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Priest, Deacon and Layman, from St Peter Damian to St Francis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Few incidents in thirteenth-century history have been more often described than the story of the Christmas crib at Greccio. Not long before his death St Francis arranged with a noble layman called John of Greccio to prepare a crib for midnight mass at Christmas, with plenty of hay and real animals, ox and ass, in attendance. Crowds flocked to the place and ‘the whole night resounded with jubilation’. Mass was celebrated over the crib. But not by Francis, for he was not a priest but a deacon; and he put on the deacon’s vestments, sang the gospel and preached. Strange as it may seem, it is only from this story in the First Life by Thomas of Celano, confirmed by some shreds of other evidence, that we know that Francis was in deacon’s orders. No explanation is given, no contemporary commentary expounds the fact. Yet it is abundantly clear that his deacon’s orders had some profound significance related to his conception of his Order and its members, and their relations one to another. It is a curious puzzle to discover what it was.
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References
1 Thomas of Celano, Vila Prima, caps 84–7, Analecta Franciscana, 10 (Quaracchi, 1926–41), pp. 63–5; trans. Brooke, R. B., The Coming of the Friars (London, 1975), pp. 130–1 Google Scholar. In all matters related to St Francis, I am deeply indebted to the help of Rosalind Brooke; on the lay brothers in the orders of monks and canons, I have had invaluable help from Giles Constable.
2 Celano, Vita Prima, cap. 86 (p. 64); cf. Julian of Speyer (based on Celano), Analecta Franciscana, 10, pp. 335, 361, 369; and later sources, e.g. ibid., p. 492. In Celano, Vita Secunda, cap. 219 (ibid., p. 257), St Francis is seen in a vision wearing a purple dalmatic, the deacon’s vestment. In Vita Secunda, cap. 193 (p. 241), he prefers a small to a large tonsure: see below, p. 85.
3 See e.g. articles by Michel, A. in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 11 (1931), pp. 1193–1405 Google Scholar; 13 (1936), pp. 138–61 (‘ordre’, ‘prêtre’); useful references in ODCC, 2 edn., p. 1123, cf. p. 1006.
4 Genesis 14, vv. 18–20; for his presence in Innocent III’s writings, see Pennington, K. in Law, Church and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, eds Pennington, K. and Somerville, R. (Philadelphia, 1977), pp. 54 Google Scholar, 64, n. 32. In the next sentence I speak of the ambition to become a priest as normal. It was never universal: among cathedral clergy for example many seem never to have become priests, and though the cathedrals sometimes seem in deliberate reaction against current religious ideals, and many canons perhaps were not especially devout, we have no reason to doubt that many were. For literature, see below, n. 30.
5 Eadmer, , Historia Novorum, ed. Rule, M. (RS 1884), p. 114 Google Scholar; trans, in Southern, R. W., Making of the Middle Ages (London, 1953), p. 132 Google Scholar.
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8 Published Oxford, 1984.
9 Macy, chap. 3; for the older tradition, see chap. 2. In the early and central Middle Ages, symbols were often seen as deeply inhering in the things they represented: the modern phrase ‘mere symbol’ would have baffled theologians of that age. A classic example of eleventh-century priestly eucharistie devotion is John of Fécamp’s prayer of preparation, later attributed to St Ambrose: A. Wilmart, ‘L’Oralio Sancti Ambrosii, du Missel Romain’, Auteurs spirituels el textes dévols du moyen âge latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 100–25.
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16 In the mid and late eleventh century the ‘laicus conversus’ or ‘conversus et laicus’ is common (Birch, pp. 36–7). Thereafter, it is frequently noted by the conversi that they were or became priests.
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30 Calendars and obituaries of cathedrals give some information on die orders of canons, though it is never systematic: see e.g. the St Paul’s Obituaries listed by Greenway, D. E. in Le Neve, 1066–1300, 1, p. xiv Google Scholar; the Hereford obituary in Rawlinson, R., The History and Antiquities of… Hereford (London, 1717), pp. (3)-(31)Google Scholar, and the Chartres obituaries in Obituaires de la province de Sens, ed. Molinier, A. and Longnon, A. (Paris, 1902.), 2 Google Scholar. I have modified the text in die light of discussion with Dr Julia Barrow, to whose advice I am much indebted.
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35 A classic statement of these views is in Duby, G., The Knight, the Lady and the Priest (Eng. trans., New York and Harmondsworth, 1983–4 Google Scholar).
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37 Schulte, A., Der Adel und die deutsche Kirche im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1910 Google Scholar); but cf. now Brühl, C., ‘Die Sozialstruktur des deutschen Episkopats im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert’, Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della ‘societas Christiana’ dei secoli XI-XII: diocesi, pievi e parrocchie (Atti della sesta Settimana … Milano … 1974, Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevali 8, Milan, 1977), pp. 42–56 Google Scholar.
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49 Knowles, D. and St Joseph, J. K. S., Monastic Sites from the Air (Cambridge, 1952), pp. xix–xx Google Scholar and passim; Brooke, and Swaan, , Monastic World, pp. 139–50 Google Scholar, and figs. 11–12; plates 238, 243; Brooke, in Cistercian Art and Architecture, p. 17 Google Scholar and n. 32.
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57 Becquet, p. 5 and for the Regula, pp. 63–99, esp. p. 65. The Regula, c. 24, p. 82, rejects the use of written evidence in lawsuits (cf. c. 31, p. 84).
58 In the Testament he talks as if every recension of the Rule was the same; cf. Opuscula, ed. Esser, K. (Grottaferrata, 1976), pp. 439, 442–4 Google Scholar; for the surviving texts of the Rule, ibid., PP. 363–404.
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62 Only one of the first eleven, Sylvester, was a priest; and the Regula Bullata of 1223 (c. 7) still envisages that ministers may not be priests.
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