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Aristotle's Biology and Pastoral Ethics: John of Wales's De lingua and British Pastoral Writing on the Tongue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2016

Edwin D. Craun*
Affiliation:
Washington and Lee University (Emeritus)

Extract

Lingua congruit in duo opera nature, in gustum scilicet et locucionem, sicut dicit philosophus libro 2 De anima, quorum quidem gustus neccesarium est ad esse, locucio autem est propter bene esse. Et sicut dicit philosophus libro 12 De animalibus, creatio lingue est ad gustandum et sermocinandum.

With these words John of Wales (d. 1285) launches his late thirteenth-century treatise on the tongue, De lingua, a massive collection of preaching materials extensively copied, even sometimes excerpted, in England for nearly two centuries.

Type
Research Article
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Copyright © Fordham University 

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References

1 “The tongue is suited to two works of nature, taste and speech, as the Philosopher says in Book 2 of De anima. Of these, indeed, taste is necessary for existence; speech, however, is for well-being. And, just as the philosopher says in Book 12 of De animalibus, the tongue is created for tasting and speaking” (John of Wales, De lingua, MS Oxford, Oriel College 20, fol. 140r). All translations from the Latin are mine. John refers first to Aristotle's De anima 2.8; the passage may be found in William of Moerbeke's revision of James of Venice's translation, in Sentencia libri de anima, S. Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia 45.1 (Rome, 1984), 143. The second reference is to Aristotle's De animalibus 12.16 (De animalibus: Michael Scot's Arabic-Latin Translation. Part Two, Books XI–XIV: Parts of Animals , ed. and trans. van Oppenraaij, Aafke M. I., Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus 5 [Leiden, 1998], 85). In note 6 below, I explain my practice in referring to De animalibus. Google Scholar In Middle English texts, I modernize thorn, yogh, and i-y-u-v placements; in Latin quotations I use u for the vowel, v for the consonant. I use modern punctuation and capitalization. I expand contractions. Except in the case of well-known names, I give names in the writers' vernacular, not English for some and Latin for others.Google Scholar The first version of this essay was read at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies during the conference “The Five Senses in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (February 2009). I am grateful for the comments I received on this occasion, for those of Kuczynski, Michael, and for those of the two anonymous readers for Traditio. Google Scholar

2 Harrison Thomson, S. lists twenty-two manuscripts of De lingua (The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1235–1253 [Cambridge, 1940], 252–53), but I have found that two manuscripts do not contain it: MS London, BL, Harley 5369 and MS Oxford, University College 62, in which the collection of distinctiones entitled De lingua et de corde must have misled him. However, Morton Bloomfield and his colleagues add one manuscript to the list, for a total of twenty-one (Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 , ed. Bloomfield, Morton et al. [Cambridge, MA, 1979]). Thomson dates the earliest manuscript 1300. De lingua et de corde (incipit: “Adulacio est Deo detestabilis”) and another alphabetized collection of distinctiones (incipit: “Accidia. Adversatur hominis salvatione”) contain extensive extracts from De lingua. Siegfried Wenzel gives good reasons to identify John of Wales as the author of De lingua (“The Continuing Life of William Peraldus's Summa vitiorum,” in Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers , ed. Jordan, Mark D. and Emery, Kent Jr. [Notre Dame, 1992], 142–43).Google Scholar

3 “Et per gustum ministrat corpori et per loquelam racioni quia, secundum Augustinum libro De magistro, finis locucionis est docere aut discere” (John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 140r). For the Augustinian sign theory that undergirds De lingua, see Craun, Edwin, Lies, Slander, and Obscenity: Pastoral Rhetoric and the Deviant Speaker (Cambridge, 1997), 26–37, where a note on 31 explains an emendation in this passage.Google Scholar That taste and speech were two opera or officia of the tongue became a pastoral commonplace. See, for example, in distinctiones on lingua: Simon of Boraston, Distinctiones (incipit: “Abicere. Secundum auctorem De natura rerum”), MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 216, fol. 77r and Holcot, Robert, Distinctiones bibliae (incipit: “Abominabitur autem Deus tales”), MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 383, fol. 54r. Nine manuscripts of Simon's work survive in British libraries, and three more are attested to, according to Richard Sharpe (A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 [Turnhout, 1997], 610). There are four extant manuscripts of Holcot's Distinctiones in British libraries (ibid., 555). The two officia also appear in material on the sins of the mouth (The Book of Vices and Virtues , ed. Nelson Francis, W., EETS, o.s., 217 [London, 1942], 46). Dated 1375, the Book survives in three manuscripts. Also Speculum vitae: A Reading Edition , ed. Hanna, Ralph EETS, o.s., 332 (Oxford, 2008), 2: lines 12, 956–76. Hanna records forty-five manuscripts and places the Speculum in the third quarter of the fourteenth century (ibid., xv–xvi and lx–lxiii).Google Scholar

4 John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 140r.Google Scholar

5 Throughout the essay, I have cited Michael Scot's translation when John of Wales and other pastoral writers have taken material from what they term “the Philosopher's De animalibus.” However, given the writers' looseness of wording or even use of paraphrase, the source of any material, indirect or direct, may have been a florilegium, an epitome, or a commentary on De animalibus, including the De animalibus of Albertus Magnus (early 1260s). All of these derivatives were in circulation by the third quarter of the thirteenth century. So was William of Moerbeke's translation of the five treatises, but no one writing on lingua whom I have read refers to De progressu or De motu, and his five translations circulated in groupings of several far more often than as a whole. So, the references to Michael Scot's translation are designed to indicate where the material is located in the medieval Latin Aristotelian corpus rather than to claim this translation as the source. For books 11–14, I use the modern edition (n. 1 above); for 1–10, MS London, BL, Royal 12.C.15. On the translation, transmission, and reception of Aristotle's zoological works, see Van den Abeele, Baudouin, “Le ‘De animalibus’ d'Aristote dans le monde latin: modalities de sa recéption médiévale,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frühmittelaterforsuchung der Universität Münster 33 (1999): 287318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar By the middle of the twelfth century, Aristotle's De anima had been translated from Greek into Latin by James of Venice, while both Michael Scot and William of Moerbeke translated it within a few years of translating De animalibus. Nearly five hundred manuscripts of the Latin translations survive, along with a host of commentaries, including those by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas (Dod, Bernard D., “Aristoteles Latinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy , ed. Kretzmann, Norman, Kenny, Anthony, and Pinborg, Jan [Cambridge, 1982], 4650, 76).Google Scholar

6 Van den Abeele, , “Le ‘De animalibus,”’ 295.Google Scholar

7 Hankinson, P. J., “Philosophy of Science,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle , ed. Barnes, Jonathan (Cambridge, 1995), 128.Google Scholar

8 On surviving and flourishing see Cooper, John M., “Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology,” in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology , ed. Gotthelf, Allan and Lennox, James G. (Cambridge, 1987), 243–74.Google Scholar

9 Webb, Heather, “Cardiosensory Impulses in Late Medieval Spirituality,” in Rethinking the Medieval Senses , ed. Nichols, Stephen G., Kablitz, Andreas, and Calhoun, Alison (Baltimore, 2008), 268.Google Scholar

10 Courtenay, William J., “Nature and the Natural in Twelfth Century Thought,” in idem, Covenant and Causality in Medieval Thought (London, 1984), 7.Google Scholar

11 Ashley, Benedict, “St. Albert and the Nature of Natural Science,” in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays: 1980 , ed. Weisheipel, James (Toronto, 1980), 80.Google Scholar

12 Hankinson, , “Philosophy,” 128. See the essays in Philosophical Issues , ed. Gotthelf, and Lennox, , especially in the third part, “Teleology and Necessity in Nature.”.Google Scholar

13 For Hugh of St. Victor on disciplina, see Romagnoli, Daniela, “‘Disciplina est conversatio bona et honesta’: Anima, corpo, e società tra Ugo di San Vittore ed Erasmo da Rotterdam,” in Disciplina dell'anima, disciplina del corpo et disciplina della società tra medioevo ed et à moderna , ed. Prodi, Paulo and Penuti, Carla (Bologna, 1994), 509.Google Scholar

14 Swanson, Jenny, John of Wales (Cambridge, 1989), 233–89. Swanson does not include De lingua, with its twenty-one copies, perhaps because she is uncertain of John's authorship. Her book is limited in scope, focusing on the Communiloquium, Breviloquium, and Compendiloquium .Google Scholar

15 “Nature is the original, the better teacher of truth.” Siegfried Wenzel prints the preface to the Summa iusticie in “Continuing Life” (n. 2 above), 154–55.Google Scholar

16 For analysis of the genesis and destructive consequences of verbal sin in De lingua and other pastoral texts, see Craun, , Lies (n. 3 above), 2547.Google Scholar

17 Within the first part of De lingua (n. 1 above) are eight sections after the brief preface: that discipline in taste and speech suits all (fols. 140r–141v in MS Oxford, Oriel College 20); that such discipline fits ecclesiastics and leaders of the church (fols. 141v–142v); that it especially fits teachers in the church (fols. 142v–144r); that all humans ought to love such discipline (fols. 144r–145v); loquacity at meals (fols. 145v–147r); tumultuous conduct in the tavern (fols. 147r–148v); what foments such conduct (fols. 148v–150v); remedies against abuse of taste and speech (fols. 150r–151v).Google Scholar

18 “Lingua hominis est absoluta, mollis, et lata ut utatur ea duabus operacionibus quas diximus” (John of Wales, De lingua, fol. 140r). These three qualities are ascribed to the tongue in De animalibus 12.16 (Aristotle, , De animalibus: Michael Scot's Translation [n. 1 above], 86).Google Scholar

19 “According to the Philosopher in De animalibus 12, the tongue of man is fully formed, mobile, soft, and broad. Therefore, on account of its lubricity, nature doubled its closure, namely through teeth and lips. However, it is not so with other organs, which are in the open…. And therefore Ecclus. 22:33: ‘Who will give me a guard over my mouth and a sure seal on my lips so that I should not fall because of it and my tongue destroy me”’ (John of Lathbury, Alphabetum morale sive distinctiones theologice , MS London, BL, Royal 11.A.13, fol. 91r–v). Richard Sharpe (Handlist [n. 3 above], 273) dates these distinctiones ca. 1356 and lists five extant manuscripts of them in British libraries. John, regent master of the Franciscans at Oxford, is one of Beryl Smalley's “classicizing friars” (English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century [Oxford, 1960], 221–39). Also Simon of Boraston, Distinctiones (n. 3 above), fol. 77r. On the tongue's lubricitas, see also the anonymous distinctiones with the incipit “Accidiosus sive piger,” MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 4, fol. 59r; this collection survives in two copies, according to Bloomfield (Incipits [n. 2 above], 30). On this double closure and the contrast with organs in the open, see John of Wales, De lingua, fol. 140r–v, and John's, Distinctiones pro sermonibus (incipit: “Accidia. Homo [Nota] accidiosus est sicut canis fameliticus”), MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 899, fol. 174r. The latter work survives in ten manuscripts in British libraries (Bloomfield, , Incipits, 29). The double closure also appears in a natural encyclopedia: “Gregor [Gregory the Great] seith that the mouthe is closed and iclippid with many kepinges and wardes, as with teeth and lippis, that by so many meenes the witte and the soule may deme and avise what he schal speke” (On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum, ed. Seymour, M. C. et al., vol. 1 [Oxford, 1975], 200). Bartholomew's encyclopedia was written before 1250; John Trevisa made his translation in the mid-1390s.Google Scholar

20 “Os dictum, quod per ipsum quasi per ostium et cibos intus mittimus et sputum foris proicimus; vel quia inde ingrediuntur cibi, inde egrediuntur sermones” (Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX , ed. Lindsay, W. M. [Oxford, 1911], 11.1.49).Google Scholar

21 “Ponitur clausura sive custodia, scilicet labiorum et dencium, in signum quod natura docet linguam solicite fore custodiendam” (John of Lathbury, Alphabetum , fol. 90r). John of Wales uses the metaphor of weighing words and food in a balance (De lingua, fol. 140v).Google Scholar

22 “Just as the Philosopher says in Book 14 of De animalibus, where it can, nature uses one member in two functions, which shows that very rarely does this happen in nature, and then with great difficulty. From this it is clear that nature teaches that the tongue be used more moderately in its functions” (ibid.). The quotation is taken from Aristotle, , De animalibus 14.6 (De animalibus: Michael Scot's Arabic-Latin Translation, 174–75).Google Scholar

23 For restraint in speech, see Craun, , Lies , esp. 47–56 and 187–230, and Casagrande, Carla and Vecchio, Silvana, I Peccati delta lingua: Disciplina ed etica delta parola nella cultura medievale (Rome, 1987).Google Scholar

24 “Some animals have a large, cloven mouth, like lions; some, a small mouth, like humans; some, a medium-sized mouth, like the genus of pigs. It is clear from this that humans have a small mouth with respect to other animals. By how much less the mouth of some small vessel may be, by that much it receives more sparingly and pours out as if more moderately. The Apostle says (Phil. 4:5) ‘Let your moderation be known to all men.’ Regarding taste, Ecclus. 31:36: ‘Wine drunk with moderation is the joy of the soul and of the heart’; regarding restraint of speech, Prov. 10:19b: ‘He who restrains his lips is most prudent”’ (John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 140v). The first sentence is a rough paraphrase of a paragraph from book 2.1 of Aristotle's De animalibus (MS London, BL, Royal 12.C.15, fol. 155r). See also John of Wales's Distinctiones, fol. 163v and John of Lathbury, Alphabetum, fol. 90r.Google Scholar

25 John of Lathbury, Alphabetum , fol. 90r.Google Scholar

26 Mirour de l'omme , in The Complete Works of John Gower , ed. Macaulay, G. C., vol. 1 (Oxford, 1899), lines 16, 377–78. Gower finished the Mirour between 1376 and 1378. Yeager, R. F. explains the ambitious design of the poem (“John Gower's French,” in A Companion to Gower , ed. Echard, Siân [Cambridge, 2004], 139–45). It survives in a single manuscript.Google Scholar

27 Gower, , Mirour , ed. Macaulay, , lines 16, 405–17. See also Book for a Simple and Devout Woman: A Late Middle English Adaptation of Peraldus's Summa de vitiis et virtutibus and Friar Laurent's Somme le Roi, ed. Diekstra, F. N. M. (Groningen, 1998), 249. As Diekstra explains, the Book survives in two somewhat divergent manuscripts.Google Scholar

28 Gower, , Mirour , ed. Macaulay, , lines 16, 383–92. “According to whether her body is strong or weak, whether it is working or resting — all this she thinks over quietly — whether in youth or old age; according to the time and custom, she eats with the greatest relish and drinks of the best there is; so that in her heart she may be capable of either prayer or work according to her duty” (Mirour de l'omme [The Mirror of Mankind] , trans. Wilson, William Burton, rev. Van Baak, Nancy Wilson [East Lansing, MI, 1992], 225).Google Scholar

29 Webb, , “Cardiosensory Impulses” (n. 9 above), 266.Google Scholar

30 Kosman, L. A., “Animals and other Beings in Aristotle,” in Philosophical Issues , ed. Gotthelf, and Lennox, (n. 8 above), 379.Google Scholar

31 An Alphabet of Tales , ed. Banks, Mary Macleod, 2 vols., EETS, o.s., 126 and 127 (London, 1904–5), 1:99–100. This fifteenth-century translation of Arnold of Liege's Alphabetum narrationum survives in one manuscript, according to Cooke, Thomas D. (“Tales,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500 , ed. Hartung, Albert, vol. 9 [New Haven, 1993], 3, 291–92). The exemplum's title: “cibus moderatus et uniformis causat sanitatem et pulcritudinem corporalem.”.Google Scholar

32 Gower, , Mirour , ed. Macaulay, , lines 16, 233–36. “Only if reason requires her to do so. And then she cautiously takes the amount estimated for her proper sustenance — neither empty nor too full” (Mirour , trans. Wilson, , 222–23).Google Scholar

33 “Secundum philosophum libro de animalibus 12 Natura non fecit creationem lingue in homine similem creationi linguarum aliorum animalium, sed dedit ipsam duabus rebus et ita fecit creationem labiorum et dencium; ideo carius ceteris illud debet custodire nec illo uti nec superflue quo ad gustum aut ociose quo ad verbum” (John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 141r). The quotation is taken from Aristotle's De animalibus 12.6 (De animalibus: Michael Scot's Arabic-Latin Translation [n. 1 above], 85).Google Scholar

34 Joachim Küpper is writing about sense perception and cognition in general during the Middle Ages (“Perception, Cognition, and Volition in the Arcipreste de Talavera,” in Rethinking , ed. Nichols, , Kablitz, , and Calhoun, [n. 9 above], 120).Google Scholar

35 For the verbal extremes or vices of multiloquium and indiscreta taciturnitas, see John of Wales, De lingua (n. 1 above), fols. 156v–157v and 190v–191v.Google Scholar

36 Küpper explains Aristotle's ideas about how humans may acquire virtuous moderation, though he scants the crucial role of others' exemplary lives in forming an individual's virtuous habits (“Perception,” 121–22).Google Scholar

37 Southern, Richard, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe , 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar

38 “Primo sic secundum philosophum libro 4 de animalibus quilibet modus animalium diligit rem sibi appropriatam et odit alia. Sed habere discrecionem est appropriatus homini. Unde dicit libro 1, animal quod habet discrecionem est solus homo et, in ethicis, quod propria operacio hominis unde homo est est vivere secundum rectam rationem. Igitur homo virtuosus tamquam sibi innatum debet diligere in gustu et loquela discrecionem habere et secundum rectam rationem in utroque vivere nimirum quia, secundum quod dicit Bernardus libro de gratia et libero arbitrio, propria ratio secundum cuius instinctum debet homo vivere, cum sit rationalis, data est voluntati ut instruat illam.Google Scholar Sed sunt plerique velud irrationalia non utentes ratione qui tamquam bestie devorant et degluciunt, tamquam belue absorbent et absummunt, tamquam aves sine ratione garriunt. Tales non diligunt sed odiunt discrecionem sive sapientiam” (John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 144r).Google Scholar I have not been able to trace these references to specific passages in De animalibus, perhaps because they are of a general nature. The last clauses of the first paragraph are taken from Bernard of Clairvaux, Liber de gratia et libero arbitrio, Bernardi opera , vol. 3, ed. J. Leclerq, and Rochais, H. M. (Rome, 1963), 168.Google Scholar

39 Book for a Simple and Devout Woman , ed. Diekstra, (n. 27 above), 249.Google Scholar

40 “First, we ought to speak about what detracts from, primarily, divine power or perfection; secondly, about these things that detract from divine wisdom; thirdly, about these things that detract from divine goodness or mercy. Blasphemy, boasting, vain praise of humans detract from perfection; murmur, divination, unadvised oath-swearing, from wisdom; wicked defense or excuse for sin and preaching or display of sin, from goodness” (John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 174r).Google Scholar

41 Craun, Edwin, “‘Inordinata Locutio’: Blasphemy in Pastoral Literature, 1200–1500,” Traditio 29 (1983): 156–86.Google Scholar

42 John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 174r.Google Scholar

43 “If no one is able to tame the tongue for a man, he ought to flee to the Lord. He [Augustine] gives an example on this point. If a beast must be tamed, a man is sought. If the tongue ought to be tamed, God should be sought. The image of God tames a wild animal. And does not God tame his own image? (Simon of Boraston, Distinctiones [n. 3 above], fol. 77r). Simon, distils the first three paragraphs of Augustine's Sermo 55, PL 38:375–76.Google Scholar

44 “Quando equus est impetuosus, expedit ipsum restringere, et hoc duplici lora freni et non una. Tantummodo lingua est in nobis bestia quasi equus indomitus et impetuosus and ideo expedit earn retrahere duplici lora, scilicet silencio contra impetum loquacitatis et abstinentia contra impetum gulositatis. Dives epulo punitus est in lingua propter utrumque lucrum” (Simon of Boraston, Distinctiones , fol. 77r–v). “Silence against the onrush of loquacity and abstinence against the onrush of gluttony.” See Dives also in the anonymous distinctiones in MS Bodley 4 (n. 9 above), fol. 60r. Dives as a figure for both gluttony and loquacity was developed authoritatively by Gregory the Great, appearing frequently in his writings. His punishment is attributed to both gluttony and loquacity in, for example, Homiliae in evangelia , ed. Étaix, Raymond, CCL 141 (Turnhout, 1999), 2.40, 402.Google Scholar

45 Disce mori (incipit: “unwilfully he deieth that hathe not lerned to deie”), MS Oxford, Jesus College 39, 149. A fifteenth-century compilation of catechetical materials, Disce mori, is derived, in part, from the Somme le Roi, just as the Book for a Simple and Devout Woman is. It survives in two manuscripts, according to Raymo, Richard (“Works of Religious and Philosophical Instruction,” in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500 , ed. Hartung, Albert, vol. 7 [New Haven, 1986], 2, 263–64).Google Scholar

46 “Item secundum philosophum de anima gustus habet duas operaciones: unam que est alimento uti et sic est necessarius omni animali quantum ad esse, aliam que est discernere inter sapores ipsius nutrimenti et sic est necessarius quo ad bene esse tantum. Ex quo evidenter oritur quam culpabiles existunt qui in gustu pocius saporis delectamentum querunt quam nutrimentum, cum istud sit nature necessarium ac fructuosum illud aut non numquam perniciosum” (John of Wales, Summa iusticie , MS Oxford, Lincoln College 105, fol. 26v). Sixteen manuscripts of the short or long version survive in British libraries (Sharpe, , Handlist [n. 3 above], 339). John is referring generally to De anima, which contains clauses on tasting flavors throughout. Bartholomew the Englishman and John Trevisa also explain how the tongue's properties enable taste to operate (On the Properties, ed. Seymour [n. 19 above], 117–18). The manifold abuses of taste come from the forma confessionis (incipit: “Confessor venientem”) in MS London, BL, Additional 15237: “de gustu in inordinatam delectationem circa quecumque cibaria in sapore et mixtione … vel etiam in colore, quando pulcra sunt cibaria. Et vinum cum exacto splendet” (fol. 89r).Google Scholar

47 Book of Vices , ed. Francis, (n. 3 above), 52.Google Scholar

48 The Clensing of Manes Sawle (incipit: “Be wasshid and be clene”), MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 923, fol. 98r–v. This modus presents many other ways of abusing the sense of taste. From the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century, Clensing survives fully in four manuscripts and, in fragments, in an additional three, according to Raymo, , “Works,” 2, 299.Google Scholar

49 Newhauser, Richard, “Towards a History of Human Curiosity: A Prolegomenon,” Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift 56 (1982), repr. in idem, Sin: Essays on the Moral Tradition in the Western Middle Ages (Aldershot, , 2007), 563.Google Scholar

50 Speculum vitae , ed. Hanna, (n. 3 above), lines 13, 441–44. “The Mirroure of the Worlde”: A Middle English Translation of “Le miroir du monde,” ed. Raymo, Robert and Whitaker, Elain, Mediaeval Academy of America Books 106 (Toronto, 2003), 184 and, for the explanatory notes, 449. It survives in one manuscript of the fifteenth century.Google Scholar

51 Gower, , Mirour , ed. Macaulay, (n. 26 above), lines 7, 837–48.Google Scholar

52 For boasting, see John of Wales, De lingua , fols. 177r–178r; for excuses for sin, Craun, Edwin, “‘It is a freletee of the flessh’: Excuses for Sin, Pastoral Rhetoric, and Moral Agency,” in In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages , ed. Newhauser, Richard (Toronto, 2005), 170–92. On the finis of speech, see n. 3 above.Google Scholar

53 “The tongue is given to man, and to man alone, for two functions. According to the second book of De anima, the tongue is suited to two works, namely taste and speech, taste for the purpose of being alive, speech for well-being. For man is a political animal, sociable and inclined naturally to impart his thoughts and states of being, and desiring to love, to be loved. And, therefore, for that good disposition [impulse, intention], which is to love and be loved, God has given man a tongue” (Holcot, , Distinctiones [n. 3 above], fol. 54r). See n. 1 above for the passage to which John refers (John of Wales, De lingua, fol. 161r).Google Scholar

54 “In cuius figura spiritus sanctus, qui est amor patris et filii, talis organi effigie voluit apparere non in specie manus nec auris nec occuli set apparuerit illa dispartite lingue tamquam ignis (Actus secundo). Et ideo naturale officium lingue tamquam ignis est multiplicare amorem et benevolenciam inter homines” (ibid.).Google Scholar

55 “Nota quod omnis detractor partitur linguam suam … dicit quedam bona et quedam mala. Mala profert per se et principaliter, bona vere per accidens et secundarie ut mala convexa verissimiliora videantur. Turn communiter omnes adulatores et detractores blandiuntur in presentia et mordent in absentia” (ibid., fol. 54v).Google Scholar

56 Mirroure,” ed. Raymo, and Whitaker, , 185.Google Scholar

57 An anonymous collection of exempla (incipit: “Narrator quod quidam”), MS London, BL, Royal 7.D.1, fols. 131v–132r. This is the sole manuscript, according to Bloomfield (Incipits [n. 2 above], 274), although this exemplum appears in at least three other pastoral texts, one of which is John of Wales's Distinctiones(n. 19 above), fol. 155v. For the others, see Tubach, Frederick, Index exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales , FF Communications 204 (Helsinki, 1946), 146.Google Scholar

58 Of course, pastoral texts also contain examples of gluttonous or noisy animals, perverse animal conduct that mirrors perverse human conduct: voracious lions emitting disgusting odors, for example, in John of Wales, De lingua , fols. 141v–142r. See also Simon of Boraston, Distinctiones (n. 3 above), fol. 77r.Google Scholar

59 “Item philosophus secundo de animalibus dicit quod cor animalium ponitur in medio animalis sive in pectore; unde monstruosum esset in animali ac dissonum nature habere cor situm in ore — consimiliter monstruosum cor in ore. Unde ex habundancia cordis os loquitur. Unde cor multorum situatur in ore eorum, qui nichil sonuit retinere quin exterius loquela inordinate propulare non cessant” (John of Lathbury, Alphabetum [n. 19 above], fol. 90v). The reference is to Aristotle's De animalibus 2.2 (MS Royal 12.C.15, fol. 156v).Google Scholar

60 “Because the swan has a long neck, and so its tongue is separated far from its heart so that if I should conceive anything in the heart, I would not utter that without great deliberation” ( Distinctiones , MS Bodley 4 [n. 19 above], fol. 60r).Google Scholar

61 Clensing (n. 48 above), fol. 99r.Google Scholar

62 Ibid., fol. 99r–v.Google Scholar

63 John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 146v.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., fol. 147v.Google Scholar

65 Book of Vices , ed. Francis, (n. 3 above), 49. See also its cousin, the Speculum vitae , ed. Hanna, (n. 3 above), lines 13, 221–20; John of Wales, De lingua, fol. 147r. Bartholomew the Englishman and John Trevsia have long lists of diseases and disfigurements (On the Properties , ed. Seymour, [n. 19 above], 323 and 146).Google Scholar

66 Webb, , “Cardiosensory Impulses” (n. 9 above), 265.Google Scholar

67 Gower, , Mirour , ed. Macaulay, (n. 26 above), lines 8, 185–96; Gower, , Mirour , trans. Wilson, (n. 28 above), 206.Google Scholar

68 John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 140v, from Aristotle, De animalibus 2.2 (MS BL, Royal 12.C.15, fol. 152r) and from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum (n. 20 above), 11.1.4. See also John, of Lathbury, Alphabetum (n. 19 above), fol. 91r.Google Scholar

69 Hill, Susan E. writes compellingly about how overeating and overdrinking break communal bonds (“‘The Ooze of Gluttony’: Attitudes towards Food, Eating, and Excess in the Middle Ages,” in The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals , ed. Newhauser, Richard [Leiden, 2007], 5770). “And whenne the messes comen on the borde echon after other, thenne they beginne to borde of diverse thinges. Of lesingis buth ther grete plente and to bagbite hure even-cristen forgete they not. They chatereth as pyes; with meny foule wordes they fulleth hure lippes” (Book for a Simple and Devout Woman , ed. Diekstra, [n. 27 above], 261). Also John of Wales, De lingua, fol. 148v; Book of Vices , ed. Francis, , 54; Jacob's Well , ed. Brandeis, Arthur, EETS, o.s., 115 (London, 1890), 148. Jacob's Well, a fifteenth-century catechetical compendium, survives in a single manuscript.Google Scholar

70 John of Wales, De lingua , fol. 150r; also the anonymous distinctiones in MS Bodley 4, fol. 60r.Google Scholar

71 Southern, , Grosseteste (n. 37 above), 211–12. Southern is focusing on Grosseteste's sense of the symbolic value of animals. Washington and Lee University (Emeritus) Google Scholar

72 Book of Vices , ed. Francis, , 51. The Book has just listed other ways of directing one's appetites, some admirable (but incomplete), like “with honour,” some indifferent, like “by phisike,” and some destructive, like “after ther flesch” (49–51). See also Hanna, , ed., Speculum vitae (n. 3 above), 13, 319–30.Google Scholar

73 In the first part of this sentence, I echo Webb, Christine, “Cardiosensory Impulses,” 277.Google Scholar