Renaissance and Reformation, 1989

^<'^

\ S^

Renaissance^

and
Reformatiom %

1

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Renaissance
et

Réforme

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 1 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 1

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 1 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 1

Spring 1989 printemps

Renaissance and Reformotion / Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February. May. August, and
November); paraît quatre fois l'an (février, mai. août, et novembre).

* Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies / Société Canadienne d'Etudes de la Renaissance

(CSRS / SCER)

North Central Conference of the Renaissance Society of America (NCC)

Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference (PNWRC)

Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium (TRRC)

Victoria University Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS). 1987.

Editor

Kenneth Bartlett

Directeur Adjoint

Claude Sutto (Université de Montréal)

Associate Editor
Glenn A. Loney

Book Review Editor
Thomas Martone

Responsable de la rubrique des livres
Pierre-Louis Vaillancourt (Université d'Ottawa)

Business Manager
Konrad Eisenbichler

Editorial Board/Com it é de rédaction

Rosemarie Bergmann (McGill) A. Kent Hieatt (Western Ontario)

André Berth iaume (Laval) R. Gerald Hobbs (Vancouver School of Theology)

Peter G. Bietenholz (Saskatchewan) F.D. Hoeniger (Toronto)

Paul Chavy (Dalhousie) Elaine Limbrick (U. of Victoria)

Jean Delumeau (Collège de France) Robert Ornstein (Case Western Reserve)

S.K. Heninger (North Carolina) Charles Trinkaus (Michigan)

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tion de Renaissance et Réforme.

Spring 1989 (date of issue: September 1989)

Second class mail registration number .5448 ISSN 0034-429X

Confraternities in the Renaissance
Les Confraternités à la Renaissance

Papers presented at the conference Textes présentés au colloque
Ritual and Recreation in Renaissance Confraternities

April 1989

Victoria College, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario

Edited and introduced by
William R. Bowen

Réunis avec introduction de
William R. Bowen

Renaissance Renaissance

and et

Re formation Réforme

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 1 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 1

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 1 1989 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 1

Contents / Sommaire

PREFACE

V

INTRODUCTION

ix

ARTICLES

1

The German Bruderschaften as Producers

of Late Medieval Vernacular Religious Drama

by Ralph Blasting

15

Confraternities and Lay Leadership

in Sixteenth-Century Liège

by D. Henry Dieterich

35

Midsummer in Salisbury:

The Tailors' Guild and Confraternity 1444-1642

by Audrey Douglas

53

Rituals of Solidarity in Castilian Confraternities

by Maureen Flynn

69

English Guilds and Municipal Authority

by Alexandra F. Johnston

lU

89

Les confréries et l'iconographie populaire

des sept péchés capitaux

par Joanne S. Norman

115

Master by Any Other Means

by Betsey B. Price

135

Comelis Buys the Elder's Seven Works of Mercy: An Exemplar

of Confratemal Art from Early Sixteenth-Century Northern Europe

by Perri Lee Roberts

151

Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies

in Early Renaissance Rorence

by Blake Wilson

IV

Preface

1 he appearance of this number of Renaissance and Reformation marks the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the journal. It is appropriate
that such an auspicious event be recorded by rehearsing briefly the history
of our journal to recognize the contributions of its founders and previoois
editors.

Renaissance and Reformation was founded in 1964 by Professors Natalie
Davis and James McConica to function as a forum for both work in progress
and completed scholarship in the interdisciplinary areas of the Renaissance
and Reformation. Initially, it grew out of the regular meetings of the Toronto
Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium at which scholars in our field
met every other month to share discoveries, test hypotheses and report
conclusions. Davis and McConica felt these important meetings should have
a vehicle through which to communicate with members of the Colloquium
not present and to other Renaissance and Reformation scholars unable to
travel to Toronto.

Renaissance and Reformation began as a mimeographed newsletter but
developed in just six years to a saddle-stitched, if modest, thrice yearly
publication. By then, a new editor. Prof J. Molinaro of the University of
Toronto Department of Italian Studies, had assumed the position of editor,
a post he held until 1976 when he was succeeded by Prof Van Fossen, my
predecessor.

In the early years, the journal tried to meet the needs of scholars not only
in the Toronto area but all over Canada. Also, the increasingly national
quality of our journal was signalled by the more frequent submission of
French articles, beginning in the early 1970s. Thereafter, Renaissance and
Refonnafion became truly bilingual, a fact which in time resulted in a
francophone associate editor being added to the editorial board and the
responsibility for book reviews being divided between an anglophone and
a francophone.

Moreover, Renaissance and Reformation began attracting submissions from
scholars of international stature not only in Canada but also abroad. This
growing stature was equally reflected in our increased subscription list. In
part as a response to this success and to the growing pressure on our limited
space, the decision was taken to print quarterly, a policy which we still follow.

When I became editor in 1985, more women were added to our editorial
board and there was a conscious policy adopted to broaden our appeal,
seeking high quality submissions in such disciplines as History, Art History
and Reformation Studies, areas where our representation was insufficient.
Also, the journal initiated the publication of a special issue each year which
would be the selected proceedings of major interdisciplinary conferences
held in Canada on aspects of the Renaissance and Reformation. The results
of this policy have been gratifying: 1986 saw the publication of The Language
of Gesture in the Renaissance; 1987, Poetry and Religion, 1545-1600; 1988,
Sexuality in the Renaissance; and now in 1989, Confraternities in the Renais-
sance.

It is our hope that Renaissance and Reformation will continue to develop
over the next twenty-five years and continue to serve the community of
Renaissance and Reformation scholars in Canada. Finally, I should like
to take this opportunity to thank publicly all of those who have made our
journal such a success, all past and present members of the editorial board,
contributors, readers, reviewers and colleagues who have provided advice
over the years.

Kenneth R Bartlett
Editor

VI

Préface

JLa parution de ce numéro de Renaissance et Réforme marque le 25e
anniversaire de la fondation du journal. Il me semble que résumer
brièvement l'histoire de notre journal et reconnaître la contribution des
fondateurs et précédents éditeurs est une façon appropriée de célébrer cet
événement

Renaissance et Réforme fut fondé en 1964 par les professeurs Natalie Davis
et James McConica en tant que forum à la fois pour les travaux en cours,
ainsi que pour présenter des communications dans les domaines
pluridisciplinaires de la Renaissance et de la Réforme. A Torigine, le journal
se développa à partir des rencontres régulières du Toronto Renaissance and
Reformation Colloquium, qui réunissait tous les 2 mois les savants dans
notre domaine, dans le but de partager leurs découvertes, examiner des
hypothèses, et rapporter des conclusions. Davis et McConica eurent le
sentiment que ces importantes réunions se devraient d'avoir un organe de
communication pour les différents membres du Colloque ainsi que pour
d'autres savants travaillant dans ce domaine et n'ayant pas la possibilité de
venir à Toronto.

Renaissance et Réforme n'était au début qu'une lettre d'information
ronéotypée, mais après 6 ans seulement se développa en une publication,
3 fois l'an, qui bien que modeste, n'en était pas moins fermement en place.
A cette époque un nouvel éditeur, le Prof J. Molinaro, du département des
études italiennes à l'université de Toronto était en poste, ici jusqu'en 1976,
où lui a succéda mon prédécesseur, le Prof. Van Fossen.

Dans ses premières années, le journal tentit de s'adapter aux besoins des
savants non seulement de Toronto, mais aussi de tout le Canada. Le
caractère de plus en plus national de notre journal était indiqué par la
soumission plus fréquente d'articles en français, au début des années 70.
Peu après. Renaissance et Réforme devint réellement bilingue, ce qui eut pour
résultat d'ajouter au conseil editorial, un co-éditeur francophone, et de
partager la responsabilité de revue des livres entre un anglophone et un
francophone.

Bien plus. Renaissance et Réforme commença à attirer les articles de
savants d'un niveau international, non seulement au Canada, mais
également à l'étranger. Ce fait se reflétait aussi dans l'augmentation du
nombre des abonnés. En partie en réponse à ce succès, et en partie à cause

vu

d'une pression continuelle, aboutissant à un manque d'espace, la décision
fut prise de publier 4 fois par an, ce que nous faisons encore actuellement.

lorsque je devins éditeur en 1985, plus de femmes furent introduites au
conseil editorial, et il y eut une politique consciente pour élarger notre appel
et chercher des articles de haute qualité dans des disciplines comme
l'histoire, l'histoire de l'Art, et l'étude de la Réforme, domaines dans lesquels
nous avions une représentation insuffisante. Le journal entreprit également
la publication d'une édition spéciale chaque année, qui comprendrait une
selection des actes des congrès pluridisciplinaires ayant lieu au Canada sur
les différents aspects de la Renaissance et la Réforme. Les résultats de cette
politique ont été gratifiants: en 1986 fut publié The Language of Gesture in
the Renaissance, en 1987 Poésie et Religion 1545-1600, en 1988 La Sexualité à
la Renaissance, et en 1989 Les Confraternités à la Renaissance.

Nous espérons que Renaissance et Réforme continuera à se développer les
25 prochaines années et à servir la communauté des savants ayant un lien
avec la Renaissance et la Réforme au Canada. Enfin, je voudrais profiter
de cette occasion pour remercier publiquement tous ceux qui ont fait de
notre journal un tel succès, tous les membres passés ou présents du conseil
editorial, les collaborateurs, lecteurs, critiques et collègues qui ont prodigué
leur aide au cours de années.

Kenneth R Bartlett
Editeur

VIII

Introduction

WILLIAM R. BOWEN

1 he nine articles which appear in this special edition of Renaissance and
Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme were originally presented at the interna-
tional conference, "Ritual and Recreation in Renaissance Confraternities,"
held at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, April 1989. The
conference was organized by The Toronto Renaissance and Reformation
Colloquium and was sponsored in part by the Centre for Reformation and
Renaissance Studies. Accordingly, it seems appropriate to mention that this
publication is a product of the close relationship between the Colloquium,
the CRRS and the journal, and that it celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the foundation of all three institutions.

The conference was inspired by a session devoted to Italian confraternity
studies at the 22nd International Congress on Medieval Studies at
Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1987. At that time it was apparent that there
was a real need for a forum in which specialists from different backgrounds
could share information and insights on confraternities. Konrad
Eisenbichler and I organized the Toronto conference, reportedly the first
of its kind in North America, in order to satisfy the immediate need for the
exchange of ideas by providing the setting for an international and
interdisciplinary meeting.

The papers which have been selected for this issue of Renaissance and
Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme demonstrate the richness of this area of
research and the broad appeal of its subject matter. From recent research
it has become well-known that the laity commonly worked together, forming
confraternities or comparable organizations which played a vital role in
Renaissance society. The papers presented here demonstrate the geograph-
ical breadth of the field: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and
Spanish confraternities are considered. Moreover, they illustrate the variety
in structure and activities of Renaissance confraternities. The reader is given
concrete examples of their administrative structure, their techniques for
maintaining order within the membership, and their often complex rela-
tionship to civic and ecclesiastical authority. Further, the involvement of

IX

the confraternities with the arts is documented in studies of their dramatic,
artistic and musical activities.

The individual articles reveal fascinating insights into particular aspects
of confraternities in the Renaissance. Yet the strength of this special issue
lies in the combined effect of the articles for, together, they present a
powerful image of the confraternity as an important mechanism for mutual
support and the achievement of common goals within Renaissance society.

University of Toronto

The German Bruderschaften as
Producers of Late Medieval Vernacular
Religious Drama

RALPH BLASTING

Nearly two hundred manuscripts of German vernacular religious plays
are known to exist. Their designation as Medieval has more to do with their
style and intent than with their chronological distribution, since the texts
are dated from roughly 1230 to as late as 1685. Bound to Catholic tradition,
these plays maintained religious dramatic practices in societies which were
otherwise being affected by the changes of the sixteenth century. Their
production reached its peak between 1450 and 1550— the same period
during which the lay religious confraternities became numerous and
popular. The connection inspires ready answers to questions about the
financing and organization of these civic productions, but definitive
explanations are obscured by a lack of archival evidence and the incomplete
detail of those records which have survived.

Following a summary of what is known about the German confraternities
(the Bruderschaften) in relation to religious drama, this paper offers a more
detailed look at two locations: the south-west German town of Kunzelsau,
where the Brotherhood of St. John the Baptist {St. Johannes Bruderschaft)
contributed to Corpus Christi festivities between 1474 and 1521; and Vienna,
where the Corpus Christi Brotherhood {Gotleichnamsbruderschaft) seems to
have been the primary producer and organizer of plays and processions on
its namesake feast day.

The recent publication of two reference works in the field of German
religious drama encourages investigation of the subject from broader
perspectives than had previously been practical. Rolf Bergmann's Katalog
der deutschsprachigen geistlichen Spiele und Marienklagen des Mittelalters
(Munich: Beck, 1986) provides detailed descriptions of all the known

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 1

2 / Renaissance and Reformation

manuscripts, along with outlines and overviews of their content and
structure. Bemd Neumann's Geistliches Schauspiel im Zeugnis der Zeit (2 vols.
[Munich: Artemis, 1987]) includes over 3,700 items related to religious
dramatic performance, transcribed from archival sources in over 200
locations throughout the German-speaking areas. Together, the two works
present broad empirical evidence of vernacular religious theatrical activity
in German society from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

An investigation of the Bruderschaften as producers reveals a diversity of
activities which makes generalizations — at least at this stage — difficult if
not impossible. The lack of archival evidence may permanently prohibit a
full picture of the accomplishments of the German confraternities. Even
the evidence which does exist argues against a tidy explanation of their
functions, since they seem to have fulfilled different purposes in different
places. Where plays were performed, a confraternity may have been the sole
producer, or have contributed to a production only cooperatively, or not
have participated at all. Most locations supported several confraternities,
and their relations to one another, to the craft guilds, to the Church, and
to the municipal government are often unclear. It is rare that sufficient
records from all of those sources have survived from a single location.

It is nonetheless possible to present some preliminary findings which
reveal the extent to which these organizations might have been involved in
theatrical activity. The Kiinzelsau records of the Brotherhood of St. John
indicate sporadic contributions between 1474 and 1521, which suggest a
connection to, but not the primary support of, the Kiinzelsau Corpus Christi
Play} The records of the Viennese Corpus Christi Brotherhood include
detailed references to virtually every aspect of dramatic production during
the years 1499 to 1534, suggesting that the confraternity was the primary
producer of Corpus Christi presentations, especially between 1504 and 1512.
My evaluation of the Vienna accounts is based on the published findings
of Neumann and Hadamowsky, who have listed only the references to
drama.2 Although the expenditures for plays were extensive, I cannot
comment on what proportion of the confraternity's annual finances they
represent. I have, however, had the opportunity to view the Kunzelsau
accounts in their entirety, which has allowed some insight into the other
concerns of the confraternity.^ But before we approach the records them-
selves, it will be helpful to consider more precisely what the German
Bruderschaften were, the types of plays they were likely to support, and why
they would venture to produce drama at all.

Renaissance et Réforme / 3

First, the term Bruderschaft requires clarification. It refers here to the
religious confraternities, and should not be confused with the Zunfte or
Gilden. A Zunft was a craft guild, while the term Gilde seems usually to refer
to a merchant guild.'* The terms Bruderschaft and Zunft both occur fre-
quently—and sometimes interchangeably— in the records of performance.

The plays produced by the confraternities included those connected with
the Easter season (the Passion, Resurrection, and related events), Corpus
Christi plays, Christmas plays, plays in honour of particular saints, and
various types of processions.^ But how did the performance of drama
correspond to the purposes of the confraternities? In his study of the diocese
of Wiirzburg, Robert Ebner identifies the confraternities as "societies in
which the religious goals stand in the foreground."^ A primary activity was
the financing of special masses which were to be said for deceased members,
either individually or collectively. It was extremely important for members
to attend these memorial services, as well as to participate in all funeral
and burial rites.^ A main advantage of the confraternities, however, was
that their membership was not restricted to any single social group. Anyone
who was deemed acceptable (i.e. morally upright), and who could afford
an initiation fee and annual dues or contributions in kind, was eligible to
join.^ The stark increase in the number and popularity of the confraternities
has generally been attributed to the increase in lay piety which peaked
during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.^ They seemed to offer
the perfect opportunity to gain extra grace in the form of special masses
and even indulgences; almost everyone belonged to at least one, and some
joined several.^^

The confraternities were inherently religious, and the drama which they
produced was celebratory in nature. The religious feast days were integral
to the social life of the community; that the confraternities participated in
and eventually produced processions and plays is therefore not difficult to
understand. A confraternity's inclusion in civic performances asserted and
enhanced its role and significance within the community. In fact, the
sequence according to which various groups were organized in procession
became a sign of their relative importance.^ ^

A major attraction of membership in a confraternity was the right to a
place in these displays. Then, as now, people wanted to be included in, and
to contribute to, communal activities. The Church, mainly through local
bishops, supported the organizations by granting indulgences to those who
participated, making membership even more attractive. Since members paid

4 / Renaissance and Reformation

initiation fees, annual membership fees, and extra fees for special masses,
increased membership naturally enhanced revenues. Money spent to
produce plays may, in the long term, actually have generated a profit,
although it is at present unclear how often this was true.

A final note on the Church's support of the confraternities is that Church
approval was not immediate. The hierarchy was at first sceptical, fearing
that the popular organizations would fragment the parishioners, and that
control by the central administration would weaken as local piety— and
loyalty— grew. It may be that the public processions and plays helped to
change the Church's attitude. Obviously, Corpus Christi and Passion plays
were living illustrations of Catholic dogma. The drama was the mass
medium of the Middle Ages, and religious drama was the epitome of the
genre at least to the end of the fifteenth century. More effective than the
drama's demonstrative capabilities, however, was the participatory nature
of the performances. Participation encourages conformity in a very tangible
way. It is one thing to hear a clergyman describe the suffering of Christ, or
even to witness its representation on stage; it is quite another to take part
in that representation, in the role of Christ himself, Pilate, a soldier or an
apostle, or as a set-builder, costumer, or musician. Few would disagree that
direct involvement in ceremonial drama more effectively reinforces faith
than does passive observation.

These general notes on why the confraternities produced drama do not
bring us very much closer to an understanding of how the plays were
produced, or of what forms they took. The financial accounts which have
survived indicate that the confraternities kept very detailed records of their
expenditures, making the accounts promising sources of information about
late Medieval theatre. The fact that relatively few have survived is all the
more lamentable in light of the significance of those which have.

Surviving descriptions of Corpus Christi processions often list the
religious confraternities as participating figurai groups, alongside the craft
guilds and the clergy. In Bozen, the Brotherhood of St. Anne walked sixth
in the procession, representing the family of its patron saint ("das
Geschlâcht Sant Anna"), and was immediately followed by the Brotherhood
of St Jacob, which represented the Annunciation to Mary. In Zerbst, the
figurai group of the Brotherhood of the Afflicted {Bruderschaft der Elenden)
included the fourteen Nothelfer, the Christ child in white, St. Wendelinus,
and a shepherd. The Corpus Christi Brotherhood presented Saints Cather-
ine, Margaretha, Barbara, Dorothea, and other virgins, "as many as can

Renaissance et Réforme / 5

be." Sometimes confraternities were founded for the express purpose of
organizing plays. In Augsburg in 1484, the clergy of the Holy Cross ("zy
dem heyligen creutz") requested permission to establish a Bruderschaft for
the purpose of presenting a Corpus Christi procession, as they had already
done for one or two years. Permission was granted by the clergy of the
cathedral only after they were assured that the procession would not distract
from the ceremonies in the cathedral itself ^^

In most cases, the records of the confraternities give much more detailed
information about their expenses than do comparable Church or municipal
accounts. A typical priory record from Bozen reads: "Item expense to the
carpenters in the brotherhood as assistance for Corpus Christi, 8 Bern
h[eller]."^^ We know that the parish helped the carpenter's guild (or the
carpenters in the confraternity?) with a financial contribution relating to
Corpus Christi, but this tells us nothing about what the money was used
for. A closer look at some accounts from confraternities in Kiinzelsau and
Vienna give us a better idea of the materials and procedures required in
the production of the plays.

The accounts from the small, southwest German town of Kiinzelsau seem
to be typical of a German confraternity, as far as we can determine what
was "typical" from the few accounts which have survived. The town had at
least two, and perhaps three confraternities, and was the home of the
Kiinzelsau Corpus Christi Play. Financial accounts survive from the con-
fraternities of St. Wolfgang and St. John the Baptist, with one folio booklet
indicating a confraternity of the Virgin Mary.^'* Possible references to
performance appear to occur only in the accounts of St. John, and even
then they indicate that these activities were only a small part of the
confraternity's functions. Of the thiily-three folio booklets of accounts
ranging from 1475 to 1558, records of performance occur in only six: 1475,
1476, 1507, 1509, 1511, and 1522. Neumann has reprinted sixteen items
which he believes may relate to performances (nos. 1998-2005, 2008-2016),
all of which had been previously published by Albert Schumann or Peter
Liebenow.^^ Some of the entries are detailed enough to relate to sections of
the Corpus Christi play text.

The following items appear consecutively on fol. 2r of the account book
dated 1475:

Neumann no.

[1998] 2 Bd we spent for paper for the procession.

[1999] 3 Cd for linen which was used for the dragon.

6 / Renaissance and Reformation

[2000] 5 6d for 3 skins to the tanner for the crowns.

[2001] 15 Bd to the gentlemen as we had the procession.^

Payments for paper occur throughout the records published by Neumann,
including a later entry for Kunzelsau which reads "Item 1 Bd for paper for
the play." Some records indicate that the paper was used either for copying
out the entire play script, or for writing out individual parts for actors. The
distinction between the terms "procession" and "play" was not definitive:
the narrator of the Kunzelsau Corpus Christi Play is indicated in the text as
both "Rector Processionis" and "Rector Ludi," and the text itself is labelled
"Registrum processionis corporis Cristi."

Items 1999 and 2000 are good examples of the detail often found in the
accounts of the confraternities. "Linen ... for the dragon" is an unambig-
uous reference to a theatrical creation. The item does not mention a dragon's
clothes or costume, so it is safe to assume that the dragon was a stage
property, not an actor dressed as a dragon {cf. no. 2012: "for material . . .
for devils' clothes" ["fur thuch ... fur theuffels cleider"]). Although the
accounts do not specify where or when the dragon appeared, the Kunzelsau
text does include a dragon which accompanies St. George in the "Procession
of Saints."^^

In the same way, item no. 2000 gives details of an expense, but stops short
of providing a definite connection with the play script. Paying the tanner
for three skins for the crowns calls to mind the three magi. Although
Liebenow has suggested that the crowns were lined with fur (interpreting
"fel" as "pelt"),^^ it is more likely that the crowns themselves were fashioned
out of leather. This is more in keeping with the work of a tanner, and would
have resulted in lightweight and durable costume pieces which could have
been easily gilded and decorated.

The final item in this series refers to a procession, but does not indicate
what the money was spent on. "Dy herm" suggests gendemen of higher
social status, since fellow actors or confraternity members were usually
referred to as Gesellen. In the KOnzelsau accounts, expenses incurred by
members are usually formulated collectively ("we spent" ["haben wir
geben"]; cf. nos. 1998, 2003-04) or impersonally ("one spent" ["hat man
geben"]; cf nos. 1999, 2002). The "herrn" may have been the Chorherren
(canons) of the parish church of St. John the Baptist, who almost certainly
would have participated in the Corpus Christi celebration.

Four other items of particular interest for their detail occur in the accounts
from 1507, 1509, and 1511:

Renaissance et Réforme / 7

Neumann no.

[2008] 1 gulden 3 B to the painters of St. John's coat and to repair

other things and [to the painters] of the lamb.
[2009] 3 B 6 d for linen for the coat and for a wig to go with it
[2012] 10-1/2 Bd for cloth to the tailors, also to the painters for

devils' clothes and to improve other things on John the

Baptist [Day].
[2014] 2 gulden 1 ort given to the painter for the clothes of the devil

and pope, all added together.

Payments to painters for decorating cloth or costumes are common in
Medieval records of performance. Item 2008 indicates that John the
Baptist and his attribute, the lamb, were given special attention, which is
not unexpected in the accounts of the Brotherhood of St John. The next
item reveals that the confraternity purchased material for John's coat and
for a wig to go with it Items 2012 and 2014 also record payments for cloth
and to the painters for decorating it In no. 2012 we see that the painters
and tailors worked together on devils' costumes, while no. 2014 indicates
that the painters decorated costumes for the devils and for the "pope" who
speaks the epilogue of the play. All of the figures mentioned in these account
items appear in the text of the Kiinzelsau Corpus Christi Play, and all would
have been deserving of decorative costumes.

It is clear from the Kiinzelsau accounts that the confraternity of St John
did not support the Corpus Christi play by itself As detailed as the
individual items might be, they do not nearly account for all of the costumes,
properties, and other costs which would have been associated with the
performance. Moreover, if we look at these items in the context of the other
expenses of the confraternity, we see that they were a minute portion of the
annual totals. The expenses in the 1475 account fill four columns, and
contain some sixty-five separate items totalling roughly 43 gulden. The five
line items listed by Neumann (nos. 1998-2002) comprise approximately 3.5
percent of the total expenses for the year. For the other accounts containing
records of performance, the percentages are even lower: in 1476, only one
item relates to performance; in 1507 there are two entries; in 1509, one; in
1511, two; and in 1522, one item.

The other expenditures of the confraternity encompass a range of
activities, most of them relating to special masses and maintenance of the
church. Payments "per presentz" were probably made to the local clergy
for their attendance at memorial masses for former members of the
confraternity. Other items in the 1475 account book mention payments for

8 / Renaissance and Reformation

candles (fol. Iv), maintenance of a vineyard (Iv), repairs to a church window
(2r, 2v), and payments to the schoolmaster (or perhaps someone named
"Schulmaister") for writing (3r). The accounts from St. Wolfgang are similar,
and apparently contain no references to theatrical performance at all.^^

The KUnzelsau accounts, then, seem to give us a view of a more or less
typical small-town confraternity. The main concern of the Brotherhood of
St. John was the spiritual welfare of its members. It contributed to the
maintenance of the church building and of church services, one of which
was the Corpus Christi celebration. The records which relate to religious
performance confirm that the confraternity was involved in these activities,
but that they constituted only a minor aspect of the organization's finances.
The lack of any parish or municipal records from the same period in
Kunzelsau prevents a more complete picture of the production of the
Corpus Christi play text.

From Vienna, surviving accounts of the Corpus Christi Brotherhood
{Gotleichnamsbruderschaft) reveal a much fuller involvement in religious
drama. The accounts from the years 1499-1534 are fairly complete, and
suggest that the confraternity had been responsible for virtually all aspects
of performance on the Feast of Corpus Christi.^"^

The Corpus Christi confraternity had existed in Vienna at least as early
as 1445, but was reincorporated in conjunction with the craft guild of the
joiners {Tischlerbruderschaft) in 1497. This would not have been completely
unexpected, since by 1486 the woodcarver Wilhelm RoUinger (now known
for his work on the choir stalls in St. Stephan's cathedral) was also the
director of the annual Corpus Christi procession.^^ The confraternity's
attachment to the craft guild, along with special financial patronage from
the mayor's office, allowed the rapid expansion of production activity in
the early sixteenth century. Unlike the KUnzclsau records, I have had access
only to the material relating to dramatic performance, as published by
Neumann and Hadamowsky. Although I am therefore unable to put them
into perspective, the records relating to drama — especially from 1504 to
1513— reveal just how involved a confraternity could become in the
production of civic/religious spectacles.

The first item for a "play on Corpus Christi day" ("spil an
goczleichnamstag," [no. 2813]) occurs by itself in 1499. For each of the years
1499 to 1503, Neumann lists a single item, usually for food and drink for
participants in the play, the cost of which increases steadily from 13 Bd to
2 lb 5 Û 17 d. For 1504, five items are listed. The confraternity was still

Renaissance et Réforme / 9

paying for food and drink, but it also paid a tailor for a coat and for
"hâssugken" (?), a dyer to colour them, an armourer to polish the armour
worn in the play, and a seamstress for making various articles of clothing
(nos. 2820-23). In 1505, the number of line items for the play had increased
to nineteen, and the accountants for the confraternity began including a
separate total for the play's expenses. In 1505 it was 36 lb 6 6 12 d ("Summa
ausgeben auff das spil facit 36 lb 6 Û 12 d" [no. 2843]). Expenses included
the usual ones for food and wine (nos. 2841-42), as well as payments to
carpenters for four stages and six crosses, and wages to day-labourers for
carrying material to the performance site, erecting the stage, and disman-
tling it after the performance (nos. 2825-27, 2834). The confraternity also
paid for necessary materials, such as various forms of wood, boards, and
battens ("holcz," "ladn," "lattn"), and at least four different types of nails
("verschlachnagl," "schintlnagl," "lattnagel," and "helbertnagl" [nos. 2829-
33, 2838]). One of the most intriguing payments for that year went to Hanns
Tenndler "for colouring Herod and for repairing him" ("von Herodes punt
zu machen und zu pessem" [no. 2840]). This may relate to the inventory
of 1513, in which the materials belonging to Herod and Pilate include
"eleven coloured stakes, well ornamented in the Turkish style, with linen"
("Ainlef razisch piintt, wolgczicrt auf die turkisch art, mit leinbat" [no.
3017]). The account for 1505 begins to indicate that the confraternity was
responsible for most of the details of performance.

The confraternity's control of such details continued in 1506 and 1507.
In 1506, it bought food and drink, wood, nails, and paid the "painters and
joiners [of the] Mount of Olives, and what goes with the angel, and for
making the crosses, and for painting [what was] new."^^ Expenses are also
listed for fourteen shirts for soldiers (no. 2875), to the tinsmith for spears
(no. 2883), and finally several items for writing expenses, including one "for
writing the register for the play, for paper for the general requirements of
the play, 2 lb 2 13 12 d."^'^ In total, the account for 1506 includes forty items
for the play, amounting to 61 lb 3 B 28 d (nos. 2854-94). The account for
1507 includes similar entries, although the thirty-five items add up to only
33 lb 15 d. Costs for food, lumber, nails, and labour remain more or less
constant, and there was an additional expense "to the writer, who wrote the
verses to the play and other necessary things."^^ Expenses for costumes and
properties were generally lower in 1507, although some money was spent
to outfit Judas and the devils:

10 / Renaissance and Reformation

For the clothes of the devils and Judas, to the tailor for making them
and to the painter for painting the same as well as two faces [masks?]
and several firearms red, 1 lb 3 B 6 d.

The years 1504-1507 saw annual and substantial payments for virtually all
aspects of the play, suggesting that the confraternity was the primary, if not
the sole, producer of the spectacle.

After 1507, the records seem to indicate a slightly different type of Corpus
Christi celebration. In 1508 and 1509, no play expenses were recorded. The
records from 1510 to 1512 include eleven to fifteen line items annually,
amounting to expenses of eighteen to thirty pounds for the plays. But the
expenses are now largely broken down into payments for four large
"groups" or "squads" of performers (Rotten), each of which had one leader
who was responsible for its organization and expenses. In 1510, the groups
were established as: (1) God with his attendants, numbering fifty persons;

(2) the "Jewish school" (Sinagoga and his followers), with sixty members;

(3) men-at-arms on horseback (not numbered in 1510, but including
fifty-seven men in 1511, fifty-six in 1512); and (4) eighty foot-soldiers.^^ The
leaders of these groups were reimbursed for food and drink expenses for
their groups, while the confraternity paid directly for costumes and prop-
erties. The expenses for 1511 and 1512 follow the same pattern, and suggest
that the "play" on Corpus Christi had become more of a figurai proces-
sion.^^ Payments for wood, nails, carpenters, and the construction of the
stage have disappeared, and there are no further payments for writing out
the verses. Moreover, the formulation of four processional groups of forty
to sixty members each would itself have strained the organizational capacity
of a director; to attempt to stage a play at the same time would have placed
excessive demands on both performers and spectators.

The years 1513-1515 have yielded no records of performances in Vienna.
From 1516 to 1534, the confraternity sponsored a procession every year
(except 1529, when it was cancelled due to rain), each of which was
organized in the same way. The processional groups appear in the accounts
each year, although the numbers of participants varied, and occasionally
certain groups were eliminated altogether. The most expensive (and pre-
sumably the most elaborate) procession was held in 1519, when all four
groups were included and the expenses totalled 37 lb 2 B 24 d (Neumann
nos. 3105-24), still far less than the expenses for the play in 1506 (see above).
The leanest year seems to have been 1528, when the procession included
only one group, and cost 1 lb 4 0 12 d (Neumann nos. 3282-86).

Renaissance et Réforme /Il

Before we leave the Vienna records, we cannot afford to overlook one
surviving document: the inventory of all materials held by the confraternity
as drawn up by Wilhelm Rollinger and Matheus Heuberger in 1513. To list
each item separately here is unnecessary, but a brief summary makes it
clear that the confraternity possessed everything required to mount a
performance. The list includes three crosses "to be used ... on Corpus
Christi" ("so man braucht ... an gotsleichnambstag" [no. 3003]) and literally
dozens of pieces of armour and weaponry (no. 3004). That which belonged
to God with his attendants (in the procession) included a Mount of Olives,
a pillar to which Christ was bound, a red cloak (for the "ecce homo"), a
sponge on a pole, cloaks for Mary and John, and shirts for the two thieves.
Mary Magdalene's wig is listed, with a specific note that "Master Wilhelm
[Rollinger] had promised that it would never be used for worldly enjoyment
or honour, but only for the honour of God. Where one should wish rather
to use it in another way, one should sooner bum it."^^ Other costumes and
properties included those belonging to the twelve apostles, Simon of Cyrene,
angels, Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas, Sinagoga, foot-soldiers, and men-
at-arms. The armour was kept in four trunks. Finally, the inventory notes
that "a register with verses, in which is written the entire Passion" was in
the possession of Wilhelm Rollinger.^^ The text has never been accounted
for.

Why this inventory was written in the first of three years when no play
or procession was sponsored by the confraternity is not clear. Perhaps the
various properties and set pieces which had been used in 1504-1507 had
remained in storage as the staged play became the figurai processions of
1510-1512. The inventory may represent the confraternity's assessment of
its stock, to determine which pieces were useful, and which obsolete.
Whatever the reason, the inventory is an impressive list of the trappings of
a late Medieval religious play. The fact that all of the material belonged to
the confraternity is further evidence that it was the sole producer of the
Corpus Christi spectacle.

Neumann's published records of performance allow a preliminary over-
view of the connection of the German Bniderschaften to dramatic activity
in the late Middle Ages. This brief investigation of the records from
Kûnzelsau and Vienna has revealed the varying degrees to which a
confraternity might have become involved in production, but a clear picture
of the confraternities' connections to drama requires careful evaluation of
all available archival sources. If the KUnzelsau Brotherhood of St. John

12 / Renaissance and Reformation

only partially sponsored the Corpus Christi play, who supplied the rest of
the funding? Did the Vienna confraternity produce the Corpus Christi play
entirely on its own? If not, how were other confraternities, the municipal
government, and St. Stephan's itself involved? Questions such as these can
only be answered through localized studies; for now, generalizations remain
elusive.

University of Toronto

Notes

1 Ms. 1479; ed. Peter K. Liebenow, Das Kiinzelsauer Fronleichuamsspiel, Ausgaben deutscher
Literatur des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, Reihe Drama 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969). All
references to the play will follow this edition.

2 Neumann, Geistliches Schauspiel, item numbers 2777 to 3331. We will be most concerned
with nos. 2813-3324, the accounts of the Corpus Christi Brotherhood from 1499 to 1534.
These were first transcribed and published by Franz Hadamowsky, Mittelalterliches
geistliches Schauspiel in Wien 1499-1718, Quellen zur Theatergeschichte 3, Jahrbuch der
Wiener Gesellschaft fur Theaterforschung 23 (Vienna: Verband der wissenschaftlichen
Gesellschaften Osterreichs, 1981). Further references to Neumann will be cited by item
number: "Neumann, no. 000."

3 I wish to thank Herrn Riedinger of the Kunzelsau Biirgermeisteramt. archivist Herm
Jiirgen Rauser, and especially his assistant Herrn Stefan Kraut, for their generous
assistance during my research in Kunzelsau in June, 1986.

4 The appearances and uses of the terms Gilde and Zuuft in historical records are not always
clear. For a discussion of the socio-historical and semantic issues, see Ernst Cordt, Die
Gilden. Ursprung und Wesen, Gôppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 401 (Gôppingen:
Kiimmerie, 1981).

5 One of the greatest difficulties posed by the performance records is the determination of
exactly what activity was being recorded. The distinction between procession and play was
not at all definite, and the dramatic structures of the texts which have survived reveal
mixed forms. For detailed discussions of processional forms, see Neil C. Brooks,
"Processional Drama and Dramatic Procession in Germany in the Late Middle Ages,"
Journal of English and Germanic Philology 32 (1933): 141-71; and Elizabeth Wainwright,
Studien zum deulschen Prozessionsspiel. Die Tradition der Fronleichnamsspiele in Kunzelsau
und Freiburg und ihre textliche Entwicklung, Miinchener Beitrâge zur MediSvistik und
Renaissance Forschung 16 (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1974).

6 "Vereinigungen, bei denen die religiose Zielsetzung im Vordergrund steht." Robert Ebner,
Die Bruderschaftswesen im alien Bistum Wiirzburg, Forschungen zur frânkischen Kirche-
und Theologiegeschichte (WUrzburg: Echter Vedag, 1978), pp. 43-67, here p. 53.

7 In addition to Ebner, pp. 43-67, see Hadamowsky, p. 10, and Rolf Kiessling, Biirgerliche
Gesellschaft und Kirche in Augsburg im Spatmiiielalter, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der
Stadt Augsburg 19 (Augsburg: H. Muhlberger, 1971), p. 292.

8 Both Hadamowsky (pp. 10-11, 24-73) and Neumann (nos. 2818 ff.) include certain items
of income for the Corpus Christi Brotherhood which indicate initiatory or annual
contributions by members. Women were allowed to join, but are usually mentioned along
with their husbands (see Neum'ann, nos. 2818, 2896, 2900, 2901, 2979).

9 Ebner, pp. 23-27; Kiessling, p. 292; Wilfried Reininghaus, Die Entstehung der Gesellengilden
im Spâtmittelalter, Vierteljahrschrift fUr Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Beihefte 71
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1981), p. Ill and n. 651; Gertrud RUcklin, Religioses Volksleben des
ausgehenden Mitielalters in den Reichsstiidten Hall und Ileilbronn, Historische Studien 226
(Beriin: Emil Ebering 1933. repr. Kraus 1965). pp. 126-37.

Renaissance et Réforme / 13

10 Ebner, pp. 25-26; RUcklin, p. 136.

11 Reininghaus, pp. 141-43.

12 Neumann, nos. 35/1-3; see also Kiessling, p. 293.

13 "Item ausgeben den zimerleiten in der bruederschafft zu einer hilff Corporis Kristi 8 h
pemer" (Neumann, no. 525). The "h" stands for Heller, a type of coin.

14 Kiinzelsauer Stadtarchiv sig. RI, Heiligenrechnungen St. Wolfgang 1501-1552; sig. R3,
Heiligenrechnungen St. Johannes 1475-1558. Neither series is complete. The account book
catalogued as St. Wolfgang 1501 indicates that it was prepared by "Die heiligenpfleger
unser lieben frawen" (f. Ir).

15 Albert Schumann, Zu S. xii u. xiii von A. Schumann, "Das Kiinzelsauer Fronleichnamsspiel
vom Jahre 1479", extra leaf, dated August 1926, to be inserted in his edition of the play
(Das Kiinzelsauer Fronleichnamsspiel vom Jahre 1479 [Ohringen: Verlag der Hohenloheschen
Buchhandlung, 1925]); Peter K. Liebenow, "Zu zwei Rechnungsbelegen aus Kiinzelsau,"
Kleine Schriften der Ge.sellschaft fur Theatergeschichte 21 (1966): 11-13; "Das Kunzelsauer
Fronleichnamsspiel: Weitere Zeugnisse zu seiner Auffuhrung,"y4rc/j/v/wrc/as Studium der
neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 205 (1969): 44-47. Schumann's "extra leaf includes five
items not clearly related to performance, which Neumann has therefore not included. All
of the published items have been reprinted, translated, and interpreted in R. Blasting, "The
Kunzelsau Corj)us Christi Play: A Dramaturgical Analysis" (Ph.D. diss., U of Toronto, 1989),
pp. 227-46. On some minor discrepancies in dating the records, see Blasting, pp. 231-32.

16 "Item 2 Bd haben mir geben umb pappeyer zu der processen" [1998]; "Item 3 Bd umb
leynonnt; dy hot man genommen zu dem trachen" [1999]; "Item 5 Bd umb 3 fel dem gerwer
zu den kronen" [2000]; "Item 15 Bd dy herrn verthon, do man dy processen gehabt hat"
[2001]. The entries are quoted as in Neumann, who indicates variant readings by Liebenow
and Schumann. The designation "Bd" distinguishes the silver penny {WeiBpfennig or
Schillingpfennig) from the ordinary copper or black penny, represented simply as "d." See
Peter Spufford, Handbook of Medieval Exchange, Royal Historical Society Guides and
Handbooks 13 (Bury St. Edmunds: SL Edmundsbury Press, 1986), p. 239; Liebenow,
"Weitere Zeugnisse," p. 45; Blasting, pp. 233-34.

17 "Item 1 Bd umb bappeyer zu dem spil" (Neumann, no. 2005). See also Neumann, nos. 564,
566, 2048-49, 2473, 2890, 2905, 2924, 2940.

18 Stage direction before line 4283.

19 Liebenow, "Weitere Zeugnisse," p. 46.

20 "1 fl 3 B maalem vom rock sant Johanns und ander thing zu pletzen und vom lemlin"
[2008]; "3 B 6 d umb leinwat zum rock und umb har darzue" [2009]; "10-1/2 Bd fur thuch
dem schneidem auch dem maalern fur theuffels cleider und ander ding zu bessert uff
Johannis Baptiste" [2012]; "2 fl 1 ort dem maler geben fur die cleydem der theuffell und
bepst, alls zusamen gerechnet" [2014]. An ort is 1/4 of a coin's value, usually 1/4 gulden
(Neumann, p. 103). Neumann, who relied on the publications of Schumann and Liebenow,
includes "zu machen" at the end of item 2008; the words are not found in the manuscript.
Some confusion also surrounds item 2012, printed by Neumann as both 2012 and 2015.
For more detailed explanations see Blasting, pp. 242, 244-45.

21 Cf Neumann, nos. 54/1, 74, 88, 107, 1349, 1434, etc.; see also the Records of Early English
Drama volumes (Toronto: Univei-sity of Toronto Press, 1979-), especially York (edited by
A. Johnston and M. Dorrell, 1979), C/je^/^r (edited by L. Clopper, 1979), and Coventry (edited
by R. Ingram, 1981).

22 I have suggested elsewhere (diss., pp. 185-87) that the "coat" may have included a false
head, which would have been required for the execution scene in the Kunzelsau play.

23 At this time, I am relying (as did Neumann) on Schumann's and Liebenow's published
findings, and on Archivist Jurgen Rauser's assurance that the accounts contain no further
references to plays. My review of the manuscripts in Kunzelsau substantiated this, but I
have not yet studied all of the St. Johannes or St. Wolfgang accounts in complete detail.

14 / Renaissance and Reformation

24 For full transcriptions of the records, see Neumann, nos. 2777-3330 and Hadamowsky, pp.
24-73.

25 Hadamowsky, pp. 8-10. The choir stall was destroyed in 1945. See also Alois Nagler, TTie
Medieval Religious Stage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 97-102.

26 "Item von dem Ollperig mailer und tischler und was dem engl zugehort und von dem
creuczn zu machen und von neuem anzustreichen 7 lb" (Neumann, no. 2864).

27 "Item dy register zu dem spill zu schreyben, umb papir zu aller notturfft des spils 2 lb 2
B 12 d" (Neumann, no. 2890).

28 "dem schreuber, der die reymb des spils unnd ander notturfft geschriben hat" (Neumann,
no. 2904).

29 "Von dem teufls unnd Judas klaid dem Schneider davon zu machen unnd dem maler
von demselben und auch zwain angesichtn unnd etlich puchsn rot ze malln geben 1 lb
3 fi 6d" (Neumann, no. 2919).

30 Neumann, nos. 2948-51. For the numbers of soldiers on horseback in 1511 and 1512, see
Neumann, nos. 2960, 2982.

31 See Hadamowsky, p. 14.

32 "HatmaisterWilhalbm versprochen, das zudhainerwelllichen freid noch eer zu prauchen,
alain zu der eer gottes. Wo man es aber in ander weg wolt prauchen. sol man es ee
verprennen" (Neumann, no. 3013).

33 "Ain register mit reymen, darin verschriben der gannz passion, hat maister Wilhalm
RoUinger" (Neumann, no. 3023).

Confraternities and Lay Leadership
in Sixteenth-Century Liège

D. HENRY DIETERICH

In examining the place of lay leadership in the late Medieval Church, one
might well begin with that acute observer of the nineteenth-century English
church and society, Anthony Trollope. In The Vicar ofBullhampton, he has
the hard-headed Lord Saint George explain to his father, the Marquis, the
genesis of religious dissent:

We can't prevent it, because, in religion as in everything else, men like
to manage themselves. This farmer or that tradesman becomes a
dissenter because he can be somebody in the management of his chapel,
and would be nobody in regard to the parish church.

Our conventional picture of the Medieval church is one in which the
laity and their organizations, including the confraternity, were almost as
much at odds with the official structure as the gentry-dominated Establish-
ment of the nineteenth century was with the lower-middlc-class Noncon-
formist chapels. In regard to confraternities, this tendency is best
represented by the statement by Gabriel Le Bras that has been adopted by
many confraternity studies since. Le Bras's thesis, repeated and modified
by subsequent historians, views the confraternity as a sort of substitute
parish. Confraternities provided important support for the Church's activ-
ities. Le Bras writes:

But all the time the confraternity disturbed the Church by its natural
independence and frequent disorders. It constitutes in the bosom of or
above the legal parish a consensual parish, with its oratory, its clergy, its
worship, its patrimony. Hence the competition of worship services, of
funds, of influences. Hence conflicts with the pastor, with the parish
council, always latent, which break out in epidemics.^

I

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 15

16 / Renaissance and Reformation

This thesis— that the confraternity formed a "consensual parish" in
conflict with the legal one— does not seem initially unlikely. There are
enough examples, from the eighth century onward, of suspicion of or
opposition to confraternities by the hierarchy to demonstrate that conflict
sometimes happened. Certainly there have been examples of conflicts
between confraternities and their parishes up to the present time. Con-
fraternities have also argued with religious houses that sponsored them,
over such issues as the use of buildings and other facilities.^

Other observers have argued that the Medieval parish was weak and the
confraternity strong. Building on Jacques Toussaert's evidence that paro-
chial obligations enjoined by canon law were not well observed in Flanders
at the end of the Middle Ages,"* John Bossy asserts that the Medieval Church
"was not in actual fact a parochially-grounded institution."^ Confraternities,
on the other hand, provided the real religious life of the people. In his more
recent Christianity and the West, Bossy has developed his earlier observation
that brotherhood constituted the principal mode of religious life during the
Middle Ages. While he points out the parallels between parish and
confraternity formation, he stresses their potential and actual conflict^

Modem examples exist to support the Le Bras thesis by analogy. In a
study of the surviving village confraternities in France, Martine Segalen
cites several cases of conflict between parish clergy and confraternities. For
example, in Avignon, penitential confraternities whose origins go back to
the Middle Ages have recently been in conflict with the local parishes in
an effort to preserve their existence and traditions.'^ Here, as in several cases
in Normandy, the application of the vernacular liturgy and other changes
since the Second Vatican Council have threatened the traditional strength
of confraternities in a fashion similar to that discussed by Bossy for the
period following the Council of Trent.^

The mere existence and popularity of confraternities, however, is not
enough to establish a nonparochial model for the Medieval Church. The
number of funeral monuments in parish churches suggests that parishes,
both urban and rural, continued to command loyalty from their members.
Cleariy the relationship between the confraternity and the parish must be
more complex than a simple opposition of one to the other. The parish was
the unit of organization that locally embodied the inclusive and hierarchical
principle of the institutional Church; the confraternity embodied the
individual aspirations of the laity and the tradition of special brotherhood.
Somehow these two elements had to work together.

Renaissance et Réforme / 17

The present study looks at one parish, Saint-Martin-en-Ile in Liège, at
the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, to
examine the role of its largest— for most of the period, its only— functioning
confraternity. We shall see that from its founding the confraternity was
closely tied to the parish. The activities of the confraternity supported the
parish structure, and the lay leadership of the parish was drawn largely
from the confraternity.

The example of Saint-Martin-en-Ile suggests that rather than being in
opposition to the parish, the confraternity may well have been a way of
integrating the model of brotherhood into the canonical structure. In Liège
as elsewhere in late Medieval Europe, the confraternity was a regular parish
institution, where the most religiously active among the laity could enjoy
the special relation of brotherhood that was so central to their mentality
and which is, after all, an essential ideal in the Christian tradition.

In a recent important essay, "The Christian Middle Ages as an Historio-
graphical Problem," John Van Engen has hailed the appearance of studies
of local religious life "that was neither learned nor extraordinary nor a
vehicle of protest."^ Of the parish in particular he writes:

The study of parochial organization, liturgy, confraternities, pastoralia,
and so on will in time bring historians much closer to understanding
"routine" religious life in the Middle Ages than the study of unusual
instances, for example, of an isolated Cathar village, a holy dog, or an
eccentric miller.'^

This study of a parish and its confraternity is offered in the hope of coming
to such an understanding.

The parish of Saint-Martin, known as Saint-Martin-cn-Ilc to distinguish
it from the collegiate church of Saint-Martin-cn-Mont, was one of the largest
of the twenty-five parishes of Liege. The parish was founded in the late
tenth century under bishop Eracle to serve the lay community surrounding
the collegiate church of Saint-Paul, which was begun under Eracle and
completed under his successor, Notger.^^

Etienne Hélin estimates the parish population in 1650 as between 2440
and 3080 persons.^^ If the population of the city as a whole was, as has
been estimated, one-half its 1650 level at the end of the fifteenth century,
the population of Saint-Martin-en-Ile would have been between 1200 and
1500. Economically, this population ranged in status from the canons of
Saint-Paul to the miserable inhabitants of the swampy islands behind the
parish church. A wide variety of trades could be found here. The population

18 / Renaissance and Reformation

was far from homogeneous, and included samples of all occupations and
classes, partly because it was so large, and partly because its location
favoured the establishment of all sorts of commerce.

The chapter of Saint-Paul, as founders, retained the titular rectorate with
its tithes. To govern the parish, they appointed a permanent vicar or vestit.
In addition to the vicar, the parish had a variety of clerics and lay people
serving in various capacities. The composition and duties of the parish staff
and other officers was typical of parishes in Liège and elsewhere at the
time.^^ The parish clerk (marlier) was elected by the parishioners. At the
end of the fifteenth century, the parish clerk was a married man, probably
in minor orders. His duties involved serving at mass, singing the responses,
and caring for the sacred vessels.

The chief lay officials of the parish were the churchwardens (mambours)
elected by the heads of households in the parish. They were responsible for
the finances of the parish, and with the vicar they appointed the chaplains.
Other officers of the parish, who received salaries, included the compteur
who kept the books and collected payments due; the sexton (fossier) who
was also elected by the parish; a mambour^^ or attorney who represented
the parish in lawsuits; and a laundress {boweresse) who washed the altar
linens.

In property transactions the churchwardens were aided by a cour des
tenants, a group of substantial men of the parish before whom all reliefs
and transfers of property held from the parish were approved and wit-
nessed.^^ In dealing with outside institutions, such as in an appearance
before the échevins, the churchwardens, the compteur, and sometimes a
professional attorney represented the parish.

The finances of the parish were based on income from real property, in
the form oïcens (denominated in money) and rentes (denominated in kind,
usually grain). Some of this went directly to the pastor, the chaplains, or
the parish clerk. The rest usually formed three funds of which the
churchwardens had charge: the general fund or luminaire, the mass fund,
and the poor fund. These funds were the responsibility of the churchwar-
dens, who designated a compteur to collect and keep track of them.

Between 1450 and 1538, Saint-Martin had eight vicars, five of whom
served in person. If to have the official pastor in residence is fortunate,
Saint-Martin was blessed throughout most of this period, at least 61 of 88
years. Unfortunately we know little of these vicars besides their names.^^
When the vicar did not reside, he was replaced by another priest, referred

Renaissance et Réforme / 19

to as the "lieutenant du vestit." Usually he was one of the parish chaplains
who received fixed salaries from the mass fund in return for saying
anniversary masses. The number of chaplains at Saint-Martin varied from
none in the 1470s, to three or four (besides the "lieutenant") in the 1480s,
to as many as nine in the 1520s and 1530sJ^

During the period between 1480 and 1540, the parish contained a number
of confraternities. One of these appears to have been inactive, indeed
moribund. Another was founded in the 1530s and included members of
other parishes and of religious houses in the neighborhood. The Confra-
ternity of Our Lady was the only one that was active during the years
between the^sack of Liège by Charies the Bold, which devastated the city
in 1468, and the last years of the Renaissance prince-bishop Erard dc la
Marck. We are fortunate in possessing a fairly complete record of this
confraternity's accounts, including membership lists, for this period.^^

The Confraternity of Our Lady and the Blessed Sacrament (to give its
full name) was founded in the tradition of the Medieval devotional parish
confraternity, shortly before the sack of Liège. It was originally two
organizations, the Confraternity of Our Lady, founded in 1457, and the
Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, founded in 1461, which were united
in 1473. In the sixteenth century, the dedication to the Blessed Sacrament
in its title gradually dropped out of use.

The rule and activities of the Confraternity of Our Lady resembled those
of many similar organizations throughout Europe. The members paid dues,
equal at the end of the fifteenth century to almost two days' wages for a
skilled workman. They were required to attend funerals of fellow members
as well as regular masses sponsored by the confraternity throughout the
year. Once a year the confraternity held a banquet in connection with the
main mass of the year at the feast of the Assumption and the election of
officers.

The confraternity and the parish were linked by more than a shared
building. The rule of the confraternity demonstrates the founders' loyalty
to the parish, both by its language and by its specific provisions. As the
confraternity developed, its activities benefitted the parish. Moreover, the
official leadership, both clerical and lay, participated in the life and assisted
the development of the confraternity. In particular, the most active lay
leaders in the parish were members of the confraternity.

For the confraternity, either as separate organizations or as one, we have
five versions of the rule. The latest of these, a version published in 1792,

20 / Renaissance and Reformation

represents the confraternity as "renouvellée Tan 1736," and therefore will
not concern the present discussion. ^^ The other four date from the period
1450-1540. The first three, dated 1457, 1461, and 1480, are very similar;^»
the fourth, dated 1529, is significantly different.^^ Rather than review the
rules in detail, I will review a few points that demonstrate the close ties of
the confraternity with the parish.

The prologue shared by the rules of 1457, 1461, and 1480 sets the tone of
loyalty to the parish. The founders declare that they are founding the
confraternity with the aid of divine grace out of desire to serve God, the
blessed Virgin, and their patron St. Martin. The confraternity of Our Lady,
in its original rule, is called the confraternity "de Nostre Damme & de Sains
Martin." The rule of the original Blessed Sacrament confraternity uses the
same language, and adds to the name the phrase "du sains Sacrement."

Throughout the rule, St. Martin, the parish patron, is mentioned over and
over again as "our blessed patron." In Liège as elsewhere, the patron saint
of the parish was the personal patron of the parishioner.^^ In wills, for
example, testators regularly commend their souls to the protection, not of
their name-saint, but of the patron of their parish. The Christian's standing
before God depended on his relation to this saint, as his relation to the
Church depended on his relation to the parish that bore his name.

As with many confraternities, regular masses centering around its titular
devotion constituted the principal devotional activities called for in the
original rules. The Confraternity of Our Lady solemnized the feasts of the
Blessed Virgin, principally the feast of her Assumption (15 August) with
masses on the other Marian feasts.^^ These masses were to be celebrated at
the main altar of the church "in token of obedience" ("en représentant
obedience") to St. Martin, patron of the parish.

The Blessed Sacrament confraternity also held its principal mass at the
main altar. This celebration fell on the octave of Corpus Christi, because,
the rule says, the feast itself is already occupied with the parish celebration.
The confraternity also sponsored the celebration of a mass at the main altar
of the church, every Thursday of the year, by the vicar or a priest of his
choosing. The rule adds that the confreres can take part by carrying candles
in the offertory at the parish mass on Corpus Christi, as well as in the
procession. The 1461 rule provides for any excess money that might
accumulate. It must not, the framers warn, be expended, through ill counsel,
"on gluttony or excess" ("par gourmandcrie ne oultrequidenche"). Instead,

Renaissance et Réforme / 21

the superfluous goods are to go to the parish, to be used according to the
decision of the vicar and churchwardens.

Thus the provision of liturgical celebrations in the original rules of the
two confraternities placed them firmly in the parish system. St. Martin's
place in the spirituality of the confraternities corresponds to the seals of
the vicar and churchwardens, which they attached to the original charters
as a sign of approval. All clearly understood the signs of loyalty offered
and accepted.

This loyalty had practical consequences. Not only does the 1461 rule
provide for its extra income to go to the parish; the annual and weekly
masses, like the special masses in the 1457 rule, take place at the main altar.
This is more than symbolic. Each mass involved a payment to the celebrant
and to the parish clerk who assisted. Since the main altar was under the
control of the vicar, the rules give him the option of saying the masses — and
receiving the income from them — himself.

Later changes and modifications in the confraternal rule and pattern of
activity continued the intention to cooperate closely with the parish. The
earliest decision is the merging of the two original confraternities into one.
The sack of Liège in 1468 caused great damage to the church of Saint-Mar-
tin-en-Ile, and the confraternity chapels and possessions did not escape. As
he and the churchwardens acted to help rebuild the parish, the vicar, Jehan
Thomas, moved to strengthen the confraternities by uniting them. On
Corpus Christi, 1473, by his "consent and express wish" they were united.
To symbolize this union, four men — probably the masters of the two
confraternities — marched behind one of the churchwardens in the offertory
procession.2^

At some point "before the wars," as the confraternity accounts put it, the
confraternity began to provide oil for the lamp that burned day and night
before the tabernacle containing the reserved Blessed Sacrament^^ For this
purpose, the confraternity had acquired or received as a bequest a rente of
four quarts of rapeseed oil. Since they both took and used the payment in
kind, without converting it to cash, it does not often show up in the account.
From 1504 to 1523, the accounts show that the confraternity bought oil for
the sanctuary lamp in addition to the rente payment. Between 1514 and
1522, the parish paid one florin a year to the confraternity as a subvention
of the lamp.

Beginning in 1524, the confraternity accounts show purchases of garlands
called "chapeals" to decorate the chapel on the feast of the Assumption.

22 / Renaissance and Reformation

More permanent decoration of the confraternity's chapel also occupied its
attention, especially in the early years. Several brothers in the confraternity,
as well as outside workers, did major structural repairs on the chapel in
1468. In the 1480s, the confraternity decorated its chapel. Antoine le
Pondeur, a confrere, painted and gilded the statue of the Virgin and the
wall behind the altar; in 1480, seven confreres contributed to buy seven
"chapiteals" of copper.^^

Beginning in 1532, the confraternity engaged the choir of Saint-Paul to
sing the Salve Regina every Saturday and Sunday. To help pay them, the
confraternity took up a collection, but also paid a considerable sum out of
the common fund. That a collection was taken shows that these services
were meant to be, and in fact were, attended, probably by other parishioners
as well as by confraternity members.

Thus the confraternity, through its devotional activities, provided benefits
for the whole parish. The chapel with its gilded and painted decorations,
garlanded with flowers for major feasts, the lamp burning day and night
before the tabernacle, the singing of the Salve Regina at Saturday and
Sunday Vespers: these were things all the parish could appreciate.

The vicar and churchwardens appear to have understood the advantage
to the parish of maintaining the confraternity. We have seen that the vicar
took an active part in bringing about the union of the two original
confraternities during the troubled time after the sack. Also during the late
fifteenth century, some of the confraternity's property came from the parish,
having been donated by the churchwardens to help the confraternity get
back on its feet, especially to rebuild the chapel.^^ This property was
returned eariy in the sixteenth century. That the churchwardens would make
such a donation shows the close relation of the confraternity to the parish.
Just as the confraternity's chapel was part of the parish church, so too their
patrimonies could be freely shared.

Although the versions of the rule dated after the union of the two original
brotherhoods in 1473 drop the provision that superfluous goods should
return to the parish, the confraternity's budget did in large part support the
parish. The priests who celebrated the masses in the confraternity's schedule
were mostly members of the parish staff Only from 1507 to perhaps 1512,
when the Carmelite friars celebrated regular Monday masses, did the
confraternity go outside the parish.

The connection of the vicar and chaplains went beyond merely celebrat-
ing the masses. Although the Confraternity of Our Lady was essentially a

Renaissance et Réforme / 23

lay organization, there were always some clergymen in it To begin with,
the priest currently in charge of the parish, whether the vicar appointed by
the chapter of Saint-Paul or his "lieutenant," was always a member. The
other priests were either chaplains of the parish, like Johan Vaillant or
Baldwin Charlier, or chaplains of Saint-Paul, like Ott Stratman or Johan
Coreal, who also served in the parish. These were the priests who celebrated
masses for the confraternity. It is not clear from the accounts whether or
not priests were expected to pay dues. Some pay sometimes; almost all pay
for their entry. The confraternity seems to have recognized a special role
for the vicar. By rule, he said many of the confraternity's masses; the two
vicars of the parish from 1492 to 1530, Cloes Jandelet and Cloes Jamart,
approved the confraternity accounts each year. As with other members, the
confraternity celebrated requiem masses for its priests.

The parish clerk, like the priests, received a salary from the confraternity
for his services. While his name does not often appear on the membership
lists, he enjoyed many of the privileges of membership.^^ The parish clerk
throughout most of this period was Godefrin Vaillant; his son, a priest, and
later his widow, were also members. Antoine de Bealmont, a former parish
clerk, was a member of the Confraternity of Our Lady throughout the 1480s.

Not only did the Confraternity of Our Lady include many members of
the clergy on the parish staff, it also included almost all the lay leaders of
the parish almost all the time. By including most of the churchwardens,
tenants, and others who shared their responsibilities, the confraternity most
visibly demonstrates its role as a framework for active lay participation in
the life of the church.

Between 1480 and 1540 the parish of Saint-Martin-en-Ile had only six
different churchwardens. Of these, five— Wilhem de Horion, Johan Grenier,
Henri Pascal, Baldwin de Scagier, and Johannes Fabri— were all members
of the confraternity. From 1488, all the churchwardens were confreres.
When the documents give us the names of all seven tenants of the parish
land court, we can see that that body was dominated by members of the
Confraternity of Our Lady. In 1480, four of the tenants are also confreres;
five in 1486; and six in 1497. At least six of the seven are members from
then on. In 1525, all seven tenants (including the parish clerk) are members
of the Confraternity of Our Lady.^^

In addition to the churchwardens and tenants, there were other laymen
who assisted in some way in the government of the parish. On certain
occasions during the year, most often when the compteur presented his

24 / Renaissance and Reformation

accounts at the end of the year, when the chaplains who celebrated regular
masses received their assignments, and after the celebration of the anniver-
sary of the dedication of the church, the parish staff and certain parishioners
gathered for dinner. Since the dinner was paid for by the parish, it shows
up as a notation in the accounts. Typically, the notation mentions the
presence of the vestit, the chaplains (sometimes by name), the churchwar-
dens, and the tenants (again sometimes by name). There are often several
other names attached, followed by "and many parishioners." Those who
are named we may call the parish "core."

Between 1480 and 1544, therefore, we can name 46 active parishioners,
either churchwardens, tenants, or members of the core group. Of these, 35
were at some time members of the Confraternity of Our Lady.^^ In 20 cases,
the parishioners were members of the confraternity for several years before
they appear in the parish accounts. Six joined the confraternity at roughly
the same time as, and nine several years after, they are associated with the
government of the parish. Moreov-er of the eleven who are not actually
members of the confraternity, four probably have a confraternity connec-
tion, either as sons or husbands of women whose names appear in the
confraternity rolls.

If we look only at the 21 most active parishioners, those whose names
appear several times over a space of years, the correspondence is even more
striking. Eighteen are present or future confreres; one is the husband of a
long-time member; only two have no confraternity connection.

While almost all of the active parishioners were men, wc should note that
in 1520, "la femme Fanchon" attended the dinner on the anniversary of the
dedication. She is probably Katherine Woet de Trixhe, wife of Johan de
Fanchon and widow of the late tenant and confrere Johannes Saverot, and
a member of the confraternity in her own right.^^ While she is the only
woman who appears in such a role in the parish, the notation of her
presence on this occasion, as well as the connection of several other
members of the core group through wives and mothers, reminds us that the
parish was a network, not of individuals, but of families.

The sample with which we are dealing here is obviously too small and
too haphazard for meaningful statistical analysis. What it yields is rather
an impression, a pictpre of life in one urban parish. Membership in the
confraternity was not a requirement for playing a role in the parish; but
active parishioners tended to join the confraternity. They were also leaders
in both: of 23 men who served as master of the confraternity from 1502 to

Renaissance et Réforme / 25

1540, the names of 16 also appear in the parish accounts. These 16 include
12 out of the 17 most active parishioners who were alive after 1502. We
cannot identify the leadership of the confraternity and the parish with one
another, but the correspondence is close.

More helpful than statistics, perhaps, in clarifying our picture of parish
life are the biographies of some of the men who served as churchwardens.
There is enough information in the records to draw brief portraits of three
churchwardens, covering the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning
of the sixteenth: Wilhem dc Horion, his son-in-law Henri Pascal, and
Baldwin de Scagicr, the progenitor of a family later important in the history
of Liège.

Wilhem de Horion, a notary and a member of the mercer's guild, is
responsible for much of our knowledge of the early history of the confra-
ternity and of the history of contemporary Liège. After the liberation of the
city from the Burgundians in 1477, he took up the office of rentier of the
guild, in which capacity he recorded the circumstances of the guild's
reestablishment, the only record of its kind that survives.^^ In addition to
this job, he was compteur of the Premonstratensian abbey of Beaurepart, of
the Hôpital Saint-Jacques, and of the parish of Saint-Martin-en-Ile, a
churchwarden of the parish and a member of its court of tenants, as well
as a member and clerk of the court of tenants of the collégial church of
Saint-Paul.33

It is no wonder that in describing how he accepted the job of compteur
of the Confraternity of Our Lady, he wrote, "and I accepted their request
notwithstanding that I had enough to do."^^ Horion was the first permanent
compteur for the confraternity, but his tenure beginning in 1480 was not the
first time he had filled this role. In 1468, the Confraternity of Our Lady had
put the accounts in his hands to oversee the repairs to their chapel.-'^

The case of Henri Pascal not only provides a portrait of a sixteenth-cen-
tury lay leader, it also illustrates the network of marriage alliances that
united the parish community. His entry into the confraternity very likely
followed soon after his first marriage to Wilhem de Horion's daughter,
Jehenne. Like Horion, he was a member of the mercers' guild; he joined
his father-in-law on the court of tenants of the parish by 1497, and soon
succeeded him as churchwarden. From this marriage he had three daugh-
ters.^^ After his first wife died, he married Christine, widow of a confrere
and fellow tenant of the parish, Lambert de Hermée the baker, who had
just died, making Henry executor of his estate.^^ In addition to his office

26 / Renaissance and Reformation

as churchwarden, Pascal was compteur of the Hôpital Saint-Jacques from
1498 to 1523, another office in which he succeeded his formidable father-
in-law.^^ He served as master of the confraternity in 1515-17, 1520-22, and
1531-34, as many years as anyone else during this period.

Baldwin de Scagier, a churchwarden for many years and a confrere from
before 1502 to his death in 1535, seems to have been, with Henri Pascal,
one of the pillars of the parish in the early years of the sixteenth century.
Unlike Pascal, he had numerous children. Only one followed him in the
confraternity, Baldwin, called dc Barbeal. Four entered religious life:
Collard at the monastery of Saint-Jacques, Jchan at the Carmelites, Paulus
as a brother in the hospice of Comillon, and Gerard as a chaplain in the
collégial church of Saint-Paul. This last son was also a chaplain in the
parish, but he died young. In a note in the accounts of Saint-Martin-en-Ile,
of which he was compteur at the time, the bereaved father mentions a
donation of vestments which had belonged to "Messir Gerar nostre fis que
Dieu pardon."^^ His eldest son, Heuskin, a vintner like his father, moved
to the centre of town and became rentier of the coopers' guild; Baldwin, who
stayed in the parish, practiced the same trade and served as guild governor."^

Both Baldwins, father and son, are referred to in records originating
outside the parish as "Baldwin de Halighen." Both served in the city
government as one of the "commissaires de la Cité" who played a role in
the election of burgomasters and in maintaining public order. A third
Baldwin followed them at the end of the century; his son Jean de Halinghen
served as burgomaster in 1623, and played a role in the revolt of the
Grignoux that divided the city in this period."^^

One may ask if these were simply the wealthiest or most politically
influential men in the parish. In the absence of census or tax records, it is
hard to estimate exact or even relative wealth. The members of the
Confraternity of Our Lady included working tradesmen as well as mer-
chants, lawyers, and investors. Maître Giles de Fanchon, later an échevin
of the city and thus one of the highest officials of both the city and the
principality, had occasionally represented the parish in court, but he was
never a member of the confraternity. His widow joined immediately after
his death, in 1520. While we may count him as one of the active laymen of
the parish, his role was entirely professional. After he became an échevin in
1513, he ceased to work for the parish, and another lawyer took his placc.^^
Other men whose names appear as tenants or members of the core group

Renaissance et Réforme / 27

and on the confraternity rolls performed other services, from accounting to
construction work-
Most of the churchwardens, tenants, and others occupied the same social
level as Wilhem de Horion and Baldwin de Scagier: merchants or profes-
sionals, owners of property, and holding minor offices. Some may have
been making a fortune, so that their descendants might achieve the highest
offices, as Scagier's great-grandson did; but they had not yet risen out of
the parish. Their ties remained there: Baldwin de Scagier distinguishes a
number of his fellow parishioners in his accounts by calling them "mon
compere" and "ma commere." Those like Maître Giles de Fanchon, whose
sphere of action was the city or the principality, did not bother with the
parish. It was a local world for local leaders.

Within the parish, the lay leaders, especially the churchwardens and
tenants, had more than an occasional or ceremonial function. In both major
decisions and the day-to-day functioning of the parish, they had an active
and decisive role. Because the records of Saint-Martin-en-Ile contain rules
for some of the operations of the parish church in the redundant Liégeois
prose and firm notarial hand of the invaluable Wilhem de Horion, we know
how they were supposed to function. The accounts show them in action.

The first of the two rules spells out the procedure for election of
churchwardens."*^ The second begins by providing for keeping the books
and rendering accounts, but deals mainly with the appointment and
payment of chaplains."*^ These are to be chosen by the vicar and church-
wardens, the vicar voting first, followed by the senior, then the junior,
churchwarden — "and whatever two of them agree the third cannot and must
not disagree with it later."^^ That is, the vicar might be outvoted by the
churchwardens. Since when the vicar was an absentee, his replacement was
one of the chaplains, this often amounted to allowing the parish represen-
tatives to choose their own pastor.

Evidence of the churchwardens in action also begins with Horion's
records. The sack of Liège by Charles the Bold in 1468 greatly upset the
life of the parish. The church itself was plundered, in spite of Charles's
orders to spare all churches, the population was scattered, and the property
on which the parish depended for its income was destroyed."^ The payments
due became almost entirely uncollectible.'*^ The church building itself had
been profaned by the troops, and had to be reconciled and reconsecrated
by the auxiliary bishop before it could even be used.'*^ The accounts

28 / Renaissance and Reformation

mention ornaments, vessels, vestments, and liturgical books which had to
be recovered or replaced.

Shortly after the feast of St. Martin, 1472, the vicar and churchwardens
met over dinner and made an agreement concerning the effects of the
"devastation et rwin [sic] des guerres et arsin" in the parish. The principal
problem was that the damage to the church and its property had left little
income in the mass fund; moreover, the vicar had suffered similar losses.
Therefore, the churchwardens, Piron le Berwier and Wilhem de Horion,
instead of hiring chaplains, transferred four masses a week, with their
income of twenty muids of spelt a year, from the budget of the mass fund
to the vicar until such time as the vicar no longer had need of them."^^

By 1474, conditions had improved somewhat. The churchwardens note
in their register that the vicar had so many masses to say that he needs a
chaplain. The mass fund, however, was still encumbered with bad debts,
there were not enough linens, and there were "aultres indigenches
apparentes." They conclude with a statement directed to their pastor, Jehan
Thomas:

And we hope that you will behave as a good pastor ought to do, and
take counsel and example from Master Tristan, former vicar of Saint-
Nicolas, from the vicar of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, and from many other good
rectors and pastors who put more into their church than they take out

Horion and Berwier provide us here with a precious example of fifteenth-
century laymen lecturing their pastor on his duties to use wisely the goods
with which they and their predecessors have endowed the parish. Their
successors, including Henri Paseal, Baldwin de Scagier, and their confreres
like the lawyers Raes de Laminnes and Piron Hannoton, the brewer and
commissaire Simon Damerier, and Collard and Jan de la Barbe d'Or, actively
continued to help direct the affairs of the parish. The accounts bear witness
to this activity. In recording purchases and transactions, the compteur often
notes the presence— and for important ones the consent— of one of the
churchwardens or tenants. Likewise when the parish consults its lawyers
concerning lawsuits, it is the same officials who meet It is safe to say that
the secular affairs of the parish as an institution are firmly in the hands of
laymen.

Nor did they make a distinction between secular and ecclesiastical affairs.
Every parish was subject to visitation by the local archdeacon, in the case
of urban parishes in Liege, the provost of the cathedral. When such a

Renaissance et Réforme / 29

visitation impended in 1510, the lay leadership of Saint-Martin-en-Ile, for
practical reasons, saw fit to avoid it:

Item, paid in the year [15]10 by the counsel of Henri Paseal and [Piron]
Hannoton to our vicar for the first payment to the provost of Liège
because of the visitation and to avoid greater expense if he had come in
person: 3 florins 6 aidants^^

In the matter of outside interference at least, layman and cleric were of one
mind.

Most of the activities mentioned in the accounts belong to the routine of
parish business: buying supplies, paying for services, and so on. Few were
remarkable in themselves, but in cumulative effect they demonstrate an
active lay community minding its own affairs. It also took care of its own:
the same leaders who managed the general fund and the mass fund also
managed poor relief. While most notations of how this occurred are vague
and laconic, there is evidence that the pillars of the parish acted as
neighborhood leaders in this field as well:

Item, Christmas night [1521] given to Jehan le Cock in his neighborhood,
Piron de Sirar for the Trcit, Henri Paseal for the Rue du Pont d'Avroy,
Gilet le Mounier and me [Baldwin dc Scagicr] for the Vinâve d'Ile, the
parish clerk and the sexton, distributed by each named above to the
neediest poor: 1 aime of wine.

Of those named here, all are among the most active parishioners. De Sirar
appears never to have been a member of the confraternity; Gilet's father
(also Gilet) had been a member until his death and his mother still was
one in 1521. Jehan le Cock, a well-to-do coppersmith, was, like Scagier and
Paseal, a faithful confrere and twice confraternity master.

Thus Saint-Martin-en-Ile had a group of active and committed lay leaders
who were responsible for its affairs. Most of these leaders were also members
of the principal confraternity of the parish, a confraternity which as a group,
by its original rule and ongoing activities, served to strengthen the parish
by ceremonial demonstrations of loyalty and by material support. Lawrence
Duggan alludes to this kind of loyalty and support in his important article,
"The Unresponsiveness of the Late Medieval Church: A Reconsideration,"
when he writes, "Far from withdrawing or being alienated from the
established church, laymen in the late Middle Ages were in every way deeply
involved in it."^^ He notes the increased attention paid to the local parish
in the late Middle Ages, a period which in Liège must be extended through

30 / Renaissance and Reformation

at least the first half of the sixteenth century.^"^ The case of Saint-Martin-
en-Ile shows just how deeply they were involved.

Moreover, it clearly contradicts the view of Le Bras that everywhere the
parish and the confraternity were at odds. Here the confraternity was the
expression of lay involvement in the very structures of the establishment.
To return to Trollope's observation, "in religion as in everything else, men
like to manage themselves": in the late Medieval parish, the confraternity
provided the means for self-management. If it formed, in Le Bras's term, a
"consensual parish," it did so not in opposition to, but rather for the sake
of, the official parish. Confratemal brotherhood presented an ideal that
could be reflected in the parish community where the clergy were not so
much the rulers as the sons, brothers, neighbors, and colleagues of the laity.

Ann Arbor. Michigan

Notes

1 Anthony Trollope, 77je Vicar of Bullhamptou (1870), The World's Classics ed. (London:
Oxford University Press,1924), p. 306.

2 "Mais tout le temps la confrérie a inquiété l'Eglise par son independence naturelle et
désordres fréquents. Elle constitue au sein ou au-dessus de la paroisse légale une paroisse
consensuelle, avec son oratoire, son clergé, son culte, son patrimoine. D'où la concurrence
des offices, des caisses, des influences. D'où les conflits avec le curé, avec la fabrique,
toujours latents et qui éclatent en épidémies." Gabriel Le Bras, Etudes de Sociologie
Religieuse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955-56), p. 454.

3 For examples, see Giles-Gerard Meersseman, "Etudes sur les anciennes confréries
dominicaines. Les Confréries de Saint Dominique," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 20
(1950): 5-113.

4 Jacques Toussaert, Le Sentiment religieux en Flandre à la fin du moven âge (Paris: Pion,
1963), pp. 122-204.

5 John Bossy, "The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe," Past and
Present 41 (\910): 53.

6 John Bossy, Christianity in the West. 1400-1700 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

7 Martine Segalen, Les Confréries dans la France contemporaine. Les Charités (Paris: Flammar-
ion, 1975), pp. 105-106.

8 Ihid., pp. 116, 187-89; cf Bossy, 'The Counter-Reformation and the People."

9 John Van Engen, 'The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem," ^menca/;
Historical Review 91 (1986): 536.

10 Ibid., p. 544.

11 The description of the parish is largely based on Léon Lahaye, "La Paroisse Saint- Mar-
tin-en-Ile à Liège." Bulletin de la société d'art et d'histoire du diocèse de Liège 25 (1934): 25-130,
as corrected by evidence from the archives.

12 Etienne Hélin, La Population des paroisses liégeoises au XVIIe et XVJIIe siècles (Liège:
Commission communale pour l'histoire de l'ancien pays de Liège, 1959), p. 234.

13 On the parishes of Liège in general, see Léon Lahaye, "Les Paroisses de Liège," Bulletin
de l'Institut archéologique liégeois 46 (1921): 1-208; see also Paul Adam, La Vie paroissiale
en France au XlVe siècle (Paris: Sirey, 1964).

Renaissance et Réforme / 31

14 The word mambour means "guardian"; while in parish usage it generally means "church-
warden," it could also be used in one of its more general senses to mean a retained attorney
at law (in full mambour en justice). The accounts of the parish usually do not call this man
a mambour directly, but refer to paying someone "pour sa mambournie."

15 The use of tenants was not limited to the parishes; it was an integral part of the legal
system. Any institution, for that matter any private individual who owned property, had
to be able to "hold court" in order to receive reliefs of property, the payments made by a
new tenant after inheritance or purchase (see Godefroid Kurth, La Cité de Liège au moyen
d^e (Brussels: Dewit, 1909-10), 3: 382). Most private persons "borrowed" an already existing
court, or acted before the court of the échevins, but the endowed ecclesiastical institutions
of Liège had permanent courts of tenants who received a salary for their services. The
courts resembled in form and in function the court of échevins; they not only recorded
property transfers and reliefs, they originally could hear lawsuits relating to property held
under them. This latter function, however, had largely passed to the échevins by the fifteenth
century.

16 The list of pastors is given in Lahaye, "La paroisse Saint-Martin-en-Ile," pp. 95-101. See
Appendix A for a detailed list.

17 Archives de l'Etat, Liège [hereafter ALL], Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 50, f 153.

18 A more complete account of the Confraternity of Our Lady is to be found in D. Henry
Dieterich, "Brotherhood and Community on the Eve of the Reformation: Confraternities
and Parish Life in Liège, 1450-1540," (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, 1982).

19 Confrérie de la très-sainte Vierge érigée dans l'Eglise Paroissiale de saint Martin en Isle à Liège
l'an 1457 & renouvellée l'an 1736. . . (Liège: L. J. Demany, 1792).

20 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, charte de 23 août 1457; AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, charte de 5
juin 1461; AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 125, ff. l-2v.

21 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 123, ff 7-1 Iv. This version of the mie accompanies the
charter of approval granted by Jean de Homes, provost of Liège, 19 June 1529.

22 Cf., for example, A.N. Galpern, Religions of the People in Sixteenth -Century Champagne
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 46-48.

23 Space does not permit a complete review of the liturgical calendar of the confraternity.
After the two original confraternities were united, the Confraternity of Our Lady main-
tained all the masses called for in the schedule of both. The principal mass and the banquet
were held on the feast of the Assumption.

24 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile. reg. 125, f 7v.

25 Ibid., reg. 125, f 8v.; the wars to which the accounts refer are probably those surrounding
the revolt of the La Marck, since the compteur (Wilhem de Horion) speaks of them as
going on at the time he is writing (1480).

26 Ibid., reg. 125, f. 22v.

27 Ibid., reg. 125, f. 32.

28 In the 1480s, the accounts show that he attended the banquet at the confraternity's expense;
in 1523 his daughter received a confraternity funeral (AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 128,
f. 22).

29 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 141, ff. 50, 91v, 98v, 113v, 117v, 120; added signature, f. 4.

30 See Appendix B for a tabular presentation.

31 The sad story of Katherine Woet de Trixhe appears in Dieterich, "Brotherhood and
Community," pp. 165-67.

32 The original document was damaged in a fire in the archives caused by a German bomb
in 1944. Fortunately most of it was published in the Régestes de la cité de Liège, éd. Emile
Fairon, vol. 4 (Liège: Commission communale pour l'histoire de l'ancien pays de Liège,
1939), pp. 370-71.

32 / Renaissance and Reformation

33 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, regs. 41, f. 64, 43, f. 79, 44, f. 1 13v; Hôpital Saint-Jacques, ptf. 7;
Archives de l'Evêche, Liège, reg. C.VII.21, f. 45v.

34 "Et je a leur request lay accepte nonobstan que avoy asses affair." AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile,
reg. 125, f 8.

35 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, 128, f. 5.

36 AEL, Echevins de Liège, Convenances et Testaments, reg. 27, ff. 33v-34.

37 AEL, Echevins de Liège, Convenances et Testaments, reg. 28, ff. 336-36v. Henri and
Christine appear not to have had any children. In her will made in 1532 she left a house
to Lambert's nephew and the rest of her estate to Henri (AEL, Echevins de Liège,
Convenances et Testaments, reg. 32, f 186-86v). She had previously settled Lambert's
bakery on her son Loren, also a baker and a member of the Confraternity of Our Lady
(AEL, Echevins de Liège, Oeuvres, reg. 113, (T. 140v-41).

38 AEL, Hôpital Saint-Jacques, ptf 7.

39 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ue, reg. 50, f 39.

40 On the elder Baldwin and his family, see Paul Ansiaux, "Grégoire Sylvius, inquisiteur et
évêque auxiliaire liégeois (1502-1578)," Bulletin de la société d'art et d'histoire du diocèse de
Liège 26 (1935): 1-20. Ansiaux's information concerning Baldwin de Scagier is accurate,
except that he was not the father of Grégoire Sylvius. The error originates with Joseph
Abry, Recueil héraldique des bourgmestres de la noble cité de Liège (Liège: J.P. Gramme, 1720),
p. 358.

41 Abry, Recueil héraldique, p. 379.

42 Maître Giles working for the parish: AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 46, f 146; replaced,
Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 48, f 45v. As échevin: Camille De Borman, Echevins de la souveraine
justice de Liège, vol. 1 (Liège: D. Cormaux, 1899); widow in the confraternity: AEL,
Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 128, f. 9.

43 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 141, ff. 153v-54.

44 Ibid., ff. 155v-57v.

45 "Et ce que deux deaulx trois acordent le terce nel puet ne icel doit débattre ensuvant." Ibid.
f. 156.

46 Charles was excommunicated for this flagrant violation of the Church's immunity. In
reparation, he presented a gold reliquary to Saint-Lambert, which is still part of the treasure
of the cathedral of Liège. See Kurth, La Cite de Liège au moyen age, 3: 350.

47 In the year 1464-65, the receiver was able to collect 56 percent of the rentes in spelt owing
to the parish, counting old debts. For the three years from All Saints 1466 to All Saints
1469, three years of war and destruction which are figured together in the record, he was
only able to collect 19 percent; see AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 41, ff llv-15.

48 Ibid., f 25v.

49 Ibid., f 64.

50 "Et espérons que en fereis com ung boen pasteur et en doit fair et predereis conseil et
exemple a maistre Tristan jadis vestit de Sain Nicolay a vestis de Sain Jehan Baptiste et
a plussieurs aultres boens cureis et pasteurs qui plus mettent a leur engleise que ilh ny
prendent." Ibid., f 87.

51 "Item paijet lan x par le conseilh de Henri Pasea et Hanuton a nr vestit par le premier
paijement de prevo de Liège a cause de visitacion et pour éviter plus gran despan sil ewiyst
venu en person 3 fl 6 aid." AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 46, f 40.

52 "Item le nuit de Noel donne a Jehan le Cock en son quartier, Piron de Sirar por le Treist
Henri Pasea por le Rue du Pont dAvroy, Gilet le Mounier et moy en Vinave dlle Mariir
et Fossier par icheux chy deseur nomme distribuent a plus nessare pouvres— 1 ayme de
vin." AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 50, f 106v.

53 Lawrence Duggan, "The Unresponsiveness of the Late Medieval Church: A Reconsider-
ation," ^Lc/é-e/;//» Century Journal 9, no. 1 (1978): 8.

54 Ibid., p. 9.

Renaissance et Réforme / 33

APPENDIX A: Vicars of Saint-Martin-en-Ile

Jehan del Seny served from 1426 to 1459. He was dean of the Confraternity of Thirty

Priests, which assembled all the pastors of Liege, in 1446 and 1447. He ended his

days, some time before 1470, as a canon and cantor of the collegiate church of

Sainte-Croix.'

Jehan Tliomas succeeded him in 1460 and served until his death in 1475.

He was in turn succeeded by a cleric known to us as Henricus de Puteo} who may
never have set foot in the parish. He was not a priest but a student of theology at
Louvain. Lynar Fachin,-' who had been a chaplain under Jehan Thomas, served as
"lieutenant" until he died in 1482. The vicar then appointed Gilles le Damoiseau'*
who served until 1486 and was succeeded by Johan Hanuton.^

Nicolas Jandelette (or Gondelet), also called Cloes de Builhon, served as resident vicar
until his death in December 1520. We know little of his origins, except that his mother
lived in the parish.^ He was appointed by papal provision rather than by the dean
and chapter, and had to fight a lawsuit to take possession finally in 1492, after which
he had to pay a pension of 20 florins a year to a certain Johannes Billiton.^

Nicolas (Cloes) Jamart succeeded Jandelette in 1522, after litigation that left the office
vacant for over a year. Jamart, whose uncle had been vicar of the neighboring parish
of Saint-Adalbert, had been rector in the village of Jeneffe before coming to
Saint-Martin.*

Jacques Albert! succeeded briefly in 1530. but he died almost at once.

Antoine de Hertoghe, 1530-1533, a canon of Saint-Paul, did not seivc in person.

Charles de la Tour, de Hertoghe's successor, a canon of Saint-Jean-Evangcliste, did
not serve either.

1 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 5, f. 32.

2 Lahaye, "La Paroisse Saint-Martin-en-Ile," p. 98, calls him "Pierre" but cf. AEL, Prévôté,
reg. 26, f. 130.

3 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 44, f. 21.

4 Lahaye, "La paroisse Saint-Martin-en-Ile," cf. AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 125, f. 30.

5 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 44, f. 320.

6 AEL, Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 127, f. 26.

7 AEL, Prévôté, reg. 34, f. 22v; but he was recognized in the parish in 1490: see AEL,
Saint-Martin-en-Ile, reg. 45, f. 33v.

8 AEL, Echevins de Liège, Oeuvres, reg. 53, ff. 306v-307.

34 / Renaissance and Reformation

APPENDIX B: Confraternity membership and parish participation

Total active

Most active

46

21

Confraternity
members:

35

18

of whom:

joined before
they appear in
the parish books:

20

11

joined at about
the same time

they appear (1)

6

2

joined after
they appear:

9

5

[served as master

in the confraternity: (2) 18 14]

Non-members: 1 1 3

of whom:

had some family

connection: (3) 4 1

appear to have

no connection: 7 2

"About the same time" means within one year before or after.

The records of the confraternity, including the names of the masters, are sketchy before

1502. More of the early confreres may have been masters during this time.

Probable family connections: Barthélémy de Pepenge, husband of Katherine de Pepenge,

confraternity member 1512-47 and daughter of the confrere Francheu de Laitre; Lambert

d'Heur, son of Aelid d'Heur (widow of Christian Gheister), a member 1482-1527. Gilet le

Mounier and Maître Giles de Fanchon, see text.

Midsummer in Salisbury:

The Tailors' Guild and Confraternity

1444-1642

AUDREY DOUGLAS

In 1611, on the afternoon of Sunday 23 June, the tailors' feast day,
Bartholomew Tookey, mayor of Salisbury, delivered an order to the wardens
of the company to cease profaning the sabbath as hitherto they had done.
In spite of short notice, the wardens nevertheless did what they could to
comply with the order. Summoned before the mayor two days later, they
protested his action. "What they had donne," they claimed, "was donne
tyme out of mynde and alwayes approved by the best of the cittye." Tookey
disagreed: who were they, he asked, to judge who were the best? What they
had done, he insisted, "was abomynable before god And hell gapes for such
ydle and prophane fellowes as delyght in it."

The object of Tookey's outrage was the morris dance and drum scheduled
to accompany the tailors on Sunday as they processed from evening prayers
at the cathedral back to their hall for supper. The wardens' response had
been to hold back the procession until services were over in all the city's
churches; they also seem to have cancelled the dance that the whole
brotherhood, with their wives, normally took part in after supper (note 48
below).

There is a question encapsulated in this incident: how and why did a
customary celebration, whose origins go back at least to the mid fifteenth
century, end up in the early seventeenth century as the target of public
hostility? The answer, primarily, lies scattered in the tailors' own records,
and in the changing aspects of Salisbury's religious and economic climate
over the intervening years. What follows is an attempt to interpret details
of the tailors' midsummer celebration from its first appearance, in 1444,
until its suspension after 1642 with the Cromwellian interregnum.

Renaissance and Refonnation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 35

36 / Renaissance and Reformation

The city of Salisbury (New Sarum) was founded in 1225 by Bishop Poore;
his successors enjoyed seigneurial rights over the city until 1612 when a
royal charter of incorporation recognized the de facto independence that
the city had by then achieved under its mayor and common assembly.
During the period under discussion the population of Salisbury, which had
climbed steeply in the first half of the fifteenth century, ranged variously
from 6000 to 7000. From the fourteenth centuiy the city had developed
around the manufacture of cloth; by the fifteenth fullers (or tuckers), dyers,
weavers and tailors were numbered among its craft guilds. The economic
strength of tailors and weavers is reflected in the fact that these two crafts
alone secured charters of incorporation for their religious confraternities,
enabling each to hold land for the support of its own chantry and priest.

Towards the middle of the fifteenth century the tailors' confraternity
moved briefly from the church of St. Thomas at the north end of the High
Street into the neighbouring church of St. Edmund. In 1448, however, the
notable William Swayne, thrice mayor of Salisbury and— although not
himself a tailor— a munificent patron of the confraternity, provided it with
a chantry in the south chancel aisle of St. Thomas's, dedicated to the tailors'
patron, St. John the Baptist. From then on the confraternity maintained an
unbroken association with St. Thomas's throughout the period under
discussion.2

Records of the tailors' guild are presei'ved in a series of ledgers that run
from approximately 1444 to the early nineteenth century. Only the first five
guild books, containing orders, minutes and memoranda of the tailors'
periodic assemblies, concern us here. The earliest of these afford two distinct
sources for studying the confraternity's observance of its midsummer obit
at the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist. The first, an ordinance
of 1444, deals mainly with provision of a livery; preparation of the "light"
(torches and tapers); collection of payments for the dinner; two ceremonies
in the confraternity's chapel on the vigil and feast of St John; and a
subsequent itinera 17 through the town. The second source, an episcopal
confirmation (1462) of a royal charter given in 1461, deals more succinctly
with the religious observances, docs not mention the itinerary, but elab-
orates instead on the order to be kept at the dinner.^

The confirmation of 1462 briefly describes the obit ceremonies held in
the tailors' chapel in the church of St. Thomas. On the eve of St. John (23
June) a solemn dirge was sung, the chapel first being strewn whh rushes,
the saint garlanded with roses, and two tapers lit before him. At ten o'clock

Renaissance et Réforme / 37

on the following morning, after matins, mass was celebrated for the
fraternity of the occupation. The feast that followed was restricted to one
day; for masters, journeymen and apprentices, it was observed with strict
attention to degree in precedence, placing and serving. The processional
element in this account is confined to one occasion, when the brethren are
summoned "to bryngynne the light" from the chandler's house to the chapel
on the morning of the feast (24 June). Ten torches and five tapers were
accompanied by the whole craft, the mayor and municipal dignitaries.

The earlier ordinance (1444) emphasizes the respective roles of masters
and journeymen, and their separate but associated fellowships."^ It outlines
a three-day feast, for the masters only, preceding the evening observance
in the chapel. On the morning of 24 June the stewards of both masters and
journeymen, accompanied by minstrels, went about the town to give notice
of the forthcoming ritual. The procession into St. Thomas's is described in
the record: the journeymen first, their stewards next, in front of the light,
then the masters' stewards followed by the minstrels, and finally the masters
themselves with the mayor and other notables. Here, as in the injunctions
of 1462 for the feast, strict attention was paid to the demands of hierarchy.^

Once mass in the church of St. Thomas was over, the rest of the day
belonged to the journeymen. After their own feast, they went with their light,
followed by the masters, to St. John the Baptist's chapel at Aylewater (or
Ayleswade) bridge on the river Avon, at the southern boundary of the city
and the cathedral close. Here, presumably, the journeymen brought in their
light.^ Thence the whole company proceeded to the cathedral for evensong,
sung at the second morrowmass altar; after which, "by ij to geder...in
rewle" they went by a designated route to the masters' hall for the
journeymen's final drinking and dismissal. The masters' stewards bore the
responsibility for all these arrangements, from ordering the torches and
tapers to final dismissal.

The ordinance of 1444, then, has a threefold significance. First, it reveals
that originally masters and journeymen ate on separate occasions at the
time of the feast, respectively before and on 24 June. Second, it supplements
the charter's description of the procession that brought the light into the
church of St. Thomas, detailing initial publicity given to the event by the
stewards and the order obsei-vcd as the confraternity entered the church.
Third, it enlarges the overall processional element to include a customary
itineraiy: to the chapel at Ayleswade bridge, thence to the cathedral and

38 / Renaissance and Reformation

finally (as the record goes) through the High Street, "forth by the Crown"
(an inn) and over the pavement of the market to the hall again.

Variations in these two versions, especially evident in the timing and
organization of the dinner, suggest that a restructuring of the confraternity
took place, probably at the time the charter was granted. The material
particularly relevant to our discussion, however, concerns the bringing in
of the masters' light to the chapel on the feast day and the subsequent
itinerary, during which the journeymen's light was taken to St. John's chapel
at the bridge. Centred on obit observances, these two features were integral
to the pre-Reformation celebration, whether or not fully detailed in both
sources.^ As we shall see, they are also pertinent to discussion of the tailors'
celebration in the post-Reformation period.

The tailors' obit was not the only midsummer event. Like other English
cities, Salisbury has a late Medieval history of municipal watches. Watches
on the eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (the night of 23 June) and
on the eve of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul (the night of 28 June) were
inaugurated in 1440.^ The watch on 23 June coincided with the tailors'
evening celebration within the church of St. Thomas — there is no evidence
as to how they scheduled the conflicting events.

In 1457, however, there occurred an event long awaited in Salisbury:
Osmund, eleventh-century bishop and builder of the first cathedral, in Old
Sarum, was finally canonized. In honour of St. Osmund a third watch, for
the eve of his translation (the night of 15 July), was evidently added to the
summer roster. The first municipal order referring to this watch occurs in
1481; interestingly, it is only in this year that three watches— for the eves of
the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul and St. Osmund— are
ever mentioned in the city's ledgers.^

The next specific mention of a municipal watch appears in an order for
St. Osmund's eve in 1503. The old midsummer watches in June have now
disappeared, leaving the tailors' confraternity as sole celebrant on the night
of 23 June and the following day. Their feast, coinciding with the customary
observance of midsummer, must therefore have assumed a particular
significance, not only for the brethren themselves, but for the citizens of
Salisbury, since no other event remained to mark the traditional high point
of the old festival calendar.

The procession for St. Osmund's watch in 1503, as recorded in the ledger
book, duplicates almost exactly that ordered for the three watches over
twenty years before, in 1481.'^ In each of these years close to three dozen

t

Renaissance et Réforme / 39

crafts are represented in the procession, with the tailors assigned the place
of honour immediately before the mayor. Furthermore, the tailors are
associated with a "pageant": in 1481 the reference to their place in the
procession is followed by the words, "pageant if any"; in 1503 the tailors
and the weavers, who immediately precede them, are each mentioned in
conjunction with a pageant. The tailors' records refer to St. Osmund's watch
in fourteen years in the period from 1520 to 1544, with annual assessments
levied from the brethren in its name. The watch was finally abandoned in
1545.^^ While there is no mention of pageants after 1503, it is feasible that
up until 1545 the tailors continued, from time to time at least, to stage some
form of entertainment in the St. Osmund watch.

Between 1462 and 1558 the tailors' books say nothing concerning the
midsummer feast. In the middle years of the reign of Henry VIII, however,
municipal orders for feasts seem to be aimed at curtailment of excess
expenditure in celebrations of this kind.^^ Under the leadership of Thomas
Cromwell, the later years of the reign saw a strong attempt to purge liturgical
practice of many traditional elements associated by reformers with "super-
stition." In Salisbury processing with torch and tapers had apparently been
discontinued by the middle of 1537, according to an order in the city's ledger
that all crafts keep their feast one day only, "at the time they used to bring
in their light" Episcopal injunctions issued for the city in 1538 banned
night watches in church, adornment of images, kneeling to them and the
offering of worship, candles and gifts.^^ With subsequent legislation for the
dissolution of the chantries (1547 and 1548), and resulting confiscation of
chantry goods and revenues, the end was in sight for the commemorative
obit that had hitherto been the focus of the old religious confratemifies.
For the tailors it meant the loss of their chantry in the church of St. Thomas;
the chantry chapel of St. John at Ayleswade bridge, to which the journeymen
had taken their light, was also suppressed at this time, and the abandoned
chapel eventually became a dwelling.^"*

The death of Edward VI and the succession of Mary, a Catholic, allowed
only a brief return to traditional practice. The municipal confraternity of
St. George resumed its obit and feast in 1556 ("let down" since the beginning
of the reign of Edward VI); this was a politic move in the wake of the trial
in Salisbury of three Protestants who were subsequently burned at Fisherton
Field outside the city. About this time the tailors made preparations for
their customary third obit, on the decollation of St. John (29 August); and
at the end of Mary's reign they ordered their customary midsummer

40 / Renaissance and Reformation

celebration to be held, probably for the last time, with evening and morning
observances, bringing in of the light, and feastJ^

The Elizabethan religious settlement, though an attempted compromise
with traditional religious practice, nevertheless put an end to any idea of
permanent restoration. An order in 1561 that every master of the tailors'
occupation reassign his former subscription to the light (18d.) to the
midsummer dinner (thus covering the cost of himself and his wife)
symbolized the passing of the old religious confraternity, dedicated to the
perpetuity of the brotherhood (and sisterhood), in this world and the next^^
The Baptist himself left only the name and date of his feast as seasonal
reminder of the occupation's roots; and the old dirge and mass gave way
to morning and evening services on the day of the feast— and the preaching
of some "honest and learned man"— that suited the temper of the times.
More intriguing, a new midsummer element emerges in the form of a
pageant that owes more to the need to reaffirm the tailors' status within the
city than to the celebration of a religious occasion.

Henceforward the date of the tailors' feast, though often assigned in
relation to the old patronal day, was normally set for the first or second
week after 24 June; in later years it was deferred until the close of the county
assizes.^^ The charge of sabbath-breaking was avoided after 1611 by shifting
the feast one day forward so that the principal day fell on Monday rather
than Sunday. For, from 1580 to 1635, the celebration evidently extended to
two days— each with a meal— in which the whole occupation from masters
to apprentices probably participated, on the inclusive model laid down in
the charter of 1462.^^ The journeymen stewards, for instance, being "slack"
in 1573, were ordered to serve at the accustomed feast as befitting their
office; one of their responsibilities, according to the charter provisions of
1462, was to serve the masters at each course, before sitting down to eat
themselves. ^^ Occasionally the masters contributed money towards the
journeymen's feast. This was done in a context that suggests the latter were
normally responsible for providing their own food at the general feast rather
than that they met to eat on a separate occasion.^^

The first specific reference in the tailors' books to a post-Reformation
pageant or entertainment occurs in relation to the feast ordered for 4 July
1568: the stewards were charged, "now and hereafter," with finding the
morris players, and providing meat, drink and wages. In 1569, "being a dear
year," they were allowed 10s. to find ten persons to do service in "our
accustomed pageant. "^^ Later references are suggestive of its content. In

Renaissance et Réforme / 41

1570, for the first time, there is mention in a covenanted agreement of the
giant and his bearer, together with three black boys and "one to play the
devil's part"— these have respectively three pairs of breeches and "appareil"
(not detailed), all described as appurtenances to the giant. Other gear is
catalogued at time of audit (usually in February): in 1573 the chamberlain
produces a hobby horse, one Maid Marian's coat with kirtle, a girdle of
crimson sarsenet, a cloak and a velvet cap; in 1575 two cowls are added to
this list; later on a feather (1576— presumably for the cap), an iron hearth
"to make fire" (1577), and a staff (1578).^^ References of this kind continue
variously into the seventeenth century, but the context and timing of their
incidence — not to mention the usual gaps and ambivalence in the record —
raise several questions about the overall history of the event

From the foregoing entries it appears there were two components in the
pageant at this time: first, the giant, with attendant black boys and devil;
second, the morris dancers, with Maid Marian, the hobby horse, and
perhaps two persons (one managing the hobby horse, and one the "fire'7)
for whom the cowls were kept. The earliest reference to morris coats and
bells occurs in a lease drawn up in 1564. This must be studied in conjunction
with the agreement of 1570 concerning the giant. Both record arrangements
made between the brethren of the occupation and one of their fellows,
Gregory Clark, a master tailor.^^

In the first agreement (22 September 1564) Gregory is given custody of
five morris coats and twenty dozen "milieu" bells for a term of twelve years,
paying yearly 3s. 4d. to the occupation. The occupation is to have access to
the coats whenever it wishes (implicitly, without payment). In the second
agreement (17 July 1570) Gregory undertakes, for five years at his own cost,
to "fynde and set goinge in the accustomed pageant of midsomer feaste"
giant and bearer, black boys and devil, as well as to assume responsibility
for repair of the giant and victuals and wages for all concerned; at the end
of the stated term all the items are to be delivered to the corporation in
good condition. In return Gregoiy is to receive 10s. from the wardens each
year at the time of the midsummer feast— the same sum as the stewards
received in 1569 in connection with the "pageant" (note 21, above). In
November 1575 the occupation orders a view of the appareil for the giant
and for the morris, now presumably delivered again by Gregory.^"^ From
these agreements Gregory in fact emerges as something of a pageant-master;
between 1570 and 1575 he has sole responsibility for maintaining the

42 / Renaissance and Reformation

costumes and props of the midsummer pageant, and for all performers
except the morris dancers themselves.

From the viewpoint of the provenance of the tailors' midsummer cele-
brations, however, there is further significance in the details that accompany
these arrangements. At the time that Gregory Clark takes custody of the
morris gear, "new" morris coats are in part paid for; and the 1570 agreement
expressly grants him use of a house and garden "whereas \sic] nowe the
sayed gyant standethe." Furthermore, Gregory is entitled to call, gratis, on
others of the occupation for "ncwe soinge" of the giant's coat.^^

The tenor of these details points not to a totally new circumstance, but
to a nostalgic revival of activities that were once familiar to the older
members of the occupation. A mouldering giant, standing in a local garden,
his coat in bad repair; morris coats in need of replacement — these were
certainly not circumstances conducive to the tailors' good reputation. On
the other hand the Elizabethan religious settlement offered a new but still
tolerant regime; and the membership of the occupation, after a falling off
period towards the end of Henry's reign, was on the increase.^^ Clearly, the
1560s saw a consciously evolving policy on the tailors' part to restore the
public image of their occupation with the rc-establishmcnt of once custom-
ary practice; in 1570 the agreement with Gregory Clark neatly tied up most
aspects of the pageant for the next five years.

What we do not know for certain is when and where the pageant
originated. The reference in the agreement of 1570 to "the accustomed
pageant of midsomer feaste" does not necessarily mean that giant and
morris had a longstanding connection with the feast; "custom" in Medieval
and Renaissance parlance could be founded on quite meagre precedent, in
this case possibly limited to a few occasions in the 1560s.

From the beginning the cost factor seems to have been crucial in the
maintenance of the giant— one reason, we may suspect, that his upkeep was
contracted out in the first place. After a decision in May 1579 that the giant
be "lette downe ... by cause of the charge which he causethe yearely to this
companie," Gregory Clark came forward in June to take him on once more;
this time he was to receive 15s. per annum and the obligation was for life.^^
Twelve months later Gregory apparently repented of this rash decision; the
tailors' assembly agreed that the giant, before being abandoned, go one
more year (in reference to 1580 or 1581, depending on interpretation). In
1582 the occupation finally ordered that "the giant be no more used." As if
to emphasize this decision the annual sum of 15s. formeriy assigned to

Renaissance et Réforme / 43

Gregory for his maintenance of the giant (note 27, above) was now granted
to the stewards, who were primarily responsible for the costs of the feast
itself and of the morris dancers.^^

The onerous cost of the giant is one detail in a worsening economic
climate, as changes in the cloth industry brought dislocation and poverty
to the city in the last decades of the sixteenth century. The replacement of
kersey and rays by broadcloth as the staple manufacture, the decline of
Southampton as the principal outlet for trade (now giving way to London)
and an overall depression in the Wiltshire cloth industry were contributory
factors. A workhouse was established for the city in 1564, and schemes were
initiated to further employment, apprentice children and make loans to
poor tradesmen.2^ Understandably, the tailors' records themselves reveal
tension and unrest within the occupation.^^

The later years of the sixteenth century were also a time of increasing
Puritanism on the English religious and social scene. In spite of repression
a strong minority expressed its dissent, from outright attacks on the
ecclesiastical settlement to dissatisfaction with liturgical practice and de-
mands for a strict code of conduct in private and public life. In Salisbury,
the puritanical outburst of the mayor in 1611 nicely coincided with public
policy as expressed in municipal legislation.^^ In fact, in time of poverty,
Puritanism at the local government level was easily allied to sentiment that
decried waste and undue extravagance on public occasions. Hence, in his
dispute with the tailors, probably as many of "the best" sided with the mayor
as with the occupation itself

One other development must be mentioned here. In 1583, according to
the city ledger, a horse race took place "at the furzes," near Hamham Hill,
well attended by nobles and gentry. The horse race was thereafter staged
regularly throughout the period. The prize, a golden bell worth £50 donated
by the earl of Cumbcriand, was by 1602 supplemented by a golden snaffle,
the gift of the earl of Essex. This new event may to some extent have drained
interest away from whatever entertainment accompanied the tailors' mid-
summer festivities, if only because horse racing provided a focus of
aristocratic (and therefore wealthy) patronage which the city sorely needed
and evidently took pains to attract.^^

In 1612 Salisbury and its occupations received a fresh start with the grant
of a charter that freed the city from the last vestiges of episcopal control.
Over the next few years the occupations were formed into companies, their
constitutions officially confirmed by the mayor. The corporation itself went

44 / Renaissance and Reformation

on to take an active interest in preserving the companies' rights and
privileges within the city.-^^

As for the tailors' pageant, the giant is not mentioned again in their books
until 1625, when a bout of plague in the city apparently prompts an order
that "there shall not be anie money paied or laied out for the chardge of
the Gyant or hobbyhorse Dances for this year." In 1627 the mayor, John
Ivie, forbade the tailors to hold their feast because of a continuing or
renewed outbreak; while most of the brethren had fled the city, six insisted
on keeping the feast, according to Ivic, five of whom later died.^^ Seven
years later, in 1632, the tailors order that the giant and morris dance "goe
at the ffeaste as in tymes past."^^ At most these two orders suggest a revival
of the giant in the later years of James I, cut short when plague visited the
city in 1625, and not resumed perhaps until 1632. The evidence is too limited,
however, to warrant the assumption that the giant was frequently paraded
at midsummer during the early decades of the seventeenth century.

While cost was also a factor in the morris dance, the tailors seem to have
clung stubbornly to this particular "ancient custom." Specific references
(discussed below) to the morris dance or appareil, and in one case to music,
appear in nineteen years in the period between 1564 and 1632. More cryptic
are various allusions to "our ancient sports" in 1633 and 1641.^^ There is
an indication that in 1633 these were synonymous at least with the morris
dance: immediately following the reference to "ancient sports" is the record
of a fine of 5s. imposed on Christopher Smith for scoffing at the wardens,
saying, "Pray make an Order that every one of this Company may weare
Belles on their legges." Not every member of the company, it seems,
approved the morris dance!

One reason the dance persisted was that the occupation was largely able
to tie the cost (almost inevitably incurring personal expenditure) to the
stewards' office.^^ Expenses for the feast, including the preacher's dinner,
similarly fell to the stewards, though all who attended made payments per
head or per couple (occasionally for servants or children), according to
degree. The chamber of the occupation offered grudging help, at first by
enabling the stewards to borrow from the occupation's stock, with repay-
ment at the end of their term of office; and later by allowing them a fixed
payment of £3 secured by bonds. Instituted in 1586, this allowance
continued until 1636 when it was cut to £2.^^

Not surprisingly, stewards-occasionally rebelled. In 1578 Roger Luxmore,
though quarrelling with the whole system then in force ("this bargain he

Renaissance et Réforme / 45

liked not"), was willing to contribute 20s. of his own if the occupation itself
disbursed money for the feast. This stand earned him dismissal from office
and a fine. Robert Martin, another occupation member, stepped in to cover
the costs, later obtaining as judicious reward the return of goods that he
had in pawn to the occupation and partial remission of a debt. The next
year the occupation shared the costs, paying the dancers' wages, while the
stewards found their meat and drink.^^ No money was initially allocated
in 1589— the stewards eventually secured a 40s. contribution to the feast,
which was postponed, presumably as a consequence of their protest, from
29 June to 6 July.^o

Unhappily for the stewards, it was the chamberlains who had custody of
the morris appareil so that the income that could evidently be made by
renting it out went to the profit of the chamber. On occasion the morris
gear was farmed out, as to Gregory Clark in 1564, for a fixed term. In 1584
Thomas Barker, a former steward, covenanted to pay 2s. 6d. per annum for
a term of ten years, for the morris and Maid Marian coats, 13 score bells
with leathers, velvet cap, hobby horse and his furniture, and all other
appurtenances; the occupation was to use all freely, as it wished. The morris
gear as a source of rental profit is an interesting indication that the tailors
were not the only employers of morris dancers in the local area, though
they probably had a monopoly in what was necessary to fit them out, the
more so since through the occupation they effectually controlled what went
on in the city's clothing industry.'*^

There is no single detailed description of the tailors' midsummer cele-
bration in the post-Reformation period comparable to the record available
for the fifteenth century. From what evidence there is, however, it is possible
to piece together a hypothetical outline, as follows:

First Day

1. a morning service at the church of St. Thomas;"^^ including

2. delivery of a sermon;^-^

3. a feast or dinner at the tailors' hall;"^

4. a procession to St. John's chapel at Ayleswade bridge;^^

5. evening prayer at the cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary;'^

6. a procession to the tailors' hall for supper;'*^ followed by

7. dancing;"*^

Second Day

8. .a service at the church of St. Thomas;"*^

9. supper and dance at tailors' hall.^^

46 / Renaissance and Reformation

Obviously not every event in this schedule is demonstrable for every year.
Even so, the material is suggestive of customary events— attendance at St.
Thomas and the cathedral, visiting the chapel at the bridge— that date back
to the fifteenth century.

Evidence from 1611 shows that the tailors, as in the past, continued to
process from cathedral to hall on the evening of their principal feast day.
The route itself probably varied over the years, if only because the location
of the hall changed at least three times. In 1444, when the route was first
described, the tailors had a hall in the churchyard of St. Thomas, near the
market. From 1451 to 1533 they had their meetings at Greyfriars, south of
St. Ann Street— Greyfriars lay east of the cathedral and was certainly not
directly on the route that went by way of the High Street towards the market.
In 1533 they built a house at the northwest comer of Milford and
Pennyfarthing streets, east of the market, thereafter known as Tailors'
Hall.51

The injunction in 1580 stressing that order be kept in coming "from Ste
Jones house to wit ffrom Castell gate downward," (note 45 above) is
problematic: Castle Gate stood at the north end of the city in Castle Street,
while the chapel at Ayleswade bridge lay at the southern boundary. In 1444
the visit to the chapel preceded evensong in the cathedral, a short distance
away. We must assume either some error in the 1580 wording (perhaps
Hamham Gate, at the southeast of the cathedral close, should be under-
stood for Castle Gate); or that after going to the bridge, the company
dispersed, eventually re-forming at the northern end of the city to process
to its next location. The visit to the chapel was now merely customary, since
it was no longer in use.

As for the giant and morris dance, only tentative conclusions may be
reached. We have seen that in the fifteenth century, apart from their own
confraternity celebration, the tailors also participated in midsummer
watches; on two of these occasions they are linked to a pageant. Early in
Elizabeth's reign they incorporate a giant and morris dance— a pageant—
into their midsummer celebration. The origin of the giant and morris,
however, cannot be substantiated. As far as the pre-Reformation confrater-
nity celebration is concerned, the emphasis on the entry of the masters'
light into St. Thomas's, with attendant procession and dignitaries, as well
as the journeymen's into St. John's chapel at the bridge, discounts the
possibility that either morris or giant was part of the event: staging these
elements at any time on the patronal feast day would have detracted from

Renaissance et Réforme / 47

the primary focus on the obit itself. There is room, then, to speculate— and
only speculate— that both morris and giant originated in pageants staged
by the tailors in one or other of the three p re-Reformation watches. We
cannot, however, go as far as writers who enlarge upon this somewhat bleak
hypothesis to portray a fullblown series of pageants such as Stow described
for London. ^2

From the overall contemporary record, an interesting comparison may
be made between the late Medieval and post-Reformation midsummer
celebration. The fifteenth-century ordinance portrays the procession into
St. Thomas's as the high point of the feast day. At the same time, the tailors'
midsummer celebration occurs in a twofold context: religious, in that
through performance of dirge and mass confraternity members are knit
together in the peipctuity of their brotherhood; public, in that through the
itinerant events of the day (from church to hall, to chapel and cathedral,
and back to hall) the tailors and their occupation affirm their status within
the city.

The post-Reformation celebration shares these aspects: attendance at
church and cathedral together with some form of itinerary through the city
still convey the religious and public aspect of the event. The high point has
shifted, however— no longer the entry into St. Thomas's, but the exit from
the cathedral at the end of the principal feast day. If the 1611 account is to
be trusted, the order and degree that characterized the former is replaced
in the latter by a disorderly rout, with taunts and reproaches hurled at the
procession and rowdy apprentices making suitable response. The high point
of the celebration then no longer anticipates a religious obsei-vance but a
supper and dance at Tailors' Hall; it embodies a loosening of restraint rather
than a disciplined preparation. In other words, the event has shifted to a
context that is primarily secular rather than religious. Perpetuity is affirmed
in a customary and itinerant round of events in which "ancient sports" have
an increasingly antique role. Wliile the giant reappears through succeeding
centuries to celebrate occasions of national rejoicing, it is as the Salisbury
Giant, an emblem of the city rather than the guild. Purchased by the city's
museum in 1873, his last public outing was in 1977. Now, at home in the
museum in the Close, he enjoys a stationary rctircmcnt.^^

Records of Early English Drama, University of Toronto

Notes
1 Public Record Office (P.R.O.], SP14/64 no. 66, f. 89 (hereafter cited as Instructions 1611],
endorsed as the tailors' instructions touching their wardens' imprisonment by Bartholomew

48 / Renaissance and Reformation

Tookey, mayor; committed to prison, the wardens were released after 2 days, having found
sureties to appear at the next quarter sessions; the document is headed "repealed,"
suggesting eventual acquittal or dropping of charges.

2 Victoria County History, Wiltshire [VCH Wilts], vol. 6 (Oxford University Press: London,
1962), pp. 94, 134.

3 Wiltshire Record Office [W.R.O.], Trowbridge, G23/1/251, Tailors' Guild Book 2 [TGB 2],
opens with the ordinance of 1444 (ff 2r-4v) and continues intermittently to 1573; G23/1/250,
Tailors' Guild Book 1 [TGB 1], contains a confirmation (ff 8r-10v) of the royal charter
granted in 1461 (P.R.O. Calendar of Patent Rolls 1461-7 (London: H.M.S.O., 1897), 55), and
subsequent material 1561-1706 (not consecutively written). My thanks to the staff of the
Record Office for their kindness and help.

4 VCH Wilts, vol. 6, p. 134.

5 The abbreviation in the record (minstrell') may be read as plural (TGB 2, f 3v); since each
pair of stewards had their own minstrel(s), probably two at least accompanied the
procession into the church.

6 The upkeep of the chantry chapel of Sl John, situated on an island in the river, and of
Aylewater or Ayleswade (later Harnham) bridge was charged to the hospital of St. Nicholas
by their builder. Bishop Bingham, in 1244 (VCH Wilts, vol. 6, p. 88). Two priests said mass
every day in the chapel, Tuesday being allotted to St. John the Baptist {The Cartulary of St
Nicholas' Hospital, Salisbury, ed. Christopher Wordsworth (Salisbury: Brown, 1902), p. 26).

7 TGB 2, ff 2v and 4v, 1444, for the confraternity's obits on St John "ante portam latinam"
(St. John's day in May, 6 May) and the decollation of St. John (St. John's day in harvest,
29 August).

8 W.R.O., G23/1/1, Salisbuiy Coiporation Ledger A [SCL 1], f 120r, 1440.

9 W.R.O., G23/1/2, Salisbury Corporation Ledger B [SCL 2], f 139v, 1481; "accustomed vigils"
were ordered in 1474 (SCL 2, f. 115v); the cost of three annual watches and enforcement
of attendance was burdensome for municipal and craft authorities.

10 SCL 2, f. 139v, 1481; f 210r, 1503— new crafts are listed but overall the order is unchanged.
Similarity may indicate a deliberate revival in 1503, with no watches staged in the
intervening years.

11 TGB 2, f 12v, 1520; f 13v, 1521; f 13v, 1522; f 14v, 1526; f. 18r, 1531; f. 24r, 1535; f 25r,
1537; f 26r, 1538; f. 27r, 1539; f. 28r, 1540; f. 29r, 1541; f. 30r, 1542; f 31r, 1543; f. 32v, 1544.
The watch was cancelled "for certain causes," i.e. government suppression (SCL 2, f. 299v,
1545).

12 SCL 2, f. 245v, 10 December 1520: henceforth occupations to keep their feasts one day
only; f 248v, 9 April 1522: no feast to be held henceforth except for the "George feast" (of
the city's merchant guild, in practice its governing assembly)— possibly this order was
aimed at private events rivalling the George feast; f. 256v, 11 April 1525: obit and mass of
confraternity of St. George to continue, but feast cancelled this year, the city being "greatly
charged to the king."

13 SCL 2, f 283r, 1 June 1537; Robert Benson and Henry Hatcher, Old and New Sarum or
Salisbury, History of Modern Wiltshire, ed. Sir Richard Hoare, vol. 6 (London: John Bowyer
Nichols, 1843), p. 239.

14 VCH Wilts, vol. 6, p. 88; Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Ancient and Historical
Monuments in Salisbury, vol. 1 (London: H.M.S.O., 1980), p. 45. The occupation lost only
the portion of lands and revenues that was assigned to its chantry. The Valor Ecclesiasticus
(1535) estimated the value of the tailors' (or Swayne's) chantry at £12 18s. lOd. with tithes
worth 25s. 10 3/4d.; its goods included an impressive array of vestments (Benson and
Hatcher, pp. 264-65, note).

15 SCL2,f.314v,20March 1556; Benson and Hatcher, p. 272; TGB l,f 145v, 19 July, 2 Philip
and 3 Mary (an error here), either 1555 or 1556; f 146r, 5 June 1558.

16 TGB2, f. 147v, 11 July 1561.

Renaissance et Réforme / 49

17 W.R.O., G23/1/254, Tailors' Guild Book 5 [TGB 5], f. 16r, 1635; f. 23v, 1637.

18 W.R.O., G23/1/252, Tailors' Guild Book 3 (TGB 3], f. 25r, 1580, dance after supper "and
the next day"; from 1599 (G23/ 1/253 [TGB 4), f. 15v) orders usually refer to "feasts" (plural),
and may assign two days; from 1636 the feast was ordered to be one day only (G23/1/254
[TGB 5), f 17r), but in 1641 was held for two days (TGB 5, f. 36r).

19 TGB 2, f. 91v; cf. TGB 1, f lOr, 1462— apprentices were likewise to serve journeymen.

20 TGB 2, f. 107v, 1573 (folio out of sequence); TGB 3, f. 76r, 1590.

21 TGB 2, f. 61v, 1568; TGB 2, f. 66v, 1569.

22 TGB 2, f. 74v, 1570; f. 90r, 1573; f. 102v, 1575; TGB 3, f. 2r, 1576; f. 8r, 1577; f. 12r, 1578.

23 TGB 2, f. 40r, 1564 (midsummer feast not mentioned); f. 74v, July 1570. Gregory Clark,
warden 1573-74 (TGB 2, f 89v), attended tailors' assemblies from 1559 (TGB 2, f. 33r) to
1607 (TGB 3, f. 53r); he died in 1612 (W.R.O., 1900/5, Register of St. Thomas 1570-1653,
burial 20 October).

24 TGB 3, f Iv; strictly the respective end-limits of the two terms— 5 years for the giant and
12 for the morris coats— fell in 1575 and 1576, after midsummer. Possibly Gregory reneged
on the 1564 agreement, or the record postdates the start of the working arrangement.

25 TGB 2, ff. 40v and 42r, 1564— new coats are ordered again in 1591, TGB 3, f. 83 r; f. 40v,
1570.

26 VCH Jf^/7/5, vol. 6, p. 134.

27 TGB 3, ff. 21r, 22r; an outbreak of plague in 1579 does not seem to have had a role in the
decision to discontinue the giant; while the ledger does not mention plague until 2
November (W.R.O., G23/1/3, Salisbury Coiporation Ledger C [SCL 3[, f 59r), there is a
rise in the number of deaths from June to October, peaking in August and September, for
a total of 7% of the population; high rates are also observable for 1563 (11%) and 1604
(17%)— see John Chandler, Endless Street: A History of Salisbury and Its People (Salisbury:
Hobnob Press, 1983), p. 40.

28 TGB 3, f. 25v, 13 May 1580; f. 35r, 15 June 1582.

29 VCH Wilts, vol. 6, pp. 126, 100; for documentation of conditions in the early 17th century,
see Poverty in Early Stuart Salisbury, ed. Paul Slack, Wiltshire Record Society, 31 (Devizes,
1975).

30 E.g. TGB 3, f. 14r, 1578, fines for non-attendance at burials and assemblies; f. 17r,
suspension from the brotherhood of a troublemaker; f 18r, an order detailing fines and
imprisonment for disobedience to the wardens— repeated f. 61 r, 1585.

31 SCL 3, f. 203 V, 1608, an order forbidding plays to be performed after 6 p.m. and confiscating
the mayor's allowance if he licenses them; repeated f. 247v, 1615.

32 SCL 3, f. 90v, 1585, a memorandum referring to 1583; f 172r, 1602; in May 1623 the tailors
subscribed 50s. towards the race (TGB 4, f 140r).

33 VCH Wilts, vol. 6, pp. 105, 136.

34 TGB 4, f. 151v, 10 June 1625; cf W.R.O., G23/1/38 no. 89, 29 July 1625, plague orders issued
at the city sessions, including suspension of the city waits' activities and of music in all
private and public places; John Ivie, "A Declaration" (London, 1661; reprinted in Slack,
Poverty), p. 123; cf. SCL 3, ff 335v, 337v, 1627, pest houses appointed in the city against the
return of the plague, an outbreak that accounted fora mortality rate of5% of the population
(Chandler, Endless Street, p. 40).

35 TGB 5, f 6r, 6 June 1632.

36 TGB 5, f 9v, 1633 and f 36r, 1641.

37 TGB 2, f. 61 v, 1568, stewards to call dancers and find meat, drink and wages; f. 66v, 1569,
allowed 10s. to find 10 persons for the pageant; TGB 3, f. 25r, 1580, find diet and wages
of dancers; f. 80r, 1591, diet and wages of dancers and musicians: TGB 4, f. 169v, 1628,
music and other things.

50 / Renaissance and Reformation

38 TGB 3, f. 61r, 1586; TGB 5, f. 17r, 1636— from 1640-42 there is no record of any allowance.
Payments for attending the feast are detailed in TGB 2, f. 3v, 1444; TGB 1, f 147v, 1561;
TGB 4, r 39v, 1603; TGB 5, f 9r, 1633; f 31r, 1640.

39 TGB 3, f. 14v, 1578; one, Roger Luxmore, later appears as prison-keeper having custody
of the wardens (Instmctions 1611); TGB 3, f. 21r, 1579.

40 TGB 3, r 70r, 1588; ff 71v-72r, 1589. Individual stewards were disciplined in 1602 for abuse
of funds (TGB 4, f. 34v); 1618 for refusing to keep feast (f. 1 15r); 1632 for refusing to execute
office (TGB 5, f. 6r).

41 TGB 3, f. 47r, 1584— Barker was steward 1572-73 (TGB 2, f. 90r). For morris appareil
produced at the chamberlains' audit, see note 22, above, and TGB 2, f. 96v, 1574; TGB 4,
f. 39v, 1603; f. 121 r, 1619; Nicholas Longman, chamberiain 1602-1603, delivered 5s. 6d. to
the chamber for use of the morris appareil (TGB 4, f. 39v). In 1663, the chamberiains
received 5s. for rent of the morris coats from the men of Downton, a nearby Wiltshire
parish (TGB 5, f 102r).

42 TGB 3, f. 25r, 1589, brethren go with wardens to and from church; keep their place and
sit according to seniority. In 1640. however, the company "according to ancient custom,"
met on Sunday evening at St. Thomas's, before the feast day, and thence returned to their
hall; a national fast was in force— solemn assembly and dinner only was held on Monday
(TGB 5, f. 31r, 1640); in 1641, the feast was held on Monday and Tuesday but the company
also met at church on Sunday evening (TGB 5, f 36r).

43 TGB 2, f 83v, 1571, sum from common chest for honest man preaching sermon; TGB 3,
f. 41r, 1583, sermon on Sunday and Monday of midsummer feast; f. 62r, 1586, sermon in
St. Thomas's church Sunday and Monday; f. 112v, 1595, stewards to discharge preacher's
dinner— specific mention of preacher's dinner most years to 1626 (TGB 4, f. 158r).

44 Mayor sent order (Instmctions 161 1) to wardens "after dinner" (and before evensong), but
company had dispersed and departed— i.e. either the wardens were at home, or still together
at the hall after the rest of the occupation had left the dinner; TGB 4, f. 169v, 1628, feast
at tailors' hall "in accustomed manner"; TGB 5, f. 39r, 1642, meet at tailors' hall for dinner,
return there for supper.

45 TGB 3, f. 25r, 1580, keep same order of seniority (as sitting in church— note 42, above) in
coming from St. John's house, that is, from Castle Gate downward.

46 The brethren process to their hall after evening prayer at the cathedral (Instructions 1611);
TGB 5, f. 36v, 1641, meet at tailors' hall at 4 p.m., attend wardens and go with them to
evening prayer at cathedral.

47 Leaving cathedral, with morris and di-um, for hall and supper (Instmctions 1611); TGB 5,
f. 36v, 1641, return from cathedral "usual way" to hall; f 39r, 1642, meet at tailors' hall for
dinner, and again for supper.

48 TGB 3, f 25v, 1580, evei7 brother and sister enter dance after supper; the brethren went
to their hall to supper and danced no more nor anywhere else that day (Instmctions 161 1).
In 1591 stewards' costs included wages and diet of musicians (TGB 3, f. 80r) and in 1628
music and other things (TGB 4, f 169v)— the musicians probably played for the dance
after supper as well as the morris.

49 TGB 3, f 41r, 1583, sermon on Sunday and Monday; f. 62r, 1586, sermon at St. Thomas's,
Sunday and Monday; end-dales for references specifying or implying a two-day celebration
are 1580 and 1636— see note 18. above.

50 TGB 3, f. 25v, 1580, brethren join dance after supper on feast day and next day after; the
brethren danced no more nor anywhere else that day— i.e. Sunday (Instmctions 1611).
Since it was sabbath-breaking rather than the dance itself that was in dispute, there was
nothing to stop the occupation dancing on Monday, the second day of the feast. The
narrative, tactfully, omits Monday's events to resume on Tuesday 25 June.

51 VCH Wilts, vol. 6, p. 134; for Tailors' Hall see Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments,
Salisbury, vol. 1, p. 94.

Renaissance et Réforme / 51

52 E.g. Benson and Hatcher, pp. 211-12, with acknowledgement, freely translate Stow's
London material into a Salisbui-y context— c/! John Stow,/l Survey of Loudon , intro. Charles
Lethbridge Kingsford (1603; reprinted Oxford: Clarendon Press,' 1971), vol. 1, pp. 101-103;
also Charles Haskins, The Ancient Guilds and Trade Companies of Salisbury (Salisbury:
Bennett, 1912), pp. 67-68, "We are told by various writers that upon these occasions the
pageants were gorgeous"— followed by an unacknowledged reference to Stow's material;
VCH Wilts, vol. 6, p. 135, similarly, attributes "attendant sword and mace-bearers" to the
early giant, figures not documented for the centuries under discussion (but see note 53,
below). Writing to Thomas Cromwell (1537), to ask if the St. Osmund watch should
be continued, the mayor of Salisbury referred to the London watch, but only because
each municipal event honoured a locally interred saint (British Library, Ms Harleian
283, f. 146v).

53 The present effigy, an amalgam of periodically renewed parts, consists of a carved wooden
face (originally pink), an open wooden frame for the body and flexible canework arms
(Hugh Shout, "The Giant and Hob-Nob." rev. Tiffany Hunt and John Chandler (Salisbury
and South Wiltshire Museum, 1982), p. 3). Originally 14 feet high, the figure was carried
on its bearer's shoulders. Latterly attendants comprised a yeoman; bearers of sword and
mace ("whifflers"); and— the giant's present companion— Hob-Nob, a hobby-like but
draconian creature, renowned for its snapping jaws.

Rituals of Solidarity in Castilian
Confraternities*

MAUREEN FLYNN

rlistorians have long employed the term "individualism" to characterize
the ethos of modem society. Jacob Burckhardt traced the birth of this ethos
back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Italian Renaissance's
concern for the rights and talents of private man and since the publication
of his book, many scholars, particularly Reformation historians, have
enjoyed pursuing the various manifestations of individualism through such
themes as "the Protestant ethic," "the spirit of capitalism," and "the frontier
spirit." What historians have not pursued with anywhere near the same
degree of enthusiasm is "the spirit of corporatism" that preceded, and for
a long time competed with, this modem ethic. We have yet to understand
clearly how Medieval communities functioned when individuals were not
guaranteed specific rights under the law and when their own self-identity
was based on communal or familial rather than personal status.

The confratemities of late Medieval Leon-Castile offer a particularly rich
and fruitful source of information on this unexplored terrain of traditional
corporate life. In all parts of the old Spanish kingdom, people joined
voluntary religious organizations which institutionalized their collectivist
sentiments. Since all pious confraternities in Spain were required by the
church to draw up sets of rules in order to inform episcopal authorities of
their intentions, they have provided historians abundant written records of
their internal affairs. Official confratemal statements tell us about the
conventions that these voluntary associations observed, from mundane
matters such as protocol for celebration of feast days and funerals to such
formal concems as membership obligations and spiritual aspirations.

It is apparent in these statutes that confratemities assumed many of the
functions that are relegated today to civil administration and judicial bodies
for the preservation of social order. Confratemities of late Medieval and

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 53

54 / Renaissance and Reformation

early modem Castile were responsible for maintaining public peace through
a variety of ritual mechanisms designed to ease personal tensions. They
acted as police forces by disciplining the social conduct of their members
and as lawyers and judges by arbitrating their own disputes. Like modem
legal and ethical codes, their religious contracts attempted to shape people's
character. While social harmony today depends upon the regulation of
individual behaviour, in the past urban peace rested upon corporate rules.
Members entered into voluntary agreements, sealed by oaths, to preserve
the well-being of the community. Inside each confraternity, there was no
distinction between separate rights of constituent members. The corporate
personality took over, and all members became their brothers' keepers for
the good of the whole. Each person understood that he or she shared
responsibility in the welfare of the organic community.

A common spiritual quest provided the ideological cement for this
institutional network of solidarity in Castillan villages and cities. The
traditional Catholic vision of the gates of Heaven was crowded with familiar
faces. Just as Dante caught the comforting glance of Beatrice among other
acquaintances during his journey to Paradise in The Divine Comedy, so did
people count on the support of the righteous both in heaven and on earth
to assuage their fears.

In the early sixteenth century a Spanish widow, Francisca de la Pefta,
prepared herself for death and, in her will, prayed that through

faith, hope and charity in God and in his holy mercy that compassion
will greet me; and in supplication of the always glorious Virgin Holy
Mary, his mother, our intercessor, to whom I humbly pray, and to all
the saints who are before the eternal throne of God, [I pray] that they
be my lawyers and persuade my Saviour that he receive my soul ^

At the Last Judgment, Francisca, like most of her contemporaries, did
not imagine herself confronting God directly and alone; rather, she was
escorted by the good wishes of loved ones on earth and by the good will of
the blessed, to whom friendly recognition had been offered during her life.

In popular images of the Day of Reckoning, it was not the church as an
institution, nor writs of pardon, nor quantifiable lists of indulgences, nor
even clerics that were invoked to facilitate entry among the saved. The
primary view expressed in testaments was that human companions would
stand in defense of one's case.

The position of church leaders, by no means completely reconciled to
this communal approach to salvation, nevertheless affirmed the ability of

Renaissance et Réforme / 55

men and women to assist each other toward salvation. Medieval theologians
beginning with Augustine acknowledged that, at death, friends and relatives
could provide spiritual assistance to sinners."* Augustine asserted that "it
must not be denied that the souls of the dead are relieved by the piety of
their living, when the sacrifice of their mediator is offered or alms are given
in church."^ His references to "friends" and "saintly friends" who could
obtain through their merits God's mercy on behalf of those for whom they
prayed endorsed the sense of community and mutual support in early
Medieval piety.

Church doctrine on the treasuiy of merits of the saints also sustained the
collective pursuit of salvation among the populace. The church held that
holy persons who lived in the Christian era had accumulated through their
good works an abundance of grace that could be applied to fellow
Christians. Saints of the past offered to the living a treasury of merits for
their spiritual needs.

In theory all the meritorious deeds ever performed were at the disposal
of the living, and all the good works and prayers accomplished by the living
could be extended backward in time to the dead as well as forward to future
generations. Perpetual reciprocity of merits and prayers between departed
and living souls engendered a sense of communal immortality that tran-
scended individual deaths. The community's ancestors depended on the
supplications, penitences and indulgences of those on earth and thus the
living shared responsibility in the fate of departed souls. In the judicial
process of salvation private responsibility did not stand alone; the commu-
nity helped redeem the faults of the dead.^

The idea that both the sanctified dead and the pious living could make
reparations for the sins of others was powerful incentive to the formation
of confraternities for mutual spiritual assistance. To townspeople as well as
peasants of late Medieval and cady modem Castile, confraternities offered
a circle of companions who promised to provide spiritual aid upon their
deaths. Outside the corporation, justification was a person's own responsi-
bility and the way to salvation was solitary.

That many clerics as well as laity preferred the communal approach to
salvation, sheltering themselves within the salvific programmes, is demon-
strated by the sheer number of confraternities that operated in population
centers. In the administrative capital of Valladolid, at least 100 confrater-
nities have been estimated to have existed in the sixteenth century for a
population of 30,000. In Toledo, 143 confraternities have been identified

56 / Renaissance and Reformation

among a population of 60,0007 The city of Zamora, located in the northeast
of Spain's central plateau near Portugal, was possibly the most well-en-
dowed in Europe, with 150 confraternities among a population which at its
peak reached only 8600 residents in the sixteenth century.^ Confraternities
were numerous in rural areas of Spain as well. We know, for example, that
in the villages of the province of Cuenca, one organization existed among
every 48 households.^ The influence of these organizations on their
communities' spiritual life was exceptionally strong and succeeded in tying
together inhabitants of diverse regional backgrounds and employment
experiences.

By joining confraternities, Castilian residents gained communal protec-
tion and fortified their spiritual well-being with ties of fellowship. The
confraternities designed requiem masses, prayer services, vigils over tombs
and almsgiving programmes to assist the delivery of members' souls to
heaven. They also created bonds of friendship with saints for assistance in
salvation. By setting themselves up under the protection of special saints
and honouring their feast days with masses, public processions and
dancing, they established patronal relations with heavenly beings capable
of bestowing grace.

Patron saints in Castile were selected carefully according to status or
perceived sympathy for particular needs of members. More than a third of
Zamora's 150 confraternities, for example, chose the Virgin Mary as their
advocate, designing special honorific titles to distinguish her patronage
among them. Santa Maria de la Ve'ga, Santa Maria del Val de Mora, Santa
Maria del Cafto, and Santa Maria de la Cabana associated Mary with
favourite natural settings around Zamora and domesticated her powers
within private shrines. Other epithets attached to her name singled out
special events in her life such as the Annunciation, the Purification, and
the Visitation, or identified prized attributes— la Santa Caridad, la Miseri-
cordia, la Piedad. All these confraternities became Mary's children by
adopting her various matronymics into their titles. Through language, they
fulfilled their wishes to develop intimate relationships with the mother of
God.

The populace fashioned the image of the Virgin into a patroness whose
solicitude extended over the entire range of human needs. Unlike other
saints, she was never identified as a special guardian against particular
bodily ailments or natural calamities. She remained a universal symbol and
could be called upon in many circumstances. R.W. Southern explains that,

Renaissance et Réforme / 57

since the twelfth century, the Virgin's reputation was based on her willing-
ness to extend aid to anyone who called upon her in need. "Like the rain,"
he comments, "this protective power of the Virgin falls on the just and
unjust alike— provided only that they have entered the circle of her
allegiance."^^ The notion that Mary, the epitome of human goodness, never
exercised her compassion in a judgmental manner by making it contingent
upon either the moral character of the supplicant or the seriousness of the
cause was of utmost importance to members in search of a dependable ally
to salvation. Mary's mercy softened the justice of her son, which was why
her patronage was favoured over that of Christ, who frequently displayed,
in popular imagery, the traditional appearance of a stem judge almost as
unapproachable as God the father. Mary stood closer to human frailty and
weakness and so received the first requests for assistance among mediators
with the divinity.

Other holy patrons favoured by Castillan confraternities where those who
enjoyed curative powers over certain diseases. There was Santa Agueda
whose breasts were torn off by an enraged nobleman when she refused his
sexual overtures. She was known to protect women of breast diseases when
her assistance was solicited. San Bias protected against diseases of the throat
while San Roque and San Sebastian were especially concerned about the
bubonic plague. What all these holy mediators had in common was that
they had morally conquered afflictions of the flesh in their lifetimes. It was
this accomplishment that gave them special grace for assisting those feeble
mortals who wept and wearied under the pressures of earthly existence.

To ensure adequate protection, members occasionally enlisted two, or
sometimes more, advocates, one of whom was almost always the Virgin
Mary. The Cofradia de Nuestra Sefiora de San Antolin y del Senor Santiago
invoked the Virgin and the

blessed Apostôl Senor Santiago, Light [and] patron of the Spanish lands,
whom we take as lawyere in all our deeds so that they be guardians and
defendere of our souls, bodies, and propeity, that we not perish by our errors,
but that they guide us and place us on the right road of salvation ^^

As insurers of brotherly aid and cultivators of saintly good will, these
Spanish confraternities were carefully constructed death societies. They
assumed collective responsibility for the guilt of individuals and established
programmes that made reparations for sins. Through common oaths of
fidelity to heavenly patrons, cofrades sought to ensure the salvation of

58 / Renaissance and Reformation

everyone. The breaking of a communal oath to honour patron saints
threatened the welfare of members' souls as well as those of past generations.
Few dared risk eternal damnation by neglecting corporate obligations.

Not by sentiment alone, however, were these representations of the
mystical body of Christ to survive on earth. An enormous amount of wealth
went into fashioning corporate entities out of Castile's heterogeneous
population. Canon law provided the necessary guidelines for acquisition
and management of material goods. It designated that organizations
dedicated to pious or charitable purposes were "moral persons," a juridical
status that enabled their members to possess and administer property as a
unit under the authority of the bishop.^^ This status was obtained through
formal decrees of the bishop or his delegate, and allowed confraternities to
receive and distribute donations for pious causes. Groups that sought
formal episcopal authorization were placed under the jurisdiction and
protection of the cathedral chapter, and given the same privileges granted
churches and other sacred places, including exemptions from royal tributes
and excise taxes. With such favours, confraternities built up their estates
and became major property owners.

Corporate land was donated principally by testators requesting that rental
income be applied to charitable causes or liturgical services for the welfare
of their souls. Since last wills and testaments had the force of civil law and
the protection of the church, they furnished a stable source of financial
support to the religious groups.^ -^.Unless the specific requirements accom-
panying bequests were not being fulfilled, the church had no power to
confiscate property holdings. Donors left their bequests in confratemal
hands with the binding agreement that certain services be fulfilled, pious
services that were incumbent on all cofrades, present as well as future.
Members took solemn oaths of fidelity to these confratemal agreements
with the dead, the breaking of which constituted a mortal sin. No greater
commitment could have been given to those who wished to buy spiritual
insurance. Cofrades incurred upon themselves the penalty of eternal dam-
nation for failure to complete their vows on behalf of donors' souls.^"*

Another important incentive guiding individuals when they invested their
wealth was that confraternities were obligated to protect possessions with
communal funds. They assumed any legal costs that might be incurred in
the process. The Cofradi'a de los Ciento in Zamora annually sent eight
members to inspect conditions of its estates and to report back to the council
in order to keep up with necessary repairs.'^ As a group, members decided

Renaissance et Réforme / 59

to rent property or convert rents into long-term leases. Such policies ensured
donors that their property would be managed wisely, for cofrades were
generally concerned about maximizing corporate income. Only in the event
that a fellow member required financial assistance might decisions be made
differently. Brothers and sisters could be given priority over outsiders in
renting corporate property even if the price that they were able to pay fell
below other offers. For poor widows especially, this practice was a valuable
form of welfare assistance and an important benefit of membership.

How much property was invested for the salvation of souls in Castile can
only be guessed. What is certain is that the amount was sizeable. If we look
at the larger pattern of land ownership in the kingdom of Leon-Castile, we
see that church property as a whole expanded greatly between the eighth
and thirteenth centuries, obtained in large part from small private estates
turned over by individuals for just such purposes. During the Reconquest,
southern Asturias, Leon, and Castile, particularly around the valley of the
Duero river, had been repopulated by peasants and humble adventurers.
Over a period of three or four centuries, a seigniorial regime such as that
found in northern Europe replaced this early Medieval freeholding system.
It was a massive transformation in land ownership that the eminent
medievalist Luis G. de Valdeavellano attributes to the channeling into
church hands of donations on behalf of souls, or donationes pro anima}^
Of course not all this wealth went into estates of the confraternities, for in
the tenth and eleventh centuries cathedral churches and monasteries
received the vast majority of bequests, but in subsequent centuries lay-dom-
inated organizations accumulated more and more of the donations.*^ After
immediate families, they were the most preferred group to which testators
bequeathed property in the late Medieval period. ^^

In addition to income from testamentary bequests, confraternities re-
ceived funds from entry fees, yearly dues, and fines for non-compliance
with statutes. Members also regularly dropped small coins in confratemal
almsboxes placed at convenient public sites to finance the illumination of
chapel images. Confraternities of the Souls in Purgatory reserved special
places for their boxes along stone bridges leading into the cities, converting
the roadways into sacred passages reminding travellers of the transportation
of souls through charity from one worid to the next. When these proceeds
fell short, appointed delegates asked for contributions among members or
solicited donations from homes.

60 / Renaissance and Reformation

In their concern for personal sanctification, the Castilian people elected
to invest substantial portions of their wealth in corporate projects for the
salvation of souls. As soon as private donations entered confratemal coffers
they became a part of collective property and entered the exchange of
charitable services that continuously reactivated graces among the commu-
nity. Members distributed corporate revenue among themselves on special
occasions, hoping to invigorate communal morale. Some groups made a
practice of dividing half the entry fees of new members among the rest of
cofrades to encourage attendance at initiation ceremonies. The confraternity
of Valdés distributed part of its yearly gains to members on election day to
induce members to come and vote for their officials. ^^ Others distributed
money at celebrations of patron saint days and anniversary services,
withholding it from those who did not attend without valid excuses.^^
Corporate funds could also be used to regulate behaviour and prevent
tardiness, a technique employed by the Cofradia de Nuestra Senora de la
Visitaciôn in refusing to give individual allocations to those who had not
arrived for mass "before the raising of the chalice," or not "standing in their

places with hats off for the sermon "^i j\^ç. wealthy confraternity of the

Racioneros, whose members were all beneficed clerics, offered a special
policy to those who had served the organization for ten years by inviting
them to give up their benefices and receive the rents and fruits of communal
property. Non-veterans received bonus gifts of wheat and barley from
confratemal lands after August's harvests and chickens in the Christmas
season.^^

Collective distributions of money were also common at burials, offered
in the name of charity either by the confraternity or by the dead. The regular
policy of the Cofradia de San Nicolas was to distribute 300 maravedis among
members for attending funerals, provided that they were present from the
time that the body was taken from its house until they returned back to the
door for prayer.^^ Testators offered charity to confraternities for distribution
among participants at their own funerals. A donor to Nuestra Seflora del
Rosario allocated three reales to the confraternity's priest for saying mass
and ringing the bell four times at his funeral, one real to the poor who were
present, and six reales to attending members.^"*

Distributions of communal funds and offerings of gifts by testators to
members served several different purposes. Practically the doles compen-
sated individuals for time lost on the job while attending confratemal
services. At funerals, the money covered ceremonial expenses of candles or

Renaissance et Réforme / 61

torches and the mourning robes in which cofrades were dressed. The purpose
explicitly stated for the doles, however, was more holy-minded than all this.
They were expected to elicit memories of the dead and touch off prayers
among members for the benefit of the departed's soul. Like other corporate
ritual, the exchange of material goods was intended to foster spiritual
solidarity.

As conceived in the minds of members, confraternities were microcosms
of the ideal Christian world of love and equality among believers. They
were managed to instill in individuals a spirit of cooperation and mutual
support. Like all higher ideals, however, this world of brotherly love was
easier to conceptualize than to practice. The tactics adopted by confrater-
nities to transfoiTn their ideals into reality were not without flaws and
inconsistencies. Consider, for instance, the internal governance of a con-
fraternity. Here we can see both the achievements and the failures of
corporate policies.

The political structure was designed to uphold Christian belief in the
equality of all souls before God. Members rotated official positions in order
to prevent concentration of power, and they anived at important decisions
through consensus by vote. The mayordomo took charge of coordinating
group activities. His duties included managing property transactions and
other financial matters, presiding at meetings, enforcing statutes to ensure
the performance of spiritual obligations, and organizing banquets, proces-
sions and feast day celebrations. Little status was attached to the position
and, in fact, the work was considered so onerous that harsh penalties had
to be imposed for refusing to serve once elected. The mayordomo held office
for one year and received a salary from communal funds. Assisting him
were other officials whose positions similarly held little prestige. The
cotanero assumed the duties of calling members to attendance for meetings
and services, and, if the society supported a hospital, regulated entry of
patients. Accountants handled budgetary matters. Members shared remain-
ing responsibilities, working either together or in turn depending on the
character of the job at hand. In this manner, no single cofrade assumed a
disproportionate amount of labour or prestige.

So far so good. But "Christian democracy" had its limitations, important
limitations of which members may or may not have been aware. The
denotation of the male gender in the terms brotherhood (hermandad) and
confraternity (cofradia) was significant in internal politics. Although both
men and women were admitted into membership in Spain, only men were

62 / Renaissance and Reformation

allowed to hold governing positions and not infrequently women did not
hold voting privileges. Indeed the only time that women enjoyed all the
rights of members and fully exercised democratic principles was when they
formed their own organizations. The way in which male colleagues dealt
with them as incomplete creatures of God compelled the Cofradia de
Nuestra Seftora in the suburb of San Frontis in Zamora to demand firm
independence from the control of men. Its female clientele formally
mandated in statutes that "no man, not even the abbot or curate, may
interfere by inspecting our confraternity."^^ The inconsistencies that they
experienced in Christian attitudes about human equality were not unlike
the experiences of women in late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century
"republican" states of the west that restricted suffrage and office holding to
men.

Among male cofrades, the notion that brotherhoods should be run
democratically was conceived not so much with respect to equality of men
and women as to equality of laymen and clerics. All precautions were taken
to prevent a hierarchical distribution of power and prestige in favour of the
priestly order. In old regime society the potential for clerical domination
over lay brothers was an important concern. Most lay organizations limited
the number of clerical members to two or three, or else requested that priests
and friars enter as "laymen." The ecclesiastics were called upon to perform
scheduled masses and attend at funerals, for which they received monetary
reimbursement from confratemal funds that supplemented their parish
salaries or prebendary stipends. Since the annual income of many clerics
was notoriously low, service in confraternities could be a highly-prized
position among them. Until the Council of Trent, cofrades maintained
exclusive control over choosing their own clerical brothers, a privilege that
helped create a system of lay piety relatively free from ecclesiastical
manipulation.

Neither these cautious governing policies nor careful management of
finances completely ensured that members of these holy alliances for
salvation would cooperate together in perpetual peace and harmony.
Elaborate and even stringent mechanisms had to be devised to maintain a
sense of fellowship within the communities. The smooth functioning of
these voluntary groups depended on the existence of good relations among
cofrades, a goal that was carefully, and at times precariously, preserved. In
all the confraternities of Castile, friendship was formally cultivated, tested
and ritualized. Interaction among members was prescribed rigorously, to

Renaissance et Réforme / 63

the point of being subject to written decree and enforced by officials.
Extreme care was taken to ensure that incoming members would not disrupt
this harmony. When a person wished to join a confraternity, three council
sessions were held to discuss the aspirant's character and explore reactions
of cofrades to the admission of the new member. Anyone who wanted to
enter, according to the Cofradia de Santo Cristo de la Agoni'a, "must be a
gentle and pacific person, and of good conduct, in order to avoid occasion
for scandal and tumult, or the altering of the peace and blessed union that
all of us, as catholic Christians, are obliged to maintain."^^ If any member
objected to a candidate, admission proceedings were terminated or accep-
tance was delayed until the objection was withdrawn. The Cofradia de
Nuestra Seftora de San Antoli'n specified in 1503 that if any cofrade
complained that a candidate "is his enemy, that he [the candidate] not be
received until they become friends, because it is not right that among
brothers who are to live in concord there be hostility and discord."^^

Aristocratic confraternities that required strict purity of blood and noble
status for membership appointed special committees sworn to secrecy to
review testimonies on the qualifications of candidates. Once this step was
successfully completed, admittance of candidates passed into the hands of
members for majority, or in some cases, unanimous, approval.

General meetings were dangerous opportunities for disagreements and
harsh words between cofrades and cvciything possible was done to ensure
that discussions proceeded smoothly. To prevent persons from talking
simultaneously and to ensure that each would have the opportunity to voice
his opinion, a vara or rod symbolizing authority and justice passed from
hand to hand of those who spoke. Cofrades of San Antonio Abad in the
church of San Antoli'n recommended that in their meetings they be

quiet, peaceful and calm, and that no-one cany on noisily nor cause a
disturbance; and if the mayordomo should see anyone in anger, or
beginning to fret or raise a commotion, he is to take the precaution of
allowing him to speak. He who speaks must do so with the vara in hand
and without passion, and if he be ordered to be quiet, he must be quiet;
and if he remains pertinacious and rebellious and obstinate after being
reprimanded, he should be punished by the Council ^^

Fines and penalties confronted the audacious cofrade who unsheathed the
sword or shouted obscenities in anger. In order to prevent violence,
aristocratic brotherhoods forbade the canning of arms to council meetings,
masses, and burials. Methods of correcting slander or injury perpetrated by

64 / Renaissance and Reformation

one cofrade on another had to be devised because members did not always
meet standards of sociability which, as one organization put it, compels

29

"all we cofradas to be very sisterly and honest, and not rambunctious."
Harsh words, squabbles and name-calling between members were brought
before mayordomos and offenders were "fraternally castigated."

Morality was controlled, and to a large extend perceived, within the
context of collective devotion. Artisans who organized the confraternity of
San Cucufate enforced fines of a pound of wax for insulting each other at
council meetings; they insisted upon two pounds for second incidents and
finally threw offenders out of the meeting for further transgressions while
demanding that apologies be made to injured parties.^^ Cofrades of San
Nicolas reacted in indignation if one of their group criticized the confra-
ternity or the proceedings of its council whether in the heat of anger or in
a completely sober temper. \ï cofrades went about saying that they no longer
wanted to be part of the group, they were charged 25 pounds of wax each
time that the sentiment was uttered and, to top matters off, they were not
permitted to leave without the consent of all the members.^^

The confratemities served as private guarantors of law and justice within
their community, taking opportunities for vengeance out of the hands of
individuals. According to the rules of the Cofradia de Nuestra Senora de
la Antigua in 1566, if one cofrade injured another,

the aggressor is to ask pardon from the entire council and the injured
one, and to be friends. Furthermore, if the offense were grave and the
aggrieved does not want to forgive, our cofradia will raise the hand for
punishment . . . and if the misdeed merits, and the aggrieved persists in
holding back pardon, the council can freely expel Jthe aggressor from
the organization] and receive another in his place."^

A member of Santa Maria Tcrcia y Santa Catalina would bring up
complaints of mistreatment or disrespectful dealing by another member
before his general council, which named four members to examine the case.
If found culpable, the offender was ejected from the group for four years.^^

In their preoccupation with social haiTnony, confraternities performed
religious rituals designed to appease tensions. At group activities such as
pilgrimages and feasts, members were required to be on good terms. The
Cofradia de Nuestra Seftora de San Antoli'n fined those who were not in a
state of friendship before leaving on its yearly pilgrimage, while cofrades of
the Santa Cruz in the village of Villalpando made it a practice before sitting

Renaissance et Reforme / 65

down to their annual Palm Sunday meal to offer a communal pardon for
all ill intentions and injuries that had been committcd.^^

Concern to maintain peace also carried over into their private lives. Some
confraternities required that members not take in domestic servants or hired
hands of another cofrade without consent. No legal suits could be filed
against another member of one's confraternity, for disputes were handled
by the society. Nor could one cofrade buy a bond weighing over another.

Such artificial measures may have seemed doomed to generate a mere
facade of fellowship, but a more heaity congeniality was fostered among
members by common festivities, banquets, and processions. These shared
activities contributed to the formation of a collective mentality. Cofrades
prayed for each other at masses and identified their fortunes with a common
patron saint. They revered the same statue and guarded the same relics. In
the penitential confraternities, members even wore the same dress for
processions, donning long hooded robes that covered the face and made
each of them an anonymous participant of one mystical body recognizable
to the public only by corporate banners.

Their central communal event was the annual banquet that celebrated
the spirit of brotherhood among members. According to the church, "this
fellowship or covenant meal . . . externalised the supernatural faith of the
participants."^^ It was a ritual act that emulated the Last Supper when "our
Redeemer, in an attempt to show his disciples a sign of his love, wished to
dine with them." Confraternities recognized that their meals served the
purpose of nurturing bonds of charity and love among communicants. The
confraternity of San Ildefonso asserted that "in accordance with our
humanity, love always increases at social gatherings and banquets." Every
year members feasted on the day of its patron saint "so that love and charity
grow among us."^^

Municipal police might view such disingenuous claims more cynically,
for confratemal festivities were frequently the occasion for rowdy dancing
and brawling in the streets. Mutual love and joy created in an atmosphere
of food and drink did not always coincide with law and order and the city
council from time to time was forced to ban communal feasting in the
interest of public peace. Christian ideals here as elsewhere did not translate
into reality. Corporate disciplinary mechanisms failed to contain conflict
in all circumstances, as quarrels over precedence in processions also attest.
But it is not surprising that cofrades occasionally failed to obey the spirit of
their laws; and indeed the remarkable fact is that they did demonstrate a

66 / Renaissance and Reformation

more constant commitment to keep it. The deepest bonds of fellowship,
ones that were rarely violated, appeared in the welfare programmes for the
relief of sickness and poverty and the salvation of souls. The sick and dying
called to their sides, around their beds or caskets, the brothers and sisters
of their confraternities. To be "accompanied" was one of the most frequent
and heartfelt concerns of testators, and one of the main reasons why they
joined confraternities and donated generously to them at the end of their
lives.

For it is certainly true that however short of their goals these alliances
may have fallen, their corporate ritual made a concerted effort to realize
within the microcosm of membership the spiritual ideals of brotherhood
and social equality. Their constitutions and oaths on matters of policy
denote not the vertical paternal contracts characterizing Medieval kingship
and feudalism but horizontal fraternal agreements among equals. They
were the first self-consciously democratic organizations in Castile, founded
upon the religious concept oi universa fratemitas. The confraternities con-
stituted one of the clearest institutional expressions of religious ideals in
society, matched only perhaps by the monasteries.

University of Maryland

Notes

* Parts of this article have been published in my book. Sacred Charity: Confraternities and
Social Welfare in Zamora, 1400-1700 (Macmillan Publishers, Ltd. and Cornell University
Press, 1989).

1 Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, first published in 1860 under
the title Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italian.

2 Max Weber, Vie Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ( 1 904/05). See also in this regard
R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1912).

3 Archivo Histôrico Provincial de Zamora, Desamortizacion, caja 108.

4 Augustine, The City of God, book 21, chapter 27. See also Hugh of Saint Victor, On the
Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De Sacrament is), book 2, part 16. English version by Roy
J. Deferrari (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Medieval Academy of America, 1951).

5 Augustine, Enchiridion, 110. Assistance offered by the living was efficacious only for
moderate sinners however, according to Augustine. Those who committed mortal sins were
incapable of being saved.

6 John Bossy's study of the social consciousness of the mass examines the process whereby
communicants olTered prayers and charity for the benefit of souls in purgatory during
services. "Essai de Sociographie de la messe, \2m-\l m," Annales. ESC 36 (1981): 44-70.

7 Teôfanes Egido, "Religiosidad popular y asistencia social en Valladolid: Las Cofradias
Marianas del s. XVI," Estudios Marianos 45 (Salamanca, 1980): 198: and Linda Martz,
Poverty and Welfare in Ilabshurg Spain (Cambridge, 1983), p. 159.

8 For a complete list of these 150 confraternities, see my Ph.D. dissertation, "Confraternities
and Social Welfare in Late Medieval and Early Modem Zamora" (University of Wiscon-
sin-Madison, 1985). Beyond the Pyrenees, confraternities appear to have been less

Renaissance et Réforme / 67

numerous than in any of the Spanish provinces. In sixteenth-century Florence, 75
confraternities have been cited among a population of 59,000 in Benedetto Varchi, Sioria
fiorentina, (Florence: Salani, 1963); In Lyon, 68 are noted for a population that varied
between 45,000 and 65,000 in the sixteenth century by Natalie Davis, "The Sacred and the
Body Social in Sixteenth-Century Lyon," Past and Present, 90, 51. The northern European
city of Ltibeck, with 25,000 residents in 1400, had at least 67 confraternities according to
Monika Zmyslony, Die Bruderschaften in Ltibeck bis zur Reformation (Kiel, 1977).
9 Sara Tilghman Nalle, "Religion and Reform in a Spanish Diocese: Cuenca, 1545-1650"
(Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1983), p. 225.

10 R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1953), p. 248. Tales of the
miracles of the Virgin show that she did not withhold her aid from thieves, vagabonds
and miscreants of any sort. See, for example, the codices of the Cantigas de Santa Maria
in the Escorial; Jesus Montoya Martinez, Las colecciones de milagros de la Virgen en la edad
media: el milagro literario (Granada, 1981), pp. 152-53; and Johannes Herold, A//rac/£?.y of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, ed. Eileen Power (London, 1928).

11 "Ordenanzas de Nuestra Seftora de San Antolin y del Seftor Santiago de la Ciudad
de Zamora. Afto de 1503," in E. Fernandez-Prieto, Nobleza de Zamora (Madrid,
1953), pp. 33-45.

12 Canon 691 in the Corpus Juris Canonici.

13 Church councils of the early Middle Ages decreed that those who failed to distribute
bequests in alms according to the wishes of the dead would be excommunicated; and the
Justinian Code confirmed rights to the will of the dead {Codex Justinianus, 1, 3, 45); the
sentiments of conciliar decrees were repeated by Canonists, see Gratian's Decretum, Canon
9, "Qui oblationes," and Canon 11, "Clerici vel saeculares"; and Huguccio, Summa ad Diet.,
88, Canon 5. The Siete Partidas enforced the fulfillment of testamentary works in partida
6, tit. 10, leyes 1-6.

14 The church was heartily opposed to this practice, arguing that lay people did not have the
right to designate what did and did not constitute a mortal sin. Throughout the late Middle
Ages it attempted to eradicate these confraternal oaths.

15 Proving negligent on many occasions. Ordenanzas, Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo
de los Ciento, Constituciones de la Cofradia de los Cientos, ff 26-28.

16 Valdeavellano, Curso de Historia de las Instituciones Espailolas, p. 247. Sanchez- Albomoz's
study of church cartularies in the tenth and eleventh centuries anticipated the conclusions
made by his student, Valdeavellano, in Despoblaciôn y repoblaciôn del ValledeDuero (Buenos
Aires: 1966), pp. 284-89 and in El regimen de la tierra en al reino Asturleones hace mil aflos
(Buenos Aires, 1978), pp. 19-57, where he stressed the spiritual motivations behind the
hundreds of donations to monasteries which he had examined.

1 7 In the Catastro del Marqués de la Ensenada, a register of property, salaries, and other income
of individuals and religious institutions in the provinces of Castile, compiled in the
mid-eighteenth centuiy, we have the opportunity to calculate the amount of land held by
the various religious institutions, including confraternities and hospitals.

18 The early church fathers recommended that one-half of one's estate, "the share of the
soul," be given for pious puiposes as donations to church institutions or alms to the poor,
and these were frequently administered by confraternities. Augustine directed that bequests
in alms should not exceed a son's share if children survived. Gratian returned to
Augustine's position, although other canonists argued that Augustine's intention had been
to dissuade but not to prohibit donations larger than an inheritor's share. Roman law
imposed definite minimal limits on inheritances for children {pars légitima) of one-half to
one-third of estates. See Michael M. Sheehan, Vie Will in Medieval England (Toronto, 1963),
pp. 8, 123, and 127. In 1505, Spanish secular legislation restricted the amount that could
be bequeathed for the welfare of one's soul to one-fifth of one's estate {Leyes de Toro, leyes
12 and 32): and according to Moralists (not stated in Canon Law), testators could leave
up to one-third of the "legitimo," and the "mejora," (usually used to favour one son in a

68 / Renaissance and Reformation

system in which primogeniture was not encouraged) to the church for pious causes so long
as it would not harm descendants. Natural law required that parents give to their children
only that which they needed. If testators left more than one-third to the church, and
inheritors complained in court, the will of the civil judges prevailed.

19 "porque mejor se junten," Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, uncatalogued, Ordenamas de
la Cofradia deNuestra Seiiora de laAnunciaciôn, f 8v, 1531. For locating the statutes of this
confraternity, common called "Valdes," I am grateful to Father Ramon Fita Revert,
personal secretary to the Bishop in Zamora.

20 "Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Nicolas," in Fernândez-Prieto, Nobleza de Zamora,
p. 383, tit. IX and X.

21 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo de los Ciento, Ordenanzas de la Cofradia deNuestra
Seflora de la Visitaciôn.

11 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora. Archivo de los Ciento, Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de los
Racioneros, f 3, tit. 3 and f. 10, ///. 11.

23 "Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Nicolas," in Fernândez-Prieto, Nobleza de Zamora,
p.390, tit. 31.

24 Archivo Particular de Don Enrique Fernândez-Prieto, Orden 1891, no. 7, Estatutos de
Nuestra Seflora del Rosario y Purificaciôn, 1544; tit. 13 and 14.

25 Archivo Parroquial de San Frontis de Zamora; Libro 38, Ordenanzas of 1630.

26 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo de Santa Maria de la Horta, Santo Tomas, no.
17. The ordinances of Santo Cristo are from the eighteenth century.

27 Archivo Particular de Don Enrique Fernândez-Prieto, Estatutos de la Cofradia de Nuestra
Sefiora de San Antolln.

28 Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Antonio Abad of Zamora, 1591, transcribed by José del
Carmen and published in 1928, a copy of which was kindly given to me by the current
mayordomo.

29 Archivo Parroquial de San Frontis, Libro 38, Ordenanzas de 1630.

30 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo de Santa Maria de la Horta, Tomas Apostâl,
Libro 16, Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Cucufate, 1509.

31 Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Nicolas, in Fernândez-Prieto, Nobleza de Zamora,
pp. 391-92.

32 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo de los Ciento, Ordenanzas de la Cofradia deNuestra
Seflora de la Antigua, 1566.

33 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Archivo Santa Maria de la Horta, Santa Maria de la
Horta, no. 41(1) Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de Santa Maria de Tercia y Santa Catalina de
1552, ordinance no. 10.

34 "Ordenanzas de Nuestra Sefiora de San Antolin . . . ," in Fernândez-Prieto, Nobleza de
Zamora, and the "Estatutos de la Cofradia de la Santa Cruz," in Luis Calvo Lozano,
Historia, statutes of 1580, pp. 240-41.

35 The New Catholic Encyclopedia, "Meals, Sacred"; and Emile Durkheim, The Elementary
Forms of Religious Life, trans, by Joseph Ward Swain (New York: Free Press, 1%5), p. 378.

36 Archivo de la Mitra de Zamora, Ordenanzas de la Cofradia de San Udefonso, p. 518.

English Guilds and Municipal Authority

ALEXANDRA F. JOHNSTON

1 he world of stallage and burgesses, markets and enfeoffments is a strange
one indeed for a student of literature. Yet, those of us who are students of
the history of entertainment in England have been led into this world
through our desire to understand the jurisdictions that sponsored plays,
musical entertainments and ceremonial displays during the late Middle
Ages and the Renaissance. This paper grows from my own study of the
records of drama, music and ceremony in two very different parts of
England— the ancient and complex jurisdiction of the city of York and the
less defined jurisdiction of the community of Abingdon just south of Oxford
in Berkshire.^ As I have sought to understand the history of the guilds that
sponsored or paid for entertainment in York and Abingdon, I have come
to some understanding of the complexities of the relationships between the
guilds, fraternities or societies and the municipal authorities with whom
they cooperated. The nature of the true relationship is often unclear until
1547, the year that the government of the young King Edward VI dissolved
the chantries and religious fraternities. In the life of English towns, this act
had an effect almost equal to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry
VIII. I hope to be able to demonstrate, by focussing on the events in the
years after Dissolution, the variety of ways that the guilds and fraternities
related to their civil authorities.

1. Terminology

Anyone launching into a study of this kind, is immediately struck by the
bewildering array of words used to describe the organizations. For example,
the 1517 account roll of the York Mercers is headed "Compotus Pauli
Gillowr aldermannis Ciuitatis Eboracum Magistri Siue Gubematoris Soci-
etatis Marcatorwm & Merccrorum eiusdem Ciuitatis Ac ffratemitatis suis
Gilde Sancte Trinitatis in ffossgatc."^ By 1536, the accounts were rendered

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 69

70 / Renaissance and Reformation

in English but the heading is equally bewildering, "the Accompte of Roberte
Halle m^rchaunt Gou^mour of the ffelyshypp of the Mystery of the
Marchaunt^.? and marcers of the Cytye of yorke. Keper of the Confratemytye
and Gylde of the blyssed Trenitye ffounded in ffossgate.' Are we talking
about a fellowship, a mystery, a confraternity or a guild? Clearly we are
talking about all four at once since the terms seem to have been, in some
measure, interchangeable. Susan Reynolds, in her very useful little book
English Medieval Towns, remarks,

To the confusion of historians the sources seem sometimes to use the
words guild, company, society, mystery, and craft almost interchangeably
for all these bodies. But just because words like guild, fraternity, and
society were used so widely, the associations they describe could be very
various. Historians have themselves deepened their own confusion by
their odd convention of using the word guild in preference to all others,
and then assuming that all guilds were basically trading associations.

Equal confusion often arises as we seek to understand how local
government emerged in the late Middle Ages from the patterns of enfeoff-
ment that obtained in the earlier period. The town of Beverley is a case in
point. Toulmin Smith in English Gilds prints the charters of the Guild of
St. John of Beverley along with the documents of the Guilds of St. Helen
and St. Mary.^ Yet Leach, in his survey of the manuscripts of Beverley for
the Historical Manuscript Commission, states categorically that those
charters are the early charters of the guild merchant, the embryo town
government.^ But an undated document from the fifteenth century refers
to it as the "Gildae Mercatoriae Sancti Johannis Beverlacensis"^ and, by
the ordinance of 1430, the clergy of the Guild of St. John of Beverley have
a special place in the Corpus Christi procession along with the clergy of
the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Mary.^ I believe that it is safe
to say that the Guild of St. John of Bevcriey was the confratemal wing of
the guild merchant of Beverley that, in the fullness of time, became the
municipal government.

Other guilds merchant in towns with strong overlords functioned as
municipal governments. For example, Reading was dominated by its great
Benedictine Abbey. The appointment of the head of the Guild Merchant
remained in the gift of the abbot until the dissolution of the abbey in 1542.
That year the appointment reverted to the crown and very soon thereafter
the town of Reading was incorporated and the council of the Guild
Merchant became the council of the new corporation. However, to the

Renaissance et Réforme / 71

confusion of literary scholars uninitiated into the mysteries of local
administration, from as early as 1302 the head of the Guild Merchant was
referred to in the Chamberlains' Accounts as "maior" and the council of
the guild as the "commune."^^ In dealing with the records of any organi-
zation, then, it is wise to be wary of the terminology that is used. We should
not seek to categorize the multiplicity of social organisms that evolved in
the late Medieval English municipalities by the words that are used to
describe them; rather we should seek to define them by what they did and
to whom they related.

2. The Royal Authority

Much of our information about the confraternities of England comes from
the returns submitted to the Privy Council of Richard II in response to a
writ sent to the sheriffs of every county of England in 1388 for return before
the following feast of the Purification (February 2, 1389). It read:

. . . We, strictly enjoining, command you do at once, on sight of these
presents, in your full shire-mote, and also in all the cities, boroughs,
market towns, and other places in your bailiwick, as well within liberties
as without, that all and every the Masters and Wardens of all guilds and
brotherhoods whatsoever within your said bailiwick, shall send up
returns to us and our council in our Chancery, fully, plainly, and openly,
in writing ... as to the manner and form and authority of the foundation
and beginning and continuance of the gilds and brotherhoods aforesaid:
And as to the manner and form of the oaths, gatherings, feasts, and
general meetings of the bretheren and sisteren; and of all other such
things touching these gilds and brotherhoods: Also as to the liberties,
privileges, statutes, ordinances, usages and customs of the same gilds and
brotherhoods: And moreover, as to the lands, tenements, rents and
possessions, whether held in mortmain or not, and as to all goods and
chattels whatsoever, to the aforesaid gilds and brotherhoods in any wise
belonging or in expectancy, and in whose hands soever such lands,
tenements, rents, possessions, goods or chattels may now be for the use
of such gilds and brotherhoods: And as to the true annual value of the
said lands, tenements, rents and possessions, and the true worth of the
said goods and chattels: Also as to the whole manner and form of all
and every concerning or touching the said gilds and brotherhoods ^^

At the same time a more straightforward writ was sent to the "Wardens and
Overiookers of all the Mysteries and Crafts" of the cities of England to
present their charters or letters patent to the council in Chancery again
before Candlemas, 1389. The crown seemed to be seeking to establish the

72 / Renaissance and Reformation

legitimacy of the many confraternities and craft guilds that existed as well
as the jurisdiction of the crown over them. This seems to have sprung from
a suspicion of these quasi-secret societies and a desire to establish the real
wealth of the groups for the purpose of taxation.

By no means all of the guilds and confraternities responded to the writ,
and when they did they responded in the most neutral possible way. The
Pater Noster Guild of York, for example, after giving a brief explanation
of the origin of the guild and its playmaking activities goes on to describe
its pious activities with the old and indigent members of the guild and the
propagation of the Lord's Prayer within the Minster. Only at the very end
of the long return do the wardens of the guild address the issue of assembly
asserting that they are "wont to gather together at the end of every six weeks
throughout the year to pray especially for the health of the lord king and
the good governance of the English realm" as well as "for all the brothers
and sisters present and absent, living and dead, and all the benefactors of
the said fraternity or the said brothçrs."^-^ Turning their attention to their
possessions they stoutly declare that they possess nothing but the props and
costumes for the play ("quidem apparatus ad aliquem alium vsum nisi
tantum ad dictum ludum") and a single wooden box to store them in.^"^
Most of the other returns are similarly cautious denying any great wealth
and stressing the piety of their purpose.^^

Nothing seems to have been done by Richard's council in response to
the returns. However, a more significant attempt to control these associa-
tions was taken by the parliament of Henry VI in 1437. The preamble to
the act states that the confraternities and guilds "make themselves many
unlawful and unreasonable ordinances . . . whereby our sovereign lord the
King and others be disherited of their profits and franchises."^^ In order to
prevent the confraternities from setting up rival claims through their
ordinances, the act goes on to state

. . . that the masters, wardens, and people of eveiy such guild, fraternity
or company incorporate . . . shall bring and do all their letters patent and
charters to be registered of record before the justices of peace in the
counties, or before the chief governors of the said cities, boroughs, and
towns where such guilds, fraternities and companies be. And . . . that from
henceforth no such masters, wardens, nor people make nor use no
ordinance which sh^ll be to the disherison or diminution of the King's
franchises

Renaissance et Réforme / 73

Although this act had no immediate effect in York (since the city already
required that the craft guilds present their ordinances to the council for
ratification), it may explain why when the religious confraternities were
dissolved over a hundred years later, the city assumed responsibility for
many of their activities.

3. York Guilds

i) Craft guilds and confraternities

York was one of the midland and northern cities that sponsored a large
episodic Biblical play. The play was produced by the city itself at the feast
of Corpus Christi but the individual pageants were the responsibility of the
craft guilds. One official list indicates that, at one time, fifty-eight guilds
were contributing to the great cycle of plays. The evidence suggests that
this corporate dramatic act of piety took place almost every year from about
1376 to 1569. The ordinances of the craft guilds all specify the involvement
of the craft in the play either as directly sponsoring a pageant or being
contributory to the pageant of a related guild. This play was considered to
be "in honour and reverence of our lord Jesus Christ and honour and profit
of the said city." The mixture of the sacred and the profane in this
statement is typical of the attitude of the Medieval townspeople to the
relationship between their lives as craftsmen and their lives as churchmen.
Some crafts, as well as sponsoring a pageant, also carried torches in the
Corpus Christi procession. Others, such as the Marshalls and Smiths, in
addition to their pageant and torches maintained votive candles and
specified that the guild would attend mass together on the feast of St Loy
and the feast of St. Andrew in St. William's Chapel, Ousebridge next to the
common chamber where the city council normally met.

However, at least three York craft or trading guilds had confratemal
counterparts two of which were formally chartered by letters patent. These
were the Carpenters, the Merchant Tailors and the Mercers.

a) The Carpenters and the Holy Fraternity of the Resurrection

The Carpenters with their sub-crafts, were responsible for the pageant of
the Resurrection in the Corpus Christi play. The guild also carried torches
in the Corpus Christi Procession and an undated grant from the 1420s
suggests that the craft had long had a confratemal side. The grant, from
one Ralph le Furbur, provides an annual sum of six shillings for the

74 / Renaissance and Reformation

Carpenters to maintain "the candle of St William the Confessor" presum-
ably in the chapel of William the Confessor on Ousebridge. In none of their
ordinances and in none of the regular civic records is the guild referred to
as anything but the Carpenters or Wrights. However, on February 24, 1487
they entered into an indentured agreement with William Bewyk, the Prior
of the Austin Friary. As the second party to the agreement the guild is
referred to as "the Holy Fraternité of the Resurreccion of Our Lord
mayntened by the carpenterz of the said citie." By the agreement, the
Friars Austin are to offer masses for the souls "of all the brether and systers
of the said fraternité" in return for annual payments and the free rent of a
small parcel of land adjacent to the friary that would allow the friars access
to the River Ouse as long as the masses are sung. However, there is no
mention of letters patent and no formal registration of the Holy Fraternity
of the Resurrection. The guild seems to have appropriated the name of their
pageant to an unregistered confraternity for the purpose of entering into a
land transaction with the Friars Austin. This may be an example of the
kind of unregulated confraternity that had prompted the legislation of 1437.

b) The Merchant Tailors and the Guild of St. John the Baptist

The Tailors were responsible for the pageant of the Ascension of Christ in
the Corpus Christi Play. Indeed the first guild ordinance to mention the
existence of the play is one for the Tailors in 1386. They were also one of
the guilds who, as well as sponsoring a pageant in the play of Corpus Christi
carried torches in the procession.

The first mention of the Guild or Fraternity of St. John the Baptist comes
in a lease dated 1415 granted by the city to the fraternity of a parcel of land
that abuts "on the land and hall of the said fraternity."^^ In 1453, fifteen
named tailors of the city of York applied for letters patent to re-establish
the guild.^^ As part of their petition they asserted that for three hundred
years the mystery had maintained a chaplain and pensioners of the craft
to honour St. John the Baptist, to celebrate divine service and carry out
other charitable acts. However, they went on to say that they could not
afford it any longer and wished a license to incorporate the guild with a
master and four wardens with the capability of acquiring lands of up to
100s. annually to maintain the chaplain and poor people of the guild.

The hall of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist, mentioned in the 1415
record, was a significant building in the life of the city as well as the guild.
In 14422'^ and again in 1453^^ the city paid for a barr to be erected inside

Renaissance et Réforme / 75

the hall. The reason for the first occasion is not specified but on the second
occasion it was to accommodate a court of Richard, Duke of York, and his
justices. There is no evidence of what happened to the confratemal wing
of the Tailors at Dissolution but it is clear that they kept their property.
The hall became known as the Merchant Tailors' Hall and continued to
be an important assembly place for the city. It still stands and as late as
the early eighteenth century it was used as a meeting place for the company
who had also recently built almshouses near-by for pensioners of the
company.^^

c) The Mercers, the Guild of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed
Virgin Mary and the Guild of the Holy Trinity

By far the best documented example of a craft or mystery having a
confraternity associated with it is the Mercers guild with its associated Guild
of the Holy Trinity. The records of the Mercers were edited for the Surtees
Society by Maud Sellers in the early twentieth century. The Mercers were
responsible for the spectacular pageant of the Last Judgment in the Corpus
Christi Play. Many of their pageant documents survive and it has been
possible to reconstruct their activities as play-makers in some detail.^^ A
banner depicting the Trinity was part of the appurtenances of the pageant
wagon in 1433 and the somewhat truncated list of properties made in 1526
also names "ye trenette" as part of the wagon. Like the Carpenters and
the Tailors, the Mercers also carried torches in the Corpus Christi Proces-
sion as well as maintaining their various charities.

In her introduction. Sellers traces the foundation of the organization from
its beginnings as the Guild of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin
Mary in 1357. The guild was ostensibly established in order to support a
chaplain who would celebrate divine services in St. Crux church for the
royal family and the brethren and sisters of the guild. The brothers turned
out to be thirteen merchants and the sisters their wives, sisters and
daughters. The licence allows the guild to hold land in mortmain.^^ In 1371,
another licence was sought from Edward III in exchange for forty shillings
to alter the organization from a guild to a hospital for "chaplains and poor
and infirm persons."^"^ In 1411, the guild, still called the hospital of Our
Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, was granted permission to
celebrate mass in Trinity Chapel within the hospital.^^ A register of the
names of all the members in the guild begins in 1420. It is clear from this
docmnent that by this time the normal name of the hospital has become
the hospital of the Holy Trinity. It is also clear that however widespread

76 / Renaissance and Reformation

the membership in the earlier confraternity may have been, the number of
non-Mercers and members from other towns rapidly decreases so that the
confraternity becomes exclusively members of the Mercers Guild and their
women-folk— the Mercers Guild at prayer.^^ It is also about this time that
the Mercers become the dominant guild in the city and take virtual control
of the civic government.

The confratemal aspect of the life of the Mercers seems to have reached
its height in the late fifteenth century. The early account rolls of the
company (beginning 1432) refer to only the Mercers Guild but by 1474 the
heading has changed to "Misterie Mercerorwm Ebovacum Ac Gilde et
fratemitatis Sancte Trinitatis in fossgate";^^ by 1517 the word "mistere" has
been replaced by "societatis." The next thirty years saw little change in the
title but in 1547 all mention of the confraternity disappears.^^ Like the
Merchant Tailors, the Mercers managed to keep all their property at
Dissolution. Indeed, like the hall of the Merchant Tailors, the Mercers' hall
in Fossgate still stands. We can trace some aspects of the transition that
took place at the dissolution of the guilds from the account rolls of the
Mercers. The major difference between the 1547 roll and that for 1548 is in
the expenses. Whereas the guild had paid rent or fees to various religious
houses in the past, they now paid those rents to the crown. However when
we look at the receipts section of the accounts it is clear that the properties
from which they derived considerable income remained unchanged over
the period of the Dissolution.^^ It seems that all mention of the religious
confraternity was quietly dropped from official documentation although
nothing else changed. The seal of the York Mercers Guild still depicts the
Holy Trinity.

ii) Religious Guilds or Confraternities

York had three major religious guilds or confraternities each of which was
involved in some kind of playmaking and each of which had a uniquely
complex relationship with the city. These guilds crossed over the boundaries
of craft or occupation and, in the case of the Guild of Corpus Christi, at
least, enrolled prominent members from outside the city. The properties
and functions of each of these guilds survived the Act of Dissolution
because of the action of the city.

a) The Guild of Corpus Chnsti and the Hospital of St. Thomas

The Corpus Christi Guild was founded in 1408 to honour the real presence
of Christ in the eucharist and was one of many similar guilds founded in

Renaissance et Réforme / 77

the fifteenth century all over Europe. The York guild, however, although it
came to be the keeper of the Corpus Christi shrine, was never in charge of
the Corpus Christi procession which was already a major part of the civic
festival at Corpus Christi time before the guild was established. Over the
years from 1408 to 1477 the guild gradually assumed a place of honour and
prominence in the procession which it held until Dissolution. However, the
participation of the guild was limited to honouring the sacrament and
regulating its member priests within the procession. The guild was
bequeathed the Creed Play by William Revetour, deputy town clerk, in
1448.^*^ There are five recorded performances of the play before Dissolution
including a special performance for Richard III at the time of the investiture
of his son as Prince of Wales in the Minster on September 8, 1483. It was
played at ten year intervals after 1495 in place of the Biblical cycle at Corpus
Christi time and seems to have involved the participation of the craft
guilds.^^ Details of the properties of the play are contained in the account
rolls of the guild that suivive from 1415.

Over the course of its life, 16,850 people belonged to the guild. Almost
every citizen of York who could afford the annual torch fee of 2d. belonged
as well as many people from the surrounding countryside. Leading northern
clerics identified themselves with the guild, such as the archbishops of York,
the bishops of Carlisle, and Durham, the abbots of St Mary's York,
Fountains, Rievaulx, Selby and Whitby, the priors of Bridlington, Kirkham,
Newburgh, Nostell and Watton. Prominent secular figures, especially those
associated with the city, also joined, including Richard, Duke of Gloucester
(later Richard III but for many years his brother's Lieutenant for the North
based in York), his wife Anne, his mother Cecily, Duchess of York, Francis,
Viscount Lovell and his wife Anne who were in Richard's train as well as
many other local and national dignitaries."^ Letters patent for the guild
were issued by Henry VI on 6 November, 1458.^^ In 1478, the Hospital of
St. Thomas of Canterbury without Micklegate Bar merged with the Corpus
Christi Guild. The only change in the governance of the guild was the
addition of "tweyne sadde and discrete personnes temporell,"^ lay brethren
of the guild to be chosen by the clerical master and six keepers on their
election day. Up to this time, the guild had met in the Mercers' Hall or the
Hospital of the Holy Trinity but by the merger they acquired property of
their own.

Although the splendid shrine of Corpus Christi valued by Edward's
commissioners at £210 18s. 2d.'*^ was confiscated at the time of Dissolution,

78 / Renaissance and Reformation

the Hospital of St. Thomas was not liquidated. The master, Sir William
Pinder and six other men struggled to keep it viable for another four years.
Finally,

For dyvers and sundry consideracions, the said maister, upon the last
dale of Februarie, in the yere of our Lorde God a thowsande fyve
hundreth fyftie and one, did call his brether together in the said hospitall,
and declared unto his said brether the importune suttes, trobles and
vexacions that he susteyned for the defence of the right of the said
hospitall, wherapon that he coulde not perceyve that he was able, nor
non of his brether to upholde and maynteyne the said house and poore
folkes onles ther were some remedy hadd.

The remedy was to invite the mayor and the aldermen to become members
of the hospital. In April of that year, the mayor and council joined the
hospital whereupon Pinder resigned and the mayor, Richard White, became
master and two aldermen became wardens. By this device, the Hospital of

49

St. Thomas was taken over by the city. It is interesting to note that by this
action, the city council considered that in some way it had become the
Corpus Christi Guild. In 1554, the city greeted the Marian revival with a
whole-hearted return to the old ceremonial ways. The procession of Corpus
Christi was reinstated and the chamberlains paid 4d. "for a whyte wand to
my Lorde Maior as Master of Corpuscrysty gyld the fryday after Corpus
cristi day."

Nothing is heard of the Creed Play or its properties at the time of the
Dissolution. However, in 1562 the city council agreed to play it "if apon
examinacion it may be."^^ Nothing more is heard until February 5, 1565,
when James Simson a pewterer and alderman and one of the wardens of
the hospital that year brought the "aunciente booke or Regestre of the Crede
play to be saffly kept emonges th'evidens as it was before."^^ Simson had
been sheriff in 1547-48.^^ Plans were well advanced to perform the play
instead of the Biblical cycle in 1568 when Matthew Hutton, dean of the
Minster and a moving power in the Ecclesiastical Commission of the North,
called the play in to be inspected. His letter to the mayor disallowing the
play is one of the major documents revealing protestant opinion of the
Catholic drama. In his letter he writes,

ffor thoghe it was plausible 40 yeares agoe, & wold now also of the
ignorant sort be well liked: yet now in this happie time of the gospell, I
knowe the learned will mislike it and how the state will beare with it I
knowe not^

Renaissance et Réforme / 79

Ail plans to perform the play were abandoned and nothing further is heard
of it. By the late sixteenth century only the property of the Guild of Corpus
Christi survived in the guise of the Hospital of St Thomas along with the
charitable activities financed by the income from the property. All play-
making and processional activity had been suppressed by the increasing
Puritanism of the time.

b) The Pater Noster Guild and the Guild or Hospital of St. Anthony

The first mention of this guild is in the reply they sent to Richard IPs writ.^^
That reply makes clear that the guild was established to be the custodian
of the Pater Noster play in which "many vices and sins were condemned
as well as virtues commended." The play was considered to be worthy of
protection because it was considered beneficial for the "health and emen-
dations of the souls both of the producers and the audience." Supplement-
ing their concern for the play, the guild also maintained a seven branched
candelabra (one branch for each of the seven petitions of the prayer) in the
Minster as well as a tablet hanging beside the candelabra on which was
written the petitions of the prayer.^ In 1446, the Pater Noster Guild merged
with the hospital of St. Anthony, sometimes called the Guild of St Anthony,
and the name "Pater Noster Guild" disappears.^ St Anthony's is first
mentioned in an indulgence of Pope Martin V in 1429 and it received a
small bequest of from John Shei-wood of 3s. 4d. in 1438.^^ The papal
indulgence indicates that the guild was originally housed outside the walls.
However, about the time that the Pater Noster Guild and St. Anthony's
merged, a new hall was built on Peaseholme Green. That hall today houses
the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research.

The responsibility for the Pater Noster Play was taken over by St
Anthony's. In 1465, one of the chaplains of the guild, William Downham,
willed "omnes libros meos de hido de pater noster" to William Ball, the
master of the guild.^^ The play was to be played in May 1495 but the guild
defaulted and was fined an unspecified amount by the city for not
performing their play "according to the worship oUhis city" and instructed
to prepare the play for the next ycar.^^^ No documentary evidence survives
from 1496 but in 1536 the council agreed that the Pater Noster Play "aught
by Course" to be performed that year which^^ suggests that, like the
performances of the Creed Play, the Pater Noster had come to have regular
performances at perhaps ten year intei^vals. After Dissolution, following the
pattern of the Corpus Christi Guild, the lands and properties became the

80 / Renaissance and Reformation

property of the city. There is no evidence to indicate exactly how this was
done, but on 18 December 1548 we find the council stoutly asserting to
"Maister White beyng one of the King's resavours in thes Northe parties"
that "ther is no gyld of Saynt Antony founded within the said Citie as is
supposed."^^ In 1551 the city undertook a major repair of the hall. By the
beginning of Mary's reign, St. Anthony's Hall had become so much a part
of the property of the city that it had become the meeting place of the craft
guilds "suche as want metying howses" and the council was setting up
mechanisms for the payment of the regular repairs on the building.^^ Some
vestige of the old guild seems to have survived Dissolution, however, since
in 1558^ and again in 1572^^ the "Maister of St Anthony's" is requested to
prepare the Pater Noster Play for production. The performance of that play
in 1572 is the last performance of any Medieval religious drama in York.

c) The Guild of St. Christopher and St. George

The Guild of St. Christopher was established as early as 1396 by letters
patent of Richard II issued March 12 of that year. In 1423, the guild
appears before the city council in a dispute over a land claim with Robert
Burton, barker. The guild of St. George was established by letters patent
from Henry VI issued May 29, 1447. The licence was granted to William
Craven, mercer, John Kirkham, John Bell, John Preston, and John
Shirwode whose occupations varied from clerk to skinner. The guild,
established with the pious purpose of celebrating divine services and
offering prayers for the dead, was also given the essential right of acquiring
land. It was to be established in the chapel of St. George by the castle but
later that same year we find a combined guild of St. Christopher and St.
George building a common chapel at the end of Coney Street next to the
site of the ancient common hall mentioned as the eighth stafion of the
Corpus Christi Play as early as 1399. The year before the amalgamafion
of the guilds, William Revetour the deputy city clerk who had willed the
Creed Play to the Corpus Christi Guild, willed a play on St. James "in sex
paginas compilatum' to the St. Christopher's Guild. Nothing more is
known about that play but we do know that the combined guild was
responsible for the riding of St. George on St. George's Day (23 April). In
1502 William Tod, a merchant, left his "fyne salett" (a light bowl-shaped
helmet) to the St. Christopher's Guild "to be used ever at the ridyng of Saynt
George within the said cetie." The year before Dissolution, St. George's
Day fell on Good Friday and there is a note in the city House Book (or

Renaissance et Réforme / 81

minute book) for that day "thcrfore thay [the city council] dyd not Ryde
with Saynt George this yere." This implies that it was their custom to ride
with the guild on this annual occasion. There is no other evidence of
playmaking or ceremonial activity before the Dissolution.

In 1447, when the two guilds merged, they undertook to share the cost of
the construction of a new Guildhall on the river behind their chapel with
the city over a period of years.^^ They also shared a major repair in 1478.^^
By entering into what amounted to shared accommodation, the combined
guild was of central importance in the life of the city for the next century.
From 1453 until 1508 when a gap of almost fifty years occurs in the run of
the chamberlains' rolls, the guild paid the city rent for "unius parcelle terre
iuxta Guyhald Eboracwm."^^ Although the city council regularly met in the
Council Chamber on Ousebridge next to St. William's Chapel, there was a
second Council Chamber in the Guildhall or Common Hall and it was in
the Hall that larger gatherings of national as well as local importance took
place. For example, it was here in August 1487 that Henry VII, having seen
a command performance of the Corpus Christi play the day before, sat in
judgment on the rebel Roger Layton. Layton was beheaded the next day.^^
The gate to the Common Hall faced on to what is now St. Helen's square
and it remained one of the established stations for the Corpus Christi Play
throughout the life of the play.^^ It was also inside the hall that the travelling
players performed their plays for the mayor and council from 1527 on.^^
We can gain some sense of the normal free interchange of the guild and
the city over this property through an incident involving William Man the
master of the guild in 1529. Man had quarrelled with his fellow guildsmen
who had been masters before him and an alarmed council "for dyverse
causys and consideraconz" took from him the keys to the Common Hall
door and the door of the Common Chamber which seem normally to have
been held by the master of the guild.^^

So much did the guild seem to be an arm of the city government that the
city was caught off guard at the Dissolution. On 18 December, 1548, they
despatched Henry Mason the clerk of the guilds to London carrying letters
from the city asking "whether the said guylds be within the compas of the
King's statuts or not."^^ Just in case, they also prudently provided Mason
with the authority to "sewe for the preferment" to purchase the property of
the guilds.^2 It seems, however, that Sir Michael Stanhope, the governor of
the town of Hull who was at this time close to the circle around the boy
king^^ with his friend John Bellow^"* the surveyor of augmentations for the

82 / Renaissance and Reformation

East Riding had acquired the property of the guild as part of their
land-speculation activities. During the spring of 1549, the mayor, a draper
named John Lewes,^^ bought the propeity privately from Stanhope for £212
4s. 8d.^^ On 22 June, 1549 the council agreed to repay the mayor for the
money he had paid in purchasing the lands and tenements of the "laite
guylde of Saynt Crystofer and Saynt George." Stanhope was given an
annuity of £14 a year. However, in order to legitimate the purchase, Miles
Newton, the common clerk, was sent to London "for the common busynes
of this Citie."^^ He seems to have been successful in his enterprise since
six months later he was voted a bonus of forty shillings

in reward for his payncs and diligent servyce that he dyd for the common
well of this City in gittyng and obtcinyng of the Kyngs majestic at London
his grace is lettres patents under the grcyt seell of England to have unto
the said Corporacon and to theire successours for ever all the lands and
tenements, closez, medowes. pasturez, commons of the pasture, free rents
and all other heredytaments with theire appertenauncs whiche dyd
belonge to the layte dissolvyd guylds of Saynt Cristofer and Saynt George
in York and also in dyverse placs in the cuntree.

The actual letters patent are dated 4 August, 1550 more than a year after
the mayor had closed the deal with Stanhope. From this time on all the
assets of the guilds and all their obligations were vested in the city.

During the reign of Maiy, the city organized the procession, mass and
sermon in the place of the guild. The expenses for 1554 include carrying
the pageant, the dragon and St. Christopher. They also include 2d. for "a
great nale to St chr/^tofer hed."^^ The last record of the riding of St. George
is for 1558.90

The pattern that emerges in York is that the city council and its craft
guilds were determined as far as possible to maintain control of the incomes
that had been derived from the properties accrued by the confraternities
during the fifteenth century. As far as I have been able to discover, the only
major possessions of any of the guilds I have considered that passed
permanently into the hands of the king's commissioners was the magnifi-
cent shrine of Corpus Christi and the other treasures of the guild. Only one
item remains in York from the guild, a mazer bowl that is now among the
possessions of the Minster.^^ All the real estate, one way or another, passed
either into the hands of the secular guilds as in the case of the Tailors and
the Mercers or into the hands of the city itself. But with the property passed
also the obligations of the confraternities. The poor and indigent continued

Renaissance et Réforme / 83

to be housed and fed in the hospitals and, until yet another twist in the
history of the nation suppressed them, the plays and ceremonies were taken
over by the city council and added to their traditional playmaking role as
the producer of the Corpus Christi Play.

4. Abingdon, Berkshire

The story of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross in the parish of St. Helen in
Abingdon, Berkshire reveals an entirely different relationship between a
confraternity and the civil authorities from those that obtained in York.
Abingdon was a small community just south of Oxford on the Thames
dominated by its ancient Benedictine Abbey. The townsmen, though
commercially successful, had equivocal legal status since their town was
not a borough and enjoyed no clear-cut burghal rights. They had a market
during the fourteenth ccntuiy that was the cause of a longstanding dispute
with the abbot who claimed full rights over the town including the control
of the market. Eventually parliament found for the abbot and the last
century and a half of the life of the abbey was spent in constant tension
between the townspeople and the abbot who acted as secular lord.

The flash-point in the relationship was a shared boundary between the
abbey lands and the churchyard of the parish church of St. Helen.^^ In this
way the focus of local concern was centered on the parish. The parish had
two confraternities associated with it. The Guild of Our Lady, founded in
1247, seems to be a typical religious guild of the period but the second guild,
the Fraternity of the Holy Cross, was quite different. Indeed, it seems to
have been the instrument through which civil authority was exercised until
the dissolution of the monastery. This is clear from the fact that, in 1520,
the Fraternity successfully petitioned Henry VIII for a renewed charter
granting the town a three day fair.^'*

The Fraternity provided local ceremony and playmaking that in some
ways parallels on a much smaller scale the activities of the city of York and
its guilds. In 1437, Robert Neville, bishop of Salisbury, rebuked the guild
for having masked men and effigies of the devil carried in their procession
on the feast of the Holy Cross.^^ There is also an antiquarian account by
Thomas Heam that describes the extravagance of the guild in hiring twelve
minstrels for their annual feast, some from as far away as Coventry and
Maidenhead, whom they paid at a higher rate than the priests. He also
speaks rather slightingly of "Pageantes and playes and May games to
captivât the sences of the zelous beholders."^^

84 / Renaissance and Reformation

But the Fraternity of the Holy Cross in Abingdon had far more than local
significance. In 1416, letters patent from Henry V were issued to "John
Houchons and John Bret and the commonalty of the said town of
Abendon"^'^ allowing them to finance and build bridges across the Thames
at Abingdon and Culham Reach that would make an important link with
Dorchester in Oxfordshire on the main road west. The Fraternity is not
specifically mentioned in the letters patent but it is clear from subsequent
documents that they or their predecessors were the "commonalty of the said
town" who undertook the building project. The importance of these bridges
to the crown is clear from the letters incorporating the fraternity in 1441.
On October 20 of that year, a licence was issued to a group of men for the
repair of the bridges and for the right to found a "perpetual gild of
themselves and others" called the guild of the Holy Cross in the parish
church of St Helen, Abingdon with four masters and the right to acquire
"lands, rents and possessions held in burgage, socage or other service to
the value of £40."^^ The remarkable thing about this licence is its primary
holders. The first three named are William Aiscough, Bishop of Salisbury,
Henry VI's personal confessor,^^ William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk and at
this time close to the king as well as Joint Constable Wallingford Castle,
about ten miles south west of Abingdon,'^^ and Thomas Beckington, Bishop
of Bath and Wells and a constant companion of the king.^^^ The rest of
the names are those, such as John Golafre and John Norris, who were
prominent local citizens. ^^^

On February 20, 1484 a second licence was issued, this time authorizing
twelve masters with the right to hold land in mortmain to the value of £100
annually "for the repair of the highway leading from Abendon to Dorcastre,
CO. Oxford, and across the river Thames by Burford and Culhamford and
for the sustenance of thirteen poor men and women."'^^ Again, although
the secondary purpose of the guild to sustain the poor and offer prayers for
the dead is upheld, it is clear that the main function of the guild is to
maintain the communication link. Again, the licensees are significant-
John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln and Chancellor of England, John de la
Pole, Duke of Suffolk, Richard Ill's brother-in-law and like his father before
him Joint Constable of the castle at Wallingford and Francis, Lord Lovell
(whose principal seat at Minster Lovell was nearby) named in the licence
as the king's chambedain and the other Joint Constable of Wallingford.'^"*

Although both Russell and De la Pole survived the downfall of Richard
III, it is clear that they did not themselves at any time become bridgemasters

Renaissance et Réforme / 85

in this small Berkshire town. The day to day maintenance of the bridges
was the responsibility of the local members of the fraternity. In this way
the fraternity functioned as an instrument of local government despite the
legal sovereignty of the abbey.

Abingdon Abbey was dissolved on 9 February, 1538— one of the first of
the great English abbeys to be destroyed. The Fraternity fell under the edict
of 1547. Out of the ensuing uncertainty, however, emerged a new town
government. In 1553, an Act of the Privy Council restored "to the townesmen
of Abendon of suche landes as, having byn appointed for the maintenaunce
of ij bridges and the sustcntacion of certaine poore men, were taken lately
from them to the Kinges Majesties behoof uppon coullour that the same
were within the compassé of thact of Chauntries."^^^ That same year Christ's
Hospital was established in Abingdon taking over the functions of the
Fraternity. Four of the last masters of the Fraternity were among the
governors of the hospital.*^ During the next three years the townspeople
sought incoiporation which they received in 1556, at which time two of the
same four masters became members of the town council.^^^ By this
transition the civil functions of the Fraternity were vested in the new town
council and the charitable functions in the new hospital. From the accounts
of the incorporated town, it is clear that Abingdon was a favourite stopping
place for the travelling players following the road west made possible by
the bridges maintained for so many years by the Fraternity. ^^^ In this way
the Abingdon town council maintained another activity of its unusual civic
parent.

5. Conclusion

The histories of the York guilds and of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross of
the parish of St. Helen, Abingdon make it very clear that we cannot
generalize about the nature of English guilds and confraternities. Although
most cities, towns, and parishes sponsored organizations to support the
poor and indigent and the priests who offered prayers for the souls of the
dead, there is no other common thread. What is clear is that the confrater-
nities played a central role in the life of English communities in the fifteenth
century. Not only did they frequently provide a social focus for those
communities, they put in place a system of social assistance that in most
places survived their abolition. But the nature of each guild was different
and its relationship to its community depended entirely on the social and
political organization of that community. After the Dissolution in York the

86 / Renaissance and Reformation

properties and obligations of the confraternities were simply absorbed by
the city council. In Abingdon, the confraternity itself became the corpora-
tion. Variations on these two basic patterns can be found all over the
kingdom. In trying to understand the nature of English society in this period
of radical administrative change, we ignore the place of the confraternities
to our peril.

Records of Early English Drama, University of Toronto

Notes

1 Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, eds., Records of Early English Drama: York,
2 vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979).

2 Alexandra F. Johnston, "Records of Early English Drama: Berkshire" (forthcoming).

3 Merchant Adventurers of York, Compotus Roll III, Box D56.

4 Compotus Roll A(a), Box D57.

5 Susan Reynolds,/!/; Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1977), p. 166.

6 Toulmin Smith, éd., English Gilds, EETS OS 40 (London: Oxford University Press, 1880),
pp. 148-54.

7 Arthur F. Leach, The Records of the Borough of Beverley, Historical Manuscript Commission,
54th Report (1900), p. 5.

8 Leach, p. 141.

9 Leach, p. 68.

10 W.D. Macray, 77?^ Manuscripts of the Corporation of Reading, Historical Manuscript
Commission, 11th Report (1888), p. 171.

11 Toulmin Smith, pp. 117-18.

12 Reynolds, p. 165.

13 REED: York, p. 865.

14 Ibid., p. 647.

15 Toulmin Smith, p. 3 et passim.

16 Danby Pickering, éd., 77»^ Statutes at Large, vol. 3 (Cambridge: np, 1762), p. 216.

17 Ibid.

18 REED: York, pp. 25-26.

19 /fe/V/.,p. 11.

20 Ibid., pp. 24, 26.

21 Maud Sellers, ed. York Memorandum Book, A/Y part 2 (1388-1493), Surtees Society 125
(1914), p. 181. For a discussion of guild life in York in the sixteenth century see David
Palliser, Tudor York (Oxford, 1979) and Ue Refonnation in York. 1534-1553 (York, 1971).

22 Joyce W. Percy, éd., York Memorandum Book B/Y, Surtees Society 186 (1969), pp. 84-85.

23 Ibid., p. 254.

24 REED: York, p. 4.

25 B/Y, p. 54.

26 Public Record OfTice, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Heni7 VI, vol. V, AD 1446-1452, p. 105.

27 R.B. Dobson, éd., York City Chamberlains' Accounts 1396-1500, Surtees Society 192 (1980),
p. 26.

28 Ibid., p. 99.

Renaissance et Réforme / 87

29 Francis Drake, Eboracum, York, np, 1736, p. 316.

30 Maud Sellers, éd., The York Mercers and Merchant Adventurers, 1356-1917, Surtees Society
129(1917).

31 See Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Dorrell, "The Doomsday Pageant of the York
Mercers, UZZ^ Leeds Studies in English, New Series, 5 (1971): 29-34 and "The York Mercers
and Their Pageant of Doomsday, 1433-1526," Leeds Studies in English, New Series, 6 (1972):
10-35.

32 REED: York, pp. 56, 242.

33 Sellers, A/ercer5, pp. 1-3.

34 B/Y, p. 143.

35 Sellers, A/ercm, pp. 30-31.

36 Ibid., p. X.

37 Merchant Adventurei-s of York, Compotus Roll T, Box D55.

38 Compotus Roll M(a), Box D58.

39 Compotus Rolls M(a) and N(a), Box D58.

40 Alexandra F. Johnston, "The Guild of Coipus Christi and the Procession of Corpus Christi
in York," Medieval Studies, 38 (1976): 372-84.

41 REED: York, p. 68.

42 Alexandra F. Johnston, "The Plays of the Religious Guilds of York: The Creed Play and
the Pater Noster Play," Speculum, 50 (1975): 55-90.

43 York City Archives, C99:l-2 (1415-16)— C103:2 (1540-1541).

44 Robert Skaife, éd.. The Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi, Surtees Society 57 (1871).

45 Ibid., pp. 255-56.

46 Ibid., p. X.

47 Ibid., p. 644.

48 Ibid., p. 298.

49 Johnston, "The Plays," p. 64.

50 REED: York, p. 317.

51 Ibid., p. 340.

52 Ibid., p. 348.

53 Skaife, p. 307.

54 REED: York, p. 353.

55 See above.

56 REED: York, pp. 863-66.

57 Johnston, "The Plays," p. 73.

58 Alberic Stacpoole, et ai, eds., Tlie Noble City of York (York: np, 1972), p. 483.

59 REED: York, p. 99.

60 Ibid., p. 178.

61 Ibid., p. 262.

62 Angelo Raine, éd., York Civic Records, vol. 5, Yorkshire Archeological Society, 110 (1946),
p. 4.

63 Ibid., pp. 106-109.

64 REED: York, p. 327.

65 Ibid., p. 365.

66 Public Record Ofilce, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Richard II, vol. 5, AD 1391-1396, p. 716.

67 ScUers, Memorandum, p. 108.

68 Public Record Office, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Heniy VI, vol. 6 , AD 1452-1461, pp. 80-81.

88 / Renaissance and Reformation

69 Stacpoole, p. 480.

70 REED: York,^. 11.

71 Ibid., p. 68.

72 James Raine, éd., Testameuta Eboraceusis, IV, Surtees Society 53 (1868), pp. 212-13. For a
detailed discussion of the riding see Eileen White "'Bryngyng Forth Saynt George': The
St George Celebrations in York," Medieval English Theatre, 3:2 (1981): 114-21.

73 REED: York, p. 289.

74 Dobson, p. 162.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid., pp. 70, 86, 97, 103, 120, 123, 176 and 195 and York City Archives, Chamberlains' Rolls
C5:l (1501-1502), C5:2 (1506-1507) and C5:3 (1508-1509).

77 REED: York, p. 155.

78 Ibid., passim.

79 Ibid., p. 243 et passim.

80 Angelo Raine, éd., York Civic Records, vol 3, Yorkshire Archeological Society 106 (1942),
pp. 130-31.

81 Raine, YCR, vol. 5, p. 3.

82 Ibid., p. 4.

83 S.T. Bindoff, éd.. The House of Commons J 509-1 558, vol. 3, London, History of Parliament
Trust, 1982, pp. 368-69.

84 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 425-26.

85 Francis Collins, éd.. The Register of the Freemen of the City of York 1272-1558, Surtees Society
96 (1896), p. 269.

86 Drake, p. 329.

87 Raine, YCR, vol. 5, pp. 17-18.

88 Ibid., p. 28.

89 REED: York, p. 318.

90 Ibid., p. 327.

91 Stacpoole, p. 49. See also the inventories of the guild REED: York, Appendix II, pp. 628-44.

92 Gabrielle Lambrick, "The Impeachment of the Abbot of Abingdon, 1 368," English Historical
Review, 82 (1967): 160.

93 Arthur E. Preston, Christ's Hospital, Abingdon (Oxford, 1929), pp. 8 ff.

94 Ibid., p. 25.

95 Wiltshire Record Office, Dl/2/9, Register of Robert Neville, Bishop of Salisbury, f. 109v.
% Thomas Heame, Liber Niger Scaccari E Codice (Oxford, 1728), pp. 598-99.

97 Public Record Office, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Heniy V, vol. 2, AD 1416-1422, pp. 33-34.

98 Ibid., vol. 4, AD 1441-1446, pp. 36-37.

99 Dictionary of National Biography.

100 The Complete Peerage.

101 DNB.

102 Preston, p. 19 ff.

103 PRO, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward IV- Richard III, AD 1476-1485, p. 386.

104 Peerage.

105 John Roche Dasent, çd.,Acts of the Privy Council of England, New Series, vol. 4, AD 1552-54
(London, 1892), pp. 226-27.

106 Preston, pp. 26 ff.

107 Ibid.

108 Berkshire Record Office, A/FAc 1-3, Abingdon Chamberlains' Accounts 1527-85.

Les confréries et l'iconographie
populaire des sept péchés capitaux*

JOANNE S. NORMAN

JJans les études médiévales, il est affaire courante d'interpréter les décrets
du rVème Concile du Latran (1215) qui traitaient de la confession et de la
pénitence comme des éléments catalyseurs de la pratique de prêcher plus
fréquemment et plus régulièrement aux laïques. Mais l'ampleur des cir-
constances au niveau social et spirituel de cette nouvelle pratique ne fait
que commencer à se faire connaître. Le but premier de ces sermons était
d'éveiller en la personne du pécheur une prise de conscience de son péché,
de l'amener au repentir puis à la confession de ses fautes les plus graves.
L'abondance régulière des sermons et les manuels pour faire les sermons
qui en résultèrent ne diminuèrent pas pendant les siècles suivants. Bien au
contraire, par la fin du XVème siècle, une demande quasi insatiable pour
l'instruction et l'inspiration morales, appuyée par l'invention nouvelle de
l'imprimerie, créa un véritable flot de matériels de ce genre. L'élément le
plus frappant dans le développement de cette nouvelle spiritualité qui
remonte au début du XlIIème siècle a été l'implication des laïques dans
cette matière et l'influence qui en résulta. Chenu a défini ce mouvement,
qui s'éloignait de l'expression monastique de l'expérience religieuse
ascétique et détachée de ce monde pour aller vers un mouvement "qui
encourageait la découverte des lois de la nature, formulait une prise de
conscience de la Raison et de ses lois et déterminait la valeur des structures
sociales," comme "un évangélisme apostolique." Cette nouvelle spiritualité
trouva une de ces formes les plus appropriées dans les sociétés laïques
organisées, les confréries et les guildes, dont la pratique chrétienne
soulignait l'importance de la prière, de la pénitence, de la charité fraternelle
et des principes moraux. Ce fut d'abord vers les congrégations urbaines des
entrepreneurs que les ordres prêcheurs et mendiants orientèrent leur
théologie sur la nature et la grâce, dans des sermons qui rejetèrent

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 89

90 / Renaissance and Reformation

l'interprétation traditionnelle, allégorique ou figurée, des Ecritures, pour
viser à un équilibre entre le sens propre et le sens spirituel. Le changement
du contexte social pour les prêcheurs coïncida avec "une sensibilité aiguë
et croissante vis-à-vis des phénomènes naturels," un développement depuis
longtemps reconnu dans le changement vers le naturalisme dans l'art du
XlIIème siècle. La représentation réaliste de la faune et de la flore ainsi
que des scènes de la vie quotidienne dans les sculptures des cathédrales se
reflètent dans les sermons des XlIIème et XTVème siècles qui montrent un
emploi plus fréquent d'exemples empruntés à l'histoire naturelle et aux
occupations de l'homme. Une connotation morale était donnée à la vie
séculière où l'éthique du comportement humain prennait une importance
croissante et dont le ton devenait essentiellement pénitenticl. De plus, bien
que l'alphabétisation se répandait au niveau de la nouvelle classe moyenne,
les laïques continuaient de réclamer des images concrètes d'idées qui "could
be conjured up in the mind with the help of a certain literary and spiritual
tradition and also seen and lived over again by the fact that they were
drawn, painted, represented for the eye to see in one way or another." C'est
dans ce contexte de spiritualité laïque que nous devons voir la montée d'une
nouvelle iconographie allégorique dans la décoration des églises
paroissiales et des chapelles pénitcntielles du XVème siècle. Cette
iconographie présentait le conflit moral à l'intérieur même de l'âme
humaine comme une procession des sept péchés capitaux vers l'Enfer,
chaque péché personnifié sous forme d'un homme ou d'une femme
appartenant à une classe sociale bien distincte, chevauchant un animal
symbolisant la nature bestiale et inhumaine de chaque vice.

La version la mieux connue de cette allégorie, tout au moins en littérature
anglaise, est le défilé des sept péchés capitaux du Premier Livre du Faerie
Queene de Spenser. Le caractère pictural des scènes de Spenser est frappant,
et a naturellement mené les critiques modernes à rechercher, sans succès,
une source directe pour cette partie de l'allégorie dans l'art contemporain.
Les difficultés sont peut être apparues par le fait que cette procession des
sept péchés capitaux ne fait pas partie de l'iconographie traditionnelle des
vertus et des vices, mais est une nouveauté qui apparaît à la fin du XVème
siècle et dont les origines restent quelque peu obscures.

L'allégorie visuelle la plus ancienne et la mieux connue des Vices et des
Vertus est celle d'une bataille entre des guerriers représentant les pulsions
du bien et du mal dans la psyché humaine. Le concept provient à l'origine
de la Psychomachia de Prudcntius, une allégorie du Vèmc siècle, et des

Renaissance et Réforme / 91

illustrations qui en accompagnent le texte. L'iconographie de base, qui était
chargée de connotations apocalyptiques dès le Xllème siècle et toujours
associée aux églises de pèlerinages et des monastères en général, montre
une guerrière armée écrasant impitoyablement un grotesque démon se
tordant de douleur à ses pieds. Avec le XlIIème siècle, la métaphore du
combat armé avait largement été remplacée par des représentations oppos-
ant vertus et vices, tel le fameux bas-relief de Notre Dame de Paris.^ Mais
les vertus demeuraient toujours le centre d'intérêt de cet art. Comme le
remarque Morton Bloomfield, "it is only in the later Middle Ages that the
seven cardinal sins came into their own in painting and manuscript
illustration."^ La nouvelle iconographie, qui avait recours aux péchés
capitaux en tant que centre d'intérêt, ne venait pas d'une morbidité
fln-de-siècle ni d'une fascination du mal, mais répondait plutôt à un intérêt
croissant, en particulier chez les laïques, pour la conversion individuelle et
le salut. Les confréries offraient les expressions visibles d'une piété
renouvellée, basée sur le repentir et sur les pratiques spirituelles qui
délivreraient des peines du Purgatoire:

C'est par les austérités que rivalisent orthodoxes et hérétiques, et c'est
par elles que l'on espère fléchir Dieu, qui frappe si durement ses peuples.
La pénitence est l'objet propre des premiers tiers-ordres; elle inspire toute
une armée aux uniformes disparates; elle déchaîne la frénésie des
flagellants de toutes bannières.^

Parmi les images du pénitentiel, la personnification des sept péchés
capitaux tenait une place centrale. Leur influence en littérature et en
théologie morale, en particulier dans les domaines pratiques du repentir et
de la confession, a été amplement démontrée. Dans l'art, aucune allégorie
morale des péchés ne remplacera la position dominante détenue par la
psychomachia au Xllème siècle. Mais parmi la grande variété de
représentations des Vertus et des Vices, la procession des sept péchés
capitaux est particulièrement répandue en France. Une des particularités
de l'iconographie plus tardive fut sa concentration en un seul endroit
géographique. La psychomachia de l'art roman était véritablement d'ordre
international et monastique, cependant dans la période tardive de l'art
gothique, elle était française et séculière.

Un survol rapide des représentations de la procession des sept péchés
pourrait aider à les replacer dans une perspective historique. Premièrement,
il faut remarquer que tous les exemples, à l'exception d'un seul cas,
présentent ce sujet sous forme de peintures murales, enluminures de

92 / Renaissance and Reformation

manuscrits ou tapisseries. Souvent les études spécialisées traitent une oeuvre
comme un phénomène local, créant par mégarde l'impression que ce sujet
est particulier à une région de France. Bien qu'il semble que des exemples
connus s'agglomèrent dans certaines régions, ils sont en fait dispersés sur
l'ensemble du territoire français et font preuve d'une iconographie
remarquablement constante.

La concentration géographique à l'intérieur même d'un seul pays se
trouve aussi dans la définition chronologique. Bien que les deux exemples
les plus anciens de la procession des péchés pourraient remonter à la fin
du XlVème siècle, la plupart d'entre elles ont été réalisées approximative-
ment entre 1450 et 1520. Le sujet appartient de manière très définitive au
XVème siècle, et la procession des péchés peut donc être considérée comme
une expression particulière de l'époque.

L'exemple le plus ancien connu jusqu'à présent a été peint à la fin du
XlVème siècle dans la petite église 'paroissiale de St-Sulpice à Roussines
(Indre), dans la vallée de la Creuse.^ (Fig. 1) Bien que les sept péchés
capitaux soient distribués séparemment sur chacun des huit segments d'une
voûte de la nef, l'idée d'une série est transmise par la disposition circulaire
qu'impose la structure voûtée, par un arrière-plan commun, ainsi que par
l'orientation des figures vers une seule et même direction. Comme il n'y a
que sept péchés et huit segments à la nef, un moine en prière, les mains
ligotées en signe de pénitence est peint sur la section supplémentaire. A
l'origine, une banderole avec -inscription identifiait chaque péché
représenté. La banderole du moine n'est aujourd'hui plus visible; cepen-
dant, d'anciennes sources bien documentées assurent que figurait le mot
"angustiae," faisant probablement référence à l'avertissement du prêcheur
concernant les difficultés dans lesquelles se trouveraient ceux qui com-
mettraient ces péchés.

Dans le sens contraire des aiguilles d'une montre, le premier péché est
présenté sous forme d'un jeune seigneur à cheval, portant un faucon au
poignet. L'habillement soigneusement recherché ainsi que le cheval justifi-
ent l'étiquette, orgueilh (Orgueil). A côté, l'Avarice tient une escarcelle à
longue lanière et une coupe en or remplie de pièces de monnaies. Elle (sous
des traits masculins), monte un quadrupède aux formes quelque peu
ambiguës, pouvant ressembler à un ours. Le troisième péché, la Luxure, est
présentée sous les traits d'un homme, se parade avec des attributs sexuels
proéminants. Il tient une épée à la verticale et chevauche une chèvre. La
Gourmandise apparaît sous la forme d'un homme gras, tenant une coupe

Renaissance et Réforme / 93

bien remplie et un gigot, et se promène sur les dos d'un renard. La Colère,
montée sur un porc, se poignarde. La Paresse, un mendiant aux pieds nus,
suit à dos d'âne. Enfin, l'Envie est présentée par un marchand sur un lévrier
rongeant un os. D'une main il tient sa bourse; l'autre est levée, en signe de
defence.

Comme le montrent des exemples plus tardifs, les figures de Roussines
ne présentent pas le modèle-type qui se développera par la suite. Pourtant,
outre le fait d'être l'exemple pictural le plus primitif, ces figures montrent
un nombre de caractéristiques significatives. Premièrement, elles
représentent très distinctement les sept péchés capitaux, et non une série
de vices indifférenciés face aux vertus. Ce sont des figures humaines, non
des démons, et leur nature est révélée à travers des actes types de péchés
particuliers ainsi que par l'animal symbolique qu'ils montent. Le soin
donné à l'habillement contemporain aide à personnifier les péchés, tandis
que les différences sociales, que reflètent aussi les costumes, suggèrent que
chaque classe a ses propres faiblesses.

L'idée que certaines classes représentent des péchés individuels se montre
encore plus évidente dans quelques enluminures de manuscrits français de
1392, qui sont en même temps un exemple primitif d'une série des sept
péchés capitaux.^^ Dans le B.N. ms. fr. 400, chaque péché est représenté
par un homme ou une femme montant un animal et tenant un oiseau
symbolique. (Fig. 2) La plupart des péchés sont répartis à travers les
différentes classes sociales: l'Orgueil, un roi sur un lion, tient un aigle;
l'Envie, un moine sur un chien, tient un épervier; la Colère, une femme sur
un sanglier, tient un coq; la Paresse, un paysan à dos d'âne, tient un hibou;
l'Avarice, un marchand sur un blaireau, tient une corneille et une escarcelle;
la Gourmandise, ceinte d'une épée et montant un loup, tient un cerf-volant;
et, enfin, la Luxure, une femme sur une chèvre et tenant une colombe. Deux
péchés, l'Envie et l'Avarice, font des gestes caractéristiques qui peuvent être
comparés à ceux des péchés personnifiés à Roussines, mais la ressemblance
la plus importante entre les illustrations du manuscrit et les peintures
murales est la représentation très nette des sept péchés capitaux en hommes
et en femmes d'époque caractérisant leur classe sociale. L'autre détail
significatif est l'utilisation d'animaux pour suggérer la nature du péché
personnifié par les figures humaines. Ces personnifications du péché et les
animaux symboliques qui les accompagnent quelles chevauchent sont
devenues l'iconographie de base de la procession des sept péchés capitaux.

94 / Renaissance and Reformation
FIGURE 1: St-Sulpice, Roussines (Indre)

FIGURE 2: B.N. ms. fr. 400 f. 53

Photo. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

nV>»A «•• Mni-r * «"I I» Mtr *«wll^ *«» » mmthmmv^

Renaissance et Réforme / 95

Les dessins du manuscrit sont encadrés d'une série de cercles entrelacés
qui contiennent des phrases en français et en latin. Le texte français se
conjugue à la première personne, par laquelle le péché s'identifie; le texte
latin, également conjugué à la première personne, ajoute une série de péchés
secondaires reliés au péché principal. Chaque image a une légende en
français décrivant les éléments-clé de l'ensemble; ces éléments sont aussi
libellés en latin. Le texte que ces dessins doivent illustrer est une analyse
hautement abstraite et systématique de chaque péché capital et de sa vertu
réparatrice qui ne contient aucune allégorie ou ni même d'exemple concret.
Les images servent d'aide-mémoirc visuel mais leur symbolisme aurait été
recueilli d'une autre source. Le ton d'exhortation ainsi que l'agencement de
textes français et latins indiquent que cette forme de communication a pu
servir, à l'origine, comme une aide pratique pour préparer un sermon
orienté vers un public laïque et pour lequel l'emploi de la première personne
donnait un sens de repentir.

Bien que les figures agissent en tant que symboles indépendants pouvant
servir d'appui aux prêches, le sens qu'elles renferment n'est en aucun cas
évident en soi. En fait, presque chaque fois que ces figures apparaissent
dans l'art elles sont accompagnées d'une légende plus explicite. Cette
nécessité d'interpréter les images est une reconnaissance formulée de la
complexité et de l'ambiguïté propres aux symboles, qui, au Moyen Age
tardif, étaient détachés de tout texte explicatif Elle a aussi des implications
dans les contextes culturels et sociaux dans lesquels ces oeuvres étaient
produites.

La représentation la plus élaborée du thème de la procession des péchés
fut réalisée dans le sud-est de la France, dans les régions alpines de la
Savoie, du Piedmont et des Hautes-Alpes. Dans la vieille cathédrale de
Notre-Dame-du-Bourg, à Digne (Haute Provence),^ ^ se trouve l'un des
exemples les plus anciens (circa 1480) et les plus complets d'une peinture
disposée en trois registres, typique de cette région. (Fig. 3) Du côté sud de
la nef, le mur est décoré, tout d'abord, d'un Jugement dernier, suivi d'une
vue de la Sainte Jérusalem; puis, à droite, d'une série des sept vertus, des
sept vices et des sept peines d'Enfer. (La première figure de chaque série
est aujourd'hui effacée.) Dans le registre du milieu, les péchés sont présentés
comme des individus chevauchant des bêtes symboliques, une lourde
chaîne rattachant chacun à son compagnon. Ils apparaissent dans l'ordre
suivant: l'Orgueil (aujourd'hui effacé), l'Avarice, avec une bourse, à dos de
singe; la Luxure, une femme s'admirant au miroir, à cheval sur une truie;

96 / Renaissance and Reformation

la Colère, un jeune homme se poignardant, sur le dos d'un léopard; l'Envie,
montant un lévrier, se montre l'oeil du doigt et regarde de travers ses voisins.
La Gourmandise brandissant une cruche de vin, chevauche un renard,
tandis que la Paresse, en haillons, se promène à dos d'âne et ferme la
marche. Le registre supérieur renferme les symboles, tous féminins, des
vertus. Assises ou agenouillées, elles exécutent des gestes contraires aux
vices, qui leurs font face. Le registre inférieur présente les peines de l'Enfer
assignées aux pécheurs. La composition picturale permet une lecture
horizontale, de gauche à droite: vertus, péchés, punitions, et une lecture
verticale: la vertu réparatrice, le péché mortel, et la punition du mal. (Fig. 4)
La sélection des vertus et des punitions est fonction des péchés capitaux et
souligne le fait qu'ils forment le centre de la composition. Le rôle-clé joué
par les péchés capitaux est prouvé par l'existence de plusieurs peintures
murales dans lesquelles seuls les péchés sont présents, alors que les vertus
ou les peines apparantécs n'apparaissent jamais dans l'absolu. Les
peintures de Notre-Dame-du-Bourg sont accompagnées par d'assez longues
inscriptions en latin et en provençal. Celles rattachées aux péchés capitaux
sont à la première personne en langue vulgaire. Elles donnent le nom latin
du péché, expliquent sa nature véritable et identifient son animal sym-
bolique. Ces inscriptions permettent de faire un parallèle impressionnant
au point de vue du fond et de la forme avec des inscriptions du BN. ms.
fr. 400, exécutées cent ans auparavent et provenant du nord de la France.

Cette même iconographie, vue à Digne, devint la forme conventionnelle
dans tous les autres exemples du sud-est, bien que les trois registres ne
furent pas toujours présents. ^^ Ces peintures ne se trouvaient habituelle-
ment pas dans les grandes cathédrales mais dans les petites églises
paroissiales ou même encore dans les petites chapelles. Les peintures étaient
faites soit à l'intérieur, sur les parois de la nef, ou sur un mur extérieur
protégé par les avancées du toit. (Fig. 6)

C'est donc à Les Vigneaux (1470),^^ sur le mur extérieur du choeur de
l'église paroissiale de St-Laurent qu'apparaît une peinture abîmée de la
procession des péchés capitaux dans laquelle les vices humains, le cou
enchaîné, défilent de la gauche à la droite: l'Orgueil, un jeune roi couronné,
tenant un sceptre, monte un lion; l'Avarice, un marchand tenant une boîte
d'argent sur les genoux, monte un singe; la Luxure, chevauchant une chèvre,
est vêtue à la dernière mode avec hermine et décolleté, lève coquettement
sa robe, laissant paraître la jambe; l'Envie, les bras croisés, pointe du doigt
dans des sens opposés et monte un lévrier qui ronge un os. La Colère,

k Renaissance et Réforme / 97

FIGURE 3: Notre-Dame-du-Bourg, Digne (Haute-Provence)

FIGURE 4: Notre-Dame-du-Bourg, Digne (Haute-Provence)

98 / Renaissance and RcfoiTnation

montant un léopard, se poignarde; la Gourmandise est un homme gras,
buvant d'une coupe et brandissant un jambon, à dos de renard. La Paresse,
en guenilles et aux cheveux ébouriffes, court aux côtes d'un cheval
efflanqué. Tout à fait à droite, une immense bouche de l'Enfer, garnie de
dents aiguisées, reste béante pour y recevoir les Péchés.

Sur le mur ouest de la Chapelle de Notre-Dame-des-Graces (à l'origine
dédiée à St-Sébastien, c. 1490)14 du petit hameau de Plampinet, se trouve un
autre exemple d'une séquence à trois registres, typique de la région. (Fig. 5)
Menés par le diable, les péchés, enchaînés, s'acheminent de gauche à droite
vers les mâchoires de l'Enfer. L'Orgueil, monté sur un lion, tient comme
d'habitude la première place; l'Avarice le suit, montée sur un sanglier. Vient
ensuite la Gourmandise, sur un loup, la Luxure sur une chèvre, la Colère
sur un léopard, l'Envie sur un lévrier et la Paresse, une femme sur le dos
d'un âne. Des séries semblables, remontant au début du XVIème siècle, se
trouvent dans la Chapelle St-Jacques à Prcllcs (c. 1450)^^ et dans la paroisse
de St-AppoUinaire à L'Argenticrc-la-Bcsséc.^^ (Fig. 6) Bien qu'il y ait de
nombreuses variations de peu d'importance dans les détails, l'iconographie
reste conforme à l'allégorie du XTVème siècle. Les péchés sont représentés
par différentes catégories humaines, mais les distinctions de classe et d'âge
ont été estompées. L'Orgueil apparaît parfois avec les symboles de royauté,
parfois comme un fier noble ou bourgeois. La Paresse reste toujours un
mendiant, homme ou femme. La Luxure, contrairement à la figure mascu-
line de Roussines, est presque toujours une femme de la haute société. Les
autres péchés sont très peu différenciés et peuvent appartenir à la classe
moyenne ou à l'aristocratie. Cependant, tous les péchés sont attribués à des
laïques et seules certaines vertus sont attribuées à des religieuses.

Les péchés sont non seulement reliés par leur position relative mais aussi
par la chaîne utilisée pour exprimer l'idée commune selon laquelle, au cours
de la tentation humaine, un péché mène inévitablement à un autre. La
monstrueuse bouche de l'Enfer, ainsi que le démon-guide, ont été ajouté
afin de montrer sans équivoque le destin de la procession.

Les gestes symboliques des Péchés, les objets qu'ils portent ainsi que leurs
montures respectives sont représentées de manière plus significative au
XVème siècle. L'Orgueil est toujours vêtu somptueusement et porte souvent
une couronne, un sceptre ou une épée. Son animal est immanquablement
un lion. L'Avarice a une bourse à la ceinture et tient souvent une boîte
d'argent ou bien des sacs d'argent. Il monte un singe, un ours ou un sanglier.
Les quatre autres péchés ne sont pas présentés dans un ordre conséquant.

Renaissance et Réforme / 99

FIGURE 5: Notre-Dame-des-Graces, Plampinet (Hautes-Alpes)

FIGURE 6: St-Appollinaire, L'Argentière-la-Bessée (Hautes-Alpes)

100 / Renaissance and Reformation

La Luxure, avec une robe décolletée, tient un miroir et lève ses jupes. Elle
monte une truie ou une chèvre. La Gourmandise est toujours "gras," il boit
d'un verre à vin ou d'un flacon, et tient en brochette un jambon ou un
poulet Son animal est le renard, ou le loup. La Colère en montant un
léopard se poignarde un sujet qui remonte à la représentation de Tira par
Prudentius. L'Envie monte un lévrier, et se croise les bras pour pointer dans
deux sens contraires. Ce geste particulier peut être interprété comme un
signe extérieur du désir pciTcrs de l'hypocrisie, la nature essentiellement
contradictoire du péché, puisque cette attitude se ^-etrouve régulièrement
dans l'art roman pour représenter le mensonge et la contradiction. Enfin,
la Paresse, en guenilles, ferme la marche, à dos d'âne.

Douze peintures murales traitant ce même sujet ont été trouvées dans les
régions alpines de la Savoie et du Piedmont, provenant toutes d'églises de
villages situés à l'entour du passage du Mont Cenis. Ces villages semblent
isolés, dans les montagnes, mais les montagnes donnent accès à l'Europe
toute entière et le passage du Mont Cenis, plus particulièrement, reliait
l'Italie au coeur de la France. Les pèlerins et les marchands empruntaient
les grandes routes de montagnes pour aller vers l'Allemagne du Sud, la
vallée du Rhin, l'Italie, la France, les Pays-Bas, et même l'Angleterre.^^ Le
long de ces mêmes routes de montagnes, la région de chaque côtés de la
frontière franco-italienne, le plus souvent sous domination française
jusqu'au XVIIIème siècle, formait une entité culturelle où les influences
françaises et italiennes étaient également importantes dans l'art régional.^^

Le même mélange de styles se trouve plus au sud, où les peintures murales
des chapelles des Alpes-Maritimes présentent la procession des sept péchés
capitaux. Ces exemples existent dans les régions rurales qui, encore
aujourd'hui, sont pauvres, isolées et difficiles d'accès. L'apparition des
premières manifestations de la peste, à la fin du XVème siècle, mena, en
dépit de difficultés quasi-insurmontables, à la constmction de nombreuses
chapelles rurales le long des chemins menant aux villages des alentours de
Nice. Ces chapelles étaient habituellement situées à quelque distance même
du village.^^ Elles étaient dédiées aux saints populaires et semblent presque
avoir été construits selon le même plan.^^ La chapelle typique a une seule
nef rectangulaire avec une porte dans le mur ouest et surmontée par une
fenêtre. (Fig. 7) Sur la partie inférieure des murs de côté apparaissent les
Vertus et les sept Péchés capitaux, tandis que les autres peintures
représentent habituellement la vie d'un saint ou des scènes de la Passion.
Les Vertus et les Péchés accompagnent souvent une scène du Jugement

Renaissance et Reforme / 101

Dernier mais ils peuvent aussi apparaître seuls, ce qui rappelle
l'iconographie de la Savoie-Picdmont. Mais, le triple registre de peintures
venant du Nord se transforme en une composition plus simple formée de
deux bandes parallèles, une de Vertues féminines debout, l'autre d'une
procession à dos d'animaux des sept Péchés capitaux, habituellement
situées de chaque côté de la nef.

La chapelle de St-Sébastien à Roubion,^^ construite en 1513, peut être
considérée comme un proto-type de l'iconographie de cette région. Sur le
mur nord se trouve une procession de Péchés, menée par l'Orgueil en jeune
seigneur chevauchant un lion jusqu'en Enfer. Suivent l'Avarice, un vieux
marchand tenant un sac d'argent dans chaque main, à dos d'un animal
ressemblant à un chien; la Luxure, avec son miroir, à cheval sur un chamois;
la Colère, qui se poignarde deux fois, monte en amazone un dragon ailé;
la Gourmandise qui boit d'un flacon (Fig. 8a) et tient un rôti en brochette,
est à cheval sur un sanglier; l'Envie, sur un renard, montre du doigt son
"mauvais" oeil et pose la main sur son poignard; la Paresse est un mendiant
endormi sur le dos d'âne, dont les brides traînent. Ces Péchés, comme ceux
des Hautes-Alpes, portent une chaîne autour du cou. Un démon cornu tire
le bout de cette chaîne par dessus l'épaule, entraînant le groupe dans la
bouche de l'Enfer tandis qu'un autre démon-squelette joue du pipeau et du
tambour afin d'accélérer le défilé. (Fig. 8b)

Le démon musicien est un détail particulier à Roubion qui suggère une
"danse" des Péchés. En effet, un des Péchés à Digne fait allusion à la
procession comme à une "danza." Un parallèle poun-ait être établi, comme
cela a déjà été suggéré, entre la "danse macabre" et la procession des Péchés.
Pourtant, aucune "danse des péchés" n'existe en peinture et le sujet a été
uniquement traité dans un poème écossais d'époque. Dance of the Sevin
Deidly Synnis de William Dunbar qui reflète plusieurs thèmes propres au
gothique tardif.^^

Le style habituel de la peinture de Roubion et des chapelles en-
vironnantes, ainsi que des détails importants au niveau de la symbolique,
telles que les figures du diable et de l'Envie, distinguent ces peintures et
démontrent qu'elles ne sont pas des imitations directes des processions
venant plus au nord à la môme époque. Il y a un contraste stylistique
frappant au niveau de l'élégance et de la vivacité des figures de Plampinet,
dont les peintures révèlent le style italien bien marqué, exécuté par un artiste
très doué,^^ et le style de Roubion qui a été décrit comme "rustique et naïf '^^
ou encore "populaire et puéril."^^ Pourtant, le concept de base est le même.

102 / Renaissance and Reformation

FIGURE 7: St-Sébastien, Roubion (Alpes-Maritimes)

FIGURE 8: St-Scbastien, Roubion (Alpes-Maritimes)

a. Colère et Gloutonnie

b. Démon et Orgeuil

Renaissance et Réforme / 103

La clé pour comprendre le développement du sujet de la procession des
sept péchés capitaux se trouve non pas dans l'analyse stylistique d'exemples
individuels, mais dans l'appréciation des raisons pour lesquelles ils étaient
peints et de leurs sources communes. Puisque l'évidence documentée est
fatalement incomplète, peu d'assertions générales peuvent être avancées
avec certitude, mais celles-ci ont des sous-entendus plus larges. La proces-
sion des sept péchés capitaux s'est développée dans des régions qui étaient
habituellement défavorisées, isolées des grands centres du pouvoir du
mécénat de l'aristocratie. Ceci dit, ces régions étaient situées sur les routes
de commerce, ce qui facilitait la communication et l'échange d'idées entre
les peuples. Lorsqu'un tableau a été attribué à un peintre celui-ci semble
généralement être soit de la région— tel serait le cas du peintre de Plampinet,
dont la descendance pourrait encore y vivre,^^ soit de l'étranger— tels les
artistes de Digne qui ont manifestement été formés dans le nord de la
Prance,^^ ou encore venant de la Lombardie ou du Piedmont, comme ceux
de l'Argentière.^^ La situation devient plus complexe lorsque l'on constate
que la peinture de Plampinet a de proches affinités avec la procession des
Péchés de Villafranca, de style italien, peinte par un artiste français
d'Oulx.2^ La décoration des chapelles niçoises était réalisée par des groupes
d'artistes itinérants de la région et de l'étranger, qui se spécialisaient en
peinture murale et qui semblaient ouverts au même mélange d'influences
françaises et italiennes que les peintres de la Savoie.^^

Dans le sud de la France, l'art des villages était limité aux églises locales
et encouragé par des mécènes de la région ou, plus souvent, par la
communauté toute entière. Roubion, par exemple, avait été construit par
Jean et Erige Lubonis de Clans, de la famille du prêtre local,^^ tandis qu'une
chapelle avoisinante était "fieri communitas venansoni."^^ Les fresques
dans la chapelle des Pénitents, à La Tour, étaient peintes "per magistros
curraudi brevesi et guirardi nadali pittores de nicia et compatres in nomine
domini."-^-^ Le fait que toutes ces chapelles furent bâties dans une période
de temps relativement courte et à des fins analogues, explique la similitude
de leur plan architectural, relativement simple, et de leur iconographie,
essentiellement conservatrice.

Les peintures des sept Péchés capitaux semblent jusqu'ici être concentrées
dans le sud-est de la France: les détails varient largement à partir de
l'exemple plus tôt de Roussines. Une autre série de peintures, cette fois dans
le sud-ouest de la France, surtout dans la vallée du Lot et la province de
Guyenne, montre pourtant que le concept n'était par limité aux Alpes.

I

104 / Renaissance and Reformation

Les peintures les plus connues de ces régions, qui ont été reproduites
dans le Palais Chaillot à la suite d'une méticuleuse retauration, sont celles
de la petite paroisse de Féglise de St-Picrre-cs-Licns, à Martignac.^"^ Toutes
ces peintures semblent dater du tout début du XVIcme siècle, et traitent le
même sujet. A Martignac, une série de Vertus avec une procession des sept
Péchés capitaux occupent tout le mur nord de la nef. Les péchés sont
représentés comme des personnes aisées, chacunes montant un animal
symbolique et toutes enchaînées l'une à l'autre par la taille. (Fig. 9) Au lieu
d'avoir un seul démon debout à la bouche de l'Enfer, ici, chaque péché a
son propre démon bien identifié, tel astarot ou bescabuc. Le talent artistique
du peintre de Martignac lui a permis de donner un caractère individuel à
chacun des cavaliers et de montrer la motivation psychologique qui
sous-entend les péchés. Il est malheureux que la détérioration des peintures
empêche de reconnaître le détail avec certitude.

Dans une église du village de Pervillac (Fig. 10), du même diocèse, il
existe une peinture d'une procession de Péchés qui remonte probablement
plus loin que celles de Martignac mais dont la conception est semblable.^^
C'est encore tout le mur nord de la nef qui est peint, rempli ici par une
série de Vertus, indifférenciées debout et des sept péchés capitaux. Chaque
figure est soigneusement étiquettée. Chaque péché est accompagné par son
démon qui le mène sur le chemin de la facilité et tous les péchés sont
enchaînés l'un à l'autre par la taille. Le premier est l'Orgueil, un jeune noble
portant un chapeau avec une plume et une chaîne en or. Il tient un sceptre
et chevauche un lion. La Luxure, *unc femme coiffée à la mode du jour,
vêtue d'une robe décolletée, monte une chèvre et tient un miroir. La Paresse,
à la robe déboutonnée, suit à dos d'âne. La Gourmandise est un goinfre
corpulant qui tient un jambon. Il est monté sur un sanglier. L'Avarice, à
cheval sur un ours ou un loup, tient ses sacs d'argent, tandis que l'Envie,
qui pourrait être un moine, se croise les mains pour pointer dans les sens
opposés. Sa monture est malheureusement presque entièrement effacée,
mais on pourrait deviner un dragon. La Colère, qui ferme la marche, est
sur un léopard, et se poignarde. Face aux Vertus et aux Péchés du mur nord
se trouve la Sainte Jérusalem, et les tourments de l'Enfer sont peints sur le
mur sud.

Un autre exemple de la procession de Péchés dans la même région se
trouve en l'Eglise de la Masse, à Les Junies.^^ Ici, l'Orgueil est non seulement
coiffé d'un chapeau à plumes et à cheval sur un lion, mais il tient aussi un
faucon au poignet, ce qui rappelle Roussines. L'Avarice, avec sa bourse et

Renaissance et Réforme / 105
FIGURE 9: St-Pierre-ès-Liens, Martignac (Lot)

FIGURE 10:Pervillac(Tam-et-Garonne)

106 / Renaissance and Reformation

ses sacs d'argent, monte aussi un ours, tandis que la Luxure, la Gourman-
dise, la Colère et la Paresse restent sur leur animal respectif. D'autre part,
l'Envie pointe en direction de son oeil et se tient l'estomac, toujours monté
sur un lévrier. Cette représentation de l'Envie réunit des éléments de
Roubion et de Plampinet. Dans cette peinture, ce sont les animaux, plutôt
que les cavaliers, qui sont enchaînés et le diable les tire jusqu'en Enfer à
l'aide d'une chaîne passée par-dessus son épaule, et chaque péché est aussi
accompagné par un diable.

Les affinités de ces processions de Péchés avec celles du sud-est de la
France sont évidentes. Ces exemples sont moins systématiques dans la
représentation des détails. Aussi, l'ordre des Péchés est bousculé et certaines
bêtes symboliques sont soit changées, soit données à d'autres cavaliers.
L'innovation la plus frappante est le remplacement du diable qui mène la
procession par des diables individuels qui accompagnent chaque péché
dans la bouche de l'Enfer. De tels exemples se trouvent dans la région du
Piedmont, dans la chapelle St-Etienne à Jaillons et dans celle des Horres.^^
Dans cette dernière, datée de 1506, le diable tire les cheveux de la Luxure,
aide la Colère à se poignarder et malmène la Paresse. A Jaillons chaque
Péché est tourmenté par un démon, l'Avarice monte un ours et la Paresse
est une femme à moitié vêtue: ces deux détails rappelent Pervillac.

La présence de diables individuels donne une connotation différente à
l'interprétation des figures représentant les Péchés. Lorsqu'elles sont seules,
elles peuvent être interprétées comme étant le Péché abstrait soit
personnifié, soit incamé. Sa forme humaine représente le niveau terrestre
ou mortel où le Péché agit; cette interprétation de la position du péché est
renforcée par sa place occupée dans le registre central de la représentation
tripartite. L'apparance extérieure du Péché doit demeurer quelque peu
ambiguë, ce qui donne à son animal symbolique un signe visible de sa
véritable nature intérieure. L'Avarice n'est plus simplement un homme
avare mais l'idée même de l'avarice est concrétisée. La présence de démons
individuels brouille cette distinction claire. Si les diables agissent comme
temptateurs, comme à Pervillac et à Maitignac, ou comme les tourmenteurs
de Jaillons, la figure humaine devient plus victime que sujet agissant. Le
diable se charge de motiver le Péché tandis que le cavalier est réduit à celui
qui commet l'acte reprehensible. Les compagnons du démon ne sont pas
toujours présents dans d'autres exemples de la procession des sept péchés
capitaux trouvés dans le sud-ouest de la France. Dans l'église de St-Martin
à Champniers (Vienne), une procession, où les cavaliers ne sont pas

Renaissance et Réforme / 107

accompagnés, apparaît une fois de plus comme scène secondaire à un
Jugement Demier.^^ Les images de l'Enfer recouvrent la totalité du mur de
l'ouest et il n'y a pas de figures des Vertus.

Une autre église dédiée à St Martin à Pommeraie-sur-Sèvre (Vendée)^^ a
aussi une scène de procession sans Vertus ni scène du Jugement Dernier.
Les Péchés sont enchaînés par la taille et un diable à cornes les tire vers
la gigantesque bouche de l'Enfer. (Figs, lia et 11b) Une fois de plus'J les
Péchés sont habillés à la mode de la haute société de l'époque de Louis
XII ou du début du règne de François I. On note des changements
intéressants pour chacun des Péchés. L'Orgueil est un jeune roi sur un lion.
L'Envie porte un vêtement bordé d'hermine et monte une panthère. D'une
main il montre ce qu'il désire tandis que l'autre se tend pour l'attrapper.
L'Avarice est un vieux marchand avec une bourse à la ceinture qui monte
un ours. La Luxure est exceptionnellement un jeune homme sur une chèvre,
qui rappelle les figures de Roussines. Le gros Gourmand tient une tasse et
gruge une cuisse de poulet, son porc mange aussi, dans une auge. La Colère
porte une armure et monte un griffon. Il a une expression sauvage et se
transperce le corps de son épéc. Fermant la marche, la Paresse, pieds nus,
est endormie sur un âne. Un diable bleu la fait avancer à coups de gourdin.
Aucun de ces péchés n'est nommé, mais un soin tout particulier a été pris
pour rendre leur action très explicite. Il semble y avoir à nouveau un intérêt
à établir une correspondance entre les péchés et les classes sociales et d'en
attribuer une grande partie à la classe des nobles. Le péché semblerait être
relativement profitable dans ce monde, sinon dans l'autre, car dans la
procession les Péchés poursuivent leur route plus ou moins sains et saufs.

Bien qu'il ne soit pas possible ici de discuter tous exemples des sept
péchés capitaux, une autre procession mérite un bref aperçu en tant
qu'exemple tardif, provenant d'une région éloignée de notre centre d'étude.
Une modeste structure du XVème siècle, l'église Notre-Dame, du village de
Bourisp, dans la vallée de l'Aure (Hautes Pyrénées) fut peinte en 1592."^
Dans le porche se trouve une série complète de dessins des sept péchés
capitaux, tous chevauchant les animaux symboliques, maintenant familiers.
Les péchés sont représentés par des dames vêtues avec élégance, derrière
lesquelles un diable ailé parie à l'oreille.

Les peintures murales françaises de la procession des sept Péchés
capitaux posent un nombre de questions intéressantes concernant la nature
de ce sujet dans l'art et le contexte dans lequel il se trouve. En premier lieu,
il y a le problème de la localisation des oeuvres. Aujourd'hui, on connaît

108 / Renaissance and Reformation

un seul exemple de la procession des péchés en art en dehors de la France.
Il s'agit d'un linteau sculpté de la chapelle Roslin en Ecosse, probablement
fait par des artistes français. En termes historiques, les églises du Piedmont
et de la Lombardie qui contiennent ces peintures faisaient partie de la
France. Il est évident que le concept des sept Péchés capitaux était connu
de façon universelle à travers l'Europe, et les illustrations de manuscripts
des péchés chevauchant des animaux symboliques étaient représentés dans
d'autres pays, principalement l'Allemagne, l'Autriche et les Pays-Bas. Mais
les peintures murales ou les sculptures représentant les sept péchés capitaux
dans d'autres pays se réfèrent à une iconographie toute autre. Outre les
limites géographiques, presque toutes les peintures connues ont été réalisées
entre 1470 et 1592. L'iconographie de la procession enchaînée de figures
humaines sur des animaux reste un phénomène particulièrement français
de la fm du XVème siècle.

Il reste donc à savoir quelles circonstances particulières auraient pu
engendrer le développement de ce thème. Les peintures faisaient toujours
partie d'une église ou d'une chapelle paroissiale locale, commandées par
des individus laïques, tels des mécènes de la région ou des artisans bien
établis, ou par la communauté elle-même. Les chapelles niçoises se révèlent
ici particulièrement intéressantes puisqu'elles montrent la grande influence
des confréries de pénitents laïques dans la subvention, la construction et
la décoration de ces édifices."*^ La conscience sociale et l'encouragement
d'une vie chrétienne dans ce monde, pour une récompense juste dans le
prochain, que les processions de péchés exemplifiaient, ont du être très
compatibles avec la moralité praticante et la piété laïque que les confréries
devaient développer. A l'origine, ces sociétés étaient associées avec les ordres
monastiques, il est donc naturel qu'elles soient apparues dans des régions
où l'influence monastique s'était faite sentir.^^ ^eci était vrai, bien sûr, pour
les régions alpines où les Chartreux et les Augustiniens avaient été
particulièrement dominant. Le XVème siècle vit les confréries au sommet
de leur popularité et de leur influence, surtout en France et en Italie."*^ A
cette époque, elles étaient devenues plus au moins des organisations
autonomes, non plus sous le contrôle monastique mais essentiellement
associées aux divers métiers dans les villes et les villages.

Cette audience n'était pas particulièrement sophistiquée en matière d'art,
mais elle était relativement cultivée et possédait un bon entendenent des
doctrines de base de la foi. Le rôle central joué par les sept péchés capitaux
dans l'enseignement de la confession et de la pénitence expliquerait leur

Renaissance et Réforme / 109

importance dans les peintures laïques dans des chapelles pcnitentielles et
des églises paroisiales. C'est pour les laïques éduqués que ces figures étaient
soigneusement identifiées et que des commentaires écrits étaient ajoutés."*^
Leur fonction première était d'enseigner et d'inspirer une attitude adéquate
envers les choses spirituelles. L'image était une façon saisissante, voire
dramatique, et rendait l'apprentissage aisé et servait d'aide mémoire. Une
fois qu'un thème particulier avait été adopté par une confrérie, cette
association participant au mouvement continu du commerce, contribuait à
propager les thèmes d'une région à une autre.

Bien que les confréries peuvent aider à expliquer l'apparition des
processions des sept Péchés capitaux dans des régions éloignées l'une de
l'autre, elles ne forment pas une source véritable. En effet, l'iconographie
pouvait aussi trouver ses sources dans les représentations théâtrales locales.
Les inscriptions à Digne, par exemple, suggèrent une dramatisation de base.
Les confréries sont bien connues pour leur contribution significatives au
théâtre de la fin du Moyen Age et la plupart des manifestations publiques
semblent avoit inclues des processions. Cependant, une ou deux pièces de
théâtre de Savoie qui nous sont parvenues contiennent des dramatisations
des sept péchés capitaux, qui ne sont pas nécessairement des processions
symboliques. En fait, les pièces étaient de date postérieures aux peintures
et donc la question de "qui influence qui" demeure sans réponse. Roques
conclut que "Il y a pour les uns [peintures] et les autres [mystères] une
source commune que nous ne connaissons pas encore.'"^^

Une autre source possible qui serait encore plus familière à un public
laïque serait le sermon. Le travail de Richard et Mary Rouse et de Siegfried
Wenzel a montré l'importance croissante à travers le Moyen Age du sermon
en langue vulgaire, plus particulièrement pour l'enseignement moral et les
appels au repentir. Il existe plusieurs sermons analysant les Péchés de
chaque classes sociales ou groupes; quelques uns attribuent plus d'un
Péchés à une même classe."*^ Une grande partie des sermons puisent
intensément dans le thème des sept Péchés capitaux traditionnels. Les
confréries, à travers leur insistance sur la fréquentation de la messe et des
offices liturgiques et pénitentielles, auraient souvent exposées leurs
membres à ce type de sermon. Un manuel de prêcheur en particulier,
VEtymachia, présentait les sept péchés capitaux chevauchant des animaux
symboliques. Ce manuel était devenu très populaire dans le sud de
l'i^lemagne, la vallée du Rhin et les Flandres pendant la seconde moitié
du XVème siècle."*^ Il a été souvent reproduit sous forme de manuscrits

110 / Renaissance and Reformation

H-l O

CO

«3
u
O
>

Î-J "^

•2 *-s

.? CO

I -
O

to

C
o

o

Oh
CO

H

CO

Ml

%

'mm

Renaissance et Réforme /111

illustrés ainsi que dans des éditions imprimées en langue vulgaire. (Fig. 12)
Les illustrations se sont petit à petit détachées du texte afin de paraître tels
des dessins indépendants dans d'autres manuscrits, gravures sur bois et
tapisseries allemandes ou flamandes du XVème siècle, comme par exemple
la très ancienne tapisserie de Regensburg. (Fig. 13) Un manuscrit allemand
de Wilrzburg, daté entre 1412 et 1426, contient des instructions détaillées
pour une peinture murale qui viennent directement de VEtymachia, mais
qui incorporent des éléments, tels que la procession en file de figures
humaines montées sur des bêtes symboliques, une bouche de l'Enfer et une
escorte de diable, qui rappelle beaucoup les peintures murales françaises."^^
Emile Mâle, qui présenta l'étude la plus complète de cette iconographie, a
dû reconnaître l'influence potentielle du traité Etymachia lorsqu'il identifia
le B.N. ms. fr. 400 comme étant VEtymachia bien que ni le texte ni les images
n'appartiennent réellement au traité. Ces dessins de manuscrits, pourtant,
comme les peintures murales, présentent les sept péchés capitaux chevauch-
ant des animaux symboliques d'une façon qui ressemble à l'allégorie de
VEtymachia. Ne serait-il pas possible pour les confréries françaises, à travers
l'emploi commun du matériel de VEtymachia dans les sermons et à travers
les relations commerciales avec les Flandres et l'Allemagne, d'absorber cette
nouvelle allégorie visuelle des sept péchés capitaux et de l'utiliser comme
thème dans leur art religieux local?

Mais, quelque soit son origine précise, la procession des sept péchés
capitaux reflète bien les intérêts intellectuels courants et les préoccupations
religieuses de la bourgeoisie française, dont l'indépendance et l'influence
croissaient, à la fin du Moyen Age.

Université d'Ottawa

Notes

* Traduit de l'anglais par Marie-Louise Higham et Marguerite Higham.

1 M.D. Chenu, Nature, Man, ami Society in the Twelfth Century, traduit par Jerome Taylor et
Lester K. Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 202-38.

2 Gabriel Le Bras, "Les confréries chrétiennes: problèmes et propositions," Revue historique
de droit français et étranger {\94\-42): 348-49 et Chenu, pp. 251-62.

3 Chenu, p. 232.

4 Mary A. et Richard H. Rouse, "The Texts Called Lumen Anime," Archivum Fratum
Praedicatorum 41 (1971): 15.

5 Jean Leclerq, "Abstract and Popular Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages," (dissertation
présentée au Congrès international sur le Moyen Age, à Kalamazoo, ML, 1984).

112 / Renaissance and Reformation

6 L'étude générale de cette évolution dans Tart du Moyen Age a été faite par Adolf
Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art from Early Christian
Times to the Thirteenth Century, traduit par Alan J.P. Crick (1939; Leichtenstein: Kraus, 1968).

7 Morton W. Bloomfield, 777e' Seven Deadly Sins (Ann Arbor: Michigan State University Press,
1952), p. 103.

8 Le Bras, p. 322.

9 Cette église n'est pas très connue. Il y a très peu de resources documentées disponibles.
Quelques lignes ont été écrites par Jacques S. Sacy dans le Dictionnaire des églises de France,
Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse, vol. 4 (1966). Emile Mâle a aussi contribué par une brève
description dans L'art religieux de lajîn du Moyen Age en France, Sème édition révisée (Paris:
Colin, 1949), p. 333.

10 Seul E. Mâle donne une description détaillée de ce manuscrit, p. 332.

1 1 Marguerite Roques, Les peintures murales du sud-est de la France: XlIIème au XVIème siècle
(Paris: Picard, 1961), pp. 156-59; MJ. Roman. "Le tableau des Veitus et des Vices,"'' Mémoires
de la société des antiquaires de France 41(1 880-8 1 ): 29-30; Camille Blanchard, "L'art populaire
dans le Briançonnais: les Veitus et les Vices," Bulletin de la société d'études historiques,
scientifiques et littéraires des Hautes-Alpes (1923): 196 et Ollivier, "Dignes et ses environs,"
Annales des Basses-Alpes et Bulletin de la société scientifique et littéraire des Basses-Alpes
(1881-83): 38, 76 et 131.

12 Les descriptions de toutes les églises sont basées sur les photos et les observations tirées de
mes propres recherches. Un ceilain nombre de peintures paraît dans la liste de la
Commission des monuments historiques à Paris, dont les resources documentées ont toutes
été examinées. Dans la plupart des cas il y a très peu de matériel. Toutes études régionales
auxquelles j'ai pu avoir accès apparaît sous forme de notes en référence à chacunes des
églises. A part ces notes de référence, les études suivantes offrent un aperçu plus général
ayant trait aux régions dans lesquelles se trouvent les peintures murales: Lucien Bégule,Le5
peintures murales à Lanslevillard et Bessans (Lyon: Rey, 1918); Camille Blanchard, "L'art
populaire dans le Briançonnais: les Veitus et les Vices," Bulletin de la société d'études
historiques, scientifiques et littéraires des Hautes-Alpes (1921): 36-43, 114-28; (1922): 62-72,
180-204; (1923): 193-237 et G.Sentis, L'art du Briançonnais: la peinture au XVème siècle (Gap:
Louis- Jean, 1970).

13 Roques, pp. 263-64.

14 Roques, pp. 48, 304-307; Blanchard (1921), p. 37; B. Faucher, "Un septième exemplaire dans
les Hautes-Alpes de la peinture des Veitus et des Vices, découvert à Plampinet," Bulletin de
la société d'études historiques, scientifiques et littéraires des Hautes-Alpes (1920): 29-33.

15 Roques, pp. 49, 55, 233; Blanchard (1922), pp. 159-65.

16 Roques, pp. 48, 385-87; Blanchard (1922). pp. 133-65.

17 J.E. Tyler, The Alpine Passes: Tlie Middle Ages (962-1250) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1930), pp. 48-52,
143, 162.

18 K Oursel Art en Savoie (n.p.: Aithaud, 1975), pp. 17-19 et Roques, pp. 120-21.

19 Latouche, Robert, "Les peintures murales des chapelles de Saint Sébastien de Roubion,
de Saint Sébastien de Rouie et de la Madonne de la Roquette," Comptes rendus et mémoires
. ..de l'Institut historique de Provence (1927): 92.

20 Roques, pp. 15-16 et Paul Caneslrier, "Les chapelles rurales et les saints populaires du comté
de Nice," Nice historique (1946): 3-4, 10-12.

Renaissance et Réforme / 113

21 Debidour, p. 20; Roques, pp. 50, 380-82.

22 La relation entre le poème de William Dunbar et les sujets de procession des sept péchés
capitaux a fait l'objet d'une de mes études intitulée "Sources for the grotesque in William
Dunbar's Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis,'" qui sera publiée dans Scottish Studies, 1988.

23 Roques, p. 307.

24 Victor-Henry Debidour, Trésors cachés du pays niçois (Paris: Hachette, 1961), p. 20.

25 Roques, p. 382.

26 Blanchard (1921) 37, note 4.

27 Ibid. (1923), p. 238.

28 Roques, p. 387.

29 Ibid., p. 307 et Blanchard (1923), p. 202.

30 Latouche, pp. 92-99.

31 L. Imbert, "Les chapelles peintes du pays niçois," Nice historique (1947): 16-18 et Latouche,
pp. 93-94.

32 Debidour, pp. 125-26.

33 yZ)/V/., p. 131.

34 Ici encore, il semble y avoir peu de resources documentées pour cette église et sa décoration.
Il y a une brève note écrite par Marguerite Vidal dans le Dictionnaire des églises. D'autres
descriptions sont données par Robert Mesuret dans Les peintures murales du sud-ouest de la
France du Xlème au XVIème siècle (Paris: Picard, 1967), p. 274; Yves Bonnefoy, Peintures
murales de la France gothique (Paris: Hartmann, 1954), p. 32 et Bulletin monumental (1943-44):
147-48.

35 Mesuret, pp. 229-30; F. Pottier, Bulletin archaéologique et historique de la société de Tam-et-
Garonne, 20 (1892): 330-31 et M. Méras, "Les peintures de Pei-villac," Bulletin de la société
archaéologique de Tam-et-Garonne (1963): 32-37.

36 Mesuret, p. 114.

37 Blanchard (1921), pp. 62-65 et (1923), pp. 180-84.

38 René Crozet, Dictionnaire des églises.

39 Ibid.

40 Raymond Rey, L'art gothique du midi de la France (Paris: Renouard, 1934), pp. 311-12 et
Victor Allègre, Dictionnaire des églises

41 Voir Canestrier, Debidour et Latouche. Par exemple, Latouche traduit la charte fondatrice
de Roubion:

... en raison de la dévotion particulère que vous manifester pour le . . . Christ Sauveur et pour
Saint Sébastien par les prières et l'intercession justement de la peste et de beaucoup d'autre
maladies diverses et qui obtient de nombreuses grâces . . . vous désirez . . . faire construire,
élever et édifier une chapelle sous le vocable de Saint- Sébastien auprès et en dehors de
l'enceinte du lieu de Roubion — (94)

42 Le Bras, pp. 314-15; Canestrier, pp. 3-4.

43 Joseph Duhr, "Confréries," Dictionnaire de .spiritualité ascétique et mystique, vol. 2, 1470-80.

44 Roques, pp. 75-78.

45 Ibid., p. 47.

114 / Renaissance and Reformation

46 Ruth Mohl, Vie Three Estates in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (New York: Ungar, 1962),

p. 257.

47 L'unique recherche détaillée de ce traité fait partie intégrante d une étude sur les manuscrits
de Lumen animae par Richard et Mary Rouse. Les images ainsi que l'influence de
l'iconographie des sept péchés capitaux ont été l'objet de ma dissertation intitulée "A
Practical Illustrated Handbook for the Fifteenth-century Preacher."

48 Cette description a été fournie par une note dans le Pieipont Morgan MS. 298, une collection
de plans détaillés de sermons et exempla faits pour son usage propre par Johannes Sintram
de Herbipoli, un écrivain Franciscain, érudit et prêcheur de Wurzburg. Je suis reconnaissante
envers le docteur Nigel Palmer, Oriel College, Oxford, pour m'avoir montrée ce manuscrit
et autorisée à la lecture de sa transcription de cette note.

Master by Any Other Means

BETSEY B. PRICE

1 his article^ is an out-growth of an earlier one, "Paired in Ceremony"
which discussed recognizable similarities between particular rituals in late
Medieval academic guilds and craft guilds. There the components of the
ritual of inception, in the academic guild, and reception, in the craft guild,
were examined in detail. Despite their eventually different names, inception
and reception were, in each case, the rituals by which the guild determined
individuals to be eligible for mastership (through prerequisites) and em-
braced the eligible candidates within the guild as masters (through cere-
mony). The two guilds' rituals were clearly composed of an analogous
assortment of elements, and hence are appropriately seen as paired in terms
of their ceremony. There are, however, clear indications that over the course
of the Medieval and Renaissance periods not all of the analogous compo-
nents of the two ceremonies were simultaneously present nor had the same
importance for each type of guild at the same point in time.

The particular focus in this article is the question of whether guilds of
the Middle Ages and Renaissance really, that is, more than ceremoniously,
determined who could function as a master. Was guild recognition through
the inception or reception ritual the only means by which one became
acknowledged as competent and able to pursue one's profession in the
particular areas of academic or craft performance? The tack taken to attempt
to answer this question will derive from the earlier discussion of mastership
rituals. The rituals themselves, it is posited, can provide clues to the
importance of the guilds in defining effective mastership, particularly
through an analysis of the relative prominence of each ritual's different
components. What is at issue is change in the relative strength of the guild
to assert itself vis-à-vis external authority in determining the significance
of guild mastership. The general conclusion to be reached is that both the
University and the craft guild controlled, to degrees varying over time, the
responsibility for determining both those who could hold the title of master.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 115

116 / Renaissance and Reformation

and the importance of that guild title. The extent of a guild's power in both
respects is reflected in the specific importance given to various components
of its rituals of mastership.

In the present article, the analysis to evaluate changes in the capacity of
guilds to determine mastership will be undertaken in terms of a "most
elaborate" posture of ritualized guild self-expression in the case of each
guild.^ After this "most elaborate" posture is described, the discussion will
turn to tracing chronologically changes in the ritualized posture of the
University and craft guilds. The chart of ritual changes will, it is argued,
reflect the course of the guild's ability to assume responsibility for its
members, to determine eligibility for mastership and to give weight to the
title. The discussion of ritual changes will extend from the twelfth century
to the state of guilds in the sixteenth centuiy, the phase of guild maturity.
Some brief reflections about changes in the concept and function of the
guilds will follow and lead to the conclusion that changes in the elaborate-
ness of mastership rituals indeed mirrored changes that were taking place
in the function of the guilds vis-à-vis their own members and external
authorities.

I Guild Inception/Reception Rituals

The inception or reception ritual was a guild's way of designating a master
as such. This ritual whether of the academic or the craft guild illustrated
the concern of the guild to regulate "rights and privileges among its
members."^ The ritual was, however, also a reflection of how those rights
and privileges could be (or had been) formulated, demonstrated and
reinforced in the posturing of the guild vis-à-vis the outside world. The
picture of the "most elaborate" inception and reception rituals which
emerges from primary documents, particularly those of their directives, is
one of practices which by the thirteenth century had three characteristics:
1) they were solidified in writing, 2) they were widely practiced to some
degree in all types of guilds, and 3) they were significant in the recognition
of a new master in the guilds. As to their particular aspects, the guild rituals
of inception and reception were composed of two distinct parts. One part
comprised the prerequisites for becoming a member of the guild. In a
second part, the rituals of acknowledgement by the guild members of the
candidate as a new master took place. Although the analysis here will begin
with the part concerning the necessary prerequisites, that part ought not be

Renaissance et Réforme / 117

considered necessarily first, neither in terms of chronological presence nor
in the relative importance of the two parts to one another.

1. Prerequisites

Prerequisites were those conditions which were established, in principle,
for the purpose of determining the eligibility of a candidate to become a
master. In the two different guilds, the University guild and the craft guild,
the role of prerequisites in determining mastership is quite different, as is
the evolution of that role. The types of prerequisites are, however, remark-
ably similar in each of the guilds:

TABLE I

Inception Ritual

Reception Ritual

Prer

a)

equisites:
Training - student

Training - apprentice

teacher

free(wo)man/joumey(wo)man

b)

Testimony

Testimony

c)

Examination

Examination/"Chef d'oeuvre"

d)

License granted

Guild seat or Mastership purchased

e)

Oath sworn

Oath sworn

The "most elaborate" forni of each of these prerequisites will be discussed
separately.

a) Training: The training requirements to become a University masters
candidate is explicitly stated in most University statutes.^ The "most
elaborate" stipulations reveal that according to University guild require-
ments any candidate for the title of master had to have completed two
distinct periods of training. The first was a set period of study, a certain
part of which was to be completed under one master. The second was a
specified period of teaching during which the student practice-taught under
a master's supervision. While the required length of each of these periods
varied from university to university and from time to time,^ the fact that
one finds in some primaiy documents requirements (such as which courses
a student must take when or the particular conditions under which the
teaching exercise was to be considered adequate) spelled out in detail
reflects the significance the training was thought to have as a prerequisite
for mastership.

118 / Renaissance and Reformation

Among the "most elaborate" prerequisites for craft guild mastership was
also stipulated training in two distinct phases: as apprentice and as
free(wo)man or joumey(wo)man. While the apprenticeship period differed
depending on the trade, most sets of guild directives contained the explicit
requirement that the guild's trainees undertake this phase of learning the
craft under a master.^ Once the apprentice had completed an initial term
of training, he/she became a journcy(wo)man or free(wo)man, that is, free
to travel to learn further, to hire out as a wage labourer or to practice the
trade by starting a business. While the activities of the would-be master
were not specifically stipulated for the time to be spent as free(wo)man,
constraints on the range of undertakings defined it clearly as a significant
rite of passage. Not yet a master, the crafts(wo)man would not, for example,
be permitted during the time as a joumey(wo)man or free(wo)man to engage
an apprentice.^

b) Testimony: After his training the University student would make
known his intention to become licensed to teach. On his behalf then
depositions or testimony as to the student's "fittedness" for candidacy would
be collected from the masters of his faculty and from others. At its "most
elaborate" point this prerequisite is explicitly stated in most University
statutes. Its serious significance is reflected by the number of witnesses and
amount of time involved in the procedure. At one time in the arts faculty
at Oxford, for example, a total of 15 people were to offer testimony;^ once
at Cambridge all the masters of a particular faculty may have had to
testify; ^^ at Paris, after a student made application for the license, a period
of three months was designated for receiving depositions from masters and
"other serious and instructed persons."^ ^

In the case of the craft guilds, once the individual had completed the
training phases, he/she could seek permission of the head of the particular
craft, a Grand Master/Mistress, to have his/her preparedness for the
mastership assessed. The individual would thus petition for testimony to
establish that the requirements for apprenticeship had indeed been ful-
filled^^ and that he/she was financially and otherwise capable of profes-
sional service.

c) Examination: A further prerequisite on the road to obtaining the rank
of University master was the passing of one or more examinations.
Depending on the date and location, the examinations took these possible
general forms: closed examinations before one's superiors and/or public
examinations open to all.'^ Just as the form of the examinations varied, so

Renaissance et Réforme / 119

too did their timing in a student's career. The "most elaborate" examination
prerequisite entailed multiple exams which defined specific phases: a
"determination" and disputation for the bachelor's candidate, as well as the
magisterial examination. These sets of exams were to be separated from
one another by a stipulated three-year period. ^"^

An examination was not a universal requirement for progression to craft
mastership. As references are found in many guild statutes to the serious
testing of a master's candidate, there seems, however, to be nothing barring
the inclusion of the exam in a "most elaborate" profile of the reception
ritual. The craft guild exam seems to have served one of three different
purposes: 1) it was occasionally employed to establish that the candidate
had acquired sufficient training to leave his apprenticeship before its term
was up;^^ 2) it could be used to corroborate the testimony given concerning
the length of a candidate's training; 3) it could verify the quality of training
received by a candidate unknown to those of the guild into which he/she
sought entry. In each case the examination was aimed at confirming that
the candidate thoroughly knew the craft. Its "most elaborate" stipulations
were that specific skills be exhibited ^^ without counsel or aide of anyone
and under the scrutiny of designated masters.^^

Furthermore at some point many craft guilds began to require of all
masters candidates specific evidence of expertise, that is, a "chef d'oeuvre." ^^
Like the craft guild examination, the type of work to demonstrate accom-
plishment might be stipulated either by guild statute or by certain masters.
When complete, it would be presented to particular judges or to the whole
assembly of masters for approval as "good and meet."

d) License/Purchased mastership: Successful completion of the Univer-
sity masters examination was followed by the granting of the teaching
license. The University guild's inception ritual recognized the holding of
the teaching license as a necessary prerequisite.

In the case of the craft guilds primary documents reveal the almost
universal importance of an analogous, but essentially financial, prerequisite
for obtaining membership. The first article of many guild statutes immedi-
ately identified the guild as accessible cither through a "free" or a purchased
mastership.^^ In the instance of the so-called "free" guilds, mastership was
available to any trained candidate who could prove that he/she had
adequate financial resources to undertake the craft. The capital required
vaçied enormously from craft to craft. The statutory stipulation by the
Parisian millers' guild that every master be able to buy or rent a mill was

120 / Renaissance and Reformation

among the most onerous.^^ Every "free" candidate had to offer guarantees
that his means and his wisdom were sufficient ("si saige et si riches") to
maintain his business and an apprentice during a whole training period.^^

Masterships of the non-"free" crafts entailed the actual buying of the
business. In addition to that largest monetary consideration craft mastership
entailed, the "most elaborate" craft guild requirements had candidates also
paying a number of smaller fees, e.g., examination and guild entry fees.
Already at the apprentice level entrance fees were often demanded of those
whose families were not members of the guild.

e) Oath: A final prerequisite in the University guilds was the obligatory
oath of obedience. This oath was frequently preserved word for word in
University guild directives. Its words are especially revealing as to the
manner of allegiance and obedience the guild deemed important Through
the "most elaborate" oaths the University masters candidate swore alle-
giance to the statutes of the particular institution and to its pertinent
subgroups (e.g., the nation meaning a group of kinsmen by a convention
of geographical designation and/or the faculty in which he would become
a master).^^ Interestingly too, he also swore both initially as an inceptor
and then later as a master to respect the formalities of the inception
ceremony itself: its dress code, the rigours of its ceremony, its recognized
forms of celebration, etc.

The candidate for master status in a craft guild also had to take a requisite
oath of obedience. The oath, found in written directives, was to be sworn
before guild members on a saint's* relics or a "book," usually the Gospels.
Extremely comprehensive in its "most elaborate" form, the oath contained
the list of behaviours the guild demanded of its members: e.g., to work
faithfully and well, to observe the guild's statutes, to give honour and respect
to the elders, to keep guild sccrcts.^^

2. Ceremony

The other part of the ritual for conferring mastership was the ceremonial
acknowledgement by the group of masters that the candidate had indeed
fulfilled the prerequisites for eligibility for mastership and would thence-
forth be part of the group of masters. This was the actual ceremony of
inception or reception: As was the case with mastership prerequisites, the
role and components of the foimal inception and reception ceremonies also
underwent change differently within the two type of guilds. Again both types
of guilds, the University and the craft guild, will be examined, here in light

Renaissance et Réforme / 121

of the "most elaborate" ceremonial posture of the University guild's
inception and the craft guild's reception.

TABLE II

Inception Ritual Reception Ritual

Ceremony.

0 Disputation/Lecture Questioning

g) Symbols of office Symbolic entry

h) Blessing/Kiss of Peace Kiss of Peace

i) Banquet Toast

Before addressing the individual components of the ceremony it would
be perhaps appropriate to sketch the setting for the event. In the case of the
University, once the prerequisites had been met, the candidate was given
permission to extend an invitation to the masters to attend his inception
ceremony. The "most elaborate" University guild directives indicate where
the inception gathering was to be held and when it was to take place. Usually
invited and present, wearing the stipulated academic regalia,^^ was the
group of all masters, junior and senior, from the faculty (or "college," in
the case of Bologna), in which the candidate had been trained, e.g., arts,
theology, medicine or law. The group was variously referred to as the society
of masters, the fellowship of the elect masters, the collegium, masters'
association, masters' consortium, guild or college. It was of this group that
the successful candidate would become a member.

In the case of the craft guild, the statutes reflect that the magisterial
reception was a gathering at which all the members of the guild would be
present. In some guilds the reception was held only once a year. Unlike the
University ceremony it was an occasion at which more than one candidate
could be promoted to master.

f) Disputation/Questioning: The first part of the University inception ceremony
was a two-stage ceremonial performance. A formal disputation followed by a
ceremonial lecture by the mcepting candidate emulated ceremoniously the duties
he would be expected to undertake as regent master.^

Most frequently the disputation, called Vespers, was held (except during
Lent) at the hour of vespers in the evening of the day before the candidate
was actually to be received by the masters. In the morning of the day after

122 / Renaissance and Reformation

Vespers the candidate would deliver his inaugural lecture. While the lecture
format was relatively straightforward, the disputation proceeded according
to a complex pattern of "principal and secondary arguments, propositions,
suppositions, responsions, oppositions, replications, and conclusions"^^ stipu-
lated in part by guild directives. As evidence of the importance of this part of
the inception ritual, information on disputation particulars can in fact be found
in all three of the main types of primary documents related to the inception
ritual: in University guild directives, but also in the books of the official record
keeper of the guild,^^ and in contemporary reports of inceptions.^^

Although the abstract skills of disputation and lecturing were not essential
to the professions of the craft guilds, an analogous mock grilling seems to
have been held. The candidate would stand outside the door of the house
of the Grand Master to answer questions of guild tradition ("questions
d'usage"^^) addressed by the masters.

g) Symbols of office/Symbolic entry: Either before or after the University
lecture, the presiding master, under whose direction the candidate had
prepared and undergone his license examination presented the candidate
with several symbols of his new office:^^ the "book," opened symbolically,
a golden ring placed on his finger, and the cap of the master placed on his
head.^^ In some ceremonies the candidate took his seat with his fellow
masters upon the magisterial cathedra.^^

Several ceremonial acts of the craft guild reception were analogous to the
academic symbolic bestowing of magisterial office. The symbolic passage
of the candidate into the group of masters took the form of the candidate's
exuberant breaking of a pot against a wall,^^ a formal granting to the
candidate the authority to take on an apprentice, or a ceremonial procession
to the house of the Grand Master and admittance therein after the
answering of the formal questions.

h) Blessing/Kiss of Peace: In the University inception ceremony, after
completion of the candidate's lecture and the bestowing of the symbols of
academic office, the presiding master would close the ceremony "most
elaborately" with the blessing or conferring of membership on behalf of all
the masters, a benediction and the kiss of peace. In the craft guild, the kiss
of peace was one of the symbolic signs of a candidate's entry into the guild.

i) Banquet/Toast: The formal inception rituals of the University guild were
followed by the typical Medieval celebration, a banquet.^ It was given by the
newly incepted master to his new associates, usually at a tavern. The banquets
were in some periods extremely elaborate, including festive food, drink and
attire, all provided for many guests,^^ as well as lavish entertainment, such as

Renaissance et Réforme / 123

choreae in Paris and Bologna,^^ or the corrida de toros in Salamanca. There
were also obligatory gifts to professors, performers, and officials, stipulated
often as fixed money payments or as a certain kind or quality of good.^^

The reception "banquet" of the craft guild was really the raising of a glass
symbolically. Each craft guild had its own tradition. A toast to the new
candidate might be made at the house of the Grand Master when all had
entered "for the wine and the fire."^^ Sometimes the masters each contrib-
uted a certain small amount of money to pay for the libations; in other
cases the candidate himself shouldered the cost of drink for all.^^

II Changes in Guild Rituals

To assist in the discussion of the changes in University and craft guild
rituals of inception and reception, a schematic representation of the
components of the respective rituals will be set out The lettering is chosen
to reflect the degree to which the respective guild determined the component
in question as important in the ritual:

CAPITALS indicate elaborate guild ritual and involvement in the activity;
Lower Case indicates that guild rituals had only a moderate bearing on the

activity;
<Lower Case> indicates that the activity was carried out, but either not by the

guild itself or not specifically in relation to the mastership ritual;
* indicates a modification to the ritual not discussed above.

Its discussion is identified by (*) in the text below;
— indicates no place for the component in the guild mastership

ritual.

TABLE III

Inception

Ritual^

Reception

Ritual

I

c. 1215^1

after 13 18"^^

late 13th

late 14th

Prerequisites:

Training

<Training>

Training*

<Training>

TESTIMONY

Testimony

Testimony

Testimony*

Examination

<Examination>

EXAMINATION

CHEF D'OEUVRE

<License>*

<License>*

Payment

<Payment>

OATH*

OATH*

OATH

OATH

124 / Renaissance and Reformation

Ceremony:

DISPUTATION DISPUTATION QUESTIONING -

LECTURE LECTURE — —

SYMBOLS OF OFFICE Symbols of Office SYMBOLIC ENTRY Symbolic entry

KISS OF PEACE KISS OF PEACE KISS OF PEACE —

BANQUET BANQUET TOAST TOAST

1. Early Inception Ritual

The Medieval University came into being in the late twelfth century and
University guilds acquired an independent status acknowledged by Univer-
sity constitution or statutes over the course of the thirteenth century.
Inception was an enunciated part of University life at Bologna by 1215, at
Montpelier by 1220, at Salerno by 1231, at Cambridge by 1245, in the
English-German nation at the University of Paris by 1252, and at Oxford
University before 1253."*^

In the early period of the University guild, as Table III above reflects,
predominant importance was placed on the ceremonial way a new master
would become part of the guild. Some of the components of the ceremony
were actually fixed in University statutes from the very recognition of the
guild organization, e.g., the right of the masters to bind their members by
oath.^ Almost as early, the other ceremonial components appear to have
been fully devised and conducted according to the will of the guild.

As for the prerequisites to University mastership, however, only the giving
of testimony on behalf of a candidate entailed an elaborate ritual. This is
not to say that the University guild designated no role to prerequisites in
the inception process. They were clearly known to the guild and formally
recognized by it in their statutory form. They were, however, out of the
exclusive control of the masters. Once formalized in University statutes,
prerequisites for mastership such as a minimum age and specific amount
of lecturing experience were for the most part beyond the discretion of the
guild masters."*^

(*) The inception component which most dramatically reflects a weak
role for the guild is the granting of the teaching license. In the cathedral
schools of the eleventh and twelfth century the head masters, responsible
for appointing the teaching staff, would often exact payment from candi-
dates for the teaching privilege and its accompanying license. Early
University statutes were written to exclude such "reprehensible" practices.
The privilege of licensing was removed from the exclusive sphere of the

Renaissance et Réforme / 125

masters and given to the head of the university, the Chancellor, an episcopal
or royal appointee. In addition, by 1233 the license to teach conferred
formally on its holder the right to teach at any university, and thereby in
principle it lost its significant connection to any particular university or
university guild. (*) Already in regulations for the arts faculty at Paris drawn
up in 1215, precautions against losing all new masters to other institutions
and professions were being taken by obliging a new master to remain in
the faculty to teach for two years after inception; at Oxford the same
condition held."^

Licensing per se was not in the hands of the University guild and not
therefore a prerequisite of the guild's making."^^ It was realized, however,
by the University guild that it could not ignore the practice of licensing,
and so defined its prerequisites around it. In order to be permitted to incept
a candidate had to have met two conditions: receipt of the license with the
approval of the masters and recognition from the masters of his stature.
The first condition meant that the masters established their own stipulations
for proper training and proper examinations; the second condition was
implemented through the procedure of testimony which, as mentioned
above, was quite elaborate. The masters made a further statement about
their own interests in designating the distinct purpose for the inception
ritual as the giving of a guild title, not the conferring of the University
degree.'*^

2. Early Reception Rituals

The initial ritualized posture of the craft guild in its acknowledgement of
mastership was not really very different from that of the University guild.
In the thirteenth century the craft guild also put strong emphasis on the
ceremonial half of reception {cf. Table III). The whole group of masters was
so much in favour of a closing celebration that it provided the entertainment
budget.

Again like the University guild, measured in terms of elaborate ritual, the
ceremonial parts of reception outweighed the importance given by the guild
to the determination of prerequisites. Craft guilds faced some of the same
constraints to determining their own prerequisites for mastership as did the
University guilds. They were, if not the property of a king or lord, at least
under a legal jurisdiction which was interested in revenues from guild
activities. To buy a mastership (analogous to obtaining a teaching license)
was not always to fulfil a prerequisite stipulated by the guild masters;

126 / Renaissance and Reformation

ofttimes the money transaction was dictated by the king."*^ The purchasing
transaction was so important that, in the case of some guilds, mastership
was defined as "the business," not as a personal title. This meant that
without the business, one was no longer a "master."^^ Again as in the case
of the University guild, the craft masters came to distinguish the honour
they conferred as different from the honour acquired by fulfilling externally
imposed prerequisites. Like the University masters, the craft guild masters
did not deny that an individual could buy a business. The sale of
masterships and the subsequent identifying of the mastership with the
business itself, however, led to the use of a different word, "prud'homme,"
to designate the mastership the guild bestowed, that is, the title of the
individual holding a guild mastership and running a business.^ ^ The craft
guild found itself forced to employ a new title to give its members an identity
distinct from that dictated by mastership purchase and to safeguard its role
of bestower of titles.

The craft guild's external authority expected still more fiscal return from
them than the occasional payment for mastership purchase. In an attempt
to guarantee the best return in the form of taxes^^ and fines for infractions
of guild statutes,^^ the authority sought to regulate guild activities. This
included the presumed need to screen candidates for guild membership
and to inspect guild merchandise.^"*

Thus a witnessed list of the candidates adopted by the guild for
approbation as masters was submitted compliantly to the authority for
approval,^^ and hardly received (or dcsci-vcd) an elaborate guild ritual. Nor
even did the stipulations for guild training receive much detail in Medieval
guild documents.^^

Apparently vigorous interest was shown by the craft guilds in the
prerequisite of examination. Given the otherwise lackluster guild rituals
connected with craft guild prerequisites, this anomalous enthusiasm of
examination does require explanation. Lespinasse and Bonnardot, the
editors of Boileau's Livre des metiers, written 1260-1270, interpret all the
reception rigours imposed by the guild, among which they quite rightly
include the examination, as signs of magisterial ill-will and restriction.^^ In
light of the fact, however, that the early craft guilds (like the University
guilds) were well awarç of the power of their external authorities, it seems
plausible that the guilds "chose" to implement their own examination
prerequisites to demonstrate their "good-will" to regulate themselves.^^ It is
true that the guilds imposed elaborate examinations on candidates in which

Renaissance et Réforme / 127

the specific skills to be exhibited would be performed under the scrutiny
of Jurors and that Jurors were indeed representatives of external authority.
At the same time, however, it must be remembered that these same Jurors
were still members of the guild.^^ This is not to say that the guilds did not
adopt some of the tactics of external authority. Fees were demanded for
every known service provided by and for guild members: e.g., house fees,
that is, payments to the officers of the guild,^^ night-watchman fees,^^ not
to mention (*) guild entrance fees exacted already at the apprenticeship
level.

3. Later Reception Rituals

By the late fourteenth century the craft guild reception ritual had undergone
changes to reach a profile different from that of the late Medieval University
inception. The ceremonial parts of reception, which, however elaborate, had
been held all along usually once a year at one of the guild semi-annual
meetings, now formed a very small part of even its ritualized preoccupa-
tions. Of the earlier important components only the oath and the toast
remained. Rituals of symbolic entry, already fading in importance during
the thirteenth century, are virtually ignored, and the burden of defraying
the costs of the reception toast has shifted to the candidate.^^ Only the oath
still retained elaborate form and importancc.^^

What did acquire further elaboration in the fourteenth century was,
however, the examination prerequisite. It now took the form of the chef
d'oeuvre, mentioned earlier.^ The chef d'oeuvre, a demonstration of the
accomplished level of the candidate in his craft, became the means by which
a candidate was judged qualified. Once it was approved, the guild's
representatives of external authority, the Jurors, would make an oral request
to representatives of royal or seigniorial justice for recognition of the
candidate. (*) This testimonial on the candidate's behalf, which now
followed the examination, would also include a witness to the candidate's
character. It seems that by this time the external authorities, king or other,
rarely had to exercise their titular control over the choice of masters
candidates. For all appearances they let themselves be guided by the
recommendations of the guild,^^ but those recommendations were based
on prerequisites, as mentioned earlier, already radically determined by
those same authorities.

In the rise of the craft guild, any number of craftsmen had been permitted
to carry on the trade, provided that each one joined and submitted to the

128 / Renaissance and Reformation

organization created for the purpose of regulating it. By the fourteenth
century, however, craft guilds were seen to be restricting the number of
practitioners in the profession both by limiting the number of guild
members and by prohibiting all non-members from practicing. This trend
continued well through the sixteenth century. It has been argued as well
that in order to begin to limit the number of guild members practicing the
profession that the guild assumed responsibility for enforcing, if not
re-defining prerequisites for mastership.

The shift in importance of specific rituals of craft guild reception from
the late thirteenth to the late fourteenth century seems to indicate that it
became less possible to buy one's way into a guild. One had now to prove
that one had the qualifications for becoming a member in the guild,
meaning not only financial qualifications. While the importance of pre-
requisites which confirmed the candidate's skill steadily increased, simul-
taneously the ceremonial aspects of mastership fell into relative
insignificance, and in fact became mere frills to obtaining master status
within the guild.

4. Later Inception Rituals

In the case of the University inception ritual slightly different changes
occurred between the mid-thirteenth and the mid-fourteenth century. Most
components of the ceremonial part of the ritual remained important: the
oath, the disputation and official lecture, the kiss of peace and the banquet.
Many of the ceremonial activities, such as Vespers^^ and the banquet
festivities became more elaborate than ever.^^ The oath and symbols of
office, however, both came to incorporate features dictated by external
authority: e.g., the swearing of obedience to the head of the university,^^
and the receiving of certain symbols from a university authority rather than
the presiding master. The whole ceremonial ritual would not in fact have
taken place without the presence of representatives of University adminis-
tration, e.g., the Chancellor or the Proctor at Oxford, at Paris the Rector,
the Proctor or the Proctor's chief agent, the head Beadle.^^

Components of the prerequisite part of the inception ritual also under-
went some change. The guild masters added new prerequisites to those
already in place which had become over time usurped or compromised by
external authorities. (*) It was required by the guild, for example, that for
mastership additional books be "heard" beyond those already required for
the teaching license.^^ (*) In some instances before a candidate was

Renaissance et Réforme / 129

permitted to swear the oath, he had to receive separate permission from his
nation^^

Briefly, in its inception ceremony the University masters guild continued
to place strong emphasis on the oaths which a master had to swear. The
guild's own new ways of stipulating the necessary conditions for mastership
took on importance due to the emphasis placed on the older conditions
enforced now by external authorities.

Ill Guild Assertion

The changes in the University and craft guilds' strategies to assert their
importance vis-à-vis external authority are manifest in their attempts to
acquire greater responsibility for specific parts of the inception/reception
ritual. The University masters attempted to affirm their strength vis-à-vis
the external authority of the Church by maintaining the relatively strong
emphasis on the ceremonial parts of the inception ritual, and in a sense
thereby, trying to diminish the importance of the full set of inception
prerequisites. The craft guild, on the other hand, increasingly assumed
responsibility over the implementation of prerequisites for their masters
candidates and diminished its emphasis on the ceremonial adoption of a
new master. From the fifteenth into the sixteenth century both guilds
continued their respective later emphasis. Interestingly enough, however,
the conditions which determined that emphasis had changed.

In the cases of both the Medieval University guild and craft guilds, the
authority they had been striving so hard to assert became ever further
reduced. Their own response to challenges to their authority was, however,
no longer one of adopting a new posture within the ritual of mastership.
Instead the two guilds simply proceeded to acknowledge as little as possible
the authority of any external source. In the case of the craft guild, the
external authority of State or Church drew the guild farther away from an
independent economic status, to the point that not only were the pre-
requisites of craft guild mastership not determined within the guild, but
even its own posture vis-à-vis external authority was defined by others.
Other means to craft guild mastership had made real inroads.

In the case of the University guilds, it was an external authority, which
without further dictating prerequisites for mastership, came, nonetheless,
to determine who should do the teaching. This was accomplished through
economic compensation, that is, by paying salaries to individuals who were
deemed by external authority to be adequate "masters." The University guild

130 / Renaissance and Reformation

in effect lost not only its ability to stipulate who could be a master, but even
its power to exclude from employ those whom it deemed unqualified. If not
really an independent means to mastership, the chance to be employed as
a teacher, nonetheless, could now derive from a source outside of the
University itself.

As each of these guilds reached its post-Medieval maturity, the emphasis
it had placed on different aspects of the ceremony did not change. The fact
that the guilds ceased to respond in terms of their mastership rituals to the
changing circumstances of their existence bespeaks a fundamental change
in the role of the ritual within the guild, and perhaps in the role of the guild
itself. What the whole of the inception or reception ritual came to represent
is something quite different from the original concept and function of the
respective guild.

IV Guild Function Authority Changes: Conclusion

Initially, guilds tried to establish a power and an independent function
vis-à-vis other institutions which might have answered the same needs, that
is the institution of the Church or the State. The power the guilds tried to
exercise was the power over the day-to-day activities of their own members
and hence over the activity of all guilds affairs. The functions the guilds
tried to serve were many. These functions were intended, however, in every
case to respond to or make of the institution of the guild a necessity in the
lives of its masters and all those at work in the same profession. It tried,
for example, to assist in the emergency of its members, to strengthen
administratively the body of those exercising the profession through the
election of officers or the stipulating of status. It tried to retain power for
its members vis-à-vis the city or the Church, that is, to demand recognition,
new privileges or concessions of external authorities. It attempted both to
educate and train its members or at the very least, to stipulate the education
and training of members who could be acknowledged as masters, and lastly
to grant the freedom to exercise the profession to those who had attained
the required level of expertise.

Over time both the University and the craft guild tried to hang on to both
their power and their function, but as changes in the rituals of inception
and reception reflect, their ability to do so changed a great deal. It is
surprising, however, that the real indicator of a major late Medieval/early
Renaissance change in guild power and function is the lack of further
change in mastership ritual. The fluctuations in the emphasis the guilds

Renaissance et Réforme / 131

placed on different parts of their mastership rituals during the Middle Ages
reflect the importance the ritual had for the guild in its posture vis-à-vis its
own members as well as vis-à-vis the outside world. The late Medieval ritual,
however, which ceased to undergo further major changes, appeared as it
were immune to external influence. No longer responsive, the guild ritual
of mastership ceased to be a mirror of the ability of the guild to assert itself
vis-à-vis external authority and in that posture to assume responsibility for
the screening of the candidates to the guild and their capacity to exercise
their profession as members of that guild.

York University

Notes

1 Correspondence and discussions with O.F.H. and Lykke Pedersen have enhanced this
paper. I thank them both.

2 To be published in the forthcoming festschrift in honour of the late Professor John
Bruckman, Glendon College, York University (ed. A. Baudot, Toronto: GREF).

3 Some liberty has, however, perforce, been taken in an effort to establish a) from the many
Medieval University and craft guilds a generalizable position for "the" University guild
and "the" craft guild and b) one complete "most elaborate" posture, which was done by
unifying the most elaborate states of each individual component of the ritual, no matter
when they occurred between the 12th and 16th centuries.

4 Cf. G. Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New
York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1968), p. 2.

5 E.g., in those of Paris from 1215 on: edited by H. Denifle in the Chartularium Universitatis
Parisiensis (Paris: 1899, repr. Bruxelles: Culture and Civilization, 1964), Tomes 1-3, and by
H. Denifle and A. Chartelain in the Auctarium Chartularii Universitatis Parisiensis (Paris:
Fratres Delalain, 1894, re-ed. 1937). In those of Oxford from 1253: as edited by S. Gibson
in the StatutaAntiqua Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931). Cf. also Leff,
Paris and Oxford Universities, p. 26 and H. Rashdall, 77?^^ Universities of Europe in the Middle
Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895. re-ed. 1935), vol. 3, pp. 148-49.

6 At one time at the university of Montpellier the "teaching" period was required to be no

longer than one month! Cf. Les Statuts et privilèges des universités françaises depuis leur
fondation jusqu'en 1789, ed. M. Fournier (Paris: L. Larose et Forcel, 1891), tome 2, p. 5.

7 E.g., all but four of the 130 craft guilds in Paris in 1260-1270 noted in their directives a
required apprenticeship. The exceptions there were the "Mesuruers, Jaugeurs, Criers de
vin, agants du Parloirs aux Bourgeois": see E. Boileau, Les Métiers et Corporations de la
Ville de Paris, eds. R. de Lespinasse and F. Bonnardot (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1879),
p. c. For minimum required periods of apprenticeship in the Parisian craft guilds, cf. ibid.,
p. cii, fn. 1.

8 E.g., Statuts des Corroiers (Paris), Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit. LXXXVII, art. XI or the statutes
of a silk spinsters' guild (Paris), L. Martines, Not in God's Image (New York: Harper and
Row, 1973), pp. 155-56.

9 Cf Statuta, ed. cit., pp. 29-30, 11. 24-05.

10 Cf. M.B. Hackett, Tlie Original Statutes of Cambridge University (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970), p. 122, fn. 1.

11 Cf Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities, p. 168.

12 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. cix.

132 / Renaissance and Reformation

13 Some historians draw attention to the difllculty in making general statements about these
examinations, given their extended use in time and geography: e.g., LJ. Daly, The Medieval
University 1200-1400 (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), p. 134.

14 Such was depicted to have been the case at Oxford according to its statutes of the first
decade of the fifteenth century. Cf. Left, Paris and Oxford Universities, pp. 149 ff. and Daly,
The Medieval University, pp. 122 ff.

15 E.g., Statuts des Orfèvres, Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit XI, art. III.

16 E.g., Statuts des Fourreurs de Chapeaux: "fourrer de touz poins un chapel," ibid.. Tit. XI,
art. Ill; Statuts des Tailleurs de robes: "de coudre et de couper," ibid.. Tit. LVI, art. III.

17 E.g, Statuts des Cordouaniers: "les gardes du mestier," ibid., TiL LXXXIV, art. X; Statuts
des Ouvriers en Draps de soie: "les mestes qui le mestier gardent de par le Roy," ibid.. Tit.
LXXXrV, art. X.

18 Cf. for Paris, ibid., p. ex; for Chartres, G. Aclocque, Les corporations, l'industrie et la commerce
à Chartres du XJe siècle à la révolution (Paris: Mazel et Plancher, 1917, repr. New York: Burt
Franklin, 1967), pp. 41-45; for Languedoc, A. Gouron, La réglementation des métiers en
Languedoc au moyen âge (Paris: Librairie Minard, 1958), pp. 251-52.

19 "Il puet estre Cordier a Paris qui veut, c'est a savoir faisierres des cordes de toutes manières
de fil, de teill, poil, pour tant que il sache le mestier, et il a de quoi, et pour tant que il
euvre aus us et aus coustumes del mestier," Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit. XIII, art. I.

20 Ibid., Tit. II, art. I.

21 E.g., Statuts des Boucliers (quoted), ibid.. Tit. XXI, art VII; Statuts des Tisserands, Tit. L,
art. XVII.

22 Cf. e.g., "articuli quos tenentur jurare bachellarii in artibus incepturi" (Paris, circa 1280),
Chart., ed. cit., I. No. 501; Oxford (after 1253), Statuta, ed. cit., p. 19; Oxford (before 1350),
ibid., p. 35.

23 For examples of craft guild oaths, cf. Ordinances of the Gild of St Katherine, Stamford
(12th century), T. Smith, English Gilds (London: Oxford University Press, 1870, repr. 1963),
pp. 189-90, and pp. 191-92 re date; Statuts des Meunière, Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit II, art.
Villi.

24 Cf., at Paris, Chart., ed. cit., I, No. 20; at Cambridge, Hackett 77?^ Original Statutes, p. 147.
The clerical ^onsure was stipulated as part of the appropriate attire for inceptions at the
faculty of medicine at Montpellier, cf. Statuts, ed. cit., p. 5a.

25 "Incipere fuit primam lectionem magistralem \eg,crç." Auctarium, I, xxxi. The practice may
derive from Roman law, i.e., "the actual investiture of an official with his office," Rashdall,
77?^ Universities of Europe, vol. 1, p. 285.

26 Hackett TTje Original Statutes, p. 127. There were wide differences from university to
university and from time to time in the length and complexity of formats used, e.g.,
Cambridge, cf. ibid., pp. 129-30.

27 Cf. "Liber procura torum" in G.C. Boyce, TTie English-German Nation in the University of
Paris during the Middle Ages (Bmges: St Catherine Press, Ltd., 1927).

28 Cf. "Quaestiones disputatae" in A.G. Little and F. Pelster, Oxford Theology and Theologians
c. A.D. 1282-1302 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), e.g. p. v and p. 49, fn. 5.

29 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. cxv.

30 These were the universal symbols of the University inception. These were occasionally
further "elaborated" by a "closed book that he [the new master] may have that science
close and familiar in mind and may keep it sealed from the unworthy and in such respects
as it is not expedient to reveal," Antonino, "Summa" in L. Thomdike, University Records
and Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press: 1944, repr. 1949), p. 309.
A new master of grammar at Oxford would receive, among other things, a "palmer" and
a birch and proceed ceremoniously to Hog a boy: Rashdall, Tlie Universities of Europe, vol.
3, p. 347.

Renaissance et Réforme / 133

31 Depending on the faculty, the cap was either ihc pileum or the biretta. Hence the name
birettatio sometimes given to this part of the inception ceremony: ibid., vol. 1, p. 485.

32 This may have been quite specific to certain universities and faculties, such as at Bologna
and Cambridge.

33 E.g., Statuts des Talemeliers (Boulangers], Boileau, Les Métiers, TiL I, art XIII.

34 At Cambridge inceptions the banquet was at one time celebrated on the night of Vespers,
before the principium or lecture the following morning! Hackett, The Original Statutes,
p. 126, p. 199, iii.

35 Cf. G. Comparye,^6e/an/ and the Origin and Early History of Universities (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1907), pp. 161-63.

36 The extent to and frequency with which the choreae were frowned upon bespeaks the role
in played in University celebrations. They were banned from Paris inceptions {Chart., ed.
cit., I, No. 202 (dated 1252), No 501 (dated 1280)) and from those of Bologna (Statuta, ed.
cit., p. 116 cited by Rashdall, The Universities of Europe, vol. 1, p. 230, fn. 1).

37 E.g., at Pisa, a 1 lb. box of comfits to each doctor; at Bologna, 12 lb. 10s. to the archdeacon;
at Toulouse, 8 grossi to the mummers, a pair of gloves to each doctor. Cf. Rashdall, TTie
Universities of Europe, vol. 1, pp. 229-30, fn. 2.

38 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. cxv.

39 Ibid., p. cxvi.

40 This schema will be most consistently representative of the guilds at the University of
Paris. It is events there which detennined the dates chosen.

41 Date of the first University statutes (Paris) to fix masters' rights.

42 1318 is a demarcation date for Paris; the oath of obedience to the rector, the head of the
university, came to be imposed on all teaching there.

43 For more information on the inception at Bologna, cf. Hélène Wieruszowski, The Medieval
University. Masters. Students, Learning (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1966),
p. 68; at Montpelier, cf. Statuts, II, No. 882; at Salerno, cf. Wieruszowski, pp. 77-78; at
Cambridge, cf. Hackett, Vie Original Statutes, pp. 126 and 40; at Paris, cf. Leff, Paris and
Oxford Universities, p. 147; and at Oxford, cf. Leff, p. 169 and Wieruszowski, p. 54.

44 Lefi", Paris and Oxford Universities, p. 26.

45 The exceptions to this rule were the Oxford masters. At Oxford, from 1214 on, it fell to a
Chancellor to confer licenses and titles. Over time, however, as extremely detailed
conditions for mastership became codified, the masters continued to exercise strong control
over candidates. The complexity of requirements led to the almost universal practice of a
masters candidate requesting of the regent masters an exemption or "grace" from some of
them; "at last it was supposed that it was the assembly of regents [not the Chancellor] who
really conferred the degree," Rashdall, TJw Universities of Europe, vol. 3, p. 148. Cf. also
Statuta, ed. cit., pp. cxviii-cxxii.

46 Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities, pp. 138 and 160.

47 G. Post argues that both the practice of licensing and masters forming into guilds arose
independent of one another: "Alexander III, the Licentia Docendi, and the Rise of the
Universities," in Anniversary Essays in Medieval History, ed. C.H. Taylor Freeport (New York:
Books for Libraries Press,'lnc., 1929, repr. 1967), p.'275.

48 The actual title conferred would have been the highest one attainable, either magister or
doctor depending on the faculty. Throughout the Middle Ages these titles were neither
consistently nor clearly distinguished. Cf. Comparye, Abelard, pp. 157-58.

49 The guild statutes where this would be stipulated were drafted at the behest of the banal
authority; e.g., "Nus ne puet estre Regratiers de pain a Paris, c'est savoir venderes de pain
que autres fourniece et quise. se il ne achate le meslier du Roy," Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit
IX, art. I.

134 / Renaissance and Reformation

50 Ibid. p. cxvii. It also seems to have meant that children whose mothers or fathers held
masterships were exempt from repurchase of (the same) one for themselves. Ibid., p. ex.

51 Cf. A. Gouron, La réglementation, pp. 243-44.

52 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. cxviii, pp. cxxxvi-cxli.

53 Ibid., pp. cxxvi-cxxvii.

54 Candidates would have to swear to permit inspection of their wares when taking the guild's
oath.

55 "Sauf a nostre Seingneur lou Roi et au prevost de Paris de ajouster et de oster, de crestre
et de amenuisier en ces choses desus dites toutes foiz qu'il leur plera et il verront que bien
soit et profit au mestier et au commun du peuple." Statuts des Chaussiers, Boileau, Les
Métiers, Tit LV, art X.

56 An exception may have been spotted by Etienne Mailin Saint-Leon. Histoire des corporations
de métiers depuis leurs origines jusqu'à leur suppre.ssion en 1791 (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcam,
1922), p. 114, fn. 2: the celebration of guild mastership was not to be granted until four
years of success in the business had been accomplished.

57 Boileau, Les Métiers, pp. cxiv-cxv.

58 Ibid., pp. cxxxv-cxxxvi.

59 "les gardes du mestier," Statuts des Cordouaniers, Boileau, Les Métiers, Tit. LXXXTV, art.
X; "les mestres qui le mestier gardent de par le Roy," Statuts des Ouvriers en Draps de
soie, ibid.. Tit. LXXXTV, art. X. Jurors came to their post either by royal designation or by
internal guild election: ibid., pp. cxviii-cxix.

60 E.g., Smith, English Gilds, pp. 54-55 and 108-109.

61 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. cxli-cxliv.

62 Ibid., p. cxvi.

63 Right up until the seventeenth centuiy, cf. those collected by G. Aclocque, Les corporations.

64 The practice of an examination in the form of the chef d'oeuvre seems to have begun in
the early fourteenth century. Cf Boileau, Les Métiers, p. ex; G. Aclocque, Les corporations,
pp. 41-45; and Gouron, La réglementation, pp. 251-52.

65 Boileau, Les Métiers, p. xcvii and cxv.

66 True to the maxim that ceremonies tend to become more complex, longer and more detailed
over time are examples from Heidelberg, Ingolstadt and Bologna: cf. Rashdall, The
Universities of Europe, p. 486, fn. 1; and H. Wiemszowski, 77?^ Medieval University, p. 32
respectively.

67 The regulation limits placed on the amount a candidate might spend on his inception
festivities went unheeded and bans on certain festive activities had to be frequently
repeated. Cf. Daly, The Medieval University, p. 144; Rashdall, The Universities of Europe, vol.
3, p. 489, fn. 1; and Chart., ed. cit., I, No. 202 (dated 1252], No. 501 [dated 1280].

68 Wiemszowski, The Medieval University, p. 49.

69 Boyce, The English -Gennan Nation, p. 61; P. Kibre, Jlie Nations in the Medieval Universities
(Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1962), pp. 75 IT.; Chart., ed. cit., I. No. 418.

70 This was technically not the case at Paris until 1366: Chart., ed. cit. Ill, No. 1319.

71 Rashdall, TJie Universities of Europe, vol. 1, p. 461.

Comelis Buys the Elder's Seven Works
of Mercy: An Exemplar of Confratemal
Art from Early Sixteenth-Century
Northern Europe*

PERRI LEE ROBERTS

Among the many Northern Renaissance paintings in the Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam is a series of seven panels (Fig. 1) which illustrate the corporal
works of mercy. The paintings, executed with tempera on wooden panel,
are unified by a simple, wooden frame which is original. The series is
impressive in size, measuring 1 10 x 470 cm., that is approximately 3 x 15-1/2
feet.^

No documents have survived regarding the commission of the paintings,
but on the basis of style and other circumstantial evidence, the panels were
attributed to the Master of Alkmaar, who has been tentatively identified as
Comelis Buys the Elder. Trained in the late fifteenth century in the city of
Haarlem, Comelis Buys was active as an artist in Alkmaar in the years
1490-1524; in this period he also served as the first teacher of Jan van Scorel,
who came from a small town outside of Alkmaar.^

The Seven Works of Mercy is securely dated 1504 on the basis of intemal
evidence. Written on the framework above the central panel is the phrase,
"Gheschildert Anno 1504" (painted in the year 1504). The same date, 1504,
is inscribed in Roman numerals on the base of the column closest to the
foreground in the second panel of the series illustrating the act of Giving
Drink to the Thirsty.^ From 1504 until its entry into the collection of the
Rijksmuseum in 1918, the panels presumably hung continuously in the
church of St. Lawrence in the small town of Alkmaar, fifteen miles north
of Amsterdam."^

During the night of 24 June 1582, the panels were covered with black
paint by three Protestant sympathizers who had sneaked into the church

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 135

136 / Renaissance and Reformation

3

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Renaissance et Réforme / 137

under the cover of darkness.^ The paint was removed the very next day
upon the orders of the church elders, but the panels were left in a
permanently damaged state. The paintings underwent a thorough restora-
tion in 1971-75.6

Reading from left to right the charitable acts depicted are Feeding the
Hungry, Giving Drink to the Thirsty, Clothing the Naked, Burying the
Dead, Housing the Homeless, Visiting the Sick, and Visiting the Impris-
oned. In four of the panels— Feeding the Hungry, Giving Drink to the
Thirsty, Clothing the Naked, and Housing the Homeless— the charitable
activity takes place in the streets of a prosperous looking, immaculately
clean Dutch town; in the foreground the work of mercy is performed by a
well-dressed burgher and his wife in front of their solid, brick house, and
in the background by a single male citizen. The recipients of this largesse
are a small group of indigents, including the old and young, men and
women, and the physically infirm. Also in the crowd is Christ, who stands
quietly among his fellow man.

The panels with the scenes of Visiting the Sick and Visiting the Impris-
oned have equally concrete, plausible settings. In the latter panel, the scene
takes place in the courtyard of an early sixteenth-century Netherlandish
jail. Standing outside the enclosed prison yard in the immediate foreground
are four figures. One man is searching in his purse for money with which
to ransom the imprisoned, while two others (a man and a woman) hold
their coins in readiness. Another female figure holds her hands out towards
two of the philanthropists and turns her head in the direction of the third.
Within the courtyard one prisoner is being whipped by a jailer and another
has his hands and ankles locked to a single piece of wood on the ground.
The woeful faces of two other prisoners, incarcerated in cells facing onto
the courtyard, are visible in the background behind barred windows.

In contrast with Christ's appearance in the other panels, here he is
depicted as a full-length figure standing alone beneath the porch in front
of the prison cells. Despite the deep shadows of the porch, Christ's face and
hands are clearly visible, aglow with supernatural light. In his left hand he
carries the orb of the world surmounted with a cross, and with his right
hand makes a gesture of blessing directed towards the prisoners in the
courtyard.^

In the panel illustrating the Visiting of the Sick, a view through a brick
archway into an interior space of considerable breadth and depth is
presented. The setting is that of an early sixteenth-century Netherlandish

138 / Renaissance and Reformation

hospital probably somewhat idealized. In the background, a doctor assisted
by a nurse is shown applying a salve to the back of a patient seated on the
floor on a mat in front of a small fireplace. To the left of this group is a
burgher who holds a cup for an invalid lying in one of several bedsteads
lining the wall. In the middle ground, in another portion of the large
hospital ward, is a second physician in the process of taking the pulse of a
bed-ridden man. Finally, in the immediate foreground are four figures
standing in the entrance hallway of the hospital. The single female figure
is headed inside, with a cup in hand. The male figures, including a
bust-length figure of Christ, are gathered in a group at the right; their bodies
are turned outward towards the left. One of the three full-length figures has
his arms open, seemingly in a gesture of welcome. Although these three
men resemble other figures in the panels in regard to their dress and
physical type, their heads (which sit rather uncomfortably on their necks)
are much less generalized. Their more specific facial features combined
with their outward glance, suggest that these figures were intended as donor
portraits. (The identity of these donors will be discussed shortly.)

The central panel of the series, the scene towards which the donors' bodies
are oriented, is that of the Burial of the Dead. The burial takes place in a
barren cemetery outside of the city walls. Two monks are shown lowering
a coffin into a newly-dug grave, as the priest accompanied by a deacon
reads the funeral service. Two other monks are departing from the scene
carrying away the apparatus which was used to carry the coffin to the site.
A grave-digger stands at the edge of the grave with his hands flaccid on his
shovel, as he rests from his recent labours. A small group of mourners
swathed in black also stand by the grave-site. The upper half of the panel
is occupied by a representation of the Apocalyptic Christ displaying the
physical signs of his bodily sacrifice; he is seated on a rainbow with his
feet resting on the orb of the world, flanked to left and right by the
intercessors Mary and John.

Written on the simple, wooden frame surrounding the panels are a series
of seven rhyming couplets in Dutch, inscribed beneath each of the scenes.
They read from left to right as follows:

Deelt midelick den Armen / God zal (Share generously [with] the poor,

U weder ontfarmen. [and] God shall have pity on You.)

Van spijis ende drank in dit leven / (For food and drink given in this life,

Dusent fout sal U weder werden a thousand-fold shall be returned to

gegeven. you.)

Renaissance et Réforme / 139

Uwen evenmensch zijn naektheyt (If you will cover the nakedness of

wilt decken / Opdat God uyt doe your fellowmen, God will remove

Uwer zondem vlecken. the stain of Your sins.)

Van den dooden te begraven so wy (For burying the dead, we read why

lesen / Wert Thobias van God Tobias was praised by God.)
gepresen.

Die Heer spreeckt wilt my vcrstaen (As the Lord said to whomever will

/ Wat Ghy den minsten doet wert my hear, what You do to the least of my

gedaen, brothers You do it also to me.)

Wilt ziecken ende crancken (If you will visit the sick and injured,

vysenteeren / U loon zal ewelick your reward shall eternally in-

vermeren. crease.)

Die gevangenen verlost met car- (If you liberate prisoners out of char-

itaten / Het komt hiemae Uwer ity, your soul will benefit at the

zielen ten bate. Second Coming.)

As noted above, no documentation has survived regarding the commis-
sion of the panels. However it has long been assumed in the literature on
the painting that the series was commissioned by the regenten (governors)
or gasthuismeesters (hospital masters) of the Holy Ghost Confraternity of
Alkmaar who maintained the hospital of St. Elizabeth in the city.^ This
assumption is based upon the identification of the three burghers wearing
black hats who are shown at the entrance to the hospital in the foreground
of the sixth panel, as portraits of prominent members of the Holy Ghost
Confraternity. Two other members of the Confraternity, wearing similar
black burgher-hats and whose faces have particularized features, are
portrayed among the crowd of indigent persons receiving clothing in the
second panel of the series. Their confratemal patronage is further confirmed
by the cross which decorates the lid of the coffin in the central panel with
the Burial of the Dead; this type of cross was employed with numerous
variations, by the Holy Ghost Order and Confraternity on their coat-of-arms
and seals. ^^ And finally, in support of this identification of the patrons of
the work is the fact that the subject matter of the panels, the seven corporal
works of mercy, was imagery frequently employed by the Order and
Confraternity of the Holy Ghost.

The foundation of the Holy Ghost Order and Confraternity in the late
tweïfth century coincided with the foundation of a hospital dedicated to the
care of the sick and poor by Guy de Montepellier (d. 1208), in his hometown

140 / Renaissance and Reformation

in FranceJ^ (Guy undoubtedly chose the Holy Ghost as the patron of his
hospital, order and confraternity, because it was through the mysterious
workings of the second person of the Trinity, the agency of grace, that man
performs meritorious deeds J ^) The activities of Guy and his charitable
foundation soon came to the attention of Pope Innocent (1198-1216), who
decided to found a similar hospital for the poor and sick in Rome, but on
a much larger scale. In 1198, he called Guy to Rome to organize the new
institution; in that year. Innocent sanctioned the creation of a new religious
order, the Ordine di Santo Spirito, which was confirmed in a papal bull
promulgated in 1213.^^ The immediate responsibility of the Order was to
staff the three-hundred bed hospital founded by the Pope in 1204; known
as the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, it was built on the banks of the
Tiber on the former site of the Ospedale di Santa Maria in Sassia, which
had been founded in 715.

What distinguished the Order of the Holy Spirit from already existing
hospital orders was the fact that it cared for all of man's bodily needs and
not just for the sick; they considered the performance of the seven corporal
works of mercy as their duty.^^ The Rule governing the Order in fact begins
with an excerpt from Matthew 25:31-46, which provided the theological
basis for the performance of the corporal works of mercy and its relation
to salvation. The biblical text is as follows:

. . . when the Son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels
with him, he will sit on the throne of his gloiy; and before him will be
gathered all the nations, he will separate them one from another, as the
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and he will set the sheep
on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then the king will say to those on his right hand, "Come, blessed of my
Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world; for I was hungry, you gave me to eat; I was
thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in;
naked and you covered me; sick and you visited me; I was in prison,
and you came to me." Then the just will answer him, saying "Lord, when
did we see thee hungry and feed thee; or thirsty, and give thee drink?
And when did we see thee a stranger, and take thee in; or naked, and
clothe thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and come to
thee?" And answering the king will say to them, "Amen I say to you, as
long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it
for me."

Renaissance et Réforme / 141

Then he will say to those on his left hand, "Depart from me, accursed
ones, into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his
angels. For I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat; I was thirsty
and you gave me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take me in;
naked, and you did not clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you did not
visit me." Then they also will answer and say, "Lord, when did we see
thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and
did not minister to thee?" Then he will answer them, saying, "Amen I
say to you, as long as you did not do it for one of these least ones, you
did not do it for me." And these will go into everlasting punishment, but
the just into everlasting life.

Equally dedicated to charitable activities described in this text was the
Confraternity of the Holy Ghost. Established by Guy as the lay counterpart
to the Order, it was intended to attract those Christians who did not wish
to take religious vows, but who wanted to perform charitable deeds within
an institutional framework. ^^ Those who sought admittance were generally
nobles and wealthy upper-class men and women.^^ In addition to perform-
ing the seven works of mercy, the members of the confraternity raised money
for the Order and the hospitals by demanding dues for membership; the
solvency of the Order essentially rested on these revenues. ^^ Frequently
these funds were also used to defray the costs of decorating the local church
on feast days.^^

In the course of the thirteenth century, the Order and Confraternity of
the Holy Ghost spread throughout Western Europe. By the beginning of
the fourteenth century, there were at least 400 Holy Ghost foundations in
France, 280 in Italy, 128 in Spain and Portugal, 27 in Germany, and 40 in
the Low Countries; these foundations included hospitals, orphanages, and
old-age homes.^^ In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a number
of branches of the Confraternity in Flanders and the Netherlands also
maintained a bench with seats called a "Heilige Geest-Stoel" (a Holy Ghost
bench), where members distributed bread and clothing to the sick and
poor.2^ In Haarlem for example, the Holy Ghost Confraternity had an oak
bench with twelve seats, constructed c. 1470-83, near the portal on the
southwest wall of SL Bavo's.^^

The history of the Holy Ghost Order and Confraternity in regard to their
patronage of art has yet to be written, however in all known instances where
they did commission works, the subject matter was always the illustration
of the corporal works of mercy. This pictorial tradition began in the early
thirteenth century with a manuscript of the Rule of the Order of the Holy

142 / Renaissance and Reformation

Ghost, which was probably executed for the first successor to Guy de
Montepellier. Today preserved in the Archives of the Ospedale di Santo
Spirito in Sassia, Rome, the manuscript is decorated with historiated initials
and miniatures depicting the monks and sisters of the Order performing
their charitable duties.^-^ Two rulebooks of the Order originating in North-
em Europe in the early fifteenth century, belonging to the Holy Ghost
Hospital in Nuremberg, are similarly illuminated. They are decorated with
a series of miniatures depicting the seven corporal works of mercy together
with a scene of the Last Judgment; beneath each scene is an inscription
from Matthew 25:35-36, 42-43.^^ Christ is depicted in the series as the sole
and direct recipient of each act of mercy, which is performed alternately
by a man and a woman.

Monumental works of art illustrating the mercies were also commissioned
by the Holy Ghost Order and Confraternity. These include carved keystones
with representations of six mercies— Giving Drink to the Thirsty was
omitted— in a ward of the Holy Ghost Hospital in Biberach in the province
of WUrttemberg, of 1472,^^ and a lost painting of the Seven Works with the
Last Judgment, of c. 1490-1500, by the Dutch artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans
for the Holy Ghost Orphanage in Haarlem.^^

In regard to iconography, the representation of the corporal works of
mercy in works specifically commissioned by the Order or Confraternity
of the Holy Ghost was identical with that employed in the far more
numerous works produced for other patrons.^^ The earliest surviving
example of this pictorial tradition is an Italian painting (Rome, Vatican
Pinakothek) from the second half of the twelfth century, in which the three
acts of Feeding the Hungry, Visiting the Imprisoned, and Clothing the
Naked are represented on the register below a scene of the Last Judgment^^
A similar arrangement is found on a contemporary work from Northern
Europe, the Gallus Portal of Basel Cathedral, where the door jambs beneath
a tympanum with the Last Judgment are decorated with relief sculptures
of the corporal works of mercy.^^

The Basel reliefs depict six charitable activities in accord with those
mentioned in text from Matthew. Absent from the illustrations is the burial
of the dead, which was not officially recognized as a corporal act of mercy
until the first half of the thirteenth ccntury.^^ It was illustrated for the first
time around 1250 on the -now destroyed choir screen of Strasbourg
Cathedral, in conjunction with other works of mercy and a scene of the
Last Judgment.^ ^

Renaissance et Réforme / 143

In keeping with this iconographie tradition of associating the mercies
with the Second Coming are two altarpieces— the Cambrai Altarpiece
(Madrid, Prado) and the Last Judgment Altarpiece (Valencia, Ayunta-
miento) — which were produced in Brussels, c. 1460, by a close follower of
Rogier van der Weyden, generally identified as Vranke van der Stockt.^^ In
both works, the mercies are illustrated as painted relief sculptures on the
archway surrounding the scene of the Last Judgment.^^ In each of the
scenes, the figure of Christ is included among the crowd of indigents
receiving charity from male and female donors; his presence literally
illustrates the line from Matthew 25: "... as long as you did it for one of
these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me."^^

In the case of the works cited above, the mercies were illustrated as
ancillary scenes of the main subject of the Last Judgment. A second, related
pictorial tradition regarding the representation of the corporal works of
mercy also existed in Western art from the twelfth through the sixteenth
centuries. In a number of representations a saintly or royal personage is
depicted doing charitable activities. For example, the ivory reliefs on the
back cover of the twelfth-centuiy Melisenda Psalter show King David
performing six corporal acts of mercy; inscribed below each scene is the
appropriate excerpt describing the act from Matthew 25:35-36.^^

This second pictorial tradition associated with the illustration of chari-
table acts is exemplified by two sets of illuminated miniatures from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, illumi-
nated by Jean Pucelle in Paris c. 1325-28, are three miniatures of St. Louis
feeding a leprous monk, administering to the sick, and burying the bones
of the Crusaders.^^ In the book entitled Benois seront les miséricordieux,
illuminated in Brussels in 1468-77, are eight small scenes connected by a
continuous city-scape depicting the patroness of the manuscript, Margaret
of York (the wife of Philip the Good), performing the seven corporal acts
of mercy and praying.^^

These two iconographie traditions may be seen as converging in a large
polyptych with the Last Judgment (Antwerp, Musées Royaux), attributed to
the Antwerp School, c. 1490-1 500.^^ The altarpiece consists of fifteen panels;
the largest and uppemiost panel depicts the Apocalyptic Christ seated on
a rainbow and displaying his wounds, fiankcd by Mary and John. The
resurrection of the dead is depicted below, the Blessed gathering around St.
Peter at the entrance to the Heavenly City at the left, and the Damned
tortured in Hell at the right. Beneath the panel with the Last Judgment are

144 / Renaissance and Reformation

fourteen panels, disposed in two registers, representing the Seven Deadly
Sins and the Seven Acts of Mercy. The corporal acts are performed by saints
and prophets and witnessed by Christ who raises his hand in a gesture of
blessing.

In regard to its imagery, the Seven Works of Mercy by Comelis Buys the
Elder basically follows the traditional iconography associated with the
theme, briefly summarized above. Precedents for the representation of men
and women performing charitable acts, the inclusion of Christ as one of
the recipients of this charity, the appearance of the Apocalyptic Christ, and
the urban setting employed in the panels, may be found in earlier
illustrations. There are, however, two features of the work which are
unusual.

The first of these concerns the portraits which appear on two of the panels.
Donor portraits of royalty are found in earlier representations of the seven
mercies, such as that of Margaret of York in the late fifteenth-century
manuscript, Benois seront les miséricordieux. However, the portraits of five
members of the Holy Ghost Confraternity of Alkmaar represent the first
surviving example of bourgeois portraiture in this context.

The second, more remarkable feature of the work is the series of
inscriptions which are written on the framework beneath each scene. With
one exception — the inscription on the fifth panel — the phrases are not
excerpted from the biblical text of Matthew 25, as is the case in all previous
instances where inscriptions are included in the representations of the
mercies. Rather, the inscribed lines are exhortatory rhymed couplets which
spell out the consequences of the charitable act in regard to man's salvation.
The likelihood is that these inscriptions were not invented for this particular
context, but were commonplace in devotional literature and sermons of the
period.^^

The paintings originally were displayed somewhere in the south aisle in
the choir of St Lawrence. Presumably the work hung above an altar and
served as an altarpiece, but in fact there is no documentary evidence to
substantiate this assumption."^ Moreover, although parallels for the long,
narrow format of the work exist among the many painted and sculpted
altarpieces of Northern Europe which have survived from the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries, its lack of moveable wings combined with its
enormous breadth of some 15-1/2 feet suggests that Xh^Seven Works of Mercy
was not conceived as an altarpiece, but rather as a votive image independent
of an altar.^^

Renaissance et Réforme / 145

Wherever the Seven Works of Mercy hung within the church, and whatever
its precise function— whether it served as an altarpiece, a votive image, or
as an altarpiece and a votive image— the message of the imagery of the
panels and of the inscriptions on the framework is readily comprehensible
within the context of the period in which the work was created. These images
of good Catholic men and women fulfilling their charitable duties by
performing the seven works of mercy were clearly intended as exemplary
models of how one should lead one's life and the positive consequences
thereof. Not only do such activities lead to a better existence for the poor
and sick, and ostensibly improve the well-being of one's city, but the
individual benefits greatly as well; by performing meritorious acts, one is
actively working to achieve the salvation of one's soul. If the implied import
of the pictures was not adequately inspirational for the worshipper, the
exhortatory couplets inscribed on the frame beneath each scene reiterated
for the viewer the connection between good works and salvation. The fact
that the church fathers of Alkmaar had the panels restored after their attack
by iconoclasts, and that the paintings were allowed to remain in St.
Lawrence when the majority of Dutch churches were stripped bare of earlier
religious art, suggests that these images of exemplum virtutis were not
considered offensive by succeeding generations of Protestant visitors to the
church.'*^

Secondly, these panels were surely intended to draw attention to those
Christians who had already dedicated themselves to good works, to
specifically congratulate the members of the Holy Ghost Confraternity of
Alkmaar. It is certainly not without significance that the donor portraits of
the officials of the Confraternity appear in the panel with the charitable act
of visiting the sick; they were obviously proud of their hospital and the
activities connected with it.

At the present time the Seven Works of Mercy provides the primary source
of information available to us about the Holy Ghost Confraternity of
Alkmaar. Drawing attention to this unique visual document will hopefully
inspire much needed archival research into the specific history, member-
ship, and activities of this confraternity in Alkmaar, and its operation
elsewhere in the Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

University of Miami, Coral Gables

146 / Renaissance and Reformation

Notes

* This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Albrecht Dohmann (1915-87), Professor of
Netherlandish Art, Kunstgeschichtlichen Institut, Humboldt-Universitât, Berlin, and Di-
rector of the Zentralbibliothek, Staatlichen Museen, Berlin.

1 The first and seventh panels each measure 110 x 54 cm.; the other five each measure 110
X 55.5 cm.

For the work, see N.F. van Gelder-Schrijver, "De Meester van Alkmaar, Eene bijdrage tot
de kennis van de Haarlemsche Schilderschool," Oud Holland Al (1930): 97-121; G J.
Hoogewerff, De Noord-Nederlamhche Schilderkunst (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1939), vol. 3,
pp. 346-48; Middeleeuwse Ku list der Noordelijke Ncdcrlanden: 1 50 Jaar Rijksmuseum Jubileum-
tentoomtelliug. Exhibition catalogue (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1958), pp. 89-90; Max J.
Friedlânder, Early Netherlandish Painting, trans. Heinz Norden (Leiden & Brussels: A,W.
Sijthoff, 1973), pp. 24-27, 74; CJ. de Bmyn Kops, "De Zeven Werken van Barmhartigheid
van de Meester van Alkmaar gerestaureerd,"i?w//c'///; van het Rijksmuseum, 23 (1976): 203-26;
James E. Snyder, Nonhem Renaissance Art: Painting. Sculpture, Vie Graphic Arts From J 350
to J 575 (New York: Hariy N. Abrams, Inc., 1985), pp. 445-46.

2 For a summaiy of previous scholarship regarding the identity of the Master of Alkmaar,
see Friedlânder, vol. 10, pp. 90-91. Regarding his identification as Cornelis Buys the Elder,
see Snyder, p. 445.

In the background oï' Feeding the Hungry, there is a staircase decorated with a stone statue
of a lion holding an escutcheon inscribed with a monogram. The letters have been variously
identified by scholars as, two "A"s (Friedlânder, pp. 29, 74), two "A"s crossed with a "V"
(Snyder, p. 445), and as an "A" and a "P" (de Bruyn Kops, p. 203), but there is general
agreement that the monogram is that of the painter responsible for the panels. CJ. de
Bruyn Kops (pp. 203-204) suggested that the male face which appears just to the left of
the lion with the escutcheon, may be a self-poilrait of the artist.

3 The inscription reads "Anno mccc en iiii."

4 The panels are described //; situ in Jacob Dircksz. Wijkkoper's Geschiedkundige
aantekeningen betrejfende Alkmaar, 1436-1599, f 214, a seventeenth-century city chronicle
preserved in a single, eighteenth-centuiy copy in the community archives of Alkmaar (cited
in de Bmyn Kops, pp. 215, 222), and in Gijsbert Boomkamp's Alkmaar en deszelfs
geschiedenissen (Rotterdam, 1747), p. 387. Piecing together the information contained in
these two sources, it appears that the paintings were displayed somewhere in the south
aisle of the choir, near the main altar and the organ. In neither account, however, is their
precise location within this area of the church described, nor is it mentioned whether the
panels hung above an altar.

5 This act of vandalism is described in the two sources mentioned in note 3. At the same
time that the paintings were vandalized, the inscriptions and prophets on the preekstoel
(pulpit) of the church were also blackened with paint. It is not clear from the account if
the paintings of the Seven Works of Mercy were near, or in any way connected with this
pulpit, but the possibility is an intriguing one.

6 For a description of the physical condition of the panels before and after the restoration,
see de Bruyn Kops, pp. 213-15, 222-23.

During the course of restoration it was discovered that, in addition to the black paint,
certain areas of the panels— in particular, the faces of the people perfomiing the good
deeds and those of Christ and the ecclesiastical personages in the Burial of the Dead— had
been attacked with a shaip instrument which left deep grooves in the surface. Since black
paint was found in some of these grooves, it was concluded that the damage to the panel
was either infiicted during an eariier (unrecorded) act of vandalism, or at the same time
as the blackening.

Renaissance et Réforme / 147

7 His presence and gestures in this scene were probably intended to be interpreted on a
symbolic level as well. In contrast with the good folk who visit the imprisoned and liberate
them from physical confinement by paying a ransom, Christ has paid for the salvation of
mankind by his bodily sacrifice.

8 My thanks to Dr. Margarita Russell for help with the Dutch translations.

9 The identification of the donors was first made by C.H. Peters & Dr. H. Brugmans,
Oud-Nederlandsche steden in haar onstaan, groei en ontwikkeling, (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff,
1909-1 1), vol. 2, pp. 155-56, and repeated by Hoogewerff, p. 346.

10 Cf. Snyder, p. 446.

11 The most comprehensive discussions of the Holy Ghost Order and Confraternity to date
are those of Ch. De Smedt, "L'ordre hospitalier du Saint-Esprit," Revue des Questions
Historiques (Paris, 1893): 216-26, and Paul Brune's Histoire de l'Ordre hospitalier du
Saint-Esprit (Lons-le-Saunier: C. Martin, 1892).

12 Ch. Moeller, "Holy Ghost, Order of the," in Tlie Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert
Appleton, Co., 1908), vol. 7, pp. 415-16.

13 Brune, pp. 61-62. For the text of the Rule of the Order, see Régula Sacri Ordinis Sancti
Spiritus in Saxia (Rome, 1564), in J.P. Migne, éd., Patrologiae Cursus Completus ... Series
Latina (Paris, 1855), vol. 217, cols. 1137-58.

14 Brune, pp. 61, 63.

15 The New Testament, The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Edition (Paterson, New Jersey:
St Anthony Guild Press, 1943).

16 Brune, p. 153. According to Bmne, the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost was the first lay
confraternity in Christendom.

17 Ibid., p. 155.

18 Ibid., p. 163.

19 Ibid., p. 164.

20 De Smedt, p. 222.

21 Brune, p. 196.

22 Francis Allan, Geschiedenis en Beschrijving van Haarlem (Haarlem: J J. van Brederode, 1883),
vol. 3, p. 374.

In light of the imagery of the Seven Works of Mercy, it is worthy of note that the bench
belonging to the Holy Ghost Confraternity of Haarlem was decorated with scenes of
charitable acts. On the two outside faces of the sides of the bench were relief sculptures
of the distribution of food to cripples beneath an image of the Christ holding the orb of
the worid, and of a scene of a poor family beneath a representation of the Apocalyptic
Christ On the back of each of the twelve seats, were scrolls with inscriptions from Matthew
25:31-46.

23 Brune, pp. 61-62. For reproductions of some of these illuminations, see the illustrations
accompanying the article, "Ospedale," by Alessandro Canezza, in Encyclopedia Italiana di
Scienze, Lettere ed Altri (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, 1949), vol. 15. cols. 673-81.

24 For the works, see Otto Schmitt, "Barmherzigkeit Werke der Barmherzigkeit," Reallexikon
zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, éd.. Otto Schmitt (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1937), vol. 1, cols.
1465-66, plate 9.

25 Ibid., cols. 1662-63.

26 Van Gelder-Schrijver, p. 103, n. 1.

27 Regarding the iconography of the Seven Works of Mercy in general, and for other
representative examples of the subject not included in this discussion, see Schmitt, cols.
1457-67; Louis Réau, Iconographie de l'Art Chretien (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1957), vol. 2, pp. 747-50.

148 / Renaissance and Reformation

28 Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art (London: The
Warburg Institute, 1939), p. 60, n. 2.

For a reproduction of the work, see Deoclecio Redig de Campos, "Eine unbekannte
Darstellung des junsten Gerichts aus dem elfen Jahrhundert," Zeitschriftfiir Kunstgeschichte
5 (1936): 125, plate 1.

29 Schmitt, col. 1460, plates 2-7.

30 SL Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74) listed it as one of seven corporal acts of mercy in the
Summa theologica (II.32.ii).

31 Schmitt, col. 1461. Eight works of mercy were illustrated on the screen, including scenes
of Protecting Widows and Orphans and of Shoeing the Barefoot; the Act of Visiting the
Sick was omitted for unknown reasons.

32 For the two works, see Karl M. Birkmeyer, "The Arch Motif in Netherlandish Painting of
the Fifteenth Century," y4^ Bulletin 63 (1961): 101-103, figs. 19-21, 23.

33 The use of this compositional device was obviously derived from the work of Rogier van
der Weyden, and may in fact have been based on a lost original by the master.

In the Cambrai Altarpiece, six works of mercy are illustrated on the voussoirs of the arch
framing the right wing of the altarpiece; the seventh, the Burial of the Dead, is illustrated
in the spandrels above the arch divided into two scenes. In the Valencia Last Judgment
Altarpiece, eight acts of mercy are depicted on the jambs of the painted archway on the
central panel; for compositional reasons, the act of Visiting the Sick was illustrated in two
scenes.

34 This is not, however, the earliest instance in which Christ appears in this context; in the
miniatures illustrating the rule book of the Holy Ghost Hospital of Nuremberg, of c. 1410,
Christ is depicted as the sole and direct recipient of the act of charity.

35 Katzenellenbogen, p. 9, n. 2. For a reproduction of the work, see Adolf Goldschmidt and
Kurt Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1934), vol. 2,
plate 73.

36 For reproductions of the miniatures, see The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France
(New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1957), n.p.

The miniature of St. Louis visiting the sick appears to have been among the earliest
instances in which this act of charity was depicted as taking place in an institutional setting
rather than in a private home. The hospital scene which appears in the Seven Works of
Mercy follows this iconographie tradition, but has special significance because of the
identity of the donors.

37 Regarding this work, see L.M J. Délaissé, Miniatures médiévales de la Librairie de Bourgogne
au Bourgogne au Cabinet des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (Geneva:
Editions des Deux-Mondes, 1959), p. 197.

38 For the work, see £m Peinture Ancienne au Musée roval des Beaux-Arts d Anvers (Brussels: G.
van Oest & Co., 1914), p. 15.

39 It is possible that the Seven Works of Mercy may have hung somewhere near the pulpit in
St. Lawrence, which would perhaps help to explain the unique nature of its inscriptions.

40 See note 3.

41 The author of the exhibition catalogue. Middeleeuwse Kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden,
reached a similar conclusion about the original purpose of the work, suggesting that the
paintings may have been given to the church of St. Lawrence because of that saint's love
for the poor and sick.

42 In fact the theme of the coiporal mercies became quite popular as the subject matter of
paintings, stained glass, and prints in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Holland. For
works with this subject, see A. Pigler, Barockthemen eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur

Renaissance et Réforme / 149

Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhuuderts (Budapest: Ungarischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1956), vol. 1, pp. 527-29.

There is known to have been at least one votive panel in the church of St. Lawrence in
the early-sixteenth century, painted for the local nobleman. Count Jan van Egmond van
der Nyenborg (1438-1516): E. W. Moses, Iconographia Batava (Amsterdam, 1890-1905), no.
2293, cited by Friedlânder, p. 25, n. 1. This same Count commissioned portraits of himself
and his wife which have been attributed to the Master of Alkmaar, here identified as
Comelis Buys the Elder. (For the paintings, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, see Friedlânder, vol. 10, plates 38 & 39.) Although it is tempting to identify the
presumably lost votive panel given by the Count to St. Lawrence with the Seven Works of
Mercy, none of the men portrayed as donors are similar in appearance to the Count as
depicted in his portrait

150 / Renaissance and Reformation

Music and Merchants: The Laudesi
Companies in Early Renaissance
Florence

BLAKE WILSON

In 1255 the Council of Bordeaux defined the place of lay religious
confraternities within ecclesiastical organization, prescribing pious activi-
ties that ranged from collecting alms and assisting with Mass to repairing
bridges and chasing away wolves. The Church's concept of a valid religious
life tended then, as before, to relegate the laity to a passive and servile role.
In so doing it underestimated their needs and aspirations, particularly those
of the politically and socially activated laity in Europe's burgeoning cities
who sought a religious life commensurate with their active cosmopolitan
lives. Nowhere in the Bordeaux Council's list is there a hint of what was
actually taking place at that moment in the city republics of central Italy,
where autonomous lay groups were developing vernacular services and
liturgies that imitated, and would come to rival, their clerical counterparts.
No aspect of this parallel development is as indicative of the layman's
aspirations as the 13th-century appearance of the lauda repertory, which
would remain for centuries the most popular type of vernacular religious
lyric in central Italy. As the vast lyrical repertory of chant was to the Latin
liturgy, so was the lauda to the vernacular services of the laudesi companies.^
The "compagnie delle laude" were groups of laymen (and sometimes
women) organized primarily under the auspices of the Dominican, Fran-
ciscan, and other mendicant orders to receive religious instruction, provide
charitable services for the poor, and above all to conduct their own liturgical
services that featured the devotional activity oi lauda singing. It is here, as
the lyrical core of a lay, vernacular liturgy, that the lauda arose, attained a
stable musico-poetic form, and became the dominant insignia of the lay
religious activism fostered by the mendicant orders.

Renaissance and Refonnation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 1 (1989) 151

152 / Renaissance and Reformation

EXAMPLE 1: Syllabic Lauda for the Feast of St. Dominic

Refrain

I

San Do- me- ni- co be- a- to

m •

lu- cer- na ri- iu- cen- te

a • • ■ • -^ «■ *• ^-^

San Do- me- ni- co be- a- to, do- è a di- re

ho- mo sane- ti- fi- ca- to di Di- o si- re

m

■ «^ • • «^

a lo qua- li sem- pre- ti pia- que'l ser- vi- re;

"li V « «

la- on- de sen in- co- ro- na- to

nel re- gno per- ma- nen- te

I

TI m m m -^ • •

in e- ter- no do- è sen- za fi- ni- ta.

Renaissance et Réforme / 153
EXAMPLE 2: Florid Lauda for the Feast of St Dominic

Refrain

*-* Al- le- gro can- to, po-pol cri-

-•tt^

sti- a- no

*^ del gran- de Scin Do- me- ni- co.

^ t ' ■ •

-.■> .

di tan- ti va- lo- ro- so ca- pi- ta-

Strophe

> ^ > ;r^

■ • » ^ » ■

ca- pi

ta- no di mol- ti

ca- va- lie- ri

fu sane- to pre- ti- o- sc

sane- to pre- ti-

do-po Cri- sto l'an- no se-

gui- ta- to;

^ e fu

^F

de li mi- glior gon- fal- co- nie- ri.

4 ^«^'«T/r^V, • . i\;\ ,-r;ii ^^

*^ quel fiu- me gra- ti- o- so

do-po Cri- sto si- a sta- to

tro- va- to;

che nel- la fe- de tro- vas-

lon- ta- no.

154 / Renaissance and Reformation

The laudesi companies, along with their penitential counterpart, the
disciplinati (or flagellant) companies, were the distinctive result of the
interaction between the forces of mendicant spirituality, urban piety, and
the merchant culture of the early Italian city republics.^ For nearly two and
a half centuries the companies flourished in the bustling mercantile centers
of Tuscany and Umbria. The heartland of laudesi activity was Flor-
ence. During the period when most of the laudesi companies were founded,
ca. 1270-1340, Florence was the largest city in Europe, excelling in its
mercantile activity, the number and greatness of its mendicant houses, and
in the strength of its republican government, of which Florence was to be
among the last strongholds in the early 16th century. These were favorable
conditions for the lauda and the laudesi: numerous Florentine poets from
anonymous artisans to Lorenzo dc' Medici contributed to a vast repertory,
and the Florentine companies were the wealthiest, most numerous, and
most enduring of their kind.

What survives of the early lauda repertory is preserved in the service
books of the companies, the laudari, in which the laude were organized
liturgically according to the Proper of the Time (Advent, Lent, etc.) and the
Proper of the Saints (Feast of St. Augustine, etc.). Most laudari contained
only the texts; fewer the monophonie melodies as well. Of these latter two
have survived: the late 13th-century Cortona manuscript (Cort),^ an un-
adorned book containing 45 melodies in a predominantly simple, syllabic
style; and the early 14th-century Florence manuscript (Mgll),^ an elegant,
illuminated collection of 88 melodies, many of them of such florid nature
that one scholar has observed "that [they] must have required considerable
virtuosity on the part of the performers."^ Music examples 1 and 2 are
transcriptions of two laude to St. Dominic, whose order was particularly
strong in Florence. The first typifies the older Cortona melodies, with its
simple, declamatory style and narrow melodic range; the second, from
among a group of more recently composed laude to the saints in the
Florence manuscript, honours the saint with a much longer and more
virtuosic piece.^ Such florid melodies did not issue from an elite performing
tradition within the city's laudesi companies, for the Florence manuscript
belonged to the Company of Santo Spirito, which was veiy modest by
Florentine standards (see Table 1). The wealth of the Florentine laudario
and the technical aspect of its laude point to the particular history of the
Florentine companies that will be examined here— their rapid development
into prosperous and stable institutions with professional musical chapels

Renaissance et Réforme / 155

staffed by singers and instrumentalists who specialized in the performance
of laude.

The material success of the companies was due in part to the fact that
they were managed by some of the most skilled businessmen in Western
Europe— Florentine merchants. In addition, the influential mendicant
preachers exhorted them to perceive and practice their faith in terms of

TABLE I: The Florentine Laudesi Companies^

Company

Church

Order

Assets

Orsanmichele

Orsanmichele

lay

14,947

(est. 1291)

S. Piero Martire

Santa Maria Novella

Dominican

11,362

(by 1288)

San Zanobi

Cathedral

Diocesan

2,146

(1281)

Sant'Agnese

S. Maria del Carmine

Carmelite

593

(by 1280)

San Gilio

San Gilio

Sacchite

358

(1278)

Santo Spirito

Santo Spirito

Augustinian

285

(by 1322)

(friars)

San Lorenzo

San Lorenzo

Collegiate

123

(by 1314)

San Frediano

San Frediano

Cistercian

76

(ca. 1370)

San Marco

San Marco

Dominican

42

(by 1329)

(observant)

San Bastiano

Santissima Annunziata

Servite

(by 1273)

Santa Croce

Santa Croce

Franciscan

(by 1282)

Ognissanti

Ognissanti

Franciscan

(1336)

(observant)

156 / Renaissance and Reformation

their daily mercantile experience. Merchants and artisans might regard
Christ as a bonus negotiator who traded in the more valuable riches of
heaven, to regard Lent as a great trade fair where spiritual profit (grace
through confession) could be made; like their secular counterparts the
companies were indeed a kind of sacred business run for purpose of earning
shared spiritual profits.^ The laudesi companies were modeled on guild
structures: they elected officers, paid dues, met regularly, drew up statutes
regulating corporate activity, and maintained meticulous account books. It
would not have escaped the friars' notice that the guild structure, as a door
to a higher world of secular political and social activity, was eminently
suited to a spiritual reinterpretation. Through lauda singing directed to the
Saints, members cultivated sacred connections with their divine advocates
and earned indulgences, precisely numbered days of spiritual credit to be
applied against the long-standing penitential debt expressed in the concept
of Purgatory.

The widespread belief in the efficacy oUauda singing (bolstered by papal
indulgences) led to its popularity, and it was the popularity of the devotion
that in turn led to the material success of the companies. Writing in the
early 14th century, the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani described
this transition from a spontaneous devotion to a wealthy institution as it
was experienced by the Company of Orsanmichele:

In that year [1292], on the 3rd of July, there began to be manifested great
and sincere miracles in the city of Florence by a figure of the Virgin Mary
painted on a pilaster of the loggia of Orto San Michèle, where the grain
is sold . . . out of custom and devotion, a number of laity sang laude before
this figure, and the fame of these miracles, for the merits of Our Lady, so
increased that people came from all over Tuscany in pilgrimage . . . and
smce [its membership] was the greater part of the buona gente of Florence,
the state of this Company so improved that the many benefits and alms
of bequests for the poor amounted to more than 6000 lire '^

By the 1340s, a strong institutional framework had grown up around the
devotion of lauda singing, which had become a profession for the singers
(and instrumentalists) as well as a business for the companies.

There were twelve laudesi companies in 14th-centuiy Florence (Table I).
Ten of them had been established by 1329, in which year they are listed in
a collective petition to the city where they refer to themselves as the "Greater
Companies of the Blessed Mary of Florence," an indication that they were
the principal lay guardians of the Virgin's cult in Florence.^ ^ By this time

Renaissance et Réforme / 157

the companies were well established in the major Florentine churches. A
laudesi company usually owned the patronage rights to one, sometimes two,
altars in its host church, and depending on the company its altar might be
located in the nave, transept, or apse. Like a secular patron, the company
usually assumed responsibility for the construction, repair, and decoration
of its altar, and the companies were a major source of commissions for
Florentine artists. Like a chaplain, the companies conducted the ritual
obligations associated with its altar, hiring clergy to recite Masses and
Offices, and lay singers, the laudesi, to sing in their vernacular /aw^a services.

The companies maintained three types of service: processional, ferial,
and festive. The procession service was a candle offering that took place
one Sunday a month either during or after Mass. According to its 1326
statutes, the Cathedral company of San Zanobi processed two by two during
the Offertory, bearing lighted candles and singing a lauda}^ The statute
describes a responsorial performance, with two singers at the head of the
procession performing the soloistic strophes, and the remainder of the
company "singing and responding" on the choral refrains.

The festive and ferial services took place in the evening on or shortly
after the designated hour of Compline. Lauda singing was directed to a
devotional image upon the company altar, and was the central activity in
a service that included prayers, readings, and a brief sermon and confession
conducted by a priest or friar retained by the company as their spiritual
advisor. A company sacristan set up for the services, selecting from among
various sizes and grades of candles, laudari, lecterns (from which the soloists
sang), and altar cloths, according to the liturgical solemnity of the service.
The ferial services took place every evening of the week; a typical prescrip-
tion is that from the 1326 statutes of the Company of San Zanobi:

We ordain and establish that everyone of this Company is to meet every
evening in the aforesaid church of the Madonna Santa Reparata [the
old Cathedral] to sing some laude ("a chantare alchune laude") with the
Ave Maria to the honour of God and Our Lady.

In their festive services the companies celebrated the annual feasts of the
liturgical cursus with a vigil service on the eve before the feast, attendance
at Mass and preaching the morning of the feast, and on the most solemn
occasions another vigil that evening. These services were in fact called
"vigilie allé laude," lauda vigils, or sometimes "luminaria allé laude" since
the entire company held and offered lighted candles during the service. The

158 / Renaissance and Reformation

company singers performed special laude proper to the feast, which were
to be found in a large, festive laudario (like the Florence manuscript), as
opposed to smaller ferial books which probably lacked notation and
illumination, and contained what were called "laude commune" for singing
throughout the year. On the most important occasions, like the feast of a
patron saint, a company hired extra singers, municipal wind and brass
players, and in the larger companies players of vielle, rebec, lute, and harp
who accompanied the singing of laude.

Each company had also begun by the early 14th century to maintain a
weekly school for the teaching of laude. Every Sunday afternoon specially
appointed lauda instructors (or "governors") taught and rehearsed the
refrains of laude with company members, and it appears that these
instructors supervised the lauda performances during the evening services,
as well. According to a 1333 statute of the Company of Orsanmichele,

The duty of the governors of the laude is to anange and order how the
laude are to be sung every evening before the image of Our Lady on the
pilaster beneath the loggia, and to conduct the school on Sundays to
learn [the laude], and for which reason they [themselvesl are to learn to
sing the laude. And they are to sing in the Oratory of the Company before
the image of Our Lady . . . [and] the laudesi are to obey these governors
according to the statutes.

By the early 14th centuiy, the Florentine laudesi companies had within 50
years developed an administrative bureaucracy that included captains,
counsellors, treasurers, bill collectors, and company lawyers, and a complex
vernacular liturgy complete with specialized liturgical paraphernalia, ser-
vice books, paid clerics and musicians, and a repertory of sacred song that
spanned the entire church year. The companies had developed rapidly since
the days of spontaneous lauda singing by unpaid, in-house singers, and this
was due largely to the bequests that this popular devotion began to attract.

The Company of San Piero Martire, one of the oldest and wealthiest in
the city, recorded its first bequest in 1299; by 1421 the Company was
managing some 93 bequests. ^^ The other companies received most of their
bequests during this period, and their varying degrees of success are
reflected in the assets listed in Table 1.

A bequest was generally made by a company member or neighborhood
resident, who had willed to the company a house or farm, the annual
proceeds of which were to be divided among various kinds of commemo-
rative service and charity. In this respect, the companies acted primarily as

Renaissance et Réforme / 159

the executors of the will, and their corporate stability and business acumen
made them attractive clients. The commemorative services requested were
often those of clerics, either a commemorative Mass {rinovale) or a com-
memorative meal (piatanza), which the company simply administered. But
a will might also call for the vernacular counterpart of these services: a
commemorative lauda vigil, sometimes called a "rinovale allé laude" (in
which case a Mass was interpolated into the lauda vigil and clerics were
hired), or a collazlone (a meal that was the equivalent of the c\enca\ piafanza).
Most bequests called for various combinations of these services, and the
networks of spiritual benefits engaged by the companies' merchant clients
reflect the latter's intention to be as careful with their spiritual investments
as they had been with their temporal ones. Oriandino Lapi was a wealthy
silk merchant who lived in the working class neighborhood of San
Frediano, across the river in the oltramo district When he died in 1j86, his
will provided for commemorative services by the friars of Santa Croce and
Santa Maria Novella, the two great city-wide churches. But his neighbor-
hood loyalty was revealed through generous bequests to the Carmine friars,
and for lauda vigils by the laudesi companies of the Carmine and Santo
Spirito, the two major churches in his quarter of the city.^^

One of the earliest datable lauda bequests was made in 1313 by a silk
merchant named Michèle to the Company of San Zanobi (SZ 2170, f Iv).
The rent of a house was to provide for the annual distribution of bread to
the poor on the morning of the feast of St. Thomas (Dec. 21), and for a
lauda vigil on the feast of his namesake, St. Michael. Most bequests
combined some form of commemorative service and meal. In 1415, a
bequest to the small Company of San Frediano by /rate Giovanni Lozi
provided that

. . . from this time evciy year in perpetuity on the first Sunday after the
[feast] day of San Frediano, laude are to be sung in the church of San
Frediano with a vigil for the soul of the said/ra Giovanni. Afterwards,
according to custom, chestnuts are to be given out. And in the evening
among our company there is to be a collazione for the priests, the laudiere
{lauda singers), and the men of the Company, at a total cost of around
8 Hre.^^

A similar bequest was made to the Company of Sant'Agnese by Mona
Filippa di Grano, for a lauda vigil and commemorative meal on the
Company's patron saint's feast day. The commemorative meal included not
only the Company's singers (which was customary), but all the laudesi of

160 / Renaissance and Reformation

Florence ("tutti i chantori delle laude di firenzc"). In 1446, the lauda singers
of Florence consumed honey, fennel, puff pastries, and white wine in
grateful memory of this pious woman (SA 24, f. 15v).

The same company received a more complex bequest in 1377 from Chiaro
d'Ardinghelli, a wealthy merchant and company member. Chiaro left the
Company a farm with buildings, vineyards, and olive orchards, plus a yearly
basket of beans for the Company's annual Ascension feast. The property
generated 56 lire per year, which the Company was to distribute in
perpetuity in the following manner:

1. 12 lire for a commemorative meal on March 25, the feast of the
Annunciation.

2. 10 lire for a solemn Mass on Dec.6, the feast of St. Nicholas;

3. 12 lire for another commemorative meal on Dec.8, the feast of the
Immaculate Conception;

4. 12 lire for bread to be distributed on Christmas day to the poor of the
neighborhood;

5. 6 lire for a lauda vigil in August "a modo usato";

6. And 4 lire to the nearby Company of San Frediano for another lauda
vigil in August, the month of Chiaro's death (SA 29, f.3).

There is a brief but interesting histoiy behind this last item. The Company
of San Frediano was not a laudesi company at its founding in 1326, but
between 1368 and 1373 the Company records show detailed expenses for a
decorated laudario, lectern, and altar paraphernalia. What transpired be-
tween the Company's founding and its decision to become a laudesi
company were the steadily growing popularity of lauda singing as a
commemorative devotion, and the Black Death, which struck Florence in
the spring of 1348 and swiftly killed about two-thirds of the city. Thereafter
the Company's records arc silent for over a decade, but it slowly revived in
the 1360s, and by the early 1370s its resources permitted the acquisition of
its lauda singing equipment. In 1377, the Company received its first recorded
bequest for a lauda vigil from one of its long-time leaders, Chiaro
d'Ardinghcllo. There is no reason to doubt the piety of Chiaro and his
fellow Company officers, and the experience of the Plague (and its
recurrences) certainly impressed upon them the propriety of engaging in
commemorative devotions. But these were also professional businessmen
who must have recognized the material virtues of bequests, both as a means
of assuring the Company's survival in a most uncertain world, and as a

Renaissance et Reforme / 161

rapidly expanding market in which the Company might compete to
advantage. In fact, advantage came quickly. In the following decades
membership grew, more bequests were made, two more laudari were
acquired, and numerous expenses for altar repair and decoration reveal the
expansion of the altar-oriented ritual life characteristic oïîaudesi devotion.
These bequests rested on the belief that lauda singing, like other forms
of commemorative devotion, were efficacious, that is, they effectively
safeguarded the soul of the deceased in its journey into another world,
hastened its release from Purgatory, and supplicated it in its role as
intercessor. Laudesi company statutes and bequest records continually
reaffirm the "great spiritual and temporal utility" that was generated by
their commemorative lauda vigils, which were clearly understood to be for
the "rimedio dell'anima" of the deceased. However, the satisfactory fulfil-
ment of the terms of a bequest was a legal as well as spiritual matter, and
this greatly influenced the institutional structure that rose up around the
devotion, A poor or negligent execution of the terms of a bequest could
lead to shame for the Company and legal diversion of the bequest to another
institution (these alternates were usually designated in the will). Conversely,
the more satisfactory the execution, the more likely the attraction of future
bequests, especially since liturgical splendour was believed to contribute to
the efficacy of the devotion. And for these singing companies, satisfactory
fulfilment above all required the services of able and dependable singers.
The Company of Orsanmichele maintained the largest laudesi chapel in the
city, indeed the largest musical establishment in Florence throughout the
14th and 15th centuries, in accordance with its status as one of the city's
wealthiest institutions. In the Company's 1427 catasto report, at the head of
a long list of fiscal obligations, are noted the Company's full-time musi-
cians:

1. 6 laudesi who sing laude every day at L. 180 per year,

2. 6 laudesi who sing laude on feast days at L. 144 per year,

3. 2 players of vielle and lute at L. 60 per year,

4. Ser Piero who plays the organ at L. 66 per year.^^

This was an exceptional musical establishment; the other companies
usually hired two to three singers per service at this time, and the only other
company that frequently hired instrumentalists was San Zanobi.

In Florence, the professional laudesi first appeared in the early 14th
century, along with the eariicst bequests for lauda vigils. For the next two
centuries the city's companies were sci'vcd by a large body of freelancing

162 / Renaissance and Reformation

singers who performed in the companies' services on a strictly contract
basis.

Although account books survive for only six of the city's twelve compa-
nies, it is clear that the most active singers freelanced widely. A few were
omnipresent, like Nocho d'Alesso, a weaver who sang for all six companies
between 1441 and 1464. Many names appeared for only a brief period in
the records of one company, but these short careers constituted a peripheral
activity. The companies were most often served by singers whose period of
service to a single company might vaiy from several months to many years,
but who usually sang for two or more companies, and whose singing careers
stretched from their adolescence to their 70s, usually lasting between ten
and fifty years.^^

Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, the Florentine laudesi were
typically lower guildsmcn, artisans involved in a local trade. They were
bakers, carpenters, goldsmiths, barbers, lantcrnmakers, but most were
involved in the great Florentine wool industiy: washers, dyers, and inde-
pendent master weavers, clothcuttcrs, and burlers. For them lauda singing
was a supplemental income that more or less paid the annual rent on their
dwelling, although some owned their own house and land. For some,
perhaps one in six, lauda singing was a full-time profession, though not a
very lucrative one. Out of twelve singers and one instrumentalist whose
individual tax reports were traceable in the 1427 Catasîo, the declared
professions included three weavers, a clothcutter, a butcher, a barber, a
glovemaker, a vielle player, two laudesi, and one who listed two professions:
cloth burling and lauda singing.^^

Of these twelve all but one lived in a rented house. Over half, including
the two professional laudesi, were listed as "miserabile," the tax assessor's
term for a family that owned too little property to be subjected to a property
tax, which is what the Catasto was. Most of these singers at one time or
another performed with a son or a brother, and this family aspect was
common to all Florentine laudesi activity. Numerous instances of fathers,
sons, and brothers are evident among the 14th and 15th-century Company
payrolls, a phenomenon which reflects a close-knit guild society in which
specialized trade skills were a matter of family pride and patrimony.
Father/son pairs appear frequently, and it was probably in this form of
master/apprentice relationship that laudesi skills were most frequently
transmitted. As in other trades, a son trained in a craft was an asset to his
father; when the Company of San Zanobi was cutting back laudesi salaries

Renaissance et Réforme / 163

in 1433, the singer Guasparre d'Ugolino Prosperi regained his precentor's
wage on the condition that he would "bring his son to the laude [services]"
(SZ 2186, f. 83v).

Brothers, both as boys and adults, also tended to perform together in
pairs. But the obvious tendency oïlaudesi to circulate among the companies
in pairs was not governed solely by family ties. Pairs of singers, related or
not, some of whom journeyed together among the companies, remained the
norm from the early 14th centuiy to the 1460s. During the early 15th century,
the four largest companies had begun to hire three to six singers for their
services, but pairs of singers remained the traditional unit. In the older
monophonie repertory, this suggests the possibility that two singers may
have alternated on the soloistic strophes, which could be quite numerous.
They also probably combined to sing the choral refrains, from which
company congregations were excluded by the virtuosity of many mono-
phonic laude, and by the special skill required to sing the two-part
polyphonic laude that appeared in the early 15th century. Only in the 1460s
did this change, when the companies began hiring small polyphonic choirs
of between five and eleven singers.

The relationship between the singers and the companies was strictly
business. The company officers elected the singers, and drafted contracts
which stipulated a monthly salary, length of sei-vice (usually three or four
months), and obligations (such as performance at festive or ferial services,
and sometimes sacristan duties). The stiff legal prose of these documents
occasionally admits a few statements revealing the Company's concern with
the quality of a singer. When the Company of San Frediano elected two
singers to perform during Lent of 1441, the contract stated that

. . . having elected and arranged for two [singers] to sing laude in the said
church every evening throughout Lent, for the devotion of the people,
some [of the captains] having seen and heard [them] to their satisfaction,
they allocate 8 lire which . . . are to be given to Antonio d'Alesso and
[Antonio d'Adamo] ... on the condition that they provide the singing for
all of the said Lent.-^^

In 1492, the captains of the Company of Sant'Agnese gave one of their
singers a retroactive raise when they decided that his ability was sufficiently
improved:

...Giovanni di Francesco, wool weaver in Piazza Santo Spirito, has
served as "laudiere" of the said Company for some time at the rate of 10

164 / Renaissance and Reformation

soldi [1/2 lira] per month, and being much improved in his job and singing
better, thereby the [captains] have cause to retain him to sing ... at the rate
of 14 soldi per month.^

In 1379, the Company of Orsanmichele promptly lowered the salaries of
their ferial singers after noting that "those who sing every evening in the
oratory . . . are very well paid, and that such a salary is not merited by such
poor work." The pious merchants who made these decisions understood
well that in both the secular and sacred arena, quality was essential to good
business.

In 15th-century Florence, business is primarily what lauda singing had
come to be. The popularity of the devotion declined as more private
expressions of piety and patronage took precedence,^^ while economic
contraction and increased taxation undercut the material wealth of the
companies. By about 1440, the companies had abandoned all forms of lauda
singing that were not directly supported by bequests: the schools, the
Sunday processions, and all accompanying instruments except the organ
disappeared. The bequests for lauda vigils had begun to taper off. Most
telling of all, in the 1440s all but the two largest companies abandoned their
ferial services, which had once been the core of their activity.

Largely on the strength of bequests, lauda singing continued throughout
the century, even expanding into the larger polyphonic ensembles of the
late 15th century. But the companies also came under the hostile scrutiny
of an increasingly centralized government that suspected them of harboring
seditious political factions.^^ The companies experienced periodic suppres-
sions during the early 15th century, but as the Medici consolidated their
covert rule of the city in the second half of the century, the tactic, perfected
by Lorenzo, became infiltration. Among the Medici's many partisans was
the organist Antonio Squarcialupi, and Medici correspondence in the
spring of 1445 reveals the city's leading musician reporting to the family on
the secret voting procedures of one lay company.^'^ The company is not
specified, but it well may have been the Cathedral company of San Zanobi.
Besides serving as Cathedral organist since 1432, Antonio was also a
member and frequent captain of the Company between 1436 and 1448, and
was admonished by Company leadership on at least one occasion for
"disobedience." During Lorenzo's unofficial rule of the city between 1469
and his death in 1492, he was the nominal member of at least eight lay

Renaissance et Réforme / 165

companies, among them the laudesi companies of Santo Spirito,
Sant'Agnese, and San Zanobi. The Company of Sant'Agnese benefitted
from Lorenzo's generous patronage, and in turn frequently elected him to
its major offices, and later admitted to membership and office-holding his
sons Piero and Giuliano, his nephew Giulio (later Pope Clement VII), and
the Florentine chancellor Bartolomeo Scala.^^

With the rise to power of the Dominican friar Savonarola after the Medici
expulsion in 1494, the companies paid heavily for their connections to the
Medici. Then and throughout the early 16th century they were caught in
the seesaw of political power that marked the final, convulsive years of the
Republic, and the rise of the Medici dukes. In the face of long periods of
closure and the confiscation and dcstnjction of income generating property,
the companies struggled, and for the first time were unable to meet the
terms of their bequests. In 1508, the Company of Sant'Agnese complained
of

... the ruin and great disruption of our company, since we could not
perform the necessaiy business at the appropriate times ... the business
being ... the satisfaction of the obligations and bequests of those who
have willed movable and fixed propcity to the company in order to
celebrate Divine Offices, or fto distribute] charity, or to recite laude for
their souls, and they await the above intercessions and help.^^

In addition, lauda singing had become a difficult and expensive activity to
maintain, and one by one the companies relinquished their lauda bequests
to the clerics of their host church, or substituted for it the increasingly
popular charity of providing dowries. In 1538, the Company of Santa Croce
recorded the

. . . very great difficulty that [now] occurs because there is no longer the
abundance of singers that we once had, and in obsei-vance of this
difficulty we wish to conduct in place of the singing oï laude a charity
of 25 lire per year to be given to the daughter [of one] of our brothers
who is in need at the time of her mairiagc.-^^

By the late 16th centuiy, the Company of Sant'Agnese was paying the
Carmine friars to fulfil the liturgical obligations of its bequests, because

... the singers of laude not being content with the small wages and the
salary that was given to them, it was necessaiy to dismiss the singing of
laude as a thing that was not obligatoiy.^^

166 / Renaissance and RcfoiTnation

With their abandonment of lauda singing in the 16th century, the
Florentine laudesi companies severed their ties to the ancient tradition that
had originated with them. As a layman's song at the heart of a lay,
vernacular liturgy, and as the free expression of a socially and politically
activated laity, the devotion and business of lauda singing declined along
with the pluralistic guild society in which it had flourished. The decline of
the lay companies themselves, however, gave way to transformation as they
slowly rebuilt in the vastly changed society of grand ducal and Counter-
Reformation Florence.^^ The older confraternal traditions, like lauda sing-
ing, receded into the background of company activity or disappeared
altogether, and new generations of Florentines, lacking contact with or
committment to the older traditions, reorganized the companies according
to new perceptions of piety and community based on principles of
hierarchy, class distinction, and obedience. The older, citywide companies,
like the laudesi and disciplinafi, tended to become elite, neighborhood groups
under the control of the duke.

By 1566, lauda singing had come full circle in the 240-year-old history of
the Company of San Frcdiano. The devotion having moved to the centre
of Company activities in the late 14th ccntuiy, it had now returned to exactly
the role it had been assigned in the Company's 1324 statutes, when laude
were sung only on the feast of San Frediano (AD 42, f. 34v). But the late
16th-century character of the Company could not be further removed from
its origins. Once a modest company with strong roots in the local,
workingclass parish, officers were now required to hold the rank of
"Dottore," "Cavalière" (nobility), or a high-placed city official, and mem-
bers had to be

. . . persons of good quality and reputation, and must not be or have been
grave-diggers, or messengers or employees of the commune, or of any
magistrate of the city of Florence."^^

The once rich social and political character of the laudesi companies is
revealed in a Hth-centuiy inventory of the Company of San Zanobi, which
included among those items intended to be borne forth in civic processions
and displayed near the altar during feast days a gold star with escutcheons
of the 21 guilds, and escutcheons showing the arms of the Company, the
Commune, Liberty crowned, the Guelph Party, the King of France, the
Church, Pope Urban V, and the "Popolo" (SZ 2176, f. 45 r). This essential
and complex backdrop to laudesi devotion had eroded by the 16th century;

Renaissance et Réforme / 167

in 1546 the Company's disorderly state was the pretext under which the
Grand Duke assumed control of the Company, and by 1555 lauda singing
had become an optional devotion heard only on the feast of their patron
saint (Cap 155, ff 29-30).

The chief sponsors of traditional confratemal life, the friars, receded in
the face of the advancing forces of despotic government and diocesan clergy.
The torch of religious renewal, having reached its most distant bearer in
the hands of the lay companies, now returned to the upper levels of the
church hierarchy. An elite corps of priests, the Jesuits, administered a
Counter-Reformation version of the affective devotion that had originated
long before among friars and laymen, just as the lauda, for centuries the
symbol of lay religious activism, was now a clerical song.

Colby College

Manuscripts

ASF
AD 41
AD 42
AD 44
Cap 155
Cap 874
Cat 291
Cort
Mgll
OSM 11
SA

SA 4
SA 24
SA 29
SF4

SMN311

SSP78

sz

SZ2170
SZ 2176
SZ 2186

Archivio di Stato, Firenze

ASF, Acquisti e Doni 41, ^emoriale, 1488]

ASF, Acquisti e Doni 42, [Capitoli, 1565]

ASF, Acquisti e Doni 44, Capitoli, 1584-1643

ASF, Capitoli 155 [1555]

ASF, Capitoli 874 [1445-1538]

ASF, Catasto vol. 291

Cortona, Biblioteca Comunale, 91

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Banco Rari 18 (olim Magl.II.I.122)

ASF, Archivio dei Capitani di Orsanmichele, vol. 11, Partiti 1379-1380

ASF, Compagnie Soppresse, Archive 1: Compagnie di S. Maria délie

Laude detta di S. Agnese

ASF, SA vol. 4, Partiti, 1483-1509

ASF, SA vol. 24, Etitrata e Uscita, 1440-1447

ASF, SA vol. 29, Béni, 1488 [1460 fî.]

ASF, Compagnie Soppresse, Archive 5: Compagnie di S. Frediano

detta la Bmciata, vol. 4: Partiti, 1436-1469

ASF, Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse No. 102 [Santa Maria Novella

archive, which contains vols, pertaining to Company of San Piero

Martire], vol. 31 1, Debitori e Autichi\U19 fT.]

ASF, Compagnie Soppresse, Archive 2: Compagnia di S. Maria delle

Laude e Spirito Sancto detta del Piccione, vol. 78: Ricordi, 1444-1521

ASF, Compagnie Religiose Soppresse, Z.I., San Zanobi di Firenze

ASF, SZ vol. 2170, fasc. 1, Statuti, 1326-1490

ASF, SZ vol. 2176, fasc. 12, Ricordi e Partiti, 1378-1383

ASF, SZ vol. 2186, fasc. 48, Tratte di Doti. Partiti, 1427-1438

168 / Renaissance and Reformation

Notes

1 Giovanni D. Mansi,Sacrorum couciliorum (Paris: H. Welter, 1901-27; Graz: Akademische
Druck, 1960-61), vol. 23 (1225-68), col. 865.

2 The terms "confratemitas," "fratemitas," and "congregatione" appear in formal Latin
documents, but I have opted for the English translation of "compagnia," the term preferred
by the laudesi themselves, and which reflects the dominant model and experience of the
mercantile company.

3 This interaction is discussed in the author's dissertation, "Music and Merchants: The
Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence, ca. 1270-1494" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univer-
sity, 1987), which is being prepared for publication by Oxford University Press.

4 Generally, though not unanimously, believed to have belonged to the Cortonese laudesi
company at the Church of San Francesco. Facsimile edition in Fernando Liuzzi, La lauda
e iprimordi della melodia italiana (Rome: La libreria dello stato, 1935), vol. 1; recent edition
of texts with commentary in Giorgio Varanini, Luigi Banfi and Anna Ceruti, eds., Laude
cortonesi dal secolo XIII al XV (Florence: Olschki, 1981-85), vol. 1.

5 Facsimile edition in Liuzzi, La lauda, vol. 2, and recent transcription of the melodies in
John Henry Grossi, "The Fourteenth Century Florentine Laudario Magliabechiano n.I.122
(B.R. 18): A Transcription and Study" (Ph.D. diss.. Catholic University of America, 1979).
The miniatures in this and another Florentine laudario (belonging to the Company of San
Gilio) are examined in Vincent Moleta, "The Illuminated Laudari Mgll and Mgl2,"
Scriptorium 32 (1978): 29-50.

6 Nino Pirrotta, "Ars Nova and stil novo," in Music and Culture in Italy: From the Middle
Ages to the Baroque (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 35.

7 Both pieces are in Mgll, ff. 1 16r-19r (Liuzzi, vol. 2, LXXVI-LXXVII). Originally the ballata
form of the lauda would have been performed responsorially, as an alternation between
a chorus o( confratelli on the refrain and soloists on the strophes, but by the 15th century
in Florence the performance of strophe and refrain alike had passed into the hands of
paid soloists. Early lauda manuscripts transmit up to as many as 50 strophes for a single
poem, but 14lh-century Florentine companies apparently opted for greater musical length
and complexity and many fewer strophes, a much accelerated change of a kind that
occurred in the responsorially performed psalms of the Mass (Gradual and Alleluia) during
the first millennium.

8 The figures under "assets" refer to florins, according to the Florentine Catasto (property
tax) of 1427. Orsanmichele was a lay institution until 1415, when it became a collegiate
church. The Company and church of S. Gilio were located within the hospital of Santa
Maria Nuova. The companies of Sant'Agnese, Santo Spirito, and San Frediano were
situated in the Oltrarno, and the small church of S. Frediano referred to here (which no
longer exists) is distinct from S. Frediano in Cestello, a larger church in the same quarter
of the city.

9 Daniel D'Avray, "Sermons to the Upper Bourgeoisie by a Thirteenth-Century Franciscan,"
in Studies in Church History, vol. 16, ed. D. Baker (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1979), pp. 198,
204-16; Wilson, pp. 45-46.

10 Giovanni Villani, Cronica di Giovanni Villani a miglior lezione ridotta, ed. F. Dragomanni
(Florence, 1844-45), Book 7, Ch. 154, 362 ff About 12 lire could pay the rent on a small
house in 14th-century Florence. The Company of Sant'Agnese, meeting at the Carmelite
church across the river from Orsanmichele, experienced the same transition which is
related in its 16th-century statutes:

. . . because some (men and women], out of devotion, met in the said church of the Carmine
to sing laude spiritually they took the name "delle laude," and because they received alms
and bequests, it was decided that the Captains and olTicials should meet on certain
prescribed days to conduct works of mercy and distribute alms [AD 44, ff. 5r-v]

Renaissance et Réforme / 169

1 1 There are two extant versions of the document, one in the Orsanmichele records: Savino
La Sorsa, La compagnia d'Or San Michèle (Trani, 1902), pp. 208-209; the other in the San
Piero Martire records: SMN 311, ff. 13r-14v.

12 The 14th-century statutes of San Zanobi are edited in Luciano Orioli, Le confraternité
medievali e il problema della povertà (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1984), pp.
21-43.

13 Company of San Zanobi, 1326 statute (SZ 2170, f. 4v; ed. in Orioli, pp. 23-24).

VI. Come si raunino ogni sera in Santa Reparata. Anche ordiniamo et fermiamo che
tucti quelli di questa conpagnia si debbiano ogni sera raunare nella chiesa predecta di
madonna santa Reparata a cantare alchune laude cum ave maria ad honore di dio et della
nostra donna. Ma quello che non venisse la sera ala chiesa predecta a cantare le laude
come decto è di sopra debbia dire in honore di dio et della nostra donna tre pater nostri
cum Ave maria.

14 This distinction is clearly made in the many laudario references and descriptions contained
in the surviving inventories and statutes; Wilson, pp. 112-15.

15 Company of Orsanmichele, 1333 statute (La Sorsa, p. 196).

XIV. De I'uficio de' governatori de le laude. L'uficio de' govematori de le laude sia
d'assettare e d'ordinare come si cantino ogni sera le laude dinanzi all ymagine della nostra
Donna al pilastro sotto la loggia, e in fare la scuola per le domeniche per imparare e
perché imparino a cantare le laude. E cantinsi nella casa della Compagnia dinanzi alia
ymagine della nostra Donna. E possano chiamare uficiali quanti e quali vorranno; a' quali
govematori siano tenuti d ubidire i laudesi secondo i capitoli, che saranno loro conceduti
per gli rectori e capitani di questa Compagnia.

16 These are recorded in two books of bequests: SMN, vols. 306 {Debitori e Creditori, 1445-1454)
and 326 {Testamenti, 1421-1423).

17 SSP 78, glued to inside of front cover.

18 Company of San Frediano, bequest of /rate Giovanni Lozzi di San Pagolo, 1415 (AD 41,
ff. 2v-3r).

Sono obligati e capitani di san friano che pel tempo saranno ogn'anno imperpetuo la
prima domenica dopo el di di san friano far cantare le laude nella chiesa di san friano
con una vigilia per l'anima di decto fra giovanni. Essi di poi aggiunto per consuetudine
in decto de dare le bruciate, et fare la sera nella compagnia nostra una collatione a preti
et a laudieri et a gl'uomini della compagnia, spendesi comunemente intucto L.octo in circa.

The bequests of friars to the companies for lauda vigils (e.g. in this case, as well as 6 of
the 93 managed by San Piero Martire mentioned above) presents a striking reversal of
traditional roles, with the cleric purchasing the efficacious prayer and ritual of the layman.

19 Cat 291, ff. 72r-v. Ser Piero (also a notary) was the son of Giovanni Mazzuoli, or Giovanni
degli Organi, a prominent Florentine composer; Frank D'Accone, "Una nuova fonte del'ars
nova italiana: il codice di San Lorenzo, 2211," Studi musicali 13 (1984): 10-11, 15-17.

20 A good deal of information on the Florentine singers at the three largest laudesi companies
has been published in two articles by D'Accone, "Le compagnie dei Laudesi in Firenze
durante I'Ars nova," in L'Ars nom italiana del trecento, vol. 3, ed. FA. Gallo (Certaldo, 1970),
pp. 253-80 and "Alcune note sulle compagnie fiorentine dei Laudesi durante il Quattro-
cento," Rivista italiana di musicologia 10 (1975): 86-114. Additions to this along with
information about the singei-s at the three oltramo companies is set forth in Wilson, Ch.
4.

21 There are detailed profiles in Wilson, pp. 251-59.

22 Company of San Frediano, Captains' election of laudesi for Lent, March 26, 1441 (SF 4,
f. 23r).

170 / Renaissance and Reformation

Item decto dl et hora in mantanente i detti capitani avendo electi et ordinata due a cantare
laude nella decta chiesa ogni sera, tutta la quaresima, per devotione de popoli, avendo
veduto e udito per coloro in parte essi bene satisfatto, stantiorono loro lire otto, che alloro
sieno date [sic], cioè, Antonio d'Alesso ç Antonio d'Adamo (deleted] . . . con conditione che
fomiscano di cantare tutta la decta quaresima.

23 Company of Sant'Agnese, Captains' decision to raise the salary of a laudese, September
23, 1492 (SA 4, f. 52v).

Item e prefati capitani atteso che giovanni di francescho [lacuna] tessitore di pannilini in
suUa piaza di santo spirito, ha servito per laudiere decta compagnia più tempo ad ragione
di s.dieci el mese, et essendo migl[i]orato gli labore assai, et cantare meglio, per haver
cagione di fermallo a cantare, per loro solenne partito vinto tralloro per tucte fave nere. .
. gl'acerebbono per Tavenire s[oldi] quattro per tucto el tempo s< . . . >i condocto a cantare
in nostra compagnia . . . sono per tucto ad ragione di s[oldi] quattordici.

In the following year, the same Company granted an official appointment and retroactive
pay to a singer who had been serving on probation for six months:

...the captains, seeing that Domenico di Lionardo Tavolaccino has already sung as a
laudiere for 6 months with the hope of being hired, and the above captains understanding
that [they would do] well to hire him because he is a good laudiere .. . [they] agree to hire
the said Domenico as laudiere ... diX the rate of 10 soldi per month, with the usual fines
[for absences], and they allocate 3 lire for the said 6 months that he sang without having
been elected (SA 4, f. 56v).

24 OSM 11, f. 5v; ed. in D'Accone, "Le compagnie," p. 272.

25 Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence (New York: J. Wiley, 1969), p. 227.

26 Lorenzo Polizzotto, "Confraternities, Conventicles and Political Dissent: The Case of the
Savonarolan 'Capi Rossi'," Memorie domenicane new series 16 (1985): passim.

27 The letter is from Ugo della Stufa to Giovanni de' Medici, dated April 3, 1445; ASF, M(edici)
A(vante il) P(rinc.), F.V., c. 590). The letter is partly transcribed in Bianca Becherini, "Un
canta in panca fiorentino: Antonio di Guido," Rivista musica italiana 50 (1949): 245.

28 Ronald Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press,
1982), pp. 170-72; Wilson, pp. 361-63.

29 Edited and partly translated in Weissman, p. 187.

30 Company of Santa Croce, 1538 statute (Cap 874, ff 39r, 40r-v).

... Da un temp<o> q< . . . > son<..>tate con grandissima difTicultà advenga che no[n] ha
più quella copia di canton che per il passato havevamo <...> vedut<..> la difficulté,
vogliamo in iscam<bio> di cantare le laude, si facia un limosina di lire venticinque
ogn<ianno>, la quale si hab<bia> a dar<e a una figluo>la ch< . . . >no de[i] nostri fratelli
che sia bisognosa quando si marita; [f 39r]: Ma perché a que[i] tempi erano più
prosper<i>, e le persone più divote che al présente non sono. Et maximamente che

habbiamo inteso da e< > che non riccordono mai tal < >nia o ordine essersi

< > la difficulté et imposs<ibili>tà < >, non vogliamo ancor noi esser tenuti et

obligati ail antico ordine.

(The original text is badly damaged, and I have taken some liberties with the translation
since the intent of the document is clear).

31 Company of Sant'Agnese, 1584 statute (AD 44, f 33r).

Xlin. Delli oblighi della Compagnia e osservanza de[ij legati. . . . Trattando adunque
del primo, si dice che al tempo che questa Compagnia cantava o faceva cantare le Laude,
fur[o]no diversi Testatori che lasciorno a questa più beni immobili con obligo fra I'altre
cose di fare dire doppo le laude alii frati del Carmine una vigilia, overo Notturno de[i]
Morti, et che si d'esse loro tanta cera in Candele. quanta per detti Testamenti è espresso.
Occorse doppo, che non si contentando di Canton delle Laude, delli piccoli prezzi, et

Renaissance et Réforme / 171

salarii che si davonfo] loro, fu di nécessita dismettere il cantare [del]Ie laude dette corne
cosa che non era d'obligo. Onde che si convenne con li frati che essi dicessino la medesima
vigilia, et Nottumo de{i] Morti, et certe feste ordinate da detti testatori, et havessino el
prezzo medesimo che dal Testatore era ordinato, si spendesse et essi mettessino la cera di
loro

32 The decline and transformation of the lay companies are discussed in Weissman, pp. 173
ff., and Wilson, Ch. 7; Marcia B. Hall effectively evokes the changed social and political
atmosphere of 16th-centui-y Florence: Renovation and Counter-Reformation: Duke Cosimo
and Vasari in Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce 1565-1575 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1979), pp. 1-15.

33 AD 42, f. 23r-v: "... [novizi] sieno persone di buona qualité et fama, et che non sieno o
sieno stati beccamorti o messi o famigli del Comune o di alcuno magistrato della Città di
Firenze."

34 Weissman, pp. 200-201.

I

^^n^<? P?r»rt»..i

i ^ Ua^

Renaissance.^^

and
Reformati

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New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 2 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 2

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New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 2 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 2

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 2 1989 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 2

Contents / Sommaire

ARTICLES

173

Censorship in Paris: The Roles of the Pariement of Paris

and King Francis I

by James K. Farge

185

Pontus de Tyard, poète lyrique

par Eva Kushner

199
Refashioning the Marriage Code: The Patient Grissil of Dekker, Chettle

and Haughton
by Viviana Commensoli

215

The Epic Narrator in Milton's Paradise Regained

by Merrilee Cunningham

BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS

233

Leonard Barkan, The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of

Paganism, reviewed by Elizabeth D. Hai-vey

236

Luciano Cheles, 77?^ Studiolo of Urbino: An Iconographie Investigation,

reviewed by Egon Verlieyen

238
Elizabeth Wirth Marvick, Louis XIII: The Making of a King, reviewed by

David M. Bessen

240
Dino Compani's Chronicle of Florence, trans. Daniel Borastein, reviewed by

George Dameron

243

Jonathan Beck, Theatre et propagande au débuts de la Réforme: Six pièces

polémiques du Recueil La Vallière,

compte rendu par Gillian Jondorf

245

Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance: Mélanges offerts à Robert Aulotte,

compte rendu par Kyriaki Christodoulou

247

François Hotman, La vie de Messire Caspar de Collligny Admirai de France,

compte rendu par Joanna Przybylak

249
NEWS / NOUVELLES

arly Censorship in Paris: A New Look
Lt the Roles of the Parlement of Paris
md of King Francis I

\MES K. FARGE

^ears about the spread of ideas deemed dangerous or false remain deep
ithin the consciousness of even our post-Enlightenment world. Not
urprisingly then, social groups in earlier centuries habitually tried to
uppress such ideas to promote order in this world and to secure salvation
ri the next. Then, as now, most people differed not so much on whether to
;nsor as on what to censor.

Few objected when the advent of printing from movable type prompted

spate of new legislation to stop the rapid spread of errors made possible
/ the printed book. First popes, then princes and magistrates, drafted laws
lUing either for the submission of manuscripts prior to printing or for the
îstruction of offensive books already produced. Secular authorities sought
rst to control political tracts, but they readily supported the clergy in
uppressing books declared heterodox. By the end of the sixteenth century,
atalogues of prohibited books had appeared in over a dozen major centres
iroughout Europe, and the Index librorum prohibitomm established in the

a of Trent in 1559 continued to censor books until its abolition during
iie Second Vatican Council in 1966.^ The controversy over censorship
ontinues recurrently at all levels of government and social groups.

Franz Reusch's pioneering study in the nineteenth century of the early
ensorship of printed books^ was far too vast a project for the restricted
cale he employed. Only recently has the subject engaged the efforts of an
ditor who has mustered the scholarly and financial resources equal to the
ask The "Index des Livres Interdits" series under the direction of J.-M. De
îujanda at the Centre d'Études de ia Renaissance in the Université de

- îcnaisance and Reformation / Renaissance ct Réforme, XXV, 2 (1989) 173

174 / Renaissance and Reformation

post-Gutenberg era.^

Five years ago, as I prepared the "Introduction historique" to the Paris
volume of that series,'* some contention arose about the stress I placed on
the collaboration between the Parlement of Paris and the Faculty of
Theology of the University of Paris in censoring books. Today, relying on
further research, I can only emphasize that cooperation even more strongly.
At the same time, the new materials likewise require new evaluations,^ first,
of the effects of the Parlement's censorship during the 1520s and, second,
of the role of King Francis I in censorship during the second half of his
reign. This is what I propose to do in the present article.

The censorship of books in Paris was essentially the work of three
institutions: the University of Paris' Faculty of Theology, the Parlement of
Paris and the King.^ From about 1521 until 1535, however, the vigilance
exercised by the Faculty and the court of Parlement was usually at
cross-purposes to the intentions of King Francis I, who sought to protect
the works of certain humanists and evangelical reformers. In 1523, for
example, despite a series of injunctions issued by the Parlement against
Martin Luther's books, Francis banned two anti-Lutheran books written by
Jérôme de Hangest and by Lambertus Campester^ and forbade any action
by the Parlement and the Faculty against Erasmus and Lefèvre d'Étaples.
In 1526, he suppressed Noël Beda's d'lssipproving Annotations on Erasmus'
and Lefèvre's works and rescued Louis de Berquin, the translator and
publicist of humanists and reformers, from prosecution by the Parlement.
At the same time, Francis attempted to gain the University's approval of a
book against Beda - probably the work of Berquin.^

The foundation for the close cooperation of the Parlement and the
Faculty of Theology in censorship of humanists and reformers in opposi-
tion to the King was laid in 1516-1518 by their joint, vehement resistance
to the King's Concordat with Pope Leo X. It is not surprising then that the
two institutions continued to oppose the King in religious questions such
as the orthodoxy of books and preaching. Their persistence often triumphed
over the more tolerant policies of the King, whose relentless wars against
the Emperor led to defeat, captivity and financial straits which weakened
his liberal stances vis-à-vis the stringent demands of more consei-vative
institutions like the Church, the Parlement and the University of Paris.

From 1535 until his death in 1547, however, Francis I rarely intervened
in the censorship decreed by the Faculty and the Parlement, breaching this
new policy only by his ultimately unsuccessful attempts to protect the

Renaissance et Réforme / 175

printers Etienne Dolet, who was executed, and Robert Estienne, who fled
to Geneva. Francis I's successor, Henry II (1547-1559), consummated a
close, tri-partite collaboration between King, Faculty, and Parlement in
these matters by issuing his Edict of Châteaubriant (1551), in which fourteen
of the forty-six articles provided for the censorship of offensive books.

The Faculty of Theology's six catalogues of prohibited books appeared
from 1544 to 1556. The 1544 edition was the first printed Index of censured
books to appear anywhere. Issued solely under the aegis of the Faculty of
Theology, however, it lacked the coercive sanctions required to be effective.
But the next five catalogues (1545, 1547, 1549, 1551 and 1556) all appeared
with the approval of both the Parlement and the monarchy, and threatened
sanctions against anyone who printed, sold, read or possessed any of the
forbidden books. The 1551 catalogue, especially important because it
appeared in conjunction with the royal Edict of Châteaubriant, listed 396
titles and employed improved standards of bibliographical precision. The
1556 version raised the total of forbidden books to 526. Wliile the Faculty
of Theology continued to censor books during the subsequent period - it
even scrutinized the first Roman Index of 1559 - its 1556 edition proved to
be the final catalogue of censured books issued in Paris.

Within that brief framework we can now examine some of the materials
that have recently come to light and explore their implications for our
understanding of early censorship in Paris. First, we turn our attention to
the three arrêts, or injunctions, issued in 1521 by the Paricment of Paris
forbidding the printing of any book concerning religion without the prior
consent of the Faculty of Theology. Two aspects of these injunctions had
long remained problematic: first, the timing of the earliest injunction, which
appeared four weeks prior to the Faculty's own condemnation of Luther;
and second, the authorship of all three injunctions ascribed to King Francis
I. The three arrêts seemed therefore to imply, first, that the initial censor of
Luther in Paris was King Francis I himself and, second, that he continued
to direct that policy at least throughout 1521. Both assumptions, however,
are mistaken. The first injunction, dated 18 March 1521 (n. st.), had nothing
at all to do with either Luther or Francis I. It concerned a completely
orthodox work, a commentary on the Quodlibets of Duns Scotus,^ which
the University's rector brought before the court of Parlement solely because
its title-page falsely vaunted special approbation by the University. The
extensive pleas argued in the case touched neither on Luther nor on any
other alleged heretical ideas. As for the imputed royal authorship of this

176 / Renaissance and Reformation

injunction - already called into question in the Index volume - it is now
clear that, even though all three injunctions bore his name, King Francis
I had no real part in them. The royal name appeared merely as 2i pro forma
indication of concurrence in the decisions by the King's procurator general
in the Parlement, Le Lièvre, and of the origin of the arrêts in the King's
Parlement

The real import of that first injunction, of course, extended far beyond
the pique of the University at the unauthorized use of its name. The
Parlement's decision to require the prior approval by the Faculty of
Theology for the printing or selling of any book on theology or Sacred
Scripture^^ established clear precedent for several later injunctions against
the dissemination and possession of the works of reformers and certain
humanists. No one challenged the University's lawyer, Lautier, when he
cited canon law (cap. 4, dist. 21) to confirm the University's authority /7er
modum disputationis to judge "whether propositions are good or evil,
heretical or catholic."^ ^

The second "royal" injunction, dated 1 August 1521, condemned two
books, the spurious Determinatio secunda almae facultatis Parisiensis^^ and
the so-called Aytanea Germanorum. ^^ The bailiff of the Parlement testified
to his public proclamation of the arrêt and adds that "from now on nobody
can pretend ignorance in this matter."^'* The third arrêt of 1521 (dated 4
November), previously known only in its Latin translation^^, has now come
to light in its contemporary French version. ^^ Citing Konrad Resch's
bookshop, the Ecu de Bale, as a principal offender in the dissemination of
dangerous books, it thus raises the question whether Resch was one of the
unnamed booksellers who were imprisoned in that same year 1521 for
selling a forbidden book.^'^ Once again the bailiff attests to his public
proclamation of the arrêt and assures the court of Parlement that "cy après
aucun n'en puisse prétendre cause d'ignorance."^^ Still another newly found
document is the 3 May 1522 official request from the Faculty of Theology
asking the Parlement to apply its decrees of censorship to Lyon and to all
the other cities and jurisdictions of the kingdom.^^ The Parlement's ready
agreement to this request is only one of many such indications of the
working relationship of the two institutions.

The Parlement's vigilance about books appears regularly in cases during
the 1520s. Previously unknown documentation about two cases of censor-
ship, one famous and the other unfamiliar, will seive to illustrate this
vigilance. The unfamiliar case concerns a certain Dominican friar, Girard

Renaissance et Réforme / 177

(alternatively called "Bernard") Hecquefort, a native of Nijmegen, who
arrived in Paris in June 1525 from England via Cambrai and was said to
have brought with him about 100 ecus worth of heretical books to sell. He
was immediately put under guard at Sainte-Geneviève Abbey to be ques-
tioned by four members of the Parlement and two doctors of theology. His
books - the titles, alas, are not specified - were of special interest to Pierre
Lizet, the avocat du roi and later premier président of the Parlement.^^

The famous case is the six-year-long suit brought by the Faculty of
Theology against Jacques Merlin's Apologia for Origen.^^ The abundant
documentation in this litigation confirms the mutual confidence of Parle-
ment and Faculty, and reveals the attitudes of both towards theologians
who dissented from received tradition. In the words of the Faculty's lawyer,
Jean Bochard, their "curiosity ... is a species of pride and, on many
occasions, a deadly sin when it leads one to deny as unknown what we hold
as known. And as to such curiosity, it brings us uselessly to introduce

division and schism into the Church " Although Bochard was pleading

on behalf of his client, the Faculty of Theology, the Parlement concurred
fully with the Faculty's reasons and ruled against Merlin. The avocat du roi
Pierre Lizet stressed in his summation that the case could set

a scandalous and dangerous precedent by casting doubt on the judg-
ments and detenninations of the Faculty, which is so essential to
aboHshing the damnable and foolish opinions which have proliferated
recently against the determinations and doctrines of the Catholic Church.

He added that it was incumbent upon the Parlement to assure that

the authority and judgment of the Faculty of theology, whicii has always
carried such a weighty and great reputation, be safeguarded and upheld,
especially by its own members and alumni; for if these latter were
permitted to impugn and challenge the judgments of their mother the
Faculty, this would open up the occasion to others to hold it in contempt
and to discount its rulings.^^

In short, no one reading the Parlcment's registers for the 1520s would
posit the existence of even a significant minority of so-called "liberal,"
reformist members who might have defended an Erasmus, a Lcfcvre or a
Luther. François Deloynes was dead by mid-1524; Louis Ruzc had already
moved from the Parlement to the Châtelet; and Guillaume Budc, now a
maître des requêtes de l'Hôtel, seldom appeared in the court of Parlement.
The premier président, Jean de Sclve (d. 1529), sometimes thought to have

178 / Renaissance and Reformation

favoured the reform movement because several humanists dedicated books
to him, was entirely traditionalist in matters of religion, as were such
prominent members as the president Charles Guillard, André Verjus and
Nicolas Brachet. Thus no discernible dissent occurred within the Parlement
to its 1526 judgment against all new versions and vernacular translations
of the Bible.^^ On the contrary, neither that document nor the Parlement's
obstinate opposition to royal orders for the release of Louis de Berquin
leave any room to conclude that it concurred with the King's suppression
of Noël Beda's Annotations against Lefèvre and Erasmus - even though it
did prudently obey his orders.^^ And, if Francis I really did intend after the
famous lit de justice of 1527 to curtail the Parlement's jurisdiction in matters
of religion - and there is little firm evidence that he did - the Parlement
continued nonetheless to rule and to act independently in such matters. On
13 January 1528, for example, it was trying to identify the printer of posters
circulating in Meaux that claimed that "the new pope in Rome" had ordered
everyone "to read, to re-read and to have others read the books of Luther. "^^
In 1529, it was again the Parlement that dealt the ultimate censure possible
to an author by sentencing Louis de Berquin to death. Elsewhere I have
documented the joint inspections of Paris bookshops requested by the
Faculty and approved by the Parlement in 1531 and 1532.^^ And, although
the censure in 1533 of the Miroir de l'âme pécheresse, a devotional book by
the King's sister Marguerite, caused considerable trouble for the Faculty of
Theology, the printer of that work, Antoine Augereau, did not long survive
the affaire des placards a year later. Thus the joint surveillance of presses
and bookshops continued into the 1530s.

A second category of new evidence about early censorship concerns the
results of the Parlement's juridical pursuit of printers and booksellers during
the 1520s. These results are often thought to have been negligible. But we
have already taken notice above of the Pariement's accusations against
Konrad Resch in 1521 and of its search for the anonymous printer of the
posters in 1528. In addition, even though none of the 1521 injunctions
threatened non-conforming printers with imprisonment - punishment was
set at a fine of 500 livres and possible exile from France - the University's
Rector, Claude Le Maistre, reported in late 1521 that some booksellers - he
uses the plural - had been put in prison by the Parlement for selling a
forbidden book.^^ This action coincided with the accusations against
Konrad Resch. Two years later, at the express request of the Faculty of
Theology, the Paricment sent its bailiff to interrogate the printer Simon de

Renaissance et Réforme / 179

Colines and ordered him to appear in court for having printed Lefèvre
d'Étaples' Commentarii initiaîorii in quatuor evangeliaP In 1525, the Univer-
sity ruled that Jean Petit, who was probably the most prolific and prominent
publisher in Paris, had acted in a manner prejudicial to the University and
to his oath as a libraire juré by printing condemned books.^^ The exact
outcome of these confrontations with Resch, Colines and Petit is not known.
On the one hand, we know that all three continued to exercise their trade
in Paris. Resch in particular published works of Erasmus and other authors
held suspect by the Faculty of Theology. On the other hand, he forsook
Paris definitively in 1526, and we know that another unidentified bookseller
was indeed imprisoned in 1528, apparently through the efforts of Noel Beda,
syndic of the Faculty.^^ All six of these incidents from 1521 to 1528 antedate
any previously known case of judicial action following censorship and
should thus alter somewhat our previous impressions about the lack of
particular effects of censorship during its first decade in Paris. The six cases
certainly help to explain why the printer Pierre Vidoue would openly
publish under his own name the anti-Erasmian works of Pierre Cousturier
(Sutor), a doctor of the Faculty of Theology, but choose to print anony-
mously both the Litaneia Germanorum?^ and the anti-Faculty satire A/woca-
cus, dialogi très, indicating the place of publication of the latter as "Utopia."-^^
They likewise help us better understand why, already in 1523, Lefèvre
d'Étaples had begun to base his biblical translations exclusively on the
Vulgate; why, from 1524, he suppressed all references to Erasmus;^^ and
why, in 1530, his French translation of the Bible appeared in Antwerp, not
in France. Finally, let us also recall that from 1526 to 1565 no Paris printer
published any new French translation of the Bible. Such facts and trends
reveal that the real, perceived danger for offending authors, printers and
booksellers, even in those earliest years, was more serious than we have
previously surmised.

The third area inviting fresh interpretation involves King Francis I
himself We are accustomed to hear about this tolerant king who vaunted
his liberal attitude towards new ideas by protecting humanists and reform-
ers. We are told that in a mere passing fit of anger about the placards of
1534 he decided to suspend all printing in Paris, but then returned to his
normal liberal policies. This picture needs reappraisal. We now know that
Francis' original letters patent of 13 Januaiy 1535 (n. st.), which remains
unrecovered, did not merely suspend but completely suppressed all printing
in France. Let us examine part of that letter cited in the revised letters patent

180 / Renaissance and Reformation

issued on 23 February 1535 (n. st.): "... no one, under pain of death by
hanging, is hereafter to print or have printed in our kingdom any book."^"*
This important document has never been adequately analyzed. Even in this
later revision, composed nearly six weeks after his so-called brief fit of anger
- a fit that he somehow postponed until nearly three months after the
incident provoking it, the posting of the placards - Francis I still clearly
intended to limit the production of books to those he personally approved.
He ordered the Parlement to designate twenty-four printers, from whom he
would choose twelve, "who alone and no others will print in our city of
Paris and not elsewhere books which are approved and necessary for the
public good, without printing any new composition, under pain of being
punished by the appropriate sentence as transgressors of our ordinances."
He adds that no one is to print anything at all until the new arrangements
have been completed, with violators to suffer death by hanging.-'^ If this
was a minor lapse in the tolerant policy of a liberal prince, then we must
begin to redefine "tolerant," "liberal," and "minor."

Indeed, the King himself, acting alone, provoked the most dramatic case
of censorship in Paris in the late 1530s. This was the suppression in 1538
of the Cymbalum mundi, a satirical dialogue attributed to Bonaventure Des
Périers, and the imprisonment of its printer Jean Morin. Many attempts
have been made to explain and even to explain away the King's actions,
but none of the latter take sufficient account of Francis's increasingly
earnest worries about heterodoxy in his kingdom. Wliile the last word has
yet to be said on many aspects of this famous case, its immediate result was
to set the stage for subsequent censorship by the Parlement and the
Faculty.^^ Further, a surprising number of additional royal initiatives
against heresy in the early 1540s, material rarely or never cited in the
biographies of Francis or in monographs about the period, paved the way
for promulgation of the more famous decrees of the Parlement against
heretical books at that time.

In this light, the first printed catalogues of prohibited books in Paris in
the early and mid- 1540s can be seen much more clearly as the logical result
of an established policy of censorship rather than as surprising or innova-
tive actions. One might cite to the contraiy the official complaint to the
Parlement voiced by Paris booksellers against the 1545 catalogue.-^^ How-
ever, given the precedents of juridical pursuit and punishment of printers
during the 1520s and 1530s, the numerous decrees and individual prohibi-
tions of the previous three decades-espccially of the early 1540s - and a

Renaissance et Reforme / 181

particularly intriguing series of inspections, inventories and personal inter-
rogations carried out by the Parlement's bailiff at the shops of over sixty
Paris booksellers in late 1542,^^ one can only surmise that their complaint
did not challenge the Parlement's prerogative to censor or to impose
sanctions - these matters were too well established. Rather they protested
the application of these sanctions to the commerce in specific titles that
they had continued to stock after the publication of the Faculty's innocuous
1544 catalogue.

The new evidence and interpretations offered here about the function of
the Parlement of Paris in early censorship, about the effects of its sanctions
imposed in the 1520s, and about the role of King Francis I as censor have
nevertheless made clear that some aspects of early censorship in Paris still
remain complex and some problems remain unsolved. Since, however, none
of the new material offered here came to light in research specifically on
censorship, we can plausibly expect that still more evidence about these
problems may be accessible to those who will intentionally search for it.
The most promising avenue for this may well be the Parlement's registers
of criminal cases in the years 1520 to 1550, a vast source that no one has
methodically exploited on this subject for these decades. Until all the
sources have been explored and all the unasked and unsolved questions
about early censorship in Paris are addressed, we must admit that much is
still hypothesis inviting further investigation into this strategic aspect of the
Reformation and Counter-Reformation in France.

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Notes

Note: This article is a revised version of a paper presented on 30 October 1987 to the Sixteenth
Century Studies Conference, meeting at Aiizona State University, Tempe.

1 See Congregation for the Defence of the Faith, ''Post Jitteras ajwstolicas," in Acta apostoUcae
sedis, 58 (1966): 445.

2 Franz Heinrich Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bûcher. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen-und-
Literaturgeschichte, 2 voIs.-in-3 (Bonn, 1883-1885; reprint Aalen, 1967). Idem, Die Indices
librorum prohibitorum des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Tubingen, 1886; reprint Nieuwkoop,
1961).

3 J.-M. De Bujanda, ed. Index des livres interdits, projected 11 volumes (Sherbrooke: Centre
d'Études de la Renaissance, 1984- ). Five volumes have appeared, 1984-1989, on the Paris,
Louvain, Venice, Antweip and Spanish Indexes.

4 See the "Introduction historique" in J.-M. De Bujanda, Francis M. Higman and James K.
Farge, Index de l'Université de Paris, vol. 1 of the "Index des Livres Interdits" series, ed. by
J.-M. De Bujanda (Sherbrooke, Québec: Centre d'Études de la Renaissance, 1985).

182 / Renaissance and Reformation

5 Some of this material has recently been used in my article "L'Université et le Parlement
La censure à Paris au XVI^ siècle," in Censure: De la Bible aux larmes d'Éros (Paris:
Bibliothèque publique d'information, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1987), pp. 88-95; cf. also
the "Anthologie," pp. 172-176.

6 Church officials like bishops and the Inquisitor usually worked through the Parlement
and the University. The King worked either through one of his Conseils or through the
Châtelet of Paris.

7 See James K Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France: The Faculty of

Theology of Paris. 1500-1543, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 32 (Leiden,
1985), p. 131.

8 Duodecim articuli infidelitatis Bedae (Paris: [Josse Bade], 1527).

9 The transcript of the case (Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 4867, ï° 539r°-541v°), calls the

editor "François Bouquet, ministre général" of the Franciscans, and designates its Paris
editor as a certain friar "Baptiste de Nullay." A certain "Guignon" printed 1250 copies of
the book. This is certainly, however, the edition described by Brigitte Moreau, Inventaire
chronologique des éditions parisiennes, (Paris, 1972- ), 2: no. 2398. The editor is really
Francesco Licheto, the agent in Pans was Battista de Castiglione and the printer was Jean
Granjon (with Jean 11 Du Pré and Hémon Le Fèvre).

10 A similar declaration had accompanied the condemnation of the works of the astrologer
Simon de Phares in 1494. See Charles Du Plessis d'Argentré, Collectio judiciorum de novis
erroribus (Paris, 1728-1736), 1, pt. 2: 324-331.

11 Paris, Archives Nationales, X'^ 4867, fo 539v°.

12 On this satirical piece, which some modem authors have mistakenly accepted as an
authentic document produced by the Faculty, see the Index de l'Université de Paris, 1: 56,
n. 71.

13 The Parlement and, apparently, its consultants at the University were confused by a
somewhat clumsy rendering of the initial majuscule Greek letter lamda on the title-page
of the 1521 Paris edition of Litaneia Germanorum ([Paris: Pierre Vidoue], n.d.). See B.
Moreau, Inventaire chronologique des éditions parisiennes du XVf siècle, 3, (Paris, 1985), p.
89, no. 166. I am indebted to Mlle Brigitte Moreau for resolving this problem for me.

14 Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 1523, f 310r°-v°; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat
12849, r- 170r°-v°; MS Lat 12846, f 397r°.

15 Charles Jourdain, Index chronologicus chartarum pertinentium ad historiam universitatis
parisiensis (Paris, 1962), p. 327, # MDXCVII.

16 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat 12849, f 169r°

17 See below, p. 178.

18 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat 16576, f° 26r°-27v°.

19 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat 12849, f 171 r°.

20 See, for example, Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 1528, f 531r-533v°(8 June 1525), f 538v°
(lO June 1525), f 594r°-v° (5 July 1525). The conclusion of this case may lie in the records
of the Criminal court of Parlement, a source I have not yet explored.

21 See, for example, Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 8344, f 12v°-18r°.

22 Archives Nationales X''^ 8344, f 18v°.

23 Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 1529, f^ 107r°-v° (5 February 1526 n. st.).

24 On this see James K. Farge, éd.. Registre des procès-verbaux de la Faculté de théologie de
l'Université de Paris, II (Paris, 1989), no. 161 B-C and notes 1526: 52-53.

25 Paris, Archives Nationales x"^ 1531, f 80r° (13 January 1528 n.st.).

26 Index de l'Université de Paris, p. 61.

Renaissance et Réforme / 183

27 See Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat 9951, î° 36v°, which is the rector's summary
report for the third quarter of 1521. The book was Philip Mdanchthon's Adversusfuriosum
parisiemis theologastrorum decretum, a satire of the Faculty of Theology's Determmatio
against Luther, which must not be confused with the spurious Determinatio secunda
mentioned in note 2 above. No Paris editions of either book are known. This same matter,
recorded in the deliberations of the English-German Nation, 1522-1552 (Archives de
l'Université de Paris [Sorbonne], Registre 15), has recently been signalled by Astrik L.
Gabriel, The University of Paris and its Hungarian Students and Masters during the Reign of
Louis XII and François 1er (Notre Dame, IN. and Frankfurt-am-Main, 1986), p. 103.

28 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat 12849, f 178r°-v°.

29 Archives de l'Université de Paris (Sorbonne), Registre 14, f° 127r°, 128r° (6, 7 August 1524).
The thesis of Agnès Masson-Maréchal, "L'université de Paris au début du XVI* siècle,"
École nationale des Chartes, Paris (1985), 3: 376, drew my attention to this incident

30 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Nouvelles acquisitions latines 1782, f' 218v° (15 July
1528).

31 See above, note 13.

32 See Brigitte Moreau, Inventaire chronologique des éditions parisiennes, 3 (1521-1530) (Paris
and Abbeville, 1985), no. 1063.

33 Pierre Aquilon, "Paris et la Bible française, 1516-1586," Censure: De la Bible aux larmes
d'Éros (Paris, 1987), pp. 17-18.

34 Ordonnances des rois de France: Règne de François f^ (Paris, 1902- ), 7: 203-204, no. 686.

35 Paris, Archives Nationales X'^ 1538, f 113v°-114r° (13 February 1535 n. st.). No wonder,
then, that a Paris bookseller, when drawing up a post-mortem inventory of a recently
deceased student, purposely omitted the title of Erasmus' De preparatione ad mortem "pour
ce qu'il est suspect en la foy." See Roger Doucet, Les Bibliothèques de Paris (Paris, 1956),
pp 36-37.

36 At this time, books from "Germany" - doubtless from Strasbourg and Basel, still the chief
sources of objectionable books at this time - came under fire.

37 Published by Nathanaël Weiss, Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français,
40 (1891), pp. 634-638.

38 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Lat 12849, C 219r°-221r°

Pontus de Tyard, poète lyrique

EVA KUSHNER

i-/a production lyrique de Pontus de Tyard paraît minime si on la compare
à celle d'un Ronsard ou d'un Du Bellay. Le petit recueil intitulé Le livre de
vers liriques en contient la quasi-totalité, à moins que l'on ne considère
comme faisant partie du genre lyrique les "chants" et "chansons" qui
jalonnent les Erreurs amoureuses. Alors que, dans ses sonnets, Tyard
poursuit inlassablement une forme et une thématique issues de Pétrarque,
et sous-tendues par une vision platonicienne, ses chansons retentissent
d'accents plus personnels, libérés par rapport à ses modèles tant antiques
que modernes. Le chant strophique joue, dans les Erreurs amoureuses, un
rôle complémentaire à celui des sonnets, et par là même fondamental. Mais
les chants et chansons qui y sont insérés n'en participent pas moins à l'unité
fondamentale de l'oeuvre.

Le livre de vers liriques, au contraire, donne au premier abord l'impression
d'une mosaïque, car il contient visiblement les pièces n'ayant pu être
intégrées aux Erreurs soit pour des raisons thématiques, soit pour des raisons
de prosodie. La plupart des pièces du recueil paraissent d'abord à la suite
de l'édition originale du Solitaire premier (1552). C'est en 1555 qu'est publié
Le livre de vers liriques complet, à la suite de la réédition des deux premiers
livres des Erreurs amoureuses, chez Jean de Tournes, qui contient également
une "tierce partie," rebaptisée Troisième livre lors de l'édition de 1573. Quelles
que soient les raisons qui ont incité Tyard à grouper sous la rubrique de
"vers liriques" des poèmes d'une diversité jusque là inusitée chez lui, on ne
peut que noter que cette diversité s'accorde pleinement avec celle qui
caractérise les Quatre premiers livres des odes de Ronsard (1550) ainsi que les
Vers liriques et le Recueil de poésie de Du Bellay, datant tous les deux de
1549, donc légèrement antérieurs au Livre de vers liriques de Tyard. On
s'aperçoit très vite, en outre, de ce que chaque pièce du recueil a une raison
d'être spécifique liée aux prises de position de Tyard dans l'élaboration

Renaisance and Rcfonnation / Renaissance et Reforme, XXV, 2 (1989) 185

186 / Renaissance and Reformation

même du genre lyrique; si bien que ce qui se présentait au premier abord
comme une mosaïque assume une unité provenant précisément de la
réflexion de Tyard sur la poésie.

La vocation poétique est le motif unissant les deux premiers poèmes,
"Chant en faveur de quelques excellens Poètes de ce tems" et "Chant à son
Leut." Le premier poème figure d'ailleurs à la suite des la Continuation des
Erreurs amoureuses (1551). Parmi les poèmes suivants plusieurs portent le
nom d' "Odes." Les quatre premières célèbrent diverses divinités, à com-
mencer par celle qui s'adresse au Ciel, afin qu'il fléchisse le coeur de sa
dame. L'ode II, "Au jour des Bacchanales," célèbre Bacchus et l'esprit
bachique. L'ode III, "Du socratique," loue Socrate et Platon par opposition
à des philosophes plus matérialistes. La juxtaposition de ces deux odes
montre bien à quel point l'ode varie du point de vue de sa gravité, apparente
du moins. Quant à l'ode IV, "De ses affections," elle invoque la Muse Erato,
capable d'inspirer au poète des vers capables de surmonter la mort... et
l'indifférence de Pasithée.

L'ensemble des six poèmes qui viennent d'être mentionnés est consacré
à la célébration des réalités les plus nobles. Les poèmes suivants chantent,
ou pleurent, des réalités et des circonstances plus familières: mort de la
petite chienne de Jane de Salle, mort d'un cousin, île de Pontus ou roses
de cette île. Le dernier groupe comprend deux fables animales et une
énigme. De cet arrangment il ressort que les premiers poèmes publiés, qui
sont aussi les premiers dans l'ordre du recueil, expriment encore les soucis
quotidiens de l'amant pétrarquiste et une vision platonicienne; tandis que
les suivants, publiés en 1555, se tournent plutôt vers autrui, vers la nature
et le monde animal, fût-ce sur un mode mythologique. L'évolution de la
poésie lyrique de Tyard serait ainsi parallèle à celle des Erreurs amoureuses:
au moment du Troisième livre on constate, en effet, une certaine libération
poétique et psychique par rapport aux deux premiers livres. Plus lentement
que Ronsard, et très discrètement, Tyard évolue vers une révélation plus
spontanée et plus naturelle du moi.

Le "Chant en faveur de quelques excellens Poètes de ce tems" exalte la
poésie et sa place dans l'ordre universel. Il est contemporain du Solitaire
premier dont il reflète les thèmes essentiels, notamment le rôle salvateur de
la poésie dans la vie humaine, au sein de l'inconstance du monde. Thème
de l'immortalité également, au sens que lui donne la Renaissance: le poète
confère l'immortalité à celui qu'il chante, dans le même temps qu'il la
conquiert pour lui-même par son chant. Poètes et rois mènent ensemble le

Renaissance et Réforme / 187

combat contre l'ignorance Le message du poème lyrique est donc

beaucoup plus direct et engagé que celui du dialogue philosophique. Dans
le "Chant," Tyard compare les mérites respectifs de François 1er qui a donné
à la "vraie" poésie sa première chance, et de Henri II, qui préside
maintenant à son développement.

Mais ce qui surtout importe dans ce poème, c'est la procession triomphale
des poètes préférés de Tyard; celui-ci utilise en effet son premier poème
officiellement lyrique pour déclarer ses idées en matière de lyrisme. A
première vue, la succession des noms est liée à la chronologie: en gros, deux
groupes de poètes, ceux qui ayant précédé Ronsard appartiennent au règne
de François 1er, et les contemporains de Tyard actifs sous le règne d'Henri
II. Contrairement à ce que l'on pourrait attendre de la part d'un poète envers
qui la fidélité de Ronsard ne se dément jamais, et dont le nom reste toujours
associé à la Pléiade, Tyard relativise la place de Ronsard et de Du Bellay.
C'est Saint-Gelais qui ouvre la procession. Il est loué pour "la douceur
distillée/ De sa plume emmiellée" qui a su charmer deux souverains.^ C'est
à Scève que s'adresse l'éloge le plus éloquent:

SCEVE si haut son sonna
Sur l'une et l'autre riviere
Qu'avec son mont Forviere
La France s'en étonna.^

Tyard se refuse à flatter Ronsard, en dépit de la rapide ascension de
celui-ci. C'est Scève, que Tyard reconnaît pour son maître, qui selon lui a
redonné vie à la poésie française. Après lui sont évoqués, en une même
strophe, trois poètes de tradition française que Ronsard ne reconnaît pas
pour siens: Héroët, Lancelot de Carie et Hugues Salel. Héroët est gratifié
d'un jeu de mots flatteur portant sur son nom:

Voyez encores l'Amour,
Qui héroïquement parle
Souz Héroët '. . ?

L'éloge de Carie est d'un vague extrême: Tyard l'envoie séjourner au mont
Helicon, mais sans louer ses qualités poétiques alors que les trois poètes
précédents, Scève, Héroët et Mellin de Saint-Gelais, font l'objet d'éloges se
rapportant expressément à leurs vers. Quant à Salel, c'est en tant que
traducteur qu'il est mentionné, de même que Des Masures, Marot et Martin.
Tyard voulait-il ainsi amoindrir le rôle de Des Masures parce que celui-ci

188 / Renaissance and Reformation

était protestant, et de Marot pour ses affinités évangéliques? Ou bien ce
groupement doit-il être interprété comme élogieux, vu le prestige dont la
Deffence et illustration venait de revêtir la traduction? Toujours est-il que le
fait de réunir les traducteurs nuance l'éloge qui leur est adressé, mettant en
valeur d'une part la strophe consacrée au seul Scève, et d'autre part celle
qui suit et que se partagent Ronsard et Du Bellay:

Osera quelqu'un celer
L'honneur de ta main, qui guide
L'immortalisante bride
Du cheval nouant^ par l'air,
Ronsard? Tu t'es pu vanter,
En François fredons liriques.
Prince des neuf Grecs antiques:
Pendant que le tret puissant
De l'aveugle esblouissant,
Feit si bien Bellay chanter
Son rameau verpalissant.^

Ici, Tyard commence par défier les détracteurs imaginaires (ou réels) de
Ronsard; puis il cite le titre de gloire que Ronsard s'attribue lui-même (et
que répète Du Bellay dans "Contre les poètes envieux," en 1550). Ni l'un
ni l'autre élément élogieux n'est donc assumé résolument par Tyard
lui-même; or, il s'agit du genre lyrique, dans lequel Tyard est précisément
en train de s'exprimer pour la première fois. Dans le cas de Du Bellay au
contraire, même s'il est pour Tyard, au moment précis où le "Chant" est
écrit, un concurrent puissant en fait de poésie amoureuse, Tyard dit sans
réserve son admiration pour VOlive.

C'est Des Autels qui clôt la procession triomphale: il incame l'avenir de
la poésie, aux yeux de Tyard du moins, dont la fidélité vis-à-vis de son
cousin fut inépuisable - alors que Ronsard et Du Bellay en sont les gloires
présentes et que les poètes du premier groupe s'étaient surtout illustrés dans
le passé. Tel est donc le Panthéon poétique de Tyard. En conclusion, celui-ci
revient aux "longs pensers ardens/ Sans cesse en moy residens"^ et à ses
"peines languissantes"; mais non sans avoir parlé poétiquement de la poésie
dont l'amour y devient consubstanticl à celui de la bien-aiméc.

Il est clair que la liste des poètes célébrés ne correspond pas à celle de
la Pléiade, mais manifeste les préférences esthétiques de Tyard lui-même,
qui sont aussi celles de Des Autels. En comparaison, la liste figurant dans
la Musagnoeomachie de Du Bellay réconcilie généreusement passé et présent

Renaissance et Réforme / 189

de la poésie en France ou plutôt, puisque les lignes de partage ne sont pas
uniquement chronologiques, fait place aux tendances traditionnelles aussi
bien qu'à celles instaurées par le groupe de Ronsard. Sont nommés: Carie,
Héroët, Saint-Gelais, "les trois favoriz des Grâces,"^ ainsi que Scève et Salel;
"l'utiledoux Rabelais," Bouju, Peletier, Maclou, Macrin, Tyard, Pascal;
enfin, "trois flambeaux," Baïf, Dorât, et en tout dernier lieu Ronsard, ce qui
prouve bien que le sommet de la gloire appartient à celui qui clôt ce type
de cortège poétique.

Chez Ronsard, si conscient de son rôle parmi les poètes de sa génération,
ce genre de liste possède une valeur particulièrement symbolique: pour lui,
nommer quelqu'un, c'est l'inclure parmi les siens. Que ce soit dans les
"Dithyrambes a la pompe du bouc de E. Jodelle, poète tragiq'," le "Voyage
d'Hercueil," ou encore "Les Isles fortunées," n'apparaissent en général que
les noms de poètes ou érudits participant au renouvellement des lettres et
des idées selon sa propre optique: et ceux de quelques amis de jeunesse;
d'autant plus lorsqu'il s'agit de constituer la Pléiade, dans des poèmes tels
que "L'élégie à Jean de la Peruse" (1553), "L'hymne de Henry II" dans sa
version de 1554 et le même hymne dans sa révision de 1584.

Du Bellay, ainsi que nous venons de le noter, s'associe dans la
"Musagnoeomachie" quelques aînés absents du chapitre "Des poètes
françoys" de la Deffence et Illustration. Là, en effet, à la suite de Jean Meung
et Guillaume de Lorris, seul Lemaire de Belges est directement nommé. Le
nom de Marot apparaît comme celui de l'auteur d'une épigramme à Salel
distinguant un certain nombre de poètes qui ne sont autres que les Grands
Rhétoriqueurs. Du Bellay n'intègre pas l'épigramme à son texte; c'est le
lecteur qui doit la rechercher s'il veut en savoir davantage sur ces poètes
d'antan.

C'est dire que les sympathies poétiques de Tyard se distinguent assez
fortement de celles de Ronsard et Du Bellay, surtout en ce qu'il accueille
chaque poète, traditionnel ou novateur, à titre individuel plutôt qu'en
fonction d'une allégeance collective. Le "Chant en faveur de quelques
excellens Poètes de ce tems" ne parle ni de la Brigade ni de la Pléiade,
métaphores qui ne semblent avoir pour Tyard aucune réalité. Il ne prend
pas non plus parti pour Barthélémy Ancau qui venait de riposter aux Quatre
premiers livres des odes en déniant à Ronsard la nouveauté que celui-ci
revendiquait tant. Le "Chant" se situe, sinon au-dessus, du moins en dehors
de la mêlée. C'est Guillaume des Autels qui s'était chargé de défendre les
thèses du Quintil Horatian en 1550, dans la préface de son Repos de plus

190 / Renaissance and Reformation

grand travail ainsi que dans la Réplique aux furieuses defenses de Louis Meigret.
La question de savoir si l'ode est véritablement un genre nouveau devient
l'enjeu d'une dispute entre Ronsard et Saint-Gelais devant la Cour, et, du
coup, celui de l'affrontement entre tradition et innovation. Grand seigneur,
Tyard réagit avec une indépendance nuancée. Sans déclarations théoriques,
il s'essaie à son tour dans le genre lyrique où, vu les circonstances, chaque
poème équivaudra à un choix théorique. Le poème que nous venons
d'analyser s'intitule "Chant," mais plusieurs des suivants sont nommés
"Odes," ce qui signifie qu'avec Des Autels Tyard croit les deux appellations
interchangeables et qu'il considère qu'il y a continuité au sein du genre
lyrique dans l'histoire récente de la poésie en France. N'accueille-t-il pas,
d'autre part, Mellin de Saint-Gelais parmi les créateurs? Le moins que l'on
puisse dire, c'est que tout ceci va à rencontre de la notion d'une Pléiade
monolithique dont Tyard serait "membre."

Cela n'empêche pas - au contraire - qu'une forte intertextualité ait alors
existé entre Ronsard, Du Bellay et Tyard. Ainsi, le thème de l'inconstance
sur lequel s'ouvre le "Chant en faveur de quelques excellens Poètes de ce
tems" fait écho à deux au moins des poèmes lyriques de Du Bellay: "Des
misères et fortunes humaines," et "De l'inconstance des choses." Dans les
"Vers lyriques" de Du Bellay, d'autre part, l'ode "De l'immortalité des
Poètes" développe longuement ce que Tyard dit en quelques vers au sujet
de la survie poétique.

Semblablement, le "Chant à son Leut" rappelle par son titre plusieurs
poèmes de Ronsard adressés à un instrument musical. "A sa lyre," "A sa
guiterre" et "A son lut" datent tous les trois de 1550; le poème de Tyard leur
répond. Dans le "Chant en faveur de quelques excellens Poètes de ce tems,"
Tyard rappelle les "François fredons liriques" dans lesquels Ronsard se
vante de l'importance de son "invention" de l'ode en France. Tyard continue
ensuite à lui répondre par le "Chant à son Leut"; en suivant de très près le
titre du poème ronsardien "A sa lyre" il n'en attire que davantage l'attention
du lecteur sur ce qui le sépare de Ronsard. Le Chant est écrit en "terze
rime," forme italienne que Tyard affectionne, mais que n'emploie pas
Ronsard. Dans le poème de Ronsard, la lyre est symbole de l'état de la
poésie en France, vis-à-vis de laquelle il est lui-même le principal intei've-
nant. Chez Tyard, l'accent est vraiment sur la poésie elle-même: le luth est
personnifié et c'est à lui que, sous la forme d'une suite d'impératifs -
"Chante, mon Leuth ..." - Tyard confie son propre chant d'amour. Mais
il s'agit bien d'une réflexion sur la forme du poème, et sur les discussions

Renaissance et Réforme / 191

de l'heure à propos de la poésie. Tyard se résout à délaisser sa "mortelle
plainte" pétrarquiste pour entonner un chant "plus doux"^ à l'instar de
Saint-Gelais, mentionné une fois de plus dans ce contexte, donc avec
l'intention de l'inclure parmi les influences fastes. Le chant lyrique sera un
chant de célébration plutôt que de plainte. Comme Ronsard et ses amis,
Tyard profitera de la liberté de mètre et de rythme offerte par l'ode, de son
régime strophique, de son ouverture à l'imagerie et à la mythologie antiques.
L'ode lui servira, en particulier, à célébrer une fois de plus la beauté de
Pasithée, mais en abandonnant la mélancolie des Erreurs et en adoptant
une certain joie sensuelle, inusitée sous sa plume. Donc, tout, dans Le livre
de vers liriques, y compris les vers amoureux, concourt à en faire un recueil
conçu en vue de diverger par rapport aux Erreurs amoureuses.

En particulier, le "Chant à son Leuth" est dominé par une intense
conscience esthétique, résolue à dire la nature du chant au travers même
de la poésie amoureuse. Pasithée demeure inaccessible; c'est le regard
poétique qui la perçoit d'une manière différente. Dépouillée du voile du
sacré, elle paraît plus proche et plus humaine:

Chante ces cent et cent graces semées
Parmi ce ris, ris chastement folastre:
Qui tient en moy cent torches allumées.^

Par sa vie et sa richesse sensuelles ce poème rejoint donc l'ode légère
ronsardienne de cette époque (du type "Ma petite columbelle") en attendant
qu'à son tour Ronsard rejoigne Tyard, dans les Amours de 1552 et 1553, par
la manière dont il y unit la beauté physique à la beauté morale. En un
sens, le "Chant à son Leuth" se lit comme un blason du corps féminin;
mais la louange de ce corps est inséparable de celle de l'âme ardente et
raffinée qui l'habite; et de l'appartenance ultime de cette âme:

Mais change moy celle immortelle
Qui, pour tenter du Ciel nouvelle trace,
Son aesle empenne, et son vol renouvelle. ^^

Si le "leuth" de Tyard ne possède pas, de son propre aveu, assez de
puissance pour capter la beauté cllc-mcmc, il peut du moins continuer à
parler au coeur de Pasithée. La grandeur du projet de Tyard réside en sa
modestie même: il consiste à démontrer ce que Des Autels déclare
théoriquement, à savoir la continuité réelle de la tradition lyrique en France,
qui apparaît dès que l'on accepte la co-existcncc, tant dans les oeuvres des

192 / Renaissance and Reformation

"marotiques" que dans celles de Ronsard et de ses disciples, de l'ode grave
et de l'ode légère: le Livre de vers liriques en constitue précisément un
exemple, et Tyard exploite pleinement cette exemplarité.

A la suite des années 1549-51 dont il est question ici, les enjeux
changeront rapidement: dans VArt poétique françoys de Peletier du Mans
(1555), parlant au nom d'une Pléiade mûrie, la continuité entre la chanson
marotique et l'ode ronsardienne est rétablie, Ronsard et Saint-Gelais se
réconcilient, et le "style bas" adopté par Ronsard réduit à néant l'opposition
des deux "écoles."

Les deux poèmes programmatiques que nous venons de commenter sont
suivis, dans le Livre de vers liriques, d'une séquence de poèmes de louanges,
à commencer par 1' "Ode premiere au ciel en faveur de sa Dame." La forme
en est celle d'un voeu: le poète invoque sur sa dame la faveur du Ciel, liant
amour et poésie dans le symbole de la flamme qui brûle son âme. A chaque
don que possède la dame, le Ciel est invité à répondre en l'éternisant;
jusqu'à la septième strophe. Si le poème s'arrêtait là, il se rattacherait,
thématiquement, aux Erreurs amoureuses', mais il continue, transformant
l'intemporalité en étemelle jeunesse, que le poète contemple avec passion
et douceur. La convention pétrarquiste ne permettait pas, dans les Erreurs,
une simple victoire de l'amour humain; ici, le théâtre de l'écriture lyrique
rend possible une vision triomphante de l'amour: donc également de la
poésie, comme représentation.

Lors les vers que je feray
Richement j'estofferay.
En louange immortelle
De toy, et d'elle.*^

L'ode "au jour des Bacchanales" constitue un nouvel exemple de création
parallèle entre Ronsard, Du Bellay et Tyard. Dans les Vers lyriques de Du
Bellay figure l'ode "Du jour des Bacchanales," hommage et voeu adressé à
Bacchus; ce n'est qu'à la fin du poème que Du Bellay tire de l'agitation
bachique une morale déjà présente chez Horace, c'est-à-dire un éloge de la
folie: "Quelqucsfois il faut faire/ Le fol pour son amy."^^

De son côté, Ronsard dans le "Chant de folie à Bacchus"^-^ crée un
tableau mythologique pittoresque, sonore et mouvementé, qui semble
n'exister que pour le plaisir du lecteur et ne solliciter d'autre réaction que
l'insouciance. "L'Hymne de Bacchus" de 1555 ajoute à la description de
Bacchus tous les souvenirs mythologiques liés à lui et évoquera son pouvoir

Renaissance et Réforme / 193

universel, sans oublier son rôle dans l'éveil de l'inspiration poétique: "Par
toy. Père, chargez de ta douce ambrosie/ Nous élevons au ciel l'humaine
fantaisie."^"*

En comparaison, ce qui distingue le poème de Tyard, c'est que c'est le
poète plutôt que le dieu qui en est l'acteur principal. Tyard commence par
prendre à son compte, avec une allégresse rare chez lui, l'insouciance
qu'exige le genre. Il se livre à ce que l'on appellerait maintenant la
camavalisation. Il se libère de toute contrainte, y compris celle de l'amour!
Ses Muses titubent d'ivresse et, saisi de frénésie, il s'attribue une virilité
agressive. Cette ode forme, en attendant les Douze fleuves ou fontaines,
l'envers dionysiaque des Erreurs amoureuses et du Solitaire premier, remplis-
sant un profond besoin de l'imaginaire chez ce poète qui, n'ayant pas écrit
de Folastries, n'en tenait pas moins à manifester, à l'occasion, une verve
truculente. Mais il serait erroné de lire "Au jour des Bacchanales" unique-
ment comme le signe d'une surcompensation. Le foisonnement bachique
symbolise tout le contradictoire et la multiplicité du divers, et l'attrait de
celui-ci pour Tyard.

Le rôle de l'ode "Du socratique," qui suite immédiatement, est-il anti-
thétique et même contradictoire? Nous le pensons plutôt complémentaire
en ce qu'il explore aussi la liberté de l'âme, mais d'une autre manière.
Comme dans le Solitaire premier, Tyard exprime ici sa désapprobation
vis-à-vis de l'épicurisme; mais il condamne aussi d'autres errements philo-
sophiques et moraux, et, à la limite, toute doctrine, car il est épris
uniquement de "ce, qui est pur du Ciel."^^

Il ne prétend proférer aucune vérité nouvelle; c'est dans l'Age d'or du
passé qu'il espère trouver un remède aux tragiques carences de son temps:
hypocrisie, injustice, avidité. Si l'Age d'or revenait, "Jupiter" agréerait
l'offrande la paix parmi les hommes, plutôt que des sacrifices sanglants.
Irénisme, donc, mais également satire de tout ce qui, au sein de l'Eglise,
prétend représenter la divinité sous des traits matériels. Les figures
mythologiques voilent à peine ici une pensée essentiellement théologique,
puisant encore son hiérarchie des valeurs dans la Theologia platonica de
Ficin, tout en s'éveillant aux problèmes spirituels de son siècle. La ma-
gnifique invocation au Centre, de qui part toute beauté et en qui réside tout
bien, contient, à notre avis, la figurc-clcf de la vision tyardienne, active non
seulement dans la poésie des années 50 mais dans toute son oeuvre
subséquente. Car c'est une figure qui réconcilie - poétiquement sinon
philosophiquement - la notion de l'immatérialité de l'être avec celle de la

194 / Renaissance and Reformation

réalité et de la beauté de ses manifestations concrètes. Si la sphère entière
du réel peut être perçue comme coextensive avec la présence du bien, alors
il pourra y avoir une poésie et une philosophie chrétiennes sans culpabilité,
et le Tyard de la Contre-Réforme n'aura pas à renier, mais seulement à
transformer sa vision platonicienne.^^

L'ode "De ses affections" termine la série des odes philosophiques et les
résume toutes en une histoire poétique de l'âme humaine et de ses
vicissitudes. Parce qu'il y a là une traduction en vers, très concentrée, de la
première partie du Solitaire premier, on peut y discerner d'autant mieux l'art
et la fonction de l'ode chez Tyard. L'âme est représentée d'une manière
vivante et pathétique avec son étemelle nostalgie des cieux, et son appétit
de beauté et de bonheur terrestres. Il est vrai que tout homme est écartelé
entre ces deux tendances; mais être poète, c'est s'arracher au "mol troupeau
des délices" pour suivre sa Muse. Le moment de la vocation poétique fait
songer à celui d'une vocation religieuse. La Muse Erato le choisit pour sien,
afin

[ . . . ] qu'encore l'amoureux son
Jusques en nostre Helicon
De ta douce lyre arrive.^''

Tyard fait ensuite le bilan de sa propre histoire poétique et personnelle,
et, en particulier, de son pétrarquisme:

J'ay chanté ma passion
Inconstante constamment
En glace, en feu, du tourment
Qui l'esprit me mine, et ronge.'^

Histoire poétique et histoire personnelle aboutissent ensemble à un
double renoncement; les contemporains savaient, eux, quel était "l'impi-
tcux" qu'épousa Pasithée, mais ils savaient aussi pourquoi la poésie de
Pontus était si rigoureusement condamnée à être le tombeau de la "vérité
lapidée"^^ alors que d'autres poètes s'épanouissaient en développant d'au-
tres formes de discours. Exceptionnellement ici, grâce à la liberté qui
appartient à la définition même du genre lyrique, Tyard exhale une plainte
plus directe que celle qui caractérise les Erreurs amoureuses.

Les poèmes qui suivent forment un autre groupe thématique; on pourrait
les classer comme "odes légères": quatre d'entre elles sont d'un caractère
plus familier que le groupe précédent, deux sont des fables mythologiques

Renaissance et Réforme / 195

et le tout dernier poème est une énigme. John Lapp, à qui Ton doit l'édition
des Oeuvres poétiques complètes de Tyard, s'est surtout intéressé à un trait
qui relie entre eux tous ces poèmes, que leur sujet soit, ou non,
mythologique: à savoir, le sens de la métamorphose, signe d'esthétique
baroque. Sans contester cette observation essentielle, il nous paraît impor-
tant de noter qu'elle concorde avec ce que l'on sait par ailleurs^^ de la
réorientation de Tyard vers le concret et la diversité, aux environs de 1555,
c'est-à-dire l'année de publication du groupe de poèmes en question.

"Sur la mort de la petite chienne de Jane, nommée Flore" relate un
incident survenu à une amie autre que Pasithée; et cet incident concerne
un animal plutôt qu'un être humain: voilà en un même poème deux traits
exceptionnels dans la poésie de Tyard jusqu'à cette date. En outre, Tyard
joue très librement avec les données de la mythologie antique. Il fait revivre
Zeus uniquement pour le plaisir de le voir manifester sa toute-puissance
afin de consoler le chagrin d'une enfant, quitte à déranger pour elle tout
l'ordre de l'univers. Ayant envoyé son aigle chercher la dépouille mortelle
de la petite chienne, Jupiter s'occupe paternellement de lui trouver une place
aux cieux, où elle sera transformée en constellation. Certes, ce poème
comporte un aspect mondain - les salons du XVI^ siècle aimaient trans-
former en jeu poétique tout incident de la vie quotidienne.^^ Mais plus
important encore est l'effet produit sur l'imagination de Tyard par le
foisonnement du divers, par la notion d'une victoire sur la mort, et par la
complicité de la nature. La fin du poème rejoint en effet son commencement
pour proclamer le triomphe de la poésie sur la mort

L' "Epicede," ou "Regret à la mort de Monsieur L'Escuyer de Saint-Samin
son cousin" est le seul chant funèbre du recueil. Il est dominé par le thème
de l'inconstance, qui est aussi un des thèmes principaux des Vers lyriques
de Du Bellay. A la différence de celui-ci, Tyard s'attarde peu sur la "cruauté
du sort" une fois qu'il l'a fortement constatée. En revanche, un thème plus
spécifique se fait jour ici, celui de l'injustice s'achamant sur les vertueux.
Saint-Sarnin fut victime d'un assassinat politique, et Tyard s'identifie au
sort de cet homme qu'il admirait, lui qui, d'une autre manière, fut victime
d'un "impiteux." Tandis que Saint-Samin vit en Dieu et dans la mémoire
des hommes, Tyard traîne encore sa peine . . . Mais l'accès à l'immortalité
poétique passe par la porte étroite de la souffrance.

Comme Ronsard, Tyard a chanté un lieu familier de son adolescence et
de sa jeunesse: deux odes sont consacrées à son île.^^ L' "Ode, en nom de
son isle" prend la forme d'une prosopopée. L'île elle-même déclare

196 / Renaissance and Reformation

appartenir "à Pasithée, et Eraton." Elle convie à entrer ceux qui connaissent
l'amour véritable, et interdit de séjour les ennemis de la poésie . . . C'est
l'utopie personnelle de Pontus, connue de Bugnyon, qui l'appelle l'île
Pontique.

Particulièrement riche en connotations, cette ode confirme la double
vocation du Livre de vers liriques et de toute la poésie tyardienne: comme
l'île, ils sont voués à Pasithée et Erato. Amour et poésie sont inséparables
et font partie du même pari spirituel en faveur de l'idéal, et de la vision du
monde qui en est le fruit. La consécration de l'île à Pasithée et Erato est
énoncée, parallèlement, dans la première et dernière strophe, ce qui donne
encadrement et clôture à la caractérisation de l'île.

L'île est aussi refuge par rapport à la Ville, et lieu de vie contemplative
par opposition à la vie active. De même, Ronsard conviera Hélène à venir
avec lui "sur le Jourdain," délaissant la Cour. Mais, contrairement aux loci
amoeni des oeuvres passées de Tyard, son île n'est pas un séjour solitaire;
un "autel religieux" y est dressé en l'honneur des poètes qui ont chanté
leurs amours. Et, surtout, Tyard est devenu sensible à la présence de la
nature, tout particulièrement de la flore, qu'il célèbre avec allégresse.

Dans l'ode "Les roses de son isle," cette présence de la nature éclate à
travers une longue comparaison de la rose et de la femme. Pontus s'y penche
sur le devenir des êtres et des choses, insistant, ainsi que l'a noté John
Lapp^^, sur les moments de passage. Son regard devient plus observateur
que contemplatif; il se cherche des objets plus concrets qu'auparavant, dont
son oeil détaillera le mouvement. (Parallèlement, on peut noter qu'au
tournant de 1555-56, une évolution semblable se fait jour parmi ses discours
en forme de dialogues).

Quoi de plus mouvementé, enfin, que les deux fables mythologiques du
recueil: "L'ode au rossignol," et "A l'arondelle d'un ennuy secret" et "Les
grenoilles." Deux odes de Ronsard, retranchées en 1584, ont respectivement
pour titre "A un rossignol," et "La grenouille, à Rcmy Belleau." Mêmes
sujets en apparence, même ordre; mais la ressemblance s'arrête là. Les deux
odes de Ronsard blasonnent le rossignol et la grenouille; Tyard raconte des
fables mythologiques. Dans "Les grenoilles" il suit de près Ovide à propos
de l'histoire de Latone se vengeant des "vilains" qui refusent de la laisser
se désaltérer. Pur exercice de style de la part du poète, sur la laideur, après
avoir exalté la beauté des roses? Ou vengeance délectable de l'imagination
à l'égard de tous les ingrats, voire d'une certaine ingrate?

Renaissance et Réforme / 197

La manière dont Tyard traite le fable de Philomèle et de Progné tend à
confirmer cette dernière notion: il y fait alterner des strophes à contenu
mythologique avec des strophes le concernant personnellement, en une
longue comparaison de sa propre souffrance avec celle des belles-soeurs de
la fable. Métamorphosées en oiseaux, Progné et Philomèle connaissent une
vie nouvelle et libre, tandis que le poète ne connaît qu'esclavage et mort;
mais ils se retrouvent tous les trois dans la nature et dans le chant du poète,
dont le malheur résume tous les malheurs d'autrui.

Ainsi, le Livre de vers liriques se distingue au sein de son oeuvre, et vis-à-vis
des oeuvres contemporaines de la sienne, par sa variété tant métrique que
thématique, sa vivacité, sa teneur en mythologie, sa réflexion sur le genre
lyrique, et surtout la manière très personnelle dont Tyard orchestre tous ces
éléments.

Victoria University, University of Toronto

Notes

1 Pontus de Tyard, Oeuvres poétiques complètes, éd. critique par John C. Lapp (Paris: Didier,
1966), p. 158. (Dans les notes qui suivent, cette éditon sera désignée par le sigle OPC).

2 Ibid, p. 159.

3 Ibid.

4 Nageant.

5 OPC, p. 160

6 Ibid., p. 161.

7 Ibid., p. 162.

8 Ibid., p. 163.

9 Ibid., p. 166.

10 Ibid, p. 164.

11 Ibid, p. 166.

12 Joachim du Bellay, Vers lyriques, éd. crit. H. Chamard (Paris: Droz, 1934), t. III, p.29.

13 Bocage de 1550.

14 Ed. crit. Laumonier, t. VI, p. 189-90.

15 OPC, p. 172.

16 En rétrospective, Tyard lui-même est devenu conscient de cette conversion de tout son
acquis intellectuel, cf. "Summa Christus félicitas," poème liminaire des Trois livres
d'IIomilies (1586).

17 OPC, p. 178.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., p. 180.

20 II est communément admis que ce changement d'orientation de Tyard coincide avec la
composition du Discours de temps, de l'an et de ses parties. Cf., par exemple, E. Kushner,
"Le rôle de la temporalité dans la pensée de Pontus de Tyard," Le temps et la durée dans

198 / Renaissance and Reformation

la littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, éd. Yvonne Bellenger (Paris: Nizet, 1985),
p. 211-30

21 cf. sur ce point L. Clark Keating, Studies on the Literary Salons in France (1550-1615)
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941).

22 Nous avons longuement cherché cette île aux environs du château de Bissy-sur-Fley, sans
succès: il n'y a plus, actuellement, de cours d'eau sur le domaine ou à proximité, ni d'ailleurs
d'étang.

23 "On constate dans cette ode l'intérêt qu'éprouvait Pontus pour le moment de transition -

le passage d'un état à l'autre - qui fait de lui le vrai poète des métamorphoses Le poème

consiste donc en une série de transitions: l'aube qui cède la place au soleil, telle fleur qui
s'ouvre à la lumière, telle autre dont le bouton, à mesure qu'il grandit, est percé par une
épine, telles autres qui changent de couleur devant les yeux du poète . . ." Introduction,
OPC., p. XLI.

Refashioning the Marriage Code:
The Patient Grissil of Dekker, Chettle
and Haughton

VIVIANA COMENSOLI

1 he folktale of Patient Griselda was first recorded in European literature
in 1353 in Boccaccio's Decameron. Inspired by the moral import of
Boccaccio's tale, Petrarch expanded it in Latin in 1374 {delnsigni Obedientia
et Fide Uxoris\ while in the same year Giovanni Sercambi retold Boccaccio's
novella in condensed form. A number of medieval French versions are
based on Petrarch's rendition, including the first secular dramatization in
1395 in the anonymous L'Ey/o/r^ de la Marquise de Saluée mix par personnages
et rigmé. Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale," which is based on Petrarch's and a
French redaction, is the first of numerous English versions.^ The three
extant Elizabethan renditions are John Phillip's late morality The Play of
Patient Grissel (c. 1558-66), Thomas Deloney's ballad "Of Patient Grissel
and a Noble Marquess" in The Garland of Good Will (c. 1593), and Dekker,
Chettle and Haughton's Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissil (c. 1599). In
England the legend continued to be recorded in chapbooks and anonymous
tales until the middle of the seventeenth centuiy, thus retaining its popu-
larity among a variety of audiences. While the medieval versions have
attracted a great deal of scholarly interest, their Elizabethan counterparts
have been largely neglected. Hariy Kcyishian, who has written the only
full-length essay on the Elizabethan dramatizations of the Griselda legend,
largely ignores Phillip's and Deloney's adapations and condemns the 1599
play as a tiresome morality' that exalts the virtues of the patient and
unassuming wife who faithfully and obediently performs her duties under
great emotional strain. In accounting for the legend's appeal to the
Elizabethan imagination, Keyishian writes: "Audiences of Shakespeare's
day could deal with mighty truths, but they evidently also needed the sickly

Renaisance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme, XXV, 2 (1989) 199

200 / Renaissance and Reformation

reassurance of the Griselda stoiy as well." The ways in which the sixteenth
century appropriated the folktale have never been full addressed.

The major differences between medieval and Renaissance interpretations
of the legend revolve around the portrayal of marriage. During the middle
ages the story of Griselda's marriage to a marquess, her subsequent trials
and banishment, and her eventual reunion with her husband was recorded
chiefly for its allegorical appeal. All of the medieval analogues share a
similar design in the presentation of Griselda's trials as an exemplum of the
Christian soul which submits to earthly suffering, eventually uniting with
its divine Lord. In none of the medieval redactions are the vicissitudes of
the marriage explored. Petrarch, in a letter to Boccaccio in which he praises
the tale of Griselda as the finest in The Decameron, clarifies the allegorical
significance of Griselda's patience. Petrarch reveals that his own objective
in rewriting the story is "not to induce the women of our time to imitate
the patience of this wife," which he believes to be "beyond imitation"; rather,
his aim is to "lead my readers to emulate the example of feminine constancy,
and to submit themselves to God with the same courage as did this woman
to her husband."^ The hardships endured by Griselda at the hands of her
husband are thus providential tests designed to strengthen the soul's
endurance. "Anyone," concludes Petrarch, "amply desei-ves to be reckoned
among the heroes of mankind who suffers without a murmur for God, what
this poor peasant woman bore for her mortal husband.'"^

In the sixtenth centuiy the source of interest shifts from the allegoiy of
Christian subjection to the human dimension of the marriage. The
Renaissance texts retain only marginally the allegorical superstructure of
the medieval analogues, focusing on the ideal marriage rather than on the
progress of the afflicted soul toward virtue. The chief didactic structure is
the desirability of marriage based on mutual consent, a new emphasis
complementing humanist ideas and practices which replaced the monastic
ideal of chastity with that of conjugal happiness. Whereas in the Italian
redactions the vassals, and in the Chaucer the townspeople, advise a
reluctant marquess to many Griselda so that her virtue will be passed on
through the generations, in the later versions it is the Marquess who chooses
to marry the poor but virtuous maiden, a choice that meets public
disapproval. His marriage to Griselda and his subsequent tests of her
patience teach society an important lesson: the value of marriage based on
choice, together with the wife's duty to assuage marital conflict through
patience and humility. The topos of romantic wedlock, with its attendant

Renaissance et Réforme / 201

spousal duties, is introduced into the legend by Phillip's morality and is
fully absorbed by Deloney's ballad. The Patient Grissil of Dekker and his
collaborators, on the other hand, complicates the issues addressed by
Phillip and Deloney^ and echoed in contemporary homilies, domestic
conduct-books, and domestic plays. While marriage based on choice
remains a fundamental issue in the 1599 play, the ethos of wifely patience
is only ambiguously upheld. In addition, the play explores more fully than
do its analogues the male-female/sovereign-subject hierarchies, relating
marriage to a broader framework encompassing the individual's ambiguous
relationship to social rank and authority. The play's complex treatment of
family and social conflict speaks directly to the tension within late sixteenth-
and early seventeenth-century society between the ideal of the family as a
mirror of the homogeneous Christian state, and growing instances of
domestic strife and doubt about the ability of secular authority, both in the
family and society, to reflect a divine order.

In an age when the middle class was rising economically and beginning to
intermarry with the aristocracy, it is not surprising that the Griselda legend
should be reformulated to include the sanction of a mamage of choice
between a sovereign and a subordinate. However, the major concern in the
Elizabethan versions is with the practice of domestic virtue in any marriage.
The subtitle of Phillip's play attests to the new schematic function of
Griselda's trials, whose puipose is to instruct the largely citizen audiences
in domestic decorum: The Commodye ofpacient and meeke Grissil I, Whearin

is declared, the good example, of her patience towardes her husband ^ The

writers strive for the appearance of an ordered world governed by married
love, reflecting the movement in the literature, theology, and social customs
of the period away from the monastic ideal of celibacy to the glorification
of marriage. As a number of social historians have shown, the new attitude
toward marriage was an effect of a number of complex factors, foremost of
which were the gradual disintegration of the feudal system of hierarchy and
mutual obligations and rights, and the transformation from a kin-oriented
to a nuclear family. The feudal kindred family and its attendant "communal
households," which consisted of "several related households sharing the
same hearth and the same board and cultivating . . . common fields," gave
way between 1500 and 1800 to smaller, more self-contained households
managed by members of a nuclear family and their sei-vants.^ By the early

202 / Renaissance and Reformation

seventeenth century, the family in England and continental Europe
assumed an important function in the promotion of social stability. The
family formed "an intimate framework" of social activity, and marriage
became the Protestant field of virtue.^ As early as 1497 Erasmus, in the
Encomium Matrimonii (published in 1518), extolled marriage as the original
sacrament on the basis that it preceded the Fall, and disclaimed the
monastic vow of celibacy because it contradicted the divine instruction to
procreate.^ Over a century later, Jeremy Taylor, echoing Erasmus, forcefully
argued that any "disparagement of marriage . . . scandal [ized] . . . religion,"
for "marriage was ordained by God, instituted in paradise, was the relief
of natural necessity and the first blessing from the Lord."^^ George
Puttenham, in his commentary on epithalamic poetry, described matrimony
as "the highest & holiest" of human bonds.^^ The theologian William
Perkins considered marriage "a state in itself far more excellent than the
condition of a single life," and warned that in order for marriage to be a
true "action of spirituall nature" it must be founded on "mutuall love and
agreement"^^ The importance of marriage based on mutual consent is
consistently praised in Spenser, whose Amoretti culminates in a marriage
of choice: "Sweet be the bands, the which true loue doth tye, / Without
constraynt or dread of any ill" (Sonnet \JXM)P In the same sonnet, we learn
that marriage should be ruled by

"simple truth and mutuall good will" and founded on "fayth" and
"spotlesse pleasure."

Between 1600 and 1650 a number of plays and treatises criticized the
feudal practice of arranged marriage. ^^ In George Wilkins' tragedy The
Miseries of Enforced Marriage (c. 1606) the protagonist's bigamy, his aban-
donment to a profligate life, and his first and chosen wife's suicide are
portrayed strictly as the tragic consequences of forced marriage. William
Scarborow, the young hero, articulates the didactic message of the play
when he foretells the tragic outcome of his guardian's coercion - "Fate, pity
me, because I am enforc'd: / For I have heard those matches have cost
blood, / Where love is once again begun, and then withstood."^ ^ The
sentiment is echoed in A Curtaine Lecture (c. 1637) by Thomas Hcywood
who passionately denounces marriages of convenience, singling them out
as a pernicious source of domestic conflict:

Renaissance et Réforme / 203

How often have forced contracts been made to add land to land, not
love to love? and to unite houses to houses, not hearts to hearts? which
hath beene the occasion that men hauc turned monsters (Sigs. F2-3)

Paradoxically, the growing trend toward marraige based on love coexisted
with widespread skepticism toward the conjugal bond as a source of earthly
joy and spiritual edification. The tension was rooted in the social fabric of
early modem England where the view of marriage as a holy union with
binding mutual obligations that included friendship and companionship
was challenged by numerous case histories of adultery, bigamy and
desertion of spouses, as well as more serious domestic crimes J^ A phenom-
enon corresponding to the growth of domestic violence was the proliferation
of domestic-conduct books and pamphlets proclaiming the sanctity of the
family unit and denouncing those who would bring dishonor to it. The
general consensus was that, while harmony should serve as a natural
solution for all marital disputes, wives were ultimately subject to the
authority of their husbands on the biblical grounds that the husband was
created in the likeness of God. A large body of literature also offered advice
to abusive husbands. Jeremy Taylor, for one, while preaching that a
husband must consider his wife "as himself and "must love her equally,"
noted that a "husband's power over his wife ... is not a power of coercion
but a power of advice" equal to "that government that wise men have over
those who are fit to be conducted by them."^^ The dictum that a wife's
fortitude and obedience are to be matched by her husband's wise and gentle
governance informs the secret betrothal scene in The Miseries of Enforced
Marriage, where the couple's vows are preceded by a list of mutual
responsibilities:

Scarborow. Their [wives'] veiy thoughts they cannot

term their own.
Maids, being once made wives, can nothing call
Rightly their own; they are their husbands' all

Clare. Men must be like the branch and bark of trees.
Which doth defend them from tempestuous rage.

If it appear to them they've stray 'd amiss,
They only must rebuke them with a kiss.

(p. 480)

204 / Renaissance and Reformation

The convention extolling the wife's patience within a turbulent marriage
also underwrites a group of domestic comedies performed in the public
theatres between 1599 and 1608^^ Among the most popular was Heywood's
How a Man May Choose a Good Wife From a Bad (c. 1601-02), in which the
abused Mistress Arthur is loyal to her prodigal husband even though he
prefers the company of a whore who orders him to poison his wife. The
wife's virtue is commended by the community, and the play ends with the
reformed prodigal's advice to would-be-husbands concerning the merits of
patient and self-effacing wives: "A good wife" will meekly "do her husband's
will"; a "bad wife" will be "cross, spiteful and madding."^^

The Elizabethan reformulations of the Griselda legend are concomitant
with the transformation of marriage and the family. The ideal of romantic
wedlock as "a school and exercise of virtuc"^^ is introduced into the legend
in Phillip's morality and is subsequently absorbed by Deloney's ballad.
Phillip begins to modify the folktale's allegorical structure by portraying
the traditional marriage debate between the Marquess and his subjects as
a psychomachia in which Gautier protests against Fidcnce and Reason who
are entreating him to marry. The Marquess bases his objections on St. Paul's
preference for the single life, and the scene builds on the debate between
virginity and marriage until the latter, which combines the practical
consideration of offspring with earthly joy, is accepted by the Marquess as
the preferable condition. Like his medieval counterparts, Gautier chooses
to marry Grissel for her virtue, but while he claims not to be "Venus
darlinge" he nonetheless admits to loving Grissel deeply: "from profound
hart, doth perfit loue procead" (line 664). Fidcnce and Reason, however,
must win over the Vice Politicke Perswasion before the marriage can be
accepted by society.

The Vice-figure, which is unique to Phillip's play, articulates social
opposition to the Marquess' choice of bride, thus altering the medieval fopos
that portrays public hostility to the marriage as merely an excuse invented
by the Marquess to justify to Griselda his testing of her virtue. In his role
as public messenger, the Vice has a powerful effect upon the Marquess,
who only reluctantly yields to the entreaty to test Grissel: "Oh crucll withes,
that cause my care, oh stonie harts of flint / Can ncuer teares nor dolfuU
paints, cause rigor for to stynt, / But that ye will procead to worke your
cursed will" (lines 1081-83). A significant development is the Marquess'

Renaissance et Réforme / 205

explanation to his wife of his intention concerning the tests: public pressure,
he confesses, makes them necessary (lines 1089-96), thereby deflecting the
audience's concern with the Marquess' own coercive conduct. Yet the Vice's
role also creates an awkward equivocation with respect to the Marquess'
motivation. Cyrus Hoy has noted the "psychologically ambiguous ground"
occupied by Politicke Perswasion: while the Vice "moves independently"
in this play, "represent[ing] a force in the world that gives credence to what
in Boccaccio and Chaucer have been but pretexts concerning voices in
society that grumble at Griselda's rise," in the context of the psychomachia
Politicke is also "the external voice of an inner evil, the overt manifestation
of all the Marquess' efforts to deceive himself with specious arguments for
Griselda's disgrace."^^ By stressing the Vice's public role, Phillip thus evades
the unsettling possibility that the Marquess' cruelty is an effect of personal
weakness which would undermine the conjugal ideal. The play does not
develop the interest in the realistic presentation of character, anticipating
Deloney's portrayal of the testing as merely the Marquess' conscious ploy
to win widespread support for the marriage.

Deloney's ballad moves rapidly to the courtship between the Marquess
and Grissel, dispensing altogether with the Marquess' initial doubts about
marriage. The romantic intrigue is brought into relief, and the emphasis is
as much on the Marquess' passion as it is on Grissel's virtue:

She sang most sweetly, with pleasant voice melodiously.
Which set the Lord's heart on fire.
The more he lookt, the more he might.
Beauty bred, his heart's delight.^^

While retaining the testing motif, Deloncy treats Grissel's trials essentially
as a means to prove her merits to the skeptics at court, the Marquess
expressing the hope that his cruel behaviour will make others pity Grissel
and "her foes . . . disgrace" (stanza 5). Upon the successful completion of
the tests, the ballad proceeds to celebrate the joy that patience and constancy
in marriage will bring.

Both Deloney and Phillip, then, downplay the Marquess' cruelty during
the tests. In both texts, characterization is subordinated to the critique of
unjust social practices and to the presentation of wifely patience as a means
of securing domestic harmony and social stability. The opposing voices
are quickly persuaded of Griselda's merits, and society is easily transformed
by the marriage which it celebrates.

206 / Renaissance and Reformation

Dekker, Chettle and Haughton, on the other hand, counterbalance the
romantic situation with the tensions surrounding the marriage, revealing a
greater interest in domestic strife and its effects on the Marquess and Grissil
as individuals. Although the main plot revolves around the theme of the
desirability of marriage based on choice, our attention is drawn to the
Marquess' violence against Grissil. One trajectory of the action affirms the
growing belief that a husband's coercive behaviour generally stemmed from
outmoded social values. The causal analysis, however, is presented with
considerable psychological poignancy, highlighting an issue which is only
implied by Phillip, namely the Marquess' personal need to humiliate his
wife. In the opening scene, a courtier reminds Gwalter of his feudal duty
to marry an equal in order to maintian political stability within the kingdom
(I.i.22-28).^^ But the Marquess, who has been pretending to scorn love and
marriage in order to deflect the court's suspicion, has secretly fallen in love
with a poor maiden whose grace and virtue evoke romantic sentiment in
him: "Me thinkes her beautie shinging through those weedes, / Seemes like
a bright starre in the sullen night" (I.ii. 174-75). Upon his introduction of
Grissil to the court, the Marquess publicly admits his romantic interest: "I
tell ye Lords, /. . . Beautie first made me loue, and vertue woe" (I.ii.251-55).
Shocked at Grissil's poverty, the courtiers become forceful opponents of the
union, openly deriding Gwalter's choice of bride and warning him that "the
world" will be shocked "when the trump of fame / Shall sound your high
birth with a beggers name" (Lii.279-80). The courtiers' persistent taunts
evoke in the Marquess feelings of anger, doubt and shame which contribute
to a sudden "burn[ing] ...desire" (I.ii.20) to mortify his wife. During his
coldhearted tests of Grissil's patience, we perceive a genuine internal
struggle, so that for the first time in the evolution of folktale the Marquess'
cruelty approaches psychological depth.^^ Sensitive to the public outciy,
the Marquess blames Grissil for his dishonor, bitterly regretting the joy he
has found in marriage: "(oh my soule) / Why didst thou builde this
mountaine of my shame, / Why lye my ioyes buried in Grissills name?"
(ILii.59-61). That Gwalter has internalized his opponents' hostility is
suggested by the operative phrase "mountaine of my shame" and by his
striking admission that his defense against public dishonor is a source of
personal anguish:

... oh my Grissill,
How dearely should I loue thcc.
Yea die to doe thee good, but that my subiects

Renaissance et Réforme / 207

Vpbraid me with thy birth, and call it base, —

(Il.ii.l 15-18)

Under profound emotional strain, the Marquess turns Grissil into an object
for the court's pleasure, hoping her sei-vility will impress her detractors:

Marq. [to the courtiers] ... I grieue

To see you grieue that I haue wrong'd my state.
By louing one whose basenes now I hate.

Enter Grissill with wine.
Come faster if you can, forbeare Mario,
Tis but her office: what shee does to mee.
She shall performe to any of you three.
(II.ii.133-38)

The strongly subjective nature of Grissil's trials is emphasized in the
climactic moment of the denouement when the Marquess admits, "My selfe
haue done most wrong, for I did try / To breake the temper of true
constancie" (V.ii.204-05).

Yet, while the audience is moved to sympathize with Gwalter's emotional
struggle, the scene builds in such a way that our pity is blocked by the
excessiveness of the Marquess' cmelty. The shifting dramatic perspective
attests to the tension at the heart of play between the dictates of literary and
social conventions on the one hand, and the disturbing presentation of
power on the other. The inordinate nature of the testing is first suggested
in a brief vignette depicting Gwalter's cruelty as a manifestation of a dark
inner impulse, its catalyst being not only repressive social claims and
temporary weakness but also the Marquess' brutal exploitation of his power.
Removed from the suspicious gaze of the courtiers, Grissil is shown
beseeching her husband to share with her the "burden of all sorrowcs"
(ILii.43), to which Gwalter responds with a spectacular insult: "I am not
beholding to your loue for this, / Woman I loue thee not, thine eyes to mine
/ Are eyes of Basiliskes, they murder me" (lines 45-47). Given the absence
of the courtly faction at this moment, we may well wonder why the Marquess
resorts to such degrading epithets, comparing his wife with a mythological
reptile that destroys with its gaze. As Grissil quietly acquiesces to her
husband's insults, Gwalter's abusive language gives way to sadistic behavi-
our:

Marq. Cast downc my glouc . . . ,

Stoope you for it, for I will haue you stoopc.

208 / Renaissance and Reformation

And kneele euen to the meanest groome I keepe.
Gris. Tis but my duetie: if youle haue me stoope,
Euen to your meanest groome my Lord ile stoope.

(II.ii.78-82)

Grissil is further commanded to tie an attendant's shoes, after which the
Marquess "rail[s] at her, spit[s] at her," and "burst[s] her heart with sorrow"
(lines 132-33). The bizarre nature of the testing at this point, and the extreme
humiliation to which Grissil submits, are underscored by their distinctive-
ness both in the development of the Griselda legend and in domestic drama.
The convention of the patient wife requires only the wife's quiescence, not
her grovelling in self-deprecating tasks. Even m A Yorkshire Tragedy (c. 1605)
where the Husband's madness reaches diabolical proportions and his
treatment of his wife and children is wild and morally reprehensible, the
Wife's patience is never tried in the same grotesque fashion as is Grissil's.
Indeed, the main plot of Patient Grissil metes out the rewards for patience
with a cynical excess of concession to the ethic of submission as an absolute
imperative of female virtue.

The dramatists' skepticism toward orthodox solutions to domestic conflict
is further suggested when Grissil steps out of her patient-wife role to contest
her husband's cruelty.^^ Grissil's rebellion clashes directly with the homi-
letic overtones of the testing, her bold criticism revealing that the funda-
mental problem underlying marital strife is the hierarchical structure of
marriage and society, which threatens the powerless. Upon being banished
from court, Grissil, in an uncharacteristic display of anger, bitteriy inveighs
against her husband's ruthless behavior, which conflicts with his public
duty to uphold justice: "Thus tyranny opprcscth innocence, / Thy lookes
seeme heauy, but thy heart is light, / For villaines laugh when wrong
oppresseth right" (IV.i.191-93). When the Marquess orders her to part from
her children, Grissil again lashes out against the status hierarchy which
sanctions injustice: "I must oh God I must, must is for Kings, / And loe
obedience, for loe vnderlings" (IV. ii. 142-43). Instances of Grissil's insubor-
dination continue into the denouement where she responds with both relief
and doubt to her husband's reformation:

Marq. Why stands my wronged Grissil thus amazed?
Gris. Joy fcarc, loue hate, hope doubts incompasse me.

(V.ii. 192-93)

Renaissance et Réforme / 209

Grissil's doubts notwithstanding, the comic resolution of the main plot
deflects the urgency of her outbursts, capitulating to the orthodox plea for
marital harmony and for society's acceptance of marriage based on choice.
Once the skeptics have been convinced of Grissil's merits, Gwalter rejoices
in the reunion with his wife, admitting that he too has learned the lesson
of forbearance as it applies to the marriage bond. While claiming that he
has been chiefly to blame for Grissil's humiliation, he also stresses that a
"multitude" of "many headed beastes" has treated his family "with bitter
wrongs" (V.ii.210-03).

The problem of dominance in marriage is more forcefully explored in
the two minor plots, both of which are new additions to the Griselda legend.
These plots scrutinize the issues underlying Grissil's outbursts, further
displacing the tale's allegorical frame. The longer of these plots, usually
considered the subplot, deals with the comical and unsuccessful efforts of
Sir Owen, a Welsh knight, to subdue his termagant wife Gwenthyan,
amounting to "a parody of the Marquess's tactics with the yielding
Grissil."^^ Other ironic parallels sustain the dramatic opposition between
the subplot and main plot: Gwenthyan's cruelty parodies her cousin
Gwalter's testing of Grissil, while Sir Owen's passivity parodies the topos of
the patient wife. The counteipoint is momentarily suspended by Gwen-
thyan's announcement that, just as the Marquess "has tryed GHssillJ' her
own shrewishness has merely tried Sir Owen (V.ii.262-63). Gwenthyan's
subsequent claim, however, that her tests of Sir Owen have taught her the
value of wifely subjection (lines 271-72) is contradicted by her sudden
warning to the women in the audience to resist their husband's authority:

Gwen. . . . awl you then that hauc husbands that you would pridle, set

your hands to Gwenthians pill, for tis not fid that pooie womens
should be kept alwaies vnder.

(V.ii.290-292)

Richard Levin, writing about the unevcnness of the play's multiple-plot
structure, is uneasy with the stmctural and thematic incongmitics it
generates: "the values of the folktale source of the main plot," he argues,
"dictate that Grissil's utter self-abnegation be treated as the wifely ideal,"
but the moral scheme "places Gwalter in an ambiguous position, for while
his persecution of Grissil ... is defined by the double structure as a gross
distortion of proper husbandly behavior at the opposite pole from Sir Owen,
the folk doctrine would have us accept it as the prerogative of his sex (and

210 / Renaissance and Reformation

rank)"; because the plots combine two polarities, "the comedy of the subplot
actually works at cross-purposes with the idealization of the main-plot
heroine, whose claim to perfection is undercut both by its reductio ad
absurdum in the henpecked Sir Owen and by Gwenthyan's spirited refusal
to emulate . . . Grissil."^^ The disjunctions created by the subplot, I propose,
do not constitute dramatic failure; rather, they confirm the dramatists'
awareness, already intimated in the main plot, of the impossibility of fully
assimilating the homiletic structure of the folktale with the play's realistic
impulses.

The parodie elements in the subplot are reinforced by the shorter plot,
which deals with the misogamy of the Marquess' sister Julia. After observing
the behavior of the married couples, Julia rejects marriage altogether,
preferring the freedom of maidenhood. Gwalter's assertion that "Patience
hath won the prize and now is blest" (V.ii.274) is undermined by Julia's
expectation that others besides herself are skeptical of the tidy resolution:

. . . amongst this company I tiaist there are some maydcn batchelers,
and virgin maydens, those that Hue in that freedome and loue it,
those that know the war of mariage and hate it, set their hands to my
bill, which is rather to dye a mayde and leade Apes in hell, then to
Hue a wife and be continually in hell.

(V.ii.278-83)

Julia is suspicious of the peace which has been won: marriage, she
concludes, is an ongoing war.

The tension in the 1599 play between the prcsci-vation of conventional
paradigms on the one hand, and the resistance to homiletic closure on the
other, reaches beyond the issue of sovereignty in marriage to the play's
treatment of authority in society at large. In its modifications of the Griselda
legend, the play treats the conjugal ideal as an extension of a broader
hierarchical power structure. The complication is merely implied during
those moments when we witness Grissil's surprising critique of the Mar-
quess' abuse of his role as both husband and sovereign; it is foregrounded
in the contrast between the Marquess and Grissil's father Janicola, who
serves throughout the play as a model of wisdom and Christian steadfast-
ness. Although Janicola's occupation as a basket-maker renders survival in
a money economy a hardship, his serenity and fortitude give succor both
to his children and to his apprentice: "thogh I am poore / My loue shall

Renaissance et Reforme / 21 1

not be so ... / the cheare is meane, / But be content" (I.ii.l51-55).2^ An ideal
father and master, Janicola rules his household gently and selflessly. An
Elizabethan or Jacobean audience would recognize that Janicola's role as
head of a household includes moral responsibilities that are similar to those
of his sovereign, who is ultimately accountable to God. Dekker, for one,
was fond of the analogy between sovereign and father: in Foure Birds of
Noahs Arke (1609) he writes that a ruler's moral obligation to his subjects,
like a father's to his children, is to guide and comfort them, and teach them
"brotherly affection one towards another,. . . in loyaltie to him that is their
Soveraigne."^^ In the same year King James declared that "Kings are . . .
compared to Fathers in families: for a King is trewly Parens patriae, the
politique father of his people";^^ and William Perkins defined the family
as the "first Societie" or "the Schoole, wherein are taught and learned the
principles of authoritie and subiection."^^ For Perkins, "the superiour" who
fails "in his charge, will prooue uncapable of publike imployment; so the
interiour, who is not framed to a course of economicall subiection, wil
hardly vndergoe the yoake of Ciuill obedience."^^ Janicola's frequent
speeches on the need to subdue conflict with steadfastness provide a litany
on the action, underscoring Gwalter's ruthless behaviour toward not only
his wife but his subjects as well. In a significant departure from his sources,
Dekker extends the Marquess' cruelty to Grissil's entire family: hoping to
appease the courtiers, Gwalter orders that Janicola and all the members of
his household, who have been brought to court with Grissil, be humiliated
and banished with her (III.i.69-100). The juxtaposition of Janicola (the wise,
temmperate father) and Gwalter (the impulsive, punishing mler) as char-
acters and as philosophical polarities is an abstract statement on the
necessity of benevolent authority, both in the home and in the kingdom.
In the denouement, Janicola's family is reunited at court once the Marquess
apppears to have learned the lesson of good rulership. Asked by the
Marquess whether he will sanction Grissil's marriage, Janicola laconically
replies, "I say but thus, / Great men are Gods, and they haue power ore vs"
(V.ii. 177-78), echoing King James' assertion that "Kings are iustly called
Gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of Diuine power vpon
earth."^^ Yet the dramatically orthodox resolution is attenuated by the
preceding action in which Janicola has remained essentially a morality-fig-
ure while the cruel Marquess has been a more plausible and psychologically
more fascinating character, marking the diminishing capacity of earthly
authority to imitate divine benevolence.

212 / Renaissance and Reformation

The 1599 play is the most innovative and complex of the Renaissance
versions of the Griselda legend. Before the legend died out toward the
middle of the seventeenth century, it became chiefly an instructional piece
in status-seeking and economic survival for women of the lower classes.
The 1619 chapbook, as its title suggests, presents the tale as a lessson in
expediency: "The / Ancient True and Admirable / History of / Patient
Grisel, / a Poore Mans Daughter in France: / Shewing / How Maides, By
Her Example, In Their Good Behaviour / May Marrie Rich Husbands; /
And Likewise Wives By Their Patience and Obedience / May Gaine Much
Glorie."^"^ In contrast to the bold wish-fulfillment expressed by the author
of the chapbook, the attempts by Dekker, Chettle and Haughton to grapple
with domestic and social conflict register a high degree of skepticism,
corroborating early modern England's increasing disenchantment with the
institutions it upheld.

Wilfrid Laurier University

Notes

1 The medieval adaptations of the Griselda stoiy are noted in W. F. Bryan and Germaine
Dempster, eds., Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (New York: Humanities
Press, 1958), pp. 288-331. All extant and lost analogues are cited in Cyrus Hoy, Introductions,
Notes, and Commentaries to texts in "Uie Dramatic Works ofTliomas Dekker' Edited By Fredson
5owm, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980), 1: 131-43. See also D. D. Griffith,
The Origin of the Griselda Story (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1931); and Leo
Saliknger, Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1974), pp. 39-41.

2 Harry Keyishian, "Griselda on the Elizabethan Stage: The Patient Grissil of Chettle, Dekker,
and Haughton," Studies in English Literature 16 (1976), 261. More recently, Larry S.
Champion, in Thomas Dekker and the Traditions of English Drama (New York: Peter Lang,
1985), p. 19, has cast the 1599 play in a slightly more favorable light, arguing that, although
Dekker "fails to provide motivation that is either adequate or consistent," the play's "comic
structure . . . appears firm." Catherine Belsey, in 77;^ Subject of Tragedy: Identity and
Difference in Renaissance Drama (London and New York: Melhuen, 1985), p. 171, while
claiming little originality for the 1599 play, concedes that Grissil's suffering "leaves the
audience to . . . ponder the question whether there is any proper limit to the silent endurance
of patriarchal tyranny," but does not pursue the insight.

3 Petrarch's letter is cited in Giovanni Boccaccio, 77;^ Decameron, trans, and ed. Mark Musa
and P. K. Bondanella (New York: Norton, 1977), p. 186.

4 Petrarch, p. 186.

5 Both Mary Leland Unni {Thomas Dekker: A Study [New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1911],
p. 59, n. 35) and Harold Jenkins {Tlie Life and Work of Henry Chettle [London: Sidgewick
& Jackson, 1934), p. 161) disclaimed the 1599 play's debt to Phillip. More recently, however,
Cyrus Hoy has suggested that "Phillip's play represents a stage in the development of the
Griselda story, specifically as concerns the Marquess' motivation, that ought not to be
overlooked, for it points the way that both . . . [Deloney's] Ballad and the play of 1599 will
take in their attempts to account for Griselda's treatment at the hands of her noble
husband" {Introductions. Notes, and Commentaries..., 1: 139). Although Hoy does not

Renaissance et Réforme / 213

analyze the Marquess' behavior in the context of Phillip's presentation of the ideal
marriage, I am indebted to his provocative discussion of the evolution of the testing motif.

6 John Phillip, The Play of Patient Grissel (London: The Malone Society Reprints, 1909).
Further references to the play will be to this edition.

7 Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon, 2 vols. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1961), 1: 130-31.

8 Keith Thomas, "Women and the Civil War Sects," in Crisis in Europe 1560-1660, ed. Trevor
Aston (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 317. Thomas notes that "great efforts
were made by the State and by local authorities to see that everybody was attached to a
household, and the government displayed a strong prejudice against bachelors and
masterless men" (p. 317). See also Lawrence Stone The Family, Sex and Marriage in England
1500-1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977), passim.

9 Erasmus, Encomium Matrimonii, in Emile V. Telle, Érasme de Rotterdam et le Septième
Sacrement (Genève: Droz, 1954), pp. 160-61.

10 Jeremy Taylor,^ Course of Sermons for AU the Sundays of the Year (1653), Sermon XVII:
"The Marriage Ring," Part I, in Jeremy Taylor: Tlie Whole Works, ed. Reginald Heber and
Charles P. Eden, 10 vols. (1850: rpt. Hildeshein and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970),
4: 209, 210.

11 George Puttenham, "The Maner of Reioysings at Manages and Weddings." in Edmund
Spenser: Epithalamion, ed. R. Beum (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1968), p. 53.

12 William Perkins, Christian CEconomy or, A Short Survey of the Right Manner of Erecting and
ordering a Family, according to the Scriptures (1609; London, 1618), 669.B and 671.C.

13 Edmund SptnsQx, Amoretti, in Spenser: Poetical Works, ed. J. C. Smith and E. De Selincourt
(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970), p. 573.

14 For a useful survey of the plays and treatises dealing with the topic of forced marriage,
see Glenn H. Blayney, "Enforcement of Marriage in English Drama (1600-1650),"
Philogical Quarterly 38 (1959), 459-72.

15 George Wilkins, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, in Robert Dodsley, /i Select Collection
of Old English Plays, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 14 vols. (London: Reeves and Turner, 1874-76), 9:
488. Further references to the play will be to this edition.

16 Catherine Belsey, in "Alice Arden's Crime," Renaissance Drama ns 13 (1982), 83, notes that
"crimes of violence," including domestic crimes, "were by no means uncommon" during
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Cf. Lawrence Stone, Tlie Family, Sex and
Marriage in England 1500-1800, p. 137; and Michael MacDonaM, Mystical Bedlam: Madness.
Anxiety and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1981), passim.

17 Taylor, Sermon XVIII: "The Marriage Ring," Part II, 4: 219-20.

18 The dramatic conventions of these comedies are noted in Michael Manheim, "The
Thematic Structure of Dekker's 2 Honest Wlwre," Studies in English Literature 5 (1965),
363-81; in Andrew Clark, Domestic Drama: A Survey of the Origins, Antecedents and Nature
of the Domestic Play in England. 1500-1640, 2 vols. (Salzburg: Universitât Salzburg, 1975),
2: ch. 7; and G. N. Rao, Vie Domestic Drama (Timpati: Sri Venkateswara Univ. Press,
[1978?!, ch. 1.

19 Thomas Heywood, How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, in Dodsley, A Select
Collection of Old English Plays, 9: 96.

20 Taylor, Sermon XVII, Part I, 4: 211.

21 Hoy, 1: 140-41.

22 Thomas Deloney, The Garland of Good-Will, ed. J. H. Dixon (London: The Percy Society,
1852) stanza 30. Further references to the ballad will be to this edition.

214 / Renaissance and Reformation

23 Thomas Dekker, Patient Grissil, in vol. 1 of Dramatic Works, ed. Fredson Bowers, 4 vols.
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1962). Further references to the play will be to this
edition.

24 In my assessment of the play's psychological overtones, I take issue with Cyrus Hoy, for
whom the urge to test Grissil "seems to have sprung full blown from the head of the
Marquess" and is "not occasioned by any felt need to win for her the hearts of his people"
(1: 141). Cf Harry Keyishian, who argues that "Gwalter's decision to test his wife is
motivated by no external circumstances" ("Griselda on the Elizabethan Stage," p. 255),

25 Commentators generally overlook Grissil's feisty moments. Champion complains, "Never
once does Grissil . . . openly resist her husband's actions or covertly establish the slightest
hint of a private level of awareness with the spectators" (Thomas Dekker and the Traditions
of English Drama, p. 19); cf. Belsey: "Grissil does not utter a word of protest" {The Subject
of Tragedy, p. 170).

26 Hoy: 1: 143.

27 Richard Levin, The Multiple Plot in English Renaissance Drama (Chicago and London: Univ.
of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 50.

28 One authorial detail which is widely accepted is that Dekker alone seems to have been
responsible for those sections depicting poverty and human suffering, as they are
characteristic of Dekker's pamphlets and later plays. See Hunt, Tliomas Dekker, pp. 15-16;
and Hoy, 1: 143-46.

29 Thomas DQ\±eT, Foure Birds of Noahs Arke, ed. F. P. Wilson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1924),
pp. 124-25.

30 "A Speach to the Lords and Commons of the Parliament at White-Hall," in Tlie Political
Works of King James I, ed. Charies H. Mcllwain (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1918),
p. 307.

31 Perkins, Christian Œconomy, Qq5.

32 Perkins, Qq5.

33 The Political Works of King James I, p. 307.

34 Cited in Hoy, 1:133.

The Epic Narrator in Milton's Paradise
Regained

MERRILEE CUNNINGHAM

Although, of all non-dramatic poetry, epic can most allow its characters
their own voices in orations, meditations and dialogues, epic is still not
drama. Unlike a playwright, an epic poet keeps secondary speakers under
the direct control of a narrator who places his poem in historical epic
context and guides the reader's view of his characters' values, not only
through interpolated dialogue and monologue, but also through his own
direct control of the narrative. Unlike dialogue, however, an epic poem,
even a brief epic, presents a story in which different characters assume
major roles as observers, supplicants, lamentrosa, chorus, protagonist,
heralds, antagonists, songsters, victims, guides, eirons, alazons, nuntii,
heroes, and antiheroes. Since a poem is not played on a stage, the narrator
must fix the historic import of the work as well as describe the setting, the
characters, and the time of season or day. We can see only words, nor
personifications of these words on the stage. We are told what to think about
each character and each event more directly than a play could tell us.

Thus the epic poem is more directive and didactic than the stage because
the reader's point of view is controlled by the narrator. As Anne D. Ferry
explains.

We cannot simply respond to the characters directly because in the poem
without the aid of the inspired narrator we could neither see nor hear
them; it is his vision which determines ours and we listen only to what
he recites for us ... we can understand that world only as it is interpreted
to us by the narrator. What would appear to us true without his guidance
often turns out in reality to be false, and what is acted out in the poem
must always be explained by the speaker. So that when we find
complexity in our response to the behavior or speech of a character to
the statement of the narrator which interprets it, we must judge the

Rcnaisance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 2 (1989) 215

216 / Renaissance and Reformation

character by the interpretation, not the interpretation by the character's
words or acts.^

According to Ferry, when a correction to a character's speech is necessary,
the narrator plays an active role. Any literary gesture that attracts attention
to itself implies the narrator; a series of such gestures is the narrator's
attitude.^ When the narrator holds these entrances to a minimum, he is
directing attention away from himself and towards his characters. He does,
however, make such gestures to give continuity to his poem and to increase
the import of the poem's actions. He maintains continuity and provides
intensification in two ways.^ First, he makes explicit statements concerning
the relationship of episodes. Implicitly, he achieves continuity by modu-
lating the narrative tone and attitude. Although the intensity of tone rises
and falls in any narration, the modulation of the narrator's voice fluctuates
to a lesser extent than that excited by the characters. The narrator corrects
the tone, and thus sets up a continuum that allows for the return to a calmer
voice after epic agon.

A character can partially replace the verbal functions of a narrator, of
course. There are several ways to accomplish this, and all such methods
make narrative more dramatic. One is to minimize the narrator's dramatic
role and have him assume the roles of the characters and speak for them,
as Aristole praises Homer for doing. Odysseus takes control of the narrative
throughout Books IX, X, and XII of The Odyssey; likewise, Aeneas tells his
story to Dido's court in Books I and II of TJie Aeneid In both cases, the
character who most controls the narrative is the hero. The more a character
controls the poem, the more likely we are directed to admire his virtues, to
sympathize with him, and to see him as a "better than average man." As
one can see by noting the tables in the Appendix of this article, the Son
progressively takes control of Paradise Regained.^

In any epic, the narrator is needed more in the beginning to set the poem
in motion. Immediately following the invocation, however, Milton, in good
Aristotelian fashion, lets his characters take over the narrator's function of
introducing: Satan's oration introduces the Father's; the angelic hymn
introduces the Son's meditation which allows for a multiplicity of feeling
the debate cannot Didactic comment such as that found in the debate is
expressed in a language of statement where allusiveness and the evocation
of a multiplicity of conflicting feelings are avoided.^ This is exactly the Son's
role in debate. Thus, if the narrator spoke in the debate, he would
unnecessarily repeat the tenor of the Son's speech. The corrections of the

Renaissance et Réforme / 217

narrator are useful as narrative contrast to the doubts and fears of the Son
in meditation, but are unnecessary in the longer debate. Indeed, the figure
of the narrator seems to recede and grow smaller until we are barely
conscious of him, and thus the poet allows our sympathies with the Son to
grow. Then the narrator returns to conclude the poem.

The characters, as well as the narrator, form new wholes by connecting
events. While the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, and
fragmentary, a hero, god, or narrator can connect meaning and events.^
Unlike Milton's earlier epic. Paradise Regained does not repeatedly call
attention to the identity of the narrator's voice except in the invocation.^
There is a humility, a self-effacing quality, about the narrator of Milton's
brief epic, for his hero,even more than Odysseus and Aeneas, can be trusted
to control the poem and the Son, more than any classical hero, does control
it»

As H.W. Legget suggests: "It is indeed true that the reader identifies

himself with the author . . . rather than the characters"; however, when the
narrator largely removes himself, as Milton's narrator does in Books III
and IV of Paradise Regained, the reader does take on some of the same
sympathies which that observer would have during the play.^ The reader
is forced to reestablish his system of identification in favour of the hero to
an even greater extent than he would if the narrator had remained in more
obvious control of his characters. The result in a poem that takes Christ
for its hero is a meditative pattern that becomes more and more centered
upon the Son as he moves from doubt to declaration.

There is a thematic as well as structural reason for the narrator's removal
of self in Paradise Regained. He, like the hero, is practising a meditative
lesson in self-removal. The devices the narrator usually uses to intensify
formality by reminding the reader of the poet's artistry are largely missing
in Paradise Regained. When the hero takes on the authoritative language of
statement, begins to control the evaluative commentary, and concentrates
almost uninterruptedly on dialectic, the narrator is not needed to complete
an extended transition to another place, another character, or another
time.^^ When the main character is less reliable, like Adam in Paradise Lost,
then the narrator is forced to remain conspicuous as a corrector to both the
ironic voice and the low mimetic hero.^^ Homer's narrator has to enter the
poem to provide a corrective when the hero Achilles mistreats Hector's
body.^^ No such entrance is necessary in Paradise Regained, since the hero

218 / Renaissance and Reformation

is the Son of God. Milton thus illustrates that the Son is "above heroic"
(1.15); by allowing him to function that way in narrative.

The higher the mimesis, in short, the less the narrator is necessary to
control the poem; the lower the mimesis, the more control the narrator must
exert ^^ It is difficult for a poem to have a central figure more morally
trustworthy than the Son as he joins his will to God's. Thus, like the drama,
the poem responds to the increasingly high mimetic quality of the main
character as he moves from interrogative meditation to declarative debate.
The higher the mimesis, the less the narrator is needed to control the poem's
moral perspective. The central character simply does not need to be
corrected by Book III. The narrator need not condemn Satan, since the Son
is perfect in the debate sequence and able to comment directly upon Satan's
ironic voice:

I never lik'd thy talk, thy offer less —

Get the behind me; plain thou now appear'st

That Evil one; Satan for ever damn'd.

(IV. 171-194)

Time and time again, the narrator bows to the superior corrector as the Son
explains and corrects the ironic statement and adds to the complexity of
our response (IV. 285-326 and IV. 486-498).i5

Milton illustrates the Son's journey toward understanding not only by
allowing him to take over the narrator's role as corrector and moral
moderator, but also by restricting the changes of character, the variety of
interpolated narrative strategies, and the movements of time and space in
the final sequence. Even earlier, when the debate begins, the narrator takes
a more modest role: his normal tasks of stagesetting, describing time and
place, correcting the ironic point of view, summarizing emblematic tales,
and emphasizing ritualistic description are largely given over to his
characters. ^^ While the Son clarifies meaning and corrects the ironic point
of view, Satan describes the time and place, summarizes events, and
observes characters:

Look once more ere we leave this specular Mount
Westward, much nearer to Southwest, behold
Where on the Aegean shore a City stands . . .
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony in tone and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various measur'd verse,
Aeolian charms and Dorian Lyric Odes,

Renaissance et Réforme / 219

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung.

Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call'd,

Whose Poem Phoebus challeng'd his own.^^ (IV. 236-260)

There is another structural reason for the narrator's self-removal in the
dialogue: dialogue occurs because the narrator's third voice is absent.
Breaks and changes in either the scene or interpolated device generally
imply the narrator, but when those breaks follow long segments of extended
dialogue such as the debate in Paradise Regained, the narrator has moved
our identification with him onto one of the characters, as in a play.

A poet can begin a structural change in several ways. When the deific
oration is concluded, the narrator, rather than self-consciously taking over
the narrative for an extended time, uses the angelic chorus to make the
transition (I. 173-181). When Satan finishes a temptation, the Son provides
a rebuttal. ^^ Very seldom in the poem are we reading the story so much as
listening to it. Exploits are not being directly narrated, but interpolated
words are the foreground action. Nonetheless, change of narrative device,
even from the deific oration to angelic chorus, does necessitate some brief
entry by the narrator:

So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven
Admiring stood a space, then into Hymns,
Burst forth, and in Celestial measure mov'd
Circling the Throne and Singing, while the hand
Sung with the voice, and this the argument (I. 168-172)

However, as the poem begins to use the dialogue as the main narrative
device, the narrator, time after time, limits his entrances to one line
beginning with "To whom" and then identifying the speaker: (I. 335-336;
I. 357; I. 406; III. 43; III. 108; HI. 121; III. 181. 203; III. 386; IV. 109; IV. 154;
IV. 170; IV. 195).

Early in the poem, the narrator does correct the ironic voice. Immediately
after the council of demons, Milton uses the narrator to reinterpret Satan's
speech:

So to the Coast of Jordan he directs
His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles.
Where he might likeliest find his new-declar'd.
This man of men, attested Son of God,
Temptation and all guile on him to try,
So to subvert whom he suspected rais'd

220 / Renaissance and Reformation

To end his Reign on Earth so long enjoy'd:

But contrary unweeting he fulfiU'd

The purpos'd Counsel pre*ordain'd and fixt

Of the most High, who, in full frequence bright

Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake.(I. 119-129)

However, these lines function more as a transition between the demonic
and deific voice than as a corrective. Milton thus moves Satan to the place
where the Son is and introduces God. There is almost no interpretation in
this speech. Rather, the entrance of the narrator functions to set the stage
of the next three interpolations: the Father's oration, the Son's meditation,
and the first temptation. The kind of corrective that the Son will make even
in his first answer to Satan is more direct:

Think'st thou such force in Bread? is it not written

(For I discern thee other than thou seem'st)

Man lives not by Bread only, but each word

Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed

Our Father here with Manna? In the Mount

Moses was forty days, nor eat nor drank

And forty days Eliah without food

Wander'd this barren waste; the same I now:

Why dost thou then suggesting to me distrust.

Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art? (I. 347-356)

Since this is the Son's first corrective, it must not be as declarative as the
later ones, yet we see the movement of the Son towards the Father's
declarative tone. The speech is filled with questioning that is as close to the
meditation it immediately follows as it is to the later answers of the Son.
Nonetheless, it is more direct than the narrator's interpretations. The Son
has begun to assume his role as the corrector of Satan.

Even a self-effacing narrator uses certain devices to control the poem's
rise and fall and to imply the importance of the heroic exploits. These
generally include epic conventions such as invocations, epic similes, formal
proemiums, catalogues, epithets, repetition of formulaic reviews, and descrip-
tions of ritual action. Critics agree that some of these elements, such as
invocations and epic similes, are comparatively rare in the poem. Nonethe-
less, Milton often uses the less obvious and less ornate conventions of
narrative intensification. The demands of narrative force themselves on the
poet, once he decides to present the story as an epic rather than as a play.^^
As we shall see, the blind seer meets those demands in a less ornate fashion

Renaissance et Réforme / 221

than he did in the greater epic; nonetheless, the demands are met. The
methods Milton uses in creating this insistence reveal much about the poem.

The sparsity of epic simile has been noticed.^^ The heavy use of epic
simile by any narrator implies omniscient narration and a great deal of
direct control by the narrator. The epic simile used repeatedly in dialogue
or in any delegated narration would militate against the more limited
observations of the restricted voice.^^ The reduced use of epic simile would
suggest a deliberately more restricted role for the narrator.

The narrator so limits his role in Paradise Regained that one might think
of Milton, like the Son, as attempting "an ordeal of absolute obedience and
complete trust" in his removal of self ^^ Although the brevity of description
in the poem has been attributed to its Hebraic style, such brevity also
suggests a more modest role for the narrator as well as a generic necessity
in the brief epic. However, despite his limited role, the narrator must
generally, though not exclusively, describe the regions of supernatural
wonder where demonic and deific forces conflict, and from which the hero
comes back with the power to bestow boons on mankind.^^ Through the
meditations, the hero takes over the telling of separation and departures -
such as those at the Temple, the flight into Egypt, the journey into the desert
- as well as moments of return. In Paradise Regained, the hero must also set
the scene for the passage into the realm of night. Thus regions of the
unknown - such as deserts, forests, and wilderness - are described by the
narrator, and then these regions, perfect fields for the projection of
unconscious content, are used by the narrator either to reflect or to oppose
the internal state of the Son.^"* Before the Son's first meditation, the narrator
describes the setting. Like the fearful thoughts the Son vocalizes in
meditation, the setting is fraught with danger:

One day forth walk'd alone, the Spirit leading

And his deep thoughts, the better to converse

With solitude, till far from track of men,

Thought following thought, and step by step led on.

He entr'd now the bordering Desert wild.

And with dark shades and rocks environ 'd round,

His holy Meditations thus pursu'd.25(I. 189-195)

At later points in the poem, however, the narrator opposes the setting to
the Son's internal state (IV. 401-412). By then, the narrator is illustrating
how the Son can now oppose the Satanic manipulation of nature and still
have an "untroubled mind" (IV. 401).

222 / Renaissance and Reformation

Although the narrator occasionally describes the setting, he rarely uses
the catalogue descriptions for which he gained such fame in Paradise Lost
and which further the sense of trial. Indeed, the catalogues are scarce, and,
as in Paradise Lost, are often used to describe the world under the control
of demonic forces.

In epic poetry, the most important entries of the narrator are the
invocations. Milton's poem opens with the conventional statement of story
and theme, but there is only one formal invocation in Paradise Regained.
Twice in the poem Milton calls attention to the identity of the narrator's
voice, but only once, in the formal invocation in Book I, does he explain
the relationship of his two epics and relate the importance of the events of
the brief epic to human existence:

I who erewhile the happy Garden sung.

By one man's disobedience lost, now sing

Recover'd Paradise to all mankind.

By one man's firm obedience fully tried

Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd

In his wiles, defeated and repuls't.

And Eden rais'd in the waste Wilderness.

Thou Spirit who led'st this glorious Eremite

Into the Desert, his Victorious Field

Against the Spiritual Foe, and brought'st him thence

By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire.

As thou art wont, my prompted Song, all else mute.

And bear through height or depth of nature's bounds

With prosperous wind full summ'd to tell of deeds

Above Heroic, though in secret done.

And unrecorded left through many an Age,

Worthy t' have not remain'd so long unsung. (I. 1-17)

The dominant devices in the invocation are repetition of phases and the
telling of ritualistic tales. The second book opens without formal invocation,
but Milton does suggest the presence of the narrator (II. 1-12). Indeed, the
poet continues with simile and rhetoric of the sort he will allow Satan in
Books II and IV (II. 13-27). The narrator's entrance at the opening of Book
II not only provides transition from the temptation of stones to the
meditation of the disciples, but also functions to intensify the importance
of the Son's quest. Any epic introduction creates and defines the narrator.
There are no invocations to Books III and IV because such an entrance by

Renaissance et Réforme / 223

a self-conscious narrator would interrupt the debate and the extended
meditation on the Son.^^

While the Son's meditations always signify a division between major
temptation sequences, the opening of a new book illustrates only minor
divisions. Thus the brief epic pulls against its own structure in an interesting
fashion. We come to expect the Son's temptation after his meditation and
thus his meditation becomes, in our minds, preparation for heroic psychic
battle. The introduction to the third book is so brief that at first one wonders
why Books II and III were divided at that point While the end of the
second book is a retort by the Son to Satan, the third book commences in
a brief transition between the Son's reply to the temptation to wealth and
Satan's commencement of the first temptation to glory and fame:

So spake the Son of God, and Satan stood

A while as mute confounded what to say.

What to reply, confuted and convinc't

Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;

At length collecting all his Serpent wiles.

With soothing words renew'd, him thus accost (II. 1-6)

These words separate the temptation of wealth and Judah's throne from the
temptation to glory and fame; these two temptations of the world are hardly
major divisions, but only two segments of the long temptation.^^

The opening of Book IV functions to divide the temptation of Parthia
from the temptation of Rome. The beginning of Book IV is different from
those of other books: although there is no invocation, the language of the
narrator emphasizes this opening section far more than that of Book II (See
rv. 1-24). The famous "wine-press" simile occurs in the first twenty lines.^^
The narrator repeats in brief (IV. 4-6) the emblem story of the Jordan that
he first told in the invocation to Book I. He uses the simile of the
overmatched wrestler (IV. 10-14) to characterize Satan as a Marlovian
"Overreacher." Indeed, the narrator must provide a lengthy opening of Book
IV because there is a change of scene to the "high mountain" where Satan
will show Rome to the Son (IV. 25-43). Here the narrator returns to his
special language, but only in a limited manner.-^^

The longest intrusions of the narrator follow the meditations. The reason
for this becomes apparent on studying the patterns of contrasting narrative
strategies in the poem. The didactic quality of the narrator's language of
statement is a useful contrast to the fears and doubts that the Son faces in
the self-interrogating meditations. When the Son, early in the poem, uses

224 / Renaissance and Reformation

the interrogative, the entry of the narrator is necessary to return the poem
to the descriptive and then the declarative.^^

Where Milton uses the Father for contrast, a narrator's lengthy introduc-
tion of the Son's following interpolation is unnecessary. The Father's
language of declaration already presents a contrast to the Son's self-inter-
rogation. The Father, like the narrator and the Son in debate, avoids the
allusiveness and the evocation of a multiplicity of conflicting feeling that
characterize both the human and the demonic perspectives. Thus the
narrator's didactic, declarative answers would unnecessarily repeat the tenor
of the Son's role in the debate,although they are useful contrasts to the
doubts and fears of the Son in meditation.

Immediately following the first meditation (1. 196-293), the narrator enters
to intensify the importance of the Son's fearful journey by noting that no
other mortal has walked this road (See I. 294-318). At the same time, he
illustrates that man, even an inspired narrator, cannot know exactly where
the Son is: "whether on hill ... or Cedar ... or harbor'd in one Cave, is
not reveal'd." Finally, as another intensification of the Son's dangerous
position, the narrator introduces the fierce, dangerous beasts that surround
the Son yet do not harm him. The narrator associates the physical danger
that the presence of these beasts suggests with Satan's entrance. Throughout
Paradise Regained, he introduces Satan's entrances through the alliteration
of "w's": "wild . . . walking . . .walk . . . worm . . . weed . . . which . . . wither's
. . . winters . . . wild . . . warm . . . wet" (1.310-318). After the narrator uses
eleven such words in nine lines, he completely abandons the use of "w's"
in his speech. He introduces Satan and at first also avoids any such usage,
only to remind us who the arch-fiend is by the sound patterns that the
antagonist uses when he says ". . . for wee sometimes / Who dwell this wild,
constrain'd by want come forth; (I. 330-331; italics mine). In Satan's
preceding speech to the demons, the only alliterative patterns were in the
lines "Nor force, but well couched fraud, well woven snares" and "M^ill waft
me; and the way found prosperous once ..." (I. 104 and 97; italics mine).
In Paradise Regained, Milton allows his narrator to use alliterative sound
patterns that he generally associates with Satan's speech to foreshadow and
connect what is naturally separated by interpolation.

Like the first meditation, the second (II. 245-295) is also followed by a
lengthy entry of the narrator. Probably most famous for its much-discussed
pun on "ravenous," this section parallels the ravens' mission to nourish
Elijah with the Son's mission to nourish man before beginning the

Renaissance et Réforme / 225

comparison of Elijah and the Son. The allusion to the bringers and receivers
of food unites the temptation of stones that has just ended to the banquet
temptation that is about to begin.-^^ Like the ravens, the Son must abstain
from food that could be had for eating (see IL 260-297). Like Christ, the
ravens are bearers of that which will rejuvenate man, but, like them, he
himself cannot eat that food, although he hungers. Then the focus of the
understood simile changes. The Son seeks a vision of the prophet Elijah,
to whom the ravens bring food. Like the Son, Elijah is dreaming under a
tree: "The Son . . . laid him down / Under the hospitable covert nigh of
Trees" (IL 260-263), and "The Prophet ... fled / Into the Desert . . . there
he slept / Under a Juniper; then how awake / He found his supper . . . "(IL
270-274). Unlike the dream during the storm, this dream of the Son's is
calm, but there is an immediate danger. The Son has dreamed first of Elijah
and then of himself being presented food by the angel. Like Elijah, the Son
will be awakened and offered food, but not, as the dream suggests, by God's
messenger. Elijah is awakened and offered food by the ravens; the Son will
awaken and be offered food by the fallen archangel Satan.

However, there is a qualification to the dream of eating. The Son's dream
emphasizes with whom he eats. In the dream, ravens bring food to Elijah
(II. 267) and the angels bid the Son to "rise and Eat" (II. 274). His company
at such a repast was hardly demonic: "Sometimes that with Elijah he
partook / Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse" (II. 277-278). The careful
reader understands through the symbolism of the dream that, although the
Son hungers, his equal concern is who brings the food, the angels, God's
messengers, or Satan, and who joins his repast, Daniel, Elijah, or Satan.

Milton's narrator uses the language of analogy, which is usually rich in
similes comparing the world of literature and experience, but as in his telling
of the story of the ravens, he often presents potential analogies as discon-
nected statement. Until the final lines, he uses the language of statement
more often than the language of analogy. Nonetheless, he uses this language
of statement as analogy that the reader must actively interpret. The reader
is thus forced ever so carefully to make parallels or not, as Satan's
multitudinous false analogies illustrate the dangers of the incorrect paral-
leling of two dissimilar events.^^

In the language of statement, references to concrete facts are made without
the explanation of potential parallels to be drawn. The ravens who brought
food to Elijah did not eat that food, although they could have. Elijah
received food from God's true messengers and ate. The spiritual meanings

226 / Renaissance and Reformation

and potential analogies are not drawn by a self-consciously literary narrator
through literal epic simile, but the potential meaning is presented by a
modest language of parallel through the levels of exegesis and through
moving the parallel from the ravens to Elijah. An epic simile traditionally
gives us a sense of the enormous battle, the size and strength of the hero
and the antihero, the importance of the trial or struggle. The narrator's
telling of the story of Elijah does the same, for it is understood analogy at
its most dangerous to the unobservant reader.^^

Thus the narrator illuminates, to the capacity of the fallen reader's mind
to understand, the connection between what happens in one interpolation
and what happens in another. The narrator intensifies meaning as well as
the respect the reader has for the hero and the heroic quest. Through parallel
devices, whether literal similes or implied parallels, the narrator connects
time, past and present, and place. In similes the narrator claims his
relationship to a wealth of tradition.^"* When the hero of the poem is to
deny the non-Hebraic aspects of that tradition, the narrator must do so too.

Since the Fall, the reader and all men corrupted by that fall need a guide
to correct even a reading of a poem. Traditionally, unless the reader remains
sensitive to the corrective role of the narrator's voice, that reader is in danger
of misinterpreting the ironic and declarative meaning. As Ferry notes,
Milton uses many epic stylistic devices in Paradise Lost to lessen the
narrator's role because the reader is less fallen and the hero is that reader's
trustworthy saviour.

This imitation of the Son is part of the seventeenth-century meditative
tradition. What better method of imitation of Christ could there be than
this concentration of the Son and denial of the eminence of the narrator.
As the narrator gives over larger and larger sections of his poem to Christ,
in interpolated concentration he is literally imitating Christ, just as the Son
at the end of Book IV imitates the style of the Father's oration in Book I.

In Paradise Regained, there is no interesting probability in expectation;
we do not especially wonder what happens next, but we do care. Thus the
virtuosity of the narrator does not serve this end. The more we are concerned
with the successful outcome of the heroic quest, the more the narrator must
self-consciously prove that virtuosity. Milton demonstrates that this virtu-
osity does not have to illustrate itself in obvious narrative control, although
it may appear in interpolative construction.

The abbreviated, modest use of the narrator and his traditional devices
implies a view of man. That view is meditative and self- regulatory through

Renaissance et Réforme / 227

concentration on the ideal and removal of self toward that ideal. As A.P.
Woodhouse suggests, Paradise Regained is "a dialogue set in a framework
of narrative."35 This is true only because the narrator regulates his entrances
and conforms to a pattern of control more self-effacing than usual. The
same motive that inspires the epic also threatens it here: the sense that the
great literature of the past, even Milton's own earlier epic contribution,
conveys only a partial, limited, hence fallen and misleading evaluation of
man's fate.

University of Houston (Downtown)

Notes

1 FcTTy, Milton's Epic Voice (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1%3), p. 14.

2 Goodman, Vie Structure of Literature (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 119.

3 Once a dialectic begins in Paradise Regained, the hero gives continuity. Nonetheless, even
then every interpretation of time and space, whether by describing an empty stage or a
speechless character before or after a narrative interpolation, strongly implies the narrator
and takes us into the underlying narrative structure.

4 See Tables in the Appendix. The edition of the poems used is John Milton, Complete Poems
and Major Prose, ed. Merrit Y. Hughes (New York: Odyssey, 1957).

Goodman, in Structure, p. 158, uses "The Solitary Reaper" as his example of this second
method, lyrical narrative. The poet can also expand the narrator's dramatic role to allow
his fears, thoughts, and memories dramatic inclusion as a counterbalance to the prota-
gonist's closeness in voice of the epic hero and the narrator. Likewise, one might compare
Dante's movement through JTie Divine Comedy and certain structural movements in
Paradise Regained in terms of the narrator's meditative, self-regulatory concentration on
the ideal and removal of self toward that ideal.

5 Didactic comment such as that found in the debate is expressed in a language of statement
where allusiveness and evocation of a multiplicity of conflicting feelings are avoided (Ferry,
p. 65). Ferry is not the only useful critic to consider here. Roger H. Sundell has made a
great contribution to Milton studies in his excellent article "The Narrator As Interpreter
in Paradise Regained," Milton Studies, II (1970), 83-101. 1 owe much to his article.

6 Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Princeton, N J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968),
p. 14.

7 There is, however, a single use of "I" in Book II. This is as much as Homer uses to introduce
his narrator in The Odyssey: "At the time when I begin . . ." Book I of The Iliad opens no
more self- consciously: "An angry man - There is my story." See W.H.D. Rouse, trans..
The Odyssey (New York: The New American Library, 1937); W.H.D. Rouse, trans.. The Iliad
(New York: The New American Library, 1983).

8 The demands on the narrator decrease the more the poet follows Aristotle's dictum that
the characters disclose themselves. Thus it is easy to see how Stein could suggest that
Paradise Regained is a "morality play," and this is the main thesis of his entire study.
Lewalski's brilliant rebuttal can hardly be bettered here.

9 H.W. Legget, The Idea of Fiction, p. 188. Legget's use of the word 'author' here is troubling.

10 See Tables in Appendix.

1 1 There is, however, the temptation of the Kingdoms where Satan moves the Son to the
mountainside. As in 77»^ Hiad and The Aenied, Milton uses dawn and the fall of night to
suggest opening and closing of scenes. Homer uses the personification of Dawn to open

228 / Renaissance and Reformation

Books XI and XII of 37»^ Uiad; Virgil uses Dawn in Book II of 77i^ Aeneid as a device to
change the place of action as well as the characters from the dead Pallas's father to Aeneas.
Milton, likewise, uses dawn and the coming of darkness as transitions between interpola-
tions, generally temptation and meditation.

12 Frye's scheme of high and low mimesis is a bit simplistic in a poem where the hero grows
into a high mimetic figure. See Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1957), pp. 82-84, 214-215.

13 Rouse, ed. The Uiad, Bk 22, p. 263. The Angels as well as the narrator perform many
corrective roles \n Paradise Lost. They are not allowed this function in brief epic, however.

14 The more an epic concentrates on the life of the hero, the more he is able to control the
poem.

15 Intellect cannot rejuvenate the spirit in Milton's poetry. Later, in his speech, the Son
denies the Greek philosophies by pitting them against the Hebraic scriptures.

16 Under most conditions there is a physical limit to the amount of experience that one man
can have. The biological limitations are the memory of the past, the understanding of the
future, the basic limits of time and space. Evolution in thought and feeling can, however,
be expressed in a biological or historical sequence. By the end oî Paradise Regained, there
is a physical limit to the experience of the Son, and the laws of limited understanding of
human narration no longer apply. Any new scene or movement of the time and space
involves a new partial beginning, and Milton must use the narrator's changes of time and
space to draw the curtain on one temptation and open it on the next.

17 If the Son takes over certain roles from the narrator, he also changes his interrogatory
tone of the meditations to the declarative. Ferry refers to "the language of statement" as
the language of the narrator (Ferry, p. 116). This is also the language of the Son in the
dialectic and the Father in the oration. Traditionally, the narrator invokes the authority
of the divine light which his poem reflects. "Thou Spirit who leds't this glorious Eremite
..." (I. 8) opens the invocation. The narrator invokes the aid of the Holy Spirit who led
Jesus into the wilderness. The understood analogy is between the narrator and the prophet
who went into the wilderness, but the protagonist is also about to venture into such a
desert. The analogy ties the narrator and the protagonist to the same literary allusion in
Book I. Likewise, the Son evokes the authority of divine mission: "The authority which I
deriv'd from Heaven" (I. 289). The language of statement which the narrator uses in the
opening of the poem is replaced first by God and then progressively by the Son.

18 Interestingly enough, there is one reply by the Son which takes on Satan's flowery Ovidian
rhetoric, only to parody and deny it (IV. 112- 153). There is the final answer to the
temptation to learning, and the Son returns to the calmer, clearer, simpler language that
epitomizes his rhetoric and that is more trustworthy discourse. A study of the progressive
changes in the Son's speeches reveals a linguistic movement that follows the pattern of
intellectual development.

19 Ferry, p. 20.

20 Daiches, Milton (1957; New York: Norton, 1966), pp. 216-248.

21 Green, The Descent from Heaven (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1963), p. 50.

22 Woodhouse, "Theme and Pattern in Paradise Regained,"' UTQ, 25 (1956), 173. The phase in
his. This would hardly be the first time that Milton has illustrated an ordeal of obedience
and self-removal. In his sonnet "On His Blindness," the speaker moves from the self-
centered world of "I" "my" "My" "me" "My" "I" to the sestet's "God" "His" "His" "Him"
"His" "His." See Ferry's similar study of Eve.

23 Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, p. 30.

24 Campbell, Hero, p. 76.

Renaissance et Réforme / 229

25 Perhaps the best argument that this journey in the desert is both a literal and an
epistemological quest is found in this very line: "Thought following thought, and step by
step led one" (1. 192).

26 Catalogues such as those found in Paradise Lost and The Aeneid (Book VII) do occur,
particularly in the temptation of the Kingdoms. Verbal repetition and formulaic review,
however, are more frequent

27 Throughout Paradise Regained, the narrator uses a subtler tone of humility. He does,
however, use oreated language in the opening of the second book, and the style of this
section is not unlike the higher style of Paradise Lost. The narrator uses the musings of
Simon and Andrew to insert the Old Testament matter on the disappearance of prophets
as possible parallel to the Son's leaving his disciples.

28 The longer introductions correspond to the two books (Books I and II) in which the Son's
narration is largely absent. There is no epic introduction to Book IV.

29 See Lewalski's excellent study of the iconographie significance of this simile: Milton's Brief
Epic (Providence: Brown Univ. Press, 1966), Chap. 4.

30 The introductions to the poem do create and identify for the epic voice as well as establish
relationships among the narrator, his characters, and the reader. All the main characters
go through a recreation of roles since they are characters of the greater epic. Satan has
changed drastically; the Son appears to have changed. The Father remains the same.

31 See Tables in Appendix.

32 For the first time, but not the last, the narrative associates the meditation (II. 266-269) with
the dream (II. 260-282).

33 For the student of debate, argument from analogy is a form of false argumentation. The
language of statement is used in the didactic to comment on the narrative or to draw
abstract judgments. Whenever the language of analogy appears, it represents our fallen
world. As Ferry notes, "Metaphor is needed only after the fall to reunite the fragments of
truth" (p. 116).

34 Only in the final section of the poem does the narrator briefly return to such drawn, open
analogy, and such a return reunites us with our fallen world, where truth is fragmented
and analogy required.

35 Ferry, p. 68.

36 Woodhouse, 'Theme and Pattern in Paradise Regained,'' p. 168.

230 / Renaissance and Reformation

Appendix

TABLES SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF INTERPOLATION
IN PARADISE REGAINED

Book I

Satan 44-105 61 lines

God the Father 130-167 37 lines

Angelic Hymn 172-181 7 lines

Son-(Mary)-Son 195-293 93 lines

Dialogue between Son and Satan .320-496 169 lines

Total Number of Interpolated Lines:

Total Number of Lines:

Percentage of Interpolated Narration:

Book II

Andrew and Simon 30-57

Maiy 66-105

Satanic Oration 121-146

Satan and Belial Dialogue 153-234

Son's Meditation 245-249

Dialogue between Satan and Son:

Satan 302-316

Son 317-318

Satan 319-321

Son 321-322

Satan 322-336

Satan 368-377

Son 379-391

Satan 393-401

Satan 416-431

Son 433-486

Total Number of Interpolated Lines:

Total Number of Lines:

Percentage of Interpolated Narration:

273

502

54-1/2%

28 lines

40 lines

25 lines

81 lines

15 lines

15 lines

2 lines

3 lines

1 lines

14 lines

10 lines

13 lines

9 lines

26 lines

54 lines

336

486

69%

Renaissance et Réforme / 231

Book III

Satan 7-42 36 lines

Son 44-107 64 lines

Satan 109-121 13 lines

Son 123-144 22 lines

Satan 150-180 31 lines

Son 182-202 21 lines

Satan 214-150 47 lines

Satan 267-309 43 line

Satan 347-385 39 lines

Son 387-440 53 lines

Total Number of Interpolated Lines:

Total Number of Lines:

Percentage of Interpolated Narration:

369

443

83%

Book IV

Satan 44-108 65 lines

Son 110-153 44 lines

Satan 155-169 15 lines

Son 171-194 24 lines

Satan 196-284 88 lines

Son 286-364 78 lines

Satan 368-393 26 lines

Satan 451-483 33 lines

Son 486-498 13 lines

Satan 500-540 41 lines

Satan 551-559 9 lines

Son 560-561 2 lines

Angels to Son 596-617 22 lines

Angels to Satan 618-632 15 lines

Angels to Son 633-635 3 lines

Total Number of Interpolated Lines:

Total Number of Lines:

Percentage of Interpolated Narration:

496
639

79%

232 / Renaissance and Reformation

Paradise Regained

Total Number of Lines: 2,070

Total Numbers of Inteq^olated Lines in Poem: 1,477

Percentage of Interpolated Narration: 71%

Comparison of Interpolated Narration in the Epic

The Odyssey: 16%

Paradise Lost: 20%

Paradise Regained: 71%

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

Leonard Barkan. The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of
Paganism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. 398 $30.00.

Although this study takes the idea of corporeal transfomiation as its principal
subject, Barkan's investigation is focused on the work that stands "as the clear
point of entrance"(l) into the topic, Ovid's Metamorphoses. He offers an illumi-
nating reading of this paradigmatic text and then proceeds to explore the way
it - as a metonym for classical culture - was received, imitated, and transformed
by theologians, philosophers, poets, and artists in the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. As he asserts when he relates this book to his earlier study of the
body in Western culture {Nature's Work of Art: Tlie Human Body as Image of the
World (19751), the figure of coiporeality remains relatively stable and its
intellectual history can be divided into reasonably tidy categories, whereas
metamorphosis, by its veiy nature, defies such easy compartmentalization.
Barkan despairs of being able to contain its protean form within the boundaries
of a scholarly historical study, but he has, nevertheless, managed to impose a
structure on its shifting shapes. The book is thus organized by a reading of three
central authors (Ovid, Dante, Shakespeare - with some attention to Petrarch,
Ronsard, and Spenser), and an analysis of two principal artists (Titian and
Coreggio); intercalated between periods, the transition from classical to medieval
and from medieval to Renaissance culture.

This book is exemplary both in the emdition of its scholarship and in the
scope and range of its critical insight. That it encompasses the French, Italian,
and English traditions as well as the visual material makes it especially valuable
and its appeal particularly broad. Barkan's ability to move from interpretations
of individual texts or paintings to a historical analysis of Ovid's reception
enriches both aspects of the book, and his account of mctamoiphosis in the
Middle Ages is outstanding for its learning and lucidity. His reading of the
Metamorphoses provides suggestive interpretations of several tales through his
integration of anthropological perspectives; he argues that the rape of Europa
(and by extension other narrative cognates) can be understood as a myth about
the threshold of confrontation with an alien culture (Phoenicia to Crete).
Metamorphosis becomes a figure for exogamy and all that it stands for the
initiation into sexuality, the discoveiy of passionate emotion, the first experience
of the otherness of a foreign land. The discussions of ritual, whether as rite of
passage or propitiation of the gods, introduces fresh understandings of the elastic
and fluid relationship between divinity and humanity and between humanity
and bestiality. His analysis of the Lycaon myth (which treats the various

234 / Renaissance and Reformation

transgressions of these categories) culminates in a meditation on cannibalism,
a theme that re-surfaces at various crucial moments in the book, perhaps because
the essence of the alimentary, like erotic desire, is to effect change, and both
signify the inevitable conjunction between power and impotence. Cannibalism
is, he asserts, "the ultimate extension of metamorphosis and its ultimate
crime''(92), for it literalizes the concept of bodily transfonnation as incorporation,
an understanding that Tereus achieves belatedly and to his horror only after he
has ingested his son, Itys. That the reader of the poem cannot escape being
implicated in the terrible consequences of these cannibalistic episodes is insured
by Pythagoras' charge in Book XV that meat-eaters are cannibals, on the one
hand, and that we are all victims of cannibalism, on the other, since time devours
and transforms all things.

Barkan is equally instinctive in his analyses of how metamorphosis operates
textually, claiming persuasively that metaphor functions as a proleptic, linguistic
version of corporeal transfonnation. The poem's language continually antici-
pates its narrative, or, as he puts it, "the business of metamorphosis, then, is to
make flesh of metaphor"(23). There is often a psychological logic to the changes
that bodies undergo in Ovid's poem, as, for instance, when the grieving Hecuba
is transformed into a dog. The poem both describes this process and enacts it,
weaving into the language images of savageiy and inarticulateness that find their
appropriate external embodiment in the canine form. Metamorphosis is, then,
a complex mixture of change and identity, of violent alteration and the physical
realization of a psychic state, and Barkan's comments on specular reflection, a
prevalent motif in the poem, are particularly illuminating. But while he grapples
with the shifting relationship between identity and transfonnation, he sometimes
retreats from Ovid's radical relativity, suggesting that the poem provides a moral
prescription for avoiding metamorphosis, which, in the poem's central books,
involves proper distance between lovers. He reads the transfonnations of
Narcissus, Myrrha, Byblis, Hermaphroditus, Philomela and others as violations
of this ethic, since they involve incest, self-love, or homosexuality (all endoga-
mous relations), and, while the argument for exogamy which subtends this
prescription is a fascinating and persuasive one (particularly in his analysis of
the Philomela myth), it accounts neither for the capricious justice in the poem
nor for the plight of the powerless, often female victim (who cannot choose her
ravisher). The gravitational pull towards the moral is symptomatic of a pervasive
desire to locate stability in the Ovidian wodd of flux; this leads Barkan to
privilege elements that transcend the mctamorphic economy, most notably the
realm of the aesthetic.

Although The Gods Made Flesh is an undeniably important and monumental
addition to Ovidian studies and to our understanding of the classical legacy in
the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the book never seems completely to reconcile
itself to its central philosophical and methodological division: the recognition
on the one hand of the immensity and fluidity of its subject, and on the other

Renaissance et Réforme / 235

its desire to schematize change and definitively explain the mechanism of
metamorphosis. The potential force of its insights is somewhat constrained by
the absence of a theoretical framework that would make fuller sense of
metamorphosis as a rhetorical idea and allow Barkan to discuss the way
transformation is thematized as intertextuality both in Ovid and his imitators.
His interest in ekphrasis, as the intersection between the visual and the verbal,
and in the petrifying power of the Gorgon's head as an image of rhetoric, provide
a natural entry into the subject, but he does not integrate recent theoretical work
on either of these subjects, nor does he make explicit the connection between
Medusa and language. These are puzzling omissions, especially since some of
the groundwork has already been laid, both in intertextual studies of Renaissance
literature, in feminist criticism, and in Richard Lanham's persuasive reading of
Ovid in Jlie Motives of Eloquence: Liteiwy Rhetoric in the Renaissance (1976).
Lanham argued that Western metaphysics can be separated into two dominant
modes of thought: the serious and the rhetorical, the serious mode championed
by Plato, who relies on the idea of a central, fixed self, while Ovid, as defender
of the rhetorical mode, denies the possibility of such stability. Where Plato seeks
a transcendent referent beyond the linguistic, Ovid's poetiy - lucid, ambiguous,
and self- referential - provides the only sanctions he requires. This interpreta-
tion of Ovid pushes the thesis of Brooks Otis' seminal study, Ovid as an Epic Poet
to its revelatory conclusion, allowing us to understand, for instance, Ovid's
parodie recapitulation of the Aeneid in the last three books of the Metamorphoses
as a subversion of epic and the Augustan and Virgilian conceptions of history
on which it depends. Barkan seems to want to move in this direction (he suggests
in an endnote that Ovid is the ideal subject for intertextual study, since he lived
in an age dominated by the Virgilian acstlietic), but he never pursues the
implications of his often brilliant and always learned insights. He continually
searches for a still point in these transformations, and rather than exploring the
dynamic interaction between texts, artists, or the human and the divine, he
implicitly relies on the identity of the artist, the stability of the work of art, the
immanence of divinity, or the static structure of the cosmos as categories that
resist change. Despite his professed interest in metamorphosis, he is still
hampered by a legacy of intellectual histoiy as encyclopedic, cumulative, and
teleological, and although frequently on the verge of radical perception, his
emphasis is finally more on the product (aesthetic artifact) than the process.

For example, although Barkan notes that virtually all of the myths in the
Metamorphoses existed long before Ovid's time, he docs not capitalize on the idea
that the Ovidian conception of authorship is necessarily a metamorphic one;
that is, Ovid did not invent tales, but rather conflated, expanded, and generally
transformed received mythic narratives. Thus Barkan takes the Metamorphoses
as an unproblematic point of origin, and tiiis leads him to elide the competitive,
intertextual, and parodie nature of the poem. The metamorphic quality of the
text lies not just in its subject, then, but in its aesthetic, and it is not accidental

236 / Renaissance and Reformation

that many of the tales are concerned with artistic competition. In a revealing
analysis of the Arachne-Minerva weaving contest, he discusses Minerva's
tapestiy as dominated by images of stasis and divine justice, whereas Arachne
weaves a mirror of Ovid's own text, imaging tales of transformation that flow
seamlessly from one to the other in a narrative structure that continually
transgresses and subverts hierarchical order. Barkan then turns to an artistic
depiction of the weaving contest as it is figured in Diego Velasquez's Las
Hilanderas, and in an illuminating discussion, he demonstrates how the three
planes of the painting interact with one another. He identifies the tapestry in
the background as Velasquez's rendering of Titian's Rape of Europa, then in the
Spanish royal collection. Barkan's reads this "visual quotation" as homage to
Titian, the great master of metamorphic subjects. But surely given the reference
to the contest, in which artistic identity itself depends upon the outcome of the
competition, we must see the allusion to Titian, especially given the Bloomian
critical legacy of the anxiety of influence, as more complicated than a painterly
tribute.

Barkan seems to be on the verge of recognizing here and elsewhere the
genuinely metamorphic relationship between artists (or poets) and their prede-
cessors, but his tentativeness about the politics of intertextuality means that his
interpretations often stop precisely when they are becoming most interesting.
This is especially apparent in the sections on Petrarch and Spenser, which are
disappointingly schematic, but the final chapter on Shakespeare brings the book
to a powerful conclusion. It opens with a provocative reading of Titus Andronicus,
TJie Rape of Lucrèce and Cymbeline that integrates the earlier analyses of
Philomela and tapestries in a discussion of the thematics of reading. Although
similar in some respects to Jonathan Goldberg's treatment of these texts in Voice
Terminal Echo: Postmodernism and Renaissance English Texts (1986), Barkan's
analysis culminates in an acute meditation on reading as voyeurism, a fitting
theoretical transformation in this histoiy of erotic and textual metamorphosis.

ELIZABETH D. HARVEY, University of Western Ontario

Luciano Cheles. The Sludiolo of Urbino: An Iconographie Investigation. Uni-
versity Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986. Pp. 194. Pis. 8;
Figs. 109. $42.50.

Luciano Cheles has devoted a monographic study of two of the most fascinating
private rooms of the Italian Renaissance, the studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale in
Urbino, and its no less elegant counteipart in Gubbio. The book was published
simultaneously in the United States and in Germany. It is based on the author's
postgraduate thesis and some articles listed in the bibliography, and had in part

Renaissance et Réforme / 237

been lavishly published in FMR (Franco Maria Ricci). It is well printed and
illustrated, and includes a bibliography and an index.

Both studiolo were designed for Federigo da Montefeltre, both share the fate
of having been dismantled in later years. In Urbino, the intarsia decoration and
some of the painted portraits remain, the others being in the collection of the
Louvre; the intarsia panels of the Gubbio studiolo are now in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York, while paintings, believed to come from this room, are in
London; those in Berlin perished during the war.

In contrast to other studiolo of the Renaissance, like that of Isabella d'Este in
Mantua or that of her brother Alfonso I in Ferrara, the physical set-up of the
Urbino and Gubbio rooms can be more easily reconstructed and have been so
in the past P. Rotondi's reconstiuction of the original installation of the paintings
has been accepted by Cheles. The reconstnictions of the Gubbio studiolo as
proposed by Clough, however, have been rejected without providing an alterna-
tive suggestion. As far as the author is concerned, the Oration might be the only
known painting connected with the Gubbio studiolo while the allegories of the
liberal arts (London and formerly Berlin) might be unrelated to this room. The
double portrait of Federigo and Guidobaldo, once considered to have been part
of the Urbino studiolo, is now believed not to have been part of the decoration
of this room.

Discussing first the physical setting of the Urbino and Gubbio studioli, the
investigation shifts to the portraits of famous men and then to the intarsia panels
that cover the lower part of the walls of each of these rooms. A brief discussion
of the ceiling in Urbino is followed by the conclusion and two appendices listing
the inscriptions underneath the portraits (unfortunately given in lower case
instead of in upper case letters) and the text on the books of these famous men.

Professor Cheles' focus of inquiiy is the question of whether the arrangement
of the portraits of the famous men and the various displays in the perspective
setting of the intarsia panels is arbitraiy or was dictated by a carefully designed
scheme. He believes that there exist several layers of references: liberal arts,
theological and cardinal virtues, muses, etc. He stresses the often-personal
allusions, be they manifested in the selection of individual famous men or puns
on the Duke's name. The author is unquestionably right in assuming that the
decoration of a studiolo is not something arbitraiy. The difficulty in deciphering
the meaning of the decoration rests partially in the fact that the modem
researcher is looking for clear-cut categories, while Renaissance patrons had -
at times - no scruples about keeping the lines of distinction as fluid as possible.
The various re-arrangements of the paintings in the studiolo of Isabella d'Este,
which each time implied a new reading of the old painting, may serve as a
warning example.

Parts of Mr. Cheles arguments are convincing, other remain speculative, as
he himself states very clearly. But this ambiguity does not invalidate the main
arguments that there does indeed exist meaning where previously none was seen.

238 / Renaissance and Reformation

or at least none in a comprehensive way. But then, as William Heckscher in his
admirable interpretation of the Erasmus portrait by Holbein has pointed out,
"in historical research any watertight argument is eo ipso suspect."

The Studiolo of Urbino will be the basis from which further research will
proceed. It is hoped that at such a moment also the Gubbio studiolo will receive
the discussion it deserves.

EGON VERHEYEN, George Mason University

Elizabeth Wirth Marvick. Louis XIII: The Making of a King. New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. xx, 278, illus. $31.50.

"I wish and command you to whip him evciy time he is stubborn or does
something bad . . . there is nothing in the world that will do him more good,"
wrote King Henry IV to the Dauphin's governess in November 1607. Henry had
recommended and practised such stern discipline since the Dauphin was
18-months old (p. 30). At times, however, Hcniy displayed a different sentiment
towards his first son by Marie de Medici. On 26 June 1606, Henry and Louis
went into the governess' "little bedroom, where the king went to bed and had
his son put in a night shirt to play there with him 'in a veiy familiar way' " (p.
42). The love-hate relationship between Louis and his father, Elizabeth Marvick
argues, created conflicts within the Dauphin's psyche. During his youth these
conflicts made Louis feel alternately important and inferior. It was only when
he ordered, in April 1617, the assassination of his mother's favoured counselor,
Concino Concini, the maréchal d'Ancre, that he found a means of striking out
at both his late father and, after Hcniy's own murder, the paternal authority
represented by the maréchal. With this act, Maivick suggests, Louis realized his
autonomy and overcame the shadow of his great and gallant fcither. Rid of this
encumbrance, Louis assumed an active, often ruthless role in the management
of his kingdom, tempered only by his occasional need to depend upon his prime
minister or a handful of favourites for support.

Delving into a monarch's mind, especially during his or her formative years,
is a fascinating and instructive enterprise, often beyond historical reconstruction.
Marvick, however, has been able to exploit a valuable source - the diary kept
by Louis's physician, Jean Héroard, recording the events and developments of
Louis's first 26 years. The rather egocentric Héroard came to be the Dauphin's
physician via a circuitous route. Having studied medicine at Montpellier in the
1570s, Héroard took up the equine anatomy and wrote a text entitled the
"Hippostéologie" (1579), commissioned by Charles IX, which was to be part of
a treatise on "the veterinaiy art." Later, Héroard developed political ambitions,
successfully cultivated the Queen's favour and became a court physician. His
meticulously kept diary seems to have been the "laboratoiy notebook" for his

Renaissance et Réforme / 239

work on the rearing and education of princes. L'institution du prince (1609). While
this diary is invaluable for a psychoanalytic study of Louis, it has significant
limitations. First, the sections of the diaiy accounting for Louis's first 40 months
have been lost Héroard's nephew, however, produced an abridgement of the
diary, eHminating many of the "details on Louis's bodily treatment and
processes" (p. xvii), which partially fills this lacuna. The evidenfiary difficulty,
though certainly not fatal, forces the reader to wonder what might be absent
from the abridgement, especially in light of MaiA'ick's painstaking interpretation
of Louis's growth through the oral, anal and genital stages of childhood between
1601 and 1604.

Second, Marvick's dependence on Héroard's diaiy obliges her to question her
observer's reliability, credentials and biases to a greater degree than she has. For
instance, the reader learns early in the book that "during the first two years of
Louis's life, Héroard was omnipresent" (p. 15). Clearly, the knowledge that
Héroard constantly obsei-ved Louis in the months following his birth is
significant to the psycho-biographer, who requires a detailed account of these
formative stages. Yet, it is evident that Héroard was not all that vigilant in his
observation of the infant: after a second wet-nurse arrived to care for three-
month old Louis in late December 1601, Héroard promptly departed for a
six-week holiday (p. 13). There is no account of how the child received the new
wet-nurse, except for the report that Louis was found to be "veiy cheerful" upon
Héroard's return. Furthennorc, one wonders what motivated Héroard to produce
this collection of highly detailed obsei-vations of the Dauphin. Was it sheer
curiosity derived from his own veterinary and medical training? Was it a desire
of this favour-seeker to make himself invaluable at court by becoming an expert
on the raising of royal offspring? Or was it that Héroard was primarily interested
in writing a book about the training of princes? This last motive might help to
explain why, after the publication oî L'Institution du prince, Héroard's account is
plagued with "incompleteness" (p. 144) and is "fragmentary" (p. 159). Finally,
although Marvick notes that Héroard rccopicd, edited and skipped pages in his
diary, she does not fully explore either the reasons for, or significance of, any ex
post facto emendations. In sum, Maivick trusts Héroard to ha\'e been an
"objective" reporter, but she needs to state more explicitly - by means of a
thorough assessment of motivations and character - what might (or might not)
have shaped the doctor's perceptions.

Marvick's approach has also succumbed to other pitfalls that have entrapped
psycho-biographers. In a recently published collection of articles {Psycho/History,
edited by Geoffrey Cocks and Travis L. Crosby, New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1987), several authors discuss the benefits and difficulties of this kind of
historical analysis. To Mai-vick's credit, she has not fashioned a study replete
with technical jargon, a prevalent flaw. Maivick shares, however, the common
weakness of inteipreting an historical psychological condition by comparison
to a single modem case histoiy. While such analogies are suggestive, too strict

240 / Renaissance and RefoiTnation

parallelism tries the reader's methodological patience. Without the careful
correlation of factors in both the historical and modem cases, as well as the
corroboration of additional modem cases, relying on single studies is not
convincing. Furthermore, Marvick has failed to merge her detailed analysis of
Louis's first eight years (Chapters 1-6) with her summary studies of either the
period between Henry's death and d'Ancre's assassination (Chapters 7-14) or
the bulk of Lx)uis's adult life (Chapter 15). Marvick suggests that Louis's infant
sexual exhibitionism, his early sexual experiences, his regard for les siens, and
the development of various love-hate relationships with his father, his sister
Elizabeth and others reveal aspects of Louis's character that help to explain his
later behaviour. Yet she rarely refers to her psychological analysis of Louis's
childhood in her brief account of the mature monarch's actions and decisions.

One of the most significant contributions that psycho-biography can make to
historical studies is to uncover an actor's character and hidden motives. In every
case, however, the results of such psychoanalysis must be firmly situated within
the historical context and not regarded as the sole, or necessarily chief, reason
for any given act or event Faced with Maivick's argument that Louis mthlessly
chose to assassinate d'Ancre to free himself from paternal dominance, the reader
wonders what other personal and political motives and circumstances (the recent
rebellion of the aristocracy, perhaps) contributed to the King's decision. Louis's
mlership concerns may have complemented or transcended his psychological
motives. In any case, Maivick needs to place her psychological insights more
fully within the broader political, social, intellectual and economic context in
order to discover the important interaction between the individual and events.

Despite these drawbacks, this intriguing look at the early years of Louis XIII
is worth reading. In addition to presenting Hcroard's detailed obseivations and
correlating these with recent psychoanalytic findings, the book encourages
scholars to consider how to construct psycho-biographies, to overcome the
difficulties inherent in the task and to adopt methodological measures to ensure
that an historical character's psychological motivations and the development of
his or her behaviour find their descived place in history.

DAVID M. BESSEN, Ohio Noiihem University

Dino Compagni's Chronicle of Florence, translated, annotated and with an
introduction by Daniel Bornstcin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1986. Pp. xxviii, 110.

This English edition of Dino Compagni's Chronicle of Florence provides the
English-speaking worid with one of the most important primary sources for the
political and cultural histoiy of late thirteenth- and eariy fourteenth-century
Florence. Completed in 1312 by an obseiver and participant in many of the

Renaissance et Réforme / 241

events portrayed in the work, the Chronicle focuses on the fascinating but
conflict-ridden political histoiy of Florence between 1280 and 1312. Because the
Chronicle also describes many of the events that figure highly in Dante's
Commedia and conveys a veiy strong moral vision, it will be extremely useful in
history and literature courses on both the undergraduate and graduate level. The
superb translation is accompanied by a very good introduction, a helpful set of
notes, three maps, an index of modern authors, and a general index.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Florence was one of the most
prosperous and economically advanced cities in Europe. In the course of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the city developed into a major banking and
industrial center. As several powerful Florentines families became the bankers
of the papacy, the merchants of the wool guild (the Lana) and the guild of
finishers of imported cloth (the Calimala) transformed the city into a major
producer of high-quality cloth. Employing thousands of workers in a variety of
tasks ranging from the washing and carding of the raw wool to the actual dyeing
and finishing of the final product, the industiy made Florence a major economic
super-power by the end of the thirteenth centuiy.

At the height of its prosperity, the city was also the centre of a vibrant cultural
life. Florentines excelled in painting, architecture, historical writing, and poetry.
While Giotto was revolutionizing the art of painting, Dante was first turning his
pen to paper. As Arnolfo di Cambio was supeivising the construcfion of new
public monuments such as the Palazzo Communale, the chroniclers Giovanni
Villani and Dino Compagni were setting down for posterity their accounts of
Florentine life and histoiy during this period. However, the story they told
contained a central paradox: just as the city was enjoying unrivalled economic
prosperity, it was experiencing a period of political turbulence and violent
factionalism. A recent study of the four decades between 1260 and 1300 (Sergio
Raveggi et al, Ghibellini, Guelfi. e PopoJo Grasso, Florence, 1978) has demonstrated
that the political developments in the second half of the thirteenth century
represented a successful attempt by those holding economic power to achieve
political domination as well (p. xiv).

Greatly disturbed by this heritage of bloody political strife in his native city,
Dino Compagni attempted in his Chronicle to explain its causes by exploring its
origins. As a participant in most of the events described in the work and a
partisan of the White cause, Dino incorporated into his Chronicle his own
political and moral vision. The stoiy Dino told is a veiy sad and complicated
one. As Daniel Bomstein obscives in his introduction, "Dino saw the course of
Florentine history as a series of fractures: each time order was established in the
city, the ruling group broke into two factions, one of which triumphed over the
other and then split in its turn" (p. xxiv).

The events surveyed by the chronicler concentrate on the thiity-year period
between 1280 and 1312. In order to provide the context for a discussion of those
events, however, Dino reached back in Book One to 1215, when the first

242 / Renaissance and Reformation

"fracture" occurred. On that date, a member of the pro-imperial Uberti family
murdered a member of the Buondelmonte family, leading to the emergence of
the Guelf and Ghibelline factions within the feudal elite. In the course of the
thirteenth century, a new group of non-noble notaries, merchants, and land-
holders (the popolo) rose to prominence to challenge the political supremacy of
the old divided elite. Establishing an alliance with the Guelfs, the popolo
expelled the Ghibellines in 1250 and mled supreme in Florence for ten years (a
period called by historians the Prima Popolo). In 1260 the Ghibellines returned
to power for the next six years, having defeated the Guelfs at Montaperti. After
the defeat of the Ghibelline cause at the Battle of Beneventum in 1266, the Guelfs
regained power in the city and never again lost it to their enemies. In 1280 the
papacy attempted to reconcile the Guelfs and Ghibellines, but the pact proved
to be unworkable. The Sicilian Vespers in 1282 lessened French influence in
Italy and weakened Guelf hegemony in Florence, thereby strengthening the
power of the popolo. Taking advantage of this political opening, the popolo created
a new political institution known as the Prioratc, composed of members of the
urban guilds.

The second "fracture" explored by Dino occurred between 1293 and 1295,
when the Guelf elite itself split into different camps over the passage of the
Ordinances of Justice, aimed at limiting the power of the Guelf magnates (the
Guelf feudal nobility and recently ennobled banking families). In 1295 the
magnates engineered the expulsion of the leader of the anti-magnate faction in
1295, Giano della Bella (who was also Dino's patron). Dominating the city for
five years, the Guelf magnates themselves split into opposing Black and White
factions in 1300 (the third "fracture"), led by Corso Donati and Vieri dei Cerchi,
respectively. By 1301 the Blacks had succeeded in exiling the Whites and then
promptly divided into two groups themselves. This last "fracture" pitted Corso
Donati against Rosso della Tosa, culminating in Corso's death in 1307. Dino's
account ends with the optimistic hope that the German emperor would deliver
his native city from the Blacks and repatriate the Whites.

Very few Florentines were in a better position to record and examine critically
the events of that time than Dino Compagni. A prosperous merchant and
member of the silk guild, he was directly involved in the establishment of the
Priorate in 1282 and even sei-ved as a prior in 1289 and 1301. In 1293 he was the
Standard-bearer of Justice. A supporter of Giano della Bella, he saw his political
fortunes decline after Giano's exile in 1295. Although Dino returned to public
life in 1300 and attempted to maintain peace between the Blacks and Whites,
he sided with the Whites himself (as did his contemporaiy Dante). With the
expulsion of the Whites in 1301, he had to retire from political life but pinned
his hopes for a rehabilitation of the White cause on the campaign of Henry VII
in Italy after 1310. After he saw his hopes dashed when the emperor suddenly
died in southern Tuscany, Dino continued to live in Florence until his death in
1324.

Renaissance et Réforme / 243

What makes Dino's Chronicle so fascinating is the critical method and the
moral vision he brought to his interpretation of the events covered in the work-
Concerned by this heritage of factional strife within the Florentine elite, Dino
looked into the hearts of men to find the cause of such conflict. Believing that
the sources of those struggles were pride, ambition, and greed, Dino enlivened
his narrative with vivid portraits of the principal players (Corso Donati, Rosso
della Tosa, Henry VII, and even himselO- The setting in which the conflicting
ambitions of the leading families clashed was the competition for offices. In an
eloquent passage which sei-ves as the thematic core of the work, Dino wrote:
"May its citizens then weep for themselves and for their children, since by their
pride and ill will and competition for office they have undone so noble a city,
and abused its laws and sold off in a moment the honors which their ancestors
had acquired with great effort over many years" (p. 6). In the midst of the growing
tensions in 1301 was Dino himself, "a good and intelligent man" (p. 11),
struggling in vain to forge a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Daniel Bomstein's translation is vciy lucid, readable, and coherent The
introduction and notes lead the reader deftly through the confusing maze of late
thirteenth-century Florentine politics, but they unfortunately do not provide the
reader with much of a flavour for the rich historiographical debate in the last
century regarding the events described in the Chronicle. Giovanni Villani, Dino's
contemporary and a chronicler himself, also dcsei-ves more attention than he
receives in the introduction. The three maps are a superb addition to the text,
but the place names on the map of fourteenth ccntuiy Florence (p. xvii) are very
difficult to read. All in all, however, this translation of the Chronicle is an
extremely valuable addition to the growing number of primary and secondary
sources available in English for the study of late medieval and early Renaissance
Italy. Professor Bomstein and the University of Pennsylvania Press ("The Middle
Ages") are to be commended for having made the Chronicle available to English
readers.

GEORGE DAMERON, St Michael's College, Winooski, Vermont

Jonathan Beck. Théâtre et propagande aux débuts de la Réforme. Six pièces
polémiques du Recueil La Vallière. Genève: Éditions Slatkine, 1986. Centre
d'études franco- italien, Universités de Turin et de Savoie, Textes et études —
domaine français II.

Jonathan Beck, à qui nous devons déjà plusieurs études sur le théâtre français
du X\f^ siècle, nous offre dans ce volume six spécimens d'un genre mal connu
et méconnu, celui de la moralité polémique du seizième siècle. Les six pièces
qui sont présentées ici avec Introduction, Notices, Notes critiques et Glossaire,
représentent toute une gamme de perspectives politiques et confessionnelles.

244 / Renaissance and Reformation

depuis l'orthodoxie conservatrice de L'Église et le commun et l'antiprotestantisme
militant du Maistre d'escoUe jusqu'au réfonnisme vigoureux de L'Église, Noblesse
et Povreté qui font la lessive.

Beck reconnaît que la critique, en général, désapprouve toute propagande,
mais il fait remarquer que "la propagande réussie, nous l'appelons autre chose."
De plus, selon Beck, la critique accepte difficilement que les oeuvres populaires
puissent être dignes de son attention. Il est vrai que la verve et le ton variable
de ces pièces font contraste avec le théâtre humaniste du XVI^ siècle, postérieur
à ces moralités et composé pour un public restreint et cultivé. Les pièces éditées
par Beck rappellent plutôt la satire des trois états, certains textes de Rabelais ou
La Satire Ménippée. Beck dit qu'il vise à écarter les préventions et à rendre ces
pièces accessibles "à ces esprits indociles à qui l'on aura appris à croire à la
nécessité de connaître, avant de se lancer dans les controverses, l'objet de la
dispute" (p. 12). Il a certainement fourni tous les outils que pourrait exiger le
lecteur le plus difficile. Son introducdon comporte d'excellentes sections sur les
arrière-plans littéraire et historique, dans lesquelles il examine lucidement les
problèmes de ce genre, et situe le Recueil La Vallière dans le contexte de la
Réforme en Normandie, et à Rouen en particulier. Chaque pièce est encadrée
de Notice et Notes critiques, et le volume est doté d'un glossaire dont Beck dit
qu'il a préféré "pécher plutôt par excès que par exiguité d'infomiations," si bien
que la lecture est effectivement facilitée aux étudiants et aux non-spécialistes.
Notre dette envers Beck devient évidente si nous regardons la page du manuscrit
reproduite en frontispice: le Recueil La Vallière, compilation manuscrite copiée
en Normandie vers 1575 en une écriture imitant la minuscule gothique imprimée,
demande au lecteur des connaissance paléographiques et dialectales mais aussi,
comme dit Beck, la possession d'une loupe puissante

Les deux pièces les plus intéressantes du présent volume sont peut-être L'Église,
Noblesse et Povreté qui font la lessive et Le Ministre de l'Eglise, Noblesse, le Laboureur
et le Commun. Toutes deux emploient une technique de littéralisation qui rappelle
la "puce à l'oreille" ou le "blé en herbe" de Rabelais. Dans L'Église, Noblesse et
Povreté. . . il s'agit d'une démonstration concrète de la locution populaire "faire
laver son linge sale à quelqu'un." C'est Povrctc, bien entendu, qui fait la lessive
sous les ordres de l'Église; Noblesse seconde l'autorité de l'Église, s'appuyant sur
Richesse, Faveur et d'autres compagnes, y compris Dame Justice. D'où vient le
linge sale? Du trafic des biens de l'Église et de la vente des dignités ecclé-
siastiques. Dans Le Ministre de l'Église... , la "fiction motrice" est un jeu de
société, le jeu de caprifol, dans lequel chacun des joueurs frappe, à tour de rôle,
dans la main tendue par la victime (dont les yeux sont bandés) en demandant
"De qui te plains-tu?" La victime. Commun, identifie toujours celui qui a frappé,
mais on lui dit chaque fois qu'il a tort Moralité évidente: Commun joue suivant
les règles, mais les autres trichent

Renaissance et Réforme / 245

Ces textes, édités soigneusement et commentés judicieusement (et non sans
humour) serviront à élargir utilement l'horizon des seiziémistes et de leurs
étudiants.

GILLIAN JONDORF, Girton College, Cambridge

Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance Mélanges offerts à Robert Aulotte. Paris:
SEDES, 1988. 369 p.

Le volume Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance, liber amicitiae, que des collègues
et des amis ont offert au professeur Robert Aulotte, constitue un témoignage de
vive sympathie et un acte de reconnaissance vis-à-vis du savant dont les travaux
ont abondamment enrichi nos connaissances sur l'humanisme et la Renaissance
française. L'ensemble des contributions présente un champ de recherche très
varié allant d'auteurs très connus jusqu'à d'autres d'importance secondaire mais
dont l'existence insoupçonnée témoigne du foisonnement et des aspects multi-
ples du siècle de Rabelais et de Montaigne.

L'économie générale de l'ouvrage a imposé trois grandes masses qui nous
conduisent du temps de Rabelais à celui de saint François de Sales par le biais
de Montaigne. Si dans la première partie, l'étude consacrée à l'itinéraire de
l'apprentissage de Perceval et de Gargantua vise à établir un rapport entre l'idéal
de l'éducation courtoise et celui de la pédagogie humaniste chez Chrétien de
Troyes et Rabelais, l'intervention de Jacques Bailbé a pour objet les diverses
interprétations du chapitre 47 de Gargantua qui traite de la défaite de Picrochole.
Au nombre de ces interprétations, on remarque la tentative d'une explication
chrétienne de la guerre pocrocholine, image du conflit entre les forces du Mal
et les ressources du Bien. De son côté, Mireille Huchon cherche à définir, à
travers les modifications apportées par Rabelais au cours des différentes éditions
de son oeuvre, l'attitude de l'auteur face aux débats sur l'onomastique et la
transcription des noms propres issus du grec et du latin, qui perpétuent ceux de
l'antiquité et du Moyen Age (cratylisme-nominalisme). Dans un autre article,
Christiane Lauvergnat-Gagnière examine le problème de la présence de Rabelais
dans les dialogues de Le Caron où l'auteur de Pantagruel figure comme le
défenseur le plus approprié de l'épicurisme. Toujours dans la même section, une
recherche approfondie à l'intérieur des prosimètres de Lemaire de Belges tend
à démontrer le rôle de Voratio soluta et de la poésie dans le langage littéraire
ainsi que la part de la vérité et de la fiction attribuée à ces deux formes de
discours. Dans une approche de la première partie de VÉloge de la folie^
réexaminée à la lumière de la rhétorique, Claude Blum souligne la justification
dernière du pouvoir de la folie amenée par le syllogisme parodique du discours
autodestructeur.

D'autres études suggestives traitent de l'art de reconstmire la temporalité dans
les nouvelles de Bonaventure des Périers ou bien des problèmes que suscitent

246 / Renaissance and Reformation

VInstitution du Prince, de Budé, et les traductions de Jean Martin. Il y aussi des
recherches centrées sur les écrivains issus de la Réforme. Jacques Pineaux
s'interroge par exemple, à propos du Pater Noster en françoys de Guillaume Farel,
sur l'origine d'un genre, la méditation en prose, qui s'épanouira à la fin du siècle
chez les écrivains réformés. À son tour, Claude Longeon, dans une étude qui
rapproche le Cato christianus de Dolet du catéchisme de Mégander, "le singe de
Zwingji," insiste sur la nécessité de reconsidérer l'itinéraire de la pensée religieuse
de l'humaniste martyrisé. Quant à Francis Higman, il dresse l'inventaire des
genres de la littérature polémique calviniste au seizième siècle, qu'il examine
par rapport aux documents issus de la Réforme allemande. Enfin, parmi les trois
articles consacrés à Marguerite de Navarre, ceux de Tetel et de Kupisz nous
valent deux études comparatives, l'une sur les postulats humanistes et religieux
dans le Décaméron et VHeptaméron, l'autre sur le thème du chevalier sentimental
dans la 57e Nouvelle de VHeptaméron et chez le polonais Sienkiewicz. Dans le
troisième article, Nicole Cazauran, nous montre avec beaucoup de perspicacité
comment les citations bibliques dans VHeptaméron réconcilient morale religieuse
et vie mondaine.

La deuxième partie est tout entière consacrée à Montaigne. Si Araki médite
sur la transmission de l'acte de s'essayer, leçon ultime des Essais, Bots et Limbrick
abordent des questions d'ordre religieux chez un Montaigne tour à tour
théologien, dialecticien et défenseur de la foi catholique. Faut-il, à cette dernière
occasion, évoquer les rappoits de l'apologétique de Pascal avec la pensée de
Montaigne dont Pascal fut le lecteur assidu, ainsi que Léon Brunschwicg et
Bernard Croquette l'ont si bien signalé? Dans le même ordre de recherche, André
Toumon expose de façon intelligente comment Montaigne glisse dans le chapitre
Des plus excellens hommes de l'encomion à l'essai grâce à des modes d'énonciation
qui font passer de l'objet du discours au thème de méditation. Toujours dans la
même section, un bon nombre d'articles portent sur le style et la création littéraire
chez Montaigne. Pamii ceux-ci nous signalons les pertinentes remarques de
Robert Garapon sur la phrase courte dans les Essais; les fines suggestions de
Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani sur Montaigne critique du style; enfin, l'émouvant
travail de Géralde Nakam sur cette prière du vieux Montaigne adressée à Apollon
au terme des Essais et dont l'analyse passionnante aurait sans doute émerveillé
Montaigne lui-même.

La troisième partie du volume, la plus étendue par rapport aux deux premières,
est celle qui ménage beaucoup de suipriscs de par sa variété et sa richesse.
Charles Béné nous met adroitement en présence des malheurs d'Henri Estienne
imitateur de Rabelais dans VApoIogie pour Hérodote. Toujours au sujet des
écrivains nourris de la Réforme, on doit en premier lieu retenir l'écriture
parodique d'un Agrippa d'Aubigné dans la Confession de Sancy, visant à
ridiculiser les conversions au catholicisme qui suivirent celle d'Henri IV. La
peinture réaliste de la femme dans la société bourgeoise de la fin du seizième
siècle, tracée par le huguenot Pierre Hcyns, est aussi à retenir. En ce qui concerne
Pierre de Dampmartin, l'étude qui lui est consacrée nous informe sur cette

Renaissance et Réforme / 247

synthèse authentique de la pensée hellénistique et de la vision chrétienne que
l'auteur a réalisée dans son livre Conoissance et merveilles du monde et de l'homme.
La compétence d'un Gabriel Pérouse, éditeur de VEsté de Bénigne Boissenot,
nous offre l'heureuse occasion de chercher le souvenir de Plutarque dans VEsté
et chez Montaigne. Pour ce qui est de la contribution de Jean Céard sur la
méditation de la parole biblique chez Sponde, elle marque entre autres la
recherche qu'il faut entreprendre sur l'ensemble des Méditations sur les Psaumes
et trahit, une fois de plus l'art de Céard dans la découverte de l'inteitexte et dans
la confrontation des sources. Non moins intéressante, l'approche du Glorieux
contentement des âmes dû au polygraphe du Souhait suggère comment philo-
sophie et mythes païens peuvent coexister avec les vérités de la foi et de la morale
chrétienne. Un autre aperçu pittoresque sur le français de saint François de Sales
révèle l'usage d'un langage représentatif de sa Savoie natale. On ne doit pas
passer sous silence, dans ce rapport sur la troisième partie des Mélanges, la finesse
et la profondeur de Françoise Joukovsky dans l'analyse de l'écriture artiste de
Belleau; le bel article de Claude Dubois qui nous initie à ce courant étrange que
représente l'hermaphrodisme à la fin du XVIe siècle. Dans le même ordre
d'intérêt, il faut signaler les multiples interrogations posées à la critique littéraire
de l'époque par le sens du tenne "gorille" dans le Périple d'Hannon.

Volume qui offre un vaste champ d'investigations au spécialiste et à l'amateur
du seixième siècle, cette somme de problèmes suscités étonne par l'absence de
redites tout comme par les découvertes proposées et par les pistes suggérées. "État
présent" des travaux sur la prose de la Renaissance, ces Mélanges signés par la
fleur des seiziémistes représentent un respectueux hommage à Robert Aulotte
dont la vie ne fut pas toujours exempte d'épreuves. Au tenne du volume la Tabula
gratulatoria jointe aux noms des auteurs d'articles, témoigne non seulement du
rayonnement de son oeuvre et de sa personnalité en France comme à l'étranger,
mais aussi, chose très importante, de l'intérêt et du prestige dont jouissent les
études sur le seizième siècle et dont les Mélanges offerts à ce sciziémiste de la
Sorbonne nous semblent être la preuve la plus convaincante.

KYRIAKI CHRISTODOULOU, Université d'Athènes

François Hotman. La vie de Messire Caspar de Colligny Admirai de France.
Facsimile de l'édition Elzévier (1643). Édition critique de Emile- V. Telle.
Paris: Droz, 1987.

Emile-V. Telle, auteur de l'édition critique, s'étonne que la biographie du
prestigieux Amiral de France n'ait pas retenu l'attention jusqu'à présent alors
que ce texte de F. Hotman, La vie de Messire Caspar de Coligny, reproduit en
fac-similé, lui semble présenter des qualités aussi bien historiques que littéraires.
Grande figure de la Réforme, Hotman, théoricien comme pamphlétaire, a
connu personnellement l'Amiral qui, par conviction, devint protestant dès le

248 / Renaissance and Reformation

début des guerres de religion. La biographie retrace les dix dernières années de
la vie de Coligny à partir du moment où il se déclare pour la liberté d'action du
nouveau culte (1561) jusqu'à son assassinat en 1572, commandité par ses ennemis
de longue date: les Guises.

Une longue introduction (111 p.) situe l'Amiral dans le contexte historique,
très détaillé, des guerres de religion, donne un portrait tout aussi fouillé de
l'auteur, caractérise les relations de celui-ci avec Coligny, et se termine avec la
problématique de l'établissement du texte. Six appendices, textes de l'époque
commentés et insérés à titre illustratif, des notes bibliographiques, une liste des
instruments de recherche d'Émile-V. Telle, et enfin, un index nominatif ingé-
nieux (6 p.) qui renvoie aux notes et aux commentaires (144 p.) du texte, clôturent
l'ouvrage qui sans doute constitue un outil de travail mieux adapté à des
recherches historiques que littéraires.

JOANNA PRZYBYLAK, Université d'Ottawa

News / Nouvelles

1990 Newberry Summer Institute

The Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies will offer the 1990 Summer
Institute in English Archival Sciences July 9 through August 17. Directed by Dr.
Diana E. Greenway and Dr. Jane Sayers, it will provide six weeks of intensive training
in the reading, transcribing, and editing of English manuscript books and documents
from the late medieval through the Early Modem periods, as well as a thorough
orientation in the archives and manuscript collections available for work in the
English tradition. Some NEH stipends and special funds for those affiliated with
the Institute are available. For information and application forms, write: Center for
Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library, 60 West Walton St., Chicago, 111. 60610.
The application dealine is March 1, 1990.

MOREANA: Call for Articles

1991 marks the 500th anniversary of the birthday of William Tyndale, the English
translator of the New Testament (1526, 1534) and Pentateuch (1530). In honour of
this anniversary, MOREANA will publish a special issue on "Biblical Interpretation
in the Age of Thomas More." Besides exegetical studies of Tyndale, they are seeking
papers on Tyndale's contemporaries, e.g., Erasmus, Lefevre d'Etaples, More and
Luther. Papers of 10 to 15 pages, in English or in French, are invited. Please send
them to: Anne M. O'Donnell, S.N.D., English Department, Catholic University of
America, Washington, D.C. 20064.

French Medieval Literature Conference

Northwestern University and the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies
will present a conference on "The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval French
Literature in the 1990s," March 9-10, 1990. Participants will discuss what the Middle
Ages will look like from the perspective of the 1990s and what paragidms will
influence criticism of French medieval literature as we move toward the 21st Century.
For information, contact: Peggy McCracken, Center for Renaissance Studies, The
Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610.

250 / Renaissance and Reformation

NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers

Applications are invited for a seminar on "The Protestant Imagination: From
Tyndale to Milton." Marlow, Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Herbert, and
Milton are among the authors whose writing may be considered within their
immediate religious, historical, political and social context Applications are
welcome from teachers and scholars who specialize in English Renaissance
literature and from historians of British religion, society, politics, and art.
Faculty in departments with Ph.D. programs are not eligible. This eight-week
seminar will meet at The Ohio State University from June 18 to August 10,
1990. Participants will receive stipends of $3,500. The deadline for application
is March 1. For further information, write to:

Professor John N. King,
Department of English-NEH Seminar
421 Denney, 164 West 17th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1370

>»''^:^^

Renaissance

and
Reformation

Renaissafîâëh

et

Réforme

*'^'^ 25 mo l!

'S. If

^ ^

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 3 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 3

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 3 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 3

Summer 1989 été

Renaissance and Reformation /Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February, May, August, and
November); paraît quatre fois l'an (février, mai, août, et novembre).

® Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies / Société Canadienne d'Etudes de la Renaissance

(CSRS / SCER)

North Central Conference of the Renaissance Society of America (NCC)

Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference (PNWRC)

Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium (TRRC)

Victoria University Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS). 1987.

Editor
Kenneth Bartlett

Directeur Adjoint

Claude Sutto (Université de Montréal)

Associate Editor
Glenn A. Loney

Book Review Editor
Thomas Martone

Responsable de la rubrique des livres
Pierre-Louis Vaillancourt (Université d'Ottawa)

Business Manager
Konrad Eisenbichler

Editorial Board/Comité de rédaction

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Peter G. Bietenholz (Saskatchewan) F.D. Hoeniger (Toronto)

Paul Chavy (Dalhousie) Elaine Limbrick (U. of Victoria)

Jean Delumeau (Collège de France) Robert Omstein (Case Western Reserve)

S.K. Heninger (North Carolina) Chartes Trinkaus (Michigan)

Subscription price is $15.(X) per year for individuals; $13.(X) for Society members, students, retired
persons; $30.(X) for institutions. Back volumes at varying prices. Manuscripts should be accompanied by
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Manuscripts in the English language should be addressed to the Editor; subscriptions, enquiries, and
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Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

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Summer 1989 (date of issue: May 1990)

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Renaissance Renaissance

and et

Re formation Réforme

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 3 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 3

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 3 1989 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 3

The Correspondence of Erasmus
La correspondance d'Érasme

Contents / sommaire

INTRODUCTION

by James K. McConica

ARTICLES

251

Greetings and Salutations in Erasmus

by Alexander Dalzell

261

The Evolution of Erasmus' Epistolary Style

by Charies Fantazzi

289

The Achievement of P.S. Allen and the Role of CWE

by James M. Estes

299

Erasmus' Manual of Letter-Writing: Tradition and Innovation

by Erika Rummel

313

The Enigma of Erasmus' Conficiendamm epistolarum formula

by Judith Rice Henderson

331

Erasmiana 1986-1988: A Bibliographical Update
by Erika Rummel

BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS

339

Roland Crahay, D'Erasme à Campanella,

compte rendu par Franz Bierlaire

341

Erasmus von Rotterdam. Novum Instrumentum. Basel 1516.

Faksimile-Neudruck . . . , reviewed by Jerry H. Bentley

Introduction

In May, 1987, the Editorial Board of the Collected Works of Erasmus
(CWE) sponsored a conference in Toronto to do with the correspondence
of Erasmus. The proceedings were open to the community and received
financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada. Like an earlier conference on Erasmus' New Testa-
ment scholarship, this one coincided with the annual meeting of the
Editorial Board, and was intended both to bring together scholars who
were participating actively in this aspect of CWE, and to make their
discussions available to the wider interested public.

Erasmus' correspondence had a particular topicality both for the scholars
and for the lay public. The editorial undertaking in Toronto had begun
with the Englishing of P.S. Allen's remarkable edition of the Erasmi
epistolae, whose successive volumes in CWE have formed a kind of
backbone to the whole. The first volume, published in 1974, launched CWE
with an introduction by Wallace K- Ferguson which described the
correspondenc of Erasmus as of "inestimable value, not only for the
biography of the great humanist himself, but also for the intellectual and
religious history of the northern Renaissance and Reformation." For the
wider public concerned with our history and with literacy and education,
the letters remain the most vivid and personal introduction imaginable both
to their author and to the world he lived in, whose legacy is with us still.

In the years that followed, it became clear that, regardless of the
reputation of CWE as a whole, the correspondence series was the one part
that was unquestionably indispensable to modem scholarship. The reasons
for this will become clear in the papers that follow, more particularly in
that of James Estes, perhaps the best place to begin. As a group, these essays
illuminate various facets of Erasmus' personality and intellectual mission
through the framework of the letters, and set their study firmly in the context
of contemporary interest in rhetoric, linguistics, and the revival of Renais-
sance scholarship.

The papers of Charles Fantazzi and Erika Rummel deal in different ways
with the place of Erasmus' production in the epistolary tradition of the day.
For our understanding of the northern Renaissance, this is a topic of the
greatest interest in light of the view now long-held that the historic roots of
Renaissance humanism are to be found in the medieval ars ditaminis and
in a conscious revival of Ciceronian and in some instances Byzantine
models, which predated the epistolary formularies in use since Carolingian

m

times. Dr. Rummers paper examines the more particular issue of the
relation between Erasmus' manuels on the art of letter-writing and his own
practice, and with the principles of his predecessors, upon whom he loved
to pour scorn. She finds that, as is often the case, his departure from the
tradition is anything but radical.

Alexander DalzelFs study of what is seemingly a rather arcane issue -
the formulas of greeting and salutation in the letters - shows the wider
implications of a rhetorical convention both to the historian and to the
translator. It is pleasant to recall that the difficulty of rendering these
phrases was discussed at the very outset of the whole Toronto enterprise,
and labelled by the first translator of the letters. Sir Roger Mynors, the
problem of "tops and tails."

Finally, Judith Rice Henderson narrows the focus in another way, to
confront the dating of a brief pamphlet on letter-writing which is a part
of the larger story of the evolution of Erasmus' style and self-discovery as
one of the greatest teachers in the history of Eurpopean culture. The
Editorial Board of the Collected works of Erasmus is grateful to Renaissance
and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme for the publication of the fruits
of a conference that would have been done by the Bulletin, Erasmus in
English, until recent funding decisions brought that useful production to
an end.

JAMES K. McCONICA
Chairman, Editorial Board
Collected Works of Erasmus

IV

Greetings and Salutations in Erasmus

ALEXANDER DALZELL

RÉSUMÉ: Les formules de salutations dans l'œuvre d'Érasme
Les formules de salutations qui se trouvent en tête des lettres d'Érasme posent des
problèmes difficiles au traducteur. Il n'y a pas d'équivalents évidents en anglais
moderne et il est donc tentant de les omettre ou de se réfugier dans des formules
de politesse d'une équivalence douteuse. Cependant, le traducteur devrait les
prendre au sérieux puisqu'elles donnent souvent une indication sur le ton de la
lettre ou les relations entre les correspondants. Les écrivains humanistes
développèrent un protocole élaboré pour les salutations épistolaires et Érasme
lui-même écrivit longuement sur le sujet dans son De conscribendis epistoUs. Les
formules ont une longue histoire, remontant jusqu'à l'antiquité classique. Les
salutations de Cicéron sont en général courtes et simples, mais les formules
traditionnelles furent abandonnées peu à peu en faveur de formules de politesse
plus élaborées et plus flatteuses. En théorie, Érasme était en faveur de la simplicité
classique, mais dans la pratique il fit des concessions aux conventions con-
temporaines et à la vanité humaine. L'article se termine par une discussion de
l'enseignement d'Érasme sur le sujet et sur quelques exemples des problèmes
auxquels le traducteur doit faire face.

1 wish to discuss a problem that confronts the translator of the letters of
Erasmus. Translation is always a difficult art and it is not easy to catch
the right tone to match the variety and subtlety of a consummate stylist
like Erasmus. But the passages which have caused me the greatest difficulty
are those for which there is no real equivalent in modem English because
we no longer wish to say that sort of thing. The translator of the letters
meets a problem at the very beginning. What is he to do with the elaborate
courtesies with which sixteenth-century letter-writers greeted their friends
and patrons? In the Translators' Note to the first volume of the correspon-
dence in the Collected Works of Erasmus Sir Roger Mynors and Douglas
Thompson wrote as follows:

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 251

252 / Renaissance and Reformation

Nor are we satisfied with our treatment of the opening and closing
formulae of the letters. Except where the original survives, we cannot
always be sure how a letter began and ended, and the forms then in
current use ('to the most ornate theologian greeting*) cannot be Englished
without some discomfort.

I have felt that discomfort constantly in my own translations. It is
difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a modem equivalent for these
courteous phrases that will not sound contrived and artificial to the
modem reader. Does it matter what we do with these phrases? Well,
Erasmus thought the matter sufficiently important to write about it at
length in the De conscribendis epistolis. And behind the De conscribendis
epistolis stood centuries of theorizing beginning in classical times and
continuing through the writers of the Ars dictaminis to Erasmus' own day.
So it may be worthwhile giving the matter some consideration. I propose
to say something about the history of epistolary greetings, then to examine
what Erasmus has to say on the subject, and finally to raise the question
of translation.

But first, a word about text. The policy of the CWE edition of the
correspondence is to translate Allen's text. But the salutation which
appears at the head of a letter in Allen's edition is not always what was
in the original letter. In a letter to Margaret of Angoulême, written in 1525,
she is described in the heading as Queen of Navarre, although she did not
marry Henri d'Albret until 1527. Clearly the letter was edited when it was
prepared for publication in the Opus epistolarum of 1529. In Ep 348 Thomas
Wolsey is addressed as 'cardinal,' though he had not yet been created
cardinal when the letter was written. It is likely that other changes have
been made which cannot be so easily detected. There are salutations in
the Deventer book which have been corrected in Erasmus' own handwrit-
ing. There are cases where we have three copies of the same letter, all with
different salutations. Of the large number of letters which exist in manu-
script some have salutations and some do not. There is no suggestion in
the De conscribendis epistolis that salutations are optional. Where the
salutation is missing, we may guess that it was written on the back of the
letter. Erasmus' contemporary, Francesco Negro, defines the salutation as
that which is written on the front or the back of a letter.^ Many of our
sources are copies and perhaps in some cases the copyist has saved himself
some effort by omitting the purely formulaic opening. As a result of this
confusion in our sources, it was necessary to develop an editorial policy.
Hence the decision to translate whatever Allen printed. In a comparable
situation, when dealing with the letters of Cicero to Atticus (where the

Renaissance et Réforme / 253

salutations are spurious) the French editor, L-A Constans, decided to leave
them out But much would be lost if we were to follow a similar policy in
dealing with the correspondence of Erasmus. It must always be remem-
bered, however, that the salutations in our texts may have been edited or
altered in transmission.

The problem of translating Erasmus' elaborate courtesies is not limited
to the salutations. It was customary to reintroduce the recipient's name,
with suitably flattering epithets, in the body of the letter itself. These
unexpected vocatives may strike the modem reader as even more artificial
than similar language in the heading. Both present problems to the
translator, and although I shall deal mostly with the salutations, I have
both types of address in mind.

The salutation has a long history. The grammatical structure which
provides its basic shape is likely to have originated with the Greeks, but
it is in its Latin form that it is known to us, that is to say, in the form
which Cicero used: Cicero Trebatio salutem [dicit] I 'Cicero to Trebatius,
greeting.' The theorists of the Middle Ages divided this simple phrase into
three parts and attached names to each of them. Thus, in our example,
Cicero's name is the intitulado, Trebatio is the inscriptio, and salutem is the
salutatio. Following normal practice, I shall use the word 'salutation' for
the whole phrase. Each part of the phrase was liable to be expanded, but
classical Latin was very reserved in this matter. Cicero sometimes adds the
title of an office like 'proconsul' for example, and occasionally, when
writing to members of his family, he uses a term of endearment, 'to his
darling daughter'; or he may add the word suus, 'to his own Terentia.'
Erasmus thought that this was an innovation of Pliny's, but he was
mistaken. I may say in passing that the addition of this humble adjective
did not escape the relentless theorists of the Middle Ages, and they laid
down rules for its use. The most common inscription in a papal letter is
filio ox filiis - the Pope sends greetings and apostolic blessing to his son
or to his sons. The theorists said he must never use suus 'to his own son,'
for that might imply, as they put it, a 'carnal relationship.' The prohibition
was not observed in practice, though it is interesting that most of the papal
letters in the Erasmian corpus do seem to conform to the rule. Exceptions
might be made for eminent persons. Thus Pope Leo addressed Heniy VIII
as carissimus in Christo nosterfilius (Ep 339). This, however, is not the usual
form of papal greeting in the correspondence: presumably it was intended
as a special mark of respect.

The word which is understood and which completes the sense of the
salutation is dicit, so the whole phrase means 'Cicero expresses his good

254 / Renaissance and Reformation

wishes to Trebatius' or 'Cicero says "greetings" to Trebatius.' But the verb
was generally omitted or replaced by the single letter d, and eventually it
was forgotten, making it possible to develop the phrase in ways which
Cicero could not have foreseen. In the Middle Ages salutem is sometimes
replaced by an infinitive.^ This somewhat ungrammatical construction is
generally avoided by the Humanists, though there is an example in a letter
of 1514 from Gregor Reisch (Ep 309): F. Gregorius, prior Carthusiae, domino
Erasmo etemam in Domino consequi salutem I 'Gregor, prior of the Charter-
house, to Master Erasmus, [may he] obtain eternal salvation in the Lord.'

In the course of history the Latin for 'greeting' turned out to be a loaded
word, for it was the Christian term for salvation. With the loss of the verb
of 'saying,' it was possible to turn the whole phrase round and interpret it
as 'X prays for eternal salvation for Y.' Hence in Christian writers the
salutation often includes the phrase aetemam salutem or aeternam in Christo
salutem. Sometimes the writer puns on the two senses oi salutem, and this
practice carries over into our period. What, for example, does Duke George
of Saxony mean when he wishes Erasmus salutem, gratiam etfavorem (Ep
1448)? The phrase or a variant of it occurs several times in the correspon-
dence and it is usually translated literally as 'greeting, grace and favour.'
But salutem may have more than one sense in this context. A similar
problem arises in Letter 834 addressed to Henry VIII: Salutem et im-
mortalitatem, serenissime Rex. Does this mean 'prosperity and undying
fame,' as it is translated in our edition, or 'salvation and eternal life?' Or
could it mean both? At all events the connection of salutem in these
salutations with the Christian doctrine of salvation was so strong that some
writers thought it inappropriate to use it in writing to a Jew or an infidel.
Francesco Negro suggested that, in writing to unbelievers, one should avoid
the word altogether and substitute something like 'saner thoughts and
better counsel.' Similar advice is to be found, often expressed in more
violent and racist terms, in the Medieval dictamen.^ In the De conscribendis
epistolis Erasmus is very critical of any substitutions ïov salutem, describing
such departures from the norm as the 'height of stupidity.' He argues on
good theological grounds that, since nothing is more desirable than
salvation, no better greeting can be devised.

As this citation may suggest, Erasmus' treatment of salutations in his De
conscribendis epistolis is often highly polemical. He begins with an attack
on the use of the complimentary plural. This was a matter of some
contemporary interest because of the development in the Romance lan-
guages of the distinction between the second person singular as a familiar
form and the second person plural as more formal and polite. Francis I

Renaissance et Réforme / 255

is said to have forbidden writers and poets, on pain of being whipped, to
address him as 'tu/ Erasmus refuses to acknowledge any such rule for the
Latin language, and in his own letters to Francis, he always uses the
singular tu and tua. As far as Latin is concerned, Erasmus regarded the
use of the plural of the pronoun vos and the plural possessive vester in
reference to a single person as a solecism. I believe he is right about the
pronoun, which is not used during the high Classical period as a singular;
but the possessive adjective vester in reference to one person does occur,
at least as early as Catullus."* Erasmus cites an example from Pliny oî vester
used of one person, but this in fact is a genuine plural.^ Erasmus tried to
avoid the embarrassment of catching one of his favourite authors in a
solecism by supposing that the letter was spurious. But there is no need
for such desperate measures. This whole discussion is of some interest to
the philologist, as is his discussion of the commoner use of plural for
singular in the first person (what we sometimes call the 'editorial we'). His
approach is highly moralistic. He notes that good Latin writers often use
this idiom, as he does himself, but suggests that it was modesty, not
arrogance, that inspired the usage: Roman statesmen wished to share the
credit for their actions with others and so referred to themselves as 'we';
in contrast, he complains, modem writers use it as a mark of pride. This
may be good moralizing, but as philology it is nonsense.

What upset Erasmus even more was the use of the plural possessive with
abstract nouns. This use of abstracts, which gave us such English phrases
as 'your Reverence' and 'your Eminence,' seems to have originated with
Greek. But Latin can spawn such phrases with equal facility and they are
the despair of the translator. In addition to 'your reverence' we have 'your
piety,' 'your paternity,' 'your amplitude,' and dozens of others including
tua acrimonia. It is sometimes difficult to know when these locutions are
to be treated as titles and when they should be integrated into the sentence.
Phrases like 'I am pleased that your highness has taken notice of my
humility' illustrate the point. According to the context, this might mean
either 'I am delighted that your Highness, or your Excellency, has taken
notice of a poor person like myself or 'I am pleased that someone as
exalted as you should have time for a humble person like myself Such
locutions are common in the correspondence of Erasmus, and he docs not
object to them except where the plural form is used, e.g. vestra celsitudo for
tua celsitudo. Erasmus makes the wicked suggestion that the plural might
be reserved for bishops with a plurality of benefices.

256 / Renaissance and Reformation

With regard to the salutation itself, Erasmus makes it clear that he would
prefer to return to the simplicity of Roman practice, but he recognizes that
one must make some concessions to convention and to human pride.
Generally, in writing to his humanist friends, he uses the simplest form of
greeting without amplification or decoration. Thus 'Erasmus to his friend
Budé, greeting' and Budé to Erasmus similarly. Only when there is special
justification is the formula changed, as, for example, when Budé is
appointed secretary to the King of France, and the fact is duly noted in
the address. The correspondence with Budé shows that it is possible to
carry on a quarrel within the salutations. When his relations with Erasmus
reached a low point, Budé varied the traditional formula and wrote
Gulielmus Budaeus, hactenus Erasmi amicus, ultimam salutem dicit Erasmo I
'From Guillaume Budé, his erstwhile friend, to Erasmus with best wishes,
and never again' (Ep 896); and Erasmus replied: Erasmus Roterodamus G.
Budaei perpetuus velit noUt amicus, non ultimam sed iugem ac perennem illi
dicit salutem I 'Erasmus of Rotterdam, perpetual friend of Guillaume Budé
whether he will or no, wisheth him all prosperity, not for the last time, and
may it last for ever and ever' (Ep 906)!

What Erasmus objected to most of all was the monstrous flatteries which
some writers attached to the salutations of their letters and which (appar-
ently) some dignitaries expected. He makes fun of such appellations as
'treasure-house of learning,' 'ever-shining lantern of religion,' 'hammer of
heresiarchs,' and 'golden candlestick of the seven liberal arts.' The trans-
lator has his own reasons for objecting to these phrases, for, when they
occur in the middle of an otherwise sensible letter, there is nothing he can
do to soften or excuse their intrinsic silliness. Erasmus is prepared to go
a certain distance with the fashion, and in the De conscribendis epistolis he
gives a long list of suitable epithets and titles, most of which could be
paralleled from contemporary manuals. I shall comment briefly on a few
of the points which he raises.

First, Erasmus makes a distinction between what one can say in the
salutation and what is appropriate in the body of the letter. Apparently it
was much more offensive to use flattering terms in the heading than in
the letter itself This conforms to the practice of Erasmus himself, who is
generally fairly reserved about the salutation, but is quite prepared to pour
on the flattery in the text if the occasion demands it.

Secondly, Erasmus dismisses with ridicule the practice of changing the
order of the salutation to put the name of a person of superior rank first.
He describes this as 'childish,' but in fact in many of his own letters this
is precisely what he does. In writing to popes and emperors and kings he

Renaissance et Réforme / 257

generally (though not always) puts the name of the recipient ahead of his
own. I think we should be sensitive to this and preserve the order in
translation. Whether the modem reader will appreciate Erasmus' delicacy
is another matter!

Thirdly, in the De conscribendis epistolis Erasmus manages to avoid to
some extent the appalling class consciousness which characterizes the
letter manuals. In the earliest of all the manuals which have come down
to us, written in the fourth century by the rhetorician Julius Victor, we
already have the doctrine that the style of a letter must vary accordingly
as it is addressed to a superior, an equal, or an inferior. This doctrine
affected not just the style of the letter, but the style of address, and an
elaborate etiquette was developed which young students were expected to
leam.^ The distinctions could be complex. Peter of Blois divided mankind
into five classes, each to be addressed in its own proper style. In the late
twelfth century Master William established no less than eighteen different
divisions, nine for the clergy and nine for the secular orders. Erasmus had
little patience with such theorizing. He attacks what he calls the 'supersti-
tion of epithets,' by which he means a slavish adherence to set formulae.
He thought it preferable to vary the style of address to suit the particular
circumstances or the particular characteristics of his correspondent. The
complimentary terms which he approves are traditional enough: the pope
is 'most blessed' {beatissime papa), other bishops are amplissimi, kings are
invicti, dukes are illustres, and so on. We are warned against confusing the
categories: we must avoid calling a girl 'venerable' or an old man
'charming' or a married woman 'unconquerable'! An incompetent theolo-
gian should not be called 'erudite'; it would be better, Erasmus suggests,
to address him as 'most impressive.' So much for theory; in practice
Erasmus reveals himself as much more traditional, especially when he is
addressing someone of importance or someone on whose favour he is
dependent.

And now to the problems of translation. Clearly it is not possible to
reproduce all of the variations which sixteenth-century practice allowed
and some expressions simply resist being turned into English. But in view
of the importance which Erasmus and his contemporaries attached to these
matters, we should try to be as consistent as we can and to keep as closely
to the Latin as English usage will allow. In a brief article it is not possible
to deal with all of the issues, but I conclude with a short selection of
representative problems which call for comment.

First let us look at the word reverendus and its superlative reverendissimus
and the abstract form tua reverentia. In the early centuries of the church

258 / Renaissance and Reformation

this latter term was used for all ranks of clergy and even for laymen and
women. But the notion of reverentia was eventually narrowed in its
application and tended to be reserved for the higher clergy. The superlative
reverendissimus is almost always used in the letters for cardinals, bishops,
and abbots, as, for example, in Ep 961: Reverendissimo Domino D. Laurentio
Campegio Cardinali Erasmus Roterodamus S.D.

There are three letters in the third volume of Allen (Epp 671, 672, and
720) which have no addressee, but Allen and Peter Bietenholz believe they
were written to Wm. BoUart, who was Abbot of Saint-Amond. The recipient
is addressed in one of these letters as reverendissime pater and in another
as omatissme pater. Clearly he must have had the status of at least an abbot.
The address helps to narrow down the possibilities.

The language in which one can address a pope is naturally somewhat
limited. Erasmus seems to prefer beatissime rather than sanctissime, and
this was the preferred word in the early history of the church. Should we
translate the heading to Ep 335 literally To the most blessed father Leo
the Tenth'? Our edition has 'To the most holy father, Leo the Tenth' and
that will appear more natural to English readers, but it obscures a
distinction which exists in the Latin.

Now to one of the commonest words in the language, but one which
creates serious problems for the translator. From classical times the word
dominas had been used as a term of respect. Seneca tells us that, if we have
forgotten someone's name, we can always address him as dominusJ So it
must have been roughly equivalent to 'Sir.' But the word never quite lost
its sense of dominance or ownership. Erasmus says it should not be used
as an honorific title since it implies tyranny. But the word occurs frequently
in the letters and it seems to be used freely in many situations and for
many classes of people. In our edition it is sometimes omitted and
sometimes translated as 'Master' or 'Doctor.' There is a further problem
with this word for the translator of Erasmus. In salutations it is generally
abbreviated to a single initial. But this can create ambiguities. Does 'D'
stand for dominus or Desideriusl It is unlikely that Erasmus would have
referred to himself as dominus; so where we find D. Erasmus Roterodamus
in the nominative, we should translate 'Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.'
In the letters from the Deventer book Erasmus is often referred to in the
salutations as dominus. This occurs so frequently that one suspects editorial
tampering. It seems likely that when the letters were collected for publica-
tion, some attempt was made at conformity of address, though in fact
consistency was not achieved throughout the book. Elsewhere in the
correspondence, where the initial is used alone, ambiguity remains.

Renaissance et Réforme / 259

There is a peculiar use of this word which calls for comment. It was
common practice in salutations to honour the higher clergy by doubling
the word dominus. Erasmus attacked the practice, but we find it in his
letters not infrequently. For example, Johannes Thurzo, the bishop of
Wroclaw, is addressed as follows: Reverendo in Christo patri ac domino,
domino loanni Turzoni . . . (Ep 943). The construction of this phrase is not
clear. Presumably the first domino is parallel with patri and the second is
to be taken with the proper name. But there are other instances where
there is nothing which corresponds to patri in this example and the double
domino produces a more awkward effect. Clearly we are dealing with a
conventional compliment which defies literal translation. All the translator
can do is to find some appropriate honorific, which will have to vary with
the context. This usage seems to be reserved in Erasmus for the higher
clergy. But there is an interesting exception in two letters sent from the
patronizing and insufferable Noël Béda, where Erasmus himself is ad-
dressed with the double domino (Epp 1605 and 1685): Such an address to
one who was neither a bishop nor an abbot is striking, as no doubt it was
intended to be. Clearly Béda was flattering Erasmus. But the flattery did
nothing to mollify Erasmus' antagonism; for he pointed out that, while
Béda called him 'priest' and 'friend,' he never called him 'theologian.' The
story shows how sensitive people were to the niceties of titles.

In the De conscribendis epistolis Erasmus says that, if someone calls you
magister noster, you should laugh in his face. But that seems to be what he
calls Béda in Ep 1679: Ornatissimo magistro nostro Natali Bedae S.P. Given
the relations between the two men, one is tempted to interpret this as a
deliberate sneer. The same expression is used again in addressing another
of Erasmus' correspondents with whom relations were strained, Jan Briart
(Ep 670). Magister by itself is not uncommon as a general term of address,
particularly in writing to theologians, and it is an entirely complimentary
term. But the addition of noster in the two examples cited may possibly
add a touch of irony.

In conclusion I should like to make a few remarks about secular titles,
which present some complex and interesting problems. Here it is much
more difficult to find suitable modem parallels. For one thing, modern
titles for high political office vary from country to country and it is not
clear what model one should follow. The problem, however, does not lie
with specific titles. Expressions like 'the most Christian king of France'
are readily accepted in English. It is when we encounter the flattering
adjectives which are joined to names and titles that real difficulties arise.
We have already seen the class consciousness which is exhibited in

260 / Renaissance and Reformation

Francesco Negro's brief treatise on letter-writing. He gives eighteen rules
for the salutations, with a list of suitable epithets for each of the orders
both spiritual and secular, beginning with the pope and descending
gradually to professors and women. The pope, he tells us, may be addressed
as 'most pious shepherd of the Lord's flock' and 'the supreme pontiff of
the Roman church'; cardinals and other bishops are addressed as
amplissimi or venerandissimi or observandissimi; the higher ranks of the laity
are praised for their sapientia, spectabilitas and integritas; the middle ranks
must be content with prudentia, humanitas, benignitas. Lawyers can be
complimented for their probitas, musicians and poets for suavitas, mathe-
maticians ïor subtilitas and women iov pudicitia. Although Negro's treatise
was published in Venice in 1488, a mere decade before Erasmus produced
the earliest versions of his own De conscribendis epistolis, Erasmus thought
it outdated and pedantic (Ep 117). He rejects such 'superstitious' devotion
to antiquated rules. Nevertheless it is possible to see some relationship
between Negro's rules and Erasmus' practice in his more formal letters.
The tradition had not been totally abandoned. In that tradition phrases
which look innocent enough sometimes carry a hidden message. There is,
for example, a hierarchy of adjectives. ///w^rrw is more complimentary than
clams. A king or a duke may be addressed as a vir illustris. The phrase does
not sound particularly grand, but it was one of the titles of the Carolingian
kings, and still carried some weight. The adjective amplissimus, which was
originally used to mark secular distinction, became the mot juste for
bishops and more especially for cardinals. Adjectives like ornatissimus and
spectabilis had less of the purple about them and could be used for scholars
and theologians, for whom the more grandiloquent titles were thought to
be inappropriate.

Not only do many of these honorific titles sound strained in English but
it is easy for the translator to convey the wrong impression. Take as an
example the phrase tua celsitudo, literally 'your highness.' In modern
English this is a title for princes of the royal blood. But it has a much
wider reference in the correspondence, where it is used of bishops and
archbishops, cardinals, princes, councillors, Henry VIII and Erasmus
himself Clearly 'your Highness' would be an absurd translation in most
of these cases. All the translator can do is to employ a suitable title in each
place ('your eminence,' 'your lordship,' 'your worship,' etc). The art of
translation is the art of compromise.

It will now be clear that it is not possible to develop a grammar for the
salutations in Erasmus. The practice which we observe in the correspon-
dence is too varied and individual. Erasmus was, as often, swimming

Renaissance et Réforme / 261

between two currents. On the one hand he was impatient with protocol
and eager to emulate the simplicity of the ancients. On the other he could
not entirely escape convention and many of his more formal letters call
to mind the old rules. The tone of a letter may be set in the opening address.
The translator should be aware of what the conventions mean.

University of Toronto

Notes

1 Francesco Negro Opusculum scribendi epistolas (Venice 1488)

2 The best account of the origin and structure of the salutations is to be found in CD.
Lanham Salutatio: Formulas in Latin Letters to 1200 (Munich 1975).

3 Transmundus in his Ars dictaminis (unpublished) suggests that in writing to a Jew, instead
oisalutem, one should say Jidei daritate totius injidelitatis tenebras propulsare.

4 For vester referring to a single person, see CJ. Fordyce Catullus: A commentary (Oxford
1961), note on 39.20; cf A.E. Housman in Classical Quarterly 3 (1908) 244ff

5 Pliny Epistulae 10.3a.l

6 See Giles Constable The structure of Medieval society according to the Dictatores of the
twelfth century' in Law, church and society edd K. Pennington and R. Somerville
(Philadelphia 1977) 253 - 68.

7 Epistulae ad Lucilium 3.1

The Evolution of Erasmus
Epistolary Style

CHARLES FANTAZZI

RÉSUMÉ: L'évolution du style épistolaire d'Érasme

Il existe de nombreuses preuves qu'Érasme a soigneusement planifié la publication
de différents recueils de ses lettres. Pour d'autres lettres, il donna la permission
qu'elles soient recopiées et distribuées. Il est intéressant, d'une part, d'étudier les
critères qui ont déterminé la sélection de certaines lettres pour la publication et,
d'autre part, d'examiner quelques-unes des lettres qui n'ont été incluses dans aucun
recueil officiel. Ce faisant, on peut observer l'évolution du style versatile d'Érasme
depuis ses expériences de jeunesse, quand il s'exerçait à l'art d'écrire, jusqu'aux
premiers recueils officiels. Dans ses toutes premières lettres, les préceptes tirés de
ses ouvrages pédagogiques, spécialement les Familiarium coUoquiorum formulae et
le De conscribendis epistolis, sont mis en pratique. La première apparition officielle
d'un groupe de quatre lettres (1515) est un peu déguisée puisqu'elles forment la
dernière parfie d'une brève anthologie de poèmes et de lettres de louanges dédiées
au pape Léon X. Le deuxième recueil, Epistulae aliquot virorum illustrium ad
Erasmum (1516), est surtout consacré à l'accueil favorable reçu par le Novum
Instrumentum. Les correspondants ont été choisis avec beaucoup de soin de même
que l'ordre dans lequel les lettres apparaissent Le troisième recueil, Epistulae
sanequam elegantes (1517), est plus important et, comme l'indique le titre, les lettres
sont très soignées.

l^etters have long been studied mainly for their historical and biograph-
ical content, and only secondarily as works of literature, although it is
commonly recognized that many collections of letters were carefully
designed with a view to posterity. Often the writers of them were not able
to see to the fulfilment of their wishes, Cicero being a prime example, who
began only towards the end of his life to plan a collection of his letters as
an illustration of his epistolary style, but never brought his plan to fruition.
The third-century orator, Symmachus, had the good fortune of having his

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 263

264 / Renaissance and Reformation

son publish his letters, who carefully suppressed any that might be
compromising. Petrarch spent much time correcting and revising his
letters long after they were in the hands of the addressees, often with
detrimental results, according to the great Italian philologist, Giorgio
Pasquali, who said of them: 'Si cincischia troppo' / 'He fiddles with them
too much.' He often removed what he considered to be trivial particulars
in the attempt, as it would seem, to impart to them a touch of eternity, at
the expense of immediacy and spontaneity. To fill out the correspondence
in places, he even went so far as to invent fictitious letters. Another
humanist, Antonio Beccadelli, went still further in his work of revision,
consciously falsifying many of his letters in order to make them more
palatable for future readers.

In the face of numerous redactions and exemplars, editors in the past
have usually published the final version, as in the Edizione nazionale of
Petrarch,^ but there are presently some editors of Renaissance epistolaries,
especially in Italy, who would prefer to print the more authentic first
version and give the modifications in the apparatus.^ In the case of
Erasmus, Allen, as we know, printed the final version, as well as he could
determine it from the varied tradition, viz., the letters that were published
with Erasmus' full supervision or at least connivance, with usually only
minor revisions; many more which he allowed to be collected and copied
out but were not published in his lifetime; and a great number that were
subsequently discovered throughout Europe. With respect to the published
collections, there is abundant evidence that Erasmus carefully stage-man-
aged their publication.^ It would be very tempting, therefore, to peek
behind the scenes for just a brief moment, for the length of the play, to
use a favorite image of Erasmus, precludes any sort of exhaustive treat-
ment. A cursory look at the very earliest collections should reveal some-
thing concerning the criteria that determined the selection of certain letters
for publication, but much may be learned as well from an examination of
some of the early letters that did not gain admittance into any official
collection. In the process we may observe the evolution of Erasmus'
versatile style, that elusive. Protean instrument with which he both
delighted his friends and confounded his enemies.

In order to appreciate the unique quality of the Erasmian epistolary
style, it would be useful to rehearse very briefly certain moments in the
history of the genre. From late antiquity the letter became fixed as an
eminently rhetorical form. This can be seen most clearly in the Byzantine
tradition,^ in which a highly stylized language was used, which bore little
resemblance to the demotic form of spoken Greek. In the West the art of

Renaissance et Réforme / 265

letter-writing also adhered to rigid formulas which can be traced back to
Merovingian and Carolingian times.^ The most famous collection of these
early formularies, dating from about the year 660, is that of a certain
Marcolf, a monk of Paris. These models greatly influenced the chancellery
style of France and Italy. The full flowering of the genre, however, came
about in the eleventh and twelfth centuries with the dominance of the
professional practitioners of the craft of letter-writing, the so-called
dictatores.^^

In the thirteenth century instruction in the ars dictaminis was accompa-
nied by commentaries on Cicero's De inventione and the pseudo-Ciceronian
Rhetorica ad Herennium}^ which reinforced the underlying pedagogical
assumption that the rules of ancient oratory were applicable to the
composition of letters. An important voice in the explicit joining of the
two disciplines, as Professor Witt has recently pointed out,^^ is that of
Brunetto Latini, who in his two treatises on rhetoric admitted no difference
between the letter and the speech save that the one was written and the
other spoken. In both forms the precepts of Cicero were univocally
relevant. The predominance oî the Ad Herennium, in particular, continued
into the following century with a great proliferation of commentaries on
the work, including that of Giovanni di Bonandrea and the more famous
one of his disciple, Bartolomeo di Benincasa, both of which became
standard textbooks in the art oï dictamenP

At this advanced stage of evolution of the public letter, a very important
event in the history of letter-writing and of humanism took place -
Petrarch's momentous discovery in the Chapter Library of Verona in May
1435 of a manuscript of Cicero's letters to Atticus, Quintus Cicero, and
Brutus. In all probability he began in that same year to arrange his own
letters into a collection, pruning and rewriting as he went. In the dcdicatoiy
letter addressed to Lodewijk Heiliger of Beringen, he reveals his criteria
for the art of letter-writing, which are quite at variance with the teachings
oi dictamen. Indeed with the publication of the Epistolae de rebus famîUari-
bus Petrarch put an end to the reign of the dictatores and their rigid
prescriptions, which had inhibited the spontaneity of the personal letter
for many centuries.^"^ 'Nulla hie equidem magna vis dicendi' / 'No great
forcefulness of speech is to be found here.'^^ Petrarch states in the letter
of dedication. He goes on to say that he would not use this type of elocution
in his letters even if he possessed it, after the example of Cicero, who
adopted an even, tempered style in his letters, reserving the full flood of
his eloquence for the orations. In like manner, Petrarch promises to
employ a plain, familiar type of language appropriate to the thoughts

266 / Renaissance and Reformation

expressed: *hoc mediocre, domesticum et familiare dicendi genus, amice,
leges . . . aptum accomodatumque sententiis.'^^ The chief concern of the
writer is the identity of his correspondent. No longer are the form of
address and general tone of the letter determined solely by social standing,
but by the personal characteristics of the recipient: 'A courageous man
must be addressed in one way, a coward in another; an inexperienced
youth in one way, an old man who has discharged his life's duties in
another; in one way a person puffed up with good fortune, in another the
person hemmed in by adversity; and finally a different approach is needed
for the scholar famed for his talent and learning and the person who would
not understand you if you were to use more elevated language.'^^ Both
Erasmus and Vives in their manuals on letter-writing insist emphatically
on this adaptation of style to the recipient, in terms very reminiscent of
those of Petrarch.^^

The principle of apte dicere, as elaborated by Quintilian,^^ is at the heart
both of Erasmus' theoretical concept of the style of the letter and his actual
practice. According to the principle of ancient rhetoric known as ethopoiia,
the speaker or writer should project a sympathetic image of himself, be
familiar with his audience in order to make the desired impression, and
provide fitting portrayals of the character of others as they are introduced
into the narration. In these qualities Erasmus is probably without equal,
but it must not be imagined for one moment that this apparently effortless
facility was won without a long, hard apprenticeship in the study of
language. As early as 1488 and extending through the 1490's Erasmus was
diligently hammering out and perfecting his own style in an astonishing
number of works: the first drafts of the Antibarbari, the epitome of Valla's
Elegantiae linguae latinae. De ratione studii, Familiarium coUoquiorum formu-
lae. De copia, and, of course. De conscribendis epistolis. The minute atten-
tivencss to the niceties of Latin style illustrated in these manuals owes its
main inspiration to the Italian humanists. As Leonardo Bruni wrote as
early as 1422 in his De studiis et litteris, 'peritia literarum' must accompany
'scicntia rerum.'^^ Of these various pedagogical and rhetorical works of
Erasmus, the rich compilation of Latin idiom and phraseology contained
in the De copia is familiar to students of the Renaissance, but the
preliminary draft of the Colloquia, i.e., the Familiarium colloquiorum
formulae, written in his Paris days for his pupils Christian and Hcinrich
Northoff of Liibcck, is not that well known.^' It is interesting to see
Erasmus at work in these sketches prescribing phrases that may be used
indifferently both in dialogue and letter-writing. At the same time he
distinguishes modes of address more suitable in everyday speech from

Renaissance et Réforme / 267

those proper to letters, such as the method of returning greetings, the giving
of thanks, and the wishing of good health, all of which will later be treated
at greater length in De conscribendis epistolis. He also discusses various titles
used in epistles commenting on their currency and propriety. For clerics
and men of learning omatissime is recommended, as is indeed Erasmus*
common usage; celsitudo is more accepted than approved, although in
practice Erasmus uses it quite often; praestantia, dominatio (both of these
frowned upon in De conscribendis)}^ and beatitudo may be used of certain
dignitaries.^^ Erasmus pronounces on the correctness or incorrectness of
colloquial phrases, e.g., the response to the greeting *quid agis?' / 'how are
you?' with 'taliter qualiter' / 'so-so,' is ruled out as belonging to lingua
culinaria I 'kitchen Latin.' 'Habeo te excusatum' is likewise disqualified
from polite speech and therefore from the letter.

Sometimes these pedagogical musings are translated into the composi-
tion of actual letters. Letter 56, for example, addressed to Christian
Northoff, was printed with the CoUoquiorum formulae as an epistola
protreptica, an exhortation to study.^^ Letter 61 is an imaginative piece
which Erasmus composes in the guise of Heinrich Northoff writing to his
brother Christian in a sprightly, versatile style clearly beyond the literaiy
ability of the alleged writer. Heinrich is represented as recounting a dream
to his brother in which he imagines that Christian has abandoned the
profane concerns of his mercantile career and has turned to the more
lasting values of literary studies. Variations on this theme are found also
in De conscribendis epistolis in a section on the presentation of the subject
matter.^^ Erasmus indulges in a bit of self-parody, in the person of
Heinrich, who refers to his privileged status of hosting the celebrated
Erasmus, which to him is like having Mount Helicon itself within the four
walls of one's habitation. With good-humoured irony Erasmus also
parodies Christian's attempt to use good Latin now that he has returned
to Liibeck and is without his tutor's instruction. He puts these words into
the mouth of Christian at the end of the dream: 'Ego vcro tantam animo
gratulationem concipio quantam exprimere omnino nequeam. Quod si par
esset affectui dicendi facultas, gratularer tibi, o frater, oratione tam
magnifica, tam copiosa, ut Cicero ipse numquam sit usus neque copiosiore
neque magnificentiore' / 'The extent of the congratulations I conceive in
my mind is greater than I am able to express; but if my power of utterance
were equal to my sentiments of affection I should congratulate you in a
speech so splendid, so elaborate that Cicero himself never produced
anything more elaborate or more splendid.' Aside from the excessive
fulsomeness of the language, in the second sentence of the Latin the prosaic

268 / Renaissance and Reformation

chiasmus is made more ludicrous by the ungainly final rhythm, 'neque
copiosiore neque magnificentiore.' Thus in a jocular manner Erasmus
demonstrates to his students what style not to use in a letter. At the
Erasmian banquet of eloquence, as Heinrich commented earlier in the
letter, where the urbane Campano and the exquisite Poliziano {politissimi
ingenii, with a play on his name) are welcome guests, wit and urbanity are
de rigeur, while pretentious solemnity is ruled out

To these names Erasmus, alias Heinrich, might well have added that of
Lorenzo Valla, with whose Elegantiae he was occupied at about the time
this letter was written. Valla's treatise on style is a very important document
in the evolution of the Latin language. Begun during his teaching career
at Pavia and elaborated throughout his life-time, it lays the foundations
for a rigorous, scientific study of the language and for the first time provides
ample quotations from the classical authors to illustrate rules and usage.
The Latin of the humanists, as best exemplified perhaps in Poliziano, is
a new kind of language, faithful in spirit, lexicon, and general structure to
the language of Rome, but less complicated in syntax.^^ It has a looser
flow; the tensions of Ciceronian prose, the gradatio or build-up of the
period in an ascending and descending curve are no longer so much in
evidence. Interspersed with the longer and rounded periods are shorter
sentences and aphorisms, making for a more nervous or sinewy style. This
is particularly true of the epistolary style, as may be seen in Cicero himself
The rich and varied Latin style of Erasmus' letters belongs firmly to this
tradition. Through his incredibly thorough knowledge of the Latin classics
and his reading of the best humanist writers he evolved several decades
later a style that was the direct descendant of the Italian writers of the
Quattrocento. Long before writing the Ciceronianus he learned the lesson
that Poliziano imparted to Paolo Cortesi on the correct use of imitation,
given in criticism of a group of letters Cortesi had sent him.^^ Poliziano
repeats Quintilian's ridicule of those who think they are kin to Cicero
because they use one of his favorite clausulae, esse videatur. With his usual
perspicuity Erasmus remarked in one of his letters^^ that none of the
devotees of Cicero could successfully reproduce even one of his periods.
It is in this rather intangible quality of prose rhythm that Erasmus shows
his true mastery of Latin, something that can be attained only by one who
has a good ear for the native cadences of the language.

The importance of letter-writing in the time of Erasmus cannot be
emphasized enough. The letter served as an ambassador, the vehicle in
which the writer could best demonstrate his own broad culture and purity
of Latin style, while at the same time paying homage to the recipient in

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its courtliness and elegance of language.^^ Letters were copied out, passed
around to friends, and read aloud again and again in the presence of
others. There is the famous example of Poggio's letter of congratulations
to Alfonso of Aragon, whose reception is described in a letter of
Bartolomeo Fazio in Poggio.^^ The lengthy epistle was not sent directly
but confided to humanist friends in Naples, who had it copied on
parchment in an elegant hand and delivered personally by Antonio
Beccadelli to the king while he was engaged in a tourney of fowling. It was
then read aloud before his entourage, who gave voice to their admiration
of its lofty rhetoric and graceful turns of phrase.

Against this background I should like to look first at some of the early
letters of Erasmus, when he was practising his pen and whiling away an
idle moment, as he says in the introduction to the Epistolae ad diverses ?^
The letter of the fourteen-year old schoolboy to his guardian, Pieter
Winckel, though a bit awkward in its redundant and peremptory tone, still
exhibits a precocious fluency in Latin. This may very well be the letter
referred to in the letter to Grunnius and in De conscribendis epistolis as
eliciting the wry remark from its recipient that in future the young man
should include a commentary with his letters.-^^ As a matter of fact, it
merely contains a banal phrase from Ow'ià's Ars amatoria and a brief adage,
pale harbingers of what was to come. His early reading of Plautus is also
evidenced in the use of a rare Plautine verb, licitor, 'to bid.' A youthful
example of Erasmian terseness of phrase, although somewhat unvarnished
and halting in its rhythm, adds point to the end of the letter: 'Si rogatus
differt, vel iussus mittaf / 'If he demurs at a mere request, perhaps he will
deliver when ordered.'^^

The second letter printed in Allen, a touching, affectionate note to a nun
named Elizabeth, already shows more assurance of style. Erasmus is not
averse to using a Christian formula of address, 'soror una omnium in
Christo carissima,' rather than the standard phrases. One of the 141
variations of the phrase 'tuae litterae magnopere me delectarunt' from the
bounty of the De copia^^ provides a graceful opening, followed by a simple
but finely articulated Ciceronian sentence: 'Prae se ferunt enim singularis
tuae erga me benevolentiae, quam semper mihi conciliare studui,
certissimum argumentum' / 'For it gives most certain evidence of your
singular goodwill towards me, which I have always been at some pains to
earn.' The rest of the letter pursues the theme of the steadfast friendship
of the nun contrasted with the infidelity of fair-weather friends. Two
couplets from Ovid's Epistles from Pontus are enlisted to reinforce the point.

270 / Renaissance and Reformation

The direct colloquial style of Plautus and Terence is more in evidence
in an early letter to his brother. It begins with two rapid-fire questions that
function as a mild remonstrance: Ttane totum fratrem exuisti? Itane
prorsus Erasmi tui tibi cura recessit?' / 'Have you completely laid aside
the role of brother? Has concern for your Erasmus wholly fled your heart?'
The language is deliberately affected, ending in a Virgilian dactylic rhythm
to arrest the attention of the recipient. The entire first paragraph of the
letter is sprinkled with phrases from the colloquial Latin of the comedies
or from Cicero's epistolary style, expressions like 'plane excidi' / 'you have
altogether forgotten me' and other adverbial reinforcements, like apprime,
prorsus, profecto.propediem. It all sounds very much like the Latin rehearsed
in the Colloquiorum formulae. In the second paragraph Erasmus gives vent
to his sincere affection for his brother, using expressions that might well
be found in Cicero's letters, but again with a tinge of Virgil, as in the idiom
te ore ferens?^ He writes: 'Te ore, te animo ferimus; te cogitamus, te
somniamus, de te nobis frequens cum amicis sermo est' / 'Your name is
on my lips and in my heart; I think of you and dream of you and speak
of you often with my friends.' The prose rhythm here is still uncertain,
more akin to Church Latin or St Augustine.

Chief among these friends, as Erasmus relates to his brother, is a fellow
countryman, Servatius Rogerus, whom he describes as a youth of beautiful
disposition and very agreeable personality. With the next letter is initiated
the series of letters to Servatius that have caused some embarrassment to
later readers, and certainly would have embarrassed Erasmus himself if
he knew they had been made public, although he did allow these letters
from his monastery days to be copied into a letter-book, as may be deduced
from a letter to a friend of his youth, Franciscus Theodoricus (Ep 186).
Allen is reluctant to consider them as a chronicle of a true emotional
attachment of the young monk, inclining to interpret them as epistolary
exercises like those suggested in De conscribendis epistolis?^ D.F.S. Thom-
son has reinforced this view, giving 'literary imitation as the motivating
force,'^^ and citing very similar language found in the letter-book of a
monk named Robert Joseph of Evesham written at about the same time.
For my part, these ardent, affectionate words of the young Erasmus to his
fellow monk evince much more than literary conventions. If they were
mere exercises, I should think he would have used a fictitious name. The
same statements are reproduced in poetic form, which allows for even more
exuberance, in several youthful poems, which Reedijk assigns to this same
period.^^ It seems clear to me that Erasmus was under the influence of a
passing emotion, a sincere and deeply felt admiration for his confrère.

Renaissance et Réforme / 271

Underneath the rhetorical flourishes one can perceive a transparent
honesty, a fear of rebuff. As might be expected, there is much of Ovid here
as well as of Virgil, Horace, Terence, and even a tag from Juvenal, a copy
of whose work had just been delivered to Servatius out of the store of books
left to Erasmus by his father.

If we were to attempt to categorize the second of these letters according
to the ancient types, it would have to be described as a curiously involuted
letter of consolation. In discussing this genre in De conscribendis epistolis
Erasmus counsels indirection, the transference to ourselves of another's
feelings of grief. Thus in writing to Servatius Erasmus pleads that although
he seeks to give consolation, he is more in need of it himself. Yet he
intimates that the cause of Servatius' troubles is the latter's attempting to
conceal the corresponding affection that he feels for Erasmus, which is
the cause of his anguish. The fourth letter of the series (as printed in Allen,
although we cannot be at all sure of the chronology) is the most effusive,
full of protestations, antitheses, rhetorical questions, the laying bare of
wounded feelings. After indulging in these outpourings Erasmus puts
himself into his respondent's place, as he often does, and gives expression
to Servatius' indifference in language that is quite unemotional, 'Quid
rerum tibi vis fieri? quid a me exigis?' / 'What on earth do you wish me
to do? What do you want of me?' The answers of Erasmus by contrast are
charged with emotion, evoking the diction of the elegiac poets and the
Fourth Book of the Aeneid: 'excrucior,' 'torqueri,' 'adamantes redamant,'
'tui amore pereo.' In another letter (Ep 9), Erasmus is carried away with
joy at the reception of a favourable letter from Servatius, which is not
extant. This gives him an opportunity to elaborate on the commonplace
of a letter taking the place of the sender, and bringing the two into each
other's presence, for which thought a line from Virgil is aptly brought to
bear, 'Absens absentem auditque videtque'-^^ / 'By absent heart the absent
heard and seen.'

With the passage of time the ardour of the letters cooled and was
replaced by a more lofty and abiding passion, the study of good letters.
Now Erasmus firmly takes the upper hand and scolds Servatius for
gathering together at random phrases from Bernard or Claudian to patch
on to his own work, which in the end, he says, is not to compose a letter,
but collect one ('literas non condere sed colligere')."*^ Repeating Cicero's
advice to Atticus, quoted also in De conscribendis epistolis, he recommends
spontaneity, 'quidquid in buccam venerit"*^ 'whatever comes into your
head.' The mood then becomes exhortatory, a series of crisp imperatives
that recall the examples given in the long section on letters of encourage-

272 / Renaissance and Reformation

ment in the essay: 'excute torporem, pusillanimitatem exue, virum indue,
tandemque vel sero open manum impone"*^ 'Shake off sluggishness, strip
away all faint-heartedness, play the man and, at long last, even at the
eleventh hour, set your hand to the task/ It is interesting and touching to
read a letter of many years later when Servatius had become Erasmus*
superior in which the now famous scholar humbly writes to his former
friend and notes that in the letter of his superior he sensed a spirit redolent
of feelings entertained toward him in the past. But now a new tone and
protocol is required: quondam sodalis suavissime, nunc pater observande I
'Once my sweetest companion, now my revered father. '^^ This letter, too,
was never published but it seems that it was allowed to circulate, for under
the guise of a humble letter to his superior it was really written for a wider
audience.

The first few letters to Comelis Gerard of Gouda,"*^ Erasmus' senior by
six years and an established poet, are written with obvious care and as a
consequence are somewhat lacking in spontaneity. The syntax is more
complicated and the politeness seems strained. But as the correspondence
continues, Erasmus becomes more free, as if he felt more assured of his
stylistic superiority. When Comelis presumes to question Erasmus' literary
taste, however, specifically his admiration for Lorenzo Valla,"^^ the battle
is joined openly. While softening his statement with the qualification that
he was speaking only in jest, Comelis manages to call Valla's reputation
seriously into question, chiding Erasmus that he had given him as a model
one who was notorious for being biting or caustic (mordax). The last lines
of his letter contain a piquant barb that could not go ignored. He thanks
Erasmus for confiding to him unjealously the names of his own teachers
and the secret tricks of his trade (the word supellectiles in this context has
a disparaging sense).

Erasmus in reply (Ep 26) first makes a rather elaborate apology in an
effort to obviate any ill-feeling, explaining that if at times his words may
seem somewhat flattering they must be interpreted as demonstrative of true
affection, while if they should seem excessively frank Comelis must not
suppose that his love for him has diminished in any way. Pursuing this
path of indirection Erasmus pretends to interpret Comelis' comments not
as a sincere expression of opinion, but as a literary exercise in the
exposition of a paradox or as a pretence for something to write about.
Without hesitation Erasmus accepts the challenge and takes up the cudgels
against the slanders of stupid mummers of barbarism (he uses the Greek
word mystae, initiates in a religious rite) and in particular against Valla's
chief enemy, Poggio, whom he describes as possessing more loquacity than

Renaissance et Réforme / 273

eloquence (the pun is more telling in Latin, 'plus loquentiae quam
eloquentiae')."*^ He defends his kindred spirit particulariy from the charge
of mordacity, which, he contends, frees him from the much more detestable
vice of falsehood. Towards the end of the letter in a passionate peroration
Erasmus summons the best of his Ciceronian style and solemn rhythms
to exhort all men of letters to accord generous praise and the warmest
affection to Valla, 'qui tanta industria, tanto studio, tantis sudoribus
barbarorum ineptias refellit, literas pene sepultas ab interitu vindicavit,
prisco eloquentiae splendori reddidit Italiam"^^ 'who with such intense
industry, zeal and exertion refuted the follies of the barbarians, rescued
literature from extinction when it was all but buried, restored Italy to her
ancient literary glory.' Erasmus ends the letter on a jocose note, assuring
Comelis that he can entrust himself to this man without fear of being torn
to shreds, and if he were to imbibe the lesson well, he might thereby add
lustre to his writings - unless, of course, he was writing only for Dutchmen!
Not satisfied with this epistola exhortativa Erasmus later sent a humorous
letter (Ep 29) in the form of a mock declaration of war, the letter acting
as an emissary to demand satisfaction for the denigration of Valla's writing.
The ultimatum is delivered at the outset: 'Either you resume good relations
with my friend, Lorenzo Valla, or I declare open war upon you.' As he
does frequently, Erasmus imagines the response of the recipient in a kind
of dramatic repraesentatio, 'Unde subita turba?' / 'Why the sudden rumpus?'
The parody is peppered with phrases taken from the poets, like the
Virgilian horresco referem ('I shudder at the very words'), and an expression
of indignation used in the comedies of Terence, os impudens\ I 'What gall!'
that Comelis could give the name of 'croaking crow' to the most eloquent
of men, who would more fittingly be called the 'marrow of persuasion.'
Only in the last few lines does Erasmus drop the comic tone, saying: 'Are
you laughing, and do you think I am joking? Laugh as much as you like,
but do not imagine that all was said in jest.' He then reminds Comelis
that it does him no credit to attack Valla, whom only a barbarian could
dislike but not a faithful devotee (the word mystes is used again) of literary
culture. While it is true that Cicero often indulges his sense of humour, it
is usually a question of puns or light banter, but nothing as sustained as
this kind of letter of Erasmus, of which there are numerous examples. In
De conscribendis epistolis, under the heading of the humorous letter,^^
reference is made to Cicero's correspondence with Trebatius and his
exchange of witticisms, usually of a gastronomic nature, with his Epicurean
friend Papirius Paetus, but Erasmus' model seems to be more that of the
Italian humanists, especially Poliziano, whose badinage could often

274 / Renaissance and Reformation

become quite strident. It is clear, however, that Erasmus' intention here
was to give voice to a serious matter under the guise of laughter {ridentem
dicere verum, as Horace says)."*^ It is noteworthy that these are the only
letters from his monastic days that find admittance into the Farrago, and
in the later printing of them in the Epistulae ad diverses he adds the
superscription, scripsit puer.

Dropping the jocular tone, Erasmus professes his continued devotion to
his friend in a subsequent letter, in which he mentions completing 'that
oration of yours,' evidently the Antibarbari, which he was working on at
that time. In this way he makes up for any insinuations that he may have
made, even in a joking manner, to Comelis' deserting to the side of the
barbarians.

The opening period of a letter of gratitude to an unknown friend,
accompanying the gift of a manuscript of Terence, is a fine example of a
graceful expression of thanks, combined with a humble apology for not
being able to render due thanks. The language has an elegant balance and
cadence: 'Quoties animo meo recursant cum multa tum maxima tua in me
mérita, imo tuus liberalissimus animus, toties ego meam fortunam incuso,
malignam invidam iniquam voco, per quam mihi non sit facultas, ubi
tuum abunde expertus sum, mei vicissim in te declarandi amoris'^^ /
'Whenever your many great kindnesses or rather your most generous
disposition recur to mind, I reproach my ill fortune, mean, grudging, unfair
I call it, through whose fault I am denied the ability of signifying my
affection for you in return for the lavish attentions you have bestowed
upon me.' The asyndeton of the three adjectives, the homoteleuton, and
the austere rhythm of the parenthetical clause are effective. Latin likes the
juxtaposition of personal pronouns, as exemplified here: 'tua in me mérita';
'ubi tuum . . . mei vicissim in te.'

Letter 87 to a certain Johannes Falco, of whom very little is known, is
a curious example of a humorous letter, which might more properly be
called an anti-letter. It is in the same mould as the supposed letter to a
would-be courtier in the De conscribendis epistolis,^^ but from beginning to
end it is a complete parody of the very form of the letter. It seems to have
been written when Erasmus was paying court to his prospective patroness,
Anna van Borssele, from which unpleasant occupation he probably found
some release in Xhisjeu d'esprit. In place of the polite opening, the reader
is greeted with 'Tu cave salutem a nobis expectaveris' / 'Don't expect any
greeting from me!' and the usual protestations of friendship and affection
are replaced by 'Devoveo te, quoties tua mihi convicia in mentem veniunt'
/ 'I curse you everytime your insulting remarks come to mind.' The friendly

Renaissance et Réforme / 275

advice proffered is of a piece with the rest: 'Frustra sapit qui sibi non sapit'
/ 'Wisdom is of no use if it does you no good.' 'Mirare literas et lauda, sed
lucrum sequere' / 'Admire literature and accord it praise, but pursue lucre.*
'Cutem cura ante omnia'^^ 'Look after your own skin above all.' And so
to the end where the polite closing formula is inverted to 'Tu tibi vive et
vale tibi et te solum, ut facis, ama' / 'Live for yourself and look after
yourself, and love, as you do, yourself alone.' Echt Erasmus, one more facet
of his chameleonic epistolary style, which blinds the recipient by its elusive
tone.

The mood of jest, which often betokens confidence, pervades Erasmus'
letters of this period as he travelled about France and then took ship to
England. They are familiar exchanges with his friends Jacob Batt and
Fausto Andrelini. A letter (Ep 103) from England to Fausto, who, as the
editors of the CWE remark,^^ seems to have brought out the frivolous
streak in Erasmus' character, is a good example of the simple informative
letter discussed in the De conscribendis epistolis,^^ and resembles very much
in style the one given there. Brevity and ellipsis are of the essence in this
form of letter. From the opening phrase the colloquial tone is contagious.
Such letters dispense with any formal greeting. 'Deum immortalem, quid
ego audio?' / 'Good God! What is this I hear?' He reports on his reception
and sojourn in England and his adaptation to courtly manners, referring
to himself humorously in the third person: 'Ille Erasmus, quern nosti
salutat paulo blandius, arridet comius, et invita Minerva haec omnia' /
'The Erasmus you knew is a bit more charming in his salutations, smiles
more politely and all of this he does against the grain.' 'Quid mea? satis
procedit.' / 'What do I care? It's going very well.' 'Tu quoque, si sapis, hue
advolabis' / 'You too, if you have any sense, should wing your way over
here.' 'Quid ita te iuvat hominem tam nasutum inter merdas Gallicas
senescere' / 'What good is it for a man of your taste to grow old in the
midst of French excrement' Nasutum is a good colloquial word, found
mostly in Martial, meaning a man with fine taste (in Italian, nasuto, and
in French avoir bon nez). The last part of the letter is a delightfully
exaggerated description of the fair nymphs of the English countiysidc,
whom Erasmus describes as being prodigal in their lavishing of kisses, on
arrival, on taking leave, on one's return, in a word, wherever you turn,
'suaviorum plena sunt omnia' / 'all is filled with kisses.' Allen remarks
rather solemnly that 'the condition of society described may be taken to
be that of an English country house at this period.'^^ He also notes that
the letter was probably written from Bedwell in Hertfordshire, where
Mountjoy's father-in-law, Sir William Say, had an estate, but since such a

276 / Renaissance and Refonnation

barbaric place name coUld not be used in a letter to a literary friend,
Erasmus writes vaguely: ex Anglia. Spontaneous as they appear, such
letters, of which the correspondence is full, are written with great garb, and
Erasmus is quite unrivalled in this form. As he mentions in this letter, he
could be quite a skilful courtier, even if it was contrary to his temperament.
He did not hesitate to have these letters published in the Farrago as
examples of this urbane style.

The correspondence with Colet is of quite another cast. Colet was the
first to write (Ep 106), on the recommendation of Richard Chamock, prior
of St Mary's College, where Erasmus was staying. It is a formal letter of
welcome from the English world of scholarship, in which Colet praises
the visitor's virtue as well as his learning. The Dean of St Paul's makes
specific reference to a complimentary letter that Erasmus had inserted in
Gaugin's history of France, which he had obviously seen recently in Paris.
Colet is ecstatic in his praise: 'Erat mihi quasi specimen quoddam et
degustatio perfecti hominis et magnae literaturae et multarum rerum
scientiae'^^ / Tt was to me a very pattern and example of human perfection,
of great literary learning and knowledge of various subjects.' In contrast
to Colet's plain style Erasmus delivers himself of an elegant reply (Ep 107),
introduced by a suitably modest but well-turned sentence: 'Si quid omnino
in meipso agnoscerem, Colete humanissime, vel mediocri laude dignum,
iactarer profecto cum Hectore illo Neviano laudari abs te, viro omnium
facile laudatissimo' / 'If I saw anything in myself, most kind Colet, that
deserved even a modicum of praise, I should now surely be boasting, like
Hector in Naevius' play, that I receive praise from the praised, for you are
easily the most praised of all men.' Aside from the learned quotation taken
from Cicero's letters,^^ what is worthy of note here is the elegant figura
etymologica linking the successive commata or divisions of the sentence:
'laude dignum . . . laudari abs te, viro laudatissimo.'^^ The picture he
paints of himself with all modesty is justly famous, composed of a series
of rhetorical antitheses. Having presented himself, he then draws a picture
of his correspondent as manifested in his style, through which, Erasmus
says, he could clearly perceive a kind of image of his personality {tui animi
simulacrum), a common figure of epistolary convention. He qualifies his
style as calm, tranquil, unaffected, flowing like a pellucid stream from the
great riches of his mind; even and consistent, clear and simple and full of
modesty, without a trace of anything tasteless, involved or confused (the
last tricolon is articulated in an emphatic rhythm, each adjective one
syllable longer than the preceding: scabri. contorti, conturbati). The truth is,
as Erasmus confessed much later, Colet was impatient with the rules of

Renaissance et Réforme / 277

grammar and though eloquent by nature he never developed a style
sufficiently learned in his own estimation for the writing of books.

The next two letters constitute the theological dispute with Colet on the
nature of Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane. They are interesting
as a transference to a letter of an oral discussion of a religious subject,
forming the intermediate stage of the treatise that was then revised,
rearranged and enlarged for publication in the Lucubratiunculae in 1503.
These original versions, as printed by Allen from the Gouda manuscript,
show the greater freedom allowed in the epistolary form compared to the
final published work. Erasmus is determined to show that such subjects
can be treated in an eloquent manner rather than in the stammering, foul
and squalid style of the scholastics, as he describes it.^^ In refuting his
opponent, Erasmus has recourse to logical principles employed in oratory
that he had learned from the De inventione of Cicero and had recorded in
De conscribendis epistolis. He terms this procedure the method of inference^^
whereas he accuses Colet of using a specious type of rhetorical argument
in which the proofs are omitted.^^ The argument ex antecedentibus, or
simple conclusion, is employed, which he illustrates with some of the veiy
same examples used in his treatise on letter-writing.^^

During his often frustrating attempts to gain patronage in the
Toumehem-Saint-Omer circle Erasmus was sometimes constrained to
write rather fawning letters against his inclination and better judgment.
The first such letter was one addressed to Antoon van Bergen, Abbot of
St Bertin at Saint-Omer. It begins with a well-rounded, chancellery-style
period: 'Cum incredibilis humanitas tua, pater amplissime, cumulatioribus
beneficiis me sibi teneat obaeratum quam ut (etiamsi capitis huius
auctionem fecero) vel sorti soluendae par esse possim, ego tamen grati
animi conatum cuperem officio literarum utcunque significare, ne
pessimum nomen iure videri possem, si aes alienum vel qualicunque opera
redimere dissimulassem'^^ / 'Although your extraordinary kindness, most
venerable Father, holds me bound in your debt by such an accumulation
of favours that I am in no position to repay the principal, even if I should
auction off my very life to do so, yet I should like at least to signify in
some way in a letter my instinctive feeling of gratitude, lest I justly earn
the reputation of being a bad risk in the repaying of debts, as indeed I
would if I were to neglect repaying my debt by some gesture.' As the letter
proceeds, the praise of the abbot becomes ever more lavish, with reference
to his majesty of bearing {corporis heroica species), splendid health {yaletudo
felicissima), and Herculean strength of spirit {Herculeum animi robur).
Buoyed up on his own flow of language, Erasmus suddenly catches himself

278 / Renaissance and Reformation

up short, as it were, in the middle of a developing period, which had grown
so fulsome that he could not give it final shape: 'et in amplitudine
humanissimus et in humanitate amplissimus.^ Perish the thought! Erasmus
is beginning to sound like Gnatho, the parasite of Terentian comedy,
whose emulators he so despised. But he puts an end to this display of
verbosity, which he calls makrologismos, and comes finally to his request,
not without one final recapitulation of the bishop's physical and mental
endowments.

A similar tone is to be found in the first letter of Erasmus to be published,
which constituted, fittingly enough, his first appearance in print (Ep 45).
Hastily composed to fill the last two printed pages of Gaguin's history of
the French, which appeared in 1495,^ currente calamo, it was drawn out
to greater length than was required.^^ Yet with this single effort Erasmus
was able to gain entry into the circle of Parisian humanists and indeed
beyond, since it was also read by Colet, who was inspired by it to write
the letter of encomium previously mentioned. The first part of the letter is
a rather tedious elaboration of the Horatian sentiment that the great deeds
of kings and leaders will soon die away or be eclipsed by time unless they
be enshrined in writing. This is the glorious task that Gaguin has
accomplished, which will occasion immense pleasure to all lovers of Latin
literature. The series of superlatives and tricola employed are decidedly
overdone: 'Galliae tuae splendidum imprimis, magnificum ac (ut ita
dixerim) triumphale, denique tua doctrina, tua eloquentia, tua pietate
dignissimum' (lines 8-10) / 'a work destined first of all to bring to your
country of France dignity, prestige and, what I may call triumphal
splendour, and finally one most worthy of your scholarship, literary skill
and patriotism.' Erasmus feels he must apologize for the unclassical use
of the adjective triumphale, and there are other instances in the letter of
post-classical usage, e.g., the words, laudatiuncula (60), luculentia (93),
vivacitas (96), and phalerare (124). Further awkwardness is manifest in his
complimenting Gaguin on his ability at compression of subject matter, 'et
prolixe brevis et breviter prolixus' (lines 99-100), but all in all, it is
impressive for a publishing debut even if it does smell undeniably of the
lamp. In any case, Erasmus did not see fit to include it in his collections,
nor did Gaguin. The rather severe doyen of Parisian humanists had
reproved the aspiring scholar for using excessive flattery in an earlier letter
addressed to him, which is no longer extant. It seems that Erasmus took
the reproof to heart and wrote a second letter, likewise not extant, which
Gaguin praises for its admirable arrangement of words and nobility of
sentiment (verborum structura et sententiarum maiestate),^ but in the pub-

Renaissance et Réforme / 279

lished preface to the history Erasmus seems to have relapsed once again
into hyperbole.

Another early letter found its way independently into print but was never
included in any collection (Ep 93). It is an exhortatory preface to a group
of prayers composed for the ten-year-old Adolph of Burgundy, heer van
Veere, which appeared as the first piece of the Lucubratiunculae (Martens,
1503).^'^ At the beginning it exhibits more the characteristics of the
panegyric, but then it takes on the tone of an exhortatory letter in
blandishing and whimsical language suitable to the young recipient. In
Latin the diminutives have a pleasant charm that is not easily transferrable
to English: 'blesa ac vixdum firma lingula Graecae pariter ac Latinae verba
meditaris'^^ / 'your lisping and faltering tongue reciting Latin and Greek,'
or 'formosula isto et generoso ore ac vocula amabili' / 'your dainty,
well-bred lips and charming little voice.'

The first formal appearance in print of a group of Erasmus' letters is
somewhat disguised. They form the latter portion of a brief anthology of
poems and panegyrical letters dedicated to Pope Leo X concerning
expeditions against the Turks, printed by Froben in August 1515. The title
poem De expeditione in Turcas elegeia by a little known Italian humanist,
Janus Damianus, is followed by a letter of Jacobus Piso, a friend of
Erasmus and envoy of Leo X, on the war between the Poles and the
Lithuanians, another of a certain Henricus Penia and one of King
Sigmund of Poland. It seemed opportune to the printer to insert at this
point an extended homage to Leo X, defender of Christianity, apostle of
peace, and protector of the humanities. Erasmus first wrote this letter (Ep
335) to gain permission from the Pope to dedicate his editorial work on
St Jerome to him. Given this opportunity to assure the letter's wider
currency, he re-worked and amplified it extensively. In this case the process
of revision can be accurately studied, for the original version exists in
manuscript.^^ In addition to rounding out individual phrases and adding
sentences more applicable to the context of the war against the Turks,
Erasmus composes afresh long developments, e.g., a section of twenty lines
in the Allen text (lines 143-63) on the history of all the pontiffs who bore
the name of Leo and another of fourteen lines (171-84) on the two wars
that must be waged by Christians, one against wickedness and the other
on a narrower front against the impious opponents of Christianity. The
amplification of the existing text is done with great rhetorical skill. It is a
natural and unforced expansion of the original material, of which I shall
give but a single example. In awarding praise to the Medici family that
had produced so many followers of Cicero and Virgil, of Plato and Jerome.

280 / Renaissance and Reformation

Erasmus said in the first version that this one thing alone should rouse
high hopes in all men of learning 'ut vel haec una res studiosos omnes
summam in spem debeat erigere.'^^ Changing *haec una res' into 'hoc
unum omen/ he easily adds an appositive clause with the effect that the
phrase debeat erigere, not a very strong rhythm for the end of a full period,
now becomes the preparatory rhythm at the end of an incisum, or shorter
member, leading into a grander resolution of the period: 'minimum
providentia Leonem orbi datum, sub quo praeclarae virtutes, sub quo
bonae artes omnes reflorescent' / 'by the providence of God a Leo has
been given to the world under whose guidance all noble virtues and all
liberal arts may once again flourish.' Halkin comments that 'la lettre est
gâtée par une obséquiosité peu érasmienne,'^^ but I think he fails to
consider that it becomes an outright panegyric in its new expanded version,
and is well adapted to that form.

This letter is printed in first position, as it should be, in view of its
importance and elaboration, although it is posterior in time to the letters
written from London to his two most influential patrons in Rome,
Cardinals Raffaele Riario and Domenico Grimani. Both of these are
models of an accomplished, curial style, but do not lack the distinguishing
marks of vividness, urbanity and learned allusion. The second version of
the letter to Riario is again greatly amplified for publication. To both
prelates he expresses his love and nostalgia for the city of Rome with
similar words and sentiments, but not wishing to reduplicate phrases, he
demonstrates his abundance of style and ability at subtle variation. To
Riario he writes 'non possum non discruciari Romanae urbis desiderio
quoties animo recursat'^^ 'I cannot but be tormented by a longing for the
city of Rome whenever I recall . . . ' and here he records the city's various
delights. To Grimani he re-phrases his words: 'neque enim non possum
tangi Romae desiderio quoties tantus tantarum simul commoditatum
accrvus in mentem venit'^^ / 'I cannot help being effected by a longing for
Rome when I bethink myself of its great store of immense advantages to
be enjoyed all at one time.'

Elegant words of encomium are also reserved for the pope and for the
Archbishop of Canterbury, making these two letters the worthy compan-
ions of the longer panegyric. The fourth and last component of the volume
is the famous letter to Dorp in defense of the Folly. The original letter,
which has not survived, was shorter than the one printed in this collection,
as we know from passages in other letters. For all its great length the letter
is a pleasure to read, a model of eloquence and equanimity, a good example
of Erasmus' milder polemical style. The four letters were re-publishcd in

Renaissance et Réforme / 281

the same year of 1515 by Martens in Louvain, and in the following year
in Leipzig and Cologne with the new title Erasmi Roterodami epistolae.
Thus, as Halkin remarks, 's' achève cette opération publicitaire de grand
style,'^^ an Erasmus-Froben production.

The second collection, as the title Epistolae aliquot vironim illustrium ad
Erasmum indicates, is more an advertisement of Erasmus' illustrious
correspondents than of himself. A list of them is given in the preface to
the volume written by Pieter Gillis. Appearing in the same year as the
Novum Instrumentum, it places great emphasis on letters that are connected
with the reception given to this work. The first three pieces are taken from
the 1515 volume, followed by a response of Leo X to Erasmus (Ep 338)
and a new letter of Erasmus to Leo X (Ep 446), which resumes the earlier
correspondence concerning the papal favour he was seeking. The delicate
matter of the further dispensation is not broached in the letter, but left to
be communicated by word of mouth by the bishop of Worcester, Silvestro
Gigli. The letter is framed in most exquisite and formal Latin, as befits
such a recipient. Gillis, no doubt with Erasmus' complicity, cleverly joins
to this set of letters an eloquent letter of recommendation from Leo X to
Henry VIII (Ep 339), professing his high regard for Erasmus. England is
well represented in this collection with letters from More, Archbishop
Warham, Colet, Ammonio and Bullock.

Letters from the greatest humanists of France also find their place in
these pages. There is a brief but very eulogistic letter from Jacques Lefèvre
d'Etaples (Ep 315) to Erasmo Roterodamo, literarum splendori. It might be
said in passing that Lefèvre's praise is not enhanced by his style. The first
letters of the long and intricate exchange with Budé are also included. In
his introductory letter (Ep 403) Budé accords glowing tribute to the Novum
Instrumemum, pleased in turn that Erasmus had given him very honourable
mention in one of his notes (omitted in all editions of the New Testament
after 1527). Towards the end of the letter, however, he indulges in a bit of
criticism of Erasmus for wasting his talents on what he calls with a fancy
Greek word, leptologemata, 'bagatelles.' This accusation nettled Erasmus,
as we see in his response (Ep 421), which is a masterpiece of clever
refutation while still sustaining a most deferential tone. He turns Budc's
criticism to his own advantage, conceding that he finds everything he writes
trifling and wonders why others, even men in high places, make so much
of his work. With ironic self-deprecation he claims for himself that he has
outdone his predecessors in diligence, at any rate, if not in erudition. As
for trivialities, he exclaims: 'Think how many frivolous notes there are in
Jerome's emendation of the Psalter!' (lines 119-20). To this letter Erasmus

282 / Renaissance and Reformation

later added a kind of postscript (Ep 441), replying in detail to some of
Budé's philological questions. This exchange saw print eariy, for Erasmus
stood to gain in the matching of wits with the French savant. Indeed it
was a rather unequal contest.

From the German world the collection is adorned with two letters from
Zasius (Epp 310 and 406) and one from Pirckheimer (Ep 409). The former,
a learned jurist at the University of Freiburg, assures Erasmus that his
letter was passed from hand to hand and the faculty clamoured for it, full
of admiration for such a fountain of the purest style. He counts himself
blessed for the privilege of having received a letter from the divine
Roterodamus, and confesses that he has fallen under the spell of Erasmus'
splendid rhetoric. The feeling was mutual in this case, for Erasmus
considered Zasius to be the only German who could write Latin and
compared him to Poliziano in his felicity of style. All the more reason why
he should be included in this early collection. The other letter from
Germany is from the hand of Willibald Pirckheimer, town councillor of
Niimberg. It is a carefully written note in praise of the New Testament
and bears testimony to the great popularity oi Erasmus noster in that part
of the world. The flattering closing salutation, 'bene valeas, gloria et
splendor humani generis,' could not but add lustre to the volume. As
further proof of his renown in the German world Erasmus prints a letter
from Urbanus Regius (Ep 386), writing for Duke Ernest of Bavaria, to
Joannes Faber, chancellor to the bishop of Basel, asking him to deliver
an invitation to Erasmus to assume a chair at the University of Ingolstadt.
Once again the praise is lavish and abundant. The Duke's representative
inquires whether there could be any terms on which 'this great champion
of humane studies could be induced to give regular courses and water their
desert with the manifold rivers of his eloquence and erudition.' It is
significant that Erasmus does not include his two answers to this request,
the first being a rather hurried note of refusal, which he considered brief
and unpolished and therefore not worthy of inclusion at the moment, and
the other a letter to Regius recommending Glareanus for the position,
likewise not included as contributing little to the fame of the writer.

It will be seen that these first two public collections, after the very
experimental apprenticeship, are very cautious and conservative. The first
sizeable collection, the Epistulae sanequam elegantes of 1517,^^ containing
thirty-five letters, of which thirty-one are published for the first timc,^^
gives greater scope for variatio. The title itself, 'exceptionally elegant
epistles,' ostensibly devised by Gillis, who wrote the preface, is a sure
indication of Erasmus' ambitions for the volume. It is clear that Erasmus

Renaissance et Réforme / 283

was directly connected with its publication, as he indicates in a letter to
More (Ep 543:30-2), telling of his intentions to arrange for the printing of
another volume of letters to bring them before a larger public. Moreover
a letter from Rutgerus Rescius (Ep 546), corrector for the press of Martens,
confirms Erasmus' direct involvement In the opening letter to Capito he
inquires about a passage that he cannot understand and also asks if
Erasmus has anything that could be added to fill the space left by the
printer for some preliminary material. Erasmus responded by supplying
a letter to Etienne Poncher, bishop of Paris, which turned out to be too
long and had to be compressed into the space by the use of every possible
abbreviation. The argument of the letter fits in very well with that of several
others in the collection, Erasmus' hesitance to accept the post at the new
Collège Royal offered to him by the King of France.

The choice of letters and especially the order in which they are set out
are again très soigné. The letter to Wolfgang Capito, which heads the
collection, is indeed a classic statement of the aspirations and programme
of humanistic reform,' as the editors of CWE remark.^^ Erasmus is careful
to single out all the monarchs and prelates who showed themselves
sympathetic to his concerns: Leo X, Francis I, Charles V, Henry VIII,
Cardinal Ximenes and the Emperor Maximilian, paying due homage to
each. He speaks in this opening letter of the advent of a new golden age
(Ep 541:13), a theme to which he returns frequently at this time.

After the letter to Poncher, inserted at the last moment, it is the turn of
Guillaume Budé, represented by six new exchanges between the two
paladins of learning, set in friendly confrontation, as Gillis had promised
in the preface. Then follows, very tactfully, a letter from François Deloynes,
close friend of Budé since their youth, which contains great praise for
works recently issued from Erasmus' workshop, and wishes God's bless-
ings on both scholars. At this point come two more letters between the Uvo
men, taken from the 1516 collection. A letter from Guillaume Cop,
reinforcing the offer from Budé, Erasmus' polite response, and the eloquent
eulogy to Francis I, all concern themselves with the invitation to France.
A similar offer from Luigi di Canossa, bishop of Bayeux, is the subject of
the next exchange of letters.

In contrast to these official letters is a very affectionate and respectful
letter from the Swiss poet, Henricus Glareanus, (Ep 463) who expresses
his indebtedness to Erasmus for having taught him the philosophy of
Christ {Christum sapere), a compliment that the theologian would most
certainly be pleased to have spread abroad.^^ The same sentiment is
repeated in Glareanus' poem to Oswald Geisshiissler, which follows.

284 / Renaissance and Reformation

together with a hecatostichon of Glareanus to Erasmus and a poem of his
teacher, Hermann von dem Busche, in honour of Erasmus. It has been
objected that the insertion of these hors-d'oeuvre spoils the continuity of
the coUectionJ^ but I think not. They serve the same purpose of confirming
the notoriety of the great man, and they are closely connected in theme
with the letters they accompany.

It will not be possible to comment on the place of each letter in the
collection, but it should be obvious by now that they were all carefully
selected and strategically placed. There is only one letter that is not to or
from Erasmus, viz., Ep 492, situated at about the halfway mark, written by
Adriaan Comelissen van Baerland to his brother Comelis, which Erasmus
obviously included as a convenient way to give a catalogue of his works,
and of more importance, the estimate of them by learned men. This van
Baerland does with great unction in reply to a request by his brother. In
a burst of hyperbole he exclaims that the master 'has so enriched the Latin
tongue that there is no need to complain so bitterly over the classical
authors lost in the invasion of Italy by the Goths' (Ep 492:22-4). Later in
the letter he speaks of Erasmus as 'a man clearly bom for the restoration
of humane studies' / *homo nimirum ad restituendas literas natus' (Allen
Ep 492:126-7). Such unsolicited good publicity could not be denied the
privilege of publication.

One of the best accounts of Erasmus' epistolary style remains the letter of
Christophe de Longeuil, himself no mean stylist, although he fell victim to
the excesses of Ciceronianism, addressed to Jacques Lucas, Dean of Orléans,
which later reached Erasmus (Ep 914). Of Erasmus' style he praises its ars,
subtilitas, lenitas, iucunditas / 'skill, subtlety, smoothness and pleasantness.' To
these he might have added humanitas, above all, and true amicitia^^ not the
calculated political virtue cultivated in the Roman republic. Later, in his
preface to the Epistolae ad dixersos^^ Erasmus said modestly of himself that
he might not seem wholly ill-equipped for the writing of letters. In that same
place he insisted that letters that are deficient in true feeling and do not reflect
a man's actual life do not deserve to be called letters at all. Those charges
cannot certainly be levelled at Erasmus. Of all letter-writers he perhaps best
illustrates the prescription in the treatise On Style attributed to Demetrius of
Phaleron that a letter should be the image of the soul, eiKcov viixiis ^^ This
was surely the impression left in his original recipients as it is still today, even
when his image is refracted into another language, as in the splendid English
renderings of CWE.

University of Windsor

Renaissance et Réforme / 285
Notes

1 Cicero expressed this intention in a letter to Atticus (16, 5, 5): 'mearum epistolarum nulla
est ouvaycuYTi sed habet Tiro instar septuaginta, et quidem sunt a te quaedam sumendae.
Eas ego oportet perspiciam, corrigam; turn denique edentur' / There is no collection of
my letters, but Tiro has about seventy and I shall have to get some from you. I must
examine and correct them. Then and then only will they be published.'

2 Cf Otto Seeck Q. Aurelii Symmachi quae supersunt, Monumenta Germaniae Historica VI, I
(Berlin 1883) xxiii

3 Giorgio Pasquali Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (Florence 1%2) 457

4 Cf Gianvito Resta L'epistolario di Antonio Panormita: studi per un'edizione critica (Messina
1954) 3.

5 F. Petrarca Lefamiliari ed Vittorio Rossi, Edizione nazionale delle opere di F. Petrarca
x-xiii (Florence 1933-42)

6 See Lucia Gualdo Rosa 'La pubblicazione degli epistolari umanistici: bilancio e
prospettive.' Bullettino dell' Istituto Storico per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano 89
(1980-81) 369-92.

7 For an illuminating discussion of the importance of the order in which letters appear in
a collection cf Jozef IJsewijn 'Marcus Antonius Muretus epistolographus' in La
correspondance d'Erasme et l'épistolographie humaniste (Brussels 1985) 183-91.

8 Cf H. Hunger 'Epistolographie' in Handbuch dér Altertumswissenschaft XII Abt., V, I
(Munich 1978) 197-239.

9 Cf Karl Zeumer Formulae merowingici et karolini aevi MGH Legum V (Hannover 1886).

10 A good synopsis of the teachings of the dictatores may be found in James J. Murphy
Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Berkeley 1974) chapter V 'Ars dictaminis' 194-268.

1 1 See John O. Ward 'From Antiquity to the Renaissance: Glosses and Commentaries on
Cicero's Rhetorica' in James J. Murphy Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and
Practice of Medieval Rhetoric (Berkeley 1978) 25-67.

12 Ronald Witt 'Medieval "Ars Dictaminis" and the Beginnings of Humanism' Renaissance
Quarterly 35, 1 (1981) 17

13 For Giovanni di Bonandrea see James Barker 'The Ars dictaminis and Rhetorical
Textbooks at the Bolognese University in the Fourteenth Century' Medievalia et
humanistica 5 (1974), and for the treatise of Bartolomeo de Benincasa see Sandra Karaus
Wertis 'The Commentary of Bartolinus de Benincasa de Canulo on the Rhetorica ad
Herennium' Viator 10 (1979) 289.

14 'E insieme disperdeva con un solo assalto gran parte della precettistica involuta che
attraverso secoli si era condensata a regolare i dictamina.' Giuseppe Billanovich Petrarca
letteraria (Rome 1947) 4

15 Francesco Petrarca Le familiari ed Vittorio Rossi (Florence 1933) 1.1.14

16 Ibid 1.1.16

17 'Aliter virum fortem, aliter ignavum decet alloqui; aliter iuvenem inexpertum, aliter vite
muneribus functum senem; aliter prosperitate tumidum, aliter adversitate contractum:
aliter denique studiosum literisque et ingenio clarum, aliter vero non intellecturum siquid
altius loquaris.' 1.1.28

18 Erasmus De conscribendis epistolis CWE 25, 19 and passim. Juan Luis Vives De con-
scribendis epistolis ed Charles Fantazzi (Leiden 1989) 28-37.

19 Quintilian 11.1

20 'Nam et litterae sine rerum scientia stériles sunt et inanes, et scientia rerum quamvis
ingens si splendore careat litterarum, abdita quaedam obscuraque videtur.' De studiis ct

286 / Renaissance and Reformation

litteris, 19 in Leonardo Bruni AretinoHumanistisch - philosophische Schriften ed. Hans Baron
(Leipzig 1928)

21 The Latin text is contained in ASD 1-3 31-103 ed L.-E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire, R. Hoven,
and an English translation is provided by Craig R. Thompson The Colloquies of Erasmus
(Chicago 1965) 557-614. For the complicated history of the text see ASD 1-3:5-8.

22 CWE 25:60, ASD 1-2:292

23 It might be remarked in passing that exaggerated as these titles may seem to an English
reader, many of them have survived in Italian and Spanish such as the Italian forms of
address chiarissimo. pregiatissimo, etc.

24 This letter was first published by Gervasius Amenus of Dreux in his Lucubratiunculae
(Paris 1513-14).

25 CWE 29-33, ASD 1-2:238-45

26 Spongano 'La prosa letteraria del '400' in Leon Battista Alberti Delia famiglia (Florence
1946) vii-xxxii

27 The letters of Poliziano and Cortesi's response with Italian translation are contained in
Prosatori latini del Quattrocento ed. Eugenio Garin (Milan 1952) 902-11.

28 Allen Ep 1885:150-6

29 As Cecil Clough remarks, 'by the turn of the fifteenth century the letter was replacing
the oration as the prime means by which scholars, and particularly those devoted to the
cult of Antiquity, disseminated their ideas and made their case in scholarly controversy.'
'The Cult of Antiquity: Letters and Letter Collections' in Cultural Aspects of the Italian
Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller ed Cecil H. Clough (Manchester
1976) 33.

30 Poggii epistolae ed Tommaso Tonelli (Florence 1832-61) vol III 158-65. the letter of Fazio
is contained in W. Shepherd Vita di Poggio Bracciolini trans T. Tonelli (Florence 1825)
vol II, LXIX-LXXI. Cf Hélène Harth 'L'épistolographie humaniste entre professionalisme
et souci littéraire: l'exemple de Poggio Bracciolini' in La correspondence d'Erasme et
l'épistolographie humaniste (Brussels 1985) 143-4.

31 Ep 1206:24

32 CWE 25 16

33 Allen Ep 1:14-5

34 CWE 24 349-54

35 Vir^û Aeneid A.W

36 Allen I, Appendix 3, 584

37 D.F.S. Thomson 'Erasmus as Poet in the Context of Northern Humanism' De Gulden
Passer Al (1969) 192

38 Poems 5-7, C. Reedijk ed The Poems ofDesiderius Erasmus (Leiden 1956) 143-8

39 Vugû Aeneid A.%Z

40 Allen Ep 15:37-8

41 CiccTO Ad Atticum 12.1.2; 14.7.2

42 Allen Ep 15:49-50

43 Allen Ep 296:236-7

44 Cf C.P.H.M. Tilmans 'Cornelius Agricola (c. 1460-1531), praeceptor Erasmi?' Rodolphus
Agricola Phrisius 1444-1485. Proceedings of the International Conference at the University
of Groningen 28-30 October 1985, ed FA. Akkerman and AJ. Vanderjagt (Leiden 1988)
200-210.

Renaissance et Réforme / 287

45 Ep 24:30-46

46 Allen Ep 26:49-50

47 Allen Ep 26:105-7

48 CWE 25:245

49 Horace 5a//res 1.1.24

50 Allen Ep 31:1-5

51 CWE 25:195-7

52 Juvenal 2.105; Horace Epistles 1.2.29

53 Ep 103 introduction

54 CWE 25:225

55 Allen Ep 103, introduction

56 Allen Ep 106:6-7

57 Cicero Ad familiares 5.12J

58 Ep 107:2-3

59 Ep 108:33

60 Ep 111:80

61 Ep 111:52-3

62 Ep 111:203; CWE 25:112

63 Allen Ep 143:1-6

64 Cf Allen Ep 43, introduction.

65 It is interesting to note that in a later edition of the Compendium Erasmus' friend
Cornelius wrote a dedication which he felt to be inadequate 'since his friend Erasmus
had already given it excellent praise in that eloquent voice of his.' (Parcus te laudo,
candidissime pater, quam dignus sis, turn quod primarias tue laudis partes meus
Herasmus illo suo facundissimo ore occupavit.) Compendium, fl08.

66 Allen Ep 44:2-3.

67 The letter is entitled 'Epistola exhortatoria ad capessendam virtutem ad generosissimum
puerum Adolphum, principem Veriensem.'

68 Allen Ep 93:78-9

69 Allen Ep 333, introduction

70 Allen Ep 335:24-5

71 Léon-E. Halkin Erasmus ex Erasmo (Aubel 1983) 29

72 Allen Ep 333:30-1

73 Allen Ep 334:32-4

74 Halkin, 36

75 I consulted the exemplar in the Gemeentebibliothek of Rotterdam.

76 The four previously published letters are from the 1516 edition: Epp 388, 403, 421, and
441. The first of these, to Thomas More, is reserved for the last place in the new collection;
401 is a long letter from Budé; 421 and 441 are shorter letters of Erasmus to Budé.

77 CWE Ep 541, introduction

78 Erasmus omits Ep 440, which elicited Glareanus' response and in which he also asks for
the poem. According to the editors of the CWE the original letter seems to have been
destroyed.

288 / Renaissance and Reformation

79 'L'unité du recueil est compromise par l'introduction, ça et là, de quelques poèmes sans
rapport avec les lettres.' Halkin, 52

80 Cf the study of Yvonne Charlier Erasme et l'amitié d'après sa correspondence (Paris 1977).

81 1206:94-5

82 Demetrius On Style ed W. Rhys Roberts (Cambridge 1902) 227

The Achievement of P. S, Allen
and the Role of CWE^

JAMES M. ESTES

RÉSUMÉ: La contribution de PS. Allen et le rôle des "CWE"
Pour juger de la réussite de P.S. Allen dans son édition des Erasmi Epistolae, il
faut séparer son travail d'éditeur de son travail d'annotateur. En tant qu'éditeur,
il a été le premier à publier le corpus presque intégral de la correspondance
subsistant d'Érasme dans un texte fidèle et exact, avec toutes les lettres dans leur
ordre chronologique, ce qui représente une œuvre monumentale. Sa réussite en
tant qu'annotateur est moins impressionnante. D'un côté, il a donné des informa-
tions complètes et précises sur la publication des travaux d'Érasme; il a fourni un
grand nombre de renvois très utiles et il a identifié presque toutes les personnes
que le texte mentionnait ou auxquelles il faisait allusion. D'un autre côté, ses
connaissances en histoire étaient plutôt faibles et par conséquent ses annotations
historiques le sont aussi. Souvent, il n'a pas reconnu et identifié des citations et
des références bibliques, des références aux ouvrages d'Érasme lui-même et des
références à ces œuvres classiques qui n'étaient pas sur la liste standard des lectures
scolaires. C'est la réussite éditorale d'Allen dans l'établissement d'un recueil
complet et précis des lettres qui a rendu possible la publication de la correspond-
ance dans les CWE. En même temps, parce qu'il n'a pas accomplis tout ce qu'il
aurait pu faire comme annotateur, les annotateurs des CWE se retrouvent avec la
tâche importante de parachever le travail d'Allen dans ce domaine.

As ail serious students of Erasmus' correspondence will know, the CWE
edition of the letters of Erasmus is essentially a translation of P.S. Allen's
edition of the Erasmi Epistolae, which H.W. Garrod has described as 'one
of the great monuments of English learning' and as 'perhaps the most
accurate book in the world.' Inasmuch as I have been, over the past several
years, intermittently preoccupied with devising the annotations for CWE
9 and 10, which are based on Allen's volume V, and which contain the
letters of 1522-4, it seemed to me that my contribution to the proceedings

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 289

290 / Renaissance and Reformation

might appropriately be an assessment of Allen's achievement as editor and
annotator of Erasmus' correspondence. The main point which I shall make
is that while Garrod's high estimate of Allen's work is still valid, that work
has, nevertheless, certain shortcomings which the CWE annotators have
the opportunity to correct.

For the benefit of those who have not worked extensively with the
correspondence, let me point out that Allen's edition comprises eleven
volumes published between 1906 and 1947. The last four volumes, numbers
8 through 11, were published posthumously, volume 8 being the last one
which Allen himself completed before his death in 1933. The remaining
three volumes, for which Allen had collected the materials, were prepared
for publication by his widow, Helen Mary Allen, who had all along been
his collaborator on the project, and H.W. Garrod, Fellow and Librarian
of Merton College (the text was Allen's, the notes were theirs).

Let me lay the foundation for my assessment of Allen's achievement by
giving a brief summary of his career, a summary based on Mrs Allen's
edition of his letters^ and on the biographical sketch which Garrod wrote
at the time of Allen's death."* The son of a prosperous London banker,
Allen was bom in 1869 'in oppidulo suburbano quod Twickenham
vocatur,' to quote the Latin version of Garrod's biographical sketch. After
receiving a thorough grounding in the classics at school, Allen attended
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he took his BA in 1892, having
already decided to make scholarship his career. As it happened, the topic
for the Chancellor's English Essay Prize for 1893 was Erasmus. Allen
entered the competition and, although he did not win the prize, he did
stumble onto his life's work, namely, a new critical edition of Erasmus'
letters. During a summer spent reading for the essay, he realized, as had
others before him, that no extant edition of Erasmus' correspondence had
taken the letters sufficiently seriously as historical sources as well as literary
compositions, and that none had succeeded in the effort (if any) to place
the letters in chronological order. Moreover, numerous unpublished letters
had been turned up in the two centuries since the great Leiden edition
(1703-6). So a new edition of the correspondence seemed to be a major
desideratum. Two continental scholars, Adolf Horawitz and Karl Hartfel-
der, the editors of the correspondence of Beatus Rhenanus, had undertaken
the task, only to die before making any substantial progress.

Allen received encouragement from J.A. Froude, whose lectures on
Erasmus he heard in 1893-4, but apart from that Allen was on his own,
with no one to guide him in his initial efforts. Nevertheless, he managed
to get a good start. He began by making a catalogue based on the Leiden

Renaissance et Réforme / 291

edition but including letters not in that edition and so arranged as to be
capable of expansion to include any new letters that might be discovered.
This catalogue, which Mrs Allen has described as nearly faultless in its
accuracy,^ became the basis of his edition.

In the summers of 1894 and 1896 Allen made the first of his many
journeys to continental libraries and archives in search of Erasmiana, very
quickly winning the trust and admiration of the scholars whom he
encountered there. In 1897, the regrettable necessity of earning a living
forced him to go off to India to teach history at the Government College
in Lahore. He soon found that India was hard on both his health and his
Erasmus studies, so in 1901 he returned to England. An allowance from
his father and a variety of academic odd-jobs enabled Allen and his wife
to live modestly in Oxford and to work productively on Erasmus. In 1903
the Clarendon Press committed itself to the edition. For a while, however,
it was not clear that the Oxford edition would be the only one. It was
discovered that the Berlin Academy had commissioned Dr Max Reich to
edit the letters of Erasmus. However, Reich obligingly died in 1904, having
made no real progress. Then another German, Dr J.R.F. Knaake, who had
edited Luther's correspondence, announced that he was going to do the
same for Erasmus. But he too died, in 1905, before his project was off the
ground. Meanwhile, the Dutch Historical Commission, upon learning that
the Oxford edition of the correspondence would be complete, decided that
its own edition would be 'superfluous.' With that, all of Allen's potential
rivals were either dead or had stepped aside, although Allen was left for
a time with the uneasy feeling that all Erasmus editors died before they
could accomplish anything.

Meanwhile, after his return from India, Allen had resumed his annual
summer expeditions to the continent, a series which continued unbroken,
save only for the war years, until near the end of his life. Almost everywhere
the Aliens went, they were received with the greatest cordiality and the
most generous co-operation. But there were exceptions. In July 1907 they
arrived in Dresden, where, in Allen's words,

A most unusual reception awaited us [at the Hauptstaatsarchiv]. The
'Lesesaal' was open, but nothing could be done till the Director anivcd
at 10. So we went and inspected the Catholische Kirche and returned to
find a martinet in a white waistcoat, who declared that it was absolutely
impossible we should see any MSS without authorization from the
Ministerium - that that couldn't possibly be accorded till tomorrow
morning, and that then we must have a 'certification' from the English
consul. You can imagine how we called heaven and earth to witness that

292 / Renaissance and Reformation

nowhere in the world had we met such treatment - Paris, Vienna, Rome,
Munich, all cited as obligingly open. I proffered my letter of introduction
from ... the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University; but he wouldn't look
at it So we retired discomfited, to prepare our humble application. But
a visit to the English consul further discouraged us, as it was declared
there that no official introduction could be given without a letter from
the Foreign Office in London, which could be got 'in 5 or 6 days.' So I
returned to take my application to the Director and inform him that if
he couldn't let us in as we stood, we should go without and record the
fact in Erasmus! I sent in the application and an answer came out that
we should have an answer tomorrow. However I expressed a desire to
see him again, and when he emerged, he suddenly changed his mind -
consented to read the Oxford letter and graciously said we might come
in the afternoon. So we lost only a morning through his waywardness,
and were grateful for that May such conduct be no precedent^

The most difficult task facing Allen was not that of beating recalcitrant
Herren Direktoren into submission but rather that of deciphering hand-
written documents. Erasmus' many hastily written drafts caused problems
aplenty, but they were the purest calligraphic art compared with the
scratchings of some of Erasmus' contemporaries and correspondents. One
such was Bonifacius Amerbach, whose voluminous NachlaB is in the
University Library at Basel. In December 1906 Allen wrote to a friend:

We are wrestling with Boniface Amorbach's [sic] rough copies, which
are really dreadful, and nothing less than inspiration is of any use. One
sits in front of an indescribable tangle, where no letter has any
resemblance to anything, and then in a flash illumination comes; or else
it doesn't^

Fortunately, the frequency and reliability of Allen's illuminations were
sufficient to the task. Indeed, according to Garrod, he had no rival in the
deciphering of difficult fifteenth-and sixteenth-century hands.^ He was
also, I might add, remarkably adept at the conjectural filling-in of gaps
created by the deterioration of manuscripts over the centuries.^

Allen's method of preparing his text for publication was essentially as
follows. First, he made a fair copy in the library where the manuscript had
been found. (In the case of letters published in Erasmus' lifetime for which
no manuscript survives, Allen's fair copy consisted of the text cut out of
the London edition of 1642 and collated with the earliest authorized
edition.) This fair copy became the printer's copy. The first printer's proof
was then corrected in the library where the copy had been made. By thus

Renaissance et Réforme / 293

eliminating intervening drafts, this method reduced to an absolute mini-
mum the opportunities for error.

The publication of volume one of the Epistolae in 1906 was followed by
the first formal recognition of Allen's achievements as a scholar: in March
1908 he was elected to a Research Fellowship at Merton College. This
meant that he could move into better digs, that he no longer had to rely
on odd jobs as an examiner and the like, and that he was now free to work
uninterrupted on Erasmus. He held the Merton Fellowship until 1924,
when he became President of Corpus Christi College, the post he still
occupied at the time of his death.

So much for Allen's career. Now, what about his achievement? To assess
it fairly, one must emphasize the distinction between his work as editor,
which he did with amazing thoroughness and accuracy, and his work as
annotator, which he did with comparable accuracy but not with the same
thoroughness.

His accomplishment as editor was threefold. First, he unearthed 232
new, hitherto unpublished letters, thus giving us for the first time virtually
the entire corpus of Erasmus' surviving correspondence. Only a handful
of letters has come to light since. Second, he corrected thousands of errors
in the texts of previously published letters and left astonishingly few errors
of his own to be corrected by others. In the letters I have worked on. Sir
Roger Mynors has corrected a few obvious misreadings of no great
consequence, and I have stumbled across a single error of slightly greater
consequence. At one point in the Catalogus lucubrationum (Ep 1341A),
where Allen had to harmonize two texts, that of January 1523 and that of
September 1524, he inadvertently repeated one short sentence and omitted
another, also short. Still, nothing essential to the meaning of the letter was
lost, although a fine sarcastic comment at the expense of the Louvain
Carmelite, Nicholaas Baechem (Egmondanus), was.

Allen's third accomplishment as editor was to establish the date of each
of the letters, an extremely difficult task in a large number of cases. One
has the feeling that this was the task that Allen saw as his greatest challenge
and from which he derived the greatest satisfaction. Certainly he devoted
some of his best efforts to it, carefully, skilfully, and imaginatively sifting
the internal and external evidence and writing lucid justifications of his
conclusions in the introductions to the letters. Many of his datings are
necessarily conjectural, but very few have been overthrown. In Allen's
volume V, only one letter, Ep 1280, about the date of which Allen himself
was uncertain, has been definitely redated. It is possible that a second, Ep
1412, will suffer the same fate. It is addressed to the curial theologian.

294 / Renaissance and Reformation

Silvestro Mazzolini, known as Prierias, and is clearly a response to a letter
from him. Allen dates the letter at circa 19 January 1524, pointing out the
strong verbal resemblances to other letters written to Rome at approxi-
mately the same time, but forgetting to mention that Prierias had appar-
ently died in 1523, perhaps as early as the beginning of the year. At the
moment it is still not clear whether the date of the letter or the date of
Prierias' death will have to be revised.^^ But even if Allen should be proved
wrong, the list of his errors will still be almost uniquely brief.

If we turn to Allen's work as annotator, we find, as I said, comparable
accuracy but not comparable thoroughness. Before pursuing this theme, I
must pause to make a pair of preliminary observations. First, in order to
make valid generalizations about Allen's performance as an annotator, I
am forced to leave out of account one extreme, atypical case, namely the
famous letter to Johann von Botzheim known as the Catalogus
lucubrationum. Allen published it at the beginning of his first volume as
part of the prolegomenous group of texts which also includes Erasmus'
Compendium Vitae and Beatus Rhenanus' two biographical sketches of
Erasmus. The CWE, by contrast, has published the Catalogus as Ep 1341 A
in its proper place in the sequence of the letters. One of the longest letters
ever written (46 pages in Allen I), the Catalogus is the centrepiece of CWE
9 (pages 291-364). Allen's text of it is virtually unannotated: a grand total
of 61 notes compared to the CWE's 432. Allen normally does much better
than that, and my case against the adequacy of his annotations is based
on his usual performance, not this unusual one.

Second, to pass judgment on Allen's annotations, one has to have some
notion of the problems that Erasmus' letters present to an annotator.
Because Erasmus often wrote hastily, quoted from memory, and had to
take care not to get himself or others into trouble, the letters are full of
puzzles great and small that have to be resolved: chiefly these are classical,
biblical, or other citations and references that either are not quite accurate
or not where Erasmus says they are; or else they are maddeningly vague
references to persons, places, or events. 'Certain persons I could name' and
'Augustine somewhere says' are phrases of the sort that one encouters
frequently. But these are just the routine annoyances of almost any job of
textual annotation. The really fundamental problem for the modern
annotator of Erasmus' correspondence is that Erasmus was a professional
in so many different fields at once, and that he was so deeply involved in
so many aspects of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century life and culture over
such a wide geographical area. The ideal annotator would, therefore, be a
classical scholar, a biblical scholar, a patristic scholar, a medieval scholar.

Renaissance et Réforme / 295

a Renaissance scholar, a Reformation scholar, a church historian, a secular
historian, and a theologian, all in one. (The list may well be incomplete!)
But no one today can even hope to be all or even most of those things.
Thus anyone who wishes to do a decent job of annotating the letters of
Erasmus must be prepared to venture far outside his own narrow field of
specialization and must spend a lot of time and effort picking the brains
of others. This Allen did not do, and that is why his annotations, although
they meet a high standard of accuracy, are, on the whole, sporadic and
thin.ll

To be fair to Allen, it must be pointed out that in three respects his
annotations are in fact as thorough as they are accurate. First, with the
notable exception of the Catalogus, Allen provides full and accurate
information about the genesis, publication, and revision of Erasmus'
works, wherever it is appropriate to do so. Second, on the basis of his
incomparably detailed knowledge of the texts of all the letters, he provides
an abundance of illuminating cross-references. I have had to add very few.
More often I have had to eliminate ones that lost their point in a translated
text. Third, on the basis of his extremely wide knowledge of the printed
and unprinted sources, Allen identifies, sometimes definitely, sometimes
tentatively, nearly all the persons mentioned or alluded to in the text. He
does not solve all the puzzles, to be sure. Moreover, he occasionally makes
blunders, as in Ep 1330, where he identifies Girolamo Aleandro as one of
the four furies of Louvain who hated the humanities in general and
Erasmus in particular. Allen unaccountably forgot that Aleandro had long
since departed for Spain, that Juan Vives had reported this to Erasmus in
Ep 1271, and that Aleandro was in any case not an enemy of the
humanities, which Erasmus also knew. (The real fury, in case you are
interested, was Jacobus Latomus.) The point here, however, is not that
Allen occasionally erred but rather that he did not evade the issue: he did
a thorough job, if not an absolutely perfect one.

Things begin to look different as soon as we move off into other areas.
First of all, Allen's historical annotations are extremely spotty and reveal
that his interest in history was shallow and his knowledge of it meagre.
For example, if Allen had read a bit in the standard histories of the
Reformation, and if he had made effective use of the published sources
that he occasionally cites, he would have been able to provide fuller and
clearer annotations for Willibald Pirckheimer's account of the proceedings
of the imperial diet at Numberg in 1522-3 (Ep 1344). He would also have
been able to explain why Erasmus thought that the imperial mandate of
6 March 1523 was a hopeful sign (Ep 1364); he would not have been

296 / Renaissance and Reformation

mystified by Bartolomeo Villani's report of rumours of the calling of a
general council in Strasbourg (Ep 1372); and he would have been able to
explain Erasmus' reference to Archduke Ferdinand's surprising severity
against the Lutherans (Ep 1388). A somewhat more difficult case is Allen's
failure to recognize that in Ep 1369, which he dates correctly at 1523, lines
38-52 were inserted on the eve of the letter's publication in the Opus
Epistolarum of 1529. The lines in question are a catalogue of heresies which
did not emerge until 1524 in some cases and 1527-9 in others. Moreover,
the term Anabaptistas is used. Given the state of scholarship in the 1920s,
Allen may be forgiven for not having known that Anabaptism wasn't
invented until 1525 and that the Greek term 'Anabaptist' was not in
common use before 1527. He may also be excused for not having
recognized the heresies of Hans Denck and Ludwig Hatzer. But he should
have recognized the views of Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and Karlstadt, or
else have consulted somebody who would have. The point is that he was
not interested and thus left the reader completely uninformed about both
the date and the content of the passage. There are numerous other
examples of the omission of historical information that would have aided
comprehension of the text, but I think that the point has been sufficiently
made.

Turning to other matters, one finds that Allen does not invariably
identify biblical references or citations. Typically he does identify some
but not others. In Ep 1406, for example, Otto Brunfels delivers himself of
a sulphurous denunciation of Erasmus in defence of Ulrich von Huttcn,
employing rhetoric from the Psalms, Ecclesiasticus, Zechariah, Malachi,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Revelation. Allen identifies one of the references to
the Psalms and the one reference to Revelation but misses all the rest.
Similarly, Allen more often than not fails to identify patristic references.
In Ep 1304, for example, which is Erasmus' preface to his edition of
Amobius the Younger, there are numerous patristic references whose
clarification is important to an understanding of what Erasmus is saying:
Allen ignores them all. He does the same in similar passages in Epp 1309
and 1400, which are also prefaces to patristic editions. He docs somewhat
better in Ep 1334, the preface to his Hilary of Poitiers, but still leaves many
unfortunate gaps.

Allen also had his blind spots with respect to Erasmus' own works.
He frequently fails to annotate obvious references to the Adagia. He is
even more unreliable with respect to Erasmus' biblical and patristic
scholarship. In Ep 1333 he fails to explain the meaning of the phrase
'in argumcntis' (i.e., 'in my introductions'), a reference to the argumen-

Renaissance et Réforme / 297

turn preceding the paraphrase on John's first epistle. In Ep 1410 he fails
to annotate extremely important references to Erasmus' scholia on
Jerome's letters and to the annotation to Eph 5:32 in the Novum
Instrumentum. Similarly, Allen failed to make full use of Erasmus'
apologetic writings, which are found in volume IX of the Leiden edition.
Specifically, he did not identify those passages in Ep 1334 which were
condemned by the Sorbonne, even though Erasmus himself published
the censurae along with his defence.

As if all this were not enough, Allen's classical annotations are woefully
incomplete. He usually manages to identify direct quotations or para-
phrases from the standard works of the standard authors familiar to any
schoolboy at the time: Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Juvenal, Terence -
the ones that require no digging. But let Jean Lange in Ep 1407 misquote
a line from Propertius, turning an erotic sentiment about Cupid being a
god of peace into a pious sentiment about the love of peace being God,
and Allen is silent. Moreover, he almost never annotates classical refer-
ences that are not quotations or paraphrases. He expects that you will
know all about the Caudine Forks, about the goddess Lucina, dihowifetiales
and ihQ pater patratus (although Erasmus himself was somewhat confused
on the point), about the Allobrigians, about Apelles and the cobbler, about
Thais and Thraso and Purgopolynices and Apollonius of Tyana and a
thousand other persons, places and things. And he evidently expects that
Erasmus' reference to Jesus as Apollo (Ep 1404) and Cuthbert Tunstall's
to Luther's 'idiot philosophy that recalls the Stoics' (Ep 1367) will make
sense to you without annotation. Allen does not even comment when
Erasmus' classical references are wrong, as in Ep 1402, where he attributes
to Homer a passage found in Apollonius of Rhodes, and where he also
turns Lucian's Complaint of the Consonants into a debate amoiig the vowels.

One could go on multiplying examples, but once again the point has
been sufficiently made. Besides, I am already in danger of giving the false
impression that my aim is to denounce Allen for the terrible crime of not
having done more of my work for me. Let me then conclude with a pair
of observations which place the limitations of Allen's achievement in a
positive light.

First of all, Allen simply did not have the time, the inclination, or the
learning to do everything equally well. Under the circumstances, wc arc
fortunate that he chose to devote his best efforts to the text, the textual
apparatus, the datings, and the introductions. That by itself was an
enormous task, and he did it extremely well. It is far easier to update and
supplement a basically accurate but incomplete set of notes than it is to

298 / Renaissance and Reformation

remedy an incomplete and unreliable text. Without Allen's text, the CWE
correspondence volumes would scarcely have been possible.

Second, Allen's failure to do everything himself means that the CWE
correspondence volumes have a contribution to make beyond the provision
of a readable and accurate English translation. Thanks to Allen, there is
no urgent need for a new redaction of the Latin text of the correspondence.
However, those who use that text, both within and without the English-
speaking world, do need the annotations which are being supplied in the
CWE edition. This means that the CWE annotators have the great
responsibility and privilege of continuing and completing Allen's monu-
mental work.

University of Toronto

Notes

1 This is a slightly revised text of the paper that was read under the somewhat facetious
title, 'Erasmus, P.S. Allen, and Me: Reflections of an Annotator of the Correspondence,'
at the Conference on the Correspondence of Erasmus held at the University of Toronto,
20 May 1987. Despite the revisions, the paper retains its character as a text intended for
oral presentation.

2 Dictionary of National Biography, fifth supplement: 1931-40 (Oxford 1949) 5-6

3 H.M. Allen, ed Letters of P.S. Allen (Oxford 1939)

4 'Percy Stafford Allen, 1869-1933,' in Proceedings of the British Academy XIX:381-407. A
Latin version was printed in volume 8 of the Erasmi Epistolae v-xx

5 Letters 12

6 Letters 65-6

7 Ibidem 55

8 DNB 6 (cf note 1); Proceedings 396 (eg note 3),

9 See, for example, Ep 1311 in Allen V.

10 Since these lines were written, Ep 1412 has been redated to mid- January 1523 and appears
in CWE 9 as Ep 1337A. Allen Epp 1438, 1508, and 1459 have also been redated and will
appear in CWE 10 as Epp 1443B, 1477A, and 1498A respectively.

1 1 Those of Mrs Allen and Garrod, in volumes 9-1 1, are even more so.

Erasmus' Manual of Letter-writing:
Tradition and Innovation

ERIKA RUMMEL

RÉSUMÉ: Le Manuel d'art épistolaire d'Érasme

Le Manuel d'art épistolaire d'Érasme contient un certain nombre de références
extrêmement critiques à l'égard de ses contemporains et de ses prédécesseurs
dans le domaine. Cela semble suggérer qu'il va offrir des réflexions
complètement nouvelles ou différentes, une suggestion que la lecture du traité
ne confirme pas. On peut donc en conclure que les critiques d'Érasme ne
représentent, dans une certaine mesure, qu'une sorte d'affectation. Les limites
et le contenu de son manuel, en particulier ses commentaires sur les types de
lettres et leurs caractéristiques ainsi que son procédé de fournir des exemples
de lettres et de phrases, continuent une tradition établie par les premiers
humanistes et certainement les écrivains progressistes du moyen âge qui
eux-mêmes s'appuyaient sur la tradition rhétorique classique. Dans un doma-
ine, cependant, Érasme va nettement plus loin que ses prédécesseurs. Une
section du manuel s'adresse aux professeurs de l'art d'écrire plutôt qu'aux
étudiants et traite de méthodes d'enseignement. Bien que les idées présentées
dans ce contexte ne soient pas neuves et reprennent les théories de Quintilien
et d'autres auteurs classiques, la présentation vivante et emphatique donne à
cette section un caractère typiquement Erasmien et reflète l'intérêt pour la
théorie de l'éducation qu'il a partagé sa vie durant.

Authors often preface their work with a claim to superiority over their
predecessors, but the exordium in Erasmus' De epistolis conscribendis com-
bines this claim with an unusually violent diatribe against earlier teachers
of epistolography. Within the space of two pages Erasmus calls them
'untaught,' 'illiterate,' 'tyrannical,' 'petty schoolmasters,' and 'blabbering
idiots.' On reading such epithets one naturally expects the author to offer
a radically different approach to the subject. The purpose of this article is
to put this implied claim to the test.

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 299

300 / Renaissance and Reformation

Perhaps one should begin by asking who the much-reviled (but usually
nameless) schoolmasters were. Some scholars see in Erasmus' criticism a
Vigorous attack on the medieval formulae for letter-writing' and a reaction
against the 'medieval legalists.'^ Others say that its main thrust was directed,
not against medieval theorists, but what one scholar terms *neo-classicists,'
that is. Renaissance authors of the Ciceronian persuasion.^ Such diverse
interpretations are possible because Erasmus' approach to the subject of
epistolography is eclectic at best, inconsistent at worst."^

Among writers criticized by name in Erasmus' manual are a number of
authors from the 15th and 16th centuries. In the prefatory letter, Erasmus
comments on Francesco Negro, the Venetian teacher whose instructions on
letter-writing had been published in 1488: 'What is the point of reading
Francesco Negro? Not only are his rules pedantically petty . . . but there is
not a single letter of his in existence which is even in good Latin.'^ The
work of Giammario Filelfo, the son of the famous humanist Francesco
Filelfo, also seemed unsatisfactory to Erasmus. It was in his opinion,
'entirely muddled and disorderly and to speak fairly candidly, defective
both in scholarship and in suitability to the purpose at hand.'^ As for
Giovanni Sulpizio and Niccolo Perotti, whose treatises were widely used
as textbooks and frequently reprinted, Erasmus would only go as far as
saying that he did not condemn their efforts entirely.^ He expressed more
decidely negative opinions on two northern scholars, Engelbert Schut and
Carolus Virulus (Menniken).^ Virulus' handbook enjoyed a great deal of
popularity when it was published in 1476, but was soon considered passé,
according to Erasmus, who declared that in his time "no one thinks [his
letters] worth looking at'^ As for Schut, Erasmus addressed to him in 1489
a flattering poem, praising him in extravagant terms as the man under
whose aegis Eloquence would reign supreme. ^^ A few years later, however,
he declared that Schut's instructions were worthless and that he 'taught his
pupils by his trifling letters how to write badly' (CWE 25:25). One is left to
wonder whether this is an example of flagrant opportunism or a maturing
of literary taste.

Despite such wholesale criticism, however, Erasmus did not completely
break with tradition. To show the historical roots of his manual it will be
useful to follow his own arrangement and consider four aspects of episto-
lography: the definition and general characteristics of a letter, the method-
ology of teaching letter-writing, the parts of the letters, and kinds of letters.

Describing general characteristics, Erasmus quotes Turpilius' definition
of the letter as a 'kind of mutual conversation between absent friends.''^
This tag is also used by his predecessors Aurelio Brandolini and Francesco
Negro. '2 The definition which focuses on private correspondence is a very

Renaissance et Réforme / 301

suitable one for humanist manuals. The medieaval artes dictandi, by
contrast, often served the needs of the professional secretary and therefore
focused on the drafting of documents and business letters. They, too, defined
the letter as an instrument of communication between absent parties, but
frequently introduced reasons other than friendship for choosing a written
rather than an oral message: the confidentiality of the contents or the need
for precise documentation. Sample letters, especially in the eariy artes,
typically deal with legal transactions and business matters, or more
generally, affairs of church and state. This is not to say that they totally
excluded the domain of personal and private correspondence. Friendship
was certainly a recognized motive in letter-writing. Thus Konrad of Mure
defined the letter as, among other things, a replacement for colloquia
amicorum, conversation between friends, and we find among the sample
letters of the 12th and 13th centuries a sprinkling of private letters between
friends and family. ^^

Renaissance manuals generally reverse the priorities and deal predomi-
nantly with personal correspondence. Erasmus' book is characteristic of
this trend. He did not address the needs of the would-be secretaiy but of
the educated layman. His instructions and sample letters are therefore
concerned with affairs of a more personal nature: letters tendering advice
on choice of career or marriage partner, dispensing praise or blame, offering
condolences, thanks, personal news, etc. Most Renaissance manuals present
sample letters and phrases comparable in content to those found in
Erasmus' book. His criticism of earlier handbooks therefore cannot concern
the general parameters of the subject, and we must turn elsewhere to
discover the reasons for his disapproval.

At one point Erasmus suggests that authors of earlier manuals were a
narrow-minded lot and given to rigid rules: 'To expect all letters to conform
to a single type or to teach that they should, as I notice even learned men
sometimes do, is in my view at least to impose a narrow and inflexible
definition on what is by nature diverse and t:apable of almost infinite
variation,' Erasmus writes. 'Indeed I find this attitude no less absurd than
that of a cobbler who would insist on stitching a shoe of the same shape
for every foot . . . These men consider a letter unacceptable unless it keeps
to the plainest manner of writing, ... is composed solely of words taken
from common usage, and finally qualifies as a letter rather than a book by
its very brevity' (CWE 25:12).

In this statement Erasmus focuses his complaints on specific areas of
epistolography. He alleges that his predecessors exaggerated demands for
brevity, clarity, and simplicity to the point of neglecting the most basic stylistic
and structural requirements. He was especially critical of their supposedly

302 / Renaissance and Reformation

categorical demands for brevity and their habit of measuring the adequacy
of a letter *by the size of the paper or the number of lines' (CWE 25:14).

Demands for brevity, clarity, and simplicity of style are, of course, echoes
of classical rules found in Cicero and Quintilian. According to Cicero the
narrative should include only what is necessary and dispense with details,
digressions, repetitions, or elaborate transitions; it should aim for clarity by
preserving a natural order and avoiding unusual words or intricate
phrases. 1"* Similar instructions are given by Quintilian, but in more flexible
terms and with a more generous interpretation.^^ In his manual Erasmus
adopts Quintilian's approach in emphasizing the elements of appropriate-
ness and suitability. In his words, the length of a letter is appropriate if
'nothing can be subtracted ... [if| even after several readings it does not
cloy' (CWE 25:13). Erasmus' effort to define brevity in relative terms is not
unique. It is found in many medieval and Renaissance authors. One
wonders therefore whom Erasmus had in mind when he spoke of those
who would be satisfied only with a note written in crude style and 'less than
twelve lines long.'^^ While there were no doubt pedants among his
predecessors, Erasmus' criticism does not apply to the majority of authors,
many of whom shared his concern for appropriate form and content. ^^
Epistolographers generally softened their rules for brevity by adding
provisos. A Saxon handbook from the 13th century, for example, advocates
'brevity combined with clarity and lucidity,' but adds the warning: 'Do not
omit anything relevant for brevity's sake' (Rockinger 212). A similarly
common-sense approach is taken by the author of the Baumgartenberger
manual from the turn of the 14th century. He states that a letter of suitable
length should contain 'nothing abridged and nothing superfluous' (Rockin-
ger 725). In the 15th century Perotti repeated the classical rule that the letter
should be brief but added that it should not, for the sake of brevity, be
reduced to a 'humble, barren, curt, and plain' note (k4^ - 50- Erasmus'
observations and qualifications regarding the requirement of brevity do not,
therefore, constitute a radical shift in thinking.

On clarity and simplicity of style Erasmus had this to say: 'We must take
pains to be clear, yes, but clear to the educated' (CWE 25:17). The writer
should not be obliged to lower his standard of writing for the sake of boorish
people. Again Erasmus employs a forceful tone, suggesting that he is
presenting an unusual or controversial point of view. Thus he states that
'there are some people who will not tolerate a letter unless it is free from
elaboration. They do not want it to contain figures of speech lest it be said
that it reeks of the lamp' (CWE 25:14). Again one asks who made such
categorical demands? It is true that the author of a 12th-century manual
demanded that letters be composed in a 'simple and artless style' and that

Renaissance et Réforme / 303

Brandolini - following Cicero - restricted the writer's vocabulary to
*commonly used terms' and discouraged an ostentatious style, ^^ but a degree
of elegance was understood and expected. This can be seen from definitions
in medieval artes of the letter as a composition 'decked out with figures of
thought and diction' and 'brilliant in beauty of words and figures of
thought' Indeed the ability 'to compose words and sentences in a pure and
elegant style' was part of the writer's expected skills. ^^ There were demands
that the letter-writer show 'good sense, perfect grammar, and ornate diction'
and produce 'an agreeable speech, intelligent thought, and elegant effect'^^
In a similar vein Perotti stated that 'while one must avoid new, contrived,
and obsolete words, a certain rhetorical skill is necessary for a letter to be
persuasive' (k6 0- In short, Erasmus' demand that a letter be both functional
and attractive is neither startling nor new and his interpretation of classical
guidelines for brevity, clarity, and simplicity are by no means unprece-
dented. His instructions do not differ substantially from those of his
predecessors, though they are perhaps stated more emphatically and
explained in greater detail.

How then are we to explain the antagonistic tone in Erasmus' manual?
I believe that hyperbole is part of Erasmus' personal style and writing
strategy. His extreme statements cannot be taken literally. If we were to
believe him, there existed teachers who would admit only a single type of
letter, written in plain words and not exceeding twelve lines, teachers to
whom Quintilian's Latin was 'all Greek and Arabic,' who refused to learn
proper Latin, demanding instead of others to 'become experts in their
kitchen jargon.'^^ Who were these boors? Erasmus offers only one concrete
example: that of his own guardian, the schoolmaster Peter Winckel. 'When
I was a boy of fourteen,' he tells us, 'I wrote to one of my guardians . . . and
included some quotations from books I had read. The impudent rogue
whose arrogance matched his ignorance wrote in reply that if I intended to
send such letters in future I should include a commentary' (CWE 25:16). A
regrettable experience - but is it representative? The evidence quoted so far
would indicate that the story has anecdotal rather than paradigmatic value.

Erasmus was not alone in his demand for flexibility though he was
perhaps more careful than other writers to qualify every rule. Some might
say that he was careful to a fault. It is remarkable how studiously Erasmus
avoided committing himself to any norm. His statements on style in general
and brevity and clarity in particular are models of equivocation. On style
he said that 'the best form of expression is that which is most appropriate
to the context' (CWE 25:12); on brevity that it 'depended on the time at the
disposal of the writer and prospective reader' (ibidem: 13); on clarity that
'one must take into account the subject and recipient of the letter: one can

304 / Renaissance and Reformation

break rules but not the bounds of good sense within which art must
everywhere be confined* (ibidem: 18). These statements are no doubt
prudent and carefully crafted - but how useful they are to a student,
especially a beginner looking for guidance, is another matter altogether.
This prompts the question: for whom was Erasmus' manual intended? And
here, I think, we have come to a point in which Erasmus' handbook is
indeed different from those of his predecessors. While they wrote for the
student of epistolography, Erasmus wrote for both student and teacher,
addressing the latter exclusively in chapters nine to twelve of his treatise.

These chapters deal with the methodology of teaching letter-writing and
include instructions regarding the presentation of material, the use of
incentive and corrective measures, as well as remarks on practice and
imitation. On each of these points Erasmus offers the teacher general advice
as well as practical suggestions. Many of the ideas advanced here go back
to the pedagogical theories of Quintilian and earlier Greek sources; for
example, the view that the successful student must be talented, zealous, and
willing to practise,^^ and correspondingly, that the good teacher must be
industrious, energetic, and knowledgeable, that he must stimulate the
student's interest and foster creativity, that he must motivate his pupil with
praise rather than blame and avoid harsh punishment.^^

While such ideas are modelled after classical precepts, much of what
Erasmus says has a decidedly modem flavour. For example, he reminds
city magistrates to give more consideration to education in their budgets.
Tluteplayers and trumpeters by the dozen are maintained with huge
salaries,' Erasmus writes, yet no one more rightly deserves a large and
attractive salary than a learned schoolmaster' (CWE 25:23). Erasmus also
expresses his views on tenure and fixed salaries: The salary, he writes,
'should match the qualifications of the man appointed, and there should
also be provision that it be increased or diminished according as his
teaching and industry either surpass or fall below expectation' (ibidem).

Remarks on teaching methods are rare in medieval and Renaissance
manuals, most of which are merely concerned with the subject matter and
not with its presentation. In the few cases where learning and instruction
are discussed, the comments are brief and general and usually concern the
student's attitude and qualifications rather than the teacher's methods of
presentation. Thus the Saxon manual inquires into the 'qualities that make
a person suited to the art of letter-writing.' The prerequisites are: natural
talent, loyalty, and trustworthiness, a certain knowledge of literature, and a
fear of God. As professional secretary the letter-writer must also be 'affable,
friendly and modest' (Rockinger 211-12). Similarly Konrad of Mure lists as
prerequisites of excelling in the art of letter-writing the classical trinity:

Renaissance et Réforme / 305

talent, learning, and practice (Kronbichler 26). Another manual composed
in the first half of the 14th century demands that the letter-writer 'be subtle
in inventing, prudent in arranging, skilful in remembering, and distin-
guished in his style of writing.'^"^ Among Erasmus' humanist forerunners,
Aurelio Brandolini has a chapter on *art, imitation, and practice,' but it
contains little more than definitions of these terms and the general advice
to know the rules of the art while making the letter appear artless, to imitate
Cicero above all others, and to practise daily .^^ While the inclusion of such
material was therefore not unprecedented, the scope, detail, and specific
content of Erasmus' remarks are unique.

It is remarkable, moreover, how frequently Erasmus uses direct address
in this section of his manual. Abandoning the impersonal verbal forms and
royal plurals so common in scholarly writings he employs the familiar 'you'
and T instead. 'You' often denotes an imaginary schoolmaster who is not
up to Erasmus' standards and who is therefore variously addressed as
'Arcadian ass,' 'sacrilegious rogue,' 'dull-witted blackguard,' 'brute,' and
'Boeotian swine' - 'barbarian' being too mild a term for the incompetent
and authoritarian teacher.^^ Such a man must be driven from school where
he is as out of place as the proverbial 'dog in a bathhouse.' He ought to be
tied to a plough-handle or obliged to dig ditches in a chain gang, which is
all he is good for.^^ The section also includes an exchange between the
author and an imaginary reader protesting Erasmus' tough standards. 'Look
here,' the reader complains, 'this is really hard advice you are giving.'
Erasmus cuts him short: 'I made it clear from the start that I wasn't writing
for an ass but for a qualified instructor' (CWE 25:34).

The personal tone employed and the fact that many of the ideas voiced here
are recurring themes in Erasmus' other educational treatises, notably De puen's
instituendis and De ratione studii}^ indicates that he does not merely regurgitate
classical theory but is speaking from the heart. In all his educational writings
he expresses an abhorrence of violence, coercion, and authoritarianism. He is
emphatic about instilling love of learning in the young and treating them with
sympathy and affection. He deplores not only abusive language but even looks
'that convey the impression that one hates the pupil' (CWE 25:39). Thus the
section on methodology, though indebted to classical thought, reflects
Erasmus' personal interests, his active role in promoting a suitable climate for
learning, and his life-long concern for the quality of education.

After dealing with the general characteristics of a letter and providing an
outline of teaching methods, Erasmus proceeds to the main part of his work,
beginning with instructions concerning the address, exordium, and conclu-
sion of the letter. This type of arrangement, which proceeds according to
the successive parts of a letter, is the common approach used in medieval

306 / Renaissance and Reformation

manuals and in turn reflects the traditional order observed in classical
handbooks on rhetoric.^^ Thus instructions that the exordium must render
the reader 'attentive, receptive, and benevolent,' that the material for the
exordium may be derived from the person of the writer, the recipient, or
the subject matter, go back to Cicero and Quintilian and can be found in
a number of medieval artes and Renaissance handbooks.^^ Similarly,
Erasmus' checklist of pitfalls to be avoided in composing the exordium and
his remarks on insinuatio, the indirect approach to the exordium, echo those
of Cicero and also appear in the handbooks of his predecessors.^^ While
Erasmus accepted this tradition in its broad outlines, he also criticized a
number of specific rules taught by medieval teachers. Forms of address is
one such area. These held a place of central importance in medieval
handbooks and usually allowed little room for ingenuity and innovation.
Erasmus acknowledged that conventions were important and their neglect
could jeopardize the writer's cause,-^^ but he nevertheless balked at the
constraints they imposed on the letter-writer. He objected in particular to
the custom of addressing an individual in the plural.^^ He was, however,
not the first to condemn this 'boorish custom.' We find critical remarks
regarding the use of the plural as early as the 13th century. Konrad of Mure
regretfully acknowledged it as a well-established custom that must be
observed, but Boncompagno spoke out more boldly and called it 'more of
a vice than a custom.'^"^ The humanist Coluccio Salutati tried substituting
tu for vos in addresses to individuals but abandoned the effort on meeting
with stiff opposition.-'^ Perotti, however, expressly instructed his students
not to use the plural when addressing one person, noting that this was 'a
fault to be found in almost all writers of our generation' (kS^.

Another custom criticized by Erasmus was the use of excessively flattering
epithets in the address. 'They do not say the addressee's name,' he wrote,
'but call him phoenix, eagle, vine, garden, ray of light, thunderbolt, paradise'
(CWE 25:53). Such 'nonsense,' as Erasmus termed it, can indeed be found
in some manuals,^^ but the majority of epithets recommended are less
colourful than the expressions mocked by Erasmus and are in fact
comparable to his own list of acceptable epithets.

Erasmus also criticized the substitution of servile and grovelling phrases
for simple greetings. He complained that the recipient of the letter was being
saluted with 'All wealth of Midas!' or addressed with 'most humble
reverence' and 'willing servitude with due reverence' (CWE 25:54). These
and other contrived expressions ridiculed by Erasmus are well documented
in medieval style manuals.-'^

Apart from the expressions used in greetings, Erasmus also discusses
word order. In the classical formula, he stresses, the sender's name precedes

Renaissance et Réforme / 307

that of the recipient. In medieval manuals we find as an alternative the
so-called salutatio subscripta in which the order of names is reversed as an
expression of courtesy or humility when the addressee is of higher rank
than the writer. This inverted form is mentioned in manuals of the 12th
and 13th centuries and was designated by Anthonius Haneron, an author
of the 15th century, as the fashion *which we must observe nowadays.'^^
Not everyone approved of this practice, however. Erasmus was not the only
one to regard it as a sign of flattery rather than courtesy. His opinion was
shared by his contemporary Konrad Celtis who condemned this form of
greeting as 'a barbarous custom . . . introduced for the sake of flattery'
(Rupprich 640:49-51), and both Erasmus and Celtis were anticipated by
Perotti who called it a reprehensible practice (k50.

In these specific aspects, then, Erasmus turned against medieval tradi-
tions, against what Murphy termed 'the automatizing tendency which had
been an undercurrent in the ars dictaminis from the earliest days,'^^ but, as
we have seen, Erasmus was not innovative in proposing a more flexible
approach. Resistance to formulae had already begun during the Middle
Ages and was carried on by Renaissance authors before Erasmus.

In discussing the parts of the letter, Erasmus observes the traditional
arrangement in medieval artes, but makes it plain that he is not entirely
satisfied with this approach. The arrangement, which reflected that found
in classical handbooks on rhetoric, must be modified to suit the specific
subject of letter-writing, Erasmus said. There was little point in simply
repeating the instructions of classical authors. 'And yet,' he complained, 'all
those who have dealt with letter-writing have done exactly that' (CWE
25:76). They copied what they found in Cicero without regard to appropri-
ateness, writing about the parts of the speech, the various kinds of narratives,
the types of arguments, and the kinds of rhetorical devices to be used. 'Good
God,' Erasmus exclaimed, 'what has all this to do with letter-writing?'
(ibidem). Once again, his tone of exasperation is posturing. Most manuals
did not follow Cicero slavishly and without judgment; many practised
exactly what Erasmus was preaching so forcefully. They adapted the
material found in the ancient sources to their own purpose and commonly
reduced the classical divisions to three - exordium, petitio, and conclusio.^
It is true that some manuals contained material that was obviously
irrelevant, for example, remarks on facial expressions and delivery.'^^
However, Erasmus himself was guilty of this very offense. Indeed he
admitted that one section in his book - concerned with argumentation -
was not relevant to his topic, but justified himself by explaining that the
passage had not been included in his original manuscript and 'had
undoubtedly been patched on by someone' (CWE 25:110). This may have

308 / Renaissance and Reformation

been the case, but one feels that he might have exercised editorial discretion
and deleted the passage.

After approaching his topic in the traditional fashion, that is, by
discussing the parts of a letter, but at the same time voicing strong criticism
of this arrangement and specific rules associated with it, Erasmus abandons
the approach and turns to a thematic arrangement, presenting the remain-
der of his material according to content

This topical approach also goes back to classical sources. Erasmus
distinguishes four categories (genera) of letters: advisory, laudatory, judicial,
and familiar. The first three represent the tripartition established by
Aristotle, which became the standard division in rhetorical treatises after
his time.'^^ To these,* Erasmus wrote, 'it will be possible to add a fourth
class, which, if you please, we shall call the familiar' (CWE 25:71). This
genus familiare may correspond to the genos proshomiletikon, 'the kind used
in private discourse' mentioned first in Plato's Sophist.^^ One may argue,
however, that Erasmus did not rely on classical sources for inspiration but
created the fourth category himself for types {species) of letters that did not
fit into the three standard categories. This may explain why he abandoned
the term genus familiare in the second half of his work and substituted for
it the term genera extraordinaria, 'unusual classes of letters' (CWE 25:225).

The tripartition oi genera is well established in handbooks on letter-writ-
ing, but no canon exists for their subdivision into species. Both Cicero and
Quintilian noted that there were innumerable species, and Erasmus shares
this sentiment."*^ In medieval manuals topical subdivisions are sometimes
given under the heading of petitio, that is, under one of the parts of the
letter. The number and types of letters listed vary greatly. It appears that
each author devised his own list, selecting either the most common kinds
or aiming at a complete presentation, or, as Konrad of Mure put it candidly,
enumerating them 'as they came into my head' (Kronbichler 47). A similar
variety existed in Renaissance manuals: some twenty kinds of letters are
listed by Negro, eighty by Filelfo, and some two dozen by Erasmus himself
Given this variety, we find once again that Erasmus protests too much when
he says: 'Just as sorcerers have certain definite forms of incantation, so too
rhetoricians have certain species of letters laid down so that they believe
not even a stroke can be altered without great peril to things human and
divine' (CWE 25:72).

After presenting his own list, Erasmus announces that he will 'now give
instructions about each species in turn' (CWE 25:73). These instructions
usually begin with an outline of stock themes pertaining to the type of letter
discussed, followed by sample letters, a comprehensive list of relevant
sample phrases, and cross-references to collections of letters termed silvae.

Renaissance et Réforme / 309

They point the reader primarily to classical sources (Cicero, Pliny), but
Poliziano's letters are mentioned as well. This arrangement is fairly
common in humanist manuals. In fact it is already used in the 13th century
by Boncompagno who supplies in addition to sample letters so-called
notulae, lists of commonplaces."*^ The practice is also adopted by Negro,
who explains the general thought patterns associated with certain topics
before offering his own sample letters, and by Filelfo who provides lists of
what he calls synonyma, phrases and sentences conveying the main ideas
of each species of letter."^ Commonplace arguments associated with certain
types of letters are also given by Brandolini and Celtis.^'^ Sample letters
generally incorporate these topoi. The following chart will provide a
synopsis of topoi in letters of consolation and recommendation, as found
in the manuals of Erasmus, Negro, Virulus, Brandolini, and Celtis.

Topos found in

a) The letter of consolation
topos:

E

N

V

B

c*

Expression of compassion

X

X

X

X

X

Diminishing the significance of the
misfortune, especially the argument
'lot shared by many'

X

X

X

X

X

Depicting a brighter future

X

X

X

Citing historical examples of
steadfastness in misfortune

X

X

X

offer of help

X

X

X

b) The letter of recommendation

topos:
Praise of the addressee

X

X

X

X

Praise of the recommended person

X

X

X

X

X

Relationship between writer and
recommended person explained

X

X

X

X

X

Granting the favour is possible, easy

X

X

X

X

Granting the favour is just, honourable

X

X

X

X

Promise of gratitude / reward

X

X

X

X

* E = Erasmus; N = Negro; V = Virulus; B = Brandolini; C = Celtis

310 / Renaissance and Reformation

While the chart shows that Erasmus' treatment is rather fuller than that
of other authors, it also reveals that he is following a well-established canon
of arguments. His treatment of letters varies, however. One notes a reduction
in volume of material presented as one goes through his manual, as if the
author's enthusiasm had waned or his patience had worn thin. In the end
his instructions are tapering off rather than being brought to a well-rounded
conclusion.

We may now return to our original question: Did Erasmus' approach
differ significantly from that of his predecessors? It appears that this was
not the case. His general framework, his remarks about the characteristics,
parts, and types of letters, and the scope of his samples follow a tradition
established by earlier humanists, which in turn was based on classical
theories and filtered through medieval artes dictandi. In some points
Erasmus clearly turns against the medieval tradition, but his objections are
not new. They were anticipated by earlier humanists and progressive
medieval writers. In the remarks addressed to the teacher of epistolography,
however, Erasmus goes beyond his predecessors. Although he is not entirely
original but rather reviving classical ideas, he brings a new zeal to the
subject. Thus Erasmus' outspoken criticism of his predecessors does not
signify a radical departure from tradition but exemplifies the sort of
competitive spirit lampooned in the Mona. Perhaps Erasmus was exercising
self-criticism when he put these words into Folly's mouth: 'Every grammar-
ian is convinced of the great importance of his subject. If someone slips up
on a single word and his sharper-eyed fellow happens to pounce on it,
Hercules, what dramas, what fights to the death, what accusations and
abuse. And if that's a lie, may the whole world of the grammarians turn on
me' (CWE 27:123).

University of Toronto

Notes

1 In the following I am using the translation of Charles Fantazzi in volume 25 oîThe Collected
Works of Erasmus (Toronto 1985). The quotations appear on pp 12-13.

2 A. Gerlo 'The Opus de conscribendis epistolis of Erasmus and the Tradition of the Ars
Epistolica Classical Influences in European Culture AD 500-1500 ed R.R. Bolgar (Cambridge
1971) 107; M. Fumaroli 'Genèse de l'épistolographie classique: rhétorique humaniste de
la lettre, de Pétrarche à Juste Lipse' Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France 78 (1978) 887-8.
For a bibliography of writings concerned with traditions in epistolography see Judith
Rice-Henderson 'Erasmus and the Art of Letter-Writing' Renaissance Eloquence ed JJ.
Murphy (Berkeley 1983) 332-3 nn4,5.

3 Rice-Henderson (op cit in note 2 above) 352

4 Cf A Gerlo's verdict on Erasmus' haphazard arrangement: 'The sequence of topics does
not seem governed by any logical plan' (op cit in note 2, 107-8).

Renaissance et Réforme / 311

5 CWE Ep 1 17:33-7. Erasmus is referring to Francesco Negro's Opusculum scribendi epistolas
(Venice 1488). In the following I quote from this edition.

6 CWE Ep 117:38-40. Erasmus is referring to Giammario Filelfo's Epistolare (Basel 1495).
My quotations in the following refer to the text in this edition.

7 CWE Ep 117:48-9. Giovanni Sulpizio wrote De componendis et omandis epistolis (Rome
1491); Niccolo Perotti is the author oi Rudimenta grammatices (Rome 1476), which contains
a section on letter-writing. In the following I quote from this edition.

8 Engelbert Schut wrote De arte dictandi (Gouda c 1480), which I quote in the following.
Carolus Virulus was the author oî Epistolarum formulae (Louvain 1476). In the following
I quote from the edition published at Cologne 1493.

9 CWE 25:24. Erasmus' judgment was shared by his contemporaries (cf A. Gerlo op cit in
note 2, 110). The work was not reprinted after 1520.

10 Cf C. Reedijk 77»^ Poems of Erasmus (Leiden 1956) no 11.

11 CWE 25:20, cf Turpilius fragment 213.

12 A. Brandolini i)e ratione scribendi (Cologne 1573) 10-11 (in the following, quotations from
Brandolini follow this edition); Negro a 3'.

13 For examples of personal letters, see L. Rockinger Briefsteller und Formelbiicher des elften
bis vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, New York 1%1 (cited in the following as 'Rockinger') 55, 64,
71, 81, 832-3; W. Kronbichler Die Summa de arte prosandi des Konrad von Mure, Zurich
1968 (cited in the following as 'Kronbichler') 30.

14 Cicero Ad Herennium 1.14-15, De inventione 1.20.28. Cf Rice-Henderson (op cit in note 2)
334.

15 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 4.2. 36-9, 40-51

16 CWE 25:13, cf ibidem 14.

17 This concern is already voiced in the 11th century by Peter the Venerable who criticized
'the desire for brevity to which modem men are drawn' and considered the requirement
of brevity a strait-jacket for the writer (G. Gilmore The Letters of Peter the Venerable,
Cambridge, Mass. 1967, 44-5, 134).

18 Rockinger 30, Brandolini 28

19 Ludolf of Hildesheim (Rockinger 359), Bernard of Meung (quoted by JJ. Murphy Rhetoric
in the Middle Ages, Berkeley 1974, 227 n66), for similar pronouncements cf Konrad of Mure
(Kronbichler 30), Brandolini 14, Schut 1.16.

20 Symon of Dudinghe (Rockinger 975), Mure (Kronbichler 61)

21 CWE 25 12-14, 17-18

22 CWE 25:23, cf Quintilian Institutio oratoria 1.2.16, 2.8 passim, 2.19.1. The combination of
the three prerequisites for success is a classical common place, cf P. Shorey 'Pnysis, melete.
episteme' TAPA 80 (1909) 185-201.

23 CWE 25:23-4, 40-41, cf Quintilian Institutio oratoria 1.3.8-17, 2.2.5-8.

24 Quoted by J J. Murphy (op cit in note 19) 236-7

25 Cf Brandolini 15-16.

26 CWE 25:41-2

27 CWE 25:41

28 CiDepueris instituendis CWE 26:311, 317, 331-36; De ratione studii CWE 24:672ff: 'On the
method of teaching pupils.'

29 Cf Cicero ^^ Herennium 1.4, De inventione 1.14.19, Quintilian Institutio oratoria 4 Pr 6.

30 On the purpose of the exordium cf Erasmus CWE 25:75, Cicero Ad Herennium 1.6, Dc
inventione 1.15.20, Quintilian //w//Vw//o oratoria 4.1.5; cf Konrad of Mure (Kronbichler 144).
Celtis (in H. Rupprich Der Briefwechsel des Konrad Celtis, Munich 1934, quoted as 'Rupprich'

312 / Renaissance and Reformation

in the following) 640:53, Filelfo a 7\ Haneron Partes dictaminis 2. On suitable material for
the exordium cf Erasmus CWE 25:76-8, Cicero ^4^ Herennium 1.5.8, De inventione 1.16.22;
cf Rockinger 18f, 367, Filelfo a7', Brandolini 18, Celtis in Rupprich 640:55ff.

31 CWE 25:75, c( Cicero Ad Herennium \J. I \, De inventione 1.18.26, Quintilian//j5//7w//o oratorio
4.1.71, Rockinger 144-5, Filelfo bl', 2'-3\

32 At CWE 25:48 Erasmus relates the misfortunes of a man who neglected to address his
bishop by the proper title.

33 CWE 25:45-50

34 Kronbichler 48, Boncompagno is quoted by Kronbichler 48:4n.

35 Cf R.G. Witt Coluccio Salutati and his Public Letters (Geneva 1976) 26.

36 In a 12th-century manual we find 'lighting bolt of wisdom' (Rockinger 12); Filelfo used
'rare phoenix' (c7r).

37 We find among recommended formulae the salutation 'may you obtain the desired success'
and greetings tendered with 'willing servitude,' 'due reverence,' or 'reverence at your feet'
(Rockinger 732, 956, 959, 963).

38 Rockinger 10, Kronbichler 143, A. Haneron Ars dictandi 2.1, text edited by J. Usewijn- Jacobs
in Humanistica Lovaniensia 24 (1975) 29-69

39 Op cit (above note 19) 259

40 Cf eg Konrad of Mure (Kronbichler 31), Hugh of Bologna (Rockinger 56); for similar
arrangements cf Rockinger 10, 103-9, 359.

41 Filelfo, for example, has a section on vultus and gestus {cA^ - 4^); Brandolini wrote
extensively about methods of argumentation even though he conceded that 'it does not
concern my subject' (80).

42 Aristotle /?/î^/onc \.2>y,c^ Cicero Ad Herennium 1.2.2, De oratore \.3\.H\, De inventione 1.5.7;
Quintilian Jnstitutio oratoria 3.3.14.

43 Sophist 222C, also mentioned by Quintilian Jnstitutio oratoria 3.4.10

44 Cicero De oratore 3.9.34, Quintilian Jnstitutio oratoria 3.4.2, echoed by Brandolini 12 and
Erasmus CWE 25:70

45 Cf Rockinger 140.

46 For Negro see the chart above. For Erasmus' verdict on Filelfo's synonyma cf CWE Ep
117:41.

47 See chart above.

The Enigma of Erasmus'

Conficiendarum epistolarum formula

JUDITH RICE HENDERSON

RÉSUMÉ: Le mystère de la Conficiendarum epistolarum formula d'Érasme
Des recherches récentes ont contribué à établir l'histoire de la publication et
l'authenticité de la Brevissima maximeque compendiaria conficiendarum epistolarum
formula attribuée à Érasme (Bale? Adam Petri? 1519-20?), mais sa place dans
l'histoire de la composition de VOpus de conscribendis epistolis (Bale : Johann
Froben, 1522) reste un mystère. La Formula peut se comparer au traité terminé
d'Érasme sur l'art épistolaire et à deux premières versions antérieures : celle de
1499-1500, publiée comme édition pirate sous le titre de Libellus de conscribendis
epistolis (Cambridge : John Siberch, 1521) et celle de 1505-6, largement citée dans
la Syntaxis de Johannes Despauterius (Paris : Josse Bade, 1509). Cette comparaison
suggère que la Formula est une collection de notes prises par Érasme après juillet
1501, quand il révisait son traité pour répondre à deux ouvrages récents : les écrits
d'Angelo Poliziano, comprenant, pour la première fois, un recueil de sa
correspondance (juillet 1498), et Veditio princeps des Epistolimaioi charaktéres
attribué à Libanius (juillet 1501). La Formula montre Érasme aux prises avec les
problèmes soulevés par la controverse de Cicéron. En défense de sa propre
rhétorique de l'art épistolaire contre le néo-classicisme extrême, Érasme progresse
vers l'équilibre entre Vars médiéval et Vimitatio classique qu'il atteindra dans VOpus
de conscribendis epistolis.

Among the many pedagogical works published under Erasmus' name in
the sixteenth century is a curious little pamphlet on letter-writing, the
Brevissima maximeque compendiaria conficiendarum epistolarum formula. As
Alain Jolidon has remarked, it is an enigma: 'On ne sait avec certitude ni
ce qui est réellement de sa plume dans cette plaquette, ni son rapport exact
avec le Libellus de conscribendis epistolis de 1521 et avec VOpus de con-
scribendis epistolis de 1522, ni quelle en est l'édition originale, ni qui a été
le responsable de sa première publication en 1520.'^

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 313

314 / Renaissance and Reformation

Recently, some progress has been made in determining the publication
history of this work, which was frequently reprinted in the sixteenth
century. Three editions of 1520 are the earliest extant. Jolidon has argued
persuasively that the edition of Mathes Maler at Erfurt is earlier than those
of Johann Schôffer at Mainz and of Valentin Schumann at Leipzig, both
of whom worked from Maler's text (pp 237-38). However, R.A-B. Mynors
suggests that Maler was not responsible for first pirating the work. He
argues that the first edition, which has disappeared, was printed at Basel,
probably by Adam Petri late in 1519 or early in 1520. Ulrich Hugwald, a
Basel scholar who corrected for the press of Petri, wrote the letter to an
unidentified Petrus Fabricius that appears in Petri's reprint of September
1521.^ Erasmus held the unnamed author of this letter responsible for
excerpting the Formula from his youthful treatise on letter-writing, adding
some material of his own, corrupting the style, and addressing the
dedicatory letter to Petrus Paludanus, of whom Erasmus had never heard.^

The issue of authorship has also been addressed by Jolidon. Although
Erasmus disclaimed all hut pauculas voces furtiuas of the Formula in 1521
(Ep 1193), he finally acknowledged his paternity, with the reservations
already noted, a few months before his death in 1536 (Epp 3099, 3100).
Jolidon has carefully examined the style of the Formula and calls it
'érasmien d'allure,' even though much of the work paraphrases Quintilian
and other classical sources (pp 231-35). In an earlier study of Erasmus'
theory of letter-writing, I found the content of the Formula 'typically
Erasmian,' a position I shall argue further here, although new evidence
has forced me to change my mind about the date of the work and its
relationship to the Opus de conscribendis epistolis (Basel: Johann Froben
1522) and to the other extant drafts of the finished treatise."^

I now believe that the Formula is a collection of notes that Erasmus
made in the process of revising his treatise on letter-writing. Influenced by
current debates among Italian humanists and anticipating or perhaps
responding to criticism of his treatise from extreme neo-classicists who
opposed the medieval conception of letter-writing as an art, Erasmus was
seeking a defense for his epistolary rhetoric in classical authorities. At the
same time, he was developing the more sophisticated definition of the
genre we find expressed in the later versions of the treatise. The Formula
works toward the synthesis of medieval and classical traditions of letter-
writing achieved in the Opus de conscribendis epistolis. Erasmus was
reluctant to acknowledge jottings that represented an interim stage in his
thought, but for the modem scholar, the Formula is a fascinating revelation
of his mind.^

Renaissance et Réforme / 315

Two stages in the composition of the Opus de conscrihendis epistoîis are
documented in the pirated Libellas de conscrihendis epistoîis (Cambridge:
John Siberch 1521) and the citations of Erasmus' manuscript in the
Syntaxis of Johannes Despauterius (Paris: Josse Bade 1509), but how the
Formula relates to these versions has remained a mystery. Most scholars
have thought that the Formula was taken from the first draft of Erasmus'
Opus de conscrihendis epistoîis.^ From Erasmus' comments, we know that
he wrote this draft in 1498 for Robert Fisher, his pupil in Paris, who was
leaving for Italy and wanted a small handbook on letter-writing to take
with him. Erasmus gave him the original manuscript, keeping no copy for
himself^ The Lihellus de conscrihendis epistoîis has generally been consid-
ered a revision of the first draft, perhaps written for William Blount, Baron
Mountjoy, or for Adolph of Burgundy, Lord of Veere, although it contains
a dedicatory letter to Fisher.^ Despauterius' citations have been known but
not much noted by scholars. I have now edited and analyzed them, and
my own findings, together with those of Jolidon, have convinced me that
the Formula postdates the Lihellus?

In the first of two articles on the early drafts of Erasmus' treatise on
letter-writing, Jolidon dates the composition of the Lihellus between May
1499 and September 1500.^^ He suggests that the Formula is an independent
work written shortly after the Lihellus, perhaps about 1500. It lacks nee . .
. quidem, a stylistic peculiarity of Erasmus' earlier writings, and it praises
the incredihilis nitor of the letters of Angelo Poliziano, a phrase that
Erasmus also uses to describe the style of Poliziano in his dedication of
the Adagiorum collectanea (Paris: Johannes Philippi 1500) to Mountjoy (Ep
126). In the Lihellus, Poliziano, who is much praised in the Opus, is not
yet mentioned as a model of style (p 583 nl). In his later article, Jolidon
retreats to the position held by most scholars that the Formula was
excerpted from Erasmus' first draft for Fisher. ^^

I am convinced by Jolidon's bold suggestion that the Formula postdates
the Lihellus and surprised by his change of mind, especially since his
second article seems to me to provide evidence for dating the Formula no
earlier than the second half of 1501. Jolidon observes that the allusion to
Poliziano furnishes a terminus post quern for the composition of the
Formula, since Poliziano's letters, which he collected shortly before his
death on September 28-29, 1494, were first published in his posthumous
Omnia opera (Venice: in aedihus Aldi Romani, July 1498).^^ Yet Jolidon is
puzzled by Erasmus' quotation in the Formula of the EpistoUmaioi
charaktéres attributed to Libanius, which, he claims, was first published in
Venice at the Aldine press on 29 March 1499. Faced with this evidence,

316 / Renaissance and Reformation

Jolidon asks, 'Erasme a-t-il découvert ce passage dans un manuscrit? Ou
a-t-il revu ultérieurement son texte de 1498?' (p 240 n8). Jolidon must be
mistaken about the first publication of the treatise attributed to Libanius.
The editors of the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke do not mention it in
their description of the 1499 Aldine edition of Greek epistolographers.
Rather, Richard Forster dates the editio princeps of pseudo-Libanius July
1501.^^ I suggest that the quotation from pseudo-Libanius furnishes a
terminus post quern of July 1501 for the composition of the Formula.

The reference to Poliziano is also important evidence of the composition
date of the work. Erasmus praises Poliziano as a model letter-writer once
in the tiny Formula, over and over again in the Opus de conscribendis
epistolis, but not at all in the Libellus. Was this merely an oversight? I think
not. In the Libellus, Erasmus concludes his discussion of invective with a
list of examples. He names the controversies of Demosthenes and
Aeschines, Cicero and Sallust (which are now considered spurious),
Jerome and Rufinus, Poggio and Valla. ^"^ In the Opus, he has added
Poliziano and Scala to this list.^^ Apparently Erasmus had not read
Poliziano's recently published correspondence when he wrote the Libellus
between May 1499 and September 1500. By the time he wrote the Formula,
he had, and he was so impressed by the incredibilis nitor of Poliziano's
letters that he ranked him with Cicero and Pliny the Younger as a model
of epistolary style (CWE 25:260).

Jolidon's second conclusion ('en définitive') that the Formula predates
the Libellus is based in part on a stylistic comparison of their similar
prefaces. Jolidon argues that the preface addressed to Paludanus in the
Formula (Allen, Appendix XXVI) is a first draft of that to Fisher in the
Libellus (Allen, Epistle 71): 'Le passage de "sed" à "at," de "vis?" interrogatif
à "vin?," la suppression de phrases enchevêtrées ("quantis me calumniis"
-► "quantis calumniis me"), l'introduction d'hyperbates ("neques alienis
inhaesurum vestigiis"), le souci plus grand de la variété du vocabulaire
(trois "dicere" devenus respectivement "dicere," "scribere," "respondcre")
sont tout à fait conformes à ce que nous savons des habitudes d'Érasme
quand il se corrige.'^^ But is Appendix XXVI a first draft of Epistle 71 or
is it the editor's 'free rewriting of the letter to Robert Fisher,' as H.M. Allen
and H.W. Garrod thought?^^ The colloquial informality of Epistle 71 seems
the perfect style for a dedication to a student whom Erasmus had known
intimately.^^

The concluding sentence of Appendix XXVI contains the full title of the
treatise it introduces: Accipe itaque breuissimam maximeque compendiariam
conficiendarum epistolarum formulam, tibique hoc vn urn persuade, non verbis

Renaissance et Réforme / 317

tantum illas sed arte etiam indigere. Jolidon doubts that Erasmus wrote this
awkward and redundant title, since later he calls the Formula merely a
libellas, opusculum, or compendium (Epp 3099, 3100). Yet Jolidon does find
in the title an echo, which has also struck me, of Erasmus' later description
of Fisher as a lazy student who demanded rules as a short-cut to practice.^^
Jolidon suggests that Fisher had expected a simple collection of formulas,
such as were found in the medieval artes dictaminis. Assuming that
Appendix XXVI is the original preface to Fisher, Jolidon finds 'p^s
complètement dépourvue d'insolence' (p 232) its concluding admonition
that letters require not only words but also art. His argument presents two
difficulties. First, in 1498 Erasmus could ill afford to insult a patron.
Second, Jolidon seems to be suggesting that the editor of the Formula
changed only the title of the treatise and that the final sentence of the
preface, or at least the last part of this sentence, was written by Erasmus.
Why then would Erasmus have substituted later the sentence found in
Epistle 1\: Id quam oh rem alias fartasse; nunc quantum ipsi doctrina, vsu,
imitatione consequi potuimus, quam breuissime trademusl

Let us start instead with the assumption of H.M. Allen and H.W. Garrod.
For the preface to the Formula, the editor rewrote the final sentence of
Epistle 71, Erasmus' original preface, to incorporate his own title. He also
changed the clause describing the contents of the treatise, for doctrina, vsu,
imitatione described several chapters of the Formula but not the whole. The
editor saw that the pages before him defended the position that letter-writ-
ing is an art. With the market in mind, the editor replaced the mundane
reference to art, exercise, and imitation with a summary of the controversial
theme of the Formula: tibique hoc mum persuade, non verbis tantum illas sed
arte etiam indigere. We know, after all, that the editor of the Formula
tampered with Erasmus' original letter, whether that letter was Epistle 71
or something closer to Appendix XXVI. The editor must have invented
Petrus Paludanus. Scholars have not been able to establish the identity of
such a person, and Erasmus said that he knew no one of that name. If the
editor had before him Epistle 71, then he made other changes to support
this fiction: Roberte becomes humanissime P. and Saluta amicos communes
is appended to Vale. If he felt free not only to pirate a manuscript but also
to invent a fictional patron for it, he would not have hesitated to make any
of the revisions I have described.

The editor likewise wrote a title that he thought would sell. The so-called
Formula is not a simple collection of rules; it is primarily a theoretical
discussion of letter-writing. However, it is brevissima maximeque compendia-
ria, and from at least 1519 there was a growing fashion for brief introduc-

318 / Renaissance and Reformation

tory textbooks. Contemporaries counted Erasmus among those who had
initiated the vogue. In De ratione studii (Paris: J. Badius, 15 July 1512), he
had argued that *an ordered course of study* {studiorum ordinem ac viam
formamque) offered *short-cuts' {semitas compendiarias) to leaming.^^ His
Methodus for the study of theology, published as a preface to his New
Testament (Basel: J. Froben 1516), was intended to provide just such a
short-cut, as he made clear in the enlarged 1519 version of the treatise,
now entitled Ratio seu methodus compendio perveniendi ad veram the-
ologiam?^ The idea of short-cuts to learning language and theology proved
especially attractive to Reformers, who were beginning to see humanist
education and religious indoctrination as urgent necessities if they were
to win their struggle with the Church and its scholastic theologians.
Following Erasmus' example, they began writing brief textbooks entitled
ratio, methodus, or compendium?^

Ulrich Hugwald, the apparent editor of the Formula, was a follower of
Luther. I suspect that he published Erasmus' manuscript under the title
Brevissima maximeque compendiaria conficiendarum epistolarum formula
because he thought it might serve as a brief introduction to letter-writing
for the young student. No doubt he also realized that a work bearing
Erasmus' name would sell, and he was quite right, as Jolidon's list of
fifty-four extant editions proves (pp 242-3). The Formula would remain
popular even after the Opus de conscribendis epistolis appeared in 1522. The
Opus was certainly not a short book, and Erasmus' followers found it
necessary to adapt and epitomize this and other pedagogical works of
Erasmus for the convenience of students, as Johann Monheim of Elberfeld
explained in his Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opus de conscribendis epistolis
in compendium redactum?^ What Erasmus came to think of the fashion of
compendia may be guessed from his observation in the Opus that Fisher
was one of 'a certain class of men' who 'pester me for a set of abridged
rules for correct writing, which they want to be short enough to fill less
than three full pages and of such efficacy that in less than a month they
can turn a dumb brute into a fluent speaker. They need every available

shortcut, they say If I felt like making fun of them, I should tell them

to drink one draught from the Muses' spring and dream upon Parnassus
so that we might see them transformed instantaneously from asses into
nightingales' (CWE 25:22). By 1522 Erasmus had perhaps become appre-
hensive about the influence his recommendation of *short-cuts' was having
on education.

These must remain speculations, but at least there seems no firm
evidence for dating the preface to the Formula before that to the Libellus.

Renaissance et Réforme / 319

Jolidon*s difficulty in believing that the Formula postdates the Libellus
arises, I imagine, not so much from the stylistic evidence he collects as
from the form and content of each treatise and from Erasmus' comments
about them. The Formula is brief, general, and closely dependent on
classical sources, especially Quintilian. It looks like a first attempt.
Moreover, Erasmus said that the Formula was excerpted from a hastily
written treatise. It does seem both incomplete and careless. The Libellus is
a longer, more detailed, more carefully structured, and much more original
work. It looks like a revision, though not quite of the Formula because they
differ in content. Moreover, the Libellus cannot have been the first draft
because it refers to events after March 1498, when Fisher left for Italy.^"^

If Erasmus wrote the Formula after the Libellus, did he intend it as an
epitome of his work-in-progress on letter-writing? It seems, rather, a
collection of notes on a few of the topics of the Libellus: style, the
importance of practice, imitation, and art (which is mentioned in the
preface to Fisher as the main theme of the Libellus), the three-fold
classification of letters as demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial. It
ignores other important material in the Libellus: formulas for greeting and
farewell, epithets, the *mixed' letter, 'extraordinary' letters (those which do
not fit the three-fold classification scheme), not to mention Erasmus'
detailed discussion and illustration of rhetorical and logical common-
places in each type of letter. Even the chapters on the three categories of
letters - demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial - do not exactly summa-
rize the corresponding sections of the Libellus. If the Formula is an epitome,
why is so much important material omitted? Why does it contain other
material not found in the Libellusl Why is so much of this material
paraphrased from Quintilian?

J.K- Sowards comes closest to explaining the Formula, I believe, when
he describes it instead as 'a sketchy and unsatisfactory work based on some
of Erasmus' own early notes' (CWE 25:li-lii), an opinion shared by Charles
Fantazzi (CWE 25:3). I suggest that in the manuscript pages later pirated
as the Formula, Erasmus was collecting precepts and examples from
classical authorities in support of the art of letter-writing that he had
described in the Libellus. As he continued to revise, his thought was
stimulated by two recently published books: the Omnia opera of Angelo
Poliziano and a Greek treatise on letter-writing attributed to Libanius. The
first was particularly important because it contained Poliziano's corre-
spondence. Erasmus was immediately impressed by Poliziano as a letter
writer, and he was alerted to current issues in Italian humanism by reading
Poliziano's exchange of letters with the Ciceronians Bartolomeo Scala and

320 / Renaissance and Reformation

Paolo Cortesi. For Erasmus these debates raised a question: To what extent
could a man of the Renaissance imitate the classics and still remain in
touch with his own age? The question affected letter-writing because the
humanists had made this genre an important vehicle of discussion and
reform. Seeing that some neo-classical purists in Italy were so keen to
imitate the familiar letters of Cicero that they would reduce letter-writing
to private conversation, Erasmus felt the need to defend his conception of
the letter as an argument that might draw upon the full resources of
rhetoric. Perhaps he had even been criticized as having written a medieval
ars dictaminis by some humanists who took seriously the classical defini-
tion of the letter as a conversation between absent friends. At least he
anticipated such criticism.

In the Libellus Erasmus had written a rhetoric of letter-writing. The
treatise opens with brief chapters on style (elocutio) and organization
(dispositio) before turning to its main subject, argument {inventio). Of the
five parts of rhetoric, it treats the three that can be applied to written
composition, omitting delivery {pronuntiatid) and memory {memorid). Most
of the treatise describes letters devoted to a single purpose, classified under
the causœ of the oration: deliberative, demonstrative, and judicial. That is,
letters, like orations, persuade or dissuade, praise or blame, accuse or
defend. Erasmus describes and illustrates the rhetorical and logical topics
appropriate to the many types of letters in each category, as well as to
certain 'extraordinary' letters that do not fall into his three-fold classifica-
tion. For example, the first type of deliberative letter, the letter of
encouragement, employs the topics of praise, hope, fear, example, expec-
tation, and entreaty. Erasmus devotes a chapter to each subspecies of the
deliberative, judicial, and extraordinary classes but not to the demonstra-
tive. He explains that letters are seldom purely demonstrative, that is,
descriptive. More often, description bolsters an argument that depends on
the topics of praise or blame.

In the thoroughness of his analysis of epistolary rhetoric, Erasmus goes
beyond most of his Italian predecessors, but his conception of the letter
as argument echoes fifteenth-century humanist textbooks. Renaissance
epistolography was an uneasy compromise between two conflicting tradi-
tions of letter-writing, the medieval and the classical. Paul Oskar Kristeller
has argued that the humanists were *the professional successors of the
medieval Italian dictatores who taught and practiced, on the basis of
textbooks and models, the eminently practical art of composing docu-
ments, letters, and public speeches.'^^ Like their predecessors, they often
made their living as Latin secretaries or as teachers of Latin composition.

Renaissance et Réforme / 321

Their credentials for employment included knowledge of the elaborate
protocol of address that had become conventional in medieval letter-writ-
ing. No matter how enthusiastic they were about the newly discovered
letters of Cicero and Pliny, in their professional capacities they could
imitate them only within prescribed social limits. Experiment was difficult
except in avant-garde letters to friends. For that reason, humanist reform
of letter-writing often amounted to little more than purifying style of
medieval barbarisms or improving the techniques of argument through
the study of rhetorical treatises, especially those of Cicero and Quintilian,
which had been largely lost to the Middle Ages. Those humanists of the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth century who advocated a more exact
imitation of Cicero represented an extreme.^^

Humanist textbooks paid mere lip service to the classical definition of
the letter as a written conversation between absent friends. In this respect
the Libellas is typical. Erasmus introduces his long discussion of the
rhetoric of letter-writing by repeating the classical distinction between the
letter and the oration.^^ Letter-writing is not like declaiming in a theatre,
he says, but like whispering in a comer with a friend. The writer should
avoid the formal style of the oration and strive instead for acumen,
appropriate diction, wit, humor, charm, and brevity. Erasmus criticizes the
linguistic barbarism and parasitic flattery of medieval formulas and
recommends a return to classical simplicity in greeting and addressing
correspondents. Yet he acknowledges that contemporary customs differ
from the ancient and allows the writer to vary the classical formulas as
long as he avoids barbarism and flattery. Erasmus is an enthusiastic
student of the ancients, but even in this early period he is not a strict
Ciceronian. Classical imitation must serve the contemporary world.

Thus the medieval and classical conceptions of the genre remain in
unresolved tension in the Libellus, as in the treatises of Erasmus' humanist
predecessors. When he wrote the Libellus, Erasmus had read critically at
least the Opusculum scribendi epistolas (Venice 1488) of Francesco Negro
and perhaps other Quattrocento handbooks on letter-writing.^^ From
Negro he borrows a distinction between 'mixed' letters and 'unmixed'
letters, but he criticizes Negro for insisting that every letter have an
introduction. Erasmus is trying to find the right balance between art and
imitation. Negro's medieval division of the letter into parts on the model
of the oration overemphasizes art. On the other hand, Negro's classifica-
tion of the genre into 'mixed' and 'unmixed' appeals to Erasmus because
it encompasses both the familiar letter of classical tradition and the formal
epistolary argument of the ars dictaminis.

322 / Renaissance and Reformation

In the Opus de conscribendis epistolis, Erasmus achieves a synthesis of the
medieval and classical traditions. He distinguishes the letter from other
genres by its amazing flexibility: *as the polyp adapts itself to every
condition of its surroundings, so a letter should adapt itself to every kind
of subject and circumstance' (p 19). A book, Erasmus says, must be written
'to please all men of learning and good will,' but a letter must please only
the individual to whom it is addressed (p 14). Thus almost any style can
be appropriate: 'it will present itself in one guise to the old, in another to
the young; its aspect will vary according as the person addressed is stem
and forbidding, or of a more jovial nature; a courtier or a philosopher; an
intimate acquaintance or a total stranger; a man of leisure or one engaged
in active pursuits; a faithful companion or a false friend and ill-wisher' (p
19).

The Opus de conscribendis epistolis attacks both poles of contemporary
letter-writing, medieval barbarism and Ciceronian purism. In the finished
treatise Erasmus has enormously expanded his brief remarks on saluta-
tions, subscriptions, and epithets in the Libellus. His discussion often
becomes a satire of the barbarism and pride of princes, churchmen, and
theologians, who demand that their correspondents observe a ridiculously
elaborate and outdated etiquette. At the same time, he has recognized a
new folly, a neo-classicism so extreme that it would restrict letter-writing
to idle conversation. The first eight chapters of the Opus de conscribendis
epistolis are, I believe, directed against the Ciceronians, although Erasmus
does not use that label. Rather, he criticizes those 'learned men' who would
'impose a narrow and inflexible definition on what is by nature diverse
and capable of almost infinite variation. . . . These men consider a letter
unacceptable unless it keeps to the plainest manner of writing, has a free
and easy flow without the intensity of impassioned utterance, is composed
solely of words taken from common usage, and finally qualifies as a letter
rather than a book by its very brevity' (p 12).

Scholars have assumed that Erasmus became aware of extreme
Ciceronianism during his sojourn in Italy .^^ In the Ciceronianus (Basel: in
officina Frobeniana 1528), he describes a sermon, preached before the pope
on Good Friday, 1509, which was so Ciceronian that it was not even
Christian. This early experience was reinforced in 1519 by his acquaintance
with Christophe de Longueil, whom contemporaries considered the pro-
totype of the fictional Nosoponus in the Ciceronianus. Nosoponus thought
that writing a properly Ciceronian letter of six periods asking a friend to
return a book could not be accomplished without months of effort and
the sacrifice of pleasure, family ties, and public office. Erasmus began

Renaissance et Réforme / 323

remarking on the Ciceronian disease after 1525, when Thomas Lupset sent
him from Italy a copy of LongueiFs lifetime production, a slim volume of
letters and orations, published posthumously in 1524. When Erasmus saw
it, he lamented the waste of Longueil's talent on trivia. Erasmus himself
had made the letter a weapon in his program of social, political, educa-
tional, and religious reform.^^

The citations of Erasmus' treatise on letter-writing in Johannes
Despauterius' Syntaxis show that Erasmus began forming these views at
least as early as 1508. Indeed, the evidence suggests that Erasmus com-
pleted a revision in 1505-6 and left the manuscript behind when he
departed for Italy. He was at the Aldine Press in Venice when Despauterius
finished writing the Syntaxis on November 11, 1508. Josse Bade printed it
at Paris the following year.^^ In a chapter on letter-writing, Despauterius
drew extensively from a manuscript that contained close-to-the-final
version of Erasmus' Opus de conscribendis epistolis. He merely mentioned
Erasmus' teaching methods, described in three chapters of the authorized
edition (CWE 25:22-44), as well as the discussion of deliberative, demon-
strative, and judicial letters (CWE 25:65-254) already found in the Libellus.
He quoted and summarized in detail seven of the first eight chapters of
the Opus (CWE 25:12-22) and the lengthy discussion of formulas that
follows the chapters on pedagogy (CWE 25:45-65).

In annotations that he added to his Syntaxis in 1510, Despauterius
interpreted the opening chapter of Erasmus' treatise, Quis epistolce character,
as anti-Ciceronian. He commented that Erasmus shared the views ex-
pressed by Angelo Poliziano in the opening letter of his correspondence
and in his exchange with the Ciceronian Paolo Cortesi. In the opening
letter to Piero de' Medici, Poliziano defends himself against anticipated
criticism of his eclectic style by arguing that he wrote his letters for
particular occasions, not as a unified collection. Furthermore, he can
justify any stylistic characteristic as an imitation of some classical letter-
writer. In his famous controversy with Cortesi, he argues against the
exclusive imitation of Cicero. The writer must develop his own style by
reading and thoroughly assimilating many good writers. Despauterius'
note suggests to me not only that Erasmus had become concerned about
apish Ciceronianism before 1509 but also that he was alerted to the
direction Italian humanism was taking by reading Poliziano, his prede-
cessor in the Ciceronian controversy.

The Formula, where Erasmus first mentions Poliziano's correspondence,
considers the implications of extreme neo-classicism in letter-writing. The
work contains eight chapters that fall into two parts. The first part discusses

324 / Renaissance and Reformation

the definition of a letter, practice, imitation, and art. The second describes
the three kinds of causes, demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial, then
devotes a chapter to each. Erasmus offers none of the specific precepts
and examples that so impress the reader of the Libellus and the later Opus
de conscribendis epistolis. Instead he musters classical authority in defense
of his own rhetoric of letter-writing. Although the Formula seems little
more than a collection of notes, although it lacks a consistent argument,
it does have a central theme: letter-writing is an art. Sketchy as it is, the
Formula shows Erasmus struggling toward that practical synthesis of the
medieval and classical traditions that distinguishes the authorized Opus
de conscribendis epistolis.

On the surface, the Formula seems merely inconsistent. As in the Libellus,
Erasmus begins by recalling the classical conception of the letter. The
definition of Libanius, he says, is typical: 'A letter is a conversation between
two absent persons.'^^ The letter-writer should therefore avoid tragica
grandiloquentiap a phrase that echoes the opening sentence of the Libellus:
Scenicus quidam verborum apparatus, et affectata grandiloquentia, cum alibi
vix ferri potest, tum ab epistolari familiaritate vehementer abhorret?^ Erasmus
continues, 'For the style of the letter should be simple and even a bit
careless, in the sense of a studied carelessness. Pliny's letters are a good
example of this, being incisive, eloquent, and clear, and while they contain
nothing but personal and mundane matters, succeed in expressing everying
in a clean, ornate Latin; his style is controlled and elaborated with great
ingenuity and refinement, yet it gives the appearance of being effortless,
improvised, and extemporaneous' (p 258). Finally, he criticizes those
'"word-fowlers" and eager hunters to be found today who are prepared to
indite a letter for the sake of a single word,' when Horace, Cicero, and
Quintilian all enjoin that the words should come naturally from the
argument (p 258).

In the chapters on practice, imitation, and art that follow, Erasmus
nonetheless argues against those 'who maintain that there should be no
use of artificial rules in personal, everyday letters, but that they should be
made up of common sense and ordinary language' (p 261). He acknowl-
edges that rules should not be followed rigidly. 'Those who divide up all
letters into salutation, exordium, narration, and conclusion and think that
the whole technique of letter-writing lies therein are all the more deserving
of ridicule,' he says, echoing his criticism of Francesco Negro in the
Libellus. Even more than the orator, the letter-writer must consider 'the
case, the times, the occasion, and necessity,' since letters 'treat of various
subjects, and they are written to men of different origin, rank, and

Renaissance et Réforme / 325

temperament at different times and in different places* (p 261). Yet 'those
who follow no rules and rush helter-skelter wherever their impulse leads
them, diffuse and unbridled, pour out streams of words freely and
indiscreetly.' Fluency comes with practice. The student must begin slowly,
taking pains to follow rules and imitate good writers (p 262).

On the subject of imitation, Erasmus acknowledges, 'Whoever takes
Cicero as his model and guide will never have reason to be disappointed
in eloquence, incisiveness of language, or orderly arrangement.' Yet the
student must read widely in many authors, 'not only ... the letters of those
whom we wish to imitate, but also all other writings that contribute to the
perfection of style and diction. And indeed, just as letters are not all of
one kind, so the authors we choose should not be of the same kind' (p
260). Furthermore, imitation must not be slavish, for 'no one can equal
someone else by merely treading in his footsteps; it is inevitable, again
according to Quintilian, that one who follows must always remain behind.
Besides, there are many essential qualities of literary style that cannot be
imitated, like natural ability and fertility of invention. Therefore there is
need first of technical training and rules, then imitation and judgment,
and lastly, frequent exercise of the pen' (p 261). But is it not possible to
work too hard? Erasmus acknowledges that 'infinite pains should be
avoided and "we should take care to write as well as possible, but to write
according to our ability" [Quintilian 10.3.15]; there must be certain limits
even to hard work' (p 259).

In the next chapter of the Formula, introducing the classification of
letters into three kinds of causes, demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial,
Erasmus asserts that 'all the various types of letters must be reduced to
these three. This will be obvious to anyone who has ever made essay of
the art that lies hidden in the letters of ancient writers or who, in aversion
to the superficial manner of speaking and writing to which I have referred,
prefers to seek out sure methods and principles rather than discourse
aimlessly' (p 262). Erasmus does not recall here, as he does in the Libellus,
that certain 'extraordinary' letters do not fit into his rhetorical classifica-
tion.

Erasmus next turns to a consideration of the general principles of each
class of letters: demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial. In his chapter on
demonstrative letters, Erasmus quotes Quintilian's distinction between the
styles of orations and letters.^^ For instance, demonstrative arguments
invite the orator to 'give fuller display of his talents,' Erasmus says. 'But
the letter has a certain character of its own.' It 'must remain comparatively
free and easy' (p 263). For this reason, he recommends praises of men in

326 / Renaissance and Reformation

the letters of Pliny the Younger (Epp 1.10, 1.14) and descriptions of places
in the historians Sallust and Livy as models for the letter-writer, but not
Cicero's description of Sicily {In Verrem ii 1.1.4) or Virgil's description of
the port of Carthage (Aeneid 1.167-8).

Judicial argument is even more difficult to keep within the bounds
prescribed for the letter. When we accuse others or defend ourselves,
'speech becomes so impassioned that all the emotions are poured out. In
this class we express wishes, avert omens by prayer, plead, and show
anxiety in accusation or defense, as in these examples; "Would that your
father would come back to life," or "O gods, ward off harm," or "I beseech
thee now, O Jupiter, greatest and best," and innumerable other expressions
that are more suitable to a speech than to a letter, although the letter is at
various times a vehicle for all the emotions. Therefore in letters of this
kind we must open with a brief introduction, proceeding cautiously with
art and cunning to the main question' (p 266).

The chapter on deliberative letters seems mainly concerned 'to reduce
the entire discussion to a brief compass, the honourable, the profitable,
the easy, or possible,' topics borrowed from Quintilian's discussion of the
deliberative cause. Erasmus also gives special consideration to the classi-
fication of the letter of recommendation, which 'is included by some in
the deliberative class' (p 265).

The Formula is a collection of jotted thoughts mixed with paraphrases,
quotations, and illustrations from classical sources. Logical argument is
too much to expect of such material. Rather, Erasmus grapples here with
the issues raised by Poliziano's letters on imitation, the issues he himself
must resolve in revising his treatise on letter-writing. Confronted with
conflicting conceptions of letter-writing. Erasmus moves toward the redef-
inition of the letter on which his synthesis of the classical and medieval
traditions will be based. The letter is an all-purpose genre, even more
versatile than the oration. If the writer is to treat many subjects under
many circumstances, he must develop his skills by reading widely in
diverse authors and diverse genres. He must learn rules, but he must
exercise good judgment in using them, considering the purpose he is trying
to achieve. He must practice diligently, but he must not be too self-con-
scious. Ultimately, he will become a good writer only if he trusts himself
and follows his own genius.

In addition to redefining the genre to encompass the full range of
classical and contemporary letter-writing, Erasmus reinterprets the classi-
cal distinction between the letter and the oration. Classical letters only
seem artless, Erasmus suggests. In fact, their art is merely hidden. The

Renaissance et Réforme / 327

good letter-writer follows the *sure methods and principles' of classical
rhetoric. In the first chapter, Erasmus describes Pliny as a writer of 'great
ingenuity and refinement' whose letters nevertheless appear 'effortless,
improvised, and extemporaneous.' In the chapters on demonstrative,
deliberative, and judicial letters, Erasmus takes most of his examples of
good letter-writing from Pliny rather than from Cicero. This bias is in
keeping with his theme. As he says in his chapter on imitation, 'Cicero,
the prince of Latin eloquence, is said to have more naturalness than art
in his letters, while Pliny exhibits more art and more precision' (p 260).
When he describes the techniques of deliberative and judicial letter-writ-
ing, Erasmus makes the same point. These letters use the devices of rhetoric
but less obviously than deliberative and judicial orations. The letter-writer
cannot display his skill openly, as the orator can, but letter-writing is
nonetheless an art.

The Formula is not a rigorous argument, and in searching among
Erasmus' notes for the seeds of thought that flowered in the Opus de
conscribendis epistolis, I have perhaps implied a unity that it lacks. Erasmus
was reluctant to acknowledge the work as his own precisely because it does
not have the logical structure of a finished treatise. Nevertheless, both the
content of the Formula and Erasmus' own remarks imply that the notes
are his. Erasmus complained that the editor had corrupted the style in
some places (the example he gave comes from the chapter on the
deliberative letter), had mutilated others, and had added some material of
his own, notably the letter to Fabricius, but he said that the work had been
excerpted from the treatise on letter-writing that he had begun for Fisher.
What did Erasmus mean by this? If the printer had worked from a
manuscript containing a draft of the whole treatise, in spite of the vogue
for compendia he surely would have published all of it. By 1519-20,
Erasmus' books were in demand. One possibility is that Erasmus removed
these pages in revising his treatise. A second is that one of his pupils or
friends copied them into another manuscript. A third is that they are only
notes for revision. As I have suggested, the formlessness of the material
favors this last hypothesis.

If, however, the Formula is only notes for revision of his treatise on
letter-writing, it is all the more valuable as a revelation of the process of
Erasmus' thinking. Here he first responds to the movement of Italian
humanism toward extreme neo-classicism that he would satirize in the
Ciceronianus. Here he works toward a redefinition of the letter that would
incorporate both medieval art and classical imitation. Here he defends
against those who would limit its scope the genre he himself would use so

328 / Renaissance and Reformation

powerfully as a weapon of reform. The Formula is far more important, I
suggest, than scholars have generally realized. If my suspicions about it
are correct, we may learn as much about Erasmus from this enigmatic
little work that so embarrassed its author as from the more finished and
more famous products of his pen.

University of Saskatchewan

Notes

1 'Histoire d un opuscule d'Érasme: La Brevissima maximeque compendiaria conficiendarum
epistolarum formula,' in Acta conventus neo-Latini Sanctandreani: Proceedings of the Fifth
International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies, St Andrews 24 August to 1 September 1982 ed
I.D. McFarlane, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 38 (Binghamton, N.Y.
1986) 229-43, esp 229.

2 Introductory note to the translation by Charles Fantazzi in Collected Works of Erasmus
25 (Toronto 1985) 256-57. On Hugwald, cf Contemporaries of Erasmus, ed Peter G.
Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, 3 vols (Toronto 1985-87) 2:212-13.

3 P.S. Allen et al, eds Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami 12 vols (Oxford 1906-1958)
Ep 3099: Hoc opusculum truncatim decerptum est ex quodam commentario quem ante annos
quadriginta tumultuario labore intra biduum conscripsi, sed vni priuatim, nimirum rudem
rudi, crasso crassum. Quis sit hie artifex vel absque cribro facile diuino. Eum honoris causa
non nomino. Pleraque detruncauit, nonnulla de suo adiecit, quaedam per inscitiam deprauauit:
velut illud 'Quem cui commendes' corrupit in 'Qualem commendes', non agnoscens sermonis
elegantiam. Praefationem veterem addidit, sed mutato nomine: nam ego Petrum Paludanum
hominem natum noui neminem. Adiecit de suo epistolam ad nescio quem Fabricium, in qua
nullum verbum est meum. nee est quicquam ilia insulsius. Cf Ep 3100. Hie artifex is therefore
the editor, Hugwald, not the pupil, nimirum rudem . . . crassum, for whom Erasmus began
his treatise on letter-writing, as I once incorrectly assumed: 'Erasmus on the Art of
Letter-Writing,' in Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance
Rhetoric, ed James J. Murphy (Berkeley 1983) 331-55, esp 344-45. The pupil of whom
Erasmus speaks so harshly is clearly Robert Fisher. See n7 below. The name Petrus
Paludanus is probably an invention. See Allen 11:366-67; Contemporaries of Erasmus
3:47-48.

4 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing' 345.

5 I am indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for
its generous support of my research on Renaissance textbooks of letter-writing, of which
this article is one product. The article was circulated in manuscript to participants in a
seminar on epistolography at the Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin
Studies in Toronto on 8-13 August 1988, and I have benefited from their suggestions.
The errors that remain are my own.

6 Alois Gerio, 'The Opus de conscribendis epistolis of Erasmus and the Tradition of the Ars
epistolica' in Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 500-1500: Proceedings of an
International Conference Held at King's College, Cambridge, April 1969 ed R.R. Bolgar
(Cambridge 1971) 103-14, esp 106; James D. Tracy, 'On the Composition Dates of Seven
of Erasmus' Writings' Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 31 (1969) 355-64, esp 359;
Jean-Claude Margolin ed De conscribendis epistolis in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi
Roterodami (Amsterdam 1969- ) 1-2:160; Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez
Érasme, 2 vols (Paris 1981) 1005; Henderson, 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing'
344-45. Allen merely noted that 'there were two versions at least of the Paris composition
in circulation' in 1521: Ep 1193n.

7 See Epp 71, 1284, 3099, 3100; CWE 25:22.

Renaissance et Réforme / 329

8 See Allen, Ep 71n; Tracy 359; Henderson, 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter- Writing' 346-47;
Fantazzi, in CWE 25:3. Margolin 167, is vague about its relation to the Formula. Erasmus'
letters record his intention to revise the work for Mountjoy, his pupil in Paris (Ep 117),
or the young Adolph, pupil of his friend Jacob Batt (Epp 95, 130, 138, 145).

9 'Despauterius' Syntaxis (1509): The Earliest Publication of Erasmus' De conscribendis
epistolis," Humanistica Lovaniensia 37 (1988) 175-210.

10 'L'Évolution psychologique et littéraire d'Érasme d'après les variantes du "De con-
scribendis epistolis'" in Acta conventus neo-Latini Amstelodamensis: Proceedings of the
Second International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies. Amsterdam 19-24 August 1973 ed P.
Tuynman, G.C. Kuiper, and E. Kessler (Munich 1979) 566-87.

1 1 'Histoire d'un opuscule d'Érasme' 236.

12 'Histoire d'un opuscule d'Érasme' 241 ni 8. A facsimile edition of the Omnia opera Angeli
Politiani has been published (Rome: Editrice Bibliopola Vivarelli e Gullà, nd).

13 Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke 8.2 (Stuttgart-Beriin 1973) cols 65-69, no 9367; Libauii
Opera, ed Forster 9 (Leipzig 1927) 21-22. The Aldine collection does include the Typoi
epistolikoi of pseudo- Demetrius, but Professor John Monfasani of the State University of
New York, Albany, assures me that it does not contain pseudo- Libanius. Cf his 'Three
Notes on Renaissance Rhetoric,' Rhetorica 5 (1987) 107-18.

14 Fol 67, S3v. The copy of Siberch's edition in the British Library is available in the series
Early English Books 1475-1640 (Ann Arbor, Mich:. University Microfilms International)
STC 10496, Reel 1752.

15 CWE 25:221-22. For the Poliziano-Scala correspondence, see Omnia opera Angeli Politiani
Dv-glv.

16 'Histoire d'un opuscule d'Érasme' 231.

17 Allen 11:366-67.

18 Professor Elaine Fantham of Princeton University has suggested to me that the use of
'at' and 'vin' in this letter to Fisher reflects Erasmus' early interest in Terence.

19 CWE 25:22. See my 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing' 345.

20 De ratione studii, trans Brian McGregor, CWE 24:665; ASD 1-2:111-12.

21 Et satis festinat. qui nusquam aberrat a via. Sœpe & sumptum duplicat, & laborem. qui crebris
erroribus, ac longis ambagibus tandem eo pervenit, quo destinarat, si tamen pervenire contingat.
Porro qui compendiariam quoque viam indicat, is gemino beneficio juvat studiosum. Primum
ut maturius quo tendit pertingat, deinde ut minori labore, sumptuque quod sequitur assequatur.
Opera omnia (Leiden 1703-6; rpt Hildesheim 1962) v, col 75.

22 Christoph Hegendorff, author of one of the eariiest Lutheran catechisms, drew upon
Erasmus' De copia, his edition of the letters of St Jerome, and probably the Formula in
his Ratio epistolarum conscribendarum compendiaria, published at Leipzig in 1520 by
Valentin Schumann, who printed one of the earliest extant editions of the Formula the
same year. The Ratio contains a letter by Andreas Palaeosphyra Gundelfingius (Andreas
Althamer of Brenz) recommending the book in words that echo Erasmus: Bene enim
agere videntur qui, ubi laboriosum, salebris respersum. ac longum iter sit. eundum brevem
quandam methodum ostendunt (D3v). Palaeosphyra suggests that Hegendorff has provided
a brief method for the study of letter-writing, as have Erasmus for theology, Reuchlin for
Hebrew {De rudimentis hebraicis 1506, and De accentibus et orthographia linguœ hebraicœ
1518), Oecolampadius and Melanchthon for Greek (Dragmata grœcœ literaturœ and
Institutiones grœcœ grammaticœ respectively, both 1518), and Eck for dialectic (Ele-
mentarius dialectice 1517). The mention oî Joannes Eckius noster in the context of Erasmian
method suggests that Eck's quarrel with Luther was still viewed by contemporaries as a
dispute among scholars. Melanchthon would soon produce his famous compendium of
Lutheran theology. Loci communes, in competition with Erasmus' Ratio. Protestants

330 / Renaissance and Reformation

pioneered method, but Erasmus' influence as an educator was also strong in Catholic
circles. Indeed, the Jesuits quickly learned that they must produce their own ratio
studiorum and compendia if they were to compete for students with the Protestant
educators.

23 In L. Vitruvii Roscii Parmensis de commoda acperfecta elocutione. deque conficiendis epistolis
isagogicon una cunt aliis (Basel: R. Winter 1541) s5r, p 281. Monheim's epitome was first
published at Cologne by H. Alopecius in 1539. Other textbooks that borrow substantially
from Erasmus' Opus include Methodus conscribendi epistolas (Haguenau: J. Seltzer 1526)
by Christoph Hegendorff; the Epistolica of Georgius Macropedius (Antwerp: J. Hillenius
1543), which was reprinted by Protestant publishers in Germany and England under the
title Methodus de conscribendis epistolis with an epitome of Erasmus' De copia by Johannes
Rivius; and Epitome ex opere Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami de conscribendis epistolis (Antwerp
1552) by Johannes Nemius.

24 Jolidon notes an account of the death of Charles VIII at Amboise on 7 April 1498 (fol
71r-72v), some 'allusions presque certaines ... malgré le camouflage des dates' to the
coronation (27 May 1498) and marriage (18 January 1499) of Louis XII (fol 69v), and a
letter apparently written by Erasmus to Hendrik van Bergen shortly before 1 May 1499
(fol 52v-53v). See 'L'Evolution psychologique et littéraire d'Erasme' 568.

25 Renaissance Thought and Its Sources ed Michael Mooney (NY 1979) 24.

26 See Henderson, 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing,' cited above, and 'Defining the
Genre of the Letter: Juan Luis Vives' De Conscribendis Epistolis,^ Renaissance and
Reformation, ns 7 (1983) 89-105.

27 Cicero Epistulœ ad familiares 9.21.1; Seneca Ad Lucilium epistulœ morales 75.1.

28 In a letter to Mountjoy, written either in 1499 or 1509 to accompany a draft of his treatise
on letter-writing, Erasmus mentions also the treatises of Niccolô Perotti, Giammario
Filelfo, and Giovanni Sulpizio. See Ep 117.

29 See 'Erasmus on the Art of Letter-Writing' 349-51.

30 Especially after 1514, as Wallace K. Ferguson observes in his introduction to The
Correspondence of Erasmus CWE l:xii.

31 See further my argument in 'Despauterius' Syntaxis (1509).'

32 Trans Charles Fantazzi in Collected Works of Erasmus 25:258. All subsequent English
translations from the Formula are also his.

33 Antwerp: Michael Hillen, 23 July 1521, (A12r. Cambridge University Library Bb.* 10.29.

34 Blr. I have expanded abbreviations and modernized u and v.

35 Institutio oratoria 9.4.19. See CWE 25:263.

Erasmiana 1986-1988:
A Bibliographical Update

ERIKA RUMMEL

1 he past two years have seen the publication of a number of Erasmian
texts and translations. The Toronto Collected Works of Erasmus added two
volumes to its correspondence series, which now covers the years up to
1521 (vols 7 and 8, trans R.A.B. Mynors, ann P.G. Bietenholz). Two
volumes were also added to the literary and educational series (vols 27 and
28, ed. A.H.T. Levi). They contain some of the most famous of Erasmus'
writings: The Praise of Folly, The Complaint of Peace, The Education of a
Christian Prince, The Ciceronian, Panegyricus, and Julius exclusus (trans and
ann B. Radice, M.J. Heath, B.I. Knott). The Paraphrase of Mark (vol 49,
trans and ann E. Rummel) appeared in the New Testament series (ed. R.D.
Sider), and the Spiritualia series (ed. J. O'Malley) made its debut with a
volume containing the Enchiridion and two treatises on contempt of the
world and on the Christian widow (vol 66, trans and ann Ch. Fantazzi, E.
Rummel, J. Tolbert Roberts). The three-volume set Contemporaries of
Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (eds
P.G. Bietenholz and Th. A. Deutscher) is now complete.

The most recent additions to the Amsterdam Opera omnia are volume
5-3 (with contributions by AG. Weiler, R. Stupperich, and C.S.M.
Rademaker), which brings to a conclusion the series of Psalm commen-
taries and volume 2-4 (edited by F. Heinimann and E. Kienzle), which
contains adages 1501-1999. A facsimile edition oïExdiSmMs' Annotations on
the New Testament (London: Duckworth 1986), edited by A Reeves and M.
Screech, and one of the Novum Instrumentum (1516), edited by H. Holeczek
(Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog 1986) were reviewed in Erasmus in English
15 (1987-8) 25-27.

A previously unknown letter by Erasmus was discovered in the Herzog
August Bibliothek in Wolfenbiittel, Germany. The text is published by E.
Rummel in 'Ein unbekannter Brief von Erasmus an Christoph Truchsess

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 3 (1989) 331

332 / Renaissance and Reformation

Baron von Waldburg' Wolfenbutteler Renaissancemitteilungen 12 (1988)
101-2. Two letters from Ferdinand of Habsburg to Erasmus in the Haus-,
Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna, the text of which appeared first in the
doctoral thesis of H. Eberdorfer, are reproduced and translated by J.-C.
Margolin in Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Man and the Scholar (see below).
The Latin text of two letters from Erasmus to Joannes Sapidus and
Eobanus Hessus respectively appeared in print for the first time in CM.
Bruehfs 'Zwei unbekannte Briefe von Erasmus' Quaerendo 16-4 (1986)
243-58. Readers may recall another recent discovery: a letter from Erasmus
to Hutten that came to light in the Archivio di Stato in Florence and was
published by P.O. Kristeller in Tradizione classica e letteratura umanistica
(Rome 1985). Kristeller's article contains a list of Erasmian letters discov-
ered since the publication of Allen's Opus epistolarum (Oxford 1906-58).

A number of collections of essays and papers have appeared during the
past two years. El Erasmismo en Espana (Santander: Sociedad Menendez
Pelayo 1986) records the proceedings of a conference held at the Biblioteca
de Menendez Pelayo in 1985 (edited by M. Revuelta Sanudo and C. Moron
Arroyo). It is an important complement to Marcel Bataillon's classic study
Erasme et Espagne, which is given its proper place in the history of
Erasmian scholarship in M. Revuelta Safiudo's and D. Devoto's prefatory
pieces. Other contributions to the volume discuss the fortuna of Erasmus'
works in Italy (S. Seidel-Menchi), his biblical scholarship, and the
controversies generated by his edition of the New Testament (N. Fernandez
Marcos and E. Fernandez Tejero, M. Avilés Fernandez, M.A. Perez
Priego). Of special interest in this context is Carlos Gilly's article concern-
ing a recently discovered polemic against Erasmus and Reuchlin by Elio
Nebrija, the text of which is printed here for the first time. Individual
Erasmian works - his style manuals, the Apophthegmata, and De contemptu
mundi - are discussed in articles by A. Cilveti Lecumberri, E. Llamas
Martinez, and L. Lopez Grigera. Erasmus' influence on the spiritual and
intellectual life of Spain is traced by M. Andres Martin, J. Perez, A. Huerga,
A. Delgado Gomez, and F. Lopez Estrada. Spanish humanists and
theologians who came into contact with Erasmus and his writings are
discussed by C. Garcia Gual (on Antonio de Guevara), A. Alvar Ezquerra
(on Alvar Gomez de Castro), B. Monsegu and E. Rivera de Ventosa (on
Vives), M. Firpo, M. Morreale, D. Briesemeister, F. Abad, J.V. Ricapito (on
Juan and Alfonso Valdes). Broader topics are dealt with by C. Moron
Arroyo ('El sistcma de Erasmo'), V. Muftoz Delgado ('Nominalismo,
Logica y humanismo'), T. de Azcona ('El hecho episcopal hispanico en

Renaissance et Réforme / 333

tiempo de Carlos V), V. Pinto Crespo (*La herejia como problema polftico')
and J.I. Tellechea Idfgoras CEI Protestantismo castellano*).

Classical and Modem Literature devoted its 1987 issue (edited by Jane E.
Phillips) to Erasmus. It contains articles on recent editions and translations
of Erasmus' works (D. Bundy), on Erasmus in England (RJ. Schoeck),
and on various aspects of his works (Copia: A. Vos, Colloquies: M. Bromley,
Annotations: E. Rummel, editions of Seneca: L.A. Panizza).

The Colloque Erasmien de Liège (Paris: Edition *Les Belles Lettres' 1987),
dedicated to L.-E. Halkin, consists of two parts, the first containing three
essays by S. Dresden ('Erasme et les belles-lettres'), M.M. Phillips ('Visages
d'Erasme*), and S. Seidel Menchi ('Erasme et son lecteur'). The second
part concentrates on Erasmus as theologian and biblical scholar and
contains contributions by C. Augustijn ('Erasmus und seine Théologie'),
Charles Béné ('Saint François de Sales et Erasme'), J. Chomarat ('Sur
Erasme et Origène'), R. Crahay ('Le procès d'Erasme à la fin du XVI siècle.
Position de quelques jésuites'). M.M. de la Garanderie ('Erasme et Luther
commentateurs de la première épître de saint Jean'), R.L. DeMolen (on
Erasmus' philosophia Christi), E.W. Kohls ('Die Neuentdeckung der Thé-
ologie des Erasmus'), R. Padberg (on Erasmus' concept of the just war),
E.V. Telle (Erasmus on matrimony and virginity). Miscellaneous topics
are discussed by M. Cytowska ('De l'Episode polonais aux comédies de
Terence'), O. Herding ('Erasmische Friedensschriften im 17. Jahrhundert'),
J.-C. Margolin ('Les "Erasmiana" de l'Abbé Raymond Marcel'). Special
mention should be made of texts published here for the first time: four
letters from Erasmus' adversary J. Stunica to Pope Leo X (ed H.J. De
Jonge).

In 1988 the Wolfenbiitteler Abhandlungen zur Renaissanceforschung pub-
lished volume 7, Erasmus und Europa (ed. A. Buck), which contains articles
on Erasmus and the Netherlands (L.-E. Halkin), France (J.-C. Margolin),
Spain (D. Briesemeister), England (H. Schulte-Herbrtlggen), and Hungary
(A. Ritook-Szalay), as well as articles on miscellaneous topics by O.
Herding ('Erasmus - Frieden und Krieg*), P.G. Schmidt ('Erasmus und
die Mittellateinische Literatur'), B. Haegglund ('Erasmus und die
Reformation'), M. Knops (on a German translation of the adage Aut regent
autfatuum nasci oportet) and C. Reedijk ('The Leiden Edition of Erasmus'
Opera Omni in a European Context').

Dix Conferences sur Erasme (Paris-Geneva: Champion-Slatkine 1988)
records the proceedings of a conference organized by the University of
Basel at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, 1986. The volume contains
papers dealing with two Erasmian works, the Praise of Folly and the

334 / Renaissance and Reformation

Colloquies, a preface by L.-E. Halkin, and concluding remarks by J.-C.
Margolin. Contributors are Marc Fumaroli ('L'éloquence de la Folie'),
Marcel Tetel ('L'Eloge de la Folie: Captatio Benevolentiae'), J. Chomarat
('L'Amour dans L'Eloge de la Folie et les Colloques'). Various aspects of
the Colloquies are examined by E. Kushner (on argumentation in utramque
partem), J.-C. Margolin (on rhetorical techniques in the colloquy 'Echo'),
F. Bierlaire ('La première edition falsifiée des Colloques'), R. Hoven (Le
Conflictus Thaliae et Barbariei: un Colloque d'Erasme?'); Charles Béné
and A. Godin on two controversial colloquies, 'Naufragium' and 'Per-
egrinatio religionis erga,' and A. Chastel on Erasmus, 'L'ennemie de la
magnificence.'

The proceedings of the Erasmus Symposium held in Rotterdam in 1986
have appeared under the title Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Man and the
Scholar (Leiden: Brill 1988), eds J. Spema Weiland and W.Th.M. Frijhoff
The book is divided into three sections, with individual introductions by
the editors, entitled 'Power Relations,' 'Education and the World of
Learning,' and 'Images.' The first section, which deals with Erasmus'
relationship with secular and ecclesiastical powers, contains essays on
Erasmus and the bishop of Cambrai (R.J. Schoeck), Ferdinand of Habs-
burg (J.-C. Margolin, mentioned above), and the Fifth Lateran Council
(N.H. Minnich); on Erasmus' counsel on the Turkish campaign (A.G.
Weiler), his views on the subject of communal goods (M. Isnardi-Parente),
his controversies with Latomus, the Spanish Orders, and Alberto Pio (M.
Gielis, E. Rummel, C.L. Heesakers), and his last will (P.P.J.L. Van
Peteghem). In the second section, dealing with learning and education, we
find essays on some of Erasmus' educational writings (M. Marin, J.K.
Sowards, B.I. Knott), on Erasmus as a translator and textual critic (B. and
E. Ebels, H. de Jonge, D.F.S. Thomson), as a commentator on his times
(G. Chantraine), and on Erasmus and his friends and correspondents (J.
den Boeft, J. Olin, C.S.M. Rademaker). The third section offers three
interpretations of Erasmus. C. Augustijn concentrates on Erasmus' image
in Germany; B. Mansfield offers a study of Erasmus' image as a champion
of moderation and tolerance; and N. Van der Blom contributes some
interesting examples of 'Erasmus-promotion' in Holland.

Three other collections are for the most part reprints. Marie Delcourt's
Erasme (Brussels: Editions Labor 1986), with a preface by P. Jodogne and
a brief bibliographical essay by F. Bierlaire, contains articles first pub-
lished in 1944 and one previously unpublished piece, 'Histoire d'un livre:
Les Colloques.' J.-C. Margolin's Erasme: le prix des mots et de l'homme
(London: Variorum Reprints 1986) presents essays from the years 1964-84.

Renaissance et Réforme / 335

R.L. DeMolen's The Spirituality of Erasmus (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf 1987)
contains reprints of articles published between 1971 and 1987, with a new
contribution The Expression of Love in the Oeuvre of Erasmus/

The proceedings of the Neo-Latin conference held at WolfenbUttel in
1985, Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Guelpherbytani, eds St. Revard, F. Radie,
M. DiCesare (Binghampton, NY: 1988), contain three papers of special
interest to Erasmians: C.H. Killer's *Styles and Mixed Genres in Erasmus'
Praise of Folly,' L. Beck's Thomas More on the Double Portrait of Erasmus
and Pierre Gillis,' and H. Schulte-Herbrilggen's 'Artes dictandi und
erasmische Théorie in More's lateinischen Briefen.'

The Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook, devoted exclusively to articles
on Erasmus and now in its eighth year, has announced a new feature. It
endeavours to publish short monographs on Erasmus, the first of which
appeared in its 1986 issue: *A Study of the Collaboration between Erasmus
of Rotterdam and His Printer Johann Froben . . . ,' by S.D. Shaw.

Other monographs on Erasmus published during the past two years are:
Friedhelm Kruger's Humanistische Evangelienauslegung (Tubingen: Mohr
1986), which examines Erasmus' Paraphrases; E. Rummel's Erasmus' An-
notations on the New Testament: From Philologist to Theologian (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press 1986), which examines the genesis, sources,
and contents of the Annotations; S. Seidel Menchi's Erasmo in Italia,
1520-1580 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri 1987), which deals with inquisitorial
processes involving Erasmus' works in 16th-century Italy; R.J. Schoeck's
Erasmus Grandescens: The Growth of a Humanist's Mind and Spirituality
(Nieuwkoop: De Graaf 1988), which examines Erasmus' spiritual and
intellectual development from his days in the school of the Brethren of
the Common Life at Deventer to the first publication of The Praise of Folly.
Two comprehensive biographies have also appeared recently: L.-E.
Halkin's Erasme (Paris: Fayard 1988) and C. Augustijn's Erasmus von
Rotterdam: Leben-Werk-Wirkung (Munich: Beck 1986), which is also avail-
able in the Dutch original (Baam: Ambo 1986) and which will appear in
English in 1990 as Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence, published by
University of Toronto Press. A thumbnail sketch of Erasmus' life and
works is offered by E. Campion in Critical Survey of Literary Theory
(Pasadena: Salem Press 1988) 467-72. A chapter is also devoted to Erasmus
in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed A Rabil Jr
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1988), vol II 216-264.

Among articles published during the period in consideration the follow-
ing have been brought to our attention:

336 / Renaissance and Reformation

R. Baldwin 'Peasant Imagery and BruegeFs "Fall of Icarus'"' Konsthistorisk
Tidskrift 15 (1986) 101-14

J. Berchtold 'Le poète-rat: Villon, Erasme, ou les secrètes alliances de la
prison dans l'épître "A son amy Lyon" de Clement Marot' Bibliothèque
d'Humanisme et Renaissance 50 (1988) 57-76

P.G. Bietenholz '"Haushalten mit der Wahrheit": Erasmus im Dilemma
der Kompromissbereitschaft' Easier Zeitschrift fur Geschichte und Al-
tertumskunde 86 (1986) 476-506

A. Breeze 'Leonard Cox, a Welsh Humanist in Poland and Hungary' The
National Library of Wales Journal 25-4 (1988) 399-410

J. Chomarat 'Erasme et Platon' Bulletin de l'Association G. Budé 1 (1987)
25-45

J. Chomarat 'Diable, Diables et Diableries au temps de la Renaissance'
Publications of the Centre de Recherches sur la Renaissance 13 (1988)
131-47

Ch. Christ-von Wedel 'Das "Lob der Torheit" des Erasmus von Rotter-
dam im Spiegel der spâtmittelalterlichen Narrenbilder und die Einheit
des Werkes' Archive for Reformation History 78 (1987) 24-36

R. Coogan 'The Pharisee Against the Hellenist: Edward Lee Versus
Erasmus' Renaissance Quarterly 89 (1986) 476-506

M. Cytowska 'L'Eloge de la Paix depuis Erasme jusqu'à Jan
Kochanowski' Eos 75 (1987) 401-411

HJ. de Jonge 'The Date and Purpose of Erasmus' Castigatio Novi
Testamenti: A note on the Origins of the Novum Instrumentum' in The
Uses of Greek and Latin (London: Warburg Institute 1988)

'Erasmus' Method of Translation in his Version of the New

Testament' The Bible Translator 37-1 (1986) 135-38

J.W. O'Malley 'Grammar and Rhetoric in the Pietas of Erasmus' JTie
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988) 81-98

J. Phillips 'Erasmus, Cyril, and the Annotationes on John' Bibliothèque
d'Humanisme et Renaissance 50 (1988) 381-84

Renaissance et Réforme / 337

C. Reedijk Testina lente Nocheinmal: Johan Huizinga, Wemer Kaegi
und ihr Erasmus' Het oude en het nieuwe boek. De oude en de nieuwe
bibliotheek Kapellen 1988

E. Rummel 'An open letter to boorish critics: Erasmus' Capita
argumentonim contra morosos quosdam ac indoctos' Journal of Theological
Studies 39 (1988) 438-59

'Nameless Critics in Erasmus' Annotations on the New

Testament' Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 48 (1986) 41-57

R.D. Sider'Xàets and Derivatives in the Biblical Scholarship of Erasmus'
in Diakonia (Washington: Catholic University Press 1986) 242-60

J. Trapman 'II Testo originale e la traduzioni' in // Sommario della Santa
Scrittura (Turin: Claudiana 1988) 7-23

H. Vredeveld 'An Obscure Allusion in Erasmus' Ode on St Michael'
Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 48 (1986) 91-92

'The Philological Puzzles in Erasmus' "Poem on Old Age'"

Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 49 (1987) 597-604

Books Reviews / Comptes rendus

Roland Crahay. D'Erasme à Campanella. (Problèmes d'histoire du
christianisme, XV). Bruxelles, Éditions de l'Université, 1985. In-8, 162 p.

Le Professeur Roland Crahay a été admis à 1 eméritat en 1985. L'Université Libre
de Bruxelles lui rend hommage en republiant quelques-unes des études fouillées
qu'il a consacrées à Érasme, à l'utopie au XVI^ siècle (Campanella, Anabaptistes)
et à Jean Bodin. Philologue classique de formation, R Crahay a publié peu de
livres sur les matières qu'il a enseignées tant à Mons qu'à Bruxelles, mais on lui
doit une multitude d'articles, de comptes rendus critiques, de rapports de lecture
qui constituent une oeuvre véritable, une contribution originale et durable à
l'histoire des idées politiques, religieuses et pédagogiques à l'époque moderne.
Élève de Marie Delcourt à l'Université de Liège, il devait inévitablement
s'intéresser à l'histoire de l'humanisme, et en particulier à Érasme: le colloque
international qu'il organisa à Mons, en 1967, restera assurément la plus réussie
des commémorations du 500^ anniversaire de la naissance de l'humaniste. R.
Crahay sut aussi faire oeuvre de pionnier, en créant et en animant à Mons un
Séminaire de Bibliographie Historique, célèbre aujourd'hui dans le monde
entier, où l'on éftudie le livre en tant qu'objet, d'outil indispensable à la diffusion
des idées. Lors des réunions du mardi, l'on s'est beaucoup préoccupé à Mons
des éditions voire des émissions de la République de Jean Bodin, et l'on a pu
ainsi dresser une sorte de "stemma codicum" qui va permettre à RCrahay de
donner enfin une édition critique de cet ouvrage majeur qui paraîtra à Genève,
chez Droz, en deux volumes au moins. Bodin occupe la dernière place dans le
recueil édité par l'Université Libre de Bruxelles, mais les pages que lui consacre
l'auteur constituent la version originale d'une étude écrite en 1979 sur les avatars
de la République, qui s'est trouvée soumise à deux censures, tantôt convergantes,
tantôt opposées, de la part du calviniste Simon Goulart et du jésuite Posscvino.
Habent sua fata libelli.

R Crahay s'intéresse depuis longtemps à Campanella et à sa Cité du Soleil; il
prépare une édition critique et une traduction française de l'édition latine de
1637, avec les variantes par rapport à la première édition latine (1627) et à la
version originelle italienne. Son interprétation de VUtopie religieuse de Campanella
cadre mal avec celles qui ont été données jusqu'ici de l'homme et de l'oeuvre.
Contrairement au "très pondéré Thomas More," Campanella est pour lui une
"personnalité excessive, mal équilibrée, qu'un destin tragique maintient aux
limites du pathologique," le contraire de quelqu'un qui fut "orthodox tout au
long de sa vie et de son oeuvre, en dépit de crises de conscience et d'aberrations
de langage." Qu'a pu connaître Campanella de VUtopie pratiquée des Anabaptistes,

340 / Renaissance and Reformation

plus précisément des Huttérites, qui avaient su organiser et rendre viable la
première société collectiviste d'Europe? R Crahay ne répond pas à la question,
il se contente de souligner "le parallélisme frappant entre la création littéraire
d'un dominicain calabrais et la création matérielle d'une secte protestante
radicale."

Les trois premières études du recueil sont consacrées à Érasme. R Crahay
s'intéresse d'abord aux Censeurs louvanistes d'Erasme: Dorp, Latomus, Baechem,
Dierckx et surtout Jean Henten, dont les censures, rédigées à la demande de la
Faculté de théologie de Louvain, furent emportées à Trente par les délégués au
Concile, qui ne purent pas, dans un premier temps, influencer la censure
romaine. Ce n'est qu'en 1570 et en 1571 que les censures de Henten furent
incorporées à la législation officielle. Il les compare à VIndex expurgatorius et
conclut que "le rôle de la Faculté en 1570 s'est limité à une mise au point assez
facile;" il se livre en outre à un inventaire exhaustif des quatre exemplaires
manuscrits des censures de Henten conservés à la Bibliothèque Royale de
Bruxelles. Spécialiste du livre-objet, R Crahay a mis la main sur une bien
curieuse édition des Colloques, publiée à Dublin, en 1712: il en donne une
description précise, se livre à une analyse fouillée de son contenu, fournit des
renseignements précieux sur l'éditeur Guillaume Binauld, replace l'ouvrage dans
la tradition du genre (les éditions scolaires des Colloques). Il montre enfin
combien fut difficile l'exploitation par les antipapistes d'un ouvrage qui exhalait
"certains relents papiste." La troisième contribution traite de VÉvangelisme
d'Erasme. La notion d'évangélisme - le terme est utilisé pour la première fois par
Imbart de La Tour en 1914 - s'applique-t-elle à Érasme, et dans quel sens?
Après avoir présenté brièvement les diverses réponses qui ont été données à cette
question, R Crahay se demande quel usage Érasme a fait du terme "évangéliquc"
et de ses dérivés; il se livre à une enquête minutieuse - et quantitative - dans
quelques textes judicieusement choisis et conclut qu'il faudrait peut-être
"renoncer prudemment à parler de l'évangélisme d'Érasme" ou, en tout cas,
"préciser à tout prix où on le peut et avouer quelle est, dans cette appellation,
la part d'interprétation a posteriori."

On retrouve ici, une fois de plus, la prudence de R. Crahay, l'esprit critique
voire hypercritique dont il a toujours su faire preuve. L'historien, disait Lucien
Fcbvre, n'est pas celui qui trouve, il est celui qui cherche. Roland Crahay cherche,
se pose des questions, s'inquiète et, toujours, retourne aux sources. C'est ce qui
fait le prix de ses travaux.

FRANZ BIERLAIRE, Université de Liège

Renaissance et Réforme / 341

Erasmus von Rotterdam. Novum Instrumentum. Basel 1516. Faksimile-Neudruck
mit einer historischen, textkritischen und bibliographischen Einleitung von Heinz
Holeczek. Stuttgart - Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1986. Pp. xli,
629.

For almost six months - from September 1515 through February 1516 - printers
scurried, presses clattered, and Erasmus scribbled.

The printing firm of Johann Froben must have seemed the picture of chaos
during that half-year when Erasmus' New Testament emerged from the press in
Basel. Erasmus of course had completed much of his own work on the New
Testament during the previous five years: he had examined a fair number of
manuscripts of both the Greek and the Latin scriptures; he had noted numerous
variant readings and studied the works of Church Fathers for evidence on the
textual history of the scriptures; he had annotated hundreds of passages where
his philological researches illuminated the meaning of the New Testament or
points of biblical theology. Yet on the very eve of printing, much work remained
undone, many decisions untaken. Erasmus hastily marked up a handy manu-
script of the Greek New Testament and used it as printer's copy for his edifion
of the Christian scriptures in their original language. At the instigation of his
fellow workers, he introduced numerous revisions into the text of the Latin
Vulgate, so as to render it a more accurate reflection of the Greek New Testament.
At the same time, too, even as Froben's printers set the scriptures in type, Erasmus
vastly expanded his annotations to the New Testament Even basic questions of
format - would the Greek and Latin texts appear successively and separately,
or together in parallel columns? - remained undecided until the last minute.

Littie wonder, then, considering the hasty preparation of the work, that
scholars have often found fault with Erasmus' New Testament of 1516. In the
early years, controversy centred on Erasmus' revision of the Vulgate as a
translation of the New Testament and on those of his annotations that challenged
traditional ways of understanding the scriptures. Conservative scholars and
theologians expressed shock and dismay at Erasmus' willingness to entertain
alternatives to time-honoured formulae and interpretations of the New Testa-
ment In more recent times, the Greek text has replaced the Latin translation
and the annotations as the prime target of scholarly criticism. It is maned by
hundreds of typographical errors, so the critics have charged; it rests on too
slender a basis in Greek manuscripts; it does not always present the best text
offered in the manuscripts available to Erasmus; it even retranslated six verses
of the Apocalypse from Latin back into Greek, since Erasmus' manuscript lacked
the last leaf of the book.

Despite its faults - and they are many - recent scholarship has concentrated
on assessing the positive importance of Erasmus' New Testament The editors
of the Spanish Complutensian Bible had prepared an edition of the Greek New
Testament and had seen it through the press at Alcalà in 1514. But they obtained

342 / Renaissance and Reformation

a license to publish their. edition only in 1520, so that their achievement stood
in the shadow of Erasmus' work. Even with its defects, Erasmus' Greek New
Testament performed a genuine scholarly service: it offered a common text to
scholars and theologians in all parts of Europe; it invited improvement on the
basis of new discoveries in manuscripts; and it encouraged re-examination of
Christian doctrine in the light of the Greek scriptures. In the second place, quite
apart from his edition of the Greek New Testament, Erasmus offered a revised
Latin translation in his New Testament of 1516. In it he removed many of the
Vulgate's glaring errors, and in numerous passages he provided a far more clear
and accurate reflection of the Greek scriptures than western Christians had ever
known. Speaking more generally, his work helped to bring about a reconsider-
ation of the whole enterprise of biblical translation, its methods and purposes.
In the third place, Erasmus equipped his New Testament with thousands of
annotations, in which he discussed points of philology and theology concerning
individual passages. His notes do not read like the observations of modern textual
critics or biblical theologians, but in large measure they helped to found the
disciplines that modem scholars continue to develop. The annotations prove in
abundant measure that Erasmus knew how to think about textual problems -
how to recognize and remove textual corruption - and further that he knew how
to think about the larger moral and theological implications of basic textual
scholarship. Rarely in western history has an individual achieved such a
harmonious blend of scholarly precision with moral and religious concern as
did Erasmus in his New Testament scholarship.

The volume under review stands as a tribute to the long-tenn significance of
Erasmus' New Testament Heinz Holeczek provides a short introduction dis-
cussing Erasmus' scholarly career, his biblical studies, his efforts to prepare
Greek and Latin editions of the New Testament, and the contribution his work
made to biblical scholarship. The remainder of the volume reprints the first
edition (1516) of Erasmus' Greek New Testament, revised Latin translation, and
annotations. Students and scholars especially will welcome the opportunity to
consult Erasmus' New Testament, which in the original edition survives in only
a few hundred copies. This volume performs a genuine service in the field of
Renaissance studies, since it makes available to a large audience one of the most
important scholarly publications of the entire sixteenth century.

JERRY H. BENTLEY, University of Hawaii

Reformation^'^,,

I»»»'*'

Renaissance^
et
Réforme

^

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 4 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 4

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 4 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 4

Fall 1989 automne

Renaissance and Reformation /Renaissance et Réforme is published quarterly (February, May, August, and
November); paraît quatre fois l'an (février, mai, août, et novembre).

® Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies / Société Canadienne d'Etudes de la Renaissance

(CSRS / SCER)

North Central Conference of the Renaissance Society of America (NCC)

Pacrfic Northwest Renaissance Conference (PNWRC)

Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium (TRRC)

Victoria University Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS). 1987.

Editor
Kenneth Bartlett

Directeur Adjoint

Claude Sutto (Université de Montréal)

Associate Editor
Glenn Loney

Book Review Editor
Thomas Martone

Responsable de la rubrique des livres
Pierre-Louis Vaillancourt (Université d'Ottawa)

Business Manager
Konrad Eisenbichler

Editorial Board/Comité de rédaction

Rosemarie Bergmann (McGill) A. Kent Hieatt (Western Ontario)

André Berthiaume (Laval) R. Gerald Hobbs (Vancouver School of Theology)

Peter G. Bietenholz (Saskatchewan) F.D. Hoeniger (Toronto)

Paul Chavy (Dalhousie) Elaine Limbrick (U. of Victoria)

Jean Delumeau (Collège de France) Robert Omstein (Case Western Reserve)

S.K. Heninger (North Carolina) Charles Trinkaus (Michigan)

Subscription price is $15.00 per year for individuals; $13.00 for Society members, students, retired
persons; $30.00 for institutions. Back volumes at varying prices. Manuscripts should be accompanied by
a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or International Postal Coupons if sent from outside Canada) and
follow the MLA Handbook.

Manuscripts in the English language should be addressed to the Editor; subscriptions, enquiries, and
notices of change of address to the Business Office:

Renaissance and Refommtion /Renaissance et Réforme

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University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada M5S 1K7

Communications concerning books should be addressed to the Book Review Editor: Erindale College,
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Les manuscrits de langue française doivent être adressés au directeur adjoint, les recensions au re-
sponsable de la rubrique des livres.

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Fall 1989 (date of issue: July 1990)

Second class mail registration number 5448 ISSN 0034-429X

Renaissance Renaissance

and et

Reformation Réforme

New Series, Vol. XIII, No. 4 Nouvelle Série, Vol. XIII, No. 4

Old Series, Vol. XXV, No. 4 1989 Ancienne Série, Vol. XXV, No. 4

Contents /sommaire

ARTICLES

343

Boccaccio, Baptismal Kinship and Spiritual Incest

by Louis Haas

357

Revisions of Redemption: Rabelais' Medlar, 5ra^we/re

and Pantagruelion Myths

by Camilla J. Nilles

371

La présence de la Folie dans les Oeuvres de Louise Labé

by Wilson Baldridge

381

The Flesh Made Word: Foxe's Acts and Monuments

by Mark Breitenberg

BOOK REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS

409

Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, La pensée religieuse

d'Agrippa dAubigné et son expression

reviewed by Klara Csûris

411

Philip T. Hoffman, Church and Community in the Diocese

of Lyon 1500-1789

reviewed by Robert Toupin

412

R.S. White, Let Wonder Seem Familiar: Endings in

Shakespeare's Romance Vision

reviewed by Barry Thome

417
NEWS / NOUVELLES

419
INDEX / TABLE DE MATIERES 1989

Boccaccio, Baptismal Kinship,
and Spiritual Incest

LOUIS HAAS

At baptism much more occurs than just the introduction of another
member into the Christian community. During the ritual, by virtue of its
spiritual nature, the participants are bound together for life in a web of
religious and social obligations and honors. This web is commonly known
as baptismal kinship. Most Christian cultures have maintained some form
of baptismal kinship, but the specific practice has varied with time, place,
and sect. The Catholic Church today, for instance, officially recognizes only
a religious bond between the godparents and the godchild. Catholics in
Latin America, however, also recognize a religious and social bond between
the godparents and the parents. In the European past, before the Reforma-
tion-era theologians narrowed the scope of the religious bonds, sponsors at
baptism became the ritual kin of both the godchild and the parents.
Baptismal kinship thus can - and did - operate on two planes: that of
godparenthood (referred to as patemitas in medieval Latin texts), comprising
the bonds between the sponsors and the child; and that of coparenthood
(referred to as compatemitas in medieval Latin texts), comprising the bonds
between the sponsors and the parents. As noted above, for the rest of their
lives the individuals within the web of baptismal kinship are supposed to
maintain certain responsibilities and duties toward one another. Either the
Church or society or both prescribe the boundaries and specifics of these
responsibilities and duties. Baptismal kin, for instance, should cultivate a
heightened degree of friendship with one another.^

Anthropologists have long known the significance of baptismal kinship
for various cultures in premodem and modem Latin America. There the
practice has performed many functions, such as providing for the education
of children, easing the tension of social conflict, or establishing economic
and psychological support networks among people.^ Recently, anthropolo-
gists and historians have begun investigating the significance of baptismal
kinship for premodem Europe. Their studies indicate that the various types

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 4 (1989) 343

344 / Renaissance and Reformation

of premodem European baptismal kinship performed many of the same
functions that premodem and modem Latin American baptismal kinship
has perfomied.^

Premodem European baptismal kinship also established many of the
same taboos that premodem and modem Latin American baptismal
kinship has established. Perhaps the most signal - and universal - taboo
associated with baptismal kinship is the marital impediment it erects for
those falling within its web. Simply put, sexual violation of the cognatio
spiritualis, the spiritual relationship contracted at baptism, represents spir-
itual incest. This taboo became codified as early as the Justinian Code
(530)."^ By the thirteenth century, canon law firmly held that sponsors were
spiritually related to their godchildren and their godchildren's parents.
Godchildren were even spiritually related to their sponsor's children.
Moreover, some canon lawyers believed that sponsors were spiritually
related to the other sponsors at the ceremony. None of these individuals
could engage in carnal relations, let alone marry one another. In his Summa
Theologica, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) took note of a popular verse: "I may
not marry my own child's godmother nor the mother of my godchild."^
Throughout the Middle Ages, canon lawyers, theologians, bishops, and
preachers all repeatedly outlined the boundaries of spiritual incest and the
consequences of crossing those boundaries. But how much of this normative
advice penetrated to the popular level?^

Seven of Boccaccio's stories in The Decameron (1348-52) describe elements
of baptismal kinship, and two of these emphasize the spiritual incest taboo.^
Since these baptismal kinship elements are new additions to some old
motifs, Boccaccio must have drawn them from the pool of Florentine
popular belief^ What did Florentines believe about the spiritual incest
taboo?^

In the Tenth Story for the Seventh Day, two Sienese, Tingoccio and
Meuccio, are great friends and make a pact that the first one who dies will
come back and tell the other what the afterlife is like. This of course is an
old motif and the source of jokes even today. ^^ Boccaccio, however,
complicates his story with details of baptismal kinship:

After this promise had been made and as they continued to be close
friends it happened that Tingoccio became cofather (compare) to one
Ambruogio Anselmini of Camporeggio and his wife, Monna Mita.
Tingoccio, in the company of Meuccio, would visit his comother (comare)
rather frequently and in spite of their spiritual relationship (// com-
paratico) he fell in love with her, for she was a beautiful and charming
woman; and since Meuccio found her pleasing and because he would

Renaissance et Réforme / 345

often hear Tingoccio praise her, he fell in love with her too. And each
one avoided speaking about his love to the other, but for different
reasons: Tingoccio kept from revealing it to Meuccio because of the
wickedness (la cattivita) he himself saw in loving his comother, and he
would have been ashamed if any one had learned of it; Meuccio did not
do so because he noticed that she pleased Tingoccio so much; whereupon
he said to himself:

"If I reveal this to him, he will become jealous of me, and since he can
speak to her whenever he likes, for he is her cofather, he might make
her dislike me, and so I may never get what I want from her.

This passage illustrates well the close familiarity that was part of
baptismal kinship. Tingoccio visited his comother frequently, even before
he fell in love with her. Meuccio recognized the special closeness Tingoccio
enjoyed with Monna Mita by virtue of his status as her cofather; in fact,
he is miffed that Tingoccio has such free access to her, noting that "he can
speak to her whenever he likes, for he is her cofather."

In this case, however, the familiarity blossomed into something more
intimate - and taboo. Despite his feelings of affection for Monna Mita,
Tingoccio still considered it wicked that he had fallen in love with her. His
conscience thus troubled him over these feelings, but he also feared society's
reaction. He noted how he would be ashamed if people knew he loved his
comother. Boccaccio's description of Tingoccio's guilty and shameful
reaction to falling in love with his comother shows that medieval Floren-
tines knew of and accepted the taboo against sexual relations among
baptismal kin. They would have understood why Tingoccio felt guilty and
ashamed.

Tingoccio's passion for Monna Mita, however, overwhelmed his sense of
taboo and he consummated his desire: "and then it happened that
Tingoccio, who was more skillful [than Meuccio] at revealing his feelings
to the lady, was so clever in word and deed that he had the pleasure of
her."^^ He crossed the boundary of spiritual incest, and then he died.
Crossing that boundary may have contributed to his death. "The fact was
that Tingoccio found himself in possession of the lady's fertile terrain, and
he so spaded and plowed it over that an illness struck him which, after
several days, grew worse; and unable to bear it any longer, he passed from
this life."^^ Now Tingoccio would discover the consequences of crossing
the boundary of spiritual incest.

True to his word, Tingoccio reappeared before Meuccio and told him
about the afterlife and how he was suffering terrible punishment for his
sins. Meuccio, who had known that Tingoccio had had an affair with

346 / Renaissance and Reformation

Monna Mita, asked him what punishment this entailed. " 1 just remem-
bered, Tingoccio,' he said, 'for sleeping with your comother what punish-
ment did they give you?' "^^ Here Meuccio assumed that Tingoccio would
suffer in the afterlife for committing spiritual incest, and at first so did
Tingoccio:

"Brother, when I arrived here, there was someone who seemed to know
everyone of my sins by heart, and he ordered me to go to a place in
which I lamented my sins in extreme pain and where I found many
companions condemned to the same punishment as I was; and standing
there among them and remembering what I had done with my comother,
I trembled with fear, for I expected an even greater punishment for that
than the one I had already received - although, in fact, I was at that
moment standing in a huge and very hot fire. And as one of those
suffering at my side noticed this, he asked me:

" 'Why do you tremble standing in the fire? Have you done something
worse than the others who are here?'

" 'Oh, my friend,' I answered, 'I am terrified of the judgement which I
expect to be passed on me for a great sin that I have committed.'

"Then that soul asked me what sin it was, and I replied:

" The sin was this: I slept with my comother, and I made love to her so
much that I wore it to the bone.'

"Then laughing at me he said:

" 'Go on, you idiot, don't worry, for down here they don't count comothers
for very much!' And when I heard this, it made me feel much better."

When Meuccio heard that in the other world they did not care whether
you did it with your comother, he began to laugh at his stupidity for
having spared a number of such women, and abandoning his ignorance,
he became wiser in such matters for that time on. ^

So Meuccio learned a valuable lesson here. According to his friend
Tingoccio, he no longer had to accept the spiritual incest taboo, which he
had always honored before. Now we too learn a valuable lesson here. What
is interesting about this story is something that Robert Damton has called
the joke we as twentieth-century intruders into a past culture do not
understand.^^ For those of us who no longer recognize any significant bond
or taboo among baptismal kin this story is confusing, even inexplicable.
We do not get the joke. But if we are aware of the sexual taboos arising out
of medieval baptismal kinship and if we assume that perceptions of these
taboos penetrated to the popular level - or at least the level of the literate

Renaissance et Réforme / 347

in Florence - then the story becomes not only understandable but quite
humorous, as it must have been to medieval Rorentines. The text of The
Decameron here only makes sense when we realize and understand its
context, that is, the cultural reality (the signposts, if you will) around which
Boccaccio structured his story. Yet, the text itself helps identify that context
for us. Thus to fully appreciate the cultural reality of The Decameron, we,
as alien intruders into a past culture, need to work ourselves back and forth
between text and context. So, where would Florentines have learned about
the sexual taboos arising out of, as they phrased it, // comparaticol

Medieval Italian Church records in general and Florentine Church
records in particular are sketchy and sparse, not only due to the hazards
of time and the accidents of survival but also due to the lackadaisical,
desultory, and inefficient nature of most medieval Italian churchmen. ^^
Nevertheless, we have enough evidence to indicate that the Florentine
Church hierarchy did try to outline the boundaries and rules of baptismal
kinship to its flock. Medieval Florentine bishops commanded rectors to
read to their parishioners the Church rules regarding morality. Richard
Trexler believes that because of this injunction Florentines probably knew
canon law better than they did the civil law of the commune. The Synodal
Constitutions of Fiesole (1306) and those of Florence (1310 and 1327) all
stated that intentions to marry had to be announced publicly so that
potential impediments, including presumably those arising from baptismal
kinship, could be discovered and announced too. According to the Council
of Florence (1517), banns were to be announced for the two consecutive
Sundays before marriage. On these occasions the rector read the list of
canonical impediments to marriage, including those arising from baptismal
kinship.^^

In 1517 the Council of Florence defmed the cognatio spiritualis (cognatione
spirituale) as "that spiritual relationship originating in respect of baptism
and confirmation where there are cofathers and comothers (meaning also
godmothers and godfathers)". ^^ After noting how people became baptismal
kin, the Council declared that those who married their baptismal kin
committed incest since the spirit was more important than the body.^^ This
impediment to marriage, the Council decided, should be read to parishio-
ners three times a year, on the Sunday after Easter, the first Sunday m
August, and the Feast of the Epiphany.^^ Also in 1517 the Council ordered
priests to keep baptismal registers in order to maintain accurate records of
who was connected to whom by the cognatio spiritualise This injunction
noted that confusion over baptismal kinship relations was rampant, and
that without written records people over time sometimes forgot who their

348 / Renaissance and Reformation

baptismal kin were or they had never known who they were to begin with.
Considering that some Florentines had a dozen godparents, this confusion
is understandable.^^ And this posed a serious religious problem in medieval
Florence, since some people tended to marry ignorant that they violated
the sexual taboo arising out of spiritual kinship - a problem incidentally
rather common in Latin America today.

Yet the Constitutions of Fiesole and Florence had advised annual
confession where a confessor might communicate to the penitent the sexual
taboos arising from baptismal kinship.^"^ A fifteenth-century Florentine
confessor's manual, Libro della confesione, dealt with what it called "spiritual
sin" (pecchato spirituale). These manuals in general posed questions for the
confessor with which he could probe the inner and as it were darker recesses
of the penitent's psyche.^^ Here, in dealing with spiritual sin, this manual
advised the confessor to inquire whether his parishioners had committed
this sin by having sex with a comother or a goddaughter. This inquiry was
also directed at women, for the confessor was to ask them as well if they
had had sex with a cofather or a godson. Whether or not the penitent had
committed this act, he or she would have had at least an annual warning
of the horrors and sinfulness of spiritual incest. Sant' Antonino (1389-1459)
in his confessor's manual noted that a priest should ask whether the penitent
had heard and understood that sex with a coparent or godchild was spiritual
incest.^^

Florentines also learned about the sexual taboos of baptismal kinship
from more personal sources than synodal law or judgmental confessors.
San Bernardino, a popular preacher at Florence in the early fifteenth
century, reminded his listeners that if they had held children at baptism,
they could not marry them.^^ This is not so bizarre a piece of advice as it
might seem considering the wide age differential between husbands and
wives in medieval Florence. In their study of the 1427 Catasto, David
Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber discovered that the average age for
brides at Florence was 17.96 years, for grooms 29.5 years - an average
differential of 11.99 years. They concluded that "when a Tuscan married,
whatever his age or place of residence, he preferred to take as a bride a girl
under 20 years, even under 18."^^ Thus the spiritual incest taboos arising
from the cognatio spiritualis meant that men sponsoring female children
narrowed their possible marriage pool more than when they sponsored
male children.

The incest taboo could cause another problem. If parents held their own
children at baptism, would they become baptismal kin and their marriage
incestuous? There was a real possibility that parents might have to act as

Renaissance et Réforme / 349

sponsors for their own children considering the conjunction of two pre-
modem realities, one demographic and the other religious: the high infant
mortality rate and the perceived necessity of baptism for salvation.^^ In the
case of a dying newborn who had to be baptized quickly, sometimes even
at home, parents might not have the luxury of time to arrange the proper
godparents. A parent - or both - might have to stand in.

Nevertheless, despite the human need here, to solve this problem the
Constitutions of Fiesole and Florence and the Council of Florence all
asserted that parents could not stand as godparents to their children.^^
These injunctions, curiously, were at variance with canon law elsewhere in
Europe, where canon lawyers and theologians held that the cognatio
spiritualis furnished only an impediment to marriage. In other words,
entering into baptismal kinship prevented a future marriage with these
people from occurring; it did not furnish grounds to dissolve one that had
already taken place.^^

It would seem, despite the fragmentary nature of our sources, that
Florentines had ample chance to hear information indicating that baptis-
mal kin could not marry and that their sexual congress was forbidden as
well. Again, one of Boccaccio's stories reflects that fact

In the Third Story for the Seventh Day, a fine fellow by the name of
Rinaldo falls in love with his neighbor's wife, Agnessa:

and hoping, if only he could find a means of talking with her without
raising suspicion, to obtain everything he wanted, since the lady was
pregnant, he decided he had no other choice but to become her cofather;
so having become friends with the lady's husband, in the most honorable
way possible, he made his request to the husband, and it was accepted.
Thus Rinaldo became her cofather, and now that he had a somewhat
more plausible reason for speaking with her, he grew more confident,
and with his words, he apprised her of his intentions, which she had
long before guessed from the look in his eyes, but it did him little good.^^

This passage and the previous one from Story VII, 10 point out that in
theory even male and female baptismal kin could visit one another without
arousing suspicion. In fact Rinaldo here was able "to visit his comother
quite often." Most likely, the supposed innocent - or safe - character of
these visits stemmed from the perceived strength of the sexual taboo arising
from the cognatio spiritualis. This is also an aspect of baptismal kinship in
Latin America today where compadres are among the small circle of males
allowed to visit unchaperoned married women.^^ Both Tingoccio and
Rinaldo, however, use this privilege for illicit purposes. It is of interest that

350 / Renaissance and Reformation

Rinaldo, the prospective cofather in this story, initiates the baptismal
kinship relationship not the father of the child. Rinaldo offers to stand
sponsor, not waiting to be asked. This is not all that out of character for
Florentines. Giovanni Morelli, in recounting how his father curried favour
with the rich and powerful, noted that to make friends and allies one should
offer to stand godfather to their children; or as he puts it, "to baptize their
children" (battezare low figliuoli)?^ Florentines recognized the utility - and
strength - of the bonds of friendship emanating from the cognatio spiritualis.
In Rinaldo's case, however, his interest is not friendship but something else.

Yet, in the course of the story, Rinaldo becomes a friar, a good holy one
at first. "He had," Boccaccio notes, "from the time he became a friar put
aside the love he bore his comother, as well as a couple of his other worldly
vices." Boccaccio tells us flatly here that loving a comother was sinful. And
Rinaldo recognized this sinfulness. Falling away from his saintly life,
however, Rinaldo once again pursued his comother. At one point he told
her: "I'm not saying it's [having sex with a coparent] not a sin, but God
forgives even greater sins as long as you repent. "^^

Despite Agnessa's resistance, Rinaldo persists. When he tells the woman
he wishes to make love to her, she replies, "Oh dear, poor me, you are my
cofather; how could you do such a thing? It would be terribly wicked, and
I have heard many times that it is a serious sin; if it weren't for that I would
be happy to do what you like." This response indicates that the Florentine
perception of the sexual taboos formed in baptismal kinship operated on
two levels. Agnessa says that having sex with a coparent would be wicked
{troppo gran male); she perceives, therefore, that the act itself is inherently
wrong. This is how modem Latin American popular culture perceives the
violation of the baptismal kinship sexual taboos.^^ Agnessa also says that
she accepts the opinion of established authority that having sex with a
coparent is sinful (troppo gran peccatd)?^ So for her having sex with a
coparent is both morally repugnant and illegal - much as how consanguinal
incest has been perceived through history. Agnessa also notes that she has
frequently heard {io ho molte volte udito) about the sexual prohibitions. This
reflects the presence of an oral tradition about baptismal kinship and
spiritual incest (even Aquinas relied on a popular verse to explain the
dimensions of spiritual incest), especially one nurtured by the Church
whenever banns were announced and in confession.

Rinaldo is a persistent and ingenious fellow and decides to use logic on
Agnessa:

"You are a foolish woman if you pass this up for that reason. I'm not
saying it's not a sin, but God forgives even greater sins as long as you

Renaissance et Réforme / 351

repent But tell me something: who is a closer relative to your son, I who
held him at his baptism, or your husband by whom he was begotten?"

The lady answered: "My husband is more closely related."

"That is correct," remarked the friar, "and doesn't your husband sleep
with you?"

"Of course he does," the lady replied.

"Therefore," concluded the friar, "since I am less closely related to your
son than your husband is. I should also be able to sleep with you the
way your husband does."

Here Boccaccio parodies the Church's reasoning on why baptismal kin
should not have sexual relations, why baptismal kinship erected an
impediment to marriage. According to Aquinas, who was relying on Peter
Lombard: "The holier the bond the more it is to be safeguarded. Now a
spiritual bond is holier than a bodily tie; and since the tie of bodily kinship
is an impediment to marriage, it follows that spiritual relations should also
be an impediment "^^ The Council of Florence echoed these sentiments
when it declared that spiritual ties were more significant than bodily ties
because the spirit was more important than the body."^ Rinaldo reverses
that reasoning. Boccaccio's wit here demonstrates, if nothing else, that he
understood the taboos and the Church's reasons for them well enough to
make light of them. In fact, at the end of Story VII, 10, when Meuccio
discovers that having sex with one's comother does not count for much in
Hell, Boccaccio concludes by noting: "If Brother Rinaldo had known these
things, there would have been no need for him to go about dreaming up
syllogisms when trying to convert his worthy comother to his pleasures.'"*^

And Boccaccio's passage here in Story VII, 3 implies his audience too
understood the taboos. The story continues: "The lady, who was unskilled
at logic and was in need of very little persuasion, either really believed or
intended to believe that what the friar said was true, and she answered:
'who could ever refute such wise words?' " That she may have pretended to
believe Rinaldo's syllogism sharpens the probability that Florentines had
common knowledge of the Church's syllogism. Agnessa caves in to
Rinaldo's insistence and logic: "And then in spite of their spiritual
relationship (// comparatico), she proceeded to fulfill all his desires.'"*^

In fact, they sleep together many times aided by the supposedly safe
nature of coparent visits: "concealed under the cover of this special
relationship with her son, which gave him better opportunities with less
suspicion, they met together more and more often." But nothing last forever.

352 / Renaissance and Reformation

One day the husband comes home early. The wife, to explain away their
cofather's presence in their bedroom as well as to give him time to dress,
tells her husband that Rinaldo had come over to exorcise their son. The
cuckold accepts the story (Boccaccio calls him a fool, // santuccio); and he
is so happy to see his cofather, who he believes has just rendered him an
inestimable service, that he lays out his best wine and food to honor him
for his visit.^-^ The cuckold at least is upholding his responsibilities and
duties as a coparent. Thus to an old motif, that of the duped husband,
Boccaccio introduced Florentine baptismal kinship practices.

What do we make of all this? Working back and forth between text and
context we note that the sexual taboos arising from medieval Florentine
baptismal kinship did penetrate to the popular level. Boccaccio's stories
here are inexplicable and even pointless without this conclusion. Also,
working back and forth between text and context, we understand Boccaccio
and his culture that much more. The joke we do not get as twentieth-century
intruders into a past culture becomes clearer.^ Tingoccio does not just
enjoy illicit sex; he enjoys illicit sex with his comother. Rinaldo does not
just commit adultery with his neighbor's wife; he commits adultery with his
comother. Rinaldo does not just cuckold a friend; he cuckolds his cofather.
In the context of medieval Florentine culture, these violations of sexual
mores are that much worse because they violated the rules of baptismal
kinship. And Boccaccio added these tidbits about baptismal kinship
practices not to express disbelief in the cognatio spiritualis and the sexual
taboos arising out of it but to add wit, irony, and realism to his stories.
Boccaccio's renditions of these stories, these old motifs, are that much more
biting, that much more pungent because of these additions.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Note: I would like to thank Donald E. Queller, Mark Angelos, Joseph H. Lynch, James A.
Brundage, William A. Stephany, and especially the late John F. McGovern for their help
and encouragement in the writing of this article.

1 Julian Pitt-Rivers, "Pseudo-Kinship," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 8
(New York, 1968), pp.408- 13.

2 S. Gudeman, "Spiritual Relations and Selecting a Godparent," Man, 10 (1975), 223. The
anthropologist George Foster claims that rural Latin American society would collapse
without the baptismal kinship network: George Foster, "Godparents and Social Networks
in TzinTzunTzan," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 25 (1969), 262. The anthropo-
logical literature dealing with baptismal kinship is legion. For the most up-to-date
accounting see the bibliographies and bibliographical essays in Hugo Nutini and Betty
Bell, Ritual Kinship: The Structure and Historical Development of the Compadrazgo System
in Rural Tlaxcala (Princeton, 1980), I, and Hugo Nutini, Ritual Kinship: Ideological and
Structural Integration of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala (Princeton, 1984), II.

Renaissance et Réforme / 353

3 Michael Bennet, "Spiritual Kinship and the Baptismal Name in Traditional Society," in
Principalities, Power and Estates, éd. L. O. Frappel (Adelaide, 1979), pp.1-14; John Bossy,
"Blood and Baptism: Kinship, Community and Christianity in Western Europe, 14th-17th
Centuries," in Studies in Church History, ed. D. Baker (Oxford, 1973), X,13-35; "Padrini
e madrini: un istituzione sociale del cristianesimo popolare in Occidente," Quademi
storici, 14 (1979), 440-49; "Godparenthood: The Fortunes of a Social Institution in Early
Modem Christianity," in Religion and Society in Early Modem Europe 1500-1800, ed.
Kaspar von Greyerz (London, 1984), pp. 194-201; Joseph H. Lynch, Baptismal Sponsor-
ship and Monks and Nuns 500-1000," ^mencaw Benedictine Review, 31 (1980), 108-29;
"Hugh I of Cluny's Sponsorship of Henry IV: Its Context and Consequences," 5/jecw/wm,
60 (1985), 800-26; Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1986);
Philip Niles, "Baptism and the Naming of Children in Late Medieval England," A/et/;>vû/
Prosopography, 3 (1980-2), 95-107.

4 Code 5. 4. 26. 2, dated 530. James A. Brundage, Law. Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval
Europe (Chicago, 1987), p. 193.

5 Gudeman, pp.230-32. See also Joseph H. Lynch, "Spiritual Kinship and Sexual Prohi-
bitions in Early Medieval Europe," in Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of
Medieval Canon Law (Berkeley, California, August 1980), Monumenta iuris canonici C/7
(Vatican City, 1985), pp.271-88. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas: Third Part
(Supplement), trans. The Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London, 1922),
p.242. According to Richard Trexler, "Godparents by their act of sponsorship set up
another spiritual relationship whose carnal violation was incest," Synodal Law in Florence
and Fiesole (Vatican City, 1971), pp.67-68.

6 Of the 557 papal dispensations to England listed in the Calendar of Entries in the Papal
Registers: Papal Letters, II-VIII (London, 1895-1909) for the years 1305-1447 for all manner
of marital impediments - kindred, affinal, and spiritual - forty-six, or 8%, concerned
spiritual kinship. Some married couples, the petitions noted, had been living apart for
years after discovering that they were baptismal kin. At least in England some people
perceived and acted on the taboo. When the episcopal court at Constance debated marital
impediments in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that of spiritual kinship was the
most frequently discussed. Thomas Max Safiey, Let No Man Put Asunder: The Control of
Marriage in the German Southwest: A Comparative Study. 1550-1600 (Kirksville, 1984), p.22.

7 According to Lynch, "Literary texts have the potential to complement the normative texts,
especially by indicating the ways in which the Christian populace shaped, adapted,
elaborated, and extended the consequences of a liturgical ritual.

Almost always, spiritual kinship in a literary text is a secondary matter, a detail woven
into the work, or a part of its sociocultural background." Lynch, Godparents and Spiritual
Kinship, pp.44-45.

8 These stories are I, 2; IV, 2; VI, 10; VII, 3 and 10; IX 10; and X, 4. Lee notes that none
of Boccaccio's stories detailing baptismal kinship have any antecedent dealing with
baptismal kinship. A. C. Lee, The Decameron Its Sources and Analogues (London, 1909),
pp.2-6, 123-35, 189-91, 245, 291-3. That Boccaccio depicted the worid of the Florentine
merchant elite is almost too well-known of a truism to mention. See Thomas G. Bergin,
Boccaccio (New York, 1981), especially Chapter 19. De Sanctis comments that fourteenth-
century Tuscan "society was taken bodily just as it was, warm, palpitating, vividly alive,
and was put into the Decameron. The book is an immense picture of life in all its variety
of the characters and the events most calculated to make people marvel." Francesco De
Sanctis, "Boccaccio's Human Comedy," in Critical Perspectives on the Decameron, ed.
Robert S. Dombroski (London, 1976), p.35.

354 / Renaissance and Reformation

9 For a preliminary look at some aspects of Florentine baptismal kinship, see Christiane
Klapisch-Zuber, Women. Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), pp.68-93,
237-8, 241, 283-310.

10 Jacques LeGofT comments that the eighth through the twelfth centuries "saw the
emergence of a new story type, a genre that helped popularize Purgatory in the thirteenth
century. In these tales the souls of the dead undergoing punishment in Purgatory appear
to the living and asked for suffrages or warned them to mend their ways before it was
too late." Godparents figured prominently in these stories as the individual returning
from Purgatory. Jacques LeGoff, TTie Birth of Purgatory (Chicago, 1984), pp. 177-79.

1 1 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella (New York,
1982), pp.468-70. This is perhaps the best English translation of TTie Decameron, and it
certainly retains the earthy and robust nature of the original. However, Musa and
Bondanella consistently fail to identify the significance of the baptismal kinship
relationship. They abandon the Italian comare and compare for clumsy phrases like "my
godchild's mother." I have rendered these terms as "comother" and "cofather," which
retain the exact sense of the baptismal kinship relationship. For comparison with the
Italian I have used Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca (Florence, 1976),
pp.496-99.

12 The Decameron, p.469.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p.470.

16 Robert Darnton, 77»^ Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
(New York, 1984), pp.4-5, 262-63.

17 See on this not only Trexler but Robert Brentano, Two Churches England and Italy in the
Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1%8).

18 Trexler, pp.62-63, 68-69, 102, 126.

19 Giovanni Domenico Mansi, ed. Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio 35,
1414-1724 (Paris, 1902), pp.250-51.

20 Ibid.

21 Trexler, p.68.

22 Ibid.

23 Florentines sometimes recorded in their ricordanze (diary-like account books) the names
of their coparents, who were also the godparents of their children. For instance, on 4
August 1411 Gregorio Dati had his colleagues from the Standard-bearers of the Militia
Companies become godfathers to his son Niccol.For the baptism of his son Girolamo
Domenico on 1 October 1412, the "sponsors [cofathers] were Master Bartolomeo del
Carmine, Cristofano di Francesco di Ser Giovanni, and Lappuccio di Villa, and his son
Bettino. 'The Diary of Gregorio Dati," Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence, trans. Julia
Martines, ed. G. Brucker (New York, 1967), p.l28.

24 Trexler, pp.62-63, 68-69, 106.

25 On late medieval confessor's manuals and their effect on the European populace, see
Thomas Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977). Tentler
presents adequate evidence showing how well - perhaps too well - these manuals and
the confessors communicated the nature and consequences of late medieval sin to their
parishioners.

Renaissance et Réforme / 355

26 These questions are contained under the rubric Delia Luxuria in a section describing the
different types of incest the confessor and penitent should be wary of. For men the
confessor was to ask: ''Se stato con comare o sua figluola [meaning his goddaughter] o
chon altra che vista suto pecchato spirituale" For women: "Se stato con tuo compare o suo
attenente.'' Libro della confessione (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, Landau Finlay,
288, fols. 20v, 25v). "fAJudivit in confessio et dicit incestus vel sacrilegiu." St. Antoninus,
Confessionale (Venice, 1474), fol. 34v.

27 San Bernardino, Le Prediche Volgari, ed. C. Cannarozzi, I (Pistoia, 1934), p.200.

28 David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the
Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, 1985), p.210.

29 Florentines knew well that without baptism salvation was impossible; they knew where
Dante had placed unbaptized children - between Purgatory and Hell. And when it came
to baptism, Florentines acted quickly: a close reading of the manuscript and published
ricordi and ricordanze shows that virtually all Florentine children were baptized within
three days of birth, some within hours of birth. According to Giovanni Morelli, "Sabato
a di died di marzo, tra le diciotto e le diciennove ore, anno Domini 1396, nacque Alberto mio
figliuolo e della Caterina mia donna; e nacque in casa Aliso. Battezzossi a di tredici del detto
mese in San Giovanni di Firenze." Giovanni Pagolo Morelli, Ricordi, ed. Vittore Branca
(Florence, 1969), p.358.

30 Trexler, pp.201, 235, 267.

31 Summa Theologica, 241-43. On impedient versus diriment impediments to marriage, see
Brundage, pp. 193-95, 289, 305.

32 The Decameron, p.426; Decameron, pp.425-29.

33 Charles J. Erasmus, "Current Theories of Incest Prohibition in the Light of Ceremonial
Kinship," Kroeber Anthropological Papers, 2 (1950), 45.

34 Morelli, p.237.

35 The Decameron, p.427.

36 In Latin America sexual relations between coparents or between godparents and
godchildren are especially reprehensible. According to Yucatan belief, coparent incest is
worse than mother-son incest. In Tenia, Mexico, coparents who have sexual relations
with one another are said to become water snakes when they die (Erasmus, 44-45). A
medieval story told about Robert the Pious demonstrates as well "the tetralogical
consequences of intermarriage" between baptismal kin. He married his comother and
their first child had a "neck and a head like a goose." Georges Duby, 77»^ Knight, The
Lady and The Priest The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France (New York, 1983),
pp.84-85.

37 Tingoccio also saw the act as wicked and sinful.

38 The Decameron, pp.427-28.

39 Summa Theologica, p.235. Peter Lombard, Sententiarum Liber Quattuor (Paris, 1892), p.711.

40 Mansi, pp.250-51.

41 The Decameron, p.470.

42 The Decameron, p.428.

43 Ibid., pp.426-30. For another perspective on this story, which also touches on the spiritual
kinship element, see Steven M. Grossnogel, "Frate Rinaldo's Paternoster to Saint
Ambrose {Decameron VII 3)," Studi sul Boccaccio, 13 (1981-82), 161-67.

356 / Renaissance and Reformation

44 Musa and Bondanella, however, never did get the joke. When they have to use the terms
"'comare" and '"compare'" because the characters in VII, 3 use them as terms of address,
they leave them untranslated, despite having mistranslated "'comare' as "neighbor" in FV,
2. In VII, 3, Musa and Bondanella explain: "In this context, comare and compare are
friendly terms of address still in use in the south of Italy, and they have no real equivalent
in English. Literally, the words mean 'godmother' and 'godfather.' In this instance it just
happens that the compare and family friend. Brother Rinaldo, really is the godfather of
the child in question" {The Decameron, p.429). "Comare" and "compare" mean much more
than just "friendly terms of address," and they do not literally mean "godmother" and
"godfather" only. It is no mere coincidence that Rinaldo is both cofather and family
friend, all of which we have seen above. Translators and editors dealing with stories I,
2; rV, 2; VI, 10; VII, 3 and 10; IX, 10; and X 4 will have to pay closer attention to the
social context of these texts in the future.

Revisions of Redemption:
Rabelais's Medlar, Braguette and
Pantagruelion Myths

CAMILLA J. NILLES

1 he Renaissance recreated human nature in a new image, seeing in each
individual a harmonious union of body and soul that reflected the harmony
of the universe, restoring humankind to a position of dignity and worth
within divine creation. The same design of recreation and redemption
informs Rabelais's work and has been the topic of a number of recent
studies, including Dennis Costa's, Edwin Duval's and David Quint's.^ All
three studies have directly related the theme of redemption to Christian
doctrine, establishing a parallel that links the giants' growth and evolution
to the unfolding of salvation history and places human activity in the
context of transcendent reality. Humankind is ennobled by its contact with
the divine, human endeavour is sanctioned and condoned by its partici-
pants in God's master plan. Reading Rabelais in the light of Biblical
subtexts is clearly useful and rewarding. It helps define his conception of
the relationship between the human and the divine and of humankind's
role in the realization of divine will. Yet it excludes a relationship of equal
importance in Rabelais's work, the relationship of hummans to Nature, just
as it neglects the way the individual's status as a natural creature affects his
or her material and spiritual development

The present study explores three redemption myths in Rabelais: the story
of the medlars in the opening chapters of Pantagruel, the history of the
braguette related by Panurge in Chapter Eight of the Tiers Livre, and the
praise of Pantagruelion, which concludes the Tiers Livre. It focuses on a
subtext that played a role in Rabelais's thought as determinant as his
Evangelism - the subtext provided by Rabelais's own medical knowledge
of the human body and of the plants he used to strengthen and cure it.
While the end of human progress may ultimately be total reconciliation

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 4 (1989) 357

358 / Renaissance and Reformation

with the divine, the source of that ascending trajectory is firmly located in
material reality-in natural phenomena and biological impulses.

Shortly after Cain slew Abel, medlars ("mesles") sprang from the earth
soaked by the victim's blood. When eaten, the first chapter of Pantagruel
tells us, they caused swelling in various parts of the human anatomy. Those
who developed swelling all over their bodies became the first giants, whose
progeny, according to Edwin Duval, would redeem Cain's offense against
humankind (165). David Quint assigns an even more important role to the
medlars, seeing in them the very agent of redemption, a "eucharistie" fruit
which delivers humankind from the evil effects of Eden's forbidden apples
(179). Given the critical attention the medlar myth has recently generated,^
it is surprising that no one has asked why Rabelais should choose to
distinguish the humble medlar and elevate it to such prominence. The fruit's
significance derives from its medicinal powers, with which Rabelais was
no doubt well acquainted: used to stanch blood, in particular menstrual
flow and hemorrhoidal bleeding, the medlar alone would absorb the mark
left by the fratricide. The medlar's specific virtues, along with its hollow,
rounded shape, stimulated interesting associations in the popular ima-
gination. Nicknamed "open-arse" (an English translation provided by
Cotgrave ), the medlar was identified with both the buttocks and with
female genitalia. Shakespeare draws on popular traditions when he uses
the medlar as a metaphor for female sexuality in Mercutio's taunting
remarks to the love-sick Romeo:

Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
Oh, Romeo, that she were, Oh, that she were.
An open et cetera [-arse], thou a poperin pear.

(II.1.34-8)

The medlar myth actually reverses the Biblical account on which it is
modelled. As David Quint points out, the sprouting of medlars and the
growth they occasion directly contradicts the Bible's assertion that the land
on which Abel was murdered remained sterile (179). Now we see that, in
an even more dramatic reversal, the Messiah is displaced by a fruit serving
as a metaphor of the reproductive organs, the spiritual gives way to the
material,^ recovered unity to images of generation and proliferation.

Renaissance et Réforme / 359

The same pattern of displacement is repeated in the second redemption
myth, the story of the braguettes origins, which Panurge relates to justify
his eccentric new costume. At the beginning of the Golden Age, Panurge
tells us, Nature created plants and furnished them with a variety of devices
to protect their seed. Man was given dominion over all forms of vegetation,
but he alone was not provided with a natural means of protecting the source
of procreation. With the advent of the Iron Age, animals and vegetables
grew restless and rebelled against man's authority, forcing him to arm
himself in order to reassert his power and reestablish Nature's divine
scheme. He began by safeguarding the member that assured the continuity
of his race and, modelling his invention on Nature's own protective devices,
he covered his nakedness with fig leaves, "les quelles sont naïfves, et du
tout commodes en dureté, incisure, frizure, polissure, grandeur, couleur,
odeur, vertus et faculté pour couvrir et armer couilles."^ Panurge's taie
simultaneously reworks two accounts of the loss of innocence: the classical
myth of the decline from the Golden to the Iron Age and the Biblical myth
of the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden. The original, harmonious
relationship of God, man and plants is dissolved. Man suffers alienation
from both the Creator and His creation and so losses his natural superiority.
The negatively signed myth is balanced by a positive message of redemp-
tion. A mediating act reestablishes the original harmony, reintegrates man
and Nature, restores man to his natural dominance in partnership with the
Creator.

Once again, however, Rabelais transforms the redemption myth as he
reworks it. Redemption occurs not through divine grace but through the
human ingenuity that discovered such a clever use for fig leaves. Man, who
had played a passive role in the medlar myth, innocently eating the fruit
that would transmogrify him, here actively participates in his salvation. For
all that, he does not become more godly but, having adopted vegetal
methods and devices to protect his person, seems more plant-like both in
appearance and behavior. The mediator that effects the redemptive act is
not Christ, the spirit made flesh, but flesh itself, the phallus, metonymically
figured by the codpiece.

Rabelais's version of the Fall replaces a redemptive process dependent
on divine intervention with an evolution governed entirely by organic matter
and human need. His transformation of Biblical texts may seem shocking,
as well it was meant to be. Parody exists to surprise and provoke laughter,
and eventually to stimulate reflection by its incongruities and comic
reversals. Yet, however surprising the conjunction of plants, man and God
may be to twentieth-century readers, it was less foreign to a reader of the

360 / Renaissance and Reformation

sixteenth-century, in whose thought and culture it found familiar reso-
nances. Plant and human anatomy were frequently associated in the
popular culture of the day, particularly during carnival when barriers of
every kind were dissolved. The general atmosphere of moral licentiousness
made it possible to give sexual significance to even the most innocent
objects and to see erotic configurations in vegetal forms. Large fruits and
vegetables of phallic proportions were borne through the streets in rowdy
processions. According to Claude Gaignebet, hemp (of which Pantagruel-
ion is commonly acknowledged to be a species) was in particular the object
of fervent cult activity: fertility rites, festive dances to assure that the
maturing plants would grow straight, tall, smooth and light in color all drew
attention to the properties and physical features hemp shared with the
phallus.^ Popular traditions influenced the literary imagery of the period,
inspiring comic poets like Francesco Bemi and his friends, contemporaries
of Rabelais with whom he may well have been familiar.^ Their capitoli
praised a variety of unworthy objects, especially fruits and vegetables
bearing the round and/or elongated shapes that allowed them to serve as
metaphorical figures of the phallus in elaborate dirty jokes the poets
circulated among themselves.^

Popular conceptions of humankind's relation to the vegetal realm are
themselves part of a larger world view that tended to draw analogies between
natural phenomena rather than make distinctions. Terraculturalists con-
ceived of the world as a garden where all things bore the imprint of the
celestial Gardener and conformed to His divine plan.^^ Plants and humans,
sown by the same hand, were related parts of creation. Once more the
affiliation of the human and vegetal realms was most evident in their
reproductive systems, which often bore physical resemblance to one another.
The mandrake, with its forked root, had long been likened to the human form,
while the suggestive shapes of orchids, mushrooms and citrus fruit led early
botanists to compare them with human genitalia. The analogy gained strength
from the fact that the different branches of science, barely distinguishable
themselves in sixteenth-century Europe, had not yet developed their own highly
specialized vocabularies. As a result, doctors and terraculturalists frequently
gave to plant features the names of human limbs and organs, and vice versa.
Rabelais himself linguistically assimilates human and vegetal reproductive
systems in the braguette myth, calling the plants' protective devices codpieces
("braguettes naturelles") and referring to human semen as seed ("germe").
Natural phenomena that shared the same origins, terminology and physical
appearance also displayed the same virtues. In sixteenth-century Europe,
plants were particularly sought out and esteemed for their curative powers

Renaissance et Réforme / 361

- powers located in the phallus as well. Rabelais recalls the phallus' healing
virtues in Rondibilis's advice to Panurge, whose need for sexual satisfaction
is termed a physical ailment ("aiguillons de la chair" [529]). The doctor
heartily recommends the "acte Vénérien" in which the exercise of the
phallus will relieve all his discomfort. All parts of creation received from
the Creator their particular virtue, which were in turn reflections of His
own divine virtues. The curative powers of plants and the phallus originate
in Christ and reflect His ability to cure both physical and spiritual wounds
and ultimately the wound introduced by original sin, to restore to God the
Father a world once more made well and whole.

Thus we see that while, on the one hand, the association of plant with
humans and then humans with Christ served Rabelais's comic purposes,
it was also part of a world view that drew together apparently different
realities to discover their common ground. The analogies that sixteenth-
century terraculturalists saw between plant and human anatomy helped
them better to understand both the peculiar virtues and qualities of each
system, as well as those they shared. The phallic and the divine engaged in
a similar dialogue of reciprocal illumination. The narrow, limited categories
into which Medieval thought classified reality are replaced by a wider, more
tolerant vision focusing on the bonds that linked together all creation rather
than on the differences that isolated and alienated its various components.
In Rabelais's last redemption myth, the praise of Pantagruelion, the comic
substitutions found in the medlar and braguette myths take place once
more. In "Pantagruelion," however, the transitions from one level of reality
to the next are fully articulated, showing how the vegetal, the human and
the divine are related, how propagation, technical progress, and salvation
history are linked in the same continuum.

The resemblance that the Pantagruelion chapters' organization bears to
the popular herbals of the day clearly establishes the plant's vegetal identity
form the very beginning. The first chapter gives a physical description of
Pantagruelion so graphic as to recall and even to assume the role of the
visual image with which herbals initially introduced a plant to their readers.
Yet, just as the herbals' woodcuts were more often symbolic than truly
accurate illustrations,^^ so the description of Pantagruelion suggests a
reality other than the vegetal one it figures. Pantagrualion's formal features*
clearly identify it with the phallus. Adjectives stressing height, length,
roundness, hardness or pointedness recur frequently in the description of
the plant or its parts. The root is: "durette, rondelette, finante en poincte
obtuse, blanche, à peu de fillamens, et ne profonde en terre plus d'une
coubtée." The trunk is: "unicque, rond, ferulacé, verd au dehors, blanchiss-

362 / Renaissance and Reformation

ant au dedans, concave . . . ligneux, droict, friable, crénelé quelque peu à
forme de columnes legierement striées, plein de fibres." The leaves are:
"longues trois foys plus que larges, verdes tous jours, asprettes comme
l'orcanette, durettes, incisées autour comme une faulcille, et comme la
betoine, finissantes en poinctes de sarisse macedonicque, et comme une
lancette dont usent les chirurgiens." The seed is: "numereuse autant que
d'herbe qui soit, sphaericque, oblongue, rhomboïde, noire claire et comme
tannée, durette, couverte de robbe fragile, délicieuse à tous oyseaulx
canores." Pantagruelion's considerable size is lauded, but most particularly
when it is planted in a medium that is "doux, uligineux, legier, humide sans
froydure." As though to retrace the vital surge of power at the origin of all
of Pantagruelion's achievements, the text itself follows an ascending,
progressive order, setting forth the plant from its roots to its peak, culmi-
nating with "la semence [qui] provient vers le chef du tige, et peu au
dessoubs" (602-04).

Despite its decidedly phallic configuration, Pantagruelion remains a
bisexual plant. Rabelais, imitating the ancients, identifies both a male and
a female strain of Pantagruelion and distinguishes between them according
to their respective vigor and strength. Alongside the virile plant just
portrayed, Rabelais describes a female species, differing from the male by
its white flowers, dearth of seed, wide leaves and diminutive size. Like the
medlar, which prefigured its role in an earlier redemption myth, Panta-
gruelion emblematizes human sexuality in a figure of curiously androgy-
nous and/or hermaphroditic quality, at the same time sexually uncertain
and sexually all-inclusive.

Once Pantagruelion's formal properties have associated it with the source
of regenerative energy. Chapter 50 presents the means of releasing the vital
force. Pantagruelion is composed of an external, woody part ("partie
ligneuse"), which must be stripped away ("excortiquer"), pounded
("contundre") or broken ("briser") to obtain the inner fibers, in which
resides all the plant's value. The inner fibers will be variously treated and
worked, transformed and put to a multitude of uses in following chapters.
The outer fibers, Rabelais twice reminds us, are "inutile" except "à faire
flambe lumineuse, allumer le feu et, pour l'esbat des petitz enfans, enfler
les vessies de porc" or "pour sugser et avecques l'haleine attirer le vin
nouveau par le bondon"(605). The woody part, which had once served as
a container enclosing the plant's precious fibers, here serves as a vessel
allowing the passage of formless, spiritual substances: the air that ignites
the fire, the breath that inflates the bladders and inhales wine, the wine
that inebriates. In each case, the passage effects a transformation, producing

Renaissance et Réforme / 363

a more elevated state: igniting, inflating, inebriating. Pantagruelion shares
with the phallus the same duality of inner and outer, useful and useless,
spiritual and material. Yet once more its sexual identity slides between
female and male. On the one hand, it is the protective enclosure that assures
the precious inner fibers will reach maturity. On the other, it is a vessel,
transporting spiritual matter of transformational powers, filling much the
same function as that ascribed to the phallus in Gargantua 's letter to his
son: restorer of the race, vessel bearing the seed that will both reproduce
the father's image and give it new form in his progeny, mediator between
the present and a future that becomes so glorious with each successive
generation that the gods have good cause to fear for the continued security
of their reign.

Once the plant's physical properties have been established, the
Pantagruelion chapters again follow the example of the herbals and
penetrate beneath the plant's surface to reveal its hidden virtues.
Pantagruelion's relation to the phallus undergoes a similar change. Their
resemblance no longer depends on a likeness in formal features, but on the
shared procreative energy they both contain. That energy is first exerted in
the material realm. Pantagruelion's role in various domestic chores, trades
and professions, its ability to provide employment, goods and services are
set forth in an ever-proliferating list of accomplishments, proving that, in
the domain of human endeavor, Pantagruelion is as fertile and productive
as the phallus in the propagation of the race. The enumeration of
Pantagruelion's achievements culminates in the most prodigious of the
plant's feats: when used in sails it joins the far comers of the earth, truly a
copula mundi. Here too the plant is associated with a vessel, now a sea-faring
one giving human beings passage between geographically distant points.
While Pliny, with whom the topos originates,^^ condemns humankind's
audacity in challenging the unknown, Rabelais celebrates the wonders
realized by navigation in his time. Through Pantagruelion, humans extend
their horizons not only spatially but gnostically as well, gaining knowledge
of foreign lands that Nature had denied to the rest of her creation.
Pantagruelion advances humans literally and figuratively over birds, "quel-
que legiereté de pennaige qu'ilz ayent et quelque liberté de nager en l'a^r
que leur soit baillée par Nature" (613), restoring* him to their natural
dominion. As a phallic figure. Pan tagruelion embodies the procreative
powers that human beings share with all Nature's creatures and that fully
integrate them into her domain. Now Pantagruelion becomes as well an
emblem of ingenuity and technical progress, peculiarly human virtues
assuring humankind's uniqueness and its supremacy over the natural order.

364 / Renaissance and Reformation

Human supremacy in the natural realm easily leads to visions of their
conquest of the supernatural as well. The Olympian gods, fearing human
technology will continue its rapid advancement unimpeded, forsee the day
when the giants will invade the very heavens. As though to recall the origin
of the plant's amazing power, it is explicitly associated with the phallus at
the very momment it threatens to unseat the gods. While the gods may be
unnerved by Pantagruel ion and its accomplishments, they are terrified by
the prospect of what even more wondrous plant the giant's children might
invent to use against them. The true source of the gods' fear is not
Pantagruelion but the reproductive power of the giant's braguette and the
fertile ingenuity of its issue.

To be sure, Rabelais's brief history of human progress concludes in gross
exaggeration and comic reversal. Pantagruelion poses no threat to divine
authority: the divinities are the mythological figures of classical literature;
their fear is wildly disproportionate to the object inspiring it; they are made
to appear all the more insubstantial and ridiculous by the pun that
transforms their heavenly abodes into common inns and taverns. Yet, twice
more, in a less facetious fashion, the narrator refers to Pantagruelion's role
in helping humankind achieve quasi-divine status by describing the plant's
use in funerals, the rites marking the passage from mortal to immortal life.
Pantagruelion, placed as a garland on the head of the deceased, serves, like
the sacred laurel, myrtle or ivy, as a mediator helping the soul of the dead
to negotiate the passage between earthly and supernatural existence. In a
similar fashion, Pantagruelion once more assumes the dual role of protec-
tive casing that prevents the ashes of the deceased from mingling with those
of the funeral pyre, and of transporting vessel that allows them to pass from
one state to another while preserving them to be resurrected to eternal life
on the day of the Last Judgment. Here the power embodied in the phallus
and transferred to human ingenuity becomes the source of redemption and
the means of gaining everlasting life.

The Pantagruelion episode links procreation to human learning and
technical knowledge, and shows how they participate in the continuous
unfolding of divine revelation. Although the chapters trace a steady progress
towards the day when humans will be restored to their rightful position
alongside God the Father, the unity and wholeness they promise is never
fully realized, remaining states of perfection beyond human experinece.
Humankind can only await with confidence and trust the moment that
God, in His infinite wisdom and goodnesss, should choose to bring them
into being. Until then, Rabelais, in keeping the the synergetic theology of
his Evangelism, sees humans exerting themselves to the fullest extent of his

Renaissance et Réforme / 365

human capacities to collaborate with God in the evolution of salvation
history. While man's contribution is necessarily determined by the material
nature of his terrestrial being, that qualification need not be construed as
a limitation. The redemptive act the Pantagruelion chapters depict origi-
nates on the lowest level of animant existence, the vegetal, reversing the
platonic myth of a universe ruled by divine love emanating from the most
elevated spheres. Man's technical and spiritual advancement are not
determined by heavenly influences, but take as their model the organic
patterns of generation and growth that assure the propagation of the human
race. Rather than a Messiah come to deliver humankind from an imperfect
state, the redeemer is a phallic figure, more adequate to post-lapsarian
existence, overcoming imperfection through a continuous process of trans-
formation, proliferation and dispersion.

The Pantagruelion chapters discover the same phallic powers at work on
every level of human existence: matter, bearing a vital, protean substance,
helps humankind advance towards a state of wholeness and perfection
through a seemingly endless series of regenerative acts. The text, which bears
the vision of phallic potency, itself displays that same energy, performing its
own creative act, into which it actively draws its readers. 13 Rabelais explicitly
links Pantagruelion and the printed word when, imagining a world without
the wonderful plant, his narrator asks: "Sans elle, que feroient les tabellions,
les copistes, les secretaires et escrivains? Ne periroient les pantarques et papiers
rantiers? Ne periroit le noble art d'imprimerie?" (612). Although the loss of
paper is the object of the narrator's lament, it is the printed words covering
paper's surface that give paper meaning and that furnish needed employment
to the copyists, secretaries, writers and printers. The power embodied by the
plant is metonymically transferred from its end product, paper, to the words
paper bears.

Paper shares the same relationship with words as Pantagruelion and the
phallus do with the vital energy they bear. Words, in turn, share the same
relationship with meaning, as illustrated by the images frequently used by
Rabelais to figure his own text. The well-known apothegm of the marrow
bone distinguishes between useless, inanimate matter and the life-giving
essence it bears. Readers are invited to break the worthless shell just as
Pantagruelion's users must "contundre" or "briser" "la partie ligneuse" (by
its qualifier alone suggesting lines of text) to appropriate its power. The
phallus, Pantagruelion and the text all act as vessels bearing vital, regener-
ative energy.

The Rabelaisian text, which figuratively conforms to the purpose literally
served by the phallus, generates itself according to the principles of

366 / Renaissance and Reformation

transformation and renewal that govern the phallus' own procreative act
We have already seen how Rabelais rewrites Biblical and classical texts,
transforming the redemption myth by locating its origins in human need
and desire rather than divine will: appropriating Pliny's description of
hemp/flax, but replacing his reproval of man's audacity with unabashed
admiration. Vergil's negative prophecy, "Nee Deus hunc mensa, Dea nee
dignita cubili est" (Eclogues IV.63), undergoes a similar transformation in
the gods' affirmation that one day Pantagruel's offspring will be able to
"s'asseoir à table avecques nous, et nos déesses prendre à femmes" (614).
Here, however, as often happens, Rabelais rewrites himself as well as Vergil.
Vergil's verses originally appeared in Panurge's consultation of the "sors
Virgilianes" at the beginning of the Tiers Livrées search for an unequivocal
answer (447). While at that time the verse had denied Panurge the happy,
fruitful future to which he aspired, it now promises unlimited felicity and
power to humankind. The Utopian overtones of "Pantagruelion" bring to
mind the ideal world that had occupied the same position in the closing
chapters of the preceding book, the Abbey of Thélème. Rabelais himself
twice recalls it by name in the Tiers Livrées closure, ^"^ as though to link his
new conception of a redeemed humanity to his earlier one and to absorb
it in a more perfect vision. Rewriting, inspired by a need to overcome the
inadequacy of the past, becomes a reproductive act, itself a redemptive
movement towards a fullness of meaning. The text, like the phallus, bears
the image of the past but renews and regenerates the past while carrying it
into the future.

Literary creation depends on the past and cannot take place ex nihilo.
Like human procreation, it also requires co-participation and depends on
reader involvement in the generation of meaning. The active role that the
reader must play in realizing the text's significance is modelled by the
techniques Pantagruelion's users employ to break down the "partie
ligneuse" and release the plant's virtues:

Quelques pantagruelistes modernes, evitans le labeur des mains qui
seroit à faire tel depart, usent de certains instrumens catharactes,
composez à la forme que June la fascheuse tenoit les doigtz de ses mains
liez pour empescher l'enfantement de Alcmene, mere de Hercules, et à
travers icelluy contundent et brisent la partie ligneuse, et la rendent
inutile, pour en saulver les fibres (605).

T\ïc pantagruelistes' instruments are compared in form to the way Juno held
her hands in a useless attempt to prevent Alcmena from giving birth to
Hercules. But, while Juno's act was meant to be destructive, the

Renaissance et Réforme / 367

panîagruelistes resort to violence only as a means of rescuing, of "saving"
the plant's most valuable parts. In yet another sexual inversion, rebirth and
regeneration are here associated with images of motherhood. Readers, like
the panîagruelistes, will be invited to become involved in the maieutic process
which brings forth latent ideas. The text actively engages readers in the
procreative act it is performing. From the first chapter of the episode, the
narrator begins to draw his readers into the text through the use of
paraphrases, withholding the names of objects, designating them instead
by circumlocutions, and asking the reader to supply missing information
from clues given in the text. At first paraphrases are limited to designations
of seasons ("les feries des pescheurs," "à la nouvelle venue des hyrondelles,"
"lorsque les cigalles commencent à s'enrouer" [604]). They increase in
number and complexity, however, as the episode progresses, gradually
requiring greater effort of the readers. Chapter 51 presents a prolonged
litany of trades and professions to which Pantagruelion is essential, each
time describing the plant's specific use through a paraphrase in the form
of a question ("Sans elle, comment seroient portez les playdoiers des
advocatz à l'auditoire? Comment seroit sans elle portée le piastre à
I'hastellier? Sans elle, comment seroit tirée l'eaue du puyz?.." [612]). Here
the paraphrase joins the urgency of the interrogative form with the riddle's
promise of hidden truth for the individual who resolves it, involving the
reader in the pursuit of meaning.

The paraphrase and its importunities give way to the more active
exchange of the dialogue in the final chapter of the episode. There the
narrator directly addresses his readers, harrying them with personal ques-
tions, weighing their response, anticipating and dismissing their faulty
reasoning, bullying and shaming them if they are too slow to respond.
Readers are drawn into the text by the dialogue, even appearing on the
printed page in the "vous" that repeatedly designates them, and made to
play an active role in text production.

The narrator, however, is not content with mere verbal participation and
demands physical involvement of his readers as well. He engages them in
an experiment to test Pantagruelion's incombustibility, instructing them to
wrap an egg in Pantagruelion and place it in the fire. Upon removing it,
readers will find that the egg has been hard-cooked but that Pantagruelion
remains unaltered by its ordeal. As in a recipe, text and reader combine
efforts in a progressive sequence, supposedly working together to establish
the true nature of Pantagruelion.

368 / Renaissance and Reformation

The narrator's instruction to his readers are, of course, ironic. Those who
attempt the experiment soon find themselves performing the same gratu-
itous gyrations as Diogenes around his barrel. Rabelais has taken all
possible measures to assure that no single meaning be given to his plant.
He has obscured its origins by altering and confusing the literary traditions
from which it came. He has concealed its identity by giving it the
newly-coined name "Pantagruelion" in honour of a fictional hero. He has
multiplied its meanings by locating its virtue not in the plant itself but in
the varied and multiple uses to which it is put He has even rendered
uncertain the gender of this decidedly phallic figure, and adds to the
confusion by calling it alternately '7e Pantagruelion" and "/a plante" and
referring to it by both masculine and feminine pronouns. The text's plurality
has given it the same procreative power as those embodied in the plant
itself: the Pantagruelion chapters have also been fruitful, yielding almost
as many interpretations as readers. ^^ In the concluding verses the narrator
himself encourages this proliferation and dispersion:

Venez ici recongnoistre nos biens,

Et emportez de nostre herbe la grcne.

Fuys, si chez vous peut croistre, en bonne estrene

Graces rendez es cieulx un million;

Et affermez de France heureux le règne

On quel provient Pantagruelion (619).

Readers are invited to partake of Pantagruelion, to carry it off, to plant it
in their native soil. There it will be transformed, demonstrate new virtues
and find new uses according to the conditions surrounding it. Transferral,
change, dissolution of an original unity - all produce the same positive
results as the breaking down of Pantagruelion's wholeness, transforming
the lands where the plant is introduced, bringing them growth and
prosperity. Those who bear off Pantagruelion's seed are themselves trans-
formed, endowed with a verbal prolixity to match the plant's prolificacy.
Their million expressions of gratitude make them disseminators of both the
plant and its changing meanings. Infused with the energy embodied by
both the plant and the text to which it is consigned, readers themselves
become agents of transformation and proliferation, participating in a
redemptive movement towards a moment of truth continuously displaced
into the future.

Rabelais's redemption myths restore man to quasi-divine status, but they
make that process a specifically human activity. Organic matter assumes

Renaissance et Réforme / 369

the role played by the divine in a regenerative movement sustained by the
successive transformations peculiar to post-lapsarian existence. Ironically,
transformation as a process, by its very dynamism and vitality, precludes
the realization of the absolute, changeless state of perfection to which it
aspires. Reconciliation, the moment of fullness, remains exterior to the
process in which humankind, text and reader are actively engaged, guar-
anteeing the endless productivity and advancement of each.

Marquette University

1 Dennis Costa, Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais,
Stanford French and Italian Studies 21 (Saratoga, Calif.: Anma Libri, 1981); Edwin Duval,
"Pantagruel's Genealogy and the Redemptive Design of Rabelais's Pantagruel, '^ PMLA,
99 (1984), 162-77; David Quint, Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature: Versions
of the Source (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).

2 In addition to the studies cited above, see Kitzie McKinney, "Diversions of Transforma-
tions in Rabelais's Medlar Myth," French Review, 59 (1986), 546-52.

3 "Mesple," A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, comp. Randle Cotgrave,
reproduced from the first edition, London 1611 (Columbia, S.C: University of South
California Press, 1950).

4 See Charlotte F. Otten, Environed with Eternity: God, Poems and Plants in Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Century England, (Lawrence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1985), pp.86-7.

5 Kitzie McKinney rightfully argues that in transforming the Christian myth, Rabelais
translates it irrevocably to a material register, "sabotagfing] the idea of a spiritual
trajectory leading away from carnal, animate being" (550).

6 François Rabelais, Oeuvres Complètes, éd. Pierre Jourda, 2 vols. (Paris: Gamier, 1962),
1:435. All further references will be to the first volume of this edition and will be given
in the text by page number.

7 Claude Gaignebet, Le Carnaval (Paris: Payot, 1979), pp.65-86.

8 See N. N. Condeescu, "Le Paradoxe bernesque dans la littérature française de la
Renaissance," Beitrâge zur romanischen Philologie 2 (1963), 27-51, and Marcel Tetel,
Rabelais et l'Italie (Florence: Olschki, 1969), pp.92. Both scholars believe that Rabelais
knew Berni's work and was inspired by it.

9 For a discussion of the erotic metaphors in the poetry of Bemi and his friends, see Paolo
Cherchi, "L'Encomio paradossale nel manierismo," Forum Italicum, 9 (1975), 368-84, and
Silvia Longhi, Lusus: il capitolo burlesco nel Cinquecento (Padova: Antenore, 1983).

10 Interested readers will find a complete description of the terraculturalists' mind frame
in Charlotte Otten's informative study.

1 1 For a discussion of the woodcut's function in early herbals, see Agnes Arber, Herbals:
Their Origin and Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), pp. 146-7, 193.

12 Pliny attributes the ability "to carry the whole worid to and fro" not to hemp but to fiax
in Book 19 of his Natural History.

13 Terence Cave identifies a similar transferral in the chapter describing young Gargantua's
clothing. His braguette, adorned with fruits and flowers to suggest the fruitfulness of the
member it covers, is displaced by a text that itself assumes the role of designating

370 / Renaissance and Reformation

plenitude. See 77»^ Comucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979), pp.185.

14 The Abbey is named once in the opening lines, where the narrator identifies Frère Jean
by his full title of "Abbé de Théléme"(602), and again in the closing lines, where
Pantagruel announces his intention to make use of the wonderful plant to replace all
the doors and windows of the abbey (618).

15 For a collection of various interpretations of the Pantagruelion episode, see V. L. Saulnier,
"L'Enigme de Pantagruelion ou du Tiers au Quart Livre" Études Rabelaisiennes 1 (Genève:
Droz, 1956), pp.48-72. Other readings of "Pantagruelion" include: Alfred Glauser,
Rabelais créateur (Paris: Nizet, 1964), pp.223-8; Floyd Gray, Rabelais et l'écriture (Paris:
Nizet, 1974), pp. 160-62; François Rigolot, Les Langages de Rabelais, Études Rabelaisiennes
10 (Genève: Droz, 1972), pp.144-52; M.A. Screech, Rabelais (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1979), pp.286-9.

La présence de la Folie

dans les Oeuvres de Louise Labé

WILSON BALDRIDGE

C^ette brève étude propose une lecture des images de la folie qui traversent
de part en part l'écriture passionnée de Louise Labé. Ces images traduisent
l'essence même de l'amour, cette sortie hors-de-soi, dans l'échange affectif
total avec l'autre, qui "étrange" (écarte, éloigne) les amants d'eux-mêmes en
leur faisant connaître une force libératrice supérieure à toute raison.^ Cette
puissance de la folie amoureuse, qui unit les amants corps et âme l'un à
l'autre, figure implicitement l'unité formelle du monde de la ressemblance
poétique.

En faisant allusion à "la belle première naissance d'Amour" comme
indice à la fois historique, mythique et psychologique, il s'agit ici de retracer
la présence de la folie dans les Oeuvres de Labé, c'est-à-dire de suivre à la
trace le rapport entre Folie comme personnage féminin, signe entre autres de
la passion effrénée, et l'imaginaire comme milieu de la figuration.^ Il faut
entendre ici le nom de "Folie" non pas dans son acception médicale en
tant que maladie ou lésion des facultés intellectuelles et affectives, mais au
contraire comme une affirmation quasi sacrée de l'émotivité et de
l'imaginaire créateur. L'oeuvre poétique de Labé exprime une sagesse de la
folie. Une telle valorisation des paradoxes de la passion, de la fantaisie et
du délire prend le contre-pied de l'amour de la sagesse qui, depuis
l'antiquité, aura défini la philosophie idéaliste masculine.

La question critique qui sous-tend cette étude de la folie amoureuse vise
l'articulation du motif de la différence dans une écriture au féminin? L'Epttre
dédicatoire placée par Labé en tête de ses Oeuvres expose l'essentiel de la
pensée féministe de l'auteure aussi bien que sa conception de la différence
entre l'activité d'écrire et les autres "récréations" (282). S'adressant à toutes
ses lectrices à travers la dédicataire Clémence de Bourges, Labé précise la
valeur (fondée sur la perception du même à l'intérieur de la différence
temporelle) de la pratique de l'écriture:

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 4 (1989) 371

372 / Renaissance and Reformation

Mais quand il advient que mettons par écrit nos conceptions, combien que
puis après notre cerveau courre par une infinité d'affaires et incessamment
remue, si est-ce que, longtemps après reprenant nos écrits, nous revenons
au même point, et à la même disposition où nous étions. Lors nous redouble
notre aise, car nous retrouvons le plaisir passé qu'avons eu ou en la matière
dont écrivions, ou en l'intelligence des sciences où lors étions adonnés. Et
outre ce, le jugement que font nos secondes conceptions des premières, nous
rend un singulier contentement'*

Nous examinerons le motif de la folie d'abord dans le Débat de Folie et
d'Amour, puis dans les sonnets VTII, XVII et XVIII où passion et déraison
s'entrelacent à travers les vocables de la persona lyrique. L'Argument du
Débat constitue un point de départ efficace pour l'analyse du rapport
folie/amour comme trope pour la complexion du langage poétique:

Jupiter faisait un grand festin, où était commandé à tous les Dieux se
trouver. Amour et Folie arrivent au même instant sur la porte du Palais:
laquelle étant jà fermée, et n'ayant que le guichet ouvert. Folie voyant
Amour jà prêt à mettre un pied dedans, s'avance et passe la première.
Amour se voyant poussé, entre en colère: Folie soutient lui appartenir
de passer devant. Ils entrent en dispute sur leurs puissances, dignités et
préséances. Amour ne la pouvant vaincre de paroles, met la main à son
arc, et lui lâche une flèche, mais en vain: pource que Folie soudain se
rend invisible: et se voulant venger, ôte les yeux à Amour. Et pour couvrir
le lieu où ils étaient, lui mit un bandeau fait de tel artifice, qu'impossible
est lui ôter. Vénus se plaint de Folie, Jupiter veut entendre leur différend.
Apollon et Mercure débattent le droit de l'une et l'autre partie. Jupiter
les ayant longuement ouïs, en demande l'opinion aux Dieux: puis
prononce sa sentence. (287)

Plaidant en faveur d'Amour, Apollon s'efforce de montrer que la folie ne
peut être que la ruine de tout amour, celui-ci entendu non seulement comme
eros mais comme principe universel de la paix et de l'harmonie. De plus,
le dieu solaire affirme que Folie constitue une menace à l'autorité de Jupiter
et donc à la hiérarchie divine, et demande par conséquent que la fille de
Jeunesse soit bannie des environs immédiats d'Amour. Pour parer à la
menace d'un rapprochement entre Folie et Amour, Apollon prie les dieux
assembles de restituer les yeux au fils de Vénus, car si Amour s'en prend
au coeur, Folie s'attaque à la vue et à l'esprit, provoquant un aveuglement
qui, généralise, finirait par entraîner un effacement catastrophique de toutes
les distinctions au monde.

Lorsque Mercure prend la parole pour défendre Folie, il se donne trois
buts: "Défendre la tête de Folie, contre laquelle Amour a jure: répondre

Renaissance et Réforme / 373

aux accusations que j*entends être faites à Folie: et à la demande qu'il fait
de ses yeux" (326-27). Mercure aura reconnu la demande d'exclusion de
Folie comme le postulat essentiel de l'argument d'Apollon, et le messager
des dieux organise son plaidoyer autour du thème de l'unité originaire de
Folie et d'Amour, répétant de diverses manières que le fils de Vénus ne
pourrait absolument pas exister sans Folie, que celle-ci incame en fait la
source intime du pouvoir d'Amour. Mercure affirme que Folie et Amour
sont amis, de tous temps "unis et conjoints" (326): répondant aux demandes
d'Apollon, Mercure donne à entendre qu'une certaine perte de la raison
constitue la condition de possibilité de tout amour. Mercure dit: "Mon
intention sera de montrer qu'en tout cela Folie n'est rien inférieure à Amour,
et qu'Amour ne serait rien sans elle: et ne peut être, et régner sans son aide"
(330). Ou encore: "Jamais Amour ne fut sans la fille de Jeunesse, et ne peut
être autrement" (337). Et enfin: "Amour donc ne fut jamais sans la
compagnie de Folie: et ne le saurait jamais être" (348).

En effet. Mercure récuse les charges d'Apollon et la peine de séparation
absolue réclamée auprès de l'assemblée divine. Folie sépare bien de lui-même
le sujet possédé par l'amour-passion, mais, paradoxalement, cette rupture
intérieure coïncide avec l'oubli de soi, une sorte de non-reconnaissance de
soi qui rendrait possible l'union totale avec l'autre. Ce n'est qu'en s'écartant
d'eux-mêmes et en changeant de forme que les amants réalisent l'unité
affective intégrale. Cette disposition entraîne une alternance menaçante
entre la guerre et la paix intérieures, surtout lorsque le désir d'une fusion
physique et spirituelle avec raimé(e) rencontre des obstacles.

Or, le rôle privilégié de Folie consiste en ceci qu'elle reste toujours ouverte
à l'autre, elle ne dissimule ni ne masque rien: Folie cherche moins à avoir
raison d'Amour qu'à établir entre lui et elle la parfaite parité dans le
dépassement du différend. L'intime déchirure vient de ce que l'être
passionné doit absolument renoncer à la maîtrise, à la connaissance de soi,
au bon sens et à la logique, ainsi qu'à la domination de l'objet aimé par la
raison ou par le droit. Mercure déclare:

"Que te semble de Folie, Jupiter? Est-elle telle, qu'il la faille ensevelir
sous le mont Gibel, ou exposer au lieu de Prométhée, sur le mont de
Caucase? Est-il raisonnable la priver de toutes bonnes compagnies, où
Amour sachant qu'elle sera, pour la fâcher y viendra, et conviendra 1-t-il]
que Folie, qui n'est rien moins qu'Amour, lui quitte sa place? S'il ne veut
être avec Folie, qu'il se garde de s'y trouver. Mais que cette peine, de ne
s'assembler point, tombe sur elle, ce n'est raison." (337)

374 / Renaissance and Reformation

Décrivant Tissue positive de cette crise affective. Mercure affirme que le
vrai amour est "grand et véhément, et plus fort que toute raison" (347). Le
thème du changement déforme s'enracine dans la réciprocité symbolique
entre Tamour-passion et la structure intime de l'art La vertu cathartique
de la folie serait liée à une libération de la répression rationnelle: la folie
donne à rire en se communiquant à tous au-delà de la séparation. Là où
le logos (représenté par Apollon dans le Débat) cherche à réprimer et à
subordonner les forces de l'irrationnel selon des lois de hiérarchie et de
vraisemblance, la fille de Jeunesse symbolise un retour de l'autre scène, celle
du rêve et de l'imaginaire, c'est-à-dire des pulsions libidinales, dans une
libre affirmation des ressemblances qui délivre le lecteur ou le spectateur
des contraintes de la raison. Souvenons-nous que l'Argument du Débat
précisait: "Amour se voyant poussé, entre en colère: Folie soutient lui
appartenir de passer devant" (287). Que Folie dépasse Amour au seuil de la
fête symbolise le mouvement par où le rêve et l'imaginaire, et par extension
le milieu de la ressemblance, viennent au premier plan dans le langage
littéraire, tandis que, sur le plan de l'histoire, les femmes revendiquent le
droit de "mettre [leurs] conceptions par écrif et de "passer ou égaler les
hommes" en science et vertu.^

La description labéenne de la pantomime, artifice halluciné qui se laisse
entendre au-delà de la voix, indique très clairement le rapport entre l'étant
et la figure. Le mime évoque les choses et les actions, il donne à voir le
tout, par le moyen des "pieds et mains parlants" (335). Le mime ne montre
ni le réel ni une "action effective" (Mallarmé), il y fait allusion en substituant
à l'étant l'expressivité du visage et des gestes. Voici l'avis de Mercure sur
les acteurs en général: "Et comment se peuvent exempter d'être nommés
fols, ceux qui représentent [les anciennes fables], ayant pris, et prenant tant
de peines à se faire sembler autres qu'ils ne sont?" (335). Il y a une relation
décisive entre cette question de Mercure posée pour l'effet de son plaidoyer,
et le thème des amants et des écrivains littéralement métamorphosés en
leur autre symétrique par le désir, tout comme l'emploi de la métaphore ou
de la métonymie transforme le sens et la portée des mots.^ A ce sujet,
rappelons le passage relatif à la Vénus de Praxitèle que désira le jeune
Cnidien, dont la sympathie pour cette "froide et morte pierre" s'enflammait,
selon Mercure, grâce à la folie "logée en son esprit" (338). L'extrait qui suit
celui-ci met en rapport également le délire, l'imaginaire et la ressemblance:
le messager des dieux affirme que l'ardeur de Narcisse pour son propre
reflet ne lui vient pas de l'oeil mais de la "folle imagination du beau
pourtrait" (338). Encore une fois, la folie nomme le milieu de la figuration
où se déploie le double du visage, ici l'image de la face dans l'eau, un tel

Renaissance et Réforme / 375

"pourtrait" produisant un tout indissoluble au moment même où dedans
et dehors apparaissent à la source dans leur différence la plus précaire.

Après le passage où Mercure démontre les effets de l'amour fou chez les
hommes, le messager des dieux explique que plus les femmes ont résisté à
la passion, "plus s'en trouvent prises" (342), comme si la stratégie du refus
était le moyen le plus sûr d'affermir l'attachement à l'être aimé. Cette
thématique est liée à l'articulation du désir: les femmes aux prises avec la
folie amoureuse "prennent la plume et le luth en main: écrivent et
chantent leurs passions" (343), ou comme Mercure (associé aussi à
l'invention de l'alphabet et du jeu de dés) dira plus loin: "Plusieurs
femmes, pour plaire à leurs Poètes amis, ont changé leurs paniers et
coutures, en plumes et livres" (346-47). Labé marque ainsi le rapport
étroit entre la passion et l'imaginaire, dans la mesure où Folie prépare
les coeurs et pour les flèches d'Amour, et pour la plume. Dans les deux
cas, on passe par le stade de la dénégation où le désir de rester
intégralement soi-même, de perpétuer son identité à soi, paradoxalement
dispose l'être humain aimant à la volonté de s'abandonner et de se livrer
corps et âme à l'autre. Jusqu'à un certain point, la possibilité d'un grand
amour partagé apparaît comme une menace à l'intégrité de soi, puis par
un mécanisme que Labé ramène à la folie, on saute au pôle opposé en
passant outre même à la peur. "Elles ferment la porte à [la] raison. Tout
ce qu'elles craignaient, ne le [re]doutent plus" (342). Tel passage d'un
extrême à l'autre dénote la sortie hors-de-soi, l'oubli ou la non-connaiss-
ance de soi, qui mènent au changement de forme, à la métamorphose
nécessaire à l'épanouissement de la passion.

Doit-on séparer chronologiquement le moment du refus de l'amour et celui
de l'abandon? Le refus est un moment essentiel du don dans la mesure où
le moi se constitue ainsi dans son identité en même temps qu'il cherche à
sortir de soi, et on peut dire que le propre du texte littéraire est que la
constitution d'un sujet unitaire présuppose la fusion du moi réel avec son
autre radical: l'écriture. Dans l'amant comme dans l'écriture, la persona voit
un double qui à la fois l'éloigné d'un moi conventionnel et la fait accéder
au moi authentique capable de toutes les émotions possibles. Or, se figurer
ainsi par l'image de l'autre serait un signe de folie: la volonté de se voir
autre que soi, de se faire tout autre ne mène pas par elle-même au savoir ou
à la connaissance, mais au contraire à l'expérience préparatoire de
r'étrange et forte passion" (392) qui, chez Labé, donne lieu à l'activité
créatrice. Ce rapport de soi à l'autre figuré par le poème comme espace ou
marge de la différence apparaît bien dans son sonnet des antithèses. Il est
vrai que le mode de ce poème se rattache à une tradition qui passe par

376 / Renaissance and Reformation

Pétrarque, Villon et Du Bellay, mais La Belle a soy en donne une illustration
nouvelle en Tinscrivant dans le contexte de la folie amoureuse telle que sa
propre expérience l'a déterminée. Ce poème constitue l'un des jalons
principaux de la séquence des sonnets car il marque le point extrême auquel
aboutit "la dialectique par définition tumultueuse de l'extase et du
déchirement alternant au sein de 'l'amour-passion'" (Berriot, 92):

Je vis, je meurs: je me brûle et me noie.

J'ai chaud estrême en endurant froidure:

La vie m'est et trop molle et trop dure.

J'ai grands ennuis entremêlés de joie:

Tout à un coup je ris et je larmoie.

Et en plaisir maint grief tourment j'endure:

Mon bien s'en va, et à jamais il dure;

Tout en un coup je sèche et je verdoie. (VIII, 376)

C'est à partir du moment où l'écrivain passe dans le domaine du paradoxe
qu'elle sera capable de ressentir le tout de l'affectivité en même temps: la
"partie" qu'est un moment privilégié d'amour ouvre sur la totalité de la
jouissance et de la douleur, du bien et du mal, de même que l'écrit fait
revenir la valeur de la présence en l'exposant au bord de la disparition et
de l'oubli. La persona de la femme amoureuse ressent dans ses fibres le
risque pris de son désir éperdu qui est à la fois une extrême concentration
de sa volonté et une passion subie en pure perte.

Le Sonnet XVII offre un exemple saisissant de l'amour fou tel que Labé
l'envisage, car il dévoile l'image de la sortie hors-de-soi, caractéristique de
la folie, par une tournure polysémique qui en inscrit l'essence dans la
syntaxe même du dernier vers. La persona fuit ici "la présence obsédante
de l'aimé" (Berriot, 385), en tâchant de se faire un nouvel objet et de se
distraire des "pensers amoureux" (XVII, v. 9). Karine Berriot interprète le
dernier tercet comme un dénouement à double sens, où l'amante ne pourrait
se délivrer de sa hantise qu'en allant vivre en celui qui occupe sa pensée.
Cette lecture rejoint notre propos, car il met en relief le moment où le sujet,
ayant refusé le don de soi, reconnaît que la seule issue possible à la passion
obsédante serait l'abandon total au désir. Mais le dernier vers laisse en
suspens le sujet du verbe être au subjonctif, comme si le langage poétique
incorporait par là le phénomène du vivre-l'un-en-l'autre qui constitue l'issue
thématique du sonnet:

Renaissance et Réforme / 377

Que si je veux de toi être délivre,

Il me convient hors de moi-même vivre.

Ou fais encor que loin sois en séjour. (XVII, 385)

Eloignement et proximité des amants reviennent ici au même, comme le
rapprochement de deux étants distincts peut produire une figure où la
différence s'affirme en tant que "milieu de la relation infinie" (Heidegger)
dans la langue (c'est Ventre-deux ou le neutre)?

Un langage fou (on pense à Blanchot parlant de Hôlerlin) traverse de part
en part les Oeuvres de Labé, mais il y a encore un texte où la sortie
hors-de-soi s'opère explicitement en rapport avec l'érotisme et la spiritualité.
Il s'agit du célèbre "sonnet des baisers" qui pose la réciprocité (et donc la
perte de l'identité intrinsèque) des deux amants par les baisers sensuels,
comme une folie qui donne accès à la double vie. Labé réinterprète un motif
néo-platonicien en soutenant l'exigence de la réciprocité des corps, car la
jouissance mutuelle ici s'intègre à l'échange proprement spirituel. François
Rigolot suggère que le jeu réciproque des deux langues par rapport à la
double vie spirituelle répète la relation structurale entre l'inscription et le
sens des paroles.^ Labé pense l'unité du corps et de l'esprit en termes d'une
folie créatrice qui rend possible le devenir-autre du sujet (le "JE est un
autre" de Rimbaud):

Lors double vie à chacun en suivra.

Chacun en soi et son ami vivra.

Permets m'Amour penser quelque folie:

Toujours suis mal, vivant discrètement.

Et ne me puis donner contentement.

Si hors de moi ne fais quelque saillie. (XVIII, 386)

Ce que chante Labé dans ce sonnet à la fois erotique et méditatif, c'est
l'un-en-deux du rapport amoureux, la réciprocité totale du désir éperdu qui
suspend l'identité individuelle des amants dans l'échange sensuel, unique
source de jouissance entendue comme l'allégresse de tout attachement
affectif extrême. En concevant le dépassement de la séparation douloureuse,
la persona ici s'apprête à se donner du "contentement": elle trouvera le
bonheur en vivant intensément en soi ET pour l'autre, ce que le poème met
en scène par ses figures et polysémies qui jaillissent hors de l'identité simple
d'un contenu sémantique.

Pour nous, l'intérêt multiple de l'oeuvre labéenne consiste en sa figuration
incomparable de l'amour fou, laquelle inscrit à la fois une pensée féministe
féconde et une réflexion sur le langage poétique au-delà de la raison. On

378 / Renaissance and Reformation

a vu que dans VEpUre dédicatoire, Labé juxtapose, à dessein, les sphères
décisives de l'affirmation féminine et de la reconstitution imaginative de
Texpérience et du savoir. La Lyonnaise a consciemment pensé le rapport
des termes de ce qui se nomme aujourd'hui écriture au féminin? En tant
que la persona des Oeuvres s'associe à la déesse Folie aussi bien qu'à la
thématique du délire amoureux, les textes de Labé nous ramènent au centre
paradoxal où la présence s'affirme à travers l'oubli, la jouissance à travers
la douleur, la paix à travers le plus explosif des conflits psychiques. Ainsi
La Belle a soy nous a-t-elle légué un recueil élégant et profond témoignant
de l'unité originaire entre l'expérience passionnée de la femme écrivain et
l'essence discrètement ouverte de l'écriture poétique.

Wichita State University

1 Citons ici les vers bien connus de la première élégie de Labé, où la métamorphose de la
persona -est comparée à celle de la Reine Sémiramis en proie à une passion incestueuse:
"Ainsi Amour de toi t'a étrangée / Qu'on te dirait en une autre changée" (356). Les
numéros de page entre parenthèses renvoient à Karine Berriot, Louise Labé: La Belle
Rebelle et le François nouveau suivi des Oeuvres complètes (Seuil, 1985). Une première
version de la présente analyse a été lue au congrès du Conseil International d'Etudes
Francophones à Montréal, le 16 avril 1988.

2 C'est au cours de son plaidoyer en faveur de Folie dans le Débat de Folie et d'Amour (337)
que Mercure prononce cette formule très suggestive, qui ramène l'origine de l'Amour (à
la fois le sentiment et son incarnation mythologique) à la Folie. La pensée voilée du
syntagme met en rapport l'aube de l'amour (dont l'un des noms est Vénus, mère de
Cupidon, beauté née de la mer comme l'aurore) et l'étemel retour ("la belle première
naissance," répétée au XVIe siècle français, étant aussi Renaissance).

3 Cette expression que recommande Nicole Brossard dans ses conférences se trouve par
exemple dans la notice biographique de Double Impression (L'Hexagone, 1984), p.l39.

4 Voir l'Epître dédicatoire, p.283. Communiquée souvent de manière implicite, la conception
labéenne de la différence (temporelle, sexuelle, poétique, etc.) s'éclaire, selon nous, à la
lecture des textes suivants: Martin Heidegger, "Identité et différence," dans Questions I
(Gallimard, 1%8), pp.253-308; Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition (Presses Uni-
versitaires de France, 1968); Jacques Derrida, "La différance," in Marges de la philosophie
(Minuit, 1972), pp.3-29; René Girard, Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde
(Grasset, 1978); Michel Deguy, Choses de la poésie et affaire culturelle (Hachette, 1986).
Quant au statut du discours de la folie, il convient de renvoyer à Michel Foucault, Folie
et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Pion, 1961), et à Maurice Blanchot, L^ /?as
au-delà (Gallimard, 1973). La présente analyse tente de comprendre les motifs ci-dessus
mentionnés en rapport avec les perspectives féministes exposées par Adrienne Rich dans
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence (Norton, 1979).

5 Voir l'Epître dédicatoire, pp.281-82.

6 Pour une analyse percutante du rapport entre les figures de comparaison et l'opposition
Amour/Folie chez Labé, voir R.D. Cottrell, "The Problematics of Opposition in Louise
Labé's Débat de Folie et d'Amour" French Forum, 12 (1987), 27-42.

7 Cf. Michel L>eguy, Figurations (Gallimard, 1%9), p.l47.

Renaissance et Réforme / 379

8 Voir François Rigolot, "Signature et signification: Les baisers de Louise Labé," Romanic
Review, 75 (1984), 10-24.

9 Cf. la note 3 sup. L'essai remarquable de Karine Berriot montre que Labé tient également
un discours politique dans la mesure où Apollon et Mercure, Amour et Folie représentent
respectivement le patriarcat et le monde des femmes, l'aristocratie et la nouvelle
bourgeoisie marchande: une femme bourgeoise revendique son droit à l'amour noble et
annonce un courant fondamental de l'imagination créatrice moderne. Voir Berriot,
pp.66-99 et passim.

The Flesh Made Word:
Foxe's Acts and Monuments

MARK BREITENBERG

In a statement at the end of a meeting of the Anglican-Roman Catholic
International Commission in Llandaff, representatives of both churches
said they had reached agreement "on those issues of salvation and
justification which gave rise to deep divisions between Roman Catholics
and Protestants in the sixteenth century."

Tfie Times of London, 4 September 1986

1 he current "State of Criticism" of Foxe's^cr^ and Monuments - according
to the last chapter of Warren Wooden's recent book - is not a very healthy
state. Nor is it likely to improve, according to Wooden, "until proper
scholarly editions of Foxe's works appear." Wooden laments the fact that
the only complete edition published in the twentieth century is a reprint of
Stephen Cattley's eight volume edition of 1843-49. Nineteenth-century
editions, unlike the contemporary edition Wooden is campaigning for,
"modernize much of Foxe's text, rearrange portions of it, add supplemental
and transitional material without regard to the integrity of the text, and
select from the various versions of the five Elizabethan editions without

attempting either collation or consistency The resulting text, complete

with notes reflecting the editors' strong Protestant bias, is thus a hodge-
podge composite."^ This assessment reveals many of the paradoxes that
arise when contemporary editorial policy confronts texts from a period (I
refer to the sixteenth century) that held considerably different attitudes
toward individual authorship, textual production and what might be called
the "boundaries" of texts. Cattley's editorial transgression is that he does
not respect the original text as produced by Foxe; instead, he subtracts,
adds, collates and rearranges at will, driven only by his Protestant zeal. My
point is perhaps only too obvious by now: Cattley's edition is far closer to
the "original" precisely because it exhibits the faults cited by Wooden.
Foxe's Acts and Monuments in all its incarnations has always been an

Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXV, 4 (1989) 381

382 / Renaissance and Reformation

open-ended, unfixed "hodge-podge composite," alternately venerated and
consumed by religious and historiographical polemicists who held little
regard for its textual "integrity."

In the ensuing pages, I will add my own partisan reading ("polemical"
would be too severe, although such a diminution perhaps accurately marks
Foxe's current status) to this 400-year interpretive sedimentation. A central
premise of my own interpretation is that a critic's or historian's access to
any text is always mediated by previous interpretations (including editions)
of that text, on the one hand, and by the more broadly construed mediation
of cultural and historical differences, on the other. Of course, these two
levels are interdependent: the interpretive history of a particular text is
always embedded in wider cultural and political formations. The rich and
impassioned history of interpretation surrounding the Acts and Monuments
supports this methodological premise quite readily.^

I

Despite Warren Wooden's almost hagiolatrous attempts at resurrection, the
twentieth-century Foxe is an obscure figure, at least by comparison to the
assessment of some, but not all, previous centuries. This may be due to the
daunting size (and weight) of the eight volume Acts and Monuments, or to the
lack of a "reliable" edition, as Wooden argues. But while these reasons may
indeed present obstacles to contemporary scholarship, the original fact that
no one has undertaken an edition in 150 years would seem to point to a broader
explanation. Foxe's text is, first and foremost, a religious polemic; subsequently,
its popularity has risen and fallen according to the extent of religious
fomentation (particularly between Protestants and Catholics) in a given age.
New editions are regularly produced through the first half of the seventeenth
century, but not again until the Catholic emancipation of the early nineteenth.
This explains, perhaps over-simplistically, why the Acts and Monuments has
never found a receptive American audience, nor more than a small one in
England since the nineteenth-century. In fact, twentieth-century scholarship
has deliberately sought to distance itself from the previous century's heated
religious controversies, resulting in one construction of Foxe as a model of
religious toleration, at least by the standards of his own period.

Nevertheless, vestiges of the earlier religious polemic surrounding the Acts
and Monuments still exist, although the religious issues are often displaced
by apparently academic controversies, such as the historical accuracy of
Foxe's accounts. Writing as an historian, J. F. Mozley published John Foxe
and His Book in 1940 in an attempt to controvert the research of S. R.

Renaissance et Réforme / 383

Maitland a century earlier."* Although Mozley does not demonstrate any
outward partiality to Protestantism - he writes from a position of historical
^objectivity' throughout - the publication of his book by the "Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge" suggests the use to which his research
was put. Since Mozley's book, the relatively mild arguments over the Acts
and Monuments are not between Catholics and Protestants but between
those who see Foxe's motivation as primarily eschatological and spiritual
(often displaying their own non-sectarian Christianity), against those who
favour a nationalistic impetus in the production and function of the text.
Among the former, I include V. Norskov Olsen's John Foxe and the
Elizabethan Church (1973), which depends largely on Foxe's use of
Revelations, as well as Helen C. White's Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs
(1963), perhaps better understood as a "martyrolatry," especially in its
closing message to the reader: "it is not without relevance to remember how,
on another dark and confused scene, a generous spirit, finding himself
almost alone against his world, could look beyond the imminent scaffold
to that other realm in which he trusted that he and the judges who had just
condemned him *may yeat hereafter in heaven meerily all meete together,
to our everlasting salvacion.' "^ Both of these treatments of Foxe maintain,
at least obliquely, an essentially religious perspective, and both understandably
take issue with William Haller's reading of the Acts and Monuments, in which
the eschatological tradition is said to serve the book's interest in shaping a
nationalistic consciousness.^ D. M. Loades presents this more fully secu-
larized perspective in The Oxford Martyrs, although he clearly possesses a sort
of nationalistic admiration for Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer, who "died
because they were revolutionary leaders whose ideology was temporarily
eclipsed."^ These twentieth-century critical disagreements about Foxe's
book are tame by comparison to their forerunners because the participants
are not divided along sectarian lines. Such was not at all the case in early
Victorian England.

The eighteenth century - "antiquarian rather than polemical," according
to Loades - saw the publication of Strype's Annals of the Reformation and
Establishment of Religion, as well as the Catholic Church History of Charles
Dodd, but not a single edition of the Acts and Monuments.^ Between 1841
and 1877, however, there were four. Renewed interest in the historiography
of the reformation as a polemical activity followed, in part, the sectarian
controversies initiated by the Oxford movement of the 1830s and the
political issue of Catholic emancipation. Protestant editions of Foxe's
history were met by detractors such as S. R. Maitland, who published a
series of magazine articles allegedly proving that Foxe fabricated his sources

384 / Renaissance and Reformation

and who, in the 1830s, sought to prevent publication of Cattley and
Townsend's edition altogether. According to Father Dominic Trenow,
Maitland did "so completely succeed in unearthing this Foxe, that though
a sedate, studious and learned scholar and clergyman, he has earned for
himself the by no means inappropriate, if not dignified, nickname, of
'Foxhunter.' "^ Maitland and other "foxhunters" were specifically addressed
by Cattley and Townsend in a part of their introduction entitled, "Answer
to Objectors." In this rebuttal, Maitland is accused of "not [being] an
impartial critic of Foxe" and of "treat[ing] the author with great injustice."^^
What is striking about these exchanges is that each side repeatedly claims
a kind of non-sectarian neutrality for itself while hanging on their oppo-
nents the charge of bias. Cattley and Townsend state that their project is
merely to produce "simply, a good and handsome reprint of the work''^^ On
the other side, Maitland claims that his own archival research is motivated
exclusively by his desire to recover the "true" story of the martyrs. In other
words, the nineteenth-century interpretive controversies over the Acts and
Monuments disguise their sectarian polemic behind a rhetoric of historio-
graphical objectivity. A notable exception is the vitriolic Reverend J.
Milner's edition of 1803. Milner states that he "was resolved to contribute
his feeble efforts to effect their [those favoring Catholic emancipation]
overthrow — One opportunity, it occurred to him, he should find by
publishing a new Edition of Fox's Martyrs."^^

In 1684, the Stationer's Company issued the last complete edition of the
Acts and Monuments before the nineteenth century in order to celebrate the
ascension of James II. In this Restoration edition, "it was now the
conservative and national aspects of Foxe which appealed to those who
troubled to read him, rather than the eschatological."^-^ Just the opposite
may be said of the Puritan edition of 1641 which followed the loss of
Archbishop Laud's control over the pulpits and presses in 1640. One of the
charges against Laud, in fact, was that he had prevented the publication of
certain "godly" books such as the Acts and Monuments}^ In appropriating
Foxe's book and using it against Laud, Puritans conveniently overlooked
the fact that Xh^Acts and Monuments in its original conception was distinctly
supportive of Elizabeth and the Anglican compromise. As Puritan propa-
ganda, the apocalyptic aspects of the book were emphasized to buttress the
Puritans' belief in their own divine election. Even James believed that Foxe's
book could be used in support of the Anglican cause; his demand for a
new edition in 1610 may well have been in response to the tumult
surrounding the Gunpowder Plot and to the increasing tide of Puritan
opposition to his monarchy. By including an account of the massacre of

Renaissance et Réforme / 385

French Huguenots in this edition, James could hope to rally his own divided
nation against an inveterate English enemy. In the seventeenth century,
then, the critical reception and propagandistic use of the Acts and Monu-
ments corresponds to the oscillations of the English Church in general.
Despite its polemics, Foxe's book was "open" enough to be able to support
a variety of ideological enterprises.

The sixteenth-century publications and receptions of Foxe's book, on the
other hand, appear to sustain Foxe's original conception in their consistent
polemic against the Catholic Church. Certainly Elizabeth's government
believed in the importance of promulgating the Acts and Monuments (a 1571
decree required members of the clergy to own one), although the often-held
belief that it was "enjoyned to be kept in every church" has been persua-
sively refuted. ^^ The five editions in English are more or less evenly spaced
over the course of Elizabeth's reign, and each issuance seems to coincide
conspicuously with a critical event involving English Protestantism. An edition
of 1583 follows the Queen's protracted marriage negotiations with the Catholic
Anjou and coincides with England's increasing involvement in the Low
Countries; the 1570 edition appears in the same year as the Papal Bull
excommunicating Elizabeth, and one year after the rising of the Catholic
northern earls; finally, the 1563 edition succeeds by less than a year the last
session of the Council of Trent. In a period of endemic religious volatility,
such correspondences are perhaps not difficult to find. At the same time,
however, printers were careful to assess their potential market before
beginning the expensive and arduous task of setting type; such an outlay
must have been massive for a publication as long as the Acts and Monuments.
For example, Rome's list of prohibited books was eagerly awaited by
English printers seeking to anticipate the most salable books in their own
country. According to J. W. Martin, during the tenuous early months of
Elizabeth's reign, the Marian burnings were considered a "lucrative topic"
for new books. ^^ Thus, it is probably true that some blend of royal fiat as
well as the book's commercial prospects influenced the timing and popu-
larity of these sixteenth-century editions.

The counterattack to Foxe's book began immediately after the publication
of the widely disseminated edition of 1563. (Only a short 1559 edition in
Latin preceded this one.) Writing under the pseudonym of Alanus Copus,
Nicholas Harpsfield - more famous as the first biographer of Thomas More
and former Archdeacon of London - published an attack on the historical
accuracy of Foxe's accounts and specifically opposed including the Lollards
as martyrs.^^ John Christopherson, Bishop of Chichester under Mary,
appears to have anticipated the Protestant cult of martyrdom even before

386 / Renaissance and Reformation

Foxe's early Latin edition; in 1554, his An exhortation to all menne to take
hede and beware of rebellion attempts to belittle the "false stinking martyrs"
persecuted under Mary.^^ By the 1580s, English recusancy centered on a
captive Mary Queen of Scots and the promise of a Spanish invasion which
would place her on the English throne. In this tense atmosphere, Nicholas
Sander sought to influence English attitudes by attacking the Acts and
Monuments in his De origine ac progressa schismaticis Anglicani liber published
from Cologne in 1585.^^

From this skeletal history of the publication and reception of Foxe's book,
it becomes clear that its textual boundaries have been at least figuratively
porous, open to appropriations in different cultural settings for different
purposes. Religious polemicists in addition to editors and interpreters have
persistently "re-written" the Acts and Monuments by defining and imposing
its meaning. And in may cases, they have literally re-written the text, most
conspicuously in the many versions (they are not truly editions) of Foxe's
popularly called Book of Martyrs, which have dismembered and appended
the original by adding their own stories of martyrdom. For example, an
eighteenth-century abridgement deceptively titled Fox's Original and Com-
pete Book of Martyrs includes several accounts of the "bloody Irish Massacre
... the missionaries in China, and the Barbarities exercised in America."^^
In 1884, Fox's Book of Martyrs, or a History of the Lives, Sufferings and
Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs distinguishes itself from
other versions by recording "the persecution of Asaad Shidiak, a native of
Palestine."^^ Perhaps the most severely abridged versions, finally, are the
illustrated, paperbound pamphlets published from 1920 to 1954 by the
Protestant Truth Society.^^ None of these examples - nor the textual history
of Foxe's book in general - appear to have been interested in what Wooden
calls the "integrity of the text."

According to Wooden's editorial policy and that of most contemporary
editors of literary texts, the integrity of any given text is measured by the
extent to which an author's original and final intentions can be ascer-
tained.^^ As Jerome McGann points out, this way of thinking derives from
a post-Romantic belief in the autonomy of literary production.^^ The seeds
of this belief may well have been planted around the close of the
sixteenth-century; certainly the case of Jonson reveals an incipiently
"modem" conception of authorship. However, when applied to thereto and
Monuments - here I refer to those editions Foxe saw through the press -
this post-Romantic way of thinking is wholly inadequate. It might be argued
that I am unfairly applying criteria used for literary texts to an explicitly
historical text Above and beyond the fact that this distinction is often hard

Renaissance et Réforme / 387

to draw in the sixteenth century (Sidney's need to delineate history from
literature in theory perhaps only underscores this point in practice), Foxe's
book even by comparison to other contemporary "histories" is unique in
calling attention to its own collective production and to its own status as a
social and institutional affair; at times, its breadth appears to embody the
society in which it is shaped. Not only does this quality distinguish the Acts
and Monuments from otherwise similar narratives of the mid-sixteenth
century (especially other martyrologies), but it is precisely the reason for
the book's enormous success and impact initially, as well as the source of
its long history of appropriation.

This thesis begins to explain as positive characteristics those authorial
transgressions often ruefully cited by Wooden: "Because Foxe allowed
others to translate from his Latin text [the first 1559 edition] major portions
of the English editions, the literary critic is often unsure whose actual words

he is reading "^^ While this is certainly true, it is an odd point to dwell

upon considering the number of authors who contribute to the various
editions Foxe compiled. In the two-volume folio of 1570, for example, my
own rough estimate places Foxe's contribution at less than ten percent of
what is truly a massive collection of written material. Even those stories
Foxe himself penned were most certainly oral narratives composed by
witnesses and passed on to Foxe through different channels. With this sense
of collectivity in mind, it might be useful to glance at the various authors,
genres and texts that comprise the Acts and Monuments.

II

Protestant Copia

Nearly every form of written document known to the Renaissance appears
somewhere in Foxe's collection of nearly two million words. Among
government records, Foxe includes articles of religion, royal proclamations
and injunctions, acts and records of Parliament, judicial sentences and lists
of prohibited books. Sermons, records of religious disputations, visitations
of clergy, translations of liturgies, countless examinations and interroga-
tions of suspected heretics, recantations, transcriptions of ceremonies and
baptisms are included among specifically religious documents. There are
also many "personal" letters obviously intended for public viewing, espe-
cially among those martyrs from Foxe's own time, public orations and
speeches to the Queen, accounts of village arguments and private debates.
Foxe has extensively quoted other historians (Eusebius, Bcde, William of
Malmesbury and Polydore Vergil, to name a few), re-printed large sections

388 / Renaissance and Reformation

of other books and at times entire pamphlets. Finally, although I have by
no means exhausted the list, there are Foxe's own detailed, often lurid
descriptions of the scene at the stake, a tiny fraction of the whole but
nevertheless the most memorable if not notorious part.

The effect of such an "open" text is to fashion a Protestant community
by including a vast number of texts, authors, events and individuals while
at the same time discrediting those who are not part of the community. In
this way, the Acts and Monuments effaces many textual and formal bound-
aries to construct a larger boundary that serves to identify (and give identity
to) the membership of a new state church. This is more or less the
conclusion drawn by William Haller in perhaps the best contemporary
study of Acts and Monuments. Haller points out the ways in which Foxe's
book shaped a new Protestant and specifically English "sense of . . . identity
as a nation set apart from all others, aware of what they took to be a common
past, and intent on what they took to be their appointed place and destiny
in the world."^'^ Haller's method of analysis depends on the often-unques-
tioned critical assumption that the act of reading texts and of ascertaining
textual meaning is always the same process across history. This is not to
say that texts have the same meaning for all time; Haller is very attuned to
the specifics of early Elizabethan culture, claiming to read the Acts and
Monuments in "the context of its own time."^^ But what Haller and others
assume in their efforts to reproduce the influence and effect of a text is that
sixteenth-century readers read in the same fashion - receiving and assigning
meaning by the same process — as twentieth-century critics and historians.

It would be impossible to reproduce exactly how Foxe's book was read
or interpreted, or what its precise effect might have been. But I would suggest
that the book's impact and valorization was as diverse as the literacy levels
of its audience. Clergy and well-educated aristocracy may have read the
Acts and Monuments quite thoroughly, but certainly a larger number read
(or heard) only parts of the book, relying on description and perhaps
paraphrase to gain a sense of the whole; additionally, a good number could
not have read a single word at all. This range exposes the paradox in any
reception theory of Elizabethan texts, especially those texts that appear to
have been promulgated by certain interests and ideologies: most of the
intended readership of a text often could not read neariy as well as those
who produced (or circulated) the texts.^^ Sixteenth-century texts were
received, understood and given their cultural currency in different ways; in
other terms, they imparted and were ascribed their meaning in a pluralistic
fashion. To underscore the difference between this period and our own, one
need but remember that only a generation before the Acts and Monuments,

Renaissance et Réforme / 389

only a small minority could read such an enormously influential text as
the Bible. In the following interpretations, I should like to remain attentive
to some of the varied ways in which the Acts and Monuments may have
conveyed and been assigned meaning among what was surely a multiform
audience.

The shape and structure of the Acts and Monuments may have allowed it
to possess an iconic value or meaning for some of its audience. In. this
context, I apply the term "iconic" to the importance attached to the palpable
presence of the text - as a material artifact rather than a signifying medium

- by those who may or may not have scoured its written contents.-'^ As I
suggest briefly above, the most striking structural aspect of the Acts and
Monuments is its vast inclusion of texts, authors, documents, Protestant
champions and Catholic reprobates - in short, a textual re-creation of the
world past, present and (eschatologically) future. This remarkable inclusiv-
ity was perhaps motivated by a desire to amass a virtual library of stories,
beliefs and history in a single two-volume set. In this way, Foxe's prototype
may have been the Bible itself On a more figurative level, however, the
"idea" of Foxe's massive collection presents some interesting implications.
From such a perspective, I suggest that the textual inclusivity of Foxe's book

- in fact, all of its formal and structural components - is an attempt to
reproduce textually a vision of the English Protestant state church. In other
words, Foxe has drawn upon such a variety of 'genres' in order to represent
all aspects of his own culture. At the same time, this inclusivity - which
must depend on extensive repetition - seems motivated by a fear of leaving
any "open spaces" which could be filled by contestatory material; when an
oppositional position is presented, it is only for the purpose of being
discredited. By the sheer vastness of what it collects, the Acts and Monuments
seeks to reprint itself on the collective and individual consciences of its
audience. Reciprocally (for we cannot really depend on knowing Foxe's
intentions), a significant reason for the book's cultural adoption and
influence in shaping this national church derives from the extent to which
such a broad audience accepted and internalized the text. My reading differs
from Haller's not so much in terms of the cultural impact of the text but
in how that impact was effectuated. That the Acts and Monuments should
possess an iconic value suggests a different mode of adoption by the new
regime and its subjects.

Similarly, we can begin to understand the Acts and Monuments as a textual
body that reproduces the emerging corporate body of Protestant England.
Following this metaphorical equivalence, the vast circulatory system of texts
in the Acts and Monuments itself creates and reinforces the circulation of

390 / Renaissance and Reformation

texts and ideas so vital to the early stages of Protestantism across Europe.
Before Elizabeth's reign - especially after the exodus under Mary -
Protestant strongholds were few and far between, a situation that required
extensive travel and circulation of texts to keep the incipient movement
alive. Foxe's original 1559 Latin edition and the first English edition of 1563
were compiled, in fact, while Foxe and other prominent exiles were living
in Strasbourg. Strasbourg became a kind of nerve centre for Protestantism
from which Foxe diligently collected every report, story, and document
available, a mode of production reproduced in the dialogical nature of the
first edition and of succeeding editions. In this way, the Acts and Monuments
seeks to produce and reproduce an extensive Protestant network by
profusely reprinting letters, conversations, examinations and orally trans-
mitted narratives. This dialogical structure serves to incorporate readers and
hearers of the book as members of an extensive Protestant community; or,
in other words, the dialogism inside the book appears to extend beyond the
textual boundaries to include the larger number of those who came in
contact with the book.

These remarks refer mostly to those events and writings that were roughly
contemporaneous with the 1563 edition and the enlarged 1570 edition, both
critical texts in forging the English Protestant "community" I refer to above.
Nearly all of Foxe's audience would have been familiar through other
sources with the events and personalities of the previous reign; by allotting
one-third of the entire text to Mary's reign alone, the Acts and Monuments
is able to include a large number of known prototypes for this community.
Among these Marian martyrs, the presentation of John Bradford's story
exemplifies the text's creation of an extensive "dialogue" among those inside
the community and against those outside. Foxe begins this narrative with
a brief biography of Bradford's life and accomplishments, covering about
six pages in the eight-volume edition reprinted from the nineteenth century.
Next, Bradford is brought before the Lord Chancellor for a
"communication" investigating his opinions on the Eucharist and on the
authority of the Pope, two central issues in determining heresy. Eleven more
dialogues covering forty pages of text between Bradford and various other
Catholic officials - the Archbishop of York, the Dean of Westminster and
two Spanish friars, among others - are transcribed in which the accused
cleverly defends points of scripture against his persistent interlocutors. A
third section of the Bradford narrative, about a page long, relates his death
at the stake. Finally, almost ninety pages are taken up by Bradford's
personal letters (fifty-one are printed) to friends, "Brethren," Cambridge

Renaissance et Réforme / 391

University, various towns, his brother, Nicholas Ridley, Cranmer and many
others.-'^

The most striking feature of this presentation is the sheer volume of
(allegedly) reprinted letters, which includes over two-thirds of the entire
Bradford story. The epistolary form serves the function of presenting a
network of religious sympathy connected by the written word - a medium
already appropriated as distinctly Protestant. Additionally, the fact that the
letters are addressed to living people not otherwise part of the story extends
the Protestant community forged by this network beyond the boundaries
of the text; the Acts and Monuments thus becomes a massive directory for
some and proof of Protestant amplitude for others. In both cases, the effect
or reception of the text would not necessarily be produced by reading its
contents; in fact, the "contents" of the letters, examinations and conversa-
tions are more or less the same in each martyr's story. Knowledge of just
a few letters, or of someone who knew someone addressed by a letter, may
have produced a sense of inclusion in the Protestant community; as an
icon or symbol of this inclusion, the Acts and Monuments shaped and
solidified both individual and collective identities.

In many ways, then, the Acts and Monuments appropriates and attempts
to surpass an older. Catholic tradition of written copia. Moreover, Foxe's
prodigious collation makes its case in part by the scope and literal weight
of the material he collects: the book persuades by overwhelming its
audience with what he calls the "full and complete story." A smaller
example of this form of appropriation may be found in Foxe's "Kalender,"
a year-long list of martyr's days re-shaped from books of saint's days such
as the Golden Legend. Unlike his Catholic precedents, Foxe has occupied
every day of the year with at least one martyr, some with as many as five.
Not only has Foxe filled every space left open by earlier. Catholic
calendars, but he has multiplied considerably the number of Protestant
"saints" as well. More often than not, according to Helen White, the day
of death does not conform to the day of commemoration in The Kalendar,
suggesting that Foxe's primary interest is precisely in filling all spaces with
his copia of martyrolatry rather than paying tribute to a few individuals.^^
Protestant copia persuades by leaving little space for an alternative.

A final observation on the volume and prolixity oîihQActs and Monuments
concerns the unavoidable repetitiveness within and among its various
"genres." The examinations of the martyrs by Catholic authorities, for
example, revolve around only a few central arguments repeated several
times in the same examination, and repeated countless times in the long
course of Foxe's many transcriptions. Additionally, the same issues appear

392 / Renaissance and Reformation

in the letters written by the martyrs, as well as in Foxe's own narrations.
With a few notable exceptions, even the scenes at the stake soon begin to
resemble one another almost indistinguishably. The Acts and Monuments
cannot have been read or heard as a linear narrative progressively
imparting new information or events; the outcome of these stories was
probably already known through other sources, and certainly known to
anyone who had read at least one of Foxe's accounts before. Thus, it is
not so much what happens or what is said, but how often it is repeated.
Other martyrologies, which may have competed with Foxe's for the newly
developing "market," may be distinguished from his largely by their
brevity. Thomas Brice's "A compendious Register in metre" (1559) seeks
popular success and royal patronage (nearly all of its stanzas end, "We
wished for our Elizabeth"), but was never re-printed. Brice covers the
duration of Mary's reign and is overtly nationalistic, but his poem is really
only a list of martyrs without elaboration.^^ The same may be said for
Robert Crowley's Epitome of Chronicles (1559), prompting one historian to
observe: "Both Brice and Crowley went immediately to press with the
information then available and their books include few details, whereas
Foxe prints or otherwise uses official documents about the martyrs in scores
of cases, and occasionally mentions this practice explicitly."^^

Warren Wooden explains this stylistic and structuring practice as follows:
"Foxe identified the key themes of the Reformation and hammered them
home through the repetition of illustration after illustration until the most
dull-witted reader could not fail to absorb the pivotal differences between
Protestantism and Catholicism along with the central props for Protestant
belief."^^ In this passage. Wooden assumes that an audience that requires
repetition is necessarily deficient, as if they were not able to "get it" the first
time. Instead, I suggest that the use of repetition in sixteenth-century texts
such as the^c/5 and Monuments' operates not simply to inform the illiterate.
In a later section of this essay, I will explore repetition as an aspect of the
text's investment in perceiving history as cyclic rather than linear. For the
moment, it is important to note that repetition enables Foxe to heap his
stories and documents on top of each other in an effort to amass an entire
Protestant "state" of texts in his book, from royal proclamations to village
conversations. Just as each open space of "Kalendar" must be occupied by
the name of a Protestant exemplar in order to expel, replace and "keep out"
Catholic saints, the Acts and Monuments fills its pages and the minds of its
audience with Protestant copia.

Renaissance et Réforme / 393

m

"The Witness of Times, the Light of Verity, the life of Memory"^

The art of memory, according to Frances Yates, declines in the sixteenth
century from a position of central importance to a relatively obscure practice
sustained mostly by hermetic philosophers such as Giordano Bruno. Yates
believes that the printed book largely supplanted the need for artificial
memory, presumably because so much more information could now be
stored readily in texts as opposed to the fallible mind.^^ Since memory
systems had been largely dependent on mental images (following the
classical precedents of Cicero, Quintilian and the Ad Herennium\ another
reason for their decline is perhaps the broadly construed impact of
Reformation iconoclasm; the new, Ramist method, for example, replaces
images with abstract, dialectical analysis and thus "provided a kind of inner
iconoclasm, corresponding to the outer iconoclasm.' And yet, the need
for memory as a way of imprinting lasting ideas and images upon individual
consciences can rarely have been more valuable than in a text such as the
Acts and Monuments. The text's construction of powerful verbal images in
many ways serves this purpose. By repeating images and ideas in writing,
Foxe avoids the charge of idolatry and yet still accomplishes one of the
functions of the book: to impress indelibly upon his audience those beliefs
and events central to forging an English, Protestant collective and individ-
ual identity.

In his dedicatory epistle to Queen Elizabeth from the 1563 edition of the
Acts and Monuments, Foxe offers an explanation of the Catholic opposition
to his project: "these Catholic Phormiones think now to dash out all good
books, and, amongst others also, these Monuments of Martyrs: which godly
martyrs as they could not abide being alive, so neither can they now suffer

their memories to live after their death "^^ Catholics sought to destroy

copies oiûit Acts and Monuments because they feared its success in "writing"
(or re-writing) the "memories" of the book's audience; at the same time,
Foxe recognizes this as precisely the effect of his book. In this passage to
Elizabeth, the Catholic position appears to have already granted to the^cte
and Monuments the capacity to alter textually the contents of human
memory, and thus, of course, the past This concession can only be possible
once the printing press allows the written word to be reproduced at a
dramatically higher rate, consequently promoting thfc kind of repetitiveness
I have described above. In this way, Foxe displaces memory based on images
with a memory system based on textual duplication and repetition. In fact.

394 / Renaissance and Reformation

Foxe believes that printing was a gift from God so "that tongues are known,
knowledge groweth, judgement increaseth, books are dispersed, the Scrip-
ture is seen, the doctors be read, stories be opened, times compared, truth
discerned, falsehood detected ..." (Ill, 720). With the enlistment of God,
Foxe "naturalizes" his medium of representation as if to suggest that his
newly "written" memory and past are not representations at all."^ And of
course, this will be exactly the "mythology" of his history according to
Protestantism: Foxe has not constructed a past but only revealed the "true"
one.

For these reasons, Foxe is pre-eminently concerned to establish the
historical accuracy of his narrative. The Acts and Monuments is consequently
packed with overt claims and less overt strategies designed to legitimate
Foxe's account of the distant past (including early church history), as well
as his transcriptions of recent events describing the Marian martyrs; by
these practices, the text persuades while claiming only to reveal. As in so
many Renaissance texts that engage in a similar practice, Foxe's own
ideological offering is presented as if it were the revelations of God, merely
"discovered" by the mortal author: "Yea, what have you [the Catholic
Church] ever done so in secret and in comers, but the Lord hath found it
out, and brought it to light. ""^^ According to Foxe, the "true" church of God
has remained invisible since the days of the apostles, and God has only
recently decided - in part through the medium of the Acts and Monuments
- to make it "so visible again that every worldy eye may perceive it.""*^ This
is only one example of the self-legitimating circularity found in all
apocalyptic writings, including the Bible: texts legitimate history just as
history legitimates texts.

This explains the apparently paradoxical fact that, even though God is
revealing "true" history in the Acts and Monuments, Foxe nevertheless goes
to great lengths to assert the "objective" accuracy of his account:

You must consider . . . if you will be a controller in story-matters, it is not
enough for you to bring a railing spirit, or a mind disposed to carp and
cavil where any matter may be picked: diligence is required, and great
searching out of books and authors, not only of our time, but of all ages.
And expecially where matters are touched pertaining to the Church, it
is not sufficient to see what 'Fabian' or 'Hall' saith; but the records must
be sought, the registers must be turned over, letters also and ancient
instruments ought to be perused, and authors with the same compared:
finally, the writers amongst themselves one to be conferred with another,
and so with judgement matters are to be weighed; with diligence to be

Renaissance et Réforme / 395

laboured; and with simplicity, pure from all addition and partiality, to
be uttered an376-77)

That Foxe could claim to be "pure from all addition and partiality" and
yet still believe he is essentially speaking for God seems stikingly contra-
dictory to a twentieth-century, secular perspective where religions are
understood as competing ideologies. However, such a perspective is only
just emerging in the middle of the sixteenth century; for early Protestants
such as Foxe, it must be remembered, there are only two religions (and any
deviations are fit into one or the other): the true one and the false. This
dualism is the basis for apocalyptic thinking, and it pervades the Acts and
Monuments just as it did the work of John Bale, one of Foxe*s important
precedents."*^ Foxe does not think in pluralistic terms; in fact, he strongly
disputes charges that there is controversy within the Protestant camp. What
may appear contradictory from a secular perspective is perhaps a result of
the unique historical moment in which Foxe wrote: for the first time, "God's
revelations" needed to be argued on the basis of historiographical impar-
tiality.

The quotation cited above reveals Foxe's belief that the historian must
rely on original sources and documents. In fourteen separate points, each
carefully based on sources from Eusebius to Luther, for example, Foxe
argues that the Donation of Constantine - critical to Protestants because it
provided the basis for the authority of the Pope - "agreeth not with the
truth of history" (I, 301-303). In another controversial point of history, Foxe
cites several documents to prove that Christianity was brought to Britain
by Joseph of Arimathea rather than by Augustine, thus freeing England
from any ancient derivation from Rome (I, 305-309). When earlier histori-
ans present accounts agreeable to Foxe, he reprints their texts without
editorial additions, relying on the fact that they are chronologically closer
to the events they describe for legitimation. On the other hand, Polydore
Vergil and Edward Hall need to be corrected: "For the confirmation
whereof, to the intent the mind also of the wrangling caviller may be
satisfied, and to stop the mouth of the adversary, which I see in all places
ready to bark. I have, therefore, of purpose annexed withal my ground and
foundation, taken out of the archives and registers of the Archbishop of
Canterbury: whereby may appear the manifest error both of Polydore, and
of Edward Hall ..." (Ill, 342). These examples only partially represent what
is a determined and constant effort at historical accuracy based on
documentation and source material.

396 / Renaissance and Reformation

This method explains in another fashion the reason for the remarkably
vast number of documents contained in the Acts and Monuments. For if
"truth" can be measured by documentation, then resolving the "truth" of
the Protestant church need not go any further than Foxe's book. In other
words, the inclusivity of the Acts and Monuments may be understood as an
attempt to write a history and to amass all those documents and sources
upon which that history is based. This provides another version of circular
legitimation: Foxe's version of history rests on the documents he collects
just as those very documents "prove" the "truth" of his historical narrative.

Another form of accuracy important to Foxe is in his descriptions of the
martyr's scene at the stake. Exiled in Strasbourg, Foxe could hardly have
witnessed these events, and yet he reports in careful detail facial expressions,
the responses of the crowd and the martyr's final words; at times, we even
learn what various participants were thinking. By a variety of narrative
strategies, Foxe seeks to collapse the inevitable mediation between the event
and its textual depiction in the Acts and Monuments. This desire to reproduce
the original event imitates the larger design of Foxe's history, which is, in
part, to reproduce the original purity of the apostolic church before its
corruption by Rome. A similar impulse occupies many Protestant, vernac-
ular translations of the Bible in which the claim is to circumvent the Latin
translation by producing "transparent" translations of the original Hebrew
and Greek. Likewise, the printing of cumbersome polyglot Bibles (featuring
Hebrew and Greek alongside the vernacular) appears to avoid the media-
tion of translation by making the ancient languages visually "equivalent"
to the vernacular on each page. In all of these cases, the impetus is the
belief that whatever is chronologically closest to the time of Christ must be
superior. Reproductions of the Word, the apostolic church and, in the case
of the scene at the stake, the crucifixion, consequently possess a great
investment in understanding their representations as unmediated reproduc-
tions. In the case of the Word, language is understood as plain and open
rather than allegorical; as for Foxe's depictions of martyrdom, the strategy
is that his own text fully reproduces the event.

And yet, the insistence that Foxe's narrative has indeed accomplished
this unmediated reproduction suggests that perhaps Foxe is less convinced
than he would have his audience believe. Similarly, Protestant translations
of the Bible claim to have revealed the original Word for all to read and
understand easily, yet at the same time they attach reams of supplementary
material informing readers as to what it meant The martyrs themselves
seem to have been aware of the importance of this form of accuracy since
many of them - if we are to believe Foxe - wrote detailed accounts of their

Renaissance et Réforme / 397

own persecutions up to the final moment. In order to legitimate his
"accurate" depiction of that moment, Foxe often adds comments such as
"To the text of the story we have neither added nor diminished, but, as we
have received it copied it out ..." (Ill, 249). Elsewhere, Foxe describes the
means by which the story came to him, but only to emphasize that he has
faithfully reproduced the original: "I received this story by the faithful
relation both in the French and English, of them which were there present
witnesses and lookers upon; but also have hereto annexed the true
supplication of the said inhabitants of Guernsey ..." (VIII, 230). Following
this account, Foxe writes an eight-page addendum entitled, "A Defence of
This Guernsey Story Against Master Harding," apparently a contemporary
detractor (VIII, 233-241). These examples represent only a few of the
similarly motivated narrative strategies by which Foxe seeks to represent
his own writing as transparent and thus "true" to the events he describes.
The question of historical accuracy has surrounded the Acts and Monu-
ments since its inception; opponents from the sixteenth century to Maitland
in the nineteenth have seized upon apparent discrepancies in Foxe's
documentation in order to condemn his book. It is generally agreed by less
partisan historiographers, beginning with Mozeley in 1940, that Foxe is
unusually (by Renaissance standards) reliable in citing and reproducing
his sources.^ True or not, it is at least certain that Foxe deeply wanted his
book to be perceived as objectively accurate in order to buttress his claim
to having written the "true" history of Christianity. "'What!' say they, 'where
was this church of yours before these fifty years?,"' the Catholic opposition
demanded, an opposition fully aware that their greatest strength was
centuries of visible tradition and history (I, 9). Foxe's response to this
question was to write and collect a "new" history so overwhelming in size,
scope and documented sources that it could claim to provide historical
legitimacy for a church only fifty years old.

IV

The Eternal Return

Foxe also responded to the question "Where was this church of yours before
these fifty years?" by asserting that "our church was, when this church of
theirs was not yet hatched out of the shell, nor did yet ever see any light"
(I, 9). Rather than conceding that the Protestant church was only a recent
development and thus without the legitimacy of historical precedent, Foxe
laid claim to the primitive church - by his count the first 600 years - as an
origin to which the English Reformation was merely returning. "In witness

398 / Renaissance and Reformation

whereof we have the old acts and histories of ancient time," argues Foxe,
"to give testimony with us, wherein we have institution of this our present
reformed church, are not the beginning of any new church of our own, but
the renewing of the old ancient church of Christ" (I, 9). The Acts and
Monuments allows its audience to "witness" the "testimony" of the primitive
church in order to provide "institution" for the sixteenth-century Anglican
church. At the same time, readers are asked to "witness" through Foxe's
textual re-enactment the martyrs scene at the stake, another "testimony" to
the "truth" of English Protestantism. In this way, the broad historical
narrative of the Acts and Monuments and the accounts of individual
martyrdom may be said to serve a similar function: sixteenth-century
Protestants could "imitate their [the martyrs'] death (as much as we may)
with like constancy, or their lives at the least with like innocency,' just as
the English church should imitate the purity and innocence (before Rome's
corruption) of the primitive church.

By representing itself as a return to an earlier state rather than as an
unprecedented transformation, the English church at this young stage of
Elizabeth's reign could hope to avoid the destabilizing effects of the
Reformation that the German states, for example, had experienced; cer-
tainly this vision of history reinforces many "conservative" aspects of the
Elizabethan Compromise. Additionally, one can sense in this formulation
the convergence of English Protestantism and the general humanistic
tendency to make sense of the present by discovering classical precedents.
In Foxe's account, the principle of "history-as-retum" dominates his
narration and may have served additionally as a cognitive principle for
those martyrs who so willingly imitate Christ, the original martyr, at the
stake. "In summe," writes Foxe, "to geve thee one generall rule for all, this
thou shalt observe, the higher thou goest upwarde to the Apostles time, the
purer thou shalt finde the church: the lower thou does descend, ever the
more dross and dregges thou shalt preceyve in the bottome, and especiallye
within these laste 500 yeares, accordinge to the trew sayinge of Tertullian:
quod primum, id recturm est, that which is the first, is right etc.'"*^ Foxe
conceives of diachrony in vertical terms: the earliest period is "higher" and
"purer" while the most recent is understood as the "bottome." This is a
conception of history in which diachrony is understood as a continuing fall
from God, or at least from the time of Christ, God's temporal incarnation
on earth: the further one is from the "Apostle's time," the "lower thou does
descend." In the opposite direction, the reverse of sequential time is
presented as an ascension, a return to an originally pure state. Both the

Renaissance et Réforme / 399

historical narrative of the Acts and Monuments and the individual act of
martyrdom are governed by this conception of a return; reproduction and
imitation of a higher, antecedent figure (Christ) or historical period (the
apostolic church) is perceived as the means of this return.

The political importance of this conception of history can hardly be
overestimated in the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, for it touched upon
every critical issue surrounding the legitimacy of the Anglican church and
the authority of its secular governor. In a series of heated exchanges between
John Jewel and the Catholics John Rastell and Dr. Cole (Marian Dean of
St. Paul's) among others, the debate went on through the first half of the
sixties and became known as the "Great Controversy.'"*^ Jewel's famous
"Apology of the Church of England" was the central document of this
controversy. Printed in Latin in 1563, one year before the first English
edition of the Acts and Monuments, the "Apology" may well have been the
source of Foxe's emphasis on imitating and reproducing the primitive
church. "We are come," wrote Jewel, "as near as we possibly could, to the
church of the apostles and of the old Catholic bishops and fathers; which
church we know hath hitherunto been sound and perfite, and, as TertuUian
termeth it, a pure virgin, spotted as yet with no idolatry, nor with any foul
or shameful fault. '"^^ As Catholic disputants pointed out, the Anglican
position appeared to sustain a contradiction by claiming the tradition of
the primitive church as an historical precedent for the idea of a church
hierarchy, on the one hand, and insisting on the doctrine of sola scriptura,
on the other. Rastell argued specifically that the 600 year end of the primitive
church was arbitrarily chosen; the Anglicans rejected all tradition and
custom since that date, yet embraced the legitimation of tradition that
preceded it. This provided a kind of solution to the vexing charge that there
was no basis in scripture for the authority of clergy, and even less for a
secular leader of the church such as Elizabeth. In fact, this was the Anglican
argument for some of the most powerful attacks made against Rome. The
value of promoting the primitive church was that it could be used to
legitimate "state religion" (Elizabeth is often compared to Constantine), to
claim an early tradition while disavowing Catholic tradition, and still to
assert exclusive access to the pure, original Word.

The idea of "history-as-retum" also allowed for a conceptual model of
circularity in which the "truth" of present events was dependent on the
historical events of the apostles, and vice-versa. A martyr's death, for
example, could only be understood in its relation to Christ's original
martyrdom; at the same time, the meaning of Christ's suffering was revealed
to those who witnessed the martyr's suffering, or who read about it in the

400 / Renaissance and Reformation

Acts and Monuments. This kind of self-legitimating circularity is frequently
a part of an apocalyptic tradition in which biblical prophecy and history
are entwined in a relationship of mutual fulfillment. According to Foxe,
"the book of Revelation — as it containeth a prophetical history of the
church, so likewise it requireth by histories to be opened.""*^ In more secular
matters, biblical prophecy explaining Mary's sterility and the poor harvests
during her reign, the preservation and accession of Elizabeth, as well as for
nearly every event and epoch since the time of the apostles, were easily
found and triumphantly acclaimed in the pages of the^^cr^ and Monuments. ^^
Perhaps the success of Foxe's book was partially due to the fact that his
massive text contains both history and revelation, both recent events and
their ancient precedents, thus affording an opportunity in the same
narration to realize the fulfillment of what had earlier been prophesied. By
engaging circularity as a dominant structure, and history as a return to the
original, the Acts and Monuments itself uses circularity as a persuasive
device: its ideology is hidden behind a veil of historical inevitability.

V

"Give me your body and I will give you meaning,
I will make you a name and a word in my discourse."

One can find another version of self-validating circularity in the descrip-
tions of the scenes at the stake, and it is with this aspect of the Acts and
Monuments that I will conclude this essay. The elements in this circular
formulation are belief, by which I mean the broad Protestant and nation-
alistic ideology that the text promotes and serves, and action, understoodas
the act of dying at the stake. In a phrase, this formulation operates as
follows: belief generates action, and action generates belief. The new faith
was given visible, corporeal corroboration by every martyr who went to the
stake; at the same time, those who died were buttressed and authenticated
by Protestant doctrine. Besides its historical narrative, the Acts and Monu-
ments includes textualizations of beliefs and of actions. The examinations,
letters and doctrinal disputes - although they are actions in another sense
- articulate repetitiously Protestant belief; and the descriptions of burning
at the stake constitute the most profound form of human action within that
belief system. In its collation, printing and dissemination, the Acts and
Monuments is the catalytic force behind this mutually validating circularity
between what I have termed 'action' and 'belief

This explains the text's increasing "momentum" as it swelled from a fairly
obscure Latin edition of 732 pages in 1559 to the massive double folio

Renaissance et Réforme / 401

edition of 1570. In fact, the earliest "version" of the work would have to be
Foxe's brief history of the Lollards (1554) or the reports of Marian
persecution collected by Edmund Grindal beginning in 1553.^^ John Bale
was probably responsible for initiating the Protestant fascination with
martyrs in his accounts of the martyrdoms of Anne Askew and Sir John
Oldcastle printed under Edward, both of which became sources of Foxe's
accounts.^^ Once the impact of the martyr's stories as a way of shaping an
English Protestant "identity" was realized, the Marian burnings were
evidently perceived as a very popular subject. Other martyrologies, as I have
briefly noted above, include Thomas Brice's "A compedious Register in
metre" (1559), which points out exuberantly that the martyrs, having
ascended into heaven, "are now clothed in white garments of innocency,
with crowns of consolation, and palms of victory in [their] hands, following
the Lamb wherever He goeth!"^"^ The Acts and Monuments of 1563 over-
whelms all of these earlier models and is itself overwhelmed by Foxe's
exhaustive collection of 1570. Nor does this pattern of textual generation
end with those editions produced by Foxe; indeed, as Ernst B. Oilman has
written, "the longer the text grows through its successive editions, the greater
the number of faithful who are heaped on the faggots - as if, with his
materials being constantly consumed, Foxe had constantly to add new fuel
to his narrative fire."^^ Oilman's comment implicitly suggests that written
accounts of martyrdom may have engendered further martyrdoms in the
act of recording them. In other words, once a rhetoric of martyrdom became
widely known, these stories became "conduct books" on how Protestants
should live and die. Virtually every argument against the Papacy could be
found, as well as a number of nearly identical final performances at the
stake. The burnings had ended by the time the Acts and Monuments was
printed, but this engendering may very well have operated for nineteenth-
century martyrs who knew Foxe's book well. In the sixteenth century, it
seems likely that the earliest printed accounts of the Marian burnings -
perhaps not yet collected - would have been circulated and thus become
prototypical for those who followed. From Foxe's accounts, at least, it
appears as if each of the martyrs from St Stephen to the present had read
the same conduct book and followed it closely: the gestures, expressions
and last words at the stake are strikingly familiar and repetitive of one
another. While there are exceptions - notably in the story of the woman
who gave birth at the stake - this sameness is probably the result of previous
models and of Foxe's desire to collapse differences in his accounts; that is,
to make the scenes at the stake appear to be repetitions of the same. This
repetition serves the function of connecting the present to the original: in

402 / Renaissance and Reformation

this case the original martyrdom of Christ, described along with the
primitive church at the outset of the Acts and Monuments. Just as the
governing structure of history may be thought of as a circular return in
which the Anglican church reproduces the primitive church, the Marian
martyrs "ascend" back in history by imitating the earliest martyrdoms. This
"ascension" was thus conceived as a return to "purity" (recalling quotations
from Foxe and Jewel above) on an individual as well as collective level: the
deaths of the martyrs validated the existence of the church, and the existence
of the church gave meaning and structure to the deaths of the martyrs.

For these reasons the final moment - the moment of "ascension" - is of
great importance to Foxe and, in a different way, to Catholic authorities.
For at that moment, either side could find supporting evidence for that
particular meaning which they had already assigned to the scene at the
stake. Catholic authorities possessed only the visible power to manipulate
and punish the body; their design, presumably, was that this manipulation
would be enough to deter heresy in others. So resolutely did Catholics insist
on their control over the heretical body that several Protestants who had
died previously were exhumed and publicly burned (VII: 258, 283). But, as
Stephen Greenblatt has remarked, "it is preeminently when his body is
subjected to torment that the obstinate heretic is most suffused with the
conviction that his soul is inviolable."^^ Without control over the visible
operations performed on their own bodies, the martyrs seized their invisible
and thus inviolable souls as the basis for a symbolics of power. In this
fashion, Protestants could wrest from their Catholic tormentors the ability
to direct the meaning of the execution in order to enlist the moment of
death as supreme evidence of the "truth" of their beliefs.

And yet, nothing that remains invisible can perform this kind of
ideological function; consequently, the martyrs require some visible gesture
in the final moments that would assure the audience that their souls had
indeed transcended corporeal punishment. Whether or not these gestures
were actually performed cannot be ascertained, but we can be sure that
Foxe articulated them very assiduously in the Acts and Monuments. In his
historical narrative Foxe has claimed to "make visible" the formerly
invisible "true church"; now, in his accounts of the final moment, the "truth"
of the martyr's soul is visibly apparent in Foxe's textualizations. Rawlins
White, for example, is quoted as announcing at the stake: "I feel a great
fighting between the flesh and the spirit, and the flesh would very fain have
his swinge; and therefore I pray you, when you see me any thing tempted,
hold your finger up to mc, and I trust I shall remember myself (VII, 32).
In this struggle between "the flesh and the spirit," White re-enacts the

Renaissance et Réforme / 403

difference between Catholic and Protestant attempts to define and impose
meaning on the event: knowing he will die. White (or Foxe) equates his
"flesh" with Catholic oppression, and his ability to "remember himself
with the Protestant cause.

The unique function of language - both written and spoken - in
Protestant self-representation thus becomes apparent in the scene at the
stake and in Foxe's textualizations of these events. In a phrase, language
could be both visible and invisible, both equated to the soul and capable
of dissemination among the Protestant community at the same time. A
glance at the final moments of Christopher Wade, as reported by Foxe, may
assist in elaborating this important point:

Then the reeds being set about him, Wade pulled them, and embraced
them in his arms, always with his hands making a hole against his face,
that his voice might be heard, which they perceiving that were his
tormentors, always cast faggots at the same hole, which, notwithstanding,
he still, as he could, put off, his face being hurt with the end of a faggot
cast thereat Then fire being put unto him, he cried unto God often, 'Lord
Jesus! receive my soul;' without any token or sign of impaticncy in the
fire, till at length, after the fire was once thoroughly kindled, he was
heard by no man to speak. . . . (VII, 320-21)

Wade literally appropriates the means of his own execution (the "reeds")
in order to fashion a mouthpiece for his speech. By continuing to speak
to the crowd and to exhort them with his anti-Catholic rhetoric (which
Foxe records) while he is burning, the Word appears to compete with the
corporeal power of the Catholics. Wade's speech becomes a visible (or
audible) sign that his soul has triumphed over his body, thus assuring a
symbolic victory for his own cause. The Word is invisible inasmuch as it
is equated with the soul, yet "visible" as it persuades the crowd and shapes
the meaning of the event. Catholic authorities, in the sequence above,
attempt to silence Wade by stuffing his mouthpiece with faggots, relying
on the very means of their power. If they successfully silence Wade, it will
be understood as a victory of physical coercion over verbal persuasion.

Inevitably, Wade and every other martyr will be silenced at the stake,
their Word finally put out. Unable to let this conclusion remain, Foxe
concludes his account of Wade with the following postscript: "This sign
did God show upon him, whereby his very enemies might perceive, that
God had, according to his prayer, showed such a token upon him, even to
their shame [and] confusion. And this was the order of this godly martyr's
execution: this was his end; whereby God seemed to confound and strike

404 / Renaissance and Reformation

with the spirit of dumbness the friar, that locust whicli was risen up to have
spoken against him" (VII, 321; my emphasis). The friar is silenced as the
Word (and Wade's soul) ascends or returns to its origin. The fmal, visible
victory of the Word is precisely in the^^cr^ and Monuments itself; Wade may
have been silenced, but his speech is perpetuated and disseminated in
Foxe's textualization.^^

So often in Foxe's accounts, the martyrs die with a book in their hands,
reading their last words from the Bible. And Foxe repeatedly places the
martyr's letters sequentially after his description of their executions in his
narrative. Both gestures suggest a transformation from physical body into
text, motivated by, as Michel deCerteau writes, "the obscure desire to
exchange one's flesh for a glorious body, to be written, even if it means
dying, and to be transformed into a recognized word."^^ Just as the
dominant strategy of Protestantism in general is to return to the Word, the
Protestant martyr is transformed from his own corporeality into the logos
made immortal by texts such as the Acts and Monuments.

Swarthmore College

1 Warren Wooden, 7o/j/j Foxe (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), p. 111.

2 For accounts of the textual history o( the Acts and Monuments, see the following: Wooden,
John Foxe, pp. 93-104; William Haller, 77»^ Elect Nation: The Meaning and Relevance of
Foxe's Book of Martyrs (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), passim; D. M. Loades, The
Oxford Martyrs (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), pp. 20-36.

3 V. Norskov Olsen, John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church (Berkeley: Univ. of California,
1973), pp. 197-219. Certainly there are some obscure exceptions to this observation,
including Bruce L. Shelley, The Cross and the Flame: Chapters in the History of Martyrdom
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1967).

4 J. F. Mozeley, John Foxe and His Book (1940; reprint éd., London: Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, 1970).

5 Helen C. White, Tudor Books of Saints and Martyrs (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin, 1963),
p. 322.

6 See Haller, The Elect Nation.

1 Loades, 77»^ Oxford Martyrs, p. 36.

8 John Sivyiit, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1824).
"Charles Dodd" is apparently a pseudonym for Hugh Tootel, The Church History of
England (London, 1732).

9 Quoted in Wooden, /o/in Foxe, p. 109.

10 George Townsend, "Answers to Objectors," Preface to John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments,
ed. Stephen R. Cattley, 8 vols. (1837-1841; reprint éd.. New York: AMS Press Inc, 1965),
p. 167. Cattley based his text on the 1583 edition, but included parts of other editions as
well. References to the main body of the Acts and Monuments will be from this edition
and incorporated into the text.

Renaissance et Réforme / 405

11 Townsend, "Answers to Objectors," p. 168 (his emphasis).

12 Quoted in Wooden, 7o/j/i Foxe, p. 100.

13 Loades, 77»^ Oxford Martyrs, p. 269.

14 Leslie M. Oliver, "The Seventh Edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments," The Papers
of the Bibliographical Society of America 37 (1943), pp. 243-60. See also Haller, The Elect
Nation, pp. 227-28.

15 Although Strype wrote that the text was required to be "enjoined to be set up ... in all
parish churches," there is no extant document to that effect, although there are
requirements for the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, and the homilies. A liberal estimate
of the likely number of copies for all of the Elizabethan editions suggests that only half
the parish churches - and this does not include those who owned private copies - could
have kept a copy; see Leslie M. Oliver, "The Seventh Edition," pp. 245-48.

16 J. W. Martin, "A Sidelight on Foxe's Account of the Marian Martyrs," Bulletin of the
Institute of Historical Research, 58 (1985), 249.

17 Harpsfield's Dialogi Sex (Antwerp: 1566) is noted in Haller, The Elect Nation, p. 166.

18 Quoted in Loades, The Oxford Martyrs, p. 31.

19 Noted in Loades, 77»^ Oxford Martyrs, p. 31.

20 See Wooden, John Foxe, pp. 97-98.

21 Foxe's Book of Martyrs, or A History of the Lives. Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the
Primitive Protestant Martyrs (New York: R. Worthington, 1884).

22 These publications are discussed in Wooden, /oAn Foxe, p. 1(34.

23 According to the MLA's Center for Scholarly Editions, "it is frequently true that an
author's completed manuscript, or - when the manuscript does not survive - the earliest
printed edition based on it, reflects the author's intentions more fully than later editions
or transcripts, in which printers' or copyists' corruptions are likely to have multiplied;
in such cases, an editor producing a critical text would choose the early copy-text and
emend it to correct erroneous readings . . . ," quoted in Jerome J. McGann, A Critique of
Modem Textual Criticism (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1983), p. 7.

24 McGann, A Critique, passim.

25 Wooden, John Foxe, p. 1 10.

26 This is the estimation of Ernest B. Oilman, Iconoclasm and Poetry in the English
Reformation (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1986), p. 46.

27 Haller, The Elect Nation, p. 249.

28 Haller, 77»^ Elect Nation, p. 9.

29 This is my own inference based on the picture of literacy presented in David Cressy,
Literacy and the Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1980).

30 The book would seem to have this status when it is held, for example, by martyrs at the
stake. See the discussion of the martyr James Bainham in Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance
Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1980), pp. 74-87,
92-110.

31 This distribution is based on the edition of Stephen R. Cattley cited above, VII, 143-286.
Bradford's story is considerably longer than most, but the sequence and distribution
represents most of Foxe's accounts.

32 Foxe's "Kalendar" is reprinted in Cattley, éd., vol. I, n. pag. Foxe's desire to fill every
date produces some obscure entries, such as "Thre dyed in pryson in Cicester," (29

406 / Renaissance and Reformation

October). For a brief discussion of the "Kalendar," see Helen C. White, Tudor Books, pp.
136-37.

33 Thomas Brice, ^4 compedious Register in metre (1559), in A. F. Pollard, éd., Tudor Tracts.
1532-1588 (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1964), pp. 269-85.

34 J. W. Martin, "A Sidelight," p. 249.

35 Wooden, Preface to John Foxe, n. pag.

36 John Foxe, "To the True and Faithful Congregation of Christ's Universal Church"
Preface to The Acts and Monuments (1563 éd.), in Cattley, éd., p. xix.

37 Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1966), p. 127, passim.

38 See Yates, The Art of Memory, pp. 234-35, and Walter Ong, Ramus. Method and the Decay
of Dialogue (Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 1958).

39 John Foxe, "To the Right Virtuous, Most Excellent, and Noble Princess, Queen
Elizabeth," dedication of The Acts and Monuments (1563 éd.), in Cattley, éd., p. vii.

40 By this practice, Foxe may be said to utilize a post-printing-press version of classical
mnemonic systems in which his representation is more accurately presented as if it were
a reproduction. According to Richard Terdiman, memory-as-reproduction "tends toward
defeat of the transformative effects of social time," consistent with Foxe's general effort
to present the English church not as new and different but as a return to something prior.
See Richard Terdiman, "Deconstructing Memory: On Representing the Past and Theo-
rizing Culture in France Since the Revolution," Diacritics 15 (1985), p. 29.

41 John Foxe, "To the Persecutors of God's Turth, Commonly Called Papists," Preface to
The Acts and Monuments (1563 éd.), in Cattley, éd., p. xiii.

42 John Foxe, "To the True and Faithful," p. xix.

43 Foxe's model appears to have been John Bale's The image of bot he churches (1550). For
a discussion of Bale and his influence on Foxe, see Paul Christianson, Reformers and
Babylon (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto, 1978), and Haller, The Elect Nation, p. 63.

44 See F. J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought (San Marino, California: The Huntington Library,
1967), pp. 103-04, and John King. English Reformation Literature: the Origins of the
Protestant Tradition (Princeton: Princeton Univ., 1982), p. 437.

45 John Foxe, "The Utility of This Story," Preface to The Acts and Monuments (1563 éd.), in
Cattley, éd., p. xxvii.

46 Quoted in White, Tudor Books, pp. 170-71.

47 For discussions of this controversy, see: A. C. Southern, Elizabethan Recusant Prose.
1559-1582 (London, 1950), pp. 60-66, and Levy, Tudor Historical Thought, pp. 105-14.

48 John Jewel, "An Apology of Answer in Defence of the Church of England," in The Works
of John Jewel. Bishop of Salisbury, Parker Soc., ed. John Ayre (Cambridge: The Univ. Press,
1849), p. 100.

49 John Foxe, "To All the Professed Friends and Followers of the Pope's Proceedings,"
Preface to The Acts and Monuments (1570 ed.) in Cattley, éd., p. xxx.

50 This is the presiding argument of Haller, The Elect Nation.

51 This is Michel de Certeau's paraphrase of one who would "find in a discourse the means
of transforming themselves into a unit of meaning, into an identity." See his richly
suggestive chapter, "The Scriptural Economy," in The Practices of Everyday Life, trans.
Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1984); the quotation is found on page
149.

Renaissance et Réforme / 407

52 Foxe's Latin history of the Lollards was published from Strasburg in 1554 under the title
Comment arii Rerun in Ecclesia Gestarum.

53 John Bale's First Examinaycon of Anne Askew (1548), Lattre Examinaycon of Anne Askew
(1547) and/< Briefe Chronicle Concerning John Oldcastle (\54S) provided the basis for Foxe's
accounts of these martyrs.

54 Brice, "A compedious Register in metre," p. 261.

55 Oilman, Iconoclasm and Poetry, p. 46.

56 Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, p. 80.

57 The penultimate line of Foxe's narrative on the martyrdom of Rawlins White feads: "the
chief cause of his trouble, was his opinion touching the sacrament of the altar" (VII, 33).
The martyr's statements on the issue of the Eucharist was a touchstone of Catholic
examinations. The Anglican position was that Christ's body held only a symbolic
presence rather than an actual one, an opposition that is reproduced in the struggle
between flesh and spirit at the stake.

58 deCerteau, The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 149.

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, La pensée religieuse d'Agrippa d'Aubigné et son
expression. Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, Université de Lille
III. Diffusion Didier Érudition, Paris, 1986, 2 vols.

Cette thèse de mille pages, fruit de longues études approfondies, dont nous avons
pu suivre le cours au fur et à mesure des publications de Madame Fragonard
sur la patristique, les idées religieuses et divers auteurs et aspects de la pensée à
la fin du XVI^ siècle, est une véritable mine de connaissances variées qui
précisent et modifient sur certains points l'image que nous avons d'Agrippa
d'Aubigné, mais qui nous apprenent encore plus peut-être sur la civilisation de
son époque. Une matière richement documentée et très complexe, embrassant
des domaines aussi divers que la kabbale et l'alchimie, le songe et les procès de
sorcellerie, etc., est difficile donc à maîtriser. L'auteur indique son dessein dans
sa Préface: son fil d'Ariane sera Vimage, l'ordre des investigations, celui du dogme,
et la méthode, celle de l'analyse sémantique du vocabulaire avec recours aux
relevés statistiques, et aux apports de l'intertextualité. Les Tragiques sont au centre
de cet examen; les autres textes du poète viennent nuancer le sens dégagé, tout
comme d'autres oeuvres contemporaines ou celles qui ont pu servir de sources.
"Au terme de telles explorations du sens, deux domaines de réflexion: l'aspect
mythique de la pensée d'Agrippa d'Aubigné et l'importance de ce qui s'attache
à la notion d'individu," conclut la Préface (p.48).

L'ordre est donc dogmatique: "Dieu, les créatures, leur chute et leur retour
vers Dieu" (p.47), ce qui correspond à peu près aux quatres grandes parties: La
Création à l'image de Dieu, La perte de l'image de Dieu, La restauration de l'image
de Dieu, Vers l'union totale. Mais cet ordre, en lui-même indifférent, entraîne aussi
un schéma dogmatique: il n'est plus question du "sentiment religieux" mais de
"la théologie de d'Aubigné," alors que M.-M. Fragonard elle-même est amenée
à constater "son indifférence à la construction théologique" (p.943 et passim).
Sa "christologie," sa "soterologie," son "ecclésiologie" se trouveront ainsi con-
stamment prises en faute, tour à tour "occultées," "minimisées" ou "minorées"
- et pour cause: il n'en a pas. Et ce sont alors les reproches du schéma au fjit
littéraire qui se révèle récalcitrant, à d'Aubigné lui-mêhie "dont les aptitudes à

la théologie paraissent faibles" (p.962) Isoler la "pensée religieuse" d'un poète

de l'ensemble de sa pensée est déjà une entreprise hasardeuse; la faire entrer
dans un schéma préétabli, dogmatique ou autre, est proprement impossible.
M.-M. Fragonard se heurte à chaque pas à cette difficulté qui ne lui échappe
nullement: tout au long de l'étude, on sent son intuition et son bon sens lutter
contre cette contrainte qu'elle s'est imposée.

Il en va de même de sa méthode, restrictive au possible, alors que les méthodes
plus largement ouvertes, plus complexes sont à l'ordre du jour partout. Une
analyse sémantique des occurrences lexicales, même faite à la lumière de

410 / Renaissance and Reformation

l'intertextualité, ne pourra jamais fournir que des résultats fragmentaires sans le
contexte socio-historique de la réalité contemporaine. Or, que relient M.-M.
Fragonard de son auteur? "Sa pensée, si possible; ses textes, certainement; et le
reste est à Dieu, qui seul le connaît ..." (p. 537). Ce "reste," c'est-à-dire tout le
vécu d'un individu, pleinement enraciné dans une époque, dans une collectivité.
Mais imagine-t-on une pensée qui n'aurait d'autres sources que livresques? La
théologie elle-même est un produit social. C'est donc toute la réalité contempora-
ine qui est résolument écartée. La fratricide de Caïn rappelle tout à l'auteur, sauf
les guerres civiles; celles-ci ne sont que "la retombée 'mondaine' d'une condition
établie par et pour la sumature"(p.396-397). Les Misères sont "un élément du
salut"(p.554), l'épisode des paysans meurtris "remplace un exposé sur la misère
métaphysique de rhomme"(p.555). On croirait pourtant entendre la protestation
de d'Aubigné: "Ici le sang n'est feint, le meurtre n'y défaut "

Heureusement, cette réalité chasssée par la porte revient à tout moment par
la fenêtre - au plus grand profit du livre et du lecteur. Que les relevés statistiques
(combien précaires! M.-M. Fragonard en est elle-même régulièrement décon-
certée . . . ) n'attestent que sept occurrences du Démon dans Les Tragiques,
n'empêche pas un chapitre des plus intéressants sur la démonologie à l'époque.
Deux occurrences de la rime voir-savoir corroborent une interprétation épisté-
mologique tout à fait nouvelle du dernier chant. "Nous pourrions nous éviter
un détour" sur le songe (p.866 sq), son vocabulaire "n'étant pas très abondant"
- dit M.-M. Fragonard, mais ce détour en vaut la peine. Comme les nombreux
autres aussi que ne justifient guère les relevés numériques. Ces incursions dans
la réalité de l'époque, si elles nuisent à la construction de la thèse qui donne par
là, bien plus que l'oeuvre de d'Aubigné, une impression de patchwork, sont aussi
les parties les plus intéressantes, une vraie mine d'informations diverses (et
quelque peu inégales, disons-le aussi; certains sujets, tels le baroque ou le genre
méditatif, auraient gagné à être approfondis - ou carrément laissés de côté).

L'apport le plus important de cette thèse est dû indiscutablement aux
recherches intertextuelles, notamment dans le domaine de la pensée médiévale
et patristique. Dans certains autres cas, le choix des "interlocuteurs" supposés
est moins convaincant: pourquoi F. Giorgio, plutôt que Du Bartas qui a fourni
le modèle de toute une série de "Créations'7 Rien de gratuit, en revanche, dans
les rapprochements avec la patristique, analyses approfondies et bien docu-
mentées, qui mettent à jour des sources inconnues de la pensée d'Agrippa
d'Aubigné, et comblent par là une lacune dans les recherches albinéennes.
L'intertextualité permet aussi de nuancer ce qu'on avait l'habitude d'appeler le
calvinisme du poète: l'auteur fait ressortir l'hétérodoxie de cette confession
personnelle qui s'inscrit dans "un protestantisme en cours de constitution"
(p.948). C'est un acquis important dont il nous faudra désormais tenir compte.

Malgré les réserves que nous avons cru devoir faire sur sa méthode, cette thèse,
riche, qui affortc des éléments nouveaux pour l'enquêter de l'oeuvre de d'Aubigné,
deviendra sans nul doute, et à juste titre, un point de référence obligé dans les études
seiziémistes.

KLARA CSÛRIS, Université de Budapest

Renaissance et Réforme / 41 1

Philip T. Hoffman. Church and Community in the Diocese of Lyon, 1500-1789.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. Pp. 239.

L'analyse de la tradition chrétienne, celle de la Réforme et de la Contre-Réforme
- qu'une fois pour toute on devrait rebaptiser la Réforme catholique - attire de
plus en plus l'attention des chercheurs intéressés à l'Ancien Régime. Le choix
du diocèse de Lyon répond au besoin de fixer nettement le portrait d'une
importante communauté ecclésiale.

L'étude bien documentée du Prof Hoffman aborde particulièrement le
problème de la Réforme sur le plan social: rôle du clergé et d'une élite laïque
urbaine, sollicités, après le concile de Trente, par le dynamisme d'agents
multiples, convaincus de la nécessité d'une forte discipline pour maintenir un
haut niveau de piété et de participation.

Principales sources de l'enquête: les testaments, les archives municipales et
communales, les dossiers des cours de justice, les archives diocésaines ou
paroissiales. Documentation qui révèle le rôle prépondérant du clergé paroissial,
intermédiaire culturel puissant, médiateur toujours au poste sur le plan de
l'institutionalisation de la Réforme, tant dans les villes que dans les villages. Ce
que l'enquête met ici en lumière est le rôle déterminant des laïcs, tant sur le plan
de la résistance à certaines formes d'expression de la culture populaire que sur
celui des efforts amorcés pour imposer la nouvelle discipline tridentine.

Au cours du XVI^ siècle s'est consolidée la collaboration entre le clergé
paroissial et l'élite urbaine de Lyon, ville de grand commerce, dominée par ses
classes marchandes. Peu à peu se sont multipliées les associations de toutes
sortes: guildes, fraternités, et groupes divers, dont le rôle a été très significatif
dans la vie sociale et religieuse de la cité. Au niveau des pefits marchands et des
artisans toutefois, ce clergé, même au temps de son dynamisme le plus grand
(au XVII^ siècle), demeurait exclus du territoire de la culture populaire. Bien que
Lyon fut un des grands centres du protestantisme français, le zèle du clergé local
gardait sa vigueur, et les ordres réguliers-missionnaires capucins, jésuites, etc. -
venaient répondre, à l'occasion, à la sollicitation des laïcs.

Dans les paroisses situées en dehors de la ville de Lyon, le milieur paysan
avait de plus étroites relations avec le clergé paroissial. Clergé souvent issu de
la localité, sans éducation ou formation théologique, mais en contact plus étroit
avec le village. Dispensateur des sacrements, dans un mond plus facilement
captivé par le geste et le rituel, le pouvoir étonnant d'une seule voix pouvait
facilement s'enfler au gré du charisme individuel, dans un vaste espace d'ig-
norance, que sacralisait subtilement le tintement redoutable et bienfaisant des
cloches. Aux jours de fcte, très nombreuses, il est ^ vrai, sons et couleurs
répondaient au senfiment communautaire exprimé dans la fête, surtout au temps
des processions.

A partir de 1560, la Réforme catholique prend son essor et bientôt manifestera
son étonnante vigueur, en particulier en ce qui concerne la discipline instaurée
par les décrets du concile de Trente. Hommes et femmes de grande sainteté de
vie - saint Vincent de Paul et les Filles de la Charité par exemple - donnèrent
l'exemple par le travail et la prière. L'intention des réformateurs était de

412 / Renaissance and Reformation

remodeler la culture populaire. Fondations, sermons, catéchismes, visites pasto-
rales, nouvelles associations et nouveaux séminaires, encouragés par les élites
laïques, donnèrent l'élan.

Une association particulièrement vigoureuse, le Compagnie du Saint-Sacre-
ment, patronnée par les plus hautes classes de la société, mit tout en oeuvre pour
renforcer la discipline, enfluencer les législateurs, entraver l'expression de la
culture populaire, appuyant le clergé dans son opposition aux festivals, danses,
charivaris, occasions de débauches.

En fait, l'Eglise du diocèse, comme ailleurs, en Italie en particulier, cherchait,
par la multiplicité des règlements, à maintenir une étroite séparation entre le
sacré et le profane. D'où ces prescriptions concernant la surveillance du clergé,
la musique d'église et la moralité sexuelle. On retrouve ici ce puritanisme
impitoyable dont on a hérité en Nouvelle-France. Notons toutefois que l'auteur
n'aborde pas le domaine de la casuistique héritée des moralistes espagnols. Il
suffit de retenir que même les authorités civiles exerçaient - à côté du clergé -
un sévère contrôle social: surveillance accrue des moeurs, répression de la
prostitution, du concubinage, des bains publics, de la nudité et même des festivals
populaires, considérés comme sources de désordres, sinon de sédition. Promoteur
de l'ordre public, la monarchie se trouvait pleinement d'accord avec ce que
proposait la spiritualité tridentine.

Au cours du XVIII^ siècle, grâce en particulier à l'influence des curés, se
multiplièrent les associations pieuses, comme celles du Rosaire, du Saint-Sacre-
ment, des Pénitents, du Scapulaire, de la Doctrine Chrétienne. La nouvelle
spiritualité catholique inspira d'importantes fondations, telles que les écoles
primaires, promises à un grand avenir. Ajoutons que, dans les associations
nouvelles - charités, confraternités, etc. - les femmes prenaient une part de plus
en plus active, surtout dans les campagnes.

Quelques questions à approfondir v.g. quel est le rôle de l'Eglise officielle du
temps - la cour de Rome, le clergé de France (assemblées du clergé, mandements
des évêques), les grands séminaires (St-Sulpice à Paris, Charles Borromée à
Milan, etc.) - dans la définition de la spiritualité française et dans l'aménagement
de la praxis pastorale au niveau d'un grand diocèse, sans doute modèle de
plusieurs autres?

ROBERT TOUPIN, Université Laurentienne

R.S. White. Let Wonder Seem Familiar: Endings in Shakespeare's Romance
Vision. New Jersey and London: Humanifies Press Inc., 1985. 203 p. $17.95.

Let Wonder Seem Familiar makes a useful contribution to Shakespearean
criticism. In it, Dr. R. S. White of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
examines the interrelated, evolutionary growth of romantic comedy and dram-
atized romance in the Shakespearean canon from The Comedy of Errors to The
Tempest. Analyzing the dramatist's brilliant adaptations of these modes, even in
tragedy, White traces the parallel influences of medieval and Greek romance.

Renaissance et Réforme / 413

discovering their impact even as early as The Comedy of Errors. White concludes
that "Shakespeare worries away for the rest of his writing career at the problem
of how to adapt into his dramatic endings the potential endlessness of romance"
(33).

Not surprisingly, White suggests that to some extent a Shakespearean ending
determines the shape and direction of the play. By studying the canon through its
romance endings, then. White emulates a man journeying in snow: a glimpse of
where Shakespeare has been signals not only where is going but where he must go.

The romance perspective of the "endless ending" allows White revisionary
insight into Shakespeare's dramatic method. He repositions the problem come-
dies more firmly in the house of romance, rehabilitates Pericles as a mistakenly
underrated play, and develops intriguing readings of other plays, such as All's
Well that Ends Weil and Tfie Tempest, through the perspective of the genre of
romance.

By tracing Shakespeare's evolving attitude toward romance, White advances
a biographico-generic explanation for troublesome changes in tone and effecting
the problem comedies. Moreover, he releases new meaning in the tragedies
through the 'perspective glass' of romance, labelling Troilus and Cressida satiric
tragedy and uncovering something rich and strange in the romance strains of
King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra. He sees Lear, for example, as "perhaps the
greatest non-comic dramatic romance" (8), and Antony and Cleopatra as romantic
tragedy embodying the comedies' belief that what the imagination sees can be
turned into personal truth.

While this approach is least effective with Tlie Tempest, it offers a disciplining
framework and rationale for enriched understanding of the hybrid nature of many
of Shakespeare's plays. For Shakespeare, White explains, romance is both a set of
conventions and formulae, and an outlook or point of view. In some ways, then.
White does for romance what A. P. Rossiter did for tragicomedy in Angel With
Horns. Through the route of perspective or point of view, both writers outline the
dimensions of what may be essentially a discrete dramatic mode in Shakespeare.

Taking direction from Frank Kermode's 1967 study Vie Sense Of An Ending,
White concludes that the most tricky problem of Elizabethan writers of romantic
comedy and dramatized romance lay "in ending the play in such a way that the
reader or audience feels the elegance of finality but does not lose the romance
sense of potential endlessness" (3). The aura of "potential endlessness," White
implies, characterizes Shakespeare's evolving use of the romance vision. Pure
romance assumes there will be no end, he reminds us, whereas "in drama -
especially Elizabethan drama - the slogan 'my end is in my beginning' is
insistent" (3).

The tension and mystery in Shakespeare's romantic plays, then may derive
partially from attempts to fuse contradictory impulses of finality and endlessness
into a simultaneous experience. Reviewing elements of the typical ending in
romantic comedy. White finds three basic characteristics: endlessness suspended
by the dramatic necessity for closure; implications of providential order, and a
sense of wonder frequently qualified by touches of sadness (19). Even in the
ubiquitous wedding of Elizabethan comedy. White finds "the meeting place of

414 / Renaissance and Reformation

short time and eternity" (20), a communal celebration simultaneously concluding
and beginning. In this familiar dramatic close. White identifies the inner
dynamic of romance: the attempt to "fuse comedy and tragedy, endlessness and
the sense of an ending" (20).

Through the history of early Elizabethan romantic comedy is hazy. White
believes it developed rapidly because of borrowings from the romance vision.
Where "Lyly is the master of the heavily qualified ending" (20), he notices,
Greene's endings are wholly festive. Apparently Shakespeare's comedies and
their endigns synthesize these two tendencies.

Paradoxically, White states, although Vie Comedy of Errors is built upon a
classical play, its ending "owes more to romance than to the hard-edged satire
of Plautus's Menaechmi. It is full of wonder, emotional reconciliation of a family,
and a sense of the improbable ..." (27). Later, White advances similar claims
for Vie Tempest, finding in the two earliest comedies seeds that blossom
wonderfully in the late romances (34). Subsequently, White labels Love's Labor's
Lost Shakespeare's first successful attempt to square moral problems with "the
necessity for an ending" (39). Whereas A Midsummer Night's Dream generates a
dream-like sense of overlapping endings. Much Ado About Nothing is the marriage
of romance and social realism.

Applying this romance perspective to the problem plays. White uncouples All's
Wells Viat Ends Well and Measure for Measure. In many ways, he believes All's
Well "points more surely to the later plays, while Measure for Measure looks back
- although critically - upon the form of comedy which Shakespeare has accepted
and used up to this point of his writing career" (68). Though he locates All's Well
more thoroughly in the genre of romance. White finds the conceptual heart of
Measure in "the prison," a metaphor for a range of constraints: political, religious,
legal, moral, and its target in authority of all kind. In All's WelL however, he
discovers a paradigm of the romance point of view: trust in the power of human
love, patience, and imagination, Shakespeare's "signal that such a position of
faith may be religious in the most comprehensive sense of the word" (87).

At the center of this survey, White argues that Shakespeare presents romance
and the sense of the happy ending "not as plot development but as beliefs, a
self-sufficient way of looking at, and eventually changing, the life around us"
(92). This opinion, and others like it, becomes both justification and basis for
White's analysis of the romance vision in Shakespearean tragedy. He begins,
naturally, with Romeo and Juliet, a play White sees as almost wholly romantic
in vision and conventions. Its tragic ending. White reasons, "partly reflects the
capacity of the romance writer to stop more or less whenever he likes" (96).

In the tragedies. White sees the romance vision as providing an elusive
alternative beckoning toward happiness. Antony and Cleopatra, for example,
presents the "unexpected triumph of romance and comedy over the worldly
finality of death" (2). Thus White reaffirms conclusions of recent commentators
on Shakespeare's cross-breeding of the superficially opposed modes of comedy
and tragedy: "Romance and satire are the true natural enemies, not comedy and
tragedy" (103). In Antony and Cleopatra, White suggests, Shakespeare regains
confidence in the romance vision as capable of investing value even in desperate

Renaissance et Réforme / 415

circumstances, and his last four plays, excepting perhaps Vie Tempest, build upon
this renewed faith (113).

Assessing the late plays. White labels Pericles Shakespeare's most universal
and serious romance and Cymbeline his most Jacobean (144). The strange and
moving beauty of Pericles, he states, must be judged through the perspective of
romance. As a near-perfect dramatic romance, Pericles is a "straightforward
revival of a mode extremely popular in the 1580s, and a revival which succeeds
where they failed" (116).

We learn from the romance vision of Pericles that "patience in adversity is a
supreme virtue, that despair is a sin, and that using the human capacities for
memory and hope, time and nature will arrange eventually for good to assert
itself over the forces of evil and of fortuitous calamity" (117). Here the central
metaphor is the sea, and man is confronted by the archetypal simplicity of
simultaneous death and birth. Through this timeless event enacted in time,
Shakespeare examines time and identity, the personal and collective past (126).

White is both convincing and provocative in discussing identity and past time.
In Pericles, for example, "each individual has been brought into living relation-
ship again with his or her own past and [that] in a strangely haunting way this
leaves each still in some sense alone, and separate" (126). This its action may
be seen as repetition dressed in the glow of the eternal present.

Cymbeline, by contrast, lacks its sacramental solemnity and metaphysical ambi-
tion. Despite many romance elements, character development threatens plot as
Cymbeline's key figures acquire reality normally associated with tragedy: a romantic
heroine too pragmatic, a romantic hero too morally dubious, and a villain too
attractive to remain fully subordinate to the romance vision. Though the dominant
mode of Cymbeline is romance, the play contains what White describes as "a
genuinely disturbing presentation of different versions of evil" (143).

Like others before him. White sees the pattern of Tlie Winter's Tale the familiar
shape of romance, oscillating between joy and disaster, with short and long time
built into the "endless ending" (145). This play carries us from an opening
glimpse of childhood innonccnce directly into a questioning and morally
ambiguous world of paradise lost (147), becoming for White an almost schematic
presentation of the "endless ending" and offering characters the possibility of
eluding the past by denying its existence.

Though acknowledging that romance is a "synthesizing genre" encompassing
a range of literary experiences normally isolated into other categories (143), White
generally resits the critic's temptation to find evidence everywhere. Except,
perhaps, in Vie Tempest, where his approach is less convincing and his
interpretation of some characters and events unpleasantly extreme. While
reiteriating that 77?^ Tempest is a montage of romance materials. White sees the
play as ambiguous in genre, a series of paradoxes: improbable yet naturalistic;
static yet in perpetual motion; ending yet beginning, fime-bound yet timeless;
morally simple yet equivocal and inconclusive (161-2). He sees in the play
tension derived from opposing pespectives, as an aloof classicism pulls against
romance elements.

416 / Renaissance and Reformation

With its central image the sea, 77?^ Tempest sustains fundamentally opposed
points of view: "intense moments encountered on the 'human shores' where
people are caught up in their own social, moral, and emotional involvements,
and simultaneously the 'eternal whisperings' of a vast amoral freedom which
tends to trivialize human experiences" (162). However, White's presentaion of
Ferdinand as profligate roué, Caliban as eloquently and truly generous, and
Prospero as too deeply associated with Antonio's evil is less easy to accept His
view of Caliban as a mirror of the dark side of Prospero: feelings of "sexual
desire, resentment, ad the bitter need for revenge and power" (166), fails to
incorporate the curative influence of past time and the sense of resolution and
forgiveness beginning the play.

For White, Prospero's mroal status is so highly ambiguous that he and his
motives possess an "lago-like opaqueness" (168). And his reading of Caliban
and Ferdinand remains contra-intuitive, foreign to typical audience reactions.
Like his magical isle. White claims, Prospero mirrors the faults and virtues of
those around him, though isolated by knowledge, experience, age, and time. "His
presence casts across the play a wash of tired nostalgia, and a melancholy
recognition of the poignant transience of life as of art" (168).

Obviously, White sees Vie Tempest as metadramatic, speaking cryptically of
the process of creativity ad the status of its own art Inevitably, he interprets Ariel
as the "limitless potential of the imagination harnessed briefly in shape and
form" (172). Logically, then, Prospero's "magic island of art" becomes a figure
for the play itself, as is Ariel whose creative inspiration fixes the ideal in the
permanence capable of teasing us out of thought

Despite the ambiguous tensions of this last romance, however, the critic cannot
have it both ways. Logically, 77?^ Tempest cannot be both reductively allegorical and
ambiguous and relative at the same time. Nor can it be simultaneously one fo
Shakespeare's greatest romances but also his most insistent anti-romance (174).

On balance. White's eloquent study of Shakespeare's use of romance sources,
motifs and attitudes portrays a dramatist probing the heart and essential nature
of his genre rather than simply reproducing dated conventions. Shakespeare in
fact harnesses the traditions and mode of romance as both the raw materials of
dramatic action and away for talking about and seeing that action. The
contribution of Let Wonder Seem Familiar, then, lies not only in recognition of
the need for judging Shakespearean transmogrified romance on its original terms
but in its individual readings of the later romances, the problem comedies, and
others mentioned above.

The seven chapters of this revised and expanded version of Shakespeare and
the Romance Ending (privately printed in 1981) offer a credible sense of
Shakespearean dramaturgy. Gracefully written, comprehensive and consistent,
it applies the discipline of a unified source perspective with little jargon and
elegant clarity. But for some half-dozen typographical errors, this excellent book
so rewards close study and rereading that we may find it a staple of the shelves
of Shakespearean criticism.

BARRY THORNE, Queen's University

News / Nouvelles

Journal of the History of Sexuality

This new English-language cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary scholarly
journal seeks to explore the full range of issues related to the history of sexuality,
including but not limited to gender studies, homosexuality, and feminist studies.
The Journal is published quarterly, beginning in Summer 1990, by the University
of Chicago Press with the support of Bard College. Original articles, review
essays, primary sources and book reviews will be featured; articles will be
peer-reviewed. For information and submissions, please write to John C. Fout,
Editor, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson,
New York 12504.

The Carolinas Symposium on British Studies 1990

The seventeenth annual Carolinas Symposium will be held at Appalachian
State University on 20-21 October 1990. The Symposium is an annual forum
for the exchange of ideas relating to all aspects of British Studies. For
information about this year's program, write to Dr. Sphia B. Blaydes, Depart-
ment of English, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505.

Renaissance Drama, 1991 Number

For its 1991 number. Renaissance Drama is seeking essays that analyze the
relationship of Renaissance dramatic traditions to their precursors and succes-
sors, have an interdisciplinary orientation, explore the relationship of the drama
to society and history, and examine the impact of new forms of interpretation
on the study of Renaissance plays. Please submit essays (conforming to the
MLA Style Manual) with a SASE to Mary Beth Rose, The Newberry Library, 60
West Walton Street, Chicago, IL 60610. Deadline December 1.

South-Central Renaissance Conference

The South-Central Conference will meet 4-6 April 1991 at Loyola University.
Papers on the following topics are invited: Shakespearean Theatre and the
Social and Political Discourses of His Age; Representation of Women in
Renaissance Drama; Writing the Female Body in the Renaissance; the
Renaissace Emblem in Literature, Art and Religion; the Role of Philosophy in
the Political, Legal and Scientific Discourses of the Renaissance; and the Jesuit
Presence in the Renaissance as Artist and Icon. Papers from outside the region

418 / Renaissance and Reformation

are welcome. Inquiries should be sent to Thomas Moisan, English, St. Louis
University, St. Louis, MO 63103. Deadline 31 December 1990.

CRRS Senior Fellowships

The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria University (in
the University of Toronto) offers each year a limited number of non-stipendiary
post-doctoral Senior Fellowships. These are primarily for scholars who wish to
make significant use of the Centre's collection, and who would be willing from
time to tome to share their knowledge informally with scholars and graduate
students in the Toronto area. The Fellowship assures a reserved work space in
the Centre, membership in the Victoria Senior Common Room, and free access
to other Toronto research libraries. Prospective applicants should write to the
Director, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Studies, Victoria
University, Toronto, Canada M5S 1K7.

Conference on the History of Rhetoric

The International Society for the History of Rhetoric is soliciting papers for its
forthcoming Biennial Conference, 25-29 September 1991 in Baltimore/Wash-
ington. Papers on any topic in the history of rhetoric are solicited; special
sessions will include Rhetoric and Science, Quintillian in the History of
Rhetoric and Education; Orality/Literacy and Rhetoric; Rhetoric and Gender.
For information and an abstract form, write N. Struever, Humanities Center,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.

Index / Table de Matières
Volume XXV, 1989

AUTHORS/AUTEURS

BALDRIDGE, Wilson. La présence de
la Folie dans les Oeuvres de Louise
Labé, 371.

BENTLEY, Jeny R (review) Erasmus von
Rotterdam. Novum Instrumentum . . . , 341 .

BESSEN, David M. (review) Elizabeth
Wirth Marvick, Louis XIII: Vie Making
of a King, 238.

BIERLAIRE, Franz, (compte rendu)
Roland Crahay, D'Erasme a
Campanella, 339.

BLASTING, Ralph. The German
Bruderschaften as Producers of Late Me-
dieval Vernacular Religious Drama, 1.

BREITENBERG, Mark. The Flesh
Made Word: Foxe's Acts and Monu-
ments, 381.

CHRISTODOULOU Kyriaki. (review)
Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance:
Mélange offerts à Robert Aulotte, 245.

COMMENSOLL Vivianna. Refashion-
ing the Marriage Code: The Patient
Grissil of Dekker, Chettle and
Haughton, 199.

CSURIS Klara. (compte rendu) Marie-
Madeleine Fragonard, La pensée reli-
gieuse d'Agrippa dAubigné et son
expression, 409.

CUNNINGHAM, Merrilee. The Epie
Narrator in Milton's Paradise Regained,
215.

DALZELL, Alexander. Greetings and
Salutations in Erasmus, 251.

DAMERON, George, (review) Dino
Compani's Chronicle of Florence, 240.

DIETERICH, D. Henry. Confrater-
nities and Lay Leadership in Sixteenth-
Century Liège, 15.

DOUGLAS, Audrey. Midsummer in
Salisbury: The Tailors' Guild and Con-
fraternity 1444-1642, 35.

ESTES, James M. The Achievement of
P.S. Allen and the Role of CWE, 289.

FANTAZZI, Charles. The Evolution of
Erasmus' Epistolary Style, 261.

FARGE, James K Censorship in Paris:
The Roles of the Parlement of Paris
and King Francis I, 173.

FLYNN, Maureen. Rituals of Solidar-
ity in Castilian Confraternities, 53.

HAAS, Louis. Boccaccio, Baptismal
Kinship, and Spiritual Incest, 343.

HARVEY, Elizabeth D. (review) Leon-
ard Barkan, 77?^ Gods Made Flesh: Meta-
morphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism,

233.

HENDERSON, Judith Rice. The
Enigma of Erasmus' Conficiendarum
epistolarum formula, 3 1 3.

JOHNSTON, Alexandra F. English
Guilds and Municipal Authority, 69.

JONDORF, Gillian, (review) Jonathan
Beck, Viéâtre et propagande au débuts de
la Réforme ... , 243.

KUSHNER, Eva. Pontus de Tyard,
poète lyrique, 185.

NILLES, Camilla J. Revisions of Re-
demption: Rabelais' Medlar, Braguette
and Patagruelion Myths, 357.

NORMAN, Joanna S. Les confréries et
l'iconographie populaire des sept
péchés capitaux, 89.

PRICE, Betsey B. Master by Any Other
Means, 115.

PRZYBYLAK, Joanna, (review)
François Hotman, La vie de Messire

420 / Renaissance and Reformation

Caspar de CoUigny Admiral de France,

247.

ROBERTS, Perri Lee. Comelis Buys
the Elder's Seven Works of Mercy: An
Exempar of Confratemal Art from
Early Sixteenth-Century Northern Eu-
rope, 135.

RUMMEL, Erika. Erasmiana 1986-
1988: A Bibliographical Update, 331.

. Erasmus' Manual of Letter-
Writing: Tradition and Innovation, 299.

THORNE, Barry, (review) R.S. White,
Let Wonder Seem Familiar : Endings in
Shakespeare's Romance Vision, 412.

TOUPIN, Robert, (review) Philip T.
Hoffman. Church and Community in the
Diocese of Lyon, 1500-1789, 411.

VERHEYEN, Egon. (review) Luciano
Cheles, The Studiolo of Urbino: An
Icongraphic Investigation, 236.

WILSON, Blake. Music and Mer-
chants: The Laudesi Companies in
Early Renaissance Florence, 151.

BOOKS REVIEWED/
COMPTES RENDUS

BARLAM. Leonard. Vie Gods Made
Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of
Paganism, 233.

BECK, Jonathan. Théâtre et propogande
au débuts de la Réfonne ... , 243.

BORNSTEIN, Daniel (trans.). Dino
Compani's Chronicle of Florence, 240.

CHELES, Luciano. The Studiolo of
Urbino: An Icongraphic Investigation, 236.

CRAHAY, Roland. D'Erasme a
Campanella, 339.

Erasmus von Rotterdam. Novum In-
strumentum. Basel 1516 . . . , 341.

FRAGONARD, Marie-Madeleine. La
pensée religieuse d'Agrippa d'Aubigné et
son expression, 409.

HOFFMAN, Philip T. Church and
Community in the Diocese of Lyon, 1500-
7759,411.

HOTMAN, François. La vie de Messire
Caspar de CoUigny Admirai de France,

247.

MARVICK, Elizabeth Wirth. Louis
XIIL The Making of a King, 238.

Prose et prosateurs de la Renaissance:
Mélange offerts à Robert Aulotte, 245.

WHITE, RS. Let Wonder Seem Famil-
iar : Endings in Shakespeare's Romance
Vision, 412.

,.71;C'0,

^ô^

FEB J 2 1992

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