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Prelacy, Pastoral Care and the Instruction of Subordinates in Late Twelfth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2019

Rebecca Springer
Rebecca Springer*
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford
*
*270 Harrison Avenue #303, Jersey City, NJ, 07304, USA. E-mail: rebeccaspringer4@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Historians of the Middle Ages usually associate the phrase ‘pastoral care’ with the sacraments and religious services performed by parish priests on behalf of lay people. But late twelfth-century writers primarily attributed pastoral care to prelates. Closely following the tradition of Pope Gregory I's Pastoral Rule, they held that prelates bore the responsibility to govern, guide and (perhaps most importantly) instruct their subordinate clergy or religious. Prelates did this by preaching, and they were supposed to validate their words with the example of their own righteous lives. But although commentators assumed that prelates would be reasonably well educated, late twelfth-century writers did not attribute good preaching to intellectual aptitude, or to the availability of preaching treatises or model sermon collections, as historians often assume. In an age of intellectual vibrancy and flourishing schools, ensuring that prelates instructed their subordinates remained firmly a moral, rather than an educational, question for the English church. Only by instructing subordinates could a prelate ensure their, and by extension his own, eternal salvation: neglect of preaching was tantamount to murder. This article uses the little-studied writings of Alexander of Ashby, Bartholomew of Exeter and Thomas Agnellus to uncover new links between ideas about prelacy, pastoral care and the instruction of subordinates in the high Middle Ages.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 55: CHURCHES AND EDUCATION , June 2019 , pp. 114 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019 

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Ian Forrest for his supervision of the research underpinning this article, to those who offered comments and questions at the Ecclesiastical History Society Summer Conference, and to the society for supporting my conference attendance. All translations in this article are my own.

References

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9 Blair, John, ‘Saint Frideswide reconsidered’, Oxoniensia 52 (1987), 71–127Google Scholar; Hunt, R. W., ‘English Learning in the Late Twelfth Century’, TRHS 4th ser. 19 (1936), 19–42Google Scholar, at 31–3.

10 Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 30; Hereford Cathedral, MS O.III. Robert recalls Gregory's complaint at the end of his Homiliae in Ezechielem, and begins his collection with Ezekiel 41, where Gregory left off: ‘Quod et ipse [Gregorius] plangit in fine undecime omelie dicens, “O iam cogor linguam ab expositionis sermone retinere, quia tedet animam meam uite mee”’: Pembroke College, MS 30, fol. 1ra; Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam (CChr.SL 142, 397); Schneyer, Repertorium, 5: 171–6.

11 English Episcopal Acta, 10: Bath and Wells, 1061–1205, ed. Ramsey, Frances M. R. (Oxford, 1995), lvii–iiiGoogle Scholar, 218; Robinson, J. Armitage, Somerset Historical Essays (London, 1921), 80–5Google Scholar.

12 Bodl., MS Laud Misc. 71; Schneyer, Repertorium, 5: 709–11.

13 Goering, William de Montibus. For William's biography, see ibid. 3–28.

14 Ibid. 66–7.

15 It should be noted that the sermon collection which Goering ascribes to William de Montibus, ‘the one sermon collection that William manifestly intended as a pastoral aid’, was actually written by Alexander of Ashby: Goering, William de Montibus, 515–66, quotation at 566; Morenzoni, F., ‘“Sermones breues et leues composui”. Les Sermons d'Alexandre d'Ashby’, Studi Medievali 3rd ser. 42 (2001), 121–64Google Scholar.

16 Most influential have been Haskins, Charles H., The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1927)Google Scholar; Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, CT, 1953)Google Scholar; Constable, Giles, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar; Baldwin, Masters; Goering, Joseph, ‘The Internal Forum and the Literature of Penance and Confession’, in Hartmann, W. and Pennington, K., eds, The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (Washington DC, 2008), 379–428Google Scholar. Recent contributions include Wei, Intellectual Culture; Zahora, Tomas, Nature, Virtue, and the Boundaries of Encyclopaedic Knowledge: The Tropological Universe of Alexander Neckam (1157–1217) (Turnhout, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For this and the following paragraph, see also Rebecca Springer, ‘Local Religious Life in England, c.1160–1210’ (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2017), 10–11, 61–2.

17 Augustine of Hippo, Epistula 178 (PL 33, col. 773); Gregorius Turensis, Liber de virtutibus sancti Martini 1.10 (MGH SRM 1.2, 145); Synodus Romana 502 13 (MGH AA 12, 449); Ennodius, Praeceptum de cellulanis (PL 63, col. 256).

18 Gregory the Great, Registrum epistularum 1.24, 41; 3.29 (2 vols, CChr.SL 140, 140A, 1: 22, 31–2, 47, 174, quotation at 22). See Paroneto, Vera, ‘Connotazione del “pastor” nell'opera di Gregorio Magno teoria e prassi’, Benedictina 31 (1984), 325–43Google Scholar; Leyser, Conrad, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford, 2000), 142, 160–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dattrino, Lorenzo, ‘Gregorio Magno Pastor et Praedicator’, Lateranum 75 (2009), 355–70Google Scholar; Demacopoulos, George E., ‘Gregory's Model of Spiritual Direction in the Liber regulae pastoralis’, in Neil, Bronwen and Santo, Matthew Dal, eds, A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden, 2013), 204–24Google Scholar, at 210.

19 A few examples of many: Altfrid, bishop of Münster, Vita Liudgeri Mimigardefordensi s 14 (MGH SS 2, 408); Annales Alamannici, Continuationes Sangallenses tres (860–926, 1185) (MGH SS 1, 50); Annalista Saxo (741–1139), s.a. 970 (MGH SS 6, 623); Anonymous of Herrieden, De episcopis Eichstetensibus 27 (MGH SS 7, 261); Anson of Lobbes, Vita Ursmari episcoporum et abbatum Lobbiensis 2.8 (MGH SRM 6, 460); Bernold of Constance, Apologeticus 10 (MGH LdL 2, 69); Chronica Boemorum, Continuatio monachi Sazavensis (932–1162), ‘De exordio Zazovensis monasterii’ (MGH SS 9, 150); Chronicon Sancti Michaelis monasterii in pago Virdunensi 11 (MGH SS 4, 82); Collectaneum exemplorum et visionum Clarevallense e codice Trecensi 946 4.36 (CChr.CM 208, 323); Abbot Folcwin of Laubes, Gesta abbatum Sancti Bertini Sithiensium 109 (MGH SS 13, 630); Sigebert of Gembloux, Gesta abbatum Gemblacensium 15 (MGH SS 8, 531).

20 Ashdowne, Richard, Howlett, David and Latham, Ronald, eds, Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, 3 vols (Oxford, 2018)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘praeferre’, §7.

21 This varied language, like so much writing about prelacy and preaching, reflects the thought of Gregory the Great, whose elusive references to rectores, praedicatores, sacerdotes, pastores and prelati have caused historians to ponder whether he intended the Regula pastoralis for an audience wider than bishops, perhaps even including secular rulers: Leyser, Authority, 157–8; Robert A. Markus, ‘Gregory the Great's Rector and his Genesis’, in Jacques Fontaine, Robert Gillet and Stan Pellistrandi, eds, Grégoire le Grand, Chantilly, Centre culturel Les Fontaines, 15–19 septembre 1982, actes, Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique (Paris, 1986), 137–46; Reydillet, R., La Royauté dans la littérature latine (Rome, 1981), 463Google Scholar.

22 Alexander included the first of the five appended sermons as a demonstration of how to preach to eruditi and simplices simultaneously, while the third, fourth and fifth sermons all address the duties of prelati, including how prelates should teach minores sacerdotes to perform sacraments correctly: De artificioso modo predicandi (Opera omnia, 1: 38, 48–71).

23 Ibid. 24, 49–50, 61–2.

24 Bodl., MS 449, fols 23rb–24ra (30), 26rb–vb (34), 33vb–34vb (45), 47ra–vb (60), 49rb–vb (63).

25 Ibid., fols 1va–2rb (2), 21vb–22rb (28), 24ra–vb (31), 53ra–b (70), 61va–62rb (84), 62rb–63ra (85).

26 Ibid., fols 54vb–55rb (73).

27 Ibid., fols 3va–4va (5), 8vb–9va (12), 11rb–12rb (15), 20ra–21ra (26), 32vb–33vb (44), 39ra–vb (49), 56va–57ra (76), 70rb–vb (97).

28 Ibid., fols 34vb–37ra (46), 57vb–58rb (78), 58rb–vb (79).

29 Bodl., MS Laud Misc. 71, fols 1va–5va (1), 70vb–73va (20).

30 Ibid., fols 90rb–93vb (24).

31 Ibid., fols 13vb–18va (4), 29va–34rb (8), 100va–104ra (28).

32 Ibid., fols 41vb–44va (11), 66rb–73va (19).

33 Ibid., fols 5va–13vb (2), 53rb–5vb (15), 58vb–66rb (17).

34 Ibid., fol. 49rb (13).

35 An exception is one passage in which Thomas Agnellus moves directly from a discussion of (bad) prelati into one of a (bad) presbiter: ibid., fol. 54ra (15).

36 Pembroke College, MS 30, fols 6va (2), 54rb (12).

37 The Cartulary of the Monastery of St Frideswide at Oxford 22, ed. S. R. Wigram, 2 vols, Oxford Historical Society 28, 31 (Oxford, 1895–6), 1: 27.

38 Caroline Walker Bynum, Docere verbo et exemplo: An Aspect of Twelfth-Century Spirituality, Harvard Theological Studies 31 (Missoula, MT, 1979), 15. For this section, see also Springer, ‘Local Religious Life’, 64–8, 70–1.

39 Alexander, Collectio secundo 1; Sermones uarii 19 (Opera omnia, 1: 220, 368, 374); Pembroke College, MS 30, fol. 10rb (2).

40 ‘Prelatus subiectos sibi instruere debet uerbo doctrine et exemplo uite’: Alexander, Sermones uarii 4 (Opera omnia, 1: 275).

41 Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi 5 (Opera omnia, 1: 61–71).

42 ‘Sic honestate preemineat subditorum uitam tamquam inferiorem aspiciat’: Bodl., MS Laud Misc. 71, fol. 9ra (2).

43 Exeter, Cathedral Archives, D&C 802; Roger de Wendover, Flores Historiarum, s.a. 1161, ed. H. G. Hewlett, 3 vols, RS 84 (London, 1886–9), 1: 18–20; Bodl., MS 449, fol. 72ra (98).

44 ‘Tribus autem modis unusquisque pastor electos sibi commissos tanquam oues Christi pascere debet: exemplo scilicet, uerbo, et oratione. Exemplo, ut qui eas pascunt bene uiuant; uerbo, ut bonam uitam sancto sermone commendent; oratione, ut pro subditis orent’: Bodl., MS 449, fol. 57vb (78).

45 Bodl., MS Wood empt. 13, fols 74r–76v, 93r–97r; ActaSS Oct. 8: 47, 579.

46 ‘Sancti predicatores quorum exemplo et predicatione ad laudandum deum excitamur’: Pembroke College, MS 30, fol. 10rb (2).

47 Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi 1, 3, Collectio primo 22 (Opera omnia, 1: 33–40, 53, 203–7); H. G. Richardson, ‘The Schools of Northampton in the Twelfth Century’, E HR 56 (1941), 595–605.

48 ‘Debet eciam sedere quasi doctor in cathedra, docendo alios uerbo et exemplo uiam uite melioris’: Alexander, Sermones uarii 19 (Opera omnia, 1: 368).

49 Alexander, Opera omnia, 1: 220. This was not an anomalous view. Bartholomew's Liber penitentialis encourages that ‘filios suos debent ad scolam siue ad monasteria siue foras presbiteris ut fidem catholicam recte discant et orationem dominicam, ut domi alios edocere ualeant’ (‘they [lay people] should send their sons out to a school or monastery or priest to learn correctly the Creed and Lord's Prayer, so that they can teach the rest of their household’): Morey, Bartholomew of Exeter, 2, 176. Robert asserts that ‘electi quique … uerum etiam uerbo et exemplo eam [ecclesiam sacram] subleuant’(‘any of the elect … truly may uplift the sacred church by their word and example’): Pembroke College, MS 30, fol. 49ra (10).

50 ‘Precedere enim debet exemplum boni operis uerba sapientie, quia ut ait beatus Gregorius: grex per exempla melius quam per uerba gradietur’: Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi (Opera omnia, 1: 30).

51 ‘Nam prius debemus castigare nosmetipsos et in nobis domare uicia carnis et luxuriam, et post inspicere et imitari uitam bonorum uirorum qui ante nos fuerunt, deinde alios nobis subditos corrigere et defendere nostro baculo, id est nostro consilio et nostro uerbo’: Bodl., MS 449, fol. 36va (46).

52 ‘Et [Abraham] significat predicatores qui ut possint aliis uirtutum copiam monstrare, in se primum oportet multo studio nutrire’: Pembroke College, MS 30, fol. 13vb (3).

53 ‘Doctrina namque auditoribus non facile produci si ceperit a magistro contempni. Cuius si uita despicitur, consequens est ut et predicatio facile contempnatur. Vnde culpa sacerdotum, ruina populi’, Bodl., MS Laud Misc. 71, fol. 10rb–va (3); cf. ibid., fol. 47vb (13).

54 Gregory the Great, Registrum epistularum 11.46 (CChr.SL 140A, 943).

55 Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi 4 (Opera omnia, 1: 58).

56 ‘Factus es quasi homo ilitteratus aut litterarum contemptor, nec lectioni, nec doctrine insistens, cum plures concanonici tui preclara ad edificacionem te sepius audiente proferrent documenta’: Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi (Opera omnia, 1: 23).

57 ‘Et elegisti in silentio potius et quiete legem perfecte addiscere, quam imperfectus docere. Hac ratione tibi tunc officium predicandi dissimulare licuit, cui nunc in cathedra collocato non dissimulare licebit’ (And you chose rather to learn the law completely in silence and quiet while you were still unprepared to teach. For this reason you were permitted to ignore the office of preaching, which, now that you are seated on the throne, you are not permitted to ignore’): Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi (Opera omnia, 1: 23).

58 ‘Quibus si subtraxeris cibum uite, nonne iudicaberis mortem intulisse? Numquid ignoras quod legis censura sacerdotem occidit qui tabernaculum ingreditur sine sonitu tintabulorum extremis horis tunice iacinctine inherentium? … Postremo tibi per prophetam dicitur: si non annunciaueris populo meo scelera eorum, sanguinem eorum de manu tua requiram’: Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi (Opera omnia, 1: 24); cf. Ezek. 32: 8. In Exod. 28: 33–5, Moses orders priests to wear garments with bells sewn on when they enter the innermost room of the tabernacle (often known as ‘the holy of holies’), or risk God's wrath. This was allegorized by Gregory the Great, who connects the sound of the bells to preaching: Gregory, Pastoral Rule 2.4 (1: 190, 192).

59 Briscoe, Marianne G., Artes praedicandi, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 61 (Turnhout, 1992), 258–9Google Scholar; Kempshall, Matthew, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400–1500 (Manchester, 2011), 14–15Google Scholar.

60 The Regula pastoralis was often read in monastic refectories at mealtimes: Tessa Webber, ‘Public Reading and its Books: The Framework of Norms’, Lyell Lecture series, University of Oxford, 3 May 2016. Guibert of Gembloux, Hildegard of Bingen's secretary, advised a contact whom he considered to be a ‘useless prelate’ to mend his ways by reading just two books, Bernard of Clairvaux's De co nsid eratione and Gregory's Regula pastoralis: Guibert de Gembloux, Guiberti Gemblacensis epistolae 50 (2 vols, CChr.CM 66, 66A; 2: 509).

61 ‘Studeatis predicando multos adquirere quos positis in die iudicii Domino presentare, quando presentabit Petrus Iudeos, Paulus Grecos, Andreas Achaiam, Matheus Ethiopiam, et sic alii alios’: Alexander, De artificioso modo predicandi 3 (Opera omnia, 1: 53).

62 Goering, William de Montibus; Thomas of Chobham, Thomae de Chobham summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield, Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia 25 (Louvain, 1968); idem, Summa de arte praedicandi (CChr.CM 82); Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., eds, Councils and Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church, 2: A.D. 1205–1313, 2 vols (Oxford, 1964), 2: 57–96Google Scholar, 125–37.