The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature [Course Book ed.] 9781400854165

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The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 180, fol. l r : The incipit page of the De Pauperie Salvatoris by Archbishop Richard FitzRalph of Armagh; FitzRalph ("Armachanus") wielding his antifraternal pen in the initial capital; friars attacked by devils in the right margin. This manuscript belonged to Adam Easton, monk of Norwich and later Cardinal.

THE A N T I F R A T E R N A L TRADITION IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE

Perm R. Szittya

P R I N C E T O N UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEWJERSEY

Copyright © 1986 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey AU Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-06680-9 Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Bollingen Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in Linotron Bembo Ciothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey

To Brenda

CONTENTS

PREFACE

IX

ABBREVIA TIONS

The Puzzle of Sire Penetrans Domos

3

William of St. Amour and the Perils of the Last Times

11

INTRODUCTION ONE

XIII

THE FRIARS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS THE SENSE OF AN ENDING THE WATCHTOWER OF SCRIPTURE PHARISEES PSEUDOAPOSTLES ANTICHRISTI

TWO

William of St. Amour in England: Circulation and Dissemination THE DOCUMENTARY RECORD

11 17 31 34 41 54 62 63

OMNE BONUM: AN ANTIFRATERNAL

A TRADITION OF FORM: THE SUMMA

67 81 93 99 112

The Antifraternal Ecclesiology of Archbishop Richard FitzRalph

123

ENCYCLOPEDIA JEAN D' ANNEUX THOMAS DE WILTON THE MONASTIC TRADITION

THREE

CONFLICT WITH THE FRIARS

123

FRATRES EXTRINSECOS: THE FRIARS AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY

131

MENDICANCY AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL ECONOMY FITzRALPH AND WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

FOUR

John Wyclif and the Nominalist Seekers of Signs Vll

140 144 152

CONTENTS CULTORES SIGNORUM: WYCLIF AND

NOMINALIST METAPHYSICS THE LOOSING OF SATAN THE END OF THE WORLD? THE BIBLE AND HISTORY THE FRIARS IN SCRIPTURE

FIVE

The English Poetic Tradition FRENCH FORERUNNERS

154 161 167 172 176 183 184

ANTIFRATERNAL POETRY IN ENGLAND AND ITS PHARISEES

190 201

ApOSTOLIS NEWE

207

ANTIECRISTES MEN

212 221

OCCASIONS

MULTITUDES WITHOUT NUMBER

SIX

Chaucer and Antifraternal Exegesis: The False Apostle of the Summoner's Tale THE FRIARS AND PENTECOST

232 236

FRIAR JOHN AS FALSE ApOSTLE

239

THE PARODY OF PENTECOST

SEVEN

231

The Friars and the End of Piers Plowman

247

WANDERERS AND THE FAILURE OF WORD AND

249

WORK [OCULATORES DOMINI

251

BEGGARS AND BIDDERS

257 265 267 276

THE MENDICANT NARRATOR ENDINGS: WILL ENDINGS: THE FRIARS

Sources of Omne Bonum, Article "Fratres"

291

Sources ofBodl. 784, Part 3 and Collation with Omne Bonum, Article "Fratres"

296

APPENDIX A:

APPENDIX B:

301

INDEXES

viii

PREFACE

book is a history of a literary tradition, but not in the usual sense. It is not the history of a genre, a literary form, or a literary technique, but the history of a complex of hostile ideas about the friars—fratres, hence fraternal orders. In all levels of medieval society, especially in England, these interwoven ideas dominated criticism of the friars from the 1250s to the end of the Middle Ages. They pervaded the fictions of Jean de Meun, Chaucer, Langland, and others, but they also flourished in works of polemic, theology, eschatology, canon law, in distinctiones and encyclopedias, in chronicles, sermons, and Biblical exegesis. Despite their diversity in genre and purpose, these antifraternal works offer testimony to a common literary tradition. They share a common language, largely derived from the Bible, and a common—theological, symbolic, and prejudicial—perception of the friars that helped to create and preserve many charges against the fraternal orders that were distorted, outdated, or false. THIS

The antifraternal tradition is a product of the historical and theological, as much as of the literary, imagination. From both a historical and a theological standpoint, the friars were newcomers to the medieval church, appearing for the first time in the early thirteenth century. Their itinerant, mendicant, impoverished way of life was visibly different—at least at first—from the propertied and usually prosperous living of the ecclesiastical establishment, especially the secular clergy and the monastic orders. They became instantly popular with the laity and spread like wildfire through western Europe. From sympathetic popes they soon won the right to many lucrative ecclesiastical functions, such as preaching and confession, and thus began to threaten the livelihoods of their pastoral competitors. It was to explain these ominous developments that the friars' ecclesiastical enemies first began to perceive their true historical significance: these newcomers were the fulfillment of ancient Biblical prophecies; they were in fact—so it was said—the multitudes of false apostles, antichrists, hypocrites, and latter-day Pharisees who would prepare the way for Antichrist and bring on the Last Days. Although the eschatological element fades in later decades, the link between the friars and these Biblical figures remains and fosters a conventional language for attacking them that shows the persistent influence of the Bible. IX

PREFACE

The first chapter of this book concerns the historical circumstances in which antifraternal theology and eschatology first appeared at the University of Paris in the 1250s and examines the writings of the theologian who inaugurated the entire tradition: William of St. Amour. The second chapter demonstrates some of the ways William's ideas circulated in England and shows the crystallization of a Biblically influenced language for attacking the friars in genres ranging from encyclopedias to chronicles. The third and fourth chapters conclude the inquiry into theological ideas about the friars by focusing on the thought of the two most prominent English antifraternal theologians, Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif. The final three chapters concern the influence of the theological and polemical tradition of antifraternalism on Middle English poetry, especially in Chaucer and Langland but also in a wide variety of other English poets, writing both in the vernacular and in Latin. In the course of writing this book, I have incurred a great many debts. The American Council of Learned Societies, with a full-year fellowship, and Georgetown University, with a Summer Research Grant and a sabbatical, made possible the extended research in English and French libraries without which this study could never have been completed. The provost of Georgetown University also provided a grant to cover the typing of the manuscript. The master and fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge graciously gave permission to use a manuscript from the Parker Library collection as the frontispiece. I am grateful to the staff of many libraries for their hospitality and assistance: at Oxford, the Bodleian and the libraries of St. John's College, Balliol College, and Merton College; at Cambridge, the University Library and the libraries of Corpus Christi College and Sidney Sussex College; the cathedral libraries of Lincoln, Worcester, and Canterbury; the British Library; the University of London Library; the Folger Library in Washington, D . C ; and in Paris, the Bibliotheque Nationale. Thanks are also due to the editors of Speculum and Studies in Philology, who have granted permission to reprint portions of previously published articles. I have more long-standing debts to the teachers who introduced me to medieval studies, especially Thomas D. Hill, James John, Alice Colby-Hall, and most of all Robert E. Kaske, who has created dozens of medievalists ex nihilo in what his students have sometimes suspected was the Parris Island of medieval studies. This book is the outcome of a suggestion Professor Kaske made many years ago; it has profited greatly from his generosity since, especially in the final stages. But my greatest debt to him has been for the sense of the aesthetic richness of X

PREFACE

medieval thought that his own teaching and scholarly example have provided. I also take pleasure in acknowledging particular debts to various friends and colleagues: to Richard K. Emmerson, who read the entire manuscript with great care and whose learning in medieval apocalyptic and eschatological lore produced many improvements in the final draft; to Anne Hudson, who on several occasions shared her vast knowledge of Wycliffite manuscripts and who read late versions of several chapters, to their profit; to A. G. Rigg, whose generosity with materials and information made possible certain sections of chapter 5; to Robert W. Ayers, whose microfilm reader has been my constant companion; to Joseph Wittig, Emerson Brown, Robert Adams, John Alford, Ronald Herzman, and Nicholas Havely for conversation, correspondence, and many helpful suggestions; to Jason Rosenblatt, John Hirsh, Susan Sherwin-White, James Slevin, and Michael Ragussis for encouragement, good advice, and felaweshipe, and likewise to Susan Lanser who, in addition, introduced me and my manuscript to the world of word processing and offered many fruitful editorial suggestions; to Miriam Brokaw of Princeton University Press who saw the manuscript through the early stages; to the copy editor, Abigail Bok, whose patience and knowledge of medieval scholarship have improved the book; to Janet Stern, also of the Press, for her careful and capable assistance as liaison editor in the final stages; and finally to the dedicatee, who despite an interval in which she lobbied assiduously for the title Kicking the Habit, has been the book's first and best editor, whose hand is evident on almost every page, and who over the long course of its making has authored more felicities—both textual and domestic— than can be justly recorded here.

Xl

ABBREVIA TIONS

AFH

Archivum Franciscanum historicum

AHDLMA

Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age

Arnold, Select English Works

Thomas Arnold, ed., Select English Works of John Wyclif(Oxford: Clarendon, 1869-71)

Bale, Index

John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, ed. R. L. Poole (Oxford: Clarendon, 1902)

BL

British Library, London

BN

Bibliotheque N ationale, Paris

Bod!.

Bodleian Library, Oxford

Brock

Russell o. Brock, Jr., "An Edition of Richard FitzRalph's De Pauperie Salvatoris, Books V, VI, and VII," Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1953

BRUO

A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register ofthe University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1957-59)

C.Pap.L

W. H. Bliss, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, vo!' II, A.D. 1305-1342 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895)

CCSL

Corpus christianorum: Series latina

ChauR

Chaucer Review

Collectiones

William of St. Amour, Collationes, in Opera omnia (q.v.)

Corpus iuris canonici

Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. L. Richter and Emil Friedberg, 2d ed. (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879-81)

CSEL

Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum

CUP

Chartularium Universitatis parisiensis, ed. Heinrich Denifle and Emile Chatelain (Paris: Delalain, 1889) xii!

ABBREVIA TIONS

De Antichristo

Nicholas ofLisieux, De Antichristo, ed. Edmond Martene and U. Durand, in Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicorum . .. amplissima collectio, IX (Paris: Montalant, 1724-33)

De periculis

Wilham of St. Amour, De periculis novissimorum temporum, in Opera omnia

De Pharisaeo

William of St. Amour, De Pharisaeo, in Opera omnia

DeJensio curatorum

Richard FitzRalph's DeJensio curatorum, in Goldast, Monarchia

Dufeil, Guillaume

Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la po!emique universitaire parisienne, 1250-1259 (Paris: Picard, 1972)

EETS

Early English Text Society

EHR

English Historical Review

ELN

English Language Notes

Emmerson, Antichrist

Richard K. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975)

FDR

Friar Daw's Reply, edited in Heyworth

Glossa ordinaria

Biblia sacra cum Glossa ordinaria (Douai: Baltazar Bellereus, 1617), 6 vols.

Goldast, Monarchia

Melchior Goldast, Monarchia s. romani imperii (Graz: Akademlsche-Druck. U. Verlagsantalt, 1960; repr. of Hanover: Conrad Bierman, 1614)

Heyworth

P. L. Heyworth, ed.,Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply, and Upland's Rejoinder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968)

JEGP

Journal oJEnglish and Germanic Philology

JEH

Journal oJEcclesiastical History

JTS

Journal oJ Theological Studies

JU

Jack Upland, edited in Heyworth

Kane-Donaldson

George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson, eds., Piers Plowman: The B Version (London: Athlone, 1975)

Knowles, Religious Orders

Dom David Knowles, The Religious Orders in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955) XIV

ABBREVIATIONS

Leff, Heresy

Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967)

Leff, Paris and OxJord

Gordon Leff, Paris and OxJord Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: John Wiley, 1968)

MAE

1VIedium aevum

Matthew, English Works

F. D. Matthew, The English Works ofJohn WyclifHitherto Unprinted, EETS o.s. 74 (London: Trubner, 1880)

MED

Middle English Dictionary, ed. Sherman Kuhn et al. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956-)

Mirour

John Gower, Mirour de l'omme, ed. G. C. Macaulay, in The Complete Works oJJohn Gower (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899-1902)

MS

Mediaeval Studies

N&Q

Notes and Queries

NED

New English Dictionary

Opera omnia

Wilham of St. Amour, Opera omnia (Constance [for Paris]: Alithophilos, 1632)

PBA

Proceedings oJthe British Academy

PL

Patrologiae curs us completus: Series latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris: 1844-64)

PPC

Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS o.s. 30 (London: Trubner, 1867)

PRIA

Proceedings oJthe Royal Irish Academy

"Qui amat periculum"

Sermon by William of St. Amour in Opera omnia

Reeves, Influence oJProphecy

MaJone Reeves, The Influence oJProphecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969)

Responsiones

William of St. Amour, Responsiones, ed. Edmond Faral in AHDLMA, 18, Annees 25-26(1950-51),337-94

RES

Review oJEnglish Studies

Robbins, Historical Poems

R. H. Robbins, Historical Poems oJthe XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York: Columbia Umversity Press, 1959) xv

ABBREVIA TrONS

RR

Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Ernest Langlois (Paris: Honore Champion, 1921)

RTAM

Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale

Stockton

Eric Stockton, trans., The Major Latin Works ofJohn Gower (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962)

TSL

Tennessee Studies in Literature

Unusquisque

Richard FitzRalph, Unusquisque, ed. L. L. Hammerich, in The Beginning ofthe Strife between Richard FitzRalph and the Mendicants, Det Kg!. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historiskfilologiske Meddelelser, 26.3 (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1938), HS

UR

Upland's Rejoinder, edited in Heyworth

UTQ

University of Toronto Quarterly

Vox clam.

John Gower, Vox clamantis, ed. G. C. Macaulay, in The Complete Works ofjohn Gower (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899-1902)

Walsh, FitzRalph

Katherine Walsh, A Fourteenth-century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981)

XVI

The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature

INTRODUCTION

The Puzzle of Sire Penetrans Domos IN the apocalyptic ending of Piers Plowman, as the forces of Antichrist muster, the door of the church is suddenly darkened by a friar with an enigmatic name: Sire Penetrans Domos. Penetrans Domos is not just a name but a text. It is a snatch from an eschatological passage in the New Testament, where St. Paul warns Timothy about the dangers in the last days of the world: But know this, that in the last days dangerous times will come. Men will be lovers of self, covetous, haughty, proud . . . having a semblance indeed of piety, but disowning its power. Avoid these. For of such are they who make their way into houses [qui penetrant domos]. (2 Tim. 3:1-6) The last phrase shows that Sire Penetrans Domos is no ordinary friar. He is akin less to the real friars who begged and preached in the streets of medieval England than to the symbolic Antichrist who menaces the church at the end of Langland's poem. Sire Penetrans Domos fulfills a Biblical prophecy, and his name, drawn directly from a Scriptural text, is a signal that the Last Days are beginning. The link between this text and the friars, however, was not forged by Langland alone: it had been tempered in the fires of religious controversy for more than a hundred years. Founded near the beginning of the thirteenth century, the fraternal orders were one of the most successful but also controversial innovations of the late-medieval church. By 1260, fewer than fifty years after St. Francis first gathered a small band of brothers (fratres, hence friars), there were four such fraternal and mendicant orders—Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians—with many thousands of members among them, saturating the cities and towns of western Europe and beginning to spread to distant parts of the earth.1 By the end 1 Because^rafres was the generic term for the friars, "antifraternal" is more precise than "antimendicant" as a term describing their enemies. It is true that monks and sometimes clergy were called fratres as well, but the term is not then generic. For monks it means, loosely, "brethren," and does not describe their institutional genus. Genencally, monks

3

INTRODUCTION

of the century, in the person of such theologians as Aquinas, Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus, John Pecham, and Duns Scotus, the friars had taken over the intellectual leadership of the church. In less than a hundred years, these new orders had also affected drastically the progress of papal centralization, the development of the medieval universities, the theology and practice of confession, the final flowering of Scholasticism, the growth of nominalism, the revival of classical literature, the flourishing of lay piety, the spread of missionary activity as far as the steppes of Asia—and more. Though phenomenally successful, the fraternal orders were subjected, almost from their foundation, to a widespread campaign of attack on their legitimacy and on their mendicant way of life. From the 1250s until the sixteenth century, they were denounced in sermon and polemic, by churchmen and academics, by monastic and secular clergy, by archbishops and heretical Lollards, in monastic chronicles and encyclopedias, in canon law summae, in Wycliffite compilations and commentaries, in Latin prose and vernacular lyric, by poets from Jean de Meun to Chaucer. In quantity, duration, and generic variety, there is nothing quite comparable to this literature of attack anywhere in the many outbursts of anticlericalism throughout the Middle Ages. It is not just its wide range, however, that makes antifraternal literature of unique interest. Attacks against the friars come primarily in two normally quite disparate genres: on the one hand, antifraternal theology, polemical in nature and written by theologians whose professions lay within a church threatened, they said, by the new orders of friars; and on the other hand, antifraternal poetry, satirical in nature and written in the vernacular by men, like Langland, for the most part unconnected with the church professionally. Between the learned and the lay literatures there is a surprising degree of continuity, especially in language. Langland's Penetrans Domos can trace his genealogy, for example, back to a theologian writing in Paris in the 1250s. William of St. Amour, secular master of theology at the University of Paris, attacked the friars in 1254 in an exegetical treatise that took its title from the first verse of 2 Timothy 3, the same passage to which Langland alluded a century and a quarter later. It was called De periculis novissimorum temporum (Concerning the Perils of the Last Times). This extremely influential work not only began the long history of antifraternal theology; it also inaugurated a tradition of the use of Bibare monachi, the clergy are clerici, but the friars alone are fratres, meaning "friars." Fratres is the word from which OFfrere, MBfrere, and MnE fiiar all descend. The Franciscans were officially the Fratres Minores; the Dominicans were the Fratres Praedicatores.

4

SIRE PENETRANS

DOMOS

lical language against the friars for centuries, in poetry and theology alike, language that identified them with a recurring set of Biblical malefactors—primarily the antichrists prophesied for the end of time, the false apostles of the New Law, and the Pharisees of the Old Law—and that described their faults in words taken from the text of Scripture. Of that tradition, Piers Plowman is not the last but one of the most complex expressions. This book is a history of that literary tradition and its language: its origin in the apocalyptic fears of the 1250s; its surreptitious circulation and dissemination from thirteenth-century France to fourteenth-century England; its symbolic conventions and canonical texts; its puzzling continuity in ecclesiastical controversy involving the friars, even when it becomes anachronistic and contradicted by history; and its striking impact on poetry, particularly of the Ricardian era, written by some of England's greatest poets. Antifraternalism, it should be said, was not solely a literary or traditional phenomenon. The hypocrisy, worldliness, and corruption that infected other elements in the church touched the friars as well, especially in the fourteenth century; certainly the struggle with the secular clergy was a real political battle for power, authority, and income. Many of the charges leveled at the friars were true. But as recent research in bishops' registers and the Franciscans' own statutes has shown, others were also clearly false.2 Recognition of the strain of Biblical language in antifraternal writings will help to isolate the traditional from the local charges against the friars and to separate historical fiction from historical fact. That Latin polemic and vernacular poetry share a common language is due to the nature of antifraternal theology. It is a theology founded less on practical than on theoretical issues. It deals not so much with the friars as with ideas about the friars: for example, their legitimacy in the church hierarchy as mendicant preaching orders, as secular monks, or as papal orders; or their place in Salvation History as heralds of Antichrist or false apostles fulfilling Biblical prophecies. These ideas— largely ecclesiological, eschatological, and theological—had a life and a language of their own. They changed very little in the three centuries 2

For studies of episcopal registers, see Arnold Williams, "Relations between the Mendicant Friars and the Regular Clergy in England m the Later Fourteenth Century," An· nuale mediaevale, 1 (1960), 22-95, especially 40 and 91-92, and B. Z Kedar, "Canon Law and Local Practice: The Case of Mendicant Preaching m Late Medieval England," Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, 2 (1972), 17-32; for a study of Franciscan statutes and other Franciscan documents, with evidence both for and against the veracity of various charges, see Carolly Erickson, "The Fourteenth-century Franciscans and Their Critics," Franciscan Studies, 35 (1975), 107-35 and 36 (1976), 108-47.

5

INTRODUCTION

after 1250, even though the historical circumstances that set off new clashes between the mendicants and their opponents changed with each decade. As their persistence suggests, these ideas derive from a characteristically medieval perception of the friars, a perception more symbolic than realistic, more theological than political or economic, concerned more with what the friars were sub specie aeternitatis than with what they actually did in the world. They were not viewed simply as competitors for university posts and ecclesiastical privileges but as fulfillments of Scriptural prophecies and analogues of Biblical types predicted for the Last Days. The theology of antifraternal polemic and its Biblical language have remained largely unexamined. Recent interest in these writings—in the works of Douie, Dufeil, Walsh, and others—has focused on the political causes and consequences of the quarrel between the mendicants and the secular clergy.3 For political studies, the theologians' exegesis is usually an impediment, veiling in Scriptural allusion to Pharisees and antichrists the friars' real offenses. Such works as the De periculis novissimorum temporum therefore have sometimes been dismissed as propaganda or rhetoric or name calling. These casual labels, however, overlook the complexity, consistency, and overtly stated purpose of these works of theology: the exposition of history, the interpretation of the friars' significance through exegesis of the Bible as a historical and prophetic text. Modern thinkers usually conceive of history as a linear, continuous process, which is best understood in terms of the causes and consequences of proximate events. For medieval theologians, however, history was discontinuous; the significance of a historical event lay not in its causes or effects but in the extent to which it participated in, recreated, or foreshadowed the spiritually significant events of Salvation History. The embattled theologians understood the friars of their own day not just by reference to clerical privileges, papal bulls, episcopal license, Gallicanism, limitations, and the like, but by analogy with the apostles of Christ and the pseudoprophetae of the end of time. Biblical language was itself nothing new in anticlerical polemic. It had been applied to corrupt and heretical clergy by the upholders of morality and orthodoxy practically from the beginning of the church. 3

Decima Dome, The Conflict between the Seculars and the Mendicants at the University of Paris, Aquinas Paper no 23 (London: Blackfnars, 1954), M.-M. Dufeil, Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la polemique universitaire parisienne, 1250-1259 (Paris: Picard, 1972), and Katherine Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford. Clarendon, 1981) are the best and the most extensive of the recent studies. 6

SIRE PENETRANS

DOMOS

Many early patristic writers had taken the ρenetrantes domos and 2 Tim­ othy 3 as warnings against heretics and seducers within the church. This ancient use William of St. Amour knew well, for he cites the Glossa ordinaria super sacram Scripturam as his authority for much of his reading of 2 Timothy 3, and the Glossa ordinaria in turn cites Augustine (De verbis Domini), Ambrosiaster (Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas), Chrysostom (Homilia in Epistolam II ad Timotheum), and Jerome (Epistola ad Ctesiphontem).4 These writers saw the prophecy of the penetrantes domos and their mulierculas fulfilled in the Nicolaites, Marcionites, Montanists, Anomoeans, Pelagians, and Sabellians of the early church. Closer to William of St. Amour's own time, there had been outbreaks of hostility to certain of the monastic orders in the twelfth century, and the antimonastic literature that resulted made generous allusion to the Bible. 5 The Biblical language of thirteenth-century antifraternal literature differed from all these earlier instances because behind it lay theological controversies unique to the mendicant orders: their place in the univer­ sities, particularly their claim to the academic title ofmagister; their ap­ ostolic calling and hence their claim to the apostolic functions of the priesthood such as preaching and confession; their uniqueness among religious orders in living by mendicancy; and the historical significance of their appearance after 1,200 years of the ecclesiastical order, a late and novel arrival soon thought to presage the end of the church. Above all, however, it was the institutional novelty of the mendicant orders that accounted for the uniqueness of the literature written against them. As an institution, they posed a new and unique threat to the vested interests of certain ranks within the church. Other ecclesi­ astical groups and individual churchmen of all orders had often been attacked for falling into immorality, heterodoxy, or heresy. Some friars were too, but the mendicant orders were attacked primarily as an institution, whose claim to the vita apostolica was false and whose legit­ imacy as religious orders was suspect. The friars were indeed unlike any other form of the religious life ex4

Biblia sacra cum Glossa ordinaria (Douai: Baltazar Bellereus, 1617), VI, 743. See M. Peuchmard, O.P., "Le pretre ministre de la parole dans la theologie du XII e siecle (canonistes, moines et chanoines)," RTAM, 29 (1962), 52-76 for an account of the great twelfth-century dispute between the secular clergy and the monks and canons over preaching and the cure of souls (see particularly the extensive bibliography in n. 1, listing monographs by Berliere, Hofmeister, Beck, Jean Leclercq, et al.); also John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Clemens C. I. Webb (Oxford: Clarendon, 1909), II, book 7, chap. 21, pp. 690-96; David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1941), pp. 313-30 and 662-78; and Marvin Colker, ed., "Contra Religioms Simulatores" in Analecta Dvblinensia (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy, 1975) 5

7

INTRODUCTION tant in the church. Physically, they looked like monks, with their religious habits and evident poverty. Like monks, they lived communally as regular orders, that is, under a Rule (Regula). But their way of life was radically different. Where the monks owned land and could live by farming or rents, the friars owned none. Their livelihood was what they conceived to be the apostolic way: begging. Itinerant mendicancy was indeed the most visible mark of the fraternal way of life. It forced them into the very world from which the monks retreated, geographically as well as spiritually. The mendicant orders settled almost invariably in cities rather than on the fields and pasture lands of the remote countryside. The roll call of the great fraternal convents reads like a map of urban Europe—London, Paris, Cologne, Bologna, Rome, Florence—while the comparable monastic foundations (apart from cathedral convents) were usually in rural or even wilderness settings— Citeaux, Cluny, Monte Cassino. It was not chiefly mendicancy, however, but their preaching mission that drew the friars to the cities. If the great spiritual office of the monastic orders was the liturgy, that of the mendicants was preaching the Gospel, in imitation, they said, of the first apostles. In this too, they were anomalous. No other religious orders had ever been founded specifically for the purpose of preaching. For 1,200 years, preaching had been the province of those whom tradition and canon law declared the sacerdotal successors of the apostles and disciples of Christ: the secular clergy. As preachers, the friars resembled the "secular" clergy, whose name implied their evangelical mission in the world (secula). But whereas most secular priests were assigned to fixed parishes, the friars were itinerant, taking the Gospel directly to the people. They were outsiders, geographically speaking, but they must also have seemed, to their credit, outside the moral boundaries of a church hierarchy plagued by corruption. Their humble garb and poverty contrasted sharply with the sometimes ostentatious worldliness of the parish clergy. Even more to the consternation of the clergy, the friars were outside the normal channels of ecclesiastical authority as well. The traditional pyramid of authority in the church descended from the archbishops to the bishops to the parish clergy. The parish priest received his authority from his diocesan. But when the friars first appeared in the parishes in the early thirteenth century, they were exempt from the authority of the bishops, who had no power to expel them or even to force them to coordinate their activities with the local priest. Even the power of the purse—for example, in benefices—was not available to a bishop against 8

SIRE PENETRANS

DOMOS

the friars because their begging made them independent of the moneys of the church. The friars were ecclesiastical outsiders because they were papal orders. They received their authority and their mission directly from the popes, bypassing the hierarchy that constrained the clergy of the parishes. Until 1323, even the property that the Franciscans used was legally owned by the pope. Most grievous of all, the popes granted to the mendicant orders the ecclesiastical privileges that had always been reserved for the secular clergy: preaching, confession, sepulture. In all these roles—as mendicant, preaching, and papal orders, as secular monks, and as religious preachers—the friars were a revolutionary departure from the traditions of the medieval church. It did not take long for the attacks of the antifraternal theologians to reach the ears of the poets. Two of the best known writers of medieval France, Jean de Meun and Rutebeuf, were partisans in the Parisian struggles of the 1250s. Both borrow explicitly from William of St. Amour—-Jean de Meun in the most popular French work to circulate in fourteenth-century England, the Roman de la Rose. However, it must have been the symbolic and imaginative, rather than the polemical, dimension of antifraternal theology that attracted late-medieval poets. The great poets were not controversialists or polemicists. Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, like Jean de Meun before them, were all poets obsessed with the decay of human society, "poets of crisis," as a recent critic has called them. 6 Against the background of the Ricardian world—the world of the Black Plague, the Great Schism, the Peasants' Revolt, the long war with France—the theologians' claims that the friars were precursors of the end must have seemed particularly cogent. The church, like other institutions, was in danger. Its demise meant the end of human history. Sire Penetrans Domos thus has a symbolic and historical significance. He is not just a corrupt friar but, as his name shows, a sign that the End was near. Whether Langland and other English poets actually read the theologians, as Jean de Meun certainly did, or whether they only knew the conventions of antifraternal language is often difficult to tell. But by taking up the theologians' eschatological and symbolic perspective in their poetry, they demonstrate its imaginative power. Antifraternal literature and its traditional language therefore are a part of the history of thought in the waning Middle Ages. They bear upon the medieval perception of history and the symbolic habit of 6

Charles Muscatine, Poetry and Crisis in the Age of Chaucer (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971). 9

INTRODUCTION mind, the history of eschatology and apocalypticism, the medieval sense of decline as the Middle Ages neared their end, and the history of medieval poetry. Antifraternalism fostered historical fictions that influenced poetic ones; in Sire Penetrans Domos the historical, the eschatological, and the literary imagination became one.

10

ONE

William of St. Amour and the Perils of the Last Times O N a wintry dawn in March 1253, not far from where the new towers of Notre Dame rose above the streets of Paris, four students from the University of Paris were set upon—without provocation, say the university documents—by a patrol of the city's constabulary. One student was killed and the others thrown into prison, where in the course of an offical interrogation, their bones were broken. Police brutality had not been unknown before, but under this extreme provocation, the university felt compelled to resort to its only weapon, an economic one, for protecting its students: it called a strike. The local authorities responded slowly, but within a few months, two of the offending guards had been dragged through the streets behind horses and then hanged by the neck until dead, the others banished from the city forever. The town-gown clash thus came to a gruesome end, but the universitywide strike was to have other, more lasting issue. It led directly to the first outburst of violent controversy between the secular clergy and the friars and began a torrent of polemics against the fraternal orders. Here for the first time began to appear the symbolic language that would help to shape perceptions of the friars for the next two hundred years. Thus the melee of March 1253 marks the terminus a quo of the antifraternal tradition. 1

THE FRIARS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS

Before 1253 the young orders of friars had been peacefully welcomed into the church. Innocent III had blessed St. Francis's conception of a new order in 1209-10 and Honorius III formally authorized what became the official Franciscan Rule (the Regula bullata) in 1223. St. Dominic also received papal sanction for his Ordo Praedicatorum in 1216.2 1 For contemporary reports of the incident of March 1253, see the Chartularium Umversitatis parisiensis, ed. Heinnch Denifle and Emile Chatelain (Paris. Delalain, 1889), I, no. 230, p. 254, and no 247, p. 280 (hereafter CUP). 2 John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 18-19, 57; William A. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order (Staten Island, N Y. • Alba House, 1966), I, 48.

11

CHAPTER ONE

Even among the later enemies of the orders, no one doubted the sanctity of these two founders, who were both canonized a few years after their deaths, Francis in 1228 and Dominic in 1234. No one disputed the piety of their ideals for the new orders, especially voluntary poverty and apostolic preaching. But a mere thirty years after the authorization of the Regula bullata both orders had come under violent attack. Tensions created by the conflicting interests and offices of the new friars and the traditional clergy had been building for some time, but the flashpoint was suddenly reached in 1253, when Paris erupted into open war. Why Paris? Paris, to begin with, had the most eminent spokesmen for the secular clergy in the masters at the University of Paris, particularly in the Faculty of Theology. But Paris also had a local arena with its own strictly local issues in which the friars and secular clergy were ripe for a fight: the university. 3 When the friars had first arrived in Paris in 1217-19 they had set up their own conventual schools nearby for members of their own orders. They taught no secular students at first and so did not compete with the university. Some of their students in fact were sent over to the theological faculty for further study. But in 1229, because of a local dispute (over police brutality) the university called a strike and dispersed for two years—except, as everyone noticed, for the studia of the friars. One of the Dominicans' most promising theologians, Roland of Cremona, had been studying in the university under a secular master, John of St. Giles, and in 1228 had been described as almost ready to become a master.4 John of St. Giles, who 3

There is a vast literature on the secular-mendicant controversies at the University of Paris. The most important recent work is M.-M. Dufeil's Guillautne de Saint-Amour et la polemique universitaireparisienne, 1250-1259 (Paris. Picard, 1972), to which the following account is heavily indebted. Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: John Wiley, 1968), provides a useful synthesis of work up to 1968. Other important works include: Palemon Gloneux, "Le conflit de 1252-1257 a la lumiere du Memoire de Guillaume de Saint-Amour," RTAM, 24 (1957), 364—72; Yves M.-J. Congar, "Aspects ecclesiologiques de la querelle entre mendiants et seculiers dans la seconde moitie du XIIP siecle et Ie debut du XIVY' AHDLMA, 28, Annee 36 (1961), 35-151; Decima L. Douie, The Conflict between the Seculars and the Mendicants at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century, Aquinas Paper no. 23 (London: Blackfnars, 1954); Maurice Perrod, Maitre Guillaume de Saint-Amour, VUniversite de Paris et les ordres mendiants au XIII' siecle (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1895); Kurt Schleyer, Anfinge des Gallikanismus im 13.Jahrhundert, Historische Studien, 314 (Berlin, 1937; repr. Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1965); Christine Thouzelher, "La place du 'De pericuhs' de Guillaume de Saint-Amour dans les polemiques umversitaires du XIIIe siecle," Revue historique, 156 (1927), 69-83; andjames Doyne Dawson, "William of St Amour and the Apostolic Tradition," MS, 40 (1978), 223-38. 4

He would have been among those "Qui possmt in brevi esse apti ad regendum," CUP, I, no. 57, p. 112. 12

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

apparently opposed the strike, remained in Paris and Roland was allowed to complete his courses. And in 1229, without the approval of the absent theological faculty, the bishop of Paris bestowed upon Roland of Cremona the license in theology. Thus, under slightly questionable circumstances, the Dominicans acquired their first master of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, and with him the right to teach secular students. Worse yet from the secular masters' standpoint, the Dominicans continued to offer courses during the strike, and now that they had a regent master, opened their school to secular students. Not long after the strike ended in 1231, John of St. Giles himself became a Dominican but continued as regent master; and a short time later one of the most distinguished of the secular theologians, Alexander of Hales, entered the Franciscan order while retaining his chair. Less than fifteen years after the arrival of the friars in Paris, three of the twelve regent masters of the Faculty of Theology, together with all their students—not to mention the income that those students generated—had gone over to the mendicant orders. 5 These three chairs in theology were still with the same orders on the night of the melee in 1253. But since 1231 other reasons had appeared for the secular masters to fear the friars. It had become clear that the mendicants had the better teachers and intellects: after Roland of Cremona and John of St. Giles, the friars numbered among the holders of their three chairs Hugh of St. Cher, William of Meliton, John of La Rochelle, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas. The Franciscans, as M.-M. Dufeil argues, also appear to have had some aspirations to increase the number of their chairs.6 And they seemed to be gaining some very powerful friends, including the king of France, Louis IX, who chose his confessors from the orders, and the pope, Innocent IV. These fears were sufficient in 1252 for the masters of theology to pass a statute governing academic advancement (statutum de promovendis), which effectively eliminated the possibility of any further mendicant chairs. Henceforth candidates for the magisterium would have to have studied, been examined and approved, and to have lectured at one of the approved colleges or schools of the university. And furthermore each religious order (monastic as well as mendicant) was to have no more than one college and one master in theology. Anyone not abiding by the statute was excluded from the corporation of masters of theology. Since the Dominicans had two chairs, which they had held since 1231, 5 For the events of 1229-31, see Dufeil, Guilhume, pp. 5 and 24-25; Leff, Paris and Oxford, pp. 35-38; CUP, I, no. 230, pp. 252-58. 6 Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 6-9.

13

CHAPTER O N E

and which they were not about to give up, they found themselves expelled.7 There matters stood for a year and a month. AU parties simmered until the student-police fracas of March 1253 brought them all to the boiling point. The university voted itself on strike; the mendicants refused to participate (as everyone remembered they had done in the dispersion of 1229-31). This aroused the anger of the entire university, and the consortium of all the masters of all the faculties, not just theology, this time not only expelled but also excommunicated the three mendicant masters. To make their position perfectly clear they established a requirement that any magisterial candidate swear an oath to observe the statutes of the university. And lest anyone still might have misunderstood, they decreed that lecturing during a strike was prohibited on penalty of expulsion, for eternity.8 The friars understood. They appealed for aid to the most powerful friends they could muster, the pope and the royal court. 9 And so began the open controversy between the seculars and mendicants, which at Paris lasted, in its first phase, until 1257. Briefly, the central local issue was whether the friars had a right to participate in the magistral governing body (consortium magistrorum), though many other issues of theological and ecclesiastical importance came to be involved. InJuIy 1253 Innocent IV nullified the friars' excommunication and ordered that they be received back into the consortium of masters, charging the bishops of Senlis and Evreux to see that they were. 10 When the masters refused, they were censured and suspended from their office, in all four faculties of the university. It was by then the autumn, and perhaps to justify their position to the returning students, the university masters republished their edict, declaring the friars excommunicated and dissociated from the university. When the beadles attempted to post the edict at the Dominican school a swarm of friars jumped on them, tore up the bill, and beat two of them, drawing blood. 11 In February 1254, the secular masters began a campaign to broaden their base of support, as the friars had already done, by appealing to powerful friends. They issued a manifesto retracing the course of events, accusing the friars and justifying their own position, 7

CUP, I, no. 200, pp. 226-27; Dufeil, Guillaume, p. 85; Leff, Paris and Oxford, pp. 39-

40. 8

CUP, I, no. 219, pp. 242-43; Leff, Paris and Oxford, p. 40; Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 95-

96. 9

Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 100-101. CUP, I, no. 222, pp. 247-48; Dufeil, Guillaume, p. 100. 11 Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 104-105. 10

14

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

and sent it to all the prelates, all the chapters, and all the universities of the Christian realm.12 Meanwhile in Paris an outrageously heretical work by a Franciscan had appeared, the Introductorius ad Evangelium Aeternum by Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, who had gleaned from the writings ofjoachim of Fiore what he took to be a prophecy of the overthrow of the Gospel by a Third Testament, the Eternal Gospel (Evangelium Aeternum) of the Holy Spirit, which would be administered by new orders of religious, that is, the friars.13 For reasons that will emerge shortly, Gerard's fanatical work proved to be pivotal, not only in the local controversy but in the history of antifraternalism. In the interim, the university, along with the friars, had been asked by the pope in August 1253 to send a delegation to the curia so that the pope might arbitrate.14 In the spring of 1254, William of St. Amour, a master in the Faculty of Theology and the acknowledged leader of the secular party, set off for Rome, taking with him not only the masters' arguments concerning the friars in the university and in the church, but also a copy of thirty-two excerpts from Gerard's Introductorius that the secular masters judged to be in error.15 One immediate success of the university's mission was the establishment of a commission of cardinals to examine the work, which they condemned on 4 November 1255.16 Other successes were forthcoming. Innocent IV, who until now had acted almost entirely in the mendicants' favor, began rather suddenly to tilt toward the seculars. On 10 May 1254 he issued a bull complaining of abuses of confession and burial by certain unnamed 12

CUP, I, no. 230, pp. 252-58. Dufeil, Guillaume, pp 118-31; see also Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study injoachimism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), pp. 59-70, 187— 90. 14 CUP, I, no 225, pp. 249-50; Dufeil, Guillaume, p. 101 Among the errors are these: " . . . quod Evangelium eternum, quod idem est quod doctnna Joachim, excellit doctrinam Christi et omne novum et vetus Testamentum. . . . quod evangelium Christi non est evangelium regni ac per hoc nee edificatonum ecclesie. . . . quod novum Testamentum est evacuandum, sicut vetus est evacuatum. . . . quod novum Testamentum non durabit in virtute sua, nisi per sex annos proximo futuros, id est usque ad annum Incarnatioms MCCLX. . . . quod illi qui erunt ultra tempus illud, non tenebuntur recipere novum Testamentum. . . . quod evangelio Christi aliud evangelium succedet. . . . quod nullus simphciter idoneus est ad instruendum homines de spintualibus, nisi illi qui nudis pedibus incedunt . . . quod evangelium Christi neminem ducit ad perfectum. . . quod advemente evangelio Spintus Sancti, sive clarescente opereJoachim, quod dicitur Evangelium eternum sive Spiritus Sancti, evacuabitur evangelium Christi. . . . quod spiritualis intelhgentia novi Testamenti non est commissa populo romano, sed tantum lateralis." 15 The thirty-two excerpts are printed in CUP, I, no. 243, pp. 272-75. 16 CUP, I, no. 258, p. 298. 13

15

CHAPTER O N E

privileged orders. 17 On 4JuIy he declared obligatory all the statutes passed by the university masters.18 And finally, and most dramatically, on 21 November, he issued Etsi animarum, which imposed radical qualifications on the friars' pastoral privileges: they might no longer, for example, administer confession without permission of the parish priest; they must provide to the latter one-fourth of any bequests if burial took place at the friars' church; they could not celebrate Mass in their churches at a time when it was being celebrated in a parish church. Etsi animarum was nigh total victory for William of St. Amour and the secular clergy. Unfortunately for them, the worst sort of political disaster occurred sixteen days later: Pope Innocent IV died.19 The new pope was the cardinal protector of the Franciscans, and Alexander IV did not stint in his support of the mendicants now. One of his first acts was to restore to the friars all their privileges by overthrowing Etsi animarum.20 And the following April (1255), he issued Quasi lignum vitae, which, though it was conciliatory in tone, attempted to settle the university dispute once and for all in favor of the mendicants. The bull modified most of the provisions of the magistral statutes of 1252 and 1253. Most important, it left to the chancellor the power of deciding how many chairs a religious order might have; it modified the oath to be taken before ascending to the magisterium; and it ordered the immediate reintegration of the mendicant masters into the consortium magistrorum.21 The secular masters now became desperate. Rather than embrace the odious friars within their society, they dissolved the consortium magistrorum, in effect dissolving the university. In June, some twenty days later, the bishops of Orleans and Auxerre, charged with enforcing Quasi lignum vitae, excommunicated all the secular masters. In October, at the beginning of the next term, the masters again and more formally dissolved their society, and demanded from the pope the lifting of the excommunication against them together with the retraction of Quasi lignum vitae.22 In the early months of 1256, a synod of the archbishops of Bourges, Rheims, Sens, and Rouen was held at Paris, and King Louis IX put pressure on them to try to work out an acceptable compromise. 23 The pope would have none of it. He continued to insist on the reintegration 17

CUP, I, no. 236, pp 263-64. CUP, I, no. 237, p. 265. 19 For Etsi animarum, see CUP, I, no. 240, pp. 267-70. 20 Nee insolitum (22 December 1254), CUP, I, no. 244, pp. 276-77. 21 CUP, I, no. 247, pp. 279-85. 22 CUP, I, no. 256, pp. 292-97. 23 CUP, I, no. 268, pp. 304-05; seeDufeil, Guitlaume , pp. 204-06. 18

16

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

of the mendicants, and began to concentrate his offensive on the ringleaders of the secular party. On 17 June he ordered that William of St. Amour, Odo of Douai, Nicholas of Bar-sur-Aube, and Christian of Beauvais be deprived of their benefices, expelled from the university, and excommunicated; and he asked the help of the king and the bishop of Paris to see that these measures were enforced.24 In October he issued a condemnation of William of St. Amour's chief polemical tract, written a year earlier, the De periculis novissimorum temporum, and secured the promise of Odo and Christian (who had been summoned to the curia) to subscribe to that condemnation, and more importantly to submit to the provisions of Quasi lignum vitae and to allow the entry of mendicant masters in the Faculty of Theology. 25 William himself fell sick at the curia after his unsuccessful defense of De periculis, and returned not to Paris but to St. Amour. In August 1257 the pope forbade him to return to Paris at all.26 Christian of Beauvais made a public retraction in the same month and in October the mendicant masters were finally readmitted with surprisingly little fanfare to the consortium of masters.27

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Ironically, the condemned De periculis novissimorum temporum was destined to become the most important antifraternal work of the next two centuries. Although William of St. Amour never returned to Paris, his works were already circulating widely, and their influence long outlived their author. They include, besides the De periculis, two sermons of the same year, De Pharisaeo (20 August 1256) and another, untitled, delivered on 1 May, on the text "Qui amat periculum peribit in illo" (Ecclus. 3:27); two quaestiones from late in 1255, De quantitate eleemosyne and De valido mendicante; a defense presented to the commission of cardinals assigned to investigate him in October 1256, entitled (by a modern editor) the Responsiones; and finally the vast Collectiones, the summary statement of William's life, finished in banishment in 1266 and providing what he considered a final warning to the church to beware of the dangers the friars represented.28 24

Cunctts processions, CUP, I, no 280, pp. 319-23, see Leff, Paris and Oxford, p. 45. Romanuspontijex, CUP, I, no 288, pp. 331-33; for the retractions, CUP, I, no. 293, pp. 338-40. 26 CUP, I, no. 314, p. 362 27 Dufeil, Guillaume, p. 307. 28 All these works are printed in William's Opera omnia (Constance [for Pans]: Ahthophilos, 1632), except the Responsiones, edited by Edmond Faral in AHDLMA, 18, An25

17

CHAPTER ONE

Considering their reputation as polemical attacks, the most startling feature of all these works is the almost total absence of any reference to the friars themselves. In both the De periculis and the Collectiones William asserts that he is writing against no particular persons or groups within the church, but rather about the sins of evil men prophesied in Scripture and about dangers to the church universal.29 In fact he used that assertion as a legal defense. When he was summoned before a synod of bishops, shortly after the appearance of the De periculis, to answer charges of defamation brought by the friars, he said he had never attacked any order approved by the church.30 The Depericulis was not about the friars, but rather a treatise about the "perils of the last times" predicted in Scripture, about false apostles, pseudopraedicatores, penetrantes domos, and other figures "taken from Scripture," as the full title specified: Tractatus de periculis novissimorum temporum ex Scripturis sumptus. The Depericulis—so William would have us believe—is not a political treatise but first and foremost an exegetical treatise on the Last Times. The most salient feature of all William's antifraternal writings is their exegetical character: almost without exception their argument consists of the collection and comparison of Scriptural texts and their glosses. His Collectiones are, as the title puts it, "collections of catholic and canonical Scripture for the instruction and preparation of the simple faithful of Christ against the imminent dangers to the whole church through hypocritical false preachers and penetrators of houses and men who are lazy and curious and vagrant." 31 In the preface to the Depericulis, William protests that the warnings he is giving about the dangers to the church are those "that we have gathered not from our own innees 25-26 (1950-51), 337-94. The De periculis, the De Pharisaeo, and the sermon "Qui amat periculum" are also printed in Edward Brown, ed , Ortwin Gratius, Fasciculutn rerum expetendarum (London· Richard Chiswell, 1690), II, 18-54. For other minor and supposed works by William, see M.-M. Dufeil, "Guhelmus de Sancto Amore, Opera O m nia (1252-70)," in Die Auseinandersetzungen an derPariser Universttdt im XIII. Jahrhundert, ed. Albert Zimmermann, Miscellanea mediaevalia, 10 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1976), pp. 213-19. 29 Collectiones, pp. 122-23; De periculis, p. 20. These and all citations of William's work hereafter are from the Opera omnia unless otherwise indicated. 30 See CUP, I, no. 287, pp. 329-30; Cesare Egasse DuBoulay, Historia Universitatisparisiensis . . . a Carolo M. ad nostra tempora (Paris: Francis Noel, 1665-73), III, 309; and Responsiones, p. 358. 31 "Collectiones catholice et canonice Scripture ad instructionem et preparationem simplicium fidelium Chnsti contra pericula imminencia ecclesie generah per ypocntas pseudopraedicatores et penetrantes domos et ociosos et curiosos et gerovagos." The title is of medieval origin, here quoted from Bodl. MS 151 (S.C. 1929). 18

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

vention but from the truth of sacred Scripture."32 He warns of dangers in a sermon preached on 1 May 1256, and again stresses that "I add nothing that comes from me alone, but demonstrate everything through Scripture." 33 By Scripturas, William means not only sacred Scripture but also the canonical interpretations of the Fathers as set forth in the Glossa (ordinaria, as it came to be called), perhaps the principal reference work for Biblical scholars in the thirteenth century. 34 As a theologian, William was only using the normal tools of his trade, and when he wrote against the friars, he wrote in the genre of his profession: not polemic but Biblical exegesis. As Richard K. Emmerson has shown in his Antichrist in the Middle Ages, there was a long-standing tradition of orthodox exegesis of Biblical passages about the final times, which had existed long before the radical, millenarian apocalypticism espoused by the followers of Joachim of Fiore, the Spiritual Franciscans, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, Arnald of Villanova, Fra Dolcino, and the Taborites, among others. This conservative, orthodox, and patristic tradition of lore about Antichrist and the end of the world, as Emmerson has shown, was accepted as authoritative by the church itself and was apparent in such standard compendia of authorities as the Glossa ordinaria, from which William of St. Amour quotes so copiously. William's application of this lore to the friars was his alone, but the traditional apocalyptic and exegetical framework within which he saw them was ancient. There is certainly some disingenuousness in William's protests that his writings depend on the Bible alone. His Biblical texts are not innocently chosen: many have some implicit application to contemporary events, which William is at pains to make clear but not explicit. The method must owe something to prudence. It is more circumspect to denounce the Pharisees of the Gospels than to attack the living friends of the pope and the king. But William's Biblical exegesis cannot be dismissed out of hand as mere rhetoric or parody, as some have argued.35 To do so is to minimize not only what William says about his 32

"Quae non ex inventione nostra sed ex ventate sacrae Scripturae collegimus," Opera omnia, p. 20. 33 "Nihil addam de meo, sed per Scripturas ostendam," Opera omnia, p. 493. 34 William seems to use primarily the interlinear and not the marginal section of the Glossa, at least in his citations. For the status of the Glossa at Paris during William's time, see Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2d ed. (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1952), pp. 56ff. The printed text I have consulted is the Biblia sacra cum glossa ordinaria (Douar Baltazar Bellereus, 1617), 6 vols. 35 Peter R McKeon, "The Status of the University of Pans as a Parens scientarum: An Episode in the Development of Its Autonomy," Speculum, 39 (1964), 670: "the prophetic 19

CHAPTER ONE

exegetical intentions, but also what he does in his writings. Of the 506 pages of his Opera omnia, practically every one is devoted to the exegesis of one Biblical text or another. The sheer mass of the exegetical enterprise argues for its genuineness. Furthermore, all William's works are focused on Biblical rather than political themes and organized primarily according to Scriptural considerations, especially by the association of words in one Biblical text with those in another. No friar is ever named in all of the 506 pages. Current political issues, to the extent they are mentioned at all, are subordinated to the interpretation of Biblical texts. William's exegesis of Scripture is sufficiently complex and internally consistent to give it an imaginative and intellectual validity lacking in "mere rhetoric." Insofar as it serves as an exploration of the shape of history and not as ornament or propaganda, Biblical exegesis is primary, not rhetorical and secondary, in William's writings. Even outside William's works, however, there is documentary evidence that the application of Scriptural exegesis to the problems presented by the friars was taken seriously. Practically everyone involved in the Parisian disputes—the masters of one of the most important universities in the West, the bishops of France, the cardinals and the supreme pontiff of the church, and not least the friars—all felt that the troubles at Paris raised a serious question demanding careful Biblical study: were the friars, or were they not, the fulfillment of certain Biblical warnings, prophecies, and figurative foreshadowings about the dangers to come in the Last Times? In the early stages of the controversy, not only polemical tracts and pamphlets but many official documents and proceedings not intended as propaganda identify the friars with Biblical figures. As early as 1252, in the statutum de promovendis passed by the secular masters, there is a nascent sense of the importance of the Bible to the interpretation of contemporary events. The friars' aspiration to become masters in the theological faculty is attacked in Biblical language: preter necessitatem magistrorum multiplicationem . . . non solum scriptura divina, verum etiam sacri canones detestantur, dicente beato Jacobo: "Nolite plures magistri fieri, scientes quoniam majus judicium sumitis." element here appears to be only a rhetorical device, from which one may properly draw no conclusions as to the beliefs of the authors." Marie-Dominique Chenu's comment about twelfth-century historians is apt: "one must not treat as mere literary trimmings or as childish imagery or as obsolete theology the use they made of the theme of antiChrist," Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfih Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 192. 20

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[not only divine Scripture but also sacred canons denounce the multiplication of masters beyond necessity, as in the epistle of James: "Let not many of you wish to become masters, knowing that you will receive a greater judgment" (James 3:1).]36 The language is Scriptural, the denunciation moral. There is as yet no sense of a direct historical link between the friars and the "masters" in the Bible. By 1255, however, in arguments intended not for wide circulation but for various ecclesiastical proceedings, the seculars begin to identify the friars directly with Biblical, especially eschatological, prophecies warning of dangerous men to come at the end of time. On 2 October 1255, all the masters and scholars of the university sent an angry letter to the pope against the friars and complaining of the strictures imposed on the seculars by the recent bull, Quasi lignum vitae. They announce their fear for the church universal because of the "dissensions, offenses, and other dangerous disorders" against which the apostle had warned in Rom. 16:17 and 2 Thess. 3:6. Because of those warnings and many others "taken from the divine Scriptures," the secular masters judge the friars' society to be "dangerous and illicit" with respect to their own. Near the end of their letter they urge the pope to pay heed to the "truthful prophecy of the apostle" in 2 Cor. 11:13, warning that "operarii subdoli (glossa: 'callide sub specie religionis decipientes') in humilitate et religione angelorum seducunt (glossa: 'qui videntur quasi nuncii Dei per speciem et humilitatem religionis')" (deceitful workers [the Gloss comments: "cunningly deceiving in the guise of religion"] seduce by their appearance of humility and religion as of the angels [the Gloss comments: "who seem to be messengers of God by their appearance and humility, as if leading the religious life"]).37 In the fall of the same year (1255) the secular masters as a body sent a letter of protest to the bishops of Orleans and Auxerre, who had excommunicated them the previous June for failing to comply with Quasi lignum vitae. In this letter they explain that they cannot receive the friars into their society, no matter how insistent the pope, for seven reasons, of which three derive from Biblical prophecies about future perils to the church: 36

CUP, I, no. 200, p. 226. Translations throughout are my own unless otherwise indicated. Translations of Biblical texts follow those of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine translation (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co , 1962), whenever the sense of the medieval text permits. 37 CUP, I, no 256, p. 295 The references above are from p. 293. The Glossa cited here is the Glossa ordinaria. 21

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Quinto dicimus eos non esse admittendos, quia timemus ne ipsi sint Pseudo-Prophetae, quia cum ipsi non sint Episcopi et Parochiales presbyteri, nee eorum Vicarii, vel ab eis specialiter inuitati, praedicant non missi contra Apostolum dicentem ad Roman. [10:15] "Quomodo praedicabunt nisi mittantur?" nulla enim signa virtutum eis testimonium perhibent: scilicet quod possint propter hoc praedicare. Tales autem cum sint periculosi Ecclesiae, debent vitari. Et hos, etc. Sexto, dicimus eos non esse admittendos, quia timemus ne sint ipsi de penetrantibus domos: quoniam in domos singulorum se ingerunt, conscientias et proprietates hominum rimantur: et quos seductibiles ad modum mulierum inueniunt, seducunt et a Consiliis Praelatorum ad sua ducunt Consilia, videlicet adstringentes eos ad sua Consilia, vel actu, vel Iuramentis. Et tales praecipit Apostolus vitari dicens. Et hos etc. Septimo dicimus eos non esse admittendos quia curiosi videlicet de curando negotia aliena et de operibus spiritualibus, cum tamen non sint Apostoli, nee eorum successores; id est Parochiales presbyteri nee eorum Opitulatores, id (est) Vicarii vt dictum est supra. Tales autem qui sic viuere volunt, praecipit Apostolus vitari, dicens 2 Thessal. ult. Denunciamus vobis fratres in nomine Domini nostri I. C. Gloss. Per Christi authoritatem vobis praecipimus, vt subtrahatis vos ab omni fratre ambulante inordinate, et non secundum traditionem quam acceperunt a Nobis, vsque ibi. Et nolite quasi inimicum aesttmare. Inspiciantur Glossae, et inuenietur quod tales sunt vitandi, donee resipiscant a tali modo viuendi.38 [Fifth, we say that they should not be admitted into the consortium of masters because we fear that they may be false prophets, because—insofar as they are not bishops or parish priests or their vicars, or specially invited [into the parishes] by them—they preach without mission [non missi], contrary to the teaching of the Apostle, who says in Romans [10:15]: "How are men to preach unless they are sent [mittantur]'? For they show no signs of virtue that give witness that they should be able to preach. Moreover, since such men are perilous to the church, they ought to be avoided [as indicated in 2 Tim. 3:5]: "Avoid these." Sixth, we say that they should not be admitted since we fear they may be from those who "penetrate houses" [2 Tim. 3:6]: since they force themselves into the houses of everyone, they probe the consciences and qualities of men: and whom they find ,8

DuBoulay, Historia Untversitatis parisiensis, III, 287-88.

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WILLIAM OF ST. A M O U R

seducible like women, they seduce [seducunt) and lead [ducunt] away from the counsels of prelates to their own counsels, that is, binding them to their counsels, either by action or by oaths. And such men the apostle teaches us to avoid, saying "Avoid these" [2 Tim. 3:5]. Seventh, we say that they should not be admitted, because they are meddlesome, that is, they meddle in the business of others and interfere in spiritual works, even though they are not apostles nor their successors; i.e. they are not parish priests or their helpers, i.e. vicars as mentioned above. Moreover, the apostle teaches us to avoid those who wish to live this way, saying in the last chapter of Thessalonians: "We declare to you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (on which the Gloss comments: we teach you by the authority of Christ) that you withdraw yourselves from every brother [fratre] who lives irregularly and not according to the tradition which they have received from us" [2 Thess. 3:6]; and see the rest of the passage, ending at verse 15, "And do not regard him as an enemy." Let the glosses be examined, and it will be found that such men must be avoided until they come to their senses and abandon such a way of life.] In February 1256, William presented to a synod of French bishops meeting in Paris a similar list of reasons why the friars could not be admitted, including that "timemus ne sint de penetrantibus domos. . . . et tales praecipit Apostolus devitari dicens (II Tim. 3:5) Et hos devita" (we fear that they may be from those who penetrate houses. . . . and the apostle teaches us that such men should be avoided, saying [2 Tim. 3:5], "And avoid them"). William's argument also included a new item, that "cum ipsi sint in statu perfectionis, tenentur ad consilia; consilium autem Domini est (Matt. 23:8): Nolite vocari Rabbi" (since they are in a state of perfection, they are bound to observe the counsels [of the Gospel]; and the counsel of the Lord is [Matt. 23:8]: "Do not desire to be called rabbi [i.e. Master]"). 39 The bishops responded by asking William and the secular masters "ut auctoritates divinae et canonicae Scripturae de hac materia loquentes colligerent et eas in scriptis traderent, quia non poterant vacare inspectioni librorum" (to collect the authoritative passages in divine and canonical Scripture that pertain to this matter and to assemble them in writing, since they did not have the leisure to examine the books themselves).40 If William's account is true, it was precisely this ill-advised request of the bishops that brought the 39 40

Responsiones, p. 345 Responsiones, p. 359.

23

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Depericulis novissimorum temporum into being. The Depericulis, with its frenetic revelations of Scripturally prophesied dangers now beginning to appear in Paris, may not have been what the bishops had in mind, but their request suggests at least that they took seriously the application of Biblical exegesis to contemporary history. The De periculis, then, gives elaborate expression to a perception already in the air in Paris in the 1250s, and found even in official proceedings and documents not intended for circulation as propaganda. The friars were signs of the End, agents of Antichrist, sent to undermine the church from within in preparation for his coming. The Depericulis explored these antifraternal ideas through systematic Biblical exegesis, and in the process created a set of symbols and a symbolic language for the friars, crystallized around key Biblical figures. In these early years, the Biblical character of antifraternalism was inseparable from eschatology. The novissima tempora of William's title are the Last Times, but also by an ambiguity that reflects the uncertainties of the decade, the most recent times. William and the seculars were not alone in their fears that the End was nigh. A current of apocalypticism was running through Europe in the 1250s, a sense of an ending and of dangers vague but threatening, looming in the very near future. The apocalyptic sense of crisis appeared in many different spheres in the first half of the thirteenth century: in the wars between the pope and the emperor and the expectation that the Holy Roman Empire was coming to an end; among the Albigensian heretics; in the crusades; in vernacular poetry and drama about the Antichrist; in commentaries on the Biblical Apocalypse; in the revival of interest in prophecies like those of the Sibyls and of Hildegard of Bingen; in the persistent rumors that the gates of the Caucasus were open and the heathen hordes were pouring through in support of Antichrist; in the defeat of Louis IX at Al-Mansura in 1250 and his four-year captivity; in the strange Crusade of the Shepherds, which passed through Paris in 1251, attacking the clergy and drowning some of them in the Seine; and even in the formation of the mendicant orders themselves whom Pope Gregory IX welcomed as legions in the army of the Lord, who came in the evening of the world, when the charity of many was growing cold (Matt. 24:12), to help minister against the increasing evils of the End, and whom the ministers general of the two orders characterized as the two stars announced by the Sibyl for the Last Times. 41 There was a strong mood of apoca41

Gregory IX, "pons sapientiae" (3 July 1234), in Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, ed. Thomas Rrpoll, I (Rome: H. Mainard, 1729), 67-68; for the stars announced

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lypricism even in the Franciscan order, especially among the rigorist wing, the Spirituals, a mood familiar through the famous hymn, the Dies irae: Dies irae, dies ilia Solvet saeclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla.42 [On the day of wrath, the world will be reduced to ashes, as both David and the Sibyl prophesy.] Like several other periods in the earlier Middle Ages, the decade of the secular-mendicant controversy at Paris was rife with eschatological fears and expectations, because many expected an apocalyptic cataclysm, perhaps the appearance of the great Antichrist himself, in a particular year, in this case 1260. The fixation on that year was chiefly due to the dissemination of the ideas of a Calabrian abbot who, in the late twelfth century, purportedly received a divine gift of prophecy. 43 Joachim of Fiore, however, was no quotidian prophet; his prophecies were based on a new method of reading Scripture according to concords between the Old and New Testaments. He broke with both exegetical and prophetic tradition by using systematic Biblical exegesis for prophetic rather than moral or doctrinal purposes. In that respect, ironically, Joachim prepared the way for the prophetic exegesis of William of St. Amour, though William would have vigorously denied any kinship. Joachim's most influential and most misunderstood idea was the famous doctrine of the three status mundi, which many thought heralded a cataclysm in 1260. Joachim's understanding of history was very complex, focusing on the interrelationships of two tempora and three status, and dependent on Trinitarian theology, particularly the double procession of the Holy Spirit. The complexities of these historiographical schemes have been admirably described elsewhere; only certain rudiments are of concern here. The three status Joachim associated loosely but not exclusively with historical periods and with individual members of the Trinity. The first status, associated with the Father, began by the Sibyl, see thejoint encyclical of Humbert of Romans (O.P.) and John of Parma (O.F.M.) issued m 1255- L. Wadding, AnnalesMinorum (Rome. Bernabo, 1732), III, 38081 42 Clemens Blume, ed., Analecta hymnica, 54 (Leipzig: Reisland, 1915), 269. 43 The standard authority on Joachim is Marjone Reeves, The Influence ofProphecy. For his Biblical exegesis, Henri de Lubac, Exegese medievale, III (Aubier. Editions Montaigne, 1960), 437-558, and IV (1964), 325-44. 25

CHAPTER ONE

with Adam and was consummated with Christ, forty-two generations after Abraham, according to the genealogy summarized in Matt. 1:17; the second, associated primarily with the Son but also with the Holy Spirit, began with Ozias, blossomed at the birth of Christ, and would be consummated about the forty-second generation (taking a generation as thirty years, approximately 1,260 years after the Incarnation); and the third status, associated with the Holy Spirit, had a double initiatio, one with Elisha, the other with St. Benedict. Each of these status "belongs to" one of the three orders, respectively the married (the laity, the ordo coniugatomm), the clergy (the ordo dericorum), and the monks (the ordo monachorum). The three status, according to Joachim, are "the historical unfolding of the relationships between the married, whose function is procreation; the clergy, who proclaim the Word; and the monks, who embody the spiritual bond of love." 44 As Joachim's ideas were taken up in later years, they were simplified, distorted, and radicalized. The second status came more and more to be identified with the historical church, while the third status became identified with a new spiritual, perhaps monastic, church that would supplant the visible (and now corrupt) church as it had once supplanted the synagogue. In the third status, the active life would give way to the contemplative, the clergy would be replaced by two orders of fin spirituales, the Jews would be converted, wars and strife would cease, and the love induced by the Holy Spirit would reign everywhere. But the third status would not come without birth pangs; marking the transition would be a period of intense tribulation and persecution, of uncertain length, in which the long-feared Antichrist would come to destroy the church. The expectation of the terrors of Antichrist centered on the year 1260 because ofJoachim's calculation that the second status would be consummated about forty-two generations after the birth of Christ. One of the most widely circulated pseudo-Joachimite works, a Commentary on Jeremiah, written in the early 1240s, dates the transition exactly to the year 1260.45 44 E. Randolph Daniel, "The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit in Joachim of Fiore's Understanding of History," Speculum , 55 (1980), 474. See also Daniel's introduction to his edition of Joachim's Liber de Concordia Noui ac Veteris Testamenti, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 73.8 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983), especially pp. xxxvn-xxxvni; and Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, pp. 16-27 and 129-32 45 Interpretatio preclara Abbatis Ioachim in Hieremiam Prophetam (Venice: B Benahus, 1525), fol. 62' On 1260, see also Henri de Lubac, La Posterite spirituelle de Joachim de Flore (Pans: Editions Lethielleux, 1979), I, 88-90; and Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 43 (on the number 1,260 in the Bible), 54-55 (on the year 1260 A.D.), and 95 (on the 1,260 days of Antichrist's persecution).

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Joachim himself had not insisted on the year 1260, but in many of the prophecies and treatises falsely attributed to him it becomes the apocalyptic year, as in this popular "Prophetia Joachim": Cum fuerint anni completi mille ducenti Et decies seni post partum virginis alme, Tunc Antichristus nascetur demone plenus.46 [When 1,260 years have passed after a blessed virgin has given birth, then Antichrist, filled with the devil, will be born.] General eschatological fears about the year itself appear to have contributed to the sudden appearance around 1260 of aberrant groups like the Flagellants, with their eerie, candlelit, and banner-laden processions of itinerant penitents, flogging themselves bloody with spikes and flails.47 Since Paris was buzzing with eschatological expectations in the decade preceding 1260, it is not extraordinary that the friars, who threatened both church and university with radical change, would be seen as fulfillments of Biblical prophecies about the End. One incident more than any other seems to have convinced the secular clergy that the friars actually might be the multitude of eschatological pseudopraedicatores prophesied in the New Testament and that they should begin a systematic program of Scriptural research to see what more could be learned about them. That incident was the sudden appearance in Paris in 1254 of the Introductorius ad Evangelium Aeternum of Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, a "poor, ill-balanced Franciscan," as Marjorie Reeves calls 46

Cited in Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, p. 49 (further references, p. 50), but see also Leone Tondelli, Il libro dellefigure dett'ahate Gtoachtno da Fiore, I (Torino: Societa Editrice Internazionale, 1953), 42; Robert Lerner, The Powers of Prophecy: The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 21 n. 25, 32 n. 14, and 79 n. 35, and by the same author, "Refreshment of the Saints: The Time after Antichrist as a Station for Earthly Progress in Medieval Thought," Traditio, 32 (1976), p. 138 n. 133, and Emmerson, Antichrist, p. 55 n. 56. This prophecy first seems to have appeared with the date 1250, and continued to be retooled throughout the Middle Ages, reappearing with the dates 1290, 1300, 1310, 1360, 1375, and 1400, among others. 47 See Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, pp 54-55, Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1967), II, 485-94. The Flagellant movement was apparently not influenced by specifically Joachimistic ideas, such as the third status, as Raoul Manselli has argued in "L'anno 1260 fu anno giochimitico?" Il movimento dei disaplinati nel settimo centenario dal suo inizio (Perugia 1260: Convegno internazionale, Perugia, 25-28 settembre i960) (Perugia: Deputazione di stona patria per l'Umbria, 1962), pp. 99-108.

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him. 48 The book was a potpourri of extracts from the works of Joachim of Fiore, together with an original Liber introductorius written by Gerard himself. It was clearly the work of a fanatic, who had warped Joachim's doctrines into dangerous and revolutionary heresies. Gerard asserted that 1260 was the precise year in which the Third Age, the Age of the Spirit, the last before the end of the world, was to begin. Antichrist would appear and bring terror and persecution upon the church, but he would be overcome by two new religious orders living in apostolic poverty, who would inaugurate the new era in which men would live together in love according to the Spirit of God. Gerard proclaimed that these new orders of "spiritual" men were the recently founded orders of friars, in particular the Franciscans. And if that proclamation was not enough to raise hackles in the church, its corollary was: that the active life of the secular clergy would lose its purpose in the new era, giving way to the contemplative life of the new orders. And finally, most outrageously of all, Gerard maintained that with the advent of the Third Age, the New Testament would be supplanted as it had supplanted the Old Testament and its authority would pass to a Third Testament, an Evangelium Aeternum of the Holy Ghost (the phrase comes from Apoc. 14:6), contained in the works ofjoachim. Shortly after Gerard's work became known, the identification of the friars as eschatological types began to appear in university documents for the first time. Recognizing immediately the explosive and heretical implications of the Evangelium Aeternum, the secular masters sent to Rome a list of thirty-two excerpts that they considered erroneous. Gerard was too much a zealot to have any significant following among the Franciscans. Still, there was much interest in certainjoachimite ideas in the order, and not just among the radical fringes. Hugh of Digne in Provence, Thomas of Pavia, but most important, the two ministers general of this period—John of Parma and Bonaventura—were among the prominent Franciscans sympathetic to Joachimite doctrines, 48

See the account of Gerard m Reeves, Influence ofProphecy, pp. 59-70. Gerard's "Gospel," which was long thought to have been lost, probably consisted of his own Liber introductorius prefaced to the three major works ofjoachim, Liber concordia, Expositio in Apocalypsim, and the Psalteriutn decern chordamm. A few years ago a manuscript was found that may contain Gerard's compilation and may once have contained the lost Liber introductorius; see B. Topfer, "Eine Handschrift des Evangelium aeternum des Gerardino von Borgo San Donnino," Zeitschrififar Geschichtswissenschafl, 8 (1960), 156-63. For the minutes of the ecclesiastical commission investigating the affair of the Eternal Evangel, see Heinnch Denifle, "Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagm," Archiv fiir Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, 1 (1885), 49-142. Otherwise the Liber introductorius is known to us only from the refutation of its doctrines by the faculty at the University of Pans: see CUP, I, no. 243, pp 272-76 28

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

though in greatly varying degrees. Hence it is not surprising, though not entirely fair, that the secular masters should try to lump the whole Franciscan order, and for that matter, all friars, together with Gerard. But the beleaguered masters were in no mood to be objective. They seemed to find in this new Evangelium a sudden revelation on which all their fears about the friars, both local and general, converged: the friars were a sign of the End.49 This is the apocalyptic conclusion William of St. Amour draws in the Depericulis about two years after the appearance of the Evangelium Aeternum. The perils of the Last Times, he says in chapter 8, are not far off. We know that we are in the sixth and last age of the world (an orthodox idea); we know that all other ages have endured approximately a millennium; and we know that this age has already lasted for 1,255 years. Therefore it is clear that we are near the end of the world and nearer still to the periculis novissimorum temporum that will come before the advent of the Antichrist. For doubters the proximity of the End is confirmed by several Biblical texts and their glosses (James 5:9, Heb. 10:37, Matt. 20:6), most impressively, 1 John 2:18: " 'Scimus quianovissima hora est'; Glos. Scimus quod absque dilatione dies Iudicii veniet" ("We know that it is the last hour"; the Glossa comments: We know that the Day of Judgment will come without delay). But more dramatic evidence exists: there have been recent signs in Paris itself "quod iam praedicta pericula instant" (that already the aforementioned perils are beginning).50 First sign: for fifty-five years (that is, from the death of Joachim around 1200), certain men have tried to change the Gospel of Christ into another Gospel, which they say will be more perfect and more worthy, that is, the Evangelium Spiritus Sancti or Evangelium Aeternum, whose advent will overthrow the Evangelium Christi. Second sign: the doctrine that will be preached in the time of Antichrist has already been put forth publicly for explication at Paris in the form of the Evangelium Aeternum. Hence it is certain that very soon it will be preached abroad as the Gospel, unless something or someone detains it. It is the duty of bishops, who are the successors of the apostles, to do so, or the pseudopraedicatores will take away their power, as indicated in the Evangelium Aeternum. Third sign: the Evangelium Aeternum is literally the 49

For the thirty-two excerpts from Gerard's work, see CUP, I, no. 243, pp. 272-75. For Franciscan sympathy to Joachimite ideas, see Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, pp. 175— 90. 50 Depericulis, p. 38. On the New Testament texts about the proximity of the End, see Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 34-73, esp. 35-40, 42-43, 50-52; on the sixth age, pp. 19 and 56-57. 29

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handwriting on the wall for the church, like the mysterious "Mane, Tekel, Phares" that appeared to Babylon at Belshazzar's feast as a sign of the wrath to come. William of St. Amour now stands in the place of the old prophet Daniel, interpreting the mystery for the princes of the church, who see, like the terrified princes of Babylon, their end written before them. In Daniel, Mane, Tekel, and Phares are interpreted etymologically as three prophecies of the coming destruction of the kingdom. William finds in the Evangelium Aetemum three similar prophecies of the passing of the church. Daniel interprets Mane to mean, "Numeravit Deus regnum tuum et conclusit" (God has numbered thy reign and ended it); similarly, says William, the Evangelium Aetemum asserts that the reign of the church according to the Gospel of Christ is numbered, to be replaced 1,260 years from the Incarnation by a new gospel and a new law, the lex Spiritus sancti. According to Daniel, Tekel signifies "Appensum est in statera et inuentum est minus habens" (It [Belshazzar's reign] has been weighed in the balance and found lacking); correspondingly, in Gerard's odious book, the Gospel of Christ is compared to the Eternal Gospel and found to have less perfection and dignity than the latter, which outshines the former as the sun the moon. In Daniel, Phares is interpreted "Divisum est regnum tuum a te" (Thy kingdom has been divided from thee); similarly in Gerard's work it is found written that after the predicted time, the church will be divided from those who hold to the Evangelium Christi and given to those who receive the third Testament, the Evangelium Aeternum.51 These three signs—or for that matter, their author—may not seem to the modern observer to be very brightly lit. But for William and his colleagues in theology, they were pillars of fire, which showed the way to Antichrist and the End. And their dramatic illumination of the friars' link to Antichrist through the Evangelium Aeternum was to have consequences far beyond 1255. The appearance of the Eternal Gospel altered radically and permanently the secular clergy's perception of the friars, from a political to a theological perspective. It changed the background against which they were seen, from the mundane, confusing world of Paris and the university to the larger, more frightening but more comprehensible world of eschatological mythology. The friars ceased to be seen so much as competitors for ecclesiastical privileges and academic honors and became forerunners of Antichrist. And the secular clergy at last found the tribulations of the present explained by 51

De pertculis, p. 39. Antichrist traditionally was expected to preach a new law and so introduce a new gospel; see Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 20, 90-91.

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and fading away before the cataclysm of the End. The lens of history had suddenly changed. THE WATCHTOWER OP SCRIPTURE

The theologians' sense of an imminent End brought into being the system of Biblical exegesis that would inform the antifraternal tradition for the remainder of the Middle Ages. For if the friars were part of the divinely ordained End, the way to prepare for and to combat the perils and persecutions they would bring was to study the received text of Salvation History, the Bible, which was full of prophecies and warnings about the final times, put there by God, as William says, for the instruction and preparation of the church: Ideoque Dominus, qui vult omnes homines saluosfieri, I. Timo. 2. nee aliquos vult perire I. Petri. 3. ut Ecclesia sua instructa et preparata vitare possit futura pericula; non solum per seipsum verum etiam per Prophetas, et Apostolus prophetantes ea prenuntiauit. 52 [And therefore the Lord, "who desires that all men be saved" (1 Tim. 2:4) "and that none perish" (2 Pet. 3:9), prophesied of those dangers not only in his own words but also through the words of the prophets and the apostles in order that his church with instruction and preparation might be able to avoid future dangers.] Biblical exegesis was not just a methodology but a sacred duty, to warn the church and the faithful of impending danger. Biblical exegesis put to these purposes was in fact identical with prophecy, as we may gather from William's frequent identification of his own mission with those of the apocalyptic prophets of the Old Testament, especially Daniel (as above), Isaiah, and Jeremiah. He begins a sermon, for example, with a comparison between Jeremiah and himself, who both have had to endure "opprobria et tribulationes et ignominias" (scandal and tribulation and disgrace) for warning of future dangers by elucidating Scripture. 53 This paranoid comparison, and others like it, is based fundamentally on a definition of the prophet as Scriptural exegete, a definition so important that it opens the De periculis: Ecce videntes clamabunt /oris, Angeli pacis amareflebunt. Isa. 33:[7]. Sicut Prophetae in sacris Scripturis appellantur videntes (qui enim Propheta dicitur hodie, olim vocabatur videns I. Reg. 19 [for 9:9]), 52 53

Collectiones, p. 112. "Qui amat penculum," p. 491. 31

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sic vacantes Scripturis exponentes eas, videntes merito dici pos­ sum; cum et ipsi in eisdem Uteris Prophetae dicantur, Eph. 4[:11]. Et ipse aedit quosdam quidetn Apostolus, quosdam autem Prophetas; Glossa, Prophetas, id est, Scripturarum Interpretes. Cum igitur ipsi per Scripturas vident pericula imminere, debent clamare foris, id est, aliisindicare. 54 ["Behold, those who saw (videntes) cried out abroad, the Angels of peace wept" (Isa. 33:7). As the prophets are called videntes in sa­ cred Scripture (for he who is called prophet today once was called "seeing" [vuiens], 1 Kings 9:9), so those who devote themselves to Scripture and expound them can rightly be called videntes; since they are also called prophets in Scripture, as in Eph. 4:11; "And some men he gave as apostles, but others as prophets"; on which the Glossa comments: "Prophets, that is, interpreters of Scripture (Scripturarum Interpretes)." Therefore, when they see, by perusing Scripture, that certain dangers are imminent, they ought to "cry out abroad," that is, show them to others.] Thus William's claim to prophecy is based solely on his capacity as exegete, Scripturarum interpres. If, to warn the church against destruction, he claims to be a visionary, it is only as a Videns, one who sees through Scripture, or as he puts it elsewhere (drawing on the imagery of Isa. 21:6), a watchman of the church who ascends the watchtower of Scrip­ ture and announces what can be seen. 55 From atop his Scriptural watchtower, William could discern three Biblical groups who more than any others seemed to foreshadow the friars and to offer warnings by example or by prophecy, to the church: the Pharisees; the pseudoapostoli; and the antichristi prophesied for the end of time. These three Biblical figures constitute the core of Wil­ liam's system of antifraternal exegesis. And in the subsequent tradi­ tion, down to the fifteenth century, many charges against the friars can be traced back to (or found in conjunction with) Biblical charges and warnings against these three groups. There is both a topical and a symbolic logic behind William's con­ centration on these to the exclusion of other Biblical figures. They are the three who, to William, most resembled the friars in Paris in the 1250s. The friars' aspirations to magisterial chairs, for example, was re­ flected in the desire of the Pharisees to be called rabbi, that is, magister (Matt. 23:7). But their topical relevance is limited to only a few partic54 55

De periculis, p. 17. De periculis, ρ 39.

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ulars and cannot alone account for their imaginative power, or their staying power, as conventions of antifraternal literature. What makes them the dominant trinity in William's exegesis is an intramural coherence that has nothing to do with the friars. In the Bible, they are united typologically and eschatologically. William found that unity cogently expressed in the Glossa ordinaria, in the notion of the Three Persecutions of the church. The Glossa affirmed that the church would endure three persecutions before the End. Two, William knew, had already occurred. That much was clear from the three horses of different colors, red, black, and pale, who appear with the opening of the seals of the scroll of the Lamb in Apoc. 6:3-8. The red horse, William reports, signifies the persecution through open tyranny {violenta) that the early martyrs of the church had to endure. The black horse signifies the second great phase of persecution (fraudulenta), this time from open heresy, especially in the time of Augustine and Hilary. But the pale horse betokens the third persecution, "composed of force and fraud together," the imminent persecution of the church through hypocrites. For the devil, says the Glossa, seeing that neither open tyranny nor manifest heresy takes effect, will send his agents to perturb the church and subvert men, false brethren disguised under the habit of sanctity (falsos fratres sub habitu sanctitatis— fratres and habitu are deliberate allusions to the friars). This third persecution by the hypocritae will be greater than the two preceding because it will combine their evils of persecution, first by deception (dolo), then by force (vi). And it will come from a more dangerous source—from those seemingly devout persons within the church whom all believe, persons generally called in New Testament prophecies about the Last Days, antichrist!.56 By the time he wrote the Collectiones William saw the Three Persecutions as one of the basic patterns in Salvation History, a pattern that had occurred in two other periods to warn us figurally of the pattern in the days of the Ecclesiafinalis.There had also been three persecutions in the life of Christ: the first (violenta) in his infancy at the hands of Herod; the second (fraudulenta) from the doctors of the law and the scribes, who after he had begun his preaching accused him of blasphemy and reviled him for interpreting falsely the law and the prophets; and the third (composita ex vi et dolo) from the hypocritical Pharisees who persecuted him first through fraud and afterward through violence, asso56

Collectiones, pp 128-30; "Qui amat penculum," pp. 495-96 On p. 496 William cites Augustine's gloss on Apoc. 6, recorded in the Glossa ordinaria, in the glosses on Psalm 110. On the tradition of the Three Persecutions, see Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 64— 65 and n. 83.

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ciating themselves with Herod (Matt. 22). There had also been three persecutions in the ecdesia primitiva of which William mentions only the third as a prefiguration of the third persecution of the Ecdesia finalis: pseudoapostoli appeared in the time of the apostles, falsi fratres who claimed to be apostles but were not and who persecuted, by deception and then by violence, those resisting them, like the bishop of Ephesus (Apoc. 2:1 ff.).57 A disciple of William of St. Amour, summarizing these series of persecutions, puts their figural relationship succinctly: "Si igitur . . . persecutio Christi persecutionem ecclesiae figuravit, oportet similes persecutiones ipsam ecclesiam pati, ut membra conformentur capiti" (If therefore . . . the persecution of Christ prefigured the persecution of the church, it is necessary that the church suffer similar persecutions, so that the members conform to the head). 58 Thus there is a figural logic to the parallel persecutions in these different phases of Salvation History. The three Biblical figures that form the core of William's antifraternal polemic are also the agents of the third persecution in each of these three periods of Salvation History: the Pharisees in the life of Christ as reported in the Gospel; the pseudoapostoli in the Ecdesia primitiva as reported in the Acts and Epistles; and the antichristi in the Ecdesiafinalisas prophesied throughout the New Testament. Through figuration each implies the other. To a certain extent, this would be true even without their parallel places in the fixed structure of the three persecutions. Each of the three groups is a symbolic antitype of the apostles; all three are images of hypocrisy, which William saw as the eschatological vice, the chief vice of those who would come at the end. But the crucial point is that these three groups, the heart of William's antifraternal polemic, have a symbolic, figural, theological unity in and of themselves that has little to do with the friars and everything to do with the Bible. That unity is the ultimate cause of their dominance in William's exegesis. And that unity is logically, theologically, and probably even chronologically prior to the unity William sees in them as forewarnings of the friars. PHARISEES

The most prominent of William's three antifraternal types are the Pharisees, to whom he devoted a public sermon, De Pharisaeo etpublicano, delivered at the height of the controversy in August 1256 and later pub57

Collections, p. 129. Nicholas of Lisieux, De Antkhristo, ed. Edmond Martene and U. Durand, m Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicorum . . . amplissima collectio, IX (Pans: Montalant, 1724-33), col. 1279. 58

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lished in manuscript, a sermon that became sufficiently popular not only to be taken over into the poetry of Rutebeuf and Jean de Meun, but to circulate until the Reformation, when it was published twice in the course of sixty years.59 The sermon is about the Biblical Pharisees, but William is at pains to make sure his auditors do not miss the analogy he intends between these Biblical figures and certain hypocrites of his own time. He says near the beginning of the sermon: Notandum est quod Pharisaei erant quidam Religiosi apud Iudaeos, sicut sunt apud nos Regulares; quorum quidam in habitu, in austeritate vitae, in obseruantiis spiritualibus, et traditionibus suis praetendebant sanctitatis speciem, quam non habebant in corde; Et isti erant hypocritae. . . . Perpraedictum Pharisaeum qui erat hypocrita . . . significantur hypocritae nostri temporis.60 [It should be noted that the Pharisees were a religious order among the Jews, as among us there are now Regular orders. In habit, in austerity of life, in spiritual observances, and in their traditions, some of the Pharisees displayed a show of sanctity that they lacked in their hearts; and these were hypocrites. . . . By the aforementioned Pharisee who was a hypocrite . . . the hypocrites of our own time are signified. ] To help listeners unable to guess what group was in question, William provides a more specific and unmistakable clue designed to recall the most violently controversial of the friars' current claims at the University of Paris: the Pharisees desired to be honored by being called masters, magistri. William's evidence comes from his favorite source, Matthew 23, the great speech of Christ on the eightfold woes to descend upon the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. Christ explicitly warns his disciples not to follow the example of the Pharisees who amant . . . vocari ab hominibus rabbi. Vos autem nolite vocari rabbi: unus enim est magister vester; omnes autem vos fratres estis. . . . Nee vocemini magistri. 59 In Opera omnia (1632), pp. 7-16, and in the Fasciculum return (1690), II, 43-47, where it, unlike the De periculis, is printed under William's name, not anonymously. For the poetry, see Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose, ed. Ernest Langlois, III (Paris. Honore Champion, 1921), lines 11,605-36; Rutebeuf, "Du pharisien ou C'est d'hypocnsie" and "Dit des regies" in Edmond Faral and Julia Bastin, ed., Oeuvres completes de Rutebeuf (Pans: Picard, 1969); see also Ane Serper, "L'mfluence de Guilkume de Samt-Amour sur Rutebeuf," Romance Philology, 17 (1963-64), 391-402. For circumstances surrounding De Pharisaeo, see Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 242, 251-52 60 De Pharisaeo, pp. 8-9.

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[love . . . to be called by men "rabbi." You however must not wish to be called "rabbi," for one is your master (magister), but you are all brothers (fratres). . . . Be not called masters.] (Matt. 23:7-10) After the obvious "fratres," the key to the importance of these verses is the word "rabbi," which means magister as indicated in John 1:38, "Rabbi, quod dicitur interpretatum, magister" (Rabbi, which, inter­ preted, means master). By a verbal coincidence, the Biblical term mag­ ister was identical with the academic title over which there was such an uproar at the University of Paris. Among all the charges against the Pharisees that William uses, this charge alone, of inordinate desire to be called master, has a clear and specific topical bearing on the friars of Paris in the 1250s, and especially on the political dispute that exercised the university for much of the decade. Other charges (gluttony or lechery or hypocrisy, for example) have mostly a general moral relevance and any political reference is only of the vaguest sort. The magisterium charge, therefore, seems the foundation, if not indeed the cause of the analogy William sees between Pharisees and friars. It is a nucleus fixed in real historical fact, around which other charges cluster by Biblical association. It was also chron­ ologically prior to the other charges associated with the Pharisees. We have already seen that in 1252, in the famous statutum de promovendis, the secular masters cited sacred Scripture against the multiplication of masters: "Nolite plures magistn fieri, scientes quoniam majus judi­ cium sumitis" (James 3:1: Let not many wish to become masters, knowing that you will receive a greater judgment). 6 1 In 1254, the uni­ versity published a manifesto describing their dispute with the friars and accusing them of disobeying the evangelical precepts against the Pharisees in Matthew 23: "Nolite vocari rabbi" and " N e vocemini 62 magistri" (Do not wish to be called rabbi; Be not called masters). By February 1256, before a synod of French bishops, William of St. Amour was citing the Pharisaic desire to be called rabbi/magister in his arguments against admitting the friars into the consortium magistrorum: "cum ipsi sint in statu perfectionis, tenentur ad consilia; consilium autem Domini est (Matt. 23:8): 'Nolite vocari rabbi' " (since they are in a state of perfection, they are bound to observe divine counsel; more­ 63 over, the counsel of the Lord is: " D o not wish to be called rabbi"). Almost no other verses connected with the Pharisees appear in docu­ ments of the university disputes—that is, until William delivered De 61 62 63

CUP, I, no. 200, p. 226. CUP, I, no. 230, ρ 253. Responsiones, p. 345. 36

WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

Pharisaeo in August 1256. Here the general thesis is stated for the first time: the Pharisees signify the hypocritae nostri temporis. And with that thesis, the ground of the analogy between the friars and the Pharisees has suddenly expanded from Matt. 23:8 and its Pharisaic magistri to all Biblical passages about the Pharisees. Topical relevance becomes secondary, as William's focus becomes not friars but Pharisees, his framework not historical reality but Biblical narrative. Four "infallible signs" occupying fully half of the De Pharisaeo provide a paradigm of the associative process, by which a specific political complaint against the friars becomes transformed into a general symbolic equation with Biblical figures. These signs enable us to identify the hypocritical Pharisees of our own time, says William. And what are these signs? Nothing other than the four clauses of Matt. 23:6-7: Amant (Pharisaei) autem primos recubitus in coenis, et primas cathedras in synagogis, et salutationes in foro, et vocari ab hominibus rabbi. [(The Pharisees) love the first places at dinners, and the first seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace, and to be called by men "rabbi."] What drew William to this Biblical passage was the fourth sign: "Amant . . . vocari ab hominibus rabbi," which we recognize immediately. But unlike the earlier documents that mention this Pharisaic flaw, William's sermon avoids any mention of the friars' magisterial ambitions. The plane of the discussion is moral; the scene, Biblical. As Christ reproved the desire for the title of master among the Pharisees and prohibited it among the apostles, it is to be reproved and prohibited among those who profess to lead an apostolic life. Mastery in letters is not necessarily conducive to the health of souls, for Arius and Sabellius and other great heresiarchs were masters. By contrast, among the disciples of Christ, there were two masters, Nathanael and Nicodemus, the latter a converted Pharisee (see John 1:45-51 and 3:1-10). But Christ sent neither of these as an apostle to preach the Gospel to the world; rather he sent fishermen and idiotas, unlearned in the Law and without eloquence in speech. The apostle Paul, likewise, scorned ostentatious wisdom and eloquence. Therefore neither the name nor the wisdom of the magisterium is to be coveted, as it is by certain hypocritae nostri temporis (hypocrites of our own time).64 The other signs represent equally heinous moral behavior, but have no history in the Parisian disputes, and indeed small political relevance 64

De Pharisaeo, pp 12-13. Cf. Collectiones. p. 400-401.

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at all. What William designates as the first sign is that they love "first seats at dinners." They are always running, he says, to the public din­ ners of kings and princes and prelates, and sitting at the head of the table so that they might be honored by men and be delicately fed—ap­ petitive behavior that hardly sits well with men in regular orders, es­ pecially preachers. After all, don't we know from Matt. 11:8 that "those who wear soft garments are in the houses of kings." 6 5 The second sign is that the new Pharisees love "the first seats in the synagogues," that is, says William, the pulpit (cathedram praedicantis). They force their way into the office and privilege of preaching; they preach uninvited to strangers—that is, to people not entrusted to their pastoral care—and many of them preach at the great church feasts, hav­ ing been called by a secular prince who has no power to bestow the preaching privilege. And the third infallible sign is that they love "salutationes in foro." The normal meaning οι jorum is "marketplace," but William abandons that for a topically more useful reading: Forus, vt dicit Isidorus, est exercendarum litium locus. IUi ergo Pharisaei, id est Regulares, qui procurant & amant, vt vocentur ad consistoria Principum & Praelatorum, & eadem frequentant sedentes ibi pro tribunali ad iudicandum, vel assessores existentes, vt eis Mtigantes reuerentiam iudicialem exhibeant, & salutent eos capite inclinato; salutationes in foro amare videntur; Cum secundum Apostolum hoc eis non liceat, II Tim. 2. Nemo militans Deo implicat se saecularibus negotiis, vt eiplaceat, cui seprobauit.66 [The Forus, as Isidore says, is the place where lawsuits are brought. Therefore those Pharisees—i.e., men in Regular orders, who ar­ range to and love to be called to the consistories of princes and prelates, and who frequent them, sitting there in the front of the tribunal as judges, or as assistants, so that the litigants might show them judicial reverence, and greet them with bowed head—seem to love greetings in the foro, though according to the Apostle it is not permitted to them: " N o one serving as God's soldier entangles himself in worldly affairs, that he may please Him to whom he has engaged himself (2 Tim. 2:4).] William's Pharisees are found not in the marketplace but in the forum of the law court, and more specifically in the consistory courts of the thir­ teenth century. These three signs are distinct from the fourth. They have not oc65 66

De Pharisaeo, pp. 9-10. De Pharisaeo, p. 12.

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curred at any point in earlier documents; they are general rather than specific; they specify moral rather than political flaws, and have no bearing on the political claims of the friars at Paris; indeed they have little bearing, in their Biblical form, on the friars at all and William is therefore forced to add to the Biblical text such details as will make them pertinent to his real enemies. The friars may well have been favorite dinner guests at the court of Louis IX, who found in their voluntary poverty and humble dress an example to emulate, but Matt. 23:6 says nothing about dinners of kings. The friars may well have gained preaching privileges in an unorthodox and aggressive manner, but Matt. 23:7 speaks of first seats in synagogues, not of pulpits. The friars may well have been prominent in the ecclesiastical courts, but most readers of Matt. 23:7 thought the Pharisees loved salutations in the marketplace, not in a court of law. These three signs have come into being because the phrase "they love to be called by men 'rabbi' " happens to occur in a Biblical verse with three other parallel clauses. Here the terms of antifraternal criticism—its structure, its imagery, its actual charges—have become dictated not by reality but by accidents of association in the Bible. There are further examples of the importance of Biblical association in the De Pharisaeo and in William's other works. William's warnings about "hypocrites of our own time" seem to be adapted primarily to what is written about the Pharisees in Matthew 23, even when the relation to the friars is somewhat shaky. "Omnia vero opera sua faciunt ut videantur ab hominibus; dilatant enim phylacteria sua, et magnificant fimbrias" (Matt. 23:5: AU their works they do so that they might be seen by men; for they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their tassels). This verse is cited to show that the Pharisees feigned sanctity "in habitu." Phylacteria, William explains, are small scrolls or pieces of parchment (membranulas) on which the Decalogue was written, which the Pharisees wore on their foreheads, as if always meditating on the Law, and on their wrists, as if always working the Law. Understandably William does not try to draw an application to the "hypocrites of our own time"; evidently we are to compare only generally this external show of piety to the friars' "in habitu." The same is true with the fimbriae, the tassels that hang from the corners of the Pharisees' fourcornered cloaks (quadrata pallia). With these they try to feign austerity of life because on the tassels they tie sharp thorns that appear to pierce them whether they walk or sit, and so remind them forcibly of the service of God. "Ex quo apparet," says William, departing from his gloss, "quod ambulabant discalceati: aliter enim ambulando, non pungerentur a spinis" (From which it appears that they walked barefoot; for otherwise in walking, they would not have been pierced by 39

CHAPTER ONE 67

thorns). The somewhat gratuitous and slightly suspect information that the Pharisees went barefoot seems to be introduced for the sole purpose of identifying them with the friars, at least the Franciscans, whose custom it was to go unshod. Another warning drawn from Matthew 23 is verse 15, which William, in the Depericulis, applies to the friars' own eager proselytizing: Adeo autem seducunt corda simplicium, quod faciunt eos ingredi sectam suam, quam Religionem appellant; & Quiprius in simplicitate viuebant, post ingressum suum, fiunt astuti, hypocritae, pseudo, & penetrantes domos, una cum illis; & quandoque fiunt illis peiores. Vnde Matt. 23. "Vae vobis Scribae, & Pharisaei hypocritae, quia circuitis mare, & aridam, utfaciatis unum proselyturn; & cum fuerit/actus, facitis eumfiliumgehennae duplo, quam vos."68 [Moreover they seduce the hearts of the simple, because they make them enter their sect which they call Religion; and those who formerly lived in simplicity, after their entry become cunning, hypocritical, deceivers and penetrators of houses, just like the others; and sometimes they become worse than the others. Whence Matthew 23: "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you traverse land and sea to make one convert; and when he has become one, you make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves."] William also appropriates Matt. 23:14, "Vae vobis scribae et pharisaei hypocritae, quia comeditis domos viduarum, orationes longas orantes" (Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you devour the houses of widows, praying long prayers). In the Depericulis, he interprets this rather straightforwardly to demonstrate that the hypocrites pray long prayers at the houses of widows, or among those spiritually weak, so as to seem more religious and to perturb the consciences of their victims so that they might receive more money and more praise.69 The "comedentes domos viduarum" later became associated with the famous "penetrantes domos" of 2 Tim. 3:6, who "captivas ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis" (lead captive women stained with sin). Both verses reinforce the notions of the friars' purely pecuniary interest in souls and excessive interest in women. All these passages from Matthew 23 became conventions in the antifraternal tradition. William of St. Amour may have been the first to 67 68 69

De Pharisaeo, p. 8, see also CoUectiones, p. 305. Depericulis, p. 57. Depericulis, pp. 62-63 See also "Qui amat penculum, " pp. 504-05

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apply them to the friars, but his more important contribution was theoretical: to establish that the Pharisees prefigured the hypocritae nostri temporis. Once that theory had become accepted, anyone hostile to the friars had a ready source of antifraternal material in the text of Scripture, wherever Pharisees are mentioned. In the De Pharisaeo, William is moving away from politics and toward eschatology. That tendency in an extreme form may be seen in the De Antichristo, a work long attributed to William but now thought to be by one of his disciples.70 What William had only suggested in his discussions of the three persecutions, the De Antichristo makes explicit. The Pharisees are prefigurations of the hypocrites of the final times: diversas sectas pseudopraedicatorum in fine ecclesia sustinebit. . . . In veteri populo Israelitico, sicut et in nobis erunt magistri mendaces, qui introducent sectas perditionis . . . sicut et in veteri populo, cui omnia in figura nostri, Apostolo teste, fiebant. . . . Unde sicut Pharisaei cum aliis sectis tunc palliate Deum negabant factis, vivendo perverse, et Dei legem corrumpendo, sic et circa finem temporum multi venientes, christi-pseudo sunt futuri.71 [the church will sustain diverse sects of false preachers at the End. . . . As among the old Israelite people, so also among us there will be lying masters, who will introduce sects of perdition . . . as happened among the ancient people, whose history was in figuration of us, as the Apostle testifies. . . . Whence, as the Pharisees and other sects in those days denied God secretly by living perversely and destroying the law of God, so also around the end of time[s] there will be many false Christs who will come.] These pseudochristi or pseudopraedicatores, prefigured by the Pharisees and predicted for the final times, the De Antichristo elsewhere identifies with the mendicant orders. As in the genuine works of William, the friars are presented less as historical figures than as eschatological types, antitheses of all that is Christian. Their significance is not in time but at its end. PSEUDOAPOSTLES

The second great Biblical type for the friars is the group of shadowy figures in the New Testament called variously false teachers, false 70 For discussion of Nicholas' authorship of the De Antichristo, see Dufeil, Guillaume, pp. 329—31; for an edition, see the list of Abbreviations. 71 De Antichristo, col. 1294.

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prophets, or false preachers, but labeled collectively zspseudoapostoli by William of St. Amour. In historical fact, the pseudoapostoli of the primitive church were not a group at all, at least not an international conspiracy of anti-Christian preachers of the sort William sometimes makes them out to be. Their teachings and the problems they created for local churches varied greatly from place to place, as far as we can tell from the vague references made to them in the letters of Paul primarily, but also of Peter, John, and Jude. At Corinth, dissension apparently had been created by cliques within the church who attached themselves to one apostle or another (1 Cor. 1-4); in addition, Paul was criticized by "false apostles," apparently from outside, who accused him of weakness, empty boasting, rude speech. They even criticized his determination to labor with his hands so he would not have to be supported by those to whom he preached (2 Cor. 6-7 and 10-12). At Galatia, at Philippi, at Colossae, false teachers, probably recent Jewish converts, maintained that Mosaic and Old Testament practices were still necessary for Christian salvation. At Ephesus and Crete other false teachers were threatening to undermine the work of the true apostles by encouraging foolish controversies and vain discussions, and by preaching for gain.72 And finally, in the letters of Peter and John to the Christian communities in Asia Minor and in the letter ofJude, Christians are warned against false teachers and heretics, who among other things deny the divinity of Christ, the Second Coming, and the End of the world and corrupt the morals of the faithful (2 Pet. 2 and 3, 1 John 2 and 4, Jude 1). This motley crew, then, constitutes the collective pseudoapostoli that William of St. Amour assembles as dark prefigurations of the friars. It was not just their unsavory character that won these false teachers a place in William's antifraternal exegesis. Rather, like the Pharisees, they emerge as antifraternal symbols for a very specific reason connected with the political disputes between the secular clergy and the friars: the friars' controversial claim to be reviving the way of life of the original apostles, the vita apostolica. The Franciscans in particular were conscious of an apostolic heritage, due in great part to the passion of their saintly founder to imitate as literally as possible the life of Christ and the apostles in the New Testament. Indeed, the order owed its foundation, according to Francis's early biographers, to a Gospel passage that he heard read during a "missam de Apostolis" in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (the Portiuncula), a passage from Christ's instructions to the apostles before 72

See 1 Tim. 1, 4, 6; 2 Tim 2, 3, 4; and Titus.

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he sent them out to preach the Gospel (primarily Luke 10:1-12, but see also Matt. 10:5-15 and Mark 6:7-13). These verses inspired Francis to pursue the way of evangelical poverty like the apostles and provided him with a skeletal pattern on which the early order was modeled. Here is the account of this visionary episode given by Bonaventura in the Legenda major, which was, after 1226, the official Vita of St. Francis for the order and the only one canonically endorsed: Dum enim die quodam Missam de Apostolis devotus audiret, perlectum est Evangelium illud, in quo Christus discipulis ad praedicandum mittendis formam tribuit evangelicam in vivendo, ne videlicet possideant aurum vel argentum nee in zonis peeuniam nee peram in via nee duas tunicas habeant nee calceamenta deferant neque virgam. Quod audiens et intelligens ac memoriae commendans, apostolicae paupertatis amicus indicibili mox perfusus laetitia: "Hoc est, inquit, quod cupio, hoc quod totis praecordiis concupisco." Solvit proinde calceamenta de pedibus, deponit baculum, peram et peeuniam exsecratur, unaque contentus tunicula, reiecta corngia, pro cingulo funem sumit, omnem sollicitudinem cordis apponens, qualiter audita perficiat et apostolicae rectitudinis regulae per omnia se coaptet. Coepit ex hoc vir Dei divino instinctu evangelicae perfectionis aemulator existere et ad poenitentiam ceteros invitare. 73 [He was at Mass one day on the feast of one of the apostles and the passage of the Gospel where our Lord sends out his disciples to preach and tells them how they are to live according to the Gospel was read. When Francis heard that they were not to provide gold or silver or copper to fill their purses, that they were not to have a 73

St. Bonaventura, Opera omnia, VIII (Quaracchi: Collegium S Bonaventurae, 1898), p. 510 (chap. 3, paras. 1-2); trans, from Sr. Francis ofAssisi Writings and Early Biographies, ed. Marion Habig (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), pp. 646-47 Two other early biographers also record this story: see the Legenda S. Francisci Ass. tribus ipsius sociis hucusque adscnpta, ed. P. G. Abate, Miscellaneafrancescana,39 (1939), 398-400 (chap 8, paras. 26-29), also Thomas ofCelano, Vita prima, ed M. Bihl, mAnaledafranciscana, 10 (1941), part 1, chap. 9, para. 22 The Gospel passage from Luke 10 was incorporated into the first Rule of the order (chap. 14): "Quando fratres vadunt per mundum, nihil portent per viam, neque sacculum neque peram neque panem neque peeuniam neque virgam. Et in quamcumque domum intraverint, dicant primum: Pax huic domui. Et in eadem domo manentes edant et bibant quae apud illos sunt" (Opuscula sancti patris Francisci assisiensis, 3d ed. [Quaracchi: Collegium S Bonaventurae, 1949], ρ 42). Cf. chap. 3: "Et liceat eis manducare de omnibus cibis, qui apponuntur eis, secundum Evangelium" (Opuscula, ρ 29) See also Regula II, chap 3. John Fleming first called attention to the fourteenth chap­ ter of the First Rule in connection with the Summoner's Tale mJEGP, 65 (1966), 692.

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wallet for the journey or a second coat, no shoes or staff, he was overjoyed. He grasped the meaning of the passage immediately in his love for apostolic poverty and committed it to memory. "This is what I want," he exclaimed. "This is what I long for with all my heart." There and then he took off his shoes and laid aside his staff. He conceived a horror of money or wealth of any kind and he wore only one tunic, changing his leather belt for a rope. The whole desire of his heart was to put what he had heard into practice and conform to the rule of life given to the Apostles in everything. By divine inspiration he now began to strive after Gospel perfection, inviting others also to lead a life of penance.] It is evident from Bonaventura's account that St. Francis, with his passion for literal acceptance of Gospel precepts, immediately applied to himself Christ's instructions to his apostles, and it was not long before he made them into operative principles for the young order. He sent the brethren forth two by two as Christ had sent the apostles (Luke 10:1). They were to take nothing with them on their journey, neither gold nor silver nor money in their belts, neither bag nor wallet, nor bread, nor sandals, nor two tunics, nor staff (Luke 10:4; cf. Matt. 10:910, Luke 9:3). They were to carry no material reserves, inasmuch as their needs for food and shelter would be provided by God through the charity of those to whom they ministered, for "dignus enim est operarius mercede sua" (Luke 10:7: the workman is worthy his hire). They were to accept whatever was offered them, never seeking better, for Christ had said, "In eadem autem domo, manete edentes et bibentes quae apud illos sunt . . . manducate quae apponuntur vobis" (Luke 10:7-8: And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they have . . . eat what is set before you). They were not to go seeking provisions from house to house (de domo in domum, Luke 10:7) to build up their reserves. In whatever house they entered, they were to say, "Pax huic domui" (Peace to this house), for so Christ, as with all these precepts, had instructed the apostles.74 The friars' apostolic pretensions, though originally theological in nature, had far-reaching political consequences of which St. Francis no doubt had never conceived, because the ecclesiastical functions of the 74

For other explicit associations of the Franciscans with the apostles see Regula I and Regula II, passim, and Thomas of Celano, Vita prima, part 2, chap 1, paras. 88-89; Thomas of Celano, Tractatus de miraculis, ed. M. Bihl in Analecta Franciscana, 10 (1941), chap. 1, pp. 271-72; P. Benevenuto Bughetti, I Fioretti di San Francesco (Florence: Adnano Salani, 1925), cap. 13; Legenda . . . tribus sociis, cap. xvii, par. 68 and cap. xii, par. 46 in Miscellanea francescana, 39 (1939), 430 and 413.

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priesthood—including preaching, hearing of confessions, and burial (which were the most lucrative and hence most controversial functions)—were thought to derive from the apostles. The secular clergy asserted, on the basis of the same Biblical passage that had inspired St. Francis (Luke 10 with its gloss), that the apostolic functions were theirs alone. And indeed the root argument of many an antifraternal tract in the thirteenth century is that the friars neither imitate nor inherit the functions of the first apostles. This is the central issue of the Parisian debate, with William, Gerard of Abbeville, and Nicholas of Lisieux the chief opponents to the fraternal apostolate and with Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Thomas of York, and John Pecham at various times arguing for the friars.75 A century later, across the Channel in England, a new phase of the debate had been entered, with new participants— Richard FitzRalph, Richard Kilwyngton, Uthred de Boldon, and John Wyclif—but the theoretical issue remained the same: did the friars have a valid claim to the vita apostolical The answer of William of St. Amour was unequivocal: the friars are not apostles or inheritors of apostolic functions; they are to the contrary false apostles, prefigured by the pseudoapostoli of the New Testament. William's arguments on the first score spanned a period often years and six works, covering 506 pages of his collected Opera in the 1632 edition; in short, an effort of crabbed polemic that staggers the imagination. William's fundamental aim is to call into question the friars' claims to any apostolic functions, because they are what he calls again and again "men not sent" (non missi). The phrase derives from Rom. 10:15, where Paul asks of the apostles "Quomodo vero praedicabunt nisi mittantur?" (And how are men to preach unless they be sent?) Christ "sent" the apostles out into the world to preach the Gospel. Apostolus 75 Gerard of Abbeville, Contra adversanum perfections christianae, ed. Sophromus CIasen, O.F.M., in AFH, 31 (1938), 276-329, and 32 (1939), 89-200; Nicholas of Lisieux, Contra Peckham et Thomam in Rome, Vat. Cod. Burghes, Lat 192, fol. 64* and Liber de ordine praeceptorum ad consilia, in Bettehrden una Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universitdt Paris Texte und Vntersuchungen, M. Bierbaum, ed., Franziskamsche Studien, Beiheft 2 (Munster-in-W.: Aschendorffsche, 1920), and De Anhchristo. For the friars' responses, Thomas Aquinas, Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem in Opera omnia (Pans: L. Vives, 1871— 80), ed. S. E. Frette, XXIX, 1-116; Bonaventura, Quaestio de evangelica paupertate and Apologiapauperum, in Opera omnia (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902), V, 124-65, and VIII, 233-330; Thomas of York, Manus quae contra omnipotentem tenditur in Bierbaum, ed., Bettehrden, pp. 37-168; John Pecham, Tractatus tres de paupertate, ed C. L Kingsford, A. G Little, and F Tocco, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 2 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1910) See also the article by James Doyne Dawson cited in n. 3 above.

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meant, as Isidore of Seville says, missus.76 Non missus is shorthand for an entire ecclesiological theory that would obliterate the friars from the traditional church hierarchy, which alone had inherited the apostolic "mission." That hierarchy consisted of the parish clergy, since they and no others were the successors to the seventy-two disciples appointed by Christ in Luke 10, and of their bishops, who were the successors to the Twelve. Thus William argues in the De periculis: Ab Ecclesia vero recte eliguntur Episcopi, qui Apostolis successerunt; & Parochiales Presbyteri, qui Discipulis 72. successerunt, & eorum loca tenent. dist. 21. can. InNouo Testamento. VndeLuc. lOinprincipio dicit Glossa, Sicut in 12. Apostolis forma est Episcoporum, sic in 72. Discipulis forma est Presbyterorum; Nee plures sunt in Ecclesia gradus ad regendam Ecclesiam constituti.77 [The church rightly chooses bishops, who are the successors to the apostles; and parish priests, who are the successors to the seventytwo disciples and hold their places (dist. 21. can. In Nouo Testamento). Whence concerning the beginning of Luke 10 the glossa says, "As the paradigm of bishops is to be found in the twelve apostles, so the paradigm of priests is to be found in the seventytwo disciples"; nor are any other ranks in the church constituted for governing it.] The last clause is of some moment, because it represents the belief of the traditional hierarchy that there could be no other successors to the Twelve and the Seventy-two. The Regular orders, monastic, canonical, or mendicant, were believed to be "inferior" orders, on whom should not devolve the apostolic functions of preaching, confession, the administration of sacraments, and the salvation of souls, though such functions were allowed to any individual member of such orders who happened to become a priest.78 Clearly under this conception of church hierarchy the friars were irregular, for they were not parish clergy but an international organization somewhat like the monastic orders. But unlike the monks, their business was in the world, primarily in apostolic preaching and pastoral care—in fact, in the very domain of the parish clergy. And this preaching and ministering they carried on independent of the bishop from whom the parish priest received his authority; they often carried 76

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911), VII, lx, 1. 77 De periculis, p. 24. 78 See especially chap. 2 of the De periculis, pp. 21-28. 46

WILLIAM OF ST. A M O U R

it on without consulting or cooperating with the parish priests into whose territory they intruded. Their independence stemmed from the fact that they were, as orders, creations of the pope and answerable to him rather than to the traditional hierarchy. William of St. Amour had a difficult time denying that the friars were "sent" by the pope. He often came dangerously close to denying the pope's power to create such orders. But his most telling and lasting argument rests on a conception of order and ecclesiastical economy. In one diocese, he says, there can be only one bishop; in one archdiaconate, only one archdeacon; and in one parish, only one "rector." Otherwise the salvation of souls will be hindered because the unity of the church will fail. It will become a monster with many heads, a whore and not a bride. By granting the friars apostolic power, says William, the pope could not possibly have meant to make "an infinite and unfixed number of persons" (infinitis et incertis personis) into universal apostles, with power to preach anywhere and everywhere in all Christendom, irrespective of the prerogatives and the territory of the traditional clergy. For such infinitae et incertae personae would destroy the unity and thereby the effectiveness of the church. As witness, William cites the example of the early church, where the apostles and disciples were chosen according to a certain number (the Twelve and the Seventy-two) and any beyond that number were suspected of being "pseudo," unnumbered and uncertain and not chosen by God, that is to say, non missi.79 The conception of the friars as a multitude ofinfinitas et incertas personas outside a numbered and closed church hierarchy left a lasting mark on the antifraternal tradition. Another large issue at stake in the friars' claims to an apostolate was the distinguishing mark of their evangelical way of life: mendicancy. Unlike the clergy, who received their livings primarily from benefices provided out of the endowments of the church, the friars lived from day to day by begging, following (they claimed) the precepts of Christ in Luke 10 and the examples of the apostles. They carried no bag or wallet or any provisions because Christ had assured them their needs would be met by those to whom they ministered: "the workman is worthy of his hire" (Luke 10:7). The friars' radical theory of evangelical poverty and the begging that followed from it opened a debate on perfection that preoccupied the late Middle Ages and created a vast literature. William of St. Amour's contribution to the attack on mendicancy was, as usual, from the standpoint of the Bible. He vehemently challenged the friars' assertions to be following apostolic precedent. 79

Depericulis, chap. 2, pp. 23-28, and Collectiones, pp. 145, 150

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Two of his arguments may serve as examples: first, that St. Paul and his fellow apostles lived not by begging but by manual labor on their missionary journeys; and second, that Christ and his apostles possessed a common bag (loculi). To the first point two of William's works devote particular attention. His De valido mendicante is formally a scholastic quaestio and lists many texts from the Epistles of Paul.80 And the second distinctio of the Collectiones is specifically titled "de Otiosis, et Cunosis et Gyrovagis"—all three William's terms for itinerant beggars—"qualiter vivant contra doctrinam Apostoli" (concerning idlers, meddlers, and vagrants, how they live against the teaching of the apostle).81 St. Paul, says William, had stressed that anyone who does not wish to work should not eat, especially those engaged in apostolic works. The apostle had not eaten bread at anyone's expense but rather labored with his hands to avoid being a burden (2 Thess. 3:8). It may be true that preachers of the Gospel have the right to live "by the Gospel," that is, from the offerings of those to whom they minister (1 Cor. 9). But Paul chose not to exercise that right because he might appear to be selling the word of God (1 Cor. 9:15, 18 and 2 Cor. 11:7). By contrast, to work with one's hands is a patent work of humility. 82 In all these arguments and in this selection of Biblical texts William follows closely the work from which most of his arguments about manual labor derive: Augustine's De opere monachorum, written to combat an error among certain monks who claimed Biblical authority for not working. 83 In addition to New Testament texts, William could also adduce several Old Testament counsels against begging: FiIi, in tempore vitae tuae ne indigeas; melius est enim mori quam indigere (My son, do not be needy in your lifetime; it is better to die than to beg). (Ecclus. 40:29) Mendicitatem et divitias ne dederis mihi; tribue tantum victui meo necessaria (Give me neither beggary nor riches; provide me only with the food I need). (Prov. 30:8)84 80

In Opera omnia, pp. 80-87. Collectiones, p. 213. 82 Collectiones, pp 216-17 83 For William's debt to the De opere monachorum, see the prologue to the Collectiones, p. 125 "Et quoniam authontates libri Augustmi De Opere Monachorum, tanquam maxime necessariae, contra illos, per quos dicta pericula fiunt in sequenti tractatu frequentius inducuntur." For Matt. 6:25, see Collectiones, pp. 214, 241-42. 84 See Collectiones, pp. 231, 228, 235. 81

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Also from the Old Testament, there was the unfortunate example of Giezi, the servant of Eliseus, who demonstrated the fate of those who might beg for necessaries in exchange for preaching and doing the acts of Grace. When Eliseus cured Naaman, the Syrian general, of leprosy, Giezi, unknown to Eliseus, ran after him and begged of him a talent of silver and two changes of garments "for his master." When Giezi returned, he hid all this treasure away. But when the prescient Eliseus saw what he had done, he said to him, "the leprosy of Naaman shall stick to thee and thy seed forever," and Giezi departed from him a leper "white as snow" (4 Kings 5:26-27). This chilling little episode was commonly taken to illustrate simony and its rewards. William gives it an antifraternal twist by making Giezi an exemplar of all simoniac friars who beg after preaching.85 The other argument illustrative of William's exegetical attack on mendicancy is that Christ and the apostles possessed a loculi, a bag in which certain provisions were kept. This Biblical detail is important to William because it showed that they possessed goods in common and therefore did not beg. The word loculi occurs only twice in the Gospels, both times in reference to Judas's bag, both times closely associated with his betrayal ofJesus. In John 12, shortly before the betrayal, Judas objects when Mary generously anoints the feet ofjesus with spikenard, because it might have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. But Judas said this, interjects the evangelist, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and loculos habens (verse 6), was accustomed to take what was put in it. The second occurrence of the word takes place during the Last Supper in John 13. When Christ says to Judas, "What thou dost, do quickly," the disciples misunderstand, not knowing of the betrayal soon to come: Quidam enim putabant, quia loculos habebat Judas, quod dixisset eijesus: "Eme ea quae opus sunt nobis ad diem festum"; aut egenis ut aliquid daret. [For some thought that because Judas held the bag, Jesus had said to him: "Buy the things we need for the feast"; or that he should give something to the poor.] (John 13:29) For St. Francis, the loculi, insofar as it was a symbol of possessions, money, or material reserves of any kind, became a symbol of the false apostle like Judas, who was distinguished from the other apostles by his sole custody of the bag. True apostles, by contrast, sell all they have 85

De valido tnendicante, p. 86.

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to follow Jesus. For St. Francis, this meant that they renounced all worldly goods, either individually or in common, rejected any possessions or reserves of food or clothing, and were willing to live by charity alone, seeking alms from those to whom they ministered.86 St. Francis's interpretation of the bag was considered highly unusual, since most patristic writers had come to quite an opposite conclusion: that the loculi indicated that Christ and the apostles had possessed goods in common, for it was their common purse. Even later Franciscans, as their own standards of poverty relaxed to meet the changing needs of the order, accepted the fact that the Twelve had had goods in common in the loculi—but, they argued, only as an exception to their normal pattern of absolute poverty and only at an exceptional time of crisis, near the Passion.87 For his part, William of St. Amour, and the antifraternal polemicists who followed him, used the loculi to demonstrate that the friars' theory of evangelical poverty was entirely without Scriptural warrant. Decima L. Douie observes: (William of St. Amour argued that) the apostles' misunderstanding of Christ's commands to Judas Iscariot at the last supper showed that he and they had normally possessed a common purse, and he had sent them out to preach without money in order to show them that they were entitled to be supported by the people to whom they ministered and over whom they possessed spiritual authority. Moreover, like the later religious orders, the apostles and the first Christians had possessed property in common, a situation which still persisted, since the present endowments of the Church like the alms laid at the apostles' feet, were held as a trust for the maintenance of her ministers and the poor. The friars, however, had no share in these, since by the civil law mendicancy was only permitted to the aged and the sick, who were incapable of supporting themselves by manual labor.88 In short, William of St. Amour questioned not just the veracity of the friars' claims to imitate the vita apostolica; he questioned their very right to exist as they did. If their apostolic claims were accepted as valid, then they were entitled to all the privileges of the apostolic clergy, including the lucrative rights of preaching and confession. If not, they had no 86 See M. D Lambert, Franciscan Poverty (London- S.P.C K., 1961), pp. 64-66 for references in Francis's writings. 87 See for example Thomas of York's Manus quae (see above, n. 75), p. 54; and Douie, Conflict (see above, n. 3), p. 14 88 Dome, Conflict, pp. 9-10.

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right to live either "from the Gospel," as the clergy did, or from the mendicancy that made their own way of life distinct. For William the friars not only were neither apostles nor their successors; they were pseudoapostoli, like the schismatics in the time of St. Paul and like the false teachers prophesied for the future church. The same process of association and generalization that he used in connection with the Pharisees is again at work here. The symbolism of the pseudoapostles is made credible by the controversies over the friars' claims to be reviving the life of the apostles, just as the Pharisaic symbolism was authorized by the dispute about masters at the University of Paris. The direct consequence is again Biblical exegesis. William is concerned less with the practical and political implications of the friars' apostolic claims than with exegesis of Biblical verses about the counterfeit apostles in prophecy and in the primitive church. William's most telling passage on the pseudoapostoli is the fourteenth chapter of the De periculis, where he lays out an elaborate system of forty-one "signs" for distinguishing false apostles from true. 89 The opening of the chapter provides a thesis statement and the major Biblical text: . . . Seductores praedicti dicturi sunt se esse Apostolos, siue a Deo missos ad praedicandum, & ad salvandum animas per ministerium suum, iuxta illud Apostoh, II Corinth. 11 [:13] Eiusmodi PseudoApostoli, sunt operarii subdoli, trans figurantes se in Apostolos Christi; ideo ostendemus quaedam signa infallibilia, quaedam vero probabilia, per quae discerni poterunt Pseudo-Apostoli a veris Apostolis Christi. 90 [. . . the aforementioned seducers will say that they are apostles, or that they have been sent by God to preach, and to save souls through their ministry, according to what the apostle says (2 Cor. 11:13): "False apostles of such a kind are deceitful workers, pretending to be apostles of Christ"; therefore, we will point out certain infallible signs, together with some probable signs, by which pseudoapostles can be distinguished from true apostles of Christ.] Each of the forty-one signs that follow is derived from Biblical texts about false or true apostles, warnings provided by God so that Chris89

In the Collectiones, the forty-one signs of the De periculis are recast as a more elaborate system of fifty signs: see the fourth Distinctio, "De signis quibus pseudo-predicatores a veris predicatoribus possunt discerni," and the "Tabula de sigms," pp. 335-473 and p. 487 of the Opera omnia. 90 De periculis, p. 57. All the following discussion of the forty-one signs is taken from Depericulis, chap. 14, pp 57-72. 51

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tians might see through the dangerous hypocrites who appear truly apostolic, but inwardly are rapacious wolves. Most of the signs pertain to preaching, as that was the chief apostolic function, especially in the time of the early church when the Biblical pseudoapostoli first appeared. Of the preaching signs many are familiar. False apostles preach illegitimately because they are non missi (sixth sign: Rom. 10:15). And because of their lack of mission, they are forced to lay claim to an authority from God that they do not have (seventh sign). Unlike true apostles, they need letters of commendation—an allusion to the friars' preaching licenses, which came from pope or bishop (fifth sign; 2 Cor. 3:1). When these unauthorized, self-commending pseudoapostoli preach non missi, they necessarily encroach on the territory and pastoral care of the true apostles of the church. This most common complaint of the secular clergy against the friars is the thrust of the first and most famous sign, "quod veri Apostoli non penetrant domos" (2 Tim. 3:6), which will be treated at some length in the section on antichristi. But other Biblical verses provide similar signs. The twenty-third and thirty-sixth signs both declare that true apostles do not go to preach to those who have other apostles or who have already been converted by other apostles (Rom. 15:20). Apostles may work in each other's territory, but for William such work is governed by the principles the Glossa ordinaria lays down in explaining Deut. 23:25: a bishop (apostle) may act to correct the faithful in another church than his own; but he may not undertake to rule over the entire flock or transact any of the great business of the church. And if this is not permitted for a bishop, adds William, it certainly is not permitted for those who are set over no jurisdiction at all. Such encroachment by false apostles amounts to meddling in others' affairs (twenty-ninth sign), which they do "ut exinde pascantur: quia talium Deus venter est" (so that they might be fed thereby; since their God is their belly). Here is one of the largest themes in William's forty-one signs; false apostles preach for material gain rather than the spiritual good of the faithful. AU the signs on this theme tacitly allude to begging, which the friars had to do on a regular basis to sustain them for their preaching work. Thus the twentieth sign warns that true apostles do not seize the temporal goods of those to whom they preach, as appears from the example of St. Paul (Acts 20:34; 2 Thess. 3; 2 Cor. 11). Those who beg to support preaching, like Giezi, commit simony. Such begging is therefore a mark of a fraudulent apostolate. It shows that they preach "propter temporale lucrum" rather than "propter Deum et salutem animarum" (for temporal wealth rather than for God and the salvation of souls: eleventh and fifteenth signs; 2 Cor. 4:5, 7:2,12:14; Phil. 1:18). 52

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Another large theme in the forty-one signs is that false apostles pervert speech. This is implicit in any abuses of preaching; but William, echoing St. Paul, implies that all talent in words, in argument, and eloquence can be a perversion of the Word. The friars' verbal powers were famous. The Dominicans, the Ordo Praedicatorum, were founded specifically as a preaching order, and both they and the Franciscans developed powerful preaching techniques, including the use of anecdote, story, and fable, with broad appeal. Even the architecture of their churches was influenced by their preaching mission and its success. In cities all over Europe they built large but simple churches with little interior adornment, the naves being little more than great open spaces to accommodate the crowds that came to hear their newfangled sermons. The friars' verbal skills were also well known in another area that for William was closer to home. They were beginning to dominate the intellectual life of the University of Paris, as they would at other universities across Europe in the next century, and led the way in the flowering of Scholasticism with its new methods of argument and its emphases on logic rather than theology, on Aristotle rather than Augustine. William had actually had to debate Bonaventura on the issue of voluntary mendicancy. The Dominican school at Paris in William's day also claimed as its own a young man named Thomas Aquinas. Small wonder that William of St. Amour should find the friars' new Scholastic and Aristotelian methods to be threatening. True apostles, says William, do not desire eloquence or carefully premeditate or compose what they will say. St. Paul, who claimed to be untutored in speech, spoke not in words taught by human wisdom but in the learning of the Spirit (second and thirteenth signs: 2 Cor. 11:5-6; 1 Cor. 2:13, 1:17; Rom. 16:18). ltis true, however, that studied speech can have an insidious appeal. For a time the Corinthians preferred the false to the true apostles because of their elegant preaching and the seductive impression they gave of wisdom and eloquence. The apostles of Christ spoke only in plain speech, but the pseudoapostoli carefully arranged their words. 91 Elsewhere, William particularly condemns the use of fictions in preaching. False apostles feign that some things are the words of God when they are in fact their own; they make up fables when they preach, hoping to win the favor and applause of the people. But Paul instructed Timothy, who was an apostolic preacher, assiduously to avoid such fictions and fables, "ineptas et amies fabulas" (1 Tim. 4:7).92 William would also like us to believe that St. Paul condemned the 91 92

De Pharisaeo, pp. 11-12. Collectiones, p. 139.

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new Scholasticism. The thirty-ninth sign, based on the gloss on 1 Cor. 2:1, tells us that true apostles do not rely on the arguments of logic or philosophy. In the prologue to the Depericulis, William challenges any "philosophicus ac subtilis disputator" to reply to his treatise, but specifically not through "disputationem et altercationem philosophicam aut sophisticam" but only through "collationem Catholicam." As justification he cites St. Paul's unequivocal prohibition against verbal wrangling and disputations, which serve no purpose but to subvert those who hear; they are profane and empty babblings (vaniloquia), which contribute to impiety and spread like a cancer (2 Tim. 2:15— 17).93 The other themes of the forty-one signs are less prominent than those connected with preaching and speech. The letters of Paul show in many places that pseudoapostoli cannot endure correction (signs 3, 16, 21, 35) and will do violence to those who do not wish to receive them (sign 17), provoking princes (Louis IX) against their enemies (sign 18). This is how they persecuted the bishop of Ephesus, who tested those who said they were apostles and were not (Apoc. 2:2; sign 35). Also, pseudoapostoli love fine food: "talium Deus venter est" (their God is their belly, Rom. 16:18; sign 29); they are selective about what is offered to them (sign 26); they eat frequently at strangers' tables and so seem flatterers (sign 33; 2 Thess. 3:8-9). They seek out the most opulent lodgings, not the most honorable (sign 28; Matt. 10:11). They flatter men on account of their wealth and are found in the houses of kings (sign 14; Matt. 11:8). They are the pseudoprophetae spoken of in Matt. 7:15, when Christ warns, "Attendite a falsis prophetis, qui veniunt ad vos in vestimentis ovium, intrinsecus autem sunt lupi rapaces" (Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves). 94 As with the Pharisees, hypocrisy is one of the distinguishing marks of these pseudoprophetae, seeming apostles who are wolves in sheep's clothing. ANTICHRISTI

Finally we come to the pale horse and the perils of the Last Days. Both Pharisees and pseudoapostoli were only Biblical shadows of a reality William feared had come to pass in his own time: the long-awaited antichristi, forerunners of Antichrist. The End was imminent, the third 93

De periculis, pp. 19-20. See also the warning against the contentious and argumentative pseudo-apostles in Phil. 2:3 and 2 Thess. 3.2 in Collectiones, p. 122; also 1 Tim. 6 :4 and Titus 3.9. 94 De periculis, p. 36.

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persecution of the church about to begin, orchestrated by religious hypocrites already present in Paris. The Pharisees and pseudoapostoli of the Bible had been figural warnings, but the antichristi, disguised under the appearance of sanctity, were here. Hence the urgency with which the videntes of the church must ascend their watchtowers, peer into the darkness of Scripture, and warn the faithful of the dangers predicted for the End. The book of the Apocalypse William must have found altogether too dark.95 His revelations depend almost entirely on the more prosaic eschatology of the New Testament, chiefly in Matthew 24, 2 Timothy 3 and 4, 2 Thessalonians 3, and scattered comments in the Epistles of Peter, John, andjude. That the antichristi are the forerunners of Antichrist is known not from the Apocalypse but from 1 John 2:18: "Filioli, novissima hora est; et sicut audistis quia Antichristus venit, et nunc antichristi multi facti sunt; unde scimus quia novissima hora est" (Dear children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have arisen; whence we know that it is the last hour). This is the only place in the Bible that antichristi are mentioned by name, but all commentators were certain that these were identical with other malefactors announced for the Last Days, called variously pseudopraedicatores, falsi prophetae, pseudoprophetae, or pseudochristi. Under the names pseudochristi and pseudoprophetae, they are at the center of the most famous eschatological passage in the New Testament, Matthew 24, where Christ himself warns of the tribulations preceding the Last Days. 96 In chapter 8 of the De periculis, the antichristi of Matthew 24 play an important part in a system of eschatological signs that illustrate the familiar phenomenon of Biblical association. William had set out to show by eight signs that the perils of the Last Days jam instant [already are beginning]. Earlier it was shown how the first three of these all pertained to Gerard's Evangelium Aeternum, the appearance of which was the clearest indication of the End. The remaining five are derived from successive verses of Matt. 24:9-14. The fourth sign is that with the advent of Antichrist and the End, those who reprove the hypocritical antichristi within the church will be hated, delivered into tribulation, and 95 His comments on the text of the Apocalypse are infrequent: on the locusts of Apoc. 9:3, the evil angels of Apoc. 7:1, the beast from the sea in Apoc 13:1 in Collectiones, pp. 118, 119, 207-08, respectively. 96 On 1 John 2.18 and the presence of antichristi, see Collectiones, p. 133. Emmerson, Antichrist, pp 36 and 62-73, describes the traditional exegetical understanding of the appearance of multiple antichrists throughout the history of the church and especially in the Last Days, when the great Antichrist himself would finally appear.

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even killed. So Christ prophesied in Matt. 24:9: "Tunc tradent vos in tribulationem, et Occident vos, et eritis odio omnibus ho minibus propter nomen meum. . . . Et tunc veniet consummatio" (Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and they will kill you, and you will be hateful to all men for my name's sake. . . . And then will come the end of the world). 97 Unhappily, this sign is illustrated by its author. Although William, the archcorrector of friars, was not killed, occasionally one has the sense he would have preferred it, the better to reveal the truth of his prophecies. But certainly he and his fellow masters were having their share of tribulation in their quarrel with the mendicants. Only the fourth sign could be applied with any degree of clarity to contemporary events. All the rest are very general in nature and follow rather perfunctorily the consecutive verses in Matthew 24: many will be led into evil and will hate one another (fifth sign, verse 10); many false prophets will arise (sixth sign, verse 11); the charity of many will grow cold (seventh sign, verse 12); the preaching of the gospel throughout the world will be completed (eighth sign, verse 14).98 Although William struggles with the contemporary application of all these, it is plain to see that he includes them primarily because they follow in the Bible the verse that is the basis of his fourth sign. As elsewhere in William's work, Biblical language displaces historical observation, transforming a Parisian squabble into a vision of the End. The sixth of these signs becomes a favorite text about the antichristi, marking one of their most important characteristics: multiplicity. They will appear in multitudes at the End, as Christ warned in Matt. 24:11: "Et multi pseudoprophetae surgent, et seducent multos" (And many false prophets will arise, and seduce many). The same multitudes appear in 1 John 2:18: "antichristi multi facti sunt" (many antichrists have arisen).99 In the De periculis, William cites Paul's prophecy of the penetrantes domos (2 Tim. 3:6), who were already present in the primitive church but who would appear as the End approached in ever greater numbers: "appropinquante finali Ecclesia in maiori multitudine venient" (as the era of the final church approaches, they will come in a greater multitude). 100 In the Collectiones these eschatological multitudes are identified with a flood of false preachers, the infinitas et incertas personas unleashed by the pope when he issued a general license for friars to preach.101 In contrast, William poses the example of Christ, who did 97

De periculis, p. 40 De periculis, pp 40-41. 99 Collectiones, pp 131, 133. 100 De periculis, p. 21. 101 Collectiones, p. 158; cf. pp. 158-59, 166-67 98

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not add to the apostles infinite preachers, but only those "in certo numero, defmitos, et paucos," that is, the Seventy-two Disciples whose offices the secular clergy alone had inherited. And since, as everyone knew, the church was in its final age, the number of preachers ought to be moderated, not augmented; especially because Scripture tells us that the closer thefinem mundi, the greater will be the multitudes ofpseudopraedicatores in the church. 1 0 2 About these reprobate multitudes, William cites several other Bibli­ cal prophecies, including 2 Tim. 3:2-5, 2 Pet. 3:3, andjude 17-19. 103 All these Biblical warnings show that the church should be on guard as the end of the world approaches, and most of all when "infinita et extraordmaria multitudo Praedicatorum videtur exurgere in Ecclesia Dei" (an infinite and extraordinary multitude of preachers is seen to arise in the church of God). 1 0 4 In commenting on 2 Thessalonians 2, William connects the eschatological multitudes to the great apostasy (discessio) of which Paul had warned, and which would presage the appearance of a "man of sin, a son of perdition," the Antichrist. As William understands it this disces­ sio will occur when the forerunners of Antichrist have created disunity in the church, seducing the faithful into abandoning their own properly constituted priests, and causing, in the words of the glossa, "discessio Ecclesiarum a spirituali obedientia Ecclesiae Romanae" (a falling away of the churches from spiritual obedience to the Roman church). 1 0 5 This discessio, the dissolution of church unity, William also identifies as the third persecution of the church, which, "comprised of both force and fraud," will be brought in first through the simulation of sanctity and justice, and afterward by force, utilizing the power of the great. In all these things, he says, it is evident that the discessio can be procured by the efforts not of one or a few hypocrite preachers but of many, and not in one or a few places but in the universal church. Therefore, new mul­ titudes in the church (like the friars) are to be regarded with suspicion, and may be taken as a sign that the great Antichrist is about to ap­ pear. 1 0 6 Of all biblical passages on the hypocrites of the Last Days, the one with which William came to be most identified is 2 Tim. 3:1-8: 102 103 104 105 106

Collecttones, Collecttones, Collectiones, Collectiones, Collectiones,

p. 167. p. 167, 168. p. 168. ρ 209 pp. 210-11

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(1) Hoc autem scito, quod in novissimis diebus instabunt tempora periculosa: (2) erunt homines seipsos amantes, cupidi, elati, superbi, blasphemi, parentibus non obedientes, ingrati, scelesti, (3) sine affectione, sine pace, criminatores, incontinentes, immites, sine benignitate, (4) proditores, protervi, tumidi, et voluptatum amatores magis quam Dei; (5) habentes speciem quidem pietatis, virtutem autem ejus abnegantes. Et hos devita; (6) ex his enim sunt qui penetrant domos, et captivas ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis, quae ducuntur varus desideriis, (7) semper discentes, et nunquam ad scientiam veritatis pervenientes. (8) Quemadmodum autem Jannes et Mambres restiterunt Moysi, ita et hi resistunt veritati. [(1) But know this, that in the Last Days dangerous times will come. (2) Men will be lovers of self, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, criminal, (3) heartless, faithless, slanderers, incontinent, merciless, unkind, (4) betrayers, stubborn, puffed up with pride, loving pleasure more than God, (5) having a semblance indeed of piety, but disowning its power. Avoid these. (6) For of such are they who penetrate into houses and captivate silly women who are laden with sin and led astray by various lusts: (7) ever learning yet never attaining knowledge of the truth. (8) Just asjamnes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these men also resist the truth.] This is the text that provides the title and much of the subject matter of the Depericulis novissimorum temporum. It is the basis of one of the four lengthy distinctiones in the Collectiones. It also appears prominently in William's sermons and Responsiones, and even in earlier Parisian documents connected with the dispute over the mendicant masters. And it is the source for the famous phrase that becomes a tag for the friars for the next two hundred years, the penetrantes domos of verse 6. These William understands to be like the antichrist! and pseudoprophetae of other New Testament passages, precursors of Antichrist who in the Last Days will come in great multitudes. Their name gives an indication of their nature. Penetrare means to force entry, but domus in Scripture may be understood two ways: as the material house of the Christian or as his spiritual house, the conscience. These two meanings dictate the two primary interpretations, literal and figurative, that William offers for the penetrantes domos.101 107

"Quoniam autem domus dupliciter accipitur in Scnptura; videlicet domus materialis, quae corporaliter habitatur. . . et spiritualis domus, quae conscientia diet potest" Collectiones, p. 196.

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Literally, the penetrantes domos are false teachers who enter or break into the houses of women (the mulierculas of verse 6) and deceive them by subtle words and false wisdom, seducing them spiritually and through them, men. Women, like Eve, are more susceptible to such duplicity than men, says William, especially mulierculas. The word, as opposed to mulieres, has meretricious connotations that are vaguely suggested by the qualification in verse 6, "laden with sin and led astray with various lusts." The Glossa is rather reserved here, saying that such women are so led and so laden "quia semper nova desiderant" (because they always desire new things). But William does not hesitate to link spiritual with physical seduction: Et certe seductae magis ac magis onerantur peccatis per eos; quia licet ab initio forte per simulationem hypocrisis videantur habere spiritualem familiaritatem cum illis, in fine tamen cum eis plerumque incestuose commiscentur.108 [And certainly those whom they seduce are more and more burdened with sin because of them; in the beginning perhaps they may seem through hypocrisy to have only a spiritual intimacy with them, but in the end, they are joined with them for the most part sexually.] For William the prophecy of the twelfth-century Hildegard of Bingen confirms this. In her letter to the clergy of Cologne, prophesying the coming of the hypocrites, she describes how they will first draw women into error by encouraging them to reject their proper teachers and to follow themselves (hence the verb se-ducere). But this seduction into error will be followed by a more literal seduction, for "afterwards they will be mingled in secret lechery."109 Part of William's emphasis on mulierculas and physical seduction may well have derived from the close association of the friars and the women called Beguines, not only in Paris, but in many cities in Europe. The Beguines were not beggars by vow, but they frequently begged either for themselves or, like certain women who followed Christ and the apostles, for some religious community, usually the friars. And frequently they put themselves under the guidance of the friars, as at Paris. n o William finds their intimacy suspect. The Beguines 108

Collectiones, p. 196. Collectiones, p. 196, citing Gal. 3:3; Hildegard's letter is printed in PL CXCVII, 244-53; see esp. 251 110 On the Beguines, see E. G. Neumann, Rheinisches Beginen- una Begardenwesen, Mamzer Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte (Meisenheim am Glan: 109

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are not old widows, he says, but young and beautiful. The friars visit their houses alone. They linger and converse with them and console them, hearing their confessions from morning till night. Reversing the Biblical example, the friars beg for the Beguines and suspiciously keep them isolated from the world, making them more accessible and susceptible to their confessors.111 William's second interpretation of penetrantes domos recasts them in a figurative environment. Here the mulierculas that they lead captive are explained not as women but as viros seductibiles, that is, spiritually weak men whom the friars can easily allure to their own errors (ad se ducunt) and away from their proper prelates. And, since domus signifies the conscience, to penetrate houses is to "rimari proprietatem cuiusque," that is, "rimari secreta conscientiarum hominum ad curam et regimen suum impertinentium, vel etiam extraordinarie pertinentium" (to probe the nature of everyone, that is, to probe the secrets of the consciences of men not properly belonging under their care and governance, or belonging only extraordinarily).112 The secrets of consciences are especially probed through confessions, and in that respect there is another domus that has been penetrated, the "house" of the secular clergy. In acquiring the privilege of confession, the friars had forced their way into a domain that had been and ought to be, William thought, the sole jurisdiction of the parish clergy, and in hearing confessions they undermined the clergy's pastoral work. Those who penetrate the houses of conscience by hearing confessions of people not their own, he says, enter not by the door, which is Christ ("I am the door,"John 10:9). Because they come from outside the authority of the church of Christ, they are (to recall a familiar theme) non missi. To a true pastor the door of this house ought to be opened cheerfully; but to a stranger, a nonpastor, or someone non missus, the door ought to remain shut, lest one admit dangers. Even when the door is locked, still dangers remain, because the penetrans domos will find another way of entry. Any stranger-confessor who probes the conscience through confession of people not under his permanent care is entering not through the door but penetrating the house like a thief and a robber. Whence John 10:1: "qui non intrat per ostium in ovile ovium, sed ascendit aliunde, ille fur est, et latro" (He who enters not by the door into the sheepfold but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber). He is a thief (fur) because he takes what does not belong to him; and a robber A. Ham, 1960); E. W. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1954) and Leff, Heresy, I, 195-230 1,1 Collectiones, pp. 266-70, esp 268. 112 Collectiones, p. 197. 60

WILLIAM OF ST. A M O U R

(latro) because what he steals he kills by spiritual seduction (ad se ducendo).113

The ρ enetrantes domos are characterized at length in verses 2-6, which William looks to as a catalog of sins (twenty in all) by which they can be identified as the End approaches. The passage is a potpourri of evils: pride, blasphemy, disobedience, incontinence, criminality, slander, treachery, faithlessness, and more, each of which William faithfully glosses with comments that conjure dim images of the friars. m Finally, from verse 8, he offers an Old Testament lesson: those who come in the final days will resist truth, like Jamnes and Mambres, who "resisted Moses." These two characters, elsewhere unnamed in the Bible, were taken to be the magicians with whom Moses battled in prodigies and miracles at the palace of Pharaoh before the plagues (Exod. 7:11-13). These sorcerers, says William, by their feigned wisdom and false mir­ acles, kept Pharaoh and his people from assenting to Moses, the rector of the church of the Jews and doctor of Divine Law. Similarly in the Last Days those who feign sanctity will seduce the princes and people of the church and avert them from the counsels of their proper prelates, who are the true envoys of God. 1 1 5 William's comments on the forerunners of Antichrist also affirm once more the typological unity that he perceived in the Pharisees, the pseudoapostles, and the antichristi. The antichristi, like the Pharisees of old, "will heap up for themselves masters (magistros)" (2 Tim. 4:3-4); they will bring in "lying masters" (magistri mendaces) who will intro­ duce "sects of perdition" (2 Pet. 2:1). 116 Like the pseudoapostoli, they will speak perverse things and lies, making many fall away from the faith (Acts 20:29-30; 1 Tim. 4:1-2). 117 They will preach not for religion but for gain (2 Pet. 2:3). 118 For all these reasons they are the archetypes of hypocrisy prophesied by Christ, the falsos prophetas of Matt. 7:15. 119 Like the lupi rapaces of Acts 20:29, the pseudoprophetae of Matt. 24:11, the Pharisees of Matthew 23, and the pseudoapostoli of'2 Corinthians 11, these are the wolves in sheep's clothing whose hypocrisy, because it does not seem dangerous, is the greatest danger of the final times. 113

Collectiones, pp. 197-99 Collectiones, p. 113. 1.5 Collectiones, p. 203. 116 Collectiones, p. 114; Depericulis, ρ 63. 117 For Acts 20, Collectiones, pp 112, 211; for 1 Tim. 4, Collectiones, p. 114, and "Qui amat penculum," p. 500. 118 Collectiones, p. 467. For other abuses of speech see De periculis, pp. 61-62 (13th sign), and De Antichristo, cols. 1352-53. 119 De periculis, p. 36; Collectiones, pp. 131-32, 200, 304. 1.4

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TWO

William of St. Amour in England: Circulation and Dissemination IN the late winter of 1358-59, in a remote area in the southwest of England, a strange letter went out from the local bishop to all corners of his diocese. John Grandisson, bishop of Exeter, instructed all the diocesan officials in Devon and Cornwall to warn the people of dangers arising from certain hypocrites. 1 Christ, the letter says, foreknew all, and could see that the sheep of his pasture would be attacked by future wolves and seducers. He therefore prophetically warned his apostles and disciples, and their successors, to whom the care of the ecclesiastical sheepfold was committed: "Videte ne quis vos seducat" (Matt. 24:4: Take care that no one lead you astray), and "Attendite fermento Phariseorum, quod ypocrisis" (Luke 12:1: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy). Although many such appeared in ancient times in various sects of heretics, says Grandisson, nevertheless in our own times we have daily experience of them. And no wonder, since the apostle Paul, filled with the prophetic spirit, warned of their coming in the Last Days—to which, says Grandisson, we "have perhaps begun to arrive" (in novissimis diebus, ad quos forte cepimus venire): instabunt tempora periculosa, et erunt homines seipsos amantes . . . habentes speciem, quidem, pietatis; virtutem autem ejus abnegantes: et hos devita [2 Tim. 3:6]; quia veritate privati sunt, existimantes questum esse pietatem [1 Tim. 6:5]. [perilous times will begin and there will be men who are lovers of self, having a semblance indeed of piety but denying its virtue: Avoid these (2 Tim. 3:6), since they are bereft of truth, supposing godliness to be gain (1 Tim. 6:5).] Likewise in the last chapter of Romans: Declinate ab illis; hujusmodi enim Domino non serviunt set ventri suo, et per dukes sermones et benedicciones seducunt corda in1 F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, ed., The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, (A.D. 1327-69) (London: George Bill, 1894-99), II, 1197-98.

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nocencium. . . . Deus autem pads conteret Sathan sub pedibus vestris velociter [Rom. 16:18, 20]. [Avoid them; for such do not serve the Lord but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattery deceive the hearts of the simple. . . . But the God of peace will speedily crush Satan under your feet (Rom. 16:18, 20).] Warned by so many authorities, sensing that such hypocrites are now abroad more than usual, and solicitous lest by his negligence or silence the blood of his flock be spilled, Grandisson therefore counsels, exhorts, and commands under pain of excommunication that all curates under him beware and warn their parishioners to beware of these heralds of Antichrist (Antichristi precones). Among these are the friars, who falsely claim they have the bishop's license to confess.2 Grandisson ends with instructions for recognizing these false confessors, and commands that his letter be called to the attention of every person in the diocese. The language of this letter, the Biblical texts, and the application to the friars are very similar to William of St. Amour's. Particularly striking is the openness of Grandisson's eschatological fears—"in novissimis diebus ad quos forte cepimus venire." This is a statement that every man, woman, and child in Cornwall and Devon was commanded to hear. The bishop himself was no fanatic, having held his see for over thirty years and having proved himself a capable administrator and a solicitous pastor. How did he—or any fourteenth-century Englishman—come to hold views resembling those of a Parisian theologian whose writings were condemned a century before? The answer to that question is the burden of this chapter.

THE DOCUMENTARY RECORD

A partial measure of the reception of William of St. Amour in England can be had from two kinds of documentary sources: surviving manuscripts of English provenance; and medieval catalogs or book lists of English libraries, which record many manuscripts since lost. These show a substantial circulation of his works in England, though not as great as on the Continent. 3 There is a record of only one work of WiI2 Elsewhere Grandisson's registers show trouble with unlicensed mendicant confessors from 1329 to 1360. Hingeston-Randolph, ed., Register, I, 557-58; II, 953, 1128-29, 1135, 1143-47, 1208. 3 The lists of manuscripts of William's works in Palemon Glorieux, Repertoire des maitres en theologie de Paris au XlIl" sihle, Etudes de philosophie medievale, 17-18 (Pans:

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liam of St. Amour in an English library before 1350, but between 1350 and 1450, in the period of the particularly English antifraternalism of Richard FitzRalph, Uthred de Boldon, Wyclif, and the Lollards, there are numerous manuscripts recorded of the Depericulis, the Collectiones, the three questiones on begging from William's dispute with Bonaventure—De valido mendicante, De quantitate eleemosyne, and De mendicitate—and finally the fifty signs by which false preachers can be distinguished from true. 4 These signs originally formed the "Tabula de Vrin, 1933-34), I, 343-46, and Friedrich Stegmiiller, Repertorium biblicutn medii aevi (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1981), II, 433-34, need to be supplemented from the recent work of M.-M. Dufeil, who has promised an edition of the Depericulis. In Guillaume (pp. 269 n. 75, 271 nn. 92-95, 276 n. 157, 278 n. 182), he notes fifty-one manuscripts of the De pericuiis, as compared to Stegmuller's eighteen. The majority of these are from Western and Central Europe; only three are of English provenance, all now in Oxford (Bodl MS 158 [S C. 1997], Bodl. MS Lat. misc. c. 75 [ohm Philhpps 3119], and Balliol MS 149). To these should be added: Bodl. MS Digby 98, fols. 196-97 (incomplete) and BL MS Cotton Vitelhus C. XIV, fols. 78-89'. The fifteenth-century table of contents in BL MS Royal 8 F. XI, fol. 92, includes the Depericulis, but the work is now missing from the manuscript 4 These are the surviving manuscripts or records of William's works in England: for the Depericulis, the six surviving manuscripts cited in the preceding note, plus three copies no longer extant, listed in Mary Bateson, ed., Catalogue of the Library ojSyon Monastery, Islesworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), p. 97; M. R.James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 76, no. 679; John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, ed R. L. Poole ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1902), p. 113 For the Collectiones, four surviving manuscripts, Bodl. MS 151 (S.C. 1929), Hereford Cathedral MS O.l.xui, Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223, Paris, BN MS Lat. 3183; two copies listed by Bale, Index, pp. 113-14; and M. R. James, Catalogue of the Library of Leicester Abbey, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, 19 and 21 (1937-41; repr. Leicester: Leicestershire Archaeological Society, n.d.), p. 93, no. 404 For the De valido mendicante, London, Lambeth Palace MS 357, Bodl. MSS 52 and 158. For the De quantitate eleemosyne, Bodl. MSS 52 and 158. For the De mendicitate, Cambridge, Corpus Chnsti College MS 103 and a copy seen by Bale (Index, p. 114) at Queen's College, Oxford. For the fifty signs circulating independently, Bodl. MS Lat. misc. c. 75 (ohm Philhpps 3119), Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College MS 64 and a copy seen by Bale (Index, p. 114) at Queen's College, Oxford. In addition, medieval catalogs record several works by William that cannot be positively identified: in a catalog of 1418, a "Libellus Willelmi de Amore" [sic], given by the owner of a copy of the Collectiones (now Peterhouse MS 223: M R James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library ofPeterhouse [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899], p. 13, no. 169); in a catalog of 1372, a "Will, de sancto amore," without title (M. R. James, "The Catalogue of the Library of the Augustiman Friars at York," Fasciculus Joanni Willis Clark dicatus [Cambridge: privately printed, 1909], p. 31, no. 121); in a catalog of 1493, a "W de S. Amore" (James, Catalogue . . . of Leicester Abbey, p. 27, at the end of the introductory "Tabula de nomimbus"); and possibly, a work with the same incipit as the Collectiones ("Sapientiam antiquorum"), described by Leland as a "compendium de dictis & factis memorabihbus mcerto auctore" (John Leland, De rebus britannicis collectanea [London: Benjamin White, 1774], IV, 16).

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Signis" at the end of the Collectiones, serving as an index and a sum­ mary of the material contained in the fourth distinctio, but in the four­ teenth century they began to circulate independently. To the extent that manuscript holdings are reliable evidence, interest in William of St. Amour can be located in Canterbury, York, Leicester, Norwich, Lanthony (Gloucestershire), Syon (Middlesex), Cambridge, and above all Oxford. 5 Medieval libraries known to have held his works tend to be either academic or monastic, including the Oxford colleges of Balliol, Merton, and especially Queen's, the Cambridge college of Peterhouse, and libraries of the Benedictines (especially ca­ thedral priories), the Augustmian canons, the Augustinian friars, and the Bridgettines at Syon. 6 In some cases, the identities of the compilers or owners of the manuscripts are known. Oxford is heavily repre­ sented, by Robert Thwaytes, master of Balliol and one-time chancellor of the university (in 1446), by Peter Partriche, a theologian with Wycliffite sympathies while at Oxford (D.Th. by 1421), and by John Maynesford, fellow of Merton and later subdean of Chichester Cathe­ dral, who compiled an antifraternal anthology between 1420 and 1430.7 At Cambridge, in a catalog of 1418, a William Lichfield is named as the donor to Peterhouse College of two manuscripts, one containing the Collectiones and the other a "Libellus Willelmi de Amore." 8 The 5 For Canterbury, see James, Ancient Libraries ofCanterbuty, p. 76, no. 679; for York, seejames, FasciculusJoanni Willis Clark, p. 31, no 121; for Leicester, seejames, Catalogue . . . of Leicester Abbey, pp. 27, 93, no. 404; for Norwich, see Bodl. MS 151 (S.C 1929); for Lanthony see London, Lambeth Palace MS 357 and N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2d ed. (London-Royal Historical Society, 1964),p. 110; for Syon, see Bateson, Catalogue . of Syon Monastery, p. 97; for Cambridge, see Peterhouse MS 223, Corpus Chnsti MS 103, Sidney Sussex MS 64, James, Catalogue of Peterhouse, ρ 13, no 169, Bale, Index, 113, and Leland, Collectanea, IV, 16, for Oxford, see Bodl MS 52 (S.C. 1969), MS 158 (S.C. 1997), MS Lat. misc. c. 75 (ohm Phillipps 3119), MS Digby 98, Pans, BN MS Lat. 3183, and Bale, Index, pp. 113-14. 6 For Balliol, see Oxford, Balliol College MS 149; for Merton, Bodl MS 52 (S.C 1969); for Queen's, Bodl. MS Lat. misc. c. 75 (ohm Phillipps 3119), Bale, Index, 113-14, and Pans, BN MS Lat. 3183 (see N R. Ker, Bodleian Library Record, VI [1959], 492); for Peterhouse, Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223 and James, Catalogue . . of Peterhouse, p. 13, no. 169; for Benedictine Libraries, Bodl. MS 151 (S. C 1929) and James, Ancient Li­ braries of Canterbury, ρ 76, no. 679; for the Augustinian canons, London, Lambeth Palace MS 357; for the Augustinian friars, James, Fasciculus foanni Willis Clark, p. 31, no. 121; for the Bridgettines, Bateson, Catalogue . . of Syon Monastery, p. 97. 7 For Thwaytes, see Oxford, Balliol MS 149 and A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A D 1500 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1957-59), 1873-74 (hereafter BRUO); for Partriche, Bodl. MS Digby 98 and BRUO, 1430-31; for Maynesford, Bodl. MS 52 (S C. 1969) and BR UO, 1250. 8 The manuscript containing the Collectiones is now Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223. For the other, see the medieval catalog printed in James, Catalogue of Peterhouse, p. 13, no. 169.

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Augustinian friar, John Erghome, had in his possession at York not much after 1372 a manuscript of largely prophetic works, including a piece identified only as "Will, de sancto amore." 9 John Bracebridge, a brother and priest at Syon in 1428, gave the monastery a miscellany of 158 folios that contained the "Tractatus de periculis novissimorum temporum et pseudo prophetis." 10 One of England's most prominent Benedictines, Adam Easton, who became a cardinal in 1381, bequeathed a deluxe copy of the Collectiones to his former priory at Norwich Cathedral on his death in 1396.11 Such is the documentary record of William's circulation in England. There are, however, compelling reasons to think the record is incomplete. Only rarely do medieval library catalogs fully analyze the contents of manuscript miscellanies, but if surviving manuscripts are any indication, that is precisely the kind of codex into which William's works were most often copied—usually antifraternal miscellanies compiled as personal chapbooks. Furthermore, surviving manuscripts also show that his works, especially the condemned De periculis, usually circulated in England without attribution. One is tempted, therefore, to suspect that William might have been read more widely than surviving documents record. In fact a manuscript has survived that not only confirms this suspicion but shows how William's ideas could have been anonymously disseminated. It contains extensive excerpts not only from William himself but also from several English antifraternal writers who were strongly influenced by his Biblical language and exegesis. It brings to light two writers whose place in English antifraternalism has not heretofore been noticed. It points us to some unexpected antifraternal sources in canon law. Indeed, it covers such a range of antifraternal 9

Seejames, FasciculusJoanni Willis Clark, p. 31, no 121 and Aubrey Gwynn, The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wychf (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 132. 10 Bateson, Catalogue . . . oj Syon, p. 97. On p. 5 of this catalog, another of Bracebridge's books is described as "Catholicon M. I. Bracebrigge hums monasterii sacerdotis professi." Bracebridge gave many manuscripts to Syon that have not survived; two that did are Cambridge, St John's MS 219, and Cambridge, Trinity College MS 339 (see Ker, Medieval Libraries, p. 308) " Bodl. MS 151 (S.C. 1929). On Easton, see BRUO, 620-21. Another Benedictine who may have owned a copy of the De periculis is a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, "Iohannis de Boctone" (d. 1307: James, Ancient Libraries, p. 76, no. 679). Prior Eastry's catalog, in a section devoted to manuscripts given by known donors, seems to indicate that this Iohannis owned items 635 to 691 (James's numbers). This is an unusually large personal collection, and James quite rightly questions whether Iohannis indeed owned them all (p. 535, index). Perhaps other donors' names have been omitted between 635 and 691. In any case, the date of the catalogue—certainly before 1331, probably shortly after 1300—makes this the earliest known copy of the De periculis in England.

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writers from 1250 to 1360 that it can usefully serve as an epitome of the literary tradition of antifraternalism and can help to mark some major differences in tone and approach between the writers of thirteenth-century France and of fourteenth-century England. OMNE BONUM: A N ANTIFRATERNAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

Early in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, probably in London, an Englishman named Jacobus began work on a massive alphabetical encyclopedia that would eventually run to 2,188 folio-sized pages (now preserved as BL MS Royal 6 E. VI and 6 E. VII). It was to cover geography, natural science, moral theology, monastic lore, penitential doctrine, Biblical names, animal lore, and medicine, a range of subjects that explains the title chosen by the compiler: "Quia . . . omnia bona quasi in eo quodammodo continentur, presens opusculum O M N E B O N U M duxi non immento nominandum" (Since virtually all good things are in one way or another contained herein, I thought it fitting to name this little work Omne bonum [AU Good]; MS Royal 6 E. VI, fol. 18v). Alphabetic and encyclopedic compilations were common, especially in monastic libraries, but rarely on such a lavish scale. In this work the pages are vellum, the script meticulous, the illuminations sumptuous. Paragraphs are indicated in red or blue ink, significant passages highlighted by zoomorphic or anthropomorphic marginalia and occasionally by marginal notes in the same hand as the text. Rubrics appear frequently at the head and within the texts of major articles. All the longer articles begin with an illuminated capital depicting the subject: here a cocadrillus, there an abbot, or a herb, or a lapidary stone, or Mount Galaad. The painter's art was sometimes too vivid: at the article generacio, which goes into some detail about just how generation was to be achieved, the illuminated capital has been vigorously scratched out by a later reader. The painter judiciously chose not to depict the subject of the next article, genitalia. The entire work is preceded by sixty-two paintings, four to a page, depicting events of Biblical history from Creation to the Last Judgment; by a full-page painting of the instruments of the Passion; and by a narrative account together with a full-page painting of the vision of St. Benedict and St. Paul of the Holy Face. It is a deluxe and beautiful work, and not without its mysteries. The compiler tells us in the prologue that his name is Jacobus, but he conceals his cognomen, lest the book lose value from association with its unworthy maker. The prominence given to Benedict at the beginning, Ja67

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cobus's concern with monastic matters in many of the articles, and his reliance on several monastic sources made the catalogers of the Royal collection identify him tentatively as a monk, probably a Cistercian. From the number (115) of books or authors he lists as his sources, it seems he had access to a large library, like those at the cathedrals of Worcester or Canterbury, or was at an academic center like Oxford (where there were several cells) or perhaps at London. The presence of two datable works by Richard FitzRalph shows that the date of at least some of the compilation must be after 1357. After the letter M, there begin to appear many blank folios and a mere smattering of articles from the last half of the alphabet, indicating that the ambition and perhaps even the life ofJacobus outran his capacity. The monastic identity of Jacobus has been generally accepted since the publication of the Royal catalog in 1921. Recently, however, Lucy Freeman Sandler has made several discoveries that may settle the identity ofJacobus once and for all. She has found a manuscript in the Bodleian Library with many links to Omne bonum: MS Laud Misc. 165, containing Unus ex quatuor, the commentary of the Oxford Franciscan, William of Nottingham, on the four Gospels. This manuscript, she says, was written in the same hand as Omne bonum, was illuminated by two of the same artists, and, most importantly, contains a colophon that names the scribe: "Iste liber est liber Iacobi Ie Palmere quem scripsit manu sua propria" (This book is the book ofjacobus Ie Palmer who wrote it with his own hand). This Jacobus Ie Palmer and the incognito Jacobus of Omne bonum are probably the same, and Professor Sandler argues that both are identical with the Jacobus Ie Palmer who was clerk of the Exchequer in the reign of Edward III. In March 1375 he received a pension for life, a room in the priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, in London, and an annual gift of a robe. Thus he was for a short time both a colleague in the king's bureaucracy and a near neighbor of one Geoffrey Chaucer, who in the previous year had been appointed controller of customs and subsidies and had been given a fine mansion over the Aldgate itself. Records show that Jacobus Ie Palmer died in May of the same year, providing a terminus ad quem for Omne bonum that would reinforce the internal evidence for the dating of the manuscript. 12 Whether Omne bonum is the work of a monk or a London bureaucrat, this unlikely work has much to reveal about the circulation of antifraternal literature and particularly about the transmission of William of 12

Detailed descriptions of Omne bonum and Bodl. MS Laud Misc. 165 will appear in Sandler's Gothic Manuscripts, 1285-1385 (N.Y , London: Oxford/Harvey Miller, forthcoming, 1986) She is presently preparing a book on Omne bonum and Jacobus Ie Palmer I am grateful to her for sharing the results of her unpublished research. 68

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St. Amour's apocalyptic and exegetical ideas to the later fourteenth century. A strong vein of hostility to the friars pervades Omne bonum, not only in the long article on "Fratres" but also in less expected places: "Femina," "Fuga," "Christus," "Ffariseus," "Finis mundi," "Apostoli," "Adulacio," "Elemosina," "Absolucio," "Abusiones," "Consensus." In nearly every instance, the words are not Jacobus's but someone else's, though of course the editing and the hostile marginalia are his alone. Such antifraternalism is striking because it does not seem to belong here; this is not a polemical tract but an encyclopedia, and one devoted to "All Good" at that. That antifraternal feeling appears in this forum demonstrates that antifraternal works were being read and appreciated by men not notoriously on the front lines of battle with the friars. More, it shows how the ideas of polemical treatises could, somewhat diluted and tempered, enter into summae of what were intended to be the standard authorities of the day. An encyclopedia, by generic definition, should be neither original nor aberrant. The range of antifraternal authorities Jacobus draws from is chronologically and philosophically broad, covering more than a century, from William of St. Amour to Jacobus's contemporary, Richard FitzRalph. William of St. Amour is nowhere named in Omne bonum, but five articles ("Fratres," "Apostoli," "Ffariseus," "Elemosina," and "Christus") quote extensively from his works. The nature of the excerpts suggests that Jacobus was not using aflorilegium but had in front of him either a collected edition of William's works or several manuscripts containing at least five of them. He understood the two central features of William's antifraternalism: the eschatological framework and the hermeneutic method of Biblical exegesis. Three articles can demonstrate these points. In "Apostoli," there is a long section (Royal 6 E. VI, fol. 119r_v) devoted to the signs by which to identify the false apostles who will infiltrate and destroy the church at the end of time. Thirty-five numbered signs are given, each derived from eschatological and prophetic passages in the Bible or from passages about Christ's apostles. The first sign is that true apostles "non penetrant domos et captivas ducunt muherculas oneratas peccatis" (2 Tim. 3:6: do not penetrate houses and captivate silly women who are laden with sin); the fourth, that false apostles will commend themselves in their preaching (Phil. 2:3); the fifth, that false apostles will obtain letters of commendation (2 Cor. 3:1); the sixth, that they will preach non missi (Rom. 10:15); the ninth, that they will wish to live from the Gospel, not from labor of their hands (2 Thess. 3:8-10); the twentieth, that they seek money or goods from those to whom they preach, which is simony like Giezi's (4 Kings 5); the twenty-eighth, 69

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that they labor to poke into others' affairs so that they might be fed thereby, because their god is their belly (2 Thess. 3:11, Phil. 3:19); the thirtieth, that they often come to eat at a stranger's table (2 Thess. 3:9). These signs, of course, are all taken from chapter 14 of William of St. Amour's De periculis novissimorum temporum, though Jacobus omits a few signs and abbreviates the rest. In the De periculis, it had been William's strategy never to name the friars because his work was, like prophecy, simply an interpretation of sacred Scripture, the relevance of which to Paris and the friars in the 1250s would be obvious to all. Did Jacobus understand these signs, which he places in an article on the apostles, to be prophecies of the friars? Two things suggest that he did. The thirty-five signs are immediately preceded by a substantial excerpt from chapter 12 of the De periculis.13 The subject is the livelihood of the apostles, the thesis that they never begged. As usual, the friars are not named, but Jacobus adds a marginal note at the beginning of the excerpt to make its contemporary relevance clear beyond doubt: "Nota hie et infra quod apostoli Christi non mendicabant sed arte licita victum querebant post apostolatum acceptum quod est contra fratres tnendicantes" (Note here and below that the apostles of Christ did not beg but earned their food by pursuing a legitimate trade after taking up their apostolate, which is contrary to the way of life of the begging friars). More allusive but, in light of the preceding marginalium, equally clear in denoting the friars is the rubric introducing the thirty-five signs: "Nunc sequitur videre de falsis et seudo apostolis qui nunc sunt aut statim venient ante finem et de signis eorum per que possunt cognosci a veris apostolis" (The next matter to consider is of false and pseudo apostles who exist at this moment or will come immediately before the end; and also of the signs by which they can be distinguished from true apostles).14 The key phrase is "qui nunc sunt aut statim venient ante fmem"; in Jacobus's eyes the false apostles prophesied for the End may already be abroad in the world. Another of William of St. Amour's major Biblical figures for the friars appears in the article "Ffariseus," which is taken largely from the first part of his sermon De Pharisaeo.15 Jacobus's excerpt from William opens with the enabling comparison: the Pharisees were a religious order among the ancients, and likewise in the present there have arisen certain Regulars who pretend to sanctity in habit, in austerity of life, in 13

BLMS Royal 6 E. VI, fol. 118v% excerpt beginning "Legitur in actibus apostolorum capitulo nil"; see William's Opera omnia, pp. 50-51 14 BL MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 119" ' 5 BL MS Royal 6 E.VII, fol. 112'b-»; in William's Opera omnia, pp. »-9.

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their observances and traditions, but who are in fact hypocrites. 16 The excerpt continues in a familiar vein, emphasizing the Pharisees' ostentatious phylacteries and the foot-piercing thorns on the tassels of their prayer shawls. Jacobus interrupts William's text to add helpfully that they went barefoot, "sicut nunc faciunt quidam fratres" (as certain friars do nowadays). The Pharisees were an urban order, requiring crowds to feed their appetite for human glory. They preferred their own traditions to the commandments of God (Matt. 15:3); they were "divided from the people" (divisi a populo, Glossa ordinaria on Matt. 3:7); they procured the death of Christ (John 18:3). Finally, in Matt. 23:6-7 Christ provided four infallible signs for recognizing future Pharisees: they love the first places at dinners; they prefer the front seats in synagogues; they desire salutations in the marketplace; and they like to be called "rabbi," that is, magister. To William's exegesis of the Bible, Jacobus attaches a comment in his own words at the end of the article. There are, he says, "aliqui religiosi hiis diebus" (certain religious in these days) who are hypocrites, divided from the people, poor and holy in appearance, who can well be compared with the Pharisees. As the Pharisees opposed themselves to Christ in his first Advent, so hypocrites "in fine seculi quasi nunc" (at the end of the world as now) will resist the witnesses of Christ, that is, the preachers of truth. Such are the fratres mendicantes who appear wiser and holier than those in the church, and "in fine mundi" such men will deceive the people, especially women, in the fashion of the Pharisees, through hypocrisy. This eschatological and figural association of the Pharisees of the Old Law, the friars of contemporary history, and those who will come at the end of time appears finally in the article "Finis mundi." Most of the article consists of straightforward excerpts from the early church fathers. At the end, however, as at the end of "Ffariseus," Jacobus adds his own words. As at the advent of Christ there were religious orders of scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites and wanderers {vagabundi), "so now in the end of the world" there have arisen certain religious va[g]abundi pretending to sanctity and seipsos amantes (2 Tim. 3:2). About these religious who run around the country, says Jacobus, he has already written in the article "De fratribus mendicantibus." 17 16

"Notandum quod pharisei erant quidam religiosi aput antiquos sicut sunt apud nos regulares quidam," BL MS Royal 6 E. VII, fol 112'b 17 "Item sicut m adventu Chnsti fuerunt scribe et pharisei qui erant religiosi, in habitu pretendebant sanctitatem, et tamen in rei veritate fuerunt ypocrite et vagabundi, ut notatur supra ubi agitur de phanseo, sic nunc in fine mundi surrexerunt quidam religiosi vacabundi, sanctitatem pretendentes satis impacientes et seipsos amantes. De religiosis circ[u]meuntibus patriam dicetur infra ubi agitur de fratribus mendicantibus," BL MS Royal 6 E. VII, fol. 145rb-«. 71

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The last-named article, entitled "Fratres" in the text, is the longest and the most important of the antifraternal sections in Omne bonum.18 It occupies eighteen pages (Royal 6 E. VII, fols. 154r-162v), all but the last two (162r_v) being contained in a single gathering. The quire was written separately from the rest and clearly received special treatment: the hand is noticeably larger and the rulings more spacious than in the surrounding articles (including the last two pages of the "Fratres" article, which begin the following quire), the initials larger, and the paragraphing more elaborate. Most of the longer articles in the encyclopedia contain no more than five or six rubrics and no numeration: "Fratres" has thirty-seven numbered sections, each with its own rubric. These thirty-seven sections consist of excerpts from ten different sources written between 1223 and 1357. With their chronological and polemical range, they serve as a convenient epitome of the antifraternal tradition in England. Only three of these sources are clearly identified in the text: the Franciscan Rule of 1223; the Rosarium of "Archdiaconus," that is, Guido of Baysieux (ca. 1300); and "Exivi de Paradiso," the bull of Pope Clement V, issued in 1312 and incorporated into the Clementines. There are incomplete identifications of two other sources, William Durandus's Speculum iudiciale (ca. 1276), and William of Monte Lauduno's Apparatus septimi libri (1319). All these, however, are relatively minor compared to some of the sources that Jacobus does not identify at all, but presents as if in his own words. They include the De periculis novissimorum temporum of William of St. Amour (1255); the Summa summarum of William of Pagula (ca. 1320); a questio on mendicancy by Thomas de Wilton (before 1327); the "Filios enutrivi" of Jean d'Anneux (1328); and Richard FitzRalph's Defensio curatorum (1357).19 Jacobus gives the impression with his enthusiastic rubrication that the article is organized thematically. In fact it is organized according to source. All the excerpts from a single source are grouped together and usually in the order of their original. This provides a fair indication of his working method. He was not using a secondhand florilegium but picking up books and as he read through them, writing down what he thought significant. We might therefore also presume that he had ac18

The second longest is contained in the article "Chnstus" (under the letter X) at the end of BL MS Royal 6 E. VII, fols. 526v-530r, containing excerpts from Jean d'Anneux, "Fihos enutrivi," William of St. Amour, De periculis, and Richard FitzRalph, Defensio curatorum and Objectiones et responsiones. 19 For manuscripts and printings (if available) of these sources see Appendices A and B.

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cess to a substantial library (or several, as at London), since the works here and elsewhere have an impressive range. Jacobus's sources in the thirty-seven numbered sections of the "Fratres" article fall into several groups. The Franciscan Rule stands by itself (sections iii-vi). It obviously cannot be called antifraternal, but from the 1260s it had frequently served antifraternal writers as a standard by which to measure the decline in the order. Jacobus's rubrics for his selections from the Rule imply exactly that: "Fratres minores qui vivunt secundum suam regulam debent uti vilibus pannis nee licet eis alios homines bene vestitos iudicare" (section iii: Friars Minor who live according to their Rule ought to wear poor rags; nor should they condemn others who are well clothed). "Debent," implying "et non faciunt," is the dominant verb of these rubrics. The friars ought to receive no money, either directly or through an intermediary; they ought to labor; they ought not to appropriate for themselves a house or a place or any property. A second group of sources comes from canon law and its glossators. These include the commentaries by William of Monte Lauduno, William Durandus, Guido of Baysieux, and William of Pagula, along with the excerpts from Exivi de Paradiso. Although this group accounts for a relatively small proportion of pages in the "Fratres" article (four of eighteen), its presence suggests a major difference between thirteenthand fourteenth-century approaches to the friars. When William of St. Amour was writing, canon law was still in its youth. In 1250 the Decretum of Gratian was barely a century old, the decretals of Gregory IX less than two decades. But the Liber sextus, the Clementines, and the Extravagantes were still in the future, and so too were Ioannes Andreae and the legal Glossa ordinaria, not to mention the four glossators that Jacobus draws on here. Byjacobus's time, the friars' privileges and exemptions had a considerable legal history, and every serious opponent of the friars had to reckon with it. Through his four commentators Jacobus acknowledges that legal history. His selections, as one might expect, are the most unfavorable to the friars, sometimes actively hostile. The section (vii) from William of Monte Lauduno, for example, states that the friars are more avaricious than other religious because their Rule forces them to disown all worldly goods. The things they are not allowed they desire more intensely, like the English and the Scots who desire wine more than other men do because they lack it in their own country. William of Monte Lauduno was a Cluniac monk, and is somewhat more hostile than most legal commentators. Jacobus's favorite canon law commentary, however, was the Summa summarum, 73

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which he cites in the prologue as one of the fifteen most important sources for the entire encyclopedia. The Summa summarum was written by an Englishman, William of Pagula, around 1320, and immediately became one of the most popular reference works in English ecclesiastical circles.20 In Omne bonum's antifraternal sections, the Summa s comments on friars are given more space than those from other works of canon law, and they seem on the whole more even-handed. Section i of Jacobus's "Fratres" article, drawing on the Summa s only section specifically devoted to the frater­ nal orders, details some of the legal rights of the friars to celebrate Mass, preach, bury the dead, and hear confessions, especially as de­ fined in Boniface VIII's Super cathedram (1300). Section ii emphasizes legislated restrictions on the friars. They are required to urge parish­ ioners to give tithes diligently to the parish churches. They cannot pro­ fess anyone into their order before a year of probation has passed. They may not detract in their preaching from the prelates of the church. They may not induce anyone to vow to choose burial in their churches. They may not preach when a local bishop is preaching. As we will see later, however, there is some evidence that William of Pagula was less neutral than he seems. In its section on preaching, the Summa contains a passage that is so Biblical and eschatological a denunciation of the friars that it might well have been written by William of St. Amour— and in fact it was. In the third and most substantial group of sources for the "Fratres" article, the sobriety of the canon law commentators is replaced by the fervor of polemicists. Four vociferously antifraternal writers represent more than a century of conflict from the 1250s to 1360: William of St. Amour; Richard FitzRalph; Jean d'Anneux; and Thomas de Wilton. Of these, William of St. Amour is given the most space. In fact, the long­ est sequence from any single author in the "Fratres" article is from his eschatological writings, though his name is nowhere mentioned and no other hints of attribution appear. Jacobus's sections χ to xix are taken from five of the fourteen chapters of the De periculis novissimorum temporum. These chapters focus on the nature of the men who will threaten the church and bring in the perils of the Last Days. Jacobus passes over all of William's other sections about those in the church who should resist the hypocrites. From the excerpts in Omne bonum, a shadowy outline of William's 20

Leonard Boyle, "The 'Summa Summarum' and Some Other English Works of Canon Law," in Stephan Kuttner, ed., Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, in Monumenta iuns canomci, series C: Subsidia, 1 (Vatican City: S. Congregatio de Semmarus et Studiorum Umversitatibus, 1965), pp. 415-56. 74

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exegetical and symbolic interpretation of the friars emerges. The friars are the "men [who] will be lovers of self" of 2 Timothy 3, "covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers" (cupidi, elati, superbi, blasphemi), who lead captive "silly women who are laden with sin" (section x). They are not rightly chosen by the church or sent by God and therefore are "not sent" (non missi, Rom. 10:15). They derive neither from the twelve apostles nor the seventy-two disciples, and are therefore superfluous and illegitimate, and boast immeasurably of labors that should belong to other men (2 Cor. 10:15). They preach only for gain (section xi). They are those of whom Christ and Paul warned, the falsos prophetas (Matt. 7:15), "having a semblance of piety" (2 Tim. 3:5; section xii). They are ambitious in seeking the offices of preaching and confession, whereas charity is never ambitious (1 Cor. 13:5). They come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are wolves (Matt. 7:15); they are "pseudoapostoli . . . operarii subdoli" (2 Cor. 11:13); they are the pale horse of Apoc. 6:8, which the Glossa identifies with the third persecution of the church. The devil, seeing that neither open tyranny (the red horse) nor open heresy (the black horse) had been effective against the church, sends a final, more dangerous persecution in the form of hypocrites, symbolized by the pale horse and fulfilled in the friars. They probe the secrets of men through confessions and with crafty words they seduce first women, and through them men, as the devil seduced Adam through Eve. To seduce is ad se ducere, and they lead men to themselves so that proper prelates are abandoned (section xiii). To resist them is possible, as Moses resisted Pharaoh's magicians, Iamnes and Mambres (2 Tim. 3:8; section xiv). Paul warns us to avoid all such false apostles who create dissension and scandal, and who serve not Christ but their belly (Rom. 16:17-19). Avoid also every friar living a disordered life (jrater ambulans inordinate), that is, those lazy gyro vagi and vagabonds who wander here and there over the earth without laboring for their food. To those alone who work for the care of souls and who legitimately have a flock ought food to be given (2 Thess. 3:6-10; sections xv and xvi). Begging, especially by those who claim to live the apostolic life, is forbidden by many Biblical passages (Prov. 30:8; 2 Thess. 3) and never approved, even where it appears to be (Luke 19:5; John 4:7). The able-bodied, even in civil law, should never beg, but mendicant religious violate Paul's commandment "Operamini mambus vestris" (1 Thess. 4:11; sections xvii-xix). In this jumble of Biblical citation, Jacobus succeeds in conveying William of St. Amour's exegetical approach to the historical friars. Through prophecy and figuration, the Bible becomes a tool for the interpretation of the present. It shows the illegitimacy of the friars' ap75

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ostolic claims and identifies them with the pseudoapostoli of New Tes­ tament times. It shows them to be forerunners of the end of time, and agents of the final persecution threatening the church. Nonetheless, Ja­ cobus significantly modifies or obscures important features of the De periculis novissimorum temporum, both by omission and addition. By eliminating the prologue, he obscures William's vivid claim to be a prophet like those of old, a ν idem in the tradition of Isaiah whose vision comes from the interpretation of Scripture ("Prophetas, id est, Scripturarum explanatores"). The prophetic rationale for the blizzard of Scriptural citation thus becomes implicit rather than explicit. Jacobus also omits William's exegetical fiction, stated in the original prologue, that the work was directed against no historical person or status, but consisted purely of exegesis of the Bible. William never once men­ tioned the friars in the De periculis. Jacobus names them at every turn, in his added rubrics, in additions to William's own text, and even in additions to the words of St. Paul ("Audivimus enim aliquos inter vos mendicantes ambulare inquiete," 2 Thess. 3:11: For we have heard that some beggars among you are living irregularly). Jacobus does not pre­ tend at all, as William does, to be engaged in Biblical exegesis alone. His editing has the further consequence of obscuring the organizing principles of the De periculis. Althoughjacobus quotes most of chapters 2, 3, and 5, his omissions also obscure the fairly systematic procedure of William's first five chapters as an exegesis of the famous prophetic passage that gave De periculis its title, 2 Tim. 3:1-9. Jacobus also drops all topical allusions in the De periculis. The omis­ sion is understandable enough: the "Fratres" article is about the friars of his own day, even when the excerpts are lifted from a work written a century before. 21 Perhaps also Jacobus was unwilling to give his Pa­ risian source away, since it had been condemned, a possibility that seems to be supported by the conspicuous absence of the De periculis from the otherwise thorough list of sources that Jacobus gives at the beginning of the encyclopedia. In any case, the omission of William of St. Amour's local allusions tempers the eschatological content of Ja­ cobus's excerpts. He avoids all of William's prophetic interpretations of the episode of the Evangelium Aeternum and Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, and obviously has to eliminate all the eschatological expec­ tations associated with the year 1260. Much of the apocalyptic urgency that fires the Depericulis has therefore faded from the excerpts in Omne 21 In section xi, after an excerpt from William's work of 1256, Jacobus adds an anach­ ronistic comment from the bull Dudum of 1312, without any transition and without any acknowledgement that the treatise and the bull were half a century apart.

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bonum, although, as we have seen in the articles on "Ffariseus" and "Fi­ nis mundi" as well, the association of the friars with the End persists. That association appears again in Jacobus's final extract from Wil­ liam of St. Amour, section xx, where the rubric tells us that "Fratres mendicantes, predicantes propter lucrum seu ad ostentationem et se commendantes in suis predicacionibus vel detrahentes prelatis . . . non sunt veri predicatores set seudo et falsi et per que signa tales falsi predicatores mendicantes possunt cognosci" (The mendicant friars, who preach for gain or for ostentation and who commend themselves in their preaching or detract from prelates. . . are not true but pseudo and false preachers. This section also treats by what signs such false men­ dicant preachers can be recognized). There follows a list of forty-seven signs, most of them drawn from the Bible, which much resemble the antifraternal ideas of De periculis. For a few examples: the first sign is that ρseudopraedicatores preach non missi (Rom. 10:15); the fourth, that they "penetrate houses" (2 Tim. 3), that is, probe the personal affairs of those whom they confess; the tenth, that they "commend them­ selves" (2 Cor. 10:12) so that their good works might be seen; the fif­ teenth, that they "love the first places at suppers and the front seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace, and to be called by men 'rabbi' " (Matt. 23:6-7); the forty-fourth, that they "run from house to house" (Luke 10:7), seeking better hospitality. At the end of the section, there is the following note of attribution: "Hec predicta signa sumuntur de quodam tractatu qui vocatur tractatus de futuris periculis imminentibus ecclesie generali per ypocritas et seudo predic­ atores" (The aforementioned signs are taken from a certain treatise, which is called a "Treatise about future dangers that are about to de­ scend upon the church through hypocrites and false preachers"). The "Tractatus" here named might appear to be William of St. Amour's De periculis, but a glance at its text shows this is not so. There is a similar list of signs in the fourteenth chapter of the De periculis to distinguish true and false apostles, a list that Jacobus quotes in his article "Apostoli," but these are not the signs given here. Rather they prove to be from a list of fifty signs to distinguish true and (us&praedicatores in Wil­ liam's Collectiones.22 There the list takes the form of an index or tabula to the contents of the fourth distinctio. Did Jacobus then have access to a copy of the Collectiones as well? Several things cast doubt upon that possibility. This is the only place in the entire encyclopedia that he quotes from the Collectiones. It was not his custom to take single snip­ pets from the works he was using, but rather to make sequential selec22

Opera omnia, pp. 487-90.

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tions. The Collectiones, really a vastly expanded version (379 pages in the Opera omnia) of the arguments of the De periculis, would have offered a cornucopia of antifraternal rhetoric, but Jacobus cites only this list of signs. By chance, the same list survives in a later manuscript, Bodl. MS 784; its close affiliation with Omne Bonum will be discussed below. In it, a rubric appears that leads us to what must have been Jacobus's actual source: "Nota infra plures casus qui annotantur in quodam libro qui vocatur Summa Summarum in titulo de predicatoribus et eorum predicacionibus et sunt seudo isti" (Note below many cases that are noted in a certain book that is called Summa summarum, in its section entitled "Concerning preachers and their preaching"; and these men are pseudo). 23 This Summa summarum is William of Pagula's work that Jacobus had used for sections i and ii of the "Fratres" article. The Summa summarum, book 5, title 59, "De predicatoribus et eorum predicacionibus," contains as its final entry precisely the same list of signs as those of Omne bonum and Bodl. 784. That Jacobus copied his list from the Summa summarum is finally proved by the note of (mis-) attribution that appears in the Summa itself: "Hec sumuntur de quoddam tractatu qui vocatur tractus [sic] de futuris periculis iminentibus ecclesie generali et per ypocritas pseudo predicatores" (These things are taken from a certain treatise, which is called "A Treatise about future dangers that are about to descend upon the church through hypocrites [and] false preachers"). 24 The same misattribution in the same words appears in the same position in Omne bonum, at the end of the list of signs. That Jacobus did not have a copy of the Collectiones is not surprising, considering its length and its rarity in English libraries. However, the appearance of the fifty signs in so staid a legal handbook as the Summa summarum provides evidence of the circulation of William of St. Amour's ideas from a quite unexpected quarter. We saw above how in the only article in the Summa summarum specifically devoted to the friars, William of Pagula is fairly evenhanded and somberly legal in his approach. Why then does he introduce the eschatological denunciations of William of St. Amour in an article on preaching? One is tempted to think that he might not have understood them to apply to the friars. Their context in the Summa summarum is an article on preaching in general, and the fifty signs nowhere mention the friars (as usual in William of St. Amour's works). On the other hand, there is unmistakable evidence that two later readers of the Summa summarum—the compilers of Omne bonum and of Bodley 784—understood that these 23 24

Bodl. MS 784, fol. 105-, Recorded in the Summa summarum, BL MS Royal 10 D. X, fol. 280r.

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signs pertained to the friars and that they were authored by the same man who wrote the Depericulis novissimorum temporum. They place the fifty signs not only within their own sections on friars but immediately adjacent to other excerpts from William of St. Amour. There is also the evidence of the Summa summarum itself. There, the fifty signs are directly preceded by sections pertinent to the privileges of the friars, particularly as restricted by various edicts of Pope Clement V and of the Council of Vienne (1311). It would seem probable, then, that William of Pagula did understand the fifty signs as hostile to the friars. After all, the Summa summarum was written by a parish cleric for the parish clergy, and this audience was the one most aroused by the encroachments of the friars on their pastoral privileges. The Summa summarum was completed around 1320, at a time when antifraternal feeling was on the rise again, as will be shown shortly. For all these reasons, the appearance of William of St. Amour's eschatological signs in a popular English Summa of canon law may well reflect the heightened antagonism between the seculars and the mendicants; certainly it illustrates yet another path by which William's eschatology was disseminated in the fourteenth century. The second polemicist in the "Fratres" article is Archbishop Richard FitzRalph of Armagh, easily the most important antifraternal writer of Jacobus's own day.25 Sections xxviii to xxxi are all from his Defensio curatorum (1357), particularly from his attack on the legitimacy of the friars' privileges, above all confession. As the next chapter will show, FitzRalph's approach is different from William of St. Amour's, emphasizing practical ecclesiology rather than eschatology, canon law rather than Biblical exegesis. Legal and Biblical argument are not mutually exclusive; canon law is based on Scripture. But FitzRalph entered the arena after one hundred years of legal controversy between the seculars and the mendicants, and the Defensio curatorum was first presented at a papal curia full of canon lawyers in the context of an incipient legal action. Hence, the passages excerpted by Jacobus in these sections argue that the friars' privileges are against their Rule as officially approved by the pope and against the Testament of St. Francis. They argue about the nature of the friars' papal license and about the meaning of Exiit qui seminal, issued by Nicholas III in 1279. In one long passage included in Omne bonum, however, FitzRalph's links with the tradition of William of St. Amour appear clearly. At the beginning of section xxviii, FitzRalph argues that friars procuring privileges disobey the precepts of the New Testament. The three texts he cites are touch25

FitzRalph's life and approach to the friars will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. 79

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stones in William's exegetical system; "Quomodo vero predicabunt nisi mittantur?" (Rom. 10:15: And how are men to preach unless they be sent?); "Nee quisquam sumit sibi honorem, sed qui vocatur a Deo, tamquam Aaron" (Heb. 5:4: And no man takes the honor to himself, but he who is called by God, as Aaron was); and "Nolite vocari rabi nee vocemini magistri: unus enim magister est vester, Christus" (Matt. 23:8: Do not you be called rabbi; for one is your master, Christ). These texts are fundamental to both William's and FitzRalph's ecclesiology: he who is not "sent" by the church or "called" (missus or vocatus), that is, legitimately chosen, elected, and ordained by the church hierarchy, does not belong m the ordo ecclesiasticus, which has authority over all pastoral functions. The remaining two polemical writers represented in the "Fratres" article are virtually unknown to modern scholars and their works survive only in manuscript. But their presence in Omne bonum (and another similar compendium to be discussed shortly) suggests a currency in English antifraternal circles that deserves to be recognized. Both were writing in the 1320s, when antifraternal feeling was running high. In the first half of the fourteenth century, no period experienced more intense controversy concerning the friars than that decade, largely because of the actions of Pope John XXII. In the years just before 1320, he had finally moved to crush the radical wing of the Franciscans, the Spirituals, whose extreme views on poverty had, he felt, dangerous implications for the church.26 In 1321 he condemned the doctrine of a secular theologian at the University of Paris, the notoriously antifraternal Jean de Pouilly, who had put forth what were now declared to be errors restricting the friars' privilege of confession in favor of confession to the parish priest.27 In 1322, John XXII annulled the practical and legal arrangement for Franciscan property, which heretofore had been "owned" by the pope under a legal fiction that preserved Franciscan poverty even when, through institutionalization, they had acquired lands, buildings, and goods. 28 In 1323, he declared heretical a 26 See his bulls Quorundam exigit (J October 1317), Sanaa Romana (30 December 1317), and Gloriosam ecclesiam (23January 1318), all in Bullariumfianciscanum, ed.J. Sbaraleaand C. Eubel (Rome: S. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 1759-1904), V, 128-30, 134-35, 137-42. For a summary account, see Leff, Heresy, I, 168-238 27 Vas eleccionis, CUP, II, no 798, p. 243. For Jean de Pouilly see J. G. Sikes, "Jean de Pouilh and Peter de la PaIu," EHR, 49 (1934), 219-40; J. Koch, "Die Prozess gegen den Magister Johannes de Polliaco und seine Vorgeschichte, 1312-21," RTAM, 5 (1933), 391-422. 28 Ad conditorem canonum, which appeared in an early and a more elaborate late version. Both are printed in Bultariumfranciscanum,V, 233-246, the earlier in the footnote on pp. 235b-237a. For a narrative of the circumstances surrounding John XXII's dispute with

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doctrine that had previously formed the foundation of the Franciscan conception of poverty, that Christ and the apostles had owned nothing either individually or in common. 29 Although the Franciscans were content to see Jean de Pouilly condemned, they felt that the papal rulings on poverty threatened to destroy the basis of their religious way of life. By 1328, a prominent group of them had broken vehemently with the pope, whom they declared a heretic. They fled to join the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, who was also in open revolt, having appointed a "true" pope of his own who happened to be a friar, one Peter of Corbaria. The leader of the band of fugitive Franciscans, the minister general of the order, Michael of Cesena, was promptly deposed from office by John XXII, excluded from the order, and excommunicated. 30 It is against this background that Jacobus's remaining two polemicists began to write against the friars.

JEAN D'ANNEUX

Sandwiched between Jacobus's excerpts from William of St. Amour and from Richard FitzRalph are seven long sections (xxi-xxvii) by an unidentified author. These selections vigorously defendjohn XXII and attack his enemies among the friars. Just before turning to FitzRalph in section xxviii, Jacobus ends the sequence by interjecting a rare note in his own words to tell us that in August 1330, Friar Peter of Corbaria, who had claimed to be the true pope, came with cords around his neck in full consistory and recognized his error, confessing his sins publicly before the entire assembly (fol. 159t_v). Jacobus's interest in these sections is therefore partly historical, and it is probably not accidental that he places them with chronological exactness between two antifraternal authors from the 1250s and the 1350s. These excerpts, however, have another kind of interest, for they show further signs of the influence of William of St. Amour. The rubric of section xxiv, for example, stresses the parallel between the hypocrite Pharisees who arose against Christ around the end of the Old Law and the mendicant friars who have arisen "circa fmem nove legis" to fight similarly against the prelates the friars over poverty, see Leff, Heresy, I, 139-66, 238-55, and M. D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty (London: SPCK, 1961), pp. 208-46. 29 Cum inter nonnullos (12 November 1323) m Bullarium franciscanum, V, 256-59. 30 For accounts of the "Michaehst" rebellion, see Leff, Heresy, I, 238-55 and Decima L Dome, The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fratricelh (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1932), pp 153-208. 81

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and curates of the church.31 Section xxiv itself closely resembles William's exegesis of Matthew 23, including the anachronistic emphasis, derived from the Bible, on the hypocritical enlarging of fimbriae and phylacteries, the love of seats of honor at the synagogues, and the desire to be called rabbi. Sections xxi-xxvii provide no clues to their authorship other than a rough date in the 1320s and an association with the controversies of John XXII. However, by chance there exists in the Bodleian Library a manuscript that contains in its entirety the work from which Jacobus has drawn his extracts. The manuscript, Bodl. MS 52 (S.C. 1969), is a miscellany compiled in the 1420s by John Maynesford, once a fellow of Merton College. 32 It has a heavy emphasis on antifraternal works and contains pieces by William of St. Amour and Thomas de Wilton in addition to some antifraternal Latin verse. Folios 180r (179r) to 202r (202r) contain the treatise from which excerpts appear in the "Fratres" article.33 It has no title, but opens with a verse from Isaiah, which provides the thema of the tract and may serve as an informal title: "Filios enutrivi et exaltavi, ipsi autem spreverunt me" (Isaiah 1:2: Sons I have reared and raised, but they have scorned me). At the end of "Filios enutrivi" there is a colophon that identifies not only the date but the author himself: Explicit brevis tractatus ad honorem dei et ecclesie compilatus auinonie a magistro Johanne de Annosis sacre theologie doctore anno domini millesimo tricentisimo vicesimo viii° septima die decembris. Cuius anime propicietur deus. Amen. (fol. 202r [202r]) [Here ends this brief treatise dedicated to the honor of God and the church, compiled at Avignon by Master Jean d'Anneux, doctor of theology, in the year of our Lord 1328, the seventh day of December, on whose soul may God have mercy. Amen.] Who is Jean d'Anneux, doctor of theology, author of an antifraternal tract from the papal curia in 1328? The few details known of his life are sketchy. He was from the little French village of Anneux in the De31 "Circa finem vetens legis msurrexerunt pharisei ypocrite impungnantes [sic] Christum. Sic circa finem nove legis insurrexerunt fratres mendicantes similes illis, impugnantes prelatos et curatos ecclesiarum ipsos dampmficando," fol. 158v. 32 On Maynesford, see BRUO, 1250. 33 For Bodl. MS 52, I give the medieval foliation first, followed by the modern foliation in parentheses where necessary. The medieval foliation is defective on fols. 180 (179), 200 (200-1), 202 (203), and has been corrected m pencil by a modern hand.

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partement of the Nord, arrondissement of Cambrai, canton of Marcoing.34 He had been a student in Paris in 1286, when a council of bishops convened to take measures against the friars and to enlist the support of the University of Paris for their hostile interpretation of the profraternal bull of Martin IV, Adfructus uberes (1281). At that assembly, says Jean, "ego tunc scolar interfui cum aliis scolaribus" (I, a student at the time, was present with other students).35 He is recorded as having been an associate of one of the most notorious enemies of the friars in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, Jean de Pouilly, and it may be that their friendship dates from the 1280s.36 Jean de Pouilly was active against the friars in Paris then, though more visibly so in the first twenty years of the fourteenth century. Both men would eventually become members of the faculty of theology at Paris. At some point before 1326, Jean d'Anneux became the curate of St. Amand-en-Puelle, in what was then the diocese of Tournai and is now part of the arrondissement of Valenciennes.37 He went to Avignon in April 1326 and stayed until November in some favor. On 1 November he received the permission of the pope to continue to receive the revenues of his parish church at St. Amand for a period of three years while he resided in Paris to read theology. 38 He arrived in Paris shortly thereafter.39 On the first of February following, he offered a "determinacio in scolis" at which there were many representatives of every religious order, of every academic "Nation," and of every faculty.40 He seems to have been back in Avignon by 7 December 1328.41 There he became 34 Henry Martin, "La diatribe de Jean d'Anneux," Melanges offerts a M. Emile Picot, II (Pans: Librairie Damascene Morgand, 1913), p. 230. 35 Lincoln Cathedral MS 114, fol. 109. For the council of 1286, see Palemon Gloneux, "Prelats frangais contre rehgieux mendiants autour de la bulle: 'Ad fructus uberes' (12811290)," Revue d'histoire de I'eglise de France, 11 (1925), 309-31, 471-95 36 In a lost manuscript from the library of the College des Cholets, a scribe recorded this friendship as a means of identifying the author of the treatise he was copying. "Tractatus . . . compilatus . . a magistro Joanne de Annosis, doctore theologo regente et consocio Joanms de Pohaco " See Casmir Oudin, Commentarius de scriptoribus ecdesiae antiques, III (Leipzig: George Weidmann, 1722), 802. 37 Histoire litteraire de la France, XXXV (Pans. Imprimene Nationale, 1921), 455; Martin, "Jean d'Anneux," p. 230. 38 Martin, "Jean d'Anneux," p. 230; letter ofjohn XXII in CUP, II, no. 858, p. 294. 39 See the note at the end ofjean's treatise on confessions in Lincoln Cathedral MS 114, fol 110v, which says the work was finished around Christmas of 1326 by "magistro Iohanne de Annosis doctore theoloye [i.e. theologie] tunc regente parisius [sic]." 40 Lincoln Cathedral MS 114, fol. 110'. 41 His treatise, "Fihos enutrivi," on the friars' privileges, is identified in Bodl. MS 52,

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the chaplain of Annibaldus de Ceccano, cardinal of San Lorenzo. 42 By 29 November 1329, he had died.43 Most of the works ofjean d'Anneux have not survived, including his sermons, his commentaries on the bulls of John XXII concerning poverty, and his Questiones de quodlibet.™ Until at least the eighteenth century, there was a manuscript in the library of the College de Cholets described as follows by Casmir Oudin in 1722: . . . cod. 2, ubi inscribitur: Tractatus de obedientia exhibenda pastoribus a laicis, compilatus anno Domini M.CCC.XXVII a magistro Joanne de Annosis, doctore theologo regente et consocio Joannis de Poliaco. Incipit: Obedite praepositis vestris et subjacete eis, ipsi enim vigilant rationem reddituri pro animabus vestris. Ista verba scripta sunt in Epistola ad Hebraeos, cap. 13, ubi praecipitur subditi ad praelatum obedientia, etc.45 [MS 2, where there is inscribed: "Treatise concerning the obedience to be shown to their pastors by the laity, compiled in the year of our Lord 1327 by Master Jean d'Anneux, regent doctor and theologian and associate ofjean de Pouilly." Its incipit is: "Obedite praepositis vestris. . . ."] This manuscript has since disappeared and with it what was thought to be the only copy of the treatise De obedientia. The missing treatise, however, survives in another copy in a Lincoln Cathedral manuscript, MS 114, fols. 103—110v, the incipit of which is precisely the same as that of Oudin's manuscript; its Explicit declares it to have been written in 1326 (not 1327) by "Johanne de Annosis doctore theologie tunc regente Parisius" (fol. 110V). Although obedience is mentioned in the incipit and is the subject of its first division, the treatise actually concerns confession. Its subject and organization help to resolve another puzzle about Jean's writings. French scholars early in this century had thought that there was another vanished work by Jean, a De confessionibus that he mentions in one of his surviving works: fol. 202' as "compilatus Avinome magistroJohanne de Annosis sacre theologie doctore," on 7 December 1328 42 Histoire litteraire de la France, XXXV, 456. 43 On that date Pope John XXII conferred on another curate the church of St. Amand, left vacant by the decease in curia ofjean d'Anneux, professor of theology and chaplain of Cardinal Annibaldus; see Histoire litteraire de la France, XXXV, 456, citing A. Fayen, Lettres de Jean XXII, Analecta Vaticano-Belgica, III (Rome Institut Historique Beige, 1909), no. 2595. 44 Histoire litteraire de la France, XXXV, 461. 45 Oudin, Commentarius de scriptoribus ecclesiae, III, 802.

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. . . tractatu meo de confessionibus in quo sunt quattuor articuli de ista materia magni et diffusi. Primus est de confitentis obediencia. Secundus est de confessionis efficacia. Tercius est de confessore ordinario. Quartus est de confessore adventicio.46 [. . . in my treatise concerning confessions in which there are four lengthy and protracted articles on that matter. The first concerns obedience to confessors. The second concerns the efficacy of confessions. The third concerns the ordinary confessor. The fourth concerns the adventitious confessor. ] This four-part organization is precisely that of the work in the Lincoln Cathedral manuscript, and enables us therefore to identify it as both Oudin's lost treatise supposedly on obedience and the lost De confessionibus. Only two other works by Jean survive. One is an open letter in French to Guillaume I, count of Hainault, entitled in the manuscript "Tractatus de regimine principum." 47 The other is the antifraternal treatise already mentioned, the "Filios enutrivi" from which Jacobus drew in Omne bonum. That Jean d'Anneux, at a moment of crisis between the papacy and the Franciscans, turned his pen against the friars should not be surprising. He was, like William of St. Amour before him and like his friend Jean de Pouilly, a member not only of the secular clergy, but also of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris. He had witnessed the struggle of the bishops and university against the friars in the 1280s. He was in favor at a papal court immersed in a struggle for control of the Franciscan order. Predictably, when Jean d'Anneux began to write antifraternal tracts, he drew on an idiom, Biblical and eschatological, made famous by his more illustrious predecessor in theology at Paris, William of St. Amour. Both "Filios enutrivi" and the De confessionibus speak in that idiom. Because they are unpublished and virtually unnoticed in discussions of antifraternal literature of the fourteenth century, it may prove helpful to review their arguments. The De confessionibus opens with the text, "Obedite praepositis vestris et subiacete eis" (Heb. 13:17). It is divided into four parts, according to Jean's own outline: on the parishioner's obligation of obedience to his proper prelate and to the precepts of the church about confession (fol. 104r); on the efficacy of confession (fol. 106r); on the ordinary confessor, that is, the parish priest and above him the bishop, who is prop46

In the treatise beginning "Filios enutrivi," in Bodl MS 52, fol 189r'v. Paris, Bibhotheque de l'Arsenal, MS 2059, fols. 211-23-; description in Martin, "Jean d'Anneux," pp 228ff. 47

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erly chosen and ordained for the office by God and the church (fol. 107v); and finally, on the "adventitious" (adventicius) confessor, in other words, the friars (fol. 108r). The contrast between the confessors ordinarius and adventicius implies that the friars had only illegitimately and lately come into the church, whose sacerdotal hierarchy should properly exclude them. Jean says a confessor is adventitious, as accident (in contrast to substance) is of an adventitious nature. Accident is posterior to and cannot exist without substance.48 Likewise these adventitious churchmen have no existence without ecclesiastical functions such as preaching or confession. Consequently they try to involve themselves in such things; but they are to the church as accident to substance. The church had endured peacefully for more than a thousand years until they brought tribulation to the prelates. For Jean, then, the term "adventitious" refers to a historical as well as a metaphysical inferiority in the friars. The vocabulary and the ecclesiology behind it are William of St. Amour's, and they will be taken up again by Richard FitzRalph a generation or more later. Jean also reveals his strong affinity with William of St. Amour when, near the end of the first section (fols. 105v-106r), he sets forth twelve prophecies from the New Testament that warn against the friars—false prophets, hypocrites, falsosfiatres. All are familiar from the Depericulis and the Collectiones. Like Bishop Grandisson in his letter to all his flock in Devon and Cornwall, Jean exhorts prelates, both the greater and the less, to call these prophecies to the attention of their subjects, lest they be unwittingly deceived. The first is the prophecy of the three persecutions of the church from Apocalypse 6, where the pale horse forewarns of the coming of falsos fratres. The third prophecy tells of the coming oipseudoapostoli, who are workers of evil, transfiguring themselves into apostles of Christ (2 Cor. 11:13). The fourth is the title verse of the De periculis novissimorum temporum; Hoc autem scito quod in diebus novissimis instabunt tempora periculosa. . . . erunt homines speciem sanctitatis habentes, virtutem eius abnegantes. Hos devita. Ex hiis enim sunt qui penetrant domos et captivas ducunt mulierculas peccatis oneratas. (2 Tim. 3:1-6) [But know this, that in the last days dangerous times will come. . . . There will be men having a semblance of piety but denying its power. Avoid these. For of such are those who penetrate into houses and captivate silly women who are laden with sin.] 48

"Accidens aduemt rei post suum esse completum essentiale," fol. 108v 86

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These hypocrites who will come at the end of time will cause dissen­ sion and scandal, serving not God but their belly, deceiving the simple by smooth words and flattery (sixth prophecy, Rom. 16:17-18). They will be false prophets, ravenous wolves coming in sheep's clothing (eighth, Matt. 7:15). They will be lying teachers bringing in destruc­ tive sects (tenth, 2 Pet. 2:1), deceitful scoffers who come in the Last Days (eleventh, 2 Pet. 3:3). They will heap up for themselves teachers according to their own lusts and turn away from truth (fifth, 2 Tim. 4:3-4). They are the ρseudoprophetae whose multitudes both Christ and St. John prophesied for the End (ninth and twelfth, Matt. 24:11 and 1 John 4:1). Like William of St. Amour, Jean says that all these proph­ ecies are fulfilled in the adventitious and hypocritical confessors of his own time, and like his predecessor he uses the Glossa ordinaria to but­ tress his interpretations. But in Jean, these prophecies are incidental to his main subject, while in William they are everything; Jean's eschatology, represented in so small a proportion of his tract, seems casual, but William's is pervasive and controlling. The De confessionibus is prima­ rily about confession, not about the end of the world. It is, however, Jean's second antifraternal treatise, the "Filios enutnvi," that is quoted at length in Omne bonum. It was written only a few years after the De confessionibus. Along with internal evidence, the date given at the end of the treatise, 7 December 1328 (fol. 202r [202r]), places its composition just after Michael of Cesena, William of Ockham, and other prominent Franciscans had fled to join the rebellious emperor, Louis of Bavaria, in open schism and after they had already declared Pope John XXII a heretic and appointed a "true" pope of their own. Jean d'Anneux seized upon these disturbing events to launch an attack against Franciscan privileges in general, without discriminating between the orthodox and heterodox. The treatise takes as its text the prophetic opening of Isaiah (1:2): 'Fi­ r r lios enutrivi et exaltavi, ipsi autem spreverunt me" (fol. 180 [179 ]). Literally, Isaiah here speaks in the person of the Lord, who laments for ungrateful sinners; but allegorically, says Jean, he speaks prophetans in the person of the pope who sorrows for certain friars who have rejected the Apostolic Seat. Like William of St. Amour, who had opened the De periculis with a text from Isaiah (33:7), Jean draws an implicit analogy between himself and the prophet Isaiah and between the friars and the sinful Israelites. The author in the role of prophet is a familiar figure in antifraternal literature, though Jean's attempt to play an outcast Isaiah sits uneasily with his comfortable position at the papal curia. The prophetic verse from Isaiah provides a broad principle of organ­ ization for Jean's treatise. The first half comments on the first half of 87

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the verse, "Filios enutrivi et exaltavi," and concerns the exaltation and favors bestowed upon the friars by the papacy (fols. 180r [179r]-191r). The second half of the treatise amplifies "ipsi autem spreverunt me" and focuses on the rebellion and ingratitude of the friars toward the pope (fols. 191v-202r[202r]). Jean begins by outlining what he asserts were four special favors that the papacy did for the Franciscans. First, the popes established the Franciscan Rule, "rudem et ineptem" though it was. It was written by a simple and illiterate man—one admittedly holy and good, but whose lack of theological knowledge appears evident in his claim that the Rule is modeled on the life of Christ and the apostles (fol. 180v [179v]). For the next fourteen pages, Jean attempts to undermine the foundation of the Franciscan way of life, by showing that the Rule is expressly contrary to sacred Scripture and to recent papal constitutions written in accordance with the same Scriptures (fol. 180v [179v]). Specifically, the Rule contradicts the life of Christ and the apostles by requiring friars to have no bona temporalia in the world; by forbidding friars to appropriate things for themselves, either as their own or in common; by requiring friars to beg for their necessities; and by forbidding friars to have money, either directly or indirectly. 49 Jean cites copiously from Biblical texts that were by now traditional in the antifraternal arguments against Christ's mendicancy. In addition, however, he introduces into the discussion of begging a series of eschatological texts familiar from William of St. Amour. Men who say that Christ begged lie, and they do so to commend their own spurious way of living, so that they might deceive others and draw them to themselves. About such deceivers, says Jean (fol. 183v), the Apostle prophesied in 1 Tim. 4:1-2: "Sic in novissimis temporibus discedent quidam a fide attendentes spiritibus erroris et doctrinis demoniorum in ypocrisi loquencium mendacium" (Thus in the Last Times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies hypocritically). Like William of St. Amour, Jean falls back on the Glossa ordinaria for authority that Paul spoke these words prophetically to warn the church of future dangers from hypocrites. These hypocrites, we now can see, are the friars. Other prophetic texts are called into service, for example 2 Tim. 4:3 with its warnings against the time when men will heap up for themselves masters (magistros) according to their own desires and avert their hearing from the truth. Likewise 2 Pet. 2:1 prophesies of lying masters who will introduce sects of perdition; and 1 John 4:1 warns that false prophets have already 49

The arguments on these four points begin on fols. 180" (179v), 181', 182', and 184', respectively.

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gone forth into the world. 50 William of St. Amour thought the first two texts were especially precise prophecies of men who would try to become magistri, as the friars had done at the University of Paris in the 1250s. That ancient fight over the magisterial chairs had ended long before Jean's time, and he never mentions the academic aspirations of the friars in this treatise. After his long Scriptural arguments against the Franciscan Rule and against the so-called apostolica vita of evangelical poverty that the friars claimed they were following, Jean turns more briefly to the other excessive favors the papacy had done for them. The second favor was conglomerate—the various declarations and expositions of the Rule by various popes, but chiefly the constitution Exiit qui seminat, promulgated by Nicholas III in 1279 and aimed at establishing once and for all the Bonaventuran conception of Franciscan poverty, that is, that use but not dominion of worldly goods was available to Fratres minores.51 The third special favor the papacy did for the friars was to retain the dominion over Franciscan property, a fiction finally overturned by John XXII in Ad conditorem (1322).52 The fourth was to provide them with pastoral privileges, harming the curates of the church in tithes and offerings, in burials, and in confessions (fols. 188r—189r). As the first half of the treatise draws to a close, Jean's heretofore organized procedure degenerates into a diatribe against the friars (they are like the cocadrillo, which eats its mother; they are like dust, which, "exalted" by the wind, blinds and irritates). Their wickedness was prophesied by Christ, who also warned of a future pseudopope who would be of their number when he said: "Sic surgent pseudoprophetae et pseudochristi" (Matt. 24:24). For all these reasons, the church should punish them with an unspecified punishment, so great that it should remain eternally in human memory (fols. 189-1911"). The second half of the treatise is an amplification of the second half of the theme verse from Isa. 1:2: "Ipsi autem spreverunt me." It is the other side of the argument coined in the first half: the papacy exalted the friars; but now the friars have spurned it. There seem to be three major divisions, though the organization is not as clear as that of the first part, perhaps owing to Jean's polemic intensity. The first division (fols. 191v-193v) is a mini-sermon on presumption, taking as its text Ecclus. 37:3: " O presumpcio nequissima, unde creata es?" (O vile presumption, whence are you begotten?). Jean's explanation proceeds half 50

FoI 183v; I ate Jean's texts, which differ slightly from the modern Vulgate's Bodl MS 52, fols 186v-187v Exiit is printed in Corpus iuris canontci, sext. V, 12, 3. 52 Bodl. MS 52, fols. 187v-188'; Ad conditorem is printed in Bullarium fianciscanum, V, 233b-246b. 51

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a verse at a time. First he explains the presumpcio nequissima of the friars in (for example) maintaining the validity of their Rule without compromise, in claiming to have conformed themselves to the life of Christ and the apostles, in preaching publicly against the pope, but worst of all in approving their own pseudopope and creating a terrible schism in the church (fols. 191v-192r). To try to counterpose two heads on one body is monstrous, as much in the church as in nature, and violates law, Scripture, and the precepts of reason (fol. 192r_v). Indeed, this schism fulfills the prophecy of the third persecution to come upon the church. The religious hypocrites, falsi fratres, signified by the pale horse of Apoc. 6:3-8, have arrived: "Modo videtur tercia fere impleta quando dicti fratres per suas impetraciones expulerunt prelatos minores et maiores" (Now the third seems nearly fulfilled since the aforementioned friars through their petitions have driven out the prelates, both the greater and the less, fol. 192v). Turning to the second half of the thema—"unde creata es?" (Ecclus. 37:3)—-Jean asks what reason there might be for the friars' presumption. There could be none if they were truly poor and humble as their Rule requires. Presumption springs not from poverty and humility but from pride and power, and in the case of the friars is a sign of hypocrisy. Of such hypocrites the Apostle Paul warned in the famous eschatological text from 2 Timothy 3, which Jean quotes in a slightly abbreviated form: Hoc autem scitote quod in novissimis diebus instabunt tempora periculosa. Erunt homines seipsos amantes cupidi elati superbi blasphemi ingrati parentibus non obedientes. Et sequitur, speciem sanctitatis habentes virtutem autem eius abnegantes. Hos devita. Ex hiis enim sunt qui penetrant domos et captivas ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis. (fol. 193r) [But know this, that in the Last Days dangerous times will come. Men will be lovers of self, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, ungrateful, disobedient to parents . . . having a semblance of piety but disowning its power. Avoid these. For of such are they who penetrate into houses and captivate silly women who are laden with sin.] The mini-sermon on presumption ended, Jean now arrives at the second division of this half of the treatise, which explains how "ipsi spreverunt me" (Isa. 1:2). First he discusses Biblical examples of men who spurned God or Christ, and the punishments inflicted on them. Who disowns the pope disowns Christ and the whole church and so is 90

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subject to similar punishments. Furthermore, those who "spreverunt me" are moved by the devil, by "dyabolice fraudis rancor" (rancor of the devil's deceit, fol. 193v). For support Jean cites another of William's prophetic texts, and identifies those who rebel against the pope with the pseudoapostoli of 2 Cor. 11:13-14: "Pseudo-apostoli sunt, operarii subdoli transfigurantes se in apostolus Christi. Nee mirum, ipse enim sathanas transfigurat se in angelum lucis" (They are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light, fol. 193v). That the devil speaks through pseudoapostoli and falsi fratres leads to a lengthy discussion of hypocrisy. Through hypocrites who invade the church under cover of pretended sanctity, the devil tries to break down the ecclesiastical foundation. Through hypocrites he can deceive men more easily, as many church fathers such as Gregory and Bernard have warned. From a careful perusal of Scripture, however, one can recognize these hypocrites who have already begun to persecute the church (fol. 194r). Christ foresaw their coming and so loved the church that he left numerous warnings: of false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing (Matt. 7:15); of men who are whited sepulchres (Matt. 23:25-28); of multitudes of pseudoprophetae who will lead many astray (Matt. 24:11— 12). All these prophecies have been fulfilled, says Jean, by modern hypocrites who have appeared in the form of the friars. They have a greater exterior show of sanctity than other men in dress and speech, but their hidden interior malice has finally become manifest in their rebellion against the pope. They are like the Pharisees who love the trappings of sanctity—widened phylacteries, the first seats in synagogues, the title of rabbi (Matt. 23:5-7). The Pharisees sprang up at the end of the Old Law to persecute Christ more than others, despite their apparent sanctity; so men similar to them have arisen against the New Law who are more contrary to the church of Christ than others. Jean has a strong sense of historical decline and senescence in the church. Before the friars became so exalted, the faith flourished, charity prevailed, local churches prospered, and prelates were honored by their subjects. But with the coming of the friars, the age of decline began (fols. 195v-196r). And so comes the last division of the treatise and its polemical peroration: the church must destroy these hypocrites, no matter how difficult the task. Because they have the support of princes and are spread so widely through the world, they cannot be punished corporally; because they theoretically have no possessions, they cannot be deprived of them; because they are religious, they have no benefices to be seized. Therefore the pope can punish them only in the way that God punishes—by withdrawing his grace. Here finally is the practical gist of 91

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Jean's argument. The pope should withdraw his grace by withdrawing the friars' pastoral privileges and their exemption from episcopal jurisdiction (fols. 195v-199v). To all the papal favors showered on them, the friars have responded with ingratitude, rebellion, and disobedience. Therefore they are like the "Generacio prava et perversa" (crooked and perverse generation) described in Deut. 32:5 (fols. 199v-200v [200 v 201v]). The Old Testament figures Jean in turn identifies with the "Generacio mala et adulteria" (evil and adulterous generation) of Matt. 12:39, who are the Pharisees. Generacio prava or generacio mala, rebellious Israelites under the Old Law or hypocrites of the New, both figures anticipate the friars of modern times (fols. 200v [200-201 v ]-202 r [202']). In his exegetical method, and in many of the texts he applies to the friars, Jean d'Anneux writes in the shadow of William of St. Amour. All three of the major antifraternal figures from the Depericulis—Pharisees, false apostles, and antichristi—are here. So too is the narrative stance of prophet, mimicking the Biblical role of Isaiah. But as I have already suggested, there is a fundamental difference in the eschatology of the two writers. In William of St. Amour the sense that the friars mark the End is the controlling and motive force of his work, whereas in Jean d'Anneux, eschatological passages are introduced casually and episodically. The focus of the De confessionibus is confession, of "Filios enutrivi" the rebellion of the friars against the pope, whereas William's attention is riveted on thepericulis novissimorum temporum. Biblical texts that had a specific prophetic application for William of St. Amour are used by Jean in the most general way. To William, for example, all the Pauline verses about magistri anticipate the desire of the friars to attain magisterial chairs at the University of Paris. By 1328 this academic dispute had long since lost its currency, but the verses remain. For William they were revelations, for Jean d'Anneux conventions. Some of the literary differences between William and Jean, despite basic similarities in approach, can be attributed to the more comfortable curial context in which Jean framed his argument. He was wellplaced to urge the pope to suspend fraternal privileges, as he was physically at Avignon and held a position of respect as chaplain to Cardinal Annibaldus. In his access to the pope, this Parisian master of theology differed greatly from his thirteenth-century predecessor, who was stripped of his office and banished by the papal see. In the 1250s Alexander IV had stood firmly on the side of the friars in their struggle against the Parisian masters, but John XXII was endeavoring throughout the 1320s to temper the Franciscan doctrine of poverty, and finally to crush the friars who rebelled against him. Still, after the apocalyptic 92

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fervor of the Depericulis, it is notable that events so schismatic and outrageous as the defection of the friars and their approbation of a pseudopope should produce no literature more eschatological than Jean's treatise. The differences between the Depericulis and "Filios enutrivi" are a measure of larger differences—in social and ecclesiastical environment, and perhaps in the positions of influence held by the friars' opponents—in the antifraternalism of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries.

THOMAS DE WILTON

The last numbered section (xxxvii) of Jacobus's "Fratres" article contains a long anonymous excerpt condemning the friars as itinerant beggars, gyrovagi, errant religious who circulate through the provinces, frequenting the courts of kings and injecting themselves into secular affairs. They are fiendish hypocrites who are "nusquam missos, nusquam fixos, nusquam stantes, nusquam sedentes" (nowhere sent, nowhere stable, nowhere abiding, nowhere remaining), who magnify their fimbrias and phylacteries like the Pharisees of old to seem more holy. The itinerant begging of these men is dangerous, because they visit women, particularly nuns and noblewomen, by whom they are sumptuously received. The friars say it is meritorious to visit such women to instruct them and console them, and if the instructor should be tempted, his successful resistance will be more gloriously rewarded. But the examples of St. Paul and the Blessed Mary both suggest that flight is the only way to combat such temptation. Mary departed from the company of the apostles, and Paul separated himself from Tecla, the chaste virgin he had baptized but by whom he was tempted in Antioch. If the apostle himself could not be above such temptation, by how much less can these itinerant mendicants resist? The only path is flight: "Fugite fornicacionem" (1 Cor. 6:18). Able-bodied begging therefore should be avoided because it only leads to temptation and worldliness. This condemnation of begging was one of Jacobus's favorite passages. It occurs no less than four times in Omne bonum, once here in the "Fratres" article and again in the articles on "Femina," "Fuga," and "Adulacio." 53 Jacobus nowhere identifies the author, but by a lucky coincidence, the treatise from which the passage is taken is preserved by John Maynesford in the same Oxford manuscript into which he copied the "Filios enutrivi" of Jean d'Anneux, namely Bodl. MS 52 (S. C. 53

BL MSS Royal 6 E. VI, fol. 50'- and Royal 6 E. VII, fols. 115", 169r.

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1969).54 On fols 141v (140v)-145v, the manuscript contains a questio on able-bodied begging, and Maynesford provides a colophon identifying the author: Explicit questio notabilis bene disputata pro et contra de validis mendicantibus numquid sint in statu perfectionis per Magistrum Thomam de Wylton nuper cancellarium sancti Pauli et magistrum in theologia. [Here ends the notable questio, well argued both pro and contra, concerning able-bodied beggars, whether they are in a state of perfection, by Master Thomas de Wylton, once chancellor of St. Paul's and master of theology.] Thomas de Wilton was an Englishman who had a career of some prominence in both England and France. In the first quarter of the fourteenth century the Faculty of Theology at Paris attracted many English students—including Richard FitzRalph and his mentor, Bishop Grandisson. Thomas de Wilton studied there in the time ofjean d'Anneux and Jean de Pouilly; like them, he later joined the Faculty of Theology, and like Jean d'Anneux, became chaplain to a cardinal. He began his career, however, in Oxford. From 1288 until at least 1301, Thomas de Wilton was a fellow at Merton College, where he held the offices of bursar and later dean and was nominated for wardenship of the college.55 Merton presented him with the rectorship of Lapworth in the Worcester diocese in 1303, a benefice he held mostly in absentia until at least 1317. After only six months as rector of Lapworth, he was granted license by his bishop to return to his studies for four years, and in 1309 this permission was extended for another five years.56 By 1311 he was at Paris, as master of arts and bachelor of theology, where he was a fellow student of Master Hugh de Scales, who resigned a canonry and prebend of Wells subsequently bestowed on Thomas de Wilton, his socius commensalis.57 At Paris he incepted as a doctor of theology before 1314.58 We cannot be certain that his stay in Paris was continuous, 54

On Maynesford, see BRUO, 1250; see above, p. 82. " BRUO, 2054, on which the following account depends heavily. 56 Ibid. 57 W. H. Bliss, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Papal Letters, vol. II, A.D. 1305-1342 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895), 82 (hereafter C.Pap.L.). 58 Records of his disputations at that time survive in two manuscripts: Worcester Cathedral MS F. 69, fols. 164--173'; Rome, Vat. Lat 1.086, fols. 164--171" See Palemon Glorieux, "Duns Scot et les Notabilia Cancellani," AFH, 24 (1931), 3-14. For the letter recording the first reference to Wilton as Doctor in theologia, see CUP, II, no. 711, p. 171 (10 May 1314). 94

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but documents show that he was there on the Faculty of Theology in 1316, in 1320 (when he had been there for some time and was granted permission to stay for another year and also when he was named by Pierre Auriol, O.F.M., as one ofhis opponents in disputation), in 1321, and in 1322.59 While in Paris, he was also chaplain to James Caetani, cardinal of San Giorgio, who intervened on his behalf several times. 60 In 1316 he was appointed to a canonry of St. Paul's, London, which he still held as late as 1322.61 By August of 1320 he had been named chancellor of St. Paul's, London, though apparently he continued to study and lecture in Paris.62 He was still chancellor in 1324, but by 1327 the office had changed hands, though whether Thomas had died by then is not known. 63 Except in the one work on which Omne bonum draws, Thomas de Wilton is not known to have been an active polemicist against the friars, either in England or at Paris. Ofhis works that survive, all are theological or metaphysical but the questio on able-bodied begging. 64 This questio, however, survives in five English manuscripts, and lengthy excerpts from it can be identified in two others, attesting to a certain popularity in English antifraternal circles.65 In it Thomas argues that able-bodied beggars are not in a state of perfection, as can be proved in three ways, which provide the major divisions of the tract: by Old Testament authorities; by New Testament authorities, particularly the apostle Paul; and by rationes. 59

C.Pap.L., II, 135 (1316), 206 (1320), 213 (1321), 225 (1322). For Pierre Auriol's reference see Leon Baudry, Guillaume d'Occam, vol I, L'homme et les oeuvres (Paris: J. Vnn, 1949), pp. 65-66n. 60 C.Pap.L., II, 206, 213, 225 61 C.Pap L., II, 135 (1316), 225 (1322). 62 C Pap.L., II, 206 (1320). 63 BRUO, 2054; also Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward II (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1894-1904), IV {1321-1324), 414, and R. C. Fowler, ed., Registrum Radulphi Baldock . . et Stephani Gravesend, Episcoporum Londoniensum, A.D. MCCCIV-MCCCXXXVIII (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1911), p. 280 64 For Wilton's writings, see Gloneux, Repertoire des maitres, I, 460-62; corrected in A. Maier, "Das Quodlibet des Thomas de Wylton," RTAM, 14 (1947), 106-10. The incipit of the antifraternal questio on which Omne bonum draws is: "Utrum vin ad corporales labores validi et potentes, nolentes tamen corporaliter laborare pro vite sue necessarns acquirendis, sed omnia pocius que sunt eis ad victum et vestitum necessana mendicare, sint in statu perfectioms." 65 Bodl. MS Digby 75, fols. 122-125 (this is the only manuscript identified by GIorieux in his Repertoire, p. 461); Lambeth Palace MS 357, fols. 63v-66v; Bodl. MS 52, fols. 141»(140")-145v; Bodl. MS 158, fols. 147'-149r; Bodl MS Rawhnson A. 273, fols. 99*102r. AU citations of the treatise below will be from the Rawlmson MS, the earliest copy known.

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Chief among Thomas' Old Testament texts is Solomon's rejection of mendicancy in Prov. 30:8: "Mendicitatem et divicias ne dederis mihi; tribue tantum victui meo necessaria" (Give me neither beggary nor riches; provide me only with the food I need). Thomas says his opponents have argued that since Solomon was a rich king, he is not speaking here in propria persona but rather instructing the foolish and the imperfect to whom the excesses of wealth and poverty both are ruin. But Thomas counters with a New Testament text specifically about the life of perfection: "habentes alimenta, et quibus tegamur, hiis contend simus" (1 Tim. 6:8: having food and sufficient clothing, with these let us be content). Therefore, he concludes, Solomon's proverb pertains to the life of perfection. He adduces other Old Testament condemnations of begging, but turns at greater length to the authority of St. Paul.66 Although Paul labored in preaching the Gospel, his own hands supplied his needs, and in so laboring he exemplified the teaching of Christ, that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:34—35). Paul avoided begging lest he burden the people to whom he preached (2 Thess. 3:8). Likewise he urged the Thessalonians to labor with their hands to free themselves of dependence on others (1 Thess. 4:11-12). And finally, he laid down this mandate: "Si quis non vult operan, non manducet" (2 Thess. 3:10: If any man will not work, let him not eat). Thomas' opponents, however, argue that in this last, Paul meant by operan to refer to the spiritual labor of preaching and praying. Christ, after all, said that man does not live by bread alone. But Thomas counters with the Glossa ordinaria, which specifically says that Paul wished the servants of God, and hence those who aspire to perfection, to support themselves with bodily labor. His opponents say that Christ said, "Nolite solliciti esse quid manducetis, neque corpori quid induamini. . . . Considerate corvos, quia non seminant, neque metunt, quibus non est cellarium neque horreum et Deus pascit illos" (Luke 12:2224: Do not be anxious for what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on. . . . Consider the ravens; they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storeroom nor barn; yet God feeds them), and they take this verse to be an endorsement of mendicancy. Thomas again responds with the Glossa, which distinguishes between bodily labor and solicitude. Christ's verse condemns only solicitude, which is a mental attitude, not a means of provision. Thomas also cites Augustine's ar66 Eccles 7:12; Ecclus. 40:29, 27:1; Pss. 36:25, 108:10. For the Old Testament citations m Wilton, see Bodl MS Rawlinson A. 273, fol. 99v; for the New Testament citations that follow, fols. 99--100'.

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gument, in De opere monachorum, against monks who wish to be like the ravens. Augustine says such men, in refusing to labor, fail to adopt also Christ's precept never to collect anything in storerooms. In response to the friars' claim that those who preach the Gospel should have their living from the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:14), Thomas argues that Paul's teaching to the Corinthians applies only to those "qui potestatem habent a domino" (who have power from the Lord), that is, the power of the keys that the apostles and the seventy-two disciples passed on to their successors, the bishops and the rectors of parish churches. These have the power of claiming their necessities from their flock, but not the right to beg. If "unnumbered" (innumeris) preachers and beggars have to be provided for, the church would be unduly burdened. Finally, Thomas turns to the third kind of argument against begging: per rationes.67 The poverty of beggars is vain and useless because it causes them to fawn and flatter. The Glossa ordinaria makes just such a point in commenting on Paul's insistence on working for a living (2 Thess. 3:9), when it says that the idler who frequently eats at a stranger's table has to flatter those who feed him. Likewise Cassian warns in the De institutis monachorum that a monk who is not content to remain working with his hands in cloister or cell can never approach men of the world with integrity, because he must be dishonest when he requires food, exchanging work for flattery, seeking out news, rumors, and gossip by which he might more easily penetrate the houses (domus penetrare) of diverse people. Begging, then, which is the occasion of all these acts, does not pertain to the state of perfection. In a commentary on Luke 2, Bernard of Clairvaux condemns monks who go gadding about in the world, injecting themselves into secular affairs, ingratiating themselves with the wealthy, especially women, and seeking the favor of princes and kings. About such men Augustine has also written in De operibus monachorum, warning that Satan has dispersed many hypocrites in the guise of religious who now go about all the provinces, without foundation, not yielding to anyone, "nowhere stable, nowhere sent."68 Some claim to be martyrs. Others falsely claim to live in this or that religion. Still others enlarge their hems and their phylacteries like the Pharisees (Matt. 23:5). Itinerant begging leads to several kinds of evils, not least among them sexual temptation. Fooled by the seeming piety of these beggars, noblewomen and nuns welcome their visitations and engage them in 67

Bodl. MS Rawlmson A. 273, fols. 100--102'. De operibus [i.e , opere] monachorum is the form of the title found in Bodl. MS Rawlmson A 273, fol. 100v. 68

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secret conversations. Mendicancy also produces controversy and envy, especially among religious orders. The fiatres of one order rejoice if another order of beggars is destroyed, because of the competition in begging. The greater the multitude, the less the portion of each one, as when many eat broth from the same dish. Because of their own poverty, mendicants are forced to be obsequious to the rich (acceptores personarum), while about the poor they care little or nothing. In their begging, these able-bodied mendicants do great harm to legitimate beggars, the blind, the lame, and the sick who have no other means of subsistence. They are not content with necessities but insist on living more sumptuously than other beggars and even better than some who give them alms. Spiritually, they often harm a benefactor, if he gives only because of their importunity, because of his fear of their reprisals, or because they have subtly encouraged his shame. Only alms cheerfully and charitably given benefit the soul of the giver: "Hilarem datorem diligit deus" (2 Cor. 9:7: God loves a cheerful giver). Mendicancy finally renders the religious ineffectual and even harmful as confessors. Their poverty leads them to provide easy penance to the rich, from whom they hope for gain. It makes them claim powers of absolution they do not have in cases reserved to higher prelates. For all these reasons, mendicant confessors destroy the sense of shame, which is, as Augustine says, the greatest part of penitence. In three of the five manuscripts in which it survives, Thomas de Wilton's questio on mendicancy appears with one or both of William of St. Amour's questiones on the subject.69 Such a conjunction is a measure of the compilers' perceptions that William's and Thomas' works were related. It is not only their conclusions (able-bodied beggars are illegitimate) that are akin, but also the methods of argument. Biblical exegesis is the foundation of Thomas' three-part argument. Like Jean d'Anneux, Thomas relies surprisingly often on the Glossa ordinaria, which by the early fourteenth century had fallen from the preeminent position it held in the theological schools of William's time. Other sources are familiar from William of St. Amour, especially the De opere monachorum with its condemnations ofgyrovagi. Finally, some of the most enduring of William's arguments reappear here, though without attri69 Lambeth Palace MS 357 (Wilton, fols. 63»-66"; William of St. Amour, De validts mendicantihus, fols. 61--63'); Bodl. MS 52 (Wilton, fols. 141" [140v]-145v; William of St. Amour, De quantitate eleemosyne, fols. 115-118" and De validis mendicantihus, fols. 118 v 122'); Bodl. MS 158 (Wilton, fols. 147'-149'; William of St. Amour, De quantitate eleemosyne, fols. 149r-151r and De validis mendicantihus, fols. 151 r -152\ The Summary Catalogue wrongly identifies this entire section, fols. 147r-152", as Thomas de Wilton's questio).

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bution: that the friars are non missi; that like the Pharisees they widen their phylacteries; that as preachers they are "unnumbered" and hence detrimental to the ecclesiastical economy; that the only true inheritors of apostolic authority were the successors of the Twelve and the Seventy-two. There is some evidence that Thomas was familiar with the Collectiones: his discussion of the dangers of the friars' association with women, including the references to Mary and Tecla, is paralleled in William's work; his quotation from Augustine concerning wandering religious hypocrites, "nusquam fixos, nusquam missos" also appears in the Collectiones.70 Eschatological thinking is utterly absent from Thomas' treatise, but the same is true of William's two questiones on begging. As the twelfth chapter of the Depericulis demonstrates, however, the argument that the friars beg without warrant of the Gospel, the church, or the civil law is a step toward the perception that they are the forerunners of the Antichrist, wrapped in the cloak of seeming sanctity and pretended poverty, the better to penetrate houses and seduce the Christian people. Around the controversies of the 1320s, then, Thomas de Wilton, like his contemporary Jean d'Anneux, was still writing in the tradition of William of St. Amour, employing Biblical exegesis and the guidance of the Glossa ordinaria to illuminate the friars' role in history, though without the eschatological urgency that fired William's imagination. Whether by influence direct or indirect, their texts are his texts, their ecclesiology likewise his. Behind the conjunction of these three writers in Omne bonum—all three secular theologians, all three at the University of Paris—must liejacobus' perception of their fundamental kinship in a tradition of language.

THE MONASTIC TRADITION

Omne bonum''s "Fratres" article is one indication of what texts were in circulation in mid-fourteenth-century England and shows in one instance how William of St. Amour's ideas were preserved and disseminated. There is, however, another fertile source of such information in monastic antifraternal writings that grew out of the ancient hostility between monks and mendicants in England. Modern historians of the mendicant controversies have rightly focused more on the secular clergy, but the monks did their share to preserve the tradition of William of St. Amour. Their libraries housed his works, their chronicles reflected his eschatology, their polemics used his language. And like 70

Opera omnia, pp. 269-70, 290. 99

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the secular clergy's, their antifraternalism grew out of historical conflict. Although the pyrotechnics were rarely as spectacular as those at the University of Paris in the 1250s, there were sporadic local skirmishes between the friars and the monastic orders throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As the seculars saw the friars as usurpers of their pastoral rights and duties, so the monks saw them as intruders upon monastic ideals—and territories. They looked like monks, with their flowing habits and tonsures; they lived by a Rule that demanded chastity, poverty, and obedience; they claimed to follow the apostolica vita; they housed themselves in convents. They were not, however, cloistered like the monks; their mission was in the world, in preaching, confessing, and pastoral duties that were specifically not part of the monastic calling, though individual monks might be advanced to perform them. The friars were of the world, the monks retired from it. The friars by consequence gravitated to the cities, the monks to the countryside. Outside their walls, the friars begged for their necessities; inside theirs, the monks, in theory at least, worked with their hands on their own soil. William of St. Amour had accused the friars of not abiding by monastic ideals, since it was only as monks (regulares) that they could conceivably find a place in what he believed to be inferior orders of the church hierarchy. As Regular orders, he asserted, the friars were monks, though distorting and abusing the monastic vocation. Hence, one of his chief authorities and his favorite epithet for the friars were both monastic: the work, Augustine's De opere monachorum, the epithet, gyrovagi.71 The gyrovagi were the fourth class of monks described in the opening of St. Benedict's Rule, where they are castigated for unseemly wandering in the world. 72 The title of the second distinctio of William's Collectiones alludes to Benedict's gyrovagi, though the subject is the friars: "De Otiosis, et Curiosis, et Gyrovagis Qualiter Vivant contra Doctrinam Apostoli, et Qualiter Sint Ecclesiae Periculosi" (Concerning Idle and Meddlesome and Vagabond Men, How They Live Contrary to the Teaching of the Apostle, and How They Are Dangerous to the Church). 73 Even before the 1250s, and periodically to the end of the fourteenth century, there were squabbles and skirmishes between the monastic 71

See especially Collectiones in Opera omnia, p. 125, where William describes his debt to Augustine's treatise. 72 PL LXVI, 246 73 Opera omnia, p. 213. 100

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and the mendicant orders. 74 In England, the monks, usually Benedic­ tines, resisted the intrusions of the friars into Bristol in 1230, Scarbor­ ough in 1239, St. Alban's in 1247, Bury St. Edmunds and Reading in 1257, Dunstable in 1259, and Bury again in 1327.75 Hostility was aroused by the defection of a number of prominent monks—the abbots of Oseney and Walden, for example—to the friars in the thirteenth cen­ tury. 7 6 In 1311 at the important Council of Vienne, the friars com­ plained formally that the monks did not hold to their Rule, that most were illiterate and indiscreet in confessional matters, that they involved themselves too much in worldly matters. 7 7 However, for most of the century between the 1250s and the 1350s, the monastic and mendicant orders maintained an uneasy peace. As elsewhere in the church, this calm came to an end around the time FitzRalph began preaching against the friars in London. In 1357, there was such trouble between the friars and the monks of Norwich Cathedral that Adam Easton, one of the most promising Benedictine students and future cardinal, was prevented from returning to Oxford to incept as master of theology because he was needed in a preaching campaign to counter the mendi­ cants. A letter from the Benedictine prior of Norwich to Oxford at that time complains of such ora detractoria of the friars that the monks had excluded them from the cathedral church and had entirely taken over the burden of preaching themselves. Talented men like Adam Easton or his confrere Thomas Brinton were helping to silence these "Sadducees," who, if unchecked, would proudly enlarge their hems beyond measure, like the Pharisees of Matthew 23. 7 8 These were the years that witnessed the beginnings of the long strife between Archbishop Rich­ ard FitzRalph of Armagh and the friars, and there is evidence of sup­ port he received from the English monastic orders. The priory of Fm74 For relations between monks and mendicants in this period, see Knowles, The Re­ ligious Orders in England (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1955), I, 191-93 and II, 61-73; A. G. Little, Studies m English Franciscan History, Publications of the University of Manchester, Historical series, 29 (Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1917), pp. 93-99; and Morton Bloomfield, Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse (New Brunswick, N J : Rutgers University Press, 1961), pp. 74-97 75 For Bristol, see Knowles, Religious Orders, I , 192 η 6; for the rest see Wilhel R. Thomson, "The Image of the Mendicants in the Chronicles of Matthew Pans," AFH, 70 (1977), 20-28, and Little, Studies, pp. 93-99 76 Knowles, Religious Orders, I, 192 n. 4. 77 A record of the complaint survives in Bodl. MS 240, p. 818, col. 2 and is printed in W A. Pantin, ed., Documents Illustrating the Activities of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks, 12i5-1540, 3 vols , Camden Society, 3rd ser , 45, 47, 54 (Lon­ don: Camden Society, 1931-37), I, 173-74. 78 "Suas superbe dilatabunt fimbnas in inmensum," Pantin, Black Monks, III, 28-29.

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chale in county Durham, where Uthred de Boldon later became prior, sent monetary contributions in 1357-58 and 1360-61. 79 Thomas de la Mare, abbot of St. Albans, at a general chapter of which he was presi­ dent, solicited monastic financial support for FitzRalph and set a per­ sonal example by contributing more than all the others. 8 0 Henry Knighton says later in the century that FitzRalph had a subsidy from the clergy and that the abbot of St. Albans had been his "procurator." 8 1 Two other chronicles report the financial support of the English clergy, particularly the possessionati, but suggest that it was utterly in­ adequate to combat the money that was pouring in to support the friars' cause. 82 The admiration of the monks for FitzRalph was cer­ tainly reciprocated. In his De pauperie Salvatoris, as earlier in William of St. Amour's Collectiones, monastic poverty is held up as one of the highest grades of poverty in the life of perfection.83 In 1366-68, Uthred de Boldon, a Benedictine master of theology, was involved in controversy with the Franciscans, an episode discussed in more detail below. In 1385, 1392, and 1401, Henry Crump, an Irish Cistercian and master of theology at Oxford, a prominent opponent of Wyclif, was charged with antimendicant errors and heresies, particu­ larly relating to confession and reviving some of the condemned doc­ trines of Jean de Pouilly. 84 To the intermittent hostilities between the monks and the mendi­ cants, the English monastic chronicles bear ample witness. 85 Fitz79 The Priory ofFinchale, Surtees Society, 6 (London: J. B. Nichols, 1837), pp. xlvi, lvi; also in Pantin, Black Monks, III, 255 80 Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Henry T. Riley, Rolls Series 28, vol. II (London. Longmans, Green, 1867), 404-05. 81 Henry Knighton, Chronicon, ed. Joseph R. Lumby, Rolls Series 92 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1889-95), II, 93-94. 82 Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, ed. Henry T. Riley, Rolls Series 28 (Lon­ don: Longmans, Green, 1863-64), I, 285; John of Reading, Chronica Johannis de Reading et Anonymi Cantuariensis 1346-1367, ed James Tait, Publications of the University of Manchester, Historical series, 20 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1914), p. 131. 83 Book VI, cap. 16 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 109--110'; also in Richard Brock, "An Edition of Richard FitzRalph's 'De Pauperie Salvatoris,' Books V, VI, and VII," Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1954, pp 123ff. 84 BRUO, 524-25. Fasciculi Zizamorum, ed. W. W. Shirley, Rolls Series 5 (London: Longmans, Green, 1858), pp. 343-58. 85 See the chronicle of the Abbot of Peterborough cited in Little, Studies, p. 99 n.3; John of Reading, Chronica, pp. 109-10, 119, 128-29, 131, 147; Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, I, 38, 112-13, 285, 324, II, 13, 157-59, 250-51; John de Oxenedes, Chronica, ed. Henry Ellis, Rolls Series 13 (London: Longmans, Green, 1859), ρ 207;

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Ralph's campaign against the friars is frequently reported as an event of great significance, with which the chroniclers usually express sympathy. 86 The mendicants are often connected with social disorder, for example, with treason against the king, with Owen Glendower's rebellion, with heresy, with the disruptions that followed the Black Death, and, oddly, with Lollardy.87 When Thomas Walsingham, in the Historic! anglicana, speculates on the causes of the Peasants' Revolt, his final thought is of the friars. There were specific causes, he says, but these were overshadowed by the general cause, namely the sins of all the inhabitants of the earth, including the mendicant orders. These beggars had forgotten their vows and fallen away from the primitive ideals for which they were founded. Now they were envious of the possessionati (monks and other property-owning orders) and approved the crimes of nobles, seducing princes with flattery and the people with lies, all for the purpose of obtaining possessions. On every tongue, these sentiments were echoed: "Hie est frater, ergo mendax. . . . Hoc est album, ergo coloratum" (This man is a friar, therefore a liar. . . . This looks white, therefore whitewashed). 88 In several chronicles of English origin, the association of the mendicants with social disorder is carried a radical step further. In these chronicles, history is seen within the framework of Salvation History, and contemporary times are seen to unfold under the shadow of the End. Under that shadow, the friars take on the shape of agents of Antichrist, signs that the Last Times have arrived. John de Oxenedes reports the affair of the Eternal Gospel at Paris in the 1250s thus: Devotio populi tepet circa fratres Praedicatores, nee erogantur eleemosynae consuetae, ut videatur prophetia sanctae Hildegardis de Alemannia jam verificari; sed regem Franciae ita habent fautorem, et ad hoc protectorem, ut videantur tempora antichristi imminere. 89 Chronicon Angliae 1328-88, ed. E. Maunde Thompson, Rolls Series 64 (London: Longmans, Green, 1874), pp. 48, 312, 400; Matthew Pans, Chronica majora, ed. Henry Richards Luard, Rolls Series 57 (London- Longmans, Green, 1872-83), III, 287, 332-33, 627, IV, 82-83, 279-80, 291, 346, 511-16, V, 79, 194-95, 416-17, 506-07, 529, 546, 598-600, 645, 744 86 John of Reading, Chronica, pp. 131, 147; Chronicon Angliae, pp. 38, 48, 400; Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, I, 285; Henry Knighton, Chronicon, II, 93-94, 115. 87 Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, II, 157-59, 250-51; John of Reading, Chronica,-pp. 109-10, 119. 88 Thomas Walsingham, Historia anglicana, II, 13 89 John de Oxenedes, Chronica, p. 207. 103

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[The devotion of the people cools toward the Friars Preachers, nor are the customary alms bestowed on them, so that the prophecy of St. Hildegard of Germany seems now to be verified; but insofar as they have the king of France as their patron and protector, just so the time of Antichrist seems to be imminent.] The niost eschatological of the monastic chronicles, however, belongs to a man who lived through the period of intense fraternal conflict at Paris: Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans who died in 1259. Like other monastic chroniclers of Europe in the mid-thirteenth century, Matthew was full of eschatological fears and expectations. 90 Under the year 1242, after quoting a letter about the recent ravages of the Tartars from the East, he says: His quoque temporibus propter terribiles rumores hujusmodi celebriter hi versus, Antichristi adventum nuntiantes, recitabantur: " C u m fuerint anni transacti mille ducenti Et quinquaginta post partum Virginis almae, Tunc Antichristus nascetur daemone plenus." 9 1 [Also in these times, because of such terrible rumors, these verses, announcing the advent of Antichrist, were often spoken: "When 1,250 years have passed after a blessed Virgin has given birth, then Antichrist, filled with the devil, will be born."] With such eschatological events in the background, Matthew begins to understand the hostility of the mendicants to the monastic orders, and their precipitous decline from the ideals set forth at their founding. They are, he says, the gyrovagi about whom St. Benedict wrote in the beginning of his Rule: they "vagabantur per civitates et pagos" (were 92 wandering through the cities and the countryside). They fulfill the prophecies of St. Hildegard about novisfratribuswho would come at a 90 Richer of Sens, Gesta Senoniensis ecdesiae, in Monumenta Germaniae histonca. Scnptores, 25 (Hanover: Hahn, 1880), 327-29, 306; also Eulogium (historiarum siue temporis), ed. Frank S. Haydon, Rolls Series 9 (London: Longmans, Green, 1858-63), I, 41720, III, 240-41; Galfridius Ie Baker of Swynebroke, Chronicon, ed. Edward M. Thomp­ son (Oxford. Clarendon, 1889), pp. 173-74. 91 Chronica majora, VI, 80. This Joachimistic prophecy was very widespread, as Marjorie Reeves has shown in Influence of Prophecy, pp. 49-50, and was readily adapted to new years, such as 1360 (examples in Reeves, p. 50 n.3); see also Lerner, Powers of Proph­ ecy, pp. 21 n.25, 32 n.14, and 79 n.35; Emmerson, Antichrist, p. 55 η 56, and other ref­ erences in chapter 1, η 46 above. 92 Chronica majora, V, 529, 195.

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future time. 93 But most important, they are part of the pattern of events sweeping across Europe, pointing to the End. They are "hypocritas, Antichristi successores, pseudopraedicatores."94 Their controversies are perilous to the whole church, "in indicium magni judicii prae foribus imminentis" (as a sign of the great judgment looming at our very doorstep). 95 Matthew's most telling entry appears under the year 1244 when he tries to evaluate the significance of recent events. The passage is a catalog of eschatological signs ("Praenostica judicii magni"): Jerusalem has fallen, fulfilling the prophecy of Christ in that most apocalyptic of Gospel texts, Matthew 24 ("there will not be left here one stone upon another," verse 2); the earth and the sea do not respond to the care of men in the old way but arc now sterile; the sun twice in three years has passed through eclipse as never happened before; stars fall from the heavens; sects of heretics burgeon; discord arises between the church and the empire; plague and famine stalk the army of France. And in the midst of these signs, another "praenosticum autenticum" (authentic presaging) appears: In omnem terram exivit (id est, exibit, ponitur praeteritum pro future) sonus eorum (Rom. 10:18). Jam exivit praedicatio Praedicatorum et Minorum usque terminos mundi, secundum dictum SaIvatoris: "Eritis mihi testes in omni Judaea et Samaria, et usque ad ultimum, etc." Ac sic diceret, "Cum haec videritis, imminet judicium generale."96 [Their voice has gone forth into all the earth (Rom. 10:18) (that is, will go forth, as the past here is used for the future). Already the preaching of Friars Preachers and Friars Minor has gone forth to the ends of the world according to the saying of the Lord: "You will be witnesses to me in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). As if he were to say, "When you see these things, then the general judgment will be imminent."] One of the most remarkable instances of eschatological expectation in monastic chronicles appears in the Chronicon of Henry Knighton, monk of Leicester, who unlike many of his predecessors is not hostile to the friars. But in the year 1382, he announces that an ancient prophecy of the final times is now fulfilled.97 The world is in its last age and 93 94 95 96 97

IV, 82-83, 279-80. V, 599 IV, 279. IV, 346. "Ac sic" is surely a mistake for "acsi" in the last sentence. Henry Knighton, Chronicon, II, 152-56. 105

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fast approaching its end. These things are proved by eight signs, among them these: first, a people have arisen who are trying to exchange the Gospel of Christ for an Eternal Evangel, a Gospel of the Holy Spirit; third, as in Babylon, the handwriting—Mane, Tekel, Phares—is seen on the wall, the etymology of the three words prophesying the coming of this perfidious Eternal Gospel; fourth, these people appear more holy than others and yet will not be corrected, as prophesied in Apocalypse 2 and 3; sixth, they are preachers within the church who commend themselves beyond measure, and seduce many under the guise of piety. All these signs are supported by the authority of sacred Scripture. Knighton is not coy about the identity of this ancient prophet, from whom he quotes so copiously. It is Willelmus de Sancto Amore, writing, Knighton tells us, in the year 1255. Although he does not cite the title, his source is the De periculis novissimorum temporum, of which Knighton gives a somewhat abbreviated version of the eighth chapter. At the end of the long citation, Knighton makes a remark that shows how revisionist is his prophetic history. Some say, he notes, that these signs apply to the mendicant friars. Not so; they more aptly pertain to this new sect of Lollards, who have changed the Gospel of Christ for an Eternal Gospel, that is, a Gospel translated into the vernacular.98 The logic here is not dazzling. That Knighton himself was a little uncomfortable with it is perhaps indicated by a repetition of the strained equation between Eternal and vernacular Gospels: "Aeternum congrue dici potest, quia jam vulgare et commune in materna lingua, et sic in aeterna memoria" (It can suitably be called "Eternal," since it exists now vulgarly and commonly in the mother tongue and so in an eternal memorial). 99 Despite the unusual interpretations, these passages show that William of St. Amour was being read in monastic circles in the late fourteenth century. Knighton was not using aflorilegium but clearly had the text of the De periculis in front of him. He quotes extensively from the eighth chapter and from a passage in the prologue that outlines the rest of the treatise. He identifies William of St. Amour as a prophet, and he approves his exegetical method: "ista ostendit cum auctoritatibus sacrae scripturae Iuculenter" (he proves these things splendidly with the authorities of sacred Scripture).100 Although Knighton himself applies 98

"Haec ibi in octavo capitulo et multa alia cum allegatiombus sacrae scripturae; quae quidam applicant ad fratres mendicantes, magis tamen congruunt istis novis populis LoIlardis qui mutaverunt Evangelium Christi in Evangelium aeternum, id est, vulgarem linguam et communem maternam, et sic aeternam, quia laicis reputatur mehor et digmor quam lingua Latina," Chronicon, II, 155. 99 Chronicon, II, 152. 100 Chronicon, II, 156. 106

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the Depericulis to the Lollards, he seems to recognize his own as an eccentric reading, and he testifies that the work was being not only read but also understood by others as an antifraternal prophecy: "quae quidam applicant ad fratres mendicantes" (which some apply to the mendicant friars).101 Knighton is not the only evidence that William of St. Amour was being read in monastic circles. Adam Easton owned a copy of the CoIlectiones, which was given to the cathedral priory of Norwich on his death in 1397.102 In the light of his preaching activity against the friars in Norwich in 1357 and his presence in Oxford during the conflicts centering on Uthred de Boldon, his interest in so eschatological and antifraternal a work as this is not surprising. Another of his manuscripts, now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 180, contained Richard FitzRalph's De pauperie Salvatorts.103 The Augustinian priory at Lanthony in Gloucestershire probably owned a manuscript that contained William's two questiones against mendicant poverty. 104 The Benedictine priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, had a miscellany, now lost, that contained a "Tractatus de periculis novissimorum temporum." 105 AU of these monastic manuscripts testify to the widespread interest in antifraternal writings among English monks. A. G. Rigg has recently called to our attention the fifteenth-century commonplace book of a Glastonbury monk, which contains four poems, two in favor of the friars and two against, all from a period when antimendicant feeling was running high in the late 1350s and early 1360s.106 In one, dated between 1357 and 1366, Richard Tryvytlam, a Franciscan, denounces monks generally, and in particular three "beasts": John Sene, monk of Glastonbury; Richard, abbot of Louth Park; and Uthred de Boldon. These three, he says, preach heresies damned long ago by the church: 101

Chronicon, II, 155. The manuscript is now Bodl MS 151 (S.C 1929) For Easton, see BRUO, 620-21; Leslie J. MacFarlane, "The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O. S. B.," Diss., University of London, 1955 103 Kafhenne Walsh in "Archbishop FitzRalph and the Friars at the Papal Court in Avignon, 1357-60," Traditio, 31 (1975), 227, notes that the manuscripts of FitzRalph's antimendicant writing invariably come either from episcopal libraries or from the houses of the endowed monastic orders: Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinian canons. 104 Now Lambeth Palace MS 357; see Ker, Medieval Libraries, p. 110. 103 James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, p. 76, no. 679. 106 FitzRalph's controversies with the friars in London and Avignon, to be discussed in chapter 3, are the most important cause of increased hostility to the friars. For the poems, see A. G. Rigg, ed , "Two Latin Poems Against the Friars," MS, 30 (1968), 106-18; also his A Glastonbury Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century: A Descriptive Index of Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. 0.9.38 (Oxford' Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 75-79. 102

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Totum verumptamen quod ab hiis dicitur Libris prioribus expresse ponitur. Testantur etenim hoc luce clarius Libros quos edidit Wymundus gallicus Vocatus Seyntamore expers re nominis Sed hos ecclesia dampnauit hactenus.107 [Nevertheless, everything these men say Appears expressly in earlier books. For truly, the truth of this is attested rather clearly In the books written by "Wymundus," a Frenchman, Called "Seyntamore," though he lacked love altogether; Those books the church has condemned to this day.] "Wymundus gallicus / Vocatus Seyntamore" of course is William of St. Amour, whose De periculis was condemned by Alexander IV in 1256.108 Something is known of Uthred de Boldon's quarrels with the friars at Oxford, and his surviving works suggest that Tryvytlam was justified in accusing him of spreading the condemned ideas of William of St. Amour. Uthred, a Benedictine from Durham Cathedral Priory (fl. 1331, d. 1397), was among the most prominent monks at Oxford for twenty years. He first arrived at Durham College in 1347, and became warden in 1350-51. He incepted as a doctor of theology in October 1357, just as FitzRalph's campaign against the friars was heating up. He seems to have left Oxford in 1367 and to have spent the last thirty years of his life relatively quietly, as prior of the isolated and peaceful Finchale Priory north of Durham, or as subprior of Durham. Though occasionally employed on monastic or ecclesiastical missions, he retired almost completely from the world of controversy that had embroiled his Oxford years.109 107 "De laude Vniversitatis Oxonie," lines 243-48 The text is from A. G. Rigg, "An Edition of a Fifteenth-century Commonplace Book (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS. 0.9.38)," D. Phil, diss., Oxford University, 1966, p. 123. For the case of libros, line 246, see Rigg's note, p. 337: other editors "emend to librt, but the word may have been attracted into the case of the relative pronoun " I am grateful to Professor Rigg for generously supplying me with a copy of this portion of his unpublished dissertation and for permission to quote him here. 108 CUP, I, no 288, pp. 331-33. 109 BJiUO, 212-13; Knowles, Religious Orders, II, 49; W. A Pantin, "Two Treatises of Uthred de Boldon on the Monastic Life," Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. R. W. Hunt et al. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1948), p. 363; Mildred E. Marcett, Uhtredde Boldon, Friar William Jordan, and Piers Plowman (New York: by the author, 1938).

108

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His quarrels with the friars seem to have begun in the early 1360s. Although the chronology is not certain, Uthred seems to have written an antifraternal questio on mendicant poverty in reply to unnamed adversaries.110 His arguments are similar to those of William of St. Amour and Thomas de Wilton in their reliance on Augustine's De opere monachorum and the epistles of St. Paul, especially to the Thessalonians. In his preaching and evangelical activity, Paul never ate bread at another man's cost, but worked night and day in labor and toil, lest he burden his auditors (2 Thess. 3:1-12). Uthred vehemently condemns mendicant preachers like the friars, who behave contrary to Paul's example and precepts. Mendicancy gives rise to many evils, both in the preachers and in their auditors, and ought to be abolished as a religious way of life. Little is known about Uthred's opponents. Bale names a Franciscan, John Hilton, as the author of "De paupertate fratrum et de statu minorum" written against Uthred, and a Dominican, William Jordan, who had argued against FitzRalph at Avignon in 1358, as the author of an "Apologia fratrum mendicantium adversus Utredum Boldum monachum nigrum," but neither work survives.111 A Determinatio of Uthred in a Durham manuscript, "De dotacione ecclesie sponse Christi," may have been directed against Hilton. Although its main purpose is to defend ecclesiastical and monastic property against fraternal arguments, Uthred includes in his defense an attack on the mendicants' views of the poverty of Christ.112 Whatever the chronology of these pieces, the surviving ones suggest a prolonged strife at Oxford over mendicancy and related matters. In 1366 or 1367, matters took a more serious turn. The friars, William Jordan probably chief among them, drew up what Uthred calls a libellus famosus, a list of Uthred's purported errors, none of them about mendicancy, but rather about the vision of God possible to Christians, about Grace and free will, and the Trinity. According to Uthred this libellus was widely published and denounced by the friars; but, he says, 1,0 This questio, "Utrum paupertas mendicitatis, que est ultima in divisione facta in predicaciombus, ponat offendiculum verbo Dei," survives in one MS only, BN MS Lat. 3183, fols. 160v-168v. This fourteenth-century manuscript is of English provenance. It was once owned by a Johannes Prescot, who passed it on to a rector named Matthew and a certain Johannes. In the seventeenth century it was in the library of Lord Burleigh. John Bale saw a copy of this questio in a manuscript probably from Queen's College, Oxford; Index, p. 463 111 Bale, Scriptorum illustrium tnajoris Brytanniae catalogus (Basel: J. Oponnus, 1557-59), I, 483-84 for Hilton; for Jordan, I, 483; for biographical information about both, BR UO, 936-37, 1022. 1,2 Durham Cathedral MS A.IV.33, fols. 69'-99- see Knowles, Religious Orders, II, 66.

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it so distorted his positions that he took it upon himself to publish the list, correcting their distortions of his opinions and issuing replies in a tract that came to be titled "Contra querelas fratrum." 113 In 1367, the friars presented a list of Uthred's errors to the archbishop of Canterbury, who on 9 November 1368 censured twenty-two of them without mentioning Uthred's name.114 From this point forward, Uthred seems to have retired from Oxford and from controversies with the friars, to the more peaceful environs of Durham and Finchale Priory. Contra querelasfratrumcontains a polemical prologue and epilogue full of prophetic and eschatological texts against the friars.115 The prologue opens with Paul's warning of what becomes Uthred's theme in each of his responses to the accusations of the friars: "Periculum [est] in falsis fratribus" (2 Cor. 11:26: There is danger in false^rafrei). The rhetoric is tremendously bitter. Let Esther proclaim, says Uthred, the peril of death; let the Maccabees relate the great peril of war; let those who traverse the sea narrate its perils; but of all the perils the world has known, none will be found to compare with the perils offalsis fratribus. About such perils the guile and wickedness of Cain, the purity of Joseph, whom his brothers sold into exile, the treachery of Abimelech, who slew his seventy brothers (Judges 9), the innocence of Onias whose brothers had him slain (2 Mace. 4:1-7, 32-35)—all these cry out about the perils of falsis fratribus. The Scriptures and the doctors of the church speak out about these perils above all others. Consequently, when Paul enumerates the perils he has to endure, from floods, robbers, people, the city, solitude, the sea, he adds at the end, as if to give it pride of place, "periculum in falsis fratribus" (2 Cor. 11:26). These perils are more serious, says Uthred, because they are hidden. Falsifratresare like Elymas the sorcerer, "pleni omni dolo et omni fallacia, filii diaboh, inimici omnis justicie" (Acts 13:8-11: full of all guile and all deceit, sons of the devil, enemies of all justice). There is falsehood in their hearts and in their words, but most of all in their works, because they are "lupi rapaces . . . [qui] vadunt tamen sub vestimentis ovium" (Matt. 7:15: rapacious wolves . . . who nevertheless go forth in sheep's clothing). Outside they are Cato, but inwardly Nero, so that the whole is ambiguous—an unnatural monster joining 113 The tract is in BL MS Royal 6 D. X, fols. 283-85, Balliol MS 149, fols. 63 r -64· (incomplete), Tanner MS 408, fol. 83» (incomplete), Wood Rolls I (Bodl. Access. 25277); and printed in Marcett, Uhtred de Boldon, pp. 25ff.; reprinted in part with corrections in Dom David Knowles, "The Censured Opinions of Uthred de Boldon," PBA, 37 (1951), 332ff. See both of these articles for the history of the quarrel. 114 Knowles, "Censured Opinions," 312-13. 115 Citations of the text are taken from BL MS Royal 6 D. X, fols. 283-85.

HO

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together two contrary natures, a chimera, half lion, half dragon. Again St. Paul provides a revealing text about them: "eiusmodi sunt pseudoapostoli, operarii subdoli, ministri satane, transfigurati tamen velud ministrijusticie" (2 Cor. 11:13-15: Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of Satan, but disguised as ministers of justice). They pretend to be paupers but steal the alms of the faithful, defrauding the true paupers of Christ. These false fratres are Caymitis—a term that anticipates Wyclif's a decade later—because they have, like the first murderer, destroyed fraternity. About them all the world complains: nature because they are monstrous; scripture because they are vicious; the rich and the poor alike because the fratres defraud them; the clergy because they slander them; the people because they deceive them; and finally fiater Uthred, least among theologians, because they have defamed him so maliciously in diverse provinces. Since Paul had experienced in his own time so many dangers from falsis fratribus, says Uthred, he placed several warnings in Scripture. One is Galatians 2:4: "[dixit esse] subintroductos falsos fratres, qui subintroierunt explorare libertatem nostram, ut nos in servitutem redigerent" ([he said that] false brethren were brought in secretly, who slipped in to spy upon our liberty, so that they might bring us into slavery). But he also prophesied that they would come more abundantly, "sicut iam in nostris temporibus" (as they already are in our own time). Chief among such prophecies is 2 Tim. 3: "Scito quod in novissimis diebus stabunt [sic] tempora periculosa et erunt homines seipsos amantes" (I know that in the last days there will be perilous times and there will be men who love themselves). Uthred goes on to cite the full catalog of vices that Paul warns of in these men, including that they "penetrant domos et captivas ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis." All the qualities of the men prophesied by Paul are verified to the letter in these false and perverse fratribus who walk about the earth with Satan in these days.116 They resist truth in a worse way than did Iamnes and Mambres, the magicians of Pharaoh (2 Tim. 3:8), because unlike the latter they do not work their deceptions m public forums, not in the schools nor in places of disputation where their fallacies can be refuted, but in secret and without discussion—as in the case, Uthred implies, of the libellus famosus they have circulated about him. In the epilogue, Uthred is even more bitter: clerics perhaps might 116 "Que quidem condiciones omnes et singule ab apostolo prophetate ut liquere potent advertenti, sunt ad literam venficate de istis perversis et falsis fratribus, qui cum sathan terra circumeunt et perambulant hns diebus," BL MS Royal 6 D. X, fol. 2 8 3 " .

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impugn his teachings, but no false frater, no matter how malevolent, could possibly cast doubt on them. He chastizes them for malicia and stuhicia, calls them detractores and finally antechristos. "Pia mater ecclesia per istos antechristos hiis diebus tot iactatur procellis et fluctibus" (by these antichrists, holy mother church is nowadays buffeted with so many storms and such great turbulence). 117 He says that Christ re­ proved these false hypocrites deceiving the people in the guise of reli­ gion when he prophesied a vae multiplex to befall them (Matt. 23). A cascade of Biblical citations ends the work, as Uthred prays that all be protected from "periculis in falsis fratribus." The invective οι Contra querelasfiatrumsupports Tryvytlam's charge that Uthred and his confreres were reviving the old heresies of William of St. Amour. Indeed, the Contra querelas uses both William's language and his exegetical method: the penetrans domos of 2 Timothy 3, the pseudoapostoli and fa Is i fra tres of 2 Corinthians 11, the vae octuplex of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, the lupi rapaces of Matthew 7—all were cen­ tral Biblical types in William of St. Amour's works. Uthred, like Mat­ thew Paris and other monastic writers before him, was part of a literary tradition.

A TRADITION OF FORM: THE SUMMA

Omne bonum and its compiler Jacobus were once thought to belong to the monastic tradition of antifraternalism that fostered Uthred de BoIdon, Adam Easton, and Matthew Paris. Although that now seems less likely in light of Lucy Sandler's recent discoveries about Jacobus Ie Pal­ mer, Omne bonum certainly exemplifies another more obscure tradition that may have been influenced by the monks, a tradition of form. Antifraternal ideas circulated in many well-known genres—in polemical treatises, in manuscript miscellanies, in sermons and propositions, in legal documents later issued as tracts, in questiones and quodlibetical lit­ erature. But Omne bonum provides an example of a little-noticed form in which the ideas and perspectives of William of St. Amour were transmitted and sometimes diluted in the fourteenth century: a form that (in the absence of a generic term) I will call the summa, a compen­ dium or compilation of standard authorities, consisting almost entirely of excerpts or quotations. One variety of this kind of compilation is the canon law summa. Another is the alphabetical encyclopedia, like Omne bonum, the antecedents of which are to be found in the alphabetical compilations called distinctiones, which were extremely common " 7 BL MS Royal 6 D. X, fol. 285'. 112

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among the monastic orders, especially the Cistercians.118 Still another variety is the theological miscellany. Of this last variety there is an excellent example in Bodleian Library MS 784, a manuscript that not only contains long antifraternal extracts, some of them from William of St. Amour, Jean d'Anneux, and Thomas de Wilton, but also shows what at first glance looks like direct dependence on Omne bonum itself. Nothing is known about the history of Bodl. 784 except that it came to the Bodleian in the early seventeenth century.119 There are no medieval pressmarks or ex libris inscriptions and no indications anywhere in the text of the identity or circumstances of the compiler. That it was English may be presumed not only from the hand but also from the relationship with Omne bonum described below. The precise purpose of the compilation is equally difficult to discern. It gives the appearance of being purposefully, even aggressively, organized: there are five major divisions called partes, each labeled by a number at the top of every page, with an avalanche of rubrics and marginalia summarizing paragraphs and numbering them. All this paraphernalia is executed in bright red and blue ink with occasional ornamentation in yellow. In all there are 629 numbered and rubricated paragraphs, and at the end there is also an elaborate index of subjects.120 The format slightly resembles that of many fourteenth-century summae on canon law, from which the manuscript draws heavily.121 Each of the five parts claims to consist of "quedam notabilia" (some notable things) extracted from a single source, though they all draw on multiple sources, most spectacularly in the antifraternal part 3. The first part (fols. 1—62r) is primarily fromjohn Chrysostom's Opus imperfectum super Mattheum, though the last four pages (fols. 60v-62r) are from commentaries on the decretals including "Speculator" (William Durandus, bishop of Mende). Part 2 (fols. 62v-86r) consists of excerpts from the Clementines and their glossators, particularly William of Monte Lauduno, but also from a commentary on Job by Peter of Blois and from "Guido" (presumably of Baysieux, author of the Rosarium on the decretals). Part 3 (fols. 86v-107v) claims to be extracted from the writings of Richard FitzRalph, but its more variable makeup is discussed below. Part 4 (fols. 108r-124v) states that it is drawn from the 118

See Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus fiorum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1979), 3-11. 119 See the description in the Summary Catalogue (no. 2618). 120 Part 1 has 271 numbered paragraphs, part 2 has 104, part 3 has 30, part 4 has 39, and part 5 has 185 121 An example of the similar format is BL MS Royal 10 D. X, the Summa summarum. 113

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Summa summarum, but the end of the section is from the Rosarium of Guido of Baysieux. Part 5 (fols. 125r—198r) draws on yet another, though more venerable commentator on canon law, Henry of Segusia (called "Hostiensis") and his Summa aurea on the decretals. Despite the elaborate appearance of purposeful organization, no clear purpose emerges from an examination of the contents of Bodl. 784. There is no thematic unity or logical progression among the five parts, and except for part 3, none within the individual parts, which are, as their titles say, notabilia from a particular work, related or not. One might think it a personal chapbook, except that the manuscript was physically executed with such care and arranged with such elaborately rubricated and indexed paraphernalia. The contents do, however, reveal a little about the compiler. He was not a friar, as the concerted antifraternal bias of part 3 seems to prove. It seems improbable that he was a monk because he shows little interest in subjects especially germane to the monastic life, and because the work contains some distinctly uncomplimentary verses about monks ("Nil proprium nisi sit vicium," fol. 67v). On the other hand, his interests lie with moral and practical theology, with considerable attention given to priests, how they should behave, what they should know, who should be admitted to the priesthood. This last question is pursued to some rather arcane depths: one section is entitled "Nota hie an hermafroditus posset recipere ordines" (Note here whether a hermaphrodite can enter the priesthood). 122 Other recurring subjects are penitence, preaching, prayer, ordination, simony, ecclesiastical correction, the sacraments. Practical problems of marriage are treated at length in more than one part. The compiler seems to have had a vivid sense of the senescence and moral decline of the world he lived in, which made the behavior of the clergy all the more crucial: "mundus in sui [sic] principio prosperabatur et nunc deterioratur" (the world in its beginnings prospered, but now decays).123 The interest in moral and practical theology, while it will not identify the compiler's ecclesiastical status, does at least provide some explanation of the vehement antifraternalism of part 3, so strangely juxtaposed with the pious concerns of the other four parts. The friars were most frequently attacked, whether from a monastic or secular point of view, precisely because they interfered with the moral and practical relationships of the parish clergy with their flocks. The violent polemic against the friars in Bodl. 784 may be heartfelt, 122

Fols 75 v -76 r . The answer is "sometimes": "Die quod respici debet sexus qui magis in eo se ostendit. Et si magis se ostendit membrum virile quam muliebre ordinari potest et aliter non. iiii · q · ui · si hermafroditus in glossa." 123 This is the compiler's rubric, fol 44v; see also fols. 54', 80' 114

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but it is hardly original. Of the thirty numbered sections, twenty-two contain texts that also appear in Omne bonum, as demonstrated in Ap­ pendix B.124 Three of the selections in Bodl. 784 are identical with those in Omne bonum. Four are identical except that Bodl. 784 omits portions contained in Omne bonum. Five of Omne Bonum s rubrics are echoed in the rubrics of Bodl. 784. 125 All these common features suggest that the compiler of Bodl. 784 had Omne bonum at hand and copied from it. The matter is more complicated, however, as is evident in section xxii of Bodl. 784, which consists of two short excerpts also found within two much longer sections in Omne bonum ("Fratres," xxii and xxiv). That Bodl. 784 used Omne bonum seems a fair conclusion because the two excerpts are widely separated in their source, Jean d'Anneux's "Filios enutrivi" (Bodl. 52, fols. 189v, 190r, and 195v), and the chance seems remote that both would be chosen fortuitously in both Bodl. 784 and Omne bonum. Even more compelling, the rubric of Bodl. 784 here incorporates a lengthy phrase ("comparacionem inter pulvem et fratres") found not in the text ofJean d'Anneux but only in a marginal note in Omne bonum. Close examination reveals, however, that Bodl. 784 (section xxii) contains one short phrase that appears in Jean d'An­ neux but not in Omne bonum. Bodl. 784 therefore must have had an­ other text of Jean and cannot have been relying on Omne bonum alone, if at all. Similar complications appear elsewhere. In several other sections where Omne bonum and Bodl. 784 share a text, the latter has passages from the source that are missing in Omne bonum: from FitzRalph's Defensio curatorum and his Objectiones et responsiones; from William of St. Amour's Depericulis and his De Pharisaeo; fromjean d'Anneux's "Filios enutrivi"; from Thomas de Wilton's questio on mendicancy. 126 Fur­ thermore, Bodl. 784 sometimes supplies information about a source that Omne bonum lacks. Section iii of Bodl. 784 and the corresponding section of Omne bonum both tell us that the text is FitzRalph's, but only Bodl. 784 mentions that it is "contra Rogerum Coneway." At section xx, only Bodl. 784 has the information that Jean d'Anneux was a mas­ ter at Paris. At section xxviii, the rubric of Bodl. 784 names the Summa 124

Of the eight sections not m Omne bonum, four are quite short (xvi, xix, xxi, and xxvn) and four are major additions from FitzRalph's Defensia curatorum (ιν, v, vii, and vui). 125 Identical with Omne bonum. Bodl. MS 784, sections i, xiii, unnumbered section 3 (fol. 102v). Identical except for omissions- Bodl. MS 784, sections ii, unnumbered sec­ tions 1 and 2, xxii. Rubrics: Bodl. MS 784, sections i, ii, xi, xxii, and xxiv. 126 Defensio curatorum, sections in, ιχ, and x; Objectiones, vi; Depericulis, xi, xh; De Pha­ risaeo, xv; Jean d'Anneux, xx, xxii, xxiv; Thomas de Wilton, xxv, xxvi, xxvii. 115

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summarum, which as we have already seen was the actual source of Omne bonum's "Fratres" section xx, even though Otnne bonum credits only the "tractatus de futuris periculis" (i.e., William of St. Amour's De periculis). The relationship, then, between Omne bonum and Bodl. 784 is not simple. On the one hand they share so many texts and enough rubrics that it seems inconceivable that this common ground was achieved by chance. On the other, there is unmistakable evidence in some of the very passages that they share that the compiler of Bodl. 784 had avail­ able other texts than those found in Omne bonum. Two possible expla­ nations come to mind. Perhaps the compiler did use Omne bonum but was able in many instances to recognize and consult many (seven) of the original sources, even where Omne bonum does not indicate what they are: FitzRalph's Defensio curatorum and his Objectiones et responsiones; William of St. Amour's De periculis and his De Pharisaeo; the "Filios enutrivi" of Jean d'Anneux; Thomas de Wilton's questio on men­ dicancy; and William of Pagula's Summa summarum. Another, perhaps more likely, possibility is that both Jacobus and the compiler of Bodl. 784 were drawing on an antifraternal summa (or encyclopedia or distinctio) that preceded them both. That both were drawing on the same summa might serve to explain the simultaneous overlap and yet inde­ pendence of so many of their sections. There are other more baroque possibilities: perhaps Bodl. 784 used an intermediate summa that en­ larged some οι Omne bonum's selections with additions from the origi­ nals; perhaps both Omne bonum and Bodl.784 were compiled from works with identical indices. The central point, however, is that we have here not only general evidence for the currency of William of St. Amour, Jean d'Anneux, and Thomas de Wilton, but also more partic­ ular intimations of a tradition by which antifraternal ideas were trans­ mitted in summae like Omne bonum and Bodl. 784. Despite their common texts and their reliance on the same four writ­ ers representing three generations of antifraternalism, part 3 of Bodl. 784 is really quite different from Omne bonum's "Fratres." Whereas Ja­ cobus constructs a miscellany, Bodl. 784 creates a tract on apostolic poverty, with particular emphasis on mendicancy. The organization of Omne bonum's "Fratres" was according to source; the organization of Bodl. 784 is thematic. The Oxford manuscript does tend to group ex­ cerpts from an author together but, unlike Omne bonum, does not ar­ range them in the sequence of the original. Perhaps this suggests that the compiler was working from a summa rather than an original text; certainly it demonstrates that his concerns were thematic. Part 3, despite its rubric announcing its argument "contra Fratres," 116

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seems to open with two sections that are not antifraternal at all. 1 2 7 They concern the body of Christ and the effect of his name. But they are in fact a devotional opening of the subject. The subject is Christ, specifically the poverty of Christ, which the friars claim as a model and inspiration of their own. Sections iii through χ are taken from FitzRalph's Defensio curatorum, where it is argued that Christ never begged, first through Scriptural evidence and then through delineation of the harm that results from the friars' mistaken poverty and illegitimate begging. The subject of privileges is prominent because FitzRalph sees the friars' acquisition of them as a result of their poverty. This notion is taken up in the next four sections (xi through xiv), all taken from the twelfth chapter of William of St. Amour's De periculis, all typically ar­ guing from Biblical texts and the Glossa ordinaria that the homo perfectus must work with his hands for a living; that Christ never begged; and that the friars do not have the power to live from the Gospel, without working. Section xv is from William's De Pharisaeo and initiates a series of articles about hypocrisy that at first glance seems unrelated to the central subject. Mendicancy, however, along with bare feet, rough habits, and other outward signs of poverty, is presented as a primary manifestation of the friars' hypocrisy, and so these articles are pertinent to the argument. Six excerpts from Jean d'Anneux (sections xix to xxiv) include his bizarre notion that it is better to be temporally rich for Christ than poor, and his strongly worded assertion that the friars say they are poorer than all others and yet are better housed, fed, clothed, and supplied with books (xxi, fol. 103v). Section xxv returns directly to the main argument, with its rubric "Que mala proveniunt ex mendicitate sive ex mendicacione" (fol. 104v: What evils derive from the state or the activity of begging). This section and the two following are from Thomas de Wilton's questio on mendicancy, limited, as in Omne bonum, to the third part, where Thomas argues per rationes that ablebodied begging by religious leads to worldliness and susceptibility to sexual temptations. Part 3 of Bodl. 784 ends with three excerpts from the Summa summarum. Section xxviii is the Summa's text of William of St. Amour's fifty signs of pseudopraedicatores, serving as a convenient epitome of what has been said to this point about hypocrites and false beggars. The two final sections are from the Summa's article " D e elemosinis" (book 5, title 58), and cap the discussion of mendicancy with William of Pagula's survey of canon law texts about alms and to whom they are to be given. Because part 3 concerns the illegitimacy and noxiousness of the 127

For detail about the sources of part 3, see Appendix B. 117

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friars' mendicancy, it shows less concern for the eschatological perceptions of William of St. Amour than does Omne bonum. Biblical language about the friars nonetheless abounds, because in begging, they violate the principles of the apostolic life as laid down by the precepts of Christ and the example of the apostles: they go from house to house; they eat bread at another man's cost; they do not labor; they serve not Christ but their bellies; they feast on the banquet that should be given to the poor; they are solicitous about their livelihood; they are angels of Satan transforming themselves into angels of light.128 Bodl. 784 does take passages directly from William of St. Amour, but the excerpts from the De periculis (sections xi-xiv) have here been whittled down to four passages from chapter 12, which are restricted to mendicancy. They are argued entirely from the Bible and the Glossa, and contribute greatly to the contrast of the friars and the apostles, but none of William's sense of the end survives. The lone excerpt from De Pharisaeo (section xv) develops one of William's other Biblical figurae for friars, as its opening sentence shows: "Pharisei erant quidam religiosi apud antiquos sicut apud nos regulares quidam in habitu et austeritate vite in observanciis spiritualibus et tradicionibus suis pretendebant sanctitatis speciem quam non habebant in corde" (The Pharisees were a religious order among the ancients as among us certain regulars, in habit and austerity of life and in their spiritual observances and traditions, simulate the appearance of sanctity, which they do not have in their hearts). With its elaborate exposition of the four infallible signs by which Pharisees can be recognized (Matt. 23:6-7), Bodl. 784 gives a much longer passage from William of St. Amour than Omne bonum, but it avoids completely any association of new Pharisees with therm's mundi, unlike the end of Omne bonum's "Ffariseus." Likewise, in the now-familiar fifty signs of the pseudopraedicatores (section xxviii), taken from William's Collectiones via the Summa summarum, Bodl. 784 eliminates the Summa's final sentence: "Hec sumuntur de quoddam tractatu qui vocatur tractus [sic] de futuris periculis iminentibus ecclesie generali et per ypocritas pseudo predicatores" (These things are taken from a certain treatise about future perils looming before the church general and brought by hypocritical, false preachers).129 Even this slight allusion to the periculis novissimorum temporum is dropped. Bodl. 784, then, shows even more markedly the tendency of Omne bonum to preserve 128

Luke 10:1-7, fols 89», 90·, 93'; 2 Thess. 3:7-10, fols. 90', 99», 100'; Rom. 10:15, fols. 102», 104-; Rom 16:17-19, fol. 103- Luke 14:13, fols. 89», 105»; Matt. 6:31, fol. 95»; 2 Cor. 11.14, fol. 97». >2» BL MS Royal 10 D. X, fol. 280·. 118

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some of William of St. Amour's idiom while stripping it of many of its eschatological implications. The affinity between Bodl. 784 and Omne bonum shows in one instance how antifraternal ideas—William of St. Amour's in particular— circulated. Additional evidence suggests that compendia and encyclopedias of various kinds were involved in the dissemination of antifraternalism in the fourteenth century. It has already been shown how several canon law compilations show bias against the friars, and how the Summa summarum in particular helped to make widely known the fifty signs against pseudopraedicatores from William's Collectiones. In addition, several pastoral manuals intended (like the Summa summarum) for the instruction of parish clergy also manifest hostility to the mendicants, though they show no traces of the influence of William of St. Amour. One of these is the Memoriale presbyterorum, written, according to a colophon, by a doctor of canon law at Avignon in 1344.130 The author accuses the mendicants of slandering the clergy, stealing their sustenance, violating the prerogatives of parish churches by celebrating Mass in private chapels, and building sumptuous edifices.131 But it is on the subject of confessions that he is hottest. The mendicant "confessores moderni" pay no heed to the strictures against absolving cases reserved to the bishops. These often include the most serious crimes, robbery, homicide, adultery, incest. The friars insinuate themselves into the courts of princes and magnates and, infected with the poison of adulation, they absolve them with light penances no matter how serious the sin. All such confessors are "seductores et mendaces."132 Another such manual is the Cilium oculi (ca. 1330-1340), of unknown authorship but written as a supplement to William of Pagula's Oculus sacerdotis. The work is more restrained than the Memoriale presbyterorum, but nonetheless shows a similar concern over the friars' abuse of reserved cases in confession, and also mentions their abuse of burial privileges.133 Most similar to Omne bonum, however, in format as well as sources, is a Wycliffite theological encyclopedia written at the end of the four130 For authorship and circulation in England, see Michael J. Haren, "A Study of the 'Memoriale Presbyterorum,' a Fourteenth-century Confessional Manual for Parish Priests," 2 vols , D Phil, diss., Oxford University, 1975. 131 Haren, "Study," I, 416-18 and II, 52-53, 63-64, 288. 132 BL MS Harley 3120 (titled Memoriale sacerdotum but textually identical with the Memoriale presbyterorum), chaps. 42 and 142. See especially fols. 70 v -71 r . 133 See chap. 2 in Balliol MS 86, "De confessonbus," fol. 231v; also Leonard Boyle, "A Study of the Works Attributed to William of Pagula," D. Phil. diss., Oxford University, 1956, II, 54

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teenth century. Anne Hudson has demonstrated how this work arose under Lollard auspices as an aid to poor priests and how it circulated in three different versions, a full one generally entitled Floretum, an abbreviated intermediate version, and an even shorter version called Rosarium.134 It is, like Omne bonum, an alphabetical encyclopedia or commonplace book, consisting entirely of extracts from other writers. Omne bonum covers a wider range of subjects, particularly from nature and geography, and the Floretum/Rosarium quotes frequently from Wyclif. Otherwise their sources are quite similar: a wide range of patristic writers, contemporary authorities including FitzRalph and Robert Grosseteste, and particularly earlier theological compilations such as the Compendium theologicae veritatis and the Manipulusflorum, and canon law glossators such as Guido of Baysieux, "Hostiensis," and William of Monte Lauduno. As might be expected of a Wycliffite work, the Floretum/Rosarium is pervaded with a pronounced antimendicant bias.135 And like Wyclif himself, the compiler(s) knew the work of William of St. Amour. The article "Edificacio" of the Floretum quotes William's Collectiones directly.136 In the Rosarium's article "Predicator," a certain "Parisiensis," the author of a "Liber abbreviatus de pseudo predicatoribus," is quoted as a source. The passage concerns certain false preachers who come bearing letters with seals, mercenaries seeking temporal reward who delude the people with false relics and false miracles. Such pseudoprophetae usurp the office of preaching and are not sent by God, like those ofJer. 23:21: "I did not send these prophets and yet they ran; I did not speak to them and yet they prophesied." They are not missi, but "How are men to preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. 10:15). There are four kinds of missi: some are sent by God alone, like Moses; some are sent by God and man, like Joshua and properly ordained priests; some are sent by men alone, like the pardoners and "falsi fratres qui sunt introducti sine funda[men]to evangelico" (false fratres who have been introduced [into the church] without any foundation in the Gospel); and some usurp the office of preaching without any mission from God or man. The passage seems to be an abbreviation of a portion of the first Distinctio in William of St. Amour's Collectiones, the medieval title of which was "De pseudo-praedicatoribus et penetrantibus domos, qui sint et qualiter periculosi sint ecclesiae generali," and 134

"A Lollard Compilation and the Dissemination of Wycliffite Thought," JTS, n.s. 23(1972),65-81. 135 See especially the articles in the Floretum on "Frater," "Prcdicare," "Mendicitas," "Mandatum Christi," and "Secte," and the Rosarium on "Predicator" and "Penculosa " 136 Opera omnia, p. 462. 1 owe this reference to Anne Hudson's "A Neglected Wycliffite Text," JEH, 29 (1978), 264n.36. 120

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which may well be the basis of the "Liber abbreviatus de pseudo predicatoribus" cited by the compiler.137 Elsewhere, the Rosarium shows an interest in eschatology. In "Periculosa" the article proclaims that times in novissimis diebus (in the Last Days) will be dangerous for four reasons. The first is the magnitude of the tribulations, the greatest since the beginning of the world (Matt. 24:21). The second is the newly liberated power of the devil, as prophesied in John's version of the loosing of Satan after a thousand years of bondage in the abyss (Apoc. 20:1-10). The third is the multitude of the perverse, who will come in the name of Christ, leading many astray, as many New Testament prophecies reveal.138 The fourth is the cooling of charity (Matt. 24:12), and the dangers from falsis fratribus, which will endure until the end of the world (2 Cor. 11:26). These four points are traditional in commentaries on the Last Days, but they can all be found in William of St. Amour, where both the named dangers and the supporting texts are applied to the friars.139 Bishopjohn Grandisson, with whom this chapter began, died before the Rosarium or the Floretum was conceived, but, thanks to the paths down which Omne bonum has led us, we are now in a better position to imagine how he came to voice eschatological ideas like those first framed in Paris a century earlier. He could not have read the Rosarium or Bodl. 784, but he would have had access to almost all of the texts revealed by Omne bonum to be current in fourteenth-century England. He certainly could have seen the copy of the Summa summarum in his own cathedral library at Exeter.140 He had studied theology in Paris from 1313 to 1317, when Jean de Pouilly, Thomas de Wilton, and Jean d'Anneux were all in residence in the Faculty of Theology. He later studied at Oxford, where, as at Paris, there were numbers of William of St. Amour's works in academic libraries. He was a mentor and friend to Richard FitzRalph, whose troubles with the friars in London had recently begun when Grandisson sent out his prophetic letter to the distant corners of his diocese, warning of dangers from the hypocritical heralds of Antichrist who come to hear confessions though they lack 137 Opera omnia, pp. 128-212; the portion relevant to the Rosarium (BL MS Harl. 3226, fol. 116r) is pp. 134—46. See, however, Appendix K in H. B Workman, John Wydij'(Oxford: Clarendon, 1926), I, 342, where, following Loserth, he identifies "Parisiensis" in Wyclif's works with two other Parisian Williams, William Peraldus and William of Auvergne 138 Matt. 24:5; 2 Pet. 2-1; 2 Tim. 3:1; Acts 20:28-30. 139 For traditional commentaries on the Last Times, see Emmerson, Antichrist, especially the section, "Antichrist and the Last Days," pp. 50-62; also pp. 42-43. 140 Now Bodl MS 293 (S.C. 2448).

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authority. Any one of these fourteenth-century writers, if not William of St. Amour himself, may have been Grandisson's inspiration. Whatever he had read, Omne bonum and the texts it contains show that the bishop of Exeter was no oddity. In associating the friars with Antichrist; in seeing them as fulfillments of such Biblical prophecies as those in 2 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 6, Romans 16, and Matthew 24; in sensing the proximity of the Last Days "ad quos forte cepimus venire" (to which perhaps we have begun to come); and in the hesitancy of his eschatology (forte, perhaps), Bishop Grandisson typifies the antifraternalism of his English contemporaries.

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The Antifraternal Ecclesiology of Archbishop Richard FitzRalph THE most notorious opponent of the friars in the fourteenth century— a man often linked in manuscripts with the Parisian theologian of a century earlier—was Archbishop Richard FitzRalph. He was, like William of St. Amour, a member of the secular clergy, a master of theology, prominent at one time in his career at one of the most respected universities in Europe, and at the end of his life the leader of the secular party against the friars. But there the similarities end. The career of William of St. Amour was marked by bitter opposition to the pope, who deprived him of his university position, excommunicated him, and condemned his writings. By contrast FitzRalph argued his case against the friars in the papal court itself, where he had been in favor for many years. He was an archbishop, primate of Ireland, and a member in good standing of the ecclesiastical establishment, from which William of St. Amour was ejected. Furthermore FitzRalph's assault on the friars finally took the form of a legal action in which he sued in the curia for the revocation of privileges and exemptions granted by various popes over more than a century, and the friars in their turn sued to have FitzRalph excommunicated and his antifraternal writings condemned. This litigation never proceeded beyond the stage of hearings before a commission of cardinals, but nonetheless the very existence of such a suit at the papal curia is a measure of the distance between the situations of FitzRalph in 1357 and William of St. Amour in 1254.

CONFLICT WITH THE FRIARS

The story of FitzRalph's quarrels with the friars has often been told, most recently by Katherine Walsh.1 There is no need here, therefore, 1

A Fourteenth-century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), to which the following account of FitzRalph's life is indebted. See also the earlier studies by L. L. Hammench, The Beginning of the Strife between Richard FitzRalph and the Mendicants, Det KgI. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, 26.3 (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1938), pp. 3-85; and the series of articles by Aubrey Gwynn in Studies, 22 (1933), 23 (1934), 24 (1935), 25 (1936), and 26 (1937); Aubrey Gwynn, "The Sermon Diary of Richard 123

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to do more than outline the chronology of events and to give a brief indication of the most important works FitzRalph wrote in the controversy. One of the striking aspects of FitzRalph's relations with the friars is that he was on quite good terms with them until mid-century, when he was nearly fifty. At Avignon he was frequently invited to the convents of three of the four major mendicant orders to give sermons, including one in praise of St. Francis at the Franciscan convent on 4 October 1349. In it he revealed that he had relatives who were members of the Franciscan community in his native Dundalk. 2 Less than a year later, on 5 July 1350, he appeared before Pope Clement VI and the assembled curia to argue for the revocation of the friars' privileges in a propositio that has come to be known as Unusquisque because of the text that is its theme and incipit: "Unusquisque in quo vocatus est, fratres, in hoc permaneat apud Deum" (1 Cor. 7:24: Brethren, let every man remain in the state in which he was when called).3 What caused this apparently sudden change? The most reasonable explanation has come from Katherine Walsh, who suggests that it was not as sudden as it appeared, but began perhaps as far back as his tenancy as dean of Lichfield Cathedral (1335-47, especially 1345-47). There, she argues, he began to be aware of the practical problems posed for the secular clergy by religious orders who were exempt from episcopal authority. Such problems—in confessions, in burial practices, in tithes—were exacerbated in the see of Armagh, to which he was elected in 1347, because of the strains between the Irish and the English and the tendency of mendicant confessors to be more lax than the secular clergy about Gaelic marital practices, about tithe payment, and about restitution as a precondition for absolution.4 Many of these problems FitzRalph might also have known from other quarters, such as the diocese of Exeter, where, as we saw, his friend and mentor, Bishop Grandisson, had difficulties with mendicant confessors from 1329 to 1359.5 In 1350, however, FitzRalph and other prelates at the curia in Avignon were particularly aroused by a propositio put forth by the friars for papal conFitzRalph," P R M , 44 (1937-38), section C, 1-57; and "Two Sermons of Primate Richard FitzRalph," Archivium Hibemicum, 14 (1949), 50-65. 2 The sermon is preserved in FitzRalph's sermon diary, e.g. Oxford, St. John's College MS 65, fols. 141' ff. (142' for reference to Dundalk). 3 Edited by L. L. Hammerich in The Beginning of Strife, pp. 53-80; this text is hereafter referred to as Unusquisque. For the circumstances of Unusquisque, see also Janet Coleman, "FitzRalph's Antimendicant 'proposicio' (1350) and the Politics of the Papal Court at Avignon," JEH, 35 (1984), 376-90. 4 Walsh, FitzRalph, pp. 349-65. 5 F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop ofExeter (A.D. 1327-69) (London: George Bill, 1894-99), I, 557, and II, 953, 1128, 1134, 1143-47, 1208. 124

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sideration. No copies survive, but FitzRalph says at the beginning of Unusquisque that in it the mendicants requested to have changed in their favor certain parts (those "obscuras, superfluas, etrigorosas") of Super cathedram, the bull of Boniface VIII (issued in 1300) that governed re­ lations between regular and secular clergy throughout the fourteenth century. 6 Flinging their three adjectives back at them, FitzRalph ex­ pounds his own and his fellow prelates' ideas of the obscura, superflua, and rigorosa in Super cathedram. The bull is obscure because it is not spe­ cific enough in its restriction of the friars' preaching; superfluous when it provides for the licensing of mendicant confessors; and too hard upon the secular clergy when it gives the friars the right to bury parish­ ioners in their churches. 7 Even more important, however, is the first appearance of the ecclesiological argument that will underlie all of FitzRalph's subsequent thinking about the friars: these mendicant or­ ders do not belong in the church hierarchy, and therefore do only harm when they usurp its functions. William of St. Amour had made the same argument, though he drew it out to more extreme and eschatological conclusions. In 1349-50 at Avignon, FitzRalph sat on a commission of theologi­ ans who had been asked to consider certain questions long in dispute in the two chief mendicant orders: the nature of property, dominion, pos­ session, and right of using created things; how these matters pertained to Christ and the Franciscans, who claim to imitate the poverty of Christ; and the relationship of the decretals of Nicholas III and John XXII. 8 The commission failed to reach a conclusion, and several car­ dinals asked FitzRalph to study the issue further.9 The treatise that re­ sulted more than six years later (in 1356) was the massive De pauperie Salvatoris in seven books (with an eighth book added several years 10 later). Although the De pauperie and Unusquisque were begun within a year or less of each other, they are very different works. Unusquisque 6

Introduction of Unusquisque in Hammerich, The Beginning of Strife, p. 54. Unusquisque, pp. 55ff, 58ff., 66ff 8 From the prologue of the De pauperie Salvatoris in R. L. Poole, ed., Ioannis Wyclijfe, De dominio divino (London: Wyclif Society, 1890), ρ 273. 9 Poole, ed., De domtmo dwino, pp. 273-74. 10 For an edition of the first four books, see Poole, ed., De dominio divino, pp. 257-476; the rest have been edited in two doctoral theses, Helen C. Hughes, "Richard FitzRalph 'De Pauperie Salvatoris' Books V-VII," Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Manchester, 1928, and Russell O Brock, Jr., "An Edition of Richard FitzRalph's De Pauperie Salvatoris, Books V, VI, and VII," Ph. D. diss., Univ. of Colorado, 1953. The eighth book, composed at Avignon, and sometimes circulated separately under the title De mendicitate, has never been printed; it can be found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 180, fols. 90 r 128» and in Paris, BN MS Lat. 3222, fols. 1-77». 7

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is addressed to the pastoral position of the friars in the church and hence to the practical problems that arose from their privileges. Depauperie is addressed to the theoretical foundation of the mendicant way of life, that is, the poverty of Christ and the apostles that the friars claimed to imitate. As poverty cannot exist without property, FitzRalph begins with the problematic concepts associated with man's right to the goods of God's created world: dominion, property, possession, right of use. Of these, the most important was the concept of dominion, analyzed according to kind: the dominion of God over his creation; natural or original dominion over creation given to Adam; civil dominion instituted by human law; and the natural or original dominion of Christ, the second Adam. In the course of his analysis, FitzRalph introduces the concept of the dominion of the just founded on Grace, which Wyclif and the Lollards turned to quite different uses a quarter of a century later.11 The sixth and seventh books of De pauperie finally turn to the issue of evangelical poverty itself. Book 6 defines the poverty of Christ and the apostles as a renunciation of civil dominion and a reliance on the original dominion by which all the just share in common the goods of this world. 12 Christ and the Twelve were poor, but Scripture shows that they kept some things in reserve for future use and that they did not beg; therefore the friars' claim to imitate the poverty of Christ was false.13 Book 6 argues primarily from Scripture, but book 7 attempts to reconcile the contradictions between the decretals of Nicholas III and John XXII on the nature of Christ's poverty and consequently that of the friars, with the purpose of showing again that the evangelical way of life was not the mendicant one. The seven books of the De pauperie Salvatoris were probably near completion when FitzRalph set out for London on diocesan business in the summer of 1356. When he arrived, he tells us, he found secular and " For the origins and influences of FitzRalph's concept of dominion, see Poole, ed., De dominio divino, pp. xxxiv-xlvm; R. R. Betts, "Richard FitzRalph, Archbishop of Armagh, and the Doctrine of Dominion," Essays in Czech History (London- Athlone, 1969), pp. 160-75; Michael Wilks, "Predestination, Property, and Power: Wyclif's Theory of Dominion and Grace," Studies in Church History, ed. G. J. Cuming, II (Oxford: Nelson, 1965), 220-36; Leff, Heresy, II, 546-49; Aubrey Gwynn, The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), 35-73. For an illuminating commentary on the connections among FitzRalph's theory of dominion, his quarrels with the friars, and the poverty controversies between dissident Franciscans and Pope John XXII, see James Doyne Dawson, "Richard FitzRalph and the Fourteenth-century Poverty Controversies," JEH, 34 (1983), 315-44. 12 Book 6, chaps. 17-18 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 110 r -lll"; also in Brock, pp. 127-35. 13 Book 6, chap. 4 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 104"; also in Brock, pp. 85-87. 126

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mendicant theologians embroiled in controversy over precisely the issue on which he had just written. 14 His coincidental (as he would have us believe) arrival launched a sequence of events that were to sweep him into an increasingly bitter struggle with the friars for the remaining four years of his life, briefly in London but primarily at Avignon, where he soon gained a reputation as the most formidable opponent of the mendicants since William of St. Amour. In the winter of 1356-57 he was invited, probably by the dean of St. Paul's, Richard Kilwyngton, an old friend, to give a series of sermons in London on the poverty issue. Though preached in the vernacular, the four sermons that resulted were expanded by FitzRalph in Latin versions that circulated, sometimes individually but more often together.15 That they were conceived as a group is indicated by the frequent references in the later sermons to the earlier ones. Together they formed a polemical summary of FitzRalph's main antimendicant arguments to date, not only on the poverty question but also on the pastoral problems posed by the mendicants as well.16 The first sermon was preached on 18 December 1356 on the text "Dirigite viam Domini" (John 1:23). It begins, like Depauperie, with Adam, and moves rather briskly to his natural or original dominion and finally to the original dominion to which Christ, as the second Adam, succeeded. Christ was always poor because he never possessed anything beyond his necessities, to which that original dominion entitled him. The sermon ends with the argument that Christ would never have begged voluntarily because it would have been contrary to the rights implied in that dominion. Under natural dominion, all things are common to all the just to use for their necessities. Begging would therefore have impugned Christ's state.17 The second sermon was preached on 22 January 1357 at St. Paul's 14 See the account of Defensio curatorum, printed in Melchior Goldast, Monarchia s rotnani imperii, II (Graz Akademische-Druck. U. Verlagsantalt, 1960; repr. of Hanover: Conrad Bierman, 1614), p. 1392; Walsh, FitzRalph, pp. 409, 411, thinks he had already launched an antimendicant campaign of his own, and may even have precipitated the London disputes. 15 For the four sermons together, see Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, MS 64, fols. 30 r -46 r , 50--71- London, Lambeth Palace MS 1208, fols. 103r-163'; Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 180'-205'; Bodl. MS Auct. F. infra 1.2, fols. 237'-245", 276'-287"; St. Johns College MS 65, fols. 75r-96v; and other manuscripts of the sermon diary (e g. Bodl. MS 144, Oxford, New College MS 90, London, British Library, Landsdowne MS 393). For the fourth sermon by itself see Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223, fols. 35 r -43 v ; Bodl. MS 865, fols. 1-24'. 16 There may have been other antifraternal sermons in London; Defensio curatorum says seven or eight. But either they do not survive or they were the moderate ones that were preserved in the sermon diary from 1356 to 1357. See Walsh, FitzRalph, pp. 409-12. 17 St. John's MS 65, fols. 75 r -79'; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 30'-36 r .

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Cross on the text "Quodcumque dixerit vobis facite" (John 2:5) and goes on to consider the poverty of Christ at greater length. Scripture does not show that Christ ever begged voluntarily or that he taught or counseled that voluntary begging should be observed by his apostles. Begging is in fact illicit for the able-bodied and cannot be rightly taken up for a lifetime by a vow. FitzRalph is here of course touching directly on the profession of mendicant poverty made by the friars, especially the Franciscans, to whom he turns even more bluntly in the conclusion, arguing that the Franciscan Rule does not counsel voluntary begging but the opposite, insofar as it holds the friars to do nothing contrary to Scripture or the teachings of Christ. 18 On 26 February 1357, at St. Paul's Cross again, FitzRalph preached a third sermon, this time on the verse "Die ut lapides isti panes fiant" (Matt. 4:3). Unlike the previous two, this sermon concerned the pastoral problems posed by the friars, specifically in the area of confession, and emphasized the superiority of parish priest and parish church over the friars for confession.19 These sermons, meanwhile, were apparently finding their mark. Barely a week after this third sermon, on 7 March, members of each of the four major orders—Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinian friars—met at the Franciscan convent in London and drew up an Appellacio with a list of twenty errors that FitzRalph had preached in the city of London and elsewhere on recent occasions before a "populosa et copiosa nimis hominum multitudine" (populous and exceedingly abundant multitude of men). 20 Three days later Friar John of Arderne, the prior of the London convent of the Augustinians but here acting on behalf of all four orders, knocked on FitzRalph's door. FitzRalph was not at home, or perhaps not disposed to be, but Friar John nonetheless read out the Appellacio and, leaving behind a copy, departed. That act in effect announced a change of venue; the next chapter in the controversy was to be written at Avignon at the papal curia, to which the friars were now appealing. FitzRalph, however, would not leave London without a parting shot. Two days after Friar John's unwelcome visit, FitzRalph preached again at St. Paul's Cross, before a multitude no doubt more populosa et copiosa than before. The text of this sermon gives a hint of the tone: "Nemo vos seducat inanibus verbis" (Eph. 5:6: Let no one seduce you with 18

St. John's MS 65, fob. 79--84'; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 37'-46'. St. John's MS 65, fols 84'-87"; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 50-57' 20 The unique copy is in Sidney Sussex, MS 64, fol. 4'-\ Walsh, FitzRalph, p. 417 speaks of twenty-one charges in the Appellacio, but the manuscript has only twenty. FitzRalph does reply in twenty-one articles, but the last is a response to the sixth of the friars. 19

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empty words). Before responding to each error attributed to him in the Appellacio, FitzRalph fires off a salvo against those who seduce with empty words. They cause dissensions and scandal; they serve not Christ but their own bellies; they are hypocrites, lying teachers, magistn mendaces; they use religion for gain and deceive with feigned words (fictis verbis); they follow the errors of Balaam and the way of Cain; they are querulous murmurers; they are the "lovers of self" predicted for the Last Days. 21 This is the most intemperate outburst of FitzRalph's career, and it shows that he could, if he would, come at the friars from the same point of the compass as William of St. Amour. It may even show that like some of his friends he had read William of St. Amour, since virtually every epithet, and literally every Biblical passage in that polemical prologue, can be found in William's works. The fray, however, soon shifted to Avignon. FitzRalph responded dramatically to the friars' charges against him with a propositio delivered before the pope in full consistory on 8 November 1357. This work became known as the Defensio curatorum and was a highly successful piece of propaganda not only in the curia but throughout Europe. Katherine Walsh has found eighty-four surviving manuscripts, making it the single most widely circulated work by FitzRalph.22 The Defensio curatorum also seized the initiative back from the friars. Although he defended himself against their charges, he also made a formal proposition in this work, that the friars be stripped of their privileges. This was not the only front on which he was operating. He also filed a formal petition that he be absolved of the friars' charges, that the friars' privileges be revoked, and that the case be heard before a cardinals' commission, rather than the usual curial court.23 Such a commission could be expected to act with greater expedition, as it would not itself determine the outcome of the litigation, but after hearing the evidence would pass the case on to the pope for final disposition.24 Most of the documents presented before this commission were of a technical and legal nature, but two deserve mention. Representatives for both parties introduced 21 The whole sermon is in St. John's MS 65, fols 88r-96v, and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 58r—71v For the prologue, see St John's MS 65, fols. 88r-89v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 58'-60' 22 Walsh, FitzRalph, p. 469. The Defensio curatorum is printed in Goldast, Monarchta, II, 1391-1410. 23 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols 110-111'. The petition also appears in Bodl. MS 158, fols. 174-, and Bodl. MS 865, fols 87'-88»; Lambeth Palace MS 121, fol. 208 (218)'and other manuscripts given in Walsh, "Archbishop Richard FitzRalph and the Friars at the Papal Court in Avignon, 1357-60," Tradttio, 31 (1975), 233 n.37 and FitzRalph, p. 422 n. 54. 24 Walsh, FitzRalph, pp. 422, 427.

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Libelli, which provided summaries of their cases. FitzRalph's Libellus, presented on 19 December 1357, made thirty-three charges against the friars and called for the revocation of their privileges.25 The friars' Libellus was entered on 15 January 1358, and contains sixty-two charges against FitzRalph. It is a considerable expansion of the Appellacio drawn up in London, consisting of excerpts not only from the four London sermons, but also from the Depauperie Salvatoris and from the recentpropositio, the Defensio curatorum.26 The friars complained, in the subsequent Allegaciones and Exceptiones each party made to the other's Libellus, that FitzRalph's charges were "nimis generalis obscurus et vagus incertus et indeterminatus" (too general, obscure and rambling, uncertain and indeterminate), and they had a point. 27 Their Libellus provides its own evidence by basing each charge on a quotation from FitzRalph's published writings. But FitzRalph's charges are only accusations of the abuse of privileges. As the friars pointed out, they name no persons, acts, or places by, through, or in which such abuses were committed. FitzRalph's curial lawyer, Jacques de Seve, could only reply that since FitzRalph was talking about all the regions of Christianity, it would be too tedious (tediosissimum) and verbose to name all the acts, places, and persons and so to "descend" to particulars.28 It is interesting that FitzRalph's Libellus circulated with other polemical tracts from the controversy, while there is no evidence that the friars' ever went beyond Avignon until the fifteenth century. 29 The friars complained at the end of their Libellus that FitzRalph was conducting a widespread propaganda campaign against them. 30 And indeed the extensive dissemination of the Defensio curatorum and the 25

Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 115r—118v, with the incipit, "Coram vobis reverendissimis in Chnsto." 26 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 119r, 2 ' - 3 \ 119", not just 119'-' as Walsh has it in FitzRalph, p. 433. The scribe was adding the Libellus and other texts into any available space after many folios had already been filled up. In the middle of fol. 119' there is a note and a sign referring us to the text "in principio hums hbri," and indeed the text of the Libellus continues on fols. 2'-3 v and only then returns to fol. 119'"v. 27 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 120'. 28 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 123'. 29 The friars' Libellus only survives in Sidney Sussex MS 64. FitzRalph's appears in the same manuscript, but also in Bodl. MS 158, fols. 171»-174'; Bodl. MS 865, fols. 79"-86Lambeth Palace MS 121, fol. 208 (218)--212 (222)'; Durham Cathedral MS 32.B.IV, fols. 21-25; and other manuscripts discovered by Walsh, FitzRalph, p. 429 n. 78 and "FitzRalph and the Friars," Traditio, 31 (1975), 236n.45. 30 FitzRalph "scripta mandari procuravit et fecit ad diversas partes et presertim Romane curie et regnorum Ffrancie Anglie Alemanum Castelle Arragonie Ytalie Ungarie et alias diuersas Christianorum regiones et inibi publican"; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 119". 130

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London sermons would tend to support them. Two other widely circulated works written by FitzRalph at Avignon seem to be part of the same campaign. One was the Objectiones et responsiones, a supplement to the arguments in the Defensio curatorum about mendicancy.31 The other was the De audientia confessionum, important enough to have been the target of a reply by the Franciscan, Roger Conway. 32 In November 1360, however, FitzRalph died, and within a year Conway and two of the cardinals who had heard the arguments were all dead, and the case, no doubt with papal blessing, simply vanished. No decision was ever recorded for either party.

FRATRES EXTRINSECOS: THE FRIARS AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY

FitzRalph's approach to the friars is neither moral nor eschatological but fundamentally ecclesiological. He does not accuse them of moral laxity unless it is connected to the ecclesiastical functions they have usurped. If he speaks of their temptation by women, for example, it is usually to show that they have abused the office of confession. His arguments are also not, like those of the 1250s, primarily eschatological; he does not perceive the friars within the framework of Salvation History, nor see them as forerunners of the End (except once—an important exception, to which I shall return). Although his ecclesiology is based on New Testament concepts, he does not use the Bible as prophecy or figuration. 31

Incipit prol.: "Quia in proposicione nuper facta"; Incipit text. "Contra articulum seu conclusionum"; the work survives in Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 90'-97-; St. John's MS 65, fols. 196--202- London, Lambeth Palace MSS 121, fols. 212 (222)r-218 (228)- (defective at the end) and 1208, fols. 197--214'; BL MS Royal 6 E. VII, fols 528--530' (abridged); Bodl. MS 144, fols. 271--278; Bodl. MS 158, fols. 165'-171'; Bodl. MS Lat misc. c. 75 (ohm Phillipps 3119), fols. 98'-103'; Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223, fols. 55-60; Hereford Cathedral MS P.2. vi (fols. 1-22 include both the Defensw curatorum and the Objectiones); Durham Cathedral MS 32 B.IV, fols. 14-21. 32 The De audientia, Incipit; "Ante omnia per partem Armacham petitur declaracio illius constitutioms Johannine extravagantis sequentis [i.e. Vas electionis]," survives in Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 98'-106'; Bodl. MS 158, fols. 176'-186-; Bodl. MS 865, fols. 55-79-; MS Lat. misc. c. 75 (ohm Phillipps 3119), fols. 105'-11O- (incomplete); London, Lambeth Palace MS 1208, fols. 76--96'; Paris, BN MS Lat. 3221, fols. 1-13-; BN MS Lat. 3222, fols. 78'-98'. For Conway's Defensio mendicantium, see Goldast, Monarchia, II, 1410-44. The connection between De audientia and Conway's Defensio was made by P. Lavery, O.F.M., in his unpublished thesis "De Fr. Rogern Conway OFM vita et openbus deque eiusdem controversns cum Richardo Radulpho Archiepiscopo Armachano" (L.Hist.Ecc, Antomanum; Rome, 1930), pp. 50-51, 60. I owe this reference to Lavery's work to Walsh, FitzRalph, p. 441. 131

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FitzRalph's is a practical ecclesiology in part. As one might expect of a prelate involved for most of his career with ecclesiastical administration, he harps upon the practical consequences of the friars' entry into the church, especially in preaching, burials, and confession. But underlying all his warnings, there is a theoretical ecclesiology that concerns the origin and structure of the church hierarchy, the status of orders within it, the conformity of the church militant to the church celestial, and similar matters far removed from the actual conflicts in the parishes. Out of these theoretical notions of the organization of the church comes FitzRalph's dominant assumption: the friars have no legitimate place in the hierarchy of the church militant. That assumption is manifest above all in FitzRalph's vocabulary. The friars he calls extraneos or extrinsecos (outsiders, strangers, men who do not belong), as compared to the parish priest who is the ordinarius (ordinary). Sometimes he means that they are physically extraneous, outside the parish, since as itinerant pastors, confessors, or mendicants they remain in no particular place for very long. The home-bound parish priest is more useful than the friar extraneus since he is immediately available in an emergency such as a sudden nocturnal illness.33 But FitzRalph also uses the words in a metaphysical or ecclesiological sense. Even when the friars are not physically outside the parish, they are ecclesiastically outside. Thus the friars' church is called a locus extrinsecus and the friar confessor is called apersona extranea to the parishioner.34 Whereas confessors are normally appointed by an ordinarius, the friars are chosen by "unus extraneus qui nullam habet iurisdiccionem, sicut minister seu vicarius fratrum" (an outsider who has no jurisdiction, such as the minister or vicar of the friars).35 A less common but equally indicative term is alienus (alien, foreign). For confession, the parishioner ought to consider the greater effectiveness of the parish priest chosen or delegated by the church for that office, as opposed to a friar alieno who does not "pertain" to him (has nothing to do with him). 36 33

Defensio curatorum, p. 1396. For locus extrinsecus see the sermon of 26 February 1357, on the verse "Die ut lapides isti panes fiant," St John's MS 65, fol 85v; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 53'. For persona extranea, see Defensio curatorum, p. 1393. "Item persona ordinani est Parochiams suis personis Fratrum amphus obligata. Vnde rationabihter potest de ea considere, quod sollicitior ent ad prouidendum eis, quam Frater, qui est sibi persona extranea." See the same idea in the sermonjust mentioned, St. John's MS 65, fols. 86r, 86v, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 53", 54' [the first of two folios numbered 54], 55r. 35 Unusquisque, p. 59 36 Sermon of 12 March 1357 on "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 94' and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 68': "Item debet confessus verisimihter aestimare quod Deus 34

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The ecclesiological implications of extraneus and related terms are made clearer by the word to which it is so often opposed in FitzRalph's works: ordinarius. The friars are extraneos in executing their pastoral functions; far better—or as FitzRalph is more cautiously inclined to say when preaching before the conservative ecclesiastical establishment at the papal curia, more useful, secure, and convenient—are the ordinarii. Who are the ordinarii? In the sermon "Die ut lapides," FitzRalph provides a taxonomy: the parish priest, the parish chaplain, the vicar, the rector, the bishop, and his general penitentiary.37 To put it more hierarchically, the "ordinaries" are the parish clergy at the bottom of the ecclesiastical structure, and their immediate superiors, the bishops and their delegates—those who engage in the daily pastoral work of the church. These were the usual definitions in the medieval church, of course, but FitzRalph is very conscious of the etymology of ordinarius: Persona ordinarii . . . est a Deo per ecclesiam ordinata. . . . [Fratres] nee ordinantur, nee vocantur, nee officium tale eis precipitur ab ecclesia.38 [The person of the ordinary . . . is ordained by God through the church. . . . (Friars) are not ordained or called, nor is such an office decreed for them by the church.] The ordinaries are the class ordained by God and by the church for their office. Together they constitute the pastoral and apostolic ordo ecdesiasticus to which the friars do not and cannot belong as they were then constituted. Shortly after the mendicant orders were approved by the church in the thirteenth century, they were specifically exempted from episcopal and hierarchical jurisdiction by a grant of papal privilege. The reforming popes of the early thirteenth century made them exempt at least in part because they conceived of the friars as agents of diocesan and pastoral reform who would answer only to the pope. They were in conception if not always in execution what would later be called "papal orders." These thirteenth-century exemptions were modified as the years passed, especially in the early fourteenth century electo sive deputato per suam ecclesiam ad tale officium magis assistet in executione sui officii quam faciet alieno, m quadruplo forsitan magis docto, quia non pertmet ad eum aut saltern parum pertinet ad eum de ovibus alienis " 37 St. John's MS 65, fol. 86'; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 53'. 38 "Die ut lapides," St. John's MS 65, fol. 86v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 55'. See also "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 93v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 67', where the formulation is "persona a Deo ordinata et ad hoc per suam ecclesiam deputata"; and Defensio curatorum, p. 1396, "persona a lege Dei et suae ecclesiae ordinata." 133

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with such legislation as the Super cathedram of Boniface VIII. But the structure of the hierarchy remained basically the same. The pyramid of authority in the ordo ecdesiasticus, from the clergy in the parishes through their bishops and archbishops and their officers, did not include the friars, whose authority and pastoral privileges came directly from the papacy. The friars were thereby "extraordinary." FitzRalph's most succinct statement of this idea appears in Unusquisque, where he identifies the clergy as "in ordine ecclesiastico" and the friars as "ex ordine": Constat autem, quod curati quicumque maiores sunt in ordine ecclesiastico, quam sint fratres ex ordine, cum fratres in ordine non habeant nisi ordinem leuitarum et sacerdotes eorum ordinem simplicium sacerdotum. 39 [Moreover it appears that any curates whatever are greater within the ecclesiastical order than are the friars who are outside that order, since the friars may have no place within the order except the order of the Levites, and their priests may have no place except the order of simple priests.] The identification of the friars with the Levites is particularly revealing. FitzRalph has in mind the Levitical order after the rebellion of Core (Num. 16-18), and of the "stiff-necked and rebellious" Levites who tried to seize the priesthood for themselves. The rebels were swallowed up by the earth and consumed by fire, and thereafter the priesthood rested on the sons of Aaron alone. The other Levites were restricted to a subsidiary role as assistants to the priests and were not allowed to come near the sacred vessels or the altar. FitzRalph's association of the friars with the Levites, therefore, not only suggests a certain rebellious presumption on their part, but also a restriction of their role within the ecclesiastical hierarchy to sacerdotal assistance. But the priestly functions of the modern church—preaching, confession, burial, the administration of sacraments—he implies, were forbidden them. The friars "non habent in ecclesiastica yerarchia nisi gradum leuitarum aut ad plus simplicium sacerdotum ex sui ordinis instituto" (have no place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy except the rank of the Levites or, at most, the rank of simple priests, deriving from the institution of their own fraternal order). 40 39

Unusquisque, p. 57. Unusquisque, p. 69 By contrast, Katherine Walsh points out that the friar Geoffrey Hardeby declared the Levites of the Old Law to be models for the clergy of the New Law, because they lived on tithes and offerings rather than having landed possessions; see "The 'De Vita Evangelica' of Geoffrey Hardeby," Analecta Augustiniana, 34 (1971), p. 23. 40

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Another reason FitzRalph places the mendicant orders outside the ecclesiastical hierarchy is that they were so new (adventicios) to the church. 41 For 1,200 years, the church had managed without any orders of voluntary beggars, and yet the friars appeared in the thirteenth cen­ tury and claimed that their form of life was evangelical perfection. The corollary, which FitzRalph rejects along with the premise, is that there were therefore no priests who had followed the way of life of the apos­ tles until the founding of the mendicant orders. 4 2 More important, for 1,200 years the church had managed its pastoral affairs under common laws and rights that applied to all the clergy. But because the friars were exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishops, they did not live under the leges communes of the church and so were outside the ordo ecclesiasticus.*3 As adventitious mendicants they were to be distinguished from the orders ofpossessionati, like the canons and the monks, who were not only confirmati but instituti by the church and had been fully incorpo­ rated into the church hierarchy 1,200 years before the friars.44 No church council ever instituted or even confirmed the mendicant orders. In fact, FitzRalph asserts, their institution was denied by Innocent III, even though Francis and Dominic often sought it. The same pope for­ bade that any new religious orders be instituted. 45 The mendicants were approbati, it is true, but the initiative for their founding came not from the church but from the constant petition, supplication, and proc­ uration of their own numbers. 4 6 Their pastoral privileges were ac­ quired in the same way—by constant badgering, FitzRalph would have us believe. Their rights of preaching, hearing confession, and burying the dead were not granted to them by law, but by concession from the Law. 47 As they were not part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, they could be admitted to the secular clergy's rights and offices only by exception to the common law of the church. The very word "privilege" implies as much with its etymological meaning of bypassing the law: "nomen illud privilegium . . . privationem legis importat" (the word "privi­ lege" . . . means a privation of the law); to concede such privileges as confession and burial is to "legem privare" (void the law). 4 8 41 42 43 44 45

For adventicios see Unusquisque, pp 61, 72 Defensto curatorum, ρ 1402. Unusquisque, p. 58. FitzRalph of course stretches history a bit here; Unusquisque, pp. 58, 60-61. " N e m o vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 96r and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 70"-

71' 46 For approbati see Unusquisque, pp. 58, 68; for the friars' petitions, see "Die ut Iapides," St. John's MS 65, fol. 86v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol 55' 47 " N e m o vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 92' and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 65'~v: "Sed facta est eis a lege seu pnvilegio nuda concessio." 48 "Die ut lapides," St. John's MS 65, fol. 87» and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 56\

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The words vocatus and missus are at the center of a related linguistic set. In FitzRalph's vocabulary, they describe the legitimate pastor or parish priest and his superiors, elect, ordained, and so "called" or "sent" to his apostolic vocation or mission by God and the church. These words are associated with certain Biblical verses, which probably are the origin of their usage in the medieval church. Speaking of the evangelical preacher, St. Paul says in Rom. 10:15, "Quomodo predicabunt nisi mittantur?" (How are men to preach unless they be sent?). And in Heb. 5:4, speaking of the priesthood, he says, "Nemo sumat sibi honorem sed qui vocatur a Deo sicut Aaron" (Let no man take the honor to himself but he who is called by God, like Aaron). These verses become touchstones for FitzRalph to prove that the friars have not entered into the pastoral hierarchy legitimately.49 The friars took them seriously; two of the charges made against FitzRalph in the official statement of the friars' grievances in Avignon had to do with these verses. The nineteenth charge against him in the friars' Libellus was that he had said, "fratres non sunt vocati ac missi ad tale ministerium, scilicet, predicacionis exercendi . . . et ideo fratres inobediencie peccatum incurrunt quia contra doctrinam apostoli, Rom. 10, 'Quomodo predicabunt nisi mittantur?' " (friars are not called or sent to such a ministry, that is, of preaching . . . and therefore friars [who preach] commit the sin of disobedience since it is against the teaching of the Apostle in Rom. 10:15, "How are men to preach unless they be sent?"). Similarly the twenty-second charged him with saying "quod fratres non sunt missi a deo ad istud officium scilicet audiendi confessiones" (that friars are not sent by God to that office, namely of hearing confessions).50 The words are important to the friars, because upon vocation or mission rests the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy. FitzRalph's understanding of just who is called is most apparent in his discussion of the text of Unusquisque, 1 Cor. 7:24: "Let every frater remain in the state in which he is called [vocatus]."51 FitzRalph's exegesis of the verse turns upon a neighboring one, 1 Cor. 7:17-18: "Let each walk as God has called him; when a circumcised is called, let him not try to add a prepuce; if another, uncircumcised, is called let him not 49 FitzRalph's Vulgate is slightly different from the modern. Defensio curatorum, pp. 1400, 1403; Unusquisque, p. 61; "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 92r and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 65'; FitzRalph's Libellus, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 115v. 50 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 2V. 51 "Unusquisque in quo vocatus est frater, m hoc maneat apud Deum," Unusquisque, p. 54 I translate as FitzRalph understood the verse; the modern Catholic translation is different.

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become circumcised."52 The clergy, says FitzRalph, are vocati uncircumcised, since they dispense the temporal goods of the church and have inherited its rights and laws. But the friars, insofar as they are called, are vocati in circumcisione (called in a circumcised state), cut off from worldly goods and such ecclesiastical rights and laws. Their profession of the highest poverty should render them ineligible for any of the pastoral functions of the church.53 Later, in a discussion of the faculty of hearing confessions, FitzRalph makes his strongest statement on the friars' vocation: fratres ad hanc facultatem habendam non erant vocati ab ecclesia, quoniam pocius ecclesia vocasset, ut dixi, doctores seculares, curatos, et religiosos possessionatos, qui sunt ab ecclesia instituti et incorporati ecclesiastice yerarchie ante adventum fratrum per mille cc annos aut circiter, quam vocaret fratres adventicios, quorum ordinem non instituit, sed ad institutorum ipsorum ordinum peticionem humilem approbavit. Quod quia ecclesia non fecit, consequitur, quod ad istud officium non erant vocati.54 [friars were not called by the church to have that power, since the church rather would have called, as I said, secular teachers, curates, and propertied religious, who were instituted by the church and incorporated into the ecclesiastical hierarchy before the advent of the friars by 1,200 years or thereabouts, than it would call adventitious friars, whose order it did not institute, but only approved in response to the humble petition of the founders of those orders. Since the church did not do that, it follows that they were not called to that office.] The friars were not called by the church; the church did not institute them or incorporate them into the ecclesiastical hierarchy; it merely approved the petition of their founders—these are the key elements of FitzRalph's position. The petition for approval initiated by the friars themselves is a particularly important point. For entry into the church, FitzRalph seems to oppose petition to vocation: the friars received the office of curates "ad peticionem et aspiracionem eorum, non ad vocacionem Ecclesie" (because they aspired to it and asked for it, not bea2 "Unumquemque sicut vocauit deus, ita ambulet: cum circumcisus quis vocatus est, non adducat prepucium; in prepucio aliquis vocatus est? non circumcidatur," Unusquisque, p. 54. 53 Unusquisque, pp 54-55. 54 Unusquisque, pp 60-61.

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cause they were called by the church).55 The historical accuracy of the archbishop's account is not of concern here, but certainly there is reason for doubt. Innocent III and other popes actively wanted the friars to get involved in pastoral reform because the secular clergy were so corrupt. Can a vocation not come from the pope? In the sermon "Die ut lapides," FitzRalph sees all the friars' privileges as deriving not from ordination but from petition, not from God through the church but from their own insistence, as opposed to the ordinarii.56 To return to one of FitzRalph's key texts, the friars violate Heb. 5:4: "Nemo sumat sibi honorem, sed qui vocatur a Deo" (Let no one take honor to himself but he who is called by God). 57 The state of honor alluded to in that verse is that of the preacher, confessor, pastor. Those who have to "procure" the office infect themselves with the sin of pride and "ex presumptione propria ad officium illud ascendunt" (ascend to the office out of their own pride).58 Two things about the word ascendunt are worth remarking. It is a Biblical allusion—to John 10:1, which is quoted immediately before—with a clear ecclesiological meaning: "Qui non intrat per ostium in ovile ovium, sed aliunde ascendit, ille fur est et latro" (he who enters not by the door to the sheepfold but ascends another way, is a thief and a robber). The door is Christ ("ego sum ostium"), the sheepfold the pastoral church, the robber ascending and entering by a back way the friar. Second, ascendunt, like aspiracionem in the passages quoted in the previous paragraph, implies an inappropriate upward mobility by the friars. This upward aspiration not only causes disruption in the parishes when the friars intrude upon the secular clergy's domain; it also violates the principles of divine order in the hierarchies of both the church militant and the church triumphant. FitzRalph makes this point often, but the clearest statement of it comes in a document submitted in support of FitzRalph at Avignon, the Informacio brevis pro clero etpopulo contra abusum mendicancium. It urges that the church militant should conform to the church triumphant. There no rank or degree aspires to join a greater, but rather preserves the status for which it was instituted, and which it cannot infringe. In support the author of the Informacio brevis advances the De ecclesiastica hierarchia of Pseudo-Dionysius, where no inferior order of angels is ever said to have sought exemption from the 55 56 57 58

Unusquisque, p. 61. St. John's MS 65, fol. 86» and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 55'. Unusquisque, p. 61. Defensio curatorum, p. 1403. 138

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jurisdiction of its superiors.59 FitzRalph makes a similar point in the De pauperie Salvatoris about the friars' exemptions from episcopaljurisdiction: talis exempcio . . . legem nature inpugnet, ecclesiasticam ierarchiam dividat seu prescind[a]t, quam per Christi apostolos celesti ierarchie conformiter Spiritus Sanctus instituit; ecclesiasticam insuper ierarchiam reddit celesti ierarchie difformem.60 [such an exemption is against the law of nature, divides or splits the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which the Holy Spirit, through Christ's apostles, instituted in conformity with the celestial hierarchy; moreover, such an exemption renders the ecclesiastical hierarchy dissimilar to the celestial hierarchy.] The assertion that the friars' exemptions rendered the ecclesiastical hierarchy dissimilar to the celestial was sufficiently irksome to the friars that it became one of the official errors with which FitzRalph was charged in their Libellus at Avignon in 1358.61 The central point, however, of FitzRalph's reference to the celestial hierarchy was that the mendicant orders should not have aspired to a higher status in the church. Founded outside the auspices of the church and approved as ecclesiastical orders only after long petition, they disrupted and disrupt the hierarchy by seeking pastoral functions not properly their own. This is a constant theme in FitzRalph's writings, and it is so often accompanied by the final commandment in the Decalogue, that this verse might be the leading leitmotif in his works: "Non concupisces rem proximi tui" (Thou shalt not covet a thing which belongs to thy neighbor). It appears in Unusquisque, in the De pauperie, in each of the four London sermons of 1356-57, and in the Defensio curatorum. FitzRalph uses it against both the mendicants' conception of poverty and their procuring of privileges. To beg when one is able to work is to steal one's neighbor's goods, especially those that ought to go to the involuntarily poor. To procure the pastoral privileges of preaching, burial, and confession is to steal the goods of neigh59 "Debet monere conformitas ecclesiae mihtantis ad ecclesiam tnumphantem in qua singuli gradus suam institutionem observant quam non licet infringere, secundum beatum Diomsium in de ecclesiastica ierarchia c vi. Dicant fratres ubi repenunt quod mferiores ordines angelorum super exempcione a supenori subjectione pnvilegia petiverunt " Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol 107', Bodl MS 158, fol. 175-. 60 Book 7, chap. 6 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fol. 126'; also in Brock, p. 237. 61 Libellus contra Armachanam, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 3V, no. 55.

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bors in the church, that is, the secular clergy.62 The friars in turn made FitzRalph's applications of this verse the basis of two of their charges in the Libellus at Avignon. 63

MENDICANCY AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL ECONOMY

Behind FitzRalph's polemical interpretation of "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods" lies an idea of a finite ecclesiastical economy. The goods of the church not only provide for the sustenance of God's ministers; the church holds those goods in custody for the poor, whom the church is obliged in charity to support. 64 In accordance with the principles of divine order, there is never a superfluity, only a sufficiency of goods in the world. To anyone who is physically able to support himself by manual labor, goods obtained by begging are superfluous and illegitimate.65 The able-bodied beggar is a thief; the infirm should be treated with charity. Involuntary poverty is justification for begging but voluntary poverty is suspect because it deprives the truly poor of their right. Likewise, the clergy are deprived indirectly by such mendicancy, because they are custodians of the goods to go to the poor. But they are also deprived directly of their own goods and ecclesiastical rights. Fraternal begging takes alms and bequests that might otherwise go to the parish churches; the exercise of their privileges withdraws burial fees, legacies, tithes, and other forms of support. If there were unlimited goods in the world, this would not be a problem; but because the ecclesiastical economy is finite, FitzRalph implies, each gift to a friar is a theft from the institutional church. FitzRalph's favorite verb for this process is indicative: the friars subtrahunt (draw away) alms from the church; what is provided for the feeding of prelates by the law 62

Concerning begging, Defensio curatorum, pp. 1405, 1409; "Quodcumque dixent vobis facite," St John's MS 65, fols. 81'- v , 82v; and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 41', 43 r ; "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 90'and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 61 v . Concerning privileges, Defensio curatorum, p. 1399; Unusquisque, p. 62; Depauperie Salvatoris, Lambeth Palace MS 121, fol. 126r (book 7, chap. 6); "Die ut lapides," St. John's MS 65, fol. 87' and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol 55v; "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fols. 9 1 \ 92' and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 64», 65». 63 The first and fifty-third charges, concerning begging and privileges, respectively; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 2r and 3V. The verse is also mentioned in the prologue to the Libellus, fol. 119'. 64 De pauperie Salvatoris, book 6, chap. 31-33 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 118'119-; also in Brock, pp. 181-93. 65 "Nemo vos seducat," St John's MS 65, fol. 90v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 62'-. 140

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of God subtrahuntur (is drawn away) by the friars.66 The verb not only implies the fmitude of ecclesiastical goods but also suggests that the friars are outside the pastoral hierarchy of the church. They "subtract" not only goods but rights of their ecclesiastical neighbors and so disobey the precept of the Decalogue: [Procuratio privilegiorum est] contra illam aliam legem, "non concupisces rem proximi tui, non bovem, non asinum, etc." [Exod. 20:17], cum curati ecclesiarum gravius damnificentur in subtractione iurium suarum ecclesiarum ab eis, quam in subtractione bo vis aut asim vel ancillae.67 [Procuration of privileges is contrary to that other law, "Thou shalt not covet a thing which belongs to thy neighbor, not his ox nor his ass, etc." (Exod. 20:17), since the curates of the church will be more seriously harmed by the withdrawal of the rights of their own churches by those men than by the loss of their ox or ass or maidservant.] Still another ecclesiological argument is that begging, the most salient feature of the mendicant orders and the core of their new religious way of life, is irreconcilable with the priesthood. The office of preaching has annexed to it the power of exacting the necessaries of life, says FitzRalph, by the laws of God and of the church. In sending out his disciples on their preaching mission Christ told them they should stay with those to whom they preach, eating and drinking whatever they might have, for "the workman is worthy of his hire" (Luke 10:7).68 They were thus to live from the reward of their evangelical labor, by exacting their necessities from their flocks and not by begging. 69 By FitzRalph's time, tithes and bequests and the like had taken the place of direct grants of shelter and food to the ministers of the Gospel, and the church had become the administrative intermediary that distributed necessaries given by the community of Christians to support the clergy. The principle nonetheless remained intact: the clergy had the "potestas [or ius] exigendi necessaria vitae ab his, quibus . . . Evange66

Defensio curatorum, pp. 1394, 1397. "Nemo vos seducat," St. John's MS 65, fol. 91 v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 64v. 68 Defensio curatorum, pp. 1399-1400, 1394; Unusquisque, pp. 70-71; "Quodcumque dixerit vobis facite," St. John's MS 65, fol. 81 v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 41 v ; De mendicitate, chaps 7 and 8, Corpus Christi College MS 180, fols 95v-97v; Depauperie SaIvatons, book 6, chap 7 (Lambeth Palace MS 121, fols. 105v—106r; also in Brock, pp. 9499); the friars' Libellus, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 2' (no. 18) 69 "Quodcumque dixerit vobis," St. John's MS 65, fol 81 v and Sidney Sussex 64, fol. 41™. 67

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lium annunciant" (power [or right] of exacting the necessaries of life from those to whom they preach the Gospel). In practice each priest received the wherewithal to live from the church, indeed was required by canon law to have a living. FitzRalph points out that a man could not be promoted to holy orders unless "habeat titulum sufficientem ad vestitum habendum et victum" (unless he have sufficient title to have clothing and food).70 No priest therefore can be truly a beggar, because by canonical definition, a priest of the church has his livelihood provided.71 Conversely, a true beggar cannot be a priest because a beggar cannot be said to have free right of exacting the necessaries of life. He who takes up a state of mendicitas in fact renders himself unfit for sacerdotal office, "cum sine titulo sufficienti de victu et vestitu secundum Ecclesiae leges satis talis habere non possit" (since without sufficient title to food and clothing according to the laws of the church, such a man cannot possibly have enough to live by). 72 A priest who begged would bring opprobrium upon the clergy.73 The priests of the Old Testament did not beg, but by God's ancient law had possessions and were given tithes; Melchisedech, the king of Salem, did not beg and it was according to his order that Christ himself was a priest.74 For all these reasons, FitzRalph saw not only the friars' mendicancy but the conception of poverty behind it as threatening to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Members of the hierarchy were required by canon law to have a living; the friars swore by their profession to live without one. The hierarchy laid up material goods for the future,; the friars theoretically had none. Ecclesiastical support of the clergy was based on an interpretation of the lives of Christ and the apostles; but so was mendicant poverty. The church was endowed; but if the friars were right, the endowment must necessarily have been an error that diminished the perfection of the clergy. It is no wonder then that FitzRalph saw the mendicants as dangerous to the church. Videtur enim hec prefixio paupertatis absoluta siue assumpcio ordinem siue ierarchiam ecclesiasticam violare atque contempnere, quoniam simpliciter abicit omnem providenciam, procrastino seu futuro, et per consequens abicit obedienciam parendi cuicumque 70

Defensio curatorum, pp. 1399, 1401; see also Unusquisque, p. 70. De mendicitate, chap. 12; Cambridge, Corpus Chnsti College MS 180, fol. 99v. 72 Defensio curatorum, pp. 1400, 1409; the fifth charge in the friars' Libellus against FitzRalph, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 2·. 73 "Nemo vos seducat," St John's MS 65, fol. 91 r and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 63 v . 74 Hebrews 7 and Gen. 14.18; Defensio curatorum, p. 1407. 71

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prelato volenti ad providenciam faciendam siue exercendam impellere.75 [To take on poverty in an absolute way by previous arrangement seems to violate the ecclesiastical order and to defy the ecclesiastical hierarchy, since it completely does away with any effort to provide for the morrow or the future, and by consequence does away with obedience to any prelate who might wish to urge the making or practice of provision for the morrow.] Begging, oddly enough, has a great deal to do with another charge that FitzRalph frequently makes against the friars: multiplication. It is in fact one of the formal accusations he made in his Avignon lawsuit, that the friars "per mundum multiplicarunt et dilatarunt" (have multiplied and spread throughout the world). 76 His supporters at Avignon echoed him in their Informacio brevis, which urged that a reasonable curb be placed on the unbridled multiplication {effienata multiplicacio) of the friars.77 Vast increases in the mendicant orders were seen to create various kinds of evils. Because they need food every day, they corrupt the sacred things of the church. For the same reason, they visit the forum (market) more than the chorum (church choir). With their begging they burden the clergy and the people, until all the alms in the world will be gone and there will not be enough to eat—a variation of the notion of a finite ecclesiastical economy. 78 But the most interesting arguments FitzRalph makes against the friars' unlimited growth are from physics and Augustinian theology. According to Aristotle's De anima, says FitzRalph, there should be reasonable principles of magnitude and growth in all stable things.79 But the friars violate this law of nature because they increase without any end or aim ("in magnitudine et augmento terminum sibi non statuunt"). A complementary law appears in sacred Scripture in the book of Wisdom: "Deus omnia in mensura, numero, et pondere disposuit" (Wisd. 11:21: God disposed all things by 75 Depaupene Salvatoris, book 6, chap. 10 in Lambeth Palace MS 121, fol. 106v and in Brock, p. 103; see also book 6, chap. 9 (fol. 106v and pp. lOlff., respectively); book 7, chap. 6 (fol. 126v and pp. 237ff.); Defensio curatomm, p. 1407. 76 Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 117- (no. 31). 77 Lambeth Palace MS 1208, fol. 98r; Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 107'; Bodl. MS 158, fol. 176'. 78 Informacio brevis, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol 107r; Bodl. MS 158, fol. 176'; Lambeth Palace MS 1208, fol. 98'; Defensio curatomm, p. 1399. 79 "Omnium natura constantium determmata est ratio magnitudims et augmenti." FitzRalph cites the second book of the De amma in Defensio curatomm, p. 1399. The same passage is cited in the Informacio brevis, Lambeth Palace MS 1208, fol. 98', Bodl. MS 158, fol. 176', Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 107'.

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measure, number, and weight). These are the principles of order in the created universe, and especially in the church. But the friars, with their ungoverned multiplication, live by principles of disorder that are directly contrary to God's disposition by measure, number, and weight. This multiplication results from making begging a way of life, because begging cannot fix "number, measure, or weight" for the persons who support themselves by it. It cannot fix the number of persons for whom it provides because mendicancy is so uncertain; indeed it cannot guarantee provision for the future for even one person. It cannot fix weight, that is, that the mendicants live in a fixed place. Beggars are compelled to leave their lodgings each day to obtain their daily needs. And finally, begging cannot fix measure, that is, that an established number of persons be assigned to all the divine offices, because mendicants must often leave their ministries to beg for their necessaries.80 For all these reasons, their unlimited multiplication—"founded upon begging"—is contrary to divine order and law. It is not so much the physical numbers of the friars that bother him as the lack of any governance of their numbers. They follow no principle of order, unlike the rest of the church. At the heart of their disordered numbers is begging. All the secular clergy have their livings provided by the church; no priest may be ordained without such a living. By such livings, the church numbers, weighs, and measures its priests. But the friars cannot be numbered or weighed or measured because they have no stipends and are exempt from normal hierarchical jurisdiction.

FITZRALPH AND WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR

It is not surprising that FitzRalph was closely associated with William of St. Amour in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A number of manuscripts of English provenance still survive in which their works circulated together.81 In two encyclopedias of the late fourteenth and 80

"Deus omnia m mensura, numero, et pondere disposuit: cum talis multiphcatio super mendicitate seu mendicatione, ut Fratres asserunt, sit fundata, quae nee personarum numerum certum potest statuere, quibus provideat: imo nee uni personae de caetero poterit providere. Nee pondus, sell ut locum fixum Mendicantes obtineant, possit praefigere, cum vero mendici per singulos dies aut quasi suum locum egestate urgente compellantur exire. Nee mensuram persoms possint statuere, sell, ut in singulis diuinis officiis smt m numero certae personae, cum pari modo egestate compulsi ministeriis rehctis mendicare saepissime oportebit " Defensio curatorum, p. 1399. I have corrected the punctuation in Goldast's edition. 81 Cambridge, Peterhouse MS 223, Sidney Sussex MS 64, Corpus Christi College MS 103; Oxford, Bodl. MS 158, Bodl. MS 784, MS Lat. misc. c 75 (ohm Philhpps 3119); London, Lambeth Palace MS 357, and London, BL Royal MS 6 E. VI and 6 E. VII 144

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early fifteenth centuries, in articles on the mendicant orders, excerpts from both are freely intermingled.82 Adam Easton, the English Benedictine cardinal who had quarreled with the friars early in his career, left behind a large library of which only nine books survive. One of the nine is William of St. Amour's Collectiones; another is FitzRalph's De pauperie Salvatoris.S3 The friars themselves accused FitzRalph of reviving the errors of William of St. Amour; Roger Conway, the provincial of the English Franciscans, puts it this way: iste tractatus suus supradictus et libellus iudicialiter datus contra Fratres continent similia libello Guilhelmi per dominum Alexandrum quartum excommunicationis vinculo innodati. 84 [that tract of his mentioned above and his "Libel" (i.e., the De audientia confessionum and FitzRalph's Libellus) brought legally against the friars both contain things similar to those in the little book (i.e., the De periculis) of William of St. Amour, who was excommunicated by Pope Alexander IV.] Conway has a point. The works of FitzRalph do show a considerable degree of similarity to works of William of St. Amour, especially in the area of ecclesiology that we have been pursuing in this section. Although their language is somewhat different and their tone is radically so, their basic ecclesiological assumptions are the same: that the friars were founded outside the ecclesiastical hierarchy, were latecomers to the church, have elbowed their way into pastoral functions that had been the divinely and ecclesiastically ordained province of the secular clergy, are now disrupting the pastoral unity of the hierarchy, and so are harmful to the church. Most of the first distinctio of the Collectiones is about such matters, but there are ecclesiological discussions scattered throughout William's works. 85 A rapid survey of the second chapter of the De periculis shows how close William and FitzRalph are on some issues.86 All who preach non missi, says William of St. Amour in that chapter, are false preachers, no matter how holy or learned, by the principle es82 In Omne bonum, BL Royal MS 6 E VI and 6 E. VII, the article "Fratres"; and Bodl. MS 784, part 3, fols. 86M08'. 83 Bodl. MS 151 and Cambridge, Corpus Chnsti College MS 180. See also Leslie J MacFarlane, "The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B.," Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1955, pp. 35-36. 84 Roger Conway, Defensio religionis mendtcantium, in Goldast, Monorchia, II, 1344 (for 1444) 85 Collectiones, pp. 135-212. 86 All that follows is from Opera omnia, pp. 24-27.

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tablished by St. Paul in Rom. 10:15: "Quomodo predicant nisi mittantur?" (How are men to preach unless they be sent?). Preachers are not missi and are not called (non vocantur) by God, unless they are rightly chosen or elected by the church. To be rightly chosen, one cannot appoint himself, as Heb. 5:4 shows: "Nee quisquam assumit sibi honorem, nisi qui vocatur a Deo tamquam Aaron" (No man takes the honor to himself, except he who is called by God, as Aaron was). Those rightly elected by the church include the bishops, who succeeded the twelve apostles, and the parish priests, who succeeded the seventy-two disciples. There are no other ranks than these two constituted for the ruling of the church or for the regimen animarum?1 Some, says William, might object that anyone appointed by the pope or bishop can preach. William does not want to dispute the authority of prelates, but nevertheless, according to divine and human law, each church can have only one rector. Otherwise such a church would be a whore and not a bride, a monster with many heads. Therefore those specially appointed (William as usual studiously avoids mentioning the friars) may not preach unless invited by those who have true authority over their parishes or dioceses, the rectors and bishops. The pope may not concede to "infinite" numbers the right of preaching to people in parishes not their own. It is clear elsewhere that by "infinite" William means unnumbered or unaccounted for in the normal hierarchical system; they are not "finite" because not definite. The church keeps its clergy numbered, ordered, and definite by canonical law because all who preach must be provided with a living (procuratio sive sumptus); the parishioners of each church in effect provide a stipend for their priest. This is in accordance with apostolic principles: "God ordained for those who preach the Gospel, that they might live from it" (1 Cor. 9:14). If infinite persons have the power of preaching in any church they choose, then any church will owe infinite livings, which is absurd. Finally William turns to the De hierarchia ecclesiastica of Pseudo-Dionysius. There it is said that no new apostles (i.e., orders of preachers) can be constituted in the church; once the forms of the church had been instituted by the apostles and councils of the holy fathers, they stood divinely ordained. The ecclesiastical hierarchy is ordained and ordered like the celestial hierarchy. There are only two orders: the superior ordo perficientium, that is, the ministers of the church—bishops, parish priests, and deacons—and the inferior ordo perficiendorum, that is, men 87 "Nee plures sunt in Ecclesia gradus ad regendam ecclesiam constituti. . . . Nullus ergo habet regimen animarum, nisi Episcopi et Parochiales Presbyteri": Opera omnia, p. 24

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who live under a Rule (viri regulares, primarily monks), the laity, and the catechumens. No angelic order is permitted to perform any func­ tion beyond that ordained for it by God. More important for William's case against the friars, no inferior order may ever perform the office of a superior but must be content with its own lot. Specifically, the viri regulares, while they remain in the inferior order of' perficiendorum, can­ not exercise the offices ofthe ρerficientium—teaching, preaching, or ad­ ministering the sacraments. Individual Regulars may by canonical elec­ tion (like other priests) be raised to the offices of the ρ erficientium, but their own order does not carry with it the right to preach. These hier­ archical notions advanced by Pseudo-Dionysius are the law for Wil­ liam of St. Amour. No mortal, not even the pope, may change that sa­ cred hierarchy. The necessity for preachers to be vocatos or missos; the citations of Rom. 10:15 and Heb. 5:4; the exclusion of the friars from the pastoral hierarchy responsible for the governance of souls; the necessity for unity in the hierarchy, especially at the parish level, where there must be one pastor to one church; the difficulty posed by unlimited, "infi­ nite" preachers not incorporated into the hierarchy; the necessity for all preachers to have livings from the church; the introduction of PseudoDionysius; the conformity of the hierarchies of the celestial and the militant churches; the unlawfulness of aspiration of a lower order to a higher—all these hierarchical notions in this single short chapter of the De periculis are also to be found in FitzRalph. The similarities could be extended. FitzRalph's arguments about mendicancy and the Biblical ci­ tations that buttress them repeat much of what is in William's two questiones, the De valido mendicante and the De quantitate eleemosyne. His con­ cern about the multitudes of friars is echoed in the De periculis, when William warns of the many false prophets prophesied in Matthew 24 and elsewhere. There is a methodological resemblance as well: both au­ thors make their case against the friars through Biblical exegesis, often of the same verses. 88 These similarities should not, however, obscure the fundamental differences between the fourteenth-century writer and the thirteenthcentury one. FitzRalph's approach to the friars is fundamentally ecclesiological, while William of St. Amour's is fundamentally eschatological. The same might be said of their Biblical exegesis. For one it shows how the church ought to be structured; for the other it shows 88

For FitzRalph's exegesis, see A.J Minms, " 'Authorial Intention' and 'Literal Sense' in the Exegetical Theories of Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif: An Essay in the Me­ dieval History of Biblical Hermeneutics," PRIA, 75 C (1975), 1-30, and Kathenne Walsh, FitzRalph, pp. 16-17, 25, 31-36, 47-48, 86, 170-81, 466 147

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how the church has been warned of the dangers of the final times. FitzRalph's theoretical ecclesiology leads primarily to a practical ecclesiology; his ideas about the hierarchy and who legitimately belongs in it are the foundation of his practical arguments against the friars' abuse of their privileges of confession and burial, their disruption of parish work for the secular clergy, their contribution to a decline in tithing, and so forth. But nearly everything in FitzRalph springs from or returns to the proper constitution of the church. William of St. Amour's ecclesiology, by contrast, leads primarily to the Apocalypse. When William shows that the friars have illegitimately worked their way into the hierarchy, he goes on to show that such a usurpation was predicted by the apostles and prophesied by Christ for the ecclesiafinalis. Those non missos are not just an impediment to the proper working of the parish clergy, but the forerunners of Antichrist. Those who force their way into offices not their own are the penetrantes domos who, St. Paul says, will bring in the periculis novissimorum temporum. In sum, William sees himself as a prophet, FitzRalph as a reformer. The ecclesiology of one leads to corrective measures, the ecclesiology of the other leads to the End. Nevertheless it is important to recognize how small a step it is from FitzRalph's conservative to William's radical viewpoint. In a sense William's eschatology is only an extension of his (and FitzRalph's) ecclesiology. On the friars' illegitimate entry into the church, on the apostolic heritage vested in the hierarchy, on the disorder created by the usurpers, both writers agree. But William alone draws the significance of that disorder on the canvas of Salvation History, using the Bible to interpret contemporary history, finding the friars in prophecies and figurations of the End. William's eschatological flights may in part be attributed to the desperation of his position. Unlike FitzRalph, who made his case as an archbishop with many allies at the papal curia, William and the Parisian masters faced a group of friars who were in great favor with both the pope and the king of France, and whose members included some of the greatest intellects of the Middle Ages, including Bonaventura and Aquinas. The result of William's attack was his own banishment, the loss of his benefices, excommunication, and the condemnation of his writings. It is small wonder that he felt persecuted. In FitzRalph's case, there could hardly be any question of persecution— except once, when it is clear he felt if not persecuted, at least hounded and harrassed. The one exception is particularly interesting because it also produced the most eschatological passage in all of FitzRalph, in which, using the same prophecies and figurations that are prominent in William of St. Amour, he proclaimed the friars forerunners of the An148

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tichrist, penetrantes domos, magistri mendaces. The thin line between ecclesiology and eschatology had been broken. The occasion was the fourth of FitzRalph's London sermons in the winter of 1356-57, preached in heated response to the friars' Appellacio summoning him before the pope to answer for his errors. FitzRalph fired back from the pulpit of St. Paul's Cross; it is the angry prologue of this sermon that is of interest here. FitzRalph's text is Eph. 5:6: "Nemo vos seducat inanibus verbis" (Let no one seduce you with empty words). There are, he says, three kinds of empty words: first, idle words, which bear no fruit, such as those spoken in profanity or idle talk; second, the false words of lies (which the friars have spoken about him in their Appellacio); and third, the hollow words of hypocrisy, where sanctity is simulated to obtain worldly things. Now we know that all that are in the world are afflicted by the three vices outlined by the Apostle John (1 John 2:16): concupiscence of the flesh (luxuria), concupiscence of the eyes (avaritia), and pride of life (superhia). The hypocrites of whom FitzRalph speaks (implicitly the friars) are afflicted by these three vices, which impel them to seek, respectively, fleshly delights, wealth, and honor. To obtain honor, they feign humility; to obtain wealth they feign holy begging; to obtain such delights they pretend to holy continence. It is about such hypocrites that FitzRalph urges his audience to beware, lest they be seduced with empty words. For, he says in a sentence that sounds more like William of St. Amour's than his own, three of the apostles prophesied "that they would come in the last days, which days are just now approaching, beyond doubt." 89 The first of these prophetic apostles is Peter, and FitzRalph discusses the following passage from 2 Peter 2: (1) But there were false prophets among the people just as among you there will be lying teachers [magistri mendaces] who will bring in destructive sects [sectas perdicionis]. . . . (2) And many will follow their wanton conduct, and through them the way of truth will be blasphemed. (3) And out of greed with feigned words [fictis verbis] they will use you for their gain. . . . (10) Rash and self-willed, they do not fear to introduce sects, blaspheming. . . . (13) Abounding in stained and polluted pleasures, wanton at their own banquets; (14) having eyes full of adultery and unceasing delights, enticing unstable souls, having hearts exercised in avarice, chil89 "De hiis quod essent ventun in diebus novissimis, qui dies modo instant non dubium, tres domini nostri ven apostoli prophetabant." St. John's MS 65, fol. 88v and Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 59r.

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dren of a curse. (15) They follow the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing. In these verses, the three temptations and the attached vices of 1 John 2:16 are prophesied for the hypocrites who will come in novissimis diebus. They will be proud (verse 10); they will be avaricious (3 and 15); they will be lecherous (13-14). Peter prophesies how they will operate: by "enticing unstable souls" (14), seducing them craftily with ^kiis verbis (3). Such men, says FitzRalph, are present today and Peter makes it possible to recognize them. The second prophecy is from the Apostle Jude: (11) Woe to those who have gone in the way of Cain and have rushed into the error of Balaam for the sake of gain. . . . (16) These are querulous murmurers, walking according to their desires and their mouth speaks pride, cultivating people for the sake of gain. (17) As for you, beloved, be mindful of the words that were preached by the apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, (18) who said to you that in the Last Days [novissimis diebus] will come scoffers, walking according to their lusts, not in piety. (19) These are they who set themselves apart, sensual men [animates], not having the Spirit. Here too, says FitzRalph, we are warned to recognize the illusores who will come in the Last Days by the same three vices: pride (16), in that they "set themselves apart" (19), pretending to lead singularly holy lives; avarice (11, 16); and incontinence (18, 19). Jude too warns us not to be seduced by empty words and hypocrisy in word and deed. FitzRalph's third prophetic passage had achieved instant notoriety when William of St. Amour made it the basis of his De periculis novissimorum temporum. It is from the second epistle of Paul to Timothy, chapter 3: (1) Know this, that in the Last Days, there will come perilous times, (2) and there will be men who are lovers of self, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, criminal, (3) without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, merciless, without kindness, (4) stubborn, puffed up with pride, blind, lovers of pleasure more than of God, (5) having a semblance indeed of piety, but denying its power. Avoid these. (6) For of these are they who penetrate houses and lead captive women stained with sin, who are seduced by various desires; (7) always learning and never attaining knowledge of God. (8) Just as Iamnes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these men also resist the 150

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truth, for they are men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith. (9) But they will progress no further for their folly is manifest to all, as was that of others. Again FitzRalph finds in this prophecy a warning about hypocrites who will be afflicted with the three vices of pride, avarice, and incontinence^—the details are tedious and predictable. But at the end as at the beginning, he pointedly applies these eschatological prophecies to his own time. Three of the apostles, he says, affirm in concord that men of this kind would come in the last days ("homines huiusmodi in diebus novissimis tunc fuisse futuros"). They can be and ought to be recognized from the characteristics set forth in these and other authorities. Even if those characteristics are revealed now in some men in the present time, we have Paul's reassurances that "they will progress no further, for their folly is manifest to all" (9). It is a nice epitome of the differences between the moods of the mid-thirteenth and the mid-fourteenth centuries that FitzRalph would fix on the one note of optimism in an eschatological prophecy that is the basis of the profound pessimism of William of St. Amour. Can we say that this single eschatological outburst in FitzRalph's Opera is significant? Certainly the friars thought so. The entire section just discussed from "Nemo" was cited in the friars' Libellus at Avignon as an error for which FitzRalph deserved excommunication. 90 It is worth pondering that practically all of FitzRalph's works on the mendicant controversies except the London sermons were written or delivered with a curial audience in mind, where such eschatological speculations would have been received coolly. The coming of the End undermines the establishment, the power of which is predicated upon a future, as Alexander IV well knew in William of St. Amour's day. Nevertheless, we know that FitzRalph's circle of friends had an interest in eschatology. Richard Kilwyngton owned a manuscript of excerpts from Joachim of Fiore's works (now BL MS Royal 8 F. XVI). As we saw earlier it was FitzRalph's mentor, Bishop Grandisson, who sent a letter around his diocese in 1358-59 denouncing the friars as the heralds of Antichrist. In the opening of the Defensio curatorum, FitzRalph says he delivered seven or eight sermons on the mendicant issue in London. Only four of these have been identified. Is it possible that other sermons preached in the vernacular, far from the curia, might themselves have been as unrestrained as "Nemo vos seducat" in warning that the Last Days "are just now approaching, beyond doubt"? The historical record is silent. 90

Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 2 \ the twenty-seventh charge. 151

FOUR

John Wyclif and the Nominalist Seekers of Signs IN 1379, an Augustinian friar at Cambridge named Adam Stockton wrote a note in the margin of a manuscript he owned: "Hec venerabilis doctor magister Iohannes Wyclyf in quadam sua determinacione anno domini 1379" (This is by the venerable teacher, Master John Wyclif, in a certain determinatio of 1379). Less than two years later, he scratched out venerabilis doctor and wrote in its stead execrabilis seductor.1 Stock­ ton's change of heart reflects a sudden and dramatic reversal in the re­ lationship of the Oxford theologian, John Wyclif, with the fraternal or­ ders, and so marks the beginning of the last great phase of antifraternal conflict in the fourteenth century. Before 1379, Wyclif could claim many friars, especially in the Ox­ ford schools, as his friends and supporters. But between 1379 and his death in 1384, he began to promulgate doctrines about the church, the Eucharist, and other matters that were to transform the friars into his most implacable enemies. In 1381, when the chancellor of the univer­ sity formed a commission to examine Wyclif s Eucharist doctrine, he packed it with hostile theologians, half of them friars. In May of 1382, at the famous Earthquake Council called by the archbishop of Canter­ bury to put an end to Wyclif's scandalous teachings, sixteen of the sev­ enteen doctors of theology assembled were members of the mendicant orders. The condemnations of that council were communicated to Ox­ 2 ford authorities by a Carmelite friar. In his turn, from 1379 on, though he was much occupied with other matters, Wyclif turned his pen to increasingly scathing denunciations of the mendicant orders. In the last five years of his life, in part at Ox­ ford but mostly in retirement from his rectory at Lutterworth, Wyclif wrote such a quantity of polemic against them that, after FitzRalph, he 1

Aubrey Gwynn, The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif (London: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1940), pp 236-39, 253-54. Stockton's manuscript is now Trinity College, Dublin, MSA.5.3, p. 179. 2 For details of these condemnations, see K. B. MacFarlane, John Wy cliffe and the Begin­ nings of English Nonconformity (New York: MacmiUan, 1953), pp. 97-98, 105-08; and Leff, Heresy, II, 496-98; and W. B. Workman, John Wyclif {Οχΐοτά. Clarendon, 1926), II, esp. 141-45, 253-73. 152

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must be reckoned the most prolific antifraternal writer of medieval England. In the long run, as an opponent of the friars, he was probably more influential than FitzRalph, though unlike FitzRalph's, his fame was not primarily identified with that opposition. His followers, who wrote many polemical tracts against the friars themselves, also produced a great burst of antifraternal verse that began in the last two decades of the fourteenth century and lasted into the next, producing, among others, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, Jack Upland, and Upland's Rejoinder. Wycliffite hostility to the mendicants, like Wyclif's own, was only a part of their sweeping rejection of ecclesiastical authority, but their anger was more acute against the friars than against other "sects" because of the leading role the mendicants played in opposing Wyclif and in stamping out the heresies of his followers. Wyclif is unique among fourteenth-century antifraternal writers because he does not represent the vested interests of the secular clergy or the monastic orders. FitzRalph, Uthred, Thomas de Wilton, and Jean d'Anneux all spoke from positions of authority within the ecclesiastical establishment. They urged reform, not destruction, of the fraternal orders, the revocation of their privileges, their submission to episcopal control, the dissolution of mendicancy as a way of life. Such reformation would have stripped the friars of their uniqueness, of course, but the intent was to make them conform to the model of other ranks within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Until 1379, Wyclif too had been a respected theologian within the ecclesiastical establishment, holding a position of eminence at Oxford and enjoying the patronage of John of Gaunt, and therefore wielding more influence in secular affairs than any of his antifraternal predecessors. But around the time of the Great Schism, in 1378 and 1379, for both political and metaphysical reasons, Wyclif began to be disaffected from the established church. 3 As his anticlericalism became more and more extreme, he finally denied the authority of the entire "visible church." The only true church was "invisible" and consisted of those predestined for salvation. The visible church, with its property and endowment, its corrupt priests, its papal aggrandizements, had authority only insofar as its individual priests were saved. The visible sacraments and rites of the church had, for Wyclif, no automatic claim to authority. Hence he often disparaged the very functions of the priesthood, such as confession, that other critics of the fraternal orders were intent 3

For Wyclif's anticlericalism, see Leff, Heresy, II, 516-46; MacFarlane, John Wycliffe, pp. 91ff.; Workman, John Wyclif, II, 3-118 153

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to preserve. Wyclif's antifraternalism was only a part, indeed a minor part, of his broader, and extreme, anticlericalism. The friars drew Wyclif's special thunder because of their instant and ferocious opposition when he challenged their doctrines of the Eucharist in 1379 in De apostasia and De Eucharistia. It is true, of course, that Wyclif's doctrines about the Eucharist had evolved over many years and had originally no special connection with the friars. His attacks on the mendicants in his Eucharistic writings were largely peripheral to his main arguments. Nevertheless, the friars reacted strongly, and Wyclif responded to their opposition with even more intemperate attacks of his own, which dealt increasingly directly with what was probably the most fundamental source of his objection to them: their mendicancy and their way of life. Yet it was his Eucharistic writings that first began to turn Wyclif's former friends among the friars against him. Almost overnight, the venerabilis doctor became an execrabilis seductor. Its origins in extreme anticlericalism and its initial connection with the Eucharistic controversies gave Wyclif s antifraternalism an idiosyncratic stamp. He employs a vocabulary never before seen in antifraternal literature, and favors some new Biblical texts. At the same time, however, Wyclif stands recognizably within the tradition of antifraternalism descended from William of St. Amour. In the De ordinatione fratrum he himself names William as a predecessor.4 The fundamental elements of his antifraternal polemic are Biblical exegesis and eschatology, and though he follows William slavishly in neither, nevertheless he is closer to William than to any other English writer. He does not, like William, depend on the Glossa ordinaria, which was less frequently used in Wyclif's day, but he does use many of the same Biblical texts and all three of William's central Biblical figures for the friars. Like William, and unlike FitzRalph, he uses the Bible as a guide to history, whether through prophecy or through figuration. Consequently, eschatology—albeit a conservative eschatology—plays a larger role in Wyclif than in almost any antifraternal writer since the Parisian quarrels of the 1250s.

CULTORES SIGNORUM: WYCLIF AND NOMINALIST METAPHYSICS

One of the distinguishing marks of Wyclif s antifraternal vocabulary is the identification of his mendicant enemies with the fostering of 4

In Polemical Works, ed. Rudolf Buddensieg (London: Wyclif Society, 1883), I, 91-92: "Nee sumus nos pnmi, qui mvehimus contra ipsos, sed recenter beatus Richardus, Ar154

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"signs." They are sign worshipers (cultures signorum), teachers of signs (doctores signorum), an "adulterous generation seeking signs" (generacio adultera querens signa, Matt. 12:39, 16:4); they live by "sensible signs" (signis sensibilibus), that is, signs perceptible to the senses, and by outward signs (signis extrinsecis); they are those who, in the words of the Psalmist, "have set up their signs, signs, and knew them not" ("Posuerunt signa sua, signa, et non cognoverunt," Ps. 73:5). Nothing like this exists in the antifraternal literature from William of St. Amour to the late fourteenth century. On the surface it seems only to be an idiosyncratic way of decrying hypocrisy, conventionally the foremost sin of the friars. Those who cultivate signs live by external show, not inward realities. Closer examination, however, reveals that Wyclif's term "signum" is borrowed (albeit loosely) from the vocabulary of metaphysics, and identifies the friars with positions that are today called nominalist. Oxford nominalists, chiefly friars, held that reality consists in particulars, not universals; that universale are mental constructs (terms, termini) and have no reality independent of the mind that conceives them; that knowledge of objects comes from conventional signs (signa, that is, words or "terms" or concepts) rather than from any underlying reality (res or signatum or significatum, that is, an independently existing essence or Idea). For the nominalists, knowledge depends on the signum and not on a reality apart from it.5 Wyclif, as a metaphysical realist, violently opposed the positions of the nominalist doctores signorum. He held that knowledge comes not from signs but from reality, from the res signata and not our concept of it; that reality consists not merely in the particulars that manifest themselves to our senses but more importantly in the universals perceived in them; that these universals exist eternally, indestructibly, and apart from the particulars received by sense impression. The nominalists are mistaken, he implies, to emphasize appearance (things as we perceive them through the senses), rather than the underlying reality; accident rather than substance; terminus, not res; the letter (sensus corporalis), not the spirit (sensus spiritualis); signum, not signatum. macanus episcopus, laboravit ad purgacionem ecclesie de criminibus per sectas fratrum noviter introductis.—Et sic laboravit eciam Occam cum multis aliis fratnbus fidelibus ad purgacionem suorum fratrum, qui a pnmeva regula declinaverunt. Et idem facit Willelmus de Sancto Amore cum multis aliis, postquam fratres inceperant." 5 The best account of the differences between the friars' nominalism and Wyclif's realism is J. A. Robson, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 145-55. See also M. D Lambert, Medieval Heresy (London: Edward Arnold, 1977), pp. 214-15, 220-24. 155

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In Wyclif s polemical epithets such as cultures signorum, the word "sign" clearly neither has the precision nor bears the philosophical freight it does in his metaphysical works. 6 Still, the genealogy of the term is important. It shows us that Wyclif connected the nominalist metaphysics of the friars with their (as he saw them) heresies, blasphemies, and apostasies of the Eucharist, of penance, of Scriptural interpretation, of the ordination of priests, of the nature of religion. The nominalist pedigree, of the cultures signorum is most evident in Wyclif's polemics on the Eucharist.7 Wyclif and his fraternal opponents did not disagree on the fact of transubstantiation, but on its nature. Everyone agreed that the consecrated host was the body of Christ; nevertheless it remained to all outward appearances, bread. The prevailing explanation of this paradox had derived primarily from the Scholastic theologians of the fraternal orders—Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham—who said that the substance of the bread changed at consecration but the accidents of shape, texture, color, flavor, crust, and so forth, did not. 8 The friars had proposed that the host was "accidens sine subiecto" (an accident without a substance), that is, had the appearance of bread but was in substance not bread but something else. Around 1379 Wyclif began to assert that such a position was heretical. It was, Gordon Leff has suggested, utterly against the most fundamental principles of his realist metaphysics, which insisted "that there could be no accident without a substance, since . . . ultimately all being reflected an archetype or esse intelligible without which nothing could be; and that essence was indestructible." 9 Those who take the Eucharist as "accidens sine subiecto" as the friars did, reduce it to a sign, a signum sensibile.10 Equally reprehensible, in Wyclif's view, are those who say the body of Christ is only in the Eucharist in signo , as in the image on a crucifix; and those who do not recognize that there are degrees in signs or that signs of the Old Law or of human institution 6

As in De logica, ed. M. H. Dziewicki (London: Wyclif Society, 1893-99), I, 76-78, II, 4-6; and De ente, ed. M. H. Dziewicki (London: Wyclif Society, 1909), pp. 11-13. 7 Leff, Heresy, II, 549-57. 8 There were two competing theories as to how the appearance of bread could be maintained when the substance had changed. One (Thomas Aqumas) proposed that the accidental properties of bread were maintained by "quantity" ("subsistence" rather than "substance," a vis extensiva of matter). The other (Duns Scotus) held that the substance of the bread at consecration was annihilated, but the accidents remained by God's omnipotent, unfathomable will. See the summaries in Workman, John Wyclif, II, 31-33, and Leff, Heresy, II, 551. «Leff, Heresy, 11,551. 10 Wyclif, De apostasia, ed. Michael Dziewicki (London. Wyclif Society, 1889), p. 155 156

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are different from signs under the Law of Grace. 11 It is not simply a rhe­ torical flourish therefore that the De apostasia opens and closes a long discussion of the Eucharist with attacks on those who foster "signs." 1 2 In opposition to the sign worshipers and idolaters who would wor­ ship a sign as God, Wyclif insisted there was no conflict in the host be­ tween appearance and reality, bread and Christ, because both were present. Although the consecrated host was the body of Christ, it was still bread, both in accidents and in substance. This mysterious duality in the sacrament would be familiar and harmonious to the faithful be­ cause of its resemblance to the mysterious dual nature of Christ him­ self, both man and God. Sicut Christus est de due substancie, scilicet terrena et divina, sic hoc sacramentum est modo suo equivoco corpus panis sensibilis, qui de terra crevit, et corpus Christi, quod verbum in Maria suscepit. 13 [As Christ is of two substances, earthly and divine, so this sacra­ ment is, in its twofold way, both the body of tangible bread, which came from the earth, and the body of Christ, which the Word begot in Mary.] The double nature of the sacrament is also related to the double sense of Scripture that Wyclif frequently sees in obscure passages in the Bi­ ble: the sensus literalis and the sensus spiritualis (or mysticus), both literally true though not the same. 14 And both sacramental and Scriptural dual­ ities can be described in terms of the epistemological duality over which Wyclif and the nominalist friars debated: that is, the duality of sign and thing (res), signum and signatum. As Wyclif puts i t , the sacra­ ment is both a sign of the corpus Christi and not a sign, that is, the thing 15 itself. Such a union was of course unheard of in the friars' nominalist met­ aphysics. How could the host be simultaneously natural and supernat­ ural, creation and Creator, signum and res} Wyclif's answer is relatively simple: "[hostia] de facto est panis in natura et corpus Christi in figura" 11

De apostasia, pp. 223, 225. Page 46, "cultores signorum"; p. 254, "generacioms signa querencium." 13 De apostasia, p. 106. 14 De apostasia, p. 105; De veritate sacrae Scripturae, ed. Rudolf Buddensieg (London: Wyclif Society, 1905-1907), I, 36, 119-23; Alastair Minnis, " 'Authorial Intention' and 'Literal Sense' in the Exegetical Theories of Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif: An Essay in the Medieval History of Biblical Hermeneutics," PRIA, 75 C (1975), 1-30. 15 De apostasia, ρ 223. 12

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(the host indeed is bread in nature and the body of Christ in figure). 16 In its substance, the consecrated bread is still what it appears to be: bread. But in figure, it is (and does not merely signify) the body of Christ. On the natural level as bread, one might say the Host is a sign of the corpus Christi; but on the higher, figural level, by virtue of the consecration it is vere et realiter the body of Christ. 1 7 The deepest un­ derstanding of that figuration is hidden from us. It is, says Wyclif, mi­ raculous, inexplicable, beyond the powers of a sign instituted by hu­ manity. 1 8 Wyclif's opposition to sensible signs in all his antifraternal writing is related to these metaphysical controversies with the friars over the Eu­ charist. The threat of the sign worshipers comes to be a leitmotif of the polemics of his last years, even when metaphysics is not much in evi­ dence. He sees danger to the entire church in the emphasis placed on sensible signs at the expense of what they signify (suis signatis).19 In De apostasia he says that the church is now in her second millennium, in which Satan has been loosed. His lies are multiplying, especially "irreligiosity in signs" and especially in the sacraments of the Eucharist and of penance. 20 The sacraments are particularly subject to abuse, be­ cause they are "signs of sacred things," the visible form of invisible Grace. 21 Those who attend to the visible sign and not to the invisible reality abuse the sacraments. True penance, says Wyclif, exists in the mind and not in the sensible signs or accidents by which the sacrament is ministered. 22 There are at least three kinds of penance: the first is insensible and within the soul, wherein the contrite man confesses to God. This kind of penitence is the greatest in virtue and it alone makes possible the other two. The second derives from the first and is manifest in vocal confession to God. This is the ancient mode of confession used by holy men of both the Old and the New Laws as recorded in the Bible. But the third is historically a more recent development in the church, a kind of peni­ tence that depends entirely on the first two, that is, oral confession made in private to a priest. About this third sort of confession Wyclif 16 De blasphemia, ed. Michael H. Dziewicki (London: Wyclif Society, 1893), p. 20; see De apostasia, pp. 105, 119 for the same concept " De apostasia, p. 223. 18 De apostasia, pp. 118, 223. 19 Tractatus de ecclesia, ed. Johann Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1886), pp. 459, 465-66. 20 De apostasia, ρ 46. 21 Trialogus, cum supplement Trialogi, ed G Lechler (Oxford: Clarendon, 1869), pp. 244-^15. 22 The account of penance that follows is from Trialogus, pp. 326-32.

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has grave doubts, especially because priests and friars are interested in the office too much for the sake of lucre; but also because it was such a late development in the church, being introduced in 1215; and because it depended so much on external show on the part of both penitent and confessor. Could the confessor really know that the sinner was contrite? Could the sinner (or the confessor) know that God had absolved him, no matter what the confessor asserted? AU the "invented sensory signs" of penitential practice—the placing of the priest's hands upon the head, the florid or pompous words of absolution, and even worse, bulls of indulgence—were as nothing if God, who alone sees into the hearts of men, did not absolve him. Wyclif stops short of demanding the cessation of private confession to priests or friars, because the practice fosters many good things as well as bad for the church. But he takes a long step toward the sixteenth century by observing that the "papal law" requiring such annual confession (the statute of the Fourth Lateran Council, Omnis utriusque sexus) ought to be observed only to the extent that the sinner judges he can profit from it. As with confession, so with another sacrament—the ordination of priests—there is, charges Wyclif, too much emphasis on externals in the modern church. It is the life of a priest, not the "signs" of office, that matters. 23 The devil or Antichrist might well be marked by sensible signs, such as the shaving of the head or the anointing with oil by a bishop, so that they might appear to be clerics.24 Such are priests in name only and not in re, and ought not to be followed or obeyed.25 A similar misconception, says Wyclif, governs today in the definition of religious orders. The friars especially seem to assert that the habit, which is only a sign of religion, is religion itself.26 They say not only that it distinguishes the religious from the lay person but also that the coloration of habits signifies aspects of the religious life: black signifies dolor about sins, white the purity of the heart, russet assiduous labor in the church militant. The Franciscans say that the knots in their rope belts signify the bodily punishment they inflict on themselves through the poverty of the religious life.27 Friars flaunt many other sensible signs of their piety such as sumptuous buildings and cloisters, the praying of long prayers, the offering of letters of fraternity, or beg23 OpMi evangelicum, ed Johann Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1895-96), vol. II, 4 (book 3). 24 De fide catholica in Opera minora, ed. Johann Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1913), pp. 98-100 25 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 4 (book 3). 26 De apostasia, p. 4; cf. Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 4 (book 3) 27 Trialogus, p. 337, De Juniatione sectarum in Polemical Works, I, 27.

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ging, which is an utterly fictitious sign of their poverty. 2 8 Because of their emphasis on the visible signs rather than the invisible reality of Grace, Wyclif adopts in this context the same Biblical phrase that he had used so often earlier in his Eucharistic polemics against the friars: they are "an adulterous generation who seek such signs." 29 For him, true religion cannot be found in signs. If a physical garment in itself were a true sign of religion, an ass dressed in the habit would be a friar, and a friar taking a bath would be an apostate. Religion is rather to be found in the heart or soul, the habit of mind (habitus mentis) rather than in the corporal habit. 30 The abuse of signs of religion and sanctity constitutes hypocrisy, the greatest sin of the friars, who attend irreligiously to sensible signs and ignore their fruit. Such religious were called hypocrites by Christ and the apostles. 31 They care more about the corporal habit and other sen­ sible ceremonies than about observing the commands of God. 3 2 They are proud of their sanctity, which they feign through "sensible signs." 3 3 They should not be allowed to seduce the people by "hypo­ critical signs." 34 They are whited sepulchres since they suppose that their holiness consists in "signis extrinsecis." 35 But most of all plus curant sensibilem apparenciam quoad mundum quam insensibilem existenciam quoad Deum. Et sic infideliter plus ponderant corpus quam animam, plus sensibile bonum corporis quam insensibile bonum anime. 3 6 [they care more about their sensible appearance with respect to the world than about their insensible existence with respect to God. And thus they weigh more the body than the soul, more the sen­ sible good of the body than the insensible good of the soul.] For all this emphasis on the sensible, the corporal, and the literal, the friars are a "perverted order . . . of an adulterous generation of sign37 seekers." 28 29 30 31 32

Defundationesectarum, ρ 47; Trialogus, p. 353. De fimdahone sectarum, p. 26. De apostasia, pp. 4—5; see Opus evangelkum, vol. II, 14 (book 3). Trialogus, p. 336. Opus evangelkum, vol. II, 55 (book 3); De solutione Sathanae, in Polemical Works, II,

397. 33

Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, 35 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, 36 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, 37 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, tione Sathanae, pp. 394, 397. 34

in p. ρ ρ ρ

Opera minora, p. 334. 338. 347. 346. 346; Opus evangelkum, vol. II, 55 (book 3); De solu­

160

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The appearance of sign worshipers in great numbers—not just friars but other orders and religious who thought and acted similarly—was unique to the modern era, WycJif felt. Not that the church had not seen their like before; the Bible made it clear that there had been cultures signorum in the primitive church but never in such multitudes as today. 3 8 From sheer weight of their numbers, the modern church was in a pe­ riod of crisis, which was quite possibly the final one before the End. The world and the church, after all, were old. This is the last age of the world, says Wyclif, in which things, as they do for old men, were "cooling down." But Wyclif s formulation of this commonplace is ter­ ribly pessimistic. Fleshly beauty and the flowers of the world seem less desirable than they did in prior ages. No one now is as able-bodied as our ancestors were; vigor, agility, beauty, longevity, all are not what they used to be. The earthly things that once served men have grown sterile. Incertitude is abroad because of wars, pestilence, and other things that destroy prosperity. Neighbor deceives neighbor with mal­ ice. Faith, hope, and charity grow cold {refrigescunt, Matt. 24:12) in the old age, indeed the last age, of the world. 3 9 Wyclif s sense of the senescence of the world derives in part from a commonplace paradigm of history, the six ages of the world. Five had passed; the sixth had begun with Christ. Each of the previous five ages, ending with Noah, Abraham, David, the Transmigration, and Christ, had lasted approximately 1,000 years, and the present age, Wyclif seems to think, after more than 1,300 years, had surely neared its term. 4 0 The multitudes of sign seekers in the church, the prevalence of "irreligiosity in signs" in the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance, contributed to Wyclif s sense of impending calamity. But there was something more particular in Scripture that made the end seem to be approaching: that "in secundo millenario matris nostre . . . solutus est sathanas ut dicitur Apok. XX" (in the second millennium of the church 41 . . . Satan has been loosed, as indicated in Apocalypse 20). The Bib­ lical prophecy to which Wyclif alludes here concerns the binding of Sa­ tan by Christ at his ascension and the subsequent loosing of the devil on the church after a thousand years: I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. (2) And he laid hold on the 38 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 6 and 61 (book 3); De ordinatione fratrum, in Polemical Works, I, 93; De solutione Sathanae, p. 398; Exposicio textus Matthet xxiii, p. 335. 39 Sermones, ed. Johann Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1887-90), III, 367-68. 40 Sermones, IV, 206; De apostasia, p. 76. 41 De apostasia, ρ 46.

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dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. . . . (7) And when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go forth and deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and will gather them together for the battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. (Apoc. 20:1-7) The loosing of Satan near the end of the sixth age is symbolically fitting, says Wyclif, because it was adumbrated by the earlier loosing on the sixth day of Creation, when Satan tempted our first parents. 42 The loosing of Satan had occurred and was occurring in history, Wyclif believed, though he was reluctant to identify it too precisely with a particular date or event. Since the truth of Scripture is eternal, Scriptural prophecy is often ambiguous and may be fulfilled in events of many different ages. Wyclif's flexibility on this score is evident in the little tract De solutione Sathanae, where, following Gregory, he admits that the thousand-year period in which Satan was to be bound may indicate not a fixed quantity of time but the whole time during which the church was to prevail, including the first millennium. We are told in the Bible that there are many antichrists and hence many Satans, so that many devils may have been loosed upon the world from the ascension of the Lord until the present ("nunc antichnsti multi facti sunt," 1 John 2:18). This is also an indication that we should not think of Satan as bound by his limbs with rope and chain in the infernal regions; indeed Satan lacks those kinds of members altogether. His true members are to be conceived as evil men, the instruments of his malice, and it is they who, members of the body of Antichrist, are loosed on the world. 43 The binding of Satan means, then, not physical restriction but the suspension of his temptation after Christ's ascension. Wyclif concedes that Satan may have been unleashed to plague the world at various times in the first millennium after Christ, but he clearly feels the prophecy of Apoc. 20:7 is fulfilled more dramatically by events within the past two hundred years, events situated with more exactness near the beginning of the second millennium, as the Bible had intimated: spiritus sanctus intellexit per mille annos non precise quantitatem temporis . . . sed tempus, quousque sui ministri perversi sunt no42 43

De apostasia, p. 76. De solutione Sathanae, pp. 391-93. 162

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tabiliter in ecclesiam introducti, quod indubie contigit pro illis temporibus, quibus false secte quatuor subintrarunt. 44 [the Holy Spirit meant by a thousand years not precisely a quantity of time . . . but the period up until Satan's perverse ministers were noticeably introduced into the church, which without doubt oc­ curred during those times in which the four false sects (i.e., the four orders of friars) stole into the church.] A key word here is "noticeably" (notahiliter). Wyclif provides himself considerable latitude in locating the loosing of Satan at the point when Satan's ministers, the friars, have been noticeably introduced into the church. A similar latitude is created by plene and amplius: Satan was loosed in a certain sense, in the first millennium, he says, but in the sec­ ond, when these lying sects of friars have fully (plene) arisen by hypoc­ risy, he is unleashed still further (amplius).45 Wyclif is consciously trying to avoid identifying the loosing of Satan too literally and too narrowly with a single event and time. Rather he locates it in a nexus of events centering on the founding of the friars in the early years of the thirteenth century. 46 It was then, he says, that the church began to de­ viate significantly from the way of Christ. Holy and devout men, among them Dominic and Francis, tried to bring it back to the path of the ancient church, but imprudently or unwittingly became the agents of the unleashed devil in founding what became the pernicious orders of Praedicatores and Minores. After impugning the Carmelites and Augustinian friars, Wyclif reports that some say these orders were first founded in the time of Cain, the first fiater. In witness of which, the four letters of his name (Caym) comprise an acronym formed from the four orders, and in the sequence in which the friars falsely claim they were founded; C for the Carmelites, said to have been founded by Elias at Mount Carmel; A for the Augustinians, reputedly established by 44

De solutione Sathanae, ρ 392 Usually the term "four sects" in Wyclif's works refers to the friars, the canons, the monks, and the "Caesarean" clergy. However, the last two cannot be meant here because Wyclif is talking about the founding of orders after the first millennium The friars, however, he also sometimes refers to as the "four sects," ι e. Do­ minicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians That these are intended here is made plain by a very similar passage about the soluho Sathanae in Trialogus, pp. 361 ff., where Wyclif explicitly names the four orders of friars. 45 De solutione Sathanae, p. 393 46 The same idea recurs in De fundatione sectarum, p. 68. Richard K. Emmerson has pointed out to me that the dating of the loosing of Satan to roughly Wychf's era (a thou­ sand years after Constantine) was very influential in Reformation thought. See Bryan Ball, A Great Expectation: Eschatological Thought in English Protestantism to 1660, Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 12 (Leiden: E J. Brill, 1975), pp 162ff. 163

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Augustine in the desert; I for the Iacobites or Preachers (so called from their first house in Paris under the patronage of St. James, i.e., Jacobus); M for the Minorites, the "lesser" (in humility) brethren of St. Francis. Wyclif does not fully assent to this acronymic genealogy. Although it may be, he says, that the friars had their primeval origin in Cain, nevertheless it was not until Satan was loosed that under cover of sanctity these hypocrites emerged fully into the light of day.47 Besides the friars, only one other figure is consistently connected throughout Wyclif's writings with the loosing of Satan: Pope Innocent III, whose papacy lasted from 1198 to 1216. Innocent III not only held the papal see at the time of the founding of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, approving and encouraging them, but he also enunciated two doctrines that sowed the seeds for blasphemy and heresy in the church thereafter, down to Wyclif's day. The first of these was the doctrine of required annual confession to a parish priest, first promulgated by the church at Innocent's instigation in the famous canon Omnis utriusque sexus of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Wyclif thought this a doctrine of dubious merit, "noviter introducta" like the friars themselves, who shortly became intimately involved with the administration of confession. Omnis utriusque sexus, Wyclif felt, encouraged too much attention to the externals (signs) of penance, both on the part of the sinner, who could think he was absolved because of mere words, and on the part of confessors, who performed the office for monetary gain. Thus Wyclif associates this pernicious invention of the early thirteenth century with the loosing of Satan: Tempore autem Innocencii tercii, circa quod tempus sathanas est solutus et fratres intraverant, modificata fuit confessio ab illo Innocencio, quod foret auricularis et abscondita, facta solidarie proprio sacerdoti. . . . tales circumstancie genuflexionis, solitudinis . . . forma imposicionis manus in capite cum multis similibus non sunt necessaria generaliter ad salutem, cum cordis contricio sine confessione huiusmodi sepe delet peccatum.48 [In the time of Innocent the Third, around which time Satan was loosed and the friars entered the church, confession was modified by that same Innocent, so that it would be auricular and hidden, made alone to one's priest. . . . Such circumstances of genuflex47

Trialogus, pp. 361-62 Cruciata in Polemical Works, II, 623. See also Sermones, IV, 101 and Opus evangelicum, vol II, 12 (book 3); and for Wycliffite expressions of the same ideas, Matthew, English Works, p. 328. 48

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ion, solitude . . . the formality of the imposition of the hands on the head and many other similar things are not necessary generally for salvation, since contrition of heart without such confession often destroys a sin.] The second doctrine with which Innocent was connected was the Eu­ charist. 49 The Fourth Lateran Council was particularly important for the history of that sacrament, as it provided an authoritative definition of the Eucharist, using the word "transubstantiate" for the first time in an official promulgation. However, Wyclif was more exercised over a metaphysical doctrine in Innocent's decretal Cum Marthe. The modern cultures signorum asserted that the pope had there decreed that there could be an accident without subject, and thus had made it possible for them to declare the bread of the Eucharist to be a subjectless accident— a nominalist assertion, in Wyclif's eyes, at the very heart of the friars' heresy. 50 He is not altogether certain that Innocent intended his state­ ments as the friars construe them, since an accident without subject is impossible and since his words permit different interpretations. 51 Still, the pope would have done better to have left the matter alone, since after his time his statements have generated heresy and idolatry of the host, which show us now that Satan has been loosed. 52 There were other reasons why Wyclif thought of Innocent III as an especially pernicious pope: he had written erroneously about the Trin­ ity; he had through his doctrines encouraged simony; he had argued that the pope was supreme not only in ecclesiastical but also in certain temporal matters; and because of his secular ambition, had forced King John in 1213 to place England under his feudal suzerainty and to grant nine hundred marks annually as tribute from England. 5 3 For all these reasons, but most significantly because of his role in fostering the er­ rors and heresies of the cultures signorum pertaining to the Eucharist and confession, and because his reign saw the arrival of the friars in the church, Wyclif associated Innocent III with the loosing of Satan near the end of the first millennium of the church. After announcing the loosing of Satan, Apoc. 20:7 goes on to speak mystically of Gog and Magog: "And when the thousand years are fin49 Sevmones, II, 84; III, 438, 507; IV, 500; De simoma, ed. M. H. Dziewicki (LondonWyclif Society, 1898), pp. 39-40 50 De apostasia, ρ 65 51 De apostasia, pp. 65, 164, 192, 199-200. 52 De apostasia, pp. 172 and 46; cf Trialogus, ρ 249 53 Respectively: De apostasia, p. 68; De simoma, ρ 40; Opera minora, p. 226, Sertnones, II, 424 (cf Opera minora , p. 96; De blasphemia, ρ 23).

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ished, Satan will be released from his prison and will go forth and de­ ceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and will gather them together for the battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." Gog and Magog, says Wyclif, are those who, deceived by the devil, persecute Christians. More specifically they are Antichrist and his accomplices, that is, the Western pope and the sects that follow him. These interpretations have in part an ety­ mological basis, for Gog means "roof" (tectum). Thus Gog covers over (tegit) and obscures the Law of Christ with his invented laws and intro­ duces damnable sects, who, cloaking their malice, deceive Christians under cover of hypocrisy. 54 They wrap their sect in garments of sanc­ tity, as in their habits, but do not follow the ways of Christ, blinding the simple to their true nature. Errors in these invented signs (signis) of private religion, along with the heresies that generated simony, were a prelude to the error about the Eucharist as an accident without a sub­ ject. 5 5 As hypocrites and heretics, they are an adulterous generation of sign seekers who attend more to sensible things than to the truth. 5 6 These sects who follow Gog—that is, not only the four orders of friars but also the monks, canons, and the Caesarean clergy—are Ma­ gog, whose name means "of the roof" (de tecto) indicating their mem­ bership in the "roof" that is Gog, and the degree to which they cover over the Law of Christ with lies, hypocrisy, and falsehood. The ety­ mology is also an indication of the height to which they would exalt their own status, as if to the very rooftop. They are principally of the Western church, since the Eastern church was not afflicted by the bishop of Rome. They are said to be in the four corners of the earth because they are four in number, and mystically, like the four corners of a square, they are joined together by their regard for earthly things. Since their swelling pride cannot be peaceful, Satan "will gather them together for battle," that is, he will make them fight among them­ selves, as when the English supporting Urban VI invaded Flanders to crusade against the followers of the antipope Clement VII in 1383. These are similar to the wars Christ prophesied would come at the end of the world. The prophet in Apocalypse says the number of the fol­ lowers of Gog will be "as the sands of the sea," and truly today there are more heretics abroad than at any time since the beginning of the world, congregated in all the four sects. Since they are Magog they try 54 De apostasia, ρ 77; Wyclif cites James but in fact the passage is from 1 Pet. 2:16: "quasi velamen habentes malicie libertatem." For traditional interpretations of Gog and Magog, including the etymological one, see Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 85-88. 55 De apostasia, ρ 77. 56 De solutione Sathanae, p. 397.

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to hide their heresies by lies and hypocrisy, but all will come to light in the end.57 Wyclif's exegesis of Apoc. 20:1-7 demonstrates that he thought some Biblical prophecies about the Last Days were fulfilled in his own time; that the dire things that St. John had called the solutio Sathanae had begun to appear around the opening of the thirteenth century, when several satanic novelties were introduced to the detriment of the church, particularly the new orders of begging friars, the new doctrine of confession, and new theories about the nature of the Eucharist; that the world and the church were aging and in decline; and that the End was approaching. In William of St. Amour, the friars are the key to the entire eschatological pattern of the present; in Wyclif, by contrast, they are a factor, but only one of many signs in the church that the End was near. William evidences a sense of tremendous urgency and danger; in Wyclif, that sense begins to appear near the end of his life, but in most of his eschatological writing, he maintains only that the End is near. How near we cannot know.

THE END OF THE WORLD?

The importance of eschatology in Wyclif's thought has been much underestimated. One of the nineteenth-century editors who published Wyclif's Latin works remarks that Wyclif's De Antichristo is not a work "of the Millenarian type," that he does not, like the Franciscan Spirituals and other Joachimites, identify Antichrist with a fixed personality such as Innocent IV or the Emperor Charles IV, and that Wyclif "rejects with contempt all prophecies as to the approaching end of the world." 58 The last remark does not sit well with Wyclif's comments about the solutio Sathanae, and while the other comments are true enough, the editor seems to feel that absolving Wyclif of millenarianism is sufficient to remove him from the ranks of eschatological thinkers. More recent commentators as well, such as Gordon Leff, seem to think that eschatology is not a significant aspect of Wyclif's thought. 59 Certainly there is plenty of evidence that Wyclif insisted throughout his life that the Day ofjudgment could not be predicted. The proof text for him was Matt. 24:36: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not 57

De apostasia, p. 77 and De solutione Sathanae, p. 395-400. Opus evangelkum, vol. II, v. 59 Leff, Heresy, II, 519 barely mentions eschatology m a lengthy discussion of Wyclif's most important doctrines. 58

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even the angels of heaven, but the father only." 6 0 We can be certain that the time will come, but when it will come we cannot know. 6 1 There are three things of which a wise God does not permit us any foreknowl­ edge: whether we are predestined to be saved; the hour of our death; and the Day of Judgment. 6 2 Our ignorance of these matters profits us because we become more vigilant and order our lives in faith and in certitude that the End will come; only the sinful think the End will never come. 6 3 There are those like Joachim of Fiore, or even worse, as­ trologers and calculators, who try to predict the exact day. Their prophecies are vain, presumptuous lies because God wishes such things to remain hidden to us. 6 4 Wyclif similarly expresses skepticism about the popular fifteen signs of the Day of Judgment, which are founded neither in reason nor in Scripture and are therefore dangerous. 65 The signs will not reveal the day because "The Son of Man will come at an hour that you do not expect" (Matt. 24:44). Wyclif's reluctance to engage in speculation about the time of the End nevertheless does not disturb the general eschatological frame­ work within which he views contemporary history, nor does it dimin­ ish the sense he conveys of unprecedented crisis in the world, especially in the church. It has already been shown that he saw the world as ap­ proaching the end of the sixth and last age; that he thought Satan had been loosed on the world in the form of the pope and his sects around the beginning of the thirteenth century; that the world was senescent. The church militant too was in decline, and moved steadily toward de­ struction. It was a dammed and stagnant pool, to be washed away by the flood of sin. Because of the heresies and pride that necessarily grow in the church militant, it must finally be destroyed. 66 Corruption followed by destruction was a recurring experience in the visible church. Historically there had been three priesthoods in three periods: before the Law; under the Old Law; and under the New Law. The first priests had been instituted by God directly, but because of their idolatrous worship of the golden calf, God had replaced them by a priesthood of the law (legale sacerdocium), drawn especially from 60 Exposiao textus Matthei xxiv in Opera minora, p. 375; Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 213 (book 3). 61 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiv, p. 375; Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 103-04 (book 3). 62 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 104, 216 (book 3); Trialogus, pp. 385-90; Opera minora, p. 376. ω Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 103-04 (book 3). 64 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 102, 216 (book 3); Trialogus, p. 390; Sermones, I, 85. 65 OpHS evangelicum, vol II, 217 (book 3). 66 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 125-26 (book 3); cf. p. 71 and Sermones, III, 1-2.

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the sons of Levi, and ruled over by Moses. But in the process of time this priesthood also degenerated: by the time of Christ, they were among his chief opponents. The third priesthood then instituted ought to have been the best, founded as it was under the law of Grace. But this priesthood too has been steadily growing worse, until now it is infiltrated with the followers of Antichrist and can plainly be seen to be the worst of the three.67 This is so, says Wyclif, because we are near the end of the world (finem seculi): the devil, sensing the approach of the End, strives more vigorously than he did in the time of the Old Law and prevails more often among priests of the New Law.68 This is indeed a sign of the End, that the priesthood deviates greatly from the way of Christ near the end of the world ("prope finem mundi"). 69 The decline of the church, like the senescence of the world, was one of many indications that the Day ofjudgment was near, more urgently than it had ever been before. If Wyclif is reluctant to specify how near and decries those who try to calculate, still he feels that the world has entered into the Biblically prophesied period of tribulations preceding the End—a period also, of course, of indeterminate duration. 70 The clearest statement of Wyclif s conservative eschatology comes in the Trialogus: Certum est quo ad tempus illius judicii quod est prope, ut patet ex multis signis et rationibus quae ex fide scripturae colligimus. Sed quam prope et quo tempore praecise eveniet, nemo se sollicitat; dicit emm beatus evangelista, quod "novissima hora est," sed quantitatem illius horae, sicut diei, cujus est hora, penitus ignoramus. 71 [It is certain, with respect to the time of that judgment, that it is near, as appears from many signs and reasons that we gather from Scripture. But how near and at what time precisely it will occur no one except the foolish inquires; for the blessed evangelist says that "it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18), but of the quantity of that hour, as of the day, we are completely ignorant.] Despite Wyclif s steadfast refusal to predict the hour and the day, the works of his last years are full of warnings about the nearness of the 67

For the three priesthoods, Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 5-6 (book 3); for the idea that sin under the New Law is worse than sin under the Old Law, see Sermones, III, 366-67. 68 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 32 (book 3). 69 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiv, p. 377. 70 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 191 (book 3). 71 Trialogus, p. 390. 169

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end. Citing 1 Cor. 10:11, he says that we are those "upon whom the end of the world has come," and ought therefore to mend our ways. 7 2 The approach of Judgment is apparent from events of recent history that are predicted in the Bible: the English crusade against Flanders in 1383 resembles the wars Christ prophesied would appear "at the end of the world" (infine seculi); the papal schism seems to signify the perilous times that according to the apostle, would come in the novissimis temporibus; the sects of friars have been introduced into the church in fine temporum.73 The friars are only one of many signs of the Last Days, but Wyclif often dwells on their fulfillment of Scriptural prophecy. The Apostle Jude has said that scoffers would come in novissimis temporibus, and indeed the friars have arisen more than a thousand years after Christ, when Satan had been loosed on the world. 7 4 The friars are the seducers of the people whom the Holy Spirit manifestly says will come in fine seculi in the name of Antichrist (1 Tim. 4:1). 75 They fulfill Paul's prophecy for the perilous times that will begin in the Last Days (2 Tim. 3:1-8); those perilous times have begun already. 76 Another sign of apocalyptic deterioration in the church is the great worsening of persecution. Sometimes Wyclif speaks of the history of persecution in the church in terms of the Pauline and Augustinian di­ vision that characterizes so much of his writing, between soul and body. There have been two main periods of persecution, he says. In the earlier period the church was physically attacked by the Roman em­ perors and princes of the Gentiles. But in modern times has begun a period of spiritual persecution from heretical sects. As danger to the soul is much greater than danger to the body, so this persecution is more threatening to the church and its members. This is so partly be­ cause there are more heretics abroad today than at any time since the beginning of the world, especially within the four sects of monks, can­ ons, clergy, and friars.77 But also this persecution is more dangerous because it is carried out by heretics pretending to be holy. A great in­ crease in hypocrisy among the clergy is one of the distinguishing signs of the approach of the End. Among all sins permitted by God to exist 72

Sermones, III, 1-2, 366-67, 452; Polemical Works, I, 347. De solutione Sathanae, p. 396; De dissensione paparum in Polemical Works, II, 570; De fundatione sectarum, p. 24. 74 Defitndatione sectarum, pp. 67-68. 75 Sermones, III, 361-62. 76 Cruciata, p. 598; De veritate sacrae Scripturae, II, 205, 207 ("iam instant tempora periculosa"); De dissensione paparum, p. 570; De oracione dominica in Opera minora, p. 383; De apostasia, ρ 27. 77 De solutione Sathanae, ρ 398; Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 71 (book 3). 73

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in the church militant, it is the most greatly to be feared, and especially in diebus novissimis, according to St. Paul, because more deceptive of the church: whence the apostle declares that "periculum est in falsis fratribus" (2 Cor. 11:26).78 The association of hypocrisy with the persecu­ tions of the Last Days is one of the most recurrent features of Wyclif's polemics. 79 At other times Wyclif speaks not of a twofold but of a fourfold schema of the persecutions in church history, a schema that also, like the one already described, places the church in its final period. The four persecutions are based on what Wyclif says is Joachimite exegesis of Ps. 90:5-6: "You shall not fear the nocturnal terror, nor the arrow flying in the day, nor the worldly business that walks in darkness, nor the noonday demon."Joachim suggests, says Wyclif, that in these pro­ phetic words God is consoling his church for the persecutions to come, described in the four clauses of the passage. The first persecution, here called "nocturnal terror," was the persecution of the martyrs who came immediately after the apostles, in the time of the unbelieving Roman emperors, Diocletian, Vespasian, Maxentius, and others. For in their time, the night of infidelity prevailed, and in that darkness the faithful hid for fear. The second persecution, which followed immediately, was the heresies of Arius, of Sabellius, and others like them, in the time of the great doctors of the church. It is called the "arrow flying in the day," because it was put forth by sharp and piercing words from pow­ erful men at a time when the light of faith was dawning in the church. The third persecution is the simony that has resulted from the endow­ ment of the church by Constantine in the time of Pope Sylvester I. It is called "worldly business that walks m darkness," because when the Roman bishops were darkened by Caesarean power, they deemed it le­ gitimate to sell ecclesiastical benefices simoniacally, and said that all the patrimony of Christ remained in their power to dispense, so that mer­ chants of spiritual matters flock to the Roman curia from everywhere. The fourth persecution is the bishop of Rome, the pope, who is called the "noonday demon." He is indeed a devil because he says he is above all other mortals the immediate vicar of Christ, but is in his life utterly contrary to Christ. He is a noonday devil for two reasons. His satanic pretensions to power and authority are as open and apparent as the sun at midday; and as any who look at the noontime sun are blinded by it, so the pope and his accomplices are blinded by the life and power of 78

De perfectione statuum in Polemical Works, II, 471-72; cf 1 Tim 4:1 and 2 Tim. 3·1 Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, p. 349; Exposicio textus Matthei xxiv, ρ 359; Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 34, 74-75 (book 3). 79

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Christ, at which they are continually looking because they claim to be imitators of Christ. Their eyes, however, are darkened by the sun of justice. This fourth persecution, under the aegis of the Roman bishop, says Wyclif, is believed to be the last the church militant will have to endure, but of its duration, no one can know. 80

THE BIBLE AND HISTORY

As is evident in Wyclif's ideas about the solutio Sathanae, the nearness of the End, the decline of the church, and the four persecutions, the key to secular history is the Bible. Sacred Scripture interprets history, present as well as past. This paramount role for Scripture has its origin in many aspects of Wyclif s thought, including his growing impatience with logic-chopping in theological matters and his fundamentalism. But it is at least partially connected with his metaphysics.81 Since all being was in God, since God was eternal, and since Scripture was God's word, it followed for Wyclif that the Bible contained all truth and that it had existed eternally as the thought of God. 82 It was not to be identified with the books, pages, or ink in which it manifested itself; such physical Scriptures could be burned and destroyed, but the word of God could never perish: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Luke 21:33).83 As all truth, so all time and hence all human history, both past and future, are present to the mind of God.84 The future, to God, is already accomplished.85 This doctrine of the extension of time has consequences directly pertinent to the relationship of Scripture and human history. Some of the Bible is obviously prophetic of history in the sixth age, such as the Book of Apocalypse, Matthew 24, and the eschatological passages in the Epistles. But there are many other passages, says Wyclif, that seem to be about events contemporary with the Biblical 80 Trialogus, pp. 453-55; see also Sermones, IV, 191-92. Wyclif's reading of Ps. 90:5-6 draws on a traditional understanding that the verse alludes to four historical phases of the church See Augustine, Enarratwnes in Psalmos, CCSL, 39, 1259-64, esp. 1260 on Ps. 90:5-6; Bernard ofClairvaux, sermon 33 on Canticles, PL CLXXXIII, 958-59; and Bernard McGinn, "St Bernard and Eschatology," in Bernard ofClairvaux: Studies Presented to Domjean Ledercq, Cistercian Studies Series, 23 (Washington, D . C : Cistercian Publications, 1973), p. 174. 81 So Gordon Leff argues in Heresy, II, 514-15. 82 De veritate sacrae Scripturae, I, 53, 109, 111, 136, 168-69; II, 27; III, 106, 275, 278. 83 Opws evangelicum, vol. II, 36 (book 3). 84 De veritate sacrae Scripturae, II, 69, 108; III, 148; Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 78 (book 3); Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, pp. 350, 374. 85 De veritate sacrae Scripturae, I, 172

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speaker but that are also about our own (and other) times. Things in Scripture are spoken of "by the extension of tense" (de extensione temporis). Especially where Scripture speaks of the person of God, to whom all things are present, it can be said to "extendere verba presentis temporis" (extend [the temporal reference of] verbs in the present tense).86 On a historical level the extension of tense in Scripture helps to clarify some obscure prophetic passages; on a grammatical level it helps to explain some confusions in tenses. Thus when Isaiah says "unto us a child is born" (puer natus est nobis, Isa. 9:6), he does not speak about his own time but about the coming of Christ to all the saved.87 When Christ says to the perverse Pharisees in Matt. 23:34, "Behold I send [mitto] you prophets, and wise men, and scribes," he speaks about the past and future as well as about the time of the Gospel. The tense of mitto in Christ's statement is not present, but an extended present. The same idea explains the apparent confusion of tenses in Christ's next sentence: "some of them you will kill and crucify and some of them you will scourge in your own synagogues, and you persecute them from city to city" (Matt. 23:34). The first three verbs (occidetis, crucifigetis, flagellabitis) are future, but the last (persequimini) is present. Christ's future verbs seem to be prophecies of specific events after his death—the stoning of Stephen and other martyrs, the crucifixion of Andrew and Peter, the persecution of Paul and other saints. The present tense of persequimini, however, indicates that he is contemplating the whole evil of the adulterous generation to whom he speaks, past as well as future, because with Christ all things are present whether they took place in the time of the Old or the New Law. The generation of the wicked to which the Pharisees belong goes back to Cain and will extend to the end of time. Christ's verbs, both mitto and persequimini, encompass them all de extensione temporis.ss Because of the extension of time in God's knowledge, sacred Scripture is the prophetic key to contemporary history. In it the church and the faithful may find warnings of dangers, especially eschatological dangers that Wyclif felt were coming. Hence, in one work when he sets out to determine the characteristics of apostasy in the hopes of identifying it in the world, he says he intends to proceed not according to the prophecy of Hildegard or according to fables, but according to the truth of Scripture.89 Likewise, the best way to discern Antichrist in the 86 87 88 89

Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 78-79 (book 3); De veritate sacrae Scripturae, II, 70. De veritate sacrae Scripturae, III, 148. Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 79 (book 3). De apostasia, p. 19. 173

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church is through Scripture.90 To understand the Bible is not only to understand prophecy. For Wyclif, as for William of St. Amour before him, interpretation is prophecy: "Interpretatio equivalet prophecie." 91 This is perhaps the fundamental axiom of the Biblical exegesis of both theologians, implying the revelation in Scripture of the meaning of history. In a tract, De vaticinia seu prophetia, Wyclif asserts that prophecy is a prime duty of the evangelical teacher, who must be vigilant and prescient in watching out for dangers to his flock and to the church. In accordance with the axiom just mentioned, such prophetic insight into the future can come about only from the contemplation of Scripture. Some contemporaries might prophesy from the sayings of Merlin or Hildegard, but the surer foundation of prophecy is Scripture. Like William of St. Amour Wyclif adopts as his metaphor for the provident curate the Old Testament image of the watchman/prophet. Where William's text had been Isa. 21:7, however, Wyclif s is Ezek. 33:7 (identical with 3:17), where the prophet Ezekiel is called a watchman: "you, son of man, I have appointed watchman (speculatorem) for the house of Israel." So says Wyclif: Sunt . . . sacerdotes, sed curati precipue, speculatores castrorum ecclesie . . . patet Ezechielis XXXIII, 7, cum ad eos spectat in specula scripture contemplando quiescere et pericula castrorum Dei vigilanter et premunitorie previdere.92 [Priests, but curates especially, are the watchmen (speculatores) of the camps of the church . . . (as) appears in Ezek. 33:7, since it is their office to look contemplatively into the mirror (specula) of Scripture and vigilantly to foresee and forewarn of the dangers to the army of God.] When Wyclif's watchman peers into the mirror of Scripture, however, he sees something that William of St. Amour never saw: universal. These account in large part for the considerably more cautious tone in Wyclif's interpretations. In passages about the Pharisees, William of St. Amour found direct prophecies and figurae that were fulfilled in the hypocrites of his own time. Sometimes Wyclif does too; but what he finds more often than not are universal types who have pe90

De veritate sacrae Scripturae, I, 382-83. Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 131 (book 3). 92 De vaticinia in Opera minora, p. 165. This (along with Ezek. 3.17) is one of Wyclif s favorite texts: see also Opus evangelkum, vol. II, 30, 79 (book 3); De veritate sacrae Scripturae, II, 219; Opera minora, pp. 50, 366. 91

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riodically threatened the church throughout its history. The Pharisee exists in many historical manifestations, of which the friars are the (as yet) most pernicious and dangerous. Consequently, the historical ful­ fillment of Scriptural prophecy may change from generation to gen­ eration; one cannot depend for historical interpretation solely on the traditional expositions of the doctores antiqui.93 The historical signification of "Pharisee" is like the semantic signi­ fication of a word such as homo, which may refer to a particular man or to all men. In Gen. 2:7, when "factus est homo in animam viventem" (man was made with a living soul), homo refers immediately to Adam, but ultimately to all mankind. Likewise when Christ says, "Beware of false prophets" (Matt. 7:15) or "Many false prophets will arise" (Matt. 24:11), we in our time may rightly see these words as specially fulfilled in the pseudofratres of the mendicant orders. But Christ speaks univer­ sally, and in that respect obscurely, in meaning any false prophets whatever who come to the church militant. 94 Likewise, when Christ, to whom all things are present, exposes the crimes of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, he speaks not only about the present but about hypocrite priests in the Old Law and those to come under the New Law, in fact speaks about all time. 9 5 The idea of universale in Scripture helps to explain Wyclif's caution about assigning too precise a date to the loosing of Satan or to the com­ ing of the end. Commenting on the odd plural "fines" in 1 Cor. 10:11—"[sumus] in quos fines seculorum devenerunt" (we are those upon whom the ends of the worlds have come)—Wyclif on one occa­ sion says that as there are "many eras [secula]" so there are in the last age of the church "many ends." 9 6 Even Antichrist, whose appearance was said to herald the end, has a universal meaning: quelibet persona simplex vel aggregata que est notabiliter contra Christum secundum fidem scripture dicitur Antichristus. . . . 97 [Antichristus] est persona composita monstruosa. [Any person, single or collective, who is notably against Christ, according to the truth of Scripture is called Antichrist. Antichrist is a monstrous, composite person.] 93

De fundatione sectarum, ρ 76. De fundatione sectarum, pp. 75, 77. 95 Opus evangelicutn, vol. II, 32, 64, 78 (book 3); Opera minora, p. 351. 96 Sermones, III, 367: "Sicut enim sunt multa secula, ita habent m ultima etate ecclesie multos finos." 97 Opus evangdicum, vol. II, 107 (book 3) 94

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Still, for all his caution, Wyclif seems to feel that many Biblical prophecies are coming to special fruition in his own time. Even 1 Cor. 10:11, despite its plural, fines seculorum, is often said by Wyclif to apply especially to the present. 98 Christ's prophecies about the Pharisees re­ veal various hypocrites in various ages, but they are fulfilled with spe­ cial richness by the pseudofiates in our own days at the end of time ("diebus nostris pro fine temporum"). Their hypocrisy is greater than before; they are Pharisees "longe evidencius" than those were in the time of Christ." When John writes "novissima hora est" (1 John 2:18), Wyclif takes that to mean the End was near in his own time. 1 0 0

THE FRIARS IN SCRIPTURE

Interpretacio equivalet prophecie. Much of the work of Wyclif s last years was expressed in this maxim. From Lutterworth, he wrote tract after tract of what for him was not polemic but interpretacio, Biblical exegesis that unlocked the meaning of contemporary history. The friars were only a part of the crisis, but they were a central part of much that alarmed Wyclif the most: the Eucharistic heresies, the Flanders cru­ sade, the papal schism, his own persecution. Consequently many of the last treatises of his life focus on the significance of the friars as re­ vealed in Scripture. Wyclif, however, did write at least one strictly rhetorical attack on the friars, the De fratribus ad scholarem, which illuminates by contrast the intellectual seriousness of the exegetical treatises. 101 Although the De fratribus consists almost entirely of Biblical verses that Wyclif applies to the friars, there is no visible structure or purpose to the work beyond the aggregation of insult. The friars are the malign spirits of Apoc. 7:2; the Pharisees of Matt. 23; the inverted ladder ofJacob by which Dathan and Abiran descended into hell; the men about whom Rachel com­ plained; the four beasts ascending from the sea in Daniel 7; the rapa­ cious wolves cloaked in the garments of sheep of Matt. 7:15; angels of Satan transfiguring themselves into angels of light (2 Cor. 11:14); and so on. While a number of these citations are traditional, the work builds no framework of Salvation History, offers no tools for interpreting the meaning of the friars within history. Its purpose is rhetorical, not exe­ getical, insult, not interpretation. By contrast, Wyclif's truly exegetical 98

Sermones, III, 1-2, 452; Polemical Works, I, 347. Opera minora, p. 335. 100 Trialogus, p. 390; Sermones, III, 1. ιοί Opera minora, pp 15-18.

99

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treatises offer a way to make sense of the ending that the friars, along with other evils in the church, adumbrate. The Exposicio textus Matthei xxiv, for example, is a verse-by-verse commentary on Christ's most explicit prophecy about Antichrist, the end of the world, and the signs of its approach.102 Each verse of Matthew 24 is found fulfilled in recent events. "Nation will arise against nation" (verse 7), a prophecy brought to fruition in the current wars between Saracens and Christians. "Kingdom will rise against kingdom" (verse 7), as in the English wars with France and Scotland. "There will be pestilence" (verse 7), which indeed had struck England with frightening frequency in visitations of 1348-49, 1361-62, and 1368-69. "Famines" (verse 7) have appeared among the poor. "Earthquakes" (verse 7) have shaken the synods of the mighty, most notably the so-called "Earthquake Council" of 21 May 1382, dominated by the friars and meeting at the Blackfriars' London convent to condemn Wyclif, when the earthquake struck. Not just wars but "opinions about wars" (verse 6) have arisen, especially the violently conflicting opinions about the validity of the Flanders crusade of 1383. The friars supported the crusade, some even fighting in the front lines. Wyclif and others, however, bitterly opposed it and rejected the claims of both the rival popes. His fate, along with the fate of others who opposed the crusade, was prophesied, said Wyclif, in verse 9, "They will deliver you up to tribulation," as borne out by the troubles that had now descended: excommunication, persecution by the friars, harassment by secular lords. The "many false prophets" who, Christ warned, "will arise and will lead many astray" (verse 11), have now come in the form of friars, who are literally false prophets, having predicted a fortunate outcome of the Flanders incursion, and who have led many of the people astray by encouraging participation in the crusade. Christ also forewarned of the Great Schism that precipitated these foolish wars between rival popes when he said, "If anyone should say to you, 'Behold, here is Christ the Lord' or 'there he is,' do not believe it" (verse 23). The deceivers who claim Christ is "here" or "there," says Wyclif, are those who vociferously support "their" pope, as the friars do, claiming him to be the immediate vicar of Christ. Both popes, however, are Antichrist. In all these ways and more, Christ's eschatological prophecy in Matthew 24 has provided a warning to the church of dangers preceding the Day of Judgment, which seems now to be approaching, even though no one can know the hour or the day.103 102

Opera minora, pp. 354-82; cf. the more elaborate commentary on Matthew 24 in Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 98-234 (book 3). 103 Opera minora, pp. 356-59, 366. 177

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Wyclif wrote a companion piece to his treatise on Matthew 24, called similarly the Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii, a commentary on Christ's denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees in that chapter.104 The two exposiciones circulated together in manuscript, suggesting that Wyclif thought of them as intertwined. Later, in the Opus evangelicum, both chapters are grouped together with Matthew 25 in a commentary called De Antichristo.m Antichrist indeed is the link between the two exposiciones, for Wyclif says that the scribes and Pharisees (both ancient and modern) are the means by which Antichrist enters the church. In that sense, Matthew 23 is introductory and subordinate to Matthew 24. Matthew 24 concerns Antichrist and the End, but Matthew 23 illuminates the backdrop against which they arrive. There is one major difference, however: in Matthew 24, Christ speaks in direct prophecy; in Matthew 23 he speaks de extensione temporis. The apparent and true subject of Matthew 24 is the future, the tribulations of the Last Days, and the Day of Judgment. But in Matthew 23, whereas the apparent subject is the ancient hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, in actuality Christ, to whom all things are present, speaks for all time. So "Christ exposes simultaneously the falsehoods of the priests of the old law and those of the priests of the new law which he knew would come from the Evils of Antichrist."106 For Wyclif, scribes and Pharisees exist in the fourteenth century just as surely as they did under the Old Law, though being disseminated throughout Christianity, not just Judea, they exceed in number and influence the sons of Antichrist in the time of the Lord.107 The new scribes are the Caesarean (that is, propertied) pope and clergy who are, like the scribes of old, ordained judges, though not by the true Law but by the law of Antichrist. And the Pharisees, once a religious order of the Jews, have reappeared in the new religious of the modern church: monks, canons, and friars.108 The theme of sacerdotal decline dominates Wyclif's commentary on the early verses of Matthew 23. "The Scribes and Pharisees have sat upon the chair of Moses" (verse 2), pretending to have the judicial auio4 Opera minora, pp. 313-53; cf. the more elaborate commentary on Matthew 23 in Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 1-98 (book 3). 105 Printed in Opus evangelicum, vol. II, books 3-4. 106 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 32 (book 3); Opera minora, pp. 335, 337. 107 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 61 (book 3); Opera minora, p. 334. 108 Opera minora, p. 316. In Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 6 (book 3) pontifices, scribei, and pharisei parallel the pope, the doctores, and the religious in the modern church; Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes parallel the three modern religious sects of monks, canons, and friars. 178

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thority given by God to Moses. But their corruption has caused their authority to lapse. It is, says Wyclif, the duty of the people to challenge the powers of a corrupt clergy, for only the law is eternal, not the authority of those who oversee it. Modern Pharisees, like those of old, "bind together heavy and oppressive burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but not with one finger of their own do they choose to move them" (verse 4). The insupportable modern burden is confession and the often monetary penance enjoined by avaricious confessors, especially friars.109 Another theme prominent in the Exposicio is hypocrisy. All the four sects who have invaded the church—Caesarean clergy, monks, canons, and friars—arrange their works so that they might appear holy to men. These modern Pharisees are exposed in Matt. 23:5-8. They widen their phylacteries; they enlarge their hems; they love the first seats at dinners and in synagogues; they love greetings in the marketplace; they love to be called rabbi, that is, master. Wyclif's interpretations, including an allusion to the academic title of Magister, are virtually indistinguishable from William of St. Amour's on this, one of his favorite texts. There is a strain of characteristically Wycliffite vocabulary. These modern hypocrites, says Wyclif, love above all else signa sensibilia to display their apparent sanctity, but the true religion of Christ derives from insensible virtues in the soul. Hence these new orders are the prophesied "generacio adultera querens signa."110 Most of the rest of the Exposicio is concerned with the famous vae octuplex, the eightfold woe Christ prophesied would fall upon the scribes and Pharisees (verses 13-33). Woe will befall them because they "devour the houses of widows in praying long prayers" (verse 14). Friars and monks, says Wyclif, devour the provender that might feed many families, not only foolish women but also the wealthy and worldly who are widowed from the understanding of Scripture. Woe will befall the friars "because you traverse land and sea to make one convert; and when he has become one, you make him twofold more of a son of hell than yourselves" (verse 15). The mendicants strive to make converts to their orders, especially youths still under the care of their parents. Once professed, the boys become corrupted. Woe will befall all new sects because they are "whited sepulchres which outwardly appear to men beautiful but within are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness" (verse 27). They suppose their sanctity to consist in signis extrinsecis, as in habits, outward show, figures, and other io9 Qpera min0ra^ pp. 315-19 110 Opera minora, pp 319-33, esp 319-23 179

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false signs. But God places sanctity in the soul, hidden from the world. Sensible signs of sanctity only declare their hypocrisy.111 The final division of Matthew 23 (verses 34—39) stresses that the vae octuplex is meant for all time, and for men born long after the Biblical Pharisees.112 Christ, to whom all things are present, contemplates continually the whole evil of this adulterous generation, as much future as past.113 In these verses he suggests that this generation, though it has already existed so long, will persist until the end of the world. In the time of the Old Law, God sent and under the New Law will send "prophets, wise men, and scribes" (verse 34) to warn against the dangers of this perverse brood. But the most dangerous time is the time near the End, when the persecutions brought about through hypocrisy increase. Because hypocrisy makes them hidden, these spiritual persecutions are more dangerous than the corporal persecutions in the early church or open heresies of previous ages, and inaugurate the perils of the final days.114 More exclusively than either of the Exposiciones on Matthew, the De fitndatione sectarum concerns itself with the friars.115 Wyclif's purpose is to explore the foundation of the friars "ex Scriptura," a phrase reminiscent of the Depericulis novissimomm temporum, whose perils, William of St. Amour had said, were "ex Scripturis sumptis." 116 What Wyclif "discovers" from his investigation of Scripture was also William's conclusion, that the friars have no Biblical foundation but are instead the dangerous hypocrites whose influx, prophesied in the Bible, would signal the Last Days of the church. Wyclif's texts are primarily the eschatological prophecies in the epistles of Paul and the other apostles. They include 2 Peter 2, with its 1,1

Opera minora, pp. 333-50. Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 64 (book 3). 1,3 Opera minora, pp. 350-53, 114 Opus evangelicum, vol. II, 71, 74-75 (book 3). 115 Printed in Polemical Works, I, 13-80. The "sects" of the title are above all the friars. In other works he uses the term broadly for the "four sects," i e , Caesarean clergy, monks, canons, friars. At one point (p. 59) in the present text he specifically defines the private orders he is speaking of in that chapter as monks, canons, and friars. Everywhere else in this treatise, however, he speaks specifically of the friars. From the first he calls thern^rarrei, never monachi or canonici; and there are topical references that must refer to the friars: the preaching of the crusade to Flanders, pp. 19, 32-33, 40; four sects oifratres, p. 26; four thousand jratres in England, p. 28; the pope confirmed them, p. 31; letters of fraternity, burial m a friar's habit, p. 35; castles caimitica, p. 40. 116 "Motus sum per quosdam ventatis amicos onginahter detegere fundacionem fratrum vel verba contra ipsos, si mveniri poterint ex scriptura," De fitndatione sectarum, p. 13; William of St. Amour, "Tractatus . . . ex Scripturis sumptus," "ex veritate Sacrae Scnpturae," Depericulis, pp. 17, 20. 112

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warnings of lying teachers (magistri) who introduce "sects of perdition"; 1 Timothy 4, where Paul says that in the Last Days (novissimis temporibus) many will depart from the faith; 2 Cor. 11:26 and its "danger in false brethren (Jratres)"; 2 Timothy 3, the source of the penetrans domos figure and the title verse of the Depericulis novissimorum temporum; the epistle of Jude, warning of quarrelsome murmurers who flatter people for gain, scoffers coming in the Last Days who set themselves apart, who are stains on their feasts, clouds without water, uprooted trees, wandering stars for whom the storm of darkness has been reserved forever; the epistles ofJames, where the apostle, whom Wyclif calls the religiosarcha, defines the religious life and warns of those who pretend to it hypocritically; and the epistles of John, with their warnings of spirits who "divide" Jesus and are antichrists (1 John 4:3). Although the application of these texts to the friars was traditional, Wyclif's exegesis bears his characteristic signature. The friars are the "adulterous generation" who think religion lies only in "sensible signs" like the rough cloth habit or the knotted belt. They are the "noonday demons" of Ps. 90:6, unleashed upon the world at the "loosing of Satan" some 1,000 years after Christ, and who threaten the world not only with hypocrisy but with wars like the Flanders crusade. Most of all, the treatise's concern with "sects" is typically Wycliffite. Secta, says Wyclif, is from sequi (to follow). All Christians are one sect, because all follow Christ; his Rule is the Catholic faith. There can be no better or more general sect than this one. "Private sects," like the four sects of the friars, are abhorrent to God, because they divide the unity of the church. Members of a private sect place it above the one Sect of Christ, and exalt their own patrons above the supreme Patron. St. Paul despised such divisions, rejecting the notion prevalent among the Corinthians that some Christians were followers of Paul, others of Apollo (1 Cor. 3:3-5). Sects only breed contentions and envy. This is as true now at the fine temporum (end of rime), as it was in ancient Corinth. When these new sects of friars elbowed their way into the church, a millennium and more after the founding of the one Sect of Christ, much dissension and malice arose. Peter warned of the coming of "sects of perdition" (2 Pet. 2:1, 10). In Galatians Paul specifically places "sects" in the middle of a list of heinous vices with which they are connected: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, jealousies, anger, quarrels, factions, sects, envies, mur181

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ders, drunkenness, carousing, and such like. I warn you that those who do such things will not attain the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21) Consequently, the unica secta of Christ is the only one to which Christians should attend.117 died in 1384. With his death, the last chapter in the development of English theological antifraternalism began to draw to a close. An epilogue still remained, in the Lollard movement and the writings of the Wycliffites into the middle of the next century. But much is still cloudy about the history of the Lollards and their sympathizers, with many of their prose writings extant only in manuscript or in uncritical nineteenth-century editions. Recent studies reveal that some of these manuscripts carry on vigorously the antifraternal attacks of Wyclif, and depend like him on earlier writers, though not always the same ones. The Wycliffite moral encyclopedia known as the Rosarium or Floretum contains, like Omne bonum, excerpts from William of St. Amour. 118 The Opus arduum, an exegetical commentary on the Apocalypse written in 1390, devotes a long section to the friars' abuse of each of the Ten Commandments. The author, languishing in prison, refers to the persecutions of both FitzRalph and William of St. Amour in their quarrels with the friars and associates his own sufferings with theirs. But he also mentions with approval Peter John Olivi and Jean de Roquetaillade, two Spiritual Franciscans whose rigorist interpretations of poverty must have made them seem "antifraternal" to the author.119 Until more is known of the circumstances of other Lollard and Wycliffite writings, any study of their antifraternal orientation is bound to be incomplete. It is certain, however, that their perspective on the friars was heavily influenced, as in everything else, by Wyclif. For that reason, it seems fair to say that Wyclif is the last significant theologian in the history of English antifraternalism, and so makes a fitting close to the exegetical and theological tradition set in motion 130 years earlier by William of St. Amour. WYCLIF

1.7

For the discussion of sects, Defitndationesectarian, pp. 21-25. Anne Hudson, "A Lollard Compilation and the Dissemination of Wycliffite Thought,"JTS, n.s. 23 (1972), 65-81. 119 Anne Hudson, "A Neglected Wycliffite Text," JEH, 29 (1978), 257-79. 1.8

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The English Poetic Tradition THE clamor in England between Wyclif and the friars produced at least one strange side effect: poetry. After the condemnations of Wyclif by the "Earthquake Council" of 1382, a Wycliffite partisan published a Latin poem in forty-nine stanzas, denouncing the council and the fraternal theologians who controlled it.1 The anonymous author, though metrically competent, was plainly less interested in art than in denunciation, and it is only his graceless meter and the thumping O and I refrain that allows him, barely, the title of poet. What he was really writing was polemic dressed up in verse. This was neither the first nor the last time the antifraternal controversies had fostered polemical verse. Reports circulated of rithmos and rixas used as propaganda during the FitzRalph controversies in London in 1357; two of these have recently been recovered. Similar poems, including many in the vernacular, had appeared in Paris in the 1250s in support of William of St. Amour. As polemic, some of this verse is colorful. As poetry, most of it is awful. Paradoxically, the same controversies that precipitated this chronically abysmal polemical verse were also, over the long run, to influence some of the best poetry of the English Middle Ages. Chaucer, Langland, Gower, Dunbar, Henryson all wrote against the friars, mainly in longer poems that depict, sometimes comically, sometimes somberly, the decay of human society near the end of an era—as some thought, near the end of time itself. In these poetic visions of a deteriorating world, the friars play a central role. Whether in its artistic or in its merely polemical manifestations, antifraternal poetry draws on the antifraternal perspectives first given expression by the theologians. What the poets and the theologians share is as much a way of perceiving as a set of specific perceptions. Rather than looking for explanations of the friars' malevolence in ecclesiastical politics and economic self-interest, they looked instead to the Bible. There they found that the friars, who appeared so disruptively and suddenly in the thirteenth century church, marked the beginning of the end of time. The significance of the friars, they realized, lay not in history but in the waning of Salvation History, the text of 1 "Heu! quanta desolatio Angliae praestatur," ed. Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs, Rolls Series, 14 (London: Longmans, Green, 1859), I, 253-63.

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which was Scripture. Poetry aside, such a perspective is intrinsically imaginative and symbolic. The polemical versifiers may have taken it up only because it was the perspective of the theologians whose causes they were serving, but the major poets such as Chaucer, Langland, and Gower, who are not known to have had a vested interest in the fraternal controversies, must have taken it up because it accorded with their own imaginative and symbolic perspective on English society and the decline of the world. The clearest sign of these shared perspectives among theologians and poets, both major and minor, is language. In simpler form, without the trappings of learned argument, the poets use the same Biblical figures, imagery, and language, and have the same ecclesiological presuppositions as the theologians. These remain remarkably constant over time. A century and a half after the Parisian controversies, in another country, in another tongue, in literary genres unconnected with theology, ecclesiology, or Biblical exegesis, English poets continue to attack the friars with charges and language that had first appeared in the time of William of St. Amour. By the second half of the fourteenth century, antifraternalism was an English poetic tradition. FRENCH FORERUNNERS

The ideas of William of St. Amour and the Parisian masters passed almost immediately into vernacular poetry, thanks to two of the bestknown poets of the French Middle Ages, Jean de Meun and Rutebeuf. Between 1254 and 1275, Rutebeuf, who lived in Paris through the mendicant controversies, composed more than a dozen poems attacking the mendicant orders or depicting their quarrel with the secular theologians at the university.2 Several of these poems defend William of St. Amour by name, including the "Complainte de Guillaume," where a personified Holy Church calls him "mon pere" and "Ii bons preudon" (11. 33, 48). Whatever these epithets may reveal about the relationship between William and Rutebeuf, they measure at least the intensity with which the poet championed the seculars' cause. Some scholars say there is reason to think that he was in the employ of the secular masters as a propagandist or publicist to help them gain popular support. 3 Although written for an audience in the streets and taverns of Paris, 2

Printed in Oeuvres completes de Rutebeuf, ed. Edmond Faral and Julia Bastin (Pans: Picard, 1969), I, 227-407. All citations of Rutebeuf s poems are from this edition. 3 Arie Serper, Rutebeuf: Poete satirique (Paris: Klincksieck, 1969), pp. 40-44; Nancy Regalado, Poetic Patterns in Rutebeuf (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 105-12. 184

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the antifraternal poems of Rutebeuf often reflect the language of Wil­ liam of St. Amour's polemics. 4 " D u Pharisien," for example, takes its title and its occasion from the sermon William preached on 20 August 1256 and circulated as the De Pharisaeo. The Pharisees (viz. friars), says Rutebeuf, are described by Christ in the Gospel; they wear robes of rough wool to appear humble and simple, like the wolves who come in sheep's clothing (Matt. 7:15); their faces express humility and sim­ plicity and yet they are more cruel than the apocalyptic beasts of lion, leopard, or scorpion. 5 They do not do what they preach. 6 If Christ were on earth today, these hypocrites would kill him, like the Pharisees of old. 7 Finally at the end of the poem Rutebeuf says that they prepare the way for Antichrist. They do not follow the Gospel nor the words of Christ. AU should beware of them, for prophecies have been written that such a race of hypocrites would receive the coming Antichrist. 8 The Dit des regies, written in 1259, is even more explicit in its eschatological expectations: "La fin du siecle est mes prochiene" (105) (the end of the world is henceforth near). Rutebeuf knows the end of the world is near because of hypocrites who threaten the church from within. " N o enemy can more effectively do harm than one who is a familiar," he says, quoting a passage from Boethius that appears several times in the works of William of St. Amour. 9 These hypocrites have signs of holiness marked on their visages, "enseignes escrites," like the Pharisees in the New Testament who wore their phylacteries on their foreheads (U. 33-35; cf. Matt. 23:5). In other poems, identifying them with the pseudoapostoli, Rutebeuf stresses the friars' specious claims to be new apostles. 10 They are not missos; they claim falsely to be fishers of men; they are "fauz farisiens"; they seek out the best food, disobey­ ing the precepts of Luke 10 to eat and drink whatever is put before them; they wander about like gyrovagi.11 As in William of St. Amour, the pseudoapostoli can be eschatological types; Rutebeuf's friars pene­ trate houses and probe the secrets of the conscience, fulfilling the 4 Faral and Bastin provide in Oeuvres a thorough list of echoes of William of St. Amour in their notes to the poems in I, 227-407; see also Serper, Rutebeuf, pp 33-44. 5 Lines 48-61. The editors see in this passage echoes of Matt. 23.8, Matt. 7:15, Matt. 6.16, Apoc. 6-8, and Apoc 9.10, all standard texts in William's works. 6 Line 78. Matt. 23:3, "dicunt emm et non faciunt." 7 Lines 62-75; cf. De Pharisaeo in Opera omnia, ρ 9, based on John 18:3. 8 Lines 101-17; cf Depericulis, pp. 38-42; Collechones, pp. 131-34. 9 Lines 178-82; Boethius, De consolatione, III, prose 5, cited in De peruuhs and Collectiones in Opera omnia, pp. 30 and 321 10 "Des Jacobins," 11. 59-60; "La Bataille des vices contre les vcrtus," U. 39-45 11 "Les Ordres de Pans," 11. 55-56; "Des Jacobins," 11. 34-35; "Le Dit d'ypocrisie," 1. 192; "Dit des regies," 11. 139-48; "Complainte de Guillaume," 11. 153-55.

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prophecy of 2 Timothy 3 about the last times.12 The world is always growing worse ("cest siecle qu'ades empire") and charity is growing cold.13 And finally, these hypocrites, who would abrogate the Gospel of Christ and replace it with a new gospel of the Holy Spirit, which they call the Eternal Gospel—such hypocrites have abandoned God for Antichrist.14 A contemporary of Rutebeuf in Paris, younger but destined to become a more famous poet, also took up the cause of the secular masters. But whereas Rutebeuf wrote during the controversies themselves, his successor wrote at some temporal distance, in the 1270s, and hence could not have intended the timely polemical application of poems like the "Du Pharisien" of 1257. Instead of writing occasional and propagandist pieces intended in part for circulation as handbills, Jean Chopinel de Meun incorporated a lengthy (two-thousand-line) attack on the mendicants in an ambitious philosophical poem. Every reader of the Roman de la Rose is surprised to find the leisurely love allegory interrupted by the self-revelations of Faus Semblant. The world of contemporary history impinges upon the poetic world peopled otherwise by the God of Love, Jealousy, Nature, Reason, Friend, and an all-allegorical cast. When Faus Semblant identifies himself with the mendicants, however, we are suddenly taken back into history, to the Parisian quarrels of the 1250s. William of St. Amour and the Eternal Gospel are both named, and the entire section deals with the issues most discussed in the pamphlet wars in that decade: the nature of religious life and evangelical perfection; the validity of able-bodied begging; confession; hypocrisy; papal power to grant privileges. Even more than the poems of Rutebeuf, this section of the Roman is saturated with the language of William of St. Amour. In Rutebeuf such language may simply reflect ideas that were in the air at the height of the Parisian disputes, but Jean de Meun clearly had texts of William's works in front of him. Ernest Langlois, in his edition of the poem, notes twenty instances of borrowing from the De periculis, the Collectiones, and the Responsiones in the Faus Semblant section, and there are other examples as well. 15 Faus Semblant argues that Christ and his apostles never begged, as Scripture makes clear; William of St. Amour writes, "Quod autem Dominus mendicaverit, vel ejus Apostoli, numquam reperitur" (that 12

"Bataille des vices contre les vertus," 11. 147-48 "Refrigescet cantas," Matt. 24:12; "Les Ordres de Pans," 11. 7-9. 14 "Le Dit de Sainte Eghse," 1. 66 and note 15 Le Romandela Rose, ed. Ernest Langlois, III (Paris: Honore Champion, 1921), pp. 31629 (hereafter i?i?). Translations are from R. H. Robbins' version (New York: Dutton, 1962). 13

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the Lord or his apostles begged never appears in Scripture). 16 Both the Roman and the Depericulis cite Justinian for the precept in civil law that no able-bodied man may beg. 1 7 Both decry the lazy who haunt other men's tables. 18 And perhaps most strikingly, Jean de Meun offers a list of cases of permissible begging that are the same as, and in the same order as, a list in William's Responsiones.19 Elsewhere, Jean quotes Christ's warning about the Pharisees in Mat­ thew 23:1-8 and applies it to the friars (11605-36). He counterposes St. Paul's eagerness for manual labor to the friars' reluctance (11401-6). He makes Faus Semblant and Astenance Contrainte make apostolic claims to be fishers of men, sent as an example to others (12161-67). He echoes the Glossa ordinaria on 2 Timothy 3, when Faus Semblant probes into people's "proprietez" and "secrez." 20 He cites Matthew 7:15 on hypocrites: "Dehors semblons aigneaus pitables, I Dedenz somes lous ravissables" (Pious lambs we seem outside, I But inside we are raven­ ing wolves). 21 And like William of St. Amour and Rutebeuf before him, he places Faus Semblant and the friars within an apocalyptic framework. They are the "pseudo prophete," the dangerous hypo­ crites warned of in Scripture (19345-50). Astenance Contrainte is so pale she resembles the pale horse of the Apocalypse, which the Glossa interprets as the third and final persecution of the church, this time by hypocrites who, though pale without, are black within. 2 2 Faus Sem­ blant claims to be one of the "servants of Antichrist" and after describ­ ing the Eternal Gospel and how its proponents said this book would replace the Gospel of Christ, says ominously, "Ainsinc Antecrit atendron" (So now we wait for Antichrist to come; 11713, 11845). Virtually nothing that Jean de Meun says about the friars is new. But the framework is new: an allegorical "epic" about love in which the plot revolves around the attainment of a lover's desire. What do the friars in Paris in the 1250s have to do with the attainment of desire? Nothing at all, some readers have answered; Faus Semblant's rambling account of mendicant issues, they say, is a digression unrelated to the 16

RR, 11. 11293-311; Depericulis in Opera omnia, chap 12, p. 51. RR, U. 11345-49; Depericulis, chap. 12, p. 52 18 RR, 11. 11331-32, "Car qui oiseus hante autrui table / Lobierres est e sert de fable"; Depenculis, chap. 12, ρ 49 "Qui frequenter ad alienam mensam convenit otio deditus, aduletur necesse est pascenti se." 19 -Ri?, 11. 11428-91; Responsiones, pp. 341-42. 20 Lines 11587-90; Depericulis, chap 5, ρ 32- "Subintrabunt domos singulorum, nmantes propnetates sive secreta cujusque." 21 Lines 11713-18; Depericulis, chap. 7, p. 36: "Tertium eorum pericula est, quoniam, cum ipsi veniant in vestimentis ouium, sunt lupi rapaces." 22 Lines 12065-74; see Collectiones, pp. 128-30 and "Qui amat penculum," pp. 495-96 17

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love story. Alan Gunn, who sees the poem as a celebration of natural love and generation, claims by contrast that Faus Semblant and Astenance Contrainte are representative of the folly and unnaturalness of religious celibacy whereby generative love is thwarted. 23 Preferable to both of these, however, is the view that the poem's religion of love is ironic and fraudulent.24 The Lover seems unwittingly to condemn his own love when, just as he is breaking into the Castle of Jealousy, he utters a paean of praise to those who have helped him gain entry: May they be blessed by God and Saint Benoit! There were False Seeming, traitorous son of Fraud, Pretended priest, Hypocrisy his dame, Who against virtue feels such bitterness, Also Forced Abstinence, who is with child, And ready to give birth to Antichrist, Whose father is False Seeming, as I've read. Seignors who traitors wish to learn to be Should hire False Seeming as their pedagogue And take unto themselves Forced Abstinence; For both of these, of feigned simplicity, Are masters of duplicity itself. (11. 14737-52) These lines not only show us the kind of love Amant is pursuing—one based on hypocrisy, fraud, false seeming, hostility to virtue, a show of chastity—but also hint at a parallel between Faus Semblant and our Lover. The liaison between Astenance Contrainte and Faus Semblant has resulted in precisely what the Lover himself has been desiring so long—physical union. Faus Semblant's abstinence, like the Lover's, was a sham, hiding secret desires. And the child conceived in this union is Antichrist, heralding (as we learned in Faus Semblant's antimendicant speech) the pericula novissimorum temporum. There are other things that suggest that a love based on False Seeming is evil and unnatural. Nature, sending greetings to Love and all his army, specifically excepts False Seeming, of whom she is suspicious (though she does reluctantly admit him and his consort to Love's band, lines 19342-68). The God of Love himself is equally reluctant to receive Faus Semblant when Astenance Contrainte first brings him to the council of war. Faus Semblant is not naturally of the party of Love, but 23

Alan Gunn, The Mirror of Love (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1952), pp. 158-63. For one view of the poem's irony, see Rosemond Tuve, Allegorical Imagery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 233-84. 24

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TRADITION

rather a usurper, who undermines the moral foundations of rightly ordered love. There is one other resemblance between him and the Lover that reinforces such a reading. The disguise that he and Astenance Contrainte adopt to gain entry to the Castle ofJealousy is that of the holy pilgrim, she as a Beguine, he as a Dominican friar. As they make their felonious pilgrimage through the guarded gates of the castle, we learn that Astenance carries the very gear that will play such an unabashedly, albeit allegorically, sexual part in the final scene of the Romance: the pilgrim scrip and staff (12033-84). Indeed the sexual allegory at the end, when the Lover takes his Rose, is governed by the metaphor of pilgrimage, with scrip, staff, shrine, sanctuary, fallen ivory towers, fair relics, the image and the kiss within the sacred place, the tributes that pilgrims there leave within (21346-661). And Jean de Meun places within this extended metaphor of sexual pilgrimage a discussion of what was embodied in the appearance of our pious-seeming pilgrims: fraud, though here the discussion is confined to fraud in love (21451— 582). The narrator advises men against it, at least in their relations with older women, who having been deceived once by feigned promises are not likely to be fooled again. But with virgins—the conclusion is left unsaid as the final scenes of roseate consummation are played out, but one remembers that it was only with the aid of False Seeming that the Lover won access to the Rose at all. The pilgrim Lover then is morally and pictorially another version of the pilgrim Faus Semblant. When he is decked out in metaphorical pilgrim's garb, he reminds us iconographically of the earlier pilgrim who also broke down walls and forced entry into forbidden places. Although Jean de Meun does not quote the verse, William of St. Amour's favorite passage links them together: "ex his enim sunt qui penetrant domos et captivas ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis" (2 Timothy 3:6). The parallel between the two pilgrims and their respective assaults suggests that their worlds—the world of hypocrisy and the world of cupidinous love—are not unconnected. The plot in the last ten thousand lines of the poem—more than half the total—consists solely of an allegorical battle for possession of the Rose within the Castle of Jealousy. This amorous assault is reminiscent of the traditional psychomachia and other allegorical battles in which figures of evil besiege the Castle of the Soul or the church, like the one at the end of Piers Plowman, where Antichrist and the Vices lay seige to Unitee Holy Chirche. Jean de Meun parodies just such a battle in having the band of Amour attack the Castle of Jealousy led by a friar and a Beguine who are the parents of Antichrist. The deflowering of the Rose is a romance parody of the rape of the church, borrowing the military language and the nar189

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rative action from the tradition of the psychomachia. Faus Semblant hints as much when he describes the assault of the friars on the church in the same metaphor of battle that is used for the amorous assault upon the Castle of Jealousy: If there are but a few of such-like wolves Among your new apostles, Holy Church, You're badly off; your city is assailed By knights of your own table, and your rule Is sadly in decline. If those who've sworn You to defend are leading the attack Who against them will give you guarantee? You will be taken ere you feel one stroke Of trepeget or mangonel, or see A single banner flaunted in the wind. If you're not rescued, they'll o'errun your land. . . . Their tributary you will then become. . . . Well know they how to circumvent you now: By day they man, by night they mine your walls. (lines 11133-55) The connection between the Lover's and the friars' assaults lies in the nature of the attackers: in a word, hypocrisy. Consequently, Faus Semblant's "digression" about the friars is germane to the larger world in which the love plot moves, even though it does not advance the plot itself. This is a world in decline, as many characters—the Friend, the Duenna, Nature—make clear. It is a world that the Friend says has been taken over by deception, and he urges the lover not to hesitate to use deceit to win his lady (9493-999). It is a world in which love is cooling and pseudoprophete will come to seduce many. 25 False seeming, seduction, penetrantes domos—these are the thematic links between the Lover and the friars. Jean de Meun's work is a romance and an allegory focused on romantic love; but at the same time it is a poem about a world in crisis, the world in which William of St. Amour, and Rutebeuf, and the Parisian masters moved. ANTIFRATERNAL POETRY IN ENGLAND AND ITS OCCASIONS

The poems of Rutebeuf andjean de Meun precipitated a spate of French antifraternal poetry that lasted down to the time of Frangois Villon.26 25 "Multi pseudoprophete surgent et seducent multos, Et quoniam abundabit imquitas, refrigescet cantas multorum," Matt 24:11-12 and RR, lines 19348-50. 26 Thirteenth-century verse includes that by Adam de la Halle in Canchons una Partures

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In England, however, the history of antifraternal poetry lags behind France by nearly a century. The long silence of English writers is due in part to the later development of literature north of the Channel. In France the second half of the thirteenth century was a golden age of medieval poetry, the era of Rutebeuf, Jean de Meun, and Adam de la Halle; but in England, a comparable flourishing does not arrive until the Ricardian era with the poetry of Chaucer, Langland, Gower, and their contemporaries. Antifraternal poetry in England must also await history. The two distinctly English phases of attack upon the friars— FitrRalph's from 1357 to 1360, and Wyclif's in the early 1380s—do not come until after mid-century. Practically all surviving English poetry against the friars comes after 1360. FitzRalph's London disputes produced the first polemical poems against the friars in England. The two surviving poems from those controversies are, by one of the whims of chance, a matched pair: both written in Latin, both untitled, both in the six-line Goliardic stanza with an O and I refrain, one written in support of FitzRalph and the other answering in support of the friars. The pro-FitzRalph poem begins, "Sedens super flumina fleui Babilonis" and was written, it says, by one who has recently left a mendicant order and cast off their habit. 27 It attacks the friars for avarice, simony, lechery, for courting the rich and powerful, for breaking up marriages, stealing tithes, defaming the clergy. It is a learned poem, often alluding to Biblical verses and their traditional glosses. The opening line, for instance, echoes Psalm 136:1 on the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, which the poet des altfianzosischen trouvere Adan de la Hale Ie Bochu d'Aras, ed. Rudolf Berger (Halle a. S.: M. Niemeyer, 1900), pp. 500-15; Pierre de Vignes in Edelstand du Menl, Poesies populates iatines du moyen age, I (Pans: Firmin Didot, 1847), pp. 163-77; Jacques de Baysieux in Auguste Scheler, Trouveres beiges du XII' au XIV' siecle (Brussels- Closson, 1876), pp. 214-24; Helinand, "Complamte des Jacobins et des Cordeliers," printed in Achille Jubinal, ed , Oeuvres completes de Rutebeuf, Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, 85 (Pans: Daffis, 1875), III, 172-75; Les Lamentations de Matheolus, ed A.-G. van Hamel, Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des hautes etudes, 95-96 (Paris: Bouillon, 1892-1905); Baudouin de Conde, Dits et Contes, ed. A. Scheler (Brussels: Closson, 1866), III, 62; "Le Testament de Jehan de Meung,"ed. M Meon in Le Roman de la Rose, IV (Pans:Didot, 1814), 26-61. In the fourteenth century, "Li Maintiens des ordenes mendians" by Gilles Ii Muissis is particularly notable, in his Poesies, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain: J Lefever, 1882), I, 243-83 (cf II, 148-51) For the fifteenth century, see Anatole de Montaiglon, Recueil de poesies francoises des XV' et XVI' slides, Bibliotheque Elzevirienne, 63, V (Paris: Jannet, 1856), 147-54 and XIII (Paris: Daffis, 1878), 286-87, but above all, Villon, e.g. "Le Lais," sts. 12 and 32, and "Le Testament," sts. 116-120, printed in The Complete Works of Francois Villon, ed. and trans. Anthony Bonner (New York: David McKay, 1960), where he shows his consciousness of a literary tradition of antifraternalism by citing his predecessors by name: Jean de Pouilly, Matheolus, Jean de Meun. 27 Printed in MS, 41 (1979), 30-43 191

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implies is analogous to his time as a friar. Several verses make arguments similar to FitzRalph's: to support their own idea of poverty, the friars assert that Christ was voluntarily poor but they associate with the rich (1. 44); wives confess to friars but husbands confess elsewhere, and such divisions split families and the church (61-66); friars encourage people not to pay tithes (67-72); friars do not follow the example of Paul and labor for their food (144). In 1557 John Bale linked "Sedens super flumina" to another Latin poem by (he said) the same author. The authorship has been disputed, but there is an undeniable connection between "Sedens" and a poem that begins "Quis dabit (meo) capiti pelagus aquarum." 28 This second poem is anchored firmly in the London disputes of FitzRalph's day but takes the friars' side. It names FitzRalph, calling him a destructive beast ("feram pessimam," 1. 43), and mentions a second beast who is only identified as a second Richard—probably, as A. G. Rigg suggests, Richard FitzRalph's friend, Richard Kilwyngton, who was dean of St. Paul's and perhaps responsible for inviting FitzRalph to London to preach against the friars.29 The poem also refers obliquely to St. Paul's Cross, the locus of FitzRalph's most famous sermons. It mentions many of the current issues, such as mendicancy and privileges, especially confession. There may even be an allusion to the provincial council of Canterbury that met at St. Paul's in London on 16 May 1356, where a bill of complaints was presented by the clergy of the province against the friars.30 And "Quis dabit" also gives us reason to believe that there might have been widespread verse warfare in London around 1357: Hii simul et clerici rixas, rithmos edunt, Et sicut sunt inscii, legem metri [ljedunt. Fratres tamen infici suis rithmis credunt. (139-41) 28 See Bale's Scriptores illustres majoris Brytanniae (Basel: Johanms Opormus, 1557-59), p. 510; for discussion of authorship see MS, 41 (1979), 30-35 For the best edition of "Quis dabit," see A. G. Rigg, "An Edition of a Fifteenth-century Commonplace Book (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 0.9.38)," D. Phil, diss , Oxford 1966, I, 132-37; I am grateful to Professor Rigg for providing rne with a copy. For a printed version of the poem (with confusing punctuation and some textual errors), see W Heuser, "With an O and an I," Anglia, 27 (1904), 315-19. 29 Rigg, "An Edition," II, 342, 343 n.44. 30 Lines 133-38; for the Council, see Public Record Office, D.L. 42.8 (Selby Register), fols. 79 v -80' and W A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), pp. 159-60 and 267.

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[Both these and the clerics publish quarrels and verses, And as they are ignorant, they destroy the law of meter. Nevertheless they believe that friars will be harmed by their verses.] One of the rithmos the poet had in mind may well have been "Sedens super flumina."31 For "Quis dabit," though written from an opposite political point of view, concerns the same issues as "Sedens" and matches it in form, in imagery and occasionally in wording. As the opening of "Sedens" alludes to the weeping ofJeremiah for the Babylonian captivity (Ps. 136:1), so the opening of "Quis dabit" echoes the weeping of Jeremiah for the destruction ofJerusalem injer. 9:1. Both poems refer in similar ways to the city desolata; the beasts of the Apocalypse, lion, leopard, and bear; the crucifixion; the bis bini ordines; the split in the church. Both are written in the same Goliardic stanza of six lines rhymed a a a a b b, the final couplet always beginning with the phrase, "With an O and an I"; they are nearly the same length (twentysix and thirty stanzas). And both contain what are probably autobiographical fictions: the author of "Sedens" says he has been a friar but has just left the order, while the author of "Quis dabit" says he is not a friar but is about to become one.32 Hence "Quis dabit" appears to be a specific response to "Sedens super flumina." The unique manuscript in which "Sedens" is preserved (Digby 98) tells us several interesting things about the poem and its circulation. It was still being read in the first half of the fifteenth century at Oxford. Digby 98 was compiled by a scholar named Peter Partriche almost certainly while at Oxford in the first two or three decades of the century. 33 Other witnesses corroborate that the poem had an Oxford readership. John Wyclif quotes three lines from the poem in one of his sermons (approximately 1380); John Bale, a century and a half later, saw a copy at Queen's College, in a manuscript now lost.34 That Partriche, who had Wycliffite leanings in his Oxford years, and Wyclif both knew the poem shows that "Sedens" was of interest in Wycliffite circles. That interest is also confirmed by Partnche's manuscript. "Sedens" appears there together with two other virulent antifratcrnal poems. One (be31

A. G. Rigg points out to me that "Sedens super flumina" contains numerous examples of the metrical incompetence here scorned (e.g. additional unstressed syllables in numerous lines, no internal rhyme at the caesura like that in "Quis dabit capiti") 32 The conventionality of the fictional claim to have been a friar was established by A. G. Rigg in "William Dunbar. The 'Fenyeit Freir,' " RES, n.s 14 (1963), 269-73 33 BRUO, 1430-31. 14 Wyclif, Sermones, ed J Loserth, II (London: Wychf Society, 1888), 121; John Bale, Index Bntanniae scriptorum, ed R. L. Poole (Oxford. Clarendon, 1902), p. 322. 193

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ginning "Achab diu studuit vineam perquirere") contains no local or temporal allusions that would allow us to date it; the other is the Wycliffite poem mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, that denounces the "Earthquake Council" of 19 May 1382 for its condemnations of the doctrines of Wyclif.35 It has the same six-line, O & I stanza as "Sedens." Evidently Partriche saw some connection between the Wycliffite poem of 1382 and the pro-FitzRalph poem of 1357-60, whether in the stanzaic form or the attacks upon the friars or both; in any case the juxtaposition of "Sedens" with the Council of London poem at least thirty years after their composition suggests a felt poetic tradition. Oxford is also the setting of two other Latin poems against the friars, both preserved by the same monk of Glastonbury to whom we owe the survival of "Quis dabit [meo] capiti."36 One of the poems is quite short, the "De astantibus crucifixo," consisting mainly of a slur against the traditional fraternal iconography that places Dominic and Francis at the crucifixion, like apostles. The poem instead identifies them as the two thieves. The editor, A. G. Rigg, suggests it is a prelude to the more complicated second poem, "De supersticione Phariseorum." "De supersticione" claims to be by a monk ("ab uno de monachis amatore cleri," 1. 1) and concerns the friars' disruption of the university as well as their pride, ingratitude, conflict with the secular clergy, and Pharisaic hypocrisy. Like "Quis dabit," it seems to be a response to another polemical poem, a "carmen fratribus iratis" (song of the angry friars) in which the friars supported some unspecified cause against the university. Rigg suggests that the offending "carmen" of the friars is the "De laude universitatis Oxonie" by the Franciscan Richard Tryvytlam, preserved in the same Glastonbury manuscript.37 Tryvytlam compares Oxford to the sun (e.g., 81-112), an image that is taken up and greatly extended in "De supersticione Phariseorum" (9-52). "De laude" could also very plausibly evoke a reply from a member of the monastic orders. It denounces monks in general, and three Oxford doctors in particular, as was seen in chapter 2—John Sene, monk of 35 "Achab diu studuit," in Digby MS 98, fol. 194', has never been printed; the Earthquake Council poem is in Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs, I, 253-63. In Digby MS 98, this poem is written on a piece of vellum sewn sideways into the binding of the paper manuscript immediately after the folio containing "Sedens." 36 The manuscript is Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 0.9.38. The two poems are edited and analyzed by Rigg in "Two Latin Poems Against the Friars," MS, 30 (1968), 10618. 37 Edited by Rigg, "An Edition," I, 115-31 and previously by H. Furneaux in Montagu Burrows, ed., Collectanea III, Oxford Historical Society, 32 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1896), pp. 188-209.

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Glastonbury, Richard of Lincoln, the abbot of Louth Park, and Uthred de Boldon. These three, it charges, in attacking the friars were preaching the condemned doctrines of William of St. Amour (243-48). Ironically the poem written in response by the anonymous monk is full of echoes of William's antifraternal exegesis: the friars are pseudoprophetae; their hearts are hardened by Pharaoh; they render evil for good; they have the voice of Jacob but the hands of Esau; they are intrinsecus lupi rapaces (inwardly rapacious wolves); they are Pharisees, "divided" from the clergy; by their fruits they may be known. Rigg dates both Tryvytlam's poem and the monastic rejoinder around 1360; the wars of poetic propaganda were not confined to London in the period after FitzRalph preached at St. Paul's Cross. The largest group of surviving antifraternal polemical poems are Wycliffite and hence from the 1380s or later. One manuscript from the Cottonian collection contains three of these on consecutive folios.38 One is the poem on the "Earthquake Council" preserved with "Sedens super flumina" in Digby 98.39 The poem begins apocalyptically by lamenting the desolation that has come to England for many reasons, chief among them the hypocrisy of monks and friars (p. 253). Recent pestilence, winds, floods, and earthquake are taken as signs of God's wrath and signa dolorum, especially the earthquake that came at the moment the scribae and Pharisaei had convened to judge Wyclif. The poem denounces the hypocrisy of the friars "mendicantibus, falsis, et mendosis, I Qui se fingunt similes actu rubris rosis" (p. 255: who are beggars, deceivers, and liars, I Whose deeds, in their own false account, always come up smelling like roses). The Benedictines do not escape either; the poet says they should be called accursed (p. 258). The author claims, in perhaps another instance of the authorial fiction evident in "Sedens" and "Quis dabit," that he had once been a monastic novice but never professed, fleeing rather to join the "Rule of Christ" (Regulam Christi; p. 258). Only after thirty-three of the forty-eight stanzas does the poet turn explicitly to the council itself, where he caricatures many of the fraternal speakers, naming them in turn and concluding that the monks and friars bought the verdict against Wyclif with their considerable wealth. The second piece in the Cottonian manuscript is a vernacular poem beginning "Preste ne monke ne 3it chanoun," with a complicated twelve-line stanza.40 This is not a polemical piece for an identifiable oc38

BL, Cotton MS Cleopatra B.n, fols. 59'-64\ Edited from this manuscript in Thomas Wright, Political Poems and Songs, I, 253-63. 40 Printed in R. H. Robbins, Historical Poems of the XlVUi ana XVth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), pp. 157-62. The rhyme scheme is aaabcccbdede. 39

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casion but rather an antifraternal satire attacking unlocalized vices like the seduction of housewives, the provision of easy absolution, and defamation of the clergy. It gives away its origins, however, with an anagram that appears only and often in Wycliffite literature. The founder of the friars, it says, is revealed by the first letters of the names of the four major orders, the Carmelites, Augustinians, Iacobins, and Minorites: C-A-I-M, the Middle English spelling of Cain, the first and most treacb.erous_/raier. This poem is followed by a third, beginning "Of pes frer mynours me thenkes moch wonder." Though written in the vernacular, it has the same six-line, O-and-I stanza as the Latin piece on the Council of London. 41 Stanzas 2-6 depict five Franciscan representations of religious events, probably wall paintings from Franciscan churches, presented here as blasphemous. No such church is known in England, and the poem reveals nothing more of its occasion. Another two Wycliffite poems against the friars are written on the flyleaf of a manuscript of Poor Caitiff in a hand of the fifteenth century. They form a matched pair of poems now known as "The Layman's Complaint" and the "Friar's Answer"; Tryvytlam's "De laude universitate Oxonie" and the "De superstitione Phariseorum"; perhaps indeed Chaucer's Friar's Tale and Summoner's Tale. sen" (1. 14). The "mydday deuelis" of line 16 allude to the daemonium meridianum of Ps. 90:6, often cited by the Wycliffites against ecclesiastical enemies.43 In the "Friar's Answer," the friar complains bitterly that ignorant men now know holy writ; the devil must have plotted to have the Gospel translated into English. The friar's complaints here, indeed the pretense that a friar is narrating, are clearly intended ironically, for the heinous result he reports of this devilish translation is that men accuse him of not following St. Paul's example in working for his livelihood, and call him ignorant of holy writ. The sort of sparring represented ironically in these two poems appears straightforwardly in a sequence of three longer works written between 1390 and 1450. fack Upland is a Wycliffite attack on the friars in prose, written probably between 1390 and 1400.44 It consists of a sub41

Printed in Robbins, Historical Poems, pp. 163-64. Printed in Robbins, Historical Poems, pp. 166-68; and by F L Utley in Harvard Theological Review, 38 (1945), 144. The manuscript is St. John's, Cambridge, MS 195. 43 See chapter 4 above at n. 80. 44 For the text and date, see P. L. Heyworth, ed.,Jack Upland, Frtar Daw's Reply, and Upland's Rejoinder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 9-19. Heyworth argues for a date later rather than earlier in the period 1390-1420, but a recent discovery makes an earlier date imperative. The questions in Jack Upland are answered in William Woodford's Responsiones ad quaestiones LXV, Bodl. MS 703, fols. 41-57; see Anne Hudson, "Contributions to a Bibliography of Wycliffite Writings," N&Q, n.s. 20 (1973), 449 and 42

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stantial introduction in which the author sees the order of creation and the church disrupted by Antichrist and his disciples who have come under cover of holiness to deceive the church by many false signs. The three estates have each lost sight of their proper functions and are about to be undone by the army of Antichrist. The vanguard of that army is the "fellist folk pat euer Antecrist foond," the flattering friars who are "Caymes castel-makers," deceiving Pharisees, and "profetis fals." The introduction is followed by more than sixty questions directed by "Jack Upland" to the friars to reveal whether they belong to the order of Christ or Antichrist. At some considerably later date, probably 1419 or 1420, a poet who was possibly a member of the London Blackfriars wrote Friar Daw's Reply, a point-by-point response in alliterative verse to Upland's accusatory questions.45 It may not be a coincidence that the incipit of the poem is the same verse from Jeremiah (9:1) that begins the similarly promendicant London poem, "Quis dabit [meo] capiti pelagus aquarum," though here of course in the vernacular: "Who shall graunten to myn eyen a strong streme of teres." 46 Some thirty years after its composition, a manuscript of Daw's Reply, now Digby 41, came into the possession of a Lollard sympathizer who composed a verse rebuttal, Upland's Rejoinder, and wrote it in the margins. 47 The polemical point-counterpomt of these three works, even though they were composed years apart, is reminiscent of other pairs of poems, and suggests the possibility of a convention of pairing in the poetry of the fraternal controversies: "Sedens" and "Quis dabit"; "The Layman's Complaint" and the "Friar's Answer"; Tryvytlam's "De laude universitate Oxonie" and the "De superstitione Phariseorum"; perhaps indeed Chaucer's Friar's Tale and Summoner's Tale. In a final Wycliffite work, Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, a crude imitation of Langland's poem, the narrator searches for someone who can teach him his Creed. He finds in turn members of each of the four mendicant orders who attack each other but can teach him nothing. Finally he meets Pierce the Ploughman, who warns him at length to beware of 452. Neither the date of the Responsiones nor the date of Woodford's death is known, though the latter seems to have been near the end of the fourteenth century; see BRUO, 2082. Hereafter Jack Upland will be referred to as JU, Upland's Rejoinder as UR, and Fnar Daw's Reply as FDR. 45 For author and date, see Heyworth, pp. 6-19. 46 John Pecham's defense of the friars, Tractatus pauperis contra insipientem (1270) begins with the same verse; see Tractatus tres de paupertate, ed. A. G Little, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 2 (Aberdeen· Aberdeen University Press, 1910), p. 21. 47 Heyworth, pp. 40-44, argues that this UR is a holograph copy, because the poem is nearly free of textual corruption and fits with such physical precision into the margins of FDR that it must have been composed with the margins in mind. 197

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the hypocritical friars and then teaches him his Creed. 48 It is one of the longest antifraternal poems extant, and testimony to the felt opposition, fostered by Langland, between friars and all the virtues represented by Piers Plowman. Besides the Wycliffite pieces, only minor antifraternal poems survive from the fifteenth century, though these include some other imitations of Langland, a few respectable poems from Scotland, and a number of scurrilous short lyrics.49 Three other long poems, distinguished from the host of antifraternal scribblers by their literary quality, deserve mention in this survey. None is written for a specific occasion or cause in any of the English controversies. None is primarily antifraternal. Each, however, condemns the friars in long sections that are part of a larger imaginative design. Two are by John Gower, the Vox clamantis and the Mirour de I'omme; the other is the fragmentary Middle English translation of the Romaunt of the Rose. The fragment of the Romaunt survives in only one manuscript and in a printing by William Thynne in 1532.50 Chaucer says in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women that he had translated Jean de Meun's poem, but scholars have determined that only a part of the surviving Romaunt manuscript could be Chaucer's work, and the attribution is by no means certain. The manuscript, it has been suggested, combines 48

Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS o.s 30 (London: Triibner, 1867); hereafter PPC. 49 Mum and the Sothsegger, ed. Mabel Day and Robert Steele, EETS o.s. 199 (London: Oxford University Press, 1936); John Audelay's "De concordia inter rectores fratres et rectores ecclesiae" in Ella K. Whiting, ed., The Poems of John Audelay, EETS o.s. 184 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), pp. 10-46; William Dunbar's "How Dunbar wes desyrd to be ane Freir" in Poems, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 16566, on which see also A. G. Rigg, "William Dunbar: The 'Fenyeit Freir,' " RES, n.s. 14 (1963), 269-73 and R. J. Lyall, "Dunbar and the Franciscans," MAE, 46 (1977), 253-58; Robert Henryson's "The Fox and the Wolf," in Poems, ed Denton Fox (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), pp. 27-34; on Henryson, see also John B. Friedman, "Henryson, the Friars and the Confessio Reynardi," JEGP, 66 (1967), 550-61; "Carmina jocosa" from Harley MS 3362, fol. 47r, also in Digby MS 196, fol. 196' (mutilated), ed. Thomas Wright, Reliquiae antiquae, I (London: Pickering, 1841), 91; "Lyarde" from Lincoln Cathedral MS 91, ed. Wright, Reliqiae antiquae, II, 280-82; "Ffrere Gastkyn Wo Ye Be" (BL, MS Royal App. 58, fol. 22») in Anglia, 12 (1889), 268-69; "Quod the DeviU to the Frier" (verso of the last flyleaf of Cambridge University Library MS Ff. vi. 31) printed by Robert R. Raymo in ELN, 4 (1966-67), 180; "He that harborythe a ffrere harboryth fesyke" (Harley 2252) printed by R. H. Bowers, ELN, 1 (1963-64), 163-64; and "Ffreers, ffreers, wo 3e be! I ministri malorum" from Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 1144, fol. 58v, compiled by William Womyndham, canon of Kirkeby "super Algam," ed. Robbins, Historical Poems, pp. 164-65. 50

Glasgow, Huntenan Museum MS V.3.78 (early fifteenth century); Geoffrey Chaucer, The Works, ed. William Thynne (London: Thomas Godfray, 1532). 198

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two different translations patched together and occasionally revised by a third person. Nothing at all is known of the reviser, the second translator, or the circumstances that occasioned the translation.51 Still, for the history of antifraternalism it is a significant text. It represents barely a third of the Old French poem but manages to include what one might think would be the most outdated section of the original, where Jean de Meun, using arguments taken directly from the De periculis novissimorum temporum, attacks the friars and recounts their unjust assault on the University of Paris and "William Seynt Amour" in the 1250s. Someone thought these anachronistic antifraternal passages were among the most important parts of the poem. Whether in translation or in Old French, the Roman de la Rose was very widely read in medieval England and hence a major factor in making William's Biblical exegesis common currency among English poets. In the last three decades of the fourteenth century, John Gower wrote a poetic trilogy in three different languages. He gave the three poems titles that emphasize their harmony: Speculum meditantis in French (better known as the Mirour de I'omme, written ca. 1376-79), Vox damantis in Latin (ca. 1377-81), and Confessio amantis in English (ca. 1386-93). It has been suggested that in a thematic rather than formal way these three are one work. 52 AU three are informed by an underlying eschatological sense that the world is in decay and near its end, and by an obsession with the vice of hypocrisy—the vice William of St. Amour, in his exegesis of the pale horse of Apoc. 6:8 and elsewhere, had said would dominate the last times. The very title of Vox damantis is eschatological and prophetic. It alludes to Isa. 40:3 and the prophecy of John the Baptist announcing the coming of the Lord, like a voice crying in the wilderness that was Israel (Matt. 3:3). John Gower wishes not only to associate himself with that John, and his English wilderness with the fallen wilderness ofjudea, but also to identify himself with that other propheticjohn who foresaw the End and announced Christ's second coming: "Insula quern Pathmos suscepit in Apocalipsi / Cuius ego nomen gesto, gubernet opus" (May the one whom the Isle of Patmos received in the Apocalypse, and whose name I bear, guide this work). 53 It is in the context of this eschatological feeling that both the 51 On Chaucer's authorship, see most recently Ronald Sutherland, The Romaunt of the Rose and Le Roman de la Rose (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 52 John Fisher, John Gower (New York. New York University Press, 1964), pp. 135ff 53 Vox damantis, book 1, prol., 11. 57-58, in G. C. Macaulay, ed., The Complete Works ofJohn Gower (Oxford- Clarendon, 1899-1902), IV, 22; all citations from Gower are from this edition. The translation (and all subsequent translations of Gower's Latin works) is from Eric Stockton, trans., The Major Latin Works of John Gower (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962), p. 50.

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Mirour and the Vox damantis survey the corruption of society and the church, and in doing so, come to dwell at length on the faults of the friars.54 It is improbable that many of these English poets knew William of St. Amour's work directly. There are virtually none of the elaborate echoes of the De periculis that appear in Rutebeuf and Jean de Meun as testimony to direct borrowing. And yet English poetry more than a century after the Parisian disputes reflects not only William's charges but also his language—the language of the Bible, of ecclesiology, of eschatology. By the mid-fourteenth century, this kind of language had become traditional in poetry against the friars, even though the symbolic logic that brought it into being in the 1250s had faded. Forgotten were the Eternal Gospel and the attempts of the friars to supplant the Gospel of Christ; the eschatological fears attendant on the year 1260 had passed; the parochial squabbles among the faculty at the University of Paris were history; only a few still remembered the original logic of the exegetical system by which William of St. Amour had explained what was happening around him. William's assertions that the friars resembled certain Biblical figures had been grounded with some precision in events of the moment, in the mendicants' advocacy of a new Evangelium Aeternum, in their aspiration to the title ofmagister, in their claim to the apostolic life. The three Biblical figures that emerged as the core of William's antifraternal exegesis had another kind of coherence that faded later: the antichristi, pseudoapostoli, and Pharisees were all figures of each other in the Bible. Though at different times in Salvation History, they were all religious hypocrites who undermined the church from within. The original rationale and the typological coherence of William's exegesis were largely forgotten in England, but his three Biblical figures and the Biblical verses that describe them nevertheless became fixed into conventions in English antifraternal poetry to the end of the fifteenth century. Contexts changed—political, ecclesiastical, national— but the text of the Bible did not. The Biblical world was poetically influential because it provided a language, a vocabulary, an anthology of quotations that could be brought to bear against the friars and adapted at will to use in poetic texts. Charges framed in Biblical language could in fact generate new charges because of associations in the Bible itself-— the topically based identification of the friars with Matthew 23 validated the antifraternal interpretation of other Biblical passages about the Pharisees and false apostles, even when topical relevance was ab54

Mirour de I'omme, 11. 21181-21780, ed. Macaulay , I, 239-46; Vox clam., book 4, chaps. 16-24, ed. Macaulay, IV, 185-200 and Stockton, pp. 182-95

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sent. The use of Biblical language could also alter the nature of antifraternal charges. It could change the specific to the general: what may have begun as observation or hearsay about real friars became crystallized in ancient and sacred language. It could change the political to the theological: a poet upset by fraternal confessional practices in a particular parish or by the friars' intrusions on faculty prerogatives at the University of Oxford, could write instead of hypocrites in language based on Matthew 23. But most important, Biblical language signaled a conceptual framework within which the friars were understood, not the framework of history and ecclesiastical politics but of Salvation History as revealed by the text of Scripture. PHARISEES

In English poetry, the most prominent figures from William's antifraternal typology are the Pharisees. One poet, beginning a discussion of the Biblical hypocrites, asks, "Ben nou3t pis i-lyke I Fully to be Farisens in fele of pise poyntes?" (PPC, 11. 546-47). Elsewhere, the Pharisees are called the "fadires of freres"; the devil "founded hem [friars] on Farysens"; the friars are "verri Fariseis bat doon oon & seien anober." 55 As in William's own work, the language used to discuss them comes almost always from Matthew 23, Christ's denunciatory speech about the Woes to descend upon the "Scribae, Pharisaei, hypocritae." This is the chapter often analyzed by polemical writers from the De Pharisaeo of 1256 to the lengthy treatment in Wyclif's Exposicio textus Matthei xxiii and the Wycliffite Vae octuplex, an anonymous Middle English tract that attacks the friars by a commentary on the eightfold woes invoked against the Pharisees in Matthew 23. 56 This chapter is practically a canonical text in antifraternal poetry. The long condemnation of the friars by Piers in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede is based on this chapter, as is the following passage from the Middle English translation of the Romaunt of the Rose, from a speech by Fals-Semblant about the friars: " 'Uppon the chaire of Moyses. . . Sitte Scribes and Pharisen;' That is to seyn, the cursid men 55 UR, 1. 306; PPC, 1 487, JU, 11. 388-89 See also Nigel de Longchamps, Speculum stultorum, ed. Robert Raymo (Berkeley . University of California Press, 1960), p. 184; "The Council of London" in Wright, ed., Political Poems, I, 254, 256; Vox clam., book 4, chap. 16, 11. 749-50 and chap. 19, 11. 933-36, "De superstitione Phanseorum," esp. 11. 155-60, ed. Rigg, MS, 30 (1968), 113. 56 For William's De Pharisaeo, see above, chapter 1; for Wyclif, see chapter 4; for the Vae octuplex, see Arnold, Select English Works, II, 379.

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Whiche that we ypocritis calle. 'Doth that they preche, I rede you alle, But doth not as they don a del; That ben not wery to seye wel, But to do wel no will have they. And they wolde bynde on folk alwey, That ben to be begiled able, Burdons that ben importable; On folkes shuldris thinges they couchen, That they nyl with her fyngris touchen. . . . Her bordurs larger maken they, And make her hemmes wide alwey, And loven setes at the table, The firste and most honourable; And for to han the first chaieris In synagogis, to hem full deere is; And willen that folk hem loute and grete, Whanne that they passen thurgh the strete, And wolen be cleped 'maister' also. But they ne shulde not willen so; The gospel is ther-ageyns, I gese, That shewith wel her wikkidnesse." 57 Fals-Semblant's speech sounds like a catalog of typical realistic charges against the friars: religious hypocrisy; fullness of speech but lack of action; the imposition of undue burdens on those who support them; excesses of clothing; gluttony; pride in their position in the church; desire to be saluted by the laity; excessive learning; disobeying evangelical precepts. But in fact, Fals-Semblant's diatribe is little more than a loose translation of Matt. 23:2-7. We know that in Jean de Meun, the connection of this Biblical text to the friars was directly dependent on William of St. Amour and on his outrage that the friars, like the Pharisees, desired to be called "master." None of the coincidental topical relevance of 1254 is very visible in Jean de Meun, or in his fourteenth-century translator. And it has disappeared entirely from Chaucer's Summoner's Tale when Friar John feigns objection to being called "maister": "No maister, sire," quod he, "but servitour, Thogh I have had in scole that honour. 57

Romaunt of the Rose, 11. 6889-922, in F. N. Robinson, ed., The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957); for PPC, see 11. 487-502, 546-84. 202

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God liketh nat that 'Raby' men us calle, Neither in market ne in youre large halle."58 One recognizes the Biblical language here not only in "Raby," but also in "No maister . . . but servitour" ("Nee vocemini magistri. . . . Qui major est vestrum, erit minister vester," Matt. 23:10-11), andin"Market ne . . . halle" ("Amant primos recubitus in coenis . . . et salutationes in foro," Matt. 23:7). Almost whenever a friar is accused of desiring the title magister in English verse, the language of Matthew 23 appears—in Gower's Mirour de I'omme and Vox damantis, in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, in Jack Upland, in Friar Daw's Reply, in Skelton's Image oflpocrysy, and in Upland's Rejoinder, which may serve as example for all: bou approuest 3our capped maisters with a glasen glose, Whiche galpen after grace, bi symonye 3our sister, And after sitten in hie dece & glosen lordes & ladies . . . For of pes & suche it ben pat Crist spekip in his gospel. Amant enim primos recubitus in cenis, et primas Cathedras in synagogis, et vocari ab hominibus Rabbi. 59 The Latin verses cited at the end of this passage (Matt. 23:6-7) also become associated with general accusations against the mendicants of pride, gluttony, and anger, as in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede: And but freres ben first y-set . at sopers & at festes, pei wiln ben wonderly wrop . ywis, as y trowe; But pey ben at pe lordes borde . louren pey willep, He mot bygynne £>at borde . abeggere, (wip sorwe!), And first sitten in se . in her synagoges. . . . And also Crist him-selfe seide . to swiche ypocrites, 'He louep in markettes ben met . wip gretynges of pouere, And lowynge of lewed men . in Lentenes tyme.' (PPC, 11. 554-58, 566-68) "Amant primos recubitus in cenis" is the source of the first four lines; "et primas cathedras in synagogis" is translated in the fifth line, where 58

Summoner's TaIe1 III (D), 11. 2185-88 in Robinson, ed., Works. UR, 11. 357-63; Mirour, 11. 21495-98; Vox clam., book 4, chap. 18, 11. 813-16; PPC, 11. 574-81, 497-500; JU, 11 295-97; FDJ?, 11 754-63; Alexander Dyce, ed., The Poetical Works of John Skelton, II (London- Thomas Rodd, 1843), p. 416. See also in prose FitzRalph's Defensio curatorum, printed in Goldast, Monorchia, II, 1400; the Wycliffite Tractatus depseudo-freris, ed. Matthew, English Works, p. 306 59

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"synagoges" is anachronistic in reference to friars; and "salutationes in foro" (Matt. 23:7) forms the basis of the final three lines. 60 Another traditional charge that crystallized around verses from Mat­ thew 23—excesses of clothing—fused the friars' flowing habits with (a misunderstanding of) the Pharisees' phylacteries. These are mentioned in Matt. 23:5: "Omnia vero opera sua faciunt ut videantur ab hominibus; dilatant enim phylacteria sua et magnificant fimbrias." William of St. Amour had understood rightly the purpose of phylacteries and fim­ briae in Old Testament times. But poets, lacking the helpful explana­ tions of the Glossa ordinaria, made of the rare word phylacteria what they could. In the translation of the Romaunt of the Rose quoted above, phy­ lacteries are misunderstood as borders or hems, in the passage that ren­ ders Matt. 23:5: "Her bordurs larger maken they I And make her hemmes wide alwey" (6911-12). Such a mistranslation, or the antifraternal convention growing out of it, may indeed be behind the ex­ panded borders and wide hems of Friar Huberd's cloak in Chaucer's General Prologue: "Of double worstede was his semycope, I That rounded as a belle out of the presse" (262-63). The mistranslation in another form comes up in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede: Loke nowe, leue man . ben nou3t pise [friars] i-lyke Fully to be Farisens . in fele of pise poyntes?. . . And in worchipe of be werlde . her wynnynge pei holden; pei schapen her chapolories . & streccheb hem brode, And launceb hei3e her hemmes . win babelyng in stretes. (546-51) This traditional charge (and misunderstanding of Matt. 23:5) appears also in the Wycliffite Tractatus de ψ seudo-freris, though here traces of Matt. 23:5 would have disappeared entirely but for the casual mention of the Pharisees: "& bus seyen summe bat these freris habitis to whiche freris ben pus oblishid, bat ben pus large & variaunt as weren habitis of pharisees, serven pe fend to putte in lesyngus & to destrie pore mennus goodis." 6 1 An awareness of the Biblical influence in such passages ought to make us wary of accepting them at face value. Another charge traditionally associated with Matthew 23 was that 60 Another echo of "primas cathedras in synagogis" is in Vox clam., book 4, chap. 20, 11. 947-48 61 Tractatus, ed. Matthew, English Works, pp. 301-02. For a comparison of the knots in the friars' girdles to the Pharisees' phylacteries, see Wychfs Opera minora, ed. J. Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1913), pp. 320-21. Boccaccio mentions the friars' Pharisaic fimbriae (which he takes to be wide hems in their garments), Il Decameron, ed. C. S. Sin­ gleton, I (Bari: Laterza, 1955), seventh story, third day, p. 230, 1. 12.

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the friars "stole" children, that is, persuaded or coerced boys to enter the order and take vows at an early age.62 FitzRalph attacked this practice in his Proposicio before the papal curia in 1357, especially because once professed (after a year), the recruits were not allowed to leave the orders; those who tried, said FitzRalph, would be imprisoned. 63 The charge was ancient, and from the 1250s had been attached to a verse from Matthew 23 (verse 15), the third of the eight vae announced to the Pharisees. William of St. Amour had cited it as one of the signs by which one might identify the Pharisaic pseudoapostoli abroad in the land: Secundum signum est, quod veri Apostoli non decipiunt corda simplicium verbis compositis. . . . autem seducunt corda simplicium, quod faciunt eos ingredi sectam suam, quam Religionem appellant; & Qui prius in simplicitate viuebant, post ingressum suum, fiunt astuti, hypocritae, pseudo, & penetrantes domos, una cum illis; & quandoque fiunt illis peiores. Vnde Matt. 23. Vae vobis Scribae & Pharisaei hypocritae, quia circuitis mare, & aridam, ut faciatis unum proselytum; et cum fuerit factus, facitis eum filium gehennae duplo, quam vos. 64 [The second sign is that true apostles do not deceive the hearts of the simple with studied words. . . . But (false apostles) seduce the hearts of the simple, so that they may make them enter their sect, which they claim to be a religious order; and those who were earlier living in simplicity, become after their entrance cunning hypocrites, pseudo, and penetrators of houses, together with their 62 There is evidence to support the charge, though some is a little ambiguous. On the one hand, there were two statutes passed to prevent recruitment of the underaged, one at Oxford in 1358 and the other by Parliament in 1402 The first alleges in its preamble that people fear to send their sons to the university lest they should be coerced into entering one of the fraternal orders. The other establishes that no youth could take orders until after his fourteenth year without the consent of his parents or guardians. See the Annates of Richard II and Henry IV in H. T Riley, ed., Chronica et annates, Rolls Series, 28 (London: Longmans, Green, 1866), III, 349; Henry Anstey, ed., Munimenta Academical or Documents Illustrative of Academical Life and Studies at Oxford, Rolls Series, 50 (London- Longmans, Green, 1868), I, 204-05. At the same time, there is little to suggest that the friars were unscrupulous in their recruiting: see the discussion in Carrolly M. Enckson, "The Fourteenth-century Franciscans and Their Critics," Franciscan Studies, 35 (1975), 113, 117-19: "the charge of stealing children conflicts with other evidence. The Franciscans seem to have been unusually scrupulous. . . . Pressure [to join the order] seems to have come most often not from Minorites anxious to recruit them but from parents, friends, or tutors." 63 Defensio curatorum, ed. Goldast, Monarchia, II, 1397-98. 64 De periculis, p. 57.

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teachers; and sometimes they become worse than them. Whence Matt. 23:15: "Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you traverse sea and land to make one convert; and when he has become one, you make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves."] One hundred and twenty years later, John Gower makes the same complaint in the same Biblical language. AU of the twenty-first chapter of Vox clamantis, book 4, is devoted to the friars' attempts to deceive youth and entice them into the orders, breeding generations of deception. His conclusion, like William's, is a citation of Matt. 23:15: "God himself said, 'Woe unto you who compass land and sea to make one proselyte for yourself.' That was said to the Pharisees, and I now can say those words to the friars with new justice." 65 In Wycliffite literature, both prose and poetry, the charge of child stealing becomes a commonplace, often accompanied by the traditional verse: Bot bus to stele a childe is a gretter theft J)an to stele an oxe, for pe theft is more. . . . Ve vobis qui facitis unum proselitum. Supple, filium gehenne duplo quam vos. 66 Other antifraternal charges become linked with the Pharisees and Matthew 23, including the abuse of burial privileges (Matt. 23:29-31), the seduction—whether physical or spiritual—of poor widows (Matt. 23:14), and the persecution of the righteous (Matt. 23:32).67 Occasionally Biblical passages other than Matthew 23 are used against the friars. Upland's Rejoinder cites Luke 12:1: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy," a verse that also provided the title of the Wycliffite tract "Of the Leaven of Pharisees."68 The poet of "De supersticione Phariseorum" not only uses Matt. 7:16 but also cites the old etymology of Pharisei as divisi, an interpretation also set forth in William of St. Amour: 65

Trans. Stockton, p. 189; Vox clam., 11. 1011-14: "Ve, qui proselitum vobis faciatis vt vnum, / Mundum circuitis," dixerat ipse deus: / Mud erat dictum phariseis, et modo possum / Fratribus hec verba dicere lege noua." 66 UR, 11. 257-58, 264-65; see also JU, 11. 209-11, 330-34, 347-53; and in Arnold, Select English Works, "Vae Octuplex," II, 380, "Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars," III, 37374, 397, "De blasphemia contra fratres," III, 416, "The Church and Her Members," III, 348; and "Of the Leaven of the Pharisees" in Matthew, English Works, p. 8. 67 On burial, see PPC, 11. 493-502; on widows, see Gower, Mirour, 11 21373-84 and cf. William of St. Amour, De periculis, pp. 62-63; on persecution, UR, 306-10. 68 UR, 1. 103; "Of the Leaven of the Pharisees," m Matthew, English Works, pp. 1-27. 206

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Proinde diuisi sunt nunc a clero Dei; Hec interpretacio vera Pharisei Indicat et iudicat eos Phariseos: 'Ex eorum fructibus cognoscetis eos.'69 [Hence they are now "divided" from the clergy of God; This true interpretation of "Phariseus" Reveals and judges them to be Pharisees: "By their fruits you shall know them."] But these citations are rare. From William of St. Amour to the Reformation, it is to the Pharisees of Matthew 23 that the friars are most often linked.

APOSTOLIS

NEWE

The apostolic life remained at the center of much antifraternal controversy in the fourteenth century as it had been at Paris earlier. The poets, however, give few signs of having heard the rarefied debates within the church or of caring much about the complex issues of apostolic theology, Biblical exegesis, or ecclesiology. What they do understand is the value of symbol. The friars are spurious claimants to the vita apostolica, therefore false apostles like those in the letters of St. Paul and in the writings of William of St. Amour. In many poems, the friars are called "apostolis newe" or "qui discipulum Cristi se dicit."70 In Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, a self-satisfied Franciscan explains to the questing narrator what model his order follows: Of all men opon mold . we Menures most schewep pe pure Apostelles life . win penance on erpe, And suen hem in saunctite . & suffren well harde.71 The narrator believes him and later tells an Augustinian friar that as far as the Franciscans' poverty is concerned, "be apostells pey suwep" (1. 279). Gower is less indirect about the falsity of their apostolic claims: 69

Edited by Rigg, MS, 30 (1968), 113. The same etymology appears in a Wycliffite note: "Nee dubium quin fratres et aln religiosi novelli, divisi a vita communi secte Christiane tarn in cenmoniis quam in loco, sunt pharisei," cited in Matthew, English Works, p. 489. 70 Romaunt of the Rose, ed. Robinson, 1. 6270; Vox dam., book 4, chap. 18, 1 811, Stockton, p. 185. 71 PPC, 11. 103-05; see also 511-17, "Frauncis founded his folke . grounded on J>e godspell. . . . But now the glose is so greit. . . pat J)ei ben cursed of Crist."

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The friars maintain that they are disciples of Christ and that they are pursuing all their duties after His example. Their false faith claims this, but this is sufficient unto them, as those who know the Scriptures say. . . . I would say that these men are not disciples but rather gods: both life and death bring money to them. 72 Similarly in Upland's Rejoinder, the poet suggests an opposition between the "reules of apostles" and "Dominikis reules." "Lok 3our lyuyng, 3our prechyng," he says to Friar Daw, "laye it by be apostles lyf & se how bai acorde" (296-300, 317-19). From a material standpoint, "{)e apostles lyf" consisted of evangelical poverty, and the nature of that poverty was the subject of heated disputation from FitzRalph's De pauperie Salvatoris to the end of the century. A very few of the poems reflect those controversies directly. "Sedens super flumina," written in London not long after 1357, accuses the mendicants as FitzRalph had done, of asserting that Christ was a pauper "pro posse," while they themselves, who claimed to imitate his poverty, associated with the rich.73 Another of FitzRalph's arguments is reduced in "Sedens" to this simple formulation: "Non pro victu manibus cum Paulo laborant" (1. 144: they do not labor with their hands for food, unlike Paul).74 By his own account in 2 Thessalonians 3 and elsewhere, Paul insisted on earning his food by his own manual labor wherever he went on his evangelical journeys, lest he be a burden to those to whom he came to preach.75 Although the Epistles are rarely quoted directly, the contrast between Paul's labor and the friars' (socalled) lazy begging, which burdened their auditors and deprived the poor of their rightful goods, is a frequent feature of antifraternal poetry. One of the most elaborate instances comes in the Middle English translation of the Romaunt of the Rose, a passage dependent in the Old French original on William of St. Amour himself and directed against the friars' mendicancy: Seynt Poul, that loved al hooly chirche, He bad th'appostles for to wirche, And wynnen her lyflode in that wise, And hem defended truandise, 72

Vox clam., book 4, chap. 16, 11. 717-20, 733-34, Stockton, p. 183. "Sedens," MS, 41 (1979), 1. 44 "Pro posse," "as far as possible," is shorthand for the friars' doctrine that Christ owned no property individually or in common, and therefore begged for a living. 74 To these points the companion poem, "Quis dabit [meo] capiti" replies at length, lines 67-114. 75 See also 1 Thess. 2:9, 1 Cor. 9:14ff, 2 Cor 11:7-13; Acts 18:3. 73

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And seide, 'Wirketh with youre honden.' Thus shulde the thing be undirstonden: He nolde, iwys, have bidde hem begging, Ne sellen gospel, ne prechyng. . . . The goode folk, that Poul to preched, Profred hym ofte, whan he hem teched, Som of her good in charite. But therof right nothing tok he; But of his hondwerk wolde he gete Clothes to wryen hym, and his mete. (11. 6661-68, 6679-84; see also 6547-50) In Upland's Rejoinder even Christ is introduced into the contrast with the friar: "For Poule laborid with his hondes, & ober postilles also— / 3ee, oure gentil Iesu, as it is opunly knowe. . . . I Bot suche bolde beggyng hatid bai in worde & werke" (32-33, 36). The friar complains in "The Friar's Answer" that when he asserts that it is not a priest's office to work, men who ignorantly read Holy Writ allege that Saint Paul labored with his hands. Friar Daw Topias has encountered similar arguments but urges to the contrary that evangelical begging is endorsed in the Bible (FDR, 11. 605-17). That is what is meant, he says, when Paul says that Gospel preachers should live "from the Gospel" (1 Cor. 9:14) and when Christ says, "The laborer deserves his hire" (Luke 10:7). This last verse was of particular importance to the Franciscans because St. Francis had founded his order on the principle of the apostolica vita found in Luke 10. The friars took the chapter to condone and even to command their mendicant itinerant poverty: "The Lord sent them forth two by two" and he said to them "carry neither purse, nor wallet, nor sandals. . . . Whatever house you enter . . . remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they have; for the laborer deserves his hire" (Luke 10:1-7). The secular clergy, on the other hand, took it to condemn begging by the apostles. FitzRalph had understood begging to be utterly incompatible with the evangelical mission, to which were annexed the necessaries of life, as wages were annexed to labor; the laborer deserves his hire and need not beg.76 Perhaps because these verses from Luke 10 were in the forefront of the controversy over evangelical poverty, they are not uncommon in poetry as well.77 76

Defensio curatorum, pp 1399-1400. UR, 1. 92, Audelay, "De concordia inter rectores fratres et rectores ecclesiae," Poems, 1. 469, and Chaucer, Summoner's Tale, ed. Robinson, 1. 1973 on Luke 10:7, "Dignus est operarius mercede sua"; JU, 11 309-11 and FDR, 11. 782-88 on Luke 10.1, "misit illos binos." 77

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Other more scurrilous charges against the friars' pretended poverty are associated with various apostolic precepts in the Bible. Gower charges them with violating Matt. 6:25 ("Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on"), because they are solicitous, even finicky, about what and where they eat and about satisfaction of their desires.78 He also says they invert 2 Cor. 6:10, in which Paul encouraged his followers to conduct themselves "as having nothing, yet possessing all things"; the friars take this as license to collect a hoard of worldly goods. 79 Finally, Gower accuses them of gluttony, alluding to Paul's warning to the Romans against quarrelsome scandalmongers who teach doctrine contrary to the apostles and who "do not serve Christ our Lord but their own belly" ("Christo non serviunt, sed suo ventri," Rom. 16:18).80 A similarly popular Biblical passage occurs in Phil. 3:18-19, where Paul, weeping, warns of many who now walk about in Philippi and elsewhere who are enemies of the Cross, and whose aim is to ruin, whose "god is their belly," whose glory is in shame.81 This is the verse the poet refers to in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede: It is be puple pat Powel . preched of in his tyme; He seyde of swich folk . pat so aboute wente, 'Wepyng, y warne 30W . of walkers aboute; It beb enemyes of be cros . bat Crist opon polede. Swiche slomerers in slepe . slaupe is her ende, And glotony is her God . wip gloppyng of drynk, And gladnes in glees . & gret ioyey-maked.' (11. 87-93) Even so do apostolic warnings against false teachers become transformed into modern-day charges of gluttony. The chief apostolic function was the preaching of the Gospel, and fourteenth-century poets harp on its abuse by the friars. Thus Pierce the Ploughman's Crede: [friars] bigileb pe grete . Wip glosingeof godspells

wip glauerynge wordes, . pei gods worde turnep,

78

Mirour, 11. 21481-89. Matt. 6:25, "Ne soliciti sitis," is very important in Piers Plowman and will be discussed m chapter 7. ''Mirour, 11. 21188-201. 80 Mirour, 11. 21580-88; see the same verse cited in Speculum stultorutn, ed. Raymo, p. 183 (interpolation); Mum and the Sothsegger, at 1. 1046. 81 "Multi enim ambulant, quos saepe dicebam vobis, nunc autem et flens dico, immicos crucis Chnsti. quorum deus venter est; et gloria in confusione ipsorum, qui terrena sapiunt." 210

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And pasen all be pryuylege . bat Petur after used, be power of be Apostells . bei pasen in speche, For to sellen be synnes . for siluer ober mede. (11. 708-12) This passage catalogs a series of abuses of speech: deceit, flattery, excessive glossing of the Gospel and so the distortion of God's word, and preaching for gain. The poet elsewhere observes that God forbade his apostles to premeditate when they preached (Mark 13:11). They were rather to speak what came to them through the Holy Spirit. But the friars compose their artful sermons and invent "lesynges" to please the people and "to purchasen him his pursfull" (PPC, 587-94). The mendicants' lies and fables, as opposed to simple speech and the simple truths of the Gospel, are a common theme among Wycliffite writers generally.82 But equally common is the theme that the friars preach to purchase their purseful, an accusation also made in the Bible against the false apostles. In "Sedens super flumina" the rector is contrasted with the friar; the one has cure of souls, the other seeks only gain (11. 65-66). In the Vox clamantis, the friars preach publicly against vice, but in the confessional they offer glosses that smooth over sins—for the sake of gain (book 4, cap. 17, 11. 751-66). In Jack Upland, friars are called "Simonundis eiris," heirs of Simon Magus (Acts 8:18-19), who sell the sacraments and pray for pay (80-82).83 Christ himself warned of false teachers, prophets, and apostles, and the verse that perhaps most captured the imagination of fourteenthcentury poets was just such a warning: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you shall know them" (Matt. 7:15). This verse is used of the friars in many poems. 84 Its popularity is no doubt due to the proverbial quality of the verse and its image, as well as its subject, hypocrisy, the vice that dominated the thoughts of those anxious about the future of the church. In Henryson's "The Fox and the Wolf," the image of Matthew 7:15 is actually embodied in the false confessor, "Freir Wolff 82 See "The Leaven of the Pharisees," ed. Matthew, English Works, p. 16; "Fifty Hereseies," ed. Arnold, Select English Works, III, 376; "Vaeoctuplex," ed. Arnold, II, 379, all complaining of "fablys, cronykhs, lesyngis, veyn stories", andcf. thefahulae, genealogiae, vaniloquium of1 Tim. 1:4, 6, and Titus 1:10-11. 83 See also Mirour, 11. 21589-600. 84 Romaunt of the Rose, 11. 6259-61, 7013-16; "Rector circuli rotundi," st. 17 in Bodl. MS 52, fol. 239- "De superstitione Phanseorum," MS, 30 (1968), U. 149-54; UR, U. 213-16; Mirour, 11. 21630-36; John Audelay, "De concordia," Poems, U 508-20; PPC, 11. 150-51, 456-59.

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Waitskaith," described hilariously in language that fits both wolf and friar: 3our bair feit, and 3our russet coull off gray, 3our lene cheik, 3our paill pietious face, Schawls to me 3our perfite halines. (11. 679-81) In "De superstitione Phariseorum," the verse becomes intertwined with the Pharisees, where the poet has been speaking about friars who preach "as if they are prophets": Si verba Dominica mente retinetis Attendetis caucius a falsis prophetis: Oues qui se faciunt, hos, Criste, non taces, Dicens quod intrinsecus sunt lupi rapaces . . . Hec . . . indicat. . . eos Phariseos: 'Ex eorum fructibus cognoscetis eos'; Cum sint fructus opera, perpendatis ea— Ipsa de se perhibent quod sunt Pharisea. (11. 152-60) [If you remember the words of the Lord You will beware more cautiously of false prophets: About those who make themselves into sheep, Christ, thou art not silent, Saying that inwardly they are ravenous wolves. . . This . . . reveals . . . them to be Pharisees: "By their fruits you shall know them"; Since their fruits are their deeds, consider them— They themselves demonstrate that they are Pharisaic] This passage not only shows the fourteenth-century concern with hypocrisy but also demonstrates the typological association of Pharisees and false apostles. Their figural links point forward to the third of the hypocrites in William's antifraternal exegesis. ANTIECRISTES

MEN

Mundus adest fini; pseudo fratres jacobini Discurrunt bini, mors cleri, scoba vicini. [The world is approaching its end; the false Jacobin friars run about two by two; they are the death of the clergy, the scourge of their neighbor. ] 212

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Thus begins a twelve-line poem written at the end of an English manuscript of Thomas de Wilton's treatise against the friars' mendicancy.85 The eschatological premise of these lines—that the world is coming to an end, of which the swarming jacobini, so destructive to the clergy, are a sign—was not new in poetry. Rutebeuf and Le Roman de la Rose had both absorbed the eschatological ideas of William of St. Amour, which are also contained in the Middle English translation of the Fals-Semblant section: "Of antiecristes men am I," says the hypocrite whose disguise is a friar's habit. "Antecrist abiden we, I For we ben all of his meyne." 86 N o antifraternal poems from England, however, manifest the kind of apocalyptic eschatology found in William of St. Amour. Few of them dwell at length on the prospective end of history, and when they do it is always from the more conservative, cautious position characteristic of the antifraternal prose we examined in chapters 2 and 3. They speak with a profound pessimism about the present, the condition of which has so far deteriorated that the end is clearly near. How near they do not say, even though pressure is felt to be mounting, and they do not engage in the apprehensive search through Scripture for signs or prophecies of the present day. In Wynnere and Wastoure, for example, there is a muted eschatological theme in the background of the social chaos that is the poem's main subject. The poet implies the Franciscans in the poem believe the end is near.87 But the poem's opening provides the clearest statement of the theme and an indication of the poet's perspective not only on the friars but on other socially reprobate groups as well: It hyeghte harde appone honde, hope I no noper,— When wawes waxen schall wilde, and walles bene doun, And hares appon herthe-stones schall hurcle in hire fourme, And eke boyes of [no] blode, with boste and with pryde, Schall wedde ladyes in londe, and lede at hir will, Thene dredfull domesdaye it draweth neghe aftir. Bot who-so sadly will see and the sothe telle, Say it newely will neghe, or es neghe here. (12-19) 85

Bodl. MS Rawlinson A. 273, fol. 102' Romaunt of the Rose, U 7155-56, also 7009. Later in the French Roman, when Faus Semblant and Astenance Contrainte are said to be parents of Antichrist, Jean de Meun is reflecting the medieval legend that Antichrist would be begotten by a friar and a nun; see G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961), p. 93; Emmerson, Antichrist, p. 8. 87 Sir Israel Gollancz, ed., A Good Short Debate Between Winner and Waster (1921; Cambridge, Eng.- D. S. Brewer, 1974), 1. 159 and note. See also Thomas Bestul, Satire and Allegory in Wynnere and Wastoure (Lincoln- University of Nebraska Press, 1974), pp. 43ff. 86

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The pessimistic sense of the world's decline and approaching end is not only much stronger in John Gower; it is the rationale behind all three of his major works, the Mirour de I'omme, the Vox clamantis, and the Confessio amantis. The famous prologue to the Confessio amantis, written in "The yer sextenthe of kyng Richard," contrasts the world of the present with the glorious past; it is so changed that it seems a world upside down: Now stant the crop under the rote, The world is changed overal And thereof most in special That love is falle into discord.88 The last line indicates the relevance of the social vision in the prologue to the theme of the poem as a whole, which is romantic love. Gower goes on in the prologue to show how love has been replaced by discord in each of the three estates, dwelling at length on the ills of society and the church. At the end of this societal survey, he recounts a Biblical story, which explains the decline of the world as it moves toward its end: "how that this world schal torne and wende, I Till it be falle to his ende" (U. 591-92). The story is of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. 2:19—45, of a huge statue with a head of gold, arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, feet part iron, part clay, a statue destroyed by a stone which falls from a mountain. Daniel interprets the statue as a vision of the decline of kingdoms to follow Nebuchadnezzar, but Gower interprets it as an allegory of the history of the world, which has declined from the ages of gold, silver, brass, and iron, to an age standing upon brittle feet of clay and iron. At the end of this exegesis, Gower turns to Biblical prophecy that shows we are near the destruction signified by the fall of the stone: Thapostel writ unto ous alle And seith that upon ous is falle Thende of the world; so may we knowe, This ymage is nyh overthrowe, Be which this world was signified, That whilom was so magnefied, And now is old and fieble and vil, Full of meschief and of peril. . . As I tolde of the Statue above. (prol., 881-91) 88

Ed. Macaulay, Complete Works, II, prol., U. 118-21.

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The prophecy Gower alludes to is St. Paul's, who writes that we are those "in quos fines saeculorum devenerunt" (1 Cor. 10:11: upon whom the final age of the world has come). A few verses later he refers to a prophecy by Christ, "that nyh upon the worldes ende / Pes and acord awey schol wende / And alle charite schal cesse, / Among the men and hate encresce."89 When these "toknes" are fulfilled, the Stone will fall. Evoking both John the Baptist and John the author of the Apocalypse, Gower's Vox damantis is a voice crying in the wilderness of social decay, singing a message of sorrow (verba doloris, prol. 1. 84). The work, which greatly expands the condemnation of the three estates pursued in the Confessio, includes a long section on the mendicant orders and ends, like the Confessio, with Nebuchadnezzar's dream and the shadow of the End. The exegesis, though longer than that in the Middle English work, pursues much the same lines. The feet of the statue, Gower says, represent the fragile and deteriorated age we are now in: "in figura deterioracionis huius mundi . . . in quam nos ad presens tempus, quod est quodammodo in fine seculi, euidencius devenimus" (in figuration of this world's deterioration . . . to which we have clearly come at the present time, which in a way is at the end of the world). 90 "Quodammodo in fine seculi" is telling; it is the end of the world but only "quodammodo." The word conveys the same mixture of eschatological expectation and doubt that was evident in Omne bonum, FitzRalph, and Wyclif. Elsewhere Gower speaks of the last age (ultima etas) that is now at hand in the world, and of the signs of Antichrist's presence in the world, and of the miseries of the "novissimis iam temporibus," a phrase that can mean, as it did for William of St. Amour, either the last times or the present.91 All the things of the world therefore grow old and deteriorate, like old clothes.92 The fixed order of things disappears, the bitter becomes sweet, the foul fair, learning becomes heresy, sin morality, servants masters; "holy orders become vagrant, the feigning hypocrite a saint . . . the gentle confessor becomes an inveterate sinner. . . . The fox now protects the chickens, and 89

Prologue, 1033-36; the prophecy is from Christ's speech about the End in Matt. 24, esp. vv. 6-7, 10-12. 90 The rubric of book 7, chap. 1; translation mine. 91 Book 7, chap. 3, 135-36; book 7, chap. 4, rubric; book 3, chap. 14, rubric and 11. 1247-50, "Antichristus aget que sunt contrana Cristo, / Mores subuertens et viciosa fouens: / Nescio si forte mundo iam venerat iste, / Ems enim video plurima signa modo." In nescio and forte there are again signs of Gower's typical ambiguity about the End. 92 Rubric of book 7, chap. 17; Stockton, p. 275. 215

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the wolf the sheep. . . . Lying voices are teachers and prophets." 93 It is to this world of inversions that the friars belong, and it is their hypocrisy, which William of St. Amour saw as the dominant vice of the Last Times, that helps to turn the world upside down. In Wycliffite works, the eschatological vein is as strong as anywhere in Middle English literature. Characteristic of the Wycliffite approach is a prominent association of the friars with Antichrist, and hence with the End. A Wycliffite version of the Epistola Luciferi ad cleros speaks of the "ny coming of Antecrist" for whom certain of the clergy, as true precursors, make ready the way, not like John the Baptist, coming before Jesus as a "voice crying in the desert," but as the collective true servants of Lucifer. In that regard, Lucifer especially commends "our hyly bylovid childryn, the four beggyng ordres." 94 The most elaborate association of friars with Antichrist in Wycliffite poetry, however, occurs in the prologue to Jack Upland. Like Gower, the poet perceives great disorder in the three estates, which he lays at the feet of Antichrist. God, he says, created the order of the world, like the soul of man, in his own image. Just as the three faculties of the soul (mind, reason, and will) reflect the Trinity, so likewise do the three estates. Lords represent the power of the Father, priests the wisdom of the Son, and the commons the "good lastinge wille" of the Holy Ghost. Each estate has its clearly defined offices and functions. But this picture of social order Antichrist has utterly disrupted, as members of the estates abandon their duties. One of the worst sins is upward social mobility—the villainous common people wish to become lawyers and merchants, or feign themselves religious and join an order. Out of these various disorderly classes, Antichrist has formed an army of three batallions, the "vowarde" or vanguard of which is formed by "pe fellist folk pat ever Antecrist foond," the friars, whose distinguishing mark is hypocrisy, "Pharesies fagynge be folk & profetis fals." The rest of the poem is a frontal assult on the tenets of this vanguard in the army of Antichrist. A poem that may also fall into the Wycliffite camp is "Of pes frer mynours me thenkes moch wonder," joined in its manuscript with two other patently Wycliffite poems. But this one is unusual; five of its stanzas report strange scenes, involving (among other things) a figure hanged on a green tree, someone with wings on a cross in the sky, a "hog-hyerd" in a cart coming out of the sky in a gray gown, a gray friar in a cart of fire. Thomas Wright thought these might represent the 93

Book 7, chap. 4, 11. 217-27; Stockton, p. 259 Ed Robert Raymo in Medieval Literature and Civilization- Studies in Memory of C. N. Garmonsway, ed. D. A. Pearsall (London. Athlone, 1969), pp. 243-44. 94

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Franciscans' involvement in drama and pageant; R. H. Robbins suggested more plausibly that they represent Franciscan wall-paintings. 95 Beverly Brian has recently written in support of Robbins's theory and convincingly identified the subjects, mainly from Franciscan legend.96 To her analysis might be added a further dimension in the poem, which would be consonant with the Wycliffite environment in which the poem is preserved. The poet claims not to understand what on earth these Franciscan representations are all about, but his language seems designed to nudge the reader to a conclusion never stated in the poem: what he is looking at, though intended to depict St. Francis, are in fact representations of Antichrist. The first stanza of description (st. 2) contains the most marked of such language: First pai gabben on god pat all men may se, When pai hangen him on hegh on a grene tre, With leues & with blossemes pat bright are of ble, pat was neuer goddes son by my leute. In the third stanza, this crucified figure that never was God's son seems to appear again, this time on a cross in the sky; the poet decries it as an object offals feyned byleue." In the fourth stanza, a figure like a "hoghyerd" descends from the sky, and the poet declares "pai haue mo goddes pen we." The fifth stanza shows a friar with the wounds of Christ (St. Francis with the stigmata) to whom a pope has come to serve. The poet's language emphasizes the idolatry and blasphemy of the worshipers of a figure who is fobbed off as a god, specifically as Christ; a figure who is said to perform miracles to lend conviction to the claim that he is a god; who can suspend the laws of nature; who flies; who finally obtains, by deception, the submission of the church and prelates to his power—all features of the medieval legends of Antichrist.97 Some English poems, then, connect the friars to the approaching end of the world, through Antichrist or through social and ecclesiastical decay. Compared to William of St. Amour, their eschatological outlook is restrained and conservative, but they at least share with him a coherent sense that the friars' place in history is at its end. More common among English poets, however, is a mechanical borrowing of the eschatological language of the Bible without much sense of the implications felt so strongly by William of St. Amour. The penetrantes domos 95 96 97

R. H. Robbins, Historical Poems, pp 335-36. "Franciscan Scenes in a Fourteenth-century Satire," MAE, 41 (1972), 27-31. Emmerson, Antichrist, esp. pp. 93, 123 inter alia. 217

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become, instead of the fearful insurgents of the novissimis diebus that they were in 2 Tim. 3:6, figures of friars who poke around in other people's business or meddle with their wives. Jack Upland says to Friar Daw Topias: Bot wel I wot pat charite may not duelle pere, Where couetise crepip in & lecherie is loggid. . . . Hii sunt qui penetrant domos, et ducunt mulierculas oneratas peccatis. (UR, 11. 368-74) In Gower it is chambers, possibly bed-chambers, that the friars penetrate: "Tunc thalamos penetrat sublimes." 98 Although the phrase penetrans domos is not specifically used in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, the verse and its mulierculas seem to be behind the accusation against the Carmelite friars there: And bat wicked folke wymmen bi-traieb, And bigilep hem of her good . wip glauerynge wordes, And berwip holden her hous . in harlotes werkes. (50-52) In the Wycliffite "Preste ne monke," the poet similarly warns householders not to let friars enter their houses if there are women within. Even as late as the sixteenth century, the verse still is recognized as an antifraternal convention; thus John Skelton's offhand allusion in the Image oflpocrysy: Oh mesell Mendicantes And mangy Obseruantes Ye be vagrantes As persers penitrantes." In the verse immediately following the penetrantes domos in the Bible (2 Tim. 3:8), St. Paul mentions the magicians of the Pharaoh, Iamnes and Mambres, who resisted Moses and hence the truth (Exod. 7:11). Only William of St. Amour's elevation of these two obscure figures to the stature of antifraternal types explains the otherwise puzzling allusion in the Wycliffite Upland's Rejoinder to "Iamnes & Mambres, Pharaouse freres" (372). Upland elsewhere says to Friar Daw, "3ee, Iamnes & Mambres japid not so pe kyng, I As pou with pi cursid secte pe kyng &pepuple" (UR, U. 211-12). 98 99

Vox dam., book 4, chap. 18, 11. 823-24; Stockton, p. 185. In Dyce, ed., Poetical Works, II, 444. 218

ENGLISHPOETIC TRADITION Another eschatological text often applied to the friars in verse was 2 Pet. 2:1-3, paraphrased here by Gower: Il estoit dit grant temps y a Qu'un fals prophete a nous vendra Q'ad noun Pseudo Ie decevant. . . . O comme les freres maintenant A Pseudo sont bien resemblant! . . . Ce dist la lettre que ne ment En une epistre de saint Piere. (Mirour, 11. 21625-48) [It was said a long time ago That a false prophet would come to us Who has the name of Pseudo, the deceiver. . . . O how the friars now Resemble well that Pseudo! . . . So said the letter that does not he In an epistle of Saint Peter.] "Jack Upland" accuses the friars of lying habitually and quotes 2 Pet. 2:1 in support: "Peter prophecib of hem: Fuerunt pseudoprophete in populo, magistri mendaces" (UR, 11. 53-55). The verse is probably behind the epithet, "profetis fals," attached to the friars, and possibly behind the assertion of a self-important Augustinian that his order came to the cities, after a period in the wilderness, "Preching & Praying . asProfetesschulden." 100 A similar text was the prophecy of Christ that multitudes of false prophets would arise at the end of time. Upland laments for pe chirche bat be multitude of 30U han allemost destried. For pe gospel saip, Surgent multi pseudoprophete . . . of 30U ful many, & euer pe mo be werse. (UR, 11. 79-84) Christ's prophecy is reminiscent of another prophecy often applied to the friars, based on Osee 4:8: a people would arise who would "eat the sins of my people" ("insurgent gentes quae peccata populi mei comedent"). Gower alludes to it in the Vox clamantis: 100

JU, 1. 87 and PPC, U. 314-16. 219

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O how the words of the prophet Hosea are now verified! Thus did he speak the truth: "A certain tribe will arise on earth which will eat up the sin of my people and know much evil." We perceive that this prophecy has come about in our day, and we give credit for this to the friars.101 "To eat the sins of the people" was to live off them, as the friars did by usurping such pastoral offices as confession and preaching without true concern for the cure of souls. Thus says the poet of Pierce the Ploughman's Crede: In fraitour & in fermori . her fostringe is synne; It is her mete at iche a mel . her most sustenaunce. Herkne opon Hyldegare . hou homliche he tellep How her sustenaunce is synne; . & syker, as y trowe, Weren her confessiones . clenli destrued, Hy schulde nou3t beren hem so bragg . ne [belden] so hey3e. (U. 701-06) The poet also reveals the source of his (and Gower's) association of the friars with Osee 4:8: the prophetess Hildegard, a twelfth-century abbess of Bingen. She was the author of numerous prophecies, including (so it was thought from the mid-thirteenth century on) a famous one beginning "Insurgent gentes quae comedent peccata populi," predicting the rise of the new pernicious begging orders of friars.102 The prophecy circulated widely in late-fourteenth-century England. Wyclif himself refers to it several times and it is frequently mentioned by later Wycliffite writers. 103 Thomas Wimbledon quotes from it in his Lonm

Book 4, chap. 17,11 767-72; Stockton, p. 184, see also Mirour, 11. 21397-400. The prophecy survives in numerous manuscripts, including Lambeth Palace MS 357, fol. 77'-"; Bodl. MS 158, fols 145-46; Bodl. MS Lat. misc. c. 75 (ohm Phillipps 3119), fols. 124^-125'; Bodl. MS Rawlinson C 411, fols 142'-144r (eighteenth century); Dublin, Trinity College MS 516; Cambridge, Gonville and Cams MS 427, pp. 97-99 (sixteenth century); Bibhotheque d'Angers, MS 56, fol. 180"; Bibhothequede Dijon, MS 1020, fols. 2-4 (seventeenth century); and possibly, Pans, BN, MS Lat. 15661, fol. 82, Pans, Bibhotheque de l'Arsenal, MS 2054, fols. 55-57 (eighteenth century), and Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, CVP MS 4941, fol 100». See also A. v.d. Linde, Die Handschrifien der kgl. Landesbtbliothek in Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden: Edmund Rodrian, 1877), pp. 95-96. The prophecy was translated by John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments, ed. George Townsend (repr. of 1843-49? ed , New York: AMS Press, 1965), III, 87-88. 103 "De blasphemia," ed. Arnold, Select English Works, III, 413; "Of the Leaven of the Pharisees," ed. Matthew, English Works, p. 11; Reginald Pecock, The Repressor, ed. C. Babington, Rolls Series, 19 (London: Longmans, Green, 1860), II, 483-84, 495; Wyclif, Polemical Works, ed. Rudolf Buddensieg (London: Wyclif Society, 1883), I, 67; Trialogus, ed. G. Lechler (Oxford: Clarendon, 1869), 338; De apostasia, ed. M. H. Dziewicki (London: Wyclif Society, 1889), p. 19; De vaticinia in Opera minora, ed. J. Loserth (London: Wyclif Society, 1913), pp 165, 169. 102

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don sermon of 1388 on the end of the world. It was popular with monastic chroniclers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including Matthew Paris, writing at St. Albans, John de Oxenedes, and Richer of Sens.104 All these writers may not have read of the prophecy in William of St. Amour, as it did circulate independently, but William helped make it notorious by frequently claiming Hildegard as a predecessor in antifraternal prophecy.105 Like Hildegard, William resorted to the apocalyptic books of the Bible for prophecies of the friars, and several English antifraternal poems draw imagery from the same sources. Gower compares them to the falling star of Apoc. 8:10 (Mirour, 11. 21739-44). In "Sedens super flumina," the four orders are compared to the four beasts ascending from the sea in Dan. 7:2-7; the friars are said to have the face of a scorpion but inwardly the poison of a dragon (cf. Apoc. 9:3); and they wish to confound the clergy like a second Nero, who was seen as a traditional type of Antichrist.106 But these instances, like many of the references to penetrantes domos and pseudoprophete in English poetry, do not appear to signify a deeply felt eschatology but rather poetic conventions. They had been crystallized and used in poetry first during William of St. Amour's day, but by the fourteenth century, their Biblical context and eschatological implications often seem to be only dimly remembered. MULTITUDES WITHOUT NUMBER

If William's eschatology had faded by the fourteenth century, his ecclesiology, especially as transmitted through FitzRalph, had not. In the Vox clamantis (book 4, cap. 19), Gower devotes a chapter to showing how friars, living "inordinately" (inordinate viventes) are not in any way necessary to the regimen of the church. The word "inordinate" is reminiscent of FitzRalph's "extraordinarie." It means not only that the friars lead disordered lives morally, but that they are not ordained by God, nor part of the ecclesiastical ordo. Before there were friars, says Gower, whatever ranks existed within the church were well suited for it. He rehearses the functions of the grades of the hierarchy, from pope to bishop to curate. There is no reason for the friar to appropriate that 104 Matthew Pans, Chronica majora, ed. Henry R. Luard, Rolls Series, 57 (London: Longmans, Green, 1872-83), IV, 82-83, 279-80; Richer of Sens, Chronicon monasterii senonensis, in Monumenta Germamae Historica: Scnptores, 25 (Hanover. Hahn, 1880), 327-29; John de Oxenedes, Chronica, ed. Sir Henry Ellis, Rolls Series, 13 (London: Longmans, Green, 1859), p. 207, for Wimbledon, see lone Kemp Knight, ed., Wimbledon's Sermon (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1967), p. 113, 11. 841 ff. 105 See the Collecttones in Opera omnia, pp. 126, 130, 134, 196, 304, 412. 106 MS, 41 (1979), pp. 36ff, 11. 31-36, 107-108, 105; on Nero, see Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 28-30.

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which belongs to another. The crow may not take its place with the white birds; likewise the friar, who does not bear his burden, should be forbidden by law to be included among the citizens of the church. The friars may say that they have the dispensation of the pope, but (as Jean d'Anneux had also argued) the pope never conceded such things on his own impulse; rather, the orders of friars begged and still beg for them. They usurp authority (1. 909); they steal what belongs to another (1. 917). Hence the friars do not belong to the clergy, no matter how much they try to usurp the functions of that estate. They belong in fact to no estate, not knighthood, or the commons, or the clergy; they are wan­ derers (vagos) through the world, literally but also socially since they have no place in the order of society (book 4, cap. 20,11. 943-46). In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, similar sentiments are frequently echoed, for example by the poet of Mum and the Sothsegger, who says the friars have no place in society or the church: I can not deme deuely of what degre bay bee; Thay been not weddid, wel I wote, bough pay wifes haue; But knightz yit of conscience I couthe of baym make, For bay haue ioygned [in iustes] agayns Ihesus werkes; And forto proue baym prestes pees poyntz been agayne baym. I can not reede redily of what revle bay been, For hooly churche ne heuene hath not baym in mynde. 1 0 7 From the notion that the friars have no place in the ecclesiastical or­ der a number of important antifraternal charges descend. In the late fourteenth century one of the most common charges was that the friars' numbers were excessive and increasing without limit. Everyone remembers Chaucer's friars who, according to the Wife of Bath, "serchen every lond and every streem, I As thikke as motes in the sonne-beem, / Blessynge halles, chambres, kichenes, boures, I Citees, burghes, castels, hyetoures, I Thropes, bernes, shipnes, dayeryes" (III [D], 867-71). The cascade of consecutive nouns is Alisoun's rhetorical measure of the abundance of friars. Gower is alarmed because their numbers are greater than acorns on an oak, and yet they still increase. 108 Wyclif and his followers make similar complaints, and we continue to 107 Lines 511-17. See also Gower, Mirour, 11. 21613-15 ("cils ne sont point droit citezein I Du sainte eglise") and 21463-72; " O n the Minorites," ed. Robbms, 11. 1-4; "Preste ne monke," ed. Robbms, 11. 121-32; "Quis dabit," ed. Rigg, "An Edition," p. 136, 1. 145; PPC, 11. 460-63, 478-87, 745-90; and "Rector Circuli Rotundi," Bodl. MS 52, fol. 239', sts. χ and xiii. 108 Vox dam., book 4, chap. 16, 11. 711-12; chap. 20, U. 951-52; chap. 21, 1. 1009; Mi­ rour, 11. 21529-35, 21563-64

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hear them into the sixteenth century from poets as late as John Skelton. 1 0 9 Two things about these charges are curious. First, by Chaucer's time, they are ancient. William of St. Amour, as we saw, had com­ plained of preachers infinitae and incertae brought into the church by the mendicant orders—this in 1255. 110 But more curious is that after the mid-fourteenth century, when the charges of vast increases begin to appear most often, they are contradicted by the historical record. They would have been much more appropriate in thirteenth-century Eng­ land when the friars grew rapidly at the expense of the monastic orders. At the beginning of that century, the friars did not exist. At its end there were more than 159 houses of the various mendicant orders in England. Their houses were not as numerous as those of the monastic orders, which in 1300 numbered more than twice the friars' total, at 349. But many of the monastic establishments were small; in popula­ tion, the mendicants had nearly matched the monks by the middle of the fourteenth century. 111 The years 1348-49, however, brought the catastrophe of the Black Death. More than one-third of the population of England died in that year and more than half of the religious, whose communal living made them more susceptible to contagion. 112 The friars, however, were hit even harder than the monks, losing nearly 60 percent of their member­ ship. When this visitation of the plague had passed, the mendicant communities stood at 2,197, some 550 fewer than the monks. From the Black Death to the Dissolution, they never came as close to overtaking the monastic population as they had before the plague. Between 1350 and 1422, Knowles and Hadcock suggest, all religious orders experi­ enced a modest recovery, increasing approximately a third but never regaining anything close to the population they had had before 1348. In those years the friars gained some 800 members to stand at 2,995 in 1422, an average increase often or eleven a year, or two or three new members in each of the four orders. Joann Hoeppner Moran's recent study of the ordination lists of the diocese of York suggests that even 109 Wychf, De fimdatione sectarum, in Polemical Works, I, 28; De apostasia, p. 42; " D e ecclesia et membris ejus," in Arnold, Select English Works, III, 346; "Preste ne monke," ed. Robbins, Historical Poems, 11. 119-20; Skelton, Image of Ipocnsy, ρ 445. 110 See Depericulis, chap. 2, pp. 23-28, and Collectiones, pp. 145, 150. 111 Monastic orders in 1350, 5474; mendicants, 5331. These statistics and all others in the discussion that follows, unless otherwise indicated, are from David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, 2d ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1971), esp. pp. 489-90, 492, and 52-250. 112 Knowles, Religious Orders, II, 256.

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these modest increases may be too high; in York, at least, there was little change in the relatively low numbers of regular clergy ordained between 1350 and 1500, except for a few temporary increases following plague visitations.113 Hence, when the charges of vast increases in already excessive numbers first begin to appear around 1357, the statistical picture of the mendicants shows just the opposite: the peak in their population had been around 1300 with no appreciable increase down to the Black Death; in 1348-49 their numbers were slashed by 60 percent, a mortality rate greater than that for monks and more than twice that of the general population; and for the rest of the fourteenth century their gains were modest, and never approached the totals before the plague. Those who charged the friars with excessive numbers and limitless increase had no tools nor any interest in gathering demographic statistics. Indeed their language shows that the issue was not the raw numbers of the friars but rather order in the church. Jack Upland asks: Frere, what charite is it to charge be puple wib so many freris, sipen persouns, vikers, & prestis were jnow3 to serue be puple of preestis office wip bischopis—3he, monkis, chanouns wib out mo. & pus for to encrese with so many freris is greet cumbraunce to be puple & a3ens Goddis wille pat made al bingis in mesoure, noumbre, & wei3t; & Crist ordeyned twelue apostlis wip few obere prestis to do seruyce to alle pe world, & panne was it best don. (JU, 11. 354-61) The argument here involves ecclesiological presuppositions that have little to do with the friars in the streets. The church has certain persons for certain offices, and sufficiency of those, as it had since Christ ordained only twelve apostles to serve all the world. As supernumerary ecclesiastics, the friars violate the ecclesiastical order and indeed the divine order in which God made all things "in mesoure, noumbre, & wei3t" (Wisd. 11:21, "Deus omnia in mensura, numero, et pondere disposuit"). The argument and even the Biblical verse on which it turns are identical with FitzRalph's thirty-five years before.114 These 1,3

". . . the consistently low level of recruitment to regular orders throughout the fifteenth century . . . tends to cast doubt upon David Knowles's assessment that the monastic population experienced an increase of some 50 percent between 1370 and 1500 and lends support to J. C Russell's static picture of the numbers of regular clergy between 1377 and the dissolution of the monasteries," in "Clerical Recruitment in the Diocese of York, 1340-1530: Data and Commentary," JEH, 34 (1983), 35. I am grateful to Professor Moran for providing me with a copy of this article before its publication. 114 See above, chapter 3, at nn. 79-80 and Defensio curatorum, p. 1399.

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ideas appear often in Wycliffite writings, together with the citation of Wisd. 11:21: "& pou god god made al pinge in mesure & in wy3te as pe scripture seype I it folowp not he made 30U [friars] for 3ε ben oute of mesure." 1 1 5 Langland clearly has the verse in mind in Piers Plowman, passus 20, where Conscience says to the friars: "That in mesure god made alle manere pynges, And sette [it] at a certain and [at] a siker nombre. . . . Monkes and Moniales and alle men of Religion, Hir ordre and hir reule wole to han a certein noumbre . . . A certein for a certein, saue oonliche of freres. Forpi," quod Conscience, "by cnst! kynde wit me tellep It is wikked to wage yow; ye wexen out of noumbre." 1 1 6 "Ye wexen out of noumbre." Conscience's speech suggests that the charges of the friars' proliferation in numbers have as much to do with a metaphysical as a physical conception of number, as the allusion to Wisd. 11:21 appears to confirm. This verse was one of the touchstones of medieval metaphysics, and with the interpretation St. Augustine gave to it, became "the keyword of the medieval world view." 1 1 7 It showed that all created things exist within divinely ordained limits and proportions, controlled by an overriding idea of harmony in the universe, including the church and its functionaries. But the friars were, in the vocabulary of FitzRalph and St. Amour, non missi, non vocati, alieni, extraordinarii, infinitae et incertaepersonae. They were outside the church hierarchy, outside the ap­ ostolic succession, and therefore not "numbered," that is, not counted as part of the divine order that was reflected in the church. It is in this metaphysical sense that Langland's friars "wex out of noumbre." It is not just that their numbers are large but that they have not been num­ bered (or weighed or measured) in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. 115 Interpolation to UR, printed in Heyworth's note to UR, 1. 374. For the friars' ex­ cessive numbers, see also supplement to the Trialogus, ed. G. Lechler, pp. 431-32; Dialogus sive speculum ecdesie militantis, ed. Alfred W. Pollard (London. Wyclif Society, 1886), p. 52; Sermones, ed. Loserth, III, 230-31; De apostasia, ed. Dziewicki, ρ 12-13; "De Blasphemia" in Arnold, Select English Works, III, 418; "Tractatus de Pseudo-frens," ed. Matthew, p. 321; FDR, 11. 809-10, 817-20, 833-34. 116 pjers piowman: fne β Version, ed. George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (London: Athlone, 1975), XX, 254-69. 117 Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral, 2d ed. (New York. Harper, 1962), p. 25; see also Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard Trask (New York: Pantheon, 1953; repr. New York: Harper, 1963), p. 504; W J. Roche, "Measure, Number and Weight m St. Augustine," The New Scholasticism, 15 (1941), 350-76.

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The friars' great numbers are also associated with another kind of symbolism. Christ's prophecy that "many false prophets will arise and seduce many" ("Et multi pseudoprophetae surgent, et seducent multos," Matt. 24:11) is cited by Jack Upland when he predicts to Friar Daw the devastation of be chirche bat be multitude of 30U han allemost destried. For be gospel saib, Surgent multi pseudoprophete. Bot of hem [simple priests] ben fewe & gretly dispiside, And of 30U ful many & euer be mo be werse. (UR, 11. 79-84) These apocalyptic multitudes coming at the end of time had long been identified with the friars, for example by William's disciple, Nicholas ofLisieux: Tertium signum adventus antichristi & consummationis saeculi, est adventus pseudopraedicatorum & domos penetrantium. Qui licet a principio in ecclesia non defuerint, in fine ecclesiae in maxima multitudine apparebunt. Hoc signum nobis Dominus dedit in evangelio Matth. 24. cum nos instrueret de temporibus antichristi. Et multi, inquit, pseudoprophetae surgent & seducent multos. . . . Tot pseudopraedicatores ecclesiam jam intraverint, in tot sectas & diversitates se diviserint, ut jam prae multitudine numerari vix possint.118 [The third sign of the advent of Antichrist and the consummation of the world is the advent of false preachers and penetrantes domos, who, though they were not lacking in the church at the beginning, will appear at the end of the church in a very great multitude. The Lord gave us this sign in the Gospel, Matthew 24, when he would instruct us about the time of Antichrist. "And many false prophets," he said, "will arise and seduce many." . . . So many false preachers may already have entered the church, and divided themselves into so many sects and factions that already because of the multitude they can hardly be numbered.] The conception of multiplicity here is of a different origin but similar to the theological notion of "lack of number" derived from Wisd. 118 De Antichristo, ed. Edmond Martene and U. Durand, in Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicorum . . amplissima collectio, IX (Paris: Montalant, 1724-33), cols. 1293 and 1297.

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11:21. Here the friars' multiplicity is directly related to the eschatological multiplicity of the false prophets whose advent Christ prophesied and of the similar multitudes in the epistle of John: "nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt" (1 John 2:18); "multi pseudoprophetae exierunt in mundum" (1 John 4:1). William of St. Amour likewise places a great deal of emphasis on the quality of multiplicity as a characteristic of those who will come at the end of time: Ex us sunt qui penetrant domos, quod etiam in primitiva Ecclesia quidam tales fuerunt, per quales instabunt ilia pericula; sed appropinquante fmali Ecclesia, in maiori multitudine venient; et hoc dicit sic: lam horum praenuntii sunt quidam, plures autem in fine juturi sunt.119 ["From these are they who penetrate houses" (2 Tim. 3:6), since in the primitive church there were certain of such men through whom those dangers began. But as the final church approaches, they will come in a greater multitude; and thus it (the Glossa) says: "Already there are certain of their forerunners, but in the end there will be many."] The eschatological multiplicity of the followers of Antichrist is symbolic in the same way as the theological multiplicity of those in the church who do not conform to the divine principles of "measure, number, and weight." Both kinds of multiplicity are in the root sense opposite principles to unity, which is the principle of the godhead itself, the creative principle that informs all the world. Closely akin to the friars' lack of number is their lack of place, an idea most often expressed in the concept of wandering. They lack a place in the social and the ecclesiastical order, as symbolized by their daily itinerancy as they beg from house to house. The poets—comparing them to ants, bees, and peddlers, labeling them vagantes and vagrantes—emphasize their physical wandering but primarily as a sign of wanderings of the spirit.120 Thus Gower speaks of their vagrancy in the Vox damantis: The dispersion of the friars, whom a devious wanderlust now drives throughout the world, resembles [that of] the dispersed Jews. Neither the one nor the other remains fixed in one spot, but 1,9

De periculis, p. 20. Vox dam , book 4, chap. 17,1. 782 and chap. 18,11. 883-86; "Preste ne monke," ed. Robbins, 11. 30-36; Skelton, Image oflpocrisy, p. 444; "Ffrere gastkyn wo ye be," Anglia, 12 (1889), p. 268-69; "Nos per mundi chmata," Bodl. MS Digby 166, fol. 60' 120

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instead moves about by turns and exchanges different places everywhere. In such fashion does the irreverent [friar] stray about now in his compassing of the earth, and there is no home in which he does not seek lodging. . . . I do not know whether heaven will shut the gates on high to them, but the sea, streams, and all the earth furnish a pathway for them. I have read that a plant which is often moved rarely flourishes, but instead is usually poor because of its barren lot. Yet there is no rule but that it proves false in its turn, for the friar's moving causes him to flourish.121 This vagrancy is reminiscent of the societal rootlessness Gower discussed earlier in the Vox clamantis, when he said that the friars, "inordinate viventes," had no place among the knighthood, commons, or clergy: "each estate leaves them wandering about (vagos) in the world." 122 Beyond such societal vagrancy, the friars are also moral wanderers: The friar wanders about outside and explores inside, and no place or affair is a mystery to him. Now he is a physician, now a father confessor, now a mediator, and he gives orders at every hand, both high and low. So the friar puffs about everywhere as if he were the spirit of the Lord, yet he comes to the bed when the husband is away.123 Gower's comments also recall the vivos vagos of Judg. 9:4 and the epithet gyrovagi so favored by the antifraternal theologians of Paris in the thirteenth century.124 Biblical parallels for "wandering" on these several metaphorical levels were not far to seek. Pierce the Ploughman's Crede reminds us of the people about whom Paul prophesied in Phil. 3:18: "He seyde of swich folk . bat so aboute wente, /'Wepynge, y warne 30W . of walkers aboute; I It beb enemyes of be cros . bat Crist opon bolede' " (PPC, U. 88—90). Another group of Biblical wanderers who appear in English antifraternal literature are the false teachers in the epistle of Jude, compared there to "clouds without water, carried about by the wind" and to "wandering stars (sidera enantia), for whom the storm of 121

Stockton, p. 192; Vox clam., book 4, chap. 23, 11. 1112-28. Book 4, chap 20, 1. 944; Stockton, p. 188. 123 Stockton, p. 185; Vox clam., book 4, chap. 18, U. 831-36. 124 For viros vagos, see De Atttichristo, col. 1353; for gyrovagi see Collectiones, "Distinctio Secunda de otiosis, et cunosis, et gyrovagis, qualiter vivant contra doctrinam Apostoh," pp. 213—301. Gyrovagi had become so common an epithet for the friars by the fourteenth century that Friar John Pecham, archbishop of Canterbury, specifically addressed himself to denying the charge. See Tractatus tres depaupertate, p. 24 122

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darkness has been reserved forever" (verses 12-13). The Tractatus de pseudo-freris applies these images of instability in nature to the friars: "pise men ben boren aboute bi wyndis of unstablenesse, & heyhid to grete statis, now here & now here, for hem wantip be rote of loue pat shulde be picchid in goddis lawe. . . . be sterre herid or beerdid errib fro heuene in his mouyng, & bitokeneb pestilence, & so it is of wickid prestis bat erren fro kepyng of goddis lawe." 1 2 5 A more famous Biblical wanderer often linked to the friars was Cain, "vagus et profugus super terrain" (Gen. 4:12, 14: a fugitive and a wan­ derer over the earth). Antifraternal writers traced the genealogy of the fratres mendicantes of their own time back to the first and most treach­ erous frater. So, in Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, "of be kynrede of Caym . he [the devil] caste be freres / And founded hem on Farysens . feyned for gode" (486-87). The same mythic genealogy un­ doubtedly lies behind the "hey3e helle-hous of Kaymes kynde" (559) of the same poem, and behind the extremely common Wycliffite epi­ thet for a friary, "Cannes castel." 126 In the Wycliffite poem beginning "Preste ne monke," the names of the four mendicant orders form an anagram that spells out the name of the founder of them all: Nou se be sobe whedre it be swa, bat frere carmes come of a K, be frer austynes come of A, frer Iacobynes of I, Of M comen be frer menours. pus grounded caym thes four ordours, pat fillen be world ful of errours, & of ypocrisy. 127 But it remains for Upland's Rejoinder to remind us through Cain of our starting point: & Dou god god made al binge in mesure & in wy3te as be scripture seype it folowb not he made 30U for 3ε ben oute of mesure 128 & so be devyl & caym withjudas ben 3oure fadirs. 125

Matthew, English Works, pp 307-08; cf. Defundatione sectarum in Wyclif s Polemical Works, I, 66-74; also Gower, Mirour, 11. 21739-44. 126 See Arnold, Select English Works, III, 348, 368, 369, 398, 416; Matthew, English Works, pp. 129, 211, 420, 448, 508; Wychf's Polemical Works in Latin, I, 40; Ioannis Wyclif Sermones, ed. Loserth, II, 85, 120. See also JU, 1. 86; FDR, 1 105; UJ?, 1. 223. 127 Robbins, Historical Poems, p. 160, 11. 105-16 The same genealogy appears in Mum and the Sothsegger, 11. 493-504. 128 Lines 9-11 of an interpolation quoted in Heyworth's note to 1. 374 of UR. 229

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The friars are the sons of Cain because he is the archetype of all those who wander without place or number, within a divine order governed by the principles laid down in Wisd. 11:21. The friars may in fact have wandered from house to house as they begged in the cities and towns of fourteenth-century England; with their secular and urban mission, they may in fact have appeared more conspicuously numerous than other religious, who left the world for the cloister, often in rural settings far removed from city life. But these "facts" take on significance only because of an idea. It is an idea rooted in the ecclesiology of William of St. Amour and transmitted through partisans like FitzRalph: that the friars have no place in the ecclesiastical order. In the hands of the poets, this ecclesiological idea easily becomes broadened to a societal and metaphysical one: the friars, wanderers and supernumeraries, have no place in the created world. The poets, like the polemicists before them, are writing less about the friars than about an idea about the friars, less about men they have seen begging on the streets in London than about numberless and placeless figures who are the sons of Cain and allies of Antichrist, men whose final significance lies not in history but at its End.

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Chaucer and Antifraternal Exegesis: The False Apostle of the Summoner's Tale CHAUCER'S most antifraternal tale is appropriately told by a scrofulous hireling of the secular clergy, the Summoner. It is a tale dominated by the Summoner's anal humor, from the prologue, where the friars take their eternal rest in the devil's rectum, to the malodorous conundrum and the cartwheel at the end. But behind this exuberance, there lies a learned and ultimately serious pattern of allusion to the antifraternal tradition, which contributes to our sense that behind his comic mask, Chaucer, like other Ricardian poets, was preoccupied with decline and crisis in fourteenth-century society. A characteristic mark of Chaucerian comedy elsewhere is Chaucerian learning. The physiognomic lore in the Miller's portrait, the medical exactness of Arcite's fatal wound, the astrologically precise construction of the tourney field at Thebes, the Macrobian dream theory of a certain chicken, the inversion of patristic antifeminism by Alisoun of Bath, the odd appearance of Priapus and Pluto in Januarie's hortus conclusus all show Chaucer's compulsion to pack his tales with learned, insider's jokes. Recent critics of the Summoner's Tale have discovered the same pattern here: underneath the broad satire of the tale lies a richer and more subtle comedy of Biblical and Pentecostal parody and of antifraternal lore. The relevance of antifraternal polemical literature to the tale was discovered three decades ago and has been amplified since.1 The tale, it has been shown, embodies satirically many of the charges against the friars that appear conventionally in the writings of William of St. Amour, FitzRalph, and their followers. The emphasis of earlier studies, how1

Arnold Williams, "Chaucer and the Friars," Speculum, 28 (1953), 499-513; John Fleming, "The Antifraternalism of the Summoner's Tale," JEGP, 65 (1966), 688-700, and "The Summoner's Prologue: An Iconographic Adjustment," ChauR, 2 (1967-68), 95107. I do not discuss the friar's portrait in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales because both Williams and especially Jill Mann in her Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature ofSocial Classes and the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (CambridgeCambridge University Press, 1973) have already dealt brilliantly with the traditional elements there. For possible antifraternalism in the Nun's Priest's Tale, see Charles Dahlberg, "Chaucer's Cock and Fox," JEGP, 53 (1954), 277-90. 231

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ever, has been on political and ecclesiastical issues of the conflict between the secular clergy and the friars, rather than on theological issues or the Biblical language in which those issues were couched in the Middle Ages. But antifraternal theology and its conventions of language, drawn from antifraternal Biblical exegesis, have a very precise relevance to the Summoner's Tale. Allusions to the exegetical commonplaces of antifraternal polemics not only heighten the comedy but also provide a principle of unity in the tale. THE PARODY OF PENTECOST

Some fifteen years ago, a discovery by Professor Alan Levitan concerning the end of the Summoner's Tale was brought to the attention of Chaucerians, first in an article by Bernard Levy on Biblical parody in the tale and finally in Levitan's own article, "The Parody of Pentecost in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale."2 Basically his thesis was this: "From the point at which Thomas bestows his gift upon Friar John, to the proposed solution of its division byjankyn, what appears as a merely ribald anecdote is, in fact, a brilliant and satirical reversal of the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost." 3 Levitan's case for the Pentecostal parody is made with wit and erudition, and he is at his most convincing in his presentation of the visual iconography of Pentecost. However, there is considerably more evidence for the parody elsewhere, in areas Levitan neglected, namely, the Biblical and exegetical traditions about Pentecost in the liturgy and patristic writings. Levitan's plates of the twelve apostles grouped around a wheel of fire at the descent of the Holy Spirit bear a striking resemblance to the scene envisioned by the squire, with its cartwheel, its twelve friars with noses to the wheel, and the descent of the less-than-heavenly winds of Thomas. The parody hinges on the scatologically subtle relationship between those winds and the inspiring winds of the Holy Spiritus at Pentecost. The Biblical account of Pentecost and its liturgy offers us a clue to the origin of the parody. It centers on the "great wind" of Acts 2:2, which Levitan finds parodically present in the squire's proposal: "et factus est repente de caelo sonus, tamquam advenientis spiritus vehementis, et replevit totam domum ubi erant sedentes" (and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting). This is of course from the Vulgate ver2 UTQ, 40 (1970-71), 236-46; Bernard Levy, "Biblical Parody in the Summoner's Tale," TSL, 11 (1966),45-60. 3 Levitan, "Parody of Pentecost," 236.

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sion of Acts. However, there is an older text that is much more suggestive. The Old Latin version used by St. Cyprian, which is the oldest form of the African version known to us, reads, in the place of the Vulgate's "tamquam advenientis spiritus vehementis," "quasi ferretur_/?atus vehemens" (as if a violent flatus were produced). 4 It requires no goliardic genius to make the association between a great wind and passed gas, but if we needed tangible evidence, here it is in the Old Latin flatus, the venerable double meaning of which has passed on into modern English. 5 Such a joke might also have been suggested by some of the language of the liturgy of Pentecost, like the fifth stanza of the hymn, Jam Christus astra ascenderat, which describes the apostles at Pentecost thus: Impleta gaudent viscera Afflata Sancto Spiritu, Vocesque diversas sonant Fantur Dei magnalia.6 A goliard, ignoring the orthodox sense of the stanza, might have translated, "Their bowels rejoice, / Filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit, I And they make diverse noises I And celebrate the mighty works of God." Besides the broad parody in the squire's joke, there seem to be specific allusions to Pentecostal traditions at various places in the Summon4

Pierre Sabatier, ed., Bibliorum sacrorum latinae verswnes antiquae seu Vetus italica . . . , III. 2 (Paris: F. Didot, 1751), 501 and note b to Acts 2:2. The African version of the Vetus latina, of which no complete manuscripts survive, is often referred to as Cyprian's version, since he cites, at one time or another in his works, almost nine-tenths of the New Testament, and is therefore one of the earliest and most profitable witnesses to the Vetus latina. 5 Chaucer would probably have come into contact with Cyprian's Acts through Augustine, who, besides using the flatus version of Acts 2:2 , used Cyprian's version of Acts consistently, like the church of his day, even though they used Jerome's Gospels as a general rule. Regardless of whether Chaucer knew theflatus version of Acts 2:2, no doubt its dissemination through manuscripts of Augustine's works would have evoked in popular or Gohardic circles the blasphemous version of Pentecost that we find at the end of the Summoner's Tale. See F. C. Burkitt, The Old Latin and the Itala, Texts and Studies- Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature, IV. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 57ff.; St. Augustine, The First Catechetical Instruction, trans. J. P. Christopher (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Bookshop, 1946), pp. 73 and 139 n. 278; Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, PL XL, 340 6 The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, ed. Dom Matthew Bntt, O.S.B (New York· Benziger Brothers, 1922), p. 165. In Chaucer's time, this Ambrosian hymn of the fourth century received a great deal of exposure; it was sung at Matins on Pentecost and daily throughout the octave.

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er's Tale. One of these comes from the squire himself. In the Bible, the Pentecostal feast is associated frequently with primitiae, or first fruits. The apostles in Acts 2 were of course gathered together for the Jewish Pentecostal feast, which is fully described in Lev. 23:15-22 and in Num. 28:26-31 under the title "Feast of Weeks," since it took place on the first day after a week of weeks, or fifty days, after the Passover. It was a thanksgiving feast at the end of the grain harvest, which had begun at the Passover, and its sacrifices, spelled out in Leviticus, were naturally to consist of the first fruits of the harvest. Sweet-smelling holocausts were to be offered to the Lord, in odorem suavissimum, as is pointed out in both Lev. 23:18 and Num. 28:17. It is to this Biblical description of Pentecost, particularly to the first fruits and the odor suavissimus, that the squire no doubt alludes when he makes his pleased pronouncement at the end of his speech that in both "soun and stynk . . . this worthy man, youre confessour, I By cause he is a man of greet honour, / Shal have the first fruyte, as resoun is" (2275-77). The Old Testament Pentecostal feast assumed prominence in medieval Christian lore primarily because of its typological associations. According to widespread medieval tradition, the Law was given to Moses and the twelve tribes of Israel at Sinai on the Feast of Weeks, fifty days after the Passover event that had liberated them from their Egyptian servitude. Just as their liberation was celebrated by the sacrifice of a Lamb, so Christians celebrate their own Passover, that is, the Redemption from sin, which was made possible by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. As the Mosaic Law was given to the twelve tribes on the fiftieth day after the Passover, so the Holy Spirit, the sanctifying grace of the New Law, was sent to the twelve apostles on the Pentecostal day. As the Old Law was scripta digito Dei (Exod. 31:18) on tablets of stone, so the New Law was written by the digitus Dei, that is, according to widespread medieval interpretation, the Holy Spirit, but written on the tablets of the heart. Just as God appears at Sinai in fire and in thunder and in wind (Exod. 19:16-19), so the Spiritus Sanctus appears to the apostles.7 Because of a similar theophany accompanied by agitation of the same elements, the appearance of God to Elias in 3 Kings 19 was also taken as a Pentecostal figure, especially because the Lord finally ap7 This summary of Pentecostal typology draws on Isidore's Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911), VI, xvni, 4—5; Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus, PL XL, 336, 339-40; Enarrationes in Psalmos, PL XXXVII, 1167; John Beleth, Rationale dtvinorum officiorum, PL CCII, 135; William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum (Mainz-Johann Fust & Peter Schoeffer, 1459), book 6, cap. 107; Rabanus Maurus, De clerkorum institutione, PL CVII, 354-55; Bede, Super Acta Apostolorum, PL XCII, 945-48; the Liber de diuinis officiis, attributed dubiously to Alcuin, PL CI, 1226.

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pears in the whistling of a gentle breeze (verse 13). The theophany particularly recalled the one in Exodus because it took place in Horeb, which is synonymous with Sinai.8 Such, we may suppose, is the background of the friar's digression in the Summoner's Tale: Lo, Moyses fourty dayes and fourty nyght Fasted, er that the heighe God of myght Spak with hym in the mountayne of Synay. With empty wombe, fastynge many a day, Receyved he the lawe that was writen With Goddes fynger; and Elye, wel ye witen, In mount Oreb, er he hadde any speche With hye God, that is oure lyves leche, He fasted longe, and was in contemplaunce. (1885-93) It is particularly the presence of the unusual and otherwise unnecessary reference to the digitus Dei, almost universally interpreted as the Holy Spirit, along with the conjunction of the two typological figures of Moses and Elias, that makes it probable that Chaucer is here anticipating the pseudo-Pentecost of the final scene.9 At the least, he is strengthening a parodic association of the friar with holy men whose fasting helped make them pure enough that God came into their presence, as he did to the apostles at Pentecost. Elsewhere in the poem, particularly in the events surrounding Thomas's bequest, there are details that conform to—or prepare for— the final Pentecostal inversion. At the end of the friar's solicitation for gold, and after his particularly obnoxious self-congratulatory eulogy on the "charitee" of the fraternal orders, Thomas is ill-disposed to be charitable: "This sike man wax wel ny wood for ire; / He wolde that the frere had been on-fire" (2121-22). Thomas's wish is a reversal of the alighting of spiritual fire upon the apostles in Acts 2. In one sense, Thomas gets his wish, for the friar departs from the Pentecostal flatus filled with the fire of rage, not like the apostles, with the fire of "seinte 8

See especially Gregory, Moralia in Job, book 5, on Job 4.16, PL LXXV, 715-16 See Augustine's comment on the "finger of God": "Inde per desertum, populus ille ductus est, per quadraginta annos accepit etiam legem digito Dei scriptam [Exod. 1-20, 32, 34; Num. 14.33, Deut. 39:5], quo nomine significatur Spintus sanctus, sicut in Evangelio mamfestissime declaratur [Luke 11:20], Neque emm Deus forma corporis definitus est, nee sic in illo membra et digiti cogitandi sunt, quemadmodum videmus in nobis; sed quia per Spiritum sanctum dona Dei Sanctis dividuntur, ut cum diversa possunt, non tamen discedant a concordia charitatis, in digitis autem maxime apparet quaedam divisio, nee tamen ab umtate praecisio; sive propterea, sive propter aliam quamcumque causam Spintus sanctus appelatus est digitus Dei." De catechizandis rudibus, PL XL, 335-36. 9

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charitee," sent by the Holy Spirit: "This frere cam as he were in a rage, I Where as the lord sat etyng at his bord; I Unnethes myghte the frere speke a word" (2166-68). His speechlessness, too, is a reversal of the Pentecostal event, for the Holy Spirit, undoing the confusion of tongues wrought at Babel, brought eloquence to the apostles, even in languages unknown to them, while Thomas simply caps the garrulous friar's seemingly endless flow of verbiage. Finally, Thomas's bequest is made under the pretext of a "yifte" (2146). The Holy Spirit is several times in Scripture—once in Peter's speech at Pentecost (Acts 2:38)— described as the donum Dei, a tradition that finds its way into the Pentecostal liturgy through the famous hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus: "Qui diceris Paraclitus, / Altissimi donum Dei." 10 Hence, Thomas's mock "yifte" of wind is a parodic reversal of the gift bestowed by God at Pentecost, which also appeared in a wind.

THE FRIARS AND PENTECOST

The donum Dei, Thomas's fire, the friar's speechlessness, the first fruits of Pentecost, and the references to Moses and Elijah all reinforce allusively the Pentecostal pattern within the tale and prepare for the joke to come. But the joke hinges on something external to the tale: a historical connection of the friars and Pentecost. This association would have been necessary if the medieval reader were to recognize the parody and if the parody were to have any point within the tale other than mindless ridicule of the friar. Levitan senses the importance of this association, but is unable to find any direct evidence for it. In its place, he tries at length to demonstrate a historical connection between the friars and the Holy Ghost, since this would serve the same purpose, though less well. He does so chiefly by reminding us of the thirteenth-century Franciscan Spiritual, Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, about whose heretical and fanatical ideas William of St. Amour and the Parisian masters became so exercised in 1254.11 It is true that Gerard believed the Franciscans would usher in a new era of the Holy Ghost, replacing the Gospel of Christ with an Eternal Gospel of the Spirit. But Gerard had almost no following, and the Summoner's friar says nothing that bears the slightest resemblance to Gerard's Joachimist doctrines.12 Even if we 10

Hymns of the Breviary, ed. Britt, pp. 162-63. Cf. John 4:10, Eph. 2:8. Levitan, "Parody of Pentecost," 236-38. 12 See Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, p. 190: "We have little evidence that Gerard had any following. His book was, however, copied in Rome and brought to the Franciscan house at Imola in the 1270's, where Sahmbene was asked—as a student of Joachim's works—to pronounce upon it. His derisory comments (verbafrivolaet risu digna) reveal 11

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were to accept the improbable connection with Gerard, it would only serve to link Friar John in the most indirect way to the Holy Ghost, and not necessarily to Pentecost. That an audience would recognize the pertinence of a Pentecostal parody to the friars by this route seems in­ herently improbable. Levitan need not have looked so far afield. The natural association of the friars with Pentecost comes about because the general chapter of the Franciscans—the only time when the missionary fiatres minores sent all over the world gathered together as a group—was held approximately every third year at the feast of Pentecost. The date of the general chap­ ter is stipulated in both the Rule of 1221, which was favored by the Franciscan Spirituals, and the Rule of 1223, which became the official Rule of the order: Omnes autem ministri, qui sunt in ultramarinis et ultramontanis partibus, semel in tribus annis, et alii ministri semel in anno veniant ad capitulum in festo Pentecostes apud ecclesiam sanctae Mariae de Portiuncula. (Regula I) . . . electio [generalis ministri] fiat a ministris provincialibus et custodibus in capitulo Pentecostes, in quo provinciales ministri teneantur semper insimul convenire, ubicumque a generali ministro fuerit constitutum. (Regula ΙΓ)13 [Let all ministers, moreover, who are in distant parts, come once every three years, and other ministers once each year to a chapter meeting on the feast of Pentecost at the Church of St. Mary of the Portiuncula. (Regula J) . . . let the election [of the minister general] by the provincial min­ isters and custodians take place at the Pentecostal chapter, to which the provincial ministers are always required to come wher­ ever it will have been set by the minister general. (Regula II)] Although the date of the general chapter establishes the relevance of Pentecost to the friars, there is perhaps a more arcane relevance to the cartwheel in the Summoner's Tale. It has been suggested that the instihow completely Gerard's movement had failed." The only direct evidence we have that his doctrines were known in England is the abbreviated version of them in the Romaunt of the Rose, where the connection with the Holy Ghost is deemphasized. 13 Regula I, chap. 18 and Regula II, chap. 8 in Opuscula sanctipatris Francisci assisiensis, 3rd ed. (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1949), pp. 48-49 and 70. See The His­ tory of the Franciscan Order by Herbert Holzapfel, trans. A. Tibesar, G. B. Bnnkman (Teutopolis, 111.: St Joseph Seminary, 1948), pp. 147-51

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tution of the general chapter was at least partly inspired by the literature of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.14 The fellowship of the Round Table customarily came together at Pentecost, as in the thirteenth book of Malory's Morte d'Arthur, when Galahad makes his memorable first appearance. Malory, drawing directly on the earlythirteenth-century Queste del Sangreal, emphasizes the spiritual significance of the day and is at pains, like his source, to recall the events of Acts 2. Lancelot returns to Camelot at undern on Whitsunday, the same hour that the Holy Spirit appeared to the apostles. When the fellowship gathers together, they are granted (still on Pentecost) a vision of the Holy Grail, which comes in a crackling of thunder, followed by a dazzling light, and all the knights are "alyghted of the grace of the Holy Goste." 15 Francis was said to have been fond of calling his friars "fratres mei milites Tabulae Rotundae." 16 If so, the squire's cartwheel may be a parody of Francis's spiritual round table, the fellowship of friars who come together like Arthurian knights at Pentecost. Behind St. Francis's interest in both the Round Table and the feast of Pentecost, however, lies one thing alone: the vita apostolica. Francis chose the date for the general chapter primarily because of its symbolic connection with the apostles, whose life he strove so devoutly to imitate, and because of its commemoration of the beginning of their missionary journeys and the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel.17 14 Omer Englebert, Vie de St. Frangois d'Assise, rev. ed. (Paris: A. Michel, 1947), pp. 44-45 and 236. 15 The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugene Vinaver (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 634. 16 Le Speculum perfectionis ou Memoires defrere Leon, ed. P. Sabatier, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 13 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1928), chap. 72, p. 213 and note; Chronica XXIVgeneralium ordinis Minorum, ed. by the Quaracchi fathers in Analecta fianciscana, 3 (1897), 78; the Legenda antiqua or "Legende de Perouse" in Saint Fran(ois d'Assise: Documents, ed. Theophile Desbonnets and Damien Vorreux (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, 1968), p. 944 (paragraph 71). The critical ed., La 'Legenda antiqua S. Francisci,' texte du ms. 1046 (M 69) de Perouse (Paris: Editions de la France Franciscaine, 1926), ed. Ferdinand Delorme, was not available to me. 17 Besides the orthodox Franciscan connection with Pentecost, there is some evidence that the fourteenth-century Franciscan Spirituals paid a special reverence to this feast of the Holy Spirit. Bernardo Gm, the inquisitor, investigated a group of Franciscan Spirituals and Beguines shortly before 1325, and reported that they believed that a small handful from the Franciscan order, probably twelve in number, would found a new Church of the Spirit after the coming persecutions of Antichrist had destroyed the carnal church and all the religious orders except a chosen few from the Franciscans. After the destruction, they expected that the Holy Spirit would be sent to these men as it had been sent to the apostles, founders of the Church of the New Law, at Pentecost. See Gm, Manuel de I'Inquisiteur, ed. and trans. G. Mollat (Paris: Champion, 1926), I, 146 and 148; also Reeves, Influence ofProphecy, pp. 203-04, to which I am indebted for this reference.

238

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The association of the friars with the apostles is even more important than the Pentecostal date of the general chapter because it figures prominently in fraternal theology, in antifraternal polemics, and most important (from a literary standpoint) within the Summoner's Tale itself. One of the most significant thematic patterns that unifies the tale has received little notice in criticism: the series of Biblical allusions made by the narrator, the characters, and especially by the friar himself, associating his way of life with that of the apostles.18 There are five fairly blatant such allusions, spaced so evenly throughout the tale, at structurally significant points near the beginning, middle, and end, that some sort of pattern seems intended. The first is the most obvious, uttered by Friar John in support of his confessional activity, shortly after he enters Thomas's house: Thise curatz been ful necligent and slowe To grope tendrely a conscience In shrift; in prechyng is my diligence, And studie in Petres wordes and in Poules. I walke, and fisshe Cristen mennes soules, To yeldenjhesu Crist his propre rente; To sprede his word is set al myn entente. (1816-22) This claim to be a fisher of men, echoing Christ's call to the apostles in Matt. 4:19 and Luke 5:10, sets the stage for the friar's long sermon to Thomas and anticipates his extravagant claims to the holiness of the Gospel life. The second and third apostolic allusions come close together near the midpoint of the sermon, following shortly after Thomas's only interruption. The friar has been exalting himself and his order and extolling the special efficacy of his prayers. Thomas interjects angrily that "no thynge thereof feele I!" (1948), because he has bestowed practically all his money on friars and still fares none the better. Friar John protests that Thomas must not spread his money so thinly among "diverse freres." Rather he should concentrate it on one "parfit leche" alone: Thomas, of me thou shalt nat ben yflatered; Thou woldest han oure labour al for noght. 18

Both Levitan (p. 238) and Levy (pp. 52-54) touch on the friars' associations with the apostles but without realizing how deeply grounded they are in fraternal lore and without recognizing the systematic series of allusions to the apostles in the Tale. Levitan, however, recognizes one of the key points for the Pentecostal parody, that the twelve friars around the wheel are meant to resemble the twelve apostles.

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The hye God, that al this world hath wrought, Seith that the werkman worthy is his hyre. (1970-73) Misapplied though it might be, the quotation of "hye God" that the friar has in mind here is from Christ's instructions to the apostles in Luke 10 (cf. Matt. 10) concerning their missionary calling. They were to carry no material provisions on their journeys, and Christ's words in Luke 10:7, "dignus est enim operarius mercede sua" (cf. Matt. 10:10) were taken to mean that the apostles should be able to live from the offerings of those to whom they ministered. The verse was in effect a summation of the means of livelihood in the apostolic life. Lest his victim miss the point, Friar John immediately pursues his self-comparison to the apostles not only in the manner of obtaining money but in its object, which in this case is the friars' sumptuous stone church: Thomas, noght of youre tresor I desire As for myself, but that al oure covent To preye for yowe is ay so diligent, And for to buylden Cristes owene chirche. Thomas, if ye wol lernen for to wirche, Of buyldynge up of chirches may ye fynde, If it be good, in Thomas lyf of Inde. (1974-80) Not only does this reference to the Apostle Thomas strengthen the friar's association with the apostolica vita, but it also calls to mind sick Thomas's namesake, who was himself a church builder—or so the friar would have us believe.19 Like the second and third allusions in the apostolic pattern, the fourth and fifth come close together, this time near the end of the story, on the heels of the friar's insulting gift. Friar John has stormed into town and marched into the manor house of the village lord, where he sits down, almost speechless with rage. The puzzled nobleman begins to inquire: "Now, maister," quod this lord, "I yow biseke,—" "No maister, sire," quod he, "but servitour, 19

The name Thomas means, among other things, divisio or sectio, or at least so we are told m the most popular life of the Apostle Thomas, that in the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, ed. T. Graesse (1890; repr. Osnabriick: O. Zeller, 1965), p. 32. Such an etymology has an obvious ironic relevance to the Thomas of our tale. 240

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Thogh I have had in scole that honour. God liketh nat that 'Raby' men us calle, Neither in market ne in youre large halle." (2184-88) The friar's somewhat false modesty is taken directly from Christ's speech to his disciples in Matthew 23 warning them against the hypocrisy of religious men like the Pharisees: (6) [The Pharisees] love the first places at suppers and the front seats in the synagogues, (7) and greetings in the marketplace, and to be called by men "rabbi." (8) But do not you be called "rabbi"; for one is your Master, and all you are brothers. . . . (10) Neither be called masters; for one only is your Master, the Christ. (11) He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And as if to drive home the forced analogy between the friar and the apostles, this same village lord exhorts the friar to mildness in the following terms: "Distempre yow noght, ye be my confessour; I Ye been the salt of the erthe and the savour" (2195-96). He alludes to Christ's warning to the apostles in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:13): "Vos estis sal terrae. Quod si sal evanuerit, in quo salietur? ad nihilum valet ultra, nisi et mittatur foras, et conculcetur ab hominibus" (cf. Mark 9:49, Luke 14:35). These two clear-cut allusions to the apostles, coming in close succession after Thomas's gift and shortly before the end of the tale, cap the apostolic pattern and bring it boldly to our attention just before the cartwheel joke. The comparison with the apostles made by these Biblical allusions is also made more generally in the friar's claims to be living the Gospel life. He does at one point specifically claim apostolic sanction: "We fare as seith th'apostle; clooth and foode / Suffisen us, though they be nat ful goode" (1881-82). But for the most part he only invokes a general comparison between his own way of life and that of Christ and the apostles: Oure Lordjhesu, as hooly writ devyseth, Yaf us ensample of fastynge and preyeres. Therefore we mendynantz, we sely freres, Been wedded to poverte and continence. (1904-07) The fraternal way of life is superior to that of "possessiouners" because sanctioned by Christ, who blessed the poor in spirit. Besides, 241

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Who folweth Cristes gospel and his foore, But we that humble been, and chaast, and poore, Werkeris of Goddes word, nat auditours? (1935-37) The pattern of analogy between the friar and the apostles, of course, serves an immediate comic purpose, namely to highlight the utter hypocrisy of this self-important, self-indulgent representative of the religious life. That hypocrisy Chaucer has made manifest even in the most minute detail. For example, Friar John urges his victim Thomas to read the life of Thomas of India as a handbook of church-building projects. It is true that the Apostle Thomas was given a reputation as a mason by the Lord, and was given great treasure by King Gundofernus of India to build a marvelous palace, but he is nowhere reported to have built any structures at all, much less any churches. In fact, Thomas gave to the poor the construction fund with which King Gundofernus entrusted him, and was subsequently imprisoned.20 The friar's claim to forebears among the apostles also runs awry in his deferential refusal of the title ofmagister. "No maister, sire . . . but servitour, I Thogh I have had in scole that honour." Such is his humility before the lord of the village, but before Thomas and his wife, he allows the title three times to pass unchallenged (1781, 1800, 1836). These small details are only a few of the ways in which the friar's life belies his extravagant claims to the apostolic and evangelical life of austerity, poverty, chastity, and self-discipline. Prominently in the background of Friar John's self-proclaimed apostolate lie the fraternal orders' own tendencies to see in their way of life a revival of the life of the first apostles. Chaucer surely knew that the vita apostolica was a major bone of contention between the secular clergy and the friars. Whether he knew William of St. Amour's fortyone signs for distinguishing false apostles from true, or FitzRalph's arguments about vocatos and missos in the Defensio curatorum and in Unusquisque is not possible to determine.21 But if Chaucer did not know their work, he might have encountered the treatises by Aquinas, Bonaventura, Thomas of York, John Pecham, Richard Maidstone, Roger Conway, Gerard of Abbeville, Nicholas of Lisieux, or Uthred de BoI20 Legenda aurea, pp. 32-39. This account is based primarily on the apocryphal Acts of St. Thomas. 21 SeeDepericulis, chap. 14, pp. 57-72; Defensio curatorum, pp. 1400,1403; Unusquisque, pp. 54-55, 60-61, and the discussions above in chapter 1 at n. 89ff. and in chapter 3 at n. 49ff.

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don, where the issue of the fraternal apostolate was raised.22 And even if he knew no Latin tracts at all, he would have encountered the apostolic debate in the poetry of his contemporaries, especially Gower and Langland, and in the Roman de la Rose, which he read and probably translated.23 In an earlier chapter, we saw how closely the Franciscan order was modeled on Christ's instructions to the apostles before sending them out to preach the Gospel (primarily Luke 10:1-12, but also Matt. 10:5— 15 and Mark 6:7-13).24 St. Francis heard these verses read during a Mass of the Apostles at the Portiuncula and adopted them as a skeletal Rule for the young order.25 (1) Now after this the Lord appointed seventy-two others, and sent them forth two by two before him into every town and place where he himself was about to come. . . . (4) Carry neither purse, nor wallet, nor sandals, and greet no one on the way. (5) Whatever house you enter, first say, "Peace to this house!" [Pax huic domui]. . . . (7) And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they have; for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house [de domo in domum]. (8) And whatever town you enter, and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Chaucer is aiming squarely at the friars' apostolic pretensions in the Summoner's Tale, for his Friar John is the pointed antithesis of the apostle of Christ and the frater of Francis as defined by the evangelical instructions in Matthew 10 and Luke 9-10. He goes forth "With scrippe and tipped staf, ytukked hye; I In every hous he gan to poure and prye" (1737-38). Whether or not we recognize in the Summoner's delicacy of phrase a bawdy suggestion (reminiscent of the end of the Roman de la Rose) concerning Brother John's probing activities, the "scrippe" and "staf" are expressly forbidden in the Biblical passage quoted above. In addition to the scrip, the friar has a sack, borne by a "sturdy harlot," to keep his ample winnings as material reserves. The friar goes de domo in domum (1. 1765). He goes not "two by two" but three by three. Although he pays lip service to the principle of "manducate quae apponuntur vobis" ("Yif us . . . what yow list, we may nat cheese," 1. 1747), he encourages the most lavish bequests. Instead of "Pax huic do22

See above, chapter 1, nn. 58, 75; chapter 2, nn 109-13; chapter 3, n. 32. See chapter 5 above, "Apostolis Newe" section. 24 See chapter 1, "Pseudoapostles" section. 25 See the account from S. Bonaventura, Opera omnia, VIII (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898), p. 510 (cap. 3, pars. 1-2), and other authorities cited in chapter 1, n. 73. 23

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mui," his greeting is an abbreviated "Deus hie," with emphasis no doubt on hie, in view of the friar's love of fine food and drink. All of these deviations from the letter of the apostolic instructions appear in the portrait of Friar John's missionary—that is, begging—activity that opens the tale, preceding his first encounter with Thomas. They are only signs of his departure from the spirit of those instructions, as is evident from his every word and deed. It is particularly evident from his misguided quotation from those instructions in the middle of his fund appeal to Thomas: Thomas, of me thou shalt nat been yflatered; Thou woldest han oure labour al for noght. The hye God, that al this world hath wroght, Seith that the werkman worthy is his hire. (1970-73) The good friar would have us understand the precept, "dignus est enim operarius mercede sua," from Luke 10:7, in precisely the opposite fashion that Francis would have wished. For St. Francis, as for the apostles, it meant that the ministration of the Holy Gospel would be sustained by God, who would make charity his instrument to provide life's necessities to his ministers, usually through the love of those to whom they preached. As such, Luke 10:7 was the theological cornerstone of the Franciscan justification of mendicancy as a religious way of life. For Friar John, however, it apparently meant that any labor performed by the shepherd on behalf of his flock will be paid for, preferably in advance, and richly as well. For long-suffering Thomas, as we see from his gift, Luke 10:7 meant something else again: that flatulence was its own reward. Another of the apostolic allusions in the tale is one of the chief texts of polemical antifraternalism. When Friar John vigorously denies—a little too vigorously—the title "maister," he unintentionally identifies himself with the Pharisee by citing Christ's warning to the apostles against the hypocrisy of such seemingly religious and learned men: "God liketh nat that 'Raby' men us calle, / Neither in market ne in youre large halle" (2187-88). He alludes to Matt. 23:7-8, "[the Pharisees] love . . . greetings in the marketplace, and to be called by men 'rabbi.' " This is the very verse that, because rabbi meant "master," had been at the center of the thirteenth-century controversies at the University of Paris, and a verse that had become a commonplace of antifraternal theology and satire by the fourteenth century. 26 Friar John 26

See the "Pharisees" sections in chapters 1 and 5 above. 244

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ironically seems to confirm its aptness while denying it: " N o maister, sire . . . but servitour, I Thogh I have had in scole that honour." Another allusion to antifraternal exegesis appears in the description of the friar's begging activities ("In every hous he gan to poure and prye," 1. 1738). As John Fleming has pointed out, this recalls thepenetrantes domos of 2 Tim. 3:6 in more than one way. 2 7 The friar is a literal penetrator of houses, but as an aggressive confessor he also forces his way into the "house" of conscience. Like the friars who aroused the ire of William of St. Amour a century before, he also trespasses in the "house" of the church by usurping a spiritual and sacramental function originally the province of the secular clergy. And finally, it is hinted that this friar is out to lead astray Thomas' wife, a "mulierculam oneratam peccatis," like the women of 2 Tim. 3:8. The penetrans domos forms part of the apostolic pattern in the tale, since he was seen both by Paul, in his letter to Timothy, and by the antifraternal commentators, as a ρ seudo apostolus. In the Summoner's Tale, with its many allusions to the instructions of Christ to the apos­ tles, the penetrans domos is a fitting antitype to the "intrantes in domum . . . dicentes: Pax huicdomui" (Matt. 10:12) whom Christ had spoken of in the passage heard by St. Francis in the Portiuncula. Those who intrant are there by right, while those who penetrant, like Friar John, do so illegitimately to rape the householder of his material and spiritual goods, to say nothing of his wife. Still another, though less important, mockery of the apostolic tradition of the friars appears in Friar John's professions of evangelical poverty. In the ninth chapter of the first Rule of the Franciscans, Francis cites 1 Tim. 6:8 as a guide for the friar fol­ lowing the path of apostolic poverty, a verse that Friar John parrots thus: "We fare as seith th'apostle; clooth and foode / Suffisen us, though they be nat ful goode" (1881-82).28 One suspects the apostles found sustenance from somewhat less than capon livers and roast pigs' heads. The climactic Pentecostal joke is thus skillfully anticipated. Chaucer scatters Pentecostal allusions throughout the tale; and he repeatedly links Friar John to the apostles, not only to prepare for the pseudo-Pen­ tecost at the end, but to parody the controversial claim of the historical fraternal orders to be imitators of the first apostles, reviving the spirit­ ual purity of the primitive church. Apostolic claims and Pentecostal 27

"The Antifraternalism of the Summoner's Tale" JEGP, 65 (1966), 693. Opuscula . . Francisci, p. 36: "Omnes fratres studeant sequi humihtatem et paupertatem Domini nostri Iesu Christi et recordentur, quod nihil aliud oportet nos habere de toto mundo, nisi, sicut dicit Apostolus, 'habentes ahmenta et quibus tegamur, his con­ tend sumus.' " 28

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CHAPTERSIX gatherings are part of a single pattern, both in the tale and in the history of the fraternal orders. It is worth noting that in the Middle Ages, Pentecost was commonly associated with the Last Days of the world. In Acts 2:17, Peter says that the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost inaugurated the novissimis diebus; in those Last Days, Antichrist, who mimics numerous New Testament events, is often depicted making fire descend from heaven in a parodic Pentecost.29 Chaucer, characteristically, does not harp on the apocalyptic implications of his tale, but it seems beyond coincidence that there appears in this comic condemnation of a friar, as in Chaucer's other tales of a church weighed down by hypocrisy and corruption, the traditional language associated with the breakdown of the church and the coming of the End. 29

Emmerson, Antichrist, pp. 24, 132-33, 141, 183.

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The Friars and the End of Piers Plowman THE friars' prominence in the action of the B version of Piers Plowman is conspicuous. They are mentioned more often and at more length than any other ecclesiastical type. They appear at structurally and psychologically significant points throughout the poem: the beginning, the end, the beginning of the inward journey (passus VIII), Will's dream within a dream of the Land of Longing (XI), and the turning point at the Banquet of Conscience (XIII). They dominate the last major episode as well as the last speech of the final passus. They alone appear to both the sleeping and the waking Will. They are the most recurrent of the nonallegorical figures Will meets and the only ones with whom he converses. Will not only talks with them; he seems sometimes to take on their characteristics, especially as a wandering mendicant "unholy of werkes." The friars, it seems, are in some way central to the poem. Another conspicuous feature of these friars is their traditional character. Except for St. Francis and St. Dominic, who are praised briefly, no good friar appears in the poem. Their faults are those stressed endlessly in the literature we have already surveyed: they abuse their privilege of confession; they are jealous of the prerogatives of the secular clergy; they have institutionalized the questionable practice of mendicancy; they abuse the gift of speech in preaching for gain; they aspire excessively to learning and authority. The language in which they are described is also traditional, often Biblical, most conspicuously in the friar who, as an ally of Antichrist, subverts the church in the final episode of the poem: Sire Penetrans Domos. To catalog instances of traditional antifraternal language in the poem, however, does not help to explain what the friars contribute to the narrative of Piers Plowman, how they are related to Will, why they are more prominent than other ecclesiastical figures, or how they are central to the poem's meaning. Most of the answers to such questions as these lie in the poem itself. But the antifraternal tradition has prepared us for one of the most important features of the friars' role in the poem: their symbolic dimension. Here, as in William of St. Amour, the friars are not simply set 247

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within a social or ecclesiastical or empirical framework, but within a symbolic frame that stretches from the present to the end of time. The friars do not merely exist within the present; they help to reveal its meaning by locating it within Salvation History. They are part of a fiction of history. The friars in Piers Plowman are very different from the friar in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale and draw on tradition in a radically different way. Chaucer's friar is not symbolic, though Chaucer plays him off against traditional apostolic symbolism for comic purposes. Chaucer's friar is not located within Salvation History, nor is he related to the End. He exists within a comedic present, the locus of which, within the history of the church, is irrelevant. But Langland's friars are agents of Antichrist, and one of them bears as his name a Biblical phrase taken from a prophecy of the Last Times. At the end of the poem, it is implied, the future of the church is the future of the friars. If the problems posed by their way of life cannot be resolved, it is implied, Conscience will abandon the church to the forces of Antichrist. Langland never announces the End of time; his eschatology, like that of FitzRalph, Jean d'Anneux, and Jacobus in Omne bonum, is conservative and cautious, and in that respect typical of the late fourteenth century. But as clearly as his predecessors, Langland perceives the friars as an omen of the approaching End, however near it might be. The eschatological is only one aspect of the friars' symbolic role in the poem. Langland has taken advantage of the traditional predisposition to see the friars symbolically and adapted them to his own poetic purposes. The poem is filled with intramural symbols of human life gone awry, and in that intramural system the friars play a central role. As the first half of this chapter will show, the friars are linked with three major social groups who symbolize the perversion of rightly ordered life: wanderers, minstrels, and beggars. Only one other character is so emphatically associated with these three symbolic groups and he is the narrator-dreamer, Will himself. That the narrator and the friars should share some of each other's own worst problems, which intersect in their similarities to the trinity of shirkers, suggests the tantalizing possibility of a biographical link between Langland and the friars. Such a link has been suggested before—perhaps Langland studied with the Franciscans—but in the absence of any external confirmation, it seems fruitless to dwell on it here. 1 More important is the poetic link between Will and the friars, which can help with the difficult ending of the poem in passus XX, where the friars play the major and final role. That pas1

Mother Catherine Elizabeth Maguire, R.S.C.J., "Franciscan Elements in the Thought of Piers Plowman," Ph.D. diss. Fordham University, 1950, pp. 34ff.

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sus and its twin concerns—the end of Will and the End of the church— are the subjects of the final half of this chapter. WANDERERS AND THE FAILURE OF WORD AND WORK

The friars first appear in the field full of folk, together with an assortment of other social types drawn from all the highways and byways of fourteenth-century England. In the apparent chaos of the plain between the tower and the dale, there are a few hints of narrative or at least conceptual order, most noticeably at the moment the field is introduced: "A fair feeld ful of folk fond I per bitwene . . . I Werchynge and wandrynge as pe world askep" (prol., 11. 17, 19).2 In the social panorama that follows—and elsewhere in the poem—the division of the world into workers and wanderers seems to be sustained. The field full of folk is described with a series of rhetorical distinctions between the productive and the unproductive. "Some putten hem to plou3" (20) is balanced against "some putten hem to pride"; wasters are contraposed to winners who "wonnen pat [pise] wastours with glotonye destruyep" (22); hermits that keep to their cells are contrasted to those who careen about the countryside, as are "giltlees" minstrels with wicked "Iaperes and Iangeleres." There is also a rough grouping of workers and wanderers into separate camps. Langland first lists plowmen, merchants, "giltlees" minstrels, and those who engage in the spiritual labor of prayer and penance (20-34). This group is unified by the constructive nature of their work and by the rhetorical phrase that introduces each of them, "somme putten hem to" (with variations). On the other hand, the wanderers, who immediately follow (35-67), are set apart not only by the vagrancy which their callings require, but also by their parasitic natures and lack of social utility. They include the bad minstrels ("Iaperes and Iangeleres"), beggars, pilgrims and palmers, hermits, and friars. The unity of the wanderers of the prologue is reinforced by their association with two kinds of faults, of speech and of work. Their twofold failings introduce one of the central themes of Piers Plowman, a complex theme encapsulated in the oft-recurring alliterative phrase of "word and werk." 3 The phrase links what Langland sees as two of the highest duties of man, to act well or do well (for which manual labor stands as a metaphor) and to speak the Truth. Rightly ordered human 2 All citations of the poem, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from Piers Plowman: The B Version, ed. George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (London: Athlone, 1975). 3 See J. A. Burrow, "Words, Works, and Will: Theme and Structure in Piers Plowman," in Piers Plowman· Critical Approaches, ed. S. S Hussey (London Methuen, 1969), esp. pp 111-14.

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life in the poem is a harmony of word and work, and of a number of oppositions implied by the phrase: mind and body; the spiritual and the carnal; intellectus and affectus; thought and action; understanding and will. The prelapsarian harmony of these oppositions is suggested by the account Wit gives of man's creation. God created man, he says, "Wip his word and werkmanshipe and wip Hf to laste. . . . wip werk and wip word bobe" (IX, 46, 52). As man was created in God's image, the harmony of his word and work provides a paradigm for human ac­ tion. 4 Will's first teacher, Holy Church, says as much at the outset of the poem. For who is trewe of his tonge, tellep noon oojjer, Doop pe werkes perwip and wilnep no man ille, He is a god by be gospel, a grounde and ο lofte, And ek ylik to oure lord by Seint Lukes wordes. (I, 88-91)5 Truth in word and works makes man a god, "ylik to oure lord," an imago Dei. The field of folk, however, is a post-lapsarian humanity, and the words and works of the wanderers go astray. 6 The Iangeleres "fonden hem fantasies" and are those Paul described as Qui loquitur turpiloquium (those who speak slander). Their fictive speech sets the tone for Langland's subsequent description of the speech of their fellows, for the her­ mits "shopen hem heremytes hire ese to haue," and the beggars "risen vp wip ribaudie." As for the pilgrims and palmers, "to ech a tale pat pei tolde hire tonge was tempred to lye I Moore pan to sey soop, it semed bi hire speche." Capping the list, the friars, "prechynge pe peple," abuse not only human speech but the Word of God, for they "glosed J)e gospel as hem good liked; I For coueitise of copes construwed it as pei wolde." Langland is equally explicit concerning faults of work. The minstrels "han wit at wille to werken if hem liste." The wandering hermits, care­ fully distinguished from the honest hermits who "holden hem in hire selles, I Coueiten no3t in contree to cairen aboute," are by contrast "grete lobies and longe J?at lope were to swynke." The friars preach "for profit of pe wombe" and, by trading in spiritual goods, have made charity a "chapman" and perverted the role of the secular merchant. 4

The harmony of God's word and work m the creation of man was a traditional idea. See Gregory the Great, PL LXXV, 900; Rhabanus Maurus, PL CVII, 459; Hilary of Poi­ tiers, Tractatus super Psalmos on Ps. 118:73, ed. A. Zingerle in CSEL, 22 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1891), 442-44. 5 See also VIII, 80-84; X, 260-64 and 418-19; XIII, 80; XV, 60-61; I, 13. 6 Prologue, 11. 1-113.

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At the very outset of the poem, then, Langland groups the friars with a category of vagrants who are taken to be not just literal but spiritual wanderers. The spiritual nature of their vagrancy is evident from the prologue itself, but elsewhere in the poem Langland comes down hard on such vagabonds, including even Will himself, much of whose intellectual journey is interspersed with periods of aimless physical wandering. Langland consistently condemns those who wander, whether physically or spiritually—and geographical wandering is often a sign of vagrancy of soul. When food is plentiful, wasters will not work but "wandred aboute" (VI, 302); by contrast, Truth instructs Piers to stay at home and plow (VII, 5). For his part Clergie laments that Religion (i.e., those in religious orders) is nowadays "a rydere, a rennere by stretes" (X, 311). In passus IX, Wit concludes a long discussion of Cain—himself a notorious Biblical wanderer—with a harsh judgment of all those who like Cain were conceived in a forbidden time: That opergates ben geten for gedelynges arn holden, As fals folk, fondlynges, faitours and lieres, Vngracious to gete good or loue of pe peple; Wandren as wolues and wasten if pei mowe; Ayeins dowel pei doon yuel and pe deuel plese. (IX, 195-99) Literal wanderers are reviled throughout the poem as spiritual wanderers, like these "gedelynges" here, or the religious pilgrims who run to Rome and Rochemador (XII, 35-37), and especially the friars, "men of pis moolde bat moost wide walken" (VIII, 14), who were derogatorily called gyrovagi by their critics of the fourteenth century. 7 Their appearance with the other wanderers of the prologue seems carefully premeditated and anticipates the more elaborate association of the friars elsewhere with two fellow travelers in particular: the minstrels, with their faults of speech, and the beggars, with their faults of work.

IOCVLATORES

DOMINI

Among those who misuse the gift of speech, the minstrels ("Iaperes and Iangeleres") are the most often found in company with the friars elsewhere in the poem. Minstrels and friars are linked as the protectors of Liar (II, 230-33); as "faitours" excepted by name from Piers's promise to feed all the people of the earth (VI, 68-76a); as idle men condemned by Dame Study for entertaining the rich at table, whether by the feigning and fictions of minstrelsy or by the dinner-table quaestiones 1

See above, chapter 5, n. 124. 251

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of the friars on abstruse theological matters (X, 30-139). Both kinds of entertainment Dame Study denounces as "faityng." 8 Both minstrels and friars have God's name so much in their mouth they "gnawen god in be gorge" like gluttons. 9 Men should not "fare as a fibelere or a frere to seke festes, / Homliche at obere mennes houses and hatien hir owene" (X, 95-96). As in the field full of folk, the friars and minstrels are here linked as literal and spiritual wanderers, abusing Truth with their fictions, in hope of a meal at the tables of the rich.10 Langland's association of friars and minstrels was not original. The link was a Franciscan tradition, as E. Talbot Donaldson showed in his study of minstrelsy in Piers Plowman: The C- Text and its Poet.n A series of stories, says Donaldson, grew up around St. Francis of Assisi after his death and were collected in the Speculum perfectionis, attributed to a disciple named Brother Leo. According to the Speculum perfectionis, Francis loved to think of the order as ioculatores Domini, minstrels of God, singing the praises of the Lord. At one point, says the Speculum, he composed a song, the "Cantus fratris sous": . . . spiritus ejus erat tunc in tanta consolatione et dulcedine quod volebat mittere pro fratre Pacifico qui in saeculo vocabatur rex versuum et fuit valde curialis doctor cantorum, et volebat dare sibi aliquos fratres ut irent simul cum eo per mundum praedicando et cantando Laudes Domini. Dicebat enim quod volebat ut ille qui sciret praedicare melius inter illos prius praedicaret populo, et post praedicationem omnes cantarent simul Laudes Domini tanquam joculatores Domini. Finitis autem laudibus volebat quod praedicator diceret populo: "Nos sumus joculatores Domini et pro his volumus remunerari a vobis, videlicet ut stetis in vera paenitentia." Et ait: "Quid enim sunt servi Dei nisi quidam joculatores ejus qui corda hominum erigere debent et movere ad laetitiam spiritualem." 12 [So great was the sweetness and consolation of his spirit that he called for Brother Pacificus, whom the world entitled the King of 8

X, 39-40, 72. X, 52-58, 67-71 10 The Friar at the banquet of Conscience in passus XIII is an embodiment of what Dame Study was warning against. Cf. X, 67 with XIII, 78; X, 54 with XIII, 94, 96; X, 74 with XIII, 65. The Friar of XIII is also a familiar of minstrels, as implied by XIII, 172 11 Yale Studies m English, 113 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), 136-53. 12 Speculum perfectionis, ed. Paul Sabatier (Paris: Fischbacher, 1898), pp. 197-98; quoted in Donaldson, p. 146; translation by Constance, Countess de la Warr, Mirror ofPerfection (London. Burns and Oates, 1902), pp. 147-48. See also F. Baethgen, "Franziskamsche Studien," Historische Zeitschrifi, 131 (1925), 427ff. 9

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Verse and Courteous Doctor of Song, and desired to send him with other friars to go together through the world, preaching and singing the Praises of the Lord. And he desired that he amongst them who was the best preacher should first preach to the people, and when the sermon was ended all the others should sing together the Praises of the Lord, as the Lord's minstrels; and at the end he desired the preacher should say to the people, "We are the Lord's minstrels, and the reward we ask of you is that you turn to true repentance." And he added: "For what else are the Servants of the Lord but his minstrels to lift up the hearts of men and move them to spiritual gladness?"] Franciscan tradition is one reason Langland links friars and minstrels, but there is another rationale, which has more to do with his poetic purposes. Langland uses minstrelsy as a metaphor for the use (or abuse) of the divine gift of speech, which enjoys an exalted conception in the poem. As Wit explains, heaven hates above all for man to waste time or speech, . . . to spille speche f)at spire is of grace And goddes gleman and a game of heuene. Wolde neuere J)e feijrful fader his fijiele were vntempred Ne his gleman a gedelyng, a goere to tauernes. (IX, 103-06) True speech is God's minstrel and a joyous entertainment ("game") for the banquet in heaven. False speech or wasted speech is a wastrel and a vagabond ("gedelyng"), a frequenter of taverns; it untunes the fiddle of God. Speech is also a "spire" of Grace. As a "sprout" or "shoot," it is to be associated with the other great plant images of the poem, especially the crop of Truth cultivated by Piers, the plant of peace that is Christ in passus I, and the tree of Chanty of passus XVI. "Spire" may also be a theological wordplay on the Latin root spir- (breath), which occurs so frequently in words connected with the Holy Spirit—spiritus, spiratio, spiraculum.13 The speech that "spire is of grace" is indeed an emanation of the Holy Spirit who is Grace.14 13 The NED shows the following cognates that suggest a pun on "spyre" as breath, all with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century examples· spiracle, spiration, spirit, and spire (v 2), the last of which, as a verb, is cited in three different definitions accompanied by examples that use the word in connection with the Holy Spirit: "pe hooli goost spirep where he wole and J)ou heerest his voice" (Hilton's Scala perfectionis) 14 For other indications of the high role of speech, see XVIII, 128-30, where Mary's conception is attributed to speech, XIX, 229-33, where the gifts of speech are counted among the best of the gifts of the Spirit; I, 88-91; VIII, 80-84; V, 566; XIII, 150, XIX,

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Throughout the poem Langland maintains a distinction between professional minstrels and those who use their divine gift of speech properly. Only the latter, no matter what their profession, are true minstrels, "goddes glemen," while the professional entertainers are "gedelynges," abusing a divine gift shamelessly, sinfully, and in hope of getting gold.15 The professionals are rarely called minstrels but rather names that also mean scoundrel, deceiver, bawd, or vagabond: harlotes, japeres, jangeleres, deueles disours, foolis, jogelours, ribadours. Their profession fosters flattery and lies, "lecherie, losengerye and losels tales, / Glotonye and grete opes." 16 The entertainments at the feasts of rich men no doubt were not terribly edifying; Haukyn laments that he can get no gifts from lords because he cannot "Farten ne finelen at festes" (XIII, 231).17 But it is speech more than gastrointestinal marvels that obsesses Langland: foule wordes, rusty wordes, turpiloquio, lesynges, ydel tales, harlotrye. 18 Those who speak filth "spille speche pat spire is of grace I And goddes gleman and a game of heuene" (IX, 103). It is not alone the immorality of what they speak that disturbs him; they abuse God's gift to make money. 19 Minstrelsy for gain is a secular form of simony: selling a divine gift for "mede." When money or goods are given to scoundrels who can tell bawdy stories, the rest of productive humanity is correspondingly deprived of sustenance. Minstrels are thus the analogue in the sphere of the word to the wastrels who do not work, the lazy beggars and shiftless vagabonds who contribute nothing to the tilling of the earth. Professional minstrels in the poem are often specifically contrasted to other classes of men who use their gift of speech well, minstrels in a metaphoric sense. The dreamer, for example, interrupts his narrative to condemn the popular entertainments of the rich and to commend in281-86. It is also noteworthy that so many characters m the poem are defined in terms of speech. See Haukyn (XIII, 275-76, 321-27, 399-402), Pacience (XIII, 217), Charity (XV, 216-19), Spintus Temperancie (XIX, 281-86), Covetousness (XX, 124-25), Lechery (XX, 114-20), Sloth (V, 401-04), Gluttony (V, 367-69), Wrath (V, 162), Envy (V, 8688, 97-102), the knight (VI, 50-54), lawyers (VII, 47), Mede and her allies (II, 25, 41, 7983). 15 Cf. X, 39-45. 16 Passus X, 49-51; XIII, 422-35. 17 See Derek Pearsall's instructive note on professional farting at C XV 206 in Piers Plowman: An Edition of the C-Text. 18 Passus X, 41; VI, 73; prol , 1. 39; XIII, 456; V, 403, 406-07; X, 30. " See Haukyn's complaint in XIII, 224-37; and the phrase "Judas children" (prol. 1. 35; cf. IX, 93). A jester is as heinous as Judas for taking money that should have gone to the poor or to the faithful laborer.

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stead the "minstrels" whose entertainment teaches the way to the celestial banquet, where the revels will far surpass those of any earthly feast. Let the poor man serve for a wise fool, let the blind man serve for a jester, let the learned man sing the Passion and fiddle the heroic story of Good Friday (XIII, 436-51). This last image recalls the contrast lamented by Dame Studie between the "Harlotes . . . Iaperis and Iogelours and Iangleris of gestes," who are much in demand nowadays, and the out-of-fashion man "bat hap holy writ ay in his moube I And kan telle of Tobye and of be twelue Apostles / Or prechen of be penaunce pat Pilat wro3te I To Iesu pe gentile pat Iewes todrowe" (X, 30-35). These are the "gestes" of true minstrels, the stories of Scripture and the Word of God. Popular minstrels provide a different kind of poetry, which leads not to the celestial banquet but to "Luciferis feste"; they entertain with a turpiloquio, a "lay of sorwe" rather than "of good friday be geste," and with "luciferis fibele" rather than the well-tempered "fibele" of the Father that Wit had used as a metaphor for true speech.20 When the friars are found in company with minstrels in the poem, it is always with the corrupt, bawdy, feast-seeking minstrels of fourteenth-century life rather than with those whose minstrelsy is metaphoric, a singing of the divine word. Langland thus turns Franciscan tradition on its head; his friars are not ioculatores Domini but only ioculatores, like the minstrels, facile glossers and story tellers, feast seekers looking for gain. Their association with minstrels here serves to emphasize not that they sing the praises of God but that they are chief among those who abuse the divine gift of speech. Wherever the friars appear in the poem, their faults of speech are emphasized, since as preachers and confessors they use words as the main tool of their ministry. In the prologue, they preach for profit and gloss the Gospel as it pleases them (59-61). In passus XI they take Will for a fool "for my lele speche" (69). In the vision of Meed, Falseness flees to the friars, and "freres win fair speche" give Liar shelter and "coped hym as a Frere" (II, 213, 232-33). When Meed is brought to the king's palace, a friar comes to confess her: "mekeliche he loutede / And seide wel softely in shrift as it were" (III, 36-37). What follows is a corrupt parody of the sacrament of penance, a confession of words rather than of the will. The external nature of Meed's confession is emphasized by the friar's promise to have her name engraved in a stained glass window if she will help pay for building his church. The writing metaphor reflects the theme of speech and word, and here "to writen in wyn20

Passus XIII, 454-56. For the contrast of the two kinds of poetry, see also V, 394-408 and XII, 16-17.

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dowes of hir wel dedes" (III, 65) is contrasted with the recording of good deeds by Conscience, who is "goddes clerk and his Notarie." 21 Good deeds written in the book of Conscience and in the Book of Life in heaven need not be written in the windows of the friars' churches. The friars' abuse of speech in confession is taken up again in Wrath's speech in passus V. He was once the gardener of a friary where he worked, grafting shoots on a tree. On lymitours and listres lesynges I ymped Till pei beere leues of lowe speche lordes to plese, And siben bei blosmede abrood in boure to here shriftes. (V, 139-41) This odd arboreal image is the moral opposite of the tree of Charity in passus XVI, the foliage of which is also verbal: "The leues ben lele wordes, J)e lawe of holy chirche; / The blosmes bej) buxom speche and benigne lokynge" (XVI, 6-7). The fruit of the tree of charity is Charity itself, but from Wrath's tree the fallen fruit is the subversion of penance: people would now rather confess to a friar than to their own parish priest. Although Wrath does not say so, the fruit of his tree is also wrath itself, since disputes over confession have, as he shows, set the friars and the secular clergy at each other's throats. In passus VIII, as Will begins his quest for Dowel, his first teachers are "maistres of J>e Menours, men of grete witte." Yet their glib explanation of Dowel and of the avoidance of deadly sin teaches Will nothing. As he says as he leaves them, "I haue no kynde knowyng . . . to conceyuen bi wordes" (VIII, 57). Their teaching seems to him mere words, like that of the friar-minstrels of passus X who think up clever quaestiones to please the rich and educated, and who preach in such a way that the people are not confirmed in their faith (X, 72-75). Anima later repeats this charge: Freres and fele obere maistres J>at to be lewed folk prechen, Ye moeuen materes vnmesurable to tellen of \>e Trinite That lome ]?e lewed peple of hir bileue doute. (XV, 70-72) With such a background of false glossing of the Gospel, abuse of confession of mouth, false teaching and preaching, it comes as no surprise in the final passus of the poem that despite the efforts of Peace to keep the friars out of Unitee Holy Chirche, "boru3 hende speche be frere entred" (XX, 354). "Hende speche" has been shown to be a uni21

Passus XV, 32; see also XIV, 198-200. 256

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versal characteristic of the friars, particularly in religious speech by which their proper role calls for edification of the laity. Whether in preaching or in confession, the friars are "glosers," abusing not only their own gift of speech, but the "spire of grace," the means by which God's grace should be made manifest to the people. The association of the friars with faults of speech was traditional in antifraternal literature. William of St. Amour relied heavily on the epistles of St. Paul in accusing the friars of many of the speech-related vices of the pseudoapostoli in the early church: they preach without authority (non misst); they commend themselves more than Christ; they bear letters falsely testifying to their authority; they preach for temporal gain; they study to attain eloquence; they make ostentatious displays of learning; they make subtle arguments; they are contentious in speech; they preach fictions and fables.22 The friars of Piers Plowman closely resemble William's argumentative pseudoapostoli and the fasttalking friars of tradition. But Langland's friars are uniquely adapted to the poetic world of the poem because they are linked to the minstrels and through them to the failure of what the poem presents as one of the greatest gifts of God, true speech. BEGGARS AND BIDDERS

As the minstrels pervert the true function of words, so able-bodied beggars, soliciting alms under false pretenses, undermine a social order founded on work. In them and in their cousins, the friars, Langland seems to find a focus and a metaphoric language that enable him to explore the breakdown of order in a fallen world. It is not accidental that the passage condemning the minstrels in the prologue is followed immediately by this description of the beggars in the field of folk: Bidderes and beggeres faste aboute yede Til hire bely and hire bagge were bretful ycrammed; Flite panne for hire foode, fou3ten at pe ale. In glotonye, god woot, go pei to bedde, And risen vp wip nbaudie as Roberdes knaues; Sleep and sleupe sewep hem euere. (prol, 11. 40-45) The juxtaposition suggests an association between beggars and minstrels that is reinforced in the descriptive language. The wandering, the 22 See above, chapter 1, the section entitled "Pseudoapostles." These same faults of speech can be found in antifraternal poetry generally; see chapter 5, the section "Apostolus Newe."

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"ribaudie," "glotonye," and contentiousness of the beggars are reminiscent of the minstrels', who only a few lines earlier were declared to have, like the beggars, "wit at wille to werken if hem liste" (prol., 1. 37). Later in the poem honest beggars are commended to the rich as "goddes minstrales" to have at their feasts.23 It is, however, only dishonest beggars who resemble the decadent "Iaperes" and "Iangleres" Langland loathed: like the minstrels they wander here and there seeking a meal; they are ribalds and shirkers who do not do honest work; they flatter the rich for their food; they often lie about themselves and so win their livelihood by deceit and the telling of tales; hence, like the minstrels they are often called "faitours," one of Langland's favorite tags for the friars ("frere faitour and folk of his ordre," VI, 72). In fact, practically all the links between beggars and minstrels—wandering, gluttony, ribaldry, shirking, flattery, lying, "faityng"—also link them to the friars. If the friars were minstrels or ioculatores only metaphorically, they were literally beggars, under a religious rule and a vow of poverty. Their itinerant mendicancy—the characteristic and the most controversial feature of their way of life—put them squarely at the center of one of the key problems in the poem. Beggars live off the labor of others and contribute nothing to the common good. "Of beggeris and bidderis," Piers asks of Hunger, "what best be to doone?" (VI, 203). Despite his corporeal orientation, Hunger voices a fundamental tenet in Langland's view of the social order, when he says that "Kynde wit wolde pat ech wi3t wro3te. . . . The Sauter seib, in pe psalme of Bead omnes, I The freke pat fedep hymself wip his feipful labour I He is blessed by be book in body and in soule" (VI, 247-52). The obligation for every man to work is Biblical as "the Sauter" says (Ps. 127:2). Hunger cites other texts, most notably Gen. 3:19, "In sudore and swynk pow shalt pi mete tilie I And laboure for pi liflode, and so oure lord hi3te" (233-34). Labor may be mental as well as physical; Hunger welcomes teaching or "tellynge" as well as manual labor, the Contemplative Life as well as the Active Life. But the fundamental principle remains the same: man must live by labor for his "liflode." All beggars violate this principle. Their bread, if they have any at all, must be won by others' toil. Some, Langland acknowledges, are beggars through misfortune, and these he specifically exempts from any censure: the old who have no strength, women with children, the blind, the bedridden, the lame, lepers, and all those whom Fortune has incapacitated. AU these, even Hunger admits, deserve Christian charity 23

Passus XIII, 438-51; XI, 190-204a.

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and should be provided for.24 But these truly needy beggars are comparatively rare in the poem; Langland's more urgent concern is with the able-bodied who beg under false pretenses.25 Such false beggars are specifically excluded from the pardon that Truth sends to Piers because they take by fraud goods that should go to the deserving poor: For he bat beggeb or bit, but he haue nede, He is fals wib be feend and defraudeb be nedy, And ek gileb be gyuere ageynes his wille. For if he wiste he were no3t nedy he wolde it 3yue Anober that were moore nedy; so be nedieste sholde be holpe. (VII, 67-71) Begging then can only be justified by need, which is defined narrowly on Biblical grounds: "whoso hab to buggen hym breed, be book bereb witnesse, I He hab ynou3 bat hab breed ynou3, bou3 he haue no3t ellis. I Satis diues est qui non indiget pane."26 In fact, says Langland, the Bible in Ps. 36:25 "banneb beggerie and blameb hem [beggars]" (VII, 89). Beggars are identified with Sloth, who wasted worldly goods, especially food, in his youth, never learned a craft, and ever since has been a beggar.27 The problem of the beggars is also tied in with the dreamer's chronic perceptual problem of distinguishing the true from the false. Some beggars, says Anima, try to appear pious in hopes of winning their meals more easily: For ber are beggeris and bidderis, bedemen as it were, Loken as lambren and semen Hf holy, Ac it is moore to haue hir mete on swich an esy manere Than for penaunce and parfitnesse, be pouerte bat swiche takeb. Therfore by colour ne by clergie knowe shaltow hym [charity] neuere, Neiber boru3 wordes ne werkes, but boru3 wil oone. (XV, 205-10) 24 Passus VI, 221-226a; VII, 100-106 See also IX, 82-94a; XV, 570-78a; XIII, 438-51; XI, 190-204a; XIV, 117-20. 25 It has often been noted that able bodied beggars were a serious problem in late-fourteenth-century society; see Pearsall's notes to C VIII, 149 and 210. 26 Passus VII, 84-86a. The quotation is actually from Jerome's Epistle 125 (PL XXII, 1085), as pointed out by A.V.C. Schmidt, ed., The Vision of Piers Plowman (New York: Dutton, 1978), p. 324. 27 Passus V, 440. See also the C text, Derek Pearsall, ed., Piers Plowman: An Edition of the C-text, IX, 207-11, where the friars inspire poor workmen to take up the guise of holy beggars. The C text uses a new term for begging under false pretenses, "lollarne lyf": C V, 27-31; IX, 103, 157, 192. AU citations of the C text are from this edition.

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The "parfitnesse" and "lif holy" appearance of these beggars makes them sound virtually indistinguishable from the friars; Anima indeed may have meant the friars. In either case, the holy-seeming beggar makes difficult the acts of charity, because the false mendicant looks so like the true. False beggars aside, there are two other reasons to think Langland sees begging as spiritually harmful. One is the poem's recurrent doc­ trine of restitution; the other is its doctrine of charity. There is in Piers Plowman a system of moral accounting, conveyed by language from the mercantile trades: debt, accounts, reckoning, wages, treasure, "hire," borrowing, equity, assets, payment, "arrerage." Restitution, and the phrase that often expresses it in the poem, "Redde quod debes" (pay what you owe), participate in this system. As Robert Frank has pointed out, restitution is part of the sacrament of penance, and akin to satisfaction: the penitent must try to make restitution of goods wrong­ fully attained and to make good any wrongs he has done to others. 2 8 It is in this partly material sense that Repentance uses the term in the great confession scene in passus V: Thow art an vnkynde creature; I kan pee no3t assoille Til bow make restitucion . . . and rekene wip hem alle; And sipen pat Reson rolle it in pe Registre of heuene That bow hast maad ech man good I may bee no3t assoille: Non dimittiturpeccatum donee restituatur ablatum. (V, 27(^73a) To commit sin is to go into debt, to borrow rather than to pay: "pe good pat pow hast geten bigan al wib falshede, I And as longe as bow lyuest berwith bow yeldest no3t but borwest" (V, 287-88). Sin is debt, and to make restitution therefore has a more spiritual meaning. Al­ though the debt is incurred to those against whom we sin, ultimately the debt is owed to God. To make restitution for that obligation, there can be no question of material payment. The payment must be love. Love of God and love of our neighbor—only these fulfill the command οι Redde quod debes.29 Sin is always so great that the debt can never be fully paid; but God, seeing a repentant and loving will, makes up the difference: So wol pe fader for3yue folk of mylde hertes That rufully repenten and restitucion make, 28 Robert Frank, Piers Plowman and the Scheme of Salvation, Yale Studies in English, 136 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), pp. 106-09. 29 Romans 13:7-10 and Frank, p. 109.

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In as muche as bei mowen amenden and paien; And if it suffise no3t for asset3, pat in swich a wille deyep, Mercy for his mekenesse wol maken good be remenaunt. (XVII, 238-42) Against such a background, it is not difficult to see why Langland should view begging as opprobrious. To beg is to borrow and to borrow is to incur debt. Under the obligations ofredde quod debes, the beggar can never make restitution but, as long as he begs, falls further into debt, not only to those who give him alms but to God who rewards those who give to him: . . . he bat biddeb, borweb and bryngeb hymself in dette. For beggeres borwen eueremo and hir borgh is god almy3ty To yelden hem bat yeueb hem and yet vsure moore. (VII, 81-83) The solution to the problem of restitution is charity. Only love can make good our debts. But charity expresses itself by giving not by taking, by payment not by borrowing, and so, in Langland's view, charity and begging are mutually exclusive. Beggars "lyue in no loue ne no lawe holde" (VII, 90). Anima puts the case bluntly: I haue yseyen charite also syngen and reden, Riden and rennen in raggede wedes, Ac biddynge as beggeris beheld I hym neuere. (XV, 225-27) Anima is thinking of the friars in part. Charity was found in a friar's frock, he says, only in St. Francis's day (before institutionalized mendicancy became the Franciscan way of life); since then he has seldom been seen in that sect (230-32). To live by charity is not to beg: "The mooste liflode he [charity] lyuep, by is loue in goddes passion; I Neiper he biddeb ne beggep ne borwe}) to yelde" (XV, 255-56).30 The status of begging is closely connected with the problem of liflode, as Anima's last remark suggests. Throughout the poem, the question of how best to win one's livelihood is raised, from Piers's promise to "lenen liflode" and "fynden fode" for all "pat feipfulliche libbeb" in passus VI (17, 69) to the dreamer's final question in the poem, "How shal I come to catel so to elope me and to feede" (XX, 30

When Langland revised this passage in the C text, the condemnation of begging became even stronger: "For nober he ne beggeth ne biddeth, ne borweth to 3elde. / He halt hit for a vyce and a foule shame / To begge or to borwe, but of god one. I Partem nostrum cotidianum [da nobis hodie. Matt. 611]," CXVI, 369-71a. 261

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209). The answer initially, as we saw in Hunger's pronouncements in passus VI, is work, some "craft." Piers will provide food for "alle kynne crafty men" (VI, 68). But with the episode of the pardon, Piers's idea of proper liflode suddenly changes, and so announces a major change in the poem's concern. He will cease working so hard at his sowing, he says, and attend less to bodily necessities: "Of preieres and of penaunce my plou3 shal ben herafter" (VII, 123). More important than labor is love, because who "loueb god lelly his liflode is ful esy" (128). Look in the Gospel of Luke, Piers urges, where we are taught by the example of birds who live from day to day and are not always concerned with their "bely ioye": Ne soliciti sitis he seib in the gospel, And sheweb vs by ensample vs selue to wisse. The foweles in be firmament, who fynt hem at wynter? Whan be frost fresep fode hem bihoueb; Haue bei no gerner to go to but god fynt hem alle. (VII, 131-35) "Ne soliciti sitis" is from the Sermon on the Mount: (25) Therefore I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. . . . (26) Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. (Matt. 6:25-26) Christ urges the avoidance of solicitude about bodily needs in favor of seeking the kingdom of God; and second, he declares that God will provide. These ideas are reiterated often in the remainder of Piers Plowman. In passus XI, we are told that the man who serves God will not lack food, linen, wool, or "liflode" (XI, 279-82). Later, in an echo of Piers's renunciation of his earthly plow, Patience urges Haukyn, who is a material provider of the world's bread, to abandon his concerns for the world's liflode. He, Patience, will provide flour and dough, even though no plow harrow and no grain grow. AU pat lyuep and lokeb liflode wolde I fynde And pat ynogh; shal noon faille of byng bat hem nedeb: Ne soliciti sitis &c; volucres celi deus pascit &c; pacientes vincunt &c. (XIV, 32-33a) Haukyn is amused and skeptical that Patience could feed all the world, but Patience, who is nothing if not patient, pulls out of his bag "liflode ynogh, if oure bileue be trewe" (38). Underlying his assurance is a 262

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theocentric economic theory that informs much of the poem's attitudes toward work, begging, and the distribution of goods: "lent neuere was lif but liflode were shapen I Wherof or wherfore or wherby to libbe" (39-40). What Patience in fact pulls out of his bag is a piece of the Paternoster, "fiat voluntas tua" which "sholde fynde vs alle" (50). The abandonment of solicitude for our liflode and a patient submission to the will of God will suffice to feed us. How? The answer is—as it was with the problem of restitution—love. Piers had already anticipated such an answer when he announced at his "conversion" in the Pardon scene that he who "louep god lelly his liflode is ful esy" (VII, 128). Anima confirms this in his long discourse on charity. Charity cares not for rents or riches or worldly goods because "a frend bat fyndep hym failed hym neuere at nede: I Fiat voluntas tua fynt hym eueremoore" (XV, 178-79). This lesson, though taught earlier, is also the last one given to the dreamer. In passus XX, the dreamer, who has been a mendicant vagabond, is advised to learn some craft before he enters the fold of the faithful. What craft is best to learn? he asks. "Lerne to loue," says Kynde, "and leef alle opere." Will then wonders how he can clothe and feed himself, and the answer shot back is exactly that of Piers, Patience, and Anima: "And bow loue lelly lakke shal pee neuere I Weede ne worldly mete while pi lif lastep" (XX, 210-11). To live by love, to avoid solicitude about one's necessities, to cast oneself upon the will of God—these precepts sound very close to the ideal of the friars, voluntary and mendicant poverty. But from the evidence we have seen above about Langland's attitude toward begging, especially begging with bags; about the duty of the able-bodied to work at some productive craft, whether manual or spiritual; about the debt beggars incur and from which they cannot make restitution; and, most tellingly, about the opposition between love (caritas) and begging—from all these it seems clear that Ne soliciti sitis for Langland specifically excludes professional begging of the sort practiced by the friars. His position must therefore be close to that of Thomas de Wilton, who attacked the friars' interpretation of Ne soliciti sitis—that Christ was endorsing mendicancy—by arguing that Christ intended not to reject manual labor (or communal begging) but only to caution against solicitude for bodily necessities. Solicitude, according to Thomas, is an attitude, not a means of provision, and beggars, especially those who (like the friars) have storerooms, may indeed be more solicitous about their livelihood than those who work. 31 31

See above, chapter 2, section entitled "Thomas de Wilton"; and Bodl. MS Rawhnson A. 273, fol. 100'.

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That Langland's position is close to Thomas de Wilton's may be seen in Anima's long speech on Charity in passus XV. The speech is the culmination of a long series of advances in Will's understanding of love, from Holy Church's speech in passus I and Piers's brief pronouncement after the tearing of the pardon, to the twin speeches on patient poverty in passus XI and (by Patience) in passus XIII. First Anima lays down the principle that for Charity "the mooste liflode he lyuep by is loue in goddes passion; I Neiper he biddeb ne beggeb ne borweb to yelde" (255-56). Next, examples are provided of holy men who lived on love. From the Legenda sanctorum, Anima adduces St. Anthony, St. Egidius, and St. Paul, the first hermit, all of whom dwelled in the wilderness in solitude among wild beasts, being fed by birds and the milk of a doe. The C text says they "lyuede I Withoute borwynge or beggynge bote of god one." 32 Manual labor is also a way of living from love. Paul the apostle, says Anima, made baskets and "wan wip hise hondes bat his wombe neded" (291). Peter and Andrew were fishermen; Mary Magdalene lived off roots. To conclude these examples, the C text emphasizes again that all these saints lived "for oure lordes loue . . . I Withoute borwynge or beggynge, or pe boek lyeth" (XVII, 2627). In the B text there is a longer passage that by indirection points to the same conclusion and, more important, applies it to the friars. Anima, no shirker at hermeneutics, offers an allegorical interpretation of his own account of the liflode of the desert fathers. As God sent birds (rather than savage beasts) to feed the saints, so only "rightfulle" and "lawefulle" men (and not sinners) should provide liflode by their alms to men leading a religious and holy life. Friars, in fact, should refuse alms from the guilty and tell them to return their ill-gotten goods to the rightful owner. Anima's conclusion does not mention begging but certainly implies disapproval: "For we by goddes behestes abiden alwey I Til briddes brynge vs wherby we sholde lyue" (B XV, 313-14). To abide till birds or righteous men freely offer sustenance is not to ask but to abide in patience: pacientes vincunt. It is this passive, patient trust in God's providence that is for Langland the true meaning of Ne soliciti sitis and Spera in Deo—not the solicitous poverty of begging but the patient poverty of Fiat voluntas tua. 32

C XVII, 7-8. The B text, after stating that Chanty "neiper . . biddep ne beggeb ne borweb" (256), says inconsistently that the desert fathers were "Monkes and mendinaunt3, men by hemselue" (274). But none of them is described as having begged, and it seems likely that "mendinaunt3" entered the text primarily to meet alliterative requirements. The C revision not only eliminates the inconsistent line, but also adds two lines (XVII, 8, 27) specifically stating that they did not beg. 264

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THE MENDICANT NARRATOR

Langland's association of the friars with minstrels and beggars highlights their perversions of man's spiritual and corporeal responsibilities—in words and in work. Langland creates another equally important association, however, that reveals the friars' centrality in the psychological geography of the poem. That association is with the narrator and central protagonist, Will himself. Like the friars, Will is a wanderer, a fact emphasized at structurally significant points in the poem. In the prologue, he "wente wide in bis world wondres to here" and falls asleep "wery forwandred" (4, 7). After the Visio and before the Vita de Dowel, he "romed aboute" for a whole summer season (VIII, 1-2). And after the apparent end of his inward journey and before his encounter with outward forms of right action in the person of Patience, again "forb gan I walke" (XIII, 2). Like the friars, Will exhibits an inordinate craving for learning and knowledge of abstruse theological matters. In passus X, Dame Study seems to take Will for one of those who, like the friars, frequent rich men's feasts and raise sophistic questions about theology only to find contradictions in Scriptural or ecclesiastical teaching. Ymaginatif accuses Will of presuming to judge matters beyond his power, hence understanding little of Clergye's and Reason's teachings (XI, 413-26; XII, 16-19). Anima, learning that Will would like to know "alle be sciences vnder sonne" and especially what Anima is, calls him "inparfit" and "oon of prides kny3tes" (XV, 48-50), comparing him to Lucifer. In the lust for knowledge, says Anima, lurks pride, a carnal craving that is opposed to the teaching of Christ and all the Fathers. Offering Will an illustration of his own fault, Anima points to "Freres and fele opere maistres" who unsettle the people's faith with sophistic displays of "heigh clergie," "moore for pompe pan for pure charite" (XV, 70-79). Like the friars, Will is also something of a beggar. As the poem opens he is garbed as a wandering "heremite, vnholy of werkes" (prol., 1. 3). In passus XIII he is more explicit: "as a freke pat fey were forb gan I walke / In manere of a mendynaunt many yer after" (2-3). 33 Later, he is "wolleward and weetshoed . . . a recchelees renk" and wanders like a "lorel" (XVIII, 1-3). In the final passus of the poem, Need advises him not to be ashamed "to bide and to be nedy" (XX, 48). All these hints of Will's begging are strengthened at the beginning of passus V in the C text, where there is a long "autobiographical" passage, lacking 33 The passage is preserved in the C text (XV, 2-3). Since Langland made many changes in the C text to put beggars in a worse light, the negative implications in B must be intentional.

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in B, about Will's life in London and how he made his living. He has good health and "limbs to labory with" but has loved nothing better than drinking and sleeping. Suddenly he is accosted by Conscience and Reason. They demand to know if he knows any productive craft that might contribute to the common good—serving or singing in church, cooking, mowing, stacking, reaping, acting as a hayward, hedging, harrowing, or driving the flocks, or "eny other kynes craft bat to be comune nedeth" (20). Will makes a few feeble excuses, but Reason turns on him: . . . an ydel man bow semest, A spendour pat spene mot or a spille-tyme, Or beggest thy bylyue aboute at men hacches Or faytest vppon Frydayes or feste-dayes in churches, The whiche is lollarne lyf, bat lytel is preysed. (C V, 27-31) Will is being accused of the worst sort of fraudulent begging—"faytest" and "lollarne lyf" are loaded words. Will defends himself, desperately but uninventively. One should live by the labor he learned best, he argues, and when he was young he was sent to school to learn about Holy Writ and what was best for body and soul. Now, therefore, the tools that he labors with are the paternoster and his prayer book. He says prayers for the souls of those who help him and provide him with food. Thus, he says, "on this wyse y begge I Withoute bagge or botel but my wombe one" (C V, 51-52). If true, this is a good argument. Beggars with bags are later condemned in the C text, while those without are exonerated on the same grounds as the desert fathers—they store nothing for the future, and so are not solicitous for their livelihood. They put themselves at risk by living from day to day and trusting in God and Christian charity to provide their necessities. Will ends his speech with a fine rhetorical show, asserting that "in his conscience" he knows prayers and penance are the labors that Christ would have him do. Man does not live by bread alone, as the paternoster testifies: "Fiat voluntas dei—pat fynt vs alle thynges" (88). Will has the right rhetoric, but Conscience brings him up short: "Quod Conscience, 'By Crist, y can nat se this lyeth; I Ac it semeth no sad parfitnesse in citees to begge' " (V, 89-90). "That is soth," says Will, without so much as a whimper (it is after all his conscience that reproves him) and admits that "y haue ytynt tyme and tyme myspened" (93). In view of the linking of friars with beggars and minstrels elsewhere in the poem, it is not surprising to find that Will is also associated with minstrels. Will is after all a poet, and minstrelsy and poetry were both 266

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branches of the verbal arts. Donaldson has pointed out how Dame Study seems to view the dreamer's occupation: Her sudden leap into the subject of minstrelsy seems motivated by her taking, or mistaking, the Dreamer for a minstrel of some sort and, since she is a suspicious woman, for a minstrel of the worst sort. The theme of righteous and unrighteous entertainment, once she gets into it, remains dominant throughout her tirade. The Dreamer is, by implication, likened to every sort of person whose livelihood might depend on an ability to provide entertainment at mealtime, whether by parodying the scholastics or by telling indecent stories. The precise nature of the Dreamer's occupation she does not seem to know, except that it is related to minstrelsy and is undoubtedly impious. 34 Her speech is a tirade directed at her husband, Wit, whom she harasses for trying to teach any wisdom to the likes of Will, "to flatereres or to fooles pat frenetike ben of wittes" (XV, 6). Will is thus like those who at the feasts of lords "feynen hem foolis and wip faityng libbep . . . and lyen on hemselue," that is, "harlotes. . . And Iaperis and Iogelours and Iangleris of gestes" (30-40). They lie not only about themselves but about those who give them no gifts as rewards for their entertainment (43). Such minstrels are contrasted with the metaphoric minstrel "pat hap holy writ ay in his moupe" (32). Minstrelsy is in decline and nowadays is nothing but lechery, flattery, and "losels tales" (49-50). Hence it can only be ironic that at the end of this harangue, when Dame Study finally deigns to be civil to the Dreamer, he is "Gladder ban pe gleman pat gold hap to 3ifte" (159). In passus XII, Ymaginatif accuses the dreamer of poetry: "bow medlest pee wip makynges and my3test go seye pi sauter" (XII, 16). The opposition between "makynges" and saying the psalter echoes the contrast Study draws between the "harlotrie" of professional minstrels and the tales of the man "pat hap holy writ ay in his moupe I And kan telle of Tobye and of pe twelue Apostles" (X, 30-33). Finally, insofar as the dreamer is a beggar, he is, like all other mendicants in the poem, potentially what Langland calls "goddes minstrale." ENDINGS: WILL

Will's mysterious affinity with the friars is also the key to the end of the poem. The final passus is divided in two parts at its geographical center 34

Piers Plowman: The C Text ana its Poet, pp. 149-50. Donaldson makes his remarks about the A text, but they seem to apply equally well to the B text. 267

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by Elde's attack on Will, an episode that ends with his entry into Unitee Holy Chirche at line 213. Will's entrance into the church is also an exit, the final act of Will the character in the passus and in the poem. In large, it closes Will's long quest; in small, it closes the chapter opened when Nede scolded Will at the start of the passus, for he is finally told how his needs will be satisfied. The greatest puzzle of the passus' first half is Nede's long opening speech (XX, 6-50). The argument is seductive. He berates Will, who has waked to find himself in need of food, for not taking what he needed, though no more. Everyone is entitled, says Nede, to a sufficiency of three things to sustain life: food, drink, and clothing. In dire straits the needy may take them for their own without counsel of Conscience or the cardinal virtues, as long as they follow the principles of temperance. God himself became needy when Christ took on our humanity and lived in voluntary poverty. One should not be ashamed to beg and be needy, for he who created all the world was voluntarily needy. No one ever died more poor or needy than he. Thus Nede. There is something slippery about this speech. There can be no doubt that Christ was needy, nor that the poor were entitled (by medieval canon law) to things necessary to sustain life. But what Nede is urging on Will sounds suspiciously like theft: "And he cacche in bat caas and come berto by sleighte I He synneb no3t" (14—15). The problem is compounded because there are no moral coordinates by which to navigate. Nede has never appeared before in the poem, and he enters here without introduction or context. We do not know why he appears. Will does not speak to him or respond in any way; instead of helping himself to someone else's meal, as he is advised, he falls asleep. Nede speaks only once more in the poem, but as that speech has its own problems (to be discussed), it is of little help here. And though poverty, begging, and charity have engaged Langland a great deal, nowhere else has he raised the specific issue of rights to the common store in times of dire necessity. This speech has divided modern critics of the poem, who have argued persuasively on both sides of Nede's fence. Some see Nede as a virtue, the "regulating principle of temperance" and the culmination of the poem's praise of temperance and poverty. 35 Others, however, see Nede as a smooth-talking vice, with specious arguments that distort 35 Morton Bloomfield, Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-century Apocalypse (New Brunswick, N J . : Rutgers University Press, 1961), pp. 135-40; D. W. Robertson and Bernard Huppe, Piers Plowman and Scriptural Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 227-29; John Lawlor, Piers Plowman: An Essay in Criticism (London: Edward Arnold, 1962), pp. 178-79.

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the ideals ofmesure and patient poverty in the service of acquisitiveness or worse, petty theft.36 At least one critic has been sufficiently bamboozled by Nede to argue first one position, then the other.37 One cause of disagreement about this speech is a problem Langland may have been trying to dramatize: "Nede" is semantically ambiguous, both the word and the state. The problem of semantic ambiguity has stalked Will throughout the poem, especially with Dowel, but also with words like Mede, tresor, and Clergye. More to the point here, Will has been learning to discriminate among many shades of meaning—and many moral degrees—of need, though he has usually used some other term: patient poverty, involuntary and voluntary poverty, poverty under a Rule, able-bodied begging, begging from necessity, begging under a Rule, begging with and without a bag, "faitynge," "lollarne lyf." All of these, the legitimate and the illegitimate, are to superficial appearance quite similar, but to the moral sense quite distinct, and all are embraced in the word "Nede." It is with the problem of Nede's definition that Will—and his readers—must grapple. Many things Nede says are perfectly orthodox: that Christ was poor and humble; that poverty and humility are kin; that temperance or measure is a great virtue. Even his most startling claim—that the needy man is entitled to take what he needs, "by sleighte" if necessary—is an accepted doctrine of the church, though hedged with strict conditions. Both Thomas Aquinas and Richard FitzRalph give it guarded approval. 38 In one sermon, FitzRalph reports that in Paris, beggars caught stealing were hanged if they had the wherewithal to buy bread but were set free if truly destitute.39 In one of the famous London sermons against the friars in 1357, FitzRalph describes the theological rationale by which the destitute may rightfully steal food: Si quis necessitatem habeat non provenientem ex culpa, non tunc rem sibi necessariam proximi sui cupit, sed suam, cum eo casu id quod necessarium extat ei de possessis a proximo debeatur sibi de lege dei et hominum. . . . Dici potest quia casus necessitatis non venit sub lege, sed intelligitur a lege exceptus.40 36

Robert Frank, Scheme of Salvation, pp. 112-18; Mary Carruthers, The Search for St. Truth- A Study of Meaning tn Piers Plowman (Evanston, IU : Northwestern University Press, 1973), pp. 160-62; Robert Adams, "The NatureofNeed in'Piers Plowman'XX," Traditio, 34(1978), 273-301. 37 See P. R. Szittya, "Caimes Kynde," Ph.D. diss. Cornell University, 1971, pp. 179— 81, and cf. the present argument; Heu michi quia sterilem duxi vitam Iuuenilem. 38 For Aquinas, see Summa theologiae, 2a2ae, 32, 7 and 2a2ae, 66, 7-8, in vols. 34 and 38 of the Blackfnars English edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975). 39 Aubrey Gwynn, "Archbishop FitzRalph," Studies, 25 (1936), 93. 40 "Quodcumque dixerit vobis facite," Cambridge, Sidney Sussex MS 64, fol. 43r_v 269

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[If someone suffering great need, not caused by his own wrongdoing, should desire his neighbor's property, as long as that property is a necessary for him, he actually desires, as it were, his own property, since under those circumstances, his necessaries are owed to him from the things possessed by his neighbor, according to the law of God and men. . . . It can be said that a case of necessity does not come under the law, but is understood as excepted from the law.] FitzRalph's assumption, which Langland shares, is that God created a sufficiency of necessities—food, clothing, drink—for all, and that necessities are therefore the property of everyone in common. 41 But the suspension of the laws of property, for both FitzRalph and Aquinas, is limited to rare cases of dire necessity. It is to those cases that FitzRalph restricts himself when he says "necessity does not come under the law." Nede seems to make the same point with a maxim, "Nede hab no lawe" (Necessitas non habet legem), a maxim endorsed in canon law and approved by prominent theologians, though always under the kinds of conditions outlined by FitzRalph.42 In Nede's speech, however, the careful restrictions observed by the theologians soon dissolve because the meaning of need changes as the speech progresses. At first it is extreme need: "nede hap no lawe . . . For pre pynges he takep his Hf for to saue. . . . So nede at gret nede may nymen as for his owene." But this situation of desperation—a lack of food and clothing so great that death looms—seems hardly identifiable with the "nede" that makes men meek and "lowe as a lomb" (36); or with the need of philosophers who have forsaken wealth to live "wel elengely" and voluntarily poor (39); or (necessarily) with the need of beggars (48); or with the need of Christ, who "al his grete loye goodst41 In the first passus of Piers, Lady HoIi Chirche makes a similar argument, m language that Nede later echoes. God created the earth to provide all "liflode at nede" and "in mesurable manere." Therefore he created three things in common, and nothing is "nedfulle" but them: clothing, food, and drink (I, 17-25) Nede likewise says for the needy man "pre pynges he takep his Kf for to saue," that is, food, clothing, and drink. And like Holy Church, Nede connects the right to these necessities with mesure, "so pat he sewe and saue Spiritus temperancie." There is, however, an important difference in the emphasis of the two passages. In HoIi Chirche's speech, the three necessities are bestowed to all in common through God's love, in Nede's they are presented as everyone's right, to be taken "by sleighte" if necessary. 42 Gratian, II.1.1, glossa ante cap. 40 in Corpus iuris canonid, I, 374; St. Bernard, Liber depraecepto, V, in PL, CLXXXII, 867; William of St. Thierry, Commentatio ex Bernardo, in PL, CLXXXIV, 433. Pamela Gradon, "Langland and the Ideology of Dissent," PBA, 66 (1980), 203, has recently pointed out that it also appears in the Sext, in Exiit qui seminal, Sextus V.12.3, in Corpus iuris canonid, II, 1113.

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liche he lefte I And cam and took mankynde and bicam nedy" (41). Christ was poor, but the passage also suggests a metaphoric impoverishment in becoming man; neither poverty endorses by example the desperate need of one who must steal to stay alive. Under these circumstances we are well advised to wonder if necessitas non habet legem applies to Will's need after all. He is, like the needy philosophers, "elenge in herte" (2); he is "heuy chered" and does not know "wher to ete ne at what place" (3); but there seem to be no signs that his plight is desperate in the way envisioned by FitzRalph, Aquinas, Bernard, and other theologians when they absolved the needy from the law. Nede's absolution of Will, then, is suspect because "Nede hap no lawe" only when need is narrowly defined. There are other things that render Nede's advice to Will suspect, for example, the immediate narrative context. As has been observed recently, passus XIX ends with the perversion of three of the cardinal virtues by several worldly characters, but the fourth—Spiritus Temperancie—seems to be missing. Nede, urging temperance while validating theft, completes the pattern with the perversion of Spiritus Temperancie.43, Also damning is the immediate result of Nede's speech. With Nede's voice still ringing in his ears, Will falls asleep and instantly dreams of Antichrist, who "made fals sprynge and sprede and spede mennes nedes" (55).44 The dream thus seems to hint that the voice urging the waking Will to "spede his nedes" was "fals." That Nede may be a "fals" adviser, an agent of Antichrist, as the dream hints, is made more likely by Robert Adams's recent discovery of a traditional patristic idea that a period of egestas (need, poverty) would precede Antichrist. It comes from a tradition of commentary on Job 41:13, "Et faciem ems praecedit egestas" ("And nede shal go beforn his face"). The period preceding the advent of Antichrist, it was thought, "would be marked by widespread famine and indigence as well as spiritual impoverishment." 45 Context aside, there are signals within Nede's own speech that we should be cautious about what he says. He makes mistakes in facts. He says that Will should excuse himself as the king had just done at the end of passus XIX, that his taking of others' goods was prompted by "techynge . . . of Spiritus temperancie." But the king says clearly, "I take it at pe techynge I Of Spiritus Iusticie" (XIX, 473-74). The mistake 43 See especially Adams, "Nature of Need," pp. 278-79; Carruthers, Search for St. Truth, p. 160, makes a similar argument in less detail. 44 Adams, "Nature of Need," p. 279. 45 Adams, "Nature of Need," p. 282. The translation ofJob 41:13 (cited by Adams) is from the first Wycliffite translation of the Vulgate.

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in Spiritus is only a sign of a larger error: kings and commoners do not have property rights of the same order. Nede says Temperance is the highest of the cardinal virtues, but Conscience only a hundred lines before has called Spiritus Iusticie "the chief seed pat Piers sew" (406). When Nede would permit the taking of one's goods "by sleighte" and "witpouten conseil of Conscience or Cardynale vertues" (XX, 21), he sounds like the disreputable vicar who has described the corruption of the people: "For be comune . . . counten ful litel I The counseil of Conscience or Cardinale vertues. . . . Ech man subtileb a slei3te synne to hide I And coloureb it for a konnynge and a clene lyuyng" (XIX, 451— 58). Nede also makes mistakes in citing Scripture. The verse he attributes to Christ on the Cross is actually from much earlier in the Gospel (Matt. 8:20) and does not pertain to Christ's death. Nede's quotation is only the loosest of paraphrases in which he elevates need, not named in Scripture, to paramount importance. Nede also misuses maxims, as is evident in "Nede hap no lawe." Similarly problematic is his use of "Homo proponit et Deus disponit." He uses it to support his disparagement of the cardinal virtues, in this case prudence; but the maxim has already been discredited in any case from its use by Rechelesnesse to support the lassitude for which his name stands (XI, 37-38).46 Finally, Nede contradicts some of the poem's most emphatic doctrines. When he says Nede "nevere shal falle in dette," he releases the needy from the obligations of "redde quod debes," the doctrine of restitution that is stressed nowhere in the poem as strongly as in passus XIX and XX. It may be true that the destitute on the point of death may incur no moral debts in seizing their food, but Langland has been particularly clear that beggars are borrowers and fall even deeper into debt. Nede's advice to "bide and to be nedy" then can only be perverse. It is useful to remind oneself how many of the poem's central ideas about liflode are controverted in Nede's speech: love, suffraunce, patience, ne soliciti sitis, fiat voluntas tua, all these are forgotten by a speaker whose favorite verb is "take" (nome, takep, cacche, wynnep, come to, nymen). "Nede hap no lawe" only if charity fails. That Will rejects Nede's easy advice about his liflode is implied by his silence and by his instant dream in which men's needs are easily supplied by an agent of Antichrist. Also, Nede's opening question implies that Will does not excuse himself like the king; likewise, Nede's parting remark implies that Will was ashamed to "bide and . . . be nedy." 46 I follow the punctuation of Schmidt's edition rather than Kane-Donaldson here, holding with Schmidt that the maxim is uttered by Rechelesnesse who quotes it from Plato Kane-Donaldson punctuate so that Rechelesnesse's speech ends before the maxim.

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Will's rejection of Nede's advice becomes obvious and explicit 150 lines later at the end of the first half of passus XX. Elde attacks and Death approaches Will. In his dread, he cries out to Kynde to bring him out of care. Kynde's advice is to "wend into vnitee," the church, but to learn "som craft" before he comes. Such counsel pinpoints a problem that has been alluded to in practically all the waking intervals of the poem: Will is a man without a craft, a "lorel," a sometime "mendinaunt," a wanderer without a place in the social order and without a contribution to offer to the common welfare. Without a craft he has lived off the goods and the love of others, storing up debts until the day of doom. The importance of a craft has been repeatedly stressed, as in passus VI, by Piers, and in passus XIX, by Grace, who distributes crafts, both the secular and the spiritual, to the waiting world and counsels: "maketh craft youre Stiward, I And after craftes conseil clopep yow and fede" (XIX, 256-57). This finally registers on Will at the end of his life, and he now responds to Kynde: " 'Counseille me, kynde,' quod I, 'what craft is best to lerne?' I 'Lerne to loue,' quod kynde, 'and leef alle opere' " (207-08). Love, the best craft, is the spiritual answer to all worldly problems, especially those of worldly need. Will asks again the question that is implicit in his earlier encounter with Nede, when he "ne wiste wher to ete ne at what place": "How shal I come to catel so to elope me and to feede?" Kynde's answer is an antithesis to Nede's "take": "And pow loue lelly lakke shal pee neuere / Weede ne worldly mete while pi Hf lastep" (210-11). This is no new lesson. Piers, among others, has said the same thing in passus VII: "That louep god lelly his liflode is ful esy" (128). It is identical with the doctrine of Ne soliciti sitis. That Will does not follow Nede's advice of "take" but instead enters Unity is an indication that he has finally learned the lesson of love. At the end of Will's life and near the end of the poem, the problem of Will's waking "nede" frames a dreamed episode with which it apparently has little to do: the assault of the forces of Antichrist on Conscience and Unitee. In the dream, Antichrist's army is a ragtag band of sins and sinners. Led by Pride and a lord that "lyued after lust," they are reinforced by the friars, Fortune, Lecherie, Coueitise, and finally Lif, whose union with Fortune engenders an offspring, Sloth. Conscience, by contrast, calls to his defense Kynde, and more specifically the forces of nature that make men so afraid that they cast off their sins and come into Unitee. Chief among these are disease and old age (Elde), who bears the banner before Death. As the episode ends, these are on the verge of routing Antichrist's army. One of the most amusing but poignant scenes in this allegorical battle occurs when Elde attacks 273

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"lif," who flees to "phisik." Lif thinks that leechcraft (medical science) can drive away old age and death, but is quickly disabused when Elde strikes down a physician who falls into a palsy and dies. Desperate, Lif rides to Revel to drown his fear in merrymaking. But Elde, in hot pursuit—by one of those fantastic turns that happen only in dreams—suddenly rounds on Will the dreamer, running smack over his head like a runaway lawn mower, leaving him bald before and behind. The dream runs over the dreamer and instantly Will is old. Afraid of death, he cries out for Kynde, and suddenly we are at the end of the episode and back to the question of Will's need. Will's bald head is the key to the entire episode of Antichrist's assault. What we have been witnessing until Elde mows his crown has seemed a vision of secular society gone corrupt. But suddenly when the dream turns on the dreamer, we realize that it has also been his life we have been seeing, not just Lif, but his "lif." And this is confirmed by a series of similarities between the dream and the dreamer's earlier "biography" in passus XI. There he was taken into the "lond of longyng" where he looked into the mirror of Middle-earth and saw his life projected over forty-five years to the approach of death. The allegorical characters in his projected biography have the same identities, and sometimes the names, of the soldiers of Antichrist in XX: Fortune, Concupiscencia Carnis, Coueitise of Ei3es, Pride of Parfit Lyuyng, Rechelesnesse, and the friars. As in passus XX it is virtually Elde alone who wakes Will out of his spiritual torpor; as there, the episode ends with Will in physical and spiritual need and near death.47 What we have then in the assault of Antichrist's army is a vision of both social and personal decay. Both human society and Will are attacked by disease, impotence, and old age. As we have seen in other writers, the world was universally thought to be in its last age, and as the end of the fourteenth century approached with its wars, schisms, heresies, and plagues, the sense of an ending intensified. With his mowed head, his gout, his limp "Iyme," his deaf ear, and his "wangteeb" banged out, Will stands as a fittingly battered representative of the senescence of the world. He, and the world, nearing the end, are in need. Here perhaps is a start toward an explanation of the puzzle mentioned earlier: why Nede appears at all. When Nede speaks, Langland is dramatizing Will's need. "Wib nede I mette," says Will, and the word "nede" names both Will's present state and the character who speaks in the next line. It is not an abstraction but Will's own need that 47

Passus XI is also where Rechelesnesse cites the same aphorism as Nede in XX, "Homo propomt and Deus disponit" (XI, 37-38), in support of a "reckless" life.

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speaks. This psychological dimension is important to the tone (a little defensive) of the speech. For example, when Nede says "nede hap no lawe," he is stating a psychological reality more than a theological position grounded in canon law: Nede makes a man desperate. Nede is temptation. It tempts a man to steal; to beg and so fall into moral debt; to ignore Conscience and the cardinal virtues; to think that his state lifts him above the law and above other mortals; to see the world almost exclusively in terms of those material things that he needs most—food, clothing, drink, and behind them all, physical life. Nede for all those reasons is a dangerous state to be in, almost as dangerous as that of another temptress at the beginning of the poem whose name differed by a single stroke of the pen: Mede. What is it that Will needs? Food, for one thing—"I ne wiste wher to ete ne at what place" (3)—but why hunger should be an appropriate problem at the end of the poem is not clear. On the other hand, the opening lines of passus XX hint at something else: "Heuy chered I yede and elenge in herte" (2). This heartsick feeling is echoed in the "sorwe" and "care" Will feels at the end of the subsequent episode when old age has laid him low and he feels death approaching (199, 201). There is another, fainter but more important echo between Will's entrance and exit in this passus. Will's late "deep drogh nei3 me" (200) faintly recalls the emphasis on "nei3" when the passus opened: "it neghed nei3 pe noon and wip nede I mette" (4). Noon (Latin nona) is not only the hour of the midday meal; it is the ninth hour and the hour of death. Its association with death comes from the death of Christ, which took place, as the Wycliffite Bible translates it, at "the nynthe our, that is, noon." 48 Will is entering his own darkness at noon. Noon is the hour at which he finds Nede. The nature of that need is strongly hinted in the subsequent description of the crucifixion, in language in which Christ's "sorwes" anticipate Will's, and in which the word "nede" becomes synonymous with death: . . . he seide in his sorwe on pe selue roode . . . 'Ther nede hap ynome me pat I moot nede abide And suffre sorwes ful soure, pat shal to Ioye torne.' . . . he pat wro3te al pe world was wilmlliche nedy, Ne neuere noon so nedy ne pouerer deide. (XX, 43-50) Death, the last necessity, is the "nede" on Will's mind when he wanders into view, "heuy chered . . . and elenge in herte" in the last passus 48

OHD, s v. "Noon." The citation is from Mark 15:32.

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of the poem and of his life. Death, too, is the last of the shifts in meaning of the word "nede"; "deide" is Nede's last word. Will is not only hungry; he is dying, whether or not he can "cacche" food for today. Under the shadow of the last great necessity, any attempt "his Hf for to saue," as Nede says (10), is only a futile gesture, if that salvation is conceived in exclusively physical terms. The subsequent dream provides several examples ofjust such futility, for which the story of LiPs flight to Phisik serves as a parable. Lif believed that leechcraft could forestall death, but finds instead that death has destroyed his "leche." The temptation Lif has succumbed to is the greatest one Nede offers to Will, to think, in the face of death, of saving his life in physical terms.

ENDINGS: THE FRIARS

Will's exit from the poem at line 213 divides the final passus into two distinct but closely related halves. The assault of the forces of Antichrist continues, but the thrust of the attack shifts from the secular— both societal and personal—to the ecclesiastical. In the first half, Antichrist's allies had attacked Conscience and the "comune" with secular sins; now they attack the church, largely from within. The shift to the assault on the church follows with the clarity of dream logic. The first half of the passus had ended with Will's entry into Unitee Holy Chirche, a sign of his escape from the wandering that had kept him outside the social and spiritual order much of his life. But he stops short of salvation because the church he enters, like society and Will himself, is corrupted. Once in Unitee, the first thing Will sees is the church besieged by Sloth with an army of proud clerics, "inparfite preestes and prelates of holy chirche" (229), soon to be followed by the more dangerous (because hypocritical) friars. Conscience's defenses likewise now become ecclesiastical—Clergie and Contrition, rather than the natural and physical defenses of Kynde and Elde that had been deployed so effectively before. And finally, like the first half of the passus, the second is unified by the theme of need—not personal but institutional need, or more precisely, the ecclesiastical consequences of institutionalizing need in a religious order. The focus of the first part was Will; the focus of the second will be the traveling companions he has elsewhere seemed to resemble: the friars. Will's personal need has consequences only for himself: the friars' institutionalized need has disastrous consequences for the church and for Christians. In the friars' entry into the church, Langland seems to see the threat of destruction and a shadow of the End. 276

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The last major concern and one of the last words of the poem is "nede." Conscience's final speech is a condemnation of the institution­ alized need of the friars, "bat for nede flateren / And countrepledep me, Conscience" (383-84). The friars have corrupted the church because of their "nede." The prominence of the word at the end gives Robert Frank good reason to connect it with the speech of Nede at the begin­ ning of the passus. Nede's opening speech, he argues, is preparation for the condemnation of the friars' need later. The purpose of Need's speech is to expose the philosophy of need which motivates the friars. . . . Need unblushingly urges doc­ trines which the poet has vigorously opposed elsewhere in the poem. . . . Need's advice to "bydde and be nedy" conflicts with the frequent attacks in the poem on "bidding and begging." Fi­ nally, Need's argument that Christ was "willfullich nedy" is sus­ pect. It was a favorite argument of the friars, by which they as­ serted their superiority to the endowed clergy and the monastic orders. . . . Need's speech is really a warning against the life of need [and hence against the friars]. Need puts man outside the laws of property and morality, outside the guidance of conscience and the cardinal virtues. It makes man lawless. As Need himself says, "Nede ne hath no lawe." "Necessitas non habet legem."49 This perhaps glosses over Will's relationship to Nede—who I believe speaks first and foremost as a dramatization of Will's own needs. Nonetheless, Frank is right about a connection with the friars. The case is clinched by a piece of evidence Frank did not mention: that Necessitas non habet legem, the enabling maxim of Nede's speech and the key to his notion of liflode, appears in the Franciscan Rule. The passage approves living off alms in cases of necessity: Similiter etiam tempore manifestae necessitatis faciant omnes fratres de eorum necessariis, sicut eis Dominus gratiam largietur, quia necessitas non habet legem}0 49

Frank, Scheme of Salvation, pp. 113-14. Chapter 9 of the First Rule in Francis of Assisi, Ecrits, ed. Theophile Desbonnets et al., Sources chretiennes, 285 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1981), ρ 142. Necessitas (or egestas) as an excuse for begging was frequently attacked by antifraternal writers: see William of St. Amour, Collectiones: "Item certum est, quod valde periculosa est omnis necessitas; cogit emm hommem omnia experin, & inopmata, & pudenda. . . . Item Petrus Anfulsi. 'In tantum est pessima necessitas, vt omnia experin cogat, atque legem non seruare compellat, & ad res cunctas constrmgat.'. . . Inter omnes autem necessitates valde periculosa est necessitas Mendicantis, qui propter necessitatem cibi mendicat" (Opera omnia, pp. 229-30) See also FitzRalph, Defensio curatorum, p. 1394, line 62. "Egestas ad peccatum . . . impellat." 50

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[Similarly, in a time of manifest necessity, let all brethren, as far as their necessaries are concerned, do as God will grant them grace, since "necessity has no law."] That this maxim was recognized (even derided) as a Franciscan principle may be indicated by a poem of Henryson. In "The Fox and the Wolf," Friar Wolf Waitskaith permits the fox a few exceptions to his otherwise strict penance of avoiding meat—he may lap a little blood or eat a foot—because "neid may haif na law."51 Another passage in the same chapter of the Rule seems to be echoed in Nede's "be no3t abasshed to bide and to be nedy I Sib he pat wro3t al J)e world was wilfullichenedy." 52 There are other good reasons for thinking Frank was right to say that Nede speaks like a friar. Will has only two waking episodes of any length in the entire poem, one in passus VIII, the other here in XX. In one Will encounters two friars, in the other, Nede. There are faint echoes in the language introducing the two episodes: "it bifel on a Friday two freres I mette" (VIII, 8); "it neghed nei3 be noon and wip nede I mette" (XX, 4). Although what they tell him specifically is quite different, in general they promulgate the same delusion: Dowel dwells within us. In Nede's case, the message is that Dowel dwells with need; as Frank suggests, that is Franciscan doctrine. Still another connection to the friars is contextual. Nede's speech, as we saw before, precipitates Will's dream of Antichrist. At least in this sequence of the narrative, Nede is what William of St. Amour has said the friars were: the forerunners of Antichrist. When Antichrist appears in the dream, he tries through "fals" to "spede mennes nedes." The first people to respond to his overtures are the friars. Why? "Freres folwede pat fend for he gaf hem copes" (58)—in short, because of their need. Their need, institutionalized and ordained as part of their calling, makes them susceptible to the blandishments of an Antichrist who can "spede mennes nedes," however falsely. The second half of passus XX opens like the first, with a sudden speech by Nede, and its parallel placement highlights the division of the passus into two halves. It is Nede's second and last appearance in the poem. The subject of these two speeches is the same—need— though in accordance with the general shift to ecclesiastical concerns, 51

Poems, ed. Denton Fox (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 1. 731. "Et cum necesse fuent, vadant pro eleemosynis. Et non verecundentur et magis recordentur, quia Dominus noster Jesus Christus, Filius Dei vivi ommpotentis . . . nee verecundatus fuit; et fuit pauper et hospes et vixit de eleemosynis ipse" (Francis of Assisi, Ecrits, p. 140) 52

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he addresses the friars' need, not Will's personal need. Nede has suddenly appeared here because the friars have come to offer their help to the besieged church. He advises Conscience to avoid them; they come "for coueitise to haue cure of soules." They are poor, he says, because they have no "patrymoyne," no livings or property supplied from the endowment of the church, unlike priests and most religious orders. And he is right: the friars' propertyless status and their concomitant mendicancy were the signal features of their unusual existence. They must, says Nede, flatter the rich to earn a living. Therefore he urges Conscience to "charge hem with no cure," that is, ecclesiastical and pastoral functions; since they chose a life of poverty and begging, let them live as beggars after all. Although Nede sounds quite uncharitable toward the friars, actually his advice here is perfectly consistent with what he has said and been before. As Nede, he represents the state of need and its spurious moral claims. What he urges on Conscience, however crabbedly, is that the friars remain in need: charge them with no "cure," let them live as beggars. This is essentially the same advice he has given Will: remain in a state of need; need is good for the spirit. Nede's exhortations here are as suspect as they were earlier, and threaten the church as they earlier threatened Will. The parallel between the two halves of the passus is carried further in Conscience's response to Nede. He begins by welcoming the friars into the church, with the caution, "Holdep yow in vnitee, and haueb noon enuye." The two clauses are related: their envy of the privileges of the secular clergy—a form of ecclesiastical coueitise, analogous to the secular avarice seen in the first half of the passus—will destroy ecclesiastical unity and hence the church. How then without income-producing privileges will their needs be satisfied? Conscience will provide: . . . I wol be youre boru3: ye shal haue breed and elopes And obere necessaries ynowe; yow shal no pyng lakke Win bat ye leue logik and lerneb for to louye. (248-50) This is the same advice given in almost the same words to Will when he entered Unitee: " 'Lerne to loue', quod kynde. . . . 'And bow loue lelly lakke shal bee neuere I Weede ne worldly mete while pi lif lasteb' (208-11). Will was told that love was his proper "craft," the one by far the "best to lerne," and the one that would ensure his liflode. The lack of a "craft" to earn a liflode is a problem the friars share. When they first come to Holy Church, they "koube no3t wel hir craft" (231); and just before they lay Contrition low, Pees the porter refuses them entry because they know no "craft" (342). The craft they lack is Will's, as Con279

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science makes clear in the lines above. Rather than the begging that makes them natter "for nede," rather than the "cure" that they can only gain by the envious usurpation of the rights of the parish clergy, the friars should, like Will, learn the craft of love. There is still another reason, says Conscience, the friars should not "coueite cure," a reason that is the key to Langland's ecclesiological as­ sumptions about the friars and a mark of his kinship with FitzRalph: "That in mesure god made alle manere J)ynges, / And sette it at a certein and at a siker nombre" (254-55). In earlier chapters, it has already been seen how these verses are based on Wisd. 11:21: "God created all things in measure, number, and weight," and how measure, number, and weight were conceived to be the principles of divine order on which the entire creation and the church hierarchy in particular were based. FitzRalph argued that the friars were increasing beyond meas­ ure, with no rational principle of magnitude or growth, and that their multiplication resulted from living by begging, an unstable, disor­ dered, uncertain liflode that violated the divine principle that all should be measured, numbered, and weighed. 53 The governing principle of the church is unity, but of the friars, multiplicity. Because he is most intensely concerned with the friars' disordered multiplication, Con­ science focuses for most of his speech on the principle of " N u m b e r " within the ordered world. God, he says, made all things "at a siker nombre" and "noumbrede f)e sterres: I Qui numerat multitudinem stellarum et omnibus eis nomina vocat [Ps. 146:4]." 54 In earthly kingdoms, likewise, kings have knights and officers under them, "ech of hem a certein," and all numbered and named so that they may be paid their just wages: "And if pei wage men to werre pei write hem in noumbre." Only those named in the number of those to be "waged" will be paid; all others at the battle are considered pillagers. This passage recalls an earlier one in passus XI that helps to illuminate the underlying ecclesi­ ological ideas here: "made neuere kyng no kny3t but he hadde catel to spende I As bifel for a kny3t, or foond hym for his strengpe" (XI, 294— 95). A king ensures that his knights have a knight's liflode. In passus XI, 53 See chapter 3, at nn. 76-80, and Defensio cumtorum, ρ 1399; also chapter 5, the sec­ tion "Multitudes without Number." Langland's ideas are so close to FitzRalph's, and the Defensio cumtorum was so widely circulated, that direct influence seems likely. Other evi­ dence of FitzRalph's influence is discussed below, in connection with ecclesiology, the medical metaphor, and Non concupisces rem proximi tui. 54 These numbered stars were interpreted as the elect within the church, lights that shine in the world's night. These stars God has counted; to be numbered is to be saved. But there are more stars than saved, and the others are supernumerarii who are super numerum and will not be saved See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, PL, XXXVII, 1904.

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this is used as an analogy for a bishop and his priests, whose liflode is discussed in the immediately preceding lines: [To faithful priests] sholde lakke no liflode, neyper lynnen no wollen. And pe title bat ye take ordres by tellep ye ben auaunced: Thanne nedep yow no3t to nyme siluer for masses pat ye syngen, For he pat took yow a title sholde take yow wages, Or pe bisshop pat blessed yow. (XI, 289-93) These lines contain one of FitzRalph's most important ecclesiological notions: those who had "cure," the evangelical functions of the priesthood, had the right of exacting their necessaries from their flock. In practice, this meant every "curatour" should receive his liflode from the church, through the bishop who admitted him to sacred orders. A man could not be promoted to the priesthood unless "habeat titulum sufficientem ad vestitum habendum et victum" (he have sufficient title to food and clothing).55 Bishops would be delinquent if they admitted men "sine titulo" to sacred orders. Langland's "title" in the passage above translates FitzRalph's "titulus," an ecclesiastical guarantee of support. To receive title in the church is to be "auaunced" (290), that is, provided with a benefice, the "wages" (292) that the bishop who bestows the title is obliged to supply.56 Such a system of church governance is vital in the eyes of FitzRalph, Langland, and canon law, because it should prevent need from corrupting curates, and forcing them, out of need, to charge money for masses and prayer and the sacraments. FitzRalph therefore had stressed how anomalous and dangerous was the friars' mode of living for men empowered as preachers and confessors. Not only did they not avoid need; they made it mandatory in their institutionalized, mendicant existence. They took no "wages," no title from the bishop, but lived by begging, outside the "numbered" hierarchy of the church and subjecting themselves daily to the temptations of selling spiritual offices to keep themselves alive. Back in passus XX Conscience turns from the analogy of the "numbered" army of the king to religious orders, who also are numbered: Monkes and Moniales and alle men of Religion, Hir ordre and hir reule wole to han a certein noumbre Of lewed and of lered; pe lawe wole and askep A certein for a certein, saue oonliche of freres. (264-67) 55 56

Defensio curatorum, pp. 1401, 1407. See above, chapter 3, atnn. 70-73. See the MED, s. v. "avauncen," 3a. 281

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"A certein for a certein" means "a fixed and assured living for a fixed number of Religious." Earlier in the poem, Piers had said he would provide for all faithful and holy Religious, "for it is an vnresonable Religion pat hap ri3t no3t of certein" (VI, 151). It is the friars alone who live by begging rather than from goods distributed through the church; they alone have "ri3t no3t of certein." For similar reasons, Conscience concludes in XX that they should not be given "cure." It is wikked to wage yow; ye wexen out of noumbre. Heuene hap euene noumbre and helle is wipoute noumbre. Forpi I wolde witterly pat ye were in pe Registre And youre noumbre vnder Notaries signe and neiper mo ne lasse. (269-72) The friars "wax out of number." In part Conscience means that they increase beyond measure; but more important he means that they exist and grow outside the numbered order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Unlike the religious and the soldiers of the previous lines, these mendicants have not been numbered in the account book of the church, and so cannot be "waged." Conscience wishes they were in the "Registre"—a bishop's register but also the ecclesiastical rolls and ultimately the Book of Life where He who numbers the stars writes the names of the saved. Conscience is the registrar, the "Notarie." He plays a collective role in the church parallel to his role in the individual soul, where he takes the measure of a man's deeds as "goddes clerk and his Notarie" (XV, 32), just as here in passus XX he takes the measure of groups within the church. But the friars are not accountable; they "wexen out of noumbre." Rebuffed in their desire to have "cure of soules," the friars are overcome by envy of the clergy. Against Conscience's specific advice— "hauep noon enuye . . . leue logik and lernep for to louye" (246-50)— the friars heed Enuye and "lerne logyk and lawe and ek contemplacion" to be able to prove that all things under heaven ought to be "in comune" (273-76). What they particularly wish to hold in common are the privileges and income of the secular clergy. Against them Langland cites FitzRalph's favorite Commandment, "Non concupisces rem proximi tui" (Exod. 20:17), which the friars violate by coveting the things of their clerical neighbors in the church, especially the lucrative privileges of confession.57 The friars' usurpation and perversion of confession now becomes the central concern of the rest of the passus. 57

See FitzRalph, Definsio curatorum, p. 1399 and the other citations in chapter 3 above, at nn. 62-63.

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When Conscience finds that Hypocrisy has made a sharp assault on Unitee, he summons both a new aide and a new metaphor: a "leche pat koude wel shryue" to "salue po pat sike ben and poru3 synne ywounded" (304-05). This physician is a confessor and his medicine penance. But Shrift's salve is sharp because he makes men pay strictly for their sins: redde quod debes. Those wounded by sin and hypocrisy find his "piastres" altogether too harsh and mount a search for a softer "Surgien" until they find one who "softe kan handle" and "fairer . . . plastrep," one "frere Flaterere, is phisicien and surgien." The friar-surgeon finally talks his way into Unitee "poru3 hende-speche" and provides soft plasters in return for privy payments until Contrition forgets utterly how to weep for his sins and "lyp adreynt." This medical episode provides another in the series of parallels with the first half of the passus. It recalls the earlier scene in which Lif fled to Phisik, a physician, in hope of forestalling death. Here the quack is a spiritual physician, but his plasters are equally ineffectual.58 The metaphor of medicine for spiritual healing at the end of the poem is the culmination of a pattern that has developed throughout Piers Plowman. Love, says Lady HoIi Chirche, is "leche of lif" and heaven's "triacle" (I, 204, 148). Haukyn has described the ideal pope as a healer with a salve for the pestilence, whose pardon "mi3te lechen a man" (XIII, 253). To Patience, poverty is a "leche" (XIV, 302). The Samaritan has told the dreamer about the poor robbed man for whom May no medicyne vnder mone pe man to heele brynge, Neiper Feip ne fyn hope, so festred be hise woundes, Wipouten pe blood of a barn born of a mayde. (XVII, 94-96) It is the Samaritan, figuring Christ, who shall return with "salue for allesyke" (XVII, 122). Christ is, of course, the type of all spiritual healers, and in Langland's poem it is Piers himself who "lered hym lechecrafte . . . to warisshen hymselue; / And dide hym assaie his surgenrie on hem pat sike were" (XVI, 104-06). When the imagery is taken up again in passus XX, the place of these physicians has been taken by "Oon frere Flaterere . . . phisicien and surgien." To him Conscience momentarily objects: "I woot no bettre leche / Than person or parisshe preest, penitauncer or bisshop, I Saue Piers pe Plowman pat hap power oueralle" (XX, 318-20). 58

The metaphor of the confessor as physician pervades FitzRalph's works. See Defensio curatorum, pp. 1395, 1. 7 and 1396, 11. 45, 64; "Die ut lapides," Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 52 v -53 r , 53v-54r, 55", 56v, 57r (Conclusio prima); "Nemo vos seducat," Sidney Sussex MS 64, fols. 67r, 6 7 \ 68'; Unusquisque, p. 64.

283

CHAPTER SEVEN

Conscience's comment reveals something important about the friars' symbolic role in the poem. If Piers, the agent of Christ, is the best "leche," the friars, agents of Antichrist, are the worst. And their hypocritical usurpation of Piers's role of physician points to the relationship between them that prevails throughout the poem: the friars are Piers's symbolic opposites. The point is wider than leechcraft. Piers is Peter, the ideal priesthood; they are the worst of the ecclesiastically corrupt, collectively an anti-Piers. It might be argued that any corrupt churchman is an opposite of Piers in a loose sense. But Langland places the friars in a unique position in the poem. They are not just the most prominent of the corrupt clergy in the narrative; they are the only religious group whose institution poses a danger to the church. Monks, pardoners, and bishops are not institutionally dangerous. On the contrary, they are profitable, even necessary to the mission of the church. Individual monks may go astray and bishops sin, but Langland never questions the right of the episcopacy or the monastic orders to exist. The mendicant orders are a different matter. They alone are corrupt as an institution because they have institutionalized able-bodied begging for their way of life and conjoined it to the apostolic functions of the clergy. Individual friars may be corrupt, but the real issue for Langland is ecclesiological, that preachers and confessors who beg for a living will be tempted to use their spiritual office for material gain. Frere Flaterere, a.k.a. Sire Penetrans Domos, is therefore larger than life. He is no representative of any living friar but rather of an idea, or ideas, about friars. He is a symbol of the ecclesiological consequences of his institution; he is also part of an eschatological fiction, to which his alias alludes. But he is also a symbol within the terms set uniquely by Langland's own poem. As a representative of the two signal features of the friars' life, mendicancy and the secular apostolate, he reflects the two major problems on which Langland has focused from the field full of folk: word and work, the right use of the divine gift of speech and the proper contribution of one's labor to the profit of human society. The friars alone of all ecclesiastical groups are squarely at the center of both of these problems, and in that way they alone are Piers's symbolic opposites. Piers is the true laborer; they are the false beggars who do not work. Piers is the spokesman of Truth; they are the henchmen of FaIs, the harborers of Liar. Piers is the custodian of Truth's pardon; they are the administrators of paper pardons (VII, 197-200). Piers is the keeper of the tree of Charity; they are the gardeners for the tree of Wrath (V, 137). Piers knows by the will; they know by word and 284

PIERS

PLOWMAN

works alone (XV, 198-200). Piers is the ally of Christ; they are in league with Antichrist. The friars are also the symbolic (and narrative) opponents of Con­ science, an opposition consistent with their relationship to Piers and even demanded by it, since Piers is Conscience's special friend. That opposition appears throughout the poem. The friar confessor of Lady Mede promises to be her ally, "Conscience to felle" (III, 42). Coueitise of Ei3es urges Will to "haue no conscience . . . how pow come to goode; I Go confesse pee to sum frere" (XI, 53-54). The friars urge Will to be buried at their church but his conscience tells him the parish church where he was christened is the only proper place (XI, 66-67). In XIII Conscience's alliance and pilgrimage with Patience is an emphatic rejection of the Doctour of Divinite, a friar, who represents the Clergye he dines with, that is, learning unmoved by love. It is in passus XX, however, that this pattern becomes clearest. Here the friars' dev­ astating effect on the individual conscience is dramatically evident in the sleep of sin into which Contrition falls once Frere Flaterere has be­ come his confessor. The passus ends with a condemnation of friars who "countrepledep. me," says Conscience in the final speech of the poem. The friars' opposition to Conscience is also signified by the allusive name of the last friar to appear: Sire Penetrans Domos. He is a fleshly em­ bodiment of the figures prophesied for the Last Days in 2 Tim. 3:6, William of St. Amour's favorite text. The domos that they penetrate were conventionally understood to be metaphonc, and in at least two senses to be houses of Conscience. On the one hand, the friars break into the house of the individual conscience, especially through confes­ sion, and probe the secrets of strangers. This is an "interior" house, ex­ isting within the soul, but they also break into an exterior one, the church, which is the house of God. They are ecclesiastical house-break­ ers because they have forced themselves upon an unwilling church and, as a religious, apostolic order, usurped the pastoral functions of the sec­ 59 ular clergy. In Langland's poem, the tutelary spirit of both the inte­ rior and exterior domus is Conscience, who sometimes acts allegorically as the individual conscience (occasionally as Will's own conscience) and sometimes as the collective Conscience that guards and guides the church. 59

See William of St. Amour, Collectiones, ρ 196; also the Bernardine treatise of the twelfth century, Tractatus de interiori domo sen De conscientia aedificanda, PL CLXXXIV, 507, and De amma, misattributed to Hugh of St. Victor, PL CLXXVII, 185; and Hugh of Pontigny's sermon printed in Philippe Delhaye, Leprobleme de la conscience morale chez S. Bernard, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia, 9 (Namur: Godenne, 1957), pp. 10010In.

285

C H A P T E R SEVEN

With the friars ascendant within the church as the poem nears its end, with Contrition lying "adreynt" and Clergie corrupt, the triumph of the forces of Antichrist seems perilously close. They have succeeded by hypocrisy where direct assault failed; the church is undermined from within. Under such threatening circumstances, Conscience in despair vows to seek the figure who has been portrayed elsewhere as the friars' antithesis, Piers the Plowman. 'By crist!' quod Conscience bo, Ί wole bicome a pilgrym, And wenden as wide as pe world rennep To seken Piers be Plowman, pat pryde my3te destruye, And pat freres hadde a fyndyng bat for nede flateren And countrepledep me, Conscience; now kynde me avenge, And sende me hap and heele til I haue Piers pe Plowman.' And sibbe he gradde after Grace til I gan awake. (380-86) These are the last lines of the poem. Conscience's final wish pinpoints the cause of the church's trouble: "nede." It is the friars' professional "nede" that causes them "for nede [to] flateren," to beg, to seek out ecclesiastical privileges that will bring them contributions, to give easy penances, and to weaken contrition in hope of a little silver. Conscience poses for the church the same question Piers had asked with regard to the secular world: " O f beggeris and bidderis what best be to doone?" (VI, 203). Here at the end, Conscience seems to hope for an answer: "pat freres hadde a fyndyng." This hope has been anticipated in the poem. Clergie prophesied that a king would come and reform the re­ ligious, especially the monastic orders, and return them to their prim­ itive purity: And panne Freres in hir fraytour shul fynden a keye Of Costantyns cofres ber J)e catel is Inne That Gregories godchildren vngodly despended. (X,328-30) Gregory's godchildren, the context makes clear, are the monks. "Cos­ tantyns cofres" contain the endowment of the church. The prophecy thus implies, however indirectly, that the friars will abandon their in­ stitutionalized need in favor of property and ecclesiastical livings like the rest of the church. Whatever the nature of the "fyndyng" (in both senses), Langland plainly meant that they would or should abandon their begging. A small revision in the C text at this passage makes the point beyond dispute: "Freres in here fraytour shal fynde pat tyme I 286

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PLOWMAN

Bred withouten beggynge to lyue by euere aftur" (C V, 173-74).60 One recalls that earlier in passus XX, Conscience had pledged to provide the friars with bread and clothes and "necessaries ynow," on condition that they "leue logik and lernep for to louye." Perhaps this is the "fyndyng" that Conscience has in mind, the liflode of love according to the doctrines of patient poverty, ne soliciti sitis, and fiat voluntas tua—in short, the "fyndyng" that will be provided to every Christian and every churchman in whose heart love moves. If so, the end of the passus' last half recapitulates the end of the first, where a "fyndyng" for Will, an end to his "nede" by a conversion to love, was also the hope. Will was needy because he knew no craft; so too the friars come to the gate of the church and are told, "But pow konne any craft bow comest no3t herlnne." When Conscience exhorts them, "lernep for to louye," he is exhorting them, in words earlier addressed to Will, to learn the highest craft. "What craft is best to lerne?" asks Will. "Lerne to loue," comes the reply. At the end of the poem, Conscience's final sentence is addressed to Kynde: "now kynde me avenge, I And sende me hap and heele til I haue Piers pe Plowman." These words echo Will's at the end of his last act in the poem, where, like Conscience, he "cryde to kynde": "out of care me brynge! I Lo! Elde pe hoore hap me biseye. / Awreke me if youre wille be for I wolde ben hennes" (201-03). These structural similarities recall others between the first and second halves of passus XX: both begin with a speech by Nede; both concern the assault of the forces of Antichrist on Conscience and Unitee; both embody the medical metaphor in a spurious physician. These parallels are the key to the friars' prominence at the end of the poem. Langland sees their institutionalized need, their begging, as threatening to the church just as Will's personal need threatens to put him off the path to Salvation. The lesson to learn, for both Will and the friars, is that love is liflode. Whether they do in fact learn it is a question Langland leaves open. But for both Will and human society the last things are nigh. The fate of a man facing Elde and Death and the fate of the church in the last age of the world are inseparable. Thus the poem's end foresees the possibility of the end of the church as it had foreseen the death of Will. The end for both is not yet. Will is not dead, the end of the world has not yet arrived. But both endings loom, and in the darkening of those shadows, Langland writes, in hope, the lesson of love. 60

John Audelay's poem on the friars and the secular clergy makes a similar point, perhaps under the influence of Piers: "3if 3e wyle 3ef ham of 3our good without beggyng, I bai wold nowjjer begge ne borou, {JUS dare 1 lay, I And fynd hem here houshold and here housyng, I Nouber by ne byld; I red 3e asay," in EETS o.s. 184 (1931), p. 26, 11. 456-59. 287

Appendices

fol. 154-

vi

Qualiter fratres debent laborare et qualiter non debent sibi locum seu domum seu aliam rem appropriare.

Franciscan Rule, chap. 4 (Ecrits, p. 188).

Fratres minores non debent recipere pecuniam nee per se nee per interpositam personam.

fol. 154-

ν

Franciscan Rule, chap. 3 (Ecrits, pp. 184-86).

Qualiter fratres minores ibunt per mundum et quod non equitabunt nisi necessitate coacti.

fol. 154-

iv

Franciscan Rule of 1223, chaps. 1—2 (e.g. in Francis of Assisi, Ecrits, ed. Theophile Desbonnets et al., Sources Chretiennes, no. 285 [Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1981], pp. 180-84).

Fratres minores qui vivunt secundum suam regulam debent uti vilibus pannis nee licet eis alios homines bene vestitos iudicare.

fol. 154-

Franciscan Rule, chaps. 5, 6, 7, 10 (Ecrits, pp. 188, 190, 192, 196-98).

William of Pagula, Summa summarum (BL Royal 10 D. X, fols. 164--165-).

Ad que tenentur fratres predicatores et minores et que prohibentur facere in quibusdam casibus.

fol. 154r

William of Pagula, Summa summarum, book 3, title 41: " D e predicatoribus et minoribus et eciam aliis religiosis mendicantibus" (e.g. BL Royal 10 D.X, fols. 164-).

De quibusdam privilegiis concessis fratribus predicatoribus et minoribus et eciam de eorum moribus et delictis et quales fuerunt primo et quales nunc et quale dampnum faciunt rectoribus ecclesiarum et qualiter ingerunt se non vocati. Et de ista materia vide infra plene in diversis titulis et an vivunt secundum evangelium et an sint in statu perfectionis.

Source

fol. 154'

MS section BL MS Royal num- 6 E. VII ber Rubric fol. nos.

Appendix A: Sources of Omne Bonum, Article "Fratres"

fol. 156

xiii

Qualiter religiosi et specialiter mendicantes plus possunt nocere ecclesie dei pretendentes speciem pietatis et sancte religionis.

r

Fratres mendicantes non sunt missi neque ab ecclesia recte electi et ideo qualiter sunt ingressi in ecclesiam dei ignoratur ut infra.

fol. 155v

xi

Qualiter fratres exercentes et cupientes officia rectorum et prelatorum sunt extra caritatem.

Qui statum perfectionis elegerunt, ut fratres mendicantes, et honorem temporalem querunt, seipsos plus quam deum diligunt.

fol. 155v

χ

r

Nunc sequitur videre qualiter fratres non vivunt istis diebus secundum altimissimam paupertatem: ut probatur racionabiliter quia dicunt et non faciunt.

fol. 155r

ix

fol. 156

Fratres mendicantes non debent intromittere se de rebus temporalibus.

fol. 155r

viii

xii

Quare fratres mendicantes sunt magis auari et magis cupiunt exaltari quam alii et numquid peccant mortaliter appetendo dignitates.

fol. 155r

vii

MS section BL MS Royal num- 6 E. VII ber fol. nos. Rubric

Appendix A [cont.)

De periculis, chaps. 3 and 5, pp. 29, 32.

Depericulis, chap. 3, pp, 28-29.

De periculis, chap. 2, pp. 24-26.

William of St. Amour, De periculis, chap. 2, in Opera omnia, pp. 21-23.

Unknown.

William Durandus, Speculum judiciale, book 1, part 1, " D e Arbitro et Arbitratore," para. 7, no. 29 (e.g. in Specu­ lum juris [Frankfurt: Jacob Gothofred Seyler, 1