The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain 9789048537549

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The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain

Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West The essential aim of this series is to present high quality, original and international scholarship covering all aspects of the Medieval Church and its relationship with the secular world in an accessible form. Publications have covered such topics as The Medieval Papacy, Monastic and Religious Orders for both men and women, Canon Law, Liturgy and Ceremonial, Art, Architecture and Material Culture, Ecclesiastical Administration and Government, Clerical Life, Councils and so on. Our authors are encouraged to challenge existing orthodoxies on the basis of the thorough examination of sources. These books are not intended to be simple text books but to engage scholars worldwide. The series, originally published by Ashgate, has been published by Amsterdam University Press since 2018. Series editors: Brenda Bolton, Anne J. Duggan and Damian J. Smith

The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain

Edited by Francisco García-Serrano

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Master of James IV of Scotland, Saint Dominic (1510-1520), Ms. Ludwig IX 18, fol. 260v, J. Paul Getty Museum (detail) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 632 9 e-isbn 978 90 4853 754 9 doi 10.5117/9789462986329 nur 684 | 704 © F. García-Serrano / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Contents Abbreviations 7 List of Illustrations

9

Acknowledgements 11 Introduction 13 Francisco García-Serrano

1. Dominicus Hispanus

19

2. Ramon de Penyafort and His Influence

45

3. The Mendicant Orders and the Castilian Monarchyin the Reign of Ferdinand III

61

4. Ramon Marti, the Trinity, and the Limits of Dominican Mission

85

Adeline Rucquoi

Damian J. Smith

María del Mar Graña Cid

Thomas E. Burman

5. Narrative and Counter-Narrative: Dominican and Muslim Preaching in Medieval Iberia

107

6. The Poor Clares of Alcocer and the Castilian Crown (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries)

143

7. Friars and Nuns: Dominican Economy and Religious Identity in Medieval Castile

159

Linda G. Jones

Pablo Martín Prieto

Francisco García-Serrano

8. Networks of Dissent and the Franciscans of the Crown of Aragon 175 Emily E. Graham

9. Faction, Politics, and Dominican Inquisitors in the FourteenthCenturyCrown of Aragon Robin Vose

191

10. Sutzura e viltat carnal: The Place of Sin and Lust in the Treatises of the Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis (c.1400) 221 Víctor Farías Zurita

11. Valencian Dominicans beyond the Convent of Santo Domingo Taryn E.L. Chubb

247

12. Ferdinand of Antequera and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo: Patronage, Advice, and Spiritual Favour (c.1390–1416) 271 Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez

Index 287

Abbreviations ACA

BRAH BSCC CCCM

Archivo de la Corona de Aragón/Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó (Barcelona) Anuario de Estudios Medievales Anuario de historia del derecho español Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid Annals de l’Institut d’estudis Gironins Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona Boletín de la Real Academia de Historia Boletín Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis

CF CHE CHR CMR

(Turnhout, 1953–) Cahiers de Fanjeaux Cuadernos de Historia de España Catholic Historical Review Christian–Muslim Relations, ed. D. Thomas and A.

DDC

Mallett, 7 vols (Leiden, 2009–15) Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. R. Naz, 7 vols (Paris,

Diago, Historia

1935–65) Francisco Diago, Historia de la Provincia de Aragón de la

DRP

Orden de los Predicadores (Barcelona, 1599) El Diplomatari de Sant Ramon de Penyafort, ed. F. Valls

AEM AHDE AFP AHN AIEG AST BMCL BRABLB

EV Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici JMH MDH MDI MOPH Potthast

Taberner (Zaragoza, 1991 [1929]) Escritos del Vedat Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879–81) Journal of Medieval History La documentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216–1227), ed. D. Mansilla (Rome, 1965) La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965–1216), ed. D. Mansilla (Rome, 1955) Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica (Rome, 1896–) Regesta Pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno 1198 ad

8

THE FRIARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

SCH TC

annum 1304, ed. A. Potthast, 2 vols (Graz, 1957) Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina (Patrologia latina), 221 vols, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1841–64) Praedicatores Inquisitores I: The Dominicans and the Mediaeval |Inquisition: acts of the first international seminar on the Dominicans and the inquisition, Rome, 23–25 February 2002, ed. W. Hoyer (Rome, 2004) Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos Repertorio de Historia de las Ciencias Eclesiásticas (Salamanca, 1967–) Studies in Church History X. Renedo Puig, Edició i estudi del ‘Tractat de Luxúria’ del

Vose, Dominicans

Terç del Crestià de Francesc Eiximenis (Bellaterra, 1992) R. Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews in the Medieval

Zurita, Anales

Crown of Aragon (New York, 2009) J. Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, ed. A. Canellas

PL Praedicatores Inquisitores

RABM RHCE

López, 8 vols (Zaragoza, 1967–86 [1562–80])



List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Retable of Bonifacio Ferrer, 1396–1398, tempera on panel. Museu de Belles Artes, Valencia. Source: Album/ Art Resource, New York 253 Figuur 2. The Trinity Adored by All Saints, fifteenth century, tempera and gold on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Source: IAP/Metropolitan Museum of Art 266

Acknowledgements The project that now comprises this volume started a few years ago, in April 2013, when a select and enthusiastic group of international historians met at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus for the conference ‘The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain’, in order to exchange ideas, as well as research and promote further studies in the field. The two days of intensive work, excellent papers, and camaraderie were highly inspiring and exhorted us to compile this volume. I want to express my gratitude to my colleague Damian Smith, without whom this project would never have come to fruition. The generous support of the different institutions of Saint Louis University in Missouri and in Madrid, as well as of the Mellon Foundation, made our task much more viable. Thanks to all the authors who have contributed to this volume, and special thanks to those who helped edit it. Nicole Koopman and Margaret Mary Lagarde read through the text, and Anjouli Janzon helped with translations. I truly appreciate their support, collaboration, and patience. Francisco García-Serrano Madrid, January 2018

Introduction Francisco García-Serrano The mendicant orders arrived in the Iberian Peninsula during the early thirteenth century and from then on they had a great impact on Church and society in all of the Spanish kingdoms. In particular, the Dominicans, whose founder was an Augustinian canon of Osma in Castile, and the Franciscans, who during Francis of Assisi’s lifetime were already very active in the Peninsula, were to have an enormous influence, pervading almost every aspect of the society of late medieval Spain. Due to the peculiarity of the Iberian frontier, where religions coexisted, the dynamic expansion of the friars was not restricted to Christian territory; the papacy sent Dominicans and Franciscans to al-Andalus, Morocco, and Tunisia, where they became the first bishops, evangelizing the Muslims and serving the spiritual and material interests of Christian kings, merchants, and mercenaries.1 The northern territories of the Iberian kingdoms, in tune with the medieval West, were undergoing a significant transformation. As a result of the commercial revolution of the High Middle Ages, Western European society changed dramatically and the urban centres, led by an active emerging merchant community, became dominant for the first time since the end of the Roman Empire. The general amelioration of the economic situation allowed the inhabitants of cities, towns, and important villages to change their living patterns by altering their values and by providing new channels for social interaction. While the inhabitants of small rural villages maintained close relations with one another, human interaction in urban centres became more complex and anonymous, and a new spirituality began to surface alongside the more diversified material and social expectations brought about by commerce. Following this tendency, Francesc Eiximenis, 1 For comprehensive studies in English of Iberian mendicants see J. Webster, Els Menorets (Toronto, 1993); J. Brodman, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain (Philadelphia, 1986); R. Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (New York, 2009); F. García-Serrano, Preachers of the City (New Orleans, 1997).

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the Aragonese Franciscan, described the city as the perfect setting for human life, a sort of earthly paradise.2 The friars also contributed to the transformation of urban life in many Iberian towns, becoming themselves an essential part of the fabric of the late medieval city. It was in the urban space that the friars intertwined with the merchant class and nascent bourgeoisie by preaching and teaching them how to counteract the worldly vitality associated with the cities. Correspondingly, the inhabitants of these urban centres were eager to accept the new spirituality brought about by the friars, a spirituality that justified their wealth and that was better suited to those who lived in a profit economy. Dominicans and Franciscans were not only preaching in vernacular languages using exempla to convey their message more efficiently; they also practised a palpable poverty. This allowed them soon to gain the devotion and the financial support of the urban population in the form of charity, an appropriate way to legitimize the increasing wealth of the merchant classes.3 As a consequence, the religious needs of artisans, merchants, finan­ ciers, and urban professionals evolved quite differently from those of the predominantly rural communities of the early Middle Ages. Hence the Church, a leading element in medieval society, was compelled to adapt its structure to match the demands of the expanding socioeconomic spectrum. Here the friars were much better prepared than their secular counterparts who were still suffering the rigid consequences of the Gregorian reforms aimed at establishing a stricter discipline among the lax clergy in an effort to secure the position of the Church. Nonetheless, power no longer resided solely in the rural and feudal castle or in the palace, or in the Church for that matter; it also resided in the highly autonomous city councils such as those of Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain; and the friars became influential players within them. In a revolutionary break from the Church’s past these religious men were heavily engaged with the world, preaching the message of the Gospel to the laity and actively participating in education. Noteworthy are the many great scholars of that time who became the intellectual leaders in the studia and in the newly created universities that flourished alongside cathedral schools. Adeline Rucquoi dedicates her chapter to the Hispanic origins of Saint Dominic by explaining how the Castilian city of Palencia, already 2 A. Antelo Iglesias, ‘La ciudad ideal según fray Francesc Eiximenis y Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo’, En la España Medieval, 6 (1985), 19–50. 3 L.K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1983).

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an important centre of learning by the late twelfth century, provided the scholarly opportunities that drove him to rise in the Church as founder of the Order of Preachers. Equally so, in the Crown of Aragon other friars such as Ramon Penyafort, Ramon Marti, and Francesc Eiximenis also exercised great influence in the late medieval intellectual world that would transcend the ecclesiastical realm. Damian Smith’s chapter explains the great intellectual achievements of Ramon Penyafort, not only as general master of the Dominicans, but also in terms of his preoccupation – as it was narrated in the Summa de paenitentia and the Liber Extra – with the idea of converting the ‘non-believers’, namely heretics, Jews, and Muslims. Likewise, Thomas Burman, in evaluating the work of the Dominican Ramon Marti, demonstrates his shifting interest from Muslim to Jewish texts, as shown in his Pugio fidei. He did so in order to explain the Trinity and to connect with the scholastic tendencies of northern Europe. Finally, Víctor Farías Zurita explains how Francesc Eiximenis spread his ideas about work and moral and ethical values in the complex urban culture of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The energetic incorporation of the mendicant orders in medieval society and their leadership in the intellectual world allowed them to transform the hierarchy of the Church, often taking up key positions in the episcopate and beyond. The friars, who were very articulate and well prepared, were prominent in the establishment of the Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon and, for very similar reasons, played a major part in attempting to teach the Gospel message to the Muslims as the Christian kingdoms expanded to the south. Robin Vose illustrates the crucial role of Dominican friars in the early establishment of the inquisition in Aragon and how their involvement in inquisitorial affairs had served them to acquire higher ecclesiastical offices, a matter which caused division and jealousy among the preachers. On the other hand, friars such as Vincent Ferrer, with much greater personal protagonism, avoided inquisitorial offices altogether and took a more singular approach to fulfil their spiritual life. Very soon the friars connected with the Castilian and Aragonese monarchies and their respective nobilities. As was the case with Saint Louis in France, in Spain the friars greatly influenced the policies of many monarchs. Of course, the support of the elites was not totally disinterested since the Preachers and the Minors were of great assistance to the crown. Allegedly, King Ferdinand III entered reconquered Seville in 1248 accompanied by two Dominican friars, Pedro Gonzalez Telmo and Saint Dominic the Young. 4 4 A. Quintanadueñas, Santos de la ciudad de Sevilla y su arzobispado (Seville, 1637), 337; García-Serrano, Preachers, 14, n. 44.

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Similarly, Miguel Fabra, a personal companion of Saint Dominic, participated in the conquest of Mallorca and was selected by King James I of Aragon to evangelize reconquered Valencia. There he founded a Dominican convent in 1239, just a few months after the conquest. Another Dominican Friar, Andreu d’Albalat, was appointed first bishop of Valencia and second chancellor of James I from 1247 to 1257.5 María del Mar Graña Cid explains the close relationship between King Ferdinand III and the mendicant orders. These extremely valuable religious organizations served both the interest of the crown and the nobles, especially by sponsoring female convents where royal and noble ladies could fulfil their religious needs while still keeping close links with the centres of power. The temporal support of queens and kings was, as was to be expected, reciprocated by spiritual comfort and advice from the friars. Several Dominicans appear as confessors of kings and queens in Castile. For instance, Friar Domingo de Robledo was the confessor of Kings Sancho IV, Ferdinand IV, and Queen María de Molina. In 1291, Queen María de Molina had her son Alfonso buried in San Pablo of Valladolid, an act that guaranteed royal patronage in years to come. As a sign of allegiance to the Preachers, she herself asked to be buried, dressed in the Dominican habit, in the monastery of Las Huelgas.6 By the second half of the thirteenth century the friars also secured the friendship of the high nobility, as in the well-known connection between Don Juan Manuel and the Dominicans. Friar Alfonso appears in the Libro enfenido as a close friend giving advice to Don Juan Manuel and his son Fernando. Friar Alfonso was probably Don Juan Manuel’s confessor and prior of the convent of Peñafiel, founded by the powerful Castilian nobleman.7 Both Pablo Martín Prieto and Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez in their contributions to this volume clearly support the royal association by analysing the intricate relationship between King Alfonso X and the powerful Guzmán family in founding and supporting the monastery of Santa Clara 5 R.I. Burns, Diplomatarium of the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: the registered charters of its conqueror Jaume I, 1257–1276. I: society and documentation in crusader Valencia (Princeton, 1985), 31. 6 L.G. Alonso Getino, ‘Dominicos españoles confesores de reyes’, Ciencia Tomista 14 (1916) 380–90; C. Palomo, ‘Confesores dominicos de los reyes de España’, Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, vol. I (Madrid, 1972), 600; A. López, ‘Confesores de la familia real de Castilla’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 31 (1929), 5–75; M. De Castro y Castro, ‘Confesores franciscanos de los reyes de España’, Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, Suplemento I (Madrid 1987), 219–21. 7 García-Serrano, Preachers, 101.

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in Alcocer. Cañas Gálvez provides clear examples of the important political activity that took place in Santo Domingo el Real in Toledo, and how the prioress Teresa de Ayala had great influence in the court of King Peter I of Castile. The spiritual care of women, cura mulierum, was never an easy mission for the friars. While they could not deny pastoral care to the nuns, material and economic engagement with nuns caused quite a few conflicts in the early history of Dominicans and Franciscans. They could only solve this problem by gradually removing themselves from the direct care of the nuns. As is shown in my chapter, the Dominican convent of Madrid provided the order with great economic resources. To be sure, their missions in the towns and their educational role, as well as their strong associations with the papacy and the crown, often led the friars into conflict with other clergymen and with secular society. However, they proved themselves to be extremely skilful, and in most cases they were successful in their endeavours. They also suffered internal tensions and major splits. While the high ecclesiastical spheres and the papacy generally welcomed them, they had to compete and find their own space within the framework of the Church. They were to be both widely admired and the subject of sharp literary satire. In need of souls and ambitious for material support, other clergy competed with the friars for the cura animarum. The well-known conflict within the University of Paris in the mid thirteenth century epitomized this opposition. In addition, the Dominicans had to compete against other mendicant orders, particularly the Franciscans, to gain influence and support. In her chapter, Emily Graham sheds light on the conflict of the Spiritual Franciscans in the Crown of Aragon and how they were able to solve their differences and reach a pragmatic solution. While there was conflict and confrontations among religious men, there was nonetheless also cooperation. In the frontier society of the newly conquered Valencia, as clearly elucidated by Taryn Chubb, the Dominicans resorted and connected with Hospitallers and Carthusians in the exegesis of the Last Judgement to encourage the conversion of non-believers and to reinforce the faith of Christians in a frontier society. In the multiconfessional society of Jews, Muslims, and Christians of medieval Iberia, the individuals of the three religions often shared living space in the cities and in the rural areas, consequently influencing each other. Non-Christians, however, were required to live in special quarters, the aljamas, where they were usually protected by the monarchy. In general the Castilian kings did not enforce the papal orders to mark Jews and Muslims with distinctive clothing, and the Partidas, the Code of Law of King

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Alfonso X, clearly defended Jews from forced conversion.8 The climate of tolerance was somewhat reciprocal; Christian mozárabes lived in Muslim lands while Muslim mudéjares lived in Christian territories. Although the general climate of the so-called convivencia or coexistence was changing in thirteenth-century Castile and Aragon, Jews were still highly regarded and were close to the royal court. While the Dominicans’ most active spiritual crusade against the heretics was taking place in the economically favoured lands of southern France and northern Italy, changes were occurring in Castile as well, though shaped by a distinct historical context. Due to the multiplicity of cultures, religions, and kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, the Dominicans and Franciscans found it more challenging to convert Muslims and Jews than Christian heretics, since they were, after all, outside the realm of the Church. As an example, with a great illustration of pragmatism and mimesis, Linda Jones demonstrates the similarities between the Muslim orators and the Christian mendicant preachers who spoke in front of mixed audiences of Muslims and Christians, and how they emulated each other in order to be more effective in their sermons. The story of late medieval Spain cannot possibly be told without understanding the great impact of the friars. As a consequence, historians are paying increasing attention to the mendicant orders in the medieval Iberian world. To this end we bring together a collection of studies written by international scholars from Spain, the United States, Canada, England, and France to explore several critical aspects of the influence of the friars in medieval Spain. While the volume is not comprehensive, we believe that it includes key historical topics of great value which should encourage further research.

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Partidas (VII, 25, 2), trans. J. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, 1975), 463.

1.

Dominicus Hispanus Adeline Rucquoi Abstract Saint Dominic of Osma was probably born in Caleruega (Spain) around the year 1170. He died in Bologna (Italy) in 1221. His life and work are well known from the founding of the nunnery of Prouille in 1206 and the establishment of the Order of Preachers in 1215. However, his previous life, i.e. two-thirds of his life (1170–1206), is little known. Jordan of Saxony, who briefly met Dominic in 1219 and never went to Spain, gives very few details on this period. This chapter aims to emphasize the intellectual background of Dominic through his formation in the see of Osma and his education at the University of Palencia, which made him one of the most brilliant Hispani who influenced the Europe of his time. Keywords: Saint Dominic, Dominicans, medieval Castile, religious history

Dominicus Hispanus? The title may well surprise a reader since the Hispanic origin of the founder of the Order of Preachers is usually held to be of little importance, except to specify where he was born and in order to make mention of his mother, Juana of Aza. This could not be more different from the case of the man with whom he is most often compared, Francis of Assisi, whose Italian origins are always emphasized. Yet, unlike many of his contemporaries – such as the jurists Bernardus Compostellanus, Vicentius Hispanus, Laurentius Hispanus, Petrus Hispanus, and many others who became famous outside of their homeland – it appears that the term Hispanus is considered unnecessary to understand the life and work of Saint Dominic. Scholars who have studied his life and works – such as the French MarieHumbert Vicaire, the Belgian Pierre Mandonnet, the Spanish Luis G. Alonso Getino, and more recently the English Simon Tugwell – have been faced

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with many difficulties because of the sparse information available about the first Preacher’s early life. It is only when Dominic leaves Spain and arrives in what is now southern France and is about to found the convent of Our Lady of Prouille in 1206 that he becomes a ‘public figure’. If, according to tradition, we accept the date of 1170 for his birth, he was then already about forty years old. However, Vito Tomás Gómez García, editor of the new edition of Santo Domingo de Guzmán: escritos de sus contemporáneos, prefers to set the date of his birth around 1174, which would make him about thirty-two when he founded Prouille.1 Dominic died fifteen years later, in 1221, having created in that short amount of time a new order, which flourished from the beginning. Therefore, we really only know about the last third of his life. The f irst biography of the founder of the order, entitled Libellus de principiis ordinis Praedicatorum, is not rich in detail. It begins by praising the bishop of Osma, Diego Aceves (1201–1207), before mentioning ‘a young man named Dominic, a native of the same diocese, from the village called Caleruega’ where he was living at that time. After pointing out the dream which his mother had, the biographer briefly reports that: ‘he was dutifully educated by his parents and especially by an archpriest, who was his uncle’; that he was sent to study liberal arts at Palencia; and that afterwards he abandoned these studies to devote himself to the study of theology for four years. Appointed canon of Osma by the bishop, Dominic lived a life devoted to contemplation and meditation, until King Alfonso VIII of Castile sent the bishop of Osma on a diplomatic mission to seek ‘a noble woman from the Marches’ to marry the heir to the throne. Bishop Diego took Dominic, then subprior of the chapter of Osma, with him and both went through Toulouse, where they had their first encounter with heretics.2 Thus in a few paragraphs, Jordan of Saxony summarized the first twothirds of the life of the founder of his order. It is true that Jordan, who succeeded Dominic at the head of the order in May 1222, had scarcely known the master. He was approximately ten years younger and was studying in Paris when Dominic came to that city in 1219. Jordan joined the new order in February 1220 in Paris and was nominated as provincial prior of Lombardy during the chapter of 1221, in which he did not himself participate. The work that he wrote on the origins of the order was probably finished around 1233, twelve years after Dominic’s death in Bologna. Jordan made numerous trips during his general priorate to Italy, France, Germany, and England, and 1 Santo Domingo de Guzmán: escritos de sus contemporáneos, ed. V.T. Gómez García (Madrid, 2011). 2 Jordán de Sajonia, ‘Orígenes de la Orden de Predicadores’, in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, 203–13.

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died in 1237 when the ship which he took to come back from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was wrecked. It does not seem that he ever made it to the Iberian Peninsula, the place of Dominic’s origin and, therefore, of the order. This probably explains the little interest he showed in the first years of the life of the future saint, and the sparse information he obtained at the time he was writing about him. Reading Jordan of Saxony, those thirty or forty years prior to Dominic’s crossing of the Pyrenees on his way to Denmark (and not to ‘the Marches’) do not seem to be very important in his life. In fact, the process that led to Dominic’s canonization in July 1234 was developed in Bologna and in Languedoc, ignoring the testimony of any Castilian witness before the foundation of the community at Prouille; all the names of the witnesses called to declare were those of brothers of the Order who knew Dominic in Toulouse, Paris, or Italy. The bull of canonization expressed mere generalities on Dominic’s infancy and youth before praising his life as a Preacher. No witness was called to speak about the saint’s life in Spain before 1206. Pedro Ferrando, who wrote a biography of the founder a little before 1240, was a Spaniard, probably a Galician, and he belonged to the Dominican communities of Toledo and Seville before ending his days in Zamora. Nevertheless, his account, which has a clear liturgical purpose, does not offer any new information but seems to be a variation on the theme of Jordan of Saxony, with details which aim to underline Dominic’s holiness from childhood. Ferrando is the first one who ‘baptizes’ the parents of Saint Dominic as Felix and Juana (Felix being quite an uncommon name in Castile at that time but of great symbolic value). Like Pedro Ferrando, the Italian Constantino de Orvieto wrote a Legenda sancti Dominici in 1246–1247 to be read as one of the lessons of the office of matins on the holidays in honour of the founder; he briefly repeats the wonderful events that surrounded Dominic’s birth and, even more briefly, mentions his youth and his studies in Palencia. Neither Humbert of Romans nor Bartolomeo of Trent nor Rodrigo de Cerrato adds anything to what was already recounted by Jordan of Saxony. Only Teodorico de Apoldia in 1288 provides more precise information, the date of the marriage of the parents of Dominic, which he places in 1170; as for the rest, he is pleased to repeat what other authors who dealt with the topic had written before him.3 This lack of interest in the context in which the future saint was trained has caught the attention of the modern historians of the order who have tried 3 ‘Santo Domingo de Guzmán: escritos’ in Compendium Historiae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ed. A.M. Walz (Rome, 1930), 1–4.

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to counter the deficiencies of the documentation. Kyle Lincoln, who defended a master’s thesis in 2012 on the theme, analyses the political context of Dominic’s youth, especially within the context of the history of the Castilian Church, and then looks at the schools of Palencia and tries to gain a better insight into the saint’s family. 4 Twenty years before, a series of colloquia celebrated in Caleruega had tried to define Dominic and his context, just as Fathers Balme and Lelaidier had also tried to do in 1893.5 Bearing these valuable contributions in mind, it seems possible to go further into the topic, going beyond an ecclesiastic vision or a straightforwardly historical one in order to place Dominic, canon of Osma, in a cultural ‘Hispanic’ context.

From Caleruega to Palencia The debate on the family origins of the founder of the Order of Preachers is not the main focus of this chapter. Traditional hagiography, and especially that written before the fourteenth century, systematically attributes noble origins to the parents of male and female saints; the canonization of saints from a humble background is generally only to be found later.6 In his Vitas sanctorum, written after 1260, Rodrigo de Cerrato mentions that Dominic’s father, Felix, was a vir venerabilis and ‘rich in goods’ (dives in proprio suo), i.e. wealthy. The terms are quite vague, and do not seem to define a nobleman or a landowner who would have possessed hereditates, but probably reveal the lack of information known to Rodrigo, who passed through Caleruega in 1272, and therefore long after the draft of Saint Dominic’s Vita. Thus, it seems difficult to follow Anthony Lappin’s conclusion when he makes Saint Dominic’s father a ‘successful member of the middle class, perhaps a merchant’.7 The village of Caleruega was not a place noted for merchants, as the city of Burgos was – on top of which the expression ‘middle class’ is totally anachronistic. 4 K. Lincoln, ‘A Canon from Castile: the early life of St. Dominic of Osma (1170/4–1207)’, ma thesis (Saint Louis University, 2012). 5 Santo Domingo de Caleruega en su contexto socio-político: 1170–1221, ed. C. Ániz Iriartea and L.V. Díaz Martín (Salamanca, 1994); Santo Domingo de Caleruega: contexto cultural, ed. C. Ániz Iriartea and L.V. Díaz Martín (Salamanca, 1995); Santo Domingo de Caleruega: contexto eclesial-religioso, ed. C. Ániz Iriartea and L.V. Díaz Martín (Salamanca, 1996); Cartulaire ou histoire diplomatique de saint Dominique, ed. F. Balme and P. Lelaidier (Paris, 1893). 6 A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1987); idem, Les laïcs au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1987). 7 A. Lappin, ‘On the Family and Early Years of St. Dominic of Caleruega’, AFP, 67 (1997), 22.

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In Castile, in the twelfth century, most wealthy members of the community acquired a horse and a weapon to fight with, and, thanks to their participation in military campaigns, occupied offices in their town or village and entered the nobility as caballeros.8 Although diverse authors have tried to develop an elaborate genealogy of the family of Saint Dominic, especially in order to link him with the aristocratic family of the Guzmán on the basis of later sources,9 we must reluctantly admit that the family origins of the saint may well never be unveiled. Jordan of Saxony credits the primary education of Dominic to his parents and ‘one of his uncles, the archpriest’. Primary education was, in fact, usually given by the parents; and it is well known that mothers taught their sons and daughters their first letters while, some time later, the fathers taught their sons how to deal with weapons and with the artefacts required for their adult life.10 Dominic later studied with an archpriest, his uncle. This would probably be when he was seven years old, and thus out of early childhood. The councils of the sixth and seventh centuries, whose canons circulated both inside and outside the peninsula for centuries, prescribed the foundation or the maintenance of parochial schools and established episcopal schools where children could receive an education which allowed them to choose an ecclesiastical or secular life. Moreover, following the Latin tradition, a palatine school was open to the children of magnates and gave training to future bishops.11 Parochial schools, as well as monasteries, maintained this educational tradition during the High Middle Ages, while cathedrals such as Seville in al-Andalus, Narbonne in the northeast and Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of the peninsula ‘nurtured’ the future prelates and the children of the nobility.12 The great canonist Silvestre Godinho, who was archbishop of Braga between 1229 and 1244, recalled 8 A. Rucquoi, ‘Être noble en Espagne aux XIVe –XVIe siècles’, in Nobilitas: funktion und repräsentation des Adels in Alteuropa, ed. O.G. Oexle and W. Paravicini (Göttingen, 1997), 273–98. 9 G. Martínez Diez, ‘Orígenes familiares de Santo Domingo, los linajes de Aza y Guzmán’, in Santo Domingo de Caleruega en su contexto socio-político, 173–228. 10 N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry: the education of English Kings and aristocracy, 1006–1530 (London, 1984); A. Giallongo, Il bambino medievale: educazione ed infanzia nel Medioevo (Bari, 1990); M.C. García Herrero, Las mujeres en Zaragoza en el siglo XV, 2 vols (Zaragoza, 1990); D. Alexandre-Bidon and D. Lett, Les Enfants au Moyen Âge (Ve–XVe siècle) (Paris, 1997). 11 A. Rucquoi, ‘Éducation et société dans la Péninsule ibérique au Moyen Age’, Histoire de l’Éducation, 69 (1996), 3–36; idem, ‘El deber de saber: la tradición docente en la Edad Media castellana’, México en el mundo hispánico, ed. O. Mazín Gómez (Zamora, Mexico, 2000), 309–29. 12 Rucquoi, ‘De grammaticorum schola: la tradición cultural compostelana en el siglo XII’, Visitandum est. Santos y cultos en el Codex Calixtinus: actas del VII Congreso Internacional de Estudios Jacobeos, ed. P. Caucci von Saucken (Santiago de Compostela, 2005), 235–54.

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having studied during his childhood at the parochial school of São Paio de Pousada, a small nucleus of his future archbishopric.13 Besides the monasteries and parishes, many magistri offered to instruct children, either in private houses or in their own homes; as shown in documents since the second half of the ninth century, these magistri are sometimes mentioned in the wills of their students, who in turn are occasionally mentioned in the wills of the magistri when they bequeathed them a book or other belongings. Many of these ‘tutors’ were clerics who thus hosted young apprentices at home in exchange for some money paid by their family or manual work.14 In May 1209, for example, the presbiter and canon of León Johannes Dominici left bequests both to the church of León, que me ab infancia educavit, and to Petrus Dominici, alumpnus meus.15 Insofar as Dominic was destined to be a cleric (according to Jordan of Saxony), training in the house of a priest, even an archpriest, was the norm and did not require parents to be particularly wealthy.16 But of where was he the archpriest? The lists of dignitaries in the church of Osma do not provide archpriests’ names and we do not know if there were archpriests at that time in the diocese of Osma. A list with eighteen names in May 1168, for example, reveals that the chapter at that time included a prior, a subprior, an archdeacon, a precentor or schoolmaster, a sacristan, a chamberlain (maiordomus), two magistri (Odas and Barnerius), but no archpriest.17 Neither were there any archpriests in the wealthy chapter of the Palencia church. The dean, five archdeacons, the precentor, the prior, a magister (Guillelmus Pennefidelis), and the abbot of Husillos appear among the nineteen members of the chapter who co-signed a document in May 1183 with the archbishop of Toledo and Bishop Ardericus of Palencia; and there is no mention of an archpriest among the almost forty canons and prebendaries registered in March 1190.18 It is only in the church of Burgos where there appears a Martinus Martini archipresbiter in July 1169, a Michael archipresbiter in January 1181, and, in the same year in March, a dompnus Martinus Sesandez 13 A. Domingues de Sousa Costa, Mestre Silvestre e Mestre Vicente, juristas da contenda entre D. Afonso II e suas irmãs (Braga, 1963), 15. 14 Rucquoi, ‘La royauté sous Alphonse VIII de Castille’, Cahiers de Linguistique Hispanique Médiévale, 23 (2000), 215–41. 15 Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, ed. J.M. Fernández Catón, 13 vols (Leon, 1987–99), vi, 201–3, no. 1807. 16 Lincoln, ‘A Canon from Castile’, 72, 75. 17 Cartulario del monasterio de Santa María de Huerta, ed. J.A. García Luján (Santa María de Huerta, 1981), 21–3, no. 12. 18 Documentación de la catedral de Palencia (1035–1247), ed. T. Abajo Martín (Palencia, 1986), 194–7, no. 94; 212–15, no. 105.

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archipresbiter et mayordomus.19 In these circumstances, it is difficult to know if the account by Jordan of Saxony corresponds to reality and if the memories he had of Dominic of Osma were accurate. In any case, it is very likely that Dominic studied with a cleric once he was out of childhood; and he probably moved to live in the house of his master, who may have been a relative. The saint’s Vitae point out that later he was sent to Palencia to study liberal arts and that he left these subjects and dedicated himself to the study of theology during four years. Lincoln infers that Dominic’s father was ‘at least a shrewd enough businessman’ to have sufficient means to pay for these studies and those of two other children he had according to the Vitae.20 The archives of the church of Osma and of the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos keep a copy of the agreement made between Bishop Martin and Abbot Juan concerning several churches, dated in Palencia on 1 April 1191. Among the members of the chapter of Osma who subscribed the agreement we find the prior Didacus and the subprior Dominicus Oxomensis, called sacrista in the copy kept in Silos.21 Hence at the beginning of the last decade of the twelfth century, rather than at the end of this decade, Dominic was already a member of Osma’s chapter.22 Such a date likely coincides with the period of his training in Palencia, and we must consider this prebend, a higher one insofar as it belonged to a dignitary, as a sort of ‘grant’ for studying. In 1169, the chapter of Santiago de Compostela had ruled that its members who wanted to study abroad would keep their prebend, provided that they fully dedicated themselves to their studies.23 In 1192, King Sancho I of Portugal stipulated that every year money had to be given to the canons of Santa Cruz of Coimbra willing to study in partibus Galliae, i.e. in Montpellier or Saint-Ruf in Avignon.24 For his part, 19 Documentación de la catedral de Burgos (804–1183), ed. J.M. Garrido Garrido (Burgos, 1983), 286–7, no. 177; 324–7, nos 210–11. 20 Lincoln, ‘A Canon from Castile’, 74–5. 21 J. Loperráez Corvalán, Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma, 3 vols (Madrid, 1788, ed. facsimile, Madrid, 1978), iii, 41–3, no. 30; Documentación del monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos (954–1254), ed. M.C. Vivancos Gómez (Burgos, 1988), 116–17, no. 80. 22 In August 1199, Dominic signed another document as sacrista, according to M.H. Vicaire, ‘Saint Dominique, chanoine d’Osma’, AFP, 73 (1993), 5–41. Because of this, 1199 was accepted as the year that Dominic entered the chapter of Osma, thus after completing his training in Palencia. 23 A. López Ferreiro, Historia de la Santa A.M. Iglesia de Santiago de Compostela, 11 vols (Santiago de Compostela, 1901), iv, 292–3; 99–101, no. 40. 24 J. Verissimo Serrão, Les Portugais à l’université de Montpellier (XIIe–XVIIe s.) (Paris, 1971), 7; A. Moreira de Sa, ‘Primórdios da Cultura Portuguesa’, Arquivos de História da Cultura Portuguesa, I, 1 (Lisbon, 1967), 21.

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Raimundo de Castillazuelo, bishop of Zaragoza (1184–1199), also took steps to make the study of theology easier for the canons of his church. In Toledo, the Italian Gerard of Cremona, who ruled over a school of natural philosophy, at the same time enjoyed a prebend within the cathedral’s chapter.25 Thus, after ending his training at the archpriest’s house, in order to carry on his training at the Palencia Studium generale, Dominic joined the chapter of Osma, which could enjoy a brilliant addition to its ranks, endowed with the title of magister.

Osma The church which Dominic entered when he was twenty years old or younger had been ruled by Bishop Martín de Bazán from 1188. The see of Osma, whose existence is already attested under the Visigoths, had only been restored in 1101, and the decades between that date and Martin de Bazán’s election had been far from peaceful. Peter, the first bishop of the restored see, was from Bourges in Aquitaine. Before his election to the see he had lived for more than twenty years in the peninsula, first in the Benedictine monastery of Sahagún and later as archdeacon in the church of Toledo. Bishop Peter died on 2 August 1109, having struggled to fix his diocese’s limits and having initiated the building of a cathedral on the opposite bank of the river Ucero, in Burgo de Osma. Some time after his death, a Vita Sancti Petri Oxomensis recalled that the late bishop had been trained in the liberal arts and philosophy when he was young, and that later in Osma he had devoted himself to charitable activities and the reformation of his diocese’s clergy.26 Osma was then located on the border with Muslim territories, since Soria had only been reconquered at the beginning of the twelfth century by King Alfonso I of Aragon, who kept the town within his possessions until his death in 1134, after which it belonged to the kingdom of Castile. In fact, Bishop Peter had requested his body be taken to Osma and buried in his church, with the prediction that nothing bad would happen to the funeral procession in spite of the imminentium bellorum metu et guerrarum strepitu.27 He died when he was attending King Alfonso VI of Castile’s funeral, a king to whom he owed his nomination, and 25 Los cartularios de Toledo: catalogo documental, ed. F.J. Hernández (Madrid, 1985), 116–17, no. 119. 26 F. Plaine, ‘Vita S. Petri Oxomensis’, Analecta Bollandiana, 4 (1885), 10–29. 27 Ibid., 17–18.

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the anonymous author of his Vita mentions several miracles. In particular on one occasion Bishop Peter was obliged to get out of his grave, alongside his successors Beltrán (1128–1140) and Esteban (1141–1147), in order to expel from his tomb inside the church the notoriously unworthy Bishop Juan Téllez, who was elected in 1148 and died in the same year.28 The examples of Bishop Juan Téllez and his unimpressive successor, Juan II (1148–1173), draw attention to the conflict that was taking place in Castile between the king and the pope over investiture. Enjoying King Alfonso VII’s protection, Bishop Juan II obtained many churches and villas for his see, and in 1152 founded a collegiate church of Augustinian canons in Soria.29 He had inherited a lengthy lawsuit with the bishopric of Sigüenza, which went back to Pope Innocent II’s decision to attribute to Sigüenza the archpresbyterates of Ayllón, Caracena, and Berlanga.30 Taking advantage of the troubles which followed Sancho II’s death and Alfonso VIII’s minority, the bishop invaded the three archpresbyterates manu militari. Without delay Alexander III excommunicated him in January 1163, but Juan II ignored the excommunication and interdict and urged his clergy to follow his example. King Ferdinand II of León backed Bishop Juan, his fidelissimus, and wrote to King Louis VII of France accordingly. On 13 March 1164, the pope deposed the bishop and ordered the chapter to elect another prelate. However, the chapter explained to the pope that in Spain royal assent was needed when electing a bishop, and in his answer, Quia requisistis, the pope acknowledged that an episcopal election in Castile required royal agreement, thereby conceding that the right of investiture in the kingdom did not belong to him.31 The prelates Juan II of Osma and Cerebruno of Sigüenza, who a year later became archbishop of Toledo, signed a truce in 1165. On the occasion of Juan’s deposition in 1164, attempted bribery by the king’s tutors in order to get royal approval for their candidate resulted in the enactment by Alexander III of a decretal known as De simonia, which begins 28 Ibid., 28: ‘Quidam, qui Johannes Telli dicebatur, male, prout quidam sui temporis as­serebant, in Oxomensem episcopum electus fuit […] ad sepulcrum supradicti electi devenerunt, et percutientes cum cambucis in sepulcro clamaverunt: “Egredere, egredere.” Quo introrsus quasi ejulando reclamante: “Egrediar”, ipsi amplius eum perurgebant et cogebant ut egrederetur. Tandem eo egresso quasi phantasmate teterrimo ipsis insequentibus eum, et ad januam ecclesiae fugiente, ipsis insequentibus eum, supradictus episcopus Stephanus jecit post eum candelabrum, quod portae infixum est et altera die videntibus multis inde extractum.’ 29 Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma, iii, 27–9, no. 22. 30 Documentación de la catedral de Burgos, 205–6, no. 117. In 1137 Innocent II endorsed the decision taken the previous year by a council in Burgos. 31 P. Linehan, ‘Royal Influence and Papal Authority in the Diocese of Osma: a note on “Quia requisistis” (JL 13728)’, BMCL, 20 (1990), 31–41.

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with ‘De hoc autem quod episcopus Oxomensis’.32 While the issue of the archpresbyterates had highlighted that, almost a century after the Gregorian reform, the investiture of bishops did not belong to the popes in Castile, it also created an unfavourable climate within the diocese. In September 1170, Archbishop Cerebruno had to issue a sentence against several inhabitants of Osma who had insulted the canons.33 The bishop’s death in April 1173 did not end the problems of the diocese, and Bishop Martin de Bazán, elected in 1188, was constrained to impose Saint Augustine’s rule over his canons and to reform his clergy’s customs; in order to do so, in 1199 he asked Pope Innocent III for advice on how to proceed in punishing the crimes and misdemeanours of clerics.34 The case of Osma was hardly unique. Until the second half of the eleventh century, in Castile Roman influence had only been acknowledged in the field of doctrine. It was the king who defined religion. He was the defensor fidei and the protector of the Church within his kingdom. Like his Visigothic predecessors, Ferdinand I legislated for the Church in 1055 at Coyanza to correct abuses and criminal offences.35 The ascent of Gregory VII to the throne of Saint Peter in 1073, and the reform he undertook to unify all of Western Christianity and place it under his authority, coincided in Spain with the reorganization of the episcopal sees following the conquest of Toledo in 1085. The kings of Castile and León made concessions to Rome in terms of ritual and script only, but remained unmoved on the matter of the investiture of bishops, therefore raising problems when these bishops were foreigners or when Rome opposed their appointment. Therefore, other episcopal sees often had to face similar problems to those that afflicted Osma.36 The archbishop of Braga, Maurice (1108–1117), who did not recognize Toledo’s primacy, sided with Emperor Henry V who had him elected as a pope. His successor, Paio Mendes, was imprisoned by the countess of Portugal, Teresa, in 1121, but confirmed to the see in 1128 by Afonso Enriques, the future king of Portugal, who appointed him as his chaplain and chancellor 32 Ibid., emending C. Duggan, ‘The Case of Bernard of Osma: royal influence and papal authority in the diocese of Osma’, in The Church and Sovereignty, c.590–1918: essays in honour of Michael Wilks, ed. D. Wood, SCH Subsidia, 9 (Oxford, 1991), 77–96. 33 Catálogo descriptivo de los códices que se conservan en la Santa Iglesia Catedral de Burgo de Osma, ed. T. Rojo Orcajo (Madrid, 1929), 64–5. 34 Loperráez Corvalán, Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma, iii, 46–7, nos 33–4. 35 A. García-Gallo, ‘El concilio de Coyanza’, AHDE, 20 (1950), 286–302. 36 A. Rucquoi, ‘Cuius rex, eius religio: ley y religión en la España medieval’, in Las representaciones del poder en las sociedades hispánicas, ed. Ó. Mazín (Mexico, 2012), 133–74.

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of the court.37 In Burgos, around 1120, Pope Calixtus II had been a posteriori told of the election of Bishop Jimeno (1119–1139) and had to ask the prelates of Palencia, Oviedo, León, and Salamanca to investigate the elected one’s qualities and to confirm him on his behalf.38 After the death in October 1159 of Bishop Lope de Artajona in Pamplona, two bishops were elected by rival factions: Pedro, consecrated by the archbishop of Tarragona and backed by the count of Barcelona; and Sancho (son of Sancho VI of Navarre), who was consecrated by the archbishop of Toledo and backed by the Navarrese. They were both deposed in 1163 at the council of Tours presided over by the pope.39 In 1168, the bishops of León, Lugo, Mondoñedo, Coria, Orense, Oviedo, Salamanca, and Astorga signed an agreement which stipulated that, ‘if one of us might be expelled from his see violently, or constrained to leave it following many injuries’, they would gather to judge the case within a period of forty days and, in the meantime, give hospitality in their see to the exiled bishop. 40 In the course of an investigation regarding the rebellion of the clerics of the diocese of Segovia against the reforming measures taken by Bishops Gonzalo (1195–1211) and Gerardo (1214–1221/24), the witnesses said that the abuses went back to the episcopates of Vicencio (1152–1157) and his successors ‘Gundisalvi, Guillelmi, Guterri et usque nunc’. 41 Seen through the eyes of the papal legates, the perception from Rome was that the state of the Spanish Church was appalling. Moreover, endless accusations arrived in Rome concerning simony, violence, or sodomy – accusations thrown by canons against their bishops or by bishops against their churches’ prebendaries.42 Perhaps we do not have to give too much credibility to such denunciations since during the second half of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century the Castilian and Leonese clergy had found in Rome a possible avenue for their complaints, whereas before they had only been able to appeal to the king. The kings, who saw their bishops as part of their kingdoms’ administration and who were determined to keep their rights to investiture, were not always inclined to pay attention to 37 F. da Almeida, História da Igreja em Portugal, 6 vols (Coimbra, 1910, rep. 1922), i, 599–609; A. de Jesus da Costa, O bispo D. Pedro e a organização da diocese de Braga, 2 vols (Coimbra, 1959), i, 255. 38 Documentación de la catedral de Burgos, 183–4, no. 101. 39 J. Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de los obispos de Pamplona, 10 vols (Pamplona, 1979–94), i, 423, 426–7. 40 Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, v, 393, no. 1548. 41 Documentación medieval de la catedral de Segovia (1115–1300), ed. L.M. García (Salamanca, 1990), 164–6, no. 107; 380–7, no. 245. 42 P. Linehan, La Iglesia española y el Papado en el siglo XIII (Salamanca, 1975), 23–47.

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these complaints. For that reason, not even the marathon legation of John of Abbeville in 1228–1229 achieved the results expected by the papacy. 43 In fact, if we leave aside the fruitless Roman attempts to impose moral reform on the peninsular clergy and assert papal authority, the picture of the Church in Castile was not especially troubling. In the most important sees, the reform of the chapter, often through the adoption of the Augustinian rule, had given rise to the creation of the positions of schoolmaster or precentor. In Santiago de Compostela, in 1170, a constitution defined the schoolmaster’s attributes: he was to be in charge of the sigilum commune; he had to determine and order the cotidie lectiones ad matutinas, and appoint a magistrum in facultate gramatice in the city who would teach both the socios Ecclesie clericos et pueros and all the alios civitatis ac diocesis; and eventually he had to write and compose all the litteras capituli. 44 On the other hand, many canons and clerics instructed boys and girls. This was the case with the Infanta Doña Sancha, Alfonso VII of Castile’s sister, who left properties in her will to Bishop Pedro of Segovia (1120–1148), calling him ‘magistro meo’. 45 Books and study were not neglected, not even in the sees restored at the beginning of the twelfth century. For example, in Osma, because of heavy rains and flooding that occurred during the episcopate of the second bishop, Raymond (1109–1126), the ‘libros, campanas et alia quaedam ornamenta ecclesiarum’ were safely rescued; the inventory of the cathedral’s library at the end of the thirteenth century includes 148 entries, and an important part of this collection had probably been there 100 years before.46 In Coimbra, in 1116, Bishop Gonzalo bequeathed various properties and several liturgical books with gilded silver binding to the chapter of the cathedral of Santa María. 47 Bishop Bernardo, who died in 1146, also left books in his will to his cathedral. Likewise, in 1175, the canon magister Martín, dying in Paris, bequeathed his library to his church; besides liturgical and spiritual books, the inventory reveals books on medicine, astronomy, logic, and arithmetic. 48 43 Linehan, ‘A Papal Legation and its Aftermath: Cardinal John of Abbeville in Spain and Portugal, 1228–1229’, in idem, Historical Memory and Clerical Activity in Medieval Spain and Portugal (Aldershot, 2012), 236–56. 44 López Ferreiro, Historia […] Santiago de Compostela, iv, 293–4; app. 107–8, no. 42. 45 Documentación […] catedral de Segovia, 107–8, no. 60. 46 Plaine, ‘Vita S. Petri Oxomensis’, 25; Catálogo […] Catedral de Burgo de Osma, 9–13. 47 Livro Preto: cartulário da Sé de Coimbra, ed. M. Augusto Rodrigues (Coimbra, 1999), 845–7, no. 630. 48 Liber Anniversariorum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Colimbriensis: Livro das Kalendas, ed. P. David and T. de Sousa Soares, 2 vols (Coimbra 1947–48), i, 70, 79. F. da Gama Caeiro, ‘As escolas capitulares

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In Coimbra, the monastery of Santa Cruz, founded in 1131, also had a good library and a very active scriptorium. 49 In Segovia, in November 1117, the merchant Domingo Petit bequeathed money to the prior of Santa María to have ‘a good Bible’ made, and ordered his nephew to be sent ‘to the schools’ so he would become a canon later.50 Bishop Juan of Segovia was transferred to Toledo in 1152 and he took with him the archdeacon of Cuéllar, Dominicus Gundisalvi. Working in Segovia at that time were the Englishman Robert of Chester, who translated into Latin the Kwharismi’s Kitab al-Muhtasar fi hisab al-gabr wa al-muqabala in 1145 under the name of Algebra, and the translator Petrus Toletanus, who was a member of the chapter in 1161. In Toledo, Archbishop Juan sponsored or favoured schools of natural philosophy and translations of Arabic works.51 In Pamplona, the translator Robert of Ketton enjoyed a prebend in the cathedral around the year 1142, when he met the abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable.52 In Santiago de Compostela and in Oviedo, two great prelates in the first half of the twelfth century, Diego Gelmírez (1100–1140) and Pelayo (1098–1153), have left impressive works whose purpose was to assert their respective sees’ claims.53 Some scholars ascribe to Arnaldo, bishop of Astorga between 1144 and 1152, who took part in the conquest of Almería in 1147, authorship of the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris.54 no primeiro século da nacionalidade portuguesa’, Arquivos de História da Cultura Portuguesa, 1/2 (1966), 19. 49 ‘Vita Tellonis archidiaconi’, in Hagiografia de Santa Cruz de Coimbra, ed. A.A. Nascimento (Lisbon, 1998), 54–137; Moreira de Sa, ‘Primórdios da Cultura Portuguesa’, 21, 31; S.A. Gomes, In limine conscriptionis: documentos, chancelaria e cultura no Mosteiro de Santa Cruz de Coimbra. Séculos XII a XIV (Viseu, 2007). 50 Documentación […] catedral de Segovia, 48–9, no. 5. 51 A. Rucquoi, ‘Gundisalvus ou Dominicus Gundisalvi?’, Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale, 41 (1999), 85–106; Robert of Chester’s Latin Translation of the Algebra of al-Khowarizmi, ed. L.C. Karpinski (New York, 1915); C. Burnett, ‘Ketton, Robert of (fl.1141–1157)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004); Documentación […] catedral de Segovia, 108–9, no. 61. 52 PL, clxxxix, 649–50, 661; C.J. Bishko, ‘Peter the Venerable’s Journey to Spain’, in Venerabilis, 1156–1956, ed. G. Constable and J. Kritzeck (Rome, 1956), 163–75; idem, ‘Peter the Venerable’s Traverse of Spain: some further observations’, in idem, Spanish and Portuguese Monastic History, 600–1300 (London, 1984), 163–75. 53 A. Rucquoi, ‘Saint-Jacques de Compostelle: un pèlerinage et ses textes’, in Études sur les Terres saintes et pèlerinages dans les religions monothéistes, ed. Daniel Tollet (Paris, 2012), 77–92; R. Alonso Álvarez, ‘El obispo Pelayo de Oviedo (1101–1153): historiador y promotor de códices iluminados’, Semata: Ciencias sociais e humanidades, 22 (2010), 331–50. 54 A. Ubieto Arteta, ‘Sugerencias sobre la Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 25–6 (1957), 321–6; Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, ed. A. Maya Sánchez, CCCM, 71 (Turnhout, 1990), 112–15.

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Herman of Carinthia and Robert of Ketton were active in León, where around 1115 an anonymous chronicler had drafted the Historia known as Silense, and it was in León around 1142 that Herman translated a De generatione Mahumet et nutritura eius.55 From the ninth century the Leonese cathedral had conserved many volumes in its library, which was augmented and repaired by Bishop Pelayo according to a document of 1073, and in 1120 it was also given all the books from the monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian.56 The settling of regular Augustinian canons in 1149 in the monastery of San Isidoro, and the splitting in 1157 of the kingdoms of León and Castile, making the city into the capital of the kingdom, improved its development. The town in the second half of the century was favoured by the presence of, among others, the canon of San Isidoro, Martín de León, and the dean of the cathedral, Pedro Muñiz, a well-known canonist and, according to tradition, a specialist in occult sciences, who was elected bishop of León in 1205 and two years later transferred to Santiago de Compostela.57 We do not know where Pedro Muñiz studied. But we know of other cases, like the bishop of Pamplona, Pedro de Artajona (1167–1193), surnamed Petrus Parisiensis, Petrus Parisii, Petrus Parisius, or Petrus de Paris because of his studies in that city, who was the author of a treaty on the Trinity and Incarnation; he is sometimes supposed to have played a part in the early training of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada.58 Concerning the latter, who must have been born around the same time as Saint Dominic, we know that he was a student in Paris around 1201, where he completed a first will asking to be buried in the Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Huerta; he had been trained in that abbey by his uncle, Martín de Hinojosa, the first abbot of the community.59 55 Historia Silense, ed. J. Pérez de Urbel and A. González Ruiz Zorrilla (Madrid, 1959); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Selden supra 31, fols 16–32; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 335, fol. 57: ‘De generatione Mahumet et nutritura eius quam transtulit Hermannus Sclavus scolasticus subtilis ingeniosus apud Legionem Hispanie civitatem.’ 56 Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, iv., 439–47, no. 1190; H. Santiago-Otero, ‘La formación de los clérigos leoneses en el siglo XII’, in idem, Santo Martino de León (León, 1987), 188–9. 57 A. Viñayo, ‘Santo Martino de León y su noticia histórica: biografía, santidad, culto’, in Santo Martino de León, 339–50; López Ferreiro, Historia […] Santiago de Compostela, v, 73–4; Cartulario de la universidad de Salamanca, 6 vols, ed. V. Beltrán de Heredia (Salamanca, 1970), i, 45. 58 Goñí Gaztambide, Historia de los obispos de Pamplona, i, 433–4; J. Gómez Pérez, ‘Manuscritos del Toledano’, RABM, 60 (1964), 190. 59 J. Morales de Rada Campos, ‘El testamento de Ximénez de Rada’, Príncipe de Viana, 7 (1946), 369–75; M. D. Quiroga, ‘Filiación genealógica y curiosos pormenores de la Casa de Rada’, Príncipe de Viana, 16 (1955), 411–60.

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Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada was elected bishop of Osma in 1208, succeeding Diego de Aceves, but he was transferred to Toledo the following year.60 In Santiago de Compostela, Archbishop Pedro Suárez de Deza (1173–1206) was renowned for being ‘plenus omni scientia plus quam omnes qui in eadem sede archiepiscopi ante eum fuerunt’; he had studied in Bologna and perhaps in Paris, and he reformed his chapter, giving them statutes which were confirmed in 1178.61 In Toledo, where in 1181 the jurist Pedro de Cardona had been appointed archbishop (he died the following year), Archbishop Martín López de Pisuerga (1192–1208) was given by the king full rights to the office of royal chancellor after the death of its current incumbent, Diego García de Campos. Diego, who was related to the founder of the military Order of Santiago, and perhaps to Saint Dominic, had studied theology in France but also had a sound knowledge of law; he was the chancellor of Alfonso VIII from 1192 until 1214, and dedicated his work Planeta to Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada.62 Without a doubt, in Castile, León, and Portugal, throughout the twelfth century, prelates vied to extend the limits of their dioceses or escape the authority of the archbishop of Toledo, and engaged in violent conflicts and endless lawsuits. They defended their rights and tried to obtain from the monarchs, whose power they depended on, full jurisdiction over the cities of their sees while giving little importance to the reform of the customs of the clergy. However, at the same time many of them had received a high level of training, either in the royal court or in other cathedrals or abroad,63 and encouraged study at their sees, whose chapters welcomed ‘masters’ in increasing numbers. Several of them enjoyed a reputation for holiness, including Diego de Aceves, with whom Jordan of Saxony begins his history. Prior of the chapter of Osma in 1191, when Dominic was the subprior, Diego succeeded Martín de Bazán in 1201 as bishop of the see. Like most prelates, he maintained a close relationship with Alfonso VIII, who sent him to Denmark to find a wife for Alfonso’s son Ferdinand; he also founded a house for Cistercian nuns in Soria in 1203, and died on 30 December 1207. Tradition, attested by Gil González Dávila in the seventeenth century, recalls that ‘he visited his diocese on foot, very often barefoot, showing with his deeds 60 Loperráez Corvalán, Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma, iii, 48–9, no. 36. 61 López Ferreiro, Historia […] Santiago de Compostela, iv, 312–20; v, 24, nn. 2, 48. 62 Los cartularios de Toledo, 245, no. 266; 265, no. 288; 348–51, no. 390; J. López Agurleta, Apología por el hábito de Santo Domingo de la Orden de Santiago (Alcalá, 1725); idem, Vida del venerable fundador de la Orden de Santiago (Madrid, 1731). 63 Rucquoi, ‘La royauté sous Alphonse VIII de Castille’, 215–41.

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the common wellbeing that he wished for his people’.64 Bishop Arderico of Palencia (1184–1207) also died in the odour of sanctity, according to Alonso Fernández de Madrid’s account in the sixteenth century: He was a holy man in the times of King Alfonso VIII; he died in the year 1208, and they say that through him Our Lord worked many miracles; many times I saw how they took soil from his tomb, which they say was to heal diseases and in the reliquary in this church there is a small leather shoe with an inscription saying ‘Sandalia Sancti Anderici’.65

Palencia: a studium generale Dominic pursued his studies at Palencia after he was provided with an ecclesiastical benefice that allowed him to make a living. Jordan of Saxony, followed by all the chroniclers of the order, explained that Dominic was sent there ‘to be trained in the liberal arts, whose study was booming there at that time’, and that, when he considered himself to have studied enough, Dominic stopped studying the liberal arts and ‘ran with alacrity to the study of theology’, to which he then dedicated four years; the only data added by Jordan is that during his stay in Palencia ‘a great famine raged across most of Spain’.66 The Anales Toledanos Primeros actually mention a widespread famine in the kingdom in 1192, which may be the one during which Dominic of Osma sold his books to help the poor.67 Given that the ‘liberal arts’, i.e. the trivium and quadrivium, were usually studied from the age of fourteen or fifteen years and, once acquired, opened the possibility to specialize in law, theology, and medicine (when they did not lead to the study of philosophy itself), Dominic may have started his studies in Palencia in the mid 1180s, and, after learning the liberal arts, would have received a canonry to help complete his training. 64 Loperráez Corvalán, Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma, iii, 47–8, no. 35; G. González Dávila, Teatro eclesiástico de la Iglesia y Ciudad de Osma (Salamanca, 1618), 29–30: ‘visitava su obispado a pie, y muchas vezes descalço, mostrando con sus hechos el bien publico que desseava a los suyos’. 65 Alonso Fernández de Madrid, Silva Palentina, ed. J. San Martín (Palencia, 1976), 148: ‘fue santo varón en tiempo de rey don Alonso octavo; murió en el año de 1208, por quien dizen que nro. Señor hiço muchos milagros; yo vi muchas veces sacar tierra de su sepultura, dicen que para sanar las enfermedades y, en las caxas de las reliquias de esta iglesia está un çapatico de cuero con un letrero que dice “Sandalia Sancti Anderici”.’ 66 Jordán de Sajonia, ‘Orígenes de la Orden de Predicadores’, 206, 208. 67 Los Anales Toledanos I y II, ed. J. Porres Martín-Cleto (Toledo, 1993), 221: ‘E fue fambre en la tierra. Era mccxxx.’

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In Palencia, ‘schools’ were a novelty at that time. They had probably been founded by Alfonso VIII around the year 1180.68 Lucas of Tuy wrote that the king, who died in 1214, brought masters in theology and other liberal arts to his kingdom, and hence created the Palentiae scholas. As for Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, he recalled that the king had invited sabios – wise men – from the Gauls and Italy to Castile ‘so that his kingdom would never lack the discipline of knowledge’, and had gathered in Palencia masters from all the faculties.69 Neither of these chroniclers, bishop and archbishop, mention the existence of a cathedral school in Palencia before this royal foundation. As a matter of fact, the king acted as rex magister, somehow expanding the palatine school which had been maintained since Visigothic times.70 This foundation was part of the trend toward the creation of specialized schools (though not ecclesiastical ones), as in Bologna or Montpellier. The ‘wise men’ coming from Italy and the Gauls were probably experts in law and medicine, disciplines taught in those towns, while the masters in liberal arts and theology mentioned by Lucas of Tuy may well have acquired their knowledge in France, i.e. in schools north of the river Loire. We know that liberal arts were taught in Palencia, since a Petrus Palentinus authored a verse grammar, the Verbiginale, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.71 But it is logical that law would be studied in schools founded by the king, being the most useful subject for the good government of the kingdom. Three texts from the great Italian jurist Ugolino da Sesso bear witness to his having been in Palencia, probably teaching, around the year 1190.72 Knowledge of the law in its entirety was not only a matter of interest for future royal officials, but also for the churches of the kingdom so that they could defend their possessions and rights. The vast majority of those going from cathedrals or collegiates to the schools devoted themselves to the study of law, whether civil, canon or both. In Santiago de Compostela, during the episcopate of Pedro Suárez de Deza, who may have studied law when he was in Italy, magister Bernardus, who 68 Rucquoi, ‘La double vie de l’université de Palencia (c.1180–c.1250)’, Studia Gratiana, 29 (1998), 723–48. 69 Lucae Tudensis, Chronicon mundi, liber IV, in Andreas Schott, Hispania Illustrata, 4 (Frankfurt, 1603), 109; Rodericus Ximenez de Rada, De rebus Hispanie, ed. J.F. Valverde, CCCM, 72 (1987), 256. 70 Rucquoi, ‘La royauté sous Alphonse VIII de Castille’. 71 E. Pérez Rodríguez, El ‘Verbiginale’: una gramática castellana del siglo XIII (Valladolid, 1990). 72 D. Maffei, ‘Fra Cremona, Montpellier e Palencia nel secolo XII: ricerche su Ugolino da Sesso’, Revista Española de Derecho Canónico, 47 (1990), 34–51; G. Martínez Díez, ‘La universidad de Palencia: revisión crítica’, Actas del II Congreso de Historia de Palencia (Palencia, 1990), iv, 175; idem, ‘Tres lecciones del siglo XII del estudio general de Palencia’, AHDE, 40 (1991), 391–450.

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afterward went to Rome where he enjoyed a brilliant career, was a member of the chapter and the king’s notary. Between 1206 and 1217, Bernardus Compostellanus wrote an apparatus on the Decretum of Gratian, gathering in one collection 154 decretals from the papal registers of Innocent III – the Romana – and adding commentaries to the Glossa Ordinaria of the Decretum made by Johannes Teutonicus.73 Likewise, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, after his training in Bologna, the canonist Vicentius Hispanus was one of the greatest jurists in Rome and, with Johannes Teutonicus, was one of the two glossators of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215); when in Rome, Vincent ‘of Spain’ defended ‘holy Spain’, claimed that it had its own law, and praised the fact that its kings depended only on God.74 At that time, Laurentius Hispanus was also active in Rome,75 and in Italy they were acquainted with magister Silvestre Godinho, from the church of Braga, who studied and taught in Bologna, wrote many glosses, and ended his life as archbishop of Braga.76 Schools and training centres for law were not only located in Italy. Bishops Martín Arias (1193–1217) and Martín Rodríguez (1217–1238) of Zamora were two brilliant canonists, authors of glosses to Gratian’s Decretum and to the Compilationes; under their aegis and until the mid thirteenth century, a remarkable group of jurists flourished in their see, acting on several occasions as papal judges delegate, and among whom Master Florencio (1209–1227) stands out.77 Moreover, in Soria, a collegiate church which belonged to Osma, we can observe the existence of an outstanding juridical culture at that time; and it was Soria that produced Juan, chronicler and chancellor of King Ferdinand III, who was also abbot of Valladolid before successively governing the sees of Osma (1231–1240) and Burgos (1240–1246).78 73 S. Kuttner, ‘Bernardus Compostellanus Antiquus: a study in the glossators of the canon law’, Traditio, 1 (1943), 301–2; A. García y García, ‘La canonística ibérica medieval posterior al Decreto de Graciano’, RHCE, 1 (1967), 397–417. 74 J. Ochoa Sanz, Vincentius Hispanus: canonista boloñés del siglo XIII (Rome-Madrid, 1956); G. Post, ‘“Blessed Lady Spain”: Vincentius Hispanus and Spanish national imperialism in the thirteenth century’, Speculum, 29 (1954), 198–209; idem, ‘Vincentius Hispanus, “pro ratione voluntas” and Early Modern Theories of Sovereignty’, Traditio, 28 (1972), 159–84. 75 A. García y García, Laurentius Hispanus: datos biográficos y estudio crítico de sus obras (Rome-Madrid, 1956). 76 A. García y García, Estudios sobre la canonística portuguesa medieval (Madrid, 1976), III, 106–8; A. Domingos de Sousa Costa, Mestre Silvestre e Mestre Vicente, juristas na contenda entre entre D. Afonso II e suas irmãs (Braga, 1963). 77 P. Linehan, ‘Un quirógrafo impugnado: Zamora y la cultura jurídica zamorana a comienzos del siglo XIII’, AEM, 39 (2009), 127–71. 78 P. Linehan, ‘Don Juan de Soria: unas apostillas’ (2003) and ‘Juan de Soria: the chancellor as chronicler’ (2007), in idem, Historical Memory, IV and V.

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We could add more examples emphasizing the interest in law existing in Castile, León, and Portugal from the end of the twelfth century and during the first half of the thirteenth. When Alfonso VIII called sabios from the Gauls and Italy ‘so that his kingdom would never lack the discipline of knowledge’, most of them were experts in law. We can thus reasonably assume that the benefice to the young Dominic in Osma around the year 1190 was given so that he might study law at the studium generale in Palencia and afterwards put his talents to the benefit of the cathedral, as did so many others. However, according to Jordan of Saxony, Dominic chose to study theology. Throughout the twelfth century, theology was not clearly differentiated from philosophy since it was one of its areas, as it had been defined by the Toledan archdeacon Gundisalvus in his De divisione philosophiae.79 Philosophy, or ‘love of wisdom’, was one of the f ields which fascinated scholars in the peninsula. Beginning with the study of logical works, such as Aristotles’s Analytica posteriora or al-Farabi’s De syllogismo, it was later possible to deal with mathematics, astronomy/astrology, medicine, alchemy, and even geomancy in order to arrive at the knowledge of the laws of nature, Natura – i.e. the Creation.80 A deep interest in Natura actually characterized twelfth-century thought, which, by studying the Creation and its mechanisms, aimed to know the Creator.81 From the 1130s, all over the peninsula the works of Aristotle and his commentators, or those of the Arabic philosophers, were enthusiastically studied and were checked against Latin sources. Those who did not read Arabic ordered translations: like the countess of Portugal, Queen Teresa, who wanted to know the Secretum secretorum; Archbishop Raimundo of Toledo, who asked for the De differentia spiritus et anime of Costa ben Luca and the De anima of Avicenna; the abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, who paid for the Coran and for a Vita Mahumeti; or Bishop Miguel of Tarazona (1119–1151), who was fascinated by astrology and divination. Those who knew Arabic produced translations, such as Johannes Hispalensis in Galicia and Portugal between 1115 and 1153, Plato Tiburtinus in Barcelona by 1132–1146, or in Toledo Dominicus Gundisalvi (1147–1190), Marcos de Toledo (1191–1216), and 79 Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, ed. L. Baur, IV, 2–3 (Münster 1903), 1–141; On the author see Rucquoi, ‘Gundisalvus ou Dominicus Gundisalvi?’; on his philosophy see N. Kinoshita, El pensamiento filosófico de Domingo Gundisalvo (Salamanca, 1988). 80 These were the topics taught in Toledo by Gerard of Cremona around the years 1155–85. See Richard Lemay, ‘Gerard of Cremona’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1978), 173–192; Gerardo da Cremona, ed. P. Pizzamiglio (Cremona, 1992). 81 M.D. Chenu, La théologie au XIIe siècle (Paris, 1976), 19–51.

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Michael Scot (in 1217).82 Some of them founded schools of natural philosophy, as did Gerard of Cremona († 1187) in Toledo, where the teaching was based on Latin and Arabic works, with a simultaneous translation of the latter; one of his disciples, Daniel of Morley, mentioned some of the ‘classes’ with magister Gerard in Philosophia, the book he composed around 1180 for Bishop John of Norwich.83 And, like Daniel of Morley, some of them also wrote their own works, as did Herman of Carinthia (1130–1143) or Gundisalvus in Toledo (1157–1178);84 meanwhile philosophers in the south of the Peninsula, like the Jew Maimonides or the Muslim Averroes – following Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Bayya, Ibn Daud, or Ibn Tufayl – used to think about the connections between faith and reason, among other topics. Therefore philosophy, which included theology, was ‘fashionable’ when Dominic joined the studium of Palencia, and it continued to be so in Castile during the first half of the thirteenth century, despite its reputation for ‘heresy’ in the eyes of theologians who, like Lucas of Tuy, adopted the position of the University of Paris after 1215.85 Theology, which was not studied in the peninsula as such, attracted the attention of some scholars who studied it abroad, perhaps in Paris, like Pedro de Artajona, bishop of Pamplona, or the chancellor Diego García de Campos, who glossed the sentence ‘Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat’ in his Planeta.86 82 C.H. Haskins, ‘The Translations of Hugo Santelliensis’, Romanic Review, 2 (1911), 1–15; L. Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the First Thirteen Centuries of our Era (London, 1923); idem, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science (Cambridge, ma, 1927); J.L. Teicher, ‘The Latin-Hebrew School of Translators in Spain in the Twelfth Century’, Homenaje a Millás-Vallicrosa, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1956), ii, 403–44; C.S.F. Burnett, ‘Literal Translation and Intelligent Adaptation amongst the Arabic-Latin Translators of the First Half of the Twelfth Century’, in La diffusione delle scienze islamiche nel Medio Evo europeo (Rome, 1987), 9–28; R. Lemay, ‘De la scolastique à l’histoire par le truchement de la philologie: l’itinéraire d’un médiéviste entre Europe et Islam’, in La diffusione delle scienze islamiche, 399–535. 83 London, British Museum, Arundel 377, ed. G. Maurach, ‘Daniel von Morley “Philosophia”’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 14 (1974), 204–55; B. Boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese traduttore del secolo duodecimo (Rome, 1851); D. Jacquart, ‘Les traductions médicales de Gérard de Crémone’, in Gerardo da Cremona, 57–70. 84 Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, ed. C. Burnett (Leiden-Köln, 1982); Rucquoi, ‘Gundisalvus ou Dominicus Gundisalvi?’; S. Brentjes, ‘Observations on Hermann of Carinthia’s Version of the Elements and its Relation to the Arabic Transmission’, Science in Context, 14 (2001), 39–84. 85 Lucae Tudensis, De altera vita fideique controversiis, ed. Juan de Mariana (Ingolstadt, 1612), iii.1–2; A. Martínez Casado, ‘Cataros en León: testimonio de Lucas de Tuy’, Archivos Leoneses, 74 (1983), 263–311; A. Rucquoi, ‘Contribution des studia generalia à la pensée hispanique médiévale’, in Pensamiento hispano medieval: homenaje a D. Horacio Santiago-Otero, ed. J.M. Soto Rábanos (Madrid, 1998), 737–70. 86 Goñí Gaztambide, Historia de los obispos de Pamplona, i, 433–4; D. García, Planeta, ed. Manuel Alonso (Madrid, 1943), prologue.

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The long coexistence with other religions and the knowledge of the language of the ‘other’ as well as the available translations sometimes led to religious polemic. This polemic was a tradition that went back to the ninth century, to Álvaro of Córdoba and to the Risalat al-Kindi,87 which had given rise to works which demonstrate that their authors enjoyed quite a deep knowledge of the doctrines and holy scriptures of the ‘other’. In the eleventh century, for instance, Ibn Hazm de Córdoba knew not only all the fundamental Christian and Jewish texts but also the Fathers of the Church and the Jewish dissidents, and used them as well as the writings of the Muslim ‘heretics’ in order to criticize each other in his Fisal.88 Moses Sepharda, a Jew from Huesca who took the name of Petrus Alfonsi in 1106 when he was converted to Christianity, wrote a Dialogi contra Judeos to prove the superiority of his new faith.89 A native of Tudela, the great poet Yehuda ha-Levi, in about 1130 wrote, in Arabic, an apology for Judaism in his Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fi Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil (‘The Book of the Proof and Demonstration as a Defence of the Despised Religion’) or Kuzary.90 At the end of the century, in San Isidoro of León, Martín de León joined in the anti-Jewish diatribes in his Sermon IV.91 In the thirteenth century in Barcelona the famous public ‘disputation’ between Pablo Cristiano and Nachmanides would take place.92 In 1142–1143, during his travels through the peninsula, the abbot of Cluny ordered the translation of various works of anti-Islamic polemic – in particular the epistles of al-Hašimi and al-Kindi, the Kitab nasab al-Rasul of Sa‘id ibn ‘Umar (Liber generationis Mahumet), and the Masa’il Abi l-Harit by ‘Abdallah ibn Salam (Doctrina Mahumet) – which, with the translation of the Koran, formed the Collectio Toletana, which he took with him to Burgundy.93 But the Cluniacs, or in any case their abbot, were not the only ones interested in Islamic texts, and many Christians entered the controversy attacking the Muslim faith.94 In order to understand it better, Rodrigo 87 F. González Muñoz, ‘Consideraciones sobre la versión latina de las cartas de al-Hasimi y al-Kindi’, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia, 2 (2005), 43–70. 88 M. Asín Palacios, Abenházam de Córdoba y su Historia crítica de las ideas religiosas, 5 vols (Madrid, 1927–1932). 89 J. Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers (Gainesville, 1993). 90 Jehuda ha-Levi, Cuzary, ed. J. Imirizaldu (Madrid, 1979). 91 A. Rucquoi, ‘L’invective anti-juive dans l’Espagne chrétienne: le Sermo IV, In natale Domini II, de Martin de León’, Atalaya, 5 (1994), 135–51. 92 Nahmanide, La dispute de Barcelone (Paris, 1984). 93 González Muñoz, ‘Consideraciones’, 52. 94 T. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, 1050–1200 (Leiden, 1994).

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Jiménez de Rada, who was transferred from the see of Osma to the see of Toledo in 1209, obtained from one of the canons of his new archbishopric, Marcos, a translation of the Koran together with several texts of Ibn Tumart, the founder of the Almohads, under the name of Libellus Habentometi. This translation had been promoted by the archdeacon magister Maurice, whose works were censored by the University of Paris in 1215, but who ascended to the episcopate in Burgos in 1213.95 Of course, knowing the ‘other’ and disputing with him about the merits of his religion sometimes led to violent conflict. Between the end of the eleventh century and the end of the twelfth, religious persecution increased in al-Andalus with the arrival of the Almoravids and later the Almohads who expelled non-Muslims; and in Christian Spain, Rabbinic Jews appealed to the king in 1196 to get rid of the Karaites who lived near León. Nevertheless, the military campaigns, which were used by the Christian kings as propaganda under the new name of ‘crusades’, seem to have responded more to political and economic rather than religious aims. Great religious fervour was not depicted in the character of the Cid, at least as shown in the Historia Roderici or the Cantar de mío Cid. And Peter the Venerable, on arriving in the peninsula, was surprised because the scholars he met there, who were periti linguae arabicae, were astrologicae arti studentes instead of devoting themselves to fighting against the errors of the ‘diabolical sect’.96 Religious polemics seems to have been more an intellectual skill and was not designed to destroy the ‘enemy’. Liberal arts, law, medicine, philosophy, religious polemics: the cultural life in Castile at the time Saint Dominic underwent his training was obviously intense; and Palencia happened to be at the geographical core of various intellectual centres, such as Santiago de Compostela, Coimbra, León, Toledo, Zamora, Segovia, Burgos, Osma, or Soria. In all these centres and in Palencia there were foreign scholars, who as masters or students looked for learning which was not available in other places. The studium of Palencia, although it suffered a decline during the civil war following the death of Alfonso VIII, did not disappear; and Bishop Tello Téllez de Meneses (1208–1247), chosen by the king at the expense of the pontifical candidate Adam, restored it from 1218 onwards while giving it a clear orientation towards arts and theology.97 In that same studium of Palencia, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Pedro González would have studied. He was, according to the Legendario 95 M. T. d’Alverny and Georges Vajda, ‘Marc de Tolède’, Al-Andalus, 17 (1952), 99–140. 96 PL, clxxxix, 649–650, 663. 97 Rucquoi, ‘La double vie de l’université de Palencia’.

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kept in the cathedral of Tuy, a nephew of the bishop, and had enjoyed a canonry in Palencia before being converted and becoming one of the first Preachers; he died in 1246 and, under the name of Saint Telmo, was venerated as the patron of sailors.98 We do not know exactly when Dominic, the subprior of the church of Osma, finished his training in Palencia, and if he returned and was fully incorporated into the chapter before Bishop Diego asked him to go with him to Denmark to fetch a bride, by the orders of the king, for the Infante Ferdinand. The man who left Spain with Diego de Aceves was a scholar who had been trained within a lively and diverse cultural environment in which rhetoric prevailed over logic,99 intellectual dispute with other religions was common, and knowledge could lead to holiness. But Spain was also a place of piety and spirituality where, from the sixth decade of the twelfth century, the Cistercians offered a life devoted to work, prayer, and poverty beyond that which the Cluniacs could manage. The fifteen monasteries existing under Cîteaux’s rule in 1153 when Bernard of Clairvaux died had become almost sixty less than half a century later. In 1187, Alfonso VIII had entrusted the care of the fifteen nunneries to the abbess of the newly founded Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Burgos, and in 1199 chose this foundation as a royal pantheon. The Cistercian monasteries of Poblet in Aragon and Alcobaça in Portugal also became royal pantheons. In 1199, the abbot of Cîteaux, Guido, visited the peninsula, at a time when kings favoured the Cistercians in the same way as, a century before, Alfonso VI had favoured the Cluniacs.100 Twenty years earlier, in 1180, Bernard of Alcira – a noble Muslim who was converted to Christianity and had entered the monastery of Poblet – had become a martyr; other saints of the order included Raimundo de Fitero († 1163), founder and first master of the Order of Calatrava, and Martín de Hinojosa († 1213), the fourth abbot of Santa María de Huerta, who resigned as bishop of Sigüenza after two years in order to embrace a monastic life.101 When they left Castile, Dominic and his bishop, Diego, went through Aragon where, in 1194, King Alfonso II had ordered the ‘valdenses videlicet 98 L. Galmés, San Telmo (Salamanca, 1991). 99 Rucquoi, ‘Contribution des studia generalia’. Rhetoric was the Preachers’ science par excellence. 100 A. Rucquoi, ‘Les cisterciens dans la Péninsule ibérique’, in Unanimité et diversité cisterciennes (Saint-Etienne, 2000), 487–523. 101 Á. Manrique, Sanctoral cisterciense: hecho de varios discursos, predicables en todas las fiestas de Nuestra Señora y otros sanctos (Barcelona, 1613), ii, 92–107; F. Zabala Rodríguez-Fornos, 125 valencianos en la historia (Valencia, 2003), 258.

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sive sabatatos, qui et alio nomine se vocant pauperes de Lugduno, et omnes alios hereticos’ to leave the kingdom, and in 1198 King Peter II had presided over a council which reiterated the sanction against the heretics; in that same year, the pope asked the archbishop of Tarragona to help his legates in the struggle against those same Waldensian heretics.102 In Toulouse during the autumn of 1203, and later from 1206 onwards,103 Dominic put to the test his skills as a preacher, drawing on the backgrounds of ‘disputes’ with non-Christians and a spirituality inspired by the Cistercians. The order was acknowledged by the pope in 1216, and the Dominicans, according to their Consuetudines, were instituted, as their prologue says, ‘for preaching and for the salvation of souls’, thus giving their prelati total freedom to act in order to encourage ‘studying, preaching, and the benefit of souls’.104 The Rule’s Secunda distinctio specifically dealt with the question of studying, preaching, and solving intellectual controversies; the visitors were entrusted to make sure that the brothers ‘would lived peacefully, be assiduous in study and fervent in preaching’, that they would enjoy a good reputation, and only thereafter that they would observe the rules about diet and ‘so on’.105 These instructions recall those which were then given by Spanish cathedrals to members of their chapters when, provided with an ecclesiastical benefice, they went studying abroad. Trained in the studium of Palencia and the chapter of Osma, Dominic went on studying in Toulouse, chose towns with universities wherein to found his first communities (such as Paris, Bologna, or Palencia), and surrounded himself with scholars like 102 Alfonso II Rey de Aragón, Conde de Barcelona y Marqués de Provenza: documentos (1162–1196), ed. A.I. Sánchez Casabón (Zaragoza, 1995), 797–8, no. 621; Petrus de Marca, Marca Hispanica (Paris, 1688), 1384–5, no. 487; J.M. Cases, ‘Gerona’, Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, 2 (1972), 1019. 103 V.T. Gómez García, Santo Domingo: vida, ejemplaridad y legado de Domingo de Guzmán (Madrid, 2012), 69–86. 104 Santo Domingo de Guzmán visto por sus contemporáneos, ed. M. Gelabert and J.M. Milagro (Madrid, 1947), 864: ‘Ad hec tamen in conventu suo prelatus dispensandi cum fratribus habeat potestatem, cum sibi aliquando videbitur expedire. In hiis precipue que studium, vel predicationem, vel animarum fructum videbuntur impedire, cum ordo noster specialiter ob predicacionem et animarum salutem ab inicio noscatur institutus fuisse.’ See also L. Galmés Mas, ‘Carisma y espiritualidad premonstratense’, in Santo Domingo de Caleruega. Contexto Eclesial Religioso, IV: jornadas de estudios medievales (Salamanca, 1996), 121–52, at 142. 105 Santo Domingo de Guzmán visto por sus contemporáneos, 896–904, at 896: ‘Post hec visitatores, presentes verbo absentes scripto, refere debent de hiis quos visitaverint fratribus si in pace continui, in studio assidui, in predicacione ferventes, que de eis fama quis fructus, si in victu et in aliis secundum tenorem institucionum ordo servetur’; B. Palacios Martín, ‘Los dominicos y las órdenes mendicantes en el siglo XIII’, in VI Semana de Estudios Medievales (Nájera, 1995) (Logroño, 1996), 29–41.

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Jordan of Saxony, who would be his biographer, Gil de Santarém, a physician who studied in Paris and became the second provincial of Spain,106 Pedro Ferrando, Humbert of Romans, and many more. Sometime later the great canonist Raymond of Peñafort (c.1180–1275), who had met the Preachers in Bologna, entered the order around 1223 and promoted the creation of language schools in Tunis and Murcia.107 Undoubtedly, the founder of the Order of the Preachers was a product of his time and his circumstances, i.e. of Spain, and we cannot fully understand the order he founded without taking into account the environment in which he was raised and lived for more than thirty years. Together with Vincentius Hispanus, Laurentius Hispanus, or Petrus Hispanus, Dominic of Osma deserves to be qualified as Hispanus as well. Adeline Rucquoi, CNRS, Paris

106 I. McCleery, ‘Saintly Physician, Diabolical Doctor, Medieval Saint: exploring the reputation of Gil de Santarém in medieval and renaissance Portugal’, Portuguese Studies, 21 (2005), 112–25; Colóquio comemorativo de S. Frei Gil de Santarém (Lisbon, 1991). 107 Magister Raimundus: atti del convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort, 1601–2001), ed. C. Longo (Rome, 2002).

2.

Ramon de Penyafort and His Influence Damian J. Smith Abstract This chapter explores the long and varied career of Ramon de Penyafort, a thirteenth-century Dominican who had a lasting impact on the development of canon law, the history of the Dominican Order, and the lands of the Crown of Aragon. Various works of his student days at Bologna are examined, as well as the Summa de Casibus and the Liber Extra. His role in revising the constitutions of the Dominicans while master general is described. There is also a discussion of his influence on legislation concerning the reconciliation of heretics, the conversion of Muslims, and the diminution of the status of Jews in Catalonia. It is argued that, through study of Ramon’s various works in combination, it is possible to come to an overall understanding of his character. Keywords: Ramon de Penyafort, Dominicans, medieval Aragon, canon law, religious history

In the last centuries of the Middle Ages and, of course, later, it was well known that because of their arrogance, delight in subtleties, betrayal of confidences, worthless advice, and chronic overcharging, the spiritual well-being of lawyers was necessarily in great danger.1 Indeed, particularly in Catalonia, it was thought that lawyers’ prospects in the next world were slight and, more generally, special prayers were devised that the faithful might ask God to pardon the sins of lawyers.2 Nevertheless, certainly one of their number is considered to have escaped the flames, and that is Ramon de Penyafort, who died in 1275 and was canonized in 1601. He would become 1 J. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: canonists, civilians and courts (Chicago, 2008), 477–87. 2 P. Freedman, The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (Cambridge, 1991), 220, n. 39; Brundage, Medieval Origins, 483.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch02

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a patron saint of lawyers and a lastingly influential figure in the history of the Crown of Aragon, the Dominican Order, and of the law itself.3 While very influential, Ramon, although he is not unknowable, is surprisingly little known. It is a century since Thomas Schwertner wrote a short biography in English, and over eighty years since Valls Taberner’s admirable study. 4 In the almost one hundred years of his life – just to take the highlights – Ramon was a professor at Bologna, the author of the Summa de Paenitentia, the compiler of the Gregorian decretals, the master general of the Dominican Order, and the servant of the Crown of Aragon in developing legislation concerning heretics, Muslims, and Jews. In this study, I wish to introduce Ramon and to both explore, albeit briefly, the influences upon him and, perhaps more so, to try to gauge the extent of his own influence in the Iberian Peninsula and more generally. The greatest influence on Ramon, of course, was Bologna, the mater studiorum, where the masters had formed into some sort of corporation by the time of Ramon’s arrival.5 It was there in the second decade of the thirteenth century that Ramon developed the legal knowledge which would serve him during the rest of his life. One of a great number of Catalan students who went to the Studium in the first part of the thirteenth century, Ramon advanced further than most at a time when all Bologna was astir with the arrival of the first Dominican brethren sent by Dominic in 1218, and particularly stimulated by the preaching of Master Reginald of Orléans, as Jordan of Saxony would later attest.6 3 On the various attempts to bring about Ramon’s canonization, see N. Jubany Arnau, ‘Popularitat de San Ramon de Penyafort’, EV, 7 (1977), 13–27; P.-B. Hodel, ‘La canonization de Saint Raymond’, in Magister Raimundus: atti del convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort (1601–2001), ed. C. Longo (Rome, 2002), 51–60. 4 T. Schwertner, Saint Raymond of Pennafort of the Order of Friars Preachers (Milwaukee, 1935); F. Valls Taberner, Sant Ramon de Penyafort (1929), 2nd edn (Barcelona, 1994). There is a short popular biography by J. Mas i Solench, Ramon de Penyafort (Barcelona, 2000). See also J. Font Rius, ‘Ramon de Penyafort. Influencia del santo en la sociedad de su tiempo’, Anuario de derecho aragonés, 2 (1961–2), 165–78. 5 On the development of the university at Bologna and its teachers in the thirteenth century, see A. Sorbelli, Storia della università di Bologna: il medioevo (Bologna, 1940); P. Weimar, ‘Zur Doktorwürde der Bologneser Legisten’, in idem, Zur Renaissance der Rechtswissenschaft im Mittelalter (Goldbach, 1997), 307–29; H. Walther, ‘Die Anfänge des Rechtsstudiums und die kommunale Welt Italiens im Hochmittelalter’, Schulen und Studium im sozialen Wandel des hohen und späten Mittelalters, ed. J. Fried (Sigmaringen, 1986), 121–62. 6 Jordanus de Saxonia, Libellus de principiis ordinis praedicatorum, ed. H.C. Scheeben (Rome, 1935), chs 55, 58, 60; J. Miret i Sans, ‘Escolars catalans al estudi de Bolonia en la XIIIª centuria’, BRABLB, 8 (1915/16), 137–55; P. Betran Roigé, ‘Estudiants catalans a la universitat de Bolonya (segle XIII)’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia, 23/4 (2002), 123–43.

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The time of Lateran IV was a ferocious period of legal debate and productivity, which gave us some of the great canonists – Laurentius Hispanus, Vincentius Hispanus, Johannes Teutonicus, and, of course, Tancred, who would prove a particularly lasting influence on Ramon.7 At Bologna, Ramon would write glosses on the Decretum and the Compilationes antiquae, and prepared his first major work, the Summa Iuris canonici.8 The Summa Iuris canonici, it should be said, designed to treat ‘the profound depths of canon law’, did not prove influential in itself – it is preserved in just two fragments at the Vatican and Bamberg, and we have little more than the first two of its seven parts. It was significant, however, in two respects.9 First, the Summa Iuris canonici formed the base in its structure and its content for Ramon’s Summa de Paenitentia. Second, it gave Ramon the opportunity to develop answers to the problem of how to decide between contradictory decretals, which would be important in the construction of the Liber Extra. Ramon completed his first Summa in Barcelona, after he had apparently been headhunted by Bishop Berenguer de Palou, though it remains unclear whether or not Ramon was ever actually a canon of the cathedral.10 By 1223, probably then around forty, he joined the Dominican Order and, 7 See A. García y García, Laurentius Hispanus: datos biográficos y studio crítico de sus obras (Rome, 1956); J. Ochoa Sanz, Vincentius Hispanus: canonista Boloñés del Siglo XIII (Rome, 1960); P. Landau, ‘Johannes Teutonicus und Johannes Zemecke: zu den Quellen über das Leben des Bologneser Kanonisten und Halberstädter Dompropstes’, in Halberstadt: Studien zu Dom und Liebfrauenkirche, ed. E. Ullmann (Berlin, 1997), 18–29; L. Chevalier, ‘Tancred’, DDC (1961), vii, 1146–65; A. Teetaert, ‘Summa de matrimonio sancti Raymundi de Penyafort’, Ius pontificum, AST, 9 (1929), 54–61, 228–34, 312–22. 8 Raimundus de Pennaforte, Summa de iure canonico, ed. J. Ochoa and L. Diez (Rome, 1975); San Raimundo de Penyafort, Summa Iuris, ed. J. Rius Serra (Barcelona, 1945); Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, in Raymundiana seu documenta quae pertinent ad. S. Raymundi de Pennaforti, ed. F. Balme and C. Paban, MOPH, iv.1–2 (Rome, 1898), ii, 5, no. 3; R. Weigand, ‘The Development of the ‘Glossa Ordinaria’ to Gratian’s Decretum’, in The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234: from Gratian to the decretals of Gregory IX, ed. W. Hartmann and K. Pennington (Washington, 2008), 55–97, at 87. 9 S. Kuttner, ‘The Barcelona Edition of St. Raymond’s First Treatise on Law’, Seminar, 8 (1950), 52–67; idem, ‘Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Summa de casibus poenitentiae des hl. Raymund von Penyafort’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung, 39 (1953), 419–34; K. Pennington, ‘The Decretalists, 1190–1234’, in History of Medieval Canon Law, 211–45, at 240; J. Goering, ‘The Internal Forum and the Literature of Penance and Confession’, Traditio, 59 (2004), 175–228, at 187; S. Horwitz, ‘Magistri amd Magisterium: Saint Raymond of Peñafort and the Gregoriana’, EV, 7 (1977), 209–38, at 221. 10 Raymundiana, i, 20; J. Baucells i Reig, ‘Documentación inédita de San Ramón de Penyafort y cuestiones relativas al supuesto canonicato barcelonés’, EV, 7 (1977), 69–96, urges caution against assuming that Ramon was a canon at the cathedral; P. Ribes Montane, ‘San Ramón de Penyafort y los estudios eclesiásticos’, AST, 48 (1975), 85–142, at 100.

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between 1223 and 1229, Ramon composed the first version of the Summa de Paenitentia, which he would revise in the mid-1230s in response to his own compilation of the Liber Extra.11 Today it is better known as the Summa de Casibus. To the three books of the Summa de Casibus a fourth was usually added in codices, the Summa de Matrimonio, a separate work by Ramon which was heavily dependent upon Tancred’s study on the same theme. (As has been said, if it were today, Ramon would probably be accused of plagiarism.)12 The Summa de Casibus was a practical manual for priests needing to solve the complex range of problems that arose concerning confession, at a time when Canon 21 of Lateran IV had made confession an annual obligation for the faithful.13 Its value lay in that it was systematic and comprehensive in dealing with the essential elements of penance – contrition, confession, satisfaction, and absolution – laying out everything clearly, from the circumstances in which wars could be justly fought to the occasions when penitents could confess outside of their parishes. Its added attraction, however, lay in its balance and moderation. Nobody was to be forced to undergo excessive penance and, moreover, those sins to be considered mortal were restricted and the confessor was urged to be cautious in judgement.14 The Summa de Casibus was undoubtedly Ramon’s greatest personal achievement. It was a huge success – an international bestseller perfectly suited to its time – and it exists today in many hundreds of manuscripts.15 11 Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 21; Raymundiana, ii, 7–8, no. 5; Raimundus de Pennaforti, Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio, ed. John of Freiburg (Rome, 1603); Raimundus de Pennaforte, Summa de paenitentia, ed. J. Ochoa and L. Diez (Rome, 1976); A. Teetaert, ‘La doctrine pénitentielle de Saint Raymond de Penyafort’, AST, 4 (1928), 121–82; R. Baucells Serra, ‘La personalidad y obra jurídica de San Raimundo de Peñafort’, Revista Española de derecho canónico, 1 (1946), 7–48, at 17–22. It should be noted that the Ochoa and Diez editions of Ramon’s works have met with less than complete approval from historians. See, for instance, A. García y García, ‘¡No es esto! Glosa a una nueva edición de las obras de San Raimundo de Peñafort’, Revista Española de derecho canónico, 35 (1979), 187–96. 12 Raimundus de Pennaforte, Summa de matrimonio, ed. J. Ochoa and L. Diez (Rome, 1978); Raymond of Penyafort, Summa on Marriage, trans. P. Payer (Toronto, 2005); Tancred, Summa de matrimonio, ed. A. Wunderlich (Göttingen, 1841); I. Pérez, ‘La Summa de matrimonio de san Raimundo de Peñafort’, in Magister Raimundus, 111–63 (comment on plagiarism at 120); J. Gilchrist, ‘St. Raymond of Peñafort and the decretalist doctrines on serfdom’, EV, 7 (1977), 299–327, at 301; S. Kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik 1140–1234. Bd. 1: Prodromus corporis glossarum (Vatican City, 1937), 445. 13 Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis glossatorum, ed. A. García y García (Vatican City, 1981), 67–8. 14 Summa de poenitentia, 3.34.21; Goering, ‘Internal Forum’, 194. 15 K. Pennington, ‘Summae on Raymond de Pennafort’s “Summa de Casibus” in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich’, Traditio, 27 (1971), 471–80.

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William of Rennes glossed it around 1245, and Ramon’s Summa and William’s gloss became textbooks for the Dominicans during the next century and were heavily used in their schools, as well as at the University of Paris.16 As well as its European-wide appeal, as Perarnau has shown, the Summa de Casibus had a very powerful influence on Catalan treatises of penance during the next 130 years. Moreover, it was the major canonical influence on the Primera partida of the Siete Partidas, though whether Ramon was ever personally in the service of Alfonso X of Castile for this task must remain open to question.17 The Summa de Matrimonio became successful by association and, though not an original work, it did offer a methodical synthesis, which covered every aspect of ecclesiastical law concerning marriage.18 Both works naturally became outmoded by 1400 and they were first printed only in 1603, after Ramon’s canonization; but it is generally agreed today that, if one can perhaps ignore the Summa de Matrimonio, one cannot ignore the Summa de Casibus and appreciate the Church’s thought on the sacrament of penance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Nevertheless, the Summa de Casibus is not the work for which Ramon is best known. In 1228–1229, Ramon was headhunted again, this time by Cardinal John of Abbeville, to help and advise him during what was to be a long and often disappointing legation in which John sought to implement the legislation of the Fourth Lateran Council in the peninsula and solve various political problems.19 The legate, even though he was little impressed by anything else, was at least impressed by Ramon, who in 1230 was called to Rome to serve as chaplain and penitentiary to Pope Gregory IX and then, sometime later, probably in the summer of 1232, began work on the task that is most associated with him.20 Pope Gregory, who, like most of the famous 16 Goering, ‘Internal Forum’, 220–1; A. Walz, ‘S. Raymundi de Penyafort auctoritas in re paenitentiali’, Angelicum, 12 (1935), 346–96, at 373–96. 17 J. Perarnau Espelt, ‘Tractats Catalans “De Penitencia” de Sant Ramon de Penyafort (1239) al bisbe de la Seu d’Urgell, Guillem Arnau de Patau (1364): amb edició de textos inédits’, EV, 7 (1977), 259–98; J. Giménez, ‘San Raimundo de Peñafort y las Partidas de Alfonso el Sabio’, Anthologica Annua, 3 (1955), 201–338. 18 Pérez, ‘La Summa de matrimonio de san Raimundo de Peñafort’, 111–63. 19 Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 22; P. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), 20–34; idem, ‘A Papal Legation and Its Aftermath Cardinal John of Abbeville in Spain and Portugal, 1228–1229’ in A Ennio Cortese II, eds. I. Birocchi, M. Caravale, E. Conte and U. Petronio (Rome, 2001), 236–56 (repr. Linehan, Historical Memory and Clerical Activity in Medieval Spain and Portugal (Variorum Collected Studies Series 1011 [Farnham, 2012], I).. 20 Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 22–3; E.A. Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s editing of the decretals of Gregory IX’, PhD diss. (Columbia University, 2011), 375–82.

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lawyer popes, was not a lawyer by training, was frustrated by the disorder in various existing decretal collections used in the schools and at the Curia. This was especially because of their excessive length, the repetition, or at least great similarity between legal points made in different capitula and, conversely, the number of entries that were evidently obsolete, superseded, or contained contradictory passages.21 What Gregory was now looking for was a compilation which would replace all earlier collections with a single volume, and that volume could be used as an authoritative textbook above all by the teachers and students at Bologna and then also in the courts. We should remember that papal authority had dramatically increased in large measure because of widespread confidence in Rome’s ability to provide sound judgements in legal cases. Ramon now had the task of making those past papal judgements look concise and consistent. Ramon de Penyafort, of course, did not write the law of the Church. He composed a work in the by then traditional five-book format arranged overall under 185 titles and containing 1971 capitula.22 Those capitula were substantially based upon the Quinque Compilationes antiquae – the five textbooks starting with that of Bernard of Pavia, which had been chiefly serving the schools since the late 1180s.23 Almost 90 per cent of the texts used by Ramon in his work came from those five works; then there were 195 letters of Gregory IX himself and a few more texts taken from other smaller decretal collections.24 So Ramon was, in one sense, very conservative. At the same time, he was ruthless in fulfilling his task in cutting out all those things that he found superfluous or redundant in these texts and, excepting the constitutions of Lateran IV, he was prepared to edit aggressively everything else. While most editing did not change anything of substance, sometimes it did. For instance, the phrase ‘de consilio fratrum nostrorum’, often present in papal letters and indicating that the pope acted on the advice of the 21 See Gregory’s Rex Pacificus; Regesta pontificum romanorum, ed. A. Potthast, 2 vols (Berlin, 1874–5) [hereafter Potthast], i, 9694; Les registres de Grégoire IX, ed. L. Auvray, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, ser. 2, fasc. 9, 4 vols (Paris, 1896–1955), i, no. 2083; Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, 1–2, 48–50; idem, ‘Gregory IX and the Liber Extra’, in Pope Gregory IX, ed. C. Egger and D.J. Smith (forthcoming). 22 Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii; M. Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX: Kompilation oder Kodification’, in Magister Raimundus, 61–86; S. Kuttner, ‘Raymond of Peñafort as Editor: the “decretales” and “constitutiones” of Gregory IX’, BMCL, 12 (1982), 65–80; A. García García, ‘Valor y proyección histórica de la obra jurídica de San Raimundo de Peñafort’, Revista Española de derecho canónico, 18 (1963), 233–51; Baucells Serra, ‘La personalidad y obra jurídica’, 27–8. 23 Quinque Compilationes Antiquae nec non Collectio Canonum Lipsiensis, ed. E. Friedberg (Leipzig, 1882; repr.: Graz, 1956); Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, 52–62. 24 Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX’, 69.

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cardinals, largely disappears from Ramon’s compilation, leaving the lasting impression that decisions were solely a matter of the pope’s will rather than co-operative.25 Pope Innocent III’s famous bull concerning heresy, Vergentis in senium, was deliberately altered in one word (eorum becomes hereticorum) to limit the confiscation of goods to heretics rather than include those who had favoured them – a significant change.26 A local decision by Gregory IX himself – that some German women who had been abandoned by their husbands because of adultery should be sent to a convent set up for former prostitutes – became in the Liber Extra a general recommendation that any women convicted of adultery should be sent to a convent to undertake a lifetime of penance.27 The extent to which Ramon shaped the legal content of the Liber Extra remains a matter of much debate. Both in the thirteenth century and much later, his editorial decisions were the subject of considerable criticism, especially when it was felt that he had removed judgements from their original contexts.28 The influence of the Liber Extra itself, of course, cannot be doubted. Gregory had wished for a work that would replace all existing works, and considered he had received it – in Rex pacificus of September 1234 ordering that all older canonical collections no longer be used.29 Even though Gregory had not conceived of it precisely as such, the work across time came to be seen as a codification of canon law, which other new works could only supplement but could not replace.30 The Liber Extra became the most influential book of medieval law. There are almost 700 surviving medieval manuscript copies, and then over 2000 incunabula copies and 53 separate editions by 1500, as well as many more beyond.31 Neither Gregory nor Ramon could have imagined that the Liber Extra would remain in force until 1917, when Pope Benedict XV promulgated the first actual code of canon law, and that it would have by then found itself serving the Church in unimaginable places, as well as often being the first port of call for secular courts around the world when their own statute books were lacking. Even in May 1918, the assembly of La Mancomunidad 25 Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, 86–95. 26 Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii, 783; O. Hageneder, ‘La Decretale Vergentis (X. V, 7, 10): un contributo sulla legislazione antiereticale di Innocenzo III’, in idem, Il Sole e la luna: papato, impero e regni nella teoria e nella prassi dei secoli XII e XIII (Milan, 2000), 131–63, at 141. 27 X. 3.32.19; Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, 395–402. 28 Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX’, 72–3. 29 Raymundiana, ii., 23–4, no. 14; Potthast, 9694. 30 Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX’; Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, 258–64, 524–9. 31 Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX’, 76–7.

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de Cataluña met to decide whether the Catalan legal system would have to be altered in response to Benedict’s new code and whether its texts could be invoked in legal cases.32 It would appear from Gregory IX’s Rex pacificus (which ordered judges and schools to use only the Liber Extra and that no other compilation could be made without the approval of the Apostolic See) that Ramon had acted alone in his task.33 It is then not surprising that because of fatigue Ramon would soon ask the pope for the opportunity to return to his community in Barcelona and that he would turn down the pope’s request that he become archbishop of Tarragona.34 Surely only because of tragic circumstances (that is, Jordan of Saxony’s shipwreck and demise) and the overwhelming insistence of the petitions from his fellow Dominicans did Ramon, now nearing sixty, accept his election as master general of the Dominican Order in May 1238.35 It was a very interesting time to be master. The order was flourishing, but the number of new recruits posed problems. Gregory allowed the new master to absolve from excommunication those who wished to enter the order, but could only with difficulty go to the Curia to be absolved; warned of the dangers of those now wearing the Dominican habit without being Dominicans; and recommended appropriate obedience of those who were Dominicans to diocesan bishops (who were often rather overwhelmed).36 Indeed, so successful was the order that Ramon feared a growing love of worldly things, vanity in learning, and a loss of chastity, as indicated in the surviving outline of a sermon he preached in Paris in 1239 on the theme of Matt. 11: 6 (‘Happy is he who will not be scandalized in me’).37 It was so successful that the Dominicans were now getting caught up in the struggle between the papacy and Frederick II, which may possibly have played a part in Ramon’s decision to resign his office in 1241, an unprecedented decision that threw the order into turmoil.38 32 J. Mas i Solench, ‘Las Decretales en el derecho catalán’, in Magister Raimundus, 193–204, at 200. 33 Potthast, 9694. 34 Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 23–4; A. Collell Costa, ‘Raymundiana’, AST, 30 (1957), 2–4. 35 Gerardus de Fracheto, Vitae fratrum ordinis Praedicatorum necnon Cronica Ordinis ab anno MCCIII usque ad MMCCLIV: recensio prior, ed. B. Reichert and J. Berthier (Louvain, 1896), 130; Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 33; Raymundiana, ii, 75–6, no. 42; San Raimundo de Penyafort: diplomatario, ed. J. Rius Serra (Barcelona, 1954), 52, no. 41; Summa de Paenitentia, lxxii; A. Collell Costa, ‘Raymundiana’, Ausa, 2 (1955–7), 104–5, no. 3. 36 Raymundiana, ii, 92, no. 57 (absolution); 81–3, nos 46–7 (habits); 93, no. 58 (obedience). 37 Raymundiana, ii., 80, no. 45. 38 Raymundiana, ii., 95, no. 60; Collell Costa, ‘Raymundiana’, (1955–7)105, no. 4; C. Longo, ‘San Raimondo: maestro dell’Ordine Domenicano (1238–40)’, in Magister Raimundus, 35–50, at 49; Valls Taberner, Ramon de Penyafort, 129–41.

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Ramon’s three years as master were, however, to be of lasting significance because he did exactly what one would expect him to do – that is, he reorganized and at times revised the constitutions of the order with lasting effect.39 That Ramon did so is not in doubt – it is witnessed by the annual general chapters and contemporary chronicles; but, as with the Liber Extra, the manner of his intervention is a trickier subject. 40 As with the Liber Extra, Ramon was generally more respectful of the content than the structure. Structurally, constitutions previously divided into sixty-two sections in two distinctions of twenty-five and thirty-seven chapters were re-ordered into constitutions of two distinctions containing twenty and fifteen chapters. The number of capitula was thus reduced from sixty-two to thirty-five. 41 Minor changes were made to the first distinction, for instance, in matters concerning prayers for the dead, fasting, and the form of vows for those wishing to enter the order, while there were substantial deletions, most obviously in Chapter 16 (which had been Chapter 21) where the number of venial sins, a leftover from the Premonstratensian constitutions, was significantly reduced. 42 Distinction 2 contained more important omissions and amendments, concerning the rules for the election of the master general, provincial and conventual priors, the celebration of general and provincial chapters, the function of visitors, and the theological training of students. 43 It should be re-emphasized, however, that the changes to content again were not radical. The reason that Ramon’s arrangement of the constitutions would last in essence until 1924 (when the Dominicans brought themselves in line with Benedict’s new code) lay in its structural coherence. 44 Resignation as master general would not mean retirement for Ramon. Indeed, he would continue in what was perhaps a more arduous role than master general: that is, as advisor and at times confessor to James I of Aragon, who would soon cut out the tongue of another Dominican confessor, Bishop Berenguer of Gerona, for having revealed his confession, only subsequently 39 Raymundiana, ii., 103, no. 63; R. Creytens, ‘Les constitutions des Frères Prêcheurs dans la rédaction de s. Raymond de Peñafort’, AFP, 18 (1949), 29–68; H. Denifle, ‘Die Constitutionen des Predigordens in der Redaction Raimunds von Peñafort’, Archiv für Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte, 5 (1889), 530–64; Ribes Montane, ‘San Ramón de Penyafort’, 124–5; R. Bennett, The Early Dominicans: studies in thirteenth-century Dominican history (New York, 1937), 162–4. 40 Creytens, ‘Constitutions’, 6–11. 41 Creytens, ‘Constitutions’, 29–68; G. Galbraith, The Constitutions of the Dominican Order (1216–1360) (London, 1925), 182–3. 42 Creytens, ‘Constitutions’, 18–20, 23–4. 43 Creytens, ‘Constitutions’, 21–2, 24–6. 44 Schwertner, Saint Raymond, 84.

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to admit that he was mistaken (which was little consolation for Berenguer).45 By then Ramon himself had been party to the annulment of James’s first marriage to Eleanor of Castile; had preached the king’s Majorcan Crusade in Languedoc in 1229; participated at the Cortes at Monzón in 1236 where the final push for the conquest of Valencia was agreed; absolved the king from excommunication in 1237; and been an executor of the king’s first will of 1241.46 The two men would remain on close terms until they were both in old age, with James calling on Ramon’s advice and intervention in various matters. That included the overturning of Prince Peter’s decision to debase the coinage in 1269, even though Ramon had actually supported Peter against his father a decade earlier, when James’s third will sought to deprive Peter of some lands to the benefit of the king’s illegitimate offspring. 47 It is, of course, because of James’s private life that we have the most famous of Ramon’s miracles, first mentioned only in the fifteenth century but afterwards often depicted artistically. When Ramon, scandalized by the king’s behaviour, wished to leave from Majorca, James, wishing to keep him there because he valued his advice, blocked all ports against him. Denied transport, Ramon responded by using his cape as boat and sail and his staff as mast, while returning to Barcelona across the waves in record time. 48 Generally, however, the relationship between the king and the friar was one of co-operation. 49 This was clearest in the matter of heresy. Gregory IX had instituted the inquisition in the province of Tarragona in 1232, and he was supported by King James’s rigorous anti-heresy legislation at a cort of 45 La documentación pontificia de Inocencio IV (1243–54), ed. A. Quintana Prieto, 2 vols (Rome, 1987), i, 305–6, no. 285; 319–20, no. 304; Matthew. Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols, Cambridge Library Collection – Rolls (London, 1872–83), iv, 578–9; Vose, Dominicans, 82. 46 (Eleanor) Raymundiana, ii, 10–11, no. 7; (Majorca Crusade), 12–13, no. 8; (Monzón), 55–9, no. 28; (excommunication), 59–60, nos 29–30; Documentos de Gregorio IX referentes a España, ed. S. Domínguez Sánchez (León, 2004), 507–8, nos 632–3; (will) Raymundiana, ii, 98–103, no. 62. 47 (Coinage) Diplomatari de Pere el Gran. 1: cartes i pergamins (1258–85), ed. S. Cingolani (Barcelona, 2011), 53–4, no. 4; El Diplomatari de Sant Ramon de Penyafort, ed. F. Valls Taberner (Barcelona, 1929) [hereafter DRP], 49–51, no. 35; (will) Diplomatari de Pere el Gran, 88–91, no. 16; DRP, 35, no. 25; 42, no. 32. 48 Diago, Historia, fols 125r–126v; A. Robles Sierra, ‘La biografía inédita de San Ramón de Penyafort escrita por Vicente Justiniano Antiist, O.P. (s. xvi)’, EV, 7 (1977), 29–60, at 46–7; Mas, Ramon de Penyafort, 66–70; Collell Costa, ‘Raymundiana’, (1957)5–6. 49 On Ramon’s views on Church and crown, see P. Ribes Montané, Relaciones entre la potestad eclesiástica y el poder secular, según san Ramón de Penyafort (Rome, 1979); M. Batllori, ‘Sant Ramon de Penyafort en la història politico-religiosa de Catalunya-Aragó’, in idem, A través de la història i la cultura (Montserrat, 1979), 37–54.

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Tarragona in February 1234.50 In the early years of inquisitions, there were a great many questions for crown and Church concerning the operation of inquisitions, which were put to the pope. Those questions put by Guillem, archibishop-elect of Tarragona, were answered by Ramon de Penyafort in a long letter sent from Rome probably in April 1235, usually just called the Nota Raimundi.51 As he had already revealed in the Summa de Paenitentia, Ramon was hardly a ‘dove’ where heresy was concerned. He was quite clear that recalcitrant heretics, negligent churchmen, and secular rulers who allowed heresy to flourish had to face severe punishment.52 There, however, and in the Nota, Ramon steered clear of the excesses that appeared elsewhere in the formative years of inquisitions. Careful regard was given to the manner in which heretics were to be imprisoned, separated from non-heretics, and given advice and encouragement from religious men.53 The purpose of the punishment, said Ramon, was to correct the heretic’s life. Catholic wives, so that they did not fall into adultery, were allowed conjugal visits to convicted heretical husbands if they wished, provided this could be done without detriment to the wife’s faith.54 Those people who had sympathetically received Waldensians believing them to be Catholics and approving what the Church approved, should not themselves be regarded as heretics.55 Ramon’s responses were not in any way ‘tolerant’ – there was no notion of tolerance – but they were marked by justice, some compassion, and plain common sense. These same qualities were exhibited later in 1242 when Archbishop Peter of Tarragona wished to resolve further doubts that had arisen from an inquisition initiated in Barcelona by Berenguer de Palou; doubts that Ramon took the lead in resolving in the Directorium promulgated at a provincial council in May of that year.56 There Ramon defined the full 50 Documentos de Gregorio IX, 178, no. 169; C. Baraut, ‘Els inicis de la inquisició a Catalunya i les seves actuacions al bisbat d’Urgell (segles XII–XIII)’, Urgellia, 12 (1994–5), 423, no. 4; Raymundiana, 14–15, no. 9. 51 Diago, Historia, fols 118r–119r; Raymundiana, 41–5, no. 21; Diplomatario, 29–32, no. 20; Baraut, ‘Els inicis de la inquisició’, 426–8, no. 6. The nota must be treated with certain caution since it only survives in the work of Diago, who indicates that he was working from a manuscript of the capitular archive of Tarragona (fol. 118r). That archive, unfortunately, was in large measure destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars. The text appears to have been sent alongside two letters on the question of heresy from Gregory IX to the archbishop-elect of Tarragona, Guillem de Montgrí (Documentos de Gregorio IX, 380–1, nos 457–8). 52 Summa de Poenitentia, 1.5.6. 53 Raymundiana, ii, 41–2, no. 21; Diplomatario, 29, no. 20. 54 Raymundiana, ii., 42, no. 21; Diplomatario, 30, no. 20. 55 Diplomatario, 31, no. 20. 56 S. Cingolani and D. Smith, ‘The 1240–1 Accounts of the Vicar Pere Ferrer and a Heretic Hunt around Barcelona’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 124

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range of grades of heretic: the heretics themselves; the credentes, who gave faith to their words; the suspect who may have prayed with Waldensian heretics; the vehemently suspect, who may have listened to them preach, read, or prayed with them a number of times; the most vehemently suspect, who had done all these things many times; the celatores, who knew who the heretics were and did not reveal them; and so forth.57 What was to be done with relapsed heretics who abjured their heresy? Should they be handed over to the secular power? No. They were to be imprisoned. What if one had a whole crowd of heretics abjuring their heresy at once? Other canonical penalties could be imposed by a discreet judge. What if it was a smaller group? If they were credentes moderation could be shown, but if they were heretical perfects or dogmatizers of error, or indeed relapsed credentes, they had to be imprisoned so their souls could be saved and others would not be corrupted.58 The different oaths of reconciliation and the different types of penance were set down, all dependent upon which category a person fell into.59 The original impact of Ramon’s sophisticated but incomplete system is not clear, though the strong preference for imprisonment in the province of Tarragona over worse alternatives suggests that in Catalonia it may have at first been followed fairly closely.60 The Directorium also travelled to Languedoc and was used as a source for the anonymous Doctrina de modo procedendi contra hereticos (c.1280), and then became essential reading for the inquisitors at Carcassonne in the following century.61 This influence of Ramon, in alliance with the crown, in the negotium fidei was almost matched by that which he enjoyed, again with the crown’s aid, in the sustenance of the faith of Christians in Muslim lands, and indeed in the promotion of Christianity among the Muslims. Even though it is probably the case that the part played by Ramon in the foundation of the Mercedarian (2016), 26–52; Diplomatario, 74–82, no. 64; DRP, 13–20, no. 3; Baraut, ‘Els inicis de la inquisició’, 429–34, no. 8; C. Douais, ‘Saint Raymond de Peñafort et les hérétiques: directoire à l’usage des inquisiteurs aragonais (1242)’, Le Moyen Âge, 12 (1899), 305–25, at 315–25; A. Errera, ‘Il Directorium Inquisitoriale di San Raimundo’, in Magister Raimundus, 165–91. 57 DRP, 7, no. 3. 58 DRP, 8, no. 3. 59 DRP, 9–10, no. 3. 60 D.J. Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition in the Lands of the Crown of Aragon, c.1167–1276 (Leiden, 2010), 107, 204; S. Grau i Torras, ‘Ramon de Penyafort i el procediment inquisitorial contra els heretges’, Revista de dret històric català, 13 (2014), 143–76. 61 C. Caldwell-Ames, Righteous Persecution: inquisition, Dominicans and Christianity in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2009), 148, 173; J. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: power, discipline and resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca, 1997), 49; Errera, ‘Il Directorium Inquisitoriale’, 185.

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Order for the ransoming of captives has been much exaggerated,62 it is essentially to Ramon that we owe the response to the Dubitalia of 1234, a series of forty difficulties raised by Dominican and Franciscan friars at Tunis trying to tend to the spiritual welfare of Christian merchants, soldiers, and captives living and working in a non-Christian land. Even though the responses are declared to be those of Gregory IX written down by Ramon, the judgements are typically Raymundian.63 What was to be done in cases where Spaniards sold goats and sheep to the Saracens, or the Pisans and Genoese sold them wheat, beans, chestnuts, hazelnuts? If this was done in time of war, declared Ramon, and such items were sold to Saracens fighting Christians, then those who sold them were to be excommunicated.64 What if a man, obliged by debt, with no means of earning money, compelled by necessity, boarded a ship as a sailor and the ship carried prohibited items into Saracen lands? Was he excommunicated? Yes, he was, since he participated in a crime with those who sent or carried those items. In the granting of penance, however, one could act more mildly with such people as discretion dictated.65 Rarely in the questions did the questioning friars concern themselves with the Muslim population, but Ramon certainly did. He had entered the Dominican Order just at the moment when Honorius III had given impetus to the evangelization of the Muslims of North Africa.66 In the Summa de Paenitentia he had written how Jews and Saracens should be brought to the Christian faith by reason and blandishments rather than harshness, since compelled service was not pleasing to God.67 By the 1250s, he was 62 Raymundiana, ii, 95–7, no. 61; Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 36; J. Brodman, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: the Order of Merced on the Christian–Islamic Frontier (Philadelphia, 1986), 15–16, 117. 63 Raymundiana, ii., 29–37, no. 18; Diplomatario, 22–8, no. 18; J. Tolan. ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses to Questions Concerning Relations between Christians and Saracens: critical edition and translation, 2012’ , 1–30 (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00761257X, accessed 23 July 2016); X. Bastida i Canal, ‘Les missions i la llibertat de la fe en Sant Ramon de Penyafort’, AST, 81 (2008), 19–80; J. Tolan, ‘Taking Gratian to Africa: Raymond de Penyafort’s legal advice to the Dominicans and Franciscans in Tunis’, in A Faithful Sea: the religious cultures of the Mediterranean, 1200–1700, ed. A. Husain and K. Fleming (Oxford, 2007), 47–63; J. Tolan, ‘Marchands, mercenaires et captifs: le statut légal des chrétiens latin en terre d’islam selon le juriste canonique Ramon de Penyafort (XIIIe s.)’, in Minorités et régulations sociales en Méditerranée médievale, ed. S. Boisselier, F, Clément, and J. Tolan (Rennes, 2010), 223–34; Vose, Dominicans, 208–9. 64 Raymundiana, ii, 30, no. 18; Tolan, ‘Responses’, 10, no. 3. 65 Raymundiana, ii, 37, no. 18; Tolan, ‘Responses’, 17, no. 40. 66 MDH, 416–17, no. 562 and 435, no. 579. 67 Summa de poenitentia, 1.4.1.

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recognized as a zealous propagator of the faith among the Saracens.68 In 1279, the provincial council of Tarragona, seeking his canonization, recorded that Ramon had shown enormous interest that the friars learn various languages for the purpose of conversion.69 In the early fourteenth century, the problematic chronicle of Pere Marsili added that Ramon had set up the language schools in Tunis and Murcia, and the anonymous Vita (probably by Arnaldo Burget) added that this had been the result of an initial vision revealed by God to Ramon. Helped by the kings of Castile and Aragon, his language schools had seen to the conversion of more than 10,000 Saracens.70 That may not have been the case – the Vita too was written for his canonization. It probably was, however, at least what Ramon had hoped for and believed in when he had written to his successor Master John in the 1240s that, where the ministry to the Saracens was concerned, the friars’ harvesting efforts were about to bear almost innumerable fruits and that many in Murcia had already been converted either secretly or openly.71 It was, moreover, probably what he still believed in 1260 when Alexander IV, at his request, conceded to him the authority to send missionaries to Tunis and other barbarian nations, as much for the conversion of the infidel as for the strengthening of the faithful.72 The harvest may never really have borne as much fruit as was anticipated, but Ramon’s influence on the establishment of the language schools has been considered such that the literature tends to divide them into Raymundian and post-Raymundian establishments.73 The part Ramon took in the conversion of the Jews is a difficult one to establish exactly, though the anonymous Vita does insist also on his encouragement of the friars’ study of Hebrew.74 The major event in this respect was the Barcelona disputation of 1263, at which time Ramon was 68 Gerardus de Fracheto, Vitae fratrum, 332. 69 Diplomatario, 183; A. Cortabarría Beitia, ‘San Ramón de Penyafort y las escuelas dominicanas de lenguas’, EV, 7 (1977), 125–54; J. Formentín Ibáñez, ‘Funcionamiento pedagógico y proyección cultural de los estudios de árabe y hebreo promovidos por San Ramon de Penyafort’, EV, 7 (1977), 155–76; L. Robles, ‘El “Studium Arabicum” del capítulo Dominicano de Toledo de 1250’, Estudios Lulianos, 24 (1980), 23–47, at 32. 70 Petri Marsili, Opera Omnia: Liber Gestorum, Epistola ad Abdalla, ed. A. Biosca Bas (Turnhout, 2015), 429; Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, i, 31–2; L. Galmés Mas, ‘Biobibliografía de San Ramon de Penyafort’, in Magister Raimundus, 11–34, at 19–21; M. Coll i Allentorn, ‘La crónica de Fr. Pedro Marsili y la Vita anonymi de San Ramon de Penyafort’, AST, 22 (1949), 1–30; Vose, Dominicans, 106, points to Majorca as a more probable venue for the first language studium. 71 Gerardus de Fracheto, Vitae fratrum, 309–10; Vose, Dominicans, 138. 72 DRP, 35, no. 24: ‘tam in conversione infidelium, quam etiam in corroboratione fidelium’. 73 J.M. Coll, ‘San Raymundo de Peñafort y las misiones del norte africano en la edad media’, Missionalia Hispanica, 5 (1948), 417–57; Ribes Montane, ‘San Ramón de Penyafort’, 134–41. 74 Anonymi vita S. Raymundi, i, 32; Vose, Dominicans, 111.

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over eighty years old. We might think it unlikely that he masterminded the whole thing, as is sometimes claimed, but the debate ordered by the king undoubtedly took place at Dominican instigation and, after Friar Paul, Ramon appears as a significant player.75 At least in Nachmanides’ own account, it was specifically from James and Ramon that the rabbi sought permission to speak freely in the debate, and Ramon who replied that he could do so provided he said nothing blasphemous.76 Whether or not this happened, it indicates that Nachmanides considered Ramon the most important figure in the proceedings after the king. In the rabbi’s account of the follow-up to the initial debate, it was James and Ramon who went to the synagogue and preached. Ramon sermonized on the Trinity, which he said consisted of Wisdom, Will, and Power – insisting that Nachmanides had conceded the same when debating Friar Paul at Girona. That was a matter Nachmanides could not, and did not, let go, responding at great length, perhaps enjoying sparring with an intellectual equal.77 Soon after, King James put Ramon in charge of the panel to see that the Jews eliminate blasphemies against Christianity from their books, and Ramon again who would play a prominent role in 1265 in pressing for the condemnation of Nachmanides and perhaps his exile for the disparaging words he had spoken and written two years previously.78 Of course, none of this influence is especially savoury, but it is influence nevertheless and it was the shape of things to come. There is not space to say more about Ramon’s involvement over many years in the ecclesiastical affairs of the province of Tarragona: his part in the election of Ramon, the first bishop of conquered Majorca, or of that other great lawyer, Vidal de Canyelles, at Huesca; or in the resignation of the archbishop-elect of Tarragona, Guillem; or his refusal to accept the resignation of the equally hapless Ponç of Tortosa, who was evidently not 75 H. Denifle, ‘Quellen zur Disputation Pablos Christiani mit Mose Nachmani zu Barcelona 1263’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 8 (1887), 225–44, at 231. On Raymond as the mastermind and fanatic see J. Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, 1982), 104–8; I. Loeb, ‘La Controverse de 1263 à Barcelona’, Revue des Études Juives, 15 (1887), 1–18 at 6. But Vose, Dominicans, 147, sounds a note of caution here. 76 Kitvei Rabbenu Moshe ben Nahman, ed. C. Chavel, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1964), i, 302–3; N. Caputo, Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia (Notre Dame, 2007), 170. 77 Kitvei Rabbenu Moshe, i, 320; Ramban [Nachmanides], Writings and Discourses, 2 vols, trans. C. Chavel (New York, 1978), ii, 694–6; R. Chazan, Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Christendom (Cambridge, 2004), 259–60; Vose, Dominicans, 152–3. 78 Denifle, ‘Quellen zur Disputation’, 239–40; Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, ed. A. Huci Miranda and M. Cabanes Pecourt, 5 vols (Zaragoza, 1976–82), iv, nos 1350, 1356, 1360, 1389; DRP, 38–40, nos 28–30. On Nachmanides’ condemnation to exile and the king’s subsequent change of heart, see Vose, Dominicans, 174.

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as old and weak as he had told the pope (Ponç survived in his see another seventeen years).79 Nor can we write more about Ramon’s influence over the Dominicans in Spain without writing a book. Suffice it to say that when Ramon died the friars recorded that they had always held him in the same regard as the master of the order.80 Ramon’s influence over one Dominican elsewhere has been the subject of vigorous debate. Yet whether or not Ramon encouraged Thomas Aquinas to write the Summa contra Gentiles (which is hardly impossible), what is of more importance is the broader connection between the two, for in the thirteenth century, Ramon was really in many ways the great systematizer of the Church’s law, as Thomas was of theology and philosophy.81 One of his works, both legal and theological, the Summa de Paenitentia, greatly influenced the following centuries. Two of his works, the Liber Extra and the Dominican Constitutions, remained influential until the century into which we were all born. We may know Ramon far less well than we know Aquinas; but, as Robert Grosseteste wrote in a beautiful letter to Ramon, through faithful report of his deeds and through his works, the interior man can be known.82 Damian J. Smith, Saint Louis University, Missouri, USA

79 (Guillem) Raymundiana, ii, 62, no. 32; Documentos de Gregorio IX, 508–9, nos 634–5. (Majorca), Raymundiana, ii, 69–71, no. 38; Documentos de Gregorio IX, 539–40. (Tortosa) Raymundiana, ii, 71–2, no. 39; Documentos de Gregorio IX, 541, no. 678; Linehan, Spanish Church, 59–60, 65. 80 Acta Capitulorum Provincialium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 2 vols, ed. C. Douais (Toulouse, 1894), ii, 623. 81 Marsili, Opera Omnia, 429: ‘Conversionem etiam infidelium ardenter desiderans, rogauit eximium doctorem sacre pagine, magistrum in theologia, fratrem Thomam De Aquino, eiusdem ordinis, qui inter omnes huius mundi clericos post fratrem Albertum philosophum maximus habebatur, ut opus aliquod faceret contra infidelium errores, per quod et tenebrarum tolleretur caligo et ueri solis doctrina credere nolentibus panderetur. Fecit magister ille quo tanti patris humilis deprecatio requirebat, et summa, que Contra Gentiles intitulatur, condidit, ue pro illa materia non habuisse parem creditur.’ But see Thomas Burman, ‘Foreword’, in Nicholas of Cusa and Islam: Polemic and Dialogue in the Late Middle Ages, ed. I.C. Levy, R. George-Tvrtković, and D. Duclow (Leiden, 2014), xv–xvii; R.-A. Gauthier, ‘Introduction’, in Saint Thomas d’Aquin: somme contre les gentils (Paris, 1993), 119–30. (On Ramon and Aquinas) Baucells Serra, ‘La personalidad y obra jurídica’, 46. 82 Raymundiana, ii., 46–8, no. 23: ‘Etsi faciem vestram corporalem non viderimus, credimus tamen firmiter nos nosse vos, quia ex fideli relatu mores vestros et opera sapientialia referentium, faciem novimus hominis vestri interioris; et nisi cognitio faciei interioris esset vera cognitio hominis, nullus seipsum veraciter nosset cum faciem propriam exteriorem nullus videat. Vobis igitur non quasi ignoto, sed quasi cognito, confidenter scribimus, imo potius quasi praesentes vos alloqimur, cum conjunctior sit animarum in Christo sese amantium quam posset esse corporum presentia.’

3.

The Mendicant Orders and the Castilian Monarchyin the Reign of Ferdinand III María del Mar Graña Cid

Abstract The mendicant orders spread in Castile closely with the strong co-operation of the crown. Although the information we have is insufficient and often legendary, it allows us to establish relationships and interests between the king and the friars. This chapter focuses on the actions of King Ferdinand III and analyses them in two areas: in Old Castile and in the new Castilian territories won in the south thanks to the advance of reconquest. The policies of the king were closely related to those of his mother, Berenguela I, and especially benefited the Order of Preachers. As a result, a special bond was established between the Castilian Crown and the Dominicans which would long remain. Keywords: Dominicans, King Ferdinand III, medieval Castile, religious history

The reign of Ferdinand III (1217–1252) coincided with the origins and development of the mendicant orders in Castile.1 The two great institutions of the Franciscans and Dominicans shared with the king a common cause, and the striking geographical expansion which resulted from their itinerant pastoral activism, apostolic zeal, and evangelizing missionary purpose was in tune with the major political concerns of a monarch who dramatically expanded Castilian territory.2 The institutional structures and ideals of the 1 This was noted by some chroniclers at the time. See Lucas de Tuy, Crónica de España, ed. J. Puyol (Madrid, 1926), 421, ch. 88. 2 J. González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, 3 vols (Córdoba, 1980–86); G. Martínez Díez, Fernando III (1217–1252) (Palencia, 1993). For the coming of the friars to the Iberian Peninsula: A.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch03

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new orders are well known.3 According to tradition, Ferdinand so identified with their proposals that he became a tertiary Franciscan. 4 But what type of relationship did Ferdinand have with them and how should we assess it? Answers to these questions require us to analyse the religious actions of the king in terms of his political agenda as he developed ties between the crown and mendicant friars and nuns.

First Ties between the Mendicants and the Crown The traditions of mendicant historiography have aimed to link the Hispanic origins of Franciscans and Dominicans with the monarchy. The chronicles describe this relationship with the Castilian monarchs at the outset because the friars must have sought their permission in order to found their houses. In some cases the chroniclers described the presentation of letters of recommendation from Pope Honorius III, although today there is only actual evidence of letters addressed to the Hispanic clergy in favour of the Dominicans.5 The chroniclers also looked to report any association of the founding saints with the Castilian kings. Certainly, Francis of Assisi and Dominic of Caleruega both travelled in the peninsula. Francis first stepped onto Spanish soil in 1214 bound for Santiago de Compostela, and Dominic returned to his homeland in 1218 to oversee the establishment of the first Dominican houses.6 Some traditions even present them as being together in 1216, even though there is no evidence of this supposed meeting. The Franciscan story concerning this confuses Ferdinand III with his father, the Leonese King Alfonso IX, as well as with his grandfather, Alfonso VIII of Castile. There may be more to the Dominican tradition, which suggests López, La provincia de España de los Frailes Menores (Santiago de Compostela, 1915); J. García Oro, Francisco de Asís en la España Medieval (Santiago de Compostela, 1988); F.J. Peña Pérez, ‘Expansión de las órdenes conventuales en León y Castilla: franciscanos y dominicos en el siglo XIII’, in III Semana de Estudios Medievales, ed. J.I. de la Iglesia Duarte (Logroño, 1993), 179–98; A. Rucquoi, ‘Los franciscanos en el reino de Castilla’, in VI Semana de Estudios Medievales, ed. de la Iglesia Duarte (Logroño, 1996), 65–86. 3 See L.K. Little, Pobreza voluntaria y economía de beneficio en la Europa medieval (Madrid, 1980). 4 See S. Laín y Roxas, Historia de la provincia de Granada de los frailes menores de N.S. Francisco, ed. P. Leza Tello (Jaén, 2012), 45; L. Fernández de Retana, San Fernando III y su época: estudio histórico (Madrid, 1941). 5 MDH, no. 247. 6 A. López, ‘Viaje de San Francisco a España (1214)’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 1 (1914), 13–45, 257–89, 433–69; A. Huerga, Los dominicos en Andalucía (Sevilla, 1992), 38.

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an encounter between Saint Dominic and Ferdinand III.7 The theme of both stories was the same: the founders met with the king of Castile, who bestowed favours upon them and granted them broad rights in establishing their communities.8 More credible than this are the contacts between the first Hispanic mendicant communities and the crown, which coincided with their initial organization in the Peninsula. Juan Parente, the first Franciscan provincial of Spain, possibly met with King Ferdinand in 1219. No doubt the f irst Dominican provincial, Suero Gómez, would have done so as well. Even if it is only a matter of tradition that in about 1221 he requested licence from Ferdinand to found monasteries and preach in his lands, the king expressly mentioned Suero in 1222.9 Meetings would most likely have been celebrated at the two most important Castilian cities of Burgos and Toledo, and there is a visual record of this on one of the doors of the cathedral of Burgos (Coronería), where five statues represent Saint Dominic, Saint Francis, the king and queen of Castile, and Bishop Mauricio of Burgos. If in the Dominican case the first king that they dealt with at Burgos would certainly have been Ferdinand III, some Franciscan historians have suggested the first meeting of the members of their order in Burgos was with Alfonso VIII.10 But there is no extant documentary evidence for this. Franciscan chroniclers claimed that the kings, by granting the mendicant orders free licence to develop in their realms, had been the greatest promoters of the mendicant orders and could even be considered as co-founders. They therefore underlined that Alfonso VIII was the victor of Las Navas and that Ferdinand III shared with him the reputation of a Rex Christianus committed to the expansion of the faith in his kingdom: the arrival of the Franciscans in Castile in 1217 was providential and helped Ferdinand win against the Muslims and establish the Catholic faith.11 7 M.M. de los Hoyos, Registro documental: material dominicano inédito español (Madrid, 1961), i, 76. 8 Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Burgos, ed. A. Abad Pérez (Madrid, 1990), 16–17; H. del Castillo, Historia general de Sancto Domingo y de su Orden de Predicadores (Madrid, 1584), i, 79. 9 Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Burgos, 39, 49; López, La provincia, 149, 284; J. López, Tercera parte de la Historia General de Sancto Domingo y de su Orden de Predicadores (Valladolid, 1613), 164; González, Reinado, ii, no. 152. 10 Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Burgos, 49, 16–17, 19, 32, 39; E. Serrano Rodríguez, ‘El convento de San Pablo, un ejemplo de asentamiento dominicano en el Toledo del siglo XIII’, in El mundo urbano en la Castilla del siglo XIII, ed. M. González Jiménez (Sevilla, 2006), ii, 304; López, La provincia, 164. 11 Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Burgos, 21, 32–3, 43.

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The Territorial Policy of Ferdinand III After the first contacts with Alfonso IX of León, and possibly with Alfonso VIII of Castile,12 ties between the mendicants and the monarchy developed during the reign of Ferdinand III. References date from shortly after the beginning of his reign and remain throughout. They show the king often accompanied by friars and promoting the implementation and development of their orders. They also allow us to differentiate between the old confines of Castile-León and the new lands incorporated into the crown. Protector and promoter in Castile-León: the importance of the nuns In 1222, in his first documented action concerning the mendicant orders, just five years after his accession to the throne, Ferdinand assumed the role of protector and promoter of the Order of Preachers, giving it his protection and recommending it throughout his entire kingdom.13 A similar document is not extant for the Franciscans, but we do have notice that the king set himself up as their protector against attacks, placing under his guard and defence all the Franciscan communities of his kingdom. Since such conflicts were characteristic of the first phase of the establishment of the mendicants,14 this should be dated to no later than 1230.15 The king thus early on supported both mendicant orders in his kingdom; but he showed a special interest in the Order of Preachers, which was given preferential treatment during the 1220s. If we give credibility to the traditions of the order, Ferdinand then began to employ Dominican confessors. The first, Domingo ‘el Chico’, was a companion of Saint Dominic, sent by him to Spain and prior of the community of Segovia, where the king would have met him in 1219; the next, Pedro Gonzalez Telmo, was a famous preacher.16 12 J. González, Alfonso IX (Madrid, 1944), ii; idem, El reino de Castilla en la época de Alfonso VIII (Madrid, 1960), iii, Documentos (1191–1217). There is a confusing reference in the case of the first volume: the register of a document of Alfonso X which confirmed another of Alfonso IX in 1226 receiving under his protection and defence the prior of Santo Domingo de Zamora – Documentación e itinerario de Alfonso X el Sabio, ed. M. González Jiménez and M.A. Carmona Ruiz (Sevilla, 2012), no. 852 – is open to doubt, since the original document was addressed to the prior of Sancti Spiritus, a diocesan institution. See M. Sánchez Rodríguez, Tumbo blanco de Zamora (Salamanca, 1985), no. 71. 13 González, Reinado, ii, no. 152; Castillo, Historia general de Sancto Domingo, 201–2. 14 García Oro, Francisco de Asís, 53. 15 J. de Santa Cruz, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de San Miguel (Madrid, 1989), i, 152. 16 Rodrigo Losada or Lozana – better known as Remondo, archbishop of Seville – does not appear to have been a friar, in spite of some Dominican insistence that he was. See, L.G. Alonso Getino, ‘Dominicos españoles confesores de reyes’, Ciencia Tomista, 14 (1916), 393–5.

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Ferdinand did not have Franciscan confessors,17 a fact which coincides with the absence of documents concerning the friars and communities of this order during this initial period. In these initial encounters with the Dominicans, Ferdinand undoubtedly already saw the order as an instrument by which his sovereignty would be strengthened. After a period of civil war, the king sought to assert his authority in Castile;18 and his support for the new religious orders strengthened his image as a Christian king and enhanced his authority over the entirety of the lands of Castile, while specifically identifying the new religious orders with the crown and its domains. Royal authority was strengthened particularly through the Dominicans because Dominic was from Caleruega and, even though he was still not canonized, he was unquestionably an authority figure. A second matter must be borne in mind when considering Ferdinand’s strong early approval for the Dominicans: the profound collaboration between the episcopate and the papacy in support of the new orders. Honorius III promoted the Dominicans in Spain from 1219, and the charter of royal protection of 1222, in which Ferdinand made express reference to the requests and mandates of the pope concerning the dissemination of the order, could not be clearer.19 The king, who along with his kingdom had been received under the protection of the Apostolic See,20 was aligned to the interests of the papacy in dispensing favours and protection to the two Hispanic female communities of the Order of Preachers, at Madrid and San Esteban de Gormaz, both of which were associated with the founder of the order. Economic issues were key in the relationship between the crown and the Dominican nuns. Ferdinand III favoured the community of Santo Domingo de Madrid, which received three donations to help it build up its patrimony in the city. This was an important concession given that the legislation of the fueros (charters) usually obstructed transfers of property to religious institutions. Of course, unlike their male counterparts, the economic model of the Dominican nuns was not that of poverty. Indeed, according to the chronicles the question of property was instrumental in the development 17 A. López, ‘Confesores de la familia real de Castilla’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 31 (1929), 6. 18 As part of the peace process described by Martínez Díez, Fernando III, 44. 19 González, Reinado, ii, no. 152. For the king’s motives, see J.M. Nieto Soria, ‘La monarquía fundacional de Fernando III’, in Fernando III y su tiempo (1201–1252), VIII Congreso de Estudios Medievales de la Fundación Sánchez-Albornoz (Ávila, 2003), 41. 20 D. Mansilla Reoyo, Iglesia castellano-leonesa y curia romana en los tiempos del rey San Fernando (Madrid, 1945), 38.

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of this foundation, which had begun as a house for men and ceased to be so at Dominic’s wish, because it did not seem appropriate that a community of friars should receive so great a number of goods. Ferdinand intervened from 1226 in order to promote the formation of the patrimony of the nuns. In that year he confirmed the donations to them; in 1228 he placed the monastery under his protection; and in 1229 he became a donor by giving the nuns an orchard called ‘of the queen’. 21 Economic issues were also central in the royal support of the Dominicans of Santa María de Castro de San Esteban de Gormaz, although in a different way. Here the formation of a fixed patrimony was not favoured, but rather the productive work, marketing, and purchasing power of the nuns; in 1229 they were exempted from the portazgo (gate toll) on the work they did with their hands and the price for which they sold it.22 With this economic policy the monarch favoured the strengthening of the institutions of the Dominican nuns, particularly with two communities which had ties with the holy founder of the order. In the case of the Madrid community the king’s efforts coincided with those of Honorius III, who had also wanted to promote this house and in 1220 had requested that the people of the town would favour the brothers (as they were at that time).23 In any case, Rome always looked favourably on the economic stability of female communities because it contributed to the due observance of enclosure, which was a necessary component of the female religious canonical model, whether mendicant or not.24 This coincidence of the interests of monarchy and papacy can be seen elsewhere. In 1229, Ferdinand gave a boost to the male community of San Pablo de Toledo, which he had supported from an early stage. In that year he exchanged with Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and the chapter a place called Granadal and sixty aureos (gold coins) from the revenues of the royal almojarifazgo (custom duty) for an orchard next to the Tagus belonging to the cathedral, which he had donated to the Order of Preachers 21 González, Reinado, ii, nos 218, 236, 255; Castillo, Historia general de Sancto Domingo, 86–7; R. Ríos de la Llave, ‘Noticias relativas a la actual provincia de Guadalajara y sus pobladores en las fuentes medievales del monasterio de Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid’, Wad-al-Hayara: Revista de Estudios de Guadalajara, 33–4 (2006–7), 53. The socio-economic analysis of this monastery, in J.R. Romero, Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid: ordenación económica de un señorío conventual durante la Baja Edad Media (1219–1530) (Salamanca, 2007). 22 González, Reinado, ii, no. 246. 23 MDH, no. 275. 24 M.M. Graña Cid, Religiosas y ciudades: la espiritualidad femenina en la construcción sociopolítica urbana bajomedieval (Córdoba, siglos XIII–XVI) (Córdoba, 2010), 72–9.

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‘ad construendas ibi et alia quecumque uoluerint domes’ (so that they can build there their house).25 The acquiescence of Archbishop Rodrigo in this surprising action through which the king surrendered land belonging to the cathedral was of great moment, considering that the location was at a passageway towards the inside of the city.26 This action introduces us to the third great political issue concerning the mendicants, in particular the Dominicans – that is, their role in the crusades and the Christianization of Andalusia. The king, who a few years earlier had begun his campaigns of conquest, was allied to papal missionary interests in extending the Christian border against Islam by promoting a strategic enclave for the activity of the Dominicans, to whom the Holy See entrusted missions along with the Franciscans. Perhaps it is through this strategic perspective that we can understand the support provided to Madrid, an important point on the road linking Old Castile with Toledo and Córdoba.27 Honorius III had recommended the Dominicans to Spanish prelates and Ferdinand’s actions likewise coincided with the interests of some Castilian prelates.28 This was the case with the Dominicans of Toledo and the cession to them of some of the terrain of the cathedral without any conflict with the archbishop, this being evidence of shared interests, because Archbishop Rodrigo himself had been promoting the Dominicans in his diocese since the end of the previous decade.29 This confluence of interests probably intensified following the success of the campaigns of conquest and the beginnings of Christian restoration in Andalusia, where the archbishop actively intervened. To this example we should add that of the special favour shown to the nuns of San Esteban de Gormaz by Bishop Juan of Osma.30 It should be remembered that both prelates were very close to King Ferdinand. Churchmen remained supportive of the king’s policy towards the friars after 1230, when the crowns of Castile and León were united. Possibly on the initiative of the Apostolic See, Ferdinand especially supported the female Franciscan movement of the Order of St Damian (which would eventually be 25 González, Reinado, ii, no. 257. 26 Serrano Rodríguez, ‘El convento de San Pablo’, 310–1. 27 M.M. Graña Cid, ‘Frailes, predicación y caminos en Madrid: un modelo para estudiar la itinerancia mendicante en la Edad Media’, in Caminos y caminantes por las tierras del Madrid medieval, ed. C. Segura Graíño (Madrid, 1993), 284–96. 28 MDH, nos 247, 275, 276, 281, 382. 29 In 1218 he had donated some houses in Brihuega. Serrano Rodríguez, ‘El convento de San Pablo’, 306. 30 N. Salvador Miguel, ‘La actividad literaria en la corte de Fernando III’, in Sevilla 1248, Congreso internacional conmemorativo del 750 aniversario de la conquista de la ciudad de Sevilla por Fernando III, rey de Castilla y León, ed. M. González Jiménez (Madrid, 2000), 686.

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integrated into the Order of St Clare), which was a creation of Pope Gregory IX. In line with the pope’s own wishes, Ferdinand again sought the economic stability of the female communities, as well as favouring the processes by which their lives were regulated. He exercised his authority in this field in the kingdom of León, and probably began to do so at papal request. However, it is noteworthy that subsequently he did not fulfil the pope’s expectations in promoting these foundations. In 1238, Gregory IX sought to consolidate the new religious institution of Santa María de Salamanca, and entrusted it to Ferdinand so that he would not allow his vassals to attack the religious or damage their property. Gregory also wrote to the city council at the same time. We do not know if Ferdinand intervened, but the problems had not been resolved when in 1244 he was again required to act.31 The king gave support, which was above all economic support, to several communities of Damianites which were not those of primary interest to the Apostolic See, and one can perhaps detect in these actions an understanding and accord between the king and his bishops. In León, Ferdinand supported the Franciscan sisters of Sancti Spiritus de Ciudad Rodrigo: probably established around 1230, he awarded them two ochavas of bread per year from each of the tercias of the town.32 In Castile, he helped San Salvador de Guadalajara (a foundation of his mother) and, according to tradition, founded another, Santa María Magdalena de Cuéllar. Before 1244, he reportedly asked St Clare for some women religious, thus helping a group of pious ladies from the town. The only documentation we have is that in that year Pope Innocent IV asked Prince Alfonso (the future Alfonso X) that he would favour the monastery of Damianites of Cuéllar and not allow them to be attacked.33 It is striking that references to the friars are very rare and late, and confined to the kingdom of León. It might appear that Ferdinand territorialized his mendicant ties, opting in Castile for stronger ties with the Order of Preachers and in León with the Franciscans. The first report of the friars in León is important because it connects the mendicants with one of the major cultural works of the king, the University of Salamanca. In 1243 Ferdinand 31 La documentación pontificia de Gregorio IX (1227–1241), ed. E. Saínz Ripa, 2 vols (Roma, 2001), ii, no. 873; La documentación pontificia de Inocencio IV (1243–1254), ed. A. Quintana Prieto, 2 vols (Roma), i, 1987, no. 69; Datos para la historia del real convento de clarisas de Salamanca: catálogo documental de su archivo, ed. A. Riesco Terrero (León, 1977), nos 1, 2, 11. 32 The grant by Ferdinand was conf irmed by Alfonso X in 1284 (Santa Cruz, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de San Miguel, i, 512–13). 33 B. Velasco, ‘El convento de Santa Clara, de Cuéllar’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 34 (1974), 457–82; M. de Castro, ‘Los franciscanos en Cuéllar’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 23 (1963), 118–21.

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put the teachers and school under his protection, and he granted a role to the friars of the city as conservers of the peace in order to facilitate the foundation and operation of the university. If there was litigation between students or between students and townsmen, then the obligation to resolve disputes rested with the bishop of Salamanca, the dean, the prior of the Dominicans, and the guardian of the Franciscans: ‘e a los escolares e a los de la villa mando que estén por lo que estos mandaren’ (I order the students and those in the city to respect what they mandate).34 Rather later (1252), at the height of his prestige and authority, the king granted a privilege to the Franciscans of the kingdom of León exempting their representative from paying taxes, which is the first documented notice of a general privilege to the Order of Friars Minor.35

The Rise of the Mendicants in the South The most important aspect of Ferdinand III’s mendicant policy lies in the momentum which he gave to the new religious orders in the territories he had recently conquered from Islam in the south of his kingdom, mainly in Andalusia and, to a lesser extent, in Murcia. In Andalusia, Ferdinand systematically promoted the work of the mendicant orders. These actions paralleled his policy in the Christian organization of urban settlements.36 The towns were the epicentres of ‘castilianization’ and in them a new ecclesial model was implanted, with the mendicants as the protagonists. The king played a prominent role in all this and came to enjoy wide powers as the restorer of the southern churches. There are many legends which link the new foundations with the king, and some of these are probably anachronistic.37 Yet, even given the exaggeration of many of these traditions, there is often a plausible link. The documentary deficiencies are undoubtedly in part a product of the nature of these religious orders, and especially the fact that they were in their early days of development. The fact that only the Dominicans provide verifiable data early on is probably because of their initial character, which was more stable and conventual; they also often founded houses in places with larger 34 González, Reinado, iii, n. 709; López, La provincia, 154. 35 García Oro, Francisco de Asís, 155, n. 30. 36 M. González Jiménez, En torno a los orígenes de Andalucía: la repoblación del siglo XIII, 2nd edn (Sevilla, 1988). 37 J. González, El repartimiento de Sevilla (Sevilla, 1988), i, 360–1; J.M. Miura Andrades, ‘La presencia mendicante en la Andalucía de Fernando III’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1994), 509–19.

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populations.38 In contrast, the initial Franciscan establishments during the years 1220 to 1230 were often more spontaneous, flexible, and adapted to the environment, probably because of their more informal character, especially in the border areas. We have to take into consideration a singular characteristic of the mendicants. While the king favoured individuals and institutions of the Church generally with donadíos or heredamientos (land property),39 he could not do so with the friars because of their choice of poverty. Tradition often presents Ferdinand III as the founder of the communities in these new territories, but this requires some qualification. There is no doubt about his share of responsibility, since religious people settled in population centres located under Christian rule, in places where the king had full power in the distribution and organization of the territory. But of equal importance was the missionary and evangelical activity of the religious orders themselves, which had placed them in contact with areas dominated by the Muslims even before the Christian conquest.40 Of course, the interests of the king and religious coincided, and communication must have been very frequent given the personal closeness of the friars and the king. In any case, what tends to be qualified as the foundational activity of Ferdinand was limited to two policies: 1) he allowed for the arrival and installation of the communities (which did not necessarily mean that the initial project would result in a lasting foundation); 2) he granted the basic means for their initial survival and their conventual life (but without necessarily securing the completion of the process). When it came to establishing them territorially, everything seems to indicate that there were two phases. In the first, the king granted them oral approval41 and, in the second, he made a formal written donation with a view to conventual stability. Ferdinand was the protagonist in the first phase and in some cases, though not in all, in the second phase. This helps explain the lack of foundational documents. It is also explicable in terms of the nature of the occupation of the territory: in general, the king attempted to settle the territory immediately after the conquest; but there was often some time before the final repartimiento, 42 and when these agreements 38 A fact underlined by Peña Pérez, ‘Expansión de las órdenes conventuales’, 198; F.J. GarcíaSerrano, Preachers of the City: the expansion of the Dominican Order in Castile (1217–1348) (New Orleans, 1997), 24, 30. 39 González, Repartimiento, i, 281–2. 40 Huerga, Los dominicos, 46–7. 41 This is clear from the Córdoba case. M. Nieto Cumplido, Historia de la Iglesia en Córdoba: reconquista y restauración (1146–1326) (Córdoba, 1991), 280. 42 González, Repartimiento, i, 21.

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were made depended upon when he was actually staying in the places in question. 43 For various reasons, the presence of friars and nuns did not mean that they established a fixed residence or a convent, which might take years to be erected. They were, nevertheless, able to share in the efforts of the inhabitants of Córdoba and identify with them. The words of the members of the council of Córdoba in 1246 were very significant when they referred to the ‘lacerías et los trabajos que [the Dominicans of the city] levaron connuesco desque Córdoba fue de christianos’ (the sufferings and the works that the Dominicans carried with us since Córdoba was Christian). 44 As a result of this convergence of the interests of lay and religious settlers, the urban connection of the mendicant orders in Fernandine Andalusia saw, from a religious perspective, the development of a double model of the Christian city: the city of the frontier and the conventual city. The frontier model was most characteristic of the Kingdom of Jaén, the territory where the first conquests were made. The fact that for most of the mendicant foundations there are no documents and only traditions creates difficulties, but it may well be a clue to their missionary, poor, and unstable nature. Unlike the great cities of the Guadalquivir, here there are only notices of Franciscan foundations, with a vocation to preach to the Muslims, a great capacity to adapt to the border, and institutions still in the process of formation during the decade of the 1220s.45 However, even though the situation was less amenable to the Dominicans, who generally looked for urban stability,46 the Order of Preachers was also present in the area. The Christianization of the area was supported by papal missionary plans. Honorius III had already begun to organize the missionary work of Morocco, and in Muslim Andalusia it was entrusted to the Franciscans and Dominicans under the direction of the archbishop of Toledo. The archbishop played a prominent role in the conquest of Jaén, and in the restored diocese of Baeza was a suffragan of Toledo. Even before its conquest, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada had selected and consecrated one Domingo as the episcopus beatensis – with competences in both parts of the Strait of Gibraltar. 43 This was the case with the Dominicans of Córdoba, to whom the king granted a formal written donation during his second personal stay in the city. González, Reinado, i, 441. 44 González, Reinado, i, 441, n. 135; M.J. Medrano, Historia de la provincia de España de la Orden de Predicadores: primera parte (Madrid, 1727), ii, 261. 45 Francis called the martyrs of Morocco the ‘true Friars Minor’, and this must have been one of the main impulses for the peninsular expansion of the order. García Oro, Francisco de Asís, 45–6. 46 See the overview by J.M. Miura Andrades, ‘Conventos, frailes y ciudades: los dominicos y el sistema de la jerarquización urbana de la Andalucía bajomedieval’, in Las ciudades andaluzas (siglos XIII–XVI), VI Coloquio de Historia Medieval de Andalucía (Málaga, 1991), 277–88.

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Domingo was a Dominican missionary who had spent years working among the Saracens by papal order.47 This bishop was accompanied by a group of the friars of his order with the purpose of organizing the diocese. Although they did not found houses, there was a strong evangelical presence of the two mendicant orders in the territories of Jaén. However, it is noteworthy that the first references to a stable religious presence in the newly conquered territories concern female religious. This is not as unlikely as it may at first appear if we consider two things: the missionary desire of St Clare, who wanted to go to Morocco when she had news of the first Franciscan martyrs; and the establishment of women religious in other frontiers with Islam like the Middle East. 48 Andalusian traditions link the presence of these women to the desire of the saint, who is considered to have sent them expressly. It is possible that the Franciscans had been missionaries in this area before the conquest, and then the women religious arrived at the moment of conquest. They would not at this stage have been Poor Clares, but, probably, Sisters Minor and, therefore, not cloistered nuns living in convents. 49 Tradition indicates foundations of the Clares in Andújar, Baeza, Úbeda, and Jaén; the sequence follows the pace of the military advance. The first settlement in Andalusia (not just mendicant, but religious in general) would have been female and Franciscan, and was established at Andújar with disciples sent by St Clare, who settled in the town in 1225, the year of the conquest.50 For Ferdinand, this city was strategically of great importance, so he allowed an almost immediate provisional occupation in which the women religious probably participated. If this was so, Ferdinand would have been demonstrating a characteristic trait by welcoming all kinds of people in the hope that they would practise an exemplary way of life in the face of Islam.51 It would also certainly have been in tune with the somewhat random nature of the initial phase of conquest.52 Soon afterwards he repopulated 47 Mansilla, Iglesia, 75–6. 48 See M.M. Graña Cid, ‘Las primeras clarisas andaluzas: Franciscanismo femenino y reconquista en el siglo XIII’, in Las clarisas en España y Portugal, Actas del Congreso Internacional, ed. J. Martí Mayor and M.M. Graña Cid, 4 vols (Madrid, 1994), iv, 661–704. 49 As is well known, the Order of Saint Clare properly speaking was not established until 1263. 50 A. de Torres, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Granada, ed. R. Mota Murillo (Madrid, 1984), 398; G. Rubio, La custodia franciscana de Sevilla: ensayo histórico sobre sus orígenes, progresos y vicisitudes (1220–1499) (Sevilla, 1953), 397–8; M. de Jimena Jurado, Historia o Anales del municipio albense urgavonense o villa de Arjona (Arjona, 1996), 218. 51 A. Baquer, ‘Fernando el Santo, gobernante modélico’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1994), 265–6. 52 E. Cabrera Muñoz, ‘Reflexiones sobre los repartimientos y la repoblación de Andalucía’, in Sevilla 1248, 305.

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and organized the city.53 Baeza followed, with similar indications of a very early female Franciscan presence, but without the documents to prove it.54 Here again the king may simply have given his oral approval to the initiative. Certainly, tradition alone indicates the active role of the king as the promoter of permanent religious foundations in Jaén and Úbeda, populations where the oldest religious foundations would also be female. Both were conquered at a stage when the mendicant policy of the king was focused on the female Franciscan movement in Old Castile. Again, traditions are not implausible in claiming that it was at the expense of Ferdinand that the fledgling monastery of Santa Clara de Úbeda was built in 1234, or that the king would have supported the religious of Andújar in their foundation at Jaén in about 1246, which would become the monastery of Santa Clara de Jaén.55 In contrast with this feminine desire to be present in the main settlements of the kingdom at the moment they were falling into Christian hands, the Franciscans were only installed in the most important cities of the initial phase of reconquest, that is Baeza and Úbeda; in the f irst perhaps arriving in the newly occupied town in 1227, and then placed on a f irmer footing in 1228, possibly with the material support of the king.56 As regards Úbeda, there are traditions which point to a Franciscan presence in 1231, before the conquest, and perhaps in 1233, the year in which the city was won, the foundation which would become the friary of San Francisco began to take shape. That Ferdinand III was its founder is stated in a now lost manuscript which related the notable events of the house’s history.57 On the other hand, the case of Jaén is peculiar because, although shortly afterwards the Episcopal See was translated there at the king’s wish, there was no masculine mendicant establishment founded in the course of the 53 González, Reinado, i, 426; González, Repartimiento, i, 25. 54 Laín y Roxas, Historia de la provincia de Granada, 24–5; Rubio, La custodia franciscana de Sevilla, 82. 55 Laín y Roxas, Historia de la provincia de Granada, 34, 42; Torres, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Granada, 404–12, 415–19; Rubio, La custodia franciscana de Sevilla, 82; A. López, Obispos en el África Septentrional desde el siglo XIII, 2nd edn (Tangier, 1941), 54; Graña Cid, ‘Las primeras clarisas’, 669–70; F. Serrano Estrella, ‘Revisión historiográfica y documental sobre el real monasterio de Santa Clara de Jaén’, Giennium, 10 (2007), 433–53. 56 Laín y Roxas, Historia de la provincia de Granada, 23–4; López, La provincia, 307; M. González Jiménez, ‘La obra repobladora de Fernando III en los reinos de Jaén y Córdoba’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1994), 287–312. 57 In fol. 2 according to the chronicler Torres, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Granada, i, 39; Laín y Roxas, Historia de la provincia de Granada, 33; López, La provincia, 309–10.

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thirteenth century.58 There are indications that the king promoted the installation of orders for the redemption of captives in both Úbeda and Jaén, thus completing the religious pattern of the border region. There were Mercedarians and Trinitarians in Úbeda and Trinitarians in Jaén.59 The model of the conventual Christian city corresponded to cities of larger dimensions and within a context of religious and political maturity. In the two major cities of the Guadalquivir, Córdoba and Seville, the establishment of masculine communities followed the twin design of the Dominicans and Franciscans, who were joined by the ransoming orders. While their missionary activity undoubtedly remained an integral part of their activities, of still greater importance was the identification of these communities as necessary elements within the infrastructure of the cities to the extent that the mendicant establishment was bound by common interests to other urban organizations, and most pertinently the principal political institution, the concejo. They developed in a phase when the orders were reaching their institutional maturity and were fully supported by the authority of the king, reinforced by his military victories, and by papal recognition; and one can perceive the reception of a symbolic prestige which the communities in Jaén lacked. Although documentary lacunae continue to allow much room for speculation, the Order of Preachers in particular appears to have had a special influence in urban politics, perhaps because the king was more actively involved in their promotion. That at least is the impression we receive from the scarce information which here remains to us. Córdoba was the first test. It was the first truly important city to fall into Christian hands after the conquest of Toledo in 1085.60 The chronicles attribute to the king the foundation of the Dominican and Franciscan houses, with great symbolic and ideological importance being assigned to these establishments in the plan of restoration and castilianization. The city had been conquered on 29 June, the feast of St Peter and St Paul, and 58 They were made to wait until the 14th century when San Francisco de Jaén was established by Peter I (although tradition associates its foundation with Ferdinand III); also in the 14th century, the community of the Dominicans of Santa Catalina de Jaén was founded. See Torres, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Granada, i, 57–8; Huerga, Los dominicos en Andalucía, 53–4. 59 M. de Jimena Jurado, Catálogo de los obispos de las iglesias catedrales de la diócesis de Jaén y anales eclesiásticos de este obispado (Granada, 1991), 136, 195, 154–5; González Jiménez, La obra repobladora, 295. 60 M. Nieto Cumplido, ‘La restauración de la diócesis de Córdoba en el reinado de Fernando III el Santo’, in Córdoba: apuntes para su historia, ed. A. Domínguez Ortiz (Córdoba, 1981), 135–47; E. Cabrera, ‘Reconquista, organización territorial y restauración eclesiástica en el reino de Córdoba en la época de Fernando III’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1994), 319.

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those would be the names chosen for the houses founded by Ferdinand.61 They not only visibly recalled the conquest itself, but they also symbolized the initial Christian vocation, the evangelical freshness and the origins of the Church in the persons of the founder Apostles. Christianization was thus mentally associated with the mendicant orders. This also linked them to the very identity of the city: Ferdinand, in the fuero which he gave to Córdoba in 1241, pointed out it was given ‘in honour of the eminent Virgin Mary mother of God and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in whose day of celebration the city of Córdoba was restored to Christian worship’.62 There is only direct notice of the foundation of the Dominican house, the first of the Order of Preachers in Andalusia. Tradition suggests that the Dominicans arrived in the city with the king in the year of the conquest, 1236. Perhaps before then the king orally agreed the place for them to settle because the written testimony, which echoes the earlier settlement as a ratification of such a donation, is delayed to 1241, which coincides with the presence of Ferdinand in Córdoba after a time of absence.63 The king donated the place – with its orchard – that the friars had through his donation ‘from the beginning’, plus the third part of the water that flowed under the wall between Ajerquía and Medina; the pipe had been built by the friars, and the king ordered that it remained intact and not be built over.64 In fact, the religious foundation does not appear mentioned as a house until the chapter of Toledo of 1250.65 The actions of the king towards the Dominicans coincided with the organization of the city; Ferdinand gave his written donation on 20 February 1241, and then on 3 March he granted the fuero to Córdoba;66 significantly, the water that he donated to the friars was included in a reparto in which the concejo also participated. One may contrast the much earlier endowment of the diocesan church in 1238, or the fact that the parochial organization was already established by 1240.67 61 Nieto Cumplido, Historia, 287. 62 González, Reinado, iii, no. 670; H. Sirantoine, ‘La cancillería regia en época de Fernando III: ideología, discurso y práctica’, in Fernando III, tiempo de cruzada, ed. C. de Ayala Martínez and M. Ríos Saloma (Madrid, 2012), 199. 63 The king stayed a long time in Córdoba between February 1240 and March 1241. It was then that he finalized the repartimiento (González Jiménez, La obra, 303). 64 González, Reinado, iii, no. 667. 65 R. Hernández, ‘Las primeras actas de los capítulos provinciales de la Provincia de España’, Archivo Dominicano, 5 (1984), 28; J.M. Miura Andrades, ‘Las fundaciones de la Orden de Predicadores en el reino de Córdoba’, Archivo Dominicano, 9 (1988), 267–372; 10 (1989), 231–97. 66 González, Reinado, iii, no. 670. 67 González, Repartimiento, i, 50–1; I. Sanz Sancho, La Iglesia y el obispado de Córdoba en la Baja Edad Media (1236–1426) (Madrid, 1989).

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The king probably favoured the Franciscans in a similar fashion, which would give rise to the house of San Pedro de Córdoba. They also had another third of the city’s water, even though there is no documentary proof of this agreement.68 In any case, the link between the mendicants with the concejo and the town was crucial to their identity: the Dominicans made common cause with the Córdoba government in the initial stage of the post-conquest city. The concejo in 1246 recognized the confidence that its members had in the order – ‘el pro de nuestras almas que tenemos en la Orden de los Frayles Predicadores’ – and the difficulties that they had shared together, in which the friars had acted in the service of urban interests: ‘putting their minds on the hardships and the work they took with us since Córdoba was of Christians and how necessary was their help and service for us’.69 For this reason, they gave them a half of their third of the water. Apparently, they granted the same to the Franciscans (though no record remains), establishing the obligation that they should perform a service for the town by constructing a public fountain.70 Although less symbolically important or prestigious, settlements of the orders for the redemption of captives, the Mercedarians and Trinitarians, probably completed the Cordoban religious structure, since its members were present at the conquest of the city, although their houses are not documented until 1262.71 In Seville, Ferdinand aimed to develop the best concejo and the best city of the kingdom.72 Its religious structure was complicated by the number and range of orders73 and coincided with a moment of exaltation of the figure of the monarch, who was granted wide powers in ecclesiastical matters by Innocent IV.74 Again it is difficult to describe all the king’s actions because he again granted donations orally and had no time to set them down in writing between the conquest of the city (1248) and his own death (1252). But the traditions that characterize him as a founder of communities are compelling, and the chroniclers of the time present him promoting numerous religious houses.75 The king was the driving force behind the 68 Torres, Crónica de la provincia franciscana de Granada, i, 44–5; López, Tercera parte, 186–9. 69 Medrano, Historia de la provincia de España, 261. 70 Corpus Mediaevale Cordubense (1106–1255), ed. M. Nieto Cumplido (Córdoba, 1979), no. 296. 71 Nieto Cumplido, Historia, 296, 298; González Jiménez, La obra, 305. 72 González, Repartimiento, i, 16. 73 Described by M. Borrero Fernández, ‘Iglesia-monarquía en la Sevilla bajomedieval’, in Sevilla, ciudad de privilegios: escritura y poder a través del privilegio rodado (Sevilla, 1995), 83–115. See also A. Ballesteros, Sevilla en el siglo XIII (Sevilla, 1978). 74 Díaz Ibáñez, ‘Fernando III’, 323–41. 75 de Tuy, 444–5.

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establishment of the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Mercedarians and, with respect to women religious, the Franciscans again and also the Cistercians. The Dominican tradition says that, shortly after his entrance into the town in 1248, Ferdinand gave them the lands where the friary of San Pablo would be built. The friars were already installed when, in 1255, Alfonso X in writing donated them the place where they lived in puerta de Triana, but he did not mention a prior agreement by Ferdinand.76 However, there are sound reasons to suggest Ferdinand’s influence. Firstly, Ferdinand was accompanied on his entrance into Seville by Dominicans including his confessor, Pedro González Telmo; secondly, the chapter of Toledo in 1250 mentioned the existence of the religious community of Seville.77 Likewise, San Francisco of Seville already functioned in 1252, the year of Ferdinand’s death, and is referred to as ‘la eglesia de los descalzos’, but without indication of the king’s probable involvement in its foundation.78 The pattern was again completed with the establishment of the Mercedarians and Trinitarians.79 As well as the houses for men, there were female religious of the Cistercians and Franciscans. Here one of the major interests of the king lay in the promotion of the Cistercians of San Clemente. Ferdinand III must have been responsible for the house’s foundation, as in a later privilege, in 1310, Ferdinand IV stated that the house was founded by ‘my great-grandfather Don Fernando and my grandfather, Don Alfonso’. Apparently, in 1249 the building was already mentioned as present on the site where it would be. The king would donate the terrain and probably some liturgical objects, even though it was probably Bishop Remondo who took the lead in its foundation.80 The name of San Clemente reflected the close tie between king and community since it commemorated the conquest of the city on St Clement’s day. The crown, of course, had been strongly associated with the support of Cistercian nuns since the twelfth century. The establishment of the Franciscans, who ended up with the convent of St Clare, was significantly different because it would appear the king 76 López, Tercera parte, 266–7; A. Morgado, Historia de Sevilla (Sevilla, 1587), 132; J.M. Miura Andrades, Frailes, monjas y conventos: las órdenes mendicantes y la sociedad sevillana bajomedieval (Sevilla, 1998), 142. 77 Getino, ‘Dominicos españoles’, 393; Huerga, Los dominicos, 51, 245; Miura, Frailes, 142. 78 Also in this case Alfonso X gave a further donation. See Miura, Frailes, 142. 79 Miura, Frailes, 142; González, Repartimiento, ii, 299. 80 M. Borrero Fernández, El Real Monasterio de San Clemente: un monasterio cisterciense en la Sevilla medieval (Sevilla, 1991); idem, ‘Los monasterios femeninos en tiempos de Fernando III’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1994), 503–4.

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did not influence its foundation. Rather, as in the Kingdom of Jaén, it was the female religious themselves who took the lead, either sent by St Clare of Assisi herself or from the community of Guadalajara, a foundation of Queen Berenguela. Reports suggest that in 1249 they were lodged by the king in la calle Génova, where they were sustained by alms given by the local inhabitants, although the king himself would grant them a privilege, which was confirmed in 1260 by Alfonso X.81

The King’s Companions and Ecclesiastical Advancement The chronicles report that the friars accompanied Ferdinand III from the outset of his reign in two institutions which, like the mendicants themselves, were itinerant: the court and the army. This was important in establishing the relationship between the friars and the king. The evidence would again suggest that the link with the Dominicans was stronger here. As already noted, the only mendicant confessors whom Ferdinand III had were Dominicans, and that was from early on. Certainly, these friars were closely tied to the Spanish courts, and contact must have been so common that the chapter held by the order in Palencia (1243) placed it under the authority of the provincials.82 The evidence suggests the Franciscan presence comes later. Although it seems that the king did not have confessors from this order, he was very close to some friars who acted as advisers: perhaps Lope Hernández and above all Pedro Gallego, who was the confessor of Prince Alfonso and much loved by Ferdinand.83 The mendicants also formed part of the king’s army in the campaigns of conquest in Andalusia, acting as confessors and offering encouragement. There are various semi-legendary stories which emphasize the role of the Dominicans in this field.84 Their presence alongside the king as he fulfilled his military programme demonstrated the close alignment of their interests. The visible manifestation par excellence lay in the processions of entry into the conquered cities, an important ritual for the king and one where the friars participated alongside other churchmen.85 81 D. Ortiz de Zúñiga, Anales eclesiásticos y seculares de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Sevilla, metrópoli de la Andalucía, 5 vols (Sevilla, 1988), i, 59; Graña, Las primeras clarisas, 673. 82 Hernández, ‘Las primeras actas’, 21, 25. 83 López, La provincia, 171–2. 84 In one story, when St Pedro González Telmo was in the king’s camp a temptress approached him and he threw himself into a fire without getting burned (Retana, San Fernando III, 182). 85 Huerga, Los dominicos, 46; Nieto Soria, ‘La monarquía fundacional’, 62–3.

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Did close proximity to the king lead to promotion within the order, or was it more the case that it was by rising in the ecclesiastical ranks that one gained proximity to the king? The first Dominican confessor of the king appears to have also been the provincial of Spain; and the Franciscan confessor of Prince Alfonso, Pedro Gallego, was also a provincial. It was certainly the case that during Ferdinand’s reign, the friars first gained access to the episcopate. Given the influence exercised by the king in episcopal elections,86 and given that the first bishops who were friars were linked to the border region, a key area of the king’s interest, it is fitting to ask to what extent the phenomenon was a result of his influence. Two cases are illustrative. The first concerns the Dominican Domingo de Soria, bishop of Baeza, a diocese restored in 1232.87 It is difficult here to assess the influence of the king in an episcopal promotion which appears primarily the result of the action of Archbishop Jiménez de Rada in collusion with Gregory IX. In 1228 Rodrigo had consecrated Domingo with the title of bishop of Baeza, sending him to Morocco.88 He was a missionary who had already been sent there by Pope Honorius alongside the Franciscan Martín in 1225. The only act of the king here appears to be the guarantee of protection at papal request. The second case was of the Franciscan Pedro Gallego, bishop of the diocese of Cartagena, which was restored in 1250. It is the only mendicant episcopal promotion in which we can document Ferdinand’s active participation, even though it is mediated by his son, Prince Alfonso, in the territory which he had conquered in the name of his father – Murcia. Pedro was a confidant of King Ferdinand, but was even closer to Prince Alfonso.89 In fact, although Ferdinand negotiated with the pope, it was his eldest son who took the lead by presenting Pedro to Innocent IV.90 Significantly, Ferdinand, who came to enjoy the right of presentation in the churches reconquered by him, did not promote mendicants to the episcopate in the urban and political epicentres of his Andalusian territory, Córdoba and Seville – the very cities where his imprint on the religious organization and the symbolic representation of the crown appears most marked. With a great opportunity to intervene in both places, he aimed 86 Díaz Ibáñez, ‘Fernando III’, 329–30. 87 Jimena Jurado, Catálogo de los obispos, 127–8; González, Reinado, i, 427. 88 A. López, Obispos en el África Septentrional desde el siglo XIII, 7–10, 14–15, 20. 89 F. Revilla García, ‘Obispos de procedencia franciscana en la Castilla del siglo XIII: participación en la política repobladora y reconquistadora’, in El mundo urbano en la Castilla del siglo XIII, ed. M. González Jiménez (Sevilla, 2006), ii, 272, n. 5. 90 Mansilla, Iglesia, 182.

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to promote clergy who were his close collaborators, as was the case with the f irst bishop of Córdoba, Lope de Fitero, or even his own children, like Prince Felipe, who he wanted to be the first bishop of Seville. Since Prince Felipe had not been ordained, the f irst actual bishop was to be another person from the king’s circle, Bishop Remondo of Segovia.91 It is evident that the episcopal promotion was not part of the mendicant programme of Ferdinand III; he limited his actions to areas far from the high ecclesiastical sphere and closer to the secular. But he did incorporate the mendicant bishops into his personal surroundings, both in the military and the court.92

Conclusion Was the support of Ferdinand III for the mendicants the fruit of his personal identification with their spirituality, or was it rather because they were suited to the new realities of the thirteenth century? Whether Ferdinand was of a conservative or radical temperament has often been debated.93 But it was clearly in the king’s political interests to use the mendicants in his service in the new political situation of the union of Castile and León and the extension of the reconquest, as well as to tie them to him in the service of his conception of kingship, as he also did with the military orders.94 From the beginning of his reign, he used the mendicant orders as a means of strengthening his authority and his image as a Christian king through his entire kingdom. The support of the friars and their presence at the royal court constituted a new historical phenomenon that coincided with a new concept of monarchy which exalted the figure of the king as a monarch in the service of an expanding Christianity. In his political maturity, in 1248, Ferdinand presented himself as one who ‘en el servicio de Dios y en la exaltación del cristianismo, [hizo] grandes gastos y misiones tales como no lo hizo a la sazón ningún rey en España’. That image developed as a result of his activity in the conquest and Christianization of Andalusia. In the preamble to the fuero of 1251 for Seville he claimed to have been helped by God through the mediation of Mary and as ensign of Santiago to 91 Ibid., 182, 187–8. 92 López, Obispos, 21, 28–9; Jimena Jurado, Catálogo de los obispos, 137, 155. 93 Martínez Díez, Fernando III, 252; Miura, La presencia, 518; J. Sánchez Herrero, ‘La religiosidad personal de Fernando III’, Archivo Hispalense, 77 (1997), 492–3; Baquer, ‘Fernando el Santo’, 265. 94 See Nieto Soria, ‘La monarquía fundacional’, 44; C. de Ayala Martínez, ‘Fernando III y las órdenes militares’, in Fernando III y su tiempo, 71.

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conquer Andalusia ‘a seruicio de Dios et a ensanchamiento de Christiandat’, identifying himself as the ‘Rey Reconquistador’.95 The mendicant orders were crucial allies in the promotion of this image because their own identity coincided so strictly with the interests of the king, and served him especially in the territorial expansion of the monarchy in the southern part of the peninsula and in the progressive expansion of urban life through the entire kingdom. All of this reached its full expression in Andalusia, the key territory in the consolidation of Ferdinand’s monarchy.96 The wide diffusion of the mendicants guaranteed their presence throughout the kingdom, and their centralization made it impossible for them to disintegrate as some religious foundations might. The royal partnership with the mendicants was most evident in the conquest. The king was able to use the missionary zeal of the new orders alongside his own crusading spirit. It is no coincidence that the only contact with a house of male mendicants in the old confines of the Castilian Kingdom occurred in Toledo, the strategic enclave for the military operations in the south. This also may partially explain the support provided to Santo Domingo of Madrid, a female community but with a contingent of friars at its service and connected with activities in the south because of the town’s excellent location on the vital north–south road linking Old Castile with Toledo and Córdoba. The military campaigns culminated in the occupation and colonization of the new territories. Here the interests of the king and the spiritual character of the mendicants combined to their mutual benefit. The new religious structures were crucial in the integration of these territories in the process called castilianization. Mendicant houses were an inseparable part of the urban infrastructure which was considered necessary to fulfil this task. This was not only through the pastoral and missionary activity developed by the mendicants for the newly installed Christians and the mudéjar population, which was still present in the early years of colonization.97 It was also because the mendicants actively participated in the support and development of the political and administrative structures through which the monarchy developed the towns. Especially from 1230, they were identif ied with the support of the concejo, the fundamental governmental structure of the urban community, and with the service of the community. Having not yet developed strong links with the nobility, 95 Sirantoine, La cancillería regia, 200–3. 96 See A. Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial de la monarquía feudal castellana: expansión y fronteras durante el reinado de Fernando III (Madrid, 1994), 313. 97 Miura, La presencia.

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they were perfectly suited to the structures of urban society in Andalusia. They were linked from their foundation to the person of the king both in fact and, more importantly, in memory, and they helped attract people to the frontier region.98 These new orders were not generally used by the king to consolidate the united kingdoms of Castile and León. There the king usually only made use of their female branches; and the nature of the male religious houses, which were vowed to poverty, may have made it difficult to support them in those societies by the methods the king traditionally used. The support of the nuns again served the king in his propaganda as a Christian monarch, as well as giving practical assistance to their male counterparts by freeing them from the care of the female communities. One area where Ferdinand did make particular use of the friars, however, was in the development of the University of Salamanca, and it is significant that this action occurred in the 1240s, just as the f inished model of the conventual city arose in Andalusia. The ecclesiastical authority of the king and the socio-political role of the friars had then both arrived at maturity. The king did not particularly side with them against his prelates but, in reality, an important part of the higher clergy of Castile favoured the friars as well. They had, moreover, been expressly invited to promote the friars by the Apostolic See. As one would expect, the papacy was central to the development of the friars in Spain, and they served the interests of Rome just as they served the interests of the king. While in other areas a certain friction developed between pope and king as Ferdinand assumed the lead role in crusade and colonization,99 the friars helped cement good relations between the crown and the papacy. At the end of Ferdinand’s reign, a Franciscan bishop of Morocco, Lope Fernández de Aín, was elected by the Curia and recommended by Pope Innocent IV to the peninsular monarchs, with the intention of preparing a crusade to Morocco, an action which coincided with Ferdinand’s own crusading projects.100 The support given by Ferdinand to mendicant nuns can also be viewed as favouring harmony with Rome, as it promoted the formation of enclosed female monastic communities in the manner the papacy envisaged. Tied at the outset to papal theocracy at its height, but involved in the processes of political secularization, the friars were a completely new element – and one which the king came to understand and deal with on 98 Nieto Soria, ‘La monarquía fundacional’, 51. 99 MDH, nos 436, 548, 549; González, Reinado, i, 220; Mansilla, Iglesia, 56–7. 100 Mansilla, Iglesia, 59–63; Ayala, ‘Fernando III’, 99, n. 136.

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his own terms. They were to be closely linked with the crown, and it was symbolic that Ferdinand gave the Dominicans of Toledo a field belonging to the cathedral; the friars emerged, with new ways of doing things, in areas hitherto monopolized by the high clergy, backed by King Ferdinand, their greatest supporter. María del Mar Graña Cid, Universidad Pontifica de Comillas, Madrid

4. Ramon Marti, the Trinity, and the Limits of Dominican Mission Thomas E. Burman

Abstract Ramon Marti was certainly the most learned scholar of Arabic books in Latin Europe before the Jesuit Ludovico Maracci in the late seventeenth century, and his polemical works against Islam reflect this. However, after completing De Secta Mahometi in the 1250s, he shifted his interest to post-biblical Hebrew and Aramic texts and wrote two lengthy works, Capistrum judeorum and Pugio fidei. This chapter argues that in his writings, Marti continuously demonstrated a great interest in explaining the Trinity, and in doing so he connected with the scholastic movement in Italy, France, Germany, and England, turning away from the multi-religious world of Iberia. Keywords: Ramon Marti, Dominicans, Pugio fidei, Trinity, medieval theology

In the earliest memories of the Order of Preachers, Spain, the very homeland of their sainted founder, was a remarkably – and surprisingly – uninteresting place. If Dominic’s intention for his followers was, as Jordan of Saxony, the order’s earliest historian put it, to ‘send them all, though few in number, throughout the world’ as Christian preachers, then Spain – with its tens, even hundreds of thousands of Muslims living under Christian rule – should have been a prime destination.1 Yet, according to Jordan’s telling, the early Dominicans were ever turning away from Spain and its non-Christian population. Bishop Diego de Osma, Dominic’s esteemed mentor, travelled 1 ‘Et invocato sancto spiritu convocatisque fratribus dixit hoc esse sui propositum, ut omnes eos licet paucos per mundum transmitteret, nec iam ibi diutius insimul habitarent.’ Jordan of Saxony, Libellus de principiis ordinis praedicatorum 47, ed. A. Walz, MOPH, 16 (Rome, 1935), 48.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch04

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to the papal Curia, Jordan tells us, seeking to be relieved of his episcopal responsibilities – not in order to devote himself to preaching to the Jews and Muslims of his homeland, but to evangelize the Turkic Cumans who were then invading Hungary.2 Four early Dominican friars were sent, Jordan relates, to the ‘regions of Spain’ (partes Hispaniae), but two of them soon returned to Dominic in Rome since they ‘had not been able to achieve anything fruitful in Spain’ (neque enim […] fructificare in Hispania potuerunt).3 Dominic directly packed them off to Bologna. Dominic himself made his way back to Spain on one occasion to visit Dominican foundations in Madrid and Segovia, but was in Paris again by the end of Jordan’s sentence.4 While Jordan describes an elaborate disputation between Albigensian heretics and Dominic’s friars in Fanjeaux in which ‘many of the [Dominican] faithful wrote their treatises containing arguments and authoritative [scriptural] passages as confirmation of the [Christian] faith’, we read nothing of preaching to Jews or Muslims in Iberia, let alone writing tracts against them.5 Indeed, toward the end of his account, Jordan pares down Dominic’s goal of sending friars throughout the world to the more realistic intention of ‘sending brothers here and there throughout the diverse regions of the church of God’.6 In the chapter that follows, it will be argued that we see much the same turning away from Iberia and its unconverted Muslims toward more fruitful ‘regions of the Church of God’ north of the Alps even in the work of the medieval Dominican Order’s greatest scholar of Islam, the brilliant linguist Ramon Marti (d. after 1284). Modern scholars know Marti well for having written works of astounding learning against both Islam briefly early in his 2 Ibid., 17, 34. Though it is striking that the now lost manuscript used by the Bollandists in their edition of this work had Saraceni instead of Cumani in every case in this paragraph, its scribe perhaps sensing the same oddity that we do in this Castilian bishop’s desire to go to Hungary to find unbelievers to preach to. See ibid. and Walz’s introduction, 8. 3 Ibid., 49, 48. 4 ‘Anno eodem perrexit in Hispaniam Dominicus, ibique duabus domibus instauris una apud Madrid, que est monialium, altera vero apud Segobia, que prima fuit domus fratrum Hispanie, revertens inde venit Parisius anno domini XCCXIX, ubi fratrum fere triginta congregationem invenit’ (ibid., 59, 53). 5 ‘Contigit autem apud Fanum Iovis celebrem quondam disputationem institui, ad quam convocati sunt tam fidelium quam infidelium plurima multitudo. Plerique igitur fidelium suos interim conscripsere libellos, rationes atque auctoritates confirmationem fidei continentes, inter quos omnibus inspectis beati viri Dominici libellus plus ceteris commendatus est et communiter approbatus’ (Ibid.., 24, 38) 6 ‘Eratque uelut quoddam mirabile de servo Dei magistro Dominico, ut in mittendis huc illucque fratribus per diversas ecclesie Dei partes, quemadmodum supra memoratum est, sic omnia faceret confidenter et absque hesitationis ambiguo’ (Ibid., 62.)

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career and then against Judaism at prodigious length during the last two decades of his life. Yet the significance of this career path – writing first contra Saracenos minime then contra Judeos maxime – has never received the attention it deserves, despite the intriguing question that it raises: If Dominicans were meant to preach the Gospel throughout the world, why would the Spanish Dominican most qualified to preach to Muslims suddenly abandon that task to devote himself to writing against the tiny Jewish minority which, unlike Islam, presented no real geo-religio-political threat to Latin Christendom? In the pages that follow I will be tracing Marti’s use of a particular Trinitarian argument – one familiar to most Latin intellectuals of the thirteenth century – from the beginning of his polemical career right through to its lengthy deployment in his massive Dagger of Faith. Doing so makes it clear on the one hand that Marti was even more caught up in thinking about Islam early in his career than was thought, something that makes his sudden shift to anti-Judaica all the more surprising. Yet, in following Marti as he argues about the Trinity, we will begin to see that this shift was a kind of turning away from the intellectual and multi-religious world of Spain to embrace the powerful scholastic currents of England, France, Germany, and Italy – the same currents that, among other things, relentlessly drew his Dominican Order north and east. For, in deciding to apply his staggering linguistic skills not only to the text of the Hebrew Bible but also to a vast range of rabbinical literature in both Aramaic and Hebrew, Marti was taking up a tradition of Christian Hebraism that had flourished for at least 100 years, not in Spain but in England and France. Moreover, if we look beneath the linguistic fireworks of his anti-Jewish works we see that Marti is, theologically speaking, advancing arguments largely developed in the scholastic culture of the north as well. All this, finally, invites us to rethink the motivation behind and purpose of Marti’s writing against the Jews. As Harvey Hames has pointed out, for all his relentless, often snide, and sometimes very ugly attacks on how Jews interpret the Bible and their own rabbinical texts, Marti scarcely mentions the desirability of converting Jews at all in the Pugio fidei, and indeed asserts in its final chapter that the Jews will only be converted at the time of Jesus’s second coming.7 While Marti presents his erudite and painstaking work 7 H. Hames, ‘The Dominicans and Mission: looking again at the Barcelona disputation of 1263’, presentation at Making and Breaking the Rules: discussions, implementation and consequences of Dominican legislation, 6–8 March 2014, German Historical Institute London; cf. Marti, Pugio christianorum 3.3.21, Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, MS 1405, fols

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with the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and Midrash in the form of a ‘dagger’ to attack Judaism, and while it has typically been read as that, there is much to be gained by recognizing that, like earlier (and later) Christian Hebraists in the north, he was often using his learning to answer not Jewish critiques of Christian belief, but specifically Christian questions that had been raised within the Christian scholastic world of the north and east – that part of the ‘the diverse regions of the church of God’ where Dominican intellectuals were flourishing so fruitfully. In all this, finally, we can probably begin to make out one of the limits of the Dominicans’ vaunted devotion to mission during the order’s first century of existence. While it is true that we find expansive claims thrown around – such as those Jordan puts in Dominic’s mouth early in his Libellus – in practice there were more obstacles to undertaking the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world than many modern scholars have recognized. Indeed, as Robin Vose has pointed out, there was remarkably little interest on the part of the Spanish Dominicans in preaching to Muslims in this period at all. 8 The very scholastic curriculum and culture of trans-Pyrenean Europe which the Dominicans embraced so vigorously steered Marti away from the Muslims of his homeland toward a particularly northern way of interacting with the intellectual heritage of Judaism – and in this Marti is representative of thirteenth-century scholasticism in general. While I will be tracing Marti’s use of a particular Trinitarian argument throughout his career, I will do so, however, in reverse chronological order because the final version of this argument raises many interesting questions about the earlier ones. That final, and by far fullest, version occupies the greater part of the first distinction of book three of the Pugio fidei where, Marti tells us, he ‘will prove, with the highest, holy Unity and Trinity assisting me, that [God] is one and nonetheless threefold not only according to the faith of the Christians’, but also of the biblical prophets and ‘those who resemble [imitantium] them’ – by which he means the early rabbinic authors – using the text of the Old Testament and/or the Talmud.9 424v–428r (on this manuscript see that library’s catalogue at www.calames.abes.fr/pub/bsg. aspx#details?id=BSGB10365); cf. the early modern edition: Ramon Martí, Pugio fidei adversus Mauros et Iudaeos (Leipzig, 1687; rpt Farnborough, 1967), 953–7. As here, so throughout I will cite both the Sainte-Geneviève MS (the archetype of the whole manuscript tradition) and the seventeenth-century Leipzig edition. Though the work is called Pugio christianorum in this first manuscript, I will follow common practice among scholars by referring to it as Pugio fidei. 8 Vose, Dominicans. 9 ‘nunc [Deum] esse unum et nihilominus trinum non solum iuxta fidem christianorum. sed etiam secundum fidem sanctorum prophetarum. et omnium eos imitancium; uel per paçuq id

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After briefly discussing the unity of God in the first two chapters of this distinction, Marti then cited authoritative biblical and rabbinic texts that demonstrate a certain plurality in the Godhead in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, he argued that there are a certain number of persons in the Godhead (that is, three) and clear distinctions between them, quoting passages such as Isa. 48: 16 that seem to imply this: ‘Approach me and hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret. From the time of the coming of being I was there, and now the Lord God sent me, and his spirit.’10 Indeed at the end of this chapter, Marti stressed that: ‘There are many other authoritative passages of the Old Testament that testify to the mystery of the Trinity, but it would be too lengthy to gather together the rest.’ He then boldly claimed, in fact, that: I have scarcely ever debated with a [Jew] who was wise (even to a small degree) in the eyes of other [Jews] who, having heard [these passages], did not concede that God is threefold and one. Yet – and this is a key point – the word ‘person’, both for the Father and for the Son, they all unanimously detest, and to such an extent that it is not possible for them even to dream such a beautiful thing about God.11

All this is the prelude to the core of Marti’s Trinitarian argument which he lays out in the fifth chapter, called ‘On the divine properties according to the Jews, and according to us [Christians]’.12 Here Marti points out that while Jews abhor the term ‘person’ in relation to the Godhead, they frequently use the Hebrew term middah (and its plural middōth) in talking about God. Literally meaning, Marti instructs us, ‘measure’, ‘mode’, or ‘property’, Jewish est per textum ueteris testamenti. uel per talmud id est per doctrinam quae a sanctis prophetis et patribus iudei pertinaciter asserunt traditam […] auxiliante summa et sancta unitate ac trinitate; probabo’ (Pugio christianorum 3.1.1; Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 127r; Leipzig ed., 481–2). 10 ‘Accedite ad me, audite ista, audite ista, non […] a principio in occulta locutus sum, ex tempore Esse sui ibi ego, et nunc Dominus Deus misit me, et Spiritus ejus’ (Pugio christianorum 3.1.6; Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 130r; Leipzig ed., 492). 11 ‘Multa sunt alia testimonia scripture ueteris que trinitatis mysterio attestantur sed nimis longum esset cetera colligere […] vix etenim contuli unquam cum aliquo ex eis. qui vel aliquantulum esset sapiens in occulis aliorum; qui auditis que dicta sunt non concederet. deum esse trinum et unum. verum nomen persone et patris et filii. unanimiter omnes usque adeo detestantur; ut nullatenus ualeat eis pulchrum fieri. aliquid tale de deo; etiam sopniare. Sed ut dicit algazel. facere uim in uerbis. postquam sensus patet. consuetudo est. breuem habentium scienciam; et curtum intellectum’ (Pugio christianorum 3.1.12, Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 132v; Leipzig ed., 495). 12 ‘Quintum capitulum. de diuinis proprietatibus secundum iudeos et secundum nos’ (Pugio christianorum 3.1.12; Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 132v; Leipzig ed., 501).

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authors use it in many texts to mean ‘attribute’ of God, as in the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin (38a–38b), which comments on Prov. 9: 1 (‘Wisdom built his house’) as follows: Wisdom built his house: that is the middathū that is ‘his property’, the [property] of God […] which created the whole world in wisdom, or with wisdom, just as it is said in Psalm [104: 24]: How manifold are your works, Lord; you made all of them with wisdom […] Note that this tradition has been introduced here only for the reason that at the beginning of it is said that the wisdom which built the house, that is, the world, is a middah, that is, a property of God.13

There are a variety of opinions among the Jews, Marti continues, about the actual number of middōth. Some speak of thirteen middōth, while others – such as Moses ha-Darshan, an eleventh-century French commentator on Genesis and important source for Marti – posit ten middōth.14 In addition to listing all these middōth in Hebrew and Latin, Marti sniffily observes that: It is, I judge, clear that the Jews are feeling their way along a wall like those blind to the truth, as Isaiah 59: 10 says […] For which blindness can be greater than [the blindness] of those who attribute these twenty-three middōth to God […] but claim and consider us, who believe that God has only three personal properties, or three middōth as they say, to be dividers and destroyers of the one essence of the unity?15

But while Marti never tired of accusing contemporary Jews of irrationality, he has not brought up the notion of middōth solely for the purposes of 13 ‘Sapientia edificauit domum suam. hoc est middathó id est proprietas eius. Dei sancti et benedicti que creauit uniuersum mundum in sapienca uel cum sapiencia; sicut dictum est psalmum 103. Quam multiplicati sunt opera tua domine; omnia ea. in sapientia fecisti […] Nota quod ista traditio. ob hoc solum. Hic in loco indicitur. Quia in ipsius principio dicitur; quod sapientia que domum edificauit id est mundum; est midda id est proprietas dei’ (Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fols 132v–133r; Leipzig ed., 502). Cf. The Babylonian Talmud: Seder Neẓikin, ed. and trans. I. Epstein et al., 2 vols (London, 1935), ii, 241. 14 Commentaire de la Genèse de R. Moïse le Predicateur, ed. and trans., J.-J. Brìerre-Narbonne (Paris, 1939), 26 (Hebrew), 27 (French). 15 ‘Ecce ex istis satis ut puto liqet. quod iudei palpant ut ceci ueritatis parietem. ut dicit ysaias in persona ipsorum .lix. d […] Quae namque maior cecitas potest esse […] quam eorum qui .xx. tres istas middoth attribuunt deo […] Nos uero qui non nisi tres personas uel proprietates uel tres middoth ut ipsi loquuntur. credimus esse deum. unamque essenciam, dissectores ac ruptores divine uocant ac reputant unitatis’ (Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 135r; Leipzig ed., 504).

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derision. Rather, he wants to argue that the ten middōth that Jews attribute to God can be reduced to ‘a trinity of attributes, that is, power, wisdom, and goodness or the good will of God’.16 These three properties can be shown to include all the others: such attributes as omnipotence, strength, justice, and judgement all pertain to power; wisdom, prudence, and knowledge pertain to wisdom; righteousness and mercy pertain to goodness. And these three attributes naturally match the three persons of the Trinity: power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and good will to the Holy Spirit.17 So if Jews, Marti triumphantly observes at the end of this chapter, who detest talk of ‘persons’ in the Godhead so much, say to us, when we are talking about the Trinity, ‘who three’ or ‘which three?’ it is possible to respond without scandal for them, ‘middōth, that is properties, and one hawāyāyh, that is essence’. Then, if they insist that we give the names of the three middōth, and it is not suitable or agreeable that [their usual names be given], let it be said that they are ‘power giving birth’, ‘wisdom having been born’, and ‘love proceeding from both’.

Having sketched the core of this argument (on which the remaining chapters of the distinction elaborate in some detail) Marti then concludes Chapter 5 on a (typically) exuberant and confident note: ‘If [this] method which I have always used in disputing or persuading Jews and Muslims of the mystery of the Trinity should please anyone, let him read the following chapter’ (my italics).18 In doing so he raises the key issues at the heart of this study. For one thing, these final words urge us to search for evidence that Marti did in fact ‘always use’ this argument ‘in disputing or persuading Jews or Muslims’. Looking back through his works we find that, in fact, it does turn up in one of Marti’s earlier works, the Explanatio symboli apostolorum ad institutionem fidelium. But it also turns up somewhere far more intriguing: in a pair of 16 ‘Ceterum. decem middóth quas deo rursus attribuunt. Nos ad silliis [ut vid.?] id est ad trinitatem atributorum ide est ad potentiam. sapientiam et bonitatem uel bona dei uoluntatem; congrue ualde restringimus’ (Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 135v; Leipzig ed., 505). 17 Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 135v; Leipzig ed., 505. 18 ‘Si ergo iudei nobis de trinitate loquentibus dixerit. quid tres. uel quae tri. responderi poterit sine ipsorum scandalo. tres middoth. id est tres proprietates. et una hawyya. id est una essencia. Deinde si nomina trium middoth. dari sibi institerint. et dici non licet uel non libet. quod hec sint. potentia gignens. sapiencia genita. et amor ab utroque procedens […] Sic cui uero modus quod ego. siue disputando. siue persuadendo iudeis et sarracenis. misterium trinitatis. semper tenui . magis placuerit; sequens legat capitulum’ (Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 136r; Leipzig ed., 506).

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fragmentary Arabic treatises written by Iberian Christians, treatises that scholars (including myself) had dated to before 1200. More recent research has strongly suggested, however, that these works could have been written as much as a half century later, during the lifetimes of Marti and other Dominican scholars of Islam. As we will see, there are compelling, though not irrefutable, reasons to think that Marti or his circle may well have been responsible for these treatises, and that we have, therefore, not only intriguing new evidence in Arabic of Dominican mission to Islam but also, in the form of the quite lengthy treatise that preserves them, a contemporary Iberian Muslim’s response. In all this we cannot help but be impressed by how thoroughly engaged Marti was with Arab-Islamic culture and religion, at least at one point in his life. But – and this has received almost no attention by modern scholars – that all changed, and Marti’s claim that he always used this argument with Jews and Muslims urges us to reflect on that fact as well. Marti declared in the preface to the Pugio fidei, his final work, that while it is meant principally to destroy the unbelief of the Jews, it is also aimed at ‘Muslims and certain other adversaries of the faith’.19 Yet any reader can attest that there is almost nothing in the whole of the Pugio that bears directly on Islam, and little, other than in the overwhelmingly philosophical first book, which relates to other non-Christian groups. Other than a few odd references – like this one – to Muslims, the Pugio speaks only to Jews using only Jewish and Christian sources. While this fact has often been pointed out, scholars have never stopped to reflect on its significance, or on the significance of the larger question in which it partakes: Why did Latin Christendom’s best man on Islam turn his back on the grave challenges that it, as the most powerful rival religion and civilization, posed, to focus instead on the religion of the tiny, powerless Jewish minority? Once we examine the earlier iterations of this Trinitarian argument we cannot help but notice that, to a remarkable degree, Marti’s embrace of anti-Jewish polemic was in a larger sense an abandonment of the intellectual world of medieval Iberia for that of northern scholasticism. There is no doubt that in the late 1250s Marti had made use of a Trinitarian argument very like that found in the Pugio fidei in his Explanatio simboli apostolorum in a section called Probatio trinitatis per rationes.20 In the 19 ‘principaliter contra judeos deinde contra saracenos et alios quosdam vere fide adversaries (Pugio christianorum, proemium; Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 1v; Leipzig ed., 2). 20 Ramon Marti, Explanatio simboli apostolorum, in ‘En Ramón Martí y la seva “Explanatio Simboli Apostolorum”’, ed. J.M. March, Anuari de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2 (Barcelona,

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fourth of these ‘reasons’ or arguments, Marti observes that ‘No wise person doubts that in God there are power (potentia), wisdom (sapientia), and will (voluntas), and thus in a certain way a trinity is found in God’, and ‘the philosophers do not deny this trinity’.21 This trinity of attributes in God, moreover, can be shown to correspond to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ‘not according to the personal properties which are in these [three] persons distinctly [and known only through biblical revelation], but according to those things which are appropriated to these persons, though they are common to each person’. While each person of the Trinity is powerful, wise, and willing, ‘power is appropriated to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and will, or goodness, to the Holy Spirit’.22 The functioning of the human soul, Marti goes on to say, provides an analogy (simile), since all three of these faculties are necessary for a human to act. To do something, one must first have the power of knowing; and then one must know what to do, after which – and only after which – one wills and desires to do what is known. This analogy allows the rational soul to rise up in a certain way to knowledge of the Trinity, Marti observes, and to see that the divine potentia must similarly precede wisdom and will, and be the origin of both – and thus it must be attributed to the Father. The Son necessarily proceeds from the Father, just as wisdom must proceed from power; and thus wisdom is attributed to the Son, while the Holy Spirit, proceeding from both Father and Son, is ascribed to will or desire which proceeds naturally from both power and wisdom.23 It should be clear enough that the argument Marti advanced here in the 1250s has obvious parallels to the Trinitarian argument that he elaborated at great length in the Pugio fidei twenty years later. Yet there is one key difference. In the later argument Marti pointed out that the attributes of power, wisdom, and will were middōth, or qualities, that Jews also recognized in the Godhead, and argued that all the other attributes that Jews recognized could somehow be reduced to these three. Doing so, in fact, is quite central 1908), 443–96, at 459. For a bibliography on this work see CMR, iv (2012), 381–90, esp. 385–7 [art. T.E. Burman]. 21 ‘Nullus sapiens ambigit, quin in Deo sit potentia, sapientia, et voluntas, et sic reperitur aliquo modo trinitas in Deo […] Hanc autem trinitatem non negaverunt philosophi’ (Marti, Explanatio simboli, 460–1). 22 ‘Attamen eorum noticia non fuit secundum proprietates personales, que sunt in ipsis personis distincte, sed secundum ea […] que sunt communia cuilibet persone. Nam quelibet trium personarum est sapiens, potens, et volens. Est tamen appropriata potentia Patri, sapientia Filio, voluntas, sive bonitas, Spiritui sancto’. Ibid., 461. 23 Ibid.

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to the argument, for it is based on the (largely correct) recognition that both Jewish and Christian intellectuals accepted the view, rooted in both their scriptural and philosophical traditions, that a relatively small number of faculties or properties or attributes could properly be said to exist in the one God. That there is some kind of plurality in God, therefore, is something that both traditions accept. The burden of Marti’s argument in the Pugio fidei is to show that philosophically those attributes can be reduced to three – power, wisdom, and will – which can be shown theologically, based on the Bible and rabbinical literature, to correspond to the Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That the argument in the earlier Explanatio symboli lacks any such discussion of the fact that other monotheists recognize a plurality of attributes in God which can be reduced to the power-wisdom-will triad is one of many pieces of evidence that, as Vose has observed, the Explanatio symboli is overwhelmingly directed at the Christian faithful, as its full title – Explanation of the Apostles Creed for the Instruction of the Faithful – suggests, and not at Muslims as has so often been asserted.24 The ‘instruction of the [Christian] faithful’ (institutio fidelium) simply required no such connection of the power-wisdom-will triad to Jewish or Muslim theories of God’s attributes. While we have a Trinitarian argument based on the same triad of attributes in Explanatio symboli, this is not really an instance of Marti using this argument against Muslims and Jews, as he claims in the Pugio fidei that he always had done. If it were, we would expect it to have included a similar discussion of the attributes that Muslim and Jewish theologians recognized in God, together with a demonstration that they also can be reduced to the power-wisdom-will triad, for there was, in fact, much precedent for doing this. Arab Christians had made Trinitarian arguments along these lines for centuries by the time Marti did so. The West Syrian theologian Yaḥyā ibn Jarīr (d. 1103/4), for example, argued that all the attributes of God recognized by Muslim theologians can be reduced to three – power (qudrah), knowledge (ʿilm), and liberality ( jūd) – which correspond to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.25 The trinity of attributes adopted by this particular Arab Christian happens to be quite similar to Marti’s, but typically Arab-Christian apologists preferred rather different triads.26 24 Vose, Dominicans, 123. 25 T.E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c. 1050–1200 (Leiden, 1994), 170, 172–3. On this work G. Khoury-Sarkis, ‘Le livre du Guide de Yahya ibn Jarir’, L’Orient Syrien, 12 (1967), 303–54, 421–80, at 303–10; and CMR, iii (2011) [art. Mark Swanson]. 26 R. Haddad, La Trinité divine chez les théologiens arabes (750–1050) (Paris, 1985), 208–33.

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We do, however, find a slight variation on the power-wisdom-will triad used in disputation with Muslims in Marti’s homeland, not long before or during his lifetime. Sometime in the first half of the thirteenth-century, the Mālikī jurist and traditionist Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Anṣārī al-Qurṭubī (d. 1258) wrote a lengthy attack on Christianity with a lengthy title: Information about the Corruptions and Delusions of the Religion of the Christians and the Presentation of the Merits of the Religion of Islam and the Affirmation of the Prophethood of our Prophet Muḥammad.27 In making his case against Christian belief, al-Qurṭubī quotes, sometimes in extenso, from several Christian treatises written in Arabic, especially two otherwise unknown works dealing directly with the Trinity: the anonymous Tathlīth al-waḥdānīyah (Trinitizing the Unity [of the Godhead]); and a work called Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin (The Book of the World as It Is), attributed to one ‘Aghushtīn’ (Augustine).28 The fragments of both works advance arguments that relate the Trinity to the attribute triad of power, knowledge, and will. In Trinitizing the Unity, for example, the Christian author asks: ‘Did God’s creation of [all that He created] occur by means of power and knowledge and will, or did He create them without these?’29 Assuming that any reader will agree that God could only have done so by means of these faculties, he then stresses that these faculties are names of God’s actions, not of his essence, and that as such they are the properties on account of which God is called the Powerful, the Knowing, and the Willing. This is, the anonymous author asserts, nothing other than the Trinity.30 He then explains that these three names of God’s actions refer respectively to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because of a ‘distinction between the purposes of these acts’ (ikhtilāf qaḍāyā tilka al-afʿāl) implied by Jesus in the Great Commission. The first purpose is the creation of all things, and this is naturally the result of power and ascribed to the Father; the second purpose is the spiritual exhortation of humanity which is the work of knowledge, and is thus attributed to the Son, for to be understood knowledge must be born as speech; the annihilation 27 Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Anṣārī al-Qurṭubī, Kitāb al- Iʿlām bi-mā fī dīn al-Naṣārā min al-fasād wa-l-awhām wa-iẓhār maḥāsin dīn al-Islām wa-ithbāt nubuwwat nabiyyinā Muḥammad, ed. A. Hijāzī al-Saqqā (Cairo, 1980). On this work see CMR, iv, 391–4 [art., Juan Pedro Monferrer]. 28 On these two works see most recently CMR, iii, and C. Aillet, Les Mozarabes: christianisme, islamisation et arabisation en Péninsule Ibérique (IXe–XIIe siècle) (Madrid, 2010), 29, 213, 218, 219, 221, 233; but also T.E. Burman, Religious Polemic, 70–83. 29 ‘asʿaluka fī amr al-tathlīth ʿan khalq Allāh li jamīʿ mā khalaqa: in kāna khalquhum bi-qudrah wa-ʿilm wa-irādah am khalaqahum bi-ghayr hādhā?’ (Tathlīth al-waḥdānīyah in al-Qurṭubī, Kitāb al- Iʿlām, 57). 30 Ibid.

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of all things and the rewarding of all people for their acts is the work of the will and is attributed to the Holy Spirit.31 One might object, the Christian author of Trinitizing the Unity concedes, that we call God many things other than the Powerful, the Knowing, and the Willing – what about names such as the Mighty, the Strong, the Victorious, the Hearing, the Conqueror, the Seeing, the Forgiving, and so on? To this objection, he responds that the faculties of power, knowledge, and will are the sources (uṣūl) of all the other names: they emanate (tanbathiqu) from them and are incorporated (tandaghimu) in them. The faculty of power, for example, is the source of names such as the Mighty, the Strong, and the Victorious, while the faculty of will is the source of such names as the Forgiving, the Consenting, the Angry, and the Punishing. Two other names of God – the Living and the Eternal – cannot be ascribed to any member of the power-knowledge-will triad; but this is because they are names of God’s essence which are only used to describe God through negation – ‘Living’ by negation of dead, ‘Eternal’ by negation of temporal. But, as for names of God’s actions, these all reduce to three and no more: the Powerful, the Knowing, and the Willing.32 Strikingly enough, just as Marti would do in the Explanatio symboli, the author of Trinitizing the Unity then proposes an analogy with the human soul: Just as we understand that an action cannot take place in the soul of a man unless three [things are present] – if one of them is lacking, the action will not be complete, and if a fourth is added it will not come to pass – in the same way we understand about our Creator that his governance of us [occurs through] three things […]. If [a man] knows and wills but is not able, then he is incapable [of an action]. If he is able and knows, but does not will, then nothing will be complete except through will. And if he is able and does not know how, no act will be complete for him in ignorance.33

The similarities between this Trinitarian argument and those advanced by Ramon Marti in the Explanatio symboli and the Pugio fidei are obvious. Not only do we have nearly the same triad of attributes at the core of them all, but 31 Ibid., 63. 32 Ibid., 71. 33 ‘wa-kamā innanā qad fahamnā an nafs al-insān lā yaqūmu la-hā fiʿl illá ʿan thalāthah: in naqaṣa minhā wāhid lam yatummu la-hu fiʿl, wa-in zāda fī-hā rābiʿ lam yuttafiq, ka-dhālika fahamnā ʿan khāliqinā anna tadbīrihi bi-nā ʿan thalāthah […] In ʿalama wa-arāda wa-lam yaqdir fa-qad ʿajaza, wa-in qadara wa-ʿalama wa-lam yurid, fa-lā la-hu shayʿ illá bi-irādah, wa-in qadara wa-lam yaʿlum, lam yatumm la-hu fiʿl bi-al-jahl’ (Ibid.)

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also, just as in the Pugio fidei, the Christian author of Trinitizing the Unity is at pains to stress that all other attributes that one might recognize in God can be reduced to just these three; and, just as in the Explanatio symboli, the author of Trinitizing the Unity argues that the functioning of the human soul provides an analogy for how this triad of attributes works in God. Moreover, where Marti located his argument in the Pugio fidei specifically within the medieval Jewish debate over God’s attributes, so the author of Trinitizing the Unity elaborates his defence of the Trinity using the terminology of the Arab-Islamic discussion of God’s names and attributes, following the practice of what Sidney Griffith called the ‘Christian mutikallimūn’ in the Eastern Mediterranean.34 Not only are the specific names of God that he mentions all among the so-called ninety-nine beautiful names of God that Islam recognizes, but also the specific triad of attributes that he employs is drawn from the narrower list of attributes that mainstream Muslim theologians generally argued could be predicated of God (usually life, knowledge, power, will, sight, hearing, eternity, and word).35 Though I was unaware how similar this argument is to those used by Marti, I argued twenty years ago that the Trinitizing the Unity and the Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin (where much the same argument appears) must have had some kind of influence on the great thirteenth-century Spanish-Christian interpreters of Islam, Ramon Llull and Ramon Marti. The evidence I have presented here, however, would seem to suggest that Ramon Marti was directly dependent on these works. That the Trinitarian arguments of the two Mozarabic works and Marti’s Explanatio symboli and Pugio fidei coincide so fully suggests that the Dominican scholar was dependent on Mozarabic polemic and apologetic. More recent scholarship has, however, made possible a quite different way of understanding these parallels. Following Pieter van Koningsveld, I had argued that al-Qurṭubī’s attack on Christianity had to have been written very early in the thirteenth century, and that Trinitizing the Unity and Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin were therefore twelfth-century works.36 Samir 34 S. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the world of Islam (Princeton, 2008), 46, 81, 95, 96. 35 On this aspect of the argument and for a more detailed discussion of this argument as it appears in both this work and the Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin, see Burman, Religious Polemic, 162–72, esp. 170–1. 36 Ibid., 77, and P.S. van Koningsveld, ‘La apología de al-Kindī en la España del siglo XII: huellas toledanas de un “animal disputax”,’ in Estudios sobre Alfonso VI y la reconquista de Toledo: actas del II Congreso Internacional de Estudios Mozárabes (Toledo, 20–26 Mayo 1985), 3 vols (Toledo, 1986–92), iii, 107–29, at 110–11, nn. 4–5.

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Kaddouri, though, has shown convincingly – after considerable debate and confusion about this issue among earlier scholars – that the particular Imam al-Qurṭubī who wrote the work in which these Christian treatises are preserved was Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Anṣārī alQurṭubī, who died in Alexandria in 1258. Though Kaddouri argued that both internal and external evidence demonstrated that this imam’s work against Christianity was written before 1236 (and potentially as early as 1220), Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala has suggested that the work may well have been written as late as the year Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī died.37 While the question of the date of al-Qurṭubī’s work against Christianity may never be resolved satisfactorily, the fact that it is now clear that he was the author of the work in which these Christian treatises written in Arabic survive, and the fact that he died in 1258, does urge us to consider whether the Christian treatises in question, rather than being written by anonymous Mozarabs, were actually the work of Marti or other Dominicans in the mid-thirteenth century. By 1258 Marti had not only been sent to the Dominican language school in Tunis – there to learn Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic – but also was well into his career as teacher of those languages and as a Christian apologist. Indeed, he had already written both the Explanatio symboli and De secta Mahometi.38 Might these two works not be better understood as products of Dominican mission to Islam? Other evidence in Trinitizing the Unity supports this view. In my earlier work on these fragmentary treatises I argued that to understand their Trinitarian arguments most fully we must see them not just as another in a line of similar arguments advanced by Arab Christians writing theologically within the House of Islam, but as products as well of twelfth-century Latin-Christian thought, for the specific triad of attributes used by both writers, while similar to triads used by other Arab Christians, corresponded closely to the triad of attributes that, beginning in the mid-twelfth century with the works of Hugh of St Victor and Peter Abelard, but showing up in many other theologians, was being used to explain the Trinity in Latin Europe in strikingly similar ways. Existing in several closely related variations – power-wisdom-will, power-knowledge-will, power-wisdom-good will (or ‘love’ or ‘goodness’) – this Latin triad in the power-knowledge-will 37 S. Kaddouri, ‘Identificación de “al-Qurṭubī”, autor de Al-iʿlām bi-mā fī dīn al-Naṣārā min al-fasād wa-l-awhām’, Al-Qanṭara, 21 (2000) 215–19; S. Qaddūrī, ‘Riḥlāt Aḥmad ibn ʿAmr al-Anṣārī al-Qurṭubī (t. 656 H.) fī l-Maghrib wa-l-Mashriq wa-muʾallafātihi al-ʿilmiyya’, Majallat Maktabat al-Malik Fahd al-Waṭaniyya, 11 (2005) 207–60; and CMR, iii, 391–4 [art. J.P. Monferrer-Sala]. 38 Vose, Dominicans, 122.

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version was adopted, I argued, by Mozarabic scholars (who were clearly reacquainting themselves in this period with Latin theology) and inserted into argumentative scheme otherwise based on Oriental Arab-Christian models. The Trinitarian arguments advanced in these fragmentary Arabic works were, therefore, a fusion of Arab-Christian and Latin-Christian theological traditions, and were thus a sign of the vitality and creativity of Mozarabic intellectuals in the twelfth century.39 But the same evidence could just as easily be read as indicative of Dominican authorship because, by the thirteenth century, explaining the Trinity using the triad of power, wisdom, and will (and its variants)40 had become a commonplace of Latin theology, having been adopted by Peter Lombard for his Four Books of Sentences which, because it was adopted by the universities as the standard theological textbook, was read by everyone. Aquinas discussed it at length in both his commentary on Lombard’s sentences and in the Summa theologiae, for example, and we know that Ramon Marti was consulting the former work while he wrote the Pugio fidei. We will not be surprised, therefore, to learn that Nachmanides reported that none other than Ramon de Penyafort, one-time minister general of the Dominican Order, actually used this same triad to preach the Trinity to Jews in Spain. 41 It is not at all difficult to imagine, especially given how many specific parallels there are between how Marti deployed this triad and how the fragmentary Arabic works did, that the latter issue from the same Dominican milieu as Penyafort’s sermon. Furthermore, we should bear in mind that Marti explicitly said that he had ‘always used’ (semper tenui) this triad in disputation with Muslims. We have seen, however, that his use of the triad in Explanatio symboli does not address Muslims directly, not least because it does not discuss the specific attributes that Muslim scholars believed could properly be ascribed to God. If we allow ourselves to imagine the fragmentary Christian works quoted by Imam al-Qurṭubī as thirteenthcentury rather than twelfth-century works, then they would be evidence of Marti, or some Dominican very like him, using the power-wisdom-will triad in just this way. While there is not, as far as I can see, enough evidence to demonstrate def initively that Trinitizing the Unity and Aghushtīn’s Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam 39 Burman, Religious Polemic, 176–88. 40 On why these variants were consider essentially identical see ibid., 179–80. 41 R. Chazan, Daggers of Faith: thirteenth-century Christian missionizing and Jewish response (Berkeley, 1989), 52; H. Hames, The Art of Conversion: Christianity and Kabbalah in the thirteenth century (Leiden, 2000), 250.

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al-kāʾin were written in the Dominican milieu in which Marti flourished, the parallels between Trinitizing the Unity especially and Marti’s works surely make this a real possibility – for one thing neither Marti nor the Dominicans are mentioned anywhere in these fragments. But whether they are Dominican or, as I once thought, twelfth-century works deriving from the Mozarabic community as it reconnected with Latin theology, we cannot help but see them as evidence for intense engagement on the part of Marti and his circle with the Arabic culture of the Islamic world. Either Marti or other Dominican apologists actually wrote these works in Arabic in the early period of Marti’s professional life or they were deeply aware of, and borrowing directly from, argumentative strategies regarding the Trinity and the coming of the Messiah that were flourishing among Mozarabs in Spain, and being actively refuted by Andalusi Muslims as well. That this is so brings us back to Marti’s offhand comment about this argument ‘which I have always used in disputing or persuading Jews and Muslims of the mystery of the Trinity’, but now for a different reason. If indeed Marti and other Dominicans were so engaged with the problem of converting Muslims that they either deployed arguments for the Trinity and the coming of the Messiah that they learned from earlier Mozarab apologetics or actually developed those arguments for their own Arabic-Christian apologetic treatises, how do we explain Marti’s sudden abandonment of mission among Muslims? Why is this obiter dictum one of the only sentences in the vast Pugio fidei that refers to Islam? Why, after writing De secta Mahometi in the late 1250s, did Marti turn his attention almost entirely to writing by far his most ambitious works against Judaism? It is not as if he lacked the necessary linguistic and scholarly tools. Ramon Marti’s familiarity with the Islamic intellectual tradition as we see it in De secta Mahometi was profound, 42 and would not be equalled by a Latin thinker again until we arrive in the second half of the seventeenth century to contemplate the vast erudition of Ludovico Marracci. When it came to knowledge of Arab-Islamic culture and texts, Marti was neither a dilettante nor a casual observer, but a committed and learned polemicist and apologist, passionately concerned to use his erudition to combat Christianity’s primary religious and geographical rival. 42 See most recently T.E. Burman, ‘Two Dominicans, a Lost Manuscript, and Medieval-Christian Thought on Islam’, in Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference: commentary, conflict, and community in the premodern Mediterranean, ed. R. Szpiech (New York, 2015); A. Cortabarría Beitia, ‘La connaissance de l’islam chez Raymond Lulle et Raymond Martin: parallèle’, CF, 22 (1987), 33–55; and idem, ‘Los textos árabes de Averroes en el Pugio Fidei del dominico catalán Raimundo Martí’, in Actas del XII Congreso de la UEAI (Málaga, 1986), 185–204.

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Except things did not actually turn out that way, for if we look at the broader course of Marti’s intellectual life we find that his preoccupation with Islam was merely a passing interest. Though it demonstrates amazing knowledge of Islamic texts, De secta Mahometi is a rather short work, only a fraction of the length of either the Capistrum judeorum or the Pugio fidei; and Explanatio symboli, while it makes a few references to Islam, is not directly concerned with Muslims at all. After completing De secta Mahometi in the late 1250s, Marti never wrote again about Islam in any meaningful way, preferring to spend the remaining two or three decades of his life reading post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic texts, and using that remarkable and exceedingly rare knowledge to combat Judaism. Given the geopolitical and religious circumstances of Latin Christendom in the second half of the thirteenth century, this seems especially surprising. The Ayyubid and Mamlūk dynasties were having huge, though periodic, success in conquering the crusader states. The Mongol invaders of the Middle East whom Latin Christians had earlier seen as potential Christian converts were converting instead to Islam. At the other end of the Mediterranean, the Christian kingdoms of Iberia were absorbing tens of thousands of unconverted Muslim subjects in the aftermath of the rapid conquests earlier in the same century, and Arab thought and Middle Eastern consumer goods were becoming increasingly essential to Latin culture. All of these things – or so it has seemed to modern scholars – must have made combating Islam, through conversion or crusade, a central concern of political, intellectual, and religious leaders. 43 Marti saw things quite differently. Indeed, here we have the Latin world’s most learned and sophisticated authority on Islam – their best man, we might say, on the ‘Islamic question’ – shrugging it off entirely, as if it scarcely mattered, turning instead to combat the politically powerless and demographically insignificant Jews. Moreover, it is also clear that we cannot conclude that Marti’s shift of focus entirely to Judaism resulted from some sense that he had dealt with Islam sufficiently in De secta Mahometi, for surely Islam deserved at least as much close attention as Judaism. Indeed, if he was seriously interested in converting Muslims, there was abundant work to be done. Having developed a remarkable expertise in Islamic and Arabic religious and philosophical thought, it seemingly would have been natural for him, a member of the Order of Preachers whose task was to evangelize among unbelievers, to begin combating the extensive anti-Christian polemic circulating within the Islamic world. Like his contemporary Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret of Barcelona, 43 See, for example, Chazan, Daggers of Faith, 28.

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he might have taken pen in hand to refute Ibn Hazm’s elaborately detailed attack on the Bible written in the al-Andalus of the eleventh century. 44 This lone European who actually had some sense of al-Ghazali’s real importance to Islamic thought might have been expected45 – given the linguistic and intellectual tools at his disposal – to write a rejoinder to al-Ghazali’s attack on Jesus’s divinity in his Al-radd al-jamīl li-ilāhiyyat ʿĪsā bi-ṣarīḥ al-Injīl (The Fitting Refutation of the Divinity of Jesus through What Is Evident in the Gospel). But such projects did not attract him. Writing at vast length against Judaism did. 46 The Trinitarian argument that Marti sketched out in Chapter 5 of the Pugio fidei’s Book 3, distinction 1, and then elaborated on throughout the rest of that large section of the work, can help us understand this otherwise quite puzzling shift as well. On first reading, what seizes our attention is Marti’s stunning rabbinical erudition: his quotations just in this one chapter of tractates Sanhedrin and Rosh Ha-shannah of the Talmud, of the Midrash Tillim on the Psalms, and of Moses ha-Darshan’s commentary on Genesis each appearing in carefully vocalized Hebrew script in the original manuscript, and each accompanied by what Robert Chazan called his ‘painstaking’ Latin translations. 47 It takes some effort to look beneath the recondite, linguistic fireworks of these pages at the fundamental nature of the arguments that Marti is offering here and elsewhere. When we do so, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Pugio fidei is overwhelming preoccupied with the questions that most troubled the scholastic authors of the university centres north of the Pyrenees. As Deeanna Copeland Klepper has shown, the problem of demonstrating that the Messiah has come using only authoritative passages of the Hebrew Bible had become a commonplace in the scholastic culture of Northern Europe by Marti’s time. 48 In devoting the whole of Book 2 of the Pugio fidei as well as all of his Capistrum judeorum to this problem, Marti, though innovative in applying his prodigious rabbinical learning to the question, was joining a widespread scholastic discussion. Just after his long argument 44 H.J. Hames, ‘A Jew amongst Christians and Muslims: introspection in Solomon ibn Adret’s response to Ibn Hazm’, Mediterranean Historical Review, 25 (2010), 203–19. 45 Here see the impressive work of D. Travelletti, ‘Front commun: Raymond Martin, al-Ġazālī et les philosophes: analyse de la structure et des sources du premier livre du Pugio fidei (doctoral thesis, Université de Fribourg, 2011). My thanks to Robin Vose for this reference. 46 On this work see CMR, iii. 47 Chazan, Daggers of Faith, 116. 48 D.C. Klepper, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian reading of Jewish text in the later Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 2007), 61–80.

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in favour of the Trinity in Book 3, distinction 1, Marti recounts in distinction 2 the Trinity’s creation of humankind in its image and the fall of humans through sin; he then argues, as Anselm and a host of twelfth- and thirteenthcentury theologians had done before him, that ‘no one was able to make satisfaction’ for human sinfulness ‘except a God man’. 49 The Pugio fidei’s highly philosophical Book 1, full of citations of Arab, Jewish, and Greek philosophers, focuses on refuting arguments for the eternity of the world and demonstrating that God does have knowledge of particulars – exactly the philosophical questions that most rattled Paris and Oxford in this period. Looked at from this point of view, Marti’s demonstration of the Trinity in the Pugio fidei seems equally commonplace. It is true that using the powerwisdom/knowledge-will triad in Arabic in an argument that drew directly on Arab-Christian Kalamic approaches to the Trinity – whether Marti or other Dominicans or some other Iberian Christians were the authors – was daring and ambitious. Yet in the context of the Pugio fidei, a work that systematically addresses so many of the most typical philosophical and theological problems of the day, such an approach to the Trinity looks far less innovative. Not only had Abelard, Hugh of St Victor, and Peter Lombard made it a commonplace of twelfth-century Latin thought to argue for the intelligibility of the Trinity through a reduction of God’s attributes to the triad of power and wisdom and will, which can then be appropriated – as the technical language of theology put it – to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but thirteenth-century thinkers such as Aquinas and Bonaventure had also elaborated on this approach extensively. Indeed, as Gilles Emery has argued in his recent study of Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology, by the lifetime of Marti, this approach was already widespread and mature.50 Underneath the surface of Marti’s innovative and relentless quotation of Targum, Talmud, and Midrash, I suggest – underneath his tenaciously brilliant linguistic skills, underneath his novel embrace of early rabbinic authorities as testifying to Christian truth – lies a theologian working along entirely predictable lines. And on the broadest scale even the turn away from confronting Islam toward a decades-long engagement with Judaism was equally predictable. As Gilbert Dahan has shown so clearly, writing works that dealt with Judaism in one way or another was a flourishing industry in 49 ‘quod nullus pro eo satisfacere Deo poterat nisi homo Deus’ (Marti, Pugio christianorum, 3.2 proemium; Sainte-Geneviève 1405, fol. 158v, rm; Leipzig ed., 550; see also the title to 3.2.9: ‘Quare homines perdiderant paradisum, et ibant omnes in infernum et quare inde non poterant liberari nisi per hominm Deum’ (Leipzig ed., 690). 50 G. Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. F.A. Murphy (Oxford, 2007), 318.

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thirteenth-century scholastic culture. The number of contemporary works against Islam – such as Marti’s De secta Mahometi – pales in comparison, especially if we leave out the many works of Llull, who in so many ways stood outside the scholastic tradition.51 Moreover, while Marti was entirely exceptional in the range of his knowledge of post-biblical Jewish literature and in his knowledge of Aramaic in particular, even his turning to such materials for biblical scholarship was not, of course, unprecedented within northern scholastic culture either. The tradition of consulting Jewish sources for understanding the Old Testament was more than a century old in England and France, and remarkably learned scholars such as Herbert of Bosham had already made direct, extensive, and sophisticated use of Rashi’s biblical commentaries by the later twelfth century. Like Andrew of St Victor before him, Herbert often preferred Rashi’s interpretations of Old Testament passages to traditional Christian ones, and did not hesitate to correct Jerome’s Vulgate accordingly. While it is true that this tradition in the thirteenth century was cultivated primarily by Franciscan scholars,52 early northern Dominicans such as Hugh of Saint-Cher (d. 1263) and Thibaud de Sézanne (fl. 1240–1250) had been, respectively, heavily involved in the process of correcting the Vulgate according to the Hebrew text, and translating excerpts from the Talmud in connection with the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1240.53 Indeed a substantial section of the Pugio fidei’s general proemium (paragraphs 9–15) reads very much like a defence of the kind of Christian Hebraism that had flourished in the person of Jerome, and then later in the likes of Nicholas of Manicoria, the Victorines, Bosham, and, after Marti, Nicholas of Lyra. For example, after citing Jerome several times on the untrustworthiness of the Septuagint, and thus the Old Latin versions of the Bible and the need to turn to the Hebrew ‘truth’, Marti provides his readers with an example of where ‘our translation’ – the Vulgate – needs correction. At Hab. 1: 5 Jerome gave us ‘Look among the gentiles and see […] that a work has been done in your days which no one will believe when it is told’, though the Hebrew has ‘a work will occur in your days which you will not believe (lō ta’amīnū) when it is told’ (my italics). Since this passage literally refers to Nebachadnezzer and mystically refers to the incarnation of Christ, this is an error of real consequence: when understood in relation to Nebachadnezzer ‘all the Jews’ did, in fact, believe; when read in connection with Christ’s incarnation, 51 G. Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1999), 405–22. 52 See especially Klepper, Insight of Unbelievers, 15–31. 53 Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens, 276–7, 461–4.

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we know that ‘innumerable gentiles and some Jews, such as the Apostles, believed’.54 ‘Our translation’, then, is doubly wrong. Here Marti sounds like the Englishman Herbert of Bosham a century before. None of this is to say that Marti’s later works do not share in the specific intellectual world of Iberia, for they do in some ways. For one thing, it seems certain that Marti’s access to such a huge range of Jewish books results from living in a society with an especially thriving Jewish community. Nor is it to say that Marti was untouched by the Dominican imperative of preaching the Gospel to the whole world. His limited engagement with Islam early in his career and his sustained interest in Judaism both fit within that mission. Indeed, Marti’s training – and later teaching – in the Dominican language studia in Spain and North Africa is concrete expression of both those Iberian and Dominican contexts. But it is to say that other things besides the universal ambitions of the scholastic movement in general and the Dominican Order in particular decisively shaped his work as a scholar and intellectual. For all we know, Marti truly believed that his works would help fellow Dominicans convert the Jews and Muslims of his homeland. But what they reveal at their core is an intellectual ever more strongly pulled into the orbit of northern scholasticism where Islam was of remarkably little interest, where using the Hebrew Bible and its later Jewish interpreters to answer specifically Christian questions about Christian belief was a vital tradition, and where the actual conversion of Jews was by no means a goal to which all adhered. Just as the early Dominican Order had – or at least so its earliest historians strongly suggested – turned away from Iberia to the exciting, and overwhelmingly Christian, urban centres of Italy, France, Germany, and England, so this especially learned Spanish Dominican moved mentally into those same, fruitful regions of the specifically Christian world. Thomas E. Burman, University of Notre Dame, USA

54 ‘Circa principium ergo Habacuc prophete dicit [Hieronymus], nec aspicite in gentibus, etc. quod opus factum est in diebus uestris. quod nemo credit, cum narrabitur: hebreum uero continent kī fōʿal pōʿel bīmêkem lō ta’amīnū kī yesupār quia opus fiet in deibus uestris quod non creditis cum narrabitur […]. Primum enim uidelicet cum de Nabuchodonosore intelligitur, omnes judie credunt; secundum uero […] cum de Christi incarnatione intelligitur, gentiles innumeri, et judei aliqui, ut apostolici, crediderunt’ (Marti, Pugio christianorum, proemium 14; Leipzig ed., 5).

5.

Narrative and Counter-Narrative: Dominican and Muslim Preaching in Medieval Iberia Linda G. Jones*

Abstract The historiography on the impact that the sermons of acclaimed Valencian Dominican preacher Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419) had on non-Christian communities has focused overwhelmingly on the targeting and conversion of Iberia’s Jewish communities. The evidence for his preaching to Muslims is meagre by comparison and often apocryphal (notably his alleged conversion of thousands of Muslims in Nasrid Granada). This chapter analyses the sermons Ferrer addressed to mixed audiences of Christians, Muslims, and sometimes Jews during his evangelical campaigns throughout Castile and Aragon between 1411 and 1418. It explores how Ferrer represented Muslims, Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad in order to assess his knowledge about Islam, and considers how he adapted the message of his sermons depending on the presence of Muslim congregants. Finally, in the absence of explicit proof of Muslim responses to Ferrer’s preaching, it identifies and evaluates the sources available for studying the Muslim reception of Christian mendicant preaching and Muslim attitudes toward the Friars. Keywords: Vincent Ferrer, medieval preaching, interfaith relations, medieval Spain

* This chapter forms part of my activities as research professor associated with the Institució Mila i Fontanals (Barcelona) of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas via the project, ‘La Corona de Aragón en el Mediterráneo medieval: interculturalidad, mediación, integración y transferencias culturales’ (MICINN HAR 2010-16331).

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch05

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Introduction Among the enduring legends surrounding the celebrated Dominican preacher Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419) is his conversion of ‘thousands’ of Muslims to Christianity.1 One famous incident, judging by the recurring allusions to it even on contemporary websites, concerns his alleged invitation to preach the Gospel to the Muslims of Granada. According to his sixteenth-century hagiographer, the Dominican Vicent Justiniano Antist, Ferrer’s reputation as a charismatic preacher had reached the ear of Muhammad VII (r. 1392–1408), the sultan of Nasrid Granada. This sultan had ‘a great desire to know the saint and to hear about the faith of Jesus Christ from his own mouth’. 2 Muhammad VII sent an ambassador to invite Ferrer to Granada, and the Dominican friar preached to the sultan with such fervour that after only three sermons he brought him to the brink of asking to be baptized. These plans were thwarted, however, because: Unfortunately the devil […] made Sultan Muhammad change his mind out of the fear that the Muslim jurists instilled in him, that he would lose his kingdom and arouse the people’s fury if he converted. Thus, Muhammad summoned Vincent Ferrer and kindly bid him to leave the kingdom and return to Christian territory.3

Ferrer converted many other Muslims in the Nasrid kingdom, but did not baptize them personally because he wanted them first to be properly catechized. 4 Even Dominican scholars such as José de Garganta and Vicente Forcada, who edited Antist’s hagiography and gave credence to other reports of Ferrer’s mass conversion of Jews and Muslims, regard the story about Ferrer’s visit to Granada to be legendary.5 The Nasrid and other Muslim sources from Iberia and the Maghreb are likewise silent regarding Ferrer’s presence 1 According to Dominican friar Osmond, ‘some 8000 Moors asked to be baptized’. See Fr Osmond, St. Vincent Ferrer: the most authentic existing portrait of St. Vincent Ferrer (New York, 1950), 33. Examples of contemporary popular references to this incident can be found on websites such as CatholicSaints.Info, http://catholicsaints.info/saint-vincent-ferrer; and the entry for Vincent Ferrer’s saint’s day by Father John Bartunek on Catholic.net, www.catholic.net/index. php?option=dedestaca&id=4931. 2 V. Justiano Antist, Vida de San Vicente, ch. 16, cited in J.M. de Garganta and V. Forcada, Biografía y escritos de San Vicente Ferrer (Madrid, 1961), 158–9. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 159. 5 Ibid., 39.

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in Granada, and hence furnish no evidence of his preaching to the Nasrid sultan, much less of his mass conversion of the Muslim population.6 We are thus left with an historiographic disparity between the spectacular reports of the influence of Ferrer’s sermons on prominent Muslim individuals or whole Muslim populations in Dominican histories, hagiographies, and royal chronicles and the corresponding silence in Islamic sources regarding Ferrer’s preaching or, indeed, the preaching or other activities of the friars. As a result, scholars have begun to cast serious doubts upon the ‘myth’ of the Dominican missionary campaigns among the Muslims. In a recent study on the Dominicans’ interactions with Jews and Muslims in the Crown of Aragon, Robin Vose concluded that ‘conversionary preaching does not seem to have occurred. No examples of actual preaching or disputations comparable to [the Jewish convert Pablo] Christiani’s 1263 offensive are known to have taken place among Muslims’ even in areas of the Crown with very large Muslim populations, such as Xátiva and Zaragoza.7 Vose further deduced that the friars’ apostolic assignments in North Africa primarily targeted the Christian populations residing there. Their main priority was to provide pastoral care to Christian mercenary soldiers fighting in Muslim armies, merchants, prisoners of war, and slaves.8 Although the evangelization and conversion of ‘unbelievers’ formed part of the Dominicans’ missionary agenda, Vose found very few cases of actual Saracen conversions, which resulted, significantly, from personal contacts or private audiences with Muslim elites rather than from public preaching.9 And yet, sermon manuscripts and archival records of the preaching of Vincent Ferrer provide compelling evidence that the flamboyant Dominican friar indeed occasionally preached before mixed audiences of Christians, Muslims and/or Jews, and converts (conversos). Apart from one catalogued with the title sermo ad conversos, christianos et sarracenos,10 the sermons in question are usually identified as Lenten or other liturgical sermons, although some are thematic.11 Ferrer delivered them in diverse cities and 6 Vose, Dominicans, 4. 7 Ibid., 161. 8 Ibid., 200–21. 9 Ibid., 137–9. 10 Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 477, fol. 125: ‘Sermo ad conversos, christianos et sarracenos’. This is a manuscript of sermons Ferrer delivered between May and August 1413 during his final trip between Valencia and Barcelona. See J. Perarnau i Espelt, ‘Aportació a un inventari de sermons de Sant Vicenç Ferrer: temes bíblics, títols i divisions esquemàtiques’, Arxiu de textos catalans antics, 18 (1999), 479–811, at 480. 11 Examples include ‘Sermón de los quatro aguyjones que nos da Ihesú Christo’ on the four piercings that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us, and ‘Sermon on the Our Father’ in P.M. Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad y literatura en la Edad Media: San Vicente Ferrer en Castilla (1411–1412) (Salamanca, 1994), 379–92.

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towns in Castile, Aragon, and Valencia, some of which had large populations of Mudejars (Muslims living under Christian rule). The preaching campaigns took place between the years 1411 and 1418, for the most part during the liturgical periods of Lent, Advent, and other times when baptisms were traditionally performed. Many of these sermons contain passages in which Ferrer addressed himself directly to ‘Moors’ in the audience or spoke at length about their conversion or baptism before resuming his discussion aimed at the Christian majority. The sporadic nature of his homiletic references to the ‘Moors’, ‘Mahomet’ (the Prophet Muhammad), and the ‘doctrines’ or sunna of Muhammad, when compared with the more numerous and explicitly polemical sermons on the Jews, probably explains why Ferrer’s discourses on the Muslims and Islam have not been the subject of a sustained scholarly inquiry. Scholars have tended to treat Ferrer’s representations of Muslims as an appendage of the discussions about Jews and Judaism. And yet there are compelling reasons for studying Ferrer’s homiletic discourses about Muslims and Islam on their own terms. First of all, Ferrer preached at length on the baptism of Muslims in some of his sermons. Although some of the texts also include parallel references to Jewish baptism, they nevertheless merit a detailed analysis. Second, the preaching campaigns in which Ferrer so notoriously promoted the segregation of Christians from ‘infidels’ targeted the Jewish and Muslim populations equally in places where both communities resided. The sermons he delivered in Castile and Aragon, which took place in the presence or at the behest of the regents, had tangible consequences for the civil liberties of Jewish, Muslim, as well as Christian communities concerned.12 And, third, one finds throughout Ferrer’s homiletic repertory allusions to ‘Moors’ that reflect dual concerns in the collective imagination of late medieval Iberian Christians about the physical presence of Mudejars within the Christian realms as a demonic force or a source of immorality and temptation, and about the military threats posed by the Muslims of Nasrid Granada and the Maghreb to the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. 12 See, for instance, J. Torres Fontes, ‘Moros, judíos y conversos en la regencia de Don Fernando de Antequera’, CHE, 31–2 (1960), 60–97, at 93–5 (Appendix II). Torres Fontes published ordinances issued in Murcia in March of 1411 by order of John II which were ‘based upon the words of maestro Vicente’. Among other things, the ordinances forbade Jews and Muslims from interfering in the voluntary conversion to Christianity of anyone from their community, and required all Muslims and Jews to reside and maintain their places of business within their respective quarters (morerías, juderías). They expressly banned Christian women from entering the Muslim or Jewish quarter under any circumstances; prohibited Muslims and Jews from practising surgery, medicine, or pharmacology on Christians; and censured the interconfessional attendance of religious and civil ceremonies.

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This chapter has two broad aims. First, it seeks to explore how Ferrer represented Muslims, Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad in his sermons, to gauge his knowledge about Islam, and to consider how he adapted his message depending upon the presence or absence of Muslim congregants. I believe that Ferrer deployed two distinct discourses, the one more inclusive, the other more exclusive and polemical, depending upon the presence or absence of Muslims in the audience. For this analysis, I draw inspiration from historians such as David d’Avray and Katherine Jansen, whose applications of reception theory take into account not only the message of the preacher but also the ‘horizon of expectations’13 of the audience, treating the preaching event as a ‘dialogical’ ‘process of negotiation’ between the preacher and the audience.14 The second objective of this chapter is to explore the neglected topic of Muslim responses to and attitudes toward the friars. In the absence of any evidence of direct responses to the preaching of Vincent Ferrer in Muslim texts, I will identify and evaluate the sources available for studying the Muslim reception of mendicant preaching and, more generally, Muslim attitudes toward the friars. I will then focus on how Muslim sermons may also be examined for responses, albeit mostly indirect, to the friars. The Islamic world has a long tradition of religious oratory with its own theological arguments, rhetorical strategies, and cultural norms of what constitutes an effective performance. This means that the horizon of expectations of Muslim preachers and audiences is also clearly defined. Hence an understanding of this tradition and how it differs from Christian preaching is needed to comprehend why the friars’ evangelical missions had limited success – assuming such missions ever actually took place. I hope to elucidate why Muslim audiences generally would have been unpersuaded by mendicant sermons, the liturgy, symbolism, and rhetoric of which were oriented toward the mysteries and miracles of Christ.15 An examination of Islamic sermons from the Crown of Aragon reveals echoes of Muslim counter-narratives of Christian discourses which, though not explicitly 13 D. d’Avray, Death and the Prince: memorial preaching before 1350 (Oxford, 1994), 8, where d’Avray defines the ‘horizon of expectations’ as ‘what its practitioners were aiming at and what the people on the receiving end were hoping for’. 14 D’Avray, Death and the Prince; K.L. Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen: preaching and popular devotion in the later Middle Ages (Princeton, 2000), 7, 9. 15 On medieval preaching and Christian liturgy, see H. Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: the medieval Church, 3 (Grand Rapids, 1999); J.W. O’Malley, ‘Medieval Preaching’, in De ore Domini: preacher and word in the Middle Ages, ed. T.L. Amos and B.M. Kienzle (Kalamazoo, 1989); and D. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: sermons diffused from Paris before 1300 (Oxford, 1985).

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ascribed to the mendicants, could be interpreted as a sign of the influence or impact of the friars’ preaching among Muslim populations.

Preacher and Audience in the Sermons of Vincent Ferrer The preaching of Vincent Ferrer was essentially penitential, geared toward the religious and moral reform of Christendom in expectation of what he believed to be the imminent end of the world and the Final Judgement. Convinced of his divinely enjoined mission as a legate a latere Christi sent to announce the coming of the Antichrist and the Apocalypse, in 1399 Ferrer embarked upon a mission of reforming the customs, ethics, and beliefs of Christian communities in his native Iberia, the Italian states, and other European countries in order to prepare its members for the Final Judgement.16 As P. Cátedra and T. Martínez Romero have noted, Ferrer’s apostolic mission consisted of a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he pursued the homogenization of the Christian population and its purification and segregation from those individuals and collectives who threatened the integrity of the mystical and social body of Christ. Such harmful others included heretics, diviners, blasphemers, usurers, sinful Christians, and ‘infidels’, especially Jews and Muslims.17 On the other hand, Ferrer’s belief that the Gospel had to be preached to the entire world before the imminent arrival of the Antichrist – perhaps inspired by the millenarian ideas of Joachim of Fiore – impelled him to target Jews and Muslims for proselytization as well in order for the apocalyptic prophecies to be fulfilled.18 Yet Ferrer’s goal was not the conversion of every Jew and Muslim; it sufficed that ‘a small number of believers from each nation’ would survive after the Antichrist’s death to help convert the last remnants of humanity, as he explained in a famous letter addressed to Pope Benedict XII.19 16 On apocalyptic imagery in Vincent Ferrer’s sermons, see E. Delarruelle, ‘L’Antechrist chez Vincent Ferrier, S. Bernardin de Sienne et autour de Jeanne d’Are’, in La Pieté populaire au Moyen Age, ed. J.C. Poulin (Turin, 1975), 329–54; S. Fuster Perelló, Timete Deum: el Anticristo y el final de la Historia según San Vicente Ferrer (Valencia, 2004); A. Esponera Cerdán, ‘Uno de los focos de la presentación apocalíptica de la figura de San Vicente Ferrer’, EV, 30 (2000), 351–94. 17 T. Martínez Romero, Aproximació als sermons de sant Vicent Ferrer (Valencia, 2002), 37-49; and Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad, 219. 18 On the possible influence of Joachim of Fiore’s ideas on Vincent Ferrer and other mendicant preachers, see M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: a study in Joachimism (Oxford, 1969, rpt. 2000), 171–5. 19 ‘The third preaching of the gospel throughout the world will take place after the death of Antichrist by certain faithful ones of each nation, who will have been wonderfully preserved

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References to Muslims, Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the ‘doctrine’ or ‘law of Muhammad’ – Ferrer never uses the term ‘Islam’ – are found in Ferrer’s sermons on conversion and baptism and in the penitential sermons aimed at the homogenization, purification, and segregation of Christians from unbelievers, wherein the allusions to Muslims often served a polemical, hermeneutical, or exemplary purpose for a Christian audience. Often the categories overlap because in both cases the sermons were delivered before mixed audiences of Christians and Muslims. As far as I am aware, there is no record of Ferrer having preached in a mosque to an exclusively Muslim audience. An interesting feature of Vincent Ferrer’s sermons was his custom of directing certain messages and criticisms at specific groups within a given audience. He would single out people based upon their gender (usually women), vocation (jurists, students, lawyers, rustics), or religion, whereby we find the Dominican friar addressing himself first to Christians and then explicitly to Muslims and/or Jews within the same sermon.20 This exemplifies how medieval Christian sermons could be ‘dialogical’, reflecting a ‘process of negotiation’ in which, as Katherine Jansen explains, preachers had to be attentive to the needs of their audiences.21 Of course, Jansen’s analysis presumes a Christian audience. My point is that when the preacher and his audience are not inscribed within the same religious culture, as in the case of the mendicants and Muslim congregants, the possibilities of a positive response from the audience, culminating in the conversion to Christianity, would be diminished. While it is obvious that the friars’ ignorance of the Arabic language impeded their ability to preach the Gospel effectively to Muslims (hence the foundation of the studia linguarum),22 I would argue that language was not the only factor.23 by God for the conversion of the rest; and then will come the last consummation of the world.’ St Vincent Ferrer, ‘Letter to Benedict XIII concerning the End of the World’, cited in Sr Mary Catherine, Angel of the Judgment: a life of Vincent Ferrer (Notre Dame, 1954), 118–32. 20 Martínez Romero, Aproximació als sermons, 105–50; and Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad, 225. 21 Jansen, Making of the Magdalen, 7. 22 On the language schools founded by the friars, see J.M. Coll, ‘Escuelas de lenguas orientales en los siglos XIII y XIV’, AST, 17 (1944), 115–38; 18 (1945), 69–89; 19 (1946), 217–40; A. Cortabarría Beitia, ‘San Ramón de Penyafort y las escuelas dominicanas de lenguas’, EV, 7 (1977), 125–54; and J. Hernando, ‘La polèmica antiislàmica i la quasi impossibilitat d’entesa’, AEM, 38 (2008), 763–791. 23 On the language of the Mudejars, see L.F. Bernabé Pons and M.J. Rubiera Mata, ‘La lengua de mudéjares y moriscos: estado de la cuestión’, in Actas del VII Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo (Teruel, 1999), 599–631; R. Burns, ‘La muralla de la llengua: el problema del bilingüisme i de la interacció entre musulmans i cristians al regne medieval de Valencia’, L’Espill, 1 (1979), 15–36.

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The study of the Qur’an, Hadith, and other classical Islamic texts formed part of the core curriculum of Dominican friars seeking to missionize Muslim populations. That said, there is no hint in Ferrer’s sermons that he knew Arabic or any of these works.24 I also suspect that he did not understand the cultural and institutional relationships that bound Muslim preachers and their audiences, or the horizon of expectations that Muslim preachers and congregants sought from the preaching event. The basic contours of the Islamic sermon will be summarized in the second part of this chapter. Here it suffices to note that for both the Muslim preacher and his audience the Prophet was an undisputed frame of reference. Theologically, belief in and obedience of God and Muhammad were equally indispensible for Muslim salvation. Muslims were enjoined to follow Muhammad’s example as the best model for humanity in order to gain paradise. Moreover, Muhammad provided the quintessential model for Muslim preachers, whose authority, power to persuade, and effectiveness largely hinged upon their strict adherence to juridical norms of preaching grounded in Muhammad’s sunna and their ability to emulate his noble qualities, his speech, and his bodily praxis.25 By contrast, the friars’ polemics and missionary campaigns targeting Muslims necessarily entailed the denigration of the figure of Muhammad and Islamic doctrines. It is true that the Dominicans consciously distanced themselves from the more confrontational polemical approaches of the Franciscans and even formulated inclusive ideas, e.g., that the generosity of God’s grace extends to Jews and Muslims.26 Yet their signature method of using rational arguments to prove that ‘the truths of Christianity are not irrational or false but rather reasonable and attractive’27 was paralleled by attempts to make Islam less attractive to Muslims by asserting that Muhammad was a false prophet and sinner who would lead people to damnation with his false laws and doctrines. Ferrer’s preaching coincided with other Dominican writings in this regard.28 24 Ferrer was fluent in Hebrew, which he learned at the Studium haebraicum in Barcelona. Although he also studied in Valencia, where the Studium arabicum was located, there is no mention of his having studied Arabic, the Qur’an, Hadith, or other Islamic texts either in Arabic or in Latin translation. See de Garganta and Forcada, Biografía y escritos, 22–4; cf. J.M. Coll, San Vicente Ferrer visto por un coetáneo y condiscípulo (Barcelona, 1955), 10–17. 25 L.G. Jones, The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World (New York, 2012), 48–86. 26 T.F. O’Meara, ‘The Theology and Times of William of Tripoli, O.P.: a different view of Islam’, Theological Studies, 69 (2008), 80–98. 27 Ibid., 88, summarizing Thomas Aquinas’s De rationibus fidei contra sarracenos, graecos et armenos. 28 V.T. Gómez García, ‘El Maestro fray Vicente Ferrer y la predicación de su tiempo’, in Estudios sobre San Vicente Ferrer (Valencia, 2001), 17–42.

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The Islamic and mendicant homiletic traditions shared certain core themes, such as moral reform in preparation for the Last Judgement. Yet they diverged vastly in many important ways – not only on the obvious matter of doctrinal teachings, but also in performative styles and rhetorical and exegetical methods, which were equally essential in conveying the preacher’s message and persuading his audience. Of particular relevance here is the contrasting usage of miracle stories as a homiletic tool of persuasion. In Christian sermons, including those preached by Ferrer, preachers frequently narrated miracle tales to strengthen or inculcate faith. By contrast, I have found few if any references to miracles in Andalusi or Maghrebi Islamic sermons. Muslim preachers rarely comment upon miracles either to prove or disprove them, and that includes those traditionally accepted in classical Islam – such as the inimitability of the Qur’an, the time when Muhammad split the moon,29 or the miracles of Jesus and the other scriptural prophets – as well as those attributed to Sufi mystic ‘saints’. But there is a long tradition among Muslim exegetes of polemicizing against those peoples, namely Christians, who require miracles in order to believe in God, and a concomitant pride in the transparency, simplicity, and rationality of Islamic doctrine.30 These essential homiletic, rhetorical, and theological differences should be borne in mind in the following analysis of Vincent Ferrer’s preaching on Muslims and Islam.

Baptism and Miracle Narratives in Vincent Ferrer’s Sermons on/ to Muslims Sermons referencing the baptism or conversion of Muslims illustrate Ferrer’s ‘inclusive discourse’ because they aimed to entice Mudejars into conversion, and hence become incorporated into the Christian community. They were preached almost certainly in the presence of mixed audiences of Christians and Muslims, the latter of whom were often legally obligated to attend the sermons.31 Most of these sermons were pronounced during the Lenten season 29 Qur’an 54: 1. 30 See D. Thomas, ‘Miracles in Islam’, in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, ed. G.F. Twelftree (Cambridge, 2011), 199–215; idem, ‘The Miracles of Jesus in Early Islamic Polemic’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 39 (1994), 221–43; L. Demiri, Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Medieval Cairo: Najm al-Dīn al-Tüfī’s (d. 716/1316) commentary on the Christian scriptures. A critical edition and annotated translation (Leiden, 2013), 117; and N. Robinson, ‘Creating Birds from Clay: a miracle of Jesus in the Qur’an and in classical Muslim exegesis’, Muslim World, 79 (1989), 1–13. 31 This obligation was not absolute, however. In the Crown of Aragon, for instance, the obligation was often imposed upon the Jews but not upon the Mudejars. There were also cases in

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and the octaves of the major ecumenical feasts, such as Pentecost and the Ascension, when baptisms traditionally had been carried out since the time of the early Church Fathers. Ferrer achieved a discourse of inclusiveness by employing two homiletic strategies, one of which is rhetorical, the use of double directionality, the other theological, the recourse to miracle tales. Conversion sermons are found in the cycle of Lenten sermons Vincent Ferrer pronounced in the city of Valencia between March and April of 1413.32 The existence of a morería or Muslim quarter in the city of Valencia, which Mudejars as well as Christians inhabited,33 together with the legislation enjoining Mudejars to attend mendicant sermons, makes it likely that at least some of these sermons were preached before mixed congregations of Christians, Muslims, and/or converts from Judaism or Islam. Internal indicators of this Mudejar presence include Ferrer’s narration of various exempla featuring or targeting Muslims, his use of direct speech addressing ‘Moors’, and his deployment of what Pedro Cátedra called ‘double directionality’. Cátedra demonstrated that double directionality characterized Ferrer’s sermons addressed simultaneously to Christians and Jews because he would use double theological, exegetical, and pastoral arguments and a double interpretation of specific and particularly meaningful biblical verses, taking care to use the Hebrew version of the Bible when addressing the Jews and the Vulgate when speaking to Christians.34 Cátedra did not mention Muslims in his analysis, yet I believe that Ferrer also used double directionality in addressing Mudejars in his audience. We find double theological, moral, and pastoral arguments and dual interpretations and lessons from Christian scripture – never from the Qur’an – aimed at Christians or Muslims. Furthermore, the theme of conversion gave Vincent Ferrer a prime opportunity to practise double directionality because mendicant hagiography and other writings not only envisaged preaching as a means to convert heretics and infidels to Christianity; the cure of Christian souls was likewise referred to in the sources as ‘conversion’, either in the negative sense of which Muslims were obliged to attend and others in which their attendance was voluntary. See M.T. Ferrer i Mallol, Els sarraïns de la Corona catalano aragonesa en el segle XIV: segregació i discriminació (Barcelona, 1987), 63–6. 32 Sant Vicent Ferrer, Quaresma de Sant Vicent Ferrer: introducció, notes i transcripció per Josep Sanchis Sivera (Barcelona, 1927; rpt. in two vols, Valencia, 1973). 33 M.C. Barceló Torres, ‘La morería de Valencia en el reinado de Juan II’, Saitabi, 30 (1980), 49–71; M.T. Ferrer i Mallol, ‘Las comunidades mudéjares de la Corona de Aragón en el siglo XV: la población’, in VIII Actas Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo, ed. S. Fanjul, 2 vols (Teruel, 2002), i, 27–153; idem, Els sarraïns, 1–10. 34 Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad, 244–5.

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the renunciation of sins, vices, or other bad habits and customs or in the positive sense of increasing the desire to follow the path to salvation.35 In either case the mendicants drew heavily upon miracle tales to convince their audiences. When discussing the conversion of Muslims, Ferrer found particular inspiration in stories of miraculous resurrections, especially the Gospel account of the resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany (John 11–12), portions of which are traditionally read in Mass during Lent. For example, in his sermon for the fifth Thursday of Lent, which he delivered on 6 April 1413, the main biblical theme was taken from the Gospel of Luke (7: 16): ‘Deus visitavit plebum suam’ (God has come to help his people), the words that the people of the town of Naim spoke after Jesus resurrected a dead man. Yet Ferrer went on to explain that the Evangelists mentioned three persons whom Christ resuscitated and who, according to the Dominican preacher, symbolized three kinds of mortal sinners. The third of these persons was Lazarus. Ferrer considered this miracle to be the most powerful, and hence the most persuasive for potential converts because Lazarus was ‘an old man of thirty years’, and because when Christ found him he was already buried, in a state of decomposition, and covered with worms: The third dead person, who was St Lazarus, had been dead for three days, was putrid, and covered with vermin. [Christ] resurrected him […] with much crying and tears. Such is the man whose sins are so deep-rooted, entrenched, and hardened in his sinfulness […] that everyone speaks ill of him, and there is tremendous difficulty in this and the need for loud cries, tears, and prayer, meaning that through loud cries from [attending] preaching he could be resurrected, and through prayers and intense prayers.36

Here Ferrer’s moralizing interpretation of the resurrection of Lazarus accords with traditional exegesis of the Church Fathers. Augustine of Hippo compared Lazarus with habitual sinners: ‘The sinner is dead, especially he whom the load of sinful habit presseth down, who is buried as it were, like Lazarus.’37 Thus here Ferrer offers a normative explanation for a Christian 35 Á. García de la Borbolla, ‘Algunas consideraciones sobre la predicación medieval a partir de la hagiografía mendicante’, Erebea: Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, 1 (2011), 75–82, at 74–5. 36 Ferrer, Quaresma, 199. 37 Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on the New Testament, cited in M. Siebald, ‘Lazarus of Bethany’, in A Dictionary of Biblical Literature in English Literature, ed. D. Lyle Jeffrey (Grand Rapids, 1992), 438–40, at 438.

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audience. Yet in the next passage he reframed the miracle story to appeal to Muslims or recent Muslim converts in the audience by elaborating upon the miracle tale via an exemplum based upon the true account of the recent conversion of a prominent Muslim faqih (jurist) to Christianity. He replaced the usual parallelism between Lazarus’s death and the protracted Christian sinner with that of the Muslim infidel. He homologized adherence to Islam with death and putrefaction, and presented conversion to Christianity as the only path toward resurrection into a new life, which is sealed through baptism in Christ: A Moor that had lived for forty years in unbelief, oh, he was already putrefied and decomposed from his sins. How shall he convert? Through many sermons and with prayers and with tears. This is how one faqih converted in these past few days. Now you recommend another faqih; ask our Lord God Jesus Christ that he will also want to resuscitate through prayers and tears: Convertimini fletu et lagrimis (Joel 2).38

The ‘Moor’ in question was Azmet Hannaxa, who resided in the valley of Alfondech. Yet the audience present in Valencia would have known about his conversion because Ferrer had baptized him on 29 March 1413 in the cathedral de la Seu of Valencia, ‘in the presence of a multitude of people’, a week prior to this sermon.39 His baptism was something of a personal coup for Ferrer because of Hannaxa’s status in the Muslim community as a ‘the greatest and most learned faqih’ in the region because not only he but also his wives, children, and extended family converted, and because Ferrer was personally responsible for Hannaxa’s conversion, which is why the convert chose to be baptized with the name of ‘Vincent Ferrer’. 40 Moreover, as the chief faqih, it is probable that Hannaxa was also a preacher and possibly prayer leader of the congregation. Ferrer may have been aware of this since, as noted above, after he said that ‘one faqih’ had converted he added, as if addressing himself directly to that convert: ‘Now you recommend another faqih.’41 The sermon for the fifth Friday of Lent offers another example of deriving double exegesis and moral lessons from the story of Lazarus’s resurrection 38 Ferrer, Quaresma, 199. 39 Ferrer, Quaresma, xv and 199, n. 80. 40 Ibid. 41 Ferrer, Quaresma, 199: ‘Axí·s convertí hun alfaquí en aquests dies passats. Ara vos recoman hun altre alfaquí.’

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for the Christians and the Muslims in the audience. Ferrer began by stating that he had chosen as his biblical theme the verse ‘Voce magna clamavit: Latzare, veni foras!’ (John 11: 43), since this day was ‘called the day of St Lazarus42 and today we read in the Gospel that Jesus Christ resuscitated St Lazarus’.43 His message to his Christian listeners emphasized the ‘allegorical and moral secrets’ of Lazarus’s coming out from the darkness of the tomb into the light of resurrection. The key points were that penitence is the means of converting from a death in sin to a life of virtue, and that ‘in the time of the Antichrist only those who are armed with the arms of virtue will stand firm’. 44 By contrast, when he addressed the Muslims, Ferrer made faith in the doctrines of Christ’s divinity and the Trinity the central lesson about Lazarus’s resurrection. He explained that Jesus felt a special love for Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary Magdalene, because they had four virtues, the first of which was their ‘authentic faith and belief that Jesus truly was God’. He then quoted the key words spoken by Martha in biblical verse – ‘Ego credidi, quia tu es filius Dei vivi, qui in hunc mundum venisti’ (I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God, who is to come into the world (John 11: 27) – which he glossed with a pointed message: ‘all of which means one thing only: He who does not believe, no matter how many good deeds he performs, cannot be loved by Jesus Christ.’45 That the Muslims were the intended recipients of this particular lesson about the necessity of believing in the divinity of Christ and the futility of good works without faith is evidenced by Ferrer’s subsequent explicit references to Muhammad and his use of direct speech to the ‘Moors’: That false Muhammad said many foolish things, but he did say one true thing when he said that he believed in the Gospels. Moor, don’t you see that the sun produces the ray of light? The ray produced is the son and it breathes out heat (e espire en calor), the spirit, one might say, but there is only one sun. This is how the Trinity should be understood, and so consider the sun: the ray of light does not separate itself from the father […] and this is the truth, and whoever does not believe it will not be saved: Sine fide, impossibile est placer Deo (Hebrews 11: 6). 46 42 The Latin Church observed Saint Lazarus’s Day on the Friday before Palm Sunday; the Greek Church observed it on Saturday, as the name ‘Lazarus Saturday’ indicates. 43 Ferrer, Quaresma, 203. 44 Ibid., 205. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 205–6.

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Although Ferrer addressed himself to the ‘Moors’, any real Muslims in the audience would have found his arguments offensive. The accusation that Muhammad was a false prophet who told lies echoes the standard anti-Islamic polemics articulated in Dominican writings by the Catalan friar Ramon Martí’s De Secta Machometi47 and the Italian friar Riccoldo da Monte di Croci’s (d. 1316) Contra legem Saracenorum, 48 which aimed to reaffirm the uncontested truths of Christianity and expose the errors of Islam. Ferrer’s words also resonate with the Castilian convert Abner of Burgos/Alfonso of Valladolid’s (d. c.1350) Libro de las tres creencias, which contrasts the ‘law’ of Christianity with Jewish and Muslim laws. 49 On the other hand, Ferrer’s acknowledgement that Muhammad ‘did say one true thing when he said he believed the Gospels’ evokes the widespread view that Muhammad was a Christian heretic.50 But it could have been intended to function as bridge statement by making a small concession to the integrity of Muhammad in highlighting the common ground of a shared scriptural tradition, for the Qur’an also mentions that Jesus was ‘given the power to raise the dead by Allah’s permission’ (bi idhni Allāh) (cf. Q 3: 49; Q 3: 110). Yet the Qur’anic passages and classical exegetical traditions insist that God was the agent who actually resurrected the dead since only He has the power to take and restore a life. They utterly deny the deification of Jesus or any of the other prophets or messengers through whom God performed miracles.51 In light of this, mention should be made of a fourteenth-century Mudejar manuscript of hadiths and stories told by the ulama (religious scholars) that was found in Ocaña, one of the villages Ferrer visited during his preaching 47 Martí develops four arguments to prove that Muhammad was a false prophet: ‘He was a liar (mendax), morally impure and a sinner (immundus et peccator), he never worked miracles (nunquam fecit miracula), and the law or doctrine that he brought was morally impure, harmful, and evil (ex quam tradidit fuit immunda, nociva et mala).’ Cited in Hernando, ‘La polèmica antiislàmica’, 773. 48 J.M. Mérigoux, ‘L’ouvrage d’un frère prècheur florentin en Orient à la fin du XIIIe siècle: le Contra legem Saracenorum de Riccoldo da Monte di Croci’, in Fede e controversia nel ’300 e ’500, Memoria Dominicae, 17 (Pistoia, 1986), 38–56. 49 Alfonso de Valladolid, Libro de las tres creencias, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 9302, olim Bb. 133, copied 1300–1400, 50 fols, fol. 30v. An edition is available online in the Biblioteca virtual Saavedra Fajardo de pensamiento político hispánico, http: //saavedrafajardo. um.es/ WEB/archivos/LIBROS/Libro0185.pdf. 50 On the idea that Islam was a form of Christian heresy, see J. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the medieval European imagination (New York, 2002), 135–70. 51 On Muslim polemical comparisons of Jesus’s miracles with those of other prophets in order to refute Christian claims of Christ’s divinity, see Demiri, Muslim Exegesis of the Bible, 117; Thomas, ‘Miracles of Jesus’; and Robinson, ‘Creating Birds from Clay’.

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campaign in Castile, and which had a large Mudejar community.52 The manuscript includes the tale of ‘Jesus and the Skull’,53 a legend dating to the eleventh century that recounts how Jesus found a white skull in the Valley of the Resurrection and restored it to life through the intervention of God. Throughout, the narrator emphasizes Jesus’s deference to ‘God Almighty’ with the clear intention of proving that Jesus is not divine.54 Although there is no indication in Ferrer’s sermon that he was aware of the Islamic interpretations of the Jesus resurrection miracles, his excursus on the Trinity could have provided a rational response to Muslim arguments that miracles ultimately prove the ontological distance between God and his human prophets, a distance that Ferrer attempted to refute with his analogy of the relationship between the sun and the ray of light.55 As noted, the Lenten period was not the only occasion in which Vincent Ferrer alluded to Muslim baptism or rhetorically addressed Muslims or converts from Islam. Another occasion arose during a sermon Ferrer delivered on Thursday of the octave of the Ascension in the year 1412. This sermon forms part of the cycle of sermons the Dominican friar preached daily in the town of Caspe, Zaragoza, from 17 April to 28 June 1412. These sermons have captured the attention of historians because of the decisive role Ferrer played in the resolution of the Compromise of Caspe, deliberations for which began on 22 April and ended on 28 June with the proclamation of Ferdinand of Antequera as king of Aragon.56 Yet Caspe had once been part of Muslim al-Andalus. The town was conquered by Alfonso II of Aragon (r. 1162–1196) in 1169 but retained a sizeable Mudejar community until the early fifteenth century.57 Ferrer’s sermon for the octave of the Ascension contains two miracle stories featuring the conversion of a Muslim to Christianity. However, 52 Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad, 61–2, 145, 146. Ferrer visited Ocaña in August of 1411. 53 I. Hoffman Vannus, ‘Historias religiosas musulmanas en el manuscrito mudéjar-morisco de Ocaña: edición y estudio’, unpublished doctoral diss. (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2001), 58–64. 54 The Muslim Jesus: sayings and stories in Islamic literature, ed. T. Khalidi (Cambridge, ma, 2001), 154–7. 55 This is an ancient argument first elaborated by the apologist Justin Martyr (d. 165) in his explanation of the Logos. 56 On the Compromise of Casp, see F. Soldevila, El compromis de Casp (Barcelona, 1994). For Vincent Ferrer’s role, see F.M. Gimeno Blay, El Compromiso de Caspe (1412). Diario del proceso: estudio introductorio, edición crítica y notas (Zaragoza, 2012); idem, ‘El sermón Fiet ouile et unus pastor (Io 10.16) de San Vicente Ferrer en Caspe’, EV, 42 (2012), 163–93; and P.M. Cátedra, ‘La predicación castellana de San Vicente Ferrer’, BRABLB, 39 (1983–4), 235–309. 57 A. Álvarez Gracia, ‘El Islam y los judíos en Caspe’, in Comarca del Bajo Aragón-Caspe, ed. M. Caballú Albiac and F.J. Cortés Borroy, Colleción Territorio, 30 (Zaragoza, 2008), 109–22.

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unlike the previous sermons discussed in which Ferrer relied upon Gospel narratives of miracles as a strategy to entice Muslim conversion, in this sermon the baptism of the Moor is itself the miracle. Ferrer appropriately chose as his homiletic theme Mark 16: 16 – ‘Qui crediderit et babtizatus fuerit, saluus erit’ (Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved) – the very words the resurrected Jesus spoke to the remaining eleven Apostles immediately after commissioning them to ‘preach the Gospel to the whole of creation’ (Mark 16: 15). The protheme reveals that Ferrer’s priority, as usual, was the salvation of Christians, as is evident by his direct address to this community: Many people live in this world, Christians, who use these words as an excuse to lead a bad life, not understanding their meaning, for they say, ‘our Lord God only wants two things from a person to gain salvation: one is faith in the heart and the second is that he be baptized’ […] so why do you preachers make the path to salvation so narrow, when Jesus Christ himself has made it much wider? For you say that a person should hear masses, sermons, fast and give alms.58

Yet Ferrer went on to re-signify the second part of Mark 16: 16 – ‘but whoever does not believe will be condemned’ – with a double message directed at Christians and Muslims by arguing, on the contrary, that ‘bad’ Christians are in even greater danger of damning themselves than the infidel Jews and Muslims, one of his recurring rhetorical strategies. To illustrate this he related an exemplum about a king whose castle was attacked by an enemy knight and by one of his own knights, the moral of which was this: ‘A Moor or other infidel displeases God, making Him feel bad, but you, Christian, displease Him even more, and that is why the Jew and the Moor will be damned, but even more damned will be you, Christian, who leads an evil life.’59 Ferrer then explained that the true meaning of baptism was to be spiritually and morally purified. He depicted baptism with an image of five ascending levels, each successive one leading to greater spiritual purification. The f ive types of baptism are with ‘sacramental water, spiritual grace, martyr’s blood, penitential mercy, and finally, purgatorial fire’,60 and he preached about each in turn. He narrated the two tales of the miraculous 58 Sant Vicent Ferrer, Sermons, 5 vols, ed. J. Sanchis Sivera (Barcelona, 1932), i, 99. 59 Ibid., 100. 60 Ibid., 101.

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baptism of Muslims in his treatment of the second type of baptism via ‘spiritual grace’. The first story runs as follows: We read in the life of Saint Martin that while he was preaching he converted an infidel (infel), who came up to him to be baptized. Now you should know that in the olden days baptism was not done so easily; someone who wanted to be baptized would have to learn the minor Credo in the vernacular or in Latin and then, in front of the people, he would climb up on a high place and say, ‘Good people, this sunna or sect that I used to follow, I now know that it will only lead me to damnation, and that is why I want to abandon it and I want to live and die in the Christian faith’. He would recite the entire Credo and then say, ‘Good people, I want to live and die in this holy Catholic faith’. Only after this would he be baptized. Now this infidel learned the Credo but they did not baptize him right away. One day he died suddenly while Saint Martin was away. When Saint Martin returned, he found out about [his death] and began to pray and weep with such fervour that our Lord God resuscitated him. Then Saint Martin said to him, ‘So, what happened to you?’ And he replied, ‘When my soul left my body, the angels were going to take hold of me and carry me to a tenebrous place’.61

Ferrer added that the ‘tenebrous place’ was in fact Purgatory and that the man had been saved by his ‘great necessity and the contrition of his sins’.62 In other words, the proof that the man’s conversion had been accepted by God was that he had not been damned to hell as an infidel, despite not having received baptism. Although Ferrer used the term ‘infidel’ rather than ‘Moor’ in this exemplum there is no doubt that he had Muslim conversion in mind, and it is interesting to observe how he strategically employs ‘homiletic licence’ to modify the original hagiographic narrative in order to fit the present context and audience.63 The protagonist in the narrative was Saint Martin of Tours (d. 397), a soldier in the Roman army who, following his own conversion to Christianity and abandonment of the military, was famed for his preaching campaigns to convert the Arians and the pagans to orthodox 61 Ibid., 103–4. 62 Ibid., 104. 63 Alberto Ferreiro coined the term ‘homiletical license’ to signal Ferrer’s ‘great creativity’ in filling in the gaps of his hagiographic sources. A. Ferreiro, ‘St. Vicent Ferrer’s Catalán Sermon on St. Martin of Tours’, Hispania Sacra, 132 (2013), 543–61, at 545.

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(Catholic) Christianity. Among the miracles attributed to Saint Martin was the resuscitation of a dead catechumen who had died before he could receive the sacrament of baptism. Ferrer’s account of the conversation between the resurrected catechumen and the saint largely accords with the version in the popular hagiographic collection, Legenda Aurea or The Golden Legend, compiled by the Dominican friar Jacobo de Voragine (d. 1298), but there are crucial differences.64 Given that Saint Martin lived long before the era of Islam, it is significant that in Ferrer’s exemplum he has the convert at the hands of this saint use the anachronistic Arab-Islamic term sunna, which refers to the prescriptive norms of Islam based upon the practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Ferrer’s insertion of the word sunna was deliberate since he could simply have employed the more generic term ‘sect’. It presupposes an audience that would have been familiar with the Arabic term, in other words, an audience composed at least in part of Muslims. Moreover, de Voragine’s version simply states that the catechumen was already residing in the monastery; there was no dramatic monologue in which he stood up in public and professed the renunciation of his former faith and proclaimed his acceptance of Christianity. By contrast, Ferrer had the convert declare, ‘this sunna or sect that I used to follow, I now know that it will only lead me to damnation’, words that echo the stock Dominican anti-Islamic accusations that Muhammad led his people into error.65 The most reasonable explanation for their inclusion here seems to be the intention to resonate with Mudejars or Muslim converts in his audience. Another, albeit more subtle, difference between Ferrer’s and de Voragine’s stories is seen in the treatment of Purgatory and the fate of the convert. In de Voragine’s tale the resuscitated catechumen explained that when he expired ‘they’ – he does not specify who – were going to ‘carry him away to a tenebrous place’. Yet in that instant two angels approached the judge (i.e., God) and informed him that Saint Martin was praying for him. God told the angels that he would ‘restore [the catechumen] to life’.66 Ferrer’s narrative also has the would-be convert say that the angels were going to carry him 64 Santiago de la Vorágine, La legenda dorada, trans. J. Manuel Macías, 2 vols, 2nd edn (Madrid, 1999), ii, 718–28, at 720. Ferrer relied solely upon the version by Jacobo de Voragine, perhaps due to the greater familiarity of the Legenda Aurea among the general public. Ferrero, ‘St. Vicent Ferrer’s Catalan Sermon’, 545; A. Esponero Cerdán, El oficio de predicar: los postulados teológicos de los sermones de San Vicente Ferrer, Monumenta Histórica Iberoamericana de la Orden de Predicadores, 30 (Salamanca, 2007), 228. 65 Ramon Marti, Explanatio simboli apostolorum, 493: ‘For [Muhammad] led the wise Saracen men into error’, cited in Tolan, Saracens, 240. 66 De la Vorágine, La legenda dorada, 720.

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to ‘a tenebrous place’ but makes no reference to a judge or a judgement, an omission that anticipates a theme he developed more explicitly in the exemplum immediately following this one – namely, that baptism spares the infidel from the final judgement.67 The second miracle tale involved two brothers, one of whom was a layman and the other a religious and a master of theology, like Vincent Ferrer. The lay brother had a slave named Muhammad, who accompanied him whenever he visited his brother. On such visits the theologian would urge the slave to convert, and here it is worth citing Ferrer to appreciate his use of mock dialogue. The religious brother would say, ‘O, Muhammad! Become a Christian!’ And the Muslim slave would respond, ‘I don’t want to do it; me die Moor!’ But when Muhammad was struck with a grave illness he said to his master, ‘Christian, Christian! I want to go to your brother so he can baptize me and I take the name Pere.’ While on route the beast Muhammad was riding tripped and he fell, broke his neck, and died. Later his ghost appeared to the teacher, who said when he saw him, ‘Oh, good you have come, Muhammad.’ ‘No say Muhammad, say, Pere, Pere.’ ‘How is that? Are you baptized?’ The ghost said, ‘No’, and told him the whole story, revealing that he had gone straight to paradise in the company of many angels.68 This time the protagonist is clearly a Muslim, specifically a Mudejar slave, which lends verisimilitude to the account. Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol surmises that the conversion of Muslim captives and slaves in the Crown of Aragon was more frequent than that of free Muslims due to the increased pressures they faced from their Christian captors and from the experience of cohabiting with their Christian masters. Archival records from the Crown of Aragon attest both to the forced and the voluntary conversion of Saracen slaves, some evidently based upon religious convictions of the truths of Christianity, others upon the hopes that baptism would lead to their liberation from slavery.69 Given the divergent positions of the Church and the lay authorities regarding the liberation of converted slaves,70 it is 67 Ferrer also omits any mention of the tribulations Saint Martin faced when he preached to the pagans. According to de la Voragine (ibid.), once when Martin was preaching to the Arians: ‘They persecuted him, flinging themselves upon him, insulted him, publicly humiliated him, beat him, and expelled him from the city.’ The reasons why Ferrer would avoid mentioning this incident of violence are obvious. 68 Ferrer, Sermons, 104–5. 69 Ferrer i Mallol, Els sarraïns, 74–5. 70 Whereas the Church advocated manumitting slaves who converted to Christianity, the civil authorities did not necessarily follow suit, except in the case of the slaves of Jews, in which case liberation was mandated by law. Ibid., 75.

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not surprising that Ferrer’s sermon avoids this problem altogether through the slave’s untimely death. Instead of civil liberation, he gains direct entry into paradise, and the fact that this occurs without his having been baptized is especially remarkable. Ferrer’s objective seems to have been to evoke a desire for conversion among the Muslims in the audience. The typology and aims of these miracles merit comment because they differ from the Christian miracle tales that circulated in the centuries prior to the establishment of the mendicant orders, and which Muslims refuted in polemical writings. A prime example is Maqami‘ al-sulban (Subduing the Crosses), an epistle written by a Cordoban Muslim, Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Samad al-Khazraji (d. 1187), during his captivity in Christian-ruled Toledo, between the years 1145 and 1146, in response to a letter sent to him by ‘al-Quti’, a Catholic priest urging him to convert to Christianity.71 Al-Khazraji refuted five miracles that the priest described evidently in the hopes that he would be marvelled by God’s works for the Christians and be persuaded to convert. The miracles included the apparition of ‘the hand of God’ on a certain day every year in an unidentified local church,72 and a lamp in a church in the Algarve that hung suspended in the air and on a certain day every year a flame would miraculously appear to rekindle the light. In each case al-Khazraji ‘proved’ the falsity of the miracles and, with it, the ‘absurdity’ of a religion whose faith was based on belief in ‘old wives’ tales’.73 In my opinion, Ferrer’s baptism miracle stories, which highlight the Muslim’s heart-felt intention to convert and the reward of being led by angels into purgatory or paradise, and which reinscribe Muslim conversion itself as miraculous, represent a different strategy of persuasion. As noted, the canonical Islamic tradition downplays and polemicizes against the role of miracles in the production of faith.74 This explains the general Muslim scepticism and even ridicule of post-biblical Christian miracles. Contrarily, there is a longstanding Islamic tradition of praise for niyya, the sincere ‘intention’ or ‘motivation’ in the innermost heart underlying an external action and which may even substitute that action. The Dominicans who studied the sunna of the Prophet Muhammad would surely have been familiar with the canonical collection of prophetic hadiths compiled by al-Bukhari. Al-Bukhari’s Sahih begins with the statement: ‘I heard 71 Cited in F. de la Granja, ‘Milagros españoles en una obra musulmana (El Kitab Maqami al-sulban del Jazrayi)’, Al-Andalus, 33 (1968), 311–65, at 321. 72 Ibid., 334–6. 73 Ibid., 346–53. 74 See note 29, above.

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Allah’s Apostle saying, “The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended.”’75 Originally this saying referred to the sincerity of the motives that prompted the Meccans to follow Muhammad in emigrating to Medina. Later Muslim jurists transformed the notion of niyya into a legal principle that validated the worth, rewards, or punishments of all deeds.76 It is tempting to see an echo or even an appropriation of the concept of niyya in Ferrer’s insistence upon the heavenly reward for the Muslim who sincerely intended to be baptized but who was unable to do so due to an untimely death. Furthermore, the image of being carried directly to paradise resonates with the hadith-inspired sayings typically found in Muslim oratory; medieval Muslim preachers often enticed their audiences with promises that sincerely fulfilling certain pious deeds would lead them straight to paradise, ‘without a final reckoning’.77 Obviously, the real obstacles to Muslim conversion to Christianity were not fortuitous falls and untimely deaths, but rather Muslim social pressure, the religio-juridical condemnation and penalization of apostates, not to mention the heartfelt conviction that their religion really was superior to Christianity. Indeed, the motif of the untimely death could be interpreted as symbolizing these obstacles. Ferrer was aware of the economic hardships of the conversos because he personally intervened to secure a pension for Azmet Hannaxa, the aforementioned former Valencian faqih, to offset the economic losses his family incurred upon abandoning the Muslim community.78 While the recourse to miraculous tales of the posthumous spiritual baptism of Muslims could be read as a veiled admission of Muslim resistance to conversion, a sermon that Ferrer delivered on the Wednesday following the Feast of Saint Matthew placed the blame on the deficiencies of the friars.79 The scriptural theme of this sermon was Matt. 10: 18, ‘Non veni vocare justos, sed peccatores’, and Ferrer spoke about the success of Matthew’s apostolic 75 al-Bukhari, Sahih, ch. 1, no.1. Cited in the online English translation, http://ahadith.co.uk/ chapter.php?cid=1; A.J. Wensinck, ‘Niyya’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn (Leiden, 1954–2005) (hereafter, EI), viii, 66a; A. Knysh, ‘Sidk’, EI, viii, 548b; and L. Gardet, ‘Ikhlas’, iii, 1059b. 76 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Al-Ghazali: on intention, sincerity, and truthfulness, ed. and trans. A. Shaker. Book 37 of the Ihya Ulum al-Din: Revival of the Religious Sciences, The Islamic Texts Society (Cambridge, 2014); and J. Schacht, Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1982), 116–18. 77 L.G. Jones, ‘The Boundaries of Sin and Communal Identity: Muslim and Christian preaching and the transmission of cultural identity in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb (13th to 15th centuries)’, PhD thesis, University of California (Santa Barbara, 2004), 204, 404, 406, 437. 78 Ferrer, Quaresma, xiv–xv. See also C. Barceló, ‘Una lengua “oficial” en un mundo cristiano’, Šarqu-l-Andalus (25 May 2008). Online journal, http:// xarquia.blogspot.com/ 2008_05_01_ archive.html, accessed 10 April 2013. 79 Ferrer, Sermons, iv, 51.

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mission to Ethiopia, the land of los moros negres (the black Moors). When Matthew arrived in Ethiopia he ‘led a saintly life preaching to the people’. He preached to the king and queen, who converted to Christianity, and soon after, ‘all the Moors who were there, all of them converted, but now they are corrupted’. That the ‘now’ refers to his own time and place is seen in his subsequent reflection, which is aimed at his fellow religious: How could it be that a single man could convert so many people, while we, who are so many religious and priests are incapable of preserving what they did? Why? I’ll tell you why: The Apostles, beyond preaching, led a good life following the example of [Christ]; they didn’t want money or anything else […] And the people saw this in Saint Matthew and this is why they converted. But nowadays we no longer follow their example. All we want are the robes. So that at the end of the sermon you hear them saying, ‘I belong to such-and-such monastery.’ And when the people hear this they say, ‘That one isn’t in it to convert the people; he is only after the clothing.’ O evil Preachers! This is the reason why nowadays the infidels do not convert, rather the faithful become perverted (E per çò ara los infels no.s convertexen, mas los fels se pervertexen).80

Although a miracle occurred in this story – Saint Matthew raised the king’s son from the dead – Ferrer stressed that the Ethiopians’ conversion resulted above all from witnessing Matthew’s virtuous life in imitation of Christ, and secondarily from his preaching. Once again Ferrer minimized the role of miracle in conversion and instead highlighted sincerity of intentions and preaching by example. But here the sincerity in question is that of the friars. Ferrer’s excoriation of his fellow Dominican preachers in a sermon delivered before a mixed audience, in which he ascribed the failure to convert the infidels to mendicant posturing and ecclesiastical corruption, must have been controversial not only for its public nature but also because Ferrer departed from the usual accusations of infidel obstinacy, innate sinfulness, or diabolical inspiration.

Muslim Responses to the Preaching of the Friars: Assessing the Evidence Vincent Ferrer’s complaints regarding the Friars’ failures to impress the Muslims with their preaching seem to be corroborated indirectly in the 80 Ibid., 59.

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Muslim sources. The scholar seeking direct evidence of the influence or impact of the friars’ missionary campaigns upon Muslim populations confronts a critical source problem. As there is no equivalent word in Arabic for the Christian terms ‘mendicant’ and ‘friar’, Muslim authors habitually used the term rāhib (monk) to designate Christian men of religion who took the vow of celibacy. Hence, without the name of the religious, the historian cannot be certain that the ‘monks’ in question were in fact friars. A few direct references to the friars are found in diplomatic correspondence between Christian and Muslim rulers. The best example is a letter from Muhammad V of Granada (r. 1354–1359, 1362–1391) to the Infante Don Pedro (uncle and lieutenant of Peter IV, king of Aragon), dated the 1st of Ramadan 756/9 September 1355, because the Nasrid sovereign used the term ‘friars’, transliterated into Arabic, instead of the Arabic word for monk, rāhib. In the letter, the Nasrid sultan assured Pedro that the ‘friars’ ‘would be received with every respect and would have absolute security in their persons, their belongings, and in carrying out their business’.81 The ‘business’ in question involved administering to the needs of Christians residing in Granada – namely, soldiers, merchants, captives, and slaves. Likewise, letters exchanged between the popes and the Almohad caliphs between the years 1198 and 1254 attest that the caliphs welcomed the Franciscans and Dominicans into their territories and guaranteed their safety and freedom to carry out clearly demarcated tasks. They were to perform these services in the oratories provided for European merchants, administer the sacraments, and satisfy their need for sermons. They were also permitted to visit the Christian captives and administer to their needs.82 None of the letters exchanged between Muslim and Christian authorities I have consulted from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century indicate that the friars were granted permission to preach to Muslims in Islamic territory. In this regard, it is essential to distinguish between inter-confessional correspondence and the documents exchanged between the Holy See and the friars, the latter of which sometimes identify the proselytization and

81 Los documentos árabes diplomáticos del Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, ed. and trans. M.A. Alarcón y Santón and R. García de Linares (Madrid, 1940), 137. 82 On mendicant missions to Christians living in Muslim lands, see B.E. Whalen, ‘Corresponding with Infidels: Rome, the Almohads, and the Christians of thirteenth-century Morocco’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 41 (2011), 487–513; A. Fromherz, ‘North Africa and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Christian Europe and the Almohad Islamic empire’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 20/1 (2009), 43–59; and Vose, Dominicans, 205–17.

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conversion of Muslims as an objective.83 I have not located any Iberian or Maghrebi Arabic sources that mention the mendicant studia for the study of Arabic that were founded in the Iberian Peninsula, the Maghreb, and Tunis, even though in some cases the Arabic instructors were Muslims. Nor have I found references in Arabic sources to the royal licences ordering Mudejar officials to welcome the friars whenever they came to preach, and to guarantee the attendance of the Muslims.84 The gap in the sources makes it difficult to form a comprehensive picture of Muslim awareness of and responses to the evangelical mission of the friars. Robert Burns suggested that the ‘dream of conversion’ failed because it rested upon certain fallacies: that the Muslims stood on the brink of conversion; that their own religious leaders did not give credence to the faith; and that their rulers were inclined toward baptism.85 Decades of research on the Iberian Mudejars has shown without a doubt that Mudejar religious leaders did indeed care about their faith and devised rather ingenious ways of sustaining it, despite sporadic mendicant campaigns of evangelization, the loss of the Arabic language (in some cases), and the increasing impingements made upon the freedom to practise their religion and customs from the fourteenth century onward.86

Muslim Counter-Narratives to Christian and Mendicant Polemics Muslim responses to the mendicants manifested themselves in numerous cultural forms and can be gleaned from a variety of textual genres. New polemical texts, novel concepts of sanctity and genres of hagiographical 83 Whalen and Vose concur that missionizing Muslims was only one and by no means the most important of the tasks Honorius III had charged the Dominicans with in his bull Vineae domini custodies (In the vineyard of the Lord). Whalen, ‘Corresponding with Infidels’; Vose, Dominicans, 200. 84 Vose has also noted that references to the Dominicans or the friars is ‘practically non-existent’ in Arabic sources. Vose, Dominicans, 14. On the licences to preach to Muslims and Jews, see J. Riera, ‘Les llicènces reials per predicar als jueus i als sarraïns (segles XIII–XIV)’, Calls, 2 (1987), 113–43. 85 R. Burns, ‘Christian-Islamic confrontation in the West: the thirteenth-century dream of conversion’, The American Historical Review, 76 (1971), 1384-1434. 86 P.S. van Koningsveld, and G.A. Wiegers, ‘The Islamic Statute of the Mudejars in the Light of a New Source’, Al-Qantara, 17 (1996), 19–58; M.J. Viguera Molins, ‘Documentos mudéjares aragoneses’, Quaderni de Studi Arabi, 5–6 (1987–8), 786–90; idem, ‘Un mapa de documentos mudéjares y moriscos de Aragón y Navarra’, in Homenaje al profesor Jacinto Bosch Vila, 2 vols (Granada, 1991), i, 429–34; and K.A. Miller, Guardians of Islam: religious authority and Muslim communities of late medieval Spain (New York, 2008).

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writing, the circulation of edifying stories, hadiths, and poetry venerating the Prophet Muhammad, the invention of new religious festivals, and preaching were just some of the vehicles through which Muslim elites spearheaded a response to Christian narrative and military assaults. For instance, it is telling that prior to the twelfth century Andalusi Muslims felt no need to elaborate upon the pre-existing anti-Christian polemical tropes in the Qur’an and the Hadith.87 But in the aftermath of the Christian conquests Muslim communities living in a permanent state of Mudejarism faced increasing pressure to convert to Christianity and the slow undermining of Muslim cultural and legal institutions.88 Religious elites (ulama) were called upon to produce new works that provided specific responses to the menace of Christian missionary efforts and polemics directed against Islam. Mention has already been made of Ahmad al-Khazraji’s epistle Maqami‘ al-sulban, written in response to a Toledan priest, ‘al-Quti’, who had urged him to convert to Christianity. Significantly, al-Khazraji informs us that after his release from prison the Muslims of Toledo asked him to provide them with a copy of his epistle prior to his departure to provide them with a coherent response to Christian missionary tactics.89 This episode reveals the particular vulnerability of Muslim prisoners, and exposes the fact that Muslims were beginning to regard these polemic confrontations as a real threat that required a firm and coherent refutation. Maqami’ al-sulban was composed in the late twelfth century, prior to the founding of the mendicant orders. But the Andalusi anti-Christian polemical works that appeared from the thirteenth century onward were probably intended to respond to the mendicants, notwithstanding the aforementioned tendency of Muslim authors to use the Arabic term rāhib (monk) rather than transcribe the term ‘friar’. Maribel Fierro has identified several polemical works produced during the Almoravid and Almohad periods, among them the Kitab Miftah al-din wa-l-mujadala bayna al-nasara wa-l-muslimin (The Key to the [True] Religion and the Disputation between the Christians and the Muslims), attributed to one Muhammad al-Qaysi, 87 An earlier exception is the 11th-century author Abu l-Walid al-Bajji’s letter responding to a polemical epistle written by the anonymous ‘monk of France’. See D.M. Dunlop, ‘A Christian Mission to Muslim Spain in the 11th Century’, Al-Andalus, 17 (1953), 259–310, who provides an English translation of al-Bajji’s letter. 88 On the situation of the Mudejars, see L.P. Harvey, Islamic Spain 1250–1500 (Chicago, 1990); J. Boswell, The Royal Treasure: Muslim communities under the Crown of Aragon in the fourteenth century (New Haven, 1977); B.A. Catlos, The Victors and the Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050–1300 (New York, 2004); and Ferrer i Mallol, Els sarraïns. 89 De la Granja, ‘Milagros españoles’.

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a prisoner in Catalonia.90 Al-Qaysi’s tract purports to be an eyewitness account of a disputation that took place in the Crown of Aragon between a Muslim prisoner and a Christian priest, who probably was a mendicant friar.91 Two fourteenth-century anonymous Mudejar texts – the Ta’yīd al-milla (Fortification of the Faith), by a Muslim from Huesca, and a Muslim version of the Ten Commandments composed in aljamiado by a Mudejar from Calanda – offer further intriguing glimpses of how the Mudejars responded to mendicant polemics.92 It may be true that these texts do not bring any grand theological innovations to the Islamic canonical view of Christian doctrine.93 They do, however, evince an awareness of new currents in Christian spirituality and polemics promoted by the mendicants. The epistles offer novel attacks against Christian miracles, particularly those involving Mary, at a time when Christian veneration of the Virgin was being promoted as a tool to inculcate and strengthen Christian faith and in the narrative assault against Islam.94 The Muslim departure from the traditional reverence for Mary, as a prophet of God and virgin, hints at the bitterness of the ideological conflicts between Muslim and Christian communities at this time. It also attests to the awareness that the thaumaturgic power of Mary was being turned against Muslims in Christian discourse.95 These polemical responses to Christian miracle claims were accompanied by unprecedented yearnings for the miraculous among Andalusian Muslims. Given the uneven successes of the Muslim forces against the armies of Castile and Aragon, it is no wonder that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the emergence of an Andalusi hagiographical tradition.96 Holy men, formerly defined in terms of religious knowledge, were now depicted using miraculous powers to protect their towns from external attacks and to 90 M. Fierro, ‘Christian Success and Muslim Fear in Andalusi Writings during the Almoravid and Almohad Periods’, Israel Oriental Society, 17 (1997), 155–78, at 171. 91 P.S. van Koningsveld and Gerard Wiegers, ‘Polemical Works of Muhammad al-Qaysi (fl. 1309) and their Circulation in Arabic and Aljamiado among the Mudejars in the Fourteenth Century’, Al-Qantara, 15 (1994), 163–99; Vose, Dominicans, 161–2. 92 M.J. Fras Cervera, ‘Los diez mandamientos islámicos en un manuscrito aljamiado de Calanda’, in Actas del IX Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo. Mudéjares y moriscos: cambios sociales y culturales (Teruel, 2004), 181–202. 93 Fierro, ‘Christian Success and Muslim Fear’, 171. 94 See W.A. Christian, ‘De los santos a María: panorama de las devociones a santuarios españoles desde el principio de la Edad Media hasta nuestros días’, in Temas de antropología española, ed. C. Lisón Tolosa (Madrid, 1976), 49–105. 95 Fierro, ‘Christian Success and Muslim Fear’, 171. 96 Ibid., 175.

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release Muslim prisoners from captivity among the Christians.97 As noted, while overall Christian successes at converting Mudejars were negligible, a disproportionate number of these conversions were achieved among Muslim captives.98 A saint’s ability to convert Christians to Islam through the sheer force of his or her spiritual power (baraka) was especially admired.99 Such miracle claims must be read in the context of the missionary campaigns and disputations to which Christians subjected Muslim captives and Mudejars – campaigns in which, as we have seen, Christian propagandists appealed to the miraculous powers of their sanctuaries and saints. Thus we have a Christian–Muslim narrative and counter-narrative surrounding miracles. Still another signature reaction to the Christian polemics spearheaded by the friars was the heightened exaltation of the person, prophethood, and gests of Muhammad. From the twelfth and thirteenth centuries onward Andalusi and Maghrebi Muslims re-adapted their most cherished cultural symbol, the Prophet Muhammad, to confront the new Christian military, theological, and cultural threats against Muslim communities. This is seen in their enthusiastic reception of a new religious festival, the Mawlid al-Nabi or celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday,100 introduced by Abū l-Qāsim al-‘Aẓafī, the ruler of Ceuta (r. 1249–1278).101 The same period witnessed the proliferation of new hagiographies, treatises, poetry, and prose works dedicated to the Prophet and to the praise of his ‘beautiful’ and ‘noble’ names, prodigies, and miracles. Cristina de la Puente lists thirtyone Andalusi authors of such works composed between 1038 and 1495.102 Yet none of them surpassed in popularity and diffusion the devotional treatise Kitab al-Shifa bi-l-ta‘rif huquq al-Mustafa (The Book of Remedies through Recognition of the Truth of the Chosen) by ‘Iyad ibn Musa (d. 1149), a prominent judge of Almoravid Ceuta.103 The Kitab al-Shifa circulated widely in the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula, including among Mudejar and later Morisco populations; and portions of it were habitually read publicly 97 Ibid., 175–6. 98 Ferrer i Mallol, Els Sarraïns, 74. 99 Fierro, ‘Christian Success and Muslim Fear’, 174–7. 100 On this festival, see N.J.G. Kaptein, Muhammad’s Birthday Festival: early history in the central Muslim lands and development in the Muslim West until the 10th/16th century (Leiden, 1993); M. Katz, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad: devotional piety in medieval Sunni Islam (New York, 2007). 101 F. de la Granja, ‘Fiestas Cristianas en al-Andalus: al-Durr al-munazzam de al-‘Azafi’, AlAndalus, 34 (1969), 1–53, at 33. 102 C. de la Puente, ‘Vivre et mourir pour Dieu: œuvre et héritage d’Abu ‘Ali al-Sadaf i (m. 515/1120)’, Studia Islamica, 88 (1998), 77–102. 103 Al-Qadi Abu l-Fadl ‘Iyad, Al-Shifa’ bi ta‘rif huquq al-Mustafa, (Beirut, n.d.)

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in popular preaching and story-telling sessions and incorporated into Sufi mystic rituals held in the mosques.104 Scholars have observed that these genres of prophetic veneration became especially prolific in al-Andalus during periods of intensive conflict and warfare between Christians and Muslims.105 But military encounters between Iberian Muslims and Christians, like the crusades in the Holy Land, were also fuelled by the Christian and, most especially, the mendicant ideological warfare against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in parallel with their missionary campaigns in pursuit of the ‘dream of converting the infidels’. Taken together, Islamic cultural phenomena such as the propagation of anti-Christian polemical texts, the invention of holy men whose miracles included rescuing Muslims from Christian attacks or captivity, a newfound interest in the miracles of Muhammad, and the introduction of new forms of venerating him were cultural responses to the circulation of hostile biographies of Muhammad and similar polemical attacks against Islam initiated by the friars and other Christians.106 But preaching also played a critical role in exalting Islam and the figure of Muhammad.

‘The Sect of Mahomat Is Better than the Law of the Christians’: Counter-Narratives in Islamic Preaching Given the prominence of preaching in the mendicants’ dual mission of strengthening Christian faith and reforming Christian morality and of proselytizing and converting non-Christians, it is only fitting to conclude with a brief consideration of how preaching could have been used to refute the missionizing of the friars and to defend Islam from Christian polemical attacks more generally. Regarding this, one notes an observation that Mark Meyerson made in his study of the Mudejars of Valencia. Meyerson found evidence that Mudejar preachers disparaged Christianity in their 104 Jones, ‘Boundaries of Sin and Communal Identity’, 209–20; idem, Power of Oratory, 180. 105 de la Puente, ‘Vivre et mourir pour Dieu’, 100. Muhammad Jarrar first made this argument in his Die Prophetenbiographie im islamischen Spanien: ein Beitrag zur Uberlieferungs und Redaktionsgeschichte (Frankfurt, 1989), 38–9. Jarrar stressed the proliferation of the maghazi genre (stories of the Prophet’s battles), while de la Puente shows that other literary genres also increased in diffusion and popularity. 106 N. Daniel, Islam and the West: the making of an image (Oxford, 1983), 67–130; J.V. Tolan ‘Rhetoric, Polemics and the Art of Hostile Biography: portraying Muhammad in thirteenthcentury Christian Spain’, in Pensamiento Medieval Hispano: homenaje a Horacio Santiago-Otero, ed. J.M. Soto Rábanos, 2 vols (Madrid, 1998), ii, 1497–1511.

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sermons. Inquisition records from 1502 reveal that the Mudejars were ‘beside themselves’ with ‘fear that the Inquisition would proceed against them all’ because their faqih-preachers publicly admonished them that ‘the sect of Mahomat is better than the law of the Christians and that all [Christians] end in damnation’.107 This statement recalls Vincent Ferrer’s sermons warnings that the ‘law’, ‘doctrine’, or ‘sect’ of Muhammad was ‘false’ and would ‘lead his people to damnation’, and that ‘the law of grace’ or ‘the law of Jesus Christ’ was the only path to salvation. Equally intriguing was the report that some Valencian feudal lords, who were aware that faqihs were also preachers, had written a letter to Ferdinand II in 1502 certifying that ‘each one [of these faqih-preachers] defends the said sect [of Islam] and has worked and works [so] that the Moor may be a good Moor’. The objective of the letter was to dissuade Ferdinand II from ordering the conversion of his Mudejar vassals. Indicators of how Islamic preaching provided convincing counternarratives to Christian military and discursive aggression began to appear in the century prior to the coming of the friars. Preachers played a decisive role in the commodification of Muhammad as a cultural symbol by disseminating the new genres and practices of his veneration to the larger public. Ibn Bashkuwal (d. 1183), a Cordoban theologian whose many works included a treatise on drawing nearer to God through praise of Muhammad, affirmed this when he issued an emotive appeal to his co-religionists to promote the culture of venerating the Prophet through preaching.108 He had attributed the declining political and military fortunes of al-Andalus to the decadence of its religious customs, and placed the blame squarely on Muslim ‘proximity to the Christians’ and the failure of the ulama (religious scholars) ‘to utterly denounce these innovations through hortatory preaching at all hours’. The response [to this crisis] should be that [Muslim] ears are constantly filled up and overflow with narratives about their past, and burst open from the prohibitions, condemnations, and sanctions against those who commit such acts, by means of denunciations as unlawful innovation, perverse, and impious all that which departs from the sayings and deeds of Muhammad, transmitted by the tradition.109

107 M.D. Meyerson, The Muslims of Valencia in the Age of Fernando and Isabel: between coexistence and crusade (Berkeley, 1991), 265, citing the testimony of Maymo ben Çabit of Manises (ARV: B 1431: 358r). 108 Ibn Bashkuwal, Kitab al-Qurba ila rabb al-‘alamin (El Acercamiento a Dios), ed. and trans. C. de la Puente (Madrid, 1995). 109 Ibid., 167; Jones, ‘Boundaries of Sin and Communal Identity’, 40.

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My investigations into medieval Muslim sermons from al-Andalus and the Maghreb have not uncovered any direct references to the mendicants or any other specific groups of Christians. They do affirm, however, that Muslim ears were indeed ‘constantly f illed with sayings and deeds of Muhammad’, which were omnipresent in the preacher’s theological and doctrinal lessons, narratives, and moral exhortations. Moreover, this was nothing new: a discourse affirming and exhorting the veneration, imitation, and obedience of the Prophet Muhammad was a normative part of the ‘horizon of expectations’ of Muslim preachers and their audiences. It must be stressed that in comparison with sporadic occurrences of mendicant conversionary preaching before Muslims audiences, the canonical sermon (khutba shari‘iyya) was enshrined as a normative, prescribed part of Islamic ritual practices. The khutba was delivered obligatorily on Fridays during the communal worship and on the two major festivals (the feast of the breaking of the fast of Ramadan and the Feast of the Sacrifice), and customarily on numerous other occasions in a liturgical calendar that focused the social life and memory of Muslim communities on certain mythic events associated with Muhammad and the Qur’an which were presented as central to that community’s self-definition.110 Thus, for example, the first day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar, came to be associated with Muhammad’s emigration (hijra) to Medina and the initiation of the Islamic era; Rajab was the month when Muhammad was first called to be a prophet; Ramadan was the month when Muhammad began to receive the divine revelations.111 Narratives couched in the form of hadiths related that Muhammad’s nativity, night journey (isra’), heavenly ascent (mi‘raj), and death occurred in the month of Rabi‘ al-Awwal. Other narratives accorded sanctity to specific days or months by claiming that Muhammad preferred to perform certain prayers, rituals, or good works during that time. For instance, the Prophet’s favourite month to practise voluntary fasting was Sha‘ban, especially the fourteenth night, called Laylat al-Bara’a (the night of forgiveness), when ‘God descends to the lowest heaven […] in order to grant the forgiveness of sins’,112 while Rajab was his preferred month to perform the ‘umra or voluntary lesser pilgrimage to Mecca. The preachers who wove these narratives into their sermons invariably presented them as the fulfilment of a directive from the Prophet, an emulation of his deeds, or as special prayers and litanies 110 Jones, Power of Oratory, 52–4. 111 F.E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (New York, 1994), 253. 112 A.J. Wensinck, ‘Sha‘ban’, EI, ix, 154a.

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in praise of God and Muhammad, the sincere performance of which would result in eschatological rewards, including the promise of direct entry into paradise without undergoing ‘the reckoning’. Canonical preachers were constrained in their elaboration of these narratives due to the liturgical condition of brevity in these sermons. Yet alongside the canonical sermon there existed another genre of homiletic exhortation known as wa‘z or maw‘iza (warning, exhortation), which was also practised widely in al-Andalus and the Maghreb. The hortatory preacher (wa‘iz) waxed at length about the blessings to be gained from obeying Muhammad’s directives and following his example, as well as the hellish punishments to be suffered by those who disobeyed God or the prophet who departed from the sayings and deeds of Muhammad. Although the delivery and the attendance of these sermons were not obligatory, there is some evidence of their routinization and even institutionalization. We know from juridical sources and from biographical notices about these hortatory preachers that they could be officially assigned to preach weekly in a particular mosque, granted permission from the authorities to deliver sermons weekly in a public square, and that those who practised Sufi mysticism pronounced sermons during the weekly celebration of para-liturgical gatherings of Sufi mystics, which could be open to the general public.113 Not only were references to the authority of Muhammad omnipresent in the content of canonical and hortatory sermons. The figure of Muhammad, and especially his sunna (customs), served both canonical and hortatory preachers alike as the quintessential model of what constituted effective, authoritative, and charismatic preaching. The Islamic homiletic tradition routinized Muhammad’s charismatic authority.114 The Muslim preacher’s efficacy and persuasive power rested upon his careful mimesis of socially recognized paradigms of prophetic authority, moral perfection, and model piety that were embodied in Muhammad’s praxis. The preacher accomplished this by imitating the gestures, ritual acts, and even attire that Muhammad employed when preaching. Here it is useful to recall Vincent Ferrer’s harangue to his fellow mendicant preachers. He complained that the friars were no longer successful in converting the people because they had strayed from the example of the ‘Apostles [who], beyond preaching, led a good life following the example of [Christ]’ in leading a life of poverty, 113 Jones, Power of Oratory, 158–94. 114 L.G. Jones, ‘Prophetic Performances: reproducing the charisma of Muhammad in two genres of medieval Islamic preaching’, in Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim preaching, 1200–1600, eds. M. Rubin and K.L. Jansen (Turnhout, 2010), 21–50.

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humility, and chastity. In parallel, part of the Muslim preachers’ success in preserving the faith of their communities must be attributed to their own fidelity in words and deeds to the Prophet’s sunna. The key point of the above discussion is to demonstrate that even in the absence of direct references to the friars or their anti-Islamic polemics, the mere existence of the Islamic sermon, its routinization and institutionalization through the cyclical performance within the liturgical calendar, and its iteration of the authority of the Prophet Muhammad in the words and praxis of the preacher could and did constitute a powerful deterrent to mendicant discourses aimed at defaming the Muslim prophet and his message. That said, I have had the opportunity to study a remarkable thirteenth-century anonymous collection of Mudejar hortatory sermons that offers intriguing indirect evidence of the impact of the friars.115 It was one of many Arabic manuscripts found hidden in a house in Almonacid de la Sierra, Zaragoza, which once belonged to a Morisco.116 Although the beginning and final pages are missing, the preacher’s lament to God ‘for having placed us in this peninsula under the rule of the Christians, our lives and wealth a prey for the polytheists’117 affirms that the sermons were composed by a Mudejar in Christian-ruled Aragon within the context of Mudejarism and for an audience of Mudejars.118 The preacher consistently presents an ardent defence of Islam in his uncompromising stance that the duties and precepts of the religion must be fulfilled even in adversity. Indeed, one of his most reiterated themes is the exhortation to remain steadfast in the ‘remembrance of God’, meaning fulfilling all the obligatory as well as voluntary acts of worship, in times of tribulation. For instance, he urged his audience to recite the following Qur’anic verse almost as a mantra in times of trouble: Surely we shall test you with something of fear, hunger, some loss in goods, lives, or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere – who say, when afflicted with calamity, ‘To God we belong and to Him is our return. They are those on whom (descend) blessings from their Lord and his mercy. They are the ones that receive guidance. (Q 2: 155-7)119 115 Madrid, Biblioteca de la Junta, MS C no. 3, fols 1–39. 116 On the discovery of the manuscript, see F. Codera, ‘Almacén de un librero descubierto en Almonacid de la Sierra’, BRAH, 5 (1884), 270–6. 117 Bibl. Junta, MS C no. 3, fol. 39. 118 J. Ribera and M. Asín, Manuscritos árabes y aljamiados de la Biblioteca de la Junta (Madrid, 1912), 255–6. 119 Bibl. Junta, MS C no. 3, fol. 6v.

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The recitation of this verse exalts suffering and transforms it into a divine test of patient endurance. As in the case of the biblical Job, the Qur’anic verses represent suffering not as a divine castigation for sin but as a vehicle for attaining greater proximity to God and a demonstration of divine favour. Such messages would have been reassuring in the face of mendicant sermons, such as Ferrer’s Passion Sunday sermon affirming that the Muslims would be damned for seeking guidance in the false prophet Muhammad. Needless to say, references to the Prophet Muhammad are omnipresent throughout the Mudejar sermonary. It suffices to note that whereas mendicant preachers such as Vincent Ferrer typically began their sermons with a biblical verse, which provided the thema or subject of the homily, hortatory preachers frequently based their sermons upon a theme composed of a complementary Qur’anic verse and a hadith or saying of Muhammad. A further sign of a possible influence or counter-narrative to Christian evangelizing is found in an exemplum in the fourth sermon on the theme of patience in adversity. The narrative is interesting because it seems to offer an alternative to the classical Islamic triumphant discourse that Muslim success in this world is a sign of divine favour, and a convincing refutation of Christian Gospel and miracle narratives: A believer and an unbeliever […] set out to go fishing. The unbeliever began to invoke the name of his goddess (ilāhata-hu) and he plunged his net and caught many fish. Then the believer praised and invoked God Almighty but nothing came. He finally caught one fish at sunset, but when he took it out of the net, (the net) broke and the fish fell back into the water. And so the believer returned without having caught a single fish and the unbeliever returned having filled his net. After both fishermen died, God revealed the fate of each to a third person, who said: ‘By God, what do [the believer’s] affliction and adversity matter, compared to all of this (Paradise)?’ Then [God] showed him the dwelling place of the unbeliever in the hellfire and [he exclaimed]: ‘By God, of what use are the things of the mundane world if he has come to this?’120

Seen from the Mudejar perspective, the homiletic exhortation to remember God by remaining steadfast in faith in the face of adversity serves to define the Mudejars over and against those who call upon false gods, i.e. the Christians. It is tempting to see in the allusion to the ilaha (goddess) a polemical response to the Christian veneration of Mary. It would suggest 120 Ibid., fol. 8r.

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a familiarity on the part of the Mudejar preacher with Marian miracles of the kind narrated in mendicant and other sermons. At the same time, the contrasting portraits of the true Muslim believer whose one fish fell through the net and the unbeliever whose net was filled with his catch seem to subvert two Gospel accounts of the miraculous catch of fish. In Luke’s account (5: 1–11), Jesus commands Peter to go out deep into the water and let down the nets for a catch. Peter protests at first, saying that they had been working all night without catching anything; but when he did as he was told, ‘They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.’ The parallel account in John (21: 1–14) ends with a similar phrase: ‘the [Apostles] were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish’. The morale of the Mudejars’ parable, that the unbelievers’ miracles in this life – a catch of fish – are nothing in comparison to the rewards of the true believers in the hereafter, might have comforted his congregation. It provides a powerful response to the Christian use of miracle stories as a medium to prove faith and convert unbelievers, as we have seen in the previous discussion of the sermons of Vincent Ferrer. The significance of the Mudejar preacher’s counter-narrative becomes even clearer when we recall that the original Gospel account is fundamentally a conversion tale, for it tells of Simon Peter, James, and John’s conversion in response to Jesus’s miracles.

Conclusions The above analysis of the conversion and baptism sermons of Vincent Ferrer targeting imagined or real Muslim members of his audience has revealed a variety of strategies of inclusion aimed at persuading Muslims to convert to Christianity. As we saw, Ferrer deployed double directionality in articulating theological and moral lessons he felt would be particularly meaningful and necessary for Muslims. He attempted to tailor his miracle stories of resurrection to appeal to a Muslim audience by arousing a mimetic desire for conversion by recourse to miraculous tales of Muslims who spiritually converted, the symbolic inversion of ‘bad Christians’ who are condemned to hell while Muslims who sincerely converted in their hearts entered paradise, and the public upbraiding of corrupt friars for failing to preach with their good deeds. Other signs that Ferrer took the voice of Muslim counter-arguments into consideration are evinced in his messages that works without faith are insufficient for salvation and in his explanation of the Trinity.

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Documented cases of Ferrer’s impact upon the Muslims, such as the spectacular conversion of the Valencian faqih Azmet Hannaxa and his extended family, are exceptional. On balance, it is difficult to give credence to reports of successful mendicant missionary campaigns targeting Muslims because Ferrer and his fellow friars operated within the logic of ‘counterhistory’, which, as Amos Funkenstein defined it, is predicated upon the systematic ‘distortion of the adversary’s self-image, of his identity, through the destruction of his memory’.121 Every mendicant affirmation that the ‘sect’ or the ‘law of Mahomet could only lead to damnation’ or was ‘the law of the Antichrist’ and every accusation that Muhammad was a ‘false prophet’ and a ‘liar’ sought to destroy the Muslim community’s narrative of itself as ‘the best community’ because their prophet Muhammad was ‘chosen by God’ as ‘the best of mankind’, the ‘most sincere’, the ‘best guide on the straight path’ to paradise, and whose status as the ‘seal of the prophets’ set him above all other prophets, including Jesus and Mary, as the most powerful intercessor before God. And it was precisely these messages that Muslim and Mudejar preachers ‘filled the ears’ of their audiences with until they ‘overflowed’ in the canonical and hortatory sermons they delivered routinely, weekly and annually, in commemorative rituals that shaped the collective memory of the Muslim congregation and gave guidance and solace to its individual members.122 Linda G. Jones, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

121 A. Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, 1993), 36. 122 P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, 1989), 43–5.

6. The Poor Clares of Alcocer and the Castilian Crown(Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries) Pablo Martín Prieto

Abstract The foundation of the Poor Clares monastery at Alcocer (c.1260) by King Alfonso X is the result of this monarch’s family policies, particularly in relation to his former mistress, Mayor Guillén of Guzmán, as well as a step further in the process of the establishment of the Franciscan Order in the central regions of Castile. On the grounds of being considered a royal foundation, the Poor Clares community would thereafter continue to be tied to the Castilian monarchy to the end of the Middle Ages, oscillating between periods of more and less intense commitment. Keywords: medieval Castile, Nuns, Alfonso X, Poor Clares, Alcocer, Mayor Guillén de Guzmán

Introduction This study is concerned with the policies of the Castilian crown towards the mendicants in the last three centuries of the Middle Ages,1 and focuses on the 1 Among many such studies, see J. García Oro, Francisco de Asís en la España medieval (Santiago de Compostela, 1988); J.M. Nieto Soria, ‘Franciscanos y franciscanismo en la política y en la corte de la Castilla Trastámara (1369–1474)’, AEM, 20 (1990), 109–131; P. Linehan, ‘A tale of two cities: capitular Burgos and mendicant Burgos in the 13th century’, in Church and City (1000–1500): essays in honour of Christopher Brooke, ed. D. Abulafia et al. (Cambridge, 1992), 81–110; F. Revilla García, ‘El franciscanismo en la Castilla del siglo XIII: una aproximación bibliográfica’, AEM, 27 (1997), 281–313; I. Álvarez Borge, ‘Órdenes mendicantes y estructuras feudales de poder en Castilla la Vieja (siglos XIII y XIV)’, Revista de Historia Económica, 17/3 (1999), 543–78.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch06

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Poor Clares at Alcocer, a little town near the northern border of the diocese of Cuenca (and nowadays, near the southern border of the administrative province of Guadalajara) in central Spain, not very far from the border between Castile and Aragon.2 It is still a matter of debate whether the main role in the royal protection of mendicant foundations in thirteenth-century Castile should be assigned to Ferdinand III (1217–1252) or to Alfonso X (1252–1284).3 But in the case of Alcocer we are dealing with Alfonso. In fact, the matter is intimately related to Alfonso, for the very foundation of this Poor Clare community cannot be explained without due reference to the Learned King’s personal life. During seven decades, the memory of the connection with Alfonso was an essential part of the history of the community, and though subsequently that memory waned for some time, it would ultimately be recalled and reshaped in the subsequent relations between that ‘royal monastery’ and the Castilian crown until the end of the Middle Ages. Although both the Poor Clare convent at Alcocer and its founders have been subject to some attention by historians, and information on the topic is to be found scattered in a variety of studies, 4 the most intensive research line concerning the community is still in progress, and thus this present work is to be considered partly a result of and partly a contribution to that research.5

Alfonso X and the Origins of the Poor Clares at Alcocer In his early years, even before he came to the throne, Alfonso X of Castile was involved in a romantic affair with Mayor Guillén of Guzmán,6 a Leonese 2 Alcocer’s municipal district lies between the coordinates 40°30′–40°26′ latitude N and 1°02′–1°10′ longitude W: P. Martín Prieto, ‘Condicionamientos geográficos de la economía rural en la Edad Media: el caso de Alcocer’, Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica, 142 (2006), 269. 3 S. Aguadé Nieto, ‘Alfonso X y las órdenes mendicantes’, Saxonia Franciscana, 10 (1998), 277–8. 4 M. Ortega, Chronica de la Santa Provincia de Cartagena de la Orden Franciscana (Murcia, 1740), 16–17, 28–32, 41–3; J.C. García López, Relaciones topográficas de España: provincia de Guadalajara, con notas y aumentos (Madrid, 1903), 141–76; F.J. Villalba Ruiz de Toledo, ‘El monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer y su conexión con la monarquía castellana (siglos XIII–XV)’, Wad-al-Hayara, 17 (1989), 319–24. 5 P. Martín Prieto, El monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer en la Edad Media (Guadalajara, 2005) and other related studies by the same author, some of them cited throughout this present work. 6 E. Flórez, Memorias de las Reynas Catholicas, 2 vols (Madrid, 1761), ii, 527–58; P. Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino del señorío creado para la descendencia de Alfonso X de Castilla y Mayor Guillén de Guzmán (1255–1312)’, Temas Medievales, 11 (2002–3), 220–6.

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noblewoman.7 Indeed, this affair was likely the reason for the ascent of the Guzmán family within the Castilian royal court, especially after Alfonso X’s ascension to the throne.8 At any rate, there is no doubt as to Alfonso’s serious commitment to his mistress; even as heir to the throne, he had his father, Ferdinand III, bestow royal grants (land and rents) to his daughter by Mayor, Beatrice,9 who in turn was destined to play an important role in the politics of Alfonso’s reign.10 Conscious of his duties, Alfonso married Princess Violante of Aragon, daughter of James I (1213–1276), but he probably kept Mayor at his side until Violante had produced legitimate heirs.11 When finally prepared to say farewell to his ‘other family’, Alfonso, already king of Castile, created an estate for Mayor with royal rights over some minor concejos around the Lower Alcarria area in 1255,12 and he apparently encouraged her to settle there and set up the Poor Clare foundation at Alcocer. This initiative depended upon on Mayor herself, as the community’s founder, which is clear from the papal bulls backing the creation of the community;13

7 P. Barrantes Maldonado, Ilustraciones de la casa de Niebla (Madrid, 1857), 32, 37, 39; J. Salazar Acha, ‘Precisiones y nuevos datos sobre el entorno familiar de Alfonso X el Sabio, fundador de Ciudad Real’, Cuadernos de estudios manchegos, 20 (1990), 222–3. 8 Two of Mayor Guillén’s brothers, Pedro and Nuño de Guzmán, held offices in Alfonso X’s administration, and their names f igure regularly in the royal charters of the period. See M. González Jiménez, Alfonso X el Sabio: historia de un reinado 1252–1284 (Burgos, 1999), 58. 9 Ferdinand III and his heir Alfonso gave the royal town of Elche to Beatrice in 1244, perhaps on the occasion of her birth. See A. Huarte Echenique, ‘Catálogo de documentos relacionados con la Historia de España, existentes en archivos portugueses’, BRAH, 107 (1935), 797–8. 10 On Beatrice, later queen of Portugal by marriage: Flórez, Memorias, ii, 528–30; Martín Prieto,‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 226–31. 11 Married to Violante of Aragon in 1246, Alfonso X did not have his first child with the queen until 1253 (a daughter, Berenguela). See P. Aguado Bleye, Manual de Historia de España (Madrid, 1975), i, 688. 12 This manorial estate included the – until then royal – villages of Alcocer, Cifuentes, Viana, and Palazuelos, and was especially created by Alfonso X for Mayor Guillén in 1255. See Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 221–3. The royal charter of 25 October 1255 (Lisbon, Arquivo da Torre do Tombo, Leitura Nova, Livro 1 de Extras, MS 2471, fols 192v–193r) is edited in P. Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática del monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer en la Edad Media: parte I (1205–1325)’, De Medio Aevo, 1/1 (2012), 165–8. 13 Pope Alexander IV declared the new monastery exempt from paying tithes (31 July and 30 August 1259. Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional [AHN], Clero, folder 566, doc. 2, 566/2 and 566/3; Alcocer, Archivo Municipal de Alcocer [AMA], MS A1, fol. 203r). He also granted the community the right to refuse admission to anybody unless by special order of the Holy See itself (9 April 1260. AMA, MS A1, fol. 203v): Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 168–9. In the latter bull, Mayor Guillén is referred to as solely responsible for having built and endowed the Poor Clares’ community with her own property (‘Cum […] Mayor […] monasterium uestrum de bonis propriis construxerit et doctarit’: ibid., 169).

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but there is no doubt that Alfonso’s support, and that of the Castilian crown, was the driving force in the whole process.14 Not only can all parts of the first patrimony for the Poor Clares’ foundation be traced back to the royal rights originally transferred by Alfonso to the manorial estate he had created for Mayor Guillén back in 1255,15 but the king also appears to have involved himself heavily in the development of the foundation; he bestowed his formal confirmation to Mayor’s acts as the convent’s founder with royal charters every time it seemed necessary,16 and he made some additional donations to the Alcocer nuns as well. Alfonso must have been, if not solely responsible, the driving force behind the foundation of the community; everything suggests the king’s central role in the process, even if in the public record he allowed his mistress Mayor and her male relatives to hold centre stage.17 From Alfonso’s viewpoint, the Poor Clares community at Alcocer was meant to be Mayor’s own, ideally suited to her need when the time was ripe for her to abandon the royal court and his side as he concentrated on his legitimate family and Queen Violante. That did not prevent Alfonso from taking every precaution in the whole process leading to the foundation of the convent: first of all, in the choice of the location of the future community, at a place where Mayor and her family already had some property and interests;18 then, in creating a manorial estate for her, with everything she could need to settle there permanently; finally, the support of the crown in every decision she made as the convent’s formal founder. The counsel and will of Alfonso X must have been constantly behind Mayor’s decisions; thus she openly stated that in founding the Poor Clares’ convent, she did it ‘by order and with the approval’ of the king,19 and indeed, subsequent memory would consistently consider and style it a ‘royal monastery’ because of this. 14 P. Martín Prieto, ‘La fundación del monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer (1252–1260)’, Hispania Sacra, 57 (2005), 227–41. 15 Martín Prieto, ‘La fundación’, 238. 16 See the formal foundation act, by Mayor, 22 September 1260 (AHN, Clero, 566/4): Martín Prieto, ‘La fundación’, 240–1; and Alfonso X’s royal charter in conf irmation of the former, 8 November 1260 (AHN, Clero, 566/5): Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 170–2. 17 Pedro de Guzmán, Mayor’s brother, supported his sister’s foundation, donating some revenue of his own (20 October 1260. AHN, Sellos, 55/4): Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 170. Later on, Alfonso X confirmed this donation by Peter (15 March 1261. AHN, Sellos, 55/4): Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 172–3. 18 A. Ballesteros Beretta, Alfonso X el Sabio (Barcelona, 1984), 229; A. Chacón Gómez-Monedero, ‘El patrimonio rural de la iglesia de Cuenca. Siglos XII y XIII’, Cuenca: Revista de la Diputación Provincial, 30 (1987), 54; Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 223, n. 10. 19 Literally, ‘con mandado e con plazer de mio sennor don Alfonso’ (Martín Prieto, ‘La fundación’, 240).

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The Castilian Crown and the Formation of the First Monastic Patrimony In establishing a new religious community it was important to look to its material needs. There is little doubt that Alfonso X was from the beginning behind Mayor Guillén’s project for the Poor Clares’ community at Alcocer. Not only did the king provide his former mistress with royal rights and resources by creating for her the estate of Alcocer, Cifuentes, and other villages in 1255, but also the transfer of some of those rights and revenues to the initial patrimony of the Poor Clares’ institution must have been undertaken under the king’s supervision and with his approval. Dealing with a convent for nuns – in spite of its affiliation to the second Franciscan Order – entailed the development of a secure monastic patrimony. No male Franciscan community could function without this either, but at least the Franciscan friars could resort to begging or earn a living by undertaking various occupations in the world. This possibility was denied to the Poor Clares once the papacy’s will to impose upon them the traditional Benedictine nuns’ constraint of enclosure was definite and formally enacted.20 In 1262, Pope Urban IV gave the Poor Clares at Alcocer two important bulls, one assuring them of the papacy’s protection against any violence or intrusion,21 the other establishing the Benedictine Rule and the Forma vitae set down by Gregory IX (1227–1241) as the canonical basis for the present and future life of the institution.22 In the second of these bulls, there is an explicit reference to the need for a stable monastic patrimony and to the enclosure of the nuns.23 Papal protection of the monastic patrimony of Alcocer had been granted from the initial stages of its foundation; Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261) exempted the community from the obligation to pay tithes on its property in 1259,24 20 Pope Gregory IX’s forma vitae imposed Benedictine enclosure on the f irst Damianite communities: J.H. Sbaralea, Bullarium franciscanum (Rome, 1759–1768), i, 32, 206, 210. On the early organization of the Second Franciscan Order after Benedictine patterns, see G. de Paris, Histoire de la fondation et de l’évolution de l’ordre des frères mineurs au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1928), 593–617; M.P. Alberzoni, ‘Papato e nuovi ordini religiosi femminili’, in Il Papato duecentesco e gli ordini mendicanti (Spoleto, 1998), 205–61. 21 26 March 1262 (AHN, Clero, 568/16) (Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 173–4). 22 21 May 1262 (AHN, Clero, MS 4140, fols 14r–15r); Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 174–6. 23 ‘quascunque possessiones, quaecunque bona idem monasterium […] iuste ac canonice possidet […] seu […] poterit adipisci, firma uobis […] et illibata permaneant. […] Prohibemus insuper ut nulli sororum uestrarum, post factam in monasterio uestro professionem, fas sit de eodem loco discedere’: Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 175. 24 Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 168–9.

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prior to the formal foundation act of the community by Mayor Guillén in 1260. The properties and rights shaping this initial patrimony of the Poor Clares at Alcocer fall into the following three categories: i) The main source of revenue lay in the manorial rights on the estate created for Mayor in 1255. Originally, these were public rights the Castilian crown transferred to the estate created for Mayor in 1255, and which Mayor later passed on to the Poor Clares at Alcocer. These were: the wilds of San Miguel, an abandoned village in the vicinity of Alcocer; a rent in wheat and barley which the concejo of Palazuelos paid to the crown every year; the royal share of the profits of some municipal mills at Cifuentes; and part of the income from the tolls of certain villages in the Atienza area.25 ii) Next, there was some private property Mayor and her family must have already built up in Alcocer and the surroundings. Mayor already had some of this property before she arrived at Alcocer and became involved with the foundation of the Poor Clares, but she also is known to have made some purchases with the community in mind; this private property included labour lands, vineyards, an olive grove, and substantial shares on the profits of some local mills.26 iii) Finally, some purchases made both by Mayor herself and her brother Pedro once the community was formally set up, with the purpose of donating the acquired lots – land, houses, and goods – to the Alcocer nuns.27 Such is the case with a share on the profits of some mills at Murcia, which Pedro de Guzmán gave the nuns in 1260,28 lands and houses that Mayor acquired in Cuenca in 1262,29 and a whole set of small rural holdings around the convent’s property which Pedro bought for the nuns on his sister’s behalf.30 Mayor Guillén must have died sometime between 1264 and 1267. As had been agreed in 1255, Mayor’s estate was bequeathed to her and to Beatrice, the daughter she had with Alfonso X, who was queen of Portugal through her marriage to Alfonso III in 1253. After her mother’s death, as the new lady of Alcocer, Beatrice renewed the protection of the Poor Clares’ community.31 In this respect, a neat thread of continuity under the auspices of the crown 25 Martín Prieto, El monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer, 130–1. 26 Martín Prieto, El monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer, 130. 27 Martín Prieto, El monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer, 131–3. 28 20 October 1260, Alcocer. AHN, Sellos, 55/4; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 170. 29 26 August 1262. AHN, Clero, 566/8; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 176–7. 30 8 January 1264. AHN, Clero, 566/9; P. Martín Prieto, ‘Los prolegómenos de la gran crisis bajomedieval en Castilla (c.1250–c.1350): el caso de Alcocer’, Cuadernos de Investigación Histórica, 22 (2005), 307–8. 31 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 226–31.

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between the times of Mayor and those of Beatrice can be observed. The memory and significance of the Alcocer project and its Poor Clares was still fresh in the mind of Alfonso X and his daughter, and thus the process of shaping the first monastic patrimony went ahead unaltered, substantially under the same premises.32 In 1267, as the lady of Alcocer, Beatrice had to intervene in a dispute over the fixing of boundaries between the respective lands of the village and the convent.33 In 1272, Beatrice gained from her father confirmation of some of the estate income transferred to the nuns, and she renewed her protection of the community and its possessions, to which she personally added some new donations of her own.34 A further increase of the monastic patrimony was due to the initiative of the king, who in 1274 granted the Alcocer nuns a share of the crown’s annual income from Atienza’s salt pits.35 That is the last known involvement of Alfonso the Learned with the Alcocer community in his lifetime. His daughter Beatrice, and then his granddaughter Blanche, were to rule over Alcocer and its community; but once Alfonso X was gone, we may consider that the initial, productive phase in the relations between the Castilian crown and this institution of the Poor Clares came to an end. Nothing would be quite the same with subsequent kings, and one has to wait until the rise of the Trastamaran dynasty to find but a distant echo of Alfonso’s X’s zeal in support of this community.

The Growing Distance After the death of Alfonso X in 1284, his son Sancho IV and the following Castilian kings did not neglect the task of offering their royal protection to the Alcocer foundation, but it would be safe to say that they were not so enthusiastic in bestowing that protection; for them, the Alcocer convent was a religious institution among many similar ones, without the personal significance it had held for Alfonso X. For a time, however, his immediate successors kept a close bond to Alfonso X’s and Mayor’s project, until Blanche of Portugal eventually 32 P. Martín Prieto, ‘Las Guzmán alfonsinas: una dinastía femenina en la Castilla de los siglos XIII y XIV’, Mirabilia, 17/2 (2013), 5–26. 33 23 February 1267, Elvas. AHN, Clero, 566/10; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 177–8. 34 24 January and 1 November 1272. AHN, Clero, 566/11, 566/12, 566/13; AMA, MS A1, fols 187r–187v; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 178–180. 35 10 February 1274, Burgos. Valladolid, Archivo de la Real Chancillería de Valladolid [ARCV], Pleitos Civiles, Quevedo (fenecidos), roll 2491–1, fol. 18r; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 180–1.

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resolved to sell the Alcocer-Cifuentes estate (which had been created in 1255 and which she had inherited from her mother, Queen Beatrice). Although Beatrice of Portugal did not die until 1303, from 1285 on her daughter Blanche appears effectively as lady of Alcocer, Cifuentes, and the Castilian family estate in the Alcarria region (Beatrice may have preferred to withdraw from this responsibility after the death of her father, Alfonso X). After 1285, Blanche did perform some of her duties as the lady of Cifuentes, Alcocer, and the other villages included in the estate created for Mayor in 1255, thus continuing to provide her protection for the family foundation at Alcocer.36 In 1293, she refused to commit herself in a dispute between the Alcocer municipality and the Poor Clares concerning the boundaries between their respective lands. This was the very kind of dispute her mother Beatrice had had to cope with in 1267, but this time Blanche appointed the bishop of Cuenca as arbiter and passed the question on to him.37 In 1295, she obtained from her uncle, King Sancho IV, confirmation of the Atienza toll rents which were part of the estate created in 1255, and some of which were destined for the patrimony of the Alcocer community.38 However, after she was appointed the new lady of the royal convent of Las Huelgas near Burgos, Blanche’s interests began to concentrate around the Caput Castellae, and her ties to Alcocer loosened.39 In 1299, she negotiated an exchange with the Alcocer community by swapping some property she had in Alcocer for certain lands the nuns owned near Burgos – an operation which gives us a clear insight into her priorities and intentions. 40 Once Blanche’s main interests and properties converged on the Burgos area, she only had to wait for the right moment to take the next step. In 1309, she gave the Alcocer nuns a final confirmation of the convent’s possessions, 41 and in 1311 – after receiving from King Ferdinand IV (1285–1312) a licence to dispose freely of all her belongings42 and having granted the nuns the unrestricted right to manage, buy, or sell their own possessions and interests autonomously43 – she finally put the estate up for sale. 36 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 231–2. 37 18 June and 1 July 1293, Molina de Aragón and Pareja. AHN, Clero, MS 4140, fols 26r–27v; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 183–5. 38 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 232. 39 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 232–5. 40 10 December 1299, Burgos. AHN, Sellos, 55/14; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 186–7. 41 1 May 1309, Toledo. AHN, Clero, 567/3; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 189–90. 42 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 236. 43 3 July 1311, Valladolid. AMA, MS A1, fols 185r–185v; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 190–1.

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There followed a conflict over the purchase of the estate between two frequent enemies, the famous statesman and writer Don Juan Manuel and Prince Pedro of Castile; each of them paid something to Blanche and subsequently claimed rights on that basis. During this period Alcocer and the other villages were in dispute with these two powerful lords, both dispensed their formal protection, while each claimed to be the rightful lord over the Poor Clares’ community.44 From this moment on, the original bond between Alcocer and the Guzmán women of Alfonso X’s blood ceased to exist, and the subsequent lords of Alcocer no longer held a special relationship with the Poor Clares at all. Some first-tier families and names – including that of Constable Álvaro de Luna in the fifteenth century – were to hold the manor of Alcocer in the late Middle Ages;45 but none of them ever had the intense and significant commitment to the Poor Clares’ community that the Guzmán ladies – from Mayor to Blanche – had shown during the first decades of its existence. As for the relationship of the community to the crown, the Alcocer Poor Clares were not wholly forgotten; but the next king’s generosity towards them could not compare with that of Alfonso X. As already stated, in 1295 Sancho IV gave his royal confirmation, on Blanche’s request, of some important rents, part of which was crucial to the community’s annual income.46 In 1311, perhaps in compensation for Blanche’s withdrawal from Alcocer, Ferdinand IV gave the community a share up to 2000 maravedíes of the annual rents the villagers of Escamilla owed the crown. 47 For the next few decades, there were no records of the protection of the Castilian crown for the Alcocer Poor Clares. The next significant donation the convent received from the crown was in 1345, when Alfonso XI granted the community the right to have twelve fiscally exempt servants.48 Such favours were not insignificant, but given their sporadic nature they suggested relations were at low ebb in the period before the civil war in Castile.

44 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 238; 8 March 1317, Seville (AHN, Sellos, 52/11); 12 May 1317, Paredes (AHN, Clero, 567/5); Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 192–4. 45 P. Martín Prieto, ‘De los Albornoz a los Mendoza: la transmisión del estado señorial del Infantado de Huete en la Baja Edad Media’, En la España medieval, 34 (2011), 229–47. 46 Martín Prieto, ‘Origen, evolución y destino’, 232. 47 25 December 1311, Valladolid. AHN, Clero, 567/4; Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática I’, 191–2. 48 18 November 1345, Madrid. AHN, Clero, 568/1; P. Martín Prieto, ‘Colección diplomática del monasterio de Santa Clara de Alcocer en la Edad Media: parte II (1326–1320)’, De Medio Aevo, 2 (2013), 161–3.

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Henry II, the First Trastamaran The reign of King Peter I of Castile (1350–1369) dissolved into a vortex of war and disintegration, offering a sharp contrast to the period of order and royal authority under Alfonso XI. The state of war and turmoil during the middle decades of the fourteenth century cast a shadow over the whole of the Castilian society. In this context, many religious institutions were subject to violence by undisciplined troops and because of general social disorder;49 this was the case with the Poor Clares at Alcocer. Or, we should say more precisely, near Alcocer, for the first monastic complex had been built not in the urban nucleus itself, but well outside its walls and deep into the countryside.50 During the first century of the history of the Alcocer nuns, they had been in a rural environment, at a distance from the village. This distance from the village was to prove very damaging at the time when various wandering troops, in the years of the civil war under King Peter, devastated the land and took the defenceless, isolated convent as their prey, as various contemporary sources attest.51 49 Referring to this time: ‘The dignity of religion was dissipated in the kingdom of Castile: because of the confusion of war between the former King Peter and the noblemen of his realm, and then between the same king and his brother Henry, the friars were ejected from many houses, and wandered about through uncertain places’ (‘Deturpata valde erat facies religionis in regno Castellae, propter bellorum tumultus inter Petrum olim regem, et procures regni, deinde inter eumdem et Henricum fratrem, expulsis ex multis coenobiis fratribus, et per incertas sedes divagantibus’): L. Wadding, Annales minorum seu trium ordinum a sancto Francisco institutorum VIII (1347–1376) (Quaracchi, 1932), 333. 50 Martín Prieto, El monasterio, 179–81. 51 The papal legate, Guy of Boulogne, summarized this situation after the account given to him by Abbess Stephanie: ‘The place where that monastery was once erected is a solitary one, very distant and remote from any fortress, and because of that distance and isolation the nuns cannot live there securely; the aforesaid monastery, because of the recent predators and wars in the kingdom of Castile, lies wasted, destroyed, and dissipated, so that no possible restoration is to be expected’ (‘locus in quo dictum monasterium olim constructum extitit, est solitarius, et ab omni fortalicio ualde distans et remotus: quodque propter distanciam et solitudinem huiusmodi, moniales ibi secure uiuere non possunt; dictumque monasterium per depredators et guerras que in regno Castelle hactenus inquerunt adeo dampnificatum, destructum et dissipatum existit, quod de restauracione ipsius monasterii non speratur’): 15 December 1372, Guadalajara. AHN, Clero, 568/3. Later, a commission of Franciscan friars took the case of the Alcocer nuns to Henry II of Castile, and the reason for the change in location intended for the monastery was put thus: ‘This monastery is in the wild, in a desert place, not in a safe or respectable place for women, so that when any disorders occur in the country, the nuns of the aforesaid monastery must move elsewhere, and the place is left empty and uninhabited’ (‘el monesterio […] esta en un monte que es en logar yermo, et non esta en logar seguro nin honesto para duennas, por quanto cada que acaesçen algunos bolliçios en la tierra se an de yr las dichas duennas del dicho monesterio a unas partes et a otras, et finca yermo et despoblado el dicho monesterio’): 7 July 1373, Burgos.

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Because of the location of the convent, in a place no longer considered secure – in view of the recent disturbances and wars – for a female religious institution, plans were made for the community’s relocation to a new structure to be built inside the walls of Alcocer. As discussed elsewhere,52 there is sufficient evidence for the leading role played by a local nobleman, Sancho Fernández of Cifuentes, in providing the material place, and probably also the means for the new convent to be adapted or erected inside Alcocer. He must have lodged most of the nuns already at Alcocer when they ran away from the first monastic foundation; and, as a result, he probably came naturally to the idea of preparing a permanent accommodation for the Poor Clares inside Alcocer, safe from any subsequent attacks. In any case, once the decision was made to relocate the community to a new place, a process was begun which involved several layers of authority inside and outside the Franciscan Order. First of all, the nuns’ decision was communicated to the Franciscan local authorities and to the papal legate, Guy of Boulogne, who was nearby at the time negotiating peace between the Spanish kingdoms after the troubled conclusion of King Peter’s reign.53 Guy approved the nuns’ intentions and granted his permission, in the name of the Holy See, to the diocesan authorities of Cuenca.54 Next, the procedure of giving the Alcocer Poor Clares a new home was discussed at the general chapter of the Franciscan Order held in Toulouse in 1373.55 A commission of local friars (headed by Juan González of Huete, ofm) expounded the case and got the chapter’s approval for the intended relocation. This same commission, fresh from the chapter, then went to the new Castilian king, Henry II of Trastamara, and received his permission for the operation.56 There is reason to believe that Henry II, from the moment of his accession to the Castilian throne (1369), undertook a whole programme for the restoration of neglected religious institutions and, noticeably, lent his special protection to Franciscan foundations57 (and indeed, there may AHN, Clero, 568/4. See both documents in P. Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia de la orden franciscana en la Corona de Castilla durante el primer reinado Trastámara’, Hispania Sacra, 59 (2007), 76–7. 52 Martín Prieto, El monasterio, 152–3; ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 69. 53 P. Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la segunda legación en España del cardenal Guido de Boulogne (1372–1373)’, Hispania Sacra, 68 (2016), 231–46. 54 Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 76–7. 55 Wadding, Annales minorum, 327–35. 56 Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 77–8. 57 García Oro, Francisco de Asís, 376; J.M. Nieto Soria, Iglesia y génesis del Estado moderno en Castilla (1369–1480) (Madrid, 1993), 391.

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have been a personal motive behind this move, related to his and his wife’s devotion to the Franciscans).58 Nevertheless, in 1373, Henry bestowed his royal permission on the Alcocer Poor Clares to move from their first, remote, insecure monastic complex to a new building inside the village walls. In doing so, he additionally wished to stress a significant personal and dynastic point. Recalling the community’s foundation under the auspices of Alfonso X and his mistress Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, in the charter granting his permission for the nuns’ relocation, Henry claimed to be Mayor’s heir: ‘The aforesaid monastery was made by Mayor Guillén, a lady that was of the lineage of the kings from whence we come.’59 Henry, being the son of Leonor de Guzmán, Alfonso XI’s mistress, did indeed belong to the Guzmán family. As is already well known, being himself but an illegitimate son of King Alfonso XI, Henry chose to build his claim to dynastic legitimacy through the purported rights to the Castilian throne of his wife, Juana Manuel (a daughter of the famous writer Don Juan Manuel); and it must have been while exploring the line of Alfonso X’s descent that he also chose to connect himself, as a member of the Guzmán family, to the Guzmán founders of the Poor Clare community at Alcocer. Because of this line of thought, which led Henry of Trastamara to show himself as a link in the chain of dynastic continuity stemming from the times of Alfonso X, the new king took a personal interest in restoring and favouring the Poor Clares at Alcocer, which he thus regarded as some sort of ‘family business’. In 1371, he had already confirmed his father Alfonso XI’s grant of fiscal immunity for twelve servants of the Alcocer nuns;60 in 1373, he had given his permission for the relocation of the community; and in 1377 he offered it a generous donation: a significant amount of money in rents from two of seven chaplaincies founded on account of the royal share of the taxes paid by some local craftsmen from Seville.61 This later donation is of special importance, for it offered the community a new, generous source of income, right at the beginning of a new era in the history of the institution, as it moved to its new monastic complex within the walls of Alcocer. The entire operation of the relocation of the community was thus accompanied 58 Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 58–64. 59 ‘el dicho monesterio […] fuera fecho […] por donna Mayor Guillem, duenna que fuera del linaje de los reyes onde nos venimos’: Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 77–8. 60 26 March 1371, Valladolid. AHN, Clero, 568/6 and MS 4140, fols 134r–139v; Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 72–6. 61 22 December 1377, Palencia. AHN, Clero, MS 4138, fols 11v–16v; Martín Prieto, ‘Sobre la promoción regia’, 78–83; P. Martín Prieto, ‘Los olleros de Sevilla contra los capellanes y conventos de Alcocer: un pleito del siglo XV’, Historia. Instituciones. Documentos, 35 (2008), 291–307.

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by the strengthening of its patrimony; and this was accomplished, as in the days of Alfonso X, with the active help of the crown as the decisive factor behind the process.

Stability After Henry II’s reign, the crown’s attention on the convent diminishes again. From then, until the end of the Middle Ages, all interventions on the part of the crown for the benefit of the Alcocer Poor Clares were confined to the mere routine confirmations of the community’s rights and privileges, which the royal chancery issued regularly, usually at the beginning of each monarch’s reign or at the end of the royal minorities. More precisely, John I confirmed his father’s charter granting fiscal immunity for twelve servants62 and establishing the chaplaincies,63 and he also gave the Alcocer Poor Clares a general confirmation of all their rights;64 his son Henry III granted similar confirmations in his minority and majority;65 likewise, John II granted a general confirmation to the Poor Clares during his minority,66 another such privilege during his majority,67 and additional confirmation of the chaplaincies’ charter of 137768 – all this to be in due turn (and separately) confirmed by Henry IV.69 For a time, then, there is no particular attention to the convent’s problems on the part of the crown, or at least nothing close to the kind that Alfonso X had intended for a project which was so personal to him and the Guzmán branch of his descent, or even close to the commitment Henry II had desired on account of his own relationship to the founders of the Alcocer community. This does not mean that the frequent confirmations are without significance; but it does mean that they are really no different from those made to many other such religious institutions throughout Castile. During the time of the Catholic Kings, the Alcocer nuns benefited from actions related to the 62 8 August 1379, Burgos. AHN, Clero, 568/6. 63 8 August 1379, Burgos. AHN, Clero, roll no. 1967, fols 22v, 30v–32v. 64 8 August 1379, Burgos. AHN, Clero, 568/5 and 568/7. 65 20 April 1391, Madrid. AHN, Clero, roll no. 1967, fols 22r–22v, 32v–34r; 22 February 1392, Burgos. Kansas City, University of Missouri Library (with special thanks to Rachel Rumpf for the discovery of this document); 23 June 1401, Valladolid. AHN, Clero, 568/7. 66 4 April 1408, Alcalá de Henares. AHN, Clero, 568/17, 568/19, and 569/7. 67 8 June 1420, Valladolid. AHN, Clero, 568/14. 68 9 March 1431. AHN, Clero, roll no. 1967, fols 34r–35r. 69 19 November 1455, Ávila. AHN, Clero, roll no. 1967, fols 21v–22r, 35r–37v; 20 February 1459, Madrid. AHN, Clero, 568/17, 568/19, and 569/7.

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establishment of reform in various religious orders; some male Franciscan communities disposed of certain rents and rights deemed incompatible with the spirit of reform, and thus the Alcocer Poor Clares came to obtain these. Right up to the end of the Middle Ages the Alcocer nuns, while belonging to the Franciscan family, adhered to the Benedictine Rule as far as patrimony was concerned, and thus they had no problem acquiring rents and rights which other Franciscan communities were unable or unwilling to retain. As a result of this process, the monastic patrimony of the Alcocer Poor Clares underwent some changes at the end of the Middle Ages, but the Castilian crown was not really essential to this process. If we are to consider the extent of the crown’s protection in this final period, we should note that, to begin with, the main direct intervention on the part of the Catholic Kings for the benefit to the Alcocer nuns was just the usual confirmation of the community’s earlier privileges and charters, namely the two confirmations by Henry IV.70 But there were other types of intervention by the crown related to the Alcocer Poor Clares: for example, in 1483 the Catholic Kings declared the community to be exempt from the general obligation to draw payment charters annually in order to get its share of a royal rent in the nearby town of Huete;71 and in 1501, they approved of the purchase, by the Alcocer nuns, of a rent on salt from the Franciscans of Huete.72 As can be seen, the crown was not unaware of the operations between the Alcocer Poor Clares and other religious communities affected by reform; but the modest nature of the crown’s intervention on behalf of the Alcocer nuns in the period justifies our assumption that the reign of the Catholic Kings was just another episode in the generally quiet evolution of the relations between the crown and the community.

Conclusions There are two key moments in the relationship between the Castilian crown and the Alcocer Poor Clares: the community’s foundation under Alfonso X, and its relocation inside the walls of Alcocer under Henry II, the first Trastamaran monarch. Despite being a community within the discipline of the Second Franciscan Order, the evolution of the Alcocer Poor Clares, 70 16 November 1476, Toro. AHN, Clero, roll no. 1967, fols 21v, 37v–41r; 12 March 1477, Madrid. AHN, Clero, 568/19. 71 8 March 1483, Madrid. AHN, Clero, 569/1. 72 19 October, 1501, Granada. AHN, Clero, 569/6.

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as far as their monastic patrimony is concerned, is best explained in terms of the usual patterns of a Benedictine monastery: for the community, there was never any contradiction in possessing all kinds of rights, rents, and property. Alfonso X’s will was essential for the formation of the institution’s patrimony, alongside the activities of the king’s former mistress, Mayor Guillén, and members of the Guzmán family. When Alfonso X quit the scene, some of the initial drive disappeared; the zeal of Mayor’s successors for the Alcocer community began to dissipate, and eventually the family relationship ceased when Blanche of Portugal, Mayor’s granddaughter, sold the estate and established herself in Burgos. From that moment on, the relationship of the Alcocer nuns with the crown was reduced to some rare, isolated donations and the more usual confirmations of the community’s rights and property, the only exception to this scheme being the renewed attention Henry II gave the Alcocer Poor Clares. Being related, through his mother, to the Guzmán family, Henry favoured the Alcocer nuns with some grants and by authorizing the community’s move to a new monastic complex inside the walls of Alcocer. These favours on the part of Henry II proved to be the last truly significant royal intervention of benefit to the Alcocer Poor Clares, and the relationship between the Castilian crown and the community was then routine until the end of the Middle Ages. Pablo Martín Prieto, Universidad Complutense, Madrid

7.

Friars and Nuns: Dominican Economy and Religious Identity in Medieval Castile Francisco García-Serrano

Abstract The early Dominicans struggled to decide what type of relationship they would have with religious women and Dominicans nuns. Although the issue of the cura mulierum (care of women) was addressed in the Dominican constitution, mostly dealing with spiritual needs, this chapter argues, based on examples from the Madrid convent, that the main concern behind the subsistence of female convents was the great revenue that they generated for the order. The convent of Madrid, converted into a female house, was an economic success while it was always closely supervised by friars, dealing with not only spiritual matters but also with earthly affairs. Keywords: medieval Madrid, medieval Castile, Dominicans, Dominican nuns, economic history, religious history

The early mendicant movement of the thirteenth century sought a humble commitment to apostolic poverty in order to overcome and reject worldly temptations. Their modest clothes revealed the austerity that was emphatically and carefully set down in the rules by which the friars guided their lives. Jordan of Saxony (1222–1237), a companion of Saint Dominic and his successor as master general of the order, took pains to preserve and oversee the conduct of the first Dominicans, as can be perceived in the Liber Consuetudinum, a book containing the primitive constitutions and rules for the preachers.1 The book is a valuable 1 For the constitution of the Dominican Order see G.R. Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 1216–1360 (New York, 1925); Jordan of Saxony, On the Beginnings of the Order of Preacher, ed. S. Tugwell (Dublin, 1982); P.P. Lippini, La vita quotidiana di un convento medievale:

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch07

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source of information on the daily lives of the friars as well as their pastoral duties. While the rejection of wealth and the adoption of an austere way of life were central in the early mendicant movement, another issue that seriously concerned the friars was their relationship with society at large, as they were expected to fulfil their pastoral duties throughout the cura animarum (care of souls), of which the cura mulierum (care of women) was a significant part. Both Saint Francis and Saint Dominic were concerned with the religious condition of women and preached to them, but the relationship between the mendicant friars (as had been the case with Cistercians monks before) and devout women in the thirteenth century was never an easy task.2 In fact, the main problem arose with the transition from taking care of the spiritual needs of women, who freely chose to lead a devout life, to taking care of nuns, who were required to be cloistered, regulated, and administered. The obligations demanded of Dominican and Franciscan friars towards nuns often led to resentment, frustration, and disobedience of papal directions, especially on the part of their superiors. The Dominican constitution of 1228, dictated by Jordan of Saxony, allegedly stated that the care of nuns was not to be accepted, under penalty of excommunication.3 Ignoring the claims of the mendicant authorities to be spared from such obligations, the papacy repeatedly supported cloistering devout women who had voluntarily chosen an apostolic life previously.4 Eventually, the hierarchy of both orders failed to fully evade their responsibilities for the oversight of nuns as two papal bulls in 1263 (for Franciscans) and in 1267 (for Dominicans) provided a settlement to this issue by compelling the friars to take ‘voluntary’ care of the nuns.5 Certainly, the four decades of controversy between their superiors and the papacy failed to affect numerous friars who, during those years, continued to practise the cura monialium, often against the will of their own superiors, revealing that the spiritual and pastoral care of nuns was not conceived by them as a problem, even if the organization of their houses gli ambienti, le regole, l’orario e le mansioni dei Frati Domenicani del tredicesimo secolo (Bologna, 1990). 2 On this question, S. Roisin, ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne et le courant féminin de piété au XIIIe siècle’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 39 (1943), 342–78; S. Thompson, ‘The Problem of the Cistercian Nuns in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries’, in Medieval Women, ed. D. Baker (Oxford, 1978), 227–52. 3 H. Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages (London, 1995), 96. 4 Grundmann, Religious Movements, 199–318. 5 J. Coakley, ‘Gender and the Authority of Friars: the significance of holy women for thirteenthcentury Franciscans and Dominicans’, Church History, 60 (1991), 445–60, at 446.

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was. Many friars cultivated their apostolic life by preaching and ministering to women, actions which were habitual as religious men developed an active discourse of friendship towards women.6 On the one hand, the friars could exercise spiritual authority over women in the sphere of the cura animarum; on the other hand, there is evidence of the admiration and fascination that friars had for women who enjoyed a privileged contact with God that only women could achieve. For example, in the letters that Jordan of Saxony wrote to Diana of Andalò (1201–1236), founder of the Dominican convent of Bologna, one can find great fascination and attraction for Diana’s spiritual qualities. Likewise, the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré expressed his profound admiration for the beguine Margaret of Ypres (1216–1237) when he wrote her vita.7 Similarly, the letters composed by Peter of Dacia revealed his reverence and friendship for the beguine Christina of Stommeln (1242–1312).8 The fascination for female devotion in the late Middle Ages was not rare among male mystics, who often expressed their piety as feminine. As a consequence, the extraordinary contact of these holy women with the divine made the friars aware of their own limitations and the restrictions of their authority, placing men in spiritual subordination to women.9 The spiritual admiration for women and the care for their souls conflicted, however, with the material care of female communities, which raised many concerns. Generally, mendicant masters did not approve anything that was beyond a loose and flexible tie of responsibility towards the nuns. For example, offended by the perseverance of the nuns of the Order of Saint Clare, who demanded to be adopted by his order, the minister general of the Franciscans, St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, boldly proposed in a letter sent in 1263 to the provincial minister of Aragon that the Franciscan brothers ‘have nothing more to do with them unless they first recognize our complete freedom by public written documents sent to the Holy Father’.10

6 J. Coakley, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: female saints and their male collaborators (New York, 2006), 3; J.C. Jackson, Conversation, Friendship and Transformation: contemporary and medieval voices in a theology of discourse (New York, 2016), 98–103, 194. 7 Thomas de Cantimpré, Vita Margarete de Ypris, ed. G. Meersseman, ‘Les frères prêcheurs et le mouvement dévôt en Flandre au XIIIe siècle’, AFP, 18 (1948), 106–30. 8 Coakley, ‘Gender and the Authority of Friars’, 449–551. 9 C.W. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the religious significance of food to medieval women (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 102–5. 10 L. Knox, ‘Audacious Nuns: institutionalizing the Franciscan Order of Saint Clare’, Church History, 69 (2000), 41.

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It was a very frank manner of rejecting any fixed commitment towards the nuns and avoiding any obligations to perform services for their convents.11 There is no doubt that Francis of Assisi had initially contributed to the great success of the Franciscan movement by interacting with religious women. For instance, his affection and respect for Clare was very pronounced. But Francis had no interest in directing an order of nuns. During the following decades the insensitivity of the Franciscans towards the nuns led to frustrations and disputes, and friars and nuns had to repeatedly make compromises between their religious ideals and institutional organization. In general, the Franciscans saw the care of the nuns as an enormous burden which could prevent them from fulfilling their pastoral duties.12 The Dominican authorities also struggled with the temporal care of women for several decades. Initially Saint Dominic instituted the Dominican nuns as an effective way of fulfilling the contemplative and apostolic life of his brethren, using the nuns as an instrument to help the friars achieve their goals. The preachers knew that Dominic’s original success at Prouille, vital in Dominican history, was due to his preaching and pastoral care of women. The constitution of 1228 clearly stated that the care for women was part of the broader Dominican contribution and commitment to both the ars praedicandi and the cura animarum.13 Furthermore, according to the papal orders of 1245, the care of women was an essential part of a broader ministry with the purpose of the salvation of both the friars and of the women to whom they ministered.14 But it was also evident that the spiritual care of women would require material support and administration too; to that end Bishop Fulk of Toulouse had donated in 1215 the church of Saint-Romain and all the land adjacent to it to establish a convent.15 As a consequence, the concerns for dealing with donations and the administration of property pertaining to the nuns appeared early on in Dominican history since it was 11 J. Mueller, ‘Female Mendicancy: a failed experiment? The case of Saint Clare of Assisi’, in The Origin, Development, and Refinement of Medieval Religious Mendicancies, ed. D.S. Prudlo (Leiden, 2011), 79–81. 12 Knox, ‘Audacious Nuns’, 43–5; Grundmann, Religious Movements, 89–92. 13 Early Dominicans: Selected Writings, ed. S. Tugwell (New York, 1982), 457; M.M. Mulchahey, ‘First the Bow is Bent in Study …’: Dominican education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998), 45. 14 Grundmann, Religious Movements, 119; F. Griffiths, ‘“Men’s Duty to Provide for Women’s Needs”: Abelard, Heloise, and their negotiation of the cura monialium’, JMH, 30 (2004), 5. 15 J.A. Smith, ‘Prouille, Madrid, Rome: the evolution of the earliest Dominican instituta for nuns’, JMH, 35 (2009), 343; eadem, ‘Clausura Districta: conceiving space and community for Dominican nuns in the thirteenth century’, Parergon, 27/2 (2010), 13–36; S. Tugwell, ‘Notes on the Life of St Dominic’, AFP, 73 (2004), 5–14; idem, ‘For whom was Prouille Founded?’ AFP, 74 (2004), 5–125.

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a request that certainly jeopardized the friars’ vows of poverty; it turned out to be the cornerstone of an arduous relationship between friars and nuns.16 It was not until Humbert of Romans (1254–1263) was elected general master of the preachers that a uniform constitution for the Dominican nuns was developed in 1259 and the controversy over whether the friars should participate in the cura monialium was finally settled.17 There persisted, however, a delicate discrepancy between the general spiritual care of women and the particular care of nuns and their houses. The burden that the administration of female communities placed upon the friars forced both nuns and religious laywomen to live in an institutional void where only momentary and improvised solutions were sought. Because of this ambiguity, the religious communities of women, even those that eventually were incorporated into a religious order, had to repeatedly ask their superiors and the papacy to protect their status since there was no rigorous and well-established pattern for their admission.18 While many pre-existing female convents strove to be fully incorporated into the Dominican Order, others were incorporated gradually in a more variable manner, preserving quite a few elements from their early status.19 For example, in Castile there existed only three Dominican convents during the entire thirteenth century, but they were integrated into the order in different ways. The convent of Caleruega, a former Augustinian house first established in San Esteban de Gormaz in 1154, was not fully admitted until 1262 and it did follow a pattern of gradual incorporation into the order.20 The convent of Santa María of Zamora was a previous community of beguines established in the mid twelfth century that did not receive the Dominican constitution until 1264. Later it became a home for noblewomen.21 On the other hand, the convent of Santo Domingo el 16 A.J. Lappin, ‘From Osma to Bologna, from Canons to Friars, from the Preaching to the Preachers: the Dominican path towards mendicancy’, in Origin, Development, and Refinement, 41–4. 17 E.T. Brett, Humbert of Romans: his life and views of thirteenth-century society, Studies and Texts, 67 (Toronto, 1984), 73. 18 M. Lehmijoki-Gardner, ‘The Women behind their Saints: Dominican women’s institutional uses of the cults of their religious companions’, in Images of Medieval Sanctity: essays in honour of Gary Dickson, ed. D. Strickland (Leiden, 2007), 5–24, at 5. 19 S.F. Johnson, ‘Convents and Change: autonomy, marginalization, and religious affiliation in late-medieval Bologna’, CHR, 97 (2011), 250–75. 20 R. Ríos de la Llave, Mujeres de clausura en la Castilla medieval: el monasterio de Santo Domingo de Caleruega (Alcalá de Henares, 2007), 63–81. 21 P. Linehan, The Ladies of Zamora (Manchester, 1997), 1–29; M.L. Bueno Domínguez, ‘Santa María de las Dueñas de Zamora. ¿Beguinas o monjas? El proceso de 1279’, Historia, Instituciones, Documentos, 20 (1993), 85–105.

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Real of Madrid, although originally established by Saint Dominic for his friars, was transformed into a convent in a very unusual way. A possible explanation for the peculiar foundation of Santo Domingo of Madrid may be given by the Dominican chronicles, which show that Pedro of Madrid, a personal companion of Dominic, was involved initially in the convent’s foundation and might have influenced the early brethren to choose his hometown as a suitable place to have a convent. Despite the appeal of this possibility for Dominican hagiography and its chroniclers, it does not seem, however, to be the most convincing answer, since the preachers were always very pragmatic in their foundations. It is possible, on the other hand, that their choice of Madrid could still have been practical if they had a different goal in mind, such as economic gain for the convent of Madrid, and therefore for the order, as we will argue in this chapter. By making the nuns the legitimate owners of the convent and its growing properties, the friars could have avoided the perils of being blamed for economic profiting, while still maintaining a subtle, yet steady, presence in the convent as administrators. By analysing the early decades of this convent, we can gain a better understanding of the complex relationship between nuns and friars. Founded around 1217, Santo Domingo of Madrid was the first Dominican friary to open its doors in the Iberian Peninsula.22 Soon after it had been established, however, the friary was transformed into a nunnery, for reasons that are not fully explained. To be sure, this is a unique fact in the history of the Dominicans in Castile, for no other friary was converted into a female convent in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Some accounts argued that this transition occurred so that the friars could keep up the vows of perpetual poverty, having no income or wealth, by detaching themselves from the material gains of the convent of Madrid.23 But the truth is that the origins of Madrid were perhaps more modest than those of other Dominican priories in Castile and it might have been too early to assess its potential future wealth. The town of Madrid allowed the Dominicans to settle only in a depopulated area extra mura, where they built a very poor house where even 22 La documentación de Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid (1284–1416), ed. M.T. Carrasco Lazareno (Madrid, 1997); R. Ríos de la Llave, ‘El problema de la cura monialium en una comunidad de monjas dominicanas del reino castellano leonés: Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid’, Historia, instituciones, documentos, 32 (2005), 315–28; J.R. Romero Fernández-Pacheco, Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid: ordenación económica de un señorío conventual durante la baja Edad Media (1219–1530) (Salamanca, 2008); Smith, ‘Prouille, Madrid, Rome’, 340–52. 23 H. del Castillo, Historia General de Sancto Domingo y de su Ordern de Predicadores: primera parte (Madrid, 1584), ch. 41, 82–85.

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Dominic himself helped in the construction.24 According to the sources, an unspecified number of friars continued to reside in the convent throughout the century. It could be argued that, contrary to the wishes of the masters, emphasizing exclusively the pastoral role of the friars, in Madrid most friars were engaged in worldly affairs dealing with the economic administration of the convent and it was not until 1258 that the Dominicans assumed the full role of taking care of both the material and spiritual needs of the nuns. It was probably due to harsh times for the convent, the Church, and Castile as a whole, suffering famine and severe droughts, since that same year King Alfonso X issued an order protecting the sisters because ‘certain men mistreated them and did not respect their property’.25 No doubt, the main characteristics of the convent include its economic success and rapid territorial expansion, and they were not unnoticed by the population of Madrid. Such an economic growth was accomplished partially through the decisive support of the royal family and the papacy. On the other hand, the nuns were not as fortunate in their relations with their Dominican masters. In fact, the nuns of Madrid were not the only sisters to experience difficulties with their own order since most Dominican convents of nuns were on the verge of disappearing throughout the thirteenth century.26 Altogether, Santo Domingo of Madrid presents a singular case in Dominican history; not only was the convent originally a male institution that was soon converted into a female one, but also, contrary to Dominican patterns, it was founded in a relatively small village. Madrid did not provide the urban flavour, with thriving marketplaces and merchants, so much desired by the Dominican friars, which was to be found in other Iberian cities such as Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, Barcelona, or Ciutat de Mallorca.27 It was a rural village whose economy was based primarily on agriculture and herding, with very minor craft and commercial sectors.28 The people of Madrid personified the frontier society of Castile, where towns were developing with a significant presence of royal power; as late 24 del Castillo, Historia General, fol. 84r. 25 F. García-Serrano, Preachers of the City: the expansion of the Dominican Order in Castile (1217–1348) (New Orleans, 1997), 50. 26 E.T. Brett, ‘Humbert and the Dominican Second Order’ in Humbert of Romans: his life and views of thirteenth-century society (Toronto, 1984), 57–79; W. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order, 2 vols (New York, 1966–73), i, 377–400; E.W. MacDonnell; The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture, with Special Emphasis on the Belgian Scene (New York, 1969), 81–100. 27 García-Serrano, Preachers, 52. 28 M. Montero Vallejo, El Madrid medieval (Madrid, 1987), 185–95.

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as 1152 Alfonso VII conceded the village an alfoz, the surrounding rural territories, for its expansion.29 As we have seen, the convent of Santo Domingo was originally located in a totally rural and marginal area, distant from the core of the village of Madrid; there the convent acted as a colonizing agent. Many houses and farmland were soon acquired in the convent’s vicinity and an arrabal, an adjacent neighbourhood surrounding the convent, was already structured before the end of the thirteenth century.30 The convent then, rather than being attracted to a thriving urban centre, generated conditions in a rural setting which resembled those of the towns. The initial rural character of the convent was more evident because of the lack of interest on the part of its members to acquire land in the core of the village. The first documented purchase of urban property was not recorded until 1242, when the convent bought houses in the neighbourhood of San Miguel;31 thereafter there were hardly any more purchases of land within the urban space, despite having a profound urban character.32 As for popular support, the initial generalized and sympathetic attitude of the inhabitants of Madrid, exemplified by Iago Mamés’s generous donation of land and livestock, changed slightly when the nuns, well administered by their male counterparts, began to noticeably improve their economic status. The sources indicate that the relationship between the inhabitants of Madrid and the convent was reduced to mere business transactions shortly after the nuns became visibly prosperous; the donations and the private financial support of the people of Madrid seem to have become much scarcer right after the f irst decade of the convent’s existence. There were only a few private donations registered after 1230: one by Doña Locia in 1231, another in 1232 by Don Aparicio, and another later donation in 1259 by Esteban Jimenez, which included land in La Alameda.33 Signif icantly, the nuns of Santo Domingo soon moved from trust in popular patronage to the protection of the royal court and the papal Curia. The nuns had already secured royal economic support in 1226 when King Ferdinand III confirmed the perpetual donation of houses and vineyards 29 J.M. Monsalvo Antón, ‘Frontera pionera, monarquía en expansión y formación de los concejos de villa y tierra: relaciones de poder en el realengo concejil entre el Duero y el Tajo (c. 1072–c. 1222)’, Arqueología y territorio medieval, 10/2 (2003), 65–6. 30 Montero Vallejo, Madrid Medieval, 166. 31 AHN, Clero 1353/14 (May 1242); M.I. Pérez de Tudela, ‘Madrid en la documentación de Santo Domingo el Real’, En la España Medieval, 7 (Madrid, 1985), 1000–4. 32 Montero Vallejo, Madrid Medieval, 145–6. 33 AHN, Clero 1353/5 (1231); 1353/6 (October 1232); 1354/9 (1 October 1259).

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with inheritance rights, granted by Don Gil, a canon in Guadalajara, who also donated to them an orchard in Alvega in 1229.34 However, except for royal privileges and papal concessions, most of the remaining documents, after the 1230s, deal almost exclusively with land transactions. For example, Pedro Fernández, under the supervision of Fray Sancho, the provisor of the nuns, sold his houses, estates, pastures, and water resources to the nuns in Corralejos.35 Don Aparicio sold them the lands he owned in neighbouring Leganés, and Doña Marina traded her lands in Corralejos for another piece of land than the nuns possessed nearby.36 There were other transactions with Don Juan and Don García, and the inventory continues with more than twenty transactions of lands in only twenty years. There were also claims against the convent, as in the case of Ferrán Martinez, who demanded that the nuns return to him land in Corralejos because it was his father’s property.37 It should be noted that Fray Sancho was always mentioned in the documents as the person in charge of making the purchase of land for the nuns, which indicates that friars were consistently present in the convent.38 It is evident that the few friars who remained there were committed to administrative functions and their pastoral and preaching activities were reduced to just caring for the nuns, thus preventing them from reaching the bulk of the population of Madrid. The economic success of the nuns not only stopped private donations but also caused the enmity and jealousy of some inhabitants of Madrid, who even threatened their physical integrity. The situation must have been of great concern since it led King Ferdinand III to issue a letter in 1228 safeguarding both the Dominican sisters and their property: ‘I order firmly that nobody dare to harm them, or enter the convent or any of their properties by force.’39 The nuns not only needed financial help and the defence of their property, but also protection from a violent society in which women were often attacked and ill-treated. In fact, indiscriminate violence against women religious was widespread because Ferdinand III in 1220 had already 34 AHN, Clero 1353/1 (20 September 1226); 1353/4 (2 October 1229); González, Reinado, ii, 263–4, no. 218; 296–7, no. 255. 35 AHN, Clero 1353/3 (August 1229). 36 García-Serrano, Preachers, 49. 37 AHN, Clero 1353/7ter (20 April 1236). 38 AHN, Clero 1353/6 (September 1232); 1353/7 (1232); 1353/7bis (1233): Trade of land and vineyards between the convent and Don Juan; 1353/8 (February 1238): Friar Sancho for the convent of Santo Domingo; 1353/9 (17 October 1239): García Fenández sold land he owned in Corralejos to the convent. 39 AHN, Clero 1353/2 (23 June 1228); also González, Reinado, i., 277–8, no. 236.

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promulgated an order to protect nuns from all religious orders from being abducted from their convents and from sibi carnalis copula asocianda. 40 The situation, at least of what is known about the nuns of Madrid, probably did not improve much throughout the century since in 1258 the aforementioned orders given by Alfonso X specifically mentioned that certain men did not respect the nuns’ property and that the nuns were very ‘poor’, which possibly meant that they were without protection. Alfonso X reissued the orders in 1270, and in 1282, the Infante Sancho (the future King Sancho IV), responding to the request of his mother, Queen Violante, ultimately took the convent under his direct protection. 41 Both the scarce donations and the signs of violence point to the fact that the Dominican sisters were not as well connected to the fabric of Madrid society – especially the lower ranks – as much as they were to the king, the nobles, and the hierarchy of the Church. In fact, the convent ended up opening its doors to the daughters of the elite, as many other convents had done in centuries past. They were a sort of gynaeceum where the daughters of noble and royal families were sent, bringing with them generous dowries that spoke eloquently of their social status. The Dominican convents were no exception. For example, Pero Bonifaz, mayor of Burgos, authorized Don Claros Martinez and his wife Dona Mayor Pérez to donate land and a house that she owned in Burgos to the Dominican convent of Caleruega so that the nuns would accept Estefanía, Inés, and Isabel, three of his six daughters. 42 A case pertaining to the nuns’ right to inherit and receive donations serves to illustrate the state of the relationship between the nuns and the different social groups. Apparently, the Dominican nuns seemed quite well-to-do not only to the bulk of the inhabitants of Madrid, but also to royal officials. Madrid was a village under royal jurisdiction where the officials of the king acted regularly. Perhaps contradicting King Ferdinand III’s wishes, a group of officials attempted to limit the convent’s economic growth by not allowing the nuns to receive donations and alms, going so far as to ban the receipt of inheritances from their relatives. They intended to limit the concentration of land tenure among institutions or social groups that, given their special status, were exempt from paying taxes. It is not known whether Ferdinand III had first-hand knowledge of this matter, but the Dominican sorores, seeing their advantageous situation at stake and menaced by those 40 González, Reinado, i., 149, no. 120 (15 July 1220). 41 Pérez de Tudela, ‘Madrid en la Documentación’, 1004; AHN, Clero 1355/1 and 1355/15 (14 May 1282). 42 AHN, Clero, 185/13 (10 June 1309).

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who represented the king, opted to appeal immediately to the papal Curia. Mediating directly in this matter, Pope Gregory IX sought to comfort the nuns by issuing a letter (27 March 1236) granting them permission to accept the contested inheritances and donations without hindrance.43 Fortunately for the nuns, Ferdinand III went along with this papal decision, ordering his officials not to trouble but, on the contrary, to support the Dominican nuns of Madrid. In this instance, the king seemed to be treating the Dominican sisters in a special manner – going against his economic interests – to please the pope. But the king soon realized his mistake. Looking after his patrimony, Ferdinand III changed his mind just two years after the incident between his off icials and the nuns. He sent a letter to the municipal council of Madrid ordering its members to prohibit the sale of property to religious orders, Jews, and Moors because he, and the municipal council, saw their tax revenues greatly diminished. Likewise, members of religious orders, Jews, and Muslims were not allowed to buy property or to receive it in donation. 44 The acquisitions of the Dominican nuns appear to justify the king’s concern; they had monopolized the land in the areas of Corralejos, La Alameda, and Valnadú. The immediate outcome of this letter is not known, but the problem finally seems to have been settled in favour of the nuns. Much later, in 1277, the convent inherited land, mills, and a store from a freila de Santo Domingo, whose name was Urraca Diaz, without any apparent opposition. 45 We have seen particular circumstances affecting the convent of Madrid, but a brief examination of the Dominican Second Order may help in better understanding the broader contexts surrounding the nuns. Together with Prouille and Rome, Madrid was one of the three original female convents of the order. While the Dominican nuns, despite experiencing some trouble, were successful overall in their local context, they did not have a harmonious existence within the order as a whole. Perhaps an answer can be found in the fact that medieval religious authority lay exclusively in the hands of men, while nuns were required by the papacy, which was especially concerned with the issue of enclosure, to play the role of submissive lesser sisters. The attitude of their religious brethren was probably reflected by society at large. City dwellers did not sponsor chapels in female convents to the same extent 43 Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, 8 vols, ed. T. Ripoll (Rome, 1729), i, 481. 44 González, Reinado, iii, 115, no. 622 (26 April 1238). 45 Pérez de Tudela, ‘Madrid en la Documentación’, 998–9; AHN, Clero 1355/12 (1 September 1277).

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that they did in friaries; this was the case in Madrid, where it was not until the fourteenth century that we find the first burials in the convent and the steady patronage of noble and royal families. 46 To be sure, the attitude of neglect and disdain for women was not limited to the religious orders; it was widespread in medieval societies, and women often felt neglected or ignored. This fact helps to explain why heretical movements were extremely successful at recruiting female members and it made possible that the first Dominicans specifically sought the cura mulierum as a significant part of the cura animarum. 47 The Dominicans were no exception in keeping their nuns away from positions of command; but, as we have seen, they originally failed to develop a common rule for nuns. From the very beginning, the authority of visitandi corrigendique et priorissam remouendi held by the friars was expressed by Saint Dominic in a letter addressed to those very nuns of Madrid. 48 As we have seen so far, not only were the nuns denied authority, but early in Dominican history they were also seen as a burden; the general masters attempted several times to shed their responsibilities toward the convents. Taking care of women, and more so of their large patrimony, as in Madrid, they argued, could deflect the Dominicans from their ultimate goal of preaching and would endanger their vow of poverty since they would have to look after the means for the sisters’ support. Saint Dominic, in the letter sent to the nuns of Madrid, was very explicit on this matter, openly expressing the friars’ inability to accept responsibility for the material support for the nuns: Et quia uobis subuenire in temporalibus non possumus.49 However, although he never questioned the actual existence of Dominican convents, according to Jordan of Saxony, Dominic changed his mind right at the end of his life and recommended the friars avoid any suspicious contact with women.50 46 M.T. Carrasco Lozano, ‘Los conventos de San Francisco y de Santo Domingo de la Villa de Madrid (siglos XIII–XV): breves consideraciones históricas, jurídicas y diplomaticas’. VI Semana de Estudios Medievales: Nájera (31 de julio al 4 de agosto de 1995) (Logroño, 1996), 239–54. 47 Colección diplomática del Real convento de Santo Domingo de Caleruega, ed. E. Martínez (Vergara, Spain, 1931); J.M. Miura Andrades, ‘Algunas notas sobre las beatas andaluzas’, in Las mujeres en el cristianismo medieval, ed. A. Muñoz (Madrid, 1989), 289–302; idem, ‘Beatas y beateríos andaluces en la Baja Edad Media: su vinculación con la Orden de Predicadores’. Actas del V Coloquio Internacional de Historia Medieval de Andalucía (Córdoba, 1988), 527–35; C. Núñez Rodríguez, El monasterio de dominicas de Belvís de Santiago de Compostela (Ferrol, 1990); M. Echániz Sans, Las mujeres de la Orden de Santiago en la Edad Media (Salamanca, 1992). 48 S. Tugwell, ‘St. Dominic’s Letter to The Nuns in Madrid’, AFP, 56 (1986), 16. 49 Tugwell, ‘St. Dominic’s Letter’, 12–13. 50 L. Canetti, ‘Le ultime volontà di San Domenico: per la storia dell’Ordo Praedicatorum dal 1221 al 1236’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 48 (1994), 43–97.

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Soon after, the first serious opposition to the cura monialium appeared in the general chapter of 1224, just three years after Dominic’s death, when the foundation of new convents was suspended. Later, in the chapters of 1228 and 1235, it was boldly stated: ‘Under pain of excommunication we prohibit any of our friars from labouring for or procuring that the care or supervision of nuns or any other women be committed to the friars.’51 As a consequence, for several years, only the three original Dominican convents in Prouille, Madrid, and Rome, with the later addition of Bologna, were allowed to exist within the order. After periods of contention, ambiguous negotiation, and direct papal intervention – as in 1236 when Gregory IX wrote a letter ordering the friars to support the Second Order spiritually and materially,52 or when in 1243 Innocent IV released the friars, once more, from their duties towards nuns, a remedy was in the horizon for the nuns.53 The give and take of papal orders and disputes continued for decades, and the question about the cura mulierum began to develop a final resolution in 1267. In his letter Affectu sincere, Pope Clement IV established the general guidelines for the relationship between Dominican friars and nuns.54 Hereafter the friars were not required to administer the temporal affairs of the nuns; nor were they allowed to reside in the convents, except at Prouille, Madrid, and San Sisto in Rome.55 Towards 1277 the conflict of the cura monialium was apparently resolved and the number of Dominican convents grew exponentially in the medieval west, with approximately 150 convents. Half of those convents were located in Northern Europe (seventy-four in Germany), where the Dominicans were engaged in directing groups of devout women and beguines with whom they developed close religious bonds. In Italy (forty-two convents) the friars also took it upon themselves to preach among devout women of marginal status (single women, widows) who wanted to live in communities, choosing to be cloistered or to become members of a Third Order or mendicants.56 Contrary to these tendencies elsewhere, in the Crown of Castile, the land of 51 Brett, Humbert of Romans, 59. 52 See V.D. Carro, Domingo de Guzmán: historia documentada (Madrid, 1973), 327. He refers to del Castillo, primera parte, lib. 1, cap. 42, 122; L.G. Alonso Getino Santo Domingo de Guzmán (Madrid, 1939), 154–7; Martínez, Colección diplomática, 279–80. 53 Bullarium, i, 121. 54 Bullarium, i, 481. 55 Brett, Humbert of Romans, 74. 56 Coakley, ‘Gender and the Authority of Friars’, 445–60, esp. 446–7; idem, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power‬ ; P.D. Johnson, ‘Mulier et Monialis: the medieval nun’s self-image’, Thought, 64 (1989), 242–53.

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Dominic, there were only the three mentioned female convents established during the entire thirteenth century: Madrid, Caleruega, and Zamora.57 One reason which can explain the difference is that the friars did not fully serve the spiritual needs of Castilian women and they opted for economic interest, serving the magnates and the monarchy. Neither the papal orders nor the decisions of the Dominican chapters and general masters were apparently accepted in Madrid, and they were most likely ignored entirely. The presence of friars in the convent of Madrid was continuous and very much stable during the entire century: Fray Sancho from 1226 to 1246, Fray Aparicio and Fray García in 1258, and Fray Pero de Toro in 1259.58 Well before the end of the conflict, friars’ names were listed in the documents; but rather than being referred to as ‘priors’, which implies the administration of both spiritual and material matters, they were referred to as provisor or procurador (purveyor, steward, or treasurer of a religious house), which suggests that they were mostly engaged in the material administration of the convent, its workforce, and the exploitation of its territorial possessions. Not until 1259, when the nuns were finally cloistered, did the title of prior replace that of provisor or procurador and assume both spiritual and material duties over the nuns.59 This was more evident in subsequent years after Clement IV’s letter Affectu sincere in 1267. For instance, in a document of 1272 the tutelage of the prior Fray Gil Vicente de Villamediana over Doña Leocadia, the prioress, and over the entire convent is described as giving consensus or licence to purchase property.60 Likewise, in 1283, Fray Pedro Peláez, still bearing the title of prior of the convent, was directly involved in material affairs when he allowed Doña Leocadia to exchange certain vineyards that the convent owned.61 In this way, the original wishes of Saint Dominic were finally fulfilled as the nuns became economically self-sufficient but were still controlled by the friars, despite the initial concerns about suspicious contact with women. 57 Ríos de la Llave, Mujeres de Clausura, 54; cf. J.B. Free, ‘Urban Development and the cura monialium in Thirteenth-Century Germany’, Viator 3 (1972), 311-328; M. Pontenay de Fontette, Les religieuses à l’âge classique du droit canon (Paris, 1967), 126, n. 29. 58 Carrasco Lazareno, ‘Los conventos’, 245. 59 Ríos de la Llave, ‘La cura monialium’, 58. 60 AHN, Clero 1355/6 (14 March 1272). 61 AHN, Clero 1355/19 (14 February 1283). Although the orders were obeyed in Madrid, in other convents, where the friars were not allowed to associate with nuns, we find friars dealing with the temporal affairs of the nuns. AHN, Clero 3070/16 (25 August 1299), in the Dominican convent of Santa María la Real of Toledo, the names appeared of six friars performing land transactions – Juan Martínez, Domingo Ruiz, Pero Ruiz, Juan Portogalés, Sancho, and Martínez.

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The denial and struggle of the Dominican nuns is all the more striking when one recalls that Dominic’s original success was due to the support of female believers and the original raison d’être of Prouille was to take care of women converted from Catharism. By presenting an alternative to the Albigensian heresy in southern France, he converted many women back to Christianity. He was also successful in founding a house in Prouille, the first of all the Dominican convents. In Rome, San Sisto was established to reunite the diverse number of nuns and orders dispersed by the city. Dominic, ever the pragmatist, knew that new religious movements were disseminated easily among women first, and from them into society. It is known that women greatly outnumbered men among the crowds of people who gathered around preachers to hear sermons, and were likely more docile and better listeners.62 As the Church’s theologians had established, the nuns – being, after all, women and therefore flawed – could not obtain spiritual perfection by themselves. Humbert of Romans clearly depicts in his De eruditione praedicationis four reasons why women could never be equated to preachers: lack of intelligence, condition of subjugation, disposition to luxury, and the foolishness of their sex.63 Only ordained friars could celebrate Mass, hear confession, and take care of the spiritual business of the nuns. Given these limitations to their religious life and the struggle to enter the order, it could be argued that the concerns of nuns, such as in Santo Domingo of Madrid, shifted from an incomplete spirituality to mere material interests. Indeed, the difficulty with the internal affairs of the sorores contrasted with their outstanding expansion in landholding. They not only monopolized the land in Corralejos, la Alameda, and Valnadú, but also bought ovens and mills to control the manufacturing sector; and further evidence shows that the convent also owned livestock (probably sheep and goats), as is mentioned in documents of 1270 and 1275: ganados del convento.64 The convent of Madrid was neither in an important city nor was it a male institution. The ultimate goal of the Dominicans, which was preaching, could not be realized in a small village. Why, then, were the friars interested in founding a convent in Madrid, and why did they continue to be so directly 62 According to Menot, a fifteenth-century French Franciscan preacher, ‘women outnumbered men at sermons by at least four to one’. L. Taylor, Soldiers of Christ: preaching in late medieval and Reformation France (New York, 1992), 31, nn. 137, 251. 63 Brett, Humbert of Romans, 65–6. 64 AHN, Clero 1355/3 (24 July 1270) and 1355/10 (June 1275), the first document issued by Alfonso X and the second by the Infante Don Fernando de la Cerda granting privileges to the convent so that its livestock can graze freely.

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involved in the convent’s temporal affairs, especially when convents were perceived as a burden? In addition to the papal desire to maintain the first convents founded by Dominic for the cura mulierum, the Dominicans might also have used their female houses as sources of income to thwart those who criticized the friars for their increasing wealth. The lack of support from their male counterparts forced the nuns to look for their own means of subsistence, and in that, undoubtedly, they were successful. The convent was also well received by the Castilian royal family, and this could have helped the Dominicans gain leverage at the highest level. Economically successful, frequently neglected, and yet closely controlled by the friars, the convent of Madrid could fit adequately into this scheme and provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the peculiarities of the cura monialium amongst the mendicant friars. Francisco García-Serrano, Saint Louis University, Madrid

8. Networks of Dissent and the Franciscans of the Crown of Aragon Emily E. Graham

Abstract In the fourteenth century, the Franciscan Order was riven by conflict over the observance of the order’s vow of poverty, precipitated by the writings and political connections of a group known today as the Spiritual Franciscans. The Kingdom of Aragon’s Franciscan communities, though not widely studied as part of the disputes, were deeply involved. Catalonian poverty enthusiasts were frequent participants in the network of Spiritual Franciscan supporters throughout the Western Mediterranean. Local communities in Aragon were affected by the disputes for several generations, as demonstrated by the trial of the Franciscan tertiaries and beguins of Vilafranca del Penedès from 1345 to 1346. Keywords: Franciscans, Spiritual Franciscans, medieval Aragon, Vilafranca del Penedès

The medieval Crown of Aragon had a long and rich history of harbouring, or at least benignly overlooking, heterodox groups within its borders. In the early fourteenth century Aragon hosted or served as an important travel conduit for a number of heretical Franciscan friars. Their movements are sufficiently well documented to indicate the larger network within which these heretical refugees lived and travelled, and which shaped their worldview. The friars and their sympathizers had been persecuted, then condemned for their promotion of a strict observance of poverty. The issue of how stringently to observe the vow of poverty was a matter of open dispute within the order for several decades, and both sides attracted support from princes, popes, and educated laymen. These friars and their followers are today grouped under the umbrella term ‘Spiritual Franciscans’, which

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch08

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somewhat masks the disparate nature of the poverty enthusiasts – more an assorted hodgepodge of sympathizers than a coherent group. The Spirituals loom large in the narrative of the Franciscan Order, and have been treated by scholars as a bridge between dissidents in the earliest years of the order and the successful reforms of the Observant movement in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. These reforming friars and their followers were active across a wide geographical range, with small groups scattered throughout the Western Mediterranean: in central and southern Italy, Sicily, southern France, Aragon, and Majorca. The extant literature on them has developed predominantly along national lines, producing a number of excellent studies that focus on the intellectual output of a specific individual or on Spirituals within a particular geographic area. As a result, the extent of the Spiritual Franciscans’ networks, their degree of travel, communication, and the extent to which this larger network informed poverty rigorists’ worldview has been somewhat overlooked. For the Catalonian friars and associated sympathizers considered here, those networks stretched across the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, as far as Sicily, Venice, and Tangiers. The diocese of Barcelona, for instance, served as a refuge, launching point, and way-station for friars embroiled in the poverty disputes. Within the diocese itself, rich local and regional networks prolonged the impact of the poverty controversy. Long after the poverty debates had quietly vanished from Avignon and the courts of the Western Mediterranean, the mountain towns of Catalonia sheltered and inherited poverty-related tensions that could erupt in suspicion, accusation, and outright violence. Study of the Catalonian Spirituals is made somewhat difficult by overlapping and confused terms for poverty enthusiasts connected to the Franciscan Order. They may alternatively be called tertiaries, penitents, Spirituals or beguins. The term ‘Spiritual’ has been retroactively applied to an assortment of groups throughout the Western Mediterranean. ‘Beguin’ is particularly fluid, and may be used in a positive sense with reference to orthodox lay penitents, or in a pejorative sense to refer to mendicant tertiaries and followers of the suppressed cult of Peter John Olivi.1 These friars and tertiaries 1 See D. Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans: from protest to persecution in the century after Saint Francis (University Park, 2001); L.A. Burnham, So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: the beguin heretics of Languedoc (Ithaca, 2008). On the Franciscans of Aragon, J. Webster, Els Menorets: the Franciscans in the realms of Aragon from St Francis to the Black Death (Toronto, 1993); P. Sanahuja, História de la seráfica provincial de Cataluña (Barcelona, 1959). On the beguins of Catalonia, see J. Pou y Martí, Visionarios, Beguinos y Fraticelos Catalanes (siglos xiii–xv) (Alicante, 1996);

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sought more stringent observation of poverty as part of the vita apostolica, but in ways that were broadly divergent. They included staunch supporters of the papacy who sought official approval for a new order, unrepentant rebels and fugitives from justice, highly educated theologians in cardinals’ palaces, and lower-class tertiaries venerating new local martyrs. The earliest figures now identified as Spiritual Franciscans were first recorded in the 1280s in the March of Ancona in central Italy. These small groups of rigorists and theologians advocated for reform of the Franciscan practice of poverty, and were consequently harassed or imprisoned by the Franciscan hierarchy. The groups included several highly educated friars circulating within the order’s educational system while developing and reinforcing each others’ views on poverty. Perhaps the most well known of these is Peter John Olivi, a Provençal friar, author and theologian.2 He was born near Béziers in 1248, and entered the Franciscan convent there in 1260. Within a decade he was a student in Paris. He was tried and censured for his doctrine of usus pauper, or ‘poor use’ in 1283; the doctrine became a point of conflict between the Spirituals and the Church hierarchy in the decades after his death, inspiring public debates at the papal court and several papal bulls on the nature of Franciscan poverty. Olivi returned to his native Provence in the 1290s, continuing to expound upon his theories, and was a matter of concern at Franciscan general chapters until his death in Narbonne on 14 March 1298. A year later, the Franciscan general chapter at Lyons condemned several of his teachings, and burned his writings. This condemnation formed the basis for many of the accusations of heresy levelled against Italian and Provençal Spirituals and his followers, many of whom were tried for possessing Olivian views and copies of his banned writings. J. Perarnau i Espelt, ‘Noves dades sobre béguins de Girona’, AIEG, 25 (1979–80), 237–48; idem, ‘Una altra carta de Guiu Terrena sobre el procés inquisitorial contra el franciscà fra Bernat Fuster’, Estudis Franciscans, 82 (1981), 383–92; idem, ‘Francescanesimo ed eremitismo nell’area catalana’, in Eremitismo nel francescanesimo medievale: atti del XVII Convegno Internazionale, Assisi 12–13–14 ottobre 1989 (Perugia, 1991); idem, ‘Opere di Fr Petrus Johannis in processi catalani d’inquisizione della prima metà del xiv secolo’ Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 91 (1998), 505–16; idem, ‘Noves dades sobre manuscrits “espirituals” d’Arnau de Vilanova’, Arxiu de textos catalans antics 27 (2008), 351–424. 2 There is a vast and expanding bibliography on Olivi: D. Burr, The Persecution of Peter John Olivi (Philadelphia, 1976); Pierre de Jean Olivi (1248–1298), ed. A. Boureau and S. Piron (Paris, 1999); the online resource Oliviana: mouvements et dissidences spirituels xiiie–xive siècles (http:// oliviana.revues.org); Pierre de Jean Olivi: philosophe et theologien. Actes du colloque de Philosophie medievale, 24–25 octobre 2008, Université de Fribourg, ed. C. Suarez and N. König-Pralong (Berlin, 2010).

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As the persistence of his ideas suggests, Olivi’s greatest influence lay in the loyalty of his followers. His tomb in Narbonne almost immediately became the site of a popular cult, making his death date, 14 March, a significant local feast day celebrated on both sides of the Pyrenees.3 Olivi’s reputation as a holy and learned man, and miracles performed at his tomb, spread his cult with amazing rapidity. Word was spread by the brothers of the Franciscan convent at Narbonne, aided by travelling devotees and those who embraced his teachings, known as ‘beguins’. The term ‘beguin’ predates the explosion of the poverty controversy in the order, having originated in the early thirteenth century and circulating in widespread use by the founding of the Third Order. 4 It was used as a derogatory term for Franciscan tertiaries and unaffiliated persons seeking to live as religious in the world, and quickly became conflated with those who venerated Olivi. Only a year after his death, the 1299 provincial council held at Béziers expressed suspicion of ‘beguins’, describing them as persons who wore distinctive clothing, practised penitence (tertiaries were also known as brothers and sisters of penitence), and preached on the coming Apocalypse – all resonant with both the tertiary movement and Olivi’s writings.5 Catalonian beguins appear within the circles of these French groups, but as visitors to the area rather than part of a wider network. Documents dealing with Franciscan poverty outliers in this period can be difficult to interpret as they use a fluid, often overlapping terminology that confuses the identities of different poverty-related beliefs. This led some of the early works on the subject to use terms such as Spirituals interchangeably with fraticelos and ‘beguin’. Fraticelos, or fraticelli, properly refers to the members of the Franciscan hierarchy who opposed the poverty rigorists’ attempts at reform or schism from the order in the 1310s. They then found themselves fighting the papacy’s attempts to combat even moderate 3 Burnham, So Great a Light, 15–30; Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, 91–4. 4 C. Schmitt, ‘La position du Tiers-ordre dans le conflict des Spirituels et de Fraticelles en Italie’, in I frati penitenti di S Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed. M. d’Alatri (Rome, 1977), 179–90, at 180–1. 5 See Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, 92. The term as used in Aragon certainly was blurred between tertiaries, orthodox penitential laywomen known as ‘beguines’ (who were most common in northern France and the Low Countries), similar informal communities referred to elsewhere as pinzocchere or bizzoche, and followers of Olivi: it was used both to identify heretical Olivians at Vilafranca and elsewhere. In the same period in Aragon, the term was used to describe an apparently perfectly legitimate hospital dels beguins established in Valencia for praiseworthy male and female penitents (though their orthodox nature is somewhat suspect, as the hospital was also connected with the circle of Arnald of Villanova, himself connected with Olivians). See Webster, Els Menorets, 247.

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Franciscan poverty during the 1320s.6 Beguin, as we have seen, had its own difficulties of meaning. Despite this confusion of terms, it is clear from the sources that beguins devoted to Olivi are known to have existed in Catalonia, and made their presence felt elsewhere, in the earliest years of his cult. They appear in local records as travelling preachers, and are recorded appearing among like-minded groups in southern France and Italy. In 1300, a Venetian chronicle records the appearance of a Provençal male beguin and several women, bearing copies of Olivi’s writings – the confession of the male beguin survives in several editions; he repeatedly uses the term usus pauper or ‘poor use’, a distinctly Olivian concept of the observance of poverty.7 The Italian Spiritual and prolific author Angelo Clareno recorded a similar story in his autobiographical letter of 1317, known as the Epistola Excusatoria. In a key difference, Clareno identified the male beguin as Catalan. 8 Clareno was also aware of another early incident involving Catalan beguins, as he recorded with zest in his Chronicle of the Seven Tribulations of the Order of Friars Minor. In 1302, the Catalan friar Pons Bautugat was imprisoned by the Franciscan Order. He had been suspected of possessing some of Olivi’s condemned writings, which he refused to hand over to the authorities.9 These incidents were not outliers: throughout the stories of the beguins of Languedoc, there are scattered accounts of Catalan ‘friends’ or unnamed Catalan beguins in houses in southern France.10 These early stories are focused at the local level and within the Franciscan Order, which was the common framework for addressing poverty rigorists for decades. But the tumultuous events of the 1310s, which brought Franciscan dissidents into international politics and brought beguins under papal scrutiny, foreshadowed a more sustained and critical attitude towards Aragonese beguins on the part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This had far-reaching effects for the beguins of Catalonia and their networks, heightening tensions within beguin and tertiary communities throughout the 6 A. Tabarroni, Paupertas Christi et Apostolorum: l’ideale francescano in discussion (1322–1324) (Rome, 1990). 7 D. Zorzi, ‘Testi inediti francescani in lingua provenzale’, Miscellanea del Centro di Studi medievali, 58 (1956) 272–8. 8 Angelo Clareno Opere 1: epistole, ed. L. Von Auw (Rome, 1980), no. 49. 9 Angelo Clareno Opere 2: historia septem tribulationem Ordinis Minorum, ed. O. Rossini (Rome, 1999); translation, D. Burr and E. Randolph Daniel, A Chronicle or History of the Seven Tribulations of the Order of Brothers Minor (New York, 2005). The incident is given particular attention in a fifteenth-century Tuscan manuscript translation of the Tribulations, as Pons’s imprisonment and torments are depicted larger than life (Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale, Vittorio Emanuele, MSS 1167, fols 53v, 56r). 10 Burnham, So Great a Light, 90, 162–3, 172.

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Western Mediterranean. Their presence, and persecution, developed into international incidents. The poverty issue was brought to attention on the wider diplomatic stage by the well-intentioned Pope Clement V (1305–1314). He took care to bring their spokesmen into a debate on Franciscan poverty, promising them safe conduct to the discussions preceding the Council of Vienne, c.1309–1310. The documents that came out of that council, known as the Clementine settlement, were the closest that poverty rigorists came to a final settlement with their persecutors in the order’s hierarchy. They addressed some of the abuses the Spirituals had objected to, but retained a wider definition of poverty as retaining the use of goods not directly owned by a friar. Clement’s tolerant attitude also led him to place several Provençal convents with Spiritual leanings under sympathetic supervisors, giving Spirituals respite from persecution in the region where much of Olivi’s support was concentrated. Nonetheless, Olivi’s reputation and writings continued to be viewed with suspicion. The Clementine settlement did not last much beyond Clement’s death in 1314, and events for the Spirituals unravelled rapidly afterward. Two events in particular turned papal opinion against the Spirituals, and in doing so, significantly affected their legacy in the Crown of Aragon. In 1312, several dozen Tuscan friars fled their convents for refuge in Sicily, and the following year their remaining compatriots at the convent of Monte del Sole di Arezzo were put on trial for trying to establish new houses with a stricter observance of poverty.11 The friars who stayed behind lost their case badly – the first sign that open rebellion would not be tolerated, and a harbinger of worse to come. The fugitives, meanwhile, had arrived in Sicily. There, they were given refuge by the local bishops and ruler, Frederick III. They remained for over five years, until John XXII and the cardinals of the Curia negotiated a compromise and the friars were deported – but not to the papal court or Tuscany. At least some of them were put aboard ship and sent to Tangiers, a neutral area under non-Christian rule, while others took refuge in southern Italy, and a few remained hidden in Sicily.12 At the same time, trouble was brewing in southern France. Upon Clement’s death, those Provençal convents he had provided with sympathetic leadership changed hands. The friars there were once more at the mercy of their 11 C. Backman, ‘Arnau de Vilanova and the Franciscan Spirituals in Sicily’, Franciscan Studies, 50 (1990), 3–29. 12 ACA, Cartas, Jaume II, no. 5669, fol. 6r. See also Backman, ‘Arnau de Vilanova’, 22–3 on the Spirituals in Sicily.

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former superiors, whose harsh treatment sparked an uprising. The Spiritual friars and their lay supporters seized convents at Béziers and Narbonne by force. Local and ecclesiastical support from cardinals sympathetic to the Spirituals helped them maintain their hold, until a letter from John XXII, Quorundam exigit of April 1317, called them to Avignon for trial.13 The trial was a fiasco, a watershed event that led to further dispersal of the beguin and Spiritual diaspora. The friars’ chosen spokesman, the eloquent and well-connected Bernard of Délicieux, was discredited and removed from the proceedings, then imprisoned – as were the next two spokesmen.14 The Spirituals were clearly in unsympathetic hands. They were soon tried and condemned. Four of the sixty-one friars summoned were burned at the stake in May 1318. That same year, the inquisitor Bernard Gui reports that Olivi’s body vanished from his tomb: whoever was responsible, this later became seen as a symbol of the papacy’s attempts to suppress Olivi’s cult. In the late fourteenth century Nicholas Eymerich placed blame for the disappearance and supposed destruction of the body on John XXII.15 But by the time the body disappeared, Olivi’s fama as a holy person blessed with divinely inspired wisdom was such that it was impossible to suppress his cult: indeed, despite numerous trials and executions, the popularity of his writings and sanctity continued to spread throughout southern France and Catalonia. John XXII lost no time in seeking to stamp out this network of sympathizers. Following the trial of the Provençal friars, he issued Sancta romana, condemning those he identified as ‘fraticelli, bizzochi, or beguins’ found in Narbonne, Toulouse, Provence, Sicily, and parts of Italy. Interestingly, he does not mention Aragon, though we know beguins to have been active in Catalonia, and connected with beguin communities in the south of France, since the early 1300s. In fact, due to geo-political peculiarities of the region in the fourteenth century, several areas that have fallen under the purview of Provençal studies and featured significant beguin connections were under Aragonese or Majorcan control during this period, such as Montpellier.16 Following John XXII’s 1317 call for investigation of beguins, they formed networks of support not unlike those that had sustained the Cathars in 13 Bullarium Franciscanum, ed. C. Eubel (Rome, 1898), v, 80–2. 14 A. Friedlander, The Hammer of the Inquisitors: Brother Bernard Delicieux and the struggle against the inquisition in fourteenth-century France (Boston, 2000); L. Oliger, ‘Fr. Bertrand de Turre processus contra spirituales Aquitaniae et card. Iacobi de Columna litterae defensoriae spiritualium Provinciae’, Archivum franciscanum historicum, 16 (1923), 331–5, 338, 350–5. 15 Burnham, So Great a Light, 24. 16 D. Abulafia, A Mediterranean Emporium: the Catalan Kingdom of Majorca (Cambridge, 1994).

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the same region. As members of these communities began to be tried and executed, they formed their own martyrologies, expressing intense devotion to these new cults.17 Underground avenues of escape and safe harbour formed throughout southern France, some routing through Aragon or Majorcan territories to those under friendly control; for instance, a group of beguins left Montpellier in 1324 bound for Sicily, which had given the refugee Tuscan friars refuge almost exactly a decade earlier. They are known to have made their way there via Barcelona.18 Other beguin fugitives made use of safe networks in known friendly territories. Their routes may well have taken them through Barcelona, where there was a group of houses associated with beguin sympathizers.19 For instance, the well-travelled Raymond Déjean spent years in hiding, travelling through southern France, Sicily, and possibly Majorca before his capture in Gascony.20 In travelling from Sicily or Majorca to Gascony, he would have had to pass through either his hostile but familiar home territory of Languedoc or Aragonese territory. There is clear evidence of collaboration, text circulation, and travelling preaching among these lower-level beguin networks, often comprised of lay followers and tertiaries. But the extant evidence gives few examples of overlap between their circles and the elite Spiritual spokesmen and intellectuals. Those well-connected friars enjoyed the patronage of several influential cardinals, most notably Napoleone Orsini and Giacomo Colonna, at the papal court. They were trusted emissaries to princes, and known to several popes.21 This leads to an imbalance in the types of evidence available in assessing the beguins and elite Spirituals’ networks. We have evidence of the trials of humble beguinized tertiaries, martyrologies, and some evidence of friars serving the Crown of Aragon implicated in Spiritual views. But we do not have the collected correspondences and internally produced histories that in the case of Italy and Avignon provide links between local communities of Spirituals and their more well-educated spokesmen and aristocratic patrons.22 17 Burnham, So Great a Light, 50, 82–3. 18 Ibid., 111. 19 J. Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca del Penedes davant el tribunal d’inquisicio (1345–1346): de captaires a banquers? (Rome, 2010), 9–10. 20 D. Burr, ‘Raymond Déjean, Franciscan Renegade’, Franciscan Studies, 57 (1999), 57–78. 21 E. Graham, ‘The Patronage of the Spiritual Franciscans’, PhD dissertation (University of St Andrews, 2009). 22 For instance, the letters of Angelo Clareno are illuminating on the nature of his connections with the cardinals, but far less so regarding the Catalan spirituals and beguins’ connections, if any, at the papal court. See E. Graham, ‘Reconsidering reputation through patronage: Cardinal Napoleone Orsini and Angelo Clareno at the Avignonese papal court’ JMH, 39 (2013), 357–75.

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Thus, well-documented figures who moved between the Catalonian beguins and the courts of Avignon and Italy are rare and precious case studies. Prince Philip of Majorca was one such.23 But in the case of the beguins of Catalonia, Arnald of Villanova provides the best-documented case. Doctor, theologian, and travelling advocate for the Spiritual Franciscans, Arnald spent much of his career teaching medicine at Montpellier. After resigning his post there, he spent the next decade travelling between the courts of Aragon and Sicily and the papal court at Avignon, until his death in 1311. He was heavily engaged in apocalyptic speculation, a trait he shared with Olivi, leading to his trial for heresy in 1304. Arnald used his privileged position on several occasions to advocate for Spiritual causes: the refugee Tuscan Spirituals’ welcome in Sicily has been ascribed to his influence there, as has Clement V’s inclusion of Spiritual spokesmen in the poverty debates of 1309.24 He was also connected to beguin communities in Catalonia. Several of his writings were intended for followers of Olivi in the Barcelona area, among them L’alia information beguinorum. The text travelled within beguin circles, and we know it was read regularly across the Pyrenees at meetings of Provençal beguins, another indication of substantial regional networks.25 Evidence of Arnald’s sort of high-level patronage largely subsides after the 1320s as the conflict between the papacy and Franciscan hierarchy died down and Spiritual Franciscan spokesmen and patrons entered a quieter old age. But in the broader networks formed by the poverty enthusiasts’ diaspora, the persecution and suspicions aroused by the debates continued to create conflict well into the 1340s and beyond. Thirty miles west of Barcelona, the small Franciscan community of Vilafranca del Penedès is a notable, though not unique, case. Vilafranca’s Franciscans had a long history of poor relations with the clergy, an established community of mendicant tertiaries – one of the groups most prone to beguinism. In fact, it was the location of the first documented Aragonese tertiary, one Bernat Fuster, who appears in the 23 Prince Philip of Majorca – closely related to the Aragonese, Sicilian, and Neapolitan royal families – provides another such link between beguinized tertiaries and Spirituals in Montpellier and southern Italy and aristocratic circles. However, he is not directly connected to the Catalonian houses under consideration here. P. Evangelisti, ‘Relazioni di potere ed etiche per il potere: Clareno, Filippo di Maiorca e la testualità politica francescana catalano-aragonese’, in Angelo Clareno francescano, Atti del XXXIV Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 5–7 ottobre 2006 (Spoleto, 2007), 317–76. 24 R. Manselli, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Studi Storici, 31–4, (Rome, 1959), 77–8; J. Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c.1300: the case of Arnau de Vilanova (Oxford, 1998), 27–31; Backman, ‘Arnau de Vilanova’, 7, 11–15. 25 J. Perarnau i Espelt, L’Alia information Beguinorum d’Arnau de Vilanova (Barcelona, 1978); Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, 30–32.

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written record in 1298 with royal approval to evade his tax responsibilities due to his status as a religious.26 The Fusters appear to have been relatively well off, though not nobility – two to four years earlier, a Bernat Fuster of St Boi (possibly the same man, or a close relation of the same name) is found leaving 200 sous to the Franciscans of Barcelona, indicating the family possessed not inconsiderable property.27 They were also known to support Spiritual sympathizers in Barcelona, one of several of Vilafranca’s connections with the Barcelona communities for which Arnald of Villanova wrote. In 1321 the next generation of Fusters produced several persons of interest to the inquisition, including two female tertiaries and a Franciscan friar who was summoned before an inquisitor and imprisoned on the charge of heresy.28 Their hometown was identified by the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich as a location where one of the ‘chief beguins’, one Fr Bonato, had taught.29 Perhaps as a result of these connections with suspect Barcelona houses, or their general restiveness and open hostility to the local parish clergy, Vilafranca’s Franciscans seems to have merited extraordinary attention – punitive attention – from their bishop throughout the fourteenth century. This relationship was only worsened by the local Franciscan tertiaries’ participation in an informal network of beguins and rigorists. Though John XXII did not specify Catalonia as an area of concern in Sancta Romana, the treatment of the Provençal beguins in the late 1310s must have closely resonated with those further south. While the papacy turned against beguins and Spirituals in neighbouring regions, the community of Vilafranca experienced its own internal conflicts. Indeed, both the friars and the tertiaries seem to have been incapable of coexisting harmoniously with either local clergy or the ecclesiastical hierarchy. An ongoing conflict with the local parish over preaching and burial rights led to outright violence in 1306/7, and an exciting case of corpse-snatching thirty years later.30 One can only imagine the height to which tensions had risen when, in 1335, 26 Webster, Els Menorets, 250. 27 Webster, Els Menorets, 250, n. 99, gives this document as Barcelona, Archivo de la Catedral, Pia Almoina, 4-3-110, dated 15 March 1295/6. Due to some confusion in re-cataloguing, archival staff claim that shelfmark is no longer valid. Another document (4-2-110 of 17 November 1294) records the same Bernard Fuster of St Boi leaving substantial alms to the poor of the diocese of Barcelona. 28 J. Perarnau i Espelt, ‘Una altra carta’. 29 Pou y Martí, Visionarios, 160. 30 The f irst incident, in 1306/7, is recorded in ACA, Real Cancillería, Registros del reinado Jaume II, vol. 139, fol. 120v.

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parish clergy broke into the Franciscan church during the funeral of Jaume de Coll and forcibly removed the body for burial in their own precinct.31 In the same year, the f irst evidence of Vilafranca’s beguins surfaces in the sources. The local friars were censured for the heretical preaching of one of their own, Pere Mercer.32 The brief mention of the case does not specify the nature of his heretical errors, but later documents provide some insight into the community’s fraught relationship with heretical texts and teachings. Tensions with the local parishes remained high: in 1345, local Franciscan friars were excommunicated for preaching in the parish church. In a detailed inquest carried out in 1345/6 by the local bishop and an inquisitor, Vilafrancan tertiaries give testimony of heretical activities and strong suspicions of Olivian beliefs circulating in the community: as a result, the community was imprisoned for some months, though the only conviction was of a priest who had been implicated and died as the group awaited trial.33 The inquisition of the Vilafranca tertiaries, held in the winter of 1345/6, came more than twenty years after Sancta Romana and the height of beguin trials, and may therefore strike one as somewhat late in the story of Olivi’s followers and their persecution.34 After all, by the 1340s, the first generations of Olivians would be elderly or deceased, as were the Spiritual Franciscans as their supporters. But the Vilafranca trial in the winter of 1345 presaged a resurgence of attention and subsequent beguin trials and burnings in Barcelona, Carcassonne, and Toulouse in 1347. Louisa Burnham has found beguin martyrologies identifying trials and burnings as late as 1354 in Avignon.35 The Vilafranca inquest can, then, be placed within the larger context of renewed interest in stamping out a second generation, or aged first generation, of Olivian followers throughout the region. This may help explain why the inquest, which focuses largely on the events of the 1330s, was only carried out years later. The inquest was conducted by Bishop Bernat Oliver and the inquisitor Guillem Costa. Costa, a Dominican, travelled to Naples, Sicily, Barcelona, 31 On conflict between parish clergy and Franciscan houses, J. Webster, ‘Unlocking Lost Archives: medieval Franciscan Catalan communities’, CHR, 66 (1980) 537–50, at 540–3. The incident is recorded in the episcopal register, Arxiu diocesà de Barcelona, Register Communium VI, fols 122r–v, 140 r–v. 32 Arxiu diocesà de Barcelona, Register Communium VI, fol. 122v. 33 Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca del Penedes, 124, 131–8. 34 The manuscript of the inquest is held in the Arxiu diocesà de Barcelona, Processos, 3, ed. Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 27–120. 35 Burnham, So Great a Light, 82, n. 94.

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and Avignon as messenger of Alfonso IV of Aragon to Frederick III of Sicily, and to the Anjou court at Naples on processes against John XXII in the 1320s and 1330s.36 He would have been very much aware of the larger networks involving poverty enthusiasts. The record of the inquest is incomplete, but extant records contain the testimony of some nine witnesses, many of them women and nearly all tertiaries: the Franciscan lector of the convent, Ramon Moner; male tertiaries Bartomeu Bacella and Ramon Cuch; and female tertiaries Geraldona Fuster, Guillemona Fuster, Francesca Puigalt, María Iust, Elicsendis Valesa, Bernarde, and Bonanate Torra. Female lay piety played an important role for the mendicant orders in particular, and clusters of female penitents were not unusual in the Western Mediterranean.37 The testimony explicitly and implicitly indicates the tertiaries’ connections to wider networks and awareness of heretical beliefs. They hosted a known beguin leader active in the Barcelona area, Fr Bonato, and guests from further afield. Local poverty enthusiasts are recorded as having a strong awareness of beguin ideas, and connections to regional networks. For instance Joan de Puigalt, possibly the brother of the tertiary Francesca de Puigalt, is credited with introducing his sister to beguin ideas, and also identified as wishing to depart for ‘Rome’, where he anticipated joining others with great devotion to Francis and greater freedoms.38 In another deposition his destination is identified as Naples, a more likely goal given his association of southern Italy with a freer, more rigorous Franciscan observance.39 A number of beguin and Spiritual Franciscan communities survived unmolested in the Campania and Apulia for decades, and it was the destination of many beguins fleeing southern France as well as Catalonia. The depositions communicate a wonderful sense of the community’s internally heightened sensitivity, if not paranoia, regarding the heretics among them and consequences for the community. It is the figure of the Provençal interloper Francesc Joan who occasioned the most conflict. Indeed, only a week into the depositions, one Francesca (possibly the tertiary Francesca de Puigalt) was charged with attacking Francesc Joan; she was freed from the charges in March. As the assault indicates, Francesc Joan had a difficult relationship with his brothers and sisters, and he seems to have been a singular troublemaker in what was admittedly an already restive 36 See among others, Acta Aragonensia, ed. H. Finke, 3 vols (Berlin and Leipzig, 1908–23), i, 438, 441; ii, 870. 37 L.S. Knox, Creating Clare of Assisi: female Franciscan identities in later medieval Italy (Leiden, 2008); Coakley, ‘Gender and the Authority of Friars’. 38 Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 93–103. 39 Ibid., 115–17.

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community. Only a few months after joining the community, he drew their visitator’s attention to possible heretical beliefs and texts among them. After making his accusations, which roiled the community for several months of conflict and agitation, he made an extraordinary demand – for a sum of money, he would withdraw his accusation and depart. He was refused, and appears to have decided that in order to save himself he would denounce the rest of the community as heretics to the authorities in Barcelona, landing them all before the inquisitor. 40 Consequently, much of the testimony at trial revolved around the community’s relationship with Francesc Joan and their own suspicions regarding his orthodoxy. Francesc Joan arrived in Vilafranca from Avignon by May 1345, the summer before the inquest. 41 That June, the community was caught up in a dispute with the bishop over the reception of alms, which the bishop had denied them. 42 The lector of the Franciscan convent testified that on 19 August and 9 October a Franciscan of the Vilafranca house, Fra Guillem Raffart, took the occasion of the feast days of the ascetic Franciscan Saint Louis of Toulouse and Saint Francis of Assisi to assert that the Franciscans could accept alms, speaking on the bull Cum inter nonnullos (1323), which dated from the last years of the poverty controversy. 43 The choice of feast days is significant: Louis of Toulouse, or of Anjou, was a member of the royal family of Naples and extended royal family of Aragon, and a Franciscan with extreme views on poverty. He had been canonized in 1317, at the height of the Spirituals’ and beguins’ persecution at Avignon. 44 Combining his legacy with commentary on one of the bulls on Franciscan poverty, in a community with a penchant for conflict with the authorities, could make for a potentially explosive mix of politics and heterodoxy. Francesc Joan expressed concern to the Franciscan lector Ramon Moner, who acted as the tertiaries’ visitator, citing what he perceived to be an Olivian tone in Fra Guillem’s speeches. The lector’s subsequent warning to the tertiaries on 18 October appears to have devolved into a colourful exchange 40 Ibid., 50. 41 Avignon and the area around it, particularly nearby Narbonne, were the heartland of the Olivian cult. Given this, Francesc Joan would likely have been especially well versed in Olivian views, and familiar with their persecution. 42 Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 149–52, contains an excellent chronological summary of the events, with corresponding document references. 43 Bullarium Franciscanum, v, 224, n. 464. 44 M. Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse (Manchester, 1929); E. Pasztor, Per la storia di S. Ludovico d’Angio (Rome, 1955); J. Gardner, ‘St Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 39 (1976), 12–33.

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of mutual accusations of heresy, once more involving the ubiquitous Francesc Joan. The testimony of Raymond Cuch, the third witness, moves almost immediately to this episode. One evening, in the garden of the tertiaries’ house, he and other tertiaries observed several of their number – Francesc Joan, Dominic Torrassa, and Bartomeu Riera – nearly come to blows after a heated exchange, each claiming the other held heretical views. The dispute was eventually settled when they agreed to search one of their houses for writings by Olivi, to be taken as proof or lack thereof of heretical status. 45 This also clarifies the sort of ‘heresy’ that members of the community were alert for. As a result of the encounter, the lector testified that another tertiary, Jaume Sunyer, left the community in the next few days after ‘serious words’ with Francesc Joan; later documentation indicates that at some point he was imprisoned, though without indicating precisely when. 46 Francesc Joan continued to harass the community, demanding money in exchange for leaving the tertiaries’ house. Bartomeu Bacella, the second witness, testified concerning the brother Dominic with whom Francesc Joan had nearly come to blows, then denounced the troublesome brother to the local authorities.47 Francesc Joan in turn denounced the entire community, and the case was forwarded to the bishop. In a related incident, in early December the local priest, Ramon Punyera, was detained along with the beguins, the lector having testified that he was also present at Fra Guillem’s purportedly heretical sermons and had been singled out by Francesc Joan for handling and reading some of Olivi’s writings. 48 The priest appears to have been close to the local Franciscan community at large, as the testimony of several of the tertiaries refers to him as ‘brother’, and he served the sisters of the local Clares house. 49 Depositions were given from 12 December to 7 January, during which time Francesca assaulted Francesc Joan; we may reasonably infer from this that tensions remained very high among the tertiaries as they waited to give their testimony. In the end, the only sentence handed down was against Ramon Punyera, the imprisoned priest of Vilafranca, who died shortly after testimony concluded, perhaps as a convenient scapegoat. His possessions 45 Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 49–50. 46 Ibid., 28–9, 138–9. 47 Ibid., 44. 48 Ibid., 28–9. 49 Ibid., 51. The Claresses attested his connection to their convent while reclaiming his body from the bishop for burial. Arxiu Diocesà de Barcelona, Collacions, 8, fols 145v–146r and Museu del Vi, Vilafranca del Penedès, Protocols notarials, Mateu Moratones, 27 January 1346, ed. Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 131–4.

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were confiscated. That Passion Sunday (2 April) the bishop issued a ruling in strong language that male and female beguins or tertiaries within the diocese were no longer to hold houses in common, to gather in private, or to beg.50 Several of the female tertiaries are found soon afterward entering local convents. One further word on the Franciscan house: the inquest does not seem to have stifled their disregard for ecclesiastical authority in the least. The friars of Vilafranca, excommunicated in the year of the inquest for preaching in the parish church, seem unable to have let the conflict go; the community was excommunicated for interfering with the parish church yet again thirty years later, in 1372.51 It may reasonably be supposed that Pere Mercer’s error-filled sermon of the 1330s may have been connected to Olivi’s cult, or fear of beguin leanings. This incident – together with Vilafranca’s identification as a location of beguin teaching, Francesc Joan’s arrival from Avignon, Joan de Puigalt’s intention to travel to Naples and seek freer and intensely Franciscan communities, and their apparent knowledge of the writings of Olivi – suggests regular contact with wider beguin networks. But the circumstances of the inquest also make it clear how larger events and the everyday activity of these regional networks could easily lead fear of heretical identification to be inflated by common conflict, spat out in the course of more mundane events and then taken too far, more the result of pervasive fears and suspicions that took easy hold than of deep-rooted heretical beliefs. Emily E. Graham, Oklahoma State University, USA

50 Perarnau i Espelt, Beguins de Vilafranca, 135–6. 51 Webster, ‘Medieval Catalan’, 542; Arxiu Diocesà de Barcelona, Register Gratiarum V, fols 32v–33r.

9. Faction, Politics, and Dominican Inquisitors in the Fourteenth-Century Crown of Aragon Robin Vose

Abstract Thanks to the Directorium inquisitorum, Nicolau Eimeric has become something of a model inquisitor. Yet his self-presentation as a relentless prosecutor of heresy obscures a more complicated historical reality. Friars serving as heresy inquisitors (including Eimeric) often found themselves limited by political circumstances. These included factional clashes within the Dominican Order itself, as well as the impositions of bishops, popes, and kings. By examining the friars’ social networks and how various inquisitors were affected by contemporary events – from reforming efforts and schism to intrigues surrounding the conquest of Mallorca— this chapter suggests that heresy prosecutions waxed and waned over the course of the fourteenth century, depending on the character and connections of individual inquisitors. Keywords: Dominicans, medieval Aragon, medieval inquisition, Nicolau Eimeric, Mallorca

On 16 August 1341, as he entered the bishop of Barcelona’s imposing stone palace to sign yet another arrest warrant, the Dominican inquisitor Bernat de Puigcercós gave every appearance of being a very powerful man indeed. With nearly a half century of service in the order to his credit, he had already achieved a great deal, and showed no indication of wanting to slow down any time soon. He was known in the most exalted of secular circles, both comital and royal, throughout his native Catalonia. Benefiting from an impressive elite education, including a stint of higher theological studies at Paris, he had taught in some of the Aragonese province’s leading convent

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schools.1 He had been a conventual prior and a provincial vicar in that same province, before ruling as provincial prior of Aragon for nearly a decade (1324–1333), longer than any previous incumbent.2 He was a prolific writer whose opinions were valued on everything from apocalyptic speculation to the finer points of high finance and economics.3 He had also served for many years as a papally appointed inquisitor, and the weight of his verdicts had fallen heavily on Beghards and Judaizers alike. And now, on this late summer day, the venerable inquisitor’s attention was focused on a Jew named David de Ripoll – accused of abducting his own daughter and granddaughters to prevent their forcible baptism at the hands of a converted son-in-law. 4 Given both his previous track record and his current eagerness to prosecute members of the Jewish community, this did not bode well for the accused.5 Yet within just two years, the Ripoll case would fade to insignificance as Fray Bernat found himself enmeshed in a desperate defensive battle of his own. And this time his opponents were neither Jewish grandfathers nor outcast Christians, but rival members of his own order. The trouble began with the election for a new provincial prior in the autumn of 1342, when Puigcercós sided with a faction seeking to block the candidacy of 1 Bernat appears in many sources under his Latin name Bernardus de Podio Cercoso (with many variants in spelling). Extant assignment records show he was sent to teach the Sentences at Murcia in 1299 and Girona in 1302, before serving as professor of theology at Urgel in 1307, Valencia in 1310, and Girona from at least 1312 to 1314. His Parisian studies took place sometime between 1302 and 1307, when he was recalled to Urgel pro doctore. See the provincial chapter acta published in R. Hernández, ‘Pergaminos de Actas de los Capítulos Provinciales del siglo XIII de la Provincia Dominicana de España’, Archivo Dominicano, 4 (1983), 5–73, at 58; A. Robles Sierra, ‘Actas de los Capítulos Provinciales de la Provincia Dominicana de Aragón, Correspondientes a los Años 1302, 1303, 1304 y 1307’, EV, 20 (1990), 237–85, at 242, 282; and A. Robles Sierra, ‘Actas de los Capítulos Provinciales de la Provincia Dominicana de Aragón, Correspondientes a los Años 1310, 1312, 1314 y 1321’, EV, 21 (1991), 105–54, at 111, 120, 131. 2 Diago, Historia, 29r–30r gives details of his tenure; his dismissal at the Dijon general chapter (erroneously dated to 1332) is recorded in B.M. Reichert, Acta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Praedicatorum, MOPH, 4 (1899), ii, 221–2. 3 On the latter, see J. Hernando’s edition of the ‘Quaestio Disputata de Licitudine Contractus Emptionis et Venditionis Censualis cum Conditione Revenditionis’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia, 10 (1989), 9–87. Puigcercós’s position on eschatology is discussed below in connection with his debate against Arnau de Vilanova. 4 J. Perarnau, ‘Documents de tema inquisitorial del bisbe de Barcelona, fra Ferrer d’Abella (1334–1344)’, Revista Catalana de Teologia, 5 (1980), 454, 467–8, no. 9. 5 Puigcercós’s well-documented animus against Judaizers will be discussed further below. Unfortunately we do not know the outcome of this particular case; see P. Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew: conversion and inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250–1391 (Philadelphia, 2012), 114.

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Barcelona’s conventual prior, Bernat Sescala (Latin Bernardus de Scala).6 The election failed, as did subsequent negotiations, and a provincial vicar was finally imposed by the general chapter of the Dominican Order to take charge of the matter.7 A new vote was held in the autumn of 1343, and this time Sescala was successfully installed, though not without further strife. Things apparently got so out of hand over the summer that a band of young Dominicans, acting on Sescala’s orders, physically attacked the inquisitor and threatened to burn down his lodgings along with all his possessions.8 By 7 August 1343 at least four of the alleged friar-arsonists were being investigated for impeding inquisitorial justice (a potentially heretical transgression), and yet things still did not go Puigcercós’s way. The bishop quickly intervened, imposing his own judges and chastising the inquisitor for having acted independently. On 15 September Sescala was formally absolved ad cautelam for his role in the affair.9 The inquisitor’s authority had been trumped, and the defeat was resounding: Sescala was confirmed in his office, and he remained at the province’s helm until his retirement in 1350. His faction continued to dominate, and – adding insult to injury – one of Puigcercós’s alleged attackers would himself go on to serve as both inquisitor and as provincial prior by 1357.10 The once formidable inquisitor Bernat, on the other hand, faded away into obscurity. 6 Sescala was apparently supported by a majority but the importance of his opponents (los tres mas antiguos electores, according to Diago) twice led to an impasse. Puigcercós, with his allies Rodrigo Lobo (Rodericus Lupi) and Miguel Martin (Michael Martini), was committed to the candidacy of a somewhat obscure Garcia de Gongora (Diago, Historia, 39v; Reichert, Acta Capitulorum, ii, 290). 7 Diago (Historia, 39v) claims that the vicar in question was a Provençal (i.e. external) friar named Jaume Arnaldo (Arnau), but according to the 1343 chapter acta it was the theologian and former provincial of Aragon Joan Fort (Johannes Fortis) who received this charge. See Reichert, Acta Capitulorum, ii, 291. 8 The alleged attackers were Ramon Ametller (Raymundus Amenlerii), Jaume Garcia (Jacobus Garcie), Joan (Johannes) Gomir, and Pere de Torrevella (Petrus de Turre Veteri). See Perarnau, ‘Documents de Tema Inquisitorial’, 454–5, 468–9, no. 10. 9 None of the other charges seem to have been upheld either. Bishop Ferrer d’Abella was himself a Dominican, and previously had co-signed the arrest warrant for David de Ripoll, yet he clearly resented the inquisitor’s unilateral actions in this case; see Perarnau, ‘Documents de Tema Inquisitorial’, 469–72, nos 11–14, for further material relating to the trials. Bishops’ authority vis-à-vis that of local inquisitors had been codif ied in the 1312 decretal Multorum querela, though Nicolau Eimeric would later take a rather harder line on inquisitorial precedence. A heavily annotated edition of Multorum can be found in Eimeric’s Directorium Inquisitorum (Venice, 1595), ii, 111–12, and in canon law it is cited as Clem. 5.3.1. 10 Gomir acted as inquisitor from 1357, being nominated and assigned the usual annual stipend of 100 Barcelona libri by King Peter IV on 6 Feb. of that year (E. Fort i Cogul, Catalunya i la Inquisició (Barcelona, 1973), 88). He also succeeded Nicolau Rossell as provincial prior from

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This unusual series of events raises important questions regarding both internal divisions plaguing the Dominicans in this period and the very nature of the inquisitorial office as it existed in the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon. Yet surprisingly little critical research has been done to explore this key period in the history of Dominican-led medieval heresy inquisitions. The order’s own historians have traditionally downplayed evidence of division while presenting inquisitorial activity as a mere catalogue of successful prosecutions, mainly derived from a single source – the notorious Directorium Inquisitorum of Puigcercós’ younger contemporary, friar Nicolau Eimeric.11 Advances have been made recently in the more objective study of earlier Aragonese and Catalan inquisitions, and the later ‘Spanish’ Inquisition of course has a rich modern historiography of its own.12 1357–62 (Diago, Historia, 45v–46r). Ametller appears to have emerged unscathed from the affair, and in 1344 he went before the bishop to demand inquisitorial investigation of a benef iced cleric named En Gassol, but further records of the other assailants have yet to be identified. J. Baucells i Reig, Vivir en la edad media: Barcelona y su entorno en los siglos xiii y xiv (1200–1344), 2 vols (Barcelona, 2005), ii, 1704. 11 Again, there are many variant spellings for ‘Nicholas Eymeric’. The Directorium exists in multiple manuscripts and early modern printed recensions, but there is still no modern (let alone critical) edition. Citations here will refer to the 1596 Venetian edition, since it is now readily available on Google Books. Dominican historians began to take an interest in their order’s inquisitorial history in the later sixteenth century, and Aragonese chroniclers such as Francisco Diago would play a leading role by making praise for inquisitors a major theme in their work (see his 1599 Historia). Unfortunately, the multi-volume Historia de la Santa Inquisición of Diago’s contemporary, Friar Vicente Antist, remains available only in a single manuscript held by the Archivo del Real Convento de Predicadores in Valencia. It has been subjected to preliminary study, which suggests that inquisitors of the later medieval period were not its major focus, but much more work needs to be done to integrate this source with mainstream scholarship; see A. Esponera Cerdán, ‘El Valenciano Vicente Justiniano Antist, O.P. y su inédita Historia de la Santa Inquisición (1589–92)’, in Vivir en la Iglesia: homenaje al Prof. Juan Agulles (Valencia, 1999), 493–519. Antist’s text was known to Diago and to Ludovicus Paramo, who authored the better-known De origine et progressu officii sanctae inquisitionis (Madrid, 1598); this later work makes no mention of Puigcercós but does dedicate a full section to Eimeric (section 19, pp. 110–11), in which the Directorium itself is the major source. 12 Among Dominican scholars, changing papal attitudes toward inquisition history have encouraged new research initiatives, including the establishment of an ‘International Seminar on the Dominicans and the Inquisition’, which held its first meeting in Rome in 2002 and published its proceedings two years later – including Alfonso Esponera Cerdán’s updated treatment of Antist, ‘Los Dominicos y la inquisición medieval según la Historia de la Santa Inquisición de V.J. Antist OP’, in Praedicatores Inquisitores, 731–52. Other noteworthy recent contributions to the study of Aragonese inquisitions would include D. Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition in the Lands of the Crown of Aragon (c. 1167–1276) (Leiden, 2010), but his focus does not extend into the fourteenth century. Research by scholars such as Michael Vargas and Paola Tartakoff continues to shed light on some aspects of life in the Crown of Aragon which intersect directly with inquisition history, but focused modern studies of the fourteenth-century Aragonese inquisition

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But while there are numerous studies dedicated to a small handful of high-profile fourteenth-century cases (above all the investigation of writings by celebrated figures such as Arnau de Vilanova and Ramon Llull), as well as an increasingly rich body of scholarship when it comes to Nicolau Eimeric himself, one must still turn to the very brief, outdated, and often apologetic works of Johannes Vincke or Eufemià Fort i Cogul for anything like an overview of the late medieval period as a whole.13 The result of an over-reliance on the latter pioneering studies – along with the tendency to assume that Eimeric’s representation of inquisitorial work in the Directorium accurately reflects contemporary practice – is a rather static, anachronistic, and ultimately misleading concept of what it really meant to be a Dominican inquisitor in the fourteenth century. The tribulations of inquisitors like Bernat Puigcercós, and the complex webs of historical events surrounding them, reveal on the contrary that the priorities, the power, and the prestige of individual inquisitors could ebb and flow rather dramatically over time and depending on the circumstances. Medieval Dominican inquisitors were, after all, inhabitants of a corporate milieu that was very much defined by factional in-fighting, as Puigcercós’s experiences suggest and as Michael Vargas’ recent work on Dominican disciplinary policies has confirmed.14 Nor were they ignorant of, or immune to, extra-conventual struggles playing out on a variety of secular levels – from the local to the international – which could significantly impact an inquisitor’s ability and inclination to exercise authority. It is thus itself remain lacking – probably due in large part to an enduring sense that between the time of Ramon Penyafort (d. 1275) and that of Nicolau Eimeric (d. 1399), ‘excepto algún caso aislado, en ese tiempo no hubo propriamente heterodoxos, y asentado el poder represivo inquisitorial, dejó de ser problema la herejía para el pueblo fiel’ (Baucells, Vivir en la edad media, ii, 1706). For a sense of recent (mostly Anglophone) historiography on early modern inquisitions, see K. Lynn Hossain, ‘Unravelling the Spanish Inquisition: inquisitorial studies in the twenty-first century’, History Compass, 5/4 (2007), 1280–93 and my own ‘Beyond Spain: inquisitorial history in a global context’, History Compass 11/4 (2013), 316–29. 13 J. Vincke, Zur Vorgeschichte der Spanischen Inquisition (Bonn, 1941) and Fort i Cogul’s Catalunya i la inquisició, respectively. Again these works provide no more than a schematic sense of a period in which not that much really happened. Fort i Cogul, for example, states that ‘durant el darer terç del segle XIII l’activitat de la Inquisició apareix enormement afeblida’ (66), before going on to summarize a small handful of the most prominent fourteenth-century trials, largely involving Eimeric; she then dedicates a total of only six pages to the entire fifteenth century up to the foundation of the Spanish Inquisition. H.C. Lea’s foundational A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols (New York, 1887–8) is little better, devoting barely nine pages to the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon (ii, 168–77). 14 M. Vargas, Taming a Brood of Vipers: conflict and change in fourteenth-century Dominican convents (Leiden, 2011).

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essential to examine the contingent nature of the friars’ inquisitorial and other duties, within a given specific political context such as that of the fourteenth-century Dominican province of Aragon, in order to more fully understand just how and why those duties were actually carried out (or not carried out, as the case may be). Archival lacunae and the revisionism of later chroniclers make this a difficult task to be sure, but one which nevertheless can be quite rewarding and suggestive. At the very least, further research along these lines may finally allow us to see beyond the imposing yet distorted (and distorting) figure of the monolithic, all-powerful inquisitor that Nicolau Eimeric so deliberately – and quite literally – strove to codify.15 The lengthy (and comparatively well-documented) career of Bernat Puigcercós provides one illustration of the quite varied, and at times conflicted, nature of inquisitorial work in the early fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon. Long before he was entrusted with the formal office of inquisitor, Fray Bernat knew from first-hand experience that Dominican determinations of orthodoxy were not always authoritative, that not all heresy accusations could be brought to trial, and that politics always mattered. Thus in 1302, as a newly minted lecturer on the Sentences at the Dominican convent of Girona, the young friar quickly found himself embroiled in a theological confrontation with the celebrated physician, dream-interpreter, and self-styled prophet Arnau de Vilanova.16 Their debate was carried out before the local bishop, and the stakes were high. Puigcercós clearly saw heresy in Arnau’s apocalyptic prognostications, while Arnau insisted that Friar Bernat was himself heretical in opposing them. Indeed, it was Arnau’s further contention that the entire Dominican convent at Girona was a breeding ground for suspicious doctrine, and he made no bones about asserting this publicly. This was an assertion of considerable

15 My approach here is thus quite different from the sort of ‘new humanist’ character-sketch methodology employed by Eimeric’s latest biographer: K. Sullivan, The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors (Chicago, 2011), 169–96. Biographical portraits are very useful, but they must be complemented by examinations of the surrounding conditions which individual inquisitors had to negotiate. Other important recent examinations of Eimeric as inquisitor include J. Brugada i Gutiérrez-Ravé, Nicolau Eimeric (1320–1399) i la polèmica inquisitorial (Barcelona, 1998); C. Heinmann, Nicholaus Eymerich (vor 1320–1399) – ‘praedicator veridicus, inquisitor intrepidus, doctor egregius’: Leben und Werk eines Inquisitors (Münster, 2001); and J. de Puig i Oliver, ‘Nicholás Eymerich, un inquisidor discutido’, in Praedicatores Inquisitores, 545–93. 16 J. Carreras Artau, ‘La polémica gerundense sobre el Anticristo entre Arnau de Vilanova y los Dominicos’, AIEG, 5 (1950), 5–58. For up-to-date information and bibliography on Arnau, see http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/arnau/en/arnaudevilanova.

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weight indeed, as he enjoyed the confidence of both King James II and Pope Boniface VIII.17 Yet in the end – despite all the drama, the heated rhetoric, and the significance of the issues under discussion – neither friar nor prophet was judged or punished by an inquisitor or anyone else. Bishop Bernat de Vilamarí knew better than to cross either Arnau de Vilanova or the powerful Order of Friars Preacher, and he enjoined both parties to work out their differences in private. A truce was thus effectively imposed, and the event was for the most part soon forgotten; we would not know of its occurrence at all if it were not for a notarized and duly archived legal document summarizing the day’s outcome. Historiographical presumptions of contemporary inquisitorial zeal notwithstanding, there was evidently no Dominican inquisitor available or willing to intervene against such a royal and papal favourite at this time.18 The struggle against Arnau de Vilanova continued, and other Dominicans did risk royal displeasure in their efforts to oppose his brand of apocalypticism, but the matter was never simply turned over to an inquisitor for judgement.19 Rather, when Vilanova’s writings were finally subjected to formal scrutiny in 1316–1317 (a full five years after his death), it was the cathedral chapter of Tarragona which convened a diverse blue-ribbon panel of expert theologians for the task. Dominican inquisitor Joan Llotger (Johannes de Lotgerio) was among those chosen to serve, but his voice was subordinate 17 Carreras Artau, ‘La polémica gerundense’, 15. The full text of Vilanova’s denunciation is in H. Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII: Funde und Forschungen (Münster, 1902), clxxii–clxxvii. Arnau also wrote against the inquisitor Martin de Atheca in a tract entitled Antidotum contra venenum effusam per fratrem Martinem de Atheca predicatorem (Vargas, Taming a Brood, 291). 18 Many texts make vague claims about the efficacy of Bernat Peregrí (Bernardus Peregrini), who served as inquisitor for Aragon from the time of his province’s separation from Spain (1301) to his death in 1309. According to Francisco Diago, he was an inquisitor valentissimus, since that is what was written on his tombstone, and so he must have prosecuted all heretics fearlessly (Historia, 4v–5r). This rather weak claim was elaborated by later writers – such as V.M. Fontana, Sacrum Theatrum Dominicanum (Rome, 1666), 550; J.A. Llorente, Historia Crítica de la Inquisición de España (Barcelona, 1870), 58; and Lea, History of the Inquisition, ii, 170) – into an assumption that Bernat must have burned many heretics in Barcelona around 1301–1304, but I have yet to find convincing evidence for such events. Rather, all references – including my own, in Vose, Dominicans, 87 – seem to ultimately lead back to Diago and his musings about the tombstone. 19 Documents in Vincke show that Arnau’s writings were being attacked by Dominicans in Valencia such as Guillem de Cotlliure (Guillelmus de Cauco libero) at about the same time, and that James II demanded such charges be examined by other authorities such as the bishop, the Dominican master-general, and even the papal court; Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 54–7, nos 6–7. On Arnau’s slow fall from grace at the royal court and the role played there by Dominicans such as the royal confessor (and sometime inquisitor) Martin de Atheca, see J. Ernesto Martínez Ferrando, Jaime II de Aragón: su vida familiar, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1948), i, 190–1.

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to that of his provincial prior, Jaume Aleman (Jacobus Alamani); and he sat alongside three other Dominicans, three Franciscans, two Benedictines, and an archiepiscopal vicar.20 Eimeric would later vaunt this as his first and greatest example of a ‘heresy condemned by the inquisitors of Aragon without special mandate of the pope’; but even he had to acknowledge that it was something of a special joint effort.21 Bernat de Puigcercós, for his part, was not at all involved in the final condemnation of Vilanova’s writings. After undergoing further theological training at Paris, however, he soon began to involve himself with inquisitorial work, and for over twenty years he was one of the most prominent Dominican inquisitors in the province of Aragon. Among his targets were heterodox Christian spiritual activists who can loosely be categorized as ‘Beguin(e) s’ or ‘Beghards’.22 Such non-conformists had come under harsh scrutiny during the papacy of John XXII, and the Dominicans of Aragon responded by diligently applying themselves to the task of rooting out and eliminating what they took to be a full-blown heretical movement.23 Thus in 1320, Bernat de Puigcercós was selected to assist Bishop Ponç de Gualba of Barcelona and a fellow Dominican named Arnau Burguet in the arrest and eventual burning of several Beghards led by the Mallorcan Pere Olér (Olerio).24 Burguet was 20 Diago, Historia, 26v–27r, notes that his main source on the panel’s composition was an original manuscript of its sentence, as preserved in the archives of the Dominican convent at Barcelona (he also cites Eimeric’s Directorium, part 2, q. 11). Tarragona was sede vacante at the time. 21 Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, q. 11 (265). Eimeric is less thorough than Diago in naming names, noting only that the inquisitor was assisted by the vicar of Tarragona and ‘magno consilio theologorum’. He also never explains why the case was so long delayed. 22 There is a vast literature on the loosely defined groupings of people who received these and other more or less related names in various parts of Europe during the later Middle Ages. The targeted individuals in question here seem to bear no relation, however, to the sorts of pious and largely female communal houses that the term generally connotes for Northern Europe; for example W. Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine communities in the medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia, 2001). For the Crown of Aragon, see R. Menéndez Pelayo, Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles, 3 vols (Madrid, 1880), i, esp. 492–4, as well as Pou y Martí, Visionarios. 23 There is little reason to believe that they really constituted a united or coherent movement in the Crown of Aragon; rather, terms like ‘Beghard’ seem to have often been convenient identifiers for any pious Christians whose practices appeared unusual to the authorities. However, in southern France they may have been more organized, and this likely had an impact on the cases tried by Puigcercós; see Burnham, So Great a Light. 24 Diago, Historia, 29r, citing Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, q. 11 (265). As is so often the case, virtually all later authors can say about the trials of Aragonese Beghards like Olér and his follower Bonanatus is merely a paraphrase of Eimeric: see for example Menéndez Pelayo, Heterodoxos, i, 492–500 and G. Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: the relation of heterodoxy to dissent c. 1250–c. 1450, 2 vols (Manchester, 1967), i, 325, 328–30. Eimeric himself provides no date for the events; it is Diago who gives a date of 1320. Note that the bishop of Barcelona’s approval was required.

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elected provincial prior in the autumn of that year, and Puigcercós followed him into that office by the autumn of 1324; his inquisitorial activities seem to have been curtailed as a result, but action continued to be taken against alleged Beghards by his associate friar, Guillem Costa. Sometime after 1334 Costa and the new Dominican bishop of Barcelona, Ferrer d’Abella (who would later side with Sescala against Puigcercós), cooperated in the retrial of one Bonanatus, a follower of Olér who had been saved from the first round of executions by pleading repentance.25 It is clear that Puigcercós maintained a personal interest in inquisitorial proceedings against potential Christian heretics, however, with a perhaps excessive focus on members of the Franciscan Order, throughout his provincialate. In 1328 he was advised by the pope to cease his investigation contra quosdam fratres Minores.26 And in 1329 he courted royal displeasure by threatening to bring the prominent Franciscan Sancho de Ayerbe to trial.27 Fray Bernat also emerges from the documentary record as having taken a special interest in allegations of Judaizing and apostasy among converted Jews.28 In 1323 he joined the archbishop of Tarragona in taking action against twenty-one named Jews; these were condemned for an unspecified ‘heresy’ and subjected to confiscations, although King James II would later intervene and provide restitution of their confiscated property.29 Repercussions from this and perhaps related cases against Jews in Calatayud, Xàtiva, and Tarrega would continue to occupy the attentions of both Dominican and royal agents for the next several years.30 Among the targets were members of the leading Quatorze family of Calatayud, and in 1326 Guillem Costa brought 25 Diago, Historia, 37r–v, again citing Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, q. 11 (265–6). No date is given by either source, but both state that Bonanatus’s execution took place under the papacy of Benedict XII (1334–1342) and the episcopacy of Ferrer d’Abella (1334–1344). Costa’s activities throughout the period of Puigcercós’s provincialate are documented in Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 69–81 (nos 19, 20, 23, 28, 29, 31–3, 35, 39, 40). 26 Bullarium Franciscanum sive Romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistolae, diplomata tribus ordinibus minores, clarissarum, poenitentium a Seraphico Patriarcha Sancto Francisco institutis concessa, ed. J. Sbaralea and C. Eubel (Rome, 1898), v, 359 (no. 729). 27 The case against Friar Sancho, a member of the royal family and future archbishop of Tarragona (1346–1357), is mentioned above. On Puigcercós’s undated and controversial prosecution of another alleged ‘Beguin’, Bernardo de Camprodón (Bernardus de Camporotundo), see below. 28 Similar rates of anti-Jewish prosecution were undertaken by other Aragonese inquisitors as well, including both Joan Llotger (at least five known cases) and Nicolau Rossell (three cases): Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew, 18–19. 29 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 63–4, no. 15; F. Baer, Die Juden im Christlichen Spanien, 2 vols (Berlin, 1929), i, 239–41, no.180; cf. Vargas, Taming a Brood, 287. 30 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 64–6, nos 16–18.

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Jucef de Quatorze to trial and repentance for his alleged Judaizing.31 That case had a tragic echo fifteen years later when, at about the same time that Bernat de Puigcercós was moving against the aforementioned David de Ripoll, Jucef de Quatorze came back on the inquisitor’s radar. Along with his neighbours Jamila and Janto Almuli, Jucef was brutally executed at the end of a particularly complex series of investigations and legal proceedings.32 AntiJewish activism was thus a personal dominant concern for friar-inquisitor Puigcercós at the time of his clash with Sescala.33 These are just a few examples of cases handled over the long career of one early fourteenth-century inquisitor, known primarily because they generated royal documents that were later archived, or because they were later selected for inclusion as exemplary trials in Eimeric’s Directorium Inquisitorum. A more complete catalogue and breakdown of heresy prosecutions of Puigcercós and his contemporaries (with many records still largely unstudied in episcopal registers, which themselves only document a fraction of the inquisitors’ actual activities), valuable though it would undoubtedly be, is impossible here.34 But clearly they varied in both target and procedure. High-profile and politically sensitive investigations, such as that of a former royal familiar like Arnau de Vilanova, called for greater care and broader consultation. Such was also the case with Aragonese trials of the Knights Templar (1308), which King James II assigned to two bishops (Ramon Despont of Valencia, who happened to be a Dominican, and Bishop Ximeno of Zaragoza) along with the Dominican inquisitor Joan Llotger.35 In less significant episodes fewer arbiters were required, though the participation of at least one bishop or bishop’s delegate was required to support the 31 Baer, Die Juden, i, 245; Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew, 15. 32 J. Perarnau, ‘El procés inquisitorial barceloní contra els jueus Janto Almuli, la seva muller Jamila i Jucef de Quatorze (1341–1342)’, Revista Catalana de Teologia, 4 (1979), 309–53. 33 The complexities of the Quatorze/Almuli case (undertaken with the help of other friars such as the inquisitorial commissary and convent prior Sancho de Torralba) are revealing of the number and range of personnel involved in a heresy trial, beyond the inquisitor proper. Torralba initiated the case in 1341 at Calatayud, but only after intervening to prevent the local secular justicia’s verdict against an alleged apostate. Sancho was assisted by the bishop of Tarazona’s own commissary, Bernardo Duque, and managed to implicate several Jews in the case using interrogations and previous inquisitorial records dating back to 1326 (under Guillem Costa) before calling in Puigcercós. Later, Valencian inquisitorial commissary Berenguer Saiol and others also became involved. The case is fully discussed in Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew, esp. 33–57. 34 A sample of cases at one location, Girona, is given in Brugada i Gutiérrez-Ravé, Nicolau Eimeric, 30–6. 35 Diago, Historia, 16v–17v; A. Forey, The Fall of the Templars in the Crown of Aragon (Aldershot, 2001).

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verdict of a friar-inquisitor. The necessity of obtaining episcopal agreement on every verdict could at times be inconvenient for inquisitors, and further increased the potential for political pressure being brought to bear.36 Lesser cases of spiritual malfeasance did not come under inquisitorial jurisdiction and entailed the deployment of far fewer judicial resources, with episcopal authorities sometimes bringing in Dominican specialists but sometimes not. Witchcraft and sorcery were not subject to heresy inquisitions at this time, for example, though John XXII did advise inquisitors to proceed against maleficii that involved necromancy or communication with demons.37 Thus when Geralda de Codines, an obscure local healer, was publicly defamed in 1304 for crimine sortilegiis et divinaciones, the case was handled by the bishop of Barcelona himself along with a physician named Bernat de Limona and a friar named Pere Thome.38 Geralda was given only a minor penance and absolved, even after further allegations emerged three years later regarding her relations with a Muslim sorceress named Aisha (Axa).39 But in this case there was no apparent need to call for an inquisitor, and the Dominicans were consulted in no more than a perfunctory fashion. Similarly in 1334, when a Barcelona Jew named Solana was accused of using arte magica to cause the death of a Christian woman, it led to a secular inquisitio (inquest) and torture overseen by an unnamed vicar and a lawyer (iurisperitus) named Petrus de Roseto, but no Dominican inquisitor was called.40 This is in contrast to Nicolau Eimeric’s later handling 36 On potential and at times actual conflict between inquisitors and bishops, see Lea, History of the Inquisition, i, 332–6. 37 M. Bailey, Battling Demons: witchcraft, heresy, and reform in the late Middle Ages (University Park, 2003), 35–6. 38 Geralda’s trial is recorded in the Barcelona, Arxiu Diocesà, Registro de communes, 1, fols 42v–44r, ed. José Martí Bonet et al., Ponbgrç de Gualba Obispo de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1983), 136–8. Later Dominicans, including Eimeric, would likely have treated such crimes more harshly; see Directorium, part 2, q. 42 (335–6). On the general topic of non-heretical spiritual offences processed in the diocese of Barcelona (including the sorcery/divination cases of Geralda and Aisha) see Baucells, Vivir en la edad media, ii, 1635–75. 39 Pere’s order is not identif ied, but a Dominican of the same name appears in Barcelona, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 241, 18 acting as vicar for the Santa Catalina convent in 1314; he was received to the order in 1280, and so would have been quite senior by the time of Geralda’s trial. A Franciscan of the same name, apparently born in 1280, went on to achieve some distinction as a Barcelona-based theologian (1317–1332) after training in Paris. I would suggest, however, that he was likely too junior (twenty-seven years of age) to have been the friar entrusted with theological consultation for this trial; on this latter Friar Peter, see for example E. Bos, The Tract De Unitate Minori of Petrus Thome (Leuven, 2002). Geralda’s trial was part of a regular series of pastoral visits initiated by Barcelona’s activist bishop, Ponç de Gualba (r. 1302–1334). 40 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 79–80, no. 37.

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of necromancy allegations against Astruch de Piera, another Barcelona Jew, in 1370. This case resulted in a precedent-setting heresy trial led by Eimeric himself, with the backing of a bishop, cardinals, and a pope – as he proudly noted in his Directorium. 41 Inquisition was thus a varied and constantly changing endeavour in the late medieval Crown of Aragon, generally (but not always) carried out by qualified Dominican theologians who were able to secure episcopal and often royal approval. The inquisitorial office was not fully defined, and its power to regularly take action against all who fell foul of the friars’ conception of Christian orthodoxy should not be exaggerated. Nor was it always the main focus of an incumbent’s career. Guillem Costa temporarily set aside his inquisitorial duties to serve as royal ambassador to Sicily, Naples, and Avignon from 1328 to 1330, and Nicolau Rossell would later play a similar role at the Portuguese and papal courts; Nicolau Eimeric, too, sought to be accepted simultaneously both as a papal envoy to Aragon and an inquisitor. 42 Rossell was an active patron of female religious at Barcelona, collecting funds and building materials for their convent, and also the executor of a royal will. 43 And, in addition to his own extensive administrative work, Bernat de Puigcercós was regularly occupied with non-inquisitorial tasks such as advising on royal affairs and mediating a disputed succession for the county of Empúries. 44 He found time to compose theoretical treatises such as his Quaestio Disputata, as mentioned above – completed precisely in 1342 at the height of both his anti-Jewish inquisitions and his political troubles, yet having nothing at all to do with the extirpation of heresy.45 Inquisition was just one of many ways in which Dominicans like Puigcercós engaged with the world around them. And meanwhile, the concerns of that wider world in turn frequently impinged on the friars’ practice of inquisition in equal if not greater measure. 41 Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, q. 46 (357–8). Astruch abjured his crimes and was sentenced to perpetual prison. 42 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 73–6, nos 28, 29, 32; R. de Alós, ‘El Cardenal de Aragón, fray Nicolás Rossell (ensayo bio-bibliográfico)’, Escuela Española de Arqueologia e Historia en Roma, Cuadernos de Trabajos, 1 (1912), 55, no. 14. King Peter was clear in his response that Eimeric was odiosus et ingratus and not at all welcome: Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 113–14, no. 96. 43 Alós, ‘El Cardenal de Aragón’, 49–53 (nos 7–9 and 11). 44 Vose, Dominicans, 83–4; Diago, Historia, 29r–30r. Puigcercós’s service – along with inquisitor Joan Llotger, two Franciscans, two delegates from the Barcelona cathedral, and two lawyers – on a theologico-judicial commission established in 1318 by King James II to settle past royal debts and injustices clearly shows that he was back in favour very soon after the dismissals and discipline of 1315. See Martínez Ferrando, Jaime II de Aragón, i, 256–7. 45 Hernando, ‘Quaestio Disputata’.

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Bernat Puigcercós’s brush with a fiery death (or at least some form of violence) in the summer of 1343 provides a revealing moment where the political complexities surrounding inquisitorial work in the Dominican province of Aragon can start to be teased out. For while it is possible that the attack was motivated by simple anti-inquisitorial anger – instigated by aggrieved Beghards, Spiritual Franciscans, members of the Jewish community, or their sympathizers – the known facts of the case would seem to argue for a more intricate and rather fascinating back-story. 46 Given that the assailants were fellow friars, at least one of whom would later go on to serve as an inquisitor himself, it is likely that some sort of internal factional conflict lay at the root of the violence. And indeed, though the sparseness of the surviving documentary record makes firm conclusions difficult, a great deal of circumstantial evidence can readily be gleaned to suggest that serious political divisions both internal and external to the order swirled around (and sometimes through) the office of the Dominican inquisitor throughout the entire span of the fourteenth century. A reconstruction and analysis of these divisions, however partial and tentative, is necessary if we are to make better sense of just how and why inquisitorial history actually unfolded the way it did during the crucial decades leading up to the composition of Eimeric’s Directorium. Factional divisions are of course complex and shifting phenomena, often with multiple causal factors at play to determine individual allegiances, so it is hard to be sure precisely how Puigcercós and Sescala (and their respective allies) came to be such bitter foes. Perhaps it was personal, and they simply rubbed each other up the wrong way. Perhaps ideology was a factor, with each holding markedly different views on the theological and/ or political mission they wished to see their order pursuing. Michael Vargas has raised the possibility of generational conflicts among the friars, while also drawing attention to the natural ebb and flow of crisis and reform so characteristic of organizational life. 47 And of course, one should never underestimate the power of crass ambition, self-interest, and the pursuit of patronage from powerful outside forces. It was likely a combination of all the above which led to a gradual hardening of positions and enmities, and ultimately to the emergence of a more or less clearly defined set of warring 46 For Baucells, the case simply suggests that some friars opposed the inquisition as a whole (Vivir en la edad media, ii, 1703–5). The fact that they may have wanted to burn the inquisitor’s records, along with his lodgings, may indeed mean that they opposed the work of this particular inquisitor, but evidence for a wider Dominican rejection of inquisition per se in this period remains elusive. 47 Vargas, Taming a Brood, esp. 22–7.

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camps. At least warring camps do seem to have emerged into open fields of battle on several distinct occasions, before settling into a decade of total separation during the papal schism of 1378. And while their motivations and composition undoubtedly shifted from one episode to the next, there are enough continuities to indicate that these factional divisions had already taken on something of their final form quite soon after the foundation of the Aragonese province in 1301. 48 A brief exercise in human network mapping, drawing connections between individuals as they appear in the fragmentary chapter acta and other sources, allows the outlines of two roughly defined factional groupings to be traced over time. If we step back to the earliest days, when the province had just separated from its Castilian sister, we f ind Bernat Puigcercós being assigned to a prestigious teaching post at the Girona convent, as mentioned before. Presumably, the young theologian enjoyed the approval of then-provincial prior, Miquel de Estella. But this same provincial had less tolerance for two other young doctors of theology, who were severely sanctioned in 1307 for sporting extravagantly coloured habits. One was Arnau Burguet (who we have already met as an inquisitor), and the other was a high-ranking nobleman from the Mallorcan-held territory of Colliure named Berenguer de Saltells. 49 The disciplinary action might have been an innocuous turn of events – after all both men went on to enjoy relatively successful careers in the order, including terms as provincial prior; but it may also hint at a certain basic divide in terms of style, and perhaps even ideology. Where Puigcercós, the aggressive future inquisitor, was willing to court a certain amount of royal disapproval in the name of theological orthodoxy, friars like Saltells seem to have been more concerned with retaining their privileged place in a world 48 The following analysis must necessarily be quite abstract and tentative, given the often deliberate opacity of the surviving sources. It is simply impossible to know for certain exactly who sided with whom; and the fact that one friar seems to have supported another in one event by no means allows us to be certain that the alliance would prove enduring once circumstances changed. Contradictions abound, and some friars appear to have at various times provided at least tacit endorsement of mutually antagonistic factions. A case in point is Joan Fort, whose role in supervising the election of 1333 (and perhaps that of 1343) did not help Bernat Puigcercós at all – despite their apparent previous mutual connection to Arnau Burguet, as will be seen below. Still, overall I believe the evidence tends to point toward some fairly clear factional divisions, which help explain otherwise baffling events such as the attack on Puigcercós. Further research or alternative hypotheses which challenge or nuance these findings will of course be most welcome. 49 Diago, Historia, 35r notes the friar’s provenance, though he later transferred to Barcelona. On the transgression, see Vargas, Taming a Brood, 150–1.

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where honour and social position mattered a great deal. Future events and alliances would tend to both support and flesh out this admittedly rather simplistic characterization. By 1313, Arnau Burguet was elected to the provincial priorate. Perhaps he had learned his lesson and adopted a more disciplined attitude; he certainly seems to have distanced himself from Saltells, and the two are not associated in any subsequent documentation. But something was evidently amiss, and within months the Dominican master-general, Berengar of Landorra, intervened to have Burguet removed from office. After a brief interim period with Joan Fort as provincial, the order’s general chapter confirmed in 1315 that Burguet had been removed for various irregularities and improprieties involving conventual affairs and the naming of preachers-general. Along with several other named accomplices, including both Joan Fort and Bernat de Puigcercós, Burguet was deprived of voting rights for ten years and barred from office for four.50 The next five years saw the province of Aragon under the rule of Jaume Aleman, who (aside from his role in the condemnation of Arnau de Vilanova) is relatively little known to posterity because the chapter acta from his period of governance have all been lost.51 But in 1317 Berengar of Landorra resigned his post to become archbishop of Compostela, and the order’s new master-general, Hervey Brito (Hervaeus de Nédéllec), soon showed himself more favourable to Burguet and his friends.52 In 1320, Jaume Aleman was dismissed from office and Bernat de Puigcercós was appointed provincial vicar with power to oversee a new election – presumably regaining his voting ‘voice’ in the process.53 Arnau Burguet was chosen for a second time as provincial, and his faction was now clearly in the ascendant. From 1320 to 1333 control of the province was firmly in their hands, with Puigcercós becoming inquisitor, prior of Barcelona, and a royal confidant before finally replacing Burguet as provincial on the latter’s death in 1324. These years saw a certain expansion of the order in Aragon, with the consolidation of new convents at Castelló d’Empúries, Cervera, and Manresa 50 Reichert, Acta Capitulorum, ii, 85; Vargas, Taming a Brood, 151. 51 Diago, Historia, 26v–27v. Preservation of provincial chapter acta for Aragon, while imperfect, is nevertheless relatively complete for the early fourteenth century. The gap of missing chapter records from 1315 to 1320 is therefore anomalous, and perhaps not a coincidence if this was a particularly conflicted period that later authorities saw fit to erase from the order’s institutional memory. 52 A convenient list of masters general for the Dominican Order to 1366 can be found in G.R. Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order 1216 to 1360 (Manchester, 1925), 259–60. 53 Reichert, Acta Capitulorum, ii, 119; Diago, Historia, 27v. On appointments of provincial vicars in cases of contested leadership, see Galbraith, Constitution of the Dominican Order, esp. 148–9.

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(originally founded 1317–1318), and the establishment of another at Balaguer in 1323.54 Loyal friars were deployed strategically, as shown by Guillem Costa’s appointment as inquisitor, and a pious ascetic named Dalmau Moner was assigned to join the first recruits in Empúries, Balaguer, and perhaps elsewhere before finally being assigned to Girona (1331), where he would come to exercise a great deal of influence as a charismatic novice master.55 Nor were external alliances neglected; in addition to the monarchs James II and Alfonso IV, Puigcercós cultivated good relations with the counts of Empúries by helping to negotiate a smooth succession from one dynasty to another in 1325 as mentioned above.56 He was also a firm supporter of Pope John XXII, and intolerant of any criticisms levelled against that controversial pontiff.57 Official sources are generally, and understandably, silent about internal unrest.58 But there are signs that turmoil must have gripped the Dominican Order as a whole in 1332 at the death of master-general Barnabas Cagnoli, since there was an unusual delay before his replacement was finally decided on a year later. And by now regime change was clearly in the air. One of the first acts of the new master-general Hugues de Vaucemain was to dismiss Bernat de Puigcercós as provincial prior for Aragon. Bernat was immediately replaced by none other than Berenguer de Saltells, who emerged from decades of obscurity to take on a position of ultimate power in the province.59 Puigcercós went back to his inquisitorial work, as we have seen, 54 Diago, Historia, 274v–76v; cf. Vose, Dominicans, 75. 55 Inquisitor Joan Llotger was also appointed first prior of Manresa (Diago, Historia, 275v). For Moner’s career, and his influence on a young Nicolau Eimeric, see Diago, Historia, 259r–65v; J.M. Coll, ‘El Beato Dalmacio Moner, O.P.: ensayo cronológico de su vida, sus estudiosy enseñanza en la orden dominicana’, AIEG, 2 (1947), 229–43; and J.M. Coll, ‘El Beato Dalmacio Moner, O.P. y los hombres de su tiempo’, AIEG, 3 (1948), 5–35. Coll is convinced that Moner’s influence was a key element (el fundamento y puntal) in all four Dominican houses established in this period, including Manresa and Cervera, but his residence at the latter two is not certain (Coll, ‘Ensayo cronológico’, 233). For his connection to Empúries see Diago, Historia, 275r, who cites a contemporary donation document. The assignments to Balaguer and Girona (where Moner served alongside Puigcercós’s later assailant, Joan Gomir) are in A. Robles Sierra, ‘Actas de los Capítulos Provinciales de la Provincia Dominicana de Aragón de la Orden de Predicadores, Correspondientes a los Años 1327, 1328, 1329, 1330 y 1331’, EV, 22 (1992), 156 and 172 respectively. 56 Vose, Dominicans, 83–4. 57 Fray Bernat’s loyalty to John XXII is suggested by his eagerness to prosecute the extremely well-connected Franciscan (and future archbishop of Tarragona) Sancho de Ayerbe for allegedly uttering criticisms of the pope. Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 74–5, no. 30; Pou y Martí, Visionarios, 196–8; Webster, Els Menorets, 207. 58 And indeed, there is another suspicious lacuna in the run of provincial chapter acta for Aragon – which are entirely missing for the years 1331–1345. 59 Diago, Historia, 35r.

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presumably with the support of the pope and that of his erstwhile friend the Dominican bishop of Barcelona. His ally, Dalmau Moner (d. 1341), seems to have weathered the storm less well, and by 1336 he was allowed – or perhaps was obliged – to leave Girona and take up a hermit’s residence in a series of cave dwellings.60 Saltells for his part spent a great deal of time in Avignon, with a focus on building alliances with Hugues de Vaucemain in order to block papal reform initiatives that threatened to impose greater degrees of austerity on the order.61 More than thirty years after being punished for his lax attitude toward simplicity and poverty, and in marked contrast to the harsher practices of Moner and his followers, Friar Berenguer evidently still favoured a more permissive and worldly observance of the Dominican Constitutions. The stage was thus set for another dramatic showdown when, in August 1341, Hugues de Vaucemain died and left Saltells’s faction vulnerable to a papal crackdown. Bernat de Puigcercós seems to have hoped for precisely that, and his faction began to mobilize as a result. He was soon cruelly disappointed, however; in April 1342 Pope Benedict XII also died, and his reforming policies were immediately abandoned by his successor, Clement VI. It was at this critical juncture that Saltells too met his death, just after the annual meeting of the Aragonese provincial chapter in the autumn of 1342; and it was then that Bernat de Puigcercós and his allies played their final hand by trying to prevent the election of a Saltells loyalist named Bernat Sescala.62 As noted at the outset, this gambit failed and the predominance of what can perhaps now be called an anti-Puigcercós, anti-Benedict XII, 60 It is unclear whether it was entirely his decision to leave Girona at the age of forty-f ive and spend the rest of his life in a Provençal cave once said to have been inhabited by Mary Magdalene (which presumably would have been a great honour as well as an exercise in eremitic asceticism), or whether he and/or others in the order leadership was simply making the best of a situation that required his removal from Aragon. Either way someone seems to have had second thoughts fairly soon, as Moner returned within months to Girona, where he again either chose to or was obliged to live in a cave near the Dominican convent until his death in 1341. Eimeric was careful to note that Bernat Sescala, whom he calls a ‘vir literatus, fidelis et verax’, preached at the burial. See Diago, Historia, 260v–61r and F. Van Ostroy, ‘Vie inédite du B. Dalmace Moner, O.P.’, Analecta Bollandiana, 31 (1912), 63, 77. 61 I am here following the suggestions of F. Felten, ‘Le pape Benoît XII (1334–1342) et les Frères Prêcheurs’, CF, 26 (1991), 307–42, against traditional Dominican historiography which claims Benedict actually sought to water down the friars’ observance and force them to relax their rules on poverty. The experiences of Raymond Barrau, a Dominican at Avignon in this period, also shed light on the degree of factional hatred engendered within the order by Benedict’s reform initiatives – whatever they were. See P. Botineau, ‘Les tribulations de Raymond Baraut, O.P. (1295–1338)’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 77 (1965), 475–528. 62 Diago, Historia, 39v.

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anti-reform, and pro-Clement VI faction was fully confirmed. Clement ensured the election first of his close relative Gerard de Daumar as mastergeneral of the Dominican Order, and then of the equally reliable Pierre de Baume in the spring of 1343 once Gerard was elevated to the cardinalate.63 Puigcercós and his colleagues were ordered to appear at the next general chapter to explain themselves, and that summer he was physically attacked by Sescala’s men.64 We have come full circle. Yet there is a secular political dimension to the story as well, which needs to be further considered and acknowledged. As previously noted, Bernat de Puigcercós (despite occasional difficulties when he clashed with royal favourites such as Arnau de Vilanova or Sancho de Ayerbe) generally enjoyed good relations with the monarchy under James II and Alfonso IV. Things began to change, however, with the accession of Peter IV (the Ceremonious) in 1336. By now Puigcercós’s faction had lost control of the province to that of Saltells, so Pere had no reason to cultivate them. More importantly, almost immediately the king also found himself on bad terms with Benedict XII – with Aragon being placed under interdict in 1336 in a dispute over payment for the late king’s Sardinian and Corsican acquisitions.65 To make matters worse, Benedict openly championed the interests of Peter’s cousin and brother-in-law, James III of Mallorca, in the ever-worsening conflict between these two kingdoms. By 1339 things were so bad that Peter and James nearly came to blows in the streets of Avignon, and the potential for open warfare was very real.66 Under such circumstances, Peter was unlikely to have much patience for local Dominicans who remained overly loyal to the pope. On the other hand friars like Saltells, Sescala, and others who had opposed Benedict over the years could expect to receive their full share of royal sympathy. And if they could find a way to make themselves useful to the king in his struggles with Mallorca, so much the better. Sure enough, opportunities to do just that soon presented themselves, for the summer of 1342 was marked not just by the establishment of a new 63 C. Douais, Les Frères Prêcheurs en Gascogne au XIIIe et au XIVe siècle: chapitres, couvents et notices (Paris, 1885), 405–6. 64 The 1343 order for Puigcercós’s co-conspirators – along with three Italian friars who had caused similar dissension in their own province – to appear personaliter at a subsequent general chapter is in Acta Capitulorum, ii, 290. The matter may have been settled with Sescala’s confirmation, however, as the 1344 chapter acta do not record any further discussion of the case. 65 This is recounted bitterly in the king’s own memoirs: Pere III of Catalonia (Peter IV of Aragon), Chronicle, trans. Mary Hillgarth, with introduction and notes by J.N. Hillgarth, 2 vols (Toronto, 1980), i, 193 and 220. 66 Pere III, Chronicle, i, 220–5.

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papacy and conflict among the Dominicans, but also by a curious incident that cemented the final breakdown in relations between Peter of Aragon and James of Mallorca. Peremptorily summoned to Barcelona for more talks, James was careful not to actually set foot on Catalan soil. Instead he and his entourage, which included Peter’s sister (James’s queen), shuttled back and forth from their ships over an extendable and discreetly covered wooden bridge to a dockside Franciscan convent. Feigning her illness, James invited King Peter to come and visit his royal sister on board. But, according to Peter’s own Chronicle, he was warned in the nick of time by an unnamed Dominican friar (‘a preaching friar, of saintly life, who was a familiar of Our house but whose name We do not remember’) that a kidnapping or assassination plot was afoot and that he might never leave the ship alive.67 In the wake of this near-outrage diplomacy naturally broke down, and within a few months James had been declared a ‘contumacious vassal’. His island kingdom was forcibly seized and re-annexed to the Crown of Aragon in 1344 – and the Dominicans of Mallorca suddenly found themselves under a new royal master. This context has the potential to add a new dimension to the conflicted Dominican elections of 1342 and 1343, and to their aftermath. The Dominican province of Aragon had always comprised members from both kingdoms, but while the island was politically separate interactions naturally tended to be somewhat limited.68 Once united, however, pragmatically minded friars who were willing to join Sescala (who may himself have had Mallorcan roots) and his faction were well situated to serve their king and his occupation forces as mediating agents.69 The same was also true of royal–papal relations; 67 Diago, Historia, 38v–39r; Pere III, Chronicle, i, 246–50. The ultimate source of the plot information was apparently the queen, Peter’s sister. One suspects that the informant may well have been someone like Nicolau Rossell, a young Mallorcan friar who subsequently experienced a rather meteoric rise in power and influence, as will be see further below, but this remains pure conjecture. 68 The island convent of Ciutat de Mallorca (modern-day Palma) in particular comprised one of the oldest and most prestigious of Dominican foundations in the province, but it had long been relatively isolated as a result of the royal family’s dynastic struggles. Puigcerdà and Colliure also boasted Dominican convents at the time, but these fell under the jurisdiction of the Provençal province. See Vose, Dominicans, 74–5 for further details. 69 According to the later Mallorcan chroniclers such as Tomás Febrer and Domingo Manera, supported by documents archived at the friars’ island convent, Sescala was himself Mallorcan. See P. Adrover Rosselló, La Orden de Predicadores en la Historia de Baleares (Palma, 1995), 65; also Palma, Arxiu Diocesà MS 185, fol. 11v (an 18th-century list of friars professed at the convent); and Palma, Biblioteca de Bartomeu March Servera MS: D. Manera, Historia de los varones ilustres y cosas memorables del Real Convento de Santo Domingo de la ciudad de Palma (1733), 84–8. Diago, Historia, 39v however says he was from Girona.

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Benedict’s death, and the de facto elimination of Mallorca as a political threat, opened the door to a potential thaw and a concomitant opportunity for ambitious friar-diplomats to make their mark. Taking advantage of good relations between both King Peter and Pope Clement with their order’s leadership (if not always with each other), Mallorcan Dominicans figure prominently among those who came forward with a willingness to serve in this capacity. Bernat Sescala and his confrères had in fact likely had – and were undoubtedly quite aware of – at least the tacit support of a Mallorcan contingent within the order even before the conquest was finalized. It was after all the generally pro-French and pro-Mallorcan papacy of Clement VI, along with French masters-general Gerard de Daumar and Pierre de la Baume, who appointed the vicar responsible for confirmation of Sescala’s election in 1343.70 The Dominican general chapter had met in Paris that spring in full knowledge that Peter’s armies were mustering for war, and the invasion was well under way by the time of both the attack on Puigcercós and the ensuing electoral triumph of Sescala’s faction. The fall of Mallorca had long been a contingency to prepare for, especially for those previously connected to either Mallorca or its allies, such as the count of Empúries, and a certain amount of playing for both sides must have been essential.71 Evidently some Dominican (or group of Dominicans) with an inside connection to Mallorcan court circles had seen fit to benefit from King Peter’s gratitude over the assassination plot warning. Perhaps in the end, by means of careful diplomacy and manoeuvring, a whole contingent of Mallorcan-connected Dominicans actually managed to turn the conquest of their island into a golden opportunity for advancement. This may be pressing the evidence of the sources too far, but the fact remains that Sescala’s faction prospered in the aftermath of the war – and when he stepped down as provincial prior in 1350, allegedly exhausted by the tribulations of the Black Death, he was seamlessly succeeded by a man whose ties to Mallorca were still more apparent. 70 Though, as noted above, it remains unclear whether this vicar was indeed Jaume Arnau (Jayme Arnaldo), from the order’s Provençal territories which remained loyal to James III (as claimed by Diago, Historia, 39v), or the venerable Aragonese ex-provincial Joan Fort (as per Reichert, Acta Capitulorum, ii, 291). 71 After the Dominican-brokered succession settlement in 1325, the county of Empúries had passed to King Peter’s uncles, who made no secret of their occasional support for the Mallorcan cause: first the mystically inclined (later Franciscan) Prince Pere, and then in 1341 his brother, Ramon Berenguer. Dominicans with personal and family ties to the Ampurian convent, such as Sescala’s familiar Joan Gomir, would naturally have continued to cultivate close relations with their count (‘the most powerful feudal baron in Catalonia’) as well as their king whenever possible. See Hillgarth’s comments in Pere III, Chronicle, i, 24.

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Nicolau Rossell’s rise to prominence as provincial prior for Aragon in June 1350 can only be explained by political factors. Only thirty-six years old and from a relatively humble family, with the ink on his Avignon-issued master’s degree in theology barely dry, he was named inquisitor for the Crown of Aragon two weeks later (in violation of canonical norms).72 His subsequent promotion to the rank of cardinal in 1356 made him the kingdom’s first cleric, and certainly its first Dominican, ever to don the red hat. On his departure for Avignon early the next year, Rossell transferred his duties as both provincial and inquisitor to his Ampurian colleague and ally Joan Gomir – whom we have already met as one of Bernat de Puigcercós’s assailants thirteen years previously – thus further revealing his likely ties to Sescala’s faction.73 Relations between king and papacy stayed fairly tense throughout much of Peter’s long reign, but Rossell was an able go-between and the Dominicans remained a tolerated and perhaps welcome back-door conduit for communications between the various powers for many years to come.74 The trying internal conflicts and political events of the 1340s likely explain an apparent lapse in Dominican inquisitorial activity at mid-century. In the wake of Puigcercós’s defeat and the fall of Mallorca, trials against Christian heretics and Jewish apostates simply do not seem to have ranked high in the priorities of Sescala and his supporters. Some of Puigcercós’s former victims were even able to come forward and have his judgements overturned.75 This would change somewhat under Rossell, who may have felt a need to display his authority as well as being motivated by true anti-heretical zeal. Profiting from his close ties to the papacy, he obtained an important bull in 1351 that granted the Dominican prior provincials of Aragon clear powers henceforth 72 On Rossell’s precocious career, see Diago, Historia, 41v–46r. According to a later Mallorcan source, Rossell’s brother was a canon of Girona and their forebears were connected to the Ampurian port town of Roses, which may explain his connections to the Gironès (Empúries being subject to the bishop of Girona); Manera, Historia de los varones ilustres, 92–118. 73 According to Diago, Historia, 45v, Gomir was granted a master’s degree from the pope only after having been assigned the provincialate by his patron, Rossell. 74 Rossell assisted in settling the affairs of condemned Mallorcans in the immediate aftermath of the conquest (March 1346), and was appointed royal chaplain a few months later (Alós, ‘El Cardenal de Aragón’, 43–4, nos 1–2). The death of James III, after a failed attempt to retake his island kingdom, left his dynasty’s cause further in ruins and may have permitted a still greater solidification of loyalties between Peter and his Mallorcan friars. Rosell’s later diplomatic service is amply recorded in J. Vincke, ‘Nikolaus Rosell O.P., Kardinal von Aragon’, AFP, 14 (1944), 116–97. 75 Thus writing to the archbishop of Tarragona in 1345, Clement VI denounced Puigcercós’s earlier sentence against Bernardo de Camprodón as ‘inique et injuste ex odio indebite’. No reply or defence from Puigcercós is extant, further suggesting that he was totally disempowered or perhaps deceased at this point. Clement’s letter is in Pou y Martí, Visionarios, 199–200.

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to select their own inquisitors.76 Nor did Friar Nicolau hesitate to initiate his own trials: his opposition to Franciscan theological pronouncements on the blood of Christ, along with his spectacular prosecutions against Valencian Beghards led by Jaume Just, and a Cistercian named Berenguer de Monte Falcone, were all noted as significant exemplary cases in the writings of Nicolau Eimeric.77 Rossell even seems to have rivalled Puigcercós in his eagerness to act against Jewish misbehaviour, and although this aspect of his work was ignored by Eimeric the royal archives reveal that such activism was profitable indeed.78 Rossell’s departure for Avignon cut his inquisitions short in 1356, and though he is also credited with having served as an inquisitor Joan Gomir does not seem to have done much for the cause before almost immediately passing his inquisitorial portfolio on to another up-and-coming young friar: Nicolau Eimeric.79 Eimeric’s emergence in the arena of order politics would initiate yet another phase in the Aragonese Dominicans’ history of factional conflict. Yet the fact that he was chosen to become an inquisitor at all, given the provincial prior’s newly enhanced powers of appointment, would seem to indicate that the old divisions were now thought to be safely in the past. It had, after all, been fifteen years since the elections of Clement VI and Bernat Sescala.80 But Nicolau Eimeric had been trained in the traditions of Bernat Puigcercós and Dalmau Moner at Girona in the earlier half of the century; and indeed one of Eimeric’s first known writings was an effusive saint’s vita for Moner that extolled the master’s extreme rigour and austerity.81 Rossell and Gomir may not have suspected it when they allowed him to take up the 76 Diago, Historia, 12r–13v (misdated to 1342); Alós, ‘Cardenal de Aragón’, 48, no. 6. 77 Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, qq. 10 and 11 (262–3 and 266–7); Diago, Historia, 42v–43r. 78 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 84–91, nos 46–9, 51, 52, 54–7; Alós, ‘Cardenal de Aragón’, 50–1, nos 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 18. 79 The only evidence of Gomir’s serving in an inquisitorial capacity is a brief passage in Diago (Historia, 45v) citing a document in the Santa Catalina archive dated June 1356 (regarding the trial of a certain Raymond, from Gomir’s native Castelló d’Empúries). Vincke could find no trace of such in his survey of inquisition materials in the royal archives, while Fort i Cogul (Catalunya i la inquisició, 87) attributes the case to Eimeric. 80 Rossell may indeed have been something of a compromise candidate, respected by partisans of otherwise differing tendencies, and it is quite possible that factionalism had been significantly reduced. It seems noteworthy that despite his obvious connections to his more conflicted successors Gomir and Ermengol, Rossell is mentioned approvingly (and more than once) as an effective inquisitor in Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, qq. 10 and 11 (262–3, 266). 81 In addition to the articles by J.M. Coll cited above, see Brugada i Gutiérrez-Ravé, Nicolau Eimeric, 27–9; Vargas, Taming a Brood, 275 emphasizes Moner’s marginality as an exaggerated ascetic. The full vita (which was also the basis for Diago’s long account of the holy man, his austerity, and his miracles) is published in Van Ostroy, ‘Vie inédite’, 54–81.

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post, but Eimeric would soon show his potential to become an even greater force for division and factionalism than any previously seen in the province. Eimeric’s inquisitorial zeal, which bordered on recklessness at times, was evident from the first. Within weeks of taking up his duties, he had begun proceedings against Nicolas de Calabria, an Italian who had recently taken up residence near Barcelona. Nicolas had been under suspicion for years in Castile, as a follower of the self-styled prophet/messiah Martin Gonzalo (Gondisalvus) of Cuenca, but his downfall came very swiftly once Friar Eimeric took on the case; formally abjuring his errors on 20 April 1357, he was accused of relapse later the same day and mercilessly burned along with his writings a month later.82 By August 1358, King Peter had grown so alarmed at this new inquisitor’s aggressive style that he wrote to both Pope Innocent VI and former provincial Rossell asking for termination of Eimeric’s inquisitorial powers ex causis legitimis. A more pragmatic friar, Bernat Ermengol (Bernardo Ermengaudo), was suggested as a suitable replacement.83 Yet Eimeric continued undeterred, indeed redoubling his investigation of Valencian Franciscans to the point where the king personally intervened to ask him to stop.84 And he continued to press his viewpoint both at the highest levels of the order and at the papal Curia. By 1362 it appeared that the tide had begun to shift in his favour, for Easter of that year saw the Dominican general chapter meeting in Ferrara relieve Joan Gomir of his duties. Eimeric himself was appointed vicar for Aragon and given authority to preside over an election to choose a new prior provincial. The return of a more uncompromisingly zealous vision for the order, at the expense of Gomir’s more moderate and pragmatic approach, now seemed assured.85 Open factional conflict had thus once more returned to the province, and battle was soon joined. Although plans for a provincial chapter meeting at Valencia had originally been set for 8 September 1362, Eimeric now exercised his vicarial powers, lingered at the papal Curia, and announced that the election would be postponed until November. Seizing his opportunity, Gomir rushed back to Aragon and ordered his followers to meet instead on 82 The case was tried in collaboration with the Barcelona episcopal vicar Arnau Busquets; Eimeric, Directorium, part 2, qq. 11 (266) and 28 (316). Diago, Historia, 46v–47r provides further details, including precise dates, drawing on original trials documents he found in the Dominican convent archive in Barcelona. Cf. Menendez Pelayo, Heterodoxos, i, 494–5. 83 Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 91–2, nos 60–1. 84 The king also wrote once more to Joan Gomir in 1360, asking him to rein in the inquisitor. Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 93–5, nos 63–4. 85 Diago, Historia, 46r–v.

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the original date. Guillem Conill was appointed to replace the absent Fray Nicolau as vicar, and in the resulting election Bernat Ermengol was named provincial prior. When Eimeric finally arrived at Valencia two months later, and was himself elected to the provincialate by a rival chapter, the order was faced with yet another leadership crisis and potential schism – just as it had been twenty years before. The factional, and not simply personal, nature of this struggle is suggested by the fact that both Gomir and Ermengol were named as close confederates in Cardinal Rossell’s will.86 They also enjoyed royal approval. Meanwhile Eimeric was an outsider whose candidacy was clearly opposed by the king. He does seem to have garnered a certain amount of localized support from other powerful magnates such as the count of Empúries, the bishop of Girona, and even the heir apparent, Prince Joan (perhaps as a means for them to annoy the king, as much as anything else).87 He was also careful to cultivate alliances at the papal court, and it is possible that his decision to stay at Avignon through the month of September had something to do with a desire to be present for the election of a new pope.88 But when Urban V was finally able to turn his attention to Aragonese matters, he decided to compromise by naming an outsider to serve as provincial prior: former Provençal prior provincial and Mallorcan inquisitor Jaume Domenech. 89 Eimeric remained an inquisitor under the terms of this settlement, but so too did Ermengol; and after the brief subsequent provincialate of Mathias Bartolomé (1367–1369), it was Ermengol who finally obtained the larger prize. Fray Bernat went on to serve as provincial prior for nearly twenty years (1369–1387), while Eimeric never advanced to any higher ranks within 86 The Mallorcan theologian Guillem Llobet also received special mention in this will, and the cardinal’s books were divided up between the convents of Barcelona, Girona, and Mallorca; see Diago, Historia, 46r. 87 As a friar-inquisitor from Girona, Eimeric was in a good position to cultivate ties to both the bishop and prince Joan, who became duke of Girona as a child in 1351. On the principle that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, he also later seized the opportunity to make connections with rebellious counts of Empúries and Urgel when these were in conflict with the monarchy. A full evaluation of intersections between baronial politics and Eimeric’s inquisitorial career remains to be performed, but would undoubtedly be illuminating. 88 Innocent VI died on 12 September 1362, and the succession was complicated. The cardinals at first selected a brother of Clement VI, but when he declined they had difficulty in finding a suitable second choice. On 28 September the decision was taken to offer the papacy to Guillaume de Grimoard, a Benedictine living in Naples, but it was not until November that he could be brought to Avignon and consecrated as Pope Urban V. See R. McBrien, Lives of the Popes: the pontiffs from St Peter to John Paul II (San Francisco, 1997), 243. 89 Domenech was a native of Colliure, in the mainland territories of the Mallorcan kingdom: Diago, Historia, 52r.

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the order – and indeed had to receive the general chapter’s protection from his vindictive rivals.90 Inquisition was not obviously a central bone of contention in this struggle: Gomir himself did not make any effort to retain inquisitorial powers after 1357; and, as we have seen, at first he did not seem to mind his future rival Eimeric’s functioning in that capacity. The fact that Bernat Ermengol also took on inquisition duties after 1358 may well be significant as the first sign of a renewed factional split (a situation perhaps welcomed by the papacy and some bishops, who did not want to see the order fall too far under royal control and so tended to shelter Eimeric from the worst of King Peter’s anger), but this would certainly not be the first time that multiple inquisitors shared the duties of combating heresy in the crown. Royal and episcopal registers reveal plenty of examples of lesser-known friars, such as the Valencian Barthomeu Gaço or Gironan Pere Bageny, who were actively prosecuting alleged Judaizers as royally deputed enqueridores in the early 1390s – to give just a couple of examples.91 Still, while Ermengol pursued few inquisitorial cases and dedicated himself more to his administrative duties and theological writings than to heresy trials,92 Eimeric continued to find and prosecute heretics wherever he could; indeed, with his provincial leadership ambitions quashed, inquisition likely became a more and more central aspect of his identity and sense of calling. At times from exile in Avignon (where he was particularly embraced and encouraged by Gregory XI), at other times returning temporarily to a hospitable Aragonese district where local bishops were willing to support him, Friar Nicolau spent more than a decade and a half between his failed election bid of 1362 and the death of Pope Gregory in 1378 working on a wide range of inquisition files – many of which he sought to immortalize, along with his own spin on just how inquisitions should function, in the final text of his 1376 Directorium.93 But therein lies the irony: for it was Nicolau 90 Bartolomé’s and Ermengol’s careers are summarized in Diago, Historia, 54r–57r, with the latter’s death mentioned at 58r. The general chapter granted Eimeric absolution from all ‘deposicionem, suspensionem et quancumque aliam punicionem […] pro tempore quo fuit vicarius in provincia Aragonie’ at its 1363 meeting, evidence that he had indeed faced repercussions. Acta Capitulorum, ii, 401. 91 See respectively Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 150–1, no. 144 (dated 1393) and S. Planas, Na Blanca, jueva de Girona (s. xiv), Dones il.lustres de les comarques gironins, 2 (Bellcaire d’Empordà, 2010). My thanks to Paola Tartakoff for drawing these to my attention. 92 Ermengol was best known to contemporaries for his sermons and commentaries on the Sentences, among other works (Diago, Historia, 56v). 93 It would be impossible here to even begin to summarize the complexities of Eimeric’s fairly well-studied later activities, which ranged from attacking the legacy of Ramon Llull to taking on the king’s own astrologers; for the latter, see M. Ryan, A Kingdom of Stargazers: astrology

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Eimeric, that most unusual and extreme inquisitor, representative of a minority and largely failed faction within his own home province, writing in exile and frequently stripped of effective inquisitorial powers as a result of political considerations, who used the power of his stylus to pass down to later generations a vision of ‘the inquisitor’ that had probably never really existed in practice. The papal schism, which began in 1378 with the election of Urban VI in Rome, followed by that of his rival Clement VII in Avignon, merely permitted the consolidation of divisions that had already become entrenched among the Dominicans of Aragon. Since Peter IV adopted a policy of neutrality, it was possible for friars in his kingdom to opt for either side, and this soon allowed existing partisanship to become formalized.94 Some friars, including provincial prior Bernat Ermengol, sided with Rome and Pope Urban, and with a newly selected master-general Raymond of Capua. Their opponents responded by aligning with Avignon and Pope Clement, along with master-general Elias Raymond, and each side declared the other to be anathema and excommunicate.95 Eimeric himself supported the Avignon papacy until his death in 1399, and continued to both write and speak out furiously against heresy at every opportunity; but he was still offered no place in the provincial hierarchy.96 In 1380, the Clementine faction selected Gombaldo de Ulugia as provincial prior for Aragon, and he in turn appointed a new inquisitor named Ximeno de Navarra.97 Even when King John succeeded to the throne in 1387, declaring allegiance to Avignon and forcing a reunification of the Aragonese friars, it was the Mallorcan friar Pere Correger who would be chosen to serve as a new prior provincial (1387–1405), rather than the volatile author of the Directorium Inquisitorum. This last chapter in the inquisitorial history of the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon thus suggests that, in the end, political realities and and authority in the late medieval Crown of Aragon (Ithaca, 2011), esp. 124–38. Even former allies such as King John I became so exasperated that they denounced him in colourful terms such as ‘enemich nostre’ and ‘aquex fil de diable qui es pare de malicia’ (John I in 1393, as printed in Vincke, Vorgeschichte, 151–2, no. 145). 94 On the subtleties of Peter’s neutrality, see A. Ivars ‘La “indiferencia” de Pedro IV de Aragón en el Gran Cisma de Occidente (1378–1382)’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 29 (1928), 21–97, 161–86. 95 Diago, Historia, 57v–58r. 96 Eimeric was typically outspoken on the schism: E. Finke, ‘Nicolás Eymerich publicista en los comienzos del cisma de occidente’, AIEG, 2 (1947), 124–32. Cf. L. Robles, ‘Tratados sobre el cisma escritos por dominicos de la Corona de Aragón’, EV, 13 (1983), 198. 97 Diago, Historia, 57v. After Ulugia’s death in 1384, Clement VII suspended the meeting of Aragonese chapters and assigned vicar Antonio Borro to run the province until 1387. Ximeno served as inquisitor from 1380 to 1402.

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the exigencies of factionalism often played more of a role in determining allegiances than did ideology. For while Eimeric had managed to rally significant numbers of sympathetic friars to his cause in 1362, and many of those same friars likely remained opposed to the regime led by Bernat Ermengol right through the initial years of the schism, they no longer seem to have looked to the fiery inquisitor as much of an inspirational force once it became clear that his focus had shifted to Avignon, and that he had ceased to be a major player in the affairs of the province itself. And despite Eimeric’s enthusiasm for a harsher, more strictly disciplined, and indeed more persecutory version of Christianity, he nevertheless chose to eschew the leadership of a major reforming figure like Raymond of Capua at the time of the schism, and so missed out on taking part in what would soon become the Dominican Observance movement. Driven by events, he instead found himself supporting an Avignon papacy that could often be disturbingly worldly – even heretical, in Eimeric’s eyes – and with which his quixotic inquisitorial campaigning was increasingly at odds.98 Yet even this was apparently preferable to joining forces with an arch-rival like Ermengol, and with the Aragonese friars who had supported him. Neither Bernat de Puigcercós nor Nicolau Eimeric – nor Joan Llotger, Arnau Burguet, Guillem Costa, Nicolau Rossell, Ximeno de Navarra, or any of the other inquisidores generales listed by historians of the fourteenthcentury Dominican province of Aragon – can be said to have been in any way ‘typical’.99 For while canon law did lay out basic rules of procedure in cases of heresy inquisition, and a handful of scholars had even begun to collate these rules, together with snippets of practical advice and illustrative examples as part of a nascent body of inquisitorial ‘manual’ literature, the actual exercise of the inquisitor’s office remained very largely undefined throughout the later Middle Ages. Individual inquisitors developed their own procedures, selected their preferred targets, and dealt with unexpected challenges as best they could, amid a wide range of other concerns. They could do little without episcopal support, and the approval of secular rulers was also crucial if verdicts were to be implemented on the ground – as Eimeric repeatedly 98 See Chapter 1 of Philip Daileader’s forthcoming monograph Saint Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419): his world and life, for new findings on the inquisitor’s clashes with fellow Dominican (and future saint) Vincent Ferrer as well as the Avignon pope Benedict XIII. 99 The very fact that they are constantly described as inquisidores generales by Diago and others shows the pervasively anachronistic nature of later historians’ assumptions about medieval inquisitores haereticae pravitatis. The Inquisitor General, ruling over his Suprema, is an invention of the much later, more powerful, and more centrally institutionalized Spanish Inquisition.

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discovered to his cost. Depending on a particular inquisitor’s personality, ideology, and political resources, his role in a community could and did vary considerably. It is therefore important to place inquisitorial history within the wider lens of ecclesiastical order and secular politics whenever possible. This seemingly commonsense admonition is all the more vital to underline because of the inordinate influence that the Directorium Inquisitorum has had over the centuries. Written by a man who was arguably such an atypical and, in some ways, unsuccessful Aragonese inquisitor, it is quite ironic that this text has made such a great contribution to and played such a great role in determining both the future of the office and its historical memory. Intended as a justification of its author’s actions and a claim to theological authority in questions of inquisition procedure, Eimeric’s Directorium seems to have enjoyed only a modest distribution in manuscripts among inquisitors of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.100 It was printed at Barcelona in 1503, in the early days of the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, but this edition was less widely distributed, and less influential, than is often assumed. Only in the later sixteenth century, heavily revised with additions and corrections by the jurist Francisco Peña, did the Directorium go on to become a classic text of post-Tridentine canon law.101 Yet today it inevitably serves many scholars as a first, normative, and perhaps unique window into the inquisitorial history of the medieval Crown of Aragon. What I hope to have suggested here is that there is much more to the story. Indeed, while Eimeric’s oeuvre and example would ultimately have a major impact by effectively codifying a certain style of inquisitorial theory and practice, it provides nothing like a representative glimpse into the real 100 For a list of all known Eimeric MSS, see T. Kaeppeli and E. Panella, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi, 4 vols (Rome, 1970–93), iii, 156–65. The list of Directorium MSS on 159 reveals the existence of about twenty-five medieval codices, at least five of them partial or fragmentary. Many seem to have been produced and used in German lands rather than in Aragon, and only three MSS now remain in the latter region: in the cathedral libraries of Valencia and in Tortosa, along with a partial copy from the old Dominican convent in Barcelona now held by the Universitat de Barcelona. Closer examination of all MSS needs to be done to get a better sense of this work’s true medieval audience. 101 E. Peters, ‘Editing Inquisitors’ Manuals in the Sixteenth Century: Francisco Peña and the Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicholas Eymeric’, Library Chronicle, 60 (1974), 95–107 remains a touchstone for evaluating the importance of the text, which Peters called ‘the most influential example in the history of the genre’ (96); see also A. Borromeo, ‘A proposito del Directorium Inquisitorum di Nicolás Eymerich e delle sue edizioni cinquecentesche’, Critica Storica, 20 (1983), 499–547. There remains, however, much work to be done in more fully evaluating the reception and use of the many dozens of canon law manuals written primarily and often explicitly for inquisitorial use in the early modern period – of which the Directorium was but one, albeit one with a particularly memorable title.

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nature of the inquisitor’s office – and all the complex forces that influenced its exercise – throughout the turbulent years of the fourteenth century in the Crown of Aragon. Before his time, inquisitors of varying rank and influence took part on an intermittent but fairly regular basis as just one part of the Church’s efforts to prosecute a wide range of heretical behaviours. Very often, especially in important cases, their role was limited to that of one consulting theologian among many – and it was always subject to the overarching authority of a bishop. An inquisitor could even be openly threatened with fire (as was Puigcercós) or accused of heresy (as was Eimeric, and Puigcercós too in his youth), while finding himself utterly powerless to pass judgement on his foes. In the end secular and ecclesiastical politics would occasionally make the staffing of inquisitorial positions into a matter for controversy, and during the early schism years this led to the phenomenon of parallel inquisitors engaged in theological duels and issuing contradictory opinions on matters such as the orthodoxy of Ramon Llull.102 But, Eimeric’s efforts notwithstanding, the medieval Aragonese inquisitor was never simply an individual manifestation of Church discipline, heroically dedicated to taking on the perpetual threat of heretical depravity in its multitude of purest forms. He was always inevitably just one small part of much larger, multifaceted, and generally conflicted systems of power and authority. Often the issues most ‘at stake’ in determining a given inquisitor’s actions and experiences – and, sadly, those of his victims – were actually echoes and reflections of battles being fought elsewhere. Robin Vose, Saint Thomas University, Canada

102 Ermengol’s 1386 response to Eimeric on the question of Llullian orthodoxy was to establish his own commission of Dominicans and Franciscans; see Puig i Oliver, ‘Nicholás Eymerich, un inquisidor discutido’, esp. 553–7.

10. Sutzura e viltat carnal: The Place of Sin and Lust in the Treatises of the Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis (c.1400) Víctor Farías Zurita Abstract This study offers a portrait of a moralist at the end of the fourteenth century, namely Francesc Eiximenis, a Franciscan author of diverse treaties dedicated to teaching the truths of the Christian faith. The chapter describes his life and work and his morality and teaching, above all what his works say regarding women, marriage, and sexuality. This study reveals not only the context of this morality but also what Eiximenis imagined a good Christian should be. This portrait of a moralist helps us to better understand the medieval world towards 1400 in all its complexity. Keywords: Franciscans, medieval Aragon, religious history, Francesc Eiximenis

This current study has its starting point in a concern for human impulses (emotions, passions) and the moral discourses constructed around these impulses in the world that we call ‘medieval’. I am interested, among other issues, in the moralization of what we now know as ‘sexuality’ and the extent to which this moralization was shared by medieval men and women. Of course, I am not the first to determine that the main focus of my interest is not to be found in medieval texts. That is, the concept of ‘sexuality’ is a modern one and does not have a medieval equivalent; there are no texts explaining what we call ‘sexuality’. In fact, our concept would have appeared strange from a medieval point of view. They had others which were similar, such as that of the ‘carnal deed’ or ‘coupling’ (obra or ajustament carnal).

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch10

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But it is evident that neither of these concepts coincides precisely with our own concept of ‘sexuality’, and they turn out to be much more complex than our concept. Obviously sexual life was a medieval interest and several aspects of what we know as ‘sexuality’ were treated in detail, and these have been studied by historians in recent years.1 The reconstruction of the ‘sexual’ in the medieval period demands an ongoing effort to distinguish between their concept of sexuality and ours, and the historian must avoid projecting our current concepts onto the realities of the past. The current study is focused on the vice of lust, which occupies a prominent place in certain medieval discourses about the ‘carnal deed’. In order to study this topic I will focus on the works of Francesc Eiximenis, a Franciscan friar born c.1330 into a burgher family from Girona, who achieved his doctorate in theology in the studium generale in Toulouse with the generous support of King Peter IV of Aragon and Queen Eleanor. Eiximenis’s work was revered both by the royal court and the urban elite in Barcelona and Valencia. He is the author of a series of treatises, among which the Crestià is the most outstanding. It was a work of ambitious proportions (with thirteen books planned) whose aim was to explain what a Christian should be aware of in order that he might achieve redemption. Our Franciscan only wrote four books of the aforementioned work: the first three (Primer, Segon, Terç) and the twelfth (Dotzé). I have chosen to examine this treatise, firstly, because the text is not widely studied (even though some historians have made invaluable contributions to the study of certain aspects of it); and, secondly, because it is a text which has plenty of information for my topic of interest as a historian.2 My aim here is to study particularly the capital vice and mortal sin of lust, as presented in the Tractat de luxúria (The Treatise on Lust) contained in the Terç of the Crestià [TC].3 Afterwards, I will look to contextualize this treatise in the Terç of the Crestià and the Terç within the whole of the Crestià. It is my objective to provide a discourse on the basis of these diverse texts about the ‘carnal deed’ as it relates to ‘clerical morality’. The Treatise on Lust consists of 118 chapters from a total of 1060 chapters comprising the Terç. These chapters are clustered into three groups. The first 1 For a state of the issue cf. Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. V.L. Bullough and J.A. Brundage (New York, 2000); R.M. Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: doing unto others (New York, 2005). 2 The current study is only devised as a first approach to the author and his work, a topic which I hope to develop further in the near future. 3 X. Renedo Puig, Edició i estudi del ‘Tractat de Luxúria’ del ‘Terç del Crestià’ de Francesc Eiximenis (Bellaterra, 1992).

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group is focused on the explanation of the sin of lust (luxúria) in general. The second deals with the introduction of the ‘daughters’ ( filles) and ‘types’ (espècies) of lust. And the third group of chapters aims at explaining how to avoid such a sin and presents the remedies to help overcome it. Below, I will present the content of these three groups in a nutshell. The chapters contained in the first part of the Tractat de luxúria introduce lust in general [TC, 523–53]. The sin is defined by Eiximenis as an ‘inordinate desire for evil pleasures’ (desordenada cobeejança) and he explains that he uses the term in a strict sense, not in the broader sense used by others. Following this clarification, certain chapters are inserted in which Eiximenis refers to fornication, in particular to sexual relations between a man and a woman who is not his wife. He deals particularly with the issue of whether it is a sin for a man to know carnally a woman who is not his wife, and teaches why a man must have just one woman and a woman just one man. Chapter 525 explains that fornication ‘is against the common good of the res publica, which is the multiplication of human nature, and that it is against one’s neighbour and against God’ (és contra ben común de la cosa pública, ço és la multiplicació de natura humana, e contra lo proïsme e Déu). After this initial discussion of fornication (a question to which he will return later on) more chapters dealing with lust follow, and the first of them teaches that lust is a mortal sin as well as emphasizing the importance of consent (consentiment) in determining the severity of the sin. Another chapter presents the heart (cor), the tongue (lengua), and the deed (obra) as the three places in man in which lust lies, pointing out that bad deeds do not only include what will be presented as the types of lust, but also deeds such as embracing women in a carnal way and dishonest contact. The following chapters quote the Franciscan Durand of Champagne in order to explain the different causes which lead to the sin of lust, such as ‘idleness’ (ociositat) and ‘the love of delights’ (amor de delits). One chapter teaches about the ‘signs of a lustful man’ (senyals de hom luxuriòs), that is, the signs and deeds which help us identify the man who has fallen into the ‘pit’ (pou) of lust. Eiximenis explains, following Durand’s lead, that the lustful man is recognized by his particular way of looking at a woman. The lustful man is also a man who talks a lot about women and who enjoys listening to tales about carnal turpitude; he is someone who often looks for female companionship and seeks to talk to unaccompanied women, especially in seedy places. He is a man who lives in idleness and is also a ‘glutton’ (golafre) who often delights in drinking fine wines. The last chapters of the first part of the treatise teach why this sin must be avoided at all costs and the damage it can cause to a Christian. Eiximenis

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presents several reasons to avoid lust: it must be avoided because it brings to Our Lord ‘many and very great dishonours’ (moltes e fort grans desonors); because ‘it is very displeasing to the holy angels’ (desplau molt als sants àngels); because it ‘is very pleasing to the demon’ (plau molt al demoni) for several reasons; and because ‘it greatly harms your neighbour’ (nou molt al proïsme). The next major reason regards the damage that is done to the man who is ruled by it, especially that lust ‘diminishes the understanding of the one who has it, who cannot think on higher things’ (agreuga l’enteniment d’aquell en qui és que no puxa altament pensar) and ‘loses all fear of God’ (toŀli tota temor de Déu); also ‘this sin harms all those who have it, since it does not leave any virtue or any sign of goodness’ (nou aquest peccat a aquell qui l’ha ab si car no li lexa neguna virtut ne negun senyal de bonea). From Chapters 534 to 537 there is a digression in which the question is posed as to whether knowing a woman carnally or touching her in such way as nature inclines can be excused and can be done without sin. It is a core issue in order to define the place occupied by carnal union in the life of a Christian. 4 In order to answer this question, Eiximenis draws on Augustine, who, in his De bono coniugali, teaches that if a man lies with his wife with the intention of begetting children he does not commit a sin since it is well known that God has commanded since the dawn of the world to beget children, which God would not have commanded if there was sin in it. In order to explain this statement Eiximenis explains that the deed done in this manner is not only ‘legitimate’ (leguda) but also ‘meritorious’ (meritoria), as had been taught by Richard of Middleton, who argued that it represents a ‘deed of justice’ (obra de justicia) inasmuch as ‘the husband returns the carnal duty to the wife and the wife to the husband’ (lo marit ret lo deute carnal a la muller e la muller al marit) and each of them ‘returns to each other what belongs to them’ (ret a l’altre ço qui és seu). The ‘carnal deed’ (obra carnal) is, according to Richard, a ‘virtuous deed’ (obra virtuosa) inasmuch as the husband does it in order ‘to preserve continence in the wife or to return to her what is hers in times of need’ (per conservar continència en la muller o per retre-li ço qui és seu en temps de necessitat). This then is one of the ends for which marriage is ordained, that is, avoiding fornication. Richard also argues that the ‘carnal deed’ does not constitute a mortal sin, and that the man ‘who knows his wife in order to satisfy his carnal inclinations’ (qui conex sa muller per satisfer a sa carnal inclinació) may avoid sinning outside marriage. As in the previous case, the husband remains free of mortal sin if he uses marriage for one of the ends 4

P.J. Payer, The Bridling of Desire: views of sex in the later Middle Ages (Toronto, 1993), 63–131.

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for which it is commanded (avoiding fornication). Meanwhile, Eiximenis points out that in this case it is necessary to ask oneself if the husband ‘does it when his carnal urges make him do it’ ( fa açó per tal cant la carn lo y mou o no). This last distinction underscores the centrality of the ‘ways’ (maneres), that is, the intentions, in all discussion about the ‘carnal deed’. After introducing what we must learn about lust in general, Eiximenis then presents the specific types of lust. He devotes a total of fifty-eight chapters to this question and to the seven types of lust which he distinguishes. The first type of lust is ‘fornication’ ( fornicació) and he devotes twenty chapters to it [TC, 554–74]. It is defined as the coitus between a single man without sacred orders and a single woman who is not a virgin or a nun.5 Regarding this definition, Eiximenis highlights several points: the first is that (simple) fornication must be considered different from other types of lust such as adultery, sacrilege, or abduction – which are more severe sins inasmuch as they have circumstances that make the sin of fornication worse. Also, he insists that only widowers and widows already corrupted can participate in this sin, together with every single person ‘who has been corrupted by another outside wedlock, be it man or woman’ (és estada corrompuda per altra via fora matrimoni, si·s vol sia hom, si·s vol sia dona). Prostitution, justified as a lesser evil, remains, tentatively, included in the sin of simple fornication.6Another point to be aware of here is that the sin of simple fornication is ‘a mortal sin and explicitly banned by God’ (és mortal e per Déu vedat expressament). Finally, he explains that the malice in this sin is so great that no intention or need can excuse it; some authors qualifying it as a sin worse than murder, given that murder can be an act of justice. The following chapters then discuss the reasons of those who state that fornication is not a mortal sin. Between Chapters 559 and 568 Eiximenis inserts a series of chapters aimed at explaining some notable points about the matter of marriage. The starting point is the realization that the vice of lust has as an opposite called ‘insensitivity’, which is when a man is austere and inhuman and he is naturally, or due to vice, bored by the union with any woman and does not want to return his duty to his own wife when the time is due and the place is convenient. Eiximenis draws on Aristotle to explain that temperance is a virtue placed in the middle of two extremes, being between lust and 5 J.A. Brundage, ‘Adultery and Fornication: a study in legal theology’, in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. V.L. Bullough and J.A. Brundage (Buffalo, 1982), 129–34. 6 J. Rossiaud, Amours vénales: la prostitution en Occident XIIe–XVIe siècle (Paris, 2010); R.M. Karras, Common Women: prostitution and sexuality in medieval England (New York, 1996).

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insensitivity. Lust is an extreme inasmuch as it ‘inclines man to make too much use of carnal deeds in superfluous way’ (enclina l’om a usar de les obres carnals massa e supèrfluament); insensitivity is the other extreme inasmuch as it ‘inclines the man not to use the said deeds when reason dictates that he use them’ (enclina l’om a no usar de les dites obres lla on rahó dicta que hom ne ús). Therefore, he warns us not to confuse temperance with insensitivity.7 This leads Eiximenis to dwell on something that he had already stated: that is, that making use of ‘carnal deeds’ with temperance is ‘legitimate and meritorious’ (leguda e meritória), and that there is no sin in using such delights; and that it is not against God’s commandments or against nature or decency if its aims are those that God commands. The aforementioned implies that not making use of the pleasures and ‘carnal deeds’ for he who is allowed to do so when the time is appropriate can be considered as vice and sin because such renunciation goes against the virtue of temperance which grants such pleasures with moderation, when the place, time, and circumstances are appropriate; and it goes against the virtue of justice inasmuch as the former dictates rendering to each his own. Therefore, if the man ‘perceives that his wife requires that deed and he does not give it to her, he sins against justice in not giving her what is hers, and he impels her to do something worse if the opportunity arises’ (percep que la sua muller requer aquella obra e ell no la li dóna, ell pecca contra justicia a ella ço qui és seu e provocant-la a fer pijor si opportunitat hi venia). Finally, this lack of use when the time is appropriate goes both against the res publica and divine commandment, which have ordered such delights for the conservation of human nature. All this does not seek to deny those occasions and circumstances when renunciation can be justified within wedlock. But, and this is important, the deeds are a good of marriage and they provide it with meaning. Both reason and justice dictate that such pleasures are fitting and legitimate in those joined in marriage when the place and time, as well as other circumstances, are appropriate. That is why some authorities explain that those who get married without being able to fulfil the duty that marriage requires, or those who marry someone who is not suitable for such a duty, commit a grave sin. The aforementioned include ‘castrated or impotent men, the handicapped or accursed, or those women do not have the vessel for such deeds’ (hòmens castrats o impotents, o frets o maleficiats o fembres estretes qui no han vexell dispòsit a aytal obres); also there are old and infertile women who have taken 7 For the scholastic reception of the Aristotelian sophrosune cf. Payer, The Bridling of Desire, 141–3.

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a husband for the sake of carnal pleasures. Given that the marital ‘deed’ is exempt from sin and a couple are married for means of procreation, we cannot renounce such a deed without becoming guilty of ‘rusticity and injustice and sin’ (pagesia e injusticia e peccat). Chapter 563 is devoted to explaining the concepts of ‘carnal deed’ and ‘carnal delight’ (delit carnal). Eiximenis teaches that the ‘carnal deed’ is any use of the bodily members or senses by man, with the intention of attaining carnal delight. The ‘carnal deed’ is sexuality, but it is also much more: the pleasure of sexuality is also the pleasure brought by other things and deeds; and there is a connection between those things and deeds and sexuality, in the same way as there is a connection between the ‘delectable’ (delitable) and the carnal. And it is precisely the lack of order of delight that sustains what the moralists say about the ‘carnal deed’. Stuprum, the second type of lust, is treated by Eiximenis in three chapters [TC, 575–7] and it is defined as ‘the deflowering of a virgin woman who is nobody’s wife’ (la desfloració de femina verge qui no és muller de negun). Stuprum can include rape, but it can also be performed with the virgin’s consent. The criterion defining this type is the loss of virginity, the fact that the virgin woman loses her maidenhood. The third type of lust is that of raptus or abduction: that is, kidnapping of the woman with whom the man commits a sin, using some kind of violence – whether the woman is a young girl, a widow, or a married woman; or the act of violence on anyone protecting her, be it her father, husband, or whoever.8 The criterion that defines abduction, according to Eiximenis, is the use of force against the victim and/or others. (It may be the case that the victim consents to the act of violence.). This sin ‘is conjoined to other carnal sins’ (ajusta ab si altres peccats carnals): statutory rape in the case of a virgin, adultery in the case of a married woman, fornication in the case of a widow. This is dealt with in two chapters [TC, 578–9], the second of which is devoted to the punishment contemplated for those guilty of this crime. Adultery (adulteri), the fourth type of lust, is dealt with by Eiximenis in ten chapters [TC, 580–89] and it is defined as ‘lying in someone else’s bed’ (acostament de lit estrany).9 This sin, he teaches, can be committed ‘in several ways’ (moltes maneres), and he starts by defining adultery in a strict sense: when a married man is engaged in sexual intercourse with a single woman. Meanwhile, adultery can be committed when a married man 8 J.A. Brundage, ‘Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon Law’, in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, 141–8. 9 Brundage, ‘Adultery and Fornication’, 129–34.

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knows carnally a married woman. Then it constitutes ‘double adultery’ (doble adulteri). The sin is committed as well in a broader sense when the husband ‘knows’ (conex) his own wife by resorting to excessively carnal ways, as if she was not his wife but someone else’s. In this matter, Eiximenis draws on Jerome and his condemnation of the man ‘who loves his wife too fervently’ (qui massa ardentment ama sa muller). This way of ‘lying’ (acostament) is a mortal sin and can be committed in several ‘ways’ (maneres), for instance when the deed is done in a forbidden place or time. This sin is also committed in a broad sense when there is desire for someone else’s wife and when the man tries to kill or harm an unborn child. In the last case, the sinner is considered as an adulterer to the extent that he attacks one of the benefits of marriage, procreation.10 The fifth type of lust is incest (incest) and Eiximenis treats it in five chapters [TC, 590–4]. He starts by defining this sin: incest is the bad use of one’s own relatives or of those related through affinity. Therefore, incest is related to two types of person: on the one hand those considered as relatives; on the other hand those who are related through marriage but do not have any blood relationship. Therefore, affinity applies to those persons who are related through spiritual kinship (cognació espiritual). The reasons why this is a ‘very severe and ugly sin’ ( fort greu e fort leg) are explained, and notable cases are presented regarding the nature of the laws that ban us from conjoining carnally with certain people belonging to the ‘human lineage’ (humanal linatge). The sixth type of lust is sacrilege (sacrilegi) [TC, 595–7], a sin committed when a person commits lust with someone devoted to God’s service. Regarding this despicable sin and its severity, every Christian man must consider a number of points, among them the fact that our Lord feels a great love for those women devoted to him and that ‘he is a very jealous lover, given that he wants his wife just for himself’ (és amador fort gelós en quant no vol que la sua esposa am sinó a ell). Sacrilege is an especially severe and despicable sin in the eyes of God when committed by ‘ecclesiastical men’ (hòmens ecclesiàstichs) with ‘women consecrated to God’ (dones a Déu dades). The sin of sodomy (sodomia) is the seventh and last type of lust, and Eiximenis devotes fourteen chapters to the subject in his treatise [TC, 598–612]. Eiximenis assimilates the sin of sodomy into the ‘sin against nature’ (peccat contra natura); that is, he uses the term in a broad sense in order to designate a sin which goes not only against human law (as the rest 10 J.T. Noonan, Contraception: a history of treatment by the Catholic theologians and canonists, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1986).

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of sins) but also against the laws of nature; a crime which goes against the multiplication of humankind and against the natural inclination which leads us to procreate, an act which requires (in the appropriate way) a male and a female.11 Eiximenis quotes several ‘doctors’ (doctors) in order to explain this definition and highlight that, as a rule, ‘everything is sodomy if it is not done between a man and a woman, in nature’s usual way and in the appropriate place’ (tot és sodomia si donchs no·s fa entre hom e fembra, en manera acostumada per natura e en loch degut). Therefore, the sin of sodomy is a sin which requires the consideration not only of those implicated in it, but also the various ways in which it can be committed. Four ‘degrees and abhorrent types’ (graus e espécies nefàries) are distinguished. The first type is mollícies, that is, masturbation: ‘when somebody, without lying with a woman, procures vile and unsightly touching in his filthy parts resulting in carnal pollution’ (cant alcun, sens que no jau de fet ab fembra, se procura per vils e leigs tocaments fets en les parts inmundes que vinga a pol·lució carnal). Masturbation can be mutual: ‘that is when somebody touches oneself or allows someone else to touch oneself indecently, causing the release of seminal matter’ (és quant alcun se toca o·s lexa tocar per altre axí sutzament que·s provoca a gitar de si matex matèria seminal). A woman can do it with another woman, individually or mutually, with a man or a woman: ‘the woman who touches her own indecent parts, or the one who allows someone else to do it for her, be it a man or a woman, commits this sin’ (pecca per aquest peccat fembra qui per vils tocaments que·s fa en les parts desordenades, o que sofer que li sien fets per altre, si·s vol sia hom, si·s vol fembra). Masturbation is a despicable sin, and it is punished by God. The second type of sodomy is bestiality (bestialitat) and it happens ‘when someone has unseemly relations with some other thing or species’ (cuant algú recorre e fa legea ab qualsevol altra cosa d’altra spècia). This includes the ‘deed’ with animals, ‘be it a beast or a bird’ (sia bèstia o aucell). According to Eiximenis’s explanations, ‘this is the worst type of all’ (aquesta spècia és la pijor qui y sia). Bestiality is punished by God with death, according to the books of the Old Testament, and the stake awaits the sinner together with the beast. However, a man is also guilty of this sin of bestiality when he lies with an image, with wood, or stone, or any other thing. Furthermore, a woman is guilty of the sin of bestiality who, in order to satiate her vile carnal passion, introduces inside her vagina a wooden stick or any other 11 For these sins cf. V.L. Bullough, ‘The Sin Against Nature and Homosexuality’, in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, 55–71.

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artefact. Therefore, the sin of bestiality is committed by all those who resort to any other species different to humankind and all those who resort to artificial objects. The third type of sodomy implies a person ‘who does such a deed not with the proper lineage but with some other’ (se mescla faent aytal obra no ab aquel linatge ab què deu, mas ab altre). Therefore, this involves the deed done between those belonging to the same ‘lineage’ (linatge), that is, to the same sex – be it a man with another man or a woman with another woman. Eiximenis quotes the Apostle Paul to say that these are ‘the most evil sinners of the world’ (pus scelerats del món), ‘full of all the evils’ (són plens de tots mals), and that they ‘deserve death’ (dignes de mort) together with ‘those who consent to such deeds’ (qui·ls consenten a lurs aytals legees). The fourth type of sodomy occurs when a ‘man and a woman do not do it according to the natural way, as well as when they do not use natural members such as God provides’ (entre hom e fembra no·s serva la manera natural, axí com si ell o ella no usen de naturals membres a açò per Déu deputats). The sin is committed by ‘all those who adopt beastly and monstrous ways, out of the ordinary and natural, when lying with a woman’ (tots aquells qui en jaure ab fembra tenen maneres bestials e mestruoses e fora ús comú), as Thomas Aquinas teaches. It is the sin committed when using those members which are not appropriate, and includes oral sex and anal sex; and when the natural way of doing the ‘deed’ is not respected: this refers to the positions adopted in sexual intercourse. The only position accepted by Eiximenis and the ‘doctors’ was jaure ab la muller davant, given that it was supposed to be the only position related to the procreative ends of coitus.12 Therefore, in relation to the ‘carnal deed’ there is a ‘natural way’ (una manera natural) and certain ‘natural members’ (naturals membres). Whoever does not respect this order implies ‘lying indecorously, outside of the terms and uses of nature’ ( jaure desordonadament, for a los térmens e usos de natura), and it implies resorting to ‘beastly and monstrous ways’ (maneres bestials e mestruoses). Following the inventory of the types of sodomy, there are some remarks regarding this sin in particular. In the first place, and regarding its severity, the Christian must take into consideration that there is an order in the severity of the sins related to sodomy. The least severe is that of masturbation. Afterwards, there is that sin which implies ‘that the deed is not done properly when lying with another’ (qui no serva deguda manera en jaure ab l’altre); then the one ‘who does not do the deed in the proper receptacle’ 12 J.A. Brundage, ‘Let Me Count the Ways: canonists and theologians contemplate coital positions’, JMH, 10 (1984), 81–93.

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(qui no fa l’obra en degut vexell); then ‘the one who lies with someone of an inappropriate lineage’ (aquel qui s’acosta a no degut linyatge). The gravest is the sin of bestiality since ‘the person lies with some other thing not belonging to his own species’ (la persona se acosta a alcuna cosa fora sa spècia). However, whichever way the sin of sodomy is committed, the sinner should be prosecuted for heresy or blasphemy against God. Eiximenis supports this with many reasons, among them because sodomy is a crime against God, against humankind, and against God’s commandments; and given that a crime against God is more severe than a crime against a neighbour, sodomy is more severe a sin than any of the other types of lust. Once the severity of the sin of sodomy has been stated, Eiximenis answers a series of questions raised in relation to this vice and about the punishment that those guilty of this terrible sin deserve or have deserved. The first question deals with clarifying the appropriate punishment for the ecclesiastical man who is found guilty of this crime. The second deals with explaining why God burnt the children who did not deserve any punishment in Sodom. The third tries to clarify whether the sodomites will suffer the severest punishments in the Great Beyond. The fourth question tries to clarify why God punished the sodomites with fire and brimstone. The fifth tries to clarify how sodomy can be performed by a man and wife who use the appropriate members. This question is presented in the cases when a physical impediment – for example obesity, pregnancy – makes it impossible to comply with the marital duty, when at least one of the spouses cannot restrain himself/herself. The question raised is whether the husband could penetrate ‘from behind’ (detràs) without sin, although ‘in the appropriate receptacle and in the appropriate place’ (en vexell e loch degut). In such cases, guilt is lessened, although Eiximenis finds in Alexander of Hales the opinion that the alleged need does not authorize the position, and that it is therefore a severe sin. Against Alexander’s stance, Durandus’s opinion is quoted in the following chapter, which in his summa for confessors allowed evading the ‘natural order’ (orde natural) in certain cases: ‘due to illness’ (per malaltia), for example. Eiximenis outlines the contradiction between the two experts, although he prefers to follow Alexander’s path since he thinks it ‘safer’ (pus segura). A final chapter wonders how many different types of sodomites there are. Eiximenis answers this question based on Hispanus Ortodoxus, who had stated that there are three types of sodomites, a hierarchy which, as we will see, makes the severity of the sin depend on the degree of ‘stubbornness when committing the crime. The first types are called ‘casual’ (casuals) and are those who yield ‘sometimes’ (a vegades). Eiximenis warns that

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one must have mercy on these, given that it is not a habit for them and that they are duly punished and penitent. The second type of sodomite is the ‘occasional’ (occasionals), those who yield to this ‘turpitude’ (viltat) occasionally; and those who ‘persevere’ (preserveren) because they do not have women handy, and who would not resort to such an ‘unsightly deed’ (aytal legea) if they did. The latter are worse than the former ‘and deserve to be well punished’ (merexen ésser ben ponits). The third type of sodomites are the ‘fierce’ ( ferals), those who stubbornly yield to turpitude. These are ‘worse than all the others’ (pijors que tots los altres), and some of them are the children of perdition ‘whom the devil dominates powerfully and that have been captivated so deadly in this filthiness that they are beyond repair’ (que lo diable senyoreja axí poderosament que tan mortalment los ha cativats en obrar aquesta feditat que quax són incorregibles). Their corruption explains why they cannot suffer women and why they do not hesitate to make others yield to their sin. For these enemies of God and the angels, corrupters of the laws of nature, there is no sufficient punishment and their extermination is imperative: their life ‘must not be concealed or supported an hour upon earth’ (no deu ésser dissimulada ne sostenguda una ora sobre la terra). According to Eiximenis’s treatise, there are different types of sodomy, although it is focused on the relations between people of the same sex, above all men; most of all, sodomy is defined here as sexuality without women because of the lack of them or because they are rejected. However, Eiximenis points out repeatedly that women can yield to this ‘filthiness’ ( feditat) as well. In any case, the chapters devoted to sodomy show our Franciscan friar’s open hostility, except in those clinical cases pointed out by Alexander of Hales. The punishments administered usually imply the physical annihilation of the sinner. Sodomites are sentenced to be burnt at the stake by divine and human laws since this sin ‘carries the corruption of human nature within itself’ (porta ab si corrupció de natura humana), and it is ‘such a hideous sin that it must not be mentioned’ (tan leig que no·s deu nomanar) and it ‘corrupts the air’ (corromp l’ayre). Sodomy brings along with it divine wrath and punishment for the whole community that tolerates it: the Scriptures say that the ancient ‘five kingdoms where they used to reign, were destroyed by fire from the sky and thrown into the abyss’ (e·ls cinch regnes on antiguament regnava cremà foch del cel e se n’entraren en abís).13 13 For these punishments and sodomy cf. B.-U. Hergemöller, Sodom and Gomorrah: on the everyday reality and persecution of homosexuals in the Middle Ages (London, 2001), 144–62; for the scholastic treatment of sodomy cf. M.D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago, 1997).

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With its treatment of sodomy, the part of the Tractat de luxúria reserved for all the daughters and types of the sin of lust closes. The third part follows and it is devoted to the explanation of those things that a Christian must avoid ‘in order to be chaste and to keep away from lust’ (per tal que sia cast e lunyat de luxúria), and which are the ‘remedies against the temptations of lust’ (remeys contra les temptacions de luxúria). The part devoted to those ‘things’ (coses) which should be avoided in order not to yield to the sin of lust spans a total of twenty chapters [TC, 613–33] and it presents the reader with a total of five ‘things’ to avoid in order to keep away from lust. The first is ‘dissolute pleasure’ (gog dissolut). There are many reasons for this. At first, Eiximenis does not reject pleasures themselves, and he relies on his particular understanding of Aristotle in order to distinguish two kinds of pleasure: on the one hand, the ordered pleasure which helps the life of man, since it is certain that no one could live without any pleasure at all. What is very dangerous and condemned by the Holy Scriptures is enjoying worldly carnal pleasures and delights. The reasons to avoid unseemly pleasure are found in Augustine, where we read, among other things, that such pleasure is brief, it does not last for long at all and this ‘joy is too costly, since it keeps a man away from eternal joy’ (gog és massa car, cor tol a l’hom lo gog eternal). The next thing to avoid in order to fight lust is dancing and playing in a dissolute way ‘since this weakens the heart too much and makes it prone to lust for several reasons’ (obren e dissolven fort lo cor e l’inclinen a luxúria e açò per moltes rahons). The next thing to avoid is women. A man must avoid, above all, looking at them and he must know how to guard his eyes from lust. ‘High hearing’ (hoyr alt) and ‘low hearing’ (hoyr bax) constitute the fourth thing that has to be handled guardedly. This topic is explained in two parts, devoted to each of the ways of hearing. Regarding ‘high hearing’ it demands that men avoid listening to songs about carnal love and that they avoid speaking and/or listening to vile words; and that they keep away from ‘musical instruments when they are played for carnal love’ (de instruments musicals cant toquen per amor carnal) since it is known that ‘the carnal person […] is turned on and gets heated up towards lust’ (carnal persona […] se n’encén e se n’escalfa a luxúria) by these songs. Regarding ‘low hearing’, it is demanded from men that they avoid at all costs ‘listening to people who flatter others and convince them to do filthy things for themselves or others’ (oyr persones afalagants les altres a fer aulees per si mateix o per altres). It is regarding this matter of ‘low hearing’ that he introduces the topic of the ‘procuress’ (alcavota) and ‘procurement’ (alcavoteries). The next thing is to avoid touching women since if they are looked at, or just by thinking about them, a man can get carried away to

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death, ‘and it is even worse when they are touched’ (quant més lo tocar). The last part devoted to the things to be avoided by the Christian in order not to yield to lust are contained in a brief section in which it is explained that this vice must be avoided out of love for the opposite virtue – that is, the love for chastity, a virtue without which there is no deed that pleases God, according to Ambrose.14 Once the issues to avoid have all been revealed, Eiximenis reserves the last part of his treatise on lust to explain the ‘remedies’ (remeys) for temptation and lust. This matter is treated in thirteen chapters [TC, 634–47], and he presents a total of eleven remedies to which the Christian must have recourse in order to fight the evil that tempts him. The first of these is to ‘make oneself grieve’ (affligir se matex). What he means is ‘giving oneself a reason to grieve, since grief torments the person and expels any vile thought in a man’ (donar a si matex quelque sensible aflicció qui turmenta notablement la persona, de tots punts gita de l’hom tota vil cogitació). The second remedy is to abstain from any delicate matters which may feed lust, such as wearing soft clothes, lying in a comfortable bed, or eating hot and tasty food; but it also includes carnal gazes, ‘delightful touching’ (tocaments delitoses), and ‘listening to vile things’ (ohir viltats). The third remedy is to run away from every opportunity to do harm, and the fourth is ‘to protect carefully one’s heart well from any vile thought’ (bé guardar lo cor ab diligència de tota vil cogitació) – something necessary if we bear in mind that due to the corruption that we all carry within us, we have that weakness: ‘that never a good thought emerges from our heart by itself’ (que lo nostre cor de si matex jamés no dóna una bona cogitació). The fifth of the remedies is to resort to prayer, and the sixth is to avoid idleness and to always keep busy ‘in any honest activity’ (en qualque honesta occupació). The seventh remedy is reading the Holy Scriptures closely, as well as the books of the saints; and the eighth is to abstain from those things which make us prone to turpitude, such as ‘looking at, or talking to, or touching lustful women or persons who speak filthily or unduly about such matters, given that those people are filthy and vile and shameful and foul’ (guardar o parlar, o preserverar o ha contractar ab fembres o ab persones luxurioses e leg e mal parlants d’aquella matèria, axí com sòn homens órreus, e vils, e desvergonyats e inmundes). The ninth of the remedies is to understand the works of devotion, and the tenth is thinking on the ‘final damnation’ (dampnatió final) that awaits the sinner and thinking on the ‘great insanity 14 For the scholastic treatment of chastity, continence, and virginity cf. Payer, The Bridling of Desire, 154–78.

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and folly’ (gran follia e oradura) of the lustful man. The eleventh and twelfth remedies are thinking about death and the sweetness and joy of Paradise. In the chapters of the Tractat de luxúria, we are taught about the evil of lust and the reasons to avoid it. But not only this: we are also provided with advice in order to avoid this evil. This practical advice is devised for the Christian in a particular situation. It warns him about the bad governance of his heart, his body, and his bodily senses. It also highlights that the concept of lust is a complex concept inasmuch as carnality take us further than the strictly sexual. Finally, the recommendations point out what leads us to the turpitude of lust. And, with that, Eiximenis leads us to consider the topics introduced by other books of his Crestià, such as temptation; among them, women, and the ‘abhorrent desires and inclinations’ that carnal love for them awakens in men.15 In the Terç of the Crestià, Eiximenis instructs us about evil, sin, and vice. In the preamble to the Crestià the author warns that the Terç ‘shows which the sins and the damage are to which the Christian man yields when he is defeated by the temptations to which he is exposed in this life, and due to his great wickedness and perversity’ (ensenya quins e quals són los pecats e mals en què l’hom crestià cau quan és vençut per les temptacions en què és posat en esta vida e per ses grans malignitats e pravitats).16 The Terç consists of twelve ‘matters’ (matèries) which are presented by Eiximenis in a prologue. The first five explain evil and sin in general, and the distinctions and consequences to consider. The sixth to eighth matters present the mortal sins in particular, the sins committed by our tongue and ‘the bodily senses’ (senys corporals) inasmuch as they are windows and doors through which sin enters our heart and our soul. Regarding mortal sins in particular, he distinguishes ‘carnal sins’ (peccats carnals) and ‘spiritual sins’ (peccats spirituals), a traditional distinction which can be traced back to Evagrius and Cassian. Among the former, gluttony, lust, and sloth are included; among the latter, anger, envy, avarice, and vainglory. Furthermore, the whole set of vices is presented according to several traditional classificatory systems which were widespread c.1400.17 Finally, the last four matters deal with the way in which a Christian must live with evil. The discourse on the sin of lust is therefore set into a discourse about evil and vice which can be traced back to the teachings of Augustine: lust, 15 D.J. Viera and J. Piqué, La dona en Francesc Eiximenis (Barcelona, 1987). 16 A. Hauf, Francesc Eiximenis: lo Crestià (Selecció) (Barcelona, 1983), 35. 17 C. Casagrande and S. Vecchio, I sette vizi capitali: storia de ipeccati nel Medioevo (Torino, 2000); Idem, I peccati della lingua: disciplina ed ética della parola nella cultura medievale (Roma, 1987).

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inasmuch as it is a mortal sin, takes us back to evil and, specifically the ‘original evil’. This original evil and the ‘four natural wounds’ (quatre nafres naturals) resulting from it – ignorance, concupiscence, impotence, and malice – allow us to insert lust into a discourse about the human. The human being remains conditioned by an inherent ‘flaw’ (tara) and a ‘wound’ (nafra) which defines all that we call sexual and all that we have to subsume into the carnal and ‘delectable’ (delitable).18 The Crestià is a treatise which turns out to be impressive both for its extent and its comprehensiveness. It deals, as we will see, with all the things that a Christian must know in order to be a good Christian. In the preamble to his treatise, Eiximenis explains that Jesus Christ – who because of his infinite piety and goodness feels inclined towards men whom he saw as having deviated from their absolute salvation and from God’s path – wanted to be incarnated in our simple nature and to talk to us personally, with the intention of redirecting us and focusing us to the end and the glory for which we were created. Our author tries in this work to treat this ‘blessed and holy doctrine and Christian religion’ (beneita e santa doctrina e religiò crestiana) and ‘to declare what the Christian life is’ (declarar què es vida crestiana).19 But before starting with these issues, he wishes to present the ‘main points, which are commonly dealt with in the beginning of the ancient books’ (punts principals, qui comunament se solen tractar en los començaments dels llibres antics). These main points are important for us, since Eiximenis defines the basic draft of his work in them, regarding form and content. There are a total of five points. In the first one he specifies his ultimate intention in writing the treatise, which is to enlighten, arrange and awaken, indoctrinate and admonish the faithful Christian to be careful with their life concerns and with God’s commandments so as to avoid the many ties of sin; and all this in order that everyone shall come to salvation and perpetually worship our Lord God in his glory. In the second main point he provides the name of his treatise and justifies its title by explaining that here every foundation of Christianity is summarized, ‘together with all the issues pertaining to the man who follows the Christian path’ (e tot ço que es pertany a hom qui seguesca vida crestiana). In the third point, Eiximenis presents himself as the author, and clarifies that 18 For a discussion on the original sin in the scholastic and its relevance for all discussions of the ‘carnal deed’ cf. Payer, The Bridling of Desire, 42–60. 19 D. Guixeras, ‘El pròleg general del Crestià de Francesc Eiximenis: models i objectius’, Actes XIII Colloqui de l’Associació Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (Barcelona, 2003), 263–75.

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the Crestià is written by order of King Peter IV of Aragon and on behalf of the counsellors and some pious citizens of Barcelona. In the fourth of the main points he explains the way to tackle the themes of the Crestià. I will review this point later on when I provide the formal features of the treatise. In the last of the main points, he presents the themes of his treatise. This point is important in order to understand the meaning that Eiximenis ascribes to his work inasmuch as, as he explains, this whole volume contains three main themes that constitute a ‘major lesson’. The first one explains how the Christian is placed by God ‘in a high rank’ (en gran estament) and the first book of the Crestià is devoted to this. The second theme witnesses the fall of the Christian man, and how he falls from the high rank of Christianity which God had awarded him. This theme is treated in the second book, which shows how the man is placed in this world by our Lord God and given to temptation. Meanwhile, the third book shows the man defeated by temptation, the evils he falls into, and the sins and crimes and dangers. Finally, the third such theme is devised to deal with how the fallen man is, due to the great mercy of our Lord God, relieved and helped (per la gran misericòrdia de nostre senyor Déu, rellevat, e ajudat). The remaining books of the Crestià must have dealt with this theme. The aforementioned allows us to define the place of the Terç and its several parts in the background of the Crestià. The three themes constitute a major lesson regarding three moments in a process of transformation, three moments in the divine plan for each individual Christian. The Crestià, it can be ascertained, tells a drama in three acts, a drama that aims at a final act which is our redemption – the recovery of the state God wishes us to be in – since that is the state for which we have been originally created. The Crestià relates this drama and projects it into its discursive order. Evil and sin (Terç) remain inserted among the temptations (Segon) that initiate the fall from our initial rank (Primer), and the following books deal with all those things that make our relief possible. The most extensive part of the Crestià must have been devoted to this process: a total of ten books that would explain the main ways in which God provides help for us to get out of the pit of sin and escape the devil’s claws. Among the ways in which help is offered, free will, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the theological and cardinal virtues, the commandments, and the sacraments are explained.20 As mentioned earlier, out of the thirteen books in the original project of the Crestià, Eiximenis only wrote the first three and the twelfth. He wrote the Primer between 1378 and 1381, and it consists of a total of 381 chapters. 20 Hauf, Francesc Eiximenis, 41.

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The Segon was drafted between 1382 and 1383 and comprises 239 chapters. The Terç was written in Valencia in 1383 and comprises 1060 chapters.21 Finally, the Dotzé was written between 1383 and 1385 and consists of a total of 907 chapters; in 1391 Eiximenis added seven more chapters, which we have through an incunabula edition from 1483.22 I consider the Crestià as part of a discourse belonging to what I would define as ‘clerical morality’. This morality was established by the members of the Church, and its aim was to say something about the important things in the life of the Christian man, including the matter of ‘carnal coupling’ (ajustament carnal). However, what clerical morality has to say about this question and its moral dimensions depends on the specific nature of the text we are reading, as well as its more immediate intentions. Thus, when we talk about the clerical discourse on carnal coupling (and other themes) we need to specify the kind of text we are studying; if we leave the legal texts aside,23 we must distinguish two main kinds of text above all: those whose aim was reflection and those whose aim was instruction. When we talk about texts whose aim is reflection, I mean by that texts that ask and try to answer questions that are important in order to build a system of values that can be called Christian. The effort devoted to the rigorous definition, distinction, and articulation of aspects of Christian morality was something which had been proposed by teachers in the schools from the twelfth century. They were conscious of the need to arrange and revise a legacy that had its benchmarks in the Apostle Paul and St Augustine of Hippo.24 The monastic ideal had been predominant for centuries and the penitential canons were enough for a Latin Christianity fascinated with the moral heroism of the ascetics.25 From the twelfth century, this Christianity started to experience dramatic changes that we can consider as challenging such an ideal: the multiplication of cities and the flourishing of royal courts, for instance, with their own language and their own discourse about pleasure, desire, love, and many other things.26 These changes and others 21 For a partial edition of the Terç cf. Francesc Eiximenis, Terç del Crestià, ed. M. de Barcelona and N. d’Ordal (Barcelona 1929–32). Another partial edition: J.E. Gracia, Com usar bé de beure i menjar (Barcelona, 1977). For a selection of chapters of the Terç cf. Hauf, Francesc Eiximenis. 22 For a still incomplete edition of the Dotzé cf. Obres de Francesc Eiximenis, 1, 3–4 (Girona, 1986–2005). For a selection of chapters of the Terç cf. Hauf, Francesc Eiximenis. 23 J.A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987). 24 P. Brown, The Body and Society: men, women, and sexual renunciation in early Christianity (New York, 1988); M. Müller, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus von der Paradiesehe und ihre Auswirkung in der Sexualethik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts bis Thomas von Aquin (Regensburg, 1954). 25 P.J. Payer, Sex and the Penitentials: the development of a sexual code, 550–1150 (Toronto, 1983). 26 L.K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1983).

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forced a profound revision of the traditional discourse, in morality generally and in sexual morality in particular.27 The effort made by the schoolmasters in this sense was replaced in the thirteenth century by that of the university doctors, deeply influenced by the teachings of Aristotle, who were enlisted on a massive scale among the friars of the new mendicant orders.28 The friars were very aware that the revision of a discourse could not be an end in itself, and that such revision required that the achievements of reflection had to be transmitted to each Christian through instruction. It can even be stated that, from the thirteenth century, instruction was what provided the reflections by theologians with their true sense. This instruction was carried out in two ways: through the word and through the letter – that is, by means of sermons and treatises. The need for instruction by means of the letter explains the dissemination of the treatises which were written with the intention of teaching all those who read the basic aspects of a morality that called itself Christian. The intentions of a treatise like the Crestià were not to present the results of reflection as an academic summa would. In other words, we must not look for originality in the content; the teachings contained in a treatise always suppose the reception of reflections realized by ‘doctors’ and theologians. The treatises could be devoted to certain collectives, they could be more or less extensive, and some of them were devoted to the explanation of certain topics such as vice and virtue.29 What most of them had in common was that they were aimed at a wide audience and that they were written in the vernacular, in a simple and understandable way. Eiximenis himself, in the aforementioned preamble, defines the style and form characteristic of a treatise.30 The fourth of the aforementioned main points explains the way in which he plans to develop the themes. Regarding this matter, he wants a series of ‘remarkable aspects’ (notables) to be taken into consideration, among which is language. Eiximenis points out that he ‘understands that he must proceed in a simple and coarse way’ in his treatise. He justifies the simplicity of his text, saying ‘although this book aims at serving people of science and the 27 J.W. Baldwin, The Language of Sex: five voices from northern France around 1200 (Chicago, 1994); idem, Masters, Princes and Merchants: the social views of Peter the Chanter and his circle (Princeton, 1970). 28 L. Brandl, Die Sexualethik des hl. Albertus Magnus (Regensburg 1955); P. Browe, Beiträge zur Sexualethik des Mittelalters (Breslau, 1932); J. Fuchs, Die Sexualethik des heiligen Thomas von Aquin (Köln, 1949); Payer, The Bridling of Desire. 29 R. Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular, in Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 68 (Turnhout, 1993). 30 Guixeras, ‘El pròleg’, 263–75.

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lettered’ ( jatsia aquest llibre puixa servir a persones cientifiques e lletrades); however he intends to speak primarily to ‘simple and uncultivated people’ (persones simples […] e sens grans letres). Therefore, an accessible style must be used, which implies comprehensible language. The explicit objective is that those with a basic education will also understand it. Moreover, this didactic intention explains the use of several rhetorical techniques in order to grab the reader’s attention. Our Franciscan was conscious of the need to transmit morality and knew the art required for his transmission. A treatise such as the Crestià is drawn from reflection and serves as a guide for practice, a guide for life for Christianity. But the instruction of a wide audience could only be attained by giving importance to the formal aspects of the discourse. This instruction is at the service of a moral discourse which we called clerical, which was part of a project of moral instruction carried out by the friars and the official Church. Meanwhile, this discourse and this project would be incomprehensible if they were not set in a timeline as well, and if they were not related to a moral state and two convictions that moralists such as Eiximenis shared: the profound conviction that the moral corruption of Christianity (in all its ranks) had reached unseen proportions; and the conviction that the End of Time was very near. The idea of the impending End of Time is expressed, for instance, in sermons by the Dominican Vincent Ferrer in which he preaches repentance and conversion and announces the impending coming of the Antichrist.31 This eschatological idea was widespread in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although it took various forms. It can be tracked down in the teachings of Joachim of Fiore which inspired, somehow or other, other visionaries, many of whom belonged to the most radical sectors of the Franciscan Order.32 Eiximenis knew them, and he talks in his treatises about prophets and prophetic ideas, about the End of Time and the Final Judgement, and he also did that in the Crestià.33 31 Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad, sermons 24–6. 32 On this topic cf. B. McGinn, Visions of the End: apocalyptic traditions in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (New York, 1998); R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism (1378–1417) (University Park, 2006); B.E. Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypsis in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2009). 33 P. Bohigas, Profecies catalanes dels segles XIV i XV: assaig bibliografic (Barcelona, 1923); idem, Prediccions i profecies en les obres de fra Francesc Eiximenis (Barcelona, 1928); J. Perarnau Espelt, ‘Profetismo gioachimita catalano da Arnau de Vilanova a Vicent Ferrer’, in Il profetismo gioachimita tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento: atti del III Congresso Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, ed. G.L. Potestà (Genova, 1991), 401–14; R.E. Lerner, ‘Eiximenis i la tradició profetica’, Llengua i Literatura, 17 (2006), 7–28.

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In the Segon, for instance, these ideas were treated as related to a long denunciation of those considered as false prophets – ‘those who at present say publicly that they have visions and divine revelations’ ( foills qui en aquest temps present dien publicament que han visions e revelacions divinals) – contained in Chapters 53–77. This denunciation has been related to his opposition to the teachings of Prince Pere of Aragon, a rejection with which his patron, King John I, agreed. (Besides, as the vicar general of the Franciscan province of Aragon, Pere was an active advocate of Rome and Urban VI, while Eiximenis was a prominent advocate of the Pope of Avignon.)34 Prophetic ideas are treated again extensively in the Dotzé, which was drafted a few years later.35 In Chapter 466, Eiximenis presents some of the predictions made in the mid-fourteenth century by John of Rupescissa, a Franciscan friar who studied in Toulouse and who, as a heresy suspect, spent much of his life under arrest in Avignon, where, however, he was authorized to draft most of his work, including several prophetic treatises. His writings combine an attack on the corruption of the Church with the announcement of the impending End of Time; and from these his Visions and Revelations and his Vademecum in tribulatione had been translated into Catalan.36 In the Dotzé some of John’s main visions are presented: the extinction of monarchy, except the French one; the establishment of communal governments; the transfer of the papal residence to Jerusalem; the arrival of a millennium of peace in which the world would be governed from Jerusalem by a pope and emperor descended from converted Jews. This ‘reform of the world’ (reformació del món) would be carried out ‘after the centenary of the time we are speaking about MCCCLXXXV’ (aprés lo centenari del temps que comptan). Although Eiximenis does not name the author of such prophecies, and he only presents what ‘some predecessors’ (alguns passats) have said on the matter, he could not help the unease this chapter raised in his royal protector. This forced him to add eight chapters in 1391 in which he rejects adamantly, and in a detailed way, the prophecies he had presented without the least sign of detachment earlier on, and which 34 D.G. Mas, ‘Les profecies de l’infant Pere d’Aragó (1305–1381): el comtat d’Empúries en l’inici del joaquinisme a Catalunya’, Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Empordanesos, 35 (2002), 119–40. 35 On this issue cf. F. Eiximenis, Dotzé llibre del Crestiá: primera part, volum primer, ed. X. Renedo (Girona, 2005), xxxiv–xliv. 36 J. Perarnau Espelt, ‘La traducció catalana resumida del Vademecum in tribulatione (Ve ab mi en tribulació) de fra Joan de Rocatalhada’, Arxiu de textos Catalans antics, 12 (1993), 43–140; idem, ‘La traducció catalana medieval del Liber futurorum eventuum de Joan de Rocatalhada: edició i estudi’, Arxiu de textos Catalans antics, 17 (1998), 7–219.

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he qualified now as presumptuous and against the counsel of Jesus Christ and ‘a very reckless and dangerous thing’ (cosa fort folla e perillosa).37 In light of this information, we can deduce that it is impossible to calculate the extent to which Eiximenis endorsed certain prophecies. We can find certain repeated and vigorous rejection of false prophecies in his treatises. Moreover, he does not hesitate to retreat from other prophecies which he granted credibility to in the first place. Thus, we witness a stance which is not very clear or deep-rooted. Nonetheless, it is evident that our menoret had his own ideas about the stages of the Church and the world, and that he had the conviction – the not very precise conviction – that he was living at the End of Time. False prophets do not exclude true prophets. And it is the same for prophecies. In any case, the ‘reform of the world’ (reformació del món) did not contradict in any way the basic teachings of Eiximenis’s moral theology and could be easily integrated into its discursive structure as an actual event inaugurating the dramatic final act which looks to the redemption of the fallen man. The conviction of the proximity of the End of Time was combined, among the moralists of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, with criticisms of a moral state which was considered as catastrophic. The preachers describe repeatedly and in sombre tones a world which is, in several aspects, morally depraved. Nowhere do we read that the world had been in a state like it is in today, complained Vincent Ferrer.38 We also witness a similarly pessimistic reading of contemporary reality in the Crestià and in the treatises by Eiximenis. The denunciations emphasized particular topics: the ‘vain ornamentation’ (van ornament) of maidens and the turpitude of writers; a world populated by ‘vile and painted women, insane minstrels, soft, effeminate men’ (fembres vils e pintades, juglars folls, hòmens molls e efeminats); and they describe a world in which ‘ugliness, vileness, and filthiness’ (legea, viltat, sutzura) are omnipresent; a world flooded as never before with ‘dissolute dances, vain laughter, carnal weakness, dishonest games, vain gossip, unseemly touching, filthy gazes, shameless manners, abhorrent desires, meretricious behaviour, diabolical lust’ (bayls dissoluts, van riure, ablaniments carnals, jochs desonests, vana parleria, legs tocaments, foylls esguardaments, pudents maneres, abhominables desigs, comprtaments meretricals, diabòlica luxúria). The diagnosis by our Franciscan: ‘today everybody is in a fallen state and all virtue is dead’ (Ara tot lo món és aterrat e tota virtut és morta). 37 The chapters have not been edited; I quote the incunabula edition of 1483 of the Biblioteca de Catalunya. 38 Vicent Ferrer, Sermons, ed. J. Sanchis Sivera, 5 (Barcelona, 1984), clxxiii.

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The denunciations we find in the treatises are formulated with insistence and in a tone which leads us to think that they regard something that a moralist such as Eiximenis perceives as relevant and widespread. And at this point we must consider and take seriously the following possibilities: in the first place, that the pessimistic reading of the moral state relates to something real and to something which was there – unless we presume bad faith from the authors of the denunciations; then, the intensity of the denunciations suggest that there were alternative values to those of the moralists, and that many men and women (who considered themselves Christian) lived according to these values. These alternative values can be found in the deeds, in the gestures, and in the language. The former and the latter were supported by discourses of love, desire, and pleasure, of women and men, of the body and the senses that stood radically apart from the discourse we find, for instance, in the Crestià. We are facing opposing values and, even more, opposing cultures. To these moralities we have to link what Eiximenis says about ‘insane laughter’ ( foll riure), ‘shameless dances’ (menar balles), the reading of ‘vile books’ (llibres vils), the hearing of ‘vile words’ (paraules vills), the longing for ‘good and delightful delicacies’ (bons mengars e delicats). The discourse on general depravity refers to such moralities and cultures. It is true that our friar presents them ex negativo, but that is what evokes those values as alternatives to the ones defended by the moralists. Such values – and this has to be highlighted – are not those which we can consider as deviations from the norm, and therefore it is unhelpful to talk here of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. We are facing worlds which define what is vice and virtue in their own way, without departing from Christianity to do so: alternative worlds with alternative discourses. To consider them as unorthodox means adopting our moralist’s point of view, as well as agreeing with the existence of a unique rule. Uniqueness is something which is always constructed. The coexistence of opposed discourses and values is what defines Eiximenis’s world. This coexistence gave sense to his treatises and explains the centrality of instruction; besides, it explains the efforts made by preachers and authors between the twelfth and the fifteenth century, and sets them in a moral project where reflection prepared the ground for instruction. It is a struggle against well-argued, intensely lived, and more widely accepted moralities than we usually tend to accept. And it is the historian’s duty to give prominence to those alternative values and those competing discourses.39 39 A model can be found in J.W. Baldwin, Aristocratic Life in Medieval France: the romances of Jean Renart and Gerbert de Montreuil, 1190–1230 (Baltimore, 2002).

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Clerical morality was not predominant. It was its wish to become so in a particular way: as a systematized and absolute morality, true and unique. The aspiration of this morality was to define a delineated system of values which was well defined for all Christians and for all dimensions of life, including ‘carnal coupling’. The aim was standardization. All Christians should order their lives according to a homogeneous morality, and thereby accept that there could be only one sexuality permissible among all the possible ones. Departing from the point of view of a moralist such as Eiximenis, the real differed from the ideal and such reality presented alternative ways, and even ways opposed to the ideal. Therefore, this allows us to assume that clerical values were more of a moral project than a moral reality, something to impose, which they wanted to be accepted as an exclusive and absolute set of values. This explains why the denunciations in the name of a clerical morality were also supported by a firm will aimed at transforming those realities, opposing them at the same time. This moralization was part of the effort not only to instruct but also to discipline and reform Christian behaviour, their ways of being in the world, and their attitudes about all aspects of life, including the ‘carnal deed’. At the same time, any other proposal of Christian life was rejected. What we have called a project of instruction was always a project of reform as well, a summons to conversion; an urgent summons to overcome our state of ‘ugliness, vileness, and impudence’ (legea, viltat, sutzura) given the impending End of Time. This summons gave sense to the denunciation and the need for conversion; it explains the centrality of penance in the discourse by all the moralists. For the latter, conversion required previous penance. In other words: penance is presented as the immediate aim of a discourse that defines the status of lust (and each of the vices and virtues) in clerical morality; it is also the deed which gives sense to our ‘path’ (carrera), inasmuch as it is the deed which allows us to stand up and get out of the pit of sin and regain the ‘rank’ (estament) which God wants us to be in. 40 Our Franciscan had planned to treat penance in the Deè (Tenth) of the Crestià, together with the rest of the seven sacraments. As I have already mentioned, this project was never fulfilled. However, we can find a condensed version of what he would have written about the sacrament of penance in one of his other treatises, Lo libre de les dones. 41 This book, written in 1396, is devoted to Christian women and it ‘deals with 40 P.J. Payer, ‘Confession and the Study of Sex in the Middle Ages’, in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, 3–31. 41 F. Eiximenis, Lo Libre de les dones, ed. F. Naccarato (Barcelona 1981), cccxx–cccliii.

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their goodness, and vices and remedies, which the Holy Scriptures, the doctors and philosophers have treated, and whose continued experience have instructed us’ (tracta de lurs bonees, e vicis, e remeys d’aquells, segons que la santa Scriptura e·ls sans doctors e philòsfs han parlat, segons que contínua experiència nos ensenya). Eiximenis starts by defining penance in a series of chapters. Then he reviews each of the constituent parts of the system of penance in detail, such as they were defined from the thirteenth century: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. This instruction addresses the sinner who confesses (not the confessor), and defines in detail both the order and the meaning of confession of vices and sins. A practical intention is also to the fore here. The aim is to teach that pain must be felt by the heart due to the offences committed against God: ‘these are to be punished through harshness of life’ (e aquelles vengar ab aspretat de vida). The ultimate finality was to attain the grace which allowed the Christian to return to the ‘path of Paradise’ (carrera de Paradís), despite the ‘pain, fear, and confusion’ (dolor, paor, confusió) due to personal and general depravity. In spite of the enormity of our sins, we must know the infinite mercy of God. 42 Víctor Farías Zurita, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

42 For sin, confession, and fear cf. the studies by J. Delumeau, Le Péché et la peur: la culpabilisation en Occident, XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1983); idem, La Peur en Occident, XIVe–XVIIIe siècles: une cité assiégé (Paris, 1988); idem, L’aveu et le pardon: les difficultés de la confession, XIIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1990).

11. Valencian Dominicans beyond the Convent of Santo Domingo Taryn E.L. Chubb

Abstract By the late medieval period, Valencian Dominicans had become particularly concerned with preparing for the Last Judgement, which they believed was imminent. Such concerns were shared by other religious communities in late medieval Valencia. The Dominicans developed particularly close relationships with the Carthusian houses in the region, and works of art belonging to the Carthusians ref lect ideas about the Last Judgement that were promoted by the Dominicans. These works reveal the extent to which the friars used the networks they developed to achieve their goal of preparing people for the end of the world. Keywords: medieval Valencia, Dominicans, the Last Judgement

During James I’s (1213–1276) campaign of territorial expansion in the Crown of Aragon, the king was often accompanied by his confessor, the Dominican friar Miguel de Fabra, who reportedly rode at James’s side wearing his habit and brandishing a sword.1 James rewarded his confessor’s steadfast loyalty by offering him a site on which to establish a convent in any city he chose within the king’s territories. True to his word, following his conquest of the city of Valencia in 1238, the king gave the palace of the city’s former Muslim ruler, Zayyan ibn Mardanish, to Miguel de Fabra as a site for a Dominican convent. The first stone for the new complex was laid by the king himself on 14 April 1239, marking the beginning of centuries of Dominican presence

1 Diago, Historia, fols 157v–158r.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch11

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in the city and region of Valencia.2 Today, the building that once housed the Dominican convent is a parish church, with only a few remaining references in its art and architecture to its original purpose and inhabitants. Although little evidence of the medieval friars remains, careful consideration of the few extant primary visual and textual sources has revealed their historical importance in the region of Valencia and beyond. In the decades following the establishment of their convent in Valencia, the friars of Santo Domingo became well known throughout the region, but their visibility increased at the close of the fourteenth century when one of their own, Vincent Ferrer, became involved in the Western Schism, supporting the Avignonese over the Roman popes.3 Ferrer rose to the position of apostolic confessor when Pedro de Luna, also a native of Iberia, became the Antipope Benedict XIII in 1395. In a letter the friar wrote to Benedict XIII on 7 July 1412, he recounted the vision he received while he was living in the papal palace at Avignon over a decade earlier when, having fallen ill, he had a dream in which God, Saint Dominic, and Saint Francis appeared to him, healing him and urging him to leave Avignon in order to use his preaching skills to prepare the world for the Last Judgement: This religious was very ill indeed and was praying lovingly to God for his recovery so that he might again preach the word of God as he had been wont to do with great fervour and ardour. At last, while he was at prayer, these two saints appeared to him as in a dream, at the feet of Christ making great supplication. At length, after they had prayed thus for a long while, Christ rose and, with one on either side, came down to this same religious lying on his bed. Then Christ, touching him caressingly with the finger of His most holy hand, gave him a most definite interior comprehension that, in imitation of these saints, he must go through the world preaching as the Apostles had done, and that He, Christ, would mercifully await this preaching for the conversion and correction of 2 Diago, Historia, fols 155r–156r; A. Zaragozá Catalán, Antiguo Convento de Santo Domingo, Valencia (Valencia, 1995), 2. On the conquest of Valencia, see R.I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1967). 3 For Vincent Ferrer’s involvement in political and ecclesiastical affairs, see R. Arnau-García, San Vicente Ferrer y las eclesiologías del Cisma (Valencia, 1987); T. Chubb, ‘De vita spirituali: San Vicente Ferrer, Cardinal Cisneros, and fifteenth-century devotional practices in Castilla’, La Corónica, 41/1 (2012), 96–7; V. Genovés, San Vicente Ferrer en la política de su tiempo (Madrid, 1943); J.E. Martínez Ferrando, San Vicente Ferrer y la Casa Real de Aragón (Barcelona, 1955). Ferrer wrote the ‘Tratado sobre el Cisma moderno’ in 1380. For more on this treatise, see A. Robles, Obras y escritos de San Vicente Ferrer (Valencia, 1996), 197–272.

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mankind, before the coming of Antichrist. At once, at the touch of Christ’s fingers, the aforesaid religious rose up entirely cured of his sickness. 4

Using the convent in Valencia as his base of operations, Ferrer travelled throughout Europe over the next twenty years, delivering impassioned sermons in which he vividly described the coming of Antichrist, the Apocalypse, and the Last Judgement to audiences of Christians and non-Christians alike, urging them to confess their sins and repent or convert to Christianity before it was too late.5 Vincent Ferrer’s preaching in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was also part of a renewed effort by the Dominicans to convert Jews and Muslims to Christianity. Both the Dominicans and the Franciscans had focused their preaching efforts on conversion in the early fourteenth century, but the disorganization of the campaigns as well as the infighting that occurred among the Dominicans, in particular, rendered their efforts unsuccessful.6 Vincent frequently spoke of his belief (held by other mendicants as well) that the Virgin Mary had obtained a promise that the end of the world would be slightly delayed in order to give the mendicants time to do their work, and this was one way that the mendicants were able to maintain their credibility after the year 1400 came and went without the arrival of the end of days they had insisted was imminent. In his statements about this reprieve, Vincent quoted Christ saying to the Virgin Mary: ‘Unless the world is corrected and converted by means of these Orders [the mendicants] I will no longer spare it.’7 Ferrer further explains that the orders’ failure to succeed in these endeavours is due to the corruption and lack of religious observance of many of his fellow friars. We are to understand, however, that Vincent Ferrer, an observant Dominican and sometime reformer of the order, is perhaps the last chance humankind has to help them ‘correct and convert’ before the clock runs out on the extended deadline negotiated by the Virgin Mary. He was, after all, a prophet, divinely chosen not only to deliver the message that the end of the world was nigh, but also asked to prepare people for the end of the world with his preaching.

4 P. Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent Ferrier, trans. in Sr Mary Catherine, Angel of the Judgment, 118–32. 5 For Ferrer’s travels, see Q. Aldea Vaquero, ‘Vicente Ferrer’, in Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España (Madrid, 1972), 927. 6 Friars and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. S.J. McMichael and S.E. Myers (Leiden, 2004), 181–2. 7 Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent Ferrier, 118–32.

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As part of their original mission, the Dominicans had been charged, according to Jordan of Saxony, ‘to root out heresy, drive out vices, teach the rule of faith, and imbue people with right morals’.8 For the Dominicans of Valencia, this primarily meant that they were called to minister to the Jewish and Muslim populations of the city during a time when contentious and violent encounters between Christians and non-Christians were common.9 From the beginning, the Dominicans modelled themselves on the Apostles and looked specifically to the book of Acts as a source for their own work in the world.10 By following the example of the Apostles, the Dominicans not only established a model for their own work, but they also came to play an important role in shaping the future of Christianity during a time when the Church was threatened by heresy, corruption, and competition from other religious groups, including Jews and Muslims. The members of the Order of Preachers believed themselves to be modern apostles who, like the disciples, became apostles at the moment God gave them the mission to apply themselves completely to the salvation of souls through preaching, encouraging confession, and conversion.11 As members of a mendicant order, the Dominicans were expected to live as both pious clerics and active citizens of the community outside the convent complex. Such an existence made the friars very visible, a desirable consequence that served to further the potential success of their mission. When Vincent Ferrer emerged as an outspoken representative of the order, involving himself in political and ecclesiastical affairs in addition to his aggressive preaching campaigns throughout Europe, he made the Dominicans even more visible.12 One would expect, then, to find evidence of the friars’ 8 Jordan of Saxony, Libellus de principiis ordinis Praedicatorum 40, ed. H.C. Scheeben, Monumenta Ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum Historica, 16 (Rome, 1935), 45. 9 See, for example, Y. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Philadelphia, 1961–6); R. Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond: the disputation of 1263 and its aftermath (Berkeley, 1992); and N. Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Madison, 1995). 10 L. Boyle, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400 (London, 1981), 256–7; M.D. Chenu, ‘Monks, Canons, and Laymen in Search of the Apostolic Life’, in idem, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: essays on new theological perspectives in the Latin West (Chicago, 1997), 202–38; Diago, Historia, 161v. 11 The Franciscans’ mission was similar to that of the Dominicans in that it emphasized the importance of salvation, although preaching was less important to the Franciscans’ mission. Instead, they were encouraged to model pious behaviour through the imitatio crucis in the hope that their example would inspire penitence and piety in others. See E.R. Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages (Lexington, 1975), xi–xiv. 12 Ferrer’s preaching campaigns are discussed in Cátedra, Sermón, Sociedad, 11–26 and Genovés, San Vicente Ferrer, 95–102. In addition, many of Ferrer’s published sermons include notations about the dates and locations they were given.

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presence beyond the convent complex. And, indeed, such evidence does exist, although it is not always easy to find or to recognize. Significant losses to works of art and architecture during the past several centuries due to exclaustration, fires, and war have served to obscure the medieval friars’ visual presence in the region; but careful consideration of what remains of late medieval Valencian religious art reveals the far-reaching influence of the ideas that the Dominicans so passionately promoted. The present study specifically addresses the connections between the friars of Santo Domingo and the nearby Carthusian houses of Portaceli and Valldecrist. Works of art belonging to both cartujas reflect the ideas about the Last Judgement and the importance of repentance and conversion that were promoted by the Valencian Dominicans; and they reveal the extent to which the friars used the relationships they developed with other religious institutions to achieve their goal of preparing people for the end of the world. The Dominican bishop of Valencia from 1249 to 1276, Andrés Albalat, founded the first cartuja in Valencia at Portaceli in 1272, which was dedicated to the Virgin, a figure of particular importance to the Carthusians.13 In many ways, the Carthusians were very different from the Dominicans. They removed themselves from the world while the Dominicans lived in urban areas; they led highly regulated lives of solitude while the Dominicans’ daily activities were more flexible and public; and the Carthusians were extraordinarily devoted to the Virgin while the Dominicans specifically emphasized her role as protector and nurturer.14 A further direct connection between the Valencian Dominicans and the cartuja of Portaceli developed in the late fourteenth century when, upon Vincent’s advice, his brother, Bonifacio,

13 For Andrés Albalat, see Burns, Crusader Kingdom of Valencia and P. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971). 14 F. Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli: historia, vida, arquitectura, y arte (Valencia, 2003), 39–40, 73, 89, and 95. For the Carthusians, important texts on contemplation and prayer included the ‘Scala claustralium’ or ‘Scala Paradisi’ as well as Guigo du Pont’s ‘De contemplation’. There were also translations of Hugo de Balma’s thirteenth-century ‘Mystica Theología’. For the Dominicans of Valencia, the writings of Vincent Ferrer, particularly his Treatise on the Spiritual Life, were popular mystical texts. For the Carthusians in general, see the bibliography provided by Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 549–55 (including sources specif ic to Iberia). See also S. Canera Montenegro, Los cartujos en la religiosidad y la sociedad españolas: 1390–1563 (Salzburg, 2000); The Carthusian General Chapter and the Spanish Charter Houses, 1410–1535, ed. J. Hogg (Salzburg, 2000), D.D. Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform: The World of Nicholas Kempf (Leiden, 1992); C. Robinson, ‘El retablo de Miraflores romanzado o ¿Qué significa ser un Van der Weyden en Castilla?’, in Gótico y frontera: en busca de nuevos paradigmas para el studio del gótico hispano, ed. R. Sánchez Ameijeiras (forthcoming).

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became a Carthusian monk on 21 March 1396.15 Born in 1355, Bonifacio was younger than Vincent and, prior to joining the Carthusians, he had a career as an attorney, as well as a wife and many children. Vincent encouraged him to take orders following the deaths of his wife, seven daughters, and two sons, presumably as the result of some kind of contagious illness. Bonifacio quickly rose to prominence within the order, becoming prior of Portaceli by 1399 and general of the order in 1402. Although the Carthusians traditionally kept to their houses, Bonifacio was an exception. Along with his brother, he became involved in the Western Schism, also supporting the antipope Benedict XIII, and both he and Vincent were present at the Compromise of Caspe, the negotiations for the succession to the throne of the Crown of Aragon following the death of Martin the Humane (1396–1410), who had no heir.16 Vincent Ferrer, on behalf of Benedict XIII, successfully lobbied for the Trastámaras to take control. In 1412, Bonifacio’s only living son, Joan, also became a Carthusian and entered the cartuja of Valldecrist, which was founded in Altura 1385. Bonifacio involved himself in many of the causes with which his Dominican brother was associated, and Vincent’s ideas appear to have made their way into the Carthusian houses of Valencia via his brother and nephew.17 Prior to officially becoming a Carthusian, Bonifacio commissioned an altarpiece for the cartuja dedicated to the Crucifixion that was painted between 1396 and 1398 (Figure 1), the years immediately preceding Vincent Ferrer’s apocalyptic mission.18 The younger Ferrer brother appears in his 15 Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 121. As Ferrer Orts notes on A. Esponera Cerdán’s edited volume, Bonifacio Ferrer: un valenciano poco conocido (Valencia, 2013), Bonifacio Ferrer remains a mysterious f igure. See F. Orts, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 24 (2015), 537–8. Even the seventeenth-century Carthusian historians Juan Bautista Civera and Joaquín Alfaura, who had at their disposal the rich archives of the Valencian cartujas of Portaceli and Valldecrist, were unable to write a complete biography of the younger Ferrer brother. 16 For the Compromise of Caspe, see F. Ainsa, Caspe 1412: los relatos del Compromiso (Barcelona, 2012); E. Belenguer Cebrià, El com i el perquè del compromís de Casp (1412): història i debat (Barcelona, 2012); I. Falcón, El compromise de Caspe (1412), cambios dinásticos y constitucionalismo en la Corona de Aragón (Zaragoza, 2013); F.M. Gimeno Blay, El Compromiso de Caspe (1412): diario del proceso (Zaragoza, 2012). For Bonifacio’s involvement, see Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 133–6. 17 Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 121–42. 18 See O. Calvé Mascarell, ‘El uso de la imagen del profeta en la cultura valenciana bajomedieval’, Ars Longa, 20 (2011), 49–68; X. García Borras, ‘En torno al retablo de fray Bonifacio Ferrer’, Archivo de Arte Valenciano, 69 (1988), 27–31; J. Gómez Frechina, ‘Gherardo Starnina: retablo de Fray Bonifacio Ferrer’, in La memoria recobrada: pintura valenciana recuperada de los siglos XIV–XVI, ed. F. Benito Doménech and J. Gómez Frechina (Salamanca, 2005), 44–7; P. Rodríguez Barral, ‘La imagen del Juicio Final en la retablística gótica catalano-aragonesa’, Cuadernos de arte e

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Figure 1 Retable of Bonifacio Ferrer, 1396–1398, tempera on panel. Museu de Belles Artes, Valencia. Source: Album/Art Resource, New York

iconografía, 13/26 (2004), 397–430; R. Rodríguez Culebras, ‘El retablo de fray Bonifacio Ferrer, pieza clave en la iconografía sacramentaria del arte valenciano’, Archivo de Arte Valenciano, 49 (1978), 12–17; C. Strehelke, ‘Retablo de Fray Bonifacio Ferrer (1396–1397)’, in Pintura europea del Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, ed. F. Benito Doménech and J. Gómez Frechina (Valencia, 2002), 22–33.

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Carthusian habit in the leftmost panel of the banco as he kneels in prayer before the image of Christ on the cross, along with two smaller figures representing his dead sons. Bonifacio’s recently deceased wife and seven daughters appear in the far right panel, dressed completely in white, a colour associated with both purity and the Resurrection. In the centre of the banco is Christ as the Man of Sorrows, and on either side are representations of the stoning of Saint Stephen and the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, references to sacrifices made in the hope of being granted eternal life. When taken together, the banco is meant to acknowledge the sacrifices that Bonifacio had made thus far, suffering the deaths of all but two of his family members, and his decision to become a Carthusian. These sacrifices, he hoped, would lead to the same eternal life that Christ and the saints enjoy.19 The central panel of the retable is a representation of the Crucifixion. To Christ’s right, at his feet, are the Marys (including the Virgin) and Saint John the Evangelist, and to his left are the Roman soldiers and Jews. Above Christ, there is a pelican piercing its breast to feed its young, a common metaphor for Christ’s own redeeming blood, shed during the Crucifixion. In the gold ground surrounding the crucified Christ, there are small medallions representing the seven sacraments of the Church – baptism, confirmation, penance, marriage, holy orders, Eucharist, and extreme unction – each of them directly linked to Christ’s wounds via red lines incised in the gold ground. Blood drips from each wound, pooling below Christ’s feet. To the left of the central panel is an image of the conversion of Saul, set against a craggy landscape and capturing the moment he sees a flash of light and hears his name being called. He has fallen from his horse, one of his feet still caught in the stirrup, and his left hand shields his eyes as he looks up. Saul, who becomes Paul in this moment, is the perfect example of an ‘unbelieving’ Jew who finally recognizes that Christ is the true Messiah. In a sermon on the conversion of St Paul, Ferrer emphasizes Paul’s example to sinners, saying: I say that in the conversion of Saint Paul is shown in the manner of the conversion of a sinner to God. And so the Church makes a feast only of this conversion of Paul. And there are seven ways by which a sinner is converted to God, like Paul, which are as follows: 1. Divine illumination 2. Personal humiliation 3. Fraternal correction 19 Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 126.

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4. Judicial exposure 5. Doctrinal instruction 6. Example of virtue 7. Penitential affliction

Ferrer speaks at length about each of these elements of conversion, and ends by saying this about voluntary penance: The seventh manner is voluntary penance [afflictio penitentialis], by saying ‘Lord, although I am wicked and a sinner, I hope nevertheless that because of this penance you shall rescue me from sin and shall convert me to a good life. And so although a man perceives himself to be in sin, he should not abandon penitence, because it disposes to conversion, and ultimately to salvation. ‘Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ (Matt. 4: 17) This way is shown in the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, who for three days did not eat, or drink. What a penitential affliction! It was a sign that by penitence God leads the sinner to conversion and salvation. This is why the Church celebrates a feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, because not only was it miraculous, but it was also profitable for sinners.20

The opposite panel depicts Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River with John the Baptist at his side. Both men gaze upward in surprise as a dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, descends from Heaven. Above, God the Father, surrounded by angels, looks down upon the scene.21 In the upper register of the retable, two panels representing the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin appear in a divided scene of the Annunciation. Here, the Virgin is surrounded by a garland of flowers, and Christ, holding a cross, descends from heaven toward his mother. Between the panels of Gabriel and the Virgin, Christ appears with clearly visible wounds in his hands, side, and feet, sitting in judgement in the location traditionally reserved for a depiction of the Crucifixion. Figures emerge from the ground below him, looking up with expressions of awe and trepidation. This scene of the Last Judgement can be connected to Vincent Ferrer’s sermons, nearly all of which were, in one way or another, concerned with 20 Vincent Ferrer, ‘Sermon on the Conversion of St Paul’, in Sermones de sanctis (Antwerp, 1570), trans. A.G. Judy, op. 21 Fuster Serra, Cartuja de Portaceli, 127.

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preparation for the end of the world, which he believed to be imminent. In the aforementioned letter to Benedict XIII in 1412, Ferrer writes: The coming of Antichrist and the end of the world are near. We may draw this conclusion from the revelation made to the two saints, Dominic and Francis, and also to many others when these two patriarchs came before the Sovereign Pontiff to ask for the confirmation of their Orders. There is, for instance, the incident of the three lances with which Christ threatened the destruction of the world, as we read at greater length in the histories of these two saints.22 As he diligently followed the apostolic mission divinely committed to him, Providence, in testimony of the truth, gave this religious, not only numerous signs as he had given Moses, but also the authority of the divine Scriptures as he had given John the Baptist since, because of the difficulty of this mission and the slight weight of his own unaided testimony, he was greatly in need of help. Hence, of the three divine messengers sent to men by divine Providence under the name of angels, many persons believe him to be the first, of whom John has written: ‘And I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven having the eternal gospel to preach to them that sit upon the earth and over every nation and tongue and tribe and people, saying with a loud voice: “Fear the Lord and give him honour, because the hour of His judgement is come. And adore ye Him that made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountain and the waters. Let him who is able understand”.’23

22 Here, Ferrer appears to refer to a sermon he gave on the Feast of St Dominic in which he recounts the story of an evening that Dominic and Francis were praying in separate churches and asked, in unison, ‘Oh, is there no saint in heaven who will appease Christ’s anger?’ The Virgin Mary appeared and said, ‘Oh Son, are you now carrying lances in those hands which are accustomed to carry nails for the salvation of the world?’ Christ responded and was heard by both friars, saying: ‘Mother mine, what more is there that I ought to do, since I have poured so many graces on the world? I have sent patriarchs and prophets, and they slew them; finally I came myself to redeem the world. Now I will no longer spare it.’ Ferrer understood the lances to refer to the three tribulations that would come upon the world: the birth of Antichrist, the end of the world by fire, and Christ’s judgement. Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent, 118–32. 23 Ibid. The text from Rev. (14: 7) referenced in this excerpt – ‘Fear the Lord and give him honour’ – was so closely associated with Ferrer’s preaching that it became part of his iconography. I have discussed the development of his iconographic tradition in T.E.L. Chubb, ‘Fear God and Give Glory to Him’: a fifteenth-century Valencian panel painting of St. Vincent Ferrer in the Meadows Museum (Dallas, 2005), especially chs 2–3.

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Ferrer continues to outline in his letter to Benedict several signs he has received that the Antichrist has already arrived on earth, citing incidents in Lombardy and Piedmont in which ‘reliable’ sources revealed to him that the birth had taken place nine years earlier. He concludes his letter with these words: From all that has been said above, I hold the opinion, which I think to be well founded, though not sufficiently proven for me to preach it, that nine years have already elapsed since the birth of Antichrist. But this I do preach with certitude and security, the Lord confirming my word by many signs, that in an exceedingly short time will come the reign of Antichrist and the end of the world.24

In a sermon given in the region of Valencia in 1414, Vincent explains what will happen at the end of the world and following the death of Antichrist: As has been recited in today’s Epistle [Rev. 14], the world will end with everyone dying in a fire, but some will be resuscitated. Everyone has to die by fire at the end of the world, but I appeal to you in this sermon to seek complete grace. To understand this, you must know what the Holy Scripture clearly states, which is that after the death of Antichrist, the world will last for approximately 45 more days and this time is for those who were fooled by Antichrist to repent and understand the Law. That is, Jews and Saracens and anyone else who does not believe can use this time to return to a completely good life. Everyone who believes in the truth and justice of the Messiah will abandon riches, honours, and glories, luxuries, and pleasures of the flesh and of the earth, for these are only used for evil and encouraged by Antichrist. God will allow the world to last only 45 days after the death of Antichrist as it was foretold in Daniel 12.25

24 Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent, 118–32. 25 V. Ferrer, Sermones: transcripción del manuscrito del Real Colegio y Seminario del Corpus Christi de Valencia, ed. F.M. Gimeno Blay and M.L. Mandingorra Llavata (Valencia, 2002), 33.

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In another sermon on the Last Judgement, given on the second Sunday in Advent, Ferrer preaches on Luke 21: 25-8: [25] And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; [26] Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved; [26] And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. [28] But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand.26

The friar discusses the ways in which people must prepare themselves or risk eternal damnation, emphasizing the impending ‘afflictions’ mankind must endure (the coming of Antichrist, the burning of the earth, and the judgement of Christ), and concludes with these words: Do penance now, forgive injuries, make restitution of any ill-gotten goods, live up to and confess your religion; and let priests obtain breviaries. If it were certain that in a short time this town was going to be destroyed by fire, would you not exchange all your immovable goods for something that you could take away with you? So it is with the world, which in a short while is to be destroyed by fire. Therefore place your hearts in heaven, and your lips by speaking with reverence of God, and your works by doing good. This is Christ’s counsel, saying: ‘Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth where the rust and moth devour and thieves break in and steal’. Notice the word ‘rust’, which is Antichrist, and ‘moth’, which is fire, for those will devour all. The third evil will be the tribulation of the universal Judgement which is mentioned in the third part of this gospel. ‘Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and majesty’. After the destruction of the world by fire, Christ the Lord Judge, with the Virgin Mary and all the saints, will come to the judgement seated on a throne in the air. And the Archangel Michael will cry with a loud voice, saying ‘Arise, ye dead, and come to judgement.’ Then suddenly, by divine power, all the dead, both good and wicked, will arise, children will rise with grown people and all will be gathered to the 26 Douay-Rheims translation of Luke 21: 25–8.

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judgement. Even those who died in their mother’s womb will be there, as Saint Thomas teaches, to accuse those through whose fault they died without Baptism. And the age at which all will rise will be thirty years. Christ Himself says concerning the General Judgement: ‘When the Son of Man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty. And all the nations shall be gathered together before Him; and He shall separate them one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on his left’ (Mt 25: 31-3). And the creed of Saint Athanasius: ‘At Whose coming all men must rise with their own bodies; and it will be rendered to every man according to his own deeds; those who have performed good works will go into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.’ The wicked will go into eternal punishment, the just into eternal life. But for the rest, no one will dwell in this world, because those things which are transitory and finite have passed away in their finite condition; movement has passed away. Therefore, the Church in every person of every Christian makes petition in the Office for the Dead: ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death, in that tremendous day when the heavens and earth are moved, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.’27

Following his 1399 vision, Ferrer not only preached to the faithful about the importance of repenting of their sins, but he also spoke to unbelievers about the necessity of converting to Christianity, all in an effort to save humankind from descending into the fires of hell at the Last Judgement. Vincent Ferrer realized that, although his preaching and teaching put people on the path to salvation, he would have to find ways to keep them there after he moved on to the next town. By the end of the fourteenth century and into the fifteenth, he began to reproduce some of his sermons and treatises in an effort to make his ideas more easily accessible to other clerics for use in their own sermons and teaching.28

27 Fages, Histoire de Saint Vincent, 102–17. 28 For a detailed study of Vincent Ferrer’s writing, including a chronology, see Robles, Obras y escritos de San Vicente Ferrer.

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One such text is the relic-manuscript of Vincent Ferrer’s sermons held by the Real Colegio de Corpus Christi in Valencia, which was believed by many to have been written in the friar’s own hand sometime after he preached the sermons in the town of Morella, outside Valencia, in 1414.29 The 165 sermons that comprise the Corpus Christi manuscript take on many subjects, from the Transfiguration to the Incarnation to the lives of various saints.30 Of particular importance to this study, however, are those sermons that address the coming of Antichrist and the end of the world, two of the most important themes in Ferrer’s preaching. In the Corpus Christi manuscript, there are five sermons that specifically focus on the Antichrist and nine that directly address the second coming of Christ, the Last Judgement, and the end of the world.31 These numbers do not take into account the numerous references to both subjects within the context of sermons on the Passion and sermons emphasizing the importance of repenting for one’s sins and seeking salvation.32 29 By the end of the nineteenth century, additional study of the manuscript revealed the hand of more than one scribe, casting doubt on the long-held notion that it had been written by the saint himself. There is, however, no doubt that the sermons were those of Vincent Ferrer. Ferrer, Sermones, 17–9. 30 Ibid., 17–29. 31 The sermons on Antichrist in the Corpus Christi manuscript are: ‘Sermón sobre la llegada del Anticristo, sobre la cremación del mundo y sobre el juicio universal’ (CXXXV); ‘Sermón sobre por qué Dios soportará que venga el Anticristo y que haga tanto mal’ (LXX[XIII]); ‘Sermón sobre cuándo vendrá el Anticristo’ (LXX[XIV]); ‘Sermón sobre la llegada del Anticristo, ya tratada en otros sermones’ (XC[VII]); and ‘Sermón sobre el Anticristo: cuándo vendrá y, en consecuencia, cuándo acabará el mundo’ (LX[III]). The sermon on the second coming of Christ is ‘Sermón de sobre el estado del mundo bajo las diez plagas del Faraón, que llegaron después de la venida de Cristo’ (CXXV). Sermons on the Last Judgement include: ‘Sermón sobre la llegada del Anticristo, sobre la cremación del mundo y sobre el juicio universal’ (CXXXV); ‘Sermón sobre el día del juicio universal’ (LXXIII); ‘Sermón sobre el juicio universal, cómo llegará para juzgar’; and ‘Sermón sobre el evangelio del juicio universal, Mateo, 25’ [XI]. The sermons on the end of the world are: ‘Sermón sobre la llegada del Anticristo, sobre la cremación del mundo y sobre el juicio universal’ (CXXXV); ‘Sermón sobre la cremación de este mundo’ [LXXXIV]; ‘Sermón sobre la cremación del mundo: cómo se quemará todo el mundo’ (LXXII); ‘Sermón sobre la resurrección de los muertos al fin del mundo’ (LXXII); and ‘Sermón sobre que todo este mundo se quemará, y resucitaremos’ [I]. Ibid., 23–9. 32 Both of these topics are addressed throughout the Corpus Christi manuscript, notably in: ‘Sermón sobre cómo debe surgir el picador del sueño del pecado hacienda ocho cosas: quien surge de entre los que duermen’ (CXXIII); ‘Sermón sobre las cualidades que cualquiera debe tener para salvarse’ (LI); ‘Sermón sobre las ocho obras de penitencia’ (LI); ‘Sermón sobre las cosas que se requieren para que alguien sea llamado fiel en verdad y se salve’ (LII); ‘Sermón sobre por medio de qué señales puede uno conocer si es digno de salvarse o de condenarse’ (LV); ‘Sermón sobre la predestinación de Dios y sobre las cuatro obras que hace Dios en torno a la salvación del alma’ (LXX); ‘Sermón sobre la palabra de Dios, que tiene tres poderes para salvar a

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In one of the sermons on the end of the world contained in the Corpus Christi manuscript, Vincent discusses the two comings of Christ and specifically addresses his remarks to a Jewish audience, although we have no way of knowing whether or not there were any Jews present. Ferrer points out that Christ first came to ‘reform’ the world, teaching people about the spiritual life and encouraging them to eschew materiality so that they would not neglect their spirituality. When he comes for the second time, it will be to judge the world. According to Ferrer, he will not come with humility, but with power and majesty so great that he will cause people to quiver with fear. Be warned, Jews, that Christ will come first to reform the world with divine wisdom and a second time to judge. […] Christ will come to teach the unity of God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Likewise, although the Jews know that God is just, they do not know the glory of paradise for those who obey God. Equally, they know well that on earth, we die and have much misery, but they do not know that it is the same in the other world, and Christ comes to this world to help us understand this. Also, he teaches us that evil souls go to hell and good souls to heaven and that there has not been sufficient penitence in this world for most people to go to purgatory. Also, he teaches us that baptism cleanses all sins and that the confession of sins can result in absolution. Also he teaches us that God always wants to be worshipped first in his invisible form, which is second to his visible form, just as the Jews are taught, worshipping the invisible God in Heaven in the same way that Christians do. Also Christ comes to reform the spiritual life of the world, to teach the spiritual life, so that people despise riches and mundane things that make them forget the spiritual. […] This is what happened to the Jews, who after they gained abundant riches, rejected Christ as the true Messiah. Christ, as he preached and taught the spiritual life […] taught poverty and lived by his own example. In the second coming, Christ comes not to reform the world in the knowledge of the divine and the spiritual life, because he already came las almas’ (LXXVI); ‘Sermón sobre los tres pecados: contra sí mismo, contra el prójimo y contra Dios’ (LXXVII); ‘Sermón sobre las siete filicidades de la Gloria y sobre las promesas contra los siete pecados mortales’ (LXXVII); and ‘Sermón sobre los modos por los que Cristo, en cuanto medico, cura la criatura pecadora’ [VIII]. Ibid.

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to earth for that purpose and sent the apostles out to continue his teaching, but he comes to judge the world and he will not come with humility and kindness, but with great power and majesty: then all of the creatures of the world will tremble.33

Ferrer goes on to say that when people are called before Christ to be judged, they will not have the benefit of representation, a reference to his encouragement of the use of saints as intercessors: And so, Jews, you cannot cheat and try to change quickly before the second coming. I am of the opinion that Christ will come within thirty years. The prophets have clearly spoken of the first and second comings of Christ and you did not accept these prophecies even though you knew them. The prophets, speaking of the second coming, said that he would come in power and magnificence to judge the world in majesty.34

The friar concludes his sermon by painting a bleak mental picture for those who risk spending their eternal lives in hell as he tells them that no one can adequately express or imagine what awaits them there.35 Ferrer holds the attention of his congregations by using a descriptive language that evokes images of fiery deaths, the power, and majesty of Christ as he appears at the Last Judgement, and the quivering and trembling of people as they behold him. With his incessant preaching about these subjects throughout Valencia, it is not surprising that many of his ideas made their way into works of art. The fact that Bonifacio’s own retable includes an image of precisely this vision of the Last Judgement, along with references to the conversion of Saul, a biblical example for contemporary Jews and conversos, many of whom had become Carthusians, as well as an image of the redemptive Crucifixion, indicates that the choice of subject matter and the way in which it was represented was related to his Dominican brother’s ideas. As has become clear in the excerpts included here, Vincent Ferrer often addressed the Jews specifically in his sermons, believing them to be in need of specific religious instruction (or at least stern warnings) as the end of the world approached. Furthermore, the inclusion of the seven sacraments 33 Ibid., 84–8. The imagery in this retable also f its with Carthusian ideas about actively combating sin while simultaneously leading a contemplative life. See Martin, Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform, 163. 34 Ferrer, Sermones, 88. 35 Ibid., 84–8.

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directly linked to Christ’s wounds in Bonifacio’s altarpiece emphasizes the importance of the sacraments. In the town of Lorca on Holy Saturday 1414, a day traditionally reserved for the newly baptized to be welcomed into the Church for the first time, Ferrer preached a sermon on the seven sacraments, all of which are represented in Bonifacio’s retable. He opens by saying: In this sermon, I want to preach to you about the word of God and the sacraments. You need to listen with devotion and diligence to this sermon because this sermon anticipates the others I will preach in this town. Come and listen with diligence and devotion. Blessed are those who are devoted to hearing the word of God and who retain and observe it. [O]n the seven sacraments of the Church, listen to what I say and remember. Jews and Saracens should especially listen well.36

Ferrer discusses each sacrament at length and emphasizes the redemptive qualities of each, especially as it applies to Jews and ‘Saracens’. For example, he specifically addresses baptism as a way to be cleansed of the sin of usury, a sin commonly associated with Jews during this period. Toward the end of the sermon, Ferrer says: If the Jews want to convert because of preaching, hear the Word of God as I preach in this town for the next few days, but if they do not want to do this, they should expect to endure violence and scandal. Many have sinned and do not wish to be illuminated by preaching and knowledge and they are on the path to condemnation. Because of this, you should come every day to hear these sermons and the Word of God and be enlightened.37

When considered as a whole, from the bottom to the top, the retable of Bonifacio Ferrer outlines the precise path to salvation that Vincent Ferrer and his fellow Dominicans advocated. Bonifacio, present in the banco, represents humankind, a person who aspires to eternal life and wants to know how to achieve it. Through the exemplary lives of the saints, we learn that faithfulness and, sometimes, suffering for one’s faith leads to 36 Ibid., 73–7. 37 Ibid.

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the ultimate reward. Overcoming such suffering, often at the hands of ‘unbelievers’ and heretics (here, represented by Jews and Roman soldiers), and receiving the sacraments of the Church (also included in the retable and visually linked directly to Christ’s wounds) must be central in the life of a pious Christian. Recognizing the sacrifices that have been made by Christ on his or her behalf and in the hope of achieving salvation and eternal life, the viewer’s gaze rises, along with Bonifacio’s, toward the top of the retable. Having modelled oneself on the example of Christ and the saints and having received the sacraments, when the Day of Judgement comes, faithful, pious, penitent, and obedient Christians will be granted eternal salvation and entrance into Heaven. Overlooking the entire retable are the protective figures of Saint Michael and the Virgin Mary. Furthermore, Old Testament prophets and kings identified by banderoles inscribed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin appear in the borders and narrow strips between calles, reminding the viewer of the link between the Old and New Testaments and, thus, the link between Judaism and Christianity. Another, somewhat smaller, altarpiece devoted to the theme of the Last Judgement and the Mass of St Gregory was produced for the cartuja around the middle of the fifteenth century, evidence of the continued preoccupation of the monks and their donors with the end of the world.38 This also coincides with the Valencian Dominicans’ continued promotion of Vincent Ferrer’s ideas following his death in 1419 as well as the campaign to have him canonized.39 The Coronation of the Virgin tops the altarpiece, with God on her right, Christ on her left, and the Holy Spirit descending upon her as they place a crown on her head. Directly below her, Christ appears in majesty surrounded by kneeling saints and those who have been saved dressed in white and grouped together on the far left and right. The retable is divided into two parts by a crenellated wall representing the gate of Heaven, with St Peter holding a large key and standing in front of the wall next to an angel who lifts those who have been saved out of the earthly realm and closer to Heaven. Below, in the part of the painting that would be at eye level for most viewers, the composition is further divided. On the left is the Mass of St Gregory, a scene typically associated with contemporary concerns about the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. 38 Reproduced in S. Nash, Late Medieval Panel Paintings: materials, methods, meanings (London, 2011), 280. 39 Chubb, Fear God and Give Glory to Him, chs 2–3.

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According to legend, Pope Gregory prayed for two pagans who had questioned the transubstantiation of the bread and wine as he celebrated the Mass.40 As he prayed, Christ appeared and blood began to flow from his wounds into the chalice on the altar while the host Gregory held was infused with his body, resulting in the conversion of the pagans. Two additional saints have been included here as examples of the rewards of faith and piety while a scene of chaos unfolds on the opposite side of the painting. In the lower right corner of the retable, demons dominate the craggy landscape where one man has been hanged to death and others (including a king, a cardinal, and a monk) have been thrown into the fiery cauldron of Hell, where they are stripped of their clothing to be prodded and humiliated by the terrifying rulers of the underworld. Between these two scenes, there is an empty black hole above which additional nude figures plead to be saved by an angel clothed in pink, recalling Vincent’s characterization in numerous sermons and writings of the ‘quivering and trembling’ of those who cannot be certain of their fate because they have not confessed their sins or converted. The other Carthusian house in Valencia, the cartuja of Valldecrist, also possessed an important altarpiece that can be connected to Dominican ideas. The Carthusians of Valldecrist had direct contact with Vincent Ferrer and the Valencian Dominicans through Bonifacio’s son and Vincent’s nephew, Joan, who became a monk in 1412. 41 Around the same time that Joan joined the cartuja, The Trinity Adored by All Saints (Figure 2) was painted by an unknown artist who had been commissioned by the family of Dalmau de Cervello i Queralt, chamberlain to Martin I of Aragon, whose coat of arms (a deer) appears in the painting on either side of the Trinity. When Dalmau died in 1401, his request was to be buried in the cartuja of Valldecrist. 42 Bonifacio Ferrer had been named prior of Portaceli in 1399 and, in 1402, was appointed general of the order. In such a position of power, Bonifacio 40 For the Mass of St Gregory, see B. Colgrave, The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great By an Anonymous Monk of Whitby: text, translation, and notes (Lawrence, 1968); Paul the Deacon, Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL, lxxv, 52; and John the Deacon, Sancti Gregorii Magni Vita, PL, lxxv, 103. 41 Little is known about Joan Ferrer beyond the information provided here. He appears not to have achieved the fame of either his father or his uncle. J.F. Ballester-Olmos y Anguís, ‘Las Cartujas Valencianos y sus Personajes Históricos’, Real Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana (2014), 18. Vincent Ferrer is documented as having preached at Valldecrist in E. Diaz Manteca, ‘Historia de Vall de Crist: el manuscrito de la “Fundacion …” de Joaquín Vivas’, BSCC, 67 (1991), 85–126. Ferrer’s preaching is recorded in fol. 57r of Vivas’s manuscript. 42 C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, 2/iv (Cambridge, ma, 1933), 594, 597; M. Salinger, ‘A Valencian Retable’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 34/11 (1939): 250–4, and www.metmuseum. org/Collections/search-the-collections/110002196, accessed 14 August 2012.

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Figuur 2 The Trinity Adored by All Saints, fifteenth century, tempera and gold on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Source: IAP/Metropolitan Museum of Art

probably played some role in the decision of what would be included in a major altarpiece that was being painted for one of the cartujas under his supervision. Considering the close relationship that he maintained with his Dominican sibling, it is quite likely that Vincent Ferrer also provided some advice to his brother and the Carthusians of Valldecrist. Although there are no records to confirm Vincent Ferrer’s brother’s involvement in the retable’s production, the imagery included in the altarpiece can clearly be linked to the ideas espoused by Vincent and the Valencian Dominicans, in particular. It is divided into three calles with the Archangel

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Gabriel and the Virgin Mary appearing in the uppermost panels on the left and right sides, respectively, in a representation of the Annunciation that is commonly located at the top of Valencian retables. There is a Crucifixion scene at the top of the central calle in the Valldecrist altarpiece that, like the Retable of Bonifacio Ferrer, again included a pelican piercing her breast, a reference to the blood shed by Christ to atone for the sins of the world, above Christ on the Cross. The rest of the picture plane is occupied by the thieves as well as objects associated with the Passion. In a striking departure from the appearance of traditional Aragonese retables, the left and right calles are divided into five registers populated by Christian saints, martyrs, apostles, and prophets, each identified by inscriptions above their heads. They are organized according to the hierarchy of the Church, with the Old Testament prophets and kings, who are distinguished by octagonal halos, appearing in the uppermost registers – although John the Baptist has also been given a place of honour next to the Old Testament figures on the far right side of the top register of the left calle. He is, therefore, closest to the image of the Trinity in the central calle and at eye level with the bottom of the Crucifixion panel. The other holy figures included in the retable are arranged in registers in order of age and importance, with apostles and evangelists in the second register, martyrs in the third, monastic and ascetic saints in the fourth, and female saints in the lowest register. 43 The remaining two images in the central calle represent the Trinity and Saint Michael triumphing over evil. In the Trinity panel, an enthroned God the Father holds Christ on the Cross in front of his body as the dove representing the Holy Spirit descends to occupy the space between the faces of God and Christ; and the entire scene is set against a blue background with gold stars, indicating the heavenly nature of the space. Significantly, the enthroned Virgin is seated at God’s right hand. She is only slightly smaller in scale and on the same plane, but she is decidedly larger than Christ, indicating her importance to those who would have viewed and used the altarpiece most – the Carthusians, who were particularly devoted to the Virgin Mary. In the largest panel of the entire retable, which also has a background of blue with gold stars, Saint Michael, wearing flowing red garments punctuated by gold, hovers above a large Hell Mouth. His large gold wings contrast with the blue background and emphasize the otherworldliness of this event. Michael is accompanied by several other angels, all wearing red 43 Salinger, ‘A Valencian Retable’, 252.

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and gold garments. Together, he and ten angels use long spears to attack the dark and grotesque figure of Satan and other demonic creatures, who fall into a fiery and cavernous Hell Mouth, disappearing forever into the depths of Hell in the part of the altarpiece that would have rested just above the altar itself. 44 It is a sobering and emotionally disturbing image to behold, although throngs of saints stand in readiness on either side of the central calle to remind the viewer of their intercessory powers and to provide some hope of salvation in the same way that the Dominicans and Carthusians offered hope to those who feared eternal damnation as the end of the world approached. The extant works of art that were in the collections of the Valencian cartujas of Portaceli and Valldecrist clearly link the Carthusians with contemporary Dominican ideas about the Last Judgement. The Carthusians did not have an image tradition that emphasized the Last Judgement; nor is the theme prominently featured in any of the texts associated with the order during this period, but they did develop close and lasting ties with the Valencian Dominicans at the end of the fourteenth century that appear to have continued for at least the next 100 years.45 Together, these works of art reveal the extent to which the Dominicans and their ideas had become part of late medieval religious thought and practice throughout the region of Valencia in a variety of contexts. Although the events of the past few centuries have diminished much of the evidence of the Dominicans’ visual presence in Valencia, subtle references to their past importance remain. From the beginning, the friars had been given a mission to preach and teach in order to ‘save souls’, including those of unbelievers and those who had strayed from Christianity. Undertaking this mission with renewed vigour following his apocalyptic vision in 1399, Vincent Ferrer and his fellow Dominicans embarked on preaching campaigns throughout the region, confronting people with detailed descriptions of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice to redeem humankind as well as vivid accounts of the imminent end of the world. Their moralizing oratory urged believers and unbelievers alike to recognize and confess sins both great and small in preparation for the inevitable judgement of Christ. 44 Ibid. 45 For the campaign to canonize Vincent Ferrer, the development of his iconography, and his popularity into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Chubb, Fear God and Give Glory to Him, 3. There is a painting of Saint Vincent Ferrer by Joan de Joanes, dated to 1540–45, in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya that is documented as having come from Valldecrist, for example.

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Working alongside the friars as they spoke publicly about their belief that the end of the world was fast approaching and encouraging people of all faiths to prepare, works of art provided visual examples of divinity and humanity, piety and conversion, pain and suffering, life and death, salvation and damnation. They spoke not only to audiences of lay Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but also to audiences of clergy and religious communities, who were an important component of the Dominicans’ plan. The friars needed the help of other representatives of the Church to transmit their message as far and as quickly as possible. At least in late medieval Valencia, non-Dominican religious responded enthusiastically, supporting the friars by incorporating their messages into works of art that appeared in public spaces. Both inside and outside of their convents, works of art brought the friars’ words to life, and the combination of words and images made the Dominicans’ message even more effective. Taryn E.L. Chubb, East Central University, USA

12. Ferdinand of Antequera and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo: Patronage, Advice, and Spiritual Favour (c.1390–1416) Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez1 Abstract In the turbulent years of transition at the end of the fourteenth century the monastery of Santo Domingo el Real of Toledo became one of the religious centres of greatest political activity in the late medieval Spanish kingdoms. Founded just a few years earlier under the patronage of Peter I of Castile, it was during the leadership of the prioress Teresa de Ayala (c.1400–1424) that the Toledan community reached its period of maximum institutional splendour. The extraordinary donations of this prioress of noble rank, who dealt with lay and ecclesiastical powers with considerable intelligence, and the strong relationship of her daughter, María de Castilla, with the royal family transformed their house into a centre of spiritual and political advice without precedence in the life of the Castilian court. Keywords: Santo Domingo el Real, medieval Toledo, Dominicans, Ferdinand of Antequera

Introduction During the period of transition between the fourteenth and f ifteenth centuries, the monastery of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo became one 1 This work has been completed in accordance with the framework for the research project financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación), no. HAR2010–16762/HIST entitled ‘Prácticas de consenso y de pacto e instrumentos de representación en la cultura política castellana (siglos XIII al XV)’.

García-Serrano, Francisco (ed.), The Friars and their Influence in Medieval Spain. Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462986329_ch12

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of the most politically influential religious centres in the Spanish kingdoms. Despite having been founded only a little time before, under the patronage of Peter I, the monastery gained what was with certainty its period of greatest institutional, political, spiritual, and economic splendour during the time when Teresa de Ayala served as prioress (c.1400–1424). The extraordinary amount of governmental funding for the priory, its noble lineage, and its interactions with those in power – paired with the extensive kinship relations of Teresa and her daughter, María de Castilla, with Spanish royalty – contributed to the conversion of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo into an influential spiritual and political centre in the religious life of Castile.2 It is during Teresa de Ayala’s time that Prince Ferdinand of Castile (later known as Ferdinand of Antequera because of his brilliant conquest of that city in September of 1410) became an influential figure in the life of the monastery. He became involved with the monastery first by continuing his family’s tradition of granting favours to the institution. After his accession to the throne of Aragon towards the end of June 1412, his involvement with the monastery increased as he became a recipient of the political and spiritual advice that Teresa de Ayala, and to a lesser degree her daughter María, supplied him with during the most difficult moments of his brief rule in Aragon. After the death of the king in April 1416, his widow and children maintained spiritual and political ties with Santo Domingo el Real. The relationship did not come to an end even upon the death of Teresa de Ayala and María de Castilla (just fifteen days apart),3 but rather, was maintained during the years in which Urraca Téllez, the skilled successor of Teresa, served as prioress. 4 2 For bibliography relating to these influential years for the monastery, see V. García Rey, ‘La famosa priora Doña Teresa de Ayala (Su correspondencia con los monarcas de su tiempo)’, BRAH, 96 (1930), 686–773; M.J. Galán Vera, El Monasterio de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo (Tarancón, 1999); J.L. Barrios Sotos, Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo a fines de la Edad Media (1364–1507) (Toledo, 1997); F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez, ‘La itinerancia de la corte de Castilla durante la primera mitad del siglo XV: el eje Burgos-Toledo, escenario burocrático–administrativo y político de la Monarquía en tiempos de Juan II’, e-Spania, 8 (2009); Colección diplomática de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo. Documentos reales 1: 1249–1473, ed. F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez (Madrid, 2010); F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez, ‘Don Sancho de Castilla (1363–1371): apuntes biográficos de un hijo ilegítimo de Pedro I’, in Mundos medievales: espacios, sociedades y poder: homenaje al profesor José Ángel García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, 2 vols (Santander, 2012), ii, 1125–36; idem, ‘Urraca Téllez: ascendencia social y proyección político–religiosa de una priora de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo (ca. 1352–†1431–32)’, Mirabilia, 17 (2013), 273–304. 3 Teresa de Ayala died on 31 August 1424, followed by her daughter María on 16 September. See García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 732; Cañas Gálvez, ‘Urraca Téllez’, 274. 4 Information on this interesting priorship can be found in Cañas Gálvez, ‘Urraca Téllez’, 273–304.

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In this work we will study the spiritual, political, and personal connections that were cultivated between Prince Ferdinand and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo. These connections were f irst established when Ferdinand was Prince of Castile and tutor of John II and continued to grow in strength after his coronation as king of Aragon in 1412. The latter period is perhaps the most interesting. The discussion of these connections will also include Ferdinand’s spouse, Leonor de Alburquerque, and his children, in particular Enrique de Aragón, master of the Order of Santiago, and his sister María.

The Reign of Henry III: The Tutelage and Regency of the Prince (1390–1412) The surviving information concerning the relationship that Ferdinand and his spouse were able to maintain with Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo during the reign of Henry III is practically nonexistent. If we follow the description of the prince left to us by Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, we can determine that our protagonist was, amongst the other virtues true of any gentleman, ‘a very catholic and devout Christian’.5 Perhaps because of these characteristics, along with the other members of the royal family, he professed a particular devotion to the Order of Saint Jerome, which during that time had been recently installed and had spread throughout Castile.6 Ferdinand’s devotion was also directed towards the Order of Preachers, whose spiritual and material connections with royalty began with the foundation of the order in the thirteenth century.7 These ties, in the specific case of the prince,8 were strengthened when the vote of one of 5 F. Pérez de Guzmán, Generaciones y semblanzas (Madrid, 1998), 79. 6 For more on the relationship of the Castilian royal family with the monastic palaces of the Order of Saint Jerome during the first half of the fifteenth century, see F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez, El itinerario de la corte de Juan II (1418–1454) (Madrid, 2007), 130–40. 7 For more on this point see ibid., 147–54. 8 Unlike his brother, the king of Castile, who was closer to the Franciscans, as is noted in the works of A. López Fernández, ‘Confesores de la familia real de Castilla’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 31 (1929), 6–75; idem, ‘Fray Fernando de Illescas, confesor de los Reyes de Castilla Juan I y Enrique III’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 241–52; idem, ‘Fray Alfonso de Alcocer, confesor de Enrique III de Castilla’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 30 (1928), 369–74; idem, ‘Devoción de la familia real de España a san Francisco y su orden’, El Eco Franciscano, 43 (1926), 631–3; idem, ‘La familia real de Castilla y los franciscanos’, El Eco Franciscano, 50 (1933), 536–7, 563–5; J.M. Nieto Soria, ‘Franciscanos y franciscanismo en la Corte y en la política de la Castilla Trastámara’, AEM, 20 (1990), 109–31; S. Moreta y Velayos, ‘Notas sobre el franciscanismo y el dominicanismo de Sancho

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the representatives gathered at Caspe, the Dominican friar Vincent Ferrer (the representative of the kingdom of Valencia and a person whom the prince knew well from their encounter in Ayllón in September 1411), was decisive in the election of the prince as king of Aragon.9 These events all coincided with the entry of María de Castilla as a nun into Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo in 1392; the entry of her mother Teresa de Ayala to the same community shortly afterwards;10 and the beginning of the priorships of María (1394, 1395, 1399) and Teresa (c.1402–1424).11 It was, without a doubt, the beginning of a new and splendid period in the history of the monastery. Between the years 1392 and 1406, royal donations to the monastery multiplied exponentially,12 creating the economic base that allowed the monastery to develop a spiritual life whose rigour was celebrated throughout Castile.13 In the context of this social, spiritual, economic, and political advance of the monastery, the court of Henry III and Catalina of Lancaster visited Toledo on a number of occasions, and it is very probable that the prince formed part of the royal retinue during these trips. We know that the royal court was in Toledo during the years 1394, 1395, 1397, 1398, 1399, 1400 (in the area surrounding Toledo and also possibly in the city), 1402, and 1406.14 Of all these visits, the most noteworthy were, without a doubt, those of 1402 and 1406. The visit of 1402 was characterized by the solemn gathering of IV y María de Molina’, in Actas de la VIª Semana de Estudios Medievales (Nájera, 1995) (Logroño, 1996). 9 More information on this topic can be found in Cátedra, Sermón, sociedad. The important role that Ferdinand’s lawyers played in the process is presented in Cañas Gálvez, ‘La diplomacia castellana durante el reinado de Juan II: la participación de los letrados de la Cancillería Real en las embajadas regias’, AEM, 40 (2010), 691–722. 10 In August 1392, Catalina of Lancaster ordered her chief treasurer, Antón Sánchez de Villarrael, to give María de Castilla ‘mi tia, fija del rey don Pedro, my avuelo’ a total of 100,000 mravedíes [gold coins] so that she could take up the velo prieto or black veil of the Dominican sisters of the monastery of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo (1 August 1392), Archivo de Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo (hereafter ASDRT), 1–2, no. 6; Garcia Rey, ‘La famosa’, 733–4, no. 2; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 63–4; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 78–9, no. 35. 11 Colección […] Santo Domingo, 386. 12 Ibid., 77–222, nos. 34–171. 13 ‘Y assi en los monasterios de la orden que en aquel tiempo se fundauan se acudia a el (Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo) como a excelente modelo de religion para lleuar monjas que los fundassen, que no es poco abono suyo auiendo en estos Reynos como auia tan grand caudal de virtud y santidad en los conventos y casas de nuestras monjas.’ H. del Castillo, Segunda parte de la historia general de Santo Domingo y su Orden de Predicadores (Valladolid, 1612), 101. 14 F. de A. Veas Arteseros, Itinerario de Enrique III (Murcia, 2003), 338, 345, 366, 376, 377, 391, 394, 414, 415, 442–3.

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the courts to swear in Princess María as princess of Asturias.15 The visit of 1406 was accompanied by another gathering of the court convened by the dying Henry III and led by Prince Ferdinand. The purpose of this court gathering was to obtain from the representatives a subsidiary for the war against Granada.16 Henry III died in Toledo on 25 December 1406. Immediately afterwards, his brother the prince communicated the news to the cities and villages of the kingdom and began to prepare for the difficult regency that was approaching.17 Don Ferdinand remained in Toledo until 1 January 1407, the day on which he set out for Segovia to meet with Catalina of Lancaster to discuss the political situation in Castile.18 The prince would have to return to the Imperial city a number of times in the following years. Between 28 April and 13 May 1407, on a stop on his way to Andalusia, he visited the primatial cathedral to lift the mourning for the death of his brother, the king.19 A further visit took place between December 1407 and 2 January 1408, upon his return from Andalusian territory, ‘when a year had passed since the death of King Don Enrique, his brother’. A series of further visits occurred between 20 and 26 February 1410, and, finally, between 5 February and 17 March 1411.20 Taking into account the political and institutional influence that Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo then held, it is very likely that the prince visited the monastery, although there is no documented support for such a visit. But there is no doubt that during his last visit in 1411 (on 9 March) Don Ferdinand signed a royal document (albalá) in which he granted to María de Castilla (‘my aunt’) and Teresa de Ayala eight measures (cahíces) of wheat each ‘to assist in their upkeep’.21 It is also within the realm of possibility that Ferdinand would have felt some level of mistrust for a place that, without a doubt, was important to 15 A. Arranz Guzmán, ‘Reconstrucción y verif icación de las Cortes castellano-leonesas: la participación del clero’, En la España Medieval, 13 (1990), 107–8. 16 The amount obtained was 45,000 mravedíes. See Arranz Guzmán, ‘Reconstrucción’, 109; Also F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez, ‘El canciller Juan Martínez del Castillo: perfil biográfico e institucional de un letrado de la realeza Trastámara (1369–1409)’, En la España Medieval, 36 (2013), 147–9. 17 Information on the regency of Ferdinand of Antequera and Catalina of Lancaster, as well as a full biography can be found in S. González Sánchez, Fernando I: regente de Castilla y rey de Aragón (1407–1416) (Gijón, 2012). 18 Don Ferdinand arrived in Toledo on 13 December: S. González Sánchez, Itinerario de don Fernando, regente de Castilla y rey de Aragón (1407–1416) (Zaragoza, 2013), 51–3. 19 Ibid., 35, 58–9. 20 Ibid., 71–2, 97, 113–15. 21 9 March 1411, ASDRT, 1104/1, no. 340; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 151–2, no. 97.

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the descendants and supporters of Peter I. María de Castilla herself was an illegitimate daughter of the Castilian monarch; and Queen Catalina, at that time regent in Castile, was the granddaughter of that same king. This mistrust may explain the lack of favours bestowed upon the community during those years by the prince. It must be taken into account that Catalina of Lancaster had to take advantage of the absence of Don Ferdinand from Castilian territory during the summer of 1410 (during which time he was laying siege to Antequera)22 to transport from Toro to Santo Domingo el Real the mortal remains of Sancho de Castilla, the prioress’s brother and the uncle of Catalina. Such was the distrust the direct descendants of Peter I could inspire in the monarchy of Trastámara.23 Be that as it may, what is certain is that from that period onwards, the relations between the prince and Santo Domingo appear to strengthen notably. According to tradition, the Cristo de Antequera, housed today in the monastery of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo, was the campaign or battle image that Don Ferdinand carried during his military operations in Andalusia, and probably during the conquest of Antequera. It is a portable and simple image, which reinforces the idea of its use on the battlefield. All of this suggests, although there is no known documentation related to such an incident, that the prince, perhaps taking advantage of his visit to Toledo in early 1411, donated the figure to the nuns in acknowledgement of the possible spiritual and political advice that María de Castilla and, in particular, Teresa de Ayala must have afforded him during the long and difficult months of the siege of Antequera.24 Beginning in 1411, the documents preserved in the archive of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo confirm a strengthening of the relationship with the prince and his children. Chancery documents confirm the affection of the royal family for the prioress and the Dominican nuns. Beginning on 11 May 1411, this affection was demonstrated through the favour mentioned above: the concession of the income of the village of Ocaña. This favour was originally granted the monastery by the son of the prince, Enrique de Aragón, the master of Santiago, ‘out of the special devotion and affection that he has for the said monastery, for you [Teresa de Ayala], for Doña María 22 The siege of Antequera lasted from 26 April until 3 October 1410 (González Sánchez, Itinerario, 101, 109). 23 Information on the transfer of the remains of Sancho de Castilla to Santo Domingo el Real can be found in Cañas Gálvez, ‘Sancho de Castilla’, 1133–5. 24 M.J. Galán Vera, ‘Cristo de las Aguas, Cristo de Antequera y Cristo Redentor, en Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo’, in Los crucificados, religiosidad, cofradías y arte, ed. F.J. Campos y Fernández de Sevilla (San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2010), 755–70.

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[…] your aunt, and for the other religious women of the monastery’.25 The same favour was later confirmed by Ferdinand, as king of Aragon, on three separate occasions: February 1415 and June and September 1416. 26 The favour was renewed by Don Enrique in July 141727 and for a final time in August 1417 by the widow of the king of Aragon, Leonor de Alburquerque, in exchange for ‘that in your holy prayers and in the prayers of the other devoted ladies of the monastery you will continually remember us, the king of Aragon, the Infantes, our beloved children, our houses and our works and deeds’.28 The documentary evidence also shows that Prince Ferdinand, in addition to awarding favours and alms to the community, 29 concerned himself in a particularly active way with the protection of the assets that it had succeeded in acquiring during those years, especially the income made from the sales of cloth in the market (alcaicería) of Toledo.30 Furthermore, he maintained and granted new gifts and alms. It is also f itting to draw attention to a dictate made by the Royal Audience in January 1412. Before the possibility that some knights might attempt to unjustly take over the goods of the community in the distinct areas of the archbishopric of Toledo, the aforementioned dictate ordered the civil authorities of Toledo to guard and support the possessions of the community in every way.31 One month later, from Cuenca (a city close to the border with Aragon), where the prince was awaiting the results of the deliberations that had been initiated in order to resolve the conflict for the succession in Aragon,32 Ferdinand insisted once again that the authorities of Toledo defend and support the income and possessions of Santo Domingo el Real.33 25 ASDRT, no. 156; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 760–1, no. 28; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 86; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 171, no. 114. 26 9 March 1411 and 24 February 1415, ASDRT, no. 1104/1, no. 340; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 151–2, no. 97; 160–1, no. 104. 27 For the documentation (albaláes) of 10 June 1416, 30 September 1416, and 13 July1417 see ASDRT, 1104/2, nos 7, 155, 332,1338; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 167–8, nos 109–10; 170–1, no. 113. 28 14 August 1417, Valladolid, ASDRT, no. 156; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 760–1, no. 28; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 86; Colección […] Santo Domingo,171, no. 114. 29 Colección […] Santo Domingo, 136–44, nos 85–8, 146–7, nos 90, 92. 30 Ibid., 134–6, no. 84; 144–6, no. 91. 31 28 January 1412, Valladolid, ASDRT, no. 1880; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 152–3, no. 98. 32 For more on the prince’s stay in Cuenca see F. de Paula Cañas Gálvez, ‘Viajes y estancias de Fernando I de Aragón: acción política y ejercicio del poder regio (1412–1416)’, in El Compromiso de Caspe (1412), cambios dinásticos, 233–4. 33 ASDRT, nos. 40, 190 and 1880; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 153–5, no. 99.

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Prince Ferdinand de Castilla, King of Aragon (1412–1416) On 28 June 1412, Ferdinand was proclaimed king of Aragon by the representatives gathered in Caspe.34 With this development, a new period began in the relations between Ferdinand, now king, and Santo Domingo el Real. It is not known whether correspondence was exchanged between Ferdinand, Teresa de Ayala, and her daughter between summer 1412 and summer 1413. If that was the case, as it most probably was, this documentation has not been preserved. There is, however, an interesting exchange of letters between both parties regarding two of the biggest problems that afflicted the reign of Ferdinand: the uprising of the count of Urgel and the papal schism. In both cases, the prioress and María de Castilla were informed about these events. On 5 August Ferdinand left Cuenca and entered Zaragoza, where he announced to the cities and villages a meeting of the Cortes for 25 August ‘so that in them he may be sworn in as king and natural ruler and so that they may offer their loyalty to him and to the Prince Don Alonso, his son, as the legitimate lord, first-born son, and as the future king after the rule of his father’.35 From that moment onward, the connection between Ferdinand and the Order of Preachers in Aragon was continuous. We know, for example, that some of the sessions of the Cortes of 1412 would take place in the monastery of the Friars Preacher of Zaragoza,36 the same monastery in which they were held in February 1414.37 We also know that the Cortes of Barcelona of the following year would also take place in ‘the monastery of the preachers of Barcelona’,38 the space in which, on 30 March 1413, Alfonso, the first-born son of the king, was sworn into the principality of Catalonia.39

34 For more details on the coronation of Ferdinand I, see Gimeno Blay, El compromiso de Caspe (1412): Diario. 35 J. de Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, 6 vols (Zaragoza, 1980 [orig. 1562–80]), v, 288. 36 ‘Después, a 10 del mismo mes (septiembre), se continuaron las cortes en el monasterio de predicadores de esta ciudad (Zaragoza), porque los otros autores y juramentos se celebraron en la iglesia mayor.’ Zurita, Anales, v, 290. 37 ‘Acabada la fiesta de la coronación del rey y de la reina, que fue la postrera que se vio en estos reinos, juntándose los estados del reino a las cortes que estaban llamadas a sus congregaciones que se hacían en el monasterio de los frailes predicadores, propuso en ellas el rey a 17 del mes de febrero la causa para que los había mandado juntar.’ Ibid, 389. 38 Dietaris de la Generalitat de Catalunya, I: anys 1411 a 1539, ed. J.M. Sans I Travé (Barcelona, 1994), 6. 39 Zurita, Anales, v, 313.

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The Uprising of Count Jaime de Urgel As previously mentioned, in the summer of 1413 there was an interesting exchange of letters between Ferdinand, Teresa de Ayala, and María de Castilla. This correspondence was concurrent with the uprising of the count of Urgel, and was likely initiated as a result of the grave problems that this uprising caused the new monarch. The first letter from Ferdinand is dated 13 July, at the time when the news of the military movements of the count’s supporters had become a matter for concern. That same day, the king informed Teresa de Ayala, ‘because we are certain that you will find pleasure in knowing it’, of the military victory obtained by ‘the general, Pedro Nuñez de Gusman, Don Pedro Alfonso de Escalante, Don Juan de Yxar, Mossen Juan de Bardaxi, our general bailiff of Aragon, and Jayme Cerdan’ over Basilio and the other Englishmen who, along with the natives of Gascony, were supporters of the aspirations of Jaime de Urgel. 40 Ferdinand also informed the nun of his intention to lay siege to the count of Urgel’s forces ‘the following week’. The king then assured her that ‘we will punish him and the other rebels in such a way that his punishment will serve as an example to others of how the bad roots will be thrown out of our kingdoms’. 41 The king did not depart from Barcelona until close to two weeks later, assuredly as a result of the preparation of the necessary war machinery. On 26 July, with everything prepared, Ferdinand I left Barcelona and arrived that same day in Molins de Rei, spending 27–28 July in the monastery of Santa María de Montserrat, where he entrusted himself in prayer to the Virgin prior to the military confrontation. 42 After a lengthy siege, Jaime de Urgel surrendered on 31 October 1413. The surrender and later imprisonment of the count did not, however, calm tensions in the territories of Aragon. On the contrary: the count’s mother, Margarita de Monferrato, humiliated by her son’s detention and the collapse of her house – and counting on the support of her daughters, Leonor and Beatriz – attempted to free the count. According to Zurita, she also attempted to arrange that ‘herbs should be given to the king’.43 The monarch, without a doubt, was worried by the way the situation was unfolding. Attesting that Margarita de Monferrato ‘tried to poison us’, he ordered her detention 40 Ibid., 334–6. 41 Colección […] Santo Domingo, 155–6, no. 100. 42 Cañas Gálvez, ‘Viajes’, 235. 43 Zurita, Anales, v, 410.

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as soon as ‘we were convinced of her malicious nature’. On that same day, 29 October 1414, from Montblanc, where Ferdinand I had gathered with the Catalan courts, he reported to Teresa de Ayala and María de Castilla the grave events that had taken place ‘because, giving thanks to our Lord God and his blessed mother by whose mercy we were liberated, you will find pleasure in the things you have and be grateful that God by his great mercy to us […] at the turn of every day’. 44 Zurita recounts in great detail that which followed. Obeying the orders of the king, Prince John and the admiral of Castile set out from Barcelona for Lérida, where the countess and her daughters were residing, with the intention of detaining them. In the end, fifteen other people were arrested with them ‘who were charged as accomplices of so grave an offence’. It appears that, as Zurita also attests: They found, in one of the countess’s chests, letters from the duke of Clarence, the king of Portugal and other princes in which these men pledged their support [for the House of Urgel]; and that she wrote the king of Portugal to arrange that when the count left prison he would be received in his kingdom, and to inquire after a response from the king as to whether or not he would offer her assistance. 45

In the end, the royal will intervened. By means of a difficult process, on 29 July 1415, a sentence was pronounced in which, although the crimes committed by Margarita de Monferrato were recognized (incitement of a civil war and the intention of poisoning the king), she was not assigned any specific punishment. According to Zurita, Margarita ‘was placed in a castle’ and her daughters were confined to a monastery. 46 In relation to these events, a knight was also charged, as it appears ‘he was found to have consented to the countess’s plans, giving the court of Catalonia ample cause to execute very rigorous justice’. 47 After the death of Ferdinand in April 1416, the new king, Alfonso V, who was a more amenable character, softened the severity of the consequences of the actions of Margarita, who died in Morella on 10 November 1420. 48 44 29 October 1414, Montblanc. ASDRT, no. 148; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 756–7, no. 25; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 82–4; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 159–60, no. 103. 45 Zurita, Anales, v, 410. 46 Ibid., 410–1. 47 Ibid., 411. 48 A. Jiménez Soler, Don Jaime de Aragón, último conde de Urgel (Barcelona, 1899), 190.

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The Matter of the Schism and the Meeting at Perpignan (1415) The papal schism was one of the great issues that dominated the reign of Ferdinand I. From at least April 1415, the prioress and her daughter were well informed about the concerns of the king regarding this important issue. In December 1414, the court of Aragon had moved to Valencia in order to arrange an interview between the king of Aragon, Pope Benedict XIII, and Sigismund, king of the Romans. It was hoped that such a meeting would put an end to the division in the heart of the Church. At an earlier time, the diplomats of the different parties had arranged for the meeting to take place in the French city of Narbonne, but the poor health of Ferdinand, aggravated in the spring of 1415, caused a delay in his departure for the meeting. As a result of the monarch’s poor health, the meeting, in the end, took place in Perpignan. From Valencia on 22 April 1415, Ferdinand I informed Teresa de Ayala of the hope that he had placed in the encounter in the following terms: As soon as the aforementioned king [of the Romans], our holy father Benedict, and myself are of one accord, through the workings of divine grace, we will see ourselves united so that there it will be discussed and agreed upon and so that the highly desired union of the people of God will be achieved.

Ferdinand recognized the central role of Sigismund, describing him as a man who ‘stands out by virtue of his actions in this undertaking, in spite of the large quantity of work, the temptations and the tribulations that come as much from the devil as from false Christians’. 49 Conscious, however, of the difficulty of the undertaking, he pleaded that the prioress and the nuns of Santo Domingo el Real entrust themselves in prayer to the Virgin for the success of the accord: And because in such acts the enemy exerts himself in order to create discord, a discord which is heightened when combined with the discord already prepared by our sins, by which we do not refuse, but rather receive temptation of all types, for this reason, prioress and aunt and sisters, I ask that your prayers to our God be continuous and ardent so that by the passion of His son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of the 49 ASDRT, no. 151; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 758–9, no. 26; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 84–5; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 161–2, no. 105.

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Holy Virgin Mary, he will not desire that our sins consume us, something which we deserve for our wickedness and by which good will be hindered, but rather that he exchange what we deserve for his mercy, and that you all pray to the blessed Virgin, his mother, thereby achieving a successful proceeding and a good end to this his undertaking.50

Even in such difficult circumstances for the Church and in spite of his own delicate health, Ferdinand did not forget Castile. According to his letter, it seems that the situation in the Castilian realm was also difficult. He asked that the nuns pray for King John II, ‘my nephew, and his house’, adding: And that this kingdom plead with our Lord to retire His anger and convert its sin into penitence so that His anger will be diffused, because I do not believe that He would bring pestilence to the place that does this and the Lord will save you all for revering his blessed mother.51

The documents preserved in the archive of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo reveal that the prioress and her daughter María responded promptly to the king’s letters, although none of their letters have been preserved. In one letter sent by Ferdinand from Valencia on 30 July he confirms that ‘we received the letter that you sent and we understand well the reason for which you wrote us’. In these letters, in addition to offering extensive information on the relevant topics and presumably offering political and spiritual advice, both parties typically mentioned the status of their health, something which was logical taking into account the serious illness from which Don Ferdinand suffered and Teresa de Ayala’s age. In the letter mentioned previously, Ferdinand I promised the following regarding the queen, his first-born son, and the other princes and princesses ‘that at the present time, by the grace of God, we and they are in good [health]’. He also reported the same of his own health, despite having been ‘bothered for a few days but, God be praised, we are now well’. Because of this perceived good health, and trusting in the intercession of the Virgin, he announced at that time his departure ‘to our town of Perpignan to meet with the king of the Romans about the union of the Church, where, if it is pleasing to God, the aforementioned union will be achieved’. With respect to these upcoming 50 ASDRT, no. 151; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 758–9, no. 26; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 84–5; Colección…Santo Domingo, 161–2, no. 105. 51 ASDRT, no. 151; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 758–9, no. 26; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 84–5; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 161–2, no. 105.

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events, he asked once more that Teresa de Ayala, María de Castilla, and ‘the other good people of the monastery’ pray to the divine will so that by His ‘holy mercy and compassion he bless the proceedings so that his Church may achieve its true union’.52 The slight improvement in health noted by the king was temporary. We know that on 7 August, the night before his departure, he suffered from ‘a fainting fit and they thought him dead’.53 Finally, on 21 August he departed for Perpignan, arriving there on 30 August 1415,54 but not without experiencing various relapses and complications along the way. As is well known, the encounter of the three parties – Benedict XIII, Sigismund, and Ferdinand I – was unsuccessful.55 From that moment forward, the correspondence between the king and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo was interrupted. We do not know if it has been lost or if it was never written. If the latter, it would be surprising given the importance of the issues discussed at Perpignan between August and December of 1415 and the grave state of the king’s health at that time. The king’s poor health, however, might perhaps explain the absence of letters as the illness afflicting the monarch impeded him in tasks as small as personally signing the documents sent out by his chancery. These communications had to be attended to by Prince Alfonso.56

Leonor de Alburquerque and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo (1416–1424) Ferdinand died in Igualada on 2 April 1416. We know that after his death his family maintained the bonds that had been established with Santo Domingo.57 As has been noted, Prince Enrique de Aragón, the master of Santiago, conceded and conferred upon the monastery a donation consisting of 16 cahíces of wheat, and his mother, Leonor de Alburquerque, did the same in August 1417 upon her return to Castilian territory after being widowed. Beyond purely economic matters, there are some clues which allow us to assume that the relationship between the royal family and the community 52 ASDRT, no. 111; García Rey, ‘La famosa’, 759–60, no. 27; Galán Vera, El Monasterio, 85–6; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 162–3, no. 106. 53 Zurita, Anales, v, 440. 54 See Cañas Gálvez, ‘Viajes’, 238. 55 See González Sánchez, Fernando I, 163–8. 56 Zurita, Anales, v, 451. 57 Cañas Gálvez, ‘Urraca Téllez’, 273–304.

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went further. In the archive of Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo, a letter is extant in which Leonor de Alburquerque pleaded that her ‘cousin’ (prima), María de Castilla, lend her a liturgical book, ‘a prayer book in romance’, kept in Santo Domingo. Leonor requested the book in order to make a copy of it so that she might, according to the queen herself, ‘pray more and guide us in the Liturgy of the Hours’. Through such activities, Leonor hoped to ‘increase and demonstrate our gratitude, and ask that God grant you His grace’. The letter, dated 5 April, from Medina del Campo, had to have been written between 1417 – when Leonor was already widowed and in Castile (the queen signed the letter as ‘the Sad Queen’ – La Tryste Reyna) – and 1424 due to the fact that in September of that last year the addressee, María de Castilla, died.58

Conclusion A spiritual centre of importance within the Order of Preachers, Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo was also, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, one of the principal centres of political power for the Crown of Castile. The reasons for such influence are well known: the kinship of María de Castilla with all the Spanish royalty of the time; and the reputation of her mother, Teresa de Ayala, as a woman religious, director of monastic life, and spiritual advisor to the monarchs of that time. The rulers she advised saw in Teresa a person gifted with the highest political and governmental sensibilities. They placed their trust in her despite the strong ties that connected her with Peter I’s supporters who, still active at that time, had laid a certain claim to Santo Domingo after converting the house into the final resting place of Sancho and Diego de Castilla, who were both illegitimate sons of Peter I. There is an extensive and well-documented correspondence between the Dominican nuns and the sovereigns of the house of Trastámara, and this had acquired particular importance with Ferdinand of Antequera. Connected to the monastery from the years in which he was a prince, at the beginning of his regency, and, in particular, during the time after the conquest of Antequera in September 1410, the ties between Ferdinand and the house strengthened substantially. The relationship between the monarch and the community would later achieve its maximum expression during the period in which he was king of Aragon. The donations to Santo Domingo established by Ferdinand were later confirmed and continued by 58 ASDRT, no. 117; Colección […] Santo Domingo, 172, no. 115.

Ferdinand of Antequer a and Santo Domingo el Real de Toledo

285

his family. In addition, it was Ferdinand who, according to tradition, gifted to Santo Domingo the image of Christ that was kept in his camp during the siege of Antequera. Lastly, we see the extent of the strong ties of trust that connected Ferdinand and Santo Domingo el Real in the correspondence that both parties maintained during the development of the two biggest problems facing the king of Aragon: the uprising of the count of Urgel in 1413 and the meeting at Perpignan with the king of the Romans, Sigismund III, and Pope Benedict XIII in 1415. It was during these difficult times that Ferdinand received from both Teresa de Ayala and María de Castilla spiritual support (indispensable for a man of his profound religiosity) and support of a political nature in the form of the advice that Teresa must have supplied him with during those complex proceedings. With the death of Ferdinand I in 1416 the strong ties that linked his family to Santo Domingo were not weakened. His son Enrique, master of Santiago, his daughter María, queen of Castile from 1418, and his widow, Leonor de Alburquerque (who even came to exchange prayer books with the two nuns), maintained a strong relationship with the community, cementing ties that would be extended through the rest of the Castilian royal family until the end of the fifteenth century. Francisco de Paula Cañas Gálvez, Universidad Complutense, Madrid

Index Abdallah ibn Salam 39 Abner of Burgos/Alfonso of Valladolid 120 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali 102 Abū l-Qāsim al-‘Aẓafī, ruler of Ceuta 133 Afffectu sincere (papal bull) 171-72 Afonso Enriques 28 Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Samad al-Khazraji 126, 131 Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Anṣārī al-Qurṭubī 95, 97-99 Information about the Corruptions and Delusions of the Religion of the Christians and the Presentation of the Merits of the Religion of Islam and the Affirmation of the Prophethood of our Prophet Muḥammad 95 Aisha (Axa), Muslims sorceress 201 Al-Bukhari 126 Al-Hašimi 39 Al-Khazraji 126, 131 Al-Kindi 39 Albalá (royal document) 275 Albigensian heresy, Catharism 86, 173, 181 Alcarria region, Castile1 45, 150 Alcavota 233 Alcobaça, monastery 41 Alcocer, monastery of Santa Clara 17, 143-57 Alexander III, pope 27 Alexander IV, pope 58, 147 Alexander of Hales 231, 232 Alexandria, Egypt 98 Alfondech, valley of 118 Alfonso I of Aragon 26 Alfonso II of Aragon 41, 121 Alfonso III of Portugal 148 Alfonso IV of Aragon 186, 206, 208 Alfonso IX of León 62, 64 Alfonso V of Aragon 278, 280, 283 Alfonso VI of Castile 26, 41 Alfonso VII of Castile 27, 166 Alfonso VIII of Castile 14, 20, 27, 30, 33-35, 37, 40-41, 62-64 Alfonso X of Castile 16, 18, 49, 68, 77-79, 143-46, 148-50, 154-57, 165, 168 Alfonso XI of Castile 151-52, 154 Alfonso, Dominican friar 16 Alfonso, son of Queen María de Molina 16 Algarve, Portugal 126 Aljamiado 132 Almohads 40 Almohad caliphs 129, 131 Almonacid de la Sierra, Aragon 138 Almoravids 40, 131, 133 Alonso Fernández de Madrid, chronicler 34 Altarpieces 252, 263-68 Álvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile 151

Álvaro of Córdoba 39 Anales Toledanos Primeros 34 Andrés Albalat (Andreu d’Albalat), bishop of Valencia 16, 156, 251 Andújar, Andalusia 72-73 Angelo Clareno, Italian author 179, 179 n. 8, n. 9, 182 n. 22, 183 n. 23 Angels 123-26, 224, 232, 255, 256, 259, 267-68 Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi 58 Anselm, 12th century theologian 103 Anthony Lappin 22 Antichrist 112, 119, 141, 196 n. 16, 240, 249, 256, 256 n. 22, 257, 258, 260, 260 n. 31 Apocalypse, apocalyptic 112, 112 n. 16, 178, 183, 192, 196, 197, 240 n. 32, 249, 252, 268 Apocalyptic prophecies 112 Apostles 75, 105, 122, 127, 128, 137, 230, 238, 248, 250, 255, 262, 267 Apostolic life, poverty 159-62, Apostolic missions 109, 112, 127-28, 248, 256 Aristotles 37, 225, 233, 239 Arnald of Villanova (Arnau de Vilanova) 177 n. 1, 178 n. 5, 183-84, 192 n. 3, 195-97, 200, 205, 208 Arnaldo (Arnau) Burget 58, 198 204, 204 n. 48, 205, 217 Arnaldo, bishop of Astorga 29, 31 Ars Praedicandi 162 Athanasius, Saint 259 Atienza, Castile 148-50 Augustine of Hippo 117, 224, 233, 235, 238 Augustinian rule 28, 30, 32 Augustinian canons 13, 27 Augustinian, convent of Caleruega 163 Averroes 38 Avicenna 37 Avignon, France 25, 176, 181-83, 185-87, 189, 202, 207, 207 n. 61, 208, 211-12, 214-17, 241, 248 Ayyubid, dynasty 101 Azmet Hannaxa, Muslim converted to Christianity 118, 127, 141 Balaguer, Catalonia 206 Barcelona 29, 37, 39, 47, 52, 54, 55, 101, 165, 176, 182, 183, 184-87, 191, 193, 198-99, 201-02, 205, 207, 209, 213, 218, 222, 237, 278-80 Barnabas Cagnoli, Dominican master-general 206 Barthomeu Gaço, Valencian Dominican 215 Bartolomeo of Trent 21 Bartomeu Bacella, Franciscan tertiary 186, 188 Bartomeu Riera, Franciscan tertiary 188 Beatrice, Queen of Portugal 145, 145 n. 10, 148-50 Beghards 192, 198-99, 203, 212

288 

THE FRIARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

Beguins 161, 163, 171, 175-79, 181-89, 198 Benedict XII, pope 112, 199 n. 25, 207-08 207 n. 61, 210 Benedic XIII (Pedro de Luna), pope 217, 248, 252, 256-57, 281, 283, 285 Benedictine rule 147, 147 n. 20, 156 Benedictine monks 198, 214 n. 88 Benedictine nuns 147 Berengar of Landorra 205 Berenguela, Queen of Castile 61, 78 Berenguer de Monte Falcone, cistercian monk 212 Berenguer de Palou, bishop of Barcelona 47, 55 Berenguer de Saltells, Mallorcan nobleman 204-08 Berenguer, bishop of Girona 53-54 Berenguer, Dominican friar 207 Bernard Gui, inquisitor 181 Bernard of Clairvaux 41 Bernard of Délicieux 181 Bernard of Pavia 50 Bernardo, bishop of Coimbra 30 Bernardus Compostellanus, jurist and writer 19, 35-36 Bernat de Puigcercós, Dominican inquisitor 191-219 Bernat Ermengol, dominical provincial of Aragon 213-17, 219 n. 102 Bernat Fuster, Franciscan tertiary 183, 184, 184 n. 27 Bernat Sescala (Bernardus de Scala) 192 Béziers, France 177-78, 181 Blanche, granddaughter of Alfonso X 149-57 Bologna, Italy 19-21, 33, 35-36, 42-43, 45-47, 86, 161, 171 Bonaventure, Saint 103, 161 Bonanate Torra 186 Boniface VIII, pope 197 Bonifacio Ferrer, carthusian monk in Valencia 251-54, 262-67 Braga, Portugal 23, 28, 36 Maurice, archbishop of Braga 28 Burgos, Castile 22, 24, 27 n. 30, 29, 36, 40-41, 63, 150, 157, 165, 168 Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Burgos 41 Claros Martinez: citizen of Burgos 168 Maurice (Mauricio), bishop of Burgos 40, 63 Mayor Pérez, inhabitant of Burgos 168 Pero Bonifaz, mayor of Burgos 168 Santa María de Burgos, Cistercian monastery 41 Calatayud, Aragon 199, 200 n. 33 Caleruega: Castile 19, 20, 22, 62, 65, 163, 168, 172 Augustinian convent of Caleruega 163 Calixtus II, pope 29 Capistrum judeorum (Ramon Marti) 85, 101-02

Carnal, relations 221-45 Carthusians 17, 247-54, 262, 267, 268 Portaceli and Valldecrist, Carthusian monastery, Valencia 251-55, 265, 268 Caspe, Aragon 121, 274, 277, 278, 278 n. 34 Compromise of Caspe 252 Catalina of Lancaster 274, 274 n. 10, 275-76 Cathars, Catharism see Albigensians Cerebruno of Sigüenza, archbishop of Toledo 27-28 Cervera, Dominican convent 205, 205 n. 55 Ceuta 133 Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris 31 Cifuentes, Castile 145, n. 12, 147-48, 150, 153 Cistercian monasteries of Poblet in Aragon and Alcobaça in Portugal 41 Cistercians 32, 41-42, 77, 212 Cistercian monastery of Poblet 41 Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Burgos 41 Cistercian monastery of Santa María de Huerta 32 Cistercian nuns in Soria 32 Cistercian nuns 160, 160 n. 2 Cistercians of San Clemente 77 Ciudad Rodrigo, Castile 11 Ciutat de Mallorca 16, 165, 191, 208, 209 n. 68, 210-11 Clare, Order of Saint 68, 72 n. 49, 161-62 Poor Clares 72, 77-78, 143-57 Clares house, Villafranca del Penedès 188 Clares in Andújar, Baeza, Úbeda, and Jaén 72 Santa Clara, monastery, Alcocer 16-17, 143-57 Santa Clara monastery, Jaén 73 Santa Clara monastery, Úbeda 73 Claros Martinez: citizen of Burgos 168 Clement IV, pope 171-72 Clement V, pope 180, 183 Clement VI, pope 207-08, 210, 211 n. 75, 212, 214 n. 88 Clement VII, pope 216, 216 n. 97 Cluny, monastery, Cluniacs 31, 37, 39, 41 Compromise of Caspe 252 Concejo, city council 74-76, 81, 145, 148 Confessors 16, 48, 53, 64-65, 77-79, 231, 245, 247-48 Domingo de Robledo, royal confessor 16 Pedro Gallego, Franciscan friar, prior, royal confessor 78-79 Constantino de Orvieto 21 Contra legem Saracenorum 120 Conversion, converts 17-18, 39, 41, 45, 58, 86-87, 100-01, 105, 107-0, 112-13, 115-28, 130-33, 137, 140-41, 173, 192, 199, 240-41, 244, 248-51, 254-55, 259, 262-63, 265, 269, 272 Córdoba 67, 71, 74, 75-76, 79-81 Cortes, meetings of 54, 278, s78 n. 37 Monzón, Cortes in 54

Index

Costa ben Luca 37 Council of Tours 29 Council of Vienne 180 Crestià 222, 235-44 Crusade 18, 40, 54, 87, 82, 101, 134 Cuéllar, Castile 31, 68 Cuenca, Castile 144, 148, 150, 153, 277, 277 n. 32, 278 Cura animarum, care of souls 17, 160-62, 170 Cura monialium, care of nuns 160, 162 n. 14, 163, 171, 174 Cura mulierum, care of women 17, 159, 160, 170-71, 174 Dalmau de Cervello i Queralt, Chamberlain of Martin I of Aragon 265 Dalmau Moner, ascetic 206, 206 n. 55, 207, 207 n. 60, 212, 212 n. 81 Damian, order of Saint 67-68 Daniel of Morley 38 David de Ripoll, Jewish writer 192, 193 n. 9, 200 De erudition praedicationis 173 De generatione Mahumet et nutritura eius 32 De secta Mahometi (Ramon Marti) 85, 98, 100-01, 104 Denmark 21, 33, 41 Diana of Andalò 161 Diego Aceves, bishop of Osma 20, 33, 41, 85 Diego de Osma, Dominic’s mentor 85 Diego García de Campos, royal chancellor 33, 39 Diego Gelmírez, archbishop of Santiago 31 Directorium inquisitorum (Nicolau Eimeric) 191, 194 194 n. 11, 195, 200, 202-03, 215-16, 218 Directorium (Ramon de Penyafort) 55-56 Disputations 86, 95, 99, 131-33 Barcelona, disputation of 1263 39, 58, 87 n. 7, 109, 250 Domingo ‘el Chico’, companion of Saint Dominic 64 Domingo de Robledo, royal confessor 16 Domingo Petit, Segovia, merchant 31 Domingo, bishop of Morocco 71-72, 79 Dominic of Guzmán: Saint 14, 16, 19-26, 32-34, 37-38, 40-43, 46, 62-65, 86, 159-60, 162, 164-65, 170, 172-74, 248, 256 Felix, father of Saint Dominic 21-22 Guzmán family 16, 20, 23 Juana de Aza, mother of Saint Dominic 19, 21 Dominic Torrassa 188 Dominicus Gundisalvi 37 Dominicus Oxomensis 25 Donadíos and heredamientos (land property) 70 Eleanor of Aragon 222 Eleanor of Castile 54, 222

289 Empúries, Catalonia 202, 206, 206 n. 55, 210, 210 n. 71, 214, 214 n. 87 England 18, 20, 85, 87, 104-05 Enrique de Aragón, prince, master of the Order of Santiago 273, 276-77, 283, 285 Esteban Jimenez, citizen of Madrid 166 Exempla, exemplum for preaching 14, 116, 118, 122-25, 139 Explanatio symboli (Explanation of the Apostles Creed for the Instruction of the Faithful) 91, 94, 96-99, 101 Felipe, prince, son of Ferdinand III 80 Felix, father of Saint Dominic 21-22 Ferdinand I of León 28 Ferdinand II of Aragón 135 Ferdinand II of León 27 Ferdinand III of Castile 15-16, 36, 61-83, 144-45, 145 n. 9, 166-69 Ferdinand IV of Castile 16, 150-51 Ferdinand of Antequera 271-85 Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, chronicler 273 Fernando de la Cerda 173 n. 64 Fernando of Antequera 121, 271-85 Ferrán Martinez, citizen of Madrid 167 Ferrer d’Abella, bishop of Barcelona 193 n. 9, 199, 199 n. 25 France 15, 18, 20, 27, 33, 35, 85, 87, 104-05,173, 176, 179-82, 186 Francesc Eiximenis 13, 15, 221-45 Crestià 222, 235-44 Francesc Joan 186-87, 187 n. 41, 188-89 Francesca de Puigalt, Franciscan tertiary 186, 188 Francis of Assisi 13, 19, 62-63, 71 n. 45, 160, 162, 186-87, 248, 256, 256 n. 22 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor 52 Frederick III of Sicily 180, 186 Gabriel, archangel 255, 267 Gascony, France 182, 279 Geralda de Codines, local healer 201, 201 n. 38, 201 n. 39 Gerard de Daumar, general master of Dominicans 208, 210 Gerardo of Cremona 26, 38 Gerardo, bishop of Segovia 29 Germany 14, 20, 85, 87, 105, 171 Gil de Santarém, Dominican provincial in Spain 43 Gil González Dávila 33 Gil Vicente de Villamediana, Dominican prior in Madrid 172 Girona, Catalonia 59, 192 n. 1, 196, 200 n. 34, 204, 206, 206 n. 55, 207, 207 n. 60, 211 n. 62, 212, 214, 214 n. 86, 214 n. 87, 222 Berenguer, bishop of Girona 53-54 Gonzalo, bishop of Segovia 29-30 Granada: Nasrid kingdom 107-10, 129, 275

290 

THE FRIARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

Gratian 36 Decretals 27, 36, 46, 47, 50 Decretum 36, 47 Gregory VII, pope 28 Gregory IX, pope 49-52, 54, 57, 68, 79, 147, 169, 171, 215 Forma vitae 147 Gregory XI, pope 215 Gregory, mass of Saint 264-65 Guadalajara, Castile 78, 144, 167 Guido, abbot of Cîteaux 41 Guillem Costa, inquisitor 185, 199, 200 n. 33, 202, 206, 217 Guillem, archbishop of Tarragona 55, 59 Guzmán family 16, 20, 23 Hadith 114, 114 n. 24, 120, 126-27, 131, 136, 139 Hagiography 22, 108-09, 116, 123-24, 130, 132-33, 164 Harvey Hames 87 Hebraism, Hebraists 87-88, 104 Hebrew Bible 87, 88, 102, 104-05, 116 Hebrew 58, 85, 89, 90, 98, 101, 102, 104, 114 n. 24, 264 Henry II of Castile 152, 152 n. 51, 153-57 Henry III of Castile 155, 273-75 Henry IV of Castile 155-56, 215 Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor 28 Herbert of Bosham 104-05 Heresy 39, 54-56, 177, 183-84, 188, 191, 194, 196, 198-200, 200 n. 33, 201-02, 215-17, 219, 231, 241, 250 Heretics, heretical movements 15, 18, 20, 39, 42, 45-46, 51, 55-56, 112, 116, 220, 170, 175, 178 n. 5, 185-89, 193, 196, 197 n. 17, 198, 199, 211, 215, 217, 219, 264 Albigensian heresy, Catharism 86, 173, 181 Waldensians 42, 55-56 Herman of Carinthia 32, 38 De generatione Mahumet Huesca 39, 59, 132 Huete, Castile 156 Hugues de Vaucemain, Dominican general master 206-07 Humbert of Romans, Dominican general master 21, 43, 163, 173 Iago Mamés, citizen of Madrid 166 Ibn Bayya, Muslim philosopher 38 Ibn Hazm 39, 102, 102 n. 44 Innocent II, pope 27 Innocent III, pope 28, 36, 51 Innocent IV, pope 68, 74, 79, 82, 171 Innocent VI, pope 213, 214 n. 88 Inquisition 15, 54-55, 135, 184-85, 191, 194-95, 197, 201-03, 212, 215, 217-18 Inquisitors 56, 181, 184-85, 187, 191-219

Islam, Islamic 39, 67, 69, 72, 85-87, 92, 97-98, 100-05, 107, 109-11, 113-16, 118, 120-21, 124, 126, 129-39 Hadith 114, 114 n. 24, 120, 126-27, 131, 136, 139 Moors 110, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 125, 128, 135, 169 Muslims 13, 15, 17-18, 26, 38-41, 45-46, 56-57, 63, 70-71, 85-88, 91-92, 94-95, 97, 99-102, 105, 107-41, 169, 201, 247, 249, 250, 269 Saracens 57-58, 72, 87, 109, 125, 257, 263 Italy 14, 18, 19-21, 35-37, 85, 87, 105, 171, 176-77, 179-83, 186 Jacobo de Voragine 124 Legenda Aurea or The Golden Legend 124, 124 n. 64, 125 n. 67 Jaén, Andalusia 71-74, 78 Jaime de Urgel, count 279 James I of Aragon 16 James II of Aragon 197 Janto Almuli, executed by inquisitors 200 Jaume Aleman (Jacobus Alamani) 198, 205 Jaume Arnaldo (Arnau), Domincan friar 193, 210 n. 70 Jaume de Coll 185 Jaume Domenech, Dominican provinvial prior 214, 214 n. 9 Jaume Domenech, Mallorcan Inquisitor 214 Jaume Just 212 Jaume Sunyer, Franciscan tertiary 188 Jayme Cerdan 279 Jerome, Saint 104, 228, 273, 273 n. 3, 278 Jerusalem 241 Jews, Jewish 15, 17-18, 38-40, 45-46, 57-59, 86-94, 97, 99-110, 112-16, 120, 122, 125, 169, 192, 199, 200-03, 211-12, 241, 249-50, 254, 257, 261-64, 269 Hebrew 58, 85, 89, 90, 98, 101, 102, 104, 114 n. 24, 264 Judaism 39, 87-88, 100-03, 105, 110, 116, 192, 264 Judaizer 192, 199, 200, 215 Midrash Tillim 88, 102-03 Talmud 88, 90, 102-04 Joachim of Fiore 112, 240 Joan de Puigalt 186 Joan Ferrer, Carthusian monk 252, 265, 265 n. 41 Joan Fort 204 n. 48, 205 Joan Gomir 210 n. 71, 211-13, 213 n. 84 Joan Llotger (Johannes de Lotgerio), Dominican Inquisitor 197, 199 n. 28, 200, 202 n. 44, 206 n. 55, 210 n. 70, 217 John I of Aragon 216, 216 n. 93, 241 Johannes Dominici, canon of León 24 Johannes Hispalensis 37 Johannes Teutonicus 36, 47 Decretum 36 Glossa Ordinaria 36

Index

Johannes Vincke 195 John I of Castile 155 John II of Castile 110, 156, 273, 282 John of Abbeville, cardinal 30, 49 John of Norwich, bishop 38 John of Rupescissa, Franciscan friar 241 John the Baptist 254-56, 267 John the Evangelist 254 John XXII, pope 180-81, 184, 186, 198, 201, 206, 206 n. 57 Sancta romana 181, 184-85 Jordan of Saxony, general master of Dominicans 19-21, 23-25, 33-34, 37, 43, 46, 52, 85-86, 159-61, 170, 250 Juan de Bardaxi, general bailifff of Aragon 279 Juan González of Huete, Franciscan friar 153 Juan Manuel, don 16 Libro enfenido 16 Juan of Osma, bishop 67 Juan Téllez, bishop 27 Juana de Aza, mother of Saint Dominic 19, 21 Jucef de Quatorze 200, 200 n. 32 Katherine Jansen 111, 113 Khutba shari‘iyya, muslim sermon 136 Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fiji Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil (The Book of the Proof and Demonstration as a Defence of the Despised Religion) (Petrus Alfonsi) 39 Kitab al-Muhtasar fiji hisab al-gabr wa al-muqabala 31 Kitab al-Shifa bi-l-ta‘rif huquq al-Mustafa (The Book of Remedies through Recognition of the Truth of the Chosen) 133 Kitab nasab al-Rasul (Liber generationis Mahumet) (Sa‘id ibn ‘Umar) 39 L’alia information beguinorum 183 Languedoc, France 21, 54, 56, 179, 182 Lateran Council, Fourth 36, 47-50 Latin 23, 31, 37-38, 85, 87, 90, 92, 98, 99, 100, 101-04, 238, 264 Laurentius Hispanus 19, 36, 43, 47 Laylat al-Bara’a (the night of forgiveness) 136 Lazarus of Bethany 117, 118, 119 Legenda sancti Dominici 21 Lelaidier 22 Leocadia, prioress of Madrid 172 León 24, 27-29, 32-33, 37, 39, 40, 64, 67-69, 80, 82, Leonor de Alburquerque 273, 277, 283-85 Leonor de Guzmán 154 Libellus de principiis ordinis Praedicatorum 20 Liber Consuetudinum 42,159 Liber Extra 15, 45, 47, 48, 51-53, 60 Liturgy, liturgical 21, 30, 77, 109-11, 136-38, 284 Lombardy, Italy 20, 257 Lope de Artajona (Petrus Parisiensis), bishop of Pamplona 29, 32

291 Lope de Fitero, first bishop of Córdoba 80 Lope Fernández de Aín, bishop of Morocco 82 Lope Hernández, Franciscan friar 78, Louis VII of France 27 Lucas de Tuy, bishop 35, 38 Ludovico Maracci 85, 100 Lugo, Galicia 29 Luis G. Alonso Getino 19 Luke 117, 140, 258 Lust 221-244 Lyons, France 177 Madrid, Castile 17, 34, 65-67, 81, 86, 159, 164-74 Corralejos, Madrid 167, 167 n. 38, 169, 173 Esteban Jimenez, citizen of Madrid 166 Ferrán Martinez, citizen of Madrid 167 Gil Vicente de Villamediana, Dominican prior in Madrid 172 Iago Mamés, citizen of Madrid 166 Leocadia, prioress of Madrid 172 Pedro Fernández, citizen of Madrid 167 Pedro of Madrid, companion of Saint Dominic 164 Pedro Peláez, prior of the convent of Madrid 172 Sancho, Dominican friar, provisor in Madrid 167, 167 n. 38, 172 Santo Domingo el Real, Madrid, Dominican convent 65, 66 n. 21, 81, 163-67, 169-70, 173 Urraca Téllez, prioress of Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid 272 Maghreb 108, 110, 115, 130, 133, 136-37, Magister, magistri 24, 26, 30, 35, 36, 38, 40 Mahomet 110, 141 Maimonides 38 Mallorca (Majorca) 16, 54, 57 n. 70, 59, 176, 18183, 191, 198, 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 216, Manresa, Catalonia 205, 206 n. 55 Maqami‘ al-sulban (Subduing the Crosses) 126, 131 Marcos de Toledo, translator 37, 40 Margaret of Ypres 161 Margarita de Monferrato 279, 280, 282-85, María de Castilla 271-72, 274-76, 278-80 Maria de Molina 16 Maribel Fierro 131 Mark 122 Martha 119, Martín Arias, bishop of Zamora 36 Martin de Bazán, bishop of Osma 25-26, 28, 33 Martin Gonzalo (Gondisalvus) of Cuenca, prophet 213 Martin I of Aragon (the Humane) 252, 265 Martín López de Pisuerga, archbishop of Toledo 33 Martín Rodríguez, bishop of Zamora 36 Mary Magdalene 119, 207 n. 60 Masa’il Abi l-Harit by ‘Abdallah ibn Salam (Doctrina Mahumet) 39

292 

THE FRIARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

Mathias Bartolomé, Dominican provincial 214 Matthew 52, 127-28, 255 Maurice (Mauricio), bishop of Burgos 40, 63 Maurice, archbishop of Braga 28 Mawlid al-Nabi or celebration of the Prophet Mayor Guillén of Guzmán, mistress of Alfonso X 143-48, 150-51, 154, 157 Mayor Pérez, inhabitant of Burgos 168 Mecca, Arabia 127, 136 Medina del Campo, Castile 284 Medina, Arabia 127, 136 Mercedarians 56-57, 74, 76-77 Messiah 100, 102, 119, 254, 257, 261 Middōth (middah) 89, 90-93 Miguel de Fabra, Dominican friar 16, 247 Miguel, bishop of Tarazona 37 Miquel de Estella, Dominican provincial prior 204 Molins de Rei, Catalonia 279 Mondoñedo, Galicia 29 Monte del Sole di Arezzo, convent 180 Montpellier, France 25, 35, 181-83 Monzón, cortes in 1236, 54 Moors 110, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 125, 128, 135, 169 Morella, Aragon 260, 280 Moriscos 133, 138 Morocco 13, 71, 72, 79, 82, 129 n. 82 Moses ha-Darshan 90, 102 Moses Sepharda, a Jew from Huesca 39 Mozarabs, Mozarabic 18, 97-100 Mudejars 18, 81, 110, 113 n. 23, 115-16, 120-21, 124-25, 130-35, 138-41 Muhammad al-Qaysi 131 Kitab Miftah al-din wa-l-mujadala bayna al-nasara wa-l-muslimin (The Key to the [True] Religion and the Disputation between the Christians and the Muslims) 131 Muhammad VII, sultan of Nasrid Granada 108, Muhammad, prophet 95, 107, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 124-27, 129, 131, 133-37, 141 Muhammad’s birthday 133 Murcia, Castile 43, 58, 69, 79, 148, 192 n. 1 Muṣḥaf al-ʿālam al-kāʾin (The Book of the World as It Is) 95, 97, 99-100 Nachmanides, Rabbi scholar 39, 59, 99 Naples, Italy 185-87, 189, 202, 214 n. 88 Napoleone Orsini, cardinal 182, 182 n. 22 Narbonne, France 23, 177-78, 181, 187 n. 41, 281 Nebachadnezzer 104 Nicholas Eymerich (Nicolau Eimeric), inquisitor 181, 184, 191-92, 193 n. 9, 194 n. 11, 195-96, 201-03, 206 n. 55, 207 n. 60, 212, 214, 215-18 n. 101, 219 n. 102 Directorium inquisitorum 191, 194 194 n. 11, 195, 200, 202-03, 215-16, 218 Nicholas of Lyra 104

Nicholas of Manicoria 104 Nicolas de Calabria 213 Nicolau Rossell 193 n. 10, 199 n. 27, 202, 209 n. 67, 211, 211 nn. 72-74, 212, 212 n. 80, 213, 214, 217 Niyya 126-27 Ocaña, Castile 120, 121 nn. 52-53, 276 Orense, Galicia 29 Osma, Castile 13, 19-20, 22, 24-28, 30, 33-34, 36-37, 40-43 Oviedo, Asturias 29, 31 Oxford, England 103 Pablo Christiani (Pablo Cristiano), Jewish convert 39, 109 Palazuelos, Castile 145 n. 12, 148 Palencia, Castile 14, 19, 20-22, 24-26, 29, 34, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 78 Pamplona, Navarre 29, 31, 32, 38 Papacy 13, 17, 30, 52, 65-66, 82, 147, 160, 163, 165, 169, 177-78, 181, 183-84, 198, 199 n. 25, 209-11, 214 n. 88, 215-17 Apostolic See 52, 65, 67-68, 82 Paris, France 17, 20-21, 30, 32, 33, 38, 40, 42, 43, 49, 52, 86, 103-04, 177, 191, 198, 210 Partidas, Code of Law of King Alfonso X 17, 49 Paul, apostle 74-75, 230, 238, 254-55 Paupers 42 Pedro Alfonso de Escalante 279 Pedro de Artajona, bishop of Pamplona 32, 38 Pedro de Cardona, jurist 33 Pedro de Guzmán 146 n. 17, 148, Pedro Fernández, citizen of Madrid 167 Pedro Ferrando, Dominican, biographer 21, 43 Pedro Gallego, Franciscan friar, prior, royal confessor 78-79 Pedro Gonzalez Telmo (Saint Telmo), Dominican friar 15, 40-41, 64, 77, 78 n. 84 Pedro Muñiz, bishop of León 32 Pedro Nuñez de Gusman 279 Pedro of Castile, prince 151 Pedro of Madrid, companion of Saint Dominic 164 Pedro of Segovia, bishop 30 Pedro Peláez, prior of the convent of Madrid 172 Pedro Suárez de Deza, archbishop of Santiago 33, 35 Pedro: uncle and lieutenant of Peter IV of Aragon 129 Pelayo, bishop of Oviedo 31, 32 Peñafiel, Dominican convent 16 Pere Marsili 58 Pere Olér (Olerio) 198, 198 n. 24, 199 Pero Bonifaz, mayor of Burgos 168 Pero de Toro, friar 172 Peter, apostle 74-75, 140, 264 Peter Abelard 98, 103, 162

Index

Peter I of Castile 17, 74 n. 58, 152, 152 n. 49, 153, 271, 272, 276, 28 Peter II of Aragon 42 Peter III of Aragon 54 Peter IV (the Ceremonious) of Aragon 129, 193 n. 10, 202 n. 42, 208-10, 210 n. 71, 211, 211 n. 74, 213, 215-16, 222, 237 Peter John Olivi, Povençal friar 176, 177 n. 2, 178, 178 n. 5, 179-83, 185, 187-89 Peter Lombard 99, 103 Peter of Bourges, bishop of Osma 26, 27 Peter of Dacia 161 Peter the Venerable 31, 37, 40 Peter, archbishop of Tarragona 55 Petrus Alfonsi 39 Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fiji Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil (The Book of the Proof and Demonstration as a Defence of the Despised Religion) 39 Petrus de Roseto 201 Petrus Hispanus 19, 43 Petrus Palentinus, teacher in Palencia 35 Author of the Verbiginale 35 Petrus Toletanus 31 Philip of Majorca, prince 183, 183 n. 23 Pierre de Baume, Dominican general master 208, 210 Pierre Mandonnet 19 Poblet, Cistercian monastery 41 Ponç de Gualba, bishop of Barcelona 198, 201 n. 39 Ponç of Tortosa 59-60 Pons Bautugat, franciscan friar 179 Portaceli and Valldecrist, Carthusian monastery, Valencia 251-55, 265, 268 Portazgo (gate toll) 66 Portugal 25, 33, 37, 41, 148-50, 157, 280, Poverty 41, 65, 70, 82, 137, 159, 163-64, 170, 175-80, 183, 186-87, 207, 207 n. 61, 261, Premonstratensian constitutions 53 Prouille, France 19-21, 162, 169, 171, 173 Provençal 177, 179, 180-81, 183, 184, 186, 207 n. 60, 209 n. 68, 210 n. 70, 214 Provence, France 177 Pugio fidei 15, 85, 87-88, 92-94, 96-97, 99, 100-04 Probatio trinitatis per rationes, (Pugio Fidei) 92 Pyrenees mountains 21, 102, 176, 178, 183 Qur’an (Koran) 39, 40, 113-16, 120, 131, 136, 138-39 Rabbinical literature 87-89, 94, 102-03 Rāhib (monk) 129 Raimundo de Castillazuelo, bishop of Zaragoza 26 Raimundo de Fitero , founder and first master of the Order of Calatrava 41

293 Raimundo of Toledo, archbishop 37 Ramadan 129, 136 Ramon Ametller (Raymundus Amenlerii) 19394, n. 8, n. 10 Ramon Cuch 186 Ramon de Penyafort (Raymond of Peñafort) 15, 45-60, 99, 195 n. 12 Directorium 55-56 Ramon Llull 104, 195, 219 Ramon Marti 15, 85-105, 120 Capistrum judeorum 85, 101-02 De secta Mahometi 85, 98, 100-01, 104 Explanatio symboli (Explanation of the Apostles Creed for the Instruction of the Faithful) 91, 94, 96-99, 101 Trinitarian argument of Ramon Marti 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94-99, 102, 103 Ramon Moner, Franciscan tertiary 186-87 Ramon Punyera, priest 188 Raymond Déjean 182 Reconquest 15-16, 26, 73, 79-81 Reginald of Orléans, Dominican master 46 Repartimiento (land distribution in Andalusia) 70 Rex Christianus 63 Rex magister 35 Rex pacificus 51-52 Riccoldo da Monte di Croci’s 120 Richard of Middleton 224 Risalat al-Kindi 39 Robert Grosseteste 60 Robert of Chester 31 Robert of Ketton, translator 31, 32 Rodrigo de Cerrato 21, 22 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo 32-33, 35, 40, 66, 71, 79 Rome, Italy 28-29, 36, 49, 50, 55, 66, 82, 86, 169, 171, 173, 186, 216, 241 Sahagún, Benedictine monastery 26 Sahih 126 Saint Louis of Toulouse 187 Saint Louis 15 Saint Martin 123-25 Samir Kaddouri 97-98 San Esteban de Gormaz 65-67, 163 San Isidoro, monastery 32, 39 San Pablo de Sevilla, Dominican convent 76 San Pablo de Toledo, Dominican convent 6667, 83 San Pablo of Valladolid, Dominican convent 16 San Pedro de Córdoba, Franciscan convent 76 Sancho de Ayerbe, Franciscan friar 199, 199 n. 27, 206 n. 57, 208 Sancho Fernández of Cifuentes, nobleman in Alcocer 153 Sancho I of Portugal 25, 28 Sancho II of Castile 27

294 

THE FRIARS AND THEIR INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN

Sancho IV of Castile 16, 149-51, 168, 276, 276 n. 23, 284 Sancho VI of Navarre 29 Sancho, Dominican friar, provisor in Madrid 167, 167 n. 38, 172 Santa Catalina, Dominican convent in Barcelona 201 n. 39, 212 n. 79 Santa Catalina, monastery, Jaén 74 n. 58, Santa Clara monastery, Jaén 73 Santa Clara monastery, Úbeda 73 Santa Clara, monastery, Alcocer 16-17, 143-57 Santa Cruz of Coimbra 25, 31 Santa María de Burgos, Cistercian monastery 41 Santa María de Castro de San Esteban de Gormaz 66 Santa María de Huerta, Cistercian monastery 32, 41 Santa María de Montserrat 279 Santa María de Salamanca 68 Santa María la Real of Toledo 172 n. 61 Santa María Magdalena de Cuéllar 68 Santa María of Zamora, convent 163 Santa María, Coimbra 30 Santa María, Segovia 31 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia 23, 25, 30-33, 35, 40, 62 Diego Gelmírez, archbishop of Santiago 31 Pedro Suárez de Deza, archbishop of Santiago 33, 35 Santiago, apostle 80 Santiago, Order of 33, 273, 276, 283, 285 Enrique de Aragón master of the Order of Santiago 273, 276-77, 283, 285 Santo Domingo de Silos, monastery 25 Santo Domingo el Real, Madrid, Dominican convent 65, 66 n. 21, 81, 163-67, 169-70, 173 Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo, Dominican convent 17, 271-85 Santo Domingo, Valencia, Dominican convent 247-51 (Sa‘id ibn ‘Umar) 39 Segovia, Castile 29-31, 40, 64, 80, 86, 275 Seville, Andalusia 15, 21, 23, 74, 76, 77, 79-80, 154 San Pablo de Sevilla, Dominican convent 76 Sigismund, king of the Romans 281, 283, 285 Silvestre Godinho 23, 36 Solomon ibn Adret, rabbi in Barcelona 101 Studia linguarum 113, 130 Studium generale, Studia 14, 26, 34, 37-38, 40, 42, 105, 113, 130, 222 Suero Gómez, first Dominican provincial in Spain 63 Summa contra Gentiles 60 Summa de Casibus 45, 48-49, Summa de Matrimonio 48-49 Summa de Paenitentia 55, 57, 60

Summa for confessors 231 Summa theologiae 99 Sunna 110, 114, 123-24, 126, 137-38 Tancred 47-48 Tangiers, Morocco 176, 180 Tarazona, Aragon 200, n. 32 Tarragona, Catalonia 29, 42, 52, 54-56, 58-59, 197, 199, 211 n. 75 Tathlīth al-waḥdānīyah (Trinitizing the Unity [of the Godhead) 95 Tello Téllez de Meneses, bishop of Palencia 40 Teodorico de Apoldia 21 Teresa de Ayala 17, 271-76, 278-85 Teresa, countess of Portugal 28, 37 Thomas Aquinas 60, 60 n. 81, 99, 103, 230 Thomas of Cantimpré, Dominican writer 161 Toledo, Castile 17, 21, 24, 26-29, 31, 33, 37-38, 40 63, 66-67, 71, 74-75, 77, 81, 83, 126, 131, 271-77, 282, 283-84 Alcaicería (marketplace), Toledo 277 Cerebruno of Sigüenza, archbishop of Toledo 27-28 Martín López de Pisuerga, archbishop of Toledo 33 Raimundo of Toledo, archbishop 37 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo 32-33, 35, 40, 66, 71, 79 San Pablo de Toledo, Dominican convent 66-67, 83 Santa María la Real of Toledo 172 n. 61 Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo, Dominican convent 17, 271-85 Toro, Castile 276 Tractat de luxúria (The Treatise on Lust) 222-23, 233, 235 Trastamaran (Trastámaras) dynasty 149, 152, 153-56, 252, 276, 284 Trinitarian argument of Ramon Marti 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94-99, 102, 103 Trinitarians 74, 76, 77 Trinity 15, 32, 59, 85-105, 119, 121, 140, 265, 267 Trinity Adored by All Saints 265-66 Trivium 34 Tudela, Navarre 39 Tuscany, Italy 180, 182, 183 Úbeda, Andalusia 72-74 Ugolino da Sesso 35 Ulama 120, 131, 135 University 17, 38, 40, 49 Urgel, Catalonia 192 n. 1, 214 n. 87, 278, 279, 285 Urraca Diaz 169 Urraca Téllez, prioress of Santo Domingo el Real de Madrid 272 Usus pauper (poor use) 177, 179 Valencia 16, 17, 54, 107, 109 n. 10, 110, 144 n. 24, 116, 118, 127, 134-35, 141, 197 n. 19, 200, 212,

295

Index

213, 214, 215, 218 n. 100, 222, 238, 247-69, 274, 281, 282 Andrés Albalat (Andreu d’Albalat), bishop of Valencia 16, 156, 251 Barthomeu Gaço, Valencian Dominican 215 Bonifacio Ferrer, carthusian monk in Valencia 251-54, 262-67 Barthomeu Gaço, Valencian Dominican 215 Portaceli and Valldecrist, Carthusian monastery, Valencia 251-55, 265, 268 Santo Domingo, Valencia, Dominican convent 247-51 Valladolid, Castile 16, 36, 120, 165 Vicent Justiniano Antist, Dominican hagiographer 108 Vicente Forcada, Dominican scholar 108 Vidal de Canyelles 59 Vilafranca del Penedès, Catalonia 175, 178 n. 5, 183-85, 187, 188, 189 Vincent ‘of Spain’ (Vincentius Hispanus) 36, 43, 47 Vincent Ferrer 15, 107-28, 131, 135, 137, 139 n. 14, 217 n. 98, 240, 242, 248, 248 n. 3, 249-50, 250 n. 12, 251 n. 14, 252, 254-66, 268, 268 n. 45, 274

Violante of Aragon, Queen of Castile, wife of Alfonso X 145, 145 n. 11, 146, 168 Virgin Mary, mother of God 75, 80, 132, 139, 140, 141, 249, 256 n. 22, 258, 264, 267, 282 Vita apostolica 177 Vita Mahumeti 37 Vita Sancti Petri Oxomensis 26 Vitas sanctorum 22 Vito Tomás Gómez García 20 Vulgate 104, 116 Waldensian heretics 42, 55-56 William of Rennes 49 Xátiva, Valencia 109, 199 Ximeno de Navarra, inquisitor 216, 216 n. 97, 217 Ximeno of Zaragoza, bishop 200 Yehuda ha-Levi, poet 39 Zamora, Castile 21, 36, 40, 163, 172 Zaragoza, Aragon 26, 109, 121, 138, 200, 278