deacons to hear confessions or enjoin penances or administer the other sacraments that priests alone have the right to administer. [30] It is my wish and command that each and every beneficed clerk be promoted to the rank required by the cure he has undertaken. [31] By special apostolic authority18 I advise and order all rectors of churches and vicars to reside in their benefices, living there in a praiseworthy and upright manner, unless for some reasonable cause they have been dispensed from residing in their livings. [32] In every church where sufficient funds are available for the purpose, there are to be one deacon and one subdeacon ministering, as is proper. But in the others, there should be at least one suitable and upright clerk who, appropriately dressed, may serve the priest at divine services. [33] By authority of the Gospels and also with special apostolic indulgence19 I firmly order that no markets be held in sacred places, since the Lord cast the buyers and sellers out of the temple so that the house of prayer would not become a den of thieves [Mt 21:13]. [34] I am adding the stipulation that graveyards should be properly enclosed and both churches and houses associated with them should be well constructed in accord with the churches’ means. The churches themselves should be decently equipped with both books and sacred vessels and vestments. Accoutrements and sacred vessels are at night to be kept safely and decently and not placed in the homes of lay people nor in their custody, except in cases of reasonable and evident necessity.

17 On annals and trentals, see n. 12, above. 18 No papal letter addressed to Grosseteste in this regard has survived. Cf. Bliss, Calendar, 85 (19 February 1222). 19 For a papal mandate obtained by Grosseteste in this regard, see Bliss, Calendar, 155 (26 June 1236). See also Letter 21.

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[35] By the special authority of an apostolic rescript20 I absolutely forbid the detestable practice customarily observed in some churches of celebrating a Feast of Fools, for fear that a house of prayer become a house of mockery, and the pain suffered by our Lord Jesus Christ at his circumcision be derided through jests and entertainments. [36] I forbid any priests to celebrate Mass with sour wine. [37] Because every craftsman should devote himself more to his own craft than to that of another, I order rectors of souls to devote themselves without distraction to the art of guiding souls, since the ‘guidance of souls is the art of arts’ according to the testimony of the blessed Gregory.21 And to ensure that priests are not diverted from this responsibility, I very strictly forbid any of them to study or teach civil law in the schools.22 [38] I order that in each and every church the canon of the Mass be corrected in the manner required.23 [39] I order that in every church the practice be solemnly denounced whereby individuals erect on wheels targets for tilting, or organize other games where people compete for a prize. No one should take part in games of this sort. Likewise, drinking parties, commonly called ‘scotales,’ should be prohibited.24 [40] All games and secular trials should be altogether excluded from sacred places. [41] There should be frequent warnings in sermons to ensure that mothers and nurses do not place their infants beside them in bed. [42] Clandestine marriages are to be very strictly forbidden. [43] Rectors of churches and priests are not to permit their parishes to contend with each other over whose banners should take the lead at the time of the annual visitation of the mother church, because this commonly results in both fights and deaths.

20 No papal rescript in this regard is extant. See Letter 32. 21 Gregory, Regula pastoralis 1.1 (SC 381:128). Cf. 4 Lateran (1215), c. 27 (Tanner, Decrees, 1:248). 22 Compare the decree Super specula (1229) of Pope Honorius III ( = X 5.33.28), which forbade priests and beneficed clerks to study civil law, and forbade the study of civil law generally in the University of Paris. King Henry III had likewise forbidden the teaching of civil law throughout the city of London; cf. Councils and Synods, 274n2. 23 See J. Goering and F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Two opuscula of Robert Grosseteste: De universi complecione and Exposicio canonis misse,’ in Med. St. 53 (1991): 89–123, at pp. 90–4. 24 For this, and the provisions that follow in cc. 41–3, see Grosseteste’s mandate to his archdeacons of 1235/36 (Letter 22).

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[44] I very strictly order that in every church a solemn announcement forbid any individual knowingly and purposely to provide lodging for the concubines of clerks, unless perhaps they are in transit from place to place. At such a time he should very carefully ensure that no clerk who is also a fornicator is put up as a guest in the same lodging. [45] I am adding a stipulation forbidding lay people to stand or sit among the clerks in the chancel during the celebration there of divine service. This may perhaps be permitted only to patrons of churches out of respect for them or for some other valid and evident reason. [46] Because, as I believe, the decrees of the Council of Oxford have not been recorded in many churches, I have determined that the first of these, dealing with excommunications pronounced at that council in order to fill evildoers with terror and to put a stop to their wickedness, should be here subjoined to this document and quoted verbatim. I order that these excommunications be renewed every year in every church. The wording of the first prescription is as follows:25 By the authority of God the Father, the Blessed Virgin, all the saints, and of this present council, we excommunicate all those who maliciously presume to deprive churches of their rights or with malice strive to infringe or disturb their liberties. Further, we bind by sentence of excommunication all those who wrongfully presume to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the lord king and the realm, and who unjustly strive to hinder the laws of the lord king. We include, as involved in a similar sentence, all those who knowingly and purposely present false testimony or procure such presentation, and also those who knowingly produce or suborn false witnesses in a marriage case, when this is plainly done to oppose the marriage or to effect someone’s disinheritance. We also excommunicate all advocates who in matrimonial cases maliciously contrive exceptions or procure such contrivance in order to prevent true marriages from obtaining their due effect, or, contrary to the orderly course of justice, to bring it about that the case is held up too long in court. Further, we excommunicate all those who, because of money or hatred or influence, or for any reason whatsoever, maliciously accuse someone of a crime, although he was not branded a criminal by upright and seriousminded men, with the result that, at the least, the need for compurgation is indicated or the accused is oppressed in some other way. 25 Council of Oxford (1222), cc. 1–7 (Councils and Synods, 106–7).

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Moreover, we bind by sentence of excommunication all those who during an ecclesiastical vacancy maliciously dispute the issue of advowson, or procure such a dispute, in order to defraud, at least on that occasion, the true patron of his right to collate to that church. We also excommunicate all those who, because of money or hatred or some other reason, disdain executing a mandate of the lord king published against those who have been excommunicated, thereby treating with contempt the Church’s power of the keys.

It is my wish and command that these statutes be reverently and steadfastly observed by you, as they have been established in accordance with canon law. And those who disdain and violate them are to know that if they are duly convicted of or confess to disdaining or violating them, I shall do all I possibly can to punish them canonically, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ. Statutes of Lincoln: Table of Contents26 [1] They are to know the Decalogue, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments, and the faith in simple form. [2] The respect to be shown the Eucharist, and its safekeeping. [3] Priests are to visit the sick promptly. [4] Altar-stones are to be decently made. [5] Chrism-cloths are not to be put to profane uses. [6] Words used in divine worship are to be spoken without omissions and with the mind’s full attention. [7] They are to devote themselves to reading and prayer. [8] They are to instruct those subject to them in the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. [9] They are to be chaste. [10] They are not to marry. [11] They are not to visit nunneries without a valid reason. [12] They are not to keep women in their houses who may give rise to suspicions of wrongdoing. [13] They are not to drink to excess or go to taverns. [14] They are not to engage in business or lend anything out at interest.

26 This table, summarizing the Lincoln statutes, probably formed part of the document as originally issued. It may have served as the articles of inquiry for Grosseteste’s diocesan visitations (see Letter 50); cf. Councils and Synods, 266.

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[15] They are not to grant or receive as farmed property churches or ecclesiastical possessions, except in cases where exceptions are allowed. [16] They are not to become sheriffs or justiciars or hold bailiwicks that would make them accountable to lay people. [17] Agreements are not to be made with priests that would enable the latter to receive the income from annals or trentals. [18] Priests are to have a reasonable livelihood. [19] The freehold lands of churches are not to be farmed out to lay people. [20] They are not to use a church’s resources to erect buildings in a lay fief or to pay tithes on such a fief. [21] Revenues designated for candles are not to be diverted to other uses. [22] On Easter Sunday the laity are not to make offerings and take communion at the same time. [23] They are not to attend the performances of mimes or to play board games or with dice. [24] Clerics are not to bear arms, and are to have appropriate attire and tonsure. [25] No one is to hold several cures without a dispensation. [26] Sons of those who lately served as priests are to give up possession of their benefices. [27] Sacraments and sacramentals are not to be sold. [28] Priests are not to enjoin penances out of greed. [29] Deacons are not to hear confessions or administer the sacraments that priests alone have the right to administer. [30] They are to be invested with the rank required by their cure. [31] They are to reside in their benefices. [32] Adequately funded churches are to have deacons ministering, but those less well endowed should at least have upright clerks for this purpose. [33] Markets are not to be held in sacred places. [34] Graveyards are to be properly enclosed and churches and their houses well constructed, and churches are to be well equipped and their accoutrements and sacred vessels properly kept. [35] The Feast of Fools is to be entirely done away with. [36] They are not to celebrate Mass with sour wine. [37] They are not to study or teach civil law. [38] The canon of the Mass is to be corrected.

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[39] Games in which people compete for a prize, as well as drinking parties (‘scot-ales’), are to be prohibited. [40] There are to be no games or secular trials in sacred places. [41] Infants are not to lie next to their mothers or nurses. [42–43] Clandestine marriages are to be forbidden, as is any contention over precedence with banners. [44] No one is to provide lodging for the concubines of clerks. [45] There are to be no lay people among the clerks in the chancel during the celebration of divine service, with the possible exception only of the patron. [46] The excommunications stipulated by the Council of Oxford are to be renewed every year.

53 To the abbot and monks of the Benedictine monastery of St Benoît-sur-Loire, better known as Fleury, in the diocese of Orléans (France), denouncing two monks living in Minting, a dependent cell of Fleury, in the diocese of Lincoln. Probably written in the spring of 1238 (see Letter 54). Edition: Luard, Epp., 166–8.

To the venerable men, the abbot by the grace of God of St Benoît-surLoire and the members of that community,1 Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. Although the glory of the good is from within, and their left hand does not know what their right hand is doing, nor do they practise their righteousness before others so as to be seen by them, but they do their good deeds in secret, that their heavenly Father, who sees in secret, may reward them [Mt 6:1, 3–6], their good works nevertheless so shine before others that people see them and glorify their Father who is in heaven [Mt 5:16]. Yes, good deeds should be hidden from the breath of human praise so as not to be spoiled by its blight, but they should also be revealed that by their light others may be enlightened to discover the truth and inspired to do good. By this I mean that a good

1 On the monastery of Fleury under Abbot Jean I (1236?–48), see the Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. A. Baudrillart et al. (Paris, 1912–), 17:441–76, at pp. 453–4 and 470.

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deed should be performed in public so as to instruct others, but in such a way that its intention remains hidden, as far as there is any possibility of human praise. At the same time, the wise conceal their wickedness and weakness to avoid their being exposed as bad examples to others, and to prevent a crack being opened up to enemies through which they may gain entry to criticize one’s good deeds. The prudent, on the other hand, reveal their wickedness and weakness only to those who make every effort both to put an end to wickedness and to remedy weakness. So, your holy community, enlightened and strengthened by the spirit of wisdom and understanding [Is 11:2], should make known its good deeds as good examples to others and carefully and prudently conceal any evil ones to ensure that they do not become bad examples or open up inroads for enemies. Then, when you have completely pruned away evil and remedied weakness, your light will shine forth from the darkness and the darkness be like noonday [Is 58:10]. With that in mind, whenever there happen to be monks in your community who are either immoral or weak of mind, you should not send them, when they are like this, to live in your cells or possessions in other parts, or they may be examples of eternal damnation to others and their offences flung back in the face of your entire community. Instead, only men who shine forth by reason of their wisdom and the holiness and integrity of their lives should be sent to such remote places to live, that your light may shine forth in them far and wide and the good odour of your reputation fill the world. As I very much desire that the light of your holiness may shine brightly in your communities and your weaknesses healed and strengthened, and as I also now wish to defer to you and to refrain from damaging your reputation, I am sending you two of your monks, Philip and Theobald, who for some time have been living at Minting in my diocese.2 One of them, Philip, was there caught in adultery and, what is more, found guilty of it by his own confession, while a serious accusation of fornication was brought against Theobald even by his own companions and fellow monks and he was unable to clear himself. And both of them have been accustomed to engage in hunting and archery as if they were laymen. So I am now placing these monks in your discreet hands to be corrected in accordance with your Rule, and I ask you with all possible affection and devotion to send to live at Minting only those monks of yours who are distinguished by the integrity of their moral and religious life 2 On the Benedictine house at Minting, a cell of Fleury, see Medieval Religious Houses, 84, 90. There were apparently six monks and the prior living at Minting in 1238.

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and renowned for their knowledge and observance of the Rule’s prescribed conduct. For you are to know beyond any doubt that, with the Lord’s help, I shall do all I can to prevent any monks from remaining in my diocese who do not live virtuous, religious lives in conformity with the Rule of the blessed Benedict. With the Lord’s assistance I shall make every possible effort, as the Apostle teaches, to root out the wicked from our midst [1 Cor 5:13], so that a little leaven does not ferment the whole lump [1 Cor 5:6] and the infectious itch spread further. Farewell.

54 To the same abbot of Fleury (see Letter 53), requesting that he present a new prior to Fleury’s cell at Minting, in the diocese of Lincoln. Probably written in the spring of 1238, perhaps shortly after the previous letter. Edition: Luard, Epp., 169–71.

To the venerable man, the abbot1 by the grace of God of St Benoît-sur-Loire, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. The Lord has said, if one blind man leads another, both will fall into the ditch [Mt 15:14]. Now the ‘blind’ are also foolish people who have no knowledge of God and whom, it is plain to see, the light from God’s law does not illuminate. Only those, then, whom this light shines upon should be appointed spiritual leaders. It is by the brilliant light of God’s law that they are to see where they may safely lead their followers so that they do not walk in darkness and, in ignorance of their destination, fall with those who are right behind them into the pit and abyss of sin. For this reason I beg you with all humility and devotion to take steps to present to me for appointment as prior of Minting2 the kind of man who can see the way of truth with the light from God’s law, proceed along it courageously with the strength that comes from a holy and religious

1 See Letter 53, n. 1. 2 Early in the fourth year of his episcopate (i.e., after 17 June 1238) Grosseteste ordered his archdeacon, Thomas of Wales, to institute a new prior, John, at Minting; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 27, and Letter 108, which concerns the state of this dependent house at Minting. For general comments on Grosseteste’s visitations of religious houses in his diocese, see Letter 55, n. 1.

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life, and lead his followers to certain salvation because he is prudently on guard against a fall. For you should know that I would have the courage to confer a cure of souls only on a person who has the knowledge and ability to lead those entrusted to his care along the way of truth and holiness of life. This is a task, furthermore, to which you, too, who live a holy and religious life, ought with anxious care to devote yourself in every way and with all your strength. It is my hope that, in imitation of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not only prepared, but also ardently burn with desire, to shed your blood for the salvation of souls and to consign this temporal life to a most bitter and even shameful death. Farewell.

55 To the abbot of the Augustinian canons of Leicester, announcing that he will come in person to examine the case of an ill and aged Augustinian canon from Dorchester who is completing among the Leicester canons a penance imposed for his sins. Written probably in 1238. Edition: Epp., 169–71.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, the abbot of Leicester1 by the same grace. With the Lord’s help I shall come to your parts and become better acquainted with the condition of H., a canon of Dorchester. You have asked me to let him return to his home and have inquired as to whether he may still do so with the approval of the abbot and community at Dorchester.2 You are trying to convince me to permit his return because

1 Alan of Cestreham (Chesham) was elected abbot of the Augustinian canons of Leicester in 1235 upon the resignation of the previous abbot, one of at least ten Augustinian abbots and priors asked to resign during Grosseteste’s visitations of monasteries and religious houses in 1235–36. See Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 153–5; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 147–67; Southern, Growth, 260n26. 2 The Augustinian canons of Dorchester had also felt the effects of Grosseteste’s reforming visitations: their abbot was among those asked to resign in 1235. It was probably at the same time that this ‘H.,’ a canon of Dorchester, was ordered to live out his life in penitential exile among the canons of Leicester.

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he is ill and old and has long wished to die at home among his brethren. But the more ill and old of body he is, the greater is his need to complete the just penance imposed for his former transgressions, so that his youth may be renewed like the eagle’s [Ps 102:5]. It was to perform this penance that he was sent to your community. Because, then, he is ill and old, it is better for the reason I mentioned for him to stay with you, that his spirit may regain its youthful strength and be cured. Besides, the compassion you say you feel for him, if genuine, will be of greater comfort to him in his illness and old age than that to be found in his own house at Dorchester. Furthermore, if he desires to be dissolved and be with Christ [Phil 1:23], as the Apostle did, it is good for him to be where this desire of his has a greater stimulus to grow. Indeed, such a stimulus is usually either utterly destroyed or for the most part weakened by the satisfaction of transitory wishes. So it is to his advantage to remain with you, something he desires less, than to return home, something he desires more. Moreover, if, because of the weariness of this life and the sorrow of the world that brings death [2 Cor 7:10], he desires, out of spiritual sloth, to die, it is better for him to take pleasure in your consolation, which will alleviate such weariness and sorrow, than to go to a place where he would find a greater incentive to be spiritually slothful – unless of course his many old habits are changed, and as yet I have received no certain evidence of this. Now, at the end of your letter you scold me for having a heart of iron that lacks kindness. If only I did have such a heart, one so hard that it could not be softened by the flattery of those who would lead me astray, so strong that it could not be battered by the terrors of evildoers, and so sharp that it could cut away vices and deflect the evils that are in conflict with it. In Ezekiel all the house of Israel is said to have been hard of heart, in the sense that it was full of the hardness of cruelty and malice – from which may God protect me! To oppose this hardness the prophet was given a countenance more powerful than their countenances and a brow harder than their brows, like adamant and flint [Ez 3:7–9]. Of the hardness possessed by the prophet may even a small share be granted to me by him who is the true Rock, of which the Apostle says: That rock was Christ [1 Cor 10:4]. If, then, I am hard as iron in cruelty and obstinate malice, pray to the Lord for me that he may deign to take away this hardness with his gentleness. But if I am hard as iron in the way the prophet was, pray to the Lord that this hardness may ever increase as long as I live. Farewell.

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56 To William, earl of Warren, concerning the celebration of Mass in an unconsecrated hall on the earl’s manor. Written probably in 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 171–3.

To the noble man and most dear friend in Christ, William, earl of Warren,1 Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere affection in the Lord. You have written me to express your great astonishment that I have ordered the citation of you and of N. your chaplain to give answer and submit to due legal process before me or my official. You mention, too, that N. your chaplain has been summarily suspended. The astonishment expressed by a man of your discretion is your way of complaining that in this citation I wronged you and your chaplain, and in words that are clear enough you imply the very same thing about the way the chaplain was suspended. In these complaints you seem rather, with all due respect, to have done me wrong, because you are not yet certain that I have wronged you in any way, and because sons should cover up rather than reveal the nakedness of their fathers.2 In order, however, that you may understand that I have not wronged you as you imply, I now make known to you that upright and respectable men reported to me that you had this N., your chaplain, celebrate Mass in your hall at Grantham3 – a fact you even admit in your letter, adding by way of excuse that this was done because your illness required it. Your hall is not a place dedicated to God, but the common dwelling of men and women, a place where people eat, drink, and talk about trifling, scurrilous, and perhaps often sinful matters, and possibly even at some time or other perform sinful acts, with dogs running and sleeping all over the place and very frequently leaving their messes behind. No Christian should be unaware of how improper it is to consecrate and

1 William, sixth earl of Warren (Earl Warenne), was named in Magna Carta and was a faithful servant of King Henry III. According to Matthew Paris (Chronica maiora, 4:12), he died in London on 27 May 1240. 2 See Gn 9:20–7. 3 Grantham in Lincolnshire.

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handle in that place the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, a body that was born of the most immaculate virgin, suffered on the cross, was glorified in the Resurrection and raised above the heavens, especially as commands in the New and Old Testaments and the sanctions of canon law most clearly prohibit the solemn celebration of Masses elsewhere than in places dedicated and consecrated to God, except in cases of extreme need.4 So, you decide if it is my official responsibility to determine by appropriate judicial procedure whether abuses of this kind have occurred and, if they did occur, on whose authority and at whose hands they occurred, and whether there is some excuse for them on the ground of reasonable need. When you have reached a decision, I believe that you will not consider that my citing you was wrong. Your priest, too, was suspended not wrongfully or summarily, but for his repeated contumacy – and the established legal procedure was most correctly observed. You, then, like an obedient son, as you profess yourself to be and as I believe you are, must not refuse to submit to due process in order to make known your innocence or to cleanse away any stain of sin, and thereby to obtain grace from God and praise from mankind, since even obedient sons, if summoned in accord with the dictates of canon law by someone who is not their judge, are obliged to appear in court to claim a legal exemption (privilegium fori sui). Nor should anyone lead a man of your discretion to believe that it is improper for your excellency to be cited by bishops or to appear before them and submit to due process, because a person who suggests this does so that Christ may be scorned in his bishops. For it was Jesus Christ who said, He who scorns you scorns me [Lk 10:16], and it was Moses who said to some of the children of Israel about himself and his brother Aaron in their capacity as priests, Your murmuring is not against us but against the Lord [Ex 16:8]. As a man of discretion you should not believe that my reason for citing you is anything other than an obligation of my office, as well as concern for your salvation, which, you must know, I desire with a sincere and special love. May you, dearly beloved, fare well in the Lord.

4 See Gratian, Decretum, De consecratione D.1 c.1: ‘De ecclesiarum consecratione et missarum celebrationibus non alibi quam in sacratis Domino locis absque magna necessitate fieri debere, liquet omnibus, quibus sunt nota noui et ueteris testamenti precepta.’ See also Letter 50, n. 3.

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57 To the abbot and monks of Bury St Edmunds, sending them Grosseteste’s Latin rendition of a Greek work on the monastic life. Written probably in 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 173–8.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the abbot by the same grace and the community of Bury St Edmunds.1 While taking a little rest this past week from the turmoil of worldly preoccupations, I happened one day, when I was free for a moment to do some reading, upon a text about the life of monks that praises it appropriately. And because I believed that this work would be something you would enjoy studying were I to share with you what I could understand of it, I have condensed on this page and arranged to send to you not the words I found in the text – they are in a language other than Latin – but the sense of the words as I could best draw it out, with a few words added in some places for clarification.2 This text points out that monks are men who reflect philosophically on the rules governing a life that must be lived by the highest standards of holiness. It is their concern, intention, and task to leave behind the pleasures of the body, and, though still living in the flesh, to mortify themselves by its maceration, and, while forsaking with a kind of sober insanity the goods of this world, to proceed always from true goods to better ones until they reach those that are the highest. For the monastic life is, as they say,3 the preeminent order of all those who have reached perfection, an order purged clean by every kind of 1 The independent Benedictine monastery of Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) was one of the most important in England; at this time it housed some 80 monks, 21 chaplains, and 111 servants. The abbot, Henry, was elected in 1234 and died in 1248. See Medieval Religious Houses, 61. 2 The Greek text that Grosseteste claims to have paraphrased here for the monks of Bury has not been securely identified. Thomson (Writings, 70–1, no. 14) suggests that Grosseteste was probably summarizing and paraphrasing parts of St Basil’s longer monastic rules (Regulae fusius tractatae) in PG 31:889–1052, but the similarities are very slight. It is more likely that Grosseteste was translating an as yet unidentified treatise on the monastic life written by someone versed in Greek monastic writings and in the works of Pseudo-Dionysius. 3 Grosseteste’s terminology in this paragraph echoes some of the language used by Pseudo-Dionysius in chap. 6.3 of his treatise The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. The first

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virtue and by the chastity of its own works, endowed with perfection in every activity, and exalted to a state of intellectual contemplation; it has been encompassed by the perfecting powers of the sacred hosts and their divine illuminations, instructed by the teachings of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and brought analogically to sacred activity and the complete perfection of their sacred knowledge. Hence it is that the monks’ godlike leaders have considered them worthy of sacred titles. Some did indeed name them monks (monachi), while others called them servants (therapeutae). According to the derivation and composition of the Greek word, monachus (monk) is said to come from Greek mÒnoj, that is solus (alone), and eÙc¾, that is oratio or votum (prayer) – as in moneuchus – the explanation being that it is a monk’s responsibility to pray alone. For it is his desire to pray always in the spirit without ceasing, in all things giving thanks [1 Thes 5:17–18]. For him to do this with appropriate purity, he must be alone, that is, separated in spirit and mind, with which he prays and sings the psalms, from the confusion of fantasies, of thoughts idle and useless, unclean and harmful, and of impure and uncontrolled feelings, so that he may actually be cleansed of everything mundane and transitory. So that, as it were, he may be free of transitory concerns retained or greatly desired from without, and of impure and uncontrolled feelings from within, and of a confusing, disorderly profusion of thoughts, he is not even to be present to himself, but is to deny himself and utterly renounce his own will. Implied also in this aloneness (solitudo) from which a monk derives his name is the notion that he is to direct his prayer to God alone, calling upon him alone when he prays, something not done by those who in their prayers seek not after God himself most of all, but instead strive to obtain other things through his agency. For what one seeks with regard to its purpose is sought more than anything sought as an end in itself. A monk is also one who should pray alone, isolated by choice from popular favour, and unlike those hypocrites who love to say their prayers standing up in synagogues and on street corners for people to see them [Mt 6:5]. Alone, too, at prayer is the monk who prays while dwelling in a desert two sentences of the following paragraph also closely parallel part of a similar sentence in the same chapter. For the Greek text of this work, together with parallel Latin translations, see Dionysiaca: Recueil donnant l’ensemble des traductions latines des ouvrages attribués à Denys de l’Aréopage ..., ed. P. Chevallier et al., vols. (Bruges/Paris, 1937–49), 2:1383–6 (Grosseteste’s translation, transcribed from the Paris manuscript, B.N., lat. 1620, is assigned the siglum R). Elsewhere in the letter there are a few similarities of thought and language with Philo, De vita contemplativa 20, 25, 34, 78.

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solitude (solitudo), that is, in that desert where ninety-nine sheep have been left and the son of God goes to find the one that has been lost [Lk 15:4]. It is in this place of solitude that those dwell who can say with the Apostle, We make our homes in heaven [Phil 3:20]. The monk’s solitude in prayer is, then, one of a spirit and mind that pray to be kept apart from idle and unclean thoughts and feelings, from possessing and desiring things that pass away, and also from all popular favour, and that pray, too, for selfdenial and a renunciation of personal will, for a world spurned and vanquished and a heavenly way of life, and for an attention focused on God alone. In the monk’s vow, too, there is this same solitude. People also say that the word monachus (monk) is derived from and made up of Greek mÒnoj and œcw, that is habeo (I possess), and that is why he is called a monk – as in monechus – this meaning that he is like a solitary who possesses something singular, so that, living alone in this way, he may by a very fervent love possess him who is truly alone, grasping in the firmest embrace of love nothing but him. They say, too, that the word monachus (monk) comes from mÒnoj and ¥coj, which properly means ‘the unhappiness that brings silence,’ because Scripture says that it is appropriate for a monk to sit alone and be silent, exalting himself above himself [Lam 3:28], as a man made in the likeness of God, producing allotments of tears from the fountain of his remorse, ceaselessly groaning in sorrow for his own sins and those of others, for the painful punishments that result from wrongdoing, for the deferred coming of the kingdom of heaven, and at that uncertainty everyone has about whether he deserves hatred or love. The men who in this solitude reflect philosophically in the ways described are also named therapeutae (servants), as was mentioned before, so called from the Greek word qerapeÚw, that is ‘I serve out of love and freely,’ offering, as it were, out of love and freedom of spirit the purest service possible, unified or shared with others, that brings them together in the specific oneness of God and in god-like perfection. Another name for them is therapeutae, from qerapeÚw, meaning ‘I heal,’ the reason being that, like what might be called spiritual physicians, they heal the souls of those who approach them from the wickedness of the passions, as if from the humoral disproportion brought on by illnesses. When these monks, or so people say, begin to reflect philosophically on the rules for living one’s life, they withdraw from family and possessions, renounce all the cares and concerns of this life, and dwell outside the walls of cities in deserts or mountains, believing with the Baptist that living with people unlike themselves is pointless and harmful. They ardently

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love and live the prophetic life, living out the mysteries of a life that commands respect. None of them has anything he claims as his own,4 not food, nor drink, nor any other bodily necessity, but he reckons as his own riches the laws, sayings, and precepts of the prophets, as well as hymns and anything else by which knowledge and goodness are increased and brought to perfection. Fully versed in such things, they do not take any food or drink before sunset, because they judge that the study and application of philosophy deserve light, while darkness is the better time for satisfying the needs of the body. Yet when refreshing and restoring their bodies, they do not spend the whole night resting for the labours to come, but pass most of it praying with sacred hymns and in vigils. Furthermore, stories from Holy Writ are for them accompanied by reflections on allegories. For to these men the whole of the law seems to resemble a living animal, and to have as its body the plain words of the law, and as a soul the invisible meaning concealed in those words.5 So in the sacrifice of praise, they offer, so to speak, a whole and living animal, whose healthy, unblemished body is made up of plain words, uncorrupted and not cut short, and whose unifying soul is the hidden meaning that does not deviate from the mystical sense of the words. In this way choirs of monks weaken the power of the devil’s tyranny, and purge away the fictions of poets, the magical arts, and the claims of diviners. Though physically frail, monks live angelic lives, stripped of all worldly possessions and crucified to all the world [Gal 6:14], using what is necessary to sustain life solely for that purpose, but nothing for pleasure, choosing rather in the use of items needed to mortify the flesh to impose a limit that falls short of the mean, and guarding most of all against proceeding beyond it. And although they possess nothing at all, they nevertheless labour to support with their toil those in need. These thoughts I have in a few words drawn from the text I mentioned, and I have taken care to put them before you like a small mirror, that you may see in it something like a miniature model of the monastic life. For many kinds of mirrors give much pleasure to young women, and indeed your souls, like chaste brides, are comparable to these women. So, because you, as if in a large, flat, and polished mirror, have very often

4 Cf. Acts 4:32. 5 The text of this paragraph up to this point is a translation of the entry ‘Therapeutai’ in the tenth-century Byzantine Greek encyclopaedia known as the Suda; see Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1928–38), 2:705–6 (no. 228). Adler identifies the source of this passage as the Chronicon of Georgius Monachus, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1904).

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contemplated the beauty of your life in the Rule of the blessed Benedict and, as if in a mirror that shines even more, in the Rule of the blessed Basil6 and in the exemplary teaching in the narratives that recount the lives of the Fathers, if you turn your attention just for a moment to this small mirror, because it has been brought, as it were, from a foreign land, you should not find it tedious to study. Now, since the surpassing holiness of the monastic life is so great, who does not see how discordant it is if the place where monks dwell together, the monastery, is not kept holy? For the word monasterium (monastery) is said to come from monachus (monk) and the Greek word thršw, which in Latin means servo (I keep unharmed). So not with murmuring, but with great spiritual delight should you devoutly undertake to keep holy your monastery, reflecting that holiness befits the house of the Lord [Ps 92:5]; it increases the efficacy of the prayers of those who pray therein and makes them worthy to be heard, it weakens and expels spiritual wickedness, it welcomes throngs of angels, and it is a gracious preparation for the Lord himself of the angels to dwell there. And who is there, who, when about to entertain an earthly king, does not clean, adorn, and deck his house in every way possible, with all his strength and resources, sparing no toil and no expense until an acceptable dwelling is made as ready as it can be with every adornment? In your monastery the king of heaven dwells at all times, not only in his divine nature, but also in the sacrament of the Eucharist, in the real substance of the flesh he took of the Virgin. The greatest beauty and glory of the physical dwelling is the holiness it received at its dedication to him. If a man gives the whole substance of his house for this adornment to honour so great a king, he will consider it as nothing [Sg 8:7] compared to so great a good. Farewell.

58 To Pope Gregory IX, concerning the crisis in the Franciscan Order. Written in 1238. Editions: Luard, Epp., 179–81 (reading, 179/line 11, confidenter for confidentur).

6 The version of the Rule of St Basil known to the monks of Bury was descended from the Latin compilation of monastic rules assembled by Benedict of Aniane in the ninth century (see PL 103:487–554).

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To the most holy father and lord, Gregory,1 by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, kisses. It is not only accounts of your reputation, the good odour of which fills the world, but also my own personal experience of our close relationship on many occasions, which have together made me truly conscious of your holiness’s extraordinarily fervent zeal to remove from the house of the Lord all abominations of impiety, to repair what is fissured, to give support to what is about to fall, to strengthen what is standing, and to adorn what has been made strong. Despite my own insignificance, I dare to knock confidently at the door of such great zeal, knowing for certain that it will be opened to one who knocks, and that seeking I shall find and asking I shall receive [Mt 7:8] whatever I request to cleanse, repair, strengthen, and adorn the house of God. Hence it is that I knock with all my strength at the door of your zeal and abundantly address prayers as loudly as possible to the ears of your piety, seeking with all my desire to obtain your holiness’s favour on behalf of the Friars Minor of the English province, who are threatened, as their proctors, the bearers of this letter, will explain more fully to your holiness, by so many great dangers to their order and harm to their religious life.2 Unless your holiness acts with foresight to bring appropriate remedies to bear, there is fear, not without good reason, that many of the weaker friars will lapse and many of the stronger ones will be shaken and will waver. Dissensions will split apart their unity, and many great men who had decided to take their habit will withdraw. The glory of such an important religious order will vanish and the masses will be scandalized in them, shouting that the brightness of gold has been turned into dross [Is 1:22]. If these things were to happen – which God forbid! – it is obvious that the Church of God would once more be subject to the squalid abominations that the orthodox preaching and conspicuously pure way of life of these friars had already purged away. It is obvious, too, that what 1 On Pope Gregory IX, see Letter 35. Before his election to the papacy in 1227, he had been cardinal protector of the Franciscans; see Letter 59, n. 2. 2 For an account of the crisis in the Franciscan Order under its minister general, Elias of Cortona (1232–39), see Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, 137–61; see also R.M. Huber, A Documented History of the Franciscan Order (Milwaukee, Wisc., 1944), 107–19. The situation came to a head with appeals to Pope Gregory IX in 1237 and 1238, and the subsequent deposition of Elias on Pentecost Sunday, 1239. The proctors referred to here by Grosseteste have not been identified.

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was once united would be again divided, what was strong would totter, and what was beautiful would be blemished. Now, there is no need to persuade so zealous a man as your holiness with arguments or by recourse to authorities to oppose vice and wickedness – but you will understand that a man of compassion cannot but pray that the evils I mentioned will be checked – for it is the nature of zeal to excite, to stimulate, to drive, and to rouse its possessor with an unconquerable energy against every deceitful scheme intended to destroy the purity, unity, strength, and beauty of the house of God. Such great zeal desires only the destruction of any impending evil. So that this may be understood more clearly in its contrary, your holiness may be assured that among us English the friars are responsible for incalculably great benefits, for they illuminate our whole land with the brilliant light of their preaching and teaching. Their most holy way of life strongly inspires people to a contempt of the world and to voluntary poverty, to the practice of humility even in positions of rank and power, to absolute obedience to prelates and the head of the Church, to patience in tribulation, abstinence in plenty, and, in a word, to the exercise of all the virtues. Oh, if only your holiness could see with what devotion and humility the people rush to hear from them the word of life, to confess their sins, and to be instructed in the rules for living their lives, and how much the clergy and religious orders have benefited by imitating them, you would indeed say that to those who dwell in the region of the shadow of death light has risen [Is 9:2]! So will your holiness zealously take steps to ensure that, by the extinguishing or darkening of so bright a light – which the True Light avert! – the old darkness of error and sin, already all but dispersed by the rays of their light, does not completely cover and conceal a land that, compared with others, he especially loves? May the most high God long keep you safe for my sake and that of his Church.

59 To Rinaldo of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia, concerning the crisis in the Franciscan Order. Written in 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 181–2.

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To the venerable father in Christ, Rinaldo,1 by the grace of God bishop of Ostia, cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Robert, by divine permission humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. By their beneficial preaching the Friars Minor appointed throughout the kingdom of England are effective in lighting the people’s way to a knowledge of the truth, and by the example of their most holy way of life they strongly rouse the people to do what the truth requires, so that what I might call a new light, which gives both light and growth, seems to have risen in the darkness [Ps 111:4]. Since this is so, and since you are the one, after the supreme pontiff but before anyone else, that the Lord has chiefly and especially appointed as a refuge and protector for these friars,2 so that under your wings they may be encouraged to increase the good they do and be protected against the schemes of the wicked, it is your special and chief concern to foster even greater increases of the good things that have been not only initiated but also promoted as much as possible by these friars and others under their influence, and with the shield of your protection to fend off any evils that threaten and oppose the good things they do. So, although these are the special obligations you have to these friars by virtue of your office as their protector, and although there is no need to rouse your holiness’s zeal in this regard with exhortations or appeals, since that zeal is so very fervent as to rouse itself, nevertheless, the affection I have for these friars, not without good reason, cannot keep silent, but is compelled to find full expression in appeals on their behalf to you, father, that are as humble and devout as they can be. With these appeals I am begging and beseeching you to provide effective counsel and assistance and a remedy to counteract the dangers that are threatening their order and religious life. These dangers will be explained more fully for your prudent consideration, father, by the friars’ proctors.3

1 Rinaldo (Raynaldus) of Jenne (Rinaldo di Jenne, later Pope Alexander IV) was made cardinal deacon and protector of the Franciscan Order by Pope Gregory IX in 1227. In 1231 he became cardinal bishop of Ostia, a title he held until his election as pope in 1254. See Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:41–53, and Letter 70. 2 On the office of the cardinal protector, see Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, 59–76. 3 On the dangers confronting the Franciscan Order, see Letter 58, n. 2. The proctors, sent from the English province, remain unidentified; they are also mentioned in Letter 58.

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There is good reason to fear that unless suitable remedies provide relief quickly, the unrestrained will of one man4 will provide an occasion or reason, or so people say, for a major rupture in the unity of the friars; their religious fervour will cool; many who have already received the habit will regret their decision, and those whose intention had once been to take the habit will change their plans; clergy and people will be scandalized in them, when gold of the finest colour [Lam 4:1] appears to have been turned into dross; a lamp that now burns so brightly will be extinguished, and the darkness of sin and error will return, though it had already been all but banished at the rising, so to speak, of the new light of the friars. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

60 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning the election to the episcopal see of Winchester. Written sometime between June and August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 182–5 (reading, p. 185/line 18, impediat for impediet).

To the venerable father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. Because the faith that works through love [Gal 5:6] unites you indissolubly with Christ, your zeal for the house of God can only consume you [Ps 68:10]. Yet the closer your true union in the body of Christ to its head, all the more are you constantly consumed by the fiery ardour of this zeal, and the higher you are in rank, the richer should be the offering of this sacrifice, for no sacrifice is more acceptable to God than zeal for his house and for the salvation of souls. Because your holiness is irresistibly striving to please God with such a great sacrifice, were someone humbly to suggest to you where a richer 4 On Elias of Cortona, see Letter 31, n. 1, and Letter 58, n. 2. 1 On Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, see Letter 49. He is the recipient of several of Grosseteste’s letters (nos. 49, 52, 60, 61, 74, 76, 79, 82, 104, 105, 110).

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offering of this sacrifice is possible, even if you yourself very clearly foresaw this possibility, that will not only not be offensive but altogether pleasing and acceptable. What, then, readily offers itself for offering to God as a sweet-smelling and most acceptable sacrifice is zeal for the election and appointment of a suitable shepherd in the Church of Winchester, and for the courageous rejection of all evil schemes opposed to the promotion of a good shepherd in that bishopric.2 May God then accept from your hands this sacrifice, that is to say, a zeal whose energetic concern is to ensure that a shepherd is elected and appointed in that church about whom one may justly and confidently presume that he desires not honour or rank but a burden of responsibility, not wealth but the work of one who preaches the gospel, that he desires not to rule but to serve, that he is one who, as Scripture requires, wishes to lay down his life for his flock [Jn 10: 11, 15] and to show himself in all things an example of good works [Ti 2:7], one who is willing and able to feed the Lord’s flock in Scripture’s pasture with justice and judgment, knowledge and doctrine. The food from this pasture should give new life to the flock, open to it the path to perfection and enable it to grow and increase toward that goal, enlarge and strengthen it to make it stable and steadfast, mould it to bring out its beauty, give it the light needed to reflect on the truth, and ennoble it that its members may become the adopted children of God. For the pasture of knowledge and doctrine bestows these and many other similar benefits, as you are well aware from the evidence of Scripture. When, therefore, one who does not feed his flock with knowledge and doctrine takes a position as a shepherd, he first brings about his own death, because he arrives at the tabernacle but enters and comes forth from it without raising his voice to preach, and he is guilty of the death of the entire flock, since he owes them the fodder they need to sustain their lives but does not distribute it. Nor can those be free of implication

2 The see of Winchester became vacant with the death of Peter des Roches on 9 June 1238. The story of the ensuing attempt to choose a bishop is told by Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 3:490–1, 493–5. The king’s choice fell on William, bishop-elect of Valence, but before 28 August 1238 Ralph de Neville, bishop of Chichester, was postulated to the see, over strong royal objections; see Letter 62. The election was quashed by the pope on 17 February 1239, and William of Raleigh (see Letters 17, 23–4) was subsequently chosen, but the disputes continued. William took full possession of the see only in 1244; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 86; and Powicke, Henry III, 1:271–3. For a lucid description of the canonical procedure for episcopal elections, see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 55–68.

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in this guilt who with appeals or bribes, threats or intimidations, or false inducements or other schemes, strive to set up such a man in the place of a shepherd, or who do not expend all their strength to resist those who are responsible for such an appointment. And because I have taken an oath of fealty to the lord king, and a person is not sufficiently loyal to him who, even at the risk of losing his own reputation and his life, fails to oppose as best he can any dangers that may threaten; and because I desire as best I can to observe my sworn fealty, and therefore to do what I can to find a remedy for the dangers threatening the lord king, I here mention to your holiness what I have heard spread about by a loud and often repeated rumour. I do so because, if what is being noised about is true, a man of your great solicitude will be able to apply a cure. The common rumour is that the lord king has been staying for some time now near Winchester and is relentlessly trying, both through threats and intimidations, and with flattering promises, appeals, and inducements, to persuade the community of the Church of Winchester to elect as its shepherd and bishop the man who is none other than his own nominee.3 If this is true, however distinguished the lord king’s candidate may be, this intervention is seriously blackening and disgracing the king’s reputation and that, too, of the nominee and any future nominee, is violently offending against the freedom of election that the king himself is particularly bound to protect, and is greatly endangering his soul. Please, then, let your solicitude prompt you, who alone after God has the power and are now dutifully deploring the peril to the lord king’s reputation and salvation, the liberty of the Church, and the salvation of many souls, to apply a speedy and effective remedy to this abuse, if it is a fact, by persuading in every way possible both the lord king and the Winchester community to have God alone before their eyes and to be concerned in this election only about electing a good shepherd and bishop of souls – someone, that is, who would not take the honour to himself out of greed, but, called by God as Aaron was [Heb 5:4], is irreproachable and free from sin, and offers gifts and sacrifices of praise and of a spirit in distress for the flock entrusted to his charge; one who, when preaching the word, would insist on it in and out of season, convincing, entreating, rebuking with all patience and doctrine, watchful in all things and hardworking, that in this way, together with Timothy, he may carry out the duties [2 Tm 4:2, 5] of a bishop. 3 William de Valence; see n. 2, above.

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For God forbid, God forbid, that the rudder of so great a ship, upon a sea so immense, so storm-tossed and rock-ridden, be surrendered to the hand and control of one who is ignorant, negligent, or helpless. God forbid that anyone should be responsible for such a surrender! God forbid that anyone should consent to such a surrender. God forbid, too, that one who has the power does not with all his strength prevent such a surrender. Long may you fare well, holy father.

61 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, in response to Otto’s reply to Letter 60, above. Written in 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 185–8.

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. That you have thought fit, holy father, in the midst of so many great responsibilities, to reply so graciously and attentively to an insignificant person like myself reveals that you, in imitation of the love of the Lord who reigns over us, have covered yourself with invincible courage and the admirable adornment of humility. The radiance of this love and humility, which, like the sun that shines upon the earth everywhere, sheds the rays of its light upon all people without exception, has shone down upon my weak and insignificant self, as I have experienced on so many occasions, more abundantly and graciously with what might be called the pleasant radiance of a special affection, just as the sun irradiates and warms particular places on earth more directly and generously, by sending forth its rays there more abundantly. Now, it very often happens that the piece of the earth illumined like this by the sun as it produces radiant energy gives off a cloud from its own darkness, but this is quickly dispersed by the natural power of the light that comes down from the sun and by the gentle breeze that blows from the land.

1 On Otto, see Letter 49, n. 1.

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Something similar to this has happened to me, because, as I have gathered from the sense of your gracious reply, some cloud emerged from the darkness of my own foolishness in the letter I sent to your holiness,2 a cloud, however, that I expect will be completely dispersed as long as the rays of your love, spread so generously over my insignificant self, persist in their strength and have the help of the breath of the words in this letter like a gentle breeze. For in that earlier letter I sent you I wanted to touch briefly on the duties of a good shepherd and fell into the trap the poet mentioned: ‘I strive to be brief and become obscure.’3 Although as a general rule teaching the faith and performing good works comprise what makes a good shepherd, I wrote somewhat more extensively and clearly about what pertains to teaching. As far as concerns doing good works, however, I concealed this too much under a cloud of brevity and obscurity, so that it looked, so to speak, as if I had not said anything at all, although it was even more my intention in that letter to identify a person who competently performs good works than one who teaches brilliantly. And I did not suppose that I had utterly failed to mention the former, whom you clearly and gracefully describe. By all means I would prefer, just as you would too, a shepherd distinguished in both rather than wanting in one; but to the extent that performing good works is more important than teaching and completing a journey more important than planning the route, to that same extent both you and I consider it more important to choose a shepherd who is vigourous in good works without knowing how to teach, rather than one who is a brilliant teacher but does not have the vigour of works. I have gathered, moreover, from the conclusion of your reply that the ending of my letter contained something cloudy, in which one could have supposed there to be something harsh or prickly. But you are a man of charity and should know that it was because of my lack of skill in expressing clearly what I wanted to say that this prickliness, which I never intended, could somehow find a place in my letter. For may the Lord keep me from trying to touch anyone with the sting of malice, much less your holiness, ever so very dear to me, and it is my firm belief that a man so charitable as you does not think I am guilty of such an offence. But, with the general remarks I made at the end of my letter, I intended – something, however, that I by no means expressed – to open up, as if with a doctor’s scalpel and for the patient’s recovery, the purulent 2 Letter 60. 3 Horace, Ars poetica 25–6.

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tumours of those who greedily yearn for what is bigger and better, and then to squeeze out the discharge and apply a healing plaster. It was my intention, not only with the whole of my letter, but also with each and every phrase, no – with each and every word and syllable and letter, to rouse your holiness, whom I truly believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to be utterly free of deception, to action in the struggle and race of fervent zeal to appoint a suitable shepherd in the Church of Winchester. With that letter I intended to rouse you in the way that spectators at fights between brave men rouse the combatants to action with their applause and excite them to continue tirelessly a fierce fight, and in the way that riders of thoroughbred horses spur them on to the very end of the race, even when they are galloping without any prompting and as fast as they can. By rousing you in so many ways, I am expressing my greatest desire that you are ceaselessly roused to action in zeal’s tireless struggle and race4 until, with the assistance of your ministry, the Lord provides for his Church the sort of shepherd we know he demands with continuous, anxious, and heartfelt sighs. Long may you fare well, holy father.

62 To Ralph de Neville, bishop of Chichester (1224–44), concerning his election to the see of Winchester. Written between August 1238, when Ralph was chosen by the monks of Winchester as bishop, and February 1239, when his postulation was quashed by Pope Gregory IX. Edition: Luard, Epp., 188–90.

To his venerable brother in Christ and most dear friend, Ralph,1 by the grace of God bishop of Chichester, chancellor of the lord king, Robert, by the same grace humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in brotherly love.

4 Cf. 2 Tm 4:7: ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’ 1 On Ralph, see ‘Neville, Ralph de (d. 1244),’ in ODNB. For his postulation from the see of Chichester to the see of Winchester in August of 1238, see Letter 60, n. 2.

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With sincerity and affection you have asked me to write to the lord pope and my special friends at the curia in support of your postulation2 and in a form I would consider appropriate to God, to the Church, and to your own high rank. Because of your love for me you should know that this is something I would do out of loyalty if only I knew the appropriate form. It is, however, a law of true friendship that, just as one is kind enough to grant a request he believes to be useful to the one who makes it, so he should refuse to grant whatever he considers harmful, no matter how distressing it is both to him to deny the person what is requested and to the one who makes the request to have to endure being refused. A consequence of this law of friendship is that God, who is the highest form of love, generally does not heed those most dear to him when it is a question of something wished for, although for that very reason he does heed them when salvation is at stake. Because of this same law of friendship, the affection I have for you means that I do not heed you when it is a question of a wish on the part of your advisers, but I will heed you, or so I hope, to achieve a more salutary goal. For, as seems clear to me, were someone to write to the lord pope or those venerable fathers, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, in support of your postulation, immediately some of them will perhaps say, and no doubt all your opponents will endlessly proclaim, that this document was procured by you, and this will be the source of a strong presumption against you that you desire the place to which you were postulated as a source of greater wealth. And your enemies will as much as possible allege against you that for that reason you should be repudiated, producing as evidence that canon: ‘Just as the man who refuses when invited and flees when sought out should be elevated to the sacred altars, so the man who desires this of his own accord or obtrudes himself regardless of others should no doubt be repudiated’;3 and again: ‘Just as a position of authority should be denied to those who desire it, so it should be offered to those who flee from it.’4 There are also those words of the Apostle: Nobody takes an honour to himself; he takes it who is called by God just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not appoint himself to the honour of becoming high priest, but he who said to him: ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you’ [Heb 5:4–5]. There are also

2 Ralph’s election was quashed by Gregory IX on 17 February 1239; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 86. 3 Gratian, Decretum C.1 q.6 c.3. 4 Ibid., C.8 q.1 c.9.

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the words the blessed Bernard wrote to Pope Eugene, advising him to elevate to the rank of bishop ‘not those who want this office or who run after it, but those who hesitate and those who refuse it, who are not brazen but modest and apprehensive; besides God they fear nothing, and they hope for nothing except from God.’5 With pleasure would your opponents, once they have got even the slightest opportunity to point to some insignificant indication of your effort to promote yourself, allege against you these and similar arguments, or rather ones that are even stronger than these, of which, as you know, there is an abundant supply in Holy Scripture, canonical texts, and biblical commentaries. For that reason, or so it seems to my humble self, it is much wiser for no one to write in support of your postulation, to avoid there being a chance – which God forbid! – of any harm arising from something that was expected to bring an increase of health. So, then, let this entire matter be entrusted to God, because once a plan of God’s has been set in motion at his pleasure and by his will, there is no stopping it from its inception to its completion. For his hand is not so short [Is 59:1] that it cannot complete what it has begun to build. I do not say this as though I ought not to be God’s helper in a case like this, but as if it were necessary in such things for us to rely not on human prudence but on divine wisdom, and as if we should strive after not our own interests but only those of Jesus Christ [Phil 2:21]. In this way shepherds may be assigned to high office in his church who are imitators of the supreme shepherd, who feed the Lord’s flock with judgment and justice, knowledge and doctrine, who are ready to lay down their lives for their flocks, ‘who,’ as the blessed Bernard teaches, ‘stand up like men to defend the afflicted and make just decisions for the meek of the earth; who are imperturbable in character, of proven holiness, ready to obey, meek and patient, submissive to discipline, strict in censuring, catholic in faith, loyal in behaviour, disposed toward peace, and supportive of unity; who are upright in judgment, farsighted in counsel, discreet in commands, assiduous in organization, energetic in action, modest of speech, untroubled in adversity, faithful in prosperity, temperate in zeal, not remiss in mercy, not idle in their spare time, not unrestrained in hospitality, not extravagant in entertainment, not anxious when taking care of their own

5 Bernard, De consideratione 4.12 (S. Bernardi Opera, 3:457).

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property nor greedy for someone else’s, not wasteful with their own possessions, and prudent in all places and circumstances.’6 If, guided by an intense desire for these kinds of shepherds, we seek out the interests of Christ alone rather than our own, the very one who takes care of all our interests will even without our help conduct a better search than we would know how to wish for, and will bring all things to perfection. May you, brother, fare well in the Lord.

63 To the abbot and convent of Ramsey, concerning the consecration of one of the abbey’s churches. Written before 20 September 1238, the date of the consecration. Edition: Luard, Epp., 190–2.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the abbot and convent of Ramsey.1 Because it is right that I do everything decently and in order [1 Cor 14:40] so that my ministry may not be brought into discredit [2 Cor 6:3], I am obliged to make every effort to guard against attempting anything in that ministry that may be contrary to ancient and approved customs, or the regulations of the sacred canons, or what has been handed down by the holy fathers and interpreters of Sacred Scripture. Now, it is an ancient and approved custom that, when a church is to be consecrated, everything we cannot reasonably describe as parts of the building to be consecrated must be carried outside, whereas anything that may reasonably be called the fixtures of such a building may remain intact and fixed in its place, such as doors, windows, beams, external and even interior walls, and any benches in fixed positions. But in accord

6 Ibid. 1 Ramsey Abbey, in Huntingdonshire, was a large and important Benedictine monastery, housing some eighty monks in the time of Abbot Ranulph (1231–53); see Medieval Religious Houses, 73.

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with the teaching of our elders it is customary to bring outside any images, clocks, chests, movable benches, and the bodies of the dead, both Christians and unbelievers, which are known to have been buried or placed in tombs within the building that is to be consecrated, because they are by no means its fixtures. For that reason, as I learned for certain from those who were present, when Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, of blessed memory, consecrated the conventual Church of the Holy Trinity in London,2 he had the bodies of both the saints and others resting in that church removed and then brought back with appropriate reverence immediately after the church’s consecration. There is also the canonical regulation that one is not permitted to consecrate a church where are buried the corpses of dead Christians and unbelievers.3 The blessed Gregory, too, entrusted to Castorius, bishop of Rimini, the dedication of the oratory of that famous woman Thimotea, as long as ‘it is certain that no body has been interred there.’4 By order I am therefore firmly directing you to arrange for the removal, on the evening before the day of your church’s consecration,5 of everything that cannot reasonably be counted among the church’s fixtures; the bodies of the saints are also to be honourably placed in a suitable spot outside the church, and the entire night is to be spent devoutly in vigils and prayers, followed by the return of the bodies with appropriate ritual observance once the office of consecration is complete. And because the reliquaries of the saints must be handled with the utmost devotion and fear and purity of mind, it is my advice in the Lord that, before their removal, you make every effort to obtain the consolation of those saints by purifying yourselves through fasts, vigils, prayers, and almsgiving.

2 No record has survived of the consecration by Archbishop Stephen Langton (1207–28) of the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Augustinian priory at Aldgate, London. 3 Gratian, Decretum, De consecratione D.1 cc. 27–8. 4 Gregory, Registrum epistularum 2.11 (CCSL 140:98). 5 The church to be consecrated was probably the parish church of the village of St Ives, in Ramsey manor, not the conventual church of Ramsey Abbey. See Cartularium monasterii de Rameseia, ed. W.H. Hart and P.A. Lyons, 3 vols., RS 79 (London, 1884–93), 3:180n3.

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64 To Pope Gregory IX, introducing Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the papal curia. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 192–3.

To the most holy father and lord, Gregory,1 by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, kisses. The goodwill demonstrated by numerous kindnesses, which is not only abundant but even superabundant, and which your holiness with gracious benevolence has freely shown to my humble self, impels so utterly insignificant a man as myself to offer thanks in perpetuity. And because it is typical of goodwill to satisfy with even more benefits the entreaties of the suppliant it freely helped before, it is my firmest hope that the overflowing goodwill of your holiness, like the spring of living waters that pour down in a strong stream from Lebanon [Sg 4:15], will always increase its abundance more and more, and to the very end satisfy with an enhanced outpouring of more lavish kindness the entreaties of your suppliant, upon whom your goodwill poured such generous benefits in the beginning. My confidence in the realization of this hope has prompted me to send Simon,2 my clerk who is beloved in Christ and is the bearer of this letter and my proctor, to the feet of your holiness. My purpose is to entreat, with all possible devotion and humility, that you may deign to hear with your usual benevolence whatever he will bring to the attention of your holiness on behalf of my insignificant self. Please attend with your customary favour and benevolence to whatever in my petitions is just and honourable and has as its goals the honour of God, the liberty of the Church, or the salvation of souls. But if anything proposed therein is, because of my negligence or that of my proctor, opposed to these goals, please reject it with compassionate sternness, for one should not think it less beneficial to decline a petition that is less than just and honourable than to grant one that is just and honourable. May the most high God long keep you safe for my sake and that of his Church.

1 On Pope Gregory IX, see Letter 35. Gregory is the recipient of five of Grosseteste’s letters (35, 58, 64, 77, 81). 2 On Simon of Arden, see also Letters 37, 38, 42, 43, 68, 70, 80, 104. This is the first of several letters carried by Simon on his second journey to the papal curia. He left England sometime after 24 July 1238; see Major, ‘Familia,’ 219.

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65 To Robert of Somercote, encouraging him to live up to his high calling as a cardinal and requesting his support in the curia. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 193–4 (reading, 193/line 8, Roberto for Raimundo).

To the venerable father in Christ, Robert,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. I have given thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for your promotion, as you asked me to do when you wrote, and have expressed the hope that this is not a lifeless promotion but one that is alive. Now, a promotion is alive when a high office, endowed with power but transitory by nature, is animated by the lifting of one’s spirit into the realm of immutability. When this happens, however much the man who has been promoted surpasses his previous status in terms of the power and position he has acquired, by that same amount, or rather by an incomparably greater one, is his spirit lifted up by his very fervent and exclusive love of eternal life, his clear-sighted contemplation of everlasting things and disdain for all transitory ones, and the unfeigned abasement of mind that results from his fear of the dangers associated with holding high rank, as from that height a fall is easier and the injury from falling more serious. For at that height the threats of powerful people thunder more loudly, their terrors, like lightning, flash more violently, the windy blasts of temptations strike more powerfully, and one’s footing is more prone to slip in a place that is wet and overflowing with the slime of riches, where the only security is never to be secure but always terrified and trembling and, together with the afflicted Job, in dread of all one’s works [Jb 9:28]. So, because it is my hope that your promotion has not been deprived of life or weighed down by pride, but is alive, as I said, and lifted up to

1 Robert of Somercote was the only Englishman elevated to the cardinalate by Gregory IX. He was appointed cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio in May or June of 1238, and held that office until his death in September of 1241; see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:130–40. Robert of Somercote was well known in the diocese of Lincoln: he had been made rector of Castor before 1232, and used the income from the prebend to help finance his studies at Paris and Bologna; see Emden, BRUO, 3:2216–17. Grosseteste instituted him as rector of the Church of Sibsey in 1236; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 165.

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the realm of heavenly contemplation by the abasement of a broken spirit [Ps 50:19] – for in an astonishing way only the depth of humility reaches high enough to touch the heavens – I rejoice in the Lord at your promotion and give him praise. And because at the end of your letter you gave me the courage to seek confidently from you whatever I desire, I boldly request, most beloved father, that with your usual benevolence you be willing to use your goodwill, wisdom, and resourcefulness to expedite my affairs in the curia, to the extent that they are based upon integrity and justice. On another matter, you asked me to allow the vicar of Maxey2 to be in your service, as long as he arranged for another priest to officiate in his vicarage. Thus far I have been kind enough to permit this, though with an anxious conscience. And because in this sort of thing irresolution and my own limited power have made me timid, with all possible affection I am asking you, father, to decide and manage with discretion this and all such future authorizations in accord with what you know contributes to the honour of God and benefits the salvation of souls, for God in his mercy has entrusted you with more power and a more secure conscience. There should be no doubt that so holy and exalted a personage as yourself prefers God’s honour and the salvation of souls incomparably more than all transitory advantages. But even so, following the example of the blessed Gregory,3 you may wish to make clear to me what you decide concerning such authorizations in my diocese. Furthermore, because you say with the Psalmist, Zeal for your house consumes me [Ps 68:10], and again, Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place where your glory dwells [Ps 25:8], the adornment and repair of your church at Castor4 at the earliest opportunity will demonstrate how true are the feelings of the one who sings these Psalms. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

2 On Robert of Somercote’s familia, see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:138–40. The vicar of Maxey has not been identified, but in 1238 Grosseteste instituted a new vicar, Henry de Bledelawe, in that church; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 169. 3 This is perhaps a reference to Gregory the Great’s dealings with the English bishops, as described in Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum, ed. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), 1.23, 29 (pp. 68–71, 104–7). 4 On the Church of Castor, see n. 1, above.

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66 To John of Ferentino, thanking him for his support in the papal curia. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 195.

To the venerable man, Lord John of Ferentino,1 chamberlain of the lord pope, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere affection in the Lord. I know well enough that you love me sincerely and have closely embraced me not because of any meritorious action on my part, but because of your own goodness. That love prompted you, upon your return to the curia from my part of the world and at all times thereafter, to silence the spiteful gossip of my jealous detractors and of those who are striving to destroy entirely a man as insignificant as myself in the eyes of those most holy fathers, the supreme pontiff and the cardinals who assist him. You have smashed the teeth in their mouths and broken their jaws [Ps 57:7], and, what is more, you have praised me, despite my unworthiness, to those most holy fathers in many different ways, you have secured their goodwill toward me, and you have constantly provided, to the honour of God and for the salvation of souls, beneficial advice and effective help in expediting my affairs and those of the church entrusted to my humble self. As I do not myself have anything appropriate with which to compensate you for such great kindnesses, I shall always beg the Almighty – who alone has the power, knowledge, and will, to pay back everything in a way that is not only appropriate but more so – to repay you for your kindness in a manner that reflects the full extent of his munificence. And because affection, once it has taken root, naturally and ceaselessly grows to produce broader branches of kindnesses, particularly when it is watered, as if with a kind of dew, by humility and thankfulness, with all possible gratitude and devotion I beg that whatever previously has sprouted from the root of your affection may be made to grow ever more widely. May you, dearly beloved, fare well in the Lord.

1 On John of Ferentino, see Letter 39, n. 2.

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67 To Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, thanking him for his affection and friendship. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 196.

To the venerable father in Christ, Giles,1 by the grace of God cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. The light of your affection, which you shine upon everyone without exception,2 you have with what might be called the pleasant radiance of a special friendship generously shone – may the Almighty repay you! – upon so insignificant a person as myself. As I feel the many manifestations of the warmth and consolation of this light, without ceasing I give you as many thanks as I can. And because it is the nature of affection always to increase until it reaches perfection, with all possible humility and devotion I beg that the affection you have freely conceived for my humble self may naturally flourish without ever ceasing and, as it is enlarged and reaches perfection, may strengthen with the heat of midday the one whom it has, so to speak, bathed in the warmth of its early morning rays. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

68 To Thomas of Capua, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, requesting his support. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 196–7.

To the venerable father in Christ, Thomas,1 by the grace of God cardinal of the Roman Church, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedi1 On Giles, see Letter 36, n. 1. 2 Cf. Mt 5:45: ‘[The Father] makes his sun rise on the good and the evil.’ 1 On Thomas of Capua, see Letter 44, n. 1. Thomas died in 1239.

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ence, together with all his respect. Timbers made strong by long growth are good for bearing loads in buildings, even if such weights are extremely heavy. Your affection for the Church of Lincoln, which dates from the time of my predecessor Hugh,2 of happy memory, has to this point continued to grow and become strong, like a tree that does not decay, and for that reason it is an especially good support for the burdens of the spiritual edifice of that same church. These burdens are affairs that must be expedited in the curia, to the honour of God and for the salvation of the souls entrusted to me, despite my unworthiness. I have therefore chosen you, as a strong bearer of burdens, to be my special comforter and helper in expediting these affairs. I humbly prostrate myself at the feet of your holiness to beg that with your usual kindness and goodwill you be willing to pursue and promote these affairs, which will be explained to you, father, by Simon,3 my proctor, for their goals are the honour of God and the salvation of souls. With charity to guide you, please also concern yourself with rejecting anything incompatible with these goals that is suggested either by this proctor or by anyone else. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

69 To Arnulf, OFM, a papal penitentiary, requesting his continued affection. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 197–8 (reading, p. 198/line 11, vestrum for nostrum).

To one most beloved to him in Christ, Brother Arnulf,1 penitentiary of the lord pope, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will floods sweep it away [Sg 8:7]. Fleeting pleasure2 will not muddy it, nor will a sudden and violent onrush of terrors overpower it; the destructive wear and tear of passing time will not erode it, whether time flows on gently in prosperity or rush-

2 See Letter 3, n. 4, and Letter 44. 3 Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the Holy See; see Letter 64, n. 2. 1 On Arnulf, see Letter 31, n. 3. 2 Fluxa voluptas: cf. Prudentius, Hamartigenia 252.

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es torrentially in adversity. No, love grows under all these conditions, taking every opportunity to increase until it reaches perfection. For that reason, whatever the ways mutable things may alter and whatever direction changeable things may take, your sincere love for me, freely conceived for a long time now, will not only remain fixed, but will increase and be strengthened in its own fixed and firm place. My hope and request are that I will be nurtured by the warmth and bathed in the light of that love, because it is a fire that sustains life, and rescued from the pit of sinfulness wherein I find myself by the tug of that love, because it is a rope, and defended by that love’s protection, because it is a shield, from evils that threaten. And it is in the shade of that love, because it is a tree, that I desire sweet and cool refreshment against unhealthy heat. And although I am certain that because of that love you would freely offer me these most welcome sources of solace, for them I nevertheless pour forth humble entreaties to you in your kindness, so that if by chance some cloud of turbulence were to overlay the wide intervening space between your heavenly manner of life and my own worldly one, brightness may be restored by my outpouring of prayers, as if by a gust of wind, and for one who is yours there may be provided unobstructed access to the rays of your affection. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

70 To Rinaldo of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia, thanking him for his friendship and support. Written probably in late July or August of 1238. Edition: Luard, Epp., 198–9.

To the venerable father in Christ, Rinaldo,1 by the grace of God bishop of Ostia, cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience, together with all his respect. Because of your bountiful and sweet benevolence, father, your concern is to anticipate with acts of kindness the needs of my humble self, and therefore to help me generously in advance with a more than ample supply of the most welcome beneficence. For you have shown yourself, 1 On Cardinal Rinaldo, the future Pope Alexander IV, see Letter 59, n. 1.

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without my deserving it, to be very friendly towards my beloved Master Simon,2 the bearer of this letter and my proctor, and to be entirely sympathetic to those affairs of mine that he is to expedite in the curia. For this friendship and support I thank your holiness as devotedly and fully as I can, begging with all my heart that the door of your benevolence and goodwill be open ever more widely to me, especially in those instances in which a fatter sacrifice of the victim that is zeal for souls may be offered, for there is no other sacrificial victim more acceptable to God. May you, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

71 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln, asking for a full account of their grievances against their bishop. Written in 1238 or early in 1239 (see n. 1). Edition: Luard, Epp., 199–203.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, William the dean and the chapter of Lincoln.1 According to divine and natural law, children of the flesh repay their parents with love, fear, honour, obedience, and forbearance, and by covering their nakedness and forgiving and excusing any defect in their understanding. And the greater and better the spirit is than the body, and the purer the ties of spiritual kinship are than any physical relationship, the more sincerely and purely and completely do children of the spirit value these feelings and actions with respect to their spiritual parents.

2 On Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the papal curia, see Letter 64, n. 2. 1 This is the first of several letters (nos. 71, 73, 77, 79–82, 90–2, 94, 96–8, 127) that discuss Grosseteste’s dispute with the dean and chapter of Lincoln, a dispute that will finally be adjudicated by Pope Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons in 1245; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 186–201; Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 171–7; F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Bishop Robert Grosseteste and His Cathedral Chapter: An Edition of the Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation,’ in Med. St. 47 (1985): 367–78; and Letter 127, appendices A and B. This present letter makes no mention of the papal licence dated 23 January 1239, permitting Grosseteste to exercise his office with regard to the visitation of the Lincoln chapter (Bliss, Calendar, 178). This permission was probably requested by Grosseteste in connection with Letter 64.

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Though I am a contemptible man, being weak and infirm of body and much more feeble and infirm of mind, I nevertheless have by your choice and the Lord’s appointment a kinship with you as your spiritual father, and according as my conscience, though obscured by the darkness of sin, can determine, I believe and trust in the Lord that for each and every one of you I have the affection of a father, sincere and pure, such as a man who is a sinner can have. And I hope that, with the help of our Saviour’s grace, neither tribulation nor hardship nor persecution or even the sword [Rom 8:35] will separate me from the fatherly affection I have for you. And because in goods of the spirit you are incomparably stronger than I, whose strength in these goods is slight or nonexistent, I can only hope that the affection you have for me as my children is sincere and pure. Because, too, the good tree of pure affection and goodwill cannot fail to produce the good fruits of good actions that are consistent with it, I can only suppose that in the sincere and pure wholeness of your filial affection you willingly bear for me the kind of fruits that befit sons of unsullied obedience. So, as Scripture teaches, your affection for me should prompt you to forgive any defects in my understanding [Sir 3:15], to support my infirmities, and to cover my nakedness,2 not with the cloak of flattering excuse or false justification that calls evil good and good evil and puts darkness for light and light for darkness [Is 5:20] – for this kind of concealment is the sinful uncovering of the genitals, causing swelling to the point where they burst shamefully into view – but with the cloak of plain admonition and evangelical censure, which would not immediately reveal evils to the world. Please instead first clearly recount to me not only some specific evils, but as many as you know of, not in terms of a generality divisible into several species, since the corner of generality is dark inside and collects filth – corners of this kind are not sought out by the truth3, but by those who do evil and hate the light for fear their works may be blamed [Jn 3:20] – but according to discrete species that cannot be further subdivided. And then, without hiding anything, add to the evils that are not intrinsically evil but appear so the circumstances and reasons that cause them to be classified as evil. For such an exposure of evils among people who love goodness and truth is a true and faithful concealment of nakedness, because when lovers of truth and goodness truly acknowledge their own evils, immediately forsake them, and wipe them away with remorse, the shame of choosing evil is 2 Cf. Gn 9:20–7. 3 Cf. Acts 26:26, Jn 8:32, and Letter 26, p. 130.

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most blessedly concealed by a covering. Because, then, I most of all lack a covering of this kind for my sins, and that is what I strongly desire, so that I may deserve to be reckoned among those whose faults have been taken away and whose sins have been covered [Ps 31:1, Rom 4:7], I beg and implore through our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ – and relying upon the obedience you owe I also command, not out of any immoderate desire to exercise authority, but out of a love for correction, and because the Gospel refers to covering up the nakedness of one’s father in the way already mentioned4 – that without delay you cover the nakedness of my sins in the manner above, especially those sins, if they exist, whose goal you claim is to wrong you, which is the reason for your appeal to the lord pope.5 For I hope and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Truth everlasting, that he kindles some spark of the love of truth in my soul, sinful though it be. I shall thereby, with the favour of his grace, have a mind ready to forsake evils, whenever they are shown to me to be evils, and to revoke and correct all wrongs, if I have any to acknowledge that I have inflicted on anyone, and especially on you. Now, the searcher of our hearts and thoughts [Ps 7:10] knows that it was never my intention, or so I hope, to wrong anyone in the performance of my episcopal duties, or to impose on him the yoke of slavery [Gal 5:1], or to invalidate anyone’s good customs, but rather, to the best of my ability and in accord with the responsibilities of my office, to rescue souls caught in the devil’s snares, to release them from the yoke of slavery to sin, and to raise them up to the freedom of the Spirit. But because all our justices are as the rags of a menstruous woman [Is 64:6] and all of us have offended in many ways [Jas 3:2], and because the man who is preeminently just is in dread of all his works [Jb 9:28], I know that, although I am unaware of any perverse intention on my part in this matter, this does not exonerate me, for I am very much afraid that I have made mistakes in all my actions. That is why, as I suggested above, I very much desire the rebukes of my sons and their just and merciful corrections in the sight of 4 Cf. Mt 18:15: ‘If your brother offends against you, go and show him his fault, between you and him alone’; Jas 5:19–20: ‘If any of you strays from the truth, and someone brings him back, he ought to know that he who causes a sinner to be brought back from his misguided way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.’ 5 No record of the chapter’s appeal to the pope has been preserved, but the papal letter of January 1239 (see n. 1) authorized Grosseteste to visit the chapter, ‘without paying attention to vexatious appeals.’

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the Lord. I am certain, however, that if you and I did not love ourselves more than truth, and did not defend our opinions because they are ours but only because they are true, we would value truth more than ourselves and our possessions, as is proper for children of truth, and will quickly and readily do what the Apostle begged when he wrote to the Corinthians: We shall all speak the same thing, and there will be no divisions among us; instead we shall be perfect in the same understanding and knowledge [1 Cor 1:10]. Now, he who is the way, the truth, and the life [Jn 14:6], who to preserve truth and save souls handed over his most precious life to a most cruel and shameful death, shall mark us with the light from his face, utterly destroying a love that has us and ours as its object more than truth and the salvation of souls, so that none of us may be found among the number of those who prompted the Apostle to say that in the final days of the world dangerous times will come, and people will love only themselves [2 Tm 3:1–2]. And he points out, as you know, that these people are also guilty of the fatal flaws that spring naturally from the root of this evil.6 For such people – lovers more of themselves and their possessions than of truth – seem more haughty than the prince of Babylon: he exalted himself to be like the most high God, but they place themselves above God himself. For when they value themselves more than the truth, are they not valuing themselves more than the most high Son of God? For he was the one who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life [Jn 14:6], and that is why the Apostle with good reason directs us to keep clear of such people [2 Tm 3:5]. So, let us do so, and in imitation of the true master of humility let us value truth and the true salvation of souls incomparably and unsurpassably more than ourselves. Now, by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ and the arrival at the dreadful Judgment of the one who on a cross laid down his life for his sheep and instructed you as shepherds to do the same, I beg you, as my very dear sons, and for the sake of saving souls, not only to repudiate the things you value most, no matter how precious they are, but also to deny yourselves, and like faithful and courageous sons to give me your help, as I am myself feeble and slow in attending to the salvation of souls and inadequate to this task. Place no obstacles or impediments in the way of this work, and do not be the cause of any such obstructions, but remove them all to the best of your ability, that we may all be one in Christ, who is our peace and who made the two one [Eph 2:14]. Farewell. 6 See 2 Tm 3:2–5.

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72 To John le Romeyn, subdean of York, refusing to institute John’s nephew to the Church of Stamford-on-Avon. Written before 16 May 1239 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 203–4.

To the venerable man and most dear friend in Christ, Master John le Romeyn,1 subdean of York, Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards. The Son of God came from the bosom of the Father into the womb of the Virgin of whom he was born a man. God of God he was eternally born, and though incapable of suffering in his divine nature, to save sinners he submitted himself to a most shameful and bitter death on a cross, after enduring insults, scourgings, blows, spittle, and mockery. He instructed the teachers and shepherds of the Church to imitate him and not to be afraid to submit themselves to any degree of debasing, shameful, bitter, and oppressive sufferings to ensure the salvation of their sheep. Indeed, just as he willingly endured all such sufferings to save souls, so also for the same reason should the Church’s teachers and shepherds hasten with joy and every effort to experience them. Since, then, it is incumbent upon these men by virtue of their office to endure gladly all hardships, even the most distressing and perplexing, for the sake of the salvation of souls entrusted to them, how great will be their suffering in hell when they not only neglect the salvation of souls, but knowingly and consciously do all in their power to deliver those very souls to eternal damnation? The ones most obviously guilty of acting in this way are those who freely entrust a cure of souls, or arrange for such a thing, to those who are unable, or untrained, or unwilling to care for souls. For the person who hands control of a ship filled with people on a rock-ridden and storm-tossed sea over to one who is weak, to a child, say, or a paralytic, or to one who is wholly ignorant of the art of sailing, or unwilling ever to place his hand on the rudder – what else is he doing but plainly handing the ship and its passengers over to shipwreck, thereby making himself guilty of everyone’s death, even if they receive help from another source and escape the danger of death?

1 On John, see Letter 18, n. 1.

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Reflecting frequently, although not as much as I should, on these and other similar abuses that must be feared more than anything when bestowing a cure of souls, I am afraid of nothing in the sight of the dreaded Judge so much as bestowing cures on those about whom it is indisputable that they are unable, or untrained, or unwilling to care for souls. For such an action, to the extent that one is free to bestow cures as one wishes, would be to endanger the souls for whom Christ died and for whom as well even the shepherd ought to die. It pains me greatly that the nails of this fear have not pierced me, but I have, or so I hope, been pricked a little by them, and have therefore not dared to entrust control of the Church of Stamford-on-Avon to your nephew Dennis, who is almost totally illiterate, though the Lord is my witness that this decision has been for me a very irksome one.2 To entrust this cure to him would be to do all in my power to drown in the depths of the sea first myself, the bestower of the rudder; him, its recipient; and the souls who are to be governed, so that the pit from which there is no return would close its mouth over us all [Ps 68:16] – which God avert! It will not, then, be irksome to so wise a man as you if I disregard the momentary petty advantage of any one person to ensure that he and I and many others do not incur an eternal and intolerable loss. Moreover, he from whom nothing is concealed3 knows that I am prepared with a heart full of affection to do whatever I know pleases you, provided, however, that I do not believe it to be displeasing to the dreaded Judge. For I am not ungrateful for your kindness, with which you have in various ways so frequently honoured me, despite my insignificance. Yet we must all be incomparably more grateful to him who gave himself for our sake. Farewell.

72* For Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, concerning lay infringements of the liberties of the Church. Probably written late in 1238 or early in 1239. Edition: Luard, Epp., 205–34 (reading, p. 205/line 30, providentiae for prudentiae ; 205/33, providentiae for prudentiae ; 207/18, Sed for Si ; 232/29, nobiscum for

2 The nephew, Dennis (Dionysius), resigned any rights he might have in the Church of Stamford-on-Avon and another clerk was instituted; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 182, 190 (dated 16 May 1239). 3 Cf. Jb 42:2: ‘I know that ... no thought is hidden from you.’

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nobis2; 232/35, nos for vos ; 233/6, nos for vos ; 234/26, hoc for haec ; and transposing the second and third lines of p. 226).

Addressed to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury1 The lord king of England has appointed abbots as itinerant justices with a writ of this kind:2 Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Abbot [A.], greeting. You are to know that we have appointed you, along with our beloved and faithful [B.] and [C.], our justice in eyre for all our lawsuits in the county of [D.]. And we therefore command and beseech you to be willing to assume for the time being the aforementioned burden of the office of justice, together with the aforementioned and faithful [subjects] of ours, and to do so in such a way that you would begin your circuit in the aforementioned county on the day and at the place that you and your associates shall together consider expedient, applying such diligence in this regard that we should with good reason be obliged to commend with special thanks the diligence you have brought to this task. I myself witnessed this, etc.

First of all, it seems possible to show unerringly that abbots sin gravely when they take on the burden of such a judgeship on the strength of this kind of mandate. For the personal assumption of any office or power is for that person illicit if the administration and use of that office or power are for him illicit. That is to say, if the administration and use of an office or power are illicit for someone, either he will misuse the office and power when these are used, or, in the event of his not using them, their assumption will be to no effect, both empty and purposeless. So, whether he makes use of them or not, that person will sin, since his use can only be illicit and wrong, while his taking them on and not using them can only be in vain and purposeless. And this use and misuse will also be considered a sin for the reason that the Apostle exhorts us not to receive the grace of God in vain [2 Cor 6:1], and from this grace no power at all is excluded, since, in the Apostle’s words, all power is from God and by his

1 This is almost certainly a draft document prepared by Grosseteste and his household advisers for the use of Archbishop Edmund in drawing up the ‘Complaints of the Clergy against Lay Power’ that were presented by the archbishop to the papal legate Otto in July of 1239 (Councils and Synods, 280–4). See Pantin, ‘Relations,’ 200–1. 2 See Letters 27 and 28.

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command [Rom 13:1], and the right order imposed by God’s providence and by nature, reason, and art, too, demands that nothing be in vain or to no purpose. So, when something is taken on in vain or to no purpose, that assumption is contrary to the right order of divine providence, nature, reason, and art. Whatever is also taken on in this way cannot be for a proper end, because there is no end; and it is certain that everything that is not for a proper end is a sin. And if, in the words of the Saviour, an accounting of every futile word must be given on Judgment Day [Mt 12:36], how will it not be necessary to give a greater or at least equal accounting of a futile office or a futile power? Now, it is obvious that the use and performance of the office and power of itinerant justice for all pleas concerning the king is illicit for each and every abbot, since this kind of performance and use extends also to judgments in cases involving bloodshed, for these, too, fall within the scope of pleas that concern the lord king. But if someone were to say that the lord king’s intention is only to appoint abbots as itinerant justices in secular cases other than those involving bloodshed, the assumption of even this kind of office is illicit for an abbot, as the Apostle has this to say to the Corinthians: If then you have secular matters to be judged, appoint those who are disdained most in the Church to judge [1 Cor 6:4]. These are disdained most, not because of a lack of skill in judging, but because of diminished worthiness of life, official rank, and inability to understand spiritual things. But are men devoted to spiritual meditation among those who are disdained most in the Church? Are they not the ones who, more than anyone else, are the brides of Christ, with no stain or wrinkle [Eph 5:27]? Are they not Rachel, well formed and beautiful in appearance [Gn 29:17]? In his Pastoral Rule the blessed Gregory has this to say: ‘Paul bars the minds of those in religious life from consorting with the world, appealing to them, or, more exactly, summoning them, when he says: No one serving as God’s soldier involves himself in secular affairs [2 Tm 2:4]. That is why Paul both orders the Church’s rulers to aim at being free of such affairs and points out this remedy by way of advice, saying: If then you have secular matters to be judged, appoint those who are disdained most in the Church to judge [1 Cor 6:4]. His purpose is to permit those who are not adorned with spiritual gifts to engage in earthly administration.’3 Bernard, too, says this to Pope Eugene: ‘Listen to the Apostle’s instructions: Appoint those who are disdained most in the Church to judge [1 Cor 6:4]. From the Apostle’s perspective, then, you who act with apostolic authority 3 Gregory, Regula pastoralis 2.7 (SC 381.1:220–2).

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are in an unbecoming way usurping a lowly office, the rank of those who are disdained most.’4 And a little later Bernard adds: ‘There is nothing, I think, to show where any of the apostles ever sat to judge people, or survey boundaries, or distribute lands. I read that the apostles stood to be judged, not that they sat as judges. This is what they will do, but it has not happened yet. In my view a person is not a very good observer if he thinks it is unbecoming for apostles or apostolic men not to judge such things since judgment has been given to them in more important matters. Why should men who are destined to pass judgment in heaven even on the angels not disdain judging the petty worldly possessions of ordinary people? Well, your power is over sins, not possessions, since is it because of sins and not possessions that you have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, expressly to exclude sinners, not possessors, so that, as the Lord says, you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins [Mt 9:6], etc. Tell me, what seems to you the greater honour and power: forgiving sins or dividing estates? But there is no comparison; these humble, worldly issues have their own judges, the kings and princes of the world. Why do you invade someone else’s territory? Why do you put your scythe to someone else’s harvest?’5 From these authoritative statements by the blessed Gregory and Bernard it is clear that the right to try and decide secular cases belongs to secular powers and not to ecclesiastical dignitaries. For the persons appointed to ranks and dignities in the Church are like the stars that God placed in the vault of heaven [Gn 1:17], and like the upper elements of the universe, and like the birds in the sky that wing their way to the heights of contemplation. When the Church’s dignitaries bury themselves in humble, worldly concerns, they are like stars that fall and submerge themselves in a filthy swirling abyss. Their situation is just as if air and fire, which are by nature light in weight and seek to be on top, were to be made heavy and to take the place of water and earth in response to some disturbance in the natural order. It is as if the birds of the air were to abandon the sky above and become, with the moles in the bowels of the earth, the earth’s excavators. In the second book of Chronicles, the priest Amariah, who was also the high priest, was placed in charge of all matters that concerned God so as to reveal the truth whenever there was any question concerning the law, the commandment, the ceremonies, and the justifications. Furthermore, Zebadiah, the son of Ishmael, who was a ruler in the house of Judah, was the authority in all matters 4 Bernard, De consideratione 1.6.7 (S. Bernardi Opera, 3:401). 5 Ibid., 3:401–2.

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that concerned the king’s office [2 Chr 19:11, 10]. So, from the example of these two men, one of whom was from the priestly class, and the other from the tribe of Benjamin, it is very clear that affairs pertaining to God should be placed in the hands of churchmen, and those relevant to the world in the hands of secular leaders. So, as Jerome says, ‘there are two kinds of Christians: one is the kind that surrenders itself to the divine office and is devoted to contemplation and prayer, and properly holds itself back from all the turmoil of temporal affairs; this kind consists of the clerics and those devoted to God, namely the monks. But there is another kind of Christian, and this is the laymen; to them has been granted the right to marry, to cultivate the earth, to judge disputes between one man and another, to conduct cases.’6 In this distinction it is apparent that a secular judgment between two men and the conducting of secular cases – for it is certain that these are the cases Jerome had in mind – were activities assigned only to laymen, with clerics and those devoted to God excluded from such preoccupations. And why are Christian priests not ashamed to be involved in secular affairs, when, as Jerome says with reference to a story of ‘the eloquent Chaeremon the Stoic, such was the life of the superstitious priests of ancient Egypt that they put aside all worldly affairs and concerns and were always in the temple or studying the natures and causes of things and the laws governing the stars’?7 How then are Christian priests not a stumbling block to the Church of Christ who are not ashamed to do what pagan priests judged was a sacrilege even to attempt? If we have to cut off the member that causes a person to fall,8 from what should a strict judgment cut off these men if not from the Church? For woe to the person by whom the stumbling bock comes [Mt 18:7]. Paul the Apostle says to the Corinthians: If, then, food causes my brother’s downfall, I will never again eat meat, so as not to cause my brother to fall [1 Cor 8:13]. So why would prelates today not say to a greater or at least an equal extent, If my involvement in secular lawsuits causes my brother to fall, I will never again involve myself in them? Indeed, the more one is prevailed upon to hear cases, the more this should be said. Furthermore, abbots solemnly vow, not just once at their profession, but also a second time at their blessing, to observe the rule they profess. Now, in the Rule of the blessed Benedict it is written that a monk must

6 The text is taken from Gratian, Decretum C.12 q.1 c.7. 7 Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum 2.13 (PL 23:302). 8 Cf. Mt 5:29–30.

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‘make himself act differently from the way the world acts,’ and that an abbot ‘holds the place of Christ’ in the monastery.9 And indeed who has any doubt that secular judgments belong to ‘the way the world acts’? And if an abbot does hold the place of Christ in the monastery, how will he make judgments that concern inheritances and comparable secular matters, when Christ replied with these words to someone in a crowd who was asking him to tell his brother to divide an inheritance with him: Man, who appointed me as judge or arbitrator over you [Lk 12:14]? In this remark he clearly provides an example for churchmen and especially for those in religious life that they are not to deal with secular cases. A religious therefore violates his own vow if he spends his time on such cases, especially if he does so not incidentally but with careful consideration, after taking on an office that confers this kind of power. Abbots, then, who serve as justices, make the excellence of religious life base and contemptible, they turn the beautiful Rachel into the dull-eyed Lia,10 they put their scythe to the harvest of another,11 they move the boundary stones [Jb 24:2] put in place by their fathers, they turn light into darkness, a head into a tail, and what is above into what is underneath, thereby disturbing the natural order; they are more shameless than pagan priests and a stumbling block to the Church. And so that the uncorrupted part of the body is not implicated, the member must by strict judgment be cut off. These arguments, or so I believe, prove that abbots serving as justices gravely sin when they take on and perform such an office, something that it has been my objective to show. The sanctions of canon law also plainly exclude them under penalty of sin, for according to the canons it is not lawful to appoint those involved in the entanglements of court or affairs of state to serve God’s ministries.12 Will it then on the contrary be lawful for those who have been appointed to God’s ministries to be involved in the entanglements of affairs of state? God forbid! For just as it is written a second time in canon law, ‘a bishop or priest or deacon is by no means to take on the world’s cares; if, however, he does so, he is to be deposed.’13 Basil the bishop, when busy with secular lawsuits as though he were one of the laity, was by command of the blessed Gregory ‘compelled

9 Benedict, Regula 4.20, 63.13. 10 See Gn 29:17 and 30:1–24. This same image is found in Guibert of Gembloux, Ep. 30 (CCCM 66A:328). 11 Dt 23:25; see Gratian, Decretum C.6 q.3 c.1. 12 See Letter 28, n.3. 13 Gratian, Decretum D.88 c.3.

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by strict execution of that order to return to his priestly functions, since his secular preoccupations rendered him unworthy of respect and trivialized the reverence due to priests.’14 But does not this same activity render an abbot unworthy of respect and trivialize the reverence due religious life? For this reason, as is written below in canon law, Christ does not wish to appoint today, either as judge or juror in secular disputes, the man who is required by the dignity of his rank in the Church to live blamelessly; ‘otherwise, once suffocated by the immediate concerns of men, he may be unable to find the time for the word of God. Instead, let laymen who do have the time perform these tasks by turns, and let no man distract anyone appointed to any kind of ecclesiastical rank from those pursuits by which salvation is granted to mankind.’15 Plain reason, too, demonstrates that not only men in religious life, but also others in holy orders, cannot be secular judges. For land dedicated to God is not returned to human use, just as no house so dedicated, or holy vessels, or sacred vestments can be put to such use. For it would be most execrable and abominable in the sight of all mankind if a cemetery were converted to a field or a garden, a church to a stable, or barn, or manor house, or some other building for common human use, an altar to a banqueting table, cruets and chalices to drinking cups, and sacred vestments to garments for lay people. Since man’s nature is incomparably more noble than the natures of these things, and his consecration when he takes holy orders is greater than the sanctifying of such sacred places and objects, and he is assigned more closely than these to God’s ministries, how is it not much more execrable, and at the same time more abominable to onlookers, that a man whom holy orders and the pastoral care have dedicated and assigned to God’s service is made to return to the world by his involvement in the service of secular interests? Furthermore, as is written in a decretal letter,16 secular affairs, in which the Apostle prohibits those serving as God’s soldiers from involving themselves [2 Tm 2:4], ‘are absolutely forbidden to ministers of the altar and also to monks’; and classified as secular affairs, as is written in the same let-

14 Ibid., D.88 c.4. 15 Ibid., C.11 q.1 c.29. 16 This is not a decretal letter of a pope, but rather a canon from a Carolingian church council. It circulated, however, in the Liber extra, a collection of mostly papal decretals, published by Gregory IX in 1234–35 (=X 3.50.1). Grosseteste, or his assistants, may have known this text through an earlier collection, the Compilatio prima (= 1 Comp. 3.37.1). See p. 109n3, above.

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ter, are ‘the love of conflicts or lawsuits or altercations,’ and ‘disputes in secular courts, the exception being the defence of orphans and widows.’ So, since a secular judge is required to argue in secular courts, if a minister of the altar or a monk is appointed a secular judge, he must inevitably fall within the scope of what has been forbidden him by authority of the Apostle and the universal Church, and he thereby becomes guilty of disobedience, which is like the sin of idolatry and witchcraft [1 Sm 15:23]. Again, in another decretal,17 there is a prohibition, under penalty of anathema, against any priest holding the office of sheriff or reeve. Yet another decretal18 prohibits any cleric from ‘presuming to discharge the duties of stewardships of vills or secular jurisdictions under any princes or laymen that require clerics to become their justices. Now, if anyone tries to act in opposition to these prohibitions, he would alienate himself from service in the Church, while those in religious life are to be punished even more sternly, if any of them attempts to do any of these things.’ Since, then, no one has the right to act in violation of natural and divine law, and since the laws of princes do not prevail over natural and divine law and cannot annul the laws of the Church, and since no one has the right to pass judgment on any decision of the apostolic see or to revoke any of its pronouncements, or to violate God’s laws or the decrees of the apostolic see, and since churchmen are especially bound not to comply with the constitutions and commands of princes when they are contrary to God’s teachings and those of canon law, it is obvious that not only abbots, but also churchmen, no matter who, even though pressed into service by the constitutions, customs, or commands of princes, are violating the aforesaid constitutions and decrees of the apostolic see and countless others like them by performing the office of judge, and by their opposition and disobedience are guilty of the sin of witchcraft and of something like the crime of idolatry [1 Sm 15:23]. Since, then, the person who compels another to sin is himself guilty of sin because of this compulsion, and since the one who does not resist sin when he can is also a sinner by giving his approval and consent, it is clear that the lord king sins gravely when he compels abbots or other churchmen to take on the office of judge, and so do prelates sin gravely by not

17 Alexander III to the archbishop of Canterbury (X 3.50.5); also found in 1 Comp. 3.37.6. 18 This is not a decretal letter but rather c. 12 of the Third Lateran Council (1179); it circulated in the Liber extra (X 3.50.4) and the Compilatio prima (1 Comp. 3.37.3) under Alexander III’s name.

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opposing the sin both of their subordinates and of the lord king himself. For if John the Baptist did not accept in silence the sin of a foreign king, but opposed and stood up to him, even to the point of his own decapitation,19 how will it be possible for bishops who are priests of Christ not to reveal to a Christian king and their own lord, to whom they swore an oath of fidelity, the danger to which he is exposing his soul? If, when they observe him losing his physical safety and fail to take the strongest possible measures to counteract that loss, they deserve to be considered his betrayers, how will they not be guilty of a worse betrayal if they do not oppose any danger to his eternal safety, even to the point of sacrificing their own lives? For these are the very ones who, more than anyone else, are bound by the standard of perfect charity to give up not only their possessions, but also their lives, not only for their own sheep, but for all sheep, and especially for God’s sheep.20 But if someone were to say that, as required by the Gospel, one must give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s [Mt 22:21], and that for this reason those who hold baronies are bound to give the lord king an accounting of them along with service as a judge, an easy and brief reply is that if the baronial tenure of churchmen requires the performance of the office of judge for the lord king, churchmen, for whom such a service is illicit, do not satisfy this obligation by any personal action; they do so by the action of some other individual who may licitly perform such a service. In the same way they do not themselves perform their military duty to bear arms, as they are obliged by baronial tenure to do in defence of their country. This service they do not perform because they are not permitted to bear arms. Instead they satisfy this obligation through others who act on their behalf and for whom such things are intrinsically lawful. Furthermore, not only is it especially illicit for religious, and consequently for other churchmen, to perform the office of a secular judge, but it is also illicit, for the reasons mentioned above, for them to exercise the office of sheriff and any similar office, particularly one involving violence. In the same way, churchmen plainly act in opposition to canonical statutes when they serve as bailiffs and are obliged to give laymen an accounting of their bailiwicks, as this is something that the provincial council clearly prohibits.21 Who is unaware how great are the temporal losses

19 Cf. Mt 14:3–12. 20 Cf. Jn 10:11. 21 Council of Oxford (1222), c. 12 (Councils and Synods, 110).

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suffered by the English Church when churchmen who hold bailiwicks of this kind either die without having given their accountings or are found wanting when they do so, since the bishops themselves are actually compelled, from the fruits of the benefices of such men, to give satisfaction to the laymen to whom the accountings were owed? And so the ones who are bound to defend ecclesiastical property and to ensure that it is put to pious uses are reduced to being the ones responsible for converting this property to make good the shortfalls associated with some secular office. Now, since these practices and the like are contrary to canon law, what excuse will bishops have at the dreadful Judgment who do not oppose them with all their strength, particularly as at their consecrations they solemnly promised that they would ‘reverently receive, teach, and preserve the traditions of the orthodox fathers and the decretal constitutions of the holy and apostolic see’?22 There is also in the kingdom of England another unwarranted and habitual practice that violates and diminishes the liberty of the Church, which is that when churchmen are accused for cause in a personal lawsuit, particularly because they are said to have done something in violation of the tenor of a royal prohibition, or to have failed to obey a royal mandate, they are often compelled in this matter to submit themselves to lay judgment.23 For just as the Jerusalem that is above, which is our mother in triumph in heaven, is free [Gal 4:26] with respect to the Jerusalem that is still in military service on earth, so, too, a part of that Jerusalem that serves on earth and is made up of churchmen is free with respect to the part comprised of faithful lay people. As a type of this freedom Pharaoh released to Abraham his free wife Sarai, and he gave his men orders concerning Abraham; and they took him and his wife and all that he had [Gn 12:20] out of Egypt. And in the book of Maccabees it is decreed that Jerusalem is holy and free, with its territory [1 Mc 10:31]. And what is Jerusalem but an assembly of churchmen living, through contemplation and isolation from the tumult of the world, in the vision of peace? In the same book, too, it is later written: Whoever takes refuge in the temple that is in Jerusalem, or in any of its territory, when in debt to the king for any matter, let him be set free, and let him have free all that he owns [1 Mc 10:43]. But the ones who take refuge in the temple that is in Jerusalem are none other than the church-

22 See ibid., c. 8 (108); the requirement was repeated at the Legatine Council of 1237, c. 22 (Councils and Synods, 255). See also Letter 28, p. 139. 23 See G.B. Flahiff, ‘The Use of Prohibitions by Clerics against Ecclesiastical Courts in England,’ in Med. St. 3 (1941): 101–16.

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men who have been chosen from the world and upon their flight therefrom have been taken up forever into the service of the Church. In the book of Ezra it is also written, from the edict of King Artaxerxes: We inform you, with respect to all the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and the doorkeepers, and the Nathanites, and the ministers of the house of this God, that you have no power to impose any tax, or tribute, or toll upon them [1 Ezr 7:24]. Joseph, too, placed under Pharaoh the land of Egypt and all its people from one end of its territory to the other, the only exception being the land of the priests [Gn 47:20–2]. So the priests were set free, while all the others had to submit to slavery, for their land had not been set free and they remained under the yoke of servitude [Gal 5:1]. There are also countless other texts of this kind in Scripture that testify to the liberty of the Church and of churchmen. But if churchmen enjoy, vis-à-vis laymen, a higher degree of freedom, or are even free with respect to them because the latter, in comparison with churchmen, do not in fact deserve to be called free, just as Ishmael and Isaac did not with respect to Isaac and Jacob,24 how will it be possible for churchmen to be judged by laymen? For how will someone who is more free be judged by another who is less free or not free? When laymen subject the clergy to their jurisdiction, are modern Egyptians not bringing Sarai back into Egypt, thus assuredly behaving with greater cruelty than the ancient Egyptians who, although they kept Sarai for some time in Egypt, nevertheless never enslaved her again after she had been taken to freedom? Gentile kings set free not only priests and ministers of the house of God, but also the priests in charge of idols, as is apparent from what is written above,25 because of the respect due to priests; Christian kings will later subject priests and ministers of the Church to slavery, compelling them to be subject to the judgment of their inferiors, that is laymen, and granting power to these same inferiors, so that if ministers of the Church are judged by them to have lost a case, laymen may impose on churchmen some tax or tribute, that is, the heavy burden of a pecuniary penalty. God forbid that Christian kings in the age of grace should impose on priests of Christ what gentile kings shrank from imposing, some on the priests of the Old Testament, and others even on priests in charge of an idol. What is more, as is written in the book of Numbers, the Lord took the Levites from the children of Israel, from their very midst, instead of every firstborn who emerged from the womb amongst the children of Israel [Nm 3:12, 8:6], and 24 Gn 21:1–21 and 25:19–34. 25 Cf. Gn 47:20–2.

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to mark this distinction he added these words about the former, saying, and the Levites shall be mine [Nm 3:12]. If, then, churchmen now, in the age of grace, have the right to rejoice in a privilege equal to or greater than that of the Levites of the Old Testament, they have now been raised up from the midst of the rest of the people, so that it is not the same for priest and people alike [Is 24:2]. But if a priest is judged, with the rest of the people, by a layman, that prediction of the prophet has been fulfilled that announces the downfall of priests: it will be the same for priest and people alike [Is 24:2]. Furthermore, if to mark a distinction the Lord says, and the Levites shall be mine [Nm 3:12], he does not leave them to be subject to the power of another. For if the Levites belonged to someone other than God, he would not have said, to distinguish them, and the Levites shall be mine. So, if the Levites are God’s own because they are not left to be subject to another’s power, no secular power will be able to judge them, because every man who is judged belongs to the one who is his judge, for the reason that he is subject to that judge’s power. So, secular judges who judge the clergy raise their neck and heel against God26 and usurp as their own what God has reserved to himself as his own. What is more, every judge, in his capacity as judge, is of greater worth, higher rank, and more importance than the one he judges. So, lay power, for the reason that it passes judgment on the clergy, sets itself up as of greater worth, higher rank, and more importance than the clergy, although, in the order of things, next below God is the Church triumphant, whose power is beneath that of God, followed next by the power of the clergy and priesthood; and subject to this, in the lowest position, is secular power. So, to give the laity power to judge the clergy is to turn a tail into a head, to place in a higher position what is naturally lower, to pull down to the lowest position what is higher, and as a consequence to throw everything into confusion. And since the one who distorts the natural order will at the just Judgment experience what he does, the more such judges raise themselves above their rank by humbling others, the more they themselves will be reduced in rank. Furthermore, in the way that wisdom is related to power and spirit to flesh, so is the clergy related to the people and the priesthood to the kingdom. But in all things it is wisdom that guides, governs, and moderates, and thereby sits in judgment on power. Power, however, can never in any way judge wisdom, and so neither can the people judge the clergy 26 Cf. Jn 13:18.

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nor the kingdom judge the priesthood. In the same way, the spirit quickens, moves, and guides the flesh, and subjects it to the spirit’s authority. But never, on the other hand, does the flesh take charge of the spirit, except for that part in which man’s spirit has been corrupted. So, when the lay power judges the clergy, power, contrary to the natural order, judges wisdom, and the flesh subjects the spirit to itself. Is it not the case that clergy and people are priesthood and kingdom respectively, like two men of whom one is spiritual and the other carnal or animal? And is not one likewise the wisdom that prevails, while the other is power? But Paul has this to say about the spiritual man: The spiritual man judges all things and is himself judged by no one [1 Cor 2:15]. And although the operation of the Trinity is indivisible, I nevertheless believe that by some kind of specific attribution the Father gave all judgment to the Son, notwithstanding that he is the Son of Man [Jn 5:22, 27]. All the same, because he still is wisdom, every judgment is assigned to wisdom. For power does not judge except in so far as it acts on wisdom’s behalf. So every judgment, strictly speaking, belongs, with respect to authority, to the priesthood and the clergy. But the priesthood has kept for itself the exercise of judgment in ecclesiastical crimes and affairs, in accord with the laws of God and the Church and by its own ministry, to ensure the peace of the sinner, but it has handed over to the princes of the world the execution of judgment in secular and transitory affairs, in accord with civil and temporal laws and by their own ministry, to ensure temporal peace. All judgments, then, are the Church’s to make, because they belong to wisdom by proprietary right and authority; yet all ecclesiastical judgments belong to the Church to administer, just as the administration of all secular judgments belongs in a similar way to the princes and powers of the world. And the one kind of judge does not invade the realm of the other when functioning as a judge, except perhaps when so compelled by unavoidable necessity. Because all judgments belong, with respect to authority, to the Church, the princes of the world, since they have no secular judge above them, are in need, even in secular cases, of judgment from the Church. That is why it was said to Jeremiah, who is a type of the princes of the Church: Behold I have appointed you over nations and over kingdoms, to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant [Jer 1:10]. So, when secular powers and judges compel the clergy to submit to secular judgment, they capture and enslave the free woman, and not just any free woman, but the bride of Christ – a virgin without stain or wrinkle [Eph 5:27] and their very own mother – who was set free at the incalculable

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price of the blood of Jesus Christ. And for that reason they deserve to incur the curse inflicted upon those who dishonour their mother, which was uttered in the book of Wisdom [of Sirach] in these words: He is accursed of God who angers his mother [Sir 3:18]. They are also more cruel than the Egyptians and lower and more brazen than the gentiles in both their acts of impiety against God and their lack of respect for the priesthood, usurping for themselves what properly belongs to God, and impudently assuming a rank higher than is appropriate for them. And that is why they will at the just Judgment take the lowest place with shame [Lk 14:9]; and because they are the ones who throw order into confusion, they will deserve to become the inhabitants of that place where no order, only everlasting horror, has its home. Judges of this kind therefore sin, and so do the clerks who submit to their judgment, and the prelates who do not oppose such a great violation of the Church’s liberty, for they have become like rams that find no pastures and run on without any strength before the face of the pursuer [Lam 1:6]. For why do they not more bravely suffer injuries, pillaging, banishment, chains, imprisonment, and even death, no matter how shameful and cruel, than infringe so dishonourably upon the liberty of their mother or so feebly permit that infringement? But what do I say to stop them from permitting this violation when – and this has been called an impious act – the bishops themselves, in response to the king’s mandate, irreverently and aggressively force the clergy subject to them to commit this violation of their mother the Church and the bride of Jesus Christ, and have become the Church’s assailants when they were appointed to be its defenders? Not only do they take to their heels when they see the wolf coming, but they prefer to run along with the wolf to slaughter the sheep. Not only Sacred Scripture and the order of reason, but also canonical decrees, denounce to no small extent this kind of violation of the Church’s liberty. For by these decrees it has been established inviolably that no one may ever presume to charge bishops or clerks before a secular judge or bring them to secular judgment, since those who are reserved for the judgment of God alone may be judged by no mortal.27 And what wonder if they are so reserved, when in Holy Scripture they are called ‘gods’ and ‘angels’?28 The laity, to be sure, are there often compared to ‘beasts of burden,’29 and that is why the clergy should be held in

27 Cf. Gratian, Decretum C.11 q.1 c.41; X 2.1.8; and Letter 84, n. 6. 28 Ps 81:6: ‘You are gods, and children of the most high, all of you.’ 29 E.g., Ps 48:13, 21: ‘And man, when he was in honour, did not understand. He is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like them.’

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honour by the laity and not judged even by kings. For who can even bear to listen to the idea of gods and angels being judged by beasts of burden? So, since the canons require as a general rule that a clerk be summoned to answer for every crime before an ecclesiastical judge, it is with good reason that there is in a decretal letter a warning to be on one’s guard against treating the canons with prejudice in this regard because of some custom or other.30 And, as is written in another decretal, ‘whether they do so unwillingly or even voluntarily, clerks may not negotiate to submit to secular judgments, since the exemption from secular decisions is not a personal benefit that can be renounced, but is instead something publicly conceded to the entire fellowship of the Church, from which an agreement between private individuals cannot detract.’31 In another decretal, too, there are these words: ‘Because, to be sure, certain laymen compel churchmen and even bishops themselves to stand trial, we decree that those who presume to do this in the future are to be excluded from the communion of the faithful.’32 Since, then, the judging of the clergy by a lay judge is so obviously opposed to Sacred Scripture and the order of nature, and to good and honourable customs, and to canonical regulations, and is disfigured by such great and numerous improprieties, who doubts that the clergy is guilty of sin when it thus infringes upon the liberty of its mother, that secular powers sin by compelling these kinds of judgments or claiming them for themselves, and that prelates sin by not taking a stand in defence of the Church’s liberty against these and similar violations? Next, the lay judges I mentioned, adding sin to sin and invading the domain of the Church, are usurping the right to determine judicially in very many cases and disputes whether these belong to ecclesiastical or lay jurisdiction, even though this decision is by no means theirs to make but belongs instead to the Church’s judges, because a secular judge cannot determine what is or is not an ecclesiastical issue, since his judicial power does not extend to such questions. To be sure, the judicial power of an ecclesiastical judge extends also to secular matters, since, as was said above, every judgment belongs to the Church with respect to authority and teaching, though not every one with respect to function. So, the

30 X 2.1.8; 1 Comp. 2.1.9. 31 X 2.2.12; also found in the Compilatio tertia (1209) (= 3 Comp. 2.2.4). 32 This is an excerpt from c. 14 of the Third Lateran Council (Tanner, Decrees, 1.219); it was included in the Compilatio prima (1 Comp. 2.2.6) but not in the Liber extra of Gregory IX.

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man whose power extends in some way to both will judge both, and not he whose power extends only to one or none. And a secular power will not be judge and arbitrator [Lk 12:14] between the Church and the world; this will be the work of the ecclesiastical judge who has charge of both. For cases that are exclusively secular are to be judged by secular powers alone, just as only ecclesiastical judges should determine ecclesiastical cases. But when, as might be expected, there is between Church and world a difference of opinion or uncertainty in any matter as to whether its investigation or a judgment concerning it belongs to the Church or the world, the superior rather than the inferior will make a judgment, the wiser as opposed to the one that is physically more powerful, and the spiritual rather than the animal, especially as there is the command in Deuteronomy that a difficult and ambiguous case be referred to the Levitical priest and to the judges then in office [Dt 17:8, 9]. But should someone say that the Levitical priest and judge were not one and the same person, but different ones, and that the judge was in fact not a Levite but from some other tribe, and thus, as seems a possible deduction from that passage, the resolution of difficult and ambiguous cases does not belong only to the Levitical priest, and should someone likewise argue that the resolution of ambiguous cases between Church and world is not the responsibility only of an ecclesiastical judge, he will at least concede that the resolution of such cases is a matter for an ecclesiastical judge who has associated with himself a secular one, although the resolution of a difficult and ambiguous case mentioned in Deuteronomy [17:8] does not so much appear to concern resolving a case, should it be difficult or ambiguous, between the leaders of the synagogue and the people as one of the people itself. So, a person who distinguishes between the Levitical priests and the judges of that time will have to agree that the resolution of such ambiguous cases is by no means a matter only for a secular judge. In fact, since drawing this kind of distinction between priests and judges cannot be confirmed by any authority, but is instead a fiction from the heart of one who is expressing his own desires,33 according to the explanation above the resolution of ambiguous cases of this kind falls only to an ecclesiastical judge. This would also appear to be stated quite clearly in a decretal letter, where the command in Deuteronomy is eloquently explained by Innocent III, of holy memory.34

33 Cf. Ws 4:11 and Jn 8:44 (‘... cum [diabolus] loquitur mendacium, ex propriis loquitur, quia mendax est et pater eius’). 34 X 4.17.13; 3 Comp. 4.12.2.

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Furthermore, and this is more serious, the lay judges I mentioned are presuming to determine judicially cases that are exclusively ecclesiastical, as, for instance, whether tithes should be paid on stone quarries and woods and the like, even though it belongs to the Church alone to specify what is tithable. Likewise they are determining judicially whether such-and-such a church or chapel should have a baptistery and right of burial and the like, although Baptism, as no one doubts, is, as a sacrament, a matter for the Church, and so are the sacred right of burial and the sacred place assigned for burials. For that reason, both those who collect a fee and those who receive one for a burial plot incur great blame, as the blessed Gregory and Jerome testify, and become lower than pagans by the stain of their impiety, for the reason that the pagan Ephron declined to accept from Abraham the price of a burial site, and when in the end he did so, though against his will, he deserved a change in his name as a sign of his condemnation.35 Now, perhaps someone will object and say that the direction of the argument above does away with the jurisdiction of the king’s court in the case of a lay fee held or sought by a cleric, because in such a case the clerk appears to be subject to judgment. But the response to this is that each and every individual man, together with all his acts, is one person and one entity, and the Peter who acts is not one person and Peter plain and simple something else, although the two may perhaps be distinguished. At the same time, no man along with his property is someone or something in the same way as he and his actions constitute someone and something. So, in a dispute about an action or the nature of an action by a particular person, the decision concerns who is responsible, that is, the person performing the action or performing it in the manner specified. But in a dispute about property, the decision does not concern ‘who’ but what belongs to whom. So when that ‘what’ is a lay possession, there is nothing to prohibit a lay power from determining to whom that ‘what’ belongs, whether to clerk or layman, since the judgment applies directly to that ‘what,’ not to the person to whom it belongs. In the first kind of dispute the judgment applies simply to the person, and for that reason, if the person is a churchman, he is not subject to the judgment of a lay power. Now, certain people try to prove that the lord king has the power legally to judge clerks when they are accused by laymen in personal cases,

35 These texts are drawn from Gratian, Decretum C.13 q.2 c.12 (Gregory) and c.13 (Jerome). See also Gn 23:1–20; Gregory, Registrum epistularum 8.3 (CCSL 140A:517–18); Jerome, Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos 23.16 (CCSL 72:28).

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because if some clerk robs a layman of his lay fee, that clerk may be summoned by the layman to answer for the theft in the king’s court. Since robbery is the act and offence of a robber, the clerk can therefore be summoned to answer in this matter in a secular court. But the answer to this is that when one man robs another of his lay fee and then occupies and withholds it de facto, though not de jure, there are two causes for legal action and dispute in this case. One matter in dispute is the fee seized by wrongful occupation and then withheld, and now the subject of a dispute over just or unjust detention; the other matter in dispute is the violent act of the robber. The right to decide the first dispute belongs to a lay judge, since the principal issue in dispute is an exclusively lay matter. But the right to decide the second dispute belongs to an ecclesiastical judge, since the principal issue in dispute is an action of a churchman, on account of which that person has become subject to judgment as a principal. This kind of robber and detainer, if he is a churchman, could therefore be summoned to appear in a secular court concerning the stolen fee, and in an ecclesiastical court concerning the crime of robbery with violence. And it is obvious that in this case the one who has been robbed does not summon the robber to appear in a lay court to answer as a principal for the wrong of violent robbery. For suppose that some clerk forcibly entered the home and land of some layman, forcibly expelled him, and then immediately departed, withholding for no period of time nor possessing de facto the fee he had forcibly entered. In this case, the one who caused the wrong could not be summoned to answer in a secular court by the one who suffered the wrong. It is therefore obvious that when a clerk, as the detainer of a lay fee that he entered in an act of violent robbery, is summoned to answer in a lay court by the one he has robbed, he is not summoned as a principal to answer for the crime of robbery, but only the lay fee that was seized and withheld in a violent act of robbery is a matter for dispute and judgment. Next someone says this: If clerks will not answer in a secular court when accused in a personal lawsuit, all royal prohibitions are void. To this objection it has to be said that they are legally void as long as they constrain clerks from proceeding freely in ecclesiastical cases, and as long as they place them under obligation to give answer in a lay court with respect to their proceedings. But when the lord king writes at someone’s prompting to an ecclesiastical judge to tell him not to hold a suit in a court Christian concerning a lay fee or possession, it is appropriate and honourable for such a judge, because of the respect and honour due the king, to send back to him clearly in summary form a written

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account of the sequence of his proceedings, so that any deceitfulness on the part of the accuser may thus be exposed. But if an ecclesiastical judge does any harm to the other party of litigants, there should be recourse to the remedy of an appeal, not to the authority of the royal prohibition. Thus, when the judge of the appeal finds that the previous judge wished to exercise jurisdiction in a case that did not pertain to his court, he may release the parties from his judgment and send them to a court competent to judge the matter. Some people also say that, since no one may without a judgment be deprived of his actual or virtual possession of something, and since the lord king and his predecessors are in actual or virtual possession of this right, namely that at the king’s order bishops are to compel clerks to come and give answer in his court as to why they held or brought a suit in a court Christian in contravention of the king’s prohibition, and that clerks are to respond in the king’s court concerning these and similar matters, and that bishops are even to give answer there as to why they did not compel their clerks to do so, if it should happen that these clerks do not appear in the king’s court, the lord king cannot without a judgment be deprived of his actual or virtual possession of this right. But the answer to those who claim this is that sin is nothing, and therefore the act of sinning, to the degree that it is such an act, is truly nothing. For if both an idol and what is sacrificed to idols [1 Cor 10:19] are nothing, as the Apostle testifies, even though the substance and shape of the physical idol, and likewise the substance of the flesh sacrificed to idols, are something, much more justifiably can it be said that, although every action is something, nevertheless the act of sinning that is the cause of the sin is nothing. So, the act of sinning is not an actual or virtual possession, for ‘nothing’ cannot be possessed either actually or virtually. If, then, the submission of clerks, whereby they submit themselves to lay judgment contrary to the liberty of the Church and to canonical statutes, and their being compelled to do this by their bishops, and the compulsion by which the king compels bishops to compel their clerks in the manner specified, are acts of sin, when in this matter the lord king is not obeyed, he is thereby deprived of nothing at all, but is much more truly placed in possession of something, because the removal of privation and corruption is not a removal but more correctly the acquisition of possessing, or at least a significant step in that direction. This can also be clearly shown in an example. Suppose that someone (and all his predecessors) have, at the order of a second man (and all his predecessors), become accustomed always to tell lies, or give false testimony, or commit fornication, or steal, or the like, and later he repents

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and does not obey such an order but completely opposes it. Can it be said that he has thus deprived the one who gave the order of some right or some actual or virtual possession, or of anything at all? Or should he wait for a judgment not to stop lying or sinning in other ways but to persist in it as he was first ordered to do, until such time as he intercedes with a judge, and everything is resolved in the form of a judgment and there is thus a definitive sentence, although one should not utter even once the most trivial of lies or commit any sin to save someone’s life? God forbid that to oppose whatever is illicit but customary is to deprive the one compelling its observance of any right of his or of anything at all, or that one should not oppose anything illicit when it is plainly illicit, unless a definitive sentence that it should be opposed has first been expressed in a judgment. Similarly, it is no small offence against the Church’s liberty when ecclesiastical judges are prohibited by the lord king from deciding in an ecclesiastical court cases that are known to be exclusively ecclesiastical, as when by royal letter there is a prohibition against an ecclesiastical judge investigating judicially whether a church or chapel in a particular place is a chapel belonging to a mother church in some second place, and whether the tithes on the chapel’s land belong to it or to the mother church. The reason for the prohibition is that if a plaintiff in this kind of case proves his right to possession of the defendant’s church, this will cause a reduction in value, and, as a consequence, or so people say, impair the right of presentation to the defendant’s church, as the church to whom the patron will present has been made less rich. For a similar reason, then, every case concerning actual or virtual possession of a church that comes up between two rectors of two churches to which there are separate rights of presentation would have to be prohibited by the lord king from being aired before ecclesiastical judges, for the reason that, when the plaintiff prevails in such a case, it will always happen that the defendant’s church is reduced in value and, according to what people say, the advowson of that church is thereby impaired. The consequence will be that under such conditions these kinds of ecclesiastical cases will never be decided, for they could not be decided by a secular judge nor, as long as there is a royal prohibition opposing any such action, by an ecclesiastical one. Perhaps, however, it does not follow that when a plaintiff prevails in cases of this kind, the right of presentation to the second church will be diminished. For he is no less a patron who is the patron of a smaller church, just as he is no less a father who is the father of a smaller man. Patronage or the right of patronage is not

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strengthened or cancelled on the basis of the greater or lesser size of the object for which this right exists. Furthermore, just as tumours and unnatural growths on a person’s flesh do not enlarge but disfigure him, and the medical excision of such unnatural growths does not reduce him, but instead restores his appearance and health, so unjust possessions, actual and virtual, do not enlarge churches but disfigure them, and their excision by just judgment is not a reduction of those churches but rather a kind of beautification and healing. And for that reason patronage or the right of presentation can in no way be diminished or impaired by this kind of excision, but can instead be restored much more completely. We read about good kings who enhanced the worship of God and expanded the powers and liberties of the ministers of that worship. But of the wicked on the other hand Elijah said: They have destroyed your altars and slain your prophets with the sword [3 Kgs 19:10]. Is it not worse to destroy the powers and liberties of the Church and frustrate the execution of the Church’s justice than to destroy altars made of stone? Are not prophets being put to the sword in sufficient numbers by those who use secular power to hinder the Church’s prelates from guiding it with justice and judgment in conformity with the prophet’s teaching? These actions and the like have become matters for grief and tears, but no one, or almost no one, is Elijah, who was very zealous for the Lord God of hosts [3 Kgs 19:10]. The wolf that is the ferocity of secular power rages, but in response to an urgent request from a clerk who is the victim when a layman or another clerk initiates legal proceedings against him over chattels, rare is the dog that barks, rarer still the shepherd who goes out to stop the wolf, and rarest of all the David who, as shepherd of his father’s flock, goes after the lion and bear that come and carry off a ram from the midst of the flock, and attacks them and rescues the victim from their jaws, and seizes them by the throat and also strangles and kills them when they rise up against him [1 Sm 17:34–5]. The lord king prohibits the Church’s judges from deciding this kind of case, with the result that, as mentioned above, such a case can never be decided. For canonical statutes prevent its being decided by a secular judge, and the king’s prohibition does the same for an ecclesiastical judge. But prelates could easily provide a cure for this disease by canonically punishing clerks who succeed in obtaining this kind of prohibition. There is yet another infringement of ecclesiastical liberty that strongly compels the very prelates of the Church to violate this liberty by themselves and by their own action. Although this offence has been touched on above in general terms, it is nevertheless perhaps not redundant to deal with it also specifically. A suit has been initiated in the lord king’s

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court between some individuals concerning the right of patronage of some church. Upon completion of a six-month period the bishop of the place confers the church in question by authority of the council.36 The one who in the king’s court has proved his right of patronage presents someone to such a church. But after such a collation the man presented is refused by the bishop. Then the one who is presenting succeeds in his request of the king’s court that the bishop be cited by the sheriff and ultimately compelled, by virtue of his tenure as a baron, to come and give answer in the presence of the justices of the lord king as to why he did not admit a suitable person upon the presentation made by this presenter. So, in this case a bishop is forced to give an account of his action – which properly and in itself concerns his episcopal office – to a secular judge, and as a consequence to submit himself, a bishop, I say, a dignitary of episcopal rank, to the judgment of secular judges. The admission of any person to an ecclesiastical benefice and cure of souls, or the rejection of any person, is the responsibility and task only of a bishop in his capacity as bishop. Now, canonical regulations plainly demonstrate how absurd is this subjection of bishops, for Boniface says to the bishops of Gaul: ‘No bishop is for the sake of either a civil or a criminal case to be brought or presented before any judge, whether civil or military. The magistrate who dares to order this will be punished by the confiscation of his property and loss of his belt of office.’37 The reason is that priests should be honoured by kings, not judged. Since, moreover, bishops are bound to take a stand in defence of the Church’s liberty even to the shedding of their blood, how will those who by their own acts infringe upon that liberty not be guilty of sin if in this case they subject themselves to secular judgment? At the same time court officials say this: In vain would the lord king issue a judgment concerning the right of patronage, if he did not have the power to execute his own judgment. The reply to this objection must be that although lay patrons of churches are considered a violation of justice, as are the actions of secular judges who decide cases concerning the right of patronage, if we nevertheless suppose that they do these things in accordance with the law, and that the Church permits or seems to condone secular judgment, then the king can do nothing more in this regard than judicially grant the rights of patronage and presentation to one party of the litigants, and protect the party on whose behalf he issued 36 See c. 23 of the Fourth Lateran Council (Tanner, Decrees, 246). 37 This text is drawn from Gratian, Decretum C.11 q.1 c.8.

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a judgment in a matter judicially granted to him to decide, that is, in the rights of patronage and presentation. Besides, in the application thus far of such a law, as, for example, after a bishop has received the king’s mandate that so-and-so has proven at law his right of patronage, it may happen that the candidate of the person who has proven this right is not rejected by the bishop, as would have been the case if he had been presented by someone who was not his true patron. But when for some other reason the bishop rejects someone presented by the one to whom the right of patronage has been judicially granted, he does not deprive the presenter of any of his rights of patronage or presentation, and in no way acts contrary to an accepted judgment in a secular court. For bishops reject those who are illiterate and illegitimate and of bad character when they are presented by their true patrons, in no way thereby prejudicing those patrons. Similarly, without any prejudice to the patrons, bishops reject those presented by their true patrons when the churches to which they are presenting are not vacant. So likewise when a church is collated by authority of the council and is thus not vacant, the patron’s right to present is not prejudiced if the candidate he has presented to such a church is rejected. Now, when in the king’s court someone proves his right of patronage, and the lord king writes to the bishop of the place in these words – ‘We command you to admit a suitable person to such-and-such a church at the presentation of such-and-such, notwithstanding any counterclaim on the part of his opponent’ – the bishop is bound by this royal mandate to do nothing other than henceforth to consider such a person as the true patron of that church, notwithstanding the counterclaim of his opponent; and he is not to reject a candidate presented by such a patron as if he were the candidate of someone who is not the true patron. For the king has no power to enjoin a bishop to perform or not to perform his official episcopal and spiritual duties. And that is why the king cannot enjoin him to institute or not to institute to churches, or entrust or not to entrust cures of souls, just as he cannot order a bishop to confer or not to confer holy orders, or consecrate chrism, or confirm children; nor in any way is a bishop under any obligation to give an accounting to the king or any other secular power – as if such a person were his judge – as to why he does or fails to do any of these things or the like. Nevertheless, by reason of the honour due the king, a bishop will be able, conceivably without any harm to the Church’s liberty, to inform the lord king or his justices that he did not reject the candidate of a man who has proven at law his right of patronage because this candidate was presented, actually or

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virtually, by someone who was not the true patron of the church. So, the form of the lord king’s letter, as far as concerns the meaning of its words (though conceivably not the intention of the scribes), contains, enjoins, and commands more than would be appropriate to royal power. The words would be commensurate with the sentence and with equity – if one should speak of equity in this matter – were the letter to be written in the following way: ‘We command you to consider such-and-such henceforth as the true patron of such-and-such a church, notwithstanding any counterclaim of such-and-such, his opponent; and you are not to reject anyone presented by that patron as if he were the candidate of someone who is not the true patron.’ But if – God forbid! – the king intends by the form of his mandate to enjoin upon bishops a task of their episcopal office, it is certain that he is usurping a bishop’s primary function, for this kind of injunction is appropriate only to archbishops and the lord pope. One must therefore be on one’s guard, should the king – God forbid! – usurp such a thing, to ensure that he is not inflicted on his forehead with leprosy, as was Uzziah, king of Judah, upon usurping the office of priest, and cast out of the house of the Lord, and that he does not have to endure the contagion of leprosy until his dying day.38 Even more deserving of this stigma are the lord king’s counsellors, should they happen to be the ones to persuade him to usurp such powers. Now, to increase the burden of sin in these and similar violations and disruptions of the laws and liberties of the Church there is the fact that at the Council of Oxford ‘all those are excommunicated who maliciously presume to deprive churches of their rights or with malice strive to infringe or disrupt the liberties of those churches.’39 And there are also the lord king’s concession in his charter that the English Church is to be free, and the excommunication, with the consent of the lord king and the barons, by Archbishop Stephen, of happy memory, and his suffragans, of all those who presumed to oppose the tenor of that charter.40 From that excommunication the lord king and the barons, out of fear that they had fallen within its scope, at an audience with the lord king in the chapel of the blessed Catherine at Westminster urgently sought absolution from the venerable father, Archbishop Edmund. He did in fact absolve them in words to the effect that if in future they were to

38 2 Chr 26:18–21. 39 Council of Oxford (1222), c. 1 (Councils and Synods, 106). 40 For the reissue of Magna Carta (1215) in 1225, and Archbishop Langton’s excommunication of infringers in 1226, see Councils and Synods, 137–8, 158–9.

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violate that charter, by that act they would relapse into their previous state of excommunication.41 Briefly summarized below are the points I argued above as best I could, but my lack of skill in argument has resulted in greater prolixity and less efficiency than should be expected. First, abbots especially, and, consequently, other persons of ecclesiastical status, may not without grave blame perform the office of a secular judgeship or hold shrievalties or bailiwicks for which they are obliged to give accounts to secular persons; and the lord king, by compelling this, and prelates, by failing to block such appointments, are sullied by this serious sin. Second, when ecclesiastical persons are accused in a personal action, they sin gravely by submitting themselves to secular judgment, and so do the lord king and secular judges who force this upon the clergy, and the bishops who do not resist such stifling of the Church’s liberty. Third, secular judges sin gravely when in their own court they presume to decide what case is ecclesiastical and what secular when there is any doubt as to which of the two jurisdictions it belongs. Fourth, these same secular judges sin gravely when they decide in a secular court cases that are known to be exclusively ecclesiastical. Fifth, the liberty of the Church is gravely harmed when the deciding of ecclesiastical cases is impeded by royal prohibitions directed to ecclesiastical judges. Sixth, the king and secular judges sin gravely when they compel bishops to give answer in their presence as to why they are not admitting specific candidates presented to churches, and likewise as to why bishops are doing or not doing other things that pertain only to the episcopal office. Now, certain of the lord king’s writs that I have had to hand are here appended as clear proof of the violations and disruptions I mentioned of the rights and liberty of the Church. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. You are to know that we have ourselves decided to appoint [B.], beloved to us, in whose fidelity we have full confidence, to assess and collect our tax of one-thirtieth in the county of [C.], together with our other faithful assessors and collectors of this tax in the same county.42 Him you have caused, according as has been

41 For details of this conference, which took place on 28 January 1237, see Councils and Synods, 205–7. 42 A tax of one-thirtieth was granted to Henry III in 1237 and the arrangements for its collection were spelled out in the Close Rolls for that year; see Stacey, Politics, 109–31.

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made known to us, to be firmly restrained from attending in any way at all to the aforesaid task, on peril of his benefices. Because, however, we have special confidence in you, father, and because you love from the heart both our advantage and our honour, and would freely grant us even greater things were we to seek them from you, we have reckoned that you should be very earnestly implored to permit [B.] to attend to this, as in the task specified he is the most useful and necessary to us, and to be willing to signify in writing to the aforesaid collectors and assessors what you reckon should be done concerning this, heeding these requests of ours in such a way that we should be obliged to express to you, father, our special thanks. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. You are to know that [B.] owes us £l,000 of an agreement that he made with us.43 And because he does not have a lay fee by which he may be distrained for the aforesaid debt, we command you to compel him by distraint, at the expense of the ecclesiastical benefices he has in your diocese, to pay us £200 of that agreement, and to do so in such a way that you have that amount at our exchequer by the hand of one of your people within fifteen days from St Hilary’s day. Otherwise, we shall exact repayment from your barony. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. You are to know that [B.], who has died, owed us £40 for hidage and suits of court that he received at the time he was our sheriff in our counties [C.] and [D.], and 32 marks and 6d. from three debts. And for this reason we command you to have at our exchequer at Westminster, by the hand of one of your people, on the day after the feast of St Michael, all the aforesaid debts from chattels that belonged to [B.] and that, or so it is said, are in your hands. Otherwise, we shall exact repayment from your barony. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.] We command you, as we on other occasions have commanded you, to cause [B.] to come before our justices at Westminster three weeks from St Michael’s day to give answer to [C.] concerning the suit as to why he pursued a suit in court Christian with respect to the lay fee [D.], contrary to our prohibition. And

43 In 1237, Henry III lent £1,000 to Brother Thierry of Nussa, head of the English Hospitallers. It is possible that the writ copied here was concerned with the recovery of that debt. See Stacey, Politics, 123.

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you are to be there at that time to hear our judgment concerning the fact that you did not cause the aforesaid [B.] to come before those aforementioned justices of ours at Westminster fifteen days from the feast of St John the Baptist. Nor did you send our writ, which came to you therefrom, to the aforementioned justices of ours at Westminster on the aforesaid date, as you were commanded; and you are to have there this writ. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Sheriff [A.], greeting. Summon by a good summoner Bishop [B.] to appear before our justices at Westminster three weeks from the feast of the Holy Trinity, and to have there the dean, precentor, and chancellor of the Church of [C.] to give answer to these justices with respect to the suit as to why they held a suit in court Christian, contrary to our prohibition, concerning the arrest of the clerk [D.], found in lay garb in the company of [E.], an outlaw. Summon also by a good summoner the aforesaid bishop to appear before the aforementioned justices of ours at Westminster on the aforesaid date, and to have [D.] there to give answer to the aforesaid justices with respect to the suit as to why he pursued the same suit contrary to our prohibition; and you are to have the summoner and this writ. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. You are to know that the person [B.] owes us 25½ marks of an agreement that, as payment for an offence, he made in the presence of our justices who lately went on eyre in county [C.]. And because he does not have a lay fee by which he may be distrained, we command you to compel him by distraint, at the expense of his ecclesiastical benefices, to pay us the aforesaid debt, and to do so in such a way that you have it at our exchequer by the hand of one of your people on the day after the feast of St Hilary. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. It has been revealed to us on behalf of [B.], in custody in our prison in place [C.], that when [D.] involved [B.] in a suit in court Christian before Archdeacon [E.] with respect to his lay fee, concerning which [B.] presented to the archdeacon a royal prohibition against his holding that suit, and to the aforesaid [D.] against his pursuing that same suit, and when upon their failure to defer to our prohibition, as would be proper, [B.] obtained our letter with respect to attaching the aforementioned archdeacon and [D.] to appear on a specific day before our justices to reveal why they did not defer in this case

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to the royal prohibition, the aforementioned [D.] nevertheless pursued the said suit in court Christian until such time as he caused [B.] to be bound by sentence of excommunication. At length [D.] brought it about by your letter, which was sent to us, that [B.] was arrested and thrust into our prison as incorrigible and scornful of the keys of the Church. And because in obtaining our letter with respect to the arrest our court was deceived, since it was not apparent to this court that the aforesaid sentence was issued against [B.] by reason of his lay fee, concerning which he was involved in a suit in court Christian, and for that reason he was pursuing his plea in our court against the aforementioned [D.], we command and beseech you to cause the release of the aforesaid [B.] from the aforesaid prison, as through that deception – and not without prejudice to us – he was arrested and thrust into prison. You are to know that, unless you do this, we have in mandates to our sheriff of place [C.] given to understand that, if the truth of the premises is established to his satisfaction, he should himself release the aforementioned [B.] from our prison, if you do not reckon that you should do this yourself. I myself witnessed this, etc. Henry, by the grace of God, etc., to Bishop [A.], greeting. We command you to cause person [B.] of place [C.] to come before our justices at St Bride in London fifteen days from the feast of the Holy Trinity, to give answer to Master [D.] with respect to the suit as to why he pursued, contrary to our prohibition, a suit in court Christian concerning debts that are not of a testamentary or matrimonial nature. Wherefore our sheriff of place [C.]. has informed our aforementioned justices at St Bride in London that the aforesaid [B.] has no lay fee in his bailiwick by which he may be distrained; and you are to have there this writ. I myself witnessed this, etc.

73 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, asking them to reconsider their opinion that the bishop’s jurisdiction with respect to the chapter should be strictly circumscribed. Written before September 1239, when Grosseteste officially notified the chapter of his intention to visit them on a specific date (see Letter 80, nn. 3–5). Edition: Luard, Epp., 235–40.

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Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, William the dean and the chapter of Lincoln.1 Your statement of your claim has been made available to prudent and God-fearing men.2 You are devoting your every effort to making good your position that your bishop is not to decide any cases or correct any transgressions of any of the canons of the Church of Lincoln, or of the clerks who belong to that church’s choir, or of any vicars, whether priests or clerks, or even of laypeople, from the dignities or prebends or common property (communa), or of any who are part of the canons’ household, unless perhaps the decision in a case or the correction of the transgressions of any of those named above is transferred to the bishop on appeal or because of negligence on the part of the dean of Lincoln. Those prudent and God-fearing men were also asked for their advice about this claim of yours, and in their view it seemed to involve consequences quite different from the ones it would at first sight appear to adduce. For it follows from it that, regardless of who of those named commits some offence in any way at all against the authority, dignity, or office of the bishop, whether in any of the places mentioned or away from them, your bishop may not himself punish such an offence, but either it must go unpunished and uncorrected, or your bishop must pursue the wrong before his own subordinate and be judged by him. For example, your bishop is making an official passage through a church belonging to a dignity, prebend, or your common property, and yet the customary ringing of the bells during his passage is disregarded or neglected by the ministers of that church. One of the consequences of your claim is that your bishop will be unable immediately to punish such an offence, which at the time was for him and his retinue a notorious one; instead he will have to let it go unpunished or to refer it to a subordinate of his, before whom the guilty party, since the act may not be notorious to the subordinate, will have, if he wishes, legitimate defences, and will be able to escape punishment unless he happens to be convicted when the bishop makes accusation against him in correct legal form. The same thing will also happen if any of the individuals mentioned above were to bar your bishop from celebrating holy orders or divine

1 On the dean and chapter, see Letter 71, n. 1. 2 The ‘prudent and God-fearing men’ whom Grosseteste consulted are not identified, but would seem to have included the archbishop of Canterbury, the papal legate Otto, and the dignitaries in the Roman Curia to whom letters were addressed during 1238.

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service or administering any of the sacraments, not only in the places named, but also in other places in his diocese. There will be the same result should any of them, in the places mentioned or elsewhere in his diocese, not be afraid to offend against the authority, dignity, or office of the bishop by any act whatever of contempt, omission, or neglect, or by insults and affronts or wrongs, no matter how serious. Yet we read otherwise of Moses, who, after he had appointed under himself officers over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens to judge the people at all times [Ex 18:25], nevertheless himself punished with death the crime committed by the children of Israel against the pastoral office by making and worshipping the golden calf. This calf he burnt and ground to powder, and he sprinkled it on water and made the children of Israel drink it [Ex 32:20], so that he might thereby distinguish the ones who had offended from the others. It was also Moses himself who, at the time when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were rising up against him and offending against the pastoral office entrusted to him, sent to fetch Dathan and Abiram [Nm 16:12], and himself decided what the guilty ones would do, so that it would be plain whom the Lord had chosen for this office. So although, as I said before, Moses had under him judges of lower rank already appointed, he himself nevertheless punished, and he himself judged, those who were offending against the ministry entrusted to him. It also seems to follow from that claim of yours that anyone, no matter of whose jurisdiction, when offending in any of the ways mentioned against the authority, dignity, or office of the bishop in any of the places named, may, by reason of the places in which his offence is committed, become subject to your jurisdiction in such a way that your bishop may not immediately punish and correct such an offence, no matter how notorious it may be; instead he would have to let it go unpunished, as mentioned above, or refer it to his own subordinate to be tried. Nor will your bishop be able, given the consequences of your claim, immediately to punish and correct other offences committed anywhere by any of those named above, or by anyone else in the places specified, no matter the degree to which they are notorious to the bishop and however much they have been publicly acknowledged in his presence. Instead Jacob and David will have to observe their sheep, whose loss they are bound to make good, being caught in plain daylight by wolves and lions and bears, and they will not dare to snatch them immediately from their jaws. In bewilderment they will be obliged to let their own sheep be choked to death by wild beasts before their very eyes, or, instead of the proper solution, to report to the shepherds appointed as their subordinates, and

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perhaps then busy in distant parts, that the sheep are being torn to pieces by wild beasts. Are we supposed to believe that this is what Jacob did? Calling to mind the care he had himself given, and under compulsion, too, to keep the sheep safe, he said this to Laban: Your ewes and she-goats were not barren; I have not eaten the rams of your flock; I have not brought you the body of any animal taken by a wild beast, but I made good every loss myself. You claimed compensation from me for anything lost by theft. By day the heat consumed me and the frost at night; sleep fled from my eyes [Gn 31:38–40]. Should we not instead believe that when Jacob – the name means ‘wrestler’ – saw a sheep in the jaws of a lion or bear, he did as David claimed to have done: he went after them, and struck them, and rescued the victim from their jaws [1 Sm 17:35]? It also seems to follow from the words that you used to express your claim – without drawing any distinction between the two kinds of understanding according to the twofold manner of predicating, namely, per se and per accidens3 – that, if it should happen that some rector of a parish church unconnected with a prebend and not belonging to any dignity or to the common property of the Church of Lincoln, or the vicar of such a church, is delinquent in that church or its parish, and that rector or vicar is your canon, or is a member of your choir, or has a vicarage or some other office of a clerk, or a residence in a dignity, prebend, or the common property, or is a member of the household of any of you, your bishop may not correct the transgression of any such person or decide a case that arises even on account of this kind of rectory or vicarage. It will likewise frequently happen that the misdeeds of the very powerful go unpunished or uncorrected, even when it is the case that these individuals are the responsibility of those named before, or commit offences in the places mentioned. For it will often be the case that the power of the dean or a canon will not prevail over the evil conduct of a very powerful person, nor will it be possible to describe this helplessness properly as negligence. So, the correction of these transgressions will never, according to you, pass to the bishop, because it will come to him neither because of your negligence, for there will be none that can be ascribed in this case, nor on appeal, for such an offender would not care about appealing to a corrector.

3 On the role of per se and per accidens predication in demonstrative knowledge, see Aristotle, Analytica posteriora 1.4; and Grosseteste, Commentarius in Posteriorum analyticorum libros, ed. P. Rossi (Florence, 1981), 109–16.

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There are also certain transgressions of the highest importance for which the bishop alone may impose suitable punishment, those, for example, whose penalty requires deposition or degradation. Is it not the bishop’s responsibility to punish these kinds of transgressions and thereby to correct them? It may also happen that one of the clerks I mentioned before is, upon being accused of homicide or theft or some such crime, taken into custody by an exercise of the king’s power and imprisoned, to be released only through the efforts of the bishop, to whom he will be handed over for his judgment in an ecclesiastical court in conformity with the laws of the Church. Will the bishop not be the one to decide the case of such a clerk, if the bishop is his accuser? Or in the event that he is not, will the clerk’s great notoriety not require the bishop to impose compurgation, and as his judge to condemn or absolve him? But as a consequence of the words you used to express your claim, your bishop cannot do this, since, according to what you are asserting, he may with his punishment correct, or with a correction punish, none of the transgressions of those you say are subject to your jurisdiction, nor may he decide any of their cases, unless it should happen that the correction of the transgressions or the resolution of the cases passes to him on appeal or because of the dean’s negligence. Neither the dean’s negligence, however, nor an appeal against him to the bishop will be able to apply in these cases. Furthermore, if the bishop is excluded and the dean and the canons – either all of them or those who happen to be actually present in the cathedral church – are said to constitute the chapter, and it comes about that the chapter thus defined offends against the authority or dignity or office of the bishop by some misdeed, however flagrant and notorious, or has a case against anyone subject to the bishop’s jurisdiction, or some other person has one against the chapter, the bishop will be unable, according to what follows or seems to follow from the words you used to express your claim, to correct this kind of transgression by punishing it or to decide these kinds of cases. It also follows from your wording that your bishop may visit neither any of the people nor any of the places listed above that are subject to your jurisdiction, even though there is no custom empowering anyone to invalidate visitation by prescription or to oppose it. These and similar consequences follow, or appear to follow, from your claim, and, according to the views of the prudent and God-fearing men I have consulted about them, they tend in no small way to be prejudicial to the authority, dignity, and office of the bishop, and they seem to be out of

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harmony with canon and natural law. For these reasons, and also because it frequently happens that even wise men are not aware, except after close scrutiny, of the consequences of some prior event, and because we have to believe that it was not the intention of such important men as yourselves, so wise and good, to impugn the right or dignity or office of the bishop in any way, on the advice of the prudent men whom I consulted about these matters, I am asking for a written reply from you that will inform me whether it is your intention to secure the restrictions I described and similar ones, which follow as real or apparent consequences of what you are seeking, or whether or not you have in your request given any thought to these and similar consequences. And if it is your intention to secure these and similar restrictions, I am also asking for a written reply that will let me know on what special law you are depending to make good your claim to them, since they appear to be inconsistent with common law. I ask this so that, once I have been informed about these matters and fully instructed as to the legality of your requests, I may be able, with the advice of prudent men, to give you a firm and fair response. For just as I have written and told you on other occasions, I will always, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ permitting, be prepared to yield to justice and truth. Farewell.

74 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning Otto’s request for a cathedral prebend for one of the cardinal’s clerks. Written between August and December of 1239 (see n. 3) Edition: Luard, Epp., 241–3.

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. You have asked me, holy father, through Master P., your clerk, to confer a prebend that belonged to my clerk, Master H., upon your clerk,

1 On Otto, see Letter 49, n. 1. For details of his legation to England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, see Williamson, ‘Legation’; idem, ‘The Legate Otto in Scotland and Ireland, 1237–1240,’ in Scottish Historical Review 28 (1949): 12–30; and Councils and Synods, 237–59.

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Master Azzo.2 I told Master P. that I would consider your request for the present and give you my answer, father, on your arrival in these parts.3 The fact is that I have been troubled, and still am, by three concerns that have been compelling me to defer granting your request. For I have been reflecting that spiritual things and anything connected with them should be bestowed neither because of favourable treatment at human hands nor out of human favouritism or fear. So, although I know your holiness did not intend by your request to bear witness to anything but the suitability of the candidate on whose behalf it was extended, so that because of such testimony I would consider him a worthy choice and not do out of fear or favouritism but simply for charity’s sake what your request suggested should be done for this reason alone, I am nevertheless conscious of my mind’s feebleness and have been very much afraid, and still am, that it is perhaps not the ardour of charity alone that is pressing me to do what I have been asked, but human fear or favouritism has become involved more than would be proper. Besides, as I recall, this Master Azzo, whom from your testimony and also from what I have learned about him I consider to be a distinguished man, eminently learned, and of the highest moral character, once told me that he did not then have a dispensation to hold more than one benefice with a cure of souls attached. And so I did and do scruple to confer this prebend, which has a cure of souls attached to it, upon someone who already has a similar cure. For, although many are of the opinion that it is possible for a prebend with a cure of souls attached and a parish church to be held together lawfully without a dispensation, I am nevertheless still in doubt about this. For there was a time when I was influenced by the claim of those who were of this opinion, and I held this kind of prebend and a parish church simultaneously for a while. But my conscience bothered me, and so I consulted the lord pope about this through the agency of a certain wise and God-fearing man, who received from the lord pope the reply, though he could not get it in writing, that without a dispensation it was by no means possible for me to hold, legally and simultaneously, a prebend of this particular kind along with a parish church.4

2 On Master Azzo (Atto ; probably Azzo da Parma), see Letter 49, n. 2. 3 The ‘arrival’ of Otto in England that Grosseteste is awaiting probably refers to the legate’s return from Scotland and Wales in 1239. Otto left England in August of 1239 and returned by December 1239. See the itinerary in Williamson, ‘Legation,’ 172. 4 See Letters 8 and 9 concerning Grosseteste’s resignation of his benefices.

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Moreover, I am greatly influenced by a parable that I have at some time or other mentioned to you. It is the one of the two fruit-bearing trees. One of these is in a warm country that suits its nature and where it produces very precious fruit. But once planted in a country with a cold climate, it can bear little or nothing. The other tree, however, with less precious fruit, is planted in a cold country that suits its nature and is there productive, bearing its own kind of fruit. This second tree is the one a wise gardener in a cold country would no doubt choose to plant in his garden, even though its fruit is poorer. These concerns, then, make so weak a person as myself apprehensive about doing what you urge in your request, although both the wisdom and goodness of the man for whom the request is made greatly motivate me to do so, as does the desire I have to fulfil your wish, which I believe to be holy and inspired by spiritual concerns. Also, it is dangerous for those who are afraid of falling from a narrow and steep path to walk along it, although this is a safe thing to do for those who have no such fear. To ensure that I, who am both fearful and feeble, may avoid a fall, I am on this occasion entrusting this matter to your holiness’s fortitude. It has endowed you with the fullness of power, a more brilliant light of wisdom, and the irresistible vigour of goodness that enable you to accomplish countless tasks without stumbling – tasks that I could not perform without suffering a terrible fall. So, please do what is necessary to settle, so far as concerns Master Azzo, the succession to this prebend according as the Lord inspires you. Long may you fare well, holy father.

75 To Simon de Montfort, comforting him in his adversity and promising support. Written after August 1239 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 243–4 (reading, p. 244/line 26, constantis for constanti).

To the noble man and dearest friend in Christ, the Lord Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester,1 Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere affection in the Lord.

1 On Simon, see Letter 5, n. 3, and Letter 48, n. 1.

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I have received the letter, dear friend, in which you make known the weight of your suffering,2 for which, and rightly, I feel much compassion, although it is my hope that this suffering will benefit your spiritual wellbeing, for the Apostle says: All who want to live piously in Christ Jesus suffer persecution [2 Tm 3:12]; and again, Now all discipline certainly seems for the present to bring not joy but grief; afterwards, however, it will yield for those who have been trained by it the most peaceful harvest of justice [Heb 12:11]. I also hope that this suffering of yours, if borne with patience and offered with thanks to him who scourges every son he acknowledges [Heb 12:6], will even accrue to you in temporal glory. For I have read that a great many holy fathers who courageously endured adversity were restored even to temporal prosperity with an increase of glory. So, let the harshness of this world’s sufferings not weaken but strengthen you, not cast you down but raise you up, not sadden you but give you cause to rejoice, as you say together with the Apostle: Our present suffering is short-lived and slight, and is earning for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure and comparison [2 Cor 4:17], and again, But we exult even in our sufferings [Rom 5:3]. For suffering is to the righteous what pruning is to vines, what cultivation is to untilled land, what washing is to dirty garments, what a healing but bitter drink is to those who are ill, what shaping with a hammer is to vessels not yet fully moulded, what proving in fire is to gold.3 So, the discipline of suffering is – for those who meditate not so much on its present annoyance as on the glory of its future reward – an occasion not for sadness but for joy. May you, then, in keeping with what your name means, endure suffering humbly and obediently, and thereby climb the steps of humility, as is consistent with a proper understanding of your surname, to the peak of the ‘mighty mountain’ (mons fortis), that is, Christ, who is the mountain on the summit of the mountains and the virtue of God the Father, so that when you meditate in him on all manner of adversity, even to his death on a cross, for which reason God raised him to the heights and gave him the name that is above every name [Phil 2:8–9], you may be prepared, by imitating him and hoping for the reward that will come from suffering, to endure all suffering with the unshaken and dauntless courage of a resolute mind.

2 It seems that Simon wrote to Grosseteste soon after fleeing England, in August 1239, on account of a dispute with the king over political and financial matters related to his marriage to Eleanor, the king’s sister. See Powicke, Henry III, 202–6; Madicott, Simon de Montfort, 28. 3 Cf. Ws 3:6.

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I will do all I can to fulfil with a ready and devout mind what you have asked of me concerning keeping you in my prayers, pleading on your behalf before the lord king, and comforting the members of your household, particularly the two you named in your letter. I am ready to do in these and other matters what I hope may benefit your honour and your advantage. Farewell.

76 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning Grosseteste’s lifting of a sentence of excommunication imposed by the cardinal. Written probably in the autumn of 1239, after the return of the messengers who delivered Letter 74 to Otto. Edition: Luard, Epp., 245–7 (reading, p. 246/line 24, siuerunt for sinerent).

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the Apostolic See, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. When they came back to me after calling upon you, holy father, my clerks, Roger of Raveningham and John of Crakehall,2 reported to me the kind words you privately communicated to them that expressed the fullness or, I should rather say, the overflowing, of your love for me. And because love is the most perfect of things, to which nothing else a person might desire can be compared, what surprise would it be if the supremely intense love of so great a father were sweeping me along into feelings of unrestrained joy, not only beyond the bounds of moderation but also beyond those of fullness itself? Yet to prevent this exuberant outpouring of joy from swelling to overflowing with pride, I hope that the Lord, who turns even every evil into something useful, has placed floodgates in the way, where this outpouring might break its swelling surges and not pass beyond the limits of moderation. At the end of their report my clerks added a few words that, as it were, intimated that you, father, had been somewhat annoyed, because, acting on the authority of the abbot of Pershore – authority delegated by 1 On Otto, see Letters 49, n.1, and 74, n. 1. 2 On Roger of Raveningham and John of Crakehall, see Major, ‘Familia,’ 234–5, 225–6.

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the lord pope – I directed the archdeacon of Lincoln to absolve formally the clerk Sibry from the sentence of excommunication imposed upon him by your authority.3 Now, this annoyance of yours could not but be distressing to me, and my distress at the annoyance you expressed could not but hold back the outpouring of my joy, and it has done so firmly, but usefully – may the Lord grant! Yet the intensity of my distress, regardless of its great strength, could nevertheless not become powerful enough to confine within the bounds of moderation the abundance of joy I spoke of, whose source is your most sincere love. For the unbreakable and unwearying resoluteness of your virtuous character has not escaped my notice, but is apparent from the many times it has been tested, and that is why so charitable a man as yourself, even when provoked, is not roused to anger, does not backslide, and does not love less, but loves for all time. So, since I am familiar with the unshakeable resoluteness of your love, my distress at your annoyance could not, as I said above, so shake my mind that it would not fully rejoice in your holiness’s overflowing love, which I cannot but believe abides with me unshakeably and also tirelessly. On the other hand my joy could not put an end to my distress at your annoyance; instead, though joy and distress are each other’s opposites, each has compelled the other to increase in intensity. Yet because both have as their source the same excellent root, or so I hope, neither has permitted the other, when becoming larger by turns, to overflow with an excess of unhealthy superfluity. Each one therefore gives me great pleasure and delight: I feel joy at your friendship, so calm and assured, and distress at your annoyance. But because I provided the occasion for your annoyance, I am overwhelmed with grief, as I know that sons should exercise every care to avoid giving their fathers any opportunity to take offence. And the more I know your ready disposition to forgive, the more anxiously do I grieve that I gave you that opportunity, because the kinder you are, and the more ready to forgive, the more undeserving you are of being offended, and the more serious the blame of the one who offends you. Yet there is one thing – the source of my consolation – that will, or so I firmly hope, reduce my blame in the eyes of one so merciful as you and bring my fault nearer to forgiveness, and that is the fact that the command

3 The abbot of Pershore (Worcestershire) was Roger of Radely; on the abbey’s history, see VCH: Worcestershire, 2:127–36. The archdeacon of Lincoln referred to here is Thomas of Wales; see Letter 51, n. 1. No further record of the clerk Sibry or of his excommunication has been preserved.

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I gave had simplicity of heart as its source, as he knows who is the heart’s searcher [Ps 7:10]. For after a discussion I had with you and your clerks about carrying out that directive from the abbot of Pershore, my understanding was that you thought I should do so. Let no one, please, suggest anything that would cause you to change your mind and suspect that something sinister was influencing my conduct toward your holiness in this matter, because he who is judge is my witness that it did not occur to me to wish to cover with some kind of darkness the most serene light of your holiness. In fact – and I say this under compulsion and with reluctance – from the time when I first became acquainted with your holiness, I have not rested from praising you to the skies; and if it ever happened that some person or other was seen to produce a dark cloud, so to speak, to hide your light from anyone (for the light of virtue is itself dark to the wicked, and gentleness is harsh), to the best of my ability I have taken steps to fan that cloud with the cloak of justification and true defence, and thereby to cover your light to protect it. I therefore simply and humbly ask you to be so kind as to forgive so simple a man as myself for giving you, with reluctance and out of ignorance, an occasion for annoyance, because your goodness and mercy are such that you cannot but forgive something that has simplicity of heart as its source. Long may you fare well, father.

77 To Pope Gregory IX, concerning Grosseteste’s dispute with his dean and chapter. Written in the autumn of 1239 (see n. 3). Edition: Luard, Epp., 248–9.

To the most holy father and lord, Gregory,1 by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, most devoutly kisses. It is the duty of a shepherd to get to know his sheep, and the just man is obligated to know the souls of his beasts [Prv 12:10]. And there can be no better way for a shepherd and bishop of souls [1 Pt 2:25] to acquire that knowledge than through the office of visitation and investigation. But investigation is pointless and illusory unless followed closely by correction and 1 On Pope Gregory IX, see Letter 35, n. 1.

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reform. As these were often my thoughts after I, although unworthy, undertook the office of shepherd, I have devoted my attention and efforts throughout my diocese, as far as my inadequacy permits, to conducting visitations and investigations and also to imposing corrections and canonical reforms, so as to save the souls for whom I know I shall give an account at the Last Judgment. When, however, I attempted, not only by my authority as ordinary but also with that authority supported by your holiness’s special authority,2 to extend the hand of pastoral attention to the visitation of my own chapter and the correction and reform of the morals of the clerks of my own church, of the prebendal churches, and of the common property of my church, and to the visitation of those churches, the dean and chapter of my own church opposed me with all their strength and oppose me still, and have cried out for an appeal. But neither they nor the clerks or churches I mentioned are exempt by any privilege from my jurisdiction. They are, under the name of liberty and approved custom, claiming in their own defence only that hitherto neither they nor these churches have been visited by bishops, or so they say, and that the morals of the clerks were not corrected or reformed. They also claim that specific relief from episcopal rights and requisitions was granted by certain bishops who were predecessors of mine. Because, then, I see no way to salvation for me as a dutiful shepherd except in imitating David, when I see a lion or bear come and carry off rams from the midst of the flock, I shall go after them and strike them with my shepherd’s rod, and rescue the prey from their jaws [1 Sm 17:34–5] with all the means and powers I have at my disposal canonically, especially as I am bound to expose my life to the most shameful and cruel death for the salvation of the sheep entrusted to me and for whom Christ paid the price of his most precious blood upon the altar of the cross. As for the barriers and obstacles that the dean and chapter are thrusting in my way in this matter, I see in them nothing but a kind of illusion and semblance of false liberty, in which the crafty enemy may freely set traps and cruelly devour those whom he has so boldly ensnared. Prostrate at the feet of your holiness, whose foremost concern is for the souls of all people, with all the strength of an anxious and tormented

2 Grosseteste had received from Pope Gregory IX a licence, dated 20 January 1239, ‘to exercise his office in regard to the visitation of the chapter of Lincoln, which has hitherto not been visited by himself or any other, without paying attention to vexatious appeals.’ See Bliss, Calendar, 178; and Letter 82, p. 283.

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mind and with tearful sighs I beseech you, whose zeal for souls, than which no sacrifice is more acceptable to God, is so very fervent and unconquerable, and whose most tender feelings of piety and compassion are for the salvation of my soul and the souls entrusted to me, to assist me in my weakness to clear those barriers and obstacles out of the way. I also ask of your holiness’s grace – for you have always been most gracious to me although I am undeserving – that you refuse to grant the dean and chapter any letters against me for the use of judges in England until my own special messenger3 stands before you. I intend to send him in good time, the Lord willing, to the feet of your holiness to explain more fully in your holiness’s presence this particular matter of the salvation of souls. I humbly request of your holiness that you regard him, together with my own self and my affairs, as one who has been commended to you. May the most high God long keep you safe for my sake and that of his Church.

78 To William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, introducing the bearer of this letter. Probably written in the autumn of 1239 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., p. 250.

To the venerable father in Christ and most dear friend, William,1 by the grace of God bishop of Paris, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. Just as tiny drops of moisture fill even the smallest cavities, so your affection, as it strives to penetrate everyone, finds among the others even my own small self, and fills me with what might be called the special fullness of its sweetness. What I am to give as compensation for your affection I do not know, because I am ignorant of how to love you back with a love that is equal to yours, and there is no other way for me to repay you.

3 See Letter 80, addressed to Grosseteste’s proctor, Simon of Arden, at the papal curia. Letter 77 must have preceded Letter 80 by a brief period. 1 William of Auvergne was a master of theology at Paris by 1223 and bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249.

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So as not, however, to appear altogether ungrateful, I offer such thanks, and as many, as I can. What is more, pure affection attaches no boundaries or limits to its infusion, but whenever it finds something that can be infused, it spreads and increases to moisten that receptacle all the more generously. For that reason, since R.,2 my clerk, the bearer of this letter, is a very small part of my own small self, I humbly ask that this part, too, not be deprived of a sprinkling of your affection. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

79 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning Grosseteste’s dispute with his cathedral chapter. Written probably after Grosseteste announced, on 7 September 1239 (see Letter 80, p. 274 and n. 3), his intention to visit the cathedral chapter, and before the events of 7 October described below (Letter 80, p. 274 and nn. 4 and 5). Edition: Luard, Epp., 250–3.

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. For the honeyed sweetness of your letter and your most kind forgiveness I offer you my thanks, holy father, thanks that, though they do not, because of my inadequacy, match what you deserve, are nevertheless as numerous and as devoted as I am able to express. I cannot, however, explain how much I rejoice and, with the Lord’s favour, shall always rejoice, in your untiring and inviolable affection, which has, furthermore, by its uninterrupted intensification taken root ever more deeply, grown up higher, spread more expansively, and become stronger and stronger. It is my firm belief that not for a moment, holy father, do you hesitate to feel this affection for my insignificant self. May the one who is our true peace

2 This clerk, ‘R.,’ has not been further identified. He was, perhaps, the bearer of the letter to Pope Gregory IX (see Letter 77), and may have stopped in Paris on his way to Rome. 1 On Otto, see Letters 49, n. 1, and 74, n. 1.

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reward you for the desire you have to preserve peace and goodwill between me and my chapter, for he was the one who made the two one [Eph 2:14]. Now, in your discretion your holiness should know that, with the Lord’s approval, I am consumed with a desire for the same peace that you desire, that is, the peace that is the ‘tranquillity of order,’ that allocates and arranges, for equal and unequal alike, places appropriate to each,2 that brings together varieties of gifts, services, and activities [1 Cor 12:4–6] to form the one will and goal of all mankind that is our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We should not desire, and certainly not preserve, any tranquillity that may come from a disordered placement of things, when, for example, what is beneath appropriates the place of, and tramples on, what is above – something thought to be peace by those who desire to exalt themselves and are unwilling to take a lower position rather than a preeminent one. This is not the peace the Lord came to bring to the earth [Mt 10:34]; it was against this peace that he unsheathed the sword, for this peace is but a respite in the midst of the dregs of vice. This kind of peace I know you hate, assail, confound, and demolish, to the point of total destruction, though of true peace I know you to be a fervent lover, initiator, promoter, and strongest of perfecters. And although your love is such that you cannot be summoned back from hastening, even when ungoaded, to build this peace, I am nevertheless appealing to you and, with my humble prayers as the only goads I can conceive of, rousing you to think fit to toil at shaping and strengthening this peace between me and my chapter. In your discretion and love you should also know that, in accord with your warning, I would gladly have restrained myself, until your arrival in these parts, from any involvement in the affairs that I know are a source of annoyance, justly or not, to my chapter, did I not firmly believe that any delay in performing the duties of my office would be prejudicial to me. For after your departure from these parts I was told as a certainty that my dean and chapter had, since the feast of Pentecost just past, a proctor at the curia, whose duty was to obtain against me, for the use of judges of whom I am with good reason suspicious, a letter whose purpose was to prevent me from performing the duties of my office.3 There is

2 This description of peace as the tranquillity of order (tranquillitas ordinis), and as that which allocates and arranges unlike things appropriately, echoes Augustine, De civitate dei 19.13 (CCSL 48:679). 3 See Letter 77, p. 270 and n. 3, and Letter 80. Pentecost in 1239 fell on 15 May.

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reason to believe that this action is intended by some, not to say all, members of the chapter to obstruct me from ever doing my duty by preoccupying me with unending lawsuits. For to the extent that I, given my own limitations, can judge, I am striving to do for them and their subjects only what pertains in divine and canon law to the office of bishop, and what has been specifically granted and conceded to me by the apostolic see in corroboration of the common law and the power of the ordinary, and what I cannot fail to do without endangering souls. Now, if my lack of skill ever tricks me into attempting anything uncanonical, I shall always be ready, with the Lord’s help, to refrain from such an action the moment this is apparent to me, to correct whatever I have done wrong, and to make satisfaction for any transgression. This I have often made known, both by word of mouth and in writing, to my dean and chapter, and I have implored them to point out to me in a friendly manner, and by reason or written law and not merely by saying so, any errors of mine. This I requested so that when the truth is made known I might desist from error. They have not bothered to do this, nor to reply to the explanations of my conduct I wrote up for them.4 Long may you fare well, father.

80 To Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the papal curia, detailing Grosseteste’s actions with respect to the dean and chapter of Lincoln. Written between 6 November and 25 December 1239 (see n. 10). Edition: Luard, Epp., 253–60.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to Simon of Arden,1 his proctor at the Roman curia.

4 The chancellor of the cathedral did in fact reply to Grosseteste’s charges on behalf of the chapter at some unknown date. This reply was edited for the first time by F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Bishop Robert Grosseteste and his Cathedral Chapter: An Edition of the Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation,’ in Med. St. 47 (1985): 367–78, and is translated below (see Letter 127, appendix A). 1 On Simon, see Letter 64, n. 2.

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As I informed you through my clerk, William of Hemingborough,2 I have suspended the dean, precentor, and subdean of Lincoln from entering the church, because the dean and chapter, though often exhorted to do so, refused to revoke the order they had directed to the vicars and chaplains who minister in the prebends and the churches of the common property, forbidding them to submit to me when I want to visit them in those places. On the vigil of the feast of the Nativity of the blessed Mary,3 I informed the dean and chapter of Lincoln that I would visit the chapter, by virtue not only of my authority as ordinary but also that of the apostolic see, on a specific day designated to them for this purpose, namely the Thursday immediately following the feast of the blessed Luke.4 Furthermore, immediately after this feast of the blessed Virgin I began to visit certain prebends. All the canons, however, were summoned by the dean and chapter to meet in the chapter house at Lincoln on the day after St Faith’s,5 and after discussing my plans from the pulpit in the Church of Lincoln on the following Sunday, they received publicly from the people permission to go to the apostolic see. They then entered an appeal in respect of the injuries that, so they said, I was causing them and attempting to cause them, and the dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer,6 and several other canons of Lincoln immediately afterwards set out for the apostolic see. They also dispatched official messengers and letters to all the chapters of canons in the cathedral churches of England and associated them all with themselves in a conspiracy against me,7 while also provoking and arousing the entire populace against me, as if I were a dangerous malefactor. In spite of that, I nevertheless went to the Church of Lincoln to visit the chapter on the day I mentioned, the one designated for making that visitation, and at the appointed hour. But I found there neither canon nor vicar, nor any of the ministers of the cathedral, for they all deliberately left just before my arrival. So, at this I started at once for London, for I had been summoned by the lord archbishop of Canterbury to meet 2 3 4 5 6

On William of Hemingborough, see Major, ‘Familia,’ 230. Wednesday, 7 September 1239. Thursday, 20 October 1239. Friday, 7 October 1239. The dean, precentor, chancellor, and treasurer were the four chief dignitaries of the cathedral chapter. 7 For evidence of the letters to other cathedral chapters, see Letter 93, n. 1.

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with him there on the day following All Souls’ in connection with some difficult matters concerning his church.8 But when the dean of Lincoln and those who had set out with him for the curia heard of my intention to go to London that day, they waited for me there till then in order, or so they said, to discuss terms of peace with me; and for this reason a large number of the canons of the Church of Lincoln also gathered then and there to meet them. Now, while these events were occurring, and even before, as if getting wind of this hostility from a distance, I quite often carefully reflected that if I were to suspend and then excommunicate some members of the chapter for the contempt, disobedience, and disrespect they had shown not only me, but much more so the lord pope, by not admitting me, as has already been mentioned, to visit the chapter – even though they thereby were most deserving of canonical punishment – the following, or something similar, might ensue: In the first place, because it has not been customary for any bishop of England to attempt such a thing, there is the possibility of a great murmur of anger and great turmoil throughout the whole of England, and a great many people would be greatly scandalized. This is something that I have obviously been aware of in my conduct of this affair, for, as I said above, the entire multitude, people great and small, had already been greatly provoked and aroused against me as if I were a malefactor. Second, there is the possibility that, if the aforesaid persons, who are already feeble with age and not used to physical hardships, should die after beginning to set out on a journey – as is likely, or nearly certain, to happen to several of them – all of England would denounce me as the most cruel murderer of such venerable and important men. Third, it is possible that, should they heedlessly fling their own lives into physical danger because of stupid pride and in defence of some semblance of liberty, falsely so-called, as they were apparently very eager to do, their action would greatly endanger the eternal salvation of their souls. It seemed extremely harsh to me to provide them with an opportunity to risk their own salvation, as to secure that salvation I myself am bound to expose myself to the dangers of this world, no matter what they are.

8 Thursday, 3 November 1239. Archbishop Edmund was engaged at this time in a difficult dispute with his own cathedral chapter, the monks of Canterbury; see Lawrence, Edmund of Abingdon, 164–8.

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On the other side I reflected that it was better and preferable for a scandal to arise than for truth to perish, and that one should not forget that truth and the salvation of souls are achieved by reproaching the people, including even those (whoever they may be) who are wise in the world’s ways. For the Lord says that we will be blest when people insult us and reproach us, and falsely utter every kind of evil against us for the sake of him [Mt 5:11] who is Truth and who endured the shame of the cross for the salvation of souls. It is also much better for us to permit a few to fling themselves into danger rather than for many more henceforth to perish for want of the Church’s discipline. These dangers were unacceptable and kept persuading me to leave off what I had begun, though on the other side truth and the salvation of souls kept urging me all the more to keep going. So, I was tightly hemmed in between these straits, and thought that choosing a middle course would be a good idea, if that were possible, as in this way so many unacceptable possibilities could be avoided, and the work of truth and of the salvation of souls, though perhaps deferred for a while, would nevertheless not be put aside. This middle course seemed a possible path for me, if the controversy surrounding the visitation I was to undertake could be referred to the decision of some judge who was wise and could not in any way be diverted from rendering a truthful judgment, especially a judge whose sentence would immediately have the authority of a judicial decision. For since there is no custom against a prelate’s visitation, and no prescription runs against it, and there is no one legally able to hinder it unless he has an exemption granted by authority and favour of the apostolic see, what judgment will a truthful judge render in this case but one that, in the absence of such an exemption, permits a prelate to proceed freely to perform his office of visitation? It also seemed to me that if there were in this matter a judgment in favour of visitation from someone whose sentence would have the authority of a judicial decision, this would be of incomparably more use to the salvation of many souls than if the ones who refuse and protest against my visitation were compelled to submit to it by the imposition of more and more punishments. For a sentence thus issued in favour of visitation would give all the bishops of England the authority to visit, and it would very much rouse and encourage, or, more correctly, impel, bishops who are negligent and slothful in their role as visitors to undertake such visits. It would in fact humble people who are defiant and rebelling against the visitation of prelates, and it would suppress and utterly annihilate their every rebellion; in this manner rough ways would forever

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become smooth [Is 40:4], so that the bishops of England could smoothly visit their chapters and subjects without the roughness of rebellion. These good outcomes would not easily or not at all result from my visitation alone, in the face of as much rebellion as I have touched on above. After consideration, then, of these matters, and with my hope in him who did not, in defence of visiting his sheep, hesitate to be surrendered to the hands of criminals and to endure the torment of the cross because he would not permit the cause of visiting these sheep to be lost, I have chosen, on the advice of good and prudent men, to proceed by this middle course. My heart has been anxious, however, about the selection of the judge, for who in England would dare to pronounce a sentence that would offend all the chapters of England? Who among those subject to bishops would be willing to give judgment on behalf of visitation, when hardly anyone can be found who wants to be visited by his superior? Few bishops would even be willing to pronounce sentence for visitation, as they have an aversion to their churches being visited by the archbishop, and there is a case about visitation still pending between the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London.9 In the end I reflected on the wisdom and prudence and goodness of the lord legate, and with confidence above all in the truth of the decision to be brought back from the lord pope, I offered to the dean and chapter of Lincoln the two proposals below, the first of which follows in the words in which it was written and delivered to them: The bishop is ready to agree to the appointment of the lord legate as judge, to exercise simple and summary jurisdiction with respect to all complaints that have arisen and will arise between the bishop and the dean and chapter concerning episcopal jurisdiction, authority, dignity, and office, with respect both to possession and to ownership, excluding every dilatory exception and every kind of appeal. But as soon as the lawsuit has been heard with respect to all the articles to be proposed by each side, relevant evidence concerning the facts and arguments concerning the law are to be heard in the judge’s presence, saving the privileges, indulgences, and concessions of the lord pope to both parties, and other instruments that will be valid for both parties as legally binding. Once the affair has been fully investigated, the judge is, if possible, to bring the parties to settlement in a

9 The dispute between Archbishop Edmund and Bishop Ralph Niger of London concerned the archbishop’s claim to visit religious houses in the diocese of London; see Lawrence, Edmund of Abingdon, 157.

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friendly fashion; otherwise he is to decide the case by pronouncing sentence, or to send it in proper form to the apostolic see for resolution.

The second proposal follows, also in the words in which it was written and delivered to them: The bishop is ready to prepare, together with you, a consultation for submission to the lord pope concerning all complaints that have arisen and will arise between the bishop and you concerning episcopal jurisdiction, authority, dignity, and office, with respect both to possession and to ownership, and with respect also to the liberties, rights, and customs that you contend you have. A full account will have been prepared by both sides and sent by special representatives to the lord pope so that an appropriate response may be received from him concerning those questions of law and fact upon which both parties agree. Should there be, however, any matters of fact about which the parties are in dispute, testimonies and other evidence are to be heard and made public by suitable men, distrusted by neither party and jointly selected, and with powers of jurisdiction and coercion. Upon publication, the attestations of witnesses and other evidence, along with the aforesaid consultation, are to be sent to the lord pope so that he may respond with his resolution of the dispute; or, if they agree, as far as concerns the last article the lord pope may appoint judicial examiners in parts of England to conduct the investigation as stated above and send their findings in good order to the curia.

When, however, neither of these proposals was accepted by them, I at length assented to a third one that is written out below. My reason for assenting is that under the terms of this third proposal there will also be the possibility of recourse to a decision of the lord pope. This proposal is as follows: On the Sunday immediately following the feast of All Saints, in the thirteenth year of the pontificate of the lord pope Gregory,10 in the chamber of the bishop of Lincoln at the Old Temple in London, the bishop of Lincoln

10 Sunday, 6 November 1239. This letter was apparently written after this date and before Christmas, by which time Grosseteste and the chapter here agree jointly to petition the pope.

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and the dean and chapter of Lincoln agreed to this proposal, namely: Together they will send a request to the lord pope, before the next feast of the Lord’s Nativity, to petition him to entrust to the lord bishop of Worcester and the archdeacons of Worcester and Sudbury11 cognizance with respect to questions concerning visitation of the chapter of Lincoln and of the churches of the dignities, prebends, and common property that belong to the Church of Lincoln, and of the ministers of those churches, and concerning correction of their transgressions and concerning other disputes touching the bishop’s jurisdiction, authority, dignity, and office, and the rights, liberties, and customs of the Church of Lincoln, excluding every dilatory exception, cavil, and appeal. But as soon as the lawsuit has been heard concerning the points raised by both sides, and the judges have heard the evidence, reasons, arguments, and a complete presentation of the case, they are to settle it by pronouncing sentence, as long as the case has proceeded as both parties would wish. Otherwise, within a certain period to be fixed by the lord pope, they are to send the case in sufficiently good order to him to decide. The parties have also renounced any letters concerned with cognizance that they have obtained or will obtain with respect to the other issues mentioned before, saving the privileges, indulgences, and concessions that will be valid for both parties so far as they are legally binding. Meanwhile, both the bishop and the dean are to refrain from undertaking any visitation both of the chapter of Lincoln and of the churches of the dignities, prebends, and common property, and everything else pertaining to these questions is to continue in the state in which it was at the time of the consecration of the bishop of Lincoln.

Both the dean and chapter and I have consented to this third proposal, and together we intend to send two clerks to the curia to petition the pope in a manner consistent with this proposal. I wanted you to know this, so that you would not spend any time on petitions that conform with the proposals I sent you through William of Hemingborough,12 and so that you would be forewarned rather to attend to what could help the work of saving souls in accord with what the Lord inspires you to do.

11 On the bishop of Worcester, Walter of Cantilupe, see Letters 98, 99, and 113. For the archdeacons of Worcester and Sudbury, Masters William of Stichill and Alan de Beccles respectively, see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 106, 70. 12 See n. 2, above.

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81 To Pope Gregory IX, concerning Grosseteste’s dispute with his cathedral chapter. Written probably at the same time as Letter 80, i.e., November or December 1239. Edition: Luard, Epp., 260–1.

To the most holy father and lord, Gregory,1 by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, most devoutly kisses. I recently informed your holiness2 that when I tried, not only with my authority as ordinary but with yours as well, to extend the hand of pastoral solicitude to performing the office of visiting the chapter of Lincoln and the churches of the prebends and the common property of that Church, the dean and chapter opposed my doing so with all their strength. For this reason I have anxiously petitioned your holiness to do what is necessary to help a weak person like myself to eliminate their resistance, for, as far as I can tell, their action is leading only to an empty show of liberty and to the loss of souls. I do both firmly believe and eagerly hope that my petition will be heeded by your holiness, who are so very zealous for the salvation of souls. And because I have permanently fixed the anchor of my hope in this zeal, in turning to your holiness for assistance I have reckoned that you should briefly be given the following information: when I went myself to the Church of Lincoln for the purpose of visitation and was disposed to punish certain members of the chapter after the dean and chapter refused to submit to me despite a great many warnings, in the end we followed the advice of prudent men and agreed upon a proposal to restore peace. This proposal I am sending to your holiness along with the present letter.3 With humility and devotion I implore your holiness to show me, in the reply the chapter and I are jointly to request in accord with the terms of that proposal, the support that you know will advance the salvation of souls and that you see is consistent with a bishop’s honour, inasmuch as honour is essential for the burden he must bear.

1 On Pope Gregory, see Letter 35, n. 1. 2 See Letter 77. 3 For the proposal, see Letter 80.

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To the hands of your holiness, whose goodwill has prompted you always to treat me and my people, as well as our affairs, with the most lavish demonstrations of kindness, I earnestly commit and commend those affairs, imploring with all my heart’s desire that this same goodwill, which knows not any reduction, may ever increase. May the most high God long keep you safe for my sake and that of his Church.

82 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning (a) Richard of Bardney, the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Croyland, who had been appointed itinerant justice by the king, and (b) Grosseteste’s dispute with his chapter. Written probably at the end of 1239 or the beginning of 1240. Edition: Luard, Epp., 262–4 (reading, p. 263/line 19, discretioni for discretionem).

To the revered father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. Since in the face of heavy obstacles inferiors are from weakness unable to bring to fruition actions that their office nevertheless obliges them to complete, what other remedy do they have but to fall back on their superiors? In this way inferiors may be invigorated from the abundance of a greater power, which will fortify and strengthen them to complete whatever they could not without such strengthening, or, if the obstacles are so heavy that they cannot be pushed away even by this means, the superior power with his own greater potency may do so. Inasmuch as the abbot of Croyland,2 of the Order of the blessed Benedict, and by law subject to me as his diocesan, has been appointed an itinerant justice by the lord king, and along with other similar justices

1 On Otto, see Letters 49, n. 1, and 74, n. 1. He spent Christmas of 1239 with the king, and Grosseteste may have taken the opportunity to address this letter to him then; see Williamson, ‘Legation,’ 172. 2 Richard of Bardney was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Croyland in Lincolnshire from 1236 to 1247; see F.M. Page, The Estates of Crowland Abbey: A Study in Manorial Organization (Cambridge, 1934).

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publicly performs such an office, and your holiness is so wise as to see most clearly how very inappropriate this is, and how contrary to religious life and divine and canon law; and inasmuch as someone as weak as I cannot by himself put an end to this scandal in the face of the restraints imposed by royal power, and there can be no hope of a remedy for this evil from anywhere but your holiness’s power, especially as on other occasions3 in a similar situation I had recourse to the venerable father, the lord archbishop of Canterbury, to request assistance, but what I desired was not carried out – for all these reasons I have turned as a suppliant to your holiness, and with all possible anxiety I ask and beg you to do your utmost to provide a suitable remedy to remove so great an abomination from the house of the Lord. Since, however, I know that you have in no small way desired that the quarrel that has arisen between me and my chapter be settled, to cool a little, or so I hope, the heat of so holy a desire, I am informing you, holy father, that soon after I received that letter of yours,4 where, among other things, you earnestly exhorted me to refrain from those actions that I knew were troubling my chapter, whether justly or not, I offered the chapter two proposals, both quite honourable, or so I believed, and both devised to settle the quarrel. But when they refused them both, I agreed finally to a third proposal to which they consented.5 I implore you, father, though you are preoccupied with too many matters, not to be reluctant to examine this proposal, which is included with the present letter. Certainly I desire more than anything to know what your holiness in your discretion thinks of this proposal, for urging me to agree to it, in addition to the advice of many prudent men, has been your strong desire to calm so great and so turbulent an uproar on the part of so large a number of men of such great importance, to remove an occasion for scandals, and to close the mouths of detractors, liars, and slanderers, even though on the other hand I considered it better for a scandal to arise than for an office conducive to truth and the salvation of souls to be completely destroyed. I have also been very much afraid, and still am, that perhaps my agreeing with that proposal was less than prudent, as by its terms I have placed in question and subject to judgment the office of visitation, an office that I should have been able to perform unconditionally, as it seems to me, with the support of the lord pope’s authority,

3 See Letters 27–8. 4 See Letter 79. 5 See Letter 80.

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though not without turmoil and the hostility of many. I am also afraid that the lord pope may perhaps take it ill – as if I have given up performing the office of visitation out of cowardice – since as a special favour he fortified me with his own authority to carry out this duty without restriction, and to prevent my being hindered in this work he dismissed empty-handed from the curia the chapter’s proctor, whom I mentioned to you in the letter I sent you recently.6 So, because I do not know whether I have acted discreetly in this matter, I very much desire to know your opinion of my action, as was mentioned before. In addition to that, with devout affection I am imploring you, holy father, to be kind enough to let me know when you will pass through my diocese again, so that I may meet you at at the right time and to the best of my small ability receive you with the honour owed so great a father. Long may you fare well, father.

83 To Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, concerning impending episcopal elections. Written probably before 13 January 1240, when Edmund and his bishops met with Henry III to protest issues outlined in this letter (see n. 3). Edition: Luard, Epp., 264–6.

To the revered father in Christ, Edmund,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect. One must fight evils the moment they begin, because ‘too late is medicine prepared when they have gained strength by long delays.’2 A rumour on everyone’s lips is loudly proclaiming that in the forthcoming elections the oppressive malady of terror, threats, violent intimidation, and bribery has already begun to grow strong, and unless it is cured very soon by a suitable remedy, applying a cure at some future time will not be

6 See Letter 79. 1 On Edmund and his role in conveying to the king various complaints of the English bishops against lay power, see Letter 72*. 2 Ovid, Remedia amoris 91–2.

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easy.3 And the result will be that our mother the Church, now free through the grace of the Bridegroom, will by violent oppression be made a slave, and that will make us not children of the free woman but of the slave-woman [Gal 4:31], bound by hard servitude. Under the ever more powerful attack of this disease, the sheep, too, will be without a shepherd, because either no one will enter the sheepfold, or, if anyone does enter, he will not do so by the door and therefore will not be the shepherd of the sheep [Jn 10:1–2]; instead his name of shepherd will be meaningless, and he will truly be what the prophet calls an idol [Zec 11:17], or, what is worse, he will acquire, in the words of another prophet, the character and name of the roaring lion and the wolf [Ez 22:25, 27]. So, if there is no one who may truly call himself a shepherd, the sheep will be exposed to ruin, and not only will those who so expose them be guilty of their death, but so too will those who could have resisted and did not. To ensure, then, that such great evils do not grow beyond measure, please, holy father, in your discretion make every effort to confront such a noxious malady while it is in its earliest stage, for fear that if long delays allow it to grow strong, attention and treatment will come too late. The day of the election to be held in the Church of Hereford is approaching, or so I have heard, and there is fear that perhaps this malady in its most severe form will take hold firmly there.4 So, as it seems to my humble self, it will be appropriate for a man of your wisdom and authority to write to the chapter of that church in a strongly persuasive way about electing a suitable shepherd, about not fearing people’s threats, and about guarding against bribes,5 and for you to send to Hereford on that day some prudent and vigorous men from among your confidants to explain clearly and publicly the charter of King John granting freedom of elections, the confirmation of this same concession by Pope Innocent, of holy memory, and the sentence decreed against all those who violate the liberties granted in the lord king’s Great Charter, in which it is conceded that the English Church will always be free and possess all its rights

3 On concerns about lay interference in episcopal elections in this period, see Powicke, Henry III, 1:270–3; Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 85–93. The concerns enumerated here seem to have been presented to the king on 13 January 1240, in the presence of the papal legate Otto; see Councils and Synods, 284–5, and esp. 285n1. 4 On this election, see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 88 and n. 3. 5 For an example of such a written warning, see Grosseteste’s letter (no. 85) to the Augustinian canons of Missenden.

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without restriction and its liberties unimpaired.6 Your agents should also explain the first canon of the Council of Oxford, in which excommunication is declared for ‘all who maliciously presume to deprive churches of their rights or with malice strive to subvert or disturb their liberties.’7 They should likewise take pains to exhort the chapter to make sure that no one presumes to act in contravention of these ordinances. Such action on your part will frighten the malefactors and strengthen the electors, and be of much value in securing the liberty of the Church, the salvation of souls, and your own honour. It will not even be improper, or so it seems to me, if the election is scrutinized, not in a perfunctory manner but with all possible care, in accordance with all the articles that govern both an election itself and the qualities of the one elected, especially if there are present some signs of the disease I mentioned, and particularly since the man who confirms an uncanonical election will incur a heavy penalty.8 I have written this letter to you not, as it were, because I wish to enhance the sun’s splendour with a tiny torch, but rather to applaud the tireless race you are running to secure the prize.9 May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

84 To Robert of Lexington and his fellow itinerant justices, concerning Sunday observance and their treatment of a priest who was dean of Christianity at Lincoln. Probably written in 1240, when itinerant justices were sent throughout the country (see n. 1). Edition: Luard, Epp., 266–8 (reading, p. 267/line 10, feriandum for feriendum; 268/3–4, in for in in).

6 On the provisions of Magna Carta concerning the freedom of episcopal elections, see Letter 72*. 7 On the proper conduct of episcopal elections, see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 55–93, 137–43; and Councils and Synods, 40n2. On the penalties for one who confirms an uncanonical election, see c. 26 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), in Tanner, Decrees, 1:247–8. 8 See c. 1 of the Council of the Province of Canterbury at Oxford (Councils and Synods, 106). 9 Cf. 1 Cor 9:24: ‘Do you not know that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in a race, only one of them obtains the prize? Run so as to win it.’

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To the venerable men and most dear friends in Christ, Lord Robert of Lexington1 and his fellow itinerant justices of the lord king at Lincoln, Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. I have been informed that you have greatly reviled and insulted H.,2 dean of Christianity at Lincoln, and caused the entrances to his house to be shut, and his goods and certain lands held by him as guardian of his brother’s daughters, and even certain goods belonging to his relatives, to be taken into the possession of the lord king. The sole reason for your actions was that he denounced you for allowing capital cases to be brought to your court on Sunday. When I heard this story, it seemed to me for the most part incredible. For it is unlikely that such discreet and important persons, zealous for justice both because of their office as judges and because of other personal qualities, would have inflicted punishments on anyone for his zeal for justice. For what other reason than your failure to be just did the dean justly denounce you? He asserted that capital cases should not be tried on Sundays, since the regulations of canon law prescribe that every Sunday is to be observed as a holy day.3 They further state specifically that under no circumstances should there be any markets or legal suits on Sundays, nor should anyone be sentenced to death or punishment.4 In the Decalogue, too, whose observance is essential for salvation, and without whose observance salvation is impossible, observance of the Sabbath is enjoined, because he who does not observe it is punished by God’s law with death.5 Now, we in the New Law take observance of the Sabbath to mean observance of Sunday. What else is the deliberate violation of this Sunday observance but a sentence of eternal death? What punishment, then, did that man deserve whose aim was to stop you from rushing to eternal punishment? You should in fact praise him all the more and reward him, if he warned you about salvation and took care to prevent your falling into the abyss.

1 On Robert of Lexington, see Turner, Judiciary, 194–284, passim. Itinerant judges were sent throughout the realm in 1240, and Robert of Lexington was placed at the head of those assigned to the northern counties; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 171. 2 This ‘H.,’ dean of Christianity, remains unidentified. The dean of Christianity is the equivalent, in the cathedral city, of a rural dean in the outlying countryside; he is the chief among the parish priests in his deanery. 3 See Gratian, Decretum, De consecratione D.3 c.1. See also Grosseteste’s own provisions in his letter (no. 22) to his archdeacons. 4 See the decretal letter of Alexander III in X 2.9.1. 5 See, for example, Ex 31:15 and 35:2.

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Furthermore, he would also have been guilty of your blood and, as Scripture says, accursed, if on seeing a violation of the Sabbath he had withheld the sword of speech from the blood [Jer 48:10] of your sin. And, so that I do not have your blood on my hands [Acts 20:26], in this letter I ask, exhort, and beseech you in the Lord, urging you with a father’s affection as my dearest sons, to take pains to observe and sanctify the Lord’s Sabbath, which is holy and may not be profaned, in accordance with the teaching of God’s law and the regulations of canon law, like true and obedient sons of Christ the Law-giver and his inviolate bride Mother Church. And if what I have heard has in fact happened, you must take care to correct it, recognizing that, even if that dean had wronged you, you had no right to punish him, since divine and canon law prevents secular judges from ever judging or punishing the personal transgressions of clerks,6 nor could the Church in any way tolerate the loss of ecclesiastical liberty in such a manner. Farewell.

85 To the Augustinian canons of Missenden (Buckinghamshire) as they prepare to elect a new abbot. Written during the abbatial vacancy in 1240. Edition: Luard, Epp., 268–70.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons, the community of Missenden.1

6 See Letter 72*, p. 243 and n. 27. The decretal of Pope Lucius III in the Liber extra of Gregory IX (X 2.1.8) provided that clerics be judged for their crimes before ecclesiastical judges, notwithstanding local customs to the contrary. 1 On the Augustinian canons of Missenden, see VCH: Buckinghamshire, 1:369–76. Their abbot, Martin, was one of those heads of religious houses deposed by Grosseteste in 1236; see Letter 55, n. 1. A certain Robert was elected in 1236 and resigned in 1240; Roger of Gilsburgh was elected in his stead in 1240; see VCH: Buckinghamshire, 1:375; Rotuli Grosseteste, 355.

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The person who must choose one minister from among many for a ministry that is useful and necessary to many is undoubtedly obliged first to discover, by careful and prudent investigation, which person is more suitable, that is, more competent, more wise, more ready and willing, and more impassioned than all the others in that large group to take on the charge that the one who makes the choice intends to have properly administered, and then to select the candidate he has found to possess these qualifications. Otherwise, in his choice he will be one who is not only foolish, but unjust and wicked as well, for he will be the cause of loss to those for whom he should have been the source of profit. For the more inept the person he chooses, compared to the more suitable candidate he could choose, the more he detracts, in so far as he can be held responsible, from the usefulness and necessity of that ministry. Further, the better and more necessary the ministry for which a minister is to be selected, the more unjust and wicked is the one who in his choice fails to prefer the candidate whom he has painstakingly examined and found to be the more suitable for this kind of charge. Since, then, the ministry of the pastoral care is more excellent, more noble, and more useful than all other ministries, and the most necessary of all, the one whose choice as shepherd of souls is a candidate other than the one whom as thorough an investigation as human frailty can attain has found to be suitable for this pastoral ministry will be more wicked than anyone else and more abominable to God, the angels, and mankind. So, when electing a shepherd, as is already evident, there is a very great danger of error as far as concerns the person to be chosen, as the wrong choice drags into the abyss the elector and the elected, together with all those of whom the one chosen is placed in charge. Now, your community as a whole is, so to speak, the sole elector of its shepherd, and you are also the sheep for which the shepherd must be chosen. In view of these considerations, I, who have for you the anxious concern of a father, with a father’s affection ask, advise, exhort, and, so far as I am able, enjoin you to use, to the extent of your powers, all care and diligence in electing for yourselves a suitable shepherd. Make use of the advice of others in this decision, not that of the worldly-wise, whose prudence in the sight of God is false and whose wisdom is foolish, but of those who know Jesus Christ, the eternal Wisdom of the Father, and him crucified [1 Cor 2:2]. Appeal with the utmost devotion for the illumination of his grace to reveal and admit to office a suitable shepherd, or it may happen that, like sheep without a shepherd [Mt 9:36, Mk 6:34], you will

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stray ‘through the steep places of vice’2 and tumble down to hell, where you will forever pay the penalties you owe for your guilty participation in a corrupt election and thereby in your own death. Consider also how unworthy of your monastic calling it is to prefer even your pigs to your own souls and to be more concerned about them than about yourselves. When you have to choose someone to look after your pigs, do you not with all diligence search everywhere for the kind of person who has the ability, knowledge, and willingness to take the pigs into suitable pasture land in the morning, to rear them there during the day, to keep them unharmed and safe from thieves and wild beasts, to bring them securely home in the evening to their nocturnal shelter, and to watch over them even at night? So, if you do not exercise a similar carefulness when providing a suitable shepherd for your own souls, are not your pigs of more value to you than your souls? God forbid! God forbid that this charge is ever made against you! As is proper for men living as religious, you should be fired with zeal for God and for your own salvation, and with the most devout and persistent prayers, with the prudent advice of good men, and with your own astute and painstaking carefulness you should endeavour, as the Apostle teaches, to elect for yourselves a shepherd who is above reproach, without crime, not proud, not subject to anger, not quarrelsome, not a drinker or a brawler or a money-grubber, but temperate, prudent, respectable, chaste, hospitable, kindly, modest, just, holy, self-controlled, a teacher as God’s steward, holding to the faithful word that is consistent with doctrine, so that he may be able to move his hearers with wholesome teaching and confute objectors; one, furthermore, who manages his own household well [1 Tm 3:2–4; Ti 1:7–9]. If you labour faithfully in this way in your diligent search for such a shepherd, it is my hope that the Shepherd of shepherds himself will attend to your needs and not allow your pious efforts to be vain or unfruitful. For he gives to those who seek, he offers to those who ask, and he opens to those who knock [Mt 7:7]. But if in your search you are indolent and neglectful of the things that concern God and your own salvation, you will store up for yourselves the wrath [Rom 2:5] of God, the angels, and mankind, and I shall be unable to refrain, unless I were willing – God forbid! – to share hell with you, both from correcting your error and from doing all in my power to provide you with a suitable shepherd. Farewell.

2 See Gregory, Dialogorum libri IV, 2: prol. (SC 260:126): ‘per abrupta uitiorum.’

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86 To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury, who was still resident in Lyons, congratulating him on his election to the see of Canterbury and alerting him to important issues confronting the English Church. Written probably in 1243 or 1244. This is the first of four letters – nos. 86–89 – to Boniface included at this place in the collection, among the letters from 1240/1, perhaps because Boniface’s tenure as archbishop may be thought to have begun with his election by the monks of Canterbury early in 1241. Edition: Luard, Epp., 271–2.

To the venerable father in Christ, Boniface,1 by the grace of God archbishopelect of Canterbury, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ, the supreme shepherd, who has provided a shepherd for his Church of Canterbury, long deprived of a shepherd’s comfort.2 For it is my hope that, after the example of Jesus Christ, the supreme shepherd, in whom all shepherds are one, you will, as the prophet says, feed with knowledge and doctrine, and also with judgment and justice, the flock entrusted to you, strengthening what is weak, healing what is sick, binding up what is broken, bringing back what has been driven away, seeking that which was lost [Ez 34:4], and carrying back what has been sought and found upon the shoulders of that fortitude that bears good and ill with a calm mind. To complete these and similar tasks, whose aim, by your watchful concern and tireless labour and with the Lord’s favour, is the honour of God, the liberty of the Church, and the salvation of souls, I desire, as befits a son of obedience and in proportion to my limited strength, and with the grace of the Holy Spirit to help me, to be with you, as with a most beloved father, an obedient and painstaking co-worker. 1 Boniface of Savoy, provost of the Cathedral of Belley in France, was the uncle of Henry III’s queen, Eleanor; see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 19–23, 189. 2 Archbishop Edmund died on his way to the Roman curia on 16 November 1240. The monks of Canterbury received permission to elect from the king on 25 December 1240, and on 1 February 1241 they elected Boniface of Savoy; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 7. His election was confirmed by Pope Innocent IV only in September 1243, and in April 1244 Boniface travelled to England for the first time to receive the temporalities of the see. He then went to Lyons, where he was consecrated on 15 January 1245. He returned to England and was enthroned on 1 November 1249.

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Because to do one’s work well and to bring it to completion in a manner most worthy of praise it very much helps on most occasions to have been warned in advance about what has to be done in the future, I have no wish to hide from you, a man of discretion, the fact that, although the lord pope admitted and confirmed the postulation made for the lord bishop of Norwich as bishop of the Church of Winchester, and wrote to the lord king of England on his behalf that he should restore to this bishop the castles and manors of the see of Winchester, the lord king has thus far declined to do so.3 If he persists in this intention, it will be very much to his disadvantage and that of his kingdom – which God forbid! – since in this matter he clearly seems to oppose an action of the lord pope. To the latter – leaving aside the fidelity owed in common by all princes as sons of the Church – the king is himself especially bound to be faithful, under a most severe penalty, which I believe is not unknown to you, by the charter and oath of his father King John, of illustrious memory.4 So, since it especially pertains to you, a man of diligence and discretion, to provide, after the lord king, for the honour, peace, and tranquillity of king and kingdom, and since it is especially incumbent upon you more than anyone else in the kingdom to protect the liberty of the Church and support the actions of the lord pope, so that they may have due effect, with all my devotion I implore you, who are so wise, to make every effort to provide appropriate remedies against such great dangers and impending dissensions and disruptions in the priesthood and the kingdom. And because, as Wisdom testifies, happy is the husband of a good wife [Sir 26:1] – for he is saved through the efforts of his wise wife, once his heart has been changed for the better by her gentle and wholesome persuasiveness – as far as someone as insignificant as myself can tell, this can be counted on to happen if my lady, the queen of England and your niece,5 is carefully advised and effectively urged, by both letters and discreet and loyal messengers from you, to try to change for the better the heart of the lord king in this matter, in accord with the prudence bestowed upon her by 3 On the Winchester election, see Letters 60–62. Pope Innocent IV confirmed the postulation in a letter, dated 17 September 1243, to William of Raleigh, bishop of Norwich, and to the Church of Winchester; on 28 February 1244 he wrote to King Henry on the matter; see Powicke, Henry III, 1:270–3. 4 A reference to Magna Carta; see Letter 72*, p. 253 and n. 40. For King John’s oath of fidelity to the pope in that charter, see Councils and Synods, 18. 5 Grosseteste himself wrote to the queen in 1244, perhaps at the same time as he wrote this letter; see Letter 103.

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God, and to urge him by all means to give up his intention. Otherwise, your first entry into England6 – may the God of peace make it peaceful! – will be disturbed by dissensions of this kind, or it will be inevitable that you yourself will be at odds with the lord king or someone else the moment you arrive. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

87 To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury, declining to admit a candidate to a parochial benefice in the diocese of Lincoln and referring the presentee to Boniface, who knows him and is invited to dispose of the matter. Written perhaps in 1244, when Boniface was in England (see Letter 86, n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 273–5.

To the venerable father in Christ, Boniface,1 by the grace of God archbishop-elect of Canterbury, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. The second branch that springs from the root of charity is love of one’s neighbour.2 That love is, moreover, not a crippled or passive desire but one that is sound and operates with vigour for the true good of the beloved, not for the sake of anyone else but for that of the beloved himself. Now, a true good is not what is external, like high rank, nobility of birth, or riches, or the like; nor does it have anything to do with the body, like strength, good health, or beauty. Rather it pertains to the mind, that is to say, it is the faith and virtue on life’s way that enable one to attain enjoyment of the Trinity in one’s homeland.3 The person, then, who is rooted in charity, desires, and chooses to do what he can to ensure, that his neighbour is grounded in the true faith

6 Boniface first entered England in April of 1244 and spent most of that year there. Gibbs and Lang (Bishops and Reform, 19–23) judge that he was much influenced during that visit by Grosseteste’s advice. 1 On Boniface, see Letter 86, nn. 1–2. 2 See Templum dei 5.1 (p. 34); De decem mandatis, prol. 3 (p. 2); cf. Mt 22:37–40. 3 See Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 3.1–9.

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and moulded by the virtues. So, if a person who has it in his power and is bound by his office to place in authority over his neighbours a teacher who will ground them in the faith and mould them with the virtues instead knowingly and deliberately places in charge of them a man who does not do this because of his inability or ignorance or negligence, it is plain that such a person does not love his neighbours, does not abide in charity, and thus is not in the ranks of those who are to be saved. For what kind of love does he have for his sheep when, in the midst of the most ravenous wolves, he knowingly and intentionally hands the sheep he should protect over to one who is paralysed, or blind, or slothful and apathetic? Is he not rather the destroyer of those sheep? And if they are spiritual sheep, is he not the most savage slayer of the very ones for whose restoration to life the most tender Saviour of the world was slain? Not only is he guilty of this kind of murder who knowingly and deliberately hands over the souls he must save to one who is unable to do so, or ignorant, or negligent, but so in many cases is the person who entrusts those souls to a man concerning whom he is completely ignorant as to his ability or knowledge or willingness to care for them. For although it may happen that a stranger is suitable for appointment to a cure of souls, nevertheless, should this occur, this is a gift of Fortune, not of the one who appoints the stranger. If, moreover, this unknown individual is less than suitable, his selection will with good reason be the fault of the one who gave him his charge, because the person with power of appointment should have been careful to guard against placing such a man in a position of authority. The one who shoots arrows into a place through which he knows people are accustomed often to pass and thereby kills someone, even though he is unaware of what he has done, is not excused by his ignorance; no, he is guilty of committing murder, because before shooting his arrow he should have carefully taken into account that perhaps someone was there at the time.4 As I reflect, then, on these and like concerns, and consider that any who have not fed Christ in his members, or given him to drink, or received him with hospitality, or clothed or visited him,5 will go to the everlasting fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels [Mt 25:41], I ask how much more serious a punishment do those deserve who have killed Christ in his members? How much anguish will they suffer when they are brought before his eyes at the dreaded Last Judgment? When I entrust someone with a cure of souls, every part of me shakes with the fear that 4 See the discussion of due diligence in Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de paenitentia 2.1.3. 5 See the description of the Last Judgment in Mt 25:31–46.

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I may by chance expose those souls to people who would murder rather than give them new life, and that I may myself thereby be condemned at the dreaded Last Judgment together with the murderers. It is this fear that is preventing me from admitting the candidate presented to the Church of Castor,6 for I am totally ignorant of who he is and whether he is the sort of man to have a cure of souls. But I have not rejected him. Instead, I grant to you, father, who are a man of discretion and know this candidate and are responsible and concerned for his soul and the souls of the parishioners of that church, the right to select the presentee there on this occasion. My hope is that your charity has made you more determined than ever to provide for the eternal salvation of many souls than for the temporal advantage, no matter how great, of one man. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

88 To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect of Canterbury, on the hindering of Grosseteste’s episcopal activities by superfluous complaints to Boniface. Written perhaps in 1244, while Boniface was in England, and before his consecration as archbishop. Edition: Luard, Epp., 275–6.

To the venerable father in Christ, Boniface,1 by the grace of God archbishopelect of Canterbury, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. My diocese is very extensive and populous and therefore has many offenders in matters requiring the Church’s discipline, offenders whom I am duty-bound to guide by recourse to the punishments prescribed by canon law. Some offenders, too, I must strike with the rod of guidance 6 The parish church of Castor was in the gift of Peterborough Abbey in 1240/41, when a William de Burgh was instituted as rector there; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 203. We have no evidence for Boniface’s disposition of this case, but in another instance, where the stakes were higher, he seems to have acted with Grosseteste’s advice in mind: see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and Reform, 84, and Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 217, on Boniface’s rejection of Robert Passelewe as a candidate for the see of Chichester. On Passelewe, see also Letters 124 and 126. 1 On Boniface, see Letter 86, nn. 1–2.

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[Ps 44:7] more harshly than they would wish, to make them return to the way of truth. A very great number endures this rod impatiently, and out of a desire for revenge complain about me to you, father, so that, at the very least, they may wear me down. And since it is a very great burden for me to send my proctors and clerks to Canterbury to answer each and every complaint of this kind about me, I sincerely ask you to act with your usual paternal discretion, and as a solicitous father to take steps to provide me with a suitable remedy for this kind of expense. Furthermore, it is in vain that a strong foundation is built on solid rock, if the foundation itself is not protected against destruction, and if a building suitable for the foundation is not erected, or if the solidity of rock is transformed into the instability of sand.2 With the help of the Saviour’s grace, you have laid a strong foundation upon the steadfastness, as I believe, of a mind made unshakeably strong in Christ. May your watchful concern prompt you to guard against the destruction of the foundation by enemy hands, or the unnatural crumbling into loose sand of the solidity of rock, that is to say, of the steadfastness of your mind in Christ, because of false but persuasive words, or enticing flatteries, or alarming threats of harassment – all actions intended, as it were, to trick you. May you in every circumstance take pains that upon this foundation a house protective of your episcopal office is built up of layer upon layer of the happy results of your good works until they close in and complete the roof. I also ask you not to consider it irksome for a subordinate to remind his superior, unwelcomely, as it were, of such considerations, for love, a thing full of anxiety and fear, cannot but remind the object of its love of such things, nor should what springs up from the sweet root of charity taste bitter to anyone. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

89 To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury, declining to support a subsidy granted to Boniface by Pope Innocent IV that was to be collected from the bishops of the province of Canterbury. Written at Lyons after the consecration of Boniface on 15 January 1245, and perhaps before the consecration on 5 March 1245 of the bishop of Chichester (see n. 2, below), referred to here as ‘bishop-elect.’ Edition: Luard, Epp., 276–7. 2 Cf. Lk 6:48.

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To the venerable father in Christ, Boniface,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. Recently your clerks came to me on your behalf, father, and asked me to affix my seal to a certain letter that already bears the seals of the lord bishop of Hereford and the lord bishop-elect of Chichester.2 This letter is addressed in my name and theirs to your other suffragan bishops in support of the subsidy granted to you by the lord pope from the prelates and clergy of the province of Canterbury.3 Later these same clerks came back a second time on your behalf to ask me to undertake to send a supplicatory and exhortatory letter to those suffragan bishops in support of the subsidy. On neither occasion, however, did I do what these clerks asked, and in this matter, father, I am seeking your indulgence. For it is not right for me to deny to you, nor to the special affection you have been pleased to have for me, anything I can do without offending justice and violating my honour. But I could not do what you have asked, or so it had certainly seemed to me, without perhaps offending some of my fellow bishops, as I would obviously appear to have removed myself from my unity with them in granting this subsidy prematurely, to the extent that I could, without their agreement, and in compelling them in some way to do the same thing because of my earlier concession. I would have also made myself odious to all the clergy of the province of Canterbury, who might even publicly proclaim that I had, to the extent that I could, imposed upon them an intolerable burden by this premature concession – for I could not in this matter exhort them to grant what I apparently would 1 On Boniface, see Letter 86, nn. 1–2. 2 The bishop of Hereford was Peter d’Aigueblanche (1240–68), while the bishop-elect of Chichester was Richard de Wych (1245–53). Both Richard de Wych and Archbishop Boniface of Savoy were consecrated at Lyons in 1245, Boniface on 15 January and Richard on 5 March; see D.E. Greenway, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300 (London, 1968–), vol. 5: Chichester, 5; and Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 7. Grosseteste was also in Lyons at this time, having travelled there to transact business at the papal curia and to attend the general council of the Church called for June 1245. He left England on 18 November 1244 and returned in October 1245; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 246–57. 3 Innocent IV’s letter granting Boniface a subsidy in the form of the first year’s revenue from all vacant sees in the province of Canterbury was copied by Grosseteste and forwarded to the English bishops; it is preserved, under the year 1246, by Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 4:506–9.

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not have previously granted myself – especially as the lord pope, and the lord king with the pope’s authority, are now demanding for themselves from the same clergy subventions of no moderate amount.4 So, then, to avoid these and similar implications, I have refrained from writing and have not affixed my seal. May you, father, please be so kind as to consider me excused in this matter, yet always ready to do whatever you should desire. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

90 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, concerning their deceitful and vindictive behaviour with respect to Master Richard of Kirkham. Written in 1240 or 1241. Edition: Luard, Epp., 277–84.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of Lincoln.1 The obligation to love one’s own offspring has been imposed by nature not only on mankind and domesticated animals but also on wild beasts. So, a parent who does not love his offspring puts aside not only his human nature, but also the nature he has in common with irrational beings, becoming not like unwitting beasts of burden [Ps 48:13, 21], but much inferior to them. Now, the spiritual bond is better and more precious than the carnal one, and for that reason spiritual fatherhood is better and more precious than that of the flesh, and the love that is a consequence of the former is better and more precious than the love that follows from the latter. Moreover, it is more wicked to take away what is better, and more contemptible to remove what is more precious. So, fathers in the spirit who feel no love for their spiritual offspring are more wicked and contemptible than the beasts of burden I mentioned, to the same degree as spiritual

4 For a discussion of clerical resistance to these subventions, see Councils and Synods, 388–403. 1 William of Thorney, dean of the cathedral chapter, was suspended in 1239 and deprived of his office in 1239 or 1240; he was succeeded in the summer of 1240 by Roger of Weseham, a close associate of Grosseteste’s; see Fasti: Lincoln, 10.

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fatherhood and its accompanying love are known to be better than natural paternity. Furthermore, a similar reasoning is valid with respect to the offspring who does not love his parent in return, except that the love of parents for their children is stronger and for that reason taking it away is all the more worthy of censure. As we are joined together by our relationship as parent and child, God forbid that we not be joined in mutual love, or you or I, or both of us, will be ranked beneath wild beasts, or in fact lower still! Now, no human being knows what pertains to a person except his own spirit that is within [1 Cor 2:11], but a person is not capable of self-scrutiny in every respect. Even so, to the extent that my spirit has this capacity, it finds within itself the love of a father for each and every one of you. And I do not believe – though perhaps on occasion some less than discreet word burst from my lips about one of you in response to some unexpected impulse – that I may be accused from my actions of not having loved you like a father. God forbid that I draw the breath of life if I do not grasp you in an embrace of genuine love! For the person who does not love remains in death [1 Jn 3:14]; such a person is filled with hate and as a consequence is a murderer who has no life remaining within him [1 Jn 3:15]. For love alone is the window through which first streams in the light of life. And love is a desire – one that is powerful and not lukewarm – for the good of the one who is loved. Although the good of a person is divisible in three ways, into, that is, the external good, the good of the body, and the good of the soul, only the last of these, which is virtue and its operation, is a person’s true good and something to be desired with pure love. So, because I have a father’s love for you, I cannot but strongly desire for you your true good. And a powerful desire, once given an opportunity, must of necessity show itself in actuality. Moreover, the actuality of the desire for the true good of the object of one’s love is first of all the truthful teaching and effective urging of the obligation to imitate virtue and avoid evil. Second, it is the rebuking of any sin that results from not heeding that teaching – not a gentle rebuke, like that of Eli the priest, but a stern one, like that of John the Baptist and the Saviour himself.2 Third, it is the lashing of those who have not been corrected by rebukes. For it was in these stages that our Saviour revealed the actuality of his love for us. As I am obliged to follow this practice, my objective has been to teach you the truth about salvation and to convince you to imitate virtue and avoid vice, and I have done so as best I knew how and whenever I could. 2 For Eli, see 1 Sm 2:22–5; for John the Baptist, Mt 3:1–12; for Jesus, Jn 2:14–17.

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Now, however – and this is the reason why I am grieving with all my heart and soul – I am obliged to combine rebuking with teaching, lest your blood be required at my hands [Ez 3:18]. For you are doing things that are so improper for men as important as you are considered to be, and you are doing them in sight of this sun [2 Sm 12:11]. Were the sun to avert the rays of its light from you, as it did from the Egyptians,3 anyone zealous for truth and goodness would not be surprised. For sins are all the more serious and detestable the higher the positions attained by the sinners. Now, you are what might be called teachers of the law, of the prophets, and of the gospel, and indeed all of you claim proficiency in these. All of you occupy different yet lofty positions, ecclesiastical and spiritual, and in spite of that – to my complete amazement – you are not the first to blush for shame at obvious falsehood, though you know very well that a lying tongue slays the soul [Ws 1:11] and that everyone who tells a lie is lost, and not without good reason, since a liar is a denier of the truth and consequently of the Saviour, who says of himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life [Jn 14:6]. A liar is also a son of perdition [Jn 17:12], because he is a child of the devil, who is a liar and the father of lies [Jn 8:44]. What is more, a liar is his own false witness, as Augustine says,4 and one who also abuses the most precious vessel from which the supreme King must be taken as food and drink. For speech is the vessel in which we offer to God the truth not only of the things that are, but also of our praise of him and of our confession of faith, and in all of these, as he himself testifies, he takes pleasure, as if they were food and drink.5 Nor is there any created thing that more precisely resembles the incarnate Word than the words uttered by the human voice. How abominable, then, are both the teacher most of all and the hearer too of the truth, who in so marvellously engraved a vessel gives the supreme King a lie to drink instead of the purity of the truth, when a lie is of all things supremely abominable to him? So, from what I have just said put together a description – though an inadequate and incomplete one – of a liar: he is a denier of God, the offspring of the devil, a false witness against himself, the most abominable abuser of the most precious vessel (and thereby guilty of showing contempt for God and of offending against him), and by these actions

3 See Ex 10:21–9. 4 Cf. Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus 27.10 (CCSL 36:274–5). 5 Cf. Ps 68:31–2: ‘I will praise the name of God with a song, and I will magnify him with praise. And it shall please God better than a young calf ...’

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he is the murderer and betrayer of himself. Should we not more than anything feel sorry that so grim a description can be applied to you? For who does not know it to be most false that, when Master Richard of Kirkham suspended or excommunicated some of you, whether justly or not, he had no ordinary or delegated jurisdiction over you?6 Is it not the case that you yourselves asked for him as your judge and that you procured and sent messengers to bring this about? With what boldness, then, do you dare to claim, not only by word of mouth, but also in a letter seeking permission to appeal to the pope, that he had no ordinary or delegated jurisdiction over you?7 Do you have a harlot’s boldness [Jer 3:3] and therefore know not how to blush at a thing so shameful to you? My very dear sons, whom I carry – as he knows from whom nothing is hidden – in the womb of my heart with the devotion of a mother, and in my arms with the devotion of a nurse, and whom I now verbally chastise with a father’s devotion, I beg you through him who is Truth to remove so disgraceful a blot on your reputation [Sir 33:24]. For you cannot be excused, even though you proceeded against Master Richard not in the name of your corporate body, but under the individual names of several of you who are separately accusing him, for each and every one of you are members of your corporate body, and the blemishing of a body can only be the blemishing of a member of that body. Since you are making no effort to wipe away this kind of blemish, in no way can you excuse yourselves. If, however, you do make an effort but do not succeed, how prudent is it to reject with so great an exertion the hand of the man who not only wishes, but also has the power, to wipe that body clean, if only the obstacle of your rejection were removed? It is no justification on your part, but rather the adding of sin to sin and the binding together of a bundle of wickedness [Is 58:6], that by way of excuse some of you say that Master Richard had jurisdiction over your corporate body but not over anything

6 Master Richard of Kirkham was in the service of Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely, between 1229 and 1254; see A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), 338. He is not among the judges-delegate agreed upon in 1239 (see Letter 80, p. 279 and n. 11), but is addressed by Henry III in 1242 as one of those, along with Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, and Master Henry of Hoo, another clerk in the service of the bishop of Ely, to whom the case had been delegated ‘by apostolic authority’; see CCR, 4:435, 436. Cf. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 197–8, and Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 174–5. 7 Several members of the chapter, acting as private individuals, apparently sought permission from Canterbury to appeal to the pope. On letters ‘apostoli’ to be obtained by an appellant, see Councils and Synods, 341 and n. 1.

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made up of you as individuals, for it was not this master’s intention, as is also clear from his deeds, to punish any one of you separately as a single individual in and of himself, but rather the entire corporate body in one of its parts. His desire was to spare the whole body to the extent that he could, just as a man who places another in custody, but nevertheless wishes to show him mercy, does not enclose the man’s entire body in iron fetters but places only shackles on his feet or manacles on his hands, not to punish the feet or hands separately but the man who is in custody. So, if he spared your body as a whole, as I am certain he and his fellow judges did, is it really fair or even humane for you to prosecute him for sparing you? Besides, it is obvious that you are prosecuting him not out of any zeal for justice, but with a lust for vengeance, something which some of you, or so it is said, even publicly admit to. Well, the lust for vengeance is a lance in the hand of a madman, with which he pierces his own body in order to poke a hole in the clothing of the one who stands behind him. For a person can harm another only in terms of his external possessions or in the goods of the body. With the lust for vengeance, however, he pierces his own soul and causes the soul’s virtues to pour out as if they were his lifeblood. The person who seeks vengeance also usurps what God has reserved to himself alone when he said: Vengeance is mine and I will repay [Rom 12:19]. Judges who exact retribution for sins are executing the judgment not of man but of God; indeed a man who usurps what belongs to someone else is doing all he can to take away the other’s being by conferring it upon himself. This is why you, too, to the full extent of your ability, are taking from God his divine being by conferring it upon yourselves. And whom have you made yourselves resemble by this action? Are you not like the one who wished to set his throne in the north [Is 14:13] and make himself like the Most High [Is 14:14]? You are reckoned to be men who are noble of spirit, but your pursuit of vengeance has demonstrated that you are not, for it is characteristic of a man of such nobility not to remember any unjust treatment, and there is nothing so cowardly as lusting for vengeance. So, my beloved sons, to escape first of all piercing yourselves to no purpose, and usurping with Satan what belongs to God, and revealing yourselves to be cowards – though until now you have been men of such great and outstanding reputations – you must remove even this sign of disgrace from your midst, for what you are doing in this matter confers no glory upon you but only what is very ignoble and contemptible; you are yourselves responsible for what has happened because you sanctioned it. For what is Richard of Kirkham with respect to your own greatness? Is he not, in

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comparison with you, like the smallest of little birds? And are you, compared to him, not like an eagle? There is a common saying – ‘Surely an eagle does not catch flies?’ – as such a prey confers no glory on an eagle. Yet a fly is a great and glorious prey for a spider, which could not trap one except with nets that a fly cannot see. These are the kinds of invisible nets, or so I have heard, that have been woven for Master Richard and put in place to snare him, for people are proceeding against him not along the obvious paths of justice, but by the secret devices of deceit and cunning, which my beloved sons, Thomas, archdeacon of Lincoln, and John of Crakehall, will be able to describe to you.8 Through Moses the Lord teaches that it is just to perform one’s duties not in any way one pleases, but in accordance with justice; and it is a fixed rule among all the wise that a good or the best outcome must be the first thing one proposes to achieve in all one’s actions. Second, one should search out the straightest way that leads most directly to the proposed end; then one should proceed to this end along this way and no other. For if it is winding, uneven, and slippery, or its end a deep pit, is it not a necessary consequence that the one who is thus proceeding must take a headlong fall, either in the midst of his journey or at its end? So, it is improper, just as it is inadvisable, for such important men as yourselves to proceed along such ways or paths, even if a good end were your goal. For, as the prophet testifies, the Lord’s ways are straight and the just shall walk in them [Hos 14:10]; and again another prophet says: the path of the just is right, as is his course [Is 26:7]. One must not strive for good by evil means, for it is just to condemn those who say ‘let us do evil that good may come’ [Rom 3:8]. Even if someone were to say that during a just war it makes no difference whether victory is achieved in open combat or by ambush, this has nothing to do with my argument, for an ambush may be something good and sinless or even just, like the ambush Joshua set for the inhabitants of Ai.9 So, let this evil be taken from the midst of the glory that is yours, for God forbid that you are, or are called, men who weave the webs of spiders [Is 59:5], set snares and traps, or dig troughs and pits, because the one who digs a pit

8 On Thomas of Wales, archdeacon of Lincoln, and John of Crakehall, a canon of Lincoln – both trusted members of Grosseteste’s household – see Letters 51 and 76. Both were involved in the delicate negotiations with the king over the prebend of Thame in 1241 (see Major, ‘Familia,’ 225; Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 163–4), but the precise circumstances to which Grosseteste here alludes are unknown. 9 See Jo 8:1–29.

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will fall into it [Prv 26:27]. And do not say that you had nothing to do with what happened, for if, as was touched on above, the ones responsible are your colleagues, whom you have an obligation and the power to restrain, if they really are your colleagues, you yourselves are without doubt the cause of what took place. For the helmsman is the cause of his ship’s capsizing, just as he could, if he wished, be the cause of its survival. So, my very dear sons, whom, with the aid of him who was willing because of his love to die even for his enemies, I shall always love, not only with the affection of a father but also with an affection that is more tender than a mother’s, please take care to receive what I have written above with the love and affection of sons. For you will truly show yourselves to be my real sons, not the sons of someone else or base-born, if like proper sons you accept, and with attentive ears hear and heed, these rebukes, recommendations, and pleas of a father, and also his humble entreaties. And all will be forgotten that is put right by filial submissiveness to these words of a father. But if you reject these words, which have come from deep inside the heart of a father’s love and compassion, who can doubt that you do not love your father with filial affection and that, according to what was said at the beginning, you have thereby made yourselves lower not only than beasts of burden but lower also than creatures inferior to them? Far be it from men of such conspicuous wisdom, such pure intelligence, such brilliant knowledge, and such cautious prudence! But may that prudence guide you by a straight path to a good end in everything you do; may that knowledge bring you to read the triune creator in every species of created being like the letters of a text; may that intelligence unite you with the angelic spirits, so that as far as is humanly possible you may imitate their manner of life; may that wisdom carry you up to the very godhead, so that, when your mind’s eye has been purged of all desire for material possessions, you may contemplate perfectly the first light itself without being dazzled. In this light, when seen in itself, all things are seen, and the vision of it is life everlasting.

91 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, concerning the chapter’s conduct with respect to a royal prohibition; written after the feast of All Saints (November 1) in 1240 or 1241. Edition: Luard, Epp., 285–7.

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Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of Lincoln.1 As if it were an appropriate response, you have written back to me to say that at the lord king’s command, which I succeeded in obtaining, or so it seemed to you, you went to him soon after the feast of All Saints, and that in his presence and in my hearing it was publicly declared on your behalf and that of the chapter of Lincoln that it was not your intention to prosecute before him either the royal prohibition or any other suit against me.2 I do indeed admit that I succeeded in obtaining a citation to summon you and the Lincoln chapter to appear on a specific day in the lord king’s court to prosecute that prohibition.3 My reason is that the king’s court would not revoke the prohibition if you were not summoned in this way. Yet you and the chapter know perfectly well that you were not obliged to appear in response to such a citation, unless you wished to prosecute this prohibition in the lord king’s court. Now, I well recall the declaration made on your behalf and that of the chapter; it very plainly convicts you both of falsehood, since in the eyes of the world you are actively prosecuting the very thing that your words deny you are prosecuting. This causes me to feel the greatest shame and grief, as if I had sons who are drawing sweet and bitter water from the same fountain [Jas 3:11]. What is more, for a reply you specify that it was the lord king who fixed a day for you that he might discuss terms of peace between you and myself, as if it were for this reason alone that you have already gone many times to the court. But who does not know that this occurred at your instigation or that of the chapter (or at least of certain of its members), and because of your and their request to the lord king and his officials, so that under such a pretext a decision in the suit would be postponed, and the intended result of both your letter and mine, in both of which a specific time for effecting a reconciliation was prescribed,

1 In the summer of 1240, after the chapter had refused to elect a successor to William of Thorney, Grosseteste appointed his friend Master Roger of Weseham, archdeacon of Oxford, to the post of dean; see Letter 90, n. 1. 2 This royal prohibition forbade ecclesiastical judges to decide the matter between Grosseteste and the capitular body; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 198; and Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 174. King Henry renewed the prohibition, writing to the papal judges-delegate in England on 27 March 1242; see Letter 90, n. 6. 3 No record has survived of Grosseteste’s citation of the Lincoln chapter to appear before the king’s court.

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would lose its importance and come to nothing? Who, too, does not know that this and similar schemes constitute a very plain – not to say deceitful – violation of the two agreements to which we jointly were parties and which we declared would be observed in good faith?4 Is it not the case that those who in these and similar ways break the promises in these agreements should, as they deserve, be counted among the ones whom the Apostle calls men without affection and without any loyalty, whom, he says, deserve to die, and who include not only those who do such things, but also any who give approval to those who do them [Rom 1:31–2]? Furthermore, if, as you imply, you approached the lord king’s court only to restore peace between you and me, why, when I was there, did you not make the slightest mention of this to me? You also came, or so you write, with letters of proxy only for the purpose of discussing peace. But if this is so, why did you not show these letters to me? If these letters are the kind you say they are, what else are they but an attempt to conceal a shrewd delay in time, since they do not give you the power to make peace? Besides, as some of the letters were sealed with the seal of the chapter of Lincoln, how would I ever be able to trust you again when the chapter contradicts letters, sealed with its own seal, that concern the final agreement to which we were parties? Now, at the end of your letter you appear to castigate certain people, as if they have thus far been obstacles to peace between us; or perhaps because you know that in this suit I am to no small degree influenced by the advice of others, you wanted cautiously to allude to me under their name. So, I ask you as men of discretion to say without hiding anything what peace you ever offered me – or if I ever refused it when it was offered – that is acceptable to God and mankind, in harmony with Sacred Scripture and canonical regulations, and consistent with the salvation of souls. So, for the moment this is my response to your reply: It is from feelings of charity and a father’s love that I again encourage, warn, and direct you very firmly and strictly to devote yourselves with anxious care to putting into effect what I have imposed upon you in previous letters, for the salvation of your own souls and those of others for whose care you are with me responsible. For in this matter my only goal is to try to perform a bishop’s ministry to the best of my ability, just as the teachings of Scripture

4 These ‘two agreements’ between Grosseteste and the chapter perhaps refer to procedural matters resolved in November or December 1239; see Letters 80 and 81, and cf. Letter 92, n. 5.

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oblige me to do, and to snatch souls from the snares of the devil and bring them back to the Lord Jesus Christ. To accomplish this ministry both you and each and every member of your chapter have been called, and you should be helpers and not hinderers. So, remembering what the Apostle says – If we judged ourselves, we would not thus be judged [1 Cor 11:31] – let each one of you himself judge whether he has faithfully discharged his duty in this affair. Otherwise he will perhaps be found on the last day not to have paid what he owed, and bound hand and foot he will be thrown into prison or the darkness outside [Mt 22:13], and he will not come out until he has paid the last penny [Mt 5:26]. Farewell.

92 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, also concerning the chapter’s conduct with respect to the royal prohibition mentioned in the previous letter. Written probably soon after Letter 91. Edition: Luard, Epp., 287–90.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of Lincoln.1 I am not fully aware of why you are going so often to the lord king’s court, but I strongly suspect that the reason for your frequent visits there is to arrange with the lord king not to revoke the prohibition he has used to restrain the judges from proceeding in the case at issue between me and my chapter, and consequently to arrange with a lay and secular power to stop the case from being tried and concluded in an ecclesiastical court.2 If this is so, you have plainly bound yourselves with the chain of excommunication, for at the Council of Oxford excommunication was imposed on ‘all those who with malice strive to infringe or disturb the liberties of churches.’3 Now, in pursuance of ecclesiastical liberty, the whole of this suit, to protect each of its parties, must be tried and concluded in an ecclesiastical

1 See Letter 91, n. 1. 2 See Letter 91. 3 Council of the Province of Canterbury at Oxford (1222), c. 1; Councils and Synods, 106.

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court, something which cannot escape the notice of men of your discretion. Those, then, who are arranging for this case not to be tried and concluded in such a court are striving to infringe or disturb the Church’s liberty and are thus subject to the sentence of the Council of Oxford. And you cannot claim that you are not doing this maliciously, because a person behaves maliciously who knowingly and deliberately does something unjust. Now, as I touched on above, you are men of discretion and well aware that a decision in this suit consistent with the Church’s liberty belongs to an ecclesiastical court. Furthermore, even if we were to assume that a royal prohibition of this kind was customary, as in fact it is not, for it was obtained now for the first time as the result of malicious insinuations that craftily deceived the lord king’s innocence, the ones who succeeded in obtaining such a prohibition would nevertheless be excommunicated, both for using it to weaken the Church’s liberty and for arranging for it not to be revoked, since in a decretal letter excommunication is the punishment for those who were responsible for preserving even old customs that were introduced in violation of the Church’s liberty.4 How much more should one curse, as abominable to God and mankind, those who introduce novelties to disturb the liberty of the Church? Now, if what I have said is true, what awaits you, or what you can expect, is only the woe promised by the Lord through Isaiah to those who go down to Egypt for help, relying on horses and putting their trust in chariots, because there are many of them, and in horsemen, because they are exceedingly strong; they have not placed their trust in the Holy One of Israel or sought after the Lord [Is 31:1]. For Egypt is the world and secular power, to whose help, if what I have said is true, you are fleeing for protection, going down from Jerusalem, that is, withdrawing yourselves from the Church’s judgment, not having placed your trust in the Holy One of Israel. If you trusted in him, you would never take steps to flee from the Church’s judgment in matters that are hers to decide.

4 A reference to the decretal letter of Pope Honorius III, dated 1221: ‘Excommunicamus omnes haereticos utriusque sexus ... necnon et qui de cetero servari fecerint statuta edita et consuetudines introductas contra Ecclesiae libertatem, nisi ea de capitularibus suis intra duos menses post huiusmodi publicationem sententiae fecerint amoveri.’ This decretal was included in the Compilatio quinta (1226) at 5 Comp. 1.1.2 and in the Liber extra of Gregory IX (1234) at X 5.39.49.

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Moreover, you well recall the oath you swore on holy relics to observe in good faith the terms governing the procedure of the case, to which we jointly consented at Thame;5 you also recall that certain of your fellow members who were then present there likewise swore oaths on the souls of each and every member of the chapter. I therefore ask that your conscience give answer to me before God and his angels as to whether the oath has been observed in good faith and without guile by those members of the chapter who were successful in obtaining the prohibition or in arranging for it not to be revoked. Because I have a father’s concern and responsibility for your soul and the souls of each and every member of my chapter, with all possible fatherly affection I advise and exhort you in the Lord, and with the full expression of my episcopal authority (which has been assigned to me from on high despite my unworthiness) I very strictly command you not in any way henceforth to contrive, through your own efforts or those of others, anything with the lord king, or his officials, or anyone else that bears in particular on this case and would impair the Church’s liberty. With the same strictness, because of the situation I have described and by virtue of my own authority and also yours – for you bear with me responsibility for the salvation of the same souls – I firmly command you and each and every member of your chapter not to incur – God forbid! – the risk of excommunication or perjury or both, which would be worse, and of the sins that follow therefrom. Were you to do so, you would go down to hell alive [Nm 16:30] and conscious and fully aware of the consequences of your action. And because an evil done is undeserving of forgiveness in God’s sight unless it is revoked and corrected by its perpetrators to the best of their abilities, I urge and advise you, and firmly command, that if you have to this point done anything to harm the Church’s liberty, especially as bears upon this case, you do your utmost to arrange for it to be revoked without delay. And I advise, urge, and command each and every member of your chapter, if they have attempted anything similar in this case, likewise to expend every effort to have it revoked. Farewell.

5 The oath sworn by the chapter at Thame in Oxfordshire may have been in support of the agreement reached by Grosseteste and the chapter before Christmas of 1239; see Letter 91, n. 4. On the wealthy Lincoln prebend of Thame, a former episcopal manor, see Fasti: Lincoln, 101–2; and Letter 90, n. 8.

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93 To the dean and chapter of Salisbury Cathedral, concerning Grosseteste’s dispute with the chapter of Lincoln. Written probably in 1240 or 1241. Edition: Luard, Epp. 290–1.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord to the dean and chapter of Salisbury,1 who are beloved to him in Christ. You have asked and implored me to show myself ready to restore peace between myself and my chapter, but your affection for me should tell you that I ardently desire peace more than anything else. Because, however, as Augustine says,2 the word ‘peace’ is used with many different meanings, and not every peace is true and honourable, and a particular peace may be shameful and false, the peace I wish for is one that, according to Augustine,3 is ‘the tranquillity of order.’ In this peace inferior powers are quietly subject and submissive to superior ones, equal powers do not begrudge an equality of status to those equal to them, and superior powers bestow upon inferior ones the influences of their own goodness without diminishing themselves in any way. For such a peace as this, which is the gift of him who is our peace, who made the two one [Eph 2:14], I shall always be ready, and I do not believe that such discreet men as yourselves are asking me to consent to any other kind of peace. For in any other peace there could be nothing but a true disruption of true order, or an untrue but brief and imaginary quieting of true disorder, or a confused mingling together of disorder and disturbance. May you fare well, etc.

1 On the dean (Master Robert of Hertford) and chapter of Salisbury, see J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300, rev. and expanded ed. (London, 1968–), vol. 4: Salisbury, compiled by D.E. Greenway, 11 and passim. In 1239 the dean and chapter of Salisbury, along with other chapters of the English secular cathedrals, sent copies of their privileges to Lincoln to support the canons of Lincoln in their opposition to Grosseteste’s visitation; see Letter 80, p. 274, and Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals, 128–9. The Lincoln dean and chapter subsequently petitioned the pope, claiming the same liberty from episcopal visitation as enjoyed by the canons of Salisbury; for the papal response, dated 17 January 1240, delegating the matter to the bishop and archdeacon of Worcester and the abbot of Evesham, see Bliss, Calendar, 185–6. 2 See Augustine, De civitate dei 19.13 (CCSL 48:678–9). 3 Ibid.

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94 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln, concerning Grosseteste’s dispute with the chapter of Lincoln. Written while the see of Canterbury was vacant and the monks of Christ Church were claiming to exercise ‘sede vacante’ jurisdiction (see n. 9), probably in 1241 or 1242 (see n. 7). Edition: Luard, Epp., 291–5 (reading, p. 294/line 26, nollemus for nolemus, and, 294/33, non expedire for expedire non).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of Lincoln.1 At the beginning of your letter you promise words of peace in a spirit of clemency and affection – may the God of peace himself grant that the concluding words are not inconsistent with those at the beginning! – and so you write words that praise peace and the desire for it. But although the word ‘peace’ is used in various ways, as Augustine testifies, one would wish that the desire you mention is for the peace that he calls the ‘tranquillity of order,’2 one in which inferior powers are obediently submissive in all things to superior ones, who from the influence of God’s law undertake to influence their inferiors. The praise you mention can only be for peace of this kind. You also suggest, as if to complain, that the opposite of peace has caused you to feel oppressed to some degree. Now, I know that the opposite of the peace I described above cannot truthfully be anything but oppressive and wicked, and it is right that a person who rejects the tranquil and sweet gentleness of this peace should experience confusion and oppression. As the poet says: ‘Gently must we bear whatever suffering we deserve.’3 Now, the opposite of any peace that is not an expression of the peace I mentioned can only be honourable and good, since every alternative peace is shameful and dishonourable, even though it seems otherwise to the ones who know not the things of God but those that pander to the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and to the pride of this life [Mt 16:23, 1 Jn 2:16]. For, according to the philosopher,4 what seems good or evil to every individual is that which does or does not conform with the state of his mind,

1 2 3 4

See Letter 91, n. 1. See Letter 93, p. 309 and nn. 2–3. Ovid, Ep. 5.7. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Eudemia 7.2.5–7.

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just as every person judges differences in taste in accord with the reactions of the organ that perceives taste. So, if the opposite of any peace that is not part of the peace I mentioned causes you or me to experience any punitive distress or discomfort, let us praise and thank God and not grumble. In this he has shown us his compassion, deeming us worthy, in imitation of himself and after the manner of those who are his imitators, to receive as good what is oppressive and distressing; for to those who endure such a burden as something good there is the certain promise of the kingdom of heaven. You also state in your letter that you are obliged to displease and offend me, though against your will and under compulsion; you suggest that you have found no honourable way or reason to avoid doing so. If I am a wicked man, as good men you are obliged to displease and offend me with good actions that have your goodness as their source, and there is no way or reason to avoid this, for of necessity evil displeases and offends what is good, and vice versa. If both of us are wicked, we must displease and offend one another, for just as something twisted and bent cannot conform with something else so shaped, so one evil cannot conform with another. If, however, you are the wicked ones and I am good, the truth is that you have no choice as wicked men but to displease and offend me. At the same time, however, in the present circumstances there is a way to avoid doing so, and that is to turn from wickedness to goodness. A good man can never offend another good man, nor can one displease the other, because things that are alike, not in what they lack but in what they are, necessarily harmonize with, rejoice in, and are pleasing to each other. So, unless I am greatly mistaken, it follows from your words that either one of us is wicked or both of us are. Next you rebuke me for excommunicating Master Nicholas,5 your colleague and the proctor of your chapter, much too hastily, or so you say, alleging as well that he had been appointed proctor only for purposes of appeal. To these complaints I give this answer: when Master Nicholas appeared in court in the presence of my clerks, he produced and read his letter of appointment as an official proctor, drafted in the name of the chapter – which was then inspected and read by my clerks – wherein there was also this formula, namely: we promise for him payment of any

5 Master Nicholas is almost certainly Nicholas of Waddingham, chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral from 1238 to 1265; see Fasti: Lincoln, 17. Proper procedures for appointing and certifying proctors in the ecclesiastical courts are the subject of canon 25 of the legatine council held in London in 1237; see Councils and Synods, 256.

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judgment debt. When that master afterwards contumaciously withdrew, I decided, wishing to be considerate of you, that his contumacy should be punished. So your rebuke is based on a falsehood, and that is why you too should be rebuked most of all, and not undeservedly, for disrespectfully spreading among several people a false story about your father as if it were fact, as is clear from the wording of your letter. Even if he had exposed himself, you ought to have covered up your father’s nakedness.6 Furthermore, you mention my excommunication of Master Nicholas as something hard to bear, even though I did this for the reason I mentioned; and you loudly talk about my actions – no, not mine, but actions you represent as mine while completely refraining from mentioning your own – as if this excommunication will be an obstacle to the restoration of peace. Should you not have remembered that, following the day we had mutually fixed for restoring peace in an agreement that those who were then present clearly recall, you did everything you could to pursue your suit in the lord king’s court through the agency of Master Odo, having yourselves obtained anew a royal letter that was presented there and then to the judges?7 You find it hard to bear that I excommunicated your clerk for the reason I gave, and you rebuke me for it, even though, in contempt of me, as is plain from obvious indications, you did not feel at all ashamed, or so I believe, to excommunicate unjustly my dean, who was in no way subject to you.8 A scale must be true [Lv 19:36], and when the merits of both parties have in good faith been placed in the two pans, one must decide which have greater weight. At the end of your letter you mention your fear that my harsh and unheard of actions will force you to seek against me the kind of remedy you did not want. If by ‘harsh and unheard of actions’ you mean the excommunication of your clerk, how is it possible for you to be great men when you regard so small a matter to be of such great importance? The mind of a great man places great value only upon truly great things. If, however, other actions of mine are intended, I ask you to make them known to me, for with the Lord’s favour I would not want to be harsh

6 Grosseteste is alluding to the story (Gn 9:20–7) of the sons of Noah covering their father’s nakedness. 7 Royal letters prohibiting the papal judges-delegate from deciding the dispute between Grosseteste and his chapter were issued anew on 27 March 1242; see Letter 91, n. 2. On Master Odo of Kilkenny, see Emden, BRUO, 2:1048. He is said to have served as the chapter’s advocate at the papal curia; see Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 3:528–9; cf. Letter 79, p. 272; and Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 185n2, 197. 8 This is a reference to the chapter’s refusal to accept Master Roger de Weseham as dean; see Letter 91, n. 1; Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 174–5.

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with anything but vices. A remedy, as you call it, if that is what it truly is, is a cure for a disease. Your seeking this kind of remedy will not cause me any fear, but will please me instead, because I desire a cure for anyone’s disease, no matter what it is. If, however, under cover of a curative drug there is something deadly, seeking that as a remedy is in fact not right, as in your letter you state that it is not. I believe, furthermore, that the remedy you want is in fact not right for you, but that, with the Lord’s help, it will be very right for me. For I do not believe that that remedy is anything other than seeking the protection of the monks of Canterbury.9 Once you have bowed down before them when they say, bow down so that we may walk over you [Is 51:23], you will not stand up again of your own free will. Is it really possible that in men who are so wise there is such a great desire to rise up against a father who is seeking, or believes he is seeking, nothing but the salvation of his sons, that they wish to pluck out both their own eyes so as to take from their father one, or perhaps none, of his? Are you not wishing to become slaves with masters so as not to be your father’s sons? Do you wish to consume poison yourselves so as to give your father a drug to drink that is bitter but beneficial? For what will the monks of Canterbury do to me but oppress me in any way they can for defending a just cause and common advantage? With the Lord’s help, this oppression, though bitter, will for me be a beneficial drink, one that will cure my sickness, restore my health, clear my vision, knit together my broken bones, strengthen my weakness, and perfect my imperfection. But for you it will turn into the opposites of all these things, should you be the reason for its instigation and promotion. So, the remedy you are threatening would not be for me a reason for fear but for consolation. For you, however, whom I love like sons, I abhor such a remedy, because for you it cannot be anything but harmful. And as I want to oppose, as I am able to do, that remedy of yours, which for you is deadly, I am giving you formal and indisputable notice that if you are successful in obtaining anything from those monks, or if you attempt anything against anyone at their command, I shall have you publicly denounced as excommunicates throughout my entire diocese. Farewell. 9 The chapter might well have been tempted to turn to the monks of Canterbury, who had had some experience disputing with their bishop (see Letter 80, n. 8), and who were claiming to exercise archiepiscopal authority while the see of Canterbury was vacant. Grosseteste was among the leaders of the opposition to the monks’ exercise of sede vacante jurisdiction in the period between the death of Edmund of Abingdon (16 November 1240) and the consecration of Boniface of Savoy (15 January 1245); seeCouncils and Synods, 340–1, and Morgan, ‘Excommunication.’

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95 To the dean and chapter of Lincoln, asking for their support in the face of a ‘sudden and unexpected enemy attack’ on the Church of Lincoln. Written probably in 1242. Edition: Luard, Epp., 296–7.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the dean and chapter of Lincoln.1 The strength of a city’s wall and the prudent, strong, and untiring defence provided by its citizens at the ramparts fend off the enemy, drive them back in confusion, and save the city. And should it happen that the wall is weak, but that a tireless defence by strong men is available, the city will not easily be endangered by an enemy’s assault. If, however, the wall has no strong defenders, regardless of how strong it may appear to be, it will barely or not at all be able to hold back enemy onslaughts for long. And if the enemy pulls down the wall, what hope for safety do the citizens have left? That is why at any threat of hostilities a city must place its hope for safety in the courageous and untiring efforts of heroic citizens to drive back the enemy. You are fully aware of the sudden and unexpected enemy attack on the city whose citizens you are and whose wall I am, though feeble and weak.2 So, since every citizen, if he is truly a citizen and not unworthy of the name, not only tries to ensure his city’s safety in every way he can, but also burns with a fervent desire to devote himself to this cause, it is my hope, as it should be, that each and every one of you, whom I believe to 1 See Letter 91, n. 1. 2 The identity of the ‘enemy’ and the nature of this ‘sudden and unexpected attack’ on the Church of Lincoln are not known. Luard (Epp., cxxii) assumed that Grosseteste was referring to King Henry’s collection of money for his trip abroad in May of 1242, but that is not an entirely plausible explanation, as such collections were neither entirely unexpected, nor could the king be considered an enemy of the Church of Lincoln. Perhaps Grosseteste is alluding here to an attack on him (the ‘wall’ of the Lincoln church) by the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, claiming sede vacante jurisdiction. In May of 1242 Grosseteste seems to have convened a meeting of the suffragans of Canterbury at London to address the issue of the monks’ jurisdiction, and in March of 1243 he was excommunicated by the monks of Christ Church; see Morgan, ‘Excommunication’; Councils and Synods, 340–1; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 155–7; Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 154–5; and Letter 110.

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be not unworthy citizens, but honourable, strong, and heroic, will vigorously oppose our enemies to protect your city’s safety at this time of hostilities. The greater the weakness you observe in your city wall, and the more serious the loss of the city should its enemies prevail – which God forbid! – the more strongly will you gird yourselves to defend both wall and city. For that reason, and also because ‘it does no harm to spur on a galloping horse,’3 with all possible affection I ask, exhort, and implore you to show yourselves to be honourable, strong, and heroic citizens in matters that concern what I have mentioned. Otherwise you may perhaps be stigmatized for deviating in any way from the behaviour that is proper for such important citizens. I very earnestly ask you – as I remember asking you previously in a letter4 – to let me know precisely what advice you would give me concerning the course of action to be taken against these enemies. Farewell.

96 To Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely, concerning the services of Richard of Kirkham as a judge in the dispute between Grosseteste and his chapter. Written probably after 27 March 1242 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 297–9 (reading, p. 298/line 13, vobis for nobis).

To the venerable father in Christ, Hugh, by the grace of God bishop of Ely, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord.1 Solomon writes in Proverbs that a friend loves at all times, and a brother is proven in times of distress [Prv 17:17]. Now, the proof of brotherhood and of friendship is a deed done for all to see. So the person who in times of distress does not provide help when he is able to do so plainly shows that he is neither truly a brother nor a true friend, but, as is written in Ecclesiasticus, he is a friend when it suits him, and he does not stand by you in

3 Ovid, Ep. ex Ponto 2.6.38. 4 No record of this letter seems to have survived. 1 On Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely between 1229 and 1254, see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 46.

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your day of trouble [Sir 6:8]. Because he does not stand by you in your day of trouble, he is guilty of failing to love at all times, and this failure is the proof that he is not a true friend in the judgment of Solomon, who states, as above, that a friend loves at all times. Now, you know that I for good reason will presently have to be placed in a most distressing situation, should the absence of a judge for a single day cause the permanent loss of my case on behalf of the salvation of souls, for which I have toiled so much and so anxiously.2 Since you have the power, with a single word of command, to ensure the judge’s presence, you may yourself be the best judge as to whether, should you fail to do so, it does in truth follow from the authoritative and truthful words I quoted above that you are not my true friend and true brother. God forbid that so great a prelate as yourself, who has shown himself so often in his words, writings, and deeds to be a friend, would so thoughtlessly forfeit not only the reality but also the name of brotherhood and friendship! But perhaps you will say that you fear the loss of your worldly possessions. Well, what wise man is there who, should he have to forfeit either the greater or the smaller of two goods, hesitates to choose the loss of the smaller over that of the greater? Now, all earthly goods cannot be compared with even a tiny part of a friendship, for not only is wisdom better than all the most precious riches, but so, too, is friendship, and beyond comparison with anything else one might desire. Nor do you have in this matter any reason at all to fear even the slightest loss of temporal goods, as I am ready and entirely willing to provide you with all the security necessary to protect you and Master Richard of Kirkham3 from suffering any loss. I cannot believe, nor should I, that you would want to fail me, who am yours, in my hour of need, but perhaps you wanted me to prove whether I was in earnest about proceeding with my suit. Well, were I to let you go before you could bestow your blessing upon me by ordering Master Richard to be present on my day in court, you would obviously know that to this point I have acted hypocritically and not from the heart. As matters 2 In letters dated 27 March 1242, King Henry III wrote to Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, and to Masters Richard of Kirkham and Henry of Hoo, judges delegated by the pope to hear the case between Grosseteste and his dean and chapter, renewing his mandate that they proceed no further in the case; see Letter 90, n. 6. Richard of Kirkham was in the service of Hugh of Northwold at this time (see A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 [Cambridge, 1963], 338), and Hugh could therefore order him to proceed in the case, as Grosseteste here requires. 3 For Richard of Kirkham, see previous note, and Letter 97.

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stand, then, since my tiresome persistence should be enough to convince you that I am proceeding with this suit with all my heart, please, as a man of charity, order Master Richard to come to court on my day. He has been till now an agent of your support for me in my suit; so if at the end you now desert me, what else are you doing but, as it were, tossing me back into the sea at a time when I was already, thanks to you, safe in port? For, according to philosophers,4 when someone is in danger, the person who has the power to rescue him but does not do so is to blame for the danger. Furthermore, it is written that on Judgment Day the just will take their stand with great assurance against those who oppressed them and thwarted their efforts [Ws 5:1]. My hope is that on that day, though I am a sinner, I will with God’s mercy be resurrected among the just. You therefore have every reason to fear that I will then have to take a stand with great assurance against you, if you oppress me and thwart my efforts. This you will obviously do should you fail to grant my request. Farewell in the Lord. I am writing confusedly yet truthfully, for my mind was confused when my messenger returned empty-handed in a most critical and anxious hour of need.

97 To Richard of Kirkham, at the same time (probably after 27 March 1242), and concerning the same matter, as Letter 96. Edition: Luard, Epp., 299–300.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord to Master Richard of Kirkham,1 who is beloved to him in Christ. You have asked me not to take offence at any absence on your part, but who is not offended when someone has embarrassed him? If you were in fact to absent yourself, my embarrassment would be as great as it could be, and so too would be the offence, and not without good reason. You state that you have a fear of surprise attacks. Well, in your discretion you 4 The ‘philosophers’ have not been identified. 1 On Richard see Letter 96, n. 2, and Letter 90, n. 6.

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should first of all consider if such an important man as yourself should be afraid, particularly when you may have, with the Lord’s favour, safe passage under the escort of your own people and especially mine to protect you against all such attacks. Furthermore, neither you nor your lord2 should be afraid of any loss in this regard, as I am willing to assure you both in every way that you will suffer no loss at all in this matter. I have also read the letter sent by your lord to say that he must have you with him on the day of my suit at Westminster, and I know from the tenor of that letter that he has no such need on that day in that particular location. Furthermore, those people – whom I do not care to name – are deluding themselves when they make up stories about laying traps for you, and capturing or detaining you, just to frighten you when in fact there is no reason for fear [Ps 52:6]. For I know for a fact that the people who make up these stories would not, even for ten thousand pounds of gold, have the courage to lay a hand on you or to have others do so. And to eliminate all your fear, I am sending you a safe conduct that will meet your needs as far as Daventry,3 where, with the Lord’s permission, you will find me personally prepared, with the Lord’s help, to escort you safely and bring you back safely. So you may come with an easy mind, provided you act like a man. Otherwise, as I said above, you will forever embarrass me and, to be truthful, very much tarnish your own reputation in the minds of good and respected people, and without a doubt incur the indignation of God by forsaking his cause for no reason at all, though you are bound to achieve good results that are the very opposite of these evils if you act like a man. Farewell.

98 To Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, at the same time (probably after 27 March 1242), and concerning the same matter, as Letters 96 and 97. Edition: Luard, Epp., 300–2 (reading, p. 300/line 27, aut for ut, and, 302/10, vobis for nobis).

2 Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely; see Letter 96, n. 1. 3 Daventry is near Northampton, on the northern edge of Lincoln diocese and on the main road to London.

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To the venerable father in Christ, Walter, by the grace of God bishop of Worcester, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord.1 Of Moses we read that he was the meekest man who ever lived on earth [Nm 12:3]. He loved the people entrusted to him with such deep feelings of charity that he begged the Lord that he be blotted out of the book the Lord had written [Ex 32:32], that is, the book of life, or that his people be forgiven their sin of making the molten image of a calf. Yet his extraordinary gentleness and unique and indescribable feelings of affection did not cause him to hold back his hand from appropriately just punishment of a people guilty of sin. Although with the sons of Levi he came and went through the midst of the camps from gate to gate with gentleness of spirit and the most intense feelings of affection, but with no relaxing of his physical strength, on a single day he put to death three thousand people who had been a party to the moulding of the calf.2 By this deed the sons of Levi consecrated their hands to the Lord and were given his blessing [Ex 32:29]. You, then, by performing the office of judge, are one who represents Moses between me and my sons, who are very dear to me even though they are my adversaries.3 So let Moses in his discretion consider and determine precisely if these adversaries, even though they are my sons, did not, so to speak, mould a calf and worship it in place of God when they forsook the truth of agreements and of promises of good faith, and the binding power of their oath. In the fire of their burning desire to defend themselves in any way they could they heaped together and found fuel for so many frivolous exceptions and appeals, so many deceitful quibbles, and so many illicit subterfuges, and they worshipped, as it were, the calf they had moulded from these as if it could really protect them. Will Moses in his zeal be unable to strike dead with the sword all such metal-founders, who worship and adore, so to speak, an idol instead of truth, and thus instead of God, who is Truth itself? Will not a zealous Moses consecrate his hands and thus 1 Walter of Cantilupe was bishop of Worcester from 1236/7 to 1266. His synodal statutes, issued in 1240, were much influenced by Grosseteste’s Lincoln statutes of 1239 (see Councils and Synods, 294–325), and he was a staunch ally of Grosseteste in the attempt to restrict the sede vacante jurisdiction of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury (see Morgan, ‘Excommunication,’ 247). 2 Ex 32:28. 3 Walter of Cantilupe was one of the papal judges delegated to hear the case between Grosseteste and his chapter; see Letter 90, n. 6, and Letter 96, n. 2.

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receive a blessing [Ex 32:29] by putting to death with the edge of his sword [Ex 17:13] such people as these? There can be no doubt that the person whose hand is held back in this regard by gentleness or love or anything else will not truly be Moses; instead he will be able to fear what has been written: A curse on him who withholds his sword from bloodshed [Jer 48:10]. Is it not a fact that the priest Eli was reproached and condemned for rebuking his delinquent sons too feebly?4 Is it not a fact that you have the role of priest and father to my adversaries just as you also have to me? Indeed, the simple truth is that this is your role as long as you take the place of the supreme pontiff and act with his authority.5 Saul was reproached and deprived of his royal rank for sparing Agag and the best of the flocks of sheep and of the herds and everything that was beautiful [1 Sm 15:9]. So wickedness must not be spared; indeed, just as Saul was instructed, it should be struck down everywhere and put to death with the edge of the sword [Ex 17:13], however numerous its perpetrators may be, though they are possessed of rank, power, riches, or the beauty of erudition. Otherwise, the one who spares wickedness will perish with Saul. So since, as I touched on recently when I wrote to you, my adversaries are persisting – to the end, so to speak – in their contumacy, which has increased excessively and become so much more oppressive, and since you will have no power to punish them after the day of the suit, may the manly vigour and strength of Moses, rather than the feebleness of Eli or Saul, manifest themselves on that day. I am not writing this as if to charge you with feebleness but, as I mentioned to you in my recent letter, ‘to spur on a galloping horse.’6 For God forbid that you, who began strong, smashing even the strong restraints of the king’s prohibition like the threads of cobwebs, in the end are found to be feeble.7 Violent and unnatural movements begin strong, but by the end they are entirely feeble; on the other hand, natural movements are more feeble at the outset but very strong at the end.8 It is right for you to imitate nature, not violence. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

4 1 Sm 2:22–36. 5 On the office and jurisdiction of the papal judge-delegate, see Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, 100–18. 6 Ovid, Ep. ex Ponto 2.6.38; cf. Letter 95, n. 3. 7 On the king’s prohibition, see Letter 91. 8 This distinction between natural and violent motion is Aristotelian in inspiration. An example of natural motion would be a rock falling to the ground; if the same rock were to be picked up and thrown, this action would be an example of unnatural and violent motion.

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99 To Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, advising him about an important decision; written before Easter (20 April) 1242. Edition: Luard, Epp. 302–4 (reading, p. 303/line 5, aliquem for aliquid).

To the venerable father in Christ, Walter, by the grace of God bishop of Worcester, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord.1 My beloved clerk Master Leonard2 has informed me, on behalf of your affectionate self, that you wish to hear my counsel as to whether or not you should journey with the lord king, at his expense, across the sea for a fixed period of time and for the sole purpose of discussing terms of peace between him and his adversaries.3 Now, in your discretion you know that, as philosophers assert, offering counsel depends upon a prudent inquiry in accord with the most plausible assumptions, and on the identification and selection of the path that leads most directly and efficiently to an end that is good or the best proposed.4 And the end that is first of all proposed as the proper object of one’s efforts, especially by a man appointed to the office of bishop, is the eternal salvation of the sheep entrusted to his care by the supreme Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. So my counsel, or that of any truthful counsellor, can only be that you take into account the contingencies on both sides of the question in accord with reasonable assumptions, and in

1 On Walter, see Letter 98, n. 1. 2 On Master Leonard of Dunwich, a trusted member of Grosseteste’s episcopal household, see Major, ‘Familia,’ 227. 3 It would seem that Walter was invited to accompany King Henry, who embarked at Portsmouth, bound for Poitou, on 9 May 1242, accompanied by his wife Eleanor, his brother Richard of Cornwall, and some two hundred knights. The king returned to England in September of 1243. For details of the political events, see Stacey, Politics, 191–6. Cantilupe seems not to have attended the king at this time; a mandate of 17 October 1242 requested that Walter accompany a shipment of treasure being sent to the king on a ship that would sail about the time of the feast of All Saints (1 November); see CCR, 4:521. 4 The ‘philosophers’ of this passage have not been identified, but the general issue of ‘counsel’ is raised in bks. 3 and 6 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, a work that Grosseteste was translating during the 1240s.

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the end select that course of action that, according to the more reasonable assumptions, appears to be more conducive to the salvation of the souls entrusted to your care, or to the salvation of souls pure and simple. So all counsel in this regard depends on the most discriminating inquiry, in accord with reasonable assumptions as far as possible, as to whether the salvation of souls seems more likely to take place as the result of your going abroad under the above conditions or your remaining behind with the sheep entrusted to your care. But how would I be able to offer you counsel in this regard? My lack of experience in such matters means that I do not know how prudently to come to a conclusion about contingencies on both sides in accord with probable assumptions, and even if I did know how to come to such a conclusion about the future, I would conceivably lack the prudence to know how prudently to anticipate what contingencies on one side or the other would reasonably appear to be more to the advantage of the salvation of souls. Now, because I desire for you, as for myself too, success in every undertaking acceptable to the Lord’s will, were I able to enjoy in the Lord your delightful and longed for presence, I would with the greatest pleasure discuss this subject with you as carefully as possible, for many points are often revealed in a mutual exchange of views that are completely overlooked in individual inquiries. Since, however, we cannot for the time being meet face to face, and it is my desire, even if lukewarm, to devote myself with all possible diligence to expediting your affairs in accord with God’s will as if they were my own, and since Brother Adam Marsh,5 who loves you sincerely in the Lord and is a wise man, both prudent and burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, is planning to come to me, or so I hope, in time for the approaching Easter celebration,6 and I shall be able, if you have no objection, to discuss this matter with him, I ask you to write back to me with your opinion about the contingencies on both sides in this particular situation, for you have no doubt given the question very close and careful consideration. Once I have discussed the matter thoroughly with Brother Adam, your answer will enable me, after due deliberation, not so much to advise you in this matter as to tell you what seems right to me. May you, father, fare well in the Lord.

5 On the Franciscan friar Adam Marsh, see Letter 9, n. 1. 6 Easter fell on 20 April in 1242.

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100 To Matthew, provincial prior of the English Dominicans, and the definitors at the provincial chapter, asking that two friars be assigned to help the bishop; written probably in 1242 or 1243. Edition: Luard, Epp., 304–5.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord to those beloved to him in Christ, Brother Matthew, provincial prior, and the definitors of the provincial chapter of the Friars Preachers in England.1 It is written, Do not say to your friend: ‘Go and come again and tomorrow I will give to you,’ when you can give at once [Prv 3:28]. From this maxim it is very clear that to delay giving is not to give at all, whereas to give at an opportune and proper time is to make one’s gift greater. Should a gift be made with a ready and benevolent heart, the giver also acquires the love of God, as the Apostle testifies when he says: God loves a cheerful giver [2 Cor 9:7]. You, then, who are like the wheel Ezekiel saw2 – turning not simply because some external force has set you in motion, but because of the spirit of life within you that disposes you toward every good – should not defer bestowing your gifts beyond the proper time, especially as such a delay is detrimental to the salvation of souls. I regard myself as a recipient of your generosity and bounty, although a privilege and concession from the lord pope state that I am supposed to have two of your friars with me to help me perform my ministry.3 So, to ensure that the fullness of your gift, and God’s love for us, are not reduced because of some delay or, so to speak, because you have withheld bestowing your gift, and to ensure also that the salvation of souls is in no way impeded, I ask you with all possible sincere and devoted affection to take care to provide me henceforth with some friars who will remain with me, so that the promptness of your cheerful giving may enhance your gift and the other things 1 On Matthew, provincial prior from ca. 1242 to 1254, see Hinnebusch, Friars Preachers, 62, 458, 497n1. Few records of the provincial chapters of the English Dominicans have survived, and none from the meetings in 1242 and 1243. 2 See Ez 1:15–21: ‘... Wherever the spirit would go, in that direction as the spirit went the wheels also were lifted up alongside and followed it, for the spirit of life was in the wheels ...’ 3 No copy of this papal privilege has yet been identified.

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I mentioned. I also believe it to be neither advantageous to you or to me nor in the interest of the salvation of souls to change, as frequently as has thus far been the case, the friars who are obliged to remain with me, since their replacements are inadequately trained and prepared for the duties they must perform to assist me in my ministry. I beseech you, moreover, with all my devotion, to deign to remember me, a sinner, in your prayers. May you, fathers, fare well in the Lord.

101 To King Henry III, concerning true friendship and proper respect for superiors. Written probably soon after Henry’s return from the Continent in September 1243. Edition: Luard, Epp., 306–8.

To his most excellent lord, Henry, by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou,1 his own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. I send you my most devoted and heartfelt thanks because you were willing to give me news of your lordship’s health, my lady the queen’s, and your family’s – all of whom may the Lord forever keep safe and prosperous and in his favour – and to ask with obvious concern about my own health. But to the remark in your letter that if I were as concerned for your health as you are for mine, you cannot but believe that I would want to see for myself how well you are or to send an intermediary to find out for certain, my reply is the teaching of the philosopher,2 that the law of true love, filled as it is with concern and anxious inquiring to learn if all is going well for the beloved, includes this corollary: a true lover does not go readily to a loved one who has been blessed with prosperity unless summoned to do so. But if he hears that the one he loves is oppressed by adversities, he comes unhesitatingly and unsummoned to comfort and help the loved one and to do as much as he can, giving his possessions

1 On Henry in this period, see Letter 99, n. 3; and Powicke, Henry III, 1:156–206. 2 This reference has not been identified. Cf. Letter 99, n. 4, and Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 9.11.1171a–b.

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and himself for the relief of his beloved. A friend, then, is not recognized in times of prosperity, because prosperity, which seems to long only for applause, is for the most part applauded more by flatterers than by true lovers. As for adversity, of life’s chief blessings it possesses this one alone: it distinguishes flatterers from lovers by the test I described. His three friends came not to Job when he was prosperous and sitting upon the throne of his kingdom. But they came unhesitatingly and unsummoned to him when he was leprous, deprived of every temporal possession, and sitting on a dung hill.3 That I did not go in person to you – faring well, blessed be God, as I know well enough from specific inquiries, but not from the ostentatious questioning that lies far outside the bounds of true friendship – is no proof, then, that I love you or am concerned about you any the less. Perhaps, with closer scrutiny, proof of the contrary will be found instead, for true love seeks not to please but to serve, and not to make a display, so to speak, of the signs of love that are common and customary for lovers, both true and false. But perhaps someone will say that although one may forego coming in person and still conform with the law of love, yet to conform with the law of veneration owed to a superior one may not do so. My reply is that I agree with him, that all respect and honour should be paid to one’s superior and to the Lord. But these have their season, just as all things have [Eccl 3:1], according to Solomon. And I do not believe that I have overlooked a suitable season, since, if you add together my own bodily infirmity and the urgency of the Church’s affairs that have been imposed upon me – for they tolerate no delay and the king in his piety would not want them to be interrupted – it will indeed be apparent that my coming in person to pay my respects to your royal majesty has had to be postponed until such time as I have taken care of those affairs, a time that, with the Lord’s favour, will soon be more suitable. For it is also to the honour of a temporal king if the work of the eternal King is not delayed to suit the former; and although one should blush to recount his own good deeds, I am nevertheless compelled, together with Paul and like a fool, so to speak [2 Cor 11:17], to tell your serenity on my own behalf that I feel true and not false concern for your temporal and eternal well-being, desiring to labour with you to secure it not only in honour but in dishonour, not only in glory but in disgrace too [2 Cor 6:8], and, in a word, not by enjoying with you your prosperity but by sharing with you your adversity for the sake of your salvation. Long may your lordship fare well. 3 See Jb 2:11–12.

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102 To King Henry III, concerning the king’s actions with regard to the abbey of Bardney. Written after 29 October 1243 (see n. 2). Edition: Luard, Epp., 308–9.

To his most excellent lord, Henry, by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou,1 his own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. I have heard that your excellency has ordered William of Compton, keeper of the temporalities of the abbey of Bardney, to arrange for Walter, former abbot of Bardney, and the monks who are his supporters, to be supplied with everything they need more generously and better than their opponents, and to permit that former abbot to have free access to the Church of Bardney whenever he wishes, even though it is unbelievable that these commands ever originated in the conscience of a king.2 For royal power is such that a king can command only what is right (rectum), since a king (rex, regis) is so called from the words meaning ‘right rule’ (rectum regimen).3 Favouring children who rebel against their father, are contumacious and disobedient, over those who are submissive and obedient – what is this but a preference for darkness over light, bitter over sweet, and evil over good [Is 5:20]? According to the law of Moses,4 children of the flesh who rebelled against their fathers and were contumacious had to be stoned to death by all the people. So, since the bond of the spirit is of greater importance than kinship of the flesh, and since for that reason any violation of the obedience owed to one’s spiritual father ought to be punished all the more severely, who will not blaze with anger to punish such contumacious individuals rather than rouse them by his approval to greater contumacy? But should anyone say that they are rebelling justly against their father, this is something that no one should readily presume, at least until the 1 On Henry in this period, see Letters 99 and 101. 2 See CCR, 5:131: ‘Mandatum est custodi abbacie de Bardenay quod Waltero quondam abbati de Bardenai et vij aliis monachis ei adherentibus de exitibus predicte abbacie invenias necessaria’ (dated 29 October 1243). On these events, see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 155–60. 3 Cf. Isidore, Etymologiae 9.3.4. 4 Dt 21:20–1.

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issue has been decided by the Church’s judgment. Furthermore, is it really possible that a non-ecclesiastical power, however great he may be, will on his own authority admit into the house of the Lord whomever the ordinary ecclesiastical power bars from entering it, whether justly or unjustly, especially as the judging of such an action is by no means the concern of a non-ecclesiastical power? If, even out of pious zeal, whatever its strength, such a power should attempt it, what else would he be doing but, along with Uzzah, who presumed to do what was beyond his power, stretching forth his hand to the ark of the Lord [2 Sm 6:6]? For this reason, although Uzzah did this out of a kind of zeal, the Lord was angry with him and struck him, and he died there at once beside the ark [2 Sm 6:7]. May precedents such as this be as far removed as possible from your most beloved lordship! Because of the reverence and love we owe Jesus Christ, who, according to the Apostle,5 speaks in and through prelates, and thus also does all other things in and through them, and for that reason, as Jesus himself testifies,6 is himself received when they are received and scorned when they are scorned, we therefore beg with all possible affection that, if any letter from your lordship has been furtively obtained that orders the kinds of things mentioned above, your royal excellency take steps to recall it. Long may your lordship fare well.

103 To Queen Eleanor of England, asking her to intercede with the king concerning certain disturbances in the kingdom. Written probably in 1243. Edition: Luard, Epp., 310–11.

To his most excellent lady, Eleanor, by the grace of God illustrious queen of England, lady of Ireland, duchess of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and countess of Anjou,1 her own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection.

5 Cf. 1 Thes 2:13 and 1 Pt 4:11. 6 See Mt 25:31–46. 1 On Eleanor, see M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998).

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It is written in the book of Wisdom: Like the sun rising to the world in God’s heavens, so the beauty of a good wife is for the adornment of her house [Sir 26:21]. Now, the sun rising to the world drives away the horror of darkness, brings the pleasant and agreeable light of day, expels the fears and disturbances of night, bestows peace and security, and, to summarize briefly, naturally sustains, through the life-giving warmth of its rays as it rises to the world, whatever naturally flourishes, thrives, and prospers in the world we see. So for the adornment of your house (which consists in a special sense of the Church and kingdom of England), the brightness and beauty of your kindness, goodness, and virtue must produce effects like those of the rising sun, by countering the horror of error, by proposing what is true, and – so that the priesthood and the realm may enjoy the tranquillity of peace desired by all mortals – by most prudently providing for both of them the peace to flourish, thrive, and grow to perfection. For reasons that would take too long for me to write out for you, but that the bearer of this letter, a beloved clerk of mine, will be better able to make known to you aloud if you have no objection, the priesthood, the clergy, and even the people of this realm of England have been exceedingly disturbed in these times as if by nightmares.2 So, now is the time and here the place for that bright beauty of yours that I mentioned to display its lustre, by persuading the lord king, if you will, to cut away the new causes of disturbance that have arisen, a fitting task for his royal majesty, and not to allow them to sprout in the future. Seated on the judgment throne, as is written about the good king, let him dispel all evil with his glance [Prv 20:8]. For what he does in response to your recommendations you will be doing through and in him. Following, then, the example of Esther, that excellent, most holy, and most prudent queen, who freed her people from the death to which they had been sentenced by the king’s decree,3 please take steps by persistent requests to the lord king to set free from the new and unprecedented troubles confronting them not only the people but also the clergy and priesthood of this realm of England. May your serene majesty ever fare well in the Lord.

2 Cf. Letter 86, where Grosseteste writes to Boniface of Savoy, Eleanor’s uncle, to ask him to intercede with the queen to influence her husband concerning his interference in the episcopal election at Winchester. The similarities in the language of the two letters, both of which invoke the book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) (26:1 and 26:21), suggest that they may have been written at the same time. 3 Est 1–8.

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104 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning a supposed slighting of the legate’s authority by Grosseteste. Written probably in 1240. Edition: Luard, Epp., 311–13.

To the venerable father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. My clerk, Master Simon of Arden,2 has returned to me from your presence, father, with news that he heard certain remarks from you that led him to be very much afraid that a shadow had been cast over the serenity of your usual affection for me. If this report were trustworthy, I would be very upset indeed, and so I should, for I know that the serene and pleasant radiance that shines brightly upon me from your love purges away my darkness, gives warmth to my coldness and new life to my lifelessness, and restores my barrenness to fruitfulness. Besides, there are flashes from the rays of your sincere affection that scatter enemy powers and reverse their assaults. How, then, would I not be upset, if I perceived that I had been deprived of such good influences? But whatever my clerk has concluded from what you said, I cannot believe that the sincerity of your love for me has changed. For, as far as my conscience tells me, I have not deserved a change in that love, and I know that your holiness is a man of sound judgment who does not listen willingly to the tongues of detractors, nor readily believe the whispers of the spiteful. Instead, you seal your ears with thorns [Sir 28:28] to prevent yourself from hearing bloodthirsty detraction, and you frown to discourage the impudence of slanderers. I also know that you are well aware that I am being wronged by the large number of people who avail themselves of every kind of cunning and craft to fill your ears, either personally or through intermediaries, with perverse stories about me to this end, that once a shadow has been cast over your

1 On Otto, see Letters 49 and 74. He was in England and Scotland from July 1237 to January 1241. 2 On Simon of Arden, see Letter 37, n. 3. He had returned from Rome and was with Grosseteste in 1240; see Major, ‘Familia,’ 219.

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affection for me and I have as a result been deprived of your protection, these individuals may more openly rise up against me and more wantonly befoul themselves in their own vices. How, then, when these facts are considered, would it be possible for me to believe that the face of one who loves me has changed its expression, particularly as I know that you have learned from both study and experience that no one should be persuaded by someone’s accuser until he has first heard the other side of the story? Now, my clerk, Master Simon, mentioned that on several occasions I sent people to you without written introduction, as though I had presumed to do so out of disrespect. But of disrespect for you, father, I absolve myself before God and his angels, and given the knowledge that a man’s own spirit within him [1 Cor 2:11] has about himself, I know that I am innocent of this charge. Nor do I recall sending anyone to you without a letter from me, except that my clerk told me that on my behalf he asked you to show favour for my sake to the prior of Daventry.3 But this clerk had not then been sent chiefly for this reason but to deal with other matters. Not having sufficient time to write, I had nevertheless imposed upon him, on his departure and at the insistence of that prior, the task of appealing to you on the prior’s behalf. If, either in this matter or in any others, I have offended you, father, I seek pardon always with devotion and humility and am prepared to give full satisfaction, while begging as devoutly and conscientiously as possible that your love for me will always grow, as love naturally and normally seeks to do. Scripture is my witness that a faithful friend is a sturdy shelter, to whom nothing can be compared and whose worth is more than any weight of gold and silver. When one finds him, he finds a treasure, and he is the medicine of life and of immortality [Sir 6:14–16]. Long may you fare well, holy father.

105 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, on Otto’s departure from England for the general council convoked by Pope Gregory IX for Easter of 1241. Written late in 1240. Edition: Luard, Epp., 313–14 (reading, p. 313/line 18, debitam tam devotam for debitam devotam). 3 The prior of Daventry was Nicholas of Ely (1231–64); see Medieval Religious Houses, 96.

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To the venerable father in Christ, Otto,1 by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, legate of the apostolic see, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. From the report of my beloved son in Christ, Master R.,2 I have learned that you intend, holy father, to start on a journey to the Roman curia before the next feast of the Lord’s Circumcision.3 I earnestly wish I were able to share your journey and your labours and thus deserve to partake of your consolation and your reward. Indeed, I would desire this very much if it were possible, so that I could fulfil as best I can the obedience I owe to the Holy Roman Church and show the respect and honour due to it, and especially to you, so very beloved in the Lord. But my own bodily weakness does not permit me to bear the burden of such a journey, and time is too short for me to join you now to accompany you at least as far as the sea and attend upon you with all the veneration so great a father deserves. So, with all possible affection I beg you, father, who are so inclined to be merciful, to deign to make my excuses to the lord pope for my involuntary and unavoidable absence at the forthcoming meeting of the council.4 Please also be so kind as to excuse me for not coming to you now, as I am prevented from doing so not just by one, but by several obstacles. And because I desire to fulfil at least through another – as it is in my power to do – what I cannot myself accomplish, I am sending to you, holy father, Master R., your clerk and mine, so that he may at least accompany you to the sea. With all my strength I beg you to think fit to accept this trifling service on his part. But above all I earnestly ask of you, whose charity is so assured and steady, that the special love you have had for me from the beginning of our friendship – a love that your deeds have often 1 On Otto, see Letters 49 and 74. 2 ‘Master R.,’ who is described as a clerk of both Grosseteste and Otto (clericum vestrum et nostrum), may be a scribal error for ‘Master P.,’ i.e., Master Peter of Bordeaux, a clerk in the cardinal’s household who was instituted by Grosseteste as rector of the Church of West Wycombe (alias Haveringdon) in April of 1239; see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:95; and Rotuli Grosseteste, 347, 352. 3 The feast of the Circumcision is 1 January. Otto set sail from England on 5 January 1241; see Williamson, ‘Legation,’ 173. 4 Letters from Pope Gregory IX convoking a general council to deal with Emperor Frederick II are dated 9 August 1240. The council never met, in part because Otto and several other cardinals were captured at sea by the emperor and taken prisoner before they could arrive for the proceedings. See D. Abulafia, Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (London, 1988), 340–50.

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clearly demonstrated and proven – may, in accordance with the nature of love, continuously increase until that which is perfect has come [1 Cor 13:10]. For the special quality of your affection will be for me a support in adversity, so that misfortune does not overwhelm my weakness, and a restraint in prosperity, so that good times do not encourage my lack of seriousness. Your love will also be for me a source of happiness in times of sadness, consolation in grief, high spirits in dire straits, repose in toil, sweetness in bitterness, light in darkness, the union of two minds that are distant from one another, and finally, a summons to fulfilment and perfection in my every failing and imperfection, which is very great. Moreover, I very firmly hope, or rather I know for a certainty, that you will not, holy father, deprive me of the gift of such good offices, especially as the treasury of the giver does not know how to suffer any loss because of the favour I have asked, but on the contrary increases as much as possible. Long may you fare well, holy father.

106 To Master Martin, collector of papal revenues in England, concerning an incident in the diocese of Lincoln. Written probably in 1244. Edition: Luard, Epp., 315–17.

To the venerable man, Master Martin,1 chamberlain and nuncio of the lord pope, Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. I have received your letter concerning what happened at the vicarage of Pinchbeck,2 and at the end there was a request that I write back to tell you what I intend to do about it and to send you my counsel. As I desire to the best of my ability to preserve unimpaired the lord pope’s honour and yours, I begin at the end and write back with a piece of advice that I 1 Master Martin was papal nuncio and collector of papal revenues in England from the spring of 1244 until 15 July 1245; see W.E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 206–12; Councils and Synods, 388–95; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 241–4. 2 Soon after his arrival in England, Martin attempted to confer the benefice of Pinchbeck in Lincolnshire on a clerk of his own choosing. The prior of Spalding, who had the right of presentation in the parish, opposed the nuncio’s action, and people in the locality harshly treated Martin’s agents; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 241.

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know to be valid in this case. First of all, along with the philosopher I assume that counsel entails setting or establishing the best goal and then devising the straightest, and therefore the best, path to reach it.3 Now, I know that, in the ministry entrusted to him from above, his holiness the lord pope has – and I believe the same in your case – the salvation of souls as the established goal of all his actions. And since that holiness is illuminated by the Spirit with his seven gifts4 and therefore with the Spirit’s gift of counsel, it desires to reach its proposed goal by following the straightest path. Now, what alone may be said to be ‘straight’ in the supreme prelate or in yourself, his nuncio, is that which has been set apart not only from evil but also from every appearance of evil [1 Thes 5:22]. Those who are his charges should not possess anything they may recognize as truly or apparently blameworthy when they gaze into the flawless perfection of so great a mirror. So, although I am a man of no importance, my counsel in this matter is that you keep everything deserving of blame away first from the lord pope and then from yourself, by first of all making known the authority you have for your actions, at least to those affected by them, so that you do not appear to violate that command of the blessed Peter: Do not lord it over the clergy, but from your heart set an example for the flock [1 Pt 5:3]. Secondly, if anything has intruded itself in your exercise of authority that may seem less than reasonable, as a man of discretion you should be concerned with justifying it as an obvious and reasonable necessity. Thirdly, if any people are found who oppose any reasonable commands of yours, you should first try reasoning with them before taking strong measures, since only when an opponent is unconvinced by the power of reason should there be a physical demonstration of power. For it was in this way that the Saviour himself proceeded against an opponent in the work of our redemption.5 This, then, is how I would for the moment sum up my counsel in general terms: you should see to it that those who in the cemetery at Pinchbeck rashly laid violent hands on your agents are publicly and solemnly denounced as excommunicates. But in particular I advise that, when the prior of Spalding6 and Master Bernard7 come to see you, you 3 Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 6.9.1142a–b. 4 The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, from the Vulgate text of Is 11:2, are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. 5 See, for example, Jesus’s argument with the devil in Mt 4:1–11. 6 Simon of Hautberg was prior of Spalding from 1229 to 1253; see VCH: Lincolnshire, 2:118–24. 7 Master Bernard is not otherwise known; he is presumably the prior of Spalding’s candidate for the Pinchbeck benefice.

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listen indulgently to them and to a recitation of their privileges and to their answers concerning the actions attributed to them, and that you treat them in a reasonable manner. Since no member of the opposing party ought to be condemned, no matter how reasonable the allegation, unless his defence is heard first; and since this vicarage has a cure of many souls, and both to save them and to conform with the law there must be a vicar constantly resident there; and since the lord pope may provide whomever he pleases in rectories that do not have such a cure, to preserve unharmed the pope’s reputation and yours – for one’s good name is better than precious ointments [Eccl 7:2] – I advise you to reserve for the lord pope’s collation a church in the patronage of the prior of Spalding, and permit the prior to present a suitable candidate to the vicarage. Furthermore, I humbly and devotedly ask that you release me for the moment from summoning the prior and Master Bernard to come to you within the ten-day period following my summons. Since, for particular reasons that I now leave unstated, it would be difficult for me to issue this summons, please use your own letter to summon them to appear before you, or ask someone else to do so. Farewell.

107 To the archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln, directing them to maintain better discipline in the parishes entrusted to their care. There would seem to be no means of establishing the date of the letter with certainty, but its place in the collection suggests that it was written in 1243 or 1244. Editions: Councils and Synods, 479–80; Luard, Epp., 317–18.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Archdeacon so-and-so.1 I have heard from a trustworthy source that a great many priests in your archdeaconry, showing no fear of God nor respect for anyone [Lk 18:4], either do not recite the canonical hours or do so incorrectly. And what they do recite they say without any devotion or sign of devotion – indeed, more with an open display of disrespect. And when they recite the 1 The form of address suggests that this mandate went to all the archdeacons of the diocese. For similar mandates to the archdeacons, see Letters 21 and 22.

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divine office they do not keep to a time that may be more convenient for their parishioners to hear it, but one that suits more their own caprice and laziness. Furthermore, these priests have their concubines, a fact that – even if it is hidden from me and my representatives when we arrange for inquiries into this kind of abuse, because those involved in the inquiries are not afraid to commit perjury – should nevertheless not be hidden in the same way from you, for you are personally obliged, both on your own and through your deans and beadles, to keep a close and continual watch over them. I have also heard that clerks perform plays they call miracles, and other plays they call May Day or Harvest Day, and that laymen involve themselves in drinking parties (‘scot-ales’),2 activities that in no way could escape your notice, if you were prudent enough to inquire after them carefully. Moreover, there are certain rectors, vicars, and priests who are not only loath to listen to the sermons of friars of both orders, but also maliciously prevent, as they are able to do, the people from hearing them preach or confessing to them.3 They also permit, or so it is said, the preaching of alms collectors, who deliver only the kinds of sermons that extract money in the most efficient way, whereas I authorize no alms collectors to preach, and only permit them to explain their business in a straightforward way through the parish priests. You are Judas Maccabeus,4 duty-bound to purge the Lord’s temple of every impurity, not feebly but vigorously and courageously, acting as he would with these abuses and the like. I, however, hold the place of the old man Mattathias5 instructing his son to observe zealously the laws of his fathers and to fight courageously against those who opposed the laws of God. That is why I warn, exhort, and firmly command you in the Lord to gird yourself like a man [Jb 38:3] to purge away the abuses I mentioned and any like them. You are to fight courageously the battles of the Lord [1 Sm 25:28] and to restore to order these and any similar irregularities, by compelling

2 Clerical participation in theatre-plays (ludi theatrales) and spectacles was condemned in a letter of Innocent III dated 1207 (X 3.1.12), and bishops were urged to extirpate this and similar activities. In letter 32 Grosseteste forbade the celebration of the Feast of Fools in his diocese; ‘scot-ales’ and other games were forbidden in Letter 22 and in his diocesan statutes, Letter 52* (section 39). 3 On the importance of the Dominican and Franciscan friars in providing pastoral care in the diocese of Lincoln, see Letters 40, 41, and 100. 4 See 1 Mc 3:1–9. 5 See 1 Mc 2:1–70, especially v. 50.

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priests to celebrate divine services properly, to expel their concubines, to convince their people to listen devoutly and attentively to the sermons of friars of both orders and to confess to them with humility, and to refuse to allow alms collectors to preach. You are also to eliminate altogether the miracle plays, and the other plays mentioned above, and the drinking parties – an action that is easily in your power. And you are to do all you possibly can to put a stop to the practice of Christians living with Jews.6 Farewell, etc.

108 To the abbot and monks of the Benedictine monastery of St Benoît-sur-Loire (Fleury), in the diocese of Orléans (France), concerning the monks in their dependency in Minting, in Lincoln diocese. Written probably in 1243 or 1244. Edition: Luard, Epp., 318–21.

To the venerable men, the abbot and community of St Benedict at Fleury,1 Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. You have professed the Rule of the blessed Benedict, a rule of preeminent holiness, and no one has any doubt that a professed monk is bound to observe his solemn profession and that those, therefore, who willingly and deliberately violate the rule, sin mortally. Furthermore, as the Apostle teaches, not only those who commit mortal sins, but also those who consent to such conduct in others, deserve to die [Rom 1:32]. Now, those who consent include people who do not stop evil when they have the power to do so. It is the responsibility of you who profess this rule to instruct each and every one of your monks in such a way that they not only know the rule they have professed but also live by it. You are also obliged not to send anyone from your community until a fully monastic life lived by the rule has become a habit for him from long practice. So, when you have the power, by satisfying these responsibilities, to ensure that no one from among you is a transgressor, and especially an obvious one, how, when you fail to do so, do you not deserve to die? 6 The cohabitation of Christians with Jews had been forbidden in c. 26 of the Third Lateran Council (1179); see Tanner, Decrees, 1:223–4. 1 See Letters 53–4.

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It is obvious to me and is common knowledge in these parts that you are not doing your duty, for you send from among you to the cell of Minting2 that you established in my diocese the sort of men who live wantonly with harlots, own property, are disobedient, are devoted to gluttony, drunkenness, and amusements, and are not ashamed to eat meat even on Wednesday. So, even if in your own community you live a life that is not inconsistent with the rule you have professed, in what I have described there is no small stain upon your glory [Sir 47:22] but one that is very shameful and conspicuous. Furthermore, I have expelled from that cell one brother Philip, who has been found guilty of fornication, possessing property, disobedience, wandering about the country, and eating meat contrary to the rule. I have likewise expelled Theobald, Walrand, and Gerard for possessing property and for being intolerably disobedient, wanderers about the country, frequenters of the homes of common women, addicted to illicit amusements even more than lay people, and, in a word, such obvious and outrageous transgressors against the observance of their rule as to be the scandal and song of the whole country. As these morally stained monks are from your body of monks, their stain cannot but disfigure the whole of the body of which they are a part. Likewise, if part of the body is ill, it is often assumed that the entire body is ill, for when you see someone’s scabrous or leprous foot, but not his face or the rest of his body, do you not readily decide that the whole body has been infected in the same way? Is it surprising if many people reach a similar conclusion about you on the evidence of the scabrous and leprous monks I mentioned above? According to the Apostle, fornication or indecency or any other sin should not only not exist but should not be mentioned among you [Eph 5:3]. For the mere mention of such a thing, especially when it is probably well-founded, obscures the light of your religious life with a dark cloud. That light should shine in a cloudless sky, so that all who look upon you may in you clearly see an utter contempt for all transitory things, an absence of pleasure in prosperity and of grief in adversity, and instead, as the Apostle teaches,3 an exulting in tribulations; faces thin and pale from vigils and fasting, faces damp from frequent weeping, praying that does not end, submissiveness to all out of humility; and the gospel’s perfection achieved by refusing to compete, to seek vengeance, or to cause anyone grief, and by offering your other cheek also to anyone who strikes you on the right one [Mt 5:39].

2 See Letter 53. 3 Rom 5:3: ‘But we exult even in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation gives rise to endurance.’

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I recall, moreover, having written to you previously about such things with the hope that in my letter I had provided a remedy for this kind of disease.4 But it seems to me that what happens to those patients who disobey their doctors has happened to you: a beneficial medication in their hands leads to more sickness or death. To be sure, this latest disease is worse than the first. Like a doctor, however, who feels great pity for his patient and therefore does not stop applying medication as long as there is any hope of the patient’s recovery, I am writing yet another letter to serve as a remedy, and to request and implore, in the name of him who is the true and only physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, that you receive it as a remedy, restoring to sound health the ones among you who are ill.5 Otherwise, you will have to endure disgrace in people’s eyes for having failed to cure them, and you will receive from God at the strict Judgment a sentence of eternal damnation. Farewell ever in the Lord.

109 To the abbot and monks of Cîteaux, concerning the Franciscan Friars in Scarborough, Yorkshire. Written probably in 1243 or 1244. Edition: Luard, Epp., 321–3.

To the venerable men, most dear in Christ, the abbot of Cîteaux by the grace of God, and the community there,1 Robert, by the same grace bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. When I received a papal letter2 specifying that I was to arrange, with the letter as my authority, for the buildings of the Friars Minor at Scarborough to be pulled down if certain statements in that letter should prove to be 4 Letter 53. 5 Cf. Mk 2:17: ‘It is not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. For I have not come to call the just, but sinners.’ 1 Cîteaux, situated some sixteen miles south of Dijon, is the mother house of the Cistercian Order. Guillaume IV de Montaigu was abbot from 1238 to 1243; his successor was Boniface (1243–57?). 2 No copy of this papal letter is known to survive. It must have been issued by Innocent IV, who was elected in June of 1243, after a nearly two-year vacancy.

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correct, by the authority of that same letter I arranged for those friars to be summoned. They appeared in court and were represented by a legally appointed proctor before my official,3 who took my place in this matter for the first two days of the case. Their defence against the pope’s letter was that it had been falsified, and a certain privilege was presented for inspection to the effect that Friars Minor could not be summoned by papal letter unless the letter expressly mentioned this concession and their order. After several exchanges concerning these and certain other issues, finally, on the third day of the case, represented by their proctor, these friars duly appeared in court before me sitting officially as judge. One member of this order made a statement to the effect that it was apparent that they could, in their arguments before the judge, defend themselves in this case – notwithstanding their religious profession – without incurring any blame. This was so because it was apparent that the dispute was not over worldly matters but over the saving of souls that resulted from their dwelling in Scarborough, and because the need to save those souls justified not observing, or, more correctly, transgressing, issues of ordinary law and right. For we read what David and those with him did, when they ate the loaves of the offering, which by law only the priests were permitted to eat [Mt 12:3–4]. And in Maccabees we read that on the Sabbath those who were fighting for their lives had earlier decreed that in accordance with what the law had taught them they would not fight on the Sabbath.4 And Paul, though one who professed the Gospel, ensured his rescue from his enemies and from the death with which armed men had threatened him, and appealed to the judgment of Caesar.5 But, as this same friar kept asserting, the friars profess the Gospel, which teaches us not to resist the evildoer, but to offer one’s other cheek also to anyone who slaps the right, and to give one’s cloak as well to the one who wants to sue you and take your tunic, and to go two miles with the person who makes you go one [Mt 5:39–41]. The Gospel also teaches us not to cause offence to anyone, something the Lord confirmed by his own action when he paid the didrachm to meet the tax for Peter and himself, even though he was under no obligation to do so.6 This he did so as not to cause offence to those who were demanding payment. Furthermore, as the Apostle taught, a servant of

3 The identity of Grosseteste’s ‘official’ (an episcopal officer charged with judicial responsibilities for the diocese) is not known. 4 1 Mc 2:41. 5 Acts 25:9–12. 6 Mt 17:23–6.

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God must not be quarrelsome [2 Tm 2:24], and, as this Apostle also asserted, it was altogether a defect in the Corinthians that they had lawsuits with one another, and he reproached them for not suffering injury and letting themselves be defrauded instead [1 Cor 6:7]. For these reasons the friars were willing to abandon completely the suit and the place which had given rise to the dispute. They were willing to do this so as not to cause even the slightest offence to you, whom they regard as their most holy fathers and benefactors on a lavish scale. This same friar also prostrated himself on the ground in the presence of your proctor and your other brothers who were then present there before me to ask pardon humbly on behalf of his order, because for two days of the suit his fellow friars had followed unsound advice in their attempt to defend themselves and had thereby offended such charitable men as yourselves. The proctor of the Scarborough friars also confirmed this and expressly renounced the objection and privilege mentioned before, as well as every other defence available to him in this case. Together with your proctor and your other brothers, all men of discretion, then present, I think, or rather, firmly believe, that if the friars of Scarborough were to leave there at that point, as the statement of their proctor indicated they were ready to do with all humility and speed, this withdrawal would not redound to the honour of your order, but would instead very much tarnish the brightness of your good name and place a conspicuous stain upon your reputation [Sir 47:22], as men of your discretion may plainly deduce without any suggestion from me. With the advice and consent of your proctor and that of the friars, I have upheld the claim of the Friars Minor of Scarborough to dwell there, until such time as I had made this known to you and received a response, expressed in letters patent, as to your wishes concerning their remaining in Scarborough or departing.7 May you always, loving fathers, fare well in the Lord.

7 On this episode, see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 84–5; A.G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan History (Manchester, 1917), 92–5. The parish church of St Mary, Scarborough, had been appropriated by King Richard I to the Cistercians to pay the expenses of their general chapters. When the Franciscans attempted to settle in Scarborough in 1239, the Cistercians appealed to Rome for redress. Apparently the Cistercians present before Grosseteste agreed to consult the abbot and convent of Cîteaux, but the general order insisted on the site being given up by the Franciscans. In 1245 the Franciscans moved to the nearby town of Hatterboard in the parish of Scalby. They returned to Scarborough, with royal support, sometime between 1267 and 1272; see VCH: Yorkshire, 3:274–5.

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110 To Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon and papal legate in England, concerning the sentence of suspension and excommunication issued against Grosseteste by the monks of Canterbury. Written probably in 1243. Edition: Luard, Epp., 324–8.

To the venerable father in Christ, Otto, by the grace of God cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano,1 Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. The assurance with which I write at such length to you, father, and make known my needs with simplicity and frankness, stems not only from your own gracious command on more than one occasion to write confidently to you when I am in need, but also from the deeply felt and tender mercy I know you have for those in distress. It is with this assurance that I disclose to you my needs, for you are, so to speak, my one and only refuge. You have been well informed about how the prior and community of Christ Church, Canterbury, are laying claim, as that see is just now vacant, to archiepiscopal jurisdiction and power never before exercised by them over the bishops and others in the province of Canterbury. And they have actually hurled sentences of suspension and excommunication against me and certain others of my fellow bishops, even after an appeal had been lodged with the apostolic see asking that the monks not be judges in their own case, nor attempt anything against us or those subject to us, as we were prepared to answer them concerning their actions in the presence of a competent judge.2

1 On Otto, see Letters 49 and 74. He was taken prisoner by Emperor Frederick II on 3 May 1241, after a sea battle between Pisan and Genoese ships transporting a number of prelates to the council convoked at Rome by Pope Gregory IX; see Letter 105, n. 4. He was released from captivity in August of 1242. Between 7 May and 9 June 1244 Otto was translated to the cardinal-bishopric of Porto and Santa Rufina; see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:86–90. 2 On the dispute about Canterbury’s jurisdiction during a vacancy of the see, see Letter 94, n. 9. On Grosseteste’s excommunication by the monks of Canterbury, see Letter 95, n. 2. For a general treatment of the dispute, see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 155–60, 244.

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I do not at all believe that I am bound in any way by these sentences. Nevertheless, so that no one may out of spite be able to cite the sentence of excommunication against me and hence prevent me from effectively preaching the word of God and performing my other duties as bishop, I ordered a proctor of mine to obtain for me an adequate remedy against this possibility from the lord pope. He did obtain a letter for the prior and community ordering them to withdraw provisionally, within eight days after its receipt, the sentences they had pronounced against me and those subject to me; otherwise, the venerable fathers, the archbishop of York and the bishop of Durham, were to do so.3 I have, however, delayed making use of the papal letter because it seems not only to me but also to those skilled in the law that any use could be exceedingly prejudicial to me and the whole province of Canterbury, for the monks would assert that the jurisdiction they claim has been acknowledged and in whole or in part approved by the very tenor of the papal letter and by the fact that it is they who are to withdraw the sentence. Those monks would further assert that they are the ones who have virtual possession of the see during a vacancy. With all my devotion, then, I beg you, father, to deign to beg the lord pope that in this matter he deign to provide a remedy that is more satisfactory for me and more becoming to my office as a bishop, notwithstanding the papal letter requested and obtained by my proctor, since there is absolutely no doubt that the bishops of the province of Canterbury have always been directly subject to the apostolic see when the see of Canterbury is vacant, and that those elected bishops of that province have been confirmed by the lord pope during the period of a vacancy. Yet the prior and community in this latest vacancy have tried to usurp the see for themselves, to the great prejudice of the apostolic see. Moreover, in your discretion please consider, I beg, and point out to the lord pope how dangerous it is for the salvation of souls if a bishop’s authority becomes worthless in the eyes of his charges, since it follows inevitably from this that their veneration for the sacraments that bishops administer is diminished – sacraments whose form, power, and fulfilment are the most precious blood of Jesus Christ and his most venerable Passion, indeed, Christ Himself – and diminished too, therefore, is the worship of Christ. A bishop’s preaching and the other ministrations of

3 This papal letter, dated 23 August 1243, is quoted by Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 4:258–9. The prelates here referred to are Archbishop Walter de Gray of York and Bishop Nicholas Farnham of Durham.

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his office are also despised and for that reason are held to be of lesser efficacy, or some perhaps of no efficacy at all, since it is absolutely clear that where the worker is not respected, neither are his works. Does a bishop’s office not deserve to become utterly worthless – an office that was the greatest exercised by Christ the Man on earth and is the crowning dignity held by the pope, although in this regard he is the summit and possesses the fullness of power from which all others receive what they possess – if, contrary to custom and with no published privilege permitting it, but merely as the result of a violent and arrogant usurpation, it is made subject to the judgment of monks, who, according to the blessed Jerome4 and Dionysius,5 it is agreed are much inferior even to subdeacons in the order of the Church’s hierarchy, whose model is the hierarchy of heaven? For it is not because some of the monks have been ordained priests that they should be considered greater than or equal to clerks, not to speak of bishops, since only to clerks and bishops has been entrusted by heaven the duty of dispensing to the people the divine ministrations. According to the ancient sanctions handed down by the Fathers, monks by no means come to perform such a dispensation, unless perhaps some one of them, by a special gift of God, illumined by the wisdom whose source is the contemplation of truth, endowed with the knowledge that proceeds from the love due one’s neighbours, and highly regarded for the moral integrity of his holy life, is canonically raised from the penitential submissiveness of a monk’s simple life to the highest position of honour in the government of the Church.6 Nor can an archbishop’s jurisdiction and power be delegated through so great an intervening stage to these monks, even if these rights could be transferred to a lower rank. They devolve rather upon the bishops who are the archbishop’s suffragans and for whom the archbishop is the

4 Grosseteste seems to have in mind here Gratian’s comment in Decretum C.16 q.1 (whether monks may exercise the pastoral offices of clerics): ‘Here it is given to be understood ... “that the abbot is subject to the doorkeeper [i.e., the lowest of the clerical grades] in the same way as the monk is subject to the abbot,” as is said above in the treatise on ordinations [D.93 c.5]. Jerome therefore shows that monks are not permitted to do anything without the counsel of priests.’ 5 See Pseudo-Dionysius, Letter 8, to the monk Demophilus, where Dionysius makes it clear that monks should not accuse priests or bishops, and that their place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy is below that of bishops, priests, and deacons. See also idem, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, c. 6. Grosseteste was translating and commenting on the Dionysian corpus of writings during the early 1240s. 6 See Gratian, Decretum C.16 q.1 cc.21–36.

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ruler (archon), that is, prince (princeps), and is so designated.7 He exercises the office of his primacy over others through the mediation of his suffragans, since the law of nature and the rule of reason require the power of the head to flow down firstly and directly into the particular, nearest, and primary members rather than into members separated by many intermediaries. Now, the suffragan bishops are the archbishop’s particular, nearest, and primary members; but not so monks, for they are members separated from him by many intervening intermediaries. For even if it were conceded that the community of monks was the closest member of the archbishop in so far as he is the bishop of his own diocese – a concession, however, that the archdeacon of Canterbury8 does not make, or so I believe – yet in no way would it follow therefrom that this same community would be the closest or principal member of the archbishop in so far as he is the archon of the bishops. So, may it please you, father, to deign to urge the lord pope with these arguments and others that a man of your outstanding prudence knows to be much more effective, to feel pity for the distress and manifold oppressions suffered by the bishops of England, and to be willing to apply a remedy thereto, not so much for the sake of relieving my own urgent needs as in the common interest of the whole English Church. Unless a firm prop is very quickly set under episcopal authority – which is, as it were, not only tottering but already threatening to fall, both because of attacks from the secular power and the revolts of subjects,9 each of which is battering it powerfully, and because of the turbulent and deceitful efforts of those who are attempting to trample it underfoot – there is fear, and not without good reason, that the house that is the English Church,

7 See Isidore, Etymologiae 7.12.8–10: ‘All of the above-mentioned orders [i.e., patriarch, archbishop, metropolitan, bishop] are included within the one term “bishop,” but sometimes they are designated by separate names in order to indicate a distinction of the powers received by each. The patriarch is the father of princes, for “archon” means prince. The archbishop is the prince of bishops.’ 8 The archdeacon of Canterbury from 1227 to 1248 was Master Simon Langton, brother of Archbishop Stephen Langton; see Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 14. 9 Grosseteste’s concern about ‘attacks from the secular power’ can be seen in the list of twenty-nine complaints against lay power presented by the English bishops to the legate Otto at the legatine council held in London in July of 1239; see Councils and Synods, 279–85, and cf. Letter 72*. He may also have had in mind King Henry’s interference in episcopal elections, especially that of William of Raleigh (Letters 60–62, 113) to the see of Winchester; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 214–16. Grosseteste’s concern about ‘revolts of subjects’ probably refers to the continuing disputes of several English bishops with their cathedral chapters.

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built upon episcopal authority as if upon a special pillar, will soon be exposed to a very great earthquake. And because only a word to the wise is sufficient, I will write no more about this matter to you, whom God has generously endowed with the sharpness of a lively intellect, an understanding of holy writ, skill in both civil and canon law, eloquence in speaking, and manifold and long experience in the Church’s affairs, or I would appear, as it were, to enhance the sun with torches. But I am confidently entrusting the expediting of this problem to you, whose affection has so often been tested and is most sincere. May you always, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

111 To Pope Innocent IV, shortly after his election, in June of 1243. Edition: Luard, Epp., 328–9.

To the most holy father and lord, Innocent, by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, most devotedly kisses.1 Blessed be God, who brings the calm after a storm and pours down exultation upon his Church after her weeping and wailing. For a long time now she has been violently battered by a tempest of many great afflictions and oppressions, and as if widowed, she wept with sorrow in the night, so that tears ran down her cheeks [Lam 1:2]. For her God has provided a spouse to wipe away her tears, to comfort her in her sorrow, to provide relief from oppressions, and to oppose with the shield of his protection those who afflict her. Possessing such a great spouse, she who hitherto had long sat like a widow in mourning has now rightly removed the garments of her bereavement and clothed herself in the garments of

1 Sinibaldo Fieschi, a distinguished jurist and experienced member of the papal curia, was elected Pope Innocent IV on 25 June 1243, nearly two years after the death of his predecessor, Celestine IV, whose reign lasted only sixteen days. Celestine’s predecessor, Gregory IX, had died on 21 August 1241. At the time of Celestine’s death the excommunicated emperor, Frederick II, was in possession of the states of the Church and attempted to influence the papal election. The cardinals eventually fled to Anagni, where Innocent was chosen. See A. Melloni, Innocenzo IV: La concezione e l’esperienza della cristianità come regimen unius personae (Genoa, 1990); McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 32.

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her joy. The sheep that, long without the protection of a shepherd, were nearly at the point of being driven away by thieves, or seized by robbers, or torn to pieces by wolves, now hear the voice of their shepherd calling them by name. He leads them out and goes ahead of them, and they follow him to find pastures [Jn 10:3, 4, 9] and to delight in long-desired peace and security under the rod of his guidance and protection. Hence the faithful give thanks to the supreme shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ; hence the voice of happiness [Jer 33:11] and exultation in the tabernacles of the just [Ps 117:15]; hence I, too, a servant of your holiness (the least of these, certainly, but as devoted and affectionate as possible), give to God all the thanks I can and rejoice with a jubilant voice. And prostrate with all humility at your feet, most holy father, I commend my insignificant self to your holiness and most excellent lordship, begging most earnestly that one so holy and kind as you will not disdain to embrace me with the arms of a loving father. May your solicitude and zeal for all churches [2 Cor 11:28] and for the salvation of souls prompt you also to be so kind as to look favourably upon any affairs of mine that concern the salvation of souls and the responsibilities of the office of bishop – affairs that must be dealt with or attended to in your holiness’s presence – as well as upon those agents of mine in charge of these affairs. May the most high God long keep you safe for the sake of his holy Church.

112 To the archdeacons of Lincoln diocese, concerning their pastoral responsibilities during the absence of the bishop. Written late in 1244 or early in 1245, after Grosseteste’s departure for the papal curia. Edition: Luard, Epp., 329–33 (reading, p. 330/line 5, familiae for familia).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, all the archdeacons1 appointed throughout the diocese of Lincoln. A man who was going abroad handed over his possessions to his servants [Mt 25:14] that on his return he might receive them back increased 1 On the archdeacons of Lincoln diocese, see Letter 21, n. 1.

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many times through their efforts. That man is a type of those prelates who are often obliged to go abroad to seek what was lost [Lk 19:10]. Their possessions, to the extent that this is what they are, consist of their ordinary powers and official duties as ministers of the salvation of souls. As I, then, have gone abroad for the reason just given, I may, although unworthy, be thought of among the other shepherds as the man I first mentioned.2 You, on the other hand, are obviously the ones to whom the possessions have been given and to whom it was said: Do business with these until I come back [Lk 19:13]. So please prudently consider this: although one should always do business conscientiously and prudently with the wealth received from the Lord, to ensure that it may be returned to him with a profit, nevertheless, when the Lord goes abroad and is a long way from them, the warning to them to do business is more explicit and earnest. For once the head of the household is far away, its junior members tend to grow proud and to put aside their tasks and become idle. In their idleness they tend to immerse themselves in the evils that idleness teaches them. Thus immersed, they tend to treat the householder’s possessions as of no importance, and in their disdain they tend no longer to submit to discipline. They would not even try to behave like this if the head of the household were there with them. So the more disposed and ready the members of the household are in the head’s absence to neglect doing good and to do what is evil, the more is the householder who plans to go abroad obliged to be very earnest and strict when imposing responsibility for his household upon the ones he has placed in charge of it, and the more are those so placed obliged during their father’s absence to exercise that responsibility very vigilantly, earnestly, and energetically. This means nothing other than doing business conscientiously and prudently with the wealth they have received until, that is to say, up to the time, the lord comes back. Because, then, I have gone abroad and am physically a long way from the household of which I am in charge, and you have been appointed over the household, to distribute and give to them, conscientiously and prudently, their allowance of grain at the proper time [Lk 12:42], what I did not do when I was departing on my journey I desire to compensate for, as I am able, now that I have left. So, speaking from the very depths of my heart, I say

2 Grosseteste left England for the papal curia in mid-November 1244, returning to England in October 1245. See McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 31–41; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 241–58.

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by way of warning, encouraging, and beseeching in the name of the blood shed by the Lord Jesus Christ [1 Pt 1:2]: Do business until I come back [Lk 19:13]. Do not hide away in the handkerchief of idleness3 the power of the ministry of saving souls that has been entrusted to you, but labour at it, preaching the word of life ceaselessly and indefatigably and fulfilling what the Lord taught through the prophet: Shout out, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their transgressions and to the house of Jacob their sins [Is 58:1]. Spread the light of your good works everywhere, and let it shine in the people’s sight so that your good works may be seen and give glory to your Father who is in heaven [Mt 5:16]. Pray ceaselessly [1 Thes 5:17], following both the example and the teaching of the Apostle, preach the word of life, and harshly criticize by all these means those in error, to put fear into the rest [1 Tm 5:20]. Punish harshly with the rod of correction any who do not comply with your rebukes, but do so in such a way that your every act is done with charity and a zeal for the salvation of souls. Deal justice, judgment, and equity to all freely, remembering that you are exercising the judgment not of mankind but of God, with whom there are no favourites and no greed for money [2 Chr 19:7]. For if this is the way you do business with the wealth that is the responsibility entrusted to you of saving souls, when the Lord returns and with you takes account of your actions, you will deserve to hear: Bravo, my good and faithful servant [Mt 25:21] – that is, well done indeed, good and faithful servant, well done in your labouring, well done in returning a profit, and therefore well done in receiving your reward – come and share the joy of your master [Mt 25:21]. But if you turn lazily from doing business in this way, there is no doubt that you will hear those bitter words: Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth [Mt 22:13]. The Son of God, equal to the Father and God in form, emptied himself for the salvation of souls, taking the form of a slave [Phil 2:6–7]. In this form, after the greatest trials, and after suffering insults and indignities, he endured the shame of death on a cross. But it is in his place and for that very purpose, namely, the salvation of souls, that you have, with him, taken on the responsibility of saving souls. As it is a general truth that uniform results have uniform and like causes, if you wish to work successfully for the salvation of souls, you must with all your power follow his footsteps in this work of salvation, rejoicing like a giant to run his race 3 See Lk 19:20–3.

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[Ps 18:6]. In this course let neither a worldly fear repel you nor love of the world hold you back. If, however, you neglect to work for the salvation of souls in this way, with what shamelessness, indeed with what madness, have you pledged yourself to do so under pain of everlasting damnation, especially as there is no other way of doing this work! Suppose any one of you hires someone for a penny a day to do some work for him that must be completed if the employer is not to incur an incalculably great loss, but the fellow who has been hired instead turns lazily from his assigned work. Will not any of you then take away his wages and demand that he make good the loss arising from his negligence? Will God not demand from you what you so reasonably demand from your fellow servants or from those who are subject to you? The Lord Jesus gave himself to save the soul of each and every person; yet only those are saved who truly believe in and love his Passion. Now, as he has gone abroad, he, and I in him, have entrusted to you the responsibility of converting souls by the methods I touched on above to faith in him and love of him, that they may thus partake of the results of his Passion and that his death may not for them be in vain. So, if through neglect on your part any of the souls entrusted to your care do not share in the results of the Lord’s Passion, that is, eternal salvation, do you not make the death of Christ a meaningless thing for them? Do you not also delay completing the number of souls to be saved and thus, so far as lies in you, postpone the universal resurrection of the dead and the renewal of the world, the Last Judgment, and the kingdom prepared for the blest from the beginning of the world, and so do violence to the whole created universe that groans and suffers the pangs of childbirth even until now [Rom 8:22], as it awaits the revelation of the children of God? And what can negligent servants look forward to except that creation, serving its maker, should blaze out in anger to torment them [Ws 16:24]? And how will the torment applied by the whole of creation be endured by one who cannot here bear the heat of even a single spark? Will one who in the future has not been glorified in heaven be more incapable of suffering punishment or more insensitive to it, so that it would be easier for him to endure the torments of those who will then be more violent in their actions than of those who now act in a relatively more gentle way? Even if the ferocity of future punishments were somehow bearable, there is nevertheless no end to them, for their worm shall not die and the fire shall not be quenched [Mk 9:45]. Farewell.

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113 To the bishops of Winchester and Worcester. Written upon Grosseteste’s arrival at the papal curia in Lyons, December 1244 or January 1245. Edition: Luard, Epp., 333.

To the venerable fathers in Christ, William1 and Walter,2 bishops by the grace of God of Winchester and Worcester, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord. The fervour of your love for me, which on many previous occasions I had read in your actions as if in a book written in ordinary script, I read again in the copious tears you shed for me on my departure, as if in a book written ostentatiously in letters that shine with the greatest brightness. I am aware that this fervour of yours is burning with a desire to know what is happening with me, and so the news I have for you, sincere and loving friends, is that, with the Saviour’s grace to help me, I have been fortunate enough to reach the curia of the lord pope at Lyons.3 I was graciously received there in a very becoming and honourable way by the lord pope himself and the cardinals. I am staying here while I proceed with the cause of my church before the lord pope. May you always, fathers, fare well in the Lord.

1 On William of Raleigh, chief justice of the king’s court (1234–38), bishop of Norwich (1239–43), and bishop of Winchester (1244–50), see Letter 17, n. 1, and Letters 23–4. On the disputed election to the see of Winchester, see Letters 60–2, 86. William issued diocesan statutes both at Norwich and at Winchester that are deeply indebted to Grosseteste’s Lincoln statutes; see Councils and Synods, 342–64, 403–16. 2 On Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester (1236/37–66), see Letters 98–9. 3 Grosseteste must have arrived in Lyons shortly after the pope himself, who had fled the states of the Church in June 1244, going first to Genoa, then through Savoy to Lyons. He reached Lyons on 12 December 1244, remaining there with the papal curia until April 1251. For the important business of this visit, see McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 31–41; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 242–57.

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114 To William of Nottingham, provincial minister of the English Franciscans, concerning his homeward journey from Lyons and the friars travelling with him. Written in September or October of 1245. Edition: Luard, Epp., 334–5.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting and a sincere increase in his charity in the Lord to his beloved brother in Christ, the minister of the Friars Minor in England.1 We who embrace God in true friendship are not troubled but rather comforted by whatever are his wise and beneficial dispositions. And since you are a true lover and friend of God [Jdt 8:22], it follows that anything that happens at his direction cannot trouble you. Now, through God’s providence, which disposes all things wisely and for our benefit, Brother John,2 companion of Brother Adam,3 is suffering from an intermittent fever that he first caught at Beaune on our way back. With daily rests we brought him as far as Nogent, and from there sent him by the Seine ahead of us to Paris. But because it did not seem safe either to Brother Adam or to myself for him to follow us from there to the seacoast, or for him to remain at Paris in view of the unhealthy, infected air of that place, we decided that he should go on by water to Rouen.4 Brother Adam would go that far with him, as he was in no way willing to leave the sick man until he had entrusted him to the keeping of some friars he knew, who live in a healthy spot. From there Brother Adam was to go and join me at the seaside. When, however, they had 1 William of Nottingham succeeded Haimo of Faversham as minister of the English Franciscan province probably in May of 1241 and served until 1254; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 86–7. 2 ‘Brother John’ is to be identified as Friar John of Stamford; see Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 256n2. This John attended the council at Lyons along with Grosseteste and Adam Marsh; he succeeded Peter of Tewkesbury (see n. 5) as provincial minister in 1258; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 64 (n. h), 101 (n. 3d). 3 On Brother Adam Marsh, one of Grosseteste’s most trusted companions, see Letter 9, n. 1. 4 They planned to travel from Nogent-sur-Seine to Paris and then up the Seine to Rouen. There they would leave Brother John in the company of the Franciscan community, while Adam would travel on to the sea. After leaving Paris, however, they only reached Mantes-la-Jolie, a few miles down river from Paris, when John became too ill to travel further.

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reached a town called Mantes, Brother John’s weakness increased, and so Brother Adam did not dare to take him any farther or to leave him behind, weak as he was, in order to come and meet me as agreed. Both of them have therefore remained at Mantes, and so with all possible affection I beg you not to delay sending to that town Brother Peter of Tewkesbury5 along with one or more friars who can stay with Brother John until the Lord improves the state of his health. Brother Peter will then return with Brother Adam. Both of them desire and beg you to do this. Furthermore, you should know that it is not safe for Brother Adam to extend his stay in these parts, as there are many who very much want to keep him in Paris, especially now that Alexander of Hales and John of la Rochelle are dead.6 If that were to happen, both you and I would be robbed of our greatest comfort – which God forbid! Please, however, make definite arrangements for Brother Peter to take the trouble to meet me before he sails. I shall with God’s grace reach the Isle of Wight on the Saturday after the feast of the blessed Dennis.7 As to my case concerning the question of visitation,8 you should know that – blessed be the Lord! – there has been a clear decision in my favour and consequently in that of all bishops. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

5 Peter of Tewkesbury, a close associate of Grosseteste’s, succeeded William of Nottingham as provincial minister in 1254; see Eccleston, De adventu Fratrum Minorum, 11 (n. o), 91, 93–4, 101; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 59–60. 6 Alexander of Hales and John of la Rochelle (de Rupellis) were co-regents in the Franciscan schools at Paris from about 1236. In that year, Alexander, a secular master of theology, joined the Franciscans and transferred his chair to that order, where John was already teaching in the friars’ studium. In 1238, with the help of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, Alexander was apparently able to present his confrère, John of la Rochelle, to the university as acting co-regent. John died in February and Alexander on 21 August 1245. They were succeeded by Eudes Rigaud (Odo Rigaldus) and William of Meliton. See B. Roest, A History of Franciscan Education (c. 1210–1517) (Leiden/Boston/ Cologne, 2000), 14. 7 The feast of St Dennis or Dionysius (9 October) fell on a Monday in 1245; the following Saturday was 14 October. 8 On Grosseteste’s attempted visitation of his cathedral chapter, see Letter 80, etc. The dispute with his chapter over rights of visitation was settled to Grosseteste’s satisfaction by a papal decision of 25 August 1245 (see Letter 127, appendix B), and he seems to have remained in Lyons until the document was published and in his possession. See McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 39–40; Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 176–7.

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115 To Hugh of St Cher, OP, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, thanking him for his affection, and requesting his help in securing Dominican and Franciscan friars to assist Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury. Written probably upon Grosseteste’s return to England in October of 1245. Edition: Luard, Epp., 335–6.

To the venerable father in Christ, Hugh,1 by the grace of God cardinal priest of the titular church of Santa Sabina, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. The sincerity of your love for me, despite my insignificance, has so clearly revealed itself in the cheerful tranquillity of your countenance, the sweetness of your words, and the effectiveness of your actions. So, although the thanks I offer you, father, cannot be worthy of you, they are nevertheless as abundant and devout as I can make them, for I know that the fire of your love will not lose its warmth or become smaller of itself but will grow hotter and larger still. That is why I write with confidence to you, especially as what I am asking in this letter or intending to persuade you of concerns works of charity. A man of your discretion knows that the salvation of the English Church and even of the kingdom depends for the most part on the venerable father, the lord archbishop of Canterbury.2 He should therefore have as associates men familiar not only with the laws of the realm or with civil and canon law, but also with the laws of God, that is to say, men who know Sacred Scripture and keep the wisdom they derive from that source inscribed not only in their mind’s eye but also in their heart, and

1 Hugh of St Cher was a doctor of Law at Paris in the 1220s and then began studying theology there; he joined the Dominicans at Paris in 1226, and succeeded Roland of Cremona as a Dominican master of theology in the University of Paris from 1230 to 1235, where he was one of the preeminent theologians in the schools. He was twice chosen to head the French Dominican province, and in that capacity came to the attention of Innocent IV, who created him cardinal priest of Santa Sabina in 1244, thus making him the first Dominican cardinal. He was at the curia in Lyons from December 1244 until the spring of 1251. See Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:256–72; ‘Hugo v. St. Cher,’ in Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. R. Auty et al., 10 vols. (Munich/Zurich, 1977–99), 5:176–7. 2 On Boniface of Savoy, see Letters 86–9.

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confirmed by the performance of good works that reflect the wisdom in their hearts. For it is especially by this wisdom, as you know, that kings rule and the framers of laws issue just decrees. It is by this wisdom alone that the ship of Peter is guided to the port of salvation. So it is necessary that the venerable father, the lord archbishop, have around him at all times associates of this kind, who are to be found only in the two orders of friars. As you are filled with fervour and zeal for the salvation of the Church, the kingdom, and the archbishop of the English people, please in your wisdom take full responsibility for ensuring with the lord pope that the lord archbishop has at all times the support of such associates as these. At the time of my departure from the lord pope I urgently implored him regarding this same matter,3 and he agreed to grant my petition. But I am afraid that this will quickly slip his memory, unless through your diligence and persistence he is reminded of it. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

116 To Walter de Gray, archbishop of York, concerning a task imposed on Grosseteste by the pope. Written probably at the same time as Letter 115, that is, upon Grosseteste’s return from Lyons. Edition: Luard, Epp., 337.

To the venerable father in Christ, Walter, by the grace of God archbishop of York,1 Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection.

3 Grosseteste left the curia in Lyons in September of 1245; see Letters 112–114. 1 Walter de Gray, archbishop of York from 1215 to 1255, was one of the most distinguished and respected members of the English episcopate. King Henry III’s request that Innocent IV excuse Walter from attending the general council at Lyons in 1245 was refused. Walter must have left Lyons immediately after the completion of the Council (17 July 1245), while Grosseteste remained at the curia until September. See ‘Gray, Walter de,’ in ODNB and DNB.

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Out of obedience we are very often compelled to do what we then do with sadness and would be glad not to do if that were possible. But because it is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey [1 Sm 15:23], we cannot neglect to do what a superior has instructed. I therefore want you to know, revered father, that when I left the lord pope, he earnestly and firmly gave me oral instructions to ask you, with all urgency and diligence, on his behalf and that of all his brothers, namely the venerable fathers, the lord cardinals, to be willing for charity’s sake and at the request of the pope and his brothers, to favour and expedite the affairs of the lord bishop of Cervia, now in exile with his relations.2 The lord pope is sending a letter to you on his behalf. So, because I am at the moment unable to come to you in person, with this letter I am begging you as devotedly and earnestly as I can to deign mercifully to show to the lord bishop of Cervia the deep compassion you feel for all who are in distress, as he is in distress and impoverished, a man of great repute, aged and deserving of respect. You can know for certain that this action of yours will be most pleasing and welcome to the lord pope and all his brothers, and that you will because of it find them favourable and gracious in expediting any affairs you may have with them. May you always, holy father, fare well in the Lord.

117 To Pope Innocent IV, assuring him of King Henry III’s loyalty, obedience, and devotion. Written shortly after Grosseteste’s return from Lyons, probably in November of 1245. Edition: Luard, Epp., 338–9.

2 John Ursarola, bishop of Cervia (a suffragan see of Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast of Italy) from 1232 to 1254, was active in opposing the imperial forces who controlled Ravenna in the 1230s and 1240s. He appealed to Gregory IX and to Innocent IV for protection of his see from depredations by the Church of Ravenna, and both judged in his favour; see the papal letters printed by F. Ughelli, Italia sacra sive de episcopis Italiae ... (Venice, 1717), 2:469–73. In 1245 John was in exile from his see, and Innocent IV was looking for ways to support him. Walter de Gray, whose diocese was well-managed and wealthy, and who himself ‘died very rich’ according to the DNB, was an interesting choice.

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To the most holy father in Christ and lord, Innocent, by the grace of God supreme pontiff, whose blessed feet his own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, most devoutly kisses.1 On my return to England I met the lord king who was on his way back from Wales, and I had a private conversation with him.2 When, among other matters, I had given him, as best I could, some words of advice about our obligation to show and practise obedience, loyalty, and devotion to your holiness and the holy Roman Church, and to stand by her firmly and steadfastly, especially at this time, when certain people are attempting – in vain, because of the Lord’s help! – to initiate some disruption of the Church’s peace, he gave me a response like this: ‘Lord bishop, whatever belongs by right to the crown and to our royal dignity, we intend, as we must, to preserve unimpaired; and it is our desire that the lord pope and the Church aid us to do this. And you may rest assured that we shall show and practise, in all circumstances and at all times, obedience, loyalty, and devotion to the lord pope as our spiritual father, and to the holy Roman Church as our mother, and in both good times and bad we shall firmly, steadfastly, and loyally stand by them. And on the day when we do not, we give an eye to be plucked out, no – we give our head to be cut off. For God forbid that either life or death or anything else that may happen should separate us from our devotion to our spiritual mother and father. In addition to the commonly shared reasons why all Christian princes are bound to the Church, there is a special reason why we, more than any other prince, are more closely tied to it. For when we were deprived of our father and still a minor, and our kingdom was not only alienated from us but was even opposing us, our mother, the Roman Church, through the agency of the lord cardinal Guala,3 who was then legate in England, summoned the kingdom back to peace with us and submission to us, consecrated and crowned us king, and raised us up to the throne of the kingdom.’4

1 On Pope Innocent IV, see Letter 111, n. 1. 2 King Henry was on a military campaign in Wales from late August until early November of 1245. On 8 November he was at Worcester, on 13 November at Evesham, and on 21 November at Oxford; see Calendar of Patent Rolls: Henry III, 1216–1272, 6 vols. (London, 1901–13), 3:1232–47. 3 On Cardinal Guala (Gualo), see N. Vincent, ed., The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England 1216–1218 (Woodbridge, U.K./Rochester, N.Y., 1996). 4 See D.A. Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990), passim. Carpenter concurs with King Henry’s judgment, concluding (pp. 397–8): ‘The papacy never played a more important and constructive role in English history than during the minority of Henry III.’

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I thought that this response of the lord king should be written down for your holiness, to make you unambiguously aware of the kind of devotion this lord has for you and the Roman Church. May the most high God long keep you safe for the sake of his Church.

118 To ‘T.,’ encouraging him to take up a pastoral charge. Written in 1245 or 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 339–40.

To the venerable man, most dear to him in Christ, the Lord T.,1 Robert, by the grace of God, bishop of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and sincere and affectionate regards in the Lord. As I believe you are filled with fervour and zeal for the salvation of souls, I have, because of my desire for their salvation, conferred upon you the archdeaconry of Huntingdon and the prebend of Buckden.2 These benefices you cannot now refuse to accept, just because once before you refused my offer of the prebend of Gretton.3 For there is now – blessed be the Lord! – peace and tranquillity between my chapter and me.4 Besides, if you have any zeal for souls and love for God, as I believe you have, you will under no circumstances refuse these benefices, since in them you will be able to save souls, with the Saviour’s grace to help you, in many more ways than in the cure you have held thus far. For just as a person who loves God and at his calling and ordination offers the

1 ‘T.’ is known to us only from this letter. 2 The archdeaconry of Huntingdon became vacant sometime between June 1245 and June 1246 (the tenth year of Grosseteste’s episcopacy), upon the death of its incumbent, William of Arundel, who was a skilled Hebraist and translated works from Hebrew into Latin; see R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), 751. If ‘T.’ took up this office, he served for a very short time, as Master Robert of Hicche (Hitchin?) occupied the post in 1246–47 (the eleventh year of Grosseteste’s episcopacy); see Fasti: Lincoln, 28, 56, 118. It seems more likely that ‘T.’ declined Grosseteste’s invitation. 3 Except for evidence provided by this letter, nothing is known of the incumbents of the Lincoln Cathedral prebend of Gretton during the first half of the thirteenth century; see Fasti: Lincoln, 70. 4 This is a reference to the resolution of the dispute between Grosseteste and his chapter by Pope Innocent IV at the papal curia in Lyons on 25 August 1245; see Letter 114, n. 8, and Letter 127, appendix B.

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sacrifice of his zeal (than which nothing is more acceptable to God) is one who feeds his sheep, so, too, a person who loves God and, as was said, offers that sacrifice to him in a smaller cure, is not disobedient to God’s calling when he has been found to be, as it were, trustworthy in a few things and so is called by God to a greater cure, that he may be put in charge of many things. But if he fails to obey this calling, he will not enter into the joy of the Lord [Mt 25:23]. To avoid, then, being found guilty of not loving God, of not offering to him the sacrifice of your zeal, and thus of not being eligible to enter into the joy of the Lord; and to avoid also the possibility of being branded, correctly or plausibly, with the mark of vainglory, as if you wished to appear contemptuous of wealth and position, let love for God, zeal for souls, hope for an eternal reward, the obligation to keep (not to be despised!) – and to acquire, too – a good name, which is better than precious ointments [Eccl 7:2], compel you not to disobey God’s summons (for it is not I but God who calls you through me, no matter what sort of minister of his I am), but to heed it with humility. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

119 To King Henry III, on the collection of papal taxes from the English clergy. Written probably late in 1245 or early in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 340–2.

To his most excellent lord Henry,1 by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. Your revered lordship has written to me that you are not a little astonished and disturbed that I propose independently to assess and collect the tallage in aid of the lord pope from monks and clerks.2 As a man of discretion and integrity please know that in this matter I am not acting

1 On King Henry in this period, see Powicke, Henry III, 1:290–367. 2 The best brief account of these affairs is in Councils and Synods, 388–403; cf. Letter 106, n. 1. For Henry’s letter, see Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 4:554.

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independently, that is, on my own authority, or by myself, since the venerable fathers, my fellow bishops, are doing the same thing, and have for a long time now carried out the collection of the tallage in accordance with the procedure given them by Master Martin, the lord pope’s nuncio, while he was still residing in this country.3 The supreme pontiff has the authority to compel them as well as myself to do so, and disobeying his command is like the sin of witchcraft, and refusing to obey it is like the crime of idolatry [1 Sm 15:23]. There is no reason for surprise, then, at the action of my fellow bishops and myself in this matter, but there would be irrefutable grounds for great surprise and also for the greatest possible indignation if we were not, even without being asked or commanded, doing a thing of this sort or even something greater. For we see our spiritual father and mother – to whom, incomparably more than to our earthly parents, we owe honour, obedience, respect, and all manner of assistance in their difficulties – driven into exile, everywhere oppressed by persecutions and tribulations; we see them robbed of their patrimony and without suitable means of their own to sustain themselves. Were we to fail to come to their aid while they are in this sad state, it is certain that we would violate the Lord’s commandment about honouring one’s parents. We shall not live long upon the land [Ex 20:12], nor have joy in our children, nor be heard when we pray, and we shall cast aside our fear of the Lord; we do not desire his blessing, we weaken the homes of our children, we shame ourselves and cover ourselves with an evil reputation and a curse, as we may plainly conclude from the testimony of Scripture.4 A king will therefore be prompted by the clemency that is the firm foundation of his royal throne not to restrain or obstruct children who wish to honour their mother and father, but will rather praise, assist, and encourage to the point of fulfilment this objective of theirs, as befits his royal eminence and magnanimity. Your lordship should also know as a certainty that whoever they are who are advising you otherwise in this matter have no regard for the king’s honour. May your lordship always fare well in the Lord.

3 On Master Martin, see Letter 106. 4 The obedience to one’s spiritual father (the pope) and mother (the church) echoes the king’s own sentiments, reported in Letter 117. This catena of scriptural authorities about the evils that befall those who fail to honour their father and mother is derived from Sir 3:1–18.

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120 To Master John of Offington, encouraging him to return to England and take up a pastoral charge. Written late in 1245 or early in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 342–3.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Master John of Offington,1 chaplain of the lord pope. Brother Adam Marsh and I, who have a special love for you in the Lord, very much, or rather most of all, long for you to come to England and to remain here in the service of Jesus Christ and the salvation of the souls for which he shed his blood. For he, the greatest lover of souls, has entrusted to you the talent of refined metal and approved coinage that is the knowledge of the ministry of salvation, and the talent that is the power of that ministry, and also the talent that is the care of souls. And no doubt he has given you this talent not for you to hide away in a handkerchief [Lk 19:20] but to trade with until he comes back [Lk 19:13], and from your trading to bring back on the day of his return an increase of profit, a profit that is certainly nothing other than the salvation of souls. Now, there is no doubt that the day of the Lord’s return is for each of us the day of his own departure from this life. When this is to be is altogether uncertain, but it is very certain to be in a short time. And it is equally certain that the one who does not then bring back appropriate profit from the energetic, painstaking, prudent, and trustworthy trading of the talents entrusted to him will have them taken from him, and he will be bound hand and foot and sentenced to be thrown into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth [Mt 22:13]. Since, then, this fate is as plain as day and most certainly what the Saviour has decreed, how can your prudence and wisdom, your own love 1 Master John of Offington (or Uffington) was, according to Matthew Paris (Chronica maiora, 5:230), one of the most famous clerics of his time in England. Evidently trained in law, he was in the service of Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, before 1237/8. He was also a canon of Wells Cathedral, serving as a proctor at the papal court in 1243; see Lawrence, Edmund of Abingdon, 150–1; Emden, BRUO, 3:1927–8; Major, ‘Familia,’ 232. A chaplain to Innocent IV when the present letter was written, he may have come to the attention of Grosseteste and Adam Marsh during their visit to the papal curia in Lyons in 1245. Adam Marsh directed three letters (nos. 102–4) to Master John; see his Epp., 262–73.

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of your own salvation, and also fear of that terrible and strictest of judges, not compel you to pursue the course of action we are determined to urge upon you? I am absolutely certain that if you actually reflect on this fate with care, it will compel you in every way to acquiesce and will break all tethers as if they were tow or strands of cobwebs. I could also bring to bear a great many other absolutely indisputable proofs from Sacred Scripture and philosophy to urge the same course of action,2 but for your distinguished mental powers it is enough for me to write this one thing, not to instruct but to fan and stir up that great fire enclosed within you, that it may burst into flame, and give light and warmth to everyone in the house [Mt 5:15]: The searcher of hearts [Ws 1:6] knows that Brother Adam and I are more anxious about your salvation and also, God willing, about your preferment than about the salvation and preferment of any clerk in secular habit now alive.3 Farewell.

121 To the dean, Henry of Lexington, and the canons of Lincoln Cathedral, concerning Grosseteste’s proposed visitation. Written late in 1245, shortly after Grosseteste’s return from the papal curia, and before Epiphany (6 January) 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 343–4 (reading, p. 343/line 30, disponimus for deponimus).

Robert, by the grace of God, bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, Henry the dean and the chapter of Lincoln.1

2 The scriptural texts and arguments in this letter echo Grosseteste’s admonishment of his archdeacons in Letter 112 concerning their pastoral responsibilities, and his call to ‘T.’ in Letter 118 to take on the care of souls. 3 John was apparently convinced: by March of 1247 he had returned to England and become part of Grosseteste’s household; see Major, ‘Familia,’ 232. 1 Henry of Lexington replaced Grosseteste’s close associate, Master Roger of Weseham, as dean of the cathedral shortly after the latter was consecrated bishop of Coventry and Lichfield by Pope Innocent IV at Lyons on 19 February 1245; see Fasti: Lincoln, 10; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 37.

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My beloved son, Master Robert,2 precentor of the Church of Lincoln, came to tell me on your behalf of your surprise that, although I stated in chapter that it was my wish to begin my visitation with the chapter of Lincoln and to proceed next to visit the parts, I now intend to reverse the order. To your expressions of surprise about this I answer as follows: Before I came to Lincoln, my plan was to visit the chapter of Lincoln the day after the feast of the blessed Vincent3 – a plan I also made a point of mentioning to you – and to go next to visit the archdeaconry of Stow and its prebends. There was simply not enough time between the Lord’s Epiphany and the other date to complete my visitation in that archdeaconry. So my remarks about the order of visitation had been based on this plan. At your request, however, as you well know, this plan was changed, and my visitation of the chapter was put off until the Monday following the Purification.4 I realized that the time from Epiphany until that Monday was, with the Saviour’s grace to help me, sufficient for me to complete my visitation in the archdeaconry of Stow. So, to make certain that I did not waste any time doing nothing and fail to do business with the talent I had been given,5 I changed the order of visitation, which I had proposed not unconditionally but as part of the original plan I mentioned above. You should not be surprised at this but should congratulate me instead, for if a second building is erected, possibly in a different way, upon another foundation, is surprise an appropriate reaction? And, if a person changes something he proposed, even unconditionally, and promised to do unconditionally, into something better and more beneficial for souls, is it really possible that he will for that reason be accused of falsehood, or inconstancy, or want of prudence? There is absolutely no doubt that what I intend to do, with the Lord’s favour, about this question of visitation is better, and more acceptable to God, and more beneficial for souls.

2 Master Robert of Cadney held the office of precentor (cantor), one of the four major dignitaries of the cathedral chapter, from 1244 until his death in 1257 or 1258; see Fasti: Lincoln, 14. 3 The feast of St Vincent (22 January) fell on a Sunday in 1246. 4 Epiphany (6 January) fell on a Friday in 1246; the feast of the Purification of the Virgin (2 February) fell on a Thursday, and the Monday following was 6 February. Of the eight archdeaconries into which Lincoln diocese was divided, Stow was the smallest; see Southern, Growth, 235–6. On the various cathedral benefices (prebends) in the several archdeaconries, see Fasti: Lincoln, 47–109. 5 For Grosseteste’s repeated emphasis on the theme of using one’s ‘wealth’ (talents) diligently while awaiting the return of the Lord, see Letters 112 and 120.

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And that is why it is proper for you, as servants of Jesus Christ, who seek not your own interests but those of Jesus Christ himself [Phil 2:21], to congratulate me, as mentioned before, for what I am doing, and in your prayers to beg the Lord himself to guide my actions and make them successful. I say this particularly because this change in plans represents no small easing of my burden and an aid to your own labour, and it will prepare you well to perform more easily and fruitfully the work of salvation in the pastoral charge entrusted to you. Farewell ever in the Lord.

122 To the dean, Henry of Lexington, and the canons of Lincoln Cathedral. Written shortly after Letter 121, perhaps on 7 February 1246, the day after the date set for Grosseteste’s visitation of the Lincoln chapter (see Letter 121, n. 4). Edition: Luard, Epp., 345–6.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, Henry the dean and the chapter of Lincoln.1 It is written, Whatever happens to a just man will not cause him distress [Prv 12:21]. By ‘whatever happens’ is meant anything a just man suffers, not what he does himself. Now, as you are just men, nothing that happens to you will cause you any distress, and if it does distress you, is it not a fact that you are not just men? And if you are not just, are you not unjust? Far be it from you to be guilty of such a charge! So anything that happens to you, and especially something easy for a strong man to bear, should not distress such important men as yourselves. I say this because from the words and looks of some of you I had enough evidence yesterday to conclude that certain events involving you had disturbed at least your passions; but God forbid that this has affected your reason, for that would demonstrate that you are unjust men! Instead, let your exercise of reason, stable and unchanging, fortify your passions against all disturbances. For neither the most powerful currents of the swiftest rivers, nor the most destructive blasts of rushing winds, can shake men of strength and the house whose foundations are not on sand but upon rock [Mt 7:24–7]. 1 On Henry of Lexington, see Letter 121, n. 1.

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My hope is that you, too, are men of strength and a house built upon rock. There should be no sign at all in you of any agitation, especially in response to the blowing of a gentle breeze or the movement of gently flowing water. And what else are the stupid and empty words of fools but a gentle breeze? What else indeed is a slight and tolerable wrong but gently flowing water? Besides, a just man prefers God’s truth to his own will, and it is my hope, as I said, that you are just men. So, with all your strength you should eagerly pursue God’s truth and thus his will, because he takes pleasure in his truth. In this way you will understand and say with your heart, lips, and handiwork to this Truth: ‘Not what I want, but what you want [Mk 14:36], and not as I refuse, but as you refuse; my will be done only in so far as your will is mine and mine yours.’ So, to ensure that God’s truth and your will – not your own will but one that conforms to God’s – and thus his will and yours at the same time, are carried out, I shall always be for you, to the extent that I am able and with the Saviour’s grace, a counsellor and helper. And, with the aid of this same grace, there will never be a time when I shall fail you in this duty. Farewell.

123 To the regent masters in theology at Oxford concerning the subjects and times of their lectures. Written probably in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 346–7 (reading, p. 347/line 23, legendae for legendi).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, the regent masters in theology at Oxford.1

1 As bishop of Lincoln, Grosseteste had jurisdiction over the schools of Oxford, which were in his diocese. Surprisingly little is known about the regent masters in theology at this time; see the essays in Hist. Univ. Oxford. J.R. Ginther has plausibly associated this letter with Grosseteste’s general reform of the Oxford course of study in 1246; see his ‘Theological Education at the Oxford Studium in the Thirteenth Century: A Reassessment of Robert Grosseteste’s Letter to the Oxford Theologians,’ in Franciscan Studies 55 (1998): 83–104, at p. 94. For an overview of the changes in the university theological curriculum at Paris and Oxford to which Grosseteste was here responding, see McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 160–71.

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Skilful builders are very careful and vigilant that every stone to be placed in the foundation of a building is really a foundation stone, appropriate and suitable because of its solidity to support the weight of the building to be erected above it. Now, you are the builders of the house of God, constructing it upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone [Eph 2:20]. So the foundation stones of the building of which you are the master builders are the books of the prophets – among whom must also be numbered, with good reason, the lawgiver Moses – and also the books of the apostles and the Gospels. There are no others anyone can find or place in the building’s foundation. These stones you lay and arrange in the foundation when you explain the books named here to your listeners in a manner consistent with the minds of their authors and by the gift that enables you to distinguish true spirits from false ones [1 Cor 12:10]. You must therefore be most careful to guard against laying out among the real foundation stones or in their place stones that are unsuitable for the foundation. Otherwise, the weakness of such stones may cause the building constructed above them first to develop cracks and then to collapse in ruins. Now, the most appropriate time for laying and arranging these stones in the foundation – for there is a time for laying a foundation, just as there is also a time for building [Eccl 3:3] – is the morning hour of your ordinary lectures.2 So all your lectures, especially at this time of day, should be from the books of the New or Old Testament. Otherwise the wrong stones will be laid among the foundation stones or in their place; an unsuitable time will be assigned for each task, contrary to the teaching of Scripture and the natural order of things; and it will be obvious that you are abandoning the ways of the fathers and elders and conformity with the example of the regents in theology at Paris.3 Because, then, I desire with heartfelt love that, as the Apostle teaches, you do all things in a proper and orderly fashion [1 Cor 14:40], in the Lord Jesus Christ and with all possible affection and devotion I ask, advise, and exhort you as men of discretion to ensure that all the ordinary lectures you give in the morning hour come from the New or Old Testament. I 2 ‘Ordinary’ lectures, usually delivered by masters in the morning hours, are distinguished from ‘cursory’ or ‘extraordinary’ lectures, given by masters or bachelors, usually in the afternoon. 3 The most thorough survey of the complicated evidence of Parisian practice that survives from this period remains P. Glorieux, ‘L’enseignement au Moyen Âge: Techniques et méthodes en usage à la Faculté de Théologie de Paris, au XIIIe siècle,’ in Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 43 (1968): 65–186.

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ask you to do this so that you will resemble heads of households, or be such householders, bringing out of your storerooms things new and old [Mt 13:52], not other kinds of things that are, so to speak, between new and old, or have been built upon a foundation of doctrine by the fathers who wrote about sacred subjects. For these some other more appropriate time should be made available.4 Farewell.

124 To King Henry III, in reply to Henry’s letter to Grosseteste and concerning the relationship between the priesthood and kingship, the appointment of Robert Passelewe to a cure of souls, and the anointing of kings. Written probably early in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 348–51.

To his most excellent lord Henry,1 by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, his own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. It is at your lordship’s command that I am writing you this letter, and that is why I devotedly ask your excellency to be so kind as to receive, hear, and understand it with a king’s clemency. Its source is not only, as it were, your command, but also at the same time the writer’s own humble devotion and such charity as he has. As suggested by the letter2 that your royal serenity wrote to me, we know that the government of the human race has two foundations, that is to say, priesthood and kingship.3 The former directs all the activities of 4 That this letter was taken to heart by the Oxford theologians can be inferred from the epistola secreta of Innocent IV in 1247, urging Grosseteste to make an exception in the case of the Dominican friar R[ichard Fishacre] by dispensing him from the rule and allowing him to give ordinary lectures on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; see Ginther, ‘Theological Education,’ 102–3. 1 On King Henry III, see Letter 119, n. 1. 2 Henry’s letter seems not to have survived. 3 This reference to the two foundations of human government, priesthood and kingship, reflects the common understanding; its best-known formulation is in the

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its government towards achieving eternal peace, and the other towards achieving temporal peace, so that by the peace that is temporal there may be an easier transition to the peace that distinguishes eternity. Priesthood and kingship are mutually helpful, as is touched on in your letter, and it plainly follows from this that neither is a hindrance to the other, and that each therefore promotes the functions and duties of the other and in no way hinders, diminishes, or retards them. The priestly power does not hinder the royal power from vigorously defending the realm by force of arms, ruling it with just laws, and adorning it with noble conduct. Nor on the other hand does the royal power prevent the priestly one from working unceasingly for the eternal salvation of its flock by ministering to it the bread of God’s word, by providing excellent examples of works of holiness, and by devoting itself to constant vigils, fasts, and prayers, all of which activities, as the Apostle declares, are impossible for those who are entangled in secular affairs [2 Tm 2:4]. So, the royal power, which is meant to assist the priesthood, can by no means entangle in secular affairs those charged with pastoral responsibilities. For this would be the same as turning the sun’s light into the moon’s, shutting off the sun’s rays from giving life to the things that grow on the earth, preventing the soul from animating the body, and even pulling down heaven to earth; it would be like cursing the consecrated, disturbing the order of things, and resisting the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2]. Now, in so far as I, despite my unworthiness, discharge the duties of the priesthood, I desire with all my poor strength that all things be done under and by both powers decently and in order [1 Cor 14:40] and therefore in a spirit of concord, by which I mean that spiritual matters are dealt with by ecclesiastical and spiritual men, and secular ones by secular men. So, military matters are the concern of military men, and corrections and reforms of excesses and defects in things that touch the welfare of the realm are the concern of secular persons skilled and trained in the just laws of the kingdom. I am not attempting, as has been suggested to your excellency, in any way directly or indirectly to cause discord between your government and the priesthood. Now, let me turn to the case about which your serenity next wrote me in general terms, namely, the presentation of one of your clerks to me for appointment to a certain church. As I am particularly eager to keep

letter of Pope Gelasius (492–6) to the Emperor Anastasius: ‘Two there are, noble emperor, by which the world is principally ruled: the consecrated authority of bishops and the royal power.’ See Gratian, Decretum D.96 c.10.

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you fully informed about this matter, I would point out to your clemency that it was out of fatherly affection and zeal for the salvation of his soul and those of the parish of that church and for the king’s honour that, after repeated warnings about salvation, with my mind at ease and in a spirit of gentleness, I told Lord Robert Passelewe,4 who had been presented to me for appointment to St Peter’s Church, Northampton, that I would not bestow a cure of souls upon one who is a forest judge and performs that kind of judicial office. I could not do this except in violation of divine law and the sanctions of canon law,5 and therefore of the promises I made at my consecration.6 At the end of your letter, moreover, you charged me with the task of explaining what the sacrament of anointing would appear to add to the royal dignity, since there are many kings who are by no means adorned with the gift of unction.7 It is beyond my small competence to give an adequate reply, but I am well aware that the anointing of a king is the sign of the privilege of receiving the sevenfold gift of the most holy Spirit.8 It is this gift that binds an anointed king to a degree far surpassing unanointed kings to direct all his actions as king and those of his government toward specific goals: because of the gift of fear he will, not in any ordinary sense, but eminently and heroically, restrain first himself and then, as much as he can, those subject to his governance from doing anything unlawful; because of the gift of piety he will defend, help, and cause to be helped, the widow, the orphan, and every oppressed person without distinction; the gift of knowledge will dispose him to ordain just laws to govern the kingdom 4 On Robert Passelewe, see‘Passelewe, Robert,’ in ODNB. 5 Cf. Letters 27 and 28. 6 Grosseteste’s profession of obedience to the archbishop of Canterbury, given at the time of his consecration in 1235, survives; see M. Richter, ed., Canterbury Professions (Torquay, U.K., 1973), 68. In it (ibid., p. 55, no. 122) Grosseteste promises canonical obedience and submission to the archbishop, Edmund Rich, and to the see of Canterbury: ‘Ego [Robertus Lincolniensis] ecclesie electus et a te, reuerende pater [Edmunde], sancte Cantuariensis ecclesie archiepiscope et totius Anglie primas, consecrandus antistes, tibi et sancte Cantuariensi ecclesie et successoribus tuis canonice substituendis debitam et canonicam obedientiam et subiectionem me per omnia exhibiturum profiteor et promitto, et propria manu subscribendo confirmo.’ The provincial Council of Oxford (1222) required that his profession be read out before the bishop at least twice each year so that he would better remember it; see Councils and Synods, 108. This requirement was reiterated by the legatine council of 1237 (ibid., 255). 7 On the anointing of English kings with the oil of St Thomas Becket, see T.A. Sandquist, ‘The Holy Oil of St Thomas of Canterbury,’ in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T.A. Sandquist and M.R. Powicke (Toronto, 1969), 330–44 8 On the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, see also Letter 106, n. 4.

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justly, observe the laws he has ordained and see that they are observed, and suppress any ordained in error; because of the gift of fortitude he will repulse everything hostile to the kingdom, and he will not fear death to ensure the safety of the realm. To perform these deeds with great distinction he must be adorned first by the gift of counsel, by means of which the order of this world as perceived by the senses is revealed through human skill and knowledge; next, by the gift of understanding, by which the order of the angelic host is discerned; and finally, by the gift of wisdom, by which one attains a clear knowledge of God. He must be adorned by these gifts so that, after the model of the order of the world and that of the angels, and in accordance with eternal laws written in the eternal reason of God and by which he governs the whole of creation, the king too may ultimately govern in an orderly fashion the realm that is subject to him. So, the sacrament of unction does add to the royal dignity, for the reason that, in comparison with the other kind of king, the anointed monarch, as mentioned above, because of the godlike and heroic virtues that derive from the Spirit’s sevenfold gift, must prevail in his every act of government. But this prerogative of anointing by no means places the royal dignity above or even on a level with the priestly, nor does it confer the power of any priestly office. For Judah, the son of Jacob and leader of the royal tribe, when distinguishing between himself and his brother Levi, the leader of the priestly tribe, said this:9 ‘The Lord has given me the kingdom and Levi the priesthood, and he has made the kingdom subject to the priesthood. To me he has given what is on the earth and to him what is in heaven. Just as heaven is superior to the earth, so the priesthood of God is superior to the kingdom on earth.’ Because King Uzziah of Judah attempted to interfere with one small function of the priestly office, he deserved to be afflicted with the disease of leprosy, and by usurping what was above him he lost his kingship.10 I have mentioned these matters briefly so as not to weary your serenity by saying too much. As to the individual points I have touched upon, I very much desire that you listen very attentively to those who are greater experts than I, as long, however, as they fear God, are truthful, and hate avarice [Ex 18:21]. Long may your lordship fare well and flourish.

9 This is a quotation from the Testamentum Iuda (21.1–2) of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a work that Grosseteste translated from the Greek, probably in 1242; see Thomson, Writings, 42–4; Southern, Growth, 8–9, 185, 269, 283; M. De Jonge, ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,’ in Journal of Theological Studies 42 (1991): 115–25, at 122n29. 10 See 2 Chr 26:16–21.

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125 To King Henry III, in response to a report Grosseteste has heard that the king is angry with him for writing in opposition to royal mandates. Written probably soon after Letter 124, early in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 351–3.

To his most excellent lord, Henry,1 by the grace of God illustrious king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, his own devoted Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted respect, together with his sincere affection. I have heard that your royal excellency is angry with my insignificant self on the ground of my writing to oppose your mandates, as it would be proper for you to be had I done so.2 The searcher of hearts and minds [Ps 7:10] knows that I earnestly desire the honour, virtue, power, and sovereignty of your royal majesty, and for their increase, perfection, and preservation I duly and devoutly pray to God in public and private. Since this is the case, it could not be that I would knowingly and deliberately wish, either in writing or in some other way, to offend your royal dignity, to which I am so conspicuously devoted and to which I am also bound by fealty, for the king’s honour, which loves justice [Ps 98:4], can be offended only by injustices. I have carefully reconsidered my written response to your excellency’s commands, and it does not seem to me that what I wrote was a lie, or a truth that should have been left unstated, or that I wrote the truth I was obliged to write or something else in any other way than was appropriate. For these three faults a writer deserves to be rebuked, although perhaps in my lack of skill I failed to write as carefully or articulately as the skilful use of language demanded, considering the nature and importance of the material. In that case it is the writer’s lack of skill that alone deserves his teacher’s rebuke. But I do not now press this point with your royal clemency in an attempt, as it were, to exonerate myself, but out of the greatest desire to win your goodwill. If I have offended you either by writing or in some other way, I most devotedly beg you to have mercy and to pardon my offence, 1 On King Henry III, see Letter 119, n. 1. 2 The letter or letters in question seem not to have survived.

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especially as, to secure your clemency’s goodwill, I am prepared to correct and amend anything you consider wrong during the next conversation I will have with you.3 So, with all possible feelings of humility and devotion I ask that your royal magnificence kindly deign to postpone both this matter and other affairs of mine that should be dealt with in your royal serenity’s presence, until such time as I shall have an audience with you. For it is my hope that your royal magnificence, who desires that all things have as their goal the honour of God, the salvation of souls, and the liberty of the Church, and my own insignificant self, who with the Lord’s favour seeks these same ends and no others, will both, by means of a brief, benevolent, and benign discussion about the matter, reach an understanding and an amicable agreement. Long may your lordship fare well and flourish.

126 To Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury, concerning Robert Passelewe’s appointment to the Church of St Peter, Northampton. Written probably in conjunction with Letters 124 and 125, early in 1246. Edition: Luard, Epp., 353–6.

To the venerable father in Christ, Boniface,1 by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, Robert, by divine mercy humble minister of the Church of Lincoln, sends greeting and both dutiful and devoted obedience and respect in all things. You know, father, that you have been appointed head of the bishops so that you may rouse the negligent from neglect of their duties, aid the diligence of the diligent, and not compel anyone to do anything unjust, but instead canonically correct those who act unjustly. These are also the responsibilities of your official,2 for it is known that in such matters he takes your place. If he behaves otherwise than is expected, he does not stigmatize himself as much as he does you, whose representative he is,

3 Grosseteste may perhaps here be anticipating the great council of the realm to be held at Westminster in March of 1246; see Councils and Synods, 388–401. 1 On Boniface of Savoy, see Letters 86–9. 2 Hugh de Mortimer.

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and it is your glory that he tarnishes [Sir 33:24]. So, as it is my obligation, and as I from feelings of sincere love desire that the lustre of your glory shine forth untarnished, I cannot keep silent about the things I fear your official is attempting to do, not only to the prejudice of your office, but also to the tarnishing of your glory. You know, father, that Lord Robert Passelewe,3 one of the lord king’s forest judges, whose office empowers him to conduct judicial inquiries into the theft of game and greenwood in the king’s forest, to take captive and imprison anyone found guilty of such a crime, to impose sentence not only on laymen but also on clerics, and to perform other functions pertaining to such an office, was presented to me for appointment to the Church of St Peter at Northampton.4 Though often exhorted by me to give up performing the duties of his judge’s office, he was unwilling to heed my warnings, and I refused to admit him to that church because he was performing an office that was for him illicit, and also for a great many other reasons. My action in no way, or so I believe, indicates that I should be charged with negligence; instead I ought to be praised for my diligent attention to my pastoral duties. When Lord Robert complained, however, your official considered me to be negligent in this matter, and by virtue of the obedience by which I am bound to you, gave me an order enjoining me, in so far as it is proper, to institute canonically this Robert (or his proctor appointed for this purpose) as parson in that church within the eight days following my receipt of his order. Otherwise he would forthwith, as required by his own office, proceed himself to install him in that church because of my negligence. In response to this command I wrote my own letter, in these words, to answer what he had proposed. ‘In reply I answer you not as my judge in this case but as a friend and as one who seeks only the interests of Jesus Christ [Phil 2:21] that to command obedience in illicit acts is nothing less than the crime of idolatry [1 Sm 15:23], and to obey such a command is nothing less than refusing to obey [1 Sm 15:23] a command to perform acts that are licit and approved by canon law. Now, it is in every respect illicit, and contrary to divine and canonical sanctions, to admit to a pastoral cure a man who involves himself in worldly affairs [2 Tm 2:4], especially one with a layman’s power and office to investigate theft, to take captive, imprison, and

3 On Robert Passelewe, see Letter 124, n. 4. 4 See Letter 124. On Grosseteste’s concerns about clerks and religious exercising secular jurisdiction, see Letters 27, 28, and 72*.

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judge those found by judicial inquiry to be guilty of such a crime, to use force and weapons and to shed blood to take wrongdoers captive if they cannot be captured in any other way, and then to judge them. This man was exhorted many times by his ordinary to free himself from involvement in these and similar worldly affairs, but did not heed these warnings, and he was entangled in many other activities that not only render him unsuitable to undertake a cure of souls, but also unworthy of any pastoral charge. Lord Robert Passelewe is entangled in the affairs I mentioned both particularly and generally, and, if necessary, I am ready to demonstrate all this before a competent judge, though his activities are well known. To order me, then, to admit such a person to a pastoral cure or to comply with such an order – what else is this but the crime of idolatry? ‘Now, I know that the tenor of the words you used in your mandate does not allege such wickedness, but the reality and substance masked by the tenor are nothing other than what I said. Even if no one were ordering me to do so, I always intend, with the Saviour’s grace, to abide by the tenor of your mandate, because I desire to regulate my official actions as best I can in accord with the rules of canon law. These direct me to oppose admitting Lord Robert to that church for the reasons I mentioned and a great many others as well. The rejection for pastoral cures of men who are involved in worldly affairs contrary to the Apostle’s teaching and the regulations of canon law,5 particularly when out of charity they have been forewarned many times and are still unwilling to free themselves from such an entanglement, may in no way be adjudged a sign of a pastor’s negligence; it is a sign instead of his diligent attention to his pastoral duties. ‘So, with the deepest feelings of charity I am asking you in your discretion not to institute Lord Robert to that church. This action would not only be prejudicial to me, who in this matter am not negligent but diligent – in which case, in conformity with canonical regulations, you cannot claim that your office obliges you to intervene – but would also eternally damn Lord Robert himself, cause the loss of souls in that church, and be a stumbling block to the clergy and especially to you, whose actions people would most assuredly assume reflect not a zeal for justice but only fear of the king. Of you they would repeat that verse of Jeremiah, that the leader of the province of Canterbury has become like a ram that finds no pastures and flees without strength before the face of the pursuer [Lam 1:6].

5 See Letter 72*.

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‘I am warning you, not as one who has power in this case to exercise the office of bishop in my diocese, but as a person who is zealous for the salvation of souls and for justice, that Lord Robert is just the kind of man I have described above, so that to the best of your ability you may try to rescue him from the pit of the evils I have mentioned, before the pit of hell closes its mouth over him [Ps 68:16] and there is no possibility of escape.’ The bearer of this letter left me before the completion of the eight-day period following my receipt of your official’s written order. For that reason, as I could not have known beforehand what would happen, once the messenger left I was unable to tell you in writing what this official was going to do about these issues. But from what I have heard and what he has threatened, I firmly believe that, despite my letter, warning, and just appeals, he will proceed to institute Robert in the Church of St Peter,6 as he has otherwise behaved harshly and disrespectfully toward me in several ways. I therefore most devotedly implore you, father, to be willing, guided by your discretion, to take steps to ensure that your official is not disrespectful to your suffragans, whom you ought to warn in advance and protect from attack when they are performing their duties, and does not hinder them from performing those duties, especially that of saving souls. Otherwise it is conceivable – God forbid! – that such actions may cause their devotion to you to become lukewarm and your glory to be tarnished [Sir 33:24]. May you always, father, fare well in the Lord.

127 A document arguing for Grosseteste’s rights and responsibilities with regard to his pastoral oversight and visitation of the dean and chapter of Lincoln Cathedral. Written probably for delivery at the papal curia in Lyons in 1245. Edition: Luard, Epp., 357–431 (reading, p. 357/line 16, constitueret for constituerit; 389/19, populi for populo ; 399/5, quod for qui; 399/10, veniente for venientem; 406/33, obsisteret for obsisterit; 420/5, sint for sunt ; 425/29, sua for suae ; 431/6, et for ex).

6 Passelewe seems not to have been instituted to St Peter’s, Northampton; he collected benefices in other dioceses and exercised guardianship of various vacant bishoprics and abbeys, ending his days as archdeacon of Lewes in the diocese of Chichester. See Southern, Growth, 269.

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Entrusted1 by the Lord with the task of guiding the entire people of Israel, so that he would lead them out of Egypt and liberate them from the yoke of Pharaoh, and thereby bring them into the promised land, Moses took his seat from morning until evening to judge the people [Ex 18:13] entrusted to his care. He had no one to share with him the powers of the office of judge until Jethro came to him and saw that the task of judging all the people, which Moses was bearing alone, was beyond his strength [Ex 18:18]. Jethro advised him that he should be the people’s representative in matters that pertain to God, making known to them the ceremonies and the rites of worship, as well as the path they were to follow and the work they were to do. But he should also provide from among all the people able and God-fearing men, who were truthful and hated avarice, and of them appoint officers over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, to judge the people at all times. They would refer to Moses himself any more important case and decide for themselves only minor matters. In this way Moses’s own burden would be lighter, since he would share it with others [Ex 18:19–22]. Moses heeded this advice and did everything Jethro had suggested. He chose energetic men and appointed them [Ex 18:24–5] to the posts mentioned. They judged the people at all times, referring whatever case was more difficult to Moses while they themselves settled only the easier ones [Ex 18:26]. There can be no doubt that from Moses’s action we learn how the Church’s dignities and powers are to be distinguished and regulated and appropriately ranked, as well as what responsibilities pertain to superior and inferior. For not only does his name mean that Moses is a type of the prelates who have been taken up from the turbulent waters of a vain way of life in this world so that they may be citizens of heaven;2 he is also such a type because of the ministry entrusted to him by the Lord. For prelates are the very ones to whom the Lord has committed the responsibility of leading the people 1 This is not a letter in any strict sense. There is no addressee named, and the normal epistolary conventions are lacking. It would seem to be, rather, a formal brief or argument (propositum) setting out the bishop’s position on the question of visitation. It is not addressed to the dean and chapter, who are referred to throughout in the third person: ‘Perhaps they will say ...,’ etc. It can best be understood, along with the chapter’s response (printed below as appendix A, at the end of this document), as a record of the formal arguments presented at the Council of Lyons in 1245. For comparable documents, see Letter 72* and the texts edited by S. Gieben, ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons 1250: Edition of the Documents,’ in Collectanea Franciscana 41 (1971): 340–93. For the deliberations at the Council of Lyons, see Srawley, ‘Administration,’ 175–7; Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 241–58; McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 31–41. 2 Cf. Cassiodorus, Expositio psalmorum, Ps 76:21 (CCSL 98:708); and Isidore, Etymologiae 7.6.46.

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who see God through faith, and of bringing them, by means of the sacraments of baptism and penance, out of the darkness of sin and ignorance into the land of the living that was promised to them, and into the heavenly Jerusalem. So, the fact that Moses took his seat alone from morning until evening [Ex 18:13] in judgment of his people plainly demonstrates that the fullness of the power to judge, correct, and reform the whole people, as well as individuals, belonged to him. For he did not by his action usurp for himself anything other than what was his by virtue of the power he had received from God. Because, however, he could not alone hear the disputes of each and every one in so great a multitude of people, or settle their suits, or correct their excesses, or reform their morals, he associated with himself helpers who would share his responsibilities. By this action he deprived himself of none of the power he had received but instead retained the fullness of that power. Now he would not have to perform by himself the tasks whose actual fulfilment was beyond his own strength. The burden would be lighter for him if he shared it with others [Ex 18:22]. If he had by his action taken from himself and handed to others the power to judge, it would not have been said to him, you will be unable to bear alone the weight of this office [Ex 18:18]. Instead he would have been told that he should hand over everything to others for them to bear. The clear implication of the statement, you will be unable to bear alone the weight of this office, is that he himself was obliged to bear the responsibility – not alone, however, but with the support of helpers he has brought to his side. It would also not be said to him, the burden would be lighter for you if you shared it with others [Ex 18:22], unless he himself were obliged to carry part of the burden so that several could bear the full weight when it was beyond the strength of one individual to do so. One should also not infer that in this partitioning of the burden there is in any way a division or diminution of his judicial and ordinary power in itself; there is instead a partitioning of the responsibilities of an office among all those working together for a common purpose, while the fullness of power is retained and from its undiminished abundance power is transferred to others to ensure a cooperative effort. All this is obvious from the following verses in the book of Numbers [Nm 11:4–30]. For when the people were so greedy for meat that they wept and remembered the food of Egypt and disdained manna, their complaints vexed Moses, who said to the Lord: I cannot alone bear responsibility for all these people because this is a heavy burden for me [Nm 11:14]. This is the same as saying ‘I alone bear responsibility for all these people.’ Certainly he would not have said this had he not until that point borne

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such a burden; nor would he have said that he bore the burden alone – since, as has been said, it had already been divided up among several individuals – unless he reckoned that he was doing through all of them everything they were doing by virtue of his power (so that he himself was always included in their work and never excluded from it), and unless he laboured so much more than they in bearing the burden of the people that their efforts in this respect were as nothing compared with his own. That this is the correct interpretation is very evident from the words of the Lord that come next, for he said to Moses: Assemble for me seventy men from among the elders of Israel, men you know as elders and officers of the people. Bring them to the door of the tabernacle of the covenant, and have them stand there with you that I may come down and speak with you. And I shall take from your spirit and confer it on them, so that they may share with you the burden of responsibility for the people, and you will not be burdened alone [Nm 11:16–17]. In these words it is clearly revealed that helpers were given to Moses to lighten his burden, with part, but not all, of his spirit conferred on them. This was done so that, as Augustine3 says about this passage, ‘they too would have as much as God willed, but not so that Moses would thereby have less.’ Moses retained the totality of the spiritual power given him by God to rule the people in his charge; then, through the Lord’s action, each of those associated with Moses to help bear his burden received from the influx (influentia) of that same power the source of their strength to bear the burden with him. No one of them, nor even all together, received the plenitude of Moses’s spirit. For the Lord did not say ‘I shall take away your spirit and confer it on them,’ but I shall take from your spirit [Nm 11:17]. He thereby reserved for the power of Moses something that he would not entrust to an inferior. The prelate, then, whose type is Moses, is not diminished when the power he exercises over all his charges is given to others from his spirit; he possesses full ordinary and judicial power, and thereby the full power of correction and reform. Because, however, of the great numbers of those subject to his care, like Moses he is unable by himself to bear the burden of the entire multitude in each and every respect, and inferiors are therefore associated with him to help bear the burden with him. They receive their power to do this from the influx of the prelate’s power, so that whatever they do officially when bearing the burden, this they do by virtue of the prelate’s power. So it is more the prelate himself who works in them than they who do the work themselves. 3 ‘Augustinus,’ as quoted in Glossa ordinaria, on Nm 11:17.

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When, for example, the sun’s rays fall upon a mirror and it reflects them, illuminating all the places where the sun’s direct rays are blocked by some opaque body, this illumination is more the work of the sun than the mirror; indeed, it is entirely the sun’s work, for it is really the sun’s ray that illuminates the places to which it is reflected by the mirror. Likewise, when the obstacle has been removed, the sun’s ray falls directly on places where previously it could not so fall: only by reflection from the mirror could it reach such places and bring them light. When falling directly upon these places, the sun’s ray illuminates them more brightly than they would be illuminated by reflection from the mirror alone. That is to say, reflected emission of light does not eliminate or diminish direct illumination. So it is in the case of the good prelate when one removes the obstacles represented by other preoccupations that have at times made it impossible for him to exercise by himself his power over some of his subjects, and instead required him to do so through others to whom a share of his power had been granted. When these obstacles are removed, the good prelate himself, by his own exercise of his own power over his charges, casts a light that eliminates the darkness of error, ignorance, and sin more powerfully and effectively than his inferiors, who have received from his power this function of a superior. They do not rise up against that power or in any way impede or diminish it. For what is more unnatural than for someone to rebel against himself, or to impede or diminish himself, or even to remove himself? This is doubtless what happens when an inferior power opposes a superior’s power or strives to annul it, since, as mentioned above, the power of an inferior is nothing but that of his superior. What is more, when an inferior power strives to diminish or take away that of his superior, despite the fact that his power is nothing but that which comes from the superior power, what else does such a lesser power do but attempt, like a madman, to behead or destroy himself? Once the bubbling spring of a source has been reduced in size or drained dry, it follows that the stream, too, must suffer the same fate. A superior power can therefore do whatever a power subject to him can do; but the contrary is not true. For the Lord said, as cited above: I shall take from your spirit and confer it on them [Nm 11:17]; he did not say, ‘I shall take away your spirit.’ This is also evident from the words in Exodus mentioned above, for Jethro said to Moses, any more important case is to be referred to you, and they will themselves settle only minor matters [Ex 18:22]. A few words later this is added: they referred whatever case was more difficult to

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Moses, while they themselves settled only the easier ones [Ex 18:26]. So it is very evident that those who are now the successors in the Church of the ones in charge of groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens [Ex 18:21] – those who have in fact been chosen to share the prelates’ responsibilities – are able to decide only less important and easier cases, and in this way to correct and reform; reserved to the prelates’ judgment, correction, and reform are the more important and more difficult cases. Indeed, this is the way in which the ordering of the Church’s hierarchy is in harmony with that of heaven, where a superior order can also do whatever an inferior can do, but not vice versa. Reserved also to the prelates alone in the passage above from Exodus are those cases that concern the whole community, as Augustine4 observes when commenting on this same passage: ‘But what else does Jethro say? “Be the people’s representative in matters that pertain to God: you will bring their words to God and declare God’s statutes and his law, and you will show them the paths on which they will walk and what they will do.” Jethro points out that this is what must be done with all the people. He does not say, “you will bring to God the words” of this one and that, but “their words,” since before that he had said, “Be the people’s representative in matters that pertain to God.” After this he advises that cases arising between individuals should be left to those who have been selected for this purpose, that is, able and just men who worship God and hate pride, and whom Moses would appoint, some over groups of thousands, some over hundreds, some over fifties, and some over tens.’ In these words of Augustine it is very clear that only the cases of individuals, and not of the entire community, are entrusted to judges of lesser rank; but not all such cases are so entrusted, because, as was said above, the more important and more difficult cases are excluded. Those touching the whole community are reserved to Moses himself, and, because of this precedent, to the prelates in the Church today. For if all the people of one diocese, or the entire chapter of one church, were to err – for it is possible for the whole to do wrong (or in Leviticus5 there would not be the command that the whole crowd of the children of Israel should offer a bull because of their sin of ignorance) – or to have some dispute or case with another diocese or chapter, who will correct such a fault or settle such a suit, unless it be the presiding prelate? For no mem-

4 Glossa ordinaria, on Ex 18:19; Augustine, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum libri septem 2.69 (CCSL 33:100–1). 5 Lv 4:13–21.

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ber of the community who is not its head can be its judge and corrector, since the lesser cannot judge the greater nor correct or punish as a judge. A part is less than its whole. Belonging to the head, by virtue of its discriminative power, is the exercise of judgment concerning the rest of the body; the head is also endowed by the common source of all the senses with sensation of the whole body, and the head controls motion by its command of the power of movement. So to the prelate alone belongs the exercise of judgment over the body whose head he is, and, by virtue of his ordinary power, of movement, perceptible to the senses, from error to truth, from perversity to righteousness, from evil to good. From all this one concludes that reserved to prelates are the more important and more difficult burdens, disputes both universal and individual as well as the exercise of judgment over them, and corrections thereby of the entire community. But to ensure that prelates are not burdened beyond their strength, assistants are associated with them who participate in their power; they shoulder with the prelates – but without any reduction at all in a prelate’s power – the oppressively large number of less important and easier cases that concern individual members of the community but not the community as a whole. To the extent, however, that they deem it appropriate, prelates have the power and obligation to take charge even of lesser cases and those whose resolution they regard as expedient, and to investigate and consider, not negligently, but with vigilance and thoroughness, how such cases are being handled and resolved by the assistants selected to share their responsibilities. They also have the power and obligation to make good any negligence they have found and any deficiencies, to correct any errors, to reform what is deformed, and to encourage what has been begun well and then to bring it to fruition. For these reasons, with the instructions in the Old Testament as a model, the lord pope, who is the most trusted in all the household of the Lord, and among all his people the equivalent of Moses (whom the Lord had designated his most trusted servant in all his household [Nm 12:7] and the leader of all his people of Israel), possesses the fullness of power over the nations and over kingdoms, to root out and pull down, and to waste and destroy, and to build and plant [Jer 1:10]. And he is able of his own power to judge all the cases, greater and lesser, both of communities and of individuals, both greater and lesser, and to correct and reform whatever needs correction and reform. But because, in view of the great number of those subject to him, he cannot actually bear by himself the burden of each and every one – something which he nevertheless can do in terms of his power – the prelates of churches, namely the bishops, have been

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chosen to share his responsibilities, so that by participating in the fullness of his power they may help him to bear his burden. By sharing this burden with others, what was beyond the strength of one man to accomplish is easier for the pope to bear, and it may be accomplished to perfection. Certain more important things are reserved to the pope, which he alone has the power to do, and which no bishop can do by the episcopal power that has its origin in that of the pope. For the order of reason and nature demands that the power responsible for the influx be able to do more than the one that is the recipient of that influx and possesses power only by reason of what it receives therefrom. For the Seraphim can do more than the Cherubim,6 and the sun is better able to give light and heat than the moon or the stars, which shine only because of the sun. And as the lord pope is, in the fullness of his power, with respect to the universal Church, so is the bishop with respect to his own diocese, in the power he has received from the power of the pope, for in his diocese the bishop is as Moses was, the most trusted servant of the Lord [Nm 12:7] in every good action of the people of Israel.7 Except, then, for those things reserved only to the lord pope, the bishop has the power in his diocese to do everything that pertains to the care and salvation of souls and to decisions in ecclesiastical cases. Because, however, he cannot by himself bear the burden of the whole diocese – even though all things are, with the aforesaid exceptions, within his jurisdiction by virtue of his ordinary power – assistants are also associated with bishops to help support their burden; to support its weight they have a share in the bishop’s power. Similarly, these assistants, if they too cannot by themselves bear their own burdens, have as subordinates others to carry the weight, and so on down to those in the lowest ranks, who have sufficient strength to support it because it is now light and small. And at all times many things that an inferior power cannot do are reserved to a superior one. But never does the superior power take from himself any power that a lesser authority may exercise only by virtue of

6 On the angelic hierarchies and their relation to the ecclesiastical, see PseudoDionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Grosseteste translated both works from Greek into Latin during the 1240s; for his translation, see Dionysiaca: Recueil donnant l’ensemble des traductions latines des ouvrages attribués a Denys de l’Aréopage ..., ed. P. Chevalier et al., 2 vols. (Paris/Bruges, 1937–49), 2:727–1476 (Grosseteste’s translation is assigned the siglum R). 7 For further reflections on the relation of pope to bishop, see Grosseteste’s presentation to the pope and cardinals at Lyons in 1250, ed. S. Gieben (see n. 1, above), especially document 1.23–7 (pp. 360–3); cf. McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 43–7.

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that same superior’s power. For if there is something good that a person can keep undiminished for himself and yet also share with someone else, who would share it with that person in such a way that he would diminish it for himself? Does the sun enable the moon to shine through the night, while the sun is absent, in such a way that it takes away from its own light? Now, it often happens that some inferior receives either all of his power or part of it from an intervening superior power between whom and the inferior there are one or more intermediate powers. So, for example, rectors and vicars of parish churches receive from the bishop all the power they have to direct souls, but between these officials and the bishop are certain intermediate powers, that is, rural deans and archdeacons, to whom the rectors and vicars are subject by order of the bishop. In some bishoprics rural deans are also placed under archdeacons by the bishop, who entrusts to the former whatever power they have. So, in the case of inferior powers of this kind, who receive what power they have not directly from an immediate superior power but from an intervening one, it may happen that the inferior power can do something denied to the power who is immediately superior to him. For the intervening superior power is able, from the abundance of his own power, to grant to an inferior what he did not grant to the one directly in charge of that same inferior. So, in this kind of situation there is no contradiction of what was said above, namely, that whatever an inferior power can do, so also can the superior, but not vice versa. For this should be understood to concern that superior power who has, vis-à-vis his inferior, granted to the latter what power he possesses. That is why some who are subject even to bishops can do what those bishops cannot. For example, the father abbots of the Cistercian Order can visit their daughter houses, a right denied, however, to the bishops to whom those abbots are subject, inasmuch as at the time of their blessing they promise canonical obedience to their bishops in all things except what is forbidden by the rule of their order. A power superior to the bishops, namely the lord pope, has conferred this right on the Cistercian Order, but in granting this he did not exclude himself from it, for he has the power to visit all monasteries. The consequence of all this is that a bishop has the power and obligation to visit officially all those subject to him by diocesan right, and to correct and reform what needs correction and reform in everyone; he is able of his own power to decide all the suits of all his charges, although he may perhaps not be able to decide them all by himself. And for that reason he should have assistants who share his power and help him bear this burden, and who are obliged to refer to him all the more important and difficult cases and those touching the whole community, unless by

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chance there are under the bishop some powers who receive either all or part of their power from a power higher than him, that is, the lord pope, and who have exemptions from that bishop’s power for themselves, or for their subjects, or for both. Such exemptions would indicate that they are not subject to the bishop in one or more of the ways I have mentioned.8 If, then, in this regard the dean and chapter and all those subject to them have no privilege from the lord pope that exempts them from the bishop’s authority, they are unjustly rebelling against and opposing the bishop’s exercise of his authority over them and their charges. For the reasons I have given, they cannot in this regard claim for their actions an exemption or privilege of immunity from anyone except the lord pope. For if a bishop cannot, as has been stated, so dispense his power to others he has taken as assistants in his ministry that he diminishes this power for himself, certainly much less is he able to diminish it for his successor. It is true that a bishop can entrust to others the exercise of his own power as a way of easing his own burden, and thus reduce for himself the amount of work involved in exercising his authority, but he can by no means diminish that power for himself without the approval of the one who gave it to him, that is, without the approval of the lord pope. For since episcopal power has papal power as its source, just as the fullness of power of the pope himself is derived from Christ, and this occurs expressly for the salvation of souls, if a bishop were to diminish his own episcopal power without the lord pope’s consent, by this action he would detract from the lord pope. This is so because bishops, as mentioned above, have been selected to bear with him the lord pope’s burden, and to do this they receive power from the fullness of his power. If, then, they diminish for themselves, without his consent, what they have received from the lord pope, and through him from Christ, to bear with the pope the burden of the ministry of the salvation of souls for whom Christ died, then plainly they do harm to him who conferred on them their power. For their diminishing of this power was not intended by the one who bestowed it, and by its diminution they are made less able to support the burden with their superior, even though it was to bear this burden with him more effectively and vigourously that they received their power as bishops.

8 On the Lincoln chapter’s claim, made in 1241, to have such an exemption from episcopal visitation, issued by the English king William Rufus and confirmed by the pope, see F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Bishop Grosseteste and his Cathedral Chapter: An Edition of the Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation,’ in Med. St. 47 (1985): 367–78, at 372n16; see also appendix A, n. 6.

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If I were carrying a load of wood too heavy for me to bear by myself, and if, to ease my burden, I called on you to help me carry it, and if it were possible for me to give you a large share of my strength without actually diminishing it for myself, and if you were to accept it for the task for which I were to give it to you, would you not be doing me harm if you diminished, without my consent, the strength thus given you by me? Were a king to place under the command of some general a thousand armed men to fight in one of the king’s battles, and were that general to take away from his resources five hundred of those armed men, would he not cause the king serious harm? But perhaps someone will say that there would be no harm at all to this wood carrier and king as the sources of the strength and the soldiers, if either the general or the wood carrier’s assistant were to take from his own resources and give that amount to others to help the one from whom he had himself received it. Each of these has helped his source as much (or more) by what he has taken from himself as he could were he to keep that same amount for himself. This response, however, carries little weight, since it is clear that, without the approval of the granting superior, the recipient should not take from himself what he has received to support his superior, even if he were to give to others for that support what he would take from himself. For how is the one who thus receives and gives to know that his superior, the original donor, will be pleased by such a transfer, and that those who are the second donor’s recipients will in good faith assist the first donor? If it happens that he assists that first donor less vigourously and faithfully because he is unable to regain possession of the strength he took from himself by granting it to those others and cannot make good the loss caused by that transfer, it is plain that such a diminution in strength will mean that the first donor will receive less help and relief and thus be gravely harmed by the second donor. Furthermore, in the case of the individual who receives the power to do something from the first donor and entrusts it to others, say, for example, the bishop who receives from the lord pope and gives to subordinates with cures of souls the power to provide for their salvation, does such a bishop not move more prudently, beneficially, and efficaciously to ease the burden of the lord pope, who is ultimately responsible under heaven for all churches and all souls, when he gives to his inferiors a share in the power they need to support his own burden and that of the pope in such a way as to keep for himself his own power undiminished

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– since this he can and must do according to the teaching of Scripture9 – rather than in ways that would diminish or curtail it for him? If the lord pope, who has received the fullness of power from Jesus Christ, whose vice-regent he is, were to diminish this power for himself without the command of Jesus Christ, who is the one who knows what advantage there would be in his ordering such a thing, would his action not do injury to Jesus Christ? Similarly, if the power he has received from the lord pope (and from Jesus Christ through the lord pope’s mediation) were diminished for himself by the bishop without the consent and confirmation of the lord pope, who is the one who knows what advantage there would be for the Church in his assenting to and confirming such a diminution, his action will do great harm to the lord pope and, as a consequence, grave dishonour to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no argument, then, that may be honestly adduced in favour of the diminution of the power possessed in common law10 by a bishop. This power he has from the lord pope and from Jesus Christ (through his intermediary), unless some reduction in episcopal power is made by the lord pope (who possesses the plenitude of any power granted by common law) for the sake of some advantage to the Church, known to him and not to be questioned by others, that would compensate well for such a reduction. In Ecclesiasticus it is stated that one should not so entrust his power to another that he would diminish it for himself, especially if the power is such that it may be entrusted to another and still be retained in full: Listen to me, all you great men and all you people, and give ear, you rulers of the Church! As long as you live, do not give power over yourself to son or wife, to brother or friend. Do not give your property to another in case you have regrets and have to beg him for it. As long as you still have life and breath, no one will change you. For it is better for your children to ask from you than for you to look to the hand of your children. Keep preeminence in all your affairs, and allow no blemish on your glory [Sir 33:19–24]. How would anyone not blemish his glory if he diminished the power bestowed upon him from above? What bishop would not look to the hand of his children, if he could do nothing without the assistance of others? If it were possible for the roots of a

9 Cf. Sir 33:19–24. 10 The term ‘common law’ (ius commune) here and elsewhere in Grosseteste’s writings refers not to the national laws of England, but to the common law of Christendom, whose norms are derived from the teachings of Roman and ecclesiastical (canon) law. See M. Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe: 1000–1800 (Washington, D.C., 1995).

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tree to put forth leaves, to blossom, and to bear fruit, would they so pass those powers to the small branches as to deprive themselves of them? This ordering of ecclesiastical powers is to be found in the text of Exodus, in the place where the departure of Israel from Egypt is commemorated,11 and therefore appears to be a part of the covenant concluded by the Lord with the children of Israel. Anyone who transgresses this covenant incurs God’s curse. The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, who said: Listen to the words of this covenant and speak them to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And you will say to them: This is what the Lord God of Israel says. Cursed is the man who does not hear the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers on the day I brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace. I said: Listen to my voice and do everything I commanded you to do [Jer 11:1–4]. If the arrangement of ecclesiastical powers is a part of this covenant, and its violators are under a curse, it is perfectly clear that it is unlawful to violate that covenant. Should someone say, however, that this covenant is nothing but the Decalogue, this does not appear to release from that curse legally free children who contend that the legitimate power of a father over them is diminished or removed. For in the Decalogue there is a command to honour one’s natural parents, and so spiritual ones much more.12 But how does one not dishonour his father when he strives to reduce or remove his father’s legitimate power over him? Every power over his subjects granted by common law to a bishop is the legitimate power of a father over his children. So, those who are the subjects of bishops and who strive to deprive them of what common law has conferred – especially when the full powers of the common law have in no way been restricted for these bishops by command of their superior, that is, the lord pope – are plainly guilty of dishonouring their parents and, since they are transgressing the covenant of the Decalogue, of incurring thereby the curse mentioned above, as well as several others in Scripture that it is unnecessary to repeat.13 It follows that, when not hindered by important affairs of the Church or by unavoidable and reasonable causes, a bishop cannot but visit those subject to him by diocesan right and not exempt from his jurisdiction, in order to correct errors and to reform whatever requires it.

11 See Ex 19:1–14 and 18:19–22. 12 The fourth commandment, ‘Honour your father and your mother’ (Ex 20:12), is traditionally applied both to one’s biological and to one’s spiritual parents; see Glossa ordinaria, on Dt 5:16. See also De decem mandatis, 38–58. 13 See Grosseteste’s letter (no. 119) to King Henry III, n. 4.

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To do otherwise would imperil his own soul. If it is agreed that a good bishop is a shepherd whose sheep are his own [Jn 10:3], who is so attached to them that he is always prepared to lay down his life for them [Jn 10:11], placing their eternal salvation ahead of his own temporal welfare, and who owes an accounting of all his sheep to the shepherd who is his superior and in whose place he serves, surely by law he cannot but visit them all, for all of them are his own [Jn 10:3]. And surely he does not want not to visit them, for he is more concerned about their salvation than about his own temporal welfare. Is he not – at least when he can do so conveniently and is not hindered by some more important preoccupation – required to visit them, obliged as he is to render an account of them to him from whom the loss of the smallest hair of the smallest sheep cannot be hidden,14 and who does not want such a loss to go unpunished when it arises from the shepherd’s negligence? For Jesus so loves each of the sheep that he purchased every single one at the full price of his most precious life, which he surrendered to an utterly base and cruel death. Indeed, what else may one believe in this regard except that a bishop’s obligation to render an account on behalf of the sheep requires him to visit them, especially if, as I said above, he is not detained by some more important preoccupation. And because he is so bound, and because the sheep are his own [Jn 10:3], he can by law visit them, something which we agree a good shepherd ardently wishes to do, since he places their salvation before his own life. And because so great an obligation to visit their flocks weighs on shepherds, and because they ought to have an equally great desire to do so, since the power of visitation is a lawful one, the Lord threatens with terrible punishments shepherds who do not visit their flocks, and whose failure to do so causes the sheep to scatter, because the one who does not gather with him scatters [Lk 11:23]. As Jeremiah states, ‘Woe to the shepherds who scatter and ravage the flock of my pasture,’ says the Lord. ‘These are therefore the words of the Lord God of Israel to the pastors who feed my people: You have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not visited them. Behold I shall visit upon you the evil of your doings,’ says the Lord [Jer 23:1–2]. In these words it is clearly revealed that the woe of eternal damnation will be visited upon shepherds who scatter, ravage, and drive away the flock of the Lord’s pasture. And who the shepherds are who do these things is expressly indicated when the words and you have not visited them [Jer 23:2] are added, as if to say: ‘Because you did not visit the sheep, you 14 Cf. Mt 10:30 and Lk 12:7.

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scattered, ravaged, and drove them away.’ For when a shepherd does not visit his sheep, what else does this failure do but permit them to roam through the fields of wantonness, and, as they roam through various pleasures and temptations, to be scattered in a place of estrangement from God,15 and also, once scattered, to be torn to pieces by the wild beasts of which it is said: Deliver not to the beasts the souls that confess to you [Ps 73:19], and, once torn apart, to be cast in the end into the outer darkness [Mt 25:30]. Rightly is he said to commit these evils who permits them to befall the sheep by failing to visit them, just as it is said that the pilot of a ship who mishandles the rudder causes the ship to capsize when he could have saved it from overturning by correctly guiding the rudder. Because, then, shepherds are guilty of these evils when they fail to visit their sheep, with full justice will the Lord visit upon them the evil of their doings [Jer 23:2]. And what are these ‘doings’ of theirs, except activities to which they less usefully devote themselves and which therefore wickedly hold them back or divert them from the duty of visitation? Shepherds therefore have the greatest and most obvious obligation to visit, so that both their flocks and they themselves may escape eternal damnation. Through Ezekiel the Lord also makes it plain that it is a shepherd’s duty to strengthen the weak sheep, to heal the sick one, to bind up the injured, to bring back the straggler, to search for the lost, and to keep from harm the fat and the strong [Ez 34:4, 16]. But how will a shepherd do each one of these unless he first recognizes those distinguishing features in the sheep that set them apart from one another? And how will he recognize them except by official visitation and inquiry? It seems very clear that he will know in no other way, or at least not so clearly. For that reason, in the same chapter of Ezekiel it is the Lord himself, the chief shepherd, in whom all shepherds are one, who in them carries out his pastoral work in such a way that it is not they who do so, but he who works in them, just as they are not the ones who speak, but the spirit of the Father who speaks in them [Mt 10:20]. The Lord unites in himself other shepherds and shows that they are obliged to visit and how they ought to do so when he says: Behold, I myself will seek out my sheep and visit them; just as a shepherd visits his flock in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will visit my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a cloudy and dark day [Ez 34:11–12]. See how proper it is for a shepherd of souls to visit them, and also to visit them as a shepherd visits his flock in the day when he is among his scattered sheep. Now, the shepherd 15 The term ‘place of estrangement’ (regio dissimilitudinis) echoes Augustine, Confessiones 7.10 (CCSL 27:103).

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of sheep visits them by day, so that in daylight he may without error recognize them and their distinguishing features; and especially when he is among his scattered sheep, he runs about with great haste, searching all the byways until he has found them and led them home. So, too, a shepherd of souls visits them by day, that is, by the light of inquiry, until by this light he becomes acquainted with them and their distinguishing features. Especially when he is among souls that have been scattered because of diverse vices and different ways of life does he subject all things to thorough investigation, until he has become aware of the moral conduct of those thus scattered and has led them back to the harmony and unity of a virtuous life. By this kind of visit he rescues the scattered from the various places where they have been dispersed, that is, from the various things they have illicitly desired. For the soul is said to be, as it were, in the place occupied by the thing it desires most of all.16 It is into these places that a deceived soul falls on a cloudy and dark day, that is, when deceived by some invention of the imagination, whereby what one desires is overshadowed by the cloud and darkness of error and ignorance but takes on the appearance of a true good. If, then, a shepherd of temporal sheep visits them with such great solicitude and effort, with how much greater solicitude and effort ought a shepherd of spiritual sheep – on whose account Christ died and for whom the shepherd is himself also bound to lay down his life – to visit them, and thereby to seek, until they are found, the ones who have been lost, and to bring them home when found, even, if need be, by carrying them home, like the supreme shepherd, on his own shoulders.17 In that same chapter of Ezekiel the Lord assumes the role of a shepherd when he says that he will feed his sheep in judgment and justice, and judge between one beast and another, of rams and of he-goats [Ez 34:15–17]. In this we are shown that the feeding of the flock consists in dispensing not only knowledge and doctrine, but also judgment and justice, and that the shepherd thus has the power to judge between one beast and another. But who will be able to judge between the two unless he recognizes their distinguishing features and differences? It is therefore the responsibility of the shepherd of spiritual sheep to recognize those features and differences in character, but this he will not be able to do, except for notorious offences and ones voluntarily confessed, without investigation or inspection. So it is that complete protection and safe-keeping of the sheep will always require the office of painstaking visitation and diligent inquiry. 16 Cf. Mt 6:21 and Lk 12:34. 17 Lk 15:4–5.

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The bishop, then, who is not impeded in the way mentioned above, will visit those of his sheep who are not exempt from his jurisdiction by apostolic privilege, that is, not only the chapter of his own church and its other ministers, and the ministers of churches, prebendal dignities, and the common property, but also the ministers of other conventual and parish churches. Now, if these kinds of visitation are his responsibility, among the others in need of visitation he ought especially to visit his own chapter, since it has no other visitor except the lord pope and the archbishop. For the dean cannot visit that chapter. The word ‘visit’ denotes a recurring action, but frequent recurrence means the multiple repetition of an interrupted act, not the continuation of a single one. Shepherds who are closest and nearest are the continuous overseers of their flock; that is why they reside in a place continuously, so as to watch continuously over their flock and continuously feed and care for it. So they are continuously the flock’s overseers, not its visitors. The bishop, however, to whom is entrusted the care of all the souls in the entire diocese, must necessarily, because of the great number of sheep and the large area in which they live, watch over all the sheep, for he is their shepherd. And because their great number and the large area in which they live make it impossible for him to watch over them all simultaneously and continuously, he must necessarily watch over some and then others in turn, and interrupt watching over these to turn to those, and frequently repeat his interrupted inspections; in this way he may visit them all. Otherwise they will have only continuous overseers but never a visitor. Since that is the case, the dean, who has immediate responsibility for the chapter and is bound to be continuously resident in the cathedral church, will not be able to be that chapter’s visitor; likewise he will not be the visitor of the vicars-choral, whether he has pastoral responsibility for them or not. For if he does have this responsibility, he is for that reason not their visitor. But if he is not responsible for their souls, then they are not his sheep and visiting them is therefore not his concern. For who visits sheep that are not his own, unless perhaps their visitation has been entrusted to him by their owner? Now, it does not seem sufficiently clear who has immediate responsibility for souls as far as concerns the dignities, prebends, and the common property, not including the vicars-choral.18 For a cathedral canon

18 Grosseteste considers here the particular juridical status of the dean as head of the cathedral chapter. Since the dean is obliged to reside among the canons of the cathedral, he cannot rightly be considered their visitor; he is rather their regular overseer. Whether the dean has the same regular jurisdiction over the substitutes (vicars-choral) appointed by the canons to take their places in choir is not evident

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seems not to possess the cure of souls that belongs to an ecclesiastical dignity or prebend, because if he does have this kind of cure, he is bound to be resident there, notwithstanding his obligation of residence in the cathedral church, and these are incompatible. So if it is agreed that he is bound to be resident in the cathedral church, it is obvious that he cannot have a cure of souls elsewhere without the dispensation of the apostolic see. For the same reason neither the dean nor the chapter possesses any immediate cure of souls outside the cathedral church, nor do they have a mediate one. For if an archdeacon has the mediate cure of souls of an archdeaconry, the very fact that he has such a cure, even though it is mediate, disqualifies him from having another cure of souls simultaneously.19 Nor will the dean be able for the same reason to have any cure of souls other than that of the chapter. But whether or not the dean has a cure in prebend, dignity, or common property, he does not have the right to visit it. For how will someone who should be the continuous overseer of a chapter, and in continuous residence there, be the visitor of places and people scattered far and wide? Furthermore, no laws or custom permit his visitation, and therefore any act of visitation by a dean is usurpation. Suppose, however, that a dean may visit these places and people as his sheepfolds and sheep. Does this exclude the bishop from visiting them, since these same sheepfolds and sheep are more properly his? Is the bishop excluded from visiting the religious houses of the orders of the blessed Benedict and Augustine just because these orders have their own visitors from those orders? Because, in the Cistercian order, father abbots visit their daughter houses, does this mean that the abbot of Cîteaux is excluded from visiting them? Because in the Order of Friars Minor custodians visit friars living in their custodies, does the minister provincial for that reason not make visits? And what of the visitors appointed in general chapters, and even the minister general? Likewise in the Order of Friars Preachers, do not all the higher officials visit the same friars visited by lower-ranked officials? Indeed, what most of all keeps these orders in a persistent state of religious integrity is the fact that a superior visitor makes good or corrects the defects, inadequacies, omissions, errors,

to Grosseteste. He is equally uncertain or doubtful about the dean’s and the other canons’ supervisory authority over the people resident on the various estates of the cathedral church. On the juridical status of the cathedral canons, see Edwards, English Secular Cathedrals, 33–96. 19 It is for this reason that Grosseteste resigned his archdeaconry in 1231; see Letters 8, 9, and 74; Boyle, ‘Pastoral Care,’ 4–5.

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and negligence of a lower-ranked one. These latter visitors also become more vigilant and careful when performing the office of visitation to the degree that they are certain that what they do in this regard will come to light when their superior undertakes his own visitation. Even the continuous overseers, that is, those with immediate care of souls, as well as those for whom they have this care, are all the more careful to guard themselves against evil the more often they recognize that they are subject to scrutiny by multiple visitors. For this reason, when the blessed Bernard, someone very skilled in the office of visitation, refers to those who seek exemption from their bishops, he says, among other things: ‘I am certain that if I, a monk and an abbot of some kind or other, ever tried to shake off from my own neck the yoke imposed by my bishop, I would next place myself under the tyranny of Satan. There is no doubt that as soon as that bloodthirsty beast, who prowls around looking for someone to devour [1 Pt 5:8], spots that a guard has been removed, alas he springs at once upon the one responsible. For with good cause he does not hesitate to take control of the proud man who boasts that he is rightfully king over all the sons of pride [Jb 41:25]. Who will give me a hundred shepherds to be assigned to watch over me? The more I sense are taking care of me, the more securely do I go out into the pasture. What astonishing madness it would be for me not to hesitate to gather together crowds of souls for me to protect, and yet to be reluctant to have anyone to protect my own! And indeed those who are subject to me importune me to render an account of them, and those who are my superiors, in Paul’s words, keep watch like men who will have to give an account [Heb 13:17] of me. Although the former show respect, they also weigh me down; the latter do not so much oppress as protect me.’20 From these words of the blessed Bernard it is clear that a plurality of visitors is not a hindrance but the greatest benefit, and that in no way should one attempt to shun the protection of one’s own bishop. For what else do sheep do when they flee the protection of their shepherd but look for ways to place their lives in danger, since countless bloodthirsty beasts surround them, who are so very eager to devour them, so very swift of limb, so very clever at deceptions, endowed with such great strength, and with whom no power on earth may be compared. Everywhere, too, there are snares and traps to catch sheep and hold them until these beasts may seize them. How blind, then, is the recklessness of sheep who in the midst 20 Bernard of Clairvaux, De moribus et officio episcoporum [Ep. 42.35] (S. Bernardi Opera, 7:129).

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of these and similar perils shun the protection of the attentive shepherd’s staff! Everyone should, therefore, seek after his shepherd’s visitation rather than flee from it. From what has been said one may infer that whether or not there are others subject to the bishop whose task it is to visit the bishop’s sheep, the power to visit his own sheep is always reserved to every bishop, unless perhaps an exception of the apostolic see has exempted some of them from such visitation. For although someone else may by prescription21 claim a bishop’s office of visitation, nevertheless no one subject to this bishop may by his own visitation exclude him from visiting. For since his subjects possess no ecclesiastical power not received from him, it is more he, as was mentioned before, who works in them than they who do the work. So, what is their opposition to his visitation but the axe vaunting itself over the one who hews with it, or the saw exalting itself over the one by whom it is wielded, or the rod being raised against the one who raises it [Is 10:15]? Now, if the statement that one may by prescription claim another’s right of visitation is understood to mean that one who so claims excludes the other from visitation, it cannot, for the reasons given above, be understood to apply to the relationship between an inferior and the superior from whom he receives such a power. It must instead be understood to mean that an equal can assert a claim by prescription against an equal, or a superior against an inferior. Or perhaps, because (as mentioned above) a plurality of visitors is not a hindrance but the greatest benefit, a more helpful interpretation is that someone may by prescription claim another’s right of visitation in this way: if a person has enjoyed the right of visitation for an extended period, by virtue of that long passage of time he may, against the ordinary to whom the visitation pertains as an official duty, claim by prescription that this ordinary may not bar him from visiting. When Jacob was feeding Laban’s sheep, which were very numerous, he apparently had far too many to guard by himself and so he had shepherds appointed under him. Now, was he, because he had these junior shepherds to care individually for individual flocks, really unable himself to approach each one of these flocks and their individual shepherds, and to visit each and every flock and each and every sheep, and the shepherds, too, and through visitation to scrutinize them all, and to determine if some of the

21 Prescription, in this context, is the legal claim that one has acquired a right or an office because one has exercised that right or held that office for a significant period of time.

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sheep were barren, if some were enfeebled, diseased, or afflicted with mange, if some had been stolen or snatched by wild animals? Was he really unable to determine if these things had happened to the sheep because of a shepherd’s negligence or inexperience? And after his investigation could he not apply appropriate remedies against all such troubles? If he could do none of these things, how could he have said this to Laban? In the twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and she-goats have not been barren; I have not eaten the rams of your flock, nor did I bring back to you any snatched by a wild beast. I bore the whole loss myself. You exacted compensation from me for anything stolen. The heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep deserted my eyes [Gn 31:38–40]. But if Jacob, because he had shepherds under him, could not have visited every one of the flocks and put right the negligence and inexperience of those shepherds – as if it would have been sufficient for him only to have handed over every one of the flocks to be guarded by other shepherds whom he considered suitable – by what standard of justice would he have borne the whole loss himself or would compensation for anything stolen have been exacted from him? Or what need would there have been for him to be consumed by heat and frost and for sleep to have deserted his eyes? So it was not enough for him as a responsible shepherd to have assigned to guard each of the flocks shepherds whom he considered suitable; he had a further obligation, as mentioned before, to visit both flocks and shepherds with vigilant care, prudent attention, and tireless labour, and to remedy all their deficiencies. And how much do you think he would have punished one of the shepherds appointed to serve under him if the latter had opposed to his face Jacob’s visiting of flock or shepherd and correcting or reforming in them whatever required correction or reform? So, since Jacob’s actions as an earthly shepherd reveal and teach how bishops ought to perform their pastoral and spiritual office as shepherds of souls, it is plain that bishops have the duty to hasten energetically through all the flocks and the shepherds of all the flocks whom they have appointed as their subordinates, to visit them with the greatest care, and to correct and reform in them their errors and imperfections. Thus they may be able to render to Jesus Christ, who at the price of his own blood acquired those sheep for himself, an appropriate account at the Last Judgment, as they are bound to do. It is also plain that those who strive to oppose their bishops in this regard are deserving of the most grievous of punishments. Later in the book of Genesis we read that even Jacob’s own sons were shepherds and – it is certain – shepherds of their father’s sheep.22 It must be said that the sheep belonged in a certain way to his sons as well, since 22 See Gn 37:12.

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fathers have a duty to lay up treasure for their sons, and since that father in the Gospel says to his elder son, not ingratiatingly but truthfully, My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours [Lk 15:31]. Are we then to think that the sons of Jacob, because he had entrusted them with the care of the sheep and was thereby enriching them, would have opposed their father when he wished to visit sheep that were more his than theirs? When their father arrived to visit the sheep, would his sons have offered resistance and said, ‘Visiting these sheep is not your role at all: they are our sheep; you entrusted their care to us; it is not for you to be concerned about them any longer; it is not for you to determine or investigate if all is well with us and with the sheep’? If they could lawfully have done this, Jacob would not have said to Joseph: Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the sheep, and bring me back word [Gn 37:14]. For had Jacob known that his sons could lawfully bar him from seeing how they and the sheep were faring, never would he have given this task to his son Joseph to complete, since they could bar Joseph from this much more justifiably than they could bar their father. What, then, of the spiritual sons of bishops, whom the bishops have appointed, just as the sons of Jacob were appointed by Jacob himself, to feed spiritual sheep, who belong more to the bishops than to those to whom the bishops have entrusted them? How is it possible for these spiritual sons of bishops to say to bishops: ‘Visiting these sheep is not your role at all; they are our sheep; you entrusted their care to us; it is not for you to be concerned about them any longer; it is not for you to examine how we and the sheep are faring?’ Are these sons not repudiating their father’s discipline, and do they not truly deserve to incur the penalty suffered by those who do not accept that discipline?23 Are we really to believe that the father in the Gospel who said to his elder son, My son, all I have is yours [Lk 15:31], would have been rebuffed by that same son if he wished to visit his fields, or crops, or sheep, or some other kind of animal, or to correct anything in need of correction, or to rid the crops of thistles or thorns, or to drive dangerous beasts away from the flocks and herds, even though by his own admission everything he owned belonged to his son, and by the father’s command the son could do with his possessions whatever the father could do? If by chance this son had had some things that his father had given him by transferring full ownership

23 See Prv 1:8 and 29–31: ‘My son, heed the discipline of your father, and do not reject the law of your mother ... Because they have hated discipline, and received not the fear of the Lord, nor consented to my counsel, but despised all my reproof, they shall therefore eat the fruit of their own way and be sated with their own devices.’

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to his son and taking it away from himself, or if this son had had some things that he had acquired from some source other than from the possessions of his father, it would not be necessary for him to allow his father to visit those things or deal with them. Yet it would be courteous and an appropriate way of honouring his father, if he were respectfully to permit his father to perform these actions, since one would have to assume that the father would wish to do them out of fatherly affection and for the enhancement of his son’s possessions. Since the sons of bishops have no cure of souls not bestowed by those bishops, and since they also keep this cure for the bishops in such a way that the bishops are themselves more the fathers, rulers, directors, and possessors of those souls than are their sons, who receive their cures only when these are bestowed by the bishops, how then is it possible for the sons of bishops to bar those bishops from visiting, directing, correcting, and reforming the souls that are theirs? When the sons’ full-time attention to souls has been added to that of their father, when he has the time to give to it and considers it expedient, will that attention not be more complete than that of either the sons or the bishop will be alone? And what is more complete is more effective, and to be preferred. Furthermore, a bishop does not deprive himself of a cure of souls when he grants it to others who are his inferiors; instead he retains it. Otherwise at their departure he could not grant this cure to their successors, for he would not have it to give, having deprived himself of it the first time he gave it. No one can give away what he does not have. It follows that a bishop keeps for himself what is essential to a cure, that is, visitation, although he would not himself be able to undertake continuous visitation along with correction and reform. Were he not to keep for himself what is essential for a successful cure, he would retain that cure to no purpose, for it would be useless. And in the home of the wise householder, just as in any work of nature, nothing is useless or devoid of purpose. In Mosaic law there is the command in chapter 23 of Exodus that if you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey straying, you shall bring it back to him. And should you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying under its load, you will not pass by; instead you shall help the animal raise it up [Ex 23:4–5]. There is also this: You shall not see your brother’s ox or sheep straying and pass by; you shall instead bring it back to your brother, even if he is not nearby and you do not know him; you shall take these animals to your own house, and they shall remain with you until your brother looks for them and takes them back [Dt 22:1–2]. Much more vigourously, then, shall a bishop who happens to come upon one of his own straying sheep bring it back from error to truth by means

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of the Church’s discipline. Despite what some people say, preaching a warning is not enough by itself. For who will be able with his voice alone to bring back an enemy’s stray ox or donkey? One will actually have to block the way of such animals, use a rod to strike and turn them in the right direction and prod them when they are sluggish, and so with hard work, and rousing words too, bring them back home. Mosaic law does not command a person who sees the donkey of someone who hates him lying under its load to bring the animal to its feet by shouting; instead he is commanded to help the donkey raise up what it must carry by placing his hands under the burden and pushing hard. Much more, then, will a bishop use the rod of the Church’s discipline to bring back the wandering sinner who is weighed down by the burden of sin; he has been entrusted to the bishop’s care, and for his damnation the bishop is accountable, and he will raise him up with every possible exertion of correction and reform, adding as well to these efforts words of salutary preaching. If a distant brother is not wronged but treated instead with much greater compassion, when someone sees that brother’s stray ox or sheep and with reproachful words as well as the rod of direction takes the animal to his own house until the brother looks for it and takes it back, how is a son wronged if his father sees his stray sheep – which the son owns only because his father gave it to him – and brings it to his own house – which is his son’s house, too – so that son and father may shelter it together? The bishop, then, does no harm, but in fact behaves all the more compassionately, when, with both the reproachful words of preaching and the rod of the Church’s discipline, he joins the prelate who is his subordinate to bring back to the unity of the Church the wandering soul, because that soul has been placed more properly in the bishop’s care even though he has given care of it to an inferior. He brings this soul back to the Church, which is the home of both subordinate prelate and presiding bishop, so that both of them may together shelter a soul that had strayed into error but has now been brought home. For in this way the bishop has not only saved the errant soul; he has also rescued the soul of the shepherd who is his subordinate and who was accountable for the soul that was straying. It is an astonishing situation when two people are jointly accountable for the same thing and one bars the other from keeping it safe. But that is obviously the case when a bishop bars from soul-saving a shepherd who is his subordinate, or when this shepherd bars his bishop, for both are jointly accountable to Christ for that soul. David, that shepherd of sheep, said to Saul: Your servant used to tend his father’s flock of sheep; and along came a lion or bear and it carried off a ram from

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the midst of the flock. And I would go after them and strike them down and snatch the prey from their jaws. And they would rise up against me, and I would seize them by the beard and strangle and slay them. For I, your servant, have killed both lion and bear [1 Sm 17:34–6]. Although David in this passage signifies Christ, he nevertheless also signifies the prelates who care for the Lord’s flock; or rather, because he signifies Christ, he signifies also the prelates who are one shepherd in Christ the Shepherd and who tend the flock of God the Father. So, when a lion or bear, that is, the devil, by means of some vice or other snatches a soul from the midst of the Lord’s flock, it is the prelates’ duty to pursue the devil, striking and punishing with the pastoral rod, that is, with the rigour of the Church’s discipline, those flawed by moral faults and failings, to the full extent of their flaws. Thus must prelates snatch a soul from the abyss of vice and the power of the devil, even though adversities of the devil’s making mount against the prelate who is striving to snatch that soul from vice, all intended to prevent the prelate from snatching it. All the more forcefully, then, must this prelate seize and obliterate every adverse power that raises itself against the salvation of souls. David by himself, by his own power and efforts, did all the things I have mentioned. So, not only by means of the shepherds subject to him, as the dean and chapter state, but also on his own, is a bishop able and obliged to rescue by the Church’s discipline souls carried off from the Lord’s flock. We have to believe that David would have benefited greatly, had any of the shepherds subject to him and associated with him to ease his burden of tending the flock snatched from the jaws of a lion or bear a captured ram, and by this act anticipated David himself. But what do you think he would have done if those same shepherds had raised their staffs, caused a commotion, and with all their strength stood in the way of someone who approached the flock, observed a lion or bear carrying off a ram from the midst of the flock, and without hesitation attempted to pursue and smite it, so as to snatch from its jaws the ram it had taken? When he became aware of this, would not that strong-armed24 man or his father, whose flock David was tending, have sharply chastised those guilty ones not only with words but also with blows? If to help David tend the flock shepherds had been associated with him who were zealous for the safety of the sheep, and if a lion or bear were to carry off a ram at the moment David arrived on the scene, or in his presence, they all with loud shouts would have compelled 24 This interpretation of David’s name, ‘strong-armed’ (manu fortis), is a commonplace. See Isidore, Etymologiae 7.6.64.

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him to rush to snatch the ram from the beast’s jaws. For he was swifter than they, more bold and heroic, and more skilled and practised than they at fighting wild beasts, and his was the greater responsibility for the ram that had been taken. Those who followed his lead as he hurried on ahead would have been eager to help; they would not have rushed to meet him as rebels, throwing obstacles in his way. So, then, since the care of souls in his diocese belongs more to the bishop than to shepherds of lower rank, and since the bishop is possessed of higher power and greater vigour, and is more skilled and practised at rescuing souls from the jaws of the roaring lion that looks for someone to devour [1 Pt 5:8], those shepherds subject to the bishop, if they are zealous for the salvation of souls, urge and rouse him when he is present to hurry on ahead of them to rescue souls; they do not instead throw in his way some barrier or obstacle to their own salvation and that of the souls in their care. Furthermore, any of the shepherds placed under David would, perhaps, have been able to snatch a captured sheep from the jaws of a wolf or some smaller animal; but he could not do so from the jaws of a bear or lion, unless a man of prodigious strength or surpassing boldness, the kind of man David himself was – his name means ‘strong-armed’ – had helped him. Likewise, certain souls, seized by vices reinforced by the exercise of secular power, can be saved from these kinds of vices only by the ‘strong arm’ of a higher power in the Church. So, how is it possible for inferior powers to say: ‘To us, and not to the bishop, belongs the correction of every vice, however powerful, and however powerfully it takes hold of a soul; and to us alone belongs the power to rescue the soul from it, unless, perhaps, its correction is passed to the bishop because of our negligence or by an appeal against us’?25 Is the power of a canon or a dean or even a chapter sufficient to strangle and slay [1 Sm 17:35] the adultery or similar vice of a powerful earl or countess, and thus to rescue a soul seized by this kind of offence? Will not even the bishop’s power in this case be quite weak? Indeed, unless the bishop is like David, when he hears the lion’s roar he will draw back and stop short in astonishment; a power of lower rank would be even more disposed to do the same. In such a case, then, when the power of the sinner is too great for an inferior ecclesiastical power to be able to bring it under control, this cannot be said to be due to his negligence, because one who is willing, makes an attempt, and then fails, is not negligent but impotent. So in this situation negligence cannot be a factor. 25 See Letter 73 for the claim to this effect by the dean and chapter of Lincoln; see also appendix A.

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Nor will the vice ever reach the point of correction, if it is true that a superior power can do nothing to correct it unless a lower power is negligent or someone appeals to a superior power against an inferior one. Who in such a case will appeal, since there is no one to do the accusing, but only what public opinion or the evidence of the deed loudly proclaims? Will the lion with the sheep in his jaws appeal against a lower, weaker shepherd to a stronger, higher one to take the prey from his mouth? In the book of Kings we read that Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and every year went on circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he judged Israel in all these places, returning to Ramah, for there was his home [1 Sm 7:15–17]. As we learn from interpreting his name, which means ‘asked of God’ or ‘his name is God,’26 and because he was given to the Lord all the days of his life, Samuel is clearly the type of bishops, who by their election and the invocation of the Holy Spirit are ‘asked of God’; and by the spiritual uprightness of their lives they so cling to God as to be one with him in spirit. In this they also are gods, like Moses, to whom it was said: See! I have appointed you the god of Pharaoh [Ex 7:1]. Removed also from all mundane concerns and entanglements in secular affairs, they are given to the Lord all the days of their lives. So Samuel’s exercise of judicial power provides bishops with a prototype of the power they are actually to exercise. They ought therefore to make a circuit of their dioceses every year, deciding ecclesiastical issues not by an exercise of personal will, but in accord with what Scripture has revealed, and after careful and scrupulous observation of sins, with a view to eliminating them by exercise of judicial power. This is consistent with the meanings of the names of those places where Samuel dispensed justice to the people of Israel, for Bethel means ‘house of God’ and Gilgal ‘revelation’; Mizpah denotes ‘observation of sin.’27 After making their circuit of these places, the bishops must return to Ramah, that is, to ‘the spiritual heights of heavenly conversation attainable through contemplation of the divine.’28 There they may taste and drink their full from the torrent of wisdom’s delight, so that on their next circuit they may judge the people subject to them, and especially the clergy, with truth and impartiality. 26 According to Isidore, Etymologiae 7.6.62, Samuel means ‘his name is God.’ The interpretation ‘asked of God’ (postulatio Dei) derives from the text of 1 Sm 1:20: ‘Anna ... called his name Samuel, because she had asked him of the Lord (a Domino postulasset eum).’ 27 The interpretations of Bethel (‘house of God’), Gilgal (‘revelation’) and Mizpah (‘observing sin’) are commonplaces; see Glossa ordinaria, on 1 Sm 7:16. 28 See Glossa ordinaria, ibid.

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If Samuel did not have other judges appointed under him, despite the large number and extent of the people of Israel, it is very clear from this that all ecclesiastical judgments belong to bishops, with the exception of those that the lord pope’s fullness of power has reserved for him. But if Samuel did have other judges appointed under him, as is likely to have been the case given the very large number and extent of the people, and as we know he had when an old man – he then appointed his sons to be judges of Israel [1 Sm 8:1], while also himself serving as judge over Israel all the days of his life [1 Sm 7:15] – it is still clear that, when he arrived in the places mentioned, he himself judged all cases; in his presence everyone else deferred to him as the superior power and the one from whom all others had themselves received their own power. For Samuel was among the Israelites like the sun of the people, just as the lord pope is in the universal Church, and each and every bishop is in his own diocese. Because the sun cannot by immediate presence shine everywhere on earth at one and the same time, so that no part of the world may at any time lack the comfort of the light it needs to banish darkness and give life to things that grow on earth, the sun illuminates the moon and stars from the fullness of its own light, without any loss thereby to itself, so that when it is absent they may shine in the vault of heaven [Gn 1:17] and shed light upon the earth. And when the sun itself returns and shows its presence to the earth, those lesser luminaries are hidden by the rays of the sun and yield to the sunlight. So it is when the lord pope shows his presence: with respect to him all other prelates are like the moon and the stars; they receive from him whatever power they have for the illumination and growth of the Church. He has the power by virtue of his presence to dissipate the darkness of every evil and to foster and invigorate the seeds and plants of every good. In his presence other powers yield to him, just as the light of the moon and the stars yields to the rays of the sun. Similarly, although with respect to the lord pope each and every bishop is like one of these nocturnal luminaries, nevertheless in his own diocese he is like its sun. And the inferior prelates under him, who receive from him what power they have in the Church, are in his presence like the moon and stars: they give light in the bishop’s absence at a time when, because the sun is absent, the light of the Church’s doctrine and discipline is unable to reveal itself by immediate presence. When the bishop shows his presence, he ought to diffuse the rays of his power to banish the darkness of every wickedness and to foster, promote, and establish the virtues, while meanwhile the lesser powers without rebellion permit him the full and free direction of the affairs of the Church.

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It would be astonishing and utterly detrimental to the perfection of the earth’s plants and animals if, at the sun’s rising over the earth, the moon and stars were to attempt to obstruct its rays, so that it could not give light to the earth, since it was to them that the sun gave a share of its own light to illuminate the night in its absence. Suppose the moon and stars were to say of their obstruction: ‘Because we have light to illuminate the earth, that task is no longer yours.’ Would they not be taking, to the full extent of their ability, the power of growth from the earth’s plants, life from animals, and the full development and perfection of both? So those who are, with respect to the bishop, like the moon and the smaller luminaries should not block the bishop’s rays, that is, those functions of episcopal power that are properly his by common law. To do so would be to deprive, to the full extent of their ability, themselves and the people of life, spiritual growth, and perfection in the goods of the spirit. Instead they should joyfully and gratefully permit him to pursue the course of his episcopal duties freely and without obstruction. Just as the sun every 24-hour day makes a complete circuit of the world from east to west and east again, and every year gives light to the whole world as it moves from the southern tropic through the northern one and then south again, thereby in an entire year shining many times upon most parts of the world, leaving no part devoid of its presence and light, and at least occasionally providing that part with the beneficial warmth of its light, so should the bishop follow in Samuel’s steps and every year make a circuit [1 Sm 7:16] of his diocese with such care that by his presence he many times gives light to many parts, and leaves no part behind that he has not visited at least once. Because, then, of this similarity between the bishop’s ministry and the work of the sun, it was said of Simon, son of Onias and high priest, that, like the sun shining, so did he shine in the temple of God [Sir 50:1, 7]. And what is the temple of God but the congregation of the faithful, as in the words of Paul: Holy is the temple of God, and this temple you are [1 Cor 3:17]. The bishop must therefore make his circuit in the way indicated and thereby display the sun’s brilliance in the congregation of the faithful entrusted to him, leaving nothing throughout the course of the year that has not received the light of his presence as a result. Also in Ecclesiasticus it is written: The sun looks down on everything with its light [Sir 42:16]. And how will the bishop look down on everything, as the sun of his diocese, unless he is able to visit, correct, and reform everything, and so by his light to bring what has been hidden into the light where it may be seen, thereby purging what is dark and bringing more life to living things?

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From the words of Sacred Scripture, and also from the spectacle of the celestial luminaries and their natural activities, it is obvious that it is a bishop’s duty to make a circuit of his entire diocese and thereby to visit, correct, and reform all of it, unless somewhere there are those who may be exempt from episcopal visitation, correction, and reform by a privilege of the lord pope. For there the bishop must, so to speak, hide his own rays because of the greater and brighter light of the sun that shines in that place, that is, the authority of the lord pope, in regard to whom the bishop is a nocturnal luminary. A wife was created for our first parent, not to be an impediment but as an aid, like himself, for the procreation of children.29 Adam and his wife are Christ and the Church, and so are each and every bishop and the church that is united with him and entrusted to his care.30 And although the woman is the type of the whole church entrusted to the bishop, yet by virtue of a kind of privilege she is seen more particularly to be the type of those who are specifically attached to the bishop to help in the procreation of spiritual offspring, that is, those who under the bishop have cures of souls entrusted to them by him. These associates are therefore also under the bishop’s power, for to the woman it was said: And you will be under your husband’s power and he will be your master [Gn 3:16]. They are obliged to assist the bishop and not impede his procreating, rearing, reprimanding, and teaching spiritual offspring. And since they have been given as an aid, they are themselves not the chief workers, but the chief worker’s fellow labourers. Now what co-worker bars the principal worker from his task? What wife bars her husband from procreating a child, or from rearing, reprimanding, and teaching the child she has conceived by him? And what wife, unless she is perverse, repudiates her husband’s instruction, discipline, and correction? What woman, unless perhaps she is unchaste, wants the interior of her chamber concealed from her husband’s view? But these and the like are what prelates attached as aids to a bishop do when they refuse to tolerate his visitation, rebuke, and reform, either of them or of those subject to them.

29 See Gn 2:18 and 1:28: ‘And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself ... And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply ...’ 30 The identification of Adam and Eve with Christ and the Church is made by the Apostle Paul in Eph 5:22–33. Grosseteste here argues that the bishop is wedded to his church in the same kind of matrimonial union that joins Adam and Eve and Christ and the Church.

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Furthermore, if the entire assembly of all the souls in the entire diocese is thought of as the unblemished spouse of the bishop, then the chapter of the cathedral church will be, so to speak, that unblemished spouse’s head or face. Now, what husband cannot look upon the unadorned and unveiled face, especially of his wife, examine it for anything improper, and correct whatever impropriety he may find? Is it not a husband’s duty to scrutinize his wife’s face to see if perhaps she has a wandering and unchaste eye, or listens to obscene talk, or has a loose tongue given to indecent conversations, or laughs too loudly and ‘distorts her face with guffaws.’31 And if any signs of these kinds of behaviour are found, who more than her husband is bound to rebuke, correct, and reform them, even, if necessary, with beatings, should words perhaps prove insufficient? Likewise, if the entire assembly of souls in a diocese is thought to be the bishop’s unblemished spouse, to whom the bishop has assigned various people – I mean prelates – as handmaids and guardians and lower administrators, with responsibility either for cleansing his wife’s dirty feet, or washing her hands, or ensuring that there is nothing unsuitable or indecent in her clothing or on some part of her body, or in her gestures, or movements, or activities, does all this mean that the bishop himself, as her very own spouse, will not have the power to examine these same things and apply his own hand to remove anything indecent or improper in his own wife? He will in fact also have the power to punish severely, for showing too little diligence, the very ones delegated to preserve undiminished the beauty and moral integrity of his wife. So, the bishop is obliged, and has the power, especially to visit his own chapter and to correct and reform everything that is distorted or disfigured, so that the face of his spouse may shine forth to all without spot or wrinkle [Eph 5:27]. Other parts of the body receive similar attention. What wife, unless perhaps she is wrinkled and spotted, wants to hide her face from view? If a bishop’s chapter is the face of his spouse, when it does not object to his not visiting, arguing that such a failure is a suitable sign of either its liberty or something else, is it not covering itself with a kind of painted veil so as not to be clearly seen? The Truth himself says: This is the judgment, that is, the cause of damnation: The light came into the world and people loved darkness more than light [Jn 3:19]. And he gave the reason for this, saying: Their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds may 31 See Ovid, Ars amatoria 3.287, for this description of unladylike laughter.

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not be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that his deeds may be clearly seen, for they were performed in God [Jn 3:19–21]. It follows that although the light that came into the world was Christ himself, who is the light of the world, the true light that enlightens everyone who comes into this world [Jn 1:9], yet every manifestation of the truth is light, too, as the Apostle says: Everything that is made manifest is light [Eph 5:13]. Visitation, then, as the manifestation of the truth of the way of life lived by those who are visited, is light; and since visitation stems from Christ, the light who in Scripture enjoins that sheep be visited by their shepherds, visitation is itself light in Christ, and in it shines Christ the true light. So, when the light of visitation arrives, in it there also comes the light that is Christ. Those, then, who refuse to be visited by their shepherd incur that judgment: The light came into the world and people, refusing visitation, loved the darkness of concealing their deeds more than the light [Jn 3:19] of revealing them. Nor can there be any other reason for preferring that darkness to this light except that the one who does evil deeds hates the light [Jn 3:20] that reveals and refutes them. For whoever does what is true comes willingly to the light that reveals his works because they were performed in God [Jn 3:21]. So, those who do what is true come willingly to the light of visitation, and those who refuse visitation are the most powerful argument against themselves that they are not so much the children of light as the children of darkness [1 Thes 5:5]. In all crafts and craftsmen, too, one can see what the ruler of souls, that is, the preeminent craftsman, must do. A craftsman must, for example, recognize the differences between gold and brass and also between pure and impure gold; and so that brass is not taken for gold or adulterated gold for the pure metal when a vessel is crafted for the king’s honour and service, a craftsman must with various tests and experiments carefully put to the proof the lump of metal before him that looks like gold, and by investigation determine whether it is gold or brass, and if gold, whether pure or adulterated. His goal is not to use brass to craft a vessel to honour the king, unless perhaps he has acquired the knowledge and power to turn brass into gold and can purify impure gold by smelting it, with the intention of using the lump of metal, after its transmutation in the smelter into pure gold, to make the royal vessel. So, all craftsmen must acquire a precise knowledge of the special characteristics of the materials in which or with which they intend to work, and of the craft they are planning to practise. And they must subject each of the materials before them to the most scrupulous examination, to test whether such a lump of material is suitable and appropriate or not for the artistry required, or whether a material that is not yet suitable may be transformed into one that is.

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Since, then, the bishop is first and foremost the ruler of all the souls in his diocese, and since directing souls is the ‘art of arts,’32 and since this art especially obliges the bishop to use pure souls, as well as those purified by his craftsmanship and those in need of this purification, to fashion a crown for the supreme king, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to weave for him a seamless tunic, to build for him a temple, and to erect his throne, in fact to make ready for him above all others everything that concerns the garb, dwelling, and service of so great a king, how will it not be the duty of the bishop, above all others, to acquire a knowledge of the characteristics and distinguishing features of souls pure, purified, in need of purification, corrigible and even incorrigible, and more or less suitable or completely unsuitable, for this or that part of his craftsmanship? How will it not be his duty most carefully and prudently to scrutinize, to the best of his ability, all those subject to his direction, and thus discover which souls have been shaped, one way or another, by their own peculiarities? With this knowledge he can decide how best to work with or in them, and to fit them together appropriately in so great a work of art. This knowledge and sense of discrimination, on which depends the proper performance of his art, could by no means be acquired without the most careful visitation; and a more careful visitation is of course needed at the source of the material that is to be placed in the more noble part of the work of art. In this more noble part churchmen are to be set in place, and for that reason there is a special obligation to visit them above all others, and this must be done by the one whose art and workmanship will set them in the work of art’s most prominent place. Pastors and rulers of souls are also called watchmen in Scripture, and among these bishops especially have this name. That is why it was said to Ezekiel as one who typifies bishops: O son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel [Ez 33:7]. Now, they are called watchmen from the word meaning ‘to watch for,’ that is ‘to foresee,’ as, for example, concerning this passage the commentary says that ‘the watchman is the bishop of the Church, a priest chosen by the people; knowing the divine readings and foreseeing the future, he sounds the call to the people and corrects the delinquent. Let us not unworthily take on an office that should be feared above all; let us not, once selected by the people, be negligent and devote ourselves to our bellies and to idleness;

32 On the direction of souls (regimen animarum) as the ‘art of arts’ or ‘supreme art,’ see c. 27 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215); Tanner, Decrees, 248. The phrase is repeated in c. 12 of the Legatine Council of London (1237); see Councils and Synods, 250.

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let us not suppose we have received high rank and not a burden. For the son of man came to serve, not to be served [Mt 20:28]; he washed the feet of his disciples, showing that all their impurities must be purged by their masters.’33 These words show that bishops have the duty not only to sound the call by preaching but also to correct the delinquent by the Church’s discipline and to purge their own disciples, that is, those entrusted to their care, of all their impurities. Now, feet are washed not by words but by the hands of the one who does the washing, and not only by bringing water and pouring it over the feet, but also by rubbing the hands against the feet, and doing this repeatedly and vigourously should there be some stubborn dirt on the feet. The water for washing is the wisdom that brings salvation, and preaching that alone is like the pouring of the water, to which one must also add rubbing with hands when water by itself is not enough to remove stubborn spots. Rubbing dirty feet in water with the hands is nothing other than removing, by the application of the Church’s discipline in accord with the wisdom of Scripture, the dirty spots that mar a person’s affections. But perhaps they will say that the only obligation of the watchman mentioned by Ezekiel is to blow his trumpet when he sees the sword coming upon the land [Ez 33:3], that is, to proclaim from Scripture as if from the Lord’s own lips; if a watchman does this, he has saved his own soul, as may be inferred from the words of Ezekiel in this passage.34 What I also believe to be true is this, that if the watchman, that is, the bishop, blows his trumpet when he sees coming upon the land the sword that sinners draw to dupe the poor and the needy and to slaughter those whose hearts are upright, he has saved his own soul [Ez 33:3, 5; Ps 36:14]. But if he does not sound his trumpet when he sees this kind of sword coming, and the people look not to themselves, and the sword comes and takes a soul from among them, God will require his blood at the hand of the watchman [Ez 33:6], as is plainly expressed in the same passage. Those, however, who believe that this trumpet’s blast is only the physical sound of the words that come from prelates’ mouths are very much in error, unless I am mistaken. For has a prelate saved his soul just by speaking words? If this were so, Eli the priest would have saved his soul, for in his words to his sons he said enough to qualify for salvation.35 But just as a dead ox or horse is not truly an ox or a horse – though one commonly uses the terms ‘ox’ and ‘horse’ at the sight of their whole carcasses lying there on the ground – so

33 Glossa ordinaria, on Ez 33:7. 34 See Ez 33:2–6. 35 See 1 Sm 2:22–5.

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the word that comes from one’s lips, though commonly called a word, is not truly a word, and its vocal expression is not a true proclaiming, unless the word spoken is the living external utterance of one’s faith within. The Apostle has this to say about the difference between a word and its proclamation: No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord!’ except in the Holy Spirit [1 Cor 12:3]. And if the full expression of a word did not include the actual activity it implied, the Apostle would not elsewhere say of those people who profess with their lips to know God that they deny him by their actions [Ti 1:16]. The person, then, who truly proclaims a word is the one whose proclaiming is animated by an internal faith infused by a love that is the source of the external action essential for the salvation of souls. So the watchman who sounds the call with such proclaiming, as if with a trumpet, when he has seen the sword coming upon the land, has saved his soul. Otherwise, should there be no call because his trumpet makes no sound, he is no doubt guilty of shedding a soul’s blood. A person makes no trumpet sound unless he has a firm faith in the doctrine of salvation, which he puts into words with his lips, unless he loves this doctrine sincerely and irrefutably, and unless he works tirelessly to bring it to fulfilment, so as to safeguard the people entrusted to him against the sword coming down upon them. This he must do not only by the words he speaks, but much more by works animated by a loving faith and effective in saving souls. Now, who will deny that the works of visitation, correction, and reform are the most effective in saving souls? How then is the ‘voice’ of these works to be separated and excluded from the sound of the trumpet? For, as mentioned before, they have the authority of a voice and an outcry. Otherwise the Lord would not have said to Cain: The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground [Gn 4:10]. And Judas Maccabeus would not have called upon the Lord to hear the voice of the blood that was crying out to him [2 Mc 8:3]; nor would the Lord have said: The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied [Gn 18:20]; or again, to a Moses whose bodily voice was silent: Why are you crying out to me [Ex 14:15]? And it would not be said that the tears of the widow stream down her cheek and she cries out against the man who causes them to fall [Sir 35:18]. There are many more such examples in Scripture that most clearly demonstrate that deeds acquire the authority of a voice. So, with a trumpet blast that is not half-strength but as loud as possible the bishop who has been appointed watchman over his entire diocese is obliged by his office as watchman to safeguard and defend, against the sword coming down upon them, all those over whom he has been appointed. He must therefore fulfil his duty to visit, correct, and

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reform all those subject to him as a diocesan with full legal authority, that is, those not exempted by apostolic privilege. If his actions in this regard are less than adequate and his trumpet sound lacks strength, he will be accused of bloodshed. Watchmen are also customarily appointed in vineyards to protect the vines, and these men, too, symbolize the rulers of souls. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel [Is 5:7], that is, the Church, which sees God by faith, and so the rulers assigned to guard it and to provide for its safety are its watchmen. Now, a diocese is like a vineyard, and its chief watchman is the bishop. The rulers of souls appointed under him and associated with him as helpers in his ministry are each like the watchmen assigned to oversee individual parts of the vineyard. The ordinary power to guide and oversee is like the watchtower erected in the vineyard; and although there may be many watchmen, all are nevertheless as one watchman in their bishop, the head, from whom they receive their power to oversee; and likewise all the watchtowers are as one. Since that is so, let us imagine in one vineyard one large watchtower in the shape of a pyramid made of bricks, with higher and lower levels where watchmen reside, and with one watchman posted at the top to oversee and protect the entire vineyard. The others below him are posted on the various sides of the pyramid, each charged with overseeing and protecting individual sections of the vineyard. Because the watchman assigned to the top of the watchtower cannot at one and the same time keep his eyes on all parts of the vineyard, but now turns to the east to see the eastern part, and now south to the southern section, and likewise in other directions, and because no single part of the vineyard may ever lack the oversight of a guardian without suffering loss, the purpose of the watchmen stationed beneath is to ensure that the continuous guarding of each and every part of the vineyard is achieved through their support, because such oversight may be beyond the best efforts of the chief watchman by himself. Is it therefore not the case that if such a watchman, appointed to protect the whole vineyard from the highest viewpoint, does not want to be found at fault before the lord of the vineyard, he must, as carefully and frequently as possible, turn to this part, now to that, now to a third and fourth part, observing and thereby recognizing in detail every part of the vineyard with all possible attentiveness? If by chance little foxes enter somewhere to damage the vineyard [Sg 2:15], his scrupulous oversight will enable him to detect and then catch them, or at least to chase them away. If one of the watchmen below him detects, catches, or chases away these foxes before he does, will this not find favour, as it should, with the one who

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must give an account of the whole vineyard? If the head watchman is the one who has anticipated, caught, or chased away the foxes, will his actions in this regard harm a lower watchman appointed to help him in his ministry? The truth is that unless he fulfils these responsibilities, the head watchman’s negligence will be harmful to the lord of the vineyard and detrimental to the watchmen who are his subordinates: they are obliged to give an account of the parts of the vineyard entrusted to their oversight, and they will be punished if they fall short in doing so – though they are exempt from this charge if the head watchman’s vigilance has saved the vineyard from any destruction. Furthermore, is it not the duty of such a head watchman to turn his gaze frequently in the direction of the lower watchmen whom he has associated with himself as helpers in his ministry? And if he sees some who are snoring or dozing or otherwise shirking their duty to oversee, is it not his responsibility to rouse, rebuke, and correct them? And should he not, with rewards and praise, inspire to do even better those he has observed to be prudent and trustworthy in his service? Because of his high position on the watchtower and the keen eyesight in which he ought to surpass his subordinates, and because of the greater expertise that comes from greater experience, this head watchman is also able to run his eyes over everything his deputies are able to observe, and many things besides, which no single one of them, nor all of them looking together, can spot. So, since the bishop, as stated before, is the watchman who has the highest place in such a watchtower, and the rulers of souls appointed as his deputies are the ones with the lower positions, it is obvious that the bishop’s duty is to keep a close watch on his entire diocese through careful and frequent visitation, his goal being to catch or chase away spiritual foxes everywhere. In this he will harm no one, but will instead do good. And he is obliged to keep an eye on the watchmen appointed to serve under him by visiting them in the same way, with power from his office of visitation to keep a close watch on the many things that are beyond the ordinary authority of his subordinates. It is also obvious that if he does not do what has been stipulated, he will be guilty before the lord of the vineyard, who is Jesus Christ. The cultivator of the vineyard is the bishop. Will he, just because he has subordinates to help him look after it, not be able with his own hands either to cut off some fruitless branch, or support a fruitful one by attaching a prop, or tear out a thorn bush or noxious weed, or place some manure around the roots, or raise a cluster of grapes from the ground to prevent its rotting, or do any such thing for the improvement of the vineyard?

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The bishop is a spiritual physician,36 to whose care have been entrusted all the souls of his diocese, so that they may by his ministry be kept healthy, or healed when they are ill. And although he has lesser physicians under him appointed to support his work because of the large number of people for whom he is responsible, who is the physician who does not have the power to visit all his patients as often as he considers it appropriate, to investigate the causes and symptoms of their illnesses, to examine how the lesser physicians are performing their duties as healers, to make good himself whatever he finds they have done inadequately, to instruct the inexperienced lesser physicians, to punish their carelessness, to correct their mistakes, and to undertake himself the preparation of a healing potion and with his own hand offer it to any patient he wishes? The fact is that unless he does all this and more of the same he is an untrustworthy physician. How then will a spiritual physician not perform these and similar professional duties to the best of his ability, and all the more vigilantly as the soul is better than the body, and spiritual health better and more necessary than that of the body, and sickness of the soul worse than bodily sickness?37 It is customary for prudent and faithful physicians to involve in the visitation of their patients other physicians who are not their subordinates but their peers and partners. Now, however, the junior physicians are striving with all their might to bar their own master from visiting his own patients. What is more faithless or cruel than that? In all arts the chief craftsman can with the utmost care freely investigate and examine, as he should, the properties, distinguishing features, proportions, and conditions of the materials to be crafted, the fashioning of the product itself, and also the tools required; he can and should learn from the expertise, diligence, and faithfulness of the practitioners themselves, his goal being to correct anything that is morally flawed or erroneous. And this he does not only through the agency of others, but also, when he considers it appropriate, by himself. What an astonishing wisdom it is, then, that denies that these and similar actions can and should occur in the guidance of souls, which is the ‘art of arts,’ and in which one errs at the greatest possible peril to oneself, and errors left uncorrected show the greatest disrespect for God? Bishops are the fathers of all who are by law subject to them as their diocesans, and not only are they fathers by begetting offspring in Christ through 36 See c. 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council; Tanner, Decrees, 245. 37 See c. 22 of the Fourth Lateran Council; Tanner, Decrees, 245–6.

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the gospel [1 Cor 4:15], but they are also mothers, by conceiving in the womb of compassion, caring tenderly with the warmth of affection, and giving birth with the care and labour of a formation in Christ; that is why the Apostle says: My little children, with whom I am in labour again, until Christ is formed in you [Gal 4:19]. What is more, bishops perform the role of nurses, and this is why Paul says: While in your midst we became children, as if a nurse were caring tenderly for her own children [1 Thes 2:7]. Now, what Paul was to those to whom he addressed these words, no doubt bishops are to those entrusted to their care. For bishops take the place of the apostles in the Church and perform their roles, like sons born to take the place of their fathers, and made princes over all the earth [Ps 44:17]. But who is the father who does not correct his sons? And who is the son who spurns his father’s discipline? It is written: My son, do not be indifferent to the Lord’s discipline nor be wearied when you are rebuked by him; for the Lord reprimands the one he loves; he lays the lash on every son he receives. Persevere under this discipline; God is treating you as his sons. For what son is there whom his father does not correct? If you escape the discipline in which all sons have had a share, then you are illegitimate and not true sons. Besides, we have had fathers of our flesh for instructors and we paid them respect. Shall we not submit much more to the Father of spirits, and so have life? For they instructed us for a few days as they saw fit; but he does so for our own good, so that we may receive his holiness. Now, at the time all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for sorrow; afterwards, however, it yields for those who have been trained by it the most peaceful harvest of justice [Heb 12:5–11]. See how strongly the Apostle reproaches those who rebel against a father’s discipline, and how effectively he prevails upon sons not to be indifferent to that discipline or to be wearied by his criticism, but to receive with love and obedience the reprimands, rebukes, and the lash too, even though these may seem at the time a cause not for joy but for sorrow. And the more lovingly and obediently they are disciplined by their spiritual fathers than by their human ones, the more peaceful is the harvest of justice they bring back so as to receive holiness. Otherwise they are not true sons, but illegitimate ones, and they come within the scope of that prophecy: Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’ and to his mother, ‘What are you bringing to birth?’ [Is 45:10]. Is this not what they are saying who assert that bishops are not obliged, by visitation, correction, and reform, to beget offspring in Christ [1 Cor 4:15] who are subject to them by diocesan right, and to be in labour until Christ is formed in them [Gal 4:19]? Now, perhaps they will say that the Apostle’s pronouncement is recommending that we not be indifferent to the Lord’s discipline, but is not

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instructing us to accept that of the bishop. Those, however, who speak in this way apparently do not remember that it is in bishops and through bishops that the Lord does whatever may lead to the salvation of souls. For the Lord himself is the one who in them and through them performs the works of salvation; hence his words to the apostles, and to bishops in the apostles: It is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you [Mt 10:20]. And again: He who receives you receives me [Mt 10:40]; he who listens to you listens to me; and he who rejects you rejects me [Lk 10:16]. And the Apostle says: Do you want proof that it is Christ who speaks in me [2 Cor 13:3]? In the same way, then, it is also not the bishops who perform the other works of salvation, but Christ, who works in them. Consequently, although in the Apostle’s words above the reprimanding, rebuking, and lashing of sons are attributed to the Lord, bishops as spiritual fathers are not thereby barred from such actions but are included, for they must be imitators of God and in all things follow his lead as far as human weakness permits. And since bishops are fathers by virtue of his fatherhood and for no other reason, for from him all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name [Eph 3:15], and since the ones entrusted to their care are called their sons for no other reason than the correlative sonship they have with this fatherhood, what is more obvious than that when such sons rebel against and resist the rebukes, reprimands, and corrections of such fathers, they also resist and rebel against God the Father, in that the abundance of his fatherhood is the source of the bishops’ status as fathers? For what father, when he sees his son exposing himself to fire, or water, or some other mortal danger, does not himself immediately rush to help and with his own hands grasp and restrain him and remove him from danger? And if he hands his son over to guardians to watch, does he harm those guardians when he rescues that son from danger? In fact the guardians do considerable harm to the father and deserve punishment if the son was exposed to mortal danger because of their carelessness and negligence, or if by their negligence he was not kept safe from that danger. And what attentive mother or nurse is there who does not herself immediately rush to rescue a child if she sees him putting a snake in his pocket? And how great do you think her anger would be if someone were to hold her back when she was running to rescue the child, or were to stand in her way? And how great would be her joy and her gratitude if someone were to run ahead quickly and be the first to save the child from danger? So, since the bishop, as was said before, plays the part of father, mother, and nurse with respect to all those entrusted to his care, what do they

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mean who say that it is not the bishop’s concern to snatch from the danger of death, with the hand and application of the Church’s discipline, censure, and correction, those of his charges whom he sees rushing to expose themselves to the danger of everlasting death? What do they mean when they say that in this regard it is the bishop’s business only to wait for a person to be snatched from danger by a guardian who is perhaps then absent, or napping, or slothful, or powerless to help, even though a child could have perished a thousand times because of this waiting? But perhaps prelates with positions between the bishop and the lesser clergy and the people will say: ‘You call us guardians; we are fathers, mothers, and nurses just like you.’ And who denies that this is true? For they are all shepherds of souls, and function as fathers, mothers, and nurses for those entrusted to their care. Nevertheless, these lesser prelates are themselves the sons of bishops, and so if they reject the bishop’s discipline, reprimands, rebukes, and correction, they are not true sons, as has been said, but illegitimate ones [Heb 12:8]. And the fact that they are fathers for those who are their subordinates does not mean that the latter do not have the bishop as their father, as he is more a father than they. Let us suppose there is a head of a family with sons at home who themselves have sons, for all of whom the head of the family bears the final and greatest responsibility. Does that head harm his son if he disciplines, reprimands, rebukes, corrects, and reforms that son’s son, and if, after all, he rescues him from mortal danger? How would he have a wellregulated home and be its head if he did not have the power to direct and correct anyone in the household? In Genesis we read that after our first parents had sinned, God walked about in Paradise and they hid themselves from the Lord’s face, no doubt because the darkness of sin hates and flees the light that reveals and exposes [Jn 3:20–1]. Now, the Lord called to Adam and looked for him. He led Adam and his wife too out of their hiding place, carefully examined them about the sin they had committed, and once their guilt had been established, he severely punished them along with the serpent who had induced them to sin.38 The Lord did these things himself, although he already at that time had orders of angels under him, and to angels he had entrusted the protection of Paradise and of the man he had placed there;39 nor were the angels guilty of wrongdoing or negligent when performing that task. 38 See Gn 3:9–19. 39 See Gn 3:24.

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What else is demonstrated by this example than that in the church entrusted to him the prelate is obliged to walk about on feet of pastoral solicitude, as if he were in a kind of Paradise, and during his visitation he must summon, find, and lead forth those who have found a hiding place in their sins? To restore them to health should he not strike them with the strictness of the Church’s discipline, despite the fact that he has entrusted the protection of his people to lesser prelates, even to ones who are neither negligent nor guilty of wrongdoing? And since these same prelates are still, like the people, beset by weakness [Heb 5:2], and may fall into sin, how would Abel, the shepherd of sheep, offer some of the first born of his flock and some of their fat as a sacrifice for the Lord to receive with favour [Gn 4:2, 4], unless the bishop, whose type is Abel, may correct and reform the prelates next to him in rank and dignity, and thus offer from among them, as from the first born of the flock and their fat [Gn 4:4], a sacrifice acceptable to God? The law instructs us to offer sacrifices and sacrificial victims from among the first fruits and firstborn. So, since the bishop’s chapter is his first fruits and firstborn, from among its members especially must he offer a sacrificial victim acceptable to the Lord. Since a flawed animal must not be offered to the Lord, how will he satisfy this obligation without visitation, correction, and reform? Is it not true that the Lord by himself visited and punished the crime of Cain, even though he could have done so through the angels assigned to guard him?40 Is it not the case that the Lord himself visited and inflicted the punishment of the flood, because all flesh had corrupted its way [Gn 6:12]. Is it not true that the Lord came down to see the city and tower built by the sons of Adam [Gn 11:5], and that he punished them by confusing their speech and dispersing them over all the earth? The Lord himself also came down in the company of angels to see whether the deeds of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah corresponded to the outcry that had reached him [Gn 18:21]. When he found that their deeds did warrant his intervention, the Lord, that is, the Son, rained down from the Lord, that is, from the Father, sulphur and fire [Gn 19:24] to punish them, although he could have done this through angels, just as by their agency he had inflicted blindness upon the Sodomites the previous night.41 Although he had sons to help him guide the ark, Noah, its helmsman, was told to take seven pairs, male and female, of all the beasts that were clean, but one pair, male and female, of beasts that were not clean – that their seed might be saved upon the earth [Gn 7:2–3]. This we know he did, for he did all that the 40 See Gn 4:9–16. 41 See Gn 19:1–11.

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Lord had commanded him [Gn 7:5]; he himself opened the ark’s window [Gn 8:6]; he it was who released a raven and a dove, and received the dove when it came back to him; he himself took with him the animals from the ark, and afterwards built an altar, and made offerings from among all the beasts and birds [Gn 8:20]. And what is Noah, the ark’s helmsman, other than a bishop, who is a helmsman of the Church? How, in that case, will it be possible for him to do nothing at all on his own, even if his sons, who were enlisted to help him steer, prove not to be harmful or slothful? For we have yet to read that Noah’s sons were slothful or harmful to those in the ark.42 Abraham, too, who likewise is a type of prelates, by himself and not through the agency of another took his son Ishmael, and all the slaves in his household and everyone he had bought, every male in his household, and that very day he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins, and at the same time even the foreskins of foreigners, just as the Lord had commanded him [Gn 17:23]. Jacob also, who is himself a type of prelates, by himself visited his own household and purged it of idolatry. For he called all his household together and said: ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.’ So they gave him all the foreign gods in their possession and the rings in their ears; these he buried under the terebinth tree that is behind the city of Shechem [Gn 35:2, 4]. To Joseph, too, who doubtless prefigures bishops, it was said: You shall be in charge of my household, and at your command all the people will obey. Behold, I have appointed you over the whole land of Egypt; without your command no one shall lift hand or foot in all the land of Egypt [Gn 41:40, 41, 44]. See how clear the texts are that a prelate can and should by himself do what he considers necessary for the salvation of souls, not only what concerns proper order, but jurisdiction also, as for instance visitation, correction, and reform. For what those patriarchs did by their own effort does not refer only to proper order. The exercise of judgment in cases of leprosy belongs to Aaron and his sons, and by Aaron’s decision a man will be isolated [Lv 13:3] on whom Aaron detected the marks that indicate leprosy. By his decision, too, the man who does not bear the true marks of leprosy will be adjudged clean. The determination of leprous infection on a garment as well as on the skin and on any leather article [Lv 13:59] is also known to be an issue for the priest to settle. From these examples it is clear that the investigation of the sins, both major and minor, of individuals entrusted to his care is a matter for the bishop to judge. 42 See Gn 9:18–27.

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In accord with the Lord’s command, Aaron and his sons who were anointed priests, and whose hands were filled and consecrated that they might serve as priests [Ex 28:41], also assign each man his burden, dividing them so that each of the Levites may know to what burden he must be assigned [Nm 4:19, 27]. Moses, too, after appointing officers over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, to judge the people at all times [Ex 18:25–6], associated with himself men of the Lord, but himself first separated guilty from innocent and then punished with death those sons of Israel whose offence was the fashioning and worshipping of the golden calf.43 At God’s command he also decreed that a man gathering wood on the Sabbath [Nm 15:32] should be stoned, and likewise a man whose mother was an Israelite and whose father was an Egyptian [Lv 24:10], and who was guilty of blasphemy against God. When Core, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against Moses, or, more correctly, against the Lord in him, he sent to summon Dathan and Abiram [Nm 16:12] and himself decided what they would do, so it would be evident who were the Lord’s chosen ones. On account of the fornication and idolatry of the people, Moses also hanged their leaders on gibbets facing the sun [Nm 25:4], sentencing them to death because of the sins of a people they had failed to correct. Phinehas, son of Eleazar, took a dagger in his hand, went into the brothel, and pierced the fornicators through their genitals [Nm 25:7–8]. For this reason the Lord gave him a pledge of an everlasting priesthood, because he showed his zeal for his God and made amends for the wickedness of the children of Israel [Nm 25:13]. The woman suspected of adultery is ordered brought to the priest, and doubtless to the chief priest, that in accord with the law of jealousy [Nm 5:29] the priest may declare her guilt or innocence and she receive what she deserves. Joshua, too, by himself and not through the agency of any of the elders of Israel, made inquiries and found out who had transgressed the Lord’s command and took some things that were under the ban [Jo 7:1] imposed on Jericho. And when the guilty one was found, together with what he had stolen, Joshua and all Israel with him brought them to the Valley of Achor, and Joshua condemned him, saying: Because you have brought trouble on us, the Lord will this day bring trouble on you. All Israel stoned him in accord with his sentence, and all his possessions were consumed by fire [Jo 7:24–5]. Is it not obvious from these examples that all churches and all their rights are at the disposal of the bishop, that they must submit to his judgment and power, and that he has the duty to visit, correct, and reform all 43 See Ex 32:1–29.

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his charges, both low and high, those, that is, who are placed under him with responsibility for the people, despite the fact that he has subordinates, as has often been said, who help to ease his burden, but not to deprive him of his power or his ministry? But there are many who are purified and cleansed of their sins neither by preaching, nor example, nor the sacraments; because they are stubborn they need an iron rod to guide them and put a stop to their vile and callous deeds, so that in the end they recover their senses and are purified. Since this is so, unless the bishop has the power to visit and guide and direct such people with the rod of the Church’s discipline, how will what the Lord said through Moses to the people of Israel be valid? On this day expiation shall be made on your behalf and a cleansing from all your sins; you will be made clean before the Lord. Expiation shall be made by the priest who has been anointed and whose hands have been made ready to perform the functions of the priesthood in his father’s place; he shall be vested with the linen stole and sacred vestments and make expiation for the sanctuary, and the tabernacle of the testimony, and the altar, as well as for the priests and all the people [Lv 16:30, 32–3]. If the bishop does not make a visitation, and with the rod and rigour of discipline chastise and correct both his subjects and those in charge whom he finds have not been corrected by other functions of his episcopal office, how will he purify the sanctuary, the tabernacle, and the altar, as well as the priests and all the people [Lv 16:33] from all their sins? The Lord through Moses told Aaron that no man among Aaron’s offspring who has a blemish may offer bread or a sacrifice to God [Lv 21:17, 21]. In this is clearly intimated what the Lord is saying to the bishop through the law, that he is to act with solicitude and diligence to ensure that none of those who have charge of souls – his offspring, so to speak, as long as they receive from him the power they have to guide souls – has any blemish spiritually from among those listed in Leviticus and represented there as physical blemishes. It must not happen by chance that bread or a sacrifice is offered by such men as these, contrary to God’s command, because, as the blessed Gregory says in his commentary on this passage, ‘he who is still ravaged by his own offences has no power to purge away the offences of others.’44 The commanders of the Lord’s armies and encampments appointed the bravest warriors to serve under them as captains of companies and divisions, with some in charge of smaller units and others of larger ones. In Chronicles we read that this is what David did.45 Was David himself 44 Gregory, Regula pastoralis 1.11 (SC 381:172). 45 See 1 Chr 28:1.

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therefore unable with his own hand and strength either to snatch from hostile assault some member of a company, or to attack, repel, or kill one of the enemy? Was he unable to regulate, correct, or reform anything relevant to the affairs of war as far as concerned those captains or the companies they commanded? How then was it written of him that he killed eight hundred men in a single encounter [2 Sm 23:8]? The fact is that both he and the other commanders of the Lord’s encampments were not only very brave warriors; they were also fighters who, ahead of the others, very boldly and bravely invaded and disrupted the camps of the enemy, even though there was found no sign of negligence or wrongdoing in the conduct of the war attributable to the captains of the companies. For of these captains of David it was written that they were the strongest men and excellent warriors, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and they were as swift as the gazelles on the mountains, equipped to fight with a perfect heart [1 Chr 12:8, 38]. How, then, can it be that the bishops, the commanders of God’s encampments, will themselves snatch no one from enemy assault and will confound no vice, slaying it with the sword and spear of the Church’s rigorous discipline, unless by chance the leaders appointed to serve under them are found to be negligent or guilty of wrongdoing? How can it be that a bishop will regulate, correct, or reform nothing concerning those leaders that is relevant to spiritual warfare? Do bishops not have a duty to rise up in opposition, to station themselves like a wall on behalf of the house of Israel, to stand firm – not lie down – in battle on the Lord’s day [Ez 13:5]? As preachers of the word of God, bishops are, along with the evangelists, heavenly creatures, not only winged, but full of eyes in front and behind [Rv 4:6]. They possess wings so that they may with swift flight hasten, after the example of Christ, to go round the towns and villages [Mt 9:35] of their dioceses, and move quickly, as Solomon teaches, to rouse their friend [Prv 6:3], that is, anyone entrusted to their care, whom they love as themselves but who now lies prostrate, overwhelmed by the sleep of sin, and rotting like a beast in his own dung [Jl 1:17]. Him they are to compel to wake up, not with the word of preaching alone, or the example of moral conduct – these efforts cannot rouse the many who have been completely overpowered by the sleep that causes death – but also with the stings of the lash of chastisement. To be able to do this discreetly bishops have eyes everywhere, so that, as Gregory says, ‘they can detect what must be corrected in others.’46 46 Cf. Gregory, Regula pastoralis 3.4 (SC 382:278).

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But for what reason would they find things in need of correction if they could not also correct them? And what is it that aids their detection more than the office of visitation? If the shepherd who is not a continuous overseer is deprived of the office of visitation for any other reason than that a more pressing preoccupation useful to the Church is hindering him, how will there be fulfiled in him the righteousness of which Solomon speaks when he says that the righteous man knows the souls of his beasts [Prv 12:10]? And how will he carry out what elsewhere he is instructed to do by Solomon, namely to be careful to know the countenance of his own sheep and to observe his herds attentively [Prv 27:23], when such scrutiny and knowledge of great numbers of spiritual cattle and sheep are impossible without the office of visitation and diligent inquiry? Similarly, how will he call his own sheep by name [Jn 10:3], if he does not get to know their individual names, that is, the unique set of qualities, I mean virtues and vices, that characterizes each one of them? And how will he get to know this set of qualities in great numbers of people without the most careful visitation and inquiry? To Adam were brought all the animals to see what he would call them [Gn 2:19]. In this verse is the clearest possible indication that to the bishop, who is in the Church entrusted to him like Adam in Paradise, belongs the task of carefully investigating the moral conduct of all his charges, his purpose being to ascertain what he should call each one of them, so that he calls no one without using his proper name, for whatever Adam called each living creature, that is its name [Gn 2:19]. In a vision of God Ezekiel was brought to Jerusalem to see the great abominations that the house of Israel committed; and to observe without restriction still greater abominations, he was brought to the door of the court; he saw there a hole in the wall, and was ordered to dig through the wall. When he had done so, a door appeared. He went in and saw the most vile abominations that were being committed there [Ez 8:6–9] not only by lesser and younger men, but also by the elders of the house of Israel. This passage reveals quite clearly that the bishop, who has been given as an overseer of the house of Israel, must be brought even from afar in a vision of God to his own Jerusalem, that is, to the church entrusted to his care, so that he may see if there are any who commit there the abominations of sin; and he must not stand outside in ignorance of what is being done inside. He must instead first be introduced to the more conspicuous and more obvious sins, so that this may be an occasion for carefully considering and investigating if there is any sign of hidden or more serious sins, and if a place of entry can be opened up to find them. As the blessed Gregory says: ‘Not a few

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things should be examined delicately and secretly, so that at the sudden appearance of certain signs the one in charge may find everything that lies hidden, locked up in the mind of his subjects, and with a timely rebuke be able, if he starts with the smallest faults, to recognize more serious ones.’47 After Ezekiel saw the hole, he was told to dig through the wall. When he had done so, ‘a door appeared, because when the hardheartedness’ of his subjects ‘is broken’ by the one in charge, ‘either by assiduous questioning or timely rebukes, a kind of doorway is exposed through which everything’ hidden ‘may be seen.’48 For to dig through the wall is ‘to employ sharp inquiries to open up the hardness of a heart.’49 ‘So first one sees the hole in the wall, next the door, and only then is revealed the hidden abomination; this is doubtless so because the external signs of each sin appear first, followed next by the doorway of conspicuous wickedness, and only then is revealed every evil lurking inside. For that reason even the holy doctors make a practice of investigating small things seriously, so that from external matters of the least significance they may reach the more important ones that are concealed.’50 Since, then, these things were said of Ezekiel, who represents the leaders of the Church, what is more obvious than that it is such a leader’s duty, by sharp inquiries, to search for and then find the evils, both small and great, not only of the small, but of the great too, and so be able to cut away all the evils of all of them with the sharpness of the Church’s discipline? The Lord said to Jeremiah: This day I have made you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, and a wall of bronze over the whole land, to stand against the kings of Judah, its princes, the priests, and the people of the land. They will make war against you but they shall not prevail, for I am with you to rescue you [Jer 1:18– 19]. It is agreed that Jeremiah, whom the Lord directed to gird up his loins, and stand up and tell everything commanded him by the Lord [Jer 1:17], is a type of prelates, each of whom has been made a fortified city. For since all those entrusted to his care are brought together as one in his faith and charity so as to live in unity under one law, that is, the law of God and of the Church’s constitutions, in him they build, so to speak, one city and one realm. If the Church subsists in the bishop and the bishop in the Church, what else is this but one city? It is fortified by the

47 48 49 50

Gregory, Regula pastoralis 2.10 (SC 381:240). Ibid. Ibid. Gregory, Moralia in Iob 26.6 (CCSL 143B:1272); cf. idem, Regula pastoralis 2.10 (SC 381:242, 244).

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virtue of steadfast courage against every attack and every assault of each and every temptation and tribulation. In the church edifice entrusted to him the bishop is also a pillar of iron, tirelessly supporting not some part of the building, but all of it, as did James, Cephas, and John [Gal 2:9], whose place he occupies. Moreover, the bishop is a wall set up between the souls, collectively and singly, entrusted to him, and the attacking enemy, that is, the vices and demons. Since, then, the Lord has made the bishop these three things, not for some of his charges but for all of them, both great and small, as is clearly expressed in the text from Jeremiah, what else but to topple this wall, pull down this pillar, and destroy the city are they striving to do who attempt to bar the bishop from visitation, castigation, correction, and reform, even though it is through these actions that the unity of faith and morals is preserved, sustained, and protected? For it is not only by prayer, preaching, good example, and the performance of sacred rites that the Church is united, vigourous, well established, and protected; there are also visitation, correction, and reform. If these last three are lacking, is it really possible that the city of those living in union under the one law of Christ, as well as the pillar of support and the wall of protection, will preserve their full and undefiled integrity? If all these things are essential for the salvation of souls, why then should these latter three, more than the previous ones, be taken from the bishop, who has been given to the people for their salvation? If someone were to say that the correction and reform of their charges have been entrusted to lesser prelates, this being the reason why these powers are taken away from the bishop, then the authority to pray for the people subject to him, to preach to them, to provide them with examples of good conduct, and to administer to them the sacraments of the Church will be taken from him for the same reason, because these have been entrusted to inferiors. Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose every act is for our teaching and instruction, and who suffered, leaving us an example that we should follow in his footsteps [1 Pt 2:21], when sending forth his disciples to preach, gave them power and authority over all the demons, and to cure diseases [Lk 9:1]; they set out and travelled from village to village, everywhere preaching the gospel and healing the sick [Lk 9:6] and even compelling demons to submit to them. Although he gave his disciples the power and authority they needed to trample upon snakes and scorpions and every power of the enemy, and also the gift of healing and the office of preaching, did he thereby take these things away from himself? Do we not read later on that he cast out demons, cured diseases, and preached? No one has heard that the disciples rebuked the Lord for doing these things himself after granting them the same

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powers. On the contrary, we read that they asked him to do more of the same, for the daughter of the Canaanite woman, for example.51 This should make us bear in mind that, although this kind of power had previously been granted to them, in his presence they did not try to use it; instead they willingly deferred to the master, as was proper, and sought his glory rather than their own. In this they were imitating Joab, who wished his victorious capture of the city to be ascribed not to himself, but to David.52 Nor do we read that the Lord rebuked his disciples for doing what it was proper for them to do with the power granted them. We do read, however, that he did in their presence what they could not do, as when he cast out the demon from the lunatic who had fallen often into the fire and frequently into the water [Mt 17:14]; this exorcism was something his disciples had been unable to perform. It demonstrates that many things not entrusted to inferiors, and pertaining not only to proper order but also to jurisdiction, should be reserved to a superior. For with a rebuke the Lord cast out this demon, and in his action one can see sufficient indication of the rigour of his discipline, which also cuts away the evils of those who rebel. With what shameless boldness, then, will his subordinates bar their bishop, who occupies Christ’s place in the Church, from curing with official reprimands, rebukes, and correction spiritual depravity and the diseases brought on by vice? There are also other fully sufficient proofs in Sacred Scripture by which it may be demonstrated that to bishops belong the visitation, correction, and reform of all their charges and especially of churches and churchmen, as well as the power to decide cases, despite the fact that bishops have been given assistants who share their power to help them support their burden; more important cases and any touching the entire community were reserved to the bishops themselves. And since God’s law is the natural law, which prevails over custom or constitution, and since whatever is either established practice or written regulation must be deemed void and invalid if opposed to natural law, even if a practice, a custom, a constitution (no matter what), or some other text were opposed to what was said above, such opposition would have to be regarded as utterly void and invalid.53 For by the mouths of the lawgiver and the

51 Mt 15:21–8. 52 2 Sm 12:26–8. 53 The locus classicus for discussions of these issues in Grosseteste’s day was the first twenty distinctions of Gratian’s Decretum, cols. 1–66. Grosseteste reiterated many of these same points in his discussions of law at the papal curia in 1250; see Gieben, ‘Grosseteste at the Papal Curia’ (n. 1, above), 380–7.

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prophets, and finally by his own mouth and those of the apostles, God himself declared Sacred Scripture, and what is there decreed and commanded God himself decrees and commands. And who or what will resist God’s decree and commandment? Indeed, as Augustine teaches in his Confessions, even ‘when God orders something contrary to anyone’s practice or convention, it must be done even if it has never been done there before, it must be taken up again even if it has been discontinued, and it must be established even if it was not an established practice.’54 So, since God decrees and commands these things, they must by all means be done. And since what God orders is plainly reasonable, and reason prevails over both law and custom (for it is their source) and not the converse, any opposition based on civil law or custom must not stand in the way of divine precepts.55 And since their observance is more conducive to the salvation of souls, and their omission clearly detrimental, and since prelates, like good shepherds, must even lay down their lives to save their flocks, how could prelates be saved and not observe God’s precepts? Similarly, since God and right reason and nature always choose the best course to take among many, and since the Church imitates God and right reason, and since the observance of divine precepts is better than their omission, who doubts that in the Church clerics must observe them inviolably? Now, it cannot be adduced as custom that the bishop has not visited, has not made inquiries, has not corrected, has not reformed; nor could the bishop’s subjects adduce as custom that they have not been visited, corrected, or reformed. For custom is not a negation, a privation, or a neglect of something; it is the frequent repetition of an action that is lawful or licit. But the failure to visit and perform the other duties of the episcopal office is a negation, an omission, and an act of neglect on the part of the bishop. Not to submit to visitation, correction, or reform is also likewise a negation or privation. And should anyone obstinately wish to contend that negations, privations, omissions, and acts of neglect fall under the name of custom, he would still not be able to prove in any way that those negations are customs, but only corrupt practices. For just as the frequent repetition of an illicit act is a corrupt practice, so too is the negation, or privation, or omission of an act that is good and useful and especially necessary for salvation. For what is corruption but the absence of good? Now, who denies that visitation, correction, and reform are good things and good for everyone? For who is so perfect, given this frail flesh in which no one is 54 Augustine, Confessiones 3.8 (CCSL 27:35); Gratian, Decretum D.8 c.2. 55 See Gratian, Decretum, DD.8–10.

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free from sin, that he does not stand in need of correction and reform, and therefore of visitation? Who doubts that the removal of a good is an evil for the one who is deprived of a good that is appropriate for him? Custom therefore cannot consist of taking such things away, since their removal is evil and every custom is good. Nor can it be said that visitation undertaken as an innovation is an attempt to introduce some new custom to burden the Church; it is rather the renewal of a good, legally sanctioned act that was wrongly discontinued and whose purpose is to relieve the Church of the burden of sin. The longer visitation has been discontinued, the more resolutely must one take it up again. Similarly, not to submit to visitation, correction, or reform cannot be called liberty for anyone, since these negations and privations are evil, and every freedom is good. Furthermore, what is true liberty but a refusal to be a slave to sin? And what is true slavery but enslavement to sin? He who commits sin, it is said, is the slave of sin [Jn 8:34]. For the one who has been overcome by another is that person’s slave. The Apostle also says: Do you not know that if you offered yourselves to someone as slaves, to obey him, you are slaves of the one you obeyed, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness [Rom 6:16]? So, those who serve obedience as their master for the sake of righteousness are the servants of righteousness and the servants of truth, and thereby also the servants of liberty; in this way they are truly free. For what else is freedom but the service of that liberty that says: If the Son has set you free, you will be truly free [Jn 8:36]? In the Ecclesiastical History we read that Philo, a most eloquent man and very astute in his interpretation and understanding of Holy Scripture, wrote one of his books on the topic, ‘Everyone who sins is a slave,’ and another on the topic, ‘Everyone is free who devotes himself to good pursuits.’56 So, since visitation, correction, and reform rescue us from sin and lead to righteousness and truth, those are free who, to achieve righteousness, are attentive and responsive to these measures; those who rebel against and resist them are weighed down and shackled by a harsh slavery. For they are the slaves of a cowardly desire to avoid being subject to anyone; and they may well fear that perhaps they are thereby imitating the one who was with good cause made inferior to everyone for refusing to be subject to one superior.57 Indeed, as liberty entails not being subject or forced or compelled unwillingly, to those who are less perspicacious all subjection and compulsion seem to be the opposite of liberty. 56 Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica 2.18.6. 57 That is, the devil; cf. Augustine, De civitate dei 11.13 (CCSL 48:333–5), etc.

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But they are deceived by an exceedingly crude delusion, for slavery is not just subjection in itself but subjection to someone. And it is not just simple compulsion, but a compelling to do something. It is slavery to be subject to one’s inferior and to be compelled to undertake a task that is inappropriate to one’s dignity. Now, the flesh, the world, demons, and vices are inferior to man, and therefore being subject to these and compelled to perform their works is slavery. Subjection to God, however, and to his laws and the higher authorities he has appointed and ordained, is not slavery but liberty. For although men are the ones whom God has placed in positions of power, any obedience to them when they exercise the power entrusted to them is obedience not to men but to God in them. Furthermore, their subjects, as if walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord without complaint [Lk 1:6], should submit freely and voluntarily to them, or rather to God in them, in all canonical matters, and so preserve their liberty. But if some individuals have been led astray where canon law is concerned and do not submit of their own free will to their superiors, compulsion to submit in this regard does not constitute slavery, but leads to true liberty, for the vexation implicit in compulsion makes at length for understanding: what was involuntary becomes voluntary and thus in the end not slavish but completely free. Perhaps they will say that the chapter is so great, being composed of such great personages, so deserving of respect and so exalted, that visiting it is inappropriate, for such visitation is improper unless the chapter has been incapacitated by illness. But to say such a thing would be to show an immoderate pride, although concerning oneself it is improper to be proudminded and more appropriate to fear [Rom 11:20], and according to the advice of the wise man, the greater you are, the more you should humble yourself in all things [Sir 3:20]. Humility alone, when it is perfect and submits itself to those of inferior rank, exalts people and makes them great. When a person has in him the sweetness of charity, he never shakes from his neck the yoke of those greater than he, for he is mindful of that verse, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers [Rom 13:1], and also of that other verse, Anyone who resists a power resists God’s ordinance [Rom 13:2]. Caesar’s creator did not hesitate to pay the census tax to Caesar;58 he who made the whole of creation was willing to be subject to a man who was a carpenter and to an impoverished young woman. For he was, Scripture says, subject to them [Lk 2:51], and no one doubts that Jesus was subject to Joseph and Mary. 58 Lk 20:21–5.

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That centurion, whose equal in faith was not found in Israel, acknowledged that he was first a subject and then a superior, and unimportant before he was great, for he says: I also am myself a man under authority, with soldiers under me [Mt 8:9]. He recognized himself to be a man and under authority before admitting that he had power over others. He mentioned first his low status, so that high rank would not cause him to come to grief; he mentioned first that he was a subject, and for that reason he deserved to have subjects. For a person who has not learned how to submit knows not how to take command. A sign of genuine humility is to submit to one’s superiors as readily as one gives orders to subordinates, or even more readily. But if a man who wishes his subordinates to be submissive to him does not so readily submit to his own superiors, how does he keep that great commandment in the Gospel that is the law and the prophets: All that you wish others to do to you, do you also to them [Mt 7:12]? If, then, the chapter’s greatness is, as I hope, true and strong and not based on illusion or fear, because it imitates that centurion and our Saviour and fulfils the command of the Gospel and the Apostle, it will modify and measure its acts of obedience to its bishop in accord with the mode and measure of its own greatness. It will exhibit to him, by accepting visitation, correction, and reform at his hands, that degree of humility that the chapter wishes the clergy and people who are its subjects to show to it when it wishes to fulfil its own official duties. One should not believe that the chapter may regard itself as healthy, that is, not in need of a physician, since it knows that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us [1 Jn 1:8]. Even if the present members of the chapter are honourable and good men, it is nevertheless known that in the past there were others who needed much correction, and it is not certain that there will not be some such members in the future. For not only do the common people who know not the way of the Lord and the judgment of God [Jer 5:4] sin with stubborn and obstinate hearts when refusing to accept discipline, but so, too, more often and more gravely, do people of rank. For that reason, after Jeremiah had reflected that the people’s sinfulness could be imputed to stupidity and ignorance, and that wise men do not scorn discipline and are not hardhearted and obstinate, he said: I will go to the people of rank and speak to them; for they know the way of the Lord and the judgment of their God. But behold they have together broken the yoke more and burst the bonds [Jer 5:5]. Do we not read in Ezekiel that seventy of the elders of Israel, along with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan, stood in the midst of those standing before the [idolatrous] pictures, and each held a censer in his hand [Ez 8:11]? Indeed, were we to search the

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whole of Scripture, we will not find any who have sinned more gravely than priests, and especially high priests. How, then, do they not need visitation, correction, and reform? The fact is that they need these more, to the same degree that their sins offend God more than those of lesser men, they dishonour the Church more, and the example they present to lesser men is more pernicious. Even if we were to suppose that all the members of the chapter would always be the most honourable of men, they would still need visitation, for it is possible for them to err. Now, a wise physician visits not only the sick but also his healthy patients, administering medicine that will ward off illness and preserve good health, and thus ensuring that their healthy condition will be even more sound. So, too, the prelate, the physician of souls, visits not only those who are spiritually sick, but those whose spiritual health is thriving, so that he may administer spiritual medicine as a protection from future illness and strengthen those he finds in good health. Another purpose of his visit is to bring good health into public view, for when exposed in this way it can be an effective medicine for those who see it. When good health is discovered and revealed by a visitor, the greater they are whom visitation has found to be healthy, the more effectively does their healthy condition serve as a medicine both to heal illness and to preserve good health in others. A person’s high rank is therefore not a reason why he should not be visited; it is instead a very powerful argument for his being visited before anyone else. Should they allege that freedom is the absence of visitation, I ask whether the sheep whom the shepherd visits, guides, and protects are more free than those who wander about as they please? Is it not the case that angels who have been confirmed in grace and therefore cannot sin are more free than humans who can? And if angels are for that reason more free than human beings, then those humans who have more and greater protectors and constraints against sin are more free than other human beings. Every time a bishop comes to his church from some place outside his city, the bells should be rung in the church upon his arrival there or as he passes through it. This ringing of the bells takes place at his arrival not only to show deference and respect, but so that the people may be given notice by the peal and hasten to receive their father’s blessing, which strengthens the houses of his children [Sir 3:11], and to bring their children for confirmation, and for the poor to assemble to receive alms, for those who have been wronged to make their complaint, for the afflicted and oppressed to obtain consolation, and for the penitents – especially those who may be absolved only by the bishop – to confess and receive absolution.

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Honour is owed one’s spiritual father, as Scripture says, so that children who show this honour will have joy in their own children, will be heard on the day of their prayer, and will have a long life, and a blessing will come upon them from the Lord and remain to the end [Sir 3:6–7, 10]. So the honour paid to such a father is not only some passing mark of respect, but it helps to bring to everlasting salvation those who so honour him. And who doubts that the blessing of bishop and father, the confirmation of children, the reception and distribution of alms, the consolation of the oppressed and afflicted, and the confession and absolution that takes away vices and implants and increases virtues confer a very great number of benefits and thereby lead to everlasting salvation? It is incomparably better to choose the smallest thing that pertains to everlasting salvation and the virtue that leads to it than anything that is not virtue or eternal salvation. So, since the peal of bells at the arrival or passage of the bishop helps in the ways mentioned above to bring one to virtue and eternal salvation, whereas not to ring the bells brings no advantage to anyone at all, who can doubt that people with good intentions who love the virtues and eternal salvation will not stubbornly and arrogantly obstruct such great opportunities for virtue and salvation, but will gladly and obediently make them accessible? Perhaps, however, they will say that if the bells are rung today in preparation for the bishop, and he leaves today, only to return on the fourth, or the third, or the following day, why is it necessary to ring them again when he returns so quickly? Well, it is important that a father be honoured every day by his children, and the people need their father’s blessing, and the poor need to receive alms. There is not a single day in so large a city as this when a child is not born or baptized, and there is also no day or a rare one when someone has not suffered a wrong, is not afflicted or oppressed, or does not commit an offence that requires the bishop’s absolution. So, if he today confirms all those in need of confirmation, hears the complaints of everyone who has suffered a wrong, consoles all who are afflicted and oppressed, and listens to the confessions of, and absolves, all who specifically require his absolution, even if he returns tomorrow, there will be one of these things that will require the exercise of his episcopal office; and if the bishop arrives and leaves unannounced, that need will conceivably never be satisfied. What wisdom is it then, or rather what foolish pride, to take away, for no cause at all, an opportunity or reason to do so great a good? Fathers must be obeyed, and that is why we read in Deuteronomy that a stubborn and unruly son, who does not listen to the command of his father or

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mother, and refuses to obey even when he is disciplined, will be stoned to death at the judgment of the elders [Dt 21:18, 21]. And Paul says: We have had fathers in the flesh for instructors, and we paid them respect. Shall we not submit much more to the Father of spirits, and so have life [Heb 12:9]? Now, we know that, although God alone is in himself the Father of spirits, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name [Eph 3:15], nevertheless, shepherds and bishops of souls [1 Pt 2:25] are spiritual fathers in him and from him and through him [Rom 11:36], begetting offspring in Christ through the gospel [1 Cor 4:15]. That is why we must be much more submissive and obedient to spiritual fathers than to fathers in the flesh. To the extent that spiritual generation is greater and better than generation of the flesh, to that degree too do sons who are stubborn and unruly and refuse to obey their spiritual fathers deserve more severe punishment than do sons of the flesh who refuse to submit to the command of their father or mother. We must obey those who are our superiors and the higher powers. That is why Paul says to the Hebrews: Obey your superiors and be submissive to them; for they keep watch over you, as ones who will give an account of your souls. Let them do this with joy and not with sorrow, for that would bring you no advantage [Heb 13:17]. And to the Romans he says: Let every soul be subject to all the higher powers; for there is no power except from God, and the powers that be have been ordained by God. Consequently, anyone who resists a power resists God’s ordinance, and those who resist bring on their own damnation [Rom 13:1–2]. Since, therefore, the bishop is father, superior, and a higher power with respect to the dean and the canons, these men must be obedient to the bishop and submissive and subject to him as to one who keeps watch over them and will give an account of their souls, ensuring that they do not resist God’s ordinance and thus bring on their own damnation. And since the bishop is more a father, more a superior, and more a higher power with respect to the dean and canons than is the dean himself with respect to the canons, the dean and canons are more bound to be obedient, submissive, and subject to the bishop than the canons are to the dean. So, although the canons swear an oath or promise of obedience to the dean as a sign and confirmation of the obedience they owe him, their obligation to obey the bishop is greater, and both dean and canons are therefore more bound to swear this kind of oath or promise to him. For if what is less requires a sign and confirmation against any departure from its observance, much stronger is the need for a sign and confirmation to observe what is greater, for any departure therefrom brings greater

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danger. And since greater obedience is owed even more to one’s father and superior and higher power, one should not swear or promise obedience to a father, superior, or power of lesser rank unless the obedience owed to the higher authority is preserved. Furthermore, as has been said, the dean and canons are more bound to obey the bishop than the canons are to obey the dean; and so the canons err more dangerously if they believe they owe no obedience to the bishop, or are unaware of their obligation, than if they should believe they owed no obedience to the dean or were unaware that they did. To eliminate this kind of error and ignorance, it is more important for the dean and canons to swear an oath or promise to obey the bishop than for such an oath to be sworn by the canons to the dean. Some of the canons were guilty of this sort of error or ignorance, whose source was nothing other than the fact that they swear an oath or promise of obedience to the dean and not to the bishop. So, if certain canons have not sworn to the bishop an oath or promise of obedience, and have for that reason slipped into the kind of error or ignorance that brings them right to, or next to, the rebellion that is like the sin of witchcraft, and the defiance that is like the crime of idolatry [1 Sm 15:23], how can one not swear an oath of obedience to the bishop and thereby escape so great a sin and so great a crime, which, according to the law of Moses, is punishable even by death? For in Deuteronomy Moses has this to say: Anyone who is arrogant and unwilling to obey the command of the priest who is at the time ministering to the Lord your God, or the decision of a judge, shall die, and you shall take away the evil from Israel’s midst [Dt 17:12]. In Exodus, too, he says: Anyone who sacrifices to gods other than the Lord alone, is to be put to death [Ex 22:20]. Practitioners of witchcraft and idolatry sacrifice to gods other than the Lord alone. So, since the disobedient are tainted by the sin of witchcraft and the crime of idolatry, they seem to be especially deserving of the punishment of death. Concerning this it is written in Joshua: So the sun stood still in midheaven and made no haste to set for a whole day. Never before or since has there been so long a day, on which the Lord obeyed the voice of a man [Jo 10:13–14]. If, then, as these words indicate, the Lord deigned to obey a human voice and, as a sign of his obedience, to immobilize the sun contrary to its natural course, how great is the pride of men who either refuse to obey a superior power ordained by the Lord, or are unwilling to give the customary sign of their obedience! For when obeying a superior power, one is obedient not so much to that superior power himself as to the one in that superior power who is the supreme Lord of all!

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Appendix A: The Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation1 1. The bishop says2 that even though the dean has the jurisdiction to visit and correct individual members of the chapter, their visitation does not for that reason belong any the less to the bishop. And to show this he cites those words in Exodus that the Lord said to Moses: Make for me a tabernacle like the one shown you on the mountain [Ex 25:9, 40; 26:30].3 The tabernacle shown on the mountain is the angelic hierarchy. But in this hierarchy it is the case that a superior spirit has the power to do whatever an inferior one can do, and not the converse. It is therefore the same in the human hierarchy. For that reason, every jurisdictional power possessed by the dean over his subjects, the bishop possesses over them, since the bishop is superior to the dean. To show this [the bishop] adduces that, as regards the powers of a rational creature, whatever an inferior power can do, a superior power also can, and not the converse. Likewise, to show this [the bishop] adduces that in natural things this is so as a general rule. Likewise, [the bishop] says that all the people in his diocese are his spiritual sheep, and their blood will be be required at his hand; and so [he says] that the correction of all of them is his responsibility, whether they come from the chapter of Lincoln, or from the prebends, or the common property, or the dignities. Likewise, since it does happen that the multitude sins, as is evident from the expiation of

1 This document, written probably in 1245 and surviving in a unique copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodley 760, fols. 176va–178ra), was printed for the first time by F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Bishop Robert Grosseteste and His Cathedral Chapter: An Edition of the Chapter’s Objections to Episcopal Visitation,’ in Med. St. 47 (1985): 367–8, at 372–6. It follows the same form as Grosseteste’s Letter 127, and may represent the chapter’s formal response at the papal curia in Lyons to Grosseteste’s arguments; see Letter 127, n. 1. Note that the Latin text’s honore (p. 374, line 42) is probably an error for [h]onere. 2 The first section of this document summarizes Grosseteste’s arguments in Letter 127 in favour of the bishop’s right to visit and correct the members of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral. 3 The text cited is in fact not found in Grosseteste’s Letter 127. The author of this response may have had access to another letter or document of the bishop that has not come down to us, or he may have presumed that it was this text upon which the bishop was commenting. Grosseteste did use it in his arguments at the papal curia in 1250, where there is the same discussion of the angelic and ecclesiastical hierarchies as here; see S. Gieben, ‘Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyons 1250: Edition of the Documents,’ in Collectanea Franciscana 41 (1971): 340–93, at 360–1.

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the multitude prescribed by Moses in Leviticus, [the bishop] says that it is perfectly possible for the whole chapter to be guilty of sin and that its correction is his responsibility. Likewise, [the bishop] says that in John and in the prophets visitation and correction of one’s charges are commanded, and so anyone who resists the bishop’s visitation resists God’s ordinance. 2. Reply of the chancellor of Lincoln.4 To the first point [of the bishop] we reply that, although Moses is commanded to make a tabernacle like the tabernacle shown on the mountain, and although in the tabernacle shown on the mountain, that is, in the angelic hierarchy, it is the case that, even though everything the inferior angels can do, so also can the superior angels, by whom the inferior ones are illuminated, nevertheless, when the inferior angels are sent to do something, even though the superior ones have the power to do the same thing, the latter do not move to do it. It is therefore the same in the human hierarchy: since the dean descends, by virtue of his own jurisdictional power, to correct those subject to him, the bishop should not so descend, because this would be to do again what has already been done and to correct what has already been corrected; it would be to do something to no purpose, to drive to despair those who have been corrected, to introduce disorder into the Church of God. Furthermore, there is no similarity at all between the inferior tabernacle [of Moses] and the superior one [on the mountain]. For in the superior tabernacle there is no defect, only immutable and everlasting perfection. But in the inferior tabernacle there is a double defect, that is, powerlessness and error; and this is evident from those words in Exodus that Jethro, prompted by the Holy Spirit, said to Moses: What you are doing is not good; by foolish toil you will be worn down, you and your people with you, too [Ex 18:17–18]. When he says ‘foolish,’ he is referring to the ignorance and error that are in opposition to the Son’s wisdom; by the words ‘you will be worn down,’ he is referring to the powerlessness that is in opposition to the Father’s power; and by the words ‘what you are doing is not good,’ he is referring to what stands in the way of the benignity of the Holy Spirit. And the reason why prelates are in that text

4 Master Nicholas of Waddingham was chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral from 1238 to 1264; see Fasti: Lincoln, 17. He is also the author of at least one sermon, preached while he was chancellor; see R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (Turnhout, 1997), 399; J.C. Russell, Dictionary of Writers of Thirteenth Century England (London, 1936; repr. 1971), 91–2.

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given this command is so that, by dividing up their burden, they may be able to bear its weight, because, as is said in the same passage, this work is beyond your strength [Ex 18:18]. It is also beyond the strength of our bishops, who, unless they are greater than Moses, are watchmen, overseers, and perfecters. And so it is obvious that there is a difference between the human and angelic hierarchies. Likewise, since the punishment for the sin of our first parent is powerlessness and ignorance, together with the error each introduces, it weakens the will, according to which power is reckoned, and likewise darkens the light of the intellect, according to which knowledge is reckoned. That is why there is a defect in the human hierarchy, resulting in a superior’s inability to do everything an inferior can do, as happens with the physical powers of a rational creature, which have a natural and universal arrangement one to another. Nor is there a likeness with respect to superior and inferior causes in the order of natural things, because in that order superior causes cause and conserve being. So if superior causes are removed, there will be no effects. But if some prelate calls upon some suitable assistant to share his responsibilities, the inferior thus summoned will function competently in his office after the removal of the prelate from the scene. And thus it is evident that there is no similarity between the two hierarchies. To the bishop’s statement that both the members of the chapter, and also those from the prebends and the common property, whether canons, or vicars, or clerics, or laymen, are his spiritual sheep, we reply that they are his in a certain respect and not without qualification. They are his sheep as far as concerns teaching, instructing, informing, preaching, and admonishing. But they are not his as far as concerns jurisdiction, except in a certain respect, namely, in cases of appeal, negligence, and powerlessness. And this is evident from those words in Exodus that Jethro, prompted by the Holy Spirit, said to Moses: Hear my words and my counsel, and God will be with you. It is for you to be the people’s representative in matters that pertain to God, so that you may bring their words to him and make known to the people the ceremonies and the rites of worship, as well as the path they are to follow and the work they are to do [Ex 18:19–20]. When he says ‘in matters that pertain to God,’ he was pointing out that Moses was expected to find time for contemplation, whose components are reading, prayer, holy meditation, and thanksgiving. When he says ‘make known to the people the ceremonies,’ etc., he was pointing out that Moses and the prelates he signified were expected to find time for the active part, which consists of

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teaching, instructing, and preaching. And next Jethro adds: Let others decide minor matters, and refer to you any more important case [Ex 18:22]. So in this way the jurisdiction to try cases of lesser importance is granted and given, but reserved to Moses and those he signified is the power to try more important cases. Now, the more important cases are those that are beyond the power of a lesser judge. Minor matters also are sins of negligence that imperil the soul of a negligent judge as well as the souls of his charges. Should the objection perhaps be raised that, although Moses granted to inferior judges the jurisdiction to decide minor matters, if he had wished he could have tried these, too, we answer this by saying that although he could have done so, he should not have so acted, because he was not under obligation to do something that was not good, or to act foolishly, or to wear down himself and the people who were with him. And these three concerns are mentioned when Jethro says: What you are doing is not good; by foolish toil you will be worn down, you and your people with you, too [Ex 18:17–18]. Furthermore, in the same passage it is stated: When he had heard these things, Moses did everything as Jethro had suggested [Ex 18:24]. So, since the action of the lawgiver should serve to instruct bishops, just as Moses granted to others the jurisdiction to decide minor matters, and after so conceding did not himself exercise this jurisdiction, for the same reason, since the dean has the jurisdiction to visit and correct those subject to him, and by exercising this authority does completely what the bishop would do, the bishop should not claim as his own this jurisdiction over the dean’s charges. Furthermore, should the objection be raised that after they worshipped the calf it was Moses himself who punished the people for the sin of idolatry, even though Aaron had been, under Moses, in charge of the people, it must be said that he did this on account of the magnitude of their sin, because there was an obligation to refer the more important cases to Moses, and also because Aaron was powerless to punish that particular sin. To the argument concerning a sin of the multitude,5 it must be said that, in accord with the terms of our foundation, the dean has from the lord pope and from two legates the authority to exercise, along with the rest of his brother canons, the jurisdiction to correct individual members of the chapter in such a way that, if they were to refuse to be corrected despite the insistence of the dean and the other brothers, 5 This refers to Grosseteste’s argument in Letter 127, p. 379.

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and the dean and the other brothers were unable to correct the guilty party, then the bishop’s help would be invoked.6 In the same way and for the same reason, if two or three or more of the brothers were to sin, the same order for correction would be observed. But if the entire membership of the chapter, except for the dean, were to sin, it is then admonished by the dean to desist and repent. If, however, it were stubbornly to persist in sin, then the dean would invoke the bishop’s help. Moreover, if the dean were to sin, it is the custom of the cathedral churches of England for the chapter as a whole, formally assembled as a body, to correct the dean.7 And in such a correction as this there is nothing circular – the dean corrects individual members of the chapter, and the whole chapter corrects the dean – because there is no movement from one point back to the same point by the same route, as happens in circular motion. Likewise, it conforms to reason for the whole chapter – excluding the dean – to correct him, because if the dean were to decide something that did not in itself conform to reason, the whole chapter has the power to invalidate it. Similarly, then, if the dean were to sin, the whole chapter has the power lawfully to correct him. Likewise, the same principle prevails with respect to any unlawful deed of the king, which can be corrected by all the people of the realm. Likewise, legal experts say that the whole chapter, not counting the dean, is greater than he, not only from the point of view of size, but also in terms of the extent of its power.8 But 6 This foundational privilege, claiming to be from the time of King William Rufus, was produced by the canons early in their dispute with Grosseteste; see Letter 127, n. 8. It is known to us only from Matthew Paris’s summary; for the text, see Mantello, ‘Grosseteste and His Cathedral Chapter,’ 372n16. Although the chapter’s privilege is almost certainly not authentic, its basic provisions are confirmed in the papal decision of 1245, translated in appendix B. 7 The chapter of Lincoln had been collecting the customs of various English cathedrals since the beginning of the dispute with Bishop Grosseteste; see Letter 93, n. 1. As late as 31 August 1244 they had written to various cathedral chapters requesting that they send to the pope copies of privileges and immunities; see Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, ed. C. Wordsworth and H. Bradshaw (Cambridge, 1892), pt. 1, p. 61. The custom described here, however, whereby the formally assembled canons of the cathedral can correct and discipline the dean, seems not to be otherwise attested. Such a procedure would appear to adumbrate the ‘conciliarist’ proposals of the fourteenth century, where the formally assembled bishops may correct or discipline the pope (see n. 8, below). 8 The legal experts (iurisperiti) whose arguments the chapter claims in support of their position are not known. A good introduction to the general issues being debated is found in B. Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory: The Contribution of the Medieval Canonists from Gratian to the Great Schism (Cambridge, 1955).

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because it has power over something, it can exercise that power. So, since the whole chapter is more powerful than the dean, it has the power lawfully to correct him if he should sin. Likewise, both the bishop and the chapter – excluding the dean – surpass the dean in the magnitude of their power. So, both the bishop and the chapter are placed above the dean, as if on a single [vertical] line representing the progressive increase in the extent of their power, but they are not placed at the same point, because that would suggest that neither had power over the other. But this is false, because the bishop does possess power over the chapter exclusive of its dean, since he is its head. So, along this line, where the bishop and the chapter without its dean are both placed above the dean, it is obvious that the chapter exclusive of its dean has a place midway between the bishop and the dean. So, since the dean is placed immediately below the chapter, the benefit of correction ought to flow directly from it into him. Likewise, concerning this same point Isaiah has this to say when speaking about the Church: I will set your stones in order and lay your foundation with sapphires [Is 54:11]. These stones are living stones [1 Pt 2:5] squarecut by the four cardinal virtues. These stones are set in place in cathedral churches by humble service, and in order. ‘Now order,’ as Augustine says, ‘is a placement of like and unlike objects whereby each is assigned its own proper place.’9 So, although the dean is placed, as regards his power, above the individual members of the chapter, and although the whole chapter, when taken collectively and excluding the dean, is placed, in terms of its power, above the dean, the correction of individual members of the chapter belongs properly to the dean, and the correction of the dean belongs properly to the whole chapter exclusive of the dean. And it is in this way that the cathedral church will have a foundation laid with sapphires. Since these are stones that have the colour of heaven, they signify the chapter (apart from the dean), which has the face of the one making for Jerusalem [Lk 9:53]. Those who function in accord with the aforementioned model are in harmony with the law of God and consequently with God’s will. And so, since the dean and chapter of the Church of Lincoln are devoted to this model, they are not resisting God’s ordinance, regardless of what the bishop may say.

9 Augustine, De civitate dei 19.13 (CCSL 48:679).

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Appendix B: Letter (25 August 1245) of Pope Innocent IV concluding the Dispute between Bishop Grossteste and His Chapter1 Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brother, the bishop of Lincoln, greeting and apostolic blessing. Among the other things that with endless blows assail our mind, as we preside, despite our unworthiness, at the Lord’s command over the governance of the universal Church, the following matter presses us hard, as it is constantly in our thoughts: [1] that churches disturbed by the accusations associated with legal cases should not be found wanting when confronted with the costs incurred through disputes, and [2] that a proper end should be put to suits that, owing to the legal entanglements and subterfuges of the parties, seem somehow to go on forever. So, whereas a matter of dispute had arisen between yourself on the one side, and the dean and chapter of Lincoln on the other, [1] concerning your visiting them and the prebendal churches, as well as the churches of the dignities and the common property, and reforming their morals, and correcting both the dean and the canons and the vicars-choral, and also the ministers, and vicars, and chaplains, and parishioners of all the said churches, and furthermore [2] concerning the respect and canonical obedience that ought to be paid to you by them, and also [3] concerning certain other matters associated with the episcopal dignity and office, we, after various commissions obtained on both sides from the apostolic see for various judges, and after the legal proceedings held as a result of these commissions, have concluded that this case – for we desire an end to it – should be restored to our own examination.2 And when you and the proctor of the other party appeared before us, it was stated on your side that, [1] although by virtue of the diligence required of your pastoral office you are bound by common law to visit

1 Copies of this papal document are to be found in [1] MS Bodley 760 (fol. 178ra–vb), immediately following the Lincoln chapter’s objections (appendix A); in [2] the registers of Innocent IV in the Vatican Archives (Reg. Vat. 21, fols. 227r–228r, no. 97; calendared in Bliss, Calendar, 219); in [3] Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, 4:497–501); and in [4] the Liber niger of the dean and chapter of Lincoln, ed. C. Wordsworth and H. Bradshaw, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral (Cambridge, 1892), pt. 1, 315–19. The text translated here is that of the Liber niger [4], with reference also to [1], [2], and [3]. 2 Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate, 171, has observed that, during the years of the dispute, ‘every judicial trick and hindrance [was] exploited by both parties.’ For the evidence of this from the papal registers, see ibid., n. 2.

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the chapter of Lincoln, and all the prebendal churches, and the churches of the dignities and the common property, and indeed to fulfil, according to the form of law, those duties concerned with the office of visitation, as both the chapter and the churches are by common law subject to you, and furthermore, [2] although you are bound to correct the transgressions of both the dean and each and every one of the canons, and of the vicars-choral and of the ministers of the same, as well as of the vicars, and chaplains, and parishioners of the aforesaid churches, and to reform their morals, so that their blood is not required at your hands [Ez 3:18], and [3] although it pertains to you as ordinary to examine and decide the cases of all the aforementioned that they might happen to initiate among themselves, or against others in your diocese, or of others against them, whether the cases are civil or criminal, provided, however, they concern ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the dean and chapter of Lincoln, contrary to justice, have been opposing you with respect to these matters. For that reason you could not, as the responsibility of your office demands, freely carry out the premises. You have, moreover, added [4] that, although you are the head of the Church of Lincoln and your assent ought by right to be asked of you as head before holding an election of a dean of Lincoln, they assert that they are entitled to proceed to the election of a dean without asking your leave. You have been asking that justice be shown you in this matter. You have, moreover, been saying [5] that, although the dean, on his own confirmation, and the canons, when prebends are conferred on them, are bound by right to swear canonical obedience to you, they have wrongfully not troubled hitherto to do so. Furthermore, you have been stating [6] that, although by diocesan law the sequestration of the deanship, dignities, and vacant prebends belongs by right to you, the aforementioned dean and chapter, contrary to justice, have been opposing you in this matter. Wherefore, you have been asking [1] that your rights be declared with respect to the premises and judicially decreed for you by a definitive sentence, and [2] that you should be admitted to the office of visitation in the chapter of Lincoln and the prebendal churches of the dignities and the common property, and to the correction of the transgressions and reform of the morals of all the aforesaid, notwithstanding the objection of the dean and the canons, and [3] that a decree of permanent silence be definitively declared and imposed on them, unless they could, by a privilege of the apostolic see or some other special right, legally defend themselves with respect to the aforementioned impediments and obstacles.

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You have also been asking [4] for an appropriate procuration by reason of the visitation of the chapter, and [5] for payment of expenses incurred in the suit, and [6] that, whenever you happen to come to the Church of Lincoln, they should arrange to ring the bells in preparation for you and show respect to you as to a father. You have also asked [7] that the dean not henceforth compel any canon to swear canonical obedience to him, unless the episcopal dignity and authority are excepted, nor oblige the canons to swear to observe any customs that may be contrary to canonical sanctions, nor any longer issue in the chapter decrees that may be contrary to canon law and to episcopal authority or dignity. Furthermore, you have been asking [8] that, as the visitation of the prebends and the churches of the dignities and the common property pertains by common law to you, the dean should by judicial sentence be compelled to desist henceforth from visiting them. The proctor of the other party, however, joining issue, replied [1] that statements made were not true as they were related, and [2] that your requests should not be acceded to. Since, then, issue has been legally joined concerning these matters, and the arguments as well as the allegations of both parties have been carefully heard, we, after the case was brought to an end, upon careful deliberation, have with the advice of our brothers declared [1] that you are to be freely admitted to the visitation of the dean and chapter as well as the canons, the vicars-choral, and the ministers, vicars, and chaplains of churches, and the parishioners belonging to all the aforesaid churches, and admitted also to the correction of transgressions and reform of morals. [2] A procuration is not, however, to be paid by the chapter for your undertaking a visitation in the cathedral church. Nevertheless, [3] the transgressions of the canons of the cathedral church, which have usually been corrected by the chapter, are to be corrected by it in accordance with the custom of the same church that has hitherto been peacefully observed, at your admonition and order and that of your successors, within an appropriate period to be assigned for them by you or your successors. Otherwise, thereafter you or your successors, having God before your eyes, are to correct them with the Church’s censure, as the care of souls requires. [4] We also command the aforesaid canons to show and pay you canonical obedience and respect. They are by no means, however, to be bound to oblige themselves to do this by oath, by giving of hands, or by promise, as you are not entitled to this by custom. [5] In the other matters requested in your legal action we absolve the aforesaid dean and chapter.

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Accordingly, no one at all is to be allowed to infringe this written record of our decision or to rashly oppose it. If, however, any one presumes to attempt so doing, he should know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Lyons, the twenty-fifth day of August, in the third year of our pontificate.

128 To Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Master Innocenzo, a scriptor of the papal curia, refusing to accept a mandate from Pope Innocent IV that one of the pope’s nephews be instituted as a canon of Lincoln Cathedral. Written after 26 January 1253 (the date of the papal rescript rehearsed in Grosseteste’s letter). Editions: F.A.C. Mantello, ‘“Optima Epistola”: A Critical Edition and Translation of Letter 128 of Bishop Robert Grosseteste,’ in Distinct Voice, 289–95; Luard, Epp., 432–7.

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting to the venerable men, the archdeacon of Canterbury1 and Master Innocenzo, scriptor of the lord pope.2 I have learned that you have received a letter from the lord pope3 in these words:

1 Stephen de Montival was archdeacon of Canterbury from ca. 1248 to 1269. See Fasti: Monastic Cathedrals, 15. 2 The scriptor Innocenzo (Innocencius) had arrived in England before June 1249; he was given a prebend in York on 8 March 1252. See P. Herde, Beiträge zum päpstlichen Kanzlei- und Urkundenwesen im dreizehnten Jahrhundert, rev. ed. (Kallmünz, 1967), 37. On the office of scriptor, see B. Schwarz, Die Organisation kurialer Schreiberkollegien von ihrer Entstehung bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1972). 3 No copy of the papal rescript rehearsed here survives in the registers of Innocent IV or anywhere outside the collections of Grosseteste’s letters; see Mantello, ‘“Optima Epistola,”’ 279. On Pope Innocent IV, see Letter 111, n. 1. Innocent was born Sinibaldo Fieschi, the son of Ugo, count of Lavagna. His family was exceptionally influential in the church, and provided several cardinals, including Sinibaldo’s nephews Guglielmo (see next note), Ottobuono Fieschi (papal legate to England, 1265–68), and Pope Adrian V (11 July 1276–18 August 1276).

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Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of God, sends greeting and apostolic blessing to his beloved sons, the archdeacon of Canterbury and Master Innocenzo, our scriptor sojourning in England. Whereas our beloved son, Guglielmo, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio,4 has, at our special command, reckoned that a canonry of Lincoln and all concomitant rights ought to be canonically conferred upon our beloved son, Federico da Lavagna, clerk, our nephew,5 by his ring corporally and personally investing him with the same, that thenceforward he be a canon of Lincoln and there acquire the full name and rights of a canon and also a prebend, should any be vacant in the Church of Lincoln from the time when our letter about receiving and providing for him in that church pursuant to the premises is first presented to our venerable brother, the bishop of Lincoln, or that, becoming vacant on the first occasion afterwards, the bishop shall reserve for conferral upon him by apostolic presentation, decreeing null and void any claim made on such a prebend by anyone, and also likewise promulgating against those who oppose and rebel a sentence of excommunication, as is more fully stated in the cardinal’s letter regarding this matter, we, persuaded by the devout supplications of Federico himself, ratify and approve what has been done in this case by the same cardinal, and have reckoned that it should be confirmed by apostolic authority. Wherefore, by apostolic rescript we command you in your discretion to induct, by our authority, the same Federico, or his proctor in his name, into corporal or virtual possession of the aforementioned canonry and prebend, and to defend him when inducted, restraining by ecclesiastical censure

4 On Guglielmo and his familia see Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali, 1:329–40. He was one of two sons of Obizzo Fieschi, one of Innocent IV’s brothers. His uncle elevated him to the cardinalate on 28 May 1244 and he died on 23 March 1256. 5 See Herde, Beiträge, 32, who conjectures that Federico was perhaps a son of Tedisio, count of Lavagna and brother of Innocent IV. It might be noted that another of the pope’s nephews, Ottobuono Fieschi (see n. 3), who had come to England in the retinue of Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, papal legate from 1237 to 1241 (see Letters 49, n. 1; 74, n. 1; and 110, n. 1), was granted by Grosseteste the living of Twywell in the archdeaconry of Northampton; see Rotuli Grosseteste, 182. A Master Tedisio da Lavagna, ‘clerk and papal scriptor,’ is mentioned in two mandates (dated 1248 and 1254) of Innocent IV requiring the provision to him of a benefice in the province of Armagh; see M. P. Sheehy, Pontificia Hibernica, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1962–65), vol. 2, nos. 298 and 386. Toward the end of 1250, a ‘Tedisius de Lavania,’ papal subdeacon and chaplain, received a grant of the Church of Sibsey in the diocese of Lincoln. See Mantello, ‘“Optima Epistola,”’ 296 (n. e).

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without appeal those who object, notwithstanding any customs or statutes, even though they be reinforced by oaths and confirmations of the apostolic see or by any other agreement whatsoever, or the fact that the said Federico is not present to take the usual oath to observe the customs of the Church of Lincoln, or if the aforesaid bishop or chapter of that church, jointly or singly, or any other persons whosoever, have an indult from the said see stating that they may not be compelled to receive or provide for anyone, or that no one else may make such a provision in their church, or that they have been granted immunity from any interdict, suspension, or excommunication conveyed in an apostolic letter already acquired or even to be acquired, under any form of words, even if the whole tenor of such indulgences be inserted word for word in such letters or in any other indulgences granted or even to be granted, under any form of words, by the apostolic see to any persons, dignity, or place, by which the effect of such a provision could to any extent be hindered or deferred. For we with certain knowledge wish such indulgences, as far as concerns the provision made or to be made to the aforementioned Federico in the Church of Lincoln, to be altogether without force. Moreover, if any reckon that they should to any extent oppose the aforementioned Federico or his proctor with respect to one or more of the premises, these you are to take steps to cite peremptorily on our behalf, to appear in person before us within the two-month period following your citation, to answer the same Federico according to law with respect to the premises, notwithstanding any privilege or indulgences granted by the aforementioned see under any form of words to persons of the kingdom of England in general, or to any other person, dignity, or place in particular, that they may not, by an apostolic letter acquired under any form of words, be summoned to trial beyond the sea or beyond the limits of their city or diocese – which privilege and indulgences we with certain knowledge by no means wish to be granted to such persons – and notwithstanding the constitution De duabus dietis published in the general council.6 You

6 This is a reference to c. 37 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): De litteris non impetrandis ultra duas diaetas ... (‘On not procuring letters that entail more than two days’ journey ... ’). See Tanner, Decrees, 1:251–2. This constitution concerned those who tried to obtain letters from the pope that summoned people to distant judges. The labour and expense involved in travelling was often onerous, and the council therefore decreed that no one could be summoned by the pope to a trial that was more than two days’ journey outside his or her diocese unless the papal letter was obtained with the agreement of both parties or this constitution was expressly mentioned.

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will, moreover, by a letter from you that contains the tenor of these presents, faithfully acquaint us with the date and terms of your citation. Now, if both of you are unable to participate in executing these orders, one of you is nevertheless to do so. Given at Perugia on January 26th, in the tenth year of our pontificate.7

Now, in your discretion you know that I obey apostolic commands with a son’s affection and with complete devotion and respect. Zealous as I am for the honour due my parents, I also oppose and resist whatever is contrary to apostolic commands, for in both cases I am bound, in the same way and to the same degree, by God’s command. Apostolic commands are, and can only be, in harmony and conformity with the teaching of the apostles and of the master and lord of the apostles, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, whose ultimate symbol and representative in the hierarchy of the church is the lord pope. For the Lord Jesus Christ himself said: He who is not with me is against me [Mt 12:30]. Now, against him the supremely divine holiness of the apostolic see neither is nor can be. It follows that the tenor of the letter mentioned above is not in harmony with apostolic holiness, but utterly out of harmony and at variance with it. This is so, because, in the first place, from the heaped up ‘notwithstanding’ (non obstante) clauses in that letter and others like it dispersed far and wide – clauses that were not inserted because of any need to comply with natural law – there gushes forth a spate (cataclismus) of inconsistency, impudence, and even the shameless effrontery of lying and deceiving, an unwillingness to believe anyone or to show faith in anyone, and the countless vices that follow from faults such as these. All of this undermines the purity of the Christian religion and disturbs the tranquillity of social relations among men and women. What is more, after the sin of Lucifer, the same sin that at the end of time will mark the Antichrist,8 that very son of perdition, whom the Lord Jesus will put to death with the breath of his mouth [2 Thes 2:3, 8], there is not, nor can there be, another kind of sin so opposed and contrary to the teaching 7 26 January 1253. The papal court had recently returned to Italy from Lyons, where it had been in exile since 1244. Perugia, an important town in central Italy, frequently hosted the papal court. 8 R.W. Southern (Growth, 281–95) has observed that Grosseteste’s references to Lucifer (cf. Is 14:12) and to the Antichrist reflect the influence of ‘apocalyptic expectations which were circulating very widely in Europe in the middle years of the century’ (p. 282).

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of the apostles and of the gospel, and to the Lord Jesus Christ himself so hateful, detestable, and abominable, and to the human race so destructive, as to bring death and damnation, by cheating them of a pastor’s office and ministry, to souls that should be given life and salvation by the office and ministry of the pastoral care. In Sacred Scripture we find the clearest possible evidence that those stand guilty of this sin who, when once given power in the care of souls, provide for their own carnal and temporal desires and necessities from the milk and wool of the sheep of Christ, and do not fulfil the duties of the pastoral office that oblige them to work for the eternal salvation of Christ’s sheep.9 For that failure to perform one’s pastoral duties is, by testimony of Scripture, the killing and damnation of the sheep. That these two kinds of sin are, though in different degrees, the worst sins of all, incalculably exceeding every other kind of sin, is obvious from the fact that they are the direct opposite of the two things that are and are called, though in different degrees and in different ways, the best; for worst is defined as that which is the opposite of best. Now, as far as concerns the sinners I mentioned, one of their sins (that of Lucifer and Antichrist) is contempt for the deity itself, which is best in the order beyond beings and nature; but the other is the destruction of that which is in the image of God and which shares God’s nature, which are best in the order of beings and nature because of their participation through grace in God’s light. And, just as in good things the cause of good is better than the effect, so, too, in evil things the cause of evil is more evil than the effect. For that reason it is very plain that those who introduce into God’s Church the most evil murderers of God’s image and handiwork in the sheep of Christ are themselves more evil than the most evil murderers they have introduced, and closer both to Lucifer and to Antichrist.10 And in this gradation of wickedness, those who excel more than supremely are the ones who, by virtue of a greater and more godlike power given them by heaven to build up and not to tear down [2 Cor 10:8], are all the more obliged to uproot and banish from God’s Church such evil murderers.

9 Ez 34:2–3: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel that fed themselves! Should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat, but my flock you did not feed.’ 10 According to Matthew Paris (Chronica maiora, 5:402), Grosseteste echoed this sentiment on his deathbed in October of 1253: ‘[S]ighing, he said: Christ came into the world to gain souls; so if someone should not fear to lose souls, should he not be called Antichrist?’ Cf. Southern, Growth, 294.

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It follows, then, that the most holy apostolic see, to whom power of every kind has been given by the holy of holies, the Lord Jesus Christ – the Apostle is the witness – for building up and not for tearing down [2 Cor 10:8], cannot either command or enjoin anything that verges on this kind of sin, so hateful, detestable, and abominable to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the human race so utterly destructive, or indeed make any attempt at such a thing. For this would obviously be a failure, or a corruption, or an abuse of its most holy and plenary power, and would drive it the furthest possible from the Lord Jesus Christ’s throne of glory and place it closest of all to those two princes of darkness I mentioned upon the seat of pestilence [Ps 1:1] amid the pains of hell. And one who is a faithful subject of the same apostolic see in pure and genuine obedience, and not cut off by schism from the body of Christ and the same holy see, cannot submit to commands or instructions of this kind, or to any other such efforts, regardless of their origin, even if that is the highest order of angels. He is instead obliged to oppose them and rebel against them with all his strength. For these reasons, revered lords, because of my obligation to be obedient and loyal, an obligation that binds me, as to both my parents, to the most holy apostolic see, and because of my love of union with it in the body of Christ, as a Catholic, a proper son, and one who owes obedience, I disobey, I oppose, and I rebel against the things contained in that letter, chiefly because they so very clearly verge upon the sin I mentioned, so very abominable to our Lord Jesus Christ and so utterly destructive to the human race, and also because they are in every way opposed and contrary to the holiness of the apostolic see. In your discretion you can take no harsh measures against me because of my stand, for my every word and deed in this matter is neither opposition nor rebellion, but rather a demonstration of the filial respect due by God’s command to one’s father and mother. To sum up briefly, I say this: the apostolic see in its holiness cannot destroy, it can only build [2 Cor 10:8]. For this is its fullness of power, to be able to do all things for building up. Those so-called provisions, however, have nothing to do with building but rather with the most obvious destruction. They cannot therefore be the work of the blessed apostolic see. For flesh and blood, which will not possess the kingdom of God, have revealed them, and not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is in heaven [Mt 16:17]. May the most high God ever watch over and defend you. Given at Lincoln, etc.

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129 To Master Robert Marsh, concerning the murder of a student at Oxford. Dated 8 May 1248. Edition: Luard, Epp., 437–9 (from the register of general memoranda [fol. 305r–v] of John Dalderby, bishop of Lincoln [1300–20]; reading, p. 438/ line 16, lectionibus for lectoribus; 438/17, nisi for ni; 438/20, Oxoniensi for Oxonienses; 438/29, sententiam for summam; 439/16, et for ut, perpensius for propensius).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends greeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved son in Christ, Master Robert Marsh,1 canon of Lincoln and his official. My beloved sons in Christ, the chancellor2 and the University of Oxford, have written to inform me that on the day of the feast of the Apostles Philip and James,3 some of the burgesses of Oxford came upon a scholar of noble birth and virtuous way of life as he was passing at a late hour by St Martin’s Church4 in Oxford, and without reason or provocation, it is said, horribly and mortally wounded him. When he was struggling to escape, butchers and some other individuals befouled him with bits of flesh and with the offal and even the dung of a pig, and still others insulted him and then struck him down with stones, so that he collapsed half-dead in the doorway of the Church of All Saints. Carried by his drooping arms to his home, he died, sad to say, early in the morning two days later.5 1 On Robert Marsh, the brother of Grosseteste’s close friend, Adam Marsh, see Letter 17, n. 4. Robert was a canon of Lincoln Cathedral by 13 October 1244, and in 1249–50 he became archdeacon of Oxford. He served as Grosseteste’s ‘official’ (senior judicial officer), and acted as his vicar general during Grosseteste’s absences overseas in 1245 and 1250. See Major, ‘Familia,’ 231. 2 Gilbert de Biham was chancellor of the university in November 1246 and was still serving in November 1249. He was a doctor of canon law at Oxford by 1247, and had died by January 1263. See Emden, BRUO, 1:186. 3 1 May 1248. 4 In 1279 there were eighteen churches in Oxford. St Martin’s and All Saints’ (see below) were centrally located and not far apart, St Martin’s at Carfax and All Saints’ on the High Street. See map 2 in Hist. Univ. Oxford, xxxiv–xxxv. 5 Violence and death in the streets of medieval Oxford were not uncommon. See C.H. Lawrence, ‘The University in State and Church,’ ibid., 97–150, at 143–7; J.I. Catto, ‘Citizens, Scholars and Masters,’ ibid., 151–92, at 166–8.

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The town bailiffs, too, provided no assistance in the matter and permitted the murderers to proceed publicly through the streets, it is said, speaking with them in an ordinary way, until the clerk had died. And then they armed themselves and escorted the criminals to St Martin’s Church, where they remain safe and sound. The university has been provoked by these events in such a way that the masters have stopped giving lectures, both ordinary and extraordinary, and have sworn that, unless appropriate punishment is inflicted in this case – for similar outrages have already occurred too frequently, without, thus far, any punishments – they will completely withdraw from the studium at Oxford. And they refuse to allow this clerk’s body to be handed over for burial, but are keeping his unburied corpse as a memorial of this deed until such time as they receive the reply they desire from the lord king and from me. And indeed, because I would be unable to issue a sentence of condemnation against any individual or specific group of individuals without first determining the truth of this story in accordance with the law, I am ordering you to proceed in person and without delay to the town of Oxford and to see that in each and every one of the town’s churches, with lighted candles and ringing bells, a general sentence of excommunication6 is solemnly and publicly proclaimed against all those who laid violent hands upon the clerk, and who struck and mortally wounded him, and who contributed to the execution of so outrageous an act by physically participating, scheming, showing support, or giving consent, thereby disturbing the peace of the Church and of the university. Then, once you have associated with yourself some discreet and Godfearing men and summoned the people who must be summoned, you 6 In his Templum dei (7.3–25 [pp. 39–45]) Grosseteste distinguishes between excommunications a iure (imposed by law) and a iudice (imposed by a judge). Among the former is excommunication for striking or beating a cleric. He also identifies three degrees of excommunication: (excommunicatio) maxima, by which one is cut off from all contact with other Christians; maior, by which one is forbidden to enter a church or receive the sacraments; and minor, by which one is separated from God, but not from the Church. The excommunication described in this letter is one imposed by law, not by a judge; although no one is charged by name, anyone who participated in any way in the attack on this cleric is to be considered, by that fact, excommunicated. The particular solemnity of the proclamation, with pealing bells and lighted candles, suggests that the strictest form of excommunication is intended. See R. Hill, ‘The Theory and Practice of Excommunication in Medieval England,’ in History 42 (1957): 1–11; and F.D. Logan, Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England: A Study in Legal Procedure from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century (Toronto, 1968).

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are to conduct a careful and most scrupulous investigation of the premises, with the assistance of men who are trustworthy, qualified, and bound by oath. After your findings have been made public with proper formality and the agreement (kept at Osney) between the University and the townspeople, made some time ago by Lord Nicholas, of happy memory, bishop of Tusculum and legate of the apostolic see, has been carefully examined,7 you should, as my deputy and by my authority, first consider the counsel of wise men and then subject to canonical punishment those whom, in accordance with the results of your inquiry, you find guilty of this crime, as well as those who supported and incited them. Your punishment should be such that both your proceedings in this case and ultimately your final sentence would in all respects be supported by canonical regulations. For your actions you would also then with good reason be qualified and entitled to receive both God’s and men’s careful consideration and commendation in the Lord. Given at Stow Park8 on May 8th, in the thirteenth year of my pontificate.

130 This and the following letter (no. 131), printed by Henry Luard at the end of his edition of Grosseteste’s correspondence, are probably not authentic. See F.A.C. Mantello, ‘Letter CXXX of Bishop Robert Grosseteste: A Problem of Attribution,’ in Med. St. 36 (1974): 144–59 (text at pp. 156–9); and idem, ‘Letter CXXXI Ascribed to Robert Grosseteste: A New Editon of the Text,’ in Franciscan Studies 39 (1979): 165–79 (text at pp. 172–3). Letter 130, addressed to all the regular and secular clergy of Lincoln diocese, was written most probably by Richard Gravesend (1258–79), Grosseteste’s successor but one in the see of Lincoln, in March of 1261. Letter 131, addressed to the lords of England, the citizens of London, and the common people of the whole realm, is of uncertain date and authorship. Both are translated here from the editions prepared by Mantello.

7 On the terms of this agreement or ordinance, issued under similar violent circumstances in June 1214 by Nicholas de Romanis, cardinal bishop of Tusculum and papal legate, see G. Pollard, ‘The Legatine Award to Oxford in 1214 and Robert Grosseteste,’ in Oxoniensia 39 (1975, for 1974): 62–72; R.W. Southern, ‘From Schools to University,’ in Hist. Univ. Oxford, 1–36, at 26–33. 8 The episcopal palace at Lincoln was seldom used by the bishops for continuous residence. They had numerous manor houses throughout the eight archdeaconries of the diocese that also served as official residences, including Stow Park, where Letter 129 was issued. See Southern, Growth, 235–6.

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R[ichard], by divine mercy bishop of Lincoln, sends his wish for their perpetual salvation in the Lord and everlasting glory to the abbots, priors, archdeacons, deans, and each and every rector of a parish church, vicar, and chaplain appointed throughout the diocese of Lincoln. As I, although undeserving, am obliged by my office to proclaim the word of God and will render an account of you and of all the people in the presence of the eternal judge, dreaded among the kings of the earth [Ps 75:13], I tremble exceedingly before the eyes of that stern judge, the examiner of all things, who fearfully thunders forth through his prophet to every watchman appointed over the vineyard of the lord of hosts himself who fails to declare the evil he sees that the blood of the people is to be required at his hand [Ez 3:17–18]. I am therefore deeply touched with grief of heart [Gn 6:6] and tormented to the very depths of my spirit at clearly beholding evils so manifold, so grievous, so hideous, so foul, so heinous, so guilty, so wicked, so sacrilegious, everywhere present in a people redeemed by the blood of Christ and clinging to them because of the neglect of rectors, the carelessness of pastors, and – alas a matter rather for tears than for writing! – because of the most wicked example and putrefying destruction spreading shamelessly here, there, and everywhere. So perverse are these evils that I am altogether overwhelmed by despair and altogether ignorant as to where I should begin to remedy them. It would doubtless be my duty to stand up like a man and courageously break and loose, to the best of my ability, the fetters of wickedness [Is 58:6]; but an authority has intervened whom it is considered sinful to disobey, who is withdrawing me for a while from your presence and causing me to postpone fulfilling a beneficial resolution. In the meantime, however, although I am absent in body, I am nevertheless present in spirit [1 Cor 5:3] and write down what I am not permitted to say aloud. In fact, I advise you to take care to receive what I am writing here with reverence and humility as if it were the word of the Lord himself. Mark this, my dearest ones! Mark this! On a day you think not and at an hour you do not expect, our God is coming [Lk 12:40, 46], and the eternal Lord who established the ends of the earth is witness [Is 40:28]. Mark this, I say! He is coming, summoning us all and each by the voice of an archangel and the last trumpet [1 Thes 4:16, 1 Cor 15:52] to a general assembly, to the judgment of all flesh; he is going to make a visitation with his sword, which is hard that none will be able to bear it; which is mighty that none will be able to escape it; and which is powerful that none will be able at all to resist it [Is 27:1]. The lips of the coming Lord, who is both the supreme shepherd and your bishop, are filled with indignation, and the tongue of his mouth is like a devouring fire [Is 30:27]. If we have hardly heard a small drop of his utter-

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ance, who will be able to look upon the thunder of his might [Jb 26:14]? Who will stand to look upon him when the works of darkness are revealed, when sluggishness and negligence are examined, when the scoffers are charged who promised in his presence to do his work regarding the care of the souls that he entrusted to you on such fearsome terms to feed as the ultimate test of your love? In the person of the prince of the apostles those scoffers all promised something of utmost danger and of awesome terror – that they would give answer in the presence of that Judge. They promised to take care of souls, and iniquity has deceived itself [Ps 26:12]. What will those wretches say who eagerly pursue their own advantage and who have been enticed away by pompous honours and seduced by shameful pleasures, when the wretched and abominable nakedness of the wicked will manifest itself [cf. Dies irae 16–19]? The presence of persons and things that now is pleasing to them will at that time nowhere manifest itself, every comfort will flee away, each and every excuse will be blown away, and absolutely no remedy will be revealed. In the same way as his heralds cry aloud, so also do I in this letter, although it is awkward and unpolished, and will perhaps be disparaged by many of you; but there can be no doubt that God is not mocked [Gal 6:7]. I cry aloud that even now you should awaken, to be watchful for the work you have undertaken, redeem the time [Eph 5:16] that has been lost, and find the Judge, who is even now ready to come, appeased in some measure. For we do not know how long we shall remain and whether after a little while our Creator will take us away [Jb 32:22]. I beg you with all possible devotion and from the very bottom of my heart that the hour of sudden doom may not entrap you, who for your office are reckoned children of God, among the children of the world, that the sword that is the avenger of wickedness [Jb 19:29] may not destroy with a dreadful stroke the contagion of such great corruption, and that the destructive flame of the flashing lightning stroke may not eagerly consume the infection of so great a plague. Arise, most beloved, arise and be vigilant for yourselves and your flock of sheep; feed them, as you are bound to do, with the word of life; feed them with the example of your own lives and with the sacrament of life. This, my dearest ones, you are undoubtedly bound to do by the solemn promise you made, as has been said, in the fearful sight of God. How many have you seen carried off in the midst of their perils? Let the perils you have seen make you cautious. Let fear of the Lord make you anxious and your own danger fill you with fear. The burden of the office that has been imposed upon me and under which I groan with sorrow has compelled me to write this to you, because I cannot in person carry out completely what I would like. Finally, I beg

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you in your charity to lighten by your prayers my long pilgrimage, and in the course of your private conversations with God to commend me and my flock to the merciful Redeemer and powerful Saviour of all souls. I leave you this as my testament, namely, zeal for souls – zeal which, because it is lukewarm and slight in me, I ask you to increase by your prayers. Let us all pray in common that from the truth of the gospel and from the love of our flock no human or worldly fear may ever tear us, but that the Lord may with complete confidence permit us to run eagerly on the way of his commandments [Ps 118:32]. Now, to you, my sons and archdeacons, and to your officials, it is my firm command and instruction that by publishing this letter of mine in the synods and chapters you will next convene each of you bring it very clearly to the notice of each and every rector and vicar of whatever condition they may be, that they may have no excuse and I be accused of keeping silent. Use all possible diligence to ensure that every rector and vicar has at least a copy of my letter in his church. Farewell ever in the Lord. Given at Dover on March 31st, in the third year of my pontificate.

131 See headnote to Letter 130. The bishop of Lincoln to the lords of England, the citizens of London, and the common people of the whole realm. If only the faithful and grateful noble sons and nurslings of their venerable mother, the English Church, would mark the serious wrong and loss suffered by so great a mother, who is the source of their new life through water and the Spirit! Behold that noble Church, which in comparison with the other churches of Christendom abounds in temporal wealth and has flourished by virtue of such a special privilege of liberty as to have been long free and exempt from the impositions and provisions of the Roman curia, so much so that the hands of foreigners do not take her property, which honourably supports the lives of the inhabitants of the kingdom, her very own children. Now this Church is weakened by so many oppressions and damaged by so many provisions that, with her own people thirsting, she is compelled to give her milk – alas! – to aliens and for the use of foreigners. And what is more, her ample revenues go to profit a people she does not know –

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revenues that out of piety and devotion the lords of this kingdom decided should be given most devoutly to ensure the enhancement of divine worship and the support of the ministers of the Church and the poor of Christ. Contrary to the will of their benefactors, these revenues are now wrongfully seized not only by strangers, but often even by deadly enemies, the inhabitants of far-distant lands, who not only devote their every effort to shearing the sheep, but do not even recognize the faces of their own flock. They do not understand the language, they neglect the care of souls, and yet they collect money and carry it away, to the great impoverishment of the kingdom. Furthermore, unless a remedy is swiftly but cautiously applied from the opposing side, a Church that has been free from ancient times will be subject – God forbid! – to the perpetual payment of tribute because of the reservations, provisions, impositions, and procedures of the apostolic see, which are increasing at an excessive rate every day through the excessive patience, or, more correctly, the stupidity, of the English people. So, the noble knighthood of England and also the illustrious commonalty of London and the whole realm should direct their attention to the wrong suffered by their exalted mother and rise up like men to repulse it. Let them see and understand for themselves if it is fitting and to their advantage that – just as oxen and sheep bear the yoke and coats of wool not for themselves but for others – the English should be so oppressed as to tolerate even that others should reap what they themselves do sow, and that thus those who do no work at all should claim the food for themselves. Furthermore, in order that the entire world’s condemnation may be silenced and the English, whose noble name has been – to their shame! – denigrated, may assume their ancient titles of honour and be able to celebrate divine service more laudably before God, and in order that this kingdom may by these trials be made more powerful in adversity against the hands of provisors and the schemes and malice of depraved plotters who have cast their greedy eyes upon England, let the secular power arm itself so as to achieve its goal. Once these kinds of provisions have been excluded once and for all, the priesthood of the realm may grow in the Lord and the kingdom’s treasure be kept for the profit of the English. This will in fact not only be of incalculable advantage to the realm and to its people, enabling them to revive forever their glorious titles of praise, but will also be exceedingly meritorious in the sight of God. Here ends the letter of the bishop of Lincoln.

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132 To the archdeacons of Lincoln diocese concerning the redemption of vows made by those who had promised, but failed, to go on crusade. Dated 1 August 1247, this document also passes on a letter from Pope Innocent IV and another from the papal collectors of vow redemptions for the crusade of Richard of Cornwall (1240–1). Edition: Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, vol. 6 (Liber additamentorum), 134–8 (no. 71).

Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, sends geeting, goodwill, and blessing to his beloved sons in Christ, all the archdeacons appointed throughout the diocese of Lincoln. I have received a letter in the following words from Lord John Saracenus,1 subdeacon and chaplain of the lord pope, dean of Wells, and from Berard of Nimpha,2 scriptor of the lord pope: To the revered father in Christ and lord, Robert, by the grace of God bishop of Lincoln, and to that man of discretion, his official,3 John Saracenus, subdeacon and chaplain of the lord pope, dean of Wells, and Berard of Nimpha, scriptor of the lord pope, send greeting together with their sincere affection. You are to know that, after various commands from the apostolic see that have thus far come to us and other prelates of the kingdom of England concerning the vow redemption and other matters in that kingdom that had been granted by the aforesaid see to the noble man, Lord Richard, earl of Cornwall4 – of which commands we know that an exact copy, already long since sent to you under our seals, is in your possession – we have recently received an apostolic command in the following terms:

1 For the career of the papal collector John Saracenus (also Sarracenus or Saracen), see J. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300, rev. and expanded ed. (London, 1968–), vol. 7: Bath and Wells, compiled by D.E. Greenway, 10–11; and N. Vincent, ed., The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England, 1216–1218 (Woodbridge, U.K./Rochester, N.Y., 1996), lxviii, 65–7. 2 For the activities of this papal scriptor, see P. Herde, Beiträge zum päpstlichen Kanzlei- und Urkundenwesen im dreizehnten Jahrhundert, rev. ed. (Kallmünz, 1967), 31. 3 Grosseteste’s official at this time was Master Robert Marsh (d. ca. 1263); see Letter 129, n. 1, and Fasti: Lincoln, 48. 4 On Richard of Cornwall (1209–72) and the redemption of crusade vows, see W.E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), chap. 8, especially 432–9; and C.T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, U.K., 1994), chap. 7, esp. 146, 150. Richard took the cross in 1236 and embarked on crusade in 1240.

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Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of God, sends greeting and apostolic blessing to his beloved sons, John Saracenus, subdean and chaplain, dean of Wells, and Master Berard of Nimpha, scriptor, our representatives sojourning in England. On behalf of our beloved son, the noble man Richard, earl of Cornwall, it has been proposed in our presence that, although – after various commands that are said to have come to the prelates of the kingdom of England both from us and from our predecessor of happy memory, Pope Gregory, concerning the vow redemption that had been granted in the kingdom of England to the aforesaid earl by the apostolic see – we reckoned that you, our son and dean, together with the minister of the Order of the Holy Trinity and of Captives5 in the said kingdom and the archdeacon of Berkshire,6 should be enjoined by our letter to take care to proceed in this matter according to the terms of previous letters, since after some time that archdeacon is engaged outside the kingdom and is excusing himself entirely from this kind of commission, and that minister is entrusting his duties in this matter completely to you, our son Berard, we issue again the command that you proceed without delay in the same matter with respect to the content of previous letters.7

5 This ‘minister’ cannot be securely identified but may be Robert of the Trinitarian house of Moatenden, Kent. See D.M. Smith and V.C.M. London, eds., The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, II: 1216–1377 (Cambridge, U.K., 2001), 533. 6 Giles of Bridport was archdeacon of Berkshire in the diocese of Salisbury from ca. 1237 to 1255. For details of his career, see Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae (n. 1, above), vol. 4: Salisbury, compiled by D.E. Greenway, 30. 7 The chronology of the documents has been clarified by Lunt (Financial Relations, 432–7). In 1238 Richard had obtained from Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) a licence to put to his own use all sums bequeathed to the Holy Land and all fines paid by those who had failed to fulfil their crusading vows. Upon receipt, after his return from the Holy Land in January 1242, of only part of these payments, Richard requested and received the renewal of this lucrative privilege. On 3 June 1244 Innocent IV (1243–54) ordered the prelates of England to transfer to Richard any money already deposited and to pursue the collection and delivery of the rest. On 13 March 1246 the pope assigned three commissioners – the provincial minister in England of the Order of the Holy Trinity and of Captives, John Saracenus (dean of Wells), and Giles of Bridport (archdeacon of Berkshire) – to complete the lagging collection (see Matthew Paris, Liber additamentorum, 117–18, no. 63). As the present document indicates, on 13 October 1246 Innocent replaced both the provincial minister and the archdeacon with the papal scriptor Berard of Nimpha, and on 4 June 1247 John Saracenus and Berard sent instructions to Grosseteste concerning the execution of the papal commission they had received. In Letter 132, dated 1 August 1247, Grosseteste passes on these instructions, which specifically concerned the payment of money from vow redemptions

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Letter 132 Given at Lyons on October 13, in the fourth year of our pontificate.8

Since, then, if we wish to be found to be sons of obedience, as we should, the obligation to obey is incumbent upon us and effrontery must be shown to be deserving of opposition, especially as, in addition to the fact that we are bound to observe a special obedience to the aforesaid see, both a royal command and the persistent requests of the aforesaid lord earl are compelling us to bring the aforesaid matter speedily to a conclusion – noting further that concerning the premises there may be more deliberate and salutary progress, without causing scandal or turmoil, and with the desired speed, by means of local ordinaries, we, on the advice of prudent men and in accordance with that same earl’s desire, have taken steps to call upon these ordinaries to share this burden and concern, so that through the effort and additional counsel of more people, what must be done regarding the premises may, at God’s instance, progress properly and prudently so that we suffer no harm from disobedience as far as concerns the supreme pontiff and are not charged with neglect as far as concerns the aforesaid lord earl – we therefore enjoin your discretion and your reverence by virtue of the obedience by which we are enjoined, and strictly order you under penalty of the interdict by whose authority we are discharging our duties in this case, to cite peremptorily all the archdeacons and their officials of the city and diocese of Lincoln, and also the archdeacons of exempt and non-exempt monasteries of the same city and diocese, to appear in person before us in the Church of St Martin le Grand in London on the Monday immediately following the forthcoming feast of the Assumption of the blessed Mary,9 prepared to do with respect to the execution of the premises what has been ordained and arranged by the prelates of the realm; knowing for certain that, however much we would wish to defer to you and yours, we shall nevertheless proceed against those who rebel and resist as much as is permitted by law and we have the power so to do. Furthermore, you are to take care to make use of the bearer of this letter to apprise us by your letters patent concerning both the citation you have issued and the names of those you have cited, and

collected for Richard of Cornwall’s crusade (1240–41), while also issuing directions for collecting vow redemptions for a crusade. According to Lunt (Financial Relations, 437), this letter of Grosseteste provides ‘more information ... concerning the collection and administration of funds for the crusade to the Holy Land than has been discovered concerning those aspects of any previous crusade ... [Grosseteste’s instructions] bring out the thoroughness of the administrative organization which extended to every parish.’ 8 1246. 9 19 August 1247.

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you will ensure that the one to whom this command is first delivered carries it out without waiting for the other and without any delay. Given in the year of grace 1247 on June 4th.

I, therefore, firmly imposing upon you what has been imposed, command each and every one of you, together with your officials, by virtue of your obedience and under the aforesaid penalty, to appear in accordance with the aforesaid mandate on the said day and in the said place, prepared to do what the law prescribes, as you will wish to avoid the aforesaid penalty. Furthermore, you are to make known to me by your letters patent on what day and in what place you receive this letter. Likewise, some trustworthy crusaders together with the priest are to be assigned by you in each one of the parishes in your archdeaneries to note down the names of crusaders who are dying, who have already died, or who will die, how much they promised or bequeathed in support of the Holy Land, and who were their testamentary executors. These executors are to be directed to have this money ready for collection when demanded. The lists compiled in the individual parishes are to be brought, along with the attestation of some or any one of the crusaders, by the rectors or priests to the chapters of the rural deans. With the attestation of some of those who are to be assigned to this task, each dean is to reduce all these lists to a single one [for his deanery], to affix his seal along with the seals of his fellow deans, and to deliver the said list to the house of the friars preachers or friars minor who preached the crusade in that deanery. And immediately thereafter this particular money is to be collected under the supervision of the friar who preached the cross or of someone whom that preacher himself shall have the power to call upon for this task in individual places. The money is to be deposited in a sacred building under the seals of the one who preached the crusade and of those who collected the money, which is to be surrendered to me and the lord bishop of Worcester or to those we have assigned whenever we decide to demand payment. Moreover, with regard to the portion that concerns them of the property of crusaders who die intestate, the friends of the dead and the friars appointed there to preach the crusade are to fix as large an amount as possible, without causing scandal, as a subsidy for the Holy Land, so that those crusaders may obtain a plenary indulgence. Likewise, all those who fall mortally ill are to be admonished by their chaplains and others who are present when their wills are drawn up to take the cross if they have not yet done so; and both they and those who did previously take up the cross are to specify how much they would

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like to give as a subsidy for the Holy Land. And they are to be told specifically that if they give to the full extent of their resources, they will obtain a plenary indulgence; if less, they will receive only a partial one according, that is, to the amount of their subsidy and the strength of their devotion. No one, however, is to be compelled to do more than he wishes. And all these instructions are to be written down and reported as stipulated above. Furthermore, by apostolic authority the lord bishop of Worcester and I impose these duties upon the priests who will by virtue of obedience be present at the making of the wills, that they may be both for them and for others a means to the remission of sins. Now, you are by your letters patent to inform us, before the feast of the Assumption of the blessed Mary,10 as to what you have done regarding these matters. Given at Heddington in the diocese of Salisbury on August 1st, in the twelfth year of my pontificate.11

10 August 15. 11 1247.

Appendix: Summaries of Letters, by Correspondent

Recipients of the correspondence of Robert Grosseteste are listed in alphabetical order by their first names (e.g., ‘Adam Marsh’ and ‘Agnellus of Pisa’ under ‘Adam’ and ‘Agnellus’ respectively) or, in the case of multiple addressees of a single piece of correspondence, by location (e.g., ‘Archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln’ under ‘Lincoln, archdeacons of the diocese of’). Entries also include the numbers (in sequence within entries) of the letters (or of the other texts that circulated as part of Grosseteste’s letter collection). Each description is preceded by the number (in bold and within square brackets) of the letter or text and followed by the page numbers of this translation. Letters 130 and 131 are excluded as probably spurious items in Henry Luard’s edition of the collection. Abbreviations G. = Grosseteste OFM (Ordo Fratrum Minorum) = Friar Minor, Franciscan OP (Ordo Praedicatorum) = Friar Preacher, Dominican

Adam of Lathbury, abbot of St Mary’s Abbey at Reading [Letter 4]. See Reading, abbot (Adam of Lathbury) and monks of St Mary’s Abbey at Adam Marsh, OFM, Grosseteste’s friend and collaborator [Letters 9, 20] [9] G. thanks Adam for his letter of comfort, congratulations, and encouragement after G.’s resignation of his preferments, when he had to endure the rebukes and even the contempt of other close friends for acting, in their view, like a fool. He is, however, after much anxiety, now

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happy to accept their criticism as just punishment for an action that may have been either bad or simultaneously good and bad. He is familiar with the perils of high office and answers the accusation that his resignation lacked sufficient forethought by saying that it was prompted by his inability to perform satisfactorily his duties, which he had taken on irresponsibly, and by an obligation to comply with the canonical requirement not to hold simultaneously two benefices with cures of souls. Both of these are among the reasons why one may give up a pastoral charge, although he does not wish to try to justify his own action. He begs Adam to pray that God will have mercy on him if his resignation was wrong, and, if good, will remove any blemishes caused by circumstances. (77–80) [20] G. thanks Adam for his friendship, prayers, and letters, and requests his presence at Liddington and his assistance in reviewing petitions bound for the curia and in addressing other urgent matters. He also asks Adam to arrange for other Franciscan friars to attend him. Now that Brother Garinus has been recalled, he has no friars of either order with him, and he has not yet received a response to his request (Letter 15) for Dominican assistants. (100–2) Adam Rufus, OFM, a former student of Grosseteste [Letter 1] [1] G. responds to Adam’s request to discuss two theological questions, ‘Is God the first form and the form of all things?’ and ‘Are intelligences (angels) in distinct places or in any one place at the same time?’ (35–49) Agnellus of Pisa, Franciscan provincial minister, and the Franciscans at Oxford [Letter 2] [2] G. advises the community on the true meaning of physical separation and offers consolation on the imminent departure of Adam Rufus to undertake missionary work among the Saracens. He is well suited to this important task and became a Franciscan expressly to carry it out. (49–53) Alan of Cestreham, abbot of the Augustinian canons of Leicester [Letter 55] [55] G. advises Alan that, despite his urging, he is not disposed to permit H., canon of Dorchester, an ill and old penitent who now lives among the canons of Leicester but wishes to die among his former brethren, to return to Dorchester. He will, however, come in person to examine this case. G. answers the abbot’s accusation that he is hard-hearted by distinguishing between two kinds of hardness and expressing the hope that God may protect him from the hardness that is cruelty and obstinate

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malice, and that Christ may grant a modest share of the hardness possessed by the prophet Ezekiel, the kind that will enable him to resist flattery and stand up to wickedness. (196–7) Alard, Dominican provincial prior [Letter 14], and definitors [Letter 15] [14–15] G. requests the assistance for at least a year of friars John of St Giles, Geoffrey of Clive, and a third friar competent in civil and canon law. (91–2, 92–3) Alexander of Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield [Letter 34] [34] G. reproaches him for opposing the settlement of Franciscans in Chester, as the simultaneous presence and friendly rivalry of both orders of friars in that city make their work and example even more fruitful, and both groups also compensate for the personal deficiencies of prelates. (147–50) Anonymous master of theology at Oxford [Letter 10]. See Oxford, anonymous master of theology at Arnulf, OFM, papal penitentiary [Letters 38, 42, 69] [38] G. is grateful for his kindness, as reported in writing to G. by Adam Rufus, and requests his oversight and assistance concerning the bishop’s affairs at the curia. (156–7) [42] G. thanks him for befriending Simon of Arden, his proctor at the papal curia. (162) [69] G. asks for his continued affection. (223–4) Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect [Letters 86, 87, 88] and archbishop [Letters 89, 126] of Canterbury [86] G. congratulates Boniface on his election as archbishop, exhorts him to support papal judgments and protect the Church’s liberties against royal interference, especially in the case of the episcopal election at Winchester, and advises him to ask his niece, Queen Eleanor, to intercede with the king and thus possibly ensure that Boniface’s arrival in England will not be disturbed by the kind of discord associated with the election to that see. (290–2) [87] G. invites Boniface to evaluate the suitability of a presentee to the Church of Castor, as an appointment to a cure of souls demands the greatest care and forethought, and G. is unwilling to admit anyone whose suitability for a pastoral charge is unknown to him. (292–4) [88] G. urges Boniface to help him deal with the many superfluous complaints against him from offenders he has punished and with the

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expenses involved in responding to these, as in each such case he is obliged to send his proctors and clerks to Canterbury. He also reminds Boniface to be steadfastly on guard against those who would try to deceive him and subvert his accomplishments as archbishop. (294–5) [89] G. asks Boniface’s indulgence for declining to support a subsidy granted the archbishop by the pope and to send his own letter to urge other bishops to support it. He is concerned that any premature support he might express in writing could alienate the clergy of the province of Canterbury and cause their denunciation of him for concurring in the imposition of an intolerable burden upon them at a time when both pope and king were demanding large subventions. (295–7) [126] G. reminds him of his archiepiscopal responsibilities and describes the actions of his official in the case of Robert Passelewe, a forest judge, who complained about G.’s decision not to admit him to the Church of St Peter, Northampton, because of his current official activities and involvement in secular affairs, which render him ineligible for appointment to a pastoral charge. G. calls upon Boniface to restrain his official in this case, as he has accused G. of negligence, ordered him to proceed with Robert’s institution, and threatened to install him himself should G. fail to do so within eight days of the receipt of his order. G. reports that he has written to this official – and he quotes his letter – to express his strong opposition to an order that requires him to perform an illicit act. He has asked the official not to persist but is unaware of what has happened, expecting that, without Boniface’s intervention, he will proceed as planned with the institution. He implores the archbishop to reject Robert’s institution and to protect his suffragans against the arrogance and interference of his official, who has also ill-treated G. on other occasions. (371–4) Bury St Edmunds, abbot (Henry) and monks of [Letter 57] [57] G. presents to the abbot and monks his Latin version of a Greek treatise on the monastic life that he happened upon one day while taking a rest from the turmoil of his everyday activities. (200–4) Cîteaux, abbot and monks of [Letter 109] [109] In response to a papal command requiring the demolition of the Franciscan house in Scarborough if what is stated about those friars in that document proves to be correct, G. has summoned the friars to appear before his official and himself. He reviews the legal arguments presented in their defence, and reports that on the third day of their suit the Franciscans decided to abandon it and to give up their house in

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Scarborough so as not to offend the Cistercian monks in any way. As G. believes that the departure of the friars will only damage the monks’ reputation, he states that he has upheld the Franciscans’ claim to remain in Scarborough until the monks advise him in writing as to whether they wish these friars to stay or to leave. (338–40) Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury [Letters 12, 26, 27, 28, 72*, 83] [12] G. requests, for the sake of peace, consecration at Canterbury, as demanded by the monks of Canterbury, and disputes the charge that, during his visit there, one of his companions had spoken harshly to the monks and threatened that G. would be consecrated elsewhere in spite of the monks’ objections. (86–8) [26] G. discusses what he considers to be the deception of the abbot and community of Osney Abbey with respect to their indebtedness to Boezio, for which they have blamed G.’s sequestration of the Church of Iver. He also seeks to justify his rejection of Hugh of Ravel for the Church of Woodford because of his youth, and discusses a suit regarding the Church of Eddlesborough and the repudiation of the bishop’s authority because of his friendship with one of the litigants, his need for relief from the distractions from his pastoral duties caused by frivolous complaints against him, and the summons he has received to appear before the king’s court to explain his failure to state in writing his opinion as to whether, in the case of an objection of illegitimacy in that court against anyone from Lincoln diocese because of his pre-nuptial birth, that person was born before or after his parents had contracted marriage. He requests Edmund’s advice as to how he should respond to this summons, which has placed him in a situation where he must choose to offend man rather than God. (128–32) [27] G. begs Edmund to intervene with the king concerning his appointment, which is contrary to divine and canon law and the monastic profession, of the abbot of Ramsey as an itinerant justice, to persuade the king to revoke his mandate, here cited in full, and to order G. to take a stand, with full archiepiscopal support, against the appointment despite possible consequences. (132–5) [28] G. mentions again the urgency of the matter discussed in Letter 27 and raises additional concerns about the king’s attempts to compel clerics to submit to secular judgment in personal actions. He has himself been threatened by the king for his opposition to these practices. He calls upon the archbishop for guidance and leadership in addressing

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what are gravely sinful acts on the part not only of those who act as judges despite their monastic vows or submit to secular courts in personal actions, but also of the bishops who permit or compel such activities. (135–40) [72*] Addressing again the conflicts that have arisen between the royal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, G. provides Edmund with a long draft manifesto or pamphlet describing six distinct forms of lay infringement of the Church’s rights and liberties: royal appointment of abbots and other ecclesiastical persons as itinerant justices, coerced submission of regular or secular clergy to lay courts, determinations by lay judges about whether a case belongs to a lay or ecclesiastical court, decisions by secular judges of purely ecclesiastical cases, royal prohibitions of ecclesiastical judgments in ecclesiastical cases, and royal and lay coercion of bishops to explain their reasons for refusing to institute certain persons presented to benefices. G. also mentions the excommunication by the Council of Oxford of those who maliciously deprive churches of their rights or infringe their liberties, and Archbishop Edmund’s recent absolution of the king and barons from the excommunication that they feared they had incurred when Archbishop Stephen Langton excommunicated violators of the freedom granted to the Church in Magna Carta. The manifesto begins with the words of the king’s mandate to the abbot of Ramsey cited in Letter 27 and concludes with a summary of the whole in six propositions followed by the texts of eight more of the king’s mandates whose form and substance illustrate the enumerated grievances. (230–57) [83] G. exhorts Edmund to protect the integrity of impending episcopal elections, including that in the see of Hereford, against the possibility of bribery and intimidation, to urge the chapter of Hereford to elect a suitable bishop, to send representatives to explain the penalties for encroaching upon the liberties granted by Magna Carta to the Church, and to scrutinize carefully before his confirmation the election and the qualities of the bishop-elect. (283–5) Eleanor, queen of England [Letter 103] [103] As the clergy and people of England have been suffering in ways that will be fully explained by the bearer of the letter, G. calls upon the queen to persuade the king to confront and eliminate in the kingdom ‘the new causes of disturbance,’ and thus help, after the example of Queen Esther, to free the English people and priesthood from unprecedented dangers and difficulties. (327–8)

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Elias of Cortona, Franciscan minister general [Letters 31, 41] [31] G. is grateful for friars permitted by Elias to remain in his service, and he requests the assistance of two more, Arnulf and Ralph of Rochester, in promoting his affairs at the curia. (144–5) [41] Mindful of the affection the Franciscans in England have for him, and he for them and for Elias, G. asks that friars be instructed to promote his affairs at the curia, and that two or four be always available to help him perform his pastoral duties in his vast and populous diocese. (160–2) Fleury, abbot (Jean) and monks of [Letters 53, 54, 108] [53] G. requests that only monks of good character be assigned to that abbey’s cells and possessions, and sends back from Minting to Fleury the unworthy Philip and Theobald, who have been respectively found guilty of adultery and fornication and, like laymen, have taken up hunting and archery. (193–5) [54] G. asks the abbot to present a suitable candidate for appointment as prior of Minting. (195–6) [108] G. scolds them for sending immoral monks to Minting, four of whom – Philip, Theobald, Walrand, and Gerard – he has expelled. He reminds them of his earlier rebuke (Letter 53), but is now writing again in an attempt to restore to sound health those whose faults have made them ill. (336–8) Giles, cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian [Letters 36, 45, 46, 67] [36] G. expresses his reverence for the pope and the cardinals, who assist the pope and upon whom the universal church rests. To both he has, as a bishop, a special obligation of submission and obedience. He has written to Giles rather than other cardinals because of his reputation for virtue, and because, when G. was archdeacon of Leicester, they had exchanged letters concerning Giles’s nephew, who has a benefice in that archdeaconry and is the bishop’s friend. G. asks for the cardinal’s favour and special affection. (152–5) [45] G. thanks him for his eloquent letter, which extravagantly praised the bishop and conveyed the precious gift of Giles’s love. (165–6) [46] G. informs Giles that he has acceded to his request to grant a prebend at Lincoln to Richard of Cornwall, who is now in Rome. He hopes that Richard will be a dedicated pastor and he invites him, because he will receive none of the fruits of this prebend until the next feast of St Martin (11 November), to join G.’s household until then. (166–8)

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[67] G. thanks the cardinal for his special friendship and hopes that his affection will always increase. (222) Gregory IX, pope [Letters 35, 58, 64, 77, 81] [35] G. conveys the assurance of his profound devotion, asks to have some task imposed upon him to demonstrate the certainty of his obedience, and offers the pope a modest gift. (150–2) [58] G. praises the excellent work and example of the English Franciscans and calls upon Gregory’s intervention at a time of crisis in that order. (204–6) [64] G. implores the pope to be favourable to any proper petitions that his proctor Simon will present. (218) [77] G. requests Gregory’s opposition to the efforts of the dean and chapter of Lincoln to thwart episcopal visitation and correction, and begs the pope’s refusal to grant them any letters against their bishop until his special messenger has arrived at the curia and explained his position. (268–70) [81] G. mentions his earlier account (Letter 77) of the chapter’s resistance to his authority, and now begs the pope to support a proposal, mutually agreed to by the bishop and his chapter, that he hopes will conclude their dispute and restore peace. (280–1) Henry, abbot of Bury St Edmunds [Letter 57]. See Bury St Edmunds, abbot (Henry) and monks of Henry III, king of England [Letters 29, 101, 102, 119, 124, 125] [29] As crusaders enjoy the personal protection of the pope, who has also ordered their defence and just treatment by the prelates of the Church, G. requests that the crusader Richard Siward be released from prison, unless he has at some point demonstrated his unworthiness to serve as a minister of God. (140–2) [101] G. thanks the king for his news and inquiry about the writer’s health, and points to the meaning of true friendship and to his own weak health and preoccupation with urgent episcopal duties to excuse his apparent neglect of the king. (324–5) [102] G. asks the king to revoke any letter he may have sent, as constituting an encroachment upon ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that ordered William of Compton, keeper of the temporalities of Bardney Abbey, to favour the deposed abbot (Walter) and his party over their opponents. (326–7) [119] G. responds to the king’s astonishment that he will personally assess and collect from the clergy the tallage in aid of the pope by

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reminding Henry of the bishops’ strict obligation to do so, out of obedience to the pope and the Church, their spiritual parents, who are suffering during a time of great crisis. He urges Henry to commend and not oppose their efforts as dutiful sons and to ignore any advice to the contrary. (358–9) [124] G. answers the king’s request for a description of the relationship – one of mutual assistance – between the sacerdotal and royal powers and of the differences between anointed kings, upon whom the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit confer special power and authority, and unanointed ones. G. also justifies his refusal to admit Robert Passelewe, a forest judge, to a cure of souls at St Peter’s Church, Northampton. (366–9) [125] G. appeals to the king’s clemency and requests his pardon if, as he has heard, the king is angry with him for writing in opposition to his mandates, although he cannot imagine that he would ever seek to offend him, and cannot find anything false or improper in what he has written in response to the king’s commands, although he acknowledges his lack of skill as a writer. He offers to correct any perceived wrongs during their next conversation and to resolve then any differences between them. (370–1) Henry of Lexington, dean of Lincoln Cathedral [Letters 121, 122]. See Lincoln Cathedral, dean … and chapter of Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely [Letter 96] [96] G. begs Hugh to ensure, out of friendship, that Richard of Kirkham, who was then in Hugh’s service, will be present when required to serve with Hugh as a judge in G.’s dispute with his chapter. He assures Hugh that he will protect both him and Richard against any loss, and, as he has every intention of proceeding with his suit, he hopes that Hugh will not invalidate his suit by denying his request. (315–17) Hugh of Pattishall, royal clerk and treasurer of the Exchequer [Letter 25] [25] G. urges him not to take on further pastoral duties, but to give exclusive and more diligent attention to those he has already assumed and neglected because of his secular preoccupations. He should pursue either a secular career or service as a pastor and carefully consider his motivation in seeking more benefices, an action dangerous both to himself and to his charges. (125–8) Hugh of St Cher, OP, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina [Letter 115] [115] G. thanks Hugh for his affection and asks that he remind the pope of G.’s earlier request to send Dominican and Franciscan friars to

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assist Archbishop Boniface, upon whom the kingdom and Church depend, and who requires the support of wise and competent associates well versed in Scripture, the laws of England, and canon and civil law. (353–4) Innocent IV, pope [Letters 111, 117] [111] G. expresses his joy and gratitude at the election of Innocent, under whose guidance and protection the Church may at long last enjoy peace and security, and he requests the favour of papal attention to his affairs and to the agents who will present them. (345–6) [117] G. reports a private conversation with King Henry III, during which he reminded the king of his obligations of obedience, loyalty, and devotion to pope and Church and received back an assurance of the same from the king, as well as notice of his intention to preserve unimpaired the rights of the crown. Henry also gratefully acknowledged the efforts of the papal legate Guala to recover the kingdom’s allegiance during his youth. (355–7) Innocenzo, papal scriptor [Letter 128]. See Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Innocenzo, papal scriptor Ivette (Juetta), Grosseteste’s sister [Letter 8] [8] G. reports his recovery from fever and announces that, in obedience to the scriptural command, he has resigned all his sources of income except his Lincoln canonry and prebend of Leicester St Margaret. He hopes that, as she is a nun who has herself renounced the goods of this world, she will not be disturbed or saddened by his decision, but will instead rejoice at his effort to embrace the values of a true religious life. (75–7) Jean, abbot of Fleury [Letters 53, 54, 108]. See Fleury, abbot (Jean) and monks of John Blund, chancellor of York Cathedral [Letter 19] [19] G. seeks to justify, despite the claims of friendship, his obligation to reject one of John’s clerical relatives for appointment to a parochial benefice because of his ignorance. The answers he gave at his examination, which G. sends along with his letter, demonstrate this ignorance, and canonical regulations will not permit such an appointment. (99–100) John of Ferentino, papal chamberlain [Letters 43, 66] [43] G. requests that John provide Simon of Arden, his proctor at the papal curia, with any necessary advice and assistance. (163)

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[66] G. thanks John for his advice and support in promoting his affairs and for securing the goodwill of the pope and cardinals despite the efforts of unidentified detractors. (221) John of Foxton [Letter 33] [33] G. thanks God that John is bearing well his illness and adversity, thanks John for his affection and wisdom, and offers to purchase from him some copies of the Scriptures that G. has been told are to be sold to raise money for pious purposes. (146–7) John le Romeyn, subdean of York Cathedral [Letters 18, 72] [18] In response to a letter from Boezio, papal nuncio, requesting that he give John, the incumbent of the benefice of Chalgrave, free disposition of that church, G. explains to John the conditions under which churches may be farmed and his opposition to the farming of churches to monasteries. This practice was, by G.’s interpretation of the decree, forbidden by the Council of Oxford and is personally repugnant to him as a betrayal of the souls he and John are obliged to save. G. implores John never to consent to it, adding that Boezio had told him of the surprise of many at his revoking the farming of that church and had even resorted to subtle threats, but G. does not fear the threats of man. (97–9) [72] G. is grateful for past favours but cannot accede to John’s request to institute his illiterate nephew to the Church of Stamford-on-Avon. (229–30) John of Offington, papal chaplain [Letter 120] [120] G. conveys to John his own special affection and that of Adam Marsh and their strong desire that he return to England to take up a pastoral charge. (360–1) John of St Giles, OP [Letter 16] [16] G. exhorts him to return as soon as possible to preach among his own people in England, where his presence is very much desired, and to stay with G. as his assistant. (93–4) Jordan of Saxony, Dominican master general [Letter 40] [40] G. reminds him of their friendly conversations at Oxford during Jordan’s visit, and asks him to instruct certain friars at the curia to provide assistance in promoting his affairs. He also begs Jordan to permit John of St Giles to join his household and help him in his pastoral duties, as the task of administering so vast and populous a diocese as Lincoln requires many competent assistants and John is the best possible choice. (159–60)

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Lincoln, archdeacons of the diocese of [Letters 21, 22, 107, 112, 132] [21] G. directs that, just as the king has consented to sanction regulations forbidding merchants to buy or sell any goods, during the fair at Northampton, in the Church or cemetery of All Saints there, his archdeacons are likewise to forbid the buying or selling of goods within all sacred precincts. (103–4) [22] G. enjoins them to confront various abuses in the diocese, specifically drinking parties (‘scot-ales’), the playing of various games (including those that involve the use of quintains), the scurrilous behavior of those assembling for evening vigils and funerals, the dangers of overlaying and suffocating infants, clandestine marriages, annual parish processions to the mother church that typically lead to quarrels over precedence and to bloody fights, and the corrupt and scandalous practices of accepting Easter offerings from parishioners only when they come to receive communion after Mass, and of refusing the sacraments to those who do not pay a fee. (104–7) [107] G. reports various abuses in the diocese that require correction, specifically the improper and capricious recitation by priests of the canonical hours, the cohabitation of priests and their concubines and of Christians with Jews, clerical performance of miracle plays and others called ‘May Day’ or ‘Harvest Day,’ and lay participation in drinking parties (‘scot-ales’). There are also some rectors, vicars, and priests who are intolerant of friars and prevent the people from hearing them preach or confessing to them, though they permit the preaching of alms collectors whose only concern is to extract money. (334–6) [112] G. reminds them of their duty to increase, like the servants in the parable, the possessions they have received from their departing master, and urges upon them a great increase of pastoral zeal during his visit to the papal curia. (346–9) [132] In response to instructions from Pope Innocent IV and the papal collectors John Saracenus and Berard of Nimpha, G. orders his archdeacons and their officials to preside over the redemption of vows made by those who had promised, but failed, to go on crusade. (454–8) Lincoln, clergy of the diocese of [Letter 52*] [52*] G. presents his diocesan constitutions or statutes for the administration of his diocese, divided into the 45 articles listed in the table of contents (pp. 191–3) and in the General Index (under ‘Lincoln, constitutions of G. for diocese of’), and concluding with the injunction (no. 46) that the excommunications pronounced by

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the Council of Oxford should be read aloud once a year in every church, ‘to fill evildoers with terror and to put a stop to their wickedness.’ (182–93) Lincoln Cathedral, dean (William of Thorney [Letters 3, 32, 71, 73], Roger of Weseham [Letters 90, 91, 92, 94, 95], or Henry of Lexington [Letters 121, 122]) and chapter of [3] G. describes the circumstances surrounding his postponement of his pilgrimage to Rome and defends himself against charges of fickleness and want of constancy. (53–8) [32] G. enjoins the dean and chapter to forbid henceforth in Lincoln Cathedral the celebration of the irreverent and licentious Feast of Fools, which takes place on the same day as the feast of the Lord’s Circumcision. (145–6) [71] G. mentions his poor health, his paternal affection for them, and his belief that this love is returned, and asks that they provide a full and clear account of their grievances against him instead of appealing to the pope and denouncing him in vague terms, as he is eager to correct any wrongs he may have committed against them. He begs them to renounce everything that is precious to them and to deny themselves, to help him faithfully in his ministry, and to place no obstacles in the way of the work of saving souls. [225–8] [73] G. disputes the chapter’s claim – and points out its absurd consequences should it prevail – that he has no power to decide the cases, or punish or correct the transgressions of, the canons or anyone else connected with the cathedral, except on appeal or because of negligence by the dean. If, however, they wish to persist in their attempt to restrict his jurisdiction, he asks to be told of the legal basis for their claim so that he may prepare a response. (257–62) [90] G. emphasizes their special relationship with him as their spiritual father and his obligation to seek, by teaching and rebuking, what is truly good for them as his spiritual offspring. Thus, he chastises them for their shameful deception in denying Richard of Kirkham’s jurisdiction over them and decries their vindictive and wily persecution of this judge, whom they had requested, for suspending or excommunicating some of them. He urges upon them an appropriate filial submissiveness to his paternal rebukes, which reflect his great affection for them. (297–303) [91] G. expresses grave concerns about their visits to the king’s court and their conduct in craftily obtaining a royal prohibition intended to restrict ecclesiastical judges from settling any dispute with their bishop,

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and in resisting his efforts to have the prohibition recalled. Despite their claims to the contrary, all their actions reveal their true desire to frustrate any attempts at reconciliation. (303–6) [92] G. reminds them that any attempt to have the case transferred to a secular court, and thus infringe the Church’s liberty, will violate the oath they solemnly swore at Thame to observe a specific procedure in resolving the dispute, and will lead to their excommunication, as required by the Council of Oxford. (306–8) [94] G. disputes their claim that they truly desire peace and that his actions have compelled them to displease and offend him. He complains that they have pursued their suit in the king’s court through their agent, Odo of Kilkenny, and that they have shamefully and unjustly excommunicated his choice for dean, Roger de Weseham. He also justifies his excommunication of their proctor Nicholas and threatens them with the same penalty if they dare to appeal to the monks of Canterbury. (310–13) [95] G. requests their advice and cooperation in resisting a ‘sudden and unexpected enemy attack’ on the Church of Lincoln. (314–15) [121] G. addresses an accusation of inconsistency by explaining his reasons for reversing the order of his proposed visitation of the chapter and the prebends in the archdeaconry of Stow. (361–3) [122] G. reports that he has observed, in their words and looks, their annoyance at his altering the order of his visitation, and he urges them, as just men, to behave reasonably and calmly, to pursue God’s truth, and to seek to make God’s will their own. (363–4) Lyons, Council of [Letter 127] [127] G. records at great length, and with an abundance of scriptural quotations and analogies, his arguments, probably for presentation at the Council of Lyons, in defence of a bishop’s right to visit and correct the chapter of his cathedral and associated prebends or churches. He simultaneously presents his views on the nature of the episcopal office and duties and the administrative structure of the Church as a whole. He begins with Moses, the type of Christian prelates, who, when appointing assistants to help him perform his administrative duties, delegated his power to them without surrendering or diminishing it, and reserved for himself decisions in the most important cases. Prelates likewise have powers of judgment and correction in all cases, universal and individual, though they may delegate a portion of their power to coadjutors to deal with individual cases without thereby impairing that power or parting

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with it. The power of the pope (Christ’s vicar on earth) and the bishops corresponds to that possessed by Moses and his assistant judges, and as the pope is to the whole Church, so is each bishop to his diocese. Thus, helpers at every level, from top to bottom, possess only a delegated authority to perform delegated tasks, and superior powers can perform whatever has been assigned to inferior ones, but not the contrary. Only the pope’s special dispensation can provide an exemption from episcopal visitation. Drawing upon a wide variety of illustrations subtly elaborated to anticipate objections, G. compares his role within his own diocese to the relationship between parent and child, a shepherd and his flock, David and his father’s sheep, the sun and the other celestial bodies, Adam and Eve, a husband and his wife, a craftsman and the material with which he must work, a head watchman and his subordinates, a physician and his assistants, etc. He distinguishes between the dean’s role as visor and the bishop’s as visitator, and insists upon the value of supplementary visitations and the paramount importance of the care of souls (the ‘art of arts’) and of a bishop’s pastoral obligations, which must prevail over civil law and local custom and the claim that the members of the chapter are too great to require visitation. True freedom consists in submission to the superior authorities ordained by God, and to refuse to obey them is to yield to pride. (374–431) Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester [Letter 5] [5] G. provides for Margaret, whose plan is to shelter on her property the community of Jews expelled from the city of Leicester by Simon de Montfort, a brief review of their biblical history, and addresses the question of their proper treatment in view of their role as unconscious witnesses to the truth of Christianity and their ultimate conversion. He also complains about, and orders her harsh punishment of, the arrogant and oppressive behaviour of one of Margaret’s bailiffs, who has apparently infringed upon the right enjoyed by all to buy and sell at will by forbidding, under severe penalty, anyone living in G.’s parish (including G. himself) to purchase any of the goods paid in tithes to his parish church. (65–70) Martin, papal chamberlain, nuncio, and collector of revenues [Letter 106] [106] G. advises Martin to excommunicate those who assaulted his agents in the cemetery at Pinchbeck, after considering what the prior of Spalding and Master Bernard have to say in their own defence, to permit the prior’s nomination of a fit person for the vicarage and to reserve for the pope’s collation another church in the prior’s patronage, and to

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excuse G. from summoning the prior and Bernard. He also urges Martin always to behave with tact and restraint, to give his authority for his actions, and to attempt to persuade his opponents to comply before proceeding to extreme measures. (332–4) Matthew, Dominican provincial prior, and definitors [Letter 100] [100] G. requests that they not delay in sending him two friars to assist him in his ministry, as granted by a papal privilege and concession, and hopes that these friars may be changed less frequently. (323–4) Michael Belet, administrator and judge [Letter 11] [11] G. seeks to justify the immoderate language he used when refusing to accept an unsuitable candidate, an untonsured deacon dressed inappropriately like a layman or a knight, who had been presented by a monk for institution to a cure of souls. He defends himself against Michael’s rebuke that he had spoken too harshly and urges him and others who have criticized him to consider whether his strong censure deserves condemnation when the loss of so many souls is at stake. (82–6) Missenden, Augustinian canons of [Letter 85] [85] G. exhorts them to exercise special care in electing a suitable abbot. (287–9) Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano and papal legate in England [Letters 49, 52, 60, 61, 74, 76, 79, 82, 104, 105, 110] [49] G. asks him to revoke his conferral of a Lincoln prebend on his clerk Azzo, as Otto’s peremptory collation has embarrassed G., who had already made an appointment to that prebend and whose reverence for the Church is so great that, despite personal weakness and infirmity, he is prepared to give up his life while undertaking missionary work among the Saracens. He acknowledges the authority of the pope and the Roman Church to dispose freely of all ecclesiastical benefices, but argues that this power must not be abused and that neglecting to consult patrons can only cause scandal. He is ready to provide generously for Otto’s people, but wishes to do so of his own free will and only to promote charity. A nephew of the pope, he notes, has already received one of the best Lincoln prebends. (172–4) [52] Although assured by Otto that Thomas, son of Earl Ferrers, is a good student with great potential as a pastor, G. informs the legate that he cannot accede to his request to appoint him to the Church of Rand. Thomas is too young and not yet ordained, and G.’s conscience, the

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authority of Scripture, the sanctions of canon law, and the perils of entrusting difficult tasks to the inexperienced and untrained, even when there is an expectation of future competence and success, have persuaded him to beg Otto to take responsibility for admitting Thomas to that church if he cannot persuade the earl to present a more suitable candidate, and for appointing a resident vicar or, as is preferable, a proper pastor. Thomas may then reside there without the cure of souls and receive an annual payment out of the benefice. (179–82) [60] G. begs him to persuade the Winchester community and the king, who has sought by promises and threats to impose his own nominee, to choose the best possible bishop for that see. (208–11) [61] G. seeks to answer Otto’s complaints about the obscurity and harshness of his previous letter (60) and to rouse the cardinal to zealous concern for an appropriate appointment at Winchester. (211–13) [74] G. is troubled by Otto’s request to confer a prebend upon the cardinal’s clerk, Azzo, and, after careful consideration, has decided that he must defer to Otto’s judgment in this case, as Azzo had at one time mentioned that he did not have a dispensation to hold more than one benefice with cure of souls, and G. himself, after consulting the pope, had been told that he could not hold such a prebend and a parish church simultaneously. G. is also concerned that Azzo, who has many excellent qualities, may not thrive in a place like Lincoln, and that his appointment could well reflect the improper mingling of favouritism or fear with the motive of charity. (262–4) [76] G. thanks Otto for his generous praise, communicated to him by Roger of Raveningham and John of Crakehall, and responds to the cardinal’s angry reaction to his authorization to absolve the clerk Sibry, whom Otto had excommunicated. G. had been carrying out a directive of the abbot of Pershore, who was acting on the pope’s authority, and believed that in conversation Otto had consented beforehand to this absolution. (266–8) [79] G. thanks him for his letter and notes that he shares the cardinal’s keen desire for the restoration of peaceful relations with his cathedral chapter. He reports that he would have postponed involving himself further in this dispute until Otto’s arrival, but has been told of the efforts of their proctor to obtain at the curia a letter to be used by untrustworthy judges to continue to thwart his performance of his duties. Though he has often offered to correct anything he has done that is contrary to canon law, the chapter has thus far not provided a satisfactory account of his errors or responded to his own written explanations of his conduct. (271–3)

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[82] As an earlier request to Archbishop Edmund has failed, G. asks Otto to intervene to prevent Richard of Bardney, abbot of Croyland and subject to G.’s jurisdiction, from serving as an itinerant justice. He also begs Otto to review and assent to the proposal to which the bishop and his chapter have agreed for resolving their quarrel. He hopes that his own acceptance of it, which was prompted by advice received from many prudent men and by a desire to satisfy Otto’s wish to restore peace, remove occasions for scandal, and silence criticism, will not offend the pope, who had previously given his special support to the bishop’s unrestricted exercise of his office of visitation. He also asks for a meeting with the cardinal during Otto’s next journey through his diocese. (281–3) [104] G. responds to the report of Simon of Arden that Otto is displeased by the bishop’s apparent disrespect in sending visitors to him without written introductions, but G. can recall only one such case in unusual circumstances, when he requested favourable treatment of the prior of Daventry. (329–30) [105] Having just learned of Otto’s planned departure for Rome to attend the general council convoked by Pope Gregory IX, G. promises to send Master R. to accompany the cardinal to the coast, as he is unable himself to join Otto on his journey. He requests that Otto offer his excuses to the pope for his absence at the council and that he may count on the cardinal’s continued affection and friendship. (330–2) [110] G. reports to Otto, his only resource in the matter, that the monks of Canterbury, while claiming to exercise archiepiscopal jurisdiction during a vacancy, have suspended and excommunicated him and other bishops. He expresses his view that it is impossible for the archbishop’s authority and power to devolve upon anyone below the rank of his suffragan bishops, and asks Otto to request of the pope a satisfactory remedy that will address not only G.’s urgent concerns, but the interests of the entire English Church, the authority of whose episcopate is under attack. (341–5) Oxford, anonymous master of theology at [Letter 10] [10] G. chastises the immoral behavior of a cleric whose licentious habits have become a source of great scandal, and exhorts him to amend his life. (80–2) Oxford, regent masters in theology at [Letter 123] [123] G. advises them to observe custom and the example of the regent masters at Paris by selecting the subjects for their morning lectures from the Old and New Testaments, as the Bible provides the only proper

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foundation-stones of theological learning and the morning hours are the best time to lay them. (364–6) Philip (II) of Kyme [Letter 30] [30] G. informs him that he should not be offended that, without consulting him or violating anyone’s right, he has appointed as prior of the Augustinian canons of Kyme a worthy person who will replace the less suitable prior already elected and instituted by Philip. He explains that he has often quashed similar elections in monasteries whose patron is the king, and with royal approval and by conciliar authority filled the vacancies with fresh appointees of his own. (142–4) Ralph de Neville, bishop of Chichester [Letter 62] [62] G. declines his request to write to the pope and cardinals in support of Ralph’s postulation to the see of Winchester and urges him to leave the matter entirely to providence. (213–16) Ramsey, abbot (Ranulph) and monks of [Letter 63] [63] G. provides instructions, in accord with ancient and approved custom, concerning the preparation of a church for consecration. Fixtures (doors, windows, etc.) may remain in place, but images, clocks, chests, and movable benches must be taken outside, as must any bodies buried or entombed within the building, and brought back after the ceremony. (216–17) Ranfred of Benevento, papal notary [Letter 39] [39] Having learned of his character and reputation from John of Ferentino and many others, G. requests his assistance in promoting his affairs at the curia and sends a small gift as a sign of his affection. (157–8) Ranulph, abbot of Ramsey [Letter 63]. See Ramsey, abbot (Ranulph) and monks of Raymond of Peñafort, OP [Letter 37] [37] Having learned from others of his character and writings, G. requests his oversight and assistance concerning his affairs at the curia, as Simon of Arden will describe in detail. (155–6) Reading, abbot (Adam of Lathbury) and monks of St Mary’s Abbey at [Letter 4] [4] G. disputes at length an annual payment greedily claimed by the abbey from him in a disrespectful and deceptive letter, defends himself

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against their charges of equivocation and legal manipulation, excuses his failure to meet their representatives by stressing the urgency of his duties, and, now that his pilgrimage has had to be postponed (Letter 3), indicates his willingness to submit this dispute to the arbitration of the bishop of Durham or to discuss terms of peace in some other way. (58–65) Regent masters in theology at Oxford [Letter 123]. See Oxford, regent masters in theology at Richard of Cornwall [Letter 47] [47] G. announces his conferral upon Richard of a prebend with cure of souls (as described in his letter [46] to Cardinal Giles) and reminds him of his duties. (168–9) Richard of Kirkham, papal judge-delegate [Letter 97] [97] Though expected to serve as a judge in G.’s dispute with his chapter, Richard has advised the bishop of his possible absence because of surprise attacks. G. seeks to calm Richard’s concerns about this by indemnifying both him and his fellow-judge, the bishop of Ely, and providing a safe conduct as far as Daventry and his own protection thereafter. (317–18) Richard Marshall, earl of Pembroke [Letters 6, 7] [6] G. describes the joys of heaven and how a Christian knight may attain them. (70–3) [7] G. describes true and false wisdom. (73–5) Rinaldo of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia [Letters 59, 70] [59] G. commends to him the work of the English Franciscans and calls upon his intervention as their cardinal protector at a time of crisis in that order. (206–8) [70] G. thanks him for taking an interest in his affairs and for befriending Simon of Arden, his proctor at the curia. (224–5) Robert of Hayles, archdeacon of Lincoln [Letter 50] [50] G. announces his intention to preach to the clergy in their deaneries and to consecrate churches, and orders Robert to prepare for his visit by forewarning the deans of his archdeaconry to be prompt in assembling the clergy to hear him, and by ensuring that rectors of unconsecrated churches are ready for the ceremony of consecration, as required by the Council of London. He also requests Robert’s advice about the procurations he is to receive and information about clerks guilty of unchastity. (174–5)

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Robert of Hertford, dean of Salisbury Cathedral [Letter 93]. See Salisbury Cathedral, dean (Robert of Hertford) and chapter of Robert of Lexington and fellow itinerant justices [Letter 84] [84] G. rebukes them for their verbal abuse and punishment of H., dean of Christianity at Lincoln, because he had correctly censured them for trying capital cases on Sunday, a practice contrary to divine and canon law. He reminds them that, even if the dean had wronged them, the personal transgressions of the clergy are not subject to secular judgment, and the Church perceives such an action as an infringement of her liberties. (285–7) Robert Marsh, Grosseteste’s official [Letter 129] [129] G. orders Robert to investigate the brutal murder by townspeople of an Oxford scholar, which has caused the suspension of lectures at the studium, and to excommunicate and punish those involved in accord with the terms of an agreement between the university and the townspeople issued under the auspices of the papal legate, Nicholas de Romanis. (447–9) Robert of Somercote, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio [Letter 65] [65] G. congratulates Robert on his promotion and requests his support at the curia and his restoration of the Church of Castor. Despite misgivings, G. will permit the vicar of Maxey to continue, subject to the appointment of a substitute, to accompany and serve the cardinal, who is asked to attend himself to any such future authorizations. (219–20) Roger of Weseham, dean of Lincoln Cathedral [Letters 90, 91, 92, 94, 95]. See Lincoln Cathedral, dean … and chapter of Salisbury Cathedral, dean (Robert of Hertford) and chapter of [Letter 93] [93] G. acknowledges their entreaty to restore peaceful relations between himself and his chapter, but insists that it must be a real peace and not a sham one. (309) Simon of Arden, Grosseteste’s proctor at the papal curia [Letter 80] [80] G. describes in detail the results of his suspension of the dean and the other chief dignitaries of the cathedral after the dean and chapter’s repeated refusal to revoke their mandate ordering the vicars and chaplains ministering in the prebends and churches of the common property not to submit to the bishop’s visitation. His subsequent attempt to visit

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certain prebends was followed by a meeting by the canons in the chapter house, their public statement in the cathedral about his intentions, the granting by the people of permission to appeal to the apostolic see, the departure for this purpose of the dean and several other canons for the curia, the dispatch of letters and messengers to all the other cathedral chapters in England, the absence of all the canons and vicars on the day of the bishop’s attempt to visit the chapter, and G.’s own departure for London, where he was met by the dean and other canons, who had been waiting for him there to discuss terms of peace. Instead of suspending and excommunicating them all, he decided to offer to refer the dispute to arbitration, despite the difficulties of identifying an impartial judge. Two of his proposals were rejected, but the chapter accepted a third, which would temporarily suspend visitation while the case was referred for resolution to specific arbitrators (the bishop of Worcester and the archdeacons of Worcester and Sudbury) and, in the event of their disagreement, to the pope, to whom two clerks were dispatched by the parties to request papal approval. Simon is therefore directed not to pursue other petitions communicated to him by the bishop’s messenger, William of Hemingborough. (273–9) Simon de Montfort [Letters 48, 75] [48] G. warns Simon against the injustice of excessive severity, and urges him not to punish a Leicester burgess (probably Simon Curlevache) beyond what his offence requires. (169–72) [75] G. exhorts him to bear his present adversity patiently, mindful of its benefits, and promises to keep him in his prayers, to plead his cause with the king, and to comfort members of his household, especially the two named in Simon’s letter. (264–6) Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Innocenzo, papal scriptor [Letter 128] [128] G. informs these papal provisors of his refusal to accept Innocent IV’s provision of a canonry and benefice at Lincoln to the pope’s nephew, Federico da Lavagna. The letter begins with a rehearsal of Innocent’s mandate instructing his agents to proceed with the induction of Federico and declaring null and void in advance any attempt to grant this canonry and benefice to another. G. states that he is always ready to carry out papal commands, but only those that are consonant with the sanctity of the apostolic see and not an abuse, as is this provision and others like it, of the pope’s plenitude of power, which consists in being able to do all things for edification and not for destruction. (441–6)

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‘T.,’ appointee to a pastoral charge [Letter 118] [118] G. encourages ‘T.,’ who because of the bishop’s long dispute with his chapter had previously rejected the offer of the prebend of Gretton, to accept appointment to the archdeaconry of Huntingdon and the prebend of Buckden now that peace has been restored. (357–8) Thomas of Capua, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina [Letters 44, 68] [44] G. hopes that Thomas’s special affection for his predecessor, Bishop Hugh of Wells, may continue for him, whom Hugh loved, and for his diocese, and begs that Thomas will promote his affairs. (163–5) [68] As Thomas’s affection, which dates from the time of Hugh of Wells, G.’s predecessor, has continued to grow stronger, G. requests the cardinal’s support in examining and expediting matters to be explained by his proctor at the curia, Simon of Arden. (222–3) Thomas of Wales, canon of Lincoln [Letter 51] [51] G. offers him the archdeaconry of Lincoln with a prebend and invites him to reside in it. He describes the qualities of a good archdeacon, encourages Thomas, now a student of theology in Paris, to prefer pastoral duties to teaching in Paris, despite the good he will no doubt be able to accomplish by lecturing, and advises him not to fear accusations of greed or ambition. (176–9) W. of Cerda, a master in the schools of Paris [Letter 13] [13] G. praises his zeal as a teacher, but exhorts him to give up lecturing in Paris in favour of more important parochial duties, and promises to keep open for another six months or a year the cure of souls to which W. has been summoned if he prefers to complete first his course of lectures. In the meanwhile G. will arrange for the preaching responsibilities of the position to be performed by qualified preachers. (88–90) Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester [Letters 98, 99, 113] [98] G. exhorts Walter to imitate the manly vigour and strength of Moses, rather than the feebleness of Eli or Saul, when serving as a judge in the case between G. and his chapter. (318–20) [99] In response to Walter’s request for advice as to whether he should travel abroad with the king, G. urges him to consider what is best for the souls of his flock, and promises to discuss with Adam Marsh Walter’s views on both sides of the question and to write again with his advice and recommendation. (321–2) [113] G. reports his safe arrival in Lyons and courteous reception by the pope and cardinals. (350)

482

Appendix: Summaries of Letters, by Correspondent

Walter de Gray, archbishop of York [Letter 116] [116] Reluctantly, but in obedience to a papal command, G. forwards to Walter the request of the pope and cardinals to favour and expedite the affairs of the bishop of Cervia, who is living in exile with his relatives. (354–5) William, earl of Warren [Letter 56] [56] The earl has expressed his astonishment at G.’s citation to appear along with his chaplain (who has also been suspended for repeated contumacy) for requiring, because of ill health, that this chaplain celebrate Mass in an unconsecrated and otherwise unfit hall at Grantham. G. explains the impropriety of using such a place except in cases of extreme need, and indicates that the citation was an obligation of his office as bishop and was intended to give the earl an opportunity to submit to due process and thereby demonstrate his innocence. (198–9) William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris [Letter 78] [78] G. thanks William for his affection and hopes for similar affection for his proctor, Simon of Arden. (270–1) William of Nottingham, Franciscan provincial minister [Letter 114] [114] G. provides some details of his homeward journey from Lyons, accompanied by Friars Adam Marsh and John of Stamford, and requests that Brother Peter of Tewkesbury and one or more other friars be sent to Mantes to help Adam care for John, who has fallen ill and is now unable to travel, and to stay with him until his health improves. G. also reports the deaths of Alexander of Hales and John of la Rochelle, as well as his own victory, by a papal decision in his favour, in his dispute with his chapter regarding visitation. (351–2) William of Raleigh, treasurer of Exeter Cathedral [Letters 17, 23, 24, 113] [17] G. explains to William, who had angrily considered appealing against his decision, his obligation to reject William’s nominee, W. of Grana, who is too young and ignorant for institution to a cure of souls. Out of gratitude for William’s affection and past favours, however, G. will pay this boy 10 marks a year from his own treasury until such time as he is fit for appointment to a wealthier benefice or some other provision can be made for him at his request. (94–6) [23] G. presents in detail his arguments in favor of changing existing secular law – as contrary to divine and natural law, and to reason, canon law, ancient custom, and properly constituted secular and spiritual

Appendix: Summaries of Letters, by Correspondent

483

authority – to recognize the legitimation, by the subsequent marriage of their parents, of children born out of wedlock, and the right of such children to secular estates by hereditary succession. He asserts the principle of the two swords, spiritual and secular, both of which belong to the Church. As the secular sword is subordinate to the spiritual and is wielded by secular rulers for the benefit of the Church, they must submit to her authority and make every effort to ensure that their laws are not in conflict with hers. He calls upon William, as both a judge and a friend of the king, to try to bring the secular law concerning legitimacy into line with divine and canon law and to take a firm stand against those who refuse to do so. (108–22) [24] G. is offended by William’s jocular reaction to his previous letter (23) and responds to his sardonic comments about its length, its arguments drawn from the Old Testament, and the bishop’s apparently broad knowledge of the laws of England, and to William’s wish that the bishop could join him as a judge in court. He admonishes William concerning his service as a judge at the expense of his pastoral duties, but emphasizes that his remarks in both letters reflect his paternal affection for him and his desire for an enduring friendship. (123–5) [113] G. reports his safe arrival in Lyons and courteous reception by the pope and cardinals. (350) William of Thorney, dean of Lincoln Cathedral [Letters 3, 32, 71, 73.] See Lincoln Cathedral, dean … and chapter of

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Select Annotated Bibliography

The entries in this bibliography have been restricted to (1) the standard catalogue of manuscripts of Robert Grosseteste’s letters; (2) bibliographical surveys of his writings, including the letters; (3) editions of his letter collection and a selection of printings of individual letters; and (4) select studies of one or more of the letters. Most of the items in (3) and (4) are of course also part of (2), but have been listed separately here for ease of reference. The information in (1) may be corrected and supplemented by consulting pp. 6–16, above, and commentaries on some of the letters are also to be found in the biographies and studies of Grosseteste by James McEvoy (1982, 2000), Richard Southern (1992), and Francis Stevenson (1899) listed on pp. xiii–xviii, above.

1. Manuscripts of the Letters of Robert Grosseteste Thomson, S. Harrison. The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1235–1253. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1940; repr. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1971. [Provides (pp. 192–213) the fundamental list of the extant manuscripts of Grosseteste’s letters, with notes of previous printings, bibliographical information, and occasional, tentative revisions of Luard’s assigned dates of composition. For corrections and supplementary information, see pp. 6–16, above. Thomson also identifies (pp. 99, 104, 194, 195, 197, 199, 200, 213) some of John Wyclif’s quotations from the letters.] 2. Bibliographies of the Writings of Robert Grosseteste The Electronic Grosseteste. http://www.grosseteste.com. [Includes a searchable bibliography, updated to 2003, that may be supplemented by access to such standard resources as the International Medieval Bibliography, the

486

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Bibliographie de Civilisation Médiévale, Medioevo Latino: Bollettino bibliografico della cultura europea dal secolo VI al XIII, and Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance.] Gieben, Servus. ‘Bibliographia Universa Roberti Grosseteste ab an. 1473 ad an. 1969.’ Collectanea Franciscana 39 (1969): 362–418. – ‘Robertus Grosseteste: Bibliographia 1970–1991.’ In Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy, 415–31. Instrumenta Patristica, 27. Steenbrugge: St Peter’s Abbey/Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 1995. McEvoy, James. ‘Robert Grosseteste: Recent and Forthcoming Editions and Studies.’ Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 35 (1993): 121–9. [This journal regularly publishes notices of studies and doctoral dissertations, in progress or completed, relating to Grosseteste’s philosophical works.] 3. Editions of Robert Grosseteste’s Letter Collection and Selected Printings of Individual Letters Baur, Ludwig, ed. Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 9. Münster i. W.: Aschendorf, 1912. [Edition (pp. 106–19) of Letter 1 in two parts.] Brewer, J.S., ed. Monumenta Franciscana: Adae de Marisco epistolae, Rolls Series, 4.1. London: Longman, 1858. [Letter 114: pp. 627–8; Letter 128: pp. 382–5.] Brown, Edward, ed. Appendix ad Fasciculum rerum expetendarum & fugiendarum, Ab Orthuino Gratio editum Coloniae A.D. MDXXXV, sive Tomus Secundus Scriptorum veterum … Qui Ecclesiae Rom. Errores & Abusus detegunt & damnant, necessitatemque Reformationis urgent. London: R. Chiswell, 1690; repr. Tucson: Audax Press, 1967. [Editions (pp. 307–401, 410–15) of Letters 4, 8, 10–12, 17, 22–30, 32, 35–38, 40–52, 52*, 53–6, 61, 66, 68, 71–2, 73–104, 106–26, 128.] Davis, Francis N., ed. Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi Lincolniensis, A.D. MCCXXXV–MCCLIII. Canterbury and York Society, 10. London, 1913. Reprinted as: Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi Lincolniensis, A.D. MCCXXXV– MCCLIII, necnon Rotulus Henrici de Lexington, episcopi Lincolniensis, A.D. MCCLIV–MCCLIX. Lincoln Record Society, 11. Horncastle, U.K.: W.K. Morton & Sons, Ltd., 1914. [Includes transcriptions (pp. 296, 502–7) of letters not found in manuscripts of Grosseteste’s epistles.] Du Boulay, César E. Historia Universitatis Parisiensis. 6 vols. Paris, 1665–73. [Letter 128: vol. 3: 260–2.] Luard, Henry R., ed. Roberti Grosseteste quondam episcopi Lincolniensis Epistolae, Rolls Series, 25. London: Longman, 1861. [The standard, critical edition of

Select Annotated Bibliography

487

the complete letter collection; The Electronic Grosseteste provides a searchable copy of this edition, excluding the probably spurious Letters 130–1.] – Annales Monastici: De Margam, Theokesberia, et Burton, Rolls Series, 36.1. London: Longman, 1864. [Letter 128: pp. 311–13, 437–8.] – Matthaei Parisiensis … Chronica majora, Rolls Series, 57. 7 vols. London: Longman, 1872–83. [Letter 128: vols. 5: 389–92 and 6: 229–31; Letter 132: vol. 6: 134–8; for two other letters of Grosseteste, see vols. 4: 506–9 and 6: 213–17.] – [Matthaei Parisiensis] Flores Historiarum, Rolls Series, 95.2. London: Longman, 1890. [Letter 128: pp. 388–91.] Madden, F., ed. Matthaei Parisiensis … Historia Anglorum, Rolls Series, 44.3. London: Longman, 1869. [Letter 128: pp. 140–4.] Mantello, F.A.C., ed. ‘Letter CXXX of Bishop Robert Grosseteste: A Problem of Attribution.’ Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974): 144–59. – ‘Letter CXXXI Ascribed to Robert Grosseteste: A New Edition of the Text.’ Franciscan Studies 39 (1979): 165–79. – ‘“Optima Epistola”: A Critical Edition and Translation of Letter 128 of Bishop Robert Grosseteste.’ In A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., ed. Jacqueline Brown and William P. Stoneman, 277–301. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Pegge, Samuel. The Life of Robert Grosseteste, the Celebrated Bishop of Lincoln. London, 1793. [Letter 52*: pp. 315–21.] Powicke, Frederick M., and Christopher R. Cheney, eds. Councils and Synods with Other Documents relating to the English Church, 2.1: A.D. 1205–1265. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. [Editions of five letters: 21 (pp. 201–3), 22 (203–5), 50 (263–4), 52* (265–78), 107 (479–80).] Rinaldi, Odorico. Annales ecclesiastici ab anno MCXCVIII, vbi Card. Baronius desinit. 10 vols. Rome, 1646–77. [Vol. 1 (13 of Baronius): Letter 27 (p. 488); almost all of Letter 28 (pp. 500–1).] [Ryves, Bruno], ed. De Cessatione Legalium, Tractatus Eruditissimus, Priscam, Solidam & Germanam pietatem spirans; nostroque Aevo apprime utilis ac necessarius. Ex vetustis membranis summa cura et fide descriptus. London, 1658. [Letter 128: pp. 26–9.] Twyne, Brian. Antiquitatis Academiae Oxoniensis apologia, in tres libros divisa. Oxford, 1608. [Letter 123: pp. 346–7.] von der Hardt, Hermann. Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense Concilium de universali ecclesiae reformatione, unione et fide, VI tomis comprehensum. 6 vols. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1696–1700. [Vol 1: parts of Letters 25 (cols. 1152–3), 17 (col. 1142; here called Letter ‘27’), and 52 (col. 1143; here called Letter ‘53’) are cited within the Petitiones of Richard Ullerston, cols. 1126–71.]

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Wilkins, David. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, a Synodo Verolamiensi A.D. CCCXLVI ad Londinensem A.D. [MD]CCXVII. Accedunt constitutiones et alia ad historiam Ecclesiae Anglicanae spectantia. London, 1737. 4 vols. [Letter 52*: vol. 3: 59–61.] Wood, Anthony à. Historia et antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, duobus voluminibus comprehensae. Oxford, 1674. [Letter 123 (vol. 1: 91–2); Letter 129 (vol. 1: 94–5).] 4. Selected Studies of the Letters of Robert Grosseteste Boyle, Leonard E. ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Pastoral Care.’ In Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 8: Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer 1976, ed. Dale B.J. Randall, 3–51. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1979. Reprinted in Boyle, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400. London: Variorum Reprints, 1981. [Includes edition of Letter 128 (pp. 40–4).] Cheney, Christopher R. English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century. Oxford: University Press, 1941; repr. 1968, with new introduction by the author. [Letter 52*: pp. 110–41.] Clopper, Lawrence M. ‘Miracula and The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge.’ Speculum 65 (1990): 878–905. [Letter 107.] Franceschini, Ezio. ‘Roberto Grossatesta, vescovo di Lincoln, e le sue traduzioni latine.’ In Scritti di filologia latina medievale, ed. Guiseppe Bilanovich et al. 2 vols. Medioevo e umanismo, 26–7. Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1976. [Letter 57: vol. 2: 454–7.] Friedmann, Lee Max. Robert Grosseteste and the Jews. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934. [Letter 5.] Ginther, James R. ‘Theological Education at the Oxford Studium in the Thirteenth Century: A Reassessment of Robert Grosseteste’s Letter to the Oxford Theologians.’ Franciscan Studies 55 (1998): 83–104. [Letter 123.] Goering, Joseph. ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Jews of Leicester.’ In Robert Grosseteste and the Beginnings of a British Theological Tradition: Papers Delivered at the Grosseteste Colloqium Held at Greyfriars, Oxford on 3rd July 2002, ed. Maura O’Carroll, 182–200. Rome: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 2003. [Letter 5.] Hentschel, Frank, and Andreas Speer. ‘Robert Grossetestes Brief De unica forma omnium im Spiegel kunsttheoretischer Interpretationen.’ In Mittelalterliches Kunsterleben nach Quellen des 11. Bis 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Günther Binding and Andreas Speer, 224–63. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1993. [Letter 1, pt. 1.]

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489

Jourdain, Charles. Doutes sur l’authenticité de quelques écrits contre la cour de Rome attribués à Robert Grosse-Tête, évêque de Lincoln. Bulletin de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 13–29. Paris, 1868. Reprinted in his Excursions historiques et philosophiques à travers le Moyen Âge, 147–71. Paris, 1888. [Letter 128.] Mantello, F.A.C., ed. ‘Letter CXXX of Bishop Robert Grosseteste: A Problem of Attribution.’ Mediaeval Studies 36 (1974): 144–59. – ‘Letter CXXXI Ascribed to Robert Grosseteste: A New Edition of the Text.’ Franciscan Studies 39 (1979): 165–79. McEvoy, James. ‘Der Brief des Robert Grosseteste an Magister Adam Rufus (Adam von Oxford, O.F.M.): ein Datierungsversuch.’ Franziskanische Studien 63 (1981): 221–6. [Letter 1.] O’Shea, Robert M. The Structure of Authority within the Church according to Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235–1253). Unpublished MA thesis, The Catholic University of America, 1956. [Letter 127.] Pantin, William A. ‘Grosseteste’s Relations with the Papacy and Crown.’ In Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death, ed. D.A. Callus, 178–215. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955. Smith, A.L. Church and State in the Middle Ages: The Ford Lectures Delivered at Oxford in 1905, 101–37. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. Srawley, J.H. ‘Grosseteste’s Administration of the Diocese of Lincoln.’ In Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death, ed. D.A. Callus, 146–77. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955. Tierney, Brian. ‘Grosseteste and the Theory of Papal Sovereignty.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 6 (1955): 1–17. [Letter 128.] Watt, John A. ‘Grosseteste and the Jews: A Commentary on Letter V.’ In Robert Grosseteste and the Beginnings of a British Theological Tradition: Papers Delivered at the Grosseteste Colloqium Held at Greyfriars, Oxford on 3rd July 2002, ed. Maura O’Carroll, 201–16. Rome: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 2003. Wickham, Glynne W.G. ‘Robert Grosseteste and the Feast of Fools.’ In Sewanee Mediaeval Colloquium Occasional Papers 2, 81–99. Sewanee, Tenn., 1985. [Letter 32.]

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Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

The many citations (direct or adapted) from, or allusions to, the Latin Bible in the letters of Grosseteste are listed here as traced in the Stuttgart Vulgate: Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed R. Gryson et al., 4th rev. ed. (Stuttgart, 1994). The biblical books are referred to by their usual English names and are accompanied, in parentheses, by the abbreviated forms used to identify them in the text and footnotes of the translation, as drawn from The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago, 2003), pp. 578–80. References are to page numbers or to page numbers and footnotes.

Old Testament Genesis (Gn) 1:2 1:17 1:28 1:31 2:18 2:19 3:9–19 3:16 3:19 3:24 4:2 4:4 4:9–16 4:10 4:11–15 6:6 6:12

149n6 233, 401 403n29 40 403n29 420 414n38 403 171 414n39 415 415 415n40 408 67 450 415

7:2–3 7:5 8:6 8:20 9:18–27 9:20–7 9:25 11:5 12:20 17:23 18:1–15 18:20 18:21 18:27 19:1–11 19:1–23

415 416 416 416 416n42 198n2, 226n2, 312n6 123n2 415 239 416 44n17 408 415 130 415n41 44n17

492

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

19:24 21:1–21 21:10 25:19–34 29:17 30:1–24 30:3 30:6–7 30:11–13 31:38–40 35:2 35:4 37:12 37:14 37:35 38:1–30 38:26 41:40 41:41 41:44 47:20–2

415 240n24 112 240n24 232, 235n10 235n10 111 111 112n8 260, 394 416 416 394n22 395 112 113n10 113 416 416 416 240, 240n25

Exodus (Ex) 3:6 7:1 10:21–9 14:15 16:8 17:13 18:13 18:17–18 18:18 18:19 18:19–20 18:19–22 18:21 18:22 18:24 18:24–5 18:25

51 400 299n3 408 199 320 375, 376 433, 435 375, 376, 434 120, 379n4 434 375, 386n11 369, 379 376, 378, 435 435 375 259

18:25–6 18:26 19:1–14 20:12 21:15 21:17 22:20 23:2 23:4–5 23:20–2 25:9 25:15 25:40 26:30 28:41 31:15 32:1–29 32:6 32:20 32:27 32:28 32:29 32:32 35:2

417 375, 379 386n11 359, 386n12 107n11 107n11 431 108, 176 396 44n17 432 184n5 432 432 417 286n5 417n43 113 259 121 319n2 319, 319n2, 320 319 286n5

Leviticus (Lv) 4:13–21 8:35 10:9 10:10–11 13:3 13:59 16:30 16:32–3 16:33 19:36 20:9 21:17 21:21 24:10

379n5 185 185 185n8 416 416 418 418 418 312 107n11 418 418 417

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions Numbers (Nm) 3:12 4:19 4:27 5:29 8:6 11:4–30 11:14 11:16–17 11:17 11:29 12:3 12:7 15:32 16:12 16:30 18:20–4 25:4 25:7–8 25:13 27:5–11

240, 241 417 417 417 240 376 376 377 377, 377n3, 378 51 319 380, 381 417 259, 417 308 185n9 417 417 417 110

Deuteronomy (Dt) 5:16 386n12 10:8–9 185n9 16:20 108 17:8 245 17:9 245 17:12 431 21:18 430 21:18–21 107n11 21:20–1 326n4 21:21 430 22:1–2 396 23:25 235n11 32:39 132 Joshua (Jo) 7:1 7:24–5

417 417

8:1–29 10:13–14

493

302n9 431

1 Samuel/1 Kings (1 Sm) 1:20 400n26 2–3 85n6 2:22–5 298n2, 407n35 2:22–36 320n4 7:15 401 7:15–17 400 7:16 400n27, 402 8:1 401 15:9 320 15:23 85, 137, 170n2, 237, 355, 359, 372, 431 17:34–5 250, 269 17:34–6 398 17:35 260, 399 25:28 335 2 Samuel/2 Kings (2 Sm) 6:6 327 6:7 327 12:11 299 12:26–8 423n52 23:8 419 3 Kings (3 Kgs) 4:29 17:14 19:10

142 149 250

4 Kings (4 Kgs) 4:2–7 23:24

149n5 104n4

1 Chronicles (1 Chr) 12:8 419 12:38 419 28:1 418n45

494

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

2 Chronicles (2 Chr) 19:7 348 19:10 234 19:11 234 26:16–21 369n10 26:18–21 253n38 1 Ezra (1 Ezr) 7:24

240

Judith (Jdt) 8:22

351

Esther (Est) 1–8

328

Job (Jb) 2:11–12 9:13 9:28 19:29 24:2 25:4–6 26:14 28:13 28:15 28:28 32:22 38:3 41:25 42:2

325 153 80, 219, 227 451 235 80 451 166 166 158 451 335 392 230n3

Psalms (Ps) 1:1 4:7 7:10 17:16 18:6

446 100 128, 143, 173, 227, 268, 370 153 349

25:8 26:3 26:12 31:1 35:10 36:14 44:7 44:17 48:13 48:21 50:19 52:6 57:7 58:12 61:4 68:10 68:16 68:31–2 72:5 73:19 75:6 75:13 76:21 77:54 81:6 88:2 90:3 90:4 90:7 90:11–12 92:5 98:4 101:27–8 102:5 102:12 108:5 111:4 113:9 117:15

220 147 451 227 72 407 295 412 243n29, 297 243n29, 297 220 318 221 68 138 208, 220 230, 374 299n5 171 388 79 450 375n2 112 243n28 72 140 140 140 140 204 370 37 197 124 95 207 65 346

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions 118:24 118:32 140:3

88 452 60

Proverbs (Prv) 1:8 1:8–9 1:29–31 2:4 3:28 3:34 4:17 6:3 10:17 12:1 12:10 12:21 13:18 14:13 17:17 19:12 20:8 20:28 22:28 26:27 27:23

395n23 122 395n23 75 323 62 119 419 83 83 268, 420 363 83 106n7 164, 315 142 328 142 13 303 420

Ecclesiastes (Eccl) 3:1 325 3:3 365 7:2 334, 358 9:10 106n7 Song of Songs (Sg) 2:15 409 4:15 218 5:3 137 8:6 164, 177 8:7 204, 223

Wisdom (Ws) 1:6 1:11 3:6 4:11 5:1 6:7 7:26 7:27 16:24 17:3

361 299 265n3 245n33 317 116 183 37 116, 349 106n7

Sirach/Ecclesiasticus (Sir) 3:1–18 359n4 3:6–7 429 3:10 429 3:11 122, 428 3:15 124, 226 3:18 122, 243 3:20 426 6:8 316 6:14–16 330 19:4 81 26:1 291 26:21 328 28:28 329 31:27 56 31:38–40 105 33:19–24 385, 385n9 33:24 300, 371, 374 35:18 408 42:16 402 47:22 337, 340 50:1 402 50:7 402 Isaiah (Is) 1:10 1:15

134 69, 134, 170

495

496

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

1:22 5:7 5:20 9:2 9:5 10:1–2 10:15 11:2 14:12 14:13 14:14 24:2 26:7 27:1 28:17 30:27 32:17 33:1 33:15 40:1 40:28 45:10 51:23 52:11 54:2 54:11 56:7 58:1 58:6 58:10 59:1 59:5 64:6

205 409 86, 226, 326 206 69, 171 109 120, 393 194, 333n4 444n8 301 301 241 302 450 119 450 60 170, 307 176 277 450 412 313 185n6 142 437 145 348 300, 450 194 215 302 78, 227

Jeremiah (Jer) 1:10 1:17 1:18–19

105n3, 121, 151, 242, 380 421 421

3:3 3:15 5:4 5:5 11:1–4 23:1–2 23:2 23:24 25:15 25:27 33:11 48:10

300 105 427 427 386 387 387, 388 43 119 119 346 125, 179, 287, 320

Lamentations (Lam) 1:2 345 1:6 243, 373 3:14 135 3:28 202 4:1 81, 208 Ezekiel (Ez) 1:15–21 3:7–9 3:16–19 3:17–18 3:18 8:6–9 8:11 13:5 19:3 22:25 22:27 33:2–6 33:3 33:5 33:6 33:7 33:7–9 34:2–3

323n2 197 181n5 450 125, 299, 439 420 427 134, 419 170 284 284 407n34 407 407 407 406, 407n33 181n5 445n9

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions 34:3 34:3–5 34:4 34:11–12 34:15–16 34:15–17 34:16

167 126 290, 388 388 168 389 388

Hosea (Hos) 8:7 8:14 14:10

63 173n3 302

Joel (Jl) 1:17

419

Amos (Am) 3:11 5:7 5:11 6:6 6:13

171 109 171 86 109

Micah (Mi) 3:3

170n5

Zechariah (Zec) 11:17 284 Malachi (Mal) 3:10

69n10

1 Maccabees (1 Mc) 2:1–70 335n5 2:41 339n4 2:50 335n5 3:1–9 335n4 4:36–60 104n4 10:31 239

10:43

239

2 Maccabees (2 Mc) 8:3 408 New Testament Gospel of Matthew (Mt) 2:16–18 170n3 3:1–12 298n2 4:1–11 333n5 4:17 177 5:11 276 5:11–12 86 5:15 52, 361 5:16 193, 348 5:26 128, 306 5:29–30 234n8 5:39 187, 337 5:39–41 339 5:44 142n5 5:45 222n2 5:48 142n5 6:1 193 6:3–6 193 6:5 201 6:21 49, 389n16 7:7 289 7:8 205 7:12 427 7:24–7 364 8:9 427 9:6 233 9:35 177, 419 9:36 288 10:16 130 10:20 388, 413 10:28 99, 173 10:30 387n14

497

498

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

10:34 10:40 12:3–4 12:30 12:36 13:31–2 13:52 14:3–12 14:17–21 15:14 15:21–8 16:17 16:23 17:14 17:23–6 18:7 18:15 18:34 19:28 20:28 21:12 22:13

272 413 339 444 60, 182, 232 149n6 366 238n19 149n6 195 423n51 446 310 423 87n2, 339n6 88, 234 227n4 127n5 128n8 407 103n3 104, 106, 127, 145, 188, 306, 348, 360 238 51 292n2 346 122n21 348 358 388 293n5, 327n6 293

22:21 22:32 22:37–40 25:14 25:14–30 25:21 25:23 25:30 25:31–46 25:41

Gospel of Mark (Mk) 2:17 338n5 4:31–2 149n6 6:34 288 9:45 349 10:4–5 124

11:15 14:36

103n3 364

Gospel of Luke (Lk) 1:6 426 1:78 92 1:79 131n12 2:36 70 2:48 113 2:51 426 6:35 186 6:38 150 6:48 295n2 9:1 422 9:6 422 9:53 437 10:16 199, 413 11:23 387 12:7 387n14 12:13–14 121 12:14 235, 245 12:34 389n16 12:40 450 12:42 347 12:46 450 14:9 243 14:33 77 15:4 202 15:4–5 389n17 15:31 395 16:2 127, 169 18:4 334 19:10 347 19:13 347, 348, 360 19:20 360 19:20–3 348n3 20:21–5 426n58 Gospel of John (Jn) 1:3–4 40

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions 1:9 2:14–17 2:17 3:19 3:19–21 3:20 3:20–1 3:21 4:36 5:22 5:27 6:15 8:32 8:34 8:36 8:44 10:1–2 10:3 10:4 10:9 10:11 10:12 10:15 10:15–16 11:48 13:18 14:6 16:13 17:12 21:17

405 298n2 93 404, 405 404–5 226, 405 414 405 168 242 242 121 130n8, 226n3 425 425 63, 245n33, 299 284 346, 387, 420 346 346 209, 238n20, 387 138 209 128n6 67n5 120, 241n26 228, 299 53 299 89, 177

Acts of the Apostles (Acts) 4:32 50, 120, 166, 203n4 20:26 287 25:9–12 339n5 25:11 62n13 26:26 130n8, 226n3 Letter of Paul to the Romans (Rom) 1:14–15 108

1:31–2 1:32 2:5 2:25–9 3:8 4:7 5:3 5:4–5 5:5 6:16 8:17 8:22 8:35 8:38–9 9:3 9:27 11:20 11:25–6 11:36 12:19 13:1 13:1–2 13:2 13:4 14:13 14:15

499

305 68, 68n7, 336 289 145n2 302 227 147, 265, 337n3 146 142 425 109 349 173, 226 125 94 68 426 67 430 301 69n9, 232, 426 430 111, 367, 426 120 86 87

First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor) 1:10 228 2:1–4 178 2:2 288 2:11 298, 330 2:15 242 3:17 402 4:14 63 4:15 412, 430 5:3 450 5:6 195 5:13 195

500

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

6:4 6:7 6:7–8 6:16 7:14 8:9 8:13 9:24 10:4 10:19 11:1 11:31 12:3 12:4–6 12:10 13:4 13:4–5 13:6 13:7

232 87, 340 64 115 117n14 87 87, 88, 234 285n9 197 248 108 306 408 272 365 143 70 165 131n13, 156, 158, 165 80, 144, 159 144, 332 42 216, 365, 367 450

13:8 13:10 13:12 14:40 15:52

Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (2 Cor) 4:17 265 6:1 231 6:3 216 6:8 325 7:10 197 9:7 323 10:8 445, 446 11:17 325 11:28 151, 346 12:9–10 147 12:14 168n5, 169 13:3 413

Letter of Paul to the Galatians (Gal) 1:10 182 2:9 422 4:7 109 4:19 412 4:26 239 4:29 112 4:31 284 5:1 227, 240 5:6 208 6:7 451 6:14 203 Letter of Paul to the Ephesians (Eph) 2:14 228, 272, 309 2:20 365 3:15 413, 430 4:14 56 5:3 337 5:13 405 5:16 451 5:22–33 403n30 5:27 61n10, 232, 242, 404 6:13–17 140 6:14 73 6:16 101n2, 179 6:16–17 73 Letter of Paul to the Philippians (Phil) 1:18 51 1:23 197 2:6–7 348 2:7 71 2:8–9 265 2:21 86, 215, 363, 372 3:13 135n6 3:20 59, 202 4:13 151

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thes) 2:7 412 2:13 327n5 4:16 450 5:5 405 5:17 348 5:17–18 201 5:22 81, 185n7, 333 Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians (2 Thes) 2:3 444 2:8 444 First Letter of Paul to Timothy (1 Tm) 3:2–4 289 3:6 85 4:1–3 180n3 4:12 179 5:20 85, 348 Second Letter of Paul to Timothy (2 Tm) 2:4 126, 232, 236, 367, 372 2:24 63, 87, 340 3:1–2 228 3:2–5 228n6 3:5 228 3:12 265 4:2 176, 210 4:5 210 4:7 213n4 Letter of Paul to Titus (Ti) 1:7 85 1:7–9 289 1:13 85

1:16 2:7

501

408 176, 209

Letter of Paul to the Hebrews (Heb) 4:13 146 5:2 415 5:4 69, 89, 210 5:4–5 215 5:12 178 10:31 132 12:5–11 412 12:6 265 12:8 414 12:9 430 12:11 265 13:17 85, 105, 137, 392, 430 Letter of James (Jas) 1:4 147 1:18 122 2:13 170, 172 3:2 227 3:11 304 3:15 74 3:17 74, 88, 140 5:19–20 227n4 First Letter of Peter (1 Pt) 1:2 128, 348 2:5 437 2:12 82 2:21 422 2:25 268, 430 4:11 327n5 5:3 174, 333 5:8 392, 399 First Letter of John (1 Jn) 1:10 427

502

Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions

2:16 3:14 3:15 3:16

310 298 298 182

Apocalypse/Revelation (Rv) 2:23 178 3:14 104 3:16 104 4:6 419

Index of Classical, Patristic, and Medieval Sources

References to classical, patristic, and medieval sources, whether these are cited directly or in an adapted form, or are merely suggested or implied, are listed here, keyed to page and footnote numbers of the translation. The index is alphabetical by author, using the traditionally most familiar names of classical and patristic writers and the first names of medieval authors, followed by the Latin titles of their writings. Anonymous works (e.g., ‘ Glossa ordinaria’) are intercalated alphabetically by Latin title; conciliar decrees appear under ‘Canons of:’ (and name of council).

Alcuin. See Pseudo-Ambrose Aristotle, 320n8; Analytica posteriora, 1.4, 260n3; Ethica Eudemia, 7.2.5–7, 310n4; Ethica Nicomachea, 321n4; — 4.3.1124b:10–12, 157n3; — 6.9.1142a–b, 333n3; — 9.11.1171a–b, 324n2 Augustine: Confessiones, 3.8, 110n4, 424n54; — 7.10, 388n15; — 11.30, 37n6; — 13.2, 39n8; — 13.3, 37n5; De civitate dei, 11.3, 425n57; — 19.13, 60–1n7, 272n2, 309nn2– 3, 437n9; De libero arbitrio, 2.16.44–5, 36n4; De musica, 6.5.9, 48n20; De nuptiis et concupiscentia, 1.12, 114n11; De trinitate, 5.1, 41n10; — 8.2, 38n7; Enarrationes in Psalmos,

58.22, 68n6; Ep. 26, 2, 74–5n4; Ep. 138, 2–4, 57n11; Ep. 166 (De origine animae hominis), 2.4, 43n14; Ep. 185, 8, 111n5; Ep. 187 (De praesentia dei), 4.11, 41n11; — 4.12–14, 42n12; In Iohannis evangelium tractatus, 1.17, 40n9; — 12.4, 111n7; — 27.10, 299n4; Quaestionum in heptateuchum libri septem, 2.69, 379n4; Sermo 9 (Tractatus de decem chordis), 3, 106n6; Sermo 46, 20, 84n4, 98n5; Sermo 62, 13, 111n6; Sermo 137, 15, 127n4, 183n1 Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, 200n2 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 1.23, 29, 220n3

504

Index of Classical, Patristic, and Medieval Sources

Benedict, Regula, 4.20, 235n9; 6, 60n6; 63.13, 235n9; 68, 152n3 Bernard of Clairvaux: De consideratione, 1.4.5, 63n14; — 1.4.11, 85n5; — 1.4.12, 215n5, 215–16n6; — 1.6.7, 232–3nn4–5; Ep. 42 (De moribus et officio episcoporum), 35, 392n20 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, 3.1–9, 292n3 Canons of: (Legatine) Council of London (1237), c. 1, 175n3; — c. 7, 186n10; — c. 12, 406n32; — c. 13, 187n15; — c. 14, 187n14; — c. 16, 175n5; — c. 22, 239n22; — c. 25, 311n5; Council of (the Province of Canterbury at) Oxford (1222), c. 1, 253n39, 285n8, 306n3; — cc. 1–7, 190n25; — c. 8, 239n22; — c. 12, 238n21; — cc. 12–13, 134n4; — c. 13, 133n3; — c. 33, 83n3, 187n14; — c. 43, 98n4, 186n10; Lateran III (1179), c. 12, 134n4, 137n6, 237n18; — c. 13, 128n7; — c. 14, 244n32; — c. 26, 336n6; Lateran IV (1215), c. 7, 84n4; — c. 10, 91–2n5, 148n3, 160n3; — c. 14, 244n32; — c. 16, 83n3, 187n14; — cc. 19–20, 184n4; — c. 21, 411n36; — c. 22, 411n37; — c. 23, 251n36; — c. 26, 285n7; — c. 27, 100n2, 189n21, 406n32; — c. 29, 128n7, 187n15; — c. 37, 443n6; — c. 66, 107n13; — c. 71, 141n2 Cassiodorus, Expositio psalmorum, Ps 76:21, 375n2 Commentarium in Ruth e codice Genouefensi 45, 151n2

Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica, 2.18.6, 425n56 Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, 203n5 Glossa ordinaria, 64n15; Ex 18:19, 379n4; Nm 11:17, 377n3; Dt 5:16, 386n12; 1 Sm 7:16, 400nn27–8; Ez 33:7, 407n33; Rom 1:32, 68n7 Gratian, Decretum: Distinctiones, D.8 c.2, 110n4, 424n54; — DD.8–10, 424n55; — D.9 c.1, 111n5; — D.10 c.1 § 1, 118n16; — D.10 c.1 § 2, 118n17; — D.10 c.4, 118n18; — D.48, 95n3; — D.51 cc.1–5, 137n3; — D.83 c.3, 104n5, 134n5; — D.86 c.3, 104n5; — D.88 c.3, 137n4, 235n13; — D.88 c.4, 137n5; — D.93 c.5, 343n4; — D.96 c.10, 366–7n3; Causae, C.1 q.6 c.3, 214n3; — C.6 q.3 c.1, 235n11; — C.8 q.1 c.9, 214n4; — C.11 q.1 c.8, 251n37; — C.11 q.1 c.41, 243n27; — C.11 q.1 c.43, 138n8; — C.11 q.3 c.97, 111n6; — C.12 q.1 c.7, 234n6; — C.13 q.2 c.12, 246n35; — C.13 q.2 c.13, 246n35; — C.16 q.1, 343n4; — C.16 q.1 cc.21–36, 343n4; — C.17 q.3 c.1, 104n5; — C.21 q.5 cc.1, 2, 5, 6, 138n8; — C.27 q.2 c.9, 114n11; De consecratione, D.1 c.1, 199n4; — D.1 cc.27–8, 217n3; — D.3 c.1, 286n3 Gregory: Dialogorum libri IV, 2: prol., 289n2; Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, 1.11.9, 181n5; Moralia in Iob, 4.36, 71n4; — 5.5, 75n5; — 5.11, 29, 31, 77n3; — 10.29, 74n3; — 26.6, 421n50; Registrum

Index of Classical, Patristic, and Medieval Sources epistularum, 2.11, 217n4; — 8.3, 246n35; Regula pastoralis 1.1, 189n21; — 1.5, 89n3; — 1.6, 90n4; — 1.11, 418n44; — 2.7, 232n3; — 2.10, 421nn47–50; — 3.4, 419n46 Guibert of Gembloux, Ep. 30, 235n10 Horace: Ars poetica, 25–6, 212n3; Epistulae, 1.1.60, 140n10; Sermones, 1.7.3, 124n4 Hrabanus Maurus, De rerum naturis, 9.7, 153n2 Isidore, Etymologiae, 7.6.46, 375n2; 7.6.62, 400n26; 7.6.64, 398n24; 7.12.8–10, 344n7; 9.3.4, 326n3; 13.1.1, 153n2; 18.27.1, 105n5 Jerome: Adversus Iovinianum, 2.13, 234n7; Ep. 75, 1, 52n5; Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos, 21.9, 112n9; — 23.16, 246n35 John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Mattheum, 164n3; 3.2, 71n2 (Liber) extra (= Decretales of Pope Gregory IX), 1.37.1, 134n4; 2.1.8, 243n27, 244n30, 287n6; 2.2.12, 244n31; 2.9.1, 286n4; 3.1.2, 335n2; 3.41.10, 184n4; 3.50.1, 236n16; 3.50.4, 237n18; 3.50.5, 237n17; 4.7.13, 245n34; 4.17.6, 109n3; 5.33.28, 189n22; 5.39.49, 307n4 Ovid: Ars amatoria, 1.655–6, 170n4; — 3.287, 404n31; Epistulae, 5.7, 310n3; Epistulae ex Ponto, 2.6.38, 315n3, 320n6; Remedia amoris,

505

91–2, 283n2 Peter Lombard, Sententiae, 1.37.2.2, 43n14; 2.8.1.1–3, 47n19; 4.27.4.2, 114n11 Philo, De vita contemplativa, 20, 25, 34, 78, 200–1n3 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, 4.89, 153n2 Prudentius, Hamartigenia, 252, 223n2 Pseudo-Ambrose, De dignitate conditionis humanae, 2, 43n13 Pseudo-Dionysius: De coelesti hierarchia, 381n6; De ecclesiastica hierarchia, 6, 343n5; — 6.3, 200–1n3, 381n6; Ep. 8, 343n5 Quinque compilationes antiquae, 1 Comp. 2.2.6, 244n32; 1 Comp. 3.37.1, 236n16; 1 Comp. 3.37.3, 237n18; 1 Comp. 3.37.6, 237n17; 1 Comp. 4.18.16, 109n3; 3 Comp. 2.2.4, 244n31; 5 Comp. 1.1.2, 307n4 Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de paenitentia, 2.1.3, 293n4 Robert Grosseteste: Commentarius in Posteriorum analyticorum libros, 109–16, 260n3; De cessatione legalium, 1.10.20–6, 57n11; De decem mandatis, 386n12; — prol. 3, 292n2; — 2.5, 41n10; — 3.2, 106n6; — 4.17, 107n11; De motu corporali et luce, 45n18; Expositio in Epistolam Sancti Pauli ad Galatas, 4.38, 112n9; Hexaëmeron, 1.17.1, 60–1n7; — 8.7.1, 43n13; Tabula, 77n3; — 283, 71n2; — 293, 56n8; Templum dei, 2.5, 44n16; — 3.1–4,

506

Index of Classical, Patristic, and Medieval Sources

53n8; — 3.2, 53n9; — 5.1, 292n2; — 6.36–7, 104n4; — 7.3–4, 448n6; — 7.13–25, 53n8; — 17, 95n3; Testamenta XII patriarcharum: Testamentum Iuda, 22.1–2, 369n9

Seneca: De beneficiis, 1.4, 71n3; Ep. 23, 8, 56n8; Ep. 35, 4, 56n9; Ep. 67, 10, 56n10; Naturales quaestiones, 3.25.3, 115n12 Suda (Suidae Lexicon), 203n5

General Index

Persons are listed alphabetically by their first names. The preposition ‘of’ and equivalent particles d’, de, and des before a place name have been ignored, and ‘St’ (Saint) has been alphabetized in its abbreviated form. Groups of unnamed persons of local significance, such as the ‘archdeacons of the diocese of Lincoln,’ are listed alphabetically by place, in the form ‘Lincoln, archdeacons of diocese of.’ Place names have their modern English forms. Asterisked names indicate Grosseteste’s correspondents, with accompanying references (in bold) to the pages of the correspondence of which they were the recipients and to the numbers (within square brackets) of those letters. The entry for Robert Grosseteste has been expanded and its items organized, despite inevitable duplication, in eight categories: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, Pastoral and Diocesan Affairs, Patronage, Relations with Friars and Other Religious, Relations with King Henry III, Relations with Popes and Cardinals, Relations with See of Canterbury, and Other Matters. Abbreviations: G. = Grosseteste; OFM (Ordo Fratrum Minorum) = Friar(s) Minor, Franciscan(s); OP (Ordo Praedicatorum) = Friar(s) Preacher(s), Dominican(s)

Abbotsley, 58–65, 76n2, 79n3 Abingdon, dean of, 131 *Adam of Lathbury, abbot of St Mary’s Abbey, Reading, 58–65 [4] *Adam Marsh, OFM, 6, 27n12, 49n2, 53n7, 61n9, 76n1, 77–80 [9], 96, 100–2 [20], 168n1, 177n3, 322, 351–2, 360–1, 447n1 *Adam Rufus (Adam of Oxford, Adam of Exeter), OFM, 10, 15, 35–49 [1], 49–53, 54, 78n1, 157

Adenulf dei Conti, nephew of Gregory IX, 174 Adrian V, pope, 441n3 *Agnellus of Pisa, OFM, provincial minister, 15, 49–53 [2], 73n2, 162n4 Alan de Beccles, archdeacon of Sudbury, 279 *Alan of Cestreham (Chesham), abbot of Augustinian canons of Leicester, 196–7 [55]

508

General Index

*Alard (Alardus), OP, provincial prior, 91–2 [14], 92–3 [15] Albert of Pisa, OFM, provincial minister, 162n4 Aldgate, London, Augustinian priory at, 217n2 Alexander, chaplain of Woodford, 130n6 Alexander III, pope, 109, 118, 237nn17–18, 286n4 Alexander IV, pope. See *Rinaldo of Jenne Alexander of Hales, OFM, 352 *Alexander of Stavensby (Stainsby), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 147–50 [34], 165n2 al-Kâmil, sultan, 53n10 All Saints, Northampton, church of, 103 All Saints, Oxford, church of, 447 Amaury de Montfort, 66n3 Amice, countess of Leicester, 65n1, 66n3 Anagni, 345n1 angels (intelligences), 15, 20, 35, 41–8, 153–4, 203–4, 233, 243–4, 288–9, 303, 330, 369, 381, 414–15, 428, 432–4, 446 *Anonymous Oxford master of theology, 80–2 [10] Anthony Wood, 31n33 Arezzo, 158n1 Armagh, province of, 442n5 *Arnulf (Ernulphus, Ernulfus), OFM, papal penitentiary, 145, 156–7 [38], 162 [42], 223–4 [69] Ars dictaminis, 6 Athens, Latin duchy of, 96n4 Azzo (Acto, Atto), master, clerk of Otto of Tonengo, 172–3, 262–4

B., church of, 100 Banbury, Lincoln prebend of, 147n2 Barcelona, 155n1 Bardney Abbey. See Walter, abbot of Bardney Barletta, 50n4 Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, 109n3 Basil (St), Rule of, 204 Beaune, 351 Belley, 290n1 Benedict (St), Rule of, 60, 151–2, 194–5, 204, 234–5, 336–7 Benedict XV, pope, 30n31 Benedict of Aniane, 204n6 Berard of Nimpha, papal scriptor and commissioner, 454–8 Bernard, master, 333–4 Bernard of Pavia, 109n3 Boezio (Boetius), papal nuncio, 97–9, 129 Bologna, 148n2, 155n1, 158n1, 219n1 Boniface, abbot of Cîteaux, 338n1 *Boniface of Savoy, archbishop-elect/ archbishop of Canterbury, 32n50, 290–2 [86], 292–4 [87], 294–5 [88], 295–7 [89], 313n9, 328n2, 353–4, 371–4 [126]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with See of Canterbury Bracton, 95n1 Brian Twyne, 15–16, 31n33 Brown, Edward. See Edward Brown Buckden, Lincoln prebend of, 357 *Bury St Edmunds, abbot (Henry) and monks of, 200–4 [57] Cambridge, chancellor of, 130 Cambridge, dean of, 130

General Index Canterbury, archbishops of. See *Boniface of Savoy; *Edmund of Abingdon Canterbury, monks of Christ Church, 87–8, 275n8, 290, 310, 313, 314n2, 319n1, 341–5 Castor, church of, 219n1, 220, 292–4 Catley, Gilbertine priory of, 76n1 Celestine IV, pope, 345n1 Chalgrave, church of, 97 Chester: bishop of, 165; Dominican and Franciscan friars in city of, 147–50 Cincio, canon of St Paul’s, London, 55n6 *Cîteaux, abbot and monks of, 338–40 [109], 391 Cofle, chapel at, 76n1 Constantinople, 145n4 Cotton, Robert. See Robert Cotton Cropredy, 174n4 Croyland (Crowland), abbot of. See Richard of Bardney cursus curie Romane, 6, 27–8n14 Damietta, 53n10 Daventry, 318 Dee, John. See John Dee Dennis (Pseudo-Dionysius, Ps.Dionysius). See Pseudo-Dionysius Dennis, nephew of John le Romeyn, 229–30 Dernestall, Lincoln prebend of St Martin in, 167–9 Dijon, 338n1 Dionysius. See Pseudo-Dionysius Dominic de Guzman, 148n2, 159n1 Dominican friars: *definitors of, 92–3 [15], 102, 323–4 [100]; houses of, 91n2, 94n2, 148n2, 149n4, 155n1,

509

159n1, 353n1; and Oxford schools, 96n4, 159n2; provincial and general chapters of, 92n1, 102, 159n1, 323n1; and settlement in Chester, 147–50. See also *Alard; Geoffrey of Clive; *Hugh of St Cher; *John of St Giles (OP); *Jordan of Saxony; *Matthew; *Raymond of Peñafort; Robert Bacon; Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Friars and Other Religious Communities Dorchester, Augustinian canons of, 141n3, 196–7. See also H., canon of Dorchester; Richard of Wurthe Dover, 49n1, 452 Dunstable, Augustinian canons of, 97n3 Durham, 7, 61, 64 Edward Brown, 4, 8–9, 15, 25n4, 26n9, 28n17, 28–9n18, 29n24, 30n31 Eddlesborough, church of, 130–1 *Edmund of Abingdon (Edmund Rich), archbishop of Canterbury, 86–8 [12], 128–32 [26], 132–5 [27], 135–40 [28], 141n4, 150n1, 230–57 [72*], 258n2, 274–5, 277, 282, 283–5 [83], 290n2, 313n9, 360n1, 368n6. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with See of Canterbury Edward of Westminster, 27n12 *Egidius Hispanus. See *Giles (Gilles de Torres) *Eleanor, queen, 290n1, 291–2, 321n3, 324, 327–8 [103]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with King Henry III

510

General Index

Eleanor, sister of King Henry III, 169n1, 171n6, 265n2 *Elias of Cortona, OFM, minister general, 144–5 [31], 160–2 [41], 205n2, 208 *England, lords and common people of, 452–3 [131] Ernulphus/Ernulfus. See *Arnulf Eudes Rigaud (Odo Rigaldus), OFM, 352n6 Evesham, 356n2; abbot of, as judge-delegate, 309n1 Feast of Fools, 145–6, 189, 192, 335n2 Federico da Lavagna (Fredericus de Lauania), papal nephew and clerk, 442–4 Flandrina (Flandria) de Braos(e) (Brewes), prioress of Godstow, 26n11 *Fleury (St Benoît-sur-Loire), abbot and monks of. See *Jean, abbot of Fleury Francis of Assisi, 53n10 Franciscan friars: crisis in Franciscan Order, 204–8; forbidden to settle in Chester, 147–50; forbidden to settle in Scarborough, 338–40; houses of, 49n2, 50n4, 78n1, 149n4; and missionary preaching, 50n4, 52n6, 53n10; *Oxford community of, 8, 15, 49–53 [2]; and Oxford schools, 35n1, 49n3, 73n2, 76n2, 82n3, 176n1; and peacemaking, 149n7. See also *Adam Marsh; *Adam Rufus; *Agnellus of Pisa; Alexander of Hales; *Arnulf; *Elias of Cortona; Eudes Rigauld; Garinus; Haimo of Faversham; John of la Rochelle;

John of Stamford; Peter of Tewkesbury; Ralph of Rochester; Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Friars and Other Religious; Roger Bacon; William of Meliton; *William of Nottingham François-Jean-Gabriel de La Porte du Theil, 30n31 Frederick II, emperor, 94n2, 331n4, 341n1, 345n1, 355n2 Gaeta, Dominicans of, 30n31 Gale, Roger. See Roger Gale Garinus (Warin) of Erwelle, OFM, 102 Gascoigne, Thomas. See Thomas Gascoigne Gelasius I, pope, 366–7n3 Genoa, 350n3 Geoffrey of Clive, OP, 91, 93 Gerard, monk of Minting, 337 Gilbert de Biham, chancellor of Oxford University, 447 Gilbert de Gant, earl of Lincoln, 142n1 *Giles (Gilles de Torres, Egidius Hispanus), cardinal deacon of Sts Cosmas and Damian, 152–5 [36], 165–6 [45], 166–8 [46], 222 [67]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Giles of Bridport, archdeacon of Berkshire, papal commissioner, 455–6 Gloucester, 141n4 Godstow, monastery of, 26n11, 76n1 Grantham, hall of William, Earl Warenne, at, 198 Gratius, Orthuinus. See Orthuinus Gratius

General Index Gregory I, pope, 220n3 *Gregory IX, pope, 50n4, 55n7, 81n2, 102n5, 103n2, 109n3, 145nn3–4, 150–2 [35], 155n1, 156n1, 186n11, 204–6 [58], 207n1, 209n2, 214n2, 218 [64], 219n1, 236n16, 244n32, 268–70 [77], 271n2, 278, 280–1 [81], 286n3, 287n6, 307n4, 330, 331, 341n1, 345n1, 355n2, 455–6. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Gregory de Crescentiis, rector of Iver, 129–30 Gretton, Lincoln prebend of, 357 Guala Bicchieri, cardinal and papal legate, 356 Guglielmo Fieschi, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio, 441n3, 442 Guillaume IV de Montaigu, abbot of Cîteaux, 338n1 H., canon of Dorchester and penitent, 196–7 H., dean of Christianity, 285–7 H., master, clerk of G., 262–3 Haimo of Faversham, OFM, provincial minister, 351n1 Harvest Day, 335–6 Hatterboard, 340n7 Haveringdon, church of, 331n2 Hawise (Hadewisa), 142n1 Heddington, 458 *Henry, abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 200–4 [57] Henry II, king, 124n3 *Henry III, king, 19, 26n11, 55nn6–7, 70–1n1, 73nn1–2, 83n2, 103–4, 131–40, 140–2 [29], 143, 150n8, 169n1, 171n6, 180n4, 189n22,

511

190–1, 198n1, 210, 213, 230–57, 264–6, 283–5, 286, 290nn1–2, 291, 300n6, 302n8, 303–6, 306–8, 314n2, 316n2, 320, 321, 324–5 [101], 326–7 [102], 344n9, 354n1, 355–7, 358–9 [119], 366–9 [124], 370–1 [125], 448. See also *Eleanor, queen; Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; Robert Grosseteste: Relations with King Henry III Henry de Bledelawe, vicar of Maxey, 220n2 Henry of Hoo (Ho), master, papal judge-delegate, 300n6, 316n2 *Henry of Lexington, dean of Lincoln cathedral, 361–3 [121], 363–4 [122], 374–441. See also Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Hereford: bishop of (see Peter d’Aigueblanche); disputed episcopal election at, 283–5 Higham Ferrers, parish church of, 179n2 Holy Land, 159n1, 455–6n7, 457–8 Holy Spirit, sevenfold gift of, 333, 368 Holy Trinity, London, church of, 217 Holy Trinity and Captives, order of, 455 Honorius III, pope, 35–6n3, 81n2, 97n1, 152n1, 184n4, 189n22, 307n4 Hospitallers, order of. See Thierry of Nussa Hubert de Burgh, 141n4 Hugh de Mortimer, official of Boniface of Savoy, 371–4 *Hugh of Northwold, bishop of Ely, 300n6, 315–17 [96], 318

512

General Index

*Hugh of Pattishall, royal clerk, treasurer of the Exchequer, 125–8 [25] Hugh of Ravel, 130 *Hugh of St Cher, OP, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, 353–4 [115]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Hugh of Wells, bishop of Lincoln, 54–5, 59, 62n11, 164–5, 223 Huntingdon: archdeacon of, 59n5, 62n11; archdeaconry of, 357 Innocent III, pope, 245, 284, 335n2 *Innocent IV, pope, 4, 24, 32n51, 209n2, 225n1, 290n2, 291n3, 295–7, 338, 342, 345–6 [111], 350, 353n1, 354, 355–7 [117], 357n4, 360n1, 361n1, 366n4, 441n3; his letter (1245) ending G.’s dispute with chapter, 438–41; his letter (1246) regarding redemption of crusading vows, 455–6; his letter (1253) requiring provision of nephew Federico da Lavagna, 442–6. See also Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals *Innocenzo (Innocencius, Innocentius), papal scriptor and provisor, 4, 441–6 [128] intelligences. See angels Isabella, empress, 94n2 Iver, church of, 129 *Ivette (Juetta), sister of Grosseteste, 75–7 [8] J., vicar of Spaldwick, 26n11 James, Richard. See Richard James

James Ussher, 29n19 *Jean, abbot of Fleury (St Benoît-surLoire), 193–5 [53], 195–6 [54], 336–8 [108] Jews, 26n11, 65–70, 336 Jocelin of Wells, bishop of Bath and Wells, 55n5 John, king, 284, 291 John, prior of Minting, 195n2 John of Banbury. See John of St Giles, canon John of Basingstoke (of Leicester), master, archdeacon of Leicester, 96 *John Blund, chancellor of York Cathedral, 99–100 [19] John of Crakehall, canon of Lincoln, 130–1, 266–8, 302 John Dalderby, bishop of Lincoln, 4, 23, 447 John Dee, 8 *John of Ferentino, papal chamberlain, archdeacon of Norwich, 55n6, 158, 163 [43], 221 [66] *John of Foxton, master (?), 146–7 [33] John of Holcot, royal justice, 133 John of la Rochelle, OFM, 352 *John le Romeyn (Romanus), subdean of York Cathedral, 11, 97–9 [18], 229–30 [72] John of Leicester. See John of Basingstoke *John of Offington (Uffington), master, papal chaplain, 360–1 [120] John Saracenus (Sarracenus, Saracen), dean of Wells, papal chaplain and commissioner, 454–8 John Scot(t)us Eriugena, 35–6n3 John Selden, 29n19

General Index John of St Giles, canon of Lincoln, rector of Banbury, archdeacon of Oxford, 91n2, 147 *John of St Giles, OP, 30n31, 91, 93–4 [16], 102, 147n2, 160 John of Stamford, OFM, 351–2 John Ursarola, bishop of Cervia, 355 John Wyclif, 6 *Jordan of Saxony, OP, master general, 159–60 [40] Juetta. See *Ivette Kennett, White. See White Kennett Knighton, in Leicester, chapel of, 69n8 Kyme, Augustinian canons of, 142–4 law of reprisal, 55n6 Leicester: abbot and Augustinian canons of (see Alan of Cestreham); Jews of, 65–70 Leighton Buzzard, prebend of, 147n2 Leominster, priory of, 58n1 Leonard of Dunwich, master, clerk of G., 321 Liddington, 102 *Lincoln, archdeacons of diocese of, 4, 11, 55–6, 103–4 [21], 104–7 [22], 334–6 [107], 346–9 [112], 454–8 [132]; qualities of a good archdeacon, 176–7. See also Matthew of Stratton; Robert Grosseteste: Pastoral and Diocesan Affairs; *Robert of Hayles; Robert of Hicche; *Robert Marsh; *Roger of Weseham; *T.; *Thomas of Wales; William of Arundel Lincoln, bishops of diocese of. See Hugh of Wells; John Dalderby; Richard Gravesend; Robert Grosseteste

513

*Lincoln, clergy of diocese of, 182–93 [52*]; recipients of letter from Richard Gravesend, bishop of Lincoln (1258–79), 449–52 [130]. See also Lincoln, constitutions of G. for diocese of Lincoln, constitutions of G. for diocese of, 11, 182–93; (1) knowledge of Decalogue, seven deadly sins and seven sacraments, vernacular form for baptizing, three creeds [Nicene, Apostles’, and Athanasian], 183; (2) reverent demeanour with respect to Eucharist, 183–4; (3) attending to the sick, 184; (4) proper construction and use of altar-stones, 184; (5) proper use of chrism-cloths, 184; (6) correct recital of divine office, 184; (7) diligence in prayer and scriptural reading and study, 184; (8) teaching Lord’s Prayer, Creed, Salutation of Virgin, Sign of the Cross, 184–5; (9) clerical chastity, 185; (10) celibacy, 185; (11) visits to nunneries, 185; (12) concubinage, 185; (13) eating and drinking to excess and frequenting taverns, 185; (14) engaging in business or usury, 185–6; (15) farming of churches or ecclesiastical possessions, 186; (16) clerical service as officials accountable to secular authorities, 186; (17) income from annals and trentals, 186; (18) adequate stipends for priests, 186; (19) farming of church property to laymen, 186; (20) erection of buildings on land not belonging to the Church and payment of related tithes to

514

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laymen, 186; (21) diversion of lay contributions intended for pious functions, 186; (22) receiving lay offerings after Easter Mass during communion, 187; (23) attending performances of mimes, jesters, or actors, or playing board games or with dice or associating with those who do, 187; (24) bearing arms and being properly attired and tonsured, 187; (25) holding several cures of souls without dispensation, 187; (26) sons succeeding to their fathers’ livings, 187; (27) extorting money for sacraments and penitential practices, 187–8; (28) imposing annals and trentals for gain, 188; (29) delegating to deacons duties of hearing confessions or administering sacraments, 188; (30) promoting beneficed clerks to appropriate rank, 188; (31) residing in benefices unless dispensed, 188; (32) numbers and ranks of those ministering in churches, 188; (33) holding markets in sacred places, 188; (34) fencing of graveyards, constructing associated churches and houses, providing and safekeeping books, ornaments, and sacred vessels, 188; (35) celebrating Feast of Fools, 189; (36) using sour wine at Mass, 189; (37) studying or teaching civil law and performing pastoral duties, 189; (38) correcting canon of Mass, 189; (39) denouncing those who tilt at quintains or compete in games for

prizes, and prohibiting ‘scot-ales,’ 189; (40) excluding games and secular trials from sacred places, 189; (41) overlaying infants, 189; (42) clandestine marriages, 189; (43) dangerous parish processions, 189; (44) providing lodging for concubines of clerks, 190; (45) presence of laypeople, except patrons, among clerks in chancel during divine service, 190; (46) annual reading of excommunications pronounced by Council of Oxford, 190–1 Lincoln, schools of, 180n4 *Lincoln Cathedral, dean and chapter of, 15, 24, 53–8 [3], 145–6 [32], 225–8 [71], 257–62 [73], 268–70, 271–3, 273–9, 280–1, 281–3, 297–303 [90], 303–6 [91], 306–8 [92], 309, 310–13 [94], 314–15 [95], 315–20, 357n4, 361–3 [121], 363–4 [122], 374–431, 432–7, 438–41. See also Robert Grossetest: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; Robert Grosseteste: Pastoral and Diocesan Affairs London, 8, 55n6, 149n4, 189n22, 198n1, 217, 257, 274, 275, 278, 314, 318, 449; *citizens of, 452–3 [131]; Public Record Office, 26n11 Lyons, 290, 295, 296, 350, 351, 352n8, 354, 355, 361n1, 441; *council of (1245), 225n1, 296n2, 351n2, 354n1, 374–431 [127], 375n1, 381n7; papal curia at, 17, 27n12, 32n51, 347n2, 350, 353n1, 357n4, 360n1, 432n1, 441, 447n7, 456

General Index Magna Carta, 198n1, 253, 284–5, 291 Mainz, 94n2 Mantes (Mantes-la-Jolie), 351n4, 352 Margaret, countess of Lincoln, 65n1 *Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester, 11, 65–70 [5] Martin, abbot of Missenden, 287n1 *Martin, master, papal chamberlain, nuncio, collector of revenues, 332–4 [106], 359 *Matthew, OP, provincial prior, 323–4 [100] Matthew Paris, 4–5, 6, 16, 18, 23, 24, 25n1, 26nn9–10 Matthew of Stratton, archdeacon of Buckingham, 130–1 Maxey, vicar of, 220. See also Henry de Bledelawe May Day, 335–6 *Michael Belet, administrator and judge, 82–6 [11] Miles Windsor, 15–16, 31n33 Minting, Benedictine cell of Fleury at, 193–5, 195–6, 336–8 miracle plays, 335–6 *Missenden, Augustinian canons of, 11, 284n5, 287–9 [85] Moatenden, Trinitarian house at, 455n5 Mortlake, 133 Muslims, 50n4 N., chaplain of William, earl of Warren, 198–9 N., clerical relative of John Blund, 100 Naples, university of, 158n1 Newnham, Augustinian canons of, 27n12 Nicholas of Ely, prior of Daventry, 330

515

Nicholas Farnham, bishop of Durham, 342 Nicholas de Romanis, cardinal bishop of Tusculum, papal legate, 449 Nicholas of Waddingham, master, chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, 273n4, 311–12; reply of, to G.’s arguments in defence of episcopal right of visitation, 432–7 Nogent (Nogent-sur-Seine), 351 Northampton, 318n3; market and fair at, 103–4; Dominican and Franciscan friars at, 149n4; church of St Peter at, 368, 371–4 Obizzo Fieschi, brother of Innocent IV, 442n4 Odo of Kilkenny, master, 312 Odo Rigaldus. See Eudes Rigaud Old Temple, London, 278 Old Warden, church of, 127n3 Oliver de Vallibus, royal justice, 133 Order of the Holy Trinity. See Holy Trinity and Captives, order of Orthuinus Gratius (Ortwinus Gratius, Ortwin van Graes), 25n4 Osney Abbey, 129, 141n3, 449 *Otto of Tonengo, cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, papal legate, 32n51, 97n2, 172–4 [49], 179–82 [52], 208–11 [60], 211–13 [61], 231n1, 258n2, 262–4 [74], 266–7 [76], 271–3 [79], 281–3 [82], 284n3, 329–30 [104], 330–2 [105], 341–5 [110], 442n5. See also Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals

516

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Ottobuono Fieschi, papal legate, 441n3, 442n5 Oxford: churches of, 447n4 (see also All Saints; St Frideswide; St Martin; Osney Abbey); Dominican community of, 96n4, 149n4, 159; *Franciscan community of, 49–53 [2], 73n2, 149n4, 176n1; murder in, 447–9; *regent masters in theology at, 364–6 [123], 447n2; schools of, 26n11, 35nn1–2, 64n15, 73n2, 76n2, 80, 82n3, 83n2, 96n4, 99n1, 364n1. See also *Anonymous Oxford master of theology P., master, clerk of Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, 262–4, 331n2 P., master, nephew of Cardinal Giles (Gilles de Torres), 154–5 Paolo Pico, OP, 30n31 Paris, 270, 271n2, 351–2; schools of, 49n2, 88–90, 91n2, 94n2, 99n1, 151n2, 176n1, 177–8, 189n22, 219n1, 270n1, 352n6, 353n1, 364n1, 365 Pershore, abbot of. See Roger of Radely Perugia, 444 Peter d’Aigueblanche, bishop of Hereford, 296 Peter of Bordeaux, master, 331n2 Peter des Rivaux, treasurer of the Exchequer, 125n1 Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, 209n2. See also Winchester, disputed episcopal election at Peter of Tewkesbury, OFM, 351–2 Peterborough Abbey, 294n6

Philip, monk of Minting, 194, 337 Philip (I) of Kyme, 142n1 *Philip (II) of Kyme, 142–4 [30] Pico, Paolo. See Paolo Pico Pinchbeck, vicarage of, 332–4 Poitou, 321n3 Portsmouth, 321n3 Proteus, 130 Pseudo-Dionysius, 19–21, 154, 200–1nn2–3, 343, 352, 381 R., clerk of G., 271 R., master, clerk of G. and of Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, 331 Ralph of Corbridge, 27n12 *Ralph de Neville, bishop of Chichester, royal chancellor, 209n2, 213–16 [62], 291n3. See also Winchester, disputed episcopal election at Ralph Niger, bishop of London, 277 Ralph of Rochester, OFM, 145 *Ramsey, abbot and monks of, 132–5, 216–17 [63] Rand, parish church of, 179, 182 *Ranfred of Benevento (Ranfridus, Roffredus Beneventanus/of Benevento), papal notary, 157–8 [39] *Ranulph (Ralph), abbot of Ramsey. See *Ramsey, abbot and monks of *Raymond of Peñafort, OP, 155–6 [37], 293n4 Reading, schools of, 64n15 *Reading Abbey, abbot and monks of, 58–65 [4], 88n4 *Regent masters in theology at Oxford, 364–6 [123] Richard, abbot of Dorchester, 141n3 Richard I, king, 340n7

General Index Richard of Bardney, abbot of Croyland, 281–2 Richard of Cornwall, chancellor of York Cathedral, 168–9n1 Richard of Cornwall, crusader, brother of King Henry III, 321n3, 454–8 *Richard of Cornwall, master, 167, 168–9 [47] Richard Fishacre, OP, 366n4 Richard Gravesend, bishop of Lincoln, 180n4, 449–52 Richard James, 31n33 *Richard of Kirkham, master, papal judge-delegate, 300–2, 315–17, 317–18 [97] Richard de Lucy, royal justice, 124 *Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, 70–3 [6], 73–5 [7], 141n4 Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, bishop of Durham, 64 Richard (Rufus) of Cornwall, OFM, 168–9n1 Richard Siward, crusader, 140–2 Richard Swinfield, bishop of Hereford, 11, 29n23 R[ichard] of Warminster, master, 172 Richard of Wurthe, canon of Osney, abbot of Dorchester, 141 Richard de Wych, bishop-elect of Chichester, 296 *Rinaldo (Raynaldus) of Jenne, cardinal bishop of Ostia (Pope Alexander IV), 206–8 [59], 224–5 [70]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Robert, abbot of Missenden, 287n1 Robert, earl of Leicester, 65n1 R[obert?], master, rector of St Helen’s Church, 131

517

Robert, provincial minister of Trinitarian Order in England, papal commissioner, 455 R[obert?] of Abingdon, master, rector of Church of St Helen, Abingdon, 131 Robert Bacon, OP, 82n3, 96 Robert of Cadney, master, precentor of Lincoln Cathedral, 362 Robert Cotton, 8, 15, 31n33; Cotton fire (Ashburnham House, London), 8, 9, 12, 27n12, 30n27 Robert Grosseteste: – Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln: G. requests account of their grievances against him, 225–8; disputes their claim that his power to decide cases is limited to those on appeal or by negligence of dean, 257–62; requests that pope not grant them letters against him until special messenger has presented his case, 268–70; acknowledges requests of Cardinal Otto of Tonengo and Salisbury chapter to restore peace with chapter, 272, 309; reports progress of quarrel to Simon of Arden, his proctor at curia, including their acceptance of third of three proposals to resolve dispute, 273–9; protests chapter’s treatment of Richard of Kirkham, 297–303; objects to their obtaining royal prohibition to restrict ecclesiastical judges from settling dispute, and their resisting his efforts to have prohibition recalled, 303–6; reminds them of penalty of excommunication for

518

General Index

attempts to transfer case to secular court, 306–8; complains that they have excommunicated his choice for dean (Roger de Weseham), justifies his excommunication of their proctor Nicholas, and threatens their excommunication if they appeal to monks of Canterbury, 310–13; begs Bishop Hugh of Ely to ensure that Richard of Kirkham not fail to serve as a judge in dispute, and promises to indemnify them both against any loss, 315–17; seeks to address Richard’s concerns about surprise attacks, 317–18; calls upon Bishop Walter of Cantilupe to imitate Moses when judging dispute with chapter, 318–20; explains reasons for changing order of visitation of chapter and archdeaconry of Stow, an alteration that has annoyed members of chapter, 361–3, 363–4; announces victory (by papal decision) in dispute with chapter, 352, 357, 438–41; offers arguments in defence of his right of visitation, probably for presentation to Council of Lyons, and describes his conception of episcopal office, 374–431 – Pastoral and Diocesan Affairs: G. orders archdeacons of Lincoln diocese to prohibit buying or selling of goods within sacred precincts, 103–4; ‘scot-ales’ (drinking parties), various games and other scurrilous and irreverent activities, overlaying infants,

clandestine marriages, dangerous parish processions, Easter offerings after Mass, fees for sacraments, 104–7, 335; improper recitation of canonical hours, cohabitation of priests with their concubines and of Christians with Jews, miracle plays and ‘May Day’ or ‘Harvest Day,’ interference with preaching of friars and confessions to them, preaching by alms collectors, 334–6; G. orders archdeacons to preside over redemption of crusading vows, 454–8; urges upon them an increase of pastoral zeal during his sojourn at papal curia, 346–9; announces to Archdeacon Robert of Hayles his intention to preach to clergy in their deaneries and to consecrate churches, and requests advice about procurations and information concerning clerks guilty of incontinence, 174–5; describes the qualities of a good archdeacon, 176–7; orders dean and chapter to prohibit Feast of Fools in Lincoln Cathedral, 145–6; presents his diocesan constitutions (Letter 52*) to Lincoln clergy, 182–93 (see also Lincoln, constitutions of G. for diocese of); reports or reacts to presentation, or requests for appointment, of candidates for pastoral charges: deacon presented by monk (with G.’s rejection provoking rebuke by Michael Belet), 82–6; W. of Grana, nominee of William of Raleigh, 94–6; relative of John Blund,

General Index 99–100; Hugh of Pattishall, 125–8; Hugh of Ravel, 130; appointee of Philip of Kyme, 142–4; Richard of Cornwall, as requested by Cardinal Giles, 166–8; Azzo, clerk of Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, 172–3, 262–4; Adenulf dei Conti, nephew of Gregory IX, 174; Thomas, son of Earl Ferrers, presented by Cardinal Otto, 179–82; Dennis, nephew of John le Romeyn, 229–30; candidate, unknown to him, of Archbishop Boniface, 292–4; Robert Passelewe, 367–8, 371–4; Federico da Lavagna, nephew of Innocent IV, 441–6; G. confers upon, or sends invitations to assume, pastoral duties or charges to: W. of Cerda, 88–90; John of St Giles, 93–4; Richard of Cornwall, 168–9; Thomas of Wales, 176–9; ‘T.,’ 357–8; John of Offington, 360–1; G. chastises immorality of unidentified Oxford master of theology, 80–2; expresses views on farming of churches, 97–9, 129n4; admonishes William of Raleigh for serving as judge at expense of his pastoral duties, 124–5; cites Earl Warenne and his chaplain because Mass was celebrated in unconsecrated hall at Grantham, 198–9; describes care of souls as ‘art of arts,’ 189, 406, 411 – Patronage: G. solicits, or is grateful for, kindness, oversight, or assistance, especially in promoting his affairs at papal curia, or for advice to his proctor, Simon of

519

Arden, from: Cardinal Giles, 154–5, 165–6, 222; Raymond of Peñafort, 155–6; Arnulf, 156–7, 162, 144–5, 223–4; Ranfred of Beneventano, 157–8; friars at command of Jordan of Saxony, Dominican master general, and Elias, Franciscan minister general, 159, 160–2; John of Ferentino, 163, 221; Cardinal Thomas of Capua, 163–5, 222–3; Gregory IX, 218; Cardinal Robert of Somercote, 220; Cardinal Rinaldo of Jenne, 224–5; William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, 270–1; Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, 331–2; Innocent IV, 345–6 – Relations with Friars and Other Religious Communities: 91–2n5, 148–9n3, 149n4; G. requests, or is grateful for, attendance and service of friars: John of St Giles (OP), Geoffrey of Clive (OP), and a third friar (OP) competent in civil and canon law, 91–3, 93–4, 160; Adam Marsh (OFM) and other friars (OFM), 100–2; Arnulf (OFM) and Ralph of Rochester (OFM), 144–5; friars (OP) at command of Jordan of Saxony, Dominican master general, 159–60; unidentified friars (OFM), 144; two or four other friars (OFM), at command of Elias, Franciscan minister general, 160–2; two friars (OP) at command of Matthew, Dominican provincial prior, 323–4; friars (OFM, OP) to assist Archbishop Boniface, 353–4; G. prohibits

520

General Index

interference with preaching of friars and confessing to them, 335; reproaches Bishop Alexander of Stavensby for opposing Franciscan settlement in Chester, 147–50; praises pastoral work and example of Franciscan friars to Gregory IX, and to Cardinal Rinaldo of Jenne, 204–6, 206–8; recounts dispute between Scarborough Franciscans and Cistercians, 338–40; disputes annual payment claimed by St Mary’s Abbey, Reading, 58–65; requests consecration at Canterbury to appease monks there, 86–8; is opposed to farming of churches to monasteries, 97–8; expels unworthy monks from Minting, 193–5, 336–8; asks Abbot Jean of Fleury to present suitable candidate as prior of Minting, 195–6; conducts visitations of monasteries and religious houses, 196nn1–2, 287n1; will come to review case of H., canon of Dorchester and an aging and ill penitent, but is opposed to H.’s leaving canons of Leicester to return to Dorchester, 196–7; presents to community of Bury St Edmunds his Latin version of Greek treatise on monastic life, 200–4; provides for abbot and monks of Ramsey Abbey instructions concerning preparation of church for consecration, 216–17; exhorts canons of Missenden to exercise special care in electing abbot, 287–9; is suspended and excommunicated by monks of

Canterbury and explains his view of relationship of archbishop of Canterbury to his suffragan bishops and these monks, 313n9, 314n2, 319n1, 341–5 – Relations with King Henry III: G. persuades Henry to forbid merchants’ buying or selling goods in church and cemetery of All Saints (Northampton), 103–4; presents arguments for changing existing law to recognize legitimation, by subsequent marriage of parents, of children born out of wedlock, and their right by hereditary succession to secular estates, 108–22, 123–4; argues that spiritual and material swords belong to Church, through which temporal rulers receive their authority, and that secular rulers and judges therefore have no power to frame laws contrary to those of Church, 120–2; is summoned to appear in king’s court concerning certification of bastardy, 131–2; objects to royal appointment of abbots of Ramsay and Croyland as itinerant justices, and to king’s attempts to compel religious to serve as judges and clerics to submit to jurisdiction of secular courts when impleaded in personal actions, 132–5, 135–6, 281–2; is threatened by king, 136; requests Henry’s release of crusader Richard Siward from prison, 140–2; reports that he has quashed, with king’s acceptance, elections in royal monasteries, 143;

General Index comments on royal interference in episcopal elections, 209–10, 283–5, 291–2, 344n9; has taken oath of fidelity to king, 210; describes forms of lay encroachments on ecclesiastical rights and liberties, all such infringements being violations of freedom guaranteed by Magna Carta and incurring excommunication pronounced by Council of Oxford, 230–57, 287, 344n9; describes relationship between sacerdotal and royal powers, and special powers of anointed kings, 242, 366–7, 368–9; rebukes Henry of Lexington and other royal justices for ill treatment of dean of Christianity, who had denounced them for trying capital cases on Sunday, 285–7; comforts Simon de Montfort in dispute with king, 264–6; requests intervention of Queen Eleanor with king concerning Winchester election and Henry’s opposition to papal command, and concerning new disturbances in kingdom, 291–2, 327–8; comments on clerical resistance to royal demand for subvention, 296–7; comments on Henry’s involvement in G.’s dispute with cathedral chapter, 304, 306, 308, 316n2, 320; comments on royal invitation to Bishop Walter of Cantilupe to accompany king abroad, 321–2; thanks Henry for inquiring about his health and excuses his apparent neglect of the king, 324–5; comments that a king has

521

no power to do anything except command what is right, 326; asks him to revoke any letter favouring the deposed abbot of Bardney and his rebellious party, 326–7; reports to Innocent IV the king’s expression of loyalty to papacy and acknowledgment of indebtedness to Cardinal Guala, 355–7; reminds Henry of obligation of bishops, out of obedience to pope and Church, to collect tallage in aid of pope, 358–9; justifies his refusal to admit Robert Passelewe, a forest judge, to cure of souls, 367–8, 371–4; requests Henry’s pardon for any offence and offers to resolve any differences between them at their next meeting, 370–1 – Relations with Popes and Cardinals: G. reports having consulted pope about simultaneously holding two curae animarum, 79n3, 263; comments on pope’s supremacy in ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on papal plenitude of power (plenitudo potestatis), 152–4, 343, 381, 383, 385, 401–2, 446; expresses devotion and promises obedience to Gregory IX, asks for imposition of task, and offers modest gift, 150–2; acknowledges right of pope and Roman Church to dispose freely of all ecclesiastical benefices, 173; is prepared, at papal command, to undertake missionary work among Saracens, 173; reports promotion of Gregory’s nephew to Lincoln prebend, 174; praises work and

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example of Franciscans in England and asks for Gregory’s intervention at time of crisis in that order, 204–6; begs him to be favorable to petitions presented by Simon of Arden, 218; requests his opposition to efforts of Lincoln dean and chapter to thwart episcopal visitation, and his refusal to grant letters against G. until his proctor has come and explained his position, 268–70; begs his support for (third) proposal intended to conclude his dispute with his chapter, 280–1; is defended by John of Ferentino against detractors at curia, 221; G. declines to support subsidy granted by Innocent IV to Archbishop Boniface, 295–7; requests Cardinal Otto of Tonengo’s appeal to Innocent for remedy in dealing satisfactorily with his suspension and excommunication by monks of Canterbury, 341–5; rejoices at Innocent’s election and requests his attention to his affairs and agents, 345–6; begs him to appoint friars to assist Archbishop Boniface, 354; reluctantly forwards to Archbishop Walter de Gray request of Innocent and cardinals to favour affairs of exiled bishop of Cervia, 354–5; reports to Innocent Henry III’s expression of loyalty to papacy and acknowledgement of indebtedness to Cardinal Guala, 355–7; wins victory (by papal decision) in dispute with chapter of Lincoln, 352, 357, 438–41;

passes on to archdeacons of Lincoln diocese Innocent’s letter concerning redemption of crusading vows, 454–8; recommends papal provision by Innocent, 334; rejects Innocent’s provision of Lincoln canonry and benefice to Federico da Lavagna, 441–6; G. expresses to Cardinal Giles his reverence for pope and cardinals, 152–4; asks for his favour and affection, 154–5; is grateful for his eloquent letter of praise, and for his friendship, 165–6, 222; accedes to his request to grant prebend to Richard of Cornwall, 166–8; G. asks Cardinal Hugh of St Cher to remind pope to send friars to assist Archbishop Boniface, 353–4; asks Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, papal legate, to revoke his conferral of prebend on his clerk Azzo, and promises to provide generously for Otto’s people, 172–3, 174; asks him to assume responsibility for appointment to Church of Rand, 179–82; begs him to persuade king and Winchester community to choose best possible bishop for that see, and seeks to rouse him, despite perceived slight by G., to be zealous about appropriate appointment there, 208–11, 211–13; assembles list of lay infringements of ecclesiastical liberties for use by Archbishop Edmund and presentation to Otto, 231–57; defers to Otto’s judgment concerning appointment of his

General Index clerk Azzo, 262–4; defends his absolution of Sibry, a clerk excommunicated by Otto, 266–7; expresses to Otto his desire to restore peaceful relations with Lincoln dean and chapter despite their efforts to thwart his performance of his duties, 271–3; requests his intervention in case of abbot of Croyland, appointed itinerant justice, 281–2; requests meeting with Otto, and his review of, and assent to, proposal for resolving quarrel with dean and chapter, 282–3; seeks to mitigate his displeasure at having had to receive visitors without proper written introductions, 329–30; regrets that he cannot attend him on journey to general council, but will send Master R. to accompany him to coast, and begs to be excused by him and pope, 331; reports his suspension and excommunication by the monks of Canterbury, gives his view of relationship of archbishop of Canterbury to suffragan bishops and Canterbury monks, and requests Otto’s appeal to pope for satisfactory remedy, 341–5; urges Martin, papal nuncio, to reserve church in patronage of prior of Spalding for pope’s collation, 334; commends to Cardinal Rinaldo of Jenne work and example of Franciscans in England and calls upon his intervention at time of crisis in that order, 206–8; thanks him for interesting himself in his

523

affairs and befriending his proctor at the curia, 224–5; congratulates Cardinal Robert of Somercote on his promotion, requests his support at curia and repair of Church of Castor, and permits vicar of Maxey to serve cardinal, 219–20; hopes that special affection of Cardinal Thomas of Capua for Bishop Hugh of Lincoln may be extended to him and that Thomas will promote his affairs at curia, 163–5, 222–3 – Relations with See of Canterbury: G. requests consecration by Archbishop Edmund of Abingdon at Canterbury, to appease monks there, 86–8; is consecrated by him (June 1235) at Reading Abbey, 83n1, 88n4, 139n9; describes for him his dispute with Osney Abbey, his rejection of Hugh of Ravel for Church of Woodford, a suit concerning the Church of Eddlesborough, and the distractions of frivolous complaints against him, 129, 130–1; requests Edmund’s advice as to summons to appear before king’s court concerning certification of bastardy, 131–2; begs his intervention in case of abbot of Ramsey, appointed itinerant justice by king, and concerning royal attempts to compel religious to become involved in secular affairs, and clerics to submit to secular judgment in personal actions, 132–5, 135–40; describes six forms of lay infringement of ecclesiastical liberties, 230–57; exhorts Edmund

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to protect integrity of impending episcopal elections, including that of Hereford, against bribery and intimidation, 283–5; professes obedience to him, 368n6; G. congratulates Archbishop Boniface of Savoy on his election and begs him to protect ecclesiastical liberties against royal interference, especially in Winchester election, 291; advises him to ask his niece, Queen Eleanor, to intercede with king, 291–2; invites him to select presentee to Church of Castor, 292–4; requests his help in dealing with superfluous complaints against him from punished offenders, 294–5; explains his reasons for not supporting subsidy granted Boniface by pope, 295–7; describes developments in case of Robert Passelewe, a forest judge, and implores Boniface to decline this appointment and to protect his suffragans against his official’s arrogance and interference, 372–4; reports to Cardinal Otto of Tonengo, papal legate, his suspension and excommunication by Canterbury monks while see is vacant, explains his view of relationship of archbishop of Canterbury to his suffragan bishops and these monks, and requests satisfactory papal remedy, 341–5 – Other Matters: Dicta, 18, 25n4, 31n41; Le Château d’amour, 21–2; Rules of Estate Management, 65n1; Rotuli, 5, 26n11, 27n12; G. discusses

for Adam Rufus theological questions concerning God as first form, and angels, 35–41, 41–8; serves as rector of Abbotsley (presented in 1225), 58–65, 76n2, 79n3; serves as archdeacon of Leicester (1229–32), 18, 19, 22, 49, 54, 58, 65, 70, 73n2, 76, 78n2, 154, 172n2, 391n19; advises Oxford Franciscans on true meaning of physical separation on occasion of departure of Adam Rufus for missionary work among Saracens, 49–53; postpones pilgrimage to Rome and answers accusation of inconstancy, 53–8, 61; reports and seeks to justify resignation of all emoluments except Lincoln prebend (parish church of Leicester St Margaret and chapel of Knighton in Leicester), 69n8, 75–80, 263; advises countess of Winchester on proper treatment of Jews, 65–9; complains about behaviour of her bailiff concerning buying and selling in G.’s parish, 66n3, 69–70; describes for Richard Marshall the joys of heaven, and differences between true and false wisdom, 70–3, 73–5; mentions his recovery from fever, 76; teaches at Oxford, 22, 35n2, 49n3, 73n2, 76n2, 80, 82n3; has jurisdiction over schools there, 364n1; advises regent masters in theology at Oxford to lecture during morning hours on topics from Scripture, 364–6; orders Robert Marsh, his official, to investigate murder of

General Index Oxford scholar and to punish participants, 447–9; is unanimously elected bishop, and is consecrated at Reading, 83n1, 88n4; encourages in their adversity John of Foxton and Simon de Montfort, and promises to plead Simon’s cause with king and to comfort his household, 146–7, 264–5, 266; responds to accusation of hardheartedness, 197; comments on size of Lincoln diocese, 159–61, 294; offers to purchase books of Scripture from John of Foxton, 147; warns Simon de Montfort against excessive severity in case of Simon Curlevache, 169–72; mentions his own physical weakness, 173, 226, 228, 314, 331; declines to write in support of postulation of Ralph de Neville to see of Winchester, 213–16; responds to Bishop Walter of Cantilupe’s request for advice about travelling abroad with king, 321–2; advises Martin, papal nuncio, concerning incident at Pinchbeck cemetery, 332–4; reports his safe arrival in Lyons and courteous reception by pope and cardinals, 350; provides details of trip homeward from Lyons, including illness of Friar John of Stamford and deaths of Alexander of Hales and John de la Rochelle, 351–2; comments on crusades and crusade vows, 81, 140–2, 454–8 *Robert of Hayles, archdeacon of Lincoln, 174–5 [50], 176

525

*Robert of Hertford, dean of Salisbury Cathedral, 309 [93] Robert of Hicche (Hitchin?), archdeacon of Huntingdon, 357n2 *Robert of Lexington, royal justice, 133, 285–7 [84] Robert of Maperton, vicar of Leighton-Bromswold, 26n11 *Robert Marsh, master, canon of Lincoln, G.’s official, archdeacon of Oxford, 4, 96, 447–9 [129], 454n3 Robert Passelewe, forest judge, 294n6, 366–9, 371–4 *Robert of Somercote, cardinal deacon of S. Eustachio, 219–20 [65]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Roffredus Beneventanus. See Ranfred of Benevento Roger Bacon, OFM, 96n4, 177n3 Roger Gale, 28n15 Roger of Gilsburgh, abbot of Missenden, 287n1 Roger of Radely, abbot of Pershore, 266–8 Roger of Raveningham, clerk of G., 266–8 Roger of Toft, prior of Kyme, 143n2 *Roger of Weseham, master, archdeacon of Oxford, dean of Lincoln Cathedral, 297–303 [90], 303–6 [91], 306–8 [92], 310–13 [94], 314–15 [95], 361n1. See also Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Roland of Cremona, OP, 94n2, 353n1 Rome, 50n4, 54–6, 155–6, 158n2, 168, 171n6, 271n2, 290n2, 329n2, 340n7, 341n1

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Rouen, 351 Saer de Quincy, earl of Winchester, 65n1 Salisbury, 58, 61; *dean and chapter of, 15, 309 [93]; diocese of, 455n6, 458 Saracens, 49, 50n4, 53n10, 173 Savoy, 350n3 Scalby, parish of. See Hatterboard Scarborough: Franciscan friars in, 338–40; church of St Mary in, 340n7 ‘scot-ales’ (drinking parties), 105, 193, 335–6 Seine, river, 351 Selden, John. See John Selden Shrewsbury, capture and burning of, 73n1 Sibry, clerk, 267 Sibsey, church of, 219n1, 442n5 Sibstone, church of, 172n2 *Simon of Arden, master, G.’s proctor at papal curia, 155, 156, 157, 162, 163, 218, 223, 225, 270, 273–9 [80], 329–30 S[imon Curlevache], burgess of Leicester, 171 Simon of Hautberg, prior of Spalding, 332n2, 333–4 Simon Langton, master, archdeacon of Canterbury, 99n1, 344n8 *Simon de Montfort, 11, 65, 66n3, 169–72 [48], 264–6 [75] Sinibaldo Fieschi. See *Innocent IV, pope Spalding, prior of. See Simon of Hautberg St Albans, 55n6 St Benoît-sur-Loire, Benedictine monastery. See *Jean, abbot of Fleury

St Bride, London, church of, 257 St Catherine, chapel of, at Westminster, 253 St Frideswide, Oxford, priory of, 143n3 St Helen, Abingdon, church of. See R[obert?] of Abingdon St Ives, parish church of, 217n5 St Margaret, Leicester (Leicester St Margaret), church and Lincoln prebend of, 65n1, 66n3, 69–70, 76n2, 79n3 St Martin, Oxford, church of, 447, 448 St Martin in Dernestall. See Dernestall St Martin le Grand, London, church of, 456 St Mary, abbey of, at Reading. See Reading Abbey, abbot and monks of St Paul, London, church of. See Cincio St Peter, Northampton, church of, 368, 371–4 Stamford-on-Avon, church of, 229–30 Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, 217, 253, 344n8 *Stephen de Montival, archdeacon of Canterbury, papal provisor, 4, 441–6 [128] Stow, archdeaconry of, 362 Stow Park, 449 *T., appointee to archdeaconry of Huntingdon and prebend of Buckden, 357–8 [118], 361n2 Tedisio, count of Lavagna, 442n5 Tedisio da Lavagna, clerk, master, papal scriptor, 442n5 Tedisio da Lavagna, papal subdeacon and chaplain, 442n5

General Index *Tommaso da Capua. See *Thomas of Capua Thame, Lincoln prebend of, 302n8, 308 Theobald, monk of Minting, 194, 337 therapeutae, 201–2, 203n5 Thessaly, two rivers of, 115 Thierry of Nussa, prior of English Hospitallers, 255n43 Thomas Becket, 368n7 *Thomas of Capua (Tommaso da Capua), cardinal priest of Santa Sabina, 163–5 [44], 222–3 [68]. See also Robert Grosseteste: Relations with Popes and Cardinals Thomas de Ferrers, clerk, 179–82 Thomas Gascoigne, 8 *Thomas of Wales (Walensis), master, canon, archdeacon of Lincoln, 96, 176–9 [51], 195n2, 267n3, 302 Thornholme priory, 143n2 Titus, emperor, 67 Toulouse, 94n2, 148n2 Twyne, Brian. See Brian Twyne Twywell, church of, 442n5 Ugo, count of Lavagna, 441n3 Ussher, James. See James Ussher Vespasian, emperor, 67 *W. of Cerda, master, 88–90 [13] W. of Grana, 95–6 Walrand, monk of Minting, 337 Walter, abbot of Bardney, 326–7 *Walter of Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, 26n11, 183n2, 279, 300n6, 309n1, 316n2, 318–20 [98], 321–2 [99], 350 [113], 356n2, 457

527

*Walter de Gray, archbishop of York, 342, 354–5 [116] Walter of St Quentin, master, 130–1 Warin. See Garinus Westminster, 253, 255, 256, 318; council of (1246), 371n3 West Wycombe, church of, 331n2 White Kennett, 15 Wight, Isle of, 352 William, bishop-elect of Valence (William de Valence), 209–10. See also Winchester, disputed episcopal election at *William, earl of Warren (Earl Warenne), 198–9 [56] William II (Rufus), king, 383n8, 436n6 William of Arundel, archdeacon of Huntingdon, 357n2 *William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, 270–1 [78], 352n6 William de Burgh, rector of Castor, 294n6 William of Compton, keeper of temporalities of Bardney Abbey, 326 William de Ferrers, earl of Derby, 179 William of Hemingborough, clerk of G., 274, 279 William Herebert, OFM, 14 William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, 70n1 William of Meliton, OFM, 352n6 *William of Nottingham, OFM, provincial minister, 351–2 [114] *William of Raleigh (de Raleger), treasurer of Exeter cathedral, chief justice of the king’s court, bishop of Norwich and of Winchester, 11, 94–6 [17], 108–22 [23], 123–5

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[24], 209n2, 291n3, 344n9, 350 [113]. See also Winchester, disputed episcopal election at William of Stichill, archdeacon of Worcester, 279 *William of Thorney (de Thornaco), dean of Lincoln Cathedral, 53–8 [3], 145–6 [32], 225–8 [71], 257–62 [73], 297n1, 304n1. See also Robert Grosseteste: Dispute with Dean and Chapter of Lincoln

Winchester, disputed episcopal election at, 208–11, 213–16, 291, 328n2, 344n9 Windsor, Miles. See Miles Windsor Wingham, 55n6 Wood, Anthony. See Anthony Wood Woodford, church of, 130 Worcester, 78n1, 356n2; archdeacon of, as judge-delegate, 309n1 York, 92, 100, 102, 441n2